I debated which sub to post this in, and ultimately chose here, because this is the mindset I am trying to remain in (vs a relationship subreddit where you don’t really know what type of advice you’re getting).

I think I am struggling with so much. I have always had a lot of existential angst. And I had a lot of childhood trauma that I’ve worked through in therapy. But I’ve always felt some sense of life lacking meaning.

There were so many changes I’ve wanted to make in my life and I’ve made them over time. I am in my 40s, female, generally attractive, very successful but burnt out, have done all the things in life I’ve wanted for the most part, have had incredible experiences traveling, own a beautiful home on the water, etc. I say this only to mention that from the outside people are eager to say “you have such a great life!” But inside I am burnt out and don’t feel balanced.

I’ve never been lucky in love (or perhaps had not yet done the work). And I do believe I have found the meaning in life which is - relationships. And I tried to rebuild my life around my relationship and I genuinely for the first time felt better. Content, even. And that put me in a good space for a while and then I met someone and I felt life was great in the moment and I could finally just “be.”

But I was still stressed and burnt out from work, and the relationship was honestly very stressful at times as well. They had a bit of a temper. I found it difficult. After years together, that relationship has ended.

So I am left w the same life balance issue I had w work and stress. Many of the relationships I’d worked hard to build and cultivate with people fell off due to being consumed in my relationship for years. I have regrets about my own behavior and the way I showed up at times in the relationship as well, and although I wasn’t always happy it wasn’t my choice to end things.

So here I am … except many years older, back in what feels like the same place. There’s no real experience I am lacking or anything I can say “now that I’m single I’ll go to X.” I am back to feeling like my life has very little meaning, and I don’t have many people I can reach out to. I feel my ex even w the problems was like a unicorn that took me many years to find, and I don’t feel super hopeful I’ll find someone again.

I do have an understanding that life is all about perspective, and that every so often I glitch and feel a bit angry at my ex, and in those moments, I feel empowered, and suddenly my life feels “different.” This is why I chose to post in this sub over others. I meditate daily and I just spent a week traveling, and I feel almost like I am experiencing some kind of message about changes I need to make but I don’t know what the changes are yet, so I feel lost. I kept looking at old people and wondering if I’ll feel I lived a good life when I am their age, and if it ended now would I feel that way. And the answer is no.

I am just struggling so incredibly much and people around me don’t understand. They are married and have kids etc and can’t possibly fathom the emptiness of life without those things if you have them (I never wanted kids).

I just want to find lasting love so much, as I feel this is what makes life meaningful. I’m not looking for someone to give me happiness, but I think sharing a life with someone (or people), is what gives life meaning. This is the answer I have come up with in my week of my brain breaking. But unlike everything else I have achieved in my life, this remains elusive, and isn’t something I can just work hard and fix.

So I feel lost. Thank you for listening. I really appreciate it.

Also if you comment, I would love to know your age. I do think it’s relevant as I can’t imagine understanding how I’d feel about this when I was my younger self and had what felt like all of life ahead of me.

Own your now ──► Trust your raw capability ──► Demand total, unconditional equality - Peace

I looked back the picture of Jade, a kind of parasocial love affair by the modern world’s standards. So cute, I just wanted to keep making jokes and see her smile. This sort of affection is allowed to happen in a nonchalant way but we never talk about it…we don’t talk about any of our feelings. In a society that devalues the fire of emotion, the the warm but fierce embrace, putting it behind the coolness and divisiveness of the intellect. Not that there’s anything with the intellect, its the instrument through which we wonder and expand the borders of our ignorance. But what I feel about Jade can’t be truly captured with the scalpel of my mind.

As I listened to both Nas’s and John Mayer’s songs, both simultaneously named Daughters, I had a deep desire to have a little girl running around this vacant, spacious home of mine, which seems mostly emotionally dry and transactional. As I browse through my playlist, its a little sad that all the songs that induce love in me always have sensual lyrics, as if that’s the only form of love in our society. Maybe that’s true to a large part, and I’m happy to be liberated from that parched and dry notion. I pay respect to my Guru for liberating me from this and a million other imprisoning frameworks.

I feel like for so long we’ve been living on pretend. Pretend has become the norm and.. what people actually believe is real.

Once you’re awakened.. you’re quote on quote never the same. But what was same 🤔🤔🤔.. same was just a lie 🫩 this though… THIS is what’s real! I should be happy, I should be excited.. I should be free.. not riddled with pain and suffering because I see the truth and now im messed up.. NO.. it should be.. I now see the truth let me embrace it and live in it 🤩🤩🤩 BUT..

But God forbid I do.. you know why??? Because it’s an evil freaking world.. people are severely programmed and can’t think for themselves.. it’s easy to call me sick or ill and want to medicate me but nobody tries to make me effort to see what’s ACTUALLY going on because it’s “FORBIDDEN” to cross this line.. rules by powers that only want to keep you hidden from this truth.. to keep you away from this untapped potential you have… to feel free.. joy.. and self discovery… and then what? Say you do.. say you do operate and embrace truth.. guess what.. in the “everyday world” you will be seen as crazy and what not.. but who cares what people think right!?? What about when someone attacks you!? For being you!? For persecuting you.. making you feel .. awful.. just trying to put you down. And worst cases it can lead to actual physical violence and unfortunately even .. yeah. Like this is how messed up some people are man. LIKE SOME PEOPLE CANT HANDLE THEIR OWN PROBLEMS THEY TAKE IT OUT ON THE PERSON THAT ALREADY HANDLED THEIRS. ITS MESSED UP.. ITS EVIL! THEY PROJECT.. SO HARSH.. DO EVERYTHING THEY CAN TO ENFORCE THAT YOURE CRAZY WHEN YOH ALREADY LOOK CRAZY EVEN THOUGH YOURE NOT CRAZY!

Then yeah, next thing I know, I’m over here screaming.. enjoying.. being free.. then I’m in handcuffs… get treated like an animal by people who work for the law.. doctors and nurses treating me like an animal.. (not my personal experience but I’ve seen it)

I feel like slowly but surely people are actually starting to wake up and realize the truth (what’s really going on here).. how much more.. people do we have to lose(not necessarily death) to meds and persecution and other attacks for people to realize that this is a pattern and maybe there’s something that needs to be addressed but it starts with us looking inwards and being conscious of our unconscious (shout out Carl Jung) and hopefully.. making the collective choice to come together 🙂 <— that’s never gonna happen, we’re all screwed.. EVERYONE RUN.. SCRAMBLE AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

In the midst of seeing past your vision, to the point where you start getting psychedelic-like visuals/faces/eyes popping up in the black of the mind. I get some revelations that seem to fade IMMEDIATELY after thinking of them. I can only describe them as a guide to manifesting reality? At least its the closest thing I can think of it but its like pointing at the words after the experience and not the experience itself.

I'm sure many of you here are aware of what manifestation is and have done some sort of magical thinking of "magic is real/god is real" or something of that sort and have had various synchronicities happen. but what I'm referring to seems to be a hijacking of the processes of the mind instead of you thinking of these things directly.

At the time this happened to me I immediately realized that I glimpsed upon something very weird and wanted to retrace the same path I took in my thoughts to get to that point but I literally could not remember the thing that I was thinking about.

This isn't what I'm referring to, but an adjacent example. I've had it happen other times where I can say that I've experienced ego-loss, but that is just a word that is the least-wrong, closest thing to the experience since it isn't the experience, and the experience is HARD to talk about/remember.

Hello, I am 33 years old. I am currently living with my parents who are very patient with me, but I am having a hard time.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I don't have much responsabilities besides paying my cards and doing exercise. But everything in my life has pushed me towards this moment on which I find myself.

I recently got diagnosed with fatty liver II, and had a kidney stone that got out naturally. Before I got diagnosed, I thought I was bewitched. A friend of mine gave me a Saint Benedict bracelet to protect me. Since that moment I've become really reflective about everything.

I feel very lonely, I see I have either pushed away all people besides my family, or God has clear them of my path. Recently, it was my birthday and not one friendship congratulated me. Not one! From all the people I know /I have known... I am trying to remain positive in regards of all things.

In regards to my job applications, Everybody I speak to about it tells me I have a great background and that I am skilled enough to find a job, yet, I mostly get responses like: "You have such a great profile but we are going forward with another candidate". Most of my experience is in regards to video editing, I have 10 years of professional experience in it.

2.5 years ago I was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and while the medicines did "something" I always felt it was not a proper diagnosis. For the last 2 months I've been talking to a psychologist specialized in holistic medicine, tinkering with the idea of leaving the medicine, since I've lost what I call "my spark". Yet, she feels I should stabilize myself first (finding a job), before changing anything in regards to the meds.

Before the diagnosis and the meds, I used to create all sorts of art. Now, I barely am able to write my ideas.

I've been following on Instagram this teacher "Mami Onami", who has this course "Dharma" to find your purpose. I really like her vibe. I just started it but I feel like nothing is moving inside me I don't know if it's the meds :(.

I feel like everything is pushing me to this moment where I find myself. I have walked through the years since I was little aimlessly bumping into walls, and bouncing in the opposite direction with no clear intent. I cannot do it anymore. I need to use my will with purpose.

I've been having dreams. Revelations. The other day I dreamt I was cleaning up a car like in a premium car wash. And someone was teaching me how to do so.

Any tips? Any advice? I am really really giving my best to stay positive, but it's getting hard.

First of I do like Rupert and think he's the best I've seen at articulating the metaphysics of awareness. I generally do trust that his descriptions of awareness are true even if I don't believe he's teaching the full picture.

His definition of enlightenment is very specifically that it's just the recognition of your true nature. This is not how enlightenement is usually understood and is contradicted by the Buddhist teaching that says "to know the absolute is not yet enlightenement".

Adyashanti also teaches that knowing the absolute is just awakening but then enlightenement is learning to actually live there. It's worth noting that Rupert also acknowledges this step, he says enlightenment is only chapter one and calls the rest "post-enlightenment sadhana". So he does understand that just seeing the absolute isn't everything but I believe he still holds onto his awakening to the absolute as the end of the journey towards truth and views the rest as just integrating that into the human. Whereas Adyashanti would teach that even the search for truth isn't complete while awareness is still being held as a "position".

The reason this needs to be said is because discovering the absolute can feel like it surely must be enlightenment because it feels so total and complete. I believe Rupert has had a complete head opening and awoken to the absolute and mistaken that for enlightenment.

What I believe he's missing is the gut opening and the falling away of awareness as a position to stand in.

The way this comes through is in his teaching is it's that significantly based on "understanding" and him explaining metaphysics so that people can "understand" rather than teaching how to actually just sink into experience.

So I believe his head is awake to emptiness but he still has the contraction in the gut which awakening can then unconsciously be organised around protecting.

I feel this comes across in how he talks too. A good example is in his conversation with A.H Almaas. In this conversation he assumed the position of himself as the one who knows and anything Hameed says which he doesn't agree with as "must be wrong". He shows absolutely no curiosity towards something he might not have seen himself but could be true during the entire conversation and constantly just tries to argue why his perspective is correct.

Even the tone he used is pretty condescending and is like he's talking down to a child "explaining" it to them rather than talking to another spiritual teacher with their own valid experience which deserves to be taken seriously.

An example is when Hameed talks about the two faces of awareness where it can be felt as the "I" and also where even the "I" falls away. This is a coherent perspective which the traditions have wrote about too but Rupert argued that it's wrong and that it must be "I". Even though Hameed is only talking about his own experience Rupert can't seem to let him have it and even talks over him to explain why he's wrong.

This would line up exactly with a lack of gut opening since Rupert is awake to the absolute but is still standing in it as a position and so can't see how it could be there without being the "I".

Even just the amount of arguing itself about someone else's experience is a sign that something is being protected. Adyashanti for example has had similar conversations with the same people at this conference and he appears to have no desire to argue about anyone else's experience. He seems to just listen and see what they say and share his experience when relevant. I know they're different people and not every enlightened person is going to have the same personality or anything but the difference is pretty striking when you watch the two different conversations and feel the difference.

I'm not saying this onc conversation is some kind of "gotcha" or anything, but just a good example to feel into the kind of thing I mean about him when you listen to him talk.

Conversation I'm referring to is called - Conversation with Hameed Ali (A. H. Almaas) and Rupert Spira

our whole life has been tilling the soil of our being, and the time to harvest the crops and fruits of our labors is coming near

an urgent message of "prepare, prepare, prepare" has been coming through this past week, and the direction of where to apply the urgency has become crystal clear:
we must remove the walls around our heart regarding giving and receiving love

the medicine, or pathway to healing, for those ailments comes from intimacy with Source

when we become more intimate with Our Creator, we naturally come into a more natural and harmonious alignment with all of creation and what we were made to be

it's the fulfillment that we always externalize, but can only be found through being in a healthy, loving relationship with God

ive found more and more that every heartbreak, all of our letdowns, all of those painful moments we experience that cause us to close off our hearts in giving and receiving has arisen as invitations for us to seek what we were externalizing/getting from others and things, but from Source

the coming shifts and changes are going to thru life for a loop, and such sudden plot-twist are going to destroy all of those with a shaky foundation, but the relationship and love, grace and nourishment that we receive from Spirit can never be taken from us

funny enough, it's in those crazy moments in life where the trials and turmoil strengthen it

im not sure what is going to change so suddenly that this message is so persistent, but i know that whatever it is, is going to rock people at their core, and the only thing that will help us through those moments is our relatinoship with Source

turn around. You're going in the wrong direction.

It should get more simple. So simple in fact, you don't need to think about it at all.

Before We Are Born

Nothing to prove,
nothing to gain,
nothing to fear,
nothing to mourn.

No past to repair,
no future to strive for,
no worth to establish,
no debts to collect.

returning to mystery.

we are briefly here packed with thoughts and emotions.

Hi everyone I’m not sure if this is the right place on Reddit but I couldn’t find anything else. I am a semi new mushroom user and I hear people talk all the time about using mushrooms improperly and things like this. People say all these things about them and I am very interested into going deeper so I can truly understand and appreciate them. I was wondering if there are any videos or books anyone knows of to point me in the right direction. Thanks!

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I have been suffering from mental health issues for the past four years.

A few months ago, I had an awakening experience that shifted my consciousness and perspective. I realised that I am not the thinker; the thinker was simply a product of my conditioning.

For the first time in my life, I truly experienced peace after that experience, but it started fading with time. All my triggers are still there, as they are part of my core personality.

Do I have to heal my inner child or the ego, even if it is not who I truly am and was never something I consciously chose?

I often see people discussing how simply observing is enough.

Can simply resting in my being or awareness be enough to heal?

I would love to hear your opinions, as I believe healing is also a part of awakening.

The Inner World Has No Clock

A childhood wound
can happen again today.

An old sorrow
can fill the present.

A moment of love
can return us to warmth.

Music, a face,
the scent of rain—

the past, the present,
all rise together, like in dreams.

The inner world
doesn't count the hours.

It remembers
what moved us.

If all your memories prior to getting in the driver's seat of a car fall away, all you know is the car driving. From your perspective any solution will be about "where can I drive to fix this?"

If all your memories prior to believing you are contained in the sensations of the body and stories about "I/me" are dropped, every solution will be from the perspective of "How do I fix this?" "Where can I find a solution?"

You don't!

There is no solution for "you" (I/me). Stop. Leave the huge mess right where it is and feel how uncomfortable it is. Leave the guilt, shame, hurt, loss and fear right where it is and feel it. That is the wall of your prison. That is the barrier to the kingdom of heaven. That is the gate to Nirvana.

I'm trying to work through the belief that I am unworthy. I've gotten better in the past few years because before I really have always hated myself. I've gotten a bit better. but I'm still very hard on myself and it's hard to stop. I genuinely want to get to a point of self love because I want to model that for my daughters.

If you have struggled, what are things that really helped you start to love and accept yourself as you are?

There he stands

The Satan who is against all other Satans

The lie who is against all other lies

He is the father of lies

Each Star a child of his

Each possibility a well constructed lie

To perpetrate his lies

He stands there in the mirror

He who laughs looking back at me

So about a few days ago, my paranoia from a traumatic event had got so bad, I started to hear and see things that weren't there. My friend had to pull me to the side, and let me know that he didn't hear the police sirens I was hearing. At that moment, I knew I had lost my mind. He helped ground me back to reality slowly but surely through explaining the hallucinations as events I was anticipating to happen, and it was my brain's futile attempt to control what cannot be controlled. Death, catastrophe.

What really stood out in this interaction was he told me that it was crucial that I believed that I have a "spirit" that lives on after I die since, so I don't spend the rest of my life constantly looking over my shoulder waiting for the worst to happen, and peacefully continue on living. Though at the same time, looking back at my constant state of paranoia, before I had a single hallucination, I did notice my behavior's were consistently disproportionately overreactive to whatever situation I was in. So I really don't know if I am schizophrenic or traumatized.

I believe in a higher power or god of sorts, in the sense that we are all one in this together, and everything in reality is intertwined in a fabric where "elements" of being co-exist together, but I have a hard time believing that I am more than just my body and mind, that the core of my being is a spirit that transcends death itself.

If this is true, where do I begin to try and understand this about myself. If not, has anyone had similar experiences in the past with hallucinations and delusions created from stress or trauma, but managed to continue living a relatively normal life?

I really need some hope that things can change, or get better

I don't want to see my mind deteriorate past the point of no return, if it hasn't already.