Marina

Maybe you guys have heard / seen this before, but I've just randomly stumbled upon it today. It surprised me quite a bit in a nice way - you don't really come across direct songs about ego in pop culture every day...Well, at least I don't lol The video has a cool surrealistic vibe to it and the song is quite catchy. Enjoy!

I completely agree. It's written in a really simple language with just several pages of somewhat academic style of writing. They are in the very beginning of the book, where Ken talks about his "Spectrum of Personal Development." Aside from those several pages, it's a breeze of a book. It was extremely eye-opening for me at the time I read it. I remember wanting to underline almost every single sentence of the book lol

You're welcome

@aurum I didn't find Ken Wilber's No Boundary academic at all... It was actually a very easy and enjoyable read. In my opinion, obviously.

Thanks!

I've never heard of this technique. Sounds very interesting. Can somebody please elaborate on the technique, or share an article / book / video?

If you feel like there's an object / concept out there that will make you happy (which positive focus is, by the way, it's just another object / concept), then, by all means, you should pursue it. Don't force enlightenment work on yourself, cause if you do, it immediately becomes some sort of an attainable thing, which can be gained someday. And it is just simply not that. Enlightenment / consciousness work is about realizing one's true nature. Not about achieving ANYTHING, including happiness. That being said, there's nothing wrong with living your life without exploring what your true nature is. You already are that, whether you realize it or not. What causes suffering in life, is not that you are not being who you truly are, but that you are IGNORING your true nature and looking for happiness where you simply can never find it. Why can't you find it there? Because your whole life is constructed and centered upon an entity, which simply does not exist / is a lie. With all of that being said, there comes a moment, when one understands that if he wants LASTING happiness, he has to dig deeper. Not just to look for another concept to plug a hole in himself. But to look into what is actually that entity that has a hole in himself, who is it that entity that is unhappy and wants to be happy? To discover that, one has to have a genuine, deep interest in the reality of one's and everything's true nature. It shouldn't be a chore. In a way, that should be your life purpose, but an enjoyable one. Maybe hobby is a better word, but not just a regular hobby. It should be THE HOBBY. Something that is above anything else in terms of your love and interest. Again, I'd suggest pursuing whatever you want to pursue now, be it positive life outlook or anything else. If you truly are interested in discovering what the ultimate nature of everything is, then you will be back for sure. Nothing satisfies an individual like that, except for the truth. Until you BECOME the truth, you will never be satisfied. As long as there is a duality in your world, you will forever live in the positive / negative, happy / unhappy phases. No matter how much you focus on the positive. That's how it has been in my experience.

@Alex K

@jennywise You're welcome! I don't know if what I'm about to say is going to sound optimistic or depressing, but... It is what it is. I've felt this "Have I imagined this / made this up?" feeling multiple times since yesterday. Seriously. It's like the mind is trying to erase, devalue what has "happened." Like, "Was it really that amazing? Was it really bliss? Or did you just make it up?" In a way, I kinda like that it's happening. Because it doesn't let me get attached to this "past experience of bliss," so I don't start chasing it. But at the same time, some part of me is saying, "It was real. This was a unique experience, I have never experienced such pure, crystallized joy for such a long period of time. Yes, it was an experience only, not pure truth. But it doesn't mean that it hasn't happened." So in case you thought that you started to feel like you had imagined your experience because it lasted for 5 minutes... Well, that's probably not the case... Mine lasted for 2 days and I still got those feelings lol I just randomly stumbled upon a video, in which a woman described a state similar to that state that I had experienced. She didn't go into as much detail as I did, so I can't know for sure we both experienced exactly the same things. And Rupert "explained" what happened to her in a brilliant way; that's exactly how I see it now. I'll post the video here, maybe it would be helpful for you or whomever else. The woman's description of her experience starts at 8:20, followed by Rupert's comments on it.

@WelcometoReality Are you asking, whether I naturally relax into it or whether I am trying to make sense of it (of whatever I am experiencing) ? I don't think I completely understand your question : )

@Joel3102 It always fascinates me how clear, pure and real his communication is. Not many teachers are able to pass the truth in such a clear manner. @Bob84 Thank you. Yes, enlightenment is just as much of a concept of the mind as the "me" concept. Leo was absolutely right when he said to look for the existential nature of reality, for the ultimate truth. It honestly just baffles me how easy it is for "my mind" to completely forget about this at moments and attach to another concept. In a way, it kinda makes me stand in awe of the abilities of the mind... Like, how did it do that again? o__0

@Leo Gura Indeed, I can't... "Try to stand up and take a step towards yourself" lol

@Leo Gura Thank you, Leo. Yes, I can absolutely see how there is (and was) this attachment to bliss and fear of losing it. Which in itself creates a duality. This just showed me that I need to go deeper, that there's much more to work through. And that I literally don't know the nature of reality, the truth. If I did know it... Well, I'd just know. That's all I can say at this point. Yes, absolutely! That's what eventually got me centered and calm. That I can't loose what I actually am. This is what inspires me to stay on this path.

Hello, everyone. I would like to share something that has happened in the past few days. I’ve been reading and watching a lot of Byron Katie and Rupert Spira in the past weeks. Their teachings were my main focus. All was going well and I was pretty happy and content with everything in life. Things seemed to go smoothly. Then, on Oct. 26th around 3 am, something absolutely phenomenal happened. I was watching one of Rupert’s videos, and what he said just really GOT to me. He mentioned how time was just a concept and how all there ever is, is just an eternal present moment. How everything has always been, is and always will be just pure awareness. How all we ever know is just our experience, which is just pure knowing itself. Concepts are superimposed by our thoughts. All of that just hit me like a truck. I’ve heard all of that before, (probably even saw this video before, not sure) but at THAT moment it felt like I got it on a molecular level, it had nothing to do with my mind’s understanding of it. Tears started to pour out of my eyes uncontrollably. It felt like coming home. Not even coming, just realizing that I’ve always been home, just haven’t noticed it. It was like recognizing myself for the first time. I went to sleep, but I didn’t fall asleep right away since this “understanding” kept passing through me. I couldn’t stop crying, I was just blown away by how simple and easy everything was. I realized that everything in life is okay, nothing is ever wrong or out of order. There was no good or bad. There was not even a “me.” I fell asleep in total peace. During the next two days, I experienced constant, absolute and pure bliss. Not even “I experienced”… It felt like I was bliss, peace, and happiness themselves. Here are the details of that experience: - This moment (or any moment ever) cannot be “bettered” in any way. It’s absolute perfection just as it is. I felt no desire to change anything about any moment or experience. At all. - That being said, whenever I felt like performing any action, it was extremely organic. I didn’t “think” about it in the traditional sense. I just did it. Whenever I felt it. It didn’t feel like I was doing something. It was like I was the action itself, the process itself. There was no “Marina is doing this.” There were no two things. There was just unity of everything. When I didn’t feel like doing anything, I’d just sit, calm and relaxed. I “knew” that I’d make an action whenever it was needed. I knew that nothing “had to be done.” So there was this freedom of doing or not doing anything I (or anyone else) wanted. There was just this incredible trust in life and experience, this beautiful freedom. - I wasn’t experiencing time. At all. I saw how the concept of time was a complete fiction and realized that nothing ever (including the fictional character of “me”) is a part of it. There is just eternal now. That’s all there is of “time.” - I did not distinguish between “others” and “myself" or "this object" and "that object." Isolating anything from the totality and unity of experience seemed crazy. Literally. Everything was just awareness. Whole and perfect. - At one moment, I saw that my own body was just as much of a conceptual object as any other object in my experience. I felt like I was not in control of it, like it was doing whatever had to be done on its own. “Marina” was never in control of it. In fact, I didn’t even feel like I was “Marina” or anyone else. All of those “me” concepts felt like a giant pile of horseshit. It seemed so ridiculous how I ever believed any of it, that I would just laugh in midair sometimes. - Aside from laughing in midair, I’d cry in midair too. I would sometimes get just so overwhelmed by beauty and perfection of everything, that I would cry uncontrollably in the middle of doing something or just while sitting still. I’ve never experienced such happiness. At those moments, I felt that it was coming from being one with everything. I saw how there was never any separation, how separation is just impossible (no matter what a person believes) and how the separation is just a concept created by the mind. - I'd stare at an "object" / hear a sound / see something and feel like I was experiencing it for the first time (like, there was no story attached to it) and like it came to my awareness out of nowhere, (although I've seen it before). - I was contempt with what things were and how life was at any given moment. Constantly. - Every single action was extremely mindful. - “Time” seemed slower. I was experiencing a sort of like “slow motion” all the time. Even when I was in a middle of a busy street, with tons of cars and people around me moving very fast, I felt this peace and stillness on the “inside” and the “outside.” It felt just mind blowing and natural at the same time. - Like I said, doing anything and not doing anything felt equally comfortable. Everything felt comfortable. However, my favorite form of "leisure" was to just sit and do nothing. - All “human interaction” was effortless, organic, fearless, loving and beautiful. Lots and lots of love and understanding in every interaction I’ve had at that time. On “both sides” (“me” and any “other person”). - I was okay with dying at any given moment. There was just no fear of death. All of the above lasted for about two days. Honestly, it felt like enlightenment. And when I thought to myself, “Is this what enlightenment feels like?” I’d feel like I didn’t care. Enlightenment or not, I didn’t care. I was just living and enjoying it fully and wholeheartedly. Then, at one moment, (this evening) I felt like it was ending. Which completely shocked and terrified me at first. I was thinking, “How can this end? With no time, how can anything begin or end? How can awareness stop recognizing itself if awareness is all there ever is?” It felt like I was kicked out of heaven. The separation… It was so scary and painful. During the first 15-20 minutes of feeling this, I’d try to “hold” it, return back to true reality. I now see how I was trying to do this with my mind. At that moment it felt like my mind would come back to awareness since it already experienced it. But I see now how the mind has nothing to do with knowing awareness. Awareness knows itself. So I can never "come back" to it with my mind. It took me about 30-40 minutes to come to terms that I was “Marina” again and not absolute bliss That means, to stop scrolling through books and depths of my thoughts like a fanatic in search of an “answer.” It just suddenly hit me, “What’s not okay with this situation? What’s wrong with how things are now? Yes, you’re feeling like ‘Marina’ again and what’s so bad about it? What are you afraid of? Why can't you just let go of your desire to hold on to that 'bliss' and let things be how they are right now?” Once those thoughts crossed my mind, I calmed down. Absolute bliss didn’t come back but I stopped feeling terror and pain, which felt nice Now, as I'm finishing this post, I feel calm and centered. Like, I see the apparent difference in the two states of being, but at the same time, I don't feel like I am the same person that I was "before the bliss." It's hard to explain. It's like something, some part of me changed permanently. I cannot know for sure, of course, just saying what I'm feeling at this moment. And then I decided to post here since I have no one else to ask for an opinion. No one in my “real life” does or is even interested in this kind of work. What do you think? What was that bliss? What was this that came after the bliss? How do you think I should go on from now? I’m going on an Enlightenment Intensive retreat in a couple of weeks (my first ever meditation retreat), which I think should be very beneficial. Just a side note, I don’t have a constant meditation practice and I have never tried any psychedelics (not that I don’t want to though lol). I’m sorry for so much writing, but I just wanted to explain everything as best as I possibly could. Thanks for reading and the potential feedback!

@Leo Gura Will check on that, thanks.