What's the way out of Nihilism?

[Lians]

I noticed Stef said in the last one, ". . . fight for your soul."  Hmmm, soul?  That pesky evasive language!

 

If I remember correctly, he's stated that to him, soul is a word describing the sum-total of one's experiences; the trio of the conscious and unconscious minds along with the body.

[powder]

OK this conversation has become borderline amazing for me, thank y'all!

 

Not that I've processed through it all, but the role-play in the first interview was very cool.  They were both very effective and I could see very much how something like that in the arts (kinda like 'the conversation' piece) would be good.  In it I found myself in that place again responding to the earlier quote I liked: "Yes, sour grapes, cause the grapes are fucking sour asshole!" hehe

 

I also thought, unfortunately nihilism is the cultural push at the moment, it seems to me.  It's like Alex Jones--"if you're not pissed off you're not paying attention."  I realize he's not a nihilist, but he's attitude, comportment and some theories seem kinda the same.  Still, I still listen on occasion!  I like entertainment as much as the next girl.

 

I noticed Stef said in the last one, ". . . fight for your soul."  Hmmm, soul?  That pesky evasive language!

 

The best of it all though, was "You won't take up arms against the darkness!"  And this is exactly it. He summed up right there what the lack was in the spirituality movement is for me.  They think they are doing this, they want to do this, I really believe.  But I didn't feel they were really taking up arms, I felt they were trying to build cathedrals in a swamp.  "Building the plane as we're flying it," they say.  Hmmm, I don't think that product would last long in the market

Interesting thread.  

 

Never went down the nihilist path, not my thing, but I agree that the whole angry at the world thing turns me off the Alex Jones style world view, and I think it is more than a little dangerous.  

 

I agree with Kevin, just because it was part of my path and process, I would not recommend anything of my experience to others to help them get to this place.  Sharing experiences my be helpful in some situations.  

 

I have not listened to the interview you reference but I am especially curious about the quote:  "You won't take up arms against the darkness!"   

 

Can you elaborate on that one for me Mishelle? 

[Mishelle]

Thanks for the question powder!  Cute cat!

 

In these interviews by the end, the caller (mr nihilist), had plateaued.  In other words, Stef was no longer able to get anywhere with him, he was deflated.  It was really something to hear I thought.  In the beginning in the role play you could really hear the power and passion in his voice, by the end of the final call, when he said the "You won't take up arms" he meant you've got to be willing to fight for yourself--like, where's the powerful guy from the role-play that sounded pissed off enough to take up arms against everyone, now not willing to face his own truth, hold himself and others accountable, etc.  That's what I got out of it.

 

Stef could so easily be a great therapist--I thought he worked with this guy so very well!  I really wonder what's happened to him since--anybody know if he's still around here?

 

I think nihilism looks different on men and women maybe.  He turned his anger out on the world, calling everyone stupid and thinking himself superior.  For me it was much more internal--"nobody cares" about what happens to the world, that was my mantra, "so I'll stop caring too."  When in Rome, kind of thing.  Going against my true nature was the downfall, because I truly cared and have since my earliest memories, more than those around me.  I had to see that this was also a gift, not just a curse. I had to stop feeling victimized by my own character and start looking for my tribe.  Stef also said something else that I experienced--if you're looking around and that's all you see, then that's all you're looking for. I didn't say it right, but basically, if you think the world is full of assholes, you will distort every situation to make that true.

 

Stef said to Mr Nil, "you are into the wallowing."  I think the darkness is definitely addictive.  The question becomes for me, "Is reason enough to pull one out of it?"  Had I found Stef back then, would he and FDR have been enough?  The answer is absolutely not.  There is no real structure here, there is no true community in the way I knew it with the "evolving consciousness" community I was involved with.  Still, I don't want to get stuck there and make assumptions about others.

 

Kevin, you said you were exposed to A Course in Miracles from your folks.  This is of course "the new age bible" and I never liked it.  (As a little-known factoid, it was written by a CIA agent.  Totally vetted, this is not tinfoil hat stuff I promise, I looked into it myself including the original sources.)

 

Can you tell us more about your experiences growing up and how this affected you.  I know you mention a bit above, and I saw that it negatively impacted you, but if you could include any specifics or other anecdotes that really stuck out for you, if you felt like it, it would help me I think unravel this better.  You seemed affected by my religious/spiritual person comparison, since you have childhood experience with both, what do you see as the similarities and differences?

[Kevin Beal]

I actually had never heard about the CIA connection. That's very interesting.

 

Can you tell us more about your experiences growing up and how this affected you.  I know you mention a bit above, and I saw that it negatively impacted you, but if you could include any specifics or other anecdotes that really stuck out for you, if you felt like it, it would help me I think unravel this better.  You seemed affected by my religious/spiritual person comparison, since you have childhood experience with both, what do you see as the similarities and differences?

I'm not entirely sure what to write here. But I was born into a mormon family and when I was ~3, my parents got really into A Course In Miracles (ACIM) and they left the church. This made things very uncomfortable socially for my family with all mormon neighbors and schoolmates, so we moved to Arizona to start a new life outside the church. My parents divorced not very long after that.

 

My dad would quote ACIM often to his children, the way a pastor might to his children. My mom was more interested in David Icke, Deepak Chopra and eventually The Secret. To her credit, she rarely spoke about any of it to the youngest children.

 

I would often listen to my dad speak for hours about this stuff, not really taking any of it in. I pitied him and wanted to make him feel visible and heard, be the parent he wasn't for me. I would enable him in order to escape my mother (who was less overtly spiritual, but similarly neglectful).

 

My brother grew up very close to my dad and he ended up taking ACIM pretty seriously as a result. As an adult he went to the ACIM cult in Wisconsin and loved it. He is the one that exposed me to this non-dual world. He has a practice that he does of creating associations through language that is nearly incomprehensible, and he would practice it a lot with me, tie in things he'd learned from the large list of non-dual thinkers he was reading, and even meeting in person. It's a bit like Rudy's (in TGOA) imitation of post modernists, re-arranging the language.

 

Without going into specifics (since my brother is not here to defend himself), I found this to be sad, upsetting, disorienting and frustrating to deal with. It made being vulnerable with him really difficult for me. I would very often have the experience of convincing him of something, and then the next day it was like he didn't get it at all. He had no problem at all contradicting himself (by his own admission).

 

I have had a lot more contact with spiritual types than I have with religious people. That was just the people I was living and working with. Maybe it's just these people and my sample size isn't large enough to generalize, but there is a pretty big difference between the spiritual and the religious. The religious people would quickly bow out of any debate that I would bring and just say "faith" and be done with it.

 

The spiritual people, I found, were a LOT more touchy, defensive and just mean below the thin veneer of humility and niceness. These people would constantly posture about how enlightened and conscious they were, and when they did that it irritated the hell out of me so I would call them out on it. Not a single one of them could sustain a single minute's debate, before retreating completely into subjectivism. People actually thought that I was a spiritualist myself based on how well I was familiar with the concepts, and (me being susceptible to flattery) a few people actually told me straight up that I was "enlightened" (I say in all my false pride ).

 

The worst part was the subjectivism. That drove me crazy. At least the religious people I talked to didn't really try and pull that shit. The whole thing often became using this amorphous blob of mutually exclusive truthisms to contradict other people whenever they felt like it. Religious people do that too, I guess, but there wasn't like a single book that people could resolve these differences. It was just a distorted alpha male thing between terribly fragile people. It's painful to watch.

 

I find myself favoring religious people overall. There is a kind of consistency and commitment that they have that I can actually appreciate a bit, even if it is completely false and destructive. Rightly or wrongly, I don't have this same appreciation for the vaguely spiritual. To me they always seemed to do everything they could to prevent knowledge rather than foster it.

 

If I grew up in a different environment, I might prefer the vaguely spiritual to the religious, I don't know. But that's my general experience.

[powder]

I feel the same way about 'spiritual' people Kevin.  

 

I grew up with religion and have spent lots of time with both religious and spiritual people.  I also spent a few years looking into the new age stuff and even ACIM, which I did not have much time for at all BTW.  

 

compared to the 'spiritual' folk, I find it easier to be around religious people because they are at least consistent and predictable in their attitudes and beliefs.  And their ethical code of behavior is largely decent and consistent as well, except for the rare fanatics.  

 

 

Stef said to Mr Nil, "you are into the wallowing."  I think the darkness is definitely addictive.  The question becomes for me, "Is reason enough to pull one out of it?"  Had I found Stef back then, would he and FDR have been enough?  The answer is absolutely not.  There is no real structure here, there is no true community in the way I knew it with the "evolving consciousness" community I was involved with.  Still, I don't want to get stuck there and make assumptions about others.

 

 

 

I think this is an important point Mishelle.  It has been my experience that people have to be ready to hear, to accept, and be able to assimilate the 'truth', whatever that might be.  A nihilist, or a religious person, just like an addict, they have to be ready, open, or perhaps 'broken open' enough to let it in.  

 

That is why I don't think it is helpful to prescribe for other people.  If they come to you, it certainly may be helpful to them to share your own experience of how you got to where you are, because, presumably they come to you because they see something in you that they think might help them.  If you are a good therapist, then you may be able to walk them thru their own experiences to help them see the truth on their own.  If they are ready.  

 

what do you guys think of this perspective?  

[Mishelle]

Speaking of enlightened, I'm feeling quite so at the moment!

 

I also had this experience of meeting people who considered themselves long on the path to enlightenment (those who say they are there I dismiss immediately with an inward chuckle) but it was clearly because they dismissed all else beyond their subjective experience and could not recognize their darkness, or refused to acknowledge it.  Denial is a very beautiful thing in LA-LA Land.

 

Kevin you said: "The worst part was the subjectivism. That drove me crazy. At least the religious people I talked to didn't really try and pull that shit. The whole thing often became using this amorphous blob of mutually exclusive truthisms to contradict other people whenever they felt like it. Religious people do that too, I guess, but there wasn't like a single book that people could resolve these differences. It was just a distorted alpha male thing between terribly fragile people. It's painful to watch"

 

I would so appreciate a specific story/example here!  I'm sorry to be a pain, but this conversation is seriously working for me to untangle the falsehoods. 

 

I believe I have not fully accepted that I had a very hard time initially, lots of resistance, to the spiritual movement.  I have always been a DO-ER.  I chalked that up to ego and the teaching mirrors that.  But, I want to realize if I spent 3 years distracted, I really do!  I was quite impressed with the teacher, that's what kept me there.  OMG, am I doing the same now?!

 

It's ok, it's just questions.  But it makes me remember in greater clarity that the teacher did disappoint me, when it came to Truth.  I had the resolve to walk away when I realized not even she was willing to look at it.  Building cathedrals in the swamps.  I want to acknowledge that maybe it's more dangerous than I'm accepting.  Or maybe it's not exactly dangerous, but just not the clear and direct path that could be if I stopped justifying my particular path.

 

Anyway, thanks for keeping this conversation alive.  I am on the verge of saying until further notice I will refrain from mentioning the spiritual journey here for at least a year!  Give me a bit more food for thought please?

[Kevin Beal]

I would so appreciate a specific story/example here!  I'm sorry to be a pain, but this conversation is seriously working for me to untangle the falsehoods. 

 

I believe I have not fully accepted that I had a very hard time initially, lots of resistance, to the spiritual movement.  I have always been a DO-ER.  I chalked that up to ego and the teaching mirrors that.  But, I want to realize if I spent 3 years distracted, I really do!  I was quite impressed with the teacher, that's what kept me there.  OMG, am I doing the same now?!

Among the groups I knew, the "debate" was kinda like Peter Joseph's word salad, full of adjectives and assertions, but no apparent rigor.

 

So, when someone would say that forgiveness is a marker of an enlightened, non-ego person (regardless of whether or not restitution was made), I would explain how I distinguish forgiveness as something involuntary done with at least some sort of honest standards. What I would get in return was either that it's my ego's attachment to meaningless things or that it's a hateful act toward the person that I do not will my forgiveness.

 

The conversation became murky at that point because they hadn't addressed what I was actually saying, but rather simply elaborating on what they already accepted. I would reword my criticism or I would bring a new one up, and very quickly the conversation was shut down with some veiled insult or a retreat entirely into subjectivity (with the suggestion that I was being intolerant).

 

So they'd say "when you come to see what I've seen, you will know the truth I bring". Or they'd say "this is what my heart tells me, and I have always been able to trust my heart". Or they'd say "your truth may be different from my truth, but this is still my truth".

 

That's most of the people I debated with. But if you got somebody especially good at manipulating language, it was slightly different. What they'd say was either very vague or used terms in ways that didn't make sense (at least to me) and then I'd have to ask for an elaboration. Then they'd elaborate in a way that made it even more confusing and the cycle would continue. At some point I had to stop them and bring up my arguments again as explicitly as possible, which would be addressed with something that was again incomprehensible.

 

It would be full of adjectives and references that weren't necessary to make their point bringing me to some tangent they wouldn't even support later as it would be "beside the point". These are usually the guru types who people (I will assert) mistook incomprehensibility for true wisdom.

 

It's the same kinds of things that postmodernists pull in my experience.

 

I don't know if that helps or not...

 

I think that this podcast does a good job of describing what I've experienced:

 

673 – Subjectivism

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_673_Subjectivism.mp3

[Mishelle]

Thank you Kevin, it does help.  I also appreciate the link to this audio which I will listen to right away.

 

Our teachings focused a lot on "who you are being" instead of "what you are doing" which I feel is very helpful.  We talked a lot about "ego resistance" and generating action from the heart not the head, and not just reacting to bad, but generating good.  It was actually very helpful to learn these things.

 

It's been a couple years now since I left, but it was when they started getting into politics to "change the conversation" (Marianne Williamson running for senate now!) that I started speaking out about what I knew.  "You are empowering the problem" I said and offered data on Obama and the unbelievable corruption on both sides, 9/11 BS, and so on.  When they wouldn't even engage in a conversation I couldn't continue with them anymore.  They are ALL Statists to the bone!  It's actually pretty scary, because these people do have a lot of money and influence and most of the current gurus are babyboomers, so I see that influence only increasing in future.

 

So, I am convinced now that y'all are right.  Thank you very much for your patience with me and please continue to send me any resources that will continue to help.  One of the motivations these last months with FDR has been for me to try to figure out a way to "convert" some of these women to listen more to reason.  I think now that must be ego, lol, and like they say, I should think from my heart space which is telling me, my increasing rationality might be better served with others!