manitou

Wouldn't be the first time I hallucinated, lol

Agreed. The whole problem started when the damn monkeys started talking.

I just thought you might be one because a) you seem to know yourself very well, which people who have been 12-steppers for a long time tend to do, and in just about every Alcoholics Anonymous meeting room is usually a sign that says LIVE AND LET LIVE, among others..

The intent to change another may have already answered that question----

I think this is a perfect place to work on the subtleties (and not so subtleties) of our ego.

I think the only reason I was able to feel compassion for these people (when I worked the child molesting detail) was because i did it for quite a few years. No, I don't think anybody can feel compassion while they're in a state of 'shock to their conscience', such as you were when you read the newspaper article. But after being exposed to it over and over, there comes - to everybody that works it - a sort of numbness to the conscience that allow you to sit there and interrogate or interview the molester - mainly because you're trying to make a case to submit to the District Atty, for example. But still......even way before I became a spiritual entity ..... the compassion arose because I saw the similarities between the backgrounds of the perpetrators, and I saw the pattern. It was only after I saw the pattern of their own abuse that compassion became possible for me. But there are some people that can't work Details like that at all - particularly men! Very few men were willing to work sex crimes because they just wanted to jump up and beat the shit out of the perps. it was the ones that had the capacity to detach that were willing to come on board. And now - throwing in any degree of enlightenment I may possess - I realize that the molester is 'just the other half of me' - as we are all One. There but by the grace of God go I, sort of thing. I was a pathetic drunk for quite a while until I was hammered to a bloody pulp into submission. These men have the capacity to do the same - there are plenty of recovery groups for sex-aholics as well - they especially need intense inner cleaning out, and I assume their method of dealing with it is the same as for the alkie - just don't take the first drink. In his case, it would be....just don't allow the first fantasy to enter the mind; to stop it in its tracks. Don't buy the first kiddie porno magazine...etc, etc. They need daily meetings until such time as they've done the step work and found their initial demons in this regard. Has anyone noticed how strange it is, trying to post behind owledge with that damn pink pony jumping up and down, lol???

Haven't been following this whole thread - but i can add that the lack of highs and lows, once one is Self-Realized, is replaced by a type of Joy that is with you always. It is with you even through tears---my kitten was recently run over on the highway and I cried my eyes out. And although it ripped my heart out, there was something about crying that hard that felt really good. I'm sure the kitten grief was a proxy for unresolved issues within me to release as well. The Joy is present when stuck in traffic, it overrides frustration while waiting in lines - it makes us oh so much more patient with our partners. The Joy is there when I remember to stay in the center of the hub of the wheel, where the void lives.

I just watched my first soccer match on TV last night - US vs. Portugal. WOW. That is one brutal game! And no protective gear to speak of. I was amazed. Not a sport for wuzzies.

Wasn't it Jesus that said something like 'hate the crime but love the criminal?'

nice post, Dawg! I note your throwing in of Live and Let Live. You a 12-stepper by any chance? As to the fear of death - if a person is fortunate enough to experience the Stream - even for a moment - , that golden stream of Awareness memory is indelibly imprinted on the soul. It is truly 'Home', even if we don't remember it. But I have been there and recognized the feeling of being at Home where I belonged. Death becomes something to actually look forward to, not fear.

What an excellent post, Nestentrie! A beautiful merging of the Dao with the situation, IMO.

Avoiding conflict altogether without getting to the root of the problem within will only cause A to 'stuff it' down. Then A will start overeating or overdrinking, lol, to keep from rocking the boat. As a Blackbelt Alanon, please know that this is referred to as 'walking on eggshells'. Not a comfortable place.

This inevitable strife between Sunni and Shia in the world right now I believe to be a necessary process, the tearing down that you speak of. And - how arrogant any country is to think they can be an ongoing wedge to keep the two sides from going at it, if indeed that is the motivation right now. Although set off perhaps by al Maliki being unfair to Sunni's, my guess is that it will morph to expand beyond that and tackle ancient rivalries between the two groups. I feel like things are morphing in the U.S. as well, and we're discovering just how racist remnants of our society can be. Combined with the inevitable clash between all us commoners and the 1% on the top. Seems like this tearing down process is happening world-wide - chaos with immigration, etc. in so many locations. But perhaps this has always been the case. Perhaps we are all just Aware of this because of our instantaneous communications now. But isn't Awareness what it's all about anyway? That's what moves the dynamic along - Awareness. I think the world chaos is necessary to motivate both individuals and countries to look within. But the Awareness if morphing to include more and more of us.

I tend to look at things both horizontally and vertically when it comes to time and space and history. Does it strike anyone else synchronistic that the entire focus / concern of much of the world is on a group named Isis? The name of a god at the beginning of written time? The vast Awakening you spoke of above is certainly possible at this point in time because communications are instantaneous around the world now.? At the speed of light. Communication has made its full circle, its Oroubourus - (I don't think spell check will help me on that one) In this country, it appears that racism is making its full circle by the conversations it is causing by merit of the fact that we have a man of color as president. In this country, the concept of marriage is coming full circle, and integrating everybody, to the chagrin of the traditionalists. We can instantanously interpret each others words to each other on our own machines. The Tower of Babel no longer maintains its hold on the separation of humanity. But most importantly, we are returning to the wisdom of the ancients. We have seen our communal mistake in industry, and there are those of us returning to the earth in large numbers. And to the wisdom of the ancients - the Sages - the naguals - the Christ Consciousnesses. And those consciousness all reach the same conclusion in the end run: We Are All One. Some of us understand that the beauty of Jesus Christ, for example, was not that he was any sort of special Son of God, begotten of a virgin. The real beauty is that he was One of Us, he had a mother and father just like us - and he found his inner wisdom through the traditions of the Essenes, the Shamanism side of Judaism - those that practiced earth magic by understanding multiplication and applying it to the physical. That he found his Christ Consciousness by Knowing Thyself, which is what he later preached. He knew that to find one's self was to find his God - and he broke the glass ceiling for many of us in the Western culture, curiously. The Muslims revere the man Jesus as a prophet as well - which is a position of more clarity than our current evangalistic way of being Christians, at least in this country. HE WAS ONE OF US!! The only words in the Bible that mean one iota to me are the ones printed in red letters - the words of Jesus. Because these could just as easily be the words of Buddha, Krishnamurti, any one of enlightened ones who have risen to their full height and seen themselves as they really are. They are creation itself.

I found after interrogating rapists and child molesters for some years that I developed a real compassion for these people. Most of them, I realized, were stuck in their mind on some level at an early age where something awful happened to them. Can't say this is 100% of the time, but I would go so far to say 80%. And that was before I was enticed by spirituality of any sort.

Cultivation. Do ya think it ever stops? And I agree....the constant breaking of a pattern describes it well

And now he gets to live the rest of his life dealing with the ramifications of the I Am Consciousness. Every day is further opportunity to align one's self with the I Am and act accordingly....as I'm sure he knows.

Isn't it odd how animals react to this? I find that if I approach an animal with yin energy - receptive and not putting anything out there - that animals seem to merge with us. Maybe they approach us because those incredible moments like you just described is an absence of us putting out negative aura or energy field. Maybe they somehow feel the loving matrix and it's attuned with their own lack of convoluted thoughts.

The sage wouldn't try to change anyone. He would know that change must come from Within. The sage would look at B with realistic eyes and see him for what he is, not what A wanted him to be. The only decisions the sage has to make, are....Do I love this person enough to work on myself so that his foibles don't drive me nuts? Or.....time to move on. You can waste half your life trying to hammer that person into the configuration you want him to be. Accept, or move on......

I wish A the best on looking for other types. I've never found it to be that easy - the 'other type' seems like an 'other type' at the beginning, and then later on whoopie!, sure enough, the other B is the same type all over again. Just a little better hidden. A might consider what it is in his background that causes him to be okay with being walked over. Perhaps one of A's parents or a sibling helped to cause the initial imprint in A's soul - that requires being walked over by another. If this has been a trend in A's relationships, there's something there to look at. 'Doing the right thing' isn't being walked over, and the idea of reward isn't pertinent here, I don't think. To allow someone to walk over us isn't doing the right thing for us.

Your description of the Moment was so similar to mine - except I was just sitting on my bed filing my nails. Suddenly I heard a train or a tornado, sounded like both at the same time. I quickly stepped outside and everything was still as glass. I have always considered that this was a kundalini awakening (as my third eye did develop shortly thereafter) - but I find that there is more to Enlightenment than a kundalini awakening. I think maybe the kundalini is part of the whole package, but there is still much work to be done. I'm not sure kundalini awakening always leads to enlightenment, but my theory is that enlightenment necessitates a K-awakening first. I could be dead wrong. Just my experience, and from speaking to others.

A should love B for who he is, accepting his shortcoming. If A can't do that under those conditions, A could work on himself so he doesn't attract people who will victimize him, because if A leaves B, A is going to create the exact same situation until A deals with his own inner issues. My very best wishes to both A and B. I have a 30 year history with this enigma, lol.

Seems like 'feelings' are what we feel when we are first hit with stimulus. Maybe 'emotions' are more of an external expression of those feelings - like we emote 'out'.

Oh yes. There's a bolt for every nut here. But incredibly diverse and we somehow manage to squeeze the essence out of our discussions. Welcome!

Welcome, Ronboidao! Welcome to the right place. Some incredible brains on this forum.