Same world view as you. Different feelings about it

[endogenous]

Where do I start? I don't know what to say and am confused. I'm on a spiritual path, this shouldn't be a shock to anyone. Well the path has it's pleasant times and it's unpleasant times and currently I find thinking my way into a more contented state unpleasant and wrought with suffering. But I figured I'd give it a shot on "paper" out loud to an audience so I feel heard.

Here are some different themes in life that I will soon explain how they are related and how they are implicated in suffering in my present day-to-day experience:

-Social life

-Infinity

-Void

-Meaning

Ok. The experience or imagination of the latter three bullet points seem to have brought me suffering into my social life. I don't have a fulfilling one, and so I would like to be happy instead of suffer about it through probably a mixture of inner and outer work.

Socializing can be exhausting but I love people smile a lot and laugh almost constantly in a happy way. It's the joy of "god" (wish there was a better way of communicating but god will do.) in everything. A lot of times I have nothing to say, no passion sturs in me when I'm listening to another person. I think I believe that nothing matters and is meaningless. Everything is an empty void, no time or space, illusion. On the other hand everything already exists, infinity, so nothing is exciting because there can be no drama and adventure to life anymore. They are both two ways of saying the same thing to me. I know it's paradoxical. I don't know whether this is the happiest I've been in life (since finding spirituality) or the greatest experience of suffering.

I don't know what to do about anything. I'm living day to day just because that's what I'm supposed to do. Let the nature in me do its think like a tree. I spend my days humaning. Killing myself to end the pain would be absurd because I'm humaning.

Here is olympus mon's post, for example, called "Nothing actually exists" Nothing actually exists. - Spirituality & Mysticism - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

I like the follow up comments but the first time I read it it scared the shit out of me. It resonates strongly with me. I've been into deep mushroom journeys deep inside myself that terrorized my ego because I couldn't let go and just fragmented myself into another ego that was exploring inner space. When I woke up from the journey(s) I was in a dark place. Since then I've stopped exploring with psychedelics. I've tried ayahuasca years ago and based on that experience and all the information about it I trust it greatly but respectfully fear her. In my early curious days of exploration I failed at cultivating cubes and extracting DMT. I think this was a blessing in disguise, especially with the DMT, because I wasn't wise nor careful enough to respect what I was doing. These days I periodically chew or smoke kanna, sometimes with cannabis, to bring me to a physical space reminiscent to the stress I've felt in my body as a response to mushrooms to remind me how strong these things are.

I really want a way out but don't know what to do. I can't take aya right now nor should I but on a positive note I'm finally ready to mentally. It could be years before I do it but I'm not scared any more (except for the respectful fear described above). Last night I prayed to god to help me in english out loud. I felt fake but forced myself to just to see what it's like. I don't know what happened but motivation drained out of me. My spiritual stamina has toned down. There's too numerous variables to mention to give an accurate depiction of my experience. All I know is I'm lucky to have my path and be where I'm at physically. I'm studying in school and in 2 years I will have a degree and job to get me out of the deleting environment of living with my dad. I sometimes accept that I will just have to struggle socially until I can be with that set and setting where I can take medicine.

On thing I can do is meditate but I'm in a stage where I don't want to. Maybe I should force myself.

One thing I do at night when I feel depressed, lonely and abandoned by god is come here. I read the philosophy section, dmt experiences and the like. I used to get so much joy from exploring similar topics on the web but now I force myself to in an effort to connect with god. Tonight I logged on early before I felt depressed and here I am. This forum, combined with my experience of suffering over the last few years, has taught me wisdom and respect for our beloved teacher plants and specifically for me mother ayahuasca. Hopefully things will become clearer in time. I usually don't post things like this on forums anymore because I tend to hate making attempts to communicate but in light of my prayer the other night it seems I'm trying new things to alleviate suffering. In a way this post is a distress beacon HELP! lol

Thanks for reading, god bless

 

[No Knowing]

I and many others have been where you are, lost in the sauce. It will get better with perseverance.Hope these quotes help!

"When you're going through hell, keep going." Winston Churchill

"Nothing is real, everything is permitted." -Hassan I Sabbah

"In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the mind, there are no limits... In the province of connected minds, what the network believes to be true, either is true or becomes true within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the network's mind there are no limits."-John C. Lilly

"The aim of your life, following Buddha, Krishna, Gurdjieff, Werner Erhart, Shirley, is this: Take care of your self so you can take care of others. If any".- T. Leary

"The cost of sanity in this society is a certain level of alienation."-T.McKenna

"Take it easy, but take it!"-TMK

"You can't do good until you feel good."-Timothy Leary

"The plain fact is that if you don't have a problem, you create one. If you don't have a problem you don't feel that you are living."-UG

"The more real you get, the more unreal the world gets."- John Lennon

"One can drive himself to madness in the obsessing goal of reason, without the knowledge of love and laughter."
-mystic0 nexus

"Suffering brings humility and humility invites self-healing."
-Cubeanada [nexus]

“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti

 

[bodhi]

The good news is that you are free of the weight of expectation that life sometimes brings.

Consider this a great opportunity to take on success and failure with an impartial observers viewpoint!

You'll know soon enough when this game of life starts to affect you once again.

And then it starts anew...

Isn't that what we are here for?

 

[endogenous]

Thank you so much for the replies. I'm feeling pretty down tonight but I found reading those quotes a pleasant experience.

 

[Lagomorph]

Thanks for asking for help. I like living in a world where there are people who can do that.

There was so much good description of your situation in your post. One thing I'm still wanting to get clearer on is what you would like, versus how it is now. Are you saying that you are struggling socially because interacting with people seems inherently meaningless? Because the everything/nothing that all this is and we and others are is inherently meaningless?

If so, perhaps you are moving your way through a nihilistic stage. For some reason I suspect a book that might be helpful would be PsyberMagick. Carroll has a certain no-nonsense way of describing what's what around this kind of thing. On one level this book is like a primer for effective post-modern thinking... but it's written from a perspective at least a step beyond that.

So the thread you linked concludes with:

Have fun and play with whatever brings you joy in life.
Be good to one another and love un conditionally
Because although an illusion it matters
There is no reason to assume that the dreamer awakens upon death.
There is no way to calculate how long the dream lasts when the intelligence creating it resides in timelessness.
For even time is just a thought.

Live life and find joy,
but do not take yourself or any of it too seriously
for none of it
and none of us
Exist.

It invokes joy as it points to the mystery. The void is pregnant with possibilities.

You're not limited to approaching your situation just through medicine work. Some other ideas that come to mind:

- Upgrade your quantity or quality of physical movement... especially because you mentioned depression... do you walk every day? If not, add some. If already there, do you do some more quality movement such as tai chi, yoga, bodywork (giving or receiving) every week? If not, add some.

- Open to having a teacher. It's said that you don't find teachers, they find you, so don't look for one but do be open to it happening and feel free to invoke, intend, or call it in.

- Try other forms of changework. Hypnotherapy, NLP, any shamanic tradition, contemplative prayer, guided imagery, energy work.

 

[SpartanII]

Here's some quotes that have really helped me in my spiritual path:

“All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. ... Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn't. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you.”

"Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it - what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellowmen. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone"

"You should not have remorse for anything you have done, because to isolate one's acts as being mean, or ugly, or evil is to place an unwarranted importance on the self. Well-being is a condition one has to groom, a condition one has to become acquainted with in order to seek it. You don't know what well-being is, because you have never experienced it. Well-being is an achievement one has to deliberately seek.

In order to accomplish the feat of making yourself miserable you have to work in a most intense fashion. It is absurd you have never realized you could work just the same in making yourself complete and strong. The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same."

“The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.”

“To seek freedom is the only driving force I know. Freedom to fly off into that infinity out there. Freedom to dissolve; to lift off; to be like the flame of a candle, which, in spite of being up against the light of a billion stars, remains intact, because it never pretended to be more than what it is: a mere candle.”

“Death is the only wise advisor that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you're about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you're wrong; that nothing really matters outside its touch. Your death will tell you, 'I haven't touched you yet.”

“Think about it: what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow men. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone.”

“We are men and our lot in life is to learn and to be hurled into inconceivable new worlds.”

“The internal dialogue is what grounds people in the daily world. The world is such and such or so and so, only because we talk to ourselves about its being such and such and so and so. The passageway into the world of shamans opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off his internal dialogue”

"To not-do what you know how to do is the key to power. In the case of looking at a tree or bush, what you know how to do is to focus immediately on the foliage. The shadows of the leaves or the spaces in between the leaves are never your concern. Start focusing on the shadows of the leaves on one single branch and then eventually work your way to the whole tree, and don't let your eyes go back to the leaves, because the first deliberate step to storing personal power is to allow the body to not-do. The body likes things like this. You can stop the world using this technique. Once you have succeeded, you must work as if nothing has happened to you and don't mention or even be concerned with any of the events you have experienced."

Don Juan/Carlos Castaneda

 

[hug46]

I very much liked Olympus Mons post

A lot of times I have nothing to say, no passion sturs in me when I'm listening to another person.

Maybe you are not hanging around with the right people for you. Or maybe you are anti social.

I think I believe that nothing matters and is meaningless.

If nothing matters, then you are free from any pressures that our non important culture has put on us to be social or a useful member of society. In the grand scheme of things (which also really don"t matter) you are just free to be the person that you are.
This ,in turn, can lead to relaxation from various concerns. Relaxed people generally are better at socialising and so the magic circle is completed, as the anti social worrier realises nothing matters, stops giving a fuck about things and paradoxically develops into a social butterfly. Or not, because it doesn"t matter.

Have fun and play with whatever brings you joy in life.

If it is all meaningless you might aswell have a bit of non existant, existential fun. Even if it is just laughing at the absurdity of it all. Enjoy the conceptual playground that you have managed to conjure up from the empty, infinite void.

But i am coming at this from a non spiritual viewpoint (i think) so my thoughts maybe too simplistic.

 

[Chairman MAO]

A couple random things I have seen to work for myself:

Realize that you shape your experience of life. Anything you think is shaped by and shapes your belief, and your belief is your reality. Positive thought brings about positive reality. The more you get in touch with this, the more in control of it you can be.

Do what you like. Don't feel bad about things you like, don't do things you don't like. If you feel bad for wanting or not wanting something, get in touch with what you feel (there is no other moral compass than your feelings) and act accordingly.

Also, you say "nothing" exists, yet you live in a world populated by matter, energy, objects, beings and so on. How can you honestly say to yourself there is nothing? Even dark matter isn't nothing. Even if dark matter were nothing, it would still be dark matter.

Read some mystical literature! (I've personally struggled with getting the wisdom out of Buddhism, but once you've heard how the masters lived, you start seeing it everywhere.)

Keep on truckin'!
The Chairman

P.S. Once I told a friend of mine I was becoming depressed. He said "Well hey, make sure you enjoy it!" - contentment is not limitless happiness, it's accepting the good part and the bad - the middle way.

 

[0neir0naut]

I think I understand what you are describing; although I agree - it's an abstract thing to try and explain to anyone other than yourself.

From my own experience, I've had pretty dark periods in my life where the joy in social interaction, amongst other pleasures, seemed to numb because of this feeling within me that it was meaningless, because it was born of nothing.

When I learnt about the second law of thermodynamics, and that no matter what kind of complexity arises in this universe it all shares the same inevitable fate of high-entropic, diffused 'heat', I became pretty depressed over it.

These 'dark thoughts' culminated and peaked during my last ever Lucy trip. I thought, "if I am everything, and everything is me, then this consciousness is existence and nothing exists outside of this." I also entertained the idea that suicide was helping entropy along (scientifically this actually doesn't make that much sense, but in the psychedelic state it seemed obvious/factual) I began 'looping' around these thoughts and spiralled into a harrowing despair I wish upon no one! This marked my last psychedelic trip.

BUT - as I'm sure you will, I grew up and out of those particular thoughts. I realised that the very nature of existence and the possibility of meaning is unknown; I cannot do my role in this 'cosmic drama' less I accept that I actually have no effing clue what's going on. I think I had tried too hard to reach a conclusion on what existence was or whether it had a purpose. My advice for you is to step back from this belief of 'all is nothing' - because it is an assumption masquerading as fact. Your idea of 'nothing' is a human idea of nothing. Maybe instead flip it around and say 'all is unknown' or even better, say nothing and just accept and enjoy the not knowingness. As others have mentioned, your realisation of 'nothing matters' can actually be liberating, and I think soon after time, you will interpret it as such.

Dark patches on the life journey are inevitable and necessary. Hold your dark thoughts by the hand, they will guide you through some important lessons.

All the best on your path!

 

[jfreak]

lol, for a simple answer stop seeking and you will find what you were looking for was ALWAYS there, it can't be anywhere else after all.

 

[endogenous]

Wow thanks a lot for all the replies. :d I was skimming through them at first, but I said "wait... it starts now" so I took my time and read every word instead of giving into impatience. I will take my time for a more elaborate response to specific points when I can.

 

[endogenous]

Sorry I never replied. It was out of laziness that I didn't follow up and desperation that I initially posted. But I thought I'd drop by to post somewhat of an update. The content of my initial post has become increasingly irrelevant over the last few months (and since the feelings arose years ago they have been gradually diminishing).

Reading the nexus forums really trips me out because it takes me back to that deep fear feeling. I used to feel it occasionally in regular life, I used to feel it a lot before then. Now I never feel it in daily life. When I feel it here it's way smaller than it was in the past. I can ignore it or intensify it but being honest with myself I think it serves me no purpose anymore. It was meant to teach me something like "95% of fear is delusional".

I'm into dharma theory and practice now. I'd like the master second and third training someday, concentration and insight(vipassana). The practice has really helped me to stop being so paranoid. I can say today with confidence that the worst is behind me.

This is a really neat place. I don't think I'll post here much anymore. I don't even know if I will ever smoke DMT anymore but if I do it's amazing that such a community exists. I tried psychedelics, I went to hell and back and found my practice and passion. What a wild ride life is.