How Can I Help Myself?

[faith]

If no other person can make me happy, then how can I, another person, make myself happy? 

[Prabhaker]

@faith

Happiness is the function of your consciousness when it is awake, unhappiness is the function of your consciousness when it is asleep. Unconsciousness is your mirror burdened with much dust and luggage and the past. 

Happiness is when the burden has been dropped and the mirror is found again; your mirror can again reflect the trees and the sun and the sand and the sea and the stars. When you have again become innocent, when you again have the eyes of a child – in that clarity you are happy.

I was reading a few beautiful lines of Michael Adam:

“Perhaps trying even makes for unhappiness. Perhaps all the din of my desiring has kept the strange bird from my shoulder. I have tried so long and so loud after happiness. I have looked so far and wide. I have always imagined that happiness is an island in the river. Perhaps it is the river. I have thought happiness to be the name of an inn at the end of the road. Perhaps it is the road. I have believed that happiness was always tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Perhaps it is here. Perhaps it is now. I have looked everywhere else.

“So: here and now.

“But here and now is clearly unhappiness. Perhaps then, no such thing as happiness. Perhaps happiness exists not, it is just a dream created by an unhappy mind. Certainly it cannot be as I unhappily imagine it. Here and now there is not happiness. So happiness is not. I need not therefore waste myself on what is not. I can forget about happiness then; I can cease to care and instead concern myself with something that I do know, can feel and fully experience. Happiness is an idle dream: now it is morning. I can awaken and stay with unhappiness, with what is real under the sun this moment. And now I see how much of my unhappiness came from trying to be happy; even I can see that trying is unhappiness. Happiness does not try….

“At last I am here and now. At last I am what I am. I am unpretending, at ease. I am unhappy – so what? But is this what I ran from? Is this really unhappiness?”

Think over it, meditate over it.

“And when I cease to try to be happy or anything else, when I do not seek anymore, when I do not care to go anywhere, get anything, then it seems I am already arrived in a strange place: I am here and now. When I see that I can do nothing, that all my doing is the same dream, in the moment that I see this, my mind the old dreamer and wanderer is for the moment still and present.”

Naturally. If you are not searching, not seeking, not desiring, not dreaming, for a moment the mind falls into a silence, is still. There is nothing to hanker about, nothing to make a fuss about, nothing to expect and nothing to be frustrated about. For a moment the mind stops its constant chasing. In that moment of stillness you are in a strange place, you are in a strange unknown space, never known before. A new door has opened and for the moment the mind is still and present.

“For the moment, here and now, the real world shows, and see: here and now is already and always all that I had sought and striven after elsewhere and apart. More than that: I have hunted after shadows; the reality is here in this sunlit place, in this birdcall now. It was my seeking after reality that took me from it; desire deafened me. The bird was singing here all the while.

“If I am still and careless to find happiness, then happiness it seems is able to find me. It is, if I am truly still, as still as death – if I am thoroughly dead, here and now.”

Happiness suddenly jumps upon you. When desire disappears, happiness appears. When the striving is no more, for the first time you see who you are.

Osho, This Very Body the Buddha, Talk #1 

[faith]

1 hour ago, Prabhaker said:

@faith

Happiness is the function of your consciousness when it is awake, unhappiness is the function of your consciousness when it is asleep. Unconsciousness is your mirror burdened with much dust and luggage and the past. 

Happiness is when the burden has been dropped and the mirror is found again; your mirror can again reflect the trees and the sun and the sand and the sea and the stars. When you have again become innocent, when you again have the eyes of a child – in that clarity you are happy.

I was reading a few beautiful lines of Michael Adam:

“Perhaps trying even makes for unhappiness. Perhaps all the din of my desiring has kept the strange bird from my shoulder. I have tried so long and so loud after happiness. I have looked so far and wide. I have always imagined that happiness is an island in the river. Perhaps it is the river. I have thought happiness to be the name of an inn at the end of the road. Perhaps it is the road. I have believed that happiness was always tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Perhaps it is here. Perhaps it is now. I have looked everywhere else.

“So: here and now.

“But here and now is clearly unhappiness. Perhaps then, no such thing as happiness. Perhaps happiness exists not, it is just a dream created by an unhappy mind. Certainly it cannot be as I unhappily imagine it. Here and now there is not happiness. So happiness is not. I need not therefore waste myself on what is not. I can forget about happiness then; I can cease to care and instead concern myself with something that I do know, can feel and fully experience. Happiness is an idle dream: now it is morning. I can awaken and stay with unhappiness, with what is real under the sun this moment. And now I see how much of my unhappiness came from trying to be happy; even I can see that trying is unhappiness. Happiness does not try….

“At last I am here and now. At last I am what I am. I am unpretending, at ease. I am unhappy – so what? But is this what I ran from? Is this really unhappiness?”

Think over it, meditate over it.

“And when I cease to try to be happy or anything else, when I do not seek anymore, when I do not care to go anywhere, get anything, then it seems I am already arrived in a strange place: I am here and now. When I see that I can do nothing, that all my doing is the same dream, in the moment that I see this, my mind the old dreamer and wanderer is for the moment still and present.”

Naturally. If you are not searching, not seeking, not desiring, not dreaming, for a moment the mind falls into a silence, is still. There is nothing to hanker about, nothing to make a fuss about, nothing to expect and nothing to be frustrated about. For a moment the mind stops its constant chasing. In that moment of stillness you are in a strange place, you are in a strange unknown space, never known before. A new door has opened and for the moment the mind is still and present.

“For the moment, here and now, the real world shows, and see: here and now is already and always all that I had sought and striven after elsewhere and apart. More than that: I have hunted after shadows; the reality is here in this sunlit place, in this birdcall now. It was my seeking after reality that took me from it; desire deafened me. The bird was singing here all the while.

“If I am still and careless to find happiness, then happiness it seems is able to find me. It is, if I am truly still, as still as death – if I am thoroughly dead, here and now.”

Happiness suddenly jumps upon you. When desire disappears, happiness appears. When the striving is no more, for the first time you see who you are.

Osho, This Very Body the Buddha, Talk #1 

Do you ever have your own thoughts?

[Prabhaker]

33 minutes ago, faith said:

Do you ever have your own thoughts?

I don't think too much, I have experience but I am not a thinker.

[Dogsbestfriend]

There isn't much need for 'thoughts', your flow will guide you - like there are no 'decisions'.. at least not exactly - when they are in line with your flow there is no need for thoughts to deviate from it.

In regards to your initial comment, do not too worry that - you have the order the other way around- first you must love yourself. The capacity is there, just be patient with yourself while you work through the layers holding you back.

[WelcometoReality]

@faith That's a great question to contemplate! Can you actually do it?

[Nahm]

@faith When I really want to meet a goal, I set a goal that is higher. Happiness is conditional, thin, overrated, bland, ordinary, misunderstood, intermittent, and ultimately fleeting.

The joy that is my natural state, my connection to all things, my escape from death itself....

 

 

There is a subtle sense that has been there all along. Think about it, and it retreats, allowing you to think. 

Give your awareness to it, and it expands within. I know it has been there always.

 

What is it's nature?

Vulgar? Obscene? Pushy? Irate? Hurried? Important?

No.

It's subtle.

It waits eternally for my readiness. It allows me to do all things, it never asks for precedence.

It waits for me to eat what it did not yield for me.

It waits for me to put my foot in my mouth.

It waits until my show is done.

It waits until my conversations are finished.

It waits while I solve.

It waits.

It has no where more important to go.

It has nothing more important to do.

It is for me and me alone. 

 

If I could give it to you, I would.

 

It is for you and you alone, and so, it waits, for you.

 

 

 

 

 

[faith]

On 2017-08-01 at 5:14 AM, Dogsbestfriend said:

There isn't much need for 'thoughts', your flow will guide you - like there are no 'decisions'.. at least not exactly - when they are in line with your flow there is no need for thoughts to deviate from it.

In regards to your initial comment, do not too worry that - you have the order the other way around- first you must love yourself. The capacity is there, just be patient with yourself while you work through the layers holding you back.

Thank you for that analysis. I know I don't love myself fully because there are still issues within my life that I feel I am in a state of being "stuck" with. For example, I hate the idea of work. I am petrified of work, or doing things that I don't feel like doing - a typical Millennial attitude towards living (not that every single Millennial rationalizes this way). I have been trying to accept myself as I am for a long time, yet every single time I am reminded of that I need to "get things done", I procrastinate. I really want to make my dad proud because he is a hard working man who has always valued doing things, even if it meant sacrificing time for things you like. So you see, these little inner conflicts are a part of my daily reality. 

16 hours ago, WelcometoReality said:

@faith That's a great question to contemplate! Can you actually do it?

Well, the way I see it is that my question is an idea, but my state of joy is idea-less. It' s a battle between trying to logically appreciate life, and just appreciating life as it is. There is something in my head (and in most other people, I am sure) that wants to understand things, to organize the universe, and to have the answers laid out on paper. Slowly, but surely, however, I am seeing that it's an exhaustive, counterproductive loop. The only way to have the answer is to stop looking for it, and convince myself that regardless of the answer, just be. And what I really understand now is that life is a process by which I keep on reminding myself to love and accept. 

12 hours ago, Nahm said:

@faith When I really want to meet a goal, I set a goal that is higher. Happiness is conditional, thin, overrated, bland, ordinary, misunderstood, intermittent, and ultimately fleeting.

The joy that is my natural state, my connection to all things, my escape from death itself....

 

 

There is a subtle sense that has been there all along. Think about it, and it retreats, allowing you to think. 

Give your awareness to it, and it expands within. I know it has been there always.

 

What is it's nature?

Vulgar? Obscene? Pushy? Irate? Hurried? Important?

No.

It's subtle.

It waits eternally for my readiness. It allows me to do all things, it never asks for precedence.

It waits for me to eat what it did not yield for me.

It waits for me to put my foot in my mouth.

It waits until my show is done.

It waits until my conversations are finished.

It waits while I solve.

It waits.

It has no where more important to go.

It has nothing more important to do.

It is for me and me alone. 

 

If I could give it to you, I would.

 

It is for you and you alone, and so, it waits, for you.

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for that poem, it's a beautiful way to look at things. And here is something I noticed:

When I am on this forum - I try to rationalize my existence,

When I meditate - I sense the subtle nature of acceptance,

And when I live my daily life - I try to rationalize my existence and sense the subtle nature of acceptance at the same time,

It's all a battle within. 

[Nahm]

@faith Thank you. It really is a battle within, until we surrender and win. 

[Dogsbestfriend]

@faith Honestly for me the change was so drastic, it well blew my mind (pun semi intended).

Procrastination you have is this thought that is originating from somewhere. When this happens you can analyze and dissolve it when you completely understand it (as you've partially done, but it has many layers). That is a very summarized idea, but that's the gist of it. For example me I had procrastination which came from a source of commitment phobia -> which came from a thought when I commit to something I won't be able to do other things. Which actually came from this idea I have to be able to do everything I want in some perfectionist delusion (world and we are not perfect that's ok). When I understood it, I could let it go. Often times you analysis will take you to places you wouldn't expect. And it's like a muscle you get better and better at it. That's why talking about your problems with your friends has a similar effect, you are deconstructing the source of it. However it's not always helpful if your friend leads you in the wrong direction.

Edited August 2, 2017 by Dogsbestfriend

[faith]

On 2017-08-02 at 8:58 AM, Dogsbestfriend said:

@faith Honestly for me the change was so drastic, it well blew my mind (pun semi intended).

Procrastination you have is this thought that is originating from somewhere. When this happens you can analyze and dissolve it when you completely understand it (as you've partially done, but it has many layers). That is a very summarized idea, but that's the gist of it. For example me I had procrastination which came from a source of commitment phobia -> which came from a thought when I commit to something I won't be able to do other things. Which actually came from this idea I have to be able to do everything I want in some perfectionist delusion (world and we are not perfect that's ok). When I understood it, I could let it go. Often times you analysis will take you to places you wouldn't expect. And it's like a muscle you get better and better at it. That's why talking about your problems with your friends has a similar effect, you are deconstructing the source of it. However it's not always helpful if your friend leads you in the wrong direction.

Yes, I definitely have a perfectionistic delusion similar to or exactly like yours, all though by now, I hope, it has calmed down somewhat. In the past, I was driven by fear (stress, pressure, anxious thoughts) to get things done that I didn't want to do. With meditation it's hard to feel the same stress or pressure to motivate myself to work. So in a sense meditation backfired for me because now I simply don't give a damn. However, I realize there is more to it than that, and I must keep my faith for the process. 

[Dogsbestfriend]

@faithI came to a similar block at a point, look at why you are using meditation - is it to run away from your problems or to understand them.

This can keep coming back the more effective mediation becomes for you because every time it's this new level of 'oh hey there is this button i can use to let all this go' - but it's not really letting go if you are just pushing stuff down. It's ok to sense sadness/fear etc, don't neglect what comes from an honest place, you will also process it much faster.

Eventually your motivation will come from a simple desire to experience the world. Not because you want this or that - your gonna be reading that book for the knowledge or dance to that song because you like it, not because for example you want to brag you read x book or your dancing because someone is forcing you (couldn't think of anything else there :p). Your real motivation will surface for you when you remove the false drives.

Edited August 5, 2017 by Dogsbestfriend