Inspired by:
21 wnt. TEN MINUTES TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT
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Easy ways to find your true self. Manifest in your life whatever you want. You are the power source in your life.
These ideas sound so easy and nice. Except that the experience of newcomers is much different and often easily turns into negation dressed up with “cult-trapped” self-victimhood. Why? Because for them this does not work.
From my observation, for a major majority of newcomers this does not work. Since we are all nicely trained to put up smiley masks and “yes” mixed with “thank you” camo, the story becomes a difficult one. Add to this peer pressure from those “advanced” in the group, who “experience” and bliss out and see lights and willpower their graceful days, and you end up with disappointment. Often in a lifelong variant.
Why this? Because playing with own thoughts is not for everyone.
We are soooo deeply entangled in self-myths, self-identifications and self-vested-interests. We literally are these all identifications combined into one solid, rigid, unchanging self-image.
And there is that guy who is saying, “Life is easy, simply breathe and think what you want to have and it will happen.” No, it won’t.
You are the living proof that it won’t. You have been wanting this and that for decades, and you are still empty-handed.
That gap depends on the strength of your defences. You can see how strong you are. Decades of willing, and you are still far far away from what you want. And it never happens in an instant. Or in a year.
Because the first step is to show you what these defences are and what they are here for. You need to learn a lot about them to make friends with them. Right now, you rely on them protecting your from others and isolating you from changing yourself. Some people say it openly, “I am what I am and I won’t change” - as if it were something to be proud of.
Even when you become familiar with My Defences 101, you won’t let them go. Because you have nothing reliable to replace them with. Renunciation of the only strength that you have is a mental suicide, and you should not do it just like that.
Careless leaders want you to. Because they don’t care. Maybe they were lucky and turning life upside down in an instant worked miracles for them. It did for me. Several times. But offering it to a stranger whom I see an hour every week is stupidity. It will reshuffle their lives, and emotional toll may not be the nicest part of it. No wonder there are so many disappointed “disciples” who oppose self-development trainings.
Advertising it online, without ever seeing the other person - beyond stupidity. This is why all old schools emphasise the need to have a living actual person whom you can consult any time you feel uneasy.
You can’t have a master who has been dead for thousands of years, like Plato or other “authorities”. It will be your best self-illusion.
I’d say that 99% of our life is what we have never invited, have never wanted and have never had enough strength to reject. We are drowning 24/7 in what is not aligned with us, including family members who are in sheer discord and work colleagues whom we sincerely hate (with reciprocity).
We have huge inner power that lets us live under this burden and despite it.
Once you start “learning” yourself, you will be opening all your senses to everything around. Naturally, the first thing you will face and experience will be all this dark space in which you spend 24 hours of your life, every day. As they say, the sunlight is there, but YOU have to move the clouds first to see it. It may take years. Day and night. And those around you, they do not understand it. They will laugh at you, tell you to collect yourself and become real.
It won’t happen. You will remain in this limbo state as long as it is needed. One day, all this dark space will fulfil its purpose, and something in your soul will change. But it may take years. If you are sincere in your search for yourself, a lot of your friends and family members will leave you. For them, it’s too much, they do not want to change. And they see that they cannot turn you back. They will go away in their own search for easy-going folks.
Once your darkness starts disappearing, you will quickly notice your loneliness. Nobody can understand you. Nobody can be in tune with you. Impossible. If you survive this stage, there will be more challenges. They will never end. You can’t find a free online guide to walk you through it.
This is why you hear a lot from renowned speakers: “you stay with your tribe,” “read the books that your tribe reads,” “do not rebel,” “do not go to other teachers or masters,” and so on. Because trying a new thing may open your gates to the aspects of your own self that will surface right when you are not ready.
It’s easier and “safer” to dive deep into the line of search that is prevalent in your tribe. You won’t change, because the keys to the established teachings are always long forgotten. But the inner melody is always there. When you breathe long enough that established air, one day your soul will break through the shell. It may take many more years than the passage through dark clouds, but you will at least have an impression that you are “in control”.
There are many paths. None is better or worse. None is superior to others.
Everything depends on your sensitivity, desire to change, sincerity in your search and many more factors. All on your part.
Ultimately, whatever happens to you is only your doing. YOU decide to do this practice or that, for this long or for this short, in this way or another. If there are strict instructions, and you skip them because you are 21-century-impatient or you think you know better, it’s you again. If you bypass some stages, because you don’t like them, you again.
Exactly the same as in your “normal” life.
You are responsible for all your outcomes.
It’s a strange phrase, because it’s a warning against being smarter than those who know and - at the same time - the ultimate truth that you will reach one day, when your search comes to the first end.