mandyjw

I understood the need for limitation in form/creation itself but I never thought about it as applied to spirituality and enlightenment. We all puzzle about different masters and how they live their lives and point out flaws and sometimes intuitively feel that they are missing something. We want to understand where we are "going" but we can't. Where would the fun be if we knew how the story ended ahead of time? Shinzen Young or Peter Ralston or anyone else won't be able to spoil the ending. Maybe because there isn't one.

How can your perspective be so discouraging and yet so freeing at the same time? What is going on here? ?

WE CATCH THE WHITE WHALE!!! We're stuck in a story that we are both the author of and a character in. Life is a lucid dream. You can steer yourself to where you want to go but there are still surprises along the way, because otherwise it wouldn't be any fun at all. Fun. We exist for our own entertainment. Are you having fun yet? Life can't be any fun if you think it's real and think it's happening to you instead of for you and your character development. Doesn't that make you want to give Voldemort a big hug for making Harry Potter possible? Also the things people told us are fun aren't really much fun. So that's a necessary realization too.

Different siddhis are given to certain people and not others, still within the story of duality. They are given based on what collective consciousness wants to come through into the story, into form, based on which direction it is moving or what it is evolving into. So we are dreaming that we are awakening, and in that dream we will acquire certain talents to help consciousness along it's path to awakening. The community, the one, the coming together of these talents, is how we awaken Earth. Comparison of abilities or how hard won they were is focusing on what is not desired, when we could be aligned with God/earth's/collective consciousness' desire. I mean, I could drive up a mountain to see the view from the top or hike to the top but hiking is a lot more satisfying to me. Other people would call me an idiot and just drive to the top. But I want sore muscles and a dopamine high or I won't enjoy the view as much. It's a choice.

Beginner's luck is a real thing, because faith and belief are everything. The beginner hasn't been told how hard he has to work and how long he has to wait in order to be rewarded so he doesn't believe that it will take a lot of work and a long time. Faith in a technique, faith in a substance, faith in a sacred place, faith in oneself, faith in God, faith in destiny, it's all the same faith.

@Nahm Now I want to compliment you on your talent for writing and understanding but since you just explained that if I do that, then I didn't actually get what you wrote and therefore would be canceling out the compliment. So what are we all supposed to do now, just sit around in thoughtless awareness?

Enlightenment is falling in love with everything. Surrender to love can feel like bliss. Love itself is not just a feeling, we feel it when we are conscious that we are it, or rather, that we are not and love IS.

@Angelite This is a stage, while it doesn't feel like one. You can keep going on your path if you desire. That's why they say that if you meet Buddha on the road, kill him. The same goes for any other God or guru. You don't actually have to kill them, lucky for me Jesus comes already pre-killed but you may wish to go beyond the duality of creator and creation.

Just a minute, he originally landed on my son's head and stayed quite a while, I think he had to dry his wings off. When I moved him he stayed on my finger for a picture.

I went back today and his deadly nightshade plant is in bloom.

Dragonfly visitor at the lake today.

@AleksM Thank you, I really enjoyed the video. I'm only beginning to appreciate the diverse ways in which the people and the planet awaken.

I'm energetically messed up from traveling and need to reconnect but there's lots of stuff spinning around to write down later.

I agree with this to, you don't necessarily have to disagree with either point of view. Truth is a paradox, eventually everything is seen as true until the mind is stopped. Meditation can be a powerful tool to make you aware of the things you need to work on/focus on when you aren't meditating. Mastery of focus on what you want is not repression. As strange as it sounds, deep shadow work can actually be exhilarating.

@DrewNows I have one of those petunias this year!

It's ok to take medicine when you are sick and expect improvement. The key is to focus on what you want and to find things to enjoy about the meditations. Focus on states that you do not want to feel will make them more of your experience so if we pay attention to how we feel and appreciate the states we do want to feel, we will have more of them.

The Devil will be thrown into a lake of fire. Now that's a paradox.

@Jg17 Brilliant, you took it further than I did. We wrote all those rhymes, legends and childhood stories, God is the author of it all. The Truth is... it's all Fiction. What fun to wake up to the dream together and continue to dream it.

Leo chooses to speak about nonduality in a very dualistic way sometimes. It's kind of brilliant when you realize that nonduality includes duality itself, and often what blocks us from realizing it is our belief that the nonduality side is the only true side and that nonduality can only be taught in a certain way.

@pluto It's not a competition.

Christians call people who study mystical stuff "cults". Their definition is that anything New Age, or slightly woo woo is a cult. They are usually quite materialistic and don't go very deep with their faith. Christianity for most acts a sort of "fire insurance," it's an easy way to cover yourself from the fear of death and hell. It's not usually questioned much. I grew up Baptist and we always talked about the other denominations like they were evil or mislead. Pentecostals still speak in tongues and have a lot more open mindedness to the spirit realm, so we thought that they opened them up to demon possession. Christians do believe in demons, and the supernatural but everything from that realm is either angelic or absolutely evil so it's the greatest thing to be afraid of. My Grandfather told a story of a girl who visited their Baptist church from a Pentecostal church and in the middle of the service she started channeling in a man's voice and saying "LISTEN, MY CHILDREN". He was a deacon and him and the rest of them grabbed her and took her to the church basement as quickly as they could and she scared the ever living crap out of the entire congregation. Knowing what I know now, I feel so bad for that girl. They do try to control more and more aspects of people's lives, sometimes pastors in the congregation creep their way into controlling families. A lot of damage is done but not really physical violence. That doesn't mean it doesn't or can't happen somewhere though.