Back to square one

[Flowerfaeiry]

I don’t really know how to put this but I’ll just start by saying I’ve been a spiritual seeker pretty much my entire life. I was quite young when I remember asking the question to myself “why am I here”. 
 

So I guess that combined with trauma from childhood I naturally turned to therapy, psychedelics, self improvement. I always felt like I was looking for someone or something who had life figured out. 
 

Leo was definitely that person for me for a long time. Then I found ayahuasca. The healers I saw had over 700 ceremonies in over 10 years under their belt. I experienced MASSIVE MASSIVE transformation under their care. 
 

But now—they’ve stopped drinking medicine and have: turned to Jesus (???).

 

This means that I’m more lost than ever because I really looked up to these people and they really do know so many secrets to the universe. So I believe that they have found something real in believing Jesus to be the son of God and to be our Lord and Savior. 
 

Typing that out is painful for me… I thought I had already figured out that while Jesus was a really cool guy, he wasn’t the Son of God and I DEFINITELY didn’t need to repent for my sins to go to heaven. 

 

I did however grow up religious. This complicates things for me. 
 

I don’t know what to do. I actually kind of do see the Truth and value in believing that Jesus can save us. But like as soon as my mind starts working I debunk it pretty fast. But maybe I just need more faith? Ugh.

 

So back to more questioning I go. Man, I’m tired of this…

[Kuba Powiertowski]

THE BEST talk about Jesus imo.

...and one of THE BEST teachings in christianity and in philosophy of spirituality in general.

 

[Hojo]

You want to repent. You are repenting every time you feel like you did something wrong. Every time you feel like you did something wrong you give yourself away to that moment. Repenting is just shadow work. You don't want to go to heaven until after you repent if you don't you will go to heaven lesser than you were when you left as you will have left emotions to matter.

Jesus is a tool for the simulation to use as a symbol for something holy. Jesus is the first holy thing you see you assign holiness to Jesus. We forget ego kicks in and the ego hates Jesus. Now we are without holiness cause that's Jesus and will leave that feeling with Jesus unless we accept Jesus back and reclaim the feeling of being holy ourselves.

You say you cringe to accept Jesus, you should ask why I feel so cringey to type that Jesus is my saviour. He is our saviour the simulation introduced us all to Jesus as our saviour. We can use this tool to surrender.

Jesus is the son of God we are all the son of God. Jesus is telling us this we can thank Jesus for telling us and saving us from forgetting it.

You can use Jesus as a tool of the system to protect you in the abyss. That's why its there. You can love Jesus if you want too.

A key part of this is to learn that there is a process in your mind that is specifically designed through natural evolution to keep you confused and scared and thinking about problems, its like your arm or your leg. You cannot stop it and you can never know the answer to this part of your mind. Logic has loop holes and you cant know everything its impossible. The ego will use these infinite loop holes in language to create infinite problems when there are none ,you are perfect with or without Jesus. Understanding this is the end of all problems.

You can use Jesus as a tool to save yourself because the Holy book said that Jesus forgives everything and Jesus is God therefore God forgives everything I do and I get to go to heaven. That's what these people are doing.

The symbol for Jesus has immense power. Its worshipped by Gods throughout the entire planet. If you want to use it use it.

I have a feeling your ego has immense feelings of holiness behind Jesus it is hiding behind.

Edited January 7 by Hojo

[Salvijus]

I used to think christianity is the dummest thing on the planet. Little did I know I was the dummest fool on the planet

You just have to dig a bit deeper. 

Edited January 7 by Salvijus

[Someone here]

[Salvijus]

3 hours ago, Flowerfaeiry said:

I thought I had already figured out that while Jesus was a really cool guy, he wasn’t the Son of God and I DEFINITELY didn’t need to repent for my sins to go to heaven. 

I don’t know what to do. I actually kind of do see the Truth and value in believing that Jesus can save us. But like as soon as my mind starts working I debunk it pretty fast. But maybe I just need more faith? Ugh.

So back to more questioning I go. Man, I’m tired of this…

That's not the way to understand Christianity. Beliefs have nothing to do with understanding. It's when you enter a Chapel sanctuary (be it in external form or internal) and tears of love knock you down on the floor that you realize "oh fuck, this is real" lol. That's when it begins to make more sense slowly aswell. Although there's a lot of bs there too on the surface level until you go deeper into more mystical christianity where the real essence reveals itself. 

Edited January 7 by Salvijus

[TheAlchemist]

I think spiritualist, new age type of beliefs are often just another expression of the same structure that a religious person has adopted. Just a moderate-major shift in life circumstances or having a real love bomb experience from some Christian sect is often enough to cause a conversion.

 

A certain level of insight into epistemology and development of critical thinking and rational capacities is needed to transcend fundamentalist belief systems. Maybe you have developed these capacities to the point that it just wont sink into you anymore in the same way it would for many. This is why I think more traditional philosophy is important to balance out some of the spiritual aspirations. 

Also, none of this is to say that there isn't validity to having faith or to Christianity. It's just that developing ones rational capacities usually seems to make people immune to those most fundamentalist forms of Christianity. And most spiritual people don't seem to be interested in diving deeply into questions of epistemology or metaphysics (from a philosophy perspective), and those folks are often just one step away from religious conversion. 

 

 

Anyways, I was also raised into religion and I can relate to the confusion and struggle of dealing with that in later life. But ultimately I think it's better to remain questioning and unsure of those things, it's a sign of individuating and coming to terms with ones subjectivity and the anxiety that is quite core to it.

It's no wonder many choose to surrender to Jesus, especially with these people who dive really deep and the questions get bigger and bigger and the anxiety often along with it. Jesus comes to the rescue seeming to resolve that struggle. So, it can give a ton, but what is the shadow side of all the joy and glory that is being sold? I think there's always a shadow side to these saviors. But that's for each person to contemplate individually.

I think we do have the capacities to live with the uncertainty and I do think it's valuable to question things and to continue to explore and investigate. 

Edited January 7 by TheAlchemist

[zurew]

I have two approaches: 

1) Is a more intellectual combined with empirical investigation, where I search for the best arguments and I try different methods to investigate truths about myself and the world.

2) Practice of surrender.

You live your life as an endless, bottomless opennes and you directly meet what is occuring outside and within you. You surrender every single day to the possibility that you can be wrong about any given conclusion about yourself or the world and you surrender to it completely with your whole being. You acknowledge, that you can be wrong and you surrender to not-knowing and dont try to run away from it with philosophical or spiritual fluff. You leave completely open all possibilities - including negative and positive . You surrender to both hopelessness  and hopefulness, you surrender to both clarity and confusion.

You let go of all the narratives about how things and you suppose to be and you directly meet what is.

[RickyFitts]

3 hours ago, Flowerfaeiry said:

I always felt like I was looking for someone or something who had life figured out. 

I know it's a cliché, but I really do believe that we possess all the answers - a true spiritual teacher is only teaching us how  to access the knowledge we seek, they're not trying to spoon-feed us the truth.

If I have one piece of advice, it's to simply tune into your heart, because it's the heart that knows all, I feel. The problem is that trauma tends to cause the heart to contract, and a closed heart prevents you from finding the answers you seek, so you may well have to work on allowing the heart to soften and open. I know I've personally found this hugely challenging (though heck, I'm a geezer - you might not find it so challenging as a woman), but it's the heart of inner work (pun not intended), it seems to me.

Edited January 7 by RickyFitts
typo

[Princess Arabia]

Great, you're on the road to recognition. The recognition that there's no one that needs saving, no teachers, no gurus, nothing to hold unto, nothing to grasp and that everything is nothing being everything. This is not an accomplishment because the seeker is just an illusion and only appears to be a seeker. It doesn't matter if one seeks or not because it's all wholeness appearing as such. The only difference is that something within wholeness might recognize itself and the seeking energy might fall away on it's own. You are just an effect, a by-product of this energy that appears to be a seeker and there's nothing no one can do to undo anything because it's not really happening and there's no one to do or not do anything. Even the recognition is not happening to anyone, it's wholeness appearing as someone that recognizes. 

[theleelajoker]

3 hours ago, Flowerfaeiry said:

I don’t really know how to put this but I’ll just start by saying I’ve been a spiritual seeker pretty much my entire life. I was quite young when I remember asking the question to myself “why am I here”. 
 

So I guess that combined with trauma from childhood I naturally turned to therapy, psychedelics, self improvement. I always felt like I was looking for someone or something who had life figured out. 
 

Leo was definitely that person for me for a long time. Then I found ayahuasca. The healers I saw had over 700 ceremonies in over 10 years under their belt. I experienced MASSIVE MASSIVE transformation under their care. 
 

But now—they’ve stopped drinking medicine and have: turned to Jesus (???).

 

This means that I’m more lost than ever because I really looked up to these people and they really do know so many secrets to the universe. So I believe that they have found something real in believing Jesus to be the son of God and to be our Lord and Savior.

(...)

 

I can relate to your experience re "why I am here, self-improvement, trauma etc." . Re ayahuasca and the shamans I want to share some personal moments that helped me to gain perspective:

• Someone close to me introduced me to ayahuasca and recommended it highly. The persona authentically believed in its potential to transform and heal. And I believe there is sth to it. However...
• ...first time doing ayahuasca (in Iquitos, Peru) I experienced two things: 1) There was a British guy staying at the retreat center for many months, participating in many ceremonies. And let me just say - he did not look healed but rather a hollow shell. 2) The shamans did not really care, they did not really listen. They were less healer and more of business men.
• Second time doing ayahuasca (5 years later) I made sure the shaman was "a good guy", seriously interested in healing. He really was. He said he gives and takes ayahuasca for many years for healing. I got to know him personally before and after the ceremony and tbh, he was not more or less hurt, healed, traumatized then anyone else I know. The same impression I get with every person taking the medicine, no matter how often and how long they take it.
• Moreover,  the shamam told me stories about his shaman teachers in Peru and Mexico. He said he learned a lot from them, but he left several of them because of fights about honesty, money, scams etc. He himself said that they were "bad persons" despite drinking it for many years or even decades.

So, what's the point of I want to make?

Maybe there is'nt really a medicine that really heals, and there is no savior like Jesus that can guide us. We look for sth on the outside, a solution, a final state - but it simply does not exist. Yes, of course psychedelics and believes systems like Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism etc can (temporarily) help. But as of now, I am not convinced that any of those things can really create a final state of "all is good all is healed etc this is the solution". Or at least, I haven't seen it with any person.

Finally, I am very skeptic re the story of Jesus (Things are not as clear as people want to make it look. See here and here for instance). What's really true, what's historic, what's just made up?  We assume a lot of things about the Christianity ans Jesus story, but if you take a look at any religion you can see how it was typically abused by rulers to achieve certain political goals.

So maybe it's square one all the time, all our life? Maybe sounds disappointing, but can also be a relief : )

 

[Princess Arabia]

2 hours ago, Someone here said:

There is no you and yourself for anything to be between. Your and self are two, the you and the self. Where is the you and where is the self when there's no separation but only as an illusory dream.

[Princess Arabia]

You should also ask why do you feel the need to have to believe in anything. Maybe the answer to that may reveal something to you. You feel unfulfilled and incomplete for a reason and the reason is that you believe yourself to be what you are not but you are still that anyway but the you is just an effect of that. 

[theleelajoker]

1 hour ago, Princess Arabia said:

There is no you and yourself for anything to be between. Your and self are two, the you and the self. Where is the you and where is the self when there's no separation but only as an illusory dream.

Honestly asking: What's the practical value of repeating this "there is no you,  there is no self all is a dream, all is illusion" message"?

As far as I can observe, people (including me) are dealing with real life problems. I can "know" the wall is an illusion and part of myself. Still get a bloody head trying to go through it.

So, what use has it to repeat (not only you do this) that message for others? What do you get from it?

Edited January 7 by theleelajoker

[Princess Arabia]

Just now, theleelajoker said:

Honestly asking: What's the practical value of repeating this "there is no you,  there is no self all is a dream, all is illusion" message"?

As far as I can observe, people are dealing with real life problems. I can "know" the wall is an illusion and part of myself. Still get a bloody head trying to go through it.

So, what use has it to repeat (not only you do this) that message for others? What do you get from it?

There's no one here doing anything and there's no one here to get anything from anything. Life isn't trying to get anything from you, so why are you asking what do I get from it. Your whole life you've been trying to get something from life. There's nothing to get. The wall is not an illusion. The wall is there walling. The only illusion is you thinking there's actually a you who might try to go through an illusory wall and get a bloody head from it. 

[gettoefl]

Jesus was the first person who left the house everyday and saw the face of god in front of him everywhere.

He'd like you to do the same.

You can't use your eyes, you have to use his.

Your eyes show the sin and his eyes show the son.

Show people that Jesus didn't die by showing them that Jesus lives in you.

To believe before leaving the house is to see the real world.

Edited January 7 by gettoefl

[Princess Arabia]

12 minutes ago, theleelajoker said:

What's the practical value of repeating this "there is no you,  there is no self all is a dream, all is illusion" message"?

Plus I never said all is a dream and all is an illusion, because it isn't. The only illusion is the "me" thinking it's a separate entity. That's the only illusion. That's why it keeps looking to get something and trying to find value. It's all a made up pipe dream. Nothing wrong with that, but it's a hopeless case and will go right back to square one chasing it's own tail just like OP. You're right there's no value in this message and nothing for the person to grasp unto.

[gettoefl]

Quote

Every loving thought you bring forth is eternal. The loving thoughts your mind generates in this world are the world's only reality. They are still perceptions however, because you still believe that you are separate. The real world can be perceived right now. All that is necessary is a willingness to perceive nothing else. For if you perceive both love and fear, you are accepting both the false and the true and making no distinction between them.

The ego likes to see some love, but never only love. That is why its perceptions are so variable. It does not reject love entirely, for that you would not accept. But it always adds something that is not real to the real, thus confusing illusion and reality. For perceptions cannot be partly true. If you believe in love and fear, you cannot tell which is true. but perceiving only the real world of love will lead you to the real heaven, because it will make you capable of understanding it.

- A Course in Miracles

 

Edited January 7 by gettoefl

[LastThursday]

@Flowerfaeiry it seems like you're looking for certainty (or Truth) and wanting to be guided by others into it. Largely truth as most people have it is in beliefs, hope and faith. The fact that you're undecided yourself shows that those three things can change over time, and so are not an absolute kind of truth, but just a temporary stepping stone and that's ok. Other people are just imperfect mirrors of truth and not the source of it. I'd say your direct experiences with Ayahuasca are closer to truth, although I'm just guessing. Truth often hides in plain sight, and sometimes it reveals itself directly to you, you just have to prepare the way and be receptive and patient.

 

 

[Leo Gura]

Deconstruct it. It's fantasy.

None of these shamans or "healers" are epistemically serious people. They have low cognitive development, and no amount of ayahausca will fix it.

Self-deception is a bitch.

Be ware of all the spiritual group-think happening in these communities.

Edited January 7 by Leo Gura