How/why did you get into spirituality and what's your biggest challenge?

[winterknight]

How did you get interested in the spiritual in the first place?

What do you find your biggest frustration is now?

[Meditationdude]

Depression. I hit my bottom and my edge of suffering. I had had enough of my life and out of the blue one day I typed in “depression into YouTube” and Leo’s video popped up. Been watching and practicing ever since. Happy to say I’m not depressed anymore and I’ve quit almost all of my addictions, started my own business (doing my life purpose) and am financially independent for the first time in my life. This shit is for real. 

 

Biggest frustration? Working through the guilt / traumas of my past. It’s so fucking hard, wow. When you become fully conscious of it, it will fuck you up but you kinda have no choice (if you want to develop) 

And one other I’d like to add is how frustrating it is to become more aware of strong negative emotions and knowing how to work through them but being unable to (sometimes). I’m not a master yet. For example, when my survival is threatened in someway that triggers me and even though I was aware of the trigger and how I’m feeling while being very present, I still get effected pretty intensely by the emotion and it can change my mood for the entire day or week. It’s like my consciousness level took a hit and I have to work 2x as hard to get back to that level again. 

Edited July 17, 2019 by Meditationdude
Words

[Preetom]

29 minutes ago, winterknight said:

How did you get interested in the spiritual in the first place? 

Certain latent tendencies. From an early age I never resonated with conventional views of life. I wasn't rebellious or anything. Instead I mostly kept to myself.

That led me to start reading bhagavaad gita everyday in teenage years but didnt understand much. Then once I came across vedanta and modern sages like Ramana Maharshi few years back, their eloquent and lucid delivery made nondual spirituality my most favorite topic.

I've always found myself almost unable to seriously think about things everyone else is seemingly working on: Building the personality, future, holding onto the past as solid ground for reference, accumulating wealth, security, validation, partner, community, shoulds etc. As I grow older I find it harder to resonate with these things. So yeah I think my 'uncommon' samskaras as opposed to 'regular' samskaras initiated and still kept my interest in spirituality.

29 minutes ago, winterknight said:

 What do you find your biggest frustration is now?

Not really frustration. And not really seeking some exotic piece of knowledge or state anymore.

The biggest challenge for now is feeling physical discomfort. While doing self inquiry, there is usually tremendous amount of feelings of heaviness, constriction in chest, head etc. Its been like this for few years now. Now its still there more or less but I kind of got used to it. Before it used to seriously knock off my ground.

Edited July 17, 2019 by Preetom

[zeroISinfinity]

Desire for Truth,healing from serious wounds caused from whole life dealing with devils.

Biggest Challenge and something I Will work in future because it is only thing left for me :Absolute Transcedance. 

[Inliytened1]

Literally stumbled onto it.

Although the question of whether a tree falling in the forest makes a sound or not without a perceiver always bothered me.

 

Edited July 17, 2019 by Inliytened1

[seeking_brilliance]

A few mystical experiences, and then falling into a deep suicidal depression after taking on a business that I knew nothing about.  Biggest hurdle is the monkey mind. I've always had obsessive thoughts and not much self discipline. I think this will work itself out naturally, but YES I'm still waiting to get into psychotherapy. 

[Beginner Mind]

I got into spirituality through the pickup community.  My biggest challenge is not being aware of who I really am.  When I try to locate myself, I find nothing.  So I'm sort of stuck in a place where I know I don't really exist as a separate entity, but at the same time I don't know who I really am.  Stuck in no man's land.

[SoonHei]

1 hour ago, Inliytened1 said:

Literally stumbled onto it.

Although the question of whether a tree falling in the forest makes a sound or not without a perceiver always bothered me.

 

@Inliytened1 what's the answer to it?

briefly if you can. 

really asking lol. i heard this too but what is the answer?

it seems like paradox... ?

 

==============

edit:

well. just read it the way you wrote it... instead of the "nobody's around to hear it" 

 

no perceiver then no deal... no nothing  

love it

Edited July 17, 2019 by SoonHei

[SoonHei]

@winterknight felt like i was always on the path towards this

was very puzzled by the eternal nature of God... "how can it be possible... that God has ALWAYS existed... without a start... how was he just there... BAM"

that was at younger age... stayed religious and practicing... but science/physics/math pulled me aside... that led to my interest in space-science-universe/enistetin/quantum mechanics etc.

 

i had always maintained God to be in the background of the design of the universe however... i would say that God is the architect of evolution (after having learned and seeing beyond doubt that evolution is how humans came about vs being up there in heaven and placed here on earth)

anyhow. was on the science's front for a while... had Cantor-esq obsession with size/infinty and used to watch videos about that online.. and one day a certain search led me to watch leo's Absolute infintity video... and God and scienece came together and became ONE ever since.

coupled that with a few crazy experiences of my own to see and know that the universe is not material and all is consciousness

 

challeneges: nothing short term or long really.. just thoughts here and there about future/finances/health...  i have usually naturally remained not a very big planner, try to live on the daily/now.. i have began to simply trust and feel the connection with god and ever since these discoveries. life only gets easier and easier and no such word/feel as suffering in my brain whatsoever ... 

 

[RendHeaven]

3 hours ago, Beginner Mind said:

I got into spirituality through the pickup community. 

Same with me. I followed RSD for a good year before running into Leo through "recommended videos" on Youtube.

Something clicked in me and I stayed with Leo ever since. Ironically, I rarely watch pickup content anymore

My biggest frustrations are distractions. EVERYTHING I do is a distraction (to varying degrees). And I know this. And I do it anyway.

It doesn't help that I'm a college student. The environment and culture is not very friendly toward seekers.

3 hours ago, SoonHei said:

@Inliytened1 what's the answer to it?

briefly if you can. 

really asking lol. i heard this too but what is the answer?

it seems like paradox... ?

Depends on what you mean by "tree" "falling" "sound" and "perceiver" >:)

The answer is: yes; no; yes and no; inexpressible; yes and inexpressible; no and inexpressible; yes, no, and inexpressible >:)

I'm sure you knew this already

[SunnyNewDay]

because I was not finding solutions and peace in the usual stuff non-spiritual me was doing. it was basically a last resort of sorts fueled by a want to grow and change. 

confusion (tons and tons), ups and downs, intense emotions, fear, body blockages 

[Beginner Mind]

@RendHeaven It was David D'Angelo's material for me.  And yeah, I've completely left that stuff behind now.  100% spiritual stuff for me at this point.

[abrakamowse]

I was always curious about who/what created us and I found a lot of interesting things in Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc... I began to read books and do meditation and here I am. 

My biggest challenge is fear.

[Gili Trawangan]

I was an atheist until about a year ago. There had always been depression here and there, and always the looking for answers out "in the world". Having all my desires fulfilled and not being happy led me to question that.

And about a year ago there was deep suffering. Then, as I tried to find the reasons for such suffering, I came across Leo's videos. As an atheist, it was the only spiritual teaching that would have resonated with me at that point. He really knows how to explain things from a rationalist perspective. The rest of the search was intuition and desire for truth.

The biggest challenge right now is to integrate this knowing. What to do once you know the truth? I guess the ego is disappointed and sort of lonely...

[GabeN]

I was raised in a religious environment and I was not satisfied with the answers I had and how I was being taught about God, I had to seek or the Truth elsewhere, stumbling on this site was a very good first step, my biggest challenge now is probably discipline and a few Ego backlashes every now and then.

[pluto]

I woke up, thus i simply i could not, not be myself anymore.

[inFlow]

How I got into it:

Randomly found Leo's video on hot to make a girl fall in love with you. After a while I somehow found his mp3 uploaded Podcast channel, started to listen there and so today.

Why I chose this path:

Life was a shit-hole, had absolutely nothing to lose. Went in, lost myself

Biggest challenge:

Staying on track everyday.

[nistake]

My childhood was fine but things got quite bad in my teen years. No friends, lonliness, anxious thoughts, worrying all the time (which I still struggle with), etc. After many years of suffering, I started reading some self-help books. At that time, I didn't takem them very seriously and obviously I didn't do the necessary work. The suffering continued and then one day I hit a rock-bottom and I was really-really miserable. That's when I found Leo's no bullshit guide to meditation video. I immediately knew that I needed to start practising meditation right away. That's how it's all started for me.

Also, I've always felt deep down that there's more to life than material success. I couldn't put my finger on it back then and I didn't communicate it to anybody either but still. The feeling was there. I was also interested in meditation even as a kid but never bothered to 'learn' it because I thought it was a really complex thing to do and I needed to read books about it, etc. Actually, I wondered a few times about why I was interested in meditation. My parents and friends are not into spirituality at all. Never heard about it in TV or in any radio program. But still, as a kid I always thought it must be a "cool thing" to do. After all, I was right

 

Biggest challange: Staying present when things got bad and not giving into anxious thoughts

[Buba]

I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder. My mind fools me a lot and I wasted my youth in my mind fantasizing, running after delusions and not being productive at all. There was depression, regret and etc. I have felt suicidal a lot of times. Then 2 years ago I read Eckhart Tolle's book "The Power of Now" and got hope. I started to do meditation in order to make my mind, brain healthier and be happy. I did not know what is ego, what is nirvana, what is insight and etc. I thought ego was some part of my mind and I will get rid of it and be happy like Eckhart Tolle. ... until the beginning of last year, when I got depersonalization/derealization. At that time I found out that ego was me. I was ego. It was so scary. Just several months 20 minutes per day meditation damaged the sense of self. I stopped meditation, sense of self recovered after weeks and I was still unhappy with my ego (no surprise), so after 5 months I resumed meditation. Now I meditate 40 minutes per day and have never got that intense depersonalization yet. I hope I will accept it when it happens.

Frustration:

1) I thought it is like sport, I will meditate every day and my mood will get better day by day. But meditation exacerbated depression, regret and etc. I have faith for better outcome, that is why I still continue meditation.

2) I dont believe some notions in spiritual path, such as reincarnation, magickal beings, realms and etc. These notions make me confused. I even think it is psychological path, not spiritual.

3) A lot of people who have been meditating for long years say different, contradictory things, I dont know which is true. This forum is a good example.

The biggest challenge is my unfulfilled desires. 

Edited July 21, 2019 by Buba