PepperBlossoms

I think I need to work on my prejudice for religion as well as low consciousness. All beliefs are a religion in a way and we are all to varying degrees of awareness. I need to work on mastering relationships. I am not sure what my "highest potential" is. All I can think of is that I still have some more books to read and more skills to accumulate.

A religious person could see a non-religious person and go, they look weak. They need God. Look at them crying and suffering. They don't have God in their life. However, a non-religious person could say, I am capable of dealing with sadness, suffering, and shit. I am capable and willing to face problems. You on the other-hand act like everything is fine and dandy just the way it is and dismiss any problems. You are the weak one unable to deal with things and just brush them off. The person who looks weak with their emotional problems is actually strong in the sense that they are willing to let themselves have emotion. Emotions other than positive happiness can be really hard to deal with. Religion could be emotionally stunting people because they cannot listen to their feelings. They may think "church is boring" and tell themselves, "don't think that." They may think "I want to have sex", "I don't believe in this", "I don't agree with xyz", or whatever - but then have to shut those thoughts off because that is a sin and God is listening and that goes against what God "wants" them to think. They have to think what the church tells them to think. Religion could really fuck people up like super badly. My friend said, "I know I am okay because God loves me". The problem here is relying on SOMEONE ELSE to love you instead of trying to love yourself. When we rely on being liked by OTHERS inside of just liking ourselves, that can be an issue. When my friend said that she told her uncle that he was a nice person because he makes jokes a lot, I was thinking, well Hitler could make jokes too - does that make him nice? Nice is kinda a useless adjective to describe someone unless it is more descriptive - like nice at what? If someone is good at making jokes, why not say they are funny and a good conversationalist? I think maybe I am being too picky on this one though. I think I need to just stop talking to my friend for now. I think I find ways to disagree with her and I don't like doing that. A lot of my childhood friends are religious and I don't really talk to any of them. I feel like ugh I don't like hating on people.. but again that is something that religion preaches.. don't hate and just love. But hate is very helpful for understanding things and shouldn't be thrown in the trash can necessarily. I quit reddit and the news entirely and maybe I just need to quit this person for now too. I am really not good at setting boundaries and always tell myself, oh stuff will get better, I am just doing something wrong. Well maybe I do need boundaries. It seems like I don't really get anything from talking to this person other than finding more thinking methods that lack nuance and potentially more ways of being told how to live. I may have a shadow because if this part of my life was fully healed and processed, maybe I would not be bothered by it and wouldn't be writing about it. My friend has schizophrenia and is religious and both of those make me feel like I am not sure what I can and cannot say. It could be that she cannot survive without the religion. I however, cannot survive with the religion. HA. My own thinking lacks nuance at times as well and it is something that slowly develops over time. The only way for people who lack nuance to develop it is to be exposed to it. But I don't like being the person who is correcting/suggesting things. I feel like I lack the skills and finesse to do it. It is a whole next level of being a human and I am not there. I saw a podcast where a black man would talk to white men who were in the KKK (I think it was) and he successfully got several people to leave the KKK but he was very smart with how he did it and patient but stern. I don't think I am stern quite yet. I am kinda a pushover but I am getting better at not being. Society kinda molds us into being pushovers in a way. Pushovers who go along with the common narrative and don't question or push up against anything. Our parents do, our teachers do, our religion does. Learning how to not be a pushover can be hard.

I think that part of me felt like an asshole with regards to the conversation with my peer for the following reasons: I am sensitive to insults, criticisms, suggestions, disagreements. The environment that I grew up in didn't seem to like it when I voiced my opinion and so I was kinda encouraged to stay quiet and not say anything that I thought. Or at least I didn't get good feedback when I would do it..? The environment that I grew up in would say lots of things that I interpreted as insults, criticisms, suggestions, disagreements, or unhelpful..? Maybe I need to change the way I think about comments and stop labelling things as insults, criticisms, suggestions, disagreements, positivity, support. Maybe these labels can be inaccurate and when inaccurate, can be misinterpreted and cause conflict, confusion, disengagement, etc. If I just take everything as bits of information instead of putting it into categories of, oh this is mean, or oh this is pushy.. maybe that would help? Maybe I am too quick to judge something and when I put it in the category of judgmental, arrogant, aggressive, whatever, I quit listening, interacting, considering. Maybe I am saying I am the asshole because I am still not used to telling people my opinion and I feel weird about it but also because I was conditioned to not do it. Maybe I need to find a way to be more mature and care less about how I sound and how the other person sounds and more about the content? Like, to stop making things so personal and try making things much more impersonal? Like, okay we are talking about the idea here, not us? Ah this is really tricky stuff. I am not sure if the stuff I have come up with is right still. I guess like I will say, oh I don't like it when people tell me how to live but yet, I do that sometimes. So I am being a hypocrite. But sometimes when someone tells me how to live, it is super helpful. So maybe I need to change my attitude on that? I don't know!! One step at a time! I feel like it can be helpful to make an initial label as that is an initial guess though but then that guess can be wrong and we can be using the wrong filter for quite a long time... but is it even possible to not have any filter at all? Part of me thinks there will be a filter no matter what. Okay so people are talking.. blah blah blah. They talk about their day blah blah blah. They talk about their ideas and thoughts blah blah blah. We then hear something we disagree with, think is off, or doesn't have enough nuance. The siren starts going off. We then think, do I say something or do I stay quiet? Sometimes there is no thinking and we just do it. Sometimes we think, "I TOTALLY DISAGREE" but we stay quiet. Maybe we stay quiet because we have spoken on it before and that DID NOTHING it seemed. Maybe we don't think and we just react instantly. Maybe it is better to do the following. When we see the red siren going off and we say we disagree, don't insult them or question them... maybe just try to get them to elaborate some more? But we have to be super careful with this because again, we could end up insulting or questioning them. How does one do that? "Hey I am getting off my meds. They healed me." My alarm went off because I thought - meds don't necessarily heal. They may buy one time to learn to cope and get new skills though. I could have either said that or said, what do you mean by heal? Saying "what do you mean" and then repeating whatever they said is then not posing any insults or questions necessarily - it is getting them to elaborate on what they already said. Maybe that method will help and then I won't feel the shame/guilt. So by replacing my comment of "but did you get the right skills so that when the symptoms that got you on the medication come back, you can handle it without having to go on medication" with "what do you mean by the medication healed you?" This replacement switcharoo then helps me to avoid sounding like I am doubting her ability to have skills and be able to do what she is doing - something that I do not like when is done to me when people are doubting my abilities. I don't know... I am still not sure. Maybe I am obsessing over something that doesn't matter because I am not super busy. I guess the issue is that I have asked people "what do you mean" or "can you elaborate on" before and it didn't go well either... but that will vary with every person. Ah I still don't know. Um maybe I am just obsessing over a detail and we all make mistakes with what we are saying. I think I need to just let it sit and see what else my mind comes up with, if anything at all. I guess part of me feels like when I get someone to elaborate on something, I am being sneaky because I already have a thought about it and should just jump straight to the thought. But then my thought could be basing it off of incomplete information and then they may react to my thought when I could have just asked for more info FIRST before giving my thought. Like, okay if we are talking and everything is fine, I could just say what I think but if I am sensing a complete disagreement, that is when I ask for more info before I give my opinion?

Sometimes we need new perspectives, environments, and info and going to what we are used to isn't enough because we need more variety from what we currently have to figure things out. I put the above on another thread and I just thought it was actually pretty good advice and can apply to quite a bit of things. Sometimes even though we feel like conversations with others are going really bad, they can still be helpful because they may be providing context and variety. Even if it feels like it is going shitty, there again, is still the context and variety that you are potentially getting. But, we will have our limits too of how much we can handle as well and me and limits/boundaries is not very defined.

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/publications/supporting-someone-mental-health-problem I can see that it is a super tough situation but do what feels right for you. I can see that the emotional support would be really hard to keep up and that directing him as much as possible to professional resources, which you did, is good. Sometimes we need new perspectives, environments, and info and going to what we are used to isn't enough because we need more variety from what we currently have to figure things out.

I was thinking some more about the zoom conversation with one of my peers and how I was feeling like an asshole/horrible about it. Here are some potential thoughts: We kept on disagreeing with each other and then would change topic and then would disagree again and then change topic. We were changing topics too fast and needed to stay on the topic long enough until we could both kinda come to some sort of agreement. When you feel like there is disagreement with everything, your reality is not validated and it may feel bad. However, we are going to have disagreements in perspective with every single person as everyone's life is different but the degree to which the disagreement happens will vary. Also, if one person is interested in getting to the bottom of things and another is not, that can also make a difference. Also if the two have radically different beliefs AT THE CORE, that will dramatically make it harder to agree. "The medication healed me and I am getting off of it." This part was a huge concern to me because I don't think medication can heal someone. I think they can use that time to gain skills to help them better cope with life and then get off and then apply the skills but I do not think it is the medication alone. I asked, "did you develop the skills to handle the symptoms that got you on the medication in the first place so that when the symptoms come back, you can handle it and not have to get back on medication"? The reply was that "Yes I have developed the skills and if needed, I will just get back on the medication." I think I was feeling bad because I was questioning her decision and abilities but I was also seeing a huge danger and flaw because her symptoms are schizophrenia, which is a WHOLE DIFFERENT BALLPARK than say depression in my opinion. I think one problem with schizophrenia is that when someone is really bad with epistemology, they aren't going to have the right skills.. but I am not her and I don't want to tell someone how to live their life. Her attitude is to not think of herself and be selfless and "hurry up and forgive myself" so that I can get back to thinking of others and just be positive with regards to something we are having trouble with. In my opinion this is hugely wrong because you CAN'T JUST HURRY UP AND FORGIVE YOURSELF AND MOVE ON. It doesn't work like that. It takes A LOT OF TIME, like YEARS AND YEARS to get over some things and just hurrying up and forgiving is not going to get to the root of the issue of whatever got one to feel upset/regretful whatever. It is like ignoring that one is a bad person so that they can hurry up and focus on everyone else. Another one is the desire to be happy, happy, happy, positive, positive, positive, selfless, selfless, selfless. I see this as a huge concern because there is great benefit to seeing negative things and facing struggles. If all one wants to be around is happy stuff, they are basically ignoring and rejecting very large parts of reality. Sometimes things have to go to complete shit for us to finally be able to change; the notion of just being positive and love oneself isn't going to quite do it in my opinion. It is like where someone thinks they are a nice person because they just try to be positive and loving but yet they aren't facing their demons of all the shit they do. I guess another thing that I had a problem with was that I feel like I am watching a movie I don't want to watch. Yes I know we are all going to have different things. The thing is is that she is quite a bit when it comes to Christianity and her new thing she is working towards is to become a teacher at the catholic school in town so that she can talk about her faith. I guess the thing that bothers me is that I completely disagree with Christianity and especially when it comes to pushing it onto young kids. I disagree with how Christianity rejects some epistemology and rejects many of the problems that it creates. Her attitude of happy/positive/selfless is rejecting facing one's own demons. I just don't really want to be a part of watching someone update me about his/her life which is moving towards aiding in the spread of Christianity. But there are SO MANY PEOPLE that do this. It was done to her and now she is going to do it to others. I guess I am even having problems with Spirituality too and came up with the notion where it is a rabbit hole where we just won't know for sure how reality works. Spirituality could be just as bad as Christianity but however, I don't think it is in the notion that Christianity is really human focused and focused on the self to go to Heaven while Spirituality is more the entire life focused and will be more "selfless" by nature. Maybe when she says she wants to be selfless, she doesn't realize that the very religion that she has is what is holding her back. Part of me wants to say, "hey I think we need a break from talking". I never ask her to talk and she is the one always asking me to talk. Many times she tries to tell me how to live my life. It is quite hard talking to someone you disagree with. Part of me was wondering if women in general are just really stupid, myself included. I was talking with another peer yesterday about how right now, society is doing a large social experiment when it comes to the genders. This whole gender equality thing is great in terms of letting people try things out but may be doing harm. I think there could be some truth to men being better at some things and women better at others. The whole idea of men should be able to do what women can do and vice versa may have not as good results. Women could think, if guys can do it, I want to be able to do it too, and then they walk themselves into a corner that brings them low self esteem and confidence because they start to notice that their male peers are just naturally much better at it than them. It then puts the company in a very hard situation because there is the whole "equal pay" thing among genders when it could be that the male output for some things is just MUCH much higher than it is for the female output. Companies may feel like they have to hire an equal amount of men and women but the women could perform much worse. The boss is then in a hard situation because they don't know whether to be harder on the female, which she may not like, or have an upset client, which is bad for the company. It is kinda bad for everyone. One would think that overtime, if the woman is not a good fit, she would leave the career. There are SO MANY factors at play though and it could be that the work environment I was in, for instance, was really, really bad when it came to mentoring and without that, I was not able to survive. The turnover was really, really high. But I can see that I would get really bored when it came to the calculations because it just felt like it went on forever and it felt like there could have been a better way to do it and I did not have the right information to be able to do it but the information, when I would ask for it, was not given in a clear and concise manner.. but also.. ah okay so I didn't have the right info and the mentors weren't great and so it is hard to say if I would have liked it but then came the whole realizing that I was killing animals/bugs/trees and I was so disgusted I quit immediately. One thought I had yesterday was, well maybe I am just too low conscious and undeveloped when it comes to communicating with others and maybe I should just not do it until I become more conscious. However, every interaction with people will be different and just because it feels not so good with one person does not mean that it will feel not so good with another. Also, we kinda have to do more interacting not less, in order to get better at it. I can see that my peer's perspective of positivity can be helpful and maybe that is what is needed or her and her diagnosis. However, for me, I need to be able to see the entire picture and so too much positivity may be rejecting everything else. I think hmm like okay, I can just not instigate any interaction, which I usually don't. And then when she asks me to interact, I could either say no.. which part of me would feel bad about doing, or I could not reply, which I may feel bad about doing too. I am not sure. I guess this is something I need to just keep on thinking about. I don't like thinking of people negatively and I don't like having bad interactions but I feel like I am having a hard time. It could be that we keep on interacting and it gets better in various ways, it could be it stays the same, it could be it gets worse. I don't really talk to many people. I gave up on talking to another person as again every interaction was where the other person was telling me how to live my life or criticizing me or my peers. With another peer, it was kinda the same as the one I have been talking about where the desire is to be happy/positive about everything but then completely rejects/ignores epistemology/nuance and again, I kinda gave up on those interactions to and have kept them to an absolute minimum. I think maybe Christians want to focus on happy/positive because "bad" goes with "sin" which goes with "hell" and they don't want to go to hell so anything "heavenly" and "forgiving" is key. I can see the benefit of happy/positive where one is supportive and kind but it may be a useless supportive and kind because it does not have the right nuance to be able to point to the root of the problem. The idea is "oh this is bad, just leave the situation or medicate yourself" is not doing anything to acknowledge what the actual problem is.

I wonder if part of it is I can see that when I am talking to some people, it kind of turns into a battle of my perspective versus theirs and we don't want to be wrong and then we can feel like if we disagreed or questioned their perspective, that we were not being supportive enough?? Conversations are hard and I am not fully sure what the best way to have them is. I guess I need to just sit with it some more.

One of the users shared this on another page. I took some notes it's okay that I am feeling the way I am feeling you don't need to blame/guilt/shame/reject yourself for your feelings something in my reality is out of alignment. something is not working it is the culture, school system, religion, etc. make it safe i am still worthy of love no matter what even if i am causing all the chaos and harm i love myself even if I will never change/grow i will get my needs met love = security love yourself in whatever you are in if what we are doing is out of alignment, it will still hurt it just hurts, i dont want to do it anymore make it safe for ourselves to be wrong we can change and get our needs met as soon as i realize it is not real, i just change it instantly there is nothing wrong with me, it was the thing i was doing i accept me, i will be here for me. if what you are doing is out of alignment, it will always hurt make it right what you are feeling is leading you to the truth if you keep on saying there is something wrong with me is not going to get you to the truth humanity doesn't have it right if it hurts make it safe even if you are confused, anxious, depressed i am good no matter what now what hurts i love myself anyways, i will approve myself anyways where am i taking love away, blaming others, where can i connect to reality again feel where the actual pain and pleasure is i am feeling what i am feeling - i am scared/lost/anxious THIS is where i am and i am not going to hate myself for where i am accept that i am thinking feeling responding reacting this way i am not going to blame/shame myself there is a good reason for it it is totally okay i give myself permission to feel this way i am not going to tell myself i should not be feeling how i am feeling the way i am feeling we go into fight/flight when we reject ourselves and cannot understand systems or grow cannot do change/growht/evolution when in fight/flight when we feel it is not okay to be how we are the way we are

I was talking with one of my peers and one of the things that my peer said was that she wants to be more selfless and think of others more than herself. I was trying to think about why this is and maybe I should have asked her some more. One of the things I was also saying was how sometimes we have to have a really sad, severe reaction in order to change and it may have to happen over and over again because we can't seem to change otherwise. But sure some could have it where it is positive all the time and still change but I have found that sometimes it has to be negative to have change. Sometimes we will want to think of ourselves and sometimes we will want to think of others. I feel like consciousness stuff is bad for survival in the sense that there starts to be so many things that you don't want to do. But it could be good in terms of trying to be more holistic. ... I think I don't like talking to people because I really don't like disagreeing.... ugh I guess I just don't like what goes along with it. .. I feel like a complete asshole after talking to one of my friends. I feel like I feel like an asshole a lot when I talk to females. I feel like I am too mean if I speak my mind and there is the idea of just saying nothing and agreeing with them. But when I disagree with almost everything that comes out of their mouth, what am I supposed to do? Why is talking to people so hard? I think maybe some are harder than others. I guess the ones I disagree with I am just really struggling to talk with. I don't want to be telling them my opinion on everything if I disagree. I guess I find that there isn't much to talk about with some people. Ahh. I just don't feel good about it!! Like, talking to people on a forum can be quite a bit easier because there is more time to think and respond. I don't know how some people are able to talk to so many people and actually enjoy it. I hate talking to some guys too though so I don't think it is necessarily a gender thing. Like it will feel like there is really nothing to learn from the other person and I am just getting being an asshole but I don't want to be an asshole and sure there could be stuff to learn but I just really, really disagree with them and think their view severely lacks nuance but sure so could mine... I guess it is hard when I like digging deep into topics and others don't.

You could also look at it like a way to become a better friend, a challenge to take on, and a way for both of you to heal and get stronger together. You don't have to be perfect to be helpful. I am not skilled in why people cut their wrists but it may be associated with shame or guilt and they feel like they have to punish themselves; it may be associated with a call for attention because they feel lonely; it may be associated with numbness and wanting to feel something so they create pain. Your friend has a lot of skills that they need to gain and it can start with having people showing them love and probably being around them more rather than less. Shame or guilt - they need to work through why they feel that way, why they did what they did, what are some other things that they can do when the situation happens again, and then forgive themselves and release the shame/guilt Lonely/attention - there are lots of free online mental health support groups- like several everyday. That can help as well going to a therapist as well as having more friends to talk to. Your friend needs people to talk to. Your friend needs love and attention right now. Numbness - that could have to do with various trauma that they are having a hard time facing. Low self esteem/negative thinking - It could be from how they were raised - parents/environment. It could be they have an inner critic that is very toxic that they have not been able to work on and transform into a healthy way yet. I am not a mental health professional but these came to mind. I hope they are okay. Sometimes we think the other person is an issue and we want to distance ourselves from them and we don't want to listen to them, but sometimes their anger/outbursts/sadness/meanness are calls for help, for love, for needing to be heard, for needing to be understood, for needing to be appreciated, etc. You may later regret avoiding your friend in this hard time or wishing that you had done more. We can always do more. I am not necessarily correct in any of this and you don't have to take any of this advice either.

Thanks for the answers. How does one get the conclusion that this is the only field/experience/mind and that death does not exist and that experience is eternal? Why can't there be another set of eyes with its own limited experience/mind at the same time as mine?

It is weird at how we can sometimes be SO resistant to listening. It is like, what is our problem and why are we refusing to listen/engage? ... It is weird at how I can be super engaged and fascinated by something and then the next day I will be like, meh, I don't really care about that anymore or see the point in looking at it.

Someone users on the forum posted this and I thought the ideas were interesting: "It does not create a rigidity of direction like the one pointed intellect or bigotry at the idea or impulse like the one pointed vital force. It is at every moment and with a supple sureness that it points the way to the truth, automatically distinguishes the right step from the false, extricates the divine or godward movement from the clinging mixture of the undivine. On love, winged upward and not tied to the stake of egoistic craving or with its feel sunk in the mire. On strength and will and mastery, as instruments not of the ego but of the spirit." "work towards something positive" "The reason why westerners are lost, hopeless, and beyond help is because they don't have values." "A delusion is a false fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, hallucination, or some other misleading effects of perception, as individuals with those beliefs are able to change or readjust their beliefs upon reviewing the evidence." .. The weird thing about knowing what direction to go is that part of me says that we don't know but yet another part says we have a curious desire for certain directions and those may go no where but that is where we go. The curious desire may lead to something positive or it may not... it is weird how we have a curious desire in the first place. Maybe it is because we know that we don't know and we say, meh well this could help me with xyz so I might as well TRY to know more.. I think it may not be that we don't have values but rather we don't think we have options. We think we are stuck. or maybe we do actually not have values haha. I would say sometimes we have a really hard time changing our mind when we get new evidence but sometimes it is so great that we have to change our mind.

I feel like the nice thing about attending online social mental health therapy groups is that you can try things and mess up and then hopefully the consequences won't be too bad. Interacting with people is really hard. ... I think part of the thing with shame goes to a religious upbringing. Many things are sins and sins are bad and you have to feel shameful for what you did and repent those sins. Why do we have good and bad, evil and love, right and wrong, rules, laws, codes? We make them for our own selfish gain and/or for the selfish gain of the community. It is still selfish in that it is not loving for things outside of the scope of concern quite often. When you tell someone, "DON'T DO THAT!", it may be more for your own benefit and survival than for the person you are telling it to. ... Part of me is like, well who really gives a shit why reality works? Like why even bother? Like, we won't really ever know what is real anyway so why spend so much time? Because someone dangled the curiosity in front of us and we fell for it and we ran after it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mysticism This website is really helpful for getting a basis for how different groups think. We may purposefully delete/destroy/change stuff because we want to forget about it, we don't want to know, we don't want to think about it. If the creator of the universe wanted us to know, wouldn't we know? So like, maybe we are supposed to not know and just supposed to enjoy the ride. ... Part of me is thinking I shouldn't have left my second company because the pay was decent and there were lots of cool jobs. But then there is the whole toxic part that I was struggling x100000000 with.

Mysticism feels like it is a rabbit hole where you can look forever and really not know. Also, if one feels triggered by reading email/text/whatever, change "you" to "one" and it won't feel like it is targeting you specifically but rather people in general.

"In contrast, for the past decades most scholars have favored a constructionist approach, which states that mystical experiences are fully constructed by the ideas, symbols and practices that mystics are familiar with.[9] Critics of the term "religious experience" note that the notion of "religious experience" or "mystical experience" as marking insight into religious truth is a modern development,[135] and contemporary researchers of mysticism note that mystical experiences are shaped by the concepts "which the mystic brings to, and which shape, his experience".[136] What is being experienced is being determined by the expectations and the conceptual background of the mystic.[137]" This is interesting because it basically says one has mystical experienced based on what they have already been told. "Neurological research takes an empirical approach, relating mystical experiences to neurological processes.[140][141] This leads to a central philosophical issue: does the identification of neural triggers or neural correlates of mystical experiences prove that mystical experiences are no more than brain events or does it merely identify the brain activity occurring during a genuine cognitive event? The most common positions are that neurology reduces mystical experiences or that neurology is neutral to the issue of mystical cognitivity.[142] Interest in mystical experiences and psychedelic drugs has also recently seen a resurgence.[143] The temporal lobe seems to be involved in mystical experiences,[web 9][144] and in the change in personality that may result from such experiences.[web 9] It generates the feeling of "I," and gives a feeling of familiarity or strangeness to the perceptions of the senses.[web 9] There is a long-standing notion that epilepsy and religion are linked,[145] and some religious figures may have had temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).[web 9][146][147][145] The anterior insula may be involved in ineffability, a strong feeling of certainty which cannot be expressed in words, which is a common quality in mystical experiences. According to Picard, this feeling of certainty may be caused by a dysfunction of the anterior insula, a part of the brain which is involved in interoception, self-reflection, and in avoiding uncertainty about the internal representations of the world by "anticipation of resolution of uncertainty or risk".[148][note 26]" This is interesting because it says that part of the mystical experience is the change in the brain functioning. "The attribution approach views "mystical experience" as non-ordinary states of consciousness which are explained in a religious framework." "R. C. Zaehner distinguishes three fundamental types of mysticism, namely theistic, monistic and panenhenic ("all-in-one") or natural mysticism.[6] The theistic category includes most forms of Jewish, Christian and Islamic mysticism and occasional Hindu examples such as Ramanuja and the Bhagavad Gita." "Walter Terence Stace, in his book Mysticism and Philosophy (1960), distinguished two types of mystical experience, namely extrovertive and introvertive mysticism.[128][6][129] Extrovertive mysticism is an experience of the unity of the external world, whereas introvertive mysticism is "an experience of unity devoid of perceptual objects; it is literally an experience of 'no-thing-ness'."[129] The unity in extrovertive mysticism is with the totality of objects of perception. While perception stays continuous, “unity shines through the same world”; the unity in introvertive mysticism is with a pure consciousness, devoid of objects of perception,[130] “pure unitary consciousness, wherein awareness of the world and of multiplicity is completely obliterated.”[131] According to Stace such experiences are nonsensous and nonintellectual, under a total “suppression of the whole empirical content.”[132]"

One of the things about saving the world is that, if dream theory is correct, and if I am only dreaming this dream once and will die and then go into another realm, then there is almost no point to saving the world because it won't be lived in again. There are so many theories for how life works it can be hard to know what to do. Sure we don't want to do things to hurt others. I guess one option is to choose the option that we will feel good about regardless of which reality explanation is actually right.. -die and go to heaven/hell -die and just never wake up again -die and go into body of someone else -die and go into experience that is in another realm completely inaccessible from this one -die and experience life as the omnipresent god -something else If we try to become as conscious, kind, aware as possible to help ourselves and others, then maybe that is okay and it won't matter what happens after that.

We might feel shame for how we disobeyed some rules, how we broke a promise, how we did not perform how we were supposed to, how we did not try our best, how we were thinking of ourselves over others, etc. Shame is also like this thing where we have to imagine it and then keep on imagining it for it to keep on existing. It is like, okay I get it, I messed up in many ways. I get it that I shouldn't have done xyz. But almost everyone messes up at some point. We don't have the right skills, knowledge, awareness, experience, understanding, consciousness or whatever and so we do stuff that we end up regretting, feeling guilty, feeling regret, etc. Making mistakes is okay too in terms of realizing that they are mistakes and then trying to become better and do things differently next time. So why the hold up on it? Why the recurring focus on it? Why not just move on? What I am overlooking here? We are shamed by our teachers for not paying attention or doing the assignment, shamed by our parents for not making good grades or speaking out against them, shamed by our peers when we do things they do not approve of. But we too shame. We shame people for their religion, for the ideas, for their mood, whatever. Maybe I shame others and I am just not aware of it enough?? I shame a coworker. Maybe we shame others because others have shamed us and we shame ourselves. Like the idea where hurt people hurt others, well shamed people may shame themselves and others too. So if we can recognize that we all mess up and well all get better, then we can stop shaming and start understanding, accepting, apologizing, appreciating. Appreciate yourself, don't shame yourself. Appreciate yourself for all the hard times you have endured, for how much you have grown, for all of your efforts, for all the joy and beauty you find, for your curiosity, for your beauty, etc. Appreciate yourself and appreciate others. Shame wants to hide, to walk hunched over. Appreciation stands up straight and may give a smile and a hug. It may be kind and uplifting. Shame may be critical, depressing. Appreciate that you are here everyday trying to learn something new, trying to work on yourself, trying to get better at the things you are bad at, trying to help others, trying to explore, seeking curiosity, trying to show up in some way. Appreciate all that has had to happen for you to be here and just how magical, mysterious, and complex this life is. Appreciate that you can feel emotions, you can recognize unknowns, that you can sense beauty, that you are here right now. You could have died a long time ago. You can still die at any moment. Nothing is guaranteed. Gratitude can go a long way.

I think we are distracted by our imagined shame some and that makes it hard to focus. I think we feel so much shame that we don't want to look at people sometimes. But it isn't necessarily our fault. Learning to forgive ourselves can be a huge hurdle and allow one to forgive others too. We all need love and loving ourselves can be a huge step. We can do things to distract us because we don't want to look the shame in the face. We can hide or stay away from anything that reminds us of the shame to not have to face it.

It seems that we need some sort of way to do more creative stuff. Many jobs lack creativity completely and are not necessary. There is much work done to just keep jobs in place. This is a mistake. I don't know how society would change from the way it is now to a different way. It could start with being more honest about things. If there was more funding for artistic work and more effort put into that than say insurance policies, war, fast food, soda, chocolate, There definitely seems to be a great shift towards wanting to be more creative and less of doing things that are repetitive, mundane, etc. There are majors in the arts. The career path seems less defined. Movies, music, books, and art can all be downloaded for free and so there is the concern that one will not make any money from it. We kinda have to move away from a money society? Move away from money and people may do what they want and there will be more incentive to be efficient rather than to have excesses. Maybe one needs to study people, government, economics, values to determine how to shift society for more creative, holistic endeavors?? My peer had said that we should still care about the consciousness of society because of the people who come after. I was saying that, oh we and everyone will die so it doesn't matter. My peer does bring up a good point. If you look at schools, the material kinda stays the same year after year. It hasn't really changed. There could be potential for more change with how schools function and evolve rather than being rigid. Maybe we need to move away from working 40 hours a week to only a few and the rest on creative endeavors?? ... The virtual world starts to feel imaginary. it is so cut off from this one that it is like we aren't alive and we are tricking ourselves. We get so used to the virtual world that we forget what it feels like to be in this one. It can be hard to talk to someone who keeps on telling you how to live your life. Maybe there is stuff to learn though still with those interactions such as why they are giving the advice and if they are right or if they are projecting one of their issues onto you. Living in a group where you are forced to marry someone you don't know could be a really hard life to have.. Freedom of choice is a weird thing where sometimes it is good to take it away and sometimes it is not good. When we waste time talking about food and movies instead of what the problem is, we are just delaying our healing process. The ability to stay focused and on task can make quite a difference and the ability to know what that looks like can make a difference too. The problem with reincarnation is that it then makes the desire of constant comparison of you to others to see who is more wise and who you haven't lived as yet. It can be hard to say one person or activity is more conscious than another. What determines what body that you wake up into next and why would people assume that the body would be on Earth when there are potentially other bodies on other planets? Or you could wake up into a universe that you wouldn't be able to visit in this one. And what would be more conscious and how would you tell? Based on unity?

This topic is super, super tricky and I am still not sure how to address it myself. We could develop systems that have more funding for creative endeavors.. which maybe there are I just haven't looked at them. We could work less hours and then spend more time on what we want. We could go to a moneyless society where people are more incentivized not to have excess and just have what they need and make things as efficient as possible and then focus the rest of their time on what they want. I guess we have the power to do what we want - or that is what I tell myself. But it also feels really hard to believe that... but we can choose to believe what we want.. I see stuff getting decriminalized in various areas. There are companies that are involved with that if you want to look in to those. Many jobs may exist just for the sake of existing. If we could get rid of excess efforts on things that are not really adding much, those efforts could be spent elsewhere. The whole thing of having a job that agrees with one's values seems really hard and it seems like the easiest way to do it is to have one's own thing going. The whole society-money-government-work-survival-values thing seems so complex but I guess I haven't read enough books about that topic and have not had enough epiphanies on it. I guess one would need to understand how government-politics-money works maybe..?

Do you relate this to reincarnation where one would live the life in one field/perspective/body and then die and wake up in another field operating from a different "body"? If that was the case, what determines what body is jumped into next? And do you think that we would keep on getting "wiser" and "wiser" from one body to the next body? (One issue with this is then the constant comparison of self to other to try to figure out who is wiser to try to figure out which body one has already lived in and which one has not... and then what it even means to be "wiser") Do you see it as god dreaming from every body at the same time (like all the people/bugs/animals/aliens/bacteria/whatever) or in one body at a time (person A, then person B, then person C)? What was it that got you to have the idea that when we die we just go back to sleep and dream again with a different field/body/perspective/experience? Why not die and then never wake up again - like a lightbulb that goes out? We could wake up into a dream/universe that we cannot visit/access in this present dream/universe kinda like how your awake life seems to not be able to visit your asleep life and vice versa, although they could have similarities.

"it seems that life evolves, learns from itself, trial and error. and his favorite tool to encourage himself is suffering" ... Part of me is like - what if reincarnation is real and we just reincarnate to become more and more conscious each time. So our teachers who teach us who are more conscious than us we will reincarnate to. But how would that be possible? The weird part about reincarnation is then.. well where do I land on the spectrum/order? How am I to know what lives I have already lived and what lives are to come? All I can think of is that those who are more wise than us are to come after us and those that are less wise than us we have already lived as - well that just makes sense to me because if we are going from one life to another, I would think that we would be accumulating wisdom instead of dropping it. So then the insights that I have gained, I will then have in the next lives too... maybe. But this is all hypothetical. So then one may not necessarily go back to being an animal/bug/bacteria MAYBE because that may have less wisdom than would being a human.. Then one's main goal in life would be to get as much wisdom in life as possible and share as much of that as possible so that when on reincarnates into the next life, one will still have that wisdom with them.... But how do you really tell who is wiser than you though?

We are responsible for our own suffering because we create the imagination that we are suffering. Suffering is illusory and because it is not really there, it is like there is actually the absence of suffering which is like happiness. "All feelings are happiness manifesting in some form or another." https://youtu.be/NskQ8tdG4YE

@r0ckyreed Thanks for sharing. Cool stuff. I have some questions: One thing I have a hard time with with regards to the dream concept is, why would one keep on waking up in the same body? Why not wake up in a different one? Well sure one could wake up in many others but not remember them when they wake up in this body because maybe this body has memories when one is operating from it that are not taken to other bodies when one wakes up in those... If no bodies are made or still in existence after self dies, will self not have any body to wake up into? Did the body have to exist before the self could wake up into it or does the self just dream the body into existence? Why can't I just imagine crazy, wild things into existence in my "waking" life if I am dreaming everything up?