mandyjw

Your nature is to love suffering, why else would you watch a movie or read a story about characters who face challenge? You just don't want to be the one who suffers. Does that mean you want a flat, boring, unfeeling life then? Probably not. You probably want to have an amazing, incredible life. You want to experience the highest highs and experience the lows knowing that they are inseparable from your experience, that you chose them, that they are the very thing that make the highs so sweet, the very thing that guides your experience TO the things you want to experience. It's your life, it's your journey, and you are the hero. Own it.

@Raptorsin7 You will grow to appreciate when you are disconnected, because you are the entirety of the experience and re-connection feels so damn good. You know the way food tastes SO good after you've been hungry all day, or coming in where it's warm after you've been freezing outside in the cold? Those highs and lows, that's the color, the flavor, the variety, the BEAUTY of our experience that we came here for. You will love it all. Yes, and the way you distinguish is by noticing how you feel. Everything we want ends up being a facade, a mirage, a representation of the real thing. But that deceptive facade is creation, evolution and beauty itself, gone full circle again, inseparable.

@Serotoninluv @Raptorsin7 Whenever you feel good, or you are in the flow, are creative, or you feel oneness, peace, stillness, are asleep, are inspired etc, you are connected with source. In fact you are always connected with source, because that is what you are but you can also think things that cloud your connection and make you "forget" because you are so identified with thought in that moment. Thought itself is not evil. Good feeling thoughts are not bad, they are from source. Insight, appreciation, expressions of love, all these thoughts are beautiful manifestations of creation. We do not wish to be free of thought, we wish to be free thoughts that make us feel bad. Once you pay attention to how you feel you know how well connected you are with source and the more you pay attention the more you will notice thoughts that are off or feel bad. The trick or practice that helps us gain this sensitivity is to learn to slow thoughts down. That's what mediation does. It does not stop them. If cars are zooming by really fast you can't make them out very well, but if they go by sloooowly you can carefully examine them, and if you do that then maybe you can even ask the driver of that goddamn rusted dodge neon without a muffler to stop driving by so much, because you have by now realized that you own the road and are in charge of it. Meditation makes you better and better at noticing which thoughts feel good and which don't, and it's also an invitation and space for entirely new thoughts (insights and ideas) to come in.

You are loved, you are loved. Self love is also self love. It seems too good to be true but it is. If you love yourself, you will never truly want anything that is wrong or bad for the whole as you are inseparable. This fear that that could is unfounded, it is based in the belief of self and other.

You cannot want something for others because there are no others, you cannot want something for your self because there is no self. You are always acting out of pure Selfishness or selfishness. Sometimes selfishness feels like jealousy, comparison and threat because you've fragmented yourself between self and others, which cannot be true if we are One. Other times it feels like love, freedom, and wholeness (One) and when you feel great you know you're acting out of Selfishness. Ultimately, anything you want is only because of the underlying desire of feeling good. It's not ever the thing itself you want, you want to feel good. Feeling good is also connection with Love, with the One. See how that came full circle?

Personal, meaning the self or the Self? What's the difference between self and Self in your experience? What is the will of Self?

Are the dots not actually moving but disappearing and reappearing so that it creates the illusion of movement?

So, I was randomly reading about this castle. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/destinations/europe/germany/neuschwanstein-castle-fairy-tale-king-ludwig/ The king who built it was hated and eventually, it seems, murdered for being so extravagant in his lavish spending and plans for it. The castle has since paid for itself many times over in tourism revenue and has awed and inspired millions. Was the king's wish to build it truly egoic? Maybe our greatest inspiration is also our greatest gift to the world? Do you chose what inspires you?

In Hoc Signo Vinces

Birds of a feather flock together. I'm not sure how a conscious community could have rules that excluded others though. If a community arose on its own because people gravitated there, that would be another thing.

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.