Is there a pre-stage required in life to start seeking Enlightenment ?

AudibleLocket · November 25, 2018

Hello Guys, im 21 years old and living in Brazil, meditate for 6 months.

I was woundering if i should forget about enlightenment for now and focus on my " EGO`S PROBLEMS". I have some social anxiety/shyness when speaking in public, and also i am not quite sure about my life`s purpose.
My internal debate is that i should develop myself to a certain degree before doing self-inquiry, or can i balance things doing enlightenment work while self improvement.
Is there a pre-stage required in life to start seeking Enlightenment ?

Nahm · November 25, 2018

Hi, welcome to the forum.

There’s no assertion, “requirements” are a meaning you hold; in actuality, it’s always been and is, up to you. Wether you believe what any one person says, is always up to you.

A speech course, like Toast Masters, etc, might be a fun way to develop public speaking with others in the same boat. Yes, forget about ‘enlightenment’ and be honest internally to expand understanding of conditioning / mental patterns, understanding emotional reaction, etc. Later, these won’t appear as two different things, but it appears your current definitions reflect meaning for enlightenment which is not helping. Doing proper self inquiry will bring these facets into the light of awareness. Have you considered the Life Purpose course? Sounds like a good fit / good timing. All of these avenues will be, and already are, culminating in unison together, eventually resulting in self actualization.

Watch for the trap of “I should develop myself before X”. Often, but not always, X is the very thing you need to do for the “development”, or breakthrough. You can face a fear to transcend it, and you can also self inquiry, uprooting it, and transcending it. Also, look for the distinction between developing what you actually are, vs learning, practicing, and getting experience, enhancing this life / experience / perspective. What you are can not be developed as you are already whole and complete, and have never been separate from anything. There is always room to learn and master what you’re doing in life.

Strikr · November 25, 2018

Real karma yoga, mean work hard for the pleasure of working hard.

When you have to think "working hard" it means you don't work hard enough.

that was it about this stage, 10k hours ? lel, 30k hours is more fair at this point for me.

but hours means nothing. Work with love, love for the work.

Edited November 25, 2018 by Strikr

Hellspeed · November 25, 2018

Yes, is called stopping seeking.

Jack River · November 25, 2018

Does Freedom seek enlightenment?

That’s the same thing as the self seeking security in itself(thought).

deci belle · November 25, 2018

hi Audible~ I love Brasil❤︎!!

It's just right now. There's never been any other time or place. Just this is it.

There is nothing to prepare for. Quiet meditation practice is ok, but realize that such practice is only reformative— unless one applies its supposed benefits in real time, absolutely no real and practical developmental refinement is accrued in terms of approaching unity of oneself and others.

Strive to accept your current human being in terms of responsibility for your actions (before and after the fact) and just share yourself openly with the world with open hands, without conceiving of the though to seek anything— as mr River suggests in the above post.

Seeking is itself a hesitation, a separation from this moment. Seeking is itself procrastinating! Seeking is also a form of craving, which must ultimately be dispensed with.

If you have learned anything from sitting meditation, just learn to activate it in terms of the quality of attention that applies to subtle observation of mind without dredging up conditioned responses to inner and outer situations.

There's no thing (out there); it's just your self-reifying perceptions (in terms of beginners' entry into open sincerity and self-refinement as an ongoing never ending process). After a long time of using ordinary situations to refine away the thinking self's self-conscious responses, one just opens up little by little to see reality as it is without as much self-reflecting consciousness to interfere with spontaneous accord with reality.