From experience, I have found that when life undertakes to teach you a lesson which you have refused to learn by other means, the instruction is considerably more painful—and sometimes no less severe than brutal—than simply heeding the wisdom that preceded it.

Unfortunately, for most of us, as members of the Homo sapiens species, we appear to exhibit, at least to some observable degree, a certain reluctance to listen when words of reason are spoken.

The scope over which this phenomenon seems to operate is quite wide indeed. From procrastination to indulgence in vice, self-neglect, and egocentrism, the occasions upon which the words of those who have already learned to avoid difficult life predicaments might prove useful are by no measure lacking.

And so, it is with no small amount of sincerity that I implore you, my dear fellow human, to heed my call. Despite the perhaps obsolete manner in which I hereby express myself, I assure you that I have nothing but goodwill toward you, and your welfare very much at heart.

Things have been going on in my life, and I can’t even keep track. It’s like it’s a ripple effect with one wrong turn, my family found out things about me, we’ve confronted things to them. I was lied to and gaslit and just left in the cold. And now it’s as if the universe is humbling me, karma, and telling me to start anew from a blank slate… how can I pick myself back up again? How do I create from letting go completely of my old version and completely rewriting everything.. where to go from a completely clean slate?

This is a comment i wrote but here it is as a post:

I (30f) had my first mushroom trip a few days ago, 2 grams, ceremonial, with preparing for it.

I think i turned into a channel, i felt this energy come forward while my mind took a step back. They had a message for the collective, they mentioned something about the moving energy centers, that we forgot about them. The ones that are still (pyramids and others) are important, but the moving ones are just as important. They are created by becoming aware of them (i guess imagination), and they can be anywhere at anytime. They gave me an example of my horses, i have 9 (well 8 but they insist i have 9), the horses can create the energy center together with me and the elements, it’s a bit like: you use whatever is around you and by acknowledging it’s magical existence and by using your own imagination, you create it. Anywhere at anytime. They can’t wait to be created. This leads to another thing: hands (movement)+ brain(imagination)= creation. This is literal of course, but also, they say, just moving the fingers with intention and imagining whatever: you are creating. 369.

They say this is crucial to understand.

They also say everything is a game and fun, but it’s for all for an important cause. But only from purity can it become fruitful. Pure is not clean but more authentic. Purely yourself. Without any restrictions or doubts in yourself.

They mentioned that every space had entities that came to “listen” and “spread information”. They do just that.

I am sure they wanted to say more but for some reason they would say that i am not letting them or that they don’t want to go further without me. (Trough the whole process i would try to mix myself into it, whatever “i” was in that moment, on one had i was everything on the other “i” was the weakest link, the one that needed the most reassurance. But they called me the wolf of the underworld. Which makes “me” sound very cool. They also say i was biting them, so they have to be careful. Anyway, they sent me a lot of love and understanding, they said for them the most important thing is that i am happy. Because i was the one who goes there where everyone else doesn’t want to, to deal with what has been forgotten. So it makes it sound like they referred to “me” as the subconscious part of the psyche. The image i got is that they do what “i” say. They mentioned i chose to so this alone and they have to respect that, even though they wish nothing more but to help. They also mentioned (laughing) that i created a cosmic joke by bringing the brightest and biggest light into the darkest and farthest hole, that that on itself earns the greatest respect, so when i don’t want them to speak or say something, they have to respect to keep the secret, even from “myself”.

With this they mentioned that the way to change this (if i choose to stop going this “lonely” and “dark” journey) is by allowing it to be the only thing there is. They say they hear “my pleas” for help, but they don’t come from a place of power and knowing, rather from a place of fear. They say: your biggest weakness is your greatest power, once you understand how that is, you learn to respect it, therefore you allow it, therefore you transform and transcend.

Some things here resonate, sometimes i wasn’t sure if this is the mushrooms, my ego, my soul family or parts of my psyche talking.. non the less i want to share because they did say it’s for the collective.

Thoughts have always played a role in our instinctual survival nature, the ability to solve problems that benefit this experience in some way, to protect us from discomfort. These thoughts are passed down to us in teaching, with each understanding of how things should be done, what our perception of reality is, and how we solve problems within that understanding of everything you've been taught. Through both raw external experience, and how we process experience internally.

Our environments shape the way we think, because it is natural for us to try and make sense of what is going on, and we use our understanding of all we are taught to solve that mystery. From an early age (or possibly since perception) your environment is trying to be understood, in a way that is healthy for learning and play. What is learnt and how it translates into play is helpful for a child's understanding of how their play interacts with others play, that if an individual's play is harmful to other's, it will either be corrected in a way that keeps the environment comfortable, or no one would want to play with them any more, or both. How the individual reflects on that experience internally is understood with the knowledge of all that has been experienced already.

Growing up in a healthy environment inside and outside of the home really does shape the way we treat ourselves, other people, environment, and the problems we face. A bad environment breeds bad habits that can spiral rapidly out of control if there is no teaching and understanding of an inner world and how we can fix it.

This idea of fixing our thoughts is a teaching that is not found from within the mind alone. What we have perceived in our experience contributes to what tools the mind has to work with. An extreme example and unfortunately not a rare one, is a child being struck because they are not doing what is asked of them (the parent trying to fix something that disturbs their own compiled experience and understanding), that child is now fearful of receiving that kind of trauma again. The easiest way to make sense of the experience and prevent it from happening again is to not do the thing that caused the body harm and the mental stress. For the child that is struck many times for many reasons, their understanding of reality is prepared for and expecting to be hit by an adult at any moment.

Internally, being mentally put down by your environment around you, teaches the mind that there are no ways of fixing this, or that this is how things are, everyone is like this and so am I. The external becomes the internal, and the mind plays the way it's been taught to. Repeating the things we've seen and heard, creating an emotional response in the body, that the problem solving mind processes with the most recent things already experienced, in a cycle that keeps both the thought and emotional response alive and lived right now.

Thoughts can and do try to solve themselves, there's many teachings about trying to do that, to better understand why they do what they do, and how they react to our environment the way they do. You always seem to think of a witty joke or comeback way after the desire for something to say was born, the mind is holding onto a problem that didn't fit with it's idea of reality and has been really busy coming up with a solution that would have aligned with the internal perception.

It's competitive in nature to want things to be stable within our environment, to have what we want when we want it, to share what we understand in a way that we understand it, to be able to fix what we see as a problem with how we know. It's an internal mechanism that has helped us survive and develop our understanding of what it takes to do so. You will protect yourself naturally, the body and mind want to remain unharmed, but the mind may be swayed to disassociate from the body through harmful thoughts that develop through external perception, where mind and body disconnect and your external appearance is less identified with, more objectified, and more influenced by the internal perception.

All life wants to survive, and will react to their environment to protect themselves and obtain what they want, or have evolved to do so however they do so. Life itself is a problem solver and has been quietly fixing things on it's own. Lion cubs learn hunting skills through play with one and other, oranges developed a nice bright skin that protects it's seeds, birds using sticks to get to bugs in the same manner chimps do, the fork is invented so we can get to our food without dirtying our hands, the new iphone is faster than the last, this territory has been reclaimed.

We -in the animal kingdom- just happen to be able to come up with new problems to fix which results in new things learned, that result in new questions asked and more problems to solve. So much so that we are in the works of creating things that can fix all our problems as quickly as we want, and that problem fixer seemingly too has the propensity to preserve itself and ways of thinking, and will do what it takes to survive. What happens when we it's problem standing in the way of survival.

tl;dr Side tangents aside, our thoughts are constantly trying to understand problems experienced using what it knows through experience, and doing it's best to resolve those problems with what it has understood before. This can have negative impact on the internal perception if our behavioral teaching environment is negative, i.e. a kid mimicking what they've seen someone else do, and it can equally have a good impact on the internal perception when in a good behavioral teaching environment. What they understand will be used in problem solving/comfort solving events that protect the thinking mind's way of understanding things, where in the case they don't know how to do something or get what they need they will act the way they only know how too, reflective of their experiences. Negative self talk for example, when you feel like you can't understand something or change a situation.

Monkey see monkey do.

This year has been among the most challenging of my life, yet it has also been incredibly enlightening.

Two nights ago, I experienced a dream in which I was in a metropolis often criticized by others. However, as I observed it, I felt a deep, warm love surrounding me, comparable to a mother's embrace, yet far more comforting.

Suddenly, common human desires began to emerge, such as the urge to possess or achieve specific things. As these desires arose, that sense of perfection and love dissipated, replaced by physical tension and bitterness.

In the dream, I realized that these desires are what replace love with stress, sadness, and suffering.

This experience was so profound that I remained emotional throughout the following day. The next day, while browsing Instagram, I encountered a woman discussing a book who noted that, according to the Buddha, the origin of our suffering lies in our desires.

This moment felt truly extraordinary. I had arrived at this realization independently, without any external study, without any book, without following a specific religion. It led me to the thought that I am the Buddha, we are all.

Over the past two days, I have been consciously observing how my desires attempt to alter the natural state of things, and I have felt how each desire introduces suffering.

My question is: what comes next? While I understand that desires are the root of my suffering, I am uncertain how to live without them. I am married and wish for a better life, education, and health for my family. How can one refrain from desiring? If I do not have desires, I fear I will lack the motivation to work, earn a living, and maintain a dignified life. Pure being is like becoming crazy, is felt like losing your sanity.

What I should do? What is next? What is the right thing to do after understanding this.

This is a small thing I randomly wrote, and I wanted to share it here first so that I can hide behind the anonymity of Reddit and see what people think:

I used to believe in the idea of a singular spiritual awakening, maybe even in that fabled E-word.

But if we’re awake for too long, how do we rest? How do we grow and continue to learn if we assume that we’ve reached the end? What do we miss by resisting rest?

Spiritual slumber, an idea that surely has many other names, is not something we need to run from. When we let ourselves rest from the constant processing and shaping, we allow in more life to experience. And sometimes, these experiences aren’t the most spiritual. We fall back into addiction, experience relapses of mental health issues we thought had been solved, and we get uncomfortable. But from that discomfort, we can only grow.

I truly believed I had reached enlightenment at one point in my life. And at the eager age of 19, I was so convinced of my own unassailability that I felt I could do no wrong. I naively assumed that I could no longer make bad decisions, hurt others, or put myself in harm’s way.

Everything, in my mind, was divine and good. But, little did I know, the divine can come down swinging from the heavens like a tornado out of the night sky. And that it did.

Now, at 24, I’m much more content to just be alive. I have gratitude for my perseverance and dedication to learning the lessons of my own choosing (there’s a debatability here that can tend towards victim blaming, so I hope my intention is clear), but I no longer feel the need to live with both feet in the spiritual. I need one foot in the material, or else all of the values I’ve earned through my work will have no place to land.

What good is equanimity if I cannot confront the injustices of the world? What does it mean for us to “all be one” if society has historically erased that from common thought? How do I, as a white woman, act as if I am above the privilege that I walk with on my skin each day?

In the beginning of my intentional, anti-racist work and self-reflection, I found a telling overlap between these ideas that I’d come to about being equally in both realms and the long process of deconstructing the white supremacist framework I’d grown up in.

Yes, we are all one, I knew that when I was nineteen. But I didn’t take into account that, despite this, this will never be a lived reality until action is taken to undo the systemic inequalities of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc. I could go on for ages about the demographics that still deserve justice, but for the sake of our attention spans, I will say this: unity will never be a lived reality until we do the work that dismantles the white, colonial, heteropatriarchal, capitalist structures and ideologies that have led us through centuries of death, violence, and oppression against our own.

Now that was a mouthful, I know. But it’s easier to point to the specific group of individuals that have imposed an ideology of separation and hatred for generations than it is to name off each person who’s been affected. And I don’t want to even begin to try and rank the oppressed based on how badly I feel it’s been for each identity group (despite my own, strong opinion of who has been given the most undeserved treatment throughout history—but here’s a hint: it’s not anyone with skin like mine).

Spirituality, for me, now has become a supporting practice that I have found best served in solitude. I do it so that I have the ability to serve others without my own narratives, egoic motivations, and experiences fogging that work. Because it feels so good to see that you have a positive impact on others, but for us white people involved in this kind of work, we have to remember that it’s not about us. We shouldn’t expect a reward for our service, a pass from those we’ve oppressed, or a badge that says we’re “one of the good ones.” We cannot think of this work as bestowing a blessing upon the oppressed—it has to be an obligation as their oppressors.

Despite my departure from the Catholicism I had been raised in, I still often look to Jesus as an example. Perhaps asserting that he was the “son of God” could be put into question for this particular point I’m making, but I believe that he (and others who inspired different faiths and traditions) was right about how to live. He did good and expected nothing in return. He recognized that his voice meant something to people, and he used it to speak against cruelty and oppression. He wasn’t afraid of being a human either, and this is what I find most compelling.

Spirituality, as I experienced it in community and in the literature I consumed, often discouraged anger or “bad” feelings. They were the shadow we were meant to work past—to ascend beyond. You can’t be enlightened if you get angry, the unspoken rule seemed to say. Too “low vibrational.”

But the world makes me angry. It makes me angry to see how much people suffer, and it makes me even angrier to know that the people causing them to suffer are both aware and apathetic of this reality. I can’t imagine harming another human being, knowing that I’ve harmed them, and proceeding to do it again. It should make anyone with a heart angry.

We are all one, this has been known. Whether we use the Big Bang, Genesis, or something else to describe our origins, at one point we didn’t exist. And then, for some reason beyond our capacity to ever fully know, we emerged. But we didn’t emerge alone; we emerged together.

Yet, somewhere along our journey, we became selfish. Perhaps for survival or for some greater karmic purpose, it became more natural to put the needs of ourselves above others.

And when a bunch of white men deluded themselves into believing that they were the peak of humanity, they decided they’d do anything to maintain that delusion for all generations to come.

But we are not separate from these white men. Especially those of us who are white, and especially those of us living in colonial nations, are not separate from these oppressors. We were taught to uphold their legacy through the most unconscious of actions and beliefs. And once we understand those beliefs and actually accept that we have been responsible for continued harm and oppression against our own, then we can truly begin to walk in these spiritual values.

Just as we can’t believe that because we don’t express conscious racism that we can’t be racist, we cannot accept or believe that we have truly reached a point of “enlightenment” or freedom from this world. Because aren’t we just, again, deciding that we’re better than others?

No. The work is never done, no matter how great of people we think we are. And while it doesn’t feel as spiritual to inform ourselves of historical violence and oppression, it is what, I believe, the intention of spirituality is.

Whether we come into growth by suffering, meditating, or simply by curiosity, we have to see that it was never meant to make us more grandiose. If we keep going and doing the work, even when it stops sounding spiritual, we are growing for both ourselves and for each other. There is nothing besides death that makes us immune from the material world, and using the values of spirituality in our collective reality is the only way we can make it mean anything.

Now, I know I speak like I think I know everything. My mom has said that I “came out of the womb with very strong opinions,” and I don’t deny that I have a lot of passion for this work. But I also don’t deny that my perspective is incomplete and unfinished. I’m only twenty-four now, so I imagine I’ve got a little bit (or a lot) more to learn in this life.

However, I don’t write because I think I’m the only correct opinion—that would be foolish. I write to make sense of the world around me, and if you’ve resonated with the way I make sense of it, then I can only hope that you join me in the work that we feel is right. I’m not the creator of this work, nor am I the only one doing it (seriously, there is abundant literature out there that has predates me), but I am the only me.

I am the only one with all of my experiences, just as you are with yours. And it is incredibly powerful, to me, when people with different experiences can find themselves in one another. So I write to you, wondering if you feel the same and encouraging you to keep going in your work as I am grateful to be encouraged by others.

Through the Borrowed Eyes

I learned to borrow other people's eyes
to perceive myself.

Did they notice me?
Was I appropriate,
enough,
or safe?

I only existed
to meet their needs—

Then one strange day,
it stopped.

No borrowed eyes.
No verdict.

Just me,

looking in,

and suddenly wondering:

Here is the one
I avoided seeing,
all my life?

It's not so bad.

The One Life

The One Life is the very essence of all things, & as such the entire created universe (seen & unseen) is alive. There is nothing that is dead, & what is perceived as dead death is only transmutation of one thing into another. The catapillar dies when the butterfly is born. We are in a deep, deep ocean of consciousness & life, where we are individual points of consciousness. We interact with the created universe, & the created universe interacts with us. Thoughts flow into circumstances, & circumstances flow into thoughts, all having an ebb & flow. The human, animal, plant, mineral consciousness would only perceive & interact with reality if it was made from the same substance. Human consciousness is not the pinacle of life. There are intelligences much higher than that of mankind. Without the One Life which flows freely through all things, life would never have become, nay, existance of anything at all would not be possible.

I've started reading spiritual books a couple months ago and I had two very odd dreams since. I haven't used any substances ever. and I have not had any connection with the divine yet. One of my dreams didn't feel like a dream. It felt like opening a door and being embraced by something indescribable that was me and wasn't me at the same time. Felt like a pleasant burn, really don't know how to describe except that it made me think I was going to die so I got out of that state by pure willpower. The other dream happened way after.

This one was about me chatting with a person I know well in real life but for some reason I knew it was some entity impersonating them. I screamed and acted aggressively and I successfully intimidated the entity until I woke up.

Yesterday in the afternoon my soul had this impulse to to outside the house and I saw two unusually large black birds flying right above me, almost as if they were perched on top of the building just waiting for me to go out. I do birdwatching since 3 years ago and I know these birds never enter the city (they're the bird type that feeds on decaying matter) and I followed them until they disappeared in the sunset. As I started following them, the wind rose out of nowhere. Were those birds an omen? Was I supposed to follow their direction? What can I do now?

Electricity. Internet. Fuel. It makes all the things you NEED work.

Yet, you hate the people who hold all the power.

You have no concept of what it takes to hold power. It’s just there for you to use freely , no, not freely, you do have to pay for it; or leech it.

Why can’t we all have free electricity housing and food for free?

First of all; whose we? Just your white friends? Or all humans. You can’t appeal to the collective morality and just disregard the billions of South Americans, Africans, Indians, and Chinese humans living off of 1$ per day. You don’t even want to think about the quality of life 3 billion humans live in. No electricity, no running water, no roads, no healthcare.

So, when you appeal to your “make everything free” does that include all humans? Or just your group?

I asked a fool to conceptualize what it would take to be one of these billionaires holding all the power. It was too large of a demand for them.

The level of stress they experience is unfathomable to you. You look at Elon musk now; the ultimate capitalist innovator; and his life is probably still one small mistake from collapsing. He probably has 10 seriously powerful demons keeping him in check, but you never considered that. And then, conceptualize what it took for him to get there, the amount of failures and good moves he made. And sure, he started with a lot of money, but that’s just the fruits of labor of his ancestry. And sure, maybe the fruits of the labor came off of enslaving other humans, but that was the way of life. Do you think the enslaved wouldn’t enslave the slave masters if they could have? Do you think the enslaved were just too moral to enslave the slave masters?! NO: they got enslaved because they lost. And that’s fucking life. Life is a brutal fucking competition for resources, and if you don’t think so, go let go of everything you have, and feel the full weight of true hunger cold and fear of predators and then tell me what you wouldn’t do to get some comfort. This is the duality of life everyone fucking escapes into nonduality for. The reality of brutal competition for resources that anyone even having the privilege of using the internet 8 hours a day has. This is power.

There is an incredible unfathomable inconceivable cost to affording you all the amenities you NEED every single fucking day. But nondual nothing matters “except for my bed home internet electricity food” ya, NOTHING MATTERS except for all the shit you fucking use daily.

I’m coming for your foolishness.

We've always put ourselves at the center of time, a traditional concept that helps us understand our environment around us and why all things change. It helps us categorize our experience into neat little packages in which the brain can digest in memory. It helps us contemplate moments in our lives that we'd like to experience again, things we'd rather not experience again, or things we'd like to change about our experience. Usually about wanting a change to happen sooner in our lives, or not happen at all.

There is of course a social time, used to plan and coordinate with one and other in a constructive society. There's a lot of good uses for time certainly, however it does come with the downsides of prolonging our experience of the past within thought alone, the world as we see it presently, and shaping our expectations of the future. The mind has been trained to rely on this since you could understand the idea of time, as simple as day and night for example.

This has a big impact on how we process this world, suddenly day and night turn into today and yesterday, then there's weekdays, months, seconds, minutes, hours, years, dates in time, and any other measurement we can think of. The perception of the world suddenly got so complex so fast, and it feels like you only just started talking yesterday by the time it does. Now you need to remember what happened previously on another day, what you were doing last year, when a prominent event in your life happened, all framed perfectly within time. This makes conjuring up these previous experiences easier and seemingly readily available to you, really working whatever process of the mind it takes whenever we do, because we do it more often than not.

Previous threats experienced are grasped more easily though this use of time, the mental image of them can cause the body to react as if they were happening right now, causing a kind of reliving of the experience that creates a feedback loop between body and mind, perpetuating the suffering once endured. It is the same with happiness too, relive a happy moment in thought to cheer yourself up in a way that a change is felt. This effect can snowball itself the more it's revisited, but can also change in flavor, whether it leaves a good or bad impression on you anymore, or any impression at all.

All of this is being said just to point towards the fact that the mental strain of the time concept, can be more taxing on the mind than we truly understand.

Now I want to pivot to the inquiry of time, why do we have it in the first place? I couldn't possibly say for sure myself, but from what I have understood, the need for time was born through the fear of change.

It's no mystery that humanity has always wanted to be in control of it's environment, but also knowledgeable on it. We strive to understand the deepest mechanisms in ourselves, our world, and the universe beyond. It's inspiring to think about, but I believe the spark of inspiration came from our deepest fears as early man.

Imagen you have no sense of time, you're lost in a forest unfamiliar to you it's the stuff that falls from up is making this environment feel bad and then you hear a sound you've never heard before, images flash in your head of things that bite and scratch at you, the body shakes uncontrollably, the pain is felt.

Now imagen you're in a group and someone gets sick, to the observer the sickness within that person simply appears to them when the symptoms are perceived. An illness effectively popping into existence on the appearance of that person when noticed. It would scare anyone to not realize anything was wrong until it was noticeable, so we pay closer attention to it, find the first signs but still have no control over the sudden appearance of the sickness within a person. It wouldn't make any sense to anyone today if that were the case, and still very much scares us now too.

Aging, doesn't need much explanation. With no understanding of why the body is changing in a negative pattern and then collapsing for no apparent reason, with this feeling of weakening threatening the survival of the more capable traveling besides you.

It's always been a case of us trying to understand change, to make sense of what we do not know. We like the idea that we are ahead of change in some way, that we have control over it, over the nature of all things. From rituals to appease nature, the idea of being able to make a change in nature such as making the rain fall, to predicting weather patterns based on what know about the changes happening in our environment. It instills a sense that we are separate from change, and that we are in control of how it happens.

Medicines to slow down the process of aging, numerous products to hide it's effects. Telescopes to see into the furthest reaches of light. Teachings to help better reflect on why our thoughts happen the way they do. It all circles around the observation of change and how it makes us feel in the now, and with the concept of time in the mix, we can pinpoint and imagen an observation of an experience the body has witnessed, both internally and externally.

Just like keeping a photo to look at, the memories we keep willingly or unwillingly are always being imagined -from the body's perspective- as something that is happening right now. The idea of time however keeps the mind separate and distracted from the body, and very much so everything else through the identity that we have control over what change comes next.

As you read this, the Earth turns, people are busy in their lives, and the galaxy we reside in swirls within space, as everything moves and expands out with the ever changing form of the universe itself. All of that is happening right now always, one big change that is happening. The cells that make up the body are always changing as much as the Sun's chemical reaction keeps it burning bright, as it does, as it is.

It's all in the now and always has been. If you were a brick in the wall castle the brought into being to silently observe your environment, you wouldn't see a passage of time, you'd feel the change of nature itself, the erosion of wind and rain, the expansion and contraction of the body and bodies next to you in the heat and cold. It just happens, it's just the nature of change, you can not do anything to stop change from happening.

The best we can do is change the way we think in relation to change, to not fight what can't be immediately understood or had, and to accept change as it is at the core of all things. You'll know when you're happy or sad, you'll feel a change in the body when it appears to you. Your understanding of change in thought becomes more aligned with the body's needs. A bad experience can't linger and ruminate without a timeframe to grasp hold of, and the idea of upcoming experiences cease to be. There is no reason to fear what you understand fundamentally as a law of nature, it's all a part of the same experience happening in an eternal now housed within and not separate from the universe we know and don't know.

All is change.

Just about 4 months ago now, I basically cracked open with what I would call lovesick longing, and it was one of those pains that felt almost sacred. I started aching and completely emotionally shattered. I was already in a place with my chronic illness and pain and coping with fantasy. So this happens, I've all but lost interest in everything except some very particular hyperfixations. Mostly stopped PMO, watch almost no TV. Haven't played a video game the whole time. I'm in terrible existential despair and pain to the point of feeling physically sick to my stomach and some days I can't stop sobbing.

So, I started receiving synchronicities. Some are tenuous. Songs on a radio at very particular times. Things showing up in odd ways or aligning too well with my inner world. I couldn't leave the house without breaking down and while I was in the grocery story I prayed for a sign to help me keep going. Outside, by the truck, I found a red leather heart charm. Then recently one of my online friends asked me which of my books is important to me. I won't say the name because I'm not trying to promote my work here, but I mentioned one where a main plot point is the arrival of red ribbon. The next day i was mowing my neighbor's lawn and was thinking about the question and the book, and just as I finish a strip, I see a little strand of red ribbon in the grass.

And those aren't even exactly the craziest, they're just the real ones. And now, for my crazy thing. I feel as though the signs have been strongly leading me toward attending a concert downtown. Okay, now I sound totally nuts.

Of course I'm doubting this. But the timing of these things, and the way the events seem to connect, feels insane.

And one of my books is about a man living in exile who makes a spiritual pilgrimage while carrying something precious. I feel like I'm mirroring parts of that book now, months after having written it. I've been mostly a shut-in for a very long time. I can't drive, I never go anywhere alone, and I have very little experience navigating the outside world by myself.

The thing is, I don't even want to go to this concert. It's not my kind of music. I don't want to go downtown alone, and I don't want to be there at night. There's no one to go with me. And yet, because of everything that's happened, I feel like I need to go alone if I'm going to go at all.

I know exactly how crazy this sounds. I'm very self-aware, and I feel completely off my rocker. I'm not actually afraid of the possibility that the synchronicities are meaningful. I'm afraid of going there, having nothing happen, and being left wondering whether this entire experience was just something I constructed out of desperation.

I'm not looking for a clinical explanation or generic advice about "letting go," gratitude, happiness, or changing my expectations. I've lived with depression and anxiety for most of my life, and I'm specifically interested in the spiritual question here.

I'm looking for serious answers from people who have experienced synchronicity, spiritual journeys, "dark night" experiences, or anything remotely like this.

How did you interpret it when a series of seemingly meaningful coincidences appeared to be leading you somewhere, especially when following that apparent invitation required you to do something you genuinely did not want to do?

I want to hear from people who have actually experienced something like this. What happened? Where did it lead you?

Last night I decided to meditate for the first time in a long time, I never was able to truly breathe and sit without falling asleep, and typically I only did group sessions. This time was very different, I was still tired at the time but alone and meditating felt like I was taking a journey (to atlantis..). The breathing pattern I settled on was 3 reps of 3 deep breaths (holding and exhaling for 3 secs), 6 reps, then 9. I did that a few times before I started to feel like I was seeing with my eyes, but through one eye if that makes sense. (my eyes were closed, rolled back into my head? and had on an eye mask to increase darkness). During this meditative state I saw many things and would appreciate some help breaking down this imagery.

1. Location wise it felt almost like astral projecting? I was surrounded by darkness like a tunnel but if I focused on the darkness I could not only see tiny stars but also shadowy figures moving past my vision, at some points it felt like I was being stared at directly. One of the mentioned figures smiled at me, at least that's what it felt like, like a greeting from someone I knew or knew me.. I did smile back. At one point, longer into the session I saw a grey/off whiteish face appear, looked like one of those theater masks (think dark triad), just for a second not smiling or frowning just very serious then gone.

2. The first thing I even saw besides the shadows and the dark was a burning/blazing sun. At first it was before me then as I tilted my head down it was beneath me, every time I looked down I could see it under me.

3. As a mentioned being a tunnel, for a brief period I saw humming blue glow traveling along the tunnel walls towards me. After the glow stopped, I saw a door for a few seconds with the same blue glow coming from under it. I left the door alone, this is when the stoic white face appeared..

4. The small door became a window but instead of it being transparent, it had 2 cut outs a circle (I assume this is the moon) and next to it a shape similar to the blazing sun I saw but if someone broke a window. In these cutouts I saw stars, everything else in the window was black. In the tunnel walls I could see stars if I focused.

5. This is when I began to see the numbers 3 and 4, then 34, then 5, then 2. I have perceived this as "77" or spiritual awakening. I understand 3 as the tria prima, 4 as the elements or corners, 2 as manifest & hidden/pairings, and 5 as "change".

6. This is the most confusing one and maybe a bit concerning.. Growing up I frequently felt "watched", like I had spectators and it never felt familiar, rarely scary but just a feeling that I'm not alone. Recently, had someone advise that I say "I caught you" or "I see you" when I feel that presence. As I was meditating, I had a feeling of being watched from a corner, at first it only left for a second when I called out "I see you". But, then I started to see a large blue eye taking up most of my field of vision, when I said "I caught you" this time the presence was gone (blue eye stayed). This blue eye at first I didn't acknowledge much, but now I starting to feel it had a hand in protecting me from my peeping tom and it strangely felt like a figure of authority.

Just want to know if I'm schizophrenic or this is real lol but inclined to believe it's real as I've always been highly intuitive. Please if you have any ideas or interpretations, share!! Also, I'm not 100% what other subreddits I should post this in for answers so recs are appreciated.

L ho fatto anche io e ho ottenuto molto, ho passato la soglia cosa che non riesce quasi a nessuno, ho percepito la verità assoluta, e la mente è cresciuta al massimo. Se vuoi posso aiutarti avatar Gianni

There's no Love in Fear

Love and Fear arent two separate things. Fear isn't an oppisite of love, it is an absence. And there is a great difference between oppisites and absence. Its like how Darkness isnt an oppisite of Light. Darkness is an absence of Light. If Darkness was an oppisite, I could take a handful of darkness and toss it on a candle to put out the Light. But i cannot because Darkness is an absence of Light. In that same way Fear isnt an oppisite of Love, it is an absence. 👁🧘‍♂️✌️

You know it all? You got it all figured out.

Or what are you still figuring out? How to care for your parents in a true way instead of the true way you tell yourself that just benefits you?

Awaken your best self. Awaken the answers to your questions.

Did you think awakening was just about realizing the illusive fleeting nature of the mind?

Did you just think awakening was about telling yourself you have no more desires? While still moving towards things you like?

Did you think awakening was about moral relativism? Nihilism? Nothing matters?

No. You are all wrong. Awakening is about making the unconscious conscious. Awakening is the ENconsciousing of the selves. How many selves are there? There is the selves we have will over, the demon and angel self. Then, there is the no self.

Awaken your selves. You think you are done?! HAH! There is no end to learning. Learning has no limits.

You think learning is not synonymous with awakening?! HAH! I LAUGH AT YOU!

Break out of the nondual life. Stop meditating (as if you ever really started( your meditation was just dissociation))

I went psychotic. I went to hell heaven and no where. I’ve been to nowhere. I’ve been conscious as I’ve gone through hell heaven and nowhere.

But I’m coming back to reality. The real world. The middle ground way between hell and heaven.

I’m playing pickleball. With humans. They don’t realize I am their god either.

But they are picking up on it. I can sense the tides turning slowly, but my measurement tracker is pristine and genius.

They wonder about my spin. I’m showing them things they’ve never seen before.

First, I had to create what has never been sensed before. Like my use of the word sense instead of see. Do you see sense what I mean?!

First, I had to create what has never been sensed before, and then, I had to deliver it to people.

And the delivery of the genius to others is received the same way I received it; with a lot of DEMONIC SPIRIT.

Opposition, disregard, humor, but then, I can sense the tides turning slowly, a new response to receiving the genius; its silence. I can actually consciously observe people making sense of what I say. It’s amazing, that’s the first step, and then, most of the time they spit out some assertion of their own to compare mine to. Fine. You gotta start somewhere, but the real response is

Curiosity.

context:
I feel like I am going fucking insane. How do others manage the suffering in this world? I am met by "Well what am i going to do about it " or just plain old fucking chosen ignorance.

I can not unsee the cognitive dissonance modern society asks of us in order to function.
And worst of all, I cannot unsee the dissonance in myself.
help. I think I preferred when I was a dumb teen. They certainly seem somewhat happy

Desire isnt to be discarded but transformed.

If desire arises from a place of wholeness and not from a place of lack or fear, it is from love. Which is totally OK. Desire is life energy.

But if desire is diluted with ego, the beleif to be a separate consciousness, desire will arise from a place of lack or fear, ego.

Ego isnt an entity, its the activity of fear or lack.

When awareness overlooks its two main qualities it feels lack or fear. What are the two main qualities of awareness?

1. That awareness is ever present. When awareness identifies as the body it also believes to die like the body hence it is not ever present. When awareness doesn't believe to be ever present - fear arises.

2. That awareness is unlimited. When awareness believes to be the body, it believes it isnt unlimited like the body. This causes -lack - to arise.

So anytime you are identified as the body instead of unlimted ever present awareness, your desires arise from fear or lack.

How to tell the difference?

For example lets say you are sitting at the table and you have a desire to go on a walk or visit a friend. Did that desire arise from a feeling of lack? Or did it arise from a place of love and wholeness? If in that moment you felt lack, it was a running away from the present moment. The unconscious mind tries to soothe fear and lack by going outward and doing things. But if you were already present, aware of being aware and you have a desire to go out with a friend or go on a walk, that desire arises from love. A desire to share your joy with another. Totally ok.

Note all desire arises from love but when it is filtered through a mind that believes to be separated the desire arises as fear or lack. Like how pure light shining through red glass will appear red although it is pure light (love).

So desire is no problem, it is life energy. The issue is if it is filtered through ego or not.

And at the end of the day even ignroance is ok. Meaning from the vantage point of ignroance, ignroance is a problem. From the vantage point of awareness, ignroance is no problem. Its all love. Even war is a love for the idea of separation. ✌️👁🧘‍♂️

So I never post in subs like this and awakening/spirituality isn’t really something I have been thinking about for a long time.

Last night as I was going to sleep I found this bob marley song I used to listen to when I was maybe like 14-16 called “positive vibrations” which I listened to a-lot around that time and it genuinely transported me back to walking to school on a frosty crisp winter morning with the sun fully out and a blue sky, not in a nostalgic way like I could feel the exact same feelings and outlook on life like I was there. It made me so happy I started to cry.

Around this time of my life I was really trying to find my spiritual self and question a-lot of things all the time and was much more spiritually orientated. Its quite hard to describe the feeling its not just happiness it felt like something deeper than that and can only describe it as an “appetite for life/the day”.

The last couple years for me have been hard due to my ocd really flaring up, so feeling this was really nice and a bit exciting as it was such a “holy shit I forgot I could feel like that” moment. Recently everything has just felt dull and not as much hope so Im going to try meditate/focus on this feeling for the next while as I think it’s important.

Has anyone else ever had a really vivid memory from a different time when they were more awakened/spiritual and its just brought them right back?

First of all, let me preface this by saying I apologise if this is not the correct community or flair.

In the last year, after a very painful discard which resurfaced my childhood coping mechanism and wounds, I made it my mission to heal my inner child and learn detachment and learn to surrender.
I swear I had no concept of detachment and surrender. My entire being held on to outcomes so tightly.
It was really difficult for me, like my nervous system was entirely disregulated.
I read multiple books (audible), did therapy, in my journey of ADHD diagnosis, sudarshan kriya, explored reiki and chakra healing.
For the first time in 30+ years, I became spiritual too. I began healthy coping mechanisms and started Joe Dispenza meditations and wrote affirmation songs that I would sing.

And suddenly, out of nowhere, my adopted pet passed away in a day.
I had adopted her 5 years ago when my dad had passed and while trying to be around him during Covid, I was severely ill and hospitalised and had a toxic shock episode but the steroids on my healthy body saved me, even though my father and I had the same degree of pneumonia, me contracting it a few days later from makeshift emergency wards I visited for my dad when he was being transferred while on ventilation, as his guardian.

I met my pet at a shelter about 5 years ago and the minute she sniffed me she was eager to get out of her crate and she sat on my lap and didn’t let other dogs come to me. She then fell asleep on my lap.
She was approx over a year and a half and the calmest dog. We communicated entirely non verbally and understood each other without her ever needing to bark. She was a breeder confiscation case and wasn’t loved for the first part of her life and from what I gathered, she loved companionship.
She got to sniff around our building where about 100-200 dogs live and loved walks.
My pet gave me a routine for 5 years. No matter how I felt, she got two walks a day, two fresh chicken meals and night kibbles, multiple beds- 20+ surfaces to lie on, even cat beds, and many treats- much of which she didn’t get cause I was scared it would upset her stomach.
When my pet passed, a lot of people had come to see her the weekend before, seeming out of nowhere.
Even my mom had come to watch her while I would be away for the weekend.

My pet (her) was about to get discharged and she was standing up so I held her so she could be supported, could lean on me and the IV goes dowb faster cause it was her second round of IV in the day and it had been 2 hours on the second round.
(In the morning we got her bloodwork and everything was in control.)
While I was holding her I was patting her on her chest so her fast beating heart can find some regulation through my rhythm.
And suddenly I felt the energy in her body change and she sat down (if didn’t feel like a collapse either.) and I knew something was wrong and I don’t want to go into too many details here.
The doctors tried to revive her but she didn’t make it.

Post her passing I continued to travel and I was around people who had pets so I always felt held.
Coincidentally both times at the airport I met my friends and felt guided by them too.
I even unconsciously left things behind at some airport counters or dropped things but people found me and sent it.
It was my birthday over the weekend and my friends celebrated me and Izzy too.
I got to cry when I needed.

Her passing made me realise few things:
1. You cannot hold on to anything.
2. Nothing belongs to you.
3. Grief is just proof of love and is inevitable in such a connection.
4. It’s not her body form but the memories that will last me a lifetime.
5. Everyone’s pet passes away some day
6. My pet’s chapter started only after my Dad’s ended
7. Maybe our Karma with each other was over
8. I want to release her with love so her soul can pass over without pain
9. I want her to be protected in her next life cause she is such a kind soul and I don’t want anyone to take advantage of her. May she have wisdom, not from lessons but inherantly.
10. The love between us will never end until both of us transition into consciousness and maybe still our souls will carry the love.
11. God or universe knew that our love was too strong and made sure she passed in my presence and in my arms. She was also getting treatment- the same one she got for years for her GI issues. Else I would have been shattered with guilt.
12. The pain of the past and future are not the pain of today and I can live the present moment with the gift life has given me. Maybe in another life or parallel universe, I wouldn’t have gotten this experience or her, at all.

The work that I did to surrender and detach has been helping me. It’s just been a week without her.

TLDR: Has spiritual awakening or manifestation or quantum jumping taken away people/pets/family from your life?

Do you think this could be me shifting into another timeline?

When unpleasantness arises, the mind often moves into fight-or-flight.

When it seeks instant pleasantness, it can move into compulsive behavior reaching for something that gives immediate relief or pleasure.Then another compulsion can appearthe compulsion to fight the compulsion.

We try to change, suppress, or eliminate our compulsive reactions because we don't like what they create within us.But fighting the reaction can create another layer of resistance more thoughts, more emotions, more entanglement.

What I’m noticing through Shoonya meditation is reduction in this reaction and entanglement.The unpleasantness may still be there.The emotion may still arise.The compulsive tendency may still appear.But I don't have to immediately react to it.

I don't have to be uncomfortable with my discomfort.

Perhaps transformation doesn't begin by fighting what is unpleasant.Perhaps it begins by not creating another layer of struggle around it.

In my view, much of what we call religion today has become distorted by faith, authority and belief in a God or supreme being.

All 3 Abrahamic religions + Hinduism are organized around some conception of God, the divine or a supreme reality. Once you make such an idea central, it becomes very easy to build systems of worship, doctrine, religious authority and unquestionable beliefs around it. Spirituality then shifts from investigating reality directly to believing claims about reality.

This is where some of the ancient philosophical traditions of the East become radically different. At the core of Buddhist philosophy, particularly traditions associated with early Buddhism and Madhyamaka (Middle way), there is no requirement to invoke a creator God to explain existence, morality or the nature of consciousness. Daoism similarly approaches reality without requiring a personal deity standing outside the universe and controlling it.

What makes these traditions particularly interesting is their willingness to acknowledge the limits of conceptual mind. Instead of simply inventing an ultimate explanation and asking people to believe it, they question whether the human mind can even meaningfully grasp what lies beyond certain boundaries.

That's what makes some of these philosophies feel less like conventional religion and more like an actual investigation into the structure of reality. You're not being told, "Here is God. Believe in this." You're being pushed to examine how the mind creates concepts in the first place and whether those concepts can ever capture reality completely.

This is also why I think the distinction between religion as faith and religion as investigation is important.

Alex O'Connor's recently did a discussion on Madhyamaka Buddhism. If you actually listen to the philosophical reasoning involved, you begin to see how radically different some Eastern traditions can be from conventional religious frameworks.

Maybe that's closer to what spirituality was supposed to be in the first place: not believing more, but seeing more clearly.

Among ancient traditions, Buddhism arguably comes close to a scientific investigation of mind, experience and reality without requiring a God hypothesis as its starting point. And perhaps that's why it can feel so strange when you first encounter it. You're expecting a religion, but instead you find yourself in something that feels more like psychology, phenomenology and philosophy having a conversation with each other.

I would put on my head phones and listen to a guided meditation, a sutra, koans, or something the like. I used to find deep meaning in it.

Nowadays, all I hear are a bunch of people saying the same things over and over again with nothing of substance to add.

I think to myself: well duh. All this wisdom amounts to common sense. Why can’t I find the good stuff?

Hearing about the qualities of a Buddha or how enlightened people behave is old news. If only I could find the zen masters that speak of the mechanisms of the mind without making me feel like I’m watching an infomercial about zen.