manitou

I have found that going inside and doing the inner work brings you to the inner child. The inner child seems to stick around forever. I'm 64 and feel about 12.

Is the stage set with specific childhood memories, anyone?

I don't think it's possible to understand the Tao after one reading. Each time one reads it, we're at a different level of understanding than the last time we read it. You will see different things on your 20th reading than you did on the 1st.

quite possibly. What's ganying? No doubt there's a counterpart for manitou within many traditions.

I wonder if a feral person would have any sense of Why, where, or who?

Use your insight to understand your boss. Love him anyway, even if he's a jerk. Makes life a lot easier.

Yes, totality of perception. I get this odd sort of energy field behind me and a little over my right shoulder, where there geometrical triangulations; somehow these triangulations are also situational, when peering into the situation. Parts of the situation sit on various angles of the triangles - By the way, I so love your work....thank you for sharing your self in your books. You truly are a light warrior. It's so very odd that we all sort of meet in this place of 'letting' energy happen rather than making energy happen. It's called one thing on one path, another on another path. But it's all Not-Doing. Finding the magic. Being the sorcerer; making time stand still; seeing where the chips land on the floor and then picking them carefully up. Developing the vision, that's all. And it's done from Source. Washte, friend -

Eh, lol. I'm talking about the Seeing that is there at the end of the inner journey. Because you have seen fully into self to Source. But this is the fun of the shamanic too. To look at the manitou of the tree (to see a face, or a funny looking animal) is a whole different way of relating to that tree. We too are the tree. But when we see the manitou, we are smiling at the funny face, and at the same time, communicating with the soul of the tree. Or rock. Or cloud. It's all One. People is just the start. I guess that's why don Juan would tell Carlos that shamans are never alone. They truly never are, lol.

Nobody wants to believe me on this, but I can see as clear as day that our president is a modern day sage. They don't get any smarter. They don't get any more self-deprecating. The sense of humor if fabulous. The sense of timing is fabulous. He rules a country as he would fry a small fish. He waits in the background and lets it happen; he acts when the time is appropriate. He sees things before they happen. He has all the players in position before acting. He handles everything with a loving countenance, even the most spiteful and hateful people that go after him. He has no policies in place, other than very general ones. Firm policies cut off all other possibilities. He is acting One Day At A Time. People who grumble about lack of 'policy' are missing the point. Policy is an inhibitor. There may have been room for staunch policy back in the 50's and 60's - but no more. There's just too much input coming in from all over the world, what with mass communication being what it is - that our new leaders are going to have to be Very Flexible. He is not a ditherer, as some have said. He is practicing wu-wei on the country. but, due to the nature of the way he is doing it, by Not-Doing, he will not get credit for the things he is doing for years to come. It will come out later when the books are written. There are too many people around here (at least in this part of the country) who absolutely are willing to give this man NO credit whatsoever....but this is merely due to the white supremecist mindset of the area I live in. Aaargh! Even my wonderful Apache partner feels like he's walking around with a target on his back most of the time.

I SEE myself.

I've always thought the translation should have been more toward the humble and non-arrogant.

But the sage would just keep on keeping on. He would Be Here Now, and do nothing to change the dynamic of the out-of-whackness; rather, he would be a mirror for the out-of-whackness and because of his kindness and non-judgment of the situation, the protagonists living within the out-of-whakness would find themselves having to deal instantly with their own 'instant karma', because the sage becomes like a backboard to the situation. Bouncing the ball back, but doing it kindly. This is ridiculous to try and put into words.

Glad you survived Easter, lol.

What is the first part of the fetus to develop? Everything would spring from that. Is it the brain? (I really don't know, just thought I'd throw it out there). Somehow, between the lines of what you guys are talking about, is the fact that at the very beginning of our embryonic development, all cells are identical. The only thing that individuates a liver from a spleen, or a bone from an eyeball, is how the cells ALIGN; they have been given a direction to align in a certain way for a certain function. This actually blows me away. This shows that it is nothing more than Intent that is the moving force. Intent of structure for purpose. Wow. It seems that the one thing that all mankind has in common, whether here in the U.S., or in Libya, or in Bali, or in Antarctica - is the need to ask Why? We seem to be the only species that contemplates this question. The snake is in a totally zenlike state; as is the spider. But us? Wow. Our brains (and particularly the TTB brains) are somehow being pushed to understand more, to reach a little further and further; and the outcome? The final outcome of all this? Maybe it's just for It to recognize or recreate Itself. And the funny thing is....we reach outward and outward, when in fact we should be reaching inward and inward.

I believe love to be the greatest weapon there is.

That's exactly what I think. What the other person thinks of me is none of my business.

The eyes and ears of the eternal. It just doesn't get any better than that, Steve. No, my awareness was gradual and experiential, as a result of alcoholism recovery. I've come to 'wear' the awareness much of the day now. It's always with me, it seems. Love is the consequence and the treasure.

That makes eminent sense. If the weapons are hidden, the hand is played close to the chest. Nobody can take true stock of what you have.

I don't think that adhering to truth, compassion, knowledge will necessarily change anything in your life for the better. Maybe even the opposite. So those virtues appear very relative in my view. I think that being mindful of truth and compassion every moment if the day (if it's possible to get to that point) has Everything to do with how your life's going. We manifest from the inside to the outside, in my view. If our outlook is kind and loving, this is what will be received in return, even if from a different direction. I'm not talking about karma here; it's merely a state of harmony even when everything around you is out of whack.

That was a wonderful video. Somehow, we remanifest second after second. The laughter of the man who realized he didn't exist came from the same place inside me when I realized one day that all the spiritual reading, all the studying over the years brought me to the same place: nothing, lol. But there is one thing that I think is real and is intertwined in everything there is and everything we are: Love. To follow the path of love from this point on, and learn the lessons that life brings us from this point on, and handle things with as much love and compassion as we can from this point on....I think this is our mission, as enlightened ones. To utilize love in every situation, even upon meeting a wild animal or a nasty son of a bitch. Love doesn't mean being stepped on. Love means holding one's ground as lovingly as possible, and seeing below the nasty habits of another. To understand that the reason he has nasty traits is because his folks passed them down to him - and that their folks passed the traits on down to his folks. The bad behavior and negative attitudes are the gift that just keeps giving down the generations; unless and until someone steps up to the plate and makes the effort to stop the dynamic right now, with himself. This is where the Magic Mirror comes in, the mirror that tells us that every other person we see is merely a reflection of what we are. To see things in others that are undesirable or unconscionable and to recognize them....all this tells us is that we have the very same trait inside ourselves, because we are capable of recognizing it. Or as we used to say as little kids..."It takes one to know one." (Which was usually followed up by "I know you are, but what am I?" at my school, lol) How very simple things are for children. How very complicated it becomes as they grow up. But the simple was the wisdom.

Also, once we get closer and closer to the genuine self, through inner cultivation, we are less and less at the mercy of our moods. Love finds a way in, even in the ugliest of situations. I don't have a 'practice' per se, other than lowering my psychic defenses intentionally and allowing love to pass from me to others, strangers or not. I realize (at my best) that I AM the other person; to find something to hate within them is to acknwledge and hate that same trait in me. But to choose to love the hateful instead (by removing all your ego momentarily, as the hateful person will certainly get our ego to rise) and finding anything to love about him - even something as simple as he's having a good hair day. This is what keeps us balanced inside, keeps us comfortable. (In an alcoholic sense, keeping oneself sober). Love means so many different things at different times. Sometimes it means swallowing our pride and not flipping off the person who just cut us off. A smile is more effective and doesn't ruin our day. The incident is over. To remain in an emotional snit if someone gets in our way or offends us in some way, is just to carry the baggage along with us for the rest of the day. We're dragging the past with us when we should be fully here in the Now. Love is manifested in the Now....not the past, not the future. Now.

What an interesting discussion. Aaron - you and I have come from a similar perspective. I kind of disagree with whoever above said that enloightenment is removing our character flaws. I think a lot of it is. Personally, after mentally masturbating all this for about 40 years, I've come to the direct knowledge conclusion that We Are God. The 'I' that dwells inside me, way down deep inside (and which I found as a result of working the 12 steps to the best of my ability for 30 years) is the very same 'I' that dwells within you. It's that warm space somewhere down behind the belly button, which just knows it knows the answers; it's up to us to cultivate our insides and get down to it. If one is chronically angry, mean-spirited, jealous, envious - any of those illusions and mindsets that we may fall into as humans - these are things that do need to be gotten under before we find the genuine. If we have a victim mentality, or chronically attract the wrong people to ourselves - these too are things we must get under to get to the genuine. Our conditioning has made us twisted and warped, unless we were raised extremely wisely. I, for one, was not. I'm thinking that the subconscious 80 or 90% of the brain we don't use is the tool that Spirit uses for manifesting our commonly agreed-upon reality. The 10 or 20% we do use is to propagate the illusion that we are separate, so that we can find out that we are not separate at all, but rather are the manifestation of Spirits eyes, ears, touch, taste, smell. It is experiencing itself, and we are the Experiencer. I think we are all one big electrical/thinking creature with the appearance of being separate.

for some reason, as I read all of the translations, it reminds me of the USA. How strong we used to be; back when things were on the upswing and the industrial revolution had us leading the way. I think the devolution of the US is the Daoist way of rising and falling; we've already expanded and peaked, or so it seems. Now other countries are on the rise, and we are shrinking. China, India... Or look at Mr. Trump. How very powerful this man has become, and yet the more you hear him talk on the air, the less respect anybody would have for him. His words and his attitudes are his own worst enemy. I think he's had his Dao peak and is deflating even as we speak - particularly after the Washington correspondents press dinner last night. He's probably going to come out swinging because the sense of humor fairy seems to have bypassed him early on. It's like the bellows analogy at the beginning of the TTC. Like an archer with a bow; the archer pulls, the bow shrinks in length. Lin Yutang, in his translation, refers to this change in high and low dynamics as the Subtle Light. There's one thing I can't quite get a grasp on in this chapter. All translators refer to leaving the fish in the deep water. I assume this refers to keeping one's weapons hidden. But it seems like there should be more to the analogy and I'm just not seeing it. I'm thinking this may be a cultural reference or idea that I'm unaware of. Can anyone see the deep fish thing any clearer than this?

That's a no-brainer. It's Otis, lol.

I have a feeling the little English maiden who snuck into your avatar is going to be a bit anal when she grows up.