No spiritual consolation or progress whatsoever

[JustBe]

Originally Posted by Altair

Not to be a downer here, but I think spiritual progress isn't possible for most people. If you pay attention you can spot a bias in spiritual communities.. there are loads of people that are retired, work part time, or are students. Or they have stress free jobs like being a dentist or any job that is easy to leave behind when you go home. Not to mention the stress of taking care of a partner and kids, and the worries that come from that [can see that in my older siblings for years now]. For most people, spirituality is just not on their minds and they have little to no opportunity to achieve any sort of progress.

You could potentially meditate the rest of your life, every day for an hour or so, and not see any apparition or experience anything substantial whatsoever [besides basic benefits such as improved breathing, relaxation, and psychological awareness]. Anyone and their dog can achieve those things, but an actual spiritual experience is also probably not something you can just induce at will..


Sorry, but maybe it wasn't really healing to begin with. I've had people try to heal my migraines but it doesn't work, lol, even if I start believing that they have the power to heal. The physical world is fukking real. You can't cure migraine with healing hands or cancer with a water fast.

Different strokes for different folks Altair.

It’s the nature of this world.

You can do anything you put ‘your mind too’ and believe it’s working for you with regards to anything-energy work, parenting, how you do your job. Just about anything. If it ‘feels’ right for you, it potentially will be practiced by you.

Energy work is a complex arrangement of many things coming together at the same time. Energy is but one aspect. As is the body itself. The ability to fully let go of the mind, drop into your being and be a receptive vessel with clarity and awareness of what is, listen and know as deep as this, to what you need at any given moment, is not about fixing at all times in the immediacy of that moment, (although it’s possible, depending on the contents itself) it’s about awareness, listening and acting to heal your own ailments, understand your mind body. Become your own self healer as your body needs, which might mean taking medication, which might mean going to get your neck checked, which might mean you need energy healing..who knows? Only you can know what you need.

‘Get more real with yourself’

People rush around with busy lives, ignoring many parts of life, self, needs. So most of those busy folk just survivin, often neglect stuff, many spiritual seekers are trying to resolve and overcome.

Life is a complex arrangement as well and as we see in the world, most just get on with life as they only know and can be, with what is available to them. Until they know more..

[Sunshine111]

Originally Posted by paragon

Hi everyone, thank you for clicking.

There is a concept in Catholicism where certain souls receive absolutely no consolation/signs/feedback from God, and when they seek any sort of spiritual reassurance they face nothing but an empty void. It's supposedly a higher path because the person is learning trust/faith in God without having any evidence whatsoever to back up their faith.

Does this concept exist in non-religious spiritual thinking? The only person I have ever heard mention it is Matt Kahn, but he doesn't say a lot about it. I ask because it feels like this is my path. I was born into a completely atheist family and had a brief, frightening spiritual experience at age 13 which was just enough to make me aware that a spiritual world existed and set me on this path. But before and since then, I've had absolutely nothing.

I've seen other people convert from atheism years and years after me, then have full-on apparitions and profound spiritual ecstasies, but still nothing for me. Of course, I don't seek apparitions nor any sort of spiritual experience for its own sake, but simply to get answers/guidance for my own life's purpose. I couldn't care less if I never have an apparition, I just want to move forward in my physical and spiritual life and hopefully attain some degree of peace. If I pray for something it gets ignored, but I've known others who can pray for something then have it parachute into their backyard the following day, probably with one of those little red gift ribbons attached to it. And a little card signed "lol, here's your washing machine - love God." They can even pray for me with some degree of success, and certainly more success than I have praying for myself.

All avenues of spiritual progress seem to be blocked off, too. Meditation is impossible for me because of my ADHD brain (yes I know we all feel like that, but for me it REALLY is impossible. I have a serious concentration problem.) Energy healing modalities that claim a near 100% success rate have a literal success rate of 0% on me. Sometimes they help, but the healing never lasts. Strangely enough, I do healings on others and get great results - but the same healing does not work on me. Self-muscle testing never works for me, and pendulums do give me yes and no answers, but the answers to the same questions change on a daily basis and can never be relied upon - hence another potential avenue of great spiritual insight is blocked off.

Anyone else feel like this? Anyone else heard of this concept in a non-religious context?

I would love to think this concept is merely a self-imposed limiting belief, but here I am years after beginning my spiritual journey and all of the metrics by which anyone would measure their progress in life - happiness, peace, love, finance etc. are exactly where they were at the beginning of my journey or worse. Even at the times when I felt somewhat confident with my spiritual trajectory, I did not make even an inch of progress and I ended up back where I started. One energy healer thought I had some sort ancestral curse, but no intuitives I've ever asked have been able to find any such thing.

Thank you very much for reading, I appreciate your time. I hope someone out there has some useful thoughts.

Hi Paragon,

I did feel many times during my personal (not spiritual) development that I was not making any progress at all because, I was fully focused on the end result that was set up way too high by me, not enjoying the journey and feeling that, I will never get or reach up there.

When, I said to myself, "this is not acceptable or fun any longer" and "what I will do is just see and have a look at where I was when I first started and where I'm currently at" , that is when I started feeling better, feeling proud about myself for what I had up to then accomplished and enjoying my journey.

What I did was to shift the comparison from where I was to where I wanted to get to, how I was and how things were when I first started.

My suggestion is to stop focusing on your short-comings and find what's good in you. It may be that you want, are willing and determined to work with the problems mentioned (social anxiety and fear) or something else.

Find the positives and what you have accomplished up to now and concentrate on them instead of the negatives and shortcomings.

Nobody is perfect, all gave short comings and their own issues , it is my belief but, not all fully concentrate on them or beat themselves up for them.

Also, stop comparing yourself with others. Everybody not only has their own issues to deal with(blind to them or not, taking responsibility for them or not) as well but, their own path to follow as well.

It may look greener on the other side but definitely, most is not as it appears to be.

Concentrate and think about on what you have, not what you do not have. I am sure that you can find a few things to be greatful about. Write these down and reflect upon them.

Shift your focus.

All the best!

[Jainarayan]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

Might want to give this a read. It's not about totally devoting yourself to others but totally devoting yourself to God through every action, and that includes not only action towards others but action for yourself and even your thoughts. Since the purpose of everything you do and think is a devotion to God it can't be for selfish reasons as it's all in the service of God.

That's not to say it's easy, but what spiritual path is?

The Path of Work – Karma Yoga

https://vedanta.org/yoga-spiritual-p...rk-karma-yoga/

Yes, chapter 3 of the Bhagavad Gita is devoted to this.

[Altair]

Originally Posted by JustBe

Different strokes for different folks Altair.

It’s the nature of this world.

You can do anything you put ‘your mind too’ and believe it’s working for you with regards to anything-energy work, parenting, how you do your job. Just about anything. If it ‘feels’ right for you, it potentially will be practiced by you.

Hi,
It's more like you can try to do anything you want, however it does not mean you will be successful or good at it. No human is the same. Some people meditate once in their life and that's it, they get as stoned as possible. Others do it for years and don't achieve anything beyond psychological well being.

If OP has tried it many times and did not receive the benefits he expected he would get, than it's time to either adjust goals and expectations, try some other practice, or discard it entirely. There are no two people that are the same. Spirituality is not science, we can't follow the same research strategy and achieve the same results.

Originally Posted by JustBe

‘Get more real with yourself’
People rush around with busy lives, ignoring many parts of life, self, needs. So most of those busy folk just survivin, often neglect stuff, many spiritual seekers are trying to resolve and overcome.

People neglect those things because they have to work, pay the bills, repair stuff, take care of family, etc. Most people have duties in life and can't all pay the bills by giving meditation classes, making paintings, playing a musical instrument, and being love/love/love all the time. It's not how reality works. In spiritual teachings I haven't seen or read any credible alternative for society. It's easy to say what the problems are in society, but it's much harder to come up with workable solutions...

Originally Posted by JustBe

I understand I was once crippled y anxiety and fear.

It’s taken me nearly half my life to break free.

Small steps helps. You can’t rush progress, but look st the little breakthroughs you’ve had, even if ‘not enough’.

Having good friends helps. I’m a bit envious you have Singing potatoes..

Dead on!

For some, one of the big anxieties is that results aren't immediate or happening all at once.
.

[JustBe]

Originally Posted by Lorelyen

Dead on!

For some, one of the big anxieties is that results aren't immediate or happening all at once.
.

Yes so true Lorelyen

This often comes back to how we ‘feel’ in what we know can be for others and the our wants for self in the same way. Developing trust in our own process as things are and can be for us, means letting go of others experiences which may never happen. By directing focus and being anxious about those results we know about, the window into our own process is not fully clear in that ‘holding’. .

[paragon]

Originally Posted by Altair

You could potentially meditate the rest of your life, every day for an hour or so, and not see any apparition or experience anything substantial whatsoever [besides basic benefits such as improved breathing, relaxation, and psychological awareness]. Anyone and their dog can achieve those things, but an actual spiritual experience is also probably not something you can just induce at will..

As I mentioned, spiritual experiences are not the goal here. The goal is to improve the areas of my life in which I'm suffering. To be honest, if I had to choose between having no supernatural experiences whatsoever or believing I'm talking to angels with names that sound like Transformers, I'd choose the former. I only mentioned spiritual experiences because I was interested to know if anyone had heard of the "spiritual abandonment" path outside of a Catholic context.

Sorry, but maybe it wasn't really healing to begin with. I've had people try to heal my migraines but it doesn't work, lol, even if I start believing that they have the power to heal. The physical world is fukking real. You can't cure migraine with healing hands or cancer with a water fast.

There is no purpose in me debating that question with you, so I won't. But I feel that I should provide a counter-voice so I'll just mention that I've had many strongly palpable, positive experiences with energy healing modalities. Anyone familiar with my other posts here will be certain there is no possibility of a placebo effect in my case. The trouble is purely that the healings don't last for me. There are also plenty of honest researchers like Dr Gary Schwarz, Prof William Tiller and Dr Konstantin Korotkov who have done controlled studies on various healing modalities with positive results.

Originally Posted by paragon

I would love to think this concept is merely a self-imposed limiting belief, but here I am years after beginning my spiritual journey and all of the metrics by which anyone would measure their progress in life - happiness, peace, love, finance etc. are exactly where they were at the beginning of my journey or worse. Even at the times when I felt somewhat confident with my spiritual trajectory, I did not make even an inch of progress and I ended up back where I started.

Here's another thought. The region of the brain responsible for perception of our life past, present and future is called the default network. It's the "Story of Me", and while it might be true in one sense it's not the whole story. Mindfulness training does three things: 1 - Lessens activity or importance of that network to some degree; 2 - Strengthens a lateral network that's a self-referential network more rooted in present moment experience; 3 - Lessens reactivity and value-laden judgments associated with the default network.

Here's an article titled "A mindfulness prescription for adult ADHD"

https://www.mindful.org/a-mindfulnes...or-adult-adhd/

Here's a totally free MBSR course. it's an 8 week course and looks like it requires a lot of dedication. Not sure if it's up your alley but I thought I'd put it out there. It has really good content and by some of the leaders in the field, including Jon Kabat-Zinn, the creator of MBSR.

https://palousemindfulness.com/index.html

In the end and my opinion is spirituality is more about cutting through the chaff to find the wheat, so to speak. Your ADHD is an obstacle to cutting through the chaff and MBSR might help you push through that and advance your journey.

[Jyotir]

Originally Posted by paragon

Hi everyone, thank you for clicking.

There is a concept in Catholicism where certain souls receive absolutely no consolation/signs/feedback from God, and when they seek any sort of spiritual reassurance they face nothing but an empty void. It's supposedly a higher path because the person is learning trust/faith in God without having any evidence whatsoever to back up their faith.

Does this concept exist in non-religious spiritual thinking? The only person I have ever heard mention it is Matt Kahn, but he doesn't say a lot about it. I ask because it feels like this is my path. I was born into a completely atheist family and had a brief, frightening spiritual experience at age 13 which was just enough to make me aware that a spiritual world existed and set me on this path. But before and since then, I've had absolutely nothing.

I've seen other people convert from atheism years and years after me, then have full-on apparitions and profound spiritual ecstasies, but still nothing for me. Of course, I don't seek apparitions nor any sort of spiritual experience for its own sake, but simply to get answers/guidance for my own life's purpose. I couldn't care less if I never have an apparition, I just want to move forward in my physical and spiritual life and hopefully attain some degree of peace. If I pray for something it gets ignored, but I've known others who can pray for something then have it parachute into their backyard the following day, probably with one of those little red gift ribbons attached to it. And a little card signed "lol, here's your washing machine - love God." They can even pray for me with some degree of success, and certainly more success than I have praying for myself.

All avenues of spiritual progress seem to be blocked off, too. Meditation is impossible for me because of my ADHD brain (yes I know we all feel like that, but for me it REALLY is impossible. I have a serious concentration problem.) Energy healing modalities that claim a near 100% success rate have a literal success rate of 0% on me. Sometimes they help, but the healing never lasts. Strangely enough, I do healings on others and get great results - but the same healing does not work on me. Self-muscle testing never works for me, and pendulums do give me yes and no answers, but the answers to the same questions change on a daily basis and can never be relied upon - hence another potential avenue of great spiritual insight is blocked off.

Anyone else feel like this? Anyone else heard of this concept in a non-religious context?

I would love to think this concept is merely a self-imposed limiting belief, but here I am years after beginning my spiritual journey and all of the metrics by which anyone would measure their progress in life - happiness, peace, love, finance etc. are exactly where they were at the beginning of my journey or worse. Even at the times when I felt somewhat confident with my spiritual trajectory, I did not make even an inch of progress and I ended up back where I started. One energy healer thought I had some sort ancestral curse, but no intuitives I've ever asked have been able to find any such thing.

Thank you very much for reading, I appreciate your time. I hope someone out there has some useful thoughts.

Very simply, in spiritual practice there are periods of preparation and assimilation that are often unconscious while they are happening, but become clarified as to significance in retrospect. Every experience in life - and especially spiritual life which is presumably a more conscious version or at least going in that direction - - cannot be, or be perceived to be a “peak” experience - or the fulfillment of what amounts to ignorant expectation based on the past, which by definition has already happened. The attachment to such is what prevents being “present in the moment“ which by nature is always new. That would be foolish but yet it is tempting to do this and is normal for mind which divides reality as such.

Often Spirit/Highest Self offers “big” experiences to novice seekers in order to awaken and make clear:

This is real; These are true possibilities; Life is deeper than the superficial material existence.

That must increasingly become the guiding orientation vs. give me what I want, how I want it - the form - e.g., my expectation of more "spiritual" (e.g. big occult-y experiences). It is really the subjective content that is important in spiritual practice - not objective form. Having these kinds of salutory or peak experiences is not really the goal, but they orient to it.

Many problems which may have their origin in these kinds of mixed orientations of the residuals of ego life vs. serving Spirit on the path, disappear when relinquishing ego-mind attachments/expectations to getting something (old way) - by letting go, seeking truth, devoting to and serving God's Will - not one's own desires (actual & disguised).

And if you understand this conceptually as some posts subsequent to the OP indicate, then the issue my be one of developing a cheerful patience and persistence without expectation, which is essential in practice.

~ J

[Altair]

Originally Posted by paragon

As I mentioned, spiritual experiences are not the goal here. The goal is to improve the areas of my life in which I'm suffering.

Okay, I understand. How do you reckon a spiritual experience will cure your suffering? What is your expectation and what is it based upon? Books? Beliefs? Anecdotes?

Originally Posted by paragon

There is no purpose in me debating that question with you, so I won't. But I feel that I should provide a counter-voice so I'll just mention that I've had many strongly palpable, positive experiences with energy healing modalities. Anyone familiar with my other posts here will be certain there is no possibility of a placebo effect in my case. The trouble is purely that the healings don't last for me.

That doesn't sound too different from many experiments with placebo. We can temporarily feel stress or pain relief. It does not mean there is some literal energy going from one person's hands to your body. Reality is not an RPG video game where we cast a healing spell..!! I've witnessed multiple ''healing'' seances but that shouldn't stop me or anyone else from thinking. It does not necessarily mean it works in the long term or tackles the health issue. Keep asking questions.