One of my favorite Zen sayings goes something like...

Before enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water.
After enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water.

Really, I think that quote should be altered to...

Before enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water.
During enlightenment, I didn't want to get out of bed to chop/carry anything
After enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water.

I don't define "enlightenment" in the way that many do as some superior state, I just define it as realizing that there is more to how the physical world operates than you've previously been led to believe.

So with that definition in mind, I can relate to what you're going through. Once the realization sinks in that this reality is not all there is, you really don't want to get out of bed and interact with the physical world anymore.

The physical world seems like a waste of time. It seems pointless. You just want to get to the "fun" stuff in those other realities, not this relatively mundane drudgery known as "everyday life".

Indeed, you wonder how others can tolerate it all. How can other people live such meaningless lives when there is so much more than this? I went through all of that for quite a few years and made myself pretty miserable in the process.

For me, there did eventually come a change though it wasn't an overnight change (for me, at least). There was no Internet, no sites like Inward Quest to ask questions, no channelled YouTube recordings to dip in and out of. I had to figure it out myself which is probably why it took an appallingly long time :)

What made the difference to me was to accept the fact that I'm in this "physical reality" place for now so I might as well Make The Best Of It. (I'm too stubborn to "run" from things I can't figure out so suicide wasn't really a serious option).

I made a decision at some point that even if I was the only person on this planet who had figured out there was more to life than the Wake-Work-Entertain-Sleep cycle - and I thought I was - I would still just Make The Best Of It.

I wouldn't care where my life led from now on, I would just Make The Best of wherever I was regardless. And that attitude did lead (and does lead) me to all kinds of wonderful adventures in the physical world.

So, in answering your question about "Now What?", I would probably recommend doing the same.

Make The Best Of It

The chances are that sooner or later, you are going to have go back to your equivalent of chopping wood and carrying water so you might as well find a way to enjoy the process of doing so. Even if you would rather not become sullied with "the everyday pity and drama most bring about in life", there is much to be gained from not running from it.

Eventually if you keep Making The Best Of It, you might discover for yourself that it is in integrating your new "enlightenment" with the "everyday pity and drama" that the true joy of physical life reveals itself.

Just my suggestion.

I better get back to that chopping-wood stuff now...and who carried off my mug of water?? :)

I would like to suggest something simple, but the effect could be huge. Stop living in the normal, boring everyday life and instead enter the alternate reality of the "now". Stop thinking so much....

"I feel more connected to Earth and the animals, that is what makes me happy."*

The only time that one can truly feel connected to nature is in the "now". So those times when you felt happy and connected to the Earth or to animals, (maybe you already realize this, maybe you don't) you were in the "now". Only when you can stop thinking for even just a couple seconds is when you suddenly hear the chirping of the birds, the refreshing sound of the wind moving through the leaves of the trees, or notice just how beautiful the weather is ect.

Listening to people on the Internet that channel extraterrestrial beings with their words of love and wisdom really keeps me going.

Again, when you are grossly engaged with all of your focus, weather you are listening, looking, feeling, but all of your attention is directly focused, you stop thinking and you enter the reality of the "now"

When you put all of your focus into the "now", you will see that everything is much different, and even the simple boring things of everyday life are seen in much greater detail and become not so boring. You immediately enter an alternate reality where you are not so much living life but more like observing it and everything is much more clear, calm, peaceful.

Hope this helps!

I've been going through similar things, I quess many people are these times. I think it's about awakening, enlightenment, ascension.. The whole vibration of the earth has changed and people are changing with it.

Have you heard of "ascension symptoms"? This list here might look familiar: Ascension Symptoms

For me this year has been very.. let's say important. Last year was total hell. Everything in my life seemed to go wrong and I felt like I'd lost my "magic touch". Things just didn't work out like they used to. I was desperate and tried to find some help from meditation, chaos magic, tarot cards.. all that stuff. Then finally, I started finding stuff that really helped me. Channeled material, LOA, "new age"-stuff that I had dismissed as fake bs earlier.

So this year I've been going through similar things as you are. Not identical, everybody has their own experience. But yeah, the mundane 3d-world with it's incredibly stupid fear-based problems, bureaucracy, wars, conflicts, relationship-problems etc. just seems outrageous. How can people still go through this same stuff?!

Well, what I've understood, all this **** in the world now is happening for the reason that we collectively have to get all that out of our system so we all can ascend to higher vibrations.

We can aknowledge that very negative things are happening around us but we don't have to experience it ourselves if we choose a different reality. It's about choosing what is real for you. We still will see negative behaviours around us but we don't have to identify with it or be a part of it. We can be an example of a better, more enjoyable and aware way to live.

I don't know if I even answered the actual question here but heyy

I remember such a time in my life. It was a time when I realized that the world made no sense, and the parts that did were too cruel to think about. Being a god seemed purposeless because for all that I had created, those things didn't provide me with any meaningful satisfaction. I was in a pit of despair.

I finally figured it out. I had to do for humanity to get back the good feelings.

Toward that end, my goal was to find the root cause of all of humanity's problems and write a book explaining how we got to this point and how to get out. Now each day is filled with purpose and enthusiasm. I found the problems. I know the solultion. NOw it's just a matter of editing and finding a way to make it go viral or otherwise get the solution known - which I will be manifesting when the editing is done.

What talents or abilities do you have to give to the world? When you get out of yourself, life immediately turns wonderful. The biggest mistake I made was believing that I'm not good enough to help humanity. that was the crippling belief that left me in the pit of despair.

Do you have such a belief? If you could help save the world from itself, how would you do that? If you can't think of anything, then by all means, contact me if you live in the USA. I need a reader and proof-reader and another mind to help me direct the work to the world because our world has recently entered the period of the 6th mass extinction of life on earth. My goal - wake people up to what we have done to ourselves and introduce them to the idea that we are gods.

If saving life on earth is not sufficient motivation for getting out of yourself, I don't know what to suggest. All those who awaken find their way to understanding that we can't lift ourselves up any more without lifting others with us.

I answered this question here.

Here is a repeat of my answer.

There is some kind of Zen quote that says something like, "After you are through being enlightened, take out the garbage!"

It sounds like someone enlightened had a wife! lol

But really if you are enlightened you still have to take out the garbage. You can't have your garbage manifest in the debris can on the street for you. So you can become enlightened but you still have to live like you had always lived maybe with a better disposition of the situation, but still the same. To have a drastic change would be like if you became a full spiritual being and turned your body into the body of light. In other words died and lost your body, then you would become drastically different and not need to do the everyday things most humans must do.

I'm sure had Buddha been alive he wouldn't throw his empty beer can on the ground- he would walk to the trashcan and put it in the proper receptacle.

Hi @allsop so you've experienced an expansion of consciousness, cool.

In regards to what has already been said I would like to say that the reality that I perceive through my human eyes and that other humans can perceive also such as trees, cars, houses etc including my own physical body, is "not" all there is, yes absolutely that corresponds to my experience. What I can see and all other humans can see is the physical visible world, let's call it Story Space.

The feeling that everything is neutral by extension becomes everything is equal and is just one step from true happiness. In other words before enlightenment to coin the words "I chopped wood" and after enlightenment "I chopped wood", I would say that after enlightenment "I joyously and with great pleasure and a deeper understanding of the world chopped wood" :)

So how did I take the next step? Well if there're more to it than the visible world, there must be something else somewhere that cannot be seen through human eyes. If I close my eyes what do I see? I see an Inner Space that seems vast and without limits, it's always there and always has been and most certainly always will be, it's timeless space, infinity.

My Inner Space seems just as vast and endless as my outer space or Story Space where all the physical things appear to be , not only trees, people and houses but also the sun, moon, planets, with a blue background during the day and dark at night when stars can be seen. Clouds sometimes appear in the sky, other times flashes of lightning and trees bend under the stength of the wind, there certainly seem powerful forces at work in the physical world. But do I see all that in my Inner Space? nope, All I can observe is a vast space still and quiet. I can project images onto this space using my mind, in fact I can project anything I wish even extraterrestrials lol though I don't do this because for me they are just figments of imagination that some people use as symbols. A symbol represents the thing that it was originally designed to represent.

What else can I observe in my Inner Space? Well I have bodily sensations pressure under my feet, my elbows, a few tender spots here and there, a slight ringing in my ears, I can also observe thoughts, emotions (feelings) and that's about it really. There ain't much going on in my Inner Space or is there? Well yes there is a lot going on but all I perceive is the tip of the pyramid, there was whole lot of preprogammed stuff in there giving me a false image so how did I bypass all this and get to the truth?

First of all I kept in mind that my most profound hidden motivation for everything I did was always a feeling, whatever I said I wanted or wished for, was just an imagined pathway into the feeling I really ultimately desired, that is complete happiness with a big "H". Take away feelings and all pleasure in life evaporates and I would end up in neutral. And taking the big "H" a little further the hidden motivation for all the things I do to play, express myself, be creative is to experience as wide a variety of emotions as possible. Without the music of life I would wander about aimlessly in limbo land which I have actually experienced during many years.

Realizing that the deepest motivation is abundant happiness allowed me to bypass all my deep rooted falsities, reach a place of deeper knowing and all those falcities evaporated all by themselves.

So what were these internal programs that masked the truth? In short the teachings that there are negative and positive emotions such as joy, excitement, happiness and also anger, fear, worry etc positive is good negative is bad so I must manage these emotions change the bad into good, transmute and or heal them. Since early childhood I've had this drummed into me so many times that they became my beliefs.

Now I know that emotions just are, like the sun just shines nobody really knows why but that's the truth in my own experience. So all emotions can be welcomed just as they are.

So what does abundant happiness feel like , well it feels like this