Conversations

excerpts from conversations related to spirituality

''Spirituality for me is journey into the world inside of us. To take notice of yourself from within.'' I loved this. I think it's the most fitting definition of spirituality I've heard, and I think I might steal it. Not knowing how to define spirituality is something I've been wrestling with, mostly because I've had a rather fraught relationship with most, if not all spiritual communities I came across. I can't fully articulate why yet, but the tendency to inflate experiences and subjective phenomena beyond what they can be reasonably interpreted as, is definitely part of it.

As for the shackles I believe it's definitely possible to break those shackles, but I have a fraught relationship with that as well :)))). Not sure if the world as is, is compatible, or maybe I've just not met the right people, or fully integrated my experience, or there is something I have yet to see. Maybe there are multiple sets of shackles. I usually go back and forth looking for the explanation that fits best :))). It's definitely that I've not integrated my experience :)))).

I've had what people call a mystical experience, which is a little scary, maybe, for me to say, because people can hear a lot of things, but it's also become a significant part of my life that I don't really know how to dance around, or am not skilled enough to do so yet :)))). Saying this defo makes me fear being seen exactly as someone who inflates experiences and subjective phenomena beyond what they can be reasonably interpreted as :))). Maybe I am guilty of it to some degree where what can be inferred from my experience is concerned, but as a general rule I try to be epistemically cautious.

It was in fact a series of phenomena, all of which shattered my understanding of reality that happened in very close temporal proximity. The mystical experience itself was sandwiched in between other phenomena, and ironically it included a somatic experience of shackles (invisible) breaking from my ankles and wrists. Also, ironically, I find the experience to have been a high level of inner world integration that culminated during the mystical experience, followed by extreme fragmentation. As a structural shorthand that isn't exhaustive, I went from God to Devil in one single month, where I am not sure what I can reasonably say about God, beyond it being a symbol for absolute psychological coherence, that compressed Love, Truth, Light, Trust. As for the Devil, well...just human, and a compression of the polar opposite experiential extremes Fear, Deception, Dark, Control.

I've been enamored with the structure of the experience for a good while, but it's not been easy to navigate and when I tried spiritual communities I, well, found a lot of dogma, and fondness of non-explanations like 'awakening', 'raising vibration', 'dark night of the soul' 'divine feminine/divine masculine' (as right brain/left brain and blatant stereotypes mind you) - rolls my eyes -, whereas I wanted to dissect, reason and explain because I wasn't comfortable saying I had an awakening (what does that even mean?). Beyond using awakening as a label I was left with using symbols (God, Love, Light) to articulate my experience and they don't really agree with social reality. Or the alternative was to recount the entirety of my experience which wasn't feasible. I find that magic isn't taken away by reason anyway, but reasoning makes it more magical to me, because it also means it's real. If something doesn't survive reality, I can do away with it.

Also please don't get me wrong, because I find value in spiritual communities, even in non-explanations, but I want layers deeper where non-explanations can become explanations for how, why, what. I also understand that people look for belonging, seeking to understand and articulate themselves, but I also became a little fed-up, because if everything is a dark night of the soul, an awakening, then nothing is. If a spiritual experience can be whatever you want it to be, then everything is spiritual - substance of which I am actually in agreement with, as I find the act of being to be spiritual in itself, but I think you know what I mean. If a category or label becomes so elastic that it ceases to discriminate between experiences, that makes it difficult to articulate our real selves, and real experiences. I am pro precision and accuracy :)))), although I am not nearly as precise or accurate in my articulation as I'd probably like to be.

As for the likes of Deepak Chopra, well, we both know he turned out to be problematic in more ways than one, but as a general rule I am skeptical of everyone who sells spirituality, and even more so, of those who are comfortable bathing in 'disciples', and 'followers'. For now, I find spirituality is a matter of personal affective/cognitive grammar and symbols - personal, cultural -, and while I believe there are principles that organise experience, consciousness and reality, I am circumspect about people who sell formulaic healing recipes. I am not necessarily opposed to selling spirituality in principle, but I am skeptical.

''With science, you can convince others using equations and advanced math. With spirituality, its more personal and I am not sure if you can provide any verifiable evidence. With no evidence, it becomes a slippery slope.''. I've been a little ambitious, in at least outlining the structure of experience, as I do believe the structure to be universal, and mine was extreme enough to take me to extreme polar experiential opposites in close enough proximity to, I believe, expose that structure. Other than this, my issue was with the verifiable evidence, because evidence is a bit elusive in such circumstances, and the trouble is that when the inner world and its symbols become structurally real it shifts everything for you, but nothing for those around. This being said, my experience has low ambiguity anchors and can be partly externally verified, as it also has a logical and psychologically plausible experiential structure that basically spans almost my entire life, which at least says that I am not lying about what I experienced internally - but other than this, the elusiveness is what to me makes mystical/spiritual experiences/emergences a bit complicated to deal with in social reality. Even in spiritual communities, I find there is a tendency to minimise what a rupture/shift in one's understanding of reality means when the rest of one's external world remains the same as it was yesterday.

I pondered on whether or not to share this and right now my reality is that I don't know how to touch on it, not touch on it, or make it seem/feel less than I experienced it. If you're wondering, it was all rainbows and flowers for a long time, for as long as I dealt with the God/Love/Truth pole of the experience, but integrating the Devil pole made it well, not rainbows and flowers :)))). It was a mammoth of an experience, although you shouldn't feel sorry for me, because analysing and breaking it into parts was thoroughly enjoyable :))).

You are not harsh at all. I have a tendency to use harsher language than I actually do because I get really angry with it all, at times, but I also feel the need to restrain myself because I actually empathise with all these people - well, with some more than others possibly. I suppose that it depends on the people and the context, but as a general rule sometimes I want to say many harsh things :))).

The irony is that I am not against any of these either. I haven't personally tried reiki, and I have my skepticism based on everything I've seen reiki adjacent - seemed very business-oriented -, but I can also believe the concept behind might have some substance. Where astrology is concerned - when I was a teen, I actually taught myself astrology in my desire to get to know myself - never took it (too?) seriously, but it was its own kind of experience. Like I can read charts and whatnot, but based on what I learned at the time, actual astrology doesn't claim to be able to make the kind of predictions that horoscopes claim to make, but it's more of a symbol based system that shows predilections, and potentialities that may or may not manifest. It is what I learned about it at the time at least. I think this whole 'astrology as a tool to predict the future' may be more recent, and more connected to commercial horoscopes? Might be wrong, as I haven't actually looked into its history.

Now, when it comes to symbols, whether we like it or not symbols are a part of human existence, and based on my own analysis of my own experience, and something from Jungian psychology lol, I actually believe them to be compressions of experiential patterns. I also believe them to be rather personal to each individual, in that, while, sure, there is a familiar range of human experiences, there is equally as much individual complexity within that range. If we mix in culture, it becomes even more complex. Right now, I am unsure what to make of archetypes and their claim to cultural universality. I think it's possible for them to be universal, but I also think there might be an individual component. It makes sense that at least the most salient culturally wide symbols might be universal, but yeah I found myself, just right now, going back and forth on this.

For this reason I think that astrology, or tarot can have spiritual value where symbols are concerned, and might communicate something to an individual consciousness - what that something is, I think it depends on the salience and how that individual consciousness relates to that symbol. Now, this is how I see the simplified version, because it becomes increasingly complex where an interpersonal interaction is concerned, as it's an exchange between two individuals with different motives, intentions, and whatnot.

At some point I ended up wrestling with these matters, as it's rather difficult and maybe even a degree of inhumane, and even irrational to dismiss that, experiences towards which large groups of people are drawn to, have some value. The question to me in such cases becomes 'what is their value?' either to know for myself, or in trying to understand or empathise with the people that engage, and I think symbolism is what draws most people whether they are aware, or know how to articulate that, or not.

While I have a rather fraught relationship with pretty much every spiritual community I came across, I do have to admit that part of the problem might be the materialist view of the universe which gained a lot of traction these last few decades. What I mean by this, is that our society and culture decided spirituality is for foolish people, or only certain forms of spirituality became acceptable. And to me people who engage with spirituality in its various forms, even where these systems of symbols are concerned, are simply trying to make sense of their lives, their inner worlds with what may be the only tools available to them. And there is also this phenomenon I observed, the moment you make someone feel stupid, they tend to double down in order to resolve that feeling.

I think society is equally as responsible in investigating spiritual phenomena more seriously. Since my experience, for example, I came across lots of kundalini type experiences. The concept of spiritual emergence is well documented in transpersonal psychology, and basically the psychiatric community as a whole is somewhat familiar with it, but if a spiritual emergence, turns into a spiritual emergency (cause shift in reality and whatnot) even if they were to clinically recognise it for what it is, they will treat it with the same medication they treat psychosis. (at least this is what I remember being the case from a thesis I read on the subject, and sounds realistic to me).

This isn't to say that I haven't also met people who'd had a spiritual experience of some kind that turned into a form of what seemed to be psychosis. I don't want to get into someone else's personal story, but I've heard enough to know the line between a profound experience and a profound experience interpreted through a filter that is various degrees of removal from reality. Says me, who had an experience with God-Devil symbols :))))). I usually feel mean when I label other people's experience, but then again how else do you draw a boundary in remaining anchored in reality? This feeling of meanness might be internalised patriarchy, because why not? :)))

This being said, I stand by my own experience of spiritual communities, and more often than not, I've had my experience minimised, either because 'awakening', or because it's abundant in Christian symbolism - I wasn't religious prior to my experience, I was even sure I couldn't be conditioned by Christianity, type of non-religious, and at most I was curious about what was out there, but I held the same skeptical stance throughout my life -, despite the fact that my experience presented with a cluster of reality shattering phenomena that I am right now tired in trying to pretend it was smaller than it was, or that I have personally encountered an experience similar to mine in intensity, or clutter. I am not looking for hierarchies, for better, for worse, but boundaries, simply so I know where I stand relative to. So basically, not every spiritual experience is psychosis, not every unusual experience is spiritually valid, and not every apparent departure from reality can simply be dismissed without examination of the actual structure and veracity potential of the experience.

All in all, not a fan of the spiritual communities I came across at the very least, but I do have to admit that in trying to compare and contrast my experience with kundalini type experiences, I think these experiences are filtered by one's informational environment and cultural background. It was obvious that regardless of intensity they all explored themes of oneness and love at the very least.

"I feel its very similar to the fancy combat or spy movies with high octane drama, fancy cars and lots of glamour. But in reality, combat is nothing like what we see in fancy movies. In reality, the life of a spy or a combat soldier can be dull, boring and full of blood and gore and not an inch of glamour.". And I so agree, it's just reality, but I love that. Reality has this specific texture, I think that no matter how wild it's recognisable in it's structure, where human experiences are concerned it just has that touch of human, of what we call imperfection, and I am fascinated with it for being what it is. I used to say about mine that what makes it real is the human part of it. It's unmistakable. I clearly have a love relationship with reality.

And I so love metaphors. In literature, poetry, every day speech :))). Big fan, but while I find them very useful to communicate a lot of compressed information in one symbol/metaphor, the trouble is that sometimes things can get lost in translation, because me and you might have different experiences, and maybe even give a slightly different meaning to the same metaphor. Maybe, that's a feature though instead of a weakness. Who knows. I suppose it depends on how one looks at it. I am very much a 'it depends' kind of person :)))).

"In sciences as well, a lot of science communicators make a lot of over the top claims and extrapolations, make it sound very mystical. Quantum mechanics, Chaos theory and Fractal geometry, Godel's incompleteness theorems are some very common examples of where science communicators really over do themselves and pretty much make a joke of themselves." - oh, how I wish I could be more knowledgeable about your domain, as while I have some knowledge, awareness, exposure and whatnot, I couldn't claim knowledge. I would however love to get more acquainted, as, well, Reality :))).

I am not sure how to parse your first paragraph. I might need a concrete example, because as it stands I might agree or at least partly disagree. 

Anyways :))))

That's impressive, and I am only upset that I can't share your joy, for no other reason than, well, I am not sufficiently knowledgeable about it. I used to be great at math in middle school, but then, I feel something shifted in high school. Despite this, and despite living with the impression that I was bad at math in high school, I recently realised that wasn't the case, as much as I wasn't the best at math :))))) - I was an 8 out of 10 in the highest level math class :))))). I did, however, just as recently, pick up an interest in the philosophy of mathematics. Have yet to actually delve into it, because my reading list has been a joke lately. And I love that for you, love that you love it to be a bit of a workaholic. I can relate to your form of workaholism, in that I find it very easy to get absorbed into areas of study or work I enjoy or am interested in.

Oh, I've always loved Roma music. If you haven't already, you should try Mahala Rai Banda. I used to particularly like 'Botez la Lae Turcu', and upon checking them after reading your message I discovered they composed the Roma hymn which is a lovely piece of music, but they have some lovely tunes in general. You liking Made in Romania doesn't come off as a cliche at all, I'd say it's rather niche for someone who didn't grow up in Romania :)))). I've actually been finding myself drawn to traditional music from all parts of the world lately, as besides it being fun, I find it tells a part of that culture's and people's story. It's dreamy, and I am fascinated by the idea of cultural immersion anyway.

When I was a teen I had this fantasy about how cool it would be to travel and spend about one month in every single country on earth.- Anything less seemed insufficient for anything that might remotely resemble cultural immersion. I think I did the math, and all things considered - there were other things I would have liked to do in life -, it did not to seem feasible, so I figured to expand it to one year, and from every single country I expanded to every single city, town and community within a country. I figured that since my original fantasy did not seem feasible, I might as well fantasize about the virtually impossible version :)))). I imagined how cool it would be to see the slight cultural shifts and transitions from one community to another, as I imagined it can tell you a lot about people in general. I was fascinated with the concept of 'human' since then.

'At the crossroads of east and west so to say' - I've been picking up an interest and fascination with this as well, as I find such places of transition between larger cultural zones to have a very interesting story to tell. Just yesterday, I saw a sm media post about a book on Romania suggesting that it being a transition zone might make it more historically significant than it's been generally regarded as. If it had been written by a Romanian, I would have been suspicious of a nationalist agenda, but judging by the name, the author didn't seem to be Romanian. I might have to look it up, as I only got a very quick glance of the post, so I don't remember the title or the author's name. I am not fond of the idea of cultural hierarchies, so far from me to toot about Romanian culture as I always found certain forms of sounding the cultural horn off putting when I saw them in fellow nationals. I find myself more fascinated with how there are both similarities and creative differences in how people engage with more or less the same world, or how the variation in environments, or even history affects that engagement, and transition zones might be rather revealing both on how cultures intersect and interact with one another, and of the geopolitical impact of such zones being treated as cannon fodder between various powers.

Not sure how interested you are, but not very long ago I saw a really interesting documentary on world history - it was the entire recorded history of humankind (major events) in chronological order, and I found it fascinating. It put historical events into a perspective I don't think I had prior to it. I am mentioning this because it relates to the previous idea, as besides the drive for power and material resources, it was thoroughly enjoyable to see how humans separated by wild distances just couldn't help but want to collaborate, exchange ideas and discoveries.

You shouldn't give me something to talk about, because it seems I like writing novel length messages.