Miscellaneous
...So I fire back: You're always on my mind. Love, the World-Eater ---------------- News! See episode description for this week's rundown, but some news about what's to come for MiM is as follows: This last episode we recorded some time ago. Starting next drop, we'll brbringing you fresh content, taking questions, and keeping a rad schedule with lots of bonus content. What KIND of bonus content? Here's a hint: Stephanie's psychic and it's the spookiest month of the year. We have transcripts being migrated to the homepage. In a weird move, we're going to post this weeks at the very bottom of the notes to see what happens. Buckle up and subscribe so you don't miss a thing! On with the show... This week, the Miracles in Manhattan Podcast talks about the weird things you've been thinking and what the rest of the world thinks about you, We also get into what it means to be single, and, in the offing, Lesson 11 of A Course in Miracles. Things get wavy. Talking points: Your hosts set up a mental chessboard. And then call it a day. Marco is at a loss for any real expertise. And the word, “oxytocin” Are you single, coupled, partnered, avaible or a quantum field? Tell us in an email! What are you REALLY doing at Trader Joe's? Lots of talk about Zen…An A for effort is awarded Spoiler Alert! [The world is not meaningless] We’re taking life-questions. Email us! miraclesinmanhattan@gmail.com Find more content at miraclesinmanhattan.com @Wildmanhattan (t) | #Podernfamily Themes: Advice, ACIM, A Course in Miracles, True Crimes, Comedy, Pain, Politics, The Present, Love, Dating, Race, BDSM, The body, Spirit, Self-help, Spirituality, Zen, http://twitter.com/WildManhattan ---------- Transcript ARE YOU SINGLE? OR, SPOILER ALERT: THE WORLD ISN’T REALLY MEANINGLESS The Miracles in Manhattan Podcast (A Course In Miracles (ACIM), Lesson 11) Marco Maisto [00:00:00] That's right. But oh we should also tell people hey guys and gals we have an email address now. Yes we do. And why do we have an e-mail address Steph? Stephanie Wild [00:00:11]So that you can e-mail us questions with questions. Marco Maisto [00:00:13] We're taking questions. Marco Maisto [00:00:16] We are going to answer your questions in as apt a fashion as we answer one another's here on these yes miracles in Manhattan. Stephanie Wild [00:00:25]Gmail dot com. Easy to remember. Yeah. All you have to do is remember the name of the podcast and then Gee Mary popular. Who called Product miracles in Manhattan at G.M. dot com so just remember that. Well we'll point you in the right direction. [00:00:40] Yeah and yeah Friels do to please e-mail questions and don't feel like they need to be totally pertinent to the episode you just listened to. No no no I need any any of you any lesson yet. [00:00:58] My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world. [00:01:23] Welcome to today's edition of miracles in Manhattan the only show in which two spiritual delinquents start over. [00:01:32] Welcome to miracles in Manhattan where two spiritual delinquents lead you through a Course in Miracles trying to wake up in the city that never sleeps. [00:01:44] I am Reverend Stephanie Wilde and I am Marco. Mr. poet single guy. [00:01:55] Sorry you'd have to listen to him another time. Yes. No I'm not. [00:02:00] I don't know if I'm single I'm Venables With the death. I think it's like well I'm seeing I'm dating. The Lenny Kravitz guy you right. Right. But I'm also. No I think that's means that single. Yeah. Hey I'm not hooked up with a partnership. [00:02:16] Let's let's you know how we can find out the end to that if you know the answer to this question. Email us at miracles and man and G.M. dot com because we are taking questions and airing them in and talking about them on the air and we would really love to hear from you. But yeah you know if you're single and seeing another person is also seeing other people are you single or are you What did you see available available. [00:02:41] OK. Yeah. I mean you know maybe you know you could you know what. I think you could be married. That's not single but also available because you got a partnership with someone but you're also available whereas I don't have a partnership. You know I don't have a life right entwined. I would feel kind of easy asking a woman if she's available. That sound kind of easy. I mean you just have to assume she's available if she's on a date. Yes this is the word. [00:03:10] Yeah. I saw an ad moving English moving and they used the word free. You know you free. [00:03:17] Boy. That's yeah. There's a lot of confusion what happened. Well it had to be in context just like you walking around saying Are you free. Yeah yeah. But it was you know it was if you were sort of I'll try that next time at Whole Foods get you free. Are you free. I had to pay for the tomatoes and now expensive. And yes I said tomatoes. All right. [00:03:39] So lesson eleven goes like this my meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world. [00:03:45] Now this is interesting lesson because it's on page 18 of the workbook for students and on at the end of the first paragraph it says the key to forgiveness lies in it. [00:04:00] So this is the first time. If I'm not mistaken that the course talks about forgiveness. [00:04:10] And so you don't have to say that you're the author of a book called The Art of forgiveness which is quite good thinking forgive the process of forgiveness is the miracle that A Course in Miracles talks about it's dissolving illusion. [00:04:26] So this is this is a this is a big this is a big lesson today because it's it really it starts to get to the heart of the matter. [00:04:34] So this is how we do lesson eleven the exercise of lesson eleven for maximum benefit. The eyes should Wait no let me go back. We need to. With our eyes closed first repeat the idea slowly to ourselves. My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world. Then open your eyes and look around from one thing to another fairly rapidly without lingering on anything in particular. [00:05:14] It should just be done as casually as possible. [00:05:20] That's it. And you keep repeating the idea. [00:05:25] And it says he had three practice periods will be sufficient for the day. But you can do as many as five. But more than this is not recommended. [00:05:35] So it's a pretty straightforward exercise compared to Lesson 10 which had like a few was almost like a little set of mantras. But lesson 11 is just close your eyes my meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world. [00:05:49] Open your eyes move you move your eyes let them rest on this that and the other but nothing in particular in casual unhurried leisurely way and then repeat repeat the idea once more my meaningless thoughts are showing the meaningless world. [00:06:07] It says here that this contains the foundation for the peace relaxation and freedom from worry that we are trying to achieve. [00:06:18] Right. Okay so this extends as men correct me please if I'm wrong. This is how I understand it. This extends on less than 10 which establishes that my thoughts are meaningless. Correct. This goes on to say that so is the world around correct me because we've already been introduced to the idea that our thoughts have determined the world. [00:06:45] Right. Right. Thought from the past we're projecting our thoughts perceptions wishes expectations on the world. But if my thoughts are meaningless then the world that I'm seeing is meaningless. [00:06:57] Yeah in a way this is saying by practicing less than 10. You're not just pretending you're not just pretending that that things around you have no meaning they don't correct. [00:07:07] Absolutely correct that's absolutely correct. Absolutely correct. And you know more will be revealed. [00:07:15] Like spoiler the world's not really meaningless. But at this point in our cause. Yeah. My thoughts are meaningless. So the world that I'm perceiving is meaningless. But we just don't want to get ahead of ourselves. We just practice each step like a brick in the foundation. [00:07:40] That was actually the first time that I put two and two together I think some of these were at least two lessons really mutually reinforcing to make sense that ten is more complicated than 11 11 is basically saying you're not out of your fucking mind. [00:07:57] Yeah you've just been mis perceiving things you've been believing is meaning outside of yourself and there's not it's just your thoughts giving you meaning. [00:08:08] I'm going to bullet point this book did look at hand look look at me. [00:08:12] I understand. Hey. [00:08:15] So no this the question I have that maybe people who were listening might also and this probably explained in the texts. Forgive me if it's repetitive but no no. It's what we hear. Yeah. So lesson 10. Every lesson tells you to do exercises of some kind. Yeah. Nothing hard. Nothing. No. Just a few minutes a day. My question is this is it that on Monday I do the things you talked about in less than 10 and move on leave those behind me. And on Tuesday I I I go on to lesson eleven or two I stick with one lesson and continually practice that before I move on. [00:08:58] No no you just do it one after the other after the other. [00:09:01] Yeah. Really. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. One a day. Okay. Mm hmm. Cool. Yeah. [00:09:09] I mean I suppose you could do it for a couple of days. But but but no more. It's definitely not a week or a month or anything like. [00:09:18] Graduating from one to the other sort of thing you should do them in order. No no no no that's not what I mean by country. You shouldn't feel as if you have to have mastered one to move. [00:09:29] No I know you just practicing saying things in a in a different way but I mean if you get rusty or you have a big break or something yeah then you might want to go back then. But I know it's not supposed to be arduous at all right. For the perfectionist in the audience. Yeah. No. [00:09:44] No. OK. Let's get the three. Wow. That makes cool. Yeah. [00:09:51] OK so what the hell. Into my hair meanings thoughts meaningless world. [00:10:01] I mean I'll jump right. So yeah the first thing that comes to mind is you know kind of meaningless when you hear. No it's it's happening is semiotics is. [00:10:15] Is that you know there is not a natural connection between things and the words that we have for them. Oh. However when I look around this room a lot of the time not all of the time I look at an object and the word for that object dimly pops into the back of my head. Sure. Right. And so that is something seems to me this lesson is trying to nudge you away from doing maybe I don't know or or at least maybe nudge you away from any sort of emotional and experience all attachments that you might have. Yes. [00:10:53] Which is why I don't feel like my you know like. [00:10:58] Yeah yeah yeah. And yes that's right. And I think you pointing out that what I think you really pointed out is that the word does not equal the object. [00:11:07] I mean it's just a tag we put on it and that's what's so cool about letting you know the language you see how the tags for things relate to what one another differently. So it's not that there's an absolute. Meaning for each object we just given them tags. [00:11:26] Yeah and but and in tags can also be even more sort of complicated and all logically or emotionally whereas if I have four photographs on my wall in a row I might look at them and say photograph photograph photograph photograph. But if one of them is of my God forbid dead Mom. That third one is going to stumble on that one not just it's not just going to be a photo. It's going to be my mom. Yeah. So are we asking people in this lesson to to not have feelings about that third photograph. [00:12:06] No that's not what we're asking. We're asking people to realize that our thoughts are giving meaning to the photograph. [00:12:16] Q Yeah you're giving me this look that you sometimes do where you are. [00:12:22] To me it communicates. Are you challenging me. Is that rhetorical. [00:12:27] When I ask snow I will question your projecting that you will thinking that but I'm not thinking that I'm thinking I'm I'm. [00:12:38] My eyes are resting on you but I'm thinking about my words carefully so I don't get it wrong. I did it. It's like chess cool. [00:12:51] Well said all right. Yeah. The last time we spoke I asked you what. [00:13:03] Sort of change. Not necessarily benefit but what change one might expect or even look for after practicing a lesson like this. I don't know if that's a useful question to ask. And so we can have a why not. I mean but a lawyer. What are your thoughts on that. [00:13:19] Well this lesson I think is really getting us to. To the point where we can really separate the like entity that our thoughts create from the reality of the world. [00:13:42] Now we haven't seen the reality of the world yet according to A Course in Miracles. But my meaningless thought showing me a meaningless world. The thoughts make a world and none of that is real. So I think if we can sort of conceptualize the thoughts and the world they make is like a bowl and we can just set that aside. [00:14:01] We used to think that was reality and it meant everything. But at this point we should be I think at the point where we can say oh yeah that's just ephemeral all these thoughts created this world created this experience created my whole life. [00:14:16] Let me just set that aside and see what's really there. [00:14:22] All right. [00:14:29] This makes sense does make sense. And again you know once again it feels like a one to one correspondence. Don't meet with a lot of Zen that I've been exposed to. You'd hear this kind of spoken about in terms of falseness versus form and tell us more about just that. That that boy I'm going to get this really well. [00:14:50] But that's okay. You know if we get it wrong because we're just people trying to get happy and so I'm also a person trying to remember. [00:14:58] But yes and get happy in doing that. But that that that that that that that that objects or things are really no more than forms and in form is itself formless ness so that there is there isn't again no inherent meaning in any thing. Now that doesn't mean that like as a Buddhist I have no respect for something in life you know quite the opposite. Yes. In fact diametrically the opposite. But mental formations I have thoughts or blocks and things like that. These are not external externally provided from the universe to me or settlement. I'm not beset by them right. They're products of an untested mind. Yep. Yeah. I think a lot of misconception that I had and I know a lot of people have about you know meditation in the world that Zen is that you are you. You're sitting hard and concentrating hard on not having any thoughts. And if you think about it. That act is itself. A thought form. And so. [00:16:18] Yeah. No that's not. We can't not have thoughts but we just recognize them for what they are. [00:16:23] Right. Yeah right. That that procession of objects moving by as it's very very very lustrous. [00:16:29] It's kind of cool it's not just a parade of like stuff going back end. [00:16:35] Yeah yeah. I told you about this analogy this guy is Zen guy told me about with a mirror. Yeah. Yeah. Another mentioned I guess I'll say it again. But you know you can sort of in terms. Right. So this this has to do with me. So in Zen this might have to do a lot with detachment or unattached on attaching oneself from things. So imagining a mirror passing by on a conveyor belt even like by your face. There's a moment where your face disappears because the mirror has passed you you have a choice at that moment to follow the mirror and keep seeing yourself or let it go and you have that choice with every thought my mental formation that happens and emotionally to you. [00:17:19] Absolutely and the way I talk about it with this client is. Detaching our our happiness from things that happened detaching our happiness from thoughts you know. So that we're not. Our happiness is not being controlled by external things. Okay. How. So where does happiness come from if it comes from source. God if you want to call it that infinite intelligence the true love which is the stuff of the universe it comes from a higher power. It's spirit. [00:17:50] Spiritual. Okay. [00:17:54] Let let's be nitty gritty for a minute. Oh yeah that's Yeah. So. Is that to say in the world of course in miracles. Is that to say that. Me thinking of somebody and as a result feeling happy is an illusory and sort of dangerous thing. [00:18:20] I don't think it's dangerous at all. It's a mystery. If if you're not if you're not aware that you're in control of it. [00:18:31] Because I can think of someone and feel in love and being in love is a state of consciousness and I and I'm in love with two people right now and I can think of either one of them and just so much fun it's lovely. But but I know that it's a state of consciousness and it's not anything that I can't control. You know it's not. I'm not beholden. My happiness is not dependent on them. It's not dependent on what they do right. But I can enjoy that feeling I can enjoy those thoughts but not be controlled by it. [00:19:13] Does it does it. Do you feel that it sort of cheapens that feeling. No no no absolutely not the way that sometimes when you hear you know kind of like you know really watered down like neurobiologist about love it's chemicals and shit like that you know the sort of stuff that you hear. [00:19:36] No I mean it's I think it's chemicals plus consciousness right. [00:19:42] Yeah I'm saying what I guess what I'm saying is when I hear that sort of stuff and I know yes I get it I get it you know there are chemicals that make you feel good. Yeah. But somebody is saying that in order to sort of again like cheapen or cheapen might not be the right word but to sort of dissociate the experience from from the experience that I want it to be or or believe it to be. [00:20:09] Yeah. No I understand that. [00:20:12] That can engender fear and anger because underneath anger is fear because I think you know where we are at less than a living because all of a sudden everything seems meaningless. Right. It's not you know. [00:20:25] Right but but it doesn't mean that I'm going to treat the other person as disposable. I'm going to treat them as as a child of God. I'm going to treat them as as equal and as valuable as I am and with a great deal of respect. [00:20:42] Right. Right. Do you have to see them as a child of God. [00:20:49] In order to what. [00:20:52] Do that do you. Yeah I think so. Okay. I think so. And that's why spiritualism appealed to me because that's how I was seeing people and when I found the religion that's what they said we are each a spirit in a body we're absolutely equal right. We're absolutely as valuable as each other and we are like drops of water in the ocean we're part of this consciousness we're part of infinite intelligence we're part of source quantum field if you want whatever you want. [00:21:18] Now China this why this is kind of the perfect body cast because at this point this is like a point where this sort of sub dialogue that you and I have about like comparing this to the Zen stuff parts ways a little parts ways I think because they're there is because I'm not even going to try to speak and articulate you know like a Zen Buddhist view of deity after life soul of spirit anything. But it's it's definitely much more downplayed. Yes that all realize that. But in in a way that that I've experienced very positively. And I have to come back in future episodes with more thinking on that but I don't mean to say it parts ways completely but I will say that our atheist listeners should stick with this podcast. [00:22:11] Yeah well I mean and that's why no one path is better than the other. I mean there are as many paths to happiness peace enlightenment or whatever you want to call it as there are people and you find the one that is best for your personality you find the one that's best for you as you are right now on Earth and they all lead to the same place so that you catch you catch him. [00:22:39] Yeah all right. [00:22:41] Okay well no I think any sort of summary or in any kind of parting thoughts on lesson eleven from you Steph. No no. I think we did well here I think I'm good. It's good. Yeah I think we did well it feels like a very functional and reinforcing and not a maintenance can step at a step that yeah that you need because you can't have ten without this. Yeah. Who are your your little maybe two something like that. Yeah. [00:23:10] Listen I stick with it because again. Yeah. Spoiler alert the world is not meaningless. [00:23:16] Spoiler alert I'm looking at Stephanie's copy of this book which lives at my house for her convenience. [00:23:26] It's highly marked up there are posted at the end so that tells me so. And then should you as well. Yeah. [00:23:38] All right so we'll see next time. Oh yeah. In the meantime miracles in Manhattan at G.M. dot com. [00:23:43] Yeah. And I'm just saying that now we know where we're a little young in this podcast. [00:23:47] Still this is this will be the 11th of 12 episode that you will be listening to and we're figuring out if this is going to be a weekly or bi weekly drop and soon we'll find out. So just yeah levitation if you can with us as we work that out because we have to do over 350 so. Okay. But my God we're gonna be happy at the end of it we'll be different. [00:24:18] Beautiful people. Thank you so much for listening. Have a good week or two days. [00:24:24] Bye bye.