So we are in a cosmic trap , due to a cosmic accident. The only salvation is knowledge. But not just knowledge. Learning something and internalising it are very different. I have to realise so deeply that the world is an illusion , that I am able to bypass the physical mind like Neo on the Matrix or Jesus. No one has ever done that!!!
So we are doomed. Oh and the only true love is our divine spirit which is basically the part of us that is still in the pleroma? That’s so lonely it’s depressing!
And the people we fall in love here on the material world are ways of the archons to distract us? The beauty we experience in nature , or in music , or in animals is an illusion that is just mimicking things from the spiritual world?
Nothing matters, we just have to wait patiently until it’s over and then get sent back here.
Unless we manage to escape which also feels impossible, because of course if the “archons” present to you as your loved ones and make you feel an overwhelming sense of love and acceptance , you’ll listen to them!
This feels hopeless . But then again it’s the only thing that makes sense

The Zen Buddhist master Linji Yixuan famously said that if you meet the Buddha on the road, you must finish with Him. The exact same can be said of Christ: If you find Christ, finish with Him.

If you think that "you", "by your own merit and effort", are doing something successfully to meet Christ, beyond surrendering into the arms of the Beloved, then, of course, obviously, you remain trapped in the prison of the madwoman of the house (as the mind was called by the mystic Teresa of Ávila). You remain foolishly playing the spiritual role of a seeker, which is nothing more than spiritual ego, just a trick of the mind. But you have not really found Him, neither met nor embraced Him.

If you strive to find Christ and believe you have found Him, I am sorry to tell you that your effort leads to absolutely nothing. That is exactly what "The Experience of the Presence of God" is not but the opposite; that is just the madwoman of the house playing at being spiritual, and that is not what this is about. That is precisely why Silence is so important: to listen beyond the noise of the mind.

When you are nothing and no one, as the mystic of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque, used to say, you are touched by Grace. If we want Grace to touch us, there is no other way than this humility of the heart. Because the experience of God happens, essentially, by Grace and without effort, effortlessly, and then there is no more separation between the lover and the Beloved. As Saint Augustine said, "grace always precedes merit".

Do not label yourself as anything. God, who sees into the depths of hearts, knows who you are. That should be enough for you.

That is how the Lord knew his beloved son, Bernardo de Hoyos, during his mystical marriage. Jesus gave him a ring and said to him: "From this day on, you shall call and sign yourself as Bernardo de Jesús. For just as I told my spouse, Saint Teresa: you are Bernardo de Jesús, and I am Jesús de Bernardo." (Source: *The Life of the Venerable and Angelic Youth, Father Bernard Francis de Hoyos*, written by his spiritual director, Father Juan de Loyola, S.J.).

I love this prayer because it beautifully symbolizes exactly what I mean in this post: "Lord Jesus, You who are meek and humble of heart, make my heart like Yours."

At first glance, it might seem like a mere vocal prayer, and it is, but it happens, as Teresa of Ávila beautifully explains, that by Grace, God, the All, the One who is LOVE itself (I don't care what name the madwoman gives Him), leads us from vocal prayer to contemplation, and finally to union. So be it, then.

And if you allow me a prayer of my own: God prevent me from finding You; find me YOU!

Note:

I do not "believe" anything.

Belief is a mental construct, an attachment to an idea. I am not spreading a philosophy or using tools to convince anyone through this post. I am talking about a direct experience that happens strictly by Grace, without any human effort or merit. As I quoted Saint Augustine before: grace always precedes merit. It is not about a belief; it is about what remains when all beliefs are stripped away.

Also, when I speak of non-separation, it does not mean that the tiny ego claims to be "God", that would be the ultimate spiritual egoism. It means the exact opposite: the total death of the character, the complete surrender of the "I" into the burning fire of His LOVE, so that only He remains. It is the living reality of Galatians 2:20: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me."

We could indeed be going in circles if we look at this through the lens of theology and conceptual definitions, but I am pointing in another direction: to the Silence where the conceptual mind completely dissolves.

I respect the faith and the devotion to the beliefs of everyone, but my invitation in this post is to go beyond them. Thank you for this exchange, and blessings on your journey.

Finally, the scene where two disciples encounter the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus comes to me just now while writing this... They were only able to recognize Him when, by Grace, their hearts were touched. The conceptual mind cannot bring us into the silent spaciousness of Being.

Remember: If you think you have found Christ, finish with Him.

Anyone else really want community around mysticism and mystic experience (especially with regard to integration and support) but don't know where to find it? Anyone have recommendations?

Hey everyone. Ive recently left Christianity after some deconstruction. With that has sparked an interest in other religion and spirituality in general.

I'm genuinely curious about every single religion or lack there of and want to learn anything and everything I can. I do have a specific interest in gnosticism because ive heard that has something to do with Christianity. I think I remember someone saying that Yeshua (Jesus) had sibling who were also gods?

And Sophie the god of wisdom was the holy spirit?

I honestly dont know. I was raised in a part of Christianity, where asking questions and looking into other religions was a ticket to hell so this is all unbelievable new to me😅.

I also would love to learn about female Gods and the power of being a woman.

But like I said im truly interested in anything.

Also if possible I would want the resources to be in video or audio format as thats how I learn the best.

Hopefully this made sense and yall can point me in the right direction.

Thank yall so much in advance

It is one thing to be part of "the Way" and follow Jesus, the Nazarene, and a very different thing to be a Christian and not follow Him. The paradox is that many who claim to be Christians neither follow Jesus nor truly belong to the Way. Meanwhile, others who do not even consider themselves Christians, whether they are atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, or whether they belong to a religion or not, are indeed part of the Way and do follow Him.

Jesus Himself said that His disciples would be recognized by the LOVE they have for one another (John 13:35), not by the labels they put on themselves (whether Christian, Catholic, and so on).

"The madwoman of the house" (as the mind was called by the mystic Teresa of Ávila) loves labels, using them to feed the character (the ego) in this play and illusion of separation that we call, wrongly, life. Yet, what we truly are lies far beyond the mind and its labels, which divide us and alienate us from our True Self. As these words echo, there is no longer Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, for we are all one (Galatians 3:28), and Christ is all, and is in all (Colossians 3:11).

We are, Here and Now, One with God, the All, with the One who is LOVE Himself, as you wish to call Him, and with all His creatures. In the silent spaciousness of inner stillness we are called to surrender and to quiet our minds, because we must be empty of everything that is not God in order to know that He is God (Psalm 46:10 / Vulgate 45:11). As the mystic Meister Eckhart famously prayed, "I pray to God to rid me of God," urging us to empty ourselves of our own limited ideas, mental idols, and human constructs. The Divine Reality is not an object to be possessed, but the pure space that remains when the madwoman of the house is silenced, and we let thoughts and emotions fall away like withered leaves.

Beyond the potential manipulations of human structures and written dogmas, these words simply point to what the heart already knows by direct experience: we are One with and in the One Who is LOVE itself, which means with the Father, just as Jesus was. Truly, there is no separation or distance between lover and Beloved; truly, there never was. This absolute union is perfectly captured in the Intimate Diaries of Blessed Bernardo de Hoyos, recorded in the biography written by his spiritual director Father Juan de Loyola, when the Lord intimately declared to him, "From now on, you are Bernardo of Jesus and I am Jesus of Bernardo." Remember, we are One with and in the One Who is LOVE Himself...

Precisely, as the mystic John of the Cross rightly points out, recalling what Jesus said in Matthew 25:31-46: "In the evening of our lives, we shall be judged on LOVE."

It is LOVE; nothing else matters.

God is LOVE, and whoever does not know LOVE does not know God (1 John 4:8).

If we want to be one with Him, just as He is One with the Father (John 17:21), we must be one with LOVE.

LOVE, that's the true frequency of God.

Note: The churches, as institutions created by the madwoman of the house, have tried to silence all those who had a direct experience of Him. As happened to the mystic Marguerite Porete, author of The Mirror of Simple Souls, who was burned at the stake by the devout members of the Inquisition. Her only "heresy" was to remind us that the soul must dissolve its own character and will to merge completely into the ocean of Divine Love, where there is no longer any separation. And as happened to so many persecuted and silenced mystics like Meister Eckhart. This reminds us, as the saint of gentleness Francis de Sales warns in his Introduction to the Devout Life, that "one can be very devout and yet very wicked." We should remain confident in LOVE, who is deeply within, beyond the mind.

Have you ever experienced anything supernatural?”

— “Yes. Existing. I mean, imagine the miracle of overcoming nonexistence; of having the precise elements come together to form you out of the eternal entropy that separates and tears everything apart; of actually happening when there are billions of ways in which you could have never happened at all; of me having entered your mind right now through my words. That premise alone is already supernatural.”

I deliberately went looking for this. I knew theoretically that this territory existed. I had the cognitive equipment to recognise it. And when I actually reached it, the magnitude still hit me like a truck. You can read and study and engage in as much discourse as you can, but until it happens and you experience it you cannot understand it beyond an intellectual level.

I've no equilibrium and It's very disorientating. I've no anchor point any more. "Enlightenment". not in that "new age" woo-woo way, but damn...no one ever tells you're plunged into a void first. I'm 40 years old and I'm not gonna lie, This is something I wish my parents, especially my ma was still alive for me to feel safe again.

Sorry.

Usually, when we begin a spiritual path, we begin with the mind and intellect.

Why?

Because as human beings, we first want to understand. We want to analyze, compare, discern, ask questions, and determine what is true and what is false.

When the desire arises to know, Where do I come from? Who am I? Where am I going?, the mind initially becomes a servant of that search.

But there is an important distinction to make:

You do not simply "have" a soul. You are the soul. And the Soul has a mind. The Soul is not the mind, so you are not the mind.

From this perspective, the human personality, body, intellect, and mind are instruments through which the soul experiences this life. They are not the soul itself.

Now imagine that your search eventually brings you to Kriya Yoga. Naturally, doubts and questions arise. This is not surprising. The mind wants to understand what it is doing before it trusts the process.

But should the mind be our highest authority?

No. At the beginning, it is necessary to differentiate between what is what. But later on, not at all, because the mind is not Self-knowing.

What does the mind actually work with?

As I see it, much of the activity of the mind is based on four kinds of information:

1. Ancenstral Memory

The mind contains memories, impressions, conditioning, habits, and associations from the past lifes. Some of these are conscious, while others operate subconsciously.

Sometimes this appears simply as a feeling: "I somehow know this" or "This seems familiar."

But familiarity is not necessarily truth.

2. Direct experience

This is what we have actually experienced for ourselves.

If I put my hand into cold water, I know the sensation of cold water directly. I don't need a book or another person to convince me that I experienced it.

In spiritual practice, direct experience is therefore fundamentally different from merely reading about somebody else's experience.

3. Second-hand information gathered and assimilated as being our knowledge in this life

This includes what we learn from the schools,books, teachers, scriptures, videos, podcasts, newspapers, movies, conversations, and other people.

Some of this information may be true. Some may be incomplete, misunderstood, exaggerated, imagined, or false.

The difficulty is that unless we can verify something through direct experience, we often have to believe it rather than actually know it.

There is an enormous difference between:

"I believe this is true."

and:

"I have experienced this directly."

4. Imagination and mental construction

The mind also fills in missing pieces.

We receive incomplete information and try to create a complete picture from it. The intellect compares, interprets, judges, and organizes the information, while the mind may supply missing connections.

Sometimes those connections are correct. Sometimes they are not.

This is where expectations, fantasies, projections, and mistaken conclusions can arise.

What does this have to do with Kriya Yoga?

The problem begins when we expect the same mind that analyzes information to give us Self-realization.

It cannot.

While realization is "Being", the mind is "thinking". Two different actions, while in Samadhi the mind is left behind.

The mind can study Kriya. It can remember instructions. It can compare teachings. It can help us maintain discipline. The intellect can help us discern whether something makes sense.

These are valuable functions.

But thinking about Self-realization is not Self-realization.

Reading about prana is not experiencing prana.

Reading about chakras is not experiencing them.

Reading descriptions of deep meditation is not entering deep meditation.

Reading somebody else's description of the Self is not knowing the Self.

The menu is not the meal.

This is why the mind should be understood as a tool, not as the final authority on spiritual experience.

The trap of constantly analyzing practice

Suppose the mind is continuously combining:

A: memories and conditioning
B: direct experiences
C: second-hand information and beliefs
D: imagination, assumptions, and expectations

A+B+C+D = a mess....

Then we begin comparing our meditation with everything we have accumulated:

"Someone said I should see this."

"A book says I should feel that."

"Why haven't I experienced what this other person experienced?"

"Maybe I'm doing it wrong."

"Maybe nothing is happening."

"Maybe I should be experiencing something more dramatic."

The result can be endless doubt and false expectations.

And this can become an obstacle to practice itself.

Instead of practicing Kriya, we are constantly thinking about practicing Kriya.

Instead of observing what is actually happening, we compare the present experience with an idea of what we think should be happening.

Use the mind, but don't become its servant

This doesn't mean that we should throw away reason, intellect, or healthy discernment.

The mind is an extraordinary instrument.

Use it to learn the technique.

Use the intellect to understand the instructions.

Use discernment when choosing a path or teacher.

Use memory to maintain the practice correctly.

But when it is time to practice, practice.

Don't demand that every meditation conform to your expectations.

Don't constantly compare your experiences with someone else's.

Don't mistake descriptions of spiritual states for the states themselves.

And don't expect intellectual understanding to produce a realization that, by its very nature, must be directly experienced.

As practice deepens, the role of constant mental interpretation fades out.

Then you no longer need to believe someone else's description.

You know what you have experienced.

That, to me, is one of the essential differences between philosophy about spiritual realization and realization itself.

The intellect can point toward the path.

The mind can help us walk it.

But neither can substitute for walking.

So when the mind endlessly asks, "But what if? How? When? Why haven't I experienced this yet?", sometimes the most useful answer is very simple:

Practice. Observe. Experience.

There is another aspect, which seems to come out of our mind but is coming from the soul:

INTUITION

Intuition is the voice of the Soul and is Knowledge. This is not mind stuff, but is translated by the mind.

And it is always right, also when it seems not to be so by the time we experience that message of the Soul.

Spiritual teachings can give us the map.

But eventually, we have to make the journey ourselves.

For that, do not bother the mind and forget doubts. They are coming out of a not knowing mind....

I listened to the podcast Tao Te Ching Verse 6. It is amazing and in a split second I understood the Tao... surely I am not attempting to describe what I understood... I used to think how to stay motivated, positive and optimistic every moment. Sometimes I used to feel just the opposite...negative, disinterested and aimless. After listening to this podcast, I understood the ever present, pulsating reality that is Daoism....always present, here and now encompassing everything....Thank you for your wonderful podcast....Sundar

I’ve been interested in spirituality for a long time. Not in one particular religion, and not because I’ve been looking for a label to define myself. More because of a question that keeps coming back to me:

What is really behind all of this?

The more I’ve read, listened, questioned, and explored, the more fascinating it has become to find similar ideas appearing in completely different places.

In ancient religions, in mystical traditions, in philosophy, in Kabbalah, in Zoroastrianism, in the teachings of Neville Goddard, in ideas like manifestation and the Law of Assumption and even in much more modern conversations about consciousness and the nature of reality.

We use different words — God, consciousness, Source, the universe, reality — and we build different explanations around them. But sometimes I wonder if, underneath all those words, we might be trying to describe something remarkably similar.

And that is, in many ways, why this space exists. Not because I have all the answers. In fact, I’m probably much more interested in the questions.

I want to understand why spiritual ideas that emerged thousands of miles and thousands of years apart can sometimes sound strangely familiar. I’m interested in the relationship between our consciousness and the reality we experience. I want to understand why practices like prayer, meditation, visualization, and manifestation seem to appear, in one form or another, again and again throughout human history.

And I’m particularly interested in one question:

What happens when we stop treating spirituality as a collection of beliefs and start looking at it as an experience?

Over the past few years, one of the ideas that has changed the way I see all of this is the possibility that our relationship with reality may be far more participatory than we think.

That our thoughts matter. That our words matter. That what we assume about ourselves matters. That the way we relate to our desires, our fears, and our own identity can profoundly transform the way we experience our lives.

But I don’t want to turn any of these ideas into another dogma. I’m not here to tell you what to believe.

I want to investigate, to compare, to question, to experiment and to share what I find along the way.

Here, we’ll talk about manifestation and the Law of Attraction, but also about ancient religions, mysticism, consciousness, philosophy, symbolism, meditation, and all those strange coincidences that begin to appear when you place seemingly unrelated teachings side by side.

Sometimes we’ll talk about things that are thousands of years old, other times, about ideas that feel surprisingly modern and sometimes, we’ll simply ask questions we may not have the answers to yet.

Because to me, spirituality has never been about stopping asking questions, quite the opposite. Maybe it begins precisely when we dare to ask them.

So this is the question I want to begin with:

What if many of the things we’ve learned to call by different names are simply different ways of trying to explain the same thing?

I don’t know exactly where that question will take us but I think it’s worth following.

This is actually my first time using Reddit, so I don’t know if I’m doing this right but I need insight on what I should do next.

Essentially, in December of 2025, I was going through some extremely heavy emotions, I’m sure you can guess what they were. I had heard about the Monroe Tapes on TikTok, and wanted to try it. I was not in any way shape or form interested in anything occult-y or metaphysical at the time, so I’m not sure why I decided to try it, but of course I did.

I won’t get into much detail, but I was extremely affected by them. They changed me and who I was, and since then I have resolved my issues

TikTok, along with essentially all apps, heard me listening or talking about the Monroe tapes, and decided to show me lots of “esoteric” content on my fyp. It all looked very intriguing to me, but I didn’t know where to start.

A friend of mine loaned me a book, “The Secret Teachings of All Ages” by Manly P. Hall. I did not examine it too closely, but from what I had read, it didn’t really inform me on what I would have liked to know about, that being my own consciousness, my soul, really anything that aligned with what I had learned from the Monroe Tapes or the videos I had been seeing (I’m not very familiar with the subjects I’m speaking of).

And so I ask Reddit. What should I read? I would like to know more about the things like my consciousness, my mind and how it connects to the things around me. I wish to learn more about my thoughts and soul and all that occult-y esoteric jazz. So could anyone recommend me something such as a book or video to help me understand and learn?

Between bad luck and horrible crippling anxiety I am here. I have a horrible disability and cannot work. My water notice for shut off came today and I am at the end of my wits. Please just send me good vibes.

I have really bad ocd and horrible anxiety about everything and it has left me hungry. I'm not asking for any money I am just asking for someone to send me some food. I have tried all of the food banks and a few churches and none of them can help because I'm already in an impoverished area and they're pretty much tapped out.

I have applied for food stamps medicaid and disability but that takes forever. I have been turned down once for ssi ssdi and I applied on Sept last year. Does anyone know any good lawyers for this?

Again like I said I used to be a proud person that worked for a living and now I feel like a piece of dirt . I am in my mid thirties and having to beg for a meal.

I have not eaten since yesterday. I am just really hungry. Can I ask someone please to doordash me a meal and maybe anyone can have Walmart deliver me a few groceries? Dms are open and I apologize for this but I am hungry and please if you do help me and I give you my information please don't dox me. I can't deal with much more right now thank you.

I really hate myself.

I wasn't going to list my cashapp but that helps too and someone suggested I do it so I'll kist it below and I'm sorry but anything helps thank you. And please please I beg do not dox me please this scares me to do it but shows how desperate I am to list it. $robertbridges24

There's several spiritual books two of them The Tao and the Kybalion I clearly remember saying in their own way, the Source of existence cannot and or does not know it's own nature. The Tao even says you cannot point to the true eternal source. This means existence doesn't stop after realizing Consciousness is infinite through multiple dimensions. It means Infinity cannot look back at the whole totality of itself just like I cannot look at myself without a full body mirror. This is where quantum physics and spirituality have to come together. Source Energy has no beginning or end, you cannot know yourself without an origin in a personal manner. The Source has always existed as a infinite sea or field of quantum particles, those particles have been oscillating at difference frequencies for all of infinity and eternity. Through quantum particles or different infinite view points Source Energy is trying to figure out why it exists or how, I believe it cannot. Particles have awareness they don't need a location to be in just like Consciousness doesn't. Thus this is the tale of the Cosmic mind forever hallucinating whole solar systems in an attempt to figure things out which it cannot. Imagination is all there is within the quantum atomic field, Imagination can be anything at anytime.