manitou

Thank you, Donald, for your kind and thoughtful words. And BKA, I admire your understanding of the power of objects. Tying the two together, YES! The object is a representation of some aspect of the Divine (or Dao). There was a book I read some years ago, The Impersonal Life, that talked about looking for the idea behind the object and seeing its relationship to Source. Truly, All is One. BKA - I had this happen dramatically once when we had an older woman with breast cancer bury a picture of her son and his girlfriend (who had moved in and were not being kind to her) along with a picture of jesus, all in the same box. To 'turn them over to Jesus' (she was strictly Catholic, so we had to do it that way) and stop worrying about them. During the ceremony, sharp and jagged K-energy came up through her feet, up her body, and zapped the tumor. The power was her belief in the object and what she was doing with it.... There is such magic out there! I feel like we're just scraping the surface. Personally, I'm of the opinion that Jesus may well have been a shaman and performed earth magic. When he said that 'in order to receive it, we must have the mind of a child' (I'm paraphrasing there) I sometimes wonder if this isn't what he was talking about.

Love your ideas about cord cutting, etc, BKA. How very important it is to bring things "into the physical" by re-enacting the dynamic in the physical. If we were kids we would call it pretending. But I have truly found this to be essential in any healing ceremony. To manifest our intent into the physical. Joe and I facilitated a healing on a quadriplegic by performing a ceremony where his aunt turned on a lamp. It was a standing lamp, had one arm. We had the 'arm' of the lamp represent his limbs. I told his aunt that at the moment when she felt a great deal of love in her heart for her nephew, to turn the lamp on and imagine the electricity running down his body. After having been in a quad state for months, several days after the ceremony he regained use of his arms and started feeding himself. his legs are following suit as well, although a bit slower.

I would look at the reason you attracted the sociopath to begin with. If you still have the same inner dynamics, you will attract another in no time. Either that, or you will be purposely attracted to someone exactly opposite, and then find out down the road that they're actually just the same. Please look within and see why it is that you 'needed' a sociopath in your life - was she someone that was paranoid that just sure that you were out cheating? Do you label her so because she wanted to know your every move, and your daily whereabouts? Did she call you 20 times a day? Or was she truly sociopathic, where she had a sick attitude toward the world around her in general? In any event, you were attracted to her combination of traits for a particular reason - your configuration matched hers in a way. In order to avoid repeating the same behavior, do consider tweaking something inside that needs tweaked. I would look carefully at your relationship with your mother or a sister when you were a kid - perhaps this is your emotional 'bathtub ring', your 'comfort zone', even though it isn't comfortable at all. But it is when it creates the same feelings we experienced as a kid. My emotional bathtub ring is abuse. I can't do anything to change it; I just need to be aware of it and act to the opposite.

I just picked up Jerry Johnson's Daoist Internal Alchemy: neigong & Weigong Training. Odd that you should post this topic right around the same time this book came out. (This darned book was $200 in paperback but appears that it is going to cover subtle energies from every place you can think of.) I just started it, and love the way he takes on the Acquired Personality, as mentioned above.

This is just perfectly wonderful.

Get to know your fears, resentments, jealousies Make amends to those you have wronged. No enlightenment without the inner journey. This is the most spiritual life I can imagine.

UTI - I know exactly what you're talking about. I've been a meditator for over 30 years. There comes a point where our meditations do spill out into our daily lives. Almost like the word Love is hovering within our consciousness, and all actions stemming from our consciousness are colored with Love. it is rare now that I am not in consciousness in my daily activities. it's no longer necessary to 'attempt' to stay in consciousness. We are there pretty much 24/7, once we get to that point. Not an overnight endeavor.

A slippery eel is right. Sort of like having a lucid dream. When I focus on something directly, it goes away. Have to look to the side.

Questioning our motives means to try and see how much of an edge we are cutting for ourselves, in my understanding. I don't see anything there that infers ego stroking. But you are right - we are causing it to become more mellow. that's the trick. To gain a modicum of mastery over it - to enable ourselves to be in the second or third place rather than always the first. Our own interests must be dropped (by disabling our ego, if only temporarily) in order to see any situation clearly.

You mean I should stop flirting with strangers?? Your point is well taken. You are right - there is no need, if all is there. But at some point, Life becomes the Teacher. One may be exposed to things within another culture and there may be much benefit to it, to understanding it from a different POV. There is a place that we can sit that enables us to interact with all belief systems, the place of the One. It seems that Life gives us what we need for growth, one day at a time. Personally, I draw from many traditions on any given day - don't think I'd like it much if I felt the need to stay within a particular structure. There's something real nice about having a quilt of our own making. But that was just my path. You are absolutely right - to stick with one lineage of thought and see it through to its conclusion would certainly get you there. As long as it's a path that included self-realization.

Kajenx - that is a marvelous poem.

Doesn't this infer that 'evil' is a separate entity here, Marbles? You're giving Evil a personality, a separate dynamic from all else. The Dao would have us understand that it is all One. Between 'Ug' and 'Aah', how much difference is there? There is no good and evil. if you ask a soccer mom what Evil is, she'll say it's the dope dealer on the corner trying to sell pills to her kid. if you ask the dope dealer what Evil is, he'll say that it was the A-hole that ripped him off for his money last night. Relativity.

In my experience, the ego must be removed for clear vision. How to achieve this? Question our own motives. See from the eyes of others, rather than our own. Love your brother as yourself. Never too much. Never be the first. when the situation is viewed with 'apersonal eyes' the dynamics become clear. If we have a dog in the fight (as GMP said), such as an attachment to a particular thought structure will jade the vision. Unfortunately, one of the ways that many of us learned to drop ego was from a humiliating set of circumstances. This doesn't have to be the case, but most of us don't jump at the opportunity to crunch ego for no reason. Although the situation seems horrible at the time, in retrospect we can see that it was the One Thing that broke through the ego pane. The horrible self-loathing, the realization that we haven't been doing Life well at all; this is a mighty catalyst. it's this inner change that must be accompanied by the study of masters, along with the ability to control one's mind to a goodly degree that produces what we are looking for. Even if we claim we aren't looking for it, I think we're looking for it, like the face of the flower faces the sun. We enter a state where it can be seen that everything, in the long run, is searching for the light.

Marbles said: I have to disagree here. I do give a little regarding collective unconsciousness but I attribute this to genetics, primarily on the mother's side. Jung wanted us all to be linked spiritually. This is obviously not the case based on observation of reality and the various levels of spirituality amongst individuals. And yet you don't holler against the concept of Oneness as much as you used to, Mr. MH. As we've been doing this for years together on this forum, I know that we can both see evolutions in each other. The evolution I see in you is your evolving greyness toward what you previously would have considered black and white issues. The concept of Oneness, the Daoness of the One, is something that we speak of so often on these pages. Does that not mean that we, too, are all One? And that we are One with the One? And that at the bottom of each of our (supposed) different personalities is the connecting link between all of us, the One base? This area that we speak of here directly connects to your comment about the spiritual link (above). We are not just spiritually Linked, we are spiritually One. The Same, although with different histories from the time of the womb to now. But before that, as we are now, we are the One Life Force. We Are.

And yet it is such a smorgasbord. It all goes to the same I Am. What is the benefit to a culture that refuses to look beyond its own borders? Seems that it can be done both ways. One can become entrenched in one view and see it through to its conclusion; or one can triangulate all views and see it through to its conclusion as well. they will end up in the same place, if humility is factored into both.

Marbles?

DreamBliss - I checked out your links - thanks for the information. what an interesting fellow you are....

It's about losing our self-importance, as Castaneda would say. It is the log in our eye.

I haven't a clue, never read him. But how different can it be from the concept that we speak of here all the time - that there are two types of knowledge - that which is attained through education, and that which is experiential. In order to make the connection between the two lineages requires temperance of ego and much inner work; getting down to the real deal.

What is the purpose of the hemi-Sync Gateway experience? synchronizing left brain with right in some way?

The longer one thinks about things such as quantum physics - and the fact that all is really happening here and now - that yesterday can be seen and tomorrow can be measured. We're heading down the rabbit hole here...

Very best wishes, Cap, as you go through what is probably a dark nite of the soul. Whatever you're going through is only going to make you stronger on the other side. My thoughts are truly with you.

My goodness, you know a thing or two, don'tcha'?

No, I didn't Trunk. I was beginning to think I was poison to any thread I was on

This says it, Nikolai.