interested in developing spiritual but can't fit it into my schedule

[Non]

I'm very much interested in the self empowerment "spiritual" development can bring. I think more about it than anything else.

 

My father thinks it's just BS. And work and school and all else in my life doesn't help me. I feel like self empowerment is what I should be focusing on first before anything else, before school, etc. but then my father will think I'm not doing anything.. and I wont be making much money, and I'll be extremely lonely etc. and I might as well make the most of it while he's here for school in that he gives me a place to stay and helps me out. but I think he might disown me if I dont continue going to school. And I'm soooo lonely.

 

I feel like abandoning all worldly things for now and just developing myself. If I continue without self development I'll be useless, unfocused, and hopeless. I feel like this is what I should be doing, butt he way this industrial society works is that people like me, and interested in the topics I am get very underplayed and become outcast, and it's hard to make a living. School doesn't teach anything about self development, I missed that as a kid. Education doesn't do jack for that.

 

I've been slacking on my college studies in favor of spiritual practice and kung fu. Yet I find no way I can make a living for myself if I continue like this until maybe in the future when I got everything down, but now? It seems hopeless. My father thinks it's all BS.

 

AARRRGHGH!!!!!! *throws around scattering papers and sits off in a corner*

Edited April 22, 2010 by Non

[Ramon25]

I'm very much interested in the self empowerment "spiritual" development can bring. I think more about it than anything else.

 

My father thinks it's just BS. And work and school and all else in my life doesn't help me. I feel like self empowerment is what I should be focusing on first before anything else, before school, etc. but then my father will think I'm not doing anything.. and I wont be making much money, and I'll be extremely lonely etc. and I might as well make the most of it while he's here for school in that he gives me a place to stay and helps me out. but I think he might disown me if I dont continue going to school.

 

I feel like abandoning all worldly things for now and just developing myself. If I continue without self development I'll be useless, unfocused, and hopeless. I feel like this is what I should be doing, butt he way this industrial society works is that people like me, and interested in the topics I am get very underplayed and become outcast, and it's hard to make a living. School doesn't teach anything about self development, I missed that as a kid. Education doesn't do jack for that.

 

I've been slacking on my college studies in favor of spiritual practice and kung fu. Yet I find no way I can make a living for myself if I continue like this until maybe in the future when I got everything down, but now? It seems hopeless. My father thinks it's all BS.

 

 

I think you need to not listen to your father. Pretty much my entire family thinks this is BS. My father hah, dont even ask. Do what You think you should. We as males may allow oursleves to be influenced WAY to much by what our fathers think. He has no power over you and should have none either. Now with that said, he cares and is afraid because he doesnt understand. You are evolving quicker than him, he is intimidated. But he probably does care about you and in all reality is bringing up some very real points you should take into reality. It is not MORE spiritual pursay to run into the mountains, you can be in this world and still develop and cultivate. It is more difficult becuase you ave to bring YOURSELF into the world, dont run from it. If you cant do it now, maybe its not the right time. Be GROUNDED, take care of the root and survival needs FIRST, be here-not in the archetype of the mountain monk. practice gratitude for the things in your life 10 min in morning and 10 before bed. Also do deep breathing for 5-10 min during lunch or at any little time you can. Practice grounding mediation visulaizations for min a day WHENEVER you step outside. You can also do some chigung, zhan zhuang for 5-10 min sometime during the day. practice compassion in your day to day affairs. You can be bring spirituality into your daily life without it getting in the way. if you do all of the above that is plenty to start with.

Good luck

 

Dont run from life, You are not ready for it as there is more for you to learn here. you are trying to run form the demands of your life and our afraid of what you might become. It takes alot of bravery to be in those demands and except your truth.

Edited April 22, 2010 by Ramon25

[goldisheavy]

I'm very much interested in the self empowerment "spiritual" development can bring. I think more about it than anything else.

 

My father thinks it's just BS. And work and school and all else in my life doesn't help me. I feel like self empowerment is what I should be focusing on first before anything else, before school, etc. but then my father will think I'm not doing anything.. and I wont be making much money, and I'll be extremely lonely etc. and I might as well make the most of it while he's here for school in that he gives me a place to stay and helps me out. but I think he might disown me if I dont continue going to school. And I'm soooo lonely.

 

Why is it such an either/or, 1 or 0, black or white choice for you?

 

How about this approach:

 

1. Get a job you enjoy. It doesn't have to be a dream job, but it should at least be moderately enjoyable to you. (Or start a business that you enjoy.)

 

2. Pay attention!

 

This "pay attention" bit is what spirituality is all about. Being mindful 24/7 is the source of all wisdom and spiritual power. It's the opposite of being mindless or careless. You'll always have moments for reflection. Even at work you can catch a moment to pause and to reflect or meditate.

 

If you choose this route, your father will not even have to know that you are developing spiritually. He'll just think you are like everyone else.

 

If you want to do nothing but meditate, you have to arrange something to make your situation stable. There are many ways to do it, but if you go this route, get ready for your father's initial unhappiness. How much is spiritual development worth to you? Is it worth pissing off your father? Buddha famously pissed his father off by becoming a homeless ascetic.

 

I feel like abandoning all worldly things for now and just developing myself. If I continue without self development I'll be useless, unfocused, and hopeless. I feel like this is what I should be doing, butt he way this industrial society works is that people like me, and interested in the topics I am get very underplayed and become outcast, and it's hard to make a living. School doesn't teach anything about self development, I missed that as a kid. Education doesn't do jack for that.

 

I've been slacking on my college studies in favor of spiritual practice and kung fu. Yet I find no way I can make a living for myself if I continue like this until maybe in the future when I got everything down, but now? It seems hopeless. My father thinks it's all BS.

 

AARRRGHGH!!!!!! *throws around scattering papers and sits off in a corner*

 

My advice, since you already seem to be enrolled, is to do your best to pass your classes. Try to graduate. It doesn't matter what your GPA is. Practically no one cares about it. Just do the best you can. Try to at least pass the classes you hate. One way or another, you'll have to learn some skills. College teaches you survival skills in a sense that you can get a job with those skills and earn a living. College also gives you a credential, which while not absolutely necessary, makes life easier. So if you can at all stomach it, hang in there and graduate. Think about it this way. Even if you don't go to college, but instead go into wilderness, you cannot avoid learning survival skills. You'll have to learn how to find water, how to heal yourself, how to hunt and gather food, how to build simple dwellings, how to make a fire and so on. Or let's say you become a bum on the street. That too requires learning. You'll need to learn how the shelter system works, where to get food, where to take a shower and so on. If you think about it, none of this learning is necessarily more pleasant than what you are learning in college. No matter where you go you will be learning things. So basically you will end up with a college-like experience pretty much no matter what. See my point?

 

Spirituality is not diametrically opposed to worldly life. It's not the same as worldliness, true, and sometimes worldly passions can interfere, but in general it's not at odds with the mundane. Even the purest spiritual life has mundane repetition to it, a routine, like getting up every morning. That's mundane too.

 

So I would advise to try to avoid extremes if you can. Try to avoid black or white, 1 or 0 types of choices. It's not an all or nothing proposition. You don't have to polarize your thinking so much.

 

The decision is always yours to make, no matter what you end up deciding.

Edited April 22, 2010 by goldisheavy

[Non]

I guess I also feel like I need spiritual development now and not later.

 

I feel like we're running out of time. Perhaps in the future we will not be able, as society may collapse, etc. This is what I feel.

[goldisheavy]

I guess I also feel like I need spiritual development now and not later.

 

I feel like we're running out of time. Perhaps in the future we will not be able, as society may collapse, etc. This is what I feel.

 

Learning to rise above fear is part of spiritual training. We all have some fears. That's normal. Feeling fear is natural for any being that has even the slightest preference of any kind, which is pretty much all sentient beings right there.

 

The important thing is to not allow fear to sit at the steering wheel of your ship. Don't let fear make your decisions for you. It's true that society may collapse but it's also true that you can get hit by a bus or lightning at any moment. But is panic the right attitude for this insight?

 

It's good to be aware of one's mortality so as to not waste precious time, but at the same time, if you're panicking or feel frenzied, that's an undesirable lower reaction that you should not indulge yourself in if you can help it. Fear should teach you to be diligent and attentive rather than hurried. Don't hurry, but don't needlessly waste time either, and you'll be OK. Avoid the extremes.

Edited April 22, 2010 by goldisheavy

[Ramon25]

Goldisheavy is correct in everything he said. His response is spot on. Your in some sort of panic. Maybe its the fear of getting out in the world on your own. Maybe its growing up. Maybe yourself. Maybe who you might become. Either way your afraid of something and its taking hold more than is healthy. Spirituality is by far the most important thing there is, but spirituality is not opposed to life in the mundane world. You talk about "empowerment" aspects. you seek power because your afraid. You seek to have power to control your outcomes. Which is fine but in that case I would up the book "The law attraction" if You seek power, do it right. Straighten out your motivations. I advise self reflection.....

[Non]

Learning to rise above fear is part of spiritual training. We all have some fears. That's normal. Feeling fear is natural for any being that has even the slightest preference of any kind, which is pretty much all sentient beings right there.

 

The important thing is to not allow fear to sit at the steering wheel of your ship. Don't let fear make your decisions for you. It's true that society may collapse but it's also true that you can get hit by a bus or lightning at any moment. But is panic the right attitude for this insight?

 

It's good to be aware of one's mortality so as to not waste precious time, but at the same time, if you're panicking or feel frenzied, that's an undesirable lower reaction that you should not indulge yourself in if you can help it. Fear should teach you to be diligent and attentive rather than hurried. Don't hurry, but don't needlessly waste time either, and you'll be OK. Avoid the extremes.

 

I was taught, that fear is no good. For any reason, and serves no purpose other than what you make of it but should be abolished in the end.

[goldisheavy]

I was taught, that fear is no good. For any reason, and serves no purpose other than what you make of it but should be abolished in the end.

 

I distinguish between two kinds of fear. There is conscious fear and unconscious.

 

Conscious fear occurs when you are fully cognizant of your preference, and you become aware of the potential to deviate from your preference. So for example, if you want to solve a mathematics problem correctly, you might be afraid to make a mistake. This is a conscious fear because you're creating that fear on purpose. It's not that you're terrified of mistakes, you just don't want them. This kind of fear cannot control you, and you can make more of it or less of it as you wish. So if you want to be really careful, you'll be more weary of making a mistake. And if you don't care all that much, you will be less weary of making a mistake. So in this manner you can adjust how much fear you feel and it's completely self-imposed in a way that you're aware of. You know you're doing it to yourself.

 

Another example of a conscious fear is a Buddhist monk who is afraid to violate his vows.

 

And then there is unconscious fear. Unconscious fear is the one we have hard time controlling. It arises when you are about to violate your unconscious preferences. It can even arise if you wrongly think you're about to violate your unconscious preferences. So for example, we all want to maintain a certain image of ourselves. If we get sick, that image is threatened. If we get sick with cold, that's no problem. But if we get a more serious disease, we can become very afraid. We can also become very afraid if we think we might catch an infectious disease, like say plague. When you first learn to drive an automobile, there is a lot of unconscious fear there as well. Sure, you don't want to hit anything, but at the same time, you're worried that things you cannot control will hit you on their own. This creates anxiety that's not easy to control because you're not creating it 100% consciously.

 

What's bad about the second kind of fear is that it's unconscious. It means there are some causes behind it that you believe you cannot control, or that you think are not up to you. It can also mean the causes of fear are not well understood by you. You may not understand all the subtle relations that are tugging at your identity and your preferences to create that fear.

 

So a fear that you don't fully understand and control is an unconscious fear. This is a bad kind of fear, but it's only bad because it's out of control. It's not bad because it makes you afraid. If you're afraid due to your own conscious intent, in other words, if you want to be afraid and are, that's fine. Fear is only a problem when you feel like you don't want to be afraid, but you are. When fear is against your will, that's when it seems like a problem. And every time the fear appears against your will it is because it is unconscious. It means you don't fully understand the true magnitude, scope and direction of your will yet.

 

So the cure is to become more and more aware. You have to practice mindfulness. Then eventually you'll become conscious of all your fears and all your fears will eventually become your choices and not something that's seemingly pushed on you by the world against your wishes.

Edited April 22, 2010 by goldisheavy

[Guest paul walter]

I'm very much interested in the self empowerment "spiritual" development can bring. I think more about it than anything else.

 

 

 

Hi Non. It's interesting to see you back, and interseting to see you being constructive with yourself-I salute you. Fuck your father and all the people who haven't had your health/happiness in this life in their uppermost thoughts. If you want me to do a homeopathic consult with you I'm sure it will radically empower you pretty quickly. It's up to you. Best Paul.

[Mokona]

I'm very much interested in the self empowerment "spiritual" development can bring. I think more about it than anything else.

 

My father thinks it's just BS. And work and school and all else in my life doesn't help me. I feel like self empowerment is what I should be focusing on first before anything else, before school, etc. but then my father will think I'm not doing anything.. and I wont be making much money, and I'll be extremely lonely etc. and I might as well make the most of it while he's here for school in that he gives me a place to stay and helps me out. but I think he might disown me if I dont continue going to school. And I'm soooo lonely.

 

I feel like abandoning all worldly things for now and just developing myself. If I continue without self development I'll be useless, unfocused, and hopeless. I feel like this is what I should be doing, butt he way this industrial society works is that people like me, and interested in the topics I am get very underplayed and become outcast, and it's hard to make a living. School doesn't teach anything about self development, I missed that as a kid. Education doesn't do jack for that.

 

I've been slacking on my college studies in favor of spiritual practice and kung fu. Yet I find no way I can make a living for myself if I continue like this until maybe in the future when I got everything down, but now? It seems hopeless. My father thinks it's all BS.

 

AARRRGHGH!!!!!! *throws around scattering papers and sits off in a corner*

 

Well, my parents thought it was doo doo too. But that doesn't matter becuase you don't need appreciation for something you do for yourself. Why can't you just practice meditation for 30 minutes before or after class? Like when you wake up in the morning, or right before you go to bed?

 

This here:

I feel like we're running out of time. Perhaps in the future we will not be able, as society may collapse, etc. This is what I feel.

Sounds like stress and meditation is 'supposed' to help one deal with stress. (The belly breathing stuff)

Anyhow, it really is all about making time for yourself.

 

For an example: In my situation I work for about 11 hours a day except for Sundays (Mandatory to be at work even if nothing is going on)

and then I need time to study for training sessions for the next week, and go to the gym so I can keep fit. Drop off laundry, go to the store, clean my living space, ect.

Once everything is done I'll hold off playing a game or reading a book and just Zazen/sit for 20-45 minutes with earplugs in becuase three other guys live in the room with me, hell, I don't even have a chair yet and my legs don't stretch far enough for the really interesting sitting positions.

 

Good luck.