Maddie

Thanks for sharing. Makes a lot of sense.

May I ask what the diagnosis was please? If you don't mind sharing something like? If not please feel no pressure.

As a medical practitioner myself my first question to anyone making such a statement would be have you been evaluated by a medical professional or mental health professional for any sort of mental health issue?

This just strengthens my point about seeking true knowledge. It's the only way to dispel delusion.

It can be proven that the world is round and that it orbits the sun even though in the past it was thought otherwise and the people who questioned those things received a lot of annoyance for doing so. This is the way of progress, and to not do so is to stay in the dark ages forever.

So far during the entirety of this post I've not been given any evidence for the supernatural but I have observed something else interesting and that is what the Buddha calls attachment to views. I honestly didn't expect the large amount of emotion that this post generated. Definitely the the most emotional feedback that I've ever gotten on a post since I've been on the Dao Bums. The Buddha said that when we identify the self with the views then to reject a view is seen as a rejection of the self and since we attach to the self so strongly as being permanent and real any threat to that results in a very strong emotional reaction in direct proportion to the amount of attachment we have to the self and to the views that we associate with the self. So I can't say it's not been educational nevertheless. I've also seen a lot of polarization of views. That is if you question this view then you obviously hold the extreme opposite view and I'm going to assume that you hold that view because you question this view, and if you question my view you're my enemy. This is basically the foundation of all the religious and political intolerance that we have seen on the earth throughout history. Again it stems from identification of the views with the self and the self feeling threatened. When there is strong identification with views and thus the self when that idea of self is threatened and there is strong attachment to this idea of self this leads to fear of loss of the self and fear leads to anger as a means to fight for the preservation of the self and anger leads to accusation and quarrel.

That's probably the case

I should have been wiser and learned my lesson from the Inquisition and not have been so foolish as to question anything ever. Thank you for your wisdom

It doesn't bother him because he doesn't have any emotions he said so himself 😉

I asked if there was any evidence. You have very strong emotions about this topic. Why is that?

It took the human race 200,000 years to get to this point so yeah I'm fine with 10 years, 20 years, 100 years. what do you base this judgment upon?

how has searching for evidence of anything been beneficial? It leads to knowledge. If humanity had not had this attitude we'd still be hunter-gatherers.

I know much is said about this mantra working on the heart chakra and I agree it does but I've also found it to work a lot on the upper chakras as well. Has anyone else noticed this?

I would be happy for you to continue :-)

What ever ones that you found most interesting since you were there.

Would love to hear your experiences. in regards to your theory that I was unintentionally doing whether magic I suppose that's a possibility which would make sense considering I don't believe that the god I was praying to at the time even exists LOL.

True, I've considered that possibility as well. The problem with this stuff is it's so difficult to quantify.

3. A few years later I'm married to the previously mentioned girlfriend at the river. We are both at this point still of a rather fundamentalist Christian mindset and our relationship is not doing well. She was constantly claiming in arguments that God was on her side, that God knew she was right, ect. So one day I got fed up with this and said "If I"m right God will make it snow tomorrow and only tomorrow". For background it was July. We lived in the interior of Alaska at this point, but even though it was Alaska in the interior in July it can easily get into the '90s and sometimes even hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit. So what happens the very next day? It snows of course. I have never seen this happen before or since, even in Alaska. Of course, she just huffed and ignored it, but still, it snowed in July the very next day after I had prayed that it would snow the next day. 4. Back when I was in high school I became interested in the Ouiji board and me a few friends were spending time using it over the summer break. Also at this time my sister had become very religious and did not like the fact that we used the Ouiji board. When we would try to use it in the living room she would be so disruptive that we decided to take it to my room so that we could continue to use it undisturbed. So now we are in my room and we continue to use the board. We had locked my door so that my sister could not come in and disturb us. After a couple of minutes of using the board, the pointer suddenly flies out from under our fingertips and hits the door. From the way our hands had been on the pointer it did not seem like there was any way any of us could have done that. We go to the door and open it and my sister is crouched on the other side praying. We each ask each other if anyone had thrown the pointer somehow but no one said they had. Additionally, with everyone's fingertips lightly touching the top of the pointer it did not seem like anyone could have thrown the pointer at the door, especially with the force at which it hit the door. A lot of weird and creepy things happened in that house.

I should add that I have had several situations in my life that are very difficult to explain rationally or scientifically though I acknowledge that the brain tends to see patterns that are not there and create false memories, but with that being said I will list a few of the best examples of inexplicable occurrences in my life that I have no logical explanation for. 1. A long time ago was involved in a church that I now consider to be a cult. They were very strict and it was considered that if you left the church that you would go to hell. I was becoming very dissatisfied with this church but still was worried that if I were to leave that I might incur the wrath of God and be doomed. My job at the time was delivering sheetrock in the Pacific Northwest where it is very often overcast and rainy. So one day when I was contemplating leaving this church while working I thought I would ask God for a sign that I was ok with him even though I was thinking of leaving the church. ( I don't currently believe in a creator god, but this was my mindset at the time). So I looked up in the sky and as usual, it was overcast and drizzling and didn't show any sign of being otherwise for some time to come. So I prayed and said "God if I am ok with you then let the clouds directly over me and nowhere else part while I am unloading this sheetrock and then go back to normal after I am finished with this job. My friend that I worked from the church was with me and since he was also having his doubts about this church I told him what I had prayed. Then the strangest thing happened. About 30 seconds to a minute later the clouds directly over us but nowhere else parted, the sun came through, and it stopped raining where we were at. We continued to unload the sheetrock while staring in amazement at the sky. Both my friend and I saw this and were looking at each other in amazement. After we had unloaded the last piece of sheetrock maybe 30 seconds to a minute later the clouds closed up and it went back to being overcast and raining again. 2. This next story is similar to the first one but about a month later I had left this church but was still worried that God might be mad at me for leaving. This time my girlfriend at the time and I were at a river with some of her family while they were fishing. This was also in the Pacific Northwest and once again it was cloudy and overcast. I had already told my girlfriend about the cloud incident while I was working and also expressing my anxiety that perhaps now that I had actually left the church now God was pissed off at me. I then decided to repeat the same prayer. I prayed that the clouds above us would open the rest of the time we were there and then close again when we left. So I prayed and sure enough the sky only directly above us opened up just as before and then as we were getting in the car to leave the clouds closed again. To me, it seems that having the same thing happen twice is too much to simply be a coincidence. (Which is why I think I wanted to do it more than once, to rule out the first time just being a coincidence). I have some more stories which I will add soon.....

It is weird and interesting at the same time. After this post I even texted her to make sure I was remembering the event correctly and she verified that that was also how she remembered it as well. At the time we were discussing what we believed was going on with this entity and what to do to counteract it and we both felt that the entity didn't like us putting our heads together to figure out what it was doing and how to deal with it and so was therefore trying to interfere with our primary means of communication at the time.

This actually makes me think of a situation several years ago where my girlfriend at the time and I both felt as though some strange paranormal events were happening to both of us simultaneously yet we were on opposite sides of town and as we were texting each other about this both of our phones though fully charged drained within minutes. Both of our phones on opposite sides of the town precisely when we were experiencing odd phenomenon.

Some good points 😌

I do both.

Yes. I would say any of the wish fulfilling mantras like zhunti mantra or Nam myoho renge Kyo and stuff like that.

I thought I'd mention that Amitofuo mantra is very helpful for "staying single" if one desires to do so. This is something I've just noticed from experience and not anything I read about.