How Do I Get Out? Need Advice On Difficulties Regarding Society And Self-actualization.

[nexusoflife]

     My journey of self-development really began when I was 17 years old. I have always been an intellectually rigorous person and have always been interested in various areas of science and philosophy. My whole life I have always had an appetite for profundity. As a child I would have vivid dreams of space and the world at large which I couldn’t understand at the time. Growing up I have always read books and reading is an integral part of my life. With this being said all my life I have been told by many people, from friends and family, to complete strangers that I have a gift and that I should not waste my talents for speaking, sharing information and processing complex and nuanced subjects. For the most part I have always done good in school however as I began to find out how flawed the various schooling systems are I became increasingly disinterested in school.                                                       

     In March of 2014 the way I looked at life began to radically change. It was at this time in my life that I completely cut out junk food from my diet and later went vegan. I began to meditate every day. I became a minimalist. I read more books than I ever had and due to these changes I began to change as a person and the way how I look at the world has radically changed as well. Fast forward to the present day; I am now 20 years old. I have learned much since I was 17. I am now a raw vegan and I do intermittent fasting every day. I practice either do nothing meditation or strong determination sitting meditation for 30 minutes to an hour each day. I have had several moments of clarity as a result of my meditation practice. I have had very deep and profound unitive experiences as well. I have had psychedelic experiences with marijuana and psilocybin mushrooms. I am also beginning to think in systems and I’m coming to a better understanding of spiral dynamics and multiple intelligences. Most recently now in my meditation practice I have found that when I meditate for more than a half an hour at a time my head will begin to subtly hurt and a tingling sensation will start in my spine and spread to the rest of my body. I know that this is a result of my meditation practice and that my physiology is going through changes via the pineal gland and other parts of my nervous system. I say these things not to toot my horn and seem better than anyone else because I am not. I am simply giving background as I need some guidance in my life right now.

     With all of this being said I feel that I have become imbalanced in my life. I have invested so much of my time and effort into self-inquiry, meditation, and contemplation that I have neglected other areas of my life. I have long since come to a point on my journey where I do not personally know any people who are even remotely on this journey of inner work. And while I expected this to occur it is still undesirable to experience. Needless to say I feel that this has negatively affected my social intelligence and I would be very appreciative if anyone could offer some advice in this area. I myself am an introvert and thus I enjoy alone time more than social interaction however I see that right now in my life I am very imbalanced in that I don’t socialize outside of work. It has become increasingly difficult for me to relate to people as I can see right through the constructions of their egos (including my own) I can see the web of beliefs that the majority believe to be so concrete and true.  I feel that I have blockages in my mind that need to be addressed. Ever since I took psilocybin mushrooms a few weeks ago I have realized that I radically need to change my life. I know that I am not living my life in alignment with my highest values and I don’t really know how to structure my life in a way that I can live at my highest values. But I am more than willing to put in the learning and work necessary to get there.                                                                          

     I am a full time college student and I work part time. Most people would see this as a desirable situation to be in and while I realize the external positivity of my situation, internally I strongly dislike this lifestyle. I feel that I may be having a quarter life crisis right now. My family, coworkers and classmates all are completely immersed in materialism and their immediate circumstance.  I am polarized in that I want the opposite of what most of the people in my life want.  Being a minimalist I want a very simple lifestyle in which I can devote myself to meditation, acquiring knowledge, self-development and disseminating what I know to other people. Essentially I want to construct my life in a way in which I can have a lifestyle similar to that of Leo Gura or Ken Wilber.  

     Although I love my family very much I am becoming increasingly distanced from them and it is causing tension in my household. Not necessarily conflict but tensions between myself, my brother and my father. Before I got serious about meditation and self-development I was a very talkative person and my demeanor was very different to what it is today. It bothers them that I have become such a quiet person and that I spend so much time meditating and reading. I would rather spend time doing these things as I can see the long term benefits and I can also see the ways in which the people in my life cause many problems for themselves(including me). Because of my increasing clarity and knowing that I can’t directly help them as I will be met with resistance( as I have many times in the past) It leads me to simply want to focus on my own development in life.

     The more I continue down this path of self-discovery the more resistance I feel from society in general. I feel as if everyone who is entirely associated with the ego does not want others to actualize themselves. In society we must conform to a specific set of rules, beliefs and behaviors or else we are marginalized or ostracized. This is has become readily apparent to me. Since I have gotten serious about this endeavor I can no longer talk to anyone I know without having to seriously censor myself and hold myself back from being my true honest self. This hurts a bit because my entire life up to 2014 I have been the type of person who could constantly give people information on various subjects. In fact during grade school I had the nickname “google”, because I was constantly spouting information. With this being said I feel like every day I must suppress an integral part of my personality in order to fit into society without being met with negativity. I understand that the personality is a construct of the ego and belief system. However I do know that expression is also a necessary part of the experience of any living organism and that prolonged repression of expression leads to neuroses and psychological damage.  To address this, right now I am in the process of writing a book regarding human psychology and how it dictates our relationship with the biosphere and I have made good progress thus far on it. And I do feel that this is a good step in the right direction. It just feels right when I am writing, I don't necessarily know how to explain it but it feels like that's what I need to be doing.

     So to sum this up I could use some guidance and advice in my life regarding these things.  I am looking for a way out of my current lifestyle and I am looking for a way how I can structure my life to be in alignment with my highest values. Additionally I am looking for a way that I can either more effectively deal with the loneliness of the path I am on and or find a way to meet like minded people in my life. Any advice, information or resources one could provide would be greatly appreciated. I am grateful to everyone on this forum as it provides a place where like minded individuals can come and express things such as this.

Edited July 22, 2017 by nexusoflife

[Dizzy]

8 hours ago, nexusoflife said:

I have long since come to a point on my journey where I do not personally know any people who are even remotely on this journey of inner work. And while I expected this to occur it is still undesirable to experience. Needless to say I feel that this has negatively affected my social intelligence and I would be very appreciative if anyone could offer some advice in this area.

Hey there @nexusoflife , 

I can certainly relate to you very well. I am unsure if I can give any valid advice, but I will tell you some of what I went through. 

As I seriously walk on this path of true self realization, I am less and less attached to the external world. I realized that hanging out is no longer interesting to me, as I also rather spend my free time meditating or reading.

Initially, it was difficult to tell people about this "new me" that no longer seeks doing this or that. 

Also, at some point, it was awfully hard to be around highly asleep people. I was ready in a sense to give up everything to go to meditate in a cave for the rest of my life. 

Why didn't I ? Well, with a little help, I realized I don't need to shut down the whole world as I wished to do so. 

I can practite mindfulness around people and it became a fun practite to watch how others interact, worry and look for drama. I also did learn that is ok to put up a mask to be around people, especially at work. The Dizzy they see and interact is not the "real Dizzy". And that's fine too. 

Like I don't need to preach anything I learned on my spiritual path to anyone around me or tell my co-workers all the mystical experiences I had last night. 

I am learning to allow people to be as they are. Ok, mostly everyone I know seems to have a miserable life and at first was hard to see them suffering and be quiet about it. The more I told them my true about this path, more closed minded people became. Then I realized there is nothing I can do for them. I can only allow them to be themselves, even if they emotionally are just hurting themselves. I can not preach, teach or try to change their perspective of the world. I may be able to do so if one has interest on listening or may be looking for a change, but if not, nevermind then.

I learned that the best way to interact is to listen, and while listening I am aware of my own judgments. Doing so, it was easy to keep looking deeply into the situation and layer by layer removing the barriers that separates us. The only barrier is really what the mind creates. 

9 hours ago, nexusoflife said:

 Although I love my family very much I am becoming increasingly distanced from them and it is causing tension in my household. Not necessarily conflict but tensions between myself, my brother and my father. Before I got serious about meditation and self-development I was a very talkative person and my demeanor was very different to what it is today. It bothers them that I have become such a quiet person and that I spend so much time meditating and reading.

I also became distant from my family, boyfriend and dearly old friends, although it dosent mean I don't love them anymore (as some claim that's what happened) but much to the opposite. As I became more aware of our true nature, I found myself in love with all. They just can't see it ?

Adyashanti said " Make no mistake about it – enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretense. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true." 

So yeah, during the process of awakening our identifications will be declining, I suppose it's common to experience a release of many or all attachments of the mind. And that has nothing to do with non love towards family members. 

 

I guess we won't find people to talk about psychedelics trips for spiritual growth or Akashic records in ordinary work or school, so yeah, I also don't have anyone around me that I can talk to, so this forum came very handy to me  I am forever grateful for many people here that helped me greatly. I guess you can meet up like minded people on retreats, workshops or even Buddha-like stores/ coffee shops. I never tried lol I find too difficult and I am completely fine having online friends that I can deeply relate to and talk like I am talking to my oldest best friend. 

Not sure if that's any helpful to you, but thought I could share it. 

 

8 hours ago, nexusoflife said:

I know that I am not living my life in alignment with my highest values and I don’t really know how to structure my life in a way that I can live at my highest values. But I am more than willing to put in the learning and work necessary to get there.                    

Trust your path! You seem to be doing great progress and eventually you will know how to live to your highest values. Rumi said " what you seek is seeking you". Slowly but surely you will know. There is no hurry to figure this all out. You are only 20 and seem uncommonly wise for your age, so yeah, keep doing your practices and clarity will come

8 hours ago, nexusoflife said:

Being a minimalist I want a very simple lifestyle in which I can devote myself to meditation, acquiring knowledge, self-development and disseminating what I know to other people. Essentially I want to construct my life in a way in which I can have a lifestyle similar to that of Leo Gura or Ken Wilber.  

Being minimalist is one of the greatest aspects of my days now

You said you are going to college, is your major related to what you realized you want now ? If not, well, you know what to do...?

 

[nexusoflife]

@Dizzy Thanks for reading and responding to my post. It's people like you that make this forum such a great place to communicate these subjects. Right now my college major is in environmental science and while I am highly interested in this subject and know several career fields which my major is applicable to, I feel that going down this path will ultimately fail to fulfill me in life. Reason being is that academia typically focuses on hyper-specialization of occupations and subjects, this is almost opposite of what I am doing in my own personal learning. I know that i'm young and thus intrinsically inexperienced however I strongly feel that autodidactism will carry me much farther in life than continuing down the path of college academia. I learn much more about the intricacies and complexities of existence in my studies on my own time than I do while listening to my professors lecture. In fact the book that I am writing right now has already surpassed the standard length of a PhD dissertation and I'm not even a quarter of the way finished with it.

1 hour ago, Dizzy said:

I learned that the best way to interact is to listen, and while listening I am aware of my own judgments. Doing so, it was easy to keep looking deeply into the situation and layer by layer removing the barriers that separates us. The only barrier is really what the mind creates.

I really need to meditate on this right here. Its really powerful.

I'm at a confusing point in my life right now but you are right. I do need to trust the process. I guess that's just proof that I the ego is still trying to control every aspect of it's experience. The Rumi quote that you referenced has always resonated positively with me. I have come across it at several times in my life and it was usually during a time of confusion and change. Thanks again for taking the time to read what I have to say I really appreciate your help. 

  

[Dizzy]

@nexusoflife You are very welcome

[Voyager]

On 7/21/2017 at 0:00 PM, Dizzy said:

I learned that the best way to interact is to listen, and while listening I am aware of my own judgments.

Amen