Today more about which bad habits are biggest obstacle to enlightenment. What are the bad habits that are preventing you from getting enlightened, that block enlightenment?
What is or existence, can be experienced directly, which is called enlightenment, or indirectly, through mental processing, which is called life. As enlightenment is original experience that precedes the mentally processed experience called life, we should be able to exactly pinpoint the habits that are keeping us trapped in this secondary, very limited and misunderstood experience, called life. Life is really execution of habits. Here we call them “bad”, because they keep us away from enlightened experience of existence. What are they?
There are 2 main ones, and then countless smaller ones that are stemming out of these two. The 2 main culprits are:
1. Putting focus outside and keeping it there most of the time.
2. Gelling with the thoughts, not allowing any space between ourselves and the thoughts (“thoughts are us”).
From the very early stages of coming into this human world, we are constantly taught to focus on the outside. Look, listen to, smell, taste, touch, what’s on the outside. Very rarely is the child taught to close their eyes and look inwards, find and explore what’s there. We end up in situation where we firmly believe that there’s nothing inside but the black hole, which is a complete misunderstanding. Everything that we find on the outside, and a huge deal more, originates on the inside, and can be found there. We just need to put our focus there, and persevere with leaving it there. As we accustom ourselves again to keeping focus on the inside for longer periods of time, we will start noticing mental images and insights stored there, increasingly so.
To tackle the second habit, namely attaching and identifying with the thoughts, we need to practice no thinking or getting away from thoughts. There is a playlist on this channel that details the practices which will replace this habit with a new one of detachment, non engagement with the thoughts, and also shifting the main focus from the outside inwards. We are developing new habits that are promoting direct, enlightened experience of existence.
As for myriad other habits that are characteristic for our experience of life. Their main denominator is constant, relentless engagement with mental concepts. We rarely ever spend time away from them, always staying engaged. Social and other media, empty talk, endless chatting, endless discussions about everything, even when doing something, there’s almost always some background noise that involves mental concepts. We are becoming increasingly unable to be silent and still. We are struggling to control our thoughts, which end up completely dictating our lives.
We also surround ourselves with increasingly more and more processed environment with very low or no vibration at all. Everything is dead around us, and increasingly so within us. Moments when we experience existence directly are becoming a rarity, and mostly go unnoticed. We are attaching ourselves to things, and becoming things ourselves, more and more.
We need to take action with sustained, targeted practice, to overturn this predicament. Start replacing old bad habits with new ones, that are facilitating enlightenment. It can all be done, but there needs to be a strong intent, followed by persistent action in the right direction.
That’s why we are all here. To take action towards enlightened experience of existence. It’s all happening.
Take care,
👋
Awakening with Di