Waiting for anything to happen in the future takes attention away from what is happening now, and now is the only thing of importance.
I don't denigrate such experiences if they happen, because they can often precipitate, or be accompanied by, numerous realizations. However, for most people they are both a blessing and a curse at the same time. Yes, they can instantly reveal oneness, and remove the fear of death forever, but they then become memories and usually lead to various false conclusions. Most often, they leave the individual looking for more such experiences in the future, and thereby cause them to overlook what is happening now.
A few people (the Buddha, Tolle? etc) have woo woo experiences so massive that they lead to full awakening, but this is extremely rare. The exception rather than the rule. Again, to hope for such an experience takes attention away from what is already here and now. Focusing on THIS--on "what is"-- is the name of the game.
One of the best books that describes what life looks like when there is full acceptance of what is happening now is Byron Katie's book, "A Thousand Faces of Joy." You might want to check that out if you haven't already read it.
Mamza and Enigma have already answered your other question. There is not a "Bad Lisa" who compulsively buys stuff and a "Good Lisa" who doesn't want to do it because there is only one body/mind. Bring consciousness to what is happening, and the split-mind illusion will resolve. The universe manifests however it manifests, and however it manifests is a mystery. Simply watch.
One other piece of advice that many people have found helpful is the use of this question, "What must I be doing this moment, not in the future, but right now?"
Anytime a thought occurs, such as "I wish that I was......" or "If only I could be doing such and such.....or "I ought to be sitting on a mountaintop getting enlightened rather than doing this mundane job," etc, simply ask yourself, "What must I be doing this moment?" This question helps stop mental fantasies in their tracks and brings one back to ground.
If you find yourself stuck in a traffic jam and late for an appointment, and you think, "I can't afford to be late. What will they think? I should have taken a different route," etc. Ask yourself, "What must I be doing this precise moment?" You will realize that you must be sitting in a traffic jam. You will relax and you will begin to accept how reality is manifesting in each moment.
I only began getting out of my head as a result of shifting attention away from thinking to what I could see, hear, feel, taste, and smell. I didn't know that my "problem" was incessant thought, but I had no peace of mind, and I wanted a respite from the voice in my head that had run amok. I began spending an hour each day walking around a gymnasium while counting breaths, an exercise that reportedly could calm the mind. The idea was to count ten breath exhalations and then start over again at "one." Ha ha. I couldn't get to "three!" Nevertheless, I persisted, and after a few weeks, I noticed something that I had never seen even though I had driven by it every day. That surprised me, and I wondered if the breath awareness exercise was changing the way I saw and interacted with the world.
I then added a second hour of looking and listening to my daily schedule. After work, I would walk down a country road and just look and listen. Each time thoughts pulled me away from what I could see or hear I would gently return attention to what the eyes could see or the ears could hear. Again, I had some surprising experiences. For example, I saw animals and birds that I had not seen in many years, and I smelled honeysuckle and new-mown grass for the first time in over a decade. I began to realize that I had lived so totally absorbed by the thoughts in my head that I had been blind to the real world.
With this realization, I added a third hour of breath awareness exercises at night (counting breaths, following the breath, feeling the breath, being the breath, etc). After five months, I began falling into deep states of samadhi in which selfhood disappeared. Shortly thereafter I had a big woo woo experience during which seven of my main existential questions were answered. After that I became a spiritual fanatic (ha ha), and started going on weekend silent retreats.
The more silent I became the more I understood, and eventually I ceased being a spiritual fanatic (a fortunate thing for the people around me!) and became an ordinary person. Gradually I became what we might call "a person of action" rather than a "person of reflection, and life got very simple. Eventually, the mind became seen as a handy tool rather than an enemy, and it no longer mattered whether thinking occurred or didn't occur.
It's important to understand that I did not "get myself out of my head." I reached a point where I saw that the one wanting to get out of its head did not exist, and that there is only one thing here--THIS. But that's another story.
The bottom line? If you did nothing more than walk around looking at the world in silence, you would discover more about what's going on than if you read ten thousand books of philsophy and science. One year of attentive stillness is worth more than fifty years of incessant thought.
I don't denigrate such experiences if they happen, because they can often precipitate, or be accompanied by, numerous realizations. However, for most people they are both a blessing and a curse at the same time. Yes, they can instantly reveal oneness, and remove the fear of death forever, but they then become memories and usually lead to various false conclusions. Most often, they leave the individual looking for more such experiences in the future, and thereby cause them to overlook what is happening now.
A few people (the Buddha, Tolle? etc) have woo woo experiences so massive that they lead to full awakening, but this is extremely rare. The exception rather than the rule. Again, to hope for such an experience takes attention away from what is already here and now. Focusing on THIS--on "what is"-- is the name of the game.
One of the best books that describes what life looks like when there is full acceptance of what is happening now is Byron Katie's book, "A Thousand Faces of Joy." You might want to check that out if you haven't already read it.
Mamza and Enigma have already answered your other question. There is not a "Bad Lisa" who compulsively buys stuff and a "Good Lisa" who doesn't want to do it because there is only one body/mind. Bring consciousness to what is happening, and the split-mind illusion will resolve. The universe manifests however it manifests, and however it manifests is a mystery. Simply watch.
One other piece of advice that many people have found helpful is the use of this question, "What must I be doing this moment, not in the future, but right now?"
Anytime a thought occurs, such as "I wish that I was......" or "If only I could be doing such and such.....or "I ought to be sitting on a mountaintop getting enlightened rather than doing this mundane job," etc, simply ask yourself, "What must I be doing this moment?" This question helps stop mental fantasies in their tracks and brings one back to ground.
If you find yourself stuck in a traffic jam and late for an appointment, and you think, "I can't afford to be late. What will they think? I should have taken a different route," etc. Ask yourself, "What must I be doing this precise moment?" You will realize that you must be sitting in a traffic jam. You will relax and you will begin to accept how reality is manifesting in each moment.
I only began getting out of my head as a result of shifting attention away from thinking to what I could see, hear, feel, taste, and smell. I didn't know that my "problem" was incessant thought, but I had no peace of mind, and I wanted a respite from the voice in my head that had run amok. I began spending an hour each day walking around a gymnasium while counting breaths, an exercise that reportedly could calm the mind. The idea was to count ten breath exhalations and then start over again at "one." Ha ha. I couldn't get to "three!" Nevertheless, I persisted, and after a few weeks, I noticed something that I had never seen even though I had driven by it every day. That surprised me, and I wondered if the breath awareness exercise was changing the way I saw and interacted with the world.
I then added a second hour of looking and listening to my daily schedule. After work, I would walk down a country road and just look and listen. Each time thoughts pulled me away from what I could see or hear I would gently return attention to what the eyes could see or the ears could hear. Again, I had some surprising experiences. For example, I saw animals and birds that I had not seen in many years, and I smelled honeysuckle and new-mown grass for the first time in over a decade. I began to realize that I had lived so totally absorbed by the thoughts in my head that I had been blind to the real world.
With this realization, I added a third hour of breath awareness exercises at night (counting breaths, following the breath, feeling the breath, being the breath, etc). After five months, I began falling into deep states of samadhi in which selfhood disappeared. Shortly thereafter I had a big woo woo experience during which seven of my main existential questions were answered. After that I became a spiritual fanatic (ha ha), and started going on weekend silent retreats.
The more silent I became the more I understood, and eventually I ceased being a spiritual fanatic (a fortunate thing for the people around me!) and became an ordinary person. Gradually I became what we might call "a person of action" rather than a "person of reflection, and life got very simple. Eventually, the mind became seen as a handy tool rather than an enemy, and it no longer mattered whether thinking occurred or didn't occur.
It's important to understand that I did not "get myself out of my head." I reached a point where I saw that the one wanting to get out of its head did not exist, and that there is only one thing here--THIS. But that's another story.
The bottom line? If you did nothing more than walk around looking at the world in silence, you would discover more about what's going on than if you read ten thousand books of philsophy and science. One year of attentive stillness is worth more than fifty years of incessant thought.
