I Want To Better Myself

Discussion in 'Metaphysics and Mysticism' started by AstralBear, Apr 27, 2015.

  1. AstralBear

    AstralBear Feed the Bear

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    As do many others seek to dissolve their ego and explore their self and the mysteries of the universe, I seek the same. To avoid a life story, I was brought up a deist, was ensnared by the Christian delusion for 13 years, and then I dispelled the delusion with logical questions of my beliefs and figured out with some research, how incomplete, obsolete, and unnecessary religion is. Not long ago, I began to immerse myself into the metaphysical world.

    I learned about chakras, kundalini/chi, the power of crystals and stones, and many other things. I’ve learned that there are millions of paths, and not many signs to direct you. I would like to hear from others on a few things—what do you believe? How do you know your life’s purpose? How do you benefit from what you know and believe? I know that my body is an organic vessel for my higher-self. I know that there are planes of existence beyond this one. Where you go when your vessel expires, I do not know. Who moderates the universe—I don’t know. I know that there are lifeforms that are not human.

    I have a very open mind, but I am cautious and like to approach things with logic and rationality. I’m not fond of faith, assumptions, or theories anymore. I would like to see who by their intuition is compelled to connect with me on these subjects. I am charitable with the knowledge I have, and I know that others are too. I am eager to advance myself.
     
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  2. Tyrsonswood

    Tyrsonswood Senior Moment Lifetime Supporter

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    Just be...
     
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  3. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

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    I believe in a physical reality, I do not believe in the supernatural, although I also think it likely that there are facets of reality (i.e. other dimensions) which are not accessible to us and will not be other than perhaps a few fleeting moments in human experience. I also think our minds and experience of the world is very streamlined from the complexities of which the world persists in general, so I think sometimes awakening to certain aspects of the world are due to our minds tendency to filter our cognitive experience.

    Ascribing to a materialist worldview helps keep me grounded in trying to further develop my notions of growth and spirituality. I don't have to defer to any 'supernatural other' and so I view this as giving a more immeadiate integration into the experience of reality with my mind, other people, animals, places, etc.

    As far as spirtuality goes, psychedelics have helped me explore this in probably the most pronounced radical sense. When I have what I regard as spiritual experiences, it's almost always a doing thing. I have to be interacting with the enviornment in some way. So for instance, the interaction of watching trees bend forms, geometric patterns breaking the outlays in their bark, rapid changing of colors on LSD produces an immersive experience which really makes me ponder about the workings of my mind, in a way which seems as almost different voice(s) than the 'narrator' in my normal head or listening to a synth crescendo admist a drum beat picking up tempo sending sensations coursing through my body with every rising note on MDMA, gives me a novel perception of spatial relationship to the world and these chemicals as well as other psychedelics, have helped me better understand some of the spiritual practices such as meditation and dancing, which I did not necessarily have that much exposure to prior.

    In an unaltered state of consciousness, experiences while playing music myself and of love and sex have gotten me to similar places, although these experiences tend to feel more intrinsic and not as radical as psychedelics. I am not really the type of person who can, at this point really just checkout from reality and come to significant notions about what spirituality, reality and life is. This is perhaps one reason I had problems with Ketamine.

    In terms of life purpose, I see that as a personal exploration. I want to appreciate my time here with the family, friends, people, animals, places, technology, books, entertainment, etc. I would like to play music my whole life in some way, beyond that I want to explore and challenge my own abilities and comprehensions but I don't believe I came into life with any inherent purpose prescribed.
     
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  4. themnax

    themnax Senior Member

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    i'm not so sure there is such a thing as "bettering yourself". there is bettering your awareness of the beauty with which diversity blesses the universe around us.
    and there is bettering how we treat it and those around us.

    many of what i would consider the more sensible faiths and outlooks, would ask, 'what is thing thing you are calling self?'

    you have a physical form to carry a brain around and nurture it, and a brain to enable your awareness of existing, to interact with the physical universe.

    the only true self, is that awareness itself. colorless, odorless, completely non-physical.

    just a sense of existing, and a structure or matrix of preferences, with which it defines itself.

    how does one improve those? the same way if you had a puzzle box you couldn't open, but all of its inputs and outputs are available to you.
    i don't mean that your self is that puzzle box, its not a box and you don't have to open it,
    because you're it and its you and you're already in it because you are it.

    what i meant by that puzzle box thing, is how your complex of preferences interacts with everything thing beyond what is its own locus.
    not that there's any like an absolute boundry between what is self and what isn't.

    you have to be careful, not to do more harm then good, but that's the only constraint on exploring it.

    but every preference is like one of those inputs, and then the outputs are how they effect everything.

    as you've already discovered, some people will try to tell you they effect nothing, that everything is a result of powerful forces beyond yourself,
    that they're some kind hierarchy that your place is to obey and plead with them.

    others well try to tell you its all you. that everything you experience is because of you.
    well that's just as much nonsense too.
    (some will even try to tell you its both of those things at the same time. no point in going nuts trying to figure that one out.)

    if you're walking along and its raining, that same rain will fall on everyone who's walking along,
    no mater how enlightened or otherwise, or anything else, anyone is.

    what is real, is how things actually work. and mostly that's statistically.
    however low a reputation that term my have, thanks to people playing games with it to deceive each other.
    (but that's a completely different thing then the process itself)

    there will always be some things we can't see, can never learn or understand. not because there's anything forbidding us to do so.
    just that there's only so much reach each of us have, which is of course a good thing also.

    you're always the best you you can be, and there is no better person then how a person acts.

    oh there is mystic stuff and all that. and its a lot of the fun in life even too.

    but you will most likely find, if you haven't already, that it has very little, if anything, to do with anything anyone will try to tell you about it.

    if it did, it wouldn't be what it is. it would be just their projections of their own fantasies.
     
  5. AstralBear

    AstralBear Feed the Bear

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    I have experimented with different altered states of mind, and have overcome a lot of boundaries and delusions. I have not done DMT, MDMA, Ayahuasca, or Peyote. I've done shrooms, LSD (Not sure if it was legit), and Salvia Divinorum. I have also altered my state of mind naturally with meditation.

    I believe that anytime you gain more knowledge and truth, and/or you become more compassionate and understanding of all forms of life that it makes you better.
     
  6. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    I've been working in my garden.
     
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  7. Tyrsonswood

    Tyrsonswood Senior Moment Lifetime Supporter

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    ^^^ That...



    Or working in the woods.
     
  8. Mr.Writer

    Mr.Writer Senior Member

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    From the "delusion of christianity" to kundalini, chakras, and higher planes of existence . . . out of the frying pan and into the fire :)
     
  9. Asmodean

    Asmodean Slo motion rider

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    I'm not void of caution either. But I value and love all those things you named: logic and rationality, but also faith, theories and assumptions/thoughts. The 'weirder' and more 'conflicting' they may seem with my own theories, faith and assumptions the more intriguing they can be :) I personally feel that someone who is not interested in other people's assumptions and theories (exceptions are there of course, we can't be interested in everything ;)) at all is not that open minded.
     
  10. BlackBillBlake

    BlackBillBlake resigned HipForums Supporter

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    'Religion' is a funny word. Some would say for instance that the concepts of kundalini, chakras etc are ultimately derived from religion in the broadest sense, as yoga systems are part of the Hindu 'religion'. Also, unless one has experienced the reality of these things as described by yogis, really any credence you give them is a form of faith, or at least theorization.

    Just pointing this out.
     
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  11. Asmodean

    Asmodean Slo motion rider

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    ^
    Religion as a whole clearly gets stigmatized by people who found out the one they were brought up with doesn't work for them, or because they are only confronted with the unfortunate bad aspects. Religion on itself is very broad, diverse and it seems useful and worthwile for many many other people.
     
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  12. BlackBillBlake

    BlackBillBlake resigned HipForums Supporter

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    I get the feeling that when some people say 'religion', what they mean is Judeo-Christian-Islamic monotheism.
     
  13. Asmodean

    Asmodean Slo motion rider

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    Even then they are generalizing. Which would be ok if such people would realize that themselves, and of course made it clear that's what they're doing. Otherwise we can see we get the same kind of debates over and over (without coming to agreement, this should tell them something :p Not that we have to agree on everything at all btw ;) just to be clear)
     
  14. BlackBillBlake

    BlackBillBlake resigned HipForums Supporter

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    Generalization probably comes from a lack of wider knowledge and the fact that some people get quite emotional about these issues. I can see why that happens, where you have people who have had bad experiences being brought up under a certain type of religion which they then turn away from.

    With stuff derived from yoga systems etc, a lot of people nowadays hear about this from some western source which is separate from the culture in which these things were developed. New age type books and so on. Therefore they develop an incomplete view.

    A lot of the discussions about religion and spirituality on here tend to get repetitive. Atheists vs. the rest mainly, which gets tedious :argue:
     
  15. Asmodean

    Asmodean Slo motion rider

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    How can we judge something like faith when we don't understand it? People should at least acknowledge that certain convictions and generalisations often stem from a lack of understanding. It is no problemo to not understand something by definition, but it can become a problem in how we deal with it.
     
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  16. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    Creation is simply extension. There is a purpose to life, it's purpose to extend itself. We are biological creatures and having and being are the same. There is no self improvement only degrees of recognition and the ability to create temporary conditions for ourselves to the extent we are able.. What we call self improvement is liberation from confusion and it's apparent miscreant effects. This can be summed up as peace of mind.

    It is a child's nightmare that we imagine ourselves without any good favor in life yet the most common refrain is that the world is full of the villainous and the unfulfilled. This accounts for our strife. There are no supermen and no bogeymen. These are only shadows cast by vain imagery and they obscure the true light within. We are created to create and feel the call to highest being somewhat dimly as attaining comfort and avoiding discomfort. Yet we ourselves possess the power that invokes our images and we see what we insist is there not recognizing that it is our insistence that makes it so.

    Only you can change your mind and a thought shared is a thought multiplied in motive power. There are no idle thoughts as each absorbs attention creating in that moment a correspondingly intense relationship with the world around you, the measure of your alertness and level of your own appreciation are reflected back at you in real time or as a constant state of becoming. There is no end line but there are the moments we share. In this world we exist for and with each other. In our private spaces we are co-creators with our own god or the things we are devoted to and these personal investments emerge into our common spaces. We bare a great responsibility to each other and to our environment having such potency of presence to cultivate our power to bless the world as we give the world all the value it has for us.

    That is unless you imagine that you prefer your complaints. It is reasonable to say though that this can lead only to a self encumbered and contentious life.
     
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  17. Asmodean

    Asmodean Slo motion rider

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    So getting understanding (liberate yourself from confusion) is self improvement. We call it self improvement because it is exactly that. We have improved ourself every time we lose some of that confusion ;)
     
  18. BlackBillBlake

    BlackBillBlake resigned HipForums Supporter

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    We can't come to any realistic judgement about anything we don't understand. Faith is something which in and of itself is not really a problem. It's the actions and words of some who say they have faith that causes trouble.

    Personally, I like to engage with people who hold views different from my own, not because I want to change their minds, but because I find it interesting to know a range of ideas and how other people think.
     
  19. storch

    storch banned

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    In other words, expectation is the source of all woe.
     
  20. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    We see what we insist is there or we see what can be seen by allowing for probability. A mind at peace is not faced with the necessity of building a fortress around the mind or the body to defend it's images and knowledge flows freely into an open mind. Expectation leads to disappointment, assurance, or surprise. You are the source of the experience of your own appreciation/depreciation. Woe is a measure you give. We are generally unaware of this because we are taught that the enemy is without. Fact is we are without an enemy save that we persecute each other by virtue of what we call our just causes.
     

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