tsuki

EUREKA! It's the SOUL! SOUL! I've been looking for this word for SUCH A LONG TIME! The soul has something to do with intuition. Intuition is the sense-perception of soul?

My intellect is getting me to fall into the same self-defeating pattern as usual. I get so worked up about a topic that I stop taking proper care of my life and when things start to fall apart, the topic I'm passionate about gets washed off by the wave of chores and repairs. Body-soul-heart-mind balance, tsuki. That would be cool.

For the past two days, I have trouble getting myself to the right place, mentally. On the self-care level, the heart prayer provides a background to benchmark my mental capability against and I fell intellectually scattered and progressively more disconnected. Each morning is a struggle before I get into the right mental place. I've been drinking coffee in the previous week so my body may be a little bit dysregulated. While I'm focusing on my spiritual practices, my self-care routines took a noticeable hit. I'm still taking care of my food (cooking and shopping), but my laundry has piled up and I'm not having enough sleep. I also stopped massaging my neck regularly and my sleep quality has decreased. I tried to rest yesterday and while I did manage to take a few naps, I woke up with a minor headache. The body is a temple, I will take a better care of it. __________________ Oh, and my inner critic is getting more active lately. I even started criticizing my wife for her looks. Not cool.

I wonder if anybody finds this journal interesting because I'm having the time of my life writing these. My intent is to unravel these prayers and get their underlying feeling, but they are so multidimensional that getting them through a linear medium such as text is very challenging.

The practical teaching of the Invocation (Yin prayer) is the relationship between the mind and the heart - the ideal and the phenomenal. The prayer is a love-pump. The mind that contemplates Christ brings him forth - from abstract to concrete. Then, the heart, feeling His presence, transforms it to love and brings it forth to the phenomenal world. The Yang prayer teaches the inverse - the way to transform the mind so that it is able to receive. By calling His name (Lord, Jesus Christ) with an open heart (sustenance) and taking his body/teaching into it, mercy is shown. His presence, which is mercy, humbles the mind and admission of sins frees it. The prayer is cyclic: the mind that is free can call His name with an open heart. Lord, Jesus Christ, [sustenance: breath-out, said out loud] (Heartfelt calling out to Him) Son of God, [sustenance: breath-in] (Taking his body/teaching in with an open heart) be merciful, [size: breath-out, said out loud] (His mercy shown by presence humbles the mind) to sinful me [size: breath-in] (Admission of sins frees it) The key to admission of sin is the law of judgement - Mt 6,14

If that's not a manual of practical divine magick, I don't know what is. The Father is equivalent to THE ALL. The law of judgement. That is sooo soothing.

OMG this is awesome! Now we need a 24h version!

The reason to read good quality literature is that it usually has many layers of meaning and you get to accustom yourself with seeing through it. The language of your subconscious is symbolic, and having good rapport with it is very, very useful.

I just realized that I'm my ❤️.

I adore this picture. Too bad the details are lost in the avatar.

Yesterday, I've been contemplating the Yang prayer: and I was focusing on the interplay between breath and awareness. I choose to focus on sustenance in the first tact of the yang prayer and size on the second. I don't know why, but it feels more appropriate. When I was contemplating this, two things happened: I observed that the order of the interplay between breath and awareness in Yang prayer is the inverse of the Yin prayer: Yang: sustenance:breath-out ~> sustenance:breath-in ~> size: breath-out ~> size: breath-in Yin: size: breath-in ~> size: breath-out ~> sustenance:breath-in ~> sustenance:breath-out When I kept focusing on this interplay, I started to become mesmerized by it. I was drawn in, sort of hypnotized by it. It was like this movement of awareness between sustenance and size was not a disjoint shift between dimensions, but a single connected loop of expansion and contraction in two dimensions that are somehow connected. Then, after some time I started to notice that when I'm focused on sustenance, the energy starts to gather around my heart chakra, as if the air was carrying the energy to heat it up. This had naturally led to associating sustenance with the heart, and size with the head. It gives an interesting perspective on the yin prayer and phenomenal-ideal dimensions. The yang prayer feels much more private, personal, individual, human. Firstly, because I can speak the active part of the prayer (Lord Jesus Christ, ..., be merciful, ...). Secondly, because the divine part of the prayer "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God" is paired with sustenance that got associated with the heart for me. So, in effect, calling Jesus is much more heartfelt and the fact that I'm speaking it implies separation, calling out. I feel like a lost child calling for mother. Pairing it with a praying posture has a tremendous humbling effect on me. I'm starting to get the symbolism of it, but I don't feel like sharing it atm.

What I find the most disturbing about PUA is my own reaction to it, the fact that I think that I would absolutely love to fuck hundreds of women. This belief is common to most men and I think that the bottom of this issue is excessive systemizing on their part, at the expense of empathy and self-knowledge. I believe that possible causes such as prevalence of porn, commodification of sex and objectification of women are just symptoms of this problem. I grew up in an environment with little to no emotional support, used by my parents to satisfy their emotional needs. I believe that this is how most men are raised nowadays and it results in lack of emotional maturity, lack of self-knowledge. With overblown systemizing skills, they create juvenile goals to satisfy their mutilated identity, such as lay-counts and such. Moreover, the chemical cocktail released during sex or masturbation is oftentimes used as a way to drown the "feeling of emptiness" which is nothing else than years of emotional self-neglect. So, boys venture out to make something of themselves, a man, by having sex with random strangers, having fun? No, they are not even having fun! They treat it as a bootcamp, a way to convince themselves that the world is a harsh place, that they are "putting the hard work in" to do what, exactly? To have the sex equivalent of a fastfood hamburger. What is the effect? Some get good ordering them... and some don't. The ones that do get good, prey on emotionally damaged women, looking for 'compliance', and other calculated metrics that tell you that you are going to get laid with higher probability. It gets even worse - what happens with emotionally damaged men that get through this sex meat grinder with some semblance of success? Do they actually feel better? Do they get healthier? Do they really get to know women? What about women that are being used, do they get encouraged to explore their sexuality and get to know men better? Or do they get the reinforcement that men are creatures from another planet? Obviously, I have a negative opinion on PUA because I haven't explored it and I do recognize that I envy the successful fuckers. But I also recognize that there is no way in the world that get to explore intimacy, having been through such volume of pussy. The simple answer is: life is short and it's a trade off constrained by time. Intimacy is important and casual sex is also important, but I do believe that we're seeing the damage of excess of the latter. And God, how do I hate the PUA jargon. It sounds like moonspeak.

@John Iverson Check this out for more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deuterocanonical_books

There is not just one "Bible". Various Christian denominations have different sets of books that compose it and consider other non-canonical. There is also a dispute over translations and some denominations are based on different readings of the Bible.

@Cykaaaa Awesome, thank you!

I've been contemplating this today and it occurred to me that inclusion of awareness into the prayer creates two perspectives on breathing. When awareness focuses on the movement: of the body, then breath is viewed as change in its size: Breath-in is viewed as relaxation of the stomach and expansion of the body Breath-out is viewed as tightening up of the stomach and contraction of the body of air, then breath is viewed as change in sustenance: Breath-in is viewed as inhalation that signifies ingestion and acceptance Breath-out is viewed as exhalation that signifies excretion and enactment The first tact focuses awareness on size while the second focuses it on sustenance. The prayer therefore has three components: thoughts, breath and awareness. Their interplay make the prayer into a whole spectacle: Breath-in: Lord Jesus Christ, [focus on increasing size] (relaxation signifying Godly selflessness) Breath-out: Son of God, [focus on decreasing size] (contraction signifying embodiment in the living God) Breath-in: be merciful, [focus on inward sustenance] (inhalation signifying the acceptance of God's love) Breath-out: to sinful me [focus on outward sustenance] (exhalation signifying the deeds that express love) These two axes (size and sustenance) that are created as an interaction of breath and awareness mirror the teaching of Meditations on the Tarot. The book describes how the Hermeticism is an integral part of Christian tradition and is symbolized by Jesus' cross. The cross symbolizes the Hermetic Principle of Correspondence (As above, so below, as below, so above) expressed in two dimensions of existence (horizontal and vertical). The horizontal dimension is the phenomenal (space-time), while the vertical is ideal (abstraction and concreteness of Truth). So, the complete interpretation is: The thoughts that silently pray come from Nothing and are directed at everything. In this everything, there is the body that respires and is crossed by awareness. First, thoughts invoke Jesus Christ while the movement happens in the vertical dimension. Vertical dimension is signified by size and is the movement from abstraction to concreteness. Then, thoughts ask for love with humility while the movement happens in the horizontal dimension. Horizontal dimension is signified by sustenance and is the movement from divine inspiration to human action. In effect, the prayer is emptying the individual will and summoning Jesus Christ to act in the world through this vessel. From now on, I will call the yin prayer "Invocation" because of its meaning.

I was not being sarcastic, I just thought you have them collected (and you do, as it turns out). Thanks.

I'm very interested in these studies. Would you mind sharing them? We could make another mega-thread like this to gather resources.

I started reading Philokalia and stumbled upon a different text for the Jesus prayer in the foreword written by John Paul II. It has better rhythm, but I find it difficult to translate it to English. Literally it is: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, be merciful, to me a sinner Panie Jezu Chryste, Synu Boży, bądź miłościw, mnie grzesznemu The last two sections are different, and shift the polarity between God and men down the stack. In the previous version, the third section ("have mercy on me") related to "my soul" and "God's mercy". Now, the third section focuses on Jesus exclusively (as the source of mercy), while "me" is shifted downwards. The rhythm is difficult to translate because the two last sections have exactly two words in Polish while expressing a pleasant polarity of God/men. More rhythmic translations to English would be: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, be merciful, towards me, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy, on me, but they lose the expression of penance. It could also be translated as: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, be merciful, towards this sinner, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy, on this sinner, but we lose the explicit "me". Again, we could make it so: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, be merciful, to sinful me, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy, on sinful me, but I don't know if it's written in proper English. It somehow conveys the double meaning here, as if the expression "me", or "me" itself, was sinful. In this sense, this does not relate to the person, but to something the person does - the person "me"s. If you look sneakily enough, this interpretation is also present in the original, so I will stick to this one.

Funny, I just read that baby quote about in the Gospel of John few days ago. Ah yes, the every parents' dilemma. Would you grow better if you knew what you should be doing from the start? I bet not considering that you've got everything you ever wanted soul-wise. Thank you for this. I really needed that. I do think that I'm oh so powerful, why would I think that? Is it because I'm a male? What is it about youth and its arrogance and old age and its wisdom? Why would it be set up like this?!?!?!?! Maybe that's why it's set up like this? The young have the prospect of living a life, the uncertainty of it, and protect themselves with arrogance? I don't think that life is about making impact on the world, it's about developing your soul. While living in fear of having an impact is the expression of avoidance - I believe that sometimes the egg is important so that the chick can hatch. That advice is very precious, thank you. Actually, you are starting A LOT of separate threads. The structure of this site is like this: First, there is the whole forum, http://www.actualized.org/forum Then, there are sub-forums for various kinds of topics, like "self-actualization", or "Meditation, Consciousness, Enlightenment, Spirituality". Each sub-forum lists a bunch of topics that relate to their general theme. The internet address for sub-forums starts with http://www.actualized.org/forum/forum In these sub-forums are individual threads, also called topics. The internet address for threads/topics starts with http://www.actualized.org/forum/topic The thread we're currently writing in is called "A Reply to Tsuki" and is in "Self-Actualization journals" sub-forum. To start a new topic click the green button "Start a new topic" at the top-right of the chosen sub-forum page, where you see the list of topics. Each thread/topic is supposed have a single concern in discussion and it should be reflected in its title. So, this thread should be about "A Reply to Tsuki". My narcissism thinks that it's a wonderful/cheeky name for a general-purpose journal. Then, in each thread there are replies, also called posts. This text is a post. To add a reply to a thread, scroll down to the bottom of the page and use the text box to write a message. It will be added at the end of the thread. Good luck!

The symbolism of breath in yin prayer: Inhalation/expansion: the body becomes receiving, spacious, it signifies infinity, boundlessness, emptiness, nothingness Exhalation/contraction: the body becomes creative, begetting, it signifies finitude, separation, multitude In the yin prayer the subject (the person) is symbolized by the mind and the object of the prayer (God) is symbolized by the body: In the first tact (1,2) of the prayer, the focus is on expansion and contraction of the body. Here, the body signifies: (1-expansion) Nothingness/infinity/boundlessness that (2-contraction) begets/em-bodies the Living God. Then, in the second tact (3,4), the focus is on movement of the air in and out of the lungs. Here, the body signifies: (3-inhalation) the empty vessel (soul) that is being filled with God's mercy/love and (4-exhalation) is relieved of sins. The yin prayer is suited for ordinary activities. It is silent, repeated in thoughts. It symbolizes Nothing that loves everything.

@Parththakkar12 Maybe you're identified as masculine and you are triggered when somebody describes in a way that doesn't suit you? There is nothing wrong in being a feminine man. I'm not a fan of Deida's book either.

@Viking Stop imagining obstacles. Don't listen to people who say that "you're not ready". You are never ready for anything until you have experience and you can't have experience of multiple successful relationships. You can only have experience of multiple failed relationships. Go out there and start talking to girls. That is the only way. Start with physical attractiveness that grabs your attention. Spend some time with her and see if you mesh well. If you're ultimately interested in a long-term relationship, then it's easier if you have dating experience because you can triangulate the issues you bring into a relationship. Did you enjoy yourself when you were talking? Would you go and have fun on another date? If yes, then you like her. That is not how women think in my experience. That is how men think. She is not trying to create a mental picture of you, she is probably just trying to have fun. By telling her that she can't hold your hand, you probably hurt her (unintentionally). Women are usually much more emotionally intelligent and they understand that what you feel right now is not what you ought to feel in the future. Don't fake your feelings. Express them. They are what you are. If you're interested in long-term relationships, you cannot aim to fake your feelings. If you attract people by putting on masks, then you will never attract anybody worth hanging out with (because they are not hanging out with you).

I call bullshit. She's a beautiful liar. If she was telling the truth and took responsibility for your life by breaking your relationship up, then she did you a favor by leaving. Taking this much responsibility for your partner's life is a huuuuge red flag signalling boundary issues.

In the yin version of the prayer, the progression of breaths is following: [Breathe-in]: Lord, Jesus Christ, (the great divine Nothingness, empty space, that is the pre-condition for air) [Breathe-out]: Son of God, (Nothingness begets/exhales the incarnate God, word-made-flesh, embodiment of LOGOS) [Breathe-in]: have mercy on me, (as "I/me" become the empty space, your Grace fills me) [Breathe-out]: a sinner. (the final breathe-out is a relief from sins/wounds). AM-EN