Nahm

@Thought Art Frame it as a lesson. Know The Guidance more so from the experience. Where it your burning hand on a hot stove, you’d have removed it instantly. If you’re serious about being on the path, that is the sensitivity realized in regard to the potential suffering of a single thought when it’s a hundred miles away. Allow this ‘lesson’ to transmute you to the much, much bigger picture. ? How can someone or something be needed when our infinite being has you always in it’s unconditional embrace… while you are literally creating your reality right now. Who could ever be so insensitive as to hold this hot coal of resentment.

@Seraphim Lovely. What is a “Ramana Maharshi”?

More Selfish = less “selfish” in thought. As in, that is all a story about a separate self which is a complete abstraction of thoughts / doesn’t actually exist. Actual Selfishness is indicative of The Self, and isn’t arrived at by actions or thought, but ‘fallen back into’ by letting go of those thoughts, and the retelling of the story about a you which lacks, has a past, it’s own good, sacrifices, has a being, needs to act this or that way, is empathetic, has other people around them, struggles, etc, etc. That is the story of the self, which is the veil of The Self. That ‘veil’ is literally made of The Self. To hone the opportunistic side make a dreamboard. What you write on it will manifest. Maybe start a business or company, or whatever you want to create & experience. The opposite of the apparent ‘true’ paradigm of having always been selfless is more accurate. The most impactful thing you cold employ, is the letting go of your own defensive, deflective and projective mechanisms, which means first experiencing these reactions consciously, demystifying, or collapsing, causation. Just like you write what you want on the dreamboard and the universe becomes it, then it’s a matter of ‘being in receiving mode’… the universe is literally being the response you desire in regard to your path. Are you in ‘receiving mode’?

It’s all already perfect. Creating problems through a ‘my problem’ lens is left at / collapsed with, yellow. Just an effortless ‘paying it forward’ remains.

Meditation. The bodymind rejuvenates by disappearing and reappearing.

That’s like saying ‘I never resorted to using a car’ when traveling a thousand miles. There isn’t a ‘my experience’ & thus the “bubble theory” is conceptual knowledge; there’s no ‘watcher’, no ‘spiritual awakenings’, ‘facts’, ‘we’, ‘aware space’, a ‘perceiver perceiving’, ‘absolute’, a ‘Godhead which perceives’, a ‘my resistance to them’, a ‘watcher/subject’, a ‘my true nature’, and thus there is no ‘obstacle’, no ‘paradox’, and no ‘I which lacks’. Welcome to the forum! ?

I agree there is no guarantee, but, also, in all fairness, there’s no ‘ overly complex ramblings from a truly ridiculous state ‘ coming out of Leo, so to speak.

By literally inspecting what ‘you test your’, or ‘your spiritual progress’ is, unpacking the concept, seeing what is actual there. That points to self inquiry, and collapsing the duality of a you and a your progress (a subject object thought). Meant lightly, but, while there is only one ‘source’, only the devil could ask such a sneaky question. Letting go of concepts about there being ‘your insights’ & ‘you mentally masturbating’. There is no such test or method. Rather, direct investigation & direct experience until there is very literally no arising question about who, what, why & how you really are, and about literally anything & everything in the entire universe. Might reference the observer ‘problem’ / double slit experiment, and realize the fallacies of ‘the speed of light’, gravity, general & special relativity and black & white holes. (Again though, just a pointing there, only direct experience, vs learning, understanding, or even realizing will do). The Ox-Herding pics might also be helpful just as another pointing frame of reference. And just as a point of interest, maybe even a joy (not a ‘test of progress’), when you read the Bible and it’s the most face value straight forward borderline comedic writing on earth, because again, the devil is funny like this. Unthinkable, incomprehensible, unbelievable, unimaginable, indescribable, unfathomable, un-figure-out-able, incalculable, indiscernible, and absolutely infallible.

@Mason Riggle Seize the opportunity, take the time. Pour yourself into somethin, transmute a few levels up. Learn something you wanted to learn, sing something you want to sing, create something you’ve been wanting to create, go somewhere you’ve thought about going. Rock the solo. (Not as in leave her, just as in focus, attention & time). That pain is high octane creation. Do you2.0.

@Gabith Absolutely beautiful. ?

@Thought Art if you were to think about what you would change, and add to that thinking that that change applies to everyone, and then think of the change that change would cause, and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on, you would literally end up right where you are fully realizing sheer dumbfounding perfection.

@ivankiss Amen to that indeed. Reminds me of Esther‘s example with the oxygen mask speech on airplanes. If you put yours on first you both got a chance, if you don’t you’re probably both gonna die. Heavily paraphrasing here.

@ivankiss Agreed, enabling is quite twisted. Leaving like, now, vs mentally backing out of it, getting some ‘space’, untwisting oneself and then addressing it, is really circumstantial.

@Kalki Avatar Wondering if you use the word confidence in a unique way. It’s pretty weird word as it is. It can refer to excitement, and also to ignorance, but doesn’t necessarily imply it. Might be a connotation tangle at play. Maybe the suffering is more motive driven, or whatever the opposite of confidence is might be held in some subtle belief, making it seem as if confidence is necessary.

Who knows.

@ivankiss During an incident, meditating in any formal seated sense probably wouldn’t be ideal, but rather meditatively grounding, feeling breathing from the stomach, non-reaction. In that sense meditation is very beneficial overall / prior to any such incidents. Day after day is a bit different and it depends on one’s situation. For a child, it’s very likely immediate removal from the home is ideal. For an adult, who is helplessly experiencing being abused by another adult, the same. For an adult who desires to stay in the relationship and bring an end to the abuse, and can recognize the distinction between ‘I am being abused’ & ‘he or she is abusive’, meditation (and utilizing all available resources) is ideal. The meditative mind is less reactionary, and as such recognizes the reactionary behaviors of others, and does not or is far less likely to take it personally and engage, but to ‘leave it with’ their s.o. compassionately and supportively suggesting meditation & other resources available.

@ivankiss Kind of an odd question, can you clarify a little? Do you mean generally, as in while in a rough patch in life… or literally, as in while a physical or emotional assault is occurring?

@ivankiss Not sure how being forced relates… but the mind can not serve two masters, experience is whole.

@Thought Art If the same thing happened again, but this time you were not hurt & devastated, what would be different?

That really is the key. The letting the layers / beliefs / stories go, even the ones about nondualists & materialism.

@ivankiss Yes, one should try everything, take advantage of all resources. No, that’s all aversion of meditation.

@museumoftrees Does making sure you know who is trustworthy and who is not seem very important, like, paramount, critical? Maybe even more so, do you already believe that some people are trustworthy & some people are not? How does the importance of how you are seen & thought of compare to the importance of what you think & how you feel?

@ivankiss Yes. In childhood and adulthood, emotionally & physically speaking. No, because I was innocently and later ignorantly reacting & projecting that I was being asserted upon.

Is there someone in your life, from your childhood, who stands out as always under control, got everything in life in order & clicking, doesn’t get knocked off their equanimity, always knows what to do & say etc?