Do you practice any spiritual discipline?
I was practicing for quite a lot of time but I dont really see a point anymore, since world will be okay anyway, things that are bound to happen will still happen, so whats the point like Im not so important to have a significant impact on anything, any striving to be important enough seems ego-driven so thats a no/no situation. So life becomes a burden at this point in a sense I mean there is effort needed to just survive not to mention achieving something or impact the world. Before spiritual practices I was highly driven individual but that was ‘‘I want power’’ kind of motivation driven internal need and feeling of importance. But after geting more humble and realizing the scope of things that will always be beyond my influence/control I feel like Im in situation where Im supossed to fight and strive everyday but there is no possibility to ever win and all my effort is in fact meaningless and futile. But about the connection thing I gotta say thank You everyone I feel more connected to strangers over the internet than I ever did with anyone irl, You guys are the best
Its kinda motivating to hear succes stories You know :D
@Forumuser i havent read all the comments but when i read this part quoted by Daniel, all i could think of was something i have felt at some point and a lot of ppl too, and its simply not having found or understood yet the real purpose of your existence, or have disconnected from it due to traumas. and based on personal experience and of some other ppl the emptiness feeling of not having motivation to expand spiritually is stronger for those who actually have a greater purpose that includes helping others awakening to theirs
Without going too deep with details because its really a personal experience id suggest these two or either one.
Best Path in Life tag but since store isnt open back yet then Blue Print
guided path
Hope and happiness field
Everyone’s answers here are great! I have several answers to this as well…First…
You know, nihilism is a mental space that is actually rather close to finding peace. You’re already detached. Going further, you can reach a space where you’ll find purpose in simply being. Because truthfully, that is the most fundamental purpose of anything in the universe. To be. We as humans, we are conditioned with the drive to want things and to seek growth and all that jazz. For good reason though! That drive is essential to us surviving.
But that drive generally ends up consuming us over time and so we get trapped inside our heads. And we forget the simple beauty and bliss that is the present moment. You can literally just sit in silence for hours and feel better than you would off of drugs or other lavish pleasures in life.
In this state of just being… you can find purpose in anything. In taking care of a plant, in walking down the street, in watching the stars. In anything you do, you won’t feel that feeling of meaningless. Because while you’ll understand that all things have no true meaning, those moments we presently connect with them give them all the meaning in the world.
So why not continue with your spiritual practice? You’re alive. You’re already ‘being.’ But your beingness is still trapped within some older patterns and you do feel you need to want things. You feel you need to find meaning. You feel you need to win. Even if a part of you has given up and thinks it all doesn’t matter anyways, a part of you still does. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here asking for assistance.
Now here’s another thought…
Why are you alive? Why are you even here? We all ask ourselves these questions… but, why do we ask ourselves those questions? I’d ponder that for most of our existence in this planet, we didn’t have much leisure to ask ourselves that question. Answer was as simple, we’re here to live… so we’ll do what we got to do to survive… And when they had time to ask the deeper questions, their tribes/cultures answered them for them through religion and gave them deeper reason to push on.
The desire to survive was so strong that it superseded existential crises from occurring. Or else, we’d be hearing about how slaves would kill themselves far more often. Some would but most wouldn’t. The desire to live no matter the circumstance, is a force in itself. If you don’t think this will to live is a powerful force within you too, then try to starve yourself and see what happens
But in this modern age, we do have the leisure to ask ourselves such questions. Most of us have it so good compared to our ancestors… who for them, life everyday was a constant fight for survival. We work hard for survival too but conditions are so much more preferable. We don’t have to constantly worry about a million different things at the same time like instant deadly diseases, natural disasters, dangerous animals, having food, human invaders, ext… (some countries and many people still do!).
What are we left when we have the basic necessities to survive, no religion and a deep sense of nihilism? Questions! What is my purpose here? Why push on when trying to do anything is a struggle? There are endless beings all throughout the universe and I am only one of those so why do anything… It’s all meaningless anyways…
I’ve asked myself those questions too at some point. Especially when I had an experience where I saw behind the fassad… I saw that the world truly was maya… illusion. It scared me for a while… It all truly is meaningless…
But then It helped free me. If this is an illusion, then this isn’t all so serious. I don’t have to worry about not fulfilling a purpose… or surviving… or anything. I can detach from these worries that are innate in me. I can play my role in life as I would in a game. I could simply…play.
And enjoy life as I see fit. Love and joy is worth living for. When you were a child and you had little worries because you were taken care of… what would you want to do all the time? Play! You would do whatever was most fun at the time. Even a cartoon would grip you as if it were the most important thing in the universe. Just enjoying life was purposeful in itself. You see… the state of just being… is the state of childlike wonder with old sage wisdom.
I want to help people. It brings me joy to see others grow and prosper. I love to create things… I feel empty if I don’t create something new in a while. I love answering deep questions like this one hence why I’m writing an essay haha. I do what I love. And if I ever come across strain/ struggle in such things, I push myself to love that struggle too because it will get me closer to having what I do want. Struggle is growth. That burden you feel is you stepping outside your comfort zone. Don’t give into it. Push.
You say it’s not worth putting in effort but you clearly want things. Your nihilism is partly your comfort zone telling you the effort isn’t worth the strain. That you’re okay right here since it all doesn’t matter anyways… even though you’re not okay. Otherwise, why the emptiness?
So now I must ask you… What do you enjoy doing? What is something you would enjoy doing If you were good at it? What would you like improved about yourself? What would you like to see improved in the world? Whatever these things are, they are purposeful for you. Because the truth is…
You’re here. You exist. You didn’t exist as who you are right now, in all of eternity up until now! That is amazing in itself. All that has happened before your birth led to you being born here… You’re awake now. You can see. You can think and if you can think, you can make purpose out of anything! You can learn to enjoy life and be whoever you want to be if you act towards it. Life is meaningless so it is up to you to bring meaning to it. Do that and instead of asking why… ask, why not?
Last but not least, if you want to go deeper… From my, the universe is experiencing the world through you. You are a fragment of the universe’s unlimited perspective of everything.
This fragment is your consciousness. It has existed for a long time, inhabiting many bodies and experiencing many different lives. With each life, it learns more and expands more. The pure essence of your consciousness is what is called the higher self. But when you inhabit a body, your vast consciousness is constricted to its physical structure and the limitations of the world… so within the body, you develop a lower mind to navigate the world. The ego.
Planet Earth is this world right now. Our higher selves have been expanding through many different lifetimes in this planet. Our higher selves are unconditional to whatever we go through. We can be tortured for 30 years and just die… and it would be fine to the higher self. It would grow from that as well.
Evolve. That is the fundamental purpose of the higher self. To grow on and on and become more advanced to inhabit more complex bodies, to larger ones like planets, to stars, solar systems, galaxies and eventually a universe. Infinity is ever expanding. The universe expands infinitely through each of us infinitely expanding. It’s a never-ending cycle…
So what does that mean to us small humans on the scale of infinity? If you forget what your purpose is, just know it is to grow. Eventually, if not in this lifetime, you’ll figure that out yourself and work on evolving yourself. Or… you can begin working towards ending the cycle of rebirth here and evolve past the limiting facets of this realm. If you do, you’ll learn what you’ve had to learn as a human being and can go on to new and bigger things.
How do you do that? That’s what the spiritual path leads to really We have so many great audios like raise your vibration, guided path, higher self, ext… that will help guide you along this path. And although anything you do leads to growth for the higher self, when you become conscious of the path and work towards your evolution, you will get closer to the end point of your human story. So there… that’s some purpose for you.
That being said, that is just my thoughts on this. Neither one of these few answers is the ultimate correct one truthfully. Just some perspective to help you on your way. Truth is, the only person that can answer these deeper questions is you. You create purpose in this life.
Thank You so much for everything man. I needed To read this. In fact I have read Your words 3 times to consider each and every word carefully and I have started to remember myself speaking similar ones to other people, That was when I was at my highest (till now I hope) point in life, then I made some mistakes and people were not so eager to help me as I would expect, But You just helped me realize that ‘‘bad’’ is not the only quality that comes back. Now I truly see bigger picture, That It was truly needed for me to fall in order to be assured that I would be helped aswell. ‘‘Nothing goes unnoticed’’. Its so right that It would be fine to Higher Self if one would be tortured and die. I would even say that Higher Self dont really care about ‘‘Lower’’ Self, Higher Self kinda uses ‘‘lower’’ self in order to grow and gain more wisdom. That reminds me of Odin and his sacrfices to aquire more knowledge and finally sacrificing ‘‘himself to himself’’ but then again its only my take on things.
Thank You again my friend, If I would sum up what I learned from all of this I would say that
Everything is meaningless, yet Nothing happens without cause.
as You said every response in this thread was wonderfull and I am so gratefull for everyone on this form for creating internationall community to discuss such philosophical and spiritual topics yet without any propaganda or dogmatism. Thats Global Village in its best sense. Honestly when I think about everyone here, people like Sammy or Capitan and see more and more charities and ecological awareness there is truly hope for better times for humanity as a whole.
Damn I’m starting to think that I would enjoy writting essays aswell :D
‘Everything is meaningless, yet Nothing happens without cause.’ Beautiful quote my friend. I’ll remember it and possibly even repeat it at some point in life!
Glad I could help in any way man
@SammyG reading any of your long text and insights brings just as much peace and a sense of just feeling good then any of the audios here that I listen to. So thank you.
You know, nihilism is a mental space that is actually rather close to finding peace.
Wasn’t this exactly how the Buddha attained enlightenment if I’m not mistaken?
Life means nothing because we’re all gonna get sick, old and die.
So you try to find what it means and in your search for the “truth”, you realise it means nothing and everything at the same time.
And then you carry on doing the things you used to do, only with a new perspective…
Bumping some wisdom, that we all need to keep in mind every day:
If this is an illusion, then this isn’t all so serious. I don’t have to worry about not fulfilling a purpose… or surviving… or anything. I can detach from these worries that are innate in me. I can play my role in life as I would in a game. I could simply…play.
And enjoy life as I see fit. Love and joy is worth living for. When you were a child and you had little worries because you were taken care of… what would you want to do all the time? Play! You would do whatever was most fun at the time. Even a cartoon would grip you as if it were the most important thing in the universe. Just enjoying life was purposeful in itself. You see… the state of just being… is the state of childlike wonder with old sage wisdom.
Lol this is very ironic. Dream was telling me this exact thing today and then I see it reposted as something I said long time ago. Needed to be reminded this I guess. So thanks for posting this
Dream was telling me this exact thing today
Maybe Dream told my Higher Self and my Higher Self triggered me?
Looking at this thread again after such a long time, I have to say that Innate meaninglessness of things doesn’t bother me anymore at all.
I have adapted many of the things Sammy said to me back then to my worldview without even realizing it lol. And it surely helped.
Im 100% sure it means something
Finding a goal helped too just like Dr. said
Congratulations! There is always a tomorrow!