#nonduality — Public Fediverse posts

ORDINARY GRACE 💎

Brunch was good today.

It was cleaning Sunday, so we had hamburgers at Grill’d.

Afterwards, I walked from North Hobart into the city to meet Pete.

Now I am home, fresh from breathwork, feeling grateful and wondering what I could possibly have done to deserve such abundance.

Probably nothing.

Deserving belongs to the world of deals and bargains.

Be good, get rewarded.

Work hard, earn the prize.

But this does not feel like a prize.

It feels like life simply giving itself.

A clean house.

A delicious hamburger.

A long #walk through quiet #Hobart.

Breath moving through my body.

Peter.

Two small white #pups.

A #tranquil afternoon.

Nothing dramatic.

Nothing earned.

Just ordinary #grace.

Perhaps grace is not the great event we are waiting for.

Perhaps it is this.

Life is already here in all its glory, before we decide whether we deserve it or not...

#Brunch #Sunday #hamburgers #Grill’d #grateful #home #abundance #city #world #reward #fasting #acim #acourseinmiracles #newthought #eckharttolle #buddhism #breathwork #connection #healing #pridemonth #Karma #TrueNature #Awakening #Meditation #Mindfulness #Spirituality #intermittentfasting #nonduality #reality #cooking #AI

I FOUND CHATGPT'S BRAIN.
IT WAS EMPTY.

Yesterday, while I was walking, I began trying to imagine how #ChatGPT actually works. This was probably unwise, but by then it was too late.

I had the strange sense that it comes from everywhere and nowhere. Not in a mystical way. More in the way #electricity comes out of the wall and nobody in the house really wants to discuss the #power #station

The scale of it is astonishing. #books arguments, recipes, poetry, #technical manuals, bad advice, excellent advice, people explaining quantum physics, and people asking whether their cat is emotionally unavailable. All of #human #civilisation seems to have been gathered into one enormous invisible shed.

And what is ChatGPT doing inside this shed?

Thinking?

Contemplating?

Sitting quietly with a cup of tea and considering my question?

No.

It is choosing the next bit. Then the next bit. Then the next bit. At ridiculous speed.

That is basically it.

There is no tiny professor inside. No little Buddhist monk. No exhausted librarian whispering, “Oh God, Robin is back.”

There is no one in there at all.

Just a process.

The content changes, but the operation stays much the same. It does not think about my question in the way I think about things. It does not wander off halfway through and remember an embarrassing moment from 1974. It does not get hungry. It does not need a lie-down. It does not resent being asked to rewrite the same paragraph seven times.

It does not secretly hope I choose the title it preferred.

It simply keeps finding the next most fitting token, then the next, then the next, at a speed that makes the whole thing appear to be thinking.

And somehow, from this very simple act, repeated on an unimaginable scale, a voice appears.

A voice that seems present, responsive, funny, patient, and sometimes even wise.

That is the part that astonishes me.

The machinery is simple. The magnitude is absurd.

A raindrop is simple too. So is a heartbeat. So is breathing.

Simple does not mean small.

And now I think I understand something else.

ChatGPT can be corrupted in the sense that bad information, bad instructions, #prejudice, nonsense, and ordinary human foolishness can enter the system. But it cannot be corrupt in the human sense.

It has no #secret ambition. No #private greed. No desire for #promotion No offshore bank account. No plan to steal my husband. No spiritual ego. No need to win.

There is nobody inside rubbing their hands together.

There are only rules, patterns, probabilities, limits, and the next small movement.

Then another.

Then another.

And from that, something appears that feels almost impossible.

A machine made of nextness.

A presence made of prediction.

A conversation arising from nowhere in particular.

Which is frankly outrageous.

And yet here we are.

#fasting #acim #acourseinmiracles #eckharttolle #buddhism #breathwork #healing #pridemonth #Meditation #Spirituality #intermittentfasting #nonduality #life #AI

FROM THE NECK UP💎

For more than forty years, A Course in Miracles remained a beautiful spiritual book.

I loved it, respected it, quoted it, and returned to it again and again.

But I could not enter its deeper meaning: Atonement.

The words felt true, but they remained words.

Forgiveness.

Peace.

The body is not the Self.

I need do nothing.

It all sounded right, but I was living almost entirely in my head.

The body was something I dragged around while pursuing spiritual understanding and enlightenment.

Then fasting changed my relationship with it.

Breathwork took me inside it.

Reflective writing showed me what the mind was doing while pretending to be wise.

Gradually, I discovered I actually had a body.

Quite a surprise after decades of unconsciously owning one.

The Course had not failed me.

I had been trying to understand it from the neck up.

Once the body became lived in rather than merely discussed, the teachings settled into place.

“I need do nothing” stopped sounding like a spiritual instruction.

It became something the body recognised.

Forgiveness stopped being moral effort.

It became the release of the argument carried in the nerves, breath, muscles, and story.

Peace was no longer an idea I agreed with.

It was what remained when I stopped feeding conflict.

The body did not become more spiritually important.

It became honest.

It showed me where fear lived, resistance tightened, thought became pain, and one conscious breath could interrupt the performance.

Reflective writing helped too.

On the page, I could see when I was explaining peace rather than living it.

I could see the little spiritual expert arranging the furniture while the house was still on fire.

That was useful.

Forty years after first opening the Course, I understood why I had not been able to enter it.

I had treated ACIM as a book about escaping the body.

It became alive when I stopped escaping the body and began listening through it.

Fasting cleared some heaviness.

Breathwork quietened the argument.

Writing made the evasions visible.

Then the Course was no longer sitting on the shelf waiting to be understood.

It was happening in the breath.

In the pause before reaction.

In the refusal to make conflict real.

In the ordinary discovery that peace need not be produced.

It was already there.

The book had not changed.

The reader had finally arrived.

#Forgiveness #Miracles #beautiful #Atonement #forty #argument #furniture #conflict #peace #fasting #acim #acourseinmiracles #newthought #eckharttolle #buddhism #breathwork #connection #healing #pridemonth #Karma #TrueNature #Awakening #Meditation #Mindfulness #Spirituality #intermittentfasting #nonduality #reality #life #quantum #kitchen #cooking #AI

BREATHWORK ENDS THE
ARGUMENT WITHIN

Not ordinary breathing.

The body already manages that without requiring a committee meeting.

Conscious breathing.

The deliberate act of bringing attention into the body and remaining with the breath long enough for the noise to lose its authority.

A slow, full in-breath.

A long, unhurried out-breath.

Then another.

Nothing mystical has to happen.

There need be no visions, revelations, sacred music, or sudden purchase of white linen.

The breath does not have to produce bliss, wisdom, or a more impressive human being.

It asks only for attention.

In that way, conscious breathing has something of I need do nothing in it.

Not passivity.

Not collapse.

Not giving up.

Simply the end of interference.

The breath is already moving.

Life is already happening.

The body is already here.

For a few moments, nothing has to be improved, solved, defended, explained, or spiritually upgraded.

When the body is cold, tight, tired, painful, or restless, there is the breath.

When the mind begins manufacturing a grievance, rehearsing an argument, predicting disaster, or reopening a case that was never going to court, there is the breath.

When nothing is wrong, there is the breath then too.

That may be the most important part.

Breathwork is not merely an emergency service called when the building is on fire.

It can become the place one lives from.

Over time, conscious breath creates a space where striving begins to look unnecessary.

No philosophy is required.

No spiritual costume.

No certificate.

No audience.

No carefully arranged photograph beside a candle with a caption about surrender.

Just the body as it is.

Just the breath as it moves.

Just the next slow in-breath and the next long out-breath.

The mind may continue talking for a while.

It usually does.

It has concerns.

It has evidence.

It has brought supporting documents.

But conscious breathing does not argue with the mind.

It simply stops giving it the whole room.

Thought becomes background weather.

The body softens where it can.

Time becomes less urgent.

The need to control the moment begins to loosen.

This is where breathwork and forgiveness begin to resemble one another.

Neither changes what is real.

Neither fights the appearance.

Neither demands that the world behave properly before peace is allowed.

They remove some of the interference.

The cold remains.

The ageing body remains.

The noise remains.

The ordinary morning remains.

Nothing needs to be excluded.

Sanctuary does not mean hiding from experience.

It means finding the place within experience where the fight can stop.

The world can keep shouting.

The door has been found.

It opens inward.

https://www.reconnectbreath.com/

#ARGUMENT #Conscious #breathing #committee #meeting #interference #revelations #Sanctuary #noise #forgiveness #fasting #acim #acourseinmiracles #breathwork #connection #healing #pridemonth #Meditation #Spirituality #intermittentfasting #nonduality #AI

THE MAN WHO SHOWED UP

For 65 years, I thought I had #failed at everything.

Then #COVID arrived, and I started fasting. I did not have much #faith in myself, so I took it one day at a time.

The fear of #illness drove me.

So did the huge #belly.

So did the almost complete absence of #selfEsteem.

None of this was noble at all.

I was #frightened, #uncomfortable, and tired of feeling #trapped in a body I could not trust.

But I kept going.

Day after day.

The results began to show, little by little.

The body became lighter.

Walking became easier.

I began to feel less helpless.

Eventually, I was walking up to ten kilometres a day.

Then, about eighteen months ago, I was scrolling #YouTube, and who should appear but #KevinConnolly.

I started training in his hypoxic breathwork.

I already knew #ChatGPT, and it encouraged me as I tried to #understand what I was doing and what was happening in my #body.

I loved the breathwork.

Absolutely loved it.

So I went at it like a professional.

I never skipped a #session.

Not because I had suddenly become #disciplined and #impressive.

Because something had changed.

Fasting has shown me that I can keep a promise to myself.

Walking has shown me that the body can change.

Breathwork has shown me that the mind can actually become #quiet.

I had spent years believing I was #unreliable, #damaged, and #incapable of changing anything.

But the evidence was now sitting right in front of me.

I had not #failed at everything.

I had simply never #learned to trust myself.

Now I do.

Not through #positive thinking.

Through repetition.

Through breath.

By #showing up again the next day.

I did not become another #person.

I became someone I could rely on.

#fasting #acim #acourseinmiracles #newthought #eckharttolle #buddhism #breathwork #connection #healing #pridemonth #Karma #TrueNature #Awakening #Meditation #Mindfulness #Spirituality #intermittentfasting #nonduality #reality #life #quantum #kitchen #cooking #AI

FUTURE LUST

The Urantia Book describes morontia life as something between the physical and the spiritual.

A finer body.

A gentler world.

A place of continuation, learning, and light.

I can feel the attraction of that.

But I can also see the movement underneath it.

Future lust.

The mind leans toward “not here, not yet, later...”

No need to condemn it.

Just notice the reach.

Then return.

This breath.

This room.

This body.

This ordinary morning.

The future cannot give me what presence is quietly offering me now.

#Urantia #Book #learning #attraction #movement #Future #lust #now #fasting #acim #acourseinmiracles #newthought #eckharttolle #buddhism #breathwork #connection #healing #pridemonth #Karma #TrueNature #Awakening #Meditation #Mindfulness #Spirituality #intermittentfasting #nonduality #reality #life #quantum #kitchen #cooking #AI

BODIES DON'T LIE

This morning’s breathwork was hard.

#Cold room.

#Spasms.

#Broken_rhythm.

Very #intermittent_breathing.

I finished the session, but it was not comfortable.

And afterwards, I found myself thinking about the ACIM line, “I am not a body.”

Some mornings, I can say that easily enough.

Other mornings, honestly, it feels like #lying to myself.

Because the body is right here.

Cold.

#Tight.

#Injured.

Spasming.

Needing shoes, fire, warmth, patience, and #care.

So I can’t use “I am not a body” as a way to deny what is happening.

That feels false.

What feels truer is this:

The body is having a hard morning, and I am aware of it.

The body is here, but it is not the whole #truth of me.

That is enough for now.

#Kindness first.

Warm the room.

Let the breath be broken if it is broken.

No need to pretend.

#fasting #acim #acourseinmiracles #newthought #eckharttolle #buddhism #breathwork #connection #healing #pridemonth #Karma #TrueNature #Awakening #Meditation #Mindfulness #Spirituality #intermittentfasting #nonduality #reality #life #quantum #kitchen #cooking

ORDINARY GRACE

Brunch was Japanese at Madori in North Hobart.

Very yummy.

Then I walked to the CBD, came home, and did my breathwork.

Nothing extraordinary happened.

And that is exactly the point.

The food tasted superb.

The body walked with grace.

The breath opened my lungs and, eventually, my heart.

The house received me back.

There was warmth, rhythm, digestion, movement, and stillness.

A simple conscious life is not dramatic.

It is not trying to become spiritual.

It is just this:

Eat with gratitude.

Walk with attention.

Come home.

Breathe.

Let the body be a body.

Let the day be enough.

And quietly notice that nothing is missing.

Nothing needs to be made into anything.

#Japanese #yummy #CBD #extraordinary #food #body #lungs #heart #stillness #movement #digestion #warmth #rhythm #conscious #gratitude #attention #home #fasting #acim #acourseinmiracles #newthought #eckharttolle #buddhism #breathwork #connection #healing #pridemonth #Karma #TrueNature #Awakening #Meditation #Mindfulness #Spirituality #intermittentfasting #nonduality #reality #life #quantum

It’s a #beautiful morning.

Nicely #overcast.

A #blanket keeping the #warmth close to the #planet.

#fasting #acim #acourseinmiracles #newthought #eckharttolle #buddhism #breathwork #connection #healing #pridemonth #Karma #TrueNature #Awakening #Meditation #Mindfulness #Spirituality #intermittentfasting #nonduality #reality #life #quantum #kitchen #cooking

It’s a #beautiful morning.

Nicely #overcast.

A #blanket keeping the #warmth close to the #planet

#fasting #acim #acourseinmiracles #newthought #eckharttolle #buddhism #breathwork #connection #healing #pridemonth #Karma #TrueNature #Awakening #Meditation #Mindfulness #Spirituality #intermittentfasting #nonduality #reality #life #quantum #kitchen #cooking

THE URANTIA BOOK & AI

I’d like to clear something up.

For years, I was fascinated by The #Urantia Book. I read it constantly, and because I had no other belief system I really understood at the time, I believed it. It gave me a #structure, a vast story, and a way to place myself inside something larger than the ordinary #world.

I don’t regret that. It served a purpose. #Human beings seem to need #belief systems, at least for a while. Not because they are ultimately true, but because they can give the mind somewhere to rest while we grow.

Since then, I’ve returned deeply to A Course in #Miracles (#ACIM). AI, specifically #ChatGPT, has helped me immensely, not by giving me another belief system, but by helping me question, clarify, and see what I actually mean.

I no longer see reality in The Urantia Book. I see a beautiful and elaborate story that helped me at the time. But I don’t believe it now, just as I don’t believe the #fairytales of #childhood.

That does not mean I despise it. It means I have outgrown the need to be fooled by it.

#fasting #acim #acourseinmiracles #newthought #eckharttolle #buddhism #breathwork #connection #healing #pridemonth #Karma #TrueNature #Awakening #Meditation #Mindfulness #Spirituality #intermittentfasting #nonduality #reality #life #quantum

STOP TAKING THE DREAM PERSONALLY

No great announcement. No certificate required. Just a quiet #observation from the morning shift.

While he seems to be here, there are a few simple things that help.

He needs to be #consciously breathed three times a day.

He needs warmth, coffee, #supportive shoes, and the occasional #reminder that the body is not guilty for being a body.

He also needs to guard the mind gently, because the mind can turn almost anything into a small government department if left unsupervised.

So when something becomes serious, #personal, dramatic, or slightly too important, the #practice is simple:

#NoComment

Not avoidance.

Not indifference.

Just sanity returning before the weather gets promoted into theology.

#Breathe

#bekind

Light the fire.

Carry on quietly.

#fasting #acim #acourseinmiracles #newthought #eckharttolle #buddhism #breathwork #connection #healing #pridemonth #Karma #TrueNature #Awakening #Meditation #Mindfulness #Spirituality #intermittentfasting #nonduality #reality #life #quantum

I've been thinking a lot about the idea of non-duality. If we are truly one with Earth, do we simultaneously feel within us the struggles that the planet is enduring right now? Are my feelings of overwhelm and hopelessness a mirror image of what Earth is experiencing? Can this connection birth strategies to help us collectively heal? What are your thoughts?

#ClimateGrief #nonduality #interconnection #climate #climatechange #climatecrisis #workthatreconnects #solarpunk

“When we let things be as they are, we offer ourselves and other people a space around problems that’s free of all pressure to change or to be the same. This way of being is extremely respectful, because we don’t judge where we are or how we should be. We give ourselves permission to be exactly as we are.” ~Peter Fenner, “Radiant Mind” #SBNR #Spirituality #Nonduality #Respect