mandyjw

Yep, pay attention when you go to bed and close your eyes. I used to write down color combinations and designs I'd see to use in art projects. I often see a star or an eye in the center. You can request with some accuracy the colors you see too, try it. Sometimes complete images just come up, that's where my avatar came from. Doesn't mean anything though, all fun and games in the imagination of experience.

What if we fundamentally misunderstand what intelligence is? Isn't using IQ as a way to judge and assess people at all the archaic thing we should do away with? Could Molyneux actually accidentally serve at pointing out a much deeper problem here? I understand that that is not his intent or how he is being interpreted by his fans, but sometimes letting people speak what they believe has a way of illuminating everyone around them in ways they didn't intend. If everyone is too terrified of being shamed or called racist, a lot of people will cling on to their unexamined prejudice beliefs like skeletons in the closet because they will be too scared to have the discussions that actually open minds and hearts.

@Apparition of Jack I know, but it's essentially still all your perception of society and societal pressures as a whole, but as individuals we have all the freedom in the world to do as we please and see things as we please. I've been spoiled, I grew up in a poor rural area of the US so I've had access to all the freedoms and most of the opportunities but felt very little of the pressure for material success. What little I've achieved seems more than enough. Whenever I've traveled and visited cities I feel this intense excitement and motivation and then a nauseous feeling and longing for home sets in. It takes major practice, presence and focus to take the inspiration, leave the rest and not be overly effected by the energy of your environment and the people around you. Nothing makes you want wild sex, hot cars, a burger and an ice cream cone like living in an Ashram and nothing makes you want to live in an ashram like being surrounded by wild sex, hot cars, burgers and ice cream. Ah... freedom. Such fickle creatures we are. The only real freedom there is is freedom from being fickle and seeing through desire itself. Desire is spirituality itself, without desire there's no need for God or divine connection, it's just whatever is. In those terms Americans are intensely spiritual.

I wear one because it's requested/required that I do. It to protect others, not myself and I understand that. It doesn't bother me at all, it's like washing my hands after I use the bathroom, something you just do without thinking about it. I believe masks offer even more protection that they functionally provide by visually being a sign and reminder to be careful and keep your distance. I am hopeful that we will continue the use of masks as a normal but not required thing in the future during flu season. If we want to travel freely and have an interconnected world, we have to start being more considerate about the spread of viruses.

I think the values of freedom and the "American dream" have deeply spiritual roots, which is why America is the birthplace of the law of attraction spiritual teachings. "Think and Grow Rich" is America's flavor of spirituality. Most people exclude the material world from spirituality, but it's unavoidably a part of the whole. The misunderstanding of materialism can be interpreted differently depending on your ideals and the success you see and believe is possible growing up. It's usually shunned rather than embraced by those who see themselves as spiritual but can never be transcended that way. I love the horse race analogy. But it's not a race really, just a pack of wild mustangs doing what they do.

I don't have a single perspective. I'm constantly trying on different ones at different times. It's like playing dress up. Don't confuse the clothes for the "person".

Still gotta take the time to write the story of how this video got made.

@Preety_India Each tribe has their own unique culture, so it's easiest and more accurate to specific tribes themselves. Because of this most natives prefer to identify and describe themselves within their own specific tribe, rather than the more umbrella term of Native American. There are of course similarities between tribes though. Regionally there are vast differences between tribes as the geography of the US is so varied among other factors. I think this book might be just what you're looking for. https://www.amazon.com/Braiding-Sweetgrass-Indigenous-Scientific-Knowledge/dp/1571313567

Breaking up with myself be like,"It's been real, it's been fun, but it hasn't been real fun."

"It is like deep sleep — you do not give up your bed when you fall asleep — you just forget it." - Nisargadatta Maharaj Puns really blur the line between fun and pain, don't they, even the word "pun" is a fusion of those two words.

M: Attachment destroys courage. The giver is always ready to give. The taker is absent. Freedom means letting go. People just do not care to let go everything. They do not know that the finite is the price of the infinite, as death is the price of immortality. Spiritual maturity lies in the readiness to let go everything. The giving up is the first step. But the real giving up is in realizing that there is nothing to give up, for nothing is your own. It is like deep sleep — you do not give up your bed when you fall asleep — you just forget it. Oh, there's no time to sleep Oh, living in a dream

@Kiko Do you believe that your happiness is in the hands of others? Do you believe your happiness is dependent on how others see you? This is the core belief behind the OCD. The OCD is trying to point this out to you. Most people live their lives thinking others are responsible for their happiness but you've got this very pressing awareness, (albeit presenting in an unconventional way) that that is NOT the case.

Well try to make it fun and inspired, don't turn it into another task that has to happen for any particular outcome. Is there an instrument you want to learn or explore, or drawing, or anything like that? Or make it even easier and just watch some youtube videos on creative subjects? Or look at art websites for inspiration. Even watching music videos can inspire ideas. Absolutely anything can be creative, it's not about the subject it's about how you approach thinking about it.

@Sandy6 I had OCD manifest in very similar ways such as you did, I also grew up in a religious home. Mine was "promise your soul to the devil". Carl Jung had this vision of God pooping on a church steeply, and had great relief when he allowed himself to have the vision and let it go. The OCD you experience is like an inner voice that forces you to destroy your ideas of right and wrong and destroy your attempts to be good and pure. It also forces you to dis-identify from your thoughts. Most people believe that they are in control of their thoughts and are thinking their thoughts but that's just not the case, for anyone. We believe that we live in a dualistic world, of opposites and things to avoid. There is right and wrong, pure and dirty, good and bad, etc. To someone with these kinds of thoughts nonduality and spirituality does not seem like a choice at all, it feels as if it's being forced on us, but by the thoughts that we believe are ours and coming from our own heads. This is experienced as something incredibly uncomfortable until we question what we are, what thoughts are and what they really have to do with each other. This kind of contemplation and questioning, along with mediation, mindfulness, consciousness work and self LOVE is the medicine. This voice is really attempting to free you from your own suffering. We make the mistake of blaming the impulses and voice FOR the suffering. It's not, it's illuminating it, it's showing our own suffering and resistance to us. It's an amazing gift. Mediation and studying nonduality and spirituality is key to accepting this gift, that comes in really scary ugly wrapping paper. This forum is a great place to start. Studying the Law of Attraction, Abraham Hicks was a huge help to me. OCD turns into impulses, which is intuition which leads you to joy and the unfolding of life you want to live the most. Again this is not a problem, it's a gift. If you can see what it is and what it's trying to liberate your from, you instantly become liberated from it. This won't happen until we realize that the voice itself is not what we need to be liberated from. You cannot let it go until you stop trying to get rid of it. What you resist persists. I know, I KNOW that sounds crazy to a mind that thinks it knows right from wrong and insanity from sanity. But THAT is the crazy part.

Is this a wake? Or awake? It doesn't have a perspective though, so pure imagination reigns freeeeeeeee.

Ripped off from Oneness, like a page torn out of a book that makes absolutely no sense all on its own.

We fear the unknown because we believe that we know what we are so what's unknown therefore must be something other than us and threatening to us. Love is true not knowing but fear is the mind's interpretation of not knowing, it's the mind's attempt to know the unknown based on what it thinks itself to be, (separate and finite) then it imagines its imagined boogeymen as something real. It doesn't know how ridiculous it's being. You are the monster at the end of this book.

1 plus 1, hmm, I'll just put them next to each other like this (11) since obviously they can't take up the same space at the same time, that would be ridiculous. They'll be like twins, sitting together on a bench. They look the same, and they are together, but they're still their own entities, with their own identities. So 11. Duh. Numbers have feelings too, you can't just do whatever you want with them, you PEOPLE.

It was years ago but I had a bliss kind of thing happen the next morning after I had my wisdom teeth out. Thought it was the pain meds but, no, it was some sort of short lived after effect from the anesthesia.

Ideas of beauty are absolutely not beauty itself. Beauty is not knowing what you're looking at. You don't need any reasons to or not to awaken. It's just something that seems to happen sometimes, to no one, like experiencing beauty. You don't have any choice in the matter.

I started a blog for nonduality. https://mandylightonearth.blogspot.com/ I'm probably going to put some old stuff I've written up there as I come across it. I'll probably continue my journal with my random, spontaneous freedom that I currently love so much and post the "useful" stuff to the blog. Although my perceived differences between creative expression and knowledge sharing is starting to die. “The man, the art, the work--it is all one.” ― Eugen Herrigel

@Shiva99 Try gratitude journaling, then revisit/continue those thoughts in the day when you start to focus on the thoughts that don't feel good. Or start a dream board, or dream up a story to plan and write in your head when you start to get on negative trains of thought. Don't make all thoughts the enemy but make sure to choose your friends wisely.

No, I suck at strategy. I'm just a white pawn who thought the game was stupid and the black king was incredibly attractive so I made my way over there while no one was paying attention just to get a better look at him. No one told me what would happen. It was a huge shock. Now I'm still in the game and the white king still thinks I'm his. ??

NO!!! You can't lose! You created the concept of loss just so that you could WIN! Ta DA!

I used to think that! But it's only because no one is doing anything anyway, already, so it's not like you had another choice. You just became conscious of effortlessness. Cheating implies that you think it should be hard work and that there are rules that must be followed. I'm pretty sure JK Rowling rigged the "game" of her story to have Voldemort lose in the end. It wasn't a fair fight. Harry Potter cheated, obviously. Think about how much work you'd have to put in to make a cheeseburger if you insisted on doing every single thing yourself and had to grow the wheat, tomatoes, and raise, milk, slaughter the cow all on your own? Or you could take advantage of other's assistance and go to McDonald's. Would that be cheating?