BigSkyDiamond

That is a very sensible approach. It is good common sense and practical. I also like to ask myself questions such as "Does this system (or teacher) have my best interests at heart" "Do i trust this teacher (or group)." For me it is also helpful to ask myself "what appeals to me about this group" "what is my motivation in wanting to study this path" "or study with this person" and that can help me identify sticky intentions or red flag motives on my part. Am i going there to try and please someone, to impress someone, for the glamor or cachet it gives? Am I throwing money at a teacher or training because of the misguided notion that means it is better?

in a nutshell, it would mean that there is no "consensus reality" there is no "consensus universe" which we all inhabit. It would mean we each have our own universe. just like we each have our own distinct individual daily life and our own distinct individual beliefs and experiences. We each have our own universe. where are people on the concept of "there is no consensus reality" ? how do you feel about that? Tying this into the thread topic of God interacting with humans. well currently as humans it is evident that there is no consensus reality or agreed upon definition or experience of Divnity (God, Beingness). My observation is we each kinda sorta cobble together our own best fit. Which can change at different ages or stages even over the course of our own life. I don't have to look any further than my own childhood. My brother and I grew up in the same house, same parents, same family. And our descriptions and lived experience of what it was like growing up are worlds apart.

i am trying it on for size as an exercise for myself, in what would it be like for me to implement the belief "time does not exist" in terms of how it affects other beliefs i hold and i how i do my daily life. It is a byproduct of me logically trying to reconcile different beliefs i hold so they don't contradict within my own belief system. It reminds me of when i first picked up the belief "time does not exist" and i then had to reconcile "well then what about all my past lives." I was certainly not going to let go of my belief in past lives. They are too real for me. The solution was to have the past lives all simultaneous and happening concurrently. They become aspects of myself that I can be in contact with, the same way i do my "inner child" for instance to tap into that part of myself. The past lives are not separate from me they are still just me with a distinct set of wisdom and experience and lessons that are available as a resource. In the same way i learn valuable lessons such as "don't cuss out the boss at work" in this lifetime from my younger self, i can also learn from other experiences i've had (other lifetimes which are still me). my beliefs only affect my world, they do not alter any one else's universe. along the lines of "our beliefs create our realitiy." Tying that into the thread topic of "God interacting with humans" our interactions with God are determined by the beliefs we hold about God (Divinity; Beingness; the infinite part of our self that is the core of our being). It is not one size fits all. And it does not discount anyone else's lived experiences which are rich and varied and absolutely valid. It is not that we are "God running the world" running around being megalomaniacs claiming to be God. But we are building our own world and our own daily life. And our own universe. Just as we have different belief systems and experience life very differently, it well may be that we live in and navigate different universes. Beingness is within us so it is our birthright to connect with that part of ourself and live from there. Ii am trying to figure out what would that look like in daily life. An aspect of Beingness is to build universes and experience them. i am a practical person so i am trying this on for size in my own daily life. i always like seeing the posts with 'test it out, try it out, experiment with it.' yes.

I can check in how i'm feeling in the present moment. But that can be my only point to evaluate. Interesting, when I read this exercise, it occurred to me that if i am to put into action my belief that time does not exist, then that prevents me from going back an hour. I can only ever tune in and check in at the now present moment because that is all there is. And it means there is no me to observe from an hour ago. Because there has only ever been me in the present moment. There is only ever me in the now. That is a new development. That must mean there are no timelines? I'll have to see what else this affects. Tweak one belief and see what dominoes fall as a result. what is your take on this? what is the impact or effect if there are no timelines? how would that affect you? curious to hear.

This is so wonderful. Free will on steroids, i love it. bold above i want that on a t-shirt, or better yet in an elixir. i can't stop grinning.

it's a haiku. when i read that, my head tingled. So now i must pursue that vastness. --- Lairg

Somehow it does not surprise me that you are part of the celestial choir.

i think part of it too, is that for Beingness, the "universe and everything in it" (Existence as we are calling it) is not the only game in town. Beingness is far more vast than that. When i am in physical reality, my perspective and understanding are limited in scope. As fascinating and intriguing as it all is in Existence (life forms, physical and non physical beings, taking on the different roles, having the different experiences) it is still limiting because humans are limited. Whereas dwelling instead from the vantage point of Beingness offers a far more sweeping vista. if has humans we can't understand the ways of Beingness, then it seems logical to experience as Beingness instead. That is our birthright. Since Beingness is the core of me then that is the vantage point i need to be claiming and inhabiting. circling back to Beingness making the decision to build this universe and then live in it and experience it, yes that is logical. But as Beingness i can also say OK i built this house and lived in it. Now i want to do something else without the limitations of this house. it's feeling cramped. time to experience something else. Even at the mundane secular level we get to do that. Humans have free will. Then it logically follows, how much more so do we then have free will as Beingness. you've got me thinking more logically Lairg. Good on you! I like that.

i keep coming back to this. so then not only are all my different lifetimes occurring simultaneously. But then also all moments in my current lifetime are in parallel too. I had not looked at it that way. i saw them as separate parts of a timeline (but still linear) that i could jump backwards to or forwards to. Like beads on a string. But if they are all simultaneous (parallel) then that is a different perspective. Then it's more like thin disks of film with images (moments) all stacked on top of each other. Like negatives when we took photographs with actual film in the camera. So when you opened your eyes and found yourself in a different room, was it like your consciousness was looking through the eyes of another you that was in the other room (you popped into that other you body); or was it more like your same body popped over into the other room and you physically landed there. I have always been wary of inserting myself into other timelines because of not being able to come back. (physical relocation has not interested me for that reason.) but it's felt fine "rescripting" my past for instance helping my younger me. And it's felt fine contacting my older me for wisdom and guidance, that has felt fine. Because it feels more like communicating without the concern of getting stuck or putting my current me at risk. I appreciate hearing your perspective.

you can have your own ideas though, what it means to you, how you interpret it or understand it, what your own view is, what it brings to mind for you. That is what this thread topic is for.

It always felt to me like it was two separate sections put together, the first four lines felt so different from the rest of verse 42. At times i wondered why the first four lines were not at the start of the Tao Te Ching.

i am always on the lookout for easy ways to compare a lot of different translations. These are the two sites I have been using. If anyone has any other "compare text" for the Tao Te Ching please let us know. Thank you. compare verses (Garofalo) https://www.egreenway.com/taoism/ttclzindex.htm Terebess https://www.egreenway.com/taoism/ttclzindex.htm

for those who may be wondering (I was so i looked it up) he has done the entire book. I was curious how he presented other passages. it is here

OK got it. so then Prana flows or emerges from Self, and Self is top of the chain?

Thank you for the full post with many insights. Much appreciated. The One giving birth to Two yes for me that is "non-duality" which steps down to "duality" or "polarity" the "world of opposites." that is how i understand it. it is easiest for me to understand duality in terms of watching my thought process. when i can see that all people are the same in our humanity it is non-duality. when i start making judgments good-bad, right-wrong superior-inferior, it is polarity thinking. "us and them" yes that is very valid. Time (and space and form) does not exist nor is it applicable at all stages described. I have always seen this sequence as going from finest to densest. So it is a progression or stepping down, like vibration is stepped down and has differing results. Or moving back up the chain from densest to finest. I see it as a practical map of how physical matter (densest, the ten thousand things, the universe and everything in it) comes into being which can be traced all the way back up to the finest, the source (Tao) but i agree it is not dependent on time and space at every level. My understanding is that time and space and form only exist at the very densest level (ten thousand things). As a physical human in a physical universe, time and space and form are characteristics but at all the other levels / stages they are non-existent and not relevant. The physical human body i currerntly inhabit is finite and has a beginning and end, and is subject to time it belongs to the ten thousand things. But the part of me that is infinite belongs to and has the characteristics of the Tao: unborn unformed unchanging no beginning no end always was always will be. The body comes and goes. The infinite part of me does not. always was and always will be. thank you for the illuminating insights docB

so then for those terms in post quoted which is at the top of the heap? I am not familiar with how those two terms are being used, Prana and Self

I find that the painting is beautiful. i would put it on my wall. if it was in a shop or on a postcard i would purchase it.

I am seeing this on website for Sifu Terry Dunn: "Certified in 1983, Dunn is a master instructor in the Southern Sil Lum Five Animals Kung Fu, Taoist Elixir Method, and Ehrmei Bok Fu Pai. Master Dunn is the sole seventh generation preserver of Ehrmei Mountain Flying Phoenix Celestial Healing Qigong ("Fei Feng San Gong"), an extraordinary medical qigong art (a subsystem of Bok Fu Pai) created by Taoist sage Feng Dao Deh in 1661. He learned this qigong from Grandmaster Doo Wai from 1991 to 1997, along with rare Eight Sections of Energy Combined Kung Fu system and the 54-part 10,000 Buddhas Ascend to Heaven Qigong System." more here https://www.taichimania.com/tdbio.html and https://taichimania.com/

that certainly makes sense. it reminds me in art, of "process not product." The process of creating art that drives the artist not the final product. I remember reading that our creativitiy IS our Divinitiy. geometry is the best. in my favorite book on making quilts the author describes herself as the kid in school who could not draw horses but when she got to geometry and they passed out the graph paper, she fell in love with it and never stopped (me too). her techniques are brilliant and one of the best parts about designing and making quilts is the fun of playing with graph paper and colored pencils. (Fabric is fun too but there is always that nagging worry about spending too much money buying too much fabric.)

yes that's for sure. excellent point, i agree. "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways," says the Lord. Or says the Beingness. bold above, yes i totally agree. our "future" self can visit our "past" self and provide advice, guidance, input, suggestions. i remember in one of the classes i took we did a group exercise where we took the form of dragons and flew as a group of dragons to take a look at our younger self. Then the teacher described how when he was in his 30s I think it was, he was out jogging, a regular guy with a regular business, he practiced Zen and was interested in that but nothing bizarre or crazy or out of the ordinary. When he saw a swarm of dragons. He thought it was strange. He set it aside (put it in quarantine he calls it) but did not discount it or deny it. (Eventually dragon made more appearances, he started having conversations with a particular dragon, and wrote down what the dragon was telling him, for his own personal use and so he could remember, which turned into the first book, then the books led to the workshops etc. The dragon helps teach the class, and it was the dragon narrating and leading us through the exercise. The material in the books and workshops is from the dragon and other beings that present as guests from time to time.) Back to the class we were taking. The point of the exercise was that the swarm of dragons where we were visiting our younger self could be the swarm of dragons the teacher saw that time 10 years earlier when he first saw dragons at all. That time is not fixed or linear. That we can be in more than place and more than one time and drop in freely. I was still sitting physically in my chair at the workshop (with my eyes closed) while also flying as a dragon in a swarm which the teacher saw when he was jogging. And since it was a remote workshop, we were spread across eight or nine different countries around the world (the teacher is in Germany, I am in USA)

see now this trips me up. Because change is a function of time, and there is no-time at the level of Beingness. Also if Beingness is whole perfect and complete, then change indicates alteration, something has been added or removed. Which means it was not whole perfect and complete. it gets tricky because for me the characteristics have to not contradict each other. How do you reconcile "no time" with "change" at the level of Beingness? Not sure if in in your frame of reference it contains "whole perfect and complete" as a characteristic. and there is still too the discussion of what is the point in causing Existence. what do you see for that? this ties in to characteristics of Beingness also. I am always interested to hear how people see that in different frameworks. thanks Lairg for the good conversation

i love how one teacher describes it.* When the game of chess was invented with its rules, instantly every possible chess game was also created and "exists" based on the rules of chess. So when someone is playing a chess game, no matter what moves they make, no matter how brilliant they are, that chess game already exists. Same thing for the universe and everything in it. When the universe and everything in it was created, instantly every possible scenario simultaneously also came into existence. So no matter what lifetime or life form or timeline we visit, it already exists. It is very alluring and yes we have free will to stay as long as we want and play out as many of those scenarios that entice us. we also have free will to leave. because no matter how much someone loves playing chess or is entieced by the adventures of the universe we have free will to say enough is enough and exit. They get tired of chess and say get me out of here. * [The teacher is Joachim Wolffram, five very slim paperback books in the series Althar the Crystal Dragon]

When I am a character in a computer game yes there is all sorts of purpose, all sorts of adventure, challenges, it is mesmerizing. Even on the mundane human level we recognize that, that is why we get sucked into it. We keep going on to the next game and the next. It is very satisfying on many levels: intellectually, creative, requires intelligence, setting up systems and strategy, figuring out how it works. yes relationships too, teams and guilds and alliances. And it keeps us coming back for more. Same with the universe and everything in it. It keeps us coming back for more and it engages us for the same reasons. but at some point after so many eras and eons reincarnating, thousands of lifetimes or tens of thousands, at some point we realize enough is enough. it is repetitive. it is the same thing over and over. and we say get me out of here. It is not real. The real me is the core of my being, the stillness the silence. that is my ticket out. the universe and everything in it is enticing. it is seductive. it is engaging. it is fascinating. we have forever to hang around and explore it all, map and define and learn about and interact with the systems, the life forms, it is a feast and we keep coming back. until we don't want to anymore. so in asnwer to question posed, i dont see that as a must for me. Where is it written that i must have relationships or that i must have purpose? (good question by the way Lairg, good scenario to posit there for consideration). Let me think about it a little differently. what is my purpose at this momentfor my life? From the perspective of my infinite Self (the part of me that emerged from Beingness and never left Beingness and is Beingness [in the parlance that has been discussed as frame of reference with Lairg], from that standpoint my purpose in this incarnation is to figure out how to get out altogether, to completely exit the cycle of re-incarnating at all ever. For me then the universe and everything it (I think we are calling that Existence) poofs is gone and wafts away. It has no more substance or reality than a dream does. It goes where any dream goes when I wake up. It is not real. Beingness is real. So i hang out there in no-time and no-form. [at other times i would have answered a different purpose for myself, either purpose for this lifetime, or for reincarnating over and over in general.] good question. i'm curious to hear from others on this. How about you Lairg how would you answer regarding what you see as your purpose. good stuff here.

the earth and the galaxies and the waters and outer space and the universe and everything in it will be gone poof but the dreamer remains. Unformed, unborn, unchanging, no space, no time, no form, no beginning, no end, always was, always will be. That is the dreamer. And that dreamer is me. that is who we are. that is what is real. [in my frame of reference anyway; different set of parameters for each person in their own universe] where I am holding right now is how to get out. The me in the dream, in the computer game needs to activate that which will get me out. Another correlation with regards to paths of religion and spirituality, is discarding the attachment to the universe and everything in it, and that includes most important of all, the attachment to the belief that it is real. Another belief that has anchored me here is the system of reincarnation itself and karma, my belief in that. Dissolving that too. i do think there are maps left for us how to get out in the many traditions and paths that provide various guides to Enlightenment or Awakening. They have left a variety of Exit signs lit up to show the way.

i am mesmerized by this image. sorry for interrupting the flow of the thread i can't look away, Mark's photo mesmerizes. van gogh starry night.