I feel torn

[Kapalika]

I cannot help but very often, particularly as of late, feeling like I'm struggling to find a balance or what direction I should go.

Let me explain a little bit about my spiritual past and what I believe.

Spoiler: a bit of history

When I was a kid I was pretty much a pantheist but I didn't know it. For a while as a teenager I had a stint with Christianity but that didn't really work out too well and I was hating myself the entire time. I eventually left it when I was in highschool and didn't really know what to do, I felt at one point like I might be an atheist but that didn't last terribly long.

Eventually I stumbled on Satanism and a few months later started making my own little personal religion right around the time I had a very odd dream where I met a woman. A few months after that highschool ended and I was reading more on Satanism and I was reading about succubi... and it was when I was doing this I felt a presence that I recognized from my dream I had had over half a year before. I don't recall when that exact moment happened, but at some point between reading about Satanism daily and with this spirit and me wanting it... I caved and realized I was a Satanist.

The next year were pretty nutty but I had a lot of interesting experiences during it. I was fully convinced of theism and the power spirits. I guess really I was a combo of poly/pantheist but that's beside the point.

Eventually my power faded a little bit and I found a niche in blood magic and divination. There was a friend I talked to online, who one day I shared some of my divination with. They asked a lot about how it was going, and one day I asked why and they showed me some concepts in Tantra I hadn't ever heard of before that lined up perfectly. I had known them a while and they over time taught me a lot and showed me a system that was very close to the Satanic religion I had constructed and eerily matched my divination.

This system, as far as I can tell now, was along the veins of thought in Vajrayana, Trika, Kuala, ect We eventually parted partially due to differences in beliefs. Anyways I stayed considering myself a Satanist for some time. I dated a couple of witches after this and around sometime about 4 years ago I decided I was a Shaivite in a way that fitted my system. But after a while I felt like I wasn't authentic and I for a while went to explore more orthodox schools of Hinduism before eventually coming back to my more LHP roots but by then my power was totally gone.

I struggled a lot with making things feel like they "fit". At some point I decided that the root of what I believed was Shaivite in foundation and that Satanism was an extension of that belief through my left hand path practices. But the truth is that feels like a lie. I was a Satanist and a Luciferian before I was ever a Shaivite and while my foundation does line up almost perfectly with that Shaivite system philosophically speaking I can't help but think that maybe I'm a Satanist first because I was a Satanist first.

And so I get to a problem of balance. Which am I more of? Which do I refer to for the root of my power and belief? I so want it to be Shiva but I keep feeling that this is just me trying to force something, like my understanding and knowledge of it is inadequate. And yet Satanism is so intuitive even if a lot of it is silly... it's more instinctual and natural, and I feel more confident in what I do know about it and practice about it.

But it also goes deeper than that. I keep feeling like this darkness that wants me to come back, and I rebuff it. I want to experience it but I get this weird sensation of yo-yoing between wanting darkness but not wanting to be seen as crazy or evil and then not minding and then caring again and then wanting to be just a Shaivite because somehow Satanism is driving me crazy but then I'm only confident as Satanic and I don't want to blatantly mix them because i don't want people to think that Shiva or Hinduism is Satanic to all these other thoughts. It's just so hard to figure out what direction to go, what balance to have and I can't figure out what I want to do. It's like no matter what I do I'm torn by guilt and shame and it doesn't make sense to me. It's like there is a war in me and I can't tell who is right and what I should do and the more I study and meditate the more I realize they are one in t he same but I can't seem to break that duality holding me.

And this isn't even touching my conflicting feelings about the reality of spirits and magic. I'm a pretty skeptical person but I felt like I lost part of myself when I stopped believing in supernaturalism. I'm probably a nontheist and I'm conflicted about the reality of them even if I don't think it's supernatural. But that is just a side note, really for me the greater struggle is this whole Satanic/LHP vs Shaivite thing. Weirdly enough you can be LHP and Shaivite or LHP and Satanic but for some reason there is like this sense of anxiety when I want to combine Shaivism and Satanism even though how I've made this system it works at least theoretically. But I can't bring myself to drop one to fix it either.

Any advice?

 

[allfoak]

I cannot help but very often, particularly as of late, feeling like I'm struggling to find a balance or what direction I should go.

Let me explain a little bit about my spiritual past and what I believe.

Spoiler: a bit of history

When I was a kid I was pretty much a pantheist but I didn't know it. For a while as a teenager I had a stint with Christianity but that didn't really work out too well and I was hating myself the entire time. I eventually left it when I was in highschool and didn't really know what to do, I felt at one point like I might be an atheist but that didn't last terribly long.

Eventually I stumbled on Satanism and a few months later started making my own little personal religion right around the time I had a very odd dream where I met a woman. A few months after that highschool ended and I was reading more on Satanism and I was reading about succubi... and it was when I was doing this I felt a presence that I recognized from my dream I had had over half a year before. I don't recall when that exact moment happened, but at some point between reading about Satanism daily and with this spirit and me wanting it... I caved and realized I was a Satanist.

This was at a particularly hard part of my life, and a couple of weeks later I attempted suicide; abuse had pushed me over the edge. When I told someone, the only person I could tell, the person who was abusing me, it didn't go over well and I found myself living for the first time totally alone.

The next year were pretty nutty but I had a lot of interesting experiences during it. I was fully convinced of theism and the power spirits. I guess really I was a combo of poly/pantheist but that's beside the point.

Eventually my power faded a little bit and I found a niche in blood magic and divination. There was a friend I talked to online, who one day I shared some of my divination with. They asked a lot about how it was going, and one day I asked why and they showed me some concepts in Tantra I hadn't ever heard of before that lined up perfectly. I had known them a while and they over time taught me a lot and showed me a system that was very close to the Satanic religion I had constructed and eerily matched my divination.

This system, as far as I can tell now, was along the veins of thought in Vajrayana, Trika, Kuala, ect We eventually parted partially due to differences in beliefs. Anyways I stayed considering myself a Satanist for some time. I dated a couple of witches after this and around sometime about 4 years ago I decided I was a Shaivite in a way that fitted my system. But after a while I felt like I wasn't authentic and I for a while went to explore more orthodox schools of Hinduism before eventually coming back to my more LHP roots but by then my power was totally gone.

I struggled a lot with making things feel like they "fit". At some point I decided that the root of what I believed was Shaivite in foundation and that Satanism was an extension of that belief through my left hand path practices. But the truth is that feels like a lie. I was a Satanist and a Luciferian before I was ever a Shaivite and while my foundation does line up almost perfectly with that Shaivite system philosophically speaking I can't help but think that maybe I'm a Satanist first because I was a Satanist first.

And so I get to a problem of balance. Which am I more of? Which do I refer to for the root of my power and belief? I so want it to be Shiva but I keep feeling that this is just me trying to force something, like my understanding and knowledge of it is inadequate. And yet Satanism is so intuitive even if a lot of it is silly... it's more instinctual and natural, and I feel more confident in what I do know about it and practice about it.

But it also goes deeper than that. I keep feeling like this darkness that wants me to come back, and I rebuff it. I want to experience it but I get this weird sensation of yo-yoing between wanting darkness but not wanting to be seen as crazy or evil and then not minding and then caring again and then wanting to be just a Shaivite because somehow Satanism is driving me crazy but then I'm only confident as Satanic and I don't want to blatantly mix them because i don't want people to think that Shiva or Hinduism is Satanic to all these other thoughts. It's just so hard to figure out what direction to go, what balance to have and I can't figure out what I want to do. It's like no matter what I do I'm torn by guilt and shame and it doesn't make sense to me. It's like there is a war in me and I can't tell who is right and what I should do and the more I study and meditate the more I realize they are one in t he same but I can't seem to break that duality holding me.

And this isn't even touching my conflicting feelings about the reality of spirits and magic. I'm a pretty skeptical person but I felt like I lost part of myself when I stopped believing in supernaturalism. I'm probably a nontheist and I'm conflicted about the reality of them even if I don't think it's supernatural. But that is just a side note, really for me the greater struggle is this whole Satanic/LHP vs Shaivite thing. Weirdly enough you can be LHP and Shaivite or LHP and Satanic but for some reason there is like this sense of anxiety when I want to combine Shaivism and Satanism even though how I've made this system it works at least theoretically. But I can't bring myself to drop one to fix it either.

Any advice?

Follow your bliss.

 

[Aiviu]

Find your sincere heart.

If love is the answer you're home.

 

[Lirille]

I'm sorry you're feeling torn like that. I think it may help if you stop trying to label yourself. Other people may sound like they have all figured out, but the truth is no one fits in a neat little box. The ones that think they do are probably not wholly sincere with themselves.

You sound like you're limiting yourself because you're afraid of what other people will think of you. I would say we shouldn't care about what people think of us, but I know that's not realistic, because we really do. So how about: if don't feel confident about how people will see your beliefs, simply don't tell anyone about them for the time being. It's better to be honest with yourself than to try to conform your beliefs to other people's expectations. Your beliefs and your spiritual practice are your own.

 

[Brickjectivity]

...Any advice?...

Sounds like you are a little discouraged or tired. Maybe put off the decision for a better time. Its a wild guess, not like I know. I don't.

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

I cannot help but very often, particularly as of late, feeling like I'm struggling to find a balance or what direction I should go.

Let me explain a little bit about my spiritual past and what I believe.

Spoiler: a bit of history

When I was a kid I was pretty much a pantheist but I didn't know it. For a while as a teenager I had a stint with Christianity but that didn't really work out too well and I was hating myself the entire time. I eventually left it when I was in highschool and didn't really know what to do, I felt at one point like I might be an atheist but that didn't last terribly long.

Eventually I stumbled on Satanism and a few months later started making my own little personal religion right around the time I had a very odd dream where I met a woman. A few months after that highschool ended and I was reading more on Satanism and I was reading about succubi... and it was when I was doing this I felt a presence that I recognized from my dream I had had over half a year before. I don't recall when that exact moment happened, but at some point between reading about Satanism daily and with this spirit and me wanting it... I caved and realized I was a Satanist.

This was at a particularly hard part of my life, and a couple of weeks later I attempted suicide; abuse had pushed me over the edge. When I told someone, the only person I could tell, the person who was abusing me, it didn't go over well and I found myself living for the first time totally alone.

The next year were pretty nutty but I had a lot of interesting experiences during it. I was fully convinced of theism and the power spirits. I guess really I was a combo of poly/pantheist but that's beside the point.

Eventually my power faded a little bit and I found a niche in blood magic and divination. There was a friend I talked to online, who one day I shared some of my divination with. They asked a lot about how it was going, and one day I asked why and they showed me some concepts in Tantra I hadn't ever heard of before that lined up perfectly. I had known them a while and they over time taught me a lot and showed me a system that was very close to the Satanic religion I had constructed and eerily matched my divination.

This system, as far as I can tell now, was along the veins of thought in Vajrayana, Trika, Kuala, ect We eventually parted partially due to differences in beliefs. Anyways I stayed considering myself a Satanist for some time. I dated a couple of witches after this and around sometime about 4 years ago I decided I was a Shaivite in a way that fitted my system. But after a while I felt like I wasn't authentic and I for a while went to explore more orthodox schools of Hinduism before eventually coming back to my more LHP roots but by then my power was totally gone.

I struggled a lot with making things feel like they "fit". At some point I decided that the root of what I believed was Shaivite in foundation and that Satanism was an extension of that belief through my left hand path practices. But the truth is that feels like a lie. I was a Satanist and a Luciferian before I was ever a Shaivite and while my foundation does line up almost perfectly with that Shaivite system philosophically speaking I can't help but think that maybe I'm a Satanist first because I was a Satanist first.

And so I get to a problem of balance. Which am I more of? Which do I refer to for the root of my power and belief? I so want it to be Shiva but I keep feeling that this is just me trying to force something, like my understanding and knowledge of it is inadequate. And yet Satanism is so intuitive even if a lot of it is silly... it's more instinctual and natural, and I feel more confident in what I do know about it and practice about it.

But it also goes deeper than that. I keep feeling like this darkness that wants me to come back, and I rebuff it. I want to experience it but I get this weird sensation of yo-yoing between wanting darkness but not wanting to be seen as crazy or evil and then not minding and then caring again and then wanting to be just a Shaivite because somehow Satanism is driving me crazy but then I'm only confident as Satanic and I don't want to blatantly mix them because i don't want people to think that Shiva or Hinduism is Satanic to all these other thoughts. It's just so hard to figure out what direction to go, what balance to have and I can't figure out what I want to do. It's like no matter what I do I'm torn by guilt and shame and it doesn't make sense to me. It's like there is a war in me and I can't tell who is right and what I should do and the more I study and meditate the more I realize they are one in t he same but I can't seem to break that duality holding me.

And this isn't even touching my conflicting feelings about the reality of spirits and magic. I'm a pretty skeptical person but I felt like I lost part of myself when I stopped believing in supernaturalism. I'm probably a nontheist and I'm conflicted about the reality of them even if I don't think it's supernatural. But that is just a side note, really for me the greater struggle is this whole Satanic/LHP vs Shaivite thing. Weirdly enough you can be LHP and Shaivite or LHP and Satanic but for some reason there is like this sense of anxiety when I want to combine Shaivism and Satanism even though how I've made this system it works at least theoretically. But I can't bring myself to drop one to fix it either.

Any advice?

In my opinion you have your **** together when it comes to these matters on a much higher level than the majority of people that post here. Just keep on keepin' on, dig?

Darkness, light, good, evil..Mere abstractions. The universe doesn't care about our primitive dualities, and both Shiva and Satan represent grinding your heel into such dualistic ideas untill only dust remains.

If you feel like you need myth to fill a part of your psyche, adopt myth. Embrace it, recognize it, use it. The universe is already chalked full of mystery and magic without it, but why deny yourself a valuable tool?

Just so long as you do so with awareness and avoid self deception you can indeed have your cake and also eat it.

/2c

Good luck.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

I cannot help but very often, particularly as of late, feeling like I'm struggling to find a balance or what direction I should go.

Let me explain a little bit about my spiritual past and what I believe.

Spoiler: a bit of history

When I was a kid I was pretty much a pantheist but I didn't know it. For a while as a teenager I had a stint with Christianity but that didn't really work out too well and I was hating myself the entire time. I eventually left it when I was in highschool and didn't really know what to do, I felt at one point like I might be an atheist but that didn't last terribly long.

Eventually I stumbled on Satanism and a few months later started making my own little personal religion right around the time I had a very odd dream where I met a woman. A few months after that highschool ended and I was reading more on Satanism and I was reading about succubi... and it was when I was doing this I felt a presence that I recognized from my dream I had had over half a year before. I don't recall when that exact moment happened, but at some point between reading about Satanism daily and with this spirit and me wanting it... I caved and realized I was a Satanist.

This was at a particularly hard part of my life, and a couple of weeks later I attempted suicide; abuse had pushed me over the edge. When I told someone, the only person I could tell, the person who was abusing me, it didn't go over well and I found myself living for the first time totally alone.

The next year were pretty nutty but I had a lot of interesting experiences during it. I was fully convinced of theism and the power spirits. I guess really I was a combo of poly/pantheist but that's beside the point.

Eventually my power faded a little bit and I found a niche in blood magic and divination. There was a friend I talked to online, who one day I shared some of my divination with. They asked a lot about how it was going, and one day I asked why and they showed me some concepts in Tantra I hadn't ever heard of before that lined up perfectly. I had known them a while and they over time taught me a lot and showed me a system that was very close to the Satanic religion I had constructed and eerily matched my divination.

This system, as far as I can tell now, was along the veins of thought in Vajrayana, Trika, Kuala, ect We eventually parted partially due to differences in beliefs. Anyways I stayed considering myself a Satanist for some time. I dated a couple of witches after this and around sometime about 4 years ago I decided I was a Shaivite in a way that fitted my system. But after a while I felt like I wasn't authentic and I for a while went to explore more orthodox schools of Hinduism before eventually coming back to my more LHP roots but by then my power was totally gone.

I struggled a lot with making things feel like they "fit". At some point I decided that the root of what I believed was Shaivite in foundation and that Satanism was an extension of that belief through my left hand path practices. But the truth is that feels like a lie. I was a Satanist and a Luciferian before I was ever a Shaivite and while my foundation does line up almost perfectly with that Shaivite system philosophically speaking I can't help but think that maybe I'm a Satanist first because I was a Satanist first.

And so I get to a problem of balance. Which am I more of? Which do I refer to for the root of my power and belief? I so want it to be Shiva but I keep feeling that this is just me trying to force something, like my understanding and knowledge of it is inadequate. And yet Satanism is so intuitive even if a lot of it is silly... it's more instinctual and natural, and I feel more confident in what I do know about it and practice about it.

But it also goes deeper than that. I keep feeling like this darkness that wants me to come back, and I rebuff it. I want to experience it but I get this weird sensation of yo-yoing between wanting darkness but not wanting to be seen as crazy or evil and then not minding and then caring again and then wanting to be just a Shaivite because somehow Satanism is driving me crazy but then I'm only confident as Satanic and I don't want to blatantly mix them because i don't want people to think that Shiva or Hinduism is Satanic to all these other thoughts. It's just so hard to figure out what direction to go, what balance to have and I can't figure out what I want to do. It's like no matter what I do I'm torn by guilt and shame and it doesn't make sense to me. It's like there is a war in me and I can't tell who is right and what I should do and the more I study and meditate the more I realize they are one in t he same but I can't seem to break that duality holding me.

And this isn't even touching my conflicting feelings about the reality of spirits and magic. I'm a pretty skeptical person but I felt like I lost part of myself when I stopped believing in supernaturalism. I'm probably a nontheist and I'm conflicted about the reality of them even if I don't think it's supernatural. But that is just a side note, really for me the greater struggle is this whole Satanic/LHP vs Shaivite thing. Weirdly enough you can be LHP and Shaivite or LHP and Satanic but for some reason there is like this sense of anxiety when I want to combine Shaivism and Satanism even though how I've made this system it works at least theoretically. But I can't bring myself to drop one to fix it either.

Any advice?

Know what I noticed, Mandi? You only made this post about 5 hrs. ago, and already 6 people are trying to help you. You have people that care about you, and want to support you! RIght now, take comfort in that. Knowing that others want to help us can do much to calm our heart (relieves stress), which is a very good thing. -- Proverbs 14:30, (a).

Myself, I think the answers to all our personal issues can be found in the Bible....it's always helped me.

Best wishes.

 

[crossfire]

I cannot help but very often, particularly as of late, feeling like I'm struggling to find a balance or what direction I should go.

Let me explain a little bit about my spiritual past and what I believe.

Spoiler: a bit of history

When I was a kid I was pretty much a pantheist but I didn't know it. For a while as a teenager I had a stint with Christianity but that didn't really work out too well and I was hating myself the entire time. I eventually left it when I was in highschool and didn't really know what to do, I felt at one point like I might be an atheist but that didn't last terribly long.

Eventually I stumbled on Satanism and a few months later started making my own little personal religion right around the time I had a very odd dream where I met a woman. A few months after that highschool ended and I was reading more on Satanism and I was reading about succubi... and it was when I was doing this I felt a presence that I recognized from my dream I had had over half a year before. I don't recall when that exact moment happened, but at some point between reading about Satanism daily and with this spirit and me wanting it... I caved and realized I was a Satanist.

This was at a particularly hard part of my life, and a couple of weeks later I attempted suicide; abuse had pushed me over the edge. When I told someone, the only person I could tell, the person who was abusing me, it didn't go over well and I found myself living for the first time totally alone.

The next year were pretty nutty but I had a lot of interesting experiences during it. I was fully convinced of theism and the power spirits. I guess really I was a combo of poly/pantheist but that's beside the point.

Eventually my power faded a little bit and I found a niche in blood magic and divination. There was a friend I talked to online, who one day I shared some of my divination with. They asked a lot about how it was going, and one day I asked why and they showed me some concepts in Tantra I hadn't ever heard of before that lined up perfectly. I had known them a while and they over time taught me a lot and showed me a system that was very close to the Satanic religion I had constructed and eerily matched my divination.

This system, as far as I can tell now, was along the veins of thought in Vajrayana, Trika, Kuala, ect We eventually parted partially due to differences in beliefs. Anyways I stayed considering myself a Satanist for some time. I dated a couple of witches after this and around sometime about 4 years ago I decided I was a Shaivite in a way that fitted my system. But after a while I felt like I wasn't authentic and I for a while went to explore more orthodox schools of Hinduism before eventually coming back to my more LHP roots but by then my power was totally gone.

I struggled a lot with making things feel like they "fit". At some point I decided that the root of what I believed was Shaivite in foundation and that Satanism was an extension of that belief through my left hand path practices. But the truth is that feels like a lie. I was a Satanist and a Luciferian before I was ever a Shaivite and while my foundation does line up almost perfectly with that Shaivite system philosophically speaking I can't help but think that maybe I'm a Satanist first because I was a Satanist first.

And so I get to a problem of balance. Which am I more of? Which do I refer to for the root of my power and belief? I so want it to be Shiva but I keep feeling that this is just me trying to force something, like my understanding and knowledge of it is inadequate. And yet Satanism is so intuitive even if a lot of it is silly... it's more instinctual and natural, and I feel more confident in what I do know about it and practice about it.

But it also goes deeper than that. I keep feeling like this darkness that wants me to come back, and I rebuff it. I want to experience it but I get this weird sensation of yo-yoing between wanting darkness but not wanting to be seen as crazy or evil and then not minding and then caring again and then wanting to be just a Shaivite because somehow Satanism is driving me crazy but then I'm only confident as Satanic and I don't want to blatantly mix them because i don't want people to think that Shiva or Hinduism is Satanic to all these other thoughts. It's just so hard to figure out what direction to go, what balance to have and I can't figure out what I want to do. It's like no matter what I do I'm torn by guilt and shame and it doesn't make sense to me. It's like there is a war in me and I can't tell who is right and what I should do and the more I study and meditate the more I realize they are one in t he same but I can't seem to break that duality holding me.

And this isn't even touching my conflicting feelings about the reality of spirits and magic. I'm a pretty skeptical person but I felt like I lost part of myself when I stopped believing in supernaturalism. I'm probably a nontheist and I'm conflicted about the reality of them even if I don't think it's supernatural. But that is just a side note, really for me the greater struggle is this whole Satanic/LHP vs Shaivite thing. Weirdly enough you can be LHP and Shaivite or LHP and Satanic but for some reason there is like this sense of anxiety when I want to combine Shaivism and Satanism even though how I've made this system it works at least theoretically. But I can't bring myself to drop one to fix it either.

Any advice?

I would say that the war within yourself and the resulting guilt and shame are your id and superego clashing. If you want to find balance, go for a practice that strengthens the mechanism which reconciles id and superego--the ego--the intellect. Use your intellect/ego to recognize pleasure principles from the id (Dionysian urges) and to logically decide which desires are profitable to fulfill and which ones are not profitable to fulfill. Likewise, also use your intellect/ego to recgnize and logically decide which self afflictions/restraints from the superego (Apolloian urges) are profitable to fulfill and which ones are not profitable to fulfill. Go for philosophical antinomianism which strengthens the ego and intellect over heterodoxical practices which tend to weaken the ego and dull the intellect.

Don't be afraid to stand up for what is best for you. You are the guardian of your mind. Be the best caretaker of yourself that you can be.

 

[Kapalika]

I'm sorry you're feeling torn like that. I think it may help if you stop trying to label yourself. Other people may sound like they have all figured out, but the truth is no one fits in a neat little box. The ones that think they do are probably not wholly sincere with themselves.

You sound like you're limiting yourself because you're afraid of what other people will think of you. I would say we shouldn't care about what people think of us, but I know that's not realistic, because we really do. So how about: if don't feel confident about how people will see your beliefs, simply don't tell anyone about them for the time being. It's better to be honest with yourself than to try to conform your beliefs to other people's expectations. Your beliefs and your spiritual practice are your own.

Believe me I'm one of the few people to not get concerned with labels much. It's a matter of components not names.

Sounds like you are a little discouraged or tired. Maybe put off the decision for a better time. Its a wild guess, not like I know. I don't.

It's something I've struggled with for a couple of years now at least, so it's not like putting it off will help anything.

In my opinion you have your **** together when it comes to these matters on a much higher level than the majority of people that post here. Just keep on keepin' on, dig?

Darkness, light, good, evil..Mere abstractions. The universe doesn't care about our primitive dualities, and both Shiva and Satan represent grinding your heel into such dualistic ideas untill only dust remains.

If you feel like you need myth to fill a part of your psyche, adopt myth. Embrace it, recognize it, use it. The universe is already chalked full of mystery and magic without it, but why deny yourself a valuable tool?

Just so long as you do so with awareness and avoid self deception you can indeed have your cake and also eat it.

/2c

Good luck.

This is the most helpful post I've seen so far. It's definitely an odd sensation to feel that they are so different when they really are not. Maybe it's just the tone and attitude I connotate them with that is the source of feeling of conflict.

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

Believe me I'm one of the few people to not get concerned with labels much. It's a matter of components not names.



It's something I've struggled with for a couple of years now at least, so it's not like putting it off will help anything.



This is the most helpful post I've seen so far. It's definitely an odd sensation to feel that they are so different when they really are not. Maybe it's just the tone and attitude I connotate them with is conflicting at times.

Insofar as I understand Satanism(which admittedly is different than many), the two systems run in parallel. Satanism is something you do, adopting Satan as the bogeyman, the destroyer, the beyond, kicking the tires and lighting the fires.

The LHP, this idea of Satan, falls directly from LHP tantra. Shiva, the destroyer. Who better to focus your work through, when he is the very representation of it?

Me, I feel no real pull to myth anymore..But if I did, I'd do it big, in a way that resonated with me as much as possible. Take it by the balls.

 

[Valjean]

Chill out. Just live your life. no-one's requiring you to find a pigeon hole.
If these questions vex you, stop questioning.
CAT STEVENS LYRICS - If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out

 

[Christ's Prophet]

I cannot help but very often, particularly as of late, feeling like I'm struggling to find a balance or what direction I should go.

Let me explain a little bit about my spiritual past and what I believe.

Spoiler: a bit of history

When I was a kid I was pretty much a pantheist but I didn't know it. For a while as a teenager I had a stint with Christianity but that didn't really work out too well and I was hating myself the entire time. I eventually left it when I was in highschool and didn't really know what to do, I felt at one point like I might be an atheist but that didn't last terribly long.

Eventually I stumbled on Satanism and a few months later started making my own little personal religion right around the time I had a very odd dream where I met a woman. A few months after that highschool ended and I was reading more on Satanism and I was reading about succubi... and it was when I was doing this I felt a presence that I recognized from my dream I had had over half a year before. I don't recall when that exact moment happened, but at some point between reading about Satanism daily and with this spirit and me wanting it... I caved and realized I was a Satanist.

The next year were pretty nutty but I had a lot of interesting experiences during it. I was fully convinced of theism and the power spirits. I guess really I was a combo of poly/pantheist but that's beside the point.

Eventually my power faded a little bit and I found a niche in blood magic and divination. There was a friend I talked to online, who one day I shared some of my divination with. They asked a lot about how it was going, and one day I asked why and they showed me some concepts in Tantra I hadn't ever heard of before that lined up perfectly. I had known them a while and they over time taught me a lot and showed me a system that was very close to the Satanic religion I had constructed and eerily matched my divination.

This system, as far as I can tell now, was along the veins of thought in Vajrayana, Trika, Kuala, ect We eventually parted partially due to differences in beliefs. Anyways I stayed considering myself a Satanist for some time. I dated a couple of witches after this and around sometime about 4 years ago I decided I was a Shaivite in a way that fitted my system. But after a while I felt like I wasn't authentic and I for a while went to explore more orthodox schools of Hinduism before eventually coming back to my more LHP roots but by then my power was totally gone.

I struggled a lot with making things feel like they "fit". At some point I decided that the root of what I believed was Shaivite in foundation and that Satanism was an extension of that belief through my left hand path practices. But the truth is that feels like a lie. I was a Satanist and a Luciferian before I was ever a Shaivite and while my foundation does line up almost perfectly with that Shaivite system philosophically speaking I can't help but think that maybe I'm a Satanist first because I was a Satanist first.

And so I get to a problem of balance. Which am I more of? Which do I refer to for the root of my power and belief? I so want it to be Shiva but I keep feeling that this is just me trying to force something, like my understanding and knowledge of it is inadequate. And yet Satanism is so intuitive even if a lot of it is silly... it's more instinctual and natural, and I feel more confident in what I do know about it and practice about it.

But it also goes deeper than that. I keep feeling like this darkness that wants me to come back, and I rebuff it. I want to experience it but I get this weird sensation of yo-yoing between wanting darkness but not wanting to be seen as crazy or evil and then not minding and then caring again and then wanting to be just a Shaivite because somehow Satanism is driving me crazy but then I'm only confident as Satanic and I don't want to blatantly mix them because i don't want people to think that Shiva or Hinduism is Satanic to all these other thoughts. It's just so hard to figure out what direction to go, what balance to have and I can't figure out what I want to do. It's like no matter what I do I'm torn by guilt and shame and it doesn't make sense to me. It's like there is a war in me and I can't tell who is right and what I should do and the more I study and meditate the more I realize they are one in t he same but I can't seem to break that duality holding me.

And this isn't even touching my conflicting feelings about the reality of spirits and magic. I'm a pretty skeptical person but I felt like I lost part of myself when I stopped believing in supernaturalism. I'm probably a nontheist and I'm conflicted about the reality of them even if I don't think it's supernatural. But that is just a side note, really for me the greater struggle is this whole Satanic/LHP vs Shaivite thing. Weirdly enough you can be LHP and Shaivite or LHP and Satanic but for some reason there is like this sense of anxiety when I want to combine Shaivism and Satanism even though how I've made this system it works at least theoretically. But I can't bring myself to drop one to fix it either.

Any advice?

As a Shaivite, I hope you are not planning to go and wander the streets of Nepal or India, performing self-purification rituals? The self-deformation of Shaivism will get you no-where. I sense that your feelings are playing a large part in your life, but feelings can be so misleading, and they can be up and down according to many circumstances. You must ask yourself, what is true, not what do I feel? I can also sense the hyper-emotion in your testimony and there is also is some depression in your statements. Depression can result in your feelings fluctuating. A qualified professional can help. But Spiritually speaking, I counsel you to step back and seize the issue and ask some searching questions:-
1) Look at the world around you. Is not this world fantastic? There is design in every living thing. If there is designs in everything, then there must be a Designer who made it all. Then look to God who designed everything.
2) God will tell you that Satan is defeated, and his time is running out. Satan is a loser, don’t side with the losing team, no matter how good he makes you feel. You cannot see where you are going in the darkness, where you will stumble and fall. Come to the light of your Creator.
3) Go to God. He knows your turmoil. He will help you. Find a mainstream church where they can teach you about salvation, where they will love you and stick with you through your problems.
4) All the religions you have talked about, their founders are still dead and in the grave, but Christ is the One who died, was buried and rose again from the dead and showed Himself to many people (500 in one instance). He is the One who has the power over life and death. Look to Him for your guidance, because He is the ONLY One who can help you.
5) Lift your eyes to the overall view of life. Heaven is a place of perfection and there is no-more turmoil. We are only on this earth for a short while, but Heaven will blow your mind and it is forever. Certainty for eternity.

 

[arthra]

this sense of anxiety when I want to combine Shaivism and Satanism

Quite frankly I've never thought myself of any connection between Shiva and Satan... Shiva to me is more in the context of Yoga which has little or nothing to do in my mind with the Christian concept of "Satan".

 

[Kapalika]

As a Shaivite, I hope you are not planning to go and wander the streets of Nepal or India, performing self-purification rituals? The self-deformation of Shaivism will get you no-where. I sense that your feelings are playing a large part in your life, but feelings can be so misleading, and they can be up and down according to many circumstances.

I live in 'Merica but location aside I don't see a point in doing self-purification rituals? I'm not sure what you mean by that; in my beliefs there isn't considered to be any pure or impure in any practical sense. And I think a lot of the sects I mentioned would agree too. I also wouldn't say that I am deforming anything, since this comes from a place very much in line with something centuries old in so far as I understand it. That doesn't mean that it's a popular or even widely known thing, but it is a thing. I didn't just wake up one day and make this up; other people had done it before me. And this has been a pervasive thought for long enough that it's not just a matter of mood, that feeling of conflict. But as I've kind of ascertained a few times before it's perfectly plausible that this is just my ego fighting for a sense of duality to remain.

You must ask yourself, what is true, not what do I feel?

There is a saying I used to use much more often... "Satan is the only truth." I think it still applies, but that I almost feel compelled to say that "Shiva is the only truth." Shiva/Satan is the representation of the nondual whole through which we live in as part of the material manifest creative aspect of Shiva/Satan. The material world we are in is Shakti and Shiva is the transcendent cause behind Shakti's existence that is inherent in reality that likewise perpetuates reality's existence in the first place. That's what I know to be true. What I feel, is the question, how do I best understand that truth and translate it to others? Is one more accurate or easier for me to grasp? Or is one a healthier approach? Should I consider the ease at which I can communicate this to others? I don't ask anyone to be convinced of anything (that would be un-Hindu of me) but my love of my religion often spills out.

I can also sense the hyper-emotion in your testimony and there is also is some depression in your statements. Depression can result in your feelings fluctuating. A qualified professional can help. But Spiritually speaking, I counsel you to step back and seize the issue and ask some searching questions:-
1) Look at the world around you. Is not this world fantastic? There is design in every living thing. If there is designs in everything, then there must be a Designer who made it all. Then look to God who designed everything..

I don't think it's useful for me to construct theistic models, but I would invite you to look at the ugly of the world too. The parasites, the gross stuff under wet rocks, excrement and disease. The fact that we have things like selection shadows (why there are so many late-life issues with the body and why we probably age and die in the first place). Surely such a being if it exists is mostly indifferent to the suffering of life. This realization helps me see Satan as a good model/symbol. It being non-material, non-dual and existing without space, time or matter while also being opposition itself, it opposes it's own nature and creates time, space, the material and duality. Everything else that followed didn't come from it directly but from the interactions of the physical properties it's nature gave birth to.

This puts our suffering into perspective not as a hard duality but as an emergent property of the evolutionary process. The same goes for any "design" we might see. It's at least secondarily emergent not primarily. There isn't a big G God involved, since this kind of unfolding nature doesn't put it as "outside" or as a creator so much as a self-transformative process of which the inherent transcendent nature is at the center.

2) God will tell you that Satan is defeated, and his time is running out. Satan is a loser, don’t side with the losing team, no matter how good he makes you feel. You cannot see where you are going in the darkness, where you will stumble and fall. Come to the light of your Creator.

Though I would not say I believe in God in any supernatural or theistic sense, I can't help but quip 'How can god defeat what he is himself?'

Likewise, you cannot see in pure light. In a very literal sense darkness and shadows give us contrast so we can make out objects. It's a balance of light and dark that allows people to be able to see. Also sight is not our only sense and plenty of things get around fine in the dark. You don't need a lot of light to see in the dark anyways, although cats are better at it than us. Take from that metaphor what you will.

3) Go to God. He knows your turmoil. He will help you. Find a mainstream church where they can teach you about salvation, where they will love you and stick with you through your problems.

I honestly am not sure what the most appropriate response is to this. Suffice to say though that even if my convictions were to change, they would never devolve down the direction you are suggesting. My perspective and understanding has grown over time but it never changed in foundation. I can't even find an apt metaphor for how unrealistic and improbable such a thing would be. Once in my life I tried to make Christianity fit but it didn't really work out well. If I had simply been educated better I wouldn't of ever tried Christianity but gone straight for a pantheistic religion.

4) All the religions you have talked about, their founders are still dead and in the grave

LOL okay, if you say so but "dead" or "alive" might not apply to some people after a certain point. Also we tend to cremate our dead

, but Christ is the One who died, was buried and rose again from the dead and showed Himself to many people (500 in one instance). He is the One who has the power over life and death. Look to Him for your guidance, because He is the ONLY One who can help you.

Well whoever "killed" him obviously didn't do a good job then. If I ever see Yeshua, I'll finish the job myself.

5) Lift your eyes to the overall view of life. Heaven is a place of perfection and there is no-more turmoil. We are only on this earth for a short while, but Heaven will blow your mind and it is forever. Certainty for eternity.

That might be cool if Heaven was real, but I don't see any reason to believe that it is.

 

[Kapalika]

Chill out. Just live your life. no-one's requiring you to find a pigeon hole.
If these questions vex you, stop questioning.
CAT STEVENS LYRICS - If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out

You say that, but I'm often accused of being full of it or not knowing what I'm talking about or doing because people can't comprehend how it works (not that that is my primary concern it does come into play at times). And it's kind of hard to live my life if I'm not willing to address something that that aside has caused me some measure of reoccurring distress. What you're saying basically amounts to "ignore it."

Quite frankly I've never thought myself of any connection between Shiva and Satan... Shiva to me is more in the context of Yoga which has little or nothing to do in my mind with the Christian concept of "Satan".

Why do people assume that a Satanist takes their understanding of Satan from Christanity? What if they took it from Judaism where Satan isn't even evil or from Islam where he isn't a fallen angel?

This is aside from the point that almost all forms of Satanism doesn't derive it's understanding of Satan really from any of those three but reinterprets the meaning behind the mythology to communicate a tone, a set of ideas, a philosophy and an outlook. They don't believe in those religions' accounts but sees it through the lens of those texts being written by a concept in writing known as an "unreliable narrator". Like wise a Satanic theist might interpret it that Satan is some pre-Christian concept in line with the unreliable narrator. Or someone might take a bit' of liberty with the symbolism or even interpret Satan as something more akin to mystical Jewish mythology and describe Satan as still acting as an arch angel.

The interesting thing about Satanism is that belief systems are all over the map but I don't think I've ever found a single person or group that has ever sincerely practiced Satanism as a way that could be interpreted as in agreement with Christian cosmology and doctrine. Satanism is different from Christianity, hence not having the same name. What kind of thing, often reactionary, would resemble the caricature of it that what it's opposed to often paints?

Edit: but to clarify, my explanation of how they are similar is talked about in my post just before this one.

 

[Kapalika]

You sound brainwashed go get yourself some psychological help! Take a break from the non sense so you can straighten yourself out.

Brainwashed from what? Is this a joke?

 

[Kapalika]

I found my answer, I am simply struggling to balance Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. When I feel more Satanic I am more drawn to Tamas and Rajas. When I feel more Shaivite I am more drawn towards Sattva and some of Rajas.

I think I just need to meditate on this and consider the right balance. I don't have enough Sattva in my life.

 

[Vinayaka]

Shiva, the destroyer. Who better to focus your work through, when he is the very representation of it?

As a Saivite practitioner, I have to point out that this is an extremely narrow view of Shaivism. Some Saivas would be quite insulted in fact. I personally don't get insulted easily and prefer to educate someone out of their ignorance about Saivism.

'Destroyer' comes about because of poor translations into the Abrahamic paradigm. The great dissolutioner is better, the natural process of decay. Still, this is only a small part of Siva's 5 functions, the others being emanation, sustaining, concealing grace, and revealing grace. Saivism has many scriptures, most notably the 28 Saiva Agamas, and in Saiva Siddhanta, the workds of Tamil saints, collectively called Tirumurai. It's practiced bya few hundred million people, most especially in South and North India.

 

[Vinayaka]

I found my answer, I am simply struggling to balance Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. When I feel more Satanic I am more drawn to Tamas and Rajas. When I feel more Shaivite I am more drawn towards Sattva and some of Rajas.

I think I just need to meditate on this and consider the right balance. I don't have enough Sattva in my life.

I would encourage a visit to a Saiva temple, it might add clarity through unseen mystical ways, known by the Saivas.

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

As a Saivite practitioner, I have to point out that this is an extremely narrow view of Shaivism. Some Saivas would be quite insulted in fact. I personally don't get insulted easily and prefer to educate someone out of their ignorance about Saivism.

'Destroyer' comes about because of poor translations into the Abrahamic paradigm. The great dissolutioner is better, the natural process of decay. Still, this is only a small part of Siva's 5 functions, the others being emanation, sustaining, concealing grace, and revealing grace. Saivism has many scriptures, most notably the 28 Saiva Agamas, and in Saiva Siddhanta, the workds of Tamil saints, collectively called Tirumurai. It's practiced bya few hundred million people, most especially in South and North India.

I don't care about your religion. I was speaking to the evocative power of mythology, not the drudgery of some dogma.