Gianna

This is so well said! Spot on. Thank you for sharing your contemplation and its link to Tolle's quote! Super insightful. Wow. This is so incredibly beautiful and helpful. It really helps me to understand Bryon Katie's Work. But it helps me understand much more than that– it helps me understand understanding itself! Lol! And its influence over thoughts and feelings. It makes me think that Understanding is like Consciousness; as soon as you shine understanding/consciousness onto something, it brings Truth to light.

@undeather Thank you! I agree with you. The best way to know, is to know myself. I'm going to check this book out right now!

Ooooo very interesting! I love that take on it. The simplest answer is usually the most profound. I find that here!

@WelcometoReality Love this! Thanks for sharing.

How do you know you are suffering if suffering is all that you have experienced? It's like if the entire globe was blue you wouldn't know that it is blue because blue is all that you see and all that you have ever seen. So realize that it is the same with suffering. If suffering is all that you have experienced then you don't know that you are suffering. You can't recognize suffering from non-suffering because they are one in your reality if you are experiencing it. This is why victimhood is so taboo in our culture. It's because we can sense inauthenticity and we don't like it. When someone is claiming to suffer (i.e. acting like a victim), we can see in that moment that they are not actually suffering because they have to be beyond it to recognize it. So we get annoyed because it's like, "Why are you decieving yourself? Can't you see how unproductive this is? You are letting yourself follow falsehood. Change directions. Wake up. What are you doing?" Of course, this is coming from an attitude with very little empathy, and thus, understanding. But the point is that it's easier to see other's deciet than it is our own. Because true suffering goes completley unnoticed and that's what makes life scary. Because it is when we suffer that we engage in the most deceit. You are so in the dark about yourself that you don't even know that you are in the dark because you have imagined an entire reality in the dark and lost yourself in it. So your darkness actually looks full except you've dreamt up a miserable reality because misery is all you've ever known. That's true self-deception right there. So how do you pull yourself out of it? Well, deceit erodes when you erode and everyone dies. And the Truth is what stands because it is all there ever was. But how do you go an entire life without recognizing it? It's scary to realize that we don't know what we don't know. We can't see what we can't see. We cannot become aware of something that is outside of our awareness. But yet, we grow? So how do we grow? Growing happens from outside of you but realize that nothing is outside of you because you are everything. So when little blessing happen to you– either from outside of you or from inside of you– know that it is a gift from yourself to yourself. Let me ask you this, has anyone ever changed your life? How do you know it is them who has changed your life or if it is yourself who has changed your own life? For instance, if someone gives you something to understand, they are not giving it to you because you are the one understanding it! You give yourself understanding; no one can give you this? If there is an insight to give to a group of 10 people, who decides out of that group who will get the insight? They decide. You decided whether or not you get something. You are always the one to decide how much you will allow yourself to know. This is why true learning is a process of unlearning– because you already know everything! So when you come to know nothing (i.e. you come back to your most primal state of being) you will suddenly realize everything because you are everything. You can be downloaded with this understanding in a nanosecond because you are the thing that's being understood. You just can't hold on to it for long because it is infinite. So the nanosecond you understand it is the same nanosecond it is gone. It is fleeting, like time. But time doesn't exist. And yet you do. You are eternal. Eternity is always present so it is always there to realize. But we forget this because we love the remembering of it. We are living on the other end of the contrast so we can dip into it whenever we feel like it and be blessed with both of everything we desire.

Life is like a little game of hide and go seek that you play with yourself. It's so annoying. But kind of fun. It depends on what side you are on. If you are the one who is looking it's confusing and emotional and it breaks you down because you can't go long without yourself. But if you are the one hiding, it's funny. It's funny watching you struggle. Because there are no worries! All is good and all will ever be good and can only ever be good. Can't you see? Nothing bad can happen it's just me and you playing hide and go seek; there is no one actually here??? But we're freaking out and it's funny. You'll see me soon enough. Can't you see me? I'm right in front of you! We'll be together soon and the union will feel ecstatic– something we can't feel unless we're playing. Except, we are already together because we are already one. We never actually left ourself we just pretended that we did and then let ourselves forget. This isn't a game of hide and seek this is a game of forgetting and remembering. Don't you feel the Love we've always had? It could never leave you because it is you. But how would we ever know that if we didn't let ourselves forget it? I'll always try to give you the most I ever can. And this is how we're doing it!

ooo Leo should do an episode on this; kind of like how he did one for What is Art. I love the What is episodes.

You may be going into a dissociative state. Start doing shamanic breathwork, you need to be working on your trauma.

Maybe try a focusing meditation– like focusing on an object, your reflection in the mirror, or, you can try an allowing meditation practice. Here's one you can check out:

If you haven't done any shadow work then get ready for some unresolved trauma to surface. As far as safety, with shamanic breathing, you're obviously just working with higher amounts of oxygen in the brain. But how this coincides with LSD in the brain I am unsure. It is something to think about and/or research!

Maybe through reframing. For instance, think to yourself, "Each new aspect of me that I come to through change, is a different version of myself I get to learn from and spend time with. Each new experience I have gives me a new way to experience myself, love myself, and feel grateful for myself." This is thinking like God. God desires expansion– infinite diversity– a continuous search through infinity. God wants to explore the depths of its own Love. The capabilities of its own Love. You need to reframe your idea towards Love. Love doesn't mean stagnation. Love is unconditional openness, willingness, welcoming, and allowing. To want to stay the same is to resist growth because growth is your nature. Expansion is your nature because it is the nature of God. Resisting (especially resisting growth) is not your nature because it is not God's nature. God's nature is allowing, not resisting.

@RickyFitts Beautiful

I understand. Of course, only to the best of my ability. But I am excited for you. Follow whatever you desire and don't ignore discomfort We all are on the path of fulfilling our needs... of expansion!

Childhood is a prison where we are basically force-fed ways of being and thinking in the world. But we don't see it like this at the time. As children, we are so allowing, so open, so loving, that we'll take anything as a part of ourselves and reflect it back to ourselves... to reality. Have you noticed this? Kids will mimic anything they see. Kids are nothing but mirrors. They don't stop to consider, "Is this me?". They simply reflect reality back to itself unconditionally so that anyone looking can be with themself, love themself. Except, people are not receptive towards this love. When people don't like the reflection they see, they try to distort the mirror. They create cracks in the mirror so as to distort it. And so they create cracks in the child. The child becomes fragmented and learns to love certain pieces of itself and denies other pieces. They can no longer see themself– be themself– because they are no longer whole. They have to spend the rest of their life trying to find the missing pieces of themself just so they can become whole again. All because people didn't like the Truth when they saw it.

Yes they are. Because how would you be? @kras If you struggle with what Ricky is describing, know that all people operate the same because all people ARE the same. We are ONE.

What do you think will happen if you do open up and communicate fully with someone?

I wish you could come live with me :(( @Preety_India Would you consider moving?

Legendary series.

Shamanic Breathing

What a beautiful experience! On so many levels. Thanks for sharing! I've had similar experiences with music. It sometimes makes me feel like all of these artists knew this higher truth this entire time. But of course, many singers sing deep truths without realizing the Truth itself. There is only one Truth, and everything points to it once you start to see It seems to me that the deep, genuinely, and so then, most popular songs all have a bit of Truth in them. You can really look at Truth through so many different lenses. Truth is the light and we are the mosaic.

@RickyFitts that would be a very True bumper sticker

Yes! Because it is True. And the Truth is all the Truth needs.

Has anyone here been on a complete music detox (not listening to music for a long period of time)? I recently noticed that the times where I don't listen to music at all I have a very still mind. Then, when I start to listen to music again, it's like my mind is a broken record player. Just repeating the lyrics to every song day and night. Maddening!!! I'll go to sleep singing a song and wake up singing a song (all in my mind). Does anyone else share this experience? My sister is really bad she just goes around singing in her head and out loud constantly. It. never. stops. But I don't even think she realizes it.

Me, personally. No. I am not in a state of confidence. My confidence is actually shrinking. It's scary and makes me feel like I am losing what I know. But another part of me is growing. This part of me is gaining enough understanding to feel comfortable with not knowing and instead receive. The more I grow and the more I know, the more I can count on not needing to know and creating space for listening and understanding. This actually gives me back a lot of the confidence I lost, but it is a different kind of confidence. It is more of a willingness, courage. Because I am willing to not know, not be confident, and instead receive. But feeling states are where I am directing my focus. (this is why I am getting so specific in the different types of emotions lol!) I am trying to learn emotions right now. But this is why I say to have courage, instead of confidence. Confidence is fake courage! Know that this is just what I have experienced. I am the type of person that needs to strengthen my ego instead of breaking it down– essentially the difference between an empath and a narcissist. A narcissist needs to break down the ego; an empath needs to strengthen it. So a lot depends on what type of ego you have. If you are a people pleaser, you need to strengthen your ego. You need to be confident. If you are a narcissist, you need to break it down, you need to let yourself be vulnerable. When you are being confident, are you being authentic? Are you being vulnerable? Most casual confidence is confident because it knows it is not being vulnerable, authentic, and so nothing can actually hurt it. Maybe those bad things are supposed to happen and you are supposed to work through the feelings of those circumstances in your body– release them from your body. And then you will stop attracting it in your life. Maybe you are meant to learn from this pattern by shifting your perception. When you think of this happening in the past, what do you think the lesson was? Was it to let yourself be vulnerable? To not have expectations? To detach from outcomes? what do you mean by this?

We want the very thing we are the most afraid of– Love, Union, Death. These words are synonymous and are the reason why we are so fucking confused in this life. We want to love but we won't let ourselves die– so how can we love? We want union but are afraid to lose our separation– so how can we unite? We are like moths who go toward the light because it is all we desire. But when reaching it we pull away because we sense death when we are close. Well, what we intuit is true. We will die when we let ourselves Love. When we reach the light it burns us to heaven. To love is to lose yourself. It is why people love watching t.v., love playing a sport, a game, or conversating. It's why people love going to sleep. All of your worries, stress, anxieties, fears, limitations– they are gone. They are out the window because you are out of the window. You are gone with the wind; one with the wind. Our self is dead. Suddenly we are everything. To love is to become something bigger. Have you heard of synergy? Synergy is what you are, not either of the two making it up. Are you brave enough to let yourself become this nothingness? Bravery is not a choice it's a commitment. You are either committed or not, there is no in-between. Have you noticed that the best players, athletes, fighters, snowboarders, business leaders, even porn stars, are the ones that fully commit? A person that shreds down a mountain at incredible speeds, a person that rides across a wave, walks across a tightrope, flys between a mountain range in a wingsuit. These people are free because they are brave. They are brave because they let themselves go and fully commit to the unknown. To death. To Love.