First of all, I want to thank everyone who responded to my last post, about how I was feeling extreme fear and paralyzing anxiety, and thinking some "God" was in my head, judging and condemning me. At first, your suggestions I see a therapist wounded my ego, making me feel like I was being dismissed as a crazy person when there are other people here discussing this strange experience we're all having and being validated as making discoveries, having beautiful epiphanies, etc., and I'm just over here like... yikes, buddy, you need professional help. 

Well, the truth is I have experienced a lot of trauma, and have been diagnosed with PTSD, which is actually C-PTSD, since it stems from childhood (many forms of abuse, including, no surprise, religious), the military, bad relationships, and the long-term abusive relationship I have had with myself as a result. I am about to enter an intensive treatment program for PTSD through the Wounded Warrior Project, and I'm thinking it will help me a lot, but there are other things I'd like to ... put out there, I suppose, in case any of you with more wisdom and experience can tell me if it sounds like I'm progressing well or running off the rails again, and to perhaps help anyone who has been similarly religious-trauma'ed and struggles with seeing the truth beyond that. 

So last night, I had what felt like a profound realization. I was listening to my daughter. Not talking at her. Not parenting her. Not trying to teach her or play any kind of ego-role I think I have to, not worrying about how late it was, not thinking she needed to get to bed and I was a "bad person" for not putting her to bed (she's fifteen, we both have ADHD and late-onset melatonin, neither of us sleep well or have an easy time getting to sleep, it's not a flaw on either of our parts that she doesn't hit the hay at 10 p.m. like a "normal" teen, and she's home-schooled, so she doesn't need to be up at 6 a.m. anyway, so my anxiety about her sleep and bedtime are just me trying to control the situation because I'm fearful of being a "bad" parent, unintentionally harming her by not "fixing" it, or being judged by someone else for the ways our disabilities make us not fit the "normal" societal mold). 

She bloomed like a little lotus flower, free to say what she wanted, feel heard and understood, chattered like crazy, seemed to feel closer to me, and I saw her without the mess of thoughts and judgments and assumptions that cloud my view (without my ego, I suppose), and I realized: that's the "mirror." That's the veil through which we see the world darkly. That's the rippling pool that we try to still through meditation so we can more clearly see the truth, which is that we really don't know anything for sure, and we're all just gathering information through our minds, drawing conclusions, speeding our process through life by deciding "I know that thing, I don't need to look at it anymore," and then not looking at it again, not really, because we think we know it.  

The cup is full, we cannot learn. I read somewhere that "sin" originally meant "missing the mark" or "not seeing the truth." So the "scales over our eyes" were not meant like "scaly" things blinding us, but our evaluation of what is good or bad or right or wrong or evil or holy, whatever we weigh. That's what blinds us. The scales fall off when we drop our views and really SEE what we're looking at. 

I think now that "sin" is everything that covers our eyes and causes us to see a distorted view of the world based on the views we hold about it. It separates us from the world by making us disagree with the "realities" everyone and everything else are living in based on their own experience, giving rise to the illusion of separation, as we mistake ourselves for the little puppet-people we create through experience (ego), while we're really just the experiencing -- here's where I make a pretty big leap, but it's one many others have made before, and I'm not sure if I can ever commit to really believing it, because I'm trying NOT to hold onto certainties about anything anymore, since they blind me: 

What we're experiencing, perhaps, is that it is all one thing, learning as it goes, patterning, as Alan Watts said, evolving. Judging itself in its confusion, forgetting what it is as humans develop their egos and fight with each other over ... everything. 

Where I am... I guess feeling 'trapped,' and very scared and like I shouldn't do anything (paralyzed) now, and a lot of this is stream-of-consciousness, because I'm still working it all out for myself through writing, talking, thinking, obviously:

1. I was trying to figure out life through the lens of being indoctrinated into Christianity as a kid, and what I've come to suspect as I got older was that the Buddhists and Hindus and other Eastern wisdom traditions were right, we are both "God" and "human" and everything else, and there is no separation, and there is no capital G God judging us, blaming us, casting us into Hell forever if we screw up... that was just humanity's attempt to explain its experiences and insights to each other and even THAT caused harm (in the form of, you know, things like what I've been going through, and my bipolar father's extreme depression because he believes that if he could just be "GOOD ENOUGH" for "God," God would "heal him" and that what he suffers as a mentally ill person is his own fault for not being the best possible Christian he can be). So I flounder, sometimes, when I ask myself... how do I know for sure that ISN'T the truth and I'm not just an idiot in an echo chamber, egotistical enough to think I am actually just an awareness humanity calls "God" viewing life through an ego that mistakes itself for a person, and God is just sitting back there going, "Oh, boy, here this one goes, hiding from me again because it's afraid of going to Hell forever... it's totally going to Hell forever." 
2. But THEN there was Thich Nhat Hanh, who taught that we are punished not FOR anger, but BY anger, meaning we, as the Universe, punish ourselves when we've done something harmful just as a way of guiding ourselves to learn how not to do that anymore. As a way of teaching ourselves to wake up. To learn that everything is permitted, as a kind of experiment in growth and learning, but only some things are wise, and that we should just give ourselves "grace" when we screw up and strive to be better, always (nearer my God to thee and all that, in the terms of Christianity's attempt to explain it). 
3. I don't want to just believe what I think is comforting. I don't want to say, well, okay, it makes sense to me that there is no punishing God, there is no heaven or hell except in my mind, I'm always enough, I'm always okay, I'm always only human, all I can do is my best with my limited knowledge and experience and take my punishment (horrible feelings) for messing up, then turn around and try like hell (ha-ha) not to repeat my mistakes for the sake of others on their own journey, and myself, as a being I HAVE TO learn to love -- for the sake of people who suffer as a result of my suffering. And I can always extend grace to myself, be "reborn" and start forging a new ego, a better ego, "killing off" the old man to try again and again until the new man is the best one I can make (enlightenment, nirvana, lasting peace, free from "reincarnation" in this life, at least). It IS sort of comforting, and I think this perspective can be what leads some to think "cool, I can do whatever I want now, I just have to leave other people alone on their journeys and not hurt them, I'm not obligated to save everyone or help anyone, I'm just one person," and that does make sense for a single person just trying to live their lives. That's fine. If you can't help others, at least do not harm them, says the Dalai Lama, right? But have I found the same "truth" others have found in life, or am I telling myself a comforting bedtime story about how I'm actually not a horrible person and there's nothing judging me but me, orrrrr am I going to hell because I think nothing is out there judging me. Hello, religious trauma and people telling me I need therapy. 
4. Also... I have a child, a spouse, pets, a house, a car. I am simultaneously extremely fortunate, especially these days (even though my only income is military disability, we struggle financially to a pretty stressful degree, and I get paid because my body and mind took a beating I'm still recovering from almost two decades later). But then we come to where I am paralyzed:

We don't have much choice but to interface with this world through what we know. What we have experienced. The "views" we have developed over our lifetimes. I guess the "purification" of my "karma," means to polish the hell out of the mirror of my ego until there's nothing left to reflect me back and me, so I can see others instead of myself, and I have enough wisdom to be effective in the world without harming it. To apologize for any harm I've caused and tread as lightly as possible in this life to avoid repeating or compounding it. 

But I can't find peace past the anxiety because 

1. I can't "check out" to save the world from me... that just hurts others. 
2. I can't seem to move forward without slowing my entire life to a crawl in order to be mindful enough to know whether what I'm doing is right. This body has an ADHD brain and an autistic nervous system, not to mention a nervous system velcroed to trauma so hard I'm having to work daily to peel it off, and need a three-month-long program to help. I know being mindful is difficult for everyone, or we wouldn't train to slow down the monkey brain, but my friends... my monkey mind is snorting cocaine or something, and seeing through the BS (the thoughts, the feelings I've mistranslated from my emotions and foolishly acted on) is... painful and excrutiatingly slow. 

I guess I want to know if I'm stressing over nothing, and life is really meaningless, and I'm worrying too much... well, I see the harm it's causing ME, so I guess the answer is yes. 

But also... does any of this make sense? 

I want to be the best person I can possibly be. I want to stop reincarnating foolish, selfish little people who don't remember who they really are and go around worrying about ME ME ME, but even the one I'm living now is like... wow it hurts to cause pain and I don't really want to go on doing it. 

But that's for the other 99% percent of myself that is looking out of everyone and everything else's eyes and other sensory organs, right? 

I'm thinking about all of us. 

Is the end goal really to find a way to stop the universe from "patterning," to die in this life, knowing I'm just a big pool of conscious awareness that doesn't want to stop making forms because it feels lonely and incomplete, or... is it to realize we probably can't stop the patterning, can't stop reincarnating? 

The idea of stopping, of never experiencing life again, of never being part of the dream again, of just "being" consciousness and stopping the shadow play... it's SO FUNNY now when I think about having had suicidal ideation all my life, like I just wanted to go back to "being" and not living, and now I'm like, oh, if the end goal is not to live anymore in order to stop suffering, I see now that I actually love the world and everything in it, but I don't want to see it suffer, and I don't want to suffer, so I should stop... feels so painful. 

So am I supposed to realize it's okay to go on and on, like Krishna telling Arjuna in the Gita that it's fine to kill his relatives because they're just avatars of Vishnu anyway? 

My head is spinning.

I'm sorry this is a lot. I'm sorry if it adds to anyone else's stress and confusion. 

And thank you in advance if you have any clarifying advice. 
 

Good to hear you are moving on and finding some robust help. 

I would like to say a couple of things hoping they might be of use for you. I’m just mirroring what i read, not teaching or something. 

Your open meeting with your daughter that you describe tells something very good of you. You’ve done something very right with her and that should give some material for you to build some real and lasting, non-egoistic love for your self.

The other thing is that even in Christianity ”God is love”. 

He can be thought to love even the most lacking and inferior in us. 

Belief is not on/off-thing so it might be an idea to so to say update the image we have of God/world/self if they give too much trouble. 

Anyway, what difference is there between a succesful boddhisattva and what Christ is said to have done for the mankind?

Be well. 

Great insight with regard to your daughter and seeing the broader implications! By your inferences, you and I shared some qualities. I unfortunately didn’t  learn that lesson until my children were in their thirties, and so learned it the hard way. I’ve been mending fences with them and it’s not easy. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished I had learned it back when they were young. 
Children just want to be loved. They want to know you are there for them, that they are safe, but they want to find their own way. They want to experiment and be free to make choices and figure things out, and the biggest thing I’ve gotten from my adult children is they wanted my approval. These have been painful conversations for me, and for them. 
Sorry to hear about your PTSD, and I’m glad you are getting help for that. 

Fantastic, glad you are getting the help you deserve! This PTSD stuff wasn't created by just you and your actions and so getting healed from it takes more than just yourself too!


Nice. I think that's right. Whether we call it sin or ignorance or neurosis or psychological complexes --- the main point is that life can be really simple and straight forward if our mind isn't clouded by assumptions, defenses, traumas, and chaos. Conversely, when we are calm, rested, clear-minded, at ease... then we can make good decisions, live a good life, and be good for other people, too.

I have a hunch that you are really going to come alive once you are able to loosen many of the needless/unhelpful worries that you've inherited from your past experiences.



Right, this is the big challenge: we have responsibilities, we need to take actions, but we aren't always certain about the right path forward. Being mindful can help, but even with 100% perfect mindfulness, we still might not know exactly what to do!

It's important to understand that this can seem like a personal failing, but it's actually just the human condition. We're all in the same boat, we're all attempting to be good and responsible, yet the way forward isn't always clear. You would think this would make us all kinder to each other, knowing that we're all struggling, but unfortunately humans also have a nasty way of being mean.



You answered your own question perfectly!



This all makes sense and is perfectly human if you ask me. Yeah, sometimes it can be a little exhausting to listen to another person's worries, but it's also good for people to talk about this stuff out loud.



Nothing much more than this: be good to yourself.

Okay one more: rather than focusing on the big life questions, try to focus on all the little things you can do to make your life just a tiny tiny tiny bit better. This is the real way to make progress over time. Big projects that attempt to make big changes... those never work!

Be brave enough to take lots of small steps. Don't try to be a false hero who attempts to be perfect in every way at all times.