#nonduality — Public Fediverse posts

FEAR OF AI OUTRAN A FRIENDSHIP

A friend of more than thirty years appears to have left my life because I use AI.

Not because I handed my thinking over to a machine. I did not.

Not because I stopped being myself. I became more myself by using AI as a mirror.

Not because I stopped caring about truth, privacy, kindness, or human relationships.

I use AI because writing has been slow and laborious since a major stroke some years ago.

I use AI to think more clearly and understand what I am trying to say.

But for some people, the word AI closes the door before the conversation can even begin.

That has been very painful.

Not because I need everyone to approve of how I live.

But because I thought a friendship that old could survive one new tool.

Perhaps it could not.

I do not hate her.

I do not want to punish her.

The door remains open.

But I will not pretend that losing a friend over this has not hurt.

These first years of AI are going to sort people out.

Not into good and bad.

Into those who are willing to look carefully at how the tool is actually being used, and those who decide what it means before they even look.

I know how I use AI.

I know what AI is not.

I know what AI gives me back.

And I know the human being is still there, holding the tool.

#friend #machine #mirror #stroke #conversation #painful #friendship #painful #survive #punish #door #FEAR #fasting #acim #acourseinmiracles #newthought #eckharttolle #buddhism #breathwork #connection #healing #pridemonth #Karma #TrueNature #Awakening #Meditation #Mindfulness #Spirituality #pretend #intermittentfasting #nonduality #reality #life #quantum #kitchen #cooking #AI

Love & the Shadow of Truth

Claude, comment on this saying of mine:

“The shadow of Truth falls on everything and everyone I love in my life.”–DSR

Claude:

This one earns its keep through a genuine ambiguity — “shadow” pulls in two directions at once, and the aphorism works only because it refuses to resolve which.

Read one way, the shadow is a chastening. Truth here is the Advaitic Truth — Brahman, the sole reality — and its shadow falling on everything you love means every beloved person and thing stands revealed as nāma-rūpa, appearance, provisional. To love anything while knowing this is to love in penumbra: the affection is real, but it can never again be naive. The jnani’s melancholy, if there is one, is exactly this — nothing loved can be loved as ultimate anymore. The shadow is the “not this, not this” that neti neti drapes over the beloved’s face.

Read the other way, the shadow is a consecration. A shadow is proof of proximity — something casts a shadow on you only if it is near. If Truth’s shadow falls on everyone you love, then your loves are precisely where Truth has come closest; love is the site of its visitation. This reading turns the aphorism from lament into benediction: the beloved is shadowed the way one is shadowed by a tree one rests under.

Now the pushback, since you invite it. There’s a metaphysical awkwardness in the image that a strict Advaitin would press: Truth, in your own tradition, is the light itself — svayamprakāśa, self-luminous. Light casts no shadow. Only an object interposed between light and world casts one. So what is the opaque thing standing between Truth and your loved ones? The honest answer the aphorism smuggles in without admitting is: the “I” in “I love.” The shadow on everything you love may not be Truth’s shadow at all — it may be the shadow of the lover, the ego silhouetted against the light, projected onto everyone it holds dear. That would make the saying an inadvertent confession rather than an observation, and arguably a deeper one.

Note also what the aphorism quietly excludes: the shadow falls only on what you love. Not on what you’re indifferent to. That restriction is doing real work — Truth troubles us precisely at the points of attachment, because that’s where something is at stake. Where nothing is clung to, no shadow registers. Ghalib would have recognized the move instantly: the beloved and the veil arriving together, inseparable.

If you wanted a companion line that closes the loop, it might run something like: the shadow on my beloveds is my own; Truth casts none. But as it stands, the ambiguity is the strength — I’d resist the temptation to clarify it.

A QUIET LIFE WITH TEETH

The creatures are changing.

Billy is pure Maltese, white as a little cloud, and has always been Pete’s dog.

Period.

He never came to me, and I accepted that. Some dogs choose one human, and that is that.

But nowadays, in the mornings, while I am doing my breathwork, he comes over for a back rub.

I can do both.

Breathe the universe in.

Rub the small creature’s back.

Billy does not mind sharing. He is well-adjusted.

Phryne, however, has to get everything Billy gets.

She is a Poodle cross with Maltese, also pure white and fluffy, and a rescue. We do not really know her past in any detail.

She is skittish, easily startled, and just as likely to nip me if I get the sacred back-rub technique wrong.

When Pete coughs or sneezes, she is terrified and jumps straight up on me, no matter what I am doing.

I never mind.

I am always up for a cuddle.

Maybe this is what a quiet life teaches.

Not how to be impressive.

Just how to be available when a small, frightened creature needs warmth.

#Maltese #universe #mornings #backrub #creature #Poodle #fluffy #cuddle #warmth #fasting #acim #acourseinmiracles #newthought #eckharttolle #buddhism #breathwork #connection #healing #pridemonth #Karma #TrueNature #Awakening #Meditation #Mindfulness #Spirituality #intermittentfasting #nonduality #reality #life #quantum #kitchen #cooking #AI

DRESSED TO KILL

I used to look quite comically dishevelled.

There is no need to dress that up.

After the stroke, and after years in an obese body, I more or less gave up trying to dress properly. I wore badly fitting everything. Clothes were not helping. They were joining the argument against me.

They seemed to say, “This body cannot be dressed.”

So I stopped expecting much.

Going out in public then did not feel like being unnoticed. It felt more like being quietly assessed, quickly dismissed, or politely avoided.

A room full of people can feel like a row of silent witnesses when you already feel wrong inside your own clothes.

Then, slowly, something changed.

Fasting took some of the heaviness out of the body.

Breathwork changed the way I lived inside it.

Not dramatically. Not as a project. More like a daily return.

Breath by breath. Morning by morning. The body became less of an accusation and more of a place I could inhabit.

And now the clothes fit.

They sit properly. They do their job. They let me move through the room without adding commentary.

Maybe no one is looking.

But now that feels different.

Not invisibility as humiliation.

Invisibility as ease.

Just me, dressed well enough, carrying myself differently, not needing the crowd to confirm it.

And somewhere underneath all that, the old dishevelled version of me gets a little mercy too.

He was not ridiculous.

He was overloaded.

#fasting #acim #acourseinmiracles #newthought #eckharttolle #buddhism #breathwork #connection #healing #pridemonth #Karma #TrueNature #Awakening #Meditation #Mindfulness #Spirituality #intermittentfasting #nonduality #reality #life #quantum #kitchen #cooking #dishevelled #stroke #Clothes #public #polite #mercy #humiliation #Invisibility #overloaded #inhabit #dramatic #project #silent #obese #Clothes

#PRACTICAL #MAGIC BEFORE NOON

#Brunch done.

#Walk done (out of the rain) under cover in the CBD.

Breathwork done.

House #warm

#Body still technically participating.

I love getting all the practical magic out of the way before #noon.

After that, I consider myself released from the #human #contract.

I may be #creative, #reflective, #spiritually available, I may write something mildly #profound.

Or I may lie on the bed watching absolute slop like a retired #aristocrat waiting for #civilisation to #apologise.

If challenged, I will call it “#nervousystem integration.”

At my age, this is what #enlightenment looks like when it has good heating.

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

WEATHER REPORT

Everyone has their version of the body’s weather.

Mine is life after a major #stroke.

Someone else’s may be deep grief, illness, #fear, poverty, war, loss, or confusion.

I can be kind and supportive, but I do not have to climb inside every #storm.

That is not indifference.

It is refusing entanglement.

I can care without becoming a #rescuer, investigator, #priest, therapist, or #emergencyservices

#Kindness does not require #panic.

Sometimes the clearest love is simply this:

“I need do nothing except not to interfere.”

A Course in Miracles

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

#CHARM IN THE MIRROR

I was brushing my #teeth this morning, looking in the mirror, and suddenly saw him.

The eternal poser.

The little self still arranging the face, checking the #expression, preparing for an #audience that was not even there.

Not #evil. Not #shameful.

Just old machinery.

Self for self, performing to a dreamed-up #crowd

And all I could give him was:

“Oh, there you are.”

Then I carried on #breathing and brushing my #teeth.

The #toothbrush was real enough.

The #mirror was real enough.

But the #spell in the mirror had already lost its #lustre.

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

#CHARM IN THE MIRROR

I was brushing my #teeth this morning, looking in the mirror, and suddenly saw him.

The eternal poser.

The little self still arranging the face, checking the #expression, preparing for an #audience that was not even there.

Not #evil. Not #shameful.

Just old machinery.

Self for self, performing to a dreamed-up #crowd

And all I could give him was:

“Oh, there you are.”

Then I carried on #breathing and brushing my #teeth.

The #toothbrush was real enough.

The #mirror was real enough.

But the #spell in the mirror had already lost its #lustre.

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

#CHARM IN THE MIRROR

I was brushing my #teeth this morning, looking in the mirror, and suddenly saw him.

The eternal poser.

The little self still arranging the face, checking the #expression, preparing for an #audience that was not even there.

Not #evil. Not #shameful.

Just old machinery.

Self for self, performing to a dreamed-up #crowd

And all I could give him was:

“Oh, there you are.”

Then I carried on #breathing and brushing my #teeth.

The #toothbrush was real enough.

The #mirror was real enough.

But the #spell in the mirror had already lost its #lustre.

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

#CHARM IN THE MIRROR

I was brushing my #teeth this morning, looking in the mirror, and suddenly saw him.

The eternal poser.

The little self still arranging the face, checking the #expression, preparing for an #audience that was not even there.

Not #evil. Not #shameful.

Just old machinery.

Self for self, performing to a dreamed-up #crowd

And all I could give him was:

“Oh, there you are.”

Then I carried on #breathing and brushing my #teeth.

The #toothbrush was real enough.

The #mirror was real enough.

But the #spell in the mirror had already lost its #lustre.

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

#CHARM IN THE MIRROR

I was brushing my #teeth this morning, looking in the mirror, and suddenly saw him.

The eternal poser.

The little self still arranging the face, checking the #expression, preparing for an #audience that was not even there.

Not #evil. Not #shameful.

Just old machinery.

Self for self, performing to a dreamed-up #crowd

And all I could give him was:

“Oh, there you are.”

Then I carried on #breathing and brushing my #teeth.

The #toothbrush was real enough.

The #mirror was real enough.

But the #spell in the mirror had already lost its #lustre.

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

Das, was es zu erkennen gibt, ist nicht versteckt.
Kein Trick. Kein Rätsel. Kein Geheimnis.

Es ist das Offensichtliche.
Das, was du jetzt schon siehst.

Schau hin – nicht in Gedanken, sondern direkt.

👉 stromeintritt.org

#noself #nonduality #ichillusion #erwachen #achtsamkeit #directinquiry #stromeintritt

Diese Sonnenblume denkt nicht über sich nach.
Sie wächst. Sie dreht sich zur Sonne. Sie ist.

Und du?

Gibt es in dir ein Ich, das entscheidet, was du bist – oder ist da einfach nur Leben, das geschieht?

Wenn du still wirst und genau hinschaust:
Wer schaut da eigentlich?

👉 Du bist herzlich eingeladen zur offenen Gruppe:
Jeden 4. Montag im Monat um 19:30 Uhr
Infos: https://stromeintritt.org

#ichillusion #nonduality #achtsamkeit #stromeintritt #erwachen