mandyjw

Yes, and the only thing that dissolves it is love, because guilt or attempting to get rid of it only assumes ownership of it. Self Love. No others, no self. The mystery of whether animals have egos is a great one because it shows how we can project all kinds of judgments on animals and they don't give a shit. Honey badger don't care. You can project an ego on a person and really buy into it without question, but when you project an ego on an animal often something goes, "hold on a minute, that can't be right..." It isn't. That's why the honeybadger narration video is so hilarious. All the problems we have with anybody we interact with are just as hilarious, we just miss the joke.

Last night I dreamed I was at some event and hadn't gone in the right entrance (cheated in a way) and was trying to make it right. It brought up a memory of being in English class and having a sub one day. She gave us our quiz, and allowed us to use our books, which we weren't supposed to do. The class sat there and happily cheated on their quiz, my best friend wouldn't and did her quiz without the book. I couldn't handle watching this. Instead of doing my own quiz I felt responsible for the entire scenario, and felt awful about it. The next day I told the teacher what had happened. I don't know or remember what she did but some of the other kids weren't happy. I always HATED rules that were unclear. I hated a lot of rules that were clear too, especially if they seemed unnecessary, or to benefit someone else at the expense of creativity and freedom. I felt like they asked for them to be broken and then create guilt itself. I have spent most of my life trying to avoid guilt and feeling unworthy. I got up today groggy and brushed my teeth. I grabbed my toothpaste and something told me to look closer. Maybe I should have picked the other toothpaste. Which toothpaste should I use? The black charcoal one or the white one? Then I saw it was about contrast, and the awakening insight I am the Devil seemed quite clear, and hazy dreams and toothpaste options had served as a refresher course. Lately it amazes me how I sought the truth in thought, thinking there was a right and a wrong, smart and foolish, needing to be on the right side and therefore always doubting and fearful. During meditation the sensation in my stomach kept pulling me to it, and it felt good but not entirely, more like getting an invitation to a party than the party itself. I imagined it to feel good, anticipated it to feel good, as if there was a story behind it. I realized and felt that feeling fully, self love, feeling the energy field of my body, presence where all those things come together was the desire behind all my suffering. THIS, THIS is what I always really wanted. I created others and rules themselves to disallow myself from what was always mine, thinking that other's love was the key to my own love, feeling but not knowing that I'd given the love away in the assumption. I cut myself off from that feeling in my stomach, from that deep knowing, thinking it was in the service of others. I canceled my daughter's checkup, which was unfortunately scheduled for next week. I thought it would be traumatic for her to be locked at home, banned from daycare and seeing grandparents and friends and then having one outing to go get her 4 year old series of shots, let alone the risk of us picking up the virus there. They said they are separating patients but I know that it's bullshit that it isn't risky. I also realize how much scheduling trouble they are going to be having. My kids have gotten sick at least 2 or 3 times just from visiting the office. I canceled and felt awful, and asked my husband why. He had a good explanation, but the main thing I got was that I don't need to explain myself, just ask for what I want. I explain myself because I want forgiveness, I look to other people to say "you're ok". Care killed the cat. I seek connection. I seek forgiveness. I seek connection through words and thought where it can't be found. I seek forgiveness for something I never did. I seek approval and praise for something I never did and never will do.

Animals mirror us, there's not an ego in anything really, but a thought of one.

Why is April 1 called April Fools day? BECAUSE THERE'S ONLY ONE FOOL. The word comes from the Latin “aprilis” which is derived from “aperire” meaning 'to open'. This is obviously apropos since April is when trees and flowers 'open' and bloom.

@Nahm Oh my God, just stop, we already know you can reads minds already.

@Nahm Just had an awful conversation, wondered about it, read what you wrote and understand the whole time I was just thinking about how she was feeling, therefore the whole conversation felt awful. Cart before the horse.

@Felli Did it come with hardware? Mine had screw holes under the corner covers. I had to pull them off, then had to measure and mark the holes, drill them, put in drywall anchors, (unless you hit a stud), then use the screws to put the board up and replace the corner covers. Here's a few different options depending on your wall and board. There's also lots of videos on youtube with different options, you can use adhesive if you need to. Probably not a great idea if the board is very heavy though. https://www.wikihow.com/Hang-a-Whiteboard

The human body looks and feels like a pyramid shape in meditation. Words have feelings attached with their sounds, ear, hear, earth, heal, feel.

Why react against Leo? You're creating all of it, he's right when he says he is you. You wouldn't react if you didn't love him, you wouldn't react if you didn't want to align something within yourself. Reaction is good. Wanting something different about what you see is good. But you have to take responsibility for it and focus on what you want, not feel awful about being unaligned with him in some way, when we all know that if you're on the forum you're much more aligned than you aren't. This isn't some kind of submission though your brain will trick you into thinking that it is, it isn't giving your power up or becoming brainwashed, this is the ultimate owning of your power, your authority. The greatest power is beneath surrender. As above, so below. Love one another as yourself. The greatest way you can progress and love yourself and change "others" is to carefully watch and examine your own reactions to anything and everything, Leo's videos, reading this forum, anything in your life. It's all on you.

Light on Earth

Meditation is both self love and Self Love, awakening is Self Love. Our thoughts can cut ourselves off from Love, other thoughts can help propel us in the direction of it. We can tell the difference between how they feel, and meditation makes us more sensitive to how we feel, so thoughts improve meditation and meditation improves the quality and feeling of our thoughts, each build upon one another.

The sun is a sphere, yet the rays of light create angles, rays. A pyramid is made of angles, made to represent a ray of light and ends in a point. Angels angles, angles of a pyramid, angels peer amid. My parents house where I grew up was surrounded by trees and didn't get much light. When I bought this house I realized that lots of old homes were built to fully utilize light. I love farmhouses, how dramatically sloped the roofs are and how almost all have two windows at the top that stare out at you like eyes, or do you stare within or without? Accidentally wrote star, not stare. That's a word connection I hadn't thought of before. Working on youtube video about Jesus, which is a subject I've researched all my life but am still ironically doing the most research on for the video. Reading the gospel of Thomas again. Jesus said, "If the flesh came into being because of spirit, that is a marvel, but if spirit came into being because of the body, that is a marvel of marvels. Yet I marvel at how this great wealth has come to dwell in this poverty." Every time I read this I draw a different conclusion, see if from a different angle. Maddening, magical.

@zeroISinfinity My guru dog is Mu, (Muninn, Mu for short). Reality is loopy today. Or maybe it's just me. And there it goes AGAIN.

angles of the pyramids angels peeramid

@zeroISinfinity Lavender is the new sage. *Writes herb garden on dream board.* Ha! That just happened right now when I wrote herb garden on my dream board.

This should really be on a billboard.

I agree with all that except to add, wanting reality to be a certain way changes into embracing the joy of creation, and the beauty of having an illusory future that sort of resolves itself into a "now" the becomes felt as eternal rather than limited. Up to you. "You are Leo Gura" Hmmm... GODDAMN it LEO.

It's the desire to transcend suffering that's key, alchemy doesn't refer to turning base metal into gold but suffering into bliss. Enlightenment is that process. No suffering, no enlightenment. There has to be a transformation, there has to be something that actualizes itself for enlightenment to be at all. There's no higher and no lower, each serves the other in strange loop style. Nothing changed in the end, change transformation/no change at all. Duality collapses between self and other, actualization and stagnation.

I won an art contest once with a linograph print. I didn't like the medium at first, so it was strange that I won with it. I used to really love deserts, even though I'd never and still have never seen a real desert. I made a desert scene reduction linograph, with the moon and stars and I named it "Light in the Desert". The meaning was deeply spiritual to me, but i knew that no one would think anything of it. I learned at a young age that art really comes alive only after you give it a name.

Ok, here's the other piece of it, I want to know about. My friend sent me a funny thing on Facebook and I laughed and looked at it and said.... *just got distracted for 20 minutes on Facebook* UNTIL I found a post of someone posting a design I had made years ago that I had forgotten about. After commenting I'd forgotten about those! I remembered. JESUS. What is forgetting and remembering? What is focus and ignoring? Anyway my friend sent me a funny thing about school horses, and the crap they do and I made a comment saying I think the horse I had was all of those. Then I realized that she had sent me a screen shot of posting it 8 years ago right after we actually went riding, and I had said, in a comment under it "I think mine was all but the last." I felt... silly. And it illustrated to me how awfully fucked up memory is. There's a lot of stress at home. I have to homeschool an autistic kid that got several different services, all of which have stopped, with my daughter in the mix, on top of make every single meal for everyone, except we are lucky to still get school lunches delivered twice a week. What helps is that I don't carry the burden, but take every moment as it comes, knowing that it was all that ever... ever. ever. ever. Going in the direction of love and connection. There's been lots of joking and laughter lately. In a thread I posted in today someone hit me with the "would you say that to someone who has trauma?" thing and it made me think of my sister and the last conversation we had before life started going to hell in a hand basket with corona virus. I was shocked that she had trauma. It made me connect with her and at the same time... I don't know. It blasted through some protective layers. Today she sent me a message. She has been teaching tai chi remotely and she said that she had a surreal experience in which she was watching herself on the screen and she became me in looks and sound. My son asked what my favorite game was when I was a kid, and today I found a version of it online and he played it. And the names of creators came up and one is the name of the town I live in now, and the other the word "crow". Yesterday when I made the video on the island, a crow was cawing in the background distracting me, but when I made the final video it was silent. It feels like insights are remembered and forgotten. It feels like spiritual "knowledge" happens this way and it's a little... unsettling. My dad used to make fun of my mom constantly for conveniently forgetting things in her past. As if one must remember everything perfectly to be whole. It feels like there's no progression, but I'm just bailing furniture and heavy shit over the edge of the ship, cause I know it'll sink if I don't lighten the load.

@SilentTears Ha! That's awesome, thank you. The word joy keeps coming up. Her youtube name and the tattoo I just noticed on Teal Swan's arm. Also I listed to an Abraham Hicks recording where they play the super corny song that goes, "Joy, joy, JOY! Joy is the key!" and ever since I've been singing it randomly. I used to HATE the word "enjoy", until a few years ago. Something felt weird and disgusting about it. It became a joke with my friend. The other word that used to make me stabby? Pamper. Sense a theme here?

How do we actually ignore something? It doesn't mean we're not thinking about it because we are, a lot. "I'm ignoring my responsibilities"...but what I mean to say is that I feel shitty because I feel like I should be doing something and I'm doing something else, meaning I'm splitting my energy, I'm unfocused. I feel like this is a really big question, storms a brewing but that's all I've got to say about that.

@Bazooka Jesus It's not about ignoring the cause, it's being open to seeing it from a new perspective, outside oneself. The past is not the past in the way we think it is, we are writing those memories anew in every moment. Shadow work is literally rewriting your past because the memory and negative feelings about it are completely based on nothing. People often react to being told that strongly unless they deeply desire to awaken, or deeply suffer for it and desire to transcend it. People react so strongly because their ego is based on those negative feelings being based on something. The ego is that something itself. It all sounds very stupid and avoidant, I realize that, but it's not in experience. Shadow work bubbles up on it's own and things are seen in a new light when one makes the more general intention to feel good and live life with an open heart. Sometimes it's not about avoiding but identifying the direction we want to go in and making the intention to feel good in general until we're ready to tackle the more threatening offending specifics head on. And sometimes we may need support from "others" to do that.

I'm imagining an alternate universe in which CarnivoreAsleep and lesbian middle-aged lady Nahm have a mind blowing conversation about Ford Mustangs.

Christianity is in itself a path to enlightenment, it's not necessarily a problem or a handicap although it might seem to be for most, it has nothing to do with the religion itself. Most relationships don't match up in the level of spiritual development, but since spiritual development is all a facade anyway, it doesn't matter. The beliefs we have about other people are what keep us from our own development. There is love and connection within us always, we don't need prerequisites for it. I was raised Christian and I remember a lot of discussions about whether you should date someone who is unsaved. Saying that you shouldn't felt wrong. Thinking MAYBE you can save (change) them by dating them felt a little better but also wrong. It strikes me as funny that this same exact question at its root is asked just as often by those seeking enlightenment. In the area of who we should date and marry, we want pure unconditional love and yet we allow ourselves to make our most harshest judgements in this area, and that's what makes romantic love so damn challenging. We often hold from ourselves what we want most in this area. But because we blame the other person, we don't see that we do this only to ourselves. I'd try to show her how Christianity is pointing to nonduality, ask if she really understands the meanings of the parables of Jesus. Read the gospel of Thomas, read what Eckhart Tolle has written about Christianity, study Gnostic Christianity and you'll be able to speak to her with her language she was raised with and you'll not come away unchanged yourself. I'd do this only if it seems fun, and not if it feels like you're doing it just for an end goal and have an agenda. The best relationships are curious and seek to learn, understand and fully experience one another, they are open and loving. Open-mindedness is curiosity and love itself, but... you're the only one who can experience having an open mind. When it is imposed as an ideal on another it immediately becomes closed mindedness.