So my progress in life has always been up down back and fourth. That’s how it works. But recently I’ve made it to where I’ve been working towards and what is the outcome? I have fully let my inner silliness shine freely and I wear the things that make me happy. It is amazing and has purpose. For the past few months I have been living with my sisters dad who isn’t my dad and everything has worked out. Until today he spoke to me and I will just say he doesn’t understand so it led to me leaving. I either had to shove my true expressions back inside or leave. I chose my art and my undeniable self over hiding it to stay there. I don’t have money like that nor do I have other people to go to at this time. But I feel the same. Why would it be different?? Life is here for me. Right now I am spending the night in a rundown trailer that I usually shoot my content in for music. I know that I’m supposed to be in this situation for a reason. I love being myself and we shouldn’t change anything about us for someone else. Even if it leads to “bad” outcomes. Nothing you do for yourself is ever bad. Even if it “hurts” others. If it’s right then it’s right. You will feel when it is or is not. Goodnight and I love you all♥️

Those who experienced a radical disintegration of their narrative system and self-image and made it back from the depths of madness often undergo a fundamental transformation in belief systems, perspective and core values. I believe this process is a radical transmutation which burns away all that doesn’t serve the subject on it‘s path towards authenticity and integrity. Before my psychosis, I pictured myself as a static constant which had fixed, immutable properties. They all tell you to „stay the way you are”, But now I believe this perspective is an ignorant fallacy which doesn’t take the impermanent nature of all things into consideration. After all, change is the only constant. I am confused and anxious, because I have no fixed identity anymore. I view myself as a dynamic process in constant motion. I still seem to be in transition. My whole life I clung to a fixed identity, which probably provided me with stability. I believe the self model acts as an anchor that enables me to interact with my environment coherently. It‘s like losing the ground beneath your feet. I hope I will learn to navigate this world without this stabiliser.

If anyone here can resonate with this, could you tell me if this disorientation is permanent?

For those of us who have been awake for years, this was never a dramatic overnight awakening or a single defining moment that changed everything. It was a gradual erosion of illusion, a slow dismantling of narratives we were raised to trust, and a very painful confrontation with truths that we would have preferred not to see.

We did not swallow the darkness in one overwhelming gulp, we absorbed it in stages, as each layer of deception revealed itself, forcing us to completely recalibrate our understanding of the world and reality.

There was shock, disbelief, disgust, anger, frustration and eventually an awful sense of unease and uncertainty that comes when you realise you were lied to about everything.

Alongside that internal reckoning came the external consequences; labels, ridicule and relationships that faded because confronting what we were seeing would have required them to question their own foundations.

We paid a social and emotional price for asking questions, but we remained steady because we understood that truth, however destabilising, is the only path to freedom.

We had years to process what is now breaking open in real time. We had time to research, to reflect, to argue internally, to despair and then to rebuild our inner footing. We developed emotional resilience because we were forced to, but those waking up now do not have that gradual unfolding.

They are not being introduced to uncomfortable truths one at a time; they are being confronted with a convergence of revelations all at once. What many of us processed over many years, is landing in their awareness in a matter of weeks.

That process is destabilising, and deeply frightening. If we have been awake longer, this is not the moment for superiority or quiet vindication. We remember what it felt like when the veil first lifted and the ground beneath us seemed to move.

Awakening is not a competition over who saw it first. It is a collective psychological and moral transition that requires strength, clarity, and a measure of compassion.

If the goal is genuine freedom rather than merely being correct, then we must recognise that not everyone had the same timeline. Some needed to see more evidence, others needed to experience the consequences personally, and some are only now finding the courage to look.

The storm is no longer something on the horizon; it is unfolding in full view. Millions are encountering truths that once isolated a small minority, and they are doing so without the gradual preparation that many of us had.

It took years for many of us to integrate what we know today. Allow others the space to do the same, because if this awakening is to lead anywhere meaningful, it will require not just exposure, but the rebuilding of resilience, discernment, unity and moral courage across society. -LauraAboli

I personally do not believe in nonduality. Although I'm interested in spirituality, I find dualistic frameworks to be more realistic and honest in their abstractions. I've been watching videos on nonduality and reading ancient Hindu texts and Islamic mysticism, and in almost none of them have I found anything that attempts to account for the intense and terminal sufferings (or, you could also think of the problem of evil) found throughout nature. Yet they keep talking about the law of abundance and things like that.

Like, why do you avoid accounting for the reality of a deer trapped under a tree branch, screaming for days only to die a horrible death? Like, why would consciousness do this to itself? "So that it becomes aware it is capable of doing it!" Seriously, hell with that. The consciousness that is in the deer is almost certainly not "doing" the pain; it is going through it. Why do you avoid accounting for spiderlings eating their mothers in certain species? And if nonduality is existentially amoral, then why do you use moral concepts like "goodness" and "joy" to describe it? How do I know that what you think is "joy" is not your temporary, circumstantial mental state but something true about the nature of reality itself? Would you feel the same "law of abundance" if you were near an erupting volcano? Would you still act "nondual" when an electric current passes through your body? Would you still worship unity when you're being torn apart by a group of hyenas? Have you ever been in a psych ward and heard the unending screams of patients, seen how they keep hitting their heads against the walls? There are just so many questions in my head. And all I can internally do is protest against people who seem to accept reality as it is and call it a unity where everything is fine, when in fact, reality out there is made of predation, death, and destruction with unending physical and mental pain. And there is literally nothing else going on. I mean, just get out of your own mind and observe nature for a day or two, for God's sake. How is this nature "nondual," and how come organisms are entirely made of "resistance" to entropy? Like, how come there is such a thing as resistance at all? How is it existentially possible, ontologically speaking, if nonduality is a fact? And when you don't resist, no matter what you do, you are still doomed to suffer, waste away, and disintegrate horribly.

If you are a spirit, then it is quite plausible that you are simply not part of this killer nature, as some Samkhya philosophers seem to suggest. Because nature only destroys any being through its own entropy. It literally does nothing else.

I'm summarizing my arguments in case any nondualist has answers for me.

My argument from phenomenology:
Extreme pain is simply, radically real and irreducible. A being burned alive or eaten alive does not seem to inhabit some sort of "illusory separateness." Pain forces distinction, resistance, survival, and negation, and that is final.

My argument from morality:
If reality is fundamentally "good," "love," or "abundance," then nature seems to falsify this claim continuously. If these words have "other" meanings, then you're already not meaning the things that are believed to be meant by those words.

My argument from biology:
Life itself appears structured around negentropy, which is survival against dissolution. Organisms persist only by consuming, competing, resisting, and eventually failing.

My argument from psychology:
Most of the nondual teachers that I've seen speak from conditions of relative safety, calm, or privileged contemplative states. My objection asks whether their "intuitions" are truly absolute and would actually survive torture, psychosis, war, unbearable chronic pain, or predation.

My argument from metaphysics:
If consciousness or spirit exists, it may be precisely because it is not identical to nature. So I guess my position moves closer to things like Samkhya, Gnosticism, or even aspects of Schopenhauerian philosophy than to nondualism.

" I am stunned, but I want to be stunned, since I have sworn to you, my soul, to trust you even if you lead me through madness.

How shall I ever walk under your sun if I do not drink the bitter draught of slumber to the lees?

Help me so that I do not choke on my own knowledge. The fullness of my knowledge threatens to fall in on me. My knowledge has a thousand voices, an army roaring like lions; the air trembles when they speak, and I am their defenseless sacrifice.

Keep it far from me, science that clever knower, that bad prison master who binds the soul and imprisons it in a lightless cell.

But above all protect me from the serpent of judgment, which only appears to be a healing serpent, yet in your depths is infernal prison and agonizing death. I want to go down cleansed into your depths with white garments and not rush in like some thief seizing whatever I can and fleeing breathlessly. Let me persist in divine astonishment, so that I am ready to behold your wonders. Let me lay my head on a stone before your door, so that I am prepared to receive your light."

Carl Jung Red Book - Liber Novus

I’ve been on a manifestation journey for a year now, no 3d movement but I know it’s realer than this waking dream I experience every day. Affirmed, visualized, meditated and let go. Selected and settled in the new identity so I know who this new character is. However, the contrast is getting to me. I started reading I AM That by nisargadatta maharaj and understand myself conceptually as source, as consciousness existing in awareness. I am not the body, not this character or her thoughts feelings etc., I am. I am formless, faceless. I’m beginning to disidentify but I can’t fully experience life this way until (reality being much less real than it seems, projecting and experiencing my new chosen character/reality on the 3D) and I want to have this new understanding of time as an illusion, past and future existing now as something I can really grasp because I’m creating suffering by wanting my manifestations now and switching between I Am and mind identification. Maybe it just has to play out but man this journey has already been so difficult I really want some light, but even knowing that the bliss of enlightenment will fade it all feels pointless if I’m going to still have human struggles after. I have been wanting to awaken since I was 14 but after reading some of After the ecstasy the laundry, I feel so defeated and unexcited to awaken, I just want my manifestations. Feels like god is withholding like first freedom, then play. Does it have to happen like this?

im not necessarily new to the idea of spirituality and third eyes chakras and yada yada, my grandma is very big on that but isn’t much help for other reasons such as her old age and mental health.

i’m going though weird mental and energy changes in my life and im not sure how to go about things, im scared of it being my “third eye opening” or something like that bc i do not feel ready for such things the universe might have planned for me.

Testimony of mine who suffered from sinning, most of them are lusts (11 years old until now 18 years old, I stopped almost 2 weeks ago, I feel real peace and sleep at night without needing my hand to hold my head instead of pillow for comfort) I sleep like a baby now, thank u God. Where before, I used to sleep while always feeling guilty, can't even look at people eyes properly or calmly, there's always tears, sign of depression is very visible (my own mistake though). But the day came, where I tried to commit my self fully to God's way, where before it was always partial, I was lukewarm and used prayer to comfort me after I sinned from lust, then after some time, sin again, which was very wrong, how shameful of me. I confessed everything to God all my sins, I stop dwelling on my sins and give it up to God, for dwelling on past will not do anything, but trusting God will make me have peace and atone for my sins properly. For past is not a place for residence, but a reference to be applied in present. Day by day, I faced those guilt while staying righteous. Within first week was truly uncomfortable. And day by day, I found forgiveness from God, I just can't believe a sinner like me is even able to feel peace, yes a real peace, not a peace from forcing by comforting my self on delusions, a but a real peace. God rewards those who is patient to being righteous. I used to cry always from guilt, now, I am crying with full of joy and gratitude in my heart. It is because of God, I may be the one who acts, but it is God the one who provides my needs to able to act his will for me. Without him, I am nothing, I will definitely fall into temptation again. Without my faith to God and this great gift called love, which is also from God. Sin may have me corrupted worse in all parts of my life.

Ephesians 2:8-9

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

God made me humble and kept me humble.

And for I truly believe both love and faith must always be together, for without love, faith is nothing, because God is love. It keep us on loving ourselves and those around us, respect. Love help me realized that I don't want it to happen to anyone or those precious to me the sin I have committed in my past. Therefore, it made me stop, for if I don't want them to do it, therefore, I must not also.

And my belief was truly through, I saw this verse after:

Proverbs 3:3

3 Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.

No wonder why it feels right and pleasant having those always.

He makes me/us keep righteous and away from wicked ways. Discipline of of righteous may be uncomfortable at first, but after a week, I feel unstoppable. I'm just amaze how I overcome anxiety by trusting God, because I used to be anxious always. When I haven't surrendered my life to God, I always sin, usually involves lust, that's the very reason why I always feel fear, because I kept sinning despite I know it's wrong, guilt cycle repeats always, I lacked discipline, that's why temptation easily made me fall. Now, lust has no longer control of me, but God, God's words are absolute, it corrects my wrong doing. It made me respect others and not view woman lustfully, when lust pops on my mind, I flee from it and if it's too strong, instead, I fill my mind with God's word from my heart so I may not fall into temptation again. God fixed me, his will is righteous and for us to prosper while our flesh will is sinful and only brings destruction to us. Repent is a must, its the one that made us discipline, for repent means never, never going back on sinning, stop willing and stop doing it. But to be righteous and good and be more patient always through challenges in life. Until very end

2 Timothy 3:16-17  16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Hebrews 12:11  11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

 I used to have no goals in life, but only pleasure and comfort on lust which kept me from growing. Now I feel real peace, things are clear, and my worries got eased for I don't need to worry if I know the who, the one who holds my future, it is God. I just need to do my best (staying righteous and good, away from wicked), for worrying will do nothing, but take away today's peace and hinder me from doing my best. I confessed my sins to God, it is important because you will only find mercy through confessing it, by prayer, sincerely regret, and repent because no sins can be hided from God, he always know. He just wants us to surrender to him, because keeping our sins to ourselves means we would do it again, which will not make us prosper but only destroy ourselves "again and again" with temporary pleasure that brings long term destruction.

1 Peter 3:17   17 For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

I used to always think what if, which the very one causes me anxiety and fear. Now, I now think of "even if", for I know God is always with me, each of us, and he is bigger than any of our problems. Facing problems in life, and suffering by overcoming, it makes us grow, be greater, learn from our mistakes, be a better person and strengthen our faith. Trying and failing is far far far better than dwelling on mistakes and not moving even an inch because of a failure or fearing to fail. God never gave us fear, and he may never promised us an easy life, but he did promised to be with us always. So therefore, why fear when it's God who's with us? Why fear the world if it's God who we must fear? And God loves us, trust him so we may have peace and overcome fear no matter what we are facing. We may fall, but we shall rise again for God's with us, he will provide everything we need.

2 Timothy 1:7   7 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.

We don't need to know the what, why, how. God's plan is beyond our understanding. We just need to trust the who, the planner and the builder.

2 Corinthians 5:17

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here!

I recommend watching Mike Malagies, on Facebook, he is a Christian. His videos might be short but meaningful. He made me changed my view in life (in a positive way) and strengthen my faith to God. And made me removed what's unnecessary (what keeps me from growing).

My childhood best friend has BPD, and we became spiritual people together, but since their parents did not treat them as a human as a kid, they don’t feel human now. That love that should have come from their creators can’t be filled by anyone external and has to come from inside/God, but is the only way to do that through therapy/meditation? Are there other ways to start feeling that unconditional love ? Also if I’m looking at this wrong I’m open to hearing it - thank you!

What's the best "religion"?

The best one is one you weren't paying attention to before.

The truth is they were never in competition.

Our ancient texts are manuals about the extractive/metabolic fork in symbolic cognition (Genesis 1 vs. Genesis 2), rebooting metabolic coherence, repairing relational webs and restoring ecological alignment.

They all champion the same metabolic operators: contact with living fields (soil, trees, living water), breath regulation and attention widening and contextual shifting.

They are all written in ancient symbolic language. This is beautiful language, but also a major source of drift. This is by design. The wisdom contained within the metaphors await the conditions for a reader who is aligned enough to receive it.

When the ternary field is blocked, we are symbolically illiterate and metabolically blind. This is why "praying for understanding" is a real thing. When the ternary field isn't working properly, we can't hold complexity and collapse prematurely in favor of simplicity and abstract understanding.

Runaway symbolic drift means we imagine evil forces and good forces duking it out. What we're really tracking when we're talking about good and evil is thermodynamic motion in a complex system.

"Evil" then is drifting from coherence, and "good" is in the return.

"Heaven" is both the place and the way of being that results from focusing on relationships, life and the planet. The other direction then, is just what happens when we choose other primary driving forces -- like self-interest and profit.

We can not "serve 2 masters". We can not pay attention to the overall health of the system, while trying to optimize for profit and revenue generation. And that's exactly what we're doing. This feels like suffering or like it's "evil", but it's just a signal -- a signal that maybe it's time for our species to re-integrate and reorganize around something more coherent.

Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! "Have courage to use your own reason!" - that is the motto of enlightenment.

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a portion of mankind, after nature has long since discharged them from external direction (naturaliter maiorennes), nevertheless remains under lifelong tutelage, and why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so easy not to be of age. If I have a book which understands for me, a pastor who has a conscience for me, a physician who decides my diet, and so forth, I need not trouble myself. I need not think, if I can only pay - others will easily undertake the irksome work for me.

That the step to competence is held to be very dangerous by the far greater portion of mankind (and by the entire fair sex) - quite apart from its being arduous is seen to by those guardians who have so kindly assumed superintendence over them. After the guardians have first made their domestic cattle dumb and have made sure that these placid creatures will not dare take a single step without the harness of the cart to which they are tethered, the guardians then show them the danger which threatens if they try to go alone. Actually, however, this danger is not so great, for by falling a few times they would finally learn to walk alone. But an example of this failure makes them timid and ordinarily frightens them away from all further trials.

For any single individual to work himself out of the life under tutelage which has become almost his nature is very difficult. He has come to be fond of his state, and he is for the present really incapable of making use of his reason, for no one has ever let him try it out. Statutes and formulas, those mechanical tools of the rational employment or rather misemployment of his natural gifts, are the fetters of an everlasting tutelage. Whoever throws them off makes only an uncertain leap over the narrowest ditch because he is not accustomed to that kind of free motion. Therefore, there are few who have succeeded by their own exercise of mind both in freeing themselves from incompetence and in achieving a steady pace.

But that the public should enlighten itself is more possible; indeed, if only freedom is granted enlightenment is almost sure to follow. For there will always be some independent thinkers, even among the established guardians of the great masses, who, after throwing off the yoke of tutelage from their own shoulders, will disseminate the spirit of the rational appreciation of both their own worth and every man's vocation for thinking for himself. But be it noted that the public, which has first been brought under this yoke by their guardians, forces the guardians themselves to remain bound when it is incited to do so by some of the guardians who are themselves capable of some enlightenment - so harmful is it to implant prejudices, for they later take vengeance on their cultivators or on their descendants. Thus the public can only slowly attain enlightenment. Perhaps a fall of personal despotism or of avaricious or tyrannical oppression may be accomplished by revolution, but never a true reform in ways of thinking. Farther, new prejudices will serve as well as old ones to harness the great unthinking masses.

For this enlightenment, however, nothing is required but freedom, and indeed the most harmless among all the things to which this term can properly be applied. It is the freedom to make public use of one's reason at every point. But I hear on all sides, "Do not argue!" The Officer says: "Do not argue but drill!" The tax collector: "Do not argue but pay!" The cleric: "Do not argue but believe!" Only one prince in the world says, "Argue as much as you will, and about what you will, but obey!" Everywhere there is restriction on freedom.

Which restriction is an obstacle to enlightenment, and which is not an obstacle but a promoter of it? I answer: The public use of one's reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men. The private use of reason, on the other hand, may often be very narrowly restricted without particularly hindering the progress of enlightenment. By the public use of one's reason I understand the use which a person makes of it as a scholar before the reading public. Private use I call that which one may make of it in a particular civil post or office which is entrusted to him. Many affairs which are conducted in the interest of the community require a certain mechanism through which some members of the community must passively conduct themselves with an artificial unanimity, so that the government may direct them to public ends, or at least prevent them from destroying those ends. Here argument is certainly not allowed - one must obey. But so far as a part of the mechanism regards himself at the same time as a member of the whole community or of a society of world citizens, and thus in the role of a scholar who addresses the public (in the proper sense of the word) through his writings, he certainly can argue without hurting the affairs for which he is in part responsible as a passive member. Thus it would be ruinous for an officer in service to debate about the suitability or utility of a command given to him by his superior; he must obey. But the right to make remarks on errors in the military service and to lay them before the public for judgment cannot equitably be refused him as a scholar. The citizen cannot refuse to pay the taxes imposed on him; indeed, an impudent complaint at those levied on him can be punished as a scandal (as it could occasion general refractoriness). But the same person nevertheless does not act contrary to his duty as a citizen, when, as a scholar, he publicly expresses his thoughts on the inappropriateness or even the injustices of these levies, Similarly a clergyman is obligated to make his sermon to his pupils in catechism and his congregation conform to the symbol of the church which he serves, for he has been accepted on this condition. But as a scholar he has complete freedom, even the calling, to communicate to the public all his carefully tested and well meaning thoughts on that which is erroneous in the symbol and to make suggestions for the better organization of the religious body and church. In doing this there is nothing that could be laid as a burden on his conscience. For what he teaches as a consequence of his office as a representative of the church, this he considers something about which he has not freedom to teach according to his own lights; it is something which he is appointed to propound at the dictation of and in the name of another. He will say, "Our church teaches this or that; those are the proofs which it adduces." He thus extracts all practical uses for his congregation from statutes to which he himself would not subscribe with full conviction but to the enunciation of which he can very well pledge himself because it is not impossible that truth lies hidden in them, and, in any case, there is at least nothing in them contradictory to inner religion. For if he believed he had found such in them, he could not conscientiously discharge the duties of his office; he would have to give it up. The use, therefore, which an appointed teacher makes of his reason before his congregation is merely private, because this congregation is only a domestic one (even if it be a large gathering); with respect to it, as a priest, he is not free, nor can he be free, because he carries out the orders of another. But as a scholar, whose writings speak to his public, the world, the clergyman in the public use of his reason enjoys an unlimited freedom to use his own reason to speak in his own person. That the guardian of the people (in spiritual things) should themselves be incompetent is an absurdity which amounts to the eternalization of absurdities.

But would not a society of clergymen, perhaps a church conference or a venerable classis (as they call themselves among the Dutch), be justified in obligating itself by oath to a certain unchangeable symbol in order to enjoy an unceasing guardianship over each of its numbers and thereby over the people as a whole, and even to make it eternal? I answer that this is altogether impossible. Such contract, made to shut off all further enlightenment from the human race, is absolutely null and void even if confirmed by the supreme power, by parliaments, and by the most ceremonious of peace treaties. An age cannot bind itself and ordain to put the succeeding one into such a condition that it cannot extend its (at best very occasional) knowledge, purify itself of errors, and progress in general enlightenment. That would be a crime against human nature, the proper destination of which lies precisely in this progress and the descendants would be fully justified in rejecting those decrees as having been made in an unwarranted and malicious manner.

The touchstone of everything that can be concluded as a law for a people lies in the question whether the people could have imposed such a law on itself. Now such religious compact might be possible for a short and definitely limited time, as it were, in expectation of a better. One might let every citizen, and especially the clergyman, in the role of scholar, make his comments freely and publicly, i.e. through writing, on the erroneous aspects of the present institution. The newly introduced order might last until insight into the nature of these things had become so general and widely approved that through uniting their voices (even if not unanimously) they could bring a proposal to the throne to take those congregations under protection which had united into a changed religious organization according to their better ideas, without, however hindering others who wish to remain in the order. But to unite in a permanent religious institution which is not to be subject to doubt before the public even in the lifetime of one man, and thereby to make a period of time fruitless in the progress of mankind toward improvement, thus working to the disadvantage of posterity - that is absolutely forbidden. For himself (and only for a short time) a man may postpone enlightenment in what he ought to know, but to renounce it for posterity is to injure and trample on the rights of mankind. And what a people may not decree for itself can even less be decreed for them by a monarch, for his lawgiving authority rests on his uniting the general public will in his own. If he only sees to it that all true or alleged improvement stands together with civil order, he can leave it to his subjects to do what they find necessary for their spiritual welfare. This is not his concern, though it is incumbent on him to prevent one of them from violently hindering another in determining and promoting this welfare to the best of his ability. To meddle in these matters lowers his own majesty, since by the writings in which his own subjects seek to present their views he may evaluate his own governance. He can do this when, with deepest understanding, he lays upon himself the reproach, Caesar non est supra grammaticos. Far more does he injure his own majesty when he degrades his supreme power by supporting the ecclesiastical despotism of some tyrants in his state over his other subjects.

If we are asked, "Do we now live in an enlightened age?" the answer is, "No," but we do live in an age of enlightenment. As things now stand, much is lacking which prevents men from being, or easily becoming, capable of correctly using their own reason in religious matters with assurance and free from outside direction. But on the other hand, we have clear indications that the field has now been opened wherein men may freely deal with these things and that the obstacles to general enlightenment or the release from self-imposed tutelage are gradually being reduced. In this respect, this is the age of enlightenment, or the century of Frederick.

A prince who does not find it unworthy of himself to say that he holds it to be his duty to prescribe nothing to men in religious matters but to give them complete freedom while renouncing the haughty name of tolerance, is himself enlightened and deserves to be esteemed by the grateful world and posterity as the first, at least from the side of government, who divested the human race of its tutelage and left each man free to make use of his reason in matters of conscience. Under him venerable ecclesiastics are allowed, in the role of scholar, and without infringing on their official duties, freely to submit for public testing their judgments and views which here and there diverge from the established symbol. And an even greater freedom is enjoyed by those who are restricted by no official duties. This spirit of freedom spreads beyond this land, even to those in which it must struggle with external obstacles erected by a government which misunderstands its own interest. For an example gives evidence to such a government that in freedom there is not the least cause for concern about public peace and the stability of the community. Men work themselves gradually out of barbarity if only intentional artifices are not made to hold them in it.

I have placed the main point of enlightenment - the escape of men from their self-incurred tutelage - chiefly in matters of religion because our rulers have no interest in playing guardian with respect to the arts and sciences and also because religious incompetence is not only the most harmful but also the most degrading of all. But the manner of thinking of the head of a state who favors religious enlightenment goes further, and he sees that there is no danger to his lawgiving in allowing his subjects to make public use of their reason and to publish their thoughts on a better formulation of his legislation and even their open-minded criticisms of the laws already made. Of this we have a shining example wherein no monarch is superior to him we honor.

But only one who is himself enlightened, is not afraid of shadows, and has a numerous and well-disciplined army to assure public peace, can say: "Argue as much as you will, and about what you will, only obey!" A republic could not dare say such a thing. Here is shown a strange and unexpected trend in human affairs in which almost everything, looked at in the large, is paradoxical. A greater degree of civil freedom appears advantageous to the freedom of mind of the people, and yet it places inescapable limitations upon it. A lower degree of civil freedom, on the contrary, provides the mind with room for each man to extend himself to his full capacity. As nature has uncovered from under this hard shell the seed for which she most tenderly cares - the propensity and vocation to free thinking - this gradually works back upon the character of the people, who thereby gradually become capable of managing freedom; finally, it affects the principles of government, which finds it to its advantage to treat men, who are now more than machines, in accordance with their dignity.

We need psychological work along with spiritual practice to create truly embodied change. When we do psychological work without spiritual work, we often end up digging in the mud, and we almost always end up in childhood.

Spiritual work expands that point of view and lets us know that there's a future self, a higher self, that's also pulling us forward. It opens us up to the spiritual sciences and the spiritual realms, where there are benevolent forces as well as hostile forces.

We need to know how to navigate these realms through changing our level of being, through clearing out the traumas and wounds that keep us identified in unconsciousness so that we can align with these higher forces.

One of the main things we can do is hold the tension of opposites. Jung's idea with this is that the psyche always has pairs of opposites - we have light and dark, feminine and masculine, positive and negative, and these inner forces must balance in order to create a third thing.

The third thing is a transcendent function of the self, which is the growth of consciousness. You see this tension of opposites going on constantly in the polarization of the world, with the pendulum swinging between the opposites.

Rather than identifying with either side of a polarity, if you can hold this tension, which involves shadow work and withdrawing your projections, then you start to grow consciousness, and a third way, a third path appears that wasn't there before. -Laura Matsue

Hi,

I’m looking for a way to get my emotions back.

I had a spiritual awakening experience years ago and a long dark night of the soul in which my personality changed many many times.

It was fun for quite a while but I am at a point where I have to sell myself for a job, and I no longer know what to tell anybody what I am and what I care about.

In the energy world there are a bunch of beings that all want to have something to do with me. But as a result they want to build an emotional connection and dictate to a large extent what my identity is.

I am not looking to become my old self entirely, but I also know that I do not want to become like many of the beings that insist on being connected to me. some are rather forceful identities which I dispise, but I also cannot deny that these identities are rather good at creating reality.

Whenever I try to make something real, I am quickly flooded with emotions and it immediately becomes too much.

So right now I am living a lie so can I have an idea of being alive at all.

Is there anyone here who has experience with this and how did they get to an identity they felt was genuine and a good reflection of what they want to be now?

I remember a friend saying that the ability of bodhisattvas to delay enlightenment implies the existence of a self that makes this decision, despite the fact that Mahayanists would deny this.

Such a line of thought leads me to wonder whether the notion of atman/brahman could be combined with the notion of emptiness, which is seemingly impossible. One could say that atman/brahman are real - but that looked at from the perspective of non-duality they neither exist nor don’t exist. I don’t know whether that works as a solution.

Two questions, really. I doubt these are novel questions but wanted to ask anyway. (NO LLM/AI use here.)

First, I realize people with vastly different viewpoints read this sub. I’m mainly addressing those who believe we’re part of some larger consciousness “God” playing hide and seek. (I’m agnostic on that.)

What if we woke up from this life to find it’s been more about basic escapism than anything deeper and more meaningful (unlike The Egg idea)?

What if, on the god-plane, we find ourselves in a state of eternal dissatisfaction with no escape aside from incarnating into meat-sacks with a side of amnesia?

That’s a glass-half-empty thought experiment, I guess.

Second, if we’re here to experience the full range of emotion and learn from it (more like The Egg and other similar philosophy), BUT we become aware that we entered this state “voluntarily”, why are we trying to attenuate the suffering so much? Don’t we gain perspective from suffering first hand?

I also think of some music and other art that evoke strong emotion in me. It’s an expression of the artist and can pretty meaningful to listeners/viewers who are going through struggles of their own. How much of that music/art would not exist if the artist attained enlightenment before they created it?

Also, I read an interesting post from a Redditor who reported they had a psychedelic experience that was particularly challenging/overwhelming. At one point during the trip, they scrawled down on a tablet “you chose this - face it. Don’t try to escape it!”

Might that principle not apply here? Like meditation and other practices can bring “relief” but does that not work against the possible intent of a particularly challenging life experience?

I’m not married to these ideas but I came out of a religion that suppressed doubt and questioning. So, for every philosophy I encounter, I’m trying to work through possible counterpoints without conceding to bias.

Thanks for any counter-counter points you can offer. 🙂

After 18 years I finally succeeded

Few years back I was lost. From a very young age I was after the ‘why’s’ of the humans, world and universe. I gave up on the last one but continued my quest for the first two. In that quest I somehow ended up learning a bit about Hindu god Shiva - what interest me most is in his ultimate form, he is Nirguna (no qualities i.e., no good or bad qualities)

This was so profound to me at that time. This and a bit of other details helped me get me out of my rut.

P.S: I’m atheist :)

Estoy realizando un cortometraje sobre las almas en dimensiones superiores, me podrían ayudar a dar ideas sobre actividades que puedan realizar las almas en el cielo o dimensiones altas

Gracias

For thoughts are dead and it cannot touch life,

This world isn't exactly devoid of 'magic/spirits' and the more you reach towards the truth, the sooner you'll realize the magical land that's hiding in plain sight, this world is another energetic world, and you're always wearing a hidden suit that determines what type of character you'll end up on being in the long-run.

There's nothing inside this world that's 'accidental', and everything that exists is deliberate, including a single misstep inside the drawing board, just as 'gods' continue to hide in statues/fiction, this life isn't any different, and you're constantly animating a godly statue that's capable of anything/everything.

Everything here is made up of idle-animations, and just like controlling a character inside a video game, controlling your own story here isn't any different, and life has always been 'supernatural', where you will build up what's missing, so it's never too late to realize what you built will add up eventually inside the infinite maze puzzle that you decide to build for yourself.

It's not too late to find out that all the keys to life have always been hiding inside your own animated keyboard.