Confused?

[bflare]

Hello all,

I have been suffering from depression for almost 5 years & have over 15 years of alcohol abuse. 4 years ago I started a fresh start & decided to improve myself. I followed the self-development path. Improved my fitness & general health along with my relationships. I became really passionate about self-help / personal development to a point of writing my own book etc. Although I had vastly improved my overall situation I still had a type of uneasy feeling, as if something was still missing from my life. I think this is because I was still searching for happiness in external forms. I realised this may be the case when I stumbled across spirituality. I read a couple of Eckhart Tolle books which I enjoyed. This progressed into me having a bigger interest in spirituality especially the subject of the ego & non duality. The problem is now that I have an interest in spirituality & understand that in order to have a fulfilling life we need to live in the present, realise we are not our body & mind I find myself not interested in personal development any more. It feels as if now that I know enlightenment is the final goal then any personal development is useless. So the passion which improved my situation has now gone & I feel as if I am not making much progress in spiritual path. So overall I feel a bit diminished & sort of lost. For example, I lost 80lb in weight & started weight training to improve my health & body image. I really enjoyed this but now consider this to be part of my Ego wanting to be better than other people who once made fun of me for been over weight. Also I was hoping to start my own business helping others with personal development but now also consider this to be part of my ego.

Any advice or guidance would be really appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

Tony.

[Prabhaker]

27 minutes ago, bflare said:

I have been suffering from depression for almost 5 years & have over 15 years of alcohol abuse. 4 years ago I started a fresh start & decided to improve myself. I followed the self-development path. Improved my fitness & general health along with my relationships.

To be a sufferer of depression simply means you have repressed too much. Depression is nothing but repression. you are depressed so much because you have not been allowed to express yourself. Dynamic Meditation is expression. In expressing yourself, in catharting all that has been repressed in your unconscious, you will be unburdened, you will become saner, healthier.

http://www.oshodynamic.com/index.html

http://www.oshonisarga.com/?page=dynamicmeditation

Begin with your insanity, not with a sitting posture. Allow your insanity. If you dance madly, the opposite happens within you. With a mad dance, you begin to be aware of a silent point within you; with sitting silently you begin to be aware of your madness. The opposite is always the point of awareness. 

If you begin with something active, positive, alive, moving, you will begin to feel an inner stillness growing. The more it grows the more it will be possible for you to use a sitting or lying posture.

[Azrael]

24 minutes ago, bflare said:

Also I was hoping to start my own business helping others with personal development but now also consider this to be part of my ego.

You have to see that "you" or "your ego" or however you wanna call it, isn't bad. It's everything you have to your individual existence. Everything you can feel, sense, think and make sense of right now is your ego. It is that deep. What spirituality simply tells you is: "Look here, although you have your very limited individualistic view on things, that itself is being made in every moment just as the flowers are made to grow, the birds are made to sing and the sun is made to rise. You are fundamentally this self-enforcing power that does that in and of itself."

And that's profound and very interesting to explore. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't follow your passions, deny your character and strengths and be a yogi. You can do that, but really don't have to.

You'll see a funny thing with enlightened people. Most people who start out on this quest and begin to see into the reality of things a little bit will make it the one and only, the greatest and nothing else now matters anymore kind of thing. That's a phase and it's an important one, because you begin to shift your neurotic attitude that was mainly focused and your life onto what is greater than that, so you become neurotic about it. When you can see the reality of things and who you are and how shit works on a consistent basis though, this neurosis over time just vanishes and you begin to live a very moderate, chilled life, focusing on whatever you naturally want and not praising one thing and blaming  another.

So all in all, there is nothing wrong with you following your passions. It's great that you have such good motives, act on them. This world needs people like you doing that, I'd say.

Cheers

[Prabhaker]

49 minutes ago, bflare said:

Also I was hoping to start my own business helping others with personal development but now also consider this to be part of my ego.

One has to do something in life. Somebody is a carpenter and somebody is a president, and somebody is a businessman and somebody is a policeman. These are ways of livelihood, these are ways of getting bread and butter, a shelter. They can't change your inner being. Whether you are a policeman or a businessman does not make any difference: one has chosen one way to earn his livelihood, the other has chosen something else.

Meditation is life, not livelihood. It has nothing to do with what you do; it has everything to do with what you are. Yes, business should not enter into your being, that is true. If your being also has become businesslike, then it is difficult to meditate and dissolve your ego. You cannot carry your cleverness there. In fact, cleverness is not true intelligence either; cleverness is a poor substitute for intelligence. People who are not intelligent learn how to be clever.

 

[bflare]

12 minutes ago, Azrael said:

You have to see that "you" or "your ego" or however you wanna call it, isn't bad. It's everything you have to your individual existence. Everything you can feel, sense, think and make sense of right now is your ego. It is that deep. What spirituality simply tells you is: "Look here, although you have your very limited individualistic view on things, that itself is being made in every moment just as the flowers are made to grow, the birds are made to sing and the sun is made to rise. You are fundamentally this self-enforcing power that does that in and of itself."

And that's profound and very interesting to explore. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't follow your passions, deny your character and strengths and be a yogi. You can do that, but really don't have to.

You'll see a funny thing with enlightened people. Most people who start out on this quest and begin to see into the reality of things a little bit will make it the one and only, the greatest and nothing else now matters anymore kind of thing. That's a phase and it's an important one, because you begin to shift your neurotic attitude that was mainly focused and your life onto what is greater than that, so you become neurotic about it. When you can see the reality of things and who you are and how shit works on a consistent basis though, this neurosis over time just vanishes and you begin to live a very moderate, chilled life, focusing on whatever you naturally want and not praising one thing and blaming  another.

So all in all, there is nothing wrong with you following your passions. It's great that you have such good motives, act on them. This world needs people like you doing that, I'd say.

Cheers

Thanks for taking the time to give me some valuable advice. Is it normal to feel deflated because you realise happiness cannot be achieved from external sources? I am now worried that the happiness that external things such as my passion for fitness etc brought me is false. I now feel like I will never be happy or content unless I can become totally conscious. I sometimes now feel worse than I did before I stumbled upon spirituality. Should i make meditation a big part of my life? Would this help?

I see people at work looking forward to the weekend & holidays etc. which I also did, but now I don't as I now see it's just a momentary spell of happiness. So on the one hand I am glad that I know the workings of our mind & how to achieve a happy & fulfilling life but on the other hand I feel down because I am not at that point in my life. But feeling down is part of me not accepting what is.

This is really confusing haha

Thanks again.

Tony.

 

 

 

[bflare]

6 minutes ago, Prabhaker said:

One has to do something in life. Somebody is a carpenter and somebody is a president, and somebody is a businessman and somebody is a policeman. These are ways of livelihood, these are ways of getting bread and butter, a shelter. They can't change your inner being. Whether you are a policeman or a businessman does not make any difference: one has chosen one way to earn his livelihood, the other has chosen something else.

Meditation is life, not livelihood. It has nothing to do with what you do; it has everything to do with what you are. Yes, business should not enter into your being, that is true. If your being also has become businesslike, then it is difficult to meditate and dissolve your ego. You cannot carry your cleverness there. In fact, cleverness is not true intelligence either; cleverness is a poor substitute for intelligence. People who are not intelligent learn how to be clever.

 

Thank you Prabhaker that makes sense.

So it is not wrong to be passionate about work etc as we need a livelihood within this modern society to provide us with food & shelter etc?

Thanks again.

Tony.

 

[Capethaz]

@bflare meditation. Minimum 45 minutes a day, consistently. Try samatha-vipassana. With time depression will vanish and it will become a joke.

[bflare]

7 minutes ago, Capethaz said:

@bflare meditation. Minimum 45 minutes a day, consistently. Try samatha-vipassana. With time depression will vanish and it will become a joke.

Thank you for your reply Capethaz, i will look into samatha-vipassana.

Thanks again.

Tony.

 

[cetus]

2 hours ago, bflare said:

I lost 80lb in weight & started weight training to improve my health & body image. I really enjoyed this but now consider this to be part of my Ego wanting to be better than other people who once made fun of me for been over weight. Also I was hoping to start my own business helping others with personal development but now also consider this to be part of my ego.

@bflare Do all these same things but in a totally egoless way. This universe gave you a body, a gift. Taking care of it is within the natural flow of the universe. Nurture it as you would a garden with respect for the universe. Find the harmony, the flow, the Tao.  Do it not because of the ego or what somebody else had said. Same with helping others with personal development. Do it all in a very selfless way as an act of giving back. All this can be part your practice toward liberation through respect and returning to the natural flow of the Tao.  

[bflare]

16 minutes ago, cetus56 said:

@bflare Do all these same things but in a totally egoless way. This universe gave you a body, a gift. Taking care of it is within the natural flow of the universe. Nurture it as you would a garden with respect for the universe. Find the harmony, the flow, the Tao.  Do it not because of the ego or what somebody else had said. Same with helping others with personal development. Do it all in a very selfless way as an act of giving back. All this can be part your practice toward liberation through respect and returning to the natural flow of the Tao.  

thank you cetus56 that made perfect sense & good advice.

Thanks again.

 

Tony.