manitou

Have you read his books?

Another fun thing to think about is music. I can easily bring my Native American flutes and a rattle or two. Anyone else do anything small? I'm assuming the string bass is out (never sure if it's bass or base). Please no one post a picture of a fish.

We're getting close, lol.

Maybe it would be good to have a sort of informal seminar of our own - a loosely arranged topical meeting/discussion each day at a particular time and place. Something pertinent, how Daoism can be applied to something. Or maybe those of us with particular skills or talents can be a speaker for a short time. Lots of possibilities. I'd be willing to talk about Science of Mind healing and triangulation of the malady or condition. Maybe someone else bagua, I ching, artistry, etc.

I'm guessing there's plenty of us who would be willing to chip in to get you there. Yes!!!! Please sign me up! I can't think of anything more wonderful. I think a house or two would be great - more conducive to extemporaneous conversations.

Does anyone else see the irony on the sign on top of the building?

I have come to love this part of the DDJ. Although it seems cruel, it is actually comforting. There is no individualization, and this removes the "Why Me?" part of tragedy (and fortune, for that matter). We are the manifestation of the Dao, that's all. The Dao has no preference as to who's Good or who's Bad. The rain falls equally upon all. So contrary to the seeming stratification within society. Which is why I know that stratification is so very wrong. (Okay...not 'wrong' because that would be a judgment too - substitute un-Dao-like) and it also tells me that it doesn't matter one whit where or when we are born or die. It's all part of an endless ribbon of seeming Time - but there is no start and no ending. We've always been, we're here now, we always will be. What's to fear? We're straw dogs.

Pablito, is that you??? Great video - and a good metaphor when the stairs increase in size that the path is so much more than it seems at first.

What an excellent analysis, Nikolai! What has struck me about the Castaneda path is that you can never convince anyone whom the path didn't 'grab' just how incredibly viable that path is, regardless of the man that Castaneda may have evolved into. But if the path did grab you, it grabs you in a serious way (and I truly mean grabbed; my husband was on the Castaneda path, I was on a different one, and his path literally reached out and grabbed me in the strangest ways). Before long I was entrenched in it. But evolution continued, and I no longer needed the structure of the Toltec path to guide me after a few years. I do continue to use Native American ceremony in healings, because it separates one moment from the next, it designates a piece of ground as being holy or special, and it adds just enough strangeness to the mind of the one being healed (hopefully) that it totally dislodges their assemblage point, as Carlos would say. It makes all things seem possible to them; healing is truly in the mind of the believer.

Seems like he stepped back from the knowledge placed before him with regularity. It was always too much for him. Remember how several times he had decided that he never wanted to see that old fool again, as long as he lived? And then, sure enough, a year later he'd find himself down in Mexico one more time, looking him up or "running into him"... I sometimes wonder if the suicide thing at the end wasn't actually the ability of he and a few others to step into a lucid dream and take up residence there? Who's to say it wasn't? I was always very impressed that don Juan was able to invoke a lucid dream at will, it seems - and bring Carlos into it. Now that's talent, a mutual lucid dream. What mind control.

Which one of us finds a structure and sticks with it? The years I spent with don Juan in my head were some of the most awesome years of my life. Magic seemed to happen everywhere. I never got into the magical passes because after becoming K-active my gift with kundalini was in the healing arts. I had no use for more structure. But his ideas about self stalking and impeccability remain with me as a practice to this day. Which one of us doesn't 'take what he wants and leave the rest' when it comes to any of these paths, including Taoism or Buddhism? Or mystic Christianity? Once we find what we are looking for (more accurately, once the Absolute is able to manifest through us to the degree we're destined) to remain in any kind of structure is to be obstructing the Absolute. IMO it's all Mind anyway, and if Castaneda was clever enough to make all that up and interweave the incredible Toltec wisdom contained therein, then more power to him! What does it matter which vehicle he used, a Ford or a Chevy? Once the hub of the wheel is found one can reach into any of the spokes and understand, converse, and be of one mind.

Oh Enlightened One! You have found the answer, assuming the artist had an illumined mind (or even if he didn't, the Absolute within him was expressing itself) It came to me this morning as I first woke up. The man at the river does already have electricity running through him, only he doesn't know it. He is fearful to step into the water because he doesn't know what will happen. He if fearful of life, and he is even more afraid of death. Much like us? The River is a metaphor for both the phenomenon of Life and of Death. Once he realizes who he Is he will not be afraid to cross anything any more, even death's threshold.

If you were referring to piano practice, that really would be a big deal, lol.

If someone here in the States told us to Use Less Power there would be hotheads everywhere demanding to use as much power as they darn well want, after all, it's their God-given right. And then they'd go to a mega-church and celebrate Jesus' birthday or something.

As crazy as the massive rubber duckie floating around the rivers of Pittsburgh?

Did anyone catch the fact that the men in Hagar's link are all walking in the same direction? (the exception being the fellow on the other side of the river, holding up the wires). Maybe he's stopped because he's afraid he'll get electrocuted if he steps into the water. It's not lost on me that the are holding up electricity; what better metaphor for the man/creator symbiosis?

Life could be said to be the thorn patch. It's through adversity that the rough edges are filed off by repeated exposures to the thorns, resulting in the blooming of the soul into connection with The Absolute. It could also be said that the Sage, once a Sage, is not harmed by environment, as it says in the DDJ, differently said in each translation. This is the Principle of the thorn protecting the rose from predators perhaps; the thorn too is the manifestation of the Idea of the Rose (the Idea of the Thorn doesn't manifest the Rose, it's the other way around). The Sage manifests safety to surround his Beauty. The attributes of The Absolute are Beauty, Truth, Self Knowledge. We are the Absolute's reflection, as the rose above. Or is it the principle that the Truth is not found in judgment of things as being Good or Bad, Hurtful or Pleasant? 9th - as to your avatar. I'm wondering at the symbolism, which I am sure you intend to be there. Is it the principle of reversion, the reversion of the Dao? The body of matter returning to its end, the beginning? Or is it symbolic of the spiritual alchemy which takes place, the Christ Consciousness, once the holy grail has been found by a seeker? Or is it Matter reverting to the flame of the sun caused by the gravity of the natural order of things? The end of our journey and the onset of another? Or is it just a pretty picture?

My guess is you are increasing in more and more wisdom. You're right. It's all good.

Now this really is funny. Look at the condition of the roads going to the mountaintops where the bridge lies. You could go about 70 mph across the bridge but would have to slow down to about 5 mph to get down the hill to the neighboring town. Something just Ain't Right there, in Ohio-speak. I just got it. It's the perfect metaphor for Being Here Now. Past, present, future are all caught up in the same journey.

LOL. Really, LOL.

You're getting quite metaphoric in your old age, Chi Dragon Your photographic postings on this thread and the other thread remind me, in a large and general way, of the microcosm / macrocosm phenomena. Our bodies, the earth, and the cosmos reflect the same principles. In the first picture, the road meanders with the curves of the earth. If that mountain range were here in the States we would have built a huge suspension bridge to bypass the curves, making the trip from point A to point B do-able in about 5 minutes. Because the West is obsessed with time, we often see time as the enemy. How to cram more Day into 12 hours. I've been to China and recall the sweetness of going with the flow, reflected in the manifestations of the roads, the architecture, the simplicity of the people (we're not talking downtown Shanghai here); how often Mother Earth is acknowledged as a partner in the is-ness of their being, reflected in most everything. Maybe this is only because China didn't rise financially until fairly recently and there was no expendable stuck energy with which to crunch Time. But now the West being on the comparative decline and China has the stuck energy. How strange. Our roads and bridges, because we no longer have the financial resources we used to, are on the decline. Nature is taking its course, gravity affecting our ignored bridges, rust accumulating in our old vacant factories and railroad tracks. Accumulating money seems to be at the root of the problem. The more stuck energy we have at our disposal, the more we like to insulate ourselves from the Mother. no more worrying about sleeping on the land; no more worrying about the weather, because we have big sturdy houses to insulate ourselves. The weather no longer matters as much because we have cars to insulate our travels and crunch time. We have lost touch with the living, breathing creature that is the Mother. The ancients, prior to Copernicus, even saw the rising of the sun, moon, and stars as a living thing, their actions of the heavenly bodies voluntary, not cyclical and automatic. Which is why the heavenly bodies were implored to keep coming back; my guess is that the original 'worship' of the sun was a function of our fear, not love; fear that it wouldn't come back after the winter months. So yes - let nature take its course. It is the only way returning to the One can be achieved; by seeing through all of man's "accomplishments" to be seen as they really are: fear of lack, fear of time, fear of death.

I'm seeing 'Judge not lest ye be judged' as a thread which interweaves this discussion. This works on several levels. Maybe the ultimate mindset is to see no differentiation between one object and another; apparently it isn't in the cards for us to actually walk through this illusion by doing that. But we can see each other as ourselves. We can get to the point where we give the other's interests the same importance as our own, because we know that the other person is merely us, but with an illusive apparent boundary. Easier said than done, certainly; but something to shoot for more and more every day. And to truly do this involves the temperance of ego. Trying to not judge (and assumedly getting better at it the more often we practice this) also serves the benefit of not feeling judged by others. I see this as a yin-yang of sorts. It seems to work proportionately; the more judgmental we are, the more judgmental we assume others are toward us. A other-side-of-the-coin direct relationship, as I see it.

When we've attained the state of no-mind, it is necessary only to sit in the chair of the I Am to see clearly. All things fall into place. Things are perceived in perfect alignment and the inner heart of the subject is seen clearly. The I Am cannot be experienced with thoughts going through the mind. The duality, or the Two, comes after the One; the duality sexually reproduces into the Three, and ad infinitum. It occurred to me the other day that the reason that human icons throughout the ages are reputed to be born from virgins is because this implies asexual reproduction, as the zygote and cell division. The division of the One into Two. Everything beyond the One is sexual, of matter. The illusion of time is born when the One manifested as matter. The template for All, the original idea of all objects, is un-manifest within the void. When we can sit in the chair of the I Am in our consciousness, all paths of spirit can be seen clearly. All paths can be reached into and understood, the capability to speak to another within their own path is attained. It is as though the I Am is the hub of the wheel wherein all paths come to the center and their prime essence overlays one with the other. Or not.

Mal - I didn't realize you were trudging along with the Hua Hu Ching. I haven't been looking around the site much - more involved with single conversations and threads. I'll find the time to go back and check some of your previous quotes out... Regarding the first quote: I think a good way of looking at this is to look at the fear of death. I think the fear of death is necessarily in play unless and until we can actually 'feel' the illusion of time and the realization that yesterday, today, and tomorrow are all happening Now. Yesterday someone asked me, 'Are you afraid of death?' I told them No - but his mind is contained in a religious box and it would have done no good to try and explain my lack of fear to him, beyond just saying No. I did mention that my soul has Always Been, is Here Now, and Will Always Be, so what's to fear? To me, this sums it up. We are always OKAY, regardless of what's happening to us or around us. Even when we're involved in a scary accident or something, have you ever noticed that it never seems to hurt when the accident actually happens? I've noticed that phenomena - we only Fear that it's going to hurt. It may hurt later, when our mind starts thinking that it Should Hurt, after all. Regarding the second quote: I think the reality is the Unmanifest intent, the unmanifest idea, the unmanifest potentiality. Where the Void lives. At the time of the Big Bang (or whichever current theory is holding water these days) it all turned into illusion. 'Time', or the illusion of it, began. Light was created,, clumps of energy created matter, which produced shadow. The interweve of both. The yin-yang. Yes indeed, clarity is close at hand. It lies under our ego and the illusion that we are separate from anything, including each other.

I thought it would be a wonderful topic for General Discussion to discuss and triangulate various quotes of Plato, metaphysician extraordinaire. The first quote is the following: "And isn't it a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is? For I assume that by knowing the truth you mean knowing things as they really are." (Plato) Does anyone want to discuss this quote? Let's give it a go -