manitou

From a soul living in bible belt rural America, I often think about this same thing. There is a minister here who I see often in Tim Horton's and I think I would like to talk to him - seems more open minded than most ministers around here. I would like to ask him whether there is any provision within his structure that supports the journey within - the intentional journey to become a better person. I see no evidence of it here. All I see is judgment, criticism, a lot of ugly attitudes. But they all line up in the pews on Sunday morning. I've even thought about going to a few of their services to see if I can find one that is talking about walking the inner path. I'll bet I don't find a single one. They're so dead - the nailed down religions. There is no room for improvement, no room for an original idea, they have blinders on. They are extremely fundamentalist back here (ohio) and yet the smugness of this particular type of Christianity is just unbelievable, if these folks are any example. My point to this minister, if I do sit and talk with him, would be to ask why there doesn't seem to be any premium placed on the Jesus folks being more like Jesus.

Very nice, Paradise. I really like your description of your meditation - I think that particular one would be very useful prior to doing energy work with another. The more we can 'feel the love', the more the energy seems to run through the hands. Your last comment about the enlightened beings being inside us is very Castaneda-esque. He would 'See' the bright junction of the energy body, the assemblage point, within others as well. I do use this same method to realize we are all one; we are all the same bright energy being.

It's easy to mix up eros love with agape love. One is inner directed, one is outer directed. As for meditation, meditating on a loving presence isn't a particular practice of mine; my meditations are in the void now; maybe something of a more loving nature will happen in the future. I think the kind of love we're trying to get down to, the non=judgmental and all-accepting love of every single person and thing on this earth - is only attained through self-discovery and realization of self. When our footing is no longer standing on useless stances like resentment or rebellion (because we've managed to remove them), jealousies, wants and desires - then and only then can we get down to pure love. I've been with my husband for about 28 years. We've been married and divorced from each other twice, but we're still together, somehow. My emotional maturity level, from the first days of our relationship up until now, has certainly changed. I've taken the inner work very seriously, and I still do. What I've discovered is that at about the 27th year of our relationship, I suddenly realized that I was still sitting on the fence in many ways having to do with this relationship. Even that far into it. It was only about a year ago when I discovered a deeper type of love for him - not anything that I could particularly 'feel' - but a Decision to truly make a committment to this person, to truly take care of this person, to decide to truly love him. This was only a year ago! The feelings didn't come first - the actions came first! A deeper type of commitment was made - actually by both of us, in some ways - and life has been smooth sailing since then. I can't speak for anybody else - my particular case is rife with alcoholism and a lot of mental and emotional issues over the years - but I know my own ability to love another is part and parcel with the degree to which I know myself....and love myself. I hated myself for my very existence for years; so did Joe, my husband. Through years and years of both of incorporating steps to recovery into our everyday lives (this can be done in any fashion) this grand 'love' experiment of ours is finally really paying off! But even beyond that, love then extends to everything. Having a physical relationship is just a side benefit. This love extends to loving your neighbor and taking his trash in for him if he's not able - or putting on a pair of gloves and picking up garbage in the empty lot across from the supermarket - it doesn't matter. Some type of love force does kick in and it seems to include everyone. Everyone. I can't even hate someone eminently hateable like some horrible dictator, because I realize now that he is merely an extension of myself. When the awareness sets in that we are all One, we are all the same entity, there is nothing to do but Love. Thank you for the topic -

JOHN LENNON "Imagine" Imagine there's no heaven It's easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people Living for today... (woo-hoo, woo hoooo...) Imagine there's no countries It isn't hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people Living life in peace... You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will be as one Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people Sharing all the world... You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will live as one

When it comes to truth or compassion, I don't think it's an either/or proposition. What we perceive as truth can always be expressed. But to be in accord with the Tao it must be expressed with a loving heart. Sometimes this is the very essence of love - to lovingly tell someone something that they don't want to hear, but which you know they must hear. There are posters on this board who have so much incredible knowledge - but it is apparent that love has not infused their words yet, merely arrogance. It appears that these folks are at the end of the left brain line - but going in to our inner self to release the love that abides under all the contortion is another thing altogether.

Well then, huzzah to you for posting it!

That's funny Actually, I think we're all shamans around this place.

I don't know what Wei is - I know absolutely nothing of the Chinese language. If you do have further thoughts after discussing with your teacher I'd be interested to hear your thoughts...It's kind of interesting from my perspective ~

Got it. thanks...

Very nicely said! I love where you're coming from on this. The concept of taking responsibility for our own behavior is huge. This, I think, is what produces the Te we seek; the ability to achieve through not-doing. It is also the most comfortable way to live. In my experience, life becomes the teacher at some point, once we've gotten out of any particular structure. We let life happen, rather than make it happen. There is a dynamic that truly kicks in, although there is no way in the world to convince anyone else that this actually happens - it all seems too impossible, too naive. We've been conditioned to go out there and aggressively seek money. It's programmed into many of us from a very young age. I think it starts with "What do you want to be when you grow up?" When we allow life to be the teacher, we look at each and every situation that comes down the pike. We look at our own responses (often in retrospect) and see where we could have handled it in a wiser fashion. And is there an apology due? If so, get out there and do it before the wrinkle becomes internalized. It's a little jab to ego to do this, but I suspect that's what it's all about, lol. In my experience, the amends or apologies that hurt the most are the very ones that I need the most for my own internal housekeeping. If we lead an examined life, looking at our own behavior, then Nature will bring to us exactly what we need for our further development. If for example I have an excess of arrogance, Life or Tao will bring a seeming success for me, only to fall flat on my face the next day because of arrogance. It will happen over and over until I get the message that I'm not really such hot stuff after all. This seems to be the way of the Tao, once we let it happen.

Aaaahh...simplicity. Marbles, that analysis is really profound. I really like the Action and NonAction paragraph. I assume those words are yours?

It's about time they came up with a law about that. I'm going to show the article to my husband. On second thought, maybe they just control it. Like when you walk into a restaurant, they would ask you where you wanted to sit. "Farting, or non-farting?"

As a person who dabbles in shamanic healing, extraction, or imprint, I see firsthand the power of events in our lives to change our behavior forever. My concern with the violent video games is that the soul doesn't really know if it's real or a game. Our brain does, but does our 'soul?' (I don't mean to get into semantics with the term 'soul', I'm just using it as a generality here for purposes of making this point). If a young child is constantly cutting people's heads off with a machete, or mowing them down with an M16 in a video game - do we honestly think that will leave no imprint on that child's soul? Would he not become awfully desensitized to the wellbeing of his fellow man? It seems to follow that it would seriously affect this dynamic over a period of time. Already we're seeing evidence of this on the news....kids going bananas, and then it comes out that he was a chronic gamer. I just think parents should be real careful about what their kids are exposed to, hour after hour, day after day.

The reason I love the Tao mindset is because it embraces all other mindsets (religions). The others are exclusionary. If one espouses any religion over another, just by its nature there are limitations. The One has no limitation. The tao, and specifically this website, seems to be the place where form is transcended, a place we meet after we've knocked around in the various other structures. Yes, it is all about becoming a better person. Apparently this is what the One is shooting for. We are its expression at this level, on the human consciousness level; however, we are also One with the rocks and trees and earth and everything else. I think the big bang, or whatever the current terminology is for it, was It's original Idea being born. The Idea is coming to fruition through us at this level of awareness. The whole shitaroo continues its evolution; as a kundalini active person, I constantly get a sense of myself evolving in some weird ways into 'something else'. Sometimes I think the end result is that I'll had a big huge head, a skinny little body, and giant black eyes.

The Seeds. Of course How could I possibly have forgotten?

Dawei - thank you for posting that. So if I'm reading this correction the qi (chi) becomes the amniotic fluid? In essence, the fetus' universe?

I think these statements are important. Learning to love one's self. This is easy to confuse too. Often those lacking in understanding will use this concept to self-indulge in any thing they want to do, thinking they are 'loving themselves'. My take on it is that it's more like parenting yourself; eating the right foods; developing a little inner discipline as to what our mindsets are; taking responsibility for each and every thing that happens in our life. Finding out what part we played in it. Emphasizing a cleanliness or purity in our thoughts, in our physical surroundings. Loving onesself is actually a bit of maturity, or growing up, that we may not have had within us before.

I agree that the left brain is the method to get acquainted with our character foibles. But I found when I worked the 12 steps (starting 30 years ago) it led to the inner discovery which introduced me to the right brain; that's when I became an artist. It was a sort of convoluted way of getting to the right brain. My left brain was terribly developed because I'm a detective by trade, and I tend to think along evidentiary lines. So my thinking was horribly linear for many years. I probably really went around the long way....the intuition did ultimately appear and take over. Your analogy of the white silk is a very nice one - blowing in a gentle breeze. I can almost hear it.

You're getting totally out of hand.

I'm sort of an atheist myself. I see it more as an Intelligence than anything.

The Doors, maybe? I don't think so but it had the same sound. You're pushing too hard, you're pushing too hard, you're pushing too hard...for me. I remember it well, old man.

Ulises, thanks for this topic. I don't think there's enough mention of love or compassion within healing either. I think we all use various ways of running energy. I've come to the conclusion that the end of the road for everybody is to find their very own little methods; our very own little ways of 'feeling' the energy within. When I'm trying to do some energetic sharing with someone who may be ill or afflicted, I just have to find a way to feel love for them. I've experimented over the couple years I've been doing this. First I tried it with some sort of loving visualization, following someone else's suggestions that I would read in someone's book. Then I would try saying over and over in my mind (silently) "I love you, _______" (whatever the name was). I would repeat this over and over in my mind and try to see them with loving eyes. This worked for me a little better than the first method. What I'm doing now, however, is physically being a little more hands on, realizing that the energy we're dealing with is kundalini energy and does have a sexual component. What I do now is maybe take someone's arm or hand and massage it, until I feel the energy rising; there is a slightly sexual component to it, and I often 'warn' people of this first, so they don't obsessively worry about standing at attention if they happen to experience a wave of sexuality. The way I can tell if the love has connected or not, is that I feel it down where my ovaries used to be, lol. apparently my ovary stumps still have sensation or something. It's very weird, but when I do feel this, I know the energy is running just about as well as I can get it to do. I've read that men feel it in their stomachs, women more in their reproductive area. But I've come to realize that it's a very individual thing for everybody. It involves nuanced feelings in the body, a certain mindset, total relaxation, a feeling of Oneness, the mind void of thought (and hopefully the recipient is relaxed and as void of thought as they can be at the moment.) How to actually throw the energy? Intent. And imagination.

Pie Guy - sounds like you could have run into Schroedinger's cat within all those separate realities! Your words were wonderful!

My god, I love this. Benevolence and righteousness is what arises after the Tao has been lost. In its purest form, there is no need for benevolence as the Tao is self infused with love and compassion. Cleverness is an intentional warping of the uncarved wood. It is not natural; it is contrived; cleverness is not a great usage of knowledge. Honesty is better. Cleverness insinuates a type of contrivance that is done with intent. I understand the monetary gain thing in my soul, but it's really hard to put into words. If we stay in a state of awareness, if we could essentially Be Here Now all day, we would see opportunities arise that we wouldn't see otherwise because we have planned out a path for ourselves and we sort of have blinders on. The sage would rely more on the things that rise and fall each day and keep himself open to what rolls down the pike. And conventional wisdom tells us to plan out a financial path, but the Sage would certainly make use of serendipity, much as in the Art of War. To focus our attention specifically on 'monetary gain' without infusing it with passion for other things, like doing an impeccable job, becoming very proficient at what you do - all these are what the Sage would do as opposed to just going for it for monetary gain. The desire for monetary gain is self-propelling and never stops. Manifest purity. I don't think they're talking about good and bad here, not in that sense. The words are looking for purity of character in a different sense, in a sense of intentional self-realization. I can be a witness to the fact that walking this path with serious intent for years does indeed produce a more simple and graceful way of life. It seems to happen naturally. Other things fall away of their own accord. Selfishness and desire. I see this as changing from an inner-directed person to becoming an outer-directed person, grabbing an old phrase from the 60's. If we buy into the idea that all is One, then that person you're standing across from is actually You. When it's looked at from that perspective, it's a lot easier to give someone your sweater because they're cold. Desire. Lessen desire. I think that if we're desiring something to the point of distraction, maybe it's because we're lacking in gratitude for what's already there in front of us, or what we already possess. Desire in and of itself is never fulfilled for very long; there's always the next thing to want. And desire just seems to set up more desire, kind of like an alcoholic taking the first drink. I think the sage would consciously try to eliminate a lot of desire out of his psyche by finding more gratitude. I wonder why it says to abandon learning without worry. It doesn't seem that the two go together. I understand abandoning learning; I think what it means is that thinking our left brain alone, the organized information gatherer, isn't going to cut it. We have to leap into the abyss (Castaneda concept) and trust that there really is a 'magical' component which is accessible with the right brain. The way to get the right brain activated is to self examine our psyche, to question our attitudes in particular. But why 'without worry?' I guess he's saying that you don't have to worry about abandoning learning (in this limited sense) even though nobody else in the world will understand this dynamic. As to my own 'learning', I was a total left brain queen until I had a breakdown some years ago, at which time the right brain necessarily opened on a psychiatrists couch for the first time. The learning all merges together anyway, once both dynamics in the brain are working in concert. I guess we just need to abandon the search for more and more external knowledge; there's a time to just Be and let the inner process begin. Striving for great knowledge will only put this process off, as far as I can tell.