Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. -John Quincy Adams
Yea, that's how it was with me. First of all, I always thought it felt similar to tripping. It's not like I was hallucinating, but the general visual quality, and really quality of everything, was of a similar nature I felt. And then as you go through your day, as you say, it's like, nothing's different. And yet, in another way, everything's different. lol. You know in some ways, my memory of those time periods becomes hazy. It's like Terence Mckenna describes a DMT trip. lol. You get so much information, and you're just trying to grab and hold onto whatever you can, but it's too much for you to hold onto during your normal state of consciousness, and so it becomes hazy and dream-like. I suppose the reason would be, living with my parents who I had the first experience with, and having a lot of free time, prior to getting a job, I felt a strong urge to discuss my realizations. And, a lot of people just aren't going to get that, especially if you're speaking fully openly and honestly from that state of consciousness and the resultant perspectives. I don't take meds. I only took them for a relatively short period, well one somewhat short period and another negligibly short period. It's pretty much always been clear to me that I'm not bi-polar. I knew this wasn't just some manic episode, it was a genuine spiritual event. Regardless of anything I may have done or said, it was only because I fully threw myself into what reality was showing me, and I allowed myself to fully experiment and explore certain things with that knowledge. And I felt like the knowledge was such that it was transcendent to good-bad anyways, and the notion of 'making a mistake.' I threw myself in head first, and had what I feel is the real meaning of faith. And I learned from it. So, while I did at first accept it and take meds, I did come to accept what I always felt I knew, that I'm not bi-polar. There's no reason to take the meds. Now, I haven't had the experience in quite a long time. And it's not because of any meds. Which itself serves as proof of the faulty bi-polar diagnosis. But, it's a block. I know it was a positive, spiritual thing. I want it to come back, it's like the greatest thing. It's not something I can really talk about, because it is so unbelievably positive that it's hard for others to even put it into perspective, let alone if they have the perspective of some kind of mental health issue. Also, as for getting sleep. I understand that. I remember my first experience, I could not sleep whatsoever, and I could hardly eat. I did over time learn to sleep relatively well, and eat, during it. I had SUCH a hard time sleeping at first, partially because I thought my difficulty sleeping and eating may be something that somehow results from this spiritual illumination. Less material dependence or something. I would later come to discover that, I do indeed need to sleep and eat. Lol. Just being able to know this from experience helped. And is an example of learning, that I keep mentioning. And then, since this state is so continuous, knowing that it was still going to be there the second I woke up. Sleep now, maybe have nice dreams, and then wake up and you will be in the same state, things will still be the same. Lol, really funny you mention TV. That was a significant part of my experiences is well. Well, the experience of TV/movies was really the same as the experience of reality. But it was just, sort of like a concentrated form of it, manifested externally. It was like, my entire experience was my own consciousness interacting with itself. And it was just amazing seeing this externalized on the TV. How it itself would respond to my thoughts, and seem as though it were reaching out to me. And the way the characters would interact sometimes...it's hard to explain, kind of subtle, but like it was a clear dramatization of how a single consciousness could interact with itself through multiple 'people.' It's not really a bad situation here. Everything is fine. It's just, well as I said I haven't really been in that state of consciousness for quite some time. And, well for instance I have said how to me it is a 100% positive thing, and while we don't even talk about it anyways, and they don't expressly say much, it's obvious that to them those experience were some kind of a mental issue or another, a negative thing. And so, you can see why an unconscious block could grow from living with them, given how past experiences here of that state ended up.
Got a sub today…woke up @ 12 am and thought ‘oh HELL no'…I wasn't going to stay up for that long and work all day when the night before I woke up @ 2. So when it was apparent that I was not going to sleep, I took more sleep meds. Sometimes I can use benedryl to knock myself out hard, but only once and a while b/c it stops working. So I took that and when I woke up didn't realize I'd been punching my snooze button for an hour. When I was laying there between sleep and waking up, that Bee Gees song ‘Stayin Alive' was playing like a speaker in my head…LOL So when I was trying to get in that shower with that song playing still, I thought ‘FUCK this, sub time' I figured I would maybe wake up when I got there, but I need a mental health day-as we call them there-when we just want off for a day.. I want to read more about why it happens like this-which is called spiritual emergence vs having to do it ‘naturally'… Some say it' can happen to you like a satori-a moment of enlightenment-like a CLICK or flash but this doesn't go away (without meds)! …which is what I think of as ‘On' , You're Awakened-like you're just supposed to be ‘reborn' at that moment-figuratively speaking- a second birthday-if you will……… and follow what you Realize to be true. Idk whatever the reason each time is incredible…….For me (personally) to be able to manage it in life and work. Like you're walking around with the biggest high in your life-but no need for weed-and no side effects-haha. Going to work on the sleep thing-last hurdle- is supposed to be common when it happens.
Yeah the TV part was really intense and how you said was a good way to describe it, b/c it directly related to my life and thoughts not just once but every time I saw it..so much so that when I went into the psych ward I didn't tell them about it or my parents. Maybe with your parents they just don't want that to happen to you again, b/c of the way you get-that they don't understand-etc...They project that and that's what's going on..Idk, just a thought. I have actually quite a lot to say about the hospital and what goes on there-maybe you've had a similar experience..I'll write about it later. Also much more to say about 'It'-and why I call it that and what happened recently that was a confirmation-a sign-that that's what it really Is...
About the 'It' thing...I've always (since the first time it happened) thought instead of 'God' as a name...that God is really limiting and even kind of demeaning in a way...b/c people associate that with a certain traditional idea...That it's about dogmatic beliefs and laws and all that.. I think about 'It' as Existence and everything that 'Is'..or........... 'I' (meaning the person of God') AM' , which that can be translated to if you believe on the literal level. lol..I keep zoning out and staring..and just sitting..... It'd be fine if I did this all day, tbh. Bottom line is: If this is mentally ill, I don't want to be sane. A couple of weeks ago, I found a piece of printed paper...like it had been cut out of a magazine....that was about a 1/2 inch length and width...All it had on the paper was the word 'It'...The 'I' being capitalized...This was at the school on the bathroom floor btw...something you don't exactly find every day...I had been thinking for a few days about idea of my guide and wanting to learn more about that. I glued it to the back of an index card and it's propped up on the desk in my classroom-where I can always see it. My reader that I saw asked me to come to a psychic fair on Friday...Don't know if I'm ready for that.....I think I need to learn more about all this. I don't think i"m psychic, but I've heard you can build it...She told me 'There aren't many of us' when I was still in overwhelmed mode...I think she meant that, but I didn't ask...b/c I still couldn't speak at that point..lol.
This has a lot of parallels with what is happening: For a while all boundaries will be lost. For a while you will feel dizzy. For a while, you will feel very afraid and shaken, as if an earthquake has happened. But if you are courageous and you don't go backwards, if you don't fall back to the ego and you go on and on, there is a hidden center within you that you have been carrying for many lives. That is your soul, the self. Once you come near it, everything changes, everything settles again. But now this settling is not done by the society. Now everything becomes a cosmos, not a chaos; a new order arises. But this is no longer the order of the society - it is the very order of existence itself. It is what Buddha calls Dhamma, Lao Tzu calls Tao, Heraclitus calls Logos. It is not man-made. It is the VERY order of existence itself. Then everything is suddenly beautiful again, and for the first time really beautiful, because man-made things cannot be beautiful. At the most you can hide the ugliness of them, that's all. You can decorate them, but they can never be beautiful. The difference is just like the difference between a real flower and a plastic or paper flower. The ego is a plastic flower - dead. It just looks like a flower, it is not a flower. You cannot really call it a flower. Even linguistically to call it a flower is wrong, because a flower is something which flowers. And this plastic thing is just a thing, not a flowering. It is dead. There is no life in it. You have a flowering center within. That's why Hindus call it a lotus - it is a flowering. They call it the one-thousand-petaled-lotus. One thousand means infinite petals. And it goes on flowering, it never stops, it never dies. -Osho
Slept through the night...I can't believe it...I didn't take any sleep meds, but I DID smudge the house, as the reader suggested... I still feel the same..idk..peaceful yet Aware state of being... She referred to the idea that it's something that happens in your spirit...that Spirit wakes in you...that is why it is thought of as 'being Awake'.
^I was pretty peaked there..haha So things have 'calmed down' a bit and I've had a chance to kind of gather some thoughts about all this. I spoke to another person, besides the one I saw, that is an older woman that does readings and has psychic abilities...about all this and what goes on when that OPENING happens. That's how I think about it now...just wide OPEN...I was telling this woman that this was the experience and all the rest...and she asked me how I felt now-as it had been a week since it happened. I told her things were mostly back to normal-and I asked if that meant it was 'gone away' now...She said 'There's NO WAY..you can walk around like that, nobody can, you'd just burn yourself out like that'. And for some reason so much automatically made sense....This was not a state I was MEANT to stay in, it was just something I had been shown....allowed to experience...and this time I was allowed to experience it like THIS...This time I was allowed to go in that heightened state to that reader that morning...and then I was SHOWN how to manage this....and that it is indeed REAL....and there's nothing wrong with my experience of it OR my fucking brain...and that I'm not, or EVER WAS, in a state of 'mania', but in fact was only experiencing a huge spiritual opening. This I knew-I only needed some verification of that fact. I got it this time...Within ONE DAY I was able to get my shit together...go to work...TEACH in this state...and work in it all week long...all the while doing EVERYTHING ELSE I needed to do in my life...during that week...all the responsibilities of my job that go along with teaching...meetings...speaking to parents....grades...etc..etc...completely functional...yeah...psychotic .........mmkkay? Yeah-so fuck that............ 25 years of dealing with this shit...put in the hospital repeatedly b/c of some supposed bi-polar condition...no. A pretty big thing-probably the biggest-in my whole life, just got solved last week. Excuse the fuck out of me if I sound like I'm ranting. lol. Indeed, problems happened because I did not have the tools to deal with what was happening to me all those other times. I have realized it is indeed a great gift I have been given....a huge gift. That gift is the knowing beyond any shadow of a doubt that we are spiritual beings... We are SPIRIT..I realize that the gift I was given....to realize it's all real. We are a part of It....a spiritual Universe...and It is a part of us. It is CONSCIOUS and it is AWARE....We are just a speck of Its Awareness...but It gets to exist through us and our lives, just like we get to exist through It.
Yes-Thanks for those....! ...and the hugs...lol. I traded some mails a few years ago with that guy....BiPolar or Waking Up...and did indeed realize that I went through what he did and that this was the situation. This is just the first time I've been able to have the RIGHT help to be able to deal with what I have always considered a huge spiritual opening. *For reference in what my 'manic' episodes were like -pfft- reference the first 5 or 6 pages of this thread....as I was going through one helluva one throughout that time...ha. Basically help for me meant learning how to close my chakras....and holy shit...that was done in 20 fucking minutes...smh Now I'm going to start working with the same woman to open them and close them the RIGHT way...so that I can pretty much open myself up to That at my own choosing, instead of having all that Energy rain down on me all at once. Man, it DOES feel good. ... The great part is knowing that it's really always there anyway....and just because I don't feel it in that powerful way doesn't make it any less significant....now I have that knowledge with me all the time....and not in just some esoteric way. Here's a Native American prayer....They knew wtf they were talking about... Oh Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds, And whose breath gives life to the world, Hear me, I am small and weak, I need your strength and wisdom.. Let me walk in beauty and let my eyes behold the red and purple sunset. Make my hands respect the things you have made and my ears sharp to hear your voice. Make me wise so that I can understand the things you have taught my people. Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock. I seek strength not to be greater than my brother but to fight my greatest enemy, myself. Make me always ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes So when life fades, as the fading sunset, My spirit comes to you without shame. ~Translated from Lakota Sioux Chief Yellow Lark in 1887
I have had the book 'Spiritual Emergency' (Grof) for some time now...and go through periods of reading it and then put it down...In lieu of what's happened with being able to stay out of the hospital, I have again picked it up. It is a series of essays by people on different topics...but a particularly interesting one I've read lately is by Jack Kornfield...extremely experienced with meditation and its stages, that is able to speak about spiritual experiences it brings... In this essay, he goes into the many ways in which we might become 'stuck' in practice or trying to grow in understanding. He cautions against getting into being attached to the experience of bliss....or seeing lights....feeling 'oneness'...or any other of the phenomena that occur when going within...as well as being able to work through all the more difficult parts..You must be ready/willing to give it all up to progress.......... totally letting go. He relates the many experiences along the way....and some things that can happen.... Here is a part of it: '...........At this point in continuing practice, or perhaps earlier for some, there can be a whole powerful series of energetic phenomena, sometimes called the awakening of the Kundalini. What this means is simply a profound opening of the energy centers of the body, or the chakras, and a simultaneous opening of the nadis, or the energy channels of the body. While there is a basic pattern to this, it may happen in many different ways. Sometimes when one sits and gets more concentrated, the body will begin to burn and then there will be a feeling of heat in the spine, vibrations and tingling. At times one can feel the energy move physically in the body as if fire, pulsations, or vibrations moved spontaneously through blocked energy channels as a way to open and free them. These energetic openings can take hours, weeks, or months. It is all part of the process of psycho-physical opening and purification. When the different chakras open, there will be a whole variety of unusual physical phenomena. At the throat there can be tension and coughing. I have seen people who sat and swallowed for days in a row. for lower chakras, the initial opening can include tension and fear; there can be nausea and release of vomiting. With the opening of the sexual chakra, there can be other experiences, including visions of every kind of sexual encounter one can imagine, and tremendous waves of lust and rapture. {I, as OP, have experienced that one^^...and ohhh..YES} When the heart chakra opens, there is sweetness and love, but usually this is accompanied by a great deal of pain, because most of us have bands of tension and holding over our heart. In many retreats people, especially doctors and nurses, have come to me asking; "Please, could you call an ambulance? I am having a heart attack; I can tell, I know the symptoms. I am a physician. I understand this."...and so forth...And almost always it is the opening of the heart chakra. .....There are many kinds of chakra experiences. The energy released can become very powerful, to the point where there is so much energy coursing through the body that one cannot sleep for a number of nights. The entire body will vibrate. There can be weeks where it is filled with fire and where vision is altered, almost as strongly as being on LSD. The eyes can burn and hurt, and many other symptoms can be involved. Will post more later...the entire book is good for anyone that has had psychotic, or the like, kinds of spiritual experiences...as Grof points out...most experiences reported by masters/visionaries/etc....would also be characterized as such.
This is something I have related to lately.....Intuition has grown by leaps and bounds... ..but sometimes it's helpful to remember that change comes slowly and that is OK ... “The transformation process is not an all-at once thing that blows you out of the water. There are many small shifts, and each one takes some getting used to; you're basically un-learning a long-standing habit and relearning a new one. …Most of us are used to living with suppressed fear, in denial, as a sort of make-do comfort level. We use strong fixed beliefs, opinions, and habits, as cover-ups so we never have to feel our core rage, panic, and pain; we just live in our head on autopilot. “But this is not possible anymore. The transformation process evolves your consciousness from fear to love. That means you have to dissolve the fears and heal the emotional wounds that are in the way-by understanding them. And that means you have to face them, feel them, and decode them, which most of us dread. Each time an intensified wave of acceleration rolls through you, it dislodges low-frequency consciousness-and-energy or suppressed fear from your subconscious mind. Needless to say, you may experience varying forms of discomfort!…You may try and push it all back down in the substrata with various fight or flight behaviors… The effort of avoiding and resuppressing subconscious blocks eventually wears you out, and the exhaustion can make you feel disillusioned, unmotivated and hopeless…You are at the turning point. The last gasp of the negative path to transformation is when you're finally so tired of resisting and controlling, and so overwhelmed by complexity, that you stop; there is nothing more you can do… You're forced by the process to simply be with what's happening- to be with yourself and with the fears and the pain. You must experience the state you are directly in without voting on it or having to act. By simply ‘being with' Life and ‘letting things be' as they are, you return to an experience of your own ‘being' -your soul- which was always present under the distractions. This is when you engage with silence and enter the nonphysical reality. And this is when your intuition opens. Now your soul can shine through shedding light on everything. Revelations emerge. Understanding and compassion dissolve the fears. There is release, relief and a return to joy. You feel so much better! This is the turning point in the transformation process-when the fixed mind surrenders and precipitates a huge expansion in the consciousness of the heart, body, unified field, and the wise evolutionary Flow. ~Penney Peirce
This is a long sort of 'teaching story'....I really love this author...Anthony De Mello....Just got the book 'The Way To Love'...a series of meditations on what love really is....and that is letting someone free to be and devoid of attachment....a very powerful book... This is a different story however...It's definitely worth the read...I like his style.. The Way The World Is When you awaken, when you understand, when you see, the world becomes right. We're always bothered by the problem of evil. There's a powerful story about a little boy walking along the bank of a river. He sees a crocodile who is trapped in a net. The crocodile says, "Would you have pity on me and release me? I may look ugly, but it isn't my fault, you know. I was made this way. But whatever my external appearance, I have a mother's heart. I came this morning in search of food for my young ones and got caught in this trap!" So the boy says, "Ah, if I were to help you out of that trap, you'd grab me and kill me." The crocodile asks, "Do you think I would do that to my benefactor and liberator?" So the boy is persuaded to take the net off and the crocodile grabs him. As he is being forced between the jaws of the crocodile, he says, "So this is what I get for my good actions." And the crocodile says, "Well, don't take it personally, son, this is the way the world is, this is the law of life." The boy disputes this, so the crocodile says, "Do you want to ask someone if it isn't so?" The boy sees a bird sitting on a branch and says, "Bird, is what the crocodile says right?" The bird says, "The crocodile is right. Look at me. I was coming home one day with food for my fledglings. Imagine my horror to see a snake crawling up the tree, making straight for my nest. I was totally helpless. It kept devouring my young ones, one after the other. I kept screaming and shouting, but it was useless. The crocodile is right, this is the law of life, this is the way the world is." "See," says the crocodile. But the boy says, "Let me ask someone else." So the crocodile says, "Well, all right, go ahead." There was an old donkey passing by on the bank of the river. "Donkey," says the boy, "this is what the crocodile says. Is the crocodile right?" The donkey says, "The crocodile is quite right. Look at me. I've worked and slaved for my master all my life and he barely gave me enough to eat. Now that I'm old and useless, he has turned me loose, and here I am wandering in the jungle, waiting for some wild beast to pounce on me and put an end to my life. The crocodile is right, this is the law of life, this is the way the world is." "See," says the crocodile. "Let's go!" The boy says, "Give me one more chance, one last chance. Let me ask one other being. Remember how good I was to you?" So the crocodile says, "All right, your last chance." The boy sees a rabbit passing by, and he says, "Rabbit, is the crocodile right?" The rabbit sits on his haunches and says to the crocodile, "Did you say that to that boy? The crocodile says, "Yes, I did." "Wait a minute," says the rabbit. "We've got to discuss this." "Yes," says the crocodile. But the rabbit says, "How can we discuss it when you've got that boy in your mouth? Release him; he's got to take part in the discussion, too." The crocodile says, "You're a clever one, you are. The moment I release him, he'll run away." The rabbit says, "I thought you had more sense than that. If he attempted to run away, one slash of your tail would kill him." "Fair enough," says the crocodile, and he released the boy. The moment the boy is released, the rabbit says, "Run!" And the boy runs and escapes. Then the rabbit says to the boy, "Don't you enjoy crocodile flesh? Wouldn't the people in your village like a good meal? You didn't really release that crocodile; most of his body is still caught in that net. Why don't you go to the village and bring everybody and have a banquet." That's exactly what the boy does. He goes to the village and calls all the men folk. They come with their axes and staves and spears and kill the crocodile. The boy's dog comes, too, and when the dog sees the rabbit, he gives chase, catches hold of the rabbit, and throttles him. The boy comes on the scene too late, and as he watches the rabbit die, he says, "The crocodile was right, this is the way the world is, this is the law of life." There is no explanation you can give that would explain away all the sufferings and evil and torture and destruction and hunger in the world! You'll never explain it. You can try gamely with your formulas, religious and otherwise, but you'll never explain it. Because life is a mystery, which means your thinking mind cannot make sense out of it. For that you've got to wake up and then you'll suddenly realize that reality is not problematic, you are the problem. http://www.demellospirituality.com/awareness/27.html
"All things are echoes of the Voice for God." Is the theme for todays ACIM lesson #151 (this being the 151'st day of the calendar year). No one can judge on partial evidence. That is not judgment. It is merely an opinion based on ignorance and doubt. Its seeming certainty is but a cloak for the uncertainty it would conceal. It needs irrational defense because it is irrational. And its defense seems strong, convincing, and without a doubt because of all the doubting underneath. You do not seem to doubt the world you see. You do not really question what is shown you through the body's eyes. Nor do you ask why you believe it, even though you learned a long while since your senses do deceive. That you believe them to the last detail which they report is even stranger, when you pause to recollect how frequently they have been faulty witnesses indeed! Why would you trust them so implicitly? Why but because of underlying doubt, which you would hide with show of certainty? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Above paragraphs are excerpts from this lesson, the entire text is at the link below. Free, no registration, email, etc. no salesman/preacher will call. http://acim.org/Lessons/lesson.html?daily_lesson=151
Wow. Pretty much exactly what I've been going through. The only difference is I get extremely depressed sometimes. http://forum.grasscity.com/pandoras-box/1325632-mental-illness-supportawareness-thread.html There's a lot of people going through similar shit.
Hello All It has been awhile since I have been here. I have been doing some shamanic work with the woman I spoke of earlier in the thread. To be honest, I never thought such things were possible........and the good news is that they are. Last night I participated in a soul retrieval...mine. Immensely long story short, things and events have happened to me to make it apparent that I need it for my healing process to truly begin. The key to the lock... I shall describe what happened when I have processed it a little more. I am almost out for the school year-just got back from senior graduation-and am fairly exhausted (mentally) from last night. I want to say though, it's fine for people to be skeptical of things I'm going to explain, but know that I have been just as skeptical of things I did not understand as well. It has been a very powerful and lovely experience though. Last night, she had me meet my animal totem-a bear, as well as my 'gatekeeper'. I also beheld my Soul...a lovely pink glinted energy that was healed and came into me. Love. It all sounds namby pamby and hokey-but it's not at all. These were spiritual energies. I have been learning so much about the power and importance of chakra work and obtaining an abiding clarity for the first time in my life. More later-I'm taking a damn nap...lol. Indeed, ACIM has come recommended by her. I have taken a look at it before. What have you gotten out of it svedka?
Yes, it seems these states are misunderstood....and is all part of becoming aware of Awareness, imo. I have been off my meds since the time I woke up in the full blown woken up state. I was able to take it down some notches by closing my chakras. I never had the 'tools' in my kit before. I still have to take sleep stuff to knock me out at night b/c if I wake up in the night I stay awake. If only I didn't have a schedule to keep....that shit would be ONNN...haha. So now I take it slowly...which is probably best anyway, but damn it does feel good to be so high an open in It.
How utterly daft to think that I could sleep...esp. during the day .... a couple of Benedryl will fix that though....very tired of thinking at this point....wish I just had an 'off' button. Until my oral off button makes me comply, I will try to recount what I can...Much of what I visualized is just a context for the interaction, I feel...a frame of reference for processing what my spirit was going through. Try to keep that in mind when you are reading....it is actually non-local...not literal 'places' when I speaking of 'going' somewhere during visualization. I went to her house....a little earthy kind of hobbit hole on the end of a dead end street. Her room she does work like this in was a sun room...with long white sheers and orchids and rocks all around...very earthy, all. It was dusk and there was a storm coming...a pretty cool mood was set by this in me. We started with doing a chakra cleansing, a slow but thorough process...ended with grounding... I understand now by visualizing creation comes. We are given that ability by being bestowed with it by Spirit...as it is a part of us. Not things I have been told btw...but have realized along the way. Maybe part of what it all means to develop is to come to realizations like this along the way...and then we can grow by degrees... Sorry...tangent...^ Anyway, when she led me to the grounding part....I visualized roots going down from my feet and through the earth all the way down through to where it broke through to this huge open area....with a path...I went down the path and encountered a huge orangy bear...fierce...but there for me-showing itself. I am not sure the reason for animal totems...I know that Native Americans put much store in them though. I continued on and came to a clearing with a fountain and bench..I sat on it and as I looked at the ground a being approached...much just the hint of energy...and it gave me an object...which seemed to be a cross at first and then twisted into a spiral shape. I was told to keep this object and I would see this object one day on the physical plane and know it was meant for me. <shrug>....I am guessing when I need a sign one day, it will come to me somehow...at least that is how feel intuitively. mmm...thanks to the benedryl I may go to sleep now...some smoke would be perrrfect r'now...ha...alas