Conflict between desire and spirituality

[Max Power]

Originally Posted by Joe826

Will true enlightenment give me joy greater than anything the temporary pleasures of the ego can provide, or is enlightenment just a "smoother ride"?

I don't think true enlightenment can be achieved while experiencing the physical realm. I can stop and let go of emotion and thought and just be observer and observed, but as long as I view through a physical lens there is always a small percentage of physical entity retained.

To be a better creator that's where true creative power lies, in the moment of non-thought and non-emotion, that's where conscious choice is made, that's where creation comes into being and then all the perceived justifications are created also, like thought, emotion, time and growth.

If you want a smoother ride, just tap into conscious choice, you don't need to mediatate, just observe, you choose, you decide, it is so and then you create all the support mechanisms, time, growth, thougth, emotion to validate the manifestation.

[ZHereford]

Originally Posted by Max Power

Your problem here is that you think that consciousness is all sorts of things as well as being consciousness.

I don't think it's all sorts of things - It's awareness of self and existence. Why do you have a problem with the definition? I didn't make this up.
If you want to call it something else and broaden the definition, then make up a new word for it. You can't just change definitions to suit your purposes.

If you have a different theory about matter and consciousness beyond the ones quantum physics proposes, then that's fine and dandy but it doesn't mean that how others (such as me) interpret reality is wrong.

I find it useful to interpret reality on the earth plane with people I experience as separate from my 'consciousness'.
Why, am I so limiting you ask?
Because my senses and physical body dictate that!
My imagination can be stretched to consider all sorts of wild and crazy possibilities but that's all I can do at this point. I am confined by my physical body, such that it is.

May I ask how your life is so much different from mine with your all-encompassing consciousness?

My guess is that it's not, since we're both here posting on this forum.

p.s. If you subscribe to subjective reality you created me and are reading this to challenge your thinking and there is something in you that believes what I am saying.

[Erock]

Originally Posted by Joe826

Wow, awesome thread. This might be my favorite thread of all time. I have to say, Erock, I've been having thoughts very similar to yours recently.

I found that when I'm happy and content, I have no problem riding the "ego wave". If I talk to someone and walk away feeling good, or think I look particularly good one day, then I'm fine without considering detachment, enlightenment, awakening, etc. I'm happy with my solid self-image.

It's when I'm spinning in circles of anxiety, negative self concept, or just general discontent that I go back to "enlightenment" and detachment. It sort of reminds me of when I was a practicing Christian and would only pray when things went wrong :P.

I even conciously tried to let go of need, desire, etc. when I was happy due to my positive self-image, hoping that I could dedicate myself to that pursuit all the time, instead of when I was just feeling bad. I ended up just feeling less happy than I had before.

Even if I was being delusional, I was happier with the delusion than I was (trying to) let go of all thought. I don't really know where that leaves me, to be honest. Will true enlightenment give me joy greater than anything the temporary pleasures of the ego can provide, or is enlightenment just a "smoother ride"?

Thanks for the post.

Exactly. You described exactly what was, and still is happening to me. Even this weekend, I was extremely detached Friday and Saturday most of the day, but then Saturday night I got a lot of ego-boosts you might say when I was hanging out with my friends, and the internal chatter, self-image, exc.. began again.

Do I honestly believe people can attain enlightenment? Yes I do. I have read enough spiritual books that either I'm on the right track or I've been brainwashed by all these spiritual gurus. The fact that they all seem to describe exactly the same experience is what has me convinced. I have the feeling that there are a lot more enlightened people then we know of. Why would they have any need to write books, or become teachers? The ones that do are either very compassionate or people write about them and take advantage of their state to make money.

Even if I'm completely wrong, and enlightenment cannot be attained or is nearly impossible to do, it's hard for me not to see through the weak desires of 99% of society-at least the people my age. All they care about is sex, drugs, and their reputation. They want to feel good to make up for the fact that their normal state is so poor. To me, it's so obvious that there are no highs without the lows, and it's this elusive sense of "pleasure" that everyone seems to be striving for that leads me to believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with our belief systems.

Is there higher desire, or is every desire, no matter how "noble" it seems, just a way to pump up our self image? Should we be trying to fulfill it, or curb it? I just don't know, but I intend to find out.

Erock

[Groundless]

Do I honestly believe people can attain enlightenment? Yes I do.

Enlightenment is not something attained it is something you realize you already are.

Why would they have any need to write books, or become teachers? The ones that do are either very compassionate or people write about them and take advantage of their state to make money.

You summed that up well!

They want to feel good to make up for the fact that their normal state is so poor. To me, it's so obvious that there are no highs without the lows, and it's this elusive sense of "pleasure" that everyone seems to be striving for that leads me to believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with our belief systems.

I believe also, correct!

Is there higher desire, or is every desire, no matter how "noble" it seems, just a way to pump up our self image? Should we be trying to fulfill it, or curb it? I just don't know, but I intend to find out.

Good for you!

On this entire topic:

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj said (1973,p. 5):

I see what you see too could see, here and now, but for the wrong focus of attention. You give no attention to your self. Your mind is with all things, people and ideas, never with your self. Bring your self into focus and become aware of your own existence. See how you function, WATCH THE MOTIVES AND THE RESULTS OF YOUR ACTIONS {my emphasis}. Study the prison you have built around yourself, by inadvertance. By knowing what you are not you come to know your self. The way back to yourself is through refusal and rejection. One thing is certain: the real is not imaginary, it is not a product of the mind. Even the sense "I AM" is not continuous, though it is a useful pointer; it shows where to seek, but not what to seek. Just have a good look at it. Once you are convinced that you cannot say truthfully about yourself anything except "I AM", and that nothing can be pointed at, can be your self, the need for the "I AM" is over - you are no longer intent on verbalizing what you are. All you need is to get rid of the tendency to define your self. all definitions apply to your body only and to its expressions. once this obsession with the body goes, you will revert to your natural state, spontaneously and effortlessly. The only difference between us is that I am aware of my natural state, while you are bemused. Just like gold made into ornaments has no advantage over gold dust, except when the mind makes it so, so are we one in being - we differ only in appearance. WE DISCOVER IT BY BEING EARNEST, ENQUIRING, QUESTIONING DAILY, AND HOURLY BBY GIVING ONE'S LIFE TO THIS DISCOVERY."

It appears to me you are doing well on the path.

[Max Power]

Originally Posted by ZHereford

If you subscribe to subjective reality you created me and are reading this to challenge your thinking and there is something in you that believes what I am saying.

If you understand the SR model, I didn't create you and that's why most people can't grasp SR. Consciousness is not a person, not a 'me' or 'you' consciousness is the creator of everything including me and you as physical bodies/minds. To fill the experience, consciousness creates much filler, stuff that is required to keep the experience detailed, but of lesser importance.

Now you might say that consciousness created you to impress a POV onto me, one part of consciousness interacting with another part to aid itself, but the illusion of reality must be kept imperfect because consciousness is perfect therefore consciousness creates much seemingly interesting stuff that is of lesser importance.

Everything is significant, but not everything is of primary importance.

[johnu]

I'm in agreement with a lot of what is being said here. But I'll had my two cents for fun!

You're not going to master anything while resisting it. There's no real separation between the two. You're creating the duality with your resistance. So, if you want to have sex with someone (you know, be safe) but do it with complete awareness and feeling. Or you can just realize fully how much you want it and completely own that. Addiction is all about not feeling. So bring your consciousness into everything that you do. Be willing to fully experience making new friends and being arrogant, being guilty, being tired, drunk, horny, whatever. Be aware of where you are clenching you know. Are you staying open to the experience of your life? Just sky diving into each new experience with an open heart and few expectations? Or are you spinning yourself in circles with attachments and closures? Sex and drinking can be very spiritual experiences...it just so happens that people use those things to go numb. But it doesn't have to be that way. And you don't eliminate the ego, you just get less attached to it, and learn to recognize it...then it becomes like this barking dog somewhere instead of the bull mastiff in the room that's ready to eat you for dinner. Resistance just makes the mastiff stronger and it will continue to eat you.

[Groundless]

Originally Posted by johnu

Addiction is all about not feeling. So bring your consciousness into everything that you do. Be willing to fully experience making new friends and being arrogant, being guilty, being tired, drunk, horny, whatever. Be aware of where you are clenching you know. Are you staying open to the experience of your life? Just sky diving into each new experience with an open heart and few expectations? Or are you spinning yourself in circles with attachments and closures? Sex and drinking can be very spiritual experiences...it just so happens that people use those things to go numb. But it doesn't have to be that way. And you don't eliminate the ego, you just get less attached to it, and learn to recognize it...then it becomes like this barking dog somewhere instead of the bull mastiff in the room that's ready to eat you for dinner. Resistance just makes the mastiff stronger and it will continue to eat you.

These are excellent insights. Thank you.

[infinitethoughts]

I hope everyone realizes that after you're done with your "vacation" in this game of Limits and gone back to your Land of un-Limits (before birth/after death or full knowledge here and now)..........you still have your ego ?

[Groundless]

Originally Posted by infinitethoughts

I hope everyone realizes that after you're done with your "vacation" in this game of Limits and gone back to your Land of un-Limits (before birth/after death or full knowledge here and now)..........you still have your ego ?

If this was a question the answer is no.

If it was not a question, nevermind.

[Max Power]

Originally Posted by infinitethoughts

I hope everyone realizes that after you're done with your "vacation" in this game of Limits and gone back to your Land of un-Limits (before birth/after death or full knowledge here and now)..........you still have your ego ?

I see ego as everything related to physical being, thought, emotion, desire, love, hate, passion, joy. I consider when I fully leave this continainer that houses everything including all those creations, all of that will cease to be, I'll be back at perfection ready for the next experience of imperfection.

[absvan]

Originally Posted by infinitethoughts

I hope everyone realizes that after you're done with your "vacation" in this game of Limits and gone back to your Land of un-Limits (before birth/after death or full knowledge here and now)..........you still have your ego ?

No, I believe that your ego dies when your body dies.

[medaille]

I have this misunderstanding. I read Erin's blog and she discusses those who have passed from our reality. I read that it takes many lifetimes before we raise our consciousness enough to enlighten ourselves or truly understand ourselves. Is there another reality in which we still retain our limited slivers of consciousness? I have this belief that at some point in our evolution we merge with the God consciousness and at that point our evolution is complete.

This is a great thread. I'll express my understandings when I have more time.

[Groundless]

Is there another reality in which we still retain our limited slivers of consciousness? I have this belief that at some point in our evolution we merge with the God consciousness and at that point our evolution is complete.

Well, space and time are constructs of our consciousness too. There is one reality and that is the God consciosness. Everything else is the land of make-believe.

[munish]

read this

Spiritual Depth Perception

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...th-perception/

[munish]

Originally Posted by Erock

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...

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

In reality you are never in the past or future. You exist only in the present moment. Even when you remember the past or envision the future, you’re still thinking those thoughts in the present. All you really have is right now. And that’s all you ever will have. You can’t control the passage of time, but you can control your present moment focus. That’s all. No past. No future. Just right now.

So if the only thing that exists is the present moment, then what sense does it make to talk about long-term goals? How do you actually achieve anything?

First, understand that you can only achieve anything in the present moment, and you can only enjoy those achievements in the present moment. You can’t achieve anything or enjoy anything in the past or future because you’re never there. That’s obvious, isn’t it? But too often people act incongruently with this fact. It’s very difficult to achieve a goal that’s based on an inaccurate model of reality — such a goal will surely be an uphill struggle.

The purpose of goal-setting isn’t to control the future. That would be senseless because the future only exists in your imagination. The only value in goal-setting is that it improves the quality of your present moment reality.
steve pavlina (How to Set Goals You Will Actually Achieve)

[infinitethoughts]

Originally Posted by Groundless

If this was a question the answer is no.

No ego when you go back to your true state?
You've not thought it thru, Groundless.

When you communicate with someone who's died, the very fact that they are communicating with you, shows they have their ego, right?

[infinitethoughts]

Originally Posted by Max Power

I see ego as everything related to physical being, thought, emotion, desire, love, hate, passion, joy. I consider when I fully leave this continainer that houses everything including all those creations, all of that will cease to be, I'll be back at perfection ready for the next experience of imperfection.

~Smiling~
No you'll still have your ego.
You've had your ego before the beginning of time, and you'll have your ego after the end of time.

Forever. (I'm using this word to try and convey something beyond time.)

You and your "ego" are one.
What do you think, you go back to your true state and all of a sudden stop experiencing Joy, passion, love ?
.
.

[infinitethoughts]

Originally Posted by absvan

No, I believe that your ego dies when your body dies.

Tell that to all the "dead" people on the other side. They'll slightly disagree with you.

[infinitethoughts]

Originally Posted by medaille

I have this belief that at some point in our evolution we merge with the God consciousness and at that point our evolution is complete.

Sorta like the Borg assimilation?


No.
YOU exist Forever. .......and it's an awesome spectacle.

[infinitethoughts]

Originally Posted by Groundless

Well, space and time are constructs of our consciousness too. There is one reality and that is the God consciosness. Everything else is the land of make-believe.

There is one truth.

You.

And you exist forever.

As do I.

[infinitethoughts]

Originally Posted by munish

In reality you are never in the past or future. You exist only in the present moment. Even when you remember the past or envision the future, you’re still thinking those thoughts in the present. All you really have is right now. And that’s all you ever will have. You can’t control the passage of time, but you can control your present moment focus. That’s all. No past. No future. Just right now.

Munish, good.

Now I ask what is available in this neverending now?

[Maguru]

What is god consciousness?

[unicorn]

Originally Posted by 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

Originally Posted by Erock

Thanks a lot. If anybody has any personal stories about them dealing with this, or any insight that would be awesome, but otherwise I have learned a lot.

I'll try to convey how I do this balancing act. To me the two roads you describe in your startpost for this thread are not in opposition, they each have a purpose. Understanding the purpose is the key to knowing when to focus on what and how to balance them.

To me, when I suddenly wake up from sleep, or when I meditate is when I most clearly KNOW who and what I am. If you catch me in that moment and ask me my name, I would not be able to answer you instantly. I will only be aware with absolute certainty that I exist and that I am aware of that fact. I am aware that I have a body, and I am hyperaware of all the information coming through my senses, and I have more senses alert, sort of like I sense an energetic atmosphere around me - I can sense the mood of the collective around me in the building, I can sense the emotional weather of the day in a way. All inputs are sharpened and my focus is all around me. If somebody then do anything to catch my attention, even in a low key way I feel it like an explosion when it enters. In this state there are no words in my mind, no labeling of what I sense, no analysing, no interpreting, no comparisons, no meaning, everything just registers as it is very strongly. I know who I am, but I do not know my name, my adress, my tasks for the day, my boyfriends name or any definitions of what I sense around me. I am completely present in the moment and there is no filter that reduces my experience. I feel very peaceful and powerful at the same time.

Then my mind wakes up and starts commenting on what I experience and reminding me of the days agenda, and what happens then is that the experience is immediately reduced. My mind cannot multitask and process all that sensory information at once, and it starts to chunk it up to make sense of it. After chunking, generalising, deleting and interpreting, not much is left of the original experience, but I still have an inner knowing that there is much more going on than my mind can deal with. With interpretation arises emotions depending on the interpretation. But I still have the knowing that the emotion is a response to a lesser understanding and distorted truth than what this ME that I experience before my mind "wakes up" have access to.

I think the purpose of your route number 2 is to get to that sort of inner wordless, pictureless, soundless KNOWING of who you are, and experiencing the world through all your senses (which actually are more than the five most people are familiar with) without the filtering process the mind needs in order to process information. The problem for most of us is that the mind so much wants to come along into this sort of experience, and it just can't without ruining it. Many spiritual teachings focus on detaching and disidentifying with the mind. I think the key is this: is your mind your servant or your master? Having had the sort of experience I describe gives me the definite knowing that I am not my mind, so even though I can get lost in the minds processes, I don't feel like that is a problem. Thinking is fun, and the inner me greatly enjoys all I can do with it. The essence is that I know the mind distorts reality, so I never take anything I think at face value, and I know I can never express in a communication with the mind involved who I am or what is the truth about reality. With that knowing firmly established, there really is no need to take path number 2 to any extreme. I'll drop in once in a while on that path if my mind takes off and start producing to much trouble with it's distortions and my body get hijacked with hormones and chemicals that clouds my clarity of the inner knowing. Having had experiences of clarity gives the advantage of recognising when it is missing, and then I can choose to haul myself out of the distortions and back to the presence of the inner ME experience by shutting out the busy engagement in life and meditate until clarity returns. It is like be on a sliding scale of awareness, I can go up and down depending on what seems to be needed at the moment, and what I prefer to experience.

It does not resonate with me that there are any shoulds or don'ts involved in these paths. I feel it is all about preference. If you have not experienced what it is like when the mind is turned off and your mind is trapping you into all sorts of trouble, I think the second path may be very attractive and relevant to follow. If your mind is reasonably functional and most of the time produce results you are happy with, the attraction of path 2 would maybe not be so great. What I mean is that path 2 is not any better, or more right for being spiritual, but if you ar not getting the life experience you want with path 1, it is a tool you can pull out of your toolkit for this earthly existence to improve your experience. A person that never uses that tool is no less spiritual than an enlightened master, we cannot NOT be spiritual, it is an impossiblity. It is really about the degree you choose to experience your spiritual self, and whether you choose to let your spiritual self be the creator of your experience or whether you will let the "mind program" run your life and reduce your spiritual self to just record the experience passively. Whatever you choose you will grow and be a co-creator and co-destructor, question is what do you create and destroy, and are those the kind of experiences you really want to have? If you are conflicted about it, then what you need is inner negotiation to become clear on your preferences. In order to do that you need to ask your inner parts what their intentions are for their wishes and desires, then find a path that can cover all the intentions in order to have all parts supporting your choices and not getting in each others way. A good way to do this is to set up several chairs and assign each part/desire a chair. Then sit in one chair at a time and write down the desire and the underlying intention for that desire. When you have them all down, then allow your mind to help figuring out a path that will cover all the intentions. The desires are secondary to intentions. Desires and emotions are just the subconscious parts way of kicking you into action to achieve the intention. There are always more ways to achieve those than the subconscious knows about, and the subconsious can be instructed to operate in another way that produces less conflict.

I hope this was useful for you, this works for me at least. Sometimes I even choose to stay in inner conflict with the pain that comes with it, as it is my experience that this can be like working on a rough diamond if I allow it to be for a while. The end result shines more brightly. That's when it comes in handy to not be heavily identified with the mind and emotions and being able to detach from them and just observe. Taking an observer posistion and just accepting the process enables me to not act destructively and delay decisions so they won't be to clouded by the pain. Whenever I fall out of the observer mode with painful stuff going on I will do something stupid, detaching prevents those dire consequences from occuring.

[Groundless]

Originally Posted by infinitethoughts

No ego when you go back to your true state?
You've not thought it thru, Groundless.

When you communicate with someone who's died, the very fact that they are communicating with you, shows they have their ego, right?

There is no ego, there is only your true One state. You are never born, you never die, we are what we are always, now. Ego is a construct, so is time.

I have not personally chatted with dead people and have no basis to agree with your proposed theory.

[Groundless]

Originally Posted by infinitethoughts

~Smiling~
No you'll still have your ego.
You've had your ego before the beginning of time, and you'll have your ego after the end of time.

Forever. (I'm using this word to try and convey something beyond time.)

You and your "ego" are one.
What do you think, you go back to your true state and all of a sudden stop experiencing Joy, passion, love ?
.

I disagree. Nothing in this existence here is real, the ego, time, or space. Only the One state, the complete One existence we were prior to being born and after we die is real. The experience of this existence is real but not the actual existence.

[Groundless]

Originally Posted by infinitethoughts

There is one truth.

You.

And you exist forever.

As do I.

The One state means you and I are one. There is no real difference. We agree on existing forever, however, time is an illusion also.

I think we agree on the basic premise here and are arguing small semantic differences. Which is pointless and will not lead anyone to so-called enlightenment.

[ExploringTheMatrix]

Originally Posted by Groundless

I disagree. Nothing in this existence here is real, the ego, time, or space. Only the One state, the complete One existence we were prior to being born and after we die is real. The experience of this existence is real but not the actual existence.

Whatever you say is real is real. Whatever you say is false is false. The One is what experiences the realness or lack thereof in each experience and is the only thing that's not changing.

Originally Posted by Groundless

I think we agree on the basic premise here and are arguing small semantic differences. Which is pointless and will not lead anyone to so-called enlightenment.

We're all just playing a little game called pretending not to be enlightened. It's pretty fun. Arguing with ourself and all. My apologies if I actually hurt anyone

[Groundless]

The One is what experiences the realness or lack thereof in each experience and is the only thing that's not changing.

We're all just playing a little game called pretending not to be enlightened. It's pretty fun. Arguing with ourself and all.

This is true.

[infinitethoughts]

Originally Posted by Groundless

I have not personally chatted with dead people and have no basis to agree with your proposed theory.

So you think when you die you disappear?

[infinitethoughts]

Originally Posted by Groundless

The One state means you and I are one. There is no real difference. We agree on existing forever, however, time is an illusion also.

I think we agree on the basic premise here and are arguing small semantic differences. Which is pointless and will not lead anyone to so-called enlightenment.

The one state is another illusion perpetuated by beliefs.

I am I, and will never merge with you.

You are you, and will never merge with me.