is death the only true nirvana and enlightenment?

[RomanJ]

Same. Vedanta really helps because I have learned a lot about just being present with suffering, instead of resisting it or trying to fix things all the time. I feel like at this point I can endure almost endless suffering. I just don't feel like there is any point to living. Nature doesn't care if a bug gets stepped on or a bird breaks its wing and can no longer fly. I don't really matter either.



You ascribe far too much personal agency to suffering. Living beings all over this planet die helplessly every single day, begging others, or god, or whomever, to help them or save them as they die. I am beyond helping and I've made my peace with that. I simply don't want to live anymore. It doesn't need to be corrected. My own suffering no longer holds meaning for me. It is a pointless exercise that never ends.

Apologies if I came across as saying it's the person to blame for they're own suffering that's not what I was getting at, I was just thinking about what's happened in my own life. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I'd made the changes to my life 20 years ago. It's taken a lot of suffering for me to get here but things can change, and you do not know what is around the corner so I would tell anyone who is thinking of taking they're own life to find a way to keep going.

You do matter, a human life is worth a lot more than a bug or a bird, every human should be able to have a good standard of life and health no matter where they are from or what they're background is.

Have you been to see a doctor or therapist to tell them how you feel?

 

[Foreigner]

Apologies if I came across as saying it's the person to blame for they're own suffering that's not what I was getting at, I was just thinking about what's happened in my own life. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I'd made the changes to my life 20 years ago. It's taken a lot of suffering for me to get here but things can change, and you do not know what is around the corner so I would tell anyone who is thinking of taking they're own life to find a way to keep going.

You do matter, a human life is worth a lot more than a bug or a bird, every human should be able to have a good standard of life and health no matter where they are from or what they're background is.

Have you been to see a doctor or therapist to tell them how you feel?

I have had good periods in life where I thought, "I'm so glad I chose life and got to this point, or I never would've experienced this goodness now." And then things got shitty again, really shitty. Then they got good. I am essentially tired of the merry-go-round. I know all too well the value of impermanence, but a lot of humans have relative stability in their lives. I don't. Everything I build or invest myself in crumbles, and then the framework I was relying on - the ecosystem - is gone and I am having to adapt all over again. It's very tiring, unrewarding, and causes nothing but suffering.

I don't do therapy because it's all just validation and re-framing, which I'm not interested in. I don't want to have anymore talks about how I'm on a powerful journey, how I'm so wise, blah blah. I don't care. What I want is really basic: a stable home, partner, social life, clean food/environment, maybe some extra income for extracurriculars. I also don't want to have this terrible disease anymore, or at least not so intense.

I don't have anything of the things I want. I've tried for years. I see no point anymore. This life is a suffering hell and I don't really want to live for the few good moments of reprieve. They're tantamount to being let out of prison for a while so you can stretch your legs before being put back into the cell. No thanks.

 

[Gormur]

Everyone astral projects during all moments of the day and it is intensified when we go to sleep. It is just a matter of being aware that it is happening and being intentional about where you want to go and what you want to learn.

But either way one would have to do much spiritual work to integrate these higher dimensions with your 3 dimensional perspective because a lot of it can be filtered through our limited conceptual framework and cause confusion and misunderstanding amongst the community which is one of the reasons why so many new age ideas are disregarded and ridiculed and scrutinized.

I've read this idea; that we all astral travel but remembering it is rare if the person hasn't worked on their technique or even consciously did it at will while awake, for example. It's not a view I understand so I'll just leave it at that

I think you might be confusing imagination with unconscious thinking and fear. People can have pre existing notions before going into those types of experiences which causes great difficulty to be able to receive this information but these notions are usually fear based and subjected to ones own individual experience of what they believe is possible.

I think everybody's different but I don't actually know what others do, I guess. I mean fear of the unknown can hold one back I guess but it doesn't work that way for me so I have no clue how that process works. I think if I found myself suddenly afraid, I wouldn't be able to astral project due to adrenaline basically blocking the experience

The astral imagination (if that's a thing) is something unique and limitless compared to an earthly, cerebral imagination. At least in my experience. I've had what I call (astral) memories of places which included furniture being in places I didn't know about beforehand but I also have those feelings when fully aware of myself except I don't actually see them if that makes sense. I don't know if you find that interesting. I just thought I'd mention it

However I do think it’s important that when we think of imagination we should see it as conduit for greater awareness to come in and to help us create something that will inspire the more positive potentials in human life such as freedom or unity or better awareness or knowledge or understanding different perspectives which is probably the most important byproduct of a strong expansive imagination that you have been nurturing for years. Most people do not nurture the imagination in such a way so most of their thoughts and ideas are 1 dimensional and inaccurate and cause confusion amongst the society once it is conveyed or released into the social atmosphere.

True. We should listen to our imagination

When someone hears something that they think is ridiculous they say oh it’s just your imagination and that causes more distrust towards the imagination and the potential that it has because it ruins our self esteem and our ability to trust ourselves until we are at the mercy of scientists, religious organizations or organized cults. And it is how the general public tend to raise their kids by telling them that what they are thinking is not real and that they should follow their rules and their thoughts if they want to live a happy life. That way of parenting is flawed in that it has created most of the problems that are apparent in our society today.

That type of mentality, although it may be humble and cautious to possess, can limit your ability to expand your awareness and your knowledge about the greater universe and to gather information that is crucial to the healing of our planet as well as your own physical, mental and emotional well being. If that is not what you want to achieve or you don’t really care about learning stuff like this then that is obviously your prerogative.

However I think that it is important realize that in order to gain more knowledge and awareness we have to consider other possibilities that conflict with our own perspective and our own experience because when we explore those possibilities we broaden our awareness into another way of perceiving things. It can help us come up with ideas faster and solve complex problems at the drop of a dime. We can look at things through other people’s eyes more accurately and with more compassion and we can see life the way that they see it and that will lead to greater connection and intimacy among people as well as stretching our awareness in a way that makes us a more full person instead of fragmented which is what the majority of people are.

I honestly don't know anything about expanding awareness or if I do I might use different words. I might consider awareness to be my intuition rather than my imagination although I think they're intertwined

I only get offended by the use of excessive technology that is damaging our chakra system. I don’t care whether or not someone uses god one way or another it’s just something I’ve noticed. People use god to substitute for a multitude of different things that can be happening outside of their perception. If it’s something that makes them feel emotionally good then they say it’s god if it’s something that makes them feel emotionally bad they say it’s the devil. This is a very low level form of spirituality that needs to be expounded upon in order for us to be more comfortable and secure with these outside energies. Ignorance leads to confusion and confusion leads to fear and fear leads to powerful people and organizations controlling the masses with that fear and influencing the direction of our society with promises of a better future that is technology based and science based.

Fear also makes you a match to lower level energies that are not as enlightened as others and do not have your best interests at heart. They will manipulate you and cause suffering in your life if you go into the spiritual planes with fear and shame or lack of power and confidence and other unresolved emotional or psychological issues. And that is when people invoke the devil as the cause of their unfortunate experience and they will most likely become born again Christians.

I dislike invasive technology as well. You might call me a hypocrite for using a computer but I'm not on it all day and I can't stand messing with phones. They're kind of invasive to me and I notice when I haven't used a phone in a while I feel more relaxed

 

[ovenbakedskittles]

I've read this idea; that we all astral travel but remembering it is rare if the person hasn't worked on their technique or even consciously did it at will while awake, for example. It's not a view I understand so I'll just leave it at that

That is a result of the incompatibility between higher dimensional perspectives with our own. Our current society is ignorant towards spiritual practices and so most people aren’t familiar with the nuance and subtleties of the experience.

I think everybody's different but I don't actually know what others do, I guess. I mean fear of the unknown can hold one back I guess but it doesn't work that way for me so I have no clue how that process works. I think if I found myself suddenly afraid, I wouldn't be able to astral project due to adrenaline basically blocking the experience

The astral imagination (if that's a thing) is something unique and limitless compared to an earthly, cerebral imagination. At least in my experience. I've had what I call (astral) memories of places which included furniture being in places I didn't know about beforehand but I also have those feelings when fully aware of myself except I don't actually see them if that makes sense. I don't know if you find that interesting. I just thought I'd mention it

The astral imagination is just an extension of the cerebral imagination both being simply two points of perspective. One being the more egocentric personified and localized perspective and the other being the more expansive and collective perspective that is able to view things in entirely different ways that are not limited to your physical earthly way of perceiving things and is able to accommodate for the higher vibrational nature of whatever you are trying to perceive or learn about. Eventually we will be able to adopt the higher astral perspective as a collective community and we will just be in a natural state of perceiving these other dimensions at all times. The cerebral egocentric imagination is usually contaminated and hindered by toxins, sleep deprivation, negative thinking and electromagnetic interference. And that can limit your thinking and your ability to conceive of these higher dimensional thought forms while yet at the same time having some sort of intuitive knowing of the previous thought pattern or image.

True. We should listen to our imagination

I honestly don't know anything about expanding awareness or if I do I might use different words. I might consider awareness to be my intuition rather than my imagination although I think they're intertwined

It’s true. I might be misusing the word imagination at times to simply mean awareness. Imagination has more to do with conceptualization rather than solid objective viewing but it is the precursor that guides you towards that solid knowing.

However intuition goes more by the emotional guidance system and tends to originate in a completely different part in the energy system than imagination and awareness do. Awareness is simply the feeling of being awake and possessing the ability to implement unbiased focus onto your internal or external reality. Imagination is our ability to conceptualize and to reinforce and build energetic patterns that help our learning process and help us evolve into higher thinking and to create better more affective systems that benefit the progression of the human species. These two mechanisms usually reside in the head or third eye area. So in a way they are interconnected but they are not necessarily the same thing.

I dislike invasive technology as well. You might call me a hypocrite for using a computer but I'm not on it all day and I can't stand messing with phones. They're kind of invasive to me and I notice when I haven't used a phone in a while I feel more relaxed

That is because electromagnetic activity destabilizes your whole energy system and does a lot of damage to the third eye chakra which is what imagination and awareness are associated with. This is a calculated consideration of the people who have created these technological inventions that are so prevalent in our modern society. Having this much electromagnetic interference in our energy field automatically blinds the third eye of many people and society as a whole becomes fragmented and lost and creating conflicts amongst eachother and causing more separation and duality and contrast within the social consciousness. The valued people of the world have knowledge of the higher dimensional planes and use it for dehumanization purposes and to intentionally disrupt the chakra system among the masses. Although it is usually not the inventors themselves who have dehumanization tendencies but rather the individuals who are part of the collective unconscious thought. They create secret organizations and oppose the socially established enterprises that are in the forefront of people’s conscious awareness and blackmail the affiliates of those enterprises to create disharmony and confusion within the system and within the public. The majority of the socioeconomic and political structure is built on power struggles and compromises for greater monetary gain and materialistic worldly pleasures.