InChristAlone
Member
Looks like Vitamin D is pretty low, Peat says Vitamin D is parallel to thyroid. Try going tanning for a while. Always seems to lift people's moods.
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Looks like Vitamin D is pretty low, Peat says Vitamin D is parallel to thyroid. Try going tanning for a while. Always seems to lift people's moods.
Hmmm...quite explanatory of what I consistently saw in India within multiple "spiritual communities".This kind of loops into a feeling I have had for awhile that some of my behavior in the past was subconsciously trying to lower my health so that my ego was less pronounced and easier to deal with. Sometimes the sicker you are, the more easy it is to surrender and be open. Not always.
Hmmm...quite explanatory of what I consistently saw in India within multiple "spiritual communities".
P.S. @Tarmander, what a great (thread) blog! How have I missed this until today? Following.
Reading this I just feel like "OMG...someone else GETS it!" Hugs!!Thanks Lisa! I hope it has added some value.
As for the spiritual community, yeah I spent a lot of time bouncing around spiritual groups, getting hooked into one before I saw the hypocrisy and then left. They don't even realize the contradictions in their practices.
They will talk about self empowerment while also urging vegetarian or vegan lifestyles...not understanding that they feel so weak and need the self empowerment because of the diet.
Or they will encourage self responsibility while also embracing the immortal soul and reincarnation...sure is nice if that self responsibility thing doesn't work to have an infinite time line to come back and make it right.
Don't get me started on money...it is just energy you know, just another form of energy. You don't really own it, it just passes through you. Giving that energy brings energy back to you, trust the universe which gives without limit...no one tells you how much it really sucks when you don't have the money to clean your water, have proper plumbing, and air conditioning. Ohh India .
Reading this I just feel like "OMG...someone else GETS it!" Hugs!!
One more thought about "ego". Not sure where (well actually I do - reading your post explains it well) ego bashing came along. Ego is awesome. It is the "I" sense that translates Infinite into human expression. Nothing in physical reality is possible without it - even meditation - think also "Hero's Journey". How it has been interpreted as "Big Bad Bloated Ego" is simply childish. Other things (a complex synthesis of biochemical, emotional, intellectual, vital energy, etc.) are at play in these behaviors and expressions seen in individual humans.
Hmmm....which one are you? LoL...anyway, do keep updating. Following with interest.Ha, hugs right back :). We are Facebook friends now by the way...but will you ever know which one is me?!
Yeah the ego definitely takes some heat. From where I am at it seemed to really ramp up after Tolle's books. He intro-ed me to a lot of spiritual stuff and the masses I think really liked the concept of the ego being the reason for all evil. Ideologies always need a bad guy, and a simple explanation for things making the adherent feel powerful.
Hmmm....which one are you? LoL...anyway, do keep updating. Following with interest.
I think your example poses some important questions: what is healthy? Biomarkers good and mind depressed, avoiding life? OR emotional/energetic health, happy, engaged in life and not perfect biomarkers - more adipose, etc.
Powerful thoughts here @Tarmander. NEVER too deep for me :-D I also think just approaching life from a biochemical perspective can be reductionistic. I see this occasionally on this platform and breathe a sigh when other layers of complexity enter the conversation like this one. That said, the biochemical layer comprises a powerful substratum for human expression and not to be overlooked and needs complex understanding to support healthy wellbeing.That is a good question, and if people are seeking health, they really need to answer that. I have thought about it quite a bit, and I think it involves all the different aspects of us.
First, I think your mindset and time horizon should be for this life, and this life only. Reincarnation or heaven may be true, they may not be. The truth is you just cannot know. I know, people are channeling angels and past lives...What I do know is that people use these beliefs to make real world decisions, put off having important conversations with loved ones, and allow incompetence in their life with a shrug. These fantasies about eternity and forgiveness end up being comforts for their seeming lack in this world. You will be closer to the Truth if you treat this life as your one and only. So a mindset that investigates and lives only from what it knows, and not what it hopes irrationally, is key to health. The caveat is that people who do believe in pretty lies often have less stress and can live longer. I have seen carefree, happy, and healthy old people who live partially in their own made up dimension, and to destroy that I think would destroy them.
Second, your health investigations and experiments should be oriented towards finding meaning in your life. Meaning is a feeling, or maybe a muscle, that all humans are equip with. The muscle is also not easily transferable. It is not the same for everyone, but it starts to rhyme the more you see it. Meaning is like a signal from our brains that we are on the right track, that we are living in truth and doing the right thing. Ray's focus on serotonin really meshes well with this. Serotonin is where meaning goes to die. Lowering serotonin from supplements is necessary in many ways, but your life should also become structured in a way to lower it naturally. You want your life to require your close attention, your rational thought, your constant reevaluation of your surroundings, a constant striving that feels good, difficult, yet relaxing, and right.
I could go on and on really. But I think real health comes from seeking meaning, which is a feeling fed by truth and reality. Use Aristotle's principles to get there. You can get there with Plato, but it is not truth, but your own fantasy. Whoever is the least stressed wins at the health game, and you can get there with lies, but they will eat away everything of you.
What do you think? I realize this got a bit deep, but it's fun to have these conversations. You help others in a professional capacity right? What do you find about the healthiest people?
Powerful thoughts here @Tarmander. NEVER too deep for me :-D I also think just approaching life from a biochemical perspective can be reductionistic. I see this occasionally on this platform and breathe a sigh when other layers of complexity enter the conversation like this one. That said, the biochemical layer comprises a powerful substratum for human expression and not to be overlooked and needs complex understanding to support healthy wellbeing.
A few thoughts:
*the reincarnation/other/after life (heaven) is "good", "desired" ---> earth life, body, human expression is "bad" "undesired" thinking is messed up, misguided leading to what you described above and additionally to learned helplessness of sorts: "This is my fate/karma, I can't escape." "I will handle my problems in my next life", etc.
AND...
*There is a tangible self/personal empowerment generated when an experience/belief in a deeper, foundational, Infinite substratum occurs for an individual.
AND...
*dancing on the fine sharp line to balance these two paths provides the best opportunity for deep Presence and that stimulates profound wellbeing:
--> ascending: afterlife = good, leave the body, go beyond the body, etc., and
---> descending: human expression = life = good, embodying Infinite in human expression
*Nice reflections on meaning. AGREE. And the most important, interesting, empowering, life generating, life supporting aspect of this? This meaning is individually driven and determined. The connection with lowering serotonin is fabulous and have experienced it myself.
*you pose another good question: delusion, illusion and reality. What are they? Do universal experiences/definitions of these exist? Is delusional for you delusional for me? I tend to see yes and no equally appropriate here. Some universal foundational definitions apply in terms of social beings - we all pay rent and have a level of social responsibility and contribution necessary by the very nature of our humanness. Other than those the "yes" intertwined definitions, the individual decisions of personal illusions, delusions, reality must be our hero's journey to meaning and living in congruence with our definitions, meanings, passions.
*Love your Aristotle/Plato differentiation! I also prefer Aristotle's grounding of Infinite into human experience so human expression can be maximized and explored.
*In my experience, the healthiest people express some of these qualities/behaviors/beliefs:
--> Strong Presence/Vibrancy
--> Chooses food/substances/thoughts/activities that spiral them upwards (what those are specifically are individually determined) OVER choosing food/substances/thoughts/activities that spiral them downwards.
--> Engage in a beautiful dance with life that maintains a systemic balance that shows in outwardly balanced behavior and decisions. This means present to all of life and accepting/embracing all of life - good, bad, ugly, pleasant and unpleasant equally. Thus having figured out their personal definitions of delusion, illusion, reality.
--> consciously bring Infiniteness into their human expression seeing life as a creative expression navigated and directed by s(S)elf. Thus knowing they have personal choice in responding to life versus living life as a victim, no control, life against me.
--> Knowing self worthiness versus seeing self as unworthy and undeserving.
Oh my! Now it is my turn to go on and on. Does this all make sense @Tarmander?
Good thoughts and doubts Especially where it concerns the balance of "finding where it is uplifting, and where it is not."Yes it makes sense. Approaching all this from the biochemical, and focusing on that can be a bit close minded at first, but like any discipline, it can open the longer you pursue it. You will never do yourself harm by getting more detailed, by learning more biochemistry and the nitty gritty. Confused? Yes, but that is not so bad so long as you keep going.
Where I find trouble from what you have written about the afterlife is finding where it is uplifting, and where it is not. You talked a lot about balance, but balance is not actually a virtue. It is not a good in and of itself. Where is "the fine sharp line to balance these two paths to provide the best opportunity for deep presence..."? Could just having some small concept of an afterlife do irreparable harm? I admit, the afterlife is great if you are trying to motivate soldiers to die for you. I also admit that I desperately want there to be an afterlife of love and fullness. I want reincarnation to try again. I want all these to be true, but they are just ideas, the warmth they provide is small, and so I must be small to be warmed by them.
In the spiritual groups I was apart of, there was always the undercurrent of the other-world. There were different concepts of it, but most were positive. I am not sure what the correct way is to use these concepts, but I can say for sure that these ideas were doing those people harm. They were all letting lies, evil, and irresponsibility a pass. They were all detaching, but of course detaching "in love." Meaning I will still smile and seem caring but not put much energy into anything. Spiritual people patholigize concepts they have a hard time with by adding love to them. Detaching, in love, breaking up unhealthy relationships, in love, quitting jobs, in love, letting go of beliefs, in love. They were all letting the world they had been given decay, handing their children something worse, something more debt ridden and challenging.
As far as delusion, illusion, reality, and whether they are the same for everyone, or found, or whatnot. That goes back to Aristotle. Is the world objective, or is the world your perception of it? The answer to this question is always either one or the other, and you must make that decision, and it cannot be relegated. If you side with Aristotle, there can be no reality that is for one and not another. If you take the middle path and say a bit of both, then you side with Plato because the objective world of Aristotle has no gray. The question is, why do you need another world? Why do you need Plato's cave? Why do you need an afterlife? You can answer this for yourself by simply asking honestly, what in my life would be unacceptable to me if, when I die, that is it? All those spiritual people, for all their smiles and love, hate life. They think life is brutish, violent, cold, and horrible. Just listen to their version of heaven and you can see what they hate about reality.
My question for you is, how did these people who you work with that are healthy find balance. How did they do it? What were the details of their actions that I could apply, or anyone could apply? Why did they feel worthiness? Was that attached to a universal I am worthy, or was it I am worthy because I do XYZ?
*Through a multilayered approach addressing all layers of self structure over time (not all at once). A few examples:
1) neural placidity understanding - retrained low road neural pathways that spiraled them down. (Loads of techniques/practices out there)
2) found a physical connection with movement that increased sense of wellbeing
3) identifying what juiced them - passion, meaning, many words to describe this - then identified immediate and mid term and long term steps to move toward their meaning.
4) embracing emotional experience - not judging it as bad and using vital energy to keep it away.
5) became honest and real with partner (if they had one) - improved communication skills
6) reminding themselves that they might not awake or be alive the next morning. Then asking: Am I satisfied with how I lived my potential "last day alive"? Would I change anything? Did I have any regrets?
7) Changed dietary habits to support more life energy.
8) Shifted out of victimhood in all aspects of self/life. Hard one to do to be truthful. Needs vigilance.
What were the details of their actions that I could apply, or anyone could apply?
*Maybe my list above above answers this?
Why did they feel worthiness? Was that attached to a universal I am worthy, or was it I am worthy because I do:
*I am worthy - universal, simply from existing itself AND does not negate action - beingness and becomingness. This is why I can never reduce to either/or, and prefer to expand my perspective to both/and. Both at play - maybe needed at different times and ratios - again balance between "amness" and "doingness".
Interesting thoughts on Universal worthiness. I see that most of our philosophical systems of yore - persevering even today are focused on keeping the individual down, suppressed - "not okay", wrong etc. so one must reach "enlightenment", resolve self of "sin", be good to reach heaven, pray multiple times a day to uplift the "human" because human body or self is below the "God", have to dissolve ego and self into nothingness and on and on. This whole story about what a human is has been discussed for so long and I think we are moving into a new story - albeit gradually. That new story doesn't seem to make humanness wrong or lower as in the past. This is a slow change and will take generations in my opinion.This list is good! I liked number 2 and number 4 as areas I am currently paying attention to. Judging definitely takes vital energy, I did not think of it that way.
Number 5 is always good, improving communication improves thinking.
Number 8 is difficult, and it is not. Jumping off a high place with a bungee cord attached to you may be very hard, but it is actually just a step off a ledge. You do it all the time when you go on stairs. So it is difficult, but it is clear. Victimhood all comes down to living, and whether you want to live. Victims do not want to live, and the larger a victim you are, the more obsessed with unlife you are. A good path for victims is why they do not want to live, what about their life has been so abhorrent to want death. Seems like its always a childhood thing.
I asked you about worthiness because that is another thing I see quite a bit of in modern spiritual groups...and even in teachers and pseudo-psych experts. This concept that you must have some worthiness around being human. I am not sure what the point of that is, other then to combat some existential angst. I was recently listening to Jordan Peterson and he talked about the fallout from abandoning God and theism. God is dead etc. When they abandoned the meaning inherent in their life and structure, people will have to turn to nihilism, or ideological totalitarianism. In other words, this worthiness that people seem to have for no reason at all, but just existing, seems to be fighting nihilism. If you do not have a feeling of universal worthiness, then the weight of your existence without value presses down on you. I think just a couple centuries ago, this concept of self esteem that has been gobbed onto would seem so foreign. You would feel worthy for what you do, not for who you are. We all are. Universal worthiness is worthless really.
I liked your list though. Could be clearer, but for coming up with it in like an hour it's great.
What do you mean by converting to Vitamin K?:In fact I have been eating like 10 pears a day, as they are in season and seem to easily convert to Vitamin K in my body.
I'm choosing a personal guru. Giraffe can sing, Travis morphs from a pterodactylus into a human in a day, haidut offer some supplements. What sets you apart?
What do you mean by converting to Vitamin K?