By hermit-type, I don’t mean that I dislike people. I’m good with people one-on-one, especially in deeper conversations. I just have very little tolerance for shallow networking, constant visibility rituals, and the endless performance of making myself marketable.

Relevant links:
https://ponderingsilver.com/

https://ponderingsilver.com/resume

https://www.youtube.com/@pondering-silver

Setup:
I've been a software developer for the past 7 years, see resume, but the company I was working with lost their contract with the client and then offloaded me because the market shifted to a different tech stack - (Mostly React and Node.js it seems). Anyway, I've been applying for jobs for the past 5 months, and had interviews, even make it to the final round a few times... But never managed to actually get re-hired.

I've done all I can on this front. Optimized my resume, applied to new jobs daily, leveraged AI to find the most relevant and highly aligned jobs I could, tailored my responses directly to the jobs I was applying for, shifted scope to widen it to look for jobs outside my expertise but still aligned enough to potentially be workable/feasible, uploaded projects to my github, created and hosted a few apps on vercel as portfolio items... Yeah... (Amusement).

This last time getting to the final round of the interview process and then having the other candidate selected was the final straw... I need my own economic freedom that isn't dependent on a particular individual or company giving me permission to work...

That said... I am also very spiritual and a decent writer. I think I have more passion around my writing and my spirituality than I do as a programmer. I've extensive experience going through the healing journey and processing my various traumas, a wide range of experiences of being in the army, moving to different countries, being in a bad relationship, having kids, etc... So my contact with Life is quite high... (Amusement)

On this front... I've created a website, I blog there when time allows and thoughts want to be reflected, I published a book to Amazon, I started a YouTube channel and tried to make content there when I can - I'm not in ideal circumstances to make audio recordings though.... And, I even recently created a breathwork app that is in closed beta testing that I'm offering up to the public for free - anyone want to sign up to be a tester please feel free to DM and I'll give you the details.

That being said, I'm struggling to figure out how to support myself in this new endeavor.

I'm great at working with people one on one. I offer life coaching services and healing services - mostly donation based, I'd prefer a donation based version of my dreams coming true, pay what you can models as people are really struggling at the moment.

(Dark amusement) - I mean... if one looks objectively at my life... My bank account is zero, I'm without a job, in a foreign country where I barely the language because my last job wanted me to move - (I suppose for tax reasons maybe?), I lost my job a week before Christmas, my sister died on Christmas, my mother is struggling to recover from cancer, my father died, my brother was murdered... My ex was toxic and I needed to get a divorce because staying in the relationship was extremely bad for my mental health... I had a rough childhood...

Yet... I'm mostly at peace, no worry or anxiety, no depression, no other habitual negative emotional states... I still have strong emotional responses, but they pass through like weather. I really have done a lot of healing work, and studied many different self-help and healing modalities, applied them, picked my patterns apart to re-orient myself so that I could build the best damn ship I possibly could to whether the chaos of life... (Amusement).

So I KNOW I have a lot to offer in this space, I've worked with others and helped them and got a lot of great feedback...

Yet, despite this...

I'm not very close to having my goals come to life and be able to support me on their own.

If the world had UBI it would be no problem... I could just take my time and the lack of pressure to spend my time doing what I needed to do to slowly grow. But, as it is, I'm constantly battling between trying to find a job, to get money, to keep myself off the streets... to feed myself, and to feed my girlfriend, her kid, and the dog... (Amusement).

Life is coming apart at the seems and it is gonna get very messy very quickly... But, I'm okay with that, better to let it all explode and get it over with and see where I land and what my state looks like after the fact so I know what I can work with when I'm there, than this unknown unfolding... Though this unknown unfolding is part of the journey too... (Chuckles).

It is what it is...

I think I'm meandering quite a bit so I should hone this into the TLDR questions....

(Contemplates) - What do I need to know...

I already have the foundation... But I hate marketing or trying to sell myself, constant 'networking' is very draining for me. I'm a sexual 5 enneagram type and our social battery is almost non-existent... (Amusement). I'd rather go live in a cave and meditate in complete silence than spend too much time networking and marketing myself... (Shrugs).

However, I still need a way to 'be visible' and 'be someone people trust enough to take a chance on'. I'm great at one on one interactions, and I don't find connecting deeply with someone draining, I can bring genuine presence to a conversation and dive deep into their being with them to help them discover and uncover more about themselves by holding the container for them to do the genuine work involved with deep introspection and self-discovery work to truly get in touch with the undercurrents of who they are, the essence within them that is childlike and innocent and sometimes just wants to be witnessed without being judged.

There is also the time crunch factor... If I had all the time in the world and nothing draining my energy... I could invest into YouTube to the extent that it could serve as the central attractor, by merely providing value to people and creating good content and figuring out how to do all the things needed to make it work. I'm generally good at figuring things out.

It's mostly: Produce enough high quality content that meaningfully contributes to the lives of others, demonstrate your competency in public through the content you share, be vulnerable and someone people can connect to, be authentic, be real... and once you've attracted your particular tribe, you can offer them ways to support you that align with their own interests such as merch... or just attract petrean like artists of old did...

It's a numbers game... 100k people think your awesome, 1k people willing to support you, and you're making more than enough to survive if not thrive in your dream...

But that's the long game... What to do with the short game...

I'm in the 'let life happen, if it's meant to be it will be' energy at the moment, but I want to take more agency and responsibility than that to actively move toward making it happen.

Especially because I have people that depend on me, from the dog, to my girlfriend who moved to another country to be with me, to the kid... To my own children...

Le sigh... lol... Life can be rough sometimes... Meh... (Amusement).

Thank you in advance to anyone who takes the time to read this and offer grounded advice. I know this is a lot, and I know my situation is a little unusual, but I’d genuinely appreciate perspective from people who have built businesses, found clients, grown audiences, survived weird transitional life chapters, or figured out how to make their work visible without betraying their own nature in the process.

AI Generated TLDR:
I’m a 7-year software developer who has been trying to get rehired for the past 5 months, including making it to final rounds, but nothing has landed yet. At the same time, I have a deeper pull toward writing, spirituality, healing work, coaching, and building things that help people become more honest, integrated, and at peace within themselves.

I already have some foundation: a website, blog, YouTube channel, published book, coaching/healing offerings, and a breathwork app currently in closed beta. I’m good with people one-on-one, especially in deep, honest, introspective conversations, but I really struggle with marketing, networking, constant visibility, and self-promotion. I’m more of a hermit-type than a natural salesperson.

The long-term vision makes sense to me: create meaningful content, offer real value, attract the right people over time, and eventually build a livelihood around writing, coaching/healing work, apps, donations, supporters, and maybe paid offerings. But the short-term reality is much harder: I’m broke, unemployed, responsible for people who depend on me, and trying to figure out what the most realistic next move is before things fall apart financially.

So my real question is:

How would someone like me attract clients, supporters, customers, or opportunities without becoming a professional self-promoter?

What would you focus on first from here: coaching/healing sessions, writing, YouTube, the breathwork app, donations/supporters, or some hybrid path I’m not seeing?

I’m especially interested in practical advice for the short-term bridge between “I have meaningful work to offer” and “this can actually support my life.”

Video Recitation: https://youtu.be/lw9r7ZTsqWo

Music is behind the working of the whole universe. Music is not only life's greatest object, but it is life itself. Sound is the force of creation, the true whole. Music then becomes the voice of the great Cosmic Oneness and, therefore, the optimal way to reach this final state of healing.

What science cannot declare, art can suggest. What art suggests silently, poetry speaks aloud. But what poetry fails to explain in words, music can express. Whoever knows the mystery of vibrations indeed knows all things. In ancient times, the greatest of the prophets were great musicians.

The mystery of sound is mysticism. The harmony of life is religion. The knowledge of vibrations is metaphysics. The analysis of atoms is science, and their harmonious grouping is art. The rhythm of form is poetry, and the rhythm of sound is music. This shows that music is the art of arts and a science of all sciences, and it contains a fountain of all knowledge within itself.

Music is the basis of the whole creation. In reality, the whole of creation is music, and what we call music is simply a miniature of the original music, which is creation itself expressed in tone and rhythm. Divine sound is the cause of all manifestation. The knower of the mystery of sound knows the mystery of the whole universe.

What makes us feel drawn to music is that our whole being is music—our mind and body, the nature in which we live, and the nature which has made us all that is beneath and around us. It is all music. We as adults think that we appreciate music, but if we realize the sense that an infant has brought with it of appreciating sound and rhythm, we would never boast of knowing music—the infant is music itself.

Each human personality is like a piece of music, having an individual tone and a rhythm of its own. Life is a symphony, and the action of every person in this life is the playing of their particular part in the music.

There are two aspects of individual harmony: the harmony between body and soul and the harmony between individuals. All the tragedy in the world, in the individual and in the multitude, comes from a lack of harmony, and harmony is best given by producing harmony in one's own life. Each individual composes the music of their own life. If they injure another, they bring disharmony. When their sphere is disturbed, they are disturbed themselves, and there is a discord in the melody of their life.

If one can quicken the feeling of another to joy or to gratitude, by that much they add to their own life and become by that much more alive. Whether conscious of it or not, one's thought is affected for the better by the joy or gratitude of another, and one's power and vitality increase thereby, and the music of one's life grows more in harmony.

Music is the language of the soul, and for two people of different nations or races to unite, there is no better means than music. There is nothing better than music as a means for the upliftment of the soul. A person does not hear sound only through the ears; one hears sound through every pore of the body. It permeates our entire being. My heart is tuned to the quietness that the stillness of nature inspires. The person who is in tune with the universe becomes like a radio receiver through which the voice of the universe is transmitted.

When I open my eyes to the outer world, I feel myself as a drop in the sea. But when I close my eyes and look within, I see the whole universe as a bubble raised in the ocean of my heart. To attain peace, what one has to do is to seek that rhythm which is in the depth of our being. The whole of life is as music, and in order to study life, we must study it as music. It is not only study; it is also practice which makes us perfect.

If someone tells me that a certain person is miserable or wretched or distressed, my answer will be that they are out of tune. Music touches our innermost being and, in that way, produces new life—a life that gives exaltation to the whole being, raising it to that perfection in which lies the fulfillment of one's life.

There is nothing in the world that does not speak to us. Everything and everybody reveals its own nature, character, and secrets continuously. The more open our inner senses, the more we understand the voice of everything. Everything in life is speaking, in spite of its apparent silence.

Video Recitation: https://youtu.be/lw9r7ZTsqWo

Link to Video: How To Worship the Non-Dual Shiva

Based on the deep teachings of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra explored in the transcript, worshipping the "non-dual Shiva" requires a complete and radical dismantling of our traditional ideas about religion, ritual, and separation.

Because the non-dual Shiva is not a separate deity sitting in the sky, but rather your own consciousness and the consciousness of all things, you cannot worship Him using standard dualistic methods (where "I" am the lowly human worshipping "You," the distant God).

Here is exactly how to worship the non-dual Shiva, according to the lecture:

1. Radically Expand Your Definition of Puja (Worship)

In non-dual Shaivism, there is nothing that is not Shiva. Therefore, any action can be an act of supreme worship if done with the right awareness.

• Worship is everyday life: You do not need to be at an altar to perform a puja. Eating a bowl of ramen with a friend, making someone laugh, feeding a cat, DJing at a club, or doing your job—these are all pujas.
• Pleasing the Divine: The purpose of worship is to please or satisfy the Divine. Because every being is Shiva/Shakti, if you can make one person smile or relieve the suffering of one animal, you have successfully satisfied God and completed your puja for the day.
• Formal ritual is optional but beautiful: The speaker notes that formal rituals (offering fire, flowers, chanting mantras) are wonderful, and he does them daily. However, they are the "kindergarten of religion." You do them out of overflowing joy and love, not because God will be angry if you miss them.

2. Recognize Shiva in the "Other"

The core mental practice of worshipping the non-dual Shiva is unbroken recognition. The speaker explicitly outlines how to navigate the world with this mindset:

• When you look at someone: Say to yourself, "I am seeing Shiva only."
• When you act: Hold the awareness, "I am doing this to Shiva."
• When something happens to you: Recognize, "Shiva Himself is doing this to me." Because the one looking through your eyes is the exact same Consciousness looking through the eyes of the person across from you, every interaction is simply Shiva playing with Shiva.

3. Use Shakti as the "Gateway" to Shiva

You cannot actually "think" about Shiva. By definition, the absolute Shiva is the Void—beyond space, time, direction, and thought. The moment you think of a form (even a blue man with a trident), you are thinking of a mental construct (vikalpa).

• The Practice: To worship Shiva, you must look at Shakti.
• Shakti is the world of forms, nature, energy, and your own mind and body. The text declares that "Shakti is the face of Shiva."
• Therefore, you worship the invisible, formless Absolute (Shiva) by fully engaging with, loving, and honoring the visible, tangible universe and the people in it (Shakti). The world is the mirror that reflects Shiva's face back to Himself.

4. Practice the Mantra of Radical Relaxation: "What the F***, Relax"

One of the most profound forms of worship in this tradition is to drop your spiritual anxiety.

• We often use religion to create problems for ourselves ("I ate garlic, I am impure," or "I missed my meditation, I am bad").
• Because you are inherently full, perfect, and literally made of Consciousness, you do not need to do anything to earn God. You cannot become more spiritual, and you cannot become less spiritual.
• Worshipping the non-dual Shiva means resting in your own innate fullness (Sahaja Aham Bhava—your spontaneous "I am-ness"). It means enjoying your life, dropping guilt, and recognizing that even your "mistakes" are just Consciousness exploring itself.

5. Cultivate Joy over Duty

If your spiritual practice makes you grumpy, judgmental, or condescending, it is broken. How can misery produce enlightenment? In this Shaiva/Shakta tradition, the ultimate reality is defined as Bliss (Ananda). Therefore, the way to worship is through joy. Whatever you do—whether it's singing, dancing, conversing, or sitting in silence—do it with the light-heartedness of knowing it is all just a divine play, a "city of fairies in the sky."

Summary: To worship the non-dual Shiva is to wake up every day and realize you are walking through a universe made entirely of God. You worship Him not by retreating from the world in fear, but by plunging into the world with love, seeing His face in everyone you meet, and resting in the joyful certainty that you are already perfectly full.

Link to Video: How To Worship the Non-Dual Shiva

Link: https://tantra112.app/full-text

What is the Vijñāna-bhairava-tantra?

The Vijñāna Bhairava Tantra is a classical Sanskrit text from the spiritual tradition of Kashmir Shaivism/Trika Tantra, a school of Hindu philosophy centered on direct realization of consciousness.

You can consider it as 112 methods that potentially lead toward Recognition of non-dual states of awareness. It's fundamentally a set of Tantric meditations and contemplations that can be done in the day to day life of the practitioner to recognize their Oneness with all of reality, not intellectually, but experientially.

For a more Bhakti style tome of transmission related to the VBT, you can look for Osho's Book of Secrets, for a more academic perspective that is still practitioner centric, you can use the Tantra 112 app, link already provided. It has Christopher Wallis (Hareesh) doing many guided meditations and deep dives into the world of Trika Tantra.

Just sharing this here as an entry point into the tradition. Since the tradition is meant to be practices in life, and not from a monastic perspective, it tends to embrace life in all it's aspects, especially the senses, at gateways to the Divine... (Amusement). Even if it does have a hierarchy of which is 'better', it still doesn't judge and tries to meet everyone where they are at, and even people not seeking Liberation, will find lots of 'release' here as they embrace the Shiva and Shakti of it all and learn to sink deeper into their Play...

Video Link: Partying As Spiritual Practice | Sukhopaya, The Path of Bliss

Core Thesis: The Synthesis of Joy and Liberation

The speaker challenges the traditional dichotomy found in many spiritual traditions that pits worldly enjoyment (Bhoga/Vishayananda) against spiritual bliss (Yoga/Brahmananda). Drawing heavily from the philosopher Abhinavagupta, the speaker argues for Sukhopaya (the path of pleasure). In this view, the universe is not a prison or an illusion to be escaped, but a divine poem, a play (Leela), and a mirror reflecting the dynamic joy of the absolute consciousness (Shiva). Therefore, to celebrate, enjoy art, eat good food, have sex, and party can be profound acts of spiritual realization, provided one holds the correct metaphysical view.

Part 1: Deconstructing Competing Worldviews

To establish this Tantric viewpoint, the speaker critiques the two dominant paradigms of understanding reality:

1. Materialist Reductionism (The Paradigm of Hedonism)

• The View: Matter is fundamental. Consciousness is merely an emergent property (an epiphenomenon) generated by chemical and electrical signals in the brain.
• The Resulting Lifestyle: Consumer capitalism and empty hedonism. If matter is real, the goal of life is to accumulate material objects or sensory experiences to find happiness.
• The Flaws:
  • The Hard Problem of Consciousness: Science cannot prove how or why inert matter generates subjective, first-person experience.
  • Category Error: You cannot use science (the study of objects) to find consciousness (the ultimate subject/observer).
  • The Phenomenological Proof: You have never actually experienced "matter" outside of your consciousness. Everything you call the "objective world" is actually an experience happening within your subjective awareness.

2. Subjective Idealism / Advaita Vedanta (The Paradigm of Asceticism)

• The View: Only consciousness (Brahman) is real. The world is an error, a superimposition, or an illusion (Maya), akin to mistaking a rope for a snake.
• The Resulting Lifestyle: Asceticism, monasticism, and the rejection of the world. The goal is Nirvikalpa Samadhi (a formless, world-less trance state).
• The Flaws:
  • It creates a hypocritical schism where you experience the world as real but force yourself to philosophically declare it unreal.
  • It leads to "dry, suicidal advice" (a quote from Vivekananda), effectively killing the human experience to cure the disease of suffering. It fosters judgment toward those who choose to engage with the world.

Part 2: The Tantric Metaphysic (Shaiva Monism)

To bridge the gap between hedonism and asceticism, the speaker introduces the metaphysics of Trika/Shaiva non-duality.

• Consciousness as the Ultimate Subject: Borrowing from Samkhya philosophy, the speaker proves that you are not your body, mind, intellect, or ego. Why? Because you can observe them. If you can point to it, count it, or observe it, it is an object. Consciousness (Purusha / Shiva) is the formless, spaceless, timeless Subject observing these objects.
• There is No "Outside": Samkhya fails because it posits multiple souls and an independent material universe. Shaivism corrects this: Where does matter end and spirit begin? Nowhere. Because all objects, bodies, and minds appear within consciousness, they are made of consciousness.
• Vimarsha (Self-Reflexivity): Unlike Advaita Vedanta’s static Brahman, Shiva is dynamic. He possesses Vimarsha—the power of self-awareness. Shiva loves to reflect Himself to Himself in infinite, novel ways.
• Maya as a Mirror, Not a Veil: The world is not a mistake or a "snake on a rope." It is the magic power (Shakti) of Shiva. The universe is Shiva's body. God manifests the world for no other reason than play (Leela) and delight.

Part 3: The Aesthetic Theory of Liberation (Poetics & Rasa)

This is the most unique contribution of the Kashmir Shaiva tradition. Abhinavagupta draws from Indian poetics (Dhvanyaloka by Anandavardhana) to explain how liberation feels.

• The World as a Poem (Dhwani): Dhwani refers to "suggestion" in poetry—the idea that a great poem means more than its literal words. Materialists just look at the rhyme scheme of the world (physics, atoms). Advaitins say the poem is an illusion. The Shaiva tantric reads the poem of the world and feels the profound, divine meaning it suggests.
• Shanta Rasa (The Flavor of Peace): Rasa means aesthetic flavor or juice. Shanta Rasa is the baseline state of knowing you are the eternal, untouched witness (Shiva).
• Safety Breeds Intimacy: When you watch a horror movie, you enjoy the terror (Bhayanaka Rasa) because you secretly know you are safe on your couch. Similarly, once you realize you are the eternal, formless Shiva, you are perfectly safe. Because you are safe, you don't need to run to a cave; you can plunge intimately into the "movie" of life, fully enjoying its madness, beauty, and pain without being bound by it.

Part 4: The Practices of Sukhopaya (The Path of Pleasure)

Because the world is Shiva’s joyful expression, worldly bliss is not a distraction; it is a direct portal to the Divine. The speaker references the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra (verses 65–74), which lists practices for realizing God through pleasure:

• Eating and Drinking: When eating delicious food or drinking, do not just focus on the object (the food). Notice the blooming, expanding joy (Ullasa) inside you. Realize that this joy is your own divine nature, and merge into that feeling.
• Sexuality and Sensuality: During sexual union, or even when remembering past sexual intimacy, focus the mind on the intense, pervasive bliss of the act. The bliss experienced in an orgasm is a micro-dose of the bliss of the Absolute.
• Art and Music: When listening to music, allow the sound to intensify your presence. The rapture you feel is the aesthetic delight of consciousness tasting itself.
• Social Joy: The sudden joy of seeing a long-lost friend is a flash of pure consciousness. Meditate on that flash.
• Jokes and Magic: Enjoying a comedy or a magic trick helps you realize the universe is an absurd, beautiful illusion meant to be delighted in, not feared.

Part 5: Reclaiming "Partying" and "Bhakti"

The speaker frames the entire lecture as a response to people he met at raves who felt guilty for partying, fearing it was a "sin" or unspiritual.

• The Spiritual Raving Tradition: The speaker notes that Jesus' first miracle was keeping a party going (turning water to wine). Sri Ramakrishna was constantly in a state of joyous intoxication, singing, dancing, and encouraging theater and art. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was the "original spiritual raver," gathering people for ecstatic chanting (Kirtan).
• Bhakti as Participation: Bhakti comes from the root Bhaj, meaning to participate. True devotion is not isolating oneself; it is congregational. We party and celebrate together because there is only One Being (Shiva) in the room, enjoying Himself through a multitude of forms.
• Beyond Purity and Impurity: In a non-dual universe, concepts of "pure" (temples, meditation) and "impure" (wine, raves, sex) collapse. If consciousness is everything, then wine, dance floors, and desire are equally made of God.

Summary Conclusion

The ultimate state of liberation (Jivanmukti) in this tradition is to be like Bhairava: eyes wide open, engaging with the world in a state of poetic rapture (Chamatkara). You are the One (the eternal witness), and every worldly experience (a rave, a piece of cake, a song) is just adding a "zero" behind the One, multiplying its value. Partying, when done with the recognition that you are God playing with God, is a supreme spiritual practice.

Video Link: Partying As Spiritual Practice | Sukhopaya, The Path of Bliss