Jayden Birch

Lately I have realized that pain is a unavoidable part of life. Writing this journal is painful, getting up is painful, in everything I do there is always a subtle pain to it. I have learnt to embrace it, breathing it in and letting it expand my consciousness one moment at a time. The most painful things I do are those that are instantly gratifying. The world isn't enlightened yet because of how they treat this pain. They don't love it, they don't respect it, they don't even acknowledge its existence inside of them which is poisoning them because the pain just stays there. I feel like I'm slowly loving the bad things about me more and more as I use love as my main practice. Love means facing every pain you have, and every fear. It's easy to face what is pleasant like TV, your friends, your strengths but that's it. I have to learn how to love my pain to death in every moment, and love even being tortured by someone. Someone torturing you after all is life saying to you face your fucking pain thus external circumstances always reflect precisely what you need to love in yourself through emotions, and through your thoughts of that external circumstance. This means if I have fully accepted and cherished the one inside of me who was anxious for example, then no external circumstance could make me anxious at all. If I say "I have every right to be anxious, and this anxiety is here to help me, by making me realize that anxiety is a manifestation of the one divine so that I can ultimately realize who I am" that is true power. In fact, I will encourage my anxiety to arise sometimes for fun, and this confirms in itself that I have transcended a good bulk of it! You see, I and everyone else usually gets tense and serious when a negative emotion arises so to have fun while being in this state is counter-intuitive, and in this place the emotion cannot exist because the vibration of fun and the vibration of something negative are not compatible at all. Life is painful. I want myself to have fun even if it is painful, that's all. From this place I trust that my reality will transform into heaven in a few years time, and I can already feel it within myself every time I love what is uncomfortable, inconvenient and painful. For the next 10 days I'm on holiday; I will post my journal entries then for anyone who is wondering and use the holiday to relax, keep up my healthy habits and socialise with girls there which is uncomfortable but that there is the magic word! In a way this journal is about me becoming a friend with discomfort, and right now I'm unwilling, but what would I have to believe to be unwilling? I would have to believe that pain is bad. But how can something so quintessential to the growth of our consciousness be demonized by the masses and avoided like the devil? I believe that our minds are adapted for survival first and foremost and then the growth of consciousness. But this is always my problem when I contemplate: I always make up more mental explanations to questions that require insight beyond my rational mind. It just sounds like a good theory that our minds are adapted for survival and I would bet it was, but I can't be 100% sure. I've also read this theory in 2 books, but how are they right? If I can only know myself through a Ahaa moment this means I know nothing in my life! But even me saying that I know nothing in my life I can't know for sure because I haven't truly experienced that I know nothing. Action steps form here- Re watch Leo Gura's video on contemplation because I am confused whether I should answer a question logically in contemplation (as in do I force myself to come up with answers? when I say "What am I" ? When I don't force myself my mind is blank and so I get no answers? If someone could clarify this it would be amazing!) Rewatch Matt Kahn's Everything is here to help you to consolidate my belief that everything that arises is here for us to learn from, and that the appearance of the experience that arises has no correlation to its true reality. Next post will be on January the 13th. I'm excited to go to the beach and just relax in the sand for 10 days

Thank you, that helped clarify a lot. It does seem silly to compare our lives to a monks when you think of it. Happy new year!

I’m really interested to know how you (@Shin) have personally sustained NoFap in the long term. This is because I see people on YouTube who have gone for years without masturbating, which has conflicted with Buddhist monks molesting children due to the power of the sexual urge. What are your thoughts on this?

@Psyche_92@LaucherJunge Thanks for the motivation. Yes, the desire happens in short bursts which I’ll watch out for!

@Shin Alright then, let's see if these benefits are really true. I'll start a 30 day challenge from today on wards, anyone can join with me. Update coming in one month (weekly updates in my journal for those interested). I imagine that once I find my Life Purpose I probably won't have an issue with masturbation or any other addiction because my whole being will be focused towards one cause; but I must work with what I have in this moment! This would be my second biggest addiction. My biggest addiction is YouTube, and again I'm going cold turkey on that for a month. It's just so funny how all of these addictions cause us so much pain, when they were built to avoid pain in the first place. YouTube is hard however because there is good resources on it, but I just keep reminding myself that I have 50 self-help books to read and a course to finish (all of which are life changing; content that is just not found on YouTube), and that the reason I am doing this is to live a passionate life. anything less would be a disservice to the miracle of me being conscious. Much Love.

I feel a lot more in control of my life. Compared to a month ago I have space to just be, and listen to my gut instead of listening to commands from people. Tonight I'm starting to read "Thick Face, Black Heart". This book is the opposite perspective to my own which is to please people at the sacrifice of my own agenda. It comes down to my deep need for the attention of others and it doesn't matter whether it is positive or negative in nature. I noticed that I sometimes irritate the people closest to me for attention, although this is much more infrequent nowadays; meditation has slowly auto corrected this. Just Let Go Just let go. In my meditation practice please, just let go. Let go of all your thoughts, especially if it is hard. Those thoughts that stay are there for a reason. They want me to breathe in my emotions, then they will magically disappear. Just breathe is another practice I like. In both, it is important that I do exactly as the practice says to go deeper. It is the most challenging thing I have done in my life. Meditation I feel has been directly responsible for my nightmares, and the strong negative and positive emotions. This has meant more suffering. I hope the suffering is being purged, the only sign is that I'm more calm, and my heart feels more open. Action steps - Get up at 6am and be a living example of the true meaning of love. Whenever I love myself and others mercilessly, simply all is well, my heart opens so much that I am no longer trying to find a distraction to avoid painful emotions. It's time to start my loving practice again. If somebody could hold me accountable I would love that! I'll put a hair tie on my wrist to remind myself to say something kind to myself (which could be a blessing, or compliment) or other people, and to be grateful. 2 weeks and then I'll switch it to breathing consciously! This will be intense, I meant to do this when I started this journal but I failed. The hair tie will help tremendously.

Oatmeal is going out, and vegetables are in to replace this highly praised grain. Oats slow my mind down in the mornings because the human digestive system seems better suited for plant based foods. I hope I don't starve. 2 years ago I was 80kg and since making diet changes I have dropped to 67kg; I'm 6 foot 2 which means I'm very slim. The benefits have been clear: I feel like I have the agility of a fox and I have lots of energy to meditate without falling asleep. The vegetables are boiled. I wonder if this means the prana energy is lost in my new soup? Here's all of the ingredients and the massive pot: Synchronicity Update Today I saw the number 11 about 7 times. The time 11:11 was shown to me 3 times today, 7:11 twice and 9:11 twice. I also had the weirdest lucid dream. Right before I woke up I was walking on my street where I lived. My awareness then shifted to my head, and this external force pulled it around in the air, and my body felt separated like the head was moving faster in time. I could then consciously move my head around in the air so fast I thought I was tel porting from one place to another; also when I teleported I felt an immense diziness. I got super excited like "Wow, I can now teleport!", tried to teleport, only to get overwhelmed by this voice speaking in my head. Someone was literally speaking to me. This entity was introducing itself quite fast and pretty much I freaked out and imagined closing a door in my mind. I then partially woke up, feeling an intense power to fall back asleep. The fear kept me awake thankfully. My dreams have been getting stranger, so I will record them here more often when I get up to help me understand all of this. I am very confused in my life, I see all of these possibilities and sometimes I feel overwhelmed. There are so many things I could be doing such as contemplating more, which would seem logical because it would resolve my confusion on an existential level. Thhis is a confusion of my life purpose, and the nature of people, and my whole paradigm of reality. These are all in question. Especially the idea that anyone can be right or wrong is crumbling down in my mind. Why? There are disagreements between my own self! I can't agree on what is right and wrong for me, so how can other people agree on this, yet alone collectively? I want to explore some new perspectives to help me see this clearly, that there is no justice because all justice is relative. That means so many things, so many consequences...

I'm really excited tonight because it is Christmas Eve. This is of course an egoistic excitement which I would describe as more of a craving for presents with a hint of fear for being around my family. They for some reason despise Leo and see me as an extremist, spiritual, hippie monk. It makes me sad in the heart that they can't open their minds and appreciate that I'm just here to improve myself, it's not a big deal. It also makes them ignore everything else I do because all of their attention is on what I'm eating rather than what I am feeling. It's really frustrating, but Matt Kahn has taught me that this is not personal; that what others say to me equals what is unresolved in them and all they want is love and acceptance for their questionable behavior. In my life I try my best to send love to everyone I walk past; I think it is attracting nicer people into my life as today someone turned to me and said Merry Christmas from across the road. Also I got a Christmas present today and it was a book by the Dalai Lama. I don't know who sent this; whomever it was, thank you. What has helped me a lot is pain. I found out that pain equals a growth in consciousness, isn't that beautiful!? It changes everything doesn't it? And all people are doing in their lives is actively avoiding pain by putting on the mean face. This separates these people from their pure emotions which are wanting to be acknowledged as divinity. You see, God dresses up in many forms. He dresses up in things we consider to be very mundane, or which hurt us just so that we can dare to believe these as God. Believing is seeing in this world. If you can believe it you will see it. Santa is just as real as my body; I just see my body, that doesn't mean it exists, yet I can see it. Merry Christmas self-actualizers, make every day Christmas.

Gratitude is also another great way to develop self-love. If you can't say authentically "I am grateful for my life" then start by saying "I wish I could be more grateful for my life". Gratitude is the soil from which the most beautiful flowers of love can grow. Each day for a month I would highly recommend setting the intention that, "I will find many things today to be grateful for today". Have fun with it, its worked wonders in my own self-love journey. Results will follow in a month of this practice or any other loving practice so stay strong on the path. Eventually you can find a way to be grateful for those who hurt you because you will understand that they are only saying to you what they can't deal with emotionally, which is so innocent when you think about it. Our very nature is made out of love, so you are without any doubts able to be loved and love! Also I would defiantly watch this video - You were saying that people in your life were giving you ques that you were unlovable. That was probably lifes way of trying to make you become more unconditionally loving as you will learn in the video. Good luck my friend

Thank you @Nahm. I have been influenced by my family quite a bit to get a high-paying and intellectual job. We've had money problems in the past, and I feel my family have not appreciated the work I've created. So go big says a voice inside of me to be an Engineer, and I was even going to take Law alongside it at one stage which was obviously driven by fear. Now I love myself more, and this has put me in a better place to find my purpose! At high school I enjoyed helping my friends with all of their homework and seeing them get good grades, to be in a teaching like role sharing my expertise to another human (like a psychotherapist, owner of a business) sounds way more authentic than writing an essay in Law. Great Nahm. We've narrowed the options down.

Back to English class again To me a sage is a person that is deeply fascinated by everything in life. He/she is interested in History, English, Science, Religion, Art, Sex, world politics; thus the sage is the ultimate definition of a cosmopolitan. As well as being interested in these 'right brained' areas where we he/she can use rationalism to explain the depths of conceptual frameworks and paradigms, he/she also will access altered states of consciousness on a regular basis in order to find out the truth of reality. A sage studies other areas with equal passion to compare relative truths (perspectives) with relative truths (other perspectives) to creatively answer questions like, why do people act like monkeys?, why is humanity slowly becoming more loving? (i.e. why don't we just kill like we did in the middle ages anymore), why does life always evolve yet the Universe devolve due to Entropy? etc. In my opinion a sage gets the greatest fulfillment in life by dissecting reality to come to original conclusions about the world. His/her daily life would include constant contemplation, reading, being unconditionally loving to every spirit the sage meets, philosophizing, being social, and sharing his greatest talent with the world (which is typically sharing a big picture understanding with ordinary people to improve their lives); the sage has no fears whatsoever and is willing to stand up against the common denominator and create the reality he wants to see such as cleaning our rivers or making meditation more available in the Western world. Just imagine Sadhguru, that's what I think of when someone asks me that! Actually, by writing this I realized Sages seem to be very passionate people about a particular domain. For Sadhguru it is rivers and yoga; for Eckhart Tolle it's being a teacher; for Matt Kahn it's about understanding and communicating Love in ways we can all understand. I'm a human as well, so I also have the symptom of passion in me! They are all teachers, but in their own nuanced way. This means a sage is like an engineer. A sage is passionate about reality and an engineer is passionate about the theory and practical application of numbers to optimise the surface area of buildings, or make computational algorithms. To be honest, I'm not passionate about this, I just picked the hardest subject I could to impress those around me. I do like this idea of a sage but I fear of the financial consequences, and the lack of focus; so I think it's a good idea to be both. When I go to University I will defiantly be reading and meditating still @Nahm @Elisabeth Haha a sage leader sounds interesting! I'm working on the impact, or should i say the tears. Interesting point: when I was around 10 I used to love studying about space, particularly about other planets with life on them; after seeing an object in the sky a few days ago I reconnected with this; but the real implication is that life is already here in another dimension, to prove that to the public would be really fun.