mandyjw

"As a child, Warner attended his mother's Episcopal church, though his father was a Roman Catholic.[10][11] He attended Heritage Christian School from first to 10th grade. In that school, his instructors tried to show children what music they were not supposed to listen to; Warner then fell in love with what he "wasn't supposed to do".[12] Warner later transferred to GlenOak High School and graduated from there in 1987. After relocating with his parents, he became a student at Broward Community College in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1990. He was working towards a degree in journalism, gaining experience in the field by writing articles for the music magazine 25th Parallel.[13]" Manson was a friend of Anton LaVey,[123][124] who even inducted him as a minister in the Church of Satan, although Manson downplayed this. When questioned whether he was a minister in the Church of Satan by Bill O'Reilly, Manson responded with "No, not necessarily. That was something earlier. It was a friend of mine who's now dead, who was a philosopher that I thought I learned a lot from. And that was a title I was given, so a lot of people made a lot out of it. But it's not a real job, I didn't get paid for it."[125] As a result, he has been described as "the highest profile Satanist ever" with strong anti-Christian views and social Darwinist leanings.[126] However, Manson himself denies this, and stated the following: "I'm not a misanthrope. I'm not a nihilist. I'm not an atheist. I believe in spirituality, but it really has to come from somewhere else. I learned a long time ago, you can't try to change the world, you can just try to make something in it. I think that's my spirituality, it's putting something into the world. If you take all the basic principles of any religion, it's usually about creation. There's also destruction, but creation essentially. I was raised Christian. I went to a Christian school, because my parents wanted me to get a better education. But when I got kicked out I was sent to public school, and got beat up more by the public school kids. But then I'd go to my friend's Passover and have fun." — Marilyn Manson[127] Manson is also familiar with the writings of Aleister Crowley and Friedrich Nietzsche. He quotes Crowley throughout his autobiography, including Thelema's principal dictum, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."[128] Crowley's esoteric subject matter forms an important leitmotif in much of Manson's early work.[129] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Manson

@zeroISinfinity Yeah.

HOLY FUCK! He is brilliant. How did I miss this! The rabbit's just a monkey in disguise. Fuck.

Jesus really did die and redeem the world. Is everything, really everything, redeemed then? When I was a kid, my mom was deeply disturbed by Marilyn Manson who was super popular at the time. For my sister's graduation they chose the colors of black, white and red. Mom thought these had horrible inspiration roots, probly cause Marilyn Manson. I remember thinking red and white were deeply symbolic of the blood and purity of Christ. I left out the black though. Did you want to get enlightened Mandy, or finally earn to really appreciate art? Like I said, above about the fonts, the difference is just cosmetic.

I like men who act like assholes because I want to stop making myself act so fucking nice all the time. You're not actually that nice. STFU, the title of this journal is "Just Imagine", and you're just an imaginary italicized voice. And what are you? An imaginary standard font voice.

@SonataAllegro You might find this video helpful, there is seeing that you are everything, radical inclusiveness, and then there is seeing what you are not which is profoundly liberating, ultimately the two are one. However you can see why it seems that you may embody one at one time more than the other. Trust your feeling, if the state feels good and it doesn't feel like escape before and after, it's healing and if taking on emotional pain head on is what's necessary it will prepare you to be ready and for that to be an experience of release and clarity rather than pain of forced problem solving.

I'm going through a whole lot of worthiness stuff right now, feeling some feelings bubble up. I have a video in the making, and I don't know what it will evolve into, but it turned into an attempt to teach and then the shock of realizing I'm the one being taught. Usually when that happens so rudely and abruptly, I don't post the video, but I think maybe I want to show the process. I've realized that this journal and a lot of my videos are a kind of psychological stripping. It's like I have such low self esteem, that instead of trying raise it and present myself as someone worthy or respect, I'm trying to find rock bottom through authenticity and transparency and instead realizing it's a strange loop. Anything else just feels horrible to me. You have to throw your self protective feelings away and delve deep into vulnerability to do such a thing. And when you start to, they bubble up. You're inviting them in to be faced. The truth is I deeply love people, I deeply hate them and they deeply terrify me. I avoid them for the most part, and because of this I'm able to entertain some pretty fantastical imaginations about humanity and avoid the trouble implicit in imagining myself and how I relate to it. I deeply wanted to disappear, but that felt awful. Who am I to show up and be seen? If I cannot disappear I should blend in with my surroundings and not get attention. I should always please everyone, I cannot ever cause them pain or inconvenience. A surgeon heals and saves lives by cutting people's flesh. What a monster. I seek to do this to people psychologically, what a monster. My own facade showed through the process of trying to make the video, to the point where I was laughing at thought of the very topic it was about itself. Yet what I wanted to accomplish was seen in such clarity, it seems a shame to throw away such magic to scratch it to purposefully create a more polished facade for the next. I have spent a huge amount of time this week working on improving my videos. Who am I to do such a thing? I figured out the video-making function of the camera I use to photograph my work, and figured out a lens that my husband bought me as a gift a few years ago, a way too expensive gift I never used, after I complained that he was buying his coworker an expensive gift and never bought me anything. That's because I tried to control the gifts and told him not to buy me them. He should have known that meant he can't buy other people gifts either. I have felt bad for years that he wasted money on this expensive unused camera lens, and I should have sold it or somehow figured out a use for it. I felt he bought it only because I complained. This is the event that caused me to search "how to deal with anger and discover Leo's videos in the end of 2014. Anyway this lens is the only one that works to film video, something I couldn't quite figure out before Friday... I didn't think it was worth the time to figure out. You must learn how to accept a gift in order to give one. I want the video making to be effortless. Not that I don't actually, physically, put lots of work into it, but emotionally effortless. It's the psychological self that makes it an effort. I think maybe I was a bit confused as to what effort is, and what I try to avoid and praise when it comes to effort. It feels like everything, everything, in my way is out here staring at me in the face. Like my very reflection in a mirror.

@arlin When I was 21 I didn't give this stuff more than a vague consideration and if I considered too long it would scare and depress me. I was completely immersed in building my life as I knew it. Ultimately there's no conflict whatsoever between going for what you truly want in life and letting go. You can learn by doing and grasping or you can try to learn to let go. The first time I saw Eckhart Tolle on a screen I was so angry I had an outburst. Later immersed myself in his teachings. Didn't like Jim Newman either, now he is one of my favorites. The message evolves. Teacher and student are one. There's nothing wrong with going with what you feel is right for yourself. You're not missing out an anything, after all. Use suffering as an indication, when you go for everything you want in life and start to suffer rest in the sheer meaningless ultimate freedom of it. That's exactly how when you fall on your ass in life, you're able to bounce back without a second thought. This work is not about holding you back it's about realizing that there's no resistance on you that's not self-imposed, whatsoever.

It sounds like you might want to make more allowance for all your passions in life. Marriage thought about in general terms is a concept, not an actual thing. Marriages actually, are each unique bonds between two unique people, and even then all that makes a marriage a "marriage" is a piece of paper. If it's right or not is a question better saved for when it's asked about a particular person. Make a list of things that you love to do, small pleasures, or big ones. Schedule something fun for the future. Plan to try something you've been wanting to learn or try but have been putting off. When you get momentum, purpose and joy rolling in one area of your life, relationships effortlessly fall into place, or they don't need to and aren't missed. You don't need to know exactly where you're going to start the journey because there's no destination in this life adventure.

@soos_mite_ah It's worth taking a step back from it and exploring other things, even if you continue to study it and do your exploration in the form of hobbies, etc. It's funny how sometimes people make dramatic career changes, then find that the past career or area of study gave them a huge edge in the new career that they thought would never utilize those skills learned in the past. Life has a way of working out for us, even when it seems at some point like we chose the wrong thing.

You might try exploring music and art that's purposefully sad. There's a sort of transcendent beauty there and when enjoyed like this it's not personal. It might get it out of your system or trigger some creative emotional outlet of creating art of music like this yourself, who knows?

It's getting colder, and I caught myself feeling really sad that I couldn't swim anymore. The swimming makes me feel amazing and I'm in the best shape I've ever been in. I decided to make myself go swimming anyway today and the idea of it felt so good. Then I wanted to balk. I intellected (yep, it's a word, cause I say so) myself through it. I took a sweater and a thermos of hot tea. I didn't really get that cold after anyway. I wonder how long I can continue. How quickly we assume our limitations and feel sad about them as if they are out of our control long before they really are. I crossed the river and raided an apple tree up on a hill. Filled a bath towel full of them and put them in fridge. Sounds crazy but I think the human microbiome was made to (intelligently) eat wild things that have some insect damage. I run in the woods with my dog every single day, and walk part of it. My dad cut out a whole new woods road, so we have two trails that loop. I think part of my stomach/back problems with running was the higher mileage on pavement. The trail running challenges all kinds of other muscles as well as being much less low impact. I wouldn't trade some of those crazy long runs for the world though. Someday soon I might just go out for one again. Eating a lot of protein, celery juice every morning, and lots of veggies and for the first time ever a ton of fruit without problems. My stomach problem is mostly, entirely healed, but I know it's connected with some back and hip issues from the running as well as my stomach (an honestly, everything else including emotions). I was on the low FODMAPS diet for over a year. I still can't eat too many beans or pea protein, no eggs, no bananas. I saw a chiropractor and that was way too violent and ineffective for my tastes. Butt massage then, SNAP, SNAP. No thanks. I can see how it would work for some though. I'm going to see a massage therapist someday, soon. Life is just so magically, fucking perfect in the summer. It's so easy to get everything right. I seem to need a lot of outdoor time to stay in the vortex or whatever language you want to to use. Seems my psychological shit hits the fan and then is let go of and seen through stuff seems to be triggered by long winters though. Embracing seasons and embracing cycles of life and death, growth and die back, and who knows what tomorrow will look like, but whatever it is, it's all happening for you, to you and by you, cause you're the author of it, who doesn't exist. The author and the character are one, the author knows the character, but the character can never know the author. They are at the same time integrally one, and yet they also never, ever merge. Kind of like the sun and the moon. One seems to cycle, but it doesn't really, it cyclically reflects the other that never changes.

Why didn't J K Rowling write Harry Potter into a perfectly good fantasy magical world? Why did she come up with Voldemort and Dementors and kill his parents off before the story even started? What a bitch! You love the drama. Only when you're on the side of good, fighting for good, for some purpose and some transformation with the greater goal of love and courage with friends at your side and amazing wise teachers who love you and want the best for you. Herein the hero's journey encompasses the journey of the failure and the villain. And the hero of course. Hero- here - there There's no here or there. You're just fantasizing all of this out of your pure love and creativity for the story. And with that you can see why it's possible to have good and bad, right and wrong, love and hate, and yet. Not. Cause Voldemort ain't real.

Oh no you didn't.

That's probably because search lead them to your video and they were expecting a Christian point of view. Christians think yoga is evil, my aunt even loaned us this DVD to try to save us which made me want to hurl. https://www.amazon.com/PraiseMoves-Christian-Alternative-Laurette-Willis/dp/0736915842 I completely dismissed their fears during my rational atheist stage but also had absolutely no idea about the power of yoga and meditation or even just... whatever understanding or transformation was happening. Christians are 100% right because if you truly, truly believe and imagine that God is real and the Devil is real all your life but God must be accepted in and the Devil must be kept out, guess who you end up inviting in when you open doors you were told not to open? Ah, the power of imagination.

Everything Christians warn against happening is meditation is right, in a way. The problem is the wanted/unwanted filter and the assumption that someone has the choice or power to want to avoid... something. As soon as you say "Don't look behind that door, or don't eat from the tree," it's already done. By no one.

Did you get back in it again?

The direct path is the one of least resistance, so fun, whimsy, love, entertainment and frivolity suddenly become indispensable to enlightenment. in dispensable. ha. ha ha. HA.

"Anyone that says there's no price to this whole enlightenment thing, just joy and bliss, don't be quick to buy that." BUY, Adyashanti, don't buy the thing with no price? Did someone sneeze on the free cheese samples or something? I love the variety of spiritual teachings one can say to you and not be wrong, as you navigate these tantalizingly deceptive mystic mists of the psyche. When I was a kid, my parents took me to this cave park and I got lost in a cave and I figured no one knew I was lost or cared, so it never occurred to me that the guide speaking overhead was a park guide who was actually giving me instructions on how to get out. Had to find the way on my own. Huh, this post got too journaly and personal so I decided not to reply to the thread and post here. Then I accidentally posted there. What evs I guess, everyone here knows I'm crazy anyway.

"Anyone that says there's no price to this whole enlightenment thing, just joy and bliss, don't be quick to buy that." BUY, Adyashanti, don't buy the thing with no price? Did someone sneeze on the free cheese samples or something? I love the variety of spiritual teachings one can say to you and not be wrong, as you navigate these tantalizingly deceptive mystic mists of the psyche. When I was a kid, my parents took me to this cave park and I got lost in a cave and I figured no one knew I was lost or cared, so it never occurred to me that the guide speaking overhead was a park guide who was actually giving me instructions on how to get out. Had to find the way on my own.

By how it feels, do you enjoy the process and the learning itself or just the accolades? Doing what you love is taking the path of least resistance. Doing what you're good at is taking the path of least resistance. The two are not at odds, so they usually go hand in hand, even though this seems to be too good to be true, it makes sense. When there is resistance it could mean you're doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons or it could mean you have the wrong mindset, or some sort of misunderstanding about it.

@beastcookie It doesn't though. If you want the wisdom, intuition and spiritual connection of the crone, you gotta stop being so disgusted by her and equating her with death.

Mirror, mirror on actualized.org, tell me who is the... ehmm... Nevermind. Question is flawed. Goddamn mirror has a zit on it. I put some acne cream on it but the zit keeps moving. I'll get it eventually though, even if I have to cover the whole goddamn mirror in it.