Forestluv

She did not vote "no", she voted "present". There is a difference, yet most people don't consider nuances and interpreted her vote as "no". This is why she is trying so hard to explain that she didn't vote "no". This is one reason why I consider her vote as a political error. She was not politically savy enough to know that her "present" vote would be interpreted as a "no" vote by most people.

One exercise I like. . . Look at your right hand. Look at at all the details. Wiggle your fingers. Watch and feel. Touch your right hand with your left hand. . . Now put your hands behind your back and imagine your hands. . . Do you *get* the difference. It's not just an intellectual thing. The substance of actually looking and feeling your hand is very very different than imagining your hand. . . Now feel the shirt on your shoulder's. Listen to the sounds occurring now. Look at something now. . . Now imagine your birth. Imagine your parents. Imagine China. . . Observe those images arises now. All there is is Now. Stop Now from happening Now. It can't be done. All there is is Now. You know this to be true. There is nothing closer to truth than Now. You don't need any evidence to prove to you that Now is happening. The Truth of Now is prior to all evidence and you Know Now. Once there is realization that there is only Now, there is no past and future. These are just constructs occurring Now. Since there is only Now, there is no actual past and future. Thus there isn't even Now. How can there be Now without past and future? The term now assumes a past and future. So, we can simply say ISness. Yet of course, constructs of past, present and future and useful to navigate life.

Yes. . . The deeper we go, the sneakier the squirrel gets. . .

What I'm picking up on here are assumptions. When we say "This is a teaching". There is an underlying assumption of a concrete objective reality. The thought "how I see it" can have an underlying assumption of "this is how it is". . . These assumptions are often subconscious and can be limiting. My mind does this a lot and I can see this occur in my own mind. If we change the sentence to "This is a sandcastle" it breaks the attachment/identification since nobody is attached/identified to a sandcastle because we know it is not concrete objectivity and will soon dissolve back to beach. All teachings are like sandcastles. They can be fun to construct and can have practical value, yet the substance of sandcastles is not sandcastle. The substance is sand. This construct/hypothesis contains lots of nuances. We could spend an entire human lifetime exploring the nuances in the above statement. And many humans have. . . I think the construct you have created is a super cool sandcastle. Saying a being is an "enlightened being" can elevate the authority of that being. Saying a being is like buddha and definitely knew reality further strengthens the authority of that being. It creates a scenario in which the being is an authority of truth and is unquestioned. If Ramana Maharshi is like buddha and definitely knows reality, everything Ramana says is true without question. . . This is turning one's authority over to another being. Humans do this a lot and it can have practical value. Yet we are not always aware that we are turning our authority over. You have access to the same truth as Ramana maharshi and buddha. You don't need to create a scenario in which they are the authority. This will limit expansion. You can cut out the middle-man and access it directly. . . As well, all teachings are partial truths. When we turn our authority over to another being, we often lose sight that these teachings are relative, partial truths. In doing so, we interpret the teachings as complete truths. Regarding the question. . . from my POV, there is conflation and an assumption of good and bad. There is conflation between a transcendent "You" and a personal "you". From the perspective of a personal "you", cancer is "bad" and it is something the human doesn't want. Yet from a transcendent "You", there is no longer any person to take ownership of the cancer. There is no "you" that has cancer. There is no difference between the cancer in "my" body or the cancer in a lizard's body in Tasmania. There is no difference between "my" cancer cells and "my" non-cancer cells. There is no difference between cancer cells and a blooming flower. From this transcendent perspective, cancer is Love. Those cancer cells are trying to divide, replicate themselves and survive. Why would we want to stop them? Why wouldn't we want to promote their growth? . . . Imagine a volcano destroyed a forest and we discovered a small patch of plants that survived, yet are injured badly. We love those plants and nurse them back to health so a beautiful forest can regrow. We wouldn't dump chemicals on the plants to kill them. Similarly, why wouldn't we nurse cancer cells sot that they can grow into a beautiful tumor? . . . Perhaps You had so much love that You allowed those cancer cells to grow and flourish. To kill those cancer cells with chemicals would be heartless and barbaric.

@Joker_Theory I've found labeling and returning to be helpful. We can all relate to meditating and then getting lost in thought. "Crap, I forget to text my friend that I can't make it to the gym tomorrow. He's going to be really upset. This is the third time I canceled this month. He probably won't want to work out with me anymore. Why am I so forgetful? Maybe I have ADHD. I should probably schedule a docter's appointment tomorrow. . . " And on and on and on. . . While we are immersed in the thought story, we become the thought story. There is no witness observing the thought story. . . Then we may snap out of it and realize "Whoa, I just went off into la-la land. I'm supposed to be meditating. I lost all awareness of here and now." Then we can return to here and now. I great way is to bring attention to the breath or feelings. Thoughts can mesmerize the mind into past and future. Yet feelings are always Now. So bodily feelings are a great way to get grounded and return to Now. This labeling and returning can help re-condition the mind. The challenge is to let go and be the witness because the mind is attached/identified to the thought story. Imagine observing a movie of yourself. The mind is not conditioned to be a detached observer of itself. The mind wants immersion into self. Recognition, labeling and returning can help de-condition this tendency - yet it can be a long process of de-conditioning. We are talking about de-conditioning decades of conditioning. Thought stories are occurring Now (even if the thought stories are about past and future). Yet imo it is super hard to detach from thought stories and observe as a witness. I think it's more effective to label and let go of thought stories and re-direct attention to Now. If mediation is too tough, something like walking alone in nature may be effective practice. Often when I walk in nature, all sorts of thoughts stories arise about work, relationships etc. I may recognize "Thinking of work" and return to listen to bird chirps. Really listen to the birdsong. If I start thinking about how birds communicate, at least the thought story is related to something occurring Now. . . Or I may recognize "Thinking about a travel plans for Christmas" and then return to observe a bee pollinating a flower. . . The mind will often resist doing this, yet with time it becomes second nature. As one gets better, thought can be background noise. For example, while I am hiking there may be some background traffic noise in the distance - yet I'm not engaged with it and it doesn't bother me. Similarly, as I hike there may be some background thought noise "in the distance" - yet the observer doesn't engage with it and isn't bothered by it.

@whatthefucksgoinon I like the part about seeking “Love for Love’s sake”. A transcendent view reminiscent of “seeking Truth for Truth’s sake”.

You seem to have a different impression than I do. I don't see Omar as a self-aggrandizing idiot. I see her as someone who fights for the oppressed. Yet she is not always politically savy and has made unforced errors. Omar has strongly acknowledged the Armenian genocide. She stated "My issue was not with the substance of this resolution. *Of course* we should acknowledge the Genocide. My issue was with the timing and context. I think we should demand accountability for human rights abuses consistently, not simply when it suits our political goals". . . Omar fights for those oppressed and I believe she is genuine here. Yet this move is very unsightly and undercuts her efforts to empower the oppressed. I don't think this is a good context for her to make her point. And I think she has tried stand out against the grain to make a point. Yet that doesn't mean she in disingenuous. I think some of it is lack of political experience. Somewhat similar to Marianne Williamson. She made several political errors due to lack if experience.

Lucid dreaming is very broad and deep. As well, one can lucid dream while awake. There are realms in which the distinctions between real and dream dissolve. Amazing explorations.

Cosmic jokes. . . For sure. Currently I'm resonating more with a Dr. Strange kinda dream.

Imagine going from the conscious level of an ant to a human and then back to an ant. Now the ant tries to contextualize human-level consciousness with an ant brain. That poor little ant may explode. . .

The posts on gender marginalization/abuse was based on gender, not nationality. I respect your desire to leave the discussion and to remove views.

Ilhan Omar did not vote against the resolution. She voted "present", which is distinct from a "No" vote. She explained her rational in the article you linked. It is a very nuanced topic. I understand the point Ilhan is trying to make about how we shouldn't politicize genocide as leverage to advance a political agenda, yet I also see the criticism. Politics is deeply integrated with society and culture. Societal evolution involves politics and in some contexts, atrocities like genocide can be politicized for societal progress. Yet other times, atrocities can be politicized for regressive political agendas. . . For example, the atrocity of 9-11 in the U.S. was politicized and used as political leverage to invade Iraq. In this context, the underlying agenda was not to root out terrorism and create a safer world (Iraq was not involved in 9-11). Rather, "neocons" in the U.S. had been licking their chops for decades wanting to increase U.S. influence in the middle-east and have greater control of oil resources (if the top domestic product in Iraq was walnuts, the U.S. would not have invaded). This is an example of using a human atrocity to advance a regressive political agenda. . . In such a case, I understand why a congressperson would vote "present". A "present" vote can acknowledge that a human atrocity took place, yet not support an underlying regressive political agenda to take advantage of that human atrocity. . . It's nuanced and context-dependent.

All words, language, concepts, images, things are dualistic. If there is a "thing", then there must be something that "thing" is not. Any "thing" separated from One Everything is dualistic. If there is a "thing", there is a "not thing". If we say there is a thing called a chicken, then there must be non-chickens for contrast. If we say there is a thing called blue, there must be non-blue for contrast. If we say there is nonduality, there is duality for contrast. Yet all words, language, concepts, images, things are also nondualistic. All things are One Everything. It all IS. There is no thing that is not Everything. Everything is every thing. So all words, language, concepts, images are Everything, just like a bird chirp, sunset, knee pain, confusion, selfish thoughts, tuna sandwiches, ESP, lucid dreaming, NDEs, psychedelic experiences, astral projection, budhhism, hinduism, perception, theory are also Everything. All communication is dual in the sense that what is communicated is not what is non-communicated. And all communication is also nondual in the sense that all communication is Everything. We don't step outside of Everything, point and say "That stuff over there is Everything". Creating constructs is one form of communication. This generally involves the intellect. Yet there are other ways of communication. Most human communication is nonverbal - yet we are not aware of it. It is mostly subconscious communication. Most communication is nonverbal: tone of voice, facial expressions, body language etc. As well, there are other modes of communication via energetics, empathy, intuition, a smile. . . I've done eye gazing with sessions in which we gaze in each others eyes for 5-10min. and let all thoughts dissolve. It is amazing what can be communicated and learned about another person. Yet it's not something that is figured out. After the session, you can't really say "Wow, let's make sense of what happened". I suppose you could, yet this would be a recontextualization. Yes, much can be realized through direct experience. Thinking and conceptualizing is a small part of what is available. Imagine going 20min. without a single thought. Will there still be happenings? Of course. There are happenings of Now. And a whole new world opens up. It's amazing what can be learned and understood without a single thought. I generally don't like using the term "enlightenment". It can be helpful as motivation for spiritual practice, personal development and communication. Yet there is a tendency for people to create an "enlightenment story". The self gets immersed in this enlightenment story, creates an imaginary thing called "enlightenment" and starts viewing things/people as being enlightened or unenlightened. I find this to be a distraction, yet others like it. Yes. All theory, concepts, constructs etc are eventually circular and deconstruct to Nothing = Everything. Yet constructs have practical value to the person/human. Yet this realization is liberating because it dissolves attachment/identification to constructs. Like a sandcastle. Once one realizes the sandcastle they are building will eventually be deconstructed to the beach, this can allow letting go of attachment/identification to the sandcastle. This can be scary, it can be liberating. This is what makes human connection so special. Imagine a "knowing" that can't be explained through words and concepts. We can try, yet it is difficult. Yet when there is a shared knowing of the ineffible, it's really meaningful. And it's not just sharing theoretical models (although that can be fun too). . . Yesterday, a student was trying to communicate her experiences with anxiety and panic disorder. She quickly stopped, sighed and said "It's really hard to explain, no one understands". I told her I also had experience with anxiety/panic and said "for me, it's kinda like XYZ". Her eyes opened wide and she replied "Yea, that's sorta like it. It's also kinda like ABC". Then my eyes got wide opened as I said "Yea, that's another good way to say it". The energetics between us totally changed. We weren't trying to intellectually build a construct of what anxiety/panic is. Rather, we both had direct experience with anxiety/panic and were trying our best to communicate it through words. Yet most of it wasn't through words. It was also the way we looked at each other and the energetics between us. We fumbled around with words trying to point to it, yet the understanding had nothing to do with the construct. The understanding wasn't a thought construct of what anxiety/panic it - the understanding was the knowing of the direct experience. And there was a "knowing" present. We each knew that each other knew. At the end, I don't her "You are the first person I've shared this with that *gets it*. She smiled and replied "Me too". . . This is a different mode of beingness and it is really special in terms of human connection.

I don't have any personal advice. Your post got me thinking about personality dynamics in sport that I find interesting. Before the Floyd Mayweather vs. Conner McGregor boxing match they said harsh personal insults to each other. During the pre-match hype - it seemed like they hated each other. And perhaps there was some anger and hate at times. . . During the match, Mayweather did enough to win convincingly, yet wasn't trying to seriously injure McGregor. Yet after the boxing match, they were totally fine with each other - they were both like "We just made 100 million each, bro." All those personal insults are just part of the game to hype up the fight and make more money. . . In another dynamic . . . when McGregor fought Khabib, McGregor through out all sorts of personal insults against Khabib, his family, his hometown and his religion. Khabib was infuriated and wanted to seriously injure McGregor. Khabib was talking revenge and destruction as he pummeled McGregor. At one point in between rounds, McGregor motioned to Khabib like "Dude, all that trash talk is just part of the hype. Don't take it personally". . . After the fight, Khabib was still so incensed that he jumped out of the Octagon to beat up McGregor's coaches. As well, one of Khabib's coaches jumped in the ring to beat up a half-conscious McGregor and his associates. Khabib was heavily fined and suspended for almost a year. People tried to explain to him it was just trash talk and he can't keep fighting after the fight ended. . . Khabib felt some sense of regret and made an apology about his excessive behavior.

Writing the last paragraph of all the layers fried my brain. . . My mind then collapsed into nothingness. Lol.

Notice how you said "For now, I already said that we break up and can't never fix this relationship". The *For now* suggests that you are not yet done for good. There is still a door open that maybe sometime in the future and it can be fixed. There is nothing wrong with that, just be aware. If you are really done with the relationship and there is zero hope of fixing it, then the questions that remain are "Do you want to be friends with her?" and "Can the two of you be friends?". . . After breakups, it is super common for a couple to want to remain as friends. Most of my relationships have ended with "let's be friends". This can allow a more amicable, gentle breakup. Yet it is rare to actually remain as friends. There is just two much history and emotions involved. . . What would friends look like for now? Would you go for lunch together and talk about her new boyfriend and you no longer have sex together? Are you really ok with that? Would she be ok with that? I imagine not. I have stayed friends with exes with one key: after the breakup, we decide to have zero contact for three months. This distance allows feelings to dissolve. Then after three months of no contact, we see if we are still interested in being friends. Usually, we both move on and don't want to stay in contact - or we might text once a month or so. A couple times, I've stayed friends and we do things together (e.g. going to a concert together). Yet importantly, the sexual/relationship energy has dissolved. If it hasn't then I ask that we go another three months with no contact and see again if there is interest in being friends. . . Yet I don't think there is any way to immediately switch from sexual/relationship mode to just friends - there is too much sexual/relationship energy still present.

@arlin You are asking great questions. . . A concept is dual in the sense that one concept is not another concept. A concept is nondual in the sense that every thing is inter-connected into Everything. Truth contains no opposites and all opposites. The Truth is zero, one, two, three, four. . . into infinity. Nothing = Everything. Tell me one thing that isn't Everything. . . In addition to the Awareness vs No Awareness duality, there are various other dualities in your statement: conceptual vs non-conceptual, understanding vs non-understanding, my vs. not-my, creation vs non-creation. Every word/idea is dualistic because it has an opposite. And there are an infinite number of inter-connections within the duality. For example, what is Awareness vs. No Awareness? What is awareness? Is there 100% Awareness? Can there be different degrees of Awareness? Can someone be partially aware? Are there different forms of awareness? . . . There is nothing wrong with such dualities and questions. Yet they will eventually collapse into Nothing and Everything. Just like all sandcastles collapse back into the beach. Within the construct you are creating, yes it does take place in awareness. That is a nice insight. From one perspective, yes - it has been gotten. From another perspective, there is no "it" to get, since there is no "not it" to contrast "it" with. The construct of nonduality can be explained and understood. Yet Everything is not understood. For understanding, we need to create some "thing" to be understood. For example, no one understands what glafdin is. To understand this, the mind would need to create a construct of what "glafdin" is. If there is no construct of glafdin, there is nothing to be understood. The intellect and conceptualization is limited. The intellect/conceptualization is within something. If there is intellectual/conceptual understanding, there must be non-intellectual/non-conceptualization understanding. Here, direct experience is King. So all the words appearing here are partial "pointers". For example: the collapse of the duality of dual vs. nondual raises another duality: the duality of the collapse of duality between dual and nondual vs. the non-collapse of duality between dual and nondual. . . . The collapse of this duality introduces another duality: The duality of the collapse of the duality between the duality of dual vs. nondual vs. the non-collapse of the duality between the duality of dual. The collapse of this duality introduces another duality. . . This continues on infinitely into Nothing = Everything. This highlights the limits of intellect/concepts.

@Cody_Atzori I would make distinctions between skills, process and content. For example, if I replicate someone's artwork, am I creative? I would say no. There is a process of learning and developing creative skills. People have different potentials in different areas - based on genetics, interest, curiosity and life history. For example, I don't have natural abilities in creating music. I love listening to music, yet my mind just isn't oriented to creating music. Who knows why. Maybe my brain can't distinguish notes well. Or maybe my neural auditory pathways are not inter-connected with other neural pathways - like emotions, liguistics, neural-muscular etc. . . In contrast, my brain naturally does well with abstraction and integration of concepts. My mind can integrate concepts in genetics, neuroscience, psychology and sociology easily and my mind loves to do it. Yet my mind can't even integrate a few musical notes together! You mentioned that you like to gather knowledge and wisdom. One question I would ask: Do you like the accumulation of knowledge or the integration of knowledge? For me, knowledge without integration is sooo boring. Last year I went on a date with a gal that was super knowledgeable and she talked for an hour about the details of some European war. General XYZ and battle ABC. Country 1 vs. Country 2. All these different battle dates and locations. . . It was a miserable hell for me. All those detailed knowledge has no color without integration. Why was Country 1 against Country 2? How did the psychology of General XYZ allow him to be more successful than General Q? How did the battles transform society? What aspects of the war is still evident in society? How did the war shape the culture? . . . Yet hear mind was oriented differently. She kept getting upset when I was in integrated/systemic/holistic mindsets. She kept asking "What does that matter? I'm trying to list out all the battles that occurred in the year 1947". She was much more oriented toward concrete, grounded facts. In terms of developing skills of integrative/systems/holistic thinking: A helpful book for me was "How to Think like Leonardo Da Vinci". This book helped me realize various forms of intelligence such as intellectual, social, creative, social intelligence. The book gave different examples of genius in each area and explained how Da Vinci was a genius in all areas. He didn't excel in seven different areas. Da Vinci excelled in ONE holistic area because he didn't have boundaries between areas such as barriers between engineering, ecology and art. . . Also, there are many expressions of Yellow. Saying "I want to become Yellow" is like saying "I want to become an athlete". There are many different ways that athletes express themselves. It's nice to have a framework, yet don't limit yourself. For example a good framework for an athlete might be that athletes develop strength, balance, flexibility and endurance. Yet we wouldn't limit ourselves to "An athlete is a soccer player". Soccer is just one expression of athletics. Also, it is much easier to recognize Yellow than create Yellow. You can recognize a full stage higher than you can create. For example, I recognized the Yellow in Da Vinci and was amazed. Then I started seeing the Yellow in others. Yet my mind wasn't able be Yellow on it's own. This was frustrating at times. I would be walking in nature or journaling and think "Why can't I be Yellow on my own?". . . One thing that helped me was to watch and engage in Yellow-ness. For example, if I recognized Yellow in another I would try and converse with them. I met a Yellow-level artist and he pulled me up into Yellow-ness and we would have Yellow-level discussions. I was thinking and being Yellow with him. Yet went I was on my own, I didn't do it very well. I really wanted to be able to do it on my own. With time, it just started happening spontaneously. I would be out in nature and insightful integration between nature, art and science would appear. . . I already had the skill of recognizing Yellow, so when it spontaneously arose in my mind I was like "Whoa, that's Yellow!!". Almost like learning a new language and being able to think in the foreign language naturally without translation. . . Once the language is known, all sorts of doors open. . .

The nonduality is that there is One coin that contains Everything about the coin. Any description of the coin is the coin. We can create all sorts of dualities: For example, one side of the coin is silver, the other side is copper. Yet the silver and copper are the One coin. As you suggested, there is a trap of opposites. Imagine a person is conditioned for thirty years to see the coin as either Heads or Tails. They debate throughout there life about Head-ness or Tail-ness. They identify as a "Heads-seer" and want to marry another "Heads-seer". They are raised to believe that anyone who sees the Tails-side as being immoral. They want to raise their children to be good, moral "Head-seers". . . Now imagine after thirty years of opposition conditioning and identifying as a "Heads-seer" a person get sick and tired of all the inner turmoil and inter-personal conflict. They might do some spiritual work and realize "Omigosh, it's all One coin. I am creating Heads and Tails. There is no Heads and Tails!!". . . This awakening of nonduality is a major step forward, yet the mind will create a whole new duality. The mind will think "There is the One Coin vs. Heads/Tails". This is creating a new duality of nonduality vs. duality. The person may now think "I am a *One-Coin-Seer*, not Heads-Tails-Seer. There is no Heads-Tails. The Heads-Tail seers are delusional". . . The next stage is the collapse of the dual construct of nonduality vs. duality. . . There is realization that there is the One Coin and Heads-Tails. . . Most emphasis is placed on awakening to the nonduality of One Coin because the vast majority of humans are conditioned to see Heads vs. Tails. The nondual awareness and embodiment of One Coin is a major development. If 99% of the people haven't become aware of the nondual stage, that is where most of the effort should go. . . Few humans have nondual awareness/embodiment, even fewer have reached the collapse of nondual vs. dual. . . And there is another stage after this. . . Yet there is a problem trying to communicate two stages in advance. . . For example, imagine we are with a person that sees Heads vs. Tails and is unaware it is the same coin. For this person we need to point out that Heads and Tails are One Coin. We can't jump two stages ahead and point out that One Coin vs. Heads/Tails is also a duality because the person hasn't yet become aware of One Coin.

@Recursoinominado I couple factors. As others have said sometimes coaches/teachers an ulterior agenda . Perhaps a coach is trying to sell a personal development package and doesn't genuinely care about helping people, the coach might want to make money and get famous - and takes advantage of others. . . . Secondly, quite often egos do not want to be coached/taught. There is a level of openness and willingness. Let's say that there is a coach that genuinely wants to empower people for success or a teacher that genuinely wants to teach people knowledge. Some egos don't want to be coached or taught. It is a particular personality dynamic. Within this dynamic, a person may think "He thinks he better because he is a coach. . . She thinks she is so smart because she has a phd. I'm smarter than her. She can't even prove I'm wrong". . . So a couple things going on - the coach could be ingenuine or a person may perceive a coach through a lens of cynicism. There can also be various mixtures of the two.

Imagine the duality of a coin. One side is Heads and the other side is Tails. To transcend that, one simply sees that both Heads and Tails are one coin. It is One coin. We can create a duality and say "This side of the coin is Heads and this side is Tails". This duality is a construct and can have practical value. For example, at the start of American Football games there is a coin flip to see who gets the ball first. Without the duality of opposites, the referee would flip the coin and everyone would be confused thinking "who gets the ball?". The One coin is both Heads and Tails as well as neither Heads and Tails. It''s all the One Coin. All relative perspectives of the coin is the coin. The coin can have as few or as many opposites we can to construct. For example, we could say there is a flat side of the coin and an edge side to the coin. Voila! A new opposite

@tsuki Thank you for shining light into this area. I love what you are doing here.

Sure, that's another way to look at it. We could consider the map to be a construct to help navigate the territory. A map can be an analytical description of the territory that can help ground us so we aren't aimlessly wandering around. Maps come in handy. And it's useful to continually update our maps. . . . Other times, it's nice to put the map aside and go with the flow for a while.

@Matt8800 Thank you for sharing about your path and perspective. It helps clarify.

As I wrote above: the words I speak are both true and false. . . . We are not on the same frequency. I wish you a pleasant evening ♥️ ?