Posts by dustyskipper3

I suppose in this sort of illusion, everything really just depends on your perspective—it’s either a girl looking in the mirror applying her makeup, or it's just a skull.



I guess, for someone like you, perception shifts so much that once you grow tired of one way of seeing things, the other side just takes over (the skull), almost like two sides of the same coin. I imagine when you're changing how you perceive things, you ought to be mindful of what the flip side of whatever you find desirable actually looks like.

Sam Hayes said:Personally, I think I’d probably go with some kind of spiritual psychologist 🙂

Or rather, a pneumatologist (from the Greek word pneuma, meaning spirit)

Lisa Morales4 said:well I am constantly evolving.

Right, but... I suppose it isn't really clear how much watching a movie actually changes you, or how much it impacts you, versus how much your own deep-seated biases just end up coloring your perception of the film until they basically swallow it whole. It makes me wonder... I mean, to what extent are we actually experiencing something new that shifts our perspective, and to what extent are we just twisting everything new to fit into our pre-existing views? There are different types of personalities out there—some people might be more 'perceptive,' while others lean more toward being 'judging'—so maybe it depends on that sort of thing.

dustyraven26 said:It is both the question and the rather blunt answer in one. You aren't actually interested in reality; you just care about whether things align with how you feel about yourself. You're entitled to that perspective, I suppose. Good luck! ☕

hollowsailor48 said:Tripping on LSD versus going old school with some homemade Bunika🤣

Well, there you go. That's probably the fastest way to shift how you see things, though... maybe it's also a quick way to wreck your psyche so badly that you can never quite find the thread of your own distorted perception again. You might find yourself thinking, "I need this now," or "just a little more of that," but... well, even the real experts know they have to be careful not to let it ruin them.
So, I guess if you actually want to change how you perceive reality, you first have to understand what reality actually is. A lot of addicts, I think, get stuck starting in their teenage years, and it's hard to help them because their entire sense of reality was built on drugs; they don't really know what 'normal' life is like, they only know that... that parallel version. 😬 ☕

Sam Hayes said:I actually quite like this analogy, 👍but I suppose
in the case of the cinema, you're really just changing your vantage point rather than actually changing yourself... we stay the same, the theater stays the same, it’s just a different seat... maybe even a slightly different perspective if you've seen it three times already... but what happens when everything looks pitch black because you're feeling down, yet when you're happy, everything seems rosy—even though, in both scenarios, you still feel this underlying sense of emptiness? Like, in the first instance, it feels more intense and depressing, whereas in the second, it's more of a lingering melancholy... just this constant, pervasive void and sadness... does anyone else ever experience that?

Yeah, I suppose I see it that way too... though, I guess it seems to me like your internal mental states might be coloring your perception of reality a bit too much... and do you ever find yourself reaching for some kind of medication just to tint the world "rosy"? I don't think that's quite right, because then you aren't really perceiving the world at all, you're just testing how much you can manipulate your own perception... there isn't really any way to verify the "truth" of how you see things. Personally, I think the world could be "black," but you could be happy, or the world could be objectively "pink," and you could still feel empty... it's just that, maybe, you spend too much time looking inward, so your internal state ends up reflecting onto everything outside. And yet, those internal feelings probably stem from external events anyway—if someone insults you, it throws you into a funk, or someone could cheer you up. So, I guess one should probably pay less attention to what others do to them, and try to focus more on objective reality to reach an objective conclusion... otherwise, you might always be like a "puppet on a string," just a plaything for fate or for people who have thicker skin and are a bit rougher than you are.

Lisa Morales4 said:Shifting your perspective is really just shifting who you are.
The facts on the ground don't change.

Think about it like going to a movie theater. You sit right in the front row of the orchestra section and watch the big climax unfold right in front of you.
You go back the next day to see the exact same movie, but this time you grab a seat up in the balcony. That climax is still the same scene.
Even if you head back for a third viewing and sit all the way in the very last row, the climax remains unchanged.

Well, I suppose in that scenario you’re just shifting your physical position, but I feel like your perception actually does change just by the act of watching it again. Because when you see a movie a second time, you already have these preconceived notions in your head, so you start noticing things you might have missed before. And by the third time, it's all about the tiny details... or maybe you realize the movie is actually kind of stupid because certain things start to irritate you. But, I don't know, does that really mean that you have changed, or is it just your perception of the film and your judgment of it that shifted?

brisktiger56 said:It’s that laziness/weakness that triggers everything else.

Wanting something without actually doing the work is just a fast track to a massive amount of frustration. Take Sam Hayes, for example—she reads all these instructional little stories, but once she closes the book, it’s like she hasn't learned a thing. That’s spiritual laziness and a lack of focus right there. Honestly, things are pretty straightforward:

if you want to get somewhere, you have to actually make the trip—start walking, driving, moving.
if you think someone is just going to carry you there, well, you're dreaming, because everyone has their own "journey" and their own goals to hit.
Thinking things will just happen without personal effort is honestly kind of childish. People who think they can lose weight by taking those sketchy supplements advertised in the back of the tabloids clearly don't realize that the only way to drop the pounds is strictly combining a calorie deficit with better food quality and a boost in energy expenditure. So, either you go running, swimming, hitting the gym, or maybe some sex 😁 (apparently, that burns as much energy as swimming eight lengths in an Olympic pool) > which mostly applies to guys, since women tend to be a bit less passive 😍.

Look, if you want to be happy but you're currently miserable, you really have no choice but to shift your perception. Start by being aware of the sheer luck involved in simply being alive and having the agency to choose your own path. Try starting with the small stuff... even choosing what you drink at a coffee shop is a conscious choice 😉 isn't it? From there, we move on... pick a different bar, find a new circle of friends... listen to different music on a Sunday afternoon—it changes your mental landscape incredibly effectively. Mozart before Wagner, Let3 before Detour... or perhaps try the slightly more radical relativism offered by this clown 😉

p.s. I didn't include the song title—just trying to avoid getting a red card from N'duguov.🤣

In theory, that sounds right. But what do the employees at a public broadcaster like PBS or its affiliate NPR actually want? Or even the journalists at a state-run paper like The New York Times—which nobody seems to read anyway, including the people writing for it? I wonder if they even have any desires beyond grabbing a drink and forgetting they exist. Their first step on a spiritual path would probably be to just quit and go on some sort of detox retreat, but it seems like they just aren't capable of crossing that Rubicon. They just sit there waiting for the administration to fire them, which won't happen because the leadership is too weighed down by external debt and their own incompetence. And now, unions are gathering signatures for a referendum to try and jumpstart the country by toppling an incompetent government, while also trying to stop people from being fired. They don't want people to end up on welfare just so the wealthy can keep making money like they always have. But the paradox is that by fighting this referendum, we might just be allowing those parasites in the "official" media to enjoy a few more years of spiritual laziness and unproductivity, since they can't be forced out of their jobs.

Those people can honestly say, "I know someone will do my job for me while I still collect a paycheck," because they have "Uncle Lou" on speed dial and he doesn't, so who's to blame? Some fool can just work for both of them, I guess. It’s the same with universities—they don't have the cash to buy their way through exams, so they should just study, right? If they don't, it's their own fault. In the end, they won't get the jobs anyway; I will, because I have connections and an uncle in the Republican Party, and they don't. So, in their minds, it feels like they worked and lived and thought, but they really didn't; they just collected a salary to stay quiet and ignorant while others steal. But what happens when everything is stolen, foreign companies buy up everything, and the public gets kicked to the curb and left with nothing?

If they had read that fable about the grasshopper and the ant, maybe they could have learned something. But here, the story goes differently, I suppose: the ant works all year long for himself and the grasshopper, while the grasshopper plays his tunes, eats, and sells whatever the ant and his parents produced. He puts the surplus into offshore companies and foreign accounts, and when winter comes, he'll leave the ant to freeze while he heads off to Kariba to spend the cash he swindled from the foolish ants. 😁

I mean, sure, but I'm pretty convinced that anything requiring significant investment or a long-term ritual just bores most people. They find it tedious, maybe even feel like it's a massive waste of time, so they relax too soon... and then, I guess, that darkness just creeps up from the subconscious and smothers your awareness. On the other hand, you can't really achieve anything without putting in some work. You can't pass a Bar exam without studying, and I suppose spirituality works the same way. The key is not to approach it like a political campaign—you know, expecting massive results overnight—but rather to slowly improve your outlook on life, feeling that gradual growth in positivity, while also being prepared for the setbacks, the falls, and the regressions.

I suppose we could look at all these various states as being tied to specific energies. Most people assume it’s strictly a matter of chemistry, so they turn to alcohol, prescription pills, or even harder substances, thinking they can just force themselves to be happy or upbeat through willpower. But I think that’s a mistake. You end up numbing your brain's receptors, which means you eventually need larger and larger doses of whatever substance is boosting your serotonin or dopamine levels. Plus, by doing that, you’re essentially destroying the chemical foundation required for motivation—which really ought to trigger a natural cycle of producing those substances on its own. In fact, forcing this kind of chemical "positive energy" might actually lead to an accumulation of constant, static "negative energy," which is basically what that state of "blackness" you mentioned feels like. After that, you just feel completely spent and exhausted. I guess that isn't such a huge issue when you're young because you can recharge your batteries quite easily, but once you pass 40, things get pretty difficult, and some of the most persistent users don't even make it to fifty. If you focus on generating positive energy naturally, your serotonin and dopamine will adjust themselves through homeostasis, so there isn't any excessive depletion or receptor overstimulation, and your thoughts tend to stay clearer and more fluid. This seems particularly important because people can get high off drugs, or even just too much caffeine, for instance, but then they lose their mental clarity; their thought process becomes jumbled or totally clouded, and they can even become aggressive. Then, inevitably, there is that crash into numbness and fatigue.

So, how does one actually produce positive energy? I suppose it requires becoming aware of the different energies surrounding us and trying to repel the negative ones while attracting the positive ones. These energies are perceived on an abstract level, perhaps through a "spiritual eye." Also, first and foremost, one has to overcome their own spiritual laziness. I mean, the initial human impulse is usually "I don't feel like doing this," or wondering why one should bother when they could just go out for a beer or something like that. But, I think, it is worth it. On the other hand, you could visit someone who is already very energetically strong so they can "charge" you with positive energy—maybe see a bioenergy healer, for example—or you could carry a crystal that holds the energetic imprint of such a person, allowing you to constantly absorb that positivity. There was a time when so-called "Bach flowers" were popular, which is somewhat similar to a spiritual "holy water." That also has some short-term effect. Of course, there are plenty of charlatans out there selling "energized water" for exorbitant prices. In my opinion, the value of the effect is inversely proportional to the price. The more expensive it is, the worse it tends to be. Ideally, these kinds of services shouldn't cost more than $17. Truly, the best way is to bring yourself into a sufficiently positive state so that you produce your own positive energy, but to achieve that, you probably need to clear out all forms of chemicals, maintain a proper vegetarian diet, maybe practice some form of asceticism... But if I had to say, the key is really changing your perception and developing the ability to sense the various types of energy around us. That allows you to focus on the specific energy you want to invite in and pull yourself out of the "blackness"; otherwise, you're just wandering aimlessly, sinking deeper into the thick mire of that darkness.

Sometimes it feels like life just doesn't have much of a point, and like there's nothing but negativity surrounding us... though, I suppose maybe one should just try to shift their perception. But how does one actually change their (spiritual) perception? I guess there are various techniques out there. Some people find enlightenment by reading Zen parables or perhaps visiting Sai baba. Meditation might help quite a bit with shifting your perspective and reaching higher states of consciousness. There are also rituals or prayers that can be used to call upon a higher awareness—which could include something as simple as attending a Catholic Mass at a local church, or for some, it might even involve an immediate, mystical, initiatory experience that alters one's perception and level of consciousness.

Sam Hayes said:I'm honestly quite curious, though—what exactly is this technique? 🙄

Well, see, you already got a little worked up... despite all that composure. I suppose it is called "sparking interest," though there isn't really some specific 'technique' per se; rather, it has to be 'customer-tailored,' you know, customized for the individual user.

@brisktiger56
Such a dirty imagination... naturally, if you don't specify exactly what you mean by animating her, she won't find it interesting at all 😁

Sam Hayes said:I mean, it’s that feeling when you're physically alive, but just totally dead inside...

I suppose I have this one technique that would probably bring someone back to life internally, though... I guess if you're already physically dead, then even that wouldn't really help much...

So, I just stumbled upon this thread and took a look over at the FBI—you know, the banned users corner—where enky is actually asking to be unbanned. Personally, I’d love to see her back, especially since that one post she made about suicide is still one of the most read threads on the whole site, but... well, it wasn't like she was totally blameless when she got kicked out. She basically spammed the entire forum right before it happened.

I guess I'm just not sure now. If some higher authority thinks it's forgivable—considering she originally asked to be banned herself because she wanted to show solidarity with the permanent bans, but now she feels like she might have gone a bit too far... I don't know. My vote is more of a personal preference, I suppose, but rules are rules, and they really should be followed, regardless of how they feel.

I suppose everyone here acts like some kind of spiritual moderator... guiding things through intuition rather than using a baton like a police officer might. Taylor Campbell4, there isn't much happening on this thread, and it looks like Father Peter has moved on to other interests too. It’s a bit of a shame, really—it's a decent topic. Maybe it would make more sense to write about the Maitreja instead of discussing God as if he were Hitler, but I guess everyone has their own preferences.

At least two other forum members have already come after you for being insulting and trying to downplay crimes. So, if we’re looking at this democratically, the score is somewhere around 5 to 1. Maybe you actually have valid arguments, but I guess you aren't quite able to explain them properly—and honestly, even those folks over in that Small town think they have a point too.

But look, if you truly believe you have the power to harass someone just because they don't agree with you, then an appropriate countermeasure has to be applied to limit that influence of yours. And now, by that logic, does it mean Satan is evil??!🤣

mistyscout2 said:It turns out Zlatko sudac isn't the only one capable of being in two places at once:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZLQW2qr5Hs

It’s an interesting example, I guess. But the real question is... how would a person even coordinate two bodies at the exact same time? Even this single one seems pretty complicated to manage, let alone trying to handle two.

Alex Walker5 said:I actually saw demons once, but I was under the influence of various substances and dealing with chronic sleep deprivation... so I totally get why they appeared.

So, you saw them on the outside because something was already wrong on the inside.
If they really are inside you, then it isn't that you see them; it's more like they are looking through you, influencing your perspective and what you desire. Maybe they were already within you, and through some sort of demonic influence, they pushed you toward those substances and kept you from sleeping, which allowed you to glimpse them exactly as they truly are in reality.

It’s possible that the soul is actually a form of psychoplasm that undergoes reincarnation. I suppose an individual Akasha record would function as a sort of soul genome—kind of like a spiritual DNA, maybe? These energetic imprints could act like fingerprints that are unique to every single soul. You might access information from the Akasha through the soul itself rather than through the brain, though I guess you still have to formulate the question in your mind just so you can process whatever info comes back into a coherent answer. Since all souls seem to be connected on one level, it should be possible to tap into everything... truly everything. For any given question, there's probably an adequate answer out there; it just really depends on the extent of your ability to connect with the immaterial and, well, how well you can interpret what you receive.

Benjamin Taylor6 said:So, why was Christ born in the first place? It seems he was brought into this world specifically to be sacrificed. And why the sacrifice? Well, to pay the debt for our sins through his own suffering. We look back at Adam and Eve—they stumbled, and now we’re all just living out the consequences of that original sin they passed down to us. Honestly, it’s a pretty bizarre doctrine when you really sit down and chew on it! The idea that Jesus has to descend into this world just to endure agony and die... it’s intense. He pays this cosmic ransom to pull humanity away from eternal death—essentially buying back our souls from our mistakes. But then you have to ask: who exactly is receiving this ransom? I suppose it would be His Father in heaven. Now, what does "ransom" even mean in a practical sense? If someone were kidnapped in downtown Chicago, for instance, a ransom is the cash or value handed over to the kidnappers to get the child back safely. In our theological scenario, the "children" are the children of God, but the currency isn't dollars or gold. The ransom is nothing less than a life. Specifically, it's the life of Jesus Christ. He offers His very existence to His Father to pull people out of their sin. It feels like this strange celestial contract: the Father and the Son strike a deal where the best path forward involves someone paying with their life—and that someone happens to be the Son himself. And the Father accepts the life of His own Son as payment. Why on earth would He need such a bloody, painful ransom? What’s the point? Look, God created humanity, and humans turned their backs on Him. But God loves every single individual so deeply that He doesn't want us to suffer. He wants us saved. So, the Son of God has to be born into this valley of tears and die for mankind. This whole concept of self-sacrifice is utterly disorienting. You could almost mistake God the Father for some ancient pagan deity to whom people offer blood sacrifices—like a parent offering their own child! God offering His Son to Himself?! To me, it’s a complete paradox. It's one of those mysteries of faith that sits atop all other mysteries. When I’ve spoken with Muslim believers, they find this whole thing completely nonsensical. Even some smaller Christian denominations tend to agree. Personally, I’ve never gone head-to-head with priests over this specific issue—mostly because whenever something defies all logic, they just fall back on that famous line: "it's a mystery of faith."
It is a bit strange, though, how Indian philosophy offers such an elegant explanation for the function of atonement—what Christ achieved through His suffering on the Cross. Over in India, they have this concept of karma to explain why people suffer for their transgressions. It's basically the law of action and reaction—the same stuff we study in physics—but applied to how a human interacts with the universe. If you cause pain to your neighbor, that pain eventually finds its way back to you. Humans are inherently flawed, and because of those flaws, they face punishment in hell or purgatory. However, Indian philosophy suggests that a person can actually bypass that punishment if someone else suffers in their stead. Of course, you won't find any sage willing to jump into the fire just so a sinner can stay wicked. The sinner has to actually recognize their fault and truly repent. Only then does the mechanism of atonement kick in—which, in this context, is the suffering endured by Jesus Christ. The Son of God is the one who loves His followers immensely. His followers are essentially anyone who embraces His teachings—all Christians who believe in Christ. Based on that faith, combined with sincere repentance, the sinner enters a community where they aren't held accountable for their past misdeeds. They won't face the "karmic" penalty because their teacher—in this case, Christ—suffered in their place.

God is absolutely good, I believe, but we humans aren't absolutely good—because if we were, I guess we would be gods, and we certainly aren't. We can only ever be relatively good, participating in absolute goodness through our connection with God. I've wondered before, why couldn't an absolutely good God simply create an absolutely good creation or world? I touched on this briefly when discussing God and Hitler—if something is considered absolutely good by comparison, then there must be something else that is slightly less good, or perhaps even evil, to provide that scale. People choose to distance themselves from God, and in doing so, they lean toward more evil. Yet, God is merciful, and I don't think He allows those who truly want to be close to Him to suffer just because they have to function within human society. Humans are social creatures, whether we like it or not, and if the majority chooses to walk away from God, individuals might have to go along with the crowd just to survive. We saw something similar back during the era of communist rule in the US, perhaps in certain radical movements. So, I suppose God sends His Son so that those chosen individuals—those He 'sets apart from the world'—can stay closer to Him through His Son, allowing them to participate more fully in absolute goodness than the rest of the world. That's how I make sense of it, anyway. The sacrifice is necessary so those specific individuals can be redeemed from a society that doesn't care about absolute good, but only seeks relative, material gain. Otherwise, the rest of humanity might rightly ask, "Why are these people better than us just because they pursue absolute good? They did the same things we did; they just felt bad about it afterward, while we didn't."

And what happens to those who valued relative goods over absolute ones? Well, nothing, I suppose. They will simply vanish along with the goods they desired, much like any other temporary thing. I don't think they will be punished, nor will they 'suffer eternally in hell,' because there wouldn't be any real purpose in such torment or punishment. They will just cease to exist, as if they were never here, fading into nothingness, and I doubt those who were saved will feel any sorrow for them. It's often described vividly as a 'lake of fire where teeth gnash,' but really, no one will feel sorry for those gnashing their teeth, any more than one would feel sorry for firewood being burned. They essentially chose to lower themselves below the level of human dignity, and in doing so, they lost their life.

That is roughly how I understand these biblical messages.

It is a bit peculiar that Indian philosophy offers such an elegant explanation for the function of atonement, which is what Christ accomplished through His suffering on the cross. In India, they have the concept of karma to explain why someone must suffer for their sins. It's a law of action and reaction... In this view, a person won't have to answer for their sins because they repented. Therefore, they won't face the consequences of karma, because their teacher—in this case, Christ—suffered in their stead.

I suppose I don't think the law of karma really has anything to do with Christian redemption. It seems to me that no one is going to be punished with actual torment, unless maybe you look at it as a way to truly cleanse oneself so one can participate in God's glory and goodness. Those who aren't in the 'Book of Life'... well, they might just evaporate, or perhaps they'll be catapulted into some kind of black hole where they can just exist however they see fit, without anyone specifically choosing to 'torture' them. If they get bored with it, I guess they could just pass judgment on themselves and fade away, so the suffering stops.

Under the law of karma, if a person realizes the illusion of this world—if they achieve enlightenment, that is—they automatically clear their negative karma; it just sort of 'unwinds,' and they are free. There isn't a need for someone else to die for them to make that happen. On the other hand, if someone believed in the possibility of the 'heavenly kingdom' but wasn't quite capable of imagining it themselves, it would be enough for them to simply believe in Christ, who did realize it, and then He could set them free after death. The law of karma feels much more rigid in one sense, because every bit of pain inflicted must be repaid, unless the person reaches enlightenment. But in Christianity, there is 'God's grace,' so not everything has to be paid back; a person doesn't even necessarily have to reach enlightenment, it's enough just to believe that it is possible.

Maybe they're just stuck inside a black hole... I mean, it's pitch black in there, so you wouldn't be able to see a thing.