Hey guys, this is Pablo with Meditation Amsterdam, and in today's video I want to share a thought that has been with me for, uh, almost as long as I can remember, and it is that, um, nagging sense of, uh, wasting life or seeing by seeing

life pass you by, feel how it slips through your fingers whilst you remain, um, unable to really do what you're supposed to do, or be who you're supposed to be, or obtain what you're supposed to obtain. Some sort of nagging sense that if nothing changes

between now and the moment in which I'm taking my last breath in my deathbed, or wherever that may be, I will feel incomplete, like the mission was not accomplished, like something was left unrealized. And it is a very, uh, unsettling thought, as a matter of fact.

It's is the one thing that, you know, they describe as, 'Oh, you don't want to get to your deathbed with, with regrets.' It's kind of like that, but the trickiness or of this, of this, uh, sense is that, um, it doesn't present you with a clear

picture of what it is that you're missing, of what it is that you'll regret when you're in your deathbed. And despite, you know, what many YouTubers might, uh, give you as, as their best attempt at what you should be doing, such as I don't

know, killing it financially, or, uh, making sure that you succeed in your love life, um, uh, or that you, uh, stay in shape and become a, a stoic who, you know, eats one meal a day or whatever, whatever it may be, right? Um, would that really fulfill

would that make you get to your deathbed knowing in your heart of hearts that you lived the life that you were supposed to live, um, in the movie *The Dead Poet's Society*, Robin Williams says that you ought to, uh, suck the marrow out of

life and that that should not be confused with choking on the bone, and I would argue that I've for a long time choked on the bone. I did pursue financial success and obtained it to a relative, uh, degree, um, the the Romantic route, the, uh,

the physical, uh, sportsmanship and all that kind of business, uh, and it's all been good fun. Even the art experiment and even the spiritual experiment has all been really good fun and very, um, edifying, but the doubt remained. And it's not only in the last few, uh, months or

years of the, uh, self-realization path that I, I've started to discover through a lot of reading and repetition and practice that it is, um, that what is missing is what you could describe and and has been, uh, growing as a sense in which the moment is met in a way that

makes you feel naked and completely unprotected towards it, totally vulnerable to the now, in a sense that with every in-breath you almost feel all your senses sort of washing through you, and as you exhale your sense of self is merging into, um, the now, and there's no

there's no mediation between the now and your self, that they are one and the same, um, and you come to realize that selfhood or your sense of individual self is that mediating factor which creates distance, uh, with all its opinions and its memories and its expectations, and that

in order to be naked to the moment there cannot really be any judgmental opinion about it. For better or worse, it it needs to be taken completely at face value. Um, what that means in essence is very unsettling because it means that in order for you

to suck the marrow out of life, in order to be naked to the moment and in a nondual uh merger with with reality, um you must kill all your mental crutches and all your darlings, all your opinions, your um uh even your moral um

and and and virtuous uh mores and uh this is super super unsettling because these are the things that give us a sense of structure, a sense of direction and a sense of uh individual integrity and and safety if nothing else. So it's very unsettling to um to tackle

these and um it is one of the reasons that in every uh spiritual tradition that you read about, uh there is a kind of sacrificial uh undertone to the whole thing. It is it is known that that which is most valuable to us needs to be

sacrificed and uh there are tales of people who sacrifice their their finances, their family, everything they have. They're they're living in, you know, with a loin cloth and a and a begging bowl and the guru will tell them it's still not enough, it's still not enough. You

have not given up that which you treasure the most, which is your very self, your sense of self. Uh, may of constructed little boundaries and and opinions that hold your sense of self in place. Um, you can run the experiment and see if you have any um treasured opinions

or grudge uh um you know whatever grudges we hold tend to be very treasured for to us you know that they they uh reassure us of being correct of being uh morally superior than the other uh of caring more or of being um I don't

know more altruistic whatever the case may be it makes you more and different from another and relinquishing those those opinions the opinions the opinions upon which the grudge is based uh can be quite a difficult thing to do a very liberating thing to do but

very very difficult uh we we treasure these things in the sense of structure and validation that they give us in other words we Define ourselves uh in comparison and by setting distance from another um it's a state of a lot of pain when we do this these these uh

separations or these uh uh this dependence on the other to Define ourselves even if by contrast as opposed to in a loving or or needy kind of way uh in a contentious kind of way in the case of a grudge um uh are very very

painful uh but they come with the payoff of uh hey I'm miserable but at least I know I at least I know I'm right or at least I know that I can be safe in the knowledge that my morality is the superior one or that my opinion um you

know will land me in a good place things of that kind those are implicit little little thoughts um so uh as it happens the the sense that we're missing out on life is both uh correct and incorrect in that sense we can't really miss out on

life because life and us are not two separate entities. We don't have a life as Gary would say, we are life. So you can't really miss out on it, but you can indeed fail to fulfill the realization that you are one with life. That can happen as a

matter of fact, and you may as well call that missing out on life, right? On a practical level, uh, there's no experiential difference between a life with non-duality unfulfilled and a life that has been on some level actually missed. So, um, whilst as a concept, as an

idea, it can make you miserable and is not really true, just like every other concept and idea. It does point to an intuition about something that is, that we are failing to realize or not yet realizing as a truth, which is our Oneness with life, and that

pointing is valid, it is correct, and it, and the sucking the marrow out of life is not pointing to any particular doing or achieving in external, in the external world. Nor is it pointing toward the doing of achieving on a, of a particular state of mind. So it also

doesn't talk about an achievement on the internal level. What it, what it points to is, it points to the collapse of the subject-object relationship, so that we can realize our Oneness with life. Uh, so, so the answer to that longing is not a mystery, and the way to get

there is not a mystery, uh, either. Uh, and I for one, I'm very, very happy to have found that out, um, because then your, your mind organizes itself around the pursuit of non-pursuing, you could say, right? Or, or the, the relinquishing of the pursuit

and rather the orientation towards uh the death of the uh of the opinion-making self and the separation-making self so that Oneness with life can be be uh fully realized and having had uh as I said in my previous video um very clear and

um uh unmistaken tastes of what that is like which happen more and more often uh as this process goes forward uh I have uh a a complete conviction that um even if I don't fully realize you know the the the end end degree Buddha level degree of non-duality in my deathbed

that the orientation is now fully correct there is absolutely no doubt of of that uh not not an iota of doubt in my mind uh it's it's a sense of certainty that is not mental certainty that is not conceptual or opinion-based but rather an

experiential uh knowing that being one with life feels like the most correct and real and wholesome thing that one can can uh that inhabit as a space uh now I can only convey that with words and um one of the big reasons for me to

um keep making these videos and and creating this channel is because it would be very unfair and uh and and silly and and potentially cruel for me to expect anyone to take my word for this being the case that so that leaves us leaves us in a pickle

because if you can't take my word for it then all I am left with is using um metaphors analogies examples and um neuroscientific uh facts to try to paint a picture that is plausible uh if not believable because belief is a very bad operating way of

using the mind at least so that the plausibility of this process and where it leads is a continuum that doesn't require any unwarranted leaps because that's an unfair place to put people in which to put people uh when it comes

to this kind of information I believe uh I don't think it's even necessary anymore I mean I I listen to how I've been listening to Ramas as of late and his Guru Neem Karoli Baba fascinating guy apparently could do miracles and the

rest of it but the methods by which they went were were so obscure that you'd have to be a very wacky pioneer to subject yourself to this kind of process without knowing anything about it or where it led I don't think that's necessary anymore

those kind of pioneers like Ramas they they open the trail that we can now traverse in a much safer and methodical and clear kind of way that is uh very clear and convincing to to the thinking part of our mind which always wants to be satisfied it wants to be given a

plausible reason to pursue these practices and these goals right so um the the essence of today's video is indeed this this notion that we are missing out on life how even though it is just a mental notion and as such it is not entirely correct and

could make us miserable like every concept that binds us make makes us miserable and at the same time is pointing towards an intuition in which um life needs to be that that the fulfillment of life needs to be realized that it is of course already the case

but unless that is consciously realized, something very magnificent and uh important, and and perhaps the most important uh thing in our life is being missed out on. And why should that be the case now that all the information uh about it is available? And if on top of

that you have a pull in this direction, then um there's nothing to stop you from pursuing this. So um that's the gist of today's video. Uh thanks for listening, those far for those who did. Curious to hear what you make of the topic and

if you can relate to this, this sense, this feeling, uh if you believe that these videos can benefit others, then liking, sharing and subscribing gives us a nice push for the channel and I'll be back with more videos pretty soon. Cheerio, byebye.

Fear of Missing Out on the Fulfillment of Life and the Possibility of Having Direct Experience

Meditation Amsterdam

Pablo describes a persistent feeling of wasting life or letting it slip away.

This feeling is linked to an inability to do what one is supposed to do, be who one is supposed to be, or obtain what one is supposed to obtain.

The feeling stems from a fear of incompleteness at the end of life, a sense that the mission was not accomplished.

This feeling is similar to the fear of dying with regrets, but lacks a clear picture of what those regrets might be.

Common societal pressures (financial success, love life, physical fitness) are questioned as potential fulfillments of this sense of purpose.

The Importance of Experiencing the Present Moment

Pablo references *The Dead Poet's Society* and the idea of 'sucking the marrow out of life,' contrasting it with his past experiences of 'choking on the bone.'

He discusses past pursuits (financial, romantic, physical, artistic, spiritual) which, while enjoyable and edifying, did not alleviate the underlying sense of incompleteness.

The missing element is identified as meeting the moment with vulnerability and openness, merging senses and self with the present.

Selfhood, with its opinions, memories, and expectations, is seen as a mediating factor creating distance from the present moment.

To fully experience the present, judgment and opinions must be relinquished, requiring the sacrifice of mental crutches and cherished beliefs.

The Necessary Sacrifice of Cherished Beliefs

This process involves sacrificing valued structures, directions, and sense of integrity for a deeper connection with reality.

Spiritual traditions often involve a sacrificial element, emphasizing the need to relinquish even deeply held values.

The ultimate sacrifice is the sense of self, constructed through opinions and boundaries.

The speaker suggests examining cherished opinions and grudges, which provide structure and validation but also cause pain and separation.

These separations, even when based on perceived moral superiority, are painful but offer a sense of security and self-definition.

The speaker addresses the paradox: we cannot truly miss out on life because we are life, but we can fail to realize our oneness with it.

Experientially, a life without realized non-duality is indistinguishable from a life missed.

The feeling of missing out points to the unrealized truth of our oneness with life.

The solution is not about external or internal achievement, but about collapsing the subject-object relationship.

The answer to the longing is not a mystery; it involves relinquishing pursuit and orienting towards the death of the opinion-making self.

The speaker shares their personal experience and conviction regarding this path.

The speaker explains the difficulty of conveying this experience and the use of metaphors, analogies, and neuroscientific facts to make it plausible.

The speaker emphasizes the importance of a clear and convincing explanation to satisfy the thinking mind.

The video concludes by summarizing the core message: the feeling of missing out on life, while a mental construct, points to the importance of consciously realizing oneness with life.