how to bring up this topic among friends?

[outis emoi y'ovoma]

my case is that i am pretty much bored with everything the world has to offer, or at least i'm not interested in investing too heavily. the time when i really feel alive and excited to be that way is when i get to talk to people about their true self, when the search for the self is foremost in the mind.

 

but the thing i can't figure out is, how i can bring this into my life. it's never going to just "come up" in conversation, and its focus is so far away from what we usually spend all our time talking about that it's very left-field when i do bring it up, and the subject rarely gets picked up by the group. it's as though some silent alarm goes off in the mind and all the minds rush towards other topics.

 

do you have any experience with this? have you found friends in real life who are pursuing this path as well? how do you bring this into your life? i feel sometimes that no one is so committed to this as i am and i sometimes wonder if that doesn't mean i just have to be alone most of the time.

Edited March 28, 2014 by outis emoi y'ovoma

[GrandmasterP]

Welcome to TTB outis emoi y'ovoma and what an interesting post that is.

This isn't an answer to your question cos I don't have one it's just a personal observation so ignore it by all means I am not in any way trying to tell you what to do.

People I work with and meet in daily life have little or no interest in 'our' sort of thing and there's no point me trying to talk about TTB type stuff to them as they'd just switch off or be embarrassed .

They might sense it as, and it possibly would be an unwelcome intrusion

Plus generally it's not the place or time for TTB type chat especially at work.

TTB and places like Dharma Wheel or Dhamma Wheel are good for online chats about mutual interests.

I like meeting people in real life too and where I found like minded people was originally by doing Martial Arts and from that into QiGong.

If there is a good teacher locally then she or he will have a group of students to get to know and most groups are glad of and really welcome new faces joining them.

If we can join a group of like minded people that is good, if there isn't one near us to join that's not so good.

Some people set up groups in their local area via online advertising but not everyone wants to do that.

Edited March 28, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Jetsun]

Go to events, courses and meetings where you meet people who are interested in this sort of stuff

[amoyaan]

Hey, this is an interesting question. I'm like you. I love talking about this stuff because it's my passion and purpose in life. I can engage with regular people fine, but I do get bored when conversation never rises above the mundane. Most people are stuck there. Which is cool, I don't have a problem with that, it's just frustrating when you want to relate to people on a much deeper level and talk about things that actually matter.

 

Everyone else has given great advice. The internet makes it much easier connecting with like minded people. It can still be hard finding decent environments where people aren't simply being a$$holes to each other (yup, even spiritual forums are full of that haha). TTB is a great place. I don't post that much but I always come back here even when I don't have much to say. Also, finding like-minded people might happen by going to workshops, groups or satsangs, etc. I live in the middle of pretty much nowhere so that's not really an option for me unless I travel, but life has given me the opportunity to do that lately, and I met some amazing people there I have stayed in touch with. Back home, conversation is generally limited to....well, the weather. But British people are like that

Edited March 29, 2014 by amoyaan

[ThisLife]

Yes, I too find this topic very interesting and extremely relevant to the situation one finds oneself in as a "seeker". My feeling is that when one gets fascinated by this bottomless ocean of existential questions, it is a VERY mixed blessing indeed !

 

One of the most frustrating aspects of this fixation is exactly what you describe,... the desire to talk about these topics and the ideas that we're grappling with, to others. But it is extremely rare to find any 'normal' situation where such topics are even remotely welcomed. Like others here have suggested, I think that you pretty well have to go to groups whose purpose is close to the line of enquiry that interests you

 

However, as an unforeseen result of the many years that I've personally experienced this type of frustration, I find that my viewpoint on it has now changed. During the largest part of my years of looking for spiritual answers I was part of a Tibetan Buddhist organisation. While there and a happy member of that dedicated group, I experienced no shortage of the social rewards that come from a sense of belonging to a group of like-minded souls. Anyone there could, (and often did), happily talk about spiritual questions till the cows came home.

 

However, when my own line of questioning first began to diverge from 'the party line',... I was surprised and tremendously hurt to find that most of these 'spiritual friends', were only your friends as long as you stayed rigorously inside the party line. In other words, if someone only 'likes' you because you belong to the same group that they do,... it ain't real.

 

Moreover, without their being aware of it,... neither is the religion they profess so ardently to believe in.

 

Because the ONLY value in spiritual interests is in how we treat our fellow living beings. ALL OF THEM,... not just those who think like us and who are part of our group.

 

It's always easier to see faults in others first. However, this does always offer us the opportunity to go one step further and ask ourselves whether we, ourselves, are not also guilty of exactly the same behaviour ?

 

That's where I find myself now, because I think that all this feeling oneself to be a member of some religion or philosophy is kind of like a socially divisive partisanship. It sets up a "Me-and-My-Friends versus Them" kind of situation.

 

Now, though I still can't help my on-going, current fascination with Advaita teachings and ideas,... I no longer have any desire to join any group, and rarely even talk about it with others, (other than here on this forum, which is my anonymous safety outlet like a release valve on top of a pressure cooker).

 

My feeling now is that if I can't find my neighbour and his love of washing his car every weekend, or a colleague whose biggest interest is baking cakes and wearing loud shirts, etc, etc., just as interesting as my co-religionists.... then I'm missing the entire point of religion. Moreover, I'm mis-using my interest and whatever tiny bit of knowledge I might have, for the worst of all purposes,....i.e., believing that what I want to talk about is inherently far more worthwhile than whatever interests him or her. (Which often then gets compounded by judging them 'shallow', or some similar such adjective.)

 

Of course, I went through a long period of doing exactly what you seem to be describing yourself as being in the middle of. I'm NOT saying, in any way, that to feel the way you do is wrong. It's completely appropriate. I guess all I'm doing is telling you what happened to me. Sometimes, other people's ways of looking at things can have a freshness that shakes us up a bit. I've always found the shake-ups people and events have given me at unexpected times in my life, have often proved helpful in derailing my straight-line, railroad -thinking that I so often tend to find myself sleep-walking along on, without any awareness that I've somehow, (yet again !), stopped thinking somewhere back there along the way.

 

*

Edited April 11, 2014 by ThisLife

[doc benway]

my case is that i am pretty much bored with everything the world has to offer, or at least i'm not interested in investing too heavily. the time when i really feel alive and excited to be that way is when i get to talk to people about their true self, when the search for the self is foremost in the mind.

 

but the thing i can't figure out is, how i can bring this into my life. it's never going to just "come up" in conversation, and its focus is so far away from what we usually spend all our time talking about that it's very left-field when i do bring it up, and the subject rarely gets picked up by the group. it's as though some silent alarm goes off in the mind and all the minds rush towards other topics.

 

do you have any experience with this? have you found friends in real life who are pursuing this path as well? how do you bring this into your life? i feel sometimes that no one is so committed to this as i am and i sometimes wonder if that doesn't mean i just have to be alone most of the time.

It's very hard to talk about this kind of stuff to anyone who is not on the path themselves.

And it's very helpful to keep an open mind because all of our paths are unique.

You'll find spiritual people in the unlikeliest of places.

When the causes and conditions are correct, someone will be in your life to share this with.

And then one day they'll be gone again, most likely.

That's the way it is.

Hopefully you'll run into a lot of such people.

My best friend and spiritual confidant is moving away in a few weeks!

[Mark Foote]

my case is that i am pretty much bored with everything the world has to offer, or at least i'm not interested in investing too heavily. the time when i really feel alive and excited to be that way is when i get to talk to people about their true self, when the search for the self is foremost in the mind.

 

but the thing i can't figure out is, how i can bring this into my life. it's never going to just "come up" in conversation, and its focus is so far away from what we usually spend all our time talking about that it's very left-field when i do bring it up, and the subject rarely gets picked up by the group. it's as though some silent alarm goes off in the mind and all the minds rush towards other topics.

 

do you have any experience with this? have you found friends in real life who are pursuing this path as well? how do you bring this into your life? i feel sometimes that no one is so committed to this as i am and i sometimes wonder if that doesn't mean i just have to be alone most of the time.

 

Most of the real action is between waking and sleeping. You don't necessarily get to know when something has really happened between you and someone else, in conversation or otherwise. Everyday I end up not knowing, and that's where the freedom lies.

Edited April 6, 2014 by Mark Foote

[ThisLife]

Most of the real action is between waking and sleeping. You don't necessarily get to know when something has really happened between you and someone else, in conversation or otherwise. Everyday I end up not knowing, and that's where the freedom lies.

 

What do you mean by the place "between waking and sleeping" ?

 

All the rest of what you say I find myself pretty much agreeing with,... though I'm not sure how you feel 'freedom' equates to 'not knowing', either.

 

Any further illumination on the ideas ?

 

*

Edited April 6, 2014 by ThisLife

[Mark Foote]

What do you mean by the place "between waking and sleeping" ?

 

All the rest of what you say I find myself pretty much agreeing with,... though I'm not sure how you feel 'freedom' equates to 'not knowing', either.

 

Any further illumination on the ideas ?

 

*

 

Here's a better explanation of what I mean by "between waking and sleeping", which I made a few years back on Apech's thread about "The Myth of the Eight-Hour Sleep"; and in the ensuing discussion with humbleone:

 

http://thetaobums.com/topic/22744-the-myth-of-the-eight-hour-sleep/page-2#entry324857

 

With regard to freedom and "not knowing", that came from a thought I had about right knowledge and right freedom (the nineth and tenth parts of the ten-fold path of the adept in Buddhism), over on Brad Warner's "Hardcorezen" blog. There, my friend Andy offered up this:

 

“What an odd thing it is indeed to engage my body and mind, as my lungs gift precious air to my lips and mouth…”

 

to which I added:

 

"...and gift the relinquishment which is right knowledge and the loss that is right freedom to my eye sockets and bones."

 

In particular, I said: "Feels more like letting go of having to know, and a relaxed movement to me; nothing special."

 

Yes, it is exciting to talk with like-minded souls, but difficult to keep the focus on the necessity at the moment, without which there's no communication.

 

Impossible to discover the mutual necessity at the moment without experiencing that necessity personally in the relinquishment of volition and the corresponding induction of a state between waking and sleeping. Volition is relinquished through relaxation in the movement of breath. With regard to thought, that relaxation manifests as "deliverance from thought without grasping" (not my phrase), and the possibility of action without the exercise of volition which is a particular kind of freedom.

Edited April 6, 2014 by Mark Foote

[Brian]

I think this varies significantly based on where one lives (I am very fortunate in this regard) but I find,that "listening" presents me with many opportunities.

 

Recently, I was in a nneighborhood restaurant/bar with my wife, drinking some local brew, when we struck up a conversation with the guy sitting beside us. After a few minutes, he said, " This may sound crazy but feel I can tell you..."

 

He preceded to tell us about how he had accidentally manifested a power-outage the night before which had left us un the dark, too. Conversation turned to purification rituals and the vacant building in town occupied by shape-shifters...

 

Made a new friend and ally by keeping my shield up but my antenna turned on.

Edited April 7, 2014 by Brian

[BaguaKicksAss]

my case is that i am pretty much bored with everything the world has to offer, or at least i'm not interested in investing too heavily. the time when i really feel alive and excited to be that way is when i get to talk to people about their true self, when the search for the self is foremost in the mind.

 

but the thing i can't figure out is, how i can bring this into my life. it's never going to just "come up" in conversation, and its focus is so far away from what we usually spend all our time talking about that it's very left-field when i do bring it up, and the subject rarely gets picked up by the group. it's as though some silent alarm goes off in the mind and all the minds rush towards other topics.

 

do you have any experience with this? have you found friends in real life who are pursuing this path as well? how do you bring this into your life? i feel sometimes that no one is so committed to this as i am and i sometimes wonder if that doesn't mean i just have to be alone most of the time.

 

Hang out with different/more people . I find that with some people the conversation always naturally goes in this direction, and with others it never does.

[RiverSnake]

This is something I've struggled with ever since I started practicing. Only meet one person that I could talk for hours with about this topic. Chatting on forums and blogging about my experiences has been a good outlet for me as well. However, recently as my social circle has started to empty of my old "normal" friends.....I have found that it has slowly started to become populated by other cultivators. It's interesting how this shift occurs when we create a space within our lives for it to do so.

 

Also....are you by chance Dolama from the Mantas Jacikas channel on youtube? If so, I really enjoyed your videos in the past, quite inspirational.....haven't watched them in awhile though. Anyways welcome to the forum.

 

My 2 cents, Peace

Edited April 7, 2014 by OldChi

[BaguaKicksAss]

Over time, it has just become that everyone I know is also a practitioner/cultivator. Even people I randomly meet, as soon as we get talking... .

[Captain Mar-Vell]

...

You don't know.

 

The potency.

 

Of The Cloud of Unknowing.

 

For I am simply.

 

Son Aware of Vacuity.

 

Bozos.

...

[Captain Mar-Vell]

...

...

Edited September 18, 2014 by Captain Mar-Vell

[RiverSnake]

DP

Edited October 30, 2014 by OldChi

[thelerner]

Beware of I'm looking for friends who are exactly this way.

 

If you want life to open to you, be open to it. Spread a wider net.

 

In college I went through a lonely period, then I joined a service fraternity, APO, based loosely from Boy Scouts. Its purpose was to do weekly service projects to help others. The byproduct was people who are willing to give up time to various charities are pretty nice people.

 

Maybe something like that could work for you. There always organizations in need. Get involved, maybe you can pick up some new skills, meet new people.

[nestentrie]

43

The softest thing in the world dashes against and overcomes the

hardest; that which has no (substantial) existence enters where there

is no crevice. I know hereby what advantage belongs to doing nothing

(with a purpose).

 

There are few in the world who attain to the teaching without

words, and the advantage arising from non-action.

[Mark Foote]

Beware of I'm looking for friends who are exactly this way.

 

If you want life to open to you, be open to it. Spread a wider net.

 

In college I went through a lonely period, then I joined a service fraternity, APO, based loosely from Boy Scouts. Its purpose was to do weekly service projects to help others. The byproduct was people who are willing to give up time to various charities are pretty nice people.

 

Maybe something like that could work for you. There always organizations in need. Get involved, maybe you can pick up some new skills, meet new people.

 

I recently changed locations, and the one thing that my new location didn't have immediately was a place to dance on a Saturday night. There was a karioke bar in the neighborhood, but a place like what I was accustomed to was a distance away (something with a DJ, mostly).

 

My housemate took me to the karioke bar, and it turned out people were dancing. Not only that, when I boned up and sang a song, I immediately felt like family, in what has to be the most mixed crowd of people I've ever mingled with. Two Saturdays now I've had a great time and got my dancing in just fine.

 

The moral of the story: indeed, situations where you put out as well as receive can be really rewarding. It doesn't have to be the thing I knew from before, or expected; it just has to be a thing true in itself, and many of them are invisible until you take the plunge.

 

my two cents. ... spare change?... (apologies to OldChi)

Edited August 11, 2014 by Mark Foote

[Flolfolil]

...

Edited March 5, 2015 by Flolfolil

[BaguaKicksAss]

Lol you get bored with talking about the mundane world. what makes the profound and mundane so different? They're equally important.

 

They don't talk about what they saw on TV last night!

[Stosh]

The spiritual discussion you come across is supposed to be an applied science IMO, learn explore read etc ,

but then youre supposed to go back out into the world and enrich the rest with what you learned -and vice versa.

Let your mundane and esoteric worlds remain somewhat distinct and crosspollinating, and I think youd prosper in both all the more for that.

[Spotless]

my case is that i am pretty much bored with everything the world has to offer, or at least i'm not interested in investing too heavily. the time when i really feel alive and excited to be that way is when i get to talk to people about their true self, when the search for the self is foremost in the mind.

 

but the thing i can't figure out is, how i can bring this into my life. it's never going to just "come up" in conversation, and its focus is so far away from what we usually spend all our time talking about that it's very left-field when i do bring it up, and the subject rarely gets picked up by the group. it's as though some silent alarm goes off in the mind and all the minds rush towards other topics.

 

do you have any experience with this? have you found friends in real life who are pursuing this path as well? how do you bring this into your life? i feel sometimes that no one is so committed to this as i am and i sometimes wonder if that doesn't mean i just have to be alone most of the time.

 

The more you come to see this path and if indeed it is within you to follow it, then consider that the chasm you encounter now will become wider than the distance between planets.

Becoming part of a teaching and growing within a real school is perhaps the path you seek.

 

A school with many in the practice is a superb setting for working on yourself and if you wish to become a monk or live-in the growth will be exponential.

 

Huge detours can take place in the belief that grasping this outer relative world has intrinsic value - it has none.

Awakening and being with the world as a first step is the bolder path.

 

Within the greatest teachings not all students are marked for higher teaching - the number that are laid to waste along the way are as numerous as the stars. This is not to say they will not find their way nor that they do not reach levels that most would be in awe of.

And many write books and go on to become quite famous "people of interest" and good teachers for many.

 

Awakening is happening now at a rate that is breathtaking - I would encourage you to jump in completely!

 

In a solid tradition you can easily move around the globe and it will only get better than it already is!

 

Regarding conversation - good conversation is rare - a real student even rarer and one really going for it and who has the abilities and balls and luck and sheer stupidity to rid themselves of everything held dear by their parents and all things relative - conversation tends to be like throwing peanuts at a baseball game - very little is ever asked for and very little can be offered.

 

Practice is everything in many ways - you bring this into life when you wake up with this, eat with this, practice with this and go to sleep with this. It can become 100% practice and it is better in a large group on most levels - you will find it harder to hide and their are many teachers most of whom are clueless but that does not mean they cannot teach you plenty. You will see and hear great things and little scraps of perception here and there all the time.

 

You will always be going it alone until you are going it alone as one.

 

 

[3bob]

There is no place that God is not, which is very easy to say and very difficult to see,

(to paraphrase a teaching I came across) also God can not, not respond to the truth

of seeing him/her without separation in all beings... and in that case there is joy which

sorrow can never undo!

 

Jaya Sat Guru!

Edited August 20, 2014 by 3bob

[Nikolai1]

i am of the belief that friendships based solely on religious/spiritual affiliations normally turn out to somehow be more shallow than ones based on activities and hobbies.

 

Spirituality gives you a filter to process life experiences, and if all you do is sit around and think about spirituality, there isn't much to process (debatable of course) and by association, there tends to be not that much to talk about after that first conversation

 

So true!!

 

I think the OP is talking about the feeling of alienation that can develop when you realise that you are searching for something different from 99% of the population, but haven't found what you're looking for.

 

Meeting like-minded people doesn't ultimately help that much. They can confirm the importance of the search, but to be honest you already know that. Like filofill says, conversation soon runs dry.

 

Alienation only ends when you have achieved your goal. And once this has happened it doesn't matter who you are with - you love and adore them all.

Edited September 18, 2014 by Nikolai1