"Spirituality" fell away spontaneously

[Sugarcoat]

On 2022-01-08 at 5:53 PM, WelcometoReality said:

@Sugarcoat Yes, that's usually what happens when beliefs fall away. You feel disoriented and look for ways to gain clarity. ?

So maybe your spiritual practices doesn't lead to an "increase in awareness" or maybe they do. Do you enjoy doing them or would you rather do something else?

Embrace the not knowing and ask yourself what feels true for you and it might be revealed.

 

Currently I don´t feel like meditating no, but I will if I desire to. 

Currently I´m all over the place lol I feel some attachemnts I have but I can´t force myself to let them go so I´m just doing whatever

[Sugarcoat]

On 2022-01-08 at 6:29 PM, Fearless_Bum said:

@Sugarcoat yes! 

Spirituality is the biggest trap of them all. 

"I'm raising my awareness!" What a load of shit ?. What awareness? 

Glad you surrendered to the simple-ness.

I laughed out loud when reading this. Lovely energy in your words

It feels a bit freeing yes to not constantly be bound to some future idea of increased awareness that I´m always looking forward to that will allieviate my suffering and that everything I do has to be contributing to this otherwise I´m losing something lol 

But I still have other attachents so I´m still in my seeking energy lol, one thing at a time I guess

[Fearless_Bum]

@Sugarcoat

The attachments is fine in my opinion, like it's actually impossible to be unattached. 

Really, what do you think will happen when all the "attachments" disappear? That you'll sit all day like a zombie and that is freedom? 

Notice that people speak of no longer being attached to anything, but when you look at how they live their lives, they still have attachments!

Perhaps it is actually a misguided belief that one can be completely free of attachments.

Honestly though, are there even attachments? Or is there a belief in a separate self who is attached? 

[Sugarcoat]

On 2022-01-08 at 6:35 PM, Consilience said:

Lmao. Keep fighting the good fight @Salvijus

Yeah @Sugarcoat this post is potentially a HUGE trap on the path. Tread carefully. 

For those reading, know there is most certainly progress, attainments, and radical transformations available for those who persist with their practice. The goal should be striving and seeking from a position of infinite detachment, imo.

"most certainly", do you know that for sure though? I am not claiming that it´s not true, just that I don´t know if it is true, the sense/feeling of certainty about it is not there anymore for me about those things.

What do you mean by seeking from a position of infinite detachment? 

from my perspective you seem very openminded judging by the tone in your post, but there seems to be some fear that this is a dangerous way of thinking, as if something valuable is lost if one applies what I wrote, but why is that?

[Consilience]

43 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

"most certainly", do you know that for sure though? I am not claiming that it´s not true, just that I don´t know if it is true, the sense/feeling of certainty about it is not there anymore for me about those things.

I know because of my personal experience with rigorous meditation. I wish I could communicate how radically my baseline state of being has shifted from before starting on the path to now. It’s utterly beautiful how much life has transformed and Im continually blown away by how deep meditation is. Every time I sit down it feels like Im microdosing on psychedelics, often times it feels stronger than a microdose. But this has only come after very intense practice. 

How do I know? By reflecting on my own experience. 

46 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

What do you mean by seeking from a position of infinite detachment? 

I mean seeking without the attachment of finding any answers. The joy of curiosity and the path is not in the breakthroughs, but with the pursuit of the path itself. For example, the hours upon hours one spends in meditation wont lead to breakthroughs or insights. Insights do arise but are the overwhelming minority. Yet those hours we spend will be some of the most fulfilling in our lives.

Once it’s recognized there is no one actually seeking, the energy of seeking can fully flower in a relaxed, spontaneous, and powerful way. This seeking comes from the detachment of being anyone or anything at all. The belief in a separate self is what creates the contraction around seeking that some spiritual communities criticize. 
 

50 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

from my perspective you seem very openminded judging by the tone in your post, but there seems to be some fear that this is a dangerous way of thinking, as if something valuable is lost if one applies what I wrote, but why is that?

Something valuable is lost if one prematurely stops before full enlightenment. I can’t communicate what is lost. The only way you’d truly know is by gaining that which cannot be gained, attaining that which was always so,  and contrasting its significance in your own experience. If your decision feels authentic, then don’t let me dissuade you. 
 

No judgements persay and certainly no fear. Ive just seen this type of rationale before. The possibility for self-deception and avoiding the work is rampant in many. But also, practice, the work, the path all have contractive periods. Sometimes we must contract before we expand. Sometimes an entire life is one of contraction. Im not saying that’s the case here, just sharing thoughts. 
 

[WelcometoReality]

2 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

Currently I don´t feel like meditating no, but I will if I desire to. 

Currently I´m all over the place lol I feel some attachemnts I have but I can´t force myself to let them go so I´m just doing whatever

Yeah, forcing yourself to let go of attachments would be an attachment to the idea of non-attachment so that doesn't work. ?

To be all over the place is fine. It can even be a wonderful thing if you can allow it to happen. 

[Sugarcoat]

On 2022-01-08 at 11:13 PM, Asayake said:

Could it not be the case that it is just a rationalization(a good one at that) to skip meditation? Or do you find meditation equal to doing the things you do instead in terms of challenge/pleasure? What I mean is that could this not just be an excuse not to go through the trouble of meditating? There's truth in both perspectives but which perspective do you think would lead to a better life? Who will this human become with meditation and who will the human become without? Yes, on the deepest level it might be the same but unless you're aware of your enlightenment right now.. how you want your life to turn out should be reflected in what you do with your time. Meditation is a good way to embrace life!

I´m not saying meditation is to be avoided, or that I will never meditate again. I´m saying that I used to believe and feel certainly that meditation was doing something special, one of them being alleviating me from suffering, so something was lost if I didn´t meditate, that´s how I felt. Sometimes my family could ask "wanna follow us we will go and buy some things" and I´d say "no I have to meditate", as if meditation is inherently a more valuable way of spending my time. There was a tension "will I get home in time to meditate". Not intense tension and fear, but still a little bit. This was felt and seen through. Now it´s like "okay I can meditate if I want, but I don´t know what it will do, will it make me more peaceful? Perhaps, will it induce some special experience? Perhaps, but I don´t feel like I know that anymore".

When it comes to pleasure, most of the time I´m at home studying so there is not much in my life that would compete with meditation so that I would have to rationalize it away in order to pursue pleasure. Wouldn´t rationalization of not doing meditation only be necessary if I felt like meditation threatens something, if I felt like something was lost, some pleasure perhaps, if I meditated? But it was the opposite, I felt something was lost if I DIDNT meditate, so I had to rationalize why I should meditate. 

I´m not claiming to be in some enlightened state of not knowing, I have no idea about enlightenement. I´m not gonna sit here and say "I dont know if time is real", why? Because it wouldnt be congruent with my feelings/sense. It certanly feels like time is very real.

But the certainty about meditation doing something special for me doesn´t feel real anymore, there I don´t feel like I know. 

You seem to genuinely want to help me see through potential self deception, I appreciate that , hopefully I´m more clear now

[Sugarcoat]

21 hours ago, Fearless_Bum said:

@Sugarcoat

The attachments is fine in my opinion, like it's actually impossible to be unattached. 

Really, what do you think will happen when all the "attachments" disappear? That you'll sit all day like a zombie and that is freedom? 

Notice that people speak of no longer being attached to anything, but when you look at how they live their lives, they still have attachments!

Perhaps it is actually a misguided belief that one can be completely free of attachments.

Honestly though, are there even attachments? Or is there a belief in a separate self who is attached? 

I resonate so much with what you write!!!!!!!

This attachment view of reality, just as the other spiritual stuff, was very set in me, but it also got shaken up a bit recently. The certainty there also fell away a bit

my mind has been absolutely wild lately it´s kind of funny, it can sound like this:

"Eventually I will have to let that *insert thing I think I´m attached to* go, but I don´t want to!"

"who has said you have to let go?"

"But if I don´t let go and instead give in to the desire by letting myself enjoy the thing I´m attached to then I will suffer because desire means favoring of one thing over the other. So if I desire something then I will have to try to maintan that thing because I´m resisting the opposite of that thing which is the death of that thing I´m attached to. So I will suffer from this tension of trying to maintain something and resisting the opposite. So I have to remove the thing I´m attached to so I can let go of the attachment and learn to love both opposites equally so I can gain peace"

"But don´t you remember the time when you did just that, you removed a thing you desired/where attached to for a while, and you still went around craving it and daydreaming about it, so obviously the attachment/desire was still there. So doesn´t this point to that letting go of attachments is not something you can force by removing the thing you desire. It´s more spontaneous, one can let go of something even while having it, just as one can desire something even when one doesnt have it currently. And now youre attached to the idea of detachment and think it will allieviate you of suffering, so that´s just more resistance."

"but I´m afraid that if I let myself have things I desire, then something bad will happen and mess it up becuause it seems like reality is designed to make me realize truth, reality doesnt care about my pleasure, so since desire is untruthful and delusion something will go wrong if I give in to it"

"wtf bruh that´s some idea in your head you have no clue if that´s true about reality. Who has said that reality won´t allow you to enjoy some pleasure? That´s just more fear and concept. Just do what you want and resonate with, doesn´t have to be so complicated. "

and so it goesssss....

I used to ground myself and feel more sane by focusing on sense perception to quiet my mind or to meditate, but now it´s like I don´t know if that is more sane or truthful so I´m just all over the place. 

When school starts again I´ll probably feel more grounded and normal again hopefully lol 

Okay this might sound like I´m miserable no I´m doing fine, sometimes anxious sometimes more peaceful 

 

 

[Sugarcoat]

18 hours ago, WelcometoReality said:

Yeah, forcing yourself to let go of attachments would be an attachment to the idea of non-attachment so that doesn't work. ?

To be all over the place is fine. It can even be a wonderful thing if you can allow it to happen. 

Yea! I used to believe that if I remove something I´m "attached to", that will accelerate the process of detachment. But no, even when I have done that, I would walk around with desire of that thing. So letting go seems to be more spontaneous, you can´t force it. And there´s nothing wrong with desire,

Yeah now I´m just going through it, time will tell.  

[WelcometoReality]

5 hours ago, Sugarcoat said:

Yea! I used to believe that if I remove something I´m "attached to", that will accelerate the process of detachment. But no, even when I have done that, I would walk around with desire of that thing. So letting go seems to be more spontaneous, you can´t force it. And there´s nothing wrong with desire,

Yeah now I´m just going through it, time will tell.  

Yes there's nothing wrong with desires but they do seem to fall away with time. Wanting to get rid of a desire is also a desire. ?

I would describing a desire coming from a place of lack. Where you believe something is missing and in order to feel complete you need to gain the desired object.

Instead of desires there seem to be an intuit knowing of what to do in each moment and it comes from a place of completion. There won't be any gain of happiness or anything else because happiness is already here and everything is already complete.

[stefm5]

ask yourself what you enjoy most. what feels nice. is it meditation? then do it.

just don't expect anything. expectation is fantasy. what happens is reality. letting go means acceptance of what happens.

[Asayake]

On 1/11/2022 at 0:08 AM, Sugarcoat said:

I´m not saying meditation is to be avoided, or that I will never meditate again. I´m saying that I used to believe and feel certainly that meditation was doing something special, one of them being alleviating me from suffering, so something was lost if I didn´t meditate, that´s how I felt. Sometimes my family could ask "wanna follow us we will go and buy some things" and I´d say "no I have to meditate", as if meditation is inherently a more valuable way of spending my time. There was a tension "will I get home in time to meditate". Not intense tension and fear, but still a little bit. This was felt and seen through. Now it´s like "okay I can meditate if I want, but I don´t know what it will do, will it make me more peaceful? Perhaps, will it induce some special experience? Perhaps, but I don´t feel like I know that anymore".

When it comes to pleasure, most of the time I´m at home studying so there is not much in my life that would compete with meditation so that I would have to rationalize it away in order to pursue pleasure. Wouldn´t rationalization of not doing meditation only be necessary if I felt like meditation threatens something, if I felt like something was lost, some pleasure perhaps, if I meditated? But it was the opposite, I felt something was lost if I DIDNT meditate, so I had to rationalize why I should meditate. 

I´m not claiming to be in some enlightened state of not knowing, I have no idea about enlightenement. I´m not gonna sit here and say "I dont know if time is real", why? Because it wouldnt be congruent with my feelings/sense. It certanly feels like time is very real.

But the certainty about meditation doing something special for me doesn´t feel real anymore, there I don´t feel like I know. 

You seem to genuinely want to help me see through potential self deception, I appreciate that , hopefully I´m more clear now

What if you blur the line between meditation and ordinary life. A technique like vipassana is clutch to bring being into everyday life activities. Deepen the practice with meditation sessions occasionally if you want but try cultivating more being into everyday moments by e.g. occasionally becoming aware of a few breaths through your nose during everyday activities instead of focusing on formal meditation sessions. If you practice like that you will get to see things from a different perspective which might dissolve some of the thoughts that are bugging you right now regarding meditation automatically. Instead of questioning to go shopping with your family because you think you should meditate you might just naturally end up doing what your meaning is in that moment, which is to go shopping with your family, because by being present in the moment, the Now, you will gravitationally pull towards going with your family harder, if that's what you should do. Because the striving for a formal meditation session seizes when you're already present where you are. And it will also make you more optimistic about formal meditation. Because now you get a chance to cultivate the presence you had with your family in a meditation session. But the best way to deepen your presence with your family might just be to be more present when you're with your family. By showing them love and acceptance and being in their presence.  Instead of focusing all your presence during the formal meditation sessions on yourself, you need to let your presence expand throughout your day and direct more acceptance to everyday things which you are feeling are taking up your meditation time. 

I don't know if this would apply exactly to your situation. But this is what comes to mind when I read your reply. I've questioned my meditation a few times before and quit it as well. Coming back to it was always a good choice for me. And usually the reason I was quitting/practicing far less regularly had nothing to do with meditating itself but with my idea of what meditation is. Personally formal practice is very useful though, because otherwise I tend to bullshit myself more into thoughts that serve no purpose and only drag me down in the long run.

I wish you luck and hope you find what you might!

[Sugarcoat]

On 2022-01-29 at 9:23 PM, Asayake said:

What if you blur the line between meditation and ordinary life. A technique like vipassana is clutch to bring being into everyday life activities. Deepen the practice with meditation sessions occasionally if you want but try cultivating more being into everyday moments by e.g. occasionally becoming aware of a few breaths through your nose during everyday activities instead of focusing on formal meditation sessions. If you practice like that you will get to see things from a different perspective which might dissolve some of the thoughts that are bugging you right now regarding meditation automatically. Instead of questioning to go shopping with your family because you think you should meditate you might just naturally end up doing what your meaning is in that moment, which is to go shopping with your family, because by being present in the moment, the Now, you will gravitationally pull towards going with your family harder, if that's what you should do. Because the striving for a formal meditation session seizes when you're already present where you are. And it will also make you more optimistic about formal meditation. Because now you get a chance to cultivate the presence you had with your family in a meditation session. But the best way to deepen your presence with your family might just be to be more present when you're with your family. By showing them love and acceptance and being in their presence.  Instead of focusing all your presence during the formal meditation sessions on yourself, you need to let your presence expand throughout your day and direct more acceptance to everyday things which you are feeling are taking up your meditation time. 

I don't know if this would apply exactly to your situation. But this is what comes to mind when I read your reply. I've questioned my meditation a few times before and quit it as well. Coming back to it was always a good choice for me. And usually the reason I was quitting/practicing far less regularly had nothing to do with meditating itself but with my idea of what meditation is. Personally formal practice is very useful though, because otherwise I tend to bullshit myself more into thoughts that serve no purpose and only drag me down in the long run.

I wish you luck and hope you find what you might!

Yea nice idea but I don’t find any pull or reason to do any sort of spiritual practice anymore, not a rule that I won’t but so far I haven’t felt like it. No more seeking there. 
 

I do sometimes still focus on sense perception/the feeling in the body, take deep breaths from time to time but I don’t view it as a practice or expect anything from it, it’s just pleasant sometimes to quiet the mind. 
 

 

[Sugarcoat]

On 2022-01-11 at 8:51 AM, stefm5 said:

ask yourself what you enjoy most. what feels nice. is it meditation? then do it.

just don't expect anything. expectation is fantasy. what happens is reality. letting go means acceptance of what happens.

Yea i don’t expect that it will do anything so there is no reason to do it anymore but I can if I want.

letting go seems to be not something I can do, it just happens

[Sugarcoat]

On 2022-01-11 at 6:01 AM, WelcometoReality said:

Yes there's nothing wrong with desires but they do seem to fall away with time. Wanting to get rid of a desire is also a desire. ?

I would describing a desire coming from a place of lack. Where you believe something is missing and in order to feel complete you need to gain the desired object.

Instead of desires there seem to be an intuit knowing of what to do in each moment and it comes from a place of completion. There won't be any gain of happiness or anything else because happiness is already here and everything is already complete.

This resonates ☺️

[Salvijus]

6 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

Yea i don’t expect that it will do anything so there is no reason to do it anymore but I can if I want

Probably you just don't understand the point of meditation. If you did, you'd be meditating 24/7. 

 

[Sugarcoat]

On 2022-01-10 at 3:48 AM, Consilience said:

I know because of my personal experience with rigorous meditation. I wish I could communicate how radically my baseline state of being has shifted from before starting on the path to now. It’s utterly beautiful how much life has transformed and Im continually blown away by how deep meditation is. Every time I sit down it feels like Im microdosing on psychedelics, often times it feels stronger than a microdose. But this has only come after very intense practice. 

How do I know? By reflecting on my own experience. 

I mean seeking without the attachment of finding any answers. The joy of curiosity and the path is not in the breakthroughs, but with the pursuit of the path itself. For example, the hours upon hours one spends in meditation wont lead to breakthroughs or insights. Insights do arise but are the overwhelming minority. Yet those hours we spend will be some of the most fulfilling in our lives.

Once it’s recognized there is no one actually seeking, the energy of seeking can fully flower in a relaxed, spontaneous, and powerful way. This seeking comes from the detachment of being anyone or anything at all. The belief in a separate self is what creates the contraction around seeking that some spiritual communities criticize. 
 

Something valuable is lost if one prematurely stops before full enlightenment. I can’t communicate what is lost. The only way you’d truly know is by gaining that which cannot be gained, attaining that which was always so,  and contrasting its significance in your own experience. If your decision feels authentic, then don’t let me dissuade you. 
 

No judgements persay and certainly no fear. Ive just seen this type of rationale before. The possibility for self-deception and avoiding the work is rampant in many. But also, practice, the work, the path all have contractive periods. Sometimes we must contract before we expand. Sometimes an entire life is one of contraction. Im not saying that’s the case here, just sharing thoughts. 
 

These increases in baseline, what I like to call “releases of tension” I experience too if I’m gonna conceptualize my life. With this falling away of seeking from spiritual practice, there was this release of tension, and more after that. Now I just don’t associate these releases of tension with any spiritual practice, but I did in the past.
 

If these is no expectation or attachment, there is no reason to do something simply other than just wanting to do it. So now there is no reason for me to meditate unless I feel like it, and so far I haven’t felt like it. So if you meditate for simple wanting to, then good for you.

About one week later,  (after this first post) I had my first awareness glimpse.  Never in my life have I experienced anything like that. When I was younger I used to sometimes ask myself “who am I” during meditation , expecting something to happen, nothing changed. But this time I just spontaneously thought “what is this” “who is doing this” *nothing happened* then “where is the sense of self” and for like a couple of minutes, I couldn’t locate the center there was nothing behind the eyes . Never ever experienced anything like that before. The sense of something behind the eyes returned though quickly.

it’s only loss if you believe meditation gets closer to enlightenment, and if you desire enlightenment as an idea. Btw I don’t seek enlightenment as an idea, I seek other things so it’s not loss from my perspective, not that it’s better, I cant control what I desire. 

 

 

 

[Sugarcoat]

16 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

Probably you just don't understand the point of meditation. If you did, you'd be meditating 24/7. 

 

The point is?

[Salvijus]

8 minutes ago, Sugarcoat said:

The point is?

The point is to arrive at what all human beings desire for: Absolute fulfillment.

Edited February 8, 2022 by Salvijus

[Salvijus]

@Sugarcoat you dropped meditation and nothing changed really. You're still looking for ultimate fullfilment like everybody else. And you're not gonna find it while playing video games or eating potato chips. You will only find the ultimate fullfilment if you trancend the mind. And without meditation that is impossible.