Forestluv

@Paul92 From one perspective, this is an ego that has hit rock bottom and is ready to surrender. Many people on the forum have direct experience with that and can be helpful. Many people on the forum have tried to offer you help with that and would continue to do so if you are open to it. From another perspective, this is a mind-body that is is telling us it wants to commit physical suicide. In such a case, no one on the forum is professionally trained in suicide prevention and therapy. If you are on the edge of committing physical suicide, it is a very serious issue. Just realize noone here is professionally trained in suicide prevention. I would strongly recommend seeking professional help with someone who is formally trained in this area.

You are not seeing my pointer. To be somewhere, I need to be somewhere. Yes, I am doing my best to point to nowhere, yet I need to be a somewhere to do so. You are saying the other person and I are both somewhere. Of course we are. As soon as one thought or word is spoken, it is a somewhere. I am not saying my somewhere is nowhere and his somewhere is somewhere. Rather, I am pointing out that his somewhere is somewhere. I am aware my somewhere is also somewhere. For this realization, I think it is essential to have the direct experience of nowhere. Not in imagery or thoughts. The direct experience of the actuality of nothing. In doing so, a human mind can observe the complete dismantling of all distinctions to nothing and the reassembly of distinctions into everything. I cannot offer a being that direct experience. The best I can do is point to it - and in doing so, it is a somewhere. I am not trying to point to a somewhere I call "nowhere" - that of course would be another somewhere. I am trying to point to the actuality of nowhere and I must be a somewhere to do so. These realizations come "prior" to the psychological dynamic of associating "enlightenment" to a "person". It would have been of no value for me to address distinctions that are prior to the distinctions of the question asked.

Of course. I am communicating on the human level. In doing so, I use imagery that human minds can understand to point beyond the imagery. If I communicated with human minds as if they were dog minds - it would be meaningless. Likewise, I would communicate very differently with a dog, bird or tree - since their relative reality is quite different than that of a human and they would not have the capacity to understand clear crystal imagery - at least not in the way humans might. I suppose if we want to get more "spiritually correct" I could say. . . "Based on the relative nature of a human mind, one might point to "enlightenment" as being sort of like a clear crystal that contains both everything and nothing. Yet this in and of itself is only a partial truth, since the full truth cannot be described. Any description would be a piece of a more expansive truth and only relative to an organism perceiving it. Even this description is a tiny partial truth. So is that last statement and this statement". . . Yet to me this is never-ending bulkiness, so I tried to trim it down. But yea, your point is essentially that being somewhere in]s not being nowhere. Yes, yet any thing is a somewhere. Any pointer is a somewhere.

This is just what is arising for me. . .Notice how you once again asked if one can follow this path and find some level of happiness without becoming enlightened. Part of the enlightenment story is that a person becomes enlightened. Ime, this is a huge distraction. . . Why not just ask if a mind-body can experience happiness? Or if happiness be found within the storyline? Why add in the "enlightenment" bit? It's just a distraction imo. It's reflective of a personality dynamic associating some goodies with an idea of enlightenment. . . Can a person find some level of happiness without becoming a tree in China? The question doesn't make any sense without the personal association. At the level of the human/person, I would say "yes". That a mind-body can experience happiness. My mind-body has experienced sensations of happiness, so my direct experience is "yes". . . Yet I would draw a distinction with human/person "happiness" and a transcendental "happiness".

I would be careful about getting too immersed into an "enlightenment story". Within this story all sorts of images and expectations are placed upon enlightenment. Yet enlightenment is like a perfectly clear translucent crystal - it contains nothing and everything. Who is that "someone" to live a happy life? Is there a someone to become happy or is there simply happiness with no owner? Who is that someone that owns happiness? The psychological self will always perceive through a filter of "what's in it for me? would I become truly happy if I gain enlightenment?". This will produce a distorted and cloudy view. One will not see the clarity within the crystal. Is not true happiness within the great clear crystal that contains both everything and nothing? Look into a clear crystal and see happiness within that clarity. If by "happy" you are referring to pleasurable sensations within a mind-body, that is a very different question, imo.

@LambChop Sometimes I feel like there is a beautiful glass statue inside of me. It is so sweet, delicate, gentle, innocent and loving. Yet that stature has been handled roughly in the past and got banged up quite a bit by a few people. So, that glass statue got put in a safe place so it won't get harmed. Yet, relationships just aren't the same when I keep that part of me locked up. My tendency in the past has been to over-share that part of me and getting burned. I may like a gal and open up - I might write her some poetry and start falling in love, under the illusion she is with me. Then finding out she has been just keeping me around and is cheating on me. It's devasting to that inner part of me and it gets locked up. Yet then the next relationship is just on the surface and I feel like I'm just going through the motions - it isn't meaningful or satisfying. What's helped me is to practice self love - not in a selfish egostical way. Rather in a loving way - like how I would treat others. To be kind to myself. Prepare a healthy meal for myself. Do yoga and take a bath occasionally. When I can reach a level of self love, I am not dependent on the other person for love. I don't try to please them so they will love me or give me attention. I don't need to open up my inner self on the third date and hope that they will approve of me. I am grounded in love, whether or not they are emotionally available. I am not dependent on them. I also need to establish healthy personal boundaries and respect their personal boundaries. Together, this allows a gradual trust to develop. You mentioned trust and I think this is a really important factor. Trust and also mutual support. Yet I've found I cannot develop that if I am not grounded in love and my well-being is dependent on what another person thinks of me or treats me.

@billiesimon Ime each relationship has it's own unique chemistry and dynamics (affected by one's personal history, their age, their life situation, their physiology, their culture etc). I don't think it's possible to make a blanket statement and say "this is what women want". Rather than trying to figure out what women want and to try to be that person, I've found it better to look at myself and what my genuine personality is and work with that. Then, a natural attraction and good chemistry with a woman arises. For example, I am naturally more open and empathetic, and I'm generally comfortable sharing about all sorts of emotions such as vulnerabilities, fears, insecurities etc. I like connecting through emotions. For example, I might like doing an eye gazing exercise with a partner to stimulate connection, experience what arises and then share about it. To me, that creates a sense of unity and bonding. I get to learn about her experience. There is often a sense of mutual support and a sense of "us" when we are together. Some women find this to be a complete turn-off. They want some image of a stoic male, some type of "alpha-male" or whatever that whole game is. I have no interest in living in that world. We absolutely don't connect. There are other women that like a level of sharing emotional and empathetic connection - to a degree. I generally like going deep and that depth can be overwhelming to many women. They just want to casually talk about and express their emotions - and bond on a relatively surface level. Here, I have to be careful not to go to depths that will freak them out. For example, Tantra and eye gazing can get emotionally intense and it can get uncomfortable for a lot of people - both men and women. I've had to learn about establishing healthy personal boundaries in this area. I tend to be more open and "over-share". It can be too much for some people. As well, being open and vulnerable does not mean dumping a lot of emotional baggage and projecting onto another person in a selfish or manipulative way to get what one wants - like attention. That is an immature expression. A more mature expression is a type of grounded, centered, genuine fearless vulnerability - it has a very different essence to it. Some women are attracted to this. Some are not. I've also found that over-sharing and empathy can create an unhealthy co-dependent relationship. Especially when a person that leans empathetic is with a person that leans narcissistic. I have over-shared in this dynamic and the other person uses that information in a manipulative selfish way - such as gaslighting. The empathetic person can get trapped in this dynamic because they feel empathy for the other person's negative emotions and want to help them, yet the other person isn't interested in being helped - they are motivated to get what they want. I think, in general, women like to have a certain degree of emotional and empathetic connection. Those that want more will be attracted to men that have a higher emotional intelligence and capacity for empathy. I'm aware of this level of desire and readiness with someone I'm with and I share at the same level she is sharing. Occasionally, I will go more open and deeper and get a sense of her response. Quite often, she will want to explore deeper. Other times, she will get a bit defensive and re-establish boundaries. Then I respect those boundaries and pull back. . . . There is a "now" aspect of emotional intimacy that is independent of the timeline and there is also an emotional intimacy that takes time to development.

I had some weird "dreams" last night. Maybe this thread charged it up. . .

Reading through your original post, I get a strong sense he does not want to be in a relationship which is causing him distress. My hunch is that he is not comfortable talking to you about it because you are oriented toward steering things toward a relationship - what he shares will get framed into a relationship - which is not what he wants. I may be off, that's just my sense. I’ve been on both sides of this. I spent years trying to create and maintain a relationship with someone who deep down didn’t want a relationship. I’ve also been on the other side: trying to get out of a relationship kindly, without hurting the other person. I’ve found trying to stay together in these dynamics doesn’t work. Ime, there is an easy way to find out if this is what’s going on. It sounds like in the past you were the one that put in the effort to rekindle the relationship and get it back on track. Perhaps don’t do that. Go a month without initiating any contact. A month without any efforts to steer things back to a relationship. Allow him to pursue what he wants. Given that time and space, maybe he will discover that deep down he wants a relationship with you. Perhaps he will move in another direction and pursue other interests in life. When two people both want to be in a relationship together, it is a very different dynamic than what you describe above. There are still difficulties and things ebb and flow - yet what you describe above sounds very different to me. It sounds like a guy that wants out of a relationship. Why be in a relationship in which you need to keep convincing the other person that they should want to be in a relationship with you? I find it much healthier to be in a relationship with someone that naturally wants to be in a relationship with me.

It sounds like he has been trying to communicate over and over that he doesn’t want to be in a relationship - that he is more oriented toward casual sexual relationships, while you are oriented toward a more serious committed relationship. He has directly said this and I would trust him that he is telling the truth that he doesn’t want to be in a relationship. To me it sounds like you two are just oriented differently and incompatible. Ime, this ends up causing misery for both people. In the past, I’ve found if I care more about their welfare than my desire for a relationship, I will let them go. I’ve been in situations in which I did care for their welfare, yet I had a stronger desire to steer things toward a relationship and it ended up causing more harm than good. I’ve found at times my role is not to be someone’s psychologist or health-care provider and the most loving, compassionate thing I can do is to let them go, because I’m actually causing harm to them by trying to keep them mine. At times, I also want to avoid deep sorrow, yet that is the other side of deep love. Yin and Yang. When I am the one wanting to get back together, I’ve found it helpful to commit to 30 days of no contact. During this time, I work on myself - personal issues, starting a new hobby, self love etc. If the person has said they want to break up and don’t reach out to me during this time then it’s not meant to be be. After 30 days of no contact, I consider contacting the person if I am ready to do so as a friend - and if I have interest in doing so. It’s hard, yet I’ve found it to be the best move after someone clearly indicates they want to break up with me.

My shaman stone. The mystical dreamweaver.

“I’m not coming back this time. . . “

@mandyjw That is beautiful. I'd love to have one!

Yea, I guess it's the relationship. Now, I won't buy them online. I'd want to meet it first to see if we have chemistry before we start a relationship together. . .

Yea. . . it seems my thinking is only a problem when it's a problem. I don't seem to notice thoughts that aren't problematic. . .

I went shopping for stones with my Reiki friend. I was examining them and didn't know how to choose good ones. I was looking for the prettiest ones, yet that didn't feel right. I asked my friend and she said "You don't choose the stone. It's a relationship - the stone also chooses you. You choose each other". She said it like freakin' Yoda would have.

Have you tried a psychedelic? There is nearly a 100% chance of full ego death. The ego will return, yet you would get a good look at life without an ego. It's how I got my first ego death experiences.

Yep. One of my deepest fears was that if I fully let go, something bad would happen - I experienced a lot of harm anxiety. I had deep fears if the "me" wasn't controlling the narrative, some darkness would arise. Like I would run outside and scream terrible things or hurt someone. It was a way for my ego to hold on. It pretty much said "Without me, all sorts of terrible things will happen". My other big anxiety was that I got in mind-body spaces in which I couldn't make it stop. I couldn't make the ISness of what was happening in the present moment stop. The weird thing was, it wasn't like anything bad was happening. It was just that I couldn't change or stop what is. There was no escape from it. Yet there is also the other side of the coin. . . for example, deeper levels of love, joy and beauty than I could have imagined.

@Satchidananda That is one heckuva story! Yowzers!

I'm not sure about crystals, intentions, beliefs, being receptive, energies etc. Yet I will say this. . . I saw a something with a Reiki Master on LSD with a Shaman Stone in the Cathedral Rock energy vortex in Sedona, AZ. It was impossible, yet it happened. And the Shaman Stone was the impetus. I don't know what impossible variables aligned, yet they did. I've never had any other time in my life in which it seemed like a crystal had an emergent property.

@theking00 Are you willing to let go? Or is there still some fight in there? . . . I say this as someone who had an epic battle for control of the mental narrative.

@Javfly33 "Is enlightment the only way to escape from being chained to states of mind?" I suppose people have different definitions and concepts of "enlightenment", yet the closest I could come is just an ISness. It would be like asking "Is enlightenment the only way to escape from what IS?". How can what is be escaped from? This was one of the most uncomfortable direct experiences I've had. I realized I couldn't change what IS. Anything I did was ISness. Anything that happened was ISness. I was in nature and went into an insanity zone. I wanted to jump off a bridge "ISness". I was afraid I'd start screaming. ISness. Yet if I didn't scream, ISness. I could throw things and break branches. ISness. I got online to send Leo a PM for help. ISness. Anything Leo would say to me: ISness. He couldn't not be ISness. He couldn't make it stop either. If I was chained to mind states of the mind. ISness. If I was unchained from states of mind. ISness. There was no escape. Period. And it was terrifying. After about two hours there was a type of surrender to what IS. There terror turned to joy. I started laughing and singing. I pointed to ducks gleefully saying "A duck is a duck!". "Hello cloud! A cloud is a cloud!". Yet the joy and bliss was equally IS as the terror. Enlightenment just IS. It doesn't care about whether or not my personality is happy, sad, blissful or crazy. What IS will always be what IS. Even if I try to think about things differently - it's one IS or another IS. IS always IS. There is no escape. You are zero steps from enlightenment right now. With this type of awakening, the min-body body changes. The relationship with reality changes. Many mind-body's many settle down and experience life differently. The realization may relax some blocks. Or maybe not. What if someone had that realization and went insane? Or the mind-body had a nervous breakdown? It's still ISness. It's still enlightenment. There is no escape. For my mind-body, there has been a major relaxation of the mind-body. This has opened up realms of experience I've never knew existed. Now that my mind-body realizes there is no way out of ISness, it chilled out and is much better going with the flow. At the human level, a curiosity about the personality dynamics has arisen. Much of the internal personality has been deconstructed, yet not all. As well, a desire to explore body sensations and connections to energies has arisen. There is much less wanting to get "my way" or to reach "my goals", or become something or to avoid something. One insight I've had is that I'm chained until I'm not chained. And it can happen in an instant. I've sat and just observed those chains. Sometimes they just disappear. There is noone that comes in and removes them. There is no guru or spiritual text. No achievement. No getting there. It always occurs in the moment. It's there and then it's not there. It's impossible. Yet it just happened. Once the mind realizes the impossible is possible a whole new reality opens up. Currently I am working to rewire my brain. Parts of me thinks "that is impossible" or "humans won't be able to do that for hundreds of years". Yet here I am, seeing the impossible arise.

@EmptyInside Welcome to the forum and thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. I also live alone and can relate to the emotions / experiences you describe. I used to group all the emotions into "emptiness / loneliness", yet as I've observed body sensations, I've noticed some nuances between the emotions. 1. Generic loneliness: sometimes my mind-body gets uncomfortable, bored and discouraged being alone. The mind may think things like "why don't I have more friends? Maybe I should go out more and try to be social. Chuck and Stacey look so happy together, maybe I'd be happier if I lived with someone". 2. Then there is a deeper loneliness and a yearning to connect deeply with someone. To really open up and explore who we are and bond. To share depth of experience - not the trivial noise of the rat race of life. I've felt this more as I've gone deeper into consciousness work. There are less people I can connect with. I've searched in my area for a year and found one person I can talk to this about. This type of loneliness is more of a deep sadness. I may have a profound insight and there is no one in my life who would understand. There is a profound yearning to connect on these deeper insight levels. I've tried to bring people along, like a gf, and it doesn't work. It's sort of like seeing the most amazing sunset of your life and wishing someone could appreciate and share it's beauty with me. 3. Then there is what I would call true emptiness. The stuff buddhists, mystics and spiritualists speak of. This transcends the above two forms of loneliness. This is an absolute emptiness that comes prior to all descriptions and emotions. Some people call it stillness, peace, bliss, nothingness. This is independent of external conditions. It transcends all. It is present whether I am alone or with someone.

Well at least they somewhat acknowledged this deficiency. Yet it’s not just “possible”, it did lack statistical power. Mostly because the yoga group deaths were so low (perhaps 3 or so?). And they had to do all death counts because their sample size was so low. They couldn’t filter out irrelevant death causes like traffic accidents. This looks like an incomplete data set that somehow got published in a low level journal. One of my concerns in science is that publication standards are dropping and stuff like this gets through the peer-review filter. If it was even peer-reviewed.

A few red flags; ”22,598 adult participants, 240 participants engaged in yoga” They had a sample size of 22,598 and only 240 participated in yoga? Are you kidding me?? 22,598 participants and they only had 240 that participated in yoga? That is only 1% of the sample size! Plus, they only stated the overall number of deaths. Based on the sample sizes, that would mean about 3 deaths in the yoga group. That is absurdly small. They had a highly significant P-value of 0.006 that dropped to an insignificant p-value of 0.6 after age adjustment because their yoga sample size was so small. Good grief. They had to do all cause mortality because the yoga mortality was so small and they couldn’t filter out accidental deaths like car accidents. . Very few yoga people died - and they didn’t state the causes. Of the approximately 3 yoga deaths, two could have been automobile accidents for goodness sake. The tiny amount of yoga deaths is skewing the data. They had to do “all death causes” because they had too few yoga deaths. That’s why they got a highly significant P that disappeared after age adjustment. They didn't have a large enough yoga sample size. Plus it’s in an obscure journal - with I predict low quality standards. I don’t have access to the full article, yet this smells like poorly conducted science to me. I wouldn’t give it much weight. Peeps: don’t believe something just because it has “science” stamped on it. Especially if it is used to support one’s existing ideology.