Is Meditation Enough?

[The White Belt]

Hey guys.

So here's the deal, I've never had a a mystical, no-self, non-dual experience before. I've done a bit of self inquiry and stuff.

What bothers me is that i've learned a lot about enlightenment, watched videos by Adyashanti, Sadghuru, Osho, and others but it's just pure confusion, all of this stuff is just so contradictory that I think I should just lay off totally until I have some sort of experience because at the minute all it is is just knowledge, and not experience. So if I lay off, try to get my meditation up to an hour by a year, will that be enough for now?

 

Thanks.

[Costa7]

1 hour ago, BeginnerActualizer said:

Hey guys.

So here's the deal, I've never had a a mystical, no-self, non-dual experience before. I've done a bit of self inquiry and stuff.

What bothers me is that i've learned a lot about enlightenment, watched videos by Adyashanti, Sadghuru, Osho, and others but it's just pure confusion, all of this stuff is just so contradictory that I think I should just lay off totally until I have some sort of experience. 

You will get the experiences as you go along the path to enlightenment. Maybe there is not a path. Anyway, don't wait. Your ego tells you to push this thing away for a few days, a few months, or whatever. If you want to do enlightenment progress, apply what you know. 

You said you learnt a lot about enlightenment. Get the shit done! Go do the job. Don't let your knowledge, now matter how small is or how large, use it! 

About the 1 hour/ a day for 1 year. That would be great, yes, but for other purposes. I mean, like Leo said in his video ( https://www.youtube.com/shared?ci=8OnBRABLxhA - this one), you can meditate to acquire enlightment, but doing so,  you will spend better the 40 years of everyday mediation. So better try out the method he talks about.

Me, I watched and re-watched Leo's videos about spiritual enlightment, and applied some stuff, but I got to the point where I was seeing the world different and I felt weird a bit and saw different by the people around. So I quit, because I said that I needed to be more prepared. But now I will start again more seriously then ever. And you should too. Your ego is a bitch. Don't live life for it. Peace :-) 

[Aware]

@BeginnerActualizer The path leading to the path, the path, light and the truth... Are in truth, not tangible. You yourself must be your own way, your own light, your own truth, your own guide, your own Dharma, and your own Salvation.

I have been preaching often already here, that the path to the path, is hearing the Dharma (the workings of reality). That the path you must become, will be according to seclusion from unwholesome deeds namely: Wrong views, intention, speech, act, effort, livelihood, attention and concentration. And bringing your attention and being concentrated on Awareness, that is all pervasive, that is all minds, just without the defilements, that there for is all pervasive, not bound, unborn and is deathless.

To be your own guide, your own Dharma and salvation, one must there for live secluded from worldly activity, and be mindful always, when he eats, drinks and sleeps, and always guarding his senses.

 

What people fail to understand, mostly also on this forum, is that you can't have all your security that you have, all your possessions, riches and stability from parents etc. One truly must get back to a simple life, and perform what I wrote down above. But as long as you, and others are still stuck in thinking they can have it both ways... And your riches, stability and security and enlightenment, one made just a failed business deal, giving up something great, for something smal and insignificant.

I want enlightenment, yes yes yes they scream, but when they are asked to get rid of stability, possessions etc, then its no, I want just both ways.

You can't have it both ways, and being a worldly addicted maniac that is called a servant of the senses, and a holy one reaching out for enlightenment. The Buddha often spoke of this.

Edited December 19, 2016 by Motus

[Shin]

2 hours ago, BeginnerActualizer said:

Hey guys.

So here's the deal, I've never had a a mystical, no-self, non-dual experience before. I've done a bit of self inquiry and stuff.

What bothers me is that i've learned a lot about enlightenment, watched videos by Adyashanti, Sadghuru, Osho, and others but it's just pure confusion, all of this stuff is just so contradictory that I think I should just lay off totally until I have some sort of experience because at the minute all it is is just knowledge, and not experience. So if I lay off, try to get my meditation up to an hour by a year, will that be enough for now?

 

Thanks.

Meditation raise your awareness, so you can see the bullshit in your head, and make wiser choices. It calms you down, makes you more appreciative of the present moment.

Meditation isn't needed to have an awakening or to realize your enlightenment, but it helps.

 

It's not through meditation alone that you will realize your true nature, it is by living your life in the present moment intensely.

 

Habits than can help:

- Practising mindfullness

- Living your life purpose

- Taking care of your body and mind (healthy diet)

- Limiting bullshit habits that feels your head with craps (memes/facebook/smoking/alcohol etc ...)

- More connection with nature

- Cutting off negative/toxic people from your life

- Yoga

 

Edited December 19, 2016 by Shin

[Leo Gura]

@BeginnerActualizer I suggest you do a meditation or enlightenment retreat. Where you can sit and focus for 100 hours straight.

It's hard to breakthrough by doing 1-hour daily sits. That's generally not nearly enough. That's just basic maintenance work.

[bobbyward]

look into the  'I am' meditation, its something that can be done all day with some formal practice of it. 

[Live Life Liam]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

@BeginnerActualizer I suggest you do a meditation or enlightenment retreat. Where you can sit and focus for 100 hours straight.

It's hard to breakthrough by doing 1-hour daily sits. That's generally not nearly enough. That's just basic maintenance work.

So what would be a good way to breakthrough without a meditation or enlightenment retreat? Could meditating for even 2 hours a day help or is even that not enough. Generally I feel i'm improving but haven't had a breakthrough yet but am only doing 1 hour daily.

[Prabhaker]

16 hours ago, BeginnerActualizer said:

So if I lay off, try to get my meditation up to an hour by a year, will that be enough for now?

You can learn meditation for one hour – learning is one thing – but then you have to carry whatever you have learned day in, day out. Meditation has to become just like your heartbeat. Whatsoever you do, do it with awareness; this is meditation. Walking, walk attentively, as if walking is everything; eating, eat with awareness, as if eating is everything; rising, rise with awareness; sitting, sit with awareness; all your actions become conscious, your mind does not travel beyond this moment, it remains in the moment, settles in the moment -- this is meditation.

Meditation is not a separate process. Meditation is simply the name for life lived with awareness. Meditation is not an hour-a-day affair where you sit for one hour and then it is over till tomorrow. No, if twenty-three hours are empty of meditation and only one hour is meditative, then it is certain that the twenty-three hours will defeat the single hour. Non-meditation will win, meditation will lose. If you are living twenty-three hours a day without awareness, and only one hour with awareness, then you will never attain to the state of meditation. How can this single hour triumph over the other twenty-three hours?

So understand well that meditation is not just one of life's innumerable activities. Meditation is a lifestyle, not an activity.

[Radical Honesty]

@Motus  This just isn't true. Possessions and security are completely irrelevant to enlightenment. throwing all these away doesn't solve anything. 

[Radical Honesty]

@Prabhaker This is very true. One way to heighten your awareness is to do 10 minutes of walking meditation before you do your formal practice. 

Over time, you will learn to bring this awareness when you are walking anywhere. This will help you break out of the habit of treating meditation as synonymous with sitting and watching your breath. 

(Credit: Joseph Goldstein)

[Aware]

@brovakhiin It is the middle way that leads to nirvana, he taught.

[Bob84]

@BeginnerActualizer  Actually its not contradictory at all, then again, ask yourself, what truly is a contradiction if you let go of your beliefs?
One must do a, b, c, d, e, etc to reach 0? See the problem with that? Sure you can meditate for a year, eat 2 ice-creams a day, put a potato under your pillow, what ever makes you feel like you are getting somewhere. Then again that is the problem. As there is nowhere to get to.