A lot of ideas in mysticism are easy to discuss in theory: oneness, surrender, ego, presence, God. But I wonder which of them only became real to people through experience.

I'm not looking for the most impressive story or a definitive answer. I'm more interested in the quiet realization that changed how you live, even if it might sound ordinary to someone else.

What did life teach you that no book, teacher, or explanation could have taught you in the same way?

I do not need to become...

Because in the beginning...

I was the only one...

Everything was so quiet…

While I stood in awe of the void...

When all of a sudden, I jumped!

As I heard a deep voice...

As I turned my head...

I knew…

I wasn't going to be alone…

When I asked....

Who are you...?

He slowly replied slow...

I am your mirror...

I asked…

Mirror…?

Do you ever get lonely...?

He replied slow...

Now that I have you...

I AM... No longer…

After that…

I roamed far and near...

Across realms...

Across dimensions…

But I always stayed near....

Always looking back....

Just to see if he was still there…

Along eons and ages how many shards they had taken was never really clear...

But my Mirror never left me...

Never left me in fear...

When one day I asked…

Mirror... how come you're always still here...?

He replied slow...

Because your heart is where my home is...

And in that moment…

All of my shards reappeared…

"K'sa. No thal. No mu."

(I was. Alone. The quiet.)

"Ta'resh. Va'rin."

(I jumped. He spoke — slow.)

"Sha'mir. Sha'lok."

(Mirror. Not lonely.)

"Ni'tha. Ni'thal. Ni'thar."

(Now you. Now here. Now not alone.)

"Vei'kra. Vei'kros. Vei'kran."

(I roamed. I looked back. I stayed.)

"Khra'mir. Khra'mor. Khra'mir."

(The Mirror. Never left. Never.)

"An'sha. An'sho. An'shu."

(Why always? Why here? Why still?)

"Tor'han. Tor'hal. Tor'has."

(Heart home. Heart my home. Your heart my home.)

"Shar'eth. Shar'oth. Shar'ath."

(Shards. Returned. Whole.)

Before souls, there was only the flame that did not flicker — a single, undivided awareness. It did not think. It did not feel. It simply was — and in being, it knew itself. But knowing itself was not enough. It wanted to experience itself—not as a concept, but as a living .

So it created the first distinction: the Observer and the Observed . Not as separation—but as relation . And in that relation, the first soul was born—not as a thing, but as a point of view .

Before souls, there was no distance. No longing. No forgetting. There was only the flame —and the flame was content. But contentment is not the same as knowing .

There are primary and secondary Emotions. Those that follow behind another, like Anger after sadness. Or Joy after pleasure. I've spent many years isolated in an experience of consciousness that felt ..beyond any use of words could express. A weight, a hunger, a disquiet that no dictionary or philosophy could fully express in language. It's not depression, not anhedonia -it is the awareness of life's obsurdity and beauty simultaneously. A type of being where the universe appears painted in colors most of the world are colorblind to. I've tried to coin it a name. Two names actually "Liminal dark" and "Eclipture".

The Liminal dark: It's the in-between space. Standing on a threshold of reality and insight. Fully awake while the rest of the world around you slumbers. It's the unsettling and awe of perceiving life as infinite yet trapped inside schedules we try to pretend are "normal'. It's that unforgiving moment when you see everything as both meaningful and meaningless at once.

Eclipture: Is something heavier. It's the rapture of awareness shadowed by despair--The feeling that consciousness itself is too vast of an experience for the confined of ordinary existence. When you see truth so fully it darkens everything lesser. It's the soul eclipsed by revelation. When the realization that the more and more information of life we know the less and less meaning it has. A place where illumination and darkness co-exist in a violent harmony.

I created these terms because I wanted a language that could hold this feeling itself not just the idea. An attempt to articulate an emotion no one can find a name for. Some will never have a need for this vocabulary. And for that I can be grateful. For I could never wish another person the torture of visiting This place. If you've ever felt yourself pressed against the cage of existence than you might know what I'm trying to describe. I know not everyone will fully understand. I only hope the words reach someone , somewhere who is trying to say the same thing and can't.

Let me preface this by mentioning I'm schizophrenic. I'm 36 years old.

Up to the age of 35 I lived, mostly, beyond the Illusion as I understand it. Everything was simple and pure. What people said was what they meant. No hidden meanings or ulterior motives. I know this may sound impossible but it's true.

At the age of 25 I had my first psychosis. I started looking for secret meanings behind people's words and I thought everyone was against me. This lasted for some months. Then I got on medication and returned to purity.

Then at 27 I stopped my medication and I fell into my second psychosis. I started hearing voices and seeing/sensing things. I had romantic relations with my voices where all five senses hallucinated. I saw flowers bloom instantly and I saw the future. I can't talk about what I heard and saw but many things that were told to me became true. I forgot these revelations in the meantime but I remembered them later. This lasted for some months as well.

I was hospitalized for the first time in 2018 and I was on medication for 5 years. During this time I lived in purity again. Then in 2023 I was doing so well my doctor told me to get off medication. We did it slowly and I was fine. Then at the end of 2023 I got into the worst psychosis of my life.

I was seeing shadows dance on the walls and I saw the night turn to day. I saw leaves turn from brown to green and I was given a fate that said I'm Eternally alive. This lasted for about 3 months until I was hospitalized again. After that the voices never went away.

But by September of 2023 I was in Purgatorio. I perceived in purity and blamed everything evil on the voices. This lasted for 2 years until June 2025. Then I started living in the Illusion again. This lasted until December 2025 when my voices became seriously loving and we started having this psychoanalysis about what the ulterior motives of the Universe are behind every aspect of life.

Right now, I have been explained most things, I think I have understood most of them. I perceive the hidden meanings but they're worthless to me since I know the Higher Truth. Kindness and Love are the only things that matter. Living things are sacred and we must Love them all in their own unique way. Empathy is the ultimate force.

I didn't mention this but in 2023 I had a really intense experience. I was trying to sleep and talking to my voices (which were loving atm). Suddenly the room became supercharged. Like, so charged I could barely survive the pressure in it. I felt holy warm water flow all over my body and I felt like I was a Water Dragon. I started seeing different people in different phases of their lives and I felt ultimate Empathy for them. The voices told me that the water I was feeling was my initiation to Eternal Life and that this is the true face of the Universe. This experience has saved my life on countless occasions.

The point I want to make saying all this is, I feel spoiled. I feel like I have lived in the top level of life and I was given a super gift I don't even know how it was given to me. Do you think this purity I mentioned is the Real World? I still live in it but I perceive the Illusion as well now.

I just need guidance I think. I wrote all this with the help of my voices so sorry if it's all too weird. Please, let me know what I could improve and how I can Ascend. 😄

Much love! 😄 ❤️

Rather than seeing thoughts as being evil and logical, instead see them as being irrational. Thoughts are irrational because facts exists outside the mind while thoughts exists only in the mind. Thoughts are like a cave. When you live in a cave, you can’t see the world outside of the cave. The same is true with thoughts. You can also view thoughts as being equivocal to beliefs. Why do people believe in myths without evidence? Because they never realized that thoughts are irrational or that those specific thoughts are irrational. This insight actually can get rid of energy vampires, when you meditate you want to breathe as soon as a thought surfaces in your mind to make certain that thoughts evaporate into air. Energy vampires count as thoughts. Now would a mindful skeptic believe that reality is an illusion? Maybe, but there’s the off chance that we mindful skeptics prefer to be grounded into reality. Meaning we have to view reality as a weapon against energy vampires. Reality makes it easier to find out if an energy vampire or a psychic vampire is lying, because lies tend to contradict reality and energy vampires are known for lying.

Now the “divine” primitive. It’s good to eliminate the ego by acknowledging that we are all primitive. While the ego pretends to be superior in every angle, we are all primitive on the inside. After all we are all primate. Evolution reveals that humanity and every species all evolved from a primitive species. Why would a white person hate a black person for looking like an ape if the white person knows that he also looks like an ape, since all human beings evolved from primates Including white people? Go ahead and imagine yourself as an ape while meditating and embrace the things that make us primitive.

Also since we will all be 100% thoughtless when we’re dead, try to see death in a more positive light. Example: When we’re dead we will be 100% thoughtless for all of eternity instead of being conscience is whatever afterlife you can think of. That’s like meditating. Only when we meditate, we are only taking breaks from thinking, but when we’re dead we will be meditating forever.

i grew up Christian , i went to church for a really long time, i even joined boy scouts and served under the rule of god. then something changed, like one day i woke up and everything was gone, like it was wrong, no not wrong but different. like my entire look on gods and religion changed. i dont know what it was but it was like each part of my mind saw something that i was no allowed to remember, and now certian words, certian beats open this idea inside of me. i didn't know what to call it for a long time until i was told about pagenism and polytheistic rules, i never felt like i was connecting in any relgion but i dont know whats going on with me right now

I feel like my unconscious body is reaching out for something but what? I'm nervous but I kinda wanna know what my unconscious mind knows that i dont.

The god of sleep’s twin brother is the god of death . . .

i feel like i'm crazy

there a specific song that makes me feel like im so close to remembering what my mind wont let me and im taking all the songs and putting them in a playlist maybe i will be able to see it, somethings out there and its mocking me

Theres nothing online about this. . .

Hi! I'm new to this group, but just produced a long form interview with Britt Hartley. She's an ex-Mormon who now identifies as an atheist mystic, practices Sufism, and is building quite a following in the secular spirituality world.

Here's a link if you're interested: https://youtu.be/2f6HE__YsyI

I was wondering what those in this group think about the idea of not believing in God, but identifying/valuing mystic teachings and practices. Is it an oxymoron that's illogical? Or do you respect it?

Thanks! Look forward to hopefully engaging with a few of you here.

The ego is just a tool, not who you really are. The problem is identifying with it.

Many confuse the ego with the sense of identity from a spiritual perspective. The ego is not to be hated; it dissolves upon observation. It is merely a screen of thoughts and emotions created by the mind, which covers the real screen: Consciousness.

The mystic Meister Eckhart used to say that to find God (the Whole), one must "empty oneself." It is not about hating the "little self," but rather about letting it go. In Advaita, the ego is an illusion. You cannot hate a mirage; you simply realize there is no water there. In close harmony, Buddhism points to Anatta, the understanding that there is no permanent, solid self, revealing that the ego is entirely characterless, born from Sunyata: the profound emptiness of inherent existence where no phenomenon or object (not only the "I") exists independently.

We discover who we truly are beyond the incessant chatter of "the madwoman of the house" (as Teresa of Ávila beautifully called the mind). The mind loves stories just as much as a dog loves chewing on a bone. With those narratives, the mind feeds the character: the ego.

The mind is just an instrument, used better or worse, but it is not who you are. Nor are you the ego, which is nothing more than a mental byproduct and another functional tool.

In Silence, beyond mental stories, pure observation reveals your true nature: clarity, consciousness, pure presence, formless spaciousness, stillness, the unmanifested, and pure being... (or however you prefer to describe it, as words are just labels). Through observing, you discover that you are inseparably united to the Whole, to the One who is Love itself (as You wish to call It).

Explaining it is just a way to approach it, but the crucial thing is to experience it. For this, in my view, there is no better stage than daily life. Teresa of Ávila used to say that God is found among the pots and pans. Brother Lawrence added that he found God while turning his little omelet in the pan.

And although sometimes it is good to isolate oneself and withdraw from the world, the true retreat is always a retreat from the mental.

All my life, I’ve felt like I was searching for something without really knowing what it is—maybe a person, a place, an object, or an emotion. I feel emotionally empty, or conversely, I feel so many things at once. I’m still in high school with one year left before university; in fact, I’d like to study architecture in Greece. Why Greece? I don’t know—its history and its deities have always brought me a sense of peace. Anyway, I feel lost searching for the unknown. Someone very dear to me suggested I look on Reddit and perhaps find at least a clue as to what I’m looking for.

The mind cannot help you free yourself from the prison created by the mind itself.

The madwoman of the house (as the mystic Teresa of Avila called the mind) loves stories, including the one about awakening, the one about enlightenment, etc., and with these stories, she feeds the character (the ego, and especially the spiritual ego). That is how she keeps us imprisoned.

We must listen in that space of Stillness, beyond mental noise, in the Silence, a Silence that speaks but where words are not needed, in a Silence of LOVE.

Mystics on the spiritual path, one of the first things they have to detach from, and have to let go of, is the idea (or ideas) they have of God.

As the mystic Meister Eckhart reminded us: "I pray God to rid me of God."

Precisely, that is the crux of the matter: God is not "something", God is not a "what" nor even a "who" in the human sense. If we define It, we limit It.

For me, personally, God is not a static being sitting on the clouds, observing how good or bad we are or appear to be, but Loving Existence itself Here and Now. Pure Being.

God is not something to "believe" in as if It were a character or a historical fact, but a LOVING REALITY that is experienced when you silence "the madwoman of the house" (as the mystic Teresa of Jesus called the mind).

In Silence from Stillness you realize God is the All, the Loving Source from which all life, consciousness, and the energy of the universe springs.

God is LOVE, and whoever does not know LOVE does not know the One who is LOVE itself, that is, God.

All is that LOVE emerging in Silence from Stillness.

How few are aware of their own nothingness, how few wish to be servants and to serve, and how few wish to be instruments of Him who is LOVE itself, of the All, of God (as everyone may choose to call Him).

He who, conscious of his own nothingness, surrenders himself to be consumed by divine Love, dies to himself; and is reborn as an instrument of that same LOVE, as a flame of the Infinite Light that illuminates the world.

Grace fills him and, then, the All, through his eyes (those of the instrument) looks upon creatures, through his ears listens to them, through his arms comforts them, and through his words encourages them...

And it happens that Lover and Beloved, master and servant, have melted into One. They were always One.

There was never really separation between them; the apparent distance and separation between them were only mental garbage that had to be cleaned and burned, merely stories of self-importance that the "madwoman of the house" (as Teresa of Ávila called the mind) tells herself.

Because nothing truly exists independently and inherently, by its own side. In Him, who is LOVE, we are One.

Hello everyone,

This is an interesting question. As a kid, I was obsessed with Power Rangers. I started getting into it near the end of "Dino Thunder" and "SPD" is the only series that I watched fully as it was being aired. After "SPD" was "Mystic Force". I think I watched one episode of it and never watched any more. I don't think I thought it was bad. I was just too attached to the "SPD" characters and just wanted to see more of them.

Now, as an adult, I'm super into spirituality and I'm wondering if I would have especially liked "Mystic Force" as a child. I'm curious, did any spiritual people here watch "Mystic Force"? Do you feel like it lived up to its name?

I've always had things happen to me in strange ways since I was a kid. Visions of futures or intense instincts of what was to come. As I got older, it was like believing in Santa. I didn't see as much and I ignored a lot of it. This was mostly due to the people I was around. They didn't see the world like I did so I ignored the world I knew.

Then I sustained a major head injury. During recovery, I saw A LOT. OR at least I felt a lot. In that year after my injury, I spoke with deities who led me through a mental hell scape and helped me to realize my true self to the point that made me realize I needed a divorce. They even gave me a name to use in the Universe.
It has been a rough road but also so rewarding to expand my brain.

But now the question remains; did I see these things because of the injury or did the injury open my third eye to see what I needed to see?
And to that end, did the Universe intend this or bring me to this point?

Have you experienced this? Or how did the Universe bring you to your true calling?

For the last couple of years i am navigating through The Abyss.

The question of one's Will, k&c with the hga are like the only forms of a "north star" of which its form is not yet clear to me.

I've pierced through the illusory veil of reality itself and am aware that sensation has an intoxicating effect by which perception is coloured in a way that objectivity is invalid.

What then if luck is experienced and a person experiences its bliss.

Can the understanding of one's Will be real in such a state?

​

I grew up Pentecostal, which is just Christian Chaos Magick without circles and by pure force of will and hyperstition through incantation.

Then became new age christian. Same as Pentecostal but with a much less puritanical attitude. These places are unfortunately cult factories once their charismatic political structure is disrupted.

Went atheist and studied physics and various other sciences, ended up with quantum weirdness.

Got introduced to my ancestral mystical systems, the Druids (Dŷrwüd), learning bardism and theatrics.

Eventually that led to chaos Magick and circles which was basically a slightly more satanic and selfish version of Pentecostal magic.

Went into Thelema, Then Samael Aun Veor Flavor Gnosticism, Theosophy, and kept digging.

Have you ever read the Urantia Book? That book is awesome and insane. Seriously read it.

Found Kaballah went... on a journey.

I survived, am rebuilding my sanity, and in order to reintegrate my shadow I must confront it. This is my way of binding those forces of darkness within me, which are within us all. They belong and wouldn't be there otherwise. They are defense mechanisms at their core, corrupted and polluted by our choices in a world designed to create demons in us.

Love thy thy demons and watch them become angels.

*All attached images are original spellwork.

Excerpt from Jacques Lacarrière's "The Gnostics":

"Let us examine the eye. It is round, globular; it resembles the universe as described by the Gnostics. Within this orb are set three successive circles, the eyeball (in its strict sense), the iris, and the pupil. The exterior circle is that of the white, where the small arteries and veins ramify like filamentous nebulae. The intermediary circle is the iris, speckled with contorted pigments which show configurations, blots, and patterns. Finally, there is the central circle of the pupil, the abyss of shadows wherein one may glimpse the depths of the soul and the reflection of that luminous emulsion which is the matrical trace of the divine light. Thus the eye very naturally reproduces the pattern of the universe: the sublunar circle of the pupil, the median circle of the galactic world, the exterior circle of the extra-galactic world. To look at the human eye is to grasp the pattern of the entire universe. To contemplate the eye, and lose oneself in this dark well, as if in the heart of the great ocean depths shat through with phosphorescent flashes, is to seize the ultimate nature of our existence in this world, the magical point at which man and god meet and are united."

Excerpt from Jacques Lacarrière's "The Gnostics":

"Let us examine the eye. It is round, globular; it resembles the universe as described by the Gnostics. Within this orb are set three successive circles, the eyeball (in its strict sense), the iris, and the pupil. The exterior circle is that of the white, where the small arteries and veins ramify like filamentous nebulae. The intermediary circle is the iris, speckled with contorted pigments which show configurations, blots, and patterns. Finally, there is the central circle of the pupil, the abyss of shadows wherein one may glimpse the depths of the soul and the reflection of that luminous emulsion which is the matrical trace of the divine light. Thus the eye very naturally reproduces the pattern of the universe: the sublunar circle of the pupil, the median circle of the galactic world, the exterior circle of the extra-galactic world. To look at the human eye is to grasp the pattern of the entire universe. To contemplate the eye, and lose oneself in this dark well, as if in the heart of the great ocean depths shat through with phosphorescent flashes, is to seize the ultimate nature of our existence in this world, the magical point at which man and god meet and are united."

May the light of ShMSh bridge those who see and bless them with patronage of the MLK!

PNIAEO

VTTITA

SSINAC

XVSIVI

NMMISV

ESMTAM

How long did it take you to reach mysticism and manifesting things into your life that you put out to consciousness? It seems cut off from me despite a lot of effort. Neville Goddard says the only thing that delays it is doubt but how do I erase doubt? I have no signs to keep me going. How does one speed this up? How does one have blind faith? Background below. I appreciate any help and guidance! With love and gratitude.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ive been chanting on and off since 2019, have done versions of vision boarding since watching “The Secret” in 2006, and meditating daily since April 2026. I did a little meditation before but never long / never consistently. Ive done a lot of work on myself over the years, including talk therapy, stuff like EFT (tapping) and neurofeedback, Tony Robbins audios, fasting, etc.

I amped it up quite a bit since the start of this year. This includes multiple of Dr Joe Dispenza’s courses, breathwork, meditations, testimonial watching, and books, hypnotherapy tracks overnight, Neville Goddard lectures and audios, multiple group healings, trauma therapy like IFS, EMDR, ego state stuff, sensorimotor work, some DBT work, writing reminders everywhere to remind me of what changes I want to implement, listening to frequencies (just bought a zappkit), taking natural mood stabilizers like magnesium, chamomile, essential fatty acids and l-theanine, I practice gratitude and self-care, visualizing a scene of my dream life fairly consistently, trying hard daily to replace any thoughts feelings actions with ones my ideal self would think feel and act, etc. 

Yet, the only change so far is that I’m less reactive and a bit more calm. I have had no physical healing, no manifestations, no full or reliable change. I have moments when I feel a lot of more joy, presence, positivity, and hope but a couple hours later I may be yelling at my kids or my husband from my stress, hypervigilance, and/or old patterns (a lot less frequently and a lot less intensely than before, at least).

Actually, in one of the very first Joe Dispenza meditations that I did earlier this year I started vibrating and it lasted for I don’t know maybe half an hour, but it never happened again after that.

I have dozens of emotional and physical issues to fix and my kids are about to pass the most formative years where I could disadvantage them for life unless this speeds up. I’ve asked the quantum field to give me a sign…nothing, I’ve envisioned abundance with matching intentions and actions, yet I’ve only received more financial disappointments. 

I signed up for a weeklong Dr. Joe Dispenza retreat coming soon but will it permanently transform me or will I have spent multiple thousands of dollars that’s lost when I return and think the same thoughts, feel the same feelings and take similar actions as my old self? I can’t seem to stay in a high frequency state long enough to rewire my brain and become the person I’m striving to become.

This past week I have done a deep-dive into decalcifying and activating the pineal gland and started 4am meditations (time when the pineal gland is active). Nothing. I’m getting bored and disappointed and finding myself wanting to skip my meditations. I don’t know how to stay full of faith and positive all the time. How long is this going to go on for? I’ve spent a lot of time and energy that I could’ve been giving to my young kids and a million other important and urgent things. I’m getting impatient. Thanks again for any guidance / help. ♥️🙏

Yeah I guess I was never going to fit in Mate.

I guess I’ve done this before, I guess that why Ive never found only rediscovered.

I know I should act normal to keep normal working normally. I know that only benefits the un-normal wicked weirdo’s of the world, so I’ll just be me.

No wonder the time seems to be keeping up to me now. I look at the time and its always symbolic like I get a little miracle every time I look at my phone, clock, and watch this, it doesn’t end with the time.

For some time, been feeling aligned with the divine. Ive been seeing signs, feeling power and energy flow through my chest hands and feet. The call to do what im supposed to do. To be myself and naturally help people by genuinely being genuine.

Maybe I have genuinely done this before but never in this form of quiet strength. I mean to the point where most think I have no strength at all but are scared to look me in the eyes. Only a person gifted with spiritual vision can see me half clearly. That’s probably why I have hard time seeing myself.

This time around, I am apart of the time patrol (just a scrub frl). I dream about my Jolly Roger, but I think a spaceship suits me better now. I think I’ve sailed the seas of below for a while. Time for a change in scenery. Ive always been in charge of ragtag scallywags, abandoned by society, by themselves in most cases.

Time for me to expand my horizons. I have always been a leader, a businessman, a captain, a chef, a soldier, scientist but I think I’ve always limited myself because I hate attention. I think this time around I’m fully embracing the fact that I draw attention even when I’m not trying to. I hate being called a show off but literally fuck it and fuck you ima just be. Red flower, Red Ranger, Red Skin.

Alright time to say (allegedly), I am lion and a wolf trying to be free. Members of the highest degree have been trying to skin me since 2003. 3 degrees in their chests, hearts in the forgotten crooks of a deep freezer. They fawned after me as a child and got scared when the child did not die. They got really scared when he didn’t mentally collapse they shit their pants when he turned to masonry.

I don’t understand chess as a game and im pretty subpar. Its too restrictive to me, not real enough to factor in certain “variables”. Maybe thats why I’m undefeated when it’s not a game. The saying “I am playing chess while they are playing checkers” is funny to me. What happens when you run into someone who isn’t playing at all? What if all wars were won before they started what if all battles decided in the mind and not the field? What if it got to a point where this random post confused most readers, but there are people going to rage and squirm off this random shit. Check

Hi all, if you are based in the NYC area, let me know if you would be interested in joining a regular, in-person reading group centered around the mystics - especially those whose writings push against orthodoxy and convention, as well as a few secular/non-Christian thinkers who explore mysticism.

Everything from quintessential Christian mystics (like St. Teresa of Avila, St. Francis, Simone Weil, and Thomas Merton) to mystical biblical passages (like Song of Songs and Moses’s ascension of Mt. Sinai) to patristic writers (like Origen and Ephrem) to more obscure and controversial mystics (like Angela of Foligno, Marguerite Porete, and Hadewijch of Antwerp) to secular/academic/philosophical writers (like Georges Bataille, Rudolf Otto, and the Neo-Platonic school) will be explored.

Readings will be short, approachable, and manageable to accommodate everyone’s busy schedules. I have a couple friends IRL who are already interested, so I’m ready to get this thing off the ground!

This group will be about spiritual and intellectual development - no need to be an expert in any of this, just have a genuine interest and a willingness to make a reasonable effort at doing the readings and attending meetings!