ilumairen

Yes, death, but not in the way your mind is telling you. That death is just another layer of the ego trying to hold onto what it can't sustain.

I was this sort of fine for a very long time; there is more beyond this. I surrendered and went deeper, which probably won't make any sense until it happens.

When I felt utterly depleted, with nothing left to give, it was because I was 'doing' and all of my 'doing' pulled my mind further and further from the sustaining source. It is only necessary in so much as it is a surrender of all of our grasping doing that enables return to the source... and yes, it can feel very much like welcoming death.

The awareness of the 'universe'...

Seeing past the words and concepts that keep us from fully experiencing what is... it's beautiful. I'm glad you found your way past those constricting words.

It is just another word that we can stuck in. We think 'this'. We think 'that. We 'know this'. Sometimes we remember and sometimes we forget. I have yet to meet someone who doesn't forget, this someone I call me included. The word is nothing more than the wind shaking the fall leaves lose, and blowing them about - just as attachments are shaken lose and blown away. It is a word used to describe the very experience that attachment to the word and idea can steal away.

Hi Everything, we can be the change we wish to see in the world.

A story. I went to Chicago to visit with someone. When it was time to return home I became lost - which is something that normally sorts itself out. But my sister had gone into labor, I was quite a ways from home, and time actually mattered. I happened upon a gas station, and decided to stop and ask for directions. I entered, smiling in my usual manner, and the clerk looked shocked and asked what I was doing there. At first I thought he must know me from somewhere, and then I realized he was fearful for my safety. My skin was the wrong color; I was small; I was 'fragile other' in a place I didn't belong. That understanding made me feel more warmth towards this stranger, and he in turn shared more warmth with me. I explained the situation, and he gave me directions. The last thing he said was, 'get right on the highway and don't stop anywhere else' - sounding like the protective friend he was in that moment. ****** It isn't just pithy guru garbage when people say the world you experience is a reflection of what is within. It is a truth, and when we hold onto fearfulness we will see reasons to be fearful. Likewise if we hold onto warmth and love we will see this reflected in our lives. (And yes, I still get twisted up in fearful anxiety sometimes - sometimes it's hard not to, and this always contains a lesson if I am able/willing to see it.)

I believe this to be of significance. At one level we can choose lack of response, and if this is where we are at we can find some relief through distraction and a shift in outward focus. At another level lack of response simply arises without thought of 'other' - true non-doing. In the mutually arising interplay I shared the self that is defined through my relationship with others is not a stable place to reside, and my hyper focus on my SO brought me right back to the place of contrived non-doing. 'Other' sought to get to me by attacking my SO, who I held with much more solidity than I held myself, and back into the illusion I fell - maintaining just enough spaciousness to allow my SO to find his own way through the experience. (I also suspect that the right/non-right of any judgement of perceived other is a trap - on many levels. First for me being that it doesn't matter if it is a right or not - it simply is, and any thought on the rightness of it will seperate me from the actual experience.)

Why not? I suspect somebody in the know would not only accept the equanimity of what is, but also accept their humanness. You took what could have been an uncomfortable situation, and interacted within the situation in such a way that nobody was left feeling belittled or resentful. What am I missing?

Hi Topaz, I am no guru or teacher - just someone who talks too much sometimes.

When I was quite young my dad used to bring us tornado hunting when big storms rolled through. Then came a night when something different happened. The storm was intense. The night sky had a strange green sheen to it, and the lightening was purple. We watched as the wind became so intense that the tops of the smaller trees kissed the ground. And then stillness, and sound that could only be compared to the rumble of an oncoming train. We never went tornado hunting again.

I've experienced both, and would not give up the experience for anything.

Years ago I happened upon the Gnostic idea that the God in the old testament and the Father of the new had to be two different beings. I take comfort in neither what has been perceived as a jealous, wrathful, demanding and petty God, nor a self sacrificing Father intent on being adored. Instead I find comfort in the loving arms of the Mother. In my tally she wins - especially when things go to hell in the proverbial hand-basket.

And back to you.

Sometimes we are just the reflections that others fight against. But you make a very good point about blame, and consequences. Last night while I indulged in thoughts of administering slap therapy to someone I blamed for being an idiot, in a not so kind and loving manner, I lost my connection to the reality of my moment, and walked into the forks on my lift truck. It hurt. :in a motherly voice: Good morning Everything. I enjoyed this post.

Another small quibble - things weren't perfectly balanced. Anti-matter and matter would have cancelled each other out had there been perfect balance. There was the smallest favor towards the positive, and here we are - the products of that slightest of imbalances. (Able to hold that slightest imbalance that favors the positive and speaks to our hearts.)

It normally isn't, and yet, for me it is. I like the not knowing. I like that the thinking minds admit to not knowing. For me, there is something comforting in the mystery of it. I was sitting outside when I read what I was responding to. I looked up at the night sky, and felt contentment with nothingness being the same type of unknown as dark matter... there really wasn't a point - just that feeling of contentment and a whimsical thought that made me smile. I shared the thought for others to make of it what they will. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. It's nice to read different perspectives sometimes.

You have no fear of being wrong, and I have no desire to prove you wrong. Hell, I don't even have a desire to defend my own whimsical thought. These are things that don't really matter. Nice. Currently I'm being cuddled by the puppies. It's nice too.

Small quibble - dark matter is a misnomer, and not a thing that was invented. We don't know 'what', so we call it dark. I like that.

I think you're right. I recently realized that I was all tied up in knots of anxiety and maniacally watchful - buried under a veneer of happy smiles when things were going well and quiet calmness when they weren't. I clung to now with all the tenacity of someone floating on a little tiny piece of a wrecked ship, as I was tossed about by the ocean of life - grateful to be alive, but incapable of really feeling alive.

Anything is possible refers to the fact that we are discussing what we can't know. I'm optimistic that we're all wrong to some degree. Hope you're having a good day MH.

Anything is possible MH...

It is inaccurate to label my nothingness materialism based.. it is the lack of perceivable material that allows for this as a possibility. As for the rest, it is just too many words and too much thinking for me. Time to make lunch.