Distressed

[Nani]

I've been thinking a lot, and feeling horribly disturbed this month.

I really want to become more spiritual, but the more I read about it, the more fearful I get, which leads me to wish I never read a single thing about it in the first place. I want peace of mind.

For example, I made a topic before of my fear of evil entities in the dark, and I felt better knowing that I could make them go away. But when it comes down to it, my main problem is the simple fact that they exist, or at least people claim they do. Everthing goes back to love, doesn't it? And these evil beings aren't supposed to have any. Well, I feel really sorry for them. It's unfair that they have to exist that way. Are they doomed to be without love forever? What purpose do they have?

It's been a little over a year since my mom died and I've never missed her as strongly as I do now. I really wish I could speak with her. What I'm reading about evil and spirituality is making me want to forget about them altogether, but if I'm going to do that, I have to forget everything I've read in connection with them, which means going back to believing life has no purpose and ends at death, and facing that I'll never see my mom again. If that is the truth, I would rather work on accepting that instead of deluding myself. But of course, on this board I expect to get answers saying that I am not deluding myself about it, but that's just it. I can read peoples' answers all I want and it won't get me any closer to the truth. I can't trust anyone but myself anymore when it comes to this stuff, and no matter how much I've relaxed my beliefs in the past, no personal experience has ever made me sure that spirit guides or evil entities or whatever exist.

Erin, in one of your posts about what happens after death, you specified that you were just stating your beliefs. Does everything come down to belief? How do I know what to believe? Do I just believe what I want? What my experience tells me? My experience tells me it's all in my head. But I don't want to believe that, either. It's driving me crazy.

And, I want to be happy, but I wonder how I can find joy in the thought of people burning to death, getting run over by trains, stabbed, shot, etc. These events exist. If I just chose not to think about them, I'm ignoring them. I want to be able to have these thoughts in my head and be happy anyway. I thought spirituality would be the answer but it's just made me more afraid.

I'm sorry if this post is offending or overly long and negative...I've just been so distressed lately. I hope I didn't come across as insane. I just don't know what to think anymore, and can't get on with my life while I'm suffering with these thoughts. And I know that's all they are. Thoughts. But I need to settle them somehow, and chosing not to think them doesn't solve the problem, it just makes it go away temporarily.

[Anna Conlan]

For example, I made a topic before of my fear of evil entities in the dark, and I felt better knowing that I could make them go away. But when it comes down to it, my main problem is the simple fact that they exist, or at least people claim they do. Everthing goes back to love, doesn't it? And these evil beings aren't supposed to have any. Well, I feel really sorry for them. It's unfair that they have to exist that way. Are they doomed to be without love forever? What purpose do they have?

What I believe is this:

Negative entities exist so that we can have a world in which there are opposites – light and dark. We are pieces of Sources, or of the Creator and that Source is all that is, pure Love.

Source could not experience its own Love because it is all that is, so it exploded into many pieces and created places where it could experience itself in a relative system, Having opposites like Light and Dark and male and female and hot and cold, instead of just Love and all that is.

This is some ways is a gift that we as souls and pieces of Source can have the experience of darkness also. We are not forced to experience darkness of course, we can choose to engage with it as souls and when we do, we see it reflected in our environments.

Souls or entities that are aligned with negative energies are not ‘miserable’ as we would define it – they thrive on negative energies, that’s where they get their energy from and they have chosen that. Negative entities have made a soul level choice to cut themselves off from Love, Source, the Creator, but this presents them with a problem because Source is the only source of energy that exists in the Universe. The only way they can draw energy from other places is by making second hand power sources of positive souls. They do this by creating negativity in positive souls and siphoning off the negative energy.

Negative souls are not doomed to be without Love forever, but they can choose absence of Love if they want. Negative souls ARE Love, pieces of Source, choosing to experience darkness and the absence of Light. And we do not need to pity that choice – they can always choose something else and in being dark they provide a contrast and allow us to see our own Light and what we stand for.

Does everything come down to belief? How do I know what to believe? Do I just believe what I want? What my experience tells me? My experience tells me it's all in my head. But I don't want to believe that, either. It's driving me crazy.

You can believe in whatever you want to believe in but you may always doubt it until you’ve experienced it for yourself.

A personal example: even though I always intuitively felt that we as souls do not cease to exist after death, it was only when I had a mediumistic experience of my own (where the deceased person came through with information for someone I knew that there was no way I could have known or found out otherwise), that I began to believe 100%. Just be open to experiencing other dimensions of life and it may happen for you.

And, I want to be happy, but I wonder how I can find joy in the thought of people burning to death, getting run over by trains, stabbed, shot, etc. These events exist. If I just chose not to think about them, I'm ignoring them. I want to be able to have these thoughts in my head and be happy anyway. I thought spirituality would be the answer but it's just made me more afraid.

In my opinion, it’s not helpful to watch the News or read about the worlds’ problems. I don’t spend my time thinking about people burning to death or getting stabbed.

Fighting against crime or violence or death does not diminish crime when you’re focusing on stabbing and death and destruction, you send your energy to these things and they expand and you see more of them.

It's more constructive to focus on what you want to see more of, like peace and happiness.

Of course you, like many other people, want to help heal the world and make it a better place. You can only do that by going within and working on yourself (which is where all healing begins anyway).

We hear little about the many wonderful and beautiful things that happen in the world all the time. We mostly hear about the death and suffering, because that’s what broadcast by the media. There is immense beauty everywhere and good people everywhere. You tend to see more of these things when you choose to look for them and focus on them.

[Mato Kinze]

Nani,
Once you take the red pill, you can't go back. But no worries: Being "happy" has nothing to do with being complacent. Knowing that there is Evil and understanding that there are forces and people who will do you harm does not make life any MORE dangerous. That would be like thinking if you ignore something it can't harm you.

Also, being in tune with what is around you helps you to see how that "Evil" fits into the bigger picture and how YOU fit into the bigger picture. To me, knowing what I'm here for and putting my energy towards making that happen is what makes me "happy". That's what my spiritual path is all about.

If I may be so bold, there's a book I'd reccommend to you: "The Places That Scare You" by Pema Chodron. It's not a long book, but it goes to the heart of what you're talking about in your post. I think it might help provide a slightly different perspective.

[Rachelle]

I really like how Anna put things.

Another way of thinking about this / putting things in perspective is to examine how we define things. We usually define things - our surrounds, experiences, etc - by comparing and contrasting them to other things.

Here's an excerpt from a play I wrote that, I think, specifically deals with what you're going through. The play still needs a lot of work though (blah!) - But maybe it will help?


CHARON: What could possibly be wrong with exercising one’s own free will - one’s own mind?! A mind is a terrible thing to waste, they say! Besides, if not for Sin, and that Fall from Grace, how else might it be Possible to truly know, and appreciate, Joy?

SYN: I - I don’t understand.

CHARON: If Adam and Eve knew nothing but Paradise prior to the Fall, as far as they were concerned, the possibility of anything else did not even exist! Heh. Perhaps Paradise could simply be synonymous for Ignorance. They do say ‘Ignorance is Bliss’, after all.

SYN: But surely one can know Joy without knowing Sin!

CHARON: Could you? Think of it like this: How could you know light, if not for darkness? How could you know darkness, if not for light? You couldn’t. Alone, without the other to define itself, either would exist as an indistinguishable blank slate.

SYN: So, we define, and thus know a thing by distinguishing it from dissimilar things. And so it is the same with joy… and “so-called” sin?

CHARON: Yes! Or similarly, with Ignorance and Restriction, defined in contrast by Knowledge and Freedom (of Will, if you will)! - Or vice versa!



... I suppose it's kind of like Platonic banter. Haha.