rigorousintuition.ca

This thread is intended as a place to post wisdom gained from personal spiritual insights.

I recently had an experience that allowed me to make what I believe is tremendous personal growth.

I do not wish to go into details at this time, but I hope others will be less shy. Suffice it to say, I partook of a powerful medicine, in a proper setting, with right intention, and was taught how to let go of some anger and animosity I held for a long time. I learned how to make peace with myself.

It seems to me any such sentiment sounds kind of lame and new-agey when expressed in words, as it attempts to boil down and communicate an experience that can be universal but is in essence incommunicable in words due to its personal and transcendent nature.

It was nothing I hadn't heard before; but hearing something is a far cry from experiencing it for oneself and understanding on an intuitive (and visual) level that defies language. Indeed, the mind can create reality.

Objectively, my life is as drab as it has been, and nothing has changed but my approach and interpretation. Yet I am happier than I have been in a long time.

I don't expect to teach anyone anything, as the things I learned are things I have heard before, and I did not really learn them back then, despite being aware of such ideas. There is some knowledge that can only be described. It takes something internal to reach understanding.

Despite this, I feel really good, and I wish to share. Take it with a grain of salt, or a whole shaker, if you must.

My epiphany can best be summarized with these few conclusions:

Be like water. Water fills any vessel, forms any shape, according to the shape of the vessel. Water flows in its natural direction. Small obstructions are swept up in its path. Large obstructions, it goes around, even splits in two, but always flows in its natural direction, and every stream that is split returns to the whole sooner or later, eventually joining with other flows and returning to the source.

If you can make peace with yourself, you will be at peace with the world. Let go of anger and animosity toward yourself, and you will let go of anger against others. This does not require complacency, and it does not require one to stop resisting oppression. Principles need not change. It is natural to be upset at things like the BP oil spill and the people who allowed it. It simply means letting go of emotions that only serve to hold you back.

To that end, I have found giving thanks is a good method. It is hard to be angry when you acknowledge the things for which you are thankful. I'm thankful simply to be alive for another day and to experience this wonderful world.

It occurs to me, in my own life, the biggest obstacles to happiness have been sadness and anger. These feelings are internal and not externally imposed, though we often attribute the feelings to external forces. 'I'm upset because . . . "

I figured out in my teenage years how to deal with sadness, but I had never figured out how to deal with anger. Both are natural feelings, but they are poison if one does not let such feelings pass.

Because our minds have the power to create, we will create or draw toward us the things upon which we direct our focus. I'm not talking about the money lady on Coast to Coast. That is just another greed-based trap. I'm talking about the thoughts in your mind when you wake up in the morning and when you go to sleep at night. These come from within, not without. They matter, but you need not be slave to your thoughts. They are YOUR thoughts, after all.

The biggest obstacles to happiness are sadness and anger. It can be as simple as choosing to be happy, instead of sad or angry.

Water flows through, over, or around every obstacle.
It is easy to believe you have no choice in how you feel; but in fact, that is the only choice you have when you acknowledge your inability to control the rest of the world.

Thanks, mental. I haven't had any of these, but I'm training myself to come back to the present through breath exercises, feel like it's helping.

I mean to mission out of town and partake of some powerful medicine when spring comes, that's the last time I had a near-epiphany. Sitting in the semi-desert among the daisies, smelling all the richness of life and wordlessly sensing the cycle of warm moist expansion and cold dry contraction.

mentalgongfu2 wrote:It is easy to believe you have no choice in how you feel; but in fact, that is the only choice you have when you acknowledge your inability to control the rest of the world.

I don't know about that one, Mental. One of the most eye-opening things I ever read was to accept the 4 things you cannot control:
1. The weather
2. The past
3. What other people think and do
4. Your emotions.

We can control, however, how we react to them. But hearing that emotions themselves could be beyond our control was freeing for me, personally.

I've got a long list of real good reasons
For all the things I've done
I've got a picture in the back of my mind
Of what I've lost and what I've won
I've survived every situation
Knowing when to freeze and when to run
And regret is just a memory written on my brow
And there's nothing I can do about it now.

I've got a wild and a restless spirit
I held my price through every deal
I've seen the fire of a woman's scorned
Turn her heart of gold to steal
I've got the song of the voice inside me
Set to the rhythm of the wheel
And I've been dreaming like a child
Since the cradle broke the bow
And there's nothing I can do about it now.

Running through the changes
Going through the stages
Coming round the corners in my life
Leaving doubt to fate
Staying out too late
Waiting for the moon to say goodniight
And I could cry for the time I've wasted
But that's a waste of time and tears,
And I know just what I'd change
If went back in time somehow
But there's nothing I can do about it now

Running through the changes
Going through the stages
Coming round the corners in my life
Leaving doubt to fate
Staying out too late
Waiting for the moon to say goodniight
And I could cry for the time I've wasted
But that's a waste of time and tears
And I know just what I'd change
If went back in time somehow
But there's nothing I can do about it now.

I'm forgiving everything that forgiveness will allow
And there's nothing I can do about it now


(and asked for forgiveness too)

I don't know about that one, Mental. One of the most eye-opening things I ever read was to accept the 4 things you cannot control:
1. The weather
2. The past
3. What other people think and do
4. Your emotions.

We can control, however, how we react to them. But hearing that emotions themselves could be beyond our control was freeing for me, personally.

1-3 are easy to agree with, and I think I know what you mean with 4, but I suppose I could better express what I mean. At this point, I believe that our state of mind and how we approach whatever we pay attention to is the thing that directs our emotions.

It might be exactly what you're talking about except for some linguistic distinctions. After all, if you control how you react to the emotions triggered in yourself, then you're doing alright.

A next step may be to learn to direct your response to the emotion-triggering situations so that you reinforce behavior that leads to growth, rather than falling into patterns of behavior involving anger or anxiety or whatever else. That's what I'm working on.

It's about attachment, and lack thereof.

But don't take my word for anything. Different people require different tools to reach their potential. I'm just talking about what's working for me. It's good to feel good.

For me, the only thing that has helped with the things I am intractably angry about is time. Lots of time. It's like a fire, eventually it burns out.

I spent a really long time being angry about one particular thing in my life. It was an experience with a truly evil human being. How do you "be like water" when someone basically destroyed you? You can't, in that case you have to recreate yourself. But without really trying, because if you try, the anger is built into the effort. You have to just let it happen and it's like growing a damn oak tree.

Now a big chunk of my life is gone. I don't have the time now. I lost 20 years to this evil person's actions.

I'm nog angry about it any more. Just wistful about all the time I've lost.

Back when it happened I wanted to kill the guy. I mean, seriously kill him. I figured it was the least I could do for the world, for anyone else who might come into contact with him down the road. It was just common sense, really, to rub him out. But I couldn't figure out a foolproof way to do it. And I wasn't sure I had it in me, honestly. One time I had the chance to kill a guy, and I almost did, but at the last second something in me moved my hand so that I missed by just enough. I'm not a killer. I don't even like to hunt. Yet eliminating this guy from the population would have simply been practical and positive.

I'm glad you're happy. Epiphanies such as you experienced are gifts.

My epiphanies have all been minute. Sitting on the porch of a house one night, watching the sunset, and it suddenly hit me that if I didn't get out of the relationship I was in (with the woman who owned the house) that my soul was going to die. A tiny moment, like hearing the proverbial pin drop, changed my life. Another time, driving into the Hollywood Hills after a rain, smelling the eucalyptus, and realizing that I was going to move back to that city (I was just visiting at the time). Things like that. Realizing I wanted to marry my wife. We were up in the snow, with her daughter who was four at the time. Laughing and playing with these two females whom I loved.

I don't care about being happy anymore. "Happiness" seems kind of a low goal at this point. It seems superficial and almost meaningless.

You can control the weather, but its not easy.

mentalgongfu2 wrote:

I don't know about that one, Mental. One of the most eye-opening things I ever read was to accept the 4 things you cannot control:
1. The weather
2. The past
3. What other people think and do
4. Your emotions.

We can control, however, how we react to them. But hearing that emotions themselves could be beyond our control was freeing for me, personally.

1-3 are easy to agree with, and I think I know what you mean with 4, but I suppose I could better express what I mean. At this point, I believe that our state of mind and how we approach whatever we pay attention to is the thing that directs our emotions.

It might be exactly what you're talking about except for some linguistic distinctions. After all, if you control how you react to the emotions triggered in yourself, then you're doing alright.

A next step may be to learn to direct your response to the emotion-triggering situations so that you reinforce behavior that leads to growth, rather than falling into patterns of behavior involving anger or anxiety or whatever else. That's what I'm working on.

It's about attachment, and lack thereof.

But don't take my word for anything. Different people require different tools to reach their potential. I'm just talking about what's working for me. It's good to feel good.

Yes, I agree that it's good to feel good. I quit my job at the end of June and spent two weeks in bliss. Then X and Y happened which triggered those negative emotions -- (nothing to do with money or employment) -- and I've struggled to get back to bliss since. You are completely correct imho that it is about attachment and old patterns. The things that happened brought back that internal dialogue that I had thought I had purged. "See?" it said, "you really are defective." So for me, X and Y led to the same things they always have led to which all revolve around plunging self-esteem..

that sucked.

But then the epiphany again. (funny how we can forget our epiphanies and have to reexperience them sometimes..) I am not X or Y and they didn't happen because I am defective. They just happened and they are over and where was I again? Oh yeah.. being blissful.

I wonder if that's commonplace ..? Do you 'lose' your earned wisdom from time to time like I do?

I wonder if that's commonplace ..? Do you 'lose' your earned wisdom from time to time like I do?

Everyday I have to work at not letting events and my emotional response to them take me off the path, to get out of the habit of damning this and damning that when things don't go right and instead be thankful and find my way back to that place of peace and joy. I've been afraid that I will wake up one day having forgotten what I learned in that experience, and be back to my old self. But I'm more aware now of when I'm falling back, when my body is filling with stress, when my mind is falling into negative reinforcement. And just knowing that there's a better place to be makes it easier to stop (breathing exercises help for me) and to go back to that place of serenity. When I'm in that place, I've noticed others can tell, and instead of stern looks or blank stares I receive smiles and hellos.

When I'm having trouble getting there, I give thanks, close my eyes, and think back to that moment when I found joy. Or open them and look at the sky, and think of all the possibilities, and when I find myself thinking "look at that fat woman" or some such critique of a stranger, I try to stop, and say to myself "she is beautiful," and when I'm in the right frame of mind, everyone I meet is beautiful.

It's clear to me I still have growth to do. I have come to a few smaller-scale realizations since, about anger I haven't fully let go of and grudges I haven't rid myself of, but simply to realize this is to grow a little and to pave the way for letting go.

I do wonder how I will react when some major life change takes place, if a loved one is hurt, if I lose my job, or whatever. But I don't worry too much anymore. The only person that can take it away from me is me, and I don't intend to let it go. Life is beautiful.

It occurred to me today that it might be relevant to note the recent experience I had is not due simply to an isolated incident brought about by powerful medicine. It is a continuation of a chain of events, in my view, which started with a dramatic upheaval in my personal life that led me (after much emotional pain and suffering) to move on to some healthier behaviors, specifically exercising on a regular basis and paying much closer attention to the food I consume and its origins. It also caused me to reevaluate what it is I want in life and whether or not my actions were leading me that direction. The personal upheaval took place about three months before I started this thread, and that, combined with watching some documentaries about the food supply system in the US, caused me to make some changes in how I care for myself which preceded the events discussed in the OP.

Before that intense moment of understanding struck, I had begun working out several times each week for 30-60 minutes and eating much more fruit, vegetables and pasta in lieu of a diet focused on meat. I haven't turned vegetarian, and I don't think I will since I don't have a moral problem with meat-eaters, but I became much more conscious of what I was putting into my body and moved away from a diet that demanded flesh at almost every meal.

I think the healthy and life-affirming experience I had would not have taken place had I not already taken steps that brought me to a better place of mind.

That last bit is definitely worth mentioning.

In fact, at the time, I almost refrained from partaking, despite my earlier excitement about the prospect, because I wasn't sure my thoughts were in the right place to bring about something positive and was afraid of getting stuck in a negative feedback loop.

And just in case any of the uninitiated are reading this - a person's state of being and intention is essential to the result of taking powerful medicines. Personally, I go only for substances that grow naturally, and have long since been done with three-letter chemicals and artificial creations like this K2 bs. The reasons why are stories for another day.

Despite my stunning discoveries I quickly realized there really is nothing new under the sun. My spiritual epiphanies were as ancient as mankind and there I was reinventing the wheel. When someone kindly pointed me to the books of don Miguel Ruiz, low and behold, there was my new philosophy of life organized, expanded, and using the words that had escaped me. I was amused and overjoyed at the same time. It certainly saved me a lot of work. My big discovery was ego detachment. I hadn't been into shamanism and wasn't familiar with the basics. I had simply set my heart and mind on finding the truth about why we act so self-destructively as a species.