confessions

I think I'll just write something. I don't really have a better plan.

There’s a lot of hopelessness is in me. At the moment there’s barely anything I can draw strength from

I'm actually a little bit done with hope. There is a certain amount of security in hoping for nothing and therefore not attempting to get out of the valley, because at least you do not have to bear the suffering of discovering your own incapacities

I had tried that in the month of June. After a session we believe I had at the beginning of June, you mentioned that I had nothing to lose. I took the suggestion seriously and tried everything in my power to make positive changes, started structuring, did hypnosis sessions to try to change my brain, and I kept a log of everything that (in positive sentence) changed over time.

I already took into account that I wouldn't have the energy to keep continuing these changes. I was prepared to come to encounter a cycle of passivity again, with the idea that the cycle then later on again would start becoming more active

The apparently inevitable happened and it was that I found out that I simply just didn't have the energy to keep going through the positive changes, and I found out that I simply needed the space to start detaching, thinking that over time the cycle would return to the positive side.

That did not happen. At some point I became aware that certain patterns that I thought I had broken came back, and then all hell broke loose.

It was still Saturday last week. My parents spontaneously invited me to travel to Simpelveld in South Limburg to join them there, and although I did not necessarily feel very well, I was not yet desperate.

But last Sunday I became aware that there were still the old patterns like compulsivity, and then it just got too much for me and I went into deep panic and despair. I started to think that I would never get rid of it, or that whatever change I make would matter if I still remained unhappy, and it just made me feel completely hopeless.

And I still feel pretty hopeless, although the panic and extreme fears are now largely gone. I do fear it might come back.

What makes the situation even more hopeless for me is the fact that from what I think I currently know about existence, that suicide in this existence will not save me from the process of processing my ego or karma, and possibly the makes things even more difficult, so that the suffering I have yet to experience is literally inescapable.

Plus I now start to believe a little that I have no free will because all of this happens to me and I can't seem to get out of it with my best will and intentions. It literally feels and I can't really say anything other than it is literally written in the stones as such that I have to come and experience this.

The nightmare does not get better when I think of everything that could still happen. One idea I have gained from a spiritual teacher called Shunyamurti is that we are going to experience planetary death and that every soul must then be completely purified from any remaining ego or karma, either after physical death or before physical death.

Of course I cannot confirm with certainty whether this is true, but this is one of the ideas that gives me great fear.

Of course, there are also ideas that come in comparison to stories of others, what others have experienced and how they have described it as such. People who have lived with depression for years. People who have had a psychotic episode for a long time, or descriptions of absolute desperation or hell or whatever.

Or an Osho story that you must come to experience absolute hopelessness to be enlightened. Or descriptions of the way I am going now is accompanied by periods of despair and periods of joy. That bipolar idea is actually not that bad. I had a great fear in early June that I would experience bipolar episodes in this way, but at the moment I would be happy with such a reality, because at least you have those moments of joy so on average it is neutral or at least not too bad.

I feared at first that the quality of existence (both inside and outside periods of incarnation) was such that a consciousness would experience as much suffering as joy in the totality of its existence (which is perhaps infinity). I was afraid because I really wanted to believe that existence is naturally good and joyful and that suffering was only a small fragment of the totality of existence. Now I am more okay with the idea that it is "Average" of existence is neutrality, and that there are periods of joy, peace and bliss, and periods of fear, pain and suffering.

I'm not saying it is, because you apparently also have something like "transcendence" of the polarities, so it's just a confusing issue as a whole. Of course I hope that suffering is only a small fragment of the totality of everything, but even if the average of existence is neutral I would be willing to accept that, but what I fear now is that I will have psychotic delusions in which I come to believe that existence is pure evil and that I will suffer immensely under that assumption, even though at this moment I know I am writing that it is nonsense.

What I just don't understand is the fact that there is suffering at all. I can understand that there may be some kind of romantic idea behind souls choosing to experience separation and suffering in order to appreciate the bliss of God, but what I don't understand is the fact that a soul ever has the desire or even but would have the curiosity to want to step outside the bliss of God and then experience separation. Why is that curiosity and longing part of existence at all? Why don't we just float endlessly in bubbles of infinite peace without ever wanting anything else? Why would we ever want anything other than that at all. I know it sounds boring, but who cares if there are no different dimensions or states of consciousness when infinite peace would be possible indefinitely.

I understand that with my limited mind I will not be able to understand everything about the universe, and that there is probably or at least hopefully an infinite intelligence behind it all of which is a perfect design, but its incomprehensibility to my human mind makes this so difficult.

Also, in one of my psychedelic trips, I gained the view that I was the only point of consciousness in this entire universe and that in fact there are no other "souls" or consciousnesses outside of me except myself. I also understand that these may simply be delusions that are not some sort of downloaded vision of God, but that it might as well be a reflection from my subconscious mind. The only way I have been able to agree that not all of my 'visions' in my anxious (semi-) psychotic moments are true is the fact that certain assumptions were made about when something would happen and for how long and that time period had already passed and it never happened.

But this idea of the "only point of consciousness" is very frightening because it gives an impression of total loneliness and separation. Whether it is true or not does not matter in this respect whether you or anyone agrees that it is or is not, that is the irony.

If this theory is not true, I have a strong idea or even an assumption that I am a very special and highly developed soul. A kind of Jesus, actually. You actually said it during our last conversation that you thought I was already very enlightened by the way I write. This idea of my "specialness" just beyond the fact that everyone has his / her unique characteristics or uniqueness, is something that I can't really shake off in that regard. This seemed to be partly supported by the fact that when I was at a festival of Paramahamsa Vishwananda in 2018, when I came into the hall among the other people, while he was there he was interrupted in his actions and noticed me and bowed to me. I may have been in a somewhat heightened state of consciousness, but still. Even when I walked in during a lecture by Adyashanti and he was already there (but had not really started with the satsang), he also seemed to study me with extra interest.

What is so disturbing about all those nightmare ideas or delusions is that they appear as lifelike and even as undeniable the moment I get caught by them, which can trigger an immense fear in me. At the same time, I also have moments when I feel peaceful and when I can feel the goodness and the perfection of everything, and that it also has conviction. But emotionally, how could I discern reality here if they both seem so real?

Another thing that bothers me right now is the fact that whatever I change all seems so useless until I find peace in myself. I can pursue an outer goal, a certain mission in my life, but if I have not found peace and tranquility in myself, such a goal seems insufficient.

Let go of the fact that there is a deep uncertainty and pessimism in me that I have the ability to change certain patterns in my life that are not even directly about inner fulfillment, there is just that the lack of meaning or calling in me makes me feel like "what does it even matter?" A kind of feeling of nihilism.

I respect to a certain extent that I may have been born here on earth to fulfill a certain mission, to offer people a certain service. I may or may not know that, but it might be that if I were now gripped by a sense of having a mission, perhaps I would be willing to pursue it and suffer for it. If I had a choice between the peace of God and that mission then I think I would go for God, but if it were my destiny to fulfill that mission first before I can know God, then at least I have something, but now I don't even have that, no sense of calling or mission.

So I am not moved by anything except what seems to be an ever-increasing desire to just not experience the suffering I am experiencing now, and of course I understand that resistance only makes it worse.

One of the few things I can put my energy into now is introspection. All the resistances and compulsivities that I notice are beginning to come to light more and more because because of the suffering I already experience, the fear of coming across introspection parts of myself that would be painful doesn't really matter anymore because it feels like everything is already screwed. And since I no longer cherish that attachment to positivity, I am more interested in what really is the truth of the situation and thus risk the truth being painful and disappointing. Because the pain and disappointment is already there, nihilism is already there, so it doesn't really matter anymore.

That's why I say I'm done with hope. At first I tried consciously or unconsciously to see the positive side of the situation, but since my incredibly painful desperate period last week, I no longer feel the need to build up hope and positivity and then see it all drop again. But of course, to stay in a pessimistic, nihilistic state of being does not make much better.

I wonder what exactly is the difference between trust and hope. I have experienced moments of confidence in the present moment. Is there also such a thing as having confidence in the future, knowing that it will work out instead of hoping that it will work out? Do the words trust and future rhyme with each other, or is trusting the future just a disguised hope?

It is difficult to say. I have the feeling that trust is a trust in existence as such, and that it also involves the future. Trust is about all aspects of existence, so if you are completely in the here and now, there is trust in the here and now as well as the future.

But when I say something like "it will be okay", is it based on hope or confidence? Somehow I have the feeling that at least there is that feeling of confidence that it will indeed be okay, but if I choose to consciously remind myself of “it will be okay”, this cannot become another kind of hope what you then attach to, which will then be settled in psychotic delusions where you come to believe that existence is pure evil and that it will never be okay? That sounds like an absolute nightmare of the pure extreme.

I remember a Christian statement, "only those who have abandoned all hope, can enter the kingdom of God."

That is extremely frightening, because what does it take for someone to get to the point where there is absolutely no hope left? That sounds horrible.

Also descriptions of an audiobook that I had listened to from someone who (temporarily) ended up in hell after a failed suicide attempt and experienced the worst torments there, including the absolute conviction that she would never get out. And then she described how a hand was reached and that she was suddenly in heaven and everything was indescribably beautiful and blissful.

I wonder why I chose to listen to this audiobook. Sometimes I don't understand my own choices.

Sunday July 12th

There's moments of trust, then there's moments of anxiety and apprehension.

A friend told me whether I was willing to do the work I need to do. The answer is... Sometimes. Other times fear takes me over and I just want to escape somehow somewhere.

Right now I am fearful for a couple of things. I am fearful that my spontaneous impulse to keep on writing in my self-investigation binder won't last. That has been one of my very few things of relief over the past couple of days, that I have been writing in this binder and have for once also been willing to really start looking at what actually could be true with a lot less fear and apprehension to confront myself with dark and negative possibilities, as everything already felt so hopeless that I didn't really feel scared anymore to consider that things could possibly also turn out negative. But the intention of this self-inquiry was about truth. What in my experience did I know to be true? If hell happens to be true, I still want to know it. That was the kind of attitude I came from. Right now, I don't feel the power to come from that same kind of attitude anymore.

I keep different-colored separators in there. At first, I was afraid to start writing a whole lot in it, as I was afraid would get me even more in my head. At some point, I realized I was already pretty much screwed and I decided to just fully go for it with just doing a whole lot of self-inquiry

I also know that the very idea that I wouldn't be able to continue writing in there seems to come prior to the actual situation. There may be some form of make-belief in there. But a lack of structural consistency with pretty much anything in my life has so far proved to be my experience. Still though, I feel like the story I tell myself how it is inevitable for me to have to quit with something... There's something not quite right about that but it's hard to point my finger to it

Perhaps, if I just let go of the idea of that I should be able to do something with a continuous, longer-term consistency and to just embrace the fact that this is how I naturally function, life can get to be more gracious.

I had a moment of trust some hours ago where I felt a calm and confident "knowing" that it's natural and normal to build something up to then let it fall away, and that through that valuable lessons are learned, even if I am not always willing to acknowledge the value of these lessons.

Another fear which seems very hard to, at least of right now, to shake it off is the way this spiritual teacher called Shunyamurti describes the events that are unfolding as some kind of planetary death, that we approach a certain climax point in which all remaining karmic debt will be burned away. This is quite terrifying. At the same time, you have someone like Eckhart Tolle saying that consciousness arises through the world of karma and that the point at which one becomes conscious may be a mystery as to why and when exactly that happens, but that not all karma needs to be released in order for one to become awakened.

Doing some self-inquiry can help to get yourself accepting mentally the possibility that there are many perspectives and that thus no particular perspective NEEDS to be the truth, but nevertheless there seems to be a lot of emotional attachments to these kind of fears and therefore they can not be dismantled with logic alone, although inquiry can help at times, until it doesn't help.

I'm afraid of what the future may yet hold. In my humanness I of course hope that I will start awakening from this nightmare that I find myself in sooner than later.

A friend asked me: "Am I willing to do the work I need to do to get out of this place?"

The answer is: sometimes I am, sometimes I am not. Sometimes, by the grace of God, there is willingness and awareness. Other times, fear takes me over and the current of the mind drags me along.

In that sense, it feels like it is not up to me. It happens. The lord only knows how I will get through this

Wednesday July 22nd

One of the tough questions in life is whether something can actually be important or not.

Imagine you're in great suffering and you come across Jesus and he blesses you, and suddenly you are relieved from your suffering. In that sense, Jesus would then be important to you, wouldn't it be?

Of course, I am aware that it can not be that simple. But when I do read stories about for instance Mother Theresa blessing those on their deathbeds and then they are able to die in peace, you come to think that the visitation of mother Theresa is something that is extraordinarily lucky for those on their deathbeds. They were very lucky for her to come and visit them, you'd think. If it wasn't for her visitation, they would have died in much more suffering, you would think.

From the perspective of my fearful mind, it is hard if not impossible to remain detached yet act to make positive changes in my life. Either these positive changes seem of grave importance which then creates so much tension that really even when these changes occur there is still no rest, or I go into the perspective that I am to remain detached from everything in which case none to little changes occur.

I see a coach every week or so. Talking with him makes me feel better, and often he inspires certain helpful insights.

Becoming aware of the fact that I often feel better, my mind then creates attachment towards him. What if I were to live with him in the same house? What if for every moment that I am in conflict I have him to talk to or him to give me his presence in order to relieve me from the pressure?

What if I were to live side by side, to be the closest companion to the greatest guru who ever lived? From the perspective of the mind, this seems ideal.

On the other hand, what about prisoners? What about people who have access to almost nothing? What about people who live in miserable conditions?

I have in my failed visit to the United States been spending the night in one of the jails there. It was called Orange County in Orlando, Florida. What I saw there really made an impact on me. Although I spent the night in a central room there, what I saw there were like 6 people cramped up in a single cell smaller than the size of my room, really having no facilities whatsoever. Hell, pretty much.

Those people can hardly improve upon their outer circumstances even if they tried everything they could to do so, you would think so at least. They can not, at least so it appears, manifest outer conditions that would be more beneficial to their growth. It appears they are forced to suffer their own ego until it breaks. It doesn't seem like they can go through a conscious process to get out of it given the circumstances they are in.

I must admit that I don't really know how they would personally experience those circumstances. It may be a bad idea to project my inner reality into others. I also don't know whether if someone seems to suffer a lot by the way it looks or how they express themselves, whether or not they would feel the same as I would do were I express the same kind of behaviors.

But the fact is, reality can get really, really dark. I've come to experience this myself over the last 2 months or so. Inevitably, one comes to start catastrophizing about every extremely dark scenario that could ever happen. One already is in a state of hell, so to start imagining realities that would be even more dark seem to be something that could be very realistic.

And then you try to make sense of it all... Why do I suffer? Why is there suffering? If reality would be ultimately good, then why this?

And then you get confused. What do I need to do to get out of this? What can help me? There are many perspectives and ideas to be had, but there is a desperate need for them to work out, so you latch on to them, you force yourself, you fight for your life to make changes, and at the same time in the very grasping and trying and forcing you notice there is a great tension, and then you want to let go of that tension by detaching, but you then come to think that detaching means not doing anything and not making any changes, which then makes you not want to do that because you think that this kind of sloth and laziness is what got you into this mess in the first place.

And all of this creates great confusion where it just seems you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. If something is important, then the mind makes it deadly serious and thereby you become very attached and tense, which does not help to relieve the suffering. If nothing is important... Well the reality is that this kind of attitude just doesn't seem to last, nor it really works for a longer period of time. Still the conflict remains whether to act in ways that would... improve the energy or vibration or not.

On top of that, you also have what you call placebo or nocebo effects... The kind of attitude you create about something determines its effect, which makes the whole scenario all that more confusing.

There have been moments of grace happening in which I come to make decision without knowing exactly why I'm making these decisions or without having a future plan for them. This includes things that 'might work'.

I suppose that's what true intuition is. I've heard people talk about intuition as following your feeling, but for me this always seems to translate into disregarding ideas or suggestions.

Take something like brushing your teeth. I am not entirely sure whether brushing my teeth really works so well. I have been told and taught that it does. But I am not really sure. If I don't feel like brushing my teeth, do I then not do it and would that be following my intuition? Laziness and sloth then seems to be 'following your intuition'. I've gone down that road in the past and it did not seem to have worked out for me.

I notice I am too confused and divided to be making anything into a serious experiment to see how something affects me. I've tried experimenting with keeping my phone next to me in my bed one day, and then keeping it out of my room another day to see how it energetically affects me. The results varied so there really wasn't much clarity about it, and even if the results would have been clear there is still the question whether or not to allow yourself experience the discomfort of something like that from time to time, to not be paranoid about it.

Experimenting with things I could do, but then you always have the question whether or not you are creating an effect by your own expectations or not, and even then there are more questions and doubts to be had.

These moments of grace I'm talking about is when I simply drop the confusion and just act. It doesn't so much mean that I act differently, but that I am able to drop the confusion and just do things and forget about whether it is good for me or not, or what it would entail for the future.

I'm not sure whether I'll ever figure out logically what works for me and what not. I'm also not sure I'll ever figure even out what the effects of certain actions, energies or behaviors are on me and whether there is any objectivity behind that beyond your own expectations of what would happen. Is there anything that is objectively helpful beyond any expectations that you create? I don't know.

But I do intuit that there is a certain freedom available if I simply completely drop the need to understand it, and just act from an intuition that is so deep that it does not even disregard or oppose logic, ideas, concepts that are not your own. In the state that I'm in, I doubt I'll ever figure out a way logically as to how to navigate in this life.

I am also starting to notice that this whole confusion thing is a certain emotional state. You tend to think that confusion indicates that there is something to be solved, but there is a fear behind it, a fear that doesn't really need to be there per se. You can not know and be fearful and anxious, or you can not know and be totally at peace with that. We could call it 'confusionality'. A certain feeling that has a strong compulsion to refer to becoming engaged into thought as to distract myself from feeling into the fear. I am slowly starting to see this and learn this, though, to be able to look into the fear directly instead of trying to figure it out.

I sense that freedom and relief from this burden is to be found once I truly just start to drop the need to understand it all. I so far have not come across one single logical point which can not be questioned or doubted, and I doubt I ever will.

Well, in some way, perhaps the fact that 'I am' is something that can not be questioned. I can't really doubt that I am conscious.

I've decided to refer for future entries to my journal page on actualized.org. I've decided it's best to go back to the original journal. here it is https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/32632-thought-immersions-my-non-daily-journal/?page=5#comment-677513