Anxiety and Awakening

[AmarSG1]

Hi
I was just looking for some insights into my current experiences. 

So I have suffered from terrible anxiety and negative thinking for most of my life. Nothing I have tried has been able to relieve me from this. Now, I have been on the spiritual journey for a few years. This year, however, I have experienced the most spiritual growth of my life. In meditation, I am now at the point where I am able to get into a 'no-self' state and be totally free of all and any identifications.

However, my negative thinking/anxiety usually pops up in this 'no self' state and pulls me out of it. My anxiety seems to be getting stronger the deeper the more I seem to awaken. I assume this is my ego trying to hang-on. But sometimes the anxiety feels unbearable. It is such a strange dynamic. On one hand, I am able to go really deep into myself and on the other, I am suffering the worst anxiety of my life. I think I am going to come to a breaking point soon where I will just have to let go of my ego. But something is keeping me clinging to it.

Has anyone been through a similar experience or have any advice on how to go about this? Thank you!

[Prabhaker]

1 hour ago, AmarSG1 said:

I have suffered from terrible anxiety and negative thinking for most of my life.

You are trying to solve it. You are worried about it, and you get more and more into it. You will create a bigger mess because anxiety cannot be solved through thinking. It cannot be dissolved through thinking because thinking itself is a sort of anxiety.

Don’t do anything with anxiety. Just be alert!

When we are in deep anxiety we are never here now. Anxiety means of the future or of the past. Anxiety is never in the present , anxiety cannot be of the present. Old tendencies, old habits, will force you to go into the future and into the past. Don't fight with anxiety. The moment you remember, relax -- relax in the now.

Relax your body, relax your behavior, relax your acts. Walk in a relaxed way, eat in a relaxed way, talk, listen in a relaxed way. Slow down every process. Don't be in a hurry and don't be in haste. 

[Salvijus]

Try some chanting

[Bill Eichman]

Anxiety about what?

I am going to bet it is not about atman and brahman. Not about no-self. 

Mind and it's contents is very large. Ridiculously large.

You have done a practice for a while. Not long by most standards. You can create a state. 

How far into the mind and its contents do you figure that state that you can create goes?

You are in your state, made possible by practice. "However, my negative thinking/anxiety usually pops up in this 'no self' state and pulls me out of it. My anxiety seems to be getting stronger the deeper the more I seem to awaken."

Where do the anxieties come from? They are habits and patterns of thinking, coming from the body-mind. You have practiced them for many years. With those years of practice, it's pretty easy for you to attain the state of anxieties inside of the state of no-self.  The anxiety skills you have are out there in the vast mind and its contents. You enter no-self - or you enter some state. It attracts those skilled anxiety states like a light attracts moths. They come running to play in the light.

 

That's why they are getting stronger. You are feeding them. You concentrate your attention, using your practice, and create a pool of focused attention. Is there anything an anxiety loves more than attention?

Do some work on the anxieties. Resolve when can be resolved. Correct errors, if you can. Face problems that are real and can be faced. Make changes in the infrastructure of your attention and emotions.

This is one of the things that people tend to overlook with advaita influenced practice and it's results.

What is, is brahman. What occurs, is brahman. Your anxieties intruding, is brahman. 

Brahman is not an escape from problems. Brahman is bliss, and brahman is problems. Brahman's problems are your problems. 

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How large is the mind and it's contents? There are many ways to look at this and look for information on it that may be useful in one's practice.

Mandalas, thangkas, temple paintings, and characteristic sacred art offers some models hat the cultures that invented many of our favorite systems seemed to prefer for representing the size of mindspace.

Look at the backgrounds of many of the mandalas so valued that they were turned into important sacred objects. What do you see?

Dozens to hundreds of figures, many tiny scenes and stories, all dynamically active and filling every otherwise unfilled square inch.

That's a representation of what is within us.

Here's an example:

 

[Guest Quanty]

Do not stop the negativity, otherwise always will be there. Is part of the system, there is a good reason for it. 

[Highest]

Anxiety comes from identification with the ego and body mind, having an interest in what others think of you. If you can let go of the ego then do it, you will become free and realize that you are greatest that is. I'm quite short but it doesn't bother me at all, I know what I am. I am not my height nor my weight. No one can tell me that I am. Be happy, annihilate this false anxiety as soon as you can.

Edited July 8, 2018 by Highest

[Nahm]

@AmarSG1 https://www.actualized.org/articles/the-dark-side-of-meditation