mandyjw

Yes! I've been obsessed with that story of the garden of Eden, the notion of paradise and the symbol of the apple for months. Funny timing, I just finished making this.

Relationships never stagnate, only our ideas about them do, just because the ocean isn't stormy at the moment doesn't mean that it's not deep. You can never fully know a person even if you spend your entire life with them and you can never fully know yourself because you are a fiction. Drop your ideas about your partner and the relationship and experience it in a deeper way. It's exactly the same way meditation works. You're becoming more sensitive to life by becoming conscious of more of it in a deeper way by seeking fulfillment from within, then you might find that you no longer look elsewhere for something new.

I'm going to entertain the woo woo spiritual reasoning here since it seems you've thoroughly checked this out, Ramana Maharshi and Ramaji both talk about the right side of the heart and Ramaji talks about experiences with pain located there. “This self is the eternal, immutable Self that ever throbs as ‘I’, ‘I’. It is not touched by birth and death; it is eternal. It is not confined to the physical body in which it stations itself; it is universal in its spread” writes MK Pandit, scholar sage of the highest order, in the book "Mighty Impersonality." “Where is this Self to be found, is the next natural question. In the heart, is the answer. But it is made unambiguously clear that it is not the physiological heart on the left side of the body that is meant. The Heart that Maharshi speaks of is not the usual heart muscle. It is the spiritual heart which is two digits to the right of the center of the chest. it is not physical. It is in the subtle body and lends itself to be felt and experienced to the earnest inquirer in the course of his quest. http://thinkingaboutsurvival.blogspot.com/2009/03/science-of-heart-and-sri-ramana.html

DEFINITELY. It can feel like the most intense vulnerability but also like embracing and letting go at the same time. I think it helps to remember that the spiritual ego, or rather our thoughts about spirituality have two different forms, A. It complains that other people aren't spiritual enough, and or feel goods about itself for being above others. B. It beat itself up for not living up to its lofty expectations. There's a subtle difference between awareness and punishing ourselves. For example say you are trying to house train a puppy. If you aren't paying any attention to the puppy at all, not giving it opportunities to go out, and letting it have the run of the house unsupervised, are you going to rub its nose in it when it has accident? Or are you going to recognize that you weren't paying enough attention? Of course, you can do either, but one option builds your bond with the puppy and the other breaks it down.

There's one way to define meditation, it's the way Abraham Hicks suggests when she says "pay attention to how you feel". There are a lot of layers to how deep this pointer goes. We often get confused and think there is a pay off for suffering, but mental suffering is desire to go through a wall and the door through that wall is going into feeling, sensations and out of thought. Example: I made a mistake that cost me money, and I think of it in the middle of the night. I feel bad. If I was aware of the way my stomach contracted just then, I could just be that and feel that energy. If I'm not aware I continue to feel bad. The thought made me feel bad so I stay within the realm of thought and seek my solution for feeling better there. "It's really the contractor's fault, not mine. He wasn't paying attention." I'm using thought and stories to make myself feel slightly better. It feels better to blame someone else than to blame myself. If I'm completely unconscious I let the blame erode my relationship with this person in the future, and cause this situation to replay and replay again. If I'm somewhat conscious, if I'm trying to become a better person I notice that I just blamed another and I go back to feeling bad about myself again, perhaps this time I'm feeling bad about my level of consciousness, rather than the initial mistake. While my desire to do better in the future is powerful, I have again in this moment missed the invitation the suffering presented. Train yourself to notice at all times how you're feeling. Whenever you notice suffering go into your breath, your body, sensations, the present moment. Look around the room. All these are pointing to the same thing, the same non-action. Beating yourself up for not being conscious is the same seeking thought and continuation of suffering. You might notice that suffering seems to be key in this work. You might notice that cold showers force you to go into sensations. You might read about monks who do crazy things to induce consciousness through pain, you might read about Eckhart Tolle awakening from a severe suicidal depression. Suffering is an opportunity. The level of suffering or the time you spend suffering means absolutely nothing, it's only that high amounts of suffering cannot be ignored, that invitation can't be missed. Your sensitivity and awareness is everything. Low level suffering, annoyance, overwhelmed feelings, malaise, all of them are powerful invitations. You do not have to suffer. Sound too good to be true? Then find out what truth is outside of thought.

A lot of brilliant innovations and creations have been copied and mass produced for nothing by China, they have nearly destroyed entire art forms. Of course this isn't China's fault, it's Americans/westerners preference for cheap quantity over quality. I live near to a Native American tribe reservation and once traded my art with a basket maker. The one I got from her she had added her own decoration style to, a technique that was not traditional but something her mother had come up with and taught her. I do feel like there is some pressure to keep their work traditional and not to innovate or add personal style too much. There are also tensions between generations because the younger generation never seems to be able to keep the traditions as well as the older had, naturally as time passes and the world changes. There are certain records that out of respect for tribes are ONLY kept within the tribe, not even historical records exist outside. This puts a huge amount of pressure on a very small group of people to keep these things. Sadly being to unwilling to share traditions with interested outsiders means that some will be lost forever, but inevitably they will be evolved into something new if the world takes hold of it. I'm not sure there's a right answer.

Mental suffering is an invitation to a party when you're like, "ehhh don't really want to go to that at all." But you go and then you have the best time, meet to love of your life there (yourself OF course!) and live happily ever after. Then you might get in a fight, break up and get another invitation but it's always YOU you ever meet at the party.

@DrewNows So much of this seems mindblowingly simple and basic, it seems like the very first things I was practicing when I discovered Eckhart Tolle. Except there's a depth of realization or experience there, like I got something out of the way. Suffering, awareness, body awareness, energy, source. BOOM. I don't know, maybe I'm full of it. My mind is still distracting me by being like... GUESS WHAT EVERYONE!!! THERE'S NOTHING BUT THE PRESENT MOMENT! But you know what, distractions are perfect. What could I possibly be distracted from? It's like before letting go of the story thoughts were a chore and a supposed to do and now it's like the most exciting thing in the world. There's still suffering but it's an invitation.

Letting go feels so much like really embracing. The mind can't work out what's really happening.

@Danioover9000 I told them and they didn't argue with me.

We all draw different experiences and challenges into our lives as we evolve together. You can know what is right for you or live in peace with not knowing, but you can't say in general what choices are high or low consciousness for everyone.

Nonduality means psychosis, spirits/demons, repression, trauma, depression, malaise, etc is all the very same illusion.

Spirituality is about becoming conscious of what you've been unconscious of, bringing to light everything you've been repressing and sometimes when those monsters get unleashed they play themselves out for a bit. It's not a linear path, you appear to go forward and backward. Sometimes we are afraid of what we see, but it is it less dangerous to stumble around in the dark your whole life? The only person spirituality is threatening to doesn't exist. It's appears to be happening on its own but nothing is happening at all.

Because it's both, but both is a non-answer so if you answer the question at all you have to pick one. Everyone talks about and puts their experience through a mind filter differently.

Why does Rupert Spira talk about enlightenment/awakening as very infrequently being an intense experience, and yet almost everyone here reports intense experiences?

Raw nuts are great. I also eat a lot of olives. Walnuts and brazil nuts are my favorites right now. Limit the brazil nuts because they are very high in selenium, which is excellent in the right amounts, not good to get too much though.

I think eggs are a great food as long as they come from a farm or truly free-range chickens. Buy organic or local from a farm you trust. There are a lot of widely varying opinions about cholesterol but it looks like it's not as big of a problem as we thought it was. These questions are getting harder and harder to answer the more we learn and it looks like genetics and other factors play a role, therefore some foods are healthy for some people but very problematic for others. The best test is for what foods are healthy is to pay close attention to how they make you feel. Egg sensitivities are also common so that's another reason to really pay attention to how they make you feel. For that reason they aren't a great food to eat every single day because that can make you more likely to develop a sensitivity in the future if you don't have one now.

Last week my son's classmate father and my neighbor's son died of cancer. I wasn't aware that my son's friend would be leaving to move across the country with his mother. His death really bothered me. This event helped illustrate to me very much how I use stories to cause my own suffering. I bought an Easter lily this past Easter because Easter had an entirely new yet very old revived meaning to me again. My lawn was dug up to fix a plumbing issue so when it stopped flowering I threw it out back to compost. I never got the area cleaned up well all summer. A week ago the lily bloomed again. I thought it had died out there but it hadn't and now there's just one prominent blossom. This morning I went to get a sympathy card or the father of my son's classmate and my neighbor who died from cancer. I picked a religious one with an Easter lily. When I went to check out there was no one at the counter. The store was entirely empty and I was in a rush. So I stood there and without thought or intention starring at the impulse buy display, went into breath and sensation and dropped the story. It significance of this insignificant event hit me, no one had done anything at all. Immediately the cashier came out.

It's funny to think that my intention for starting my first journal was really about me trying to... let go of a story. Whew. That was an unexpected adventure. Blink. blink. One cannot write a new story about letting go of a story and say that they let go of their story. You didn't, you just started volume two. It's not quite that easy, yet it's even simpler than that. It's so simple it just BEGS and DEMANDS to be complicated, hence the need for incessant story telling. I really want to tell a story about how I'm pissed off at Rupert Spira. GODDAMN it, God why did you make it so sparkly and shiny? Fireworks and castles in the clouds, adventure, exploration, romance, magic and friendship. I love your imagination God, I love that you woo me with all the sparkly pretty things and the Valentines. How fitting that winter is coming. What am I doing here again? oh yeah... not telling stories. Blink. blink.

Your intention to integrate the shadow and the awareness of it are more important than you know, so trust in that. The actual steps you need to take to do this will be revealed if you allow them the space to appear. Our shadows are as unique as we are so the things we need to do to move beyond them/bring them to light are incredibly unique as well. In addition to Nahm's suggestions, I'd suggest running or any exercise that takes very little thought and puts you into a flow state. It can allow things to bubble up and new insights to occur or can just be very cleansing of whatever emotional crap we're holding onto. Also journaling can be really helpful. Just with both of those things be careful not to identify with self or let old negative thought patterns run them. Go into whatever you choose with a curious, exploratory spirit, not with the heaviness of a problem that needs to be solved.

So often I find myself giving advice here and a short time later it hits me that I needed to hear my own advice and I'm like... crap, just talking to myself again. If a tree falls in the forest and you're the only person who hears it did it still make a sound?

Also pay attention the the last step here in this video. This is the missing element from your meditation and realizations. The law of attraction or teachers who focus on love can help you with this, also time in nature, making time for self care, creativity and exploration because the realization of this in yourself is what is needed.

There are two things that I believe are key to moving on once you've reached this point. First let me just say that, I REALLY wish we understood this process better and I'm guessing but it feels like I'm on the right track. The problem is that I can tell you what was key for me, but everyone's path is different. I think we really need to try to understand this process better in a more general way rather than relying and teaching based on our own experiences. That's how I see most teachers going about this because right now that's the only way they can. Sorry for the long side note, it's just a disclaimer to remind you that I am a random person on the internet. The two things that were key for me where the law of attraction and shadow work. These things must go together. You cannot do shadow work and focus only on the negative and the past, you must do it from a timeless detached state that appreciates your life experiences from outside the limited perspective of you. The best way I can describe how this happened to me was that I realized myself as the author of my life, I loved myself as my own created character and saw that I wrote the challenges in my life and exactly why and what purpose they had. I highly recommend Abraham Hicks and having a very good understanding/application of her teachings in addition to Leo's and other traditions that focus mostly on meditation and accepting what is. My experience was a sort of collapse of the dualities between positive thinking/ you create your reality and the acceptance of everything that is. From what I understand you must have another person to do the shadow work with, and a good psychotherapist with a good spiritual foundation is the best place to look. This work can also happen in other ways outside of that traditional setting but lots of problems can arise with that. I believe that as a community we need to design a safe and inexpensive solution to this need.