mandyjw

@James123 Not my quote.

How could you even recognize intelligence if you weren't already it? ?

Your actual, natural state, outside of thought is complete open awareness. You are what Knows that it knows that it knows. Notice that you can't learn anything if you think you already know it and what you think of as your intelligence is what you think you already know or what you think your capacity for knowing is. But pure awareness is the only real capacity for learning. Your mind is only known by awareness itself, it is what is aware of thoughts about it and the world and the thoughts that arise in it about how all these things relate. You seem to understand the world and how it works better than a child, but what if that world was created by adults, based on assumptions that other adults taught you when you were a child... people who thought they knew better than you? That game is rigged. Just like with an IQ test that measures one, tiny, infinitesimal slice of the capability of the human mind.

Awakening is the end of misunderstanding. Since the separate inner "you" is the misunderstanding, you only Know Yourself, there is only primordial Knowing, Awareness Itself, Knowing Itself. Thoughts and sensations, which before were believed to comprise the separate mind and body, are known by awareness, and made of the very knowing. Disclaimer: There is sometimes a huge, dramatic, climactic yet with no climax and no one to reach it, "non event" of awakening, after which never seen before insights, as well as new and old misunderstandings flood in along with unbelievable feelings and states. The mind can only contextualize and remember objects, people, places, things that were around the time this non event that it cannot remember having occurred. It often mistakes those objects, states, experiences with realization. It can mistake itself as being realized. Seeking resumes, and if one follows their heart and is earnest enough to continue discarding whatever thoughts and beliefs don't feel good and limit the Love that it is, well, who knows?

esteem (v.) mid-15c., from Old French estimer "to estimate, determine" (14c.), from Latin aestimare "to value, determine the value of, appraise," https://www.etymonline.com/word/esteem There aren't two of you, one that can honestly determine the value the other. The game is rigged, it's like playing chess with yourself, you always win and you always lose, and it's really not that much fun. The desire for good self esteem points to the desire to feel good about oneself. All you really want is to feel good no matter the subject, or regardless of the subject though. You cannot really accept or reject yourself. Are there two of you, one that can accept or reject the other? What is it that knows the answers about itself? Are you the knower, or the known, or the knowing? What is your experience of yourself right now?

@digitalmarketingbyniWelcome! You mean listening, like as in podcasts and talks on youtube or music?

Illusion is creation. So say you create a painting of a vase of flowers. It's never an actual vase of flowers, it's a painting. The actuality is creation which is separation and whole at once, or never separate. Suffering is when we forget the appreciation, beauty and "purpose" (which is actual freedom and non purpose inherent in creativity). If you were to sit down to make a collage you'd take paper in an array of different colors, use scissors to cut, separate the already separate colors into different shapes and then glue them together again to create your art. The art is unity and diversity as one. When we create consciously the pieces all fall into place.

What you really want is to know, (or more than know, feel really,) that you're ok, regardless of the conditions, is that accurate? You feel good around people, you feel good alone. Your time alone is making this more important, it's putting feeling first. You want to be unconditional about people. You want to love them unconditionally. They're there, good. They're not, good. Resistance is subtly sort of putting a condition on ourselves. Then you might think "I only feel good when I'm alone" even if that seems to be true or not. When you're alone, you aren't usually thinking and believing thoughts about what other people are thinking of you. When people are around the fear of these thoughts becomes social anxiety. What feeling good when you're alone is trying to show you, is that it's the thoughts and it's believing the thoughts, not the condition of being around people. You don't really overcome the thoughts, you stop believing them. You start paying attention more to how thoughts feel and less to which seem to grab your attention and cause you to put up your guard in a knee-jerk kind of way. This video explains really well how we can understand feeling and how we begin to use thoughts to create rather than to react, resist and believe in conditions.

It points to something even more profound than that. Look in fascia and how your body holds memories, kinda the same deal.

@Bogdan I'd definitely try a low fodmap diet until you get more figured out, and strange though it seems, the Medical Medium's celery juice in the morning seems to really help me, especially with the energy level thing.

Oh! A disguise! I thought you said "diss guys". Clear now, thanks.

@Leo Gura Oh shit. Time to buy some Nair I guess.

If you were to sit down to make a collage you'd take paper in an array of different colors, use scissors to cut, separate the already separate colors into different shapes and then glue them together again to create your art. The art is unity and diversity as one. When we create consciously the pieces all fall into place.

Whatever floats your boat, I'm kinda bored with some angry bearded dude in the sky.

Oh no, you revolve around nothing.

"But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows." -Luke 12:7 Sort of explains why so many enlightened people are bald. Less work for God I guess. ?

@fopylo How did it reduce envy? It makes sense but I'm interested in how and why you feel it had that effect. Were you envious because you were feeling left out in some way before, or for other reasons? I suspect that this is important because a lot of releasing resistance is about being able to determine what we want, and envy usually means we have desires we don't believe or aren't allowing. There's absolutely no resistance for me right now for not going to Antarctica, because I don't want to go to Antarctica. However, for example if I do REALLY want to go to Hawaii but I'm scared of a long plane ride and therefore try to convince myself that I'm thrilled to stay in the Northeast the entire rest of my life, THAT'S resistance. You gotta feel into it to know the difference.

I think what you discover is that it's fun to push your boundaries, and that's what you really want. Often something comes up that we want to do that sort of forces us to confront these boundaries. For some people it's finding a partner, for others it's a career thing, etc. That becomes the focus that gives us the will and direction to see through the boundaries. We get sort of tricked into facing these boundaries, not knowing that what we really wanted was to see through them and be free of them, or else we wouldn't feel it as a boundary or anxiety in the first place. If you can get curious about the boundary itself you can see what it's made of, thoughts that are holding some sort of belief that isn't true about you or others in place. If there's discomfort around being alone, practice solitude, if there's social anxiety, explore that. If there's a desire to go hike the Appalachian trail or meet somebody, listen to it. Ultimately it doesn't matter what you do, and what the external circumstances are, it's the curiosity(awareness) of our thoughts and assumptions that matters. "Awareness is the greatest agent for change." -Eckhart Tolle

You have, and are your own Source. If you follow someone who lacks understanding, that's reflected in yourself. All true teachings seek to connect the student with their own Source, the teacher is a means to an end, so is the student. If a teacher forgets that they are Source and believes or makes others believe that they need them it might be a harsh lesson that's unlikely to be forgotten. Source is still the only teacher.

Awww, thanks @allislove !

@soos_mite_ah Very cool! I find the Wim Hof breathing really intense but also really effective too.

If you take one thing and draw a line through it, you have two things. Duality, light and dark, self and other, past and future, etc, is present as object(s) and the space which allows the object(s) to be defined and have existence. Exist, means literally to stick out. You cannot exist if there's nothing for you to stand out from. And there isn't.

Don't. You made it into a checkbox on a checklist to check off. The pressure of that task is ruining the entire point of the interaction. The point is to enjoy each other's company. Who cares how that happens?

Don't draw lines between self and world, happiness and unhappiness, self and other, inside and outside and see what remains.

Rupert Spira was a ceramic artist before he got into teaching. http://www.rupertspira.com/home.aspx