What Has Your Journey With Enlightenment Been Like?

[PetarKa]

I have been resisting the pursuit of Enlightenment because I am still skeptical of the whole thing. Leo says that to see God and then to integrate God into your everyday life might take years, decades even.  That's why I keep pushing doing the spiritual practices into the future. It seems like a hell of a risk. What if I waste 20 years of my life and nothing changes? If I didn't "become" Enlightened for some reason, then I wasted 2 decades of my life just sitting on a chair and meditating. I could've at least lived in illusion and made the best out of it. I think I need a bit more anecdotal evidence about the "reality" of Spirituality .

That's why I want to ask you guys who've been doing the work for some time:

What Has Your Journey With Enlightenment Been Like?

[purerogue]

How about this, waste another 10-20 years making best of your life, until you will feel that you have wasted thous 10-20 years, after that come back.                            

[cetus]

4 minutes ago, PetarKa said:

I could've at least lived in illusion and made the best out of it.

The illusion doesn't go away. You still make the best of it regardless of knowing it's all just a game we played one afternoon.

[Salvijus]

@PetarKa im so happy omg. Spirituallitry is the best thing that happened to me in my life ?

[Anton Rogachevski]

Enlightenment sure is cool, yet there are things more important in this work:

• Shadow work
• Spiritual purification
• Quiet mind/Concentration
• Epistemology
• Emotional intelligence
• Cleaning your life
• Relationships
• Fixing Unhealthy Habits and Behaviour

Enlightenment works well with all those, but it's not all those. It's the crown of all development. But put a crown on a crook and you get zen devil.

It's absolutely worthwhile in healing suffering and living authentically. When it's right for you, you won't have doubts about trying it. Don't push yourself if you don't need it right now. First develop basic survival skills.

If you do chose to seek truth, research deep and extensively to understand intellectually what "enlightenment" really means, it's very easy to get it wrong, since it's so ineffable and mysterious. There are a lot hearsay out there, and you need to separate wheat from chaff.

Edited January 19, 2019 by Anton Rogachevski

[Nahm]

@PetarKa With every meditation, every yoga session, etc, delusion is minimized, and your well being is enhanced. This well being is the foundation of every facet of your life.  Do the practices to do the practices, just for you, your well being, your life.  Share this with others.  

[noselfnofun]

On 19/01/2019 at 6:28 PM, Anton Rogachevski said:

Enlightenment sure is cool, yet there are things more important in this work:

• Shadow work
• Spiritual purification
• Quiet mind/Concentration
• Epistemology
• Emotional intelligence
• Cleaning your life
• Relationships
• Fixing Unhealthy Habits and Behaviour

Enlightenment works well with all those, but it's not all those. It's the crown of all development. But put a crown on a crook and you get zen devil.

It's absolutely worthwhile in healing suffering and living authentically. When it's right for you, you won't have doubts about trying it. Don't push yourself if you don't need it right now. First develop basic survival skills.

If you do chose to seek truth, research deep and extensively to understand intellectually what "enlightenment" really means, it's very easy to get it wrong, since it's so ineffable and mysterious. There are a lot hearsay out there, and you need to separate wheat from chaff.

Well said.

 

Maybe your just not ready yet in yourself to jump in headfirst, I found intense suffering seems to be the main reason people take this stuff seriously, not everyone of course. If you can be happy without enlightenment than be happy, but there might come a time where you will feel like you have no other option.

[ajasatya]

On 19/01/2019 at 1:57 PM, PetarKa said:

What Has Your Journey With Enlightenment Been Like?

living an amazing life with my wife. waking up at 4:30am to practice pranayamas and then going to the gym before i go to work. when i come back from work, i practice hatha yoga in my living room before i go to sleep.

no trash food. no toxic relationships.

Edited January 21, 2019 by ajasatya

[nistake]

In my opinion you shoudn't force enlightenment. Keep doing your regular spiritual practises and fix your issues first. Achieve a general (and a sort of constant) well-being. Another thing that's really important is that think of your spiritual practises as they're the _best_ things you could spend your free time on. Goals are important, that's for sure, but I think you should (try to) enjoy the process as much as you can.

Then, after a while a time will come when you'll have a natural and pure desire for enlightenment. Until that point, I wouldn't even worry about it.

 

Ontopic: I'm really glad I found Leo's content ~3 years ago. Since then, I've managed to fix a lot of my issues, gained a healthy self-esteem, installed new healthy habits in my everyday life and since a while ago I've started working towards enlightenment.

Edited January 21, 2019 by nistake

[Forestluv]

Rather than focus on the end goal, why not see spirituality as a way of life.

Before I ran my first marathon, it seemed like so much training. I was overly focused on the race and completeing the goal. I thought “What if I get injured and never complete the race? Why even start and invest so much?”. The saw the training as work. Then a funny thing happened: I fell in love with running. I would run hours through forests, I made so many great running buddies. I traveled around my the U.S. and Europe running marathons.

Similarly, spirituality is a wonderful way of life. The discoveries, people you meet,  meditation and yoga groups, the places to travel and you can do it anywhere. 

The journey is the goal. 

[bejapuskas]

Exactly, enjoy the process, all the practices aren't just meaningless, by increasing your awareness, everything else will be better  It's just your helpless ego thinking, that it will become Enlightened... Don't think of it that way.

[Enlightened]

"What Has Your Journey With Enlightenment Been Like?"

WHAT? bahahahahha. So, you admit to striving towards nothing. And there we go. You defeat yourself. Again and again.  What say you, wise sage?

[zambize]

11 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

The journey is the goal. 

It is kind of ironic that treating the journey as the goal often makes your goal more achievable as well though, one of the things I'm more grateful for about reality

[zambize]

On 1/19/2019 at 0:28 PM, Anton Rogachevski said:

 

Enlightenment works well with all those, but it's not all those. It's the crown of all development. But put a crown on a crook and you get zen devil.

 

I think this might be true, I think it might be possible that being a bit of a zen devil is just a really common part of development that occurs in a lot of people, and only those who have really read the warning signs avoid it.  If you're having enlightenment experiences and have an ego, of course that ego is going to try and take credit for spiritual gains and be a little douche bag to others

[PetarKa]

@Enlightened Is it not so that you must seek and you must not seek? You must go, but here you are