manitou

My point is, would the sage define himself as a target? Would he not see the circumstances as those that are supposed to be, those which his inner self needs for further development? This is at the heart of Oneness and the mindset of the sage. We're all targets all of the time, if we choose to worry about the intentions of what someone else is doing to us. If we instead look at it as part of the Whole Enchilada and realize that the very best defense is Love in each and every case, then the dynamic turns around and we have a choice of how to respond. As I mentioned in an other thread, I walked in on a burglary once. Because I chose to handle it with Love rather than Fear I ended up cooking a frozen burrito for the guy and talking to him. This is what I'm talking about. Where your mind makes no distinction between good and bad, evil intent or not. Love is always the answer. I'm not saying I ended up 'loving' the burglar. I'm just saying something inside me told me to handle it at the highest level I was capable of at the time. Love seemed to dictate to cook a burrito for him. Worrying about being a target of anyone is to step into paranoia. Even if they ARE out to get you, so what? Receive it with Love and turn it around as the Sage would. It's just a slightly higher level of existence. Plus, your assumptions about the intent of those around you may be wrong. First of all, folks probably don't act out of evil intent to you, K. They're probably just looking out for themselves and it rubs up against your intent or your plans. The process of going in to self, self-realization, gets rid of this fear and this distinction. It really can be done. I do it every day, and it works. Take one day at a time, field everything with love, if you can stay in the mindset; if you can't stay in the mindset, there's more inner work to be done.

Dang Otis, you're right. It was a M-F'er. I almost think it was easier for me to start to feel a little compassion for these fellows toward the end of my career was because a detective's heart gets hardened to what we have to see. I had to learn to talk about these things as emotionless as I could - a judgmental attitude would serve no purpose, particularly when trying to extrapolate an admission. However, at one point I realized that I was actually starting to believe my compassionate words - because compassion is one thing a female detective is usually pretty good at, and it does become a tool, sorry to say. At some point I actually started trying to understand, ugly as it was.

Okay, I've got Old Man Yutang on my lap. He says Out of life, death enters. The organs of life are thirteen The organs of death are (also) thirteen. What send man to death in this life are also (these) thirteen. How is it so? Because of the intense activity of multiplying life. Then he has a footnote by the thirteen in the second line: 'According to Han Fei, the four limbs and nine external cavities. Another orthodox reading is "three tenths," but this makes less sense.' Sounds like he's not totally sold on either nuance of interpretation.

But K - right here - if you choose to believe you are a target you are choosing to be a victim.

I don't think it's a blame thing. I think it's more a self-realization thing.

I have no knowledge of the reference of the 13, although I do know that it is considered a sacred number. This just wasn't my path. But I think that Castaneda (my path) would interpret this as having no Fear of death as well. When the fear is gone and death is embraced as the natural life phase that it is, this is the vibratory frequency that keeps one safe from harm. I've had enough close shaves within the past several years that I've been in 'consciousness' that I'm actually starting to believe there's something to this.

If all is One, then we all have Mother Theresa and Jeffrey Dahmer both inside us. I think that looking at despicable people with a "There but by the grace of God go I..." is a mindset that goes a long way to developing compassion. I spent many years as a police detective in a large city. My field of expertise was rapes, sex crimes, child molestings. After talking with countless rapists and molesters, I definitely noticed that very often the rapist or molester would be attracted to a child of the same age that he was when he himself was molested by his uncle or someone. Molestation is the gift that just keeps on giving, down through the years. I began to wonder at what exact age we stop being compassionate for the poor child who is molested; and start hating him because he sooner or later becomes the molester. I think the trick is in finding a way to be non-judgmental and try not to have an opinion at all. It just is. That's all. When our inner work has been done and we've become capable of seeing through non-judgmental eyes, that's more the vision of the sage.

There's a fairly simple thing to do if you want to see things manifest differently in your lives. Every night, stop and look back over your day. Look honestly at the part you played in everything that happened. Any arguments? If there were arguments, what were you protecting? Your valuable opinion? Your pride? Step aside from yourself if you can. See the event for what it really was. Look under the event; look at your own character with no judgment, but see what dynamic it was inside of yourself that made you act that way. It's tied to something in your childhood, probably a memory with no emotion, as you've kept it under wraps emotionally. If you find yourself justifying your own behavior, you haven't gone deep enough. If you need to make an apology (after you've stopped justifying yourself), be sure you make the apology. Not an 'I'm sorry you misunderstood me' sort of apology, but a heartfelt apology and an admission that you were wrong in some way. If you still believe the other person to be partially wrong as well, let it go - don't say anthing to them about it. Let your ego eat humble pie. It'll be good for It. But usually what happens is that both people end up being pretty reciprocal about these things. If not, so much the better for the taming of your ego. Once this dynamic is started, the 'going in' dynamic, it's like Spirit, or Great Spirit, or Tao, or God, or whatever you want to call it just keeps going. It's the Willingness to change and admit that our viewpoint is usually based on really selfish motives, until we get to the point where we're able to change our motives. When our motives have changed, our manifestations will change. It happens from the Inside Out.

What an outstanding topic. Cultivation. Not something everyone wants to hear. One reason you may not be getting a lot of responses is because we just finished the Nei-Yeh (Inner Cultivation) up in the book study. Also, there is much mention of cultivation within the TTC studies. Haven't seen you around those boards! Please join us... There are several things in the OP that really grab me... 1 - Do not search for the truth, only cease to cherish opinions. (Our own and others!) 2 - Distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant. In the further posted article, "You have to live it; There is no shortcut" jumped out at me. Awesome stuff. Any sort of judgment at all eliminates 50% of our options. If we take a stance that we disapprove of something (and particularly if we've stated our opinion to others), then we 'have' to act out in a predisposed way. If we choose instead to not make judgments, then our ego leaves us alone and we have 100% of options and reactions at our disposal. This is complete freedom.

Personally, I think this says it all. I'll try to explain my usage of the term 'manifestation'. I think we're all One. If we're all One, there's nothing Other. That means the One must be inside us. I believe we are the eyes and ears of the One. Our manifestations come up through ourselves, on the inside. We can look at the conditions of our lives and see what our true beliefs are; they will have manifested around us. Even though we 'say' we may want something else, the fact that we continue manifesting what we manifest is evidence that our inner self is not ready for the change yet. There is still something the inner self needs to learn. If I'm manifesting sickness, I ask myself why I'm manifesting this. I am the Creator (I have it inside me, as does everyone else). If I manifest a broken leg, the real reason I'm manifesting the broken leg is probabaly because there's something I need to stop for. To See. To stop forward progress. Magically, our real inner intent (our true self, as immature as it may be) manages to create the conditions which affect us. I don't know how the heck this happens, I just Know that it does. This is just my inner Knowing, this isn't anything I can cite chapter and verse on. I manifested violence and strangulation and barfights when I was in my 20's. It was in my 30's that the inner work began. Now, 30 years later, I manifest flowers and greenery and healing and a gentle life with a nice indigenous man. The only reason I know this about manifestation is that I've seen it work over a long period of time in my own life. The beauty of understanding that we manifest everything that comes our way, is that it gives us a different kind of control (or non-control) over our lives. We no longer look for other people to place the blame on. We see that at some level, we're doing it to ourselves. The liberation from having to blame others for everything that goes wrong is the very thing that liberates us. It turns us into adults who take full responsibility for everything that happens in our lives. But even below that, taking full responsibility, is the Knowledge that it's not really 'us' doing the manifesting or the thinking - it is the One that is within. I'm just along for the ride. I just don't like being a victim, that's all. And when my life was a mess, which it surely was, I was constantly feeling victimized. But at that time I didn't realize that the victimization was created by the character defects within me that were attracting all the negative. I just thought it was everybody else's fault all the time.

I relate to you in more ways than you can imagine, Makyea. There may be a reason you are manifesting a bad ovary at this time, and it may have more to do with your female / male identity than anything else. I was a cute little girl, but I was brought up to be the first son. I did son-ly things in my life, including join a major police department and be a U.S. Coast Guard reservist. I rode dirt bikes - anything masculine. My inner sexual identity has always been a bit of an issue for me because of my conditioning. I am still manifesting being the 'breadwinner' in the household, as I always have. It's just the template I was brought up with. Were you brought up with a similar template? Were you extremely tomboyish, as I was? There may be events going on in your life today which are rubbing up against this very issue within you, if there's any truth to what I'm saying, and it may be why you're manifesting fluid and a cyst on your ovary. If this resonates at all and you'd like to try and triangulate this, I'd be happy to help in any way I can. I can help with the triangulation, it's what I do. If you're interested, PM me... Best wishes to you, Barbara

The beauty of life's cycle seems to be that it knows what to do and when to do it for everybody.

What part of Alaska is your family from?

Steve and Otis - I am totally in awe of both of you at this moment. Maybe even forever, I'm not sure. Those are two of the best posts I've ever read. The incredible knowledge and power that comes with totally taking responsibility for your own life. The knowledge that we have indeed, at some level, created this for ourselves. That we and only we have the power to change it. To know that if we are victimized over and over it's because we need, at some very deep level, to be a victim. To stop blaming everything and everybody else for what happens to us. To realize that we are indeed the creator of sorts; if we are creating lack in our lives over and over, it's because our souls require inner knowledge of lack before the opposite can be realized. To fully know that we are our own worst enemies. That the reason it's so darn hard to heal ourselves if because it's so darn hard to love ourselves. To be able to admit that we are wrong. To cease to fear death, from which all other fears rise.

Thank you Zero - I'm happy to have had a few fellow travellers that were interested too. I think the nei-Yeh is on to something.

I'm sure you are absolutely right here, in a scientific sense. All I can speak of is my own experience of having done inner work for 30 years. I used to be cynical and judgmental. Now I am not. I see wonder everywhere. It really does happen, but it doesn't happen overnight, and in my opinion it takes real work. Curiosity seems to be more of an intellectual thing, a thing borne from intelligence. This other thing that happens to us is more of a constant mind-state that becomes part of our personality after the inner cynicisms, hates, judgments have been cleared out. This is why we must learn to transcend ego and become willing to make the inner changes that need to be made for clarity of vision. It hurts, and it's not usually pleasant. But the pony is there at the bottom of the pile. The problem with this view is, nobody wants to do it because everyone's ego tells them that they already know it all. My only point is that it's a result of self-realization, which doesn't happen automatically. And funnily enough, self-realization is only fully recognized by other self-realized ones. It takes having Eyes.

My suggestion to you, Awake, would be to consider working the 12 steps of recovery. In the first step, where it says "I admitted that I am powerless over alcohol and that my life is unmanageable", substitute the word "Life" for alcohol. It will work just as well to do tremendous inner housecleaning where these fears of yours will naturally dissipate. I realize that nobody will actually do this unless motivated by a life-and-death situation like imminent alcoholism or drug addiction. But if you are deadly serious about wanting to make inner changes, this would be a very quick and effective way to do it. And it will kick off the ball for self-awareness, which is a lifelong inner course of study. Your life will change drastically.

I do think it's possible to get to the point where we don't separate the realities of the real world from walking in the wu-wei. There is no reality in the real world. Every single person is going to see the same thing slightly differently. Its nature is relative. The non-judg(e)mental mindset is one that tries for no differentiation. To love all equally. It's easier to love a poor person than a rich one sometimes because the rich one may have some built-in arrogance or pushiness to get to his rich state. But the sage finds a way to 'love' him as well, seeing through the piled-up excess to realize that that man too is actually Himself in a different form. To place judgments on others is to see with the eyes of one whose mind has become closed in some way. To See is something quite similar and yet different. We can See the obnoxious parts of someone, yet the sage will not discard that person for the obnoxious traits that he may have; to the opposite. The sage will find a use for the qualities of that person, as it says in the TTC. Because he's capable of Seeing, the sage knows not to take an untrustworthy person at his word. He can still be gentle and kind to that person, but the sage isn't an idiot either. He just doesn't foolishly sit in hopes that someone who is untrustworthy will keep his word. He knows better, and works around it to everyone's best advantage. But in order for the sage to do this, the ego must be tamed; otherwise, the sage would not be a Seer. His own ego distortions would render his vision shadowy.

I'd love to participate, but I'm so low tech over here that I feel like I'm cutting edge by even participating in a discussion group.

Sometimes it occurs to me that water is a halfway point between solid matter and etherial air. I think the question of which is more powerful is relative, depending on whose doing the speaking. If we can identify with the idea that we manifest from the inside to the outside, as the earth does, then the flame of existence is contained within us, just as the fire is at the core of the earth, a break-off from the sun perhaps. In that case, water developed to the outside of earth for the most part, which is part of the cycle of vapor, clouds, rain, weather. But perhaps the Big Bang, still going on today apparently, was the original Idea. Water is one of the Idea's thoughts being played out. Relatively speaking, to us humans for survival, it might appear that water is the more important; it certainly is a more imminent need for us for absolute survival. But without the Idea, water would be nowhere to be found. It's a bit of a chicken and egg thing, it seems.

This ending paragraph of the Nei-Yeh seems to reinforce the idea that the mind needs to be trained into singularity before any of this can be realized. I think this can only be done by people who have practiced meditation for many years and have learned to tame the inner dialogue. When we get to the point of self-realization, the point of realizing who and What we actually are, the Way lays out before us. Some of us on this forum have ardously taken self-realization seriously; for those, the payoff is that it is possible to hold onto the Awareness throughout the day. It is possible to look kindly at each and every stranger, or each and every situation, and see it for what it is. That's because when a person becomes self-realized, it's because he's gone deeper and deeper into his own character, removing those things which are distortions and distractions from the Way, and returns with a clear vessel to See clearly and express the Love that is in the universe. It's not a good and bad thing; it's a removing the distortions thing. It's after the distortions have been removed that the vision is clear. In order to understand the Essence of the Tao te Ching or the Nei-Yeh, it cannot be done by brain alone. Far from it. The experience is, well, experiential. I thank any of those who have stuck with me on this study. It has been my honor to input the Nei-Yeh and make my few comments. As this entity, the Internet, is an extension of our brain waves, to input something as wonderful as further exploration of the Nei-Yeh is to benefit all of mankind equally in some cosmic way. This internet has become a living creature, and seems to be our communal brain in action and interaction. It's so very easy to see all the seemingly horrible things going on in the world....that's what sells newspapers, I guess. But for every horrible thing there's an equally wonderful thing going on at the top of the cloud; it's just that all we see is the ugly underside. I think the Tao Bums and other sites like ours are the helium in the picture; somehow our thoughts and projections make the whole loaf rise; I see us as leavening interspersed throughout the world. The world is undergoing drastic physical and political changes, and I'm wondering if those of us who can See aren't here to assist others with transitions when transitions occur. Again, thank you Tao Bums, for allowing me this opportunity.

I think the childlike wonder that the sage develops is not a thing that comes and goes. Letting our inner child out to play, as people like to say, is a different thing. In my opinion, that's when we cut loose from our adult responsibilities, etc. The sage isn't about cutting loose. He sees awe and wonder at everything, just as a child who is born with no preconceptions. He brings this sense of wonder with him wherever he goes, because he sees everything as an extension of his own humanness. He does not take things like wind, and ants, and spider webs for granted because they are things of wonder and the sage will have the time to stop and wonder at it. As a child. Prior to conditioning from others.

Okay - you plucked a metaphysical string, you rascal. Inside all of us. As in....we're a many armed creature of golden essence. Those in awareness realize we are all the same ball at the middle, the same essence within our bodies with only the appearance of separation. I ask you, Straw Dog and Marbles - whaddya think the chances are that the 90% of the brain that we "don't" use is actually our communal heritage, and our communal 90%'s are projecting out what we think we see? I'm reading Alistair Conwell's Audible Life Stream right now. He indicates in one of his charts that a baby in utero spends its time dreaming. (How they figured that out is beyond me, but it actually makes sense). That would explain why a baby born today has the combined consciousness that he needs to meet today's needs, as opposed to a baby born 1000 years ago. As Marbles would say.... Questions? Comments?

Incredible as it seems, that seems to be what happens. The Dalai Lama has the countenance of a child, if you look into his transparency. I think the egolessness ultimately results in an awareness of I Know Nothing.

Nice series, Marbles! The discussions were wonderful. I'm just finishing up with the Nei-Yeh too, the last chapter tomorrow. I think I'll start inputting some of Lin Yutang's witticisms again in "The Importance of Living". He has a nice humorous way of saying really vital stuff.