Sharing a strange episode of Love and Understanding on the Julian Easter Sunday

[Courageous Inmate Sort]

For a couple of months I've been considering how to write a post asking for help. While trying to find firm footing in a "life that is not materially evident but is only a dream" I've been trying to put myself together and get a handle on things after suffering a really long period of nihilistic depression, with a modicum of success. Not long ago I realized I do not need to and do not want to go through this alone anymore. Nevertheless, asking for assistance has proved a daunting task and I’ve been stuck at weaving together all that I would like to put on the table.

I have also tried really hard to understand and evaluate whatever connection I might have with this group and the implications arising thereof, after all I've been a student, however reluctant, for more than a decade now. All my attempts were basically rational/intellectual in the sense of weighing evidence, considering my past history and how it was/may have been affected by what is taught and discussed here and so forth.

Then something quite strange and unexpected happened, which I recount below. I plan to get back to all of the above as soon as I'm able but this takes precedence as I do not want to risk my shortcomings preventing this account from seeing the light of day. It felt a significant event to me and maybe others can also benefit, even if only by the knowledge of its mere existence, whatever you make of its content.

Let me preamble by saying that, in relation to whatever goodness I may have in me, over the years I've only been able to rationally ascertain that I'm most likely not a psychopath because to not purposefully inflict harm on others is a pretty good rule and I know I'm able to feel for another because I have experienced it. I have consciously chosen to make effort to be a good person long ago but success is still a matter of much doubt.

The trigger

So, about two weeks ago I was glancing at a Quillette piece about Jordan Peterson and chivalry, kind of reading it diagonally, more interested in the chivalry part. In parallel I was reading about important historical battles and I was thinking about war, battles, heroism, suffering and sacrifice after watching the latest Game of Thrones episode. The scene where the young girl sacrifices herself to defeat the giant undead troll was in my mind.

Near the end of the Quillette article a section caught my attention. It was about how Peterson handled a couple of cases of people climbing up on stage. I already knew about one of them where a young man in crisis jumped on stage in a cry for help. At the very end of the article one finds this short story:

I close with one more story, courtesy of a UK fan who recently came forward on FaceBook. At an event in Manchester, England, Peterson was sitting with Dave Rubin, discussing the mytheme of the Tree of Life. But some detail about how the Tree looked in a particular rendition was slipping his mind, so he abandoned the thread and moved on. A few moments later, a young audience member in the front row stood up and began climbing directly onto the stage in front of Peterson. Unlike the student who rushed the stage at Liberty U, he was not in a state of crisis. But it seemed clear to the fan watching up close that, like himself, this stage climber was on the autistic spectrum. As he scrambled up, he held out his phone strangely, seeming to offer it to Peterson.

Security swooped in from either side, ready to take an arm apiece and drag the boy away. But at a word from Peterson, they paused. Leaning over, in a low tone that the FaceBook correspondent could not describe, Peterson whispered, “It’s fine. I understand. You were just trying to show me the tree.”

To cast down the proud and lift up the lowly. To do justly and love mercy. To walk boldly, yet humbly. Herein is the art of manliness.

May its practitioners increase.

Source: Jordan Peterson, And the New Chivalry - by Esther O'Reilly

When I got to the highlighted sentences my eyes filled up with tears. I kept reading until the end of the article and came back to those sentences. "It's fine. I understand. You were just trying to show me the tree". I began to cry. "It's fine. I understand". I couldn't stop crying and I was engulfed by some deep kind of sorrow.

I sat there crying with these words repeating in my mind. "It's fine. I understand". So much sorrow. After a while I began to notice it was not only sorrow, I was feeling a strange mixture of sorrow and joy, there was even some ineffable beauty in it, and a faint sense of relief, of liberation. "It's fine. I understand". I gradually became amazed and grateful while feeling this potent joyful sorrow at this idea that someone understands. SOMEONE understands! That simple idea just seemed like the greatest thing ever.

Feeling sorrow and joy at the same time was something quite unique and confusing to the conscious mind. While it was happening I remember questioning myself: what is this? Is it sorrow? Is it joy? Is it sorrow AND joy? How can this be? It was not grief, I was not unhappy, I was not in pain. There was sadness but it did not feel negative. On the contrary, I was glad to be experiencing that moment, I was grateful and I was joyful. And a joy so pure, so limpid, it was most certainly not some pleasant sensation from the body. I had never felt anything remotely like it. The mere fact that such experience exists humbled me to no end.

"It's fine. I understand." Well, I couldn't understand why I was crying so much but I kept returning to these words. Sure, I could see it was a noble gesture by Peterson but I had no idea why it moved me to such extent. Plus, I'm not prone to crying at all.

The mind had many questions but the heart had none, it seemed perfectly at ease and confident in the path it was leading me.

(to be continued...)

 

[Courageous Inmate Sort]

Things get deeper

There I was weeping and marveling at this idea that SOMEONE understands, somewhat befuddled by the whole thing. My mind kept trying to figure out why. At some point I decided to try the I Ching. I thought that in such circumstances I might get a good chance of accessing some unconscious pattern that might help clarify what was happening. The emotional center was certainly very active.

I began to write the words "Why am I crying so much about..." but I couldn't finish. The answer came to my mind and at the same time popped out as if in the middle of the screen in large letters: Love.

It is difficult to describe that infinitesimally small instant while I read the letters forming out of thin air. Surrender, perhaps. Walls coming down and giving way. A dam breaking open and allowing the waters to flow out. It was a hard hit, an unexpected blow to the soul. Or perhaps a blow from the soul? In any case, I was absolutely not expecting it. Love? Of all things, love?! I was hoping for something I could grasp not something as elusive as love.

Something had opened. I was crying profusely. Emotions poured out from the depths of being and with them came profound ideas. The conscious mind was trying to keep up pace but it was always lagging behind and unable to fully grasp their magnitude. In retrospect it seems that the conscious mind was trying, in real time, to decode and translate into verbal language the information carried by the emotions. The emotions were certainly leading the way and they were mostly that joyful sorrow but more intense. I do not claim the ideas below are true but I did my best to put into words what I could make sense of. It is the most difficult part to explain because there was a lot coming up at once.

Connections began to form between concepts that have been on my mind for a long time, "God"/Prime Creator, consciousness, knowledge, love, suffering and even truth. I got glimpses of connections I have already been trying to figure out. But to my surprise the most prominent concept was the Love and sorrow of the Creator in relation to all, us included, thus myself included. At the same time there was a deep personal aspect to it where I was being shown my own shortcomings regarding that (lack of) noble Love in my life. The general and the particular were merged as if there was one ruling concept that applies equally to all consciousnesses in their relations to each other, and once again it was Love.

I was crying for many things. I cried for my own shortcomings, for my tendency of seeing what is wrong with the people around me, their imperfections, their flaws. Could I have not accepted and loved them nonetheless? I cried for all of us, faulty beings with all their problems and so so often misguided that still manage to find love and aid in one another.

The sorrow was so deep, it was not only my own. I wept for myself but just as one among many. I wept for all the pain and errors and faults, not only my own but of all beings that share such condition.

Apologies for the redundancy, but this notion was so powerful it brought me spiritually to my knees in humbleness. We are all so often misguided, we are all in some way imperfect, "impure", flawed. We all have problems, vices and defects. We all "sin". And yet we are able to love another. We are able to care, to aid, to help. The possibilities of love are forever present.

But also and perhaps even more I was crying joyfully for there is SOMEONE who not only understands all of these faulty beings but loves them all, even me! This felt like being granted some life-giving water after being thirsty and dry for a whole life.

The "all" had a sense of quasi-universality. It was not restricted to people, to humans, but seemed to refer to all beings, for all beings share something in common, consciousness I believe. And love seemed to apply universally as the way they relate or can relate to one another. It occurred to me that if, for instance, our bodies were made of metal, of some robotic constitution, our issues related to such bodies would be different, but the issues related to our consciousness and how we relate to one another would remain the same. The impression was that consciousness is universal, we all relate by sharing that commonality. It now reminds me of Mouravieff: “Whether a man dies in bed or aboard an interplanetary ship, the human condition has not changed in the slightest.” But expanded to regardless of the body it inhabits the soul remains the same or, more precisely, souls relate as souls regardless of their current vehicle of choice. Something like that.

And so it seems I was weeping for the love and sorrow of the Creator towards us all and the fractal-like replication in smaller scale of that love and sorrow in the relations between us all, the created beings.

Knowledge/understanding/intellect seemed in some way intrinsically coupled with Love, two intertwined pillars of Creation pervading all. The first as a sort of structure, as what things are. And love as the attitude, the mental state or intention towards another being. This perception of love as an attitude towards another was quite strong. Also something deeper which I could not quite grasp, as if Truth depends not only on cold dry facts of existence but demands also the consideration of this all pervading love in whichever of its myriad manifestations apply to the particular case.

And relating to the faulty beings that we are, there were these ideas of even though we know, we love. And we truly know, thus we love. And we are known and we are loved. Someone, somewhere understands. Someone, somewhere truly loves us.

There were also this simpler idea, but brought forth with a force of conviction completely alien to my usual perception of the world and imbued with a sense of reassurance, which now seems to be related to having chosen a path that demands so much: The world needs good men. The world is always in need of good men.

(to be continued...)

 

[Courageous Inmate Sort]

A droplet of divine grace is enough for now, thank you

During all of this I kept crying and feeling sorrow, feeling joy and even having some light laughter, go on to wash my face, come back and cry some more, rinse and repeat.

In the midst of this it occurred to me that I might have been experiencing some tiny tiny bit of the awful grace of God. I went on to find Laura's quote and had a sorrowful/joyful laugh reading through it in amazement of what the universe can and does do:

He who learns must suffer
And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
And in our own despair, against our will,
Comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
Agamemnon, Aeschylus

Eventually, after contemplating the sorrow and the creator's love for All for what seemed a long time, letting the emotions come through and putting the mind to work on all that was coming to me, the closer I got to putting together all those concepts of love, Creator, sorrow, consciousness, knowledge, truth, my own life etc, the more intense the emotions and mental activity became. As I kept dwelling on these concepts I began to feel pressure in my head, in the temples. It was also increasing.

At some point I thought to myself, as if asking, I don't need to feel the full sorrow of the creator, I can’t handle that, please just what is fitting for my being at this moment. A beautiful expression from the Cs came to mind, almost poetic in its accuracy, “balanced contentment learning profile”. Honestly I did not want to risk an aneurysm or something else going badly. I might be a tad overcautius, but it seemed proper.

As a result the crying, the emotions and the pressure began to subside but still lasted for a while. By the end I was somewhat spent but also with a sense of lightness, of relief and relaxation. I'm not sure but the whole thing lasted something around an hour and a half to two hours.

Searching for more clues

After things calmed down a bit, being stubborn I tried the Oracle once again: What about what just happened to me? Below is what I got. I long for it to be true but there is always the possibility of being deceived.

Cast Hexagram: 45 - Forty-Five Ts'ui / Gathering (no changing lines)

The Lake rises by welcoming and receiving Earth's waters:
The King approaches his temple.
It is wise to seek audience with him there.

Success follows this course.
Making an offering will seal your good fortune.
A goal will be realized now.

SITUATION ANALYSIS:
This is an important Convergence, and you must be part of it.
Look for the Center of this convergence.
Like waters running to the sea, like an astronomical convergence of planets revolving around the sun, you should let the gravity of this Center draw you near.
Others are also drawn to this Center, and among them you will find shared bonds and kindred spirits.
This tribal convergence will give you a clarity of purpose.
You will no longer be alone.

In the days following I was digesting all of this and trying to organize it so that I could share it with you. I then went on to search the web to see if anyone else had said something about this peculiar emotion of joyful sorrow. To my surprise it comes up in Christian writings, particularly orthodox, and also in connection with Easter.

Today, we are marked with the characteristic attribute of the Christian — joyful-sorrow — that condition wherein we recognize the sadness of the destruction of sin, which always leads to death (cf. Rom 6:23), and the joy of the possibility of being saved from that destruction at the hand of Our Merciful and Tender Savior.

http://stbasil.net/resources/becoming-human/2016/4/23/joyful-sorrow

John Climacus highlights purity of heart. In The Ladder 7,9 p.114 he writes: “Keep a firm hold of the blessed joy-grief of holy compunction, and do not stop working at it until it raises you high above the things of this world and presents you pure to Christ.” Note that John Climacus has invented here a new word to express joy-grief, it is only one word in Greek, which is also translated as joyful sorrow. In his Ladder, he has a whole step on compunction; its title is significant: On mourning which causes joy.

Emma Cazabonne. Penthos: The Lenten Journey to Joy

Our Savior teaches us every day with His own voice: let us therefore listen to the Scriptures concerning the Prodigal who became wise once more, and with faith let us follow the good example of his repentance. With humbleness of heart let us cry out to Him who knows all secrets: We have sinned...

orthochristian.com

In Byzantine texts, most conspicuous are those tears which are con-
nected to a certain form of penthos, namely katanuxis (‘contrition’,
‘compunction’). Because of their religious significance, compunction
and the so-called ‘gift of tears’ are a rather well-researched subject which,
nevertheless, remains fascinating. A brief explanation must suffice. 24
Based on the statement from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount
‘Blessed are those who mourn’ (Matthew 5:4), a special mourning cult
developed in early Byzantine monasticism. In this cult of penthos, the
faithful and above all the monks shed tears over their sins and those of
mankind. It was said that those tears cleansed the soul, just as baptism
washed away the dirt of sin, and thus prepared for the kingdom of
heaven. Because it cleansed and led to God, this form of penthos was
also called charmolupē, a ‘joyful sorrow’, a powerful concept based
on the oxymoron of the simultaneous experience of joy and sorrow.

This high esteem for joyful tears generated the need for methods that
could evoke tears. In particular, thoughts of the divine judgement
or mankind’s expulsion from paradise (these are the ‘lost virtues’ in
Ps.-Geometres’ poem) and the resulting ‘state of exile’ or ‘alienation’
(xeniteia) of man in the world were considered suitable themes to
arouse contrition (katanuxis) and to bring about tears. 25 Such tears
were understood as an ‘offering’ to God. 26 Katanyctical texts were
composed, among them hymns that inspired the faithful to cry over
human sinfulness. 27 Nikolaos Kataskepenos, writing in the twelfth
century, reported how a monk literally wept himself to death through
excessive mourning, supported by a collection of stimulating texts. 28
Since tears of contrition could be shed only by the grace of God (and
were, therefore, ‘divine tears’), tears were considered the visible sign
that God accepted the repentance and contrition of a human being. 29

Margaret Alexiou, Douglas L. Cairns - Greek Laughter and Tears Antiquity and After

Then I remembered that we had celebrated Easter just a week before this event. Interesting. I decided to check if Easter was held on the same day in other parts of the world. Again to my surprise that very Sunday - April 28th, 2019 - was Easter Sunday on the Julian calendar, proposed by Julius Caesar in 46 BC and still followed by the Eastern Orthodox Church.

I'm still working on a last section that deals with the personal issues that were shown to me that might help explain the relevance and impact of the whole thing.

Meanwhile I would be pleased if this could turn into conversation instead of a one-off statement and running for the woods. Has any of you had a similar experience? What do you think of it? Am I being deceived in giving it significance?

 

[nicklebleu]

Thanks CIS for posting your experience. I wasn’t aware of that particular episode you mentioned with Peterson, but it’s absolutely beautiful. Also thanks for posting your experience - and yes, you are not alone.

I think whether or not your experience is “true” is probably not the crucial question. It is more what you do with it. If you take your experience as “fact” and use if for your own development - in the Peterson sense of becoming the best person you possibly can - than it doesn’t really matter whether your experience is objectively true or not.

An analogy would be that it is not very important if the C’s communications are true or false - if we take them as an impetus to research, come to our own conclusions and then use that knowledge to develop ourselves further, then we use that as a fertile starting point in our own development and the truth content of the transmission is not that important anymore.

Not sure if that all makes sense.

 

[Courageous Inmate Sort]

Thank you nicklebleu for sharing your perspective. And thank you for saying I am not alone.

I agree completely that "what I do with it" is of crucial importance. Not long after it occurred to me that whatever I have gained I have to work to maintain and develop or it will be lost.

However I cannot agree that the "truth content" is not that important, especially in view of your example of the Cs transmissions. I think we can agree that us humans are not that difficult to deceive and, from the esoteric to our daily lives, our minds can strongly believe in things that are not true, things that do not correspond to reality. If we were to take as a starting point something that is deceitful, the fruits of its development do not seem to be generally desirable. I can see how a wrongful path might ultimately serve as lesson but it still seems pretty relevant whether the information was given with the intent of disclosing as much truth as possible and to help the recipients or, on the contrary, disclosing the least truth possible and to deceive the recipients.

 

[nicklebleu]

I was not saying that truth is not relevant - but that such experiences, transmissions etc. are just the starting point in finding the truth, or as close as we can approach that. But that will be our task, to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. Hope that makes sense.

 

[Courageous Inmate Sort]

I was not saying that truth is not relevant - but that such experiences, transmissions etc. are just the starting point in finding the truth, or as close as we can approach that. But that will be our task, to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. Hope that makes sense.

Yes, it does. Very well put.

 

[Courageous Inmate Sort]

Here is the last part I was working on.

I mentioned that after receiving Love as answer there was, intertwined with the more abstract concepts, a personal aspect to what I was receiving or being shown. It was deep and pervasive as if impregnated in the very way I perceive and deal with the world at large, others and myself included.

During the experience it was like a visceral understanding of a longstanding fault of mine, a particular way of being that accompanies me for as long as I can remember. But once again the cognition was following the emotion. I think it is the only aspect of the event I would call actually painful, not physically but emotionally. I literally bent over as the realization struck. In retrospect I believe that the painful aspect could have been much worse but the gradual realizations of my character flaws during the past decade, which were accompanied by the emotional pain of facing them, might have alleviated what I got during this experience.

After getting a glimpse of that cosmic love, a love offered abundantly no matter how full of error the being on the receiving end, my attention was drawn to my own life. And immediately it was clear that I did not held such attitude towards others, towards myself, towards anything really.

As well I can express, my attitude as I saw in that moment was to distance myself as soon as a flaw was noticed, to erect a protective barrier and to refuse to extend appreciation, as if saying “no!” to the flawed object of perception. I felt I withheld something that could be flowing. And I felt a great sadness over this.

The tone was not that I should have done this or that, I was simply being shown how I have been like and being informed that I could do it differently, that there is another option, a much more loving way to respond to the world. It was as if all that love and sorrow were illuminating the way I have been for so long and informing me that I do not need to be like that, that I could learn and choose to be otherwise. I was not shown specific cases of my past but just this impression that it was all under the same umbrella, the same dynamic all around.

And this was merged with the love and sorrow of the Creator that extends to all, for before him everyone is in someway “less than” but he nonetheless loves and understands all. Someone understands, someone loves. So might we.

As this fault of mine is so old and pervasive I struggle to explain it, even to myself. Deep down I’m just certain of its existence so I’m trying to articulate its components. I believe it has to do with separation and focusing on the negative. Living in a negative state of mind seems related but it might be a consequence more than a cause.

I can track the separation issue back to when I was a kid. I have a clear memory of thinking to myself: there are only two things in the world, me and everything else. And I remember concluding that this was true, that it could not be wrong because the world could certainly be divided in this way. I was proud of such conclusion. Now this seems a form of defense. I have always seen the world and people as dangerous, always ready to hurt me at each turn. It’s me against everything else. No wonder it has been a lonely life.

As for focusing on the negative, I basically thought of it as the way I’m built. Fault-finding is second nature, be it with people, objects, everything. This also relates to perfectionism. A couple of years ago I realized I had a weird form of pride, by which for something/someone to have value it must have no errors, no faults, only perfection, otherwise it must be judged harshly, myself included. That is, I’m used to wishfully think that the world should be perfect, in my terms, and if it isn’t - which of course it isn’t - then it is no good. As I was once told by a therapist, quoting Grouxo Marx: “I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member”.

During the experience I did not get the impression that the faults I saw in people weren’t real but that their existence did not require the response of keeping them at bay.

Before the work, living in a negative state of mind was like the fish that doesn’t notice the water it lives in. My emotional landscape has been historically tilted very heavily towards the negative. Frustration, anger, hatred, thoughts of revenge, fear, anxiety, nihilism, existential dread, pervasive daily grumpiness, the dead gray zone of apathy, shame and guilt etc. Positive emotions are oh so rare compared to negative ones.

Strong emotions, being usually negative, were to be avoided and concealed. I could never know the outcome of their unleashing besides the regret that would follow. Over the years of working on myself I became able to better regulate their expression, to a degree. To feel them rising and stopping them in their tracks, though not always. And when they do rise to distance myself and observe instead of identifying with them, also to a degree. But this did not change the overall landscape. I was pruning the peaks but the baseline was mostly the same. From lots of negative to not so negative, but almost no positive.

I share all of this to help explain why feeling that joy, even enmeshed with sorrow, felt so precious. And also to help explain why receiving love as an answer was so baffling and why seemingly obvious ideas such as "even though imperfect we are able to love another" affected me so much.

Looking forward

In a sense I feel like a man that goes into the humanities for his dislike of mathematics and questions the heavens what should he learn to further his path and the answer he gets is to go dwell in the equations of quantum physics. Or a porcupine told to be smooth and shed it's spikes. How is he to protect himself, you know?

Well, I do not even know where to begin but I knew that this had to be shared and that not doing so was to betray myself on a very deep level, as well as all of you here and, in a weird sense, the universe itself. As if it would deeply hurt my soul.

At the moment I take this occurrence as a small sign of confirmation that choosing this elusive path was not in vain. And I am humbled because I would not have thought that my faulty efforts would have merited it, not by a long shot.

Once again, I would very much appreciate any input you might have. If you see something I do not, if you think I am mistaken or deceiving myself, please let me hear it.

Thank you all for your patience, your kindness, your insights, all the years of hard work you have shared and all the sufferings you have endured.

 

[Courageous Inmate Sort]

One more thing. I feel kind of embarrassed saying this and I almost didn’t post it out fear, because who am I to be giving advice to anyone... but I would be remiss if I didn’t and I simply couldn’t take it out of my mind. There might just be one person who needs to hear it.

For those that are facing troubling times in their lives. As someone who was once wishing for oblivion to just sweep in and end all the pain. Please, don’t give up. Just don’t give up! There is more to you than you think. However difficult it might seem right now, there is always hope for better days, even if it might take a while. Patience and perseverance pays. We simply don’t know what the universe is capable of!

This message helped me a great deal and I hope it helps you too:

A: For all forum members: Do not lose heart. Just remember that if you do all you can, yourselves in the future will bridge the gap. You are all potential transducers of information into chaos. Let that information be love/truth.

 

[cindyj]

I can’t take much time to write now, but wanted to let you know that your story moved me. Thank you for sharing it. It is shocking to experience something in your heart like this, after being so in your head all your life, and intellectually oriented. It’s like you have suddenly developed a new appendage, or a way of seeing that wasn’t available to you before. That sense of compassion, connection to others which Jordan demonstrated, is at the heart of love. With intent and practice, I believe we can do the same. It’s a remarkable difference from the status quo. Best done by leaving behind the baggage of old fears, be willing to be open and vulnerable. Connect!

 

[Courageous Inmate Sort]

Thank you cindyj for your words, you have stated in a paragraph what I couldn't in pages.

Yes, it is in a sense shocking, it shakes your foundations and then you have to reorient now taking into account this whole new chunk of reality you didn't knew existed. You just can't brush aside the knowledge of a lived experience.

As for the Peterson story, in retrospect it is clear that I was identifying with the young man in the audience that commits an error but nonetheless receives kindness in response. I take the story to be an example of how “the higher one” of positive orientation deals with “the lower one”. This tidbit from the Cs seems fitting: “the student learns prime meaning of love from the teacher”, which ties in with the whole experience I recounted.

Best done by leaving behind the baggage of old fears, be willing to be open and vulnerable. Connect!

This has certainly now become part of the quest. The idea of networking with love just got a whole lot more concrete.

 

[3DStudent]

Hi Courageous Inmate Sort,

When you posted that interaction regarding Peterson, I wondered what was stirring in you. It seems you had something brewing inside, and it was his act of mercy that let it through. But I see you expanded on that in your later post.

I've had something similar I suppose. Experiencing intense emotions. It was after watching the movie Equilibrium. Here's the post. And I just skimmed that thread briefly and it seems like a time capsule. Like a me in the past helping out me in the future (now present). I can only imagine that that is how it works in a minor way at least when you connect with yourself in the future.

I'd certainly say this was a significant event, even if only viewed psychologically. I sometimes feel like I could cry, but not many tears come. And I'm sure it was cathartic so that's good too.

As far as the I Ching reading goes, getting to the Center sounds like getting to the bottom of things. So maybe explore your emotions and what was going on to let this out (you expanded on this in your more recent post). Convergence simply sounds like it comes from a dispersed source, that other people may experience. So maybe something like a network?

I'd say like nicklebleu said that you should take what you can from the experience and run with it. It's an opportunity and if you use it well, you will learn more from it.

I can relate to the negative emotions and viewing the world in a fear based way. But it's been more positive the past few months due to the insights made on the forum. Thank you for sharing and good luck!

 

[Courageous Inmate Sort]

Thank you 3DStudent for taking the time and being so considerate. Your post led me into unforeseen directions so I'll reply in part for the time being.

I've had something similar I suppose. Experiencing intense emotions. It was after watching the movie Equilibrium. Here's the post. And I just skimmed that thread briefly and it seems like a time capsule. Like a me in the past helping out me in the future (now present). I can only imagine that that is how it works in a minor way at least when you connect with yourself in the future.

I read the thread you linked to and it was a beautiful account. This quote hit particularly close to home:

In regards to the economy, at that moment I in this emotional state, thought "Who needs money, when I have the the best currency - emotions?" And I also thought that I was living richly, that is emotionally rich. So through all of this I thought something positive was happening to me. And this sense of faith and hope is still with me.

Although money and the economy were not in my mind, the sense of emotional richness was truly impressive. It felt so valuable and meaningful that my petty problems just paled and vanished in comparison. It is comforting to find commonalities with your account.

I can't imagine what will it look like when looked at from a couple of years in the future. But right now I have a choice, I can sweep it under the rug or I can contend with its implications. And that choice will certainly be reflected in whatever the future turns out to be. I hope that, like yourself, I'll be able to look back gladly.

I'd certainly say this was a significant event, even if only viewed psychologically. I sometimes feel like I could cry, but not many tears come. And I'm sure it was cathartic so that's good too.

I had not yet thought of it in terms of catharsis because it just felt so different from the "normal" emotional outburst. For instance, I've had episodes that at the time felt like a form of catharsis where I would cry and feel deep emotional pain for wronging someone or for not being able to do something in situations where people I care about were seriously hurt. And afterwards there was the relief of processing those emotions. In those events, even though it involved empathizing with the pain of another, I always felt like my pain, my guilt, my suffering that I was feeling. But in this case it was not just about myself, it felt much larger than me. The fact that it was also about me seemed to be of secondary importance.

I'll try an analogy: there are multitudes of starving people, myself among them. Someone comes along and gives me some nourishment, just as others have similarly given and received nourishment throughout history. I was grateful of course for having received it but the focus was on the fact that nourishment exists in the first place and that it exists to be given. And that just as I have received I could choose to pass it along to others. It was never mine to begin with. The analogy fails here because such nourishment doesn't seem to run out, you receive it, get somehow energized by it and pass it along. Like every individual as a component in an electric circuit. Each has its value and place but they all are (or could be) nourished/energized by the same current.

The personal connection was that choosing to withheld, due to fear etc, was my old way of doing things and that I could choose differently now. But this is a blip compared to the bigger picture. The "circuit" is gigantic. There are many in it with much larger "giving potential" that nourish those below, such as myself. It's up to me to not be afraid and stop playing the part of a "dead end" and keep the current flowing, but I'm just one among an infinitude and every "node" counts.

I hope that makes sense.

In any case, I can now see that it certainly does have a cathartic element to it. Thank you for bringing that to my attention.