Enlightenment As An Avoidance Mechanism

[Moreira]

I've been since kid a hard-case introverted, shy with social phobia. I improved a lot and learned to socialize, but never erase my social phobia at all.

I forced myself into social events to fight against my fears, but when I got into self development and Leo's enlightenment episodes my ego find the perfect excuse to avoid uncomfortable situations and my lifestyle became like a enlightenment junkie monk. I work in a job at night without people contact to detach from my ego.

I can find bliss being alone, If I want I can find joy in meditation. But I know this is a trap.

For some reason we are in this life to overcome our fears, and if we avoid them, they will come back again and again in different situations.

This escapism of masturbatory enlightenment has been my rationalisation to stay in the comfort zone. If I'm happy in the now why to approach girls and be rejected? why be married and risk to divorce? why run a business and get broke?

I owe it to myself, to stop avoiding the fears of life.

[Nahm]

@Moreira Meditate & contemplate your death. Keep returning your focus to this being you very last day. Imagine looking back on your life, your decisions.  I hope you experience a realization that there is nothing to lose, nothing at risk.  Take baby steps. Today, just say - today I will simply be ready for being free of my fears tomorrow. Tomorrow, just take a peak at the fears and that is enough. The next day sit with your fears for 5 minutes, and that is enough. Keep going each day. The reason these fears can be overwhelming is because we tend to approach them digitally so to speak, on or off, having it or not having it. But of course, that is not how PD works. Be sure that all great things have a trail of consecutive tiny things that lead to them. Baby steps are ok. Approach this as early in the day as possible, as will power declines through our day. Godspeed Moreira, the universe is behind you, within you and supports you, as do all of us. Enjoy the journey.

[Prabhaker]

@Moreira

"The man who lives in the future, lives a counterfeit life. He does not really live, he only pretends to live. He hopes to live, he desires to live, but he never lives. And the tomorrow never comes, it is always today. And whatsoever comes is always now and here, and he does not know how to live here-now. The way to escape is called "desire.", tanha – that is Buddha's word for what is an escape from the present, from the real into the unreal.

"The man who desires is an escapist. Now, this is very strange that meditators are thought to be escapists. That is utter nonsense. Only the meditator is not an escapist – everybody else is. Meditation means relaxing in the moment, in the present. Meditation is the only thing in the world which is not escapist, although it is thought to be the most escapist thing. People who condemn meditation always condemn it with the argument that it is escape, escaping from life. They are simply talking nonsense; they don't understand what they are saying.

"Meditation is not escaping from life: it is escaping into life. Mind is escaping from life, desire is escaping from life."

Osho, The Dhammapada: The Way of the Buddha, Vol. 1, Talk #7

Never be an escapist because escape is not going to help. The best arrangement is to work in the world but don't be lost in it. Work for five or six hours and then forget all about it. Give at least two hours for your inner growth, a few hours for your relationship, love, children, friends, society.
Your profession should only be a part of life. It should not overlap into every dimension of your life, as ordinarily it does. A doctor becomes almost a twenty-four-hour doctor. He thinks about it, he talks about it. Even when he is eating he is a doctor. While he is making love to his woman, he is a doctor.

My whole effort is to help you to be in the world and yet to be a meditator. Of course it is more difficult because there will be more challenge and situations. It is easier to be either a doctor or a meditator. It will be difficult to be both because that will give you many contradictory situations. But a person grows when there are contradictory situations. In the turmoil, in that clash of the contradictions, integrity is born. You become more centred.
A wise man has to be so wise that he can allow himself a little foolishness also. That is the greatest wisdom: to use foolish-ness also as a part of life so that you can laugh -- not only at others but at yourself also; so that you can play for no profit, no motive; so that you can simply relate to people for no reason whatsoever. "

The cypress in the courtyard ~ Osho

[krazzer]

@Moreira Even if you become enlightened, doesn't mean all your problems will be solved, there can still be stuff to be worked through after enlightenment. Here's a good video about that subject:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptkH0uK1uXM

I always was a social phobic too. Watching this video multiple times and doing the exercises helped me tremendously:

 

[Shin]

1 hour ago, Moreira said:

 

...

Facing your fears is like a cheat code to enlightenment, so there is like no reasons not to do it anyway

[Joseph Maynor]

2 hours ago, Moreira said:

I've been since kid a hard-case introverted, shy with social phobia. I improved a lot and learned to socialize, but never erase my social phobia at all.

I forced myself into social events to fight against my fears, but when I got into self development and Leo's enlightenment episodes my ego find the perfect excuse to avoid uncomfortable situations and my lifestyle became like a enlightenment junkie monk. I work in a job at night without people contact to detach from my ego.

I can find bliss being alone, If I want I can find joy in meditation. But I know this is a trap.

For some reason we are in this life to overcome our fears, and if we avoid them, they will come back again and again in different situations.

This escapism of masturbatory enlightenment has been my rationalisation to stay in the comfort zone. If I'm happy in the now why to approach girls and be rejected? why be married and risk to divorce? why run a business and get broke?

I owe it to myself, to stop avoiding the fears of life.

I would say you are attaching too much to ego.  You're labeling yourself too much. Stop doing that.  Practice self love and self acceptance more.  Work a little bit on drafting a plan for your life to move forward.

Edited June 30, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[ajasatya]

2 hours ago, Moreira said:

I owe it to myself, to stop avoiding the fears of life.

have you tried group meditation? why don't you join a sangha? yoga classes with interesting people?

have you ever been to an event that promotes healthy eating habits?

don't just throw yourself in places inhabited by toxic people. you deserve better.

[Joseph Maynor]

11 hours ago, Moreira said:

I've been since kid a hard-case introverted, shy with social phobia. I improved a lot and learned to socialize, but never erase my social phobia at all.

I forced myself into social events to fight against my fears, but when I got into self development and Leo's enlightenment episodes my ego find the perfect excuse to avoid uncomfortable situations and my lifestyle became like a enlightenment junkie monk. I work in a job at night without people contact to detach from my ego.

I can find bliss being alone, If I want I can find joy in meditation. But I know this is a trap.

For some reason we are in this life to overcome our fears, and if we avoid them, they will come back again and again in different situations.

This escapism of masturbatory enlightenment has been my rationalisation to stay in the comfort zone. If I'm happy in the now why to approach girls and be rejected? why be married and risk to divorce? why run a business and get broke?

I owe it to myself, to stop avoiding the fears of life.

I got a big challenge with this too.  I'm gonna fix it.

[Ananta]

36 minutes ago, Joseph Maynor said:

This escapism of masturbatory enlightenment has been my rationalisation to stay in the comfort zone. If I'm happy in the now why to approach girls and be rejected? why be married and risk to divorce? why run a business and get broke?

I owe it to myself, to stop avoiding the fears of life.

My advice, do what you will, but don't get attached to what you'd like the outcome to be. Think about that for a minute.... it's the attachments we have to our fears and desires that cause emotional pain. Accept what comes after you do an action (karma yoga). Sometimes the universe knows whats best for you.

It's thinking too far into the future or ruminating about the past, that usually causes delusion, pain and suffering. 

Another thing, every situation/experience has an upside and downside. If you have a job, you have money, but not enough time. If your married you have a life partner, but you aren't "free" to do as you choose, ect, ect. 

[Joseph Maynor]

7 hours ago, Anna1 said:

My advice, do what you will, but don't get attached to what you'd like the outcome to be. Think about that for a minute.... it's the attachments we have to our fears and desires that cause emotional pain. Accept what comes after you do an action (karma yoga). Sometimes the universe knows whats best for you.

It's thinking too far into the future or ruminating about the past, that usually causes delusion, pain and suffering. 

Another thing, every situation/experience has an upside and downside. If you have a job, you have money, but not enough time. If your married you have a life partner, but you aren't "free" to do as you choose, ect, ect. 

I think you got me mixed up with Moreira.  That's his language, not mine.  I am seeing though that there is a certain swath of theoretical foundation needed to be confident in doing the nuts and bolts of enlightenment practice.  You don't want to shortchange that.  The question though is when is enough enough?  And after that point, it seems as though it's best to get off the teet of theory for a while and just practice.  It appears more gains will be made there by making a shift away from theory to practice at that juncture.  I notice Leo recommends a voluminous number of books in enlightenment on his revised book-list.  People seem to disagree over this issue of how much study is needed however.  I will not engage with that issue here.  But at the end of the day, it's a tricky issue to determine when a person's thirst for theory has been properly satiated or not.  Imbibing theory after that crucial point will only cause bloating, immobility, and frequent waste emissions.

Edited July 1, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Ananta]

@Joseph Maynor oh, yes I did. Seems I quoted his post within your post, sorry.

[Moreira]

On 1/7/2017 at 6:02 AM, jimrich said:

 

In my opinion the childhood traumas, body pain and all this stuff are just excuses to have a victim identity that is comfortable.

I grew up nwith overprotective parents, then I went to a very strict priest school, where teachers (priests) punished the social behaviour and rewarded being quiet and submissive. So in adult life I'm a complete social retarded without social skills. And people often realizes that.

My biggest fear is to look like a creepy forrest gump in front of people who I care the most. Thats why I found an excuse to have fulfillment in meditation instead of developing meaningful healthy relationships.

 

[Telepresent]

@Moreira  Hello!  There have been a lot of replies here and I'll be honest: I can't be bothered to read through all of them.  So you may find counter-arguments and refutations of what I am saying within those.  Please treat them with the deserve they need.  But I'll also tread your query with the raw power it asks for.

On 30/06/2017 at 1:55 PM, Moreira said:

I work in a job at night without people contact to detach from my ego.

I can find bliss being alone, If I want I can find joy in meditation. But I know this is a trap.

Great.  Fine.  You know, a lot of people never, ever, ever, find comfort or joy.  So don't consider this to be a 'bad' or 'inferior' thing, just because of the circumstances by which you find it.  Firstly, every single person is unique in their experience of the world, so it doesn't matter a fucking shit what anyone else thinks, because they're not thinking/feeling/experiencing what you are. 

I'll also say, no, it's not a trap.  If it's what you really, really, really want, if you'd genuinely be ok with sitting on this hillside forever and never, ever, ever talking to someone again, fine.

The tricky thing is that meditation can make it seem that way, but in reality it's not true.  I like to imagine that I'd like a world without any other people in it.  Then I think about it, and realise that within three days I'd be bored out of my mind.

It's all perspective

On 30/06/2017 at 1:55 PM, Moreira said:

For some reason we are in this life to overcome our fears, and if we avoid them, they will come back again and again in different situations.

Ok, so how do you feel about this?  Like, if we were to stop talking about avoiding fears, how do you feel about this?

 

[Moreira]

5 hours ago, Telepresent said:

@Moreira  Hello!  There have been a lot of replies here and I'll be honest: I can't be bothered to read through all of them.  So you may find counter-arguments and refutations of what I am saying within those.  Please treat them with the deserve they need.  But I'll also tread your query with the raw power it asks for.

Great.  Fine.  You know, a lot of people never, ever, ever, find comfort or joy.  So don't consider this to be a 'bad' or 'inferior' thing, just because of the circumstances by which you find it.  Firstly, every single person is unique in their experience of the world, so it doesn't matter a fucking shit what anyone else thinks, because they're not thinking/feeling/experiencing what you are. 

I'll also say, no, it's not a trap.  If it's what you really, really, really want, if you'd genuinely be ok with sitting on this hillside forever and never, ever, ever talking to someone again, fine.

The tricky thing is that meditation can make it seem that way, but in reality it's not true.  I like to imagine that I'd like a world without any other people in it.  Then I think about it, and realise that within three days I'd be bored out of my mind.

It's all perspective

Ok, so how do you feel about this?  Like, if we were to stop talking about avoiding fears, how do you feel about this?

 

IMO the best option in life would be like Osho says lila (play), just playing the game of ife in the matrix while being enlightened, but this would require practise and time first exclusive to awakening process. Then I may be too old to become a social guy and form a family. Or let's say at the end I realize that enlightenment is a HOAX and have spent all my life following a deception.

[Moreira]

15 minutes ago, Nichols Harvey said:

You're lying to your Self. 

You are not in the now, you are still in the thinking mind and can't tell the difference between you and your thoughts or the self that comes up when you get lost in your thinking. 

It's very difficult to tell at first. So if you ditch meditation and just be aware of not being mindful, this will pop you out of that bubble and the world is your oyster.  

Go get laid.

I men I'm happy whenever I practise meditation, but when I come back to my thinking mind I dont like my life, so A-prolong meditations to reach a permanent state of awareness in the now or B- take the wheel of my life and make up for the lost time avoiding people.

[Erlend K]

On 30.6.2017 at 2:55 PM, Moreira said:

I've been since kid a hard-case introverted, shy with social phobia. I improved a lot and learned to socialize, but never erase my social phobia at all.

I forced myself into social events to fight against my fears, but when I got into self development and Leo's enlightenment episodes my ego find the perfect excuse to avoid uncomfortable situations and my lifestyle became like a enlightenment junkie monk. I work in a job at night without people contact to detach from my ego.

I can find bliss being alone, If I want I can find joy in meditation. But I know this is a trap.

For some reason we are in this life to overcome our fears, and if we avoid them, they will come back again and again in different situations.

This escapism of masturbatory enlightenment has been my rationalisation to stay in the comfort zone. If I'm happy in the now why to approach girls and be rejected? why be married and risk to divorce? why run a business and get broke?

I owe it to myself, to stop avoiding the fears of life.

Congratulations for making this realization. Realizing that you are trying to escape having to deal with your stuff is the first step in doing something about it. For someone suffering from life long social phobia, no amount of meditation is likely to magically fix your social problems. As others have suggested, your best bet is finding a good therapist, possibly combined with the right psychiatric medicine. I would recommend Nardil, wich is considered the "Gold standard for social anxiety". It has the strongest documented effect against social anxiety of any psychiatric drug, and none of the zombie effect/emotional flattening of SSRI's. If your social anxiety is debilitating I would at least I recommend you to look it up.

One of the biggest traps to be on guard for on the spiritual path is whats called "Spiritual bypassing" witch is, like you describe, a defense mechanism. Spiritual bypassing is the use of spiritual practices and beliefs as a means to avoid dealing with our painful feelings, unresolved traumas/wounds, and developmental needs, and legitimize this avoidance by imagining that the 'noble pursuit of spiritual growth' will someday solve all our everyday, worldly problems, making it unnecessary to ever deal directly with them. A lot of spiritual practitioners fall in the trap of trying to work out their psychological/emotional issues, only through spiritual practices, as if this was somehow superior to, or  “higher” than, engaging in psychotherapy. Some even view psychotherapy as an inferior means of dealing with their stuff, and something they shouldn't do. They may feel superior to those who deal with their emotion issues in this conventional (and strongly empirically validated) way, rationalizing that dealing with their issues only through spiritual practice is "superior"/"nobler"/"higher", irespectable of the actual real-life effect it has.

By focusing too much on your spiritual practice before you to a certain degree have your shit together, spiritual practices too easily become ego traps that dosn't lead to any form of freedom, but only reinforces the “I” that wants to be a "somebody who has attained enlightenment", since you are banking all of your happiness and social/emotional development on achieving this state, you unavoidably become attached to this outcome.

To quote Robert Augustus Masters:

"Spiritual bypassing is a very persistent shadow of spirituality, manifesting in many ways, often without being acknowledged as such. Aspects of spiritual bypassing include exaggerated detachment, emotional numbing and repression, overemphasis on the positive, anger-phobia, blind or overly tolerant compassion, weak or too porous boundaries, lopsided development (cognitive intelligence often being far ahead of emotional and moral intelligence), debilitating judgment about one’s negativity or shadow elements, devaluation of the personal relative to the spiritual, and delusions of having arrived at a higher level of being.

To truly outgrow spiritual bypassing—which in part means releasing spirituality (and everything else!) from the obligation to make us feel better or more secure or more whole—we must not only see it for what it is and cease engaging in it but also view it with genuine compassion, however fiery that might be or need to be. The spiritual bypasser in us needs not censure nor shaming but rather to be consciously and caringly included in our awareness without being allowed to run the show. Becoming intimate with our own capacity for spiritual bypassing allows us to keep it in healthy perspective."