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, 2 months ago by Mike.