Why You Are Always Unhappy 

This was my Reddit post. I’m beyond grateful and a bit shook at the response from Dr K. I’m still currently trying to process my realizations from this response but I never believed that I had an ego problem. I feel as if though my own beliefs on myself have been completely delusional. I genuinely thought of myself as a humble person but I now see that everything I do and have done has been in the name of my ego and need to feel better…. I just want to say thank you, I need more time to process more of this and digest it but now I have a road paved that I can follow.

"Ego has survival utility but it doesn't have happiness utility. Everyone is looking for happiness using an instrument that was designed for survival. That's why it's hard." Holy shit. Yeah.

This entire channel is basically just reading my mind. I feel both attacked and very validated.

Came for the thumbnail, stayed for the lecture. Thank you Dr. K

"Some of you are gonna be feeling bad and some of you are gonna be feeling chad" actually giggled out loud at that surprise line. gonna quote that for the rest of my life.

Since little, I knew conforming to the norms would get me by. So I never learned to make an effort to apply myself/take care of my needs. Through therapy I learned that it came from trauma - I had the inability to let myself enjoy/be happy. It is still very hard but I am getting better through practice. Good luck guys!

"Addiction to the grind" is an accurate way to put it. Without an internal sense of why you're making that progress to improve your inner self and your connection with the Cosmos, you'll never truly disconnect from the ego and external pressures that stress us out as they eventually scare you out of living your life.

"Veteran" meditator here. For years I couldn't put it into words even though I experienced both the ego chase and the shunya. To balance between detachment and strive for success was the hardest thing to do for me so far. Once you get there it's really easy to see how we're not designed to be happy in the first place. Two things that often help me to keep the balance are 1) pain from ego is the price I pay for existing 2) I can still get that null bliss from dharma and through meditations. Thank you Dr K, deeply grateful for the knowledge I got today.

Love that: "We're designed for survival not happiness."

These posts always seem to start out sounding quite sensational and then slowly becoming more relatable to me. I empathise with getting really good (or at least passable) at something with minimal effort, but once further improvement starts to get hard and require actual active focus rather than autopilot, I move onto something else. I definitely fall into the category of not really having a "passion" for anything that drives me (I would cynically site "consuming media" as my passion). I have never had the experience of 'chasing a dream' and achieving anything great in my life in that sense, and the desire to do so has been one of the hardest parts of me to let go.

This was probably my favorite content so far, as I consistently battle with how much of my ego should I let live, and how much I want to be a part of the ego driven world we live in. It is both very liberating and also terrifying to sit still and be quiet in the world. On one hand, I truly feel peaceful, but on the other hand, I am letting my precious life slip by, and not experiencing potential life changing moments. Those moments tend to become both joyful and sorrowful experiences. The joyful times typically "feel better" than peaceful times, but I don't know if they are worth the cost of living through the painful times.

The more I think about issues talked about on this channel, the more I realize nearly everything comes down to self love, and genuine love/dharma. When those two align, damn that’s special.

The meditation here scared the shit out of me to be honest. This was the first meditation that I actually felt that “no mind state.” And I could feel the “void.” Other meditations never really did much for me, but this one was freaky as hell.

"Progressium"... brilliant. I have been a progressium addict for a long time but the addiction is going away the more I meditate and learn self acceptance.

Dang man that whole post is literally my life. I powerlifted, started hating, one tricked zed almost into plat then quit and now I have existential dread

Holy crap; this meditation is similar to the one I was taught. I hadn't really had the words to describe why all of sudden I felt like many things "don't matter" all of a sudden - but like not in a bad way?

This was interesting, I identified the void as the things I chase, because it's the void I try to fill with externalities by chasing things. I never knew it was there but I was trying to fill it nonetheless. Since the void is impossible to fill because it will always be a void it gave me good perspective on why those pursuits were futile in accomplishing that task and instead resulted in demoralization of further attempts to fill the void. It is not something I can fill and I must accept that, which in turn brings me happiness with my acceptance of the truth. I hope this doesn't become one of those things I forget by tomorrow and continue diving into, it was very enlightening on my spiritual subconscious motivations.

Thank you so so much. I am an archer and have been struggling for years with my shooting. It is a very mental sport and my mind has been what had been holding me back for most of my time shooting. Two days ago, after watching this video and doing the shunya meditation, I shot a personal best for the first time in two years and shot some of the best arrows I’ve ever shot. I did this by focusing on the ‘black box’ while shooting. I’ve got a long way to go with it but the success ive had so far is amazing (ironic as that’s entirely my ego talking)

Dr. K is so smart. Like, I can't believe he read this post and broke down this person's mindset in this way with such ease. I wouldn't have been able to figure that out, so simply.

He gotta start playing fighting games, he won't ever get to the top and can keep staying competitive

holy cow, the second part of the video (post-meditation) should really be a clip of its own, the insights are spot-on

I'm so comfortable with my ego, and it has brought me much happiness, but at the same time it hasn't. Sometimes I feel like absolute garbage, but I'm ok with that, I'm more comfortable with that, than being happy. Being happy at times feels wrong almost, as if that's not me. Then I hit these places of rock bottom, and once I hit rock bottom I have a come back arc, and once I've finally bounced back, I slowly go back down to rock bottom, then bounce back, over and over. The stress and anxiety pushes me forward. I feel as if I let go of my ego, is like going to another school, with a different family, different friends, different culture, and different body. But honestly, these ups and downs have become more and more frequent. It's just alternating days at this point, one day I hit rock bottom, the next I hit the top, and then for me to hit the top again, I have to feel like garbage the next day. I never have a constant stream of happiness, I need to constantly live in chaos.

I just benefited from that immensely. Thank you so much, the moment I felt my inner block i almost cried, the fear, the death of ego, if this retreat happens i would love to be there. I’ve been following for years and I’ll do anything to be apart of such an amazing experience

You're my quasi-therapist for real. Really appreciate you and your thoughts. Thank you Dr. K!

His last statements threw me for a loop: “The real goal is not to get rid of your ego, it’s to be in control your ego.” Isn’t this desire to be in control of one’s ego in itself, egoic? Is this where the concept of superego comes into play? How does being in control of one’s ego relate to the acceptance of Shunya? 🤔

Build yourself up, work hard, and be passionate about life until it becomes routine and feels pointless to even get out of bed. Self-sabotage rolls in. Quit job, start drinking again, smoke all the weeds, play videogames and chat on discord all day. Being this low feels shitty so build yourself up, work hard, and be passionate about life until...

Damn... this is one of the most insightful lessons Ive learned so far (I havent watched all for sure). The ego think makes so much sense. Some of my university teachers in physics have been very shit in teaching, and now that I think about it, it must be because of their ego - theyll rather do it half assedly than actually try and not be good at it. My unhappiness has similarly been because Ive been comparing myself to people who have succeeded earlier than me instead of just focusing on bettering myself.

This is one of the best channels I've come across on twitch and youtube. Thank you so much for doing this and thank you so much for genuinly caring and talking about this.

I use to watch you often and I really liked your content, but somewhere along the way I slowly consumed your content less and less. I recently enrolled in a Yoga Instructor training program and your videos popped back up on my recommended, so I started watching again. What I didn’t realize before, but it’s become so abundantly clear now, is how much you incorporate the practices of Yoga into your practice! And I really dig it! And I understand the concepts you bring up because I’ve now learned about many of them, so it’s really fun for me to hear your say something like “mudra” or “samadhi” and geek out like “OH I KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!!”

I really loved this meditation. Also when you guys plan a retreat don't leave out people who can only watch on youtube. I can never watch stream because it's during my work hours but I am always here on YT.

video already in watch later, thank you really much for your videos (and podcast), love it!

Hey Dr.K! Thanks for putting this into words and introducing these concepts onto me. I had a mild mushroom experience in which I think I experienced Shoonya within myself, infinite empty hole inside me, not in a bad way but not in a good way either. Now I can meditate on this concept beacuse I know its important, probably that experience was leading me down this path but knowing that yogi people have already cracked it all up makes it so much easyer, gotta read more!

Dr. K, please do more content like this. Its genuinely spiritually fulfilling to have a reminder about what impacts our daily lives.

Shunya. That's a word I've been looking for a long time. For me a huge part of Dr. K's lessons is naming things I understand, but can't communicate without paragraphs of words. I would love to speak with Dr. K, on stream sometime. I hope my application is received well.

Wow I was walking to school this morning (which is now lol) thinking why do I keep crying? Why am I so sad? And here you go dropping a video to help me understand literally the same day 🥺 thank you Dr. k

This was actually one of my favorite meditations (so far). I felt a sense of inner peace; it's almost like calmly drifting through space.

This was amazing thanks for this!

This is the piece I was missing, to take the next step. Thank you for putting out into the world in your own signature way, for us to find.

Thank you for getting me to ask myself the important question of “how can I feel nothing?” Incredibly helpful. Ive always found a comfort in the void and imagining things as not real, but I was never sure if this was “healthy”. This has helped me make some sense of it.

This meditation practice was impressive. Thank you so much for your work Dr. K

38:02 OMG! Thank you so much! Thank you for saying it so straight to the point.

This is good stuff man, I really appreciate it!

Thank you Dr. K! I have this very same situation. I saw and felt the void during the guided meditation. I can now see "the nothing" all around. I know I'm dating myself be saying this but maybe there are some 40yr olds that watch this channel? It feels a little like the anticipation of"the nothing" from The Never Ending Story". Everything is unstable and yes there is freedom but its disorienting. Feeling it in myself and around me has relieved the steady ache of finding my next goal to charge at. I'm totally content standing still...its crazy!! Thank you thank you. I will use this in the future for sure! I was getting ready to withdraw from renewing a 2 yr term commitment and now I'm reconsidering filling that position. Without all the stress that come from comparing and grinding my way to find more meaning or to be better than....it seems doable!

Literally just descovered this channel and watched 2 1 hour videos and as soon as it's over this is uploaded... Perfect timing

Gonna have to run this one a few times. Wonderful

Shunya may feel like being free, but like if reality is an illusion how is that comforting. I feel it strips reality from its meaning when shunya says everything is in fact nothing. If reality isn’t real, and it doesn’t have meaning what’s the purpose of life? If life has no meaning than let’s all go be dead you know. I hate that way of perceiving reality. What makes us human is our bonds we make, our conscience, we thinking, innovating, having goals and dreams. Yes our ego shouldn’t be bigger than our heads but like it’s all in moderation. With shunya it feels like it gotta be all or nothing. Yes we exist, but we have the capacity to be more than just existing. We can live! Reality is relative to everyone, we just gotta learn to not be affected by concepts implemented by our society, not take away the validity of every concept ever.

I'm realizing that Enlightenment stuff isn't like a journey, where the goal is far away and you have to make progress to get there. It's more like being blind and feeling around in the vast darkness. Enlightenment is always _right there_ for you to find it. You can even recoil from it and ignore it. But it's always right there.

Shoonya felt like I am meeting an old friend that I haven't seen in a while, when i reached there I smiled and almost had tears. It felt like when I was writing my diary putting down everything without judgment. it felt like a space that I always aspire to go to whenever I'm faced with any difficult in life.

Wow, the meditation. I tried it and it legit worked. Unbelievable feeling. I felt something switch on in my mind. Then when Dr K said to come back to the external, I got overwhelmed with emotion. Something felt like it got released? It made tear up. That was unbelievable.

Thank you very much. I've been wanting to learn shoonya for a year now with no resources I could find. This practice is truly transformational

I did shoonya for the first time now and I felt it. I sorta didn't want to come back from the practice. It was so peaceful. Weird, never had that happen during meditation even though I already had nice experiences with meditation. I underatand detachment now, like dr K said, but I also don't want to to be detached from people I love and feelings related to them, even if negative. I sorta choose to be attached.

I’m not a doctor, but let me propose an alternative explanation from my own experience. I like trying new things. The novelty of learning something new, and gaining skill rapidly is very exciting to me in the beginning and I don’t feel like this part is a grind. It’s once you get pretty good at something that it becomes grindy. For me I think it’s the serotonin hit I get in the early part of learning that keeps me Interested. But once you get to the grindy part, the repetitive practice or acquiring of higher level skills that it starts to become dull for me. I don’t think this is an ego issue. Laziness maybe. I do the same with games. They’re really fun in the beginning, but once I start having to perform the same tasks over and over, that’s usually when I stop and try a new game. It’s really unfortunate how this carries over in real life though. I’ve learned a lot of interesting skills but never really stuck with anything long enough to read the highest benefits because they get boring for me.

WOW, thanks for this

"Wanting to be the best, fundamentally, causes you to lose control over your life" 16:06 another banger 🔥

That was awesome, thx doc!

When I close my eyes I can still sense my room around me. Not because I can see it or feel it in any way, but just because I think that it's there.

this video is so good! it's part of my daily routine now xD

Thank you so much, Dr K!

The meditation practice actually freaked me out, what an experience. I have always been an avid meditator but that type of meditation was something entirely different and new for me

This made such a bizarrely huge amount of sense, like each description he gave was like he was stealing my thoughts.

Very good video. Thoroughly enjoyed

Thank you for this Doctor K. "shunya" is putting a name to something I've been feeling in meditation for a little while now, I just thought it was a natural thing to occur with meditation.

I really appreciate the perspective that Dr.K has

I was about to make a post similar to this one, Im a commission sales man too, thank you for making this post and the response from Dr.K

Thank you Dr. K ❤️

Even before watching Dr.K's assessment, I can tell this guy is addicted to making the easy progress, going after the lowest hanging fruits, and quitting once the going gets actually tough. Look at the specific figures - 100k salary, strongest guy at his local gym, diamond - these are all very much on the very right side distribution on their respective scales, but nowhere close to the TOP of the TOP. The way that things work in life is, the law of diminishing returns hits hard once we get to a certain part along the process for ANYTHING. It's actually much easier to go from Bronze to Diamond in LOL than to go from Diamond to Challenger / Grand Master. It's relatively easy to become the strongest person in your local gym than compared to becoming a powerlifting champion of your weight class / region (depends a lot on where you live - imagine living in Texas lmao, being the strongest in any weight class in TX would be a huge feat). So while this person may think he's tried hard enough and accomplished a lot and can't seemingly figure out why he loses interest past a certain point - I'd argue it's because you are not ready to step up to the next gear and REALLY go for something with all his heart. He's just figured out a way to fast-track himself to like 80-90th percentile of the distribution, but isn't willing to go from there to the 95-99th percentile. I've seen too many people around me fall into this category, actually. A lot of my peers in college were like - I got to so-and-so school, I'm done, and outright stop their academic pursuits right there then. I have friends who habitually switch out hobbies after getting decently good at them (let's say close to the top 10% of the participants), because they get "bored." Such "condition" is common amongst people with decently high aptitude for things who get conditioned to living the life on the easy mode. And yes, I was and in some ways, still am very much like this. Ultimately, it's up to you to realize that there are LEVELs to everything, and pick out things you really wanna go all the way with, and familiarizing yourself with the grind and delayed gratification.

me, while doing the meditation: "hmm, can I feel my liver? I don't know if I'm feeling my liver or if I'm really feeling nothing"

I've been meditating for a while now and that "Nothingness" meditation was really unique and novel to me, I've recently been reading "Being & Nothingness" by Sartre and he asserts that there is a nothingness at the core of being, something I could just about conceptually get my head around. But I just partially felt it, it feels so validating and that helps me integrate this into my emotions. I'm super grateful for Dr K doing this kind of meaningful work here, he's honestly helped me so much.

This channel is truly a light in our dark times. Thank you

Thanks Dr.K, this segment has changed my perspective on life entirely.

Shoonya is such a bizarre experience. I've quite regularly sat down and let myself feel myself feel the natural sensations of the body like the first half of the meditation. However, I never would have expected to reach a point where there were no internal sensations at that core. I had to feel myself around the area which, was around the upper part of the sternum for me, just to verify it and while I could feel those sensations it was as if the sensation mostly wrapped around that void. Whatever few sensations that went through the void I could feel just before they entered but then it was lost and suddenly reappeared out the other side. Was kind of off-putting the first time, but then I tried it again and focused the internal sensations around that empty core and was like "let go" and proceeded to drop into a that metaphorical pit. I can tell why he used the word dissolve for ego, because it really does feel like those internal sensations fizzle outward as they disappear. Even some subconscious things I wasn't even attending to like the forehead strain and keeping my arms up was caught in the dissipation. Was a familiar experience, but it usually took a much longer time to reach than it did from this meditation. Definitely great that this experience was highlighted. Being able to feel this is really cleansing and helps me be comfortable with myself. Don't need to think about wants or needs cause I'm just chillin' in this pit.

You, sir, have earned my subscription with this very video.

I think the bus isn't the best place for guided meditation, but that was a really nice surprise to experience during a random video I opened to listen to in the background while trying to relax XD

THIS VIDEO CAME AT THE RIGHT TIME FOR ME ! I felt exactly the same way as the OP!

This guy’s problem is EGO. Why I know this? (Besides this guy’s ego being really obvious) because I was there. I kept failing despite being a gifted person because my reason for doing things was ego. Humility can take you a long way, my life has changed so much since I do things for the pleasure of the ride than achieving some recognition or a degree. It is a LIE that you get Good at things really fast, that’s an illusion you create. Getting good at things takes TIME and practice, this is the humbling lesson he needs to learn.

This is probably the most significant video from Dr. K (for myself) yet.

Your word play is beautifully inspiring

This post is literally what I've been dealing with this week, I even thought about posting it on the subreddit today and this comes up. No i'm not crying, you're crying.

I was able to feel shunya. Phenomenal guidance with the meditation, btw. I realized that shunya exists in so many places I never thought of before. I now better understand what people mean of happiness coming from within.

37:28 When he talked about using spirituality as a means to an end that really hit me… Makes so much sense

That shoonya stuff blew my mind! It's scary and exciting at the same time.

That brief mediation was tripped out literally felt like I was in a massive void and I was the smallest “entity” was pretty scary ngl but enjoyable at the same time it was an experience I’ve never felt

this shoonya meditation thing... I get the sense that if you're constantly aware of it the likeliness of you experiencing a lucid dream increases because it's easier to notice that the "reality" around is less "real" when you're dreaming

that meditation was amazing!!!

I quit because I dont get fullfilled while improving, nor when i reached my goals, at that point I dont see reason to keep trying. And no matter what I do, it's always the same. I dont care about reaching the goals i set for myself, they mean nothing if i dont have anyone that i care for to share with.

I needed this

What an amazing technique, thanks Dr K for introducing it to us. For those who couldn't do Shoonya, please don't be discouraged! Its highly advanced but there is a way to get there, keep researching more about it and practicing🙏

holy shit this is exactly my case u hitted spot on thanks so much Dr K

This video was very educational and it helped me a lot 😁

amazing lecture/video

This video hits personal

I've felt that hollow before and I thought I just wasn't strong enough to allow the sensations to cover that region. 🤦‍♀️ This was a great video.

2021 has been me going from mentally unwell to a half performer, going from survival mode to simply existing. Let's hope 2022 I take that next step from existing to success

For the person who asked about how to balance the ego with spirituality, I find that working on balancing the chakras helps. The lower 3 chakras are rooted in the ego and deal with our relationship with our physical reality, with ourselves and with other people. They are typically thrown out of balances by experiences we deal with in our everyday lives. The higher 3 chakras are the more spiritual energy centers and are rooted in our spirituality and dealt without relationship to anyone or anything but the true essence of being (the void, nullness that Dr K. mentions or the inner voice talked about in the bible) essentially, that sense of knowing that can't be explained logically. The heart chakra is special and it's sort of a transition from ego to spiruality and acts as sort of a spring board to the higher 3 energy centers, but arguably the most difficult to work with. If you want to live a balanced life, without delving too much into ego or spirituality, work on balancing all the energy centers.

Im not that experienced in Meditation but nontheless i feel like i grasped the gist of the meditation and it really blew my head, definitly gonna follow this path and see what expieriences i can make on the way! Thank you very much for this special insight dr.k wirhout you i doubt that i would have found this interesring path.

This and so many videos on the channel hit hard. I went to school on a med path, switched to Psych BA when I realized I didn’t wanna be a doctor, I’m graduating in a week, and I don’t know where to go next. I don’t want to go back to uni for another bachelors, and I’ve considered a graduate degree in forensic psych, but where do I even go from there if I have ZERO idea of what to do now. I was a pretty meh student but I made it. I work out, go to church, try to participate in community activities but at the end of the day I’m directionless. I have no friends because I know I barely try to. I’m just discontent and spend my days on the computer researching things I think will make me happy or economically secure… :/

This was a great video

I always comeback and re-watch your videos when I'm on the edge of the hardest parts of my life and brink of suicide, You saved myself alone more times than anyone else in my life, and only god knows how many other people were directly or indirectly were saved by you, You are hero to me ,people who care about me and so many on this earth. Thank you.

the purest form of happiness a human can achieve is through love. everything else creates very temporary senses of happiness but love can leave you fulfilled for an entire lifetime and beyond. and it doesnt require harming others to achieve. makes you find the highest levels of fulfillment in the smallest of things. hearing or seeing the person, holding their hand, eating a meal or watching a movie with them. saving lives from imminent danger is really the only other thing i can think of thats produced the same level of fulfillment that i've experienced. cant really imagine anything else bringing more happiness than those things.. maybe creating healthy/happy children and seeing them not struggle/suffer but i think you'd have to be a psycho to want anyones children to be unhealthy and suffering so thats just a baseline expectation of the human experience imo.

The ego is what traps you doing something you used to enjoy, but now doing it makes you feel stuck