[Erock]

I know that a lot of people that post on these boards are spiritual seekers, and I'm wondering how you all balance spiritual searching and everyday life, because they don't seem to go hand in hand (or maybe they do). Right now, I'm having an internal conflict between these two different ideologies:

1. Setting goals. Dreaming about the future. Fulfilling desires. LOA. Trying to experience everything life has to offer, including all of its sensory pleasures. Experiencing all emotions. Taking the good with the bad. Creating memories, and trying to always do something new. Meeting tons of people, and making a lot of friends. Trying to make a difference in the external world, exc...

2. Becoming very quiet on the inside. Trying to stop all internal chatter. Eliminate the ego. Watch emotions as a silent witness. Curb all desire. Keep the mind always in the present and avoid thinking about the past and future. Always staying aware of my spiritual essence, and avoiding all sensory pleasures, for they breed unneccessary desire. Trying to become enlightened, or realize the true nature of reality. Trying to make a difference in the internal world first-for that is what really matters.

How do you guys balance these two, because they seem to go against each other? Is balance really the way to go, because a lot of the most successful people seem to take one of these two paths to the extreme. The most successful spiritual seekers always seem to be in isolation, and the most successful people at fulfilling desires always seem to be dreaming big and doing revolutionary things externally. Right now I am kind of half-way between, and I don't feel like I'm making any progress because they conflict so much.

Anyway, if you have any input on this it would be fantastic.
Erock