Sort of a long intro.....
Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2016 2:09 am
Hi, everyone -
I'm not normally one to post intros, but I happened to explain a bit about my point of view in a post, and so I'm re-posting it as an intro. I just joined, today. Normally, I'm more circumspect; but, since I'm on a mission to solve a puzzle, and have come here to get help from experts, and (see below) am not very energetic, I'm going to skip the coy part, the endless give and take that leads people to think they might be getting to know one another, and just put my cards on the table.
I've studied various forms of prayer, mediation, healing, some magick (but it has been my least successful endeavor, except for unintentional manifestation....or maybe "effortless" would be a better word. To my knowledge, no spell I've ever tried has worked), not to mention a little bit of actual scholarship, in school, focused on philosophy (mainly Philosophy of Mind), psych, comparative religion, Eastern philosophy and Asian art, for almost 40 years.
I think I could nutshell my driving interest as learning how to maximize choice. I've approached all of the above disciplines from that angle. I'm not sure I believe in free will, though, or the existence of others, or even being anything in particular, except in dreams of life as a human being....or maybe I'm just crazy. Maybe this lack of foundation is part of the difficulty in building solid circumstances? My life was always oriented towards following my inner guidance, since there was one thing I really wanted, more than anything else - to find God and/or figure out this thing sometimes referred to as "God", by some people....and so, the career and such took a back seat. I don't really regret that, I guess....But I am experiencing kind of a mid-life crisis in which an illness has made me wish I'd accumulated more resources. So, having deferred to inner means for my entire life, I have come to realize that, since my illness has decimated all of my strengths and talents, I can't continue to expect turning to outer means to solve it (Well, I could, and did....But, it didn't)....For about the last 6 mo, I've returned to my lifelong inner practices - sort of, but not just because I like it, this time - with the goal of manifesting a return to living in the world, without (too much) pain and with some money, and not in a cheap place I hate (I'm from a place I like, but have been sliding down the economic ladder, due to the back injury, for some time, and have ended up somewhere I don't like, at all.)
But, back to what is real or not - since I really like feeling safe and loved and loving others, I hope that there is a way to be real, forever, in joy and love, with other real beings, and to be able to enjoy it without reservation, because everyone, everywhere is also not suffering....In short, I have no idea what is really going on; and I hope it's not naive to hope for universal happiness.
So, I'm here, right now, instead of at work at my old, lapsed, career, because I'm in a heap of suffering from a back injury and some unexplainable uncooperativeness on the part of practically everyone who could have done their jobs well, years ago, and gotten me the surgery it turns out I needed, before my finances went kaput. That's what leads people to postulate ideas like karma, I guess - unexplainable badness after badness after badness, out of nowhere. None of my previous 40 years of spiritual and sometimes occult practice seems to have put much of a dent in the downward spiral of things. Before "it" happened (the badness that eventually lead to the disability), I was quite glowy and bright, and generally things manifested when and how I wanted them....with some exceptions, naturally. It's gotten so bad that I've begun to force myself to begin practicing again, despite intractable pain which makes me very sick, all of the time - and - head's up - a bit dumb, sometimes (It's called "pain brain", by those in the know). So, if anyone reads this and could cut me a bit of slack if I say something odd, please do. Probably as a result (of the practices), things have begun to look slightly better; but they need to look a lot better, and fast. Truthfully, that these unmanageable "bad" things have and continue to happen - to a degree I never considered could happen to someone in a first world country - to ME (!) - and that I've had to turn inwards to try to find some unseen key to change it - an unseen key that unlocks mental constructs about reality - has made me sometimes wonder if I'm insane - when the constructs begin to shift under my feet...and I don't have a stepping stone to leap forward onto. Maybe that's what I'm looking for here - the next stepping stone. And, sometimes, I wonder if this is another kind of the "dryness" of the dark night of the soul St. John of the Cross writes about. Sometimes, it sounds like he's kind of talking about loosing your mojo. Just focusing on the highest good for all, which can take the edge off of dissolving reality, isn't working for me. I have to focus on changing my external experience, an exercise which feels at times like it's putting me at odds with shared reality; and that makes me feel like maybe I'm crazy. I know (ish) I'm not - but it just feels that way, quite strongly sometimes. The list of unpleasant things that come with intractable pain seems to be ever-growing, and now appears include losing your mind. Actually, I'm reminded of a guy my dad knew who told him he was thinking of "ending it" because of a financial downturn. He eventually got past it. But, I'm sure it's not just pain or disability that can cause a crisis like this. It's probably just any blow that one can't recover from using one's normal coping mechanisms. Is the ability or good luck to make a fast enough paradigm shift what makes the difference in success or failure? Or maybe, just having started out in the most useful one? If there is a most useful one, we could concretize our ideas of it and communicate them. I like it that the Positive Thinking folks are working this angle, but I can't help but think that more people could cope better if they had a clear understanding of how things work, how religions and theories are all paradigms, how it's ok to shift paradigms, find a center, and do that, gracefully. From what I've seen so far of this forum, some of the people here do have the hang of it.
So...I finally found this forum. Previously, I've found some that seemed....um...kind of ....um....unsatisfying. I'd like to get very involved in finding out how this whole cosmic circus works, from the perspective of those who don't mind explaining how they have arrived at their ideas and how they can be verified (a rare thing, in my experience - usually, people like to say I think too much, but, even when it comes from someone I deeply respect, I deeply respond that I think they don't think enough)...and, I will! So, stand by for questions, and such.
So, that's me. I'm looking forward to hearing more about all of you.
I'm not normally one to post intros, but I happened to explain a bit about my point of view in a post, and so I'm re-posting it as an intro. I just joined, today. Normally, I'm more circumspect; but, since I'm on a mission to solve a puzzle, and have come here to get help from experts, and (see below) am not very energetic, I'm going to skip the coy part, the endless give and take that leads people to think they might be getting to know one another, and just put my cards on the table.
I've studied various forms of prayer, mediation, healing, some magick (but it has been my least successful endeavor, except for unintentional manifestation....or maybe "effortless" would be a better word. To my knowledge, no spell I've ever tried has worked), not to mention a little bit of actual scholarship, in school, focused on philosophy (mainly Philosophy of Mind), psych, comparative religion, Eastern philosophy and Asian art, for almost 40 years.
I think I could nutshell my driving interest as learning how to maximize choice. I've approached all of the above disciplines from that angle. I'm not sure I believe in free will, though, or the existence of others, or even being anything in particular, except in dreams of life as a human being....or maybe I'm just crazy. Maybe this lack of foundation is part of the difficulty in building solid circumstances? My life was always oriented towards following my inner guidance, since there was one thing I really wanted, more than anything else - to find God and/or figure out this thing sometimes referred to as "God", by some people....and so, the career and such took a back seat. I don't really regret that, I guess....But I am experiencing kind of a mid-life crisis in which an illness has made me wish I'd accumulated more resources. So, having deferred to inner means for my entire life, I have come to realize that, since my illness has decimated all of my strengths and talents, I can't continue to expect turning to outer means to solve it (Well, I could, and did....But, it didn't)....For about the last 6 mo, I've returned to my lifelong inner practices - sort of, but not just because I like it, this time - with the goal of manifesting a return to living in the world, without (too much) pain and with some money, and not in a cheap place I hate (I'm from a place I like, but have been sliding down the economic ladder, due to the back injury, for some time, and have ended up somewhere I don't like, at all.)
But, back to what is real or not - since I really like feeling safe and loved and loving others, I hope that there is a way to be real, forever, in joy and love, with other real beings, and to be able to enjoy it without reservation, because everyone, everywhere is also not suffering....In short, I have no idea what is really going on; and I hope it's not naive to hope for universal happiness.
So, I'm here, right now, instead of at work at my old, lapsed, career, because I'm in a heap of suffering from a back injury and some unexplainable uncooperativeness on the part of practically everyone who could have done their jobs well, years ago, and gotten me the surgery it turns out I needed, before my finances went kaput. That's what leads people to postulate ideas like karma, I guess - unexplainable badness after badness after badness, out of nowhere. None of my previous 40 years of spiritual and sometimes occult practice seems to have put much of a dent in the downward spiral of things. Before "it" happened (the badness that eventually lead to the disability), I was quite glowy and bright, and generally things manifested when and how I wanted them....with some exceptions, naturally. It's gotten so bad that I've begun to force myself to begin practicing again, despite intractable pain which makes me very sick, all of the time - and - head's up - a bit dumb, sometimes (It's called "pain brain", by those in the know). So, if anyone reads this and could cut me a bit of slack if I say something odd, please do. Probably as a result (of the practices), things have begun to look slightly better; but they need to look a lot better, and fast. Truthfully, that these unmanageable "bad" things have and continue to happen - to a degree I never considered could happen to someone in a first world country - to ME (!) - and that I've had to turn inwards to try to find some unseen key to change it - an unseen key that unlocks mental constructs about reality - has made me sometimes wonder if I'm insane - when the constructs begin to shift under my feet...and I don't have a stepping stone to leap forward onto. Maybe that's what I'm looking for here - the next stepping stone. And, sometimes, I wonder if this is another kind of the "dryness" of the dark night of the soul St. John of the Cross writes about. Sometimes, it sounds like he's kind of talking about loosing your mojo. Just focusing on the highest good for all, which can take the edge off of dissolving reality, isn't working for me. I have to focus on changing my external experience, an exercise which feels at times like it's putting me at odds with shared reality; and that makes me feel like maybe I'm crazy. I know (ish) I'm not - but it just feels that way, quite strongly sometimes. The list of unpleasant things that come with intractable pain seems to be ever-growing, and now appears include losing your mind. Actually, I'm reminded of a guy my dad knew who told him he was thinking of "ending it" because of a financial downturn. He eventually got past it. But, I'm sure it's not just pain or disability that can cause a crisis like this. It's probably just any blow that one can't recover from using one's normal coping mechanisms. Is the ability or good luck to make a fast enough paradigm shift what makes the difference in success or failure? Or maybe, just having started out in the most useful one? If there is a most useful one, we could concretize our ideas of it and communicate them. I like it that the Positive Thinking folks are working this angle, but I can't help but think that more people could cope better if they had a clear understanding of how things work, how religions and theories are all paradigms, how it's ok to shift paradigms, find a center, and do that, gracefully. From what I've seen so far of this forum, some of the people here do have the hang of it.
So...I finally found this forum. Previously, I've found some that seemed....um...kind of ....um....unsatisfying. I'd like to get very involved in finding out how this whole cosmic circus works, from the perspective of those who don't mind explaining how they have arrived at their ideas and how they can be verified (a rare thing, in my experience - usually, people like to say I think too much, but, even when it comes from someone I deeply respect, I deeply respond that I think they don't think enough)...and, I will! So, stand by for questions, and such.
So, that's me. I'm looking forward to hearing more about all of you.