mandyjw

There are more facets of awakening, or explained alternately, there is a wider variety of life experiences that Source desires to experience as the story of a specific human form, than are appreciated and known about on this forum and within the realm of spiritual "work". So it may appear that some people have a head start but then from another perspective the awakening process and intellectually understanding within duality nonduality is just an experience you chose to have in this life.

It's really helping to appreciate the despair and negative emotions I feel. Instead of feeling bad because I still have them I understand that it's an indication that there's a really strong desire with a lot of power behind it. Then curiosity arises to define that desire. It's interesting that this forum seems to trigger some of the more intense feelings. I'm starting to question more why I chose to experience the contrast I did, the degree to which I've experienced isolation in my life, whether by circumstance or choice have led to some pretty powerful desires. I expressed a desire to do mushrooms to my husband and his reaction was pretty spectacularly negative. He's still acting a bit cold and suspicious or maybe that's my biased perception. How tempting it would be to be mad and blame him for stalling my spiritual evolution. Of I could blame the fact that I have kids, maybe the kids themselves, or the government or I could blame the people who made me ever even dream of wanting to try them in the first place. The things we expect of our partners are ridiculous. Here, help me survive, I'll expect you to keep me safe, agree exactly with me on decisions affecting out mutual survival and you also need to completely understand me and align with me on a spiritual level especially when I can not understand myself or align with myself.

It's better not to click on those things and instead go in the direction that feels right and inspiring to you. Don't feed the trolls with your clicks and attention.

The Christmas spirit. It's so interesting to revisit this Christmas thing after the revelations of the past year. We put up our Christmas tree Sunday and I got horrible depression for a moment, recognized now as long standing thought patterns associating Christmas with depression and darkness. Getting so close to Source means going away just a little feels awful in comparison. I am going to get the last book in the series about the grail path about the nativity and the symbolism as it pertains to enlightenment. I was reading her intro and she described a candle ceremony in her church and how they walk through the darkness but meet and the sanctuary is glowing with light. And I thought how much I desire to be part of a church, a real church someday. And to sing altogether as one. It's funny that the thing that lights my soul up the most was the exact thing that I avoided like the plague my entire life. Another punchline to the joke. Maybe it's not the mansion I want to rebuild. Maybe I want to build a church. I just went out to pick up a few things and the store was playing a Christmas song and I recognized the trigger but I felt immune, beautifully immune to being dragged down. It felt like awakening, like the release of laughter at punchline of a very long, looong but worth telling joke. The only thing in my memory I can compare it to other than awakening is falling in love, or my excitement of being pregnant finally after trying so long. You're going about your life, buying toothpaste but inside your heart is aglow. When I drove home this burst of light came from the direction in which I go for those "lose yourself" runs. I couldn't find an explanation for the light. The building that would have reflected the light there was recently knocked down. The building I first saw when I came this way as a kid with the red herring on it and the old double doors that were always open just a bit.

Please forgive me.

I have my reasons, don't judge me people.

Can you imagine if you were a character in a story? Now imagine that you are playing that character but who you truly are is the author of that story. Wouldn't you throw some challenges in your character's way so she can evolve into what you envisioned in her all along? Wouldn't you as the author rejoice in writing the turning point in the story, when the desire to be greater becomes too big for her to ignore? Focus on the desire, focus on what you want to become, knowing that you already are whole, you already are that. The book is already written, but we're here to enjoy the story as it unfolds. When we get too invested in the character it helps to take a step bad, to check in with the author. Meditation, stillness, becoming aware of our thoughts and always moving towards a better feeling thought helps us to do this easier and easier. You are loved. The author loves you, we love you, we really do. The colors, the music, the beauty all around is here, just for you. You just have to match up with all that love and love yourself as much as we already do. And you already have. (I already peeked in the back of the book for you, and it's true.)

My suggestion to to get off this subject for a little while, plan your day around doing stuff that makes you feel great, even if it's cat videos on youtube. Sometimes that's what mindfulness (and self love) looks like when something has really triggered us. If there's any action or decision that is right it will come to you when you aren't stressing the subject so much.

This is not philosophy and can't be understood a level of thought. The mind wants to twist love into the greatest evil that there is, because to the mind it is a threat. If you're having a hard time understanding the "philosophy", then meditate more and think less. Pay attention to how you feel. pay attention to which thoughts make you feel good and which thoughts make you feel bad. Connect with intuition that is beyond thought, but inherent within your being. Then you can revisit the topic and ask the questions. Here's the thing with contemplation, if you have a burning question and want an answer, contemplate it. But the real answers won't ever come to you through thinking. Don't trick yourself into thinking a bunch of thoughts and imagining scenarios that feel awful. That's not contemplation at all, it's the ego making you suffer.

Not thinking or assuming that you already have seen what you are seeing right before you changes your vision. There's no way to predict how this will change, because that would be thinking and assuming. You can train yourself to see things by appreciating them and letting them unfold before your eyes. Really look at nature, the sky, water in a glass is a miracle of light and reflections. The world is a spectacular work or art, that you are creating before your eyes but you have called learned to ignore most of it. In your choice of ignoring it, you have created the false concept of "mundane" and "normal".

Designate a time, before bed or in the morning and plan how you want the day so look, plan your meals and exercise. Give yourself some leeway to go with your intuition to change your plan if you have a strong feeling about something, forgive yourself if something comes up, but have a plan and do your best to stick with it. Set your intention for the day and then let go of the thoughts about it outside of that planning period. We often need a plan in order to improve out discipline and build habits, but after much practice they become less necessary to think so much about and we can give ourselves more freedom. Ultimately strive to balance giving yourself freedom and also being intentional.

All of nature has power to it, we ourselves may not resonate with the same things others do. You may have insights looking at trees, watching birds or stones may speak to you. Or not. Your desires, beliefs and expectations create your reality.

You can't give up desires, you can take the suffering that time and thinking adds to our desires away from them. You can clarify desires. Desire can become satisfaction. But wanting to be free of desire is another desire.

@Surfingthewave Thank you. I noticed years ago that I could describe my life as an incomprehensible blessing and series of good luck or I could describe it as completely the opposite. I chose to see and understand that suffering is never caused by anything that happens, that it is all self created. I still have habits of thoughts and beliefs that try to solve the problems or make me feel better on the level of thought, the mind fights for peace. The mind is a sword that separates. The metaphorical sword that guards the Tree of Life. Repression is another trick of the mind, another way of fighting for peace, that needs to be seen through at seems to come up with every layer of the opinion that is peeled back. I have been reaching for more and in my reaching, fighting against depression. The fact that it has come back to me now means it or I know I'm ready this time. I'm ready until I'm not and then I'll get ready to be ready again.

That's interesting but be aware that it's a belief with a filter of fear, and of self and other. Everyone else is you. You are not separate from them, you are one. What do you gain by separating yourself from others?

You certainly can but this is one of those areas that is good to merge everyday normal life and meditation. Be as present as you can focusing on your breath, eyes open, looking normal, interacting when appropriate. Other people cannot condition your subconscious mind, it can seem like they have unwanted influence sometimes but it says more about your own susceptibility than them. Is this a fear that can be stayed with and seen for what it is, rather than allowing it to control your experience and perceptions?

Conservatives believe that communities and families should be responsible for people's welfare. The shadow of this is that it makes your acceptance within that community key to your survival, so it means you are less free to be an individual, evolve and so some people are left out of this safety net depending on the consciousness of the community. The good thing about it is that the government doesn't have eyes and ears and often fails to react quickly in a time of need. Also in a time of death or crisis, it's a beautiful thing to see a community come together to care for someone, and it offers much more than financial support but makes them feel loved and connected. For example, a bus driver for my son's school suddenly got diagnosed with terminal cancer, she was given a month or so to live. Her husband is also a bus driver, and so is her son. There is a terrible shortage of bus drivers because the government doesn't understand how important and how much responsibility the job takes, so it's a job that requires immense responsibility and pays very little. The community makes up for this by greatly appreciating and honoring their kid's bus drivers. A huge event was scheduled last minute to raise money (much needed) for her family. The government can put in policies that come from the heart and are a reflection of the people's consciousness, but the government will never have a heart itself. It operates based on rules, standards and policies and will never be able to intuit or react like a community.

By the way, anyone is welcome to comment here if they like, same as with my old journals. Yesterday I was told out of the blue that the aid worker I worked really hard for about a year to find for my autistic son is resigning. It took a while to process. I decided to meditate instead of going outside because it was so cold, but after that I decided to go for a run anyway. When something like that happens it's obvious how mind and ego controlled I still am. My pattern is always to do fabulously in the situation then to complain to other people in my own mind. If I can get to a place of crying or releasing emotions sometimes I realize the event triggered deeper older feelings about things. The run didn't seem to help much, I went home and stretched and was in child's pose and just thought about how I didn't really want to live. When people say they are suicidal on here it breaks my heart and I wish that we were better at offering resources, but in my case I know it's a dramatic thought that comes up. It's a misinterpretation of not wanting to think, not wanting to suffer, of getting stuck in the energy of the moment. It's rejection of life, a rejection of desire, a rejection of purpose. I feel pretty lost when it comes to purpose and direction right now. These feelings only lasted for a minute when my daughter climbed on my back and I knew that opting out and moping for long stopped being an option for me seven years ago when I became a mom. Sometimes this feels reassuring and other times it feels like a prison. Again, all thought interpretation. I dug myself out of it, whenever I went to my computer or especially the forum I felt worse so I cleaned up the house and got out some Christmas decorations and joked a lot with the kids as we put them around. As I was falling asleep a vivid image came to me. It was of a old woman sitting outside at a table, looking healthy and with a look of love, happiness and peace on her face. She looked a little like my grandmother but not quite. I realized she was me. It's interesting how many egoic thoughts I have about not living very long, not wanting to get old, yet also thinking it's a blessing I'm not worthy of.

I should do some research on lucid dreaming. A couple nights ago I dreamed that there was this little bird and he came near me and was losing all his feathers as he flew but he didn't seem bothered. They fell on my arm. I decided I might get bird lice so for the next 10 minutes as I went on with my dream life, I kept asking myself if I needed to wash my arm and having different answers, "No, it's a dream you can't get bird lice", back to "but maybe I CAN because this is real." That's a frequent occurrence in my dreams, that I pop in and out of dis-identifying with the dream. Hmm, same way with waking life too now that I think of it. When I had an awakening, I stopped dreaming, a story dream was very rare for a couple of weeks. Instead I would wake up with intense energy and words spinning and some huge revelation, needed to be written down and processed. I'd sleep for 3-4 hour stretches and that was it. Since then I still have small revelations or feelings of awakening off and on. But mostly I have story dreams again.

No, I wouldn't feel good eating that breakfast everyday. I have found I feel the best when I think very little about what I eat. Obsession with having a clean diet or completely giving up and overeating are both indications that I am unfocused and uninspired in life. Sometimes I want to have something "bad" I don't normally eat and it feels right and I feel great after. Then if I'm not focused thinking comes in and wants to make the spontaneous treat into a habit.

I'd compare it to having a conversation with someone who flatters you but who you inherently feel/know is only out for their selfish interests. You may enjoy the things they say on some level but also be aware of an unsettled feeling in the background. In my experience the ideal diet for me is ever evolving, so there are no rules I can follow without getting into trouble eventually. I found a healthy diet that made me feel and look amazing so this diet became religion to me. After a few months I felt sluggish and went on vacation and had a cheap continental free breakfast with dairy and sugar and a bunch of other stuff I wasn't supposed to eat. I felt amazing and was very surprised. Food I believed would make me feel bad instead made me feel great, at least on this occasion. The exclusion of certain foods has a toll, psychologically mostly, but also physically, so making a positive choice over another is better, but if you have to exclude foods, sometimes it's worth paying the toll until you learn some new habits.

Sex alters consciousness and anything that alters consciousness makes us afraid because we want to live in a society where people easily accept rules and aren't pulled by other forces we can't control very well. The misunderstanding that we are the body creates a lot of discomfort. We know that the body is important to our survival but we also inherently know that we are more than the body, so we actually try to separate from the thing that we think we are. We can't do that of course, inclusion love and acceptance for the body is the only way of transcendence.

The waves on the ocean are a phenomenon created in oneness by the air (wind), the formation of the earth, the sunlight upon it (allowing it to be in water form and allowing you to see it), and of course the water itself. None of these things are separate from each other, each is happening within consciousness as you sit and simply appreciate the beauty of it all. It's magic, it's alchemy, and you are the alchemist, you are the creator and the creation. Your separateness and your limitation is freedom to be a human who can go hike up a cliff and watch the waves on the ocean. Of you can spend your life on the ocean as a fisherman. Or live and die somewhere inland and never see it. If you deny your separation, if you deny your wave like nature you also deny the perfection of the the One. It is helpful to speak of it sometimes in that way especially to people who have always lived their life in threat of being a finite separate self. It is helpful to speak of "letting go". But at some point it is seen that because you are one, you never could have really denied or let go of anything.

@VeganAwake If you say nonduality is true and duality is illusion or false, you've just made another duality. I think that's why people like to say that nonduality includes duality, it's a "yes" to everything, so everything is as true as it is false. Inclusion is more true than exclusion because exclusion is duality and inclusion is not. Which is why it's described that way. I just watched The Little Mermaid and in that moment and now recalling I am just as much Ariel, Ursula, and Flounder as I am Mandy. I am nothing but consciousness yet also including everything within consciousness. The illusion is beautiful, it creates a whole new world of possibilities through creating choice and limitation. It cannot be enjoyed properly without the knowledge of oneness and yet, that's what we came here for.