Need Advice please watmm

Big decision to make very soon.

I am living at a meditation retreat center right now. I really like it here. In winter it rains every single day and the clouds hang low. That's sort of depressing.

Otherwise, I make good money, get fed, housed, internetted, there are few expectations of me, my coworkers are cool and do their own spiritual work, I've become more attached to my coworkers, I don't meditate or like most of the teachers who come through here, but the environment is ideal for me to do whatever inner searching I need to do at whatever rate is comfortable for me. There's plenty of time to goof off, but not many people to do it with since everyone who comes here is "in silence."

On the other hand, I have waiting for me back home a bunch of friends I grew up with and most of them are entering their last year of college. I think I can learn a lot from interacting with these people, but I also fear for my mental health, which tends to degenerate around the college environment. Last time I went home everyone blew my mind and I liked being there. It was clear to me that all the life forms I call my friends are perfectly enlightened and just being themselves and that this was an invitation for me to let go of self-concept. However, going back home makes me unemployed, it's too late to get into school, I have no idea what I'd do just sitting around at home with my parents, working, whatever. I guess it'd be the same as what I do here basically, except with more advertisements everywhere. I don't miss anyone very much at all, which is my nature, I hate dealing with practical things (getting employed), and I'm horrified of what might happen to me as I try to start living like a normal person again (drug addiction, group think, , , , , . Although, there's this girl back home I want to fall in love with, but she's an assortment of fantasies and projections that I've come up with based on her writing style. I can't tell you how many times I've fallen in love with a girl's thoughts and writing style and found her difficult to like in person. But anyway "she's different." Hyuck hyuck. I'm going to talk to her on the phone soon and see if there's good chemistry.

I'm pretty confused. I want to make the decision that's best for me because I like myself and want good things. I realize my faith in romance has really deflated. There was a time in my lief where I'd drop all my shit to go try to fall in love with my fantasy. Now I've got the same sort of relationship going with the universe itself, trying to love it for everything it produces. Anyway, I"ll either be leaving this place in about 2 months, or... I can stay through the year, get paid vacation time in december so i can buy people presents, come back on December 27th, and work until March 1st, when I'll leave this place and probably get back into school.

Could you guys help me ask myself clarifying questions? Or just give me advice based on your own experiences and/or objectivity?

i wouldnt

Quit the cult dude.

What are the qualities of a cult and then I can decide if home is more cultish or here. And then I'll factor the cult factor into my calculator as worth 2% of my decision.

Fuck salt

Bitch pepper

pretend these other people and factors don't exist. what you YOU want?

build a house in the desert

I think you need to talk to someone other than the internet. the fact that you are telling me, the internet, about such issues makes me scared for/of you. why the fuck ask me/us?

I want to stay here. It's safe and I feel like I'm developing a clearer and more reliable (consistent) awareness of myself as a spiritual being. I feel like there is nothing more important than this, although everything gets included in that.

  On 9/19/2010 at 5:29 AM, happycase said:

What are the qualities of a cult and then I can decide if home is more cultish or here. And then I'll factor the cult factor into my calculator as worth 2% of my decision.

Maybe you can give us the name of the center and maybe a link to their web site or something.

lol

How do you get a job at a meditation center, and wtf do you do there?

don't make big life decisions based on a girl's writing style, would be my first answer.

from what you've written, you're trying to decide between having a job and making your own way in the world (/universe, whatevs) , versus moving back home with your family to no job and an environment that's bad for your mental health...

i'd say no-brainer. but i'm a collection of pixels somewhere on the internet, so meh.

I was recommended this job by someone at a monastery in canada, which i went to by meeting the same abbot in a monastery in west virginia. I cook breakfast lunch and dinner for about 40 people twice a week, I do "groundskeeping" and "housekeeping" otherwise. I talk to the meditation teachers to see if they believe in "enlightenment" as an abstract and sit in my room and read about gestalt therapy for the week if they do.

Is it possible to sustain a deep and sincere spiritual life AND go back to all that other stuff you mentioned?

What better way to confront (and enhance your relationship with) those parts of you?

Then again, you might be unnecessarily inviting those parts of you that cause division within yourself.

Ultimately the choice is one you have to make, not something someone can tell you what the "right" decision is.

Also, I suppose it depends on your spiritual path. I suppose I was under the assumption it was a Buddhist center.

  On 9/19/2010 at 5:49 AM, dilbthelame said:

don't make big life decisions based on a girl's writing style, would be my first answer.

 

from what you've written, you're trying to decide between having a job and making your own way in the world (/universe, whatevs) , versus moving back home with your family to no job and an environment that's bad for your mental health...

 

i'd say no-brainer. but i'm a collection of pixels somewhere on the internet, so meh.

there's an assumption here, which i share with you, which is that practicality leads to greater happiness. if i didn't question this assumption at all, i'd say your message is succinct and accurate. but i am thinking practicality might make the spirit lame.

internet?

my dad does these meditation retreats. stupid if you ask me

come meditate on bass weight.

is this spiritual retreat near palo alto?

Tough question!

Sounds like you have everything, except human interaction.

On one hand I loathe humans, especially our current civilization.

On the other hand, I probably couldn't handle being totally alone... but wait! You're not even totally alone there!

Do friends exist back home? Or is everybody you think you know and want to be with, really just a memory of past times?

try to turn it into an "and and" type of situation, instead of an "either or". that's all i can say.

quite the confessional here....

and no one has completely ripped you a new asshole yet?

At WATMM?

Wow......

you are lucky

and by this luck I think it is evident that you should stay where you are....

**cliche life lesson that I have learned**

the grass is never greener and if you are happy or content where you are, stay there...

**cliche sarcastic advice**

don't castrate yourself/or let anyone else do it,

don't drink any poison demanded of you by the 'group'

**real advice**

don't let your own ideals and intuition about what is inherently good for you be controlled/changed for the worse by the ideas of one power hungry man/woman (your spiritual leader,) who might only be the head of your 'group' so that he/she can have a ton of sex and money....

so keep meditating and don't worry what is happening in the outside world....

it won't make you any better of a person, you do that for yourself, for serious!

Didn't you make the thread about how you were too shy to talk with beautiful girls and just wished they would read your "beautiful inner thoughts" so you could fuck them?

yeah - stay in the center dude.

Friends exist. I like my friends. Do I wish to give those relationships continuity? Maybe not. I see most friendship as a sort of dream state. I learn a lot from it possibly because it's a cage of expectations, but I like not having to deal with the cage. Anyway, everyone I"ve ever met is exceptionally stupid and i'm glad to be rid of them. just kidding. everyone i know is my guru masquerading as folly.