mandyjw

Well... I've never met a self-proclaimed atheist, who didn't think they were an atheist. Maybe atheism is pure in itself, but then, how would it exist if no one held it as a belief system. Dunno. Head scratcher.

Atheists say I exist while God does not. So that's definitely not the message of zen or advaita.

@lostmedstudent Yes, this youtube channel has morphed bellydance into a more simplified workout form which is great if that's what you want, and good to learn the basic moves. If you want to get into the technical, artistic, aspects check out Irina Akulenko. She is just absolutely enchanting and also has how to videos, you can buy on Amazon. Yes!

Suffering is delusion. The beauty, the life, the love, the freedom, that's pure creation. You are afraid of being deluded. The fear is suffering. That's the delusion. It's too fucking perfect, too fucking amazing to even describe. It's so powerful and entrancing it creates moments of boredom and weakness just so that you can appreciate it all, the WHOLE of it, all the more. It's so perfectly totally whole that nothing can be said that it allows itself to be veiled, seperated, colored and described in various languages. All we're doing here is tapping into that full appreciation and love, putting down the suffering of the delusions that keep them in place simply seeing them in ourselves without judgement, bit by bit... to uncover more of that light. The most "nihilistic" seeming teachers are doing it out of sheer perfect LOVE and courage just so that you can see this. There are no separate teachers. They are characters in the story just like Neo, and Harry Potter. Imagine the hard-nosed, "nihilistic" teachers as making as a "sacrifice" of a sort. This whole thing, everything, is unfolding here just for you... for all because they never had existence on their own. You only need appreciate it in all it's wondrous beauty and perfect. Laugh, cry, feel, dare to dream, dare to live, knowing deep in your core, (the core that is not), that nothing can ever be lost.

Unbelievable sights Indescribable feeling Soaring, tumbling, freewheeling Through an endless diamond sky A whole new world (don't you dare close your eyes) A hundred thousand things to see (hold your breath, it gets better) I'm like a shooting star, I've come so far I can't go back to where I used to be A whole new world With new horizons to pursue I'll chase them anywhere There's time to spare Let me share this whole new world with you A whole new world (a whole new world) A new fantastic point of view No one to tell us, "No" Or where to go Or say we're only dreaming A whole new world (every turn, a surprise) With new horizons to pursue (every moment, red-letter) I'll chase them anywhere, there's time to spare And then we're home (there's time to spare) Let me share this whole new world with you A whole new world (a whole new world) That's where we'll be (that's where we'll be) A thrilling chase (a wondrous place) For you and me

It's all that stuff too! It's this, that, everything, and so it's nothing because it doesn't lock itself down to being any one way or thing. Therefore why not make your life as colorful, pretty, artistic and full of love as you want?! You have all the reason in the world, and even the freedom not to. You're free.

@lostmedstudent Are you completely comfortable with your partner? It takes some communication at first but after time just happens on its own. Bellydancing is a great way to get over sexual repression issues, both physical, spiritual and psychological. It's got some ancient weird kundalini energy magic. It also builds body awareness and can bring up a lot of self-judgmental thoughts, see them and let them go. Focusing on your repression just makes it a bigger hangup, so bellydancing or any other kind of dancing is a great way to get into your body without taking the problem head on. If your problem is that you can't let go then forcing it into happening isn't the way.

@TheUniverseIsLove I think that sensitivity tends to be heightened during that time, spiritual practices (or happenings) do the same thing.

@DrewNows Oh yeah. I've been a Queen fan since I was 14.

I've never heard this one, Freddie's last vocal performance. I don't want to sleep with you I don't need the passion too I don't want a stormy affair To make me feel my life is heading somewhere All I want is the comfort and care Just to know that my woman gives me sweet Mother love ah ha He can't make it through the song Brian May finishes it. God works in mysterious ways Eeeeh dop, de dop, dep dop I think I'm goin' back to the things I learnt so well in my youth

I dunno. The Victorian era was mostly just a bunch of fuckery. Spirituality = fuckery BTW. https://www.agefotostock.com/age/en/Stock-Images/Rights-Managed/MEV-10991364 I found these 100+ year old cats postcard in my wall when I gutted it years ago, minus the last cat who is inexplicably flipping you off, they were a big part of the shadow work that happened at the start of this year. "These are the days of our lives They've flown in the swiftness of time These days are all gone now but some things remain When I look and I find, no change" Oh God, oh God, it's so beautiful. This creation, Freddie Mercury in some stage dying of AIDS performing his heart out in this video, being raised a little bit racist, all those things you'd like to shudder about the ugliness of. A memory, a dream. They are an inseparably beautiful part of this story. It's just a story. It's just pure creation, seamless unfolding. When I look and I find, no change I still love you

Look at the cat on Freddie's sweater. Reminds me of my "care killed the cat" cat.

My mom used to worry that Arnold Schwarzenegger was the antichrist when he started running for politics, and she had read some prophesy that the antichrist would come from Austria. I was raised to be a bit racist to be honest. I remember working with another kid younger than me and telling him that and he thought it was HILARIOUS. Anyway, I guess Jim Newman is from Austria. Main character in 50 Shades of grey, Christian. Well Jesus Christ on a bike. I want to ride my bicycle I want to ride it where I like You say black, I say white You say bark, I say bite You say shark, I say hey man Jaws was never my scene And I don't like Star Wars You say Rolls, I say Royce You say God give me a choice You say Lord, I say Christ I don't believe in Peter Pan Frankenstein or Superman All I wanna do is Bicycle, bicycle, bicycle That's weird, I always heard "Christ died" and was offended by it. But it doesn't say that. It says Christ! ... I...

"Experience is separation." This guy makes me resonate deeply and also gives me nausea. Apparently. I make myself.

JESUS CHRIST, this song just showed up and the video is 50 Shades of Grey??? The thing I spoke out against was blurring the lines between consent and setting a bad example and yet women's fantasy entertainment goes and does the same thing. Synchronicity, go fuck yourself.

You're the light, you're the night You're the color of my blood You're the cure, you're the pain You're the only thing I wanna touch Never knew that it could mean so much, so much You're the fear, I don't care 'Cause I've never been so high Follow me through the dark Let me take you past our satellites You can see the world you brought to life, to life

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night with anxious thoughts going. Things I have forgotten about pop up immediately with the emotion of anxiety and judgement of neglect. I think this happens to almost everyone. I sort of observed it and the thought came up that I forgot a fishing hook in my pocket. Yesterday at the river I found a red fishing hook. I thought that the right thing to do was to pick it up so no one got hurt on it. Once I did I realized I had no where to put it and I couldn't safely get rid of it. I had a dog on a leash that was jolting me around and it was a huge inconvenience. Eventually I settled on wrapping a piece of grass around it and putting it in my pocket. In the night I remembered that I just took off my shorts left them on the floor and never took care of it. Then I realized that finding a red fishing hook at the river, was not the mundane event I thought it to be, but symbolic and I had to go do something, I had to speak up about something. If it's uncomfortable to carry around a fishing hook that might hook you, you have to (want to) do it anyway for the well being of others. My husband and I have connected really well lately, but we got into a sort of debate fight which was really emotionally driven on my part. I knew I was projecting but, I was arguing the case that I was furious about people gathering in protest after we've gone through so much to tame the virus. I realized that I had a problem with protest, speaking out against something. Am I pushing against, pushing against? The day before I was running in the woods and thinking about how suffering is a projection and how running all my life has allowed me to see through that in a way, and just then I rolled my ankle. It hurt really bad. My mind projected out in a bunch of different ways. It blamed me, worried about how it was going to go on with being a busy mom, worried what my mom might think and how she might react and projected a story of someone I know who is a busy mom who hurt her knee and had to deal with that. All this within a few seconds. Then the pain went away. I saw the funny timing of it, then I was able to run on the ankle again after a minute. A week or so ago I went for a walk in the woods. I was having horrible back pain and was with my Dad. He was in a horrible mood and started complaining. We went past a spot that they told me the dogs went crazy by and had told me they thought there was a bear or something there. My dog went off with my parent's doberman. The doberman came back and my puppy didn't. He never showed up. We called and called, waited and waited and he never came back. I ended up running, hard even though my back hurt. The pain completely went away. My mind spiraled into stories, stories about the neighbors losing a dog in those woods and her never being found, stories of people nearby stealing dogs for dog fights in the past, stories of bears and coyotes luring dogs in. Worry about how my kids would react if her were gone. And I told myself the entire time I shouldn't be worrying, shouldn't be concerned, should be able to intuitively know where my dog is. And the thought came up, if this is what enlightenment is about it, FUCK it. And I realized that something had been let go of it that moment. A long time later I found him staring ahead at me in the trail, fine. The worry of the situation wiped out my back pain and Dad's depression as we worked together to find him.

No, ego is just separate than. It can also think that it's worse than everyone else. Pride and self-hatred are a cycle, one is apparently projected while the other is turned inward and disowned. It's like how color works, the color we see is the color the thing gives off but it's absorbing all colors of light. Male lions are actually the biggest pussies and mice and sparrows are the bravest animals. Not really though, that's just a story. You can tell yourself infinitely different stories. The aliveness/being of it is the love. Harry Potter and Voldemort arise from the same mind and cannot exist in the story without each other. The author's/reader's dream is the only thing that's happening. They don't have life or existence except in the fantasy.

Past stories are rewritten or recontextualized. They are, always no matter what, but we tell ourselves stories from a skewed perspective of self. In awakening they are rewritten and understood from an impersonal big picture viewpoint. It takes an enormous amount of love and focus to do this. Easier if it's not done alone, especially in more extreme cases. When someone else is loving you with the eyes of God and sees you as perfect and a part of the whole it's easy to imagine oneself that way too, (or stop imagining one's self rather.) You can't focus on the things that could possibly hold you back, because then they are exactly what's holding you back. Eyes on the prize.

Jesus Christ on a bicycle! That's real nonduality/duality right there bicycle, Jesus Christ/nonduality on a bicycle, with two wheels, get it? I'm sorry, but I wanted to say that all day and you gave me an excuse. But I mean really, there are jet skis now, so walking on water just isn't a real big deal, ya know? Pretty cheap of you not to just fork out the money for a jet ski. Changing hundreds, thousands of people lives and teaching a higher truth is really what Jesus was noted for, really. A few miracles thrown in there just for funsies, sure.

Yep. You won't "get it". Nothing to get. It's not like algebra, there aren't people who get it and people who don't. Thank God. lol

Yeah, hearing "the present moment doesn't exist" used to be like hearing "God doesn't exist" for me (I was raised Christian and religion was a everything to me). Anyway, it's good to challenge those well practiced beliefs. In response to your original question, why we can't imagine the same reality at the same time, I believe you can if you have an aligned purpose. You just don't usually because you're busy imagining your own. We're mostly all in our own little worlds all the time.

Because there is only the present moment. BUT there's no moment, the present moment doesn't exist, just as the separate self does not. Past is a concept (imagination), future is a concept (imagination), the present moment is a concept (imagination). All imagination is false, illusion, so comparing differences between mine and yours, is imagination. So what you and I are imagining right now in the present moment is actually a blended soup of past and future, and we can compare the soup and see differences. But the real is always shared, because it doesn't have any qualities to compare. I've noticed this too. It's because we take (believe) ourselves to be human.

I noticed that my resistance to a lot of teachers was simply attachment to being a body. Especially where a lot of the teachers are men, I have to hack my survival mode, even to listen to a youtube clip because that sizing up (am I safe here?) is always happening. Something in the ego senses fear and assumes that it is a body, so this man is not to be trusted, therefore not to be listened to. In order to hack this and open my mind, it sometimes flips to attraction if it can, sometimes a kind of motherly love (all biological filters/self hijacks of love). It sounds really shallow and silly but it's not personal, and it can't be observed if it were made to be personal. The body mind thinks it has to have a good reason to love, it has to get something from it. The "whore" and Mary Magdalene devotional whore archetype during awakening makes sense. I'll let anyone into my head, into my psyche, because it's not mine and was always infinitely open. Non-existent in fact. There's nothing to get, and everything to lose. I had a flip out of a somewhat depressed state a few days ago. I was at the river and after writing through the events of the years of life and my struggling to tell that story honestly, (knowing that my memories are always pulled out of my ass in the here and now ), I realized that it's really fucking brutal of "me" (the yabut) to think I should be anywhere else than I am right now with the thought patterns that the yabut has practiced still running, seemingly. Seeing and feeling alignment (awakening, falling into this "knowledge") is a completely random gift, not a new standard to use as a measuring stick that you smack yourself with more than gain information from.