My current objections and challenges with Spirituality and Enlightment (Rant)

[Javfly33]

Main objection/frustration:

If Enlightment depends on your brain state of consciousness, what is the point on meditating or doing mindful practices through the day?

1). 

I have come to the conclusion I can't raise my baseline state meditating through the whole fucking day (been doing Isha Kriya meditation this last days FOR HOURS through the day trying to completely eliminate the ego in my life = trying to achieve a light state of non duality sober).

Can't do it. I always fall back. I achieve some seconds of bliss/heaven for some seconds and then the rest is kind of yes/no ego. I am not really deep suffering but there is still ego. I am not really joyful. But I keep doing it because I believe it will come a point where the ego will let go completely. But maybe I should just stop Lol. Why? Because the 2). Point below

2.) 

The thing is when I am doing this mindfulness I am not in this neurotic state of achieving stuff of spiral dynamics stage orange. Which is precisely which makes me suffer and Actually is counterproductive to achieve it (being neurotic). BUT, you guys say that one should first achieve this stuff (self growth of the minor s, sex, money, success of the ego) and then go for Enlightment. So the ego gets neurotic to get it done. But then I see the ego is ruining my life and I start meditating. But meditating makes me not being so serious about achieving it!! And then I'm at this stage of not achieving shit but neither being Enlightened! Wtf! Lol

Then what do I do??? See if I choose one thing I'm damned and if I choose the other I'm damned too.

3). 

Yesterday night I was feeling sick and couldn't sleep and I took a drug that I know is good when you feel sick and makes you fall asleep. I had no tolerance for this drug because I quit a time ago, but I still wasn't expecting the strong effects it gave me. It triggered me a realization of the Self (it's not a psychedelic at all but when you have had awakenings and meditate, a lot of drugs can put you into spiritual states that for normies wouldn't). I was Consciousness and I was aware of the "I" thoughts. It's great that I got into this state but it's also very sad that still brain chemistry dictates everything. Why the fuck I can't get here by meditating? The drugs are just some neurochemistry imaginary keys. 

[Leo Gura]

Yoga/meditation rewires your brain chemistry.

The trick is that you have to do it A LOT for it to work. Small effort is not enough.

Rewiring your brain requires enormous patience. It's a long-term investment, similar to education.

[Girzo]

18 minutes ago, Javfly33 said:

And then I'm at this stage of not achieving shit but neither being Enlightened! Wtf! Lol

Welcome, welcome, this where I live, make yourself at home, haha.

[Leo Gura]

Common sense should tell you: if less then 0.0001% of the global population is enlightened, then enlightenment must be pretty fucking hard.

The ones who say it's easy just got really fucking lucky in their life situation. They won the lottery.

[Shin]

When did you start to meditate ?

[Javfly33]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Yoga/meditation rewires your brain chemistry.

The trick is that you have to do it A LOT for it to work. Small effort is not enough.

Rewiring your brain requires enormous patience. It's a long-term investment, similar to education.

Right. I get that as a motivation to continue with my Isha kriya practice then .

1 hour ago, Girzo said:

Welcome, welcome, this where I live, make yourself at home, haha.

How much time have you been in that stage?

I'm so frustrated man. Don't know what to do. 

[Mu_]

@Javfly33 you may want to start a practice of appreciating and embrassing suffering and imperfection. 

Become cozy with not being where you want to be. Become cozy with the ego mind blah blah blahing.  Become cozy with soreness and bodily discomfort to some degree and stretch that little by little without injuring your body.  Ei take cold showers few times a week. Really be still and cozy with fear and agitation and anger. Appreciate it like a scientist and get cozy with it like a pillow. 

But don’t become addicted to this practice. Joy and pleasure is a good balance since this practice has a potential toll if done with force pride and angerly hard nosing it. 

Also read a little about stoicism.  And let in some of their mindset  

these all seemed to help in some way during the phase of life you decribed while i was in it  

@Girzo

[Girzo]

1 hour ago, Javfly33 said:

How much time have you been in that stage?

Like two years now? Something like that.

Quote

I'm so frustrated man. Don't know what to do. 

Chillout. 

1 hour ago, Mu_ said:

Also read a little about stoicism.

I have been reading that when I was 14 yo, Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, etc. I am well beyond the point at which stoicism can help you with anything and I believe @Javfly33 is too.

And the cold showers. I don't know what the deal with them is. For me cold showers are a normal life style choice, I have been doing them since a kid, it's just what you do when there's no hot water. People make such a fuss about it. Just like with the no-fap or glorifying vomiting on psychedelics, calling it "cleansing" while it is just an undesired side effect. I don't subscribe to such ideas.

Edited June 6, 2021 by Girzo

[Mu_]

@Girzo ya maybe it’s not for you. 

So where do you feel like things are at for you out of curiosity.  You gave a interesting response to javfly33. 

Also If you’ve done cold showers growing up of course it will be normal. My advice was more about doing something to push into uncomfortability with an intent just to observe and appreciate the sensations themselves. Perhaps the mystery and miracle and even what the fuck, this sucks of them, hahaha. But to still go forward anyways. 

Also, sometimes just going into society again if you’ve become kinda detached or hermitic and observing what comes up without judgment is another good thing in a in between phase. It’s sometimes easy to make society and what goes on collectively and individually a new problem. 

[Girzo]

11 minutes ago, Mu_ said:

So where do you feel like things are at for you out of curiosity.

Dunno, I focus on doing various kinds of yoga 4 hours a day, an ocassional retreat, or a psychedelic trip here and there. But I would like to have a meaningful work, like really helping people, easing their suffering, but I have no idea how to put myself into this position. It's not money or time that constrains me, it's something psychological, that requirement of transformation. Leting go of who you are to become someone else. It's not scary or anything, just... hard.

I am not a kiddo anymore, but being 23 yo I still have a lot to understand about the world and even a few things to figure out about who I really am, as a human, not in a spiritual sense. I mean, the spiritual, too, but the human aspect gets priority for survival reasons. 

Sometimes I feel like there's not much in this world to live for, I mean material stuff, like travel, luxurious apartments and expensive gadgets. It's worth so little and gets old so fast. But loving people, loving life is cool. Being useful to others is cool, too.

22 minutes ago, Mu_ said:

My advice was more about doing something to push into uncomfortability with an intent just to observe and appreciate the sensations themselves.

Yeah, observing stuff is always good idea, can't go wrong with that.

[lark]

4 hours ago, Javfly33 said:

I have come to the conclusion I can't raise my baseline state meditating through the whole fucking day

The more you think about it the more you will complicate things, try to relax.

The more we try to hold on to something the more it slips away.

[IAmReallyImportant]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Common sense should tell you: if less then 0.0001% of the global population is enlightened, then enlightenment must be pretty fucking hard.

The ones who say it's easy just got really fucking lucky in their life situation. They won the lottery.

Most people don't try it and are not serious. So population is not a good measurement.

[Javfly33]

@IAmReallyImportant yeah that's a very good point.

I would like to see the statistic of people who had actually meditated, learn about non duality, done retreats, and done psychedelics specifically for spiritual purposes, and still are not Enlightened as a sober baseline state of consciousness. 

 

[IAmReallyImportant]

41 minutes ago, Javfly33 said:

@IAmReallyImportant yeah that's a very good point.

I would like to see the statistic of people who had actually meditated, learn about non duality, done retreats, and done psychedelics specifically for spiritual purposes, and still are not Enlightened as a sober baseline state of consciousness. 

 

Retreat centres, ashrams, etc. should collect data. Some carefully selected masters have to define certain symptoms of enlightenment on which the subjects have to undergo both a self-assessment and a third-party assessment by the master.

In addition, the subjects have to give side information about their practices, routines, diet, lifestyle and more. This will help to find out more about certain practices you should go and also avoid. It can also help to improve certain practices or processes.

The test groups are separated into psychedelic and non-psychedelic users.

Edited June 6, 2021 by IAmReallyImportant

[Shin]

Maybe that's your problem

 

 

[Forestluv]

@Javfly33 You seem heavily oriented toward goal / outcome. That can be useful as motivation, yet it's also a hindrance. I've found it helpful to balance goal/outcome with love of process - as if the destination is the journey. 

I used to help train people to run their first marathon. They were so obsessed with goal/outcome that they totally missed process and progress. We'd be running in a beautiful forest and they would be checking their watch every 30 seconds, obsessed with pace, distance and hyper-analyzing everything. I'd be like "how about we not worry about that stuff for now and just enjoy our run? The forest and weather is beautiful. The brook is babbling, the birds are singing and the breeze feels wonderful". Yet they were in a totally different mindset. They were never able to have fun and enjoy the process. 

I've been doing spiritual work for 30 years and I'm still exploring new terrain. Currently I'm doing my first prolonged fast and I'm blown away by the experience. 

For me, if I become too heavy on either goal/outcome or process then problems can arise. 

[mp22]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Yoga/meditation rewires your brain chemistry.

The trick is that you have to do it A LOT for it to work. Small effort is not enough.

Rewiring your brain requires enormous patience. It's a long-term investment, similar to education.

Sorry, you said many times that brains literally don't exist.  And here you talk about brain chemistry and brain rewiring.

 

[_Archangel_]

@Shin garbage

[Shin]

6 minutes ago, _Archangel_ said:

@Shin garbage

Care to elaborate ?

[_Archangel_]

@Shin Hundreds/Thousends years old traditions swipt away in a second with "This approach is... wrong" hahaha.
A concetration of banalizations and inaccuracies from start to finish. 
But the biggest problem is that these poeple also go on teaching "meditation" to others....

I actually like his usual content but this is a big NO.