mandyjw

It's starting to dawn on me how "lucky" I am, within the story and especially without. It's all upside, even my apparent freedom to call it downside. Depression, anger, the lot of it has no meaning without a self concept or a standard to hold anything to. In fact being tired or depressed can be downright enjoyable when there's no one arguing against it. Writing that seems so wrong, but I assure you it is oh so right. I continually strived to have a self concept. Was my body hot or ugly? Was I a hard worker or lazy? Was I intelligent or stupid? Fun or boring? Was I a good person or a bad person? Was I making progress along the spiritual path? It doesn't make sense to try to freeze and seek security in a character in a story. Even if the character was real, which it isn't, it's ever-evolving, on a quest. I still get in the way. Feels kinda like being the last kid standing on the losing team of a dodgeball game when that happens.

@electroBeam The negative experience helps you to define what you want, but it's up to you to focus on and allow what you DO want. Use the past negative experience to clarify, not to hold up a fear that you try to secure yourself as some image or idea in response to. When you try to build anything up on a foundation of fear, relationship, business, self image, etc, it'll fall down by the grace of God until you learn the lesson that fear is not a good motivating factor to begin anything with. You see, this is exactly what you're second girlfriend didn't understand. She was constantly picking at you, telling you what to do, she had this image in her head of how she wanted you to be. Now you want to prevent this happening again by forming an image of yourself YOURSELF. See the irony? Just let go of the image and ideals.

You don't. There's no "norm" especially about something people don't talk about a lot, (or if they do, it's often for some other motivation other than being honest). People talk more about being horny and dirty because it's interesting and you remember it more because it's interesting. If I show you a bunch of landscape photos with people in them and ones without people, you'll remember the ones with people in them better. https://phys.org/news/2011-05-image-tend-pictures-people-wide.html That's because we identify as a person, therefore are most interested in other people and personhood. Let go of the pressure of having to know how you fit in with some standard or with "what most people do." Your idea of "most people" is always biased and imaginary, which means you're completely free to let it go or change it into whatever you'd like it to be. Just do what feels best to you, you were always completely free to do just that. What do you truly seek to gain by knowing what most people like or don't like and how you fit in?

@VeganAwake

Are you eating normally? We tend to fast during breakthroughs naturally, and then perpetuates the lack of sleep. If you're not eating much, eat. Especially carbs.

Because the belief that they are unreal makes Donald Trump real in contrast. Thank GOD that's not the case. Or it wants to off itself. Either literally or through spiritual/psychological suicide with the belief that there's no me. I've been there. There's no you and no me but that's still a belief, a pointer, a thorn until it's not. Like you said that there's a separate sense of self that seems to be located in the body, in my experience apparent suffering is the only real indicator that there's something pretending to be there. Feeling is the only real indicator, thoughts don't matter whether my imaginary friend is real or unreal, it's all about how I feel about it.

Yes, or you could say it's the only thing that is in one sense "real". You could say your "real" life is a dream, or you could say Santa Claus and your imaginary childhood friend is real. Yes, I was referring more to throwing away the pointer of nonduality itself, the pointer is the second thorn. You apparently have conditioning, you believe certain things about having been born and having a brain, etc, so by bringing in new beliefs and new conditioning ("you were never born, you don't have a brain", "you are God" etc) you can remove and destroy the old ones. In the end none should remain. There was a point in time over a year ago that I really believed nonduality was this thing separate from duality. I wasn't conscious of it. All my new conditioning I'd spend hours learning from Eckhart Tolle with great progress in my life suddenly stopped working, and the new conditioning got thrown away as new insights flooded in. I'm still working through the same pattern by considering and testing new beliefs against old ones, and throwing them away.

Searched "how to deal with anger" on youtube 6 years ago. Learned a WHOLE lot of life transforming stuff since then, but I still get pissed off sometimes. Feels kinda like going into Target to buy toothpaste and coming out with no toothpaste and $200 worth of stuff.

Kidding, Khiding. I crack myself up.

Oh my GOD. I just ate an apple and am still holding the apple core in my hand. No kidding.

The only way you can talk about nonduality is by making distinctions. There's an analogy of using a thorn to remove the thorn that's stuck under the skin, then throwing thorns both away.

My son just brought me his Mario Maker level he made to play. I went through it and ended up immediately dying when I went through the door. When I asked him why, he said, "That's what non suspicious levels are! You have to die to win!"

I love it. Happy Father's Day!!!

Judgement based on a being a person with a certain perspective. Or the presence of fear because of a belief that there's a person with something to lose.

@Nahm “If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most, or else just silly.” ― C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe “No, little friend,’ said the Lion. ‘You have not made the first joke, you have only been the first joke.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia: "The Magician's Nephew", "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"

@Tonyn Looks like Humpty Dumpty

@zeroISinfinity Love is scary. Not really, but seems that way at first. Glad I'm not the only one.

Oh, almost paradise We're knockin' on heaven's door Almost paradise How could we ask for more? I swear that I can see forever in your eyes Paradise

Had a mindset shift today, noticed the pattern that my libido is higher when I am a few pounds heavier than I like, which is a probably a mindset thing more that physiological. So why am I still trying to fit myself to a standard *I* made up so I can *think* other people find me desirable just so I can feel desirable? Is the thought of being desirable better than desire? Actually I hate that thought. There's a whole lot of other complicating thoughts that come from this sort of thing. My husband is fine with me whatever weight, and if I want to concern myself with someone's opinion it should be his, so what? Just added a whole new meaning to the phrase, "letting yourself go" Oh... Ben. Oh... Jerry. When I found Leo's videos I was looking for how to deal with anger after a big outburst because my husband bought a really expensive gift for a friend without asking me. I had basically trained him not to buy me gifts at that point. It was a bunch of computer parts. A couple months ago he bought an expensive part for his computer and found out today that it wouldn't fit. In the past I'd be really upset by this and say something to make him feel worse but I didn't, I tried to be sympathetic and just let him deal with the stress of it himself. Later he found a friend to give/sell it to. I felt really happy about that and said so. It just seemed like funny synchronicity, resolution or something like that.

A while ago I watched a guy walk calmly with another guy across the parking lot, one of them sang Shania Twain's "You Win My Love" as loud as possible while the other pretended that nothing out of the ordinary was going on. It totally made my day. I love this music video and the varied responses of the onlookers.

I got it from my mama, says will.i.am. I think it's more like will I am.

@Godhead It's really just a way of saying feeling. If the universe is thought of as "energetic" and you are one with it, that's your indication of connection or disconnection.

I wonder if Christianity as it is understood and commonly interpreted by most, is an attempt to secure the self and stop seeking. "I have been saved, this debt has been paid, I am free from my sin and free from death." There's a true and honest understanding here that changes people's lives. Yet, the Christian believes they have hacked (Jesus did it for them) the energy of seeking, so they discourage any kind of spiritual seeking outside the secular materialistic world. Don't look, don't open the door, you might open it to demons and monsters. "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."- Jesus Christians- "STFU Jesus, we're all good now. Close the GODDAMN door, it's getting COLD in here!" Hence the Gospel of Thomas doesn't make it into the Protestant Bible. This divide between what is spiritual and what is materialistic doesn't exist and doesn't work out though so the Christian self still seeks because he must and sometimes in the most dramatic fashion finds that the divide is non existent. When I was a teenager it infuriated me that Christians didn't seek within the spiritual realm, didn't feel, it felt to me like they had checked a box off on a multiple choice question they hadn't even read. Funny, Christianity reminds me of the neo-advaita side of things sometimes. I had a hard time coming around to it. Some of the teachers I've found recently have carefully read all the possible answers to the multiple choice question though. They realized it wasn't a test question after all but an opinion survey just to note your preference. So of course it doesn't matter. It's just there for your creative expression. "You can't get it wrong and you never get it done." -Abraham Hicks

Habakkuk 2:11 For the stones will cry out from the wall, and the rafters will echo it from the woodwork. Luke 19: 40 “I tell you,” He answered, “if they remain silent, the very stones will cry out.” Psalm 96:11 Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof.

Be Melting Snow Totally conscious, and apropos of nothing, you come to see me. Is someone here? I ask. The moon. The full moon is inside your house. My friends and I go running out into the street. I'm in here, comes a voice from the house, but we aren't listening. We're looking up at the sky. My pet nightingale sobs like a drunk in the garden. Ringdoves scatter with small cries, Where, Where. It's midnight. The whole neighborhood is up and out in the street thinking, The cat burglar has come back. The actual thief is there too, saying out loud, Yes, the cat burglar is somewhere in this crowd. No one pays attention. Lo, I am with you always means when you look for God, God is in the look of your eyes, in the thought of looking, nearer to you than your self, or things that have happened to you There's no need to go outside. Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself. A white flower grows in quietness. Let your tongue become that flower. -Rumi