What Do People Value More..

[Huz]

I am about to finish my second to last year of university. Throughout my years I have wasted a lot of time. Watch hours upon hours of tv/video games in my childhood. Become very socially scared to the point where I always stayed at home. I have only had one relationship. Partaken in drug abuse. Letting others dictate my path for me.

Now I am actualising I feel like I am taking control of my life, slowly. I have got one dilemma. At this stage of my life what should I pursue. 

I don't know my life purpose so shall I focus on that. Or focus on enlightenment. Its very time consuming to do both simultaneously. I am asking your guys opinions of what you would do if you at this stage. I am edging towards pursuing the truth but got worries what life is going to be like down the years without discovering my life purpose to developing any tangible skills for sustenance.

[Ajax]

In my opinion you should seek an actualized life. It is nearly impossible to commit 100% to enlightenment. There is just too much going on in the world and if you have even the slightest attachment to the material world and you pursue enlightenment, those attachments will hold you back for many years and you will waste so much time. So enlightenment should only be pursued if you really, really want to do it. If you are divided, don't do it because unless you are willing to take very drastic measures, you won't attain enlightenment for a very, very long time and the road will be unnecessarily challenging.

[Jastilus]

I don't want to sound like an advertisment, but I bought Leos Life Purpose Course in August 2015 and right now I have worked half-way through it and already got significant changes from it in my life. As Leo says you can only overcome a strong ego I would suggest you start with your life purpose and make your ego strong, as that is actually a part of the path to being enlightend. After investigating my values thorugh this course (a painfull process over 6 weeks for me) I started looking enlightment and meditation guides from Leo too and could "comprehend" the concepts far more easily then 8 months before, when I first startet with conscious self-actualization.

Learn about your values and your strengths and when you have built your life around these values and strength, you have a way better starting position to pursue enlightment from my experience.

[Huz]

Thanks a lot guys. Have taken on your advice. I was thinking of buying the life purpose course this summer and going through it until the end of uni. Then after uni going to devote a year or so of my life at a zen Buddhist monastery to get deeper into enlightenment.

@Jastilus @Ajax if you don't mind me asking what's your journey like now? 

[Jastilus]

I startet at the age of 37, after 10 years of hardcore drug abuse, not being able to work for 8 years after dropping out of university half-way through and getting violent in my marriage. My life and that of my wife was just a big pile of shit, twitching nerve spasms, thoughts running amok in our brains and an unability to show the love we had for each other when we married.

In August 2015 we bought the life purpose course after watching several videos of Leo to really get clean and make a difference this time by finding a life purpose that is strong enough to stop hunting excitment with drugs and other hollow pleasures. I can't really say why, but the way Leo talks and describes these concepts really appeal to me, so he got through were others didn't.

Since then we watched the videos and took time between them to really comprehend and understand them. The first 40 videos are concepts and it took me until February 2016 to really grasp them, make the interconnections, understand them, watch my behavior in the sight of these principles. Since March I worked to find and test my top ten values (you can look them up in m y profile). I had to correct them 5 times and make all the exercises again since yesterday. Now I have the feeling I really got through to my positive motivated values, so I can progress to assess my strenghts.

I have succesfully stayed away from amphetamine for 2 months know and did significantly reduce my abuse beforehand from sleeping only 2 nights a week for years to one 2-3 day session every second or third weekend. When I din't take ampehtaime I drank nearly a bottle of whisky a day and I have reduced this to drinking a beer or two on the eveneing and not every evening. The violent fits I threw have stopped completly and the love between my wife and me has taken root again and grown back into our lives.

Right now my journey is to maintain a constant state of awareness of my behavior. I still have many things to correct, to overcome, to discover and to let go, but I can now "see" my behavior all the time, even when I can't manage to do the right thing at least I am aware of it. When I watch some of Leos free videos or make the exercies from the course I often need a couple of days to really grasp the meaning and to accept the truth of the concepts. This leads me to very emotional states where I may cry like I seldom cried in my life, when I discover bit by bit, that the devil designing my pesonal hell has been myself the whole time.
It is really very hard emotional work and I often feel exhausted after doing an exercises that requires to dig deep in myself. Since two month I don't beat myself up anymore, when I allow myself to smoke some weed or drink a beer and watch an episode of Downton Abbey and that has reduced my smoking and drinking, as I am not addicted to "Not drinking" anymore.

I read "The Big Leap" from Leos Book List and must say this book was an eye opener for me, it is just full of truth and written in a very warm and nice way. Right now I am reading "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" and this book is also full of gold, every page an eye opener.
Normaly I could read even a big a book in mere hours, as I am a very fast reader, but these books I read one or two pages a time, because they are so full of really deep ideas and truths, that I often need weeks to really think through just one chapter and correct my own flawed and incorrect views.

Right know I am at the state of fighting an inner battle to allow myself a real glimpse of hope, of an optimistic outlook on my future and that of my wife and son. I invented this game (to be playful about it is an idea from 'The Big Leap') where I make a grimace that fits, if I become aware of any neurotic or limiting behavior I do at the time. So if i get awareness of nagging about something, I make the grimace that fits to be nagging somebody about shit. My wife loves this and plays along so we have fun doing this work on ourselves together and even my son gets a laugh out of it, if he gets a glimpse of it.

I hope that helps and wish you the best, your plan sounds good, you won't regret it. The course changed the trajectory of my life dramatically and I am but halfway through. Just my advice is to take your time to do it, although do something related to it every single day, like watching a free video, really deep thinking about a concept, have a talk about it with somebody who cares, post something here in the forums etc.

 

 

Edited May 10, 2016 by Jastilus

[Huz]

Thanks a lot. That was really inspiring man. I wish i could give multiple reputations for your bio!!

You are doing so well. Congratulations on how far you have come. Most people who are deeply effected by drugs perceive reality with extremely low awareness they can't fathom how to escape or how is live different. Massive well done for spotting a way out and sticking with it. It takes huge courage and responsibility. I am truly inspired. Thanks again!!! 

[Jastilus]

Thanks, it means a lot to me having done something good for somebody.

[Ajax]

 

 

                     I started personal development at age 12 to augment my martial arts. I studied many of the eastern works such as  Art of War, Book of 5 Rings, Hagakure, Tao Te Ching, Tao of Jeet Kune Do, etc... It was around this time I started practicing mediation dabbling with performance-visualizations which greatly advanced my skills in martial arts and tournaments. I started to drift away from this in my early/ mid-twenties and into cognitive enhancement(increasing IQ).   Throughout the rest of my twenties, I  deeply studied western philosophers and scholars such as Will Durant, John Dewey, Voltaire and Plato, just to name a few.

                     About 2 years ago, during a youtube-surfing binge... I discovered Leo by accident. Incidentally, he was talking about the matrix and looked a little to much like cypher so I almost turned him off Anyway, I started to follow his more spiritual videos and it turned me into a new direction.

                      Last month, I parted from my wife and went back to my hometown. Since I only have free time(I have passive income), I purchased Leo’s course and completed it within 5 days and discovered my life’s purpose. This opened up a flood of wisdom and insight...15+ years of theory building started to come together and I have had consistent enlightenment experiences since. I don’t know if I could say I am enlightened but those concepts are effortless for me to grasp. I also have total mastery of my emotions and even though it has been a month of separation from my wife of over 10 years... I have not experienced depression or any other emotion but peace about the whole matter since that experience.

                     So to answer your question, directly... I don’t know. It no longer is a journey for me but a way of being that is how it appears now. I imagine that it will take me less than 5 years to get to enlightenment, if I continue on the same path that I am on.

                     Right now I am in the process of getting through the books that Leo recommended. I don’t do sitting meditations anymore. I do, however, practice “awareness” meditations like early morning or on clear starry nights I go out and just expand my awareness as much as possible noticing and being aware as much as I can. I also do the same things with a long walks where I just "be and perceive"... This has helped me more than more traditional practices like sitting or breathing or inquiring.

[Irina Irina]

In this moment I value clarity the most and striving to live in a state of clarity