A Note to Atheists, Agnostics and Anyone Else who is Creeped Out by Religion

There will be a few spiritual concepts that I cover, but these concepts will not be functionally relevant to most of the ideas covered in this blog. That said, Trust Me… I Get It. I get why you would be turned off by God and/or religion in general. In most cases religion in this world has been corrupted. There are true pathways out there, but they’re hard to find. I was raised Catholic. I was raised to thank God for everything good that happened in my life. Well, there’s a logical equivalence that I made where if I have to thank God for all the good, then God must be allowing the bad. And there’s so much bad! The truth is, we’re responsible for our own lives and what we believe about our own lives. There are horrible things happening all over the world just as I type this, but the good news is, for many of us, our suffering can be mitigated. And that is what this blog is about. Religious beliefs not required.

Ultimate Reality

AKA God, AKA The Universe, AKA Heaven, AKA Home. I’m sure there’s a bunch of other AKA’s, but I’m not that familiar with other religions. It’s not functionally relevant. Well, religions, including mine, say that it is completely relevant, but whatever, let’s just move on.

Consciousness and Experience

In this model ‘Ultimate Reality’ splits into consciousness, experience (depicted as the movie screen above, as I’m sure you knew because of the excellence of that drawing), and Knowledge. When you really think about it, the only thing we can really prove about our experience, is that we experience it. Everyone can prove that they are conscious because we exist, and we’re aware we exist, and we experience things. At a fundamental level, it appears that that is all there is. If you think of yourself as consciousness and that’s it (the watcher of the movie screen), then everything that arises in consciousness is experience (the movie).

It’s not really relevant and I probably won’t mention it again. This blog isn’t about enlightenment, and I’m not enlightened. Let’s keep going.

Knowledge

AKA Higher Self, AKA Deeper Mind, AKA Holy Spirit, AKA Christ, AKA True Self, AKA Inner Person Self, AKA a million other things.

We can’t prove that a higher self exists, but we can prove that our thoughts and emotions are not who we are fairly simply. I’m going to provide a set of prompts. For each one, observe your thoughts, emotions and feelings.

1. A box full of kittens! Close your eyes and imagine a big box full of kittens getting poured on top of you. All that purring and meowing, and cuteness. Awwww.

2. Assuming you actually closed your eyes and experienced the kittens, let’s move on to Donald Trump. His hair, his skin, his social media account, his immigration policies. You’re all alone with him. What would you say to him? What would he say to you? How do you feel about being with him?

3. Okay, now you’re in a burning building. It’s not just starting to burn, you woke up to a full-on inferno. The person you love most in the world is on the other side of the building. The only way out is through the door on the other side of the room. Judging by your room it will be just bad on the other side, but you have no choice but to run through the fire, grab that screaming hot door handle and hope for the best.

I’m sure you get the point. There is a part of our minds that can control our thoughts and emotions. This part of our mind doesn’t judge, it doesn’t compare and contrast, it doesn’t speculate, or hope, or fear. It doesn’t think the way we logically understand thinking. It accepts reality as it is. This is the part of our mind that is who we really are. From what I’ve seen on YouTube, it seems like I’ve heard that the science based people usually refer to this part of us as the pre-frontal cortex when talking about this.

Knowledge is a term from my religion, The New Message. You can get the full definition from the source itself here. As an experience, Knowledge is usually felt internally and it’s different for everyone. I won’t go into that in this blog, but the best way to get in touch with this part of us is to find our spiritual path. If you haven’t found your path yet, I suggest the Steps to Knowledge.

Awareness

Consciousness can be manipulated in the sense that we can control where we put our awareness. In this blog I’ll use awareness as descriptive. Awareness could be 100% in your mind. It could be 100% on YouTube. It could be split between your mind and your body. In illustrations I’ll circle different aspects of where awareness is split in certain states of mind. I’ll have some example drawings below, stick with me.

Inner Experience

Our experience consists of our inner experience and our outer experience. Technically you could also say that outer experience is also inner experience, but that’s getting pedantic. It doesn’t really matter, it’s just a description. Inner experience is exactly how you would expect. It’s our feelings, traumas, instincts, triggers, love, fear, anger, etc; and of course, Knowledge, which can be experienced in different ways but mostly internal.

Outer Experience

Also exactly how it sounds. Our 5 senses; seeing, hearing, touch, taste and… and… (had to google it) SMELL. How could I forget smell?

Overall, inner experience, outer experience, and Knowledge are the fundamental building blocks of our experience in life.

Examples

Here are two quick examples of topics that I’ll cover more in-depth in later posts.

People Pleasing or Validation Seeking

Both people pleasing or validation seeking, or probably a million other coping strategies can be depicted in the same way. Here we can see in this case our awareness is largely in our own mind. Some of our awareness is on the person we’re trying to be with, but mostly not. Also notice that awareness is not with Knowledge. No condemnation here, it’s just not the best way to be with someone.

Listening

Conversely, when listening intently, very little awareness is in the mind but we are with Knowledge.

Conclusion

So there we have it. Awareness, Knowledge, Inner Experience, and Outer Experience. Hopefully this model will help to explain some ideas that can be difficult to explain in words. Next up?! My model for healing and the relief of suffering.

❤️

I'm so excited that you have found your way to this blog. My name is Andy. I’ve been on a spiritual journey since 2016, and I’ve noticed something along the way. Most spiritual teachers and relationship experts are horrendous at explaining their concepts. They leave out huge points that are relevant, they use poetic, flowery language that sounds great but doesn’t provide any real insight, they try and approximate what they’re describing (it’s kind of like this and this, but not like that) instead of drilling down precisely into how to do something and why. This has been immensely frustrating for me. In my experience, all of these spiritual and relational concepts are 100% logical. It wasn’t until recently when I was diagnosed with high-functioning autism and ADHD that I realized what the problem was; most people have some degree of inherent natural understanding of feelings, love, relationships and social interactions. Because of this, I don't believe that these people have a thorough understanding of topics that they teach. This is when I realized that my neurodivergence was a gift. In my life, I’ve had to consciously learn how to act in social interactions, what to say and what not to say and when. I’ve had to learn and discern which feelings are mine, what to do about them, how to express them, and what to do with other people’s feelings. I’ve had to consciously learn what a boundary is. I’ve had to consciously learn how to act from love, how to recognize real love, how to give it, and how to abide with it. I’ve had to consciously learn what compassion is and how to give it to myself and others. I've had to learn how to be with myself, and others. For me, learning to be human has been like going to school instead of something that’s absorbed by osmosis. And that’s okay. It allows me to understand spiritual and relational concepts from a perspective that I haven't seen from the popular teachers or even my own religion.

Another frustration I’ve had over my journey has been the absence of visuals in the literature that exists today to describe psychological, spiritual and relational concepts. Since the beginning of my journey, I’ve taken notes that include illustrations of what I've learned. Drawings, Venn diagrams, virtuous and vicious cycles, and any other visual aid that I can think of will be central to my writing here.

Why am I creating this blog?

This blog feels like something that has been with me for years. I have ignored the urge to get this information out, but it just stays with me. It’s a step I need to take in order to move forward with my life. I’m not concerned with readership. I’m not planning for this to become anything big. Forgive the analogy, but this blog and the illustrations within it feel like they have been gestating inside of me. Time to get it out.

My commitments:

• My writing will be 100% authentic. No LLMs, no stuffy formality, no artists to make my drawings pretty. (Sorry!)

• I will never charge money for what I write.

• I will never withhold any relevant information.

• I will share my current experience and understanding of what I'm writing about.

• I will only share things I have actually experienced and methods that actually work for me. If I throw out an untested theory, I will explicitly state that it is just a theory.

• While I'm a very spiritual person, and I believe that the truth of life is inherently spiritual, all of the concepts I write about will be understandable regardless of what religion you belong to or if you don't believe in God at all. It doesn't matter.

• While my intent is that all information is consumable for everyone, I will not censor my experience to make it more palatable.

• I will maintain a ‘Definitions’ page to keep track of how I define words that I use differently from what is normally accepted.

What I cannot commit to:

• I cannot commit to writing this blog for a certain period of time.

• I cannot commit that my current experience and understanding of the topics I write about are the ultimate truth on the subject. While I believe what I'm writing about is valid from my current perspective, I've seen things from many perspectives in my life and I'm sure things will change as I learn and grow. If I'm still involved in the blog, I'll update it with the new perspectives.

• I cannot promise that my jokes will be politically correct or even funny.

In summary, my goal is to provide a service that I wish I had on my journey. A fluff free, visual-centric, logical, straightforward explanation of a journey to spiritual and mental health.

With Love and Gratitude,

Andy

❤️

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