Why should i bother

[Bryanbrax]

why should i attempt to develop myself when i could just meditate

Why should i bother self actualizing when i could just do yoga 

Why should i bother working on myslef when i could attain enlightment

My point is whats the point of spending all those years changing your identity and improving just to realize its all an illuision

Isnt doing yoga , meditation physchelics a much better path rather than wasting time developing an illuision

Id like to hear your thoughts

[LastThursday]

Whether becoming someone takes ten years or five minutes doesn't matter - once you are there it's passed. Nothing is ever wasted in getting there, not even all the mistakes and wrong choices. The future unfolds at its own pace and in its own special way.

Just do or be whatever you want to be right now. It's all you have. But do it with your eyes wide open and fully consciously - don't spoil it with whatifs.

Well, that's my humble opinion anyway.

[Bill W]

I think it really depends on your end game, your overall goal.

For me, I am here more for good old fashioned self-development within a spiritual context. Who or what God is, is not top of my list of things to sort out. I am not interested (currently) in specific non-dual content. My overall goal is the reduction of fear and angst, with a view to making me more useful to myself and others. I'm chasing increased peace of mind. I make my life too hard. 

I'm not sure what others are going to post in repsonse to you, but I couldn't possibly (accurately)  give you YOUR reasons why, but if I had to give it a stab I would guess the question "why bother?" leads to an answer of to reduce your suffering? There is massive suffering in life, that much we know and is pretty much undisputed. There are also ways to alleviate suffering. 

In the words of Thich Nhat Hanh

• There is suffering
• Understand your suffering
• Know that recovery is possible
• Follow the path to recovery

and also from him

• Make the Truth available
• Practice the Truth

[WelcometoReality]

@Bryanbrax What do you want to do?

[Nahm]

@Bryanbrax

Answer the call of your own intuition. We can say nothing more influential. 

[Highest]

@Bryanbrax There is no person, you can consciously decide to behave like a person aka a robot or as pure being/awareness/energy. 

Devolopment is fundamental due, if you just develop yourself truly and  properly. Deveolping an illusion like the person is not only a waste of time, it's pure delusion. 

A man doesn't treat illusion like it's real. 

[erik8lrl]

Your ability to understand things depends on the perspective of your ego, to truly understand everything the ego needs a perspective large enough to see the whole. It is always good to have a strong personal development foundation so the ego is wide, or else you will be easily deluded by it. Spiritual work and personal work are two of the same. If you focus only on the one you will eventually run into the other. Through spiritual practice, the self is more and more purified and deep personal issues will naturally come up. Basically, spiritual practices can give you mystical experiences and insights, but without a perspective that is wide enough to receive, it will not be integrated. Thus, you need both spiritual experiences and spiritual intelligence to make fundamental changes to your state of being, and lead to enlightenment. 

[Highest]

1 minute ago, erik8lrl said:

Your ability to understand things depends on the perspective of your ego, to truly understand everything the ego needs a perspective large enough to see the whole. It is always good to have a strong personal development foundation so the ego is wide, or else you will be easily deluded by it. Spiritual work and personal work are two of the same. If you focus only on the one you will eventually run into the other. Through spiritual practice, the self is more and more purified and deep personal issues will naturally come up. Basically, spiritual practices can give you mystical experiences and insights, but without a perspective that is wide enough to receive, it will not be integrated. Thus, you need both spiritual experiences and spiritual intelligence to make fundamental changes to your state of being, and lead to enlightenment. 

Lol. Genuine spiritual work gone far enough will literally annihilate any trace of personhood, make it so obvious that it's an illusion that you have no choice but to operate from another level. 

[erik8lrl]

@Highest Yes, but before that happens, personal work is still relevant. Of course, it all depends on the person, all path leads to the same end. But if your life is miserable and a mess even if you have an experience of the infinite love, it will not stick, and more likely you will not surrender enough to go that deep into the truth or understand it without deluding yourself.   

[Highest]

1 minute ago, erik8lrl said:

@Highest Yes, but before that happens, personal work is still relevant. Of course, it all depends on the person, all path leads to the same end. But if your life is miserable and a mess even if you have an experience of the infinite love, it will not stick, and more likely you will not surrender enough to go that deep into the truth or understand it without deluding yourself.   

Depends on you of course, you want it to take longer time, work on the person. You want to do the real direct hardcore work, see the "person" and everything making it up as the mind-created illusion that it is and literally consciously drop it, and operate from a more auhentic level of consciousness and awarness. This will also purify, open up, and uplift your energy field. 

 

[erik8lrl]

@Highest Yes

[LfcCharlie4]

Because it goes full circle, and while it is all an 'illusion' not fond of using that term tbh.

Yes you are the Big Self and yes you are awareness or whatever name you use for it, the absolute, The Self etc 

At the same time, you are (until you die) still a human, or living as The Self as a human, your knowing will shift to knowing you are not merely your body/mind, however you can still act like you do, or you'd never be able to do anything lol. 

I struggled with this kind of mindset for a while, and to be honest it never sat well with me, I knew there was more to it. 

And, that's because you can live as The Self, and still be YOU as a human, in fact you'll be more you with less reistance and more enoyment than ever before, I fucking love life beyond words at this point, it's so amazing. 

You go full circle and actually embrace reality and duality as it is NOW, if this means you wanna have sex, go do it, if it means you wanna go learn the Guitar go do it- you are completely free, and there are no 'rules' such as you have to go be a monk or live in an Ashram, you can do what you want in life, and when you truly realize The Self, and that the Self is all, and that THIS IS IT, you have no need to go anywhere as you realize EVERY MOMENT is it, meditation is a 24/7 thing post awakening, in terms of there is no resistance to the now, no matter what that entails. 

I'm ranting as I often do, but please remember you can have your cake and eat it, in fact I recommending learning about the Enneagram, it will help you with your awakening process!

PS I'm assuming a loving base when I say do what you want, I would not give this advice to a murderer, but once you realize love you'll get what I mean. 

PPS I'm talking purely from direct experience, this is my experience NOW.

[erik8lrl]

@LfcCharlie4 Yes

[erik8lrl]

Eventually, even the illusion between illusion and non-illusion ends, and it is all love.

[Highest]

29 minutes ago, LfcCharlie4 said:

Because it goes full circle, and while it is all an 'illusion' not fond of using that term tbh.

Yes you are the Big Self and yes you are awareness or whatever name you use for it, the absolute, The Self etc 

At the same time, you are (until you die) still a human, or living as The Self as a human, your knowing will shift to knowing you are not merely your body/mind, however you can still act like you do, or you'd never be able to do anything lol. 

I struggled with this kind of mindset for a while, and to be honest it never sat well with me, I knew there was more to it. 

And, that's because you can live as The Self, and still be YOU as a human, in fact you'll be more you with less reistance and more enoyment than ever before, I fucking love life beyond words at this point, it's so amazing. 

You go full circle and actually embrace reality and duality as it is NOW, if this means you wanna have sex, go do it, if it means you wanna go learn the Guitar go do it- you are completely free, and there are no 'rules' such as you have to go be a monk or live in an Ashram, you can do what you want in life, and when you truly realize The Self, and that the Self is all, and that THIS IS IT, you have no need to go anywhere as you realize EVERY MOMENT is it, meditation is a 24/7 thing post awakening, in terms of there is no resistance to the now, no matter what that entails. 

I'm ranting as I often do, but please remember you can have your cake and eat it, in fact I recommending learning about the Enneagram, it will help you with your awakening process!

PS I'm assuming a loving base when I say do what you want, I would not give this advice to a murderer, but once you realize love you'll get what I mean. 

PPS I'm talking purely from direct experience, this is my experience NOW.

? Never the less

Person=Prison

Non-person-freedom

I can't deny that altough I'm conscious that I am the One (call it whatever) that the power of the One to be living as a human is undeniably the Omnipotent will of God.

And the desire to grow and develop oneself as a individuated human being, that is as well the will of God. 

30 minutes ago, erik8lrl said:

Eventually, even the illusion between illusion and non-illusion ends, and it is all love.

Yes, it's always love in the end of everything. ?❤️

[Highest]

33 minutes ago, erik8lrl said:

Eventually, even the illusion between illusion and non-illusion ends, and it is all love.

When all is dissolved, what shall remain is love-awarness, the pure energy of love can literally annihilate anything - like light illuminates darkness in an instant. 

Decide how you want to appear, don't give this choice away to anyone. 

It's not spirituality against the person or ego, it's only two things: 

1. What and who you are - this can be made conscious of. 

2. How and what you become around your fellow beings - you can become conscious of this. 

Both ought to be worked upon to it's very core. 

[LfcCharlie4]

@Highest No person doesn't = prison once you no longer believe yourself to be JUST that person. 

Then Person= Freedom, expression, joy, fun and a 'vessel' if you like to enjoy the duality many of us negate in this journey. 

When you realize that very coffee cup in front of you is the Buddha, and this very world is nothing but the self, and THIS is it right here, it is like a completely different experience impossible to put into words, life becomes an effortless flow of moment to moment experience without resistance. 

I agree with you though, realizing the Self= Freedom, but it also allows you the freedom to live FULLY as a human as you please and to experience this life how you want to. I love it. I just don't like your phrase non-person, it implies negation of the human experience, I feel it is better phrased as knowing yourself to be The Self, but living through the Human, you will still have emotions and thoughts etc, just when you investigate there's nobody at the centre of these thoughts, just space. However, it will FEEL as if there is, and you still live as if you are The Small Self, but you KNOW you are The Self, it all gets a bit confusing and messy with language 

This is it. 

[Highest]

3 minutes ago, LfcCharlie4 said:

@Highest No person doesn't = prison once you no longer believe yourself to be JUST that person. 

Then Person= Freedom, expression, joy, fun and a 'vessel' if you like to enjoy the duality many of us negate in this journey. 

When you realize that very coffee cup in front of you is the Buddha, and this very world is nothing but the self, and THIS is it right here, it is like a completely different experience impossible to put into words, life becomes an effortless flow of moment to moment experience without resistance. 

I agree with you though, realizing the Self= Freedom, but it also allows you the freedom to live FULLY as a human as you please and to experience this life how you want to. I love it. I just don't like your phrase non-person, it implies negation of the human experience, I feel it is better phrased as knowing yourself to be The Self, but living through the Human, you will still have emotions and thoughts etc, just when you investigate there's nobody at the centre of these thoughts, just space. However, it will FEEL as if there is, and you still live as if you are The Small Self, but you KNOW you are The Self, it all gets a bit confusing and messy with language 

This is it. 

It all depends on the individual. For me, seeing everything dissolve in front of my eyes - well, it has kinda left me with a blank screen. Now it's time to paint. I will be me, no need to deny oneself. But I will paint, I will paint like a drunk

[LfcCharlie4]

@Highest I've been there, what helped me a lot was understanding the depths of awakening through the book 1000, and how many teachers etc are at different depths and you can tell in the subtle details of their teaching. 

The 'Blank Screen' is common of what that book refers to as the 600s (early stages of awakening) where no self is realized, there feels spaciousness, basically what good old Eckhart Tolle talks about, boundless spaciosuness etc, but it goes WAY deeper  

[Highest]

4 minutes ago, LfcCharlie4 said:

@Highest I've been there, what helped me a lot was understanding the depths of awakening through the book 1000, and how many teachers etc are at different depths and you can tell in the subtle details of their teaching. 

The 'Blank Screen' is common of what that book refers to as the 600s (early stages of awakening) where no self is realized, there feels spaciousness, basically what good old Eckhart Tolle talks about, boundless spaciosuness etc, but it goes WAY deeper  

1 hour ago, LfcCharlie4 said:

@Highest

No-self and Self are the same, it's simply the experience of being nothing and everything at the same time. 

It goes way deeper indeed bro. But I have to go soon and get some weed, smoke some of it. 5 pm I'm meeting my girlfriend and we are going to a hotel.

I don't want to be spaciousness then, I want to become the body. Feeling her body and all that very real stuff, make her never forget mine....