What is the difference between the enlightened and insane? (with examples)

[Leo Gura]

24 minutes ago, Proserpina said:

I don’t believe it’s so cut and dry. My awakenings occurred along side meeting entities.  It’s a part of awakening for some.  And meeting entities can be overwhelming in the beginning.  I mean, are people not allowed some time to integrate?

If you have abnormal psychology to begin with you will be more mentally unstable, especially with awakenings.

It's not cut and dry at all. As I said, there are thousands of different awakened states of consciousness and no such thing as one "enlightened" condition or "naty state". This is a myth.

People with abnormal psychology will have a very different spiritual path than normies. Most spiritual advice is for normies. It will not work if your brain is wired in some unique way.

Edited October 17, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Thought Art]

@Tyler Robinson This person with periodic mental instability… they can’t be enlightened. A person of great spiritual and psychological development should be stable. 
 

I am perhaps blending enlightenment, psychological development, ego development, wisdom, love, mental stability all into the word “enlightenment “

[Tyler Robinson]

Just now, Thought Art said:

@Tyler Robinson This person with periodic mental instability… they can’t be enlightened. A person of great spiritual and psychological development should be stable. 
 

I am perhaps blending enlightenment, psychological development, ego development, wisdom, love, mental stability all into the word “enlightenment “

I think of enlightenment as wisdom 

I don't see why a person with periodic mental instability can't achieve wisdom and awakening. 

[Thought Art]

@Tyler Robinson Maybe, I don’t know

[Breakingthewall]

5 minutes ago, BipolarGrowth said:

There is no such thing as a mind without content… Truth can manifest in an infinite number of appearances, and it certainly isn’t the case that enlightenment only is accessible to standard human brain function

4 minutes ago, BipolarGrowth said:

 

A mind must be totally detached from its content for the truth to manifest. a completely free mind is an unlimited mind. a mind that thinks: I am god, is a limited mind.

[Tyler Robinson]

4 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

@Tyler Robinson Maybe, I don’t know

I cannot imagine a person being completely insane. Impossible. 

 

[Thought Art]

@Tyler Robinson 99% of sane people don’t know what “Truth” or “Love” is. 
 

So, I doubt an insane person would.

I actually have a song I wrote that goes “but baby you, don’t know what love is and maybe you… don’t know what truth is… no you don’t, know you don’t knoow” 

Edited October 17, 2022 by Thought Art

[Tyler Robinson]

Just now, Thought Art said:

@Tyler Robinson 99% of sane people don’t know what “Truth” or “Love” is. 
 

So, I doubt an insane person would.

They can experience love though even if they weren't able to describe it. 

Insane people aren't much different from sane

Someone completely insane cannot survive since they would've know how to protect themselves causing them to die. 

For survival, you would need a basic level of sanity, something that even insane people possess.. 

[Loba]

I think the problem with spiritual circles is that they can have set notions of what spirituality looks like, when, as Leo has mentioned as well, there are a thousand and one different ways to get there.  You also have to keep in mind that for someone who's spiritual journey involves the fragmentation/reintegration of the personality structure, or dealing with the paranormal - or an initiation, that these take years/decades even, for that person to level out.  Especially in these do-it-yourself cultures where only trustafarians really have the extra dough to be spending on these costly holistic practitioners and the healing they offer.  For most of us, we are left to pick up the pieces in a culture/society that doesn't understand this process of awakening.  People only want the end result.  They want that "super mysterious mystic" or the "ultra powerful shaman" to be the ones to guide "them" on their persona journeys, but they have little to no idea of the steps that it takes to actually get there.

In fact, a lot of spiritual people throw out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to phenomenon within the spiritual realms, and end up closing themselves off to things, much to the chagrin of the genuine seeker, who is open to things both "good" and "bad", although both are relative.  We not only place an idea over what a seeker or an enlightened person must look like and how they should behave, but we do this for mental health matters as well - it is deeply rooted in ableism and a fear of the unknown.  The insane person represents something that can't be contained, can't be understood, when most of the world wants a level of balance to be reflected in their environment and the insane does not do this for them.  It's easier to pigeonhole the bipolar person or the schizophrenic into the bin of "other" than it is to see that they carry within them their own wisdom - their own forms of mysticism that should be Seen and respected.

A good example - myself - I am someone who requires extra support in my life.  I don't deny it, I don't hide from it.  It is what it is.  My life and my work is still valid.  I have had experiences of God, of Oneness, of an all encompassing Love, as well as everything in between - along with psychosis.  Both sides of the coin - ultimate Truth and delusional falsity.  In fact, due to experiencing both, the breadth of my work goes much deeper than someone who started out in the middle and moved themselves up from that vantage point.  But, that said, I still struggle with daily life.  I am always "in between" this place and that place.  I get care for my issues, but I also don't expect the world to bend over backwards for me.  I am not rich, but I have enough, I am happy with what I have.

If one were to ask me, are you delusional, and how can you tell?  I would answer - my visions always lead me to a place of self-love, forgiveness, truth, bravery, sincerity.  Even if the path is more fantastical, full of more "weird" and out there things than the norm - if it were false - then why would it lead me to this same spot every time?

I suppose the difference between me and a lot of seekers is that my awakenings were complete, they went deep.  Into the darkest despair and the greatest of Light.  And so I never see things from a position of where is it "not" spiritual.  Which I see a lot of people doing on this forum - it's either this or that, or what's the highest or lowest - instead of actually Seeing the consciousness and life flowing through things and getting a really good taste of how it expresses itself.  When you wake, you start to Know where to find these things, and how they appear in different ways.  It becomes more nuanced rather than less.

I can see the spiritual validity in most people, and can take it and apply it to myself - questioning people, their techniques - this doesn't really enter my thought process.  There is a lot more validity that you can find within the different spiritual experiences of other folks than there are not.

[Thought Art]

@Tyler Robinson I am talking about Love with a capital L

[Carl-Richard]

It's a huge mistake to equate psychiatric diagnoses, which are supposed to help people with what society deems to be dysfunctional behavior, with Enlightenment. Ask yourself: does Sadhguru look like he needs help? Rupert Spira? Eckhart Tolle? The list goes on. People in insane asylums are not well. That is the one common feature across all the reasons for ending up in that place. 

Why is this a common question? Firstly, you can thank people who know nothing about schizophrenia, who say that in the right society, they would trained to be shamans. If they had ever read anything about cross-cultural studies on schizophrenia, they would know that these people are not treated kindly in any society. Robert Sapolsky has a good lecture on that.

Secondly, ego dissolution is not a joke. It's literally the end of your life. It feels exactly like going insane, but not in the usual way where you're confused and scared. There is absolute clarity and tranquility, but it's so much that it terrifies you. A person with schizophrenia has trouble with seeing things that are not there, or thinking thoughts that don't make sense. It's not that. You're seeing things exactly as they are, and everything makes perfect sense, but it's too much for you to handle. In a sense, it's actually much more serious than going insane, because at least when you're insane, you are someone. That doesn't mean you'll be dysfunctional though.

Edited October 17, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[BipolarGrowth]

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

A mind must be totally detached from its content for the truth to manifest. a completely free mind is an unlimited mind. a mind that thinks: I am god, is a limited mind.

I think you misinterpreted what I meant. When there is no content, there is no experience whatsoever. But of course, attachment to some idea of being God is simply a belief sometimes correlated with profound states and in other cases almost identical to stage blue dogma structurally. 

[Loba]

23 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

People in insane asylums are not well. That is the one common feature across all the reasons for ending up in that place.

Have you ever been to one?  Talked to the people who are in these places?  Many of them have genuine spiritual awakenings or insight.  Almost as if they are simply stuck in the middle of fragmentation without direction.

23 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Firstly, you can thank people who know nothing about schizophrenia, who say that in the right society, they would trained to be shamans.

Again - not true.  I mean - what would you suspect most shamans/mystics are "afflicted" with?  The very definition of schizophrenia is the defragmentation/fragmentation of the ego.  This madness is also a key part of the shamanic journey.

Shamanism is a tradition that you can find popping up within most cultures in some form or another.  It is the dysfunctional ones, or the ones who were not in the right place at the right time that weren't deemed "fit".  Not that they didn't have the makings of it.  Again - reading up on schizophrenia is not the same thing as interacting with many people who have mental illness - of which I have at this point spoken to about a hundred within my three stays at the hospital.  I got their histories, their life stories, their spiritual experiences, dreams, hopes, etc.  Most of them, (I am not schizophrenic, but I have spoken with a lot.) you will find a deeply valid form of spiritual belief within many of them.  And much of it is about filtering through delusions, false beliefs and getting to the core of themselves.  Their process of thought and worldviews are deeply shamanic.

23 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Secondly, ego dissolution is not a joke. It's literally the end of your life. It feels exactly like going insane, but not in the usual way where you're confused and scared. There is absolute clarity and tranquility, but it's so much that it terrifies you. A person with schizophrenia has trouble with seeing things that are not there, or thinking thoughts that don't make sense. It's not that.

It actually is that - in varying degrees.  The mentally ill experience both, due to the ego dissolution that accompanies psychosis.  It can fill you up, and also hollow you out.  A person can be filled with so much of it, that they just drop it - and you will see in these moments a healing, or a clarity within these people develop.

----

Honestly, my advice for people reading this thread is to volunteer with the mentally ill.  See them not as "other" - talk to them and you will find that you are dealing with kind souls.  People who's lives, experiences and spiritual interpretations are also valid.  if you actually sit down and talk to the people who live with these conditions you will gain more insight than from people who do not have much real world knowledge.  Reading books, asking for advice on the spiritual validity of the mentally ill won't give you the answers you are looking for, you need to go out and talk to people who have been there.  

[Breakingthewall]

4 minutes ago, BipolarGrowth said:

When there is no content, there is no experience whatsoever.

1 hour ago, BipolarGrowth said:

 

1 hour ago, BipolarGrowth said:

 

I mean mental content, ideas, thoughts. The mind can be totally empty and there is still experience, you know that perfectly i think 

[Carl-Richard]

Just now, Loba said:

Have you ever been to one?  Talked to the people who are in these places?  Many of them have genuine spiritual awakenings or insight.  Almost as if they are simply stuck in the middle of fragmentation without direction.

Visited my dad.

 

Just now, Loba said:

Again - not true.  I mean - what would you suspect most shamans/mystics are "afflicted" with?  The very definition of schizophrenia is the defragmentation/fragmentation of the ego.  This madness is also a key part of the shamanic journey.

Shamans deploy various techniques to reach altered states of consciousness, and then they get insights which they share with the tribe. Schizophrenics live outside of the tribe.

I consider myself a mystic (in the technical meaning of the term), and my dad is not one.

 

3 minutes ago, Loba said:

Shamanism is a tradition that you can find popping up within most cultures in some form or another.  It is the dysfunctional ones, or the ones who were not in the right place at the right time that weren't deemed "fit".  Not that they didn't have the makings of it.  Again - reading up on schizophrenia is not the same thing as interacting with many people who have mental illness - of which I have at this point spoken to about a hundred within my three stays at the hospital.  I got their histories, their life stories, their spiritual experiences, dreams, hopes, etc.  Most of them, (I am not schizophrenic, but I have spoken with a lot.) you will find a deeply valid form of spiritual belief within many of them.  And much of it is about filtering through delusions, false beliefs and getting to the core of themselves.  Their process of thought and worldviews are deeply shamanic.

Why are they in the mental hospital and Sadhguru isn't?

 

5 minutes ago, Loba said:

It actually is that - in varying degrees.  The mentally ill experience both, due to the ego dissolution that accompanies psychosis.  It can fill you up, and also hollow you out.  A person can be filled with so much of it, that they just drop it - and you will see in these moments a healing, or a clarity within these people develop.

Psychosis may contain ego dissolution, but ego dissolution does not contain psychosis.

 

7 minutes ago, Loba said:

Honestly, my advice for people reading this thread is to volunteer with the mentally ill.  See them not as "other" - talk to them and you will find that you are dealing with kind souls.  People who's lives, experiences and spiritual interpretations are also valid.  if you actually sit down and talk to the people who live with these conditions you will gain more insight than from people who do not have much real world knowledge.  Reading books, asking for advice on the spiritual validity of the mentally ill won't give you the answers you are looking for, you need to go out and talk to people who have been there.  

Agree.

[Thought Art]

Often mystics, Taoist wizards and shamans can go through a phase of being ungrounded. However, they eventually overcome it. 
 

Being insane or ungrounded is contextual. Is it schizophrenia? Or did you just want experience a deep shift that need integrating? 

[Proserpina]

Those who aren’t chill they just may not realise their own power yet.  If you were placed into that position you are capable of overcoming, you have some spiritual capacity or you wouldn’t be in that position, was my understanding. So yet again, not so cut and dry.

 Souls take time to evolve. Young mystic souls are going to be disowned by their tribe.

[Loba]

Just now, Carl-Richard said:

Visited my dad.

Your dad has it - if you are comfortable with me asking, what is he dealing with?  Is he spiritual, and if so, do you see connections between his spirituality and those of ancient man?  It not, or if too personal then you don't need to answer these questions.

2 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Shamans deploy various techniques to reach altered states of consciousness, and then they get insights which they share with the tribe. Schizophrenics live outside of the tribe.

I consider myself a mystic (in the technical meaning of the term), and my dad is not one.

Yes, I agree.  I personally was initiated by spirits into this role and also deal with mental illness.  The reason I know this was a true initiation was due to the nature of how it came about - I was given the information while in a tranquil state of ego dissolution after following some advice from someone here, about five years ago - and the knowledge of this didn't phase me, as nothing good or bad would have changed my state - I simply recorded the download, and later on developed a sense of "identity" for it, until I let that go as well.  I use music/trance states.  My mind is quite clear when I sit with it all - and I just allow things to come up and write them down, look them over and decide later on if I want to keep or throw away what I find.

What do you think qualifies you as a mystic?  Initiation?  Spiritual experiences?  Not asking to disprove, just genuinely curious.  And why would your dad not be one?

6 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Why are they in the mental hospital and Sadhguru isn't?

Because, although there is spiritual validity with the mentally ill, it is still not as integrated as a sane person.  Sadhguru is an exceptional person.  A better example would be perhaps Paul Levy, who was diagnosed with mental illness and did go to a hospital for a time, but had a shamanic initiation in which he was able to pinpoint and discuss his own demon - Wetiko - which is actually a collective insanity within modern society.  He is now a healthy person.
They are in the hospital because there are no current solutions on how to guide most of them out of this fragmentation.  If it gets really bad, they do lose touch with reality, go into fugue states, hallucinate and so forth - but with medication they end up pretty normal.  Society doesn't have a system in place to guide each individual with the intensive years-long training and care needed to put that personality structure back together.  And if they get too far down the wrong path, they can lose touch with a large portion of themselves and it is very hard to get them to turn around.  I have been on both sides of this, I know how tricky the mind can be, especially for the mentally ill person.
What - from my perspective, it feels like is this - the rules to reality change.  They just flat out do.  And the person is trying to fight to get back to a normal state of reality, but they have to use these new rules in order to climb out of it.  It is like getting stuck on the other side of reality, one where every sign means something, you see connection in everything - and it is the personality, the shadow, things like this coming through that are going haywire to try and regulate the person.
For those that I spoke with, it was the same for them.  The rules just... changed.  One guy, in order to keep dark energy from entering him, had to sing and clear his throat all the time.  And I remember the same thing happening to me, where I was trying to bring my energy "up" and hummed and sang in order to speak Word into reality.  Another girl had the same thing, where she thought she needed to move her reality in a certain way to change the outcome, and once she was at the height of it - only her Word would change anything for her state of mind.

Another guy thought he was Jesus, and felt he had to take on the negative energy of the world and transmute it.
Another had an actual God realization while looking at his white walls.  He woke up to God, but was deemed "delusional".

The difference between the sane and insane is that they can work with the rules of this reality and the ones of the other side, the mystical realms and can go back and forth.  Those who are ill cannot do this, it overtakes them completely and they get stuck.

Medicine can stop this, therapy can help, being in a hospital around other people and talking to them, getting support is the biggest thing.

Within my psychosis - you know how dreams are so intuitive, that you just flow through them in this state and it all patches together just right?  Well, when mine got to be the worst - that part of my psychology bled into this world.  And so I was stuck with the rules of "dreaming" while having to navigate awake.  The physicality of this world began to shimmer, everything was intuitive, I was no longer a part of this world anymore.  At all.  I was cut from it.  It's hard to explain.  But it wasn't... removed from Truth... it was more like... old, ancient software that had come online and directed me instead.

19 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Psychosis may contain ego dissolution, but ego dissolution does not contain psychosis.

No, it doesn't.  When you let it go and there is just Love, God and consciousness within everything, you are healed from it for as long as you are in that state.

[Carl-Richard]

37 minutes ago, Loba said:

Your dad has it - if you are comfortable with me asking, what is he dealing with?  Is he spiritual, and if so, do you see connections between his spirituality and those of ancient man?  It not, or if too personal then you don't need to answer these questions.

Bipolar 1. He has never talked to me about meditation or Eastern mysticism. He usually talks about business ideas, science or philosophy. My mom says he has always been a materialist atheist, and I don't think that has changed, although when I was little, he used to play Hare Krishna CDs in the car lol. He had a friend who was actually a shaman (who sadly passed away) who I've met a couple of times. His name is Arthur Sørensen. My dad got a big shaman drum from him, and one time, he played it over my head and I felt my body vibrating which was fun. 

I would say he is spiritually inclined, but he is not practicing any spirituality, and I don't think he ever has. He strikes me more like a Terrence McKenna than a Sadhguru (just without the weed), i.e. basically me before I found spirituality.

 

37 minutes ago, Loba said:

What do you think qualifies you as a mystic?  Initiation?  Spiritual experiences?  Not asking to disprove, just genuinely curious.  And why would your dad not be one?

I keep talking about it, but I spent the last 2 years trying to force myself out of a constant state of ego dissolution. My dad is not there. His mind always on. That said, he is probably one of the more empathetic and consciously attuned people I know. I have 50% of his genes after all.

 

37 minutes ago, Loba said:

The difference between the sane and insane is that they can work with the rules of this reality and the ones of the other side, the mystical realms and can go back and forth.  Those who are ill cannot do this, it overtakes them completely and they get stuck.

At one point when I was abusing weed and my life was falling apart, I experienced precursors to a psychotic break (rapid thoughts, loose associations, concentration and memory issues, slight perceptual changes), and it was the complete opposite of the mystical experience. Likewise, when my dad is in a manic state, it does not remind me of a mystical state.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Carl-Richard

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Thought Art said:

Often mystics, Taoist wizards and shamans can go through a phase of being ungrounded. However, they eventually overcome it. 

And what about the ones who don't overcome it?