mandyjw

@FoxFoxFox I see the truth in what you're saying, but I think we are arguing both sides of a paradox again. Here's an example. Before I knew how to love unconditionally I went around the world and saw the world and other people as how it was for me and what they could do for me. I felt compassion and love but they were not unconditional. I would put myself in severe states of suffering by reading about wars in africa and thought that I should fight wrong in the world. After learning how to love without conditions I see love in people all the time and I see people who are cut off from the ego. I can't clearly receive love from someone who is cut of by ego but I can give love as long as I don't let my own ego be triggered. There are these people who suddenly come up and are so striking to you...people you always overlooked before. It's like Jesus reincarnated in your elderly neighbor. Or the janitor you wave to everyday who never showers. And they just emit this unconditional love for everyone and when you meet it's like a knowing and a merging of souls. And it's like these people exist to show you how you're supposed to love. And you realize that all your close relationships have ego filters both in you and in them. And every time your ego is triggered you know it was a mirror and that it was always your ego that was triggered. And so we need other people to grow and they need us, because the entire world is becoming enlightened. It's not you. It was never you. That's why you can't turn your back on people, or say that there are levels of awakening. It's all you. It's a paradox that we are separate but we are together. You must honor and live each side of the paradox to know the whole.

The thing about doors is that you can walk out them and then back in again at will. I didn't forget where the door is.

How is complete and total ego death and enlightenment not the same as physical death. Don't you need some semblance of ego or sense of separateness to survive as a form?

Oh wow. That's something I feel but never really understood or could explain. My Grandmother died a couple weeks ago and that describes exactly how I felt about her death. If there was a person who unconditionally loved me it was her. Mourning her death was like a full understanding of how much I loved her and how much she had loved me and realizing that that love was the love of the universe and my/our very essence. @DrewNows Thank you. That was really good.

You can only embody unconditional love post awakening. It's like when Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself. No dualistic Christian could actually do that, that verse was terribly frustrating to try to obey. Then you study Buddhism or some non dual teaching and you learn on a deep level that your neighbor IS YOURSELF.

Someone who abuses their child is cut off from love by the ego though.

@Leo Gura If you perceive levels of awakening, you are currently at all of those levels at the same time.

But Joseph. Sometimes I just don't FEEL like it. So I don't.

Well this is not what I was expecting. Can I send it back for a replacement, I think mine's broken?

I know, one must learn to loving that groundless feeling. But we're constantly getting bored with it, trying to understand it, coming here to discuss it knowing that everything we say isn't it, pointing out that fact whenever anyone else does the same thing and getting into fights. Over and over and over. We might as well admit that we just really, really enjoy fighting with each other.

Joseph = Jesus. Got it. Jesus Joseph, did you know that you are your own Father?

But Jesus said I could be wise and build my house upon the rock instead of sand. SO WHERE'S THE GODDAMN ROCK PEOPLE? YOU SAID YOU THERE WAS A ROCK.

@Joseph Maynor I did all this work so that I could forgive Christians and be grateful for those experiences but I still can't forgive people for holding on to dogma in this community. Including myself. OH SAVE ME JESUS.

I feel the same way. I has honored/cursed with the experience of being completely immersed in the disasters of fundamental Christianity from a very young age. I spent my entire childhood trying to reconcile the things from Jesus that hit home and the experiences of God I knew were real when I spent time in nature, and all the dogma I was fed as truth.

You act like God when you have concepts about God and how he should act, ego. You identify (are) God when you let go of concepts about anything, egoless.

It's an easy trap to fall in unless you were religious yourself. I wonder if it's a necessary stage.

You're to credit for that!

I admit that I have a lot of beliefs and that they are all worthless.

Ah. I like it.

Yes, I would. but don't think of it like blocks, but just tuning to the same frequency. You can't do that when you are thinking or in a strongly negative state. I'm fascinated with old houses and abandoned places because the energy feels so interesting and nearly always good. I probably get too caught up in it.

What if the path to raising your consciousness is to fully embrace your current one and stop needing more?

You can have that concept if you want to, but it's a worthless one. It makes zero difference to me how conscious or unconscious someone else is. My ego is endlessly fascinated, but my true self knows they are a mirror of myself. When I'm bothered by something it means there's some lie in myself I can't see. Oh crap.

@Serotoninluv I love that example of connecting with your niece. Abraham Hicks' teachings are very much in line with that kind of connection too. There was one video I recently watched where she even talked about autism and how important it is to see past what's wrong with kids to truly connect. My six year old son is autistic so I really know that from experience as that's my life. I thought her teachings were so materialist and fake for so long, I wish I'd known what I was missing sooner. She's helped me get over things that were really blocking me and destroying my happiness because I kept clinging to truth at the expense of my connection with life. The connection with life was the prize I really wanted. My quest for truth was based on a false belief all along anyway.

Only measured conceptually. Measuring conceptually is also making a judgement. Who makes judgement? The sense of self. The ego. This is love beyond measure. This is the peace that passeth all understanding. Right now. That's all there ever is, this very moment. Stop fucking around.

I know what you're saying, I've experienced higher states and lower states of enlightenment. But those just memories. They don't exist. My level of awareness right now is all that matters. Why aren't we getting more caveats and warnings along with these statements? Why not more mention of the present moment? I can't go around being like, my enlightenment yesterday, it was super duper high, higher than yours! Enlightenment pissing contests. No thank you.