Eleven of us today met to listen to a young Canadian student studying under a guru speaking of an approach to enlightenment by asking Who Am I? Without forming ready answers such as my name my history or what others think of you.
This led to much speculation and inward thought. We never got around to reading the prepared paper but if we had this is part of it.
Beyond all experience is the one experiencing.
To anyone who declares themselves enlightened, I would ask, “Who is enlightened?” The answer is “I AM.” And then only silence remains. Pure consciousness is your true nature. The I AM Presence is your true nature. It is silent. It is eternal. It is impersonal.
But that does not mean that you cannot also exist at the personal level. I do not mean to imply that life at the level of mind should cease. That is not possible, nor desirable. What is possible however is that you become so awake and deeply grounded in the present moment and the awakened state of Presence that you never lose your connection with the present moment, even when you do venture into the world of the mind. In other words, you no longer believe in your thoughts, memories, ideas, beliefs and opinions as the truth. You are no longer identified with any of it. You recognize that life at the level of mind is simply play. It is sometimes happy and sometimes sad, because it is a world of duality. You relax and accept the dual nature of the mind and the world of experience within time. You are no longer for or against anything. You have transcended judgment. Life is accepted fully and so too is death. Joy is accepted fully and so too is pain. But you are so deeply grounded in the moment of now, that you no longer get caught in the movements of the mind and its world of thought and emotion. You are deeply grounded in Oneness. You are able to return to silence and Presence at will. In fact, silence and Presence is always there as the foundation of your existence, and your sense of yourself.
It is time for humanity to awaken at a collective level. Enlightenment can no longer be for just a select few, who no longer participate in the world. If there is to be an awakening at a collective level, we will have to learn to function within the world. This means that we will have to find a balance between the timelessness of the fully awakened state and the world of time.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Saturday, July 21, 2012
20th July 2012
Eleven of us today. I was going to show the law of attraction but found another video about a similar practice that predated it by at least two decades. We watched as those attending a seminar were instructed to let go all negative grudges and emotions just as a child who realizes that no one is aware when they hurt themselves dismisses the injury when normally they would be inconsolable.
We accepted that the mind even when producing thoughts that we don't want should be seen as ourselves and accepted. We need to expect the world to react to us as a friend to accept what it offers.
We then read an article of interest.
Beyond the Ego
However, there is a method of healing our inner discord and transcending our insanity: through 'transpersonal' - or spiritual - development. The whole purpose of transpersonal development is to transcend our intensified sense of ego, to blunt its walls of separateness and quieten its chaotic thought-chatter so that we can begin to experience a new sense of inner content and a new sense of connection to the cosmos and to other beings. This is what the practice of meditation aims to do: to generate a state of inner quietness in which the ego fades away. And this is what happens when we dedicate our lives to serving others rather than following our own selfish desires: separateness begins to fall away as we develop a heightened sense of compassion, a shared sense of being with other people and other creatures.
As we transcend the intensified sense of ego, we begin to see the world as a meaningful and harmonious place. We become able to live in the moment and accept ourselves and our lives as they are, without wanting. And we also move beyond the social insanity of warfare and oppression. Since there is no discord inside us, we no longer crave for wealth and power, and now that we are no longer separate, we have the ability to empathise with other beings, and so become incapable of abusing or exploiting them. When the ego is transcended, all of the madness of human behaviour fades away, like the symptoms of a disease which has now been cured. That is the only true sanity, and perhaps the only way in which we can hope to live in peace and harmony on this planet....
We finished by watching a video "Where the hell is Matt" a very inspiring short video.
We accepted that the mind even when producing thoughts that we don't want should be seen as ourselves and accepted. We need to expect the world to react to us as a friend to accept what it offers.
We then read an article of interest.
Beyond the Ego
However, there is a method of healing our inner discord and transcending our insanity: through 'transpersonal' - or spiritual - development. The whole purpose of transpersonal development is to transcend our intensified sense of ego, to blunt its walls of separateness and quieten its chaotic thought-chatter so that we can begin to experience a new sense of inner content and a new sense of connection to the cosmos and to other beings. This is what the practice of meditation aims to do: to generate a state of inner quietness in which the ego fades away. And this is what happens when we dedicate our lives to serving others rather than following our own selfish desires: separateness begins to fall away as we develop a heightened sense of compassion, a shared sense of being with other people and other creatures.
As we transcend the intensified sense of ego, we begin to see the world as a meaningful and harmonious place. We become able to live in the moment and accept ourselves and our lives as they are, without wanting. And we also move beyond the social insanity of warfare and oppression. Since there is no discord inside us, we no longer crave for wealth and power, and now that we are no longer separate, we have the ability to empathise with other beings, and so become incapable of abusing or exploiting them. When the ego is transcended, all of the madness of human behaviour fades away, like the symptoms of a disease which has now been cured. That is the only true sanity, and perhaps the only way in which we can hope to live in peace and harmony on this planet....
We finished by watching a video "Where the hell is Matt" a very inspiring short video.
Friday, June 15, 2012
15 June 2012
Only nine of us today. A lively discussion first of all before watching a video, a very old one of a counsellor revealing his message to the world. One of the first to blaze a trail for those that followed. His philosophy the perennial one of living in the now as the future and the past are not real. To centre ones being and to change the without from the within. After a break we read a tract that basically gave the same message. I did add on an article about the need for technology to answer all the important question we all want to know such as what is reality and what is time. My belief is all you need is what we all have our minds.
A Call To Presence
To be fully awake and enlightened simply means to be fully present in the moment of now. To be present is the simplest thing. It is your natural state.
Every moment, you have a choice. Will you be present in the truth and reality of this moment or will you allow yourself to be seduced into the world of the mind? All thoughts take you out of the present moment. And then if you believe in those thoughts, which most of us do, you get lost in the world of the mind.
For most of us, we have become so habituated to thinking, that now thoughts never end. They have a life of their own. We are not even choosing to think. Thinking is happening all by itself and we are simply pulled from one thought to another, never really experiencing the sacredness of this moment.
The present moment is free of memories of the past and imaginings into the future. And so the pain and limitations of the past magically disappear when you are present. Anxiety about the future also disappears. You are just here now, fully present in this moment. When you are fully present, your inner experience is one of peace, love, acceptance, power, truth and compassion. Separation and fear dissolve. You exist within Oneness.
When you bring yourself fully present, thoughts stop and your mind falls silent. But there is an even deeper level of silence waiting to emerge. As your mind becomes silent, an inner door is opened, allowing an infinite and eternal silence to emerge. This infinite and eternal silence is the very essence of your Being. It is your true nature. It is the essence of all existence. It is the eternal silent presence of pure consciousness. It is the "I AM" of you. It is that dimension of you that exists in Oneness with all that is. It is your Buddha nature. It is the Christ of you, which exists in Oneness with God. It is awakened man. It is awakened woman.
A Call To Presence
To be fully awake and enlightened simply means to be fully present in the moment of now. To be present is the simplest thing. It is your natural state.
Every moment, you have a choice. Will you be present in the truth and reality of this moment or will you allow yourself to be seduced into the world of the mind? All thoughts take you out of the present moment. And then if you believe in those thoughts, which most of us do, you get lost in the world of the mind.
For most of us, we have become so habituated to thinking, that now thoughts never end. They have a life of their own. We are not even choosing to think. Thinking is happening all by itself and we are simply pulled from one thought to another, never really experiencing the sacredness of this moment.
The present moment is free of memories of the past and imaginings into the future. And so the pain and limitations of the past magically disappear when you are present. Anxiety about the future also disappears. You are just here now, fully present in this moment. When you are fully present, your inner experience is one of peace, love, acceptance, power, truth and compassion. Separation and fear dissolve. You exist within Oneness.
When you bring yourself fully present, thoughts stop and your mind falls silent. But there is an even deeper level of silence waiting to emerge. As your mind becomes silent, an inner door is opened, allowing an infinite and eternal silence to emerge. This infinite and eternal silence is the very essence of your Being. It is your true nature. It is the essence of all existence. It is the eternal silent presence of pure consciousness. It is the "I AM" of you. It is that dimension of you that exists in Oneness with all that is. It is your Buddha nature. It is the Christ of you, which exists in Oneness with God. It is awakened man. It is awakened woman.
Friday, May 18, 2012
18th May
Just nine of us today. After 15 minutes of general chat we watched video about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. A Theory of Human Motivation. Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans' innate curiosity. His theories parallel many other theories of human developmental psychology, all of which focus on describing the stages of growth in humans. Maslow use the terms Physiological, Safety, Belongingness and Love, Esteem, and Self-Actualization needs to describe the pattern that human motivations generally move through.We all agreed with the author and although we may know the truth of it the reminder was still beneficial.
After the break we looked into Eastern philosophy.
The egoic mind is the cause of suffering. Nothing more. Suffering only happens in response to a thought. We suffer because we think something about what is happening, what happened, or what might happen. We create a story about what is, what was, or what will be; then we suffer over it. We particularly suffer over fears, which are negative ideas about the future, although any idea can cause suffering if it is believed.
Even positive ideas can cause suffering. Something as simple as, "I'm doing great" can cause suffering because there will come a time when the egoic mind will declare, "I'm not doing great." Every positive thought has as much potential for suffering as a negative one because it carries with it the fear of losing what is desired.
Friday, April 27, 2012
27th April 2012
Eleven of us altogether enjoyed or at least they said they did a morning of exploration into reality and our right view of it. I explained the link with the argument to remove fluoride from the body as it calcifies the pineal gland apart from all the other negatives. The third eye that sees the world as a spiritual entity and its critical role in good health.
"One of the most damning pieces of research occurred at the University of Surrey in 1997 after Jennifer Luke discovered that the pineal glands in some medical cadavers had accumulated fluoride to the point of mineralization.
The pineal gland produces melatonin for the human body. While many know melatonin to be the hormone associated with sleep, KU Professor of Molecular Biosciences Paul Kelly explains that its function permeates all aspects of life:
"Melatonin is a secreted product of the pineal gland, and as you probably know that is functionally important for circadian rhythms; our ability to have an internal clock and be able to adjust a lot of the physiology and metabolism in our body, our brain and all our organs so that it is optimal for daylight, awakening behavior and also optimal for sleeping at night."
We then watched a video instructing how to improve the gland by "pushing on the door". Most of the group found the meditation calming and worth doing.
I then said how I believed the Tao could like the Christian faith be accepted as a declaration of faith as the mind is not capable of being separate from what is.
I found this idea already expressed in the following article.
The Tao of Faith
by Jack Crabtree
I want to do two things in this paper: (1) identify and explain an interesting idea shared by Taoist philosophy and modern Evangelicalism; and (2) begin to examine the teaching of the Bible to see whether this fascinating notion is to be found there. The distinctive idea in question I will refer to as "the Tao of Faith." () I begin by explaining the teaching of Taoist philosophy on those points where I find it so strikingly similar to the teaching of Evangelical Christianity.
I. TAOISM
Taoism is an ancient Chinese philosophy; and for some it is a religion based on and derived from that philosophy. The key concept in Taoist philosophy is 'the Tao'. In Chinese, tao, literally translated, means something like 'way'; but this literal translation is not helpful for understanding tao in its most important sense.
'The Tao' is the ultimate power which creates, energizes, moves, animates, and underlies the whole of reality and everything in it. If not for the Tao, nothing would exist at all. It is responsible for the existence of everything that is and provides everything that lives and moves with its animating force. In the Tao Te Ching, the Taoist 'scriptures', we read:
There is a thing inherent and natural,
Which existed before heaven and earth,
Motionless and fathomless,
It stands alone and never changes;
It pervades everywhere and never becomes exhausted.
It may be regarded as the Mother of the Universe.
I do not know its name.
If I am forced to give it a name, I call it Tao, and I name it as supreme.
Supreme means going on;
Going on means going far;
Going far means returning.
Therefore Tao is supreme; heaven is supreme; earth is supreme;
and man is also supreme. There are in the universe four things supreme,
and man is one of them.
Man follows the laws of earth;
Earth follows the laws of heaven;
Heaven follows the laws of Tao;
Tao follows the laws of its intrinsic nature. ()
In a later chapter, we read:
The great Tao pervades everywhere, both on the left and on the right.
By it all things came into being, and it does not reject them.
Merits accomplished, it does not possess them.
It loves and nourishes all things but does not dominate over them.
It is always non-existent; therefore it can be named as small.
All things return home to it, and it does not claim mastery over them;
therefore it can be named as great.
Because it never assumes greatness, therefore it can accomplish
greatness. ()
Any true philosophy of human existence must tell us how to live. Taoism does just that. According to Taoism, a human being can live, act, and think in harmony with the Tao–the ultimate, good and creative life-force which underlies all that is–or he can live, act, and think at cross-purposes to the Tao. The Tao is like a giant river flowing in a particular direction. As an individual human being, I can either relax and permit myself to be swept along by its flow, or I can struggle against it, seeking to swim across its flow or even to swim upstream. Even my efforts to move against its flow are, of course, ultimately empowered by the Tao itself; but because they are not efforts which take me in the same direction as the Tao, they will be clumsy, unsuccessful, futile, and unproductive. ()
Under this view, human existence will be good, happy, and fulfilling just to the extent that I live my life in harmony with the flowing power of the Tao and not at cross-purposes to it. And why is this exactly? Because a life lived in harmony with the Tao is a life energized by the direct and undiffused power of the Tao. But a life lived at cross-purposes to the Tao is a life lived under a different sort of power–the power of one's individual self. Since ultimately no power exists except the power of the Tao, the power of one's individual self is ultimately the power of the Tao as well; but it is diffused and particularized, not the pure, undifferentiated power of the Tao in its fundamental harmony. So human beings, while being empowered by the Tao, are able to take control of their own lives, to make decisions, and to take action out of the force of their own particular wills. The result, says the Taoist, is unfortunate. Self-effort, self-control, and self-assertion lead to evil, vice, failure, and imperfection. Creative work performed out of self-effort is inferior to the creative work performed under the undiluted and undifferentiated power of the Tao. Wisdom gained through self-effort and learning is inferior to the wisdom consisting of submission to the Tao.
"One of the most damning pieces of research occurred at the University of Surrey in 1997 after Jennifer Luke discovered that the pineal glands in some medical cadavers had accumulated fluoride to the point of mineralization.
The pineal gland produces melatonin for the human body. While many know melatonin to be the hormone associated with sleep, KU Professor of Molecular Biosciences Paul Kelly explains that its function permeates all aspects of life:
"Melatonin is a secreted product of the pineal gland, and as you probably know that is functionally important for circadian rhythms; our ability to have an internal clock and be able to adjust a lot of the physiology and metabolism in our body, our brain and all our organs so that it is optimal for daylight, awakening behavior and also optimal for sleeping at night."
We then watched a video instructing how to improve the gland by "pushing on the door". Most of the group found the meditation calming and worth doing.
I then said how I believed the Tao could like the Christian faith be accepted as a declaration of faith as the mind is not capable of being separate from what is.
I found this idea already expressed in the following article.
The Tao of Faith
by Jack Crabtree
I want to do two things in this paper: (1) identify and explain an interesting idea shared by Taoist philosophy and modern Evangelicalism; and (2) begin to examine the teaching of the Bible to see whether this fascinating notion is to be found there. The distinctive idea in question I will refer to as "the Tao of Faith." () I begin by explaining the teaching of Taoist philosophy on those points where I find it so strikingly similar to the teaching of Evangelical Christianity.
I. TAOISM
Taoism is an ancient Chinese philosophy; and for some it is a religion based on and derived from that philosophy. The key concept in Taoist philosophy is 'the Tao'. In Chinese, tao, literally translated, means something like 'way'; but this literal translation is not helpful for understanding tao in its most important sense.
'The Tao' is the ultimate power which creates, energizes, moves, animates, and underlies the whole of reality and everything in it. If not for the Tao, nothing would exist at all. It is responsible for the existence of everything that is and provides everything that lives and moves with its animating force. In the Tao Te Ching, the Taoist 'scriptures', we read:
There is a thing inherent and natural,
Which existed before heaven and earth,
Motionless and fathomless,
It stands alone and never changes;
It pervades everywhere and never becomes exhausted.
It may be regarded as the Mother of the Universe.
I do not know its name.
If I am forced to give it a name, I call it Tao, and I name it as supreme.
Supreme means going on;
Going on means going far;
Going far means returning.
Therefore Tao is supreme; heaven is supreme; earth is supreme;
and man is also supreme. There are in the universe four things supreme,
and man is one of them.
Man follows the laws of earth;
Earth follows the laws of heaven;
Heaven follows the laws of Tao;
Tao follows the laws of its intrinsic nature. ()
In a later chapter, we read:
The great Tao pervades everywhere, both on the left and on the right.
By it all things came into being, and it does not reject them.
Merits accomplished, it does not possess them.
It loves and nourishes all things but does not dominate over them.
It is always non-existent; therefore it can be named as small.
All things return home to it, and it does not claim mastery over them;
therefore it can be named as great.
Because it never assumes greatness, therefore it can accomplish
greatness. ()
Any true philosophy of human existence must tell us how to live. Taoism does just that. According to Taoism, a human being can live, act, and think in harmony with the Tao–the ultimate, good and creative life-force which underlies all that is–or he can live, act, and think at cross-purposes to the Tao. The Tao is like a giant river flowing in a particular direction. As an individual human being, I can either relax and permit myself to be swept along by its flow, or I can struggle against it, seeking to swim across its flow or even to swim upstream. Even my efforts to move against its flow are, of course, ultimately empowered by the Tao itself; but because they are not efforts which take me in the same direction as the Tao, they will be clumsy, unsuccessful, futile, and unproductive. ()
Under this view, human existence will be good, happy, and fulfilling just to the extent that I live my life in harmony with the flowing power of the Tao and not at cross-purposes to it. And why is this exactly? Because a life lived in harmony with the Tao is a life energized by the direct and undiffused power of the Tao. But a life lived at cross-purposes to the Tao is a life lived under a different sort of power–the power of one's individual self. Since ultimately no power exists except the power of the Tao, the power of one's individual self is ultimately the power of the Tao as well; but it is diffused and particularized, not the pure, undifferentiated power of the Tao in its fundamental harmony. So human beings, while being empowered by the Tao, are able to take control of their own lives, to make decisions, and to take action out of the force of their own particular wills. The result, says the Taoist, is unfortunate. Self-effort, self-control, and self-assertion lead to evil, vice, failure, and imperfection. Creative work performed out of self-effort is inferior to the creative work performed under the undiluted and undifferentiated power of the Tao. Wisdom gained through self-effort and learning is inferior to the wisdom consisting of submission to the Tao.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
16th March
Ten of us for philosophy and after waiting for a break in the conversation after a quarter of an hour we started. Geoff mentioned had we seen the Horizon programme about the power of the unconscious and the limited ability of the conscious mind to hold a picture of just four coloured objects. Several of us had and like me Pat tried to listen to a French lesson without listening but also like me it didn't seem to work or at least the unconscious never communicated that it had heeded the information. Shame that.
We then watched a TED video all about how society is geared to celebrate extroverts and the world would be a better place if introverts were encouraged to work in a way that would bring out their talents.
The paper we then read and discussed was:
Become Aware of Your Thoughts
One of the most important steps in becoming a high vibrational being is becoming aware of your thoughts. Your mind is like a garden. Your thoughts (seeds) are what you plant and expect to grow. Constant awareness of your garden (mind) will help you create the reality you desire by helping you quickly pluck any weeds (negative thoughts) that have intruded upon your space. If your seeds are good thoughts, beliefs and ideas you will manifest a beautiful garden with a positive outcome. Begin now to sow thoughts of peace, happiness, healing, good will and abundance for yourself and the universe. Our world is held in place by our mind. Imagine how our world would be if each one of us were in control of our thoughts, beliefs and emotions 100% of the time. If we were all focused on unconditional love, peace and unity our world would reflect that. Just imagine!
All things are possible through the power of correct thought. Our thoughts and beliefs are "things". They are energy and energy never dies. When our energy or thoughts are focused and repetitive they become creative! When we realize our thoughts, feelings and beliefs create our reality we can create what we desire instead of being a victim of circumstances getting caught up in the after effects of our own negative thinking. The law of attraction simply states "like attracts like". Whatever we believe about others and ourselves becomes our reality. We literally see through our thoughts. Every thought we think is a lens we see through and it is the mind (our thoughts) that creates our feelings and emotions. As above in consciousness; so below in matter.
The vast majority of mankind currently lives in a world of unconscious co-creation. Many are running on autopilot and are unaware that their inner world (their thoughts, feelings and imagery) is where their creative power resides. Unfortunately, many of us are creating circumstances we don't really want because we are unaware that our thoughts, beliefs and subconscious programming is what creates our reality. Many of us have allowed our minds to get so out of control that our mind has literally become the enemy instead of the powerful gift of loving, co-creation God intended it to be. We each have the power to make our inner world work for us, or work against us. What we think about expands so any thought or belief that keeps us from our peace is a weed we want to discard from our garden immediately! The Universe fully supports us in every thought we choose to believe. It is a law of nature that the universe will reflect back to us what we are concentrating on. The Universe has no value judgments of positive or negative so we need to be very aware of where we are choosing to focus our attention!
We are each responsible for our own creations! We have the choice of being a conscious or unconscious co-creator with God. When we are making unconscious choices we are refusing to take command and dominion over our minds. When we become conscious we become aware and awareness is the key to change. We must be willing to put energy and time in avoiding negative thinking and actively pursuing to think positively. Persistent inner work and paying attention to what we are thinking will change our negative thought habits. If we are conscious of our thoughts, every negative thought can quickly be changed into a positive affirmation or command. If we are not happy with our life, we need to observe the attention of our thoughts and beliefs and shift our mindset into a more positive one.
We then watched a TED video all about how society is geared to celebrate extroverts and the world would be a better place if introverts were encouraged to work in a way that would bring out their talents.
The paper we then read and discussed was:
Become Aware of Your Thoughts
One of the most important steps in becoming a high vibrational being is becoming aware of your thoughts. Your mind is like a garden. Your thoughts (seeds) are what you plant and expect to grow. Constant awareness of your garden (mind) will help you create the reality you desire by helping you quickly pluck any weeds (negative thoughts) that have intruded upon your space. If your seeds are good thoughts, beliefs and ideas you will manifest a beautiful garden with a positive outcome. Begin now to sow thoughts of peace, happiness, healing, good will and abundance for yourself and the universe. Our world is held in place by our mind. Imagine how our world would be if each one of us were in control of our thoughts, beliefs and emotions 100% of the time. If we were all focused on unconditional love, peace and unity our world would reflect that. Just imagine!
All things are possible through the power of correct thought. Our thoughts and beliefs are "things". They are energy and energy never dies. When our energy or thoughts are focused and repetitive they become creative! When we realize our thoughts, feelings and beliefs create our reality we can create what we desire instead of being a victim of circumstances getting caught up in the after effects of our own negative thinking. The law of attraction simply states "like attracts like". Whatever we believe about others and ourselves becomes our reality. We literally see through our thoughts. Every thought we think is a lens we see through and it is the mind (our thoughts) that creates our feelings and emotions. As above in consciousness; so below in matter.
The vast majority of mankind currently lives in a world of unconscious co-creation. Many are running on autopilot and are unaware that their inner world (their thoughts, feelings and imagery) is where their creative power resides. Unfortunately, many of us are creating circumstances we don't really want because we are unaware that our thoughts, beliefs and subconscious programming is what creates our reality. Many of us have allowed our minds to get so out of control that our mind has literally become the enemy instead of the powerful gift of loving, co-creation God intended it to be. We each have the power to make our inner world work for us, or work against us. What we think about expands so any thought or belief that keeps us from our peace is a weed we want to discard from our garden immediately! The Universe fully supports us in every thought we choose to believe. It is a law of nature that the universe will reflect back to us what we are concentrating on. The Universe has no value judgments of positive or negative so we need to be very aware of where we are choosing to focus our attention!
We are each responsible for our own creations! We have the choice of being a conscious or unconscious co-creator with God. When we are making unconscious choices we are refusing to take command and dominion over our minds. When we become conscious we become aware and awareness is the key to change. We must be willing to put energy and time in avoiding negative thinking and actively pursuing to think positively. Persistent inner work and paying attention to what we are thinking will change our negative thought habits. If we are conscious of our thoughts, every negative thought can quickly be changed into a positive affirmation or command. If we are not happy with our life, we need to observe the attention of our thoughts and beliefs and shift our mindset into a more positive one.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
17th February 2012
Ten of us altogether met up for another brain stretching exercise. We first viewed a video curtesy of TED where a philosopher must have confused an audience of young people by telling them the idea of a inner self was not true. Although we felt that the ego maybe an illusion the inner being or essence is a reality and many believe to be the true Self.
After a break we read and discussed the following mixture of different ideas.
The Source of PhilosophyWonder: The main source of philosophic questioning is the sense of wonder, a childlike wonder just about everything. Philosophy starts with bewilderment, astonishment, amazement about the world, life, and ourselves. Philosophy arises from the workings of an inquisitive mind which is bewildered by seemingly common things or by those that appear to be entirely impractical. It emerges out of readiness to follow the call of human intellectual curiosity beyond common sense acquaintanceship with the world. The same idea is expressed in the old saying that the business of philosophy is to deal with the things supposedly familiar, but not really known and cognized. Philosophy reveals the illusion of knowledge where none in reality exists. Indeed, everything touched by philosophic bewilderment miraculously changes its character from a known to an unknown. B. Russell resuscitates the same idea in claiming that philosophy "keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect".
Self-Knowledge There is nowhere we have to go, nothing we have to do, although lots of going and doing seem to happen. This apparent activity is just as it is without anything being wrong with it. It simply cannot make or create anything with regard to spirituality.
At some point we are reoriented in our search away from the attainments and achievements we long for – we come to a maturity and a place of pause. In this pause we likely realize we are chasing our tail. We might then begin a serious inquiry into the very nature of our essence, what-we-ARE, not what we might become if we do spirituality the right way, trying to hold our posture straight and our thoughts still. We might then realize that only by inquiring into our beliefs about ourselves, by questioning and challening our core set of default beliefs, do we have a chance to see past them, to realize their shortcomings, to recognize that what we believed ourselves to be isn't as we thought................
There is no hiding with LSDSue Blackmore She has a degree in psychology and physiology from Oxford University (1973) and a PhD in parapsychology from the University of Surrey (1980). Her research interests include memes, evolutionary theory, consciousness, and meditation. She practises Zen and campaigns for drug legalisation
Beyond the flowers that turn into cats, an acid trip forces users to face whatever comes up, and self-knowledge often follows
face the fact that I could not blame the drug nor anyone else for my visions, and certainly not for the worst fact of all – that such cruelty has always happened and is happening somewhere even now. Ultimately I confronted the fact that I was not fundamentally different from either the torturers or the tortured, that I had in myself strains of cruelty and hatred that might, under other circumstances, lead me to be the perpetrator as well as the sufferer.
This is just one small example, and everyone's stories are different, but again and again people report that through LSD they learned to know, and accept, themselves. This may be why LSD has such powerful and can be so helpful for people mentions "spirituality" and whether anyone becomes "kinder and wiser". Surely knowing oneself underlies all these – knowing and accepting your own mind, taking responsibility for what you have done and what you might do. Even simple kindness grows with self-knowledge. When we see ourselves clearly we can see others more clearly, and then it is so very much easier to be kind.....
After a break we read and discussed the following mixture of different ideas.
The Source of PhilosophyWonder: The main source of philosophic questioning is the sense of wonder, a childlike wonder just about everything. Philosophy starts with bewilderment, astonishment, amazement about the world, life, and ourselves. Philosophy arises from the workings of an inquisitive mind which is bewildered by seemingly common things or by those that appear to be entirely impractical. It emerges out of readiness to follow the call of human intellectual curiosity beyond common sense acquaintanceship with the world. The same idea is expressed in the old saying that the business of philosophy is to deal with the things supposedly familiar, but not really known and cognized. Philosophy reveals the illusion of knowledge where none in reality exists. Indeed, everything touched by philosophic bewilderment miraculously changes its character from a known to an unknown. B. Russell resuscitates the same idea in claiming that philosophy "keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect".
Self-Knowledge There is nowhere we have to go, nothing we have to do, although lots of going and doing seem to happen. This apparent activity is just as it is without anything being wrong with it. It simply cannot make or create anything with regard to spirituality.
At some point we are reoriented in our search away from the attainments and achievements we long for – we come to a maturity and a place of pause. In this pause we likely realize we are chasing our tail. We might then begin a serious inquiry into the very nature of our essence, what-we-ARE, not what we might become if we do spirituality the right way, trying to hold our posture straight and our thoughts still. We might then realize that only by inquiring into our beliefs about ourselves, by questioning and challening our core set of default beliefs, do we have a chance to see past them, to realize their shortcomings, to recognize that what we believed ourselves to be isn't as we thought................
There is no hiding with LSDSue Blackmore She has a degree in psychology and physiology from Oxford University (1973) and a PhD in parapsychology from the University of Surrey (1980). Her research interests include memes, evolutionary theory, consciousness, and meditation. She practises Zen and campaigns for drug legalisation
Beyond the flowers that turn into cats, an acid trip forces users to face whatever comes up, and self-knowledge often follows
face the fact that I could not blame the drug nor anyone else for my visions, and certainly not for the worst fact of all – that such cruelty has always happened and is happening somewhere even now. Ultimately I confronted the fact that I was not fundamentally different from either the torturers or the tortured, that I had in myself strains of cruelty and hatred that might, under other circumstances, lead me to be the perpetrator as well as the sufferer.
This is just one small example, and everyone's stories are different, but again and again people report that through LSD they learned to know, and accept, themselves. This may be why LSD has such powerful and can be so helpful for people mentions "spirituality" and whether anyone becomes "kinder and wiser". Surely knowing oneself underlies all these – knowing and accepting your own mind, taking responsibility for what you have done and what you might do. Even simple kindness grows with self-knowledge. When we see ourselves clearly we can see others more clearly, and then it is so very much easier to be kind.....
Friday, January 20, 2012
20th Jan 2012
Nine of us today on a dry relatively warm day for January. First of all we watched a video of a woman who spoke of her time when she divorced her husband and proved her self reliance by not seeking any money from him. She has since bought a home together with her new husband. She spoke about giving up fear letting it go, giving her guardian angels a chance to help her achieve peace and success.
Some of us found it relevant to their own life, other people were more hesitant to accept that it was the spiritual aspect that helped, more the practical work she put into it.
I asked had anybody heard about Plato's cave analogy apart from when it has come up in previous meetings and surprisingly none had. I then outlined what he meant and its meaning today, our reality is the shadow world. We hopefully will attain the the ability to see the spiritual underlying truth.
We then looked at the following:
Thoughts and Thinking
We collectively glorify our ability to think as the distinguishing characteristic of humanity; we personally and mistakenly glorify our thoughts as the distinguishing pattern of who we are. From the inner voice of thought-as-words to the wordless images within our minds, thoughts create and limit our personal world. Through thinking we abstract and define reality, reason about it, react to it, recall past events and plan for the future. Yet thinking remains both woefully underdeveloped in most of us, as well as grossly overvalued. We can best gain some perspective on thinking in terms of energies.
Automatic thinking draws us away from the present. We wistfully allow our thoughts to meander where they will, carrying our passive attention along with them. Like water running down a mountain stream, thoughts running on autopilot careen through the spaces of perception, randomly triggering associative links within our vast storehouse of memory. By itself, such associative thought is harmless. However, our tendency to believe in, act upon, and drift away with such undirected thought keeps us operating in an automatic mode. Lulled into an inner passivity by our daydreams and thought streams, we lose contact with the world of actual perceptions, of real life. In the automatic mode of thinking, I am completely identified with my thoughts, believing my thoughts are me, believing that I am my thoughts...............
Some of us found it relevant to their own life, other people were more hesitant to accept that it was the spiritual aspect that helped, more the practical work she put into it.
I asked had anybody heard about Plato's cave analogy apart from when it has come up in previous meetings and surprisingly none had. I then outlined what he meant and its meaning today, our reality is the shadow world. We hopefully will attain the the ability to see the spiritual underlying truth.We then looked at the following:
Thoughts and Thinking
We collectively glorify our ability to think as the distinguishing characteristic of humanity; we personally and mistakenly glorify our thoughts as the distinguishing pattern of who we are. From the inner voice of thought-as-words to the wordless images within our minds, thoughts create and limit our personal world. Through thinking we abstract and define reality, reason about it, react to it, recall past events and plan for the future. Yet thinking remains both woefully underdeveloped in most of us, as well as grossly overvalued. We can best gain some perspective on thinking in terms of energies.
Automatic thinking draws us away from the present. We wistfully allow our thoughts to meander where they will, carrying our passive attention along with them. Like water running down a mountain stream, thoughts running on autopilot careen through the spaces of perception, randomly triggering associative links within our vast storehouse of memory. By itself, such associative thought is harmless. However, our tendency to believe in, act upon, and drift away with such undirected thought keeps us operating in an automatic mode. Lulled into an inner passivity by our daydreams and thought streams, we lose contact with the world of actual perceptions, of real life. In the automatic mode of thinking, I am completely identified with my thoughts, believing my thoughts are me, believing that I am my thoughts...............
Friday, December 16, 2011
16th December 2011
Nice sunny morning for an introduction to the philosophy of Florian Schlosser. We watched a short video where he outlined his non-duality teaching. Florian from an early age had the burning desire to know what reality is and our place in it. With many interests that one after another he found empty until giving away his wealth he entered a monastery. He has now come back with a new way of laying the ego to rest by reassuring the body that it is safe by grounding oneself with three simple instructions.
After a break and a good conversation about many things including relationships with all the problems that go with it we the read Florian's articl:
From the perspective of normal consciousness we mostly experience ourselves as "somebody" – an identity however named – to whom time and reality happens. We experience the course of life as an
event which is separated from us and at the mercy of which we more or less are. Or we doing our best to take some influence on it.
To explore the essence of time and reality as it really is, we first have to turn to "the one" to whom time and reality seemingly occurs. The question is whether "the one" who experiences time and reality really exists? Does an experiencing person really exist? And is the one we call the experiencing person – the "I" which experiences – really separated from "his/her" experience?
But how can we explore what the "I" is and if it really exists? Let's start together:
Who is thinking? Is it you who is thinking or are there just thoughts, which emerge and leave again? Who is feeling? Is it you who is feeling or are there just feelings which emerge and leave again? Who has physical sensations? Is it you who has sensations in the body or are there just sensations which emerge and leave again?
If you want to check this, then just try to stop your thoughts. Simply like that -STOP. Does it work? If you are completely conscious and honest for a moment you will realize that it is not so easy to switch off the experience of thinking, feeling and sensing.What you recognize is a never ending stream of movement (experience) which just happens. Now, to whom does this movement occur? Who has always been conscious of this? What is it exactly that is conscious? Normally you will say: I am conscious. Check it briefly if you like: Are you conscious of the present experience, whatever it may be, just now? Of course you are. Now, what is this "I" that is conscious? It is consciousness itself. Therefore you are consciousness, aren't you? Time is movement in consciousness
As we find out by close investigation there is consciousness, in which the movement of thinking, feeling and sensing in the body emerges and leaves again. This movement in the consciousness feels like an occurrence (appearance) in time. But if you again allow a moment to be quiet and conscious you will notice that time itself is an illusion, which is created by the ever changing experiences in consciousness. Without the movement of thinking, feeling and physical sensations there is no independent time, which can be measured i.e. experienced. So time is not separated from experience but (an) included part of it, well, it IS experience itself. Time is movement in the consciousness. And also the "feeling of I" is included in the movement and therefore not separated from it.
Let us now stop for a while and strike an interim balance: We see that consciousness only comes into being by movement. That is all. There is no one who experiences anything. It is the experiencing which experiences itself as movement in consciousness – that WE ARE. What may confuse us sometimes is that the movement of attentiveness is mixed up with pure resting awareness. Let us make clear this difference also. The movement of attentiveness Attentiveness is the natural ability to focus energy on a certain object, to observe it. For example this can be an object "in the outside", but also an object "in the inside", like a thought or a feeling. So we can focus with attentiveness. If you inquire precisely now, you will see that by mere focussing the feeling of an 'I-observer' on the one hand and at the same time the observed object appears separated from you.Observing only creates the feeling of an "I" and an experience separated from "you". But both don`t exist like this.
Neither is there really an "I" nor the object separated from "I" e.g. an experience. Both of it only emerges seemingly as a dual reality when attentiveness focusses
Both of it only emerges seemingly as a dual reality when attentiveness focusses. If you look closely you will realize that attentiveness itself is part of the movement. It is moving permanently from one object to another. Similar to a monkey it jumps about. The faster and the more restless attentiveness moves, the more varying is the experience of time. Abrupt, erratic movement of attentiveness creates a rapid feeling of time. Slow and quiet movement creates a feeling of "having time" and slowness.
So not only time itself is an illusion but also the experienced speed (quality) of it. Now back to consciousness again, through which all of this is recognized. So you – consciousness itself – are conscious of the experiences including the movement of attentiveness. To make it clear once again: you are already conscious of this – now -in this moment. Experience comes into being by observation Where is the border between consciousness and the experience (including the observing) that emerges and leaves again? If you investigate further you will find no border. The border does not exist.
After a break and a good conversation about many things including relationships with all the problems that go with it we the read Florian's articl:
From the perspective of normal consciousness we mostly experience ourselves as "somebody" – an identity however named – to whom time and reality happens. We experience the course of life as an
event which is separated from us and at the mercy of which we more or less are. Or we doing our best to take some influence on it.
To explore the essence of time and reality as it really is, we first have to turn to "the one" to whom time and reality seemingly occurs. The question is whether "the one" who experiences time and reality really exists? Does an experiencing person really exist? And is the one we call the experiencing person – the "I" which experiences – really separated from "his/her" experience?
But how can we explore what the "I" is and if it really exists? Let's start together:
Who is thinking? Is it you who is thinking or are there just thoughts, which emerge and leave again? Who is feeling? Is it you who is feeling or are there just feelings which emerge and leave again? Who has physical sensations? Is it you who has sensations in the body or are there just sensations which emerge and leave again?
If you want to check this, then just try to stop your thoughts. Simply like that -STOP. Does it work? If you are completely conscious and honest for a moment you will realize that it is not so easy to switch off the experience of thinking, feeling and sensing.What you recognize is a never ending stream of movement (experience) which just happens. Now, to whom does this movement occur? Who has always been conscious of this? What is it exactly that is conscious? Normally you will say: I am conscious. Check it briefly if you like: Are you conscious of the present experience, whatever it may be, just now? Of course you are. Now, what is this "I" that is conscious? It is consciousness itself. Therefore you are consciousness, aren't you? Time is movement in consciousness
As we find out by close investigation there is consciousness, in which the movement of thinking, feeling and sensing in the body emerges and leaves again. This movement in the consciousness feels like an occurrence (appearance) in time. But if you again allow a moment to be quiet and conscious you will notice that time itself is an illusion, which is created by the ever changing experiences in consciousness. Without the movement of thinking, feeling and physical sensations there is no independent time, which can be measured i.e. experienced. So time is not separated from experience but (an) included part of it, well, it IS experience itself. Time is movement in the consciousness. And also the "feeling of I" is included in the movement and therefore not separated from it.
Let us now stop for a while and strike an interim balance: We see that consciousness only comes into being by movement. That is all. There is no one who experiences anything. It is the experiencing which experiences itself as movement in consciousness – that WE ARE. What may confuse us sometimes is that the movement of attentiveness is mixed up with pure resting awareness. Let us make clear this difference also. The movement of attentiveness Attentiveness is the natural ability to focus energy on a certain object, to observe it. For example this can be an object "in the outside", but also an object "in the inside", like a thought or a feeling. So we can focus with attentiveness. If you inquire precisely now, you will see that by mere focussing the feeling of an 'I-observer' on the one hand and at the same time the observed object appears separated from you.Observing only creates the feeling of an "I" and an experience separated from "you". But both don`t exist like this.
Neither is there really an "I" nor the object separated from "I" e.g. an experience. Both of it only emerges seemingly as a dual reality when attentiveness focusses
Both of it only emerges seemingly as a dual reality when attentiveness focusses. If you look closely you will realize that attentiveness itself is part of the movement. It is moving permanently from one object to another. Similar to a monkey it jumps about. The faster and the more restless attentiveness moves, the more varying is the experience of time. Abrupt, erratic movement of attentiveness creates a rapid feeling of time. Slow and quiet movement creates a feeling of "having time" and slowness.
So not only time itself is an illusion but also the experienced speed (quality) of it. Now back to consciousness again, through which all of this is recognized. So you – consciousness itself – are conscious of the experiences including the movement of attentiveness. To make it clear once again: you are already conscious of this – now -in this moment. Experience comes into being by observation Where is the border between consciousness and the experience (including the observing) that emerges and leaves again? If you investigate further you will find no border. The border does not exist.
Friday, November 18, 2011
18th November
Eleven of us today as Kathy joined us for the first time. Started off showing the TED video on current thinking about child development and it was impressive. The comparison was made of a butterfly and a Caterpillar but we are the caterpillars. It is the baby that has the wings of exploration into new ways of thinking. The frustration of the kiddie and the eventual joy shown when solving a light/music puzzle was a picture.
The discussion afterwards showed we all came to different conclusions but we were all impressed by their problem solving.
After a break we reviewed an article on various ideas of Eastern thought part of which is below.
There Is No Final Destination To Reach
In life, you will never reach an "end point" where you feel you have finally made it. Even death is not an end point because your energy will continue further into new experiences of the non-physical nature and may further manifest into a new physical form as a matter of movement. There is no "end" in life because this whole movement was never about fulfilling any fixed agendas – it's just energy experiencing itself. Life, as a movement, is all about experience – and one experience is not better than the other from an absolute perspective, even the most elevated experience is still just an experience, nothing more nothing less. Having this perspective keeps you grounded in reality and acts as a "leveler" each time you feel that you've reached "perfection" or have illusions of reaching such a place.
Every time you reach a certain stability with one experience you will want to move on to a new experience. Even awakening/enlightenment is an experience. Living consciously is an experience different from the experience of living unconsciously, aligning with your natural vibration is an experience different from the experience of disconnected living – but in the end its all just experience, to say one experience is better than the other is like saying that being an adult is better than being a child, because that's not really the case. Being a child is an experience of its own and being an adult is another experience having its own flavor – of course, it seems to be better to have more control and maturity in life, but that's just one perspective, and such a perception also constitutes an experience. There is never going to be final destination where you feel you've reached the "peak" perfection of life, there will always be the next thing.
The discussion afterwards showed we all came to different conclusions but we were all impressed by their problem solving.
After a break we reviewed an article on various ideas of Eastern thought part of which is below.
There Is No Final Destination To Reach
In life, you will never reach an "end point" where you feel you have finally made it. Even death is not an end point because your energy will continue further into new experiences of the non-physical nature and may further manifest into a new physical form as a matter of movement. There is no "end" in life because this whole movement was never about fulfilling any fixed agendas – it's just energy experiencing itself. Life, as a movement, is all about experience – and one experience is not better than the other from an absolute perspective, even the most elevated experience is still just an experience, nothing more nothing less. Having this perspective keeps you grounded in reality and acts as a "leveler" each time you feel that you've reached "perfection" or have illusions of reaching such a place.
Every time you reach a certain stability with one experience you will want to move on to a new experience. Even awakening/enlightenment is an experience. Living consciously is an experience different from the experience of living unconsciously, aligning with your natural vibration is an experience different from the experience of disconnected living – but in the end its all just experience, to say one experience is better than the other is like saying that being an adult is better than being a child, because that's not really the case. Being a child is an experience of its own and being an adult is another experience having its own flavor – of course, it seems to be better to have more control and maturity in life, but that's just one perspective, and such a perception also constitutes an experience. There is never going to be final destination where you feel you've reached the "peak" perfection of life, there will always be the next thing.
Friday, October 21, 2011
21 October
Well attended meeting all seemingly happy with the world which was a happy coincidence as the two short videos we saw in the beginning were all about happiness. To sum up the way to be happy is to accept that you are perfect just the way you are, to be more loving, have faith or a spiritual outlook and be positive. Although things can help you find happiness really it is within yourself where you will truly find it. Nothing new but nice to get reminded of the eternal truths.
After a break we read the following tract which I find is the clearest explanation of what enlightenment is.
Extract
We will examines how we create a persistent alienation from ourselves, from others, and from the world by fracturing out present experience into different parts, separated by boundaries. We artificially split our awareness into compartments such as subject vs. object, life vs. death, mind vs. body, inside vs.. outside, reason vs. instinct ...
The result of such violence, although known by many other names, is simply unhappiness. Life becomes suffering, full of battles. But all our battles in our experience - our conflicts, anxieties, sufferings, and despairs - are created by the boundaries we misguidingly throw around our experience.
Who am I? The query has probably tormented mankind since the dawn of civilization, and remains today one of the most vexing of all human questions, ..When you are describing or explaining or even just inwardly feeling your "self" what you are actually doing, whether you know it or not, is drawing a mental line or boundary across the whole field of you experience, and everything on the inside of that boundary you are feeling or calling you "self" while everything outside that boundary you feel to be "not self"...So when you say "my self" you draw a boundary line between what is you and what is not you.
Have you ever wondered why life comes in opposites? Why everything you value is one of a pair of opposites? Why all decisions are between opposites? Why all desires are based on opposites?
Notice that all spatial and directional dimensions are opposites: up vs. down, inside vs. outside, high vs., low, long vs. short, North vs. South, big vs. small, here vs. there, top vs. bottom, left vs.. right. And notice that all things we consider serious and important are one pole of a pair of opposites: good vs. evil, life vs. death, pleasure vs. pain, God vs. Satan, freedom vs. bondage.
So, also, our social and esthetic values are always put in terms of opposites: success vs. failure, beautiful vs. ugly, strong vs. weak, intelligent vs. stupid. Even our highest abstractions rest on opposites. Logic, for instance, is concerned with the true vs. the false, epistemology, with appearance vs. reality, ontology, with being vs. non-being. Our world seems to be a massive collection of opposites.
This fact is so commonplace as to hardly need mentioning. But the more one ponders it the more it is strikingly peculiar. Adam was the first to delineate nature, to mentally divide it up, mark it off, diagram it. Adam was the first great mapmaker, Adam drew boundaries.
So successful was this mapping of nature that , to this day, our lives are largely spent in drawing boundaries. Every decision we make, our every action, our every word is based on the construction, conscious of unconscious, of boundaries,
The peculiar thing about a boundary is that, however complex and rarefied it might me, it actually marks off nothing but an inside and an outside., For example, we can draw the very simplest form of a boundary line as a circle, and see that it discloses an inside versus an outside. But notice that the opposites on inside vs.. outside didn't exist in themselves until we drew the boundary on the circle. It is the if boundary line in other words, which creates pairs of opposites,, in short, to draw boundaries is to manufacture opposites...And the world of opposites is world of conflict. So instead of handling and manipulating real objects, Adam could manipulate in his head these magic, names which stood for the objects themselves.
Now our habitual way of trying to solve these problems is to attempt to eradicate one of the opposites. We handle the problem of good vs. evil by trying to exterminate evil. We handle the problem of life vs.. death by trying to hide death under symbolic immortalities. In philosophy we handle conceptual opposites by dismissing one of the poles or trying to reduce it to the other.
The point is that we always tend to treat the boundary as real and then manipulate the opposites created by the boundary.
The goal of separating the opposites and then clinging to or pursuing the positive halves seems to be a distinguishing characteristic of progressive Western civilization - its religion, science, medicine and industry.
The opposites might indeed be as different as night and day, but the essential point is that without night we would not even be able to recognize something called day. To destroy the negative is, at the same time, to destroy all possibilities of enjoying the positive. Thus, the more we succeed in this adventure of progress, the more we actually fail, and hence the more acute becomes our sense of total frustration.
The root of the whole difficulty is our tendency to view the opposites as irreconcilable, as totally set apart and divorced from one another. Even the simplest of opposites, such as buying versus selling, are viewed as two different and separate events. Now it is true that buying and selling are in some sense different, but they are also - and this is the point- completely inseparable.
The inner unity of opposites is hardly an idea confined to mystics, Eastern or Western. If we look to modern say physics, the field in which Western intellect had made its greatest advances, what we find is another version of reality as a union of opposites. In relativity theory, for example, the old opposites of rest vs. motion have become totally indistinguishable, that is, "each is both". An object which is in motion for one observer is, at the same time, at rest for a different observer. Likewise, the split between wave and particle vanishes into "wavicles. and the contrast between structure vs. function evaporates. Even the age-old separation of mass from energy had fallen to Einstein's E=mc2, and these ancient "opposites" are now viewed as merely two aspects of one reality.
After a break we read the following tract which I find is the clearest explanation of what enlightenment is.
Extract
We will examines how we create a persistent alienation from ourselves, from others, and from the world by fracturing out present experience into different parts, separated by boundaries. We artificially split our awareness into compartments such as subject vs. object, life vs. death, mind vs. body, inside vs.. outside, reason vs. instinct ...
The result of such violence, although known by many other names, is simply unhappiness. Life becomes suffering, full of battles. But all our battles in our experience - our conflicts, anxieties, sufferings, and despairs - are created by the boundaries we misguidingly throw around our experience.
Who am I? The query has probably tormented mankind since the dawn of civilization, and remains today one of the most vexing of all human questions, ..When you are describing or explaining or even just inwardly feeling your "self" what you are actually doing, whether you know it or not, is drawing a mental line or boundary across the whole field of you experience, and everything on the inside of that boundary you are feeling or calling you "self" while everything outside that boundary you feel to be "not self"...So when you say "my self" you draw a boundary line between what is you and what is not you.
Have you ever wondered why life comes in opposites? Why everything you value is one of a pair of opposites? Why all decisions are between opposites? Why all desires are based on opposites?
Notice that all spatial and directional dimensions are opposites: up vs. down, inside vs. outside, high vs., low, long vs. short, North vs. South, big vs. small, here vs. there, top vs. bottom, left vs.. right. And notice that all things we consider serious and important are one pole of a pair of opposites: good vs. evil, life vs. death, pleasure vs. pain, God vs. Satan, freedom vs. bondage.
So, also, our social and esthetic values are always put in terms of opposites: success vs. failure, beautiful vs. ugly, strong vs. weak, intelligent vs. stupid. Even our highest abstractions rest on opposites. Logic, for instance, is concerned with the true vs. the false, epistemology, with appearance vs. reality, ontology, with being vs. non-being. Our world seems to be a massive collection of opposites.
This fact is so commonplace as to hardly need mentioning. But the more one ponders it the more it is strikingly peculiar. Adam was the first to delineate nature, to mentally divide it up, mark it off, diagram it. Adam was the first great mapmaker, Adam drew boundaries.
So successful was this mapping of nature that , to this day, our lives are largely spent in drawing boundaries. Every decision we make, our every action, our every word is based on the construction, conscious of unconscious, of boundaries,
The peculiar thing about a boundary is that, however complex and rarefied it might me, it actually marks off nothing but an inside and an outside., For example, we can draw the very simplest form of a boundary line as a circle, and see that it discloses an inside versus an outside. But notice that the opposites on inside vs.. outside didn't exist in themselves until we drew the boundary on the circle. It is the if boundary line in other words, which creates pairs of opposites,, in short, to draw boundaries is to manufacture opposites...And the world of opposites is world of conflict. So instead of handling and manipulating real objects, Adam could manipulate in his head these magic, names which stood for the objects themselves.
Now our habitual way of trying to solve these problems is to attempt to eradicate one of the opposites. We handle the problem of good vs. evil by trying to exterminate evil. We handle the problem of life vs.. death by trying to hide death under symbolic immortalities. In philosophy we handle conceptual opposites by dismissing one of the poles or trying to reduce it to the other.
The point is that we always tend to treat the boundary as real and then manipulate the opposites created by the boundary.
The goal of separating the opposites and then clinging to or pursuing the positive halves seems to be a distinguishing characteristic of progressive Western civilization - its religion, science, medicine and industry.
The opposites might indeed be as different as night and day, but the essential point is that without night we would not even be able to recognize something called day. To destroy the negative is, at the same time, to destroy all possibilities of enjoying the positive. Thus, the more we succeed in this adventure of progress, the more we actually fail, and hence the more acute becomes our sense of total frustration.
The root of the whole difficulty is our tendency to view the opposites as irreconcilable, as totally set apart and divorced from one another. Even the simplest of opposites, such as buying versus selling, are viewed as two different and separate events. Now it is true that buying and selling are in some sense different, but they are also - and this is the point- completely inseparable.
The inner unity of opposites is hardly an idea confined to mystics, Eastern or Western. If we look to modern say physics, the field in which Western intellect had made its greatest advances, what we find is another version of reality as a union of opposites. In relativity theory, for example, the old opposites of rest vs. motion have become totally indistinguishable, that is, "each is both". An object which is in motion for one observer is, at the same time, at rest for a different observer. Likewise, the split between wave and particle vanishes into "wavicles. and the contrast between structure vs. function evaporates. Even the age-old separation of mass from energy had fallen to Einstein's E=mc2, and these ancient "opposites" are now viewed as merely two aspects of one reality.
Friday, September 16, 2011
16th September 2011
Nine of us gathered around for today's session of deep thinking. We listened to the second part of The Science of Near Death Experience. Dr. van Lommel, lead investigator for the prospective NDE study published in 2001 in The Lancet, now devotes himself full time to research on the NDE and the mind-brain relationship. During the 2006 IANDS Conference, he presented "On the Continuity of Consciousness."
Dr. van Lommel graduated in 1971 from the University of Utrecht and finished his specialization in cardiology in 1976. He worked from 1977-2003 as a cardiologist in The Netherlands' Hospital Rijnstate, an 800-bed teaching hospital.
After that we had a break although the subject never changed. then we read and discussed the:
What Is Your Relationship With This Moment?
A "moment" is of course an idea of the mind where it looks at reality in a "time based" manner, but it's useful to use this idea to understand your relationship with your life. Your moment to moment relationship with life is what accumulates into your life experience. If you sense that you are in a state of conflict, with the present moment, during most of your waking state, it's a given that your experience of life presently is one of lack, frustration, struggle and strain. When you start shifting your relationship with each moment, into one of peace/joy/love, you will see your reality shifting towards one of well-being, abundance and ease automatically. The truth is evident, but the mind finds it difficult to put into practice.
How to change your relationship with this moment?
At this moment, just take the time to sense your inner space. What exactly is going on within you? What are the thoughts your mind is occupied with, what are the feelings passing through your body? Your thoughts are indicative of your relationship with life (which is always this moment) and your feelings are just an "indication" of how this relationship shows up in experience. When your relationship with life is one of alignment you feel good in your body, and when you are in conflict with life it feels bad in your body. The feelings in your body work as a "truth meter" to tell you what your relationship with the present moment is.
When you bring Awareness into your inner space, you now have the choice to make a shift in your relationship with this moment. Only through awareness/self-observation can you detect the negative thought patterns that operate in your mind, some of them so deeply embedded that you take them to be the truth. Remember that negativity/negative thinking is always in conflict with the movement of life (life is pure positive energy), and hence will always create suffering in you. Awareness of negativity is enough to bring forth a transformation, because awareness by itself is a transformative agent.
Whenever you sense that you are in a state of conflict (indicated by negative feelings), bring awareness to the thoughts in your mind. Just bringing in this awareness is enough to cause a "dis-identification" with the negative thought movement, and it creates an invitation for the intelligence of life to take over. Staying in this state of awareness will bring in a space of silence/peace, and it prevents your attention from being dragged into believing the negative thought cycle of your mind. This shifts your relationship with the present moment from one of conflict to one of peace/alignment. Awareness always brings you in harmony with the present moment.
Dr. van Lommel graduated in 1971 from the University of Utrecht and finished his specialization in cardiology in 1976. He worked from 1977-2003 as a cardiologist in The Netherlands' Hospital Rijnstate, an 800-bed teaching hospital.
After that we had a break although the subject never changed. then we read and discussed the:
What Is Your Relationship With This Moment?
A "moment" is of course an idea of the mind where it looks at reality in a "time based" manner, but it's useful to use this idea to understand your relationship with your life. Your moment to moment relationship with life is what accumulates into your life experience. If you sense that you are in a state of conflict, with the present moment, during most of your waking state, it's a given that your experience of life presently is one of lack, frustration, struggle and strain. When you start shifting your relationship with each moment, into one of peace/joy/love, you will see your reality shifting towards one of well-being, abundance and ease automatically. The truth is evident, but the mind finds it difficult to put into practice.
How to change your relationship with this moment?
At this moment, just take the time to sense your inner space. What exactly is going on within you? What are the thoughts your mind is occupied with, what are the feelings passing through your body? Your thoughts are indicative of your relationship with life (which is always this moment) and your feelings are just an "indication" of how this relationship shows up in experience. When your relationship with life is one of alignment you feel good in your body, and when you are in conflict with life it feels bad in your body. The feelings in your body work as a "truth meter" to tell you what your relationship with the present moment is.
When you bring Awareness into your inner space, you now have the choice to make a shift in your relationship with this moment. Only through awareness/self-observation can you detect the negative thought patterns that operate in your mind, some of them so deeply embedded that you take them to be the truth. Remember that negativity/negative thinking is always in conflict with the movement of life (life is pure positive energy), and hence will always create suffering in you. Awareness of negativity is enough to bring forth a transformation, because awareness by itself is a transformative agent.
Whenever you sense that you are in a state of conflict (indicated by negative feelings), bring awareness to the thoughts in your mind. Just bringing in this awareness is enough to cause a "dis-identification" with the negative thought movement, and it creates an invitation for the intelligence of life to take over. Staying in this state of awareness will bring in a space of silence/peace, and it prevents your attention from being dragged into believing the negative thought cycle of your mind. This shifts your relationship with the present moment from one of conflict to one of peace/alignment. Awareness always brings you in harmony with the present moment.
Friday, August 19, 2011
19th August
Nine of us today. We viewed a video showing a surgeon being interviewed about his finding of shared experience told by survivors whose heart stopped where their brain activity had flat lined. Many had after death experiences when conventional thinking would say it was impossible.
After a beak we read about sitting in the centre.
Your Centre of Being
You've probably heard of the phrase "being centred". Generally it refers to being focused, aware and totally present. If you play a sport you might prepare yourself by closing your eyes and taking a breath. If you are about to do something that requires concentration you might first draw yourself inward. Even if you are about to relax, you might look at your surroundings, make yourself comfortable and tap into a sense of contentment and steadiness within.
The ancient yogis called the state of being centred, "in your seat" or the Sanskrit term, asana, posture or seat. The universe holds your unique asana, or seat, no matter where you are physically, mentally or spiritually. The challenge is how well you sit in it.
To explore the experience of this, you might want to take a moment to notice how you are seated in yourself right now. Are you comfortable? Perhaps you feel settled, connected and in harmony. Being centred often carries a sense of strength and clarity. Or are you uncomfortable? Perhaps thrown off for any number of reasons—longstanding issues or everyday challenges. Self-criticism is a clever adversary to feeling centred.
Naturally you are more well-seated when you are pleased with the way your life is flowing. But can you maintain your centre in a storm? Outside circumstances act upon us to un-seat us. Sometimes you can feel shocked or knocked about. You can be engaged in external or internal battles.
But, even when you are experiencing big challenges and intense emotions you can be centred. Actually, sitting in intense emotion is a method of working through it. Consider, for example, the difference of taking the time to sit and experience anger rather than flinging it. Or feeling sadness rather than pushing it away. Here you can be firmly seated and acknowledge it. "I am sitting in confusion. I am sitting in frustration. I am sitting in a feeling of lack." You remain totally connected to your seat while fully experiencing heightened emotion at the same time.
Your Own Sacred Space
At a deeper level, your seat is an inner sacred space. This centre of being is your connection to your divine nature and is you as your spiritual Self. It is the posture of expansion and wisdom.
How do you build upon and maintain your centre of being? Through effort and awareness. The practice of observing yourself gives you the opportunity to notice how you are seated—when you are centred and when you have wobbled. Even noticing you are off your seat allows you to become more steady. The practice of meditation allows you to investigate the nature of the mind and over time gives you the ability to redirect the negative thinking that unseats you. And, the more you recognise the times you feel centred, the easier it is to get back to it when you are un-seated.
Being centred gives you a sense of scale, a power to see beyond the flux of everyday life. You expand your sense of being and you experience your life with awareness, wonder, understanding and acceptance.
Inquiry: At Your Deepest Core
Clear away any physical or mental agitation by taking a deep breath or focusing on the emotional centre of your heart. Gently inquire: "Who am I at my deepest core?" "What is the experience of my highest spiritual centre?" "How can I merge into the peace of being centred?" Allow the inquiry to resonate and investigate how you feel.
Meditation: Centre of the Universe
Take the point of view that you are the centre of the universe. Become acutely aware of how your life unfolds from within. Just as you can move your arm, consider how every word you say and every action you take comes from within. Close your eyes and meditate on the universe unfolding from within.
Contemplation: Perspective
When you shift into the perspective that you are the centre, the experience changes.
Contemplation: The Present
The present moment carries the most vitality. It is filled with vibrant awareness. At any moment, you can sit quietly and scan the impressions of your senses—sounds, fragrance, tactile experience. You can notice the chattering of the mind and go beyond it to focus on your own consciousness. Go deeper, past the knowledge of I am. Allow that experience to enter and expand into a sense of total connectedness in the present moment. Sit in this awareness now . . . and now . . . and now . . .
See your own reality. Throw off the outside coverings and see the inside substance. Observe that until now you have made a box around yourself. Now you want to know what is really inside. If you don't go to your reality, your whole life will be nothing but pretense and fantasy. Living in make-believe, you will not be able to take the last step of evolution. So if you want to go further, be genuine. Go beyond words and come to the truth of experience.
See that although "I" appears to change with the change, in reality it is changeless. When people depart from you or you depart from them, see with the knowledge that something in you both will stay, something in you will meet again. As understanding deepens, relationships become profound. They are not only of the body, but they are perfumed with essence.
Otherwise, life is filled with so much fear and anxiety that it is unbearable. But if you know that essence is never lost, though you feel sadness at a dear one's departure, still you can come back to your work, continue your routine, and experience living fully. Though there is seeming disappearance, this disappearance is in order to appear somewhere else. In order to go there, you have to leave here. In pure relationship one companion goes ahead of the other. The other follows later. The parting is temporary. They meet again. The changeless indicates that which cannot die, for it was never born; it is the very life of life.
After a beak we read about sitting in the centre.
Your Centre of Being
You've probably heard of the phrase "being centred". Generally it refers to being focused, aware and totally present. If you play a sport you might prepare yourself by closing your eyes and taking a breath. If you are about to do something that requires concentration you might first draw yourself inward. Even if you are about to relax, you might look at your surroundings, make yourself comfortable and tap into a sense of contentment and steadiness within.
The ancient yogis called the state of being centred, "in your seat" or the Sanskrit term, asana, posture or seat. The universe holds your unique asana, or seat, no matter where you are physically, mentally or spiritually. The challenge is how well you sit in it.
To explore the experience of this, you might want to take a moment to notice how you are seated in yourself right now. Are you comfortable? Perhaps you feel settled, connected and in harmony. Being centred often carries a sense of strength and clarity. Or are you uncomfortable? Perhaps thrown off for any number of reasons—longstanding issues or everyday challenges. Self-criticism is a clever adversary to feeling centred.
Naturally you are more well-seated when you are pleased with the way your life is flowing. But can you maintain your centre in a storm? Outside circumstances act upon us to un-seat us. Sometimes you can feel shocked or knocked about. You can be engaged in external or internal battles.
But, even when you are experiencing big challenges and intense emotions you can be centred. Actually, sitting in intense emotion is a method of working through it. Consider, for example, the difference of taking the time to sit and experience anger rather than flinging it. Or feeling sadness rather than pushing it away. Here you can be firmly seated and acknowledge it. "I am sitting in confusion. I am sitting in frustration. I am sitting in a feeling of lack." You remain totally connected to your seat while fully experiencing heightened emotion at the same time.
Your Own Sacred Space
At a deeper level, your seat is an inner sacred space. This centre of being is your connection to your divine nature and is you as your spiritual Self. It is the posture of expansion and wisdom.
How do you build upon and maintain your centre of being? Through effort and awareness. The practice of observing yourself gives you the opportunity to notice how you are seated—when you are centred and when you have wobbled. Even noticing you are off your seat allows you to become more steady. The practice of meditation allows you to investigate the nature of the mind and over time gives you the ability to redirect the negative thinking that unseats you. And, the more you recognise the times you feel centred, the easier it is to get back to it when you are un-seated.
Being centred gives you a sense of scale, a power to see beyond the flux of everyday life. You expand your sense of being and you experience your life with awareness, wonder, understanding and acceptance.
Inquiry: At Your Deepest Core
Clear away any physical or mental agitation by taking a deep breath or focusing on the emotional centre of your heart. Gently inquire: "Who am I at my deepest core?" "What is the experience of my highest spiritual centre?" "How can I merge into the peace of being centred?" Allow the inquiry to resonate and investigate how you feel.
Meditation: Centre of the Universe
Take the point of view that you are the centre of the universe. Become acutely aware of how your life unfolds from within. Just as you can move your arm, consider how every word you say and every action you take comes from within. Close your eyes and meditate on the universe unfolding from within.
Contemplation: Perspective
When you shift into the perspective that you are the centre, the experience changes.
Contemplation: The Present
The present moment carries the most vitality. It is filled with vibrant awareness. At any moment, you can sit quietly and scan the impressions of your senses—sounds, fragrance, tactile experience. You can notice the chattering of the mind and go beyond it to focus on your own consciousness. Go deeper, past the knowledge of I am. Allow that experience to enter and expand into a sense of total connectedness in the present moment. Sit in this awareness now . . . and now . . . and now . . .
See your own reality. Throw off the outside coverings and see the inside substance. Observe that until now you have made a box around yourself. Now you want to know what is really inside. If you don't go to your reality, your whole life will be nothing but pretense and fantasy. Living in make-believe, you will not be able to take the last step of evolution. So if you want to go further, be genuine. Go beyond words and come to the truth of experience.
See that although "I" appears to change with the change, in reality it is changeless. When people depart from you or you depart from them, see with the knowledge that something in you both will stay, something in you will meet again. As understanding deepens, relationships become profound. They are not only of the body, but they are perfumed with essence.
Otherwise, life is filled with so much fear and anxiety that it is unbearable. But if you know that essence is never lost, though you feel sadness at a dear one's departure, still you can come back to your work, continue your routine, and experience living fully. Though there is seeming disappearance, this disappearance is in order to appear somewhere else. In order to go there, you have to leave here. In pure relationship one companion goes ahead of the other. The other follows later. The parting is temporary. They meet again. The changeless indicates that which cannot die, for it was never born; it is the very life of life.
Friday, July 15, 2011
16th July 2011
Eight of us today, would now be 11 if they all turned up the maximum number for a small living room. We watched a TED video of the musician Evelyn Glennie who also happens to be very deaf. Despite the handicap Evelyn hasn't let it stop her and now motivates those attending her lectures to listen with all their senses. A remarkable woman. After a break we studied a paper part of which is below.
The essence of spirituality is the search to know our true selves, to discover the real nature of consciousness. This quest has been the foundation of all the great spiritual teachings, and the goal of all the great mystics.
Throughout the history of humanity it has been said that the self we know -- the individual ego -- is a very limited form of identity. Ignorant of our true selves we derive a false sense of identity from what we have, or what we do -- from our possessions, our role in the world, how others see us, etc. Because the world on which it is based is continually changing, this derived sense of identity is always under threat, and our attempts to maintain it are responsible for much of our "self-centered" behaviour.
Behind this identity is a deeper identity, what is often called the "true self". This can be thought of as the essence of consciousness. Although our thoughts, feelings and personality may vary considerably, the essence of mind remains the same. We are each very diffferent people than we were twenty years ago, but still we feel the same sense of "I". This sense of "I-ness" is the same for everyone, and in that respect is something universal that we all share.
When we discover this deeper sense of self we are freed from many of the fears that plague us unnecessarily. We discover a greater inner peace, an inner security that does not depend upon events or circumstances in the world around. As a result we become less self-centered, less needy of the other's approval or recognition, less needy of collecting possessions and social status, and become happier, healthier and more loving people. In many spiritual teachings this is called "self-liberation".
Most spiritual teachings also maintain that when one comes to know the true nature of consciousness, one also comes to know God. If God is the essence of the whole of creation, then God is the essence of every creature, and every person. This is why the search to discover the nature of one's own innermost essence is the search for God.
The essence of spirituality is the search to know our true selves, to discover the real nature of consciousness. This quest has been the foundation of all the great spiritual teachings, and the goal of all the great mystics.
Throughout the history of humanity it has been said that the self we know -- the individual ego -- is a very limited form of identity. Ignorant of our true selves we derive a false sense of identity from what we have, or what we do -- from our possessions, our role in the world, how others see us, etc. Because the world on which it is based is continually changing, this derived sense of identity is always under threat, and our attempts to maintain it are responsible for much of our "self-centered" behaviour.
Behind this identity is a deeper identity, what is often called the "true self". This can be thought of as the essence of consciousness. Although our thoughts, feelings and personality may vary considerably, the essence of mind remains the same. We are each very diffferent people than we were twenty years ago, but still we feel the same sense of "I". This sense of "I-ness" is the same for everyone, and in that respect is something universal that we all share.
When we discover this deeper sense of self we are freed from many of the fears that plague us unnecessarily. We discover a greater inner peace, an inner security that does not depend upon events or circumstances in the world around. As a result we become less self-centered, less needy of the other's approval or recognition, less needy of collecting possessions and social status, and become happier, healthier and more loving people. In many spiritual teachings this is called "self-liberation".
Most spiritual teachings also maintain that when one comes to know the true nature of consciousness, one also comes to know God. If God is the essence of the whole of creation, then God is the essence of every creature, and every person. This is why the search to discover the nature of one's own innermost essence is the search for God.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
17th June 2011
A record number today ten in all. John joined us for the morning. After current news and genial banter was over we reviewed the reason people of all ages asked the same questions who am I and what is reality and what purpose am I here for if there is one.
We touched upon the branching of philosophy into science where it made great strides in measuring and investigating what is this world we are in. This viewpoint leads to duality and a moving away from Eastern non-duality.
We reminded ourselves of the vastness of space when light from the distance stars take 15 billion years to reach us travelling 186,000 miles per second.
Do we believe it or is it some hypnotic dream and it is all in our minds?
We then watched a video on overcoming the bumps of life following the 3 "A"s.
Afterwards we read about three spiritual leaders opinion on the role of acceptance on the way to enlightenment. One suggested that if there is acceptance then there is still duality when in reality there is one One.
We touched upon the branching of philosophy into science where it made great strides in measuring and investigating what is this world we are in. This viewpoint leads to duality and a moving away from Eastern non-duality.
We reminded ourselves of the vastness of space when light from the distance stars take 15 billion years to reach us travelling 186,000 miles per second.
Do we believe it or is it some hypnotic dream and it is all in our minds?
We then watched a video on overcoming the bumps of life following the 3 "A"s.
Afterwards we read about three spiritual leaders opinion on the role of acceptance on the way to enlightenment. One suggested that if there is acceptance then there is still duality when in reality there is one One.
Friday, May 20, 2011
20th May 2011
Smaller numbers than last time but all seemed to enjoy the video of a researcher story teller who found that her philosophy of "if you can't measure it it doesn't exist" to be wrong although they noted the American way of running to a psychotherapist. We also reviewed several ideas from different viewpoints including this.
How to be a Wizard
A wizard knows the laws of creation, and how to work with them. A wizard allows synchronicity to manifest. A wizard follows three basic principles. The first principle is that of wholeness. The more rested I am, the more relaxed my mind and body, the more in touch I am with my self, the more free I feel, the easier my soul, the more whole I am. And the more whole I am, the more synchronicity seems to occur. Conversely, when I am out of balance, tired, stressed, frazzled, wrapped up in concern or in some other way off center, synchronicity does not manifest nearly so abundantly.
We cannot make synchronicities happen. It is in their very nature to occur "by coincidence". We cannot control or manipulate the world in order to create synchronicities -- their source is not of this world. Yet we can encourage their appearance; we can open ourselves to them. This we do by opening to ourselves, to our inner wholeness.
A wizard allows inner wholeness to be a priority. A wizard keeps rested, relaxed, centered and clear.
A second characteristic of synchronicities is that they tend to support our needs. They seem to bring us just what we need, at just the right time. It is as if the Universe has my best interests at heart, and arranges for their fulfillment in ways which I could never have dreamt of. It is, to quote a renowned Indian teacher, "the support of nature". We support nature by centering ourselves, and nature supports us back, providing the opportunities to fulfill our needs. This is what makes them so magical and remarkable -- such a coincidence.
To allow the support of nature into our lives we need to follow the second principle of wizardry -- intuition. This can be hard, because it is often difficult to know what is true intuition and what is just "stuff" seeping up from our unconscious. For me, following my intuition means following my feelings, not my thoughts.
Another little coincidence. The word "wizard" is one of only six words in the English language that when put in reverse alphabet code (a becomes z, b becomes y, etc) is coded as the original word in reverse, i.e. as "draziw".
How to be a Wizard
A wizard knows the laws of creation, and how to work with them. A wizard allows synchronicity to manifest. A wizard follows three basic principles. The first principle is that of wholeness. The more rested I am, the more relaxed my mind and body, the more in touch I am with my self, the more free I feel, the easier my soul, the more whole I am. And the more whole I am, the more synchronicity seems to occur. Conversely, when I am out of balance, tired, stressed, frazzled, wrapped up in concern or in some other way off center, synchronicity does not manifest nearly so abundantly.
We cannot make synchronicities happen. It is in their very nature to occur "by coincidence". We cannot control or manipulate the world in order to create synchronicities -- their source is not of this world. Yet we can encourage their appearance; we can open ourselves to them. This we do by opening to ourselves, to our inner wholeness.
A wizard allows inner wholeness to be a priority. A wizard keeps rested, relaxed, centered and clear.
A second characteristic of synchronicities is that they tend to support our needs. They seem to bring us just what we need, at just the right time. It is as if the Universe has my best interests at heart, and arranges for their fulfillment in ways which I could never have dreamt of. It is, to quote a renowned Indian teacher, "the support of nature". We support nature by centering ourselves, and nature supports us back, providing the opportunities to fulfill our needs. This is what makes them so magical and remarkable -- such a coincidence.
To allow the support of nature into our lives we need to follow the second principle of wizardry -- intuition. This can be hard, because it is often difficult to know what is true intuition and what is just "stuff" seeping up from our unconscious. For me, following my intuition means following my feelings, not my thoughts.
Another little coincidence. The word "wizard" is one of only six words in the English language that when put in reverse alphabet code (a becomes z, b becomes y, etc) is coded as the original word in reverse, i.e. as "draziw".
Friday, April 15, 2011
15 th April
Eight of us assembled in an attempt to explore the mystery of life. We watched a TED video where the guest speaker told us of the later development a mere two million years for the frontal lobes of the brain to appear in humans. Giving us the ability to envisage the possible future and how it gets it wrong - it is never so good nor as bad as we imagine. He told us that through experiments synthetic happiness is as good as the realised happiness. How a convicted prisoner given a life sentence and released in his 70s due to DNA proving his innocence exclaimed it was a glorious experience.
We then read about simplicity of faith leaving the complicated bit to Nature/God.
Down the River of Life to the Ocean of Presence.My mind keeps returning to the status of the human heart in the midst of external and internal turmoil caused by the massive uncertainty of the times. It's the position all of us are in, differing only by the degree of intensity in most cases. Some of us are attended by financial concerns, some by health concerns, some by environmental concerns and all of us by spiritual concerns.
Our main concern is the degree of complexity we bring to the process. All of this complexity rests upon our belief that there's something we can do, based on our own insights and industry, which can change our lives for the better. This is the process that got us into whatever mess or state of mind we are presently in. It's our reliance on our own resources to meet each and every challenge that consistently shows us we're inconsistent in our efforts and our grasp of what's taking place.
We think we're in charge.Some of us believe this to a remarkable degree and circumstances bear it out, further convincing us that we are in charge. Our sense of immunity and hubris turn into an inner polarity of something like the Colossus of Rhodes. That's no longer standing, by the way. We're permitted to think we are in charge and we are encouraged to believe we are in charge, for one purpose. The purpose is a lesson. Now, if you like lessons of this sort, you're on the right planet. The purpose of everything you go through is a lesson, period. All of these lessons have to do with growth. You can even call it evolution...............
We then read about simplicity of faith leaving the complicated bit to Nature/God.
Down the River of Life to the Ocean of Presence.My mind keeps returning to the status of the human heart in the midst of external and internal turmoil caused by the massive uncertainty of the times. It's the position all of us are in, differing only by the degree of intensity in most cases. Some of us are attended by financial concerns, some by health concerns, some by environmental concerns and all of us by spiritual concerns.
Our main concern is the degree of complexity we bring to the process. All of this complexity rests upon our belief that there's something we can do, based on our own insights and industry, which can change our lives for the better. This is the process that got us into whatever mess or state of mind we are presently in. It's our reliance on our own resources to meet each and every challenge that consistently shows us we're inconsistent in our efforts and our grasp of what's taking place.
We think we're in charge.Some of us believe this to a remarkable degree and circumstances bear it out, further convincing us that we are in charge. Our sense of immunity and hubris turn into an inner polarity of something like the Colossus of Rhodes. That's no longer standing, by the way. We're permitted to think we are in charge and we are encouraged to believe we are in charge, for one purpose. The purpose is a lesson. Now, if you like lessons of this sort, you're on the right planet. The purpose of everything you go through is a lesson, period. All of these lessons have to do with growth. You can even call it evolution...............
Friday, March 18, 2011
17th March 2011
Nine of us today met up to explore the mystery of life. We first looked at a Eckhart Tolle video considering the question is thought coming from the ego. Eckhart believes that thoughts are entities in their own right and are in actual fact the ego. He advised creating space in the mind to observe this activity. Afterward we looked at this idea on it.
Find Happiness 22: “Good Thoughts” and “Bad Thoughts”: Baloney!
by Lucky on August 1, 2010
Earlier in my life, I used to waste an inordinate amount of mental energy dealing with what I felt were “bad thoughts” (i.e. thoughts which I felt were “wrong” for me to think). If a “bad thought” happened to pass through my head, I would immediately attempt to get rid of it (to no avail, of course, since we cannot really control what we think). Try as I might, the thought would most often keep returning, almost as if to taunt me, and I would struggle to stop it. This occupied much time which I could have otherwise spent productively.
Also, since I was not successful in getting rid of “bad thoughts,” I decided that I was in a hopeless situation. This invoked worrying about how my life was going to be wasted because of “wrong” thinking, and anxiety about whether I would ever be able to fix the problem. More time frittered away.
To make things worse, my hopelessness created downstream effects of dejection and low self-esteem.
The acute mental distress I thus experienced forced me to look for a solution. After much searching and effort, I came across an enlightened person; the great thing was that he wanted to help me find happiness and was infinitely patient. He would not only solve my problem, he said, but would rebuild my psyche into something akin to a shimmering palace.
In time I learned from him that I am the silent being that is aware of my thoughts and am therefore in a way separate from them. Secondly, he taught me that there are no "good thoughts" and no "bad thoughts"; there are only thoughts. He explained that thoughts are like birds flying across the sky and that I should just watch them; I should not try to chase any of the birds away or capture any of them, just watch them fly by............
Find Happiness 22: “Good Thoughts” and “Bad Thoughts”: Baloney!
by Lucky on August 1, 2010
Earlier in my life, I used to waste an inordinate amount of mental energy dealing with what I felt were “bad thoughts” (i.e. thoughts which I felt were “wrong” for me to think). If a “bad thought” happened to pass through my head, I would immediately attempt to get rid of it (to no avail, of course, since we cannot really control what we think). Try as I might, the thought would most often keep returning, almost as if to taunt me, and I would struggle to stop it. This occupied much time which I could have otherwise spent productively.
Also, since I was not successful in getting rid of “bad thoughts,” I decided that I was in a hopeless situation. This invoked worrying about how my life was going to be wasted because of “wrong” thinking, and anxiety about whether I would ever be able to fix the problem. More time frittered away.
To make things worse, my hopelessness created downstream effects of dejection and low self-esteem.
The acute mental distress I thus experienced forced me to look for a solution. After much searching and effort, I came across an enlightened person; the great thing was that he wanted to help me find happiness and was infinitely patient. He would not only solve my problem, he said, but would rebuild my psyche into something akin to a shimmering palace.
In time I learned from him that I am the silent being that is aware of my thoughts and am therefore in a way separate from them. Secondly, he taught me that there are no "good thoughts" and no "bad thoughts"; there are only thoughts. He explained that thoughts are like birds flying across the sky and that I should just watch them; I should not try to chase any of the birds away or capture any of them, just watch them fly by............
Saturday, February 19, 2011
18 February 2011
We examined two philosophies today Gurdjieff's and being in the flow. Both have things of value but we all felt that in the flow was far more benefit.
Mr. Gurdjieff was an extraordinary man, a master in the truest sense. His teachings speak to our most essential questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is the purpose of life, and of human life in particular? As a young man, Gurdjieff relentlessly pursued these questions and became convinced that practical answers lay within ancient traditions. Through many years of searching and practice he discovered answers and then set about putting what he had learned into a form understandable to the Western world. Gurdjieff maintained that, owing to the abnormal conditions of modern life, we no longer function in a harmonious way. He taught that in order to become harmonious, we must develop new faculties—or actualize latent potentialities—through “work on oneself.” He presented his teachings and ideas in three forms: writings, music, and movements which correspond to our intellect, emotions, and physical body
FLOW OF WALKING
In most activities,one side of the brain usually becomes dominant…however when walking casually without any particular destination,both sides of the brain have a chance to express themselves and this can lead to a more creative experience.
It is not talking but walking that will bring us to heaven. – Matthew Henry
Walking is close to the roots of our being. -Sid
All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking. – Friedrich Nietzsche
Mr. Gurdjieff was an extraordinary man, a master in the truest sense. His teachings speak to our most essential questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is the purpose of life, and of human life in particular? As a young man, Gurdjieff relentlessly pursued these questions and became convinced that practical answers lay within ancient traditions. Through many years of searching and practice he discovered answers and then set about putting what he had learned into a form understandable to the Western world. Gurdjieff maintained that, owing to the abnormal conditions of modern life, we no longer function in a harmonious way. He taught that in order to become harmonious, we must develop new faculties—or actualize latent potentialities—through “work on oneself.” He presented his teachings and ideas in three forms: writings, music, and movements which correspond to our intellect, emotions, and physical body
FLOW OF WALKING
In most activities,one side of the brain usually becomes dominant…however when walking casually without any particular destination,both sides of the brain have a chance to express themselves and this can lead to a more creative experience.
It is not talking but walking that will bring us to heaven. – Matthew Henry
Walking is close to the roots of our being. -Sid
All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking. – Friedrich Nietzsche
Saturday, January 22, 2011
21st January
This week's Horizon programme was all about what was reality. Each expert had a different opinion one was convinced that as everything in the Universe obeyed the laws of mathematics the universe must be mathematics. One said we live in a multi-universe where each moment the universe divided so that there are many different versions of us and in some we did not exist. Another scientist for 20 years wrestled with the problem of black holes disappearing leaving no trace came to the conclusion the universe is a hologram. They are conducting experiments to find out if this is true. With all of these theories it involves thought and thought can not see the world as it just is.
We watched a short video of a Sufi mystic and poet telling of the change we need to make in the form of an analogy of a river ending in a desert. Having the faith to give itself to the wind to cross the desert and over the mountains to become once again a river.
We then studied a paper about the healing moment of just seeing and not doing but at the same time not seeing and not not doing. Too simple for words.
We watched a short video of a Sufi mystic and poet telling of the change we need to make in the form of an analogy of a river ending in a desert. Having the faith to give itself to the wind to cross the desert and over the mountains to become once again a river.
We then studied a paper about the healing moment of just seeing and not doing but at the same time not seeing and not not doing. Too simple for words.
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