manitou

"Kind prince, true blessings and impersonal love are beyond the concept of measurement. When we start to be concerned about blessings, they cease to be blessings." Being concerned about blessings is to label things as good or bad, which is wholly counterproductive to what we are really looking for. Life Is. Good or Bad (blessings or curses) are of the mind, the individual perception as viewed by an individual with a personal history. Good may be good to me and bad to you. and vice versa. Ask a soccer mom what she considers 'evil', and she'll tell you it's the guy on the corner trying to sell drugs to her kids. Ask the drug dealer on the corner what he considers 'evil', and he'll say it's the son-of-a-bitch who ripped him off for his drugs the night before. Everything is relative to everything else; there is no definitive.....

This part of the work really describes a Catch-22. We spend years and years trying to 'achieve' spiritual progress or enlightenment, little knowing how involved our ego gets in this process. I'm of the belief that the more initials or description of 'teacher' we place after our names, the more ego is attached to it. What an incredible quandry. To have read all the books we have read, to have studied under different masters. If this were the normal state of attainment (such as climbing the corporate ladder, or obtaining a degree in some field) it would be understood that certainly Ego could be understood and accepted to some degree, as if Ego is the thing that got you there. But how totally opposite it is within the world of the spirit. Humility is the ultimate prize, as it describes above. There's the catch-22. To 'attain' the knowledge but to do it with the understanding that it is not 'us' that is doing it; it is that which lives within us, that thing that we are all a part of. That understanding is the thing that allows the humility to develop, to drop the ego gratification that wants to be noticed and congratulated because "after all, I got you there".

Wonderful quotes. It's all in the mind; the separation, the illusion. When we realize that every human being is 'us' it makes living with other people all the more tolerable. We all want the same things; to be fed, to be comfortable, to feel acceptance. The integration which cannot be touched by a fragmented mind is that integration of seeing all as One and loving all as one's self. But the dichotomy of this is that to love one as one's self, this assumes that one loves one's self. To love the self is probably the hardest thing to do because we know how we feel on the insides. This is where it becomes crucial to keep our thoughts elevated and judgment out of the mind as much as possible. After all, that jerk flipping you off for cutting him off in traffic is You.

But that's the hard part. Seeing through the illusion of self. Loving the self is hard. There are many who strive to love others as themselves, but haven't a clue as to their own inner workings. Love, true love, can't be achieved until the self and the ego has been clarified within ourselves. This takes some serious work.

Okay. Here's another angle for the anvil. The utility is in what it does not do. It doesn't budge when being repeated struck with a sledge hammer by a large sweaty guy.

What a wuz, lol.

Thank you, Vortex - those were wonderful. The walking around with the Tenders was reminiscent of my trip to China many years ago. It seemed like they took you to the same types of places - large, vast places where festivals were going on, huge lobbies of hotels made out of marble but with few people in them. I was continually surprised by the 'facade' aspect of China - maybe N. Korea shares the same mindset? - we would walk through some huge beautiful door, sometimes round - expecting to see a glorious restaurant behind the door, and being met with a shack with dirt floor instead. But how beautiful the people were in your video. Wouldn't it be nice to see your whole town show up for a tug of war?

Okay, i can't stand it. what are the tissues for?

Suninmyeyes! I just figured it out. She went into the ethers to recoved his lost soul. Her motions in her mind were very real. Pretending, like a child. Her rubbing her chest against him, her body against his, perhaps coaxed his darkness out. When she gave birth, she birthed him a new soul. At the time, she was seated opposite him but between his legs, and this new soul would have been confronted with his first chakra where she willed it to enter. The astounding thing is how similar shamanism is all over the world, despite the separation of oceans.

My guess is that it would be some sort of suicide to be an activist or a protester. I would think that anything that is happening is happening under the wire. I'm really interested to know what will happen when that egg finally cracks. A little off topic but not really; I'm of the opinion that the One that we're all a part of is returning to the One in physical form in some sense; an example would be the concept of the biblical tower of Babel thing, where men were turned away from one another and different languages were born. Now, with the internet and the auto-translations that we have, it's as though the tower of Babel phenomena has just about gone full cycle and is returning to the One. If this were the case, then it's only a matter of time that the Oneness is achieved in the physical world of humans as well. Countries like N. Korea which are closed at the present time can't stay closed much longer, I wouldn't think. People surely find ways of getting electronic devices in if they are freethinking. Sooner or later the demand for human rights will reach critical mass and things may gel quickly once that occurs.

She said the same later in the interview - that every time she does it she 'takes a chance'; you get the sense that she was speaking in a 'political' sense. What an astounding woman she is.

suninmyeyes - that was fabulous. Incredible. she was beautiful. You could sense that there was an 'event' going on in a different reality that she was acting out on the body of the man on the floor. I was particularly struck by the part where she appeared to physically be giving 'birth' and screaming, when her legs were wide spread. Great hope indeed, if there are plenty like her in N. Korea. (I didn't watch the rest yet - I'll catch it later).

OMG. Is that you doing the exercises??

Yondaime - you have given me a new hope for human development. Your perception at such a young age is incredible. I particularly liked Aerokinesis, the different situations that air movement causes - starting slow, adding some humor with the fellow sitting behind the jet; and then on to the more serious consequences. the bouncing balloon house on the beach was such an odd juxtaposition, shows us just how powerless we are over nature. I was in china and did a meditation sitting in a 'sea of grass', with the wind making the waves on the grass just like on the ocean. I will never forget that glorious moment and your video brought it right back. Thanks for sharing, friend.

Now, there's a word. Suchness. I've read this word more than a few times in metaphysical literature, and I am still guessing at what it actually means. My mind gets involved in catch-22 mode when I think about Suchness.

Mal - thanks for the link. But Nina was missing.

This is from a very metaphysical point of view, not scientific in the least. Just the Power of mind stuff. Linear time is an illusion - it's really all happening here and now. The past, the present, the future.....all happening Here and Now. But we can't see the fullness of it because our brains have only one-dimensional time perception in its normal state. But ideas are living things. It is the idea that remains, that continues. Take a chair. The person who built that chair had an idea in his mind for that chair. The idea has life in it, not the matter that he uses to build it. In fact, the chair can outlive the man because it is the idea that remains. When you put these two thoughts together, the fact that all is Here and Now with the fact that the idea is the thing that actually has life, perhaps this explains the fact that non-organic items can hold their shape. As to humans? I think we manifest our life as we go along. The idea of a human being is what we really are - the cells we're made out of are not our life - they die and shed themselves regularly, daily. Matter has no intelligence. Ideas do. The Dao does.

LOL. sorry for the assumption, BlueMonk. I too am a Thelonius Monk fan, along with Coltraine. and Nina Simone? Woof. and I love the fact that PythagoreanFullLotus is old enough to remember Thelonius as a generational thing, I'm guessing. But, on the other hand, think about it. If you sign on each day as BlueMonk (despite the fact that Thelonius did indeed do an incredible job on the blues) you are taking on the persona of a Blue Monk. How often have you felt that you are a blue monk? My guess is pretty often. That, combined with the avatar that you use, triangulates together to emit an unhappy presence. Be real careful that you're not taking on the BlueMonk identity as something that is committing you to that mindset. I have been clinically depressed my whole life. I've discovered something. If I clean my house or my car or do something physical to manifest a more healthy mindset that it actually takes my thoughts off of myself and I have a chance for a nice day. (Actually, this doesn't much happen any more, but I had to do it that way for many years). Our physical surroundings are a direct reflection of what we have attracted to ourselves. The trick is to figure out why we continue to attract these things to ourselves. At the bottom of the tendency may lie a memory that needs to be re-imprinted into a different direction.

What a beautiful thought. It occurs to me that as we all discuss the minutia of how we get to that thing that none of us can describe anyway.....that it's so silly to expect that each and every one of us wouldn't have a slightly different way of looking at all this. There is no way in the world that you, I, or VMarco would describe it the same because we all have different histories. How can we possibly see this thing the same way? What a mindblowing experience it is, having the honor of being in conversation, soul to soul, with people of your caliber. I suspect that what keeps us all coming back is that we are born seekers, and we have found others around the world who seek the same thing. I repeat this and I mean it from my heart. What an honor.

It does sound insane to say that humans somehow effect things into perceived reality. But if one looks at it from the perspective of Oneness, it isn't. We are both the sensory organ for the One, and we are the mind of the One. The animating spirit within us is the spirit of creation, which is the Creator. We are measuring what we see through science; as though we are coming into awareness of Ourself, trying to define it, to describe it. This is not to say that humans 'created' the universe per se. The spirit that dwells within us is the creator; that same spirit created the Oneness of the universe and our bodies; we are the reporters, the word-speakers, the idealizers. For some reason the Oneness that created all this wants it to evolve into something nice and apparently wants to describe it to itself. Somehow the 'peeling the onion' phenomenon of uncovering one's own personality and getting down to the Loving Dweller Therein is tied in with the understanding of the perception of the universe. At first we are a pane of glass which needs cleaned; up to that point the light does not shine well through us. After the self-discovery process the light passes through us until finally it is brilliant. As above, so below. the 'as above' part is this humongous structure of creation that we cannot see; the gravity, the timing; the vehicles that are used in the production of this marvel. The tendency toward Love is part of that structure we can't see. But it surely is there, and us humans can align ourselves perfectly with the loving part of the structure so as to stay in alignment with the natural way of things, or we can choose to do the same thing over and over and expect different results. Now, that truly is insanity.

I'm assuming this topic will end up in the pit. Just a matter of how long. Question: Assuming we're all straw dogs anyway, does the Dao care if a fetus is aborted? My feeling is No, it doesn't make any difference in the grand scheme of things. As to individual spiritual development, it may be a huge setback in some. I could be dead wrong. Does this type of morality have to be part of the Te, or is this a separate type of morality, not imposed from the outside but from the inside?

Hi BlueMonk - Develop this mantra inside your head: "I don't give a shit how you feel about me, I'm going to love you anyway." then follow through and do the most loving thing that is appropriate - let him have the parking space? Return a cold stare with a smile? also, consider changing your CB handle. Every time you sign on as BlueMonk you are affirming your depression.

Only if we want to remove time.... 3Bob - your sentence made my head explode. sorry.

3bob, could you expand a little on this statement? Not sure what you're saying...

Huzzah! We are all the same formless consciousness. It is only our personal histories that give us different points of view. We can't possibly all see things the same way unless everyone achieves clarity by unraveling the tunnels of vision within themselves so that the spirit-light you refer to can See without distortion, curves, blockages, or tangles. It's like We are the movie projector projecting the movie. So if you remove 'time' from the equation by hovering above and seeing past, present, and future focusing on one thing or idea, the idea can be seen in its entirety, as it says in the TTC. Or one can also choose to entrench ones's self in the idea or event and experience the Feelings of the event to see it from an inner and personal perspective. The choice is ours.