Finitude

I love cats ...

I recently discovered her art and I find them absolutely beeyootiful! They're pretty amazing tbh.

@Phil HA I just made a post on de-conceptualizing.

Much de-conceptualizing has occurred (*seemingly) recently to the point the realization occurred that everything within a dualistic frame is "floor to ceiling" conceptualization, that fragmentation (*seeming) is conceptualization. The last few mornings upon awaking the thought "I'm going crazy" arose with its attendant emotional discord. "Who is going crazy", was asked then shortly after the retracing harmony arose as the truth transitioned from a lower case "t" to capital "T". An aside: Mornings immediately after waking seem to be fertile opportunities for processing. What is left when conceptualizations are seen through? In this experience a seamlessness is known, which gave an understanding to what is pointed to when one reads/hears, "knowing beyond the mind".

@Phil Thank you.

Greetings, and thank you for the replies. I'll attempt to clarify what is meant by distortion: God in manifestation, God in multiplicity, God in duality, which are all concessions to the mind. The word "seeming" might be inserted after the preposition, though the understanding is assumed. In strict meaning God remains undistorted in all cases because God is already, already the case, though again, concessions are made to draw a map, so to speak. These concessions are ultimately inescapable from the vantage point of non-duality. The truest communication available in this experience is no communication at all: silence, and even that overstates it, but, again, if the matters are to be discussed, "white lies" and concessions will appear like dew appears on blades of grass. I should have refined my usage of the word, "distortion". That said, clarity is still sought on the original matter. Let us take take two words, "concept", and "discord". If these words are to be used as guidance, as per your two-cents, the concept of duality, it seems, must remain active in experience, or, at minimum, requires consent. Okay... Does the word "concept" and it meaning exist outside God? Does the word "discord" and it meaning exist outside God? Further, does the negative feeling/sensation of the concept "discord" associated with the word "discord" exist outside God? *Every word in every language, which are all concepts including proper names, could be put through this scrutiny. If "outside" God is an absurdity, and it is, then the answers to all questions must be "no". It seems reasonable then that everything is a manifestation of God (the word "manifestation" is used for its palatability, though it is interchangeable with the word "distortion"). Everything. Not two. The obvious distinction between "discord" and "happiness", at minimum, condones a dualistic frame of reference, and thus, it seems, that even these must be surrendered, along with any conceptualization of Guidance, emotional or otherwise, as God is Totality. Not two. If ignorance is present, please bring clarity to the matter. Thank you.

The understanding, such as it is, reveals there's only one reality. That reality is a-causal God expressed as multiplicity in manifestation, which includes, well, everything: objects, sense, feeling, sensation, perception, ephemera, phenomena. Everything (yes, everything implies nothing, but language is limited, and its limits become pronounced when discussing these matters, so concessions are a feature of this medium). That said, then: Not two means, NOT TWO under any circumstance whatsoever for any reason whatever. It's an impossibility for there to be more than one. Not two. We can make concessions to the mind, but these concessions are always "white lies" told to reveal truth. For example: "You" are the knower of experience is a "white lie" leading to the truth that all there is, is experience. In the spirit of granularity: If emotional guidance is a tool used to escape the experience of discord for the experience of happiness, then, if there's only one realty, not two, then emotional guidance must itself be a concession to the mind leading only to a relative experience (duality), because the experience, for example, of discord IS a distortion of God appearing as the experience of discord in the same way the experience, for example, of a-causal happiness IS a distortion of God appearing as the experience of a-causal happiness. Any distinction between the two (discord/happiness) is relative (duality), not absolute (non-duality), so the recognition it seems that it's all illusion (which is not to say discord/happiness have no reality to them), that both discord and happiness can only be known as relative experiences, is a confession of absolute reality manifesting as multiplicity, of God, in this example, appearing as the distortions of discord and happiness. I know emotional guidance is a practiced teaching here, the utility of which is not under dispute. The goal is only deeper understanding into the nature of reality, not to challenge or gainsay. If everything is a distortion of God, what then with discord/happiness, love/hate, life/death ...

@Phil Using mind ... ... to solve mind.

Thank you both...

@Phil No. The mind wants corroboration. The mind (noun) will mind (verb).

If all one knows is himself it's impossible to love another as "another". This has such profound implications for relationship, especially with a person who takes herself/himself to be a separate-self.

Remembering oneself, or, tracing oneself "back", or, an insight resonating as truth, has, for this body/mind, the quality of absolute peace that permeates itself from the chest then throughout the organism. One might describe this as being "hugged by God". This, then, is assumed to be the barometer of truth, love, intelligence.

Yes. From this perspective even the notion of causality is an absurdity, and linear time is understood as a collective illusion agreed upon to organize the experience of separation.

The visual field constantly creates and then destroys its creations. For example: whatever you're looking at you are creating that image, as it were. When you look away, it is destroyed and you've created something "new". If you return to whatever you were looking at before you looked away, you created still something new even though the image has the quality of "sameness". The insight (or delusion) arose that this is the nature of divine geometry and the actual experience of being "in" a fractal. We are forever falling into our creations and destroying them.

The wanting-ness in relationship is dissolving whereas before special qualities were projected onto the seeming object creating the experience of egoic emotional and sexual desire aimed at finding fulfillment through the acquisition of another. The desire for relationship and sex still arises, though the experience of confusion arises particularly when contemplating relationship because more and more all I experience is myself. How then can relationship be experienced with a woman who takes herself to be a separate-self?

The illusion of duality and non-dual awareness are cycling back and forth in experience, but the former is now being identified as having "fell to sleep", the latter as "awake", or, lucid dreaming.

The closest way to describe this experience would be "utterly flattening", in that I ever believed myself to be an independent agent acting in an independent world among other independent agents.

Agreed. Realizing the arbitrariness of language is an amazing experience!

Yes, I understand, but naming and labeling are limitations of language. If we're to communicate about these matters it becomes a necessary concession.

The natural resolution to involuntary thought seems to be in the realization thought has no owner, that involuntary thought has always been the product of an abstract self.

Hello! Phil, yes, the subtly, it changes the experience. It's understood. Thank you. As thoughts and emotions (+/-) arise they are investigated and over and over the investigation yields no owner, then the experience of cellular level inner peace occurs as there's an almost immediate "sinking back into myself". This has been revelatory, though it's shocking at its root the psychophysical organism, this knowing of myself in a new way. Thank you for your generosity. I'm should probably speak with you directly at some point sooner rather than later. *(Baller, thank you for your response, though I want to address Phil specifically in this thread.)

Phil, Thank you for your responses. The clouds only seem to separate the sky, but there's only the sky upon which these things appear. Yes, mirages happen in the desert, when we don't see things clearly. The bottom two. Yes the cascade of negative emotions are associated with self-referential thoughts that are currently presenting themselves to be investigated. Today's events have forced like an eruption old patterns and beliefs to the surface, which I'm accepting with gratitude. Clarity. Thank you. This is where subtle beliefs in separation are perpetuating themselves by way of the separate-self subtly appropriating the understanding as an I knowing experience. I laughed. It really is all so funny, the game being played. It's understood there is no separate self, that the separate-self was only ever a mental activity, which, in ignorance, was mistaken for an independent entity acting in an independent world among other independent entities with separate existences. This is seen clearly, though it has yet to filter through the body. Intuition says inspect the I in every self-referential thought and associated emotion, which, in inspection, I know will never yield evidence of a separate-self. It's a total absurdity, but the practice will kindle communion with the truth and prevent "falling asleep". Is there ignorance in anything written that can be brought to consciousness? Thank you.

Faith, thank you for the message and warm greeting! I know I’m dealing with a lot of ignorance so question will arise. Phil, thank you for the welcome and response. There’s still a feeling in the body of separation when the mind gets antagonized. I know when it happens its illusion, that I’m making it all up, but the deep rooted feeling in the body causes a seeming forgetting of myself which is experienced as discord. From a certain perspective its interesting, because there is a degree of this distance while “in it”, but the negative feeling/sense is sticky and triggers cascades of negative emotion ranging in intensity. How do I see clearly through this ignorance when I understand separation is impossible? Why, when I know emotion is only an appearance, do I feel like there’s a me (even though I know there's not) to whom this negativity belongs? Thank you.

Hello! Thank you for this community! I’m going to write using dualist language because I want to be understood. That said: I’ve been thinking about speaking to someone about these matters for a couple months. Over the last three years I’ve gone through a radical recontextualization of experience with all the attendant ups and downs. It began as it does with most: seeking an end to suffering. Manly P. Hall’s content led me to Leo’s content which opened the rabbit hole, so to speak. I have journal entries spanning ten plus years, many of which contemplate suicide, not as a certainty, but as a possibility, which gave a sense of control to a mind out of control. From the vantage point of wisdom, inasmuch as its been acquired, suicide as certainty or possibility now seems an absurdity. Real change in experience began when I heard Eckhart Tolle say, “You are not your mind”. In retrospect, hearing those words gave me the first experience of being aware of being aware. From there I began to experience plant life differently in that an aliveness was perceived beyond the physical form, which came and went; occasionally I’d glimpse the aliveness in humans. Rupert Spira’s name became apart of my mental landscape but only after some time did I explore his work, after, in retrospect, a synchronicity occurred. One of his talks triggered an experiential understanding of consciousness as a totality which collapsed the martialist paradigm. I began listening to the RA Contact. The word “distortion” is used frequently. After hearing it so many times in the context of the subject matter I realized, intellectually, everything is a distortion of Unity: phenomena, perception, thought, emotion, ect. An understanding of language’s limits was realized. Lying down one evening I thought of a circle morphing into all existence and I realized God as totality, that we “can’t get behind God”, which lead to the experience of Unity with all things animate and inanimate, including perceptual ephemera. Since then the aliveness experienced in plant life is now in everything, though I have to exert effort to remain in that octave, which causes the body to become exhausted because I assume I’m not attuned to such a frequency. Strangely, when I first began to consciously notice beingness in different body/minds, I felt as if I was doing something I shouldn’t, like I’d get caught, and the experience of a subtle embarrassment arose. That has dissipated and now I talk to people, watch people talk among themselves, and I’m absolutely struck at just how remarkable it all is, everyone wearing these psychological garments pretending to be something they’re not. There’s such a profound humor to it all sometimes I feel like I’m going to pop or the body can just expire and I can merge back into the Source. Francis Lucile eventually manifested, which further refined the understanding. Now, I’m still experiencing strong distortions toward the personality, including well-worn neurotic thought patterns and associated emotions, though, admittedly, they’ve lost their charge, but I’m not immune to being carried away if I’m not diligent. It has been back and forth and back and forth but experience is trending toward stabilization. I came to the realization that there is something preventing total surrender, something with the internal dialogue. There’s probably more ignorance, but this is where experience currently resides. Phil’s Youtube channel manifested, which affirmed the intuition. There's more detail, but these are the broad points. Sorry for the length, but I’ve communicated to no one about this. Thank you.