mandyjw

Start to really look at other people as if you were an artist. Look for people who are interesting, who have some depth and interest artistically, not necessarily people who are beautiful by your standards or what you think societies standards are. Maybe even take an art class and try portraiture. You can do photography portraits if you don't draw. Or else just study and look at portrait art, both works of art and real life in people's faces. By mastering observation from the perspective of a creator and connoisseur (artist) , your own face becomes irrelevant and yet, beautiful.

All art is artifice. There's nothing authentic here, it's all up to the person judging the art as something other than them.

Love it. Anything M83 is amazing, Wait and Midnight City are my faves

My parents always taught me to always put others above myself. Sounds like a good thing and it was but still I unavoidably have to unravel a lot of erroneous assumptions from it.

Nonduality, neither false nor true. When someone really, really believes in a religion and being a good person as their security, and the belief as their ultimate security beyond death, breaking through is a very intense experience. "The outer self and the inner both are imagined. The obsession of being an ‘I’ needs another obsession with a ‘super-I’ to get cured, as one needs another thorn to remove a thorn, or another poison to neutralize a poison. All assertion calls for a denial, but this is the first step only. The next is to go beyond both." -Nisargadatta Maharaj If you really believed in God then the Devil is your poison. If you believe you are a fragment born into a story and subject to it rather than the author of it and the creator of the story of Christianity itself you must experience the love of the part you unconsciously created that you have resisted. Christianity has become a whole narrative framework, of "I love this supernatural power", "I hate and fear this supernatural power". The resistance to the "other" has to die. Christians are 100% right, meditation invites the Devil in. I would guess that for an athiest "God" would be intellect and "Devil" would be ignorance. Or something like that. Nonduality is a bitch.

I guess there is certain "karma" from honestly having believed in God and believing in the Devil. Christians literally are quite right about this. But since this forum mostly full of atheists you can laugh. Imagine honestly believing in God, and Jesus Christ and spiritual warfare from a young age and being confronted with the fact that you have to accept the Devil in. It would break "you".

I make and sell unnecessary "stuff" for a living and got deeply into minimalist/frugal living for a while. The source of my income was making and selling things to people who had completely different priorities than the ones I idealized. That created quite an inner conflict. I thought that the thing I loved that I had put so much energy into learning and that had made me a living so far was a waste, and unaligned with my newfound "wisdom". I couldn't advertise or enjoy my work and feel authentic about it. Then several things happened to heal this, but the most memorable one was that I got a message from a woman who got really sick and was bed ridden for a long time period. She told me how much my work cheered her up during that time. I realized that no "one" heals, but there is healing and you never know where or how it comes from, as it always comes from the same source.

https://www.dogshaming.com/ Our projections of shame and responsibility on animals are hilarious. If only we could apply the lesson to people.

Brushing my teeth didn't make me happy. I give up. I'm highly suspicious of showering now. If you're conscious of how conscious you are you ain't conscious.

My dog is a complete devil much of the time. You should see him steal my daughter's stuffed animals. He always takes the comfiest seat in the house, he'll even push you out of it if you're occupying it. It's also creepy how when you get a purebred dog, it does exactly what its parents did without being taught anything. He points at birds because he is a bird dog even though I don't hunt with him. He has all kinds of "memories" ingrained in him like that. Now I'm looking at my own parents like... "oh... crap."

The act of measuring such a thing is a judgmental attempt by thought that requires time, a timeline and a self to make. It's more efficient in my experience to pay attention to how I feel without being quick to judge it. I have experienced a lot of new thoughts that I would not have entertained before that feel amazing. It's hard to reflect on "no thought" because there's no time or experiencer, (I guess?). If you show someone a photo of a landscape with a person in it and one without, they will much more clearly remember the one with the person in it, because thought requires a person or placeholder for memory.

I think sometimes we get absolutely stuck in routine and other times we suffer with a lot out of resistance to putting them in place. Why should meditation be different from teeth brushing? We brush our teeth routinely even when we don't really feel like it, but to be honest I can't remember having resistant feelings arise to brushing my teeth since I was 9 or something. If you ask me, I like having clean teeth, but I don't think about it.

It's not easy being green.

"Your Mom" jokes are even funnier after nonduality. Leo isn't kidding about the rewards of this work.

Believe - give credit to. Creed, Credit, as in credit cards, something that has to come before. BeliEVE, Eve, the mother of all, beli eve, belly of Eve matrix (n.) late 14c., matris, matrice, "uterus, womb," from Old French matrice "womb, uterus" and directly from Latin mātrix (genitive mātricis) "pregnant animal," in Late Latin "womb," also "source, origin," from māter (genitive mātris) "mother" (see mother (n.1)).

The Devil is in the details.

method (n.) early 15c., "regular, systematic treatment of disease," from Latin methodus "way of teaching or going," from Greek methodos "scientific inquiry, method of inquiry, investigation," originally "pursuit, a following after," from meta "in pursuit or quest of" (see meta-) + hodos "a method, system; a way or manner" (of doing, saying, etc.), also "a traveling, journey," literally "a path, track, road," a word of uncertain origin (see Exodus). https://www.etymonline.com/word/method Genesis, Exodus, Revelations!!! Oh Jesus.

Whatever someone is reading on an airplane right now. My favs right now are The Gospel of Thomas and I Am That.

Do you believe in unhappiness? What's the difference between belief and doubt? None, it's another duality, but you can feel the difference, right? You have to have a reason for doing something, something you want, some direction even if it's only a fairytale, all the better that it's only a fairytale. If you want to feel better, the good news is you can cut to the chase.

Nobody does that though. Nobody even even shares a certain perspective.

We're like Siamese twins, it's a very confusing situation. No one knows whether to look away or give us our own reality TV show.

@Proserpina what's sublime gaze?

I have had obsessive thoughts like that about people, especially when I was younger. The common thread that I discovered is that there is something in them that I really want to embody myself. The materialistic world view makes us immediately assume we want a relationship with them, but that's not usually the case at all. Open your mind. Release the attachment by truly owning it, and seeing what these thoughts and feelings are pointing you towards discovering in yourself. It also helps to pay attention to your dreams because your dreams, and the things and people you're drawn to in real life work in the same way to point you towards what you really want.

You can have time to take showers or have kids. Pick one. I'm just kidding. A little bit. Sort of.

In my experience kids are detrimental to "self" anything, but since enlightenment is both Self realization and the realization of no self, it seems they have no effect whatsoever.