Zigzag Idiot

This last post caused me to go back and take a look at the beginning of your Journal which apparently I hadn't done. There is so much more about you I didn't know. Congratulations on the internship! I'm happy for you.

Beautiful!

I like the quote and am enjoying your Journal. Ive yet to research about your home country. Sounds interesting! Thanks!

@ValiantSalvatore Very interesting! Am reading about it now. Thank you! Thank you!

There is an old abandoned mine a couple of miles behind my house in the national forest. 15 years ago when I was in a period of experimenting with meditation in this cave, I experienced the sudden presence of a subtle light which seem to be coming from behind me because this light was mostly experienced in my periphrial vision. During this time I experienced this a number of times when meditating in this completely darkened cave. The other night after I smoked some NN dmt I experienced this peripheral light once again in my completely darkened bedroom. It's definite but very subtle. Years ago when Arnold Keyserling was alive he, as he put it, "heavily recommended" this book but the copy I got was Richard Wilhelm's and had a hard time trying to read it. I think I've lost it somewhere anyway. I need to try Thomas Clearly's translated version to see if maybe I can get along better with it. I appreciate the idea and reminder. Ive read another of Thomas Clearly's books and got through it ok.

The Heart is Nothing but the Mind Filled with Love The heart, obviously, is very important here, but we need to free the heart. Most of the time the heart is dominated by the perspective of object relations. We experience various feelings and emotions according to our psychodynamic history. Actually, the heart is nothing but the mind filled with love. The heart gives fullness to the concepts of the mind. So the mind and the heart are not separate things. They’re one thing. Love and thinking are one thing. Both the mind and the heart need to be freed from the perspective of the physical world. The heart is freed from object relations by arriving at non-attachment. Diamond Heart Book Five, pg. 287 The following quote disturbed me the first time I read it. Over time it has become clearer. Real Relationship Means to Manifest the Courageous Heart A person who does not have a heart cannot hate, cannot be angry, cannot be hurt, cannot be jealous. Without love there is no such thing as jealousy, hurt, fear, hatred, or anger. All of these things are reactions to the absence of love, to the blockage of it, to the non-perceiving of it. To be aware of the real relationship means that there is always awareness of love. This never goes, in any relationship. There is always the lovingness, and love has understanding in it. Love has forgiveness and acceptance in it. Love has compassion, appreciation, pleasure, happiness, strength, and gratitude. All these are elements of love, and it is there all the time; it is part of our nature. The courageous heart is the heart that is always present, regardless of what happens. If your heart is present only if good things happen, your heart is not yet free, not actualized. You are still a coward, still afraid. You have a heart, but not yet a courageous heart. So to have a true relationship, a real relationship, means to manifest the courageous heart. Diamond Heart Book Four, pg. 199 Law of Three has three elements: active - passive and neutralizing forces In the right blending of three a new arising is produced Humanity is third force blind say the seers. Blind to neutralizing force. May the force be with you

Cynicism Cynicism has been one of my biggest stumbling blocks. For a long time I was really blind to how I couldn't let go of lumping all church people together and reffering to them as shit for brains and things along that line. Not very nice,,, There is still a bit of that in me if I don't watch myself. A second uncle of mine is one of the most patient and good natured people I have ever known. A genuinely good person and also a devout Church goer. It was thinking of him that I would feel guilty because of my nasty automatic judgement and label of Church people. My cynical attitudes always resulted in getting that dirty inner feeling that kept my walls up. Even years after I read The Power Of Now for the twentieth time I stayed blind to my cynicism and the trouble it always caused me. As a conterphobic six on the Enneagram of personality, doubt, and always playing Devils advocate describes my relations and interactions with others. I used to feed on this energy and not realize what I was doing. Becoming more practiced with letting go of grievances toward others has helped. Also the willingness to be honest with self observation and Inquiry. Still work to be done though,,,,,,

Ken Wiber discusses this as "skillful means" which I believe is a term used in some Buddhist communities. This statement applies quite a bit to what I remember being said about "skillful means"

A simple yet powerful practice is to sense the feet. Just sensing the physicality of the feet. When I'm stuck in my head my attention is usually dispersed over several different things leaving my awareness ungrounded The feet are good because of all the many nerve endings in the feet. By putting attention on the body and not creating a narrative in the mind about it, the sensing will help ground the attention through the body cultivating a better balanced awareness. Being more grounded in the body, it becomes easier to observe and separate thoughts and feelings and how often they come out of a stimulus response from random things. The more one practices body sensing, the more sensitive the body becomes. Instead of narrative consciousness the mind can just be registering sense data more than the internal dialog of narrative consciousness. Along with this, relaxing the small muscles in the face several times a day is good as well as being mindful of one's posture as much as possible. These are practices out of the Fourth Way.

@Eden I appreciate this thread! The last few days I've been going through from the beginning and sampling a lot of the songs. I really enjoyed The Twenty One Pilots version of the old Elvis song. That guy can really sing! This is a song I've enjoyed a lot over the years that really speaks to me about the interference in process of Actualization and how much time is wasted in having the disease of - I'll do it tomorrow,,, Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day Fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way. Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town Waiting for someone or something to show you the way. Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain. You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today. And then one day you find ten years have got behind you. No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun. So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking Racing around to come up behind you again. The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older, Shorter of breath and one day closer to death. Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time. Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way The time is gone, the song is over, Thought I'd something more to say. Home Home again I like to be here When I can When I come home Cold and tired It's good to warm my bones Beside the fire Far away Across the field Tolling on the iron bell Calls the faithful to their knees To hear the softly spoken magic spell

@DrewNows ACIM is an acronym for A Course In Miracles https://acourseinmiraclesnow.com/

Thanks @Marc Schinkel One which helped turn a light on for me was:

Thanks @DrewNows Glad you liked it. This morning when I watched this I was a little blown away. Still am, in a way. Hippie turned evangelical turned mystic. There are more of these lineages from eastern Christian Orthodoxy than I was aware of. This mystic branch of Christianity looks just like the Sufis, the mystical branch of Islam. Each heavy into meditation. I think the most commonly known form of Christianity has built triggers into many of us through unconscious conditioning. Shame triggers,,,, The idea of being stained by sin, which is a false premise. ACIM also basically teaches this is why we unconsciously psychologically project onto others. This inner shadow needs for there to be a scapegoat when no scapegoat is actually needed. It perpetuates shadow and causes people to feed on negative emotions. This of course is based on my interpretations,,,,

Just out on Ted Nottinghams channel - Oh Wow! Too many synchronicities,,,,,,, This guy is practically in my backyard, from Missouri. A transformed former evangelical Protestant. Orthodox Christianity through the desert Mothers and Fathers,,,,,, The backbone of today's Contemplative Christianity. Comments welcome. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Fathers

Martin Butler is telling a deep truth and pissing people off. Dont watch this if you're depressed or in a bad space.

@Theresa Me too! Therefore, I change my mind. A Course In Miracles The standard version combined with the regular text is great but a few months ago I learned of a new annotated edition. It footnotes all things related in the Course material to Jesus' Teaching in the New Testament. It also has a glossary and other features you can read about on the link below. Being that it weighs about 4 lbs., on a deserted island it could also serve double as a seat or worktable. Similar to Yogananda's experience with Jesus Christ. The Christ encountered in ACIM is more like a well meaning, loved by all big brother who would enter a farting contest if it served to help someone's understanding. Not a Being who is interested in being worshiped. https://circle-of-atonement.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage/products/a-course-in-miracles-complete-and-annotated-edition For those who are really curious in different perspectives on Christianity the following video may be of interest. I'm not sold on everything he says but it has some good food for thought.

? Self absorption is how I'm a torture to the world at times. When it ceases, everything is ok. Presence of Being as Absolute Stillness Peace: It is not an emotional state or merely the absence of conflict; it is rather the presence of stillness, which is an aspect of Essence. It is the Presence of Being as absolute stillness and calmness. This stillness is not experienced as dull or vague, but as an exquisitely alive kind of consciousness. Peace involves the cessation of the torturous ego activity, with its hopes, and desires, efforts and resistances. That is why it is often equated with ego death. Peace is actually both death and life in the same consciousness. Pearl Beyond Price, pg. 313

If If I could only write a 2/3's long page paragraph that would make people lose their minds in bliss. That's my dream. That is something I've repeatedly thought about over the years. After having gone through the impermanent bliss states of good relationships and sex, alcohol buzzes, cannabis highs, successes in occupation, or the magical-ness of other substances. Also after making it thru deficient times of depression, suicidal-ness, dread, shame, hatred of self and others, and generally experiencing life on earth as consisting of several actual low middle layers of hell realms. But this state of being that I talk about conveying to others through the threshold of God Realization is not one I have permanent attainment of. As only a seeker of truth myself, the memory of the experience of there being no problems and nothing is wrong in a fully present state and also a brief connection with the voice of continual revelation. But perhaps before my Automaton wears down and konks out, and if an opening and reconnection does happen to produce a bridge of words in the form of that 2/3 page paragraph. That would fulfill one of my wildest dreams. Everyone who had an IQ over 80 regardless of whatever kind of life they had lived when after reading this document would all be overcome with goofy grins. Some others might maybe begin to sing or start taking off their clothes and from that time on the world would be transformed. And those whose IQ were under 80 would be brought up into that realm by the ingenuity of a recently transformed world culture. That's one of my wildest dreams. Just thought I'd share it. I know many will view this as a symptom of being grandiose but why not? It's a dream. ?‍♂️

Watched this yesterday. It's good.

Years ago out of the blue I said to my mother. "You know, stupid people don't realize they're stupid." It was one of the times I her remember being awestruck, in a sense. She Even quotes me on that on occasion through the years as she did at a Sunday dinner a couple of weeks ago. At the time I was mostly saying it in reference to someone else but also felt the tinge of how it also applied to me. I'm not just talking about intellectual intelligence but also emotional. I personally am most afflicted with a lack of social intelligence but primarily when there's more than 3 people. Chances are if I'm suddenly in a group of people, my Aspergers switch gets turned on, as a way to express it. These Aspergers type symptoms It would seem to fall under the category of emotional intelligence but it doesn't seem that way with me. I love connecting to people one on one and feel pretty solid about intuiting things about them if their in my presence. Especially more so here in the past couple years. Crowds just make me uneasy. Realizing my stupidity I have come to realize has deeper layers. Like passive aggressiveness, and schadenfreude I have found deeper layers to. This has meant finding forgiveness for myself when I run into some of this stuff. The opening of Leo's Conscious Politics started off with a couple of quotes that reminded me of the valuable capacity to forgive or apologize to others when appropriate.

Your reasons for appreciating Culdasa's method is similar to my reasons with Centering Prayer meditation. What I thought was a wise saying I heard from someone who had long been in the Work said- "We have to make the work our own. We have to find our own way in a sense."

Self Actualization journal can be a good tool. They can serve to highlight our discontinuity of consciousness. The call to awaken is louder when the dream we are living turns into a nightmare. It's not an easy task to stay present. For all the silent lurkers out there reading who have considered starting a Journal,,,, Do it! Just start one,,,,,, Only add to it when you decide to. Use a journal to help you stay present.

I am you. I was raised in love but it was a disguised love that consisted of a fearful God and my parents were raised similarly. What got me over my anger at them was seeing the greater tragity of their longer lived in those vested interests (identifications) . With only 1 parent and 1 95 year old grandmother left alive. They dont see. They live in a mid realm hell. The guilt you have is superego phenomena. That's argued sometimes as the first thing to address in spiritual work. Thank you for sharing. Hope I've said something helpful. ?

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