super spiritual

[Peacedog]

Yeah that's the thing. Hardcore esoterica is just that: hardcore.

The amount of effort, pain and suffering involved to get there are way underestated. Even the basic mechanics are understated. Travelling halfway around the world, learning foreign languages, spending huge amounts of money, years of your life training that could have been spent doing something of practical value in the normal world, risking your sanity, time away from lived ones, arcane rights of passage, you name it. Of course the physical end is out there as well, which is why anyone I've ever met who has "it", regardless of their gender, is practically a force of nature.

As one of my teachers once said, "Pain is the price for power. So the only real questions are, how much do you want and how much can you take?"

The physical changes over time are some of the most interesting. Particularly that weird ageless look that starts in the early 40s amongst serious practitioners. The strained relationships with your "normal" friends as they age out and you don't. Even worse the ones that get a peak behind the curtains and run away in fear. It sucks.

But hey, at least you get to know that something beyond the physical world exists. Not based on faith. You know. And the severely degraded nature of middle, and old age, aches and pains is pretty nice too.

[Dmitri]

I've got y'all's "spiritual" right here.

Meaning of life? Gene replication.

(Everything else is just variation on the theme due to brain complexity. And by "everything else" I do mean "everything", all the way from swiping on smartphones or creating abstract art to breathing and eating.)

Done.

[jimmy]

[Dmitri]

"modern physics seems to indicate..." - exactly. I rest my case.

http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2010/11/th ... -theories/