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viktor
psychotechnician



Registered: 11/03/10
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Loc: New Zealand
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A thread for those of us that are actually doing okay
#21822517 - 06/18/15 06:55 AM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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...as a consequence of spiritual practice.
Lot of complaining going on, fears being expressed, anxieties becoming overwhelming.
This thread is for those of us who are actually doing alright and feel that they have got somewhere good for whatever reason.
The other night I meditated for an hour, and for two days afterwards I felt really at peace and calm with everything.
I think I've got to know myself well enough that I can be happy most of the time.
Who else can say this?
-------------------- "They consider me insane but I know that I am a hero living under the eyes of the gods."
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deff
just love everyone



Registered: 05/01/04
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Re: A thread for those of us that are actually doing okay [Re: viktor]
#21822700 - 06/18/15 08:22 AM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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I've been keeping up a daily practice for a while now of both meditating with a mantra, and meditating on the presence of certain masters. i've been following my inner guidance in life and allowing that to guide me in making choices without the need to always see the bigger picture, taking things on faith and surrender. overall i've been quite happy, content, joyous and such lately - really feeling like my life is heading in a very positive direction i'm very optimistic about the future and about my life overall 
i think this is a nice thread idea to show the positive side of things not that anxiety and stress cannot or should not happen, but that there is also much happiness and contentment to be found as a result of a spiritual practice
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,819
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Re: A thread for those of us that are actually doing okay [Re: viktor] 1
#21823285 - 06/18/15 11:49 AM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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Burroughs said that happiness is a by-product of function. I've found this to be quite true. If one can take on the day bravely and cheerfully, simply as an organic consequence of one's proper functioning (perhaps arrived at through practice), and find contentment, then one is doing something right. It's quite distressing to see how miserable so many people seem to be -- and how acceptable it is to be that way. Personally, I would call myself quite content.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder



Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
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Re: A thread for those of us that are actually doing okay [Re: DividedQuantum] 1
#21826483 - 06/19/15 01:36 AM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
DividedQuantum said: Burroughs said that happiness is a by-product of function. I've found this to be quite true. If one can take on the day bravely and cheerfully, simply as an organic consequence of one's proper functioning (perhaps arrived at through practice), and find contentment, then one is doing something right. It's quite distressing to see how miserable so many people seem to be -- and how acceptable it is to be that way. Personally, I would call myself quite content.
Psychiatrist Victor Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning, Logotherapy, The Unconscious God) said that happiness is a by-product of a meaningful life. The Will-to-Meaning is Frankl's metamotive, but I place it on a hierarchy with other metamotives, and attribute it to a 5th chakra motive for meaningful communication on the way to the experience of Unity/Union. Frankl quotes Nietzsche, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” He saw this among concentration camp survivors and based his work upon it.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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MushroomBilly
Explorer


Registered: 03/24/13
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Re: A thread for those of us that are actually doing okay [Re: MarkostheGnostic] 1
#21832815 - 06/20/15 03:35 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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I'm doing absolutely bloody brilliant! It's hard to say that sometimes as i see there is a lot of sadness and searching for happiness ... but as you've made a thread just for this i'd like to confirm that yes, spirituality has indeed made me very, very happy in so many ways it would take me an autobiography to explain!
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Deviate
newbie
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Re: A thread for those of us that are actually doing okay [Re: MushroomBilly]
#21835273 - 06/21/15 02:27 AM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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COmpared to where I have been most of life, I am doing fantastic right now.
There is still a lot of pain and suffering in my life, but it is healing now, thanks be to God.
The things which helped me to get where I am are entheogens and Christianity. I hear so much negative stuff about the church that I often feel like Mrs. Price in the movie bednobs and broomsticks.
For those unfamaliar with the film, a women named Mrs. Price takes mail order magic lessons from a professional magician. The magician is the sort of modern magician that only uses slight of hand sorts of tricks, no real magic and he thinks the spells he teaches in the mail order course are just for fun. However, Mrs. Price doesn't know this, she thinks the class is real and the spells actually work for her.
Now it seems like the same is true in my case with the Holy Roman Catholic church. I go there and I have incredible experiences of God and I encounter the Lord Jesus Christ in the blessed sacrament and sometimes enter into religious ecstasy at Mass. Every Mass brings tears to my eyes and the Word of the LORD opens my heart. I find that it is such an easy path too compared to some of the others because God takes care of so many things for you, you actually dont have to do all that much. In two years of going to Mass and adoration and spending time in prayer and study, my entire life has been transformed. Psychedelics helped cement and accerelate the process as well as removing doubt that the spiritual path was in fact the right path to follow in life and that there really is a Holy and infinite God who loves us.
But sometimes I feel like Mrs. Price because somehow it doesn't seem to work for everyone.
I think it may have to do with me being what Matt Kahn calls an energetically sensitive soul. I can intuitively sense the spiritual energy given off by the blessed sacrament and when I am in that presence, I am experience it as a fire burning me up and consuming all structures that make me feel separate from God.
I can only assume that people who leave the church or hate on it, are not able to sense this energy, because if they were, they would not be able to keep themselves away. What could be more joyful than to be in the presence of Jesus Christ?
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder



Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
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Re: A thread for those of us that are actually doing okay [Re: Deviate]
#21836531 - 06/21/15 11:20 AM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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And then there is the power of expectation, there is the possibility that Rupert Sheldrake's Morphic Resonance hypothesis can account for a series of religious rituals that have been repeated countless times and have impacted the human psyche that is open to these "creodes," or 'paths' worn in the fabric of universal consciousness. Transubstantiation is a man-made theological doctrine that is particularly Catholic and is not shared by Eastern Orthodox or Protestant Christianity. It affirms what Mircea Eliade called a "superabundance of Reality," meaning that the Logos in mysteriously 'more present' in the 'substance' of bread and wine, while the 'accidents' of the bread and wine remain unaltered. Nevertheless, the "body" and "blood" of Jesus Christ does not necessarily equate to biological flesh and blood, especially since the Resurrection body and Ascension body of scriptures were said not to be like ours, appearing behind shuttered door and windows in the "upper room." So the 'substance' that is changed into Christ is not the 'accidentals' of simple and complex carbohydrates composing wine and bread. The substance is a metaphysical verity, but unfortunately, the word substance now has a completely physical association owing to centuries of physical science. Calling the Trinity of God "Una Substantia, Tres Personas" is an ancient use of substance in a metaphysical sense. God is not a physical substance, is immaterial and has no extension in space or time so the meaning is completely different. For those Catholics who do not understand this, taking communion must be like Orwellian "double-think." 'Believing' that one is eating physical flesh and drinking blood is at once delusory and cannibalistic if taken literally. Personally, I do not think prayer 'changes' or consecrates the eucharist. It affects one's focus from the material to the emphasis on the spiritual aspect. The Logos does not appear and disappear if it is the Ground of Being.
A deeper Christian meaning, if stripped of its anthropomorphizations is parallel to the Buddhist notion of Samsara is Nirvana and Nirvana is Samsara, in that form and formlessness, space-time and eternity, are not separate. The human and divine natures are supposed to be mysteriously conjoined in Jesus Christ, but in an absolutely unique specie. A Gnostic idea is that Jesus Christ or the consecrated eucharist symbolize that EVERYTHING is conjoined thusly. This is what Pierre Teilhard deChardin's work was rejected for - a form of pantheism is the usual charge leveled against him, but he probably intended a more non-dualistic meaning. "The stuff of the universe, according to Teilhard, necessarily has a 'double aspect to its structure.' By this, he means that in every region of time and space, the stuff of the universe has an inner aspect of itself: 'co-extensive with their Without, there is a within to things.'" - http://www.bizcharts.com/stoa_del_sol/plenum/plenum_2.html In this, de Chardin is reminiscent of the later hypothesis of David Bohm's 'Implicate-Explicate Order' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicate_and_explicate_order The 'accidents' of bread and wine would be the "explicate order" perceptible to the senses, while the 'substance' is the "implicate order" that is enfolded into the explicate order. "Bohm considers that what we take for reality are 'surface phenomena, explicate forms that have temporarily unfolded out of an underlying implicate order'. That is, the implicate order is the ground from which reality emerges." The Logos (or Christ) would in this parallel be the implicate order that gives rise to the surface structures of the 'accidents' of bread and wine. This is a metaphysical idea that can be understood as paralleling the theological doctrine.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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glimpee
Awakening



Registered: 12/08/14
Posts: 734
Last seen: 5 years, 8 months
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Re: A thread for those of us that are actually doing okay [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#21837121 - 06/21/15 01:55 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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I don't feel much negativity - but that's just how I've always been 
I still do some things I regret - but I'm working through them 
less than 2 years into practice, I've already gained more perceptual mastery than I've hoped. I was able to placebo myself into a 4 hour mild trip. I have experienced both forced and random hallucinations. I think I saw a UFO and will continue calling out words the skies every time I smoke a cig (but I think if aliens exist they look down upon smoking cigs)
If anyone is experiencing negativity - they're doing it wrong hahaha
-------------------- Just because I am arrogant does not mean I forget my place. It is how I choose to talk. I am not a monk. I am my own path, and I am without influence. Talk to me about my core being before you question my mental stability or life-choices. Chances are, they're only shocking to you because they don't fit your idea of what is.
Check out my Art Journal for some stuff I do http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/21647069
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glimpee
Awakening



Registered: 12/08/14
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Re: A thread for those of us that are actually doing okay [Re: deff]
#21837125 - 06/21/15 01:56 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
deff said: I've been keeping up a daily practice for a while now of both meditating with a mantra, and meditating on the presence of certain masters. i've been following my inner guidance in life and allowing that to guide me in making choices without the need to always see the bigger picture, taking things on faith and surrender. overall i've been quite happy, content, joyous and such lately - really feeling like my life is heading in a very positive direction i'm very optimistic about the future and about my life overall 
i think this is a nice thread idea to show the positive side of things not that anxiety and stress cannot or should not happen, but that there is also much happiness and contentment to be found as a result of a spiritual practice
Would "Believe everything, Trust nothing?" be a mantra? Its my motto now
Also "Be content. Be openminded. Expect nothing."
-------------------- Just because I am arrogant does not mean I forget my place. It is how I choose to talk. I am not a monk. I am my own path, and I am without influence. Talk to me about my core being before you question my mental stability or life-choices. Chances are, they're only shocking to you because they don't fit your idea of what is.
Check out my Art Journal for some stuff I do http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/21647069
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Middleman

Registered: 07/11/99
Posts: 8,399
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Re: A thread for those of us that are actually doing okay [Re: viktor] 1
#21838333 - 06/21/15 06:29 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
viktor said:
I think I've got to know myself well enough that I can be happy most of the time.
Who else can say this?
I can, but I wouldn't call it happiness. It's more like a continuous calm contentment. I wouldn't say that I know myself, but I know the source of my unknowability. I have no complaints, criticisms, or contradictions and my greatest desires keep strangely coming to pass. After 20 years of study and struggle, I have found Slack.
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DividedQuantum
Outer Head


Registered: 12/06/13
Posts: 9,819
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Re: A thread for those of us that are actually doing okay [Re: Middleman]
#21838368 - 06/21/15 06:38 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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That's exactly how it is for me, too, good Reverend.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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deff
just love everyone



Registered: 05/01/04
Posts: 9,406
Loc: clarity
Last seen: 2 minutes, 10 seconds
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Re: A thread for those of us that are actually doing okay [Re: Middleman]
#21838561 - 06/21/15 07:18 PM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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continuous calm contentment... i like that
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glimpee
Awakening



Registered: 12/08/14
Posts: 734
Last seen: 5 years, 8 months
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Re: A thread for those of us that are actually doing okay [Re: Middleman]
#21840524 - 06/22/15 03:13 AM (8 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
Rev. Morton said:
Quote:
viktor said:
I think I've got to know myself well enough that I can be happy most of the time.
Who else can say this?
I can, but I wouldn't call it happiness. It's more like a continuous calm contentment. I wouldn't say that I know myself, but I know the source of my unknowability. I have no complaints, criticisms, or contradictions and my greatest desires keep strangely coming to pass. After 20 years of study and struggle, I have found Slack.
yup - Im content with everything
I think eventually content turns to bliss tho
-------------------- Just because I am arrogant does not mean I forget my place. It is how I choose to talk. I am not a monk. I am my own path, and I am without influence. Talk to me about my core being before you question my mental stability or life-choices. Chances are, they're only shocking to you because they don't fit your idea of what is.
Check out my Art Journal for some stuff I do http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/21647069
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