[QUOTE=Surya Deva;71307]I often find relationships happen when I least expect them![/QUOTE]
The spontaneous is a beautify thing, if we knew ahead of time what was going to happen we?d be bored to tears.
Do chakra meditation on your 2nd chakra, using sandalwood and orange candles, use the vam mantra and pay respect to the Goddess nature of reality, women will attract.
Do not stop your path, reflect on your desire for women, explore it, and above all, do not have any shame whatsoever for your desires, shame will not help, knowing yourself will.
Its wonderful you are so young on this path, lucky you, a lot of younger women in Modern mainstream culture are full of modern American Bull$hit, you will not make a good match with them, you have to be on similar levels of conciousness and emotional maturity. Find out what make YOU happy besides women and pursue that, women will want to be around you because you are happy with your self and your life.
Your words speak a lot. Your perception is fatalistic ?fate?, ?forever?, ?hell?, ?never be good enough?; in your view wrong are always ?others? ?this problem?, ?they have caused me misery?; you choose self-depreciation, depression and all, which is highly egotistic. The basic error, common to your age, is the ?self-view?. You judge your own self by ?looks?, ?personality? that you must be searching in others? eyes. That is skin-deep and relationships are never built on that. Yoga says, ?you see, what you are?.
At 22 how lucky are you and then, how ignorant. The girls are not denying you, you are denying yourself, begging others to reject you. Yoga wisdom is very practical and you are shying away from it. What do you think the girls are looking for in relationship? Majority of then, stability, an anchor. Do you consider yourself such an anchor?
Spirituality is not a past-time, or a post-retirement occupation. Any moment of reckoning takes you there. Yoga?s first step is to recognize that spiritual Self within. Once you do, you are never alone. The Self, the life within, is one?s most loyal, extremely loving and unselfishly caring friend. In its company one grows emotionally, matures intellectually and becomes stable in many ways. This is then reflected in the personality. Confidence radiates and is reassuring to others. Neither would you look for ?girls? nor they would look for ?looks?. Chances are you would find someone and look for each other?s souls.
surya deva how can you say spiritual life is not for him?
We are suppose to go through life in 4 stages unless we become monks.
Having family is one of them. You can strive for spirituality even though you have a family or not yet. Many saints had families
How many saints do you think became saints over 1 night? IT takes time to remodify your mind. A family and children is your best teacher towards patience.
But by saying to him he is not qualified or not fit for spiritual life is not encouraging maybe you plant a seed in his head now he is worthless. You should embrace people so that they would grow instead. Even if they seem unfit compliment their good and you will see they will start growing, we humans are like children if you say to a children he is worthless he becomes that.
TO BOLNO:
Some people didnt have luck with girls then they find THE ONE suddenly all others becomes envy, before it was you that was envy cause you wanted a girl so bad. When you stop chasing and accept what is and if it is meant to happen it will, then you will start noticing things.
If you look at it in a positive manner(all bad has something positive in it but you cant see it yet) When you find the one you will not leave her as easily , becaues you know you wont find another one that will fit you. So you value it more and if you do more spiritual work you will then also not cling to your relationship as much or be afraid to lose it as you know all is impermanent.
Double post.
I never said he was worthless. I said to him that his main worry at the moment is his wordly life and he should focus on that. It goes without saying that this is a Yoga forum, not a dating or teenage problems forum.
I agree with fakeyogis. What wrong with talking about dating?
Brahmacharya is control of SEXUAL energy, we cannot pretend we live in a monastery, we must understand ourselves on ALL levels, so we can trandcsend ourselves,this requires being honest, and for many of us, the path is a spiral. Sexual attraction is a fact of earthly life, he is trying to understand and sort his out. And he is not a teenager, he is 22.
I didnt say you say he is worthless.
But he can take it that way, even though its not likely there are a small chance, some people are sensitive and its not that easy to see who and who is not. what wouldnt affend you could affend another person.
The message was however inspire people for what little they have or is good at and they will grow. Not to see their faults. In the beginning in the spiritual life it is however normal to only see the flaws. After a while when doing progress you dont see them (you see but they dont affect you they have no power over you(mind)). Its like the nature its full of flaws , but it is very beatiful isnt it.
We all have been 22 and looking for girls if we are normal. So whats wrong with that, i dont look down at my self for being like that when i was younger it was more like a lession to be learned. Also i have an understanding that this person could be a future saint even thoug at the moment he is chasing girls. In 10 years from now he could change drastical.
Even someone most unfit can exeed us all at a later point.
And this forum is actual the best to ask such questions as we have probably more experience in those matters than john doe. Cause we observe and try to control our selfs. I think in this forum he can get most help. ALSO when you are spiritual you are obliged to help people.
So even if he is not even doing sadhana and you think he is not to talk about his problem in this forum you must help him if you can. Otherwise you are not following the spiritual path. All creatures have the right to be happy.
I did help him. I identified what his main needs were and I referred him to the appropriate places where he will get the most help: Dating web sites for his problem with women and professional counselling for his suicidal thoughts.
There are much better alternatives than Yoga to his current problems. He stands to benefit a lot more from dating advice and counselling than Yoga.
I never said I looked down on him. You are reading things into my post that I did not say. On the contrary, I understand where he is coming from(I was a teen too) and I understand at this stage in his life spirituality is less important than women, socializing and partying. When he is done with that, he will be ready to move onto spirituality.
I will add: Spirituality is those who are committed to realizing their highest Self. Before one can begin spirituality one must be fully convinced of the highest Self, the immortal and infinite power that they really are. They must have a strong belief in themselves, in their own potential for greatness and disbelief in any kind of limitation. Without having this ideal first it is futile beginning on a spiritual path, because one will wander aimlessly. Having the ideal firmly set in ones mind like the summit of the mountain for a climber, one begins their trek and keeps moving with one-pointed focus to get there.
Now, it is safe to say that Bolno’s ideal is not the great divine Self, his ideal is an ordinary ideal: he wants a girlfriend, he wants friends, he wants fun. I am not judging him for having those wants, because after all we have those wants, practically the vast majority of people on Earth have those wants. This is why he must work out his wordly desires first, before he can even begin spirituality. There is no point starting on a spiritual path when ones goal in life is wordly. There are wordly paths for wordly things.
Well my spiritual path we influenced by women a lot, at first it was a self improvement thing to get women, then as i learned and grew, i started realizing that happines is not ‘out there’ it comes from reconnecting with my true essence, it was a maturing process turning inward slowly after seeing how each element i search for ‘out there’ was nothing compared to what was ‘in here’.
But you never know he can in an eyeblink just believe. Did you believe just because you read the scriptures? You must have experienced something so that you believe in it and then you choose the path you want to follow.
There are different levels to walk first you will get angry on the people that are teaching yoga wrong that you know is wrong and the scriptures will back you up. Then you will realize the problem lies in your head and then you will drop that angriness which is yours only and not others.
The best thing is just to let people be fools and dont even let it make a ripple in your mind.
Even though you might be right by saying what you said did you help him? its a matter of how you say it. Sometimes you cant be frank with people if you know what i mean. But sometimes not.
Also i said how he might take it i didnt say you say he is worthless im sorry if im unclear. The guy is depressed his rational thinking might be obcured so he could easily understand you wrong.
That might be worst case scenario. Its like you get upset because he asks about worldly thing in the forum you could easily have skipped the thing that he is unfit for yoga or spirituality, if you look back how can it help him. You clearly tell him yoga is not for him then you plant a seed in him. If he is not fit for yoga now , when will he be?
Would you tell a child of 7th months that the child is not fit for start to walk? some walks sooner some later , this is the same in worldy life some are quicker some slower.
And i guess you have the authority to see who is fit or not? The most unfit becomes the biggest saints. Mila repa started by killing many people then he realized he did wrong. We could if we lived then have said look at him he is evil and not fit for spirituality.
98 or 99% of the yogis in india are not fit for yoga, they are scams number 1 would you tell them that also? Everyone knows how indian yogis are. Even indians say they only want your money. Have you seen the movie angulimala? see it. pram have always thought they are number 1 and look today pride make them fall.
So then tell me who is fit for yoga and spiritual life? ITs like walking a razor. And if we start talking about who is fit or not its our mind speaking. Funniest thing is that people have a preconcept how an enlightened man should be and behave but they have never seen one nor have they transcended their minds , how can the mind understand?. quite a paradox.
And youre right he can start spirituality when he is older but if he starts now he will have something that will pull him towards spirituality easier. Actually the longer you wait the harder. So even if you party its better to do little spirituality than neglect it and think you will do it later as people saying i take it later , will be lazy as this take it later will infect your mind.
Do everything now so you can rest tomorrow is a better way of thinking and it will change the personality for the better.
Yoga has the power of transformation. So we should not tell someone they are not fit for it.
as arjuna says sometimes we need to learn and it is all about experience.
so that we realize it does not give us real eternal hapiness.
In some way if we look back we could say it is a part of our sadhana.
I am not here to preach to the boy. He asked:
how can i make myself not like girls? i want to be asexual, and just not even like girls
It is girls that is playing on his mind right now, not Atman. I answered that part. Yes, he can start spirituality now, but what is the point when at the moment the most important thing for him is girls?? I am giving him advice from my own experience, as I am somebody who has been seeking spirituality for a long time and have even traveled to India and spent 6 months there, only to come to the realization that my wordly desires were too strong. I needed to first work out my wordly desires, before a genuine yearning for the spiritual awakened in me. I understand what it is like to be consumed by desire. It is no good trying to walk on a spiritual path, when your desire is taking you the other way. Don’t do something half-hearted: either work on your desires or work on your spirituality. Don’t try to go left and right at the same time.
There is a reason why the Hindu life is divided into four quarters with the last quarter of your life being spirituality, because ones wordly life comes before spirituality. The wordly life is used to pursue other legitimate goals in life: wealth, education, pleasure, career and duty. The fact is though spirituality is the ultimate goal of life, is not the most important goal in life in the beginning. One must first experience the lower things in life like sex, fun and games, entertainment, progressing in your career. It is only when one develops dispassion to these things, and nothing else is left to experience, one turns to spirituality(inner life)
Unfortunately, spirituality has become a recourse of the failures in life. I have even heard it being said explicitly by such people, “Well, I failed in life, so I am going to just go and join a monastery and focus on god/charity/spiritual growth” These failures then rock up at these monasteries and bring their failure habits with them, and perpetuate their failing in spirituality too. I mean come on, if somebody cannot handle getting a girlfriend in life, how are they going to handle the spiritual life? Spirituality is not for losers of life, it is winners of life. When you have mastered life, you are ready for spirituality. You will be sincere and pure in your intention.
I have stayed in and visited several ashrams in India, and all I found at these places were ordinary people pretending to be spiritual. It was very easy to see the ordinary them jump out: watch the monks at the Sivananda ashram set of firecrackers irresponsibly at Diwali like little boys on the street; watch the head monks watching television in their quarters and their eyes light up when a scantily dressed women flashes on the screen; watch the Ganesha and Durga parades, reckelessly dancing on the street under the influence of weed and other drugs, giving any partygoer in a club a run for their money; watched the swamis at ashrams cat-fight with each other over who is going to become the next guru.
Spirituality has become a joke in the world today and this is bound to happen because the doors have been opened to the masses. The masses always spoil everything. There is a reason why spirituality was esoteric in the past and only a very select chosen few were allowed access to it. You had to be sincere and ready. It was not just some hobby or some lifestyle practice one added to their life. It was not so you could get a slim body or get a girlfriend. It was for people who genuinely wanted to commune with the divine. And it still is.
Surya Deva,
My experience and self-learning begs to differ from yours. One is born spiritual and struggles with own sense of denial induced by the lures of material life. Any discrimination leading to dividing mankind into the ‘chosen’ and ‘masses’ is as a-spiritual as its more popular siblings like, castes, tongues, color, nationalities, cultures, or even holiness. Such defective discrimination breeds biases and unkind observations like ?masses spoil everything.?
I know many enlightened people in India who are uncommonly common. To know them, one has to be on the spiritual path and beyond the compulsive discriminating mindset. These common people can easily slide in the masses and yet do such enormous good to the humanity asking nothing for themselves. In spiritual mass events one meets poor, illiterate, unmannerly common folks who have pure contentment writ large on their wrinkled faces and limitless compassion in their eyes. They ARE spiritual, unmindful of what they may be called by those whose spirituality depends on labels that are lip-stuck and skin-deep.
Spirituality may be contained in an individual, but never limited to or by one. It can never be a joke. At various turns it is only paradoxical. It?s a marathon race full of hurdles, and alternate rock climbing and skydiving episodes. Spiritual vision expands as we go. That?s why we make mistakes, shortchange the great ideas; but as long as we stay connected to the cause, whether in hate or love, we find the way.
I think when we have such an open and liberal definition of what spiritual is, it ceases being helpful anymore. If everybody is spiritual, then nobody is spiritual. This is why the word spiritual is so fuzzy, but I only use it because that is the closest term in English to describe such a pursuit in life. Just as I have to use the term "Hindu’ to describe my religious-philosophical viewpoints in life, when I actually mean Santana dharma, which is not really a religion in the conventional way.
In Vedanta they use other definitions which are more clear and helpful: mumukshu and jijanasu. Mumukshu is somebody who is in search of the spiritual, in that the spiritual has been awakened in them and now nothing else is satisfying them anymore, but they themselves do not know what is lacking. They just have a burning desire for the spiritual. So they aimlessly wander from place to place finding that which will appease their thirst.
Jijanasu is a mumukshu who has a burning desire for the spiritual and has successfully diagnosed why they have that burning desire and the means to ending it, the knowledge that leads to end of it.
Now us spiritual seekers have to be very honest with ourselves. I know I have. If that burning desire for the divine is not there within us. If one has not yet developed dispassion for the world - then forget it, one is not even a mumukshu, let alone a jijnasu.
That dispassion first has to come, and I had thought that I reached that stage because nothing really appealed to me in the world, but then I realized especially in India, that to be honest I had not really reached dispassion, but I had failed in my wordly life. I was running away from the world and rationalizing it being dipassionate. No, because if it was dispassion I would not be craving in my heart friends, recognition, finding the right career and sex and enjoyment. I found myself slipping into that when I went to India, realising my spiritual yearning was weaker than my yearning for the wordly. I was consumed by the wordly and this is why I decided I would deal with the wordly.
I have diagnosed in Bolno the same condition as me(despite him being much younger than me) He is not ready for spirituality. He is looking for girls, friends, fun, enjoyment and finding his place in the world. He is certainly not dispassionate about them, otherwise he would not be asking us how to stop liking girls. There is nothing wrong with this desire of his, it is a legitimate desire(kama) and his soul needs to experience it. If he tries to deprive himself of the experience of sex in his life, then those latent tendencies will carry over with his soul into his next life. He needs to experience what sex is life, and develop dispassion for it. When he is done with the worldy, he is ready for the spiritual.
There is really no rush. We have been evolving for millions of years, and have through out many lifetimes experienced a lot. Now that we are at the human stage, we are having human experiences, playing different roles in lifetimes to get the full breadth of human experience. When we have had enough human experiences, the next stage will automatically follow. That yearning must be there though for this to happen. This yearning will come in two ways
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Left hand path: Work on your desires. Make your life’s purpose to work on your desires. If that means allowing yourself to indulge in every vice you have denied yourself so far, then so be it(as long as it lawful) Do not make a half hearted effort - plunge yourself in this decadence - totally shock your sensory system. You may even die trying. If done correctly, dispassion will come.
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Right hand path: Force yourself, kicking and screaming to the ascetic life of the spiritual. Deny yourself all sensory pleasures. Immerse yourself in the spiritual. Constantly read scriptures and contemplate on it. Purify your mind and body through the practice of Yoga. Dispassion will develop gradually over a long time. This is a long, painful and arduous path. It may take lifetimes on this path before the right purification has been received. The chances are many of us current spiritual seekers were on this path in past lifetimes, but have fallen. A spiritual friend of mine insists that is my case lol
I do not believe in half-hearted efforts, because they are a cop out. I meet people like this a dime a dozen in the spiritual community. They practice Yoga and meditation on the weekend, and in the week days they indulge in worldy life like any other ordinary person. They are not more cultivated than an ordinary person, despite doing their Yoga and meditation practice. Be serious and sincere in your practice. Be clear of your goals in life and work at them. Stop faffing about, trying to go left and right at the same time.
From the Gita:
Even a little of this practice will shelter you from great sorrow.
On this path no effort is ever wasted, no gain is ever reversed.
Every bit counts he is planting seeds…
Right, Left, what about the middle path?
There is no middle path 
It is a cop out for people who are half-hearted about their spirituality. Some consider Buddhism to be a middle path, but actually Buddhism is an ascetic path just like Yoga.
Bolno,
Returning to the theme of this thread, you may learn a lot just by going through the posts. When our opinions become self-hypnotizing most of us forget to detach from them to see the truth. The opinions become the truth.
It is really important in life, to gauge how much of the other people’s behavior is perceived (through one’s colored glasses) and real. Otherwise what happens with girls today can repeat with friends,family, other people and objects to bring even greater pain.
One fine morning, get up and be the sunshine and with slate clean and mind fresh approach the girl not for her looks but for the inner vibations you feel. See for yourself. Walking the talk is tough, but brings results.