manitou

I think you and I have completion issues

I was up for a popcorn-eater today and went to see the Avengers (4th incarnation, I think). I walked out of it as soon as the popcorn was gone. Severely disjointed movie.

In my humble opinion, this is what the sages meant when they suggested that we should connect with, and develop a personal relationship with an “Ishta Devata” (Personal Deity). With regular practice, we can not only develop self-surrender (to the Deity) but also expand our conscious mind beyond the limitations imposed by our senses. Or in other words, subtler senses will start manifesting, which open us up progressively to a much vaster and much more fluid existence. I'll do my best to avoid tangential rambling I like the fact that you supply a name to that blackboard that we write our lives upon - Turiya. I don't think I've heard that word before. Nice article, Dwai. The above statement from your article (In my humble opinion, etc) you suggest developing a personal relationship with a personal deity. Wouldn't this further reinforce duality?

This is wonderful! I loved hearing 'Kit' Snow sing Wildling...you make my heart sing. And Peter Dinklage singing 'I'm still going strong'. And the stare down between Ramsey and Theon Greyjoy was priceless. As I mentioned earlier, I'm rewatching the whole thing. something came to me last night which I had missed the first time around. When Arya is being trained in Bravos to be No One, she is experiencing a component of the enlightenment process. To be No One would be to lose all egoic identity. Interesting the methods they used to bring that on. First, sweeping floors for weeks would be a good start to cracking her ego. Next, the preparation of the dead bodies - at first she was impatient, but over a period of time, she became patient and exhibited a true reverence for the task she was doing, the mindful washing of the bodies. And then when they rendered her temporarily blind and she had to beg for money out in the streets (not to mention being attacked periodically by a really strange girl with a big stick). Aah, the things we do to become a truly great assassin…..it took me 2 or 3 years. She learns so fast.

Do you actually have a volunteer that finds you all the movies you want to see?

LOL. Let me guess. You're a guy, right?

OMG. You're going to love it. Rest easy the first 3 or 4 episodes, like always. It seems to fly around, but it settles in real nicely.

That was clever. And I never can figure out how Bran's gift actually helps any situation at all.

Nice, Starjumper. Can we use this thread to talk about alien involvement? I just finished a book, The Day After Roswell, and it was truly an eye opener. I've never given much thought to this. Apparently you have. What do you think will happen, or is this already on another thread?

Yes, I wondered about the skirt jutting out, even crossing the line of demarcation. If he's projecting wisdom as you say, maybe the artist is saying that he's 'crossing over' to being a deity himself - or maybe that he's on the edge of dying. As to the hat, maybe the pope's hat is reminiscent of the Bird man's hat...

Both of the deities are carrying aunks in their right hand. Immortality. Despite my tendency to analyze, I doubt that the artist was unintentional in dong that. Granted, everything was about immortality in that civilization, but maybe it explains the two vials being held by the king. And there is definitely an energy tapped into this. It gives me butterflies in the stomach when I touch the screen.

A real simple starter meditation for them might be this: pretend that you're a sunflower (while seated). Very, very slowly, with eyes closed, pretend that you're following the sun from morning to night. You're actually moving your head, but so slowly that nobody would even notice. But the very slow movement keeps the mind still.

I'm guessing this animal is very regular.

There is nothing more blissful, as I see it, to be able to meditate with no thoughts whatsoever. It's like the ultimate rest and reset.

The words of a true Master. Thank you, Dwai, for the channel.

Thank you. That is so beautiful, so many different planes. It's like brain candy.

Going with the flow is a really tricky subject, IMO. Not-going with the flow requires judgments. Going with the flow is to assume that Life knows what it's doing. In my own particular set of events, realizing that I was an alcoholic was, for a time, the worst day of my life. And then, years later, I realized that it was actually the best day of my life. Conditions appearing as they are in this day and time is confounding, truly. So many seemingly bad actors in major roles. But they too are part of the Whole. But I think it's like the internet. We hear so many awful things that can happen through social media. And yet, look at us. We are a groundswell of like-minded people who are doing their best to uplift humanity - maybe not intentionally, but I think it works that way - and nobody ever hears of forums like this one. We just don't make the news because kindness and enlightened thought are apparently not newsworthy enough to sell papers. But that doesn't mean we're not there. And growing. I run into enlightened thinkers more and more often - granted, our perspective is at a level to recognize them. But even the crazy world events of today are just the top of the iceberg. What's happening below the water line are what's really going on, and who knows how all that's going to fall into place?

Uh oh. Are you ill?

What a wonderful discussion. If we have reached a place of "enlightenment', for want of a better term, then our self has been infused with love. If we have aligned with the eternal and stay in the consciousness, then the unifying thread of all phenomena is love, even if it appears to be opposite. To go with the flow is to merely enable the love to manifest, without getting in the way. Because The Intelligence will always win out, sooner or later we learn that doing it our way will often just impede our growth. With love as the guiding light, one can't go wrong. We will be given Understanding.

All I know about this, is that there is a well of information, not known previously to my brain-thoughts, that will bubble up when needed. All this talk of enlightenment is subjective. Some would give the impression that there is only one path. Surely this is not the case. The well of information, as I know it, is actually like a channel. The words are drawn from you almost without your consent, they just come. It's just a matter of stilling the mind and waiting for the answers - and it's immediate. This is all such mysterious stuff. I went through a period of time where I would have lucid dreams where ancient scrolls were being 'downloaded' into my brain. The scrolls were right in front of my eyes, moving, unfolding. Everybody's experience is different out of necessity.

So the Sincere path is the one on the left. Does one have to go through all ten phases during one's life and death? Or is there also a connection between, say, 10 and 8 without going through 9? Could you give a little bit of a verbal description of how one thing relates to the other?

Hi Dwai, You're right about the Castaneda thing. It was a recapitulation of his life, not only for the things that he had done that had solidified into a character defect - but also to acknowledge critical axis points in his life. This is very subtle. When you really get to looking at the people that changed your life, I found that it wasn't particularly the big events. Sometimes just acknowledging that a particular teacher at a particular time said just the right combination of words to open awareness in a particular area. From what I remember, it took Carlos years to do this. He was given the task in the first or second book, then you didn't hear anything about it again until much later in the series. Like he was doing it the whole time but wasn't talking about it much. This is the same dynamic used in the alcohol/drug recovery process - discovering the wrongs done and making amends. It is the most powerful thing in the world, as I see it, as it is a thorough inner cleansing. I didn't use Don Juan's particular technique because I had already gone through the recovery process and done the steps - but looking for things that need adjusting within us is a process that lasts a lifetime. The main focus is getting rid of excess ego and taking responsibility for what we've done in our lives.

thanks so much, mrpasserby. I understand now. Over the years, there has developed a loving presence that inhabits this site. I don't think you'd find it on all threads, but some of the threads just soar. I don't think I'm unusual here in knowing that I seem to have a hidden store of information that I'm not even aware of, as others seem to as well. It is given to us to use as needed, and when the conversation reaches great heights, it seems to be able to see the next step in the quest for truth. The Watchers. that's good. I would call it The Torchbearers - there are many of us here who vibrate on this loving frequency, and who know that somehow we have a responsibility to quicken the spiritual nature of man. Thanks again for your response. It was beautiful.

Sorry, I had to look up egregore. Did you mean a type of spiritual cohesiveness within the Bums? A spirit of sorts that inhabits this site? There were a couple meanings. I think we speak to people on a certain vibrational level, and I think our thoughts make some ripples.

I couldn't agree with you more. And as a long-term Bum, it has been wonderful to see the spiritual uplift of so many of us. I think this site is a very important one, as we come from different paths and yet manage to find the metaphysics which connects them all. I have watched the growth in friends on this site. We seem to be pebbles in a stream, pebbles that smooth themselves by knocking against each other with different opinions and points of view. And the end result is the absence of rough edges, the uncarved wood. I also think that this site and others like it are crucial to the spiritual development of the planet, despite appearances to the contrary. It seems to me that there is a growing enlightenment quietly happening world-wide, and I think the internet has played an incredible role in us finding each other and learning from each other. Who knows how many people, aside from those of us who post, just get the benefit of reading the threads?