As I’m writing this, I don’t think I can fully explain this lol. My enlightenment experiences are very limited when it comes to peace. I’m at gratefulness right now. I’m getting to peace but it will most likely take a while. I sense my consciousness slowly moving towards peace. Sometimes I am there, sometimes I am not. I’m not in a hurry. People that get to peace experienced tremendous amounts of suffering.
My mind is hazy or cloudy lately. Too many useless thoughts running. It is the COVID-19 thing. My empathy is running wild also. It’s feeling other people’s fears and emotions.
Anyway, I can only talk about my experiences. Yours maybe different. The words may become obstacles. So don’t get too hung up on contradictions or if things don’t make sense because I can’t explain this very well.
Part 1 is the path of materialism and part 2 is present moment. Part 3 is the bonus. This is part 4. One more to go.
Mental Noise
“This is not how my life was meant to happen.” You could have a very good job, good marriage, so on and still say this. “I imagined great things for my life. I dreamed of being amazing. I was going to be a basketball player, or play in the NFL and so on but instead my life didn’t go that way. My life sucks.”
“I’m supposed to be an actress, shooting movies, traveling the world, having lots of fans, doing interviews and so on. But I became a doctor instead, saving lives, having lots of money. My life sucks.” There are people like that who have amazing jobs but they don’t feel fulfilled because their minds are still in a fantasy about what should have been.
It could be something normal as well. “I should be rich. I should be working somewhere else instead of in this job.” “I could have been happy if this girl went out with me.” You could have a nice place to live in, lots of food and lots of entertainment and still be miserable. Most of mental noises are the same thing, the rejection of the present moment or what is, and trying to find salvation in next future moment or some fantasy that the mind thinks will be satisfactory.
A lot of people are stuck in this and they carry this burden all the time which makes them unhappy. My life should have gone this way. This is not how I pictured my life would become. My dream was to become a rapper and have lots of beautiful girls but I’m just married to one. The person could be in a very very comfortable place but they cannot see it. They are stuck in what their life should have become. They are stuck in their fantasy.
There are many different kinds of mental noise, they are often about the past and the future. For my example, they are stuck in this mental noise that they couldn’t see how blessed they are, how lucky they are and how much good things they have. You could be very rich and still say, “my life sucks, I imagined my life going the other way”.
Even if you get your dream, lets say that you become an actress or a famous sports player, there will still be ups and downs. You would get there be like, “this isn’t how I imagined this would be.” “This isn’t giving me the completeness that I was searching for. This isn’t what was supposed to happen.” So you are screwed if you get your dream and screwed if you don’t lol.
There are many different kinds of mental noise, they all make you reject the present moment. So these mental noises always make you unhappy and miserable. They take you out of abundance, gratefulness, and love that can be found in the present moment. So you search for ways to become superior to others, entertain yourself or get distractions, or try to get objects that will fulfill you because you feel this emptiness and lack inside that was generated by the mind or by the mental noise. It is all an illusion or all in your head.
You are always fighting and struggling against present moment. The present moment becomes an enemy, a miserable place to live in because of the mental noise or voices inside the head or thoughts that keeps going through your mind.
No Expectations From The World
(I have not mastered this)
When you stay at the present moment, you no longer expect the outside world or objects to fulfill and complete you. You no longer go into a relationship and expect it to complete you, no longer get a car and expect it to fulfill you, no longer get a job and expect it to satisfy you forever, and so on. Even if you get all of these things, it is so fleeting. Your journey through this Earth is so fleeting as well. I could have sworn, I was just in college a few months ago but it has been 20 years. Time moves so fast.
When you stop expecting the world to fulfill you then in that moment the world becomes a happy and satisfying place to live in. When you stop expecting relationships, jobs, promotions, and so on to fulfill you or satisfy you, they become very very satisfying to have. You no longer expect them to fulfill nor stay forever.
(Again, I haven’t mastered this)
Especially with human beings. The more you expect humans to behave a certain way, the more they will not. It is like some sort of universal law. If you tell people to do something, some of them will do the opposite which will make you mad. If you expect people to be logical, they will do stupid things. This is just the way people are. When you no longer expect people to behave a certain way, they no longer bother you. They no longer have power over you.
When you stay at the present moment, the external world doesn’t matter that much anymore because you are already happy, fulfilled and satisfied. So no matter what the external world becomes, you no longer expect it to complete you, which makes the external world very satisfying to live in.
(I don’t know if I explained this very well)
Staying In The Present Moment
People have come up with ways that they can stay in the present moment. One of them is called Savoring. When you stay at the present moment, life feels like it gives you one blessing after another.
Savoring
When you eat something, if you put your attention to it, your senses becomes magnified. The food tastes better. The texture is better. Everything is better. You are basically savoring each bite. What you will notice is that the food becomes a lot more delicious when you savor it. This is because you are focused on the food. Your mind is blanked or it does not have any mental noise or thoughts that are running through it. The story that you keep telling yourself of who you are, is not in your head when you are savoring.
When you are taking a shower, you can savor that also. Every morning when you take a shower before going to work, you can put your attention to it. Most people, when they are in the shower, they are already thinking of work. If not, they have so much mental noise that they couldn’t enjoy the hot shower on their skin. If you pay attention to the water, it becomes a lot more enjoyable.
When you live in the present moment, a lot of things become a blessing. It is because in the present moment, you are already provided for. You realize this and then you experience even more satisfying stimuli. You go to the shower and say something like, right now I have everything I need, and the universe gave me another blessing which is a nice shower.
Waiting In Line Or Stuck In Traffic
(I just copy / pasted this from another article)
How can you enjoy waiting in a line or being in traffic? This is pure suffering to most people. The answer to that is that people are suffering because they have abandoned the present moment. Their minds are in the future. The future is just a thought. They created their suffering within their minds and within their emotions. Their minds are in the future when the line is done, when they are in the cashier, and so on. The complete denial, abandonment and resistance to the present moment is what causes suffering. If the person accepts the present moment, then the suffering is gone. When you fully accept the present moment and not wishing it to be different then that is where you can appreciate it.
I gave an example about traffic before. What’s so bad about sitting inside a car with air conditioner? What is so bad about standing in line? My job makes me walk for 9 hours. I’m just standing there for 30 minutes, should not be a problem. The mind creates these problems and suffering by creating mental noises. “I shouldn’t be in this line or I shouldn’t be in this traffic”.
Presence
Presence is just when you don’t have a thought in your head. Everything that you do becomes more alive and you become more alert. This is the state a lot of people are trying to get but failing. People can only do it for a few seconds, some minutes, definitely not hours.
A good example would be savoring. You can also just walk around anywhere for a few seconds and look at everything without thought. What you will see is that everything becomes more alive. It’s like high definition 4k tv lol.
It is a nice way to see the world during the afternoon. The lights for me become more alive and more intense as they bounce off objects.
PEACE
(This is so going to be so hard to explain lol)
Before the universe existed, there was only nothing. Before there was the big bang or theory of the big bang, there was just this tiny particle. Around this particle is nothing. As this particle expanded, it created the universe, the universe occupied the space of nothingness. It is like a painting. Behind the painting is the canvas. It is nothing. Before there was form, before movement, before action, there was nothing. In that nothing, there was peace because nothing was going on.
Your body or matter is said to be composed of 99.99999% space. You are also made up of nothing.
So when you focus on nothing, it is said that you go back to your true nature or back to the beginning of the universe. At least, in theory.
Focusing On Nothing
These are just going to be exercises. If you focus on nothing, the mental noise disappears. It is like savoring but there’s also some type of effect. You can feel peace. It is the absence of conflict. It is because there is no form so there is no conflict. There is only peace.
The Gap Within The Sound
Say the words, “The dog is jumping” or any other sentence. Focus on the silence between the sounds or after the whole sentence. There is nothing there. So focus on that nothing. The vast nothingness between the words. You can also look at these sentences and focus on the gaps between the sentences. The white nothingness between the words. There is silence there, absence of conflict, absence of form, absence of everything. There is only peace. An infinite emptiness that stretches across the universe. An infinite peace where nothing is happening and nothing needs to happen.
You can also imagine an empty jar. Inside the jar is empty. Just blackness or a vacuum devoid of light. Imagine the emptiness inside the jar. A big wide emptiness that seem to be as big as the universe itself.
If it worked, it would be a small shift in consciousness because you have been relying too much on outer stimuli to fulfill you or drown out the mental noises. You may even feel like, “I’m so enlightened, I can write a book now”. If it doesn’t, I’m a terrible teacher lol.
Drowning The Mental Noise With Stimuli
In my 20s, I used to drown the mental noises with alcohol. It will do it but it will also dull all of your senses. Same thing with drugs and loud music. If you play really loud music, it will drown out the voice. However, it will come back again with more power or more severity. This is the reason why presence is a preferred method.