manitou

My point is that the chemical reactions are the vehicle used by the Absolute as it thinks its way back to the void. It's all one living thing. Someone mentioned religious revelation above. I think spiritual revelation is more accurate. No structure to it - just a result of an experiential set of experiences. If the experiences haven't been experienced, it can't be understood. Those who have experienced understand that these experiences do catapult one into the realm of the unexplainable. Like healings, extrasensory phenomena, things which give us our individual 'proofs' that we are indeed tapped into something unexplainable. Because there is a wall between this and science, those of us who have experienced will always be viewed as the crazy ones. No measurement, no prediction. Just the realm of the weird. The realm is there. Digging in one's heels against the possibility renders the possibility impossible. It is an incredible and unfair Catch-22, if you ask me. We can search for it with all the initials in the world after our names and it will never be found that way. No crossing this bridge with words. Intellect vs. hocus pocus - but not really hocus pocus; really a connection with that which is spoken of in the DDJ, and the center hub of all spiritual thought. But there is no way that those who have seen can help anyone else to see this. This journey is an individual one.

actually - I wasn't going for art in the kitten poem. It was what was actually happening at the moment. And I still think your under the sheets imagery was pretty wonderful - I wouldn't label it crass at all - had a certain Brautigan-esque feel to it. Very intimate and immediate.

Sorry, ZYD - just can't do the homework. I'm a Seer, and I don't understand things like this along traditional lines. All I can see is that it all goes back to the black spots in the eyes - we see each other, we see animals, with Awareness because that little black dot of awareness in the middle of their eyes is Us too. When great masters tell us to Know Thyself, it's because when one knows themselves, they know others as well. Huge argument from Marbles here. Here...I'll even leave you space........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................." I can See that there is a huge web of Awareness that extends from eye to eye, regardless of whether the animal is a human, a monkey, or a worm. Some awareness are of different caliber than others, obviously - but I maintain that when a dog barks at you, he generally doesn't look at your knees when he's barking, although he's only knee high to you. He'll be looking at your eyes (unless he's going for your cuff at the moment!) Somehow this huge web of awareness keeps this whole boat afloat. I've seen on some program or the other that an elephant on one side of the world can feel the stress of an elephant on the other side of the world. I don't know if this is true or how they measured this - but if it is, it reiterates the Oneness connection of all. Does not awareness even extend to plants as well? Hasn't it been shown that the will bend to a type of fear, that they will dance to music? To label this as merely a chemical reaction is to be really, well, physical. It's the Why that the seeker seeks. The big question under the phenomena. And honestly, why not rocks and crystals? If Dr. Emoto's water crystals behaved differently depending on the type of emotion contained within the word emitted prior to the freezing, why wouldn't crystallized rocks have reacted to the original 'word' as well? Or bang, if you prefer. Or Ohm. All I'm saying is that it's all alive, we're part of it - and in fact we're the eyes, ears, and thinking organ of it. Wow. Labeling only serves to compartmentalize the phenomena and relegate it to measurement. Once we've measured, we think it's mastered. But the essence is not.

I'm not sure that because we can label it and say it's 'just a chemical reaction' makes it any less awesome. We have a tendency to think that because we can label something, it's mastered. No argument on the Big Crunch thing - (as I'm still reading that damn Freemasonry book - it goes on forever!) even the 28th degree of the Scottish Rites describes (from the ancient knowledge) a void that is created prior to thought or idea due to a recession of some sort. And as we are the microcosm to the macrocosm, if you go along with that - what other than love bursts your seams in a creative sense? Not anger or ire, certainly. That's a destructive force, not a creative one. Yes, our current cosmic manifestation is a pearl on a string. It will revert to the One, and then to the Void, and then probably do it all over again. If we want to stay linear. Or we can understand that it's all happening Now in separate realities or universes if we really want to get boggled.

I actually quite liked the 'Her Eyelids trembled...." phrase. The only word missing from the sentence was Silk. Better motion, if you're the observer..

A small kitten Sinking her tiny claws into the front of my night shirt, A distraction to my post. Breathes her tiny breath into my nostrils Pushes her nose up against my lips Vying for my attention. Her regular little purrs Reverberate in my right ear As she looks for her morning breakfast by sucking my earlobe. A small tear forms in the corner of my eye As I feel a small tug of motherhood Within my loins. A motherhood that never was.

I say that about the rocks because Dr. Emoto has shown the awareness of water. why not rocks? Yes, the magnification thing has been pretty well understood (thanks to you in part!); I still think the mutual attraction / magnetic / love (in the human metaphoric sense as to the microcosm / macrocosm) is something that can be further harnassed for energy production. I just think this was the original Cause.

I've sometimes wondered if the rocks weren't the original witnesses.

ZYD said: "Contrary to common belief 'Golden Rule' ethical injunctions are not 'religious' in origin, but are common to both ancient Greek and Chinese philosophy and can be viewed as a normative precept involving self-knowledge and empathy rather than a religious 'revelation'. Often invoked as an ideal of conduct, what Axelrod and Rapaport did was to demonstrate that this was also a practical strategy as well as a an ideal, with the implication that it would evolve naturally in living systems." This certainly rings true. Whether we're talking about metaphysics, the Dao, Shamanism (of the Castaneda variety), Vedanta, Freemasonry and the 33rd degree, Islam, Kabbalah, or mystic Christianity - they all go to self-knowledge and Empathy. Or, as I see it, the Golden Rule, or Love your Brother as Yourself. Every person on earth is our brother. When we come to the Self Realization (or self-knowledge as you said above) we have gone beyond the religious 'revelation', imposed from the outside. No amount of reading will find it. We can read about it, but until the experience happens it is just words. Once the inner gulps of Awareness are realized, it becomes the flame of kundalini, the inner awareness, the alchemy of spirit which changes everything. And to talk about it just sounds, well, crazy. To tap into this principle is to tap into the naturally evolving dynamic (or strategy, as you say above, if done intentionally, such as wu-wei) is to allow this principle to happen by getting out of the way. The universe in and of itself will unfold in a perfect way, ultimately - and it is the interference of man as the projector (if he is a contorted projector) that makes it otherwise. From the inside to the outside. Not the other way around. How can we possibly put words on this stuff? It's ineffable. Such folly to even try

Stosh, you win. You have totally exhausted me. Do see the things the way you wish to see them, in negativity, and also see how you life rolls out. Very best to you.

Looks like a wonderful site, but my old brain is too tired to go through it completely. Could you translate your familiarity of this concept to what we are talking about here? That is, if you can figure out what we are talking about here, lol.

One of the sage's 3 treasures is Love.. This indicates to me that he is always going to err on the side of kindness and love. Not love expecting anything in return, just agape love. Sometimes that love has to be cruel in appearance, although never in intent. Sometimes people have to be walked away from, sometimes a person has to be told a truth about himself. The sage knows himself to the core, and consequently he sees the core in others as well. That's the secret. The pony under the manure pile. This gives him the Eyes to see - others with the Eyes to see are capable of seeing each other. Love shines from between their words, their actions. To work wu-wei, if you're able, you know that in Not-Doing while allowing things to arrange themselves in perfect alignment, one must sometimes handle that which comes to him in regard to that dynamic. When the marble of the situation rolls our way, it must always be the highest path of reaction that must be taken - the kindest path - in order for the dynamic to continue to align itself as it wants to if left alone. The tendency of the Dao, of the creative dynamic, is always mutual attraction, or love. The sage knows this, and will not stir the pot to make it any other way. When I find myself in times of trouble Mother Mary comes to me Speaking words of wisdom, Let it Be. Our inner dynamics, our reactions, are always based on either love or fear. The sage knows that the fear dynamic will produce nothing other than extensions of itself - anger, jealousy, pride, excessive ego - all of these. He acts accordingly, that's all. Yes, the sage is by nature kind and gentle. But this does not mean he does not have internalized The Art of War. This he understands too - only he knows that by loving his perceived enemy, by knowing his enemy as he knows himself, he anticipates what the enemy will do and will act before the enemy acts to position himself to be on the high ground when the enemy gets there. He does not revel in the killing. He is the reluctant one, the sorrowful one because killing must be resorted to. But because he sees all things as One, he knows that the Dao favors no man; it is only be working the dynamics of the Dao will the sage be victorious. The softest of things overcomes the hardest. The water will eventually overcome the rock. Love will eventually overcome hatred. Yes, he is kind because he knows that is the most expeditious, that is The Way It Works. It taps into the creative dynamic.

And why wouldn't it possibly be a form of socialism that befitted the sage? I'm assuming you don't see our brand of capitalism as the be-all, end-all. It just couldn't get any worse... Or would the sage like the dog-eat-dog nature of pure capitalism?

Yes, you knew when to stop. My guess is that it was with Nietzsche Touche, as to the age thing. My guess is you're no spring chicken either, lol.

Flowconduit, I think you're merging with Source in Awareness. Like seeing through your top chakras, looking up through them. I think the physical metaphor is standing at the north pole, looking straight up into the aurora borealis. As the gravity of the earth makes the invisible web of consciousness sag like a tennis ball on a volleyball net, the invisible web bunches together at the top, rendering the light photons closer together and visible in beautiful color. I saw something very similar once during an act of tantric sex a few years ago. It placed me in the stream of Consciousness, of the Collective, which can never be put into words but was an experience as real to me as anything on the physical plane. It's actually a place of Home now.

You may want to consider reading more of the Masters. Dancing as we speak :-)

We were getting into a booth in a restaurant the other day. The woman sitting in the booth next to us was wearing a T-shirt, but I only saw the back of it. It was longer than this, but it said something like: I came prepared to fight I came prepared to capture I came prepared to die, But I didn't come prepared to be abandoned. I chuckled and said to her "Oh, that's funny". I honestly thought it was talking about Marriage. What I didn't see was the front of the T-shirt. I found out later that it was a POW / MIA t-shirt. I wrote a Letter to the Editor and tried to apologize to her for my foot-in-mouth mistake. I felt just horrible, it may have pertained to someone close to her. Kind of funny, but really pathetic at the same time.

Apparently I've been dismissed? Until one goes within, the third eye will never be developed. It will always be two-dimensional. A very wise one once said to Wear the World as a Loose Garment. It relates to the straw dog metaphor.

Look at it from the perspective of the Dao, from the inside. I don't think we need to define the straw dog as evil or bad in any way. It just is. Love just is, it is the dynamic, and wu-wei will always engage love if left to its own devices. The straw dog metaphor is that birth or death is not good or bad. The timing of birth or death is not good or bad. To see it with a judgment placed upon it is to continue to see in duality. This won't be resolved unless we all come to the conclusion that time is not actually linear. As long as we see the big bang as something that actually happened eons ago, we will considered that the Dao was something of the past and that it has no pertinence now. But is not the universe continuing to expand from our limited point of view? it's still happening, it's still engaged in expansion. Marbles, I know that you know that when I refer to straw dogs, I am not seeing anything evil or bad. I see through the eyes of love, everything. Even the burglar. Putting a label on the concept of straw dogs, I think, is not helpful. No good, no bad. Just Is-ness. We're like specks of dust in a storm; does it matter when our life starts or stops, as seen from the Dao? (As seen from the individual, of course it does! But as seen by the Dao, the eyes of Oneness? Not at all. That's all I was saying). Metaphysical stuff. The idea beneath the matter.

We're on a Dao website, and so I agree that the only thing we will agree on is that which is contained within the Daoist structure ( more accurately, non-structure). Yes, it is a Rorschach test, even amongst interpreters. The particular interpretation is only as successful as the spiritual advancement of the interpreter, IMO. So in that sense, I cannot explain to you something that has taken me years to understand - both with my outer reading and my inner digging. This is the part where it must be done by self-realization, by each and every one of us alone. To continue to place labels on ourselves is not the answer at all - by the label's nature, it is self-limiting and it tends to dig our heels in when confronted by other opinions, as opposed to perhaps being open minded and integrating the wisdom of others. Actually, I can talk about this stuff forever; it's never really answered. My understanding continues to evolve, day by day, reading by reading, inner awareness by inner awareness. Our life is our chalkboard. I have recently joined the NAACP and the wealth of different experience (and opportunities for compassion and further understanding) are almost overwhelming. But it is a section of my nature that I felt needed to grow; to understand further the experience of an entire section of the population that I had not taken the time to get to know and love previously. What is the purpose of the DDJ? My view, in addition to yours and Marbles' views, is that it also gives us a template to develop the qualities of the sage. To walk our talk. The 3 treasures the sage has (which were born into him originally, but covered up for a time and then remanifested through the inner work and outer knowledge he attained) were, in my internalization of my favorite interpretation, the following: Love, Never be the First, Never too Much. He has attained loving his brother as himself, the love of the All. He has overcome his ego by never being the First, by ridding himself of the thrust of his ego to prove to himself that he's the best; he knows Who He Is (the Dao) and he needn't play ego games any longer, he can sidestep it. And third, he knows Balance, which manifests in Never Too Much. He takes just what he needs, he doesn't obsess over compiling money, which I like to call Stuck Energy - and he flows with the universe and with the conditions that present themselves. He will always take the high road, think the high thought, live in optimism and love of others, being assured that if patient all things will work to the proper end It intends. He knows how to Do without Doing, because he realizes that all things will of their own accord find the alignment that is inherent in the beauty and order of the Dao, if we keep our hands off. But this can't be done without Eyes. The Eyes must be developed. To quit one's job and retreat to the Himalayas is not the point at all, IMO. Maybe something like that is necessary to overcome the illusive involvement we have in life's dynamics, the pressures, the anxieties - but for most Seekers this will only be a temporary tool to be used to quiet the mind, like a forced meditation. To return to the earthly matters and be capable of transcending them and Seeing with long eyes what the dynamics really are is the trick, IMO. To figure out a way to love those who are unlovable. The Dao within me has had me do some strange things in the name of love. One day I walked in on a man, a heroin addict, burglarizing my house. As I was demanding him to empty his pockets and put all my jewelry down on the bed in the room I found him in, he produced a frozen burrito taken from my freezer. My heart melted; I asked him if he was hungry and if I could cook it for him. He said Yes, but would I join him? I pulled out another frozen burrito and we had lunch together. I told him I wouldn't call the police if he listened to what I had to say. I did what they would call in AA or NA a 12th step call on him - telling him he didn't need to live like this any more, etc - no more need to hurt people and I offered to take him to his first NA meeting. Of course, after he left my knees buckled and I hit the floor, but the Power was with me throughout the whole occurrence. We are the Dao. We have a strength within us that is incredible, if we are open to it, and if we follow what our heart is telling us to do at the moment. I don't think there's a way to put into words surmounting the obstacle of the illusion that we are separate. Every master finds himself at the One because he has taken the time to uncover the love, the One-ness within; one defect at a time; there must be many techniques for this. This results in Gnowledge, an assuredness that one is on firm ground, but which can't possibly be put into words. Not another pile of left brained knowledge, but a Aha! of inner awareness. This is the commonality of the Sage, the Yogi, the Bodhisattva, the mystic Christian master, the Rinpoche. The Gnowing. No words, merely a pointed finger at the moon. This is the only comparative explanation I can give, and by it's own internal workings it can only go so far. It must be uncovered, self-realized for the rest of the journey. Nobody can do it for us.

Marbles, the only reason I referred to straw dog is that it refers to the straw dog concept in the DDJ - which is a tome you seem to know and love. In fact, you conduct book studies. Does straw dog mean something else to you other than a ceremonial proxy that was used for ceremonial purposes? It would seem to imply a certain disinterest on the part of the dynamic of the Dao, that's all I'm trying to say. That we're all part of a big cosmic washing machine and it doesn't really matter where and when the straw dog comes into play. We just all have a part to play, that's all. The Dao knows what it's doing - I see the dynamic as still living. Do you see it as dead and withdrawn? By the way, I consider myself an Atheist as well, in the sense that there is nothing Out There floating around in the sky and directing traffic here on earth. We are It, communally and without time constraints. All happening Now. It emanates through us. But Order, not chaos, will prevail and the tendency is always going upwards, toward the light. Despite appearances to the opposite. How many times in your life have you had something happen to you that you considered Bad? but down the road you realized it was the best thing that ever happened to you? This dynamic happens all the time to us, and it is merely our change in focus and understanding that brings us to see it as Good, if one is insistent on persisting with the labels. Or, as I like to say, It's All Good. Our attitudes are merely our choice. They are not the world's reality, just ours. If we want to change our world, we have to change our attitudes and conclusions.

Your statement about not being a straw dog makes me sad. When the Dao says it treats us like straw dogs, it is not referring to the hurt we experience when someone doesn't love us any more. It hurts me when you say this, I feel it in my heart. It is this very type of reward expectation we must cast aside (as you have), but go one step further and realize that this is faux love anyway. True love is to love each and every other person on the face of the earth, expecting nothing in return. Marbles, I have spent 30 years with a bipolar man, and a man that for the first 10 years of our life together would go out on a binge and live in skid row. I am not exaggerating. Skid row. . But because I chose to stick it out for some reason, I have had to change me, not him. The trick is to not label anyone as a jerk and to realize that he or she is merely playing their part in this whole earthly Play - as intended. And that they are actually doing the very best they can, given their past. There is a reason for every thing and dynamic - it is not willy nilly. The Sage doesn't waste any man - he or she is capable of Knowing that individual, because he knows himself to the core. If he knows himself to the core, he knows every other man or woman. Sound arrogant? It isn't - it's the truth - even when the Nazarene said 'Know Thyself', it is this very dynamic he was speaking of. It is how he was able to heal others, because he understood their inner dynamics, because he understood his own. This is the bottom line from which healing others is done, or healing ones' self for that matter. Hitler had his part to play in this dramatic dynamic, as did Mother Teresa. I have heard it said that reversion is the action of the Dao. The Dao can be reverting to nothing other than the One (what else could it possibly be reverting to, unless you take it one further step back and revert to the Void), and it has already been done. Past, present, future are all now. We are merely physical representations of the dynamic in which this is being accomplished. and we all have our part to play, even Hitler. When you speak of the singularity, the bang, hydrogen, helium et al - this is all based on a linear time frame, one after the other. Our minds are only set up to see the linear unless we take the time to meditate, to study the masters, to go within and find the One inside ourselves. It takes all three efforts; without these efforts everything will remain linear in appearance to us. To those who have done the inner delving, the meditating, and the learning of the masters and the potential for going even beyond any particular master - they will discover the other dynamic as well, the perpendicular or vertical to the horizontal. It cannot be described with words - this is that type of learning that is experiential, resulting in the inner Aha's!, the inner gulps of realization. It's not a head thing. It is a self-realization thing, a Gnowing that results from the experiential experience. And all that have had this experiential instruction get down to the same Gnowing, the hub of the wheel - within this lifetime experience at least. And it occurs to me that prior to the singularity was the Void, the latent potentiality, the ideas before they were even formed. This Void remains with us today in the form of Love of the All. When we find this common thread of 'Love of the All' our ride is effortless, worry and anxiety is gone, things are done by not doing at all. To cut ones' self off from the beauty of love is to do ones' self a disservice. This is the Dao in action, the reward for all the effort. It no longer depends on how someone perceives us, whether they are responding to us as we would wish. This is supplanted with a far greater love that doesn't need a particular object (or specific person) to focus on. If it does happen to have a specific person to share this with, fine. If it doesn't, fine. Again, it's the only way I've been able to stick with Joe for 30 years- by accepting him in his ups and his downs. To 'love' him is not to pave the way for him, or to bolster his pillow (or his ego), to make sure he's always comfortable, or to walk on eggs around his anger. Sometimes the most loving thing I can do is go to a movie by myself and just get out of his negative way for the day - to recharge my own batteries. To stop judging his actions and let him be what he will be. Until I learned to do this, it was a life of unrealistic expectation and supreme disappointment in regular intervals. Throw alcoholism in there and his tendency to go to skid row after he took the first drink (although thankfully he hasn't done so in 20 years now), it's not been an easy ride. Perhaps my own weakness and fear of loneliness was the only thing that kept me there. Sometimes I suspect that it was. Or, it could also be that when I make a promise I like to keep it. Either way. I actually find that it's comforting to know we're straw dogs. We're merely an extension of the sun, a ray. It doesn't matter whether the ray is in a state of emanation (life on earth) or whether we're in the Collective (the sun, the mode of death). This is why fear of death is silly. Remember - If men didn't laugh at the Dao, it wouldn't be the Dao. Stosh, I need a little more context to respond to your last statement...

In whose eyes are some good, some bad? That's your evaluation, and maybe others in the world don't share it. that's dual, Marbles... Adolph Hitler no doubt had his fans too. Mother Teresa may have been a pain in the butt for others, challenging the system. It's all relative. It just IS, that's all. We don't need to decide whether it's good or bad, then project it onto everyone else as being Reality. Remember that we are all straw dogs and the Dao probably doesn't give a hang about what period of time an individual manifestation (which is what we are, all manifesting from the One) makes his appearance or leaves the scene. It is all part of the cosmic stream, the cosmic harmony; and it's all HERE and NOW, not linear. To continue to see things as merely linear is to deny the perpendicular vertical line of depth. You're just going with what your eyes tell you, and if that's the case you would believe that the earth is flat. I wouldn't judge the comet hitting the earth. Seriously. I wouldn't. I think that death may be the coolest thing that ever happened to us in our life. I don't go out looking for it, but I'm not fearful of it. This is the shamanic mindset. You know, it might be kind of fun to triangulate different versions of the DDJ and sort this out further depending on what the Dao has to say about it; or at least, we could discuss the difference, as we see them, as to what the Dao is saying. I'm going to give that some thought and maybe start up a thread on this. Love you, brother.

To envision the not-is is to have to acknowledge the unmanifest idea behind the phenomenon. This assumes your starting place as a particular object or condition, and walks it back from there to the unmanifested idea. That's fine - you're right - it is a powerful tool. Castaneda would say this occasionally - to see not only what is there, but what is not-there. Love is a thought and a sentiment - who knows which came first? Maybe the sentiment came first at the beginning, maybe the thought - I don't know. All I know is the state of agape love that is experienced when one can achieve No-Mind at all. This is what is referred to as Adam Kadmon in ancient Freemasonry. The thought of the original man before the man (or evolution of the man) came into existence. The thought was the motivator, and the sentiment of love was the motivator. There is an avatar that someone on this forum has - can't remember who is it! - but the avatar shows a sitting man with light emitting from his eyes, his nose, his ears, etc. This is the metaphor for Adam Kadmon - the original thought-template of Man. it is the I Am consciousness of no-thought, the realization of Who We Really Are; this state necessitates the removal of contortion to achieve it, and the emissions go outward from the I Am into matter and what we call 'reality'. I just reread your post and my reply would be that we're talking about two different types of love here. There is the agape love of the One, of all, of all things as One - and then there is the love, the folly, that we mistakenly keep looking for - the "funny feeling" that we keep trying to run down and hope it's permanent. That type of love or feeling isn't permanent; it comes and goes, sometimes the bads outweigh the goods in the relationship and we go seeking another, thinking that someone 'out there' is just the right one to give us what we seek - that warm fuzzy feeling that makes us feel wonderful. This is a love from a selfish perspective - what can the other person give to me? Agape love, on the other hand, is a permanent condition unless you lose your balance on the ox. It is to love your brother as yourself - even if that brother is in your mind a despicable ay-whole. The motivation is exactly opposite - how can I love my brother better?

Yes, Adolph Hitler is Mother Teresa, only with contortions. They both stem from the I Am, the One. To assume that we only live in the ten thousand things is to assume that the Tao stopped its dynamic after the moment it created the 10,000 things, and that matter is all that is in existence now. There are a zillion masters that would disagree with this. Other jerks would see him as Jerk, because we are all mirrors of each other. One who sees him as Jerk would think that is Reality, but to announce to others that he is a Jerk would be incorrect. One evolved in this line of thought would realize that the best usage of one he sees some Jerk-like qualities in, would be to look for those same qualities in himself and take steps to correct them. He only sees them because he has them. Ego vs. Ego - like Spy vs. Spy, if you're an old Alfred E. Newman fan. This is the quantum physics of it. We are the One and the 10,000 at the same time. We are a particle (matter) and a wave of probability (thought) at the same time. We are the creator and the matter it conjures all at once. This is why the Sage can change the dynamics of things - because he lives in awareness of this. It's sheer sorcery, that's all.