mandyjw

Look back on your childhood and your life from the perspective that you are an author who was writing a story. So instead of identifying with being the character of the child, you are now the author who dreamed up that character. Why did you choose the parents that you did for your character? Why did you write those hurtful or traumatic things into that story? How did they help the character become who they are today?

@Zigzag Idiot Ok, I was just thinking, the hand is the son, the manifest physical. The Father is the realization/acknowledgement of the space the hand resides/exists in. The Holy Spirit is Love.

@Matt8800 I noticed that there are birds, stones and trees involved in nearly every religion or myth that points to nonduality. I was wondering if you had come across this or had any thoughts about why this is?

@Zigzag Idiot Is this God, the Father and the Holy Spirit?

@Truth Addict@Zigzag Idiot It's so easy to get lost in the world in worrying about the things you do, the things other people do and thinking about how you stack up or how people like you. It gives us such peace to remember the present moment, to remember the nothingness, to remember that there is no self. We remind ourselves "There is just this." But that's not quite right. There is no just this. There is THIS. Magic is love, love is magic. An Abraham Hicks video helped me to make this connection, that when you get that feeling, that impulse or vision that feels amazing, that's it right there. Then we think about the action and the manifestation it may or could lead to and often get lost there, but that feeling that connection that bliss, that passion, that connection with love, and the present moment, THAT was it.

The way I mediate on my breath is basically I mediate on my belly as I'm breathing. I go back to that during the day several times if I get stressed or overwhelmed or just want to center or ground myself. It's super simple. If I ever feel like my breathing is shallow or I feel the need I take a deep breath and think of filling my belly then my lungs and my whole body an exhaling. That by itself deepens the meditative state. I think that mediation on an object or on nature, meditation by seeing is REALLY interesting thing and I'm really interested in exploring and contemplating the differences right now. This is exactly what Leo mentions so often in meditating on his hands. To me enlightenment is a lot about learning how to "see". I'm just hesitant to recommend that you switch out your practice for an object. The purple of focusing on the sound of the fan is that it will lead you to that "soundless space". I would choose whatever practice really resonates with you and feels good in the end. I found this video posted by Zigzag Idiot and it really helped me understand the process I was doing spontaneously while running and spending time in nature.

The Holy Spirit. If you know how to read, study and contemplate for yourself, the Bible itself really isn't all that misleading. My guess is that he studied for himself and didn't pay attention to people's words or interpretations. In my highschool art class we had to learn calligraphy and make a poster out of a favorite quote. I chose Hegel's "Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion." My mom told me at the time that she thought Hegel was a communist but it's still hanging up in their house.

Dance with the one who brung ya.

@seeking_brilliance You're doing great. Want to switch to focus on breathing or feeling the energy field of the body?

@EternalForest The last element of this video is an important one to bring into meditation. It took me a long time to understand it and I'm still practicing it. Like you if I'm out in nature, then BOOM deep love arises quickly. Also if you don't mind my asking, how does your OCD play out? Do you hear voices in your head or get impulses? I had OCD that I got over for years and it reappeared before I had an awakening and I saw that it was tied to intuition and my shadow side. Just an interesting perspective on it, if it helps you to have an open mind about it always being a negative thing, though I fully appreciate and understand its potential to cause suffering.

Not that you're wrong about the boredom thing, but God loved you so much that he gave you free will. That itself means that devilry must exist.

The third eye isn't as much of an is but an isn't. A lot of teachers avoid the mystical subjects because they cause a lot of resistance and disbelief in people early on. Or in other people they excite them and they misunderstand why these things exist and don't want to do the "groundwork" or purification necessary for those experiences to be integrated and purposeful for their path of evolution. So "How do I open my third eye?" is often a question that often comes from a place of incomplete understanding. It's also a potentially dangerous thing to integrate when it does happen and you don't want to have it happen too soon. I can understand why some teachers think it's better for people to just put the pieces together after it happens rather than to be focusing on one part of "body" and get mislead by the mind. Other teachers have described in detail the physical sensations of awakening, but everyone is on their own path and those sensations will be very unique for everyone. So you can see the potential for the mind to anticipate and expect something to happen, then to add desire and fear blockages to it. Then that all gets in the way of true being, which is the only thing that progresses "you" spiritually.

Ohhh!!! We're not done yet Mr. IwantPancakes. Well I got me a fine wife I got me an ole fiddle When the sun's comin' up I got cakes on the griddle Life ain't nothin' but a funny funny riddle Thank God I'm a country boy Well I wouldn't trade my life for diamonds and jewels I never was one of them money hungry fools I'd rather have my fiddle and my farmin' tools Thank God I'm a country boy Yeah, city folk drivin' in a black limousine A lotta sad people thinkin' that's mighty keen Son, let me tell ya now exactly what I mean Thank God I'm a country boy Do you see why I'm crazy now? I had to spend 2.5 hours a day on that bus.

APPARENTLY you haven't listened to enough country music.

It most certainly DOES! Oh he's too busy looking for something more... Are you sick of apples?

Because what is fear really, underneath it all? Love. What happens when the mind sinks into the heart? Clarity.

His mind has sunk into his heart, that's the end goal that does not exist. The journey is the magic. We chose it. Leo said that Nahm is a carebear, but Leo is the actual carebear. Nahm is the most terrifying "person" here.

LOOK AT HIM, STEALING MY COCOON ANALOGY. I think that the universe gracefully allows you to progress and then at a certain point your old hangups from other stages become very obvious. I think that's what you're seeing, not necessarily the general overall stages people are at. Nearly everyone here is yellow, a few are stuck in green and desperately fight yellow, those who insist how painful life is. Nahm is stage coral, Faceless was stage coral, some here are stage turquoise. I also have a stage orange shadow. Spiral dynamics is a gross oversimplification of evolution, there should be two scales one for emotional evolution and one for intellectual evolution. You can know without knowing. And you can know without knowing. Both are problematic.

@Truth Addict Love. Love what you can, don't get stuck on what you can't. Love is never fully restrained by any culture or system, you must look to the cracks where the love shines through straight to your heart.

So I wanted to address the odd relationship I seem to have to stage blue, this is probably in response to Truth Addict's journal entry, but it's something I've been contemplating a lot lately. I railed against and detested stage blue for most of my life. I know that when I was a kid, I was stage blue, I liked George Bush as president because he was an evangelical Republican and I was raised to think this way. After 9/11 I experienced feelings of nationalism and patriotism was and I got caught up in it. I was just about to turn 13 years old. I believe that that coming of age time is when the most dramatic black and white thinking occurs, and the potential to be a "boy soldier" is scary. For highschool I went to a semi-private school. The mostly unspoken secret was that this school was run by fundamentalist Christians. I was a Christian but not an insider, being from a small town from away, and completely unknown, having no affiliation with any respected or disrespected family name or any church attendance that would have identified me as an insider. I saw the evils of stage blue and I saw the stage green liberal science and art teachers make do with their environments. I never got to experience the positive community of stage blue and so it only caused me a lot pain and hatred. I was always the outsider. My parents were hermits, had stopped attending church and distanced themselves from the community. Odd things would happen though, like the third year of highschool listening to country music and detesting it every day of my life, suddenly something clicked and I began to enjoy country music. My heart opened to my toothless smiling country music listening bus driver. I had somehow rewired my brain by surrendering to enjoy something that I hated. Buddhism and enlightenment brought love and acceptance into my past and the community in which I live. I healed my past, a huge theme of which had been hating stage blue. Suddenly I saw stage blue through the eyes of source and the eyes of love and I saw how it embraced and protected me my entire life. It was like the rigid walls that protected me from the elements while I created and evolved. Stage blue was/is my cocoon.

Just now I was waking up still in a half asleep mode. A voice said something like "You're constantly mad at the world for not appreciating and honoring the little seemingly insignificant things but you don't within yourself." Sleepy Mandy was like "Aw universe yeah, you're probly right..." Then the power went off just for a second and came back on. Lately I've been more aware of how I may be affecting electronic appliances. That insight/correction gets to the heart of a huge conflict I have with life right now.

I used to have these dreams that I lived in an old, secluded dismal house long ago and there were bodies buried underneath the floorboards. My Mom got this student who was terrifying and she hated her job and lost her love for kids and her belief in the good of mankind. During that time I dreamed that he came at me with a knife. But instead of running I fearlessly embraced him and he started crying and something great was healed. I don't know if I was asleep and awoken with a kiss or if Dopey the dwarf dropped my coffin and the poison apple fell out of my mouth. But I'm awake! I was blind but now I see! Universe, I gave birth to you in great pain and ecstasy. I love you, I am you. Come play with me. Swing from my branches, eat my apples and be happy. IT'S SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL!!! I LOVE YOU ALL AND EVERYTHING. The Tree of Us.

Ahh.... look at how the video ends. She's skating. COME on universe I need to get out of the rabbit hole and materialize something today. Poison apples.

@Nahm You'll forever live on in my heart as an awesome trendy woke middle-aged lesbian lady.

@Nahm Oh no, she's an absolute angel. She just wanted to make sure I stayed one too.