Awakening or losing your mind?

[Geoff-Allen]

Hope you're all okay or on your path to being okay ...

How many of you feel like you may be losing your mind?

I did a bit of Googling and found this site -

Sometimes it takes you by surprise (you have a sudden spiritual experience) and sometimes the “Love and Light” type of spiritual path turns into a path of pure Hell.

Where there once was light, love and bliss, it all one day turns into a spiritual crisis that makes you think you might be losing your mind and going crazy.

It’s called the spiritual awakening process, and in a way you are losing your mind.

You are losing your old mind, the ego mind, and you’re in the midst of a shift in consciousness (or consciousness is shifting back to itself/Truth).

This process can be, and often is, hellish.

Some individuals are even on the verge to committing suicide.

It’s ‘normal’ to experience severe pain and agony in the “ego death” process, and the stronger and denser the ego is, the more difficult it is.

For more - try this page -

When it feels like you're losing your mind (Awakening Process)

Wishing you all the very best!

 

[Native]

Sometimes it takes you by surprise (you have a sudden spiritual experience) and sometimes the “Love and Light” type of spiritual path turns into a path of pure Hell.

Where there once was light, love and bliss, it all one day turns into a spiritual crisis that makes you think you might be losing your mind and going crazy.

Hello Geoff,
I´ve been there and done that . . .

It is known in Native Tribes that we makes some natural shifts in different stages of our life, where we have to say goodbye to the actual mind settings in order to find our new way as we grow physically and spiritually.

If you´re having troubles in these transitional periods, you have to focus on "your actual way of living and meditate on where to go next".

I´m sure you´ll get the answer from within your self, maybe in a dream or in a vivid vision, which points out your next step in your life.

Best Wishes from
Ivar Nielsen

 

[oldbadger]

Hello Geoff.....
Very interesting OP......
I would have shifted before but have not. I think this is because any mind spirit shift might distance me from my wife.

Maybe this is how a dear loved one can anchor a person. And so I guess that I am anchored?

 

[Aupmanyav]

Right, George, it can be difficult for people, and some are led to insanity, by themselves or by their gurus. A guru in India who is now in prison is reported to have had some 400 men neutered by saying that they will be closer to God. Brain wash. But there are ways to be anchored and progress in spiritual life, BhagawadGita is great for that.

 

[Geoff-Allen]

Thanks for the responses.

It is an intriguing question and a little more searching Google leads us here -

The site is called amigoingmad and it's here in Australia ... may be worth checkin out ...

Religion, Spirituality and Psychiatry

All the best!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

Wasn't looking for anything in particular - then I found this site and the first item I viewed was titled:

"Being Crazy in a Sick Society is Actually Healthy"

Here's a taste -

To rebel against the herd is the most difficult thing you can do, because you need the guts to be honest with yourself and others. To voice the truth in a world filled with deception is quite a risky thing to do. Speaking the truth means going against the current of tradition, which in turn means confronting the crowd mentality and going through immense hardship because of that.

Full article here -

Being Crazy in a Sick Society is Actually Healthy

All the best!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

Her's another interesting search for all you Google-lovers -

A spiritual awakening is not always the best feeling in the world

All the best!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

Plus this quote -

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society"

~ Krishnamurti

 

[Vinayaka]

Slow but steady wins the race. When 'awakening' is taken step by step, over a ton of time, there is far less chance of falling off the deep end, as can happen. Patience ... there is no hurry, it's happening regardless.

 

[Geoff-Allen]

Slow but steady wins the race. When 'awakening' is taken step by step, over a ton of time, there is far less chance of falling off the deep end, as can happen. Patience ... there is no hurry, it's happening regardless.

Thanks for the advice!

Some awakenings are more "sudden" than others - they can occur to the unlikeliest individuals

All the best!

 

[Twilight Hue]

Awakenings always tend to have the comparative effect of a sugar high followed by settling in.

 

[Vinayaka]

Thanks for the advice!

Some awakenings are more "sudden" than others - they can occur to the unlikeliest individuals

All the best!

Yes, that's true. I haven't actually seen it myself. Small things, sure. But generally in my case, when someone goes on about 'spiritual awakening' and you hear about it a lot from them, my experience has been they fall a lot harder than they supposedly went 'up'. Their egos don't handle it, and the first thing they have to do is tell everyone. Spiritual ego takes hold, and they turn themselves into spiritual pompous asses. They brag while being unable to hold down a job, or be reliable at all. They develop a condescending attitude for others, and soon enough they're wondering why their friends don't even want to associate with them. So they blame the friends for not seeing the newfound 'spirituality'. Life goes on.They think to themselves that they're at the top of the mountain, but have no idea whatsoever how to stay there. One flash of inner light, or one moment of bliss, a touch into the reality, and they think it's permanent. It's not.

One time I saw a person go into 'the shakes'. Some would consider it a spiritual 'kundalini' experience. In reality, at least from my conversations with the young man himself, and friends who knew him, it was nothing more than attention seeking behaviour, like one would see in a grade 4 classroom.

OTOH, I have seen some true changes. As you may know, I'm familiar with a certain monastery where young monks are trained in the finer arts of 'spiritual awakening'. I've had the opportunity to observe a few people in this process over many years, sometimes I've seen them in gaps of ten years apart. Just as you can more easily recognise a child' changes in age gaps, the young monk, although an adult the first time, and still an adult the second time, there is a change. Mostly they get quieter, humbler, happier, but it's rather subtle too.

In my particular school of Hinduism, we take it purposefully slow. What some people would see as a goal of 3 years, we'd put it at 30, or longer. The hard and fast belief in reincarnation really affects that. There is always another life, and another one after that, for the soul to progress. So it's slow. The goal is to gain some ground towards it.

 

[jfietsam]

I'm going to start off by saying I only read the original post. Now that I got that out of the way, I will say I had the same thing happen to me. In a single moment, I felt saved by God about a year and a half ago which set me on a large scale research project into religion. In the process, I have consulted spirits and have been blessed on one end and cursed on the other.

What I'm learning though is that I'm just supposed to live as normal of a life as possible. It's a tough task for sure though. What I've also learned is that they diagnose people like us with schizophrenia. I have taken one antipsychotic, and I said no way in Hell am I doing that again. A part of me believes God let me know they aren't for me, and that He is far stronger than antipsychotics. But then again, I don't really know that He is considering they gave me a low dose, so don't take my word on that part. That's simply my belief. I've posted on another forum about the Book of Proverbs and how that's helped me find a new understanding of God.

I left out how it helped me stabilize when it first happened to me. It took me around six months to balance out. I had to learn how to submit my urge to lash out on those around me all over again. I had to learn to find my own balance of serving God and serving money(I honestly still haven't found that though).

I don't have any real advice for you though besides letting you take it up with God one on one through the Bible as I did. For me, it was a bizarre experience that I cannot put into words for you. Reading Proverbs was simply an amazing gift from God that opened my heart and eyes to Him in ways I had never experienced before. It's not easy living with an awakening, that's for sure, but it's also not all that easy following God all the time either. If the Bible's not for you, then I sure hope you find your help my friend. All I can do is share my experience.

 

[Geoff-Allen]

Yes, that's true. I haven't actually seen it myself. Small things, sure. But generally in my case, when someone goes on about 'spiritual awakening' and you hear about it a lot from them, my experience has been they fall a lot harder than they supposedly went 'up'. Their egos don't handle it, and the first thing they have to do is tell everyone. Spiritual ego takes hold, and they turn themselves into spiritual pompous asses. They brag while being unable to hold down a job, or be reliable at all. They develop a condescending attitude for others, and soon enough they're wondering why their friends don't even want to associate with them. So they blame the friends for not seeing the newfound 'spirituality'. Life goes on.They think to themselves that they're at the top of the mountain, but have no idea whatsoever how to stay there. One flash of inner light, or one moment of bliss, a touch into the reality, and they think it's permanent. It's not.

One time I saw a person go into 'the shakes'. Some would consider it a spiritual 'kundalini' experience. In reality, at least from my conversations with the young man himself, and friends who knew him, it was nothing more than attention seeking behaviour, like one would see in a grade 4 classroom.

OTOH, I have seen some true changes. As you may know, I'm familiar with a certain monastery where young monks are trained in the finer arts of 'spiritual awakening'. I've had the opportunity to observe a few people in this process over many years, sometimes I've seen them in gaps of ten years apart. Just as you can more easily recognise a child' changes in age gaps, the young monk, although an adult the first time, and still an adult the second time, there is a change. Mostly they get quieter, humbler, happier, but it's rather subtle too.

In my particular school of Hinduism, we take it purposefully slow. What some people would see as a goal of 3 years, we'd put it at 30, or longer. The hard and fast belief in reincarnation really affects that. There is always another life, and another one after that, for the soul to progress. So it's slow. The goal is to gain some ground towards it.

Thanks for the input - I am in the position of being the only person I know who has had anything like an "awakening" and the shrinks all say it is just an hallucination & delusion. So I am just going by instinct and that has been a matter of trial and error with some big errors along the way.

It has made me far more compassionate as you never quite know what someone may be wrestling with in their head

All the best!

 

[Vinayaka]

Thanks for the input - I am in the position of being the only person I know who has had anything like an "awakening" and the shrinks all say it is just an hallucination & delusion. So I am just going by instinct and that has been a matter of trial and error with some big errors along the way.

It has made me far more compassionate as you never quite know what someone may be wrestling with in their head

All the best!

Many shrinks come off as condescending. Certainly they won't understand much outside of 'being delusional'. That's their training. It takes a long time to become a psychiatrist as you have to learn detachment from patient's problems. It's all a tough call, and I'm sure some very spiritual people have ended up in asylums.

There are other strategies for dealing with this sort of 'stuff'. One is to work on 'being grounded'. Doing gardening is a great activity. I'm not sure if the idiom 'being grounded' is related to that.

 

[Geoff-Allen]

Many shrinks come off as condescending. Certainly they won't understand much outside of 'being delusional'. That's their training. It takes a long time to become a psychiatrist as you have to learn detachment from patient's problems. It's all a tough call, and I'm sure some very spiritual people have ended up in asylums.

There are other strategies for dealing with this sort of 'stuff'. One is to work on 'being grounded'. Doing gardening is a great activity. I'm not sure if the idiom 'being grounded' is related to that.

You are spot on - if you do a search for "Antipsychiatry" or psychiatric survivors - you find a LOT of people who criticise conventional psychiatric wisdom & view of reality ...

Thanks again.

 

[Geoff-Allen]

Well-being is perhaps the most obvious symptom of spiritual awakening generated by wakefulness.

Awakened individuals may not live in a state of complete uninterrupted bliss, but they are generally much more content than other people. One major source of this well-being is freedom from the psychological discord that plagues human beings in our sleep state — habitual worry about the future, feelings of negativity about the past, and a general sense of unease. Spiritually awakened people are much less prone to negative states such as boredom, loneliness, and dissatisfaction. The atmosphere of their inner world is less charged with negativity and much more harmonious.

The feeling of well-being in spiritual awakening is related to a sense of appreciation. In wakefulness, people are more likely to feel a sense of gratitude for their health, freedom, loved ones, and other good things in their lives. In our sleep state, we likely take these things for granted and fail to appreciate their true value. Appreciation is an important sign and symptom of spiritual awakening, especially in terms of well-being because it helps free us from wanting. In Buddhist terms, we become free of craving and so free of the psychological suffering this creates.

From this site -

18 Unmistakable Signs and Symptoms of Spiritual Awakening

All the best!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

This site has a page about "shadow work" - very comprehensive -

Every young child knows kindness, love, and generosity, but he also expresses anger, selfishness, and greed.

These emotions are part of our shared humanity. But as we grow up, something happens.

Traits associated with “being good” are accepted, while others associated with “being bad” are rejected.

We all have basic human needs. These needs include physiological needs, safety and security needs, and needs for belonging.

These needs are biological and instinctual.

As children, when we expressed certain parts of ourselves, we received negative cues from our environment.

Full article -

A Definitive Guide to Shadow Work: How to Contact, Get to Know, and Integrate Your Dark Side

All the best!

 

[Geoff-Allen]

"10 Best books in psychology to learn the forces that drive you".

https://www.sparringmind.com/psychology-books/

More to explore ...

 

[Geoff-Allen]

Facing your dark emotions can be a key 2 a happier life -

Researchers Explain Why You Must Face Your Darkest Emotions to Be Happy

All the best!