manitou

From Castaneda, again? What a powerful paragraph. "the power that rules my fate"..... I can only understand this from the POV of time actually being non-linear. i.e. 'the situation has already happened' (even if it's not happened 'yet'). This takes the drama out of anything. "I cling to nothing" - opinions are a thing of the past. Make no assumptions. Not vested in any particular outcome. "I have no thoughts, so I will see"....This is where meditation for years pays off. We gain control of the monkey mind, we have a modicum of control over the spinning of our thoughts. The ability to stay in a state of 'not thinking' does enable one to see everything, with unassuming eyes. "I fear nothing, so I will remember myself"....If one can finally get to the place where there are no fears left over, one can "re-member" themselves. To stand fully in our spot, to enjoy the sun on our faces. To take our place in society and to know that we are fully deserving of that which comes our way. I think re-member in this sense, almost means 're-make'. Maybe someone else sees it differently? "Detached and at ease"....when we know who we really are, that we are indeed gods walking the earth, what is there to fear? I Am the I Am. My feeling is that 'not-doing' is how to get along best from day to day. Things that would have expended emotional energy previously, no longer elicit a response. Because it's all good. "I will dart past the Eagle to be free"....The very best part, the point of the whole practice. The seeming conditions in life are just that....'seeming' conditions. To get to the point where conditions don't phase us any more, to 'know' who we really are, to realize that nobody's up there judging us. This is a big deal, IMO. The realization is that there is no right and wrong. Just is-ness.

How I wish we had politicians that understood this. To actually find one that knows that he will probably not be elected again, but stands unwavering nonetheless.

The whole series is a trip. You'd love the characters. How much less I 'make a choice' these days. More often than not, it comes at me, I handle it. I love what you say about experience of self vs. the raw beingness that underlies all potential experience. To experience the raw beingness, I've found that periodically going through the exercise of knowing that the other person in the room also has the very same feelings is helpful. The sense of a warm void inside me (and strangely enough, it's always 'okay', despite indications to the opposite) is the same sense of a warm void that you feel inside you. The warm void inside is all the same everywhere! That's the shared raw beingness that is us! That's where the default emotion is love, but our conditioning hides it. But we all have it. Peeling the onion exposes it. Apech, I know exactly what you're talking about on the series 'talking' to you at different levels. I've noticed the very same thing in the series, and I've supposed that's because my 'eyes' are in a different position every time I re-read one of his books. Same with the DDJ and other great tomes. You see something different each time, as you're ready to see.

Aah, apech! Thank you for posting this! It is wonderful! I think you and I both have a history with Mr. Castaneda, he certainly put my feet on a path. Wisdom is wisdom. It seems to me that Wei Wu Wei is none other than what he describes as "phantom intent". This is a point where there has been a type of soul surrender, to get into the second attention, and to receive the benefits of wu wei. No longer is the seeker as affected by the events of everyday life; he is living more with the 'skimmings', which are very helpful abbreviations of a dynamic. Seers (I include myself here) can identify 'skimmings'; I refer to the process as triangulating, because one just picks up a few threads of the skimmings (abbreviated dynamics) and see the problem/condition/malady. Skimming is not the same as jumping to conclusions. Rather, it's allowing the dynamics to rise to the top on their own; to see why it is that a person is 'manifesting' a particular situation or condition. It's not by using the head to figure anything out. It's standing back and waiting to 'see' what's there. A huge difference. I think that to 'intend the mountain' is to be able to break down the components and see things as they are, with no emotion or preferences. Once one gets into the 'intending the mountain' frame of reference, it does immediately stop the flow of the outside world chaos, as Castaneda mentions. I see this as wu-wei, only after the intent is determined, the default answer is to 'do nothing' to change dynamics, let them play out of their own accord. One must of course respond to things coming right at you, but for the duration of the situation you are not the 'actor'. Everyone else is. You're the watcher. He makes slight reference to time being pliable, which is how healing can be done on something that happened way in the past. Past, present, future are all illusions. It's always Now. When the seer gets into the mindset of Now, this is how old dynamics are tweaked. Again, thanks for posting that, Apech! I

That's pretty much the way us desert dwellers look here in California too.

Bow tie

The Dao is a bellows

Except that it opens our minds if we're receptive. Vast potential can direct one to have an idea and then to act on it. But even to discuss this notion shows how we are creatures of habit, or at least I am. I look at my routines is to realize how much I limit myself by daily repetitions. One reason it can't be fixed in time and place, is because it's all Now.

What they do is what all aspirants should be doing. Each and every chapter of their book has various character defects to work on. The conditioned human is released, Hiram Abiff appears. Enlightenment at degree 33! There is no description of the 33rd degree in the Pike book. The Dao that can be spoken of is not the true Dao.

Seems like 'life' gets this way too. Nice post!

You little quantum physicist, you! I always go back to the intelligence of the forming embryo, how the cells line up according to an incredible blueprint, repeating over and over. We are that intelligence, we are that god-being that has been put in charge of utilizing that intelligence. And the only thing separating us is our individual conditionings. We are the manifester, we are both the communicative, creative, and aware aspects of life. Your words are beautiful, iinatti!

If a person is a soul-tender, it places a different light on it. To me, that means that nothing is more important than the condition of my 'soul'. That means I need to rectify the twists and turns within my thoughts, learn to undo those things which remain in me from early conditioning that cause me to react or act out in some particular way. Once one has worked on this for a while, the results can be felt in that we can step back from the drama and see the occurrence for what it is. But there are no more Rules, no one else's moral code. When you're reading yourself and the condition of your own soul, any answer becomes obvious. Do what's in the highest interest the moment dictates. No one else's rules are necessary. The Karma thing is tricky, as I see it, because of the awareness that all is actually happening Now and linear time is actually the illusion. We buy into the entire mental constructs of government, relationships, bad ones repeating over and over because we're manifesting it - the lesson needs to be learned, and until the message is understood, the manifestation will continue to occur, regardless of whose face is on it. But I do know one thing. If you stop putting bad stuff out there, you'll stop having it happen. Like, if you want a friend, be a friend...

OMG, this is beautiful, Lairg. Thank you.

Hey. The computer is part of the whole thing.

(did you have a tiny epiphany as you were writing this?)