doc benway

got nothing to do nevertheless, the breath moves with me or without

If you've not seen it, this clip is worthy of watching in full. Keep reminding yourself these are actual US congressmen.

To me that is similar to JK's refusal to accept the designation of world teacher. He was always guiding his followers to look inward, not to him but towards something new, something unknown. At least that's what I took from his teachings. Yes, he was given all kinds of names and titles. Did he ask for them or create them for himself? Just like the Order of the Star wanted to call JK the World Teacher, JC's cult had other ideas for him and continue to use and abuse his name for their own ends. It puts me in mind of a beautiful parable from Anthony Demello - For me his teachings were always very open, no conclusions, only guiding people to find their own way through self-inquiry. Up through his last teachings, I found him to be very consistent but certainly not everyone's cup of tea. YMMV

Just finished Playground by Richard Powers, author of The Overstory (great!) It was slow going for me for a while but I really liked it. The ending may be a bit polarizing but the cover art is beautiful. If you decide to read it, do not read any spoilers in advance.

Seems to me like JK and JC had a similar relationship to their followers and a similar resistance to hierarchy. The rest was added later by people wanting to use their gifts to control others. In true spirit there can be no hierarchy.

I had a chance to spend some time visiting an intentional community based on Rudolph Steiner and theosophical principles. Very interesting and mostly self-sufficient community, particularly the elder care and biodynamic farming, but not quite my cup of tea. I think one of Jiddu Krishnamurti’s most insightful and valuable actions was rejecting the Theosophists’ mantle of world teacher and disbanding of the Order of the Star. This refusal to participate in the hierarchy prevented yet another cult of spiritual control and empowered the individual in all matters of spiritual investigation, perhaps the most important thing I gained from his teachings.

TDB synchronicity had me stumbling upon this thread immediately after stumbling across this gem from Rupert Spira…

That's awesome! There is little more valuable in life than being able to do that.

For sure, emotions play an important role in our lives and we deny, repress, suppress, ignore, and manipulate them at our peril. Unfortunately, there are often problems that cannot or will not be dealt with and are beyond our control in terms of finding a satisfactory resolution despite all efforts. The question then becomes what do I do with the anger (and other potentially negative and powerful emotions) in the face of ongoing, unresolvable circumstances? Sometimes we may feel like we have done all we can and can be at peace with that. My experience has been that this is not always enough and there can be lingering inner and outer conflict that often gets suppressed or repressed or acted out and leads to violence or illness - physical, mental, energetic, and spiritual. One of the deeper teachings of my tradition is that the beginning practitioner sees their problems as being the responsibility of the outside world, The average practitioner takes partial responsibility, and the advanced practitioner take 100% responsibility for their conditions and response. In this context, authentic forgiveness represents the advanced practitioner's way of dealing internally with offense. It is not in any way a substitute for taking appropriate action, it is more related to how we relate to the associated emotion and perceived offense, regardless of outcome. I think this is a great topic for personal exploration.

There is a beautiful film I highly recommend to anyone interested in the topic of forgiveness called Rubaru Roshni. It was directed by Svati Chakravarty Bhatkal and produced by Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao. @Annnon's point about the real value and mechanism of forgiveness is a central theme in the film. It stimulated some very lively and meaningful discussion about the topic among my family members and may have even shifted some perspectives.

I appreciate the wisdom of your comment and offer my response as an expression of my current feelings, not necessarily as a rebuttal. I don't know you well but well enough, I think, to know that nothing I say below will be anything you don't already realize. I see a lot of sickness in my society, and our global society, and a lot of good also. While it may not always be healthy, seeing clearly is the first step towards change. I think it is important in a healthy society to rail against those causing abuse and harm to the most vulnerable among us. Equally important to spread awareness among those who may be ignorant and well-adjusted to it. Calm and stability are priceless but won't always stop starvation, torture, extermination, and the host of other atrocities going on. Sometimes action is needed and, of course, it is important that action come from that place of calm and stability to be effective and appropriate.

Human madness will not end. There will always be extremes and there will always be differences of opinion regarding what is madness and what is sanity. As Jiddu Krishnamurti famously said, it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to such a sick society. But that does not mean we can't improve our situation and that of others by beginning at grass roots levels. Human "civilization" is at least 5 - 6,000 years old, possibly older, and yet nothing meaningful has changed in our collective and individual psyches. We are evolving technologically and possibily intellectually but not psychologically or emotionally. In many ways we feel more sophisticated, more knowledgable, more capable, but if you look at our situation, inequality is worse than ever in history, our destructive potential is more formidable than ever before, the effects of our presence on Earth more destructive than ever before. When you look at our behavior and its effects, our species acts very much like a cancer - growing without any restraint or sensibility, choking out all competition, destroying our loving host, and putting our very survival at risk. It's nice to imagine that something or someone will come along and change all that but the evidence does not support such a dream. None of our religious, political, or intellectual leaders have made much of a difference overall. Certainly there are regions and groups that do better than others and this fluctuates over time but overall I see little evidence of collective psychological and emotional growth. While this may sound and feel very discouraging, there is a solution as described above. We must free ourselves from the shackles of ignorance and limitation imposed by millennia of conditioning and sabotage. We must discover and remember what it means to be fully human, both individually and collectively. That can only start by turning inward and looking at the truth of our own personal situation. For me, this is the core and purpose of spirituality.

Just saw them live a few months ago doing this song on the Beat tour, sans Fripp but the performance was great! Line up was Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, Steve Vai and Danny Carey.

This is one of the more common questions that comes up in my groups.

One challenge for me was hearing the silence in my tinnitus.

I discovered Korean TV series and... WOW... such wonderful stuff! A few of my favorites - It's OK To Not Be OK, Crash Landing On You, Vincenzo, All Of Us Are Dead, Bloodhounds and Extraordinary Attorney Woo. I started watching When Life Gives You Tangerines and after crying through the entire first episode I haven't yet managed to continue but I will eventually. Perhaps we need a TV series thread, I'm always open to suggestions.

I generally like Eco’s writing but when I finished this book I have the vivid recollection of promising myself to never again force myself to finish a book if I’m not enjoying it.

I wonder if Gerard is referring to “The Pit”?

So important, and sometimes so challenging! Especially when those big shifts and profound experiences happen. This can create a major obstacle to progress.

I would caution that if we think we no longer have craving or aversion, and have perfect equanimity, we are probably not paying close enough attention... Extinguishing karma is certainly possible in theory and elusive in practice as there are layers and layers of ever more subtle grasping. Each moment of inner quiet and stillness that gives birth to presence, connection, and genuine caring for self and others is essentially reaching the goal. Little by little these moments become more familiar, easier to access, and more continuous.

Playing some music

Easy with the half-cocked accusations @Nungali I'm not a mod, did nothing but post my reply here, and I certainly did not report any of his posts. I like old3bob, regardless of our differences, and posted what I did in support of him, and the rest of us.

For what it's worth, I feel a lot of empathy for what people are going through right now regarding current events and politics. I am feeling a lot of negative emotions on a daily basis and do my best to bring it into my spiritual practice. We are living through unprecedented times and events and I wish there was a way we could offer each other more support here. Debating current and events and politics has proven not to work out well here, but perhaps there's a way we could discuss the impact they are having on us and support each other in dealing with them as effectively as possible. To some degree, I think this thread is having somewhat of a positive effect and I appreciate everyone who added their comments and the mods keeping it open so far.

yeah that stuff, whatevs. I'm not overly picky pops needle in arm