@opalescent wrote:
It’s a fascinating mind-bender, all this, as fear can be used as both sword and shield… as can ego, which is, perhaps, a child of fear.
I’m not sure if I agree with this. I don’t know what you mean by child of fear, but I know the ego can definitely stand on its own. The ego is what allows you to experience life here from the perspective of an individual identity. Your ego becomes who you define yourself as, “I am this occupation, I have this experience. These are my hobbies, I own these objects, this is what I love/work for and this defines me.” Most people attach the ego to something, and that is what makes the drive for conflict, because the ego has to protect. And I know there are those out there who say you have to “kill” the ego to ascend but that’s a stupid idea. Its a part of you, you shouldn’t hurt yourself, a person that thinks they are doing that, is simply having the ego reattach to something greater than the typical self individual conciousness and redefining itself. What your ego is, or isn’t attached to is what helps you determine the path you strive for and what experiences you will attract/encounter to fulfill that. Its purpose is to allow you to identify yourself so you can decide how to play, as you change so does the game.
@opalescent wrote:
How do you define light in stagnation here? Coherent light is ordered in phase, so any stagnation would, to me, be either the unexpected introduction of chaos (light not knowing how to respond to dark, in shock)…
Darkness makes you face yourself, introduction of chaos isn’t stagnation, pressure makes you grow or life will move on with out you. On the contrary any kind of chaos is a catalyst that breaks up stagnation, its dynamic and always gets things moving. I usually see the opposite happen, stagnation because people refuse to look into the darkness and face themselves or others. Looking the other way because it can cause unpleasant discomfort, when you embrace it and stop running from it most of that discomfort goes away. I used to do that and I’m done looking for the easy way out. Chaos can help make headway, forest fire before the trees can grow.Opal somewhere along the way I got the impression you think void is a just a metaphor, I can assure you its a very real place. I don’t usually open up this side of myself but I have some experiences that might prove too valuable to leave out of this thread, I am going to address some things Neiru said maybe you can get a better idea from that.
@Neiru wrote:
I don’t know, lol, how would you describe being torn apart and crushed by a black hole? As long as you are entrenched in the world of form, dismantling that form will be painful and threats to that form will be seen as aggression. I guess Void and Manifest can dance, but it might get awkward since one of the partners will keep exploding (I’ll let you guess which one). Dark and Light can dance much better, and do so all the time. Surrender? Surrender to what? One has to surrender attachment to forms in order to survive the Void. This includes, but is not limited to: who you think you are, who others think you are, who you want to be, who you’re trying not to be, and confusing your Self with memories and experiences. All these things are forms. Void destroys forms, and if too much of your sense of self is invested in them, you as an individual would also be destroyed. Only the eternal center which has integrated the essense of experiences into a passive (taking no effort to maintain) state of be-ing can withstand the Void. It is the eye of the storm while the Manifest shell is torn to pieces all around you.
Once I felt I had something to prove to myself… all of me (my soul fragments too) one of my fragments volunteered to enter the void. We aren’t afraid of death or pain. She flew into a black hole, her body was torn apart pretty quickly. She focused and held on for about 3 minutes the void stripped her conciousness of all sorts of garbage (I suspect all the things that were the forms Neiru mentioned). It felt like it was fading, dying. She focused and held onto herself, after a while it felt like she was extinguished but after that there was a HUUUGE sudden conciousness/energy spike. The energy and conciousness was very chaotic, and it just kept expanding and expanding rapidly, never stopping. She got so huge so quickly I could not even feel the totality of her conciousness anymore, I couldn’t contemplate it (gave me a headache). She seemed to be grasping all sorts of ideas and concepts that were way beyond me, she had a high on her own strength her state of being self-empowering. She loves her life/experience over there now, and has no interest in coming back here. The void is very literally a real place.
@Neiru wrote:
The most classic example of this is something I call “Moon Sickness.” Undistorted, this is the purest remembrance of immortality. But after passing through Manifest filters, it typically surfaces as either sadism, masochism, or both. It is an insatiable bloodlust (more in the werewolf sense than the vampire sense) where you get high off pain because it no longer registers as dangerous. Restraint and remorse go out the window. You grow disconnected from the Manifest structures contributing to your existence (ex: body, mind, house), and don’t understand that you’re harming yourself and/or others. This is the result of taking Void energy literally and not harmonizing it with the rules of the Manifest.
I had a case of what you call “Moon Sickness” once. I had been thinking about darkness, void, meditating on it and couldn’t think of anything else. I started looking inward so much focusing on my own strength and I kind of went into that state. It was a self feeding empowerment. All I could see was my own strength, my own immortality I FELT it I KNEW it I AM. I felt the sadism and masochism state of mind, I was high off my own strength which fed itself, eminating from inside. Nothing could truly hurt me ever again. It was wonderful, I knew/know I have total control and nothing can hurt me unless I allow it. Its wonderful to feel what was previously “pain” of any kind, not fall to it and feel your own strength. I logically understood things could still hurt the body, I could physically die, but I didn’t care, my own strength and I loved it, nothing else matters. I have never forgotten it was a valuable experience that changed me forever.
