Question: What do shape shifting lizards, alien attacks, the Book of Revelations, and Jesus Christ have in common?

Answer? Mental illness, paranoid schizophrenia, and Vince Li.

And who is Vince Li you ask? Well, Vince Li is a guy who took a Greyhound bus in Canada in 2008 and was so freaked out by the guy sitting next to him that he cut his head off with a knife he bought at Canadian tire.

Think I’m kidding?

Read the story and read another story.

It is a horrific story but it is interesting for the combination of factors involved. You have probably heard there is a fine line between mysticism and madness and I firmly believe that to be true. At the LP Advanced level of study we actively encourage spiritual opening and connection to what I call The Fabric of Consciousness, but the thing is, that connection has to be a grounded and rational connection, and it has to be rooted in a healthy body and healthy mind. I don’t want to say that connection with “spirit/god/consciousness/The Fabric,” or whatever you want to call it, is dangerous, because for a healthy and fully functioning physical unit, with strong ego and high self of self efficacy and self esteem, it isn’t. But, when you are unprepared, when you don’t know what to expect, when your mind is filled with “old energy” archetypes, when your ego is damaged, when your sense of self efficacy and self power is poor, and when your self esteem has taken repeated blows from a toxic socialization process, connecting with The Fabric is not safe at all. In fact, it can be positively dangerous for yourself and (in some cases) for others as well. Indeed, when you connect to The Fabric with a damaged physical unit, a lot can go wrong.

Let me give an idea or two.

Idea one: If you have self esteem issues then your connection with The Fabric may be corrupted by your need to prove something about your self to the world. Connecting with The Fabric puts you in touch with some incredibly powerful energies and if you have self esteem issues you may inappropriately corrupt those powerful energies and exploit them to boost your own damaged sense of self. This boost can be a little thing, as is the case when you adopt racist, sexist, or classist attitudes towards the world and then justify those attitudes with religious or spiritual beliefs, or it can be a big thing as when you totally give up grounding with reality altogether and start believing yourself to be the second coming of Christ, or the reincarnation of Buddha, or some other other very important, very famous, dead person.

Idea two: Another thing that can go wrong is when you have boundary problems and unfortunately a lot of us do. As children we all  experience repeated boundary violations.  This boundary violation happens every time we are (emotionally, physically, psychologically, or spiritually) hurt by someone with more power than us. The impact of this repeated boundary violation can be a little thing, as is the case when we simply don’t know how to say “no” to friends and family, and we allow them to walk all over us believing that we are being “loving” or “spiritual” or “supportive” when all we’re really doing is enabling shit, abuse, and toxicity, or it can be a big thing as when we totally lose sight of our own identity and start “channeling” all sorts of energies and entities through our boundary-less, ego-less, physical unit. In this case the lack of a good (ego) boundaries can lead you to be literally overwhelmed by the power of consciousness. In the absolute worst of cases this can leave you in a multiple-personality pathological stew that can be very difficult to extricate yourself from.

A case example. I remember one fellow a few years ago who crossed my path. He started out very reasonable. He was engaging in spiritual practice, probably smoking some herb, and it looked like he was moving in the right direction. Then, all of a sudden, the dysfunction started. He connected with some energies (as people often do when they hang around here), and he had a major psychological break down, coming to believe that he was every famous dead spiritual guru/avatar that had ever existed. From Christ to Mohammed, Ashtar to Mairtreya, he was it. He was here to save the world and he was sending out emails and warnings and prophecies and a whole bunch of very crazy sounding shit, none of which made much sense, and none of which ever came true. Not that he wasn’t on to something. I could see that clearly he was connecting to something bigger than himself, and he was trying real hard to ground that connection and bring consciousness down, but he was failing quite miserably and being overwhelmed in the process. I tried to ground him but he was having none of it because he knew better. Who was I, after all, against the cast of Avatars in his own mind? Of course, I don’t think he went out and killed somebody, but he did  end up medicated and in an asylum as a result of his breakdown. He emerged from the institution a few weeks later grounded, but then broke down again, and the last I heard from him he was staying as far away from “spirituality” as he could. He couldn’t handle the Fabric of Consciousness and so had chosen a life of “normal” just so he wouldn’t lose it again.

So what about this case study?

Well, let me just say say a couple of things.

First of all, his inability to “handle” consciousness, his breakdown, and his resolution to stay as far away from consciousness and spirituality as he could, is not a good thing. Choosing a life of normal is a coping mechanism that people chose when they can’t handle their own true self, or the powerful realities of consciousness. But it’s not who we really are, and it isn’t a reflection of our full potential. When we choose “normal” we choose a life of profound limitation and spiritual debilitation. When we choose normal we choose to be a shadow of our full potential, and how is that good? Of course, in cases where the choice is between mystical psychosis, paranoid schizophrenia, and violence, normal is better. Pop a few anti-psychotic drugs, force the connection to be shut down, and it is a win all around. But be aware of this,  it is not an ideal solution and it doesn’t have to be that way. If the psychiatric establishment wasn’t so clueless when it comes to the nature and parameters of consciousness, or the way “high” levels of consciousness interact with the physical unit, pharmaceutical disconnection and spiritual aversion therapy would not be necessary. Of course, the psychiatric establishment is going to have to come a long way forward before they even begin to have a clue about how to deal with this type of spiritual emergency in a positive, proactive fashion that heals and awakens rather than stupefies and destroys, but that is a concern for another time.

Second, and more importantly, somebody with the level of breakdown we are talking about here can easily become a candidate for violence against others. The question becomes then, what is the difference between my case study above and Vince Li?  What led one fellow to be institutionalized and on medication, and other to kill an innocent man on a bus for being an invading alien?

The answer?

[restrictedarea level=1]

Influences and reading material. I have no doubt that Vince Li was exposed to “teaching” that encouraged his paranoid, schizoid, break. I’m not saying he didn’t have ego and self esteem issues to begin with that made connection with The Fabric difficult and dangerous, but a lot of people have bad experiences with The Fabric and they don’t go out and cut somebody’s head off with a knife.

The difference?

Influences!

I don’t know for sure but if I was a gambling man (which I’m not) I’d bet money that Vince Li had been exposed to authors, teachers, and/or gurus who encourage that sort of paranoid schizophrenia. You may not be aware of it (and if you are not consider yourself lucky), but there are so called “spiritual” authors out there who talk about alien invasions, shape shifting lizards, and all sorts of other sorts of paranoid, crazy shit. Not that there isn’t a reason to believe in aliens. From crop circles to invisible heat signatures, evidence is out there that’s there more to life than just us, and soon enough we’ll all see. But there is a difference between being open to the evidence and considerate of the possibility, and being paranoid and freaked out by the bogey man stories of alien invasion propaganda propagated by, what to my mind, are mentally, emotionally, and spiritually unstable authors.

And why am I telling you this?

What is this moral of this story?

Well, consider this is a cautionary tale.  On a planet where the vibration is beginning to ascend quite rapidly we are going to have an increasing problem with mental, emotional, and spiritual instability.  I spoke about this problem in the conclusion of The Book of Life: Ascension and the Divine World Order and now we are beginning to see it in spades. From bus murders to movie theater massacres, some people are not handling “the shift” very well, and that is only going to get worse and my recommendation to you is, take this seriously at both a personal and a social level.

At a personal level, recognize that awakening and empowerment is not without its challenges. Spiritual awakening works best when the physical unit is strong, healthy, emotionally, and psychologically stable, and working with sophisticated spiritual knowledge. In those conditions embracing the awesome powers of what I call The Fabric of Consciousness is something we can all do simply because, quite frankly, it is something we were designed to do. We can all handle the power of high consciousness, but we have to be careful and we have to prepare the vessel. It is challenge, but it is not that hard to accomplish. We prepare the vessel by healing psychological and emotional damage, by getting physically strong and mentally healthy, by establishing right thinking and engaging in right action, and so on. It is not about being worthy or being strong, it is about doing what it takes to prepare yourself.

Anybody can “enter the temple,” anybody can walk through the gates into the promised city, all you got to do is prepare.

Clean off the slop., wash your robes, and get ready for the inevitable connection.

Blessed are those who wash their robes,
so that they may have the right to the tree of life,
and may enter by the gates into the city. Rev 22:14

And while we are talking about preparation, be careful what you read. The old computer science adage, garbage in, garbage out, are words of wisdom do live by in all aspects of your life. If you put shit food into your belly all time, expect to get sick eventually. If you put crap teachings into your head, expect these teachings to undermine your connection, your ability to ground, and in some cases even your sanity.It is very important that, moving forward, you realize this. The general level of “insanity” on this planet is going to get worse before it gets better, but that doesn’t mean you have to be a part of it. Be aware of the nature of the process, be aware of what is involved, do the work to prepare (LP Core and LP Intermediate stuff), keep away from spiritual and psychological slop, and as the crown chakra opens you’ll be just fine.

I’ll have more to say about preparation for connection as time passes so stay tuned, however before closing this article I just want to issue a bit of a warning, be careful and be aware. You are literally not safe even in a public movie theater, or on a public bus.  Keep in mind that people on this planet are having a hard time with “the shift.” They are resisting and repressing, denying and diverting. They are struggling with serious psychological and emotional damage bequeathed on them by an extremely toxic socialization process, they are not getting the help they need, and they are becoming unstable as a result so be careful, pay attention and be aware of the possibility of violence around you. If you have a “bad feeling” about things, if you really don’t want to be someplace, if you’d rather stay home and watch the movie when it comes out on DVD, do that.  The insanity won’t last forever but while it does, better safe than sorry.

And finally, keep in mind it is not just violence in theaters or on buses. By far the biggest threat is from your own family members. The social statistics bear it out. We are far more likely to be shit on and abused by our own parents, brothers and sisters, or friends, than we are from total strangers. From low level emotional and psychological abuse to violence and even murder, family violence is the biggest danger.  So keep that in mind and if you want my advice, adopt a no compromise position on it. If a family member hits you, tell them once not to do it and if they do it again, do what you would do if a total stranger came up to you and hit you on the street and call the police. If a family member calls you names or exploits you, tell them to stop and if they are not accountable for their actions and don’t stop the abuse, do what you would do if a total stranger came up to you and started heaping abuse on you and walk away. This is very important. If you set a precedent that says you will allow abuse, or if you have set a precedent and don’t take steps to revise that precedent, you are putting yourself in danger. Not that you don’t want to cut people some slack of course. We are all dealing with stuff.  The key here is accountability. If they aren’t willing to be accountable, and if they aren’t willing to get help so they can stop, you’re seriously better off finding a new family no matter how “minor” you think the abuse is.

Keep in mind here, this isn’t intended to scare you.

Not everybody is going to “go off the deep end” as the shit accelerates, but some people clearly will and you need to do everything in your power to ensure that when that happens you are not in the path of a bullet, or an axe, or a knife.

I am Michael Sharp

Welcome Home

[/restrictedarea]

 Additional Reading

• Parable of the Blindfold