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that there’s always something that requires maintenance (and effort). For me, this means that my mind is always aware of the to do list and never gives (or gets) full permission to just be.

that even heavenly pleasure requires maintenance and effort

Enduring the false way that other people and I move through life

pretending to value and believe the false

needing to make small talk

that there’s no way in the realm of the manifest to be completely free of the effects of other people’s actions and decisions

Absolute truth is not found in stories, words, ego, person.

all of this flies in the face of what we’re led to believe by our minds (and our systems)

the conflict between being and doing never gets fully resolved in me. Some deeply ingrained attributes of mine are to clean, organize, maintain, attempt renunciation, pay off debts, avoid new debts and obligations, and self discipline.

For me, closure and ends are illusions.

Helping someone implies that they are weak and incurs a debt

fixing someone implies that they are not whole

serving someone happens when you are equals

My mind explodes again, and stays angry for a considerable amount of time

Anger, disappointment, and sadness are familiar, old friends who always seem to be close by, even in the midst of happiness pleasure and joy

One of the things they tell me is that I am not as renounced as I would like to think I am.

while I may not enjoy them, they do serve a purpose, helping me to stay aware and discern between the true and the false, the real and unreal.

I know intellectually not to be attached to anything (gross or subtle) but what actually happens is that the mind still clings to things (habits, roles, people, experiences, emotions, thoughts, pleasure, pain, planning in order to experience pleasure and avoid pain.)

How many more times? Perhaps an infinite number. And actually when I look really closely, I see that my mind is almost always exploding in some way. It is always burning to some degree, sometimes in pleasure sometimes in pain, constantly replenishing karma and reinforcing illusion and ego with new desires and fears.

I sometimes seem to be free of it, but it doesn’t last

all of my actions, even my attempts at giving and helping are tainted with selfish motives and delusion.

It seems there’s no way to avoid unpleasant things completely, especially my own ignorance. It is unrealistic to expect that pleasure and pain won’t happen and that one of them happens without the other.

after decades of practice, and study, and trying to achieve liberation or freedom from ego or whatever you want to call it, the sadness and anger still surface, and I still lose sanity and/or self discipline.

In this respect, I am a recovering addict that has a relapse over and over and over.

I experience periods of intense dislike. I attribute the dislike to various things including myself, body, mind, the to-do list, God, systems, my job, relationships, pain, my obligations, effort leading to more effort, the illusion of achievement, the luxury-comfort trap, the home that I take care of, and past decisions I have made, but in a sense, the dislike just is. It is a symptom of personal delusion, ignorance, and ego. When I am experiencing that state, I hesitate to make changes and decisions because I don’t feel sane. During that experience, I want to get rid of everything and every relationship, and I feel like destroying things.

At times, I feel like a failure just as much as anyone else in the world. I feel angry that there’s actually no permanent escape, no achievement which will finally satisfy me. There is not even a guarantee of a final and lasting death. I fail at intimacy and relationships of varying types. I fail at achieving happiness and liberation. I struggle to earn permission and forgiveness from an elusive, mysterious and unpredictable entity that ultimately I can’t control or manipulate (even though as far as I can tell, I will probably try until the day I die). I struggle to surrender to a neverending reality without the illusion of security. I struggle to see and live Truth, and realize that my personal perspective is always incomplete and merely one of an infinite number.

The words only get me so far…..

as does the action …..

as does the inaction……

as does the practice…..

as do wisdom, love, compassion, logic, intuition, keeping or breaking vows, scripture, reason, war, peace, study, virtue, vice, austerity, indulgence, knowledge, the five senses, information, work, play, relationships, solitude, abiding by, participating in, or abstaining from systems and organizations of religion, science, economics

etc etc etc

I thought I was so smart with my organized life and system, attempting to keep my person simple and small.

Even so, there are always duties that need to be done and seeds of action and inaction to be sown and fruits to be experienced.

And honestly, when I assess myself without bias, I wouldn’t call myself a success in the aspects of life which I have prioritized (practice, simplicity, duty, honor, commitment, compassion, self discipline, and order)

I see the illusion of characteristics of being better or worse, good or evil, support or burden and know that there’s really no where to go. There is no progress towards a perfect state of paradise, and that idea is so contrary to a certain fairly strong aspect of my personality and way of life that it freaks me out in often dramatic ways. It may cause me to go insane, lose control, and destroy my life one day.

I see the illusion of finding pleasure in indulgence. I see the illusion of finding satisfaction in abstinence.

I aim for compassion and unconditional love and confess that much or maybe most of what I do is work for conditional love (doing things to please people for acceptance, survival, and love) and to sustain a system (for acceptance, survival, and love). How much systems and I aim for unconditional love and succeed or fail is part of the mystery of life. Often, my so called helping isn’t really helping after all. It may give myself or someone a temporary good feeling or relief but my anger and frustration show the delusion associated with it. At this point, I seem to need to accept the anger and frustration as part of the mystery, experience them, receive their message, and act and not act accordingly.

Am I done being deluded by ends, body and mind, likes and dislikes? It seems that this is also part of the mystery and is not for me to decide. Regardless, life must still be lived, decisions must still be made, causes and effects must happen.

((my personal experience is merely one of an infinite number))

I notice that I spend a lot of time focused on future or past, it is all but impossible to just be content in the present moment without guilt. The habits that I regularly indulge called my personality do not permit it easily, and the systems in which I participate (religious, spiritual, scientific, secular and non secular) often don’t help, as long as I let myself get swept away by thoughts and emotions, pleasure and pain. Identifying with these things leaves me with a false sense of who I am.

I pray to see beyond the delusion of stories, my personal perspective and for freedom from attachment to experiences, whether they be pleasant or unpleasant. (Freedom from slavery to mind ego).

divine oneness, eternal now

I am that I am

…………………………….

Most of all, I feel like I have been and am being fooled and trapped, not only by other people and systems, but especially by my own mind. Tricked into thinking that the false is satisfying and real. Tricked into acquiring things, experiences, and duties, and trapped by the resulting bondage. Tricked into believing that any of it leads to lasting happiness. Trapped in the conflict between desire and fear which leaves me with inescapable bouts of anger. Realizing that there’s a very real possibility that I will die broke and alone, as I rage and scream to myself for people to leave me alone and stay the fuck away (afraid at the same time that people will pick up on this vibe and leave me homeless and starving). My interactions with many of them in mundane life are not pleasant from a certain extremely subtle inner perspective. Underneath the polite conversation and niceties, there is always fear, anger, insecurity, distrust, resentment and/or delusion waiting to be expressed or experienced, right alongside of their polar opposites. As I am aware of how I am not completely genuine and free of hatred, judgment, violence, and avoiding things I don’t like, I expect that they are too. They ask me to agree with the way they see themselves and the world and their version of happiness and ask me to do things so they can get what they want, and I do the same thing, even though I try to avoid it, hoping to be independent and free. I get tired of the game of pretense, and above all, I get angry at myself for not being true and not completely free of anger, violence, delusion, insanity, and hatred as well as attachment to comfort, personal desire and fear, and habit patterns of action, thoughts and feelings (all of the things associated with mind-ego). I get tired of hiding my depression and anger and the weariness of the way that I experience and perceive life, putting forth effort to achieve and maintain a paradise that either never comes, or doesn’t last, or just keeps requiring more effort. This realization contributes to recurring sadness and anger for me which is an inescapable part of the prison that I have created (or inherited). For a while now, and it looks like from now on, I maintain the awareness that sensory and emotional pleasure is fleeting and unreliable. I keep coming back to the delusion of stability and so called love. The conflict between my inner self and outer self never gets resolved. I seem to keep forgetting that it is an eternal cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth, expansion and contraction, always in motion. (Even things that appear to be still and unchanging are in motion and changing.) Every single thing, no matter what my experience of it may be, has its appropriate place, and no particular role that I take or circumstance lasts forever. I can crave stability all I want, but it is never found at the levels of the physical, emotional, or mental bodies, ego , or mind and the birth life death story. All manifests and unmanifests for “who am I”. In love I am everything, in wisdom I am nothing, and life flows on and on, regardless of existence and my inner and outer personal experience of attachment or non attachment to the gross or subtle bodies that I have called my own.

Most of the time, I’m not free of the game of pretense. I act like I am calm and cool to others when I am really feeling angry, sad or even terrified. Sometimes I act like I am interested in their stories and conversation, when really I am not. With others, I tend to be inclined to go for the middle, and quiet rather than over expressing and sharing high energy emotions. That’s what comes easier to me most of the time. I admit that what most people consider to be joy is a challenge for me. The joy that I do experience is so subtle that I wouldn’t even really call it that. I accept that I don’t really understand it and admit that I don’t maintain a continuous awareness of it. I feel like I am not good at sharing it, because I go along with the status quo, permitting more time caught up in the heavy states of being and doing, trying to avoid pain and experience pleasure, accumulating all sorts of things and obligations, placing more and more conditions on the experience called life, more layers of the false which make Truth harder to find. The joy I am talking about is so subtle that it is difficult to perceive, and contrary to what we would like to believe, it includes both pleasure and pain, growth and decay, stability and instability, increase and decrease . The ego-mind has no use for it as it has nothing to do with progress, solving (or creating) problems, achieving goals or even maintaining its existence. The ego-mind cannot have knowledge of it.

<<I admit that it is also a challenge for me to experience pleasure in the presence of others.>>

I am challenged by finding the right balance of keeping things and giving things away or just getting rid of them. I try to minimize the things I call my own. I try not to desire complicated or luxurious things for myself (even though I see how various decisions I have made will definitely cause me to fall short of this aspiration). I do not find joy or peace or love in them and to be honest, part of me dislikes them, sometimes rather strongly. My experience is that they come with a cost well beyond their price tag, contributing to a never ending list of tasks and obligations that grows beyond being manageable, and yet keeping things small is not perfect either. Everyone must experience, experiment, and come to their own working conclusion about ego and the proper place and amount of material wealth, ownership, fame, reputation, obligations, food, sex, group and one on one relationships, austerity, indulgence, desire, fear, sensory and emotional pleasure and pain.

while I accept that in my case the interplay of inner and outer involves bouts of acute and inescapable mental and emotional pain, it doesn’t make it easier to take when it is happening, and when it’s in full force, I feel inclined to violence and irritability and I just want to get rid of everything and all of my relationships and go off somewhere and die. The urge to renounce is strong, and attempting care for others and myself and keeping my word are what keep me from acting on it. What is wrong with me that I just want to live in a simple room with just a few things, free of tending to my and other people’s accumulations? I see that pretty much everyone around me doesn’t see things the same way, and because of this, I may end up very much alone. (Perhaps that desire is just as delusional as any other, or maybe that desire is not fulfilled in a way that I find pleasant.)

the eternally recurring challenges of person (and mind) as I experience and accept them:

maintaining the appropriate balance of manifest and unmanifest, which is a never ending endeavor that always changes

remembering that the actions that I think I do personally, I don’t really do.

there is no way to predict the cumulative result of all of the actions, intentions, and habits of daily life with 100% accuracy, nor is it possible to avoid being affected by actions of other people and beings. Therefore, faith and surrender are essential

(the person is false)

remembering that the way I think I am and the person that I think I am are not really accurate.

(the person is false)

I struggle to break free of giving first place to the false (the world, ego, illusion), and thus I am bound by it and experience the trap of results.

Ultimately, personal progress is an illusion of the mind, and the mind ego (as I know it) eventually experiences anger sadness disappointment. I walk the path and experience the endless cycle.

Even drug free, I am under the influence of a drug called illusion (ego) karma destiny

Forms and names (person, groups, systems, experiences, etc) appear and disappear. The Real causes the unreal to appear and disappear.

the Truth is that everything is one, boundaries, person, forms, names, labels and rules always change in past present and future.

I get tricked over and over into believing that body mind (and separation) and how I define myself is real. Certain aspects of life are unavoidable and circular.

Absolute and pure qualities cannot be completely achieved in the manifested realm which is by its very nature limited and relative/ impure but that doesn’t mean we don’t keep striving.

I never know what someone else is going through nor the totality of what someone else’s experience of something or someone or me is. And truthfully, I don’t even know the totality of my own experience.

I may never feel certain that I am completely operating from a place of goodwill towards others. The work is never done. The road is the goal, and there is no resolution.

the most important thing is to make it possible for others to walk their path

….……………,…………………………………..

How many of us are kind and polite as long as we get what we want?

……………………………………………………

past present and future are one

(separation is the illusion and so is “me”doing anything for anyone which entitles me to a special life)

I am thankful for access to the ability to endure my delusion and selfish rajas and tamas,,,

the body mind ego is made for movement and experience

What is the message that the recurring anger sadness pleasure pain cycle is telling me?

I keep getting the message that I need to get rid of more. It is not what Martin wants, but there is a part of me that wants it. A growing part of me is ready to live in one room and give it all away, at least give it a try.

who am I

I am that am

faith is all there really is.

Who am I to know the will of om?

Here’s my understanding, but it doesn’t mean that I have mastered it.

ego is the illusion .

Every being moves (or doesn’t move) in its own bubble, experiencing its own truth. (Knowing, being, doing)

I experience our relationship differently than you.

That’s fine.

I attempt to know your experience and struggle with that, I attempt to share my experience with you and struggle with that.

I struggle with life and attempting love. I will always feel like a failure in this respect.

perhaps you come into my awareness more than I come into yours or maybe the reverse is true

perhaps you hold more power over me than I hold over you or maybe the reverse is true

perhaps I am your burden, perhaps you are mine

perhaps I give something or take something.

Circulation and participation are essential, not profit nor loss nor accumulation nor being right or wrong nor a burden nor support

who is to say what is your experience and what is mine

no one can truly and completely know

Interesting to notice the delusion that I find pleasure in simple things. When I look very closely, those supposedly simple things aren’t even possible without a considerable amount of complexity. I couldn’t even take a breath, drink water, eat food, clothe myself or experience some measure of nonviolent safety were it not for the sacrifices that others have made and continue to make. We all attempt our duties.

I realize that there is no end and no final state of comfort and stability in the mode of existence called “me in the world”.

I’m looking for something from the world, money, body, mind, intelligence, words, stories, memories, life, practice, virtue, vice, relationships, emotions, experience, knowledge, the familiar and unfamiliar that just isn’t there. Eternal and uninterrupted satisfaction, dissatisfaction, pleasure, pain, stability, permission, paradise, a true and complete definition of myself are not found there.

I am love, I am everything

I am wisdom, I am nothing

Life flows on and on

and “the work” is never done. When will I stop my bull shit, tantrums, and avoidance and truly accept that? Will I ever make peace with the to do list?

there is no body nor a world to contain it, only a mental condition, a dream-like state which is dispelled by questioning its reality. Lately, I obsessively and continually question its reality.

neither perfect sattvic action nor inaction bring lasting pleasure or liberation

I’m coming out.

as anonymous

naked

slave to the cycle of attempting and failing renunciation

road to nowhere

Here are some questions I spend a considerable amount of time exploring in the physical and mental emotional realms in the past present and future as part of the question who am I. The only conclusion I have made is that there are no conclusive, definitive, or absolute answers to them.

Ha

what is intimacy, and how is it related (or not) to love?

is it being naked with someone?

is it genital interaction?

is it seeing someone’s ignorance (or shame) and/or allowing them to see your ignorance (or shame)?

is it allowing someone to hurt your heart?

is it sharing vulnerability?

is it knowing someone’s habits, likes and dislikes?

is it being used to someone?

is it the experience of having someone come into your thoughts on a regular basis?

is it confessing or acting out your sins of anger and violence and admitting your hypocrisy, failures, addictions, obsessions, selfishness, and evil thoughts in the presence of someone else?

is it sharing the pleasant or the unpleasant or both?

Is it emotional attachment?

Does it always require love and does love always require it?

And how are intimacy, love, spiritual practice, and social duties balanced and managed?

Intimacy changes like everything else. I notice that my experience of it and needs associated with it seem to have changed. I don’t see it as personal, nor as private, nor as important as I once thought it was, as I maintain a more consistent awareness of the falseness of the personal. Thomas Collier does not last forever, and in a way, has already died. The only eternal is Om, which is even beyond the enduring human attribute one could call “who am I”. The truth is that who we really are was never born and never dies regardless of what happens with gross and subtle bodies, no matter how dramatically pleasant or unpleasant.

It serves me well to know when to be with others and when to be alone, and when to attempt a break from the illusions of ego and addiction and when to maintain and indulge. Distance and closeness, vulnerability and protection, large and small, manifest and unmanifest, creation, destruction, preservation, rajas (passion), tamas (inertia), and sattva (balance) each serve their purpose and are needed in appropriate measure. I remind myself now that I don’t always get to choose, and the choices I do get to make will not always please other people, or myself, or turn out the way I expect. The experience of my mind ego exploding occurs again and again, accompanied by emotional turmoil which I usually find unpleasant to varying degrees.

Every desire is rooted in the desire for “true Self”. That desire is the only one that truly exists for me even though my mind deceives me. I forget and become distracted by petty desires and fears. Here and now I remember, all of it is the path; all of it is practice; all of it is me, despite what the mind, ego, and senses tell me. The path is the goal.

I realize that my mind may never be truly free of seeing people, things, states of being, experiences, and myself as objects of fear or desire. The judgmental thoughts of like and dislike keep coming, as do the associated disturbances of emotion that keep me in bondage and obscure my experience of Truth. I observe that it’s challenging (if not impossible) to be happy for other people’s happiness when I don’t feel happy myself. I am amazed that people seem to succeed in finding happiness and security in acquiring possessions, material success, power, fame, relationships and social interaction (personal, impersonal, intimate and non intimate.) It is not for me to determine; they may have succeeded in finding true happiness, but that type of happiness does not feel appropriate for me. I am very aware of how my attachment to and pursuit of those things causes my own misery as those things are small and never satisfy in a lasting way. My emotional disturbances tell me that contrary to what my ego tells me, I have the same delusion as other people and look for security and stability where it will never be. I accept that people around me may not understand how and why I could possibly find or attempt to find pleasure or some type of happiness without those things. I sometimes (often) feel emotionally and socially inept as a result of this difference, and that will probably always be. When I am not aware of my own delusion (and when I believe that I am different or separate from others), I experience pain and alienation. What did I do or what happened to me to make me so flawed?

The anger and sadness that I associate with the trap of modern life remind me that I have unrealistic expectations of the world and life experience as Thomas Collier. This keeps happening and I don’t see an end to it. My experience of life is often seeing every single thing (person, event, duty, emotion) as an obstacle. I even experience anger and disappointment with respect to the so-called spiritual practices that I enjoy and value so highly. It is extremely challenging for me to let go of the habit of over-efforting, hiding unpleasant emotions, seeking results, progress, and perfection as well as the habit of keeping accounts. I have taken these things on as duties, and my experience is that people rely on me to be this way. Because let’s face it, contrary to what we may say, most of us don’t really unconditionally accept people and circumstances as they truly are. It is no surprise (and nothing new) that the world seems to demand considerable and continual sacrifice. The sacrifices that happen through me are not enough or of the right type to satisfy or sustain the world, people around me, or myself once and for all.

I am increasingly aware of the unstable and impersonal nature of everything, including relationships, emotions, and personality. I continue to walk a path of sadhana (practice), which is my only Truth (and my only real intimacy).

Overall, the balance of rajas, tamas, and sattva will always happen, and I still attempt personal balance.

I have no choice but to surrender to my solitary nature and my tendency to repeat the process of attempting silence, compassion, renunciation, and self discipline, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing. I am still fascinated with the experience of body-mind-ego, and for varying amounts of time I am hypnotized and fooled by attributes, characteristics, pleasure , pain, desire, fear, inner, outer, results, emotions, and stories. I know on some level that the personal is false and yet I get fooled over and over. Forcefully stopping the process or destroying it doesn’t benefit, and neither does overindulging it.

I feel the selfishness. Part of me just doesn’t care about the things that other people find so important. Sometimes I don’t even care about the things that I usually feel are important. I no longer believe the personal birth-life-death story that we have been told and tell ourselves over and over, so widely accepted and deeply ingrained in our psyche that many of us don’t even question it. Regardless, the body mind still does what it does and spirit endures. Currently, I usually go along and pretend in order to get or give food and shelter, acceptance and perhaps an experience of some physical, emotional, or mental pleasure or relief from pain. I know it is all temporary, and basically I just hope that others are able to walk the path before, during, and after me in their own way. I feel like other people’s paradise is not for me, and that I cannot really be with other people in their version of paradise. I hope that perhaps I help in some way or at least that I don’t interfere. Both of these desires are basically impossible to fulfill as a person with needs and requirements.

I know that my intentions with respect to my vocation, life, and interactions with other people are often less than honorable. I am aware that hidden from my awareness, was (and is) my intention to try to get through life without pain, shame, failures, and really being there for other people and beings, without getting dirty and without attachment. I’m not an exception, even though I desire to be. That desire to be special will bring me to birth-life-death again and again. I know that I can only strive for unselfish motive, going deeper and deeper. My experience is that in the manifested realm, it is never complete or fully achieved.

The false says that I am responsible for only one body, mind, and its possessions and duties.

The challenge is always the same, regardless of circumstance, always maintain the awareness of unity, regardless of pleasure or pain, clarity, confusion, war, peace, order, disorder, realizing that my intentions may not be as selfless as I would like.

It drives me crazy that I can’t achieve absolute perfection, and it drives me crazy that I can’t live up to my ideals in absolute terms. An ability or attribute that I have access to one day, I don’t necessarily have the next, even with considerable or extreme effort to maintain. All of these observations that I put into words are only partially accurate, and when I look really closely, I see how wrong I am about so many things. How many layers of illusion must I (and we) create and maintain? How many chains of bondage? (What proves love what proves courage what proves endurance what proves faith and devotion what proves existence?)

Separation of pleasure and pain is part of the illusion. I confess to my addiction to that illusion and the bondage that I create as a result. I know this in thought, but the challenge is to know it in being and act and abstain in accordance with compassionate oneness. I feel and know that I often fail at that.

The instability drives me crazy, and how I’ve been fooled and perpetuated the lie my for what seems like my whole life contributes to my anger. I can only acknowledge that it is what it is and go on.

Who am I to think that I know the will of the universe (siva-shakti-dahdahdah)?

I feel guilty for having a day off, which is actually not a day off, as I always have obligations to honor. So called time off is fleeting and doesn’t really exist for me anymore.

As I am aware that everything has its opposite, I often come back to the fear that I will one day experience a tremendous amount of pain in order to balance the various pleasures that I have experienced. There is no way to guarantee that this won’t happen. I attempt and pray for compassionate endurance and the ability to discern and perform appropriate action and inaction for myself and others. I attempt to constantly remind myself that the mind’s view is limited and can never know anything for sure.

Is it a challenge to surrender and to let go? Yes, and it’s also a challenge to persist in action once you fully realize the futility of it. Surrender and effort each have their own set of pains and pleasures.

call me by a more appropriate name, the never ending road to nowhere.

Illusions: an ending, a beginning, the personal, achievement of unending satisfaction, progress towards paradise, doing only what one likes, being affected only by ones own actions, the results, an end state, separation, boundaries, categories of relationships, categories of experiences

The illusions have their purpose.

I try to know things on a deeper level, in addition to remembering and studying spiritual teachings intellectually through words. I am born and die at least a million times trying to live, explore, and experiment truth-love-compassion and Who am I.

The more complex a system is, the more likely it is to fail as it requires more effort and attention for its maintenance. Above all, attempt compassionate intent, faith, and balance.

The thought of being inadequate and needing to improve and change my personal habits and the circumstances around me always comes back to me. I know the futility of it, but still go on. Perhaps I got this from my upbringing, maybe from society, maybe from original sin. Does the origin really matter?

The desires are endless. The fears are endless. Being driven only by these is the path of delusion. I believe and tell myself that I no longer want to play that game, but I find that when it comes down to it, so far I am unable to give up my recurring emotional attachments and emotional habits. (And ALL of my requirements for so called “happiness” and so called identity.)

love is not emotional attachment.

At a certain point, I feel recurring guilt that I take time to explore and indulge body and contemplation. Then I work on the chores and duties.

I look around me and wonder how people seem to be so happy. I am sorry that I fail at it.

big life, small life, complex and simple each have their advantages and disadvantages

I feel like I need to divorce my emotional state from what I experience in the world and stop comparing myself to others. As I see it, this is contrary to the current dominant human experience and contrary to what usually happens in my personal experience.

The bondage is built all around us. It always has been and always will. How many layers of chains do we need, how many more traps of addiction?

My heart is broken, angry, sad, afraid, confused, sinning, kind, and cruel, and I can only persist in practice. Surrender, action, enduring the fruits of my actions, inaction, habits and decisions, other people’s actions and decisions, good and bad. Trying to find the truth in my heart. Lately, my mind is plagued by the notion that the party is over and I don’t understand why what appears to be cruel sometimes seems to win. And here is where faith in compassion is vital.

I have tried to keep my obligations to a minimum in hopes that I wouldn’t get stuck in a mess of bondage, and would be able to keep up with things, but what ended up happening is not that. I feel angry, weary, and overwhelmed by the to do list, which is often more paralyzing, confusing, and discouraging than helpful.

In a way, even my so called spiritual practice is bondage.

What proves love? What proves devotion?

Is there anyone left in the world who is not corrupted by luxury, power, fame, indulgence? anyone who sees things as they really are, instead of what they see or want to see on the internet? Since I know that I seem to be incapable of being totally free of delusion and selfishness, I have a hard time having faith.

Will I ever be free of looking at things though the lens of my own ego?

I feel the fear. Reading news content and looking at the internet often increases it, sometimes it just helps me avoid, procrastinate or feel powerless.

Why does it seem like everything is a sacrifice and everyone is looking for something from me? Am I making this shit up?

Spoiled brat that I am not always grateful for mental and physical capabilities that I have access to.

again I feel extreme hatred towards people and modern living. I feel resentment and anger because I believed that there would be an experience or situation that would finally make me happy and set me free once and for all.

I have made this situation and try to hold steady in the results both pleasant and unpleasant.

I notice that I am losing close personal relationships with people. I feel like it is inevitable. I have a habit of distancing myself from people physically and emotionally in many areas of my life. I feel like a failure in this aspect of life. So called closeness changes like everything else, and no relationship in manifestation lasts forever. After many years associated with this body, in some (or many?) respects, I still feel like I don’t know intimacy and deep friendship. Here, now, again and again the personal is illusion. I feel rather strong feelings of fear regarding this lately, challenged by vulnerability. I am looking for something from interactions with people that these things will never yield. I am also looking for something from solitude that it will never yield. Upon close examination, I see that I am looking for something from experience in general that it will never yield. Is it emotional fulfillment? Security? Safety? Satisfying experiences? The achievement of perfect tapas (self discipline and control)?

One of my biggest fears is not being able to do things to prove that I am worthy of food, shelter, pleasure , and affection.

I get angry at myself for not being more disciplined. At the same time I am aware how I sometimes discipline all of the fun out of life.

I will never be free of doing mundane things.

I tend to gravitate towards doing small things.

I have difficulty letting people do things for me.

what is more indicative of abundance attitude — indulging without discretion or not indulging because you know that you don’t need it? Which proves faith more?

what proves courage? What proves love? What proves existence? What proves faith? What proves devotion? what proves truth? Action or being? Pleasure or pain? Experiencing? Sensing? Living? Dying? Creating? Destroying? Preserving?

I prefer to act without an audience, yet I do still experience a desire to be free of the need for privacy (free of fear).

I do not have the attribute of being someone that people want to watch. I accept that my form is not photogenic. I tend not to be interesting.

I feel like money is taking over more and more of my life. A majority of my time with other people requires some type of financial transaction. I feel like my entire life is or will become this way. The meter is always running. Accounts are always being kept.

I feel like we are losing interaction with each other to screen time. We are willingly letting this happen. Allowing this to happen feels lazy but also feels inevitable.

it is impossible to only be affected by your own actions. The accounting is eventually of no use.

I have pretty much given up on looking to my primary relationships for pleasure. Actually, I have given up on all relationships for pleasure, and perhaps all forms of experience.

I do not expect help from other people or beings including my closest relationships.

I don’t understand why I am unable to maintain interest (desire) for physical connection in long-term relationship. Should I stop trying to figure it out or take some kind of drug which will bring it back?

It is interesting to notice that I had nothing to do with the decision to get turtle nor did I have any desire to have a turtle as a pet, but I am usually the one taking lead on her care.

I feel like I am turning into an impersonal entity where the only relationship that I have is with a system. The person playing the role of “other” changes constantly. This may go on for a time until I fully realize its falseness.

as I keep going deeper, it is inevitable that I feel that I am no longer a person capable of the same type of interpersonal and intimate relationship.

I tend to do things myself instead of delegating. To think that I will be able to stop this pattern without outside circumstances changing is delusional.

One of the main reasons I went into my profession is flexibility of schedule so that I could explore a variety of interests. It wasn’t a calling that I had, nor do I feel like it is a natural fit for me for a profession at this point. I did not consciously set out to be the primary source of income in the household, if anything, I would have preferred it to be a supplemental source of income.

At some point, egoism holds us back. Our way of life is centered around egoism to an extreme degree. I play along, sometimes to an extreme degree, sometimes not. I am thankful for being aware of it and also for being able to step back from it even though I know that the break is temporary, perhaps extremely small. Sometimes the falseness drives me to the brink of insane anger.

I declare myself “no longer a person”, because it is how I feel. And life goes on. And practice goes on. Personal, impersonal, private, public, spontaneous, predictable desires, fears, emotions happen and don’t happen. Truth, falsity, yes, no, maybe, things and nothingness all still happen. The body mind functions, but in a sense, I have already died.

I am thankful for whatever access I have to endurance. Endurance of my own foolishness. Endurance of delusion, pain, desire, hunger, thirst, emotions, lack of emotion. Endurance of the false.

I am thankful for whatever access I have to awareness beyond the false.

I am thankful for remembering that everything is temporary.

The beginning and the end are the illusions.

Everything taken to extreme becomes a problem. I confess to extremes of practice, nonattachment and non-interference and accept the consequences. I try various things in order to find the elusive and ever changing middle path. Experimenting with extremes is part of the journey.

Excessive moderation.

I’m not so good at providing challenge, encouraging growth and self discipline in others. (I tend to try to make comfort). What a fucking idiot.