All My Thoughts

[Nahm]

@Raptorsin7 What I just pm’d you...precisely what you’re doing here. ??♥️

[Raptorsin7]

@Nahm How does gratitude work? I always imagined when I was happy with my life I would be so grateful for everything in it, and the appreciation would come effortlessly because who doesn't leave a dream life. I also realize that my life now is perfectly compatible with my idea of a dream life, it's not the life, it's the feeling about your life so technically everything can be a dream life. But when i'm grateful i don't really FEEL grateful. I'm just getting into the habit of doing this because I don't really know what else to do, and i don't have a lot of resistance about starting to write down what i'm grateful for

[Nahm]

@Raptorsin7 

You’re ‘tasting’ the bitterness of the separate self. Not at first glance maybe, but it’s a wonderful thing. The separate self is the one in the thought story, the one in the past, the one in the future - where feeling is not. It seems to me you are discovering this clue, this “there must be more to life than this”. It’s not too far of a stretch imo to say - welcome to the ox pics. Indeed, there is much more.  

Expressing gratitude & appreciation in thoughts & words can tune one into the feeling, for sure, without a doubt. However, on a ten scale, figuratively speaking, this might take one from 0 to 3. Later, full circle, turquoise, nondual, this is the default, though it would then not be described as gratitude or appreciation, but visceral amazement, disbelief, childlike wonderment.   I’m going to really scrutinize the clues, and I hope it’s helpful...

The biggest challenge on the path, the name of the game, is precisely what you’re getting clued into - suffering & the separate self.  Self referential thinking - thoughts, about yourself - over time, have constructed a sort of seemingly solid idea, of you. But that ain’t you. That, is conceptual, and is more or less void of feeling. 

So welcome to deconstruction. Contemplate, with “new eyes”, presence - mindfulness - what you’re encountering at this point, is exactly what those words were coined to point to - being here, now, where feeling is. And furthermore, diving into this ocean of consciousness, awareness, of Love. 

For now (terrible pun sorry)...just practice: Being attentive, to what you have thus far been inattentive to. 

Didn’t seem like a big deal, letting the mind wander, thinking, overthinking, etc. We all go there. This is the intellectual era. Most die there. Some of us, die now. One little deconstruction of the separate self at a time. 

 

”I always imagined”  Imagination is arguably the greatest facet a ‘human’ ’has’, but, when we involve happiness and gratitude, we can create a trap while simultaneously getting snared in it. It’s a triple trap really, that I am human, that I am the idea of who I am as a human, compounded with that I expect to be able to wander via the undisciplined mind, and still feel.

  If right now, and for the next year, I imagine when I’ll be happy and appreciative...________ -   ...notice I’ve already blown it. I left now, and made my happiness conditional - the condition, is time. I did this merely with thought, about me, in the future....where happiness is expected to be.

Because the truth is that there is no separate self, there is no past, and there is no future - that what appears to be a time space continuum (“physical reality”) is actually an infinite being, appearing as time & space - because that’s actually the actuality - feeling  - which is only of infinite being, not of the separate self in thoughts - is only here & now. 

The source of feeling is absolute unconditional love...unconditional, as in, the finite mind says “meh...later in life..I’m busy”......Feeling, all knowing, all loving, nowhere & no thing more worthwhile to be than “you” - says “Ok, cool. You got it my man”. 

Very, very loosely, you might say this is the “catch”. Infinite being is unconditional. Loving you so much, no matter what you do...that it can slip by unnoticed. Absolutely unconditional. 

But alas...

THIS IS A DREAM. 

YOU ARE THE INFINITE BEING. 

The metadventure is well underway. Welcome to it brutha. 

The separate self is a virtual expert at taking living, and reality, for granted. 

[Nahm]

Emotions have been created thus far based on the relationship to the outside world...circumstances, events, etc. 

This script must be flipped. 

Emotions are actually, and always have been, created by the inner world “Relationship”, the relativity between thought, and infinite being / absolute Love. 

At whatever pace you’re comfortable with, you and reality, will be turned inside out. There will be highs, and there will be lows. But in the end, everything will make sense, really, really, really Good sense (feeling). 

Btw...this is what every religion, spiritual teacher, every guru, and everyone who loves you, everyone who really just freakin loves you - has been talking about. 

[Raptorsin7]

@Nahm Thank you very much. Very inspiring post. I resonate with you just wrote but right now it seems so far away. Do you remember when you were at this point in your path? What worked for you? Clearly there are many limiting thoughts like the one's you mentioned above? But how do i stop believing them?

I want to believe that my life is amazing. That this moment right is better than any dream i've ever had? But I don't feel it this moment.

Edited December 12, 2019 by Raptorsin7

[Nahm]

@Raptorsin7

Investigate reality, scrutinize your direct experience. Use a pad of paper, and write what you know is true, or at least what you honestly know you believe to be true. Start from whatever comes to mind, doesn’t matter.  Question each thing you write, how do I know that is true, when the opposite is also true? How do I know this is true, what did I actually directly experience?   You can do this all day long. Reality indeed gets interesting & exciting. This is the metadventure, transcendent of the life adventure. This is what makes life worth living, some say.

If reality is not exciting enough in it’s most ordinary state, then you’re still looking at the finger, while it’s pointing to the moon. 

Fundamentals, Hoosiers. 

Direct experience, the moon.