Insights From Full Day Of Consciousness Work

[Guest username]

I was going to wait until completing my self-imposed retreat, but I'm high on insight right now and need to share before this leaves me.

The following was realized from 12 hours of consciousness work, not even that intensely focused, mostly monkey mind, but still deeper than what I've done in the past. I'm amazed at the difference between 12 hours of isolated work and the sloppy 10 hour session I did a few months back.

Holy shit. Holy shit. I've been asleep. I didn't even come close to realizing how quickly continuous practice would bring up my inner demons. I've been working hard on trying to create better external life-circumstances for myself while having consciousness work play second fiddle, but today I got a deep feeling that what I'm doing is TOTAL BULLSHIT.

I'm just afraid of giving up the remaining materialistic tendencies because I AM SO FUCKING AFRAID OF THIS WORK. It was easy when I'd just do an hour or two per day while spending the rest of my life grasping for illusions, pretending like I was chasing anything worthwhile. I should have noticed that after months of letting go of my old ways, the ego was coming back even harder. I could outwardly acknowledge how superficial and unfulfilling such pursuits were, but that attitude was incongruent with my inner reality.

I've become, in some ways, a shallow, shallow person who won't be pleased until he has better material conditions than anyone else. I became aware of the fact that I was just chasing this fantasy that would always demand more and more, subjugating myself to the hedonic treadmill while recognizing it's folly on a conceptual level.

I wouldn't say I had a no-self experience, but I experienced my "self" my life story, that thing that I am trying to serve as just a series of sensations and thoughts (which are also just sensations). I wasn't quite able to identify as nothingness, but I at some level became aware of the ego not really being there in the obvious, undeniable way I thought it was.

Everything I'm chasing in life is a lie. This work is important, and I'm afraid of the Truth. I just want to distract myself with fantasies of this body having it's ideal circumstances, and immortal body that instantly gratifies all of it's material desires. When I sit down and see them for what they are, I just find lies. All lies. I'm so, so terrified.

I've kept using the excuse, that I'd be materialistic now and be a serious sage later, but when I do the work, I can see how stupid that is to serve the ego. I'm not sure what the alternative is (conceptually I do, but not in my direct experience), but I have to choose it. But I'm afraid. I'm so fucking afraid of what I'm going to find I don't even know how to express it. It's unfathomable that I could experience such terror by just sitting and doing nothing.

 

Sorry if this comes across as melodramatic, but I really wanted to capture my state today while it was still fresh. I know I'm not even doing serious non-duality yet.

That being said, I'm going to keep going and see where this takes me. Call it masochistic, but I'm sort of enjoying the mind-fuck. 

 

I'll update this thread as my consciousness work continues.

 

Updates:

 

Day 2:  Was restless all day. Afraid of pushing farther. I see the benefit of being in a formal setting. Accountability is huge, but I'm doing the best with what I've got at the moment. The mind does weird things when it's isolated and without stimulus. I just need to keep at the work and have faith in the process. The benefits others have derived is clear. I need to remember that when I try to talk myself out of it by saying that I'm just some crazy person wasting my life on this stuff.

 

Day 3: Super fidgety and unfocused. Tried making excuses but ultimately kept pulling myself back. Low quality work was done but I'm making progress in facing the fear of going deep. If this is my hero's journey, the existential terror is my threshold guardian. I became somewhat conscious of the ego's deepest desire: To be God. It wants to control everything and satiate all desire.

Edited March 4, 2017 by username

[Evilwave Heddy]

So? How many days do you think you can pull this off for?

[DawnOfReality]

Very interesting. I've been doing the work while living the "real life", clearly not with that intensity and I myself found my ego literally. I am almost able to recognise it, notice it everywhere.

I might follow what you dir soon and try to do a day full of consciousness work and see what happens.

Thank you for the insights!

[Dodo]

Hi, love these types of topics. Good reads.

I've had a breakthrough last night too, continuing right now.

I trully noticed that I am very often contracted during the day, because I don't want to be where I am. In opposition of the experience that is presenting itself.

I am usually not even aware of it, cause it just happens and I'm busy doing other things,  but when I do keep that eye on the inside, I see how my entire being is judging the situation without asking for my conscious input. It's like it is acting on autopilot based on my map of reality? Am I correct in thinking this?

 

Edited March 2, 2017 by Dodoster

[Guest username]

Insight: I chase sex due to not being comfortable with the physical urges as well as having psychological hang-ups on the self-image issues. When I do consciousness work, I see that the image problems are non-sense, but the physical sensations are intensified. Perhaps I must learn to accept the sensations like I do with the pains during SDS. I wonder if I can train myself to be unaffected by not allowing myself to have release.

[Dodo]

11 minutes ago, username said:

Insight: I chase sex due to not being comfortable with the physical urges as well as having psychological hang-ups on the self-image issues. When I do consciousness work, I see that the image problems are non-sense, but the physical sensations are intensified. Perhaps I must learn to accept the sensations like I do with the pains during SDS. I wonder if I can train myself to be unaffected by not allowing myself to have release.

I think you chase it because of that intense feeling of love and unity during the climax. It also boosts Ego pretty well, you start feeling good about yourself more... Like you matter..

But its not about that, what we want is peace of mind, peace of heart. You can handle yourself much better than any girl can, because you know who you are.

You are full already, since everything is made of emptiness and you have infinite amounts of it.

Everyone is already full,  if sex or relationship happen, they will happen, this is the best way. Don't seek fullness in 2, because fullness is not two ???

 

Edited March 2, 2017 by Dodoster

[Leo Gura]

@username Good self-honesty here. Keep it up. Don't get too distracted by the journaling process or explaining yourself. Put all focus into the inquiry.

[Guest username]

I'll keep less details in my reports to make sure the focus is on inquiry.

 

Day 2:  Was restless all day. Afraid of pushing farther. I see the benefit of being in a formal setting. Accountability is huge, but I'm doing the best with what I've got at the moment. The mind does weird things when it's isolated and without stimulus. I just need to keep at the work and have faith in the process. The benefits others have derived is clear. I need to remember that when I try to talk myself out of it by saying that I'm just some crazy person wasting my life on this stuff.

[Leo Gura]

@username Yes... watch yourself like a hawk. The mind gets extra-sneaky as the days go on. The excuses it creates will be ingenious.

[Hsinav]

Thanks for sharing!

On 2017-03-02 at 5:50 AM, username said:

I'm just afraid of giving up the remaining materialistic tendencies because I AM SO FUCKING AFRAID OF THIS WORK.

@username

Me too, and when that happens I use to think of how short life is and that I very soon have to leave all this things anyway.

[Guest username]

Day 3: Super fidgety and unfocused. Tried making excuses but ultimately kept pulling myself back. Low quality work was done but I'm making progress in facing the fear of going deep. If this is my hero's journey, the existential terror is my threshold guardian. I became somewhat conscious of the ego's deepest desire: To be God. It wants to control everything and satiate all desire.

[Kserkkj]

53 minutes ago, username said:

Day 3: Super fidgety and unfocused. Tried making excuses but ultimately kept pulling myself back. Low quality work was done but I'm making progress in facing the fear of going deep. If this is my hero's journey, the existential terror is my threshold guardian. I became somewhat conscious of the ego's deepest desire: To be God. It wants to control everything and satiate all desire.

just want to add to this that the ego will never attain that which it seeks unless control is surrendered.  

[Guest username]

My edit button on the original post seems to have disappeared(bug?), so I'll just leave the updates here.

Day 4:  Still a lot of resistance, but I'm still making more progress. I wasn't as intense today but pleasantly found myself quite euphoric. Being able to feel amazing without relying on an external stimulus is an important reference experience, and I definitely think today helped me have more faith that this is really the road to the most fulfilling life. I often have doubts about this really leading to absolute truth, but knowing that, regardless, I will improve my personal well being in the process makes me much more committed. 

Edited March 5, 2017 by username

[Guest username]

Day 5: The euphoria has worn off, but I've been a bit better at dealing with negative emotions. My monkey mind keeps spitting out these narratives of me wasting my time and how I should instead focus my efforts on material goals/ traditional self-help, but observe the thoughts for what they are.

[Leo Gura]

@username Good, keep going.

The edit button only appears for 48 hours per post. Then editing is locked.

[SLICKHAWK]

Vibrate this love. I feel it. don't fall just float. remember you are not what am i?.. You are me as I grow in you two beings. 

Your impact in this post is powerful tool to teach. I thank you for your journey .:)

[Guest username]

Day 6: Meditated as I did stuff but mostly pussied out of doing the work.

[Guest username]

After struggling today with my consciousness work, I felt disappointed in myself for not meeting my expectations. However, I was shocked at the compassion I had for myself.  One year ago, I would have been toxically self-critical and would have identified as a failure. 

I was honestly shocked at how much better I handled this that I would have one year ago.

I just realized, I've been following Actualized.org for over one year now.

I had just been rejected by my first romantic love interest, and I was contemplating suicide back then.

 I noticed today was how this place really gives me hope.  Knowing that I don't need to chase after unattainable materialistic goals to get the best life is probably what saved me from total and utter despair.

Before Actualized.org, I had given up hope because I realized how ludicrous it was to aspire to certain things.

 

I had done some deep introspection in High School and reasoned that the only way to truly get the most out of life would be to be God. I literally set that as my long term vision and planned on banking my whole life on transhumanism and the hope the science would master everything. I thought biological immortality and complete manipulation of reality would be the optimal situation. When I slowly became more aware of the inherent limitations of rationality, logic, and science, I entered deep depression and turned to pathetic hedonism as the best life strategy. I got into pick up, watched Leo's videos on how to attract women, and funny enough found that he was into the same philosophical/ intellectual topics that I was.

 

I never even considered spirituality as a path to truth until I found that a person with a similar personality and history was serious about it. I didn't think it would lead anywhere but I gave it a shot. A year later. I've been doing this work consistently and I just have so much more hope. It's tough to believe at times that I actually can do something to create the best life for myself and my lack of talent, good looks, etc. isn't  really an issue.

 

By raising my consciousness, I feel so much more secure, as if God himself is embracing me and letting me know that no matter what happens, it will all be okay. You just have to  wake up and see that is the case for yourself.

 

I shed a literal tear of joy writing this.

[Guest username]

Yep, it's been tough. I think I'm at my limit for what I can handle right now. I'm going to start meditating and inquiring more throughout everyday.

 

That concludes my first "retreat". It was pretty sloppy and mostly fighting resistance, but I good several good insights and got a feel of how demanding it is going to be getting to the next level. I have healthier expectations for the demands I must meet as I do this work.