manitou

The source of divine power is like a huge furnace that we can tap into as much as we want for whatever purpose by 'opening our vents'. We gain the ability to open the vents by doing the inner work, making ourselves a clear channel. Doubtless there are plenty of folks who have found ways to tap into the furnace by other mechanisms, but these 'open vents' will always be distorted by ego, unless the practitioner has done sufficient inner work to move himself out of the way of the Power.

Guan-Wen - how elegant your reply was. I loved the fact that you brought the concept of Wu-Wei into the general's actions - it's all in the timing. Having yourself impeccably in position with a plan and waiting for the enemy to make the mistake, ensnaring him. A spider on a web. I so love the mindset of the general who rues the day he has to go to war; and I love the mindset of the general who is saddened by the victory. Both know that all is One.

Thanks for the link, Cat. I'm just starting The Audible Life Stream - Ancient Secret of Dying While Living by Alistair Conwell. From things I've read previously (including the Tibetan Book of the Dead, but many years ago) I'm of the opinion that death is a mental process that may take us to different planes of awareness of phenomena as it is happening. The instant of death is only the beginning, as I understand it. My hunch is merely that the experience may be tailor-made due to our own proclivities, tendencies, and preferences. I'm actually kind of looking forward to it. It think it'll be the trip of a lifetime. Might as well, huh?

It was just a Maybe sort of post.

The skull manitou on that rock is exquisite.

This is beautifully said and brings it very close to home.

It just seems like lots of near death experiences involve seeing in some sense the religious icon of their choice, then coming back and telling about it. Maybe this world is just a whole series of religious thought-bubbles that keep people encapsuled within the perimeters. But maybe all the thought-bubbles will run together, like real bubbles do, and then they'll all be realized as All and None. People who are lucky enough to transcend the thought-bubbles (and perhaps out and out atheists) may be somehow not subject to the same mechanisms as those within the thought bubbles. But then, watching Ancient Aliens and those things sort of ties things together in a circle of sorts. If there were civilizations previously as some of those programs suggest, perhaps there were other civilizations either on this planet. Oh gee. I just answered my own question. Take time out of the equation. There is no past, present or future. Maybe sasquatch is an offshoot of the Neanderthal man and he's still around. Maybe we're in the middle, here and now. Maybe the UFOs are the future Us, but they're here now too. Past, present and future. Perhaps I should light up another. P.S. Sloppy - LOL - I'm so glad someone else can halfway see it. When the thought hit me today I cracked up because of the implications of the rapturees being zapped up for experimentation or something.

Synchronicity being what it is, they were just playing the This Is It video on some channel. (This Is It being the title of this thread and all) I've never seen that video before. What an incredibly powerful message Michael Jackson had at the end of the movie: If you want to make the world a better place Take a look at the man in the mirror And start there with The Change (or something like that)

I used to live in Ojai, CA which is also reputed to be a vortex of energy. There is a highway that goes up into the mountains above the town and there is a huge vortexey looking bunch of strata that almost looks like a cyclone hit the rocks and then instantly solidified the pattern. There is also a very deep abyss that is adjacent to this geographical phenomena. I'm wondering whether a vortex may have some physical evidence to observe, such as the above?

Do Mormons believe they'll be getting their own planet?

You're right, of course. I guess I was saying it a little tongue in cheek. But the similarities do seem ironic to me. Otis, really nice ego post. So much to be said for Letting It Happen.

Thank you for this clarification. I could never quite understand all the emphasis on getting away from 'suffering'. But change? That makes perfect sense now. Life is fluid and we must realize it as so. Not so easy to do, because our ego seems to like to ride on our opinions.

Marbles, don't stew..

You're right. It never actually gets here. I think gratitude for Now is the key to everything.

Incredible. I hope that fellow actually survived the experience.

Lin Yutang: He who knows others is learned; He who knows himself is wise. He who conquers others has power of muscles; He who conquers himself is strong. He who is contented is rich. He who is determined has strength of will. He who does not lose his center endures, He who dies yet (his power) remains has long life If we are an observer of other people, we can be learned about their actions and behaviors. But to be able to interpret their actions and behaviors requires that the observer Know Himself from the inside out; to get down to the Oneness that we all share. The true human essence. It takes much more to conquer self than to conquer other people; to look into the mirror without turning our face away and see ourselves for what we actually are is to develop a Christ consciousness. To make the decision to love everything we have, everyone around us, is to truly become rich. To become contented with what we are and what we have. When it says 'He who does not lose his center endures...' This is the one day at a time-ness of trusting the universe. Why not trust the universe? Not trusting it is fine, but what does it get you? A life of fear. I'd rather trust, even if I'm wrong.

The funny thing about this, is that this describes one with Alzheimer's or dementia. I talk to my mother daily and listen to her slip further into her dementia. Everything is one day at a time, one moment at a time. The foundation for yesterday is gone. The template for tomorrow is gone. The only problem she experiences is her frustration about not keeping up with conversations any more - more of a social frustration than anything else. Otherwise, she's in a rather pleasant little world and well taken care of. But so many of us spend a lifetime meditating and seeking masters for the very same mindset that an old lady with dementia has, lol. Maybe this is the universe's final gift to us - instant enlightenment! - before we check out. She's enlightened of regrets. She's enlightened of worry for tomorrow. She's certainly enlightened of having to use her brain for much of anything. It just strikes me as funny, that's all....

I'm thinking there's a great analogy between fire and the soul. I'm even wondering if the onset of man's awareness of self didn't happen when man discovered fire. In one thread, Marbles said something about being open to the ideas of both evolution and creation, or something like that. The advent of man's ability to even be social must have been greatly influenced by a big firepit. Man's awareness of fire may have been the kiss of 'creation', the infusion of the god-spirit (for lack of a better term) into the hominids.

I agree - it doesn't get much better than this. No distinctions.

What a WONDERFUL bunch of silly questions!! I love them. TWIV, you are really brave for being the one to kick this off. Sometimes I think the "just before our eyes" thing also refers to the fact that we had it as children. We KNOW this stuff inside, we just have to get back to it. Remember when you were a kid and would put your hands up and say "Abracadabra!", and just KNOW that you actually had the power to effect the change? And then how frustrating it would get because we couldn't actually make it happen? It's like the knowledge is innate, it's something that's there but we can't quite tap into it. I don't know about Taoist alchemy, or what that really means. I do know that getting close to enlightenment is laughable, because once you come full circle and realize there is nothing floating around out there to petition for anything, we realize that we're exactly back where we first started. With ourselves. And Who We Are. Once we realize that, it is truly laughable because of all the cogitation and mental masturbation it took to get there. It's more of a process of elimination; someone earlier said 'going backwards'. I fully agree with this; it's like going back to the future, or going forward to the beginning, or something like that. I feel that at the point we're all at on this forum, we're standing in a stream, facing downstream but walking slowly upstream. As to using the other sex's body (I'm not sure in what context you're speaking, but I assume we're not talking about actual sexual activity), this may be referring to the fact that we're all One. We're ALL male and female, just in varying degrees. Perhaps the best way to understand the totality of yin and yang is to do it from the perspective of the opposite sex for a period of time. As to the dual cultivation question, (not solely by the effort of our mind or oneself) perhaps this means that it's our job to get ourselves out of the way by doing the inner work and making the channel worthy. When the channel becomes worthy, this is when the Snake makes its entrance; this is not controllable by anything we do. The snake shows up at the appointed moment. Mine happened during an auto accident, but the channel had been prepared by working the steps of recovery and cleaning out my previously rotten insides. Perhaps the old yellow-faced female matchmaker also refers to the fact that the way of the Tao on the earth is the function of the Yin, as opposed to Yang. To be the receptor of all that flows downward to the lowliest place. Perhaps it means that we must embrace the female yin in order for the matchmaking to take place? Why talk about the sun and moon? This is an interesting question. We, at our basest element, seem to come from the sun. We seem to be the stuff of stardust. The moon is merely a reflection of the sun. Perhaps the convergence or collective of souls is in the sun; perhaps this is what fire really is. Perhaps the molten part of the sun that remains within our earth is merely an outreach of our sun, and everything that has evolved from within this "sun" at the center of our earth is what we see around us every day. In another thread I mentioned that I was a little awestruck by looking up at a full moon on a trip to China and seeing the very same face in the moon that I see in my own backyard at home! It was a bizarre and sudden awareness that the face of the moon is the one thing we all have in common, regardless of where on the planet we stand. Or it might just be that pointing to the moon merely means that we've reached the end of the verbal and intellectual road, and that direct experience is the only teacher from that point on. But either way, the moon is a reflection of the sun off rock and this is certainly a great metaphor for the illusiveness of everything we see.

Fair enough, guys. I'm outta here, lol.

The odd thing about this thread is that none of you fellows have heard anything the few women on this thread have said.

thank you, Mr. T.

It reminds me of the old axiom, 'If you want a friend, Be a friend.'

If you've ever been to recovery meetings you will see over and over again how "wrong" paths forces the right path. These people are actually lucky in the sense that there is such a tried and true structure in place for delving into self, the vessel. The path to recovery is not for sissies; it's a real nasty mirror. It's a heck of a price tag. But I think anyone here would agree that whatever it takes to attain the goal of peace of heart and self realization is worth every penny of it. It sure was to me.