Truth Seeking, what is life, what is humanity, what is you Options

as the topic suggests.

Lately i am missing more occult discussions on these forums. altough i like talking about vegetarianism and drugs, i want to talk more about the nature of my beliefs and study.
namely the search for pure untainted truth. and the gathering of as much power as i can contain.
Those are my goals, towards enlightenment.

I was wondering how others view their search for whatever they are searching for.
perhaps some have found some form of truth they are content with, i wish to hear about these opinions in a respectable way.
no bashing others ideas, just sharing (IMG:style_emoticons/default/baby.gif)

I myself belief in non-existance. however i believe this truth has to be experienced in an enlightening experience, or more experiences.
at the moment i have experienced this at times. but i seem to keep forgetting it in the long run, and their seems to be a need for constant experiencing this non-existance. thus to live fully in this awarenes. This is hard to do, but rewarding as it makes life a peacefull experiences.

No-mind, the stopping of mind chatter is the primary practise of this belief, toghether with meditation.

this i try to combine with ceremonial magick, trying to get a taste and feeling of magickal essense and energys. i have found they have a distinct taste when working with them over the years. enlarging this taste and connection is one of my goals.

the increase in magickal potence gives me more control over things in life trough magick. this enables me to worry less about things not nesesary for the first goal of no mind. This way i can use magick to steer my life where i want it with little effort, so that i can practise no-mind and non-existance in an undisturbed way.

However, i have many questions still and many ways to go.

I hope this will get a possible discussion started, perhaps we can enlighten each other on various ways.
i would really like to learn more about the magickal side, sinse i consider myself still a child in learning at that side. The consepts of the spiritual side are easier.

so lets get started, anyone wanna share their core beliefs, mentalities conserning their practise. not really the tools of the trade, but really what goes on in the head while doing them. feelings tastes sensations that happen during practise.

my magick practise tastes verry purple. the nature of these energies tastes not evil or good, its a strange taste. a feeling of strength and energy without a connection to good or evil, a purple goo swirling around me. this is not something i visualise, its not important to me how you visualise your magick. its the feedback you get. no matter how i visualise my magick acts, it always tastes like this to me, wich is something i think more true than my visualisations.

I believe that by discussing these tactile connections we can learn from each other how to closer connect to these energies. in truth and not merely visualisation techniques. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

lets begin...

Interesting, I usually characterize magickal energy as a sort of light blue/purple.

I experience my search as the journey towards Ascension, which is maybe the same thing as enlightenment. A state of pure consciousness, above and beyond the physical world. There are moments when it seems like an inevitability, something just on the edge of my existence, and other times when I have a hard time believing that it's possible. Usually when I have less energy it seems farther away, or less realistic.

As far as the magickal side goes, originally energy was just some concept, nothing that I could touch or hold in any fashion. I would get discouraged because a lot of the other teenage 'magickians' that were my peers would talk about seeing energy, throwing energy, having astral projection adventures, stuff like that. Expectations of physical sensations like holding something solid, or fantastic magickal effects kind of sidetracked me for a while.

My guides laid a great deal of foundational theory and 'knowledge' before I ever experienced energy, such that the first time it happened, I knew exactly what it was, and everything sort of fell into place. I characterize energy by vibration, weight, density, and texture - in total, each energy is present as a particular composite feeling which can be dissected and studied. I don't visualize much, which is to say that for me energy has no visual component, although I do sometimes visualize a particular object or subject which evokes a connection to a particular energy, in some cases. Less now so than before.

Love is an energy with a high vibration, light and airy, but dense and forceful, like gravity. it's texture is soft, like goosedown, and when it is 'touched' it envelopes and penetrates.

Fire is an energy with a volatile vibration, hard and comparable to electricity in it's 'density'. It's texture is jagged and expansive, and when it is touched it consumes - holding it in my mind, It does not easily remain in it's own 'compartment' but tends to consume my concentration on other things.

Abundance is an energy with a tenor vibration, rubbery and flexible. It has little temperature at all, which leads me to think of abundance as an impersonal force. it is sometimes heavy and sometimes lighter, and has the density of jell-o.

For me energy has a comparable scheme to the physical world - there are larger parts composed of smaller parts. One energy is made up of a number of other energies, all 'lesser' in scope than the composite energy. but, the way that they combine doesn't necessarily produce a tactile sensation that seems to be what one would expect two mixed sensations to feel like. so, for me the energetic parts are a little like molecules. When combined in different ways, they generate an overall substance that may not be anything like either of the two (or more) individual parts.

So far it's my belief that when the moment of death comes - either chosen or happenstance - there is a chance to remain distinct, if one is able to hold enough energy. i think that the average person tends to ignore the subtle universe, and they don't excercise their subtle body - the body that will remain for a time after the physical body dies.

I don't know if that distinctness is what is sounds like, but I know that consciousness can survive physical death, at least for a time. Whether or not it is able to continue to remain distinct after the initial transition, i think depends on the training that consciousness has had in being aware of it's environment, and it's ability to act within that environment. In the case of physical death, the environment becomes purely energetic in nature. So, I spend a great deal of time learning to distinguish between my physical self and my energetic self. There are moments of 'enlightenment' in which I feel fully aware of my energy, the part of me that inhabits the body, and there are moments when i get wrapped up and weighed down by mundane affairs of life. It's funny to think, sometimes, that I have has visions of the beginning of time, talked to entities outside my native dimensions, and made the rain stop, but still get bummed about not having a lover sometimes. I think it's important to always remember that even an exceptional human being is still human being.

So, learning to understand, use, and be aware of the subtle universe is the core of my work, and has as it's goal, the survival of physical death. I'm also learning more every day about what it means for my life, how it allows me to navigate the world and identify the truth in what's happening around me. People wear so many masks, and collectively we derive naturally, several dimensions of falsehood in our society. Commercialism, Education, the professional world, all of these parts of society have illusions projected onto them by a society full of individuals who live inside these illusions. It think that is why, over time, many seekers often find that the world is becoming more and more unkind and false, while at the same time seeing it's wonder and mystery - at first, we see the illusion and the reality as the same, we're taught to include them together in one view. As those views seperate, the illusion seems that much more futile and harmful without the benefit of the reality behind it, and the reality becomes that much more mysterious and amazing without the hinderance of the illusion over it.

peace

i love your description of the various energies, its nice to see others that try to taste and feel certain energies.

i myself had a lot of trouble with this in the beginning. I might even have begun magickal study to achieve powers like on tv. with the trowing of energy balls and such.
However, that search has led me to more spiritual paths.

I always had problems with seeing things too, and i must admit that it made me feel unhappy at times when i read about full blown magick done by others.
But lately i have stopped caring about this, i just perform the magick and try to sense what is going on as good as i can.
My practise is focused more on the spiritual side anyway, and visuals are not needed on that path, control over the mind is more important.

my idea of non-existance is also a form of assenscion. The silencing of the mind i believe leads to this, when the mind is silence other parts of consiousness awaken. This way i think one can dive deeper and deeper into what is the subtle body you speak about.
In this way when the chatter of the lower mind is silenced more and more, the higher parts open more and more.
I believe there to be several levels to it, and i have felt myself when the lower mind silence.

I have walked around this way for about a month last year, after serious deep meditation and study of eastern paths. I felt a silence inside, my mind was never thinking about anything, everything would roll of my back since it could find no place in my mind. At the same time i felt love at everything i saw, the birds, the trees, the bus i was riding and the people in it. It was powerfull to feel this way and happy. However, due to that happynes i started to slack and it wore of after about a month. Lately i have been seeking that experience again, i think i should keep at it and keep practising even after i have found it again.

I love the idea you talk about death. I believe it may be so too. Perhaps after training and preparing the subtle body it is able to keep existing at a higher level an ascended plane. perhaps the true immortals where able to ascend in place but we may wait for death to come naturally, so that we are naturally severed from our body.

I really liked your reply. Talking about personal sensations and feelings when dealing with magick and spirituality is so much more learning than dry text books like the ones written by various occult authors. these authors talk mostly about universal things, and how you should feel, and never about how it feels to them personally. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

It's true that learning to silence yourself is a great foundation, focusing on that alone is something is something I have seen in the 'amateur' ranks of magi. By studying the works of people like Bardon and Fitch we see that one must learn not only silence, but also focus, holding one single thought. Let us also not forget the advice of Yoda as well. He counciled Luke to learn to follow the flow of his true thoughts, what thoughts were actually flowing through his mind, and this is most likely the most difficult that we must learn. Silence and oneness are not that difficult while learning to listen, or hear is of great difficulty.

I've always felt that the greatest ally you could give yourself on the way is that of trust. You've got to trust in yourself to divide the fine from the gross and to accept them both as part of the world. I also believe one of the greatest things you can do to help yourself at any one time is to create a positive and negative list about yourself, and then personalize that list so it makes sense to you.

There are many mysteries and challenges in this world and sometimes it becomes difficult to actually find out what should or could come next.

those are some wise words bb3.
I remember that i wrote something like that down too a while ago, you helped me remember that.

It was my idea at that time that by silencing the lower mortal mind, the true self has a chance to speak. This way one is able to follow the true mind, the higher self.
I do not know if the silencing is nesecary and this interests me alot.
I was of the assumption that it was fase based, but i may have been wrong.

my idea was to first silence the mind, so that it becomes like a pool of water with clear surface.
The lower mind being the water of the lake, and the true mind being the rocks and earth that make up the bottom of the lake.
Thus by silencing, subduing the water, it becomes clear and the bottom becomes visible.
This i thought to be the case with the mind, by silencing the thoughts the deeper thoughts become more visible.

But you are right i think. If one only silences the mind, then there is nothing. there must be room for something to focus on.
The water of the lake may become calm, but if you are looking at the sky at that time, the bottom still is not visible. So one must focus at the bottom.

I'm not sure yet, i'm still thinking about it as i seem to be a bit noisy and confused these days and i'm borrowing from experiences i had in the past this time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

anyways, good post, good wisdom, thanks bb3 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

those are some wise words bb3.
I remember that i wrote something like that down too a while ago, you helped me remember that.

It was my idea at that time that by silencing the lower mortal mind, the true self has a chance to speak. This way one is able to follow the true mind, the higher self.
I do not know if the silencing is nesecary and this interests me alot.
I was of the assumption that it was fase based, but i may have been wrong.

I think I may be able to shed some further clarification upon this idea. Remember that the true mind/self is always speaking, ie expressing itself. Hence, we are emotional beings and people whose life is not always as happy as it could/shoud be because the true mind/self is expressing itself without/contrary etc to our knowledge.
Though I'm sure you're well aware of this let me also elaborate for any newbies reading that it isn't a case of 'following' the true self. It's much better to say that we are 'led' by the true mind. Clearly, it would be making a difficult task more difficult if we were to attempt to scramble after the divine's every movement.

my idea was to first silence the mind, so that it becomes like a pool of water with clear surface.
The lower mind being the water of the lake, and the true mind being the rocks and earth that make up the bottom of the lake.
Thus by silencing, subduing the water, it becomes clear and the bottom becomes visible.
This i thought to be the case with the mind, by silencing the thoughts the deeper thoughts become more visible.

But you are right i think. If one only silences the mind, then there is nothing. there must be room for something to focus on.
The water of the lake may become calm, but if you are looking at the sky at that time, the bottom still is not visible. So one must focus at the bottom.

I'm not sure yet, i'm still thinking about it as i seem to be a bit noisy and confused these days and i'm borrowing from experiences i had in the past this time. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

anyways, good post, good wisdom, thanks bb3 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

In this case I think you need to step back and look at it from the opposite side of things. What if, by learning to listen to yourself, really listen until you reached greater and greater depths and then found yourself listening to the silence to which you sought. Indeed, it may be that both ways to lead to the same silence; however, it's always better to be able to look at things from many different perspectives.

I'll attempt to use your metaphor now: the flow of our true thoughts might be akin to the underground stream that rises up through the earch and the rocks to ensure our pool of water never drys up. By following the stream we reach the pool, already calm and perfect in every way.

All in all silencing the mind may very well be the greatest aid that an occultist have in his arsenal, but if silence is all that you can muster many lesser lights will rise to greater heights because of their versatility.

I used to think I knew what I believed. I used to think that black was black andwhite was white. Now I don't know. Many changes have occured to me in my life. Mediumship is a faculty that has developed with me as I have grown older, it has given me many answers but also raised many questions.

My granddaughter asks me 'Nanny how can you talk to people that aren't here any more?' I want to answer 'Oh, its easy darling', but is it? Are we not missing one of the biggest wonders of the world? The fact that when we leave our earthy body we can still 'be', we are still here.

I don't know any more. I know that I can detect a subtle energy shift within others around me, I know that I am aware when my home isn't cleansed of negativity. I know that 'magick' works, and that it IS possible to cast a spell that is succesful.

I know that words can harm, that they are sometimes greater weapons than swords and that when my little grandchildren touch my face and say 'Nanny I love you' it means more than any of that.

But otherwise....I don't really know.

I may ramble, so bear with me.

I don't buy this "the universe is made of atoms and energy" stuff we are taught in school. We have microscopes that can see small beyond what we thought were elementary "particles". Down that low we still find structure. And energy. What is energy? "They" say it's wavelengths of massless energy who properties are determined by the wavelengths. Yet, this energy acts as a particle sometimes and as a wave other times. It must be massless to move at the speed of light, yet it must have mass, because it transfers momentum (think a laser heating something or a solar sail being propelled).

This has lead me to conclude that the universe is much more than we can detect, and the "physical" things we interact with -- "matter" and "energy" -- are composed of. . .information[. What is this information? I don't know, but I think it doesn't entirely exist in this universe. I think most of it exists in higher universes (and lowers ones) that we all lump together into "spirit". Our physical being cannot interact with this "spirit realm", but our mind and spirits can.

Something much greater than us created the universe we live in as well as all of the spiritual realms we seek in. It is our responsibility to seek out this creator and find our place in its plans. The spirit entities aren't the creator, but are created by it and have a higher kniowledge than we do. We contact them to learn and progress.

While I think we live on after death, I do not believe that we progress in and of ourselves, we have to be made into a new creation that can interact with the spirit, not just the physical, which is why it is imperative that wefind our place, and willingly participate to fulfill it.

Knowledge is power. knowledge, or mor ethe complete contents of our mind and spirit is all we can take with us from this world. Knowledge is worth having, and I prefer to concentrate on the acquitition of such, rather than collecting mundane trinkets.

There's more, but it is difficult for me to put it into words right now. I need to think on it a bit and maybe post more later.

bb3, i think you have a good point.
I was also wondering, by listening, do you mean observing your thoughts but not interacting with them.
Or does listening mean actively thinking about stuff?

LitzB it must be a great feeling when your little grandchildren tell you that.
you also say "I used to think that black was black andwhite was white. Now I don't know"
But shouldn't it be, now i know it isn't so. i think there are many shades of grey in everything.

But it makes it harder these shades of grey, there is no clear cut easy truth then anymore.
How does that not knowing make you feel, and how does it connect to what your little grandchildren tell you.
Do you think perhaps, f%*! it all, as long as i can hear my loved ones say such things.
or...


darkgoddes.
I agree to most of what you said. As i believe more or less in the same things.
But the problem with such ideas, beliefs is. They are logical and rational things.

To me magick is emotion. How does it feel when you realise, really realise with all your being that all is just energy.
What is the nature of this energy, what texture does it have when it flows trough your fingers, and into your lungs.
What does it feel like to be just a part of this flow.

These are things that are really interesting and hold more knowledge.

I'm sure you have such feelings if you search for them, it adds color and texture to these words that i seek. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

Yes, what I am describing mostly falls under the realm of observation. It's akin to entering the flow of your thought and then staying within that flow and not becoming distracted by other things. The goal is to be able to go deeper and deeper and you'll find there are many different depths you can go to and such. Not that it's always the case, but consider this: with this you're attempting to discover your innermost voice, not the voice you most often associate yourself as, in other words you're looking to hear what your divine self has to say. At the most basic and surface level you'll be able to manipulate and lead your thoughts but that's not the case all the time in deeper levels. I will say that this isn't always having to do with actual wording, it comes differently for people. This talent for hearing the true self is that skill you see in those who are 'natural' or wonderkin in the occult arts and even in most fields of skill. Though the naturalness of a persons ability often doesn't mean anything when it comes to levels of potential, other than that it may be possible to arrive at your potential quicker.
Yes, if you're thinking about actively thinking, that would be the honing in on one single thought or idea. Initially this may not sound like actively thinkings about 'things' but on practice you'll find your thought or idea to have a surprising amount of flexibility.
I'm not sure I understood all that, let me know if you come up with anything else.

You've started such an interesting topic of conversation, Smoking Fox. It really is a pleasant break from most of the mechanical discussions about technique and formality that normally reign. Kudos.

On the subject of dying, I had an curious insight during meditation tonight, told to me by one of my selves. He said, "To ascend, one must relieve oneself of the weight of knowledge and experience. it is that weight which, when at the moment of death we cling to it, drags us back down into the material incarnation."

I wondered what others' thoughts were on this idea. I get lots of insights from my various selves (inner, outer, higher, lower, etc., corresponding to various 'realms' of personality and consciousness within the total sphere of my context, it's something that developed over time during meditation) but they aren't always totally complete, sometimes they build on one another, and in some cases they are even false - those particular selves, I have found, will almost always lie to me, and so part of my work on that level is excising or possibly assimilating those aspects. Maybe they represent self-delusion or self-sabotage, I haven't decided yet. This particular self is always cryptic, and nothing ever means exactly what it seems to at first.

But, afterwards, I was thinking about the moment of death, something that occaisionally preoccupies my attention from the here-and-now, or the Living Force, as it were. I imagined the white-out, tunnel of light scenario talked about in many individuals' NDEs. I wandered through the process of feeling my body go 'dead' my senses withdrawing, and then found myself floating. I tried to feel the 'weight' of knowledge in my context from there, and didn't get much of a solid bead on anything I could identify as such. When I couldn't find a specific reference point for what this Self had communicated, I began to contemplate the symbolic meaning of the statement. Sometimes a simple phrase can mean dozens of different things, all relevant to a particular bit of wisdom, so 'wordmapping' is a sort of excercise i've started doing when i get some of these things.

Do we cling to continuity as we die? Do we struggle to hold on to our memories, our experiences, our lives, and because of this attachment, become pulled back into the cycle of life and death? Is this relinquishing of everything that classically defines oneself what is meant by the Buddhist concept of transcending the cycle of Karma? I have often imagined that I would like to, if it is not my lot to ascend at/before death, attempt to maintain my awareness, my distinct consciousness and continuity, into my next life. Probably it would not manifest as an infant who remembers litterally every skill from the previous incarnation, but rather, perhaps, a similar sense of 'lasting longer than my life' that I sometimes experience now. Stuff between incarnations is so hard to work out, sometimes, as though it's litterally kept from view. Normally my intuition can navigate towards just about any answer I've set it to finding so far, except those ones.

So, anyways, wondered about some thoughts on these ideas. As to the previous posts, I've enjoyed some of what's been said.

To me magick is emotion. How does it feel when you realise, really realise with all your being that all is just energy.
What is the nature of this energy, what texture does it have when it flows trough your fingers, and into your lungs.
What does it feel like to be just a part of this flow.

I think that this realization leads to union with the Force. But, i also feel that it happens in 'layers'. I found, when I was much younger, that by stilling my thoughts, placing my attention outwards on the world around me, and 'relaxing' my sense of absolute reality, that is, suspending my belief in a solid, material universe for a moment, I would momentarily lose a bit of distinctness. Rather than absolutely ending at my skin, I felt as though I was still individual, but somehow also 'embedded' in a larger field of energy.

Over time, my ability to suspend that belief, coupled with a greater control over my energy, lead me to a deeper level of union. After the third 'plateau' I managed to sacrifice a bit of ego - originally I thought the first 'level' was a sort of precursor to the second, but when there turned out to be a third, i finally accepted that there may be no limit, and no longer touted my ability to unify with the Force.

I have hit one more plateau after the third, culminating in four distinctly different levels of union. They have a strange sort of emotionlessness which increases each time, if that makes sense. that is, the first time, it was a euphoric, connected feeling. The second plateau was less euphoric, but still very calming. The third was almost on the border of 'blank', and then the fourth most recent feels even more empty all together. It leads me to wonder about the nature of emotion.

While I would agree that energy is information, i think it is only part of that equation all together. I think energy is Information and Consciousness, and i do not think that consciousness is composed of information inherently - I believe that consciousness accesses and manipulates energy/information. To my reckoning, it is the two parts together that constitute the Force, and I normally experience them unified, inseperable, and so talking about those aspects as seperate things may be pointless, but none the less I have observed and intuited very uniquely different sides of the Force, even as it is singularly unique as a whole.

As to the nature of emotion in all of that, I wonder if emotion is not a by product of our incarnation, our percieved illusion seperateness from the Force. Certainly emotion is power, and drives the most powerful magick - and certainly all energy will occur to us as emotion BEFORE we are able to percieve it by some conscious effort. for instance I no longer experience an energy affecting my system as an emotion, after I have identified it and begun working with it. The emotional dimension is gone, and I am working then with a subtle substance which is both part of me and not a part of me at the same time. Outside my context, within my sphere of experience. Hopefully that makes sense.

But, if energy doesn't have to be bound to emotion - and many will agree that it doesn't, especially us analyzing, logic-addicted would-be occult scientists - then what does that say about the relationship between energy and emotion? Emotions are instinctual, you don't have to be taught to have them, although we do learn to mimic emotional behaviour, for instance the child who learns the pattern of abuse from his anger ridden father and later grows up to express his anger in the same way. Both experience anger instinctually, but obviously how that anger manifests is a result of conditioning experiences.

Perhaps the division between energy and emotion is purely semanitic, a distinction amongst facets of a grain of sand in a beach. My general theory has long been that emotion is an instinctual reaction to energy. What say you all?

On the matter of listening to the inner self, or observing one's thoughts, I find that if i begin the topic, much like in this forum, I can allow my mind to go from there, letting the various pieces of my Self pitch in their various view points. On occaision, and you must pay close attention to what you are observing, those 'opinions' or sometimes Insights, will take on extra dimensions of meaning. if you focus on those highlighted notions, and 'reposition' your point of origin on that thought (its like starting over again), it will happen again and again in a chain of linked insights that often culminate in profound revelation. The trick is not to be attached to what thoughts occur, but to rather take part in a sort of conversation with the Psyche. I find that taking the role of the questioner, or student, there only to ask questions and listen to answers, without postulating my 'own' answers in the process, makes it easier to allow the thoughts to flow, and the questioning is, in its way, the navigation. Questions don't have to be asked 'aloud' as it were, so much as simply embodied or maybe just felt. And, they get more complicated as the answers get more complicated, taking on subtler dimensions as you descend into the psyche, to the point that some questions don't even make sense, and the answers are explorations into the complexity of the question itself and what that complexity represents about the nature of developement in one's waking consciousness. I sometimes find i've come 'all this way' just to realize that the lesson there for me was all about why I came that way, and had nothing to do with direct answers to the questions I had in mind at first - although I have to admit I usually find that I am no longer interested to the answers I originally sought. I guess the inner self does know best.

peace

Well, the topic of dying is probably a never ending story if you think about it. I think the advice you received is on the wise side. It's not quite the way I like to thnk about it, I most often refer to the book the eagles gift. There, Silvio Manuel says: "there's nothing peaceful or gorgeous about death, the true terror begins upon dying when the immensity that is the eagle comes and squeezes out of you every flicker of awareness that you've ever had." It's not quite the word for word quote, but this is close. I especially recognize validity of the first part in everything that I do. This also goes hand in hand with my own awareness that life is a difficult venture.

Reading what you just wrote about the following of your own thoughts, it would seem to me, that you're description of things is much closer to what I would call focusing on one, and only one thought. This isn't neccessarily incorrect because they're are all different forms of silence. One of the main goals of observing your own thoughts without any sort of interference, or to 'let go' so to speak, is to gain access to what Goldsmith very accurately called 'the still, small voice'. Or what could be called the knowledge and conversation with the holy guardian angel, or the union with the divine. It could also be called awareness. I don't have words, or perhaps I just don't have the time to explain the beauty and power that this brings to an individual. It's one of the most basic, and even common skills, but it's something you might never actually conquer in your lifetime. It's truly one of the great challenges of Life.