Are rural areas more conducive to spirituality?

[mandyjw]

I live in a really rural area. I grew up here and our plans to move to a city coincided with the financial crash so we ended up staying. But to be honest I have always had this deep inexplicable connection to it, and never really wanted to leave until a few months ago. I thought that to be successful and have an engaging life that I needed to be by a city. As an adult we traveled more and I realized that I never fully understood how many people there are on the planet, and how very rural the place I grew up was. I found New York City fascinating but I could feel the energy of the place and immediately felt this strong drive to be someone, the be successful, you can feel the stress/energy in the air. Even in smaller cities, I would get disgusted by how materialistic they were, but at the same time I just FELT like I wanted that material success too. I would always breathe a huge sigh of relief when I got home.

There's so many traps I never got caught up in, just because of where I live. There are such low standards for how people should dress, and for other areas of success. My husband and I were in the top 10% income without trying very hard. The house was so cheap to buy that we paid it off by age 30. The entire place is like a spiritual retreat all the time, you can go off into the woods or find a private spot on the water whenever you want and not see a soul. I was always able to appreciate the way that people live here, happy with their low standards and happy living in their ignorance. I was also able to appreciate the educated people from away who moved here for whatever reason. I was really lucky to be taken under the wing by several people from away when I was growing up. 

A few months ago I got really frustrated because I just started feeling like I was wasting my life here. I felt like I had finally done enough personal development that I didn't have to cling to my family and the place I grew up and that I could just leave. My son has autism and we weren't able to get him behavioral therapy. So I hatched a plan to leave and gave it everything I had and it got shot down. 

So that lead to me discovering the law of attraction and opening my mind to it for the first time. We got a behavioral therapist for my son, and there's no way I'd get one that trustworthy or great in any city. I go for a run with gorgeous views on the water in the winter and meet two cars the entire time. No traffic lights. No stress. 

I ended up reading a book by a clairvoyant guy who lived here and got really wealthy. Everyone thinks that he was a charlatan but I know from my own experiences and all the spiritual work I've done that he was enlightened and it was real. I hadn't even opened my mind up to such possibilities before. I found the old foundation of his house, would go there to meditate and I started having insights there. That lead to coming here and having an awakening a few weeks ago.

Now I feel like I need to go other way. I shouldn't move to a city. More people should move here, or places like here. 

I know I'm probably closed minded to cities, and I still really want to travel and see the world. But there's something about this place and I credit my success with spirituality to it. 

[Preetom]

@mandyjw

Thank you for writing this beautiful content.

I found the description of the very place you live as heaven. Literally. That is somewhere i wanna end up someday.

The thing with city and busyness is that rarely people 'consciously' decide on such a lifestyle. It is rarely an authentic internal vision and mostly just running on the wheels due to peer pressure. A shit of lies, numbing of senses and caffeine is holding it all together (god knows how long)

And regarding areas conducive to spirituality, i would say any place that makes one more honest with oneself and not being  asleep

Edited May 8, 2019 by Preetom

[Andrewww]

What's the name of the book?

[Leo Gura]

It is easier to get enlightened out in nature than in a busy building full of people. There's a reason yogis meditate up in the mountains and forests. Nature has a tranquilizing effect on the mind.

But don't make this an excuse. You can practice spirituality anywhere.

The problem with rural areas is that the people there will be more closeminded and rednecky. Don't go telling them you're God, or they might hang you. City-folk are more tolerant and open, but more lost in the materialist race rat.

[Lister]

4 hours ago, Preetom said:

@mandyjw

Thank you for writing this beautiful content.

I found the description of the very place you live as heaven. Literally. That is somewhere i wanna end up someday.

The thing with city and busyness is that rarely people 'consciously' decide on such a lifestyle. It is rarely an authentic internal vision and mostly just running on the wheels due to peer pressure. A shit of lies, numbing of senses and caffeine is holding it all together (god knows how long)

And regarding areas conducive to spirituality, i would say any place that makes one more honest with oneself and not being  asleep

Don't worry, you will get bored with it extremely quickly. Small towns are full of gossips. Try having a conversation about anything that requires an IQ of over 100 and you will be met with a glazed look and porobaby be the but of someones jokes for your entire existence and beyond. Plus everyone knows eachother business but none of it is accurate or fair. There is a downside to everything that appears nice on the surface. 

Edited May 8, 2019 by Lister

[Leo Gura]

The key is not the small town itself, the key is being out in nature. Nature is conducive to spirituality as it is uncorrupted by the stench of ego.

[Preetom]

9 hours ago, Lister said:

Don't worry, you will get bored with it extremely quickly. Small towns are full of gossips. Try having a conversation about anything that requires an IQ of over 100 and you will be met with a glazed look and porobaby be the but of someones jokes for your entire existence and beyond. Plus everyone knows eachother business but none of it is accurate or fair. There is a downside to everything that appears nice on the surface. 

but it sounds appealing to lone old souls who enjoy solitude.

I wanna live a life where no one remembers me

Edited May 8, 2019 by Preetom

[Truth Addict]

36 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Nature has a tranquilizing effect on the mind.

200% true ??

❤️

Edited May 8, 2019 by Truth Addict

[outlandish]

42 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Nature is conducive to spirituality as it is uncorrupted by the stench of ego.

Wow that's it

[mandyjw]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

The problem with rural areas is that the people there will be more closeminded and rednecky. Don't go telling them you're God, or they might hang you. City-folk are more tolerant and open, but more lost in the materialist race rat.

The are EXTREMELY closeminded and rednecky. But here's the unexpected part, I hated it all my life, and I was a hermit. As I started doing spirituality I realized that I couldn't stay withdrawn from people anymore. I really started to practice seeing myself in them. The more judgement I let go of, the more beautiful they got. I started really seeing the values from stage blue I was moving back into. The love for community, the love of place, the love for hard work that connects you with nature and other people. 

One of my biggest mentors when I was a kid was a Buddhist. She moved here from away and was the well educated and grew up very wealthy. Instead of having a job she was the most loving involved member of the community, she made an effort to know everyone and treat them with love, even if the community shunned them. She befriended and took care of the elderly and did hospice care and she was an artist and gave me lessons as a kid. I remember telling her that she was wrong about religion, I was a stage blue Christian kid in a stage blue Christian family. 

She didn't see us for being stage blue. She saw through us. And here she is still in my life 21 years later and we're talking about meditation and reiki together. There are other people popping up around the place too, mostly they are stage green but some beyond too. They come here for the same reason I can't leave. 

What if highly conscious people started becoming gravitated to a place like this? What would be the power in having a pocket of stage yellow, stage turquoise people in a rural enough place that their energy could not be watered down by the stress of a city? What if they created a community with the giving caring values of stage blue but without the prejudice and ignorance? What if they designed a place that incorporated nature instead of fighting it? 

[mandyjw]

@Andrewww Clairvoyant Reminiscences and Herbal Recipes

@Preetom I'll send you the best real estate listings if you want. 

@Lister You are right about the downsides but the law of attraction works really quickly with people and relationships. It's really easy to avoid the gossip if you refuse to engage in it. 

[Nahm]

@mandyjw Do both. You want nature, and you want to spread the word with people (it seems). Have your cake and eat it out. Airbnb the other house when not staying in it for additional income. 

[mandyjw]

The other thing about this place is not that nature is inescapable, it's that it is also a ghost town. The population peaked in the late 1800's. There are so many empty houses, abandoned things, and stuff falling apart. As an artist I really started to see the beauty in it and developed an attraction to abandoned houses. 

There was one a few years ago on the water down a dead end road that I'll never forget. It's a spectacularly beautiful and secluded spot. The whole thing was overtaken by wild roses, the field was left to grow up into wildflowers, lots of old apple trees around the place. We couldn't tell if the front door was black or if the house was just black inside with no door. We got closer and closer, and there was no door. Eventually we got the courage to go back and went inside the house, just barely because the floors were rotten.

The have since burned the house, but something about feeling the energy of a place that was once something busy and beautiful and now in total decay and yet... still perfectly beautiful, made me think that "yeah, that's what life is really about." 

 

 

[mandyjw]

@Nahm That's my ultimate dream, one I realized when I read that book, that I want to be just like him, traveling and helping people but never, EVER missing a single summer here. 

 

[jbram2002]

One of the interesting things about this town is that the people appear close-minded on the surface, but when you take the time to get to know them and really talk with them, a lot of them are far more open-minded than you would expect. This idea of any conversation with an IQ over 100 being a waste of time is precisely why small-town folk don't trust city folk. They feel like they are looked down on and hated, and so they hate in return.

Prejudice and generalizations only serve to drive us apart.

But when you push past those prejudices and really tap into the unbounded intelligence of a different sort, you can see what a small town has to offer. You can see the love, innovation, contentedness in their lives. You find many people who are close-minded, of course, but you'll find those same people in a city as well. You'll find gossipers in a small town, but they're in cities too. People are people, and once you start treating everyone like a person (or even like yourself), you can push past the bullshit and truly experience oneness.

Of course, I'm personally atrocious at that. But I'm working on it.

[mandyjw]

@jbram2002 I was always concerned about the bus drivers at the school our kid attends. They are old, smell terrible, don't have many teeth and are extremely simple minded. They were the most striking change when I learned to truly see them. Since I didn't trust them with my kid, irony or karma meant that I had to sit in the lobby and talk with them everyday when I went to pick up my kid at the school.

They truly and honestly love every one of those kids, and every one else they encounter. They will gossip and complain about people who are not around but when they interact with you, there's this absolute clear good intention and love in their eyes. I realized that was something I was not capable of, in the least. I was always interacting with people with judgement, with lots of reservations in the background. 

They were truly present in the moment. I still pick up my kid and the bus driver lets me go ahead of the bus and waves to me every single day with a big smile on his face and love in his eyes. And I wave to myself back in the same way. 

Edited May 8, 2019 by mandyjw

[Lister]

2 hours ago, jbram2002 said:

One of the interesting things about this town is that the people appear close-minded on the surface, but when you take the time to get to know them and really talk with them, a lot of them are far more open-minded than you would expect. This idea of any conversation with an IQ over 100 being a waste of time is precisely why small-town folk don't trust city folk. They feel like they are looked down on and hated, and so they hate in return.

Prejudice and generalizations only serve to drive us apart.

But when you push past those prejudices and really tap into the unbounded intelligence of a different sort, you can see what a small town has to offer. You can see the love, innovation, contentedness in their lives. You find many people who are close-minded, of course, but you'll find those same people in a city as well. You'll find gossipers in a small town, but they're in cities too. People are people, and once you start treating everyone like a person (or even like yourself), you can push past the bullshit and truly experience oneness.

Of course, I'm personally atrocious at that. But I'm working on it.

Pass the dutchie brah. Prejudice and generalizations is your very essence. Quit warring with yourself, it's nothing to be ashamed of. It's not comfortable playing spiritual oneupmanship.

 

Edited May 8, 2019 by Lister

[Shadowraix]

10 hours ago, Lister said:

Don't worry, you will get bored with it extremely quickly. Small towns are full of gossips. Try having a conversation about anything that requires an IQ of over 100 and you will be met with a glazed look and porobaby be the but of someones jokes for your entire existence and beyond. Plus everyone knows eachother business but none of it is accurate or fair. There is a downside to everything that appears nice on the surface. 

This is true but you can find your group of people even in small towns. I found mine in a town of <10k people and our "city" is 60k. Can hold deep conversations and I even have a friend or two to talk about spirituality with. 

There's a lot of gossip but when you find a strong group of friends people will love hard. I still have friends from back when I was 5. 

I actually left this town and realized how much I had taken nature, the mountains, and the just overall calming and tight community of the area for granted. Leaving was what actually made me love the place to death. Now I love it here. 

Just my experience. Your mileage may vary. 

[mandyjw]

I've never lived in a town with more than 1000 people in it. 

[Lister]

2 hours ago, Shadowraix said:

This is true but you can find your group of people even in small towns. I found mine in a town of <10k people and our "city" is 60k. Can hold deep conversations and I even have a friend or two to talk about spirituality with. 

There's a lot of gossip but when you find a strong group of friends people will love hard. I still have friends from back when I was 5. 

I actually left this town and realized how much I had taken nature, the mountains, and the just overall calming and tight community of the area for granted. Leaving was what actually made me love the place to death. Now I love it here. 

Just my experience. Your mileage may vary. 

Thanks for your comoassionate response. But it doesn't change what I feel.