Emerald

Well, I actually wouldn't worry too much about her preferring the woman over you. That probably won't happen. I'm bisexual, and I've been in two long term relationships with men; one lasting four years and my current one which has been going on for eight years. And I've been very fortunate that they've both been open with me and have allowed me to have experiences with women if I wanted to. Now, I've never had any extramarital sexual experiences with women. But it's important to me to have the option to because (with my two long-term relationships) I haven't really been single since I was 16 years old, so that has left me very little time to experience the other half of my sexuality. And if I were committed to a man who was very against me experimenting with a woman, then I would feel very stifled. I would feel like being with him would mean I would have to die to that part of myself. But even if I did decided to have that kind of experience with a woman, I know that I wouldn't leave my husband for her. In fact, if I felt that it was a genuine threat to the stability of my marriage, I wouldn't do it. I would just do it for the experience and the excitement of it and to experience an under-explored aspect of my sexuality. I would imagine that's probably why your wife wants to be with a woman, as that would be quite common. It would be significantly less common for her to actually want something serious with the woman. But of course, if it is something that makes you really uncomfortable, I recommend expressing that to her and talking to her about it. But I have to empathize with her, because I know it would be very difficult to be in a situation where I would have to think, "Unless I cheat and lie, I will NEVER be with a woman as long as I am with my partner." This would murder me on the inside. Just knowing that I can, and that my husband is okay with it, relieves so much tension.

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Your read the Dream Theatres one right? My favorite from her is "Healing the Sacred Divide." "Pregnant Darkness" by Monika Wikman is also really good. I also recommend "Androgyny" by June Singer.

@Zweistein You're welcome! I'm glad that you enjoyed it. There are a ton of books in that genre of the Feminine principle and Jungian archetypes. I can recommend some more if you want.

Peter Ralston was enlightened when he won some kind of fighting championship. And he was the only Westerner to ever win it. Also, Adyashanti was always very athletic in his youth, even after he became enlightened.

No, pimping exists because there is a consumer demand for NSA sex with a paid prostitute. There always has been and there always will be. There's a reason why prostitution is called the oldest profession. And I doubt that would change very much even if society became more open about sex. Now, pimps (and human traffickers in general) exist in the way that they do because prostitution is illegal, so these people steal women and children and force them into sex slavery. So, instead of there being willing legal participants, routine std checks, and regulations, prostitution has become a part of the black market. So, women are abducted and manipulated by pimps who make them have sex to meet certain financial quotas, then take all their money and keep them living in terrible conditions... often addicting them to drugs to control them. And children are stolen to work as prostitutes as well. So, pimps and human traffickers will continue to exist until the legal prostitution industry puts them out of business. Then, they'll have to find some other illegal thing to do to make the money. Now, this only helps the adult human trafficking issues, of course. But at least it would be a start.

From my experience, it doesn't really work that way. When I had been beyond ego, I knew that I already knew everything that I could ever need to know, always had, and always would. But it wasn't in regard to scientific theories and external skills. At least I don't think so. It was not intelligence in this way, but Divine Wisdom. And I knew it was all-knowing. But I only wanted what I could use in the moment. I had no desire to put it toward some kind of ambition.

Then, perhaps it has to do more with how you want to see yourself than how you want to be seen by others. When I was a teenager, I had a bit of this. I didn't care if others looked down on me for things that I looked well upon myself for. So, at the time, I really enjoyed gothic dress, and my hometown is pretty old-fashioned and rednecky. So, I genuinely didn't care one bit 'what a bunch of "rednecks" had to say about my style of dress.' I semi-unconsciously judged them as 'lesser' because they judged me for doing something that was a lot cooler than what they identified themselves with. So, their judgments were more of vindication of my own perceived superiority to them. But I was still looking to validate myself to myself. I wanted to be able to see myself in a good light, which meant very specific things that I (mostly) arbitrarily came up with. But I had mostly grown past my need to fit into social groups that didn't match up to my standards. I can relate to this as well. I still get it to some degree. Probably, what has happened is that you created a coping mechanism to deal with your feelings of being invalid and to solidify your validity. And the way to do this is to create an arbitrary standard for 'worthiness' that you can easily excel at over others. Your standard that you've created seems to be cultured-ness, intelligence, and appreciation of 'higher' pleasures. That way, when you see a person indulged in something un-cultured, un-intellectual, and a lower pleasure, you compulsively judge because it allows you to access a hit of "validation juice". This helps you cope with your feelings of being invalid for a moment or two, and you feel better about your place in the world because you can assure yourself of your place in the hierarchy above the others that you judged. So, if a person has a baseline sense of invalidity and inferiority, they will unconsciously spend ALL their time trying to prove their superiority to others to try to convince themselves that their existence is valid and that they 'deserve' to exist. But this is a very shaky foundation on which to live. If you suddenly lost your ability to be able to see yourself in the light of being intelligent or cultured or of higher aesthetic taste, where would you be able to get your sense of validity? Could you exist with positive emotions about yourself, if you could not access your "validation juice"? Or would you feel your self-esteem wasted away and shrunken down if you went a week without invoking these self-affirming judgments?

Simply put, it means that you are identified with ego. So, it's very normal. But it also means that the ego structure is rigid in that way and may be rigid in other ways too if that judgmental tendency is taken in to other facets of life, and it likely is. One of the problems with ego identification is that, as we get older, we tend to add more and more 'rules' to what we can do and what we can like and what we can identify with. This amounts to adding more and more chains to our prison as we get older, because we get really specific about our ego, and we want to exclude everything that isn't what we want to see ourselves as. For example, as children, we could find joy playing in a ball pit. But one day, we realized that this was socially unacceptable for someone of an adult age to un-ironically play around in a ball pit. So, we decided to grow out of it. So, we cut away the part of ourselves that enjoys that type of play. And it was an actual part of ourselves... like a horcrux of sorts. And that part of ourselves lives in the shadow, unconscious to us but still there. The unfortunate thing is that, in order to keep our ego the way that we want to see ourselves and be seen, we have to cut away different outlets for joy and happiness. So, our prison of ego gets smaller and smaller as our ego gets more refined, judgmental, and selective. We kind of cut the floor out from under ourselves. We close up more and more possibilities for feeling joy, bliss, and love. And life becomes like petting a cat with a thick rubber glove on, very insulated from the experience. And it just doesn't really feel like you're petting a cat... it all just feel like the inside of a rubber glove.

Thank you! The heart and feather comment was in reference to the Ancient Egyptian fable called "The Weighing of the Heart." Basically, in order to pass into the afterlife, everyone had to come to the hall of judgment to have their hearts weighed. If their heart was lighter than a feather, they were allowed to pass into the afterlife. But if it was any heavier than a feather, they could not pass into the afterlife. Now, I took it out of the context of being about dying and the afterlife, because I think there's another meaning that relates to enlightenment. So, I see it as being, 'If you want to return to the source of your being (God), you must love everything perfectly and unconditionally.' But as for your questions about judgments arising, as long as you are identified with ego you will have judgments arise. They are an inevitability. The best thing you can do is to understand that they don't come from "you". They psyche thinks without an operator making it think this or that. So, it's not your fault that judgments come up. You can't stop it by force. That would just be repressing judgment. But mind-bogglingly, if you try to suppress the judgments then you are also being invalidating of the judgments coming up, which are just as much a part of God. So, if you don't have perfect love for the judgments, your heart will be heavier than a feather and you will not pass. You'll just have your judgments and your judgments of the judgments at war with each other in your mind. So, accept that you have judgments and watch them mindfully and with detachment. The judgments mean nothing at all. They are ultimately just sounds in your head. But don't try to sugar-coat it to make yourself look better to yourself. Find the ugly and nasty in you and accept it is part of your internal landscape. Trust me, there are things in every single person's psyche that are WAY darker than petty judgments. So, start with the petty judgments, and see where they lead you. And if you have judgments about the people having fun at Lollapalooza, figure out exactly what those judgments are. Then, think about how you would feel about yourself if you engaged in the same type of behavior. Would you feel shame and embarrassment to be seen the same way as you see them? Would you imagine there is another guy out there (like you) that's out there looking down upon you for your enjoyments? Or do you imagine the more than one person would judge you in this way? Or everyone? What would it do to your self-image if you went to Lollapalooza and enjoyed yourself there in the same way? Would you deny that you got anything from it to protect the self-image? Would you feel like you needed to hide this enjoyment from yourself to preserve the ideas that you hold true about yourself? In creating these judgments, does it help you feel safer from being invalidated by giving you a clear idea of what it is to be invalidated and validated? Do you feel tightness in your chest and stomach and heat in your face and neck, when you imagine being seen that way?

It's funny. My kids and I have been sick since the lunar eclipse. I'm sure that's just coincidence though.

“Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God.” What has happened is that over the years, you've grown more and more restricted and cut off by your ideas about who you are and the way things work. Imagine that there is a light (the light of innocence), and that light never goes out. But as you grow older more and more thoughts, ideas, and beliefs get caked up on top of that light. And sometimes if it's really bad, you won't be able to see the light at all. Now, it's always there. It always will be there. But it's going to take either ego transcendence or extensive practice with reintegration (shadow work, contemplation, meditation). But sexual feelings are intense. And they are the closest thing to ecstasy that we can experience from any degree of light blockage. So, it's not a wonder that the only thing you care about now is sex. But in seeking sex, what you are really seeking is to have a connection with being and to live as your full self, and to have the light of innocence become conscious once more.

@RendHeaven I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you already know everything you need to know, and that you aren't actually looking for advice. It's all been one big lie!!!! Consider that perhaps this post is just another ploy to get a sense of validation. Like, "Look how aware I am of my shortcomings. That makes me the good one... right?" What you really want is to feel valid, because you don't feel valid at all. You need to look for qualifiers of your validity in the external world. So, you judge others in order to create a standard to deem yourself important by, which necessitates deeming others as less important and less valid. It is only in your ability to create these arbitrary standards of good/bad and worthy/unworthy, that you can attempt to measure up and convince yourself for even a moment of time that you're worthy of being. But in creating these arbitrary standards, your judgments are cutting the floor of consciousness out from under you. You're closing up more and more, because you don't want to act like those unwise peasants out enjoying the plebeian delights of Lollapalooza. You seek to "other" yourself from them. This creates a split in consciousness every time you do this. Because everything is you. If you judge any aspect of that "you" as invalid, it is relegated to unconsciousness. And enlightenment NECESSITATES perfect love. If your heart is heavier than a feather, you will not pass. And enlightenment is also the only way to truly recognize your unshakable validity. I recommend continuing to discover the inescapability of the need for validation, and the necessary world view and judgments that you have set up to create a system for it.

@Florian Clearly that idea falls apart under scrutiny. Women live for many decades past their ability to have children. And many post-menopausal women are pursuing their life purposes, because their children have all left the nest and they have the energy to put toward nurturing the world. There is much more to having a life's purpose that extends far beyond the biological impetus toward reproduction. The lenses of reductionism and scientism have simply boiled everything down to the urge toward survival and reproduction. But this is just reductionism and doesn't reflect the true nature of what's going on here. So, don't paint your thinking about your life purpose into the idea of competing for a mate. Your mind and heart will edit out so much, that you will suffer even in following your life's purpose.

When I experienced ego transcendence, there was a sense that I could access any bit of wisdom that I could ever want. It was the sense that I knew everything, had always known everything, and would always know everything. There was also a complete cessation of seeking and wanting. In my life, prior to that, I was always trying to stuff myself full of knowledge. And I wanted to know as much about things as I possibly could. But when I transcended the ego, I didn't need to do that anymore. I was already complete. And in fact, I realized that in seeking all that intellectual knowledge, what I was really looking for was to be free from ego and centered in the Truth. And I had to laugh a bit at how I'd never realized that in all my seeking and questioning, I was looking for just to be as I always had been but had forgotten. But I don't necessarily think that the cessation of questioning/seeking behaviors came from the fact that I knew everything. I related it more to the self-love I had, and knowing that I was adequate as I was. I didn't need to shove myself full of knowledge. I could just be. Also, despite the fact that I had total and complete access to Divine Wisdom, I didn't feel the need to hoard insights or explore that wisdom. Doing so, would amount to nothing more than a parlor trick. And I didn't need parlor tricks like the ability to access Divine insights in front of others to make myself valid. I was already valid. So, the cessation of questioning comes from being completely okay with being.

@ChimpBrain The thing that jumps to my mind right now is that perhaps you have an issue with the root chakra, that is then affecting the sacral chakra above it. The root chakra has everything to do with life's most basic needs: your survival and the survival of your family. The sacral chakra has everything to do with pleasure and sexuality. Perhaps, when you were jettisoned into fatherhood unexpectedly, you knew that a huge change had to happen in a very short time. So, you may have started "straining" your root chakra to get by. And now that's the mode that you're stuck in and the root chakra is jammed into overdrive. Then, because it's where the Kundalini resides, you're also not getting proper energy upwards toward the sacral chakra and the others as well. Now, this is just a thought. But it seems to fit pretty well. Perhaps try some grounding exercises where you can assure yourself of your own safety and security to live and to exist here.

Self-Love is what is there when you let go of Self-Hatred. It's knowing that you're valid regardless of what you do or don't do, and not feeling like you're inadequate in some way.

@SFRL I watched one like that years ago with some old man talking about the craziness and hotness scale . And I was like, well that was a complete waste of time with no laughs. So, I haven't clicked on another one since, because it's just going to be someone copying that old guy and probably being even less funny.

@SFRL I never watch any of these types of videos. They're not useful to me.

I've seen you posting on here about why women won't date you... maybe this is why...

@Viking I recommend not putting any prohibitions on yourself in regard to whether you have a relationship or not, considering the fact that you haven't had any experience with dating. Over-planning can drive you back into your head fretting about the uncertainties of the future and keeping yourself stunted in this facet of life. You're thinking too far ahead and deciding to bypass something that may be important to you in ways that you may not know, and you may end up shooting yourself in the foot and regretting it later. What you need is spontaneity and to no second-guess yourself too much. And if you meet a girl that you want to have a relationship with, just play it by ear. You'll know what's right if and when you're in the situation. You can't possibly know what's right from the vantage point that you're at. It's all in abstract now for you because you haven't had any real experience. Experience something concrete and you can make your decision then.

@Pluck I recommend questioning why it is that you feel the desire to post what you posted. Do you want to be the one who is the savior to all of us 'gullibles' who saves us from Leo and our own stupidity, thus asserting yourself as the best one among us because of your superior intellect and ability to see through the bullshit while we sheeple have the wool pulled over their eyes? Would that make you feel significant where perhaps you don't currently? Or do you just have a lot of anger that you don't know where to place, so you decide to direct it toward whatever happens to bother you and now Leo is on the chopping block? And then you think, I must ruin that person to show that I have power? Would that make you feel less powerless? Or does what Leo says, contradict the teachings of someone that you have come to idolize? And you attack him because you see him as a threat to your idol? Would that remove the negative feelings of cognitive dissonance when examining your worldview? Or do you just need something to distract yourself from the emptiness of life because you are afraid. And if you stopped thinking and criticizing a sense of fear and dis-satisfaction may creep up on you? Would that make you feel more okay? But one reason that I know you didn't write the comment is because you are genuinely concerned about the people on this forum. If you are honest with yourself, you will see that you don't care about us at all. If you really cared about people, you would pick a more effective way to help people and go after targets that pose more of a threat.

I have been having trouble sleeping the past several days, which is rare for me. It was like I was just energized and couldn't turn it off. Then, I read about that eclipse and I was like, "hmmm..."