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@zeroISinfinity Character, will — 111 "The Golden Mean" - your character is named like this because you are able to get along with all the other types of characters. You’ll have an edge over a person with weaker willpower and will ably match someone who’s stronger. However, you often act like a combative, challenging other leaders and society person. Examples of 111 ◦ Bill Gates — founder of Microsoft, business magnate and philanthropist ◦ Kim Jong-il — ex-leader of North Korea ◦ Steven Spielberg — director, producer, and screenwriter ◦ Wayne Gretzky — the greatest hockey player ever Vital energy — 222 "Impulsive energy" - you can handle any ordinary activity and make an effort of will, but at extreme moments you are also capable of an extra effort. Only with your own presence, you can improve the patient’s condition or instill optimism in a desperate partner. People like you are outstanding public figures, musicians, business coaches and inspirers for others. The danger is that your "222" energy works like a magnet for energy vampires, especially for persons of the opposite sex. Examples of 222 ◦ Marilyn Monroe — actress and model, sex symbol of the 1950s ◦ Michael Jordan — the greatest basketball player of all time ◦ Harrison Ford — actor and film producer ◦ Jim Carrey — comedian, impressionist, screenwriter, and producer ◦ Adolf Hitler — dictator of the German III Reich Cognitive, creative — 333 "An Impulsive Scientist and Creator" - you have serious prospects to master any exact science, technique, algorithm or knowledge system, to make a name for yourself in any creative spheres. In addition to this, you are a dreamer and an experimenter - it makes you different from "33" and "3". But remember: you have too wide area of thought, sometimes along with a sick imagination and the inability to concentrate on something that requires to study hard. Your abilities can appear spontaneously and not always at the right moment. Examples of 333 ◦ Steven Spielberg — director, producer, and screenwriter ◦ Larry Page — co-founder of Google, computer scientist ◦ Mark Zuckerberg — co-founder of Facebook, Internet entrepreneur ◦ Elon Musk — co-founder of Tesla and SpaceX, engineer and inventor Health, beauty — empty "Low health reserves" - the health is weak and it is not necessary to exert excessive stress on it. Fitness, yoga, proper nutrition, prevention are the best friends. Do not rely on looks and beauty. It is better to pay attention to other strong qualities and focus on them. Logic, intuition — empty "Logic is not a forte" This is a trait of dreamers who are hovering in the clouds. They are not good with long chains of facts and reasoning. They can be easily confused, so they constantly run into the same trap. People without "5" are more emotional than rational. Labor, skill — 6 "Inclinations of diligence and skill" - capriciously this person can cope with any work that requires diligence, accuracy and technology compliances quite well. Of course, they will not become a "jeweler" at once, but whether it’s building a house, repairing or something that does not require over-skillful hands, then, most likely, it will work out. And in the process this person will sharpen their skills. Luck — 7 "With a talisman" - of course, 7 does not guarantee a jackpot after the first bet, but will save from minor troubles and sometimes help to catch luck in the nick of time. Duty — empty "Owe nothing to anyone" - public or other duties are usually not familiar to this person. He or she can not be called a complete egoist, but all their goals are directed primarily at themselves. In their dreams, they strive for "freedom" and "independence", for which read absence of any kind of responsibility to anyone or anything. Intellect, memory — 999 "Mind like a steel trap" - any study or work with information is very easily. And this often causes boredom and reluctance to learn. This person can become erudite too easy. But in fact they should look for a really interesting and profound subject to study, and the more difficult it is, the greater will be their curiosity and results. Examples of 999 ◦ Stephen Hawking — theoretical physicist, cosmologist ◦ Dennis Ritchie — computer scientist, creator of C language ◦ Michael Jordan — the greatest basketball player of all time Secondary abilities (lines and diagonals) Self-Esteem (Line «1-2-3») — 9 "Inflated" - the person highly estimates themselves. In addition, beliefs like "I deserve more", are very typical. It is to be noted, that high and inflated self-esteem are the most real incentive to do things in a big way. But one day most of these people look back with the benefit of hindsight and understand that they did not become what they wanted. And here they get depressed, or make a quantum leap forward. Moneymaking (Line «4-5-6») — 1 "Not independent" - this person will do everything to stay under the wing of their parents as long as possibles. And then they will look for a spouse who can bring home the bacon. Talent (Line «7-8-9») — 4 If the person is evidently talented and works to unleash its potential (you can pay attention to other cells) then this figure indicates the potential development of this talent. Tenacity (Line «1-4-7») — 4 "Confident" - the person sets ambitious goals, assesses the resources to achieve them and, as a rule, fulfills the plans. In fact, this person’s potential is even higher, but too sky-high goals scare them away, though they could try to reach them. Domestic bliss (Line «2-5-8») — 3 "Spontaneous" - this person may say that they will never enter marriage or it is not for them. But one day they’ll send invitations to their wedding, and everything will seem to be ok till the day when they suddenly apply for divorce. Stability (Line «3-6-9») — 7 "Too many habits" - a person becomes a slave of their stability. They sometimes try to fight it, but mostly unsuccessfully, replacing useless habits and attachments with other ones. The person is extremely hard to budge. Spirituality (Diagonal «1-5-9») — 6 "Fanaticism" - high spirituality turns into idolatry. The edges of the sensible are blurred. In words, the person speaks of a high, but in deeds becomes obsessed with the rudeness, injustice and dishonor of those around him. Also there is a risk of falling under the influence of cults. Temperament (Diagonal «3-5-7») — 4 "Warm" - the need for intimacy is high, so if there is no soul mate, this person makes every effort to find love. However, people with 3 or 5 in temperament suit them best because and help to elicit their potential; this person is considered to be rather faithful.

@zeroISinfinity here we go: I made yours.... But I am not sure yet about numerology. Just read it for fun! ________________________________ Main abilities (square's cells) Character, will — 1111 "The Leader" - you are always calm and confident. These two are predominant features of your character. You voice your opinion softly, but weightily, making others listen to you or even grow quiet. You can show yourself cruel rarely, but right on target. And people feel this cruelty in you. Most of the richest and influential people in politics, business, military and sport have 1111 and 11111 characters. Examples of 1111 ◦ Chuck Norris — martial artist, actor, film producer and screenwriter ◦ Michael Schumacher — a German retired racing driver in Formula 1 ◦ Michael Jordan — the greatest basketball player of all time Vital energy — 222 "Impulsive energy" - you can handle any ordinary activity and make an effort of will, but at extreme moments you are also capable of an extra effort. Only with your own presence, you can improve the patient’s condition or instill optimism in a desperate partner. People like you are outstanding public figures, musicians, business coaches and inspirers for others. The danger is that your "222" energy works like a magnet for energy vampires, especially for persons of the opposite sex. Examples of 222 ◦ Marilyn Monroe — actress and model, sex symbol of the 1950s ◦ Michael Jordan — the greatest basketball player of all time ◦ Harrison Ford — actor and film producer ◦ Jim Carrey — comedian, impressionist, screenwriter, and producer ◦ Adolf Hitler — dictator of the German III Reich Cognitive, creative — 33 "Basic abilities" - having this potential, you can master the exact sciences, techniques, algorithms. Or become an artist, a writer, an actor. Thanks to your imagination, you are able to generate original ideas. But you really have to work hard and do your best if you want to receive recognition from the public. Examples of 33 ◦ Sergey Brin — co-founder of Google, computer scientist, internet entrepreneur ◦ Dennis Ritchie — computer scientist, creator of C language ◦ Ken Thompson — pioneer of computer science, creator of UNIX OS Health, beauty — empty "Low health reserves" - the health is weak and it is not necessary to exert excessive stress on it. Fitness, yoga, proper nutrition, prevention are the best friends. Do not rely on looks and beauty. It is better to pay attention to other strong qualities and focus on them. Logic, intuition — empty "Logic is not a forte" This is a trait of dreamers who are hovering in the clouds. They are not good with long chains of facts and reasoning. They can be easily confused, so they constantly run into the same trap. People without "5" are more emotional than rational. Labor, skill — 6 "Inclinations of diligence and skill" - capriciously this person can cope with any work that requires diligence, accuracy and technology compliances quite well. Of course, they will not become a "jeweler" at once, but whether it’s building a house, repairing or something that does not require over-skillful hands, then, most likely, it will work out. And in the process this person will sharpen their skills. Luck — empty "Not the lucky one" - this person never gets help from above. They should make a lot of attempts without expecting a sudden success if they want to do the trick. But you must admit that working hard and achieve success and have an accidental success are different things. Duty — 88 "Do good for others" - these people usually have a well-developed social orientation and high communication skills. If this was revealed in their childhood, then they fulfil their potential in social activities, they are happy to devote a large part of their time to others, but they do it without bigotry. If their social realization failed, they often begin to help abandoned dogs and cats, homeless people, and take care of the sick and lonely. Intellect, memory — 9 "Basic intelligence" - information is processed on the principle of "practice makes perfect". This person can’t remember too many facts and things. Therefore, they should not overload themselves with superfluous knowledge - it will be forgotten. But in practice, they can perfectly use the information that they constantly work with. Secondary abilities (lines and diagonals) Self-Esteem (Line «1-2-3») — 9 "Inflated" - the person highly estimates themselves. In addition, beliefs like "I deserve more", are very typical. It is to be noted, that high and inflated self-esteem are the most real incentive to do things in a big way. But one day most of these people look back with the benefit of hindsight and understand that they did not become what they wanted. And here they get depressed, or make a quantum leap forward. Moneymaking (Line «4-5-6») — 1 "Not independent" - this person will do everything to stay under the wing of their parents as long as possibles. And then they will look for a spouse who can bring home the bacon. Talent (Line «7-8-9») — 3 If the person is evidently talented and works to unleash its potential (you can pay attention to other cells) then this figure indicates the potential development of this talent. Tenacity (Line «1-4-7») — 4 "Confident" - the person sets ambitious goals, assesses the resources to achieve them and, as a rule, fulfills the plans. In fact, this person’s potential is even higher, but too sky-high goals scare them away, though they could try to reach them. Domestic bliss (Line «2-5-8») — 5 "An idealist" - this person has their own beliefs about what a wholesome family should look like. Therefore, they carefully look for an ideal match, and then, being in a marriage, try make themself, their partner and family relationships fully comply with their ideals. But their partner is not always ready to put up with it. Stability (Line «3-6-9») — 4 "Stable enough" - the person is steady and slow to start, so sometimes others consider them to be draggy, but also reliable and predictable Spirituality (Diagonal «1-5-9») — 5 "The highest level of spirituality" - this person with 5 figures in this diagonal could be an example of purity and high thoughts. Сuriously enough, but there are many examples of businessmen and public figures with this sign. And this suggests that they do their job not only for the sake of money. Temperament (Diagonal «3-5-7») — 2 "Normal" - this temperament will suit most other temperaments. But there is a prone to cheating because this person is not fully confident in their abilities and would like to assert themselves in the love department.

Btw, another amazing insight that I had during my after-trip meditation in the park was that trying to silence your thoughts and desires is in fact utter silliness. Newsflash: Your thoughts and desires are the very expression of divine Love! Do you want to silence God's Love in order to reach eternal bliss? LOL! That's like "fucking for virginity", to quote one of George Carlin's immortal quips. - What you should be doing instead is to embrace all of your tumulutuous desires and recognize them for what they are: The universes undying Love Song to itself, ever winding, warbling, modulating and resouding for all of Eternity. (The question if it makes sense to identify with your thoughts or act on your desires is a completely different matter, of course.)

Today was a low day. I went to work at the farm, but there was just a lot going on in my head and it kind of clouded the entire day. My parents really baby me, even at 24, and honestly I am complicit in the codependence. I feel weak, lazy, powerless etc and in turn my family accommodates me by giving me easy jobs at the family business. The entire complex is toxic, but I feel stuck and unmotivated to change, and my parents mean well and want me to be happy but they are kinda stuck in their ways and unless I make a change this pattern will continue. Even just walking up and down the rows picking weeds today I felt weak and powerless. I have this sense of hopelessness and sadness that is just in the background of experience for most of my time. One major source of the current depressive episode is regrets over dropping out of law school. When I dropped out I thought I was on the right path. I was feeling pretty good, I had the psychs, coaching etc and I thought reality would only serve to get better and better. I didn't expect to be this depressed again after making these big changes, but nevertheless i'm here. The regret is mainly one of self image and angst for the future. It's not that I really wanted to be a lawyer, or even really miss law school and want to go back. It's that right now i'm doing nothing, and i'm depressed. I have no career prospects and I just feel like a loser, so naturally I long for the days when at the very least I could say i'm in law school. I find myself kicking myself over not just writing the exams and giving myself more time like my family advised. It's a lot of regret, disappointment, shame. I made my bed and I have to lay in it, and all these "issues" with law school regert are simply negative thoughts that i'm focusing on the moment. No attention to them, no problem. This a clear example of how focusing on something negative in the NOW is where suffering is created. I'm aware of how these thoughts are the driver of part of my depression, but it doesn't prevent them from arising and it doesn't prevent the rumination. When I feel better and find some sort of relief or happiness from this suffering i'm confident that the thoughts of regret will simply pass through awareness without causing a stir, but right now they're being believed and I just have to live with it I guess. It's been humbling though going through this stage of shame and regret over how life is unfolding. I'm making an effort to kinder and more humble with my parents, I didn't expect to be home that long, but right now I don't know what i'm going to do, and any resentment or anger towards my parents just doesn't make sense and isn't serving me. No matter how much I want to look back and blame my childhood for how I ended up, at this point this my parent's have done above and beyond trying to help me get my life together, and i'm 100% responsible for how my fate turns out. I've been thinking a lot about how i'm going to proceed with my future. I still have faith that sessions with Ramaji and awakening in general will provide the solution to the suffering and sadness that pervades my life. My problems are all self created, in their reference to the ME that is living this life, and in the continuation of focusing on thinking and believing thoughts that don't feel good. I don't know how long or what it takes to awaken to the point where you can reside in effortless thought free states of well being, or be so in tune with thinking and focus, that the only thoughts that are focused on are thoughts of what deeply desire in life, and that feel good to focus on but those two facets would effectively wipe out all of my current, narcissist suffering. I've had thoughts of living in an ashram or monestary if all else fails. It's no doubt a form of escapism, to escape the shame/guilt/regret of not achieving the quality of life that i'd always hoped for in my typical life. But I have a lot of growing up to do as a person, and I don't know if living here in the west is the best path for me. I don't have any genuine desires, other than to find genuine happiness, and unlock a life of happiness, joy, magic, love etc. I don't know if it's destructive fantasy thinking, but I have had dreams, and direct experience, of life actually being fun and enjoyable. If I don't figure it out here, then I don't see a point in continuing the charade here. I'm drawn to run away from the world. Covid has been in many ways a blessing to my ego and the way i'm currently living. I don't want to do anything, and I don't really want to see anyone. At least with Covid the whole world is stuck in this predicament. But this won't last, and it's an incredible toxic mindset. To run and hide when things don't go your way is not the way to be, but at the same time many aspects of my life are not the way to be and i'm not sure what to do. And yet despite all this, when I look in the now... there is no problem. I don't have joy, bliss, or other high tier feelings but I can't say there is an issue. It's only when thoughts arise about future or past regrets, or thoughts about me and my life, that there is any sense of a problem. Wouldn't it be great if these kinds of thoughts just didn't arise, or if I just didn't buy into any of them. But right now I do so I guess in this quagmire i'll remain. By any metric I have a charmed life, in comparison to most of the world. And yet i'm not happy... I wonder if we're just fucked as a species. If the world were filled with people like me as I am at this point in life, we'd all be fucked.

... fulfilment of all mankind, understand everything, become immortal, live in a nirvanic reality of divinity and perpetual bliss. You literally go to heaven

Day 11 - Didn't meet all of my previous intentions. I was hit with a massive wave of fatigue after work today that I attribute to my diabetes. I'm not really sure what causes these things. They happen kind of sporadically and don't track with any variables I've been able to observe. Nutrition, sleep, exercise, meditation, yoga can all be on point and sometimes I'll still just crash. I've learned to be gentle with my self though, and not rush. Things are changing, I feel the progress on my path. Today's meditation was absurd. I meditated 10 minutes before work (do nothing) just to clear my head which felt fairly normal. And then after work I did another 45 minutes (do nothing) which was absurd. It was 45 minutes of non stop pleasure, moving anywhere between I'd say 3-10% of what the climax of an orgasm was. It felt like I could feel sexual energy pulsating up my spine and out of my body like a wave. I don't really have much conceptual knowledge of what auras are or anything like that, but it felt like the sexual energy was breathing into an energy field outlining my body while meditating, and just circling back through my root chakra. As the energy was moving, it was just non stop pleasure. I don't think I've ever had a more pleasurable meditation session in my life, I mean it was like a non stop orgasm, spontaneous feelings of bliss, happiness, joy and pleasure. It's almost unbelieveable except that I experienced it. Leo had a blog post not too long ago talking about Yogi's and Monks being like heroine addicts, except they could produce the pleasure themselves. This is how it felt. I was going to go for a full hour, but the pleasure got overwhelming and so I just got up and then went for a long walk which served as another form of meditation. Today was kind of tough though. After that meditation session I spent the evening fantasizing about sex, and all the things I wish I could be doing with a woman. Women I wouldn't normally find attractive were sexually beautiful at the park. And when I got home, the fantasies continued. On another unrelated note listen to this music if you want to feel agape:

@Nak Khid don't know, doesn't work very well. Strangely though, it worked well when I smoked hcl. I have 10mg that I'm gonna smoke of hcl, different batch. I'm very tempted to order a small amount of hcl 5meo if it proves to be more powerful as it was before. I went to a realm of bliss when I smoked hcl before. Heavy heavy bliss weighing on my face and arms, I couldn't lift my arms or open my mouth the bliss was so heavy. But when I smoked 40mg of that freebase 5meo I got from a Joe Rogan darknet vendor, I just wasn't impressed at all. I didn't see God. Not even close. Gonna try hcl

Nonduality is the philosophical, spiritual, and scientific understanding of non-separation and fundamental intrinsic oneness. For thousands of years, through deep inner inquiry, philosophers and sages have come to the realization that there is only one substance and we are therefore all part of it. This substance can be called Awareness, Consciousness, Spirit, Advaita, Brahman, Tao, Nirvana or even God. It is constant, ever present, unchangeable and is the essence of all existence. In the last century Western scientists are arriving at the same conclusion: The universe does indeed comprise of a single substance, presumably created during the Big Bang, and all sense of being – consciousness – subsequently arises from it. This realization has ontological implications for humanity: fundamentally we are individual expressions of a single entity, inextricably connected to one another, we are all drops of the same ocean. Science and Nonduality is a journey, an exploration of the nature of awareness, the essence of life from which all arises and subsides. What is nonduality, anyway? There are many shades of meaning to the word nonduality. As an introduction, we might say that nonduality is the philosophical, spiritual, and scientific understanding of non-separation and fundamental oneness. Our starting point is the statement “we are all one,” and this is meant not in some abstract sense, but at the deepest level of existence. Duality, or separation between the observer and the observed, is an illusion that the Eastern mystics have long recognized, and Western science has more recently come to understand through quantum mechanics. Dualities are usually seen in terms of opposites: Mind/Matter, Self/Other, Conscious/Unconscious, Illusion/Reality, Quantum/Classical, Wave/Particle, Spiritual/Material, Beginning/End, Male/Female, Living/Dead and Good/Evil. Nonduality is the understanding that identification with common dualisms avoids recognition of a deeper reality. So how can we better understand nonduality? There are two aspects to this question, and at first glance they appear to be mutually exclusive, although they may be considered two representations of a single underlying reality. The first aspect is our understanding of external reality, and for this we turn to science. The word science comes from the Latin scientia, which means knowledge. The beauty and usefulness of science is that it seeks to measure and describe reality without personal, religious, or cultural bias. For something to be considered scientifically proven, it has to pass exhaustive scrutiny, and even then is always subject to future revision. Inevitably human biases creep in, but the pursuit of science itself is intrinsically an evolving quest for truth. But then quantum mechanics turned much of this lauded objectivity on its head, as the role of the observer became inseparable from the observed quantum effect. It is as if consciousness itself plays a role in creating reality. Indeed, the two may be the same thing. As quantum pioneer Niels Bohr once put it: “A physicist is just an atom’s way of looking at itself!” The second aspect is our inner, personal experience of consciousness, our “awareness of awareness.” We have our senses to perceive the world, but “behind” all perception, memory, identification and thought is simply pure awareness itself. Eastern mystics have described this undifferentiated consciousness for thousands of years as being the ultimate state of bliss, or nirvana. Seekers have attempted to experience it for themselves through countless rituals and practices, although the state itself can be quite simply described. As Indian advaita teacher Nisargadatta Maharaj said: “The trinity: mind, self and spirit, when looked into, becomes unity.” The central challenge to understanding nonduality may be that it exists beyond language, because once it has been named, by definition — and paradoxically — a duality has been created. Even the statement “all things are one” creates a distinction between “one” and “not-one”! Hardly any wonder that nonduality has been misunderstood, particularly in the West. Excerpt above from: https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/about/nonduality/ Other resources, explanations, & pointers to nonduality: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-O_KhOnJ62o http://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/writings/what-is-nonduality/ , https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism https://endless-satsang.com/advaita-nonduality-oneness.htm Meditation Preparations & Considerations of The Temple (The Body) Make changes in accordance with listening to the body via feeling. Let go of assumptions about what you know, what you can & can’t do, and who you are & are not. Be mindful of the distinction between what you directly experience, and your thought about something. Be mindful the term direct experience does not refer to a past, a now, a present, a future, or a self (these are thoughts). Be conscious of breathing, and breathe from the stomach. Notice the increase in awareness of feeling in the body when you do so. Maintain toxin free care & hygiene, such as with: preservatives, fluoride, aluminum, mercury, & neurotoxin free products and water. Get a routine physical & full comprehensive blood report, and review it with your doctor (preferably a Holistic Dr). Eat clean. Food is mood, mood is clarity. Listen to your body & educate yourself about food; calories, nutrients, vitamins, supplements, etc. Your second best friend in this whole world, should be your stomach. Try several approaches to eating. Realize you only know about food from direct experience and let assumptions go. Listen to the body, put habit & preference of taste secondary to energy and clarity. Put direct experience, of how you feel, first. Exercise to the extent you are able, as early in the day as you are able. Don’t eat after 8pm, drink water instead. Be mindful of honesty, humility, & compassion. Pause to allow the presence of love when creating responses, vs mindlessly reacting. Get 8 hrs of sleep. Meditate early in the morning, before eating, and before any thought engaging activities like; - All screens, reading anything, listening to any thing or anyone, talking to anyone, etc. Instead, step outside and express gratitude. - Thinking. Develop letting thinking go from waking up until after meditation. Every thought that arises, let it go by being aware of breathing & feeling. Use ”not till after meditation” as needed. Love yourself enough to do this, your quality of life will be greatly enhanced by your commitment and followthrough with daily meditation. This is putting your inner well being first - and then going about your day. It is a total game changer. Get up as early as needed to make this possible for yourself. You’ll only fall asleep earlier as a result, and get a better night’s sleep. Maintain a dream journal. Every morning when you wake up, write any recollections of dreams in the journal. If there were none, write “no dreams last night” in the journal. Doing this daily develops connection and communication. After writing a dream down, let it go completely. Revisit it after meditation. Consider that in between the pure peace of sleep and awakening, the dream is the reconciliation of those two states. After meditation, contemplate the dream message. Consider it from the perspective that you are dreaming right now, and the message is that everything is fine, even this (whatever the dream was about). You will notice perspectives you’re believing, as to how ‘everything is not fine’. Those, can be let go in meditation. Maintain a journal for writing about how you feel. If meditation is overwhelming, don’t persist against the grain, write about how you’re feeling in your journal. Expressing in key. It is a ‘getting it out’, or emptying, by which being fills in. This is the same as saying misunderstanding is let go, and understanding arises. Add creative expression in your days with what feels right for you, such as; creative writing, drawing, learning an instrument, singing, sculpting, building, carving, dancing - any act of creating and expressing, which feels good to you. Sign up for a drawing or painting class, etc. Clarity, emotional intelligence, understanding, focus, patience, and more feeling / connection, are natural outcomes of this. Regarding meditation, loving yourself, journaling, expressing, and making changes: Do not ask others to accommodate you so that you can do this. Accommodate them, if needed, so that you can do this. Do not create conditions or contingencies which “allow” that you can do this. Refrain from entangling any other person in ‘enabling’ you. Simply get up earlier, and be patient when tired, you’ll be falling asleep earlier soon enough. Past trauma may be deeply entwined in the body, with regard to perspectives, and unknowingly suppressed, held out of the light of understanding. It is important to be humble, and be smart. Take advantage of all resources available to you. In addition to the things mentioned above, experience assistance bringing things to the surface, into the light, out into the open. That is relief. ’Getting it out’ is the key. Schedule time with practitioners of well being; massage, reiki, therapy, yoga, liberated experienced meditators, etc. Making the choice to directly experience is 99% of ‘the work’. Choose to experience the combination that feels best to you, but do not rule anything you have not experienced out. You will be glad. Proper Foundation The quality of tomorrow’s meditation is impacted by all of the above. Recognize those as the basics, your foundation. This is - first “cleaning the house”, “emptying the cup”. If you are not yet finding peace in meditation, the things above are likely insightful and actionable. Use them as a checklist, add to it what you learn works and doesn’t work for you. Understand why. Be mindful of the direct experience always, not the goal or outcome. Never do practices for the sake of getting them done. Never do practices with the intention or expectation of attaining, achieving, or becoming. Let go of these in your practices. Never force pracitices, and never guilt or shame yourself regarding practices. Let go of these in your practices. Likewise, never pride yourself on or claim the benefits of your practices. A phone which knows the truth of wifi, yet claims it as it’s own, is no longer listening to the wifi. It is always about letting go, and feeling the inner being, the source, within. Posture, Balance & Relaxation Sit with spine straight, entire body equally balanced, head tilted slightly forward. Scan for any muscles in tension - from balancing the body, and reposition in better balance. Repeat until seated in balance; drop all muscle tension, and see if you lean; if so, adjust again / reposition for balance. Relax every muscle, from crown of head, through body, to the toes - in waves of letting go, over and over. If you struggle to ‘find the particular muscle’ to be able to ‘let it go’, simply tense that muscle with the appropriate thought, ex: “tense the right shoulder” - this is to locate it specifically - only to relax it / let it go, specifically (only needed initially, if at all). Stay with each muscle until you feel it release: Feel the crown of the head muscles release, feel the temples release, feel the eye sockets release, feel the cheek muscles release, feel the neck muscles release, the shoulders, the upper back, the lower back, the arms, the hands, the fingers, the chest, the stomach, the hips, the thighs, the knees, the calves, the ankles, the feet, the toes - all tension pouring out through the toes. *Stay with each muscle until you feel it release, then move to the next. Be mindful, vigilant of any habit forming. Feel every step. Feel each specific muscle release. * Repeat this, from crown to toes, over and over, feeling each “pass” more deeply relaxing each targeted muscle than the pass before. Notice the entire body unifying in relaxation. Meditation Do not move the body, allow it to relax into deep sleep and disappear from sensation & awareness. Mind fully alert & present; awaken every cell, enthusiastic presence, a tiger at-the-ready to pounce. Notice all senses are one sense, being. Being is breathing, being is breathed in, being is breathed out. Notice the ineffable spaciousness, the silent emptiness. It is whole, perfect, calm, peaceful. It continues on in all directions. Revel in the perfect peace, in innocence, as you recognize the purity that you have always known. Allow Meditation “Practice” To Become A Meditative Lifestyle As you go about your day, notice this peace is still present, this silence, this being - is always present, always the soundbed underlying and allowing all sounds, the spaciousness underlying and allowing all objects and activities, the emptiness allowing all thoughts to arise. Carry this into each day, mindful of the effortless nature of awareness. Conscious of any tension in any muscle, relax it, mindful of the one sense; without identification, without reaction, peaceful non-engagement. Notice the arising perspectives of unification & connection. Surrender perspectives of separation by allowing them to pass, and return to the everpresent peace and silence which allows all things. When you notice reaction, wether muscular or mental, relax, detach by being again aware, non-reactionary. Even as reactions occur, wether physical, mental, or verbal, be aware of, not involved in. Relax crown to toes, effortless awareness is always available & ample. Notice the sound of a voice, is not the sound of your voice. Be that unattached, and that aware, ‘that’ voice is no longer your voice, it never was. You are all sounds, all voices, all things. Be aware all transpires in the ‘one sense’, precisely where it is seen, exactly where it is heard. One Sense, one awareness. Notice thoughts are not your thoughts, be aware thoughts are things, like trees are trees; there is no mechanism found for justification of “yours”, that is just another thought; awareness is unconditional and omnipresent, and never appears in pieces, and has never not appeared, it will never let you down. Notice there is one sense, one awareness, notice the body and mind are a body and mind which transpires in this peaceful awareness, notice a body and mind is not your body and mind, notice there is one sense, one awareness, all is transpiring and arising in. After some practice a couple new things arise... When you have ‘returned’ home, in the peace of non-reaction, the ‘finite ceo’ / “decision maker”/ over thinker/over thinking - naturally recedes, and well being of infinite intelligence will manipulate the body (it actually is “the body”) , aligning things, stretching things, cracking things, etc, just allow this. It’s difficult not to mentally react to this at first because it’s new, but just relax, it is curative, trust it - notice a person is not doing this, infinite intelligence is. Mindfully revel & appreciate this miracle. A word of caution regarding thought stories & dualistic narratives Meditation at it’s most basic level is focusing on breathing in the stomach & relaxing the body, thus indirectly detaching attention from thoughts. Thought ceases in activity, simply from not receiving attention. The body is infinite intelligence, but the thinking dualistic mind believes it’s running the show. This is brought to an end in meditation, in ‘returning to’, or realization of, who you really are. When the body relaxes deeply, it releases contractions; tension from emotions created in misunderstanding via one’s forgetting who one is and “making sense” of self & reality in an apparent physical universe & separate body. These ‘held’ tensions are the root cause of overthinking. The mind keeps churning in an attempt to resolve with thinking, what is only resolved in feeling. When the body (infinite intelligence / nothing to know) begins releasing the suppressed falsities (all knowledge & specifically the idea of “me”), the mind creates narratives of the experience to perpetuate “it’s control”. In perpetuating the misunderstandings, rather than relaxing & releasing the suppressed emotions by maintaining focus on stomach breathing, the mind (thinking) weaves & latches onto varies models of duality to control the narrative. (Kundalini, demons, assertion, death, nervous disorders, past “bad” trips, guilt, shame, unworthiness, fear, anxiety & past stories, depression & future stories, projections, deflections, identity, loss, sacrifice, etc) But meditation is focusing on breathing from the stomach & relaxing the body, and thus indirectly detaching from thoughts. To believe any narrative which arises in meditation, is to sustain and perpetuate the “idea of you”, so as not to ‘directly experience’, you. So if you don’t want to awaken, but enjoy the fundamental benefits of meditation, just meditate for twenty minutes a day. Ideally in the morning. If you do want to awaken, realize you got caught up in a thought story, and meditation was focusing on breathing from the stomach, and thus indirectly letting thinking go. The truth is the mind is making it all up, and the “fear” is the mind’s label to justify denying the truth “of itself”, the profound love that is, that you actually are. Write about how you feel and why, in a journal, to understand yourself & develop emotional intelligence. Talk to someone who listens, so you can express yourself and your emotions. Write what you want in this experience of life on your dreamboard, and allow the surfacing of desire & authenticity to help you realize & release resistance thoughts. Live the life you actually want to live, the way you actually want to live it. https://sites.google.com/site/psychospiritualtools/Home/meditation-practices Posture Meditation This body-based meditation is a very effective way to get grounded and centered. It encourages an embodied, calm, and open awareness, and discourages disassociation. If you have a tendency to "leave your body," feel ungrounded, or disassociated, this is a good practice. Sit with your spine straight and aligned, and the rest of your body relaxed. Keep bringing yourself back to this condition. 1. Take a reposed, seated posture. 2. For this meditation, it is very important that your spine is straight. Your neck and back should be in perfect alignment. Your chin should be down very slightly. 3. If you are sitting in a chair, do not rest your spine against the chair. Sit forward so that your spine is supporting its own weight. Let the muscles of the spine be engaged. 4. All the other muscles of your body can be completely relaxed. Allow your face muscles to let go, and your jaw to drop slightly, so that your teeth are not touching. 5. Let your shoulders hang freely, and let your belly be soft and open. 6. This is the posture you are aiming for, with your spine erect and your body completely relaxed. 7. As you sit, keep bringing your awareness back to the fine details of your posture. Notice any time your spine slumps even slightly, your head leans to either side, or any other deviation. Correct these gently and repeatedly. 8. Also notice if any other areas of your body tense up even slightly. If anything is tensing, relax it in a gently and soft manner. 9. Keep checking in with the body, using your body (somatic) awareness; the feeling in your body. Mental images of your body will probably arise, which is fine, but these are not what you are concentrating upon. Instead, concentrate your awareness in the sense of your body. The sensitivity in your muscles, tissues, viscera, skin, and so forth. 10. The more detailed and minute you get with this awareness, the better. Each tiny area of the body has its own sensitivity to contribute. 11. Every once in a while you can zoom out to cover the entire somatosensory field -- the awareness of your entire body -- to bring the overall body back into alignment. 12. Keep relaxing every muscle everywhere. Use just enough tension to keep your spine erect, but no more. 13. Continue this meditation for at least 10 minutes, continuously contacting your body awareness. CAUTIONS: If you have any spinal injuries or severe back pain, it is fine to allow your spine to rest in a pain-free position. If you find yourself distracted by a lot of mental chatter, you can use verbal labeling as an aid to concentration. For example, when checking on the spine, you can say to yourself, "spine in alignment." When checking on the body, say, "body relaxed." Awareness of Thoughts Meditation By learning to watch your thoughts come and go during this practice, you can gain deeper insight into thinking altogether (such as its transience) and into specific relationships among your thoughts and your emotions, sensations, and desires. This practice can also help you take your thoughts less personally, and not automatically believe them. Additionally, this meditation can offer insight into any habitual patterns of thinking and related reactions. Observe your thoughts as they arise and pass away. · By “thoughts,” we mean self-talk and other verbal content, as well as images, memories, fantasies, and plans. Just thoughts may appear in awareness, or thoughts plus sensations, emotions, or desires. · Sit or lie down on your back in a comfortable position. · Become aware of the sensations of breathing. · After a few minutes of following your breath, shift your attention to the various thoughts that are arising, persisting, and then passing away in your mind. · Try to observe your thoughts instead of getting involved with their content or resisting them. · Notice the content of your thoughts, any emotions accompanying them, and the strength or pull of the thought. · Try to get curious about your thoughts. Investigate whether you think in mainly images or words, whether your thoughts are in color or black and white, and how your thoughts feel in your body. · See if you notice any gaps or pauses between thoughts. · Every time you become aware that you are lost in the content of your thoughts, simply note this and return to observing your thoughts and emotions. · Remember that one of the brain’s major purposes is to think, and there is nothing wrong with thinking. You are simply practicing not automatically believing and grasping on to your thoughts. · When you are ready, return your attention to your breath for a few minutes and slowly open your eyes. Optional: · There are various metaphors and images you can use to help observe your thoughts. These include: o Imagining you are as vast and open as the sky, and thoughts are simply clouds, birds, or planes passing through the open space. o Imagining you are sitting on the side of a river watching your thoughts float by like leaves or ripples in the stream. o Imagine your thoughts are like cars, buses, or trains passing by. Every time you realize you are thinking, you can “get off the bus/train” and return to observing. Awareness of thoughts and emotions is one of the areas of focus developed when cultivating mindfulness. In Buddhism, mindfulness is one of the seven factors of enlightenment and the seventh instruction in the Noble Eightfold Path. The Seven Factors of Enlightenment: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/piyadassi/wheel001.html The Four Noble Truths:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths The Noble Eightfold Path: https://tricycle.org/magazine/noble-eightfold-path/ CAUTIONS: Please be gentle with yourself if you notice that you are constantly caught up in your thoughts instead of observing them. This is both common and normal. When you realize that you are thinking, gently and compassionately return to observing your thoughts. If the content of your thoughts is too disturbing or distressing, gently shift your attention to your breathing, sounds, or discontinue the practice. · Remember that you are not trying to stop thoughts or only allow certain ones to arise. Try to treat all thoughts equally and let them pass away without engaging in their content. · This practice can initially be more challenging than other meditations. As you are learning, practice this meditation for only a few minutes at a time if that is easier. · It can be helpful to treat thoughts the same way that you treat sounds or body sensations, and view them as impersonal events that arise and pass away. · Some people like to assign numbers or nicknames to reoccurring thoughts in order to reduce their pull and effect. Breath Awareness Meditation Stress is an extremely unhealthy condition. It causes the body to release the chemical cortisol, which has been shown to reduce brain and organ function, among many other dangerous effects. Modern society inadvertently encourages a state of almost continuous stress in people. This is a meditation that encourages physical and mental relaxation, which can greatly reduce the effects of stress on the body and mind. Sit still and pay close attention to your breathing process. Take a reposed, seated posture. Your back should be straight and your body as relaxed as possible. Close your eyes, and bring your attention to your breathing process. Simply notice you are breathing. Do not attempt to change your breath in any way. Breath simply and normally. Try to notice both the in breath and the out breath; the inhale and the exhale. "Notice" means to actually feel the breathing in your body with your body. It is not necessary to visualize your breathing or to think about it in any way except to notice it with your somatic awareness. Each time your attention wanders from the act of breathing, return it to noticing the breath. Do this gently and without judgment. Remember to really feel into the act of breathing. If you want to go more deeply into this, concentrate on each area of breathing in turn. Here is an example sequence: 1. Notice how the air feels moving through your nostrils on both the in breath and the out breath. 2. Notice how the air feels moving through your mouth and throat. You may feel a sort of slightly raspy or ragged feeling as the air moves through your throat. This is normal and also something to feel into. 3. Notice how the air feels as it fills and empties your chest cavity. Feel how your rib cage rises slowly with each in breath, and gently deflates with each out breath. 4. Notice how your back expands and contracts with each breath. Actually feel it shifting and changing as you breath. 5. Notice how the belly expands outward with each in breath and pulls inward with each in breath. Allow your attention to fully enter the body sensation of the belly moving with each breath. 6. Now allow your attention to cover your entire body at once as you breath in and out. Closely notice all the sensations of the body as it breathes. Repeat this sequence over and over, giving each step your full attention as you do it. Suggested time is at least 10 minutes. Thirty minutes is better, if you are capable of it. If you find yourself distracted by a lot of mental chatter, you can use verbal labeling as an aid to concentration. For example, on the in breath, mentally say to yourself, "Breathing in." On the out breath, say, "Breathing out." Another possibility is to mentally count each breath. Self Inquiry This is a meditation technique to get enlightened, i.e. "self realization." By realizing who you are, the bonds of suffering are broken. Besides this goal, self-inquiry delivers many of the same benefits as other meditation techniques, such as relaxation, enhanced experience of life, greater openness to change, greater creativity, a sense of joy and fulfillment, and so forth. Focus your attention on the feeling of being "me," to the exclusion of all other thoughts. 1. Sit in any comfortable meditation posture. 2. Allow your mind and body to settle. 3. Now, let go of any thinking whatsoever. 4. Place your attention on the inner feeling of being "me." 5. If a thought does arise (and it is probable that thoughts will arise on their own), ask yourself to whom this thought is occurring. This returns your attention to the feeling of being "me." Continue this for as long as you like. This technique can also be done when going about any other activity. CAUTIONS: Many people misunderstand the self-inquiry technique to mean that the person should sit and ask themselves the question, "Who am I?" over and over. This is an incorrect understanding of the technique. The questions "Who am I" or "To whom is this thought occurring?" are only used when a thought arises, in order to direct attention back to the feeling of being "me." At other times the mind is held in silence. This practice of Self-attention or awareness of the ‘I’-thought is a gentle technique, which bypasses the usual repressive methods of controlling the mind. It is not an exercise in concentration, nor does it aim at suppressing thoughts; it merely invokes awareness of the source from which the mind springs. The method and goal of self-enquiry is to abide in the source of the mind and to be aware of what one really is by withdrawing attention and interest from what one is not. In the early stages effort in the form of transferring attention from the thoughts to the thinker is essential, but once awareness of the ‘I’-feeling has been firmly established, further effort is counter-productive. From then on it is more a process of being than doing, of effortless being rather than an effort to be. Do Nothing Meditation Many respected spiritual traditions, including Buddhism and Hindu Advaita just to name two, claim that the highest state of spiritual communion is actually present in our minds at all times. And yet many meditation techniques focus on creating some special state that wasn't there before the meditation, and which goes away at some point after the meditation. If the highest state is actually present all the time, shouldn't it be possible to simply notice it without inducing some change, or special state? That is exactly the purpose of the Do Nothing Meditation. This technique (which is really an un-technique) will allow you to contact the highest spiritual state without actually doing anything. Each time you notice an intention to control or direct your attention, give it up. 1. There is no need to get into any particular posture, unless you feel like it. 2. Do not position your attention in any particular way. 3. Let whatever happens happen. 4. Any time you notice yourself doing anything intentionally, stop. Doing anything intentionally means something you can voluntarily control, and therefore can stop. If you cannot stop doing something, then it's not intentional, and therefore you don't need to try to stop doing it. So. Anything you can stop doing, stop doing. Some examples of things you can stop doing are: * Intentionally thinking * Trying to focus on something specific * Trying to have equanimity * Trying to keep track of what's going on * Trying to meditate Let go of doing anything like this. 5. Keep doing nothing for at least 10 minutes, or as long as you like. CAUTIONS: It may be difficult for some people to notice any difference between the Do Nothing meditation and gross "monkey mind," that is, the ceaseless, driven and fixated thoughts of the everyday neurotic mind. If this seems to be the case for you, it may be helpful to do a more structured technique. Concentration (One-Pointedness) Meditation One of the hallmarks of modern life is the proliferation of distractions. As media become more pervasive, and media connections more ubiquitous, time away from distractions becomes ever harder to find. Previously, people were content to sit in restaurants, or stand in line, without a television screen to stare at. Now these have become standard. The result of all this, and many other causes, is that people find it increasingly difficult to focus their minds. Concentration is a necessary human skill. It makes proper thinking possible, increases intelligence, and allows a person to calm down and achieve their goals more effectively. A concentrated mind is like a laser beam, able to use all its powers in a single direction to great effect. Concentration is critical to many human endeavors. Being able to listen to another person, for example, in a compassionate and connected manner requires being able to shut out distractions. The experience of making love can be greatly enhanced when one is not, for example, thinking about other things. Concentration allows a person to stop being a "reaction machine" or "robot," simply responding to stimulii, and instead to become more thoughtful, self-directed, and confident. Concentration is an interesting thing. It is a very general ability. That means developing concentration in one area will help you concentrate in ALL areas. So, for example, if you learn to concentrate on a particular idea, it not only helps you think about that idea (which would be very limited), but actually helps you to concentrate on anything, which is very generally useful for everything! It's like lifting weights. It doesn't just make you strong for lifting weights, but strong for anything else you want to do! Think about one thing. Every time you get distracted, return to that one thing. 1. Find an object on which to concentrate. This can be a physical object, like a pebble or a feather. Or it can be a mental object like a particular idea. It could even be, say, your homework. 2. Cut off any sources of distraction. These include, but are not limited to, telephones, emails, computers, music, television, and so forth. Turn all of these off during your concentration practice. 3. Begin your period of by mentally reminding yourself what you are concentrating on. 4. Now begin to concentrate. If your concentration object is an external object, this may mean looking at it. If it is a mental object, then think about it. If it is your homework, then do it now. 5. Each time your mind (or eyes) wander from your concentration object, bring it back to the object. It is important to do this very gently and without judgment. 6. Repeat this process of coming back to the concentration object for as long as you wish, or until your homework is done. Cultures worldwide have developed concentration practices for both spiritual and practical reasons. Concentration is called dharana in Hinduism, and samadhi or shamatha in Buddhism. It is considered to be a key skill for meditation. CAUTIONS: Concentration can at first seem to trigger a lot of anxiety. This is, however, not the fault of the concentration practice. Rather, it happens because many people use distraction to avoid feeling emotions. Then when the distractions are removed, a tremendous amount of ambient, unprocessed emotions (i.e. emotions you are feeling but were unaware of feeling) are present. So it is not the practice of concentration that is causing anxiety, but instead it is the habit of distracting ourselves from our emotions. This may be the root cause of much inability to focus and concentrate. If that is the case, try meditating on emotions (below). Concentration and meditation are not the same thing, although they are related. Meditation (usually) requires concentration, but also requires relaxation or equanimity. Emotional Awareness Meditation This meditation brings about a great deal of equanimity with emotions. They will not seem to affect us as deeply or adversely. Many people have trouble contacting their emotions directly. Even if we feel that we know what emotion we are having, that does not necessarily mean that we are contacting it directly. To contact an emotion directly means to feel it in the body. This is the opposite of most people's experience, which is to related ideas about the emotion. Here is an example. A person asks you how you are feeling. You respond by saying, "I am angry, because..." You then go on to tell the person all the reasons you are angry. In this example, only the first three words, "I am angry" have anything to do with contacting emotion. All the rest of the explanation is about concepts. A fuller example of contacting emotions directly, that is somatically, would be to say, "I am angry. I can feel a sort of gripping tension in my belly that is uncomfortable. The tense area feels kind of twisted and sharp. Parts of it are throbbing. It also feels like it is radiating heat outwards." Notice that the cause of the anger is irrelevant. The practice here is to feel the physical expression of the anger as completely as possible. Extended practice of this meditation will bring about "skill at feeling," that is, a tremendous amount of clarity in the emotional world. Emotional intelligence. It will also help emotions to process and release much more quickly and completely, because we are not holding on to ideas about the emotions. The body processes emotion quickly, naturally, and fully. Feel the physical expression of an emotion as completely as possible. 1. Settle into a comfortable meditation posture. 2. Breathing normally, bring your attention to your emotions. Notice if you are feeling any emotions, no matter how faintly. It is not necessary to know precisely which emotion you are having, or why you are having it. Just knowing that you are feeling something emotional is enough. Guessing is OK. 3. Once you detect an emotion, see if you can find its expression in your body. Maybe there is a feeling of tension, gripping, tightening, burning, twisting, throbbing, pressure, lightness, openness, etc. 4. If you like, you can mentally make the label "feel" when you detect a body sensation of emotion. Other labels are possible ("emotion" for example). 5. Each time you detect an emotional body sensation, try to actually feel the sensation in your body, as completely as possible. Feel it through and through. 6. Completely let go of any ideas you have about the emotion, or self talk you might have about why the emotion is arising. Return to the body sensation of the emotion. 7. Continue contacting these emotional body sensations for as long as you wish. Meditating on emotions is a traditional part of Vipassana practice in Buddhism. It is, for example, one of the four main techniques covered in the Vissudhimagga (The Path to Purity), an important Buddhist text. (The version presented here is a summary of a practice given by American Buddhist teacher Shinzen Young.) At first, practicing this meditation may make it seem as if the emotions are getting bigger. If they are negative emotions, this may seem overwhelming for a while. This is natural. It is occuring not because the emotions are actually getting bigger, but for two interesting reasons. The first is because we are no longer suppressing them. We are allowing them to actually express themselves fully. The second is because we are observing them (actually feeling them) very closely. Just as a microscope makes small things look bigger, the "microscope" of attention makes the emotional body sensations seem larger than they really are. The good news here is that as the emotions express themselves freely in the body, they are being processed. Usually this means that they will pass much more quickly. If we are feeling a positive emotion in this way, it may pass quickly, but we will also derive much more satisfaction from it, because our experience of it is so rich and complete. If we are feeling a negative emotion in this way, we will experience much less suffering from it, because we are not resisting and suppressing it. Equanimity Meditation The cause of much of our upset and emotional instability is clinging and neediness around people we like, and aversion and negativity towards people we don't like. We also have an unhealthy indifference to strangers, who may need our help, or at least our good will. This equanimity meditation helps us to examine our feelings towards people, and correct them where they are mistaken. This leads to a more balanced, wholesome, and helpful viewpoint. It also cuts off a lot of emotional turmoil at its root. Meditate on three people (a loved one, an enemy, and a neutral person), examining and correcting your feelings toward them. 1. Sit in a comfortable meditation posture. Follow your breath until you feel centered and grounded. 2. Bring to mind the images of three people: someone you like, someone you dislike, and someone towards whom you feel indifferent. Keep these three people in mind throughout the meditation. 3. Focus on the friend, and look into all the reasons you like this person. Try to see if any of the reasons are about things this person does for you, or ways they uplift your ego. Ask yourself if these are really the correct reasons to like someone. Then do the same thing with the person you dislike, instead asking about the reasons you dislike them. Finally, do this for the person you are indifferent towards, asking about the reasons for your indifference. In all cases, notice where your ego is involved in the judgment of the other person's worth. 4. Next, ask yourself whether you consider each of these relationships as permanent. Would you still like your friend if they did something terrible to you? What if the person you dislike really did something nice for you? What if the stranger became close to you? Think about all the relationships in the past in which your feelings about the person have dramatically changed. 5. Now, visualize the person you like doing something you dislike or that is unacceptable to you. Would you still be their friend? Remember that many people have changed from friends to enemies in the past. There are people who you used to like, toward whom you now feel emnity. Think about how there is no special reason to feel good about a person who is only temporarily your friend. 6. Next, visualize your enemy doing something very kind for you. They might visit you in the hospital, or help you to fix your home. When you imagine this, can you feel positive emotions toward this person? Can you remember times in the past when an enemy became a friend? Is it necessary to feel that your strong dislike for this person will last forever? Isn't it possible that they could someday become your friend? 7. Now visualize the stranger. How would you feel about them if they did something very kind for you? Isn't it the case that all your current friends were at one point total strangers? Isn't it possible that a stranger could become your best friend? It has happened before. 8. Think carefully about how everyone deserves equal regard as human beings. You must discriminate and make decisions based on your knowledge of a person's character, but you do not have to hold strong feelings or judgments towards them. It is very likely that your emotions around a person will change many times, so why hold onto these emotions so rigidly? In Buddhism, equanimity means a very deep, even profound, state of mental balance and stability. It is considered one of the seven factors of enlightenment, and a hallmark of the third and fourth jhanas, which are deep states of meditative absorption. This is a traditional meditation from Mahayana Buddhism. Its goal is to arouse "bodhicitta' or the mind of enlightenment. There are other equanimity meditations from other Buddhist lineages (e.g., Theravadan), as well as from other contemplative traditions. (The version presented here is adapted from the book How to Meditate: A Practical Guide.) CAUTIONS: It can be upsetting to bring an "enemy" to mind. When working with the mental image of an enemy, be careful not to get lost in negative thoughts and feelings. If you find that you can't handle working with a specific person without getting very worked up, switch to someone less upsetting. Body Scan Meditation The Body Scan is designed to help you feel and bring awareness to the myriad of sensations that occur throughout your body. By practicing this meditation regularly, you can improve your body awareness and also better work with pain and difficult emotions in the body. Additionally, people report feelings of relaxation and renewal after this practice. Sit or lie on your back and systematically bring your attention to each region of your body, beginning with your feet and moving upwards. As you begin: · Sit or lie down on your back in a comfortable position with your eyes open or gently closed. · Take a moment to check-in with yourself, observing how you are feeling in your body and mind. · Begin to focus on your breath wherever the sensations are most vivid for you. During the body scan: · Try to bring an attitude of curiosity to the practice, as if you are investigating your body for the first time. · Notice and feel any and all sensations that are present, such as tingling, tightness, heat, cold, pressure, dullness, etc. · If you do not feel any sensations in a particular region, simply note that and move on. · See if you can be aware of any thoughts or emotions that arise as you move through the regions of your body. Note these thoughts and emotions, and then return to the bare physical sensations that you are experiencing. · Whenever you come across an area that is tense, see if you can allow it to soften. If the area does not soften, simply notice how it feels and allow it to be as it is. · Feel as deeply and precisely as you can into each region of the body, noting if the sensations change in any way. Also notice where they are located. · If you notice any pain or discomfort in a region of the body, see if you can practice allowing and exploring it for even a few seconds, feeling the various aspects of the sensation(s). Suggested sequence of body parts: · Begin with your left foot and toes, then move awareness up the left leg until you reach the left hip. · Right foot and toes up the right leg until you reach the right hip. · Pelvic region and buttocks, stomach, low back to upper back, chest and breasts, heart and lungs · Hands (both at the same time) then move up the arms until you finish with the shoulders. · Neck, throat, jaw, mouth (teeth, tongue, lips), nose, eyes, forehead, ears, skull and scalp. · Finally, become aware of the whole body and rest for a few minutes in this expansive awareness. The Body Scan is a variation of a Burmese Vipassana meditation practice that involves scanning the body for physical sensations. This meditation is also done in various yoga practices. The Body Scan is used in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), created by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. CAUTIONS: If you have experienced physical abuse or trauma in the past, it is not recommended to do this practice without a trained professional. Additionally, if you notice intense fear or other strong emotions related to a particular part of the body, please discontinue this practice. It is generally advised to take at least 30 to 40 minutes to complete the body scan. However, if you wish to do a shorter body scan, spend less time on each region of the body, and/or focus on both feet, legs, and arms together as you move through these regions. If you wish, you can practice the body scan in the opposite direction, moving from your head to your toes. Walking Meditation Walking meditation is a great way to begin integrating the power of meditation into your daily life. It is the first stage of meditation in action, that is, learning to be meditative while "out and about" in the world. It is great to do while, for example, taking a walk in the park, at the beach, or in another natural setting. Walking meditation is often recommended for people who are doing a lot of sitting meditation. If you are getting to sleepy, or your awareness is getting to "muddy," walking meditation can perk you up. Alternately, if you are getting to concentrated and mentally "stiff," walking meditation is a perfect way to loosen up a bit. Walking meditation is a common practice in Vipassana and Zen Buddhism. Pay close attention to the physical activity of walking slowly 1. Before walking, stand still in an open, balanced posture. Bring your awareness to the feeling of your feet touching the ground. 2. Now begin walking. Keep your gaze fixed on the ground about six feet in front of you. This will help you to avoid distraction. 3. Note and mentally label three parts of each step you take. The labels are "lifting," "pushing," and "dropping." Lifting - when you are picking your foot up Pushing - as you are moving it forward Dropping - as you are lowering it to the ground As you make each label, pay very close attention to the actual physical sensations associated with each of these actions. 4. After these three components become clear, you can add three more, so that the entire sequence is: "raising," "lifting," "pushing," "dropping," "touching," and "pressing." 5. Your mind will probably also engage in thinking extraneous thoughts, but just allow these to go on in the background. Your foreground attention should stay on the physical sensations of walking. 6. If you find that you have been completely lost in thought, stop walking for a moment and label the thinking as "thinking, thinking, thinking." 7. Then re-establish your awareness on the feeling in your feet, and begin the walking meditation again. 8. A typical session of walking meditation lasts a half an hour. CAUTIONS: Make sure to watch where you are going, especially if you are around traffic, other people, etc. https://sites.google.com/site/psychospiritualtools/Home/meditation-practices The Yoda Meditation https://www.thedailymeditation.com/learning-to-meditate-with-jedi-master-yoda-online-meditation-course/amp The Neo / Matrix Meditation https://www.dc-acupuncture.com/lifestyle-personal-transformation/how-meditation-makes-you-more-like-neo-from-the-matrix F That - A guided Meditation https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=92i5m3tV5XY

Hey! For all it matters I am more of an empath, I am looking for some advice regarding meditation and the shenanigans an ego does. I am using the Do Nothing meditation, for several hours each day. I kind of feel stagnant with it now. And I am seeking something to compliment it with. See the issue is that when joy arises, when equanimity arises, when my innocence, the truth in my heart, is beginning to emerge: Instead of not doing anything and just going with it, I automatically shut it down. I believe that I am not worthy of these states or that they're not real. I ACTUALLY feel better when I allow myself to experience these states, when I let them take me... I HATE to say it, but I think Do Nothing is not so much for my ego. Let me clarify, I am not looking for bliss or enlightenment!!(Of course I am) but should I really be sabotaging myself? obviously not, which is what this is all about. Anyway I am not into explaining myself, if you don't get it that's fine... I don't want to drop Do Nothing entirely, it helps me develop, recognize, spaciousness, and I am very grateful for that. But now there are these dark, sometimes painful, emotions inside me. So uh... Anyone here more experienced and can direct me to something complimentary to Do Nothing?

I heard it in one of the recent films: "Gravity is a reaction to loneliness." I cannot unlike it. I triggers lots of buttons. It seems I did not post for several months. This does not mean that I was doing nothing, it seems I do not need spend time writing memos but I was living life. Is there any better film than your own?! One should keep living rather than keep watching ... However, I also realized that how attached I become to the project Center Self+Love. Once I realized that all is as it should be and there is nothing to be done it helped me to return to parvatha state. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To infer one’s existence no other evidence is necessary. The senses and the mind arising from the ego cannot serve as evidence relating to the Self. The Self is their basis. They do not exist independently of the Self. One’s own existence is self-evident. Bliss is the Self. All become dear only owing to the love of Self. Love is not different from the Self. Love of an object is of an inferior order and cannot endure. Whereas the Self is Love, in other words, God is Love.

Just putting this out here. Never heard something as radical as this. However this guy does radiate bliss like a yogi would. I have met monks in person, same effect but from a screen.

Time to create that Self Realized life. Set up, set up,set up. Getting lost was so fun. Way to nostalgic. Wht a mindfuck. Ok Alone is bliss.

This instruction written by David Godman about the technique of self inquiry is as clean as it can be. Let me share some points that indicate that one is doing it right from own experience. Sorted in a kind of chronological fashion. 1) The first stage is to hunt for the subject/perceiver/awarer of all experience/perception. This stage is the most brutal where one has to go the through the surface and mid layers of psyco-physical garbage or conditioning accumulated since birth. One cannot rest on any object until he finds the perceiver of that object. It is the most effortful stage. Very strong emotional reactions, wanting to quit this 'stupid' technique etc is to be expected as self inquiry is literally a process of self-mutilation and ego is shooting itself in the foot. Love, bliss, heart crap will run out of the window 2) If one can persevere through, the first few awakenings happen by accident (usually in a retreat like setting where one is practicing for 12 hours a day. Might happen on 3rd/4th/5th.. day). In that moment, one experiences what nirvana is; the complete cessation of suffering. 3) Then one goes back and forth, kinda dabble with the technique for a while. One has glimpsed heaven but now it feels like a fading memory. Some people might slowly forget about all this spirituality and get busy again with materialistic life after a while. Some might get more deluded thinking they are better than everyone else. 4) Only a few lucky ones keep up that intention of God/knowing the Self/Truth pure. They keep on probing within them slowly but steadily. The flashy days are gone. There is rarely any deep emotional or mental reactions or confusions as one regularly starts getting glimpses here and there; they voluntarily strip themselves of everything in perception. One abides more and more in that heart of being. 5) All thoughts, ideas, knowledge slowly get deconstructed. They lose their teeth. They can't bite anymore or dictate how reality is or should be anymore. The ideas of time, birth/death, suffering, humanity, worry, anxiety, philosophy, seriousness, even enlightenment or ideas about god/being/self ideas/progress/regress still look the same; but they don't have teeth anymore. 6) At this stage one might come to several unique, indescribable experiences. One knows, sees, feels oneself as unattached, unattached, unattached, undefinable. One feels so HUGE...while all of the world in front seems like a thin layer of bubbles ; a superficial surface over oneself. One feels oneself as never being born. The biological birth story is a fading memory at this point. At best one feels born afresh instantly only when a self referencial thought arises. One might occasionally get overwhelmed with a sort of brain dead, intoxicating happiness for absolutely no reason whatsoever. At this point one finally understand why no other action, knowledge, accumulation of any form or thing can ever yield Truth except pure Being. 7) Even all this is seen as they are, capricious non existent bubbles. A steady, poised being attention firms more and more. One forgets everything, one gets erased without any resistance or suffering cause he knows this is the natural course of events. 8) When all other is gone, self is gone as well. What remains is that which cannot be talked about. One is done. Even the idea of being done or something remaining is done. huh what a sweet joke

For what I learned it is similar to TM (Transcendental Meditation), but it won't empty your wallet. This is my fifth day practicing this meditation, this is what I wrote on facebook a few days ago: "Today I experienced samadhi (pure consciousness or pure awareness) for the first time. It was one of the best experiences of my life. Life changing. I'm not the same anymore. The curious thing is that I wasn't looking to experience this while I was meditating, I just followed the steps and it just happened to me. I experienced total well-being, bliss. It was a beautiful thing. It felt so very good, like nothing I have experienced before. What did it, is this type of meditation called NSR (Natural Stress Relief), which is a very easy and simple technique, that makes all the difference in the world, I can't even believe it. I had this experience on just the second day of trying this new meditation. Totally different from the previous method I was using for 500+ times, which was a form of mindfulness. With NSR I felt so so relaxed, very deep, I've never felt so relaxed in my whole life. But it's not just feeling relaxed, it's an indescribable peacefulness, so very sweet. Ha, I can't even believe what I'm saying. But that's what I experienced. I just wish that others could feel what I felt. This is a total game changer for me." It looks like, at least for me, this type of mantra meditation has worked. I really wanted the mindfulness meditation to work, but I didn't get that deep into it. akbal

@Leo Gura I would say that there are many enlightened beings who awoke because they wanted peace, bliss or heaven. I think its a question of what you want to achieve with this work. Do you want to escape suffering and experience heaven? then there are good ways to do that. Or do you want to fully understand? then there are other ways to achieve that.

This desire can be a good source of motivation, yet it can also be a major block since it is still a self-seeking orientation. The self desires for itself to be free of discomfort and to experience bliss. The problem with this is that the self will be repulsed by any experiences it perceives as suffering or leading to suffering. It will contract itself and cut itself off from certain realizations and embodiment. For example, if I am oriented toward being free of all my suffering, how can I learn and embody the love with the experience of anxiety and despair? I won’t be open to those lessons and expansions.

Braindump @ 11:54. Where does love come from? It seems like to me there are three different levels or framings to it. First. Love comes from other people. This is a kind of attentional/tactile love. Your girlfriend shows you love by being with you and sharing responsibilities and compromising. You husband shows you love by caressing you and buying you flowers and making the right decisions. Your dog loves you because she's loyal and is always glad to see you. Without these things, you are alone and loveless. Second. Love comes from within yourself. The sensations of warmth and bliss that is love is only ever experienced by the being that is you. Love is an emotion that you are experiencing irrespective of what the outside world is doing. Other people and pets only trigger that emotion within you, they aren't necessary in particular. Your boyfriend or best friend aren't "giving" you love, you are just doing it to yourself and they are triggering it. It is really self love - love borne from the self. Without self love, it is not possible to experience love at all - other people will not trigger love within you - you must be able to love from within yourself. You can trigger your own love at any time, like turning on a tap. Third. Love is the stuff of reality. This is a more abstract level of love. This is a kind of love coming from a perfection. It is the perfect juxtaposition of all the elements of reality. The love permeates everything for all time. It's hard to grasp because like a fish in water, it's hard for a fish to know the water it swims in all the time even exists. You can get an understanding of it just by becoming aware of how completely absurd the experience of reality is. It's absurd to equate absurdity with love (the irony), but nonetheless. Scale. Why is everything so big? I could easily spend hours walking around my town and not even see the same place twice. My town is just one town in many hundreds in my country. There are hundreds of countries. The surface area of the oceans is bigger than the land area of the globe. There are many planets in our solar system, some bigger than the Earth. There 250,000,000,000 stars in just our galaxy alone. There are 100,000,000,000 galaxies in the universe. What the fuck? Why? Life. What is that? Stuff that replicates of its own accord, makes itself from the inert matter in the environment, goes about its business and then decides to stop living and dies. All life is related to itself. Why? All life is primarily made from carbon. All life has replicating DNA or RNA. All DNA and RNA is made from the exactly the same repeating units, every single organism. Not only that. Even the simplest single celled life is mindbogglingly complex - its all chains and chains of lifeless chemical reactions all working perfectly together. Why so complex? How does it all work perfectly? And then scale again: there is so much life on Earth, it's literally endless. It's completely absurd. Those are two examples. Life and scale and complexity, it all fits perfectly together without a glitch or any gaps. It really should be enough to bring you to tears, that you are here to witness it. It's love.

Of course, nobody can ever be certain that the joy or suffering experienced was the greatest. However, I've experienced higher peak states of bliss than probably 99% of the population: The meditative joy of adept stages of meditation, the rapture of Jhana DPT and 5-MeO breakthrough + many small-mid dose trips Various drugs in high recreational doses taken on clear receptors with no tolerance like amphetamine, MDMA, Opiates, Mephedrone, benzos, GHB, Nitrous... from which the most blissful was love on MDMA and fapping to porn on amphetamine As for suffering, the peak state of depression and anxiety when I almost committed suicide because irritability and anxiety levels were simply unbearable. I think no reasonable person would voluntarily take x time of extreme suffering like torture or cluster headache to then experience x time of the most bliss they can imagine. I'd rather be unconscious

Having experienced this "disorder", i can say that Enlightenment feels exactly like depersonalization disorder the only difference is with enlightenment you feel the Love of God, omniscience as pure Awareness, and you become conscious of what you are. The depersonalized individual has no epiphanies as the Absolute because althiough they are detached from any sense of self - they are not identified with their true nature. (And this is Bliss/Love) I remember after awakening one of the first things i exclaimed was "holy shit this is depersonalization with an order of God realization!" And Shinzen Young refers to it as enlightenments evil twin.

A few days before my grandma passed, here usual face of which was a mixture of happiness but with a lot of anger and contempt for life was radically transformed into pure bliss. I wasn't their at the time, but my mom sent me a picture of my grandma's face a few days before she passed and I have never seen a more authentic smile. It was like a life time of penny-pinching and blaming others fell away. Maybe she saw a glimpse of enlightenment or God, I am not sure. but I can say, seeing this photo of her changed my life. I fear death so much less now that I used to.

I am tired of this, I want to die, can't take it anymore, Deception, lies, manipulation all they know, God If you're really in me, give me the power to rise above all this, Rise above this cycle, I'm really so tired of all this, And it seems to go nowhere, I just want to die to pure bliss, Give me that, my Lord, I am tired and fed up of the chimpery, Please I want to give you my life completely, It's not worth living seems like, better if you just kill me at birth, I don't want to live it's so ugly, Disgusting, can't take anymore, Give me the forever peace, make me desireless, Please God, take my fears away, this world is not for me.

My 2 cents: Let's say there's a hardcore stage orange CEO sitting in his office. He sees this video and says: Okay, this sounds pretty good. Let me try get into the present moment and see what happens. He gets into the present moment and literally nothing (with lower case n) happens. He just doesn't experience bliss, peace, love, enlightenment, etc. He's confused and doesn't understand what's going on. Well, he's still strongly identified with his thoughts, emotions and ego unconsciously. There's fear, attachements, confusion and hardcore conditioning beneath the surface. No wonder he can't experience the power of Now.

It is a difficult path, perhaps the most difficult one there is. And I'm not perfect at it at all. I'm still falling back into my old self and patterns. No wonder why people don't choose it. It is a grind against everyone and everything in life. It is the ultimate suffering. And virtually nobody wants to suffer. There's a deep wisdom behind this path, and rarely anyone sees it. It's not about my joy and happiness. It's about the world and how corrupt it is. People confuse this path with a stage Blue religious belief, but they're unable to see beyond their egos. For me, the easiest thing to do is to go with the flow. I am a master at that. I've spent the past two years drowning in pleasures, from one thing to another, but it's not satisfying anymore. Going with the flow means turning a blind eye to the suffering of others. I can deny it all I want, but it'll still be there, even if I don't suffer on a personal level. I feel responsible for the suffering of others, and that's the best I could currently do to neutralise things. Happiness is ignorance. It is an unconscious reaction that plays out after a certain period of suffering. It is a comforting story for the ego. The ego never chooses the difficult path, but nothing lasts forever. I am getting more convinced that this is the right path. And old wisdom backs me up on this. Old sages certainly had valid reasons for preaching about this path. It's only these new-agey flaky teachers that don't seem to have gone full-circle, nor are responsible for their words that advocate 'the path of least resistance', and 'following your bliss'. That's the perfect bait for an ego. The ego wants nothing else more than a world purely made for its own sake. And sure enough, you will face a lot of these, dying to defend their ignorance. However, in no way I'm advocating for going to the extremes and torturing oneself. I'm simply trying to balance things out. Mad people thing they should know!

In my awakening, I had the following clear insights: We are all one There is only Love energy True love is unconditional The Ego does not exist The true I AM is completely indestructible The true I AM is everywhere - in the mountains, in the rivers, in birds (the same words that I uttered during the glimpse) Life has a harmonious design Everything that I ever knew was an illusion and a lie. There is no such thing as time and space There is bliss and ecstasy hidden underneath the illusion These insights have stayed with me since the initial awakening and they have matured deeply. However, my monkey mind doesn't understand what Nothingness means because in the awakening, the awareness had a characteristics of Love. So, it is not even Love? Is there more beyond it?

I tried today the new plugging technique Calmness shared (Thank you!) and all I can say that it really makes a difference how deep you put 5 meo in your ass. Set: normal mood. was not afraid at all. Setting: 20 hour fasting. Had a shit 1 hour before. 7 mg hcl rectal (administered it standing, put it inside my ass up to the 0,4 ml mark), waited for 15 seconds and then sat on a stool. Eyes opened. Trip: Effects came much much faster than the last try I plugged 7 mg. In my last try where I put the syringe too deep up to the 0,6 ml mark I felt nothing at all. Now effects came after 40 seconds. It was an ugly feeling mixed with fear, then the heart beat was rising again and I was breathing faster. It was unpleasant so I closed my eyes because there I can concentrate more on my rapid breathing. I wanted to slow it down but then I realized I cannot control my breath in this situation very much. It was just so rapid and heavy so I let it be. After 2 minutes this heart beating and heavy breathing was over. I opened my eyes. I looked at the wall but it was a little strange like I could see the air in the room? Is this common on 5 meo? But this was too subtle so I dont know if It was just imagination. After some minutes a little wave of bliss came ( but not so strong, like after a good meditation I get these too). This was pleasant and lasted for 5 minutes.