mandyjw

@now is forever Hypocrisy from who in particular? @Zigzag Idiot I've observed the same thing in myself.

Oh, you're killing Buddha. I get it now.

Right before Leo's episode came out when he first started talking about how we will experience everything, I heard a Pema Chodron teaching on this poem. It was such a realization and taught in such a gentle way that I was primed to hear Leo's message before it was delivered. I felt that Leo's delivery was still incredibly harsh but if I hadn't heard this taught beforehand I don't know if I ever would have accepted it. To me it's a certain wholeness and compassion rather than a literal idea that we will literally experience everything. It's like having the essence or acknowledging your capability of an experience within rather than any prediction of an actual experience. I can try to find that Pema Chodron recording if you'd like?

What Jesus meant is that you must not identify with your gender, you cannot identify as male or female and be enlightened. Galatians 3:28 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

I think the only thing that could make this work more lonely would be being hated and complained to one moment and then worshiped the next. Fame is like the ultimate connecting yet disconnecting phenomenon. Obscurity is quite an unappreciated luxury. I guess both fame and obscurity are luxuries and curses simultaneously. Thanks Leo.

"Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow because even today I still arrive. Look deeply: I arrive in every second to be a bud on a spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, in order to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that are alive. I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river, and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time to eat the mayfly. "I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond, and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence, feeds itself on the frog. I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks, and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda. I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate, and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands, and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to, my people, dying slowly in a forced labor camp. My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all walks of life. My pain is like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans. Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one. Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up, and so the door of my heart can be left open, the door of compassion." Thich Nhat Hanh

"Do you want an apple?" "NO!! Eventually, it will be a core!"

That's just it, you do own the concept of it because you are God. But you can't aim to awaken because it's something that happens to you. Telling someone to awaken is like telling them to sneeze. Right now. Sneeze.

Can you make love? Can you make space?

Uhmm.... what????? I'm going to pretend that you didn't use that analogy.

Pretty sure it's this one.

Wanting to agree with people, or wanting to be understood by them isn't a bad thing, we all have that desire, which is just a deeper desire for connection. Just watch yourself as you do it, try to bring in more awareness. It's ok to want approval, again it's part of a deeper desire for connection. Is there a more fulfilling way,or ways that you can get the connection that you seek without relying on these pattern behaviors?

In the response to your last video I'm not sure if I'm upset by your "asshole qualities" (most of the time). We all have patterns like that I suppose, and I've learned to appreciate them in people. They can limit how much someone can connect with others, so it's great to be aware of them. What are my patterns? I've always though that you were pretty committed to encouraging people, that's how our conversation started in that thread you gave me a compliment/thing to ponder in one comment. Around 11:00 you said that it's always not good to put others above yourself, that who thing seemed incredibly masculine to me. I think back to being pregnant and how the first part of pregnancy it's like having the flu for 8 weeks. There's very little that can top the misery of those 8 weeks and you don't have any choice, your body has been co-opted by a new life. After that experience it seems very second nature or at least no big deal at all to put others especially your kids above yourself. You're very concerned with how you appear to others in the video. I appreciate how outright you are about that, where I try to hide or ignore it. Your voice is very kind.

What Leo said about how the techniques you must use to survive vary depending on your environment got me thinking. I was extremely sheltered as a child. I never realized how rural the area I grew up in was, I assumed all 50 states had similar populations, and that all interstates had just two lanes. In my early 20's we went to New York City. My reality was shattered. On the subway, I sat and looked around at all the people. Someone got up and started talking, it was a black guy and he was wearing winter boots that were untied on an extremely hot day. He locked eyes with me and didn't look away, he was explaining his predicament and asking for money. I realized that no one else on the subway even acknowledged his existence and I realized my mistake. I thought it was funny how the more people there were in a place, the less they connected with each other. I loved the energy of the city but found the lack of connection horrific. I thought all the women I saw were stunning! I realized how little work, money or thought I put into my appearance in comparison. I realized that if I stayed very long that my compassion for other people and my lack of self awareness about my appearance would go away quickly. It was not nearly strong enough to survive that environment. My life flashed before my eyes after a recent awakening and I sort of reverted back into something like what I was as a child. That included an increased interest and passion for the religion I was raised in, Christianity. My dad was a passionate Christian, now he says he is an atheist. I tried to talk to him about it and he got angry with me. "We sheltered you, you don't know how bad things were, how women were treated in the church!!! etc" I never had to go to church, or summer camp, I just studied the parts of the Bible that resonated with me and formed my own idea of Jesus. I even pictured him as an animal, not a human. I was sheltered BY Christianity from a lot of bad decisions my secular peers got involved in, and I was also sheltered FROM the worst of Christianity. Because we were so secluded, I didn't have a lot of opportunities to hang out with kids my age, so I spent a lot of the time alone in the woods. I would also visit my Grandmother or spend time with people much older than me and I gathered a lot of wisdom that way. My first introduction into Buddhism was one of my mentors, she seemed like she was part Buddhist/ part witch and she was brilliant and creative. She deepened my understanding of the magic of nature and gave me the courage to go into art because of her. My best friend was the only other girl in my gradeschool. Her parents we classic stage green and they moved her to escape the materialsm of the very wealthy neighborhoods they grew up in. She expanded my stage blue worldview from a young age. I realize now that I accidentally was born into the perfect environment to awaken. It's almost as if it were designed for me to awaken. I always thought that I wasn't living up to my potential by staying in such an economically depressed rural area, but I got something way more valuable out of it. I believe that each and every one of us is born into the perfect environment for us to awaken. But I still draw the conclusion that cities and rat races and that collective feeling of stress and pressure to achieve and "make it" that you feel in a city is the need to survive on steroids. I wonder if I'm woke enough to survive a city now, but I still don't think so.

@ColdFacts That's awesome, sorry you have so many restrictions so deal with! @CreamCat For sure, but you'd probably need more tools and dedication to get there, either that or have a huge break when you lose it all or something like that. Most people survive in high stress environments because they have a drive to chase something, and that thing is not a sense of Peace.

I've been able to see in meditation how the colors I see correspond with the chakras. Sometimes I see magenta, or hot pink. Supposedly, pink is a variation for green, or the heart chakra but from experience, I don't think this isn't true. Magenta is its own color, it's necessary for mixing other colors, that's why printers use cyan, magenta and yellow. Magenta is the color that connects red and purple in a wheel, it doesn't really appear in the rainbow spectrum. In art class and in art sets, it's often left out because we are taught that the primary colors are red, yellow and blue but you can't mix all the colors with those, they are incomplete. There's an artist who made his own color wheel that is more true, Scott Naismith if you want to google it. https://johnmuirlaws.com/color-theory/ The chakras, are more like the color wheel rather than a finite line I believe. Maybe enlightenment is having your head up your own ass, I believe this all fits into Leo's metaphors quite nicely. So there yah go, even your chakras are a strange loop.

I had a recent awakening and before I had a few close relationships. I always counted on those people for deep conversations but now I either leave them very concerned about me or I have to be very careful what I say. I'm mourning the loss of those conversations that were from the heart. My Dad has always been really outrageous and open minded so I shared just the very basics of my awakening and life recently with him today. At the end he said "Don't go too crazy with it," and I told him there wasn't such a thing as crazy and he disagreed and I knew that I went too far. I know that I need to be careful with what I say in the future. My heart is a bit broken. I'm a bit addicted to this forum because it's the only place I have to ground me in feeling like I'm ok and I need it to assure myself that it's ok to be crazy. I feel too immature and niave to know what I know, and I feel like I cheated to get here, I didn't even really believe that there was a here. I feel like I should be more mindful, present and independent but the signs and sychronisities throw me off more than ever. I should have my life together more by now but I don't. I'm lucky to have my husband and a friend in real life who understand as best as they can but they all suggest or say that I'm crazy if I say too much. Has anyone dealt with this? I know that without the help of the forum I would be in very big trouble but I dont want to have an internet addiction for the rest of my life either.

This journal is a place for total chaos. Everyone is welcome. There are a few things to understand first before posting please. Me and a few other members on the forum have had organic conversations in which the boundary between self and other disappears and great insights result. For me this resulted in my doing shadow work and trusting someone else to prompt me through it, resulting in an awakening more dramatic than any I've experienced yet. This was only possible because we were able to connect and understand that we were each other's mirrors. Everyone on this forum is our mirror but in our desire to look smart, be respected, not get into trouble or not embarrass ourselves, we close ourselves off from each other for protection. Post only if you are interested in seeing who you really are and are truly ready for the discomfort that that entails. The danger in starting a discussion/thread/journal like this is that these conversations seem to happen organically. Can they be prompted? It's sort of the same concept of psychedelics I suppose. Does it really matter if a mystical experience is induced or natural as long as you have it, some way? This thread will be an experiment in which I hope to find out the answer to this question. There are no teachers and there are no students. Only mirrors. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most enlightened of them all?

I found this incredibly amusing and also how I've kind of always wanted to live my life, but I've always thought it was an indulgence of my lower self and my not taking life seriously enough, or at times I even thought it was a mental illness.

@Nahm Because it's the shape with the least amount of surface area, they form themselves even if it appears that we are forming them.

@Nahm Bubbles are fun.

@Nahm I like it.

What if he was the perfect embodiment of enlightenment in a human being? What if God (yourself) said, fuck it, lets just show humanity what their potential is, I know it's going to make waves but I'm getting bored here so let's see how people react. He died for our sins in a lot of ways. You can look at him as your highest self, someone who put love and truth above his own survival. He talked about how if you want Life you must die to self, but then he was literally killed by the collective ego. If everything is you, then you both were Jesus and killed him, you were the Pharisees and the Romans and all the disciples too. He died for all those sins and all the future ones. Love is grace, it's knowing that everything and everyone "sinful" as a part of you, and it is the only way to purify yourself.

The Gospel of Mary Magdalene 22) The Savior said, All nature, all formations, all creatures exist in and with one another, and they will be resolved again into their own roots. 23) For the nature of matter is resolved into the roots of its own nature alone. 30) Matter gave birth to a passion that has no equal, which proceeded from something contrary to nature. Then there arises a disturbance in its whole body. 31) That is why I said to you, Be of good courage, and if you are discouraged be encouraged in the presence of the different forms of nature. Matt.22 Verses 34 to 40 [36] Master, which is the great commandment in the law? [37] Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. [38] This is the first and great commandment. [39] And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.