boldsailor2 said:It really just comes down to a lack of life experience—that's all there is to it. You don't need any mantras, intense spiritual practices, or endless questioning to fix it. You just need time for things to finally click...
I think sports are actually a great way to handle this. It’s basically a case of lethargy, and the best cure is staying active—preferably something high-intensity (which is why I bring up football). That’s just my take, though. Everyone is different and we can't all know what works for everyone else, but personally, and for many people I know, physical activity helped us more than spiritual pursuits ever did. If you're already too obsessed with your own head, diving deeper into spirituality just leads to more self-dramatization and spinning your wheels. Instead, go pull a double shift on a construction site until you're absolutely exhausted; suddenly, your problems seem pretty irrelevant compared to moving that next heavy crate.😁
boldsailor2 said:The forums have taught me that some personal stuff shouldn't be shared here—people totally misinterpret things and I end up feeling like an idiot... so I won't go there 😉
That isn't courage, it's just being reckless. Don't cast pearls before swine😉. You should only give people what they can actually handle.
That isn't strength, it's weakness... true strength is doing the same thing without hurting anyone... "don't cut with the truth like a knife." There are always two ways to handle it.
What matters is internal surrender, not some fake external version. You need to be where you are—you can't run away because you can't escape yourself. That's the real issue—it's you, not your circumstances.😉 Change yourself and everything around you changes automatically, no matter where you are.
You could travel to the other side of the country... meditate in some cave... what's the point if your problems are traveling right along with you?😉
That isn't quite right; it sounds like a New Age cliché. If that were true, why would anyone ever need a guru or a community? Paramahansa Yogananda suggested that environmental influence often outweighs willpower (and I'm sure Swami might mention the importance of satsanga too, though I can't recall specifically)...
I’ve seen it happen plenty of times. Some things I couldn't fix on my own just vanished simply by changing my surroundings. Other issues popped up the moment I moved. You stick it out for a year or two, and then you slowly start to "transform." I suspect you felt the same way leaving a church or moving into a tight-knit community. This idea of purely internal change is a fairy tale. If it were that simple, we wouldn't have monasteries, ashrams, or sadhus, nor would there be such strict rules in most texts regarding yoga or spiritual practice.
Then again, I’m pretty easily swayed, so I’m probably not the best example. 😳 😁 But still, without having an anchor in a guru or a community, would the result be any different?
It’s inevitable. You can pretend you're fighting against your cultural surroundings, but you can't really escape a certain baseline mentality—even when you think you're some kind of ultimate free spirit. In fact, that very obsession with chasing freedom is often just a byproduct of that same mindset. I noticed the most striking differences while traveling through India... you could spend decades there trying to blend in and act like a local, but that fundamental gap in perspective will always be there. There’s the surface-level stuff shaped by your environment, sure, but then there’s a deeper layer that stays attached to you as long as you have a distinct personality and inhabit this body and world. Part of it is likely down to genetics or climate, and part of it is simply what gets absorbed during those early years and stays running in the background forever.
Where does this whole idea of bodily resurrection actually come from? I’m not talking about Jesus' teachings specifically, but the theory that we all rise again in physical bodies to wander the world alongside deer and tigers—all of whom are suddenly peaceful and won't fight or eat each other, though maybe we'll still have the occasional skirmish, which is fine I guess 🤣 😬. Honestly... even looking at how aggressive people are becoming in places like India, just imagine if everyone who ever died came back; most would probably just end it all immediately 🤣 . Now, I'm no Bible expert... I was just watching one of those cheap DVD movies about Paul that you see in bargain bins, and I think it showed that the Pharisees believed in it, while the other group (the Sadducees, I think) argued there was no basis for it in the Torah. Since Paul was a Pharisee, he likely took that foundation, layered on Christianity plus Jesus' resurrection, and ended up with this horror story about a literal zombie apocalypse. 😱
And did Jesus even mention this? (Meaning the Gospels, which aren't necessarily a perfect transcript of his words anyway). I don't recall him saying anything besides mentioning the Kingdom of Heaven, which actually seems to contradict the idea of a bodily resurrection. It must make things pretty difficult for theologians trying to reconcile a disembodied heavenly existence with a physical resurrection 😁
Nancy Thompson3 said:You haven't really described anything other than the fact that the guy has mental health issues. You can't call someone "crazy"—that’s just a label, not an actual diagnosis. So, what actually happened to him?
P.S. Siddhic phenomena? I guess I'm always fascinated by people who experience them. Give me some details.
Look, there's no point in us trying to convince ourselves of anything here.😁
Nothing major, though a few materializations occurred, plus one instance of bilocation (witnessed by a tight-knit circle of solid friends, so they're reliable enough in my book).
They say kundalini likes to "play around" like that regardless of what you want, at least during the initial stages. But he wasn't chasing that. He believes chasing siddhis is spiritually counterproductive and would only make an already grueling process even harder.
But I'm not him, and I have no clue what's going on in his head, so there's no point in speculating. I was just pointing out that there are people who've seen this "urban legend" firsthand, so take it for what it is.😁
Nancy Thompson3 said:I'm following the theme. So, let me ask you guys something: have any of you actually ever seen someone physically burned by kundalini? The SCH phenomenon is its own thing. It's rare, and honestly, I'm not even sure if there's a real connection to kundalini. Anyway, I'm just curious—how many of you actually buy into that urban legend?
We have—and we lived with him in an apartment.
It wasn't SCH. His psychiatrist was pretty baffled by things he couldn't categorize, eventually deciding he wasn't crazy despite all the strange conscious shifts (and the heightened siddhis, which he obviously didn't mention to the doctor).😁
That’s my firsthand experience. After looking into where his issues stemmed from, I found plenty of credible cases. Even support organizations for people dealing with kundalini issues are popping up more often lately (easy access to techniques combined with the chaos of modern American life is a bad mix). Plus, you have books by two gurus who spent decades going through hellish experiences (which finally settled with Nirvikalp)—essentially, their entire sadhana was one long stretch of misery, illness, and madness: Gopa Krishna and B. S. Goel (Sdeshwar baba).
Nancy Thompson3 said:Give me a break. It's all just urban legends. People talking about "opening their third eye" or whatever. You can think what you want, I guess.
Urban legends are for people who haven't actually seen it happen.🙂
Well, progress is subjective. It really just depends on what you're actually aiming for. 😁
I have to disagree with Mano on this one. It reminds me of this guy I once knew—pretty weak-willed, no drive at all—who went to Vivekanandi looking for spiritual enlightenment. Vivekanandi basically told him to go play football instead (or maybe rugby, since he was in the USA... I can't quite remember which one he meant) and to come back once he’d toughened up, both physically and mentally.
I also see this happening a lot with "abstract practices"—techniques centered on witnessing or introspection but lacking any real focus or concentration. Most of these methods were essentially pulled out of caves and brought into the light relatively recently; they aren't exactly tailor-made for people living in the modern world. I've heard stories about Buddhist hermits in the Theravada tradition who found it almost impossible during advanced stages of practice to drop their consciousness down to a physical level from meditation, especially while trying to live among people and handle daily responsibilities. If you overwork your mind while trying to manage everyday life, you'll just end up frustrated. You'll actually weaken your spiritual progress because you won't be able to commit fully to a specific practice—which requires a certain amount of sacrifice—instead, you'll just be hovering aimlessly on some abstract, diluted periphery.
For those of us grounded in the material world, things like prayer, mantras, and satsang (being around a community of practitioners, which is probably the biggest help) work best. In my experience, getting too deep into heavy esotericism usually does more harm than good.
"The whole point of Zen is walking that razor-thin edge of the present moment— you have to be so incredibly, absolutely present that there’s simply no room left for any problems, or suffering, or anything else you aren't really being in your core essence. In the present moment—where time just doesn't exist—all those problems of yours just melt away. Suffering needs time to exist, and it just can't survive in the present. To pull their students' focus away from the concept of time, the great Rinzai Zen master would often just raise a finger and quietly ask: 'What is missing right now?' It’s such a powerful question—it doesn't even need an answer from your logical mind. It’s designed to pull your attention deeper into the present moment. There's a similar question in the Zen tradition: 'If not now, when?'..."
Eckhart Tolle: The Power of Now 😍
And then some guy from India would chime in, claiming satori is nothing more than savikalpa samadhi—just a temporary experience. He'd argue that the witness state they're describing is just paramatma, rather than the Absolute, where the witness state encompasses the entire creation instead of just one's own self. 😳
Of course—Sri Aurobindo 😁 followers are right, they just don't realize what they're actually talking about. 🤣 😬
Brainwashing isn't actually the issue here. There’s no such thing as a neutral, untouched mental state. We’re all constantly absorbing perspectives from somewhere—mostly just junk food media and Hollywood garbage 🤣
Just like how training for a sport shapes your body to perform specific movements, a spiritual discipline or tradition builds a framework of values and beliefs to support that path. It’s necessary, really. Since we possess minds, logic, and intellect, we have to "tame" and direct them, giving them a structured container to work within for any real spiritual growth.
The real challenge lies in choosing the right goal, finding a legitimate path to get there, and deciding if a particular system—whether it's a guru or an organization—is actually credible. The problem isn't that our brains get "washed"; honestly, a little cleaning out is usually needed. The question is whether that process serves an individual's progress, or if it's being exploited for some shallow agenda by an organization, or if it's just poorly executed, effectively swapping one set of biases for another. 😁