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In this essay, I will try my best to use the language of logic to indicate the significance of the illogical for those who are too attached to logic, yet I will also argue against the illogical for those who are too attached to the dimension of the heart. Then, I'm trying to create a holistic perspective in which both are integrated, but neither one of them has become an attachment. This will have its limitations, because the first "illogicality" I was talking about was in a certain sense still logical. That illogicality can still be logically pointed out why it is functional. So there's a certain rationality towards that dimension of being irrational. However, there is a certain point where no matter how strong your logic is, a leap will have to be taken into trust. Trust, genuine trust (not faith or belief), requires you to take a jump into the absurd, the unexplainable, the unknowable: not having the capacity to be understood by the mind. This I call the truest form of absurdity, of illogicality. It's difficult to argue why this has so much significance to take this jump; you will have to experience it, that's the only way. However, there are still some pointers I can provide, some perspectives that can be utilized. But obviously, only the direct experience can free you and truly make you understand it, and not a intellectual agreement of it, though this can be the first step. Firstly, let's discuss the matter of why atheism/rationalism, and its loyal brother called "science", is an act of limiting yourself and ultimately an ego strategy for keeping you stuck. Often times, people ask for "evidence" when a certain statement is made within the realm of religiousity or spirituality, or even just general self-development. The problem is, that such a thing cannot be proven as an absolute truth by its very nature, because everybody is different. Science is good for the development of new technologies and the discoveries of universal truths, such as the realm of physics and mathemathics. However, as far as the matter of humanity is concerned, things really start becoming much more complex. The realm of spirituality, religion and even psychology are cluttered with paradoxes and opposites. What is poison for one person, can be the cure for the other one. It all depends on the makeup of someone's system: one's heart, one's beliefs, one's conditioning, one's personality and so forth... For this reason, how can science and psychology provide any evidence for a technique that would work for all? Impossible! We are all unique individuals, and there is no absolute truth that works for everyone all the time. At least, as far as the conventional perspective is concerned. From the perspective of the absolute, of the all, then perhaps there are truths that work for everyone. Let me give you an example. Take the statement: Love frees you from suffering. Is this true? I would definitely say so. However, what happens when people start taking this statement very seriously? Then people start to act loving, to pretend they are loving, to believe they are loving, when in reality they carry a lot of judgement, resentment, hatred and so forth within them. In reality, the action that is required for them could be to become very assertive, dismiss people out of their lives, start saying "NO!", become angry at someone and defend themselves from hurt that others can inflict upon them. It's not to say that THAT is the absolute truth either for happiness and peace, but it is the relative truth that at that moment works for them, because that is a part they need to develop at that point. True love is only possible when you know how to defend and assert yourself. True love also doesn't mean to always be soft, kind and gentle towards people. Sometimes it is necessary to be harsh and to deliver uncomfortable truths to people directly. Again, relative truths that they need to embody at that stage of their development. Do you see the limitations of science here in the fields of psychological development? Humans are incredibly complex, and a particular advice can be poison for one person and medicine for the other. It all depends what part of them they need to develop at that particular stage in their evolution. Sometimes masculine values have to practiced, and sometimes feminine values. What I just argued for wasn't necessarily against atheistic viewpoints so much; It didn't do much to disprove the notion of a purely materialistic and accidental reality, as atheists believe, but my feeling is that many rationalists turn towards science to explain for them how to live, and my argumentation was to support the dismissal of this notion. Then, if we understand the complexity of our psychology, and we realize that there are no absolute truths and therefore techniques or methods we can eternally hold onto, we may start to realize that our intellectual systems will eventually be limiting towards progressing further in our evolution. Then, we may start looking for a different center from which to make decisions from. This is where the heart comes into play: The world of feelings and emotions. However, what usually (if not always) happens is that instead of understanding that an integration between heart and mind needs to take place, which allows the intuition of the soul to truly open up, we start instead becoming identified with our feelings and we dismiss the cold rationality of the mind. It's not that the mind now has completely disappeared, but that it now utilizes the heart for its beliefs and decisions. It's not that at this point that the identification with the mind has been transcended, but that the mind now simply doesn't purely function from itself only. Feelings now have a great significance, and certainly they do have a great existential importance, but the irony is that the mind starts dismissing its own analytical processes; at least on the surface level. In reality, the mind is still running the entire business, but the underlying belief one is now attached to is: "I should go by what feels right". One does now realize the importance of connection, love, communion, empathy and so forth, but fails to understand that the mind has to be used in this physical reality. Mind has its purpose, and needs to be used consciously, instead of being dismissed. If we fail to integrate our heart and mind, we then start becoming too "weak". We become too floaty, too undriven, too undisciplined. We start dismissing rational, logical decisions which would've helped us further or prevented us from getting in trouble because "It doesn't feel right" Ultimately, this will backfire on us. This is the hypocrisy that —often cold-hearted— rational people such as atheists can see in people who are too identified with their emotions and feelings, as we are experts in pointing out the flaws of our polar opposites, but fail to see the dysfunctionality within ourselves. So naturally, scientists, atheists, rationalists, and all the types of people who are functioning almost purely from their mind and logical systems, feel a great resistance towards the people who get so caught up in their emotions and feelings, as they can see that they get nothing done, that they lack a "down-to-earth" approach, that they are too much floating around in the skies, that they lack self-control and discipline. And certainly, there is a certain truth to this. However, if we dismiss our subjective reality entirely, then we set ourselves up for a great amount of suffering. Then we keep in our emotions, then we start to feel disconnected from existence and other human beings, then we repress our desires if they don't correlate to our rationalist perspective, then we start becoming overwhelmed by stress and anxiety... You may become very succesful in the material world, but you'll realize it's all hollow and you're still the same unhappy person as you were before. In fact, you are unhappier now because you now got what you thought you needed to be happy, but you're still not happy. Now, hope also starts slipping out of your hands. The only way out of this is to start realizing the significance of your subjective reality; You start honouring your feelings, your emotions. You allow yourself to cry or to express joy and laughter in a very frivolous, free-flowing manner. This can be a great relief to your system, and you start to realize the significance of feelings and emotions. However, as I have already explained, the mind tends to swing to the polar opposite. At first we may have honored our rationalism to a great degree, but as we started seeing the pain of our lack of emotional awareness, we now tend to become very antagonistic towards what we first considered to be so valuable. Somehow, we often start to forget all the hypocrisy we saw in people who became very identified with their emotions and feelings. I have already explained what this can result in. Let's get into the next phase. There comes a point when we start once again see the limitations of this identification with all these feelings and the dismissal of the mind, as we were able to when we were still rationalists. However, if we've lived through this phase of feeling-identification, we now start to realize that both heart and mind has a certain significance. This is the door to wisdom. We start to understand that both the language of the heart and the mind has a certain significance. What we don't immediately understand however, is how to proprely integrate both of them. We now start to try to philosophize and figure out logical systems in which we can somehow apply a technique, a strategy, a method as on how to integrate them. We think and think, and the more we go into the many perspectives on what ground or logic we can make our decisions on, the more we start to realize that there is always an opposite perspective to whatever standpoint we take. We use logic —the mind— to try and integrate mind and heart, but again and again we fail to truly understand how to find this balance, because if we really go deeply into it, we always realize that an opposing argument is just around the corner for whatever standpoint we try to take. This can lead to greats amount of confusion, because we don't know what is left and right anymore, what's up and above, what will help us and what will hinder us, what is forward and what is backward... Life can start becoming really difficult and, as was my personal experience, you can come to a point where you become so confused that it paralyzes you to the point where all you do is lay in bed all day, just thinking —even though you're physically perfectly health— and the confusion and thoughts become so crippling that you lose the motivation to do anything at all, except for perhaps supplying the needs for your physical survival. This is the dark night of doubt and confusion, which I personally probably went into more extremely than 99% of people ever will, granted people will reach this stage in their life in the first place. It got me to the point where I started considering and attempting suicide. And it was not merely because I wanted the pain to stop (as I was very open to the idea of reincarnation, this seemed rather futile anyways), but because all other ideas had failed for me, I now had the idea that perhaps if I push the pain to so far that it reaches a certain limit, then perhaps it will somehow instantly transform me, or at least reverse the direction that my life seemed to be heading in. I'm talking about the pain you experience when you're on the edge of death, but haven't made the last step into it yet. So it wasn't really about actually ending it, but pushing the pain to such an extreme so that perhaps something would crack in me and I would have some sort of transformation. It was a last-resort solution, no other idea seemed to work for me anymore. Eventually, I started to realize that this wasn't going to work out for me either. Either it was going to be actual suicide, or a complete change in attitude. Even though I had very strong doubts and fears that it would actually work, there was just one thing I could think of. And that was this: I simply had to make decisions, not knowing whether they were right or wrong, not knowing whether they were helpful or hindering, not knowing whether it was going to make things better or worse, but making decisions for the sake of learning to make decisions, and committing to them (for that moment), as much as I can. It was completely stepping into the complete unknown, having all my intuitive capacities of feeling what I should be doing overshadowed by doubts and fears, and despite all of that still making decisions, and somehow, for no logical explanation at all, still trusting myself and existence in spite of all the worries, that I was heading in the right direction. This is the trust I want to talk about. This is the trust I can not —despite all my clever philosophical capacities— make an argument for as to why to go with it. Except for that it works. Where one who is identified with feelings only may call his/her decisions based on trust, it is still based on faith and identifying with a mental position, namely: "I should go with what feels right". It seems like you're trying to go with your intuition, but in fact, you're not. You're going with a mental position, where your heart simply facilitates your head. Or perhaps I should say: you're going with feeling-intuition, but not with being-intuition. Being-intuition seems in some ways similair to feeling-intiution, but in fact it is radically different. This is the type of intuition that I can not explain or argue in favour for to any rationalist. With feeling-intuition, I can still show the rationalist the significance of feelings and emotional expression as to unburden himself. With being-intuition, my hands are tied. It is a mystery as to what it is. Sometimes it tells you to go with "what feels right", thus implying heart. Sometimes it tells you to go with "what needs to be done", thus implying mind. And sometimes it is somewhere in between. But of course, it doesn't take up a mental position. It simply decides. And you trust it. How can you trust it? How do you know it won't deceive you? Well, there's no way to argue it away, but you simply trust it. It is letting the unknown function through you, and the only indication that this is the right thing to do is the sense of tranquility and peace you get from going along with it, which doesn't mean it stays away from discipline and things you really don't feel like doing. Often times, I don't really even know if I'm listening to my being-intuition or if i'm getting identified with either a mental or emotional (feeling-intuition) position. I'm not so acquianted with it just yet. I've only started to become somewhat acquainted with turquoise for less than a year now [reference to spiral dynamics model]. To differentiate being-intuition from and identification with an idea or feeling is very difficult to notice, very subtle. Most characteristic about it, I would say, is that the element of confusion or hesitation has started disappearing from it. Not that you know for sure this is the right decision, at least intellectually, but there's is no need to be sure anymore. You start to understand that the problem all along was not the decisions you were making, but the division within yourself you were creating when you were making your decisions. One part of you said you should do A, another part said you should do B. Perhaps you were identified with the position of A, but still your unconscious desired for B (or vica versa), so you were in conflict. Perhaps you were genuine enough to see both the validity of A and B, but were unsure as to what to choose, thus still in conflict. Now, with this being-intuition, the decision you make is not important anymore. You can choose A, and that's fine. You can choose B, and that's fine. Perhaps you can even choose AB, and that's also fine. Or perhaps today you choose A, and tomorrow you choose B, and eitherway it is still fine. Now, you start to become truly flexible: being able to switch between a feminine, passive modality to a masculine, active modality very quickly, for whatever the situation requires. You realize that none of this really matters, as long as there is not conflict within you making decisions. Finally, you really start to realize there's no need to worry at all, because you've come to the absolute realization of your own ignorance, so why be worried? You don't know anyways. You can't know! All this worry and striving and contemplating and pondering and disciplining and attempting to accept, trying to not try... All of that was just a complete joke! And you don't even renounce striving, or contemplating or anything like that. If it's a joke, then why avoid it? Jokes are to be played around with. If you start fighting with a joke, it won't be a joke anymore. In realizing all of this, true spirituality and peace starts to become available to you. Finally, you're approaching the promised land, which in reality was never anywhere else but here to begin with. But... Don't take what I say as a philosophy. You have to apply the specific lessons that are relevant for you right now. Your situation is different than mine. Be genuine with yourself, and see what the specific lesson is that you need to learn right now. Don't try to avoid it, even if it is very painful. The only way to peace is to go through the pain of facing yourself, facing your demons. There is no other way. Avoidance is simply delay. What's the point in delay?

I completely agree. Completely. I totally appreciate your effort, but it's not you the problem. The problem is that if you even DARE to chat about mens issues like suicide, not having purpose in life etc the left destroys your life and attacks you like you were the KKK, and at the same time they want tolerance for terrorists and ISIS. I think the left is in need of an insane asylum. How can you trust such a "progressive" movement? And I'm not from the right, I don't like conservatives. I'm very centrist politically. Another thing that worries some men and boys, in my opinion rightfully, is that we hope that once the womens issues are fixed, which I'm ALL IN FAVOUR and supportive, we can also get attention and empathy towards our problems. And at the end to get a pleasant society where everybody is accepted and not screamed at. Where there is no slut shaming and no "kill all men" and "all men are rapists". Why is it so hard to just care for our own life and let the other live their own? As a very calm and peaceful young man I find it very very cowardly to be classified as evil by the left. At the same time I don't like hearing slut shaming, because it's none of people's business what a woman does in her life. What I'm trying to say is that you can't fix some biases towards women by treating men like monsters, we are people with emotions and feelings and fears too. We love and breathe too. But to the left this is just nazi propaganda.

Hey, since the last therapy session Ive felt kinda worse - it was the first very emotional one for me. For almost a year now, Ive been looking for answers for there being literally two "I's" in me. Let's call them subminds, that's how I was taught to call them by a buddhist teacher. So, there is one submind, thats been active since August last year, which obviously always had been there before, just hidden or not active. However, it is a submind with a deathwish, which is potentially connected to the divorce of my parents and fights between my mum and brother - I remember I told him several times that I'd kill myself and him (I think), but particularly myself if their fights would continue. This was at the age of around 7-11. I didnt process everything really well. That is the reason why I got OCD after the divorce. When my brother had kind of a psychotic break last year, my mind went whirlwind and I got severely depersonalized and derealized. That was when everything worse started. Basically I recovered from DPDR, but in August I got this feeling that a part of me didnt want to live anymore and so I dissociated from a complete person and split into a 'good' part and a suicidal part, I am not actively suicidal though. However, as you know, everyone has a bad and a good part inside, but for me this bad part literally feels like it is me for like 60% when it is active, maybe even 70% and that makes it so hard - if you feel like you are not supposed to be here anymore. It is like a second you growing and evolving inside you that feels really like it is you, if that makes sense... One trigger is time, like the date or passage of time - I cope with the split of my self by explaining it with irrational thoughts, such as, that I feel like that in August I potentially stopped living and I am not supposed to live anymore, living after the day those submind got active. Another one is that I feel like I broke out of the passage of time in August and live in resistance with time itself. So, I see myself especially triggered when there is anything about dates or so. Then main triggering is everything that is about "me" as a person - job, work, future, children - how is someone able to think about that stuff when there is 50-70% of yourself feeling like you arent supposed to live anymore? (Talking about me) Thing is, this is not suicidal thoughts, it is rather a complete different "me", like another society or so, like a multiple personality but not that extreme. You know, I know what it is like to deal with anxious and panicky thoughts but this is on another level, occured out of nowhere. It is so difficult to continue like that because you just do not know which part is you Is this a result of childhood trauma? I am really in need for help with this. I feel divided, not complete, I dont know how I can still hold on, Ive never wanted to die or to end my life. What I definitely can feel is the reason why people choose suicide. It is absolutely reasonable.

For me, it was unconscious suffering. I had to choose between suicide or non-duality. Some choose suicide. I think Jeff Foster is another person who had to choose between suicide or non-duality.

Dear Stretch, you asked so I'll give it to you straight, One think you are running towards something, but the fact is you are merely seeking to avoid what you fear the most. The true Spiritual path is not up but down, its not trying to become something but allowing yourself to become nothing. And I am not talking about the switcheroo of self deception where one pretends to be nothing so that the ego, the very subtle ego, is still hoping to be something. (Something and nothing often having to do with significance) The Universe is a big place, the more you see of it the smaller you feel and the more you will seek to compensate. There was a monk who unlike the other monks never snuck out over the walls at night to visit the ladies in town, he was absolutely sincere in wanting to attain his first samadhi, there was a very holy week coming up and so he decided he would remain upon the top of a tower at the temple fasting and meditating and so he did, but the week went by, and he found himself as he was and decided why bother, and so he slowly lifted his leg over the railing so as to end his life. He did not jump, there was no hurry, his mind did not obsess, he had simply let go of his ambition. It was at this point that he attained samadhi. This is a stage that cannot be faked, suicide is not even important in the story, he simply stopped thinking about himself. Now here is a truth you need to swallow, a man can never possess what he HAS, he can only possess what we GIVES AWAY. If you give love, then you burn that fact into reality itself and nothing in the universe can contradict that, people can write books about how selfish you are, media can carry it across the world to where every human being actually believes you are selfish, and yet if you have given it, the universe will know and you will know. So in practical steps, start thinking about something nice you can do for another, you don't have to know the mysteries of the universe, rather allow yourself to be insignificant, be vulnerable, be broken, but be wise.

Leo said consciousness is not a biological phenomenon. Then, is it possible for my consciousness to exist as a ghost after death? Or, will my death lead to disappearance of my consciousness? Or, am I already a ghost living in an illusion of physical embodiment? Which is it? Do note that I am not pondering suicide. The opposite is the truth in my mind. I have been pondering what it's like to live forever. But, that question can wait until I obtain some kind of immortality. I'm not even sure if immortality is possible.

@Leo Gura Thanks Leo that helps me too. I tend to have an idea about nothing and hold it in my body as a space, it tends to help me. I wonder why people can't handle nothing, is it maybe just cause it's not what they are looking for? They can't die, they can't jump, cause this is suicide what we are doing (as Michael James said), we must be pretty extreme patients to be here in this intensive care hospital, on our deathbeds. It never neutralizes substance, cause substance is already an illusion in Nothing, so ego thrives, cause ego is empty, and it gives 'form' to the Nothing. That is not good. But somethings can still be looked at as you know by identifying the mind's projected 'something' in the Nothing. This is discernement, and done without somethinging anything. I have not anythinged anything either

The ones that terrified me as a teen were the ones with wings. If I found one flying around before bedtime, I would not sleep until it was dead. This all happened because one night I was sleeping and had this "dream". I had this dream of eating something god-awful. It tasted like paper, rough, and gishy in my mouth and it had a foul stink to it. When I woke up, I realized that I had probably had one of the fliers land on my face, go into my mouth, and I had eaten it. It was really weird because they seem to like to go into your mouth while you're sleeping. Later, I found the nest brewing in my comic collection, brought them out in the open, and killed them all by hand & foot. These days I figure they were probably going into the mouth to try and get food in your teeth, need a drink, or perhaps to commit suicide. Last year, when I was in India, the corporate bathrooms would have nests of these things just hanging out on the walls or floors, undisturbed running their little roach errands or hanging out. Since I was awake, it didn't really bother me, but I'd destroy them if I found them in my bedroom (fortunately none were found in my hotel room). These days what gets on my nerves are wasps. I work from home & I'll be talking to a customer & have one large one suddenly fly out, heading to the bananas to build on their nest. The first time, I called maintenance to handle it in case it was a nest. However, it was just one. He killed it. A few weeks later, another popped out & heading to the bananas. On the last time, I found that if you just tap them from the top in mid-flight with your broom, they'll drop to the ground fast & then you can crush them quickly. This one was still alive after I pounced it, so I scooped it up & put it outside in case it was still alive (can live out the rest of its existence or be a resource for another animal). I've also found that what really bothers me about them is the jerky movement when they're on surfaces as well. They move in such an unpredictable way. At any rate, that's how I've handled my fear with them: try to find an explanation as to what they're doing around me, then kill it if it feels to be a threat, otherwise, ignore it.

Journal Entry #1 Introduction So this is my first Journal Post. I don't really know what I will be sharing, but I hope to discover something about myself through this journal. Responses are more than welcome I could never turn down good advise. Here we go: Life has been pretty insane the past couple months Husband's friend committed suicide His grandfather got sick He started abusing Meth We got into a big fight (things got physical) Almost left him I got into a bad car accident Resolved things with my husband Graduated from college Had to kick my roommate (my sister) out of our apartment for being a mooch One of my friends committed suicide Got into another fight with my husband (nothing physical this time) My husband left for a while Now he's back and things are "okay" Things are starting to move forward with my case (for the accident) And all in the span of just 2 months. Boy, how life can just spiral out of control sometimes. I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) back in high school, which can make it hard to control my feelings or reactions to things. But I feel like I have been getting better at controlling it as I work on my meditation and self inquiry. I have been doing my best to stay very mindful of my situation and all the factors involved. I have been able to feel very grateful and blessed through all of this pain. I still struggle to deal with some parts of what has been going on, but I try to tell myself that there is more than all of this. I can handle it. Some of my family members have said that they think it's weird for me not to be panicked or messed up over everything. Is it? I know that my physical pain will heal eventually, so there is no point to stress that. And as for everything else, time keeps going. I have a life that I want to live, and things I want to be able to see and do. I can't accomplish anything by being stuck in a depression. When I tell them this, they say that "I'm not acting like I care about anything that has happened" but I do care. I can't help what has happened, but I can help what is and will happen. That is my current focus. If it is strange to feel this way, then I guess I accept that. I have seen what being stuck in a depression can do to me, and I won't let that be me anymore, if I can help it. I want to be a strong, smart woman that can push through her worldly troubles and strive for better! Life won't wait for me to make that happen. So I have to work at it now. If this seems weird to my family, so be it.

It is just pure mess, trauma processing, depression vs. finding a job THAT I LIKE vs. my parents, especially mum's pressure (money from the state, child allowance...). It is just that I cant find anything interesting enough in order to really have the passion to pursue it. And I am forced to do something if I dont do anything or do not find anything this year. I see it coming, my mum will kick me out, and I am left blaming myself, cant go to the therapist anymore and I am ready to suicide, because I cant find any meaning in living a normal life. I. Just. Cannot. It is a blockage in my damn mind. And I am really in need and pressured to find something in 2018 or my mum will go insane. I am 19, graduated last year, my brother is unemployed, that is why he got kicked out this year by my mum. But I just dont know, I always thought I would study, I could and theoretically, I'd be able to, but I am in a bad state mentally, that I dont trust myself enough to go through with it. So, I can only hope for an interesting apprenticeship, but there are only so boring jobs, where I get depressed only by reading through them. What I do like is media designer, but it is seems like it is too late to apply for something like that in 2018 (I tried several times...) PLUS that is something everyone in my age wants to do. You cannot talk with my mum, she will justify this and that and everything with my brother's failure, SO I CANT tell her that I AM NOT in a good state of making these choices NOW. But it will just bounce back from her ego-shield of telling me "that I am not her son and why I do that to her" and "I dont want to see you loafing here in the next month" or "You will do something, no matter what, if it was dishwasher, I DONT CARE!". Shit, I DONT WANT TO DO THAT, it is JUST MY BRAIN AT THE MOMENT. BOAH. I AM SO OVERWHELMED BY THOSE CHOICES, IT IS KILLING ME.

Never heard about suicide attempt, can you elaborate more on that?

That's interesting, the poisoning seems probable. But still even if he was poisoned why the suicide attempt. Perhaps he got so weak from the poisoning that he saw it as the only way to go.

@George Fil It's funny someone on LinkeIn reached out to me for some stupid mlm scheme that this Patrick Ben David guy was the head of. She talked about how the company was named people helping people we're trying to get everyone financially free yada yada yada. She wanted me to come all the way to Pasadena from West Los Angeles. Then I knew something was fishy I googled them and saw there terrible yelp review and one yelp review specifically mentioned her name. They are one of those mlm cults that constantly smile in your face while they financially stab you in the back. I think in the future cults like that should end up behind bars but, in a stage orange society it's no wonder that they thrive while victimizing the weak minded to the brink of suicide.

Note: Even if it comes across this way, I am not trying to gain sympathy. My vivid descriptions are as vivid as they are here simply to try and strongly convey the insight I am sharing. Because everyone on here is buzzing about spiral dynamics, I wanted to share a personal story that I found very interesting, which relates directly to spiral dynamics. In junior school, and parts of middle school I was bullied deeply, so bad that I developed pretty much all of my neurosis that I currently have today. My shadow work journey(which I have been doing adamantly for 2 years now, and which has still a long way to go) has purely been solving the issues I developed in junior school alone. I had at the end of high school deeply low self esteem - to the point of wanting to suicide on a weekly basis, a personal identity associated with stupidity, lack of morality, evilness, monstrous, clumsy, fat and ugly. I had strong doses of OCD type experiences of fear of being left by myself with other people I did not know, and a strong resistance to trying to stride for anything good for me in life. I had deep guilt and shame running through my veins on a daily basis. Let me assert again that this all stemmed from at most 3 years of my secondary level of schooling. But the most interesting thing about my memories (and they are vivid and accurate just due to the fact that you never forget traumatic experiences) is how my bullying experiences related to spiral dynamics. I will simply copy and paste a small section of my journal I wrote down 3 years ago (end of year 12 for me) about what I remember of secondary school. I will then comment on this journal from a spiral dynamics perspective. 2.3 Bullying experiences of Secondary School The social aspect was extremely scary and soul crushing. 2.3.1 Year 7: 1st encounter with bullying: 3 week prior I attempted to develop a platonic bond with a student that seemed friendly. During the bonding stages, from my perspective (which in hindsight I now know was inaccurate) we were involved in friendly conversations about gossip about teachers, other students and the content the other student seemed like he was enjoying the intercourse with me and off his own volition would in the mornings sit next to me to speak about further topics. We also played board games together which both of us seemed like we were having fun and enjoying each other's company. We would constantly sit next to each other and make jokes. To me, I felt like I found someone who I could trust to serve me friendly company, and someone who would be worth being loyal to in heated events. 3 weeks later at lunch time I decided to try and be in his company. He told me with a laughing face to leave, back then I didn't really understand most jokes student said or why they were funny, so I just laughed back for politeness and ignored it and continued to join in with whatever he was doing. He then walked off. Being confused but again ignoring it I walked with him, he then told a teacher that I was stalking him and that I was harassing him, weirdly again with a laughing face. The teacher was confused and then told him to put up with my company, but I walked away angry. I was deeply afraid and worried of the teacher that he spoke to of thinking that I was a 'bad person'. Being a bad person elicited deeply shameful, guilty and painful thoughts to me, maybe the most pain I could ever feel, and this person brought them up for me. The next day this person acted normal and attempted to socialize with me. Of course I reacted negatively to this person. This went on for a while and escalated to the point that I had to be moved from the classes that he was in to another set of classes. The teachers thought that I was gifted, so I was moved to a special class that had intellectually 'gifted' people in it. 2.3.2 Year 8: I was moved to this new class afterwards but suffered bullying problems again. During the bullying events I went through, being a lover of science, I noted down certain social phenomena that was unconceivable at the time for further investigation. These notes are from the mac computer you had in 7th grade, inside the folder 'intellectual timecapsule': (picked at random) 2011, may: - people in the group are very bad to me. They took my pencil case threw it in the bin. They took it because the other ones in the group liked it and gave them brownie points for it. I deleted some for sake of shortness of this post and also some are very personal. I kept the relevant ones - "The other people in the group are very selfish. they have no limits. " - "The group is (not sure but seems true) being held together by being selfish. The person who seems the coolest and toughest is the leader. The person who is harder to mess with is the leader. Everyone does what the leader says because they don't want to be messed with." - "They use me to show off how tough they are. When they mess with me and win the group values the bully as being the highest. I am a social status farm" - "In sports class, no group wanted me and told me that I am too dumb and clumsy to be in their group and that I would make them loose." - "Miss had a paper to pass around, and the group leader told me that I should be thankful for him giving me the paper because of how dumb I am" - "I am very scared of miss not liking me. No one likes me" - "my friend who liked me betrayed me to look cool in front of the group. He took my pencil case and threw it in the bin like the others, now the group loves him and he doesn't talk to me anymore" Other things I remember: I would have no group to go to during science class because all the groups would tell me to not enter their group, and when I tried to they would yell at me to go away and push me away. They would do nasty acts purely for the group's satisfaction. Like throw my pencilcase in the bin or melt my ruler with a Bunsen burner One account was when one group member (not me) was being bullied by the group and how they reacted. This member had his bag took off him by the group without him knowing. He asked all of the group members where his bag was and then said ok then if none of you will give me back my bag I'll take tristan's in return. And took my bag when I went to the toilet. This is not how I reacted, but if I did I might have mitigated the problems with the group more effectively. The group would constantly assert dominance by doing micro bullying acts. I noticed that this is how the clique and group maintained itself. Each act of microbullying kept their social status in place. At the end of year 9, I gave up on trying to stop the bullying myself and just (know this is wrong in hindsight) assumed that I was the problem, because I was the only one with the problem. I felt very guilty about being the one that everyone hated. I felt like a moster from a different planet. I felt like I didn't belong. I suffered a lot of pain from thinking I was the bad evil guy. In the end what stopped me was the fear that the teachers would see me as the bad one in all of this mess. Slowly though the bullies seemed to mature and the sorts of comments they made in earlier years were condemned by them in later years. The bullying sorted itself out through maturity, but my traumas are still with me. Commentary of this diary: Back then, when I had these experiences, I just assumed that I was a socially awkward nerd who had these bullying problems as a consequence of being weird and different. While that is slightly true, the bigger reason as to why I went through so much bullying is now very clear to me. I was at a different stage of spiral dynamics then what the other group was at. I was clearly at blue, and they were clearly at red/orange. I'll illustrate my point through examples: How I was blue(from quoting from my journal): "I was deeply afraid and worried of the teacher that he spoke to of thinking that I was a 'bad person'." Blue appealing to authority. striving to be the good guy. "I felt like I found someone who I could trust to serve me friendly company, and someone who would be worth being loyal to in heated events" Blue - being loyal to someone "I felt very guilty about being the one that everyone hated. I felt like a moster from a different planet." blue again -> right vs wrong. The diary (understandably) doesn't talk a lot about me back then (which is like 8 years ago), so I'll speak a bit more about that. I was very obedient to teachers, I loved being the good person. When looking for friends I looked for people I could be loyal to and people who were 'good people' who had morals. I also liked the security of having people I could trust. Having people who were selfish was a big fear to me because I didn't feel secure. Now over on the red/orange side: Pretty much all of the quotes in the May 2011 section. They are all acts of mild red or extreme orange. How about how the group used selfish acts as a way to assert their dominance? At the time of writing (3 years ago) I didn't know about spiral dynamics, but try reading the journal with the value systems in place. It all makes sense as to why I went through so much bullying. I was a blue staged guy in a group or red/orange staged people, and I didn't fit in. My value system was completely different to theirs, and I had absolutely no understanding at all of how to deal with it, because back then understanding social dynamics was totally over my head. And look at how I dealt with the bullying. Did I tell myself "these people are bullies and I shouldn't feel bad about it"? Nope. Did I try and approach them diplomatically about the situation? Nope. What did I do? I did the stereotypical blue move and felt guilty about it and kept all of my guilt inside until I purged them all out again several years later. Why is this important? Bullying is a huge problem in schools right now, and teachers are approaching it from a psychological perspective. But maybe the problem with bullying isn't a psychological problem? Maybe the problem is a sociological one? See maybe spiral dynamics can be used help understand bullying at a deeper level. Maybe America wouldn't have so many shootings if they thought about things from a spiral dynamics perspective? Another interesting thing is that what you will notice is that humans move through the stages as they grow older. By observing how kids interact with other kids in early development, we can analyse and understand how different stages of spiral dynamics interact with each other. Maybe we can use this to understand conflicts between countries and how to rectify them?

Yes ...and once you're fully convinced that you are awareness, then that knowing/ realization replaces the I am the body/mind thought. I'm Self-realized, but won't claim "enlightenment". Plus, really, who would claim it? The most that could be said is that one understands that their true nature is awareness and they have assimilated this fact and therefore are "liberated from dependence on objects- subtle and gross". I'm still not done assimilating. Sooo, as to your question, why I wasn't afraid. The truth is that I'm a suicide survivor (a decade ago). The ego already went through the ultimate fear, it wanted to be extinguished and it gave up on life. Anyway, I survived and 6 months later when I read Tolle (and others) and started Self inquiry ego liked the fact that maybe it would just disappear for good. Within a year after starting I had my first true awakening and recognized the unreality of the ego. I became Self-realized.

Sometimes I feel like all these changing or improving the world themes are a mere fool's errand. At best, it can serve as a convenient, fabricated cock and bull story made in your head in order to mobilize yourself, actualize yourself in this world. I mean just while writing this message probably thousands of people all over the world died of hunger, suicide, war, illness etc. along with a heavy heart shattered by tremendous level of suffering. And I am not even counting billions who are suffering psychologically/physically more or less right now. In the end, its all about you. You're not changing shit. Thats your self made story to fool the lazy aspect of yourself. You are only changing you. By praying for the whole world with an open heart, it's you who is changing and becoming more loving, conscious. The world minds its own business. Thats why I said that this world is your training ground. You go to the gym to mold yourself, not to clean and worship the gym

@Leo Gura My aplogies for delayed answer. Shit hit the fan, and I barely could find the time for my meditations. Don't get me wrong Leo. I did not mean to thrash your teachings. I am aware that i have a long way to go, an yes - i am not that kind of person to walk the way on my own. I am here because it was your teachings that made me end up in this rabbit hole. So i don't know how to reconsile that our reality is built from concepts and the fact that it was showned to me by a concept. I was directly aware of all concepts, it wasn't an intelectual conclusion that i had, yet i don't know what can i trust anymore. Meanwhile, i realized that me being uncomfortable with this paradox is a story as well, so i let it go. It is a weid mindfuck now, if i try and put a concept on what i feel - i fundamentally don't trust myself and reality, and i am weirdly chill about it. If there is nothing but story, all i can do is make the best out of it - I guess. After all - unconciouss mind is still the one that pulls strings almost 100% of a time, no matter what. Maybe an unimportant update on my decision. The reality presented itself in a way, that there where no other options left for my subconciousness than a choice A. I'll admit that I got triggered in taking a choice. Now there is a person in a hospital after a suicide attempt. What i whant to thank you for Leo, is that I see that suicide was that persons choice and decision, and not mine. I see my responsibilty for now, and I choose to put past in the past, and continue to self actualize. P.S. Funny though. When I was checking my letter for mistakes, i had a thought - Still!!! How the fuck can i trust the word I am saying!!!

1) there's always a reason for depression, it can be something happening in her life, or some mental framework / belief about life, it could even be some weird chemistry thing for all I know. But there's something, maybe her reasons for depression are because of self-esteem issues, or maybe she believes that every thing that is good about her world (you) is temporary and might be taken away. These are all just guesses, if you care about this you need to communicate with her, figure out what she thinks about all of this on a personal level, and even though that can be an awkward area to go too, if its suicide, its important you go there. 2) for self-esteem issue I recommend this video Otherwise there's a ton of information out there on the internet about self-esteem.

@Shanmugam Check these other 2 (they are more raps than poems but whathever) Might reach the sky https://soundcloud.com/x-x-687663775/might-reach-the-sky Soaring, is this allowed? Sure made myself content Got off the hurtful pills, im not a fiend No, not always the means justify the ends In the crowd im blending but then im showing My authentic self, where I hide behind no mask Or act a certain, nobody's need to ask If its truly me, cuz they know when they see me Just would like to show these kids with depression That its possible for it go to remission And live your life happy ever after But not after death, pay attention to your feet, to your step Learn from your mistakes Never, ever do them again If you a musician, just focus on the pen And I keep going, I keep flowing Showing these teachings that I be knowing Hide behind no blind, no, im not blind I came for what I search to find, maybe online Make it mine, nobody ever touching it again I swear my peeen Be sometimes my only frieeeend But thats ok because in the end Im my only friend And nobody will ever be there like my friend That is me How many people can be their own homies? I had to because otherwise it would be suicide And trust me, I want to be alive Back for the second verse The verse I didnt reharse But what verses do I reharse? None, this is all off the dome Its a written freestyle A freestyle that I wrote Takes me no less than 10 seconds To create a rhyme Sometimes I look for one online Just the rhyming word, not a bar I go hard cuz my avatar is a star Not playing guitar but maybe one day I will drive my car to the bar Have a fun time, in summertime, sometime You can say the more I progress the more Im in my prime So that is everytime -- Mayhem This is my story, this is my soong If you feel it, you cant go wrong Tale from a younging in a european country He was enslaved but wanted to be free Until he found a place that it was meant to be After that his eyes, he couldnt believe them Even if was mayhem It was calm mahyem, now I aaaam Who am I? You and I I and me, forever alone I be Solitude is such a sweet place to be...

According to what I've learned, Jesus isn't going to come back and be like "yo what's up, I'm back you guys" lol TRUE Christians wouldn't crucify anyone that says they are the Lord returned. Many people have proclaimed this on Social media and YouTube and not had much done to them other than put downs in comment boxes. I met a homeless guy who said he was Jesus returned and my response to him was giving him one of our precooked lunches and I told him "Well, then may God continue to bless you". That guy may have been crazy, but it's not my place to "crucify" him for his delusions. I really don't think you read my posts all the way through if you are suggesting that I need to be open lol I stated over and over that I am very open to a lot. I know Jesus is always with me and the Holy Spirit guides me. My only goal here was to clear up some very common misconceptions and generalizations about the Christian Faith, nothing else. The way you respond seems to suggest your only goal is to shatter my beliefs with random instances in history where "Christians" were far from their best. That's like me saying all Muslims are Terrorists because one Muslim religious figure mentioned once in History that a "Jihad" was necessary to cleanse the Earth. It's ridiculous. Most Muslims I know are totally amazing and don't think that they should kill me just because I don't follow their beliefs. Generalization is not a fact, it's just a way of throwing a group of people into a category because it's easier than connecting and learning about that part of someones life. I have met some awful "Christians" in my life, but that doesn't mean that we are all like that. I know I'm not like that. My job is to only live my life according to His commandments and to be a living example of what a relationship with Christ looks like and to share that with the world around me. I do believe I am doing my part in that. Every hardship I have faced in my life (car accident, loss of a close friend to suicide-all happened as little as a month ago) has been a moment for me to either be an example, or to be just another hypocrite. I feel so blessed to be where I am and to have what I have in my life, even the hardships. I am strong because the Lord strengthens me to face each day and to take every moment in, knowing that each breath is a gift from Him. I really don't know what else I can say man. This post is literally just a repeat of my other posts and I don't think more repetition is helping either of us. You can think what you want, that's your right. But just try to avoid classifying groups of people so quickly when you have't taken the time to meet the individuals. Not all Christians are the same, same with Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and even the same with SelfActualizers. Not everyone on here agrees with Leo, but we all still talk and learn from each other. That's how beliefs work.

"There's what's called a lower death drive and an upper death drive. The lower death drive is when the ego hates itself so much it wants to put itself out of its suffering through suicide. (Not so good) The upper death drive is when the ego is wise enough to realize that it's an illusion, and wants to end it's suffering through surrender to truth. (Very good)." So, this is exactly what I have been experiencing, although, and what's always been strange, is, that I have never wanted to die intentionally. It just occured over one week: this have-to-die-feeling. Since then, I've been trying to get around it, always surrendered when the suicidal feelings occured. Because I have never wanted to kill myself, I always ended up in my "higher self" which didn't prevent the suicidal feelings to occur over and over again. Obviously this suicidal part is there for a reason, the ego wants to tell me: My son, heal me, raise your awareness and realize that I am an illusion. I somehow feel like, there is no "constant I" in me, just some thought based "I's" that are constantly deconstructed, so I like exploring and experimenting with these suicidal feelings. I think a rise in awareness will show me my true self because the other one is automatically revealed as illusion, isn't it? Just need some guidance, because it is a pretty hard awakening for me. I just keep surrendering all the time, I feel like other people who didn't know about spirituality just would have already killed themselves if they'd been in my shoes, as harsh as it sounds...

Forget about the materialistic view that matter is the fundemental reality. Physics says that everything material is not really solid matter, only energy is real. But my true problem with materialism is that it destroys the human spirit. To Maslow, the highest need is the spiritual, the desire for self-actualization. But as mother Therese observed while being in the United States, the people are impoverished in spirit. I have been the western world myself and I can see that spirituality and faith is low. That's because, if only matter is real, then material possessions are the only reasonable foundation for happines and a good life. The truth is the opposite, materialism leads at best to crime, suicide, disease, and other problems. Spiritually, it keeps you primitive and locked. Science needs to do more research on consiousness as they will find out that it's all there is, if it is even possible to scientifically know that. Most importantly, they need to tell the world that matter is in fact unreal.

@Slade well if it wasn't for personal development I would still have severe depression/anxiety and would have maybe commit suicide. I retain all of my addictions though, but I know my ego is starting to die from meditating 50 mins plus daily now. Starting to feel more grounded in the present moment. From meditation, I feel I've learnt that self improvement can paradoxically be hindered by your desire to improve yourself. I'll be meditating, and I'll think "why isn't my meditation making me feel better? Why can't I detach from my thoughts? ". But if I let go of my want to feel better and let go of my want to "get something" out of meditation, I feel better and I'm detached from my thoughts. By getting out of your own way, your mind and body will automatically take the correct actions you need to improve yourself. We are always in a state of anxiety because our egos are under the illusion that our external circumstances (job performance,sexual relationships, family, friendships and etc) are inherently important, when they are not. Once you let go of clinging to external circumstances, your external circumstances improve. And I feel I'm starting to learn that.

When I had my most powerful samahdi / no self experience it was full of energy I dissolved and lost sense of body and reality ceased to exist and all I could feel was energy, it actually felt like dark matter energy, and that I was connected to it. Obviously my mind is creating concepts to explain it but whatever it was it was out if this world. It was so different to other no self experience bcuz it was full of energy, literally the energy which creates my whole existence. And I dont do any drugs or substances. I have not entered that place again since now I desire to go there and you are not allowed there you must be completely dead, I had to commit mental suicide for it during that sit. But Holy crap if you could enter that place whenever you wanted you hit a infinite gold mine. Also it did not lead to enlightenment this wasn't about becoming aware of the screen permanently, this was more like going deep into the core and seeing all the zeros and ones 1010101001010101 that create what we call reality (just as an analogy).

I realize what I'm about to write can be pretty alarming. Many of you are probably going to tell me I should stay away from psychedelics, but hear me out. Even though a lot of it was very dark, and potentially dangerous; I learned so much about myself from this trip. I really feel like I have direction now in my life. I'm not saying I intend to do any psychedelics in the near future, but I haven't ruled them out entirely. At 6:15 I made tea with 3.5 grams of mushrooms. This was my third time doing them, the first two times I took 2 grams and it was very enjoyable. At the 15 minute mark I was already starting to feel it coming on. I don't even know when it started at full force, but it felt like there was a storm going on in my mind. A little detail that's kind of important - I have Chostocondritis, which causes chest/rib/back pain sometimes. Usually it's just a minor inconvenience, and not that big of a deal, but during the trip the feeling was amplified by 900,000x. I couldn't get comfortable, and I remember walking up and down the stairs in my house laying/sitting down in different places and positions. At the peak of my trip I was laying in bed, and my mind was extremely restless and loud. I was hyper focused on the feeling happening in my body. I couldn't tell the difference between things happening in my head, and things happening outside of my head. This is when it got really dark. I actually thought about suicide. I was reaching for some way to get out of the experience, some way to avoid facing what was happening. I've NEVER considered, or thought about suicide in my life. This wasn't like some negative thought pattern that was making me feel bad about my life; it was purely crazy visuals, and uncomfortable physical sensations. I thought about how it would be over, and peaceful. I actually called the suicide hotline briefly, but hung up. During this whole thing, I had a little voice in the back of my head reassuring me that it would not last for ever, and that I would look back and be glad I didn't do anything. This was the most disturbing part of the trip, I can't believe I actually thought about suicide like this. When I woke up today, this was the hardest thing to deal with. The second crazy thing that happened is I felt like all my vulnerabilities were out in the open. Like everyone I have in my social web that I interact with was notified of all my insecurities and fears. It wasn't just the people I knew though; it was my neighbors, it was the people at the park across the street, It was the people in the cars going by outside, I felt totally exposed. After having to face this for a while, I remember sitting up in my bed feeling like I had schizophrenia. I was mumbling random shit to myself, making weird faces, and my visual field felt like it was being moved to different snapshots around the room. Eventually it took a 180, and every time I would see a new snap shot a little bit of pressure was alleviated. Each snapshot made me careless and less about what people thought of me. It felt amazing. At about the 5 hour mark, I was almost back down to base level; I was filled with dread. I thought that I had just ruined my life, that now I was going to have post traumatic stress disorder. I then ate 25 lbs of food and went to bed immediately. When I woke up today, I was doing what ever I could to avoid looking at what had happened. After a couple hours I decided to face it, and broke out my journal. I've never used one, but today I learned how freaking valuable they are. I wrote out every detail I could remember about the experience. I then got out a separate piece of paper and jotted down the things that bothered me the most. I remembered that mushrooms could reflect your subconscious mind back at you, and that it can bring your deepest fears and expose you to them. I also remember hearing that the best way to make it through a bad trip is to not fight what is happening, and to surrender yourself fully to the experience. After dissecting the things that were the most troubling I came to a few conclusions: I always run and avoid uncomfortable experiences, which includes pretty much every social situation. This has been the case most of my life. When I had suicide going through my head, it wasn't because I felt hopeless or depressed, it was because I was so desperate to get away from something that was uncomfortable. I now have a very strong determination to look my fears in the face, and not run away. I realized that the only way for me to break out of this social anxiety is to surrender to vulnerability. Welcome it, and get used to it. And that eventually my comfort level around people will increase. I've always had a small part of me that thought I was actually insane. It's not something that I consciously think about, but the mushrooms made that glaringly obvious. I'm not entirely sure what I can learn from this yet, but at least i'm now aware of this underlying fear. It showed me the importance of taking care of my body. I don't eat terrible food, but I know I can do better. More vegetables, more water, better sleep, exercise. I feel this need to take care of future me, and be more understanding and compassionate to past me. It really made me appreciate my life and my health. I'm so happy to be alive. I won't be tripping for a while, but I haven't eliminated the possibility. I really believe there is more to learn from psychedelics, I don't want one bad experience to turn me off of them completely. I did some stuff to prepare like meditation, cleaned, cut out negative stimulation for a few days beforehand and wrote some stuff for myself that would help in case of a bad trip, but I guess it wasn't enough. If I decide to do them again I'm going to go all out, every possible safeguard I can find. And the most important thing would be to surrender to the experience, because me not accepting what was happening made it so much worse. Also my writing ability isn't the best, but I tried.