Hard To Manage Emotional Labour When Reading Very Profound Teachings About Existence

[Guest username]

@Dan Arnautu What does that look like, your imagination going haywire?

[Dan Arnautu]

15 minutes ago, username said:

@Dan Arnautu What does that look like, your imagination going haywire?

Myself being made of nothing, unconsciously trying to look at reality like a digital simulation, nothing being real but being there simultaneously, thinking that I do exist, but I exist in emptiness, everything not being threedimensional but something else, maybe flat but I just don't see it. All kinds of shit, some which I can't even articulate in words. Or, I unconsciously try to imagine what if when I die, consciousness will be recycled into the multiverse, another universe with entirely different fundamental laws than here. What would that look like? I wouldn't know but my mind is still trying to force a fit.

All the while it is making me confused because I can actually manipulate stuff. I see that when I eat 1500kcal per day I start to lose 1kg of fat per week, I see that when I play a chord it sounds the same everytime I play it, but there is no hearer. It's just the happening of the hearing, nothing more.

Imagine these thoughts at 2000 RPM, haha

Maybe I should just get a dog. All of this theorizing can make me go insane, lol

Edited May 28, 2017 by Dan Arnautu

[Guest username]

@Dan Arnautu I don't think you should distract yourself with a dog.

To me it sounds like you're identifying with the thoughts. On the surface you know those thoughts aren't you, but look at the subtle implications of what you're saying here. Your thoughts feel like reality to you. 

Do you have a spiritual practice? Like people said on this thread, you need to sit down and learn to not resist. Just drop your resistance and get in touch with what IS, not what your mind thinks reality is.

Theorizing is well and fine, but it sounds like you need to work on being able to handle consciousness work and you need to work on the actual investigation through spiritual practice, not through ideas alone.

Edited May 28, 2017 by username

[Dan Arnautu]

@username And how to I work towards being able to handle consciousness work? Yes, the thoughts feel like reality when they happen. Is meditation the ONLY way to overcome it? I meditated today for a first time after a long layoff and it felt great.

Also, worthy of mentioning is that I'm not pursuing enlightenment right now. All the questions I'm asking and researching are just for schoolwork for my degree. And for me it's much easier to include nonduality in the schoolwork because none of my peers do that and I can get high grades easily with it. Though -> it leads to unconscious self inquiry and emotional labour.

So what is actually happening is that I do advanced level stuff for school, stuff that I don't think I'm ready to integrate in my life yet at this level. I don't let myself go at my own pace.

I remember Sadhguru saying the following as a metaphor for enlightenment: ”When you are not physically fit, climbing a mountain is extremely hard, but when you ARE physically fit, it's a pleasure to climb it.”

Maybe I just haven't done enough meditation to be able to relate to my thoughts from a 3rd point of view, thus creating unnecessary suffering for myself, cutting myself with my own mind.

Edited May 28, 2017 by Dan Arnautu

[Guest username]

@Dan Arnautu Well, meditation certain helps as do the other aspects of inner work. You can do  journaling, shadow-work, self-inquiry, etc.

Being able to handle consciousness work is largely a matter of just doing it and being able to sit with the emotions and not identifying with them.

If you don't have some sort of inner-work habit in your life, expect handling emotions to be very difficult. It's sort of the Catch-22 of inner growth. In order to deal with your inner demons and handle them so they aren't kicking your ass so much, you need to face them and just let them do their thing.

If you're looking for tips and tricks to handle consciousness work, I don't think that will be possible or useful unless you're actually sitting down and doing the work. You're going to have to go through the emotional labor.

As for being able to handle it:

-Meditate and learn to just sit with it. You sound like you're resisting too much

-Have a vision and understand the importance of the work

-Know that you're growing yourself instead of getting trapped in a narrative of "Poor me, why is this happening? It hurts." Even if you don't think that explicitly, that mentality is probably manifesting in your life on a more subtle, insidious level.

- Quit identifying with your thoughts. Thoughts are meaningless. Contemplate that.

[Dan Arnautu]

@username What you said definitely helps. I will do that! Only one question, though. Can you give an example of ”identifying” with a thought? I know already that I'm not a thought. Do you mean it in a different way?

[Guest username]

@Dan Arnautu You've probably had the realization that you're not a thought, but you aren't directly conscious of it (I'm assuming based from what you've told me). I still struggle with this too; it's a tough thing. When I'm meditating, I can just witness thoughts. When I'm mindful, pretty much the same, but notice that you still perceive your thoughts as reality, even if it's occurring on an unconscious level.

I still think I am a thought. I mean, I sort of know I am not, but I still think I am the body practically speaking, which is just another thought. If someone held a gun to my head, I'd be fucking scared because I identify with the self-concept and all of the ego structures, which has subtle effects on my everyday life, such as perceiving my problems and existential reality as being anything more than a fiction.

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 That the table that I am holding my hand on is just a very high vibration through which I can not put my hand because it it moving much more rapidly than let's say a fan, not because it is solid.

You realized this through thought, not direct consciousness, right? You're seeing that as a reality.

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Or the fact that existence stems from nothing and that space sits on nothing etc. Things of the sorts. When I go deeply into them, my imagination goes haywire.

Same here.

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Myself being made of nothing, unconsciously trying to look at reality like a digital simulation, nothing being real but being there simultaneously, thinking that I do exist, but I exist in emptiness, everything not being threedimensional but something else, maybe flat but I just don't see it. All kinds of shit, some which I can't even articulate in words. Or, I unconsciously try to imagine what if when I die, consciousness will be recycled into the multiverse, another universe with entirely different fundamental laws than here. What would that look like? I wouldn't know but my mind is still trying to force a fit.

All the while it is making me confused because I can actually manipulate stuff. I see that when I eat 1500kcal per day I start to lose 1kg of fat per week, I see that when I play a chord it sounds the same everytime I play it, but there is no hearer. It's just the happening of the hearing, nothing more.

Imagine these thoughts at 2000 RPM, haha

Maybe I should just get a dog. All of this theorizing can make me go insane, lol

Same here, and here, and here, and here, and here.

None of that is real. You're identifying with thought by ascribing reality to them. By treating thoughts as your reality, you identify with them.

Edited May 28, 2017 by username

[Dan Arnautu]

@username Yea, I see that now much more clearly. More mindfulness meditation it is then,haha. Maybe Nietzsche was right when he said that the mind is an impenetrable fortress. Some things you just cannot see until someone points you to them. Same way with those guys that suffer from the American Idol syndrome who find out they don't have a voice only when the judge tells them so after they sing.

I think I should also practice the ”Flatten the illusion” exercise from Leo's video on ”Grasping the illusory nature of thought”.

[cetus]

@Dan Arnautu

1 hour ago, Dan Arnautu said:

Or the fact that existence stems from nothing and that space sits on nothing etc. Things of the sorts. When I go deeply into them, my imagination goes haywire.

Look at it this way Dan. When you play a song on your guitar, it's not only the audible notes that make the song, but the silence between the notes. And a silence put at the right moment can be very powerful in itself. Silence is like a canvas that you paint a picture on through music notes. Silence/stillness/nothingness is always around us. Nothing could exist without it, including a beautiful song..  BTW- I  picked up a 3 string fretless cigar box. Tons of fun!

[Dan Arnautu]

@cetus56 This made my day, lol.  Thanks for the input, bro. The best silence is the one before blasting a power chord at full volume, lmao.

[cetus]

@Dan Arnautu

1 hour ago, Dan Arnautu said:

The best silence is the one before blasting a power chord at full volume, lmao.

Maybe the big bang was just God hitting a power cord.