RickyFitts

@Consilience Nicely said

Not in a month of Sundays Mind you, Trump had about as much to do with 'The Art of The Deal' as I had to do with the Bible by all accounts, it's basically his ghostwriter Tony Schwartz's book.

@melodydanielluna You're welcome, glad it was helpful

@acidgoofy Beautiful Here's one I always find devastating: This one gets my vote for most painful heartbreak song:

@SelfLove You're very welcome

Become intimate with the shame, not as a mental story but as a visceral, felt sensation in the body - notice exactly where you feel it in your body, and what it feels like in terms of physical heaviness, resistance, etc. Bring your attention to that inner resistance, and allow your body to release it and breathe; as you do so, you might start to feel the arising of other feelings that the shame was actually unconsciously designed to keep you from feeling - this might feel uncomfortable, painful, or even alarming, but it's completely normal, so keep allowing your body to breathe and just allow those feelings to be felt. Hope this helps.

Such an importance message, thanks for sharing @Consilience I do think it can be hard to grasp this when we're labouring under the illusion that we're a separate, tiny fragment in an incomprehensibly vast universe, in that state of mind it's easy to look out into society and see all the problems that seem to exist and feel almost duty-bound to do something to try and fix them, or else become completely hopeless and fatalistic about it all. Focusing on ourselves can seem selfish and irresponsible, and yet I really do believe that our greatest gift to the world is our own awakening; when we act from a conflicted, divided place, we only keep the karmic wheel turning, even if our intentions seem to be good, so resolving that inner conflict is the best thing we can do, it seems to me. No need to apologise, it needs to be said.

I'm laughing because, yes, that was pretty much my first thought 'Our true nature is not an object in consciousness, it can't be perceived', something along those lines. So I wouldn't go as far as to say that I am the breath, but I'm very much on board with breath-awareness, having practised it for four years for hours a day - I think the most beneficial thing for me, as you mentioned, is that it simply brings my awareness into my body, and thus helps me become aware of feelings and sensations that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. Not that it's all fun and games, mind, it can start to make you aware of a lot of pain and discomfort - but you can only heal what you can feel, after all, as Teal Swan would say.

Ahh right okay, I'll have to bear that in mind. I'm not going to sit here and pretend I'm perfectly impassive when I see that red text telling me I have to wait however long to post again, it makes me want to introduce my laptop to the sharp end of a baseball bat Absolutely Doesn't mean it's always easy, mind, and I for one wouldn't judge you if you felt frustrated or annoyed (heck, I'd be a giant hypocrite if I did). And hey, at least you can have a sense of humour about it, which is great

Just another note on this, he speaks about meditation again towards the bottom of page 61, under the subheading 'Aspects of Meditation'.

'Spiritual practice really doesn't even properly begin until we can actually sit down right in the middle of wherever we are, whatever we're experiencing, and allow it to be as it is.' - Adyashanti 'To embody any degree of realization requires us to uncover and expose those remaining mental and emotional fixations that inhibit the spontaneous movement of wisdom and love within our lives. For most, this is no small task. It all starts by taking full responsibility for our own inner and outer lives, and noticing the ways in which our own fear, judgment, resentment, and confusion cloud our ability to respond to the challenges of life in a wise and appropriate way.' - Adyashanti

Thinking about it, I'm thinking this statement isn't quite accurate - would it not be more accurate to say that this body is giving your consciousness an experience of embodied consciousness? It's possible to have an out-of-body experience, of course, meaning, presumably, that the body isn't actually necessary for us to have experiences.

I hear you, my friend, I know how very challenging and frustrating it can. All I can say is that it won't be forever, it may seem like it will be but it won't, and various spiritual practices can help to move the process along if you stick with them.

Becoming more conscious can entail losing your mind?

Just keep in mind that self-care is important, and that your needs do matter - this is something I had to learn the hard way when I was having a really hard time with anxiety and depression (chronic low self-esteem had always been a big issue for me, too), and learning to be kind to myself and to become conscious of and take care of my needs in the moment was a big part of coming through that very difficult phase of my life. Pushing yourself too hard can become counter-productive, because it can leave you feeling burnt-out and frustrated.

That's a very enlightened approach. Beats my preferred approach of wanting to weep bitter tears of frustration that I'm not able to do exactly what I want, when I want, and then reflecting that, boy, talk about first-world problems.

Well, that's all the motivation I need

Good grief, you have to wait three whole minutes before posting again? I thought it was ninety seconds, that's what I've seen on other forums. Edit: I just tried it now, told me I only had to wait twelve seconds?

I can definitely relate, there was a time when I was very interested in various spiritual concepts but I just find them a complete turn-off these days. I think at some point you just realise that the accumulation of knowledge can only take you so far - maybe it can entice you to the edge of the cliff, but it can't make you jump off. Listen to your intuition, I think that's the best advice I can give you - we all have an inner knowing, though it can often be hard to sense it if there's a lot of doubt and fear in our minds.

Anger about the past tends to be a form of non-acceptance, there's a part of you that is simply unwilling to accept that what happened, happened. And your reasons for not accepting what happened may seem perfectly valid and justified, but your non-acceptance only makes you suffer - it's like the saying goes, 'Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die'. So become conscious of that non-acceptance in yourself, notice what that actually feels like in the body, and feel into it, see what's going on at a deeper level; people tend to get caught in the surface negativity, but you really have to go deeper than that in order to release the anger.

Understand where the neediness is coming from on an emotional level, feel into it and strive to become conscious of any beliefs you may have about yourself (eg, 'I'm unlovable', or 'there's something inherently wrong with me'). Certainly don't judge yourself for feeling needy, being human can be extremely challenging and you deserve compassion rather than condemnation.

Interesting questions to consider. Seems to me that dogma can potentially help a person to cope with life, but if you're interested in truth, you have to throw it all out the window. Because if you want truth, your mind has to be open and flexible, whereas belief systems tend to make the mind closed and rigid.

Related to this, the following video came up in my Youtube recommendations today - Adya on the experience of no self:

I read this article just now and it really resonated, I figured it might resonate with others too so I figured I'd share it here 'The Doorway of "I Am"'