mandyjw

Response to a thread I wrote that I wanted to copy here. Other people are thoughts, unless they are in our presence. You don't actually like or dislike anyone, what you like or dislike is the thoughts you have about them. This is based on how thinking those thoughts feels to you. We assume that another person is a solid, objectifiable thing that we can judge, but it's not, it's always a concept outside our present experience and our relationships with others are a cluster of judgments, thoughts and feelings. If you want to act out of what we could call Infinite Love or Truth, you always, always choose the best feeling thought you can about another person. If you believe the person has reality, objectifiable existence and substance on their own outside of thoughts you'll have a multitude of reasons you believe in to continue to think thoughts about them that don't feel good and aren't True. "That person is jealous of me and wants to see me fail." feels bad. "That person is inspired by something I'm reflecting and sees me as a threat because of their own fear. How can I help them own the inspiration and automatically in doing so, forget the fear?" feels good. In both those thoughts above you're still "imagining" the person. You still interact with people but it changes how you do so because you've completely redefined what YOU are and what OTHERS are. There is no longer any excuse whatsoever to not meet reality and others with unconditional love. You are the meeting itself. Nothing else makes sense anymore. Nothing else feels better. Life goes on, much better, with much more connection and love than ever before. There's nothing scary or lonely about it. If it were to be scary or lonely, there'd still be a you and an other for those things to even come up at all.

So I'm realizing that all my relationships are imaginary, thoughts about people are imaginary. It's never anyone I like or don't like, it's the thoughts about them that I like or don't like. Holy motherfucking grail of OBVIOUS revelations. I don't know why Leo teaches with the flavor of "you're the only one the universe so you should be really fucking lonely" but again, it's not Leo but my thoughts about him I don't like. GODDAMN IT!!!! I've started realizing this with my husband, being very careful about the thoughts I thought of him and watching the love and connection arise. Then something unexpected happened. Like a whack a mole game of negative thinking, I started hating my dog instead. Which in my defense, he is a super high energy breed at a really difficult age. Last night I went with him to Dr.P's platform and realized that all the traits that I think I regret about the dog are things I don't own about myself. Fearful, obsessive, energetic, anxious, determined, intensely loving, crazy. The whole walk was a beautiful indulgence of stories. I understand imagination, the nature of reality and I understand why imagining/uncovering the story of an awake and kindred spirit person who lived so long ago would "break" my reality and reveal the illusion. Someday I want to write a book about it. I deleted the videos I made telling about it at first. They were too "out there". I felt too out there. I'm still "understanding" (telling myself anew) the story. As someone who sometimes imagines herself to be a witch, (not really but kinda) it would make sense that she would create her reality in close connection with plants and animals. And the connection that lead me to this dog was too strong to be doubted. "Mistakes" don't pan out when there's no self, no time, no past no duality and not two. So could I have outsourced these qualities into an animal to get me to disown/reclaim LET GO of them myself? Can I love both my god AND my husband? I just typoed god when I meant dog. Ah, well. I'll just leave it there. As I said, mistakes don't pan out.

Again, the wild diversity of the US is going to make for a wide varieties of stories about guns. Rural areas (where you're more likely to run across a rabid animal than a crazy person) have some pretty practical reasons for having positive feelings about guns. If fear is an illusion there's no convincing another person that his feeling of fear or safety is completely illusory and unfounded on anything. Whether we're talking about mask wearing, COVID, vaccines, guns, border security, police or any other topic, that's the really issue at heart. We is scared and we want to feel safe. We actually believe that security is a possibility that we can lock down outside of our own feeling.

Americans have grasped a very fundamental spiritual truth. Life is for living, the feeling of freedom is worth more than the security that comes with being a slave to fear. However we have a materialistic misunderstanding about what freedom really is, and so we are still driven by a fear of our freedoms being taken or lost. Freedom is a feeling that can never be taken, it's Love itself. Playing Devil's advocate is free will's favorite game. We have reactive impulses to correct imbalance, not seeing that imbalance is fundamentally whole in itself. There is no us, no other and the notion of balance is imaginary. True freedom is when we are no longer compelled by our reactive impulses. True freedom requires no protection, no one can take it. Someone who reacts automatically against his freedoms being taken is in that moment completely automatic, a slave. It's almost as bad as someone who seeks their security in trusting in some sort of a structure. Until freedom is understood on a psychological and spiritual level, we're gonna continue to fight with each other.

I like to think that in 100 years we'll look something like Denmark does now. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-denmark/fast-in-first-out-denmark-leads-lockdown-exit-idUSKBN22U1TC We just have such a huge population of a wild variety of outlooks, ideals and lifestyles. It's awesome but scary when people need to work together.

@DrewNows Libra

Funny synchronicity, I just came from visiting my aunt and my kids wanted to eat all the rest of the cookies on the plate she brought out so I gave them names so they'd feel guilty about eating them. Didn't work though. I started the Kyballion, liked it, but haven't gotten back to it. I do remember that I really liked the quote, too much maybe, "As above so below". When i say it in my head it sounds exactly like the super dramatic low, manly voice of the guy who read the audio recording. I know exactly what you mean. I think we impose some sort of expectation on ourselves that we should always be engaged with stuff the same way, or always hard working, healthy habits, or whatever other trait we would like to see. But one of the best things of this work is letting go of that and just letting moods and phases ebb and flow. Of course I say this, but still pick at myself for everything. One of the things I read recently in "I Am That" is that it's very difficult to NOT do a whole lot of unnecessary things. That's how most of us seek to structure our lives and use self actualization to optimize. We build up the separate self and then out of utter frustration of not being able to perfect it, end up here, questioning what the self really is, and what and how it "does" things. I was at the river recently and tried to catch an eel with my hands. Only instead of trying to catch the eel I tried with my mind to command my hand movements to prove to myself that I was doing it and watched how the reflexes and physical movements and conscious direction from my mind were interlinked. They were entirely disconnected but seemed somewhat connected. To my mind. My mind is just an asshole party crasher sometimes.

Yes, "shadow work" is the attempt at seeing what we really are and integration is something like a falling away that can seem a lot like discipline and retraining the mind away from old thought patterns. We think we have to do something about it and often get in the way, but our intent and desire itself is never wasted.The trick is that we want to think that we've done or gained something but there's just letting go of having a self image seeking any sort of validation from anything. Enlightenment and spirituality is actually stupidly simple, we suffer and we truly desire to feel better. When it strikes you how simple and utterly vulnerable and human is, it's devastatingly beautiful or else just funny. A lot of the times we suffer but our desire to feel better is not 100% real. Something in us wants to perpetuate the suffering. Shadow work is the attempt at seeing the mistaken belief that causes the suffering. The seeing just happens. We sometimes struggle to integrate because we don't always choose feeling better or choosing the mind patterns that we used to think of as our self. I've read some hermetic teachings, they do resonate but I haven't studied them much. After the awakening I found that I resonated with and became aware of so much more than ever, that all the choices and suggestions seem overwhelming at times and other times it feels like I live in the most wonderful world of choices and opportunities to learn and see in new ways. Yes, when we get out of the way, that's all that seems to be left.

@Raptorsin7 I didn't. I still feel that way and suffer too, and buy into the story that I feel that way and suffer. Not any real structure or routine except for the first thing in the morning. Binge eating chocolate happens. Ah, good times. Doesn't sheer freedom feel great? When I truly examine the suffering and step out of the way, it goes away too. Just one key point, RELAX. There's nothing you can do. Drop the belief that there's something you can do. Or even wait for. Just love the journey, the spiritual "work", the interactions on the forum, interactions with teachers, trips, meditation, the life you lead that doesn't seem to be spiritually centered. Even love your own anxiety and desire. Love the junk food, love the healthy food. Life is a buffet. There's a lot of shit at a buffet you don't want for various reasons. There's a lot that you do want for various reasons. Stop thinking everything in your sight has to look great to you. It's a goddamn buffet. You don't get to control what's offered at the buffet, but you do get to select from it. Just focus on and enjoy what you do want, in this very moment. This moment is the buffet. Love is alive, it's full of a spectrum of emotions, ups and downs, progress and relapses. The only way to feel alive is to stop resisting feeling all of them and all the depths.

What Would Jesus Do, WWJD? What Would Love Do? WWLD? Shut The Fuck Up. STFU. Anyone wanna buy a bracelet?

M: I am not talking of suppression. Just refuse attention. Q: Must I not use effort to arrest the movements of the mind? M: It has nothing to do with effort. Just turn away, look between the thoughts, rather than at the thoughts. When you happen to walk in a crowd, you do not fight every man you meet — you just find your way between. Q: If I use my will to control the mind, it only strengthens the ego. M: Of course. When you fight, you invite a fight. But when you do not resist, you meet with no resistance. When you refuse to play the game, you are out of it. "Dodgeball is kind of a stupid game, isn't it?"

@Raptorsin7 "Questioner: My own spiritual experience has its seasons. Sometimes I feel glorious, then again I am down. I am like a lift boy — going up, going down, going up, going down. Maharaj: All changes in consciousness are due to the ‘I-am-the-body’ idea. Divested of this idea the mind becomes steady. There is pure being, free of experiencing anything in particular. But to realize it you must do what your teacher tells you. Mere listening, even memorizing, is not enough. If you do not struggle hard to apply every word of it in your daily life, don’t complain that you made no progress. All real progress is irreversible. Ups and downs merely show that the teaching has not been taken to heart and translated into action fully." M: When you are infected with the ‘I-am-the-body’ virus, a whole universe springs into being. But when you have had enough of it, you cherish some fanciful ideas about liberation and pursue lines of action totally futile. You concentrate, you meditate, you torture your mind and body, you do all sorts of unnecessary things, but you miss the essential which is the elimination of the person. Q: In the beginning we may have to pray and meditate for some time before we are ready for self-enquiry. M: If you believe so, go on. To me, all delay is a waste of time. You can skip all the preparation and go directly for the ultimate search within. Of all the Yogas it is the simplest and the shortest.

"Don't let your heart be hardened Don't let your love grow cold May it always stay so childlike May it never grow too old Don't let your heart be hardened May you always know the cure Keep it broken before Jesus Keep it thankful, meek and pure May it always feel compassion May it beat as one with God's May it never be contrary May it never be at odds May it always be forgiving May it never know conceit May it always be encouraged May it never know defeat May your heart be always open Never satisfied with right May your heart be filled with courage And be strengthened with all might Let His love rain down upon you -(dodgeballs, mother fuckers) Breaking up your fallow ground Let it loosen all the binding Till only tenderness is found"

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. It couldn't be a black woman who "made" Eckhart Tolle. And FUCKING OBAMA FOR CHRIST'S SAKES! It had, to be RSD to be "ballin". THIS FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT FORUM. FUCK LEO. FUCK THE HERO'S JOURNEY. FUCK YOU ALL and you're complete disregard for women while your pretend to want to do right by them. GO LITERALLY FUCK YOURSELVES, THAT'S ALL YOU PREACH AND ALL YOU want to do anyway. If you actually knew how to properly disregard women, you'd be doing just fine. The "I am the body idea" creates a lot of turmoil.

RSD? No. It was Oprah.

Well, please don't assume or feel that there's any blame and shame there because there isn't. We've co-created this story. It's just something that should come along with the awareness that we're creating this, all beliefs about masculine and feminine, authority and submission, control and controller need to be examined. If we do indeed want to create something different, then really looking at the narratives we buy into without identifying with them is the way.

No, you wrote the fairytale story of the feminine being suppressed and dominated so you can be the knight in shining armor to "save" it. You ARE what dominates, suppresses and belittles.

Yes but feminine and masculine are patterns created by the mind, they are distinctions you created and imagined. The empty space is beyond mind. What is the balance you actually seek, do you want more feminine energy (which is a projection and judgement based on what you imagine it to be) or do you want to move beyond mind?

@justfortoday Thank God, if there were I'd bet they'd be assholes. Kinda like the Old Testament God or something. There are no hot witches. A witch is a woman who is both as hideous as she is beautiful. Snow White is the very hag witch who gave herself a poisoned apple because she wanted to kill her own naivete and fear of age and decay.

Nah, you've just trained your mind itself to see that way. You see and appreciate the structure of the house and the walls of the room but not the space it provides that makes it possible for you to be housed in it.

You get to define success for yourself. That's the beauty of it. Success is meant to be inspiration of what's possible. The possibility of it adds a charge and excitement to life. But if it's something you need and you actually think more about the opposite of success rather than success itself, then it's better to just give that shit up.

@George Paul Awakening seems to be an experience that happens to a person. It's an experience of what's true merging with what's false in a way that it never has before. It's sort of an in and out insight, a realization for the first time that there's no you, and sheer possibility, love and bliss floods in. None of our distinctions are actually real, so I guess that's the reason for this phenomenon. The person can own this experience, or use it as a map, meant to be put away after the destination is reached. Awakening is not it, in the same way that being given a key to a treasure chest is not the treasure, even though you're incredibly overjoyed to have found that key. To anyone who believes that he is a self, other people will appear as selves, it doesn't matter what they've realized. Buddha or anyone else's realization is always going to be a story for the you, and part of you.

I just remembered that lately I've had semi conscious (semiconscious, what is that? ?) thoughts at night, in a half asleep, half awake state that come with physical pain. Thought comes then it's like followed by an electric shock like sensation of pain and I know it's coming. Usually constriction in my heart area. Who is thinking those thoughts?