SOUL

If you are the bills are due....

It depends on what you mean by "illusion", how are you defining it?

If it's my self on the channel I would change the it, heck I'll shut the whole thing off and take a nap.

To the ego identity it can be motivated by and can manifest in this way but this type of 'right knowledge' trigger is really found within the subconscious and is a primitive survival mode trigger. This ego taps into this resource in our psychology for the emotional, mental and physical buttons to push in us to act on behalf of it's desire to reinforce and secure identity. It's only a trap if we make it or allow it to be one but it's really just a natural mechanism that we can use for productive and beneficial work in us as well.

You recently proclaimed on this forum about some personal revelation and since then you have become addicted to calling out others about what you assume is their inner work. You didn't cease the addiction, you just changed the vice. Can you see it? It's an addiction to being right masquerading as bringing "truth". Besides.... I'm addicted to awareness like I am addicted to food, water and breath.

@Aquarius The first time our 'self' orients itself through our experience as a youth it is some of the most deeply ingrained lessons we ever get but our awareness isn't fully developed yet so we are unaware of it. So when we are working through it later in life with consciousness work we come across all sorts of stuff that may cause us to reflect 'where the heck did this come from?' There were likely many experiences very early in life that reinforced ideas, concepts and beliefs that were given to you by others that you weren't aware of it happening, it's kind of a subliminal conditioning. It's how it happens to all of us the 'first time' our self conscious and ego is established in us as we mature and continues happening all through life even though we 'know' it. Some may say to you that to deal with this you have to dig it all up find out every who, what, how, why, when detail about it to 'fix it'.... Though we don't have to dig into it, we may do it, but it's not a must. With awareness just observe the thoughts and emotions that rise up in your mind, let the ego bring it to mind, don't go searching for it...and yes, the ego will surely bring it...again and again. So when the ego brings those thoughts and emotions to you that aren't what you seek for yourself don't agree or endorse them. When the ego says 'I feel guilty about this' respond with awareness 'I'm at peace with it'. It may take awhile but if you don't want the thoughts and emotions the ego brings to you don't accept them as your own, instead affirm what you seek for yourself. There's no need to dig into every detail about how it got there, just change 'your mind' about it in the present. If you want to make it more of a forceful intent, add faith to it, have faith in the process...but even if you have no faith in the process, the repetitively affirming in the present will eventually take root in the subconscious mind and bear fruit. Eventually the ego will say, 'I am at peace with that' in reflection of the past... that you intentionally created in your present. This is likely why those church ideas are so powerful in your psyche, any experience of ours mixed into us with faith has more 'weight' in our personal psychology. It's not that those ideas or belief are really any more crucial or important in any particular way but that added element of faith is a psychological empowerment mechanism, it also adds more force to our willful intent. So we can use 'faith' in our consciousness work to empower what we seek now. Also be aware of the words used in consciousness work, ones like 'truth', 'good' and 'right' are triggers with very deep emotional reservoirs and are very entangled within us throughout our ideology. So when we are trying to establish new patterns if we us those words it usually leads to inner conflict since the new is often contradictory to the old, I prefer descriptive terms to the judgment ones. These are some things I discovered are successful in my own inner work, explore your own inner life and see if they are of any use to your own work.

It seems more like you are speaking about truisms or axioms, which can be powerful for awareness because they are existentially evident.

I'm issuing a blank check apology in advance for any pain I may cause anyone, it was unintentional but unfortunately inevitable...we're all humans.

I don't like that thumbs up notifications are turned off, I don't know who liked what. Ok, I figured out how to find it.

I haven't read even one "enlightenment book" and I have inner peace so books are optional.

@Aquarius Just as emotionally triggering as the external expectations that are internalized are to our consciousness are the internally occurring expectations we externalize and even keep internally. Those internal-internal expectations can be some of the most obscured from our awareness, they often reside within our subconscious and can only sense them after they have manifest in our thoughts and emotions. Although, from your words I can see you have some clarity of awareness already, continue to awaken your consciousness and the path for your life will be obvious.

It's a very simple thing with many very intricate and complex expressions of that simple thing. The simple thing..... expectations. Guilt is an emotional response to expectations that something should be other than it is or we should do/be/done other than what was do/are/did. The simple solution...... acceptance. Accepting things as they are and not having expectations can cease the guilt response. This frees us up to be present in the moment fully and act without the constraints of expectation/conditioning. Of course it's rarely ever as simple as that but it can be this simple if you work on it with this simple premise and not dig into every aspect and detail... but we are diggers by nature and often can't stop ourselves from digging, can you dig it?

If I can't give people thumbs up on their post anymore what am I going to do with my thumbs? *taking suggestions* An ape needs to exercise their thumbs now and then or evolution just might take them away.......jussayin What is a "low ape" anyway?... I'm more of a 'high' ape..... man. Hehe

If you are sensitive to words try working on these words, it manifests from emotional pain that is likely also creating the sensitivity you are experiencing. Get to the source of this self induced suffering and heal it then watch how the words of others will flow past you like the wind and you will be able to address it from a place of healing. Peace.

I enjoy giving a thumbs up without having to make a post to tell someone I do but tallying those up votes into reputation may lead to ego fluffing. The titles can be enjoyable but them being comparative or a status in nature can also lead to ego fluffing. Of course even member names and avatar pics can be ego fluffing, too..... and the ideas and concepts.... and the techniques and methods..... and threads and replies.... and... well dangit, everything can lead to ego fluffing, can we just remove everything in the forum? Just pages and pages of blankness, that would reflect the infinite nothingness everything supposedly is, right? *sigh*.....

I enjoy being for fun, I like to take being everywhere I go and do all sorts of things with being..... except life can get complicated at times so I get distracted by the stuff of life and I forget about being.

Yesh, the mind prefers a pair of boxes than paradoxes.

The prefrontal cortex, which is where reasoning takes place and is often associated with 'intellect', and the amygdala, which is considered the base of emotional response, are both used by the ego to influence our awareness. People who are highly rational are known to exalt the prefrontal cortex and it's function while denigrate the amygdala and it's function, but both are used by the ego. The ego uses all of the tools in the box to create and convince us of identity but that is all done for self preservation. It's all conditioning and used to influence awareness to voluntarily act on behalf of that self interest. The ego uses all it has access to but no matter the number of influence and conditions our awareness won't reflexively act on the ego's desires, it must choose to though it's not "decision making", it's volition. Well, unless of course awareness has been lulled into a zombie like sleep state so it is consumed by the ego's histrionics. Hehe, nah, that would never happen, right?

@Nahm My mother is a kind beautiful soul and I find you saying something on the internet you surely wouldn't say to my face as revealing of your character....would you like to reconsider that?

In my experience it appears the ego is just one the many elements exerting influence over the willful intent and freeing awareness from the conditioning of the ego allows one to exercise freedom from it's conditioning of past identity. This doesn't suggest that just because our willful intent has the freedom to act in a modified behavior that we will not act on behalf of ego/self interests and if we do act on behalf of them doesn't imply we are forced to with no other choice but to, just that we do in that instance. So this would say that if I see ego/self as an influence of conditioning I then see awakening awareness from it's influence as the 'freeing' part of willful intent which is the reverse of what you appear to be suggesting you view it as.

You can if you want to but meaning is a personal experience, not a universal one.

@tatsumaru I look at evidence as it is without putting meaning to it, you suggest what the evidence means using a cute gif to support your meaning.... that's not very scientific of you and not proof your meaning is reality.

You with all these trap idea threads are a trap..... and it appears I have been snared by yet another one.... dam.

I, too, have little to no interest in any.