Just Imagine

[mandyjw]

A major shift has happened, and I feel a sort of knot in my stomach that feels just like... falling in love. 

There's even thoughts that ask if it will be gone tomorrow (pleasure), or if it will be gone tomorrow (pain), but I know that they aren't there. 

I've never felt pain before in my entire life, how would I presume to know what it's like? 

 

[mandyjw]

Enlightenment isn't what I thought. It's not what you think! You ARE deluding yourself. 

There's one prayer I've repeatedly prayed my whole life ever since reading Proverbs as a kid. "Lord give me wisdom." I repeated the words in my head. They just aren't there. They are but they aren't. It's almost like the way "fork" sounds meaningless after saying it several times, but not quite. 

Freedom.

I accepted that I'm ok with having obsessive compulsive impulses all my life. I'm freedom itself. 

Sat to meditate. Fuck I can't do this. I'd think it if I was brave enough to translate it. 

Then the Shania Twain lyrics I googled after the guy in the red hat sang them so confidently a couple weeks ago. 

Just go faster, faster, don't be slow
Rev it up, rev it up 'til your engine blows

I'll think all the awful thoughts I ever can think as fast as I can possibly think them. 

You can imagine... how that went. 

[mandyjw]

 

[mandyjw]

Stupid insight came to me and won't let me go until I write it down. Let your work be your rest and your rest be your work. 

Oh. The many facets of nondoership.

 

M: You cannot possibly say that you are what you think yourself to be! Your ideas about yourself change from day to day and from moment to moment. Your self-image is the most changeful thing you have. It is utterly vulnerable, at the mercy of a passer by. A bereavement, the loss of a job, an insult, and your image of yourself, which you call your person, changes deeply. To know what you are you must first investigate and know what you are not. And to know what you are not you must watch yourself carefully, rejecting all that does not necessarily go with the basic fact: 'I am'. The ideas: I am born at a given place, at a given time, from my parents and now I am so-and-so, living at, married to, father of, employed by, and so on, are not inherent in the sense 'I am'. Our usual attitude is of 'I am this'. Separate consistently and perseveringly the 'I am' from 'this' or 'that', and try to feel what it means to be, just to be, without being 'this' or 'that'. All our habits go against it and the task of fighting them is long and hard sometimes, but clear understanding helps a lot. The clearer you understand that on the level of the mind you can be described in negative terms only, the quicker you will come to the end of your search and realize your limitless being.

What is negativity, felt, and owned? The ego. The "thinking mind". How can the negative be felt and owned? It cannot. 

Edited May 15, 2020 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

Q: When I see a tree, a face, a sunset, the picture is perfect. When I close my eyes, the image in my mind is faint and hazy. If it is my mind that projects the picture, why need I open my eyes to see a lovely flower and with eyes closed I see it vaguely? 

M: It is because your outer eyes are better than your inner eyes. Your mind is all turned outward. As you learn to watch your mental world, you will find it even more colourful and perfect than what the body can provide. Of course, you will need some training. But why argue? You imagine that the picture must come from the painter who actually painted it. All the time you look for origins and causes. Causality is in the mind only; memory gives the illusion of continuity and repetitiveness creates the idea of causality. When things repeatedly happen together, we tend to see a causal link between them. It creates a mental habit, but a habit is not a necessity.

Damn. 

M: You may call it so. Words do not matter, for they do not reach it. They turn back in utter negation.

And when you turn the idea of negation into words...belief, ideal? Ego, separation. 

[mandyjw]

M: To know itself the self must be faced with its opposite — the not-self. Desire leads to experience. Experience leads to discrimination, detachment, self-knowledge — liberation. And what is liberation after all? To know that you are beyond birth and death. By forgetting who you are and imagining yourself a mortal creature, you created so much trouble for yourself that you have to wake up, like from a bad dream.

Enquiry also wakes you up. You need not wait for suffering; enquiry into happiness is better, for the mind is in harmony and peace.

Oh burn.

A couple insights today.

"Why is this so hard?"

"Why do I want it to be hard?"

"How do I pathologically compare myself to other seekers on the forum and guess at levels of advancements?"

"What do I truly want?"

I want to say that I want it to be easy for everyone. Do I really? I want it to be difficult, an attainment, and therefore i keep it as a future goal for...myself.

Opps.

"You don't understand the meaning of the word movement. Movement is pulling the strings; the word movement is another word for control. Since you can cause movement by vigorous action, how could you not be able to cause stillness by pure quietude?" - The Secret of the Golden Flower. 

 

[mandyjw]

Also by posting a thread about this self imposed prevention from wholeness I'm assuming other people have the same problem. 

Oh sneaky, sneaky, double sneaky? Am I trying to save face for myself by journaling about it? Of course there's no one doing anything, and I couldn't be doing otherwise. 

Says a sneaky thought!

Oh, the things I'll do to prevent myself from meditating. SHOULDS 

What the fuck is meditating anyway, I have no idea. I'm writing myself into a corner! I've written myself into a corner. Are there corners in infinite nothing expansiveness? 

If you imagine them, then why the fuck not?

I guess that Sam I Am does have to chase the guy down and around everywhere so he'll try the goddamn green eggs and ham.

"WOULD YOU? COULD YOU? IN A CAR? EAT THEM! EAT THEM! HERE THEY ARE. I WOULD NOT, COULD NOT, IN A CAR. YOU MAY LIKE THEM. YOU WILL SEE. YOU MAY LIKE THEM IN A TREE! I WOULD NOT, COULD NOT IN A TREE. NOT IN A CAR! YOU LET ME BE."

Oh, but if you want to win it
Babe, there's no speed limit
Just go faster, faster and don't be slow
Rev it up, rev it up 'til your engine blows

In a week, I've never watched so many 20 year old music videos and watched myself like a hawk like my very life and non-existent (obviously) soul depends on it.

It doesn't. 

Good to know.

No, it's not. 

Edited May 15, 2020 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

Co-creation is a bitch.

I am also a bitch.

Coincidence? 

I think not, therefore, I am. 

Goddamn it. 

 

 

I wrote the word "poetry" on my dream board, but this isn't quite what I was expecting. 

 

Edited May 15, 2020 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

Damn, what an unaligned desire. I want to teach, I want the world to awaken, I want to awaken but in feeling I don't want others to be awake and awaken. I'm resisting my own deepest desire. But Leo also.. Er. Ah. Ahem. 

Everything is perfect as it is. No desire is death. 

No desire is...

The other insight I had was that, anyone who wants to be unique does so in reaction against being mainstream. Why are Shania Twain, Brittney Spears and Titanic a joke? Because they were the mainstream height of popularity 20 years ago. As if popularity was not power, and time was real. As if the popular did not stand upon the unpopular and likewise. Perceptions of the mind. 

Therefore, no one is doing anything. It's all reactions and co-creation of the one taken from this limited perspective and thoughts, which... aren't. 

So why own your thoughts about other people? Why disown them? Luckily you can do neither, but see them. 

Oh. 

 

 

[mandyjw]

3 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

As if the popular did not stand upon the unpopular and likewise.

This is very interesting.

So what do we want? We want to not judge people and ourselves for not wanting to be beneath anyone else. We see it, and it could not have been otherwise, and it's not actually the case at all, we just had never thought it through from an unattached standpoint so how could we have known? We were innocent. And now that we know we're innocent. 

[mandyjw]

Q: Still I have to repeat my very simple question: who makes the distinction between sin and virtue?

M: He who has a body, sins with the body, he who has a mind, sins with the mind.

I don't know why I'm thinking back to my preteen years so much lately. I remember New Year's Eve on 1999. Wait. No I don't. It's a mix of jumbled memories. Maybe other New Year's Eves. Gel pens. Journaling. Deep depression. Wanting the journal to be pretty, acceptable for others to read and not wanting to write anything like I was thinking. 

I remember going to an outdoor sports meet for my sister. I was bored and had a beanie baby bear and I tossed it in the air and caught it. I tossed it up really high and it hit some man square in the head. I can't remember how he reacted but he did. I was so guilty and embarrassed for it that I felt awful the whole rest of the event and every time I thought of it feeling awful. Everything that happened like that felt to me like a guilt I'd never be able to shake off. Eventually hermitism became a coping strategy for this. Hating people yourself is the only way when you love them too much think for other people so much you can't be around them. Loving people is the only way when you hate them too much. 

Do I even remember that? Why recall it? It's not that I deny it, but that, there's nothing there to really remember. 

"3 types of enlightened ones

Three types of enlightened ones:

1. Samma-sam-buddha = One who rediscovers the teachings and teaches the masses as the historical Buddha did (Siddhattha Gotama).

2. Paccekabuddha = A silent buddha. One who attains full enlightenment, but does not teach others.

3. Arahant = Fully enlightened person, who might teach others, but not as the one who rediscovered the teachings, just as one who learned it from a current dispensation."

I AM SAM. I AM SAM. SAM I AM. THAT SAM-I-AM! THAT SAM-I-AM! I DO NOT LIKE THAT SAM-I-AM! DO WOULD YOU LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM? I DO NOT LIKE THEM,SAM-I-AM. I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM.

Edited May 16, 2020 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

I DON'T KNOW ROGER. What you teach kinda sounds like this.

 

[mandyjw]

 

Q: We may be sleep-walkers, or subject to nightmares. Is there nothing you can do?

M: I am doing: I did enter your dreamlike state to tell you — "Stop hurting yourself and others, stop suffering, wake up".

Q: Why then don't we wake up?

M: You will. I shall not be thwarted. It may take some time. When you shall begin to question your dream, awakening will be not far away.

 

[mandyjw]

Wow... I believed so many things.  <- Another belief. 

Ideas, ideas about awakening. About other people. <- More ideas. 

 

This represents my hunger for insight and truth cookies. Important. 

[mandyjw]

M: The attitude is the fact. Take anger. I may be furious, pacing the room up and down; at the same time I know what I am, a centre of wisdom and love, an atom of pure existence. All subsides and the mind merges into silence.

Q: Still, you are angry sometimes.

M: With whom am l to be angry and for what? Anger came and dissolved on my remembering myself. It is all a play of gunas (qualities of cosmic matter). When I identify myself with them, I am their slave. When I stand apart, I am their master.

"Oops!...I Did It Again..." Not even that. 

I, did, it, again

Q: Can you then help me, the particular person?

M: But I do help you always — from within. My self and your self are one. I know it, but you don't. That is all the difference — and it cannot last.

 

Q: It is all well on its own level. But how does it work in daily life?

M: The daily life is a life of action. Whether you like it or not, you must function. Whatever you do for your own sake accumulates and becomes explosive; one day it goes off and plays havoc with you and your world. When you deceive yourself that you work for the good of all, it makes matters worse, for you should not be guided by your own ideas of what is good for others. A man who claims to know what is good for others, is dangerous.

Q: How is one to work then?

M: Neither for yourself nor for others, but for the work's own sake. A thing worth doing is its own purpose and meaning, Make nothing a means to something else. Bind not. God does not create one thing to serve another. Each is made for its own sake. Because it is made for itself, it does not interfere. You are using things and people for purposes alien to them and you play havoc with the world and yourself.

Q: When I see something pleasant, I want it. Who exactly wants it? The self or the mind?

M: The question is wrongly put. There is no 'who'. There is desire, fear, anger, and the mind says — this is me, this is mine. There is no thing which could be called 'me' or 'mine'. Desire is a state of the mind, perceived and named by the mind. Without the mind perceiving and naming, where is desire?

It's already done! 

Me suffer? Oh no! How dare you presume? I don't suffer. I've put all kinds of systems into place to make sure I don't think thoughts that make me suffer. 

"You don't think."

I don't think! I don't think! I don't think! 

[mandyjw]

I've wasted the entire morning. Oh glorious rapture! I can even think judgmental thoughts about myself from pure love and bliss. Get off your ass Mandy! 

BIRD CHIRPS. 

Maybe I will, maybe I won't? Who can say? 

[SilentTears]

On 5/15/2020 at 3:30 PM, mandyjw said:

Co-creation is a bitch.

I am also a bitch.

Coincidence? 

I think not, therefore, I am. 

Goddamn it. 

 

 

I wrote the word "poetry" on my dream board, but this isn't quite what I was expecting. 

 

I love this! Thank you, it made me laugh quite a bit. 

On 5/15/2020 at 3:58 PM, mandyjw said:

Damn, what an unaligned desire. I want to teach, I want the world to awaken, I want to awaken but in feeling I don't want others to be awake and awaken. I'm resisting my own deepest desire. But Leo also.. Er. Ah. Ahem. 

Everything is perfect as it is. No desire is death. 

No desire is...

This is interesting, I myself have realized a trap in wanting to "help" other and realizing how that is just me projecting my values onto others and how they are already perfect. Lol nice to see you speaking about the same topic. Such an amazing insight to have/ experience.

"No desire is death" this is simply profound. I mean, that's it. I have been subtly or not so subtly seeking no disires  sneaky indeed. 

Why did you put "no disire is..."? I'm curious. 

Thank you mandy.

[mandyjw]

@SilentTears I left it a mystery for myself. I think it's the integration of desire not the absence of desire we seek. 

 

Q: Why is there so much suffering in love?

M: All suffering is born of desire. True love is never frustrated. How can the sense of unity be frustrated? What can be frustrated is the desire for expression. Such desire is of the mind. As with all things mental, frustration is inevitable.

 

[mandyjw]

I want to say that I had a day where I was lost in my self again, but... I didn't. 

What's left to do when you can't even blame yourself?

Appreciate?

There were so many beautiful things about today. Went to the beach and the puppy caught a crab and played with it and barked at it. Eating watermelon outside with my kids.

What's the point of picking out moments that are more special than the rest? What's the point of having people you love and really resonate with? What's the point of having favorite books, or songs? 

What's the point of appreciation? 

How many times do I have to remember that you can focus on something fully, without excluding everything else. This is the miracle of consciousness and focus or whatever terms I'm supposed to be using. 

Should I edit the lyrics to suit my preferences?

Lyrics

He's got the whole world in His hands (except those assholes, over there, you know who I'm talkin' about)
He's got the whole world in His hands
He's got the whole world in His hands 
He's got the whole world in His hands

He's got the itty bitty baby in His hands
He's got the itty bitty baby in His hands (opps, dropped that one, sorry) 
He's got the itty bitty baby in His hands
He's got the whole world in His hands

He's got a-you and me brother in His hands  
He's got a-you and me brother in His hands
He's got a-you and me brother in His hands (except Uncle Larry, fuck that asshole) 
He's got the whole world in His hands

He's got a-you and me sister in His hands
He's got a-you and me sister in His hands
He's got a-you and me sister in His hands (she's a bitch sometimes) 
He's got the whole world in His hands

He's got the whole world in His hands
He's got the whole world in His hands
He's got the whole world in His hands (my nose is too big, so fuck you God, you suck at sculpting and didn't go to art college, obviously) 
He's got the whole world in His hands

 

[mandyjw]

Man, I lost my whole journal entry cause my computer crashed. It fit in really well, but who cares.

CHEESEBURGERS! 

CHEESEBURGERS!

ENLIGHTENMENT CHEESEBURGERS!

I just made a youtube video. I'll post it tomorrow but lots of connections were made after the fact. Cheeseburgers will make sense then. 

I know that when I started having "OCD" when I was 10 and suffering deeply, (suddenly the memories coming up from that age and all the music connections, Shania Twain, Brittney Spears, Titanic make sense now) if I had had an awakened "psychiatrist" ( I suspect that a regular counselor or psychiatrist would have had negative or limited effects) the suffering I went through could have been worked through (not shoved aside and dis-identified with) in an incredibly productive and enlightening manner. Instead I had to deal the best I could as a child who had a huge revelation when she even heard what OCD was (ohhh... it has a name) and have it come back last year, eventually understood as impulse and intuition when I started heavily down the path at age 30. I'm still understanding it. There's no doer. There's no one thinking. The pieces are still clicking. 

I blamed my parents for being too independent and ignorant and religious for not taking me to a counselor. But now I see it as a blessing. Everything happened as it had to happen. 

I'm sorry 10 year old Mandy. You don't exist but I've thought about you so many times since the awakening last year. I see now what I came here to improve and desire to fix and work toward more clearly. 

It now makes sense why I always had such a deep, deep (romantic almost) feeling about... McDonald's. Sounds batshit crazy, but my parents were hermits and we rarely went to McDonald's so it was always a huge treat to go there and only on days when we went on trips which were already special. I never outgrew the magic of it, and always sort of wrestled with my own feelings about McDonald's and all the other negative perceptions about it of others. 

The first time I heard the cheeseburger love song above was from the first person I ever can't eat, can't sleep fell in love with when I was 15, and ended up traumatically trying to absolve myself of later. 

There's another connection with hamburger I don't want to explain now. Also the price is going up substantially right now, which is... hilarious when you get the analogy. 

I used to listen to this song a lot at that age. Cheeseburger song seems to spoof the style. Bats and (batshit crazy) on my mind.

 

 

 

Edited May 20, 2020 by mandyjw