Existential thoughts are normal or a disorder?

[Buba]

20 hours ago, lens said:

@Buba Don't deny the fear when it feels like it will kill you, wanting relief is a way of denying what the emotion means, it's a temporary distraction from the truth. It's the biggest shock to the ego is complete and total vunerability

Sorry I did not understand it. Is ego complete and vulnerable at the same time? English is not my native language, so my English is not perfect.

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when I had the ego i thought those questions mattered, but truth is they don't,  nor do they have any significance. deconstruct the fuck out of your beliefs and see if they hold any water

You dont have ego now? Did you get enlightened or enlightenment is not the only way to lose ego?

Can we live without beliefs? I myself have not conducted a research to prove myself that cigarette is harmful to health, but I believe it and based on that belief I gave up smoking.

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the truth of all truths ins't why is there a universe, it's why you are in it, find out what this "I" that is in it is and you will see everything for what it is and no questions will bother you anymore

How can I find "I"? Without help of mind. 

 

20 hours ago, Nahm said:

@Buba https://tinybuddha.com/blog/living-right-now-you-are-not-your-thoughts-and-feelings/

❤️

Nice article. So control is not a bad thing. She says we should not control our thoughts or emotions, but we should control our behaviour. Does not it mean that we have to be on guard all the time to act mindfully? So even thinking mindfully is ok (for example to do stuff related to job)? How can I differ mindful thinking without non-mindful one? She says "to discover real me", "what really matters", "values". I thought about these things now and came to some answers, like "family" and etc. How can I know that this is not mind made wants but things that really matter to real me?

18 hours ago, Natasha said:

Truth is not tragedy, it's liberation, peace, end of suffering, unconditional love. You're already truth embodied, just haven't realize it yet. Once you 'see' through the veil of the false sense of self (ego), you'll recognize your true nature is infinite being.

How can I see it? By daily practice? What if after seeing it I will unsee it again.

[Buba]

Thank you all. Thank you very much. You spend very valuable thing - your time for me here. I appreciate it.

I dont know how somebody without this forum, psychotherapists can recover (or get enlightened).

I have millions questions. But I will stop asking them in here. Just last questions and that is all. I will sometimes come to this forum to read, but not to ask question. Yesterday at night in my bed I was existing in pain and fear. But at the same time I was not scared of fear. I thought (or became aware, I dont know the difference) they will not be able to kill me. At most I can die of starvation, because I had a lump in my throat and was non-stop dry-heaving.  My brain seemed to explode and I was not sure if I was in my mind or in the now. I personally dont feel that being in the now alleviates my pain. Even in the now I feel on the guard not to go to inside mind again. 

Yesterday at night I was suffering, but existing in the now. And was expecting enlightenment to happen. I was in the now, but the ego, the pain, the pus was inside me as well. And also coping with state, acting mindfully, I was praising myself and bragging "I am brave", "I am so special", "I found the way" and so on (this was beyond my control). And I was comparing my state to the state of Echart Tolle and questioning if this is enlightenment, transformation or etc. I think I should drop this enlightenment issue, because it seems to become the desire of my ego. (Especially I see enlightenment as revolution, not evolution and starting to make it a new mission.)

I will see my psychotherapist on Wednesday. If she wants to prescribe antidepressants, I want to refuse it. Anyways as soon as I come to the end of antidepressant treatment (when the amount has substantially decreased), I start to feel terrible again. What do you advise? Should I drink or not drink anti-depressants? It is weird for me, how can substance make you feel good, if feeling good, happiness is a spiritual thing. Is enlightenment just the big amount of serotonin, dopamine, endorphin and etc? Why do people practice so hard then? Better to research hard to invent medicine, consumption of which will make you enlightened, as what matters is chemical procedures in your brain.

Is recovering from this psychological disorder and having a happy life the same with enlightenment? If not, which one should I pursue?

I will come and read your answers (of course you are not obliged to answer, you have answered a lot of questions, thanks). But I will not write. Because I write in autopilot and dont want any questions left unwritten, it all takes me to my mind again.

Take care. 

[lens]

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Sorry I did not understand it. Is ego complete and vulnerable at the same time? English is not my native language, so my English is not perfect. 

gotcha, same here. The ego is vulnerable, complete vulnerable, that's what i meant to say. It has no other choice other than to allow what happens happen, be it good or bad. He hates that fact because he realizes he has 0 control, and without control it can start to see the illusion for what it is.

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You dont have ego now? Did you get enlightened or enlightenment is not the only way to lose ego?

Can we live without beliefs? I myself have not conducted a research to prove myself that cigarette is harmful to health, but I believe it and based on that belief I gave up smoking.

So here's the thing, i used to think enlightenment was this happy state where the world became perfect because love is in everything, it's not, there is no such thing as enlightment, there's no one typing this, all of these words are happening by themselve because the illusion is perfect. "enlightenment" is the truth about your experience, anyone else trying to sell it as a magical state is trying to escape something. Try to be as aware as possible of your experience, notice that you don't know what's the next words coming out of your mouth, or mind, or even what your hands are going to do, you don't know what's going to happen next. 

And yes you can live without beliefs, as in, you can know about them but not waste your life energy trying to either test them or constantly think about them. There are somethings that are commo-sense which can help us navigate through this illusion, for example, gravity is a theory, there is no enlightened mofo that is convincing me from jumping off a building. Or for example, don't swallow glass. The world is a lie, but we have no other choice but to follow its rules, why do you think that scares the ego?

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How can I find "I"? Without help of mind.

you can't, that's the point, you will try and try you won't be able to find an entity, because there is no one there. Try the method of spiritual autolysis, warning, it will sting a bit

https://www.livereal.com/spiritual_arena/practical_experiments/spiritual_autolysis.htm

 

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I will see my psychotherapist on Wednesday. If she wants to prescribe antidepressants, I want to refuse it. Anyways as soon as I come to the end of antidepressant treatment (when the amount has substantially decreased), I start to feel terrible again. What do you advise? Should I drink or not drink anti-depressants? It is weird for me, how can substance make you feel good, if feeling good, happiness is a spiritual thing. Is enlightenment just the big amount of serotonin, dopamine, endorphin and etc?

When i was depressed medicine helped, however when i had only fear to work with the medicine only made me worse. If you are too depressed and you feel like you cannot cope with give them a try and see if it works, if your head gets into a better stage use this to your advantage and do the work, worse case scenario you switch medicines.

that's the thing, happiness is real but it is not a spiritual thing, i don't even know what that's supposed to mean, is it like something sacred? You can enjoy an emotion but try not to get attached to it, don't over glorify it, because the ego will easily get upset when it doesn't see the world the way it wants to see it. Hapiness, like sadness, occurs when an invent triggers something in our brains, that doesn't mean we don't feel what we feel, it also doesn't mean this is the blessing of the goddess themselves which cannot be deconstructed in some way or another, of course it can, if you can deconstruct the "I" that feels it why can't you deconstruct the world it lives in?

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Why do people practice so hard then? Better to research hard to invent medicine, consumption of which will make you enlightened, as what matters is chemical procedures in your brain.

Because of fear, the more you refuse to acknowledge the truth the more you have to work for it, but people don't want to accept it, so they get stuck for years. And sure, that could work, why would that be a problem? If everything is a chemical reaction why should you care for what is real? Your mother is a chemical reaction, your suffering is a chemical reaction, your identity is a chemical reaction, what does that tell you? There is no such thing as enlightment, there is no such a thing as a self. You aren't the brain, remenber there are rules that need to be followed, it's what keeps this illusion so strong. I think leo would say something like "there is such a medicine, have you tried pyschidelics" but knowing what OCD can do, I recommend you don't go for it, your mind might see something scary and get you even more stuck.

[Nahm]

3 hours ago, Buba said:

 Nice article. So control is not a bad thing. She says we should not control our thoughts or emotions, but we should control our behaviour. Does not it mean that we have to be on guard all the time to act mindfully? So even thinking mindfully is ok (for example to do stuff related to job)? How can I differ mindful thinking without non-mindful one? She says "to discover real me", "what really matters", "values". I thought about these things now and came to some answers, like "family" and etc. How can I know that this is not mind made wants but things that really matter to real me?

How can I see it? By daily practice? What if after seeing it I will unsee it again.

There really aren’t bad and good just a circus of individual preferences.  Control is rooted in thinking which is illusionary ultimately, so relaxing, stomach breathing, letting go of concerns, just being in the flow of the now is a state of mindfulness.  Look for the difference between acting mindful and mindfulness.  ‘Acting’ makes us perk up, ‘being’ makes us relax.  Notice the nature of consciousness is that it comes and goes. When it’s here, now, we are present. When we are not present, we’re ‘sleeping’ through life. So mindfulness at work is the same as mindfulness not at work. There’s a deeper thought pattern about work vs not work that takes time replace, but this is the freeing of the mind, it’s worthwhile and needs some patience. It leads to effortlessness by default, when all of our illusions such as this are no longer believed. The truth is called the truth because it’s the truth. Lol.  The ego believes. So believe in your self, until the notion is hilarious. There’s a paradox/circle/practice  of making more finite distinctions until we’re no longer separate, in terms of consciousness. 

Thinking and pain are the mechanisms that convince us everything is real. “Defend the body/person” thoughts (ego)  kicks in, veils the true self, and applies a percespective of separate ‘me’. This triggers fear, because it implies we are real, which implies we come and go, exist and then don’t exist, live and die, etc. This feels bad because it’s being in a state of incorrect thoughts about one’s self, which does not resonate with the truth of self. 

Yes, definitly be doing daily practices. Manage which ones to do so you don’t get stagnant. Mindfulness across the board. What you eat, how you eat, what you watch, read, relationships, self talk, honesty, personality,  everything. Sometimes I think it’s good to look at this like you’re doing the real work, the actual liberating work all day everyday. To let all of the baggage this can stir up go, we have meditation and sleep. The over all cleansing process could be sleep, then meditation, mindfulness, always mindfulness. Allow the falsities to reveal themselves. Stomach breath and relax through the rougher purifications of the mind, then sleep to rejuvenate again.

Being consciously aware and mindful enough to actually see through the facade of your own ego, your very own mind, is no joke. You can see this in the world. Jokes are funny because they are inappropriate. Comedians make jokes about everything, like, anything goes! But nobody is gonna make a joke to someone else about the degree to which their mind is free, or not free. With the truth in mind, even the most unacceptable jokes are funny. But speaking directly about one’s freedom is never funny. A deep part of all of us senses something profound about ourselves. We are tricky, tricky fuckers.

[Buba]

Guys,  I read from different sources that, you can recover from suffering only after enlightenment. So in this suffering I surrendered myself to pain, fear and was in the now. The fear, anxiety took my body and I was shaking. I stayed like that for hours, but did not get enlightened. I was checking constantly "is it enlightenment?". I thought if I never get enlightened I will be trapped in this torture. The fear increased. I waited may be increased suffering would make me stop identifying with mind. But nothing happened. And the next days I found out that I have new obsessive mission. ENLIGHTENMENT. I read for hours about enlightenment on internet. All I had in my mind was enlightenment. "I should achieve it, otherwise I will be incomplete forever. This is my only salvation." I wanted to stay in now and I was able to do that for several seconds and when my mind wandered I would bring it to the now. Although the now was horrible, boring, empty and frightening. I was trying to stay in the now with hope that I will train my mind not to feel emptiness in the now by practice. But the idea "enlightenment" does not let me do it anymore. It says "why are you in the now, move your ass and get enlightened as soon as possible. You are either in or out. It is binary. Devote yourself to enlightenment completely and after achieving it, you will live your life. Enjoy your tea, hang out with your friends and etc." I have had a lot of obsessive missions before, and I know how hard to kick them, almost impossible. And if I am able to kick them a huge emptiness replaces them where I have no drive to do anything. Please, tell me what to do? I surrender to pain and fear, but they dont subside. Does surrendering mean that I should live with them forever? But it is impossible. I cant relax, enjoy my life when I have pain and fear. Can an enlightened person enjoy the moment while somebody is cutting his arm off.

I bought Eckhart Tolle's book "The Power of Now" last year and started to read it slowly. In the beginning I thought it is a book of a wise man who fought against depression and won. Who will give practical advice how to be happy. But it turned out this book was somehow mystical. Who speaks about existence, god, and claims all people feel incomplete and unhappy because they are detached from god's energy and will always be like that until they rewire to that energy.

And his practical advice does not help me as well. He says when you are in the now you will feel energy. But I dont. I feel boredom, fear, anxiety, emptiness, no drive to do anything. My mind says "come to me, think, find an answer and get content". I do, find an answer, get content, but for seconds. And this cycle repeats. I have found answers which seemed to make me feel full forever, but it lasts short. My mind is always hungry. But when I come back to now I dont feel any attachment, love to now. It feels like alien. I had hope that I would rewire my mind to be in now with meditation and forcing myself to be in the now. But now I got a belief that whatever I do, how much I do, does not matter if I dont get enlightened. I want to persuade myself that I am not my mind, but I cant. 

I had a hope that with practice I can get a happy, content life. But now I dont. Because even if enlightenment exists and I practice hard to get there I probably will fail with such a desire to get enlightened. 

Psychotherapists say "you have a disorder and we can cure it", I say "no, it is not a disorder, all people including you psychotherapists are in pain, because we have dewired from existence and will suffer until enlightenment." So here I am paralyzed, not knowing what to do. I started antidepressant therapy again and actually it reduced my anxiety and fear a little bit.

[lens]

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Guys,  I read from different sources that, you can recover from suffering only after enlightenment

they are wrong

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So in this suffering I surrendered myself to pain, fear and was in the now. The fear, anxiety took my body and I was shaking. I stayed like that for hours, but did not get enlightened. I was checking constantly "is it enlightenment?". I thought if I never get enlightened I will be trapped in this torture. The fear increased. I waited may be increased suffering would make me stop identifying with mind. But nothing happened. And the next days I found out that I have new obsessive mission. ENLIGHTENMENT. I read for hours about enlightenment on internet. All I had in my mind was enlightenment. "I should achieve it, otherwise I will be incomplete forever. This is my only salvation." I wanted to stay in now and I was able to do that for several seconds and when my mind wandered I would bring it to the now. Although the now was horrible, boring, empty and frightening. I was trying to stay in the now with hope that I will train my mind not to feel emptiness in the now by practice. But the idea "enlightenment" does not let me do it anymore. It says "why are you in the now, move your ass and get enlightened as soon as possible. You are either in or out. It is binary. Devote yourself to enlightenment completely and after achieving it, you will live your life. Enjoy your tea, hang out with your friends and etc." I have had a lot of obsessive missions before, and I know how hard to kick them, almost impossible. And if I am able to kick them a huge emptiness replaces them where I have no drive to do anything. Please, tell me what to do? I surrender to pain and fear, but they dont subside. Does surrendering mean that I should live with them forever? But it is impossible. I cant relax, enjoy my life when I have pain and fear. Can an enlightened person enjoy the moment while somebody is cutting his arm off.

Enlightment doesn't mean to enjoy suffering, it means understanding it for what it trully is. No enlightened person can have their pinky toes stubbed in the wall and not scream at least 5 profanities. Pain is an ilussion to make you believe there is an "I" that needs surviving. Also it feels like you were trying to cheat the system, don't surrender expecting "IT" to appear, that is not that works. In surrendering you are not meant to achieve eternal hapiness or to be indestructible, it means you are able to understand it and see it for what it truly is, once you know that there's nothing to worry about it takes care of itself, but it takes a lot of time and practice. And no, you don't need to live with them forever. 

 

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I feel boredom, fear, anxiety, emptiness, no drive to do anything. My mind says "come to me, think, find an answer and get content". I do, find an answer, get content, but for seconds. And this cycle repeats. I have found answers which seemed to make me feel full forever, but it lasts short. My mind is always hungry. But when I come back to now I dont feel any attachment, love to now. It feels like alien. I had hope that I would rewire my mind to be in now with meditation and forcing myself to be in the now. But now I got a belief that whatever I do, how much I do, does not matter if I dont get enlightened. I want to persuade myself that I am not my mind, but I cant

Thinking got you into this, thinking will not get you out. The more you think about a "solution" you are creating another stories which in 5 seconds will warrant another problem to fix, that's the minds job. Also never understimate the effect of small changes, no matter how minimal, they can make a huge difference later on. You are not the mind you can't be, it does everything by itself without anyone to tell it what to do, heck it doesn't even know what is doing. Fear is an illusion to trick it into thinking it is something that is not, this "I" this is so worried. You don't know your next thought, you don't know how you are going to react to it, you don't know how you can understand what you understand, because that's not you.

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I had a hope that with practice I can get a happy, content life. But now I dont. Because even if enlightenment exists and I practice hard to get there I probably will fail with such a desire to get enlightened. 

Not sure if you will learn from this but i feel like it can help, the key is to trully understanding what he means

https://gatelessgate.wordpress.com/2006/08/01/the-worst-desire-is-the-desire-for-enlightenment/

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Psychotherapists say "you have a disorder and we can cure it", I say "no, it is not a disorder, all people including you psychotherapists are in pain, because we have dewired from existence and will suffer until enlightenment." So here I am paralyzed, not knowing what to do. I started antidepressant therapy again and actually it reduced my anxiety and fear a little bit.

Stop telling yourself these stories of what is the truth behind this this and that, it will only distract you even more. Enlightment is nothing, that's what it trully is, nothing at all. You need to fully understand that. It's not a bliss state, it's the truth of your experience, it's not different from what you are experiecing. If you have to ask "Is this it?" It's not it, it's nothing

[Buba]

How are you sure there is no self and everything is an illusion? Then why not to have a reckless life and commit suicide?

[lens]

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How are you sure there is no self and everything is an illusion?

@Buba Don't ask me that question, ask yourself that. You have to do the work first, question it from within not from others, all of your problems are internal not external

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Then why not to have a reckless life and commit suicide?

Incentives that are beyond our control, be it fear, love, desires, we don't control that. You don't have to do anything, live the life you want and have fun

[Guest Quanty]

You cannot stop thinking even if you try, if you did it congratulations, you just hid yourself in a part of your mind. Is life hiding in a room of the house and let the music go on running in the kitchen :).

Put your focus on the Breath, Literally until you make it a habit and automatic. Do this and your thoughts will make sense automatically. From what you run it will pursue you. Face it and it will disappear.

 

Blessings

 

 

[Buba]

I have done very small self-inquiry and meditated for several months. 20 minutes every day. I suspect now I have what is called “dark night of the soul”. Will it pass by itself or should I do something? By the way I dont want to chase enlightenment, because when I get depressed I cant go to work, but I have to work. Furthermore I got depersonalization/derealization, which was scary and discomfort for me. That is why I dont meditate anymore. I will live my average life. Am I coward? Yes. But I dont think I can handle all of this.

[lens]

@Buba Trying to do something is the problem, you think there is "something" that needs to be done like a mechanism or tecnique. It's normal, you are realizing the futility of everthing, don't run away from it, you have to accept it, once you've trully accepted it it won't mean anything anymore, not even nihilism, it's freeing.

"I will live my average life. Am I coward? Yes. But I dont think I can handle all of this"

If it works there's literally no problem with it, but knowing how this usually goes chances are you'll be right back where you started. If you cant do self inquiry while you work then i suggest you work a lot and try to do it whenever you get the free time like holidays or vacations. If you get scared during self inquiry that means you are doing something "right", you need to confront your fears if you don't want to live with them hunting you anymore, whatever you try to run away from will always be twice as fast as you

[Buba]

14 hours ago, lens said:

@Buba Trying to do something is the problem, you think there is "something" that needs to be done like a mechanism or tecnique. It's normal, you are realizing the futility of everthing, don't run away from it, you have to accept it, once you've trully accepted it it won't mean anything anymore, not even nihilism, it's freeing.

"I will live my average life. Am I coward? Yes. But I dont think I can handle all of this"

If it works there's literally no problem with it, but knowing how this usually goes chances are you'll be right back where you started. If you cant do self inquiry while you work then i suggest you work a lot and try to do it whenever you get the free time like holidays or vacations. If you get scared during self inquiry that means you are doing something "right", you need to confront your fears if you don't want to live with them hunting you anymore, whatever you try to run away from will always be twice as fast as you

I have done many self-inquiries before and never got any certain answer, conclusion. The certain answer would be “I dont know”.  The rest (like life is an illusion) is just a theory.

Doctors say I am depressed, dont follow existential thoughts. While spiritual seekers say it is a dark night of the soul. I see many people get stuck in this stage for years and most of them forever. I dont kill my ego anymore. I dont want to take such a risk, to be stuck in dark night of the soul. Can I escape this and go to my default mode.