How do I forget about Enlightenment?

[nistake]

My 2 cents: Forget what Leo said, forget about Maslow's hierarchy and forget every model all toghether and follow your intuition. Do what's most important to you. 

You can do consciousness work even if you're high school. In fact, every kid in high school should meditate at least once a day. Do consciousness work, but don't forget about the necessary survival skills. I guess, education is what you should focus on right now. Maybe try contemplating about what kind of work you'd like to do in the future. No need to be uptight about that, just play with some ideas. Also, you're still quite young, so find some great hobbies, try to socialize (if you like) and just enjoy the process  

[Nahm]

7 hours ago, preventingdiabetes said:

I think you missed some words in the sentences, I don’t understand. 
 

Someone asked Eckhart Tolle “What gives enlightened people motive to change?” 
 

Eckhart used an analogy of sitting in a bus. 
Where he was currently seated, there was someone bothering him by making a lot of noise, coughing, etc. 

 

But there was a free seat across where he was sitting.

 

So he didn’t just accept sitting where it was inconvenient, he preferred to sit on the free seat so he did so.

 

But if there was no free seat, then he would just accept that there was no option and be content with that.

 

Could that example be used here? 

Being more engaged with life contributes to feeling great, and you might think of awakening as the greatest feeling. 

7 hours ago, preventingdiabetes said:

If I was awakened, and I didn’t have a Life Purpose or mastery in anything, would I be motivated to cultivate one simply because I would prefer it and for the fun of it? As if I was playing with lego? 

Yes you’d probably do what you want to do, but also, you are already doing what you want to do. 

7 hours ago, preventingdiabetes said:

 

If so, would it be a good strategy to continue putting my all into my Life Purpose right now, so I can save a lot of work for when I do awaken? Because I’d likely want to cultivate it even after awakening? 

I think it would be good to hear what you don’t want to hear but are looking to hear, which is that you have more than enough time for everything you want to do, create and accomplish, and continuing to make a this or that situation out of the concepts of life purpose & awakening is not doing, creating, or accomplishing anything. 

[Waken]

I think you would have a lot of benefit from listening to good old Bashar recommendation of following your passion/excitement/joy as best as you can in each moment.

[preventingdiabetes]

14 hours ago, Lews Therin said:

I'd say reach for IT,

What’s IT?

13 hours ago, Dodo said:

Drop the need to know. Notice you will never know. Easy. 

How? 

[preventingdiabetes]

@Nahm Thanks. I’m really just overthinking. I managed to get out of this overthinking rut for a day but fell back in. 
 

7 hours ago, Waken said:

I think you would have a lot of benefit from listening to good old Bashar recommendation of following your passion/excitement/joy as best as you can in each moment.

Where can I find it?

[Waken]

1 minute ago, preventingdiabetes said:

@Nahm Thanks. I’m really just overthinking. I managed to get out of this overthinking rut for a day but fell back in. 
 

Where can I find it?

Google and youtube of course. Here is a pdf with the main points https://bashar.org/handouts/TheFormula.pdf

Here is a more simplified and story-form version of it: Bashar: "...this is very very simple, you're making it too complicated. When this conversation is over, when this event is over today, you will have a number of options available to you that you could do something about, that you can act on. You can take a walk. You could read a book. You can see a movie. You could have lunch. A number of things. All you have to do is look at all the options and just pick the one that's even just a little more attractive than any other and act on it to the best of your ability, with no assumptions as to what the outcome will be. That's all you have to keep doing, that's it. It's that simple."

[preventingdiabetes]

@Waken Thank you

[Dodo]

2 hours ago, preventingdiabetes said:

What’s IT?

How? 

It is love

Ask: Is it love? No need for other questions and searching. Enlightenment, to me, is a loaded word which takes us away from what is right in front of our face. Those who speak about a path to enlightenment, to me are either talking about something else or do not know fully what it means. Love is not achieved or trained for. You either act from love or you don't. And you see other things and people - are they love awake or are they love asleep.

Sometimes you can be love asleep and know more about love than others, just by dissecting it and trying to know it. But that doesn't mean you are acting from love. To act from love is to align with love and you are then "enlightened".

An enlightenment exercise would be to help the old lady cross the road. (And to do it without expecting a reward or acknowledgement - you do it and you leave - done! No need for self gratification) I think you understand me... Trust in Love. It is a higher power, not something you need to know. It is beyond knowledge, so drop trying to understand. Srsly

There is a love which goes beyond knowledge. For me, I got opened to this when I accepted the simple truth: "I will never know what is outside of my awareness". Many on the forum might disagree, but I am just reporting my own experience and what opened me to the seeing and receiving of Love. Simplicity is key, for me. Sometimes what is important is to K.I.S.S. hehe! That is so love's way. 

 

Edited October 22, 2020 by Dodo

[preventingdiabetes]

@Dodo Thank you. 

[preventingdiabetes]

18 hours ago, Nahm said:

Imagine the enthusiasm and energy of a basketball player who is practicing like....maybe...there might be...somehow ...spontaneously...a game day...? Vs the heart & vision of the player who’s mid-season and practicing for the game this weekend. Two different levels of engagement and inspiration. One’s not really headed anywhere and the latter is the guy in your picture. 

I think I now understand what you're saying here.

 

So you're saying that if I were to only be doing enlightenment work (self-inquiry, many hours of meditation, etc.), without Life Purpose work, then I'd be practicing and hoping for Enlightenment to occur without much sense of progress, which can happen spontaneously and isn't exactly something I can envision. 

 

However with the latter approach, I'd have a vision to strive for (Life Purpose). In which It'd be easier and faster to have enlightenment to occur as I have a clear-cut vision. 

 

Is this what you were saying? 

[traveler]

Enlightenment is an illusion like every other desire your imagination cooks up. The "I" that wants enlightenment is enlightenment disguised as a seperate "I" that wants enlightenment.  The "me" wanting it is what feels so terrible. It is a movement towards, and you know deep down that has never and will never work. That is why we call ourselves seekers and never finders. You won't find it because what you're looking for is what you already are.

[Nahm]

@preventingdiabetes

Pretty much. You get to do all of the above, and as you do it’s all more seen as one. You even get to do all the stuff along the way that you haven’t even thought about yet. It’s a no lose situation really. 

 

[preventingdiabetes]

@Nahm

Cool. 

How does one know if they're making progress in becoming enlightened anyway? 

[Nahm]

@preventingdiabetes

By how your life is going and or by how you feel. 

[preventingdiabetes]

10 minutes ago, Nahm said:

@preventingdiabetes

By how your life is going and or by how you feel. 

Is there a concrete way to measure it? This doesn’t sound very grounded. 

[Nahm]

@preventingdiabetes

No. You can can deduce that your experience is one unseparated whole (including the person), and also that that whole of experience is entirely relative to you, awareness, which is not ever relative to any thing or experience...revealing there isn’t anything other than awareness. You can question your direct experience of birth & death, or scrutinize the literal difference between a seed, a tree, and an apple, and see there aren’t any beginnings or endings. You can also of course do practices, attend retreats, takes trips, and have tons of fun across all avenues of life experience. You can explore and experience within yourself without end. You can trip to Pluto and back, and even beyond. This life will be the baseline, or the sufficiently seemingly constant grounding in and of itself, as a backdrop. You’re creating this ‘back drop’ already. The only thing in question is if you are conscious that you are. So I would focus on your life purpose, and I would use a dreamboard. 

[Carl-Richard]

On 21.10.2020 at 10:53 PM, preventingdiabetes said:

Even after listening to this advice, in the back of my head it makes me feel like this Life Purpose work is pointless, and what I really want is Enlightenment. 

It might seem like a contradiction (it was for me), but pursuing a life purpose is still important even when purpose is understood to be an illusion. You need to be able to distinguish between the absolute and the relative realm. In a relative sense, you're a finite human being with finite human needs that wants to survive. Purpose is important for your life: it gives it direction, structure and meaning. In an absolute sense, there is no purpose: you're Infinite Consciousness.

[preventingdiabetes]

@Nahm

What do you mean by backdrop? 
 

34 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

It might seem like a contradiction (it was for me), but pursuing a life purpose is still important even when purpose is understood to be an illusion. You need to be able to distinguish between the absolute and the relative realm. In a relative sense, you're a finite human being with finite human needs that wants to survive. Purpose is important for your life: it gives it direction, structure and meaning. In an absolute sense, there is no purpose: you're Infinite Consciousness.

So if I wanted to be the happiest and most fulfilled I could possibly be, I wouldn’t be able to get it through enlightenment alone, right?

[Mvrs]

On 10/21/2020 at 6:15 PM, Nahm said:

@preventingdiabetes

If you want an awakening experience, in the sense it is fleeting, psychedelics are best. If you want awakening that is lasting, life purpose is actually the fastest route. 

This could not be anymore true 

[Mvrs]

4 minutes ago, preventingdiabetes said:

@Nahm

What do you mean by backdrop? 
 

So if I wanted to be the happiest and most fulfilled I could possibly be, I wouldn’t be able to get it through enlightenment alone, right?

Kinda... if you really understand the miracle of anything in existence at all you would always be extremely happy however most people can’t so you want to just be the the most authentic you possible . Realize you gave yourself this life to be comfortable and express love . It’s all gonna be okay. Your in heaven;)