Can you be reborn?

[no_name]

If you’re tired of your life, of who you are, of feeling bad for all the mistakes you made, horrible things you said or did, can you just start from a clean slate in this life? Put it all behind and move on from the “past you”? How can you do that? Is there some ritual? Is there anything you can do to forget the past, stop thinking about the memories, and live a brand new life never thinking about it? 

[AtheisticNonduality]

I'll write something for you tomorrow.

[Carl-Richard]

That is awakening in a sense.

[Machine]

It all starts with the choice to let old ways of being die to be replaced with more ideal patterns in your life. In truth, we live and die every microsecond of the day; what we choose to enact on typically helps to define us, so take care in deciding how it is you choose to go about your life and how, if at all, you respond to your emotions in the moment they arise.

Perhaps you'll find some benefit in purposefully reprogramming your subconscious mind to eradicate feelings associated with guilt and the like. I'm not sure if this helps, but it's what came to my mind. Good luck

[no_name]

20 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

That is awakening in a sense.

But isn’t awakening temporary? You can have an “awakening experience”, but wouldn’t that just last a little while and then after that you’re back to your old self, but with a tiny bit of improvement? 

[Carl-Richard]

8 hours ago, no_name said:

But isn’t awakening temporary? You can have an “awakening experience”, but wouldn’t that just last a little while and then after that you’re back to your old self, but with a tiny bit of improvement? 

I sort of wish it was like that. For the last 2 years, all up until the last few months, I've spent every waking moment of my life trying to reconstruct my old sense of self, because when the oppurtunity presented itself, I realized I was not ready to finally let myself go, but also in giving up on that mission of enlightenment, it ironically enough started forcing itself onto me. I could just be relaxing and doing nothing for a few seconds and I would automatically burst into an awakening experience, and I fear it so much. I gave up my daily meditation habit, my perfect health and diet, even my passion for music (because that also throws me into a meditative state), and I tried everything I could to get back. I'm sort of there now, and it sucks, but it feels much better than perpetually dying. But yes, the potential for a radical and permanent shift in consciousness is there, if only you're ready for it. I'm certainly the fuck not.

[no_name]

23 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

if only you're ready for it.

Well I’m for sure ready for the good things that would come out of it… like wiping out my bad memories and the associated guilt 

I don’t understand why your health and diet would be effected? Wouldn’t your self love and therefore self care improve if anything? How did it all happen for you? 

[Nilsi]

2 hours ago, no_name said:

But isn’t awakening temporary? You can have an “awakening experience”, but wouldn’t that just last a little while and then after that you’re back to your old self, but with a tiny bit of improvement? 

In my experience, yes (there is more like a giant bit of improvement though (or at least change)), although I'm sure there are much higher degrees of awakening, where it may be a different story. For me, when it happens it feels absolute and final, but after a while I'm somehow back again. I've learned to have a sense of humor about it and not question it too much. I used to feel bad for playing these games, but now I see that there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, and I fucking love it. Sometimes I'll just randomly have a cessation or some awakening will creep in, and it definitely fucks with my head sometimes, but overall I'm just going with the flow and trust that it's all okay. You definitely have to be really flexible and willing to change your whole life on the fly, to be anti-fragile enough for this work, I would say.

Edited August 10, 2022 by Nilsi

[Arthogaan]

When you wake up tomorrow just use your imagination to see that you just incarnated into this body as a ghost. And you have access to all the memories and habits of the past inhabitant of this body but you are not him.

Now this new you has a ready avatar to use with a bunch of crap inside that you will clean and master.

Imagine this as often as you can throughout the day, each day until it becomes your identity.

I use that when I can't get over something I did or didn't do. It works.

[Breakingthewall]

absolutely. not only not to recreate the mistakes of the past but to realize that there was no mistake. everything was perfect. It was what it took to mold what you are. don't try to adopt this idea, it won't work. it only works to realize the perfection of existence, like a fascinating jewel created out of nothing. an art that goes beyond what any artist could dream of.

To realize, you have to transcend the self. the self is the one who judges good or bad, what should be or should have been. doing this is not easy, it takes genius, determination, and courage. But courage is easy to come by when you know there is no other way. you have to erase the fear from you, break down the barriers. How? I guess you've read it here a thousand times: self-inquiry, meditation, psychedelics. with determination.

the prize is great, freedom, which is happiness, wonder. not doing it is stupid. to remain a prisoner of the ego is misery, to become an old prisoner of that misery, a guarantee of a horrible experience.

Edited August 10, 2022 by Breakingthewall

[Carl-Richard]

6 hours ago, no_name said:

I don’t understand why your health and diet would be effected? Wouldn’t your self love and therefore self care improve if anything? How did it all happen for you? 

I choose to eat differently in order to lower my baseline consciousness.

[Inliytened1]

@no_name if you were to completely deconstruct your mind and ego you would awaken as God.   The ego is very solidly put together though, like hard clay - in order to keep you surviving.   It is a complex web.  But you can also do it just by realizing you aren't the ego, (that the ego is just an idea) which can be done by self inquiry.  You don't have to deconstruct if you just realize what you actually are.  So this is kinda what @Carl-Richard said.  

As far as being reborn none of us have ever directly experienced that or rather we don't remember our last incarnation...otherwise we wouldn't be talking to you as our current incarnation.  We would be another incarnation with no memory of the previous ones.

Now if you could somehow forget your ego completely (awakening) and had a new ego injected then yes you could, even if you were in the same body it would be like you were reborn as a different person or ego.    Everything is Mind.

[Nilsi]

1 hour ago, Carl-Richard said:

I choose to eat differently in order to lower my baseline consciousness.

Do you think this is necessary to keep you sane? I'm just curious because I'm kinda doing the same thing with coffee and cigarettes, it gives me a lot of comfort and I feel more in control, but I would kinda want to be a better role model to those around me. Whenever I try to quit I'm quickly reminded why I put on that safety measure in the first place though.

Edited August 10, 2022 by Nilsi

[Carl-Richard]

11 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

Do you think this is necessary to keep you sane? I'm just curious because I'm kinda doing the same thing with coffee and cigarettes, it gives me a lot of comfort and I feel more in control, but I would kinda want to be a better role model to those around me. Whenever I try to quit I'm quickly reminded why I put on that safety measure in the first place though.

Yes. Everything counts: sub-optimal posture, shallow breathing, tensing up my stomach, distractions. It's the main reason I'm on the forum so much. It takes a lot to maintain an ego.

[Nilsi]

18 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Yes. Everything counts: sub-optimal posture, shallow breathing, tensing up my stomach, distractions. It's the main reason I'm on the forum so much. It takes a lot to maintain an ego.

Damn, I'm sorry you're struggling so much friend. What's your endgame with this, if I may ask? Don't you think you could slowly drop these crotches and get more comfortable with yourself?

I actually found good posture, breathing deeply (think Schmachtenberger), doing Hatha Yoga and generally getting more comfort in my body makes me a lot more resilient, although maybe I'm not as caught up in it as you are yet.

Edited August 10, 2022 by Nilsi

[Nilsi]

I'm getting a bit emotional right now, so excuse me for hijacking this thread, but I think it actually fits quite well.

My fantasies have been shattered enough times at this point, to where I know that I'm not awake right now. But the thing is, I really want this life, I want to have a wife at some point and maybe even kids. I want to be an old man and sit in my chair and talk shit to the youngins about the "good ol'days." I know what I am, and I will always know this in my heart, but I don't want to end up in some freaky indistinct dreamscape where suddenly the trees turn into aliens or shit like that. I'm just worried that if I fully let go this will happen, and that's really not what I want this to be. Maybe this is just irrational fear, but sometimes things are just getting weird beyond what I'm comfortable with. That's kinda my take on why I limit my consciousness. Im curious how you veterans out there think about this.

[Inliytened1]

6 minutes ago, Nilsi said:

I'm getting a bit emotional right now, so excuse me for hijacking this thread, but I think it actually fits quite well.

My fantasies have been shattered enough times at this point, to where I know that I'm not awake right now. But the thing is, I really want this life, I want to have a wife at some point and maybe even kids. I want to be an old man and sit in my chair and talk shit to the youngins about the "good ol'days." I know what I am, and I will always know this in my heart, but I don't want to end up in some freaky indistinct dreamscape where suddenly the trees turn into aliens or shit like that. I'm just worried that if I fully let go this will happen, and that's really not what I want this to be. Maybe this is just irrational fear, but sometimes things are just getting weird beyond what I'm comfortable with. That's kinda my take on why I limit my consciousness. Im curious how you veterans out there think about this.

That's fine you won't fully let go if you don't want to.  So don't stress about it.  Enjoy the dream.  The mind tends to run but that is why sometimes not knowing is better..in other words quiet the mind down and just enjoy this reality.  One only awakens when one is ready. 

[Nilsi]

3 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

That's fine you won't fully let go if you don't want to.  So don't stress about it.  Enjoy the dream.  The mind tends to run but that is why sometimes not knowing is better..in other words quiet the mind down and just enjoy this reality.  One only awakens when one is ready. 

Thank you

I don't stress about this too much, but obviously it comes to mind sometimes. I feel very blessed to be able to kind of experience a bit of both world's, I'm just trying to go one step at a time. 

I heard this quote recently, which may just be the biggest cope ever, but it kinda stuck with me: "Most people try to do as much in as little time as possible; God tries to do as little in as much time as possible" - that's what eternity does to you I guess

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Nilsi said:

Damn, I'm sorry you're struggling so much friend. What's your endgame with this, if I may ask? Don't you think you could slowly drop these crotches and get more comfortable with yourself?

As I said, the last few moments have been easier. The endgame is that I get my degree, apply my skills, get a long-term partner and stop trying to prove myself for my parents. At that point, I might take up spirituality again. If the fear still persists, then I've got more work to do.

 

1 hour ago, Nilsi said:

I actually found good posture, breathing deeply (think Schmachtenberger), doing Hatha Yoga and generally getting more comfort in my body makes me a lot more resilient, although maybe I'm not as caught up in it as you are yet.

I guess there is such a thing as too resilient for your own good.

[Nilsi]

32 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

As I said, the last few moments have been easier. The endgame is that I get my degree, apply my skills, get a long-term partner and stop trying to prove myself for my parents. At that point, I might take up spirituality again. If the fear still persists, then I've got more work to do.

Sounds good I guess my main hang up is also, that I feel like I have so much more to do in this life and I'm still in university as well, so I somehow have to keep my shit together. I'm trying to juggle this with the spirituality as well, which makes it kinda hard to seriously stick to concrete goals, so your approach is probably a lot wiser than mine, but my morbid curiosity always keeps me coming back to questioning it all.

I know I'm being way too curious, but what do you want to do with your degree? (I study psychology as well)

Edited August 10, 2022 by Nilsi