ExistentialMuse

@BipolarGrowth Interesting. One of my biggest difficulties has been to face my fears and not get carried away by emotion and also to wisely strategize things in such a way that there aren't pathological imbalances - which can lead to negative emotion in the first place. I guess it's about learning self-love.

It's kind of a cliché that the sensual domain of life quite often gets pejoratively portrayed as hedonistic/egocentric/materialistic etc. From Priests to Monks to Yogis, “abstinence of the passions” seems to be a common motif of such titles. With that context out of the way, I’m trying to understand whether there's something about the sensual domain that is actually antithetical to spirituality or whether this is just the ego cleverly “gerrymandering” what it thinks “being spiritual” should look like. In other words, Is there merit to this way of defining spirituality or are there situations where it could perhaps be a symptom of a compartmentalized personality that doesn't know how to integrate it's full being. At any rate, I've got to say that it all seems pretty sus to the feminine side of my psyche.

@BipolarGrowth Thanks for the encouragement. As a person who was heavily indoctrinated into a very religious/conservative worldview, my knee-jerk reaction ended up being a headfirst plunge into meta(_) views to understand what the hell is going on. Moreover, I retrospectively realized this was (at least in part), an addictive, subconscious attempt to disillusion myself from all the unhealthy programming I had received - which a junkie like myself, is probably going to keep doing. Unfortunately, my inspiration to to pursue normie human affairs, (such as the kind we've discussed) has been stifled - which is what I'm trying to get over as it's quite difficult to do something unless it's being done in-spirit (inspiration). In other words, one's “gonads” “gut” “heart” “soul” “cortex” etc has to be into it (so to speak), otherwise it feels like one is just pulling along a bunch of apathetic apparitions.

@Joscha I guess the question I'm trying to answer is whether ALL moments of eternity actually exist or not. If past and future are illusory, then to say God HAS already experienced all moments or in tandem, WILL experience all moments, wouldn’t be accurate statements. If that's true, then every moment is actually God's first and last one. If so, then how can God be Actually infinite as it would seem more accurate to describe God as Hypothetically infinite at any actual finite moment.

Note: Before reading onward, go into a dark room and make sure your visual field is solely limited to this post by going full screen (pun intended). Question: If God is absolutely/wholly-eternal/infinite in ALLways, (a message of many non-dual teachings) then how does “he/she” pull off the illusion of time/finitude so damn well? To give a specific example here, if Redness (part of God) is eternal, then why does it only appear to BE at some moments and not others? PS: If I'm on the wrong track here, then forgive me for making myself look like an idiot. PSS: For the small percentage of folks who are color blind, I apologize in advance for your inevitable confusion. Also, if you happen to be wearing one of these while reading this, then you can go fuck yourself!

@peanutspathtotruth Thanks again for such empathic responses. It's honestly unclear to me what the proper way is to construe my desire for relationships in the first place. Perhaps I'm seeking fulfillment or maybe I just want to romance in an enjoyably delusional manner for a time.

@LastThursday Thanks for trying to bring some nuance to the table. Considering how such a “spiritually germane” term such as “illusion” could become prone to be used as a sort of “fill in the blank” buzzword for more than one communicative purpose, it would be worthwhile for there to be more elaboration on how it’s being used - if that hasn't been done already.

@peanutspathtotruth Thanks for your reply. I get your point about the term “serve” and in retrospect, I would say it didn’t quite capture the essence of what I was trying to communicate in the first place. Perhaps a better way of putting it would have been: I'm trying to understand the “side effects” of awakening (if I can put it that way) as it pertains to relationships specifically.

Hello, To contextualize things, let me start off by emphasizing that this question is being asked from a poignantly pragmatic stance, as opposed to some hypothetical armchair or meditative ass-cushion one. In other words, the young-adult persona typing this question is standing on their God-given feet, trying to make life decisions. The essence of this query has to do with how awakening/enlightenment may shift ones relationship-outlook as such (including how it pertains to my particular situation which I'll get into in a moment). To be more specific, I'm asking whether enlightenment/awakening serves* to “enhance/enrich” relationships (making them more profound than they would be in a normal state of consciousness) or whether it actually “ruins/spoils” the spellbinding magic of them. You see, as an introvert who has struggled their entire life with being intimate/romantic (including the cultivation of friendships in general), I initially turned to spirituality with the hope it would help me “get out of my head” and make it easier to actualize my desire for connecting with others. With that being said, upon delving deeper, I inevitably ran into non-dual teachings. These of course talk about the “illusion of otherness” - a message, which I'm afraid has impacted me in the most ironically soul-crushing manner. In short, this news has pretty much capsized my stage-green, interpersonal endeavors and has left me in a sea of crippling depression. Note: My unrest hasn't just merely come from teachings, but also experiences on substances. Given that I have no way of feasibly erasing my memory of my current circumstances that wouldn’t entail committing suicide, I’m frankly desperate for some yellow/turquoise wisdom in terms of moving forward. I say this because I’m doubtful that a therapist, (who would in all likelihood be operating from some limited orange/green paradigm) could offer that much help. At least, this is the way I see it at any rate - especially since my quandary has now inflated to a metaphysical level as opposed to being merely psychological. To be blunt, as a spiritual amateur who has only half-assed the “oneness/awakening game” and as an autistic incel who has no ass in the “social/collective game”, I feel like I'm imbibing the worst of both worlds so to speak. I never could've guessed God would ever dare to have such a dark sense of humor - even in his wildest dreams. Thanks,