mandyjw

Last night I had a dream that I was in a building full of people who were dying of various causes, (infections, Alzheimers) and I tried my best to avoid them for the entire dream but couldn't and was traumatized by it all. At the very end it turned into a horror movie scene. There was this beautiful woman (who looked almost like Evangeline Lily from Lost) and a man told her that he had switched her body parts around from someone else (his victim), and her eyes, etc were not her own. I watched her reaction of horror. When I woke up I realized that the dream was showing me my attachment to being a body.

God doesn't have a clue. He doesn't exist. You don't have a clue either. You don't exist. Infinite intelligence is, but no one has a clue. No one is doing anything, everything seems to be being done but no one is doing anything. Nothing has changed "since" the big bang, if you can imagine that when the universe was created and coming into place and life first evolved, no "one" was doing anything and now that "we" can "think" we think we do things. And no one is doing that. When you stop thinking of yourself as the person with a body and a certain perspective going about doing things, what changes? If there's no self, then to use the power of "God" or the "One" the "motive" would be total Oneness or Love. So maybe the One doesn't give a shit about your dick size, how many you have or the placement of them but if you were created for a purpose to serve the One out of perfect Self Love then your life might be extended until that purpose is played out.

Same path, they appear different sometimes but aren't. You can only take one step at a time.

I wouldn't say there are any right or wrong answers, and I'd say that looking for a guru thinking you need one is not the thing to do. I'd also say that disregarding one when they appear to you is not the thing to do either. Here's what Nisargadatta Maharaj said about this I found it incredibly interesting. "What you take to be the ‘I’ in the ‘I am’ is not you.To know that you are is natural, to know what you are is the result of much investigation. You will have to explore the entire field of consciousness and go beyond it. For this you must find the right teacher and create the conditions needed for discovery. Generally speaking, there are two ways: external and internal. Either you live with somebody who knows the Truth and submit yourself entirely to his guiding and moulding influence, or you seek the inner guide and follow the inner light wherever it takes you. In both cases your personal desires and fears must be disregarded. You learn either by proximity or by investigation, the passive or the active way. You either let yourself be carried by the river of life and love represented by your Guru, or you make your own efforts, guided by your inner star. In both cases you must move on, you must be earnest. Rare are the people who are lucky to find somebody worthy of trust and love. Most of them must take the hard way, the way of intelligence and understanding, of discrimination and detachment (viveka-vairagya). This is the way open to all."

Infinity is nothing. It's a concept that doesn't exist outside of thought. Perfection is nothing. It's a concept that doesn't exist outside of thought. Nothing is infinitely perfect. <--- Read that sentence again because it has a double meaning, it both affirms and negates.

Set a timer, 15 minutes of work, then 10 to relax, or do what you want online. Repeat or change time increments as needed. It helps build awareness of how you're using your time without judging yourself, in fact it also allows you to fully enjoy the time you're "wasting".

Why does this denial not "work"? Why does it sometimes drive you into nihilism and depression? Because a thought or ideal of nothing, of now, or infinity is something. A thought of no ending, of no "aha moment" is just a thought trying to be an ending unto itself. "No", is not a thought. Negation is not a thought. It is not a step, a method, or something you do.

@Marc Schinkel There was something that I think my father used to say when I was a kid that stuck with me. He said for kids who grew up in the church, Jesus was the "wallpaper". There was nothing to discover, love, seek, explore, it was just something to overlook and accept without thinking. Same with a kid born into a rich family, making money is something he has to do to maintain himself, not a dream of sheer possibility with that "nothing to lose" attitude behind it. Then you realize that the "wallpaper"... , your wallpaper... is what you seek. If you seek the mundane, unwanted and overlooked here and now with the passion and drive of someone seeking something they desperately love and want but have never known What are you looking for? The end of the sentence? Who told you that sentences had to be finished? Where does a sentence start and end? Does it start when it's thought of, or when it's begun to be typed? Does it end when it's read or does it end when it's understood? Are you looking for a satisfying conclusion or pointer? The end of seeking?

Why would you need a reason? Any cause and effect you come up with is imagination, until you imagine another.

I don't see them as having any conflict. You are not the story, but the story has to have drama (perceived negativity) to be a story in the first place. No one complains that J.K Rowling is a horrible person because she kills Harry's parents and creates Voldemort as the basis of the Harry Potter story, the the character of Harry himself. We don't point out these things because we know it's a story. She wrote it out of creative love, to inspire, entertain and make people feel. That's what most people glean from the stories, because that was the author's intention for the books. You are Harry Potter. You can bitch and moan at the world and "God" (JK Rowling) for killing your parents and stay stuck living at the Dursley's or you can go live your adventure and transformation. You came to live the adventure, that's alignment with love. Why is JK Rowling not evil for dreaming up Voldemort? Because Harry Potter doesn't exist. Likewise you do not exist outside this story.

"Every time I tell the story it sounds different. "It can't imagine what is because it's in it making what is look like something else." "A lot of the energy of me is "yes but," -Jim Newman Funny story, when I was in 6 or 7th grade, I had another of what I felt was a fat shaming teacher moment, (the other one was part of my shadow work/story fuckery last winter) She said that we weren't supposed to say "yeah, but". So she got creative one time I said it and drew a character on the chalk board. She drew an enormous round girl and wrote "yabut" above it. Everyone laughed and I identified with it (I think she intended for it but who knows) and was embarrassed by it. I am a yabut.

"There aren't two to come together." I think I never liked this guy because... of his hair cut? (Reasoning is fuzzy.) "Shut the fuck up bro." Being 19 and seeing a video of Eckhart Tolle sitting on a stage doing nothing and me getting furious comes to mind.

OMG the "Just Do It" shirt on the questioner 13 minutes in or so... I don't actually watch these videos I just pay attention to what people are wearing. Very enlightening.

Why do so many enlightened men wear purple shirts?

@DrewNows I am very powerrorful

solve is an anagram of loves Just noticed that dissolve is the last word posted above. Talking about riddles above that. Synchronicity never gets old. It's SO sneaky. I read posts on the forum, and I like certain people and am triggered by other people. Other people I leave it up to what they say, I form no opinion. My opinion (based on memory, which are stories based on opinions, all a house of cards with no foundation under it) colors what I see. Sometimes people I feel are parrots post stuff that resonates that I need to hear. Do I believe there's someone (not someone in actuality but my opinion of someone I take to be fact and don't question) behind the post? Do I believe wisdom and understanding are possessions held by people? I throw things out in my own posts to see how people will see them. I post double meanings, implicit clues. I make references that are hard to understand, that tie around from one referenced story into another. I refer to "I" when I don't mean myself. Am I entertaining myself? Do I hide Easter eggs for my kids because I want to entertain them or myself? Should I just hand them their candy without fanfare, and say "here, there you go". Truth be told, the candy is a necessary but very small competent of the fun. The excitement is in the search. At the end, the candy just goes in one big bucket, no one gets to keep it for themselves and no one complains. The funniest Easter eggs are the ones you hide too well. The ones that only turn up accidentally when you're looking for something else weeks later.

You are the riddle with no (typoed the word now) middle. "For, what has a beginning and an end has no middle. It is hollow." The riddle with no middle. M: Self-interest and self-concern are the focal points of the false. Your daily life vibrates between desire and fear. Watch it intently and you will see how the mind assumes innumerable names and shapes, like a river foaming between the boulders. Trace every action to its selfish motive and look at the motive intently till it dissolves.

The controller is the controlled. I read that somewhere here. Sounded and felt really profound. What does it mean? I've no fucking clue.

Someone's teachings aren't an indication of their own level of understanding. Anyone at all can channel the highest teachings, and the most "awake" people can introduce new beliefs and conditioning because they know that new conditioning may be the most effective tool to undo old conditioning, until it isn't needed. Solipsism and accusing others of it is a great excuse, just like the Christian Devil is, to distract from... one's self. Brilliant. It's brilliant really. Sheer brilliance.

Maharaj: I wonder whether I am the right man to answer your questions. I know little about things and people. I know only that I am, and that much you also know. We are equals. Q: Of course I know that I am. But I do not know what it means. M: What you take to be the ‘I’ in the ‘I am’ is not you.To know that you are is natural, to know what you are is the result of much investigation. You will have to explore the entire field of consciousness and go beyond it. For this you must find the right teacher and create the conditions needed for discovery. Generally speaking, there are two ways: external and internal. Either you live with somebody who knows the Truth and submit yourself entirely to his guiding and moulding influence, or you seek the inner guide and follow the inner light wherever it takes you. In both cases your personal desires and fears must be disregarded. You learn either by proximity or by investigation, the passive or the active way. You either let yourself be carried by the river of life and love represented by your Guru, or you make your own efforts, guided by your inner star. In both cases you must move on, you must be earnest. Rare are the people who are lucky to find somebody worthy of trust and love. Most of them must take the hard way, the way of intelligence and understanding, of discrimination and detachment (viveka-vairagya). This is the way open to all. Q: I am lucky to have come here: though I am leaving tomorrow, one talk with you may affect my entire life. M: Yes, once you say ‘I want to find Truth’, all your life will be deeply affected by it. All your mental and physical habits, feelings and emotions, desires and fears, plans and decisions will undergo a most radical transformation. Q: Once I have made up my mind to find The Reality, what do I do next? M: It depends on your temperament. If you are earnest, whatever way you choose will take you to your goal. It is the earnestness that is the decisive factor. Q: What is the source of earnestness? M: It is the homing instinct, which makes the bird return to its nest and the fish to the mountain stream where it was born. The seed returns to the earth, when the fruit is ripe. Ripeness is all. Q: And what will ripen me? Do I need experience? M: You already have all the experience you need, otherwise you would not have come here. You need not gather any more, rather you must go beyond experience. Whatever effort you make, whatever method (sadhana) you follow, will merely generate more experience, but will not take you beyond. Nor will reading books help you. They will enrich your mind, but the per- son you are will remain intact. If you expect any benefits from your search, material, mental or spiritual, you have missed the point. Truth gives no advantage. It gives you no higher status, no power over others; all you get is truth and the freedom from the false. Q: Surely truth gives you the power to help others. M: This is mere imagination, however noble! In truth you do not help others, because there are no others. You divide people into noble and ignoble and you ask the noble to help the ignoble. You separate, you evaluate, you judge and condemn — in the name of truth you destroy it. Your very desire to formulate truth denies it, because it cannot be contained in words. Truth can be expressed only by the denial of the false — in action. For this you must see the false as false (viveka) and reject it (vairagya). Renunciation of the false is liberating and energizing. It lays open the road to perfection. Person Middle English: from Old French persone, from Latin persona ‘actor's mask, character in a play’, later ‘human being’.

He's just quoting Rumi, Mr. I-Don't-Read-Anything-Anymore, AKA Leo. Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’ doesn’t make any sense. -Rumi Ironically Rumi is using words to talk about not talking. Sneaky bastard.

Have you even been in a deep flow state of work, where it's so easy it's effortless, it just happens? Compare that to when you feel the most resistance about work and the thoughts that you have about it. It has nothing to do with the work itself but all about your feelings and attitude to it. Praying is about expressing your desires and giving up your need to make it all happen "yourself". Who is the one who works and makes things happen?

Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table. I had a couple strange experiences in a cemetery, ended up digging up a really old book written by the man who's grave they occurred by. It was an account of his life but I recognized the signs of awakening as he told them and deeply resonated. It opened my mind and became an obsession. Later I effortlessly found where his house had been and it overlooked a spot I had been drawn to. His life and my life blended in a love beyond separation of life and death, truth and fiction and was just love. Weeks later I had an awakening while writing. So I say, follow the bread crumbs.

Maybe I'm not "there" yet but I deeply, passionately love books. It's not that you can "get" something from reading or writing, it's about feeling, resonance. Real "spiritual" texts change and morph in meaning as you read them. You are giving them meaning. I've read some "deep" accounts of awakenings several times and realized my ego could only "take in" so much of it in one go. You're writing the text as you read it. All the books in the world... love letters to myself. Even my kid's books, The Gruffalo, Green Eggs and Ham... profoundly beautiful messages about enlightenment.

Ego is the sense of self. The sense of self is driven by fear. If it is separate, it must be threatened. Enlightenment is seeing through the illusion of the separate self and the illusion of fear. Fear of being a bad person, therefore desire to "be" (think of oneself) as a "good" person in exclusion of "bad" is a pretty brilliant way to separate oneself, don't you think? You can't be good or bad because you would have to think of yourself as being defined in some way... in exclusion of the other. Opps! exclusion = fear. You can be very inspired to live a life of love, it's just that the fear that drives that love, cancels it out so it has to be seen through. That's all. Then there's just love and inspiration but there's nothing dictating how it has to look.