Nick_NZ wrote:Hi there
What up, yo?
Nick_NZ wrote:My name is Nick, I am a 25 year old from Wellington, New Zealand. I experienced many different forms of anxiety on and off for about 11 years from 2001-2011 but with a solid spiritual practice - the foundation of which is using mindfulness as much as possible every day - I have reinvented myself and my life these days is fantastic.
Excellent. I'll hit that point on reinvention below. It's the same as I experienced.
Nick_NZ wrote:I have been practicing mindfulness every day for about 18 months now.
I just can't help myself. Reminds me of this joke:
Sum Dum Goy wrote:I was mindful every day for the last 10 years, just didn't know it.
My joke is no reflection on your statement. I believe you 100%, just can't resist a good joke when it comes to mind. :^D
Nick_NZ wrote:I have worked hard at it and the results have been utterly amazing.. To summarize what this practice has given me:
1. I haven't had a 'bad day' in more than a year
Yep. Every day is a good day. One can experience a bad day, but that doesn't make the "day" bad. If it did, then we'd all experience the bad day all at the same time. The fact that we don't shows the day itself isn't bad.
Bad events may happen within that day, but that doesn't make it a bad day.
Nick_NZ wrote:2. I have almost complete control over my thoughts and emotions - thus I can choose not to be negative, so I've all but eliminated all fear, anger, regret etc from my life
I'm curious about this "control". I have similar ability, but I don't call it control. We may just be differing on words but the same in practice.
In my case an afflictive thought comes up, along with the matching emotion. I've become sensitive enough that I can feel even the subtle shift of emotion in my body. Now here's where I diverge from "control", in my case I just refocus the mind back to the present task at hand and the afflictive thought/emotion fades off. Usually within less than 60 seconds.
This was only after spending time looking directly into the sources/causes of those afflictive thoughts/emotions through my meditation, and seeing clearly what I really am.
Nick_NZ wrote:3. I have experienced an explosion in my creative abilities and I'm getting new insights and ideas every day
Yep, once you harness the mind it's a powerful tool to do what you want instead of just spewing up useless stuff all the time.
Nick_NZ wrote:4. I'm much more organized and I find I can break bad habits and establish good ones much more easily
5. I'm much more confident in all aspects of my life
and much more..
All this for just $19.95 BUT WAIT! if you call within the next 15 minutes, we'll send you not one, but two enlightenment packages, you just pay separate shipping and handling...
:^D
I completely identify. It's like a whole new you, EV-ER-Y thing is different in a better way.
Nick_NZ wrote:My question is.. where to from here? I am already starting to move into a teaching role to impart these skills to others. As my level of consciousness has massively increased since the early last year I have also been discovering some amazing other benefits of the practice I was not aware of.. psychic stuff. Has anyone else experienced this and/or worked to develop it?
Without hearing more, my initial thought is to ignore it. Developing it would be an exciting distraction. Exciting, but a completely absorbing distraction. Probably not what you want.
I heard a good example, I can't remember from whom. They said spirituality is like climbing up. You reach a level (like psychic ability) and you begin to develop that. You're deceived into thinking you're still growing spiritually because you're (a) continuing to experience this "new" ability and (b) you're actually moving in a direction. His point was the direction you're moving in is now no longer up, but across that plane. So it's like no longer going up, you're just walking around on that level and because you're walking around, it looks like you're still making spiritual progress. Highly deceptive.
And consider this. Let's say that it's 100% the real deal. And that if you would subject to scientific analysis (like the other posters here mentioned) you find that this ability is really real and not just a fabrication of mind.
What would it hurt to leave it? It will still be there. Only it would be there without your fixation on it. As you continued upward, you could touch that at any time. But if you get pulled into it, your ability to continue upward may be gone.
I'd like to go back now to pick up that common thread of reinvention in your post.
I experienced this exact thing, which in the end is what lead my directly to awakening.
Growing up my response to social pressure was to become introvert, and boy did I become one. Socially awkward, avoided others, etc. My mother was killed in a car accident when I was 15, and feeling she was the only friend I had in the world, that event lead to me basically build the wall (the one Pink Floyd sings about). I went in the Marines for 5 years, got married, etc, but was still highly introverted and completely "other" than other people. Didn't connect to others much at all.
Some clown named Omni wrote:Every Day Is A Good Day.
In 2010 I got this enlightenment about how nature itself is inherently good (aka positive). There's nothing wrong with water, it's "good". There's nothing wrong with any substance, molecules, atoms, etc. The fabric of existence is "good". So, every day is a good day. The sun goes up, it goes down. That's the day, there's nothing at all bad about it, if there were something wrong with the day itself, then all would experience that bad day - "oh boy, here's Tuesday again, we all just need to stay home because it's going to be a bad day." But since one person can experience a good day, then it must be that the day itself has goodness available, it's just up to me to experience it.
Then the lyrics on a song I grew up on suddenly stuck in my mind. The song is "Happiness" by Pet Shop Boys, the line is the title (life works this way, out of the weirdest places come the message that suddenly speaks to you, and when you look around where you saw the message, it's surroundings look like the most unlikely place to have communicated that message to you, like a beautiful flower growing out of the muddiest ditch).
Silly-minded Omni also wrote:Happiness Is An Option.
If you're going to buy a car and the sales guy says "we can put in the radio and air conditioning in your car for the same price as not having the radio and AC, it's an option" - would you tell him you want the AC/radio or not? Of course we'd say "install it, baby!"
Another example is when you get a large employment contract with a company and they give you stock options. When they mature you can exercise those options, or not.
I realized if Happiness is an option(al), "install in my life". And from this was born the power of choice, to chose to be happy no matter what. Not based on some fake Possitive-Mental-Attitude stuff what was "just feel good", but because I could see "Every day is a good day" that there was a fundamental choice of happiness coming directly from the fabric of existence. No hype.
This had a profound effect on me. I'd meditate on this on my way in to work, and by the time I got to the office I'd be happy almost to the point of bliss. And naturally as this grew in my mind it affected my behavior. I'd come into the office and great everyone I met. I didn't avoid people any more. I'd talk to them about things they were interested in (usually never what I was interested in), and I became sooooo social. After about a year I left that company and it was like one of the popular kids saying goodbye to everyone. It was pretty phenomenal. Of course there were a couple people that I didn't click with, that's normal, but it was like this whole company of 150+ employees were all my personal friends.
At my new job I didn't exhibit those socially-shy tendencies. Even when there was a lot of pressure on me from the job, things other people were doing against me, etc. I'd meditate on every day being a good day and having the option to chose happiness on my way in to work. Some days I did have to ask myself in the elevator "how would a person that never experiences a bad day act as they step off this elevator even if they were going through what I am going through?" and then that's the way I'd act. Please note, it's still not "PMA/hype" because it was based on the fundamental nature of reality. I didn't "put on a fake smile" I was reminding myself of the real reasons for having that smile.
After 6 months or so I was in a "personalities" conversation with some of my coworkers. They didn't believe me no matter how hard I tried to convince them I was an introvert. They'd never seen me act in any way that indicated introvert.
It was then that I had another enlightenment.
After stubbing his personality on the coffee table, Omni wrote:The personality is malleable.
I had literally transformed myself within about a year and a half from a social reject/recluse to a guy that everyone thinks is "mr popular" and has nothing wrong with his life. (Sometimes I have to share the real-life problems I'm facing all the time just to get people to believe that you can have this positive attitude despite your circumstances and that it's not "fate", "genetics", "properties of me" that brings about this outlook on life)
I realized I could be anyone I wanted to be. If the external circumstances of my childhood had shaped me into an introvert, then from the inside I could certainly shape it into anything I wanted. And I was enjoying being a friendly, more care-free person that was genuinely concerned about others and not focusing on my own pressures, so I just kept doing it.
I enjoyed that for about half a year. Then I had the convergence of almost all the enlightenments I had received all lining up and a life crisis all at the same time. It was perfect, exactly what I needed.
I had about 3 or 4 months where it seemed like every week there was a new external pressure added. And some of them that were added seemed to just get worse. None of them let up, they were all sticking around for a while.
I continued my practice, just being patient to wait and see what would ultimately happen. I just noted what was arising, fear, sadness, aloneness, feelings of loss, etc. And waited.
I kept going back to the enlightenments, especially every day being a good day. Several others I haven't mentioned:
All things are one, it's just unity.
Love is the highest form of non-self because it can't come from a self-based (aka selfish) viewpoint.
Love, when implemented correctly, brings about unity, unity is it's goal.
Non-control.
Acceptance.
Allowing others and situations to be exactly as they are with no indication that it's anything other than what I already want
We are not our thoughts.
We are not our feelings.
Thoughts without a thinker.
etc.
Each of these were learned over the past 15 - 20 years, with each one being learned not just by knowledge but by personal experience.
One week all the feelings from the difficult circumstances seemed to arise all at the same time. It was the breaking point. Sometimes I would just sit at my desk and have to meditate in an attempt to clear my mind and ease the sensations. Nothing worked.
Then it all clicked. The things I knew already fell into place to bring me to one final jewel.
There is mind and it's thoughts. That's not me. There is body and it's feelings/emotions. Also not me. The personality could be shaped at will. So what was I? What was I really? All things are one, the viewpoint based in separateness isn't true. These things I knew.
Then it was clear, like having looked at the individual items in a painting for a long time, and then suddenly seeing the entire painting with all those pieces and realize the implication of the whole thing all at once.
The personality is the thoughts and feelings, generated by mind and body. But this isn't "me". I was the one below/behind that. I was the one observing it all. All those years I had thought I *was* those thoughts, those feelings. Even when I knew I wasn't my thoughts, I still thought I was some of the thoughts, just didn't realize I wasn't any of them at all. Same with feelings. I thought some of them were me, others weren't.
And there is just one creation. One reality. One existence. One fabric from which all arises. This
one was what my body existed within/from, and my mind. But I wasn't those things, I'm the perspective of that
one watching that personality.
In about a week so many things fell away. I can summarize most of them as "duality" or the thoughts based from the viewpoint of duality. I had a dinner with two close friends whom I had been helping for the past 15 years in this path. I explained to them this new viewpoint, we spent hours and hours talking about it. It was amazing for me to see from their conversation so many dualistic viewpoints that they held to be so true. Eventually I just started a list. Every time they made a statement based in duality I'd write down the two opposites on the list and then later we'd come back and go over the last couple things written and show how they just aren't true. It was amazing and just solidified my view even more.
And then I noticed that all that negative pressure was gone. All those months of buildup just weren't around any more. But of course, it wasn't long until some things started arising again, but they were easily dealt with. As I mention up at the top, now when something arises I just refocus the mind and it passes. Exactly like breathing meditation when the mind wanders and you bring it back to the breathing, whatever thoughts it had wandered to are gone and there is only breathing. Same with every distraction that happens through the day. It's like meditating all day long.
I need to bring out this one point on this refocusing. It's not healthy to do it all the time. I actually teach to take the time to pause deeply and look into the emotion, the thoughts, and find their causes. I don't teach to ignore afflictive thoughts/feelings. That's very unhealthy and after a while all that negativity builds up since it's not dealt with. The "refocusing" I do is done when I'm at work (for example), in a meeting and can't take a 5-minute personal break to examine some negative thought/feeling. But when I have personal time I'll reflect on those things and search out their substantive causes. And then there are *some* thoughts/feelings that are just so unfounded they really do need to be categorically ignored, because there's no finding the cause, it's just the churn the mind is always spitting up. Wisdom is knowing when to refocus, when to pause deeply, and when to ignore.
There's way too much to write about that has opened since then, but I think this is a good point to put this note on pause anyway. I think there are a lot of similarities with what you have written with my own experience, so I wanted to take the time to share it with you and see how much you can relate.
You asked "what's next?" From my experience the next step after realizing you can reinvent the personality (your words, my word is malleability of personality, just semantics) would be the realization that if you can reinvent it, it's just not true, that is to say it doesn't have inherent existence. And as such, that can't be you, so "what are you?" and then seeing that answer frees you completely from everything.
Of course, this is just my experience and I don't presume to think you have to follow the same steps as me. I know everyone's journey is completely different and tailor-made.
It'd be nice to see what you find the next step to be for yourself, usually we find out *after* we take it. It's not like we can see ahead of ourselves (even if others can), so we just have to keep doing what we're doing until we find out "oh yeah, that's what came next..."
I look forward to hearing back, especially if you feel to write your experiences to the same detail I have.
Enjoy yourself,
Omni
