What It Really Means To "Take The Red Pill

[...] Once you face “the terror of the situation” within yourself and the automated mechanical nature of many of your feelings, actions, and behaviors where there is no “free will,” you will also see this robotic mechanical behavior in others. You will notice that most people are unconscious automatons driven by unconscious trauma and wounding, conditioning, and programming.

You see how people suffer, but they don’t know that they are suffering as their pain is masked up and suppressed, shoved deep into the unconscious, and hardened in the body-mind. Billions of people are sleepwalking, dreaming of being awake.

At the same time, you don’t look down at them anymore, for you can see the same mechanical nature, shadow, and trauma responses within yourself. You will have deeper and more authentic access to compassion and empathy but without blind compassion. You learn to make boundaries and become more selective and discerning about who you let enter your life.

But you also realize the true “horror of the situation” and how far away we are from any “collective awakening”.

You also realize the futility of looking for any significant change externally – a new system, any new -ism, or any political, social, institutional changes – all of it is useless as long as it is coming from people who are not aware of the true nature of their Being but live mechanically and automate under the influence of the “General Law” [the esoteric description of the matrix forces.]

It’s a humbling experience. It is dark, disturbing, yet liberating and enlightening at the same time. It’s impossible to put it into the limited constructs of language and words. Once you cross that threshold and start to “see the unseen”, there is no turning back to your “normal” life.

At that moment you really took the “red pill”. It will prioritize what truly matters in your life. You won’t waste time and energy anymore on the trivialities of official mainstream cult-ure and you cannot relate to the goals, pleasures, and desires you had in the past. You realize that they were stemming from your conditioned personality.

It is the starting point of the process of individuation where you will also need to face isolation, loneliness, and alienation as part of the process to escape the sleepwalking consensus state of humanity. This phase of alienation and isolation are lessons to test the sincerity of the seeker.

They have been symbolized in many esoteric metaphors of “crossing the moat-threshold” to “enter the Kingdom” with guardians providing riddles and tests for the soul that wishes to find and realize itself and leave the “wilderness” of the matrix.

Many people tend to get stuck in this stage. The alienation and loneliness can make people become hardened, cynical, and nihilistic, and they tend to blame the world for their misery in a victim mentality. They get caught in doom & gloom, negativity, and self-pity, and they resist the necessary [internal] death-rebirth process to individuate.

This resistance and inability to face oneself can also tempt the seeker to go back to “the wilderness of the matrix” as it was symbolized in the first Matrix film when the character Cypher decided to take “the blue pill” to go back to the illusion of the matrix. He made a deal with Agent Smith [symbolizing a Faustian Pact with the Devil] who granted him all the materialistic riches, fame, and popularity that consensus people cherish, worship and are tempted by as well.

Individuation is a necessary stage before we can embark on deeper spiritual/esoteric work to spiritualize our being. Embarking on the process of Individuation is “taking the red pill” from an esoteric perspective. [...]

- From "The Most Important Realization On The Path Towards Awakening"

https://veilofreality.com/2022/06/10/the-most-important-realization-on-the-path-towards-awakening/

AWAKENING BEYOND THE RED PILL

Some people believe themselves to have finally “woken up” from the manipulation of the Matrix Control System. However, the word “awake” seems to be a very abused and overused word these days.

What I notice is that more people are becoming aware, for the most part, of the symptoms of the Matrix on a 3D surface level (which is encouraging to see and a good start), but mistake that for having truly “woken up” in the holistic sense of the term, and therefore most of them oftentimes don’t follow up or keep “going”, especially with regards to inner self-work.

Our inner voice – stemming from the real self (“speaking” to us through a sense-embodied intuitive knowing, not via head-centric thought-injections), hidden behind the socially/cultural conditioned/programmed mask of personality we identify with – also whispers to us to go deeper, if we can hear and heed its “signals”.

These echoes are hardly recognizable at first, but become more audibly-apparent as we shed our layers of conditioning, programming and trauma/wounding. It’s the voice of Spirit and the Divine, asking us to recognize our true nature, to keep going deeper within…to self-realize, self-actualize.

For example, relatively speaking, you can be “awake” to the basic 3D aspects of the Matrix, but if you get stuck there (especially when there is lack of sincere inner work taking place), you’ll still be subjected to hyperdimensional interferences and manipulation, especially when you’re caught in the external expression of shadow-projection.

Being “awake” about the matrix and the various control mechanisms and deceptions – and based on a purely intellectual informational level – is a necessary stage of growth, but only the very beginning stage of a true Awakening …and cannot even be called “taking the red pill” from an esoteric perspective.

This stage of awareness is mere baby steps that must be taken prior to crossing the threshold towards self-realization, which entails esoteric self-work, Individuation, embodiment [soul integration] and alchemical internal transformation in order to reach a higher level of being/consciousness.

This is not a very pleasant process at times, for it results in utter disillusionment and death of the conditioned personality, which doesn’t like to give up and let go of control that easily.

For that reason, many people in their process of seeking “truth” wind up avoiding sincere inner work by constantly externalizing the “dark” (especially with regards to shadow projection) side of reality, and thus get lost in the information swamp or hooked on sensationalism, mechanical activism, or wind up locked in the tunnel vision of the 3D matrix, decorated as it is with shadows on the wall, which is a puppet-on-a-string-pulling trap in itself, and only works in favor of the occult matrix architects.

But “self-work” – to truly “Know Thyself” – is also a tricky thing, and self-deceptions in this pursuit are very common.

Some people tend to over-estimate themselves with regard to their level of being/awareness. They claim to “know themselves” when they actually mistake “the Self” for their personality (with its more subtle programming/conditioning features) …or they talk about “living their truth”, which can also be a falsehood which misleads the actual calling of the True self, and instead acts as a self-justification, a denial, and a buffer.

It is important to understand the fundamentals of true deep self-work, especially since much of that has been corrupted and over-simplified via New Age/pop-spirituality and pop-psychology.

The most difficult aspect to grasp in esoteric self-work is detecting and confronting the lies we are telling ourselves, and the buffers/masks we create so as to avoid the internal friction that is necessary to ignite the alchemical fire of transformation within.

- Bernhard Guenther, from “The Perilous Path Towards Awakening”

Most human beings rarely - if ever - experience contact with the real “I”.

“Esotericism seeks to develop consciousness of the Divine. The problem is that our consciousness is, for the most part, simply a program that runs in our machine. The higher consciousness that is sought in terms of ascension is the real “I” or the soul; it is the theorized permanent point that exists within us throughout many incarnations.

This real “I” is something like an impartial referee whose small voice is mostly obscured in the roar of external events and personality programs. Nevertheless, it is this tiny spark of the real self that is the seed of the possibility of esoteric development.

Most human beings rarely - if ever - experience contact with the real “I”. Yet, the personality pretends that it has achieved this level of consciousness. We should note that an individual who has actually reached such a level of firm contact and expansion of the real “I” will also possess attributes such as the ability to accurately judge the consequences of his or her actions, the constant exercise of his own will, an ability to do - to initiate acausal events - as well as a bearing or attitude that is consistent with itself in all situations and conditions. Most of all, such a person does not lie to himself.

An objective examination of many of those who claim such qualities is sufficient to demolish such pretensions. There is so vast a chasm between the qualities that people ascribe to themselves, and what they can really DO,.

Nevertheless, to establish contact with the higher self, for lack of a better term, this very small seed of the soul connection that exists within us is the object of esoteric science. It seems that the only people who have a real hope of accomplishing this process are those who are “bankrupted” [disillusionment].

In other words, all the beliefs, all the programs, all the lies that have been part of the self from childhood, must collapse or be stripped away.

We are all corrupted by the exterior world of matter - the domain of Non-being and its gravitational lures. Even when experience contradicts what a person believes about him or herself, they are seldom able to make the cause and effect connection because of the serious deficiencies that are programmed into us from birth.

We generally explain our failures as “lack of will”. What people do not realize is that failure is not generally due to a lack of will or desire, but to a lack of BEING. It is only with the development of BEING that we begin to understand the knowledge we have acquired. Only then, with understanding combined with BEING, do we have the ability to Do."

- Laura Knight, The Secret History of the World

@timeoftransition

The most difficult things that happen to you are, on the deepest level, the most compassionate

“The problematic situations in your life are not chance or haphazard. They are specifically yours, designed specifically for you by a part of you that loves you more than anything else. The part of you that loves you more than anything else has created roadblocks to lead you to yourself. Without something pricking you in the side, saying, "Look here! This way!" you are not going to go the right direction. The part of you that designed this loves you so much that it doesn't want you to lose the chance. It will go to extreme measures to wake you up, and it will make you suffer greatly if you don't listen. What else can it do? That is its purpose. 

How much suffering and difficulty it brings you is immaterial in relation to the fulfillment and satisfaction you will have when you actually struggle and see the fruits of the struggle. You can look at your problems as difficulties to be gotten rid of as fast as possible with the least struggle, or you can look at them from the perspective of the part of you that is guiding you to yourself. If you look at them from that more accurate, more finely tuned perspective, the new issues that then arise have a new value. They have nutrition that you need.

The whole process works with the utmost purity, the most complete intelligence and compassion. The most difficult things that happen to you are, on the deepest level, the most compassionate. Ultimately, the struggle with yourself leads to what is called the “Black Death," which is the death of the personality, when you wrestle it to the ground, struggling with it. 

That doesn't mean fighting, punching, kicking, screaming. Struggling and wrestling is the process of understanding. It requires persistence and steadfastness. You wrestle with it until it finally says "I give up." Ultimately, you reach the final understanding of the personality. When you see through to its source, its center-which is the experience called “Black Death"- you will recognize that the heart of this death is pure compassion.”

A.H. Almaas

Surely it is up to each individual to decide what they find intolerable

At least with this system (voluntary euthanasia), anyone with depression, particularly reactive depression, might be flagged up and helped and counselled rather than taking matters into their own hands and leaving relatives wringing their hands and saying "if only s/he had said something". If, after counselling and/or treatment if possible, the individual still finds their life intolerable, who is anyone else to tell them otherwise?

-

Of course it’s terribly sad, but assisted dying is essential. Denying a person the right to die on their own terms is unethical. Obviously strict standards and criteria need to be maintained to absolutely eliminate any possibility of coercion and to ensure that the individual is of sound mind, but if those criteria are met, then I’m 100% in favour of this.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/17/assisted-dying-euthanasia-netherlands

Feelings being thoughts mixed up with hormones

There was something very neat about him, a tidy countenance, a clear presence.
None would have guessed that he suffered from physical aches and from mental maladies though these were growing less as he grew older. He liked to think of them as growing pains as insufferable as they were, he had to see them that way.
To experience life without reflection would surely cause some depression at least until that got boring. It was necessary for him to contemplate matters of suffering and to ask questions about the nature of the body and the soul.

What is this biological vehicle that senses pain and pleasure and houses a personality of sorts that also has feelings of deprivation and satisfaction?
There is nothing more tedious than a human that never questions the nature of reality, not that tedious equates to boring rather it just isn't interesting.
Should one always feel some sense of unease, whether it be doubts about sex or anxiety concerning identity?
What after all are feelings other than thoughts mixed up with hormones?
It was these above mentioned states that allowed him his movement.

Empathic people process music differently than others

Empathic people process music differently than others

Highly empathic people process familiar music with greater involvement of the brain's social circuitry, such as the areas activated when feeling empathy for others. They also seem to experience a greater degree of pleasure in listening, as indicated by increased activation of the reward system.

The new study indicates that among higher-empathy people, at least, music is not solely a form of artistic expression.

Embracing an ennobling vision by rejecting cynicism and nihilism

Embracing an ennobling vision by rejecting cynicism and nihilism -- Science of the Spirit

It is the responsibility of every man to keep himself out of the abyss. Yet he cannot do this job alone; a set of guiding principles must light the way along the dark and confusing pathways of the forest. In some cases, he must be hectored, badgered, cajoled, and-in the end-forced to keep along the path; in other cases, he need only be guided by gentle instruction in the illuminating lights of philosophical inquiry. Every situation is different, and calls for different remedies.

And yet man is a slippery animal. Often he does not say what he means; he likes to cloak his true desires and motivations in garments of varying shape and color. Rare is the man who is honest with others; even rarer is he who is honest with himself.

Without interrelation with society he cannot realize his oneness

Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being. Without interrelation with society he cannot realize his oneness with the universe or suppress his egotism. His social interdependence enables him to test his faith and to prove himself on the touchstone of reality.

― Mahatma Gandhi

I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.

The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude

― Aldous Huxley

Before European Christians Forced Gender Roles, Native Americans Acknowledged 5 Genders

It wasn’t until Europeans took over North America that natives adopted the ideas of gender roles. For Native Americans, there was no set of rules that men and women had to abide by in order to be considered a “normal” member of their tribe.

In fact, people who had both female and male characteristics were viewed as gifted by nature, and therefore, able to see both sides of everything.

Each tribe has their own specific term, but there was a need for a universal term that the general population could understand.

Best-selling feminist author, social critic and self-described "transgender being" Camille Paglia said in an interview last month that the rise of transgenderism in the West is a symptom of decadence and cultural collapse.

Those who are free of resentful thoughts surely find peace.

The truth is not arbitrary or a matter of opinion, but can be investigated, and those who earnestly search for the truth will find It. The truth is hidden to the blind, but he who has the mental eye sees the Truth.
- Buddha - The Three Personalities of Buddha, XCVIII

The benefits of solitude: Balm for the harried urban soul

The benefits of solitude: Balm for the harried urban soul -- Science of the Spirit

...Participants walking in urban environments had markedly higher instances of "rumination"—a brooding and self-criticism the researchers correlated with the onset of depression. And, just as parts of the brain associated with rumination lit up on urban walks, they calmed down during nature walks.

Photos of nature will increase your sense of affection and playfulness. A quick trip into the woods, known as "forest bathing" in Japan, reduces cortisol levels and boosts the immune system. Whether rich or poor, students perform better with access to green space. And a simple view of greenery can insulate us from stress and increase our resilience to adversity. Time in nature even boosts, in a very concrete way, our ability to smell, see, and hear.

To walk out of our houses and beyond our city limits is to shuck off the pretense and assumptions that we otherwise live by. This is how we open ourselves to brave new notions or independent attitudes. This is how we come to know our own minds.

Friendship goes through (extreme) pluto in capricorn during mercury retrograde

I'm sorry that I cause you extreme pain, that you feel that my vibe is like a fist crushing you, that u sense a huge amount of anger/rage in my vibe and that it is somehow aimed at you.

I feel I have spent my whole life making concessions for everyone around me, especially emotional ones. 

The conversation we just had and your accusations really bother me. So much that I feel that our friendship has now changed.

I refuse to become a watered down version of myself because you feel threatened. 

Threatened by what exactly?

Is this cognitive dissonance on your part in relation to the subject matter that threatens your entrenched view of the subjects and people (politicians) involved?

Politics is part of most things, nothing is really devoid of politics or view-compromise, so I feel we can no longer have an honest dialogue. 

I'm unsure why exactly my apparent vibe hurts you so intensely.
What exactly is happening to your sense of self and safety while I'm giving off this 'vibe' and why is that?

I never intend to make anything personal and yet you feel this personally...as an attack on your person?

Thank you for shedding light on our friendship, though I don't know how I will ever be exonerated from your accusations when they are aimed at a perceived transitory state as far as I am concerned and not within my conscious awareness.

Should this behavior become part of my conscious awareness then I will question whether of not I shall feel justified to make changes. I feel now more than ever that I need to allow and give space for my whole being and not feel like I have to hide or adjust anything. This is part of my integrity. 

I will give it thought obviously as the whole thing (his political stance is pain-inducing and threatening because it's also seething with rage directed at my person????) is quite obscure to me and perplexes me, mostly because it's so vague and I never, ever seek to cause anyone pain, on the contrary I seek to allow harmony between all people. 

I feel no attachment to politics on any deep level, my attachment is to seeking truth and speaking my truth. This I have found can cause others distress and I understand why that is and so it would be better if we never discuss anything remotely political again and seeing as most things we discuss have a political element maybe it is better we stick to discussing the weather and the state of the roads from now on.

The dark side of positivity and the emotional burden of 'happiness'

The dark side of positivity and the emotional burden of 'happiness' 

happiness-has-become-an-emotional-burden-says-a-danish-psychologist-svend-brinkmann/

The evolutionary purpose of depressive rumination

The evolutionary purpose of depressive rumination -- Science of the Spirit -- Sott.net:

[...] Depressed people often have severe, complex problems, and rumination is a common feature. Depressed people often believe that their ruminations give them insight into their problems, but clinicians often view depressive rumination as pathological because it is difficult to disrupt and interferes with the ability to concentrate on other things. Abundant evidence indicates that depressive rumination involves the analysis of episode-related problems. Because analysis is time consuming and requires sustained processing, disruption would interfere with problem-solving.

The paper continues:
The analytical rumination (AR) hypothesis proposes that depression is an adaptation that evolved as a response to complex problems and whose function is to minimize disruption of rumination and sustain analysis of complex problems. It accomplishes this by giving episode-related problems priority access to limited processing resources, by reducing the desire to engage in distracting activities (anhedonia), and by producing psychomotor changes that reduce exposure to distracting stimuli. Because processing resources are limited, the inability to concentrate on other things is a tradeoff that must be made to sustain analysis of the triggering problem [...]

In other words, the inability to feel pleasure or enjoyment during depressive episodes may be the brain ridding itself of distractions to focus on solving the problem causing the depression. This challenges the familiar remedy of going out or having fun as an effective approach, as this theory suggests the whole point of depression is to analyze and solve. The research and their sources can all be found in the publication "The Bright Side of Being Blue: Depression as an Adaptation for Analyzing Complex Problems," which can be read for free here.

Interestingly, this theory supports the idea that self-inquiry, if guided and structured, can effectively combat depressive episodes. This common method is referred to as "The Socratic Method." It is a system of questioning based on the teachings of ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. In this method, a therapist suggests questions for the patient to ask themselves. This series of circumstantial questioning leads the patient on a path of self-analysis, dissecting their perspectives and allowing them to understand their problems and approach the roots of their depression with clarity. Critical thinking as a cure for depression. Who would have thought?

While depression is indeed complicated, and cases should not be generalized or considered the same, these theories, methods, and results do indicate it is possible that proper therapy may be more effective in treating depression than SSRIs and other mood stabilizers. While medication has been effective in treating some, it rarely acts as a long-term solution, hence the common scenario of stacking medications on top of one another to combat each other's side effects. Additionally, these medications don't actually cure anything. They amount to putting a band-aid on a gaping wound that requires stitches. The problem isn't just the bleeding — the problem is the open wound.

Addressing the roots of depression is far more important than putting the symptoms to rest while allowing the demons that create them to continue plaguing people's minds. It simply puts a haze between the person and the influence of the disorder. An effective method of curing depression is also economically wise, especially since America, as a society, spends around $210 billion a year treating depression — and much of that money flies right into the pockets of pharmaceutical companies. However, there is hope on the horizon, as methods like problem-solving therapy and research into psychedelic treatment are becoming more common. Watch out, Big Pharma.

How Does Personality Affect Your Level of Happiness?

How Does Personality Affect Your Level of Happiness? -- Science of the Spirit

According to a new study, the relationship between happiness and personality is more complex than we thought.

9 Stoic principles to help you keep calm in times of chaos

9 Stoic principles to help you keep calm in times of chaos -- Science of the Spirit -- Sott.net: 

How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are

A well-documented feature of trauma, one familiar to many, is our inability to articulate what happens to us. We not only lose our words, but something happens with our memory as well. During a traumatic incident, our thought processes become scattered and disorganized in such a way that we no longer recognize the memories as belonging to the original event. Instead, fragments of memory, dispersed as images, body sensations, and words, are stored in our unconscious and can become activated later by anything even remotely reminiscent of the original experience. Once they are triggered, it is as if an invisible rewind button has been pressed, causing us to reenact aspects of the original trauma in our day-to-day lives. Unconsciously, we could find ourselves reacting to certain people, events, or situations in old, familiar ways that echo the past.

Sigmund Freud identified this pattern more than one hundred years ago. Traumatic re-enactment, or “repetition compulsion,” as Freud coined it, is an attempt of the unconscious to replay what’s unresolved,so we can “get it right.” This unconscious drive to relive past events could be one of the mechanisms at work when families repeat unresolved traumas in future generations.

Freud’s contemporary Carl Jung also believed that what remains unconscious does not dissolve, but rather resurfaces in our lives as fate or fortune. “Whatever does not emerge as Consciousness,” he said, “returns as Destiny.” In other words, we’re likely to keep repeating our unconscious patterns until we bring them into the light of awareness. Both Jung and Freud noted that whatever is too difficult to process does not fade away on its own, but rather is stored in our unconscious.

Read more: it-didnt-start-with-you-how-inherited-family-trauma-shapes-who-we-are

Dare I contemplate...

...that all of the darkness, pain, anxiety, mental illness, any illness, control system etc etc is really my greatest teacher/gatekeeper and the teacher of mankind, serving a purpose....?

The body pain ultimately may be the teacher that forces me to change/move/evolve.

It's all about (re)remembering again and again.

O and the being postive thing all the time is really just proof that there is underlying negativity that I want to escape from, it's mostly an illusion, obviously not adressing the negativity or the duality is the problem and neutral is the natural state i should be naturally in, balance and harmony is the true nature.

Wanting to be positive is really just actually being in a negative place, it is helpful to do affirmations, have dreams etc but not as an escape from the now moment, gratitude should be a grounding practise, so it seems there are different types of 'being positive': the escapism positivity (illusion) and the gratitude/inspiration positivity (a return to balance).

Shadow work is so important, involves so much resistance from the ego (survival/trauma)

Karma is ignorance, dharma is purpose!

Personal conduct becomes everything! The ultimate healer!

Mental illness may be a myth that has generated a huge industry of shrinks and pharmeceutical drugging of the masses.