Emerald

The thing that may not come off quite so clearly is that my husband and I don't have an amazing relationship. What we have is a relationship that was pretty terrible but has been improving a lot over the last few years, due to work that we've both done on ourselves. It has just in the past year or so, gotten to being a good relationship, so I have a lot of relief at this. So, I'm just very glad that we're on the up and up. And I'm also very proud of the work that he's done on himself. A few years ago, I literally felt trapped in the relationship and so did he, due to our own emotional baggage and limiting beliefs. And we both have quite a bit. So, the positive tone is simply because of this very reason, and not because it's an all around awesome relationship. It is not. We still definitely have our things, and we probably clash a little more than the average couple. Relative to spirituality and various turmoils that I've gone through, my husband is very hands off. He has a resistance to spirituality because he spent many years following a spiritual path only to realize that none of it really mattered. He found that he still had anger issues and that he didn't like himself and how he had become. This is difficult bottleneck to get through, that is par for the course. If you interact with others following a similar path, you recognize this is a normal part of seeking. But because he was alone when he was seeking, he didn't have the benefit of other perspectives as I do following this forum and having a YouTube channel. So, he is resistant and cynical to anything spiritually related. To bring it up to him is not easy. I call him a porcupine because he really puts the quills out. Certain topics trigger my husband pretty easily. So, this is something that is buried under a lot of limiting beliefs. But every few days he'll open up a bit and talk to me about his past, and starts to show an interest in spirituality like he used to. But he isn't quite ready yet. So, I don't push the topic with him.

It's definitely apparent that life is unfulfilling. I can't fool myself about that anymore. I have these moments in the day where I'm like, "Gosh... I'm glad I don't have to do this forever. This is so boring and pointless." I can't even distract myself from it by making my life goal oriented and directional, like I used to do. It's really in my face that it's non-directional. I sometimes feel like that episode of Spongebob, where Squidward wants to be alone and he ends up in this all white dimension where he's just in an infinite void. And he's just running over the same spot again and again as he tries to escape. Haha The only difference between that white void-space from that cartoon and my current reality is how it looks. I get into these thought processes where I try to imagine how much better things in life could be if I lived without ego. Then I imagine how it would be to live life without the burden of ego and how much more joy, freedom, and ease I would have with the tasks and ups and downs of life. But this probably creates a big attachment.

I'm glad to hear that you've become unburdened through insight. I feel as though nothing I ever learn ever quite completely resolves this issue, though there have certainly been improvements. Only ego-transcendence did that for a time. And it was wonderful to be completely unburdened. I understood then perfectly then that both of my parents love me but that they had their own limitations that they just didn't have the ability to let go of from their level of awareness. And that the pain that I feel is because I was unconsciously choosing to make my their actions mean something more deliberate and mean-spirited than what they were. I still know this intellectually, but I think that deep down I'm still holding on to pain, anger, sadness, and hope because I want some emotional payoff and reconciliation. Some hope for vindication and repair that the child in me wants to feel who is still holding out for.

-

Thank you. This is good advice. I have always had a difficulty staying present in life as I'm a very heady kind of person. I've been called a space cadet many times before. And I'm always forgetting a ton of basic things that no one else forgets. I've always lived with people being angry at me for this that or the other, that most people do but I can't seem to do, simply because my mind is more interesting to me than the rest of reality. I've gotten better over the past handful of years, but it's still pretty bad. I think I became this internal because I didn't want to face some of my early childhood traumas, and the fear is still there. It boarded me up into my mind. My mind was a safe place then where I was in control and that I was good at, and praised for being good at. So, I'm definitely more attached to thought than the average person. It's like a big security blanket for me. I think it will take a lot of constant mindfulness to unwire this habit, but it seems like all signs are pointing to that over the past week or so.

Thank you for the advice. I do understand this logically and have even given similar advice before because this is akin to what I experienced. But it's good to hear anyway. I just think that I'm too afraid to take that leap of faith and to do what I know needs to be done. Fear really runs my life, all the time. I'm like a heroine addict with an instant heroine button in my mind that I automatically push every time I lose total and complete awareness. I get really frustrated sometimes.

Here is my dilemma. I've had experiences of ego-transcendence and felt the amazing amount of liberations and wholeness and the depth of my suffering in the egoic state by contrast. I also have always had the itch for deep introspection and Truth seeking, even prior to these experiences. So, there is a powerful drive to seek in me, ever since childhood. But I also want to live a normal adult life and to experience humanity uninterrupted. In fact, if I had to choose between living this life and being unenlightened and removing myself from life and being enlightened, I would choose the former in a heartbeat. I want both my normal human adulthood and enlightenment. But it's not so simple as just choosing not to seek for me. I can't un-know what I know. So, even if I try to quit seeking enlightenment, there will always be a knowledge there that I am suffering and that there is a peace that is available to me. Do you have any recommendations? Do you believe there is a way to quit seeking enlightenment altogether once you've had a glimpse? Or to seek enlightenment whilst being a parent who needs to be involved in life?

As a parent, I can tell you that this is terrifying. Technology is very addictive and can stunt psychological development in children if overused. It will be very difficult for children who are constantly plugged in to break the addiction to technology. Television has had a similar effect, but the internet is far more addictive.

What is the price?

This is awesome! I think this is exactly the advice I need to follow.

Great post!

This has been my biggest obstacle, by far. Glimpsing the truth, to my rational mind it meant that things that work practically in life are wrong. The Truth negates reality because it is what reality is derived from. So, trying to convert Truth into practical terms is like trying to load Microsoft Word into a toaster. I fought myself for so long trying to reconcile these things, and I still have problems.

I do this all the time. I even find myself trying to get a deeper experience of reality by thinking about it. Thanks for checking out some of my videos.

I'm glad you feel better. I go through the same ups and downs. It's just part of the process of dis-illusionment.

Beautiful work!

I understand the feeling. But be careful not to personalize her rejection (for want of a better word). In general, women tend to be very intuitive with their attractions. It isn't necessarily that she thought you were unattractive, or lame, or anything like that. It's just that the feelings weren't there. She may have come to avoid you for fear of awkwardness and hurting your feelings. So, I'm sure she cared about you as a person, but awkwardness and fears when one person has an unrequited love can create a lot of barriers.

Lots of great stuff on here everyone!

Be careful, as you're not quite out of the woods yet. Personal development is very labyrinthean and it's easy to be fooled. So, compared to where you were before you see how asleep you were. But you don't see how asleep you are now. And that immunity to hopelessness will wax and wane as you go further on the path. I've encountered lots of hopelessness in the form of existential crisis. But it's all part of the process. But for now, I'm glad that you've gotten to where you are now.

This is a great start to questioning something that we normally take for granted. I would caution you, though, to be sure not to fall on the other side of the horse. It doesn't seem like you're doing this, but it's a good thing to keep in mind. It's the point of 'completely unsure' that you want to be at and not a point of certainty that the external world doesn't exist.

I recommend trying to ground yourself. Body scan meditation could be helpful for this or spending time out in nature.

I have one written about 'concentrated awareness and diffuse awarenesss' that I hope to film tonight. I wrote it on Saturday, and haven't been able to muster up the energy to actually stay up and do a video. I have also been writing quite a bit on the integration of the feminine principle collectively and individually. I wanted to originally do my video about that, but then I ended up writing twenty pages on the subject (handwritten), when I normally only write 3 or 4 pages per video. So, I decided to choose another topic, so that I could save most of that information for a book that I may write in the future. But I still intend to cover the topic in a more pared down way in a video. Also, I try to stay away from directly sex/sexuality related topics on my channel due to the nature of my job. I work with kids, so I could be fired for having that type of information out on a YouTube video. So, I tend to keep my videos as PG as possible.

Here are a few things.

-

-

-