Can I Allow Myself Sometimes To Be Neurotic?

[Viking]

for example to get used to a meditation technique, you have to force yourself to do it everyday until it becomes something you enjoy/dont mind. in order to get rid of old habits, you have to be neurotic. in order to stop being neurotic you have to be neurotic, in order to accept the moment you have to work towards accepting the moment.

am i missing something? or this is how it works?

[Preetom]

My own experience says otherwise. I've never successfully overcome any addiction or neurosis by brute force. It just doesn't work for me. I may evade neurosis through willpower....just to fall even deeper into the trap in the next moment.

Nowadays, I find myself unhooked from my gross addictions naturally. Gosh...I tried so hard for 3 years. Watching videos, reading books, daydreaming, making promises, changing my outer circumstances etc what not!! Every single effort was paid in double by relapsing even harder than before.

Now things being settled a bit, I'm really curious about if we possess any personal will to change anything at all! I'm sorry if I sound like a victim loser but it's difficult to explain my current paradigm. It's like you can only get your ticket to heaven by suffering and paying your dues. Only when the lessons sink into your bones.   

Right now what I've realized is that I really have NO control to whatever happens expect being aware of the knowing of that event. Nisargadatta Maharaj helped me a lot in this regard. His words are like a pull from the Supreme Reality.

[Viking]

@Preetom so basically what you're saying is that by wisdom and contemplation you got rid of some neurosis, i think. you cant act yourself out of neurosis, you can only realize yourself out of neurosis. but in order to realize yourself out of neurosis you have to start neurotically kinda because to realize you have no control is no easy task.

can you point to some videos of Nisargadatta Maharaj that you think are most profound please?

[Preetom]

@Ilya There is this video of Maharaj that everyone shares. I haven't watched it. I am reading his book "I AM THAT".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbOvjBchKkg&t=3998s

What I'm finding through my own experience is that whenever an addiction, neurosis, negative thought, belief emerges, It calls for attention. Really that's how the body responses when something is just 'not right'. When you are in perfect bliss/flow state, there is no recurring self consciousness and call for attention. So when an issue arises and I KNOW that it has arise, any thing I try to do about it or evade it just backfires on me. From that 'troubled' state any action I take is accompanied by self talks like, " You are a miserable fuck! Look how deep you are into shit and now trying to wipe it off.." so on and so forth. It all internally reinforces the very false perception that created the neurosis in the 1st place. So inherently I'm coming from a place of lack and unworthiness when I am fighting against an issue.

So what I do is realize that there is the witness of whatever arises. Neither the witness nor the witnessed is 'Real'. One cannot exist without the other and they rise & dissolve simultaneously. What I AM is beyond both. The Supreme reality that allows this play of witness and witnessed to exist. The very stopping and acknowledgement of this truth (Really I am trusting Maharaj here until It becomes my permanent abiding experience) helps me dis identify from whatever is happening and accept it as it is. Then I continue my day doing my block time practice sessions.

That's how I'm dealing with all the blockages in my life right now. I can't forcefully will or think myself to break free from neurosis. I've left the job of transforming me on the daily practices I am doing. The investigations/insights are done often so that I don't fall into traps and quit my practices. Hope that made sense

PS: This is entirely my experience. Brute force never really worked for me. Either the work spontaneously happens or not. The difficulty of the work also doesn't matter in my case. I've heard many stories how people quit decades of hard addictions like smoking, obesity etc through willpower at one go. But it never worked in my case. 

[orroz]

neuroris could be interpreted in a different way.

neurosis = natura state of human body.

your body is already neurotic, it has a set of patterns.

but you can't stop these habitual movements: they will find another way to express their energy.

the remedy is to change bad routines adding good ones.

In any case you are neurotic... even if you don't allow old patterns.

you can't be non-neurotic... regular meditation is a neurotic thing, as every other acts.

the best is to be at ease with your neurotic body-mind

Edited September 17, 2017 by orroz

[Martin123]

@Ilya not allowing yourself to be neurotic is neurotic

[smd]

I don't think you have any control over this.  I'll become neurotic without realizing it & see it in hindsight.

[Leo Gura]

@Ilya Sometimes you have to act your way out of neurosis. At other times you have to realize your way out of neurosis. Both are complimentary.

Watch out! Good habits done too rigidly, too mechanically, become bad habits.

The secret ingredient is consciousness. Meditating mechanically is not true meditation. You must advance to a point where you meditate consciously. It might take a few years of trail and error to start seeing the difference.

Rather than thinking of it as meditation, start thinking of it as: BEING CONSCIOUS.

Watch out for inventing mechanical ways to be conscious. That's the Devil playing this tricks. Doing one thing but calling it another. Aping consciousness is NOT consciousness, it's aping! See??

Try to sit right now for 5 minutes and just being conscious. No meditation. That's really what meditation is trying to get you to do.

And YES!, you can allow yourself to be neurotic. Allowing is the whole point of the process. You must ultimately surrender to the fact that you have no control of anything. If you're being neurotic, allow it whilst maintaining as much mindfulness as you can muster. Get used to letting the ego play itself out. Observe it happening.

See my Self-Acceptance video. It will help you with accepting what is. There's no use fighting what is.

[JustinS]

The best way for me to release the leash of my neurotic mind is to do a Float Tank once in a while. Just completely utterly surrender, not trying to surrender, but to just give it up. Letting your mind go complete ape shit for a hour or two is quite nice. Let that monkey out!