manitou

This.

Yes, I too end up in front of the keyboard far too often too. What I do to get something done that I 'don't have any particular desire to do' is just to make a list of everything that needs to get done. Cross things off the list as they get done. Sorry if this was too simplistic. But nothing feels better than throwing that damn list away after all items are crossed off.

9. Desire only that which is within you. 10. Desire only that which is beyond you. 11. Desire only that which is unattainable. 12. For within you is the light of the world, the only light that can be shed upon the Path. If you are unable to perceive it within you, it is useless to look for it elsewhere. It is beyond you; because when you reach it, you have lost yourself. It is unattainable, because it forever recedes. You will enter the light, but you will never touch the flame. Yogi Ramacharaka follows up these precepts with the following comments: "These four precepts form another of the many paradoxes contained in the wonderful little manual upon which we are commenting. To those who have not found its key, these four precepts seem strangely contradictory and "wild." To be told to desire a thing that is within you - and yet beyond you - and which is unattainable, seems ridiculous to the average man on the street. But, when one has the key, the teachings seem very plain and beautiful. "The four precepts refer to the unfoldment of Spiritual Consciousness - Illumination - which we attempted to faintly describe in our first series of lessons (The Fourteen Lessons). This is the first great attainment before us on the path. It means everything to the occultist at this stage of the journey, for it takes him from the plane of mere "belief" or intellectual acquiescence, on to the plane where he knows that he IS. "It does not endow him permanently with universal knowledge, but it gives him that consciousness of real spiritual existence, compared to which every other experience and knowledge sinks into nothing. It brings one face-to-face (perhaps only for a moment) with the Real Self, and the great Reality of which that Self is but a part. "This state of consciousness is the great prize which is awaiting the efforts of the race to free itself, and it is a reward worth many lives of unfoldment to attain."

Aaron - as one who has also grappled with the 12 steps, you couldn't have put things better. The conscious desire (no, necessity in our particular cases) to go back into our personal histories and try and rectify things which were mangled is a spiritual clearing house extraordinaire, IMO. Once the template for inner examination is acquired, then it seems to stay there forever; causing us to examine our behavior daily. LOL, since doing this, I sure put out a whole lot less bad 'karma', or cause and effect, or whatever you want to call it. Life has gotten pretty darned pleasant for Joe and I, both recover-ers.

The way we're talking about stress, it's like it's a floating entity out there. From my perspective, stress is non-acceptance of a condition. We may not accept that condition because of our own personal conditioning; whether that conditioning be from childhood, or attitudes we adopted from our careers, or attitudes and religious beliefs we hold dear because our folks told us this in the beginning. Or maybe stress tied to ourselves not being good enough, like we need to do more and more work and earn more and more money to prove to ourselves (by proving to others) that lo and behold, here we are, big and powerful. I think the masters of any tradition would hold that to erase stress is not by changing outer conditions, but inner conditions. If stress is caused by impatience, then impatience is what needs to be worked on. We can go out of our ways to go practice standing in lines. More yin, less yang, or vice versa. If I'm always feeling stressed because I think people are always judging me, then it's because I'm judging others to that same degree. I can do something about that. I can try and insert Love rather than Judgment when I see others. If I'm stressed because I'm late for something like an appointment, and I'm tempted to drive 80 mph to get there, we also have the choice of going into the mindset of "All Time and Space is Ours", by tapping into the eternal. By getting into the Oneness and stilling the mind. I can then slow down, breathe deeply, look at the fall color, and realize that because All Time and All Space is Mine, that conditions will be exactly as they are supposed to be when I get there. It eliminates the element of fear (fear of being late for some reason) and puts one in the Be Here Now mindset, which is where the Sage, Buddha, the Nazarene, and all the gang reside. My assumption of what is going to happen because I am going to be late may be completely wrong anyway, and Serendipity may well step in and change things up a bit.

Aaron - I too have virtually no memories of childhood, so many are blocked, every once in a while a new one emerges. Looking at it from a substance abuse perspective, which is common to you and I, we know we've done some damage to our brain cells in the past. I too get blackouts of a type - and I've been sober 30 years. Mine are more of the brown-out variety, like where I'll be driving somewhere and then forget totally where I'm going and why I'm in the car at all. This is nasty going on freeways at 70 mph. All I can do is stay in the lane until orientation returns. I'd love to tell my doctor about this, but I know he'd have to report this to the motor vehicle dept. and I'd have to give up my drivers license. I don't feel quite ready for that yet, although my hand may be forced on that in the future. I get little snippets of memories too, like being in the shower with my father when I was about 5. I do recall seeing him in a state of erection. There is nothing beyond that memory. Everything has been blacked out. Maybe one day I'll see the reason my psyche has retained that snippet of memory, but I'm pretty sure it won't be anything I really want to see. and, as a retired cop, I'm no fool. something happened. I think folks like you and me, us recovering ones and all who suffered trauma in their early years, must be patient with our integration into the real self. We were dealt a tough hand in life, but the beauty of it is that the other side of the coin is an ability to tap into the eternal, once the demons are exorcised. Those who live closer to the golden mean throughout their life would need to experience a different path toward the eternal. But this one seems to be ours, for some reason. Please don't feel like the lone ranger on this one.

Fatguyslim - how pertinent your questions seem to be, and your quest for true companions of the Way is something I crave as well. I too believe that the Te in Tao Te Ching does involve the inner work. There are plenty who can talk about Te, but the words have not come alive yet. This all seems to be within the Tao's timing within each of our lifetimes. In my particular case, the Te part came before I even knew the TTC existed. It came through my crashing alcoholism and the subsequent working of the steps of recovery. By the time I found the TTC, the inner alchemy part was well underway. It continues to this day, and I expect will continue until I slip out of this skin. I think that within each life there are opportunities presented to us to go within and straighten ourselves out, align our mindsets with that of the Tao, the action of reversion to the One. Love always lies at the bottom of our actions, even if love means something different in each circumstance. The inner alchemy removes the false shell of ego that we've developed over the years; only the problem is that the false shell is all contorted starting with the lies we were handed as kids. We had not much choice but to accept the mindsets of our parents. Maturity is to question that which was shoved down our young throats; maturity is to question the religion we had strapped on us as kids. Maturity within the Tao is to know that within each person, regardless of how seeming evil or unkind, lies a shining lump of gold. The unkind man would have a serene and balanced life if he chose to go within and eliminate the unkind elements of his personality. And realization that we all have that lump of gold at the pit of our Essence is to realize that we are all brothers; we are all part of the same Entity, the gold. The pure. The shining. It's like we're a zillion-armed creature that emits nothing but love and wisdom when we've cleaned ourselves out and allowed it to shine.

wow, Vortex. That's getting out there. I love your vision and your triangulation. Any number of possibilities, and the results of a quantum brain, as I see it.

Yes, I agree with every word of this. Motherly force is a wonderful image, and one that includes the concept of love within in. Somehow 'love' and 'mutual attraction' are the same within her cosmic weave. The other side of the coin seems to be that the rain falls equally upon all.

but that's the very thing that I'm going for. To be willing to be human soup without being afraid of being human soup. The Tao doesn't care which of us lives and dies - we're all straw dogs. I'm not looking for death; rather, I wish to become friendly with it. It also helps me to help others to cross over; if understanding is gained then fear is diminished. I know I'm way out there. Thanks for your tolerance, everyone and Everything.

It occurred to me one day that I seem to be fragments of just about everyone I've ever met in my life. Almost like I'm really nothing more than a collection of everyone else's personality threads. Sometimes I'll say something and I'll think 'Wow - that's just what my old police partner would have said', or someone else who had an impact on me. I have adopted traits from so many people, I can't even count. They've always been there; but now I can See them. Before I could see them, I was just a part of them without knowing. I have a little Barbie too - and I seem to slip in and out of the little Barbie mindset daily as conditions permit. The other mindset is an actual mature older person. My guess, as a proponent of the inner work, is that if your memories keep taking you back to the same place and time, that there's something there for you to look at. I can't help but believe that your twin-ness is the very thing that causes little Aaron to come out of you and tell you you're really here. There are very deep connections with twin-ness that result in a feeling of being only half a person, etc. If this is something that is bothering you particularly at this time, maybe you could try getting your mind off it and maybe building something? Something that takes you out of yourself and affirms your own personhood. Something you could be real proud of when you're finished. A painting? A piece of furniture? This will help affirm your own I-ness and sort of 'trick your soul', which is something we can do. I think your memories are leading you further into integration of self.

That's kind of what makes it fun. Knowing that you're breaking the law at the same time you're whizzing through space with your eyes closed. Adds that extra element of danger. I say leave the camel loose.

Hi songs! Nice to see you! What a great query. Getting old and decrepit. I spend a bit of time in an old folks home too because my 86 year old mother is there. I think the worst of it is the depression that seems to waft throughout the place. sure, the staff is wonderful, and they have programs all the time for the seniors. But most of them, including my mother, are just depressed beyond belief. If she's not down in the dining room, which she does twice a day, she's up in her room laying on the couch with her arm crossed over her eyes. It's like she's just...waiting to die. What an incredible difference from the way elders were treated tribally or in extended family settings. Today's families tend to be small in the US - provisions and plans for taking the elder in with the rest of the family have gone by the wayside; the whole industry of elder care is one that is growing. I think the reason elders in these places feel so lost is because they have no function any longer. If an elder were utilized as a babysitter within a tribe or extended family, the elder would still feel useful, even if their capacities had diminished. But the elders of today, including my mom, have not much to live for in that sense. At least the ones living in Mom's place - and there's nothing wrong with that place. It's beautiful, the food is great, etc. It's her mindset. On a more personal basis, my short term memory is going. I'm following her right into dementia, and I'm okay with it. But I've found that even though my short term memory is closing in on me, my ability to think abstractly is expanding, strangely enough. I can get way out there, see things from all different angles, triangulate. But I can't tell you what I had for breakfast. If any of us morph into masters along this road, we'll know because the child comes back. Hence the metaphors about the master and the fool being the same; in one sense, the master is the fool. He just doesn't take seriously everything that everyone else does. He can see beyond that. People regard him as nebulous and dense because he doesn't 'see the big picture' in their minds. In essence, he sees an even larger picture in which fear doesn't come into play. If you think about it, the dementia thing is only a problem for those around the one with dementia. Once in a great while the dementia can be the other side of the coin of an enlightenment of sorts. The master takes pains over his lifetime to learn to Be Here Now and take in the whole thing. The elder with dementia does the same - they are totally Here Now, often because they allow their mental lives to become miserable. This could be a wonderful time in their lives, although the medical problems certainly come into play. The mindset is the thing. To be in a 'warehouse' with a more enlightened and positive view could be a hell of a lot of fun. I'm actually looking forward to it in the not too distant future. What seems to hover over the elders in the Townehouse (mom's place) is also a sense of unfulfill-ment. Lives not lived up to expectations (theirs or someone else's). They have PLENTY of time to reflect back (if they still can) and see what went wrong. But unfortunately unless they've found a way to utilize this self-knowledge (if they're lucky) it will remain in a continual state of blame of others for their condition at the present time. This is what I see, and this is what I hear when I sit down and talk to just about anyone in there. There are one or two in there that have a ball. One lady dances with herself all over the room when someone comes in to play the piano. she loves it. But you should hear how the rest of 'em talk about her, like she's from outer space. They don't like her, she's too much of a 'free spirit' for their comfort zone. I don't know about other places, but negativity goes around her place like a flu. But I'd like to address something else too. When we find the Path inward, something does happen to us. Don Juan Mateus would tell this to Castaneda. When the warrior starts to appear within, the body starts changing. I can attest to this wholeheartedly. My whole life I've struggled with my weight. Always. Never huge, but never slim. Chunky. When I was 'captured' by the Toltec path and I started to get into it, my weight just went down. My hair and nails are growing faster than they've ever grown before too. I'm healthier than I've been since I was a teenager. My skin is looking great. Something happened. Yes, I think a master of any sort could have a ball growing older. It's all in our choice of mindset. I look forward to my demented days at the Townehouse, probably, and will be playing the keyboard daily for the other dements.

She was awesome in her unflappability, lol. That was one hysterical analogy. Yes, I should shout out left and right directions to him while blindfolded. It would totally deplete me of any residual fear of death.....

This doesn't qualify as magic, probably, or maybe it does. It was the direct result of a Tao mindset. I don't expect anybody to believe this. It's too incredible. But it happened just like this. Last summer, there was a little black stallion living across the highway from me and down about 1/4 mile. I would walk down there daily and give him a carrot, scratch his ears, and sometimes run back and forth with him along the corral fence so that he would get some exercise. On this one occasion he got really excited that we were playing, and he ran the length of the corral and sailed over the fence. I was panicked, I was sure he'd get hit by traffic. Sure enough, he crossed the highway and went to a 100 acre farm and started running. I could hear his hoof beats retreat way into the distance. At that point, I crossed the highway and hurried up a small hill to see if I could see where he'd gone. I could hear his hoof beats coming back some minutes later. sure enough, he was headed back my way at full speed. He ran huge circles around me at top speed, just playing with me. At that moment, I remembered the Tao. I set my intent on roping him, although I didn't have a rope and wouldn't know how to use one if I had it. I emptied my mind of all fear and anxiety, started breathing deeply, and just hoped that there was a memory somewhere in his horsey brain that would remember being roped. It was that I wanted to tap into. I held a large pretend rope and started swinging it. I threw it out towards him and then pretended that I was a cowboy coming up on him, pulling the rope closer and closer. IT WORKED! He stood in one spot. But then my next problem was how to get him back across the highway. I put my fist down at the base of his neck, between his shoulders, as though I was holding him tightly with a bridle and rope. He marched alongside me just as though I had him tightly gripped, and he even arched his neck as though he was being held tightly. I got him back across the highway, stopping traffic. But he was being taken by an invisible halter and invisible rope. When we got back to his corral, I could see that there was an old cable of some sort laying out in the woods. I wanted to get him over to the cable so I could contain him in a real way. The funny thing is, that the closer I got to the cable with him, the more anxious I got. My confidence with the invisible rope eroded when I saw the real cable. Fear crept in. And sure enough, as soon as the fear started creeping in, the horse pealed off to the side and no longer stayed with me. Luckily there was a patch of grass that he was more interested in, so he stayed off the highway until I could run and get the cable over his neck. 'Pretending' seems to be a pretty powerful magic trick if it's done with full confidence, which I had at first. When the confidence started to erode, so did the magic rope. But all came out well.

to remove fear from my life I use love on everything. I also embrace death by picking up road kill and placing it back in the life cycle. The fear of death seems to be at the bottom of all fears - when death is understood as the process that it is, it takes the fear out of it, and everything else. One of the exercises I regularly use is when my husband is driving I remove my seat belt, close my eyes, and surrender totally to his driving, lol. Not that it's that bad, it's just that when you can't see what's coming up it can be pretty scary. Whenever he swerves to the right, I pretend that I'm here and in body. When he makes a left turn, I pretend that I'm dead and out of body. The switch is made instantaneously, almost like you're flying. Because we live on such winding streets it's quite a trip, in and out of here-ness. But if you think about it, this gives you a recognizable template that will be familiar to you at the moment of death; to have that familiarity with death, at least knowing what to expect to some degree, removes fear. Befriend death. As Castaneda would say, use it as an advisor. To 'love' everything is to accept the fact that It is evolving, and It knows what it's doing. Believing the universe is really a friendly place and it can be trusted to always be evolving upward, despite occasional appearances to the contrary.

Hi - that was probably one of my 10% comments, I did make it recently. My crazy theory, regardless of how much of our brain we use at any one time, is that somehow our communal consciousness is connected via our brains; and that somehow we communally manifest what is going on out there. I have absolutely nothing to back this up with other than intuition. When we get down to the 'I-ness' of ourselves, my guess is that your I-ness and my I-ness are one and the same. Thanks for being kind about not sidetracking the thread. But it probably would have been pretty appropriate for more discussion!

One time I read in a newspaper a column by Marilyn Savant, who was asked "What is the best way to get to know yourself?" Her answer was "Go alone to a country whose language you don't speak and try to get along." What an incredibly wonderful idea! One would have to depend entirely on one's own resources, almost like a survival sort of thing. My suggestion to anyone seeking inner clarity would be to start with today. At night, look back over the day and see EXACTLY WHAT PART YOU PLAYED IN EVERYTHING. Arguments, spats, anything. Then zoom up and out of yourself, if you're capable, and see yourself for what you really are, but without a self-pitying emotion. Some call this the Christ-consciousness. The easiest way is to assume that you possess every single character foible in the world; then it just becomes a question of to what degree. No emotion is involved when the Christ-consciousness is obtained. When you discover that within yourself that clouds your inner lens, then act to the opposite. If there's someone that you hate, find a way to love them; even if it's only in your own mind. The consciousness we seek is one in which we have the choice to see things either with emotion or without emotion, as it says in the TTC. Transcendence brings otherwise hidden things into view, which can then be dealt with by going into the dynamic back to childhood, usually, and effecting the change.

I have many years of walking this dependent relationship path. My husband and I are both recovering alkies; but two alcoholic personalities living together is nearly impossible in the long run. We've actually made it work for nearly 30 years but only because of the Alanon concept of learning to Stay In Your Own Lane. By staying in your own lane, you depend more on yourself. What Joe does or doesn't do definitely affects me at first; but then there is a minor adjustment that takes place in the psyche and it's possible to detach from the behavior of your partner. I think a lot of why we get irritated at our partners (dependent relationship or not) is because our Egos are tied up with who we are with. We tend to think that we are judged by the person we're with. Upwardly mobile or downwardly mobile, speaking spiritually or economically. No, by nature most of us don't want the other to be free. We want the other person to bow to our agenda and 'make us happy' all the time. Spiritual advancement results in a lessening of this tendency and an ability to see the Essence of the other person despite the outward appearances or behaviors. And of course, if someone gets to the point of Oneness, then one experiences love for all, regardless of how badly they're behaving.

Damn good balance, I would say

double post

I just entered the 8th precept on Mabel Collins' 'Light on the Path' book written around 1900, up in the Vedanta section. This precept addresses this specific reference to power we're talking about in this thread. The words couldn't be better said, I don't think.... 8. Yet stand alone and isolated, because nothing that is embodied, nothing that is conscious of separation, nothing that is out of the eternal can aid you. Learn from sensation, and observe it; because only so can you commence the science of self-knowledge, and plant your foot on the first step of the ladder. Grow as the flower grows, unconsciously, but eagerly anxious to open its soul to the air. So must you press forward to open your soul to the eternal. But it must be the eternal that draws forth your strength and beauty, not desire of growth. For in the one case, you develop in the luxuriance of purity; in the other, you harden by the forcible passion for personal stature.

Okay, no bites. So I'm just going to keep rattling on from my own limited perspective. Kill out all sense of separateness. Kill our feeling of terminal uniqueness. If we buy the Oneness thing, then this all makes sense. We are all One entity, one discovers after years of inner work has been done. I like to imagine that we are all laying down on the sun, on our backs. (Ouch, I know). We have a cloudy lens that, if it were cleared up, would allow the sun's rays to extend through us and out into the universe. It is our choice within this lifetime whether we want to go to the trouble of cleaning the lens or not. There are lots of ways to do this; but without doing it in some way, the clarity will never occur and the sun's ray will never be able to shine through you. Killing out sense of separateness also involves subjugating ego. We love to feel that we are terminally unique, that there's no one else like us. Sure, that's true to a point, but the inner Essence that the seeker finds turns out to be a communal phenomena which is all connected, one to another. Kill out desire for sensation. Throughout the many years I've been involved in the Search, it's easy to get sidetracked by the things that do produce sensation. Visions are nice, lucid dreams are nice, kundalini rising is nice to know it's happening to you, but not always so nice to live with. Many meditations are geared toward causing sensational results 'out in space', as it were, but it's my opinion that it's easy to get distracted with what all the funny little things the body and mind can do; I'm just a firm believer in doing inner mining and finding that lump of gold that sits at the bottom of all the personality contortions. Kill out the hunger for growth. Wow, does that apply to the TaoBums, or what? Our egos get all involved when we banter back and forth, and I think this has two sides to it too. On one hand, our communal consciousness is spiraling up; at least, I 'feel' at some level that it is. I think what's done that is the fact that we all come from different starting points and our ideas bounce off one another, leading the evolution ever upward. The other side of this, though, is that our periodic ego-contests are the very tools that we can use to subjugate ego, to our benefit. Maybe to periodically swallow our ego, not say something unkind that we initially want to post to someone who disagrees with us. What funny critters we are....competitive little smurfs. I won't comment on precept 8, as it's so very clear on its surface. But I am particularly taken with the last sentence: "For, in the one case, you develop in the luxuriance of purity; in the other, you harden by the forcible passion for personal stature". Wow. The lens will never clear up by forcible passion for personal stature.

I agree. The do-gooder is someone to look out for. The do-gooder has their own agenda and idea of what is good and what is bad. One book which I read at least yearly is The Impersonal Life, by Anonymous. (Later determined to be Joseph Benner). It helps one understand the concept of non-judgment as far as good and bad is concerned. It also says that it takes an EXTREMELY wise person to know 'exactly what it is that another person really needs'. Look at poor Lindsay Lohan. Her attorney was interviewed a couple days ago and of course is doing everything in his power to keep his client out of jail (apparently she wasn't comfortable doing her community service at the morgue). In his view, he said "I have to do what's best for my client." What baloney. If he were a wise man, he would realize that the very best thing for his client is to spend a couple months behind bars so the reality would really sink in. That poor child is going to die because of all the enablers around her. Yes, the do-gooders have an agenda. I think the real agenda is to make themselves feel 'better than' those whom they are doing 'good' for. Another example: my aunt, here in Ohio, participates in a food give-away through their church. Plenty of people come in off the street and get something to eat, and can look for some clothes. My dear Christian auntie will take with her a can of Lysol and spray down the counter each time one of the street people (who may not smell so good) comes and goes. The other church ladies get a kick out of it, and dear Auntie makes a bit of a show about doing this. She told me that the other church ladies are very grateful to her because they didn't want the smell of the street people in their fellowship hall. I would think that the fact that dear Auntie does this in front of the other street people who are waiting would be absolutely humiliating to those people. But this sort of goes to what I was saying above: the nice church ladies are more concerned about earning their way into their heaven, it seems, than being concerned about the feelings of the downtrodden they are serving. I see it as a self-serving endeavor that makes them feel really good about themselves.

Going back to the concept of karma, the mongrel part of my spiritual upbringing is that IT IS ALL HAPPENING HERE NOW. Perhaps this is why I don't see reincarnation at odds with Taoism. The concept of yin / yang is perhaps another face of reincarnation. Once again, though, you have to take time out of the equation to see it.