You Can Live in The Flow State For 100% of Your Conscious Existence

Have you ever been so engrossed in an activity that you lost track of time? You were so focused that no other distractions surfaced, what you were doing felt effortless, and that you weren't distraught by any emotions? This state of mind is called the flow state, and it is also known as being in 'the zone' as a lot of athletes call it. Gen Z is starting to say 'i'm locked in' (although they are probably not experiencing true flow state). I'm here to tell you that 100% of your conscious existence can actually be lived in the state of flow. Said the other way around, the feelings of boredom, apathy, worry, anxiety, slight uneasiment, anger, fear, lethargy, laziness, sadness no longer 'exist' as barriers to living. Instead, you flow through them. This reality is possible because your consciousness is actually pure energy - the ego generated emotions from the list prior create blockages in this natural conscious flow. You can achieve this reality through embracing the present moment. But, you must meditate in order to learn how to embrace the present moment. Only in the present moment can you experience the flow state, where all of the energy that you exert can flow without any resistance.

What The Flow State Feels like

We are experiencing wayyy too much stimulus from the environment, from content, social media, porn, excessive music, everyday coffee, that is numbing us from feeling the stimuli that comes from within; the truth: that from within us, emanates true love, peace, and joy. You are in the flow state when you are deriving your energy from within instead of deriving energy from an external source; the ego. Eventually as you detox from the stimuli, you will feel the truth that YOU ARE love, peace, and joy. You will begin to feel this as the stillness that exists within you, that your life is a flourishing oasis which has been elegantly designed over milenia of evolution. You will start feeling these deep energies emanating from within you and it feels incredible. This is called your Prana/life force/breath. At first, you need to connect with your breath at your nose to feel that you are life. Then, you can start to connect with your breath sensations in your lungs. Sooner than later, you will start to be able to feel these breath sensations in your outer limbs and throughout your entire body at once. From personal experience, it is exilerating. It is vibrant. It is invigorating. I wrote this paraphrased message to my family on Friday December 20th.

I rode my bike to work on Wednesday morning (after my meditation). It was as fun as any rollercoaster that I have been on because I could finally feel that my body was full of life: the air hitting my face was so vibrant and stimulating, inside my body I could feel every part smiling, and nothing else was on my mind. I was in the flow state. I am being serious when I say that it was as fun as any roller coaster i've been on, maybe even more fun. Because what actually determines your enjoyment is not what you're doing on the outside, but how you feel on the inside (your truest nature. you are joy). My meditation journey has been 1000000x more enjoyable than going to Spain and Amsterdam and every vacation I can remember - the stimuli might've changed on the outside, but how it made me feel on the inside was practically the same. Whereas for my meditation journey, I have never felt this way in my life. Now, I can feel my prana/life force/ aka breath sensations. I feel so blessed. Meditation teaches you how to be in the flow state for 24/7 of your life. This 'flow state' is actually your true nature, that you are life, you are joy, you are peace, you are love"

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This is where great poetry comes from. It truly does not matter what you're doing on the outside (when you're free from the ego) because how you feel determines your enjoyment of what you do. I was literally comparing my simple bike ride to a roller coaster ride. The funny thing is that I was not exagerating. This is actually how I felt. There is no better comparison.

The Flow State Models

Modern psychology's model of the flow state is incomplete. It's incomplete because it's too westernized (LOL). Seriously tho, the missing piece is that Mihaly did not meditate. When you meditate, you can cultivate intention to free yourself from suffering due to boredom, apathy, worry, anxiety.

This is what flow looks like.

On the left is what life looks like for an untrained mind. With an untrained mind, you can still experience flow in the frequency of acceptance, but it is much harder. When you meditate, you can reach awakening. This is when 100% of your existence is in the flow state. This means that no matter what you are doing, you navigate the present moment without any blockages. Later on, we will discuss how meditation allows you to achieve the model on the right.

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Observe how this model is based on non resistance vs force, or in other words, yin and yang. When you achieve the perfect balance of yin and yang is when you flow. Western society has wayyyyy too much yang energy. They value overworking oneself in order to achieve goals. They value 'working hard' in order to achieve goals. However, when you're in the flow state, you 'working hard' does not exist.

The Key To Unlock the Flow State

The key is to live in the present moment - but you have to understand how the ego takes you away from the present moment, what it means to live in the present moment, and how meditation teaches you to cultivate intention so that you can start seeing past the ego.

The Enemy is the Ego

Our ego is what causes us to be unhappy / creates suffering. It is what takes us away from the present moment! Every single emotion that is tied to a past event or a future event can create suffering and is caused by the ego.

• Anger
• Resentment
• Dissatisfaction
• Laziness
• Lethargy
• Remorse
• Worry
• Doubt
• Materialism
• Anticipation
• Fame
• Praise
• Pleasure
• Thwarting wanting

Some examples:

• When you're bored, your mind thinks that it cannot enjoy the present moment because your current activity is not sufficient
• When you're worried, your mind thinks it cannot enjoy the present moment until x is resolved
• When you're experiencing apathy/ lack of energy, your body believes that what you're doing isn't worth your fully energy
• When you experience anxiety, you start overthinking because your mind believes that you cannot enjoy the present moment until you think through every situation

In a way too simplified summary, if you are experiencing uneasiment or if you feel like you are exerting too much effort, then you are suffering by the ego.

The 3 Main Frequencies

The flow state arises as 3 main frequencies or stages: acceptance, enjoyment, and enthusiasm. If you are not in one of these 3 stages of flow, then you are suffering from the ego and not living in the present moment.

tip

The only way to flow with the universe is NOW! I am not kidding. The only way to access this reality is RIGHT NOW. You can experience this right now!

The Frequency of Acceptance

David, you are living in a fantasy world. There are huge problems that I want to worry about and I don't want to 'free myself from'

The universe is supposed to unfold the way that it does. When you do not accept that, it creates suffering. Many of these events that we do not accept cause pain or are uncomfortable. Maybe a family member past away, you fell of your bike, your presentation didn't go as planned, you regret saying something, etc. The solution is to accept it. You cannot change anything that has happened in the past. There is in fact nothing that you can do to change the past. The reason why you are suffering is because you wish you didn't feel the pain. This wish is an emotion that is tied to the future, taking you away from the present moment; from the peace that emanates from your life.

What happens when you accept the truth is that you detach yourself from the ego, freeing yourself from the unhappiness it caused for you. The pain still exists, yet the suffering dissappears. As the Buddha said, "Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional".

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Have you ever seen a cancer patient who has accepted that they are sick? They look so happy. Have you ever seen anyone on the brink of death, who accepts that they are on the brink of death? They look so happy. They let go of what they cannot change.

note

Thoughts and emotions have weight to them. If you do the process right, you can physically feel liberated from the weight of the thought and emotion.

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When you meditate, you can practice this skill at a fundamental level by observing itches on your body when they appear. When an itch appears on your body, your ego is telling you that you cannot enjoy yourself until you have itched the spot. Accept that you have the desire to itch the spot. Then, let go of the desire to itch the spot because you don't have to itch the spot to enjoy yourself in the present moment. However, if the itch is too intense, then itch the spot. Eventually as you stop itching the spots, your mind will no longer project itches into your stream of conscioousness. To simplify this process in a simple framework: let it in, let it be, let it go.

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Maybe you really really regret something you did the other day. To fully accept what you did requires no thinking; only being. To do this, hold this unpleasant emotion in your center of attention and then put your awareness around it. Let the emotion drift into the awareness around it. You will start feeling that the emotion no longer holds you in the same way. Now that this emotion is in space, bring acceptance into your center of attention. Acceptance now becomes your new reality. To understand what I mean, you have to meditate. More on this later.

The Frequency of Enjoyment

When you are already in acceptance of the universe's unfolding, you begin to vibrate at the frequency of enjoyment. This stage is characterized by being engaged in what you do, and the task is not that challenging. Maybe you are spending time with family, getting lost in your favorite book, staring into the vastness of space, etc. When you thoroughly enjoy life, you put intention into everything that you do as you are fully there in the present moment. You even feel like you are so full of life that you live in abundance. You realize that you have so much to give.

When you are not fully engaged with the activity, this means that you are not flowing at the stage of enjoyment. Maybe you are with your family, but your mind is somewhere else. Maybe you sit down to read your favorite book, but you keep on checking your phone because it's a little bit hard to read.

In My Life

For Thanksgiving, I spent the day by myself. I live in San Jose, California while my family resides in Naperville, IL. I had already reached full acceptance of the fact that I was going to be alone for a month prior, so I was ready for the stage of enjoyment. I intentfully lit up a candle, listened to beautiful music, and enjoyed the time with myself :). Not only that, but I spent the morning writing "I am thankful cards" to everyone on my work team and a couple friends. I felt so so so full of life! It was incredible. What was very interesting was that I told the folks on my work team that I'm going to spend "Thanksgiving by myself" and they felt sorry for me. Yes, ideally, i'd be with my family, but I had no guilt, no sadness, no emptiness. Instead, I was genuinely so happy.

Enthusiasm

When you are enthused over the present moment, you are experiencing the highest flow of energy. Whatever you are doing requires you to exert a great amount of energy, so your flow is wider and faster. In other words, your mindfulness is at the perfect ratio: your attention is sharp & and fast, and your awareness is wide & clear. This state of flow requires that you are in full acceptance of the situation to the point where you embrace problems as a source of joy. This means that you must be in acceptance and enjoyment to experience this state of flow.

The Most Fascinating Aspect About Enthusiasm

The most fascinating aspect about enthusiasm comes to embracing problems. I have never heard a better explanation for this than what quobix told me. He is a legendary and hardcore coder who has mastered the flow state. I had to ask him, "Does your flow break whenever your code breaks? Don't you sometimes feel frustration?" and he told me that no, it's emotionless, that every time his code explodes, he resets up the contraption and intentionally watches his code explode, and explode, and explode until he can finally discover the error. If the error is a little edge case, then that's an easy fix and we can move on! And if the error means that he has to fully rewrite the code, then good! Now he can write the code as how the nature of the problem has intended.

This man is full on embracing the nature of coding, and he tells it in the analogy of exploding his code like it's a bomb HAHAHA. Remember how I made the analogy that riding my bike was like riding a roller coaster? This is the same thing - for quobix, it does not matter what happens when he codes (on the outside) because no matter what, he feels like a badass motherf*** on the inside.

Meditation And How It Allows Us To See Past The Ego

The basis of meditation is that you are learning how to set an intention. Everything that you do in life requires an intention, beit a conscious or unconscious intention. Let's break it down: when you catch a ball, a whole orchestration of process need to happen before you catch the ball. You have to move your two legs in a specific motion, move your hand over to where the ball is, coordinate your eye with it, and then make a grasping motion with your fingers in order to catch the ball. A bunch of different processes in the brain are coordinating together. We can visualize this like the mind being a lightning storm. A bunch of different areas of the brain coordinate to produce a lightning bolt! However, intention is much more complicated than this.

Imagine the untrained mind like a regular lightning storm. You have lightning striking in all different directions, left, right, down, etc. This represents a mind that has multiple intentions in their brain that are competing, making the brain incoherent. Examples include:

• Have you ever had music stuck in your head and you cannot get it out? That's part of your brain projecting an intention to replay the music in your head.
• Have you ever went to sleep but couldn't sleep because you had too much thoughts on your mind? Yes, you want to sleep, however, several parts of your mind are competing with this desire to sleep, creating incoherence.
• You want to get work done, but you can't get yourself up because you feel too lethargic. In other words, you suffer from procrastination. What's happening is that your mind is projecting lethargy, an ego generated emotion, into your stream of consciousnesss. This competes with your desire to do work, creating incoherence.

Imagine the trained mind like a lightning storm, but all of the energy from the storm happened to consolidate into ONE lightning bolt. Imagine how powerful that would be! This represents a mind where all of the energy consolidates into one intention.

• Imagine waking up in the morning and you immediately have the energy to get out of bed when you simply tell yourself get out of bed. You no longer have to fight parts of the mind that tell you to stay in bed because they no longer exist!
• Imagine having a goal to go to the gym everyday, and you no longer make excuses to miss the gym.
• Imagine spending time with your family, AND you no longer worry about your work or your relationship. Instead, you are fully present.
• Imagine going to work AND you actually care about doing your work! You are fully present in your work. :)

Train

When you meditate, the ego will start projecting competing intentions into your stream of consciousness:

• Maybe you start feeling bored and would rather do something else
• Maybe you are too tired to meditate and cannot
• Maybe you are too lazy to meditate
• You could be talking to that cute girl who works at your job and does yoga instead
• You could be watching Sonic the Hedgehog 3 right now
• You could be eating a nice goat cheese chicken salad right now

Your goal is to defeat these hindrances to meditation by cultivating intention! Defeating these hindrances to meditation is also called 'applying antitodes'. Dealing with lethargy, laziness, dullness, anger, resentment, worry (and everything else) all require different antidotes. To learn about them in full detail, meditate!!!! Eventually, you will reach the flow state when focusing on your breath as you come into acceptance, enjoyment, and then enthusiasm. Focusing on your breath becomes an invigorating experience where you are fully 100% immersed into the act, achieving high levels of concetration that you have never achieved before. Your mind will undergo the following process :D!

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It is very important to have a meditation guide. Here is an analogy: Imagine that you live in 3000 BC, there is no number system and you want to invent linear algebra LOL. That is impossible in one generation. It took humanity hundreds of generations to invent the basic number system from 0-9, and then we had to go through hundreds of more generations to invent linear algebra. If you go into meditation blind, you are going to be only exploring the basic concepts, the numbers 0-9. But with a guide, you will quickly learn the already proven methods to get past the basic concepts so that you can learn the more advanced concepts, the linear algebra of meditation. This is my meditation guide.

This is your calling to meditate!

warning

You are unaware of your unawareness. Only when you meditate can you start becoming aware of unawareness. Saying that you know all the answers tells us that you are completely unaware of your unawareness.