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Face the fear head on. That's the ego's fight or flight response kicking in. It's not easy letting go. Next time you feel that fear take a leap of faith and surrender to it. Even if you said "OK fear. If you're going to kill me, kill me now". Is it really going to kill you? If anything, part of the ego will die away. Are you ready for that? In Zen this is known as Having a Red-Hot iron ball stuck in your throat. Do you swallow it? or do you spit it out? You decide.

@VeganAwake So, nothing ever happened? It was all an illusion. Is knowing it's an illusion also happening within the self-illusion? Pretty crazy stuff.

The eternal "I" I speak of is the blank screen of consciousness. Fire doesn't burn it. Water doesn't wet it.

"For here there is not two" - Sri Mooji The eternal "I' remains always. That which witnessed your birth and will witness your death. The body and mind. The world itself is in constant change. But what is that which witnesses that coming and going? That which never changes?

The only reality that exists is what is in your direct experience. Everything outside your direct experience exists only in your imagination. But here's the real kicker. It's all imagination.

When we dream, we are manifesting a reality. When we are aware we are dreaming (lucid dreaming), we can control the dream.

There has been some interesting debate about this subject lately. We often talk about ego, but what about what could be called the -truly authentic self?

It comes in many forms, but you know it when you see feel it.

I'm more familiar with the term "Energy Vampire"

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@tlowedajuicemayne Why didn't you just PM Leo directly?

The only thing that keeps us separate from what we really are is illusory partitions we create.

Let us discuss all the things that exist outside of consciousness.

My cousin and his wife are having their 14 y.o. dog put down today. They have no children so that dog was like a daughter to them. They have someone coming in to take care of the medical end of it. They wanted to be with her in familiar surroundings at the end. -Just a share.

Metacognition and contemplation go hand in hand. Deep contemplation Is metacognition. It is where all higher Truth reside. -on the way to enlightenment.

@Natasha Tori Maru It was just a share. I originally heard that story from your amigo Alan Watts.

The Fifth Patriarch held a poetry contest to determine his successor. One monk wrote about polishing a mirror to remove dust (the ego). While Huineng, an illiterate novice, responded that there's no mirror to begin with.

I so wish I was here......

If you become really conscious, you will see that cleaning is just happening, no one is doing the cleaning.

It has nothing to do with the table itself but more with the person who takes their anger out on an inanimate object such as a table. If you consider the universe vibrating at a certain frequency and anger for instance at a different frequency, then the universe answers back to that source and self corrects. Karma is not payback; it's an auto correction reflected back to the source of the disturbance.

That's an excellent example of the mind of a sociopathic rapist.

If karma is real, then it's not just a matter whether a table suffers when broken but how it was broken. Was the table broken in anger? Just as a side note, when I think of karma I think in terms of vibration/ frequency. Harmonic balance.

Let's give that more thought.

That sounds about right. Thanks!