It seems to me that you are on the edge… The edge of what exactly? Some may call it enlightenment, some may call it realization, finding the Truth, or coming to union with God. In some ways I had found my life in a mess of sorts. I too began to think of the fabric of this world, and it had lead me to the realization not to realization, but just to realize just how special all things good and virtuous is. There is definitely the higher and lower just as there is good and evil, destruction and death and birth and repair. We see in life a lot duality and many of the lower things we do, can serve two functions, but we lose sight of this, that we can chase the fulfillment of our bodily pleasures and never be satisfied, and sometimes when used correctly these drives can lead to good things, but also to our demise because if one always obeys their lower drives they become slaves to the lower drives and true reality can never be discovered. Although it takes great discipline when a person realizes just how damaging these lower natures are and how they are played with by others to control us. If we, however, serve our higher natures of mind and spirit we can begin to see the Truth as to be beyond the flesh and how become free from those drives that move us to fulfill their every desire. As is mentioned in the thread about how there is more beyond what a human being can see and detect, there is more to life and the body than serving the senses.

We all have flaws Aiyana, not all of us accept ourselves having these flaws and life can never be what we imagine we don’t. Are you involved in any activities? What kind of friends do you have? Does your social circle encourage you and have your back when you are down? Do you have much of a social life and what kind of activities do you do? We all need to have a social circle to some agree, sometimes it is only family and a few really close friends, but those people would drop anything if they could to help us. I think it is important for people to be in situations and around people that they are comfortable with and feel they can act most like them self. Whether it means finding a hobby or becoming a member of a club, going to the gym, something that puts you around people that have something in common with you. Sure, you may be nervous at the beginning maybe a family member will join you until you are comfortable. Once you get out into the world and socialize and have fun, you will start to feel more relaxed and if there are guys you will already have one thing in common. The anxiety is really hard, I had really bad anxiety for my whole life, but you can overcome it. When anxiety arises try to breath into your anxiety, get to know the anxiety. How does it feel? There is a reason its there. You feel threatened. What is threatening you, why are you scared? Ask yourself that when the anxiety arises. Is it of the other people and what they think of you? Saying something wrong? Thats what I would be anxious about, but really these things don’t matter. Maybe you have a different anxiety and it is about something totally different, whatever it may be just remember “This too shall pass.” The anxiety will pass, even if something bad happens to that will pass, unfortunately the good things pass as well, nothing is permanent so to feel anxiety over it is wasting the precious time we have to enjoy our short existence because our lives too will pass, and when we accept that then it is very difficult to allow our anxiety to take us over, because even if we are faced with our greatest fear such as a snake, we might still be a little afraid, but we can accept that “This too will pass” if that snake bites it won’t hurt for long and the more fear we feel the greater chance our thinking facilities get clouded and we do something stupid so instead we face the snake and let them make the decision as to what direction this is going to go, they are faster than us anyway and our best bet is to back away slowly in a non threatening manner, you really don’t want to turn your back on it or try to run but trip. Maybe that snake doesn’t bite because it senses that the individual before them is calm and relaxed and really it is scared of us, thus most likely not threatening unless we make it feel trapped, but we are still dangerous if we stand our ground and that snake is looking for prey as an overly fearful animal is easier prey than an animal that shows poise and focus in the face of danger and can easily turn an attack against them around into an attack against the predator, like a wack on the head with a big stick so the predator became the prey. In a way our lives with other people are like that, people sense our fear and some people are predators, some people are also just as anxious as we are and the anxiety each person just feeds the other person’s, that is why it is always good in social situations if one person has control over their anxiety. Some people display their anxiety in having a bad temper, thus when they feel attacked they lose it and two people are in that situation it is dangerous. Also realizing that this too shall pass helps us in not taking anything for granted.

Sorry I want to add a little more to finding a man. I said stop looking, but I should add don’t stop putting yourself out there. If you date, date with the idea of just meeting nice people to connect with, not with the idea that you need to find the one. Let love happen, don’t try to force it to happen. Try upping your involvements in social activities and hobbies, it is probably the best place to meet new people and make friends, because you already have something in common.

Dear Chelsea,
Imagine if you lost your money and you were stricken by poverty? Imagine if your boyfriend left you or he died and you could never see, hold, or hear him again? Meditate on these things and it should make you better appreciate what you have. This is a practice in stoicism.

If I were to give you advice I would really be stealing words from others that I have heard them from. Napolean Hill “In his own words” or “Think and Grow rich” he is really a great motivational speaker, his story is fantastic, and it is like being kicked in the butt by someone. He is on Youtube as well if you go on there and search. Then the other is the “Power of Ambition” by Jim Rohn what he says is really good stuff.

Do you suffer from depression? It sounds like you may, if so seeing a doctor or therapist can maybe help you shed light on why you feel how you do. Not that doctors can cure everything but sometimes our brain chemicals get out of wack. Or if you don’t like doctors look at your diet and sleep quality, it is amazing how much people over look the most important aspects of being alive. Like someone complains of feeling like crap all the time, yet they are putting garbage in their bodies and not drinking enough H2O instead they drink coffee and sodas which give us little boost, but dehydrate thus a person is left feeling lethargic. They get caffeine through out the day and then a beer or wine with dinner to calm them down and help them sleep, they heard it was “healthy” so they think they are doing good. Not only that simple stuff, but the stuff in food is also the building blocks of everything in our bodies. Would you run a car without oil, trans fluid, brake fluid? How about with out windshield washer fluid? Sure the car runs fine, but if it is winter and there is salt on the roads good luck seeing. Headlights and taillights? Risk getting ticket or an accident. I think it is pretty obvious the car need to be operating smoothly together as a whole in order to be functional and be safe. Our bodies are like that times a million, because we can feel when something isn’t right. Our stomach doesn’t feel right because we ate the food we knew we shouldn’t. We didn’t get enough sleep because we wanted to stay up and watch a show. Our vision is blurry, but we hate glasses and can’t even think of putting contacts on our eyeballs. The list is endless of how little things affect how we feel. Some people are too scared to go to the doctor because they don’t want to hear something is wrong with them, or they are too macho usually its men, get over and go, get the blood work and find out if it is medically related. I don’t know if this is you, you weren’t that specific, but maybe?

It may be time for you to start over, you have lost the passion. Work takes up a lot of our life so if you are not happy with your work then you are not happy a third of most days, that becomes insufferable. Some people are easily bored if they stay at one place too long, so sometimes a change in scenery is good. What does it hurt to just see what else is out there?

Develop a philosophy of life. The stoics always hit a spot with me, because they emphasize not taking anything for granted. Enjoy things when they are good, but don’t be attached to those things and they even recommend mental exercises where you imagine yourself losing the things and people you love they think that it allows us to be more appreciative our time with them then. They are not pessimists as they may sound. The book “A guide to the Good Life” by William B. Irving is a good place to learn about it. Or go straight to the source and read up on Marcus Aurelius who was an emperor of Rome, Seneca, and Epictetus as well many others.

Hope I could be of some help,
Mike

Sorry Mermaid I didn’t mean to come off as debateful I was simply trying to convey the personalness of spiritual journey. Either way something is happening within your psyche. Call it the spirit, God, or the subconscious something is probably trying to tell you something. Religion becomes a part of identity, so you may be in the midst of an identity crisis. A lot of times people turn to religion out of guilt and they may be unaware of this fact. It is possible to have buried something deep into our psyche, yet that still affects us and we use something such as religion to keep us unconscious to it. My advice is to start listen to your subconscious, it is hard because the ego is so loud and if as you said you are experiencing ego death then it becomes even louder. Not to mention the ego becomes attached to religion, otherwise religious people wouldn’t fight so hard against perceived harmless attacks. Sometimes therapy helps resolve these issues for people. I have found that if you go to bed with question or idea in your head, such as “Why do I feel this way?” you may be given answers by your subconscious. That is because during sleep is the only time when your subconscious can fully speak to us, albeit in dreams it is usually symbols. Sometimes though in the middle of the night people wake up to what they thought was a voice and they have the answer to their problem, usually not though. When you wake up after sleeping write down your dreams and meditate on them, maybe there is an underlying theme that keeps recurring. These are personal to you, no dream interpreter can tell you what they mean. Sometimes the dreams are nothing, but sometimes you will see something and after thinking about it it will be an ah ha moment. For me I often have dreams where I am guilty of something, but I swear up and down that I didn’t do it, such as stealing something and then later on in the dream low and behold I had the stolen item the whole time and I Didn’t even know it. Or I am found to be guilty and the punishment far outweighs the crime. Also for some reason people think that their religion makes them who they are, or they let them become who they are. Unfortunately that is because organized religion is a mind control device, you must believe what everyone else believes to fit in with the congregation. So if you stop following a specific religion then all of a sudden you don’t know who you are. So try meditating on “Who am I?” ask yourself “Who am I?” as well as “Why do I feel this?” or “What is bothering ME?” Sometimes you need an epiphany and you’ll realize that through religion you were compensating for a perceived guilt and now that you are aware of that you can begin to heal. Hope this answers your questions better and I didn’t get off track as I did before.

As to Anita’s question,
My depression stems from feeling guilty for who I truly am. Of living a lie and my dishonesty to myself and others. My guilt turned from perceived guilt of being wrong, learning from religion and society to real guilt for hurting others and the chain reactions that my struggles caused and remain in effect. This is why I changed by my beliefs, I believe in God but not one that hates me for who I am and maybe the God is really just the inner force that guides me and I have ignored for so long. I also developed bad anxiety fearing that others will find out who I am, or I will slip up and make it obvious.

To Lori,
Thank you really I think what books you figure to read is part of your personal journey. Sometimes books click sometimes they don’t. Here are some books as well as authors I have either read or listened to that have impacted me Napolean Hill In His Own Words, Ram Dass “Love Service and Devotion” (on audio), Eckhart Tolle, Pema Chodren, Ajahn Brahm “Opening the Door of Your Heart” the Bhagavad Gita, Dr. Wayne Dyer, “Character and Neurosis” by Claudio Naranjo (psychological book on the enneagram), “The Untethered Soul” by Michael Singer “A guide to the Good Life” by William B Irvine. I have almost 100 audio books and over 100 books both physically and on kindle. I usually go through the various recommended books on my kindle and audible accounts and read the summaries and review to see what seems to trigger my curiosity. Also you can find a lot of those authors on Youtube. Hope this helps in personal journey towards the attainment of knowledge.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 1 month ago by Mike.

As a Christian I have found myself exactly where you are today, and in fact the possibilities for spiritual growth is endless and beautiful. I too, found myself split from Christianity when I was sick of hearing about such a hateful God that hates just about everyone. I have since my teenage years struggled with my sexuality and that had developed in to identity issues, so Christian teachings had always made me feel guilty and I hated myself for my sin. After highschool, I went to a public university to get a liberal arts degree and like most public universities it was very liberal and scientific. During this same period of time my mom became sick with cancer, stage 4 and wasn’t given long to live. She was Christian and did what deeply Christian people do when they get sick, pray to get better and have others pray for them. A semester before I finished school she died after 3 years of fighting, we were lucky and found another doctor which is a story in itself and he extended 6 months to three years and she was able to go to Hawaii on a family trip as well other places, but it was rough. So after that I really questioned faith, I saw it as fake hocus pocus for people to take advantage of others, it seemed the philosophy was if it God’s will I will get better if I don’t and die then that was God’s will, this to me was giving up. Using the “skills” of critical thinking and scientific observation, it was at this point I really noticed the hypocrisy in Christianity. I also became very depressed feeling alone that there was no God out there and nothing after death, that this was it and then we were gone forever.

After a while of agony I started therapy and that didn’t last long because I suffering from anxiety didn’t know what to say and didn’t want to be judged by bringing up my issues. I started reading self help and psychology books more, I always had since I was looking for ways to get over my anxiety and identity issues. In the mix I added some philosophy books since philosophy had interested me in school. I became obsessed with reading, learning and I started listening to books on audio and listening to them while I did any mindless work. I listened to the bible many times, I listened to the Gita, I listened to Buddhist teachings, I read books by Christian mystics such as Rudolph Steiner and slowly a picture has been forming in my mind. I see that established religion is a control mechanism, Preachers spin the teachings of the bibles to fit their message. After reading Siddhartha I saw Jesus differently. While learning about the Great Mythologies of the World part of the Great Courses, it was obvious that recurring themes occur in pretty much every established myth.

People often read the Bible literal, but if instead it is read as if it is a piece of great literature you get a fantastic story. In literature everything can be construed to be a metaphor of something else, such as wars of internal struggle. There is a great deal of hidden meaning in every story of the bible. I always go back to Jesus calling himself the Son of Man. He also said, many have lit the path, but I am the path. He spoke in parables always to teach. To me Jesus was calling himself the Sun of us and he was lighting the way to freedom, freedom from the guilt and shame that comes along with our perceived sins. He died in sacrifice to show us that we need to believe so strongly we will be willing to die as he also talked of how those who truly believe must also carry their cross.

I read a book called The Power of Awareness, by Neville Goddard and it opened my eyes to how in the bible God has spoken to people. Also in Wishes fulfilled by Dr. Wayne Dyer he uses a lot of Goddard’s teachings. In it he explains how God called himself I AM and how we can use the power of I AM. Jesus at one point was almost stoned to death for claiming to be God, he exclaimed [Does your book not say that we are all Gods?] Jesus before he is put to death says that he is the son of the high God, but if you read teachings before all that he tells people that their belief is lacking, belief in what? Could it not be that Jesus was really a sage with a teaching that with in us all is God and if we believe in God then we can use the power of God to do great things? He spoke of Heaven being with in us all so could not Heaven he spoke of have been like enlightenment that is used in the Eastern religions. He said that a camel has better chance at getting through the eye of a needle that a rich man to enter heaven, a man who is rich can rarely become enlightened as he has to many worldly attachments. Jesus went into the desert for 40 days and nights, what did he do there? How did he survive? Could he not have been practicing a type of meditation, maybe he became so adept at meditating that he was able to feign death on the cross and rise again in 3 days, like the yogis that do like wise feats. Our unconscious is pretty powerful and it could be in touch with God, that could be why people usually receive revelation while dreaming in sleep or in deep meditation, the times while the consciousness is out of the picture.

The bible isn’t exactly the word of God, at least not anymore, it has been translated many times from latin to greek to english and different books were chosen. If you read the books of the New Testament you will see different accounts of Jesus, it is interesting how Rudolph Steiner explains the story of Jesus in The Fifth Gospel. Also how come new books aren’t ever added? Someone has a monopoly on recieving instruction from God? Has God stopped giving revelation? Can only certain people receive word from God?

From a psychological standpoint some psychologists believe we contain three levels of consciousness. The subconscious that we are unaware of, but some believes it is the subconscious that are dreams come from and when we are all of sudden hit with and idea or an answer to a problem that it arose from the subconscious. Then there is the ego, is all about ME, the ego needs to be fed in order to feel good and it is the part of us that becomes obsessed with pleasurable things. Then the conscious the part of us we know we act from this and are awareness is present in the conscious. In away religion seems to be a way to explain these things before psychology was a science, the conscious being ourselves, the ego being satan whispering in our ears that we can and should have and do what ever we want, and the subconscious being God with us guiding us through life even if do not acknowledge it. If you have learned of any great person that was doing something that seemed beyond human capabilities and they answer the question, “How do you do it?” Often they give an answer like “I do not know it is like God is speaking through me,” or in someway they give an answer that something seems to take them over and they don’t know where it comes from. So in a way religion may have served the purpose of explaining certain drives before psychology was understood, in that way religion is pretty heavy.

So as you can see there is wide scope of interpretations on religious writings, enough to keep you busy for along time. I myself have chosen to be spiritual rather than religious, I believe that there has been a reason for every book I have read and when I find them, whether it be my subconscious directing me or a “God”. I believe “God” is always speaking through my higher self, just not the literal God the Bible describes. I think that when you perform right action and believe that miraculous things can happen, but also when you act from the ego negative things happen, but that is just how things work and sometimes they are broken because I am still struggling. I believe somewhat in karma and reincarnation, sometimes believing that I will be born again once I am dead and sometimes believing that each day is the opportunity if taken to be born again. I thank “God” or the universe because in one manner they are the same for taking care of me by providing with the means to live.

So if you don’t get anything I have said or don’t agree with it, then here is my real advice because really I was just trying to show just how personal spirituality is. NO ONE can tell you what to believe or how to believe, I don’t care they hit into your head. If showing your gratification to God for life is jumping out of airplanes then that is how you feel God. Spirituality is an inner experience, religion is the outer, spirituality is very personal. So by me releasing some of my spiritual learnings and beliefs I have really released a piece of myself in the hopes that it can be of service to you, I have opened myself up to criticisms beyond belief and at one time people would be killed through some awful manner, maybe crucified or hung for having different beliefs and called a heretic, but my belief is that when Jesus came and was crucified he allowed himself to be crucified, why? He could have easily gone back on all of his teachings, he could have said, “Of course I am not the son of God.” He could have saved himself, so why didn’t he? He wanted to teach people to be faithful to their beliefs, because he had said just believe and he performed miraculous things so if he would have changed his tune then what belief does that show? He allowed himself to be crucified but rose again in three days, whether take literally, maybe he was able to go into a deathlike state, or maybe after three days of grieving and forgetting all that he taught his disciples reawoke to what he taught and saw Jesus in everyone they met. No one knows, by people claiming they know it should take away their power to influence others, but it doesn’t and bad things have happened in the name of Jesus. People need to learn for themselves and never stop learning and never stop believing that is possible to change your life by right action and acting on belief, read and learn for yourself, use other peoples interpretations to help develop your own beliefs. Try reading other spiritual texts such Buddhist or Hindu, learn native spirituality or any of the other hundreds that have been prevalent in history, they all have their place.

These have all been my readings and interpretations and by no means are meant to say this is what you have to believe or that what I say is the way it is. A whole book could be written on subjects revolving around this. I don’t want to get into arguments with anyone or be told how wrong I am, because its all personal and I will respect your beliefs, so respect mine. Hope I could help you,
Mike

• This reply was modified 9 years, 1 month ago by Mike.