mandyjw

@PurpleTree From Matthew 16,"The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven. He replied, "When evening comes, you say, `It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,' and in the morning, `Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.' You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah." Jesus then left them and went away."

My expressions of scatterbrained fuckery can be accessed by clicking the Light on Earth link in my signature.

Awww, well fuck! When I was a kid I was devoutly Christian and I thought I'd like to talk about spirituality but only men are allowed to be preachers. Guess I should have just accepted my complete inadequacy way back then. Maybe next life I'll finally be born with a dick. I mean, a good brain. My youtube channel is a fairly new hobby that I'm really passionate about and am having a blast exploring and learning. I have less than 4 hours 5 days a week to run my business and do a youtube video I have young kids and limited childcare because of the pandemic. Comparing me with Leo who has been making videos and building actualized.org for years before he even got into spirituality, WITH a background in marketing is just... Well, why?

@Edogowa Conan If only I believed enlightenment were a practical goal, maybe I would do a better job manufacturing and marketing it.

I found this video was a huge AHA moment for me. Focus/ unfocused is a duality.

You're welcome but yeah, that one came from someone else too. I think maybe a Sia song, I dunno. I owe my original understanding of nonduality to a tree. Oh wait. Giving credit or blame to nouns. Right. Don't do that.

Yeah, but when you have believed that you are transcending the mind and you let go of your belief of rising above "something" over time, then the word backwards becomes an incredibly helpful pointer. The beginning is the end. Strange loops don't only go in one direction. I mean did you imagine they only went clockwise? OH, no.

People gravitate towards teachers who emanate what they want. In our society we worship emotional equanimity and mistake focus and equanimity for enlightenment. Focus and being scatter brained are not what they seem, when you go deep into nonduality. They are opposites only to the mind, going beyond the mind does not mean having a focused mind. It is not transcending mind. It means going backwards and through mind, including mind. The reason you see more male teachers and more successful teachers are male is because people misunderstand and project what they want from enlightenment onto it. There are also a lot of reasons that women are programmed to want to help and do their work for free without seeking any recognition. A master is not a master until you see him as such. "Master" is a projection of the mind, also coincidently, has strong connotations of being male. Ah, duality is a bitch. Or master. Whatever.

Absolutely not. You chose the wrong word out of the sentence. You chose the verb, not the pronoun. The noun is always the culprit, if there is one, which there isn't. It's never the verb. Don't blame verbs. WHO wants to know? Who wants to know? wants to know- awareness

Translation: I don't know if I really want to know but I think I already know. Ask not asked. There's no completion, no final answer, that's death. This is life beyond ideas of life and death. The answer is the asker. Lots of answers will come and you expand your asking more. Who wants to know?

My intuition told me to watch a Mel Robbins talk the other day and she was telling this guy that he has like a 1 in some ridiculous number chance of being him. So I was kinda like, "woah that's ABSOLUTELY amazing but also uhmm, no that's not right." So this morning during meditation I was like "0 is infinity... oh ok there ya go". So you can thank Mel Robbins and @zeroISinfinityI guess. That's why I said "really, really" asked yourself.

I've never done it, and you didn't do it, and you didn't get an answer, because it is the answer itself. What is this? This is only now. We never asked ourselves "what is this" in the past. That's another trick of the mind, it says I enquired and I got an answer. What knows is not the mind, or the self. What knows is awareness itself. It cannot be found in past.

yup. yup? YUP? I don't think you really could and just say "yup" You're missing that the miracle in walking on water is not Jesus walking on water at all, but it is that within awareness you can imagine such a thing right now, exactly the same way it can imagine Eckhart Tolle sitting in a chair. That's the miracle. You. Tada! The miracle is in the awareness in which everything happens or does not happen, that comes first before everything else. There is no Jesus or Eckhart Tolle, no me or you, just awareness.

Have you ever really, really asked yourself, what is this? How is there something rather than nothing? How is consciousness even possible? How is that I'm here, seeing this right now? There's a 0 in infinity chance of you being here now, you. 0 in infinity means it's a sure thing. Seeing with your own eyes is such an unbelievable mystical experience that enlightenment is just a walk in the park after that. It's a done deal.

There's something really satisfying about working for free, especially when you first start doing something that you're really inspired to do, so doing it is a reward in itself. It's true whatever you give out comes back to you. But people do truly want to pay you and give back to you too. Often money is the just the way that it makes the most sense to pay someone back, and it makes your clients feel better and know what to expect when they know what your time cost is upfront. They will be less likely to focus and feel worthy of your advice if they think they are taking advantage of you. I think when you first start out it's good to work for free or for little until you really hone your skills. Then you'll be confident setting a price for your time, and the money you get paid should serve the work you do on a greater whole. If you work for too little or for free you'll need to dedicate your time to something else instead. Having the right fee for a service, where you and your client feel happy with the exchange is absolute magic, and the work you do will flourish and serve the world as a whole beyond just coach and client. Art, caregiving and spiritual guidance is all in the category of "stuff society doesn't value much" in our minds, because our society is currently imbalanced in this way. Should this change? I think it changes both by us starting to value it and pay more for it, and both in us making it available for free more. I really like the idea of offering both free content and having paid services. Basically that's what Leo does here. Money is a tool. It doesn't serve anyone to disregard the value in using a tool, nor does it serve anyone to value the tool itself over its actual purpose.

At exactly what point does a stranger become a friend and at what point do you truly know and understand your closest friend? You never will. I think the best way to experience incredible friendships is to just go about assuming everyone is already your friend, but with an authentic curiosity and openness because you don't really know them at all, no matter how close you think you are.

The mind creates order where there is none, not seeing that the order it tries so hard to create out of its fear of disorder is just more disorder. The fear of disorder looks at awakening and calls it messy, dark and horrible. It is like the trees dropping their leaves in the Fall. It creates a huge mess, but is part of the perfect order beyond all ideas of order.

How they feel. One feels like complete acceptance and resonance and one feels like resistance. Is it possible that love actually, is feeling itself, rather than A feeling and therefore that's why when we feel it we feel utter resonance and oneness with it?

Funny devil is lived spelled backwards, and evil is live spelled backwards.

Does the devil lack imagination? Or is the devil imagination?

Are you objectifying Leo? Just because you do touch something, doesn't make it real. You may see water in the desert, but you can't drink it. illusions are not just reserved for the eyes.

Yeah, it was a for real insight for me too. My daughter kept saying "Happy Birthday" to me incessantly for days before the awakening, and I kept saying it wasn't my birthday, then during the awakening, I was like "OMG! It IS my birthday!"

Happy Birthday!!!

@SamueLSD You might like this https://www.amazon.com/Nature-Consciousness-Essays-Unity-Matter/dp/1684030005/ref=sr_1_1?crid=WLIWO3ZPLDG3&dchild=1&keywords=the+nature+of+consciousness+rupert+spira&qid=1603622558&sprefix=the+nature+of+conciou%2Caps%2C194&sr=8-1

No, you aren't a lazy bastard but you're focusing on lack. Focus on love and abundance and crazy awesome stuff will happen. This world is already beautifully wild and incomprehensible. Notice it as you go about your life and it gets more so. Even if you take psychedelics or have a full blown awakening some other way, you need to learn this kind of meditation, focus or connection to embody it. Start now, wherever you are. There's no time, you're already whole. The entire thing is a fantastic journey.