Earning money ( survival) vs spiritual growth... what should i do?

[Forza21]

How come spirituality basically contradicts survival?
 

Can those two go hand in hand?

 

I had business online,  but it's so shallow, and with my level of consciousness, I just can't do it anymore, even if i try. It gave me good money, but i just can't keep it up!

Luckily, i have enough savings to live, for a couple of years, without work. Everything that drives me right now, is spiritual growth. So basically I gave up earning money, and I focus on inner growth.

BUT

Almost everyday i feel like i'm doing something wrong.  Other people think that way too, because all they do, is chasing money. I want to trust the Universe that it will get me eventually, and in few years, something new will come.  But still, those thoughts drive me nuts. I get really anxious sometimes.

Thoughts like : "i'm lazy" , "i'm not earning money, and other people do", " i should do something right now" , " i will go broke" " that spiritual growth is not worth it" etc.

But really, right now i have no idea for myself, other than spiritual growth. It's all i feel and care right now.  Everything else is meaningless.

What should i do?

[BipolarGrowth]

It’s probably a good idea to spend some time thinking of ways to make money that will align more with your values and interests. 
 

I personally took about a year off from work. The most I did was at most 25 hours per week, but most of the time I was off work entirely for that year. I had a similar situation. I had created my own business, but it was in real estate investing rather than an online thing. The one good thing about that was that it did give me passive income that usually only took an hour or two of work per month to maintain. 
 

How I’m approaching this is to just continue scaling my real estate business but at a much slower pace than when I was more “stage orange”. I’ve realized that you really don’t need that much money to be happy and have your needs met if your spiritual practice has a moderate level of success. The main thing I really would like more money for would be to have a bit more to travel to different meditation retreats and do other spiritual questing type stuff you might call it. Even this is not really a big enough carrot to motivate me much. 
 

Taking that year off from work was hands down one of the best things I’ve ever done. It lead to some breakthroughs which completely changed my depression issues. Really the only problem that I have that comes from it is that now I find myself, maybe a couple times per week, having a feeling that I’m not doing enough similar to what you described. I think this is just inevitable societal programming playing itself out. It’s quite surprising to find yourself at states of satisfaction that are literally paralyzing if I’m to think from the perspective of myself even two years ago. 
 

I’m interested to see what other people suggest here as I am in a similar boat obviously. I have started working part time at some very basic jobs just as something to keep me a bit active and supplement my other income. I find that working more than 30 hours at a typical job is just unnecessary and unfulfilling. I’d rather just enjoy my life now and do spiritual practice at times where it feels most natural rather than trying to cram it in somewhere in a busy schedule. 

[Thought Art]

imo as a human is a finite being... working and doing it well can be part of your spiritual practice. I know this is likely to be refuted. But, Spirituality is a loaded word.

Work and spirituality need to be contemplated together. Survival and spirituality as a human are one thing.

Mastering your survival will aid in your spiritual development.

Without survival, you can't do spirituality as a human.

 

Edited February 13, 2022 by Thought Art

[Nahm]

8 hours ago, Forza21 said:

How come spirituality basically contradicts survival?
 

That’s a belief. 

Quote

Can those two go hand in hand?

There is already not two. 

Quote

 

I had business online,  but it's so shallow, and with my level of consciousness, I just can't do it anymore, even if i try. It gave me good money, but i just can't keep it up!

Levels of consciousness is a belief, an abstraction, a thought about what isn’t actual like a unicorn. It’s a sneaky way of believing I’m not enough / not good enough. 

Just a suggestion, but from that experience you now know what you don’t prefer, and what you more so now do prefer, and you can create what you prefer now, just as you did then. 

Quote

Luckily, i have enough savings to live, for a couple of years, without work. Everything that drives me right now, is spiritual growth. So basically I gave up earning money, and I focus on inner growth.

You don’t have to think of them as two. But you are free to. 

Quote

BUT

Almost everyday i feel like i'm doing something wrong.  Other people think that way too, because all they do, is chasing money.

You’re not doing anything wrong, its a discord belief (levels of consciousness). 

You’ve never experienced that other people are thinking. That’s ‘your’ thought / belief. 

Quote

I want to trust the Universe that it will get me eventually, and in few years, something new will come.  But still, those thoughts drive me nuts. I get really anxious sometimes.

The future is also just thoughts. You’re creating now. Feeling isn’t in a future, and can not be, because feeling is present now. If you don’t like how that feels, you don’t like how the thoughts feel, and can ‘reach for’ / focus upon (effortlessly) better feeling thoughts. 

Quote

Thoughts like : "i'm lazy" , "i'm not earning money, and other people do", " i should do something right now" , " i will go broke" " that spiritual growth is not worth it" etc.

 

These are comparative thoughts. You don’t have to focus on or believe them. 

Quote

But really, right now i have no idea for myself, other than spiritual growth. It's all i feel and care right now.  Everything else is meaningless.

What should i do?

Make a dreamboard, express / understand emotions. 

Peruse these meditations. There is resonating affirmation throughout, even just from reading them. 

? 

You’re not supposed to be something or someone you’re not, and you’re not supposed to know anything which you don’t. 

You are the best ‘thing’.

[aurum]

15 hours ago, Forza21 said:

But really, right now i have no idea for myself, other than spiritual growth. It's all i feel and care right now.  Everything else is meaningless.

You can do that if you want. I’ve had extreme periods like that where I just focused on spirituality, and it was fruitful. So if that’s where you’re at, go for it.

But dude, it also sounds to me like you’re in a great spot.

Okay, so the business you’re running doesn’t fulfill you. That does suck. But notice that the sucking is pointing you towards what you more deeply want, which is work that is fulfilling.

This is good.

And since you have money coming from your business and savings, you can afford to start a new venture.

Most people would not have the financial luxury to start a dream project. But you do.

The key thing for you is to figure out what this new dream project that feels more fulfilling for you might be. Do you want to do art? Do you like science? What do you care about?

Get excited about it. This is a chance for something completely new that could take your life to a new level.

[Forza21]

21 hours ago, BipolarGrowth said:

It’s probably a good idea to spend some time thinking of ways to make money that will align more with your values and interests. 
 

I personally took about a year off from work. The most I did was at most 25 hours per week, but most of the time I was off work entirely for that year. I had a similar situation. I had created my own business, but it was in real estate investing rather than an online thing. The one good thing about that was that it did give me passive income that usually only took an hour or two of work per month to maintain. 
 

How I’m approaching this is to just continue scaling my real estate business but at a much slower pace than when I was more “stage orange”. I’ve realized that you really don’t need that much money to be happy and have your needs met if your spiritual practice has a moderate level of success. The main thing I really would like more money for would be to have a bit more to travel to different meditation retreats and do other spiritual questing type stuff you might call it. Even this is not really a big enough carrot to motivate me much. 
 

Taking that year off from work was hands down one of the best things I’ve ever done. It lead to some breakthroughs which completely changed my depression issues. Really the only problem that I have that comes from it is that now I find myself, maybe a couple times per week, having a feeling that I’m not doing enough similar to what you described. I think this is just inevitable societal programming playing itself out. It’s quite surprising to find yourself at states of satisfaction that are literally paralyzing if I’m to think from the perspective of myself even two years ago. 
 

I’m interested to see what other people suggest here as I am in a similar boat obviously. I have started working part time at some very basic jobs just as something to keep me a bit active and supplement my other income. I find that working more than 30 hours at a typical job is just unnecessary and unfulfilling. I’d rather just enjoy my life now and do spiritual practice at times where it feels most natural rather than trying to cram it in somewhere in a busy schedule. 

Well said. Don't you think that one second being conscious, and touch your real nature, is superior to years of making money?:-) But of course, our social programming tells us otherwise. 

[Forza21]

21 hours ago, Thought Art said:

imo as a human is a finite being... working and doing it well can be part of your spiritual practice. I know this is likely to be refuted. But, Spirituality is a loaded word.

Work and spirituality need to be contemplated together. Survival and spirituality as a human are one thing.

Mastering your survival will aid in your spiritual development.

Without survival, you can't do spirituality as a human.

 

Yes. But money don't motivate me anymore, and i don't see any job i would do just for the sake of doing it.

20 hours ago, Nahm said:

That’s a belief. 

There is already not two. 

Levels of consciousness is a belief, an abstraction, a thought about what isn’t actual like a unicorn. It’s a sneaky way of believing I’m not enough / not good enough. 

Just a suggestion, but from that experience you now know what you don’t prefer, and what you more so now do prefer, and you can create what you prefer now, just as you did then. 

You don’t have to think of them as two. But you are free to. 

You’re not doing anything wrong, its a discord belief (levels of consciousness). 

You’ve never experienced that other people are thinking. That’s ‘your’ thought / belief. 

The future is also just thoughts. You’re creating now. Feeling isn’t in a future, and can not be, because feeling is present now. If you don’t like how that feels, you don’t like how the thoughts feel, and can ‘reach for’ / focus upon (effortlessly) better feeling thoughts. 

These are comparative thoughts. You don’t have to focus on or believe them. 

Make a dreamboard, express / understand emotions. 

Peruse these meditations. There is resonating affirmation throughout, even just from reading them. 

? 

You’re not supposed to be something or someone you’re not, and you’re not supposed to know anything which you don’t. 

You are the best ‘thing’.

@nahm i want you to know, i always appreciate your insights. You are always right, there are thousands of thoughts with different style and "voices" that keep me from the present moment. Why is that? Why this mind makes it so hard? I think there's other thought that's afraid of letting go of thoughts and therefore lack of control. But i don't have control to being with.  Or do i? But what does create a thought? Is there a doer? only as u thought right?

 

 

13 hours ago, aurum said:

You can do that if you want. I’ve had extreme periods like that where I just focused on spirituality, and it was fruitful. So if that’s where you’re at, go for it.

But dude, it also sounds to me like you’re in a great spot.

Okay, so the business you’re running doesn’t fulfill you. That does suck. But notice that the sucking is pointing you towards what you more deeply want, which is work that is fulfilling.

This is good.

And since you have money coming from your business and savings, you can afford to start a new venture.

Most people would not have the financial luxury to start a dream project. But you do.

The key thing for you is to figure out what this new dream project that feels more fulfilling for you might be. Do you want to do art? Do you like science? What do you care about?

Get excited about it. This is a chance for something completely new that could take your life to a new level.

yeah i know it might turn out to be the biggest chance, but how to trust it will go eventually okay? it's a leap of faith... thanks for the insight!

Edited February 14, 2022 by Forza21

[Nahm]

44 minutes ago, Forza21 said:

nahm i want you to know, i always appreciate your insights. You are always right, there are thousands of thoughts with different style and "voices" that keep me from the present moment. Why is that? Why this mind makes it so hard? I think there's other thought that's afraid of letting go of thoughts and therefore lack of control. But i don't have control to being with.  Or do i? But what does create a thought? Is there a doer? only as u thought right?

Much appreciated. ? 

I just don’t care about being right. Only feeling, being, and sharing (so to speak) the love that I am, that we are, that Is. “The Message”, which has no messenger, we might say. That is, so to speak, always foremost ‘in my mind’. It’s all I care about. 

Even for thoughts like ‘this mind…x, y or z’,  attention can be returned to feeling breathing from the stomach. There is immeasurable love within. The love that I am, that is, that we are, is apparently being a Nahm, and Nahm is analogously like a satellite of experiencing… and effortlessly, preferences arise, and effortlessly, “Nahm” focuses on the preference swiftly - and this love be’s that, and this “Nahm” calls, creation, or consciously creating, in alignment. 

This is “the best of both worlds”. The Middle Way. 

[dorg]

 

I had business online,  but it's so shallow, and with my level of consciousness, I just can't do it anymore, even if i try. It gave me good money, but i just can't keep it up!

@Forza21 What is resisting, what wants more, what has a conscious level. Look what you have created. Spirituality is not anywhere else, there is nowhere else unless you create it. There is not even where you are or even a you unless you create it.

[BipolarGrowth]

@Forza21 well “touching your true nature” is definitely better than years of making money, but I wouldn’t settle for one moment. What we really want is for this to be readily accessible on a regular basis. As good as one moment of great clarity can be, it’s still just one moment. 

[Alex_R]

If you successfully exhaust all the fulfilling of all the maslow hierarchy of needs the only one more thing that you can do in this life is to awaken,

if you successfully awaken to nothingness it will be revealed to you that the only thing that you want is to be more present. And then, you can still enjoining your business if is that what you really want,

The final point of life its nothing more than play and explore your infinite creation.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Alex_R

[Alex_R]

Did you take psychedelics yet? if you take them a coupe of times and have binged enough non-dual content you will surely understand what we mean by nothingness and your true self, and then you will not need to sell your business and retreat in a mountain or something, this work can be done in less than a year if you really want.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Alex_R

[Forza21]

4 hours ago, Alex_R said:

Did you take psychedelics yet? if you take them a coupe of times and have binged enough non-dual content you will surely understand what we mean by nothingness and your true self, and then you will not need to sell your business and retreat in a mountain or something, this work can be done in less than a year if you really want.

Yes, i've done psychedelics 10-15~~ times, but still, i'm far for knowing what to do bussiness-wise... it doesn't give me any insights in this matter. I practice being more present, and to integrate this trips into my daily life, but still... i just don't know.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Forza21