manitou

Actually, Marbles, my comment about running the red light had to do with someone earlier saying they weren't 'loyal to the law' when someone wanted to smoke pot or run a red light. My darn Quote button doesn't work, lol.

CT - your responses remind me of the Serenity Prayer: God grant me the Serenity To accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And the Wisdom to know the difference.

And yet this type of determination can be so contrary to higher spiritual understandings. I always remember in the movie Gandhi, when a reporter remarked to Gandhi that "you certainly are ambitious", and Gandhi replied "I hope not". I have no idea whether this was actually said by Gandhi or not, but I get the point. Upon reading the higher master writings of any particular tradition I've read, the master-hood of each and every tradition seems to mean, among other things, a surrender to the Dao of things and the Universe. This is where the concept of relativity comes into this discussion as well. If a person is young, raising a family; this is the time for ambitions.. When a person becomes aged, this is the time for developing wisdom. When a person comes closer to their time of death, this is their time to fully realize acceptance. So in the context of this thread, the OP presents the perfect frame of reference for one going through a particular part of their life. What perfect determination, what quiet strength. And yet, in my 67th year, I am finally wearing the acceptance for how things came out in my life, in a way that I haven't before. It no longer has to do with determination of the type you've described. It's more a determination to be the best partner I can be for my partner; to be kind; to be grateful for what we've got. And at this point in life where we've just had to go out and buy a geezer-scooter for Joe because walking is such a challenge now - how much joy can be experienced just enjoying each day as it comes along. My new determination, my new focus of persistence, is to be as happy as possible with what I currently have at the time. This is a very new phenomena for me. But the concept of Don't Give Up that the OP referred to - what an appropriate response that is to one that is struggling through school. Or the pain of losing a child. But within Don't Give Up is the connotation that there is a condition that is not currently present that is greatly wished for. When giving advice to a woman who is complaining that 'Her husband just won't change!', the correct advice is no longer Don't Give Up.

I would never run a red light.

I am so taken by your statement about justice not being about malice, Aetherous. So few seem to understand that. It's merely to protect society, not set up to punish. But so often it becomes about revenge, it seems. A delicate balance between the needs of the victim and the incarceration of the perp. We should be doing so much more for people in prison, and this is coming from a retired cop. The years spent in prison just about ensure that folks will come out worse than when they went in. Loyalty as to the above situations don't take into consideration karma. I think the best thing we can do is just to be a friend, to be there - even if someone has screwed up badly. But that isn't to say that we should interfere with the karma the person has generated on their own. There is a much stronger 'judicial system' that is in play, The Logos, the Tao, whatever we wish to call it. It will always have the final word. I think the loyalty thing has built within it the 'interference' question. Are we so loyal as to run interference for the person in question? If we are, then we're doing them no favor. Their karma is there for a reason.

I think being loyal to one's own word may be the best type of loyalty there is. Everything else seems to stem from that. (FYI - Unlearner - CT's observations about anything are always awesome )

Good point, Atherous. I'm not equating humbly being of service to mankind to pledging loyalty to someone who may not be 'deserving' of his loyalty. Like the above mentioned police captain. I think that type of loyalty is 'usury' under the guise of loyalty. The sage would be loyal to his sageness, I'm guessing. He will take the highest path in every fork in the road; of that I am sure. He would be loyal to that concept. To a concept, perfect loyalty would be possible. For one to be totally loyal to an individual may be politically or practically expedient, from the point of view of the person being loyal. It may be totally beneficial to both parties, both the loyalor and loyalee. But I don't see 'loyalty alone' as a particular wonderful concept in and of its own accord. An abuse victim is plenty loyal to her abuser, usually. Again, this is one relativistic topic.

I think it begs the question 'loyalty to what?' To always be there for someone, all of the time, 24/7? To enter into an unspoken verbal agreement that one will never say anything bad about the other to someone else? Loyal to the sense that you will put up with someone's abuse and never call the cops? Such an arbitrary quality! I know that my old police Captain always told me he valued loyalty above everything else in the people around him. And what a nut job he was - he just wanted to hedge his bets and make sure his superiors didn't find out about his antics. the Sage and others like him would value Humility greatly. To humbly be of service to mankind. But loyalty? The only loyalty I can remember off the top of my head is mention of 'filial piety' or something like that in the TTC. Why would a Sage pledge loyalty to someone (other than his family). For personal gain? To simply keep one's word to fulfill a promise - perhaps a very noble reason at that? I just glanced up at CT's quote. Loyal to memories. That's what we are. Conditioned and loyal to the patterns that were implanted early. The fears that were implanted early. Yup. That's what we're loyal to.

There is need to shed biases, opinions, and master ego. Until a person understands this, freedom cannot be attained.

Since y'all asked.... The way I look at it is that I'm all of it and none of it. I ride the commonalities of all the worlds religions and don't find sway with any of them. I am self realized through long term alcohol recovery and have found the I Am consciousness through peeling through multiple layers of the Self; this is called the direct process of self realization. This peeling process started 33 years ago. I fully embrace the understanding of the DDJ and have found understanding by triangulating with my very distant vision. Some would call it an extra eye. Marbles, I wonder about the usage of your statement Spiritual Concepts. These things, concepts, are of the Head. When the true path of the Heart is found, your path will take you into your own true true self, and your knowledge will become gnowledge. It is then that any of us become able to speak with authority about deep things, of the Inner Knowledge that resides within us all. But we must get down to the heart of ourselves to find it. It is through shedding our biases, our opinions, our oversized egos - until this is done, the glass will always be stained. I'm not looking for spiritual concepts. What I'm doing right now is channeling. I don't much care if anybody believes me or not.

Not sure all my 'maybe's' are conclusions, Zerostao.

So late to come to the conversation, so I'm sorry if this has been said before; I didn't read all 12 pages. Someone earlier said that children are born atheists. How do we know about that? It takes years and years of self-realization and 'path' study to arrive at the conclusions we have today. So perhaps we finally get our minds back to the point where they were when we were first out of the womb; a mind of innocence and non judgment. Maybe a child isn't an atheist at all. Maybe he thinks he's all powerful because he 'knows' of what he is truly a part. The unlearning and separation begins when the structure is imposed on the child. I find it interesting that folks that like to call themselves Atheists will sometimes spend much time and energy 'proving the negative.' If there were nothing inside to prove against, why waste the energy?. On the other hand, I'm guessing an avowed Atheist is one who would more readily believe that he is part of the One (and, as such, is 'God') than one who has a firmly entrenched religious structure to break down.

I find that the most useful books which tap into every possible 'religion' are the metaphysical books. They seem to have come to the essence of the underlying truth of most 'religions' - it's the commonality between the religions that should be examined, I believe. Everything but the commonality of the metaphysics of the religions is lore. To me, the commonalities are How It Works. The protractor from which all things can be triangulated. The commonalities I speak of are to be Humble, Love your brother as yourself, Judge not (lest ye feel judged.....in your own mind!)

Spotless, Your words shine with the clarity of one who has been there and back.

I think you're right Turner. When we make the apology it isn't for the other person, not really. We're the one going for impeccability of spirit. The other person's reaction is a non-issue, even if they feel they don't need an apology. If we feel the need to give one, then it's for a reason within. I've found over the years of recovery that every single one of my apologies that I was dreading (the old ones from years before) turned out with the person being gracious, and sometimes acknowledging their own part in the situation. But we sure can't count on that, and we can't have their perceived reaction deter us from doing what we must do to keep our own side of the street clean.

ZYD said: ".....take an inventory of all the things that you do believe and then assume that you are wrong about them" ".....take an inventory of everything you don't believe and assume that you are wrong about them" I remember one day when I first walked into Alcoholics Anonymous and laughed out loud when I had the realization "Everything I've come to believe to this point in my life is Wrong!" It was actually funny. Liberatingly funny. I would add something else to this - once you've seen the areas in your life that you've gone wrong, said something wrong, did something hurtful - write down this information so that your brain doesn't conveniently forget it. Remember who is was that you wronged. Because in order to set yourself right, you will need to do the right thing - which is to try and rectify the situation, even if it's by an apology to someone from years ago. Just a glimpse into my own personal story (which is the story of another life altogether, I am no longer this person) - when I was on the police department, I had a way of sleeping with just about every male partner I ever worked with. The real truth of the matter was that I didn't know how to say No to any man because I had no self esteem whatsoever. Well, upon becoming sober, I suddenly realized just how many countless wives I had 'hurt' by sleeping with their husbands. There was no way for me to actually make amends to these people, obviously - most didn't know this had happened. But my form of amend was to say to myself Never Again! Never Again sleep with anybody's husband! This seems to have worked to alleviate the guilt I could have borne. But I have changed my thoughts, my actions, my insides, and am no longer that poor wretch any longer. The hardest apologies yield the most inner mileage. Even if somebody else had started the dynamic, the only side of the street we're interested in sweeping off is our own. It doesn't matter whether the other person accepts the apology, or whether they're still angry about it. More often than not, I've found that most people don't even remember what you're talking about, lol! But this is a clearing out process so dynamic and so thorough that it will change your karma immediately, change your life immediately. The hard part is the beginning. Those are the most glaring discoveries, the most painful to realize, the hardest to apologize for. But the liberation received is beyond words. As the years go on, my Aha!'s aren't as big and frequent as they used to be, but they do come once in a while. I've been doing the inner tracking for 32 years (A Castaneda expression, but the same thing) I think it's just about being the best person we can be.

Thank you for this wonderful thread, Exorcist and ZYD. Just as a simple overview statement of Te, regardless of which discipline we're adhering to: "Character is what we do when nobody is looking".

One more thing, Turner - consider making a list of every single character defect you can think of. Then 'assume' that you have every single one of them, to some degree. That's another way to start - by actually admitting to them first, before you even find it. Takes the sting out of altogether - it just becomes a question of degree.

Hi Turner - welcome to TTB's! What the inner process develops is Self Awareness, which is necessary for any enlightenment. Many get there through meditations and reflection on their character defects. I think that meditating at the end of the day and looking for your part in any disagreement you may have had during the day would be a good place to start. The important thing is to try and do this with what's known as a 'Christ consciousness', in other words - don't be defensive of yourself. Step aside of yourself without emotion and look at it quite objectively. Ask your higher self to remove this defect of character - I guarantee that it will be removed, but not by your higher self reaching down into your throat and removing the defect - but rather by leading you into situations where this defect will come into play time and time again until you get the message. There are some of us who are recovering from some substance problems on this forum. There was a fast and dirty way that us recover-ers have used to do this process - it's the 12 steps of recovery, which you can google easily. Take a look specifically at step 4, 5, 8, and 9. Step 4 will have you make a list of your personal defects - it's called a personal inventory, and it tells you to be 'fearless and thorough' while you're doing this. Step 5 takes you into the humiliation of having to tell another person (a very trusted one, to be sure) of the nature of your wrongs. This is a precedent for the true humiliation of having to make amends to any person you have harmed in your life - which are reflected in steps 8 and 9. This process strips you down to your core, and the end result of this, if thorough enough, is self realization after some years. It's an ongoing process which continues to this day, in my case. I'm always looking for my part in things and make apology immediately when the need arises, to prevent new karma from building. There are more Buddha-oriented step programs out there too - someone on this forum recently posted the title of a book about this - if you can find the Healing Circle, click on that and then click on The Tao and the 12 Steps - I think it might have been CT who posted a similar but Buddhist-oriented book on 'steps' to go inside the self. If you want to bounce any of these ideas or steps off me (I've been sponsoring people for over 30 years on this very thing) please feel free to send me a message via PM (Personal Message) - you can just click on my name and a 'Send Me a Message' box will pop up. We can continue this discussion privately, if you wish. The very best wishes to you, whichever inner journey you choose. You are among a small number of people on this forum who understand the necessity for doing this, but the folks who have taken the time to do this are spectacular!

I think that ruminating is confused with real thinking. Ruminating about what we should have said, ruminating about what someone did, ruminating about old past hurts and new current fears. The absence of thought can certainly be attained in meditation - plus the absence of thought, per se, can be attained by chopping wood, carrying water - assuming that one 'becomes' the task. It's the stuff in between the two that are the cause of the judgments, the fears, the valuations, the arrogance, the stupidity. That thought which places ourselves as the subject and talks about the object - the illusive part of the equation. Yes, intuition is spontaneous. But does the person who is doing the intuiting; would his intuitive actions be the same as another's? I think inner development has everything to do with this. It's a question of which filters we are still wearing - are we wearing a filter of extreme narcissism, or a filter of arrogance? Does our filter have to have all the answers, all the time - or are we wearing a filter of meekness and fear? Intuition, my guess would be, that intuition would not be the same for each person. So....I do think we have the same voice at the bottom of our human form - but the human forms will vary from person to person depending on realization of self and removal of filters that prohibit clarity.

Woof.

Thanks, Marbles

I think thoughts bubble up, and I agree with you, Bud, that they don't think themselves. This is where our communal connection comes in, IMO. The Thinker within me is the same Thinker that's within you. And yes, in order to get to the place where we can hear the pure thoughts of the Ineffable, it's after mastery of our thoughts - in other words, to choose to engage in our 'thinking process' or whether to set it off to the side, as in a meditative state. This is what is meant when they say 'When the Tao is lost, rules are necessary'. Our pure unthinking self is the self that needs no superficial direction. It already Knows. Or more accurately, Gnows. No need for anyone's superimposed rules. No need for structure of any kind. We are in the flow of the Dao, and as such, nothing can be more perfect or efficient. To transcend our own thoughts is to transcend relativity. Time and Space are no longer factors. As for the listening part, we have a friend who is a bible thumper, a real bad one, lol. He talks often about doing the things that his God tells him to do - and yet this fellow is so narcissistic and egoistic that his thoughts are the product of that filter, the egoistic filter. He thinks he's listening to he real thing, but is he really? Until he sheds the oppressive egoistic part of himself, he will never hear the true voice that lies within, the I Am of you, me, and him. Actually, I'm going to correct myself here. Yes...he is listening to the true voice. But he has cotton in his ears. This true voice is leading him into problem after problem so that he will finally recognize the thick shell of ego that must be cracked around him. My understanding and observation of the way it works is that The Voice will direct us into the painful situations time and time again until we finally See the message it's trying to tell us - where we're going wrong. If we don't respond to that voice and learn the particular personality-shedding thing that The Voice is trying to tell us - well then the Voice starts hitting us with a 2 x 4 and starts causing physical ailment or causing accidents that are much more in the physical realm, so that we HAVE to take care of it. Sooner or later The Voice will bring us to our knees when needed. Many never do learn the lessons. I'm afraid our friend is one that might be true of. But on the other hand, he's been placed in Joe's and my world for a time. Who knows why that is? He keeps coming back to us for some reason, although he thinks we're devilish heathens of some sort. So - as such - we just follow the Dao on this relationship and do what's in front of us, in the most loving fashion possible. Maybe there's a little something here for him to see...

I just saw Rocky Lionmouth's chart link. Yes, it appears that the author has used a mathematical formula to anticipate the likelihood of occurrence at any given point along the 'wave of probability' he has drawn. One more time we're looking at a wave from the original sound?

Soaring Crane - is it just me, or is any particular reading of the I Ching enhanced greatly by the inner self knowledge of the one doing the reading?