The stigma around losing one's mind

[Terell Kirby]

Contemplating: there is such a bad wrap in our conceptual world, that losing our minds are a bad thing. From public health, educational, business and academic institutions. They all preach maintaining ones mind, not losing it and seeming "crazy".

The paradox is that the one's who haven't lost their minds are the crazy ones. I don't mean this conventionally, losing one's mind is not always a sign of mental illness, as the mainstream society likes to tie the phrase too. Losing one's mind is a transcendence of conventional (ie. material) ways of looking at reality. No wonder spiritual people and mystics are often called crazy, wonky or insane.

In any case, I encourage each of us to continue to pursue losing our minds...gradually, day by day (the right way). The path to sanity is masked as the path to insanity. Don't be fooled! 

Godspeed.

[OneHandClap]

There's two sides of the coin for "mystical insanity." One is beneficial and accentuates "normal life," and the other is destructive and unhinged (see Connor Murphy, or even Charles Manson for a more extreme example). 

There are plenty of enlightened people who are still able to play the social game and live with others properly, after all. Here, "losing one's mind" is a way of expressing the loss of conceptual frameworks and beliefs about reality. This can be profoundly liberating. Then there's the shadow side of losing one's marbles, in which one becomes completely dominated by new beliefs about reality, while simultaneously believing they are ascending higher and higher. 

At the end of the day, there is always freedom, but within the relative domain... having a psychotic break and spending the rest of your life being spoon-fed lithium and other tranquilizers is diametrically opposed to the outcome most of us want through liberation. 

If we're so "woke" that we're having trouble driving, working, or talking to our loved ones, we have gone too far. Time to back up and rebuild. Nobody wants Connor Murphys running amok. 

[Terell Kirby]

6 minutes ago, OneHandClap said:

There's two sides of the coin for "mystical insanity." One is beneficial and accentuates "normal life," and the other is destructive and unhinged.

Yes, and thanks for making that nuanced distinction. You called it out better than I did :-)

6 minutes ago, OneHandClap said:

Then there's the shadow side of losing one's marbles, in which one becomes completely dominated by new beliefs about reality, while simultaneously believing they are ascending higher and higher. 

Isn't this tricky! What would you say are best practices to prevent ones awakening from becoming new dogma? For me, I try to deeply understand that my Truth (even if it's God Realized), is not the truth...nor should be the truth...for all of humanity.

[OneHandClap]

5 minutes ago, Terell Kirby said:

Yes, and thanks for making that nuanced distinction. You called it out better than I did :-)

Isn't this tricky! What would you say are best practices to prevent ones awakening from becoming new dogma? For me, I try to deeply understand that my Truth (even if it's God Realized), is not the truth...nor should be the truth...for all of humanity.

Your method is great Everyone has to come to their own realization of that fact—that the mind produces infinite stories—to stop buying into said stories. You seem very grounded! Another good way to go about it is to ask oneself... did I believe this when I was a child? If we really think back, we "understood" reality the best before we understood anything at all. When we were children, we experienced life without needing to understand, grasp, or conceptualize. Awakening is a process of coming back to that original state, prior to all the ideas and attachments to our petty little beliefs.

[Terell Kirby]

1 minute ago, OneHandClap said:

When we were children, we experienced life without needing to understand, grasp, or conceptualize. Awakening is a process of coming back to that original state, prior to all the ideas and attachments to our petty little beliefs.

Truth! We were all insane kids (conventionally speaking lol).

[mandyjw]

?

Ironic that the mind thinks it is bound, and so it creates bounds, "in order to be ok, I must be sane. I must be able to reflect back upon myself as sane." It cannot reflect back upon itself though. It is a thought, and it will create itself anew as another thought. There is no continuum or substance behind the thought. 

Suffering is really what the healing of mental illness seeks to address, suffering is the only real insanity if there is any. To believe a thought that feels awful to think is insane. 

 

[BipolarGrowth]

Losing my mind has lead me to become way more compassionate than I ever would’ve been capable of otherwise. 

[Loba]

It can be a lot of fun sometimes, don't knock it 'till you've tried it.

[Vincent S]

Such a beautiful post. Thank you for the good read. ???

I feel as though loosing my, your or our mind is the unhealthy version, while Being Out Of My, Your or Our Mind is the healthy one.

These are just words and I am splitting hairs with definitions, but they point to different things.

[Terell Kirby]

3 hours ago, Vincent S said:

Such a beautiful post. Thank you for the good read. ???

I feel as though loosing my, your or our mind is the unhealthy version, while Being Out Of My, Your or Our Mind is the healthy one.

These are just words and I am splitting hairs with definitions, but they point to different things.

Lovely..thank you 

[Preety_India]

I think there's a slight distinction between losing one's mind where you see reality with a different yet helpful perspective versus losing one's mind in a sense you lose touch with reality and begin to act insane and could end up harming yourself or others in a permanent way. I wouldn't recommend the second one 

The first one looks like a spiritual pursuit to me. The second one looks like a destructive thing. 

Some people (especially the majority) is too materialistic and baseline in my opinion to comprehend the artistic mental setup of mystics and sages. For example if I told my mother of my various spiritual leanings she will automatically call me a social loser and misfit because she is on the opposite end of the spectrum. 

The whole spiritual thing is a double edged sword. It can be used correctly to augment life or it can be used in a way that looks like pure confusion and mess.

Not to take for granted cases where people went on a spiritual quest, adopted some unhealthy worldviews and abused drugs and ended up suffering terribly. I think the collective consciousness has a huge fear regarding this. They fear they would land up in similar circumstances.. 

I generally hold this fear as well which caused me to shut my ears to any spiritual information for a long time, sometimes it felt like radically changing my paradigm would cause me mental distress. So I stayed away from it. I have seen countless people come to this forum and complain about how they lost control on reality and don't feel the motivation to do anything anymore. That scares the shit out of me. It can be frightening to be in that state where you don't feel normal anymore. So Yea collective fears exist and are understandable. 

I guess when it comes to spiritual stuff everyone has their own learning curve and it shouldn't be forced too hard. Some fears are legitimate whereas others are fueled by personal projections and shadows. 

I would recommend to try your own brand of spirituality and see what works best for you. It should be tailored to your personal goals and needs. 

I mean at the end of the day this kind of stuff is not easy to practice or deal with.. Caution is essential. 

 

[gettoefl]

mind is foe mind is two mind is you 

falsely speaking of course

note how the world worships mind ... indeed world and mind is symbiotic relationship

drop the false drop the mind see the one see the love

[lmfao]

@Terell Kirby Okay well maybe just think that it's because the people in that ruleset of perception have that as their truth