Advanced guide for dealing with (utter) confusion. Some unique perspectives.

[Skanzi]

Having suffered from a degree of confusion that reached a point that left me crippled and paralyzed in bed, unable to make choices sometimes to the smallest details, questioning almost every existential matter possible, I believe I have a certain authority on this subject. After having have watched Leo's video on the topic of confusion —whilst he made some very valid points and I don't criticize his video as a whole altogether— it is my feeling that I am able to contribute even further to this topic, since I had to develop my own way and strategies on how to deal with an incredibly confused mind; A mind that didn't know what left or right was, that didn't know what forward or back was, what up or down was, what was going to help me or what was going to hurt me.

The advice I'm going to give is to anyone who is sincere enough to face the fact of his own ignorance, to admit to himself that he doesn't know the answer to the dilemma he is in. If you try to resolve your confusion by clinging to some idea you have learned in the past, you are not being sincere to yourself.

Also, the confusion I'm going to portray in my story is the confusion of facing the existential desert; it is the confusion where you have lost your orientation, and don't know where to go next anymore. I feel like many people face confusion, but it is not about being totally lost and disoriented as far as life itself is concerned; it is about facing an obstacle which you are unsure how to navigate around it. But beyond that obstacle, you still see a certain heading or direction. My confusion is about the deepest, existential confusion possible. Nevertheless, the advice I'm going to give at the end of the post is applicable for both "ordinary" confusion and "existential" confusion.

Let me give you a short peek of my story. 

My story

Having read and watched much material on the topic of spirituality and mysticism, particularly from Osho, I found myself eventually in a state where I started to lose my capacity to orient myself. If you know Osho, you know that his teaching can be incredibly contradictory and non-linear, primarily for the simple fact that his books have been derived from his talks, which often was oriented to answer questions, and he himself said that it was his purpose to answer the questioner instead of the question. This implies that he accounts for the questioner's unique situation, which means it is specifically applicable to that person, but may in fact be harmful to another person.

But this was Osho's approach. I on one hand loved the many different perspectives he brought to the table, and the cleverness and intelligence he presented these perspectives, but on the other hand he never clarified a specific path, a certain clarity of which to derive orientation from, as far as your evolutionary progress of consciousness concerned. Maybe in one book he presented such a model to understand it, but in another book you would yet again feel contradicted.

Regardless, eventually I became very confused to all this vast array of knowledge, as I had a large amount of perspectives, but no clear direction, or something that I could work towards. I was simply too confused, too overwhelmed by the vast amount of possibilites on literally every subject.

Eventually this lead me so far down the rabbit hole I started to become suicidal. Not suicidal because I thought ending my life would be the solution to my problems, but rather, because I had this strong sense that SOMETHING had to be done amidst my complete paralysis, and not the idea of suicide, but the idea of pushing my pain so much I would perhaps have a transformation at the brink of suicide, appealed to my egoic mind the most at that time. The egoic mind had me completely in its grip, and this idea I had come across that only in absolute despair you are able to be transformed, somehow appealed a little bit to me too much, which I was trying to push the pain through suicidial behaviour. Of course, the idea that you need utter despair is also simply a perspective, which doesn't have to be valid or at least relevant to my situation, but it seemed very real to me at the time.

After some time, I realized that it was going to be actual suicide (which I didn't want to do in the first place, so it was really a gimmick to begin with), or I needed not to hope for transformation, but to actually transform myself, which also wasn't going to be this one-time event.

But if you're so incredibly confused, that every time you think of a possibility or perspective, then immediately your mind throws in the opposite viewpoint, discerning your initial plan, then it becomes incredibly difficult, because you have no idea what you're supposed to be doing in the first place.

I would describe the situation you're in —or think you're in— at that point with being submerged in the sea on a moonless night, with no orientation whatsoever. You want to breathe, you in fact you want to breathe desperately, but you can't tell where the surface is. You don't know what is up or down, left or right, forward or backward... Then how to make a choice? What if you accidentally simply go deeper down into the sea and drown altogether? This is how the situation of utter confusion feels like. You feel like you're starting to run out of breath by the fatigue of the confusion you've already been battered with, but you're afraid to move of making the situation even worse.

The reality in this metaphor is, however, that you in fact have gills, and that you need to start swimming for oxygen and thus life to run through your gills! Of course when you're still in the water there is no water running through your gills, and thus you're not deriving any oxygen from the water. But if you have gills, then it doesn't matter which direction you're swimming. But we'll get to that.

So how did I manage to get myself out of such a state of confusion. Well... I will portray this by a quote from (who else but) Osho.

Quote

A STREAM, FROM ITS SOURCE IN FAR-OFF MOUNTAINS, PASSING THROUGH EVERY KIND
AND DESCRIPTION OF COUNTRYSIDE, AT LAST REACHED THE SANDS OF THE DESERT.

JUST AS IT HAD CROSSED EVERY OTHER BARRIER, THE STREAM TRIED TO CROSS THIS
ONE, BUT IT FOUND AS IT RAN INTO THE SAND, ITS WATERS DISAPPEARED.

IT WAS CONVINCED, HOWEVER, THAT ITS DESTINY WAS TO CROSS THIS DESERT, AND
YET THERE WAS NO WAY. NOW A HIDDEN VOICE, COMING FROM THE DESERT ITSELF,
WHISPERED, "THE WIND CROSSES THE DESERT, AND SO CAN THE STREAM."

THE STREAM OBJECTED THAT IT WAS DASHING ITSELF AGAINST THE SAND, AND ONLY
GETTING ABSORBED; THAT THE WIND COULD FLY AND THIS WAS WHY IT COULD CROSS
A DESERT.

"BY HURTLING IN YOUR OWN ACCUSTOMED WAY YOU CANNOT GET ACROSS. YOU WILL
EITHER DISAPPEAR OR BECOME A MARSH. YOU MUST ALLOW THE WIND TO CARRY YOU
OVER TO YOUR DESTINATION."

"BUT HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?"

"BY ALLOWING YOURSELF TO BE ABSORBED IN THE WIND."

THIS IDEA WAS NOT ACCEPTABLE TO THE STREAM. AFTER ALL, IT HAD NEVER BEEN
ABSORBED BEFORE. IT DID NOT WANT TO LOSE ITS INDIVIDUALITY. AND ONCE HAVING
LOST IT, HOW WAS IT TO KNOW THAT IT COULD EVER BE REGAINED?

"THE WIND," SAID THE SAND, "PERFORMS THIS FUNCTION. IT TAKES UP WATER, CARRIES
IT OVER THE DESERT, AND THEN LETS IT FALL AGAIN. FALLING AS RAIN, THE WATER AGAIN
BECOMES A RIVER."

"HOW CAN I KNOW THAT THIS IS TRUE?"

"IT IS SO, AND IF YOU DO NOT BELIEVE IT, YOU CANNOT BECOME MORE THAN A
QUAGMIRE, AND EVEN THAT COULD TAKE MANY, MANY YEARS; AND IT CERTAINLY IS NOT
THE SAME AS A STREAM."

"BUT CAN I NOT REMAIN THE SAME STREAM THAT I AM TODAY?"

"YOU CANNOT IN EITHER CASE REMAIN SO," THE WHISPER SAID. "YOUR ESSENTIAL PART
IS CARRIED AWAY AND FORMS A STREAM AGAIN. YOU ARE CALLED WHAT YOU ARE EVEN
TODAY BECAUSE YOU DO NOT KNOW WHICH PART OF YOU IS THE ESSENTIAL ONE."

WHEN HE HEARD THIS, CERTAIN ECHOES BEGAN TO ARISE IN THE THOUGHTS OF THE
STREAM. DIMLY, HE REMEMBERED A STATE IN WHICH HE - OR SOME PART OF HIM, WAS
IT? - HAD BEEN HELD IN THE ARMS OF A WIND. HE ALSO REMEMBERED - OR DID HE? -
THAT THIS WAS THE REAL THING, NOT NECESSARILY THE OBVIOUS THING TO DO.

AND THE STREAM RAISED HIS VAPOR INTO THE WELCOMING ARMS OF THE WIND, WHICH
GENTLY AND EASILY BORE IT UPWARDS AND ALONG, LETTING IT FALL SOFTLY AS SOON
AS THEY REACHED THE ROOF OF A MOUNTAIN, MANY, MANY MILES AWAY.

AND BECAUSE HE HAD HAD HIS DOUBTS, THE STREAM WAS ABLE TO REMEMBER AND
RECORD MORE STRONGLY IN HIS MIND THE DETAILS OF THE EXPERIENCE.

HE REFLECTED, "YES, NOW I HAVE LEARNED MY TRUE IDENTITY."

THE STREAM WAS LEARNING. BUT THE SANDS WHISPERED, "WE KNOW, BECAUSE WE
SEE IT HAPPEN DAY AFTER DAY: AND BECAUSE WE, THE SANDS, EXTEND FROM THE
RIVERSIDE ALL THE WAY TO THE MOUNTAIN."

AND THAT IS WHY IT IS SAID THAT THE WAY IN WHICH THE STREAM OF LIFE IS TO
CONTINUE ON ITS JOURNEY IS WRITTEN IN THE SANDS.

What does this story imply? What does it signify?

It is a metaphor for disorientation, for existential confusion. It is the stream of life. It tells us about how we are able to navigate the terrain of life with a certain capacity to orient ourselves. It doesn't mean the terrain is always smooth and cooperative, and sometimes there are obstacles which have to be navigated around, but at least we can recognize that they're obstacles as such. You may be confused, uncertain as to how to get around a certain obstacle, but at least you can see it as an obstacle and you know the terrain continues after that.

But as far as the desert is concerned... Then what? For as far as you can see there are only dry sands, and you begin to dry up... Where to go?

This story talks about the winds. About how to trust the winds to carry you over. It sounds absurds to the mind. What winds? You see yourself as seperate from the winds. You think you have to find your navigation by your own... but there is no landmark whatsoever for orientation.

The winds portray the Tao; The winds signify the flow of existence, of life. The egoic mind is diametrically opposed against this flow. If you were to become one with this flow, it would mean ego death. So how can the ego possibly not resist it? It has to!

But ultimately, the way to get out of this confused, disoriented state is to relinquish your personal resistance against life, against the flow of life, and allows yourself to be carried with it.

What does this mean in practical terms? How did I apply this in my personal situation.

Going beyond my confusion

Realizing I needed to transform myself instead of waiting on a transformation to happen, I realized two essential things. First off, I needed a determination for myself, a commitment. I had read "when going through hell don't stop" from Douglas Bloch at that time, and the title couldn't be more appropiate. It is one of the best titles for a book ever made. It is exactly that: When you're in an incredible amount of suffering, then why stop exactly there? Then why get obsessed with it and start fighting and reacting against it? You won't manage to push it away; in fact, you'll only stop right in the middle of it instead of moving further. If you were in actual hell, but you knew it had a beginning and an end, would you stop there to go sightseeing whilst being consumed by fire? Of course not!

So his book called for a longer-term determination. An attitude that no matter what happens, you'll keep setting one step at a time and hold this vision for yourself that things will get better. He also recommended a mood journal: noting down how your day went every day, rating it by a number. This can be very helpful, since it allows you to stay with it in a certain objectivity; You don't get as lost in your subjective experiences and judgements about yourself, but you stay objective to some degree.

This is not necessarily a tool for dealing with confusion per se, since it also helpful for getting out any sort of ditch; be it depression, anxiety, or what have you. But it is definitely an essential attitude that I needed to develop at the time being, and it can help you too. 

The second important attitude I needed to change, and this one is relevant specifically to confusion, is that I needed to make choices for the sake of making choices itself. Instead of trying to make the best decision possible, the emphasis now shifted on making the choice anyways, on the capacity to make choices for choices sake. This meant many choices were made, with no idea on what basis I was making them. Sometimes I would choose A, sometimes I would choose B, and then the next day A again, and sometimes AB... or C... And with absolutely no (apparent) intuitive or mental foundation on to which base this decision! At least at first, it was all seemingly at random! There seemed to be no pattern to it.

This was a major shift in focus, and required a great amount of trust. This trust is what the story was talking about, the story about the stream of life. This trust is something very mysterious, because where does this trust come from? How do you know you can trust this trust? What guaranteed me that simply making choices for choices sake was going to get me out of all this confusion? It certainly wasn't something that was immediately obvious when I started to attempt to trust this trust, that showed itself clearly that "this is the way".

But somehow, this trust somehow always remained somewhere on the background from that point on. Even when it seemed faraway and sometimes even appeared nonexistent, it always remained on the background somewhere, sometimes without me noticing it.

Why was this trust there? What logical basis was there to show me that I could rely on this trust? There was none, as I've already been able to doubt absolutely anything anyways. And neither was there a sense of intuition that I was aware of that was guiding me. But when times are so rough that there is really no other alternative than to evolve, miracles can happen. A response from your being then comes stronger than the objections than your mind can make, and you now start functioning from a complete unknown source, a source not supported by the mind or logic, or even by feelings, how I felt about something. Because I had made choices by logic alone, which ultimately had failed, and I had made choices from feelings alone, which ultimately had failed. On top of that, any "feeling-intutive" sense also now seemed to be obscured by the excessive mind activity. Now how to make choices? From what center? But I had to make choices, so that's what I did.

By and by, functioning from an unknown source became more comfortable to me. I still didn't know for sure I was making the right choices or decisions, and there still showed no consistent, reliable pattern, but the anxiety about "needing to make the right choice" seemed to cease more and more. I became more relaxed in it. That's when it started to become more and more clear to me that it was never about the choices and decisions I made in the first place —it never was— but about the quality of how you make your decisions, and how whole-heartedly you make those decisions. Then you can relax in it, whatsoever you choose to do. The decisions you make now come from a deeper place. I call it: Being-intuition.

How does my experience apply to you? (advice part)

Understand that you reading this may not have reached the point yet where you are able to act the same way I now act, regarding the way I make decisions, but nevertheless there are some things I wish I would've known when I was at the height of my confusion.

Let us first be clear about what confusion actually is. In its most simple definition: The need to know. If you are confused, it means you need to know something, otherwise something within you remains unsatisfied. Isn't it a little bit strange? Can't existence be fine without you understanding it? Babies don't know anything at all, yet they're perfectly happy. But our minds want to be able to grasp, want to understand, are afraid of the unknown.

If we want confusion to settle, we need to let go of our need to know. But ultimately, this is not possible in the beginning. The compulsion to understand is too great even if we intellectually understand and agree that ultimately there is nothing that we can and should try to know. Just because we are aware that there is no necessity to know, does not mean we are instantly able to stop this momentum of unsatisfiable curiosity. Nor should we.

Acknowledgement of the fact that we do not know the answer is the first step. Acknowledgement that there is no need to ultimately know anything nor could we, is the second step. Or I should say: Acknowledgement of the fact that the possiblity of the previous statement exists. It has not been your experience yet that nothing could or should be known, and just because I say so may convince your mind, but it will not convince the deeper core of your being, of your system.

For that reason, if you have the need to really ponder and contemplate upon a certain subject, don't hesitate to do so! If you live by the idea that nothing can be known and nothing should be attempted to try to know anything, you're going directly against yourself. For you, this is simply an idea that is being presented to you; It has not been your reality yet. If you try to avoid confusion or questioning, you will be fighting against yourself, you will start become divided and ultimately this will lead to a lot of unnecessary suffering.

What needs to happen is that your intellectual sword of the many opposing perspectives and ideas need to be sharpened to such an extent, that just by experience you start to see the futility of it. The futility is of the fact that despite having all this knowledge, all these perspectives, all these ideas, you still don't know how to live by them. You still don't know how to implement them into your own life. You still don't know how to integrate them, where to find the balance, which perspective to apply when, and how to actually live it! The map is not the territory!

But this can only happen when you take your contemplation, your questioning and pondering to the most extreme degree possible for you, as to where you will start to see the futility of your knowledge as far as your happiness is concerned by your own experience. Then naturally, you will want to step away from this knowledge because it's becoming too heavy for you. So, paradoxically, the sword of knowledge needs to be sharpened to a degree that it is sharp enough to cut away from itself! If it's blunt it can not cut itself away. Go figure that one out  

And be very, very honest to yourself. If you try to delude yourself by holding onto an old fixated perspective or by avoiding a certain perspective out of fear because of what implications it could have if it were true, you are only making the process more difficult for yourself

But there's one important thing to notice: Just because I give you permission to ponder, question and contemplate, as you should, doesn't mean that you can't take a break from it. Here's what I recommend: I say that whenever a question is on your mind, or that whenever you want to clarify and go deeper into a certain perspective because you are curious how deep the rabbit hole goes, then go and do so. Personally, I'd recommend taking a walk. Taking a walk always helped me quite a bit because it allowed my thoughts to be a little bit clearer and sharper, and thus it significantly made this contemplation process easier. It may not work the same way for you that way, but for me taking a walk definitely helped me. Alternatively, you can also write down your thoughts and get them on paper (or Word or whatever). Then if you write them down, they will have a certain solidity to it. This can also help tremendously.

So, if you're then going out taking a walk whils pondering, writing down your thoughts, or just sitting at home contemplating, go as deeply into the matter as possible. Think or write down all the thoughts and perspectives and ideas you can come up with for that time being, and at some point you will notice that either you are out of relevant, renewing thoughts, or your mind simply gets too tired from all this thinking. So at this point is where you decide to let it all down, and just leave it be for now. Now you can give yourself permission to let it all go just for that moment, because you cleared up everything that was possible for you at that moment. Take some rest now, do something else, and later on you'll either go deeper into the same subject, or start pondering upon a new subject (or an interrelated subject), which you can then explore until your mind gets tired.

This I found to be the healthiest expression of dealing with confusion. I only learned this after I got through the climax of my personal period of confusion. By the way, after that climax, that crescendo of confusion has ended,  there will still be confusion and questioning sometimes, but it will gradually become less and less (intrusive).

So: Don't fight confusion, don't pretend that you're above it all and should attempt not to try to know something, but go into it as your mind desires to. If the topic is too much in the forefront of your mind, then allow it to surface! Don't fear confusion, go through it! Do you think you will be able to avoid your matters of confusion for the rest of your life? If you have just a little bit of intelligence, these questions will keep on coming back, demanding your attention to answer them. Now once again, they will not ultimately be answered, as nothing can ultimately be known for sure by the mind, but your perspectives, arguments and viewpoints will be as sharp as you can possibly get them.

And when your mind gets too tired, or you're out of renewing ideas and perspectives, at that moment, drop it. Now you are able to.

And if you keep on doing this and persisting in questioning, you will reach a point where almost everything has now been questioned and almost every existential perspective (at least the ones that are relevant to you at that moment) have now been clarified, and now the matter of how to drop this questioning mind will come to the forefront by itself. Now it's not something you're trying to make happen, now it's something that starts happening by it own; Now you start questioning the very nature of questioning itself, not because you thought you should, but because your system now requires that from you. And that is the moment that you start moving completely into the unknown. Now you start making decisions from which you do not know on which logic you make them from. If you persist in making decisions and choices on an illogical basis long enough (and notice, the idea of making "illogical decisions" can become another obsession by the mind), you'll now start to connect with true being-intuition. The difference between being-intuition and the more common feeling-intuition is that feeling-intuition just considers how you feel about something, whereas being-intuition both considers how you feel about something, and what you think is necessary to do in that situation, what your mind tells you, and then takes both centers into persective and makes a choice based from the unknown, the unknowable. That is being-intuition: Making choices from the unknown, yet with a strange, unexplainable sense of certainty if you really start to connect with it, which will not happen at first. But at first when you're moving out of confusion, you'll have to make choices anyways, even if you have no sense of certainty whatsoever or what you're doing or why you're doing it.

So in conclusion: Questioning is good, it is normal, and should not be repressed. Confusion is only a sign that you're moving forward. Only idiots are not confused. Only idiots can live a life of apparent certainty. You are not such a person, otherwise you would most likely not be reading this. You should be aware from the very getgo that the perspective exists that ultimately nothing can be known at all with certainty by the mind, but if this is merely an idea to you and not an experience, hold the perspective in the back of your mind but don't attach yourself to the idea that "I don't know" either.

So question, wonder, ponder, and don't hold back, until your mind temporarily gets tired and you actually feel like dropping it. And when questioning, wondering and pondering, go on a walk or start writing. This can help elevate your level of mental clarity, thus helping the process. And on a longer, more permanent basis, when the whole thing altogether gets too much, and you really want to drop this mind altogether, then you need to start accepting to be absorbed into the flow of life. How do you start doing that? If your realization is deep enough, you will be able to drop it by making decisions based on what appears to be thin air, on no logical basis. And notice: Making decisions based on feelings is also making them "on a logical basis", meaning you logically use your feelings. You can use logic to make decisions, and you can also use your feelings to make decisions, but they are not the primary core of which your decisions come from, they can simply act as facilitating information for the unknown to act from. This may sound as very strange and uncomprehensible to you, but it is only a matter of time until you reach this stage and you will start to understand by experience what I'm talking about.

All of this has been at least my experience, my point of view. I can not attest with absolute certainty that what I've described will be the path for everybody, but I reckon it certainly will be for many, because if it could happen in this way to me, it means there were universal laws that allowed and made it to be so, and those universal laws will also apply to other people aswell, though the details may differ.

Also notice that you don't necessarily have to go to the same degree of confusion and despair I found myself in. I was a lunatic. And with this guide, I hope to prevent in you the same degree of total confused disorientation

Good luck

Edited July 9, 2018 by Skanzi

[tsuki]

@Skanzi Hey, I just wanted to know that I read this and that I relate very much to what you are saying.
Unfortunately, the determination required to go this deep cannot be conveyed through words. It has to spontaneously come from within, which of course is the expression of being-intuition that is not yet recognized. Using thoughts and feelings as the guiding system is a preliminary step to the synergy. But why does it occur? No idea.

I do not know why people like us go into such extreme lengths in questioning the self, but it really brings something wonderful.
Even if it is simply the feeling of relief when you stop banging your head against the wall .

[Skanzi]

7 hours ago, tsuki said:

@Skanzi Hey, I just wanted to know that I read this and that I relate very much to what you are saying.
Unfortunately, the determination required to go this deep cannot be conveyed through words. It has to spontaneously come from within, which of course is the expression of being-intuition that is not yet recognized. Using thoughts and feelings as the guiding system is a preliminary step to the synergy. But why does it occur? No idea.

I do not know why people like us go into such extreme lengths in questioning the self, but it really brings something wonderful.
Even if it is simply the feeling of relief when you stop banging your head against the wall .

It's indeed a very strange, insatisfiable itch to be wanting to know everything. But it serves us in the longer run, as we are so sophisticated that no idea ultimately has power over us, because there's always an opposite perspective you can take and can argue for.

That's the beautiful thing about it, actually. I should have perhaps talked more clearly on what the benefits were with all this questioning. One of the benefits in the end is: no particular idea has power over us, there is no need for something to be done or something needing to happen anymore, since you can understand and argue how everything that did not go according to the way we wanted it, still can serve us a purpose, and possibly makes it so that we're better off in the end. There's always a counterargument, so how to know what is the best for us? And if we sincerely don't know what is the best possibility, action or outcome, then what need to be anxious about it? This really frees us and allows us to relax, granted that we have started to let go of the need to know in the first place. Really, the need to know implies we actually haven't completely come to turns with our own ignorance.

Plus, our own intellectual sharpening allows us to pass it on to others, and provide them perspectives that can help them that they couldn't have come up with on their own.

[tsuki]

On 9.07.2018 at 9:15 PM, Skanzi said:

That's the beautiful thing about it, actually. I should have perhaps talked more clearly on what the benefits were with all this questioning.

To me, beauty of this journey lies in its completion.

It's like a man that wants to learn martial arts to be unbeatable.
In the process of learning how to fight, he has to understand the desire to conquer others and in doing so, he conquers himself. 
The conquering of himself however, makes him understand that fighting is unnecessary.
So he carries on with his life peacefully, being a martial artist unbeknownst to anybody.

The reason for the journey however cannot be taught by stories, or reasoned into by stating the benefits.
The man thirsty for power is not satiating it to gain something, but to prevent his suffering at the hands of fate.
As he embarks on the journey he is ignorant of his ultimate peacefulness and this persistence in ignorance is what makes him wise in the end.

Others that see the completed, peaceful, master may try to emulate him, but now they are in a double bind.
At one hand, they want the master's power, but also need to be peaceful to emulate him.
It does not occur to them that the master has exhausted his violence, not rejected it.
To be a master yourself you need to exhaust your thirst for power by being powerful and seeing its limitations.

To me, this is what makes it beautiful. Its cyclic and paradoxical nature.