Psychology and Spirituality: Ego, Personality, Mind, Mental Illness, Mentality

[winter light]

Kathrin I am glad you found answers. FallingLeaves your words about morality are echos of the Tao Te Ching if I recall correctly.

To me insanity is being unable to find peace within my own reality. To be unable to be peaceful with my own experiences, feelings, and inner perceptions. Ego states are when I cannot find this peace so instead I project out the disturbance onto the world and start reacting to that as a feedback loop in my mind which self reinforces. This also engages with the ego of others and amplifies the ego effect by expanding the feedback via interaction with their psyches.

I think the remedy for this is peaceful self-awareness which leads to authentic connections with others. These connections invoke self-awareness in others such that it becomes hard to tell where self-awareness originated from. The self fades in importance as self-awareness becomes devoted to a larger sense of self by way of the connection.

May peace be with you all.

[Kathrin]

I must say, this is very beautiful in the end... relativ end... I'm not at the end... ok, my end with this for now... goodness, relativity... Ok, again, I must say, this is very beautiful, this place of vallidity and meanignlessness. A place of cognition, recognition, carelessness, loving interest in others' perceptions... yep, that's the new one for me here.... Now, I can see, how many can't get me because they just can't see me....it's too hard for them to think as I do, because they are not me, have not my experience, can't grasp the meaning of the words I use. It's not their fault. They're not doing anything wrong. They just do what they can do. And isn't it just so pleasurable to be able to understand someone's non-understanding? To have love for the one who is so mislead, or confused? To still have understanding and love for someone unable to understand me? What a thing. I'm coming closer to what I want. Ah, and that: Found C. G. Jung talking about "individuation" and understood, it's that re-merging with the Self, after excursion, I had spoken about. So, cheers to Psychology! Just made peace with it too Blessed be the peacemakers for they shall be called daughters of women Love to all! And thank you so much for being here, for talking to me, for thinking about my questions and words and thoughts. You helped me a lot with this!!!! Love, hugs, cheers!!!!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

[FallingLeaves]

Originally Posted by winter light

FallingLeaves your words about morality are echos of the Tao Te Ching if I recall correctly.

something about mechanical doings... just being is much better than intending how to be according to that school, and morality is full of intention for how things should be...

To me insanity is being unable to find peace within my own reality. To be unable to be peaceful with my own experiences, feelings, and inner perceptions. Ego states are when I cannot find this peace so instead I project out the disturbance onto the world and start reacting to that as a feedback loop in my mind which self reinforces. This also engages with the ego of others and amplifies the ego effect by expanding the feedback via interaction with their psyches.

Some things seem good at first. But not so good later. But even jesus was like 'I come not to bring peace, but a sword'. So I dunno we want certain things but it may be like eating too much snacks or smoking cigs. An addiction?

Speaking of addiction I've had this notion that even 'food' is an addiction for a long time... we shouldn't have to eat it and eating it probably causes bad effects. If we didn't have to eat we also wouldn't have to do a lot of other things that cause us all sorts of pain... for example... if you don't have to eat you don't have to buy food. And if you don't have to buy food but can live without there goes half the reason for having to maintain a 'job'. So in some sense, our being slaves to corporations is directly related to our addiction to food.

Interestingly elsewhere on this forum they were talking about breatharianism today, so it seems like I may have been right

[winter light]

Originally Posted by Kathrin

I must say, this is very beautiful in the end... relativ end... I'm not at the end...

Kathrin your words and joy made me smile and reminded me of the song "Lord of the Dance". The world seems so serious but we can rise above it and there is joy to be found somewhere in the chaos.

Originally Posted by FallingLeaves

Some things seem good at first. But not so good later. But even jesus was like 'I come not to bring peace, but a sword'. So I dunno we want certain things but it may be like eating too much snacks or smoking cigs. An addiction?

FallingLeaves I don't think Jesus was talking about not being an advocate of inner peace. I interpret it that he did not come into the world to be passive but rather he was here to engage in the world and choose what the world shall become as a creative force in the world. Though I have heard that quote has a dubious history and not sure whether I trust as written to be a clear representation of what he said.

Addiction is another feedback loop. I never before thought of it as an ego pattern but maybe that is exactly what it is. The ego as a behavior.

Being a breatharian would be great I'll look for that discussion. And I have had similar thoughts about how different the world would be if we weren't dependent on food. And maybe that is the future somehow.

[organic born]

Originally Posted by Baile

Your first statement above exposes your second statement and question as redundant. A person can in fact know answers. In this case for example, you know the answer already. And you know lots of answers; you're one of the more sure-of-their-opinions people on this forum, and I mean that in a positive way. Truth is not wishy-washy. We can be definitive in our answers and know they contain a degree of truth. And sometimes not just a degree of truth, but the exact, precise and whole truth needing to be revealed in a particular situation.

I'm not sure at all that a "person can know answers", what I tend to invest myself in are directions of inquiry, all along being quite certain that there's no end conclusion to be expected. My focus is more on the process. If someone is insisting that they've found a complete answer then I would proffer that they've built a wall in their pathway toward a more fuller appreciation of what's more to come.

The god thing is grasping. It's our brain trying to find a place to perceptually bury what it doesn't understand. Now that's not an answer, it's a realization based on many many conversations with those who have wrapped themselves in such imagery. Spirituality does much the same thing. "I am spiritual" if I think this, and that, and this. "And since I feel these things I can relax. All is well, since I'm okay with such assumptions at this point."

But in thinking along these lines we make assumptions that will fail over time. What we think, and what is actually playing our before us are two differing worlds. I find nature fascinating because everything that's occurring around us is naturally derived. There is no thought, belief, or experience which isn't tied directly to natural expression. Even out of body experiences have us visiting another layer that is directly associative to our natural perceptions. So nature is a viable place to explore since all that we're currently aware of is intimately a derivative of our natural presence.

Now that's not an "answer" that's a process to investigate and participate in. It's a swirl of information that is thick with interactive insight and functional involvements. It's a process, not a conclusion.

What I respond to, both within myself and among others, is this blockage to such exposures, while insisting we've found an end. As soon as we 'conclude' we begin blocking exposures to anything that would challenge such conclusions. A light dreamy approach of "nothing physical matters" seems to be the current manor in which such blocking is done. It all sounds good on paper but technically leaves us floating within a dream world of ambient thought.

[Kathrin]

Found some more: Insanity is avoiding the grounding also. There may be good reasons for it, overwhelment, fear, trauma. The grounding represents connecting with now, with a now reality. Not with past or future mainly. But also allowing those. Which seems only fully possible through connecting with the now reality within. Any kind of avoiding this now reality is insane. Sane is accepting it all, being able to accept all, allowing it all as existant, as being. Not having to avoid. It's obvious here that insanity is not that unusual. Or extreme. It's just a direction, opposition in duality. So in either moment it fluctuates as everything else. I may be sane in this instant and insane and disconnected a second later, depending on the circumstances. It is only determined by the perspective I choose or, I'am able to choose. If I'm unable at the moment to choose the most relaxed perspective, I'm insane just then. Once I change into a now connection I'm sane. Sounds simplified but grasps the complexity of reality. No one is only ever sane or insane. There's just a tendency towards either. Like a ratio, 73% sane to 27% insane, measured in a clinical setting over a period. But then, what happens during another unmeasured period? Obviously, such explorations can only be approximations. In addition, the methods of measuring are not solid either and change with the perspectives of the ones setting the standards for them. There's more questions than answers from Science. However, it's all just play and entertainment, isn't it!?

[winter light]

Kathrin that all makes a lot of sense to me. So continuing the ideas...

Avoiding grounding involves a false grounding attachment to something that keeps our brain or reality coherent. Everyone has a collection of set points that represent stable reality that we are attached to. This can only be pushed so far before stress builds and usually results in a reaction in an attempt to keep the system stable.

The reaction is usually either anxiety or anger. So those are indications that some level of insanity is present too. And of course those two states are lost in the past and future and not in the present, and far distracted from the reality within that is forgotten. But because these reactions are part of the insanity they never achieve true stability of grounding, actual reduction of stress never occurs. It keeps going in circles.

Another form of false grounding is repeated rationalizations in order to repress feelings. Like when you hold on to a belief and defend the belief and all words and behaviors supporting it at all cost. But this happens unconsciously so it is hard to see. It is a defense against reality [likely this is an ACIM quote]. Every instance of this I have seen is the result of patterns of conditioning from the past replaying out unconsciously.

For me it is not so much play and entertainment as it is curiosity and the hopes that I can maintain some level of sanity. While keeping in mind that another mark of insanity is the lack of a sense of humor and wonder about life.

A balance of grounding is needed because the euphoria from release is so strong that it is easy to loose compassion for others who are still bound by their conditioning. I see a fully grounded state is when you are able to be present with others while at the same time being detached from circumstances. Signs of grounding are being able to respond constructively to random circumstances, to dissipate conflict and strengthen connections.

[Shivani Devi]

About grounding...yeah, about all that...

In my case...and it may be the case for quite a few, the energies have been raised up...the kundalini has been raised into the throat chakra or the third-eye chakra and has become totally stuck there.

Irretrievably and incontrovertibly stuck there....

When that happens, one becomes completely lost in their own experiences and paradigms. Ideals lead to even higher ideals which can lead to the highest ideal (Samadhi)...but they are still stuck in that state nonetheless.

They want to share what they know...what they are experiencing.....as more of an unburdening process than anything else, but does that help? not in the slightest. It only adds insult to injury when others say "that is your truth, it isn't mine, so shut the hell up already" and that becomes the glue, or the 'binding force' that keeps the energies stuck right where they are...like a frame of film stuck in front of a projector lens until inevitably, a hole will burn right through it and then one falls into the pit of despair of being totally 'self-conscious' and not 'self aware'...at the expense of their own Samadhi.

When that happens, one needs to ground themselves real bad, by appreciating the very simple things of life...of going out into nature...laying down in green pastures...walking beside the still waters to restoreth the soul.

Yeah, sometimes one has to take a break from 'being spiritual' from time to time so that they can continue to 'be spiritual' or else the candle will just burn from both ends into the middle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9bk2MrMGaA

[organic born]

Originally Posted by The Necromancer

About grounding...yeah, about all that...

When that happens, one needs to ground themselves real bad, by appreciating the very simple things of life...of going out into nature...laying down in green pastures...walking beside the still waters to restoreth the soul.

Yeah, sometimes one has to take a break from 'being spiritual' from time to time so that they can continue to 'be spiritual' or else the candle will just burn from both ends into the middle.

Agreed! Not only taking walks and laying down in green pastures but actually digging into the soil with our hands and experiencing plant and animal patterns directly, by participating in their development and needs.

Our bodies are physically entwined with it's environment so any grounding that happens needs to be looked at as a physical participation and not simply as a mentally oriented set of convictions.

Our ancestors evolved in direct participation with natural inputs. They didn't wear shoes so they were electrically grounded directly. They didn't wash their foods with chlorinated water or bath with chemical lotions so they interacted freely with the bacteria and fungi, which we now treat as things to be afraid of. Nutrient density was highly prevalent in all they ate, while with factory farming nutrient density is clearly lacking (start checking your food with a brix meter and see directly how nutrient density is lacking, the records show that nutrient density has dropped by about 80% of what it was in the 1940's due to factory farming procedures). We also eat a very high carb diet, which forces the body into radical swings in order to keep our blood levels ph at an optimal level.

"Grounding" is not just a mentalized concept that one attaches to their thinking.. as though it was a means of controlling their experience through selectively titrating their thoughts.

Grounding is a physical thing that one does in order to better align ones bodies experience with the very essence of direct-need and optimum health. A body in turmoil is not spiritually aligned. It clearly is insane to assume otherwise. :)

[Kathrin]

It seems that there are two perspectives, opposing each other. As with Yin and Yang, one feels more at home with Yin, one more with Yang. The interplay of both represents All, Source, God, Love, Allah, Om, Spirit, Whateverness. We either see one of them majorly. In every instant. It's an everchanging view. Nothing is fixed. Everything moves. The Green, as everything else is made of vibration. Nothing is fixed. So even Science says. There's more than Green. There's more.