Starting To Get Confused And A Bit Depressed... But This Might Be Good

[Emerald]

So, if you're familiar with my backstory and my "enlightenment" experiences that came on as a result of experimentation with Ayahuasca years ago, you'll know that this is really what opened my mind to spiritual seeking in the first place. But I have always been under the shadow of these experiences because I had access to such wisdom then, and I have in the past seven years been trying to replicate or get back to that state of being somehow or another. Since finding Leo's videos a year and a half ago, I've made a ton more progress than I'd made in all the years prior.

But there's always this comparison thinking going on with my present experience of reality and my past "enlightened" experience of reality, where I'm asking myself "Am I there yet? No." "How about now? No." I"m always measuring my present experiences up against those past experiences. There is a deep certainly that I've been carrying around about my understandings of enlightenment that I know isn't the right mindset to be holding to be truly open, because beliefs block me from open-ness. But I haven't been able to shake this deep feeling of certainty that  my memories of the experiences I had will somehow hold the key to waking up.

But slowly, I'm getting more and more confused and life is getting a bit directionless and pointless feeling. This feels really negative and uncomfortable, but I suspect that this may be a necessary step to get to the point where I truly feel like I know absolutely nothing and can let go of all expectation. Anyone else here having similar experiences?

[key]

My mind generally lingers on ideas, exploring their depths and pulling them apart by the seams, feeling like I'm getting somewhere with all of this just to have myself yanked back to square one, quite often honestly, and I'm left in a jumble of confusion, sadness, understanding that what I thought I knew was just another story, but always (albeit reluctantly) acceptance that it must be. For what we 'seek' is but beyond our grasp, yet every step is one more foot down a hallway that never ends. 

If I may share my opinion, however quite crude, you seem to hold a highly intellectual grasp of the subjects we explore, able to logically use language to your advantage, yet seem deeply rooted in your past experiences, holding them like a crutch upon your authenticity.

It sounds like you're developing for the better, as we must all let go of our ideas of 'what is' before we can truly see. But hey, I'm just speaking more stories 

[99th_monkey]

Yes, very. Extremely, actually. I was so sure so certain and comfortable in my understanding that I got depressed and felt very negative, this went on for a bit then a part of me that I hadn't recognized had surfaced and "burped" out, it was a gift, it put me in check, and showed I was still identifying with something, it just happened to be one of the flotillas of ego. Haha. Of course this may or may not be of any use to you, but I'd figured is share

[HereNowThisMoment]

45 minutes ago, Emerald Wilkins said:

my "enlightenment" experiences that came on as a result of experimentation with Ayahuasca

I'm not too familiar with psychedelics but while I was on Amazon a while back looking at the table of contents for Pursuing Consciousness by Peter Ralston I noticed a subheading that said "An Acid Trip Is Not Enlightenment." (I just double checked now to make sure that's what it was called). I don't have any experience with them, but I personally can't see how a substance could cause a drastic paradigm shift of any real value without grounding it in deeper consciousness work, but I digress. That being said, maybe that will help accepting that experience as what it was.

Enlightenment isn't an altered state of consciousness, just a shifted paradigm with regards to how one relates to their experience. I'm also not convinced that one full-blown enlightenment experience is necessary, I've had my fair share of insights/aha moments while doing contemplation work, but I can't point at any one experience and say "that's it!" (Some stand out for sure, but still didn't see unicorns and rainbows the way that everyone would have you believe lol). I don't think the experiences matter that much, they're just another experience, there's no point in clinging onto anything. Even so however, I've had a tremendous change in how I see life, interactions, etc. 

52 minutes ago, Emerald Wilkins said:

"Am I there yet? No." "How about now? No."

The more of this work that I do the more that I'm convinced there is no "there" to go. It, as a destination or mental state, never arrives because it was never really missing. This work is peeling away all of the false beliefs of who you think you are and looking for what is constant and as we accumulate new experiences, roles, etc. we have to continually realize that none of those things are what we are. Even so I still tend to try to rationalize what this experience of consciousness is though I will never truly understand it. 

Think about it this way, ultimately what is revealed is that we are the stillness in which and out of which all things arise, then how can it be possible that we need one specific esoteric moment to become conscious? We are already conscious. This is already it. Saying that one moment is needed is the same as saying that you are unconscious until you have one moment that makes you conscious. It is the relationship with consciousness and the idea of a separate self that changes with this work.

49 minutes ago, Emerald Wilkins said:

But slowly, I'm getting more and more confused and life is getting a bit directionless and pointless feeling. This feels really negative and uncomfortable, but I suspect that this may be a necessary step to get to the point where I truly feel like I know absolutely nothing and can let go of all expectation. Anyone else here having similar experiences?

I went through a period of deep nihilism for several months after starting to explore this topic. At first it was all well and good because I didn't really grasp the magnitude of what was being explored. As time went on though I became much more angry and depressed. Prior to taking up this work I was an extremely competitive person, I always had a high sense of self worth, etc. and I was already at a low point because I had encountered my first large "failure" in life around this time. It was something that was inextricably tied to my identity for a few years and to have that "taken away" already left me feeling lost. Growing up, people often told that I would be someone "important" someday so to hear "you do not exist" only added to my anger and confusion. I was angry at the world, it's kinda laughable now but I really was going through a period of time where I simultaneously didn't care about anything but also wanted to change everything about the world. 

Over the next few months though I started to accept things as they are instead of needing them to be a certain way. I saw that I misunderstood what was meant by saying "you do not exist" and found solace. The anger that I felt and the need for validation disappeared. That being said, I still try to pursue certain things in my life circumstances that I want to but the driving force behind doing it is much different now. 

[jjer94]

Hi Emerald,

As Kenya says, you're very intellectual and your posts reflect that. However, that has backfired, as you've got yourself stuck in the realm of words.

My guess is that you wrote this topic as a way to get your "fix" of words. Words that affirm what you say, words that give you reassurance that everything will be okay, words that reinforce your spiritual beliefs, words that will magically make you re-live your Ayahuasca experiences. You're going to get a lot of different opinions here, and you're going to take them only half to heart. Then once you get your "fix," you're going to look for more magic words that'll give you enlightenment. And so the cycle continues.

I don't mean to sound harsh, Emerald. I say this all out of the utmost empathy, because I've been in the exact same position as you, several times. This too shall pass.

So here's my opinion. Leave this forum, and don't come back until you've had at least a glimpse of your true nature. Don't read any more spiritual/nondual texts until you've had a glimpse of your true nature. Don't watch any spiritual/nondual videos until you've had a glimpse of your true nature. You already know the ins and outs of enlightenment theory; now it's time to throw it in the fire and find out what you are in direct experience.

It's simpler than you think. In fact, thinking is the problem. Sit down anywhere, maybe even with some background noise. Mind-wipe your Ayahuasca experiences and pretend like they've never happened. Mind-wipe any spiritual knowledge you have. Mind-wipe your name, your memories, and your roles. Stop believing that you are a human body on planet earth in the year 2016. Stop believing that you are an entity experienced. Stop believing that you are an entity behind the eyes. Just close your eyes and confirm for yourself that there is only moving boundary-less perceiving occuring in...what's left. Totally solid. I've already said too much. Don't intellectualize it and just look. You're already here. 

Once you've seen it, you will be able to ground your insights in direct experience. From that place of wisdom, you'll have a more intimate sense of why you're feeling directionless. 

Cheers!

[Emerald]

3 minutes ago, jjer94 said:

Hi Emerald,

As Kenya says, you're very intellectual and your posts reflect that. However, that has backfired, as you've got yourself stuck in the realm of words.

My guess is that you wrote this topic as a way to get your "fix" of words. Words that affirm what you say, words that give you reassurance that everything will be okay, words that reinforce your spiritual beliefs, words that will magically make you re-live your Ayahuasca experiences. You're going to get a lot of different opinions here, and you're going to take them only half to heart. Then once you get your "fix," you're going to look for more magic words that'll give you enlightenment. And so the cycle continues.

I don't mean to sound harsh, Emerald. I say this all out of the utmost empathy, because I've been in the exact same position as you, several times. This too shall pass.

So here's my opinion. Leave this forum, and don't come back until you've had at least a glimpse of your true nature. Don't read any more spiritual/nondual texts until you've had a glimpse of your true nature. Don't watch any spiritual/nondual videos until you've had a glimpse of your true nature. You already know the ins and outs of enlightenment theory; now it's time to throw it in the fire and find out what you are in direct experience.

It's simpler than you think. In fact, thinking is the problem. Sit down anywhere, maybe even with some background noise. Mind-wipe your Ayahuasca experiences and pretend like they've never happened. Mind-wipe any spiritual knowledge you have. Mind-wipe your name, your memories, and your roles. Stop believing that you are a human body on planet earth in the year 2016. Stop believing that you are an entity experienced. Stop believing that you are an entity behind the eyes. Just close your eyes and confirm for yourself that there is only moving boundary-less perceiving occuring in...what's left. Totally solid. I've already said too much. Don't intellectualize it and just look. You're already here. 

Once you've seen it, you will be able to ground your insights in direct experience. From that place of wisdom, you'll have a more intimate sense of why you're feeling directionless. 

Cheers!

You're totally right. There's this retreating to the intellect that I'm always doing. I'm always trying to hide and my advice asking or sharing of experience is just another way to do this. Thank you.

[WelcometoReality]

@Emerald Wilkins The past experiences and your beliefs about enlightenment creates expectations of what enlightenment is. You then see in the present moment that it does not hold the expectations that you have and setting it as a future goal, but that is like a carrot on a stick you'll never get to it.

This is really just writing what you already told us. So you know what to do. What was true in former experiences is not true in this moment.

[cetus]

@Emerald Wilkins Is our ultimate desire is to become non-existent. To completely vanish without a trace? That would be true bliss because there would be no "you" to have an experience of any kind. Someday we will all find our way home and become pure emptiness again. But for now, here we are. Kicking around on this rock and having experiences of all colors shapes and forms as the manifestation of emptiness. When you see everything from the perspective of non-existence, you can also see by comparison that one experience is really no different than any other. They all happen within this realm of existence and here they will stay.

[Natasha]

@Emerald Wilkins  This is an ego purging stage. I went though it a few months ago, was kind of hellish, but you get through and out  with a lot of fresh insight and a stronger sense of being. Ayla has a journal 'Mind Attacks After Initial Seeing', check it out, very helpful and revealing. Hugs

[Ayla]

@Emerald Wilkins ,

I'd like to give my two cents also, even though enough has already been said in this post. 

First, try to let go of the "enlightenment" in front of those experiences. We don't care what they were or were not, as long as they were just that: experiences. Right? 

Second, I'd like to share with you the only words I could think of when I had my own realization. They never left me ever since, except when there was something coming up for integration that felt "louder". Here they are: 

Quote

Nothing to DO

Nothing to UNDERSTAND

Nothing to CHANGE

Nothing to SOLVE

Might be a good idea if you feel inspired to, to use them as a sort of a mantra when you become aware that mind is taking over. 

Third, please, don't take this so seriously... it will only add a pressure that is one of the main hindrances for SEEING. 

Last but not least, go inside. NOBODY has any answer for you. I'm sure that (intellectually) you already know why 

[abrakamowse]

@Emerald Wilkins  Same thing happens to me. I think is just moments when  those states arise and we get caught by them.

Yesterday something like this was happening to me, I was very susceptible, I got angry and I realized it was just stupid because there's nothing to get angry or no reason to feel that way, but anyway it was there.

And my mind began to ask to "my non existent self", why is this happening to you if you saw that nothing is there? The mind is trying always to "understand" or make sense of those states that arise, but in reality there's nothing to understand. I know you know that, but maybe to know that others are experiencing the same thing make you feel better.

What happens to me is that I see those feelings, or I notice them, but I'm not affected by them.

I feel an space between the feelings and awareness, like they are not mine. But anyway there's like a kind of clinging to them, very subtle but I notice it.

Anyway my mind is also, like trying to make me doubt, like... why are you perceiving this if you are supposed to know that there's no one there?

 

I think I have to understand that the feelings, thoughts, are going to continue arising and I have to get more and more detached from them.

Right now I am working on that, I am still like looking in the dark, I don't know what's next but I know something will appear in the right moment and in the right time to make more parts of the illusion fall away.

Hope this helps,

:-)

 

 

 

[Richard Alpert]

19 hours ago, Emerald Wilkins said:

So, if you're familiar with my backstory and my "enlightenment" experiences that came on as a result of experimentation with Ayahuasca years ago, you'll know that this is really what opened my mind to spiritual seeking in the first place. But I have always been under the shadow of these experiences because I had access to such wisdom then, and I have in the past seven years been trying to replicate or get back to that state of being somehow or another. Since finding Leo's videos a year and a half ago, I've made a ton more progress than I'd made in all the years prior.

But there's always this comparison thinking going on with my present experience of reality and my past "enlightened" experience of reality, where I'm asking myself "Am I there yet? No." "How about now? No." I"m always measuring my present experiences up against those past experiences. There is a deep certainly that I've been carrying around about my understandings of enlightenment that I know isn't the right mindset to be holding to be truly open, because beliefs block me from open-ness. But I haven't been able to shake this deep feeling of certainty that  my memories of the experiences I had will somehow hold the key to waking up.

But slowly, I'm getting more and more confused and life is getting a bit directionless and pointless feeling. This feels really negative and uncomfortable, but I suspect that this may be a necessary step to get to the point where I truly feel like I know absolutely nothing and can let go of all expectation. Anyone else here having similar experiences?

I feel ya.

My motivation and drive for some things have diminished a little bit in the last year or so. Feeling also pointless sometimes. Hard time to play the "game", because it´s bullshit. My social circle has become tinier, because my interests are way different nowadays than most of my friends. I would guess it is the ego just resisting and holding on to old patterns and beliefs.

 

 

[Emerald]

Thank you everyone for all the replies.

[jjer94]

Now shoo, and go find out what you are!

[Philip]

@Emerald Wilkins

On 8/1/2016 at 7:53 PM, Emerald Wilkins said:

I'm getting more and more confused and life is getting a bit directionless and pointless feeling

What are you confused about?

And how does that make you feel?

(I suggest a lengthy answer)

[Matthew Lamot]

On 8/2/2016 at 3:02 AM, Emerald Wilkins said:

You're totally right. There's this retreating to the intellect that I'm always doing. I'm always trying to hide and my advice asking or sharing of experience is just another way to do this. Thank you.

If you want to become enlightened there is only two ways to do it, and that is by either finding an authentic Self-Realized Guru and devoting yourself to him or her, or using a method called self enquiry.  You have to continually notice your wandering I thought and allow it to sink into it's source every time it tries to extrovert itself until it no longer has any motivation to stray from it's source.  If you can hold the I thought in it's source to the exclusion of other thoughts the Self will recognize the I thought and draw it into itself and permanently destroy it!

To do this means not following trains of thought, memories and theories too!

No amount of knowledge can bring you to a realization of the Self, or even focusing attention on any external things.  This means meditation will not bring about Self-Realization either, because in meditation the I thought is still being encouraged to extrovert and fixate instead of being allowed to sink into it's source and be permanently destroyed by the Self.

You will know when your I thought is permanently destroyed by the realization that nothing exists outside of you.  This means that you no longer confuse your here and now with labels of mind, or matter - all is seen as consciousness and only consciousness!

This is the method prescribed by Ramana Maharshi.

 

[Leo Gura]

It's best not to think of those experiences as enlightenment. If it was an experience, and you still don't know what you are, then it wasn't enlightenment, it was something else. In which case, you gotta drop it and start from scratch in the NOW. You're not going to find enlightenment in your memory banks. You gotta find it NOW in the present experience. And old memories of experiences tend to only get in the way, because a memory is not what you are.

In this regard, psychedelics are problematic. This is the delusional aspect of psychedelics that I warned about. No psychedelic experience equals enlightenment, even though the experience might have been very profound and "spiritual".

[vizual]

It's quite simple, all experiences require an experience which experiences something "in time". Everything that has ever been experienced in time is not enlightenment, even if you had a momentary loss of self. It's the self that is trying to get back to that state... in time. All actions and rationalizations the ego makes are all in time, it's the ego that is trying to become enlightened, but it never will. The ego always wants to become something, whether it be enlightened, a saint or even "no one". 

Becoming enlightened is not a rational experience, it's not even a spiritual experience, or an "experiential" experience. It's simply not an experience at all. All efforts the ego make to become enlightened are futile. This can be frustrating, but it's part of the truth, the ego has no power to make anything happen. Things happen despite of the ego, not because of it. So when the ego chases a thing it cannot understand, enlightenment, it can become very angry and frustrated because it is the ultimate thing it can never attain.

Is this anger and frustration necessary? It's not but it probably depends on how you are wired. People with a strong attachment to their intellect probably have to face a stronger internal battle with their monkey mind than others to cross the other side. The only thing you can do is let it play itself out with the least amount of resistance.

[Emerald]

1 hour ago, vizual said:

Is this anger and frustration necessary? It's not but it probably depends on how you are wired. People with a strong attachment to their intellect probably have to face a stronger internal battle with their monkey mind than others to cross the other side. The only thing you can do is let it play itself out with the least amount of resistance.

Well said.

[Matthew Lamot]

2 hours ago, vizual said:

Becoming enlightened is not a rational experience, it's not even a spiritual experience, or an "experiential" experience. 

Is this anger and frustration necessary? It's not but it probably depends on how you are wired. 

Enlightenment is the final extinguishing of the experiencer.  Anger and frustration can be enquired into, but the layers of rationalization have to be removed by gently asking why there is anger there.  The frustration might be an unmet desire, so inquire into who is the one who desires.  You will soon see that the desire is a thought and that no self can be found, only the thought.  In that moment the identification falls away and the frustration is seen as nothing.  

This will allow you to rest attention back into the source much easier, but many more feelings will come up that will have to be inquired into to see the emptiness of them before the I thought is truly content with resting as pure awareness.

Try these videos:

Good luck