mandyjw

Q: There is the body and there is myself. I know the body. Apart from it, what am I? M: There is no ‘I’ apart from the body, nor the world. The three appear and disappear together. At the root is the sense ‘I am’. Go beyond it. The idea: ‘I-am-not-the-body’ is merely an antidote to the idea ‘I-am-the-body’ which is false. What is that ‘I am’? Unless you know yourself, what else can you know? Q: From what you say I conclude that without the body there can be no liberation. If the idea: ‘I-am-not-the-body’ leads to liberation, the presence of the body is essential. M: Quite right. Without the body, how can the idea: ‘I- am-not-the-body’ come into being? The idea ‘I-am-free’ is as false as the idea ‘I-am-in-bondage’. Find out the ‘I am’ common to both and go beyond. The most obvious things are the most doubtful. Ask yourself such questions as: ‘Was I really born?’ ‘Am I really so-and-so? ‘How do I know that I exist?’ ‘Who are my parents?’ ‘Have they created me, or have I created them?’ ‘Must I believe all I am told about myself?’ ‘Who am I, anyhow?’ You have put so much energy into building a prison for yourself. Now spend as much on demolishing it. Q: I have definite spiritual ambitions. Must I not work for their fulfillment? M: No ambition is spiritual. All ambitions are for the sake of the ‘I am’. If you want to make real progress you must give up all idea of personal attainment. The ambitions of the so called Yogis are preposterous. A man’s desire for a woman is innocence itself compared to the lusting for an everlasting personal bliss. The mind is a cheat. The more pious it seems, the worse the betrayal.

@Zigzag Idiot Crows are smarter than peacocks though. I just did something similar with meditation, dumped it and was miserable so I went right back to it. I figure I'll just take it off my good habits list and add it to my addiction list and see how that feels for a while.

@Joel3102 That's awesome, I love the accent! The daily livestreams are really impressive. I've only listened to a tiny percentage of his videos but gotten a lot from them. I'm reading I Am That at the same time and they really fit together in an unexpected way.

City parks and outskirts are where the imbalance of nature is trying to resolve itself, so keep that in mind. A forest surrounded by forest is safer than a city by far. Coyotes with enough space for survival will rarely make themselves seen.

All suffering is a complete projection. Non-acceptance, cutting oneself off. Roger Castillo says that guilt, blame, pride, worry, anxiety, expectation and attachment to outcome are how we suffer. Also, "Don't mistake understanding for realization and don't mistake realization for liberation." Timeline of my "spiritual" life. 1. According to my mother, I said the word ball? maybe? 2. According to my mother, walking, talking, took a bath in the toilet. Appropriate, because I am born into a Baptist family. I will not be baptized though. Ever. No one really gave a fuck about that? Dunno. 3. Memory of staring out the window, thinking it will be literally forever until my 4th birthday came. Memory of being spanked, and hating my mother in that moment no remorse whatsoever. Hard to date that memory. 4. Parents leave the church, but Mom continues to teach Sunday school, and we still have to go. 5. Disillusioned by Kindergarten. Apparently I am not the goddamn queen of the universe. Fuckers. The two others boys in my class can't stand up to me though, they are my royal subjects. 6. Getting into trouble for things I didn't realize were wrong. Boys have balls and you're not supposed to kick them. Revelations of cruel reality. 7. Lose some confidence in myself. Normal kid. Submit to being a good girl. 8. I gain a close female friend. Her parents are extremely well educated liberals and will influence me heavily even though I will outwardly rebel and not fully appreciate this gift for a time. 9. Depression sets in, I'm studying the Bible on my own. 10. I start running. OCD sets in. Handwashing, germaphobia sets in. I get a Buddhist/artist mentor. 11. Very religious, very patriotic, reading the Bible everyday religiously. Running, journaling. 12. OCD pushes me to keep training on my own, I win my first cross country race. Extreme bout of guilt, depression compulsion makes me physically ill for a week until I confess something to my mom. 13. Stomachaches from stress. Neurosis. I learn to not pay attention to most OCD thoughts. Start having really passionate interests in things and have for a while, art and dogs. I research dogs for a year until my parents let us get one. I get my first doberman. 14. I start high school and decide that I am not actually smart, I cannot keep up with the smart kids in the big pond now, and nor do I want to. I meet my husband and two other life long friends. I LOVE debating religion more than anything. I have Christian friends for the first time and I want to challenge their beliefs. 15. Fall in love for the first time. Was not love, but duality and family wounds wanting to resolve themselves. Trauma. Overhear my parents calling me lazy, decide that hard work = love. Decide that seeking love directly is foolish. I decide FUCK people, hard work is the only safe passion. I run my ass off, and I start my business and enjoy every minute of it over summer vacation. 16. Working my ass off. I win more races. End of the year, feeling for future husband too big to ignore. 17. Completely F-up my husband's 4 year plan, and relationship with his parents but it all turns out good inexplicably. 18. Have to figure out how to work on my own and set my own hours. Lots of fucking off. Lots of reading novels, actually. 19. Business starts to take off. COFFEE works wonders. 20. I have spent two years in social isolation and workaholism. Hypochondria sets in. Extreme bout of depression, I realize what's going on. I reach out to a friend and we reconnect. We end up having a shit ton of fun together. Making great money. Life gets really good. Husband is kicked out of house, drama ensues. We end up fine but also with much more freedom to live our lives. 21. Get married and buy a dump of a house. 22. Learn about old houses and fixing them, inexplicable pull from history and old houses is made aware of. 23. Miscarriages, get pregnant with my first baby. 24. Have my son. Postpartum depression. Extreme anxiety. Continue to work as much as as physically possible. IV bruises, and pain sitting a couple days after giving birth won't keep me away. I also discover minimalism and the zen habits blog. 25. Discover Leo's channel. Listen to Leo while working. 26. I start running again. Get pregnant with my daughter, life falls apart, falling out with my best friend, son is diagnosed with autism. Discover Eckhart Tolle, sit to mediate and have the I am light realization with asthma attack, don't mediate again. 27. I have my daughter. No postpartum depression. No anxiety. I know what the pain body is, I know what caused postpartum depression last time. I'm ready but it doesn't happen. Looking at her face and smelling her hair lights up my brain like crack cocaine. For some reason I become obsessed with Mr.Money Mustache. I know this is ranty and against my spiritual ambitions, but something pulls me in. Still really obsessed with minimalism. 28. Uhmm... a lot of studying stuff? Pema Chodron? I can't remember. Birthday cake wishes start to be for enlightenment sometime around here. Still working quite hard. Start making awkward youtube videos. I wanna talk about important stuff. 29. Bliss states from runs, and deep connection with place starts, funny obsessions start to creep in, feeling energy from places. 30. Connections ramp up, life goes to shit a bit, I read the book that tells me to reconnect with my desires and do self care. I realize i really want to make youtube videos. I come to forum because of this and also wanting to quit facebook, very against Leo, everything comes together and I am helped more than I came to help, awakening, spend the rest of the year in lala land recovering. Start meditating. Completely lose my sense of sensibility and presence for weeks after awakening. Bliss state and new realizations cause me not to give a fuck about this until weeks later. 31. Realize I can do shadow work, tap into psyche, synchronicity on my own. Lots of insights and studying. Seems very normal and integral. Sense of path seems a bit lost, never was there before. Realize my idea of spiritual progress is mostly self judgement/ pride. Ironically now writing this out. Funny how any story told misses the general sense of "truth" of it, and fundamentally changes it in the telling of it. There's always an audience and a purpose in mind, even if it's not posted publicly like it is here, but only for one's self, there's a sense of one's self in mind. I always assumed that there was an accurate truthful way to tell a story, especially to one's self. I always thought there was a story teller.

It does, it just looks more like the stock market history, continually goes but with lots of dramatic crashes. We're always gonna get sad, always gonna get mad, there's no reason not to own up to being human once in a while (even though we know it's not absolutely true). Where is the suffering, in the sadness itself or in the thought that I shouldn't be sad right now?

Wealth is purely comparative. We can look at statistics and consider numbers but emotionally, we compare ourselves very differently. Within your community and friend circles you'll define how you and everyone else is doing compared with everyone else you know in that circle. Very few people strive to be, do or have something they've never actually really intimately known someone in their experience to be, do or have. That's why in a city it's really easy to get caught up in a rat race, but also easy to stay driven. In a rural area or in a strong community or family structure it's very easy to be content and stress free but difficult to imagine the kind of success and dreams that are possible to actualize in the world.

@dimitri The Bible says you shouldn't blaspheme against the Holy Spirit but what if the Holy Spirit blasphemes against you?

Love is so big it doesn't care what sort of bullshit thoughts and descriptions we have about it. Source, Nothing, Mu, Infinite, God, Jesus Christ on Grilled Cheese, Justin Beiber, Love don't care. Love is bigger than that.

@Free Mind You're forgetting the opportunity here. Our thoughts about other people color our interactions and veil our feelings of love and oneness of them. In thought there are other people. I'm me and you're you, duh. Outside of thought, we are one. Most people just haven't thought to consider this, but again, our oneness is also a "duh!" moment. In your mind, you believe this realization will take away your love of others and your family members, but it's quite the opposite, it will only cause it to grow, or rather you to become aware of how beyond logic your connection and your Love really is. When we observe our thoughts, and stop believing our thoughts, the separation between us and other, dissolves and love and bliss shines through. It's a process and sometimes we get caught up and forget the entire point, LOVE, duh! But without challenge would any transformation be worth so much talk? No. Is Love what you think it is? NO!!! It's much, much bigger than that. Bigger than that. Bigger than THAT. Just stop comparing. It's bigger than that.

If you project your own fear of suffering (beliefs in problems) on someone else you is not loving, you is fearing. That's why paying attention to your self and catching suffering, however subtle, is the greatest form of love you can show the world or anyone else. All suffering is a form of projection.

Yes, but healing happens out of wholeness of its own accord, even if it's assisted by traditional medicine like the healing of a broken bone is a cast or if it defies science and normal human expectations. Illness, degradation and death are part of life like a healthy forest is full of things both growing and decaying. When this is accepted and life isn't owned or clung to, when separation and illness are not seen as reality, miracles of wholeness and healing occur within what is already whole, they already are.

@ivankissWhatever is intuitive, whatever is "there" calling me to it, whether that's seeing, feeling, etc. The first time I sat to meditate, I had an insight flood in "I am light" and focused on my breath for a few minutes because that's what I thought meditation was supposed to be about and had an asthma attack. I was pregnant and sick with a cold at the time, but it was a good lesson in trying to control. It took me a while to learn how to use the breath as a tool without doing that. I've run since I was 10 which is deep breathing focusing on breath without making it an object, and also connects with the body and surroundings in a holistic way. So I'm not saying you're wrong at all, just that how we go about things and how we mentally turn things into keys can go wrong.

Conscious breathing keeps you from projecting yourself out there, and thinking of things that cause suffering. I think that the more we act and relate in the world the more it serves us to go out there and unravel those beliefs, be unafraid to suffer so you can get curious about how you did it and what beliefs you created as the foundation for it. Mind can co-opt a technique as avoidance of suffering. Breathing helps us see that the suffering and thoughts aren't real, but there are many different ways to become conscious of this.

M. You are accusing me of having been born — I plead not guilty!

Yep, comes along with believing enlightenment is an attainment.

All suffering is projection, the motivation to stop projecting suffering is the desire for awakening. You cannot escape something that is an illusion. You can see it as an illusion and stop running and the need for escape disappears.

@Nak Khid It sounds like avoiding the question because you haven't asked enough questions to know what you're asking? Who am I to love someone? Love is not an action, not something I do. I cannot love my child. I am love. I do love. It's not an action. Not a choice. You want the answer to your question, assuming you know what I am, assuming that love is a verb and something that the previously assumed I "does" and assuming that someone who does something else is an independent object unto itself, that is either worthy of or unworthy of me doing some sort of action toward. What is a thought? What is the difference between a thought of the Statue of Liberty and the experience of the Stature of Liberty? Notice, I didn't even say who's thought. What's the difference between the thought of a 4 year old child in Africa of the statue of liberty, a dog's thought of the Statue of Liberty and a New Yorker's thought of the Statue of Liberty?

Suffering is a projection. In the thought of a person who tortures animals, there is no animal suffering, just you projecting your own suffering. Someone who projects their own suffering neither has compassion for victim or perpetrator. He is both. In the event that you come upon someone who is torturing an animal, action may arise to do something about it. In the event that you hit a deer with your car, stop and don't have the means to put its suffering to an end, have you tortured an animal for your choice to drive a car and your failure to stop in time? Do you guilt yourself? You are both tortured and torturer. In the event that child is raised with parents who both love and abuse him and conflates love and abuse grows up to be an adult who tortures animals, is he the tortured or the torturer? Both of course. What satisfactory solution is there to any problem carefully considered but love, when love is the only satisfaction in and of itself?

"Q: I am not concerned with the totality. My personal consciousness and your personal consciousness — what is the link between the two? M: Between two dreamers what can be the link? Q: They may dream of each other. M: That is what people are doing. Everyone imagines ‘others’ and seeks a link with them. The seeker is the link, there is none other. Q: Surely there must be something in common between the many points of consciousness we are. M: Where are the many points? In your mind. You insist that your world is independent of your mind. How can it be? Your desire to know other people’s minds is due to your not knowing your own mind. First know your own mind and you will find that the question of other minds does not arise at all, for there are no other people. You are the common factor, the only link between the minds. Being is consciousness; ‘I am’ applies to all. Q: The Supreme Reality (Parabrahman) may be present in all of us. But of what use is it to us? M: You are like a man who says: ‘I need a place where to keep my things, but of what use is space to me?’ or ‘I need milk, tea, coffee or soda, but for water I have no use’. Don’t you see that the Supreme Reality is what makes everything possible? But if you ask of what use is it to you, I must answer: ‘None’. In matters of daily life the knower of the real has no advantage: he may be at a disadvantage rather: being free from greed and fear, he does not protect himself. The very idea of profit is foreign to him; he abhors accretions; his life is constant divesting oneself, sharing, giving." http://www.nirgunjohn.com/assets/pdf/I-AM-THAT.pdf

We have the tendency to believe that people are paying more attention to us than they really are. Not that they are. Please see that I want nothing from you. It is in your own interest that I speak, because above all you love yourself, you want yourself secure and happy. Don’t be ashamed of it, don’t deny it. It is natural and good to love oneself. Only you should know what exactly do you love. It is not the body that you love, it is Life — perceiving, feeling, thinking, doing, loving, striving, creating. It is that Life you love, which is you, which is all. Realize it in its totality, beyond all divisions and limitations, and all your desires will merge in it, for the greater contains the smaller. Therefore find yourself, for in finding that you find all. Everybody is glad to be. But few know the fullness of it. You come to know by dwelling in your mind on ‘I am’, ‘I know’, ‘I love’ — with the will of reaching the deepest meaning of these words. Q: Can I think ‘l am God’? M: Don’t identify yourself with an idea. If you mean by God, the Unknown, then you merely say: ‘I do not know what I am’. If you know God as you know your self, you need not say it. Best is the simple feeling ‘I am’. Dwell on it patiently. Here patience is wisdom; don’t think of failure. There can be no failure in this undertaking. There are always moments when one feels empty and estranged. Such moments are most desirable for it means the soul had cast its moorings and is sailing for distant places. This is detachment — when the old is over and the new has not yet come. If you are afraid, the state may be distressing; but there is really nothing to be afraid of. Remember the instruction: whatever you come across — go beyond.

Don't try to define yourself with a point on the emotional scale, you don't have a default set point. You are what's aware of emotions. It helps in the moment sometimes to see where at that time you fall on the scale so you can be more aware of how you feel and take steps to move back up the scale. Do not define yourself as insecure. Notice and be aware when you experience thoughts and feelings of insecurity. You are sheer perfect potential, awareness, life, creation itself.

The crying is good, it's release of energy, purification, it's the thoughts about why we're crying and resistance to it (I shouldn't be crying, because I have an ideal of myself as having a perfect stable emotional state) that make it painful or difficult. Meditation is about letting go. Crying is about letting go. Your period is about letting go. See what's going on here? In my experience before any breakthrough in spirituality, shit hits the fan. It feels like all "progress" goes out the window, or worse. In hindsight the ideas and beliefs we had about "our progress" weren't real.

Yes. Eckhart Tolle wrote about this (weirdly enough). https://thestoryweavers.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/eckhard-tolle-about-women.pdf Do not just deem it an ego flare up or something you don't want. Don't go into thought stories. Don't judge your emotions, just feel. Here's an awesome Abraham Hicks clip on this subject too.

@Galyna Yes, I know that feeling, your description of being in love with no one is spot on. It's a sign of a breakthrough after lots of resistance. Abraham Hicks helped me understand my everyday thoughts/feeling vibration, it's still quite a lot to integrate, lots of back and forth between being serious with spirituality (Leo) and having fun with it and letting go of resistance (Abraham Hicks) and of course lots of teachers and teachings in between and on both sides. Just enjoy the energy while it lasts, take the lesson of letting go with friends to heart and try to not hold yourself apart from it so much again.