okulele

Really make an intention before the start to do your best and follow the rules. It's a good system, they know what they are doing.

@Aakash how do you move up the stages? What's the plan?

@Aakash how do you practically work with the spiral model in your life?

What is it that you really want? Isn't it happiness? This puts a lot into perspective... even all the SD and enlightenment stuff. Anyway, if you are on this forum, I am sure you are dipping your toes in Yellow already. Go for total freedom = enlightenment, and that will catapult you to the sweet, sweet Turquoise. ...but hey, that's just my opinion

By coming back again and again. Persistently. What else can you do?

Breath into your balls (even better all the way to the balls of your feet) and there is no cold. Or Inquire. What is cold?

When fear of life gives way to couriosity of it, you find yourself in good situation.

No escape, always here, wheter smooth or overwhelm. Want to run, want to hide, no place else, but this mind.

Dance ?

@GroovyGuru i suggest you think bigger than consciousness work. Sooner or later you will awaken, come full circle and see that there was nothing to get. You will be glad to have a place in society then.

All is welcome in my play, If it's dark or bright as day. I can walk and talk for fun, Every moment is a pun. And the child inside that's me, Is full of joy, for it is free. How could something hurt me now? Every pain recieves a - meowww!

@LoveandPurpose Loving-Kindness Meditation

Waking up feeling happy. Spending your days contributing to the happiness of others. Loving life and manifesting beauty out of that love. Experiencing every aspect of human life and dying with a bang. this sounds successful to me!

Ryan Cropper has recently done a lot of videos on ayahuasca:

I am unreasonably happy. Unreasonable joy, as in with no reason. There is no "I am happy because..." There is only "I am happy!" What a discovery! I don't need a reason to be happy! That's really good. That's good. Unreasonable joy, as in silly. Like a little kid, oblivious to the great seriousness of the world. Any thing can be a source of humor and awe. What a silly and beautiful way to be!

@DrewNows @Joseph Maynor @Juan Cruz Giusto Thanks guys. This post was written from a state of confusion/anguish/ego-backlash. I am experiencing a shift in consciousness and sometimes the mind comes yelling and crying as it does not understand. This was a result of that

Sometimes this is too much. I don't know how to live. I can't trust my mind. I can't trust books. I can't trust gurus. I can't trust teachers. I can't trust you. What do I do? Through all of this, I am peaceful. I am good. Yet I am thinking, can it really go on like this? Can I survive or amount to anything in life like this? How do you even live awakening? Can you make plans? Any life strategy I try to adopt just gets thrown out the window in a couple of moments. I can't hold onto any personality really. What the fuck??

Easter Body, Western Mind. Totally

I visited this one https://www.watbhaddanta.com/english/about-us/ Really great. I got a separate room and there was no given period of time I should stay. I had a teacher with whom I discussed my progress. I was progressively taught sitting vippassana (similar to Shinzen's noting) and different stages of walking meditation. The food was great, vegeterian or carnivorous, take your pick. The pay was voluntary. Every now and then you go to report to the abbot. Recommend it highly!

The great thing about awakening is seeing all that it is not. It is not fasting, dieting and being a vegan. It is not being a celibate, not feeling lust and not watching porn. It is not the lack of ambition and drive. It is not maintaining a meditation habit. It is not following a particular path. It is not any of these. It is free to do anything, even the so called "unenlightened" stuff

here goes my minirant: I though I had my LP figured out! Oh boy, I knew what I wanted and I knew I could get it. What a feeling! I will conquer the world with my excellence! But, of course, life happens. It seems that my meditation, inquiry and overall spiritual pursuit got the better of me and started destroying everything I held dear and precious. Realizing that my LP was really just another grasping for happiness "out there" was a big hit. I was not about to take this! After all, the concept of 'my life must have a meaning, I must be special, mediocrity is bad, I HAVE TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN' was sacred and true for me! Oh well, quite soon I found out, that you don't really argue with life. It will have it's way anyway. I gave up. No LP for me. In fact, nothing for me. I will be a dirty, homeless moron, if that is what life wants of me... Fortunately, it seems like life doesn't want me to be a dirty, homeless moron. I am doing very well, and in fact something like an LP is turning up spontaneously by itself! Events seem to magically occur in a strangely non-random fashion and it seems that life is leading me somewhere. I am glad to be here to watch this chaotic pattern of my Life Purpose unfold. @Paulus Amadeus Thanks

Oh, come on... You are on a giant ball of something whirling thorough space. You explore this place. You meat a funny thing with strange limbs, running around and trying to figure out what the hell it is doing here. And there is actually many, many of these! Each looks different. Each makes different facial expressions. Each talks different. Each reacts differently to you. You have the freedom to experiment, to question them, to be with them in a myriad of ways!. ... and so on and so on. And you say it is boring? Look again! Your worldview is boring, not them!

Have you got a disease? Physical ailment? Pain? Great! You are most fortunate! This is an amazing opportunity given to you by the Lord himself! The jackpot to claim here is the freedom from identification with your body! And when the whole strenuous process is complete... you realize with a joyful laugh, that the sickness was only a silly joke