Questions, questions and more questions

[mikeol]

Hello all,

I am new here and have looked through some of the threads and looks like I will be spending some quality time here reading.

I have received the free demo and in the process of trying it to see how it affects my life.

I do have a few questions that I hope the community here will be able to help me with.

Fisrst, I notice that there are different tapes/cd's downloads for certain areas of ones life. My question is if I take the program, does not the program work on all of these things? If I am looking for help in relationships, health, etc. does not the program help in this? Why do I need relationships, heatlh, etc. meditations on top of the program? Or do I? Is this just extra to help speed up the manifestation?

I keep refering to relationships, as that is one of the main things that I am trying to find, is love... I have found it once for a short time and am in search of it once again in this life.

Secondly, other than listening to the demo, once starting the program and listening to it daily for the allocated time, can I also listen to other competitor programs? Eg. Listening to Lifeflow first thing in the morning and listening to some other program like Holo in the evening? Would this help? Would this benefit the progress or would this have a negative effect? Could this be considered just another form of longer meditation, like the monks who meditate for many hours in a day?

My apologies for the many questions, but as I am getting up there in age and have only come across meditation now and taken a serious interest in it and my spriituality I really am looking at speeding up the process.

Thank you all for your time. I think that I am really going to like this site.

Love
Michael

[Midnight]

Hey mikeol,

In my experience, LifeFlow has had benefits in many areas of my life. In that sense, it is a holistic practice in that it aids in many different things and adds balance to my lifestyle. I've used the guided meditations (most specifically deep relaxation) to guide me in the beginning. From what I've gathered, they are to help out those who are inexperienced to meditation, and do offer a bit more focus than a traditional meditation session, where you don't really have a particular goal in mind.

Funny enough, I started meditation because I didn't like being lonely so much...so you're not alone. The biggest lesson I've learned is that it is completely easy and natural to make connections with anybody, including members of the opposite gender. All psychological issues about this that you've accumulated over your lifetime are basically assumptions that your mind believes to be true. Generally these assumptions are baseless, or they've come from the society you live in (think of when people said things like "Oh, that girl is out of your league" in school). With Lifeflow, you can begin to quiet your mind, and uncover these past pains you've kept buried in you that have been in the background secretly affecting you for so long.

As far as the LF/Holosync deal, many other users have done this and it has worked for some people as far as I know. The only thing I'd be wary of if I were you is that Holosync starts you off at delta brainwaves. The LF system recommends you go through the "higher" brainwave states before you get down to delta in order to decrease the effect of an emotional overwhelm...that is going too deep too fast and releasing too many emotions for you to effectively handle (at least in the beginning).

The thing with releasing suppressed emotions is that they tend to make you feel as if something is wrong, when you really can't pinpoint anything that is bothering you...you just feel bothered. Just know that there will be times, regardless of the path you take, where your mind will be extremely busy and you'll feel extremely distressed, and it seems to have come out of nowhere. Just know that this is part of the process, and allow it to happen. Do your best to allow everything to happen, without judging or resisting it. Meditation is about flow, and allowing whatever is flowing, whether your mind labels it as good or bad, to flow out of you.

It can be difficult work at times, and there might be times where you wish you had never started in the first place, but I assure you, you will reach the day where you realize that it was all worth it.

[MetaCognition]

Midnight,

I think it's very interesting to read what you just posted. I've been having an extremely emotional past few days, and in these days, I have found it hard at times not to get absorbed in what's happening in my feelings. It feels like the first time in my life, since childhood, that I've actually let myself feel!!!

It's overwhelming at times. I was walking through the park the other night, and just sat down and started crying. Everything was TOO beautiful, TOO alive, TOO painful, TOO sad, TOO amazing, TOO fleeting...you can see my point. I had some flashes of emotional outpouring when I first started consistently meditating a few months ago, but nothing like this.

For a long time, I shut myself off to the world. I would barely interact with others, unless I had known them for a long time or just felt oddly connected to them. I spent most of my time in my own head, and while I was aware of feelings, I wasn't feeling them. I was just thinking about how I did not want to feel them or when I felt good ones I tried to hang onto them for dear life, causing even more repressed pain when they passed by.

Each day, I see myself opening up more and more to life, and in return, life keeps opening up to me...the results of this are amazing, but like I said, at this current moment and for the past few days, it has felt like "too much" for long stretches. It's nothing like being depressed either, I don't feel sad. I just FEEL.

I don't know if this post helps the original poster's questions or not, but I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one to experience this after getting into the swing of consistent meditation. I had read posts about it happening, but didn't fully expect anything like this.

[Edwin]

Actually, what you described Meta, is what is going to happen to you when it all settles, when the true beauty of it kicks in.

No reservations, walk freely through life without any thoughts about what might happen or how people will react. People will start talking to you uninhibited at the bus stop, when standing in line, people will tell you their biggest secrets in a heartbeat, without even knowing your name. Why ?

Because you will have dropped your self-image, you will have become your natural self, a force of nature about to happen, uninhibited and unstoppable.

I am still wondering why people decide to talk to me in the street. Why do people think they can trust me ? Some people start talking to my back !
The less you think about who you are supposed to be, the more you turn into the person you are.

When everything seems overwhelming, this is because even tho the process of enlightenment has been started, you think that you have to take the emotions and the beauty of the world personal.
They are not YOUR emotions, they are emotions entering and leaving your conscious awareness.
As soon as you think that it is your personal emotion, that you by some strange magic constructed this emotion, it becomes too much. When it just moves through you like a train moves through a station, without changing the station itself, but moving through it none the less, thundering and making lots of wind, but unable to change the station itself, that's when you settle down, and understand that trains of emotions may come and go, but you will always be the station, and that emotions are supposed to go through you.
Don't worry about the train coming, or the train that just passed by. Just be the station. Sitting, quiet, watching trains come and go. Some may stop, linger, but ultimately, they have to go again. Just be the station.

[Midnight]

@MetaCognition,

Yes, that "state" of just letting yourself feel is pretty great in that you realize whatever happens is totally okay. Every emotion is beautiful, and life feels so much more vibrant when everything is felt, your mind is not denying anything that is happening. Even when sadness occurs...letting things feel sad not only shortens the amount of time the emotion is there, but also makes the experience...enjoyable...in a sense. Not like a victim identity sort of way, but you feel the underlying contentness that is a result of being at peace with what is.

If only someone had told me what I wrote in my first post in the thread a long while back when I started, it would've saved me a lot of stress and trouble. Though maybe somebody already did...but it didn't hit me just then...

@Edwin
Wonderful post

[MetaCognition]

My simple response to both Edwin and Midnight is: Yes

Strangers and people I only somewhat know have been talking to me on the street, in the subway, and standing in line or in the elevator on a more and more consistent basis. Amazing stuff to see, consciousness recognizes itself even if the self-image doesn't

[M L K]

Originally Posted by Edwin

... As soon as you think that it is your personal emotion, that you by some strange magic constructed this emotion, it becomes too much. When it just moves through you like a train moves through a station, without changing the station itself, but moving through it none the less, thundering and making lots of wind, but unable to change the station itself, that's when you settle down, and understand that trains of emotions may come and go, but you will always be the station, and that emotions are supposed to go through you.
Don't worry about the train coming, or the train that just passed by. Just be the station. Sitting, quiet, watching trains come and go. Some may stop, linger, but ultimately, they have to go again. Just be the station.

Edwin, I absolutely love your train station metaphor. Thanks for that! m

[Edwin]

Cool metaphore isn't it ?

And the really cool thing is, I had nothing to do with it !
It came up just like that, I can't claim it to be mine !

The metaphore itself was also a thought-train, passing through the station that I am.

Understanding that, that you are not the thinker, not the maker of emotions or thoughts, that they come up for free, and have to pass you by, that is the realisation that leads to enlightenment.

Now, Mikeol, or Michael had a lot of questions, specifically about relationships.
Wanting to find love seems to be the quest of life for most humans, and I too have tried to hop onto that train.
However, finding love is a really weird thing.

In a way, it is a search to find someone else, who will trigger that feeling of love within yourself.

That isn't really searching for love, that is looking for self-love through a nifty by-pass.
A very elaborate, sneaky trick of the ego.

Understanding that that is what you are really doing, you can apply a short cut.
Why would you need someone else for that, as you can love yourself right now, right away !
When you stop searching for self-love through another person, and start loving yourself, accepting yourself, understanding that you are who you are, that is the moment when your heart opens to true, unconditional love.

And that greatly improves your chances of finding a soul-mate.
Plus, that ugly green monster called jealousy can't rear it's ugly head anymore, because you don't identify your partner with your self-love.

[Karmoh]

Originally Posted by M L K

Edwin, I absolutely love your train station metaphor. Thanks for that! m

Yes nice one Edwin

The great thing about metaphors like this is it is an invitation to put things aside long enough to look more deeply into our present experience and realize that the wholeness and love that we seek is already here. We have just been overlooking it.
Metaphors like this show us where the treasure of human freedom and love lies, deep within the experience we are already having. The key is to recognize this love now instead of looking for it in all the wrong places including in the past or future...


The grass is not actually greener on the other side of the hill...


Peace

[M L K]

Originally Posted by Karmoh

The great thing about metaphors like this is it is an invitation to put things aside long enough to look more deeply into our present experience and realize that the wholeness and love that we seek is already here. We have just been overlooking it.
Metaphors like this show us where the treasure of human freedom and love lies, deep within the experience we are already having. The key is to recognize this love now instead of looking for it in all the wrong places including in the past or future...

Well said, Karmoh, as always. Here's a metaphor that came to me when I was feeling pouty about feeling lonely for a particular kind of relationship: I saw myself sitting at a banquet table LOADED with big plates piled high. It all seemed to be for me. However there was a small white saucer in front of me, empty, that had my seated self's FULL attention.

I had to laugh.

All the best, friends.