tsuki

You weren't asking me, but I find this question irresistible. The only rational reason to perform acts of violence stems from extreme lack and separation, where you believe that in order to survive, you must kill. Mass shootings are acts of twisted celebration of brutality for people that are through with their own life. They are a warped form of asking for help, regardless of what the murderer thinks. Without a functioning heart, the mind is a knife wielded by an angry 3 year old. Hearts are never evil, they are always hurt/broken - so yes, a mass murderer that takes responsibility (deliberate intent) for what he/she does is the will of God. Mass shootings will keep occurring until we, as a society, start taking responsibility for existence of "evil people" and look into the roots of how hearts are broken.

I don't know if my self-importance is getting the better of me, but in case you're looking for me @Leo Gura, I'm right here.

While I'm glad to hear back from you, I didn't intend to make that post about me. Have a good day, you are truly awesome.

It slowly started to become apparent to me that this double respiration of breath and awareness has a natural order defined by alchemical square of opposition. I am also interpreting the prayer in terms of the four-fold division of experience, so this association is natural. I feel very uninspired today though, so even though I already have this mapping, I will not share it for now.

No | Element | Hot | Moist 1 | Earth | 0 | 0 2 | Water | 0 | 1 3 | Air | 1 | 1 4 | Fire | 1 | 0

Listen, friend. I don't expect a reply from you you've been ignoring me consistently for a long while, but just hear me out, okay? Getting free of the co-founder? Probably a good idea. I understand that you're in a tight spot because of the pressure of money and quitting the degree, but this guy... he does not care about you. More than that, he's openly abusive. With a CEO like that, this company will make money, but it won't bring any good to this world. To be like that he has to carry so much pain that he's not thinking straight. You are in your early 20s and you're a cofounder of a startup. You are a bright, capable man and you will find a way to make a living. By sticking with him, you will slowly turn into a sociopath just like him to justify his behavior. Watch out! Getting free of your ex wife? Probably not a good idea, but I feel you. Women can be tough. Working on you relationship AND a company? Your appetite is enormous, and rightly so, but your progress is at the expense of your health. Are you sure that you really appreciate how difficult it is what you're trying to accomplish? It's not just about being smart and hard working. The load is HUGE. Why leaving your parents is associated with suicide? YOU ARE A SMART, CAPABLE, HARD WORKING, YOUNG MAN AND YOU WILL BE ABLE TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF! You don't have to be rich, you don't have to be successful, in order to be. These are difficult times for everyone, not just you. It sucks four wife, it sucks for the cofounder, it sucks for your parents, AND IT SUCKS FOR YOU. You are not responsible for them - be responsible for you. Take care of yourself. People may help you, but you are ultimately the most important person in your life. If you don't accept this, you won't be able to help other people, people you care about. Don't put any more pressure on yourself. Take a few step backs and slow down, even if it costs you money.

EUREKA! It's the SOUL! SOUL! I've been looking for this word for SUCH A LONG TIME! The soul has something to do with intuition. Intuition is the sense-perception of soul?

My intellect is getting me to fall into the same self-defeating pattern as usual. I get so worked up about a topic that I stop taking proper care of my life and when things start to fall apart, the topic I'm passionate about gets washed off by the wave of chores and repairs. Body-soul-heart-mind balance, tsuki. That would be cool.

For the past two days, I have trouble getting myself to the right place, mentally. On the self-care level, the heart prayer provides a background to benchmark my mental capability against and I fell intellectually scattered and progressively more disconnected. Each morning is a struggle before I get into the right mental place. I've been drinking coffee in the previous week so my body may be a little bit dysregulated. While I'm focusing on my spiritual practices, my self-care routines took a noticeable hit. I'm still taking care of my food (cooking and shopping), but my laundry has piled up and I'm not having enough sleep. I also stopped massaging my neck regularly and my sleep quality has decreased. I tried to rest yesterday and while I did manage to take a few naps, I woke up with a minor headache. The body is a temple, I will take a better care of it. __________________ Oh, and my inner critic is getting more active lately. I even started criticizing my wife for her looks. Not cool.

I wonder if anybody finds this journal interesting because I'm having the time of my life writing these. My intent is to unravel these prayers and get their underlying feeling, but they are so multidimensional that getting them through a linear medium such as text is very challenging.

The practical teaching of the Invocation (Yin prayer) is the relationship between the mind and the heart - the ideal and the phenomenal. The prayer is a love-pump. The mind that contemplates Christ brings him forth - from abstract to concrete. Then, the heart, feeling His presence, transforms it to love and brings it forth to the phenomenal world. The Yang prayer teaches the inverse - the way to transform the mind so that it is able to receive. By calling His name (Lord, Jesus Christ) with an open heart (sustenance) and taking his body/teaching into it, mercy is shown. His presence, which is mercy, humbles the mind and admission of sins frees it. The prayer is cyclic: the mind that is free can call His name with an open heart. Lord, Jesus Christ, [sustenance: breath-out, said out loud] (Heartfelt calling out to Him) Son of God, [sustenance: breath-in] (Taking his body/teaching in with an open heart) be merciful, [size: breath-out, said out loud] (His mercy shown by presence humbles the mind) to sinful me [size: breath-in] (Admission of sins frees it) The key to admission of sin is the law of judgement - Mt 6,14

If that's not a manual of practical divine magick, I don't know what is. The Father is equivalent to THE ALL. The law of judgement. That is sooo soothing.

OMG this is awesome! Now we need a 24h version!

The reason to read good quality literature is that it usually has many layers of meaning and you get to accustom yourself with seeing through it. The language of your subconscious is symbolic, and having good rapport with it is very, very useful.

I just realized that I'm my ❤️.

I adore this picture. Too bad the details are lost in the avatar.

Yesterday, I've been contemplating the Yang prayer: and I was focusing on the interplay between breath and awareness. I choose to focus on sustenance in the first tact of the yang prayer and size on the second. I don't know why, but it feels more appropriate. When I was contemplating this, two things happened: I observed that the order of the interplay between breath and awareness in Yang prayer is the inverse of the Yin prayer: Yang: sustenance:breath-out ~> sustenance:breath-in ~> size: breath-out ~> size: breath-in Yin: size: breath-in ~> size: breath-out ~> sustenance:breath-in ~> sustenance:breath-out When I kept focusing on this interplay, I started to become mesmerized by it. I was drawn in, sort of hypnotized by it. It was like this movement of awareness between sustenance and size was not a disjoint shift between dimensions, but a single connected loop of expansion and contraction in two dimensions that are somehow connected. Then, after some time I started to notice that when I'm focused on sustenance, the energy starts to gather around my heart chakra, as if the air was carrying the energy to heat it up. This had naturally led to associating sustenance with the heart, and size with the head. It gives an interesting perspective on the yin prayer and phenomenal-ideal dimensions. The yang prayer feels much more private, personal, individual, human. Firstly, because I can speak the active part of the prayer (Lord Jesus Christ, ..., be merciful, ...). Secondly, because the divine part of the prayer "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God" is paired with sustenance that got associated with the heart for me. So, in effect, calling Jesus is much more heartfelt and the fact that I'm speaking it implies separation, calling out. I feel like a lost child calling for mother. Pairing it with a praying posture has a tremendous humbling effect on me. I'm starting to get the symbolism of it, but I don't feel like sharing it atm.

What I find the most disturbing about PUA is my own reaction to it, the fact that I think that I would absolutely love to fuck hundreds of women. This belief is common to most men and I think that the bottom of this issue is excessive systemizing on their part, at the expense of empathy and self-knowledge. I believe that possible causes such as prevalence of porn, commodification of sex and objectification of women are just symptoms of this problem. I grew up in an environment with little to no emotional support, used by my parents to satisfy their emotional needs. I believe that this is how most men are raised nowadays and it results in lack of emotional maturity, lack of self-knowledge. With overblown systemizing skills, they create juvenile goals to satisfy their mutilated identity, such as lay-counts and such. Moreover, the chemical cocktail released during sex or masturbation is oftentimes used as a way to drown the "feeling of emptiness" which is nothing else than years of emotional self-neglect. So, boys venture out to make something of themselves, a man, by having sex with random strangers, having fun? No, they are not even having fun! They treat it as a bootcamp, a way to convince themselves that the world is a harsh place, that they are "putting the hard work in" to do what, exactly? To have the sex equivalent of a fastfood hamburger. What is the effect? Some get good ordering them... and some don't. The ones that do get good, prey on emotionally damaged women, looking for 'compliance', and other calculated metrics that tell you that you are going to get laid with higher probability. It gets even worse - what happens with emotionally damaged men that get through this sex meat grinder with some semblance of success? Do they actually feel better? Do they get healthier? Do they really get to know women? What about women that are being used, do they get encouraged to explore their sexuality and get to know men better? Or do they get the reinforcement that men are creatures from another planet? Obviously, I have a negative opinion on PUA because I haven't explored it and I do recognize that I envy the successful fuckers. But I also recognize that there is no way in the world that get to explore intimacy, having been through such volume of pussy. The simple answer is: life is short and it's a trade off constrained by time. Intimacy is important and casual sex is also important, but I do believe that we're seeing the damage of excess of the latter. And God, how do I hate the PUA jargon. It sounds like moonspeak.

@John Iverson Check this out for more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deuterocanonical_books

There is not just one "Bible". Various Christian denominations have different sets of books that compose it and consider other non-canonical. There is also a dispute over translations and some denominations are based on different readings of the Bible.

@Cykaaaa Awesome, thank you!

I've been contemplating this today and it occurred to me that inclusion of awareness into the prayer creates two perspectives on breathing. When awareness focuses on the movement: of the body, then breath is viewed as change in its size: Breath-in is viewed as relaxation of the stomach and expansion of the body Breath-out is viewed as tightening up of the stomach and contraction of the body of air, then breath is viewed as change in sustenance: Breath-in is viewed as inhalation that signifies ingestion and acceptance Breath-out is viewed as exhalation that signifies excretion and enactment The first tact focuses awareness on size while the second focuses it on sustenance. The prayer therefore has three components: thoughts, breath and awareness. Their interplay make the prayer into a whole spectacle: Breath-in: Lord Jesus Christ, [focus on increasing size] (relaxation signifying Godly selflessness) Breath-out: Son of God, [focus on decreasing size] (contraction signifying embodiment in the living God) Breath-in: be merciful, [focus on inward sustenance] (inhalation signifying the acceptance of God's love) Breath-out: to sinful me [focus on outward sustenance] (exhalation signifying the deeds that express love) These two axes (size and sustenance) that are created as an interaction of breath and awareness mirror the teaching of Meditations on the Tarot. The book describes how the Hermeticism is an integral part of Christian tradition and is symbolized by Jesus' cross. The cross symbolizes the Hermetic Principle of Correspondence (As above, so below, as below, so above) expressed in two dimensions of existence (horizontal and vertical). The horizontal dimension is the phenomenal (space-time), while the vertical is ideal (abstraction and concreteness of Truth). So, the complete interpretation is: The thoughts that silently pray come from Nothing and are directed at everything. In this everything, there is the body that respires and is crossed by awareness. First, thoughts invoke Jesus Christ while the movement happens in the vertical dimension. Vertical dimension is signified by size and is the movement from abstraction to concreteness. Then, thoughts ask for love with humility while the movement happens in the horizontal dimension. Horizontal dimension is signified by sustenance and is the movement from divine inspiration to human action. In effect, the prayer is emptying the individual will and summoning Jesus Christ to act in the world through this vessel. From now on, I will call the yin prayer "Invocation" because of its meaning.

I was not being sarcastic, I just thought you have them collected (and you do, as it turns out). Thanks.

I'm very interested in these studies. Would you mind sharing them? We could make another mega-thread like this to gather resources.

I started reading Philokalia and stumbled upon a different text for the Jesus prayer in the foreword written by John Paul II. It has better rhythm, but I find it difficult to translate it to English. Literally it is: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, be merciful, to me a sinner Panie Jezu Chryste, Synu Boży, bądź miłościw, mnie grzesznemu The last two sections are different, and shift the polarity between God and men down the stack. In the previous version, the third section ("have mercy on me") related to "my soul" and "God's mercy". Now, the third section focuses on Jesus exclusively (as the source of mercy), while "me" is shifted downwards. The rhythm is difficult to translate because the two last sections have exactly two words in Polish while expressing a pleasant polarity of God/men. More rhythmic translations to English would be: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, be merciful, towards me, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy, on me, but they lose the expression of penance. It could also be translated as: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, be merciful, towards this sinner, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy, on this sinner, but we lose the explicit "me". Again, we could make it so: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, be merciful, to sinful me, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy, on sinful me, but I don't know if it's written in proper English. It somehow conveys the double meaning here, as if the expression "me", or "me" itself, was sinful. In this sense, this does not relate to the person, but to something the person does - the person "me"s. If you look sneakily enough, this interpretation is also present in the original, so I will stick to this one.