mandyjw

@tsuki

Ugh. I feel like this forum is scaring me off again.

I still think it's much smarter to be the tomboy, be seen as an equal and a friend first, then weed out the shallow ones from the honest ones. When they see you as some sort of angel "above" them, you'll always be something that will or will not fulfill their desires, instead of having a real relationship of any type, platonic or romantic. I mean attraction has way more layers than just visual attraction. Why settle for just that?

All women are beautiful. I've never met one who wasn't. I HAVE met women who don't believe that they are beautiful but I see through it.

@CreamCat I've spent the last few years of my life like that. Sweatpants, glasses, looking like a slob, hiding. It works, people treat me a lot more like a person. If I dress up and go somewhere around men they act stupid and look at me like I have three heads. If I dress like a slob, they aren't attracted to me but they will relate to me on a personal level much more easily. So when I care for my appearance I'm objectifying myself? That doesn't seem quite right.

@arlin It's a general "you". Our society places a lot more importance on women to be physically attractive. Personality is less important in a woman than it is in a man, society wants us to believe. This creates a shadow and an unmet desire to be seen for her personality or who she really is. So even though she puts on make up and attractive clothes she hates herself and when it attracts a man, she hates him too.

Many women have two choices in many environments, either be seen as an object and risk being harassed and abused or hide completely from people. The problem is that you only want the "hot" women. You objectify them before you even started trying to form a relationship. As long as you treat women like an object they will in turn treat you like something that doesn't have feelings.

I needed to hear/read this, thank you.

@Nahm I recently found this note that I wrote in the night sometime weeks ago, and I laughed and laughed and laughed. I have no idea, "write this down" is clear but the rest? No idea.

This place can be intimidating at first, especially if you are female. Women love Eckhart Tolle and are more likely to gravitate to teaching's more like his. Leo's style is much more masculine but you need both to be balanced. I have often felt alienated by it in the past but the wide range of things that Leo teaches lays a foundation for spirituality better than anyone else I've ever come across.

@whoareyou I am not the things I have knowledge about or the skills that I have worked to acquire. Yet I am using them, I am using my ability to think and write to you, and I use the abilities I worked hard to learn to make money and provide for myself. Just because I know that I am not those things doesn't mean that I can't use them for good, or for my own survival, or to communicate with others. The truth cannot be spoken and yet it must be, as Leo says. I feel like a lot of people need me to let go of my religion because they find it disgusting. You don't know the inner battle I have already fought within myself, and the disgust I went through with my own religion. I can only say that forgiveness and integration feels good. It only happens when we let go. We have to let go of both the things we cling to and the things that disgust us.

As a Christian you separate the world into strong shades of black and white, so there is God and good and there is evil and demons. It's duality on steroids. As a kid I had impulses to accept the devil into my heart, and they drove me crazy. I later learned that those impulses were obsessive compulsive disorder, or I thought that they were. There would also be impulses to go places, pick up things and say or confess things. Those impulses were intuition, trying to get me to do a kind of shadow work and discover the truth of nonduality. They were my inner spirit. My love, faith and desire for Jesus and Truth was an open window to spirit at that young age. I was afraid and I slammed it shut. Only after I grew up and let go of my faith did that window open again. It kind of felt like someone threw a rock through it, but I guess I asked for it in a way.

Are you suggesting that I'm rotten? One bad apple ruins the whole bunch I guess.

It's funny that you just posted this now because I've been going through this, only for me it's a revival. I was raised as a Christian and my parents had already left the church and were bitter about the organized religion part of it when I was very young. I took an interest in it myself and studied my Bible on my own, mostly just the gospels but I also loved Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. There were a lot of verses that I would read again and try to understand. As a teenager and young adult I deeply, deeply hated other Christians and the status quo. It's like I wanted to suffer because most of the friends I made were Christian and those friends judged me for being friends with other people that they thought were "bad". I even had a Satanist friend and he was a blast. I was always trying to separate out the truth of Jesus from all the bullshit. I let go of the whole idea, shortly after getting into Buddhism. It's a really scary thing to step away from the thing that you've been taught is your "salvation" and "hope of eternal life". But I knew I had found the truth with nonduality. Those verses that perplexed me and frustrated me, one by one I understood them as epiphanies. My new dogma was nonduality. My new dogma was letting go of my past, not putting hope in a future. My new dogma was the present moment and nothingness, no attachment. Then after a few years it stopped serving me. My entire purpose for nonduality was so I could have mental peace. I became depressed and old patterns flooded in but at the same time, I started connecting deeply with different types of energy from places, and having inexplicable attractions to them. It all unfolded into an awakening in which I accepted that I had always tried to be good, and never recognized the devil in myself. I had been raised to be a moral, good Christian girl and I had truly wanted to be one. When I outgrew it I turned to Buddhism and non duality to serve the same purpose, so I could see myself as a good person. After I recognized the Devil in myself I truly experienced what is meant by the Holy Spirit, it is the same as kundalini energy. Of course! This is nonduality! My eyes were opened to the true mystic, Gnostic Jesus I had loved all along, more fully himself/myself. Christians have buried the nondual teachings and they don't understand the ones that persist in the Bible. They weeded out hundred of years ago. That's why it's so very dangerous, without an open mind, without wisdom and understanding you will turn nondual teachings into the worst kind of hell. I highly suggest reading the gospel of Thomas. Jesus goes way deeper than Buddha. He has an outrageous sort of love, and there are predictions and signs and tough riddles to understand that aren't present with Buddhism. It takes a very open mind to dive into this stuff.

@Truth Addict You can also set a timer, it really helps when you aren't focused. 20 minutes studying, 5 or 10 minutes break, repeat the cycle.

@Shin She's a pessimist, and she doesn't like the outfit I'm wearing just now, so she's being mean about it instead of seeing me for me. Otherwise, she could be part of the bridge. Last night I started having powerful experiences again, it must have been the meditation. I started to wake up with this intense intoxicating feeling of love, a physical feeling in my heart and I had a battle within myself of whether or not to make it conscious in this world and wake up, the pull of sleep was so strong. I got out of bed and couldn't walk straight. I felt like I was being pulled in two, trying to mediate between two worlds. Then I had a battle of my shadow self, a part of me wanted to be superior and a part of me wanted to be kind. I watched it closely, and tried to decide which part of me was trying to survive and I knew the answer was both, they both were a part of me that wanted to survive but I just watched the battle. Then I gave in to superiority for just a moment, and after that I was able to be kindness. A mediator has to have great love or else she will be torn in two. Maybe I love only to survive.

You know what I am now? A bridge. I can sit through a church service and smile instead of fuming like I would even when I was still a Christian. I already had a nondual belief in God brewing as a kid. I decided that I would visualize him not as a man but as a lion. I got the idea from C.S.Lewis, and I thought Jesus could be someone else in a different world. Love doesn't burn bridges it builds them, it doesn't cut cords, it ties them. You say yourself, we have to integrate nonduality, all religions, science, philosophy, and technology, political science, and self help. What else are we doing here? We're a melting pot! A bridge!

@Shin @Truth Addict From the Gospel of Thomas, 114. Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."

@Leo Gura See Christianity is a step ahead of Buddhism, because Paul who wrote those beautiful verses about love is patient, love is kind, etc, he killed Jesus. And Judas, Jesus' betrayer, have you read the Gospel of Judas Leo? It was only translated in the past few years and it's pretty fucked up but also incredibly nondual. I mean Buddha's story has so very little devilry in compared with the Bible. I already let go of my faith in Jesus. Cast your bread upon the waters, Whoever loses his life shall find it. It's all true. What cords are left to cut?

@Truth Addict You mean oh boy/girl?

@whoareyou Love is love. It's all love. There's a bigger picture than any of us can see as individuals. I see my picture and you see your's. Big picture thinking is hive mind, it encompasses us all with the connecting force of love, and together we see the Big Picture. I don't have a belief system, I have love for Jesus, which got bigger, and bigger even as a child it got big enough to encompass nature and animals and other people. Then nonduality taught me the real meanings of the verses I puzzled over so much as a kid. That love was a driving force. My purpose is only to connect with that in myself and others until that love gets bigger and bigger and bigger. My ego was disgusted by the use of psychedelics, but I wouldn't be aware today if others hadn't used them. So I love and accept them. You might be disgusted by Christians, and belief systems but they are a part of you as well, like every other religion. How can you ever interact with people below you on the spiral if you can't all encompass and embody the entire spiral as your self? This is how we awaken the world.

What you really want is not to be with a woman but to be a woman. God is a hermaphrodite. Sorry to ruin your fantasy boys.

I see it in myself, I see it in you, I'm your mirror. I tried to be good and I tried to be God but the love I found in my heart for the devil awoke me on my 666th post. What else can I do to survive but go back in my past child self and find Jesus? The psychedelic I needed was Jesus and yours were literal. Don't tell me that my psychedelic is evil, after all it's just a path for experiencing love and oneness.

Have you studied the law of attraction at all?

@now is forever I like to play dress up with my religions and identities. Just because I was born naked doesn't mean that I can't enjoy wearing pretty things.