Is it better to be spiritual?

[AnthroHeart]

Is being spiritual really better than not caring for one's ultimate eternal development?

Why do shamans go through hell to initiate, and willingly experience stuff that would traumatize most people?

I had a nightmare where something small happened and I was freaking out.

But there is a whole gamut of spiritual development.

Does higher spiritual development ultimately on the other side in time/space mean greater pleasure?

If one raises their vibration here on Earth, does that put them automatically in a higher state in time/space after they pass over?

And are higher states more light filled, with less scary stuff?

Because the other side time/space can be just as traumatic as here I think.

After you pass over, it may very well be that the psychological issues you didn't deal with can cause psychological horrors to you on the other side.

Your shadows, if they remain unknown here, will haunt you while you are in time/space.

Is this how it happens?

Is this why people torture themselves with their worst fears here, to get more pleasure in the afterlife?

[Glow]

Is being spiritual really better than not caring for one's ultimate eternal development?

Why do shamans go through hell to initiate, and willingly experience stuff that would traumatize most people?

I had a nightmare where something small happened and I was freaking out.

But there is a whole gamut of spiritual development.

Does higher spiritual development ultimately on the other side in time/space mean greater pleasure?

If one raises their vibration here on Earth, does that put them automatically in a higher state in time/space after they pass over?

And are higher states more light filled, with less scary stuff?

Because the other side time/space can be just as traumatic as here I think.

After you pass over, it may very well be that the psychological issues you didn't deal with can cause psychological horrors to you on the other side.

Your shadows, if they remain unknown here, will haunt you while you are in time/space.

Is this how it happens?

Is this why people torture themselves with their worst fears here, to get more pleasure in the afterlife?

I am not a shaman obviously but I have had to follow the path partially already. I wouldn’t say at all a shaman tortures themself. Shamanism is the relief. You don’t choose initiation, you chose the path in response.

You basically suffer till you start following the path. The first while is all self healing. An emptying out process of all that haunts you in life. Well I guess the entire road is an emptying out. Till you are empty of all but what you chose. Even your identity goes more and more.

If anything to a shaman or one meant to follow the path it is all that gives you relief from the torture. At a certain point later there is nothing left that is torture-able. Sure you have to face and work through your shadow but it’s still better than being your shadows kicking post.

It also seems some are meant to be unable to continue without facing the process. I am pretty healed but step off the path like happened a bit over a month ago due to my own outside goings on and things go very bad very quick. The subconscious will urge you right back on the path without being exactly gentle about it.

I myself become suicidal every time I step off the path, and I heard a longtime shaman say the same thing about his earlier life. It’s basically like your path is shamanic or death. You have no real choice.

I have felt the exact same thing hard to phrase but the truth of what I am wants to be expressed, by stepping off the path I would be denying the process of becoming whatever it is. That seems to not be allowed in this incarnation.

That said the Law of One is pretty shamanic. We are all one that is the only reason anything shamanic is possible. Do you hollow yourself out to the point of being the 1 in this life(which is where all the extreme magic stuff can happen), or do you just walk a certain distance towards it. That seems to be the part that varies from person to person. How far we go.

I don’t know how far I am going. The path isn’t torture though it’s denial of the path that is torture.

As to the after life. I do not worry about that at all.
Perhaps the NDEs obliviated that, the first one was as an infant so perhaps something happened from that one I do not remember but if you fear death to the point you think you will phsyce yourself out in the afterlife with your fear I would definitely recommend you work through that not because of what could happen in the after life but of how it would control you in this life.

Shamanism has a built in path for facing that. Even walking a short ways on the path may help.

[AnthroHeart]

I don't think my path is shamanism though, because I haven't faced death or felt like I was dying.
Sure, my schizophrenia has caused me fear, but I am on meds now and don't get that fear any longer.
If I need to take that path then I will.
But I don't have the strength, if I need to.

[MangusKhan]

I don't think my path is shamanism though, because I haven't faced death or felt like I was dying.
Sure, my schizophrenia has caused me fear, but I am on meds now and don't get that fear any longer.
If I need to take that path then I will.
But I don't have the strength, if I need to.

As I understand, it is not the schizophrenia which causes fear, but the fear which causes schizophrenia.

The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.

The difference between the psychotic and the mystic is how afraid they are of the infinity that lies before them. The fearless mystic is enlightened by the contact, while the fearful psychotic cracks under the pressure.

Also, didn't you say you had done DMT before? I did DMT once and was convinced that I had died. It was a big relief to discover that my body was still alive and waiting for my return. One time my idiot friends gave this neighbourhood kid some DMT and he was so frightened, he just couldn't come to grips with what he had experienced. He was accusing them of having killed him long after the drug wore off. So I think DMT does allow one to face death while still continuing the incarnation. I don't recommend anyone try it though.

[EvolvingPhoenix]

I don't think my path is shamanism though, because I haven't faced death or felt like I was dying.
Sure, my schizophrenia has caused me fear, but I am on meds now and don't get that fear any longer.
If I need to take that path then I will.
But I don't have the strength, if I need to.

From the stuff I've been learning from Agua, I'd say our issues such as autism or schizophrenia or whatever are caused by our fear, not the other way around.

Facing your fear is what your soul incarnated to do, so you might as well face it.

I'm doing these presence building exercises and mantras that Agua gave me.

If you'd like to start, you can do the exercises on here: https://www.bring4th.org/forums/showthre...?tid=14338

And you can do this chant: "Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo" I started for 15 minutes a day and worked my way up. Now I'm doing a different chant that is much more powerful.

If you want to know how to pronounce it, there's a video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yoZTyG0tn4

If you do the first presence building exercise and the mantra, it should be able to help you.

The mantras and the exercises are essentially my daily thing that I do now. I'm putting A LOT of faith in these exercises, but they seem to be helping. Agua pointed out to me I'm not the same person now that I was 3 months ago, so I think these exercises and mantras may be helping after all!

Just give them a try and make the first exercise and the mantra a daily part of your routine. Should help you face your fear better.

At least that's what I'm banking on...

[Tae]

I don't think my path is shamanism though, because I haven't faced death or felt like I was dying.
Sure, my schizophrenia has caused me fear, but I am on meds now and don't get that fear any longer.
If I need to take that path then I will.
But I don't have the strength, if I need to.

The incredible thing about humans is how much inner strength we actually have. Trust in yourself that you will have the tools you need when the time comes and enjoy the ease of not being in that fear now.

I am the only person I know who identifies as shamanistic in real life, though I suspect I have 2-3 friends who, had we been in another time, were we not all distorted by shame and embarrassment, would be right there with me and I envision that they too are on the mystic's path even if we do not speak of it–it's what my soul tells me.

I believe most people heavily affected by mental illness are on the mystic path, occulted from their destiny by the distortion concept of inner illness being treated by external means. Pills and therapy are all good and well, and a distraction from the hideously uncomfortable self-work of going within and questioning yourself, every "I am this" asking yourself, but who is this I, why is this I, is this a link to the one infinite creator or a learned thought pattern picked up from those around me distracting me from the fact that I am one tiny piece of one infinite creator and thereby I, the true I behind me and my identity, would not wish me ill or harm, nor harm to any around me.

I'm in fact, on an antidepressant and will argue until the cows come home that there is value in contemporary scientific measures to relieve the pain of mental health! It stabilized me enough to start seeing me and questioning me without the veneer of shame and despair that once colored my every question to self. If you are on meds and no longer feeling that fear, that is a GOOD thing and it does NOT prevent you from taking steps down the path towards mysticism. In fact, if it's cleared your mind you may find yourself being gently propelled onto the path now that you can think without every thought being punctuated by the words of your schizophrenia. Don't feel you're barred from it because you don't feel depths of shrinking despair now that you're medicated. You are a welcome piece of the mystical pie.

It’s basically like your path is shamanic or death. You have no real choice.

I have felt the exact same thing hard to phrase but the truth of what I am wants to be expressed, by stepping off the path I would be denying the process of becoming whatever it is. That seems to not be allowed in this incarnation.

That said the Law of One is pretty shamanic. We are all one that is the only reason anything shamanic is possible. Do you hollow yourself out to the point of being the 1 in this life(which is where all the extreme magic stuff can happen), or do you just walk a certain distance towards it. That seems to be the part that varies from person to person. How far we go.

I don’t know how far I am going. The path isn’t torture though it’s denial of the path that is torture.

As to the after life. I do not worry about that at all.
[...]
Shamanism has a built in path for facing that. Even walking a short ways on the path may help.

No kidding. Sometimes I'm like "I didn't ask to be here!" and other times I'm like "yeah no I kinda did ask to be here..." and while I question it and mess around with it out loud, trying to figure which one it is, I know the reality. I didn't have a choice. No one in the "real world" just messes around with the thoughts of being a shaman, a channel, a mystic, a healer, a monk, a hermit, not SERIOUSLY, that's not the roles they try on in their mental mirror and make little flexing poses. No, they try on "singer, actor, CEO, lawyer, doctor, football player, bus driver, farmer" and the roles they muse about reveal something about their inner longings. I speak to the fact that in an earlier time I'd have been a nun or a shaman or a wise healer woman of a tribe because it is my truth, and I'm living it in this time, where we do NOT have nearly the opportunity for the contemplative mystics to live their small lives as love lighthouses.

Yet still our souls steer us there, facing us with trauma and horror so that we can internalize the tools to heal and externally share them with the hurting around us who would drown in the same pools we claw our way out, ugly crying and covered in snot, emerging from within our own minds to say, "I love and forgive myself and also all of my other-selves who are in different places on the road because that is what identity and experience allows for us to explore."

We are in this time but our souls are not prepared to deny us the growth we desire, and so it chips out for us in this rapid paced modern world the tools we need to tumble deep into our own minds and discover the truth about the world and reality. And that truth exists and has always existed for those who dig for it, drawn like moths to the pinprick of inner light shining out so brilliantly when it's at its darkest within. A weaker person might commit suicide then; myself at that dark bottom of the pit was close and while my mouth kept saying horrible things about myself and my life, my soul kept guiding my inner eyes towards that little point of light within, saying, "don't kill yourself until you explore this part, hey? Look here, try this."

Intuitively I have been guided to so many actions I've only found by digging into the metaphysical world NOW to be, well, what thousands of others have been guided to do. Rituals of light without the words used by those who channelled and demarcated a system for those rituals, but in spirit identical. I was about 7-8 when I started creating energy shields around me, and far, far older when I realized my visualization techniques were identical to what was taught to acolates of "real systems". So it is that I believe no matter what our lives encounter, when and where we experience this identity, if we are to be on a shamanistic/mystical path, our intuitions will take us where we need to be to learn the information we're preparing to assimilate. I read book one of the LOO a couple of years ago for the first time and could not understand it clearly then; I do now. Sometimes it takes time for roots to take hold. Trust your soul guides you in truth and love, it is only the distortions of the outer world and your own identity which seek to take you off course and when you are there, you will FEEL off-course. The furthest I've been off-course pushed me deep into depression. It felt wrong through to my very soul, resonating off-key with my being. Removing myself from the environment (in this case by quitting that job) caused an instant energy lift.

Trust that within yourself is the One Infinite Creator's spark that wishes to explore love for you and everything else and it will take you where you need to be for the lessons you prescribed for your soul before entering this life. That's what I believe. Be strong and of good courage, fellow mystics and shapeople. You are love and you are loved and you are loving.