Does the dark side of spirituality ever resolve itself?

[enchanted]

Initially spirituality, by  @Leo Gura and other sources was calming and helped me be better. Now I'm getting severe anxiety throughout the days, sometimes terror even over existential questions.

The forum has already given me great advice which I have followed but I was wondering if these negative aspects of spirituality ever go away? I feel like I'm going crazy and it's very uncomfortable. @Leo Gurayou are one of the smartest ones here and I'm sure you have experience with this, any advice from you? 

Thanks. 

Edited December 27, 2024 by enchanted

[enchanted]

Obviously I quit spirituality for a bit. 

[WelcometoReality]

@enchanted Yeah, it does get better but it can feel overwhelming. It's about facing those fears and try not to distract yourself with other stuff. 

Relax those tensions in the body and just let it happen. Once we stop resisting it tends to ease up.

 

[ricachica]

When I read “The Guru” by Manly P. Hall, it eased any remaining anxiety I had towards spirituality. It even made the scariest horror movies laughable to me (I used to be a big scaredy cat to those).

It really showed me there was nothing to fear, whether in “reality” or “spirituality”, a great and humbling peace is what I got from it.

Edited December 27, 2024 by ricachica

[M A J I]

Eventually, when we disconnect from the online world and go into the real spiritual living, nature, unfiltered, untouched by man, gods voice and guidance is heard and felt. The online world will always be a mess, its created out of fragmentation, and those who truly get it eventually return to the real world to find a real connection and deeper truth of being and surrender to life itself. This is my experience at least.

I only come online when I visit the city, its a completely different world out there. One day I will never return, when I finally chose to let go.

 

[PurpleTree]

6 hours ago, ricachica said:

When I read “The Guru” by Manly P. Hall, it eased any remaining anxiety I had towards spirituality. It even made the scariest horror movies laughable to me (I used to be a big scaredy cat to those).

It really showed me there was nothing to fear, whether in “reality” or “spirituality”, a great and humbling peace is what I got from it.

Can you elaborate a bit on it. What’s some stuff that stuck out?

[Breakingthewall]

@enchanted forget absolutely any conceptual idea about anything in spirituality, just meditate, observe your mind, understand yourself, open yourself, little by little. Never believe any idea about how or what the reality is. Only get deep in you, inside is what you are looking for, outside there is nothing in this field

Edited December 27, 2024 by Breakingthewall

[theleelajoker]

+1 to what @Breakingthewall and @WelcometoReality said

IMO, curiosity is key. It's not what you think. It's never what you think it is.

It's not what other people write or say it is. Its never what other people say it is. Everybody has a subjective experience even if there are overlaps.

Language is always symbolic, not more than that. Even calling it "spirituality", as in "stopping spirituality" is just a mental game, a fragmentation that might be useful in the short run but a hindrance in the long run. How you want to stop sth that is around you, that is you all the time?

Anxiety etc will pass. It always does. And at least in my experience, life gets much better afterwards

Edited December 27, 2024 by theleelajoker

[ricachica]

On 12/27/2024 at 5:39 AM, PurpleTree said:

Can you elaborate a bit on it. What’s some stuff that stuck out?

My favorite part of the book was when an English woman who was a disciple of the guru came to visit. She wanted to draw and document everything so that she could take it back with her, "she is so busily engaged trying to learn, that she has no time left for learning". Nadu, the main character and disciple of the guru, eventually guided her to realize a more "simpler" approach vs frantically trying to draw everything in front of her in her "westernized" fashion of unsure lines. The guru then made her contemplate a water lily for 5 days as well, and after what she experienced from that, she no longer felt the need to ever contact the guru again, "it is no longer necessary to write letters when the heart can speak to the heart".

The guru in the story doesn’t dismiss the seeker’s doubts or fears but instead he patiently guides them to see that most of what they fear (whether it’s in the material or spiritual world) is rooted in misunderstanding or attachment. This perspective was incredibly freeing for me because it flipped the way I viewed fear altogether. Leo talks about this a lot in his video about fear too.

The description of the guru's calm and unshakable presence stood out to me throughout the book, always gracious, patient, and smiling. It felt like a reminder that no matter how chaotic life or the mind may seem, there’s always this deeper, unchanging core of peace that we can tap into. That sense of "great and humbling peace" stayed with me long after reading.

I think what made horror movies lose their edge for me is this realization that true fear thrives on the unknown. Once you start seeing fear as a passing shadow and not something fundamentally “real,” it’s hard to stay scared for long. The book gave me a sense of groundedness that made those fictional fears feel trivial in comparison to the greater truths it pointed toward.

Most of the characters and some of what is said in the book is true as well. Hall personally knew Nadu.