mandyjw

Our own belief in superiority and inferiority is the core issue. At its heart, it has nothing to do with men or women.

There is know God?

@Zigzag Idiot I want to make a list of painful, depressive thoughts that had beautiful but misunderstood core truths, here's one that came to mind. "I can't wait until this is all fucking over. Then I won't be anxious." Came up especially in nervousness before a performance, a cross country race, sometimes in regard to big wants, having kids, being pregnant, raising said kids (oh god), purchasing a house, doing an art show, anything amazing, exciting and scary. Core truth, it IS already over, essentially, you can already rest in the peace that it is. But you probably don't want to, because this is the exciting part.

Ralston explains the core brilliance of Neo-Advaita beautifully here. It's not a revelation that apples do fall down, it's a revelation that they don't fall up.

Yeah, what you're pointing to the importance of here is balance. There are individuals who are unstable, creative, explosive, expressive, and they need grounding of the practices. Then there are intelligent, grounded individuals who really need a substance or an altering experience to open up the chaotic, creative part of themselves. Unfortunately we cannot prescribe anything for anyone because they only know their own needs by feeling and intuition. We can suggest things though. Lot of people have been helped by Leo's suggestion of psychedelics and he has pioneered and freed up the path quite a bit for his bravery of following his own intuition in this area. But the thing about intuition and feeling is things are never the same twice and landscape and the direction in which one needs to go is always changing. So we could just appreciate all the amazing "techniques" and non techniques, and all the amazing teachings and non-teachings out there. Opposites with no opposition. Perfect order in chaos.

Call it self improvement. Does it really matter if you paint your face or if you paint a canvas? Neither is actually you. "You wanna know what Zeus said to Narcissus? You better watch yourself" - Marilyn Manson

If you can be and they can't, that ain't God. Sometimes it's easier to say, there isn't a God. Then they can erase their ideas of God and be free to discover what it is they do not know. They don't need luck either, what you seek is seeking you in an infinitely wild variety of forms. Everyone on the universe is the luckiest little fucker alive. They are so lucky they are free to believe that they aren't lucky at all.

True. But if you law of attraction style focus on love and inclusion, you don't even need attract the possibility of leaving out. That's just it, it's up to you what you call it. You are the meaning maker, the exclusion maker, the cause and effect maker. You are God and so are They.

See... feel these subtle pain points here... we're all just like the nerdy kid in school who still doesn't want to be left out. We don't need an approach at all. Any approach, any attainment, leaves people out. There aren't any people to leave out. We're still just resonating with those echos of the pain of being left out. The only reason being left out hurt at all was because we can never, ever truly be left out of... this.

Let me explain how most women think about instagram. Many women actually view how they look and dress as an art form. The make up, the poses, the photo editing, the photography is all incredibly time consuming, it's their art. It's like modern day cross-stitching and instagram is where it can be displayed. In many cases they are just as happy and in many cases more happy to get compliments from women than men. A photo is not the girl. She knows that. It's a contrivance. Artifice. A work of art. That's why she doesn't want to be judged just on her photo. And yet, she does. If you understand that maybe you can make Instagram work, maybe not.

Neo-advaita seeks to completely clear the slate. It's almost destructive in a way, if you look at it through a narrow lens of judgement. It's the eraser the artist uses when they fuck something up. The eraser destroys hard work from one perspective, but really it paves the way for a mistake to become a valuable lesson. It's instrumental in allowing the finished piece to be what was envisioned by the artist in the first place.

To me there's a difference in what I'm hearing there when they say that, what I hear is "you're completely free to delve into whatever practice you want or to fully embrace life however you want, so be completely honest with yourself about what you want and why you want it." For example, some people are NOT free to stick 5-MeO up their asses, so to them you create an elite club that has dues to pay. Some don't even react to it when they do. They are either destined to have this freedom at this time or not. Or some people can't meditate as well as others, some people are raising families or living in third world countries, etc, etc. In my opinion this is not a club but so completely, utterly inclusive that our individual selves are not, and this is available to everyone, because there's nothing any one of us can individually do. I mean, just think about how interconnected we are. All these opinions and thoughts shared here are all formed by bouncing these thoughts and positions off one another and seeing how they stick, taking what we resonate with and reacting against what we don't. We're all like molecules just flying around all willy nilly.

There's no actual cause and effect though. We create our own meaning and we pick and choose cause and effect in the same way. For example, your post provokes me to respond to your's, cause and effect. Or, we were both born 30ish years ago. Or the big bang. Is there really time, for our causes and effects to hinge on? If so how far back in time should I go to pick the cause of the effect I decided needed a cause. Cause and effect are dualistic, they exist within the story. The story is always changing on us, your past is always being rewritten, Buddha is always newly imagined in the minds and hearts of everyone.

Nonduality doesn't get lost in religion, it gets lost in the mind. If you go deep enough into anything at all, it's there... or rather duality is not there. The Gospel of Thomas has the clearest nondual pointers but plenty of them survived in the four gospels. They are easily missed... here's a good example. “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Luke 9:56 To the mind this means Jesus has no home. Go deep enough in non duality and you realize the son of man doesn't just refer to Jesus himself but something profound and Jesus is essentially saying here, "you don't have a brain, your brain is a belief." In other words, that mind I just said nonduality gets lost in... never existed anyway.

Just a thought, sometimes when we aren't in touch with our desires, (not just sexual desires but all desires), we intensely desire to BE desired by another. Then once that desire is consummated/consumes itself, it's back to square one. It's sort of a self love thing too, but allowing our desires is a huge part of self love.

Gender changes cause some problems for society to sort out, but age changes would be an even bigger problem. So many laws and benefits are based on age. I often felt like an old lady trapped in a girl's body when I was a kid because I had much different interests and values that weren't like other kids my age. However no one was going to give me the right to buy alcohol, vote and smoke at age 13 because I enjoyed staying at home and knitting and reading. Although... that could have made me pretty popular with my peers.

It's a misunderstanding that anyone can do anything to get enlightened. There's no real cause and effect, though there can seem to be within the story. Stories of personal awakenings can be fascinating, but are never actual. You cannot hack this by trying not to do things either. However, what you might call "virtuous conduct", honest, sincere selflessness and love for others is an intensely powerful practice. It's more the actual Love working there, and it's about allowing that force to work through you, aligning you with it, than it is about a someone who makes the right choices and does the right things.

I was drinking tea when you posted that. Keep working at it, one day you might be as creepy as Nahm is.

It turned out to be puppy snuggles. Very touching. No, sorry. We can play Clue though, if you want. I'll be Miss Scarlet.

I don't even know what after 2 minutes from now. The thought that I do is a complete illusion. Anything could happen.

Listening to these both at the same time.

Why are worldly pleasures the distraction? Why not pick on worldly pains instead? @How to be wise Yep, I'm well aware of it in Christianity. Sooo many awkward scenarios. It actually works out quite terribly. Imagine being treated as if your very presence and bodily form is inherently evil and tempting. It's like taking what normal people call sexual tension and making it exponentially worse, all the time with everyone. What you resist persists.

"I don't care who I have to step on on my way down." - Tom Waits

We're all mad here.