How do you accept "not knowing"?

[Tistepiste]

I've been struggling with this quite a bit.

Taking peace with "not knowing"

The "what if" situations.

We never know for sure. About anything. So how to make decisions? How to choose something and "lose" the other thing?

What if you don't want to lose the other thing but you already have? 

How can you be at peace with everything and accept it as it is, even though everything makes you feel like this uneasy feeling of regret or discontentment, because you might've chosen wrongly?

I know it's kind of vague. And that you should accept the present moment fully. But how do you guys do this? Accepting?

I don't know how to accept sometimes'. I can say to myself "it is what it is, and it is ok like that" but that's just words. How do you really FEEL that this is just good as it is? 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2019 by Tistepiste

[Forestluv]

One thing that helped me in this area was the realization that "I" (the thinking self) am not the author of my thoughts. This is an aspect of losing control of the mental narrative and it was uncomfortable and scary for a while. It dramatically changed my relationship with thoughts, decisions and responsibility. It became liberating and relieved a lot of self-imposed pressure. I used to put a lot of pressure on my self to make good decisions and I often rehashed previous bad decisions. At times I would I would wish I could go back and make a different decision and I would beat myself up. 

For a little while, I went to the opposite extreme in which there is "no doer". There is no "me" choosing or doing anything. Whatever arises arises. That is true from one perspective, yet contracting myself in that perceptive didn't turn out too well either. Lately, I've been trying to integrate it all into a more holistic state of being. To integrate the timeline and the Now. I'm trying to become aware of and integrate intellectual, emotional, intuitive and mysterious modes of being. So that they are inter-connected friends communicating together - rather than in conflict with each other. 

When making decisions, I still consider pragmatic factors. Yet I now add in a couple elements. First, I ask myself "Which decision will lead to greater expansion? Which will lead to contraction?". I often get an intuitive sense and move in that direction. Also, I ask myself "Is this seeking energy desiring to satisfy a self need? Or is the source of the seeking energy beyond the self?".

My intellect and reasoning used to dominate my decision-making process. This created internal conflicts between intellectual, emotional and intuitive modes of being. For example at times my body was saying one thing and the intellect was trying to reason the opposite thing. This created inner turmoil. I've worked a lot on trying to balance my intellectual, emotional and intuitive modes of being. It feels much healthier for the mind-body.

If regret about past decisions arise or pressure about future decisions arise, I see that as having value and I don't push it away or grasp at it. It is a message. It may be a message to move in a certain direction. Yet often it is reflective that too much energy is flowing into a desire to change the storyline. 

[JohnnyBravo]

@Tistepiste

Its a fair question because it plagues many people.

Most people need and want one thing......control. what is control? Knowing.

How do you get comfortable not knowing? You SIT in it, you dont demand any more trying to figure it out and you surrender.

But how/why can one even get to this stage?

Because with experience and time, you realise, not knowing is TEMPORARY in nature. Its a phase. It passes.

Yes, im telling you something bold. Everything that happens in your life any questions you have, you get closure on everything and anything in the end.

You get closure on everything in life, at some point.

Once you know that, youre happy to not insistently demand and force a knowingness to happen.

And fear of the unknown? How to deal with that? You think of the worst thing that can ever happen, and you vow to accept it if it occurs and you will face it.

Your brain will quickly side with you.

[yangmilun]

I don't actually know about this deeply. I guess: To know or not to know,  it just like we use "knowing" to prove our life, and allow the "not knowing" to keep us humble.

In short opinion: people chase knowledge is beause to fullfil the desire of wonder, and some of desire is from our monkey mind, so we firm the thing as a name or a process, which to run successfully in our monkey mind.

1. Why he doesnt love me, I wanna know.

2. This machine is so professional, how does it work?

So "Not knowing", for me, is a method to make sure I am knowing the things on the right track, and not knowing the things without conciousness.

eg. I want to be a good student, then I should learn about schools things. But I met that girl in the class, I should not know about she likes me or not.

 

 

[tsuki]

Suffering is when we face something we consider unpleasant and our imagination sucks us in, telling what to do to stop it and avoid it in the future. Then, we decide what we need to accomplish it and try to secure it. We become attached to it. We desire. In order to secure it, we need power. Power comes from leveraging other people's attachments. We threaten to not provide others with whatever they need from us, or to outright disrupt their plans. This is how knowledge is born. That some things are good and other things are bad. Once you know this distinction, you prime yourself for this very cycle, because it comes back to the beginning. You have to avoid facing bad things, so you need to plan. See how this paragraph started?

Notice that suffering is not whatever we consider unpleasant. Suffering is the reaction to it. 
How to stop suffering? Do not know good from bad. Pleasant from unpleasant. Future from past.
You will die regardless of what you do. Regardless of what you plan. Come to terms with it - everything else will follow.

Wake up.

Edited March 19, 2019 by tsuki

[Mu_]

@Tistepiste

 

My answer will require you to really role play for a moment.  Let in as an absolute fact for as long as you can that there is no “wrong” decision you can make.  

Now after doing this, is there really a problem in not knowing what decision to make?  Or can you at least see the possibility?  

 

Now another date try this one. Jonnybravo did a good job of giving a perspective on this as well. 

Can you accept the absolute worst that may happen in a situation and the best? If not really go into why. You’ll probably find out a lot about yourself. And with this you can work at accepting these possibilities that can happen and making the choice you feel best about despite or because of your reasons. 

[Joseph Maynor]

It's not "not knowing" that's the goal, it's transcendence of the Mind.  You will know, but you will see the Mind for what it is and what it serves.  Of course transcending the Mind will cause a lot of your beliefs to drop away, but you're not clinging to not knowing, that's just another kind of mental clinging.

Edited March 19, 2019 by Joseph Maynor

[mandyjw]

There's nothing real but this moment, you expressed that know that conceptually. You don't really need to accept anything.

To experience the present moment, just focus your breath, what you can see, smell, taste and touch right now, the feeling of aliveness in the body. If it's too strong and you need more of a distraction, look out the window, go pet your dog, put on a song you love. There are many portals to being present in the moment. Those moments when you feel uneasy or bad are beautiful opportunities to remember to experience the present moment. 

Your mind wants to make it into a bigger problem than it is with a label and story and heavy words like regret or disappointment, it's not that. Just the mind being obnoxiously overly helpful again. Eventually when you stop feeding the story with more thoughts and learn to become present, the over arching narrative in your mind WILL change too. Don't try to put the cart before the horse. 

[Consilience]

9 hours ago, Serotoninluv said:

One thing that helped me in this area was the realization that "I" (the thinking self) am not the author of my thoughts. This is an aspect of losing control of the mental narrative and it was uncomfortable and scary for a while. It dramatically changed my relationship with thoughts, decisions and responsibility. It became liberating and relieved a lot of self-imposed pressure. I used to put a lot of pressure on my self to make good decisions and I often rehashed previous bad decisions. At times I would I would wish I could go back and make a different decision and I would beat myself up. 

For a little while, I went to the opposite extreme in which there is "no doer". There is no "me" choosing or doing anything. Whatever arises arises. That is true from one perspective, yet contracting myself in that perceptive didn't turn out too well either. Lately, I've been trying to integrate it all into a more holistic state of being. To integrate the timeline and the Now. I'm trying to become aware of and integrate intellectual, emotional, intuitive and mysterious modes of being. So that they are inter-connected friends communicating together - rather than in conflict with each other. 

When making decisions, I still consider pragmatic factors. Yet I now add in a couple elements. First, I ask myself "Which decision will lead to greater expansion? Which will lead to contraction?". I often get an intuitive sense and move in that direction. Also, I ask myself "Is this seeking energy desiring to satisfy a self need? Or is the source of the seeking energy beyond the self?".

My intellect and reasoning used to dominate my decision-making process. This created internal conflicts between intellectual, emotional and intuitive modes of being. For example at times my body was saying one thing and the intellect was trying to reason the opposite thing. This created inner turmoil. I've worked a lot on trying to balance my intellectual, emotional and intuitive modes of being. It feels much healthier for the mind-body.

If regret about past decisions arise or pressure about future decisions arise, I see that as having value and I don't push it away or grasp at it. It is a message. It may be a message to move in a certain direction. Yet often it is reflective that too much energy is flowing into a desire to change the storyline. 

Beautiful explanation

[who chit]

When you see that not knowing is freedom,the question of whether to accept or not accept doesn't arise. In the exalted state of not knowing, there is absolute freedom from any need to know. 
Always needing to know is what keeps one trapped in the bondage of the egoic-mind.

[now is forever]

20 hours ago, Tistepiste said:

I've been struggling with this quite a bit.

Taking peace with "not knowing"

The "what if" situations.

We never know for sure. About anything. So how to make decisions? How to choose something and "lose" the other thing?

What if you don't want to lose the other thing but you already have? 

How can you be at peace with everything and accept it as it is, even though everything makes you feel like this uneasy feeling of regret or discontentment, because you might've chosen wrongly?

I know it's kind of vague. And that you should accept the present moment fully. But how do you guys do this? Accepting?

I don't know how to accept sometimes'. I can say to myself "it is what it is, and it is ok like that" but that's just words. How do you really FEEL that this is just good as it is? 

 

 

space/experience/momentum to take place always requires decision to be filled with object/space/experience/momentum if you don’t decide space/experience/momentum will happen anyways but differently. for some decisions we can find compromises or konsensus and it works out well, but sometimes if we don’t decide we also will loose one or both, as no decision is already also a decision, because to fill space/experience/momentum the space will be occupied in some way or another.

there are situations we can controll and some we can’t, but if we put our heart into it we might gain. puting heart into something means sometimes letting the heart go where it wants to go completely and sometimes telling the heart to let go slowly of something else - because that else already had it’s space/experience/momentum and makes place for something new - it’s your decision to make the best of the situation through decisions.

you need to decide what’s worth fighting for and what’s not despite the possibility of loosing anyways, because everything ceases even the option to choose.

Edited March 20, 2019 by now is forever

[Markus]

@Tistepiste Accepting is not an activity you can do. At best, you can fight less. Which is a good thing to do when it occurs to you and seems possible. You want to open yourself up to experiencing the stuff you can't accept. Don't try to accept it, just suffer it, without distraction.

[now is forever]

2 hours ago, Markus said:

@Tistepiste Accepting is not an activity you can do. At best, you can fight less. Which is a good thing to do when it occurs to you and seems possible. You want to open yourself up to experiencing the stuff you can't accept. Don't try to accept it, just suffer it, without distraction.

that’s when you realize you have to give up fighting, giving up holding on to what already passed.

(some no/things are worth fighting for even just a little bit)

Edited March 20, 2019 by now is forever

[Truth Addict]

@Tistepiste

Consider that maybe you are already accepting everything without you even knowing it.

Sometimes resistance is acceptance.

Maybe resistance is exactly what you need right now. Give it a thought.

[Wisebaxter]

@Tistepiste Yes, you can know things. It's just about how you investigate. You basically need to rely on direct experience. Don't think that knowing is impossible, this is a trap. Yes you will need to come at things from a position of not knowing in order to know things, but even that's refreshing as you first realise, oh, I know that I don't know. This is a beautiful natural state to be in. You've probably come across Peter Ralston's 'The Book of Not Knowing.' If not, give it a read. If you're struggling with this issue it will really help you 

[Dumb Enlightened]

On 19/03/2019 at 10:26 AM, Tistepiste said:

 But how do you guys do this? Accepting?

Do you rather accept or suffer ?

[Nahm]

On 3/19/2019 at 9:26 AM, Tistepiste said:

I've been struggling with this quite a bit.

Taking peace with "not knowing"

There is no person or entity which can claim you’re supposed to know anything. 

The "what if" situations.

The zest of living. The body doesn’t know fear from excitement, sans the mind which thinks it knows. 

We never know for sure. About anything. So how to make decisions? How to choose something and "lose" the other thing?

Choose for you what you really want, a point will come when you are only satisfied with solutions which are a win win ( you and ‘other’ involved), and another point where only that second win will do, paradoxically ). 

 

What if you don't want to lose the other thing but you already have? 

If it’s already lost, there’s no actual problem there. 

How can you be at peace with everything and accept it as it is,

What could you ever do which would make what is, not what is? Futile and funny, no? Whatever you do, that is what is too. You can’t lose. 

even though everything makes you feel like this uneasy feeling of regret or discontentment, because you might've chosen wrongly?

Lack of focus is indicative of overthinking, which is fed by “past” & “future”. Try to actually go to the past or future right now.   Then try to bring some happiness back with you to the present. See, also silly & funny. 

I know it's kind of vague. And that you should accept the present moment fully. But how do you guys do this? Accepting?

Unresolved / unreleased emotion fuels past & future thinking, which is the overthinking, which is the sensation - anxiety. Pen & paper, write down how you’re feeling, express the thoughts and emotions of past & future, let it all out on paper. As you do, the mind can see what’s going on in a language it can understand. What is fully understood, naturally dissolves. 

I don't know how to accept sometimes'. I can say to myself "it is what it is, and it is ok like that" but that's just words. How do you really FEEL that this is just good as it is? 

Also feeding overthinking is being stuck at one mental perspective believing it is true, being stuck there unknowingly due to a suppressed (uninspected and therefore avoided) sensation/feeling/emotion. Flip the concerning thinking around to go from ego/separate (suffering) view, to unified / acceptance (loving) view. Have fun with the word game on paper (never in your head), enjoy the release that comes momentarily after reading each new perspective a few times.....

 

“I need to know what the right choices in my life are so I don’t blow it.”

Flipped: I don’t need to know what the right choices are, and I can’t possibly blow it. 

Another flip: It is the very not knowing which makes life possible. Not knowing is the adventure of life. Thank God for that.

Another flip: If I accept the choices I make and learn from them, I’m happy to have learned, and therefore, not “blowing it” (suffering).

Another flip: If I knew all the right choices, there’d be no point, no experience, no “living life” - that’d be the ultimate “blowing of it”.  

Another flip: I would want someone else just to be happy, no matter what choices they make.

Another flip: In realizing life is uncertain, I can begin to see that my love & peace is always certain. In any situation, I am, I can, I bring, Love, Joy & Peace. Feel that my man!!?  Can knowing anything ever feel like that?

Another flip: When someone else is suffering, I know the right choice is compassion, and Being is present. When Being is present, there is no longer the notion of “blowing it”.

Another flip: I gotta live & love in not knowing. I might even share this with my parents, so they can see their own source of their suffering, which maybe I learned, innocently.

The “flips” are different perspectives, they help because there never was a “problem”, that’s impossible. All there was, was me stuck on one perspective, which I believed, and which wasn’t true. And now I am free of it. 

Now, take a moment to realize, “accepting not knowing” was never a problem, because you already don’t know. It’s the thinking you know, which can be accepted. It’s human.