mandyjw

I attracted this, I attracted all of this. All of the interactions on the forum, the story line of Leo himself. The admirers, the random and blatantly disrespectful "admirer" in real life who has finally left me alone, this recent comment on a youtube video of mine, "Awww. Aren't you cute?. Society says that masculinity is toxic and I say that society is toxic and terrified of masculinity. Masculinity is an untamed force while femininity is easily controlled and manipulated. Women give advice to men on how to be men. Only weak men accept that advice. Only weak men are feminists. The thought of being feminine in any way is sickening." All of it. I wrote that comment, I wrote all those messages. I think these things. I believe these beliefs. I believe I'm less than. I believe I'm not worth listening to, not worth speaking. We have dramatic tides here. There are areas that are stunningly beautiful when the tide is high and ugly, and the become stinking mud when it's low. And I thought about how sick it is to judge the beauty of it depending on the presence of the water. When the mud is the earth and the earth is the same that you are standing on as you look out over the water and appreciate its beauty.

It's hard to reconcile the fact that my awakening was an event or rather coincided with an event of shadow work occurring on it's own, of my life flashing before my eyes in an appreciation of contrast. The shadow work happened within the vortex as Abraham Hicks put it. I feel a need to do some shadow work, and while these thoughts cause emotions to rise and cause me to cry and release emotions, they do not in any way feel bad. This is a kind of magic. If it starts feeling truly bad, I know I've gone off into ego land. Doing this is definitely an experience of blurred lines. Last night I had an odd dream in which my father and husband interacted in a way that made me incredibly uncomfortable, and I said nothing. Before that I had a dream that I was in car accident and me and some random older man got our hands burned and at the ER he loudly complained and was treated, while I said nothing and stood around on the outskirts. The odd thing was that I knew my hands were burned too but they didn't hurt. The evening before this I had gone on a walk with my father and the dogs and one likes to run off when we get back and this time she ran off and didn't come back. I wanted to go look for her but I had to get my kids home and the entire time I felt awful and mostly only extremely concerned about how my dad was feeling, blaming myself for not taking her collar sooner, feeling responsible. I'm understanding lately that I've spent during and after my awakening trying to cope with being female, after learning that I am not a woman. You'd think coping with being human after learning that I'm not human would be more difficult, but maybe this comes first? I put other people ahead of myself. I put their own feelings ahead of my own. I consider their perspectives and forget my own truth. Being on the forum this past year has been hard at times, it feels like an abusive relationship and I'm always coming back for more because there's something I want out of it, some kind of resolution or freedom. But the truth is that I am responsible for how I feel. My being mad at men for not giving me what I think it proper credit is in actuality, my own giving my power away to men. I am the resolution and freedom.

There's still quite a few people here who don't appreciate this or think their study of Buddhism has checked the "I understand the purpose of religion now" box. Studying a religion and taking wisdom from it is not religion at all. Religion is a catalyst for knowing and experiencing love and devotion so strong it burns up the ego. Without individual empowerment and understanding that purpose has been used and abused in history. It looks like weakness, like surrender looks like weakness to those who don't understand it. But that function itself is necessary for enlightenment. The function itself is unavoidably created whenever someone starts teaching and gets a following. Just like a candle flame serves for a point of focus and fascination in meditation, the teacher itself becomes a point of focus just as Jesus became. A lot of people find this horrifying, but if you came to earth to teach yourself, how you you ever recognize yourself if it wasn't through love?

No one knows what "enlightened" actually means. It's so creepily inexplicable that it seems like it can be experienced and plotted on a map. WTF? It seems that people use the term for someone who has had an awakening where they ceased to exist, or they realized the truth of no-self, an experience so beyond mind that it includes and encompasses intellectual understanding. Mind patterns are not completely resolved by it, it takes integrating in mundane ordinary life. Everyone has to get along in "ordinary" life, or survive, so they continue to have opinions about it, and are asked by their students who are also trying to navigate "ordinary life" in different cultures and societies so they use the topics to share an opinion which may or may not be their entire understanding of the subject, but rather points the student to letting go of something or understanding something deeper than the subject at hand. Or it could just be their opinion. Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, even if they are awake.

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." I figure if Wim Hoff had to raise 4 kids alone and found his solace and relaxation from them in the extreme cold training that he did, then if I can learn to tolerate my kids during meditation, I'm gonna be like the Buddha squared. If you can't meditate and listen to "Baby Shark" on replay in the background, then just get the fuck out. I'm kidding, sort of, if you can get time for yourself do, if not, you needed the exact kind of experience or challenge that you got.

@Unjigorjigor Intellect gets in the way of faith, faith gets in the way of intellect, until through love you see they are not what you thought, but instead are the same thing. If you believe that faith will save you, you will be too afraid of what it's supposed to save you from to surrender to what real faith is. Atheists, skeptics and agnostics, too, ya devil.

I try to get up earlier than them but occasionally getting enough sleep takes priority. Often they get up pretty early, so then I do the best that I can with them running around, climbing in my lap. The thing about having kids is that you truly appreciate the time you have to be present and are greatly motivated to bring presence into the chaos. Seems like they are slowing your progress down, but really they're there just for you to wake up. Remind me of my own words in 10 minutes. lol

The strange thing to wrap your head around is that Christianity, even misunderstood, did a lot of good and played an important role in the evolution of consciousness. At the time Jesus came, a handful of people were ready for that kind of teaching. He intimately taught his disciples, with not that great of a success rate, and Mary was not just some random woman that gave birth to Jesus, but rather she was chosen to be his first spiritual teacher. He did not become who he was without intense study and meditation. That's why he gives Mary and John to each other as he dies on the cross, and that's why the book of John is closest to the true teaching of Christ. Christianity became a fire escape, a hope of life after death just through saying the right words and thinking the right thought, and gave purpose to suffering. It could not have spread so much if the true teachings were understood and preserved. Some people got a fire escape, some people weren't satisfied and went deeper. It was the will of God that Christianity, at least for the time, become a cheap and easily accessible invitation of hope to everyone. Instead of a quest for enlightenment only available for the chosen few with the drive and ability, it became a watered down, democratic religion for the masses. You have to admit, there's a kind of beauty and grace there in that. I think Paul played an important role in that.

ac·tu·al·ize /ˈak(t)SH(o͞o)əˌlīz/ verb past tense: actualized; past participle: actualized make a reality of.

Happy Winter Solstice. "A long time ago, the raven looked down from the sky and saw that the people of the world were living in darkness. The ball of light was kept hidden by a selfish old chief. So the raven turned himself into a spruce needle and floated on the river where the chief's daughter came for water. She drank the spruce needle. She became pregnant and gave birth to a boy, who was the raven in disguise. The baby cried and cried until the chief gave him the ball of light to play with. As soon as he had the light, the raven turned back into himself. The raven carried the light into the sky. From then on, we no longer lived in darkness." http://eattheplanet.org/spruce-edible-evergreen-tree/

Read this about Carl Jung this morning. "One sunny day, when Jung was twelve, he was traversing the Münsterplatz in Basel, admiring the sun shining on the newly restored glazed roof tiles of the cathedral. He then felt the approach of a terrible, sinful thought, which he pushed away. He was in a state of anguish for several days. Finally, after convincing himself that it was God who wanted him to think this thought, just as it had been God who had wanted Adam and Eve to sin, he let himself contemplate it, and saw God on his throne unleashing an almighty turd on the cathedral, shattering its new roof and smashing the cathedral. With this, Jung felt a sense of bliss and relief such as he had never experienced before. He felt that it was an experience of the “direct living God, who stands omnipotent and free above the Bible and Church.”

In Transformations and Symbols of the Libido, Jung differentiated two kinds of thinking. Taking his cue from William James, among others, Jung contrasted directed thinking and fantasy thinking. The former was verbal and logical, while the latter was passive, associative, and imagistic. The former was exemplified by science and the latter by mythology. Jung claimed that the ancients lacked a capacity for directed thinking, which was a modern acquisition. Fantasy thinking took place when directed thinking ceased.

One sunny day, when Jung was twelve, he was traversing the Münsterplatz in Basel, admiring the sun shining on the newly restored glazed roof tiles of the cathedral. He then felt the approach of a terrible, sinful thought, which he pushed away. He was in a state of anguish for several days. Finally, after convincing himself that it was God who wanted him to think this thought, just as it had been God who had wanted Adam and Eve to sin, he let himself contemplate it, and saw God on his throne unleashing an almighty turd on the cathedral, shattering its new roof and smashing the cathedral. With this, Jung felt a sense of bliss and relief such as he had never experienced before. He felt that it was an experience of the “direct living God, who stands omnipotent and free above the Bible and Church.”

The quality of leadership is not specific to any gender. This is not true with humans nor with many animal species. Femininity, is after all a concept that is relative. It can never truly be defined in itself outside of culture. Don't forget that femininity is itself, content within a structure.

I believe in clearing the way for everyone to have equal access to do the things they want to do, but you are right that women themselves shame femininity itself, and this is a huge blind spot within the feminist movement. Again though, that's just the level of consciousness we are at. I would like to see society raise the value they give to care-giving jobs and paying more for them, rather than expecting that equality looks like having a 50/50 split of men and women in the field of engineering. In reality, more men are going to be drawn to engineering than women, and more women are going to want to work as caregivers than men. The reality is that people in a stage orange society are much more impressed with seeing a big building go up than having someone make their transition in life with excellent hospice care, so one job is paid really well and the other is volunteer. But the truth is, that many women still get "stuck" in unpaid caregiving jobs, whether caring for children because they can't afford or can't access daycare, or caring for an elderly parent. This is a huge responsibility put on women and it's mostly unappreciated and unseen. That often prevents women from having or exploring any kid of job they want. Plenty of women make fantastic engineers and CEOS and they should have every opportunity to do a job like that. But they still face many prejudices and that still needs to be addressed. Likewise plenty of men make amazing caregivers, and people are sometimes suspicious of men having caregiver jobs. That needs to be addressed too.

You are looking at the content, not the structure. In a stage orange culture, feminists must use stage orange tactics, they must speak the language that is being spoken to be heard. The transition from orange to green will not be painless. Remember this in all situations that seem unfair and it will give you peace, the degree to which you can love others in your interactions is based on your state of consciousness. Once that is seen anything but forgiveness and understanding is insanity. Women have been neglecting self-love for centuries, always putting others ahead of their own desires and needs, sometimes by choice and sometimes by force. There's bound to be a collective ego backlash from that, how could it be otherwise? It's not your fault or the men in your generation's fault, don't buy that if it seems like that is the message being spoken. Collective karma is a thing. It's always helps if you are suffering to zoom out and examine the big picture.

Make small changes and you won't have backlash. Start everyday with a super healthy breakfast, then go from there making little changes as you are inspired to make them. More and more notice how you feel and focus on what you can have (a clear mind, feeling good, a treat without judgement here and there), not what you can't.

Abraham Hicks will solve them dilemma for you nicely. It's mind boggling how magically she seamlessly uses one to teach the other, just like life. Separation is necessary for teaching at a certain point, for example if you want to teach a child to read, you'd first teach them all the letters of the alphabet before you expect them read words themselves.

He uses his name together with dramatic headlines as click bait, true tabloid style. "Alien Bible Found! They worship Oprah!"

@Angelite What is respect, it is a form of love or is respect an acknowledgement of power? Is it possible to love power as an aspect of oneself? Is it possible to respect something without fearing it?

It's the Devil. But to be fair, the Divine Masculine is Lucifer. They are not the same things, they are different symbols with different also important symbols associated with them. They are not evil, they are powers, but in their pure form, they become destructive because balance is lost, and duality is created. So we're separating them for the purpose of understanding them. There seem to be two separate forces or inherent spiritual powers, when examined by the mind of course. Just like the chakras separate energy into seven energy centers to aid understanding of experience, understanding these "two" forces can be incredibly helpful in teaching and mapping your own journey. Some religions worship one and call the other evil, other religions are very biased towards one. The Devil- Passion, associated with heat, with a power that rises from below like fire, lower chakras, kundalini energy. Associated with Goddess Kali. Associated with the Divine Feminine. Passion and creativity. Explosive, impulsive, passionate love. When imbalanced results in overeating, sexual promiscuity, drug abuse, laziness, rage, emotional reactivity. Witchcraft celebrates Mother Earth, and there is an element of maternity and care here, like angry mother bear. Kali is finally stopped by infant Shiva. Lucifer- Intellect, associated with cold, light, a power that falls from above like light, lightning, or rain. Associated with judgmental Gods like Zeus. Divine Masculine, intellect, judgement, separation, (so much so that he separates himself from God and "falls" from heaven, black and white perception of the world, dogmatic. Cool, calm and calculating. Disciplined, loves structure. Repressing. Modern Christian churches, celebrate this "Heavenly God from above" dogmatically with rules and regulations. Strategic, brilliant, building, planning. To give credit for this, I found this mostly unknown author a while ago and this is just my own summary, interpretations of her writings that I thought people here might find interesting and helpful, especially because we talk about Devilry so much. Here's a link to her website. https://www.mischaalyea.com/

For survival purposes, valuing rest and avoiding potentially dangerous situations can be very smart.

Another important question to ask is, what is the difference between worship and deep love and appreciation?

Well now I'm intrigued.

All religions are stories. Taken literally, they become beliefs and dogma, because there is truth and false, there is a true religion and false religions. When beliefs have been let go of, and faith, love and desire to know remains, the truth of the pointers of the stories is seen clearly, and the stories themselves take on a deeper kind of truth. There is no religion that has the truth, each uses symbols and stories that use symbols and pointers. Even for those who has seen the truth of the pointers, studying an unfamiliar religion can be like trying to make sense of a different language. It makes sense, but you still have to put a lot of investment into learning it before you can make sense of it. All religion has ever been is an attempt to explain the unexplainable.