Niggling and Strange Questions

[manitou]

I'm talking about short questions that make no sense logically but you're really hoping that some Bum, probably some lurker, actually knows exactly what you're talking about.

 

 

Here's mine:

 

Does anybody, in the back of their brain, feel like they're getting younger?

[InfinityTruth]

That question makes PERFECT sense(no sarcasm intended). The answer is in the question. Age IS a state of mind. When you're told you're 91 or any age, it is your mind and conditioning of that mind for that age that gives the rules made for that age.

I really tried to overblow the analysis of this question lol. Thats all I could come up with though.

 

Wednesday, thursday for friday and all 7 days of the week are all days of the same day but with a label making that day a day called a certain day with a name? True or False?

 

EDIT: Figure that question out!

Edited March 13, 2011 by InfinityTruth

[NeiChuan]

Anyone else feel like they've died?

Edited March 13, 2011 by NeiChuan

[manitou]

Anyone else feel like they've died?

 

No, but I've been in the collective, which may be the same - bright shining gold, warm, humming, weightless, loving?

[manitou]

Rainbow and Infinity, I'm not sure this is the same place.

 

The place I'm talking about lies at the dark bottom of a cornucopia of consciousness which involves our memories in time, back into our childhood. Have you not noticed that occasionally you'll have some Eureka! moment, only to realize that this very truth was said between you and your 8 year old friends in the form of a very short and terribly direct fashion? Of course right now at this moment I can't think of one. But I will. Probably a bit down the road.

 

Okay. I've got one. "It takes one to know one!" What kid didn't say that? We'd get it right out of our systems at the time. Everybody knew what that meant. But here we are, our head in the ethers, our mystical elements finally coming to the mutual cognitive understanding that we are indeed mirrors of each others because lo and behold, we are joined at the hip by the Essence, whether we want to or not. We can cogitate this around for 3 or 4 pages, or we can say "It takes one to know one!" in the first reply.

 

It just seems to me that the answers are somehow contained within our growing backwards within ourselves; and to truly do this, we must refamiliarize young conclusions and feelings that evolved, except in reverse! It's just a funny sense that I have - I wouldn't expect anyone else to believe me for a second. Unless, of course, they've been there. It's that type of a question.

[thelerner]

This is more a niggling then a question. As a kid I was intimately aware that God could hear my thoughts. God was someone I proposed gambles too. If I do this then you do that. I'm sure I made several propositions a day of some sort to God.

 

To what extent is that part of Our shared childhood? Or was I just a strange kid?

 

 

At some point I lost that sensibility. I became rational and scientific. It might be a loss on my part.. in my mid 20's I went to a Yeshiva and I think wanted to rebirth that sense in me, but by that time it was too late. Instead of 'thinking' God hears my thoughts, I look for God in deep silence. strange..

 

 

Michael

[Mark Saltveit]

This is more a niggling then a question. As a kid I was intimately aware that God could hear my thoughts. God was someone I proposed gambles too. If I do this then you do that. I'm sure I made several propositions a day of some sort to God.

 

To what extent is that part of Our shared childhood? Or was I just a strange kid?

 

 

Pretty common, I think. Elvis Costello has a song called "Distorted Angel" about feeling guilt over an incident of playing doctor with some girl, and realizing his guardian angel was watching, and later thinking "what a voyeuristic perv that angel is".

 

"Distorted Angel

Pure illuminated sweetness

Frightening small children is

just about your only weakness

I thought that you would tell me what I'm living for

But I can't see you anymore

 

I don't know what we did but I'm sorry if it made you cry

And if there's any justice at all I'd be punished for it I'd surmise..."

[NeiChuan]

No, but I've been in the collective, which may be the same - bright shining gold, warm, humming, weightless, loving?

 

Didn't mean it in the emo sense. I've got that aswell, usually when im done meditating, sticks with me the rest of the day.

[manitou]

NeiChuan - could you expand on your first comment on feeling like you've died before? I do have a very foggy remembrance of some sort of death, like it's something I'm familiar with - and my near death experiences have had a strange familiarity to them.

I've been strangled several times, once I had to pretend that I was dead to stay alive. I just have one of those pasts. I think if I were to try and put a finger on it, I most sense that I've drowned before. But maybe that's just because we had fluid in our lungs as embryos?

[manitou]

Another niggle.

 

Does all this physical phenomena have anything to do with the 2012 alignment?

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

For a period in my life about 15 years ago, I would have very, very vivid images of several scenes and experiences of myself dying. One involved being in a horrible car wreck, and experiencing the surreal altered state of that moment being played out. I knew exactly how this would feel, and it wasn't the physical pain that frightened me, but rather that of a violent death. I experienced the energy state of that, experiencing psychological states that I haven't in real life. I would shut down the playing out of the disturbing images almost reflexively, with a sharp intake of breath and sudden freakout level fear from this 'vision' I was experiencing, so I did not allow it to play out further to find out what came next. I would have this several times a month, and I questioned whether it was just a vision, or was past life, or belonged to someone else, or was a premonition.

 

I had a bunch of other death stuff I was working with at the time, and there were weird coincidences too, at that time, such as a local guy with the same very unusual name as me (but spelled slightly differently) and same age, falling to his death in the mountains surrounding the city where I live. I turned on the noonday news one late Spring day and heard that 'I' had died my body was being brought down out of a canyon below a ridge by Search and Rescue. I then heard for several days on the news when 'my' funeral was taking place. I had numerous friends thinking I had fallen to my death, and my phone rang for a couplle days with freaked out friends calling to check if it was me. Weird. Especially since I had fallen 10 feet in a canyon myself in the same mountains while hiking alone a few years before and broken my arm. I had a frightening vision after that of falling of that boulder and breaking my leg or pelvis and not being able to get out, and lying there waiting to die (I had stupidly told no one that I was even going out hiking by myself). I somehow had an 'experience' of my own death, and at the time, didn't know what to do with these visions about death that I was having.

 

All the death stuff came to a head the next year when I did a vision quest and had a transformative experience, and the day after I came out of the wilderness I received word that my mother had suffered a horrific stroke, and she died 2 days later with me at her bedside. I had an amazing experience with the vision quest that eased my fears, and these troubling visions left me after that.

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

Another niggle.

 

Does all this physical phenomena have anything to do with the 2012 alignment?

 

Sure seems like Mother Earth is not very happy right now.

[manitou]

 

At some point I lost that sensibility. I became rational and scientific. It might be a loss on my part.. in my mid 20's I went to a Yeshiva and I think wanted to rebirth that sense in me, but by that time it was too late. Instead of 'thinking' God hears my thoughts, I look for God in deep silence. strange..

 

 

How funny the differences in upbringings. I thought God could hear my thoughts too because that idea was shoved into me from others around me. It was more of a control thing, like keep your thoughts pure, after all, God can hear them. How I envy the gentle understanding that you had in your youth, Michael - and you too must know how to get back to that.

 

These are the memories I was referring to earlier. You somehow are transpiring backwards, back to those moments when your thoughts and God's thoughts are one. This is what we actually aspire to. Only the vocabularity is no longer the same; we are hesitant to call it God because of all the old spoon-fed baggage. I know I am. Now I'd rather say Intelligence. Love. Gravity. Positive attraction. More often than not, just IT.

 

IT.

 

I-T

 

I-M

 

I Am.

[manitou]

Songs said:

 

Especially since I had fallen 10 feet in a canyon myself in the same mountains while hiking alone a few years before and broken my arm. I had a frightening vision after that of falling of that boulder and breaking my leg or pelvis and not being able to get out, and lying there waiting to die (I had stupidly told no one that I was even going out hiking by myself). I somehow had an 'experience' of my own death....

 

Maybe this is where Schroedinger's cat steps in! Maybe you got a glimpse of the separate reality, the 'what if this had happened' and gone a different way! Isn't the current thinking that there are zillions of these separate realities playing out on different planes as per Steven Hawking?

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

That's my take on it. Made me appreciate life more, but that period of my life remains deep Mystery to me.

[Cat Pillar]

Is it a spiritual mistake to abandon my deepest held and most powerfully felt dreams and desires because I fear that pursuing them would be an act of pride and thus attract bad karma?

[manitou]

Sure seems like Mother Earth is not very happy right now.

 

Could it be we are manifesting her? As above, so below? And ad finitum upward, or downward? If we were all getting along as one big One, where all the resources went to all the people of the earth, do you think the inner earthly turmoil would stop? Are we not all one? Are we not of the Earth? Is the Earth not of the Sun? Do we have the flame in us?

[manitou]

Is it a spiritual mistake to abandon my deepest held and most powerfully felt dreams and desires because I fear that pursuing them would be an act of pride and thus attract bad karma?

 

What a wonderful question.

 

First mistake: calling it a spiritual mistake. It's all one. Your physical is manifested by your spiritual. The pride you feel for your talent is the same pride I felt before I started practicing my talent. I just said fuck it, as my sweet old grannie used to say. Yes. I play keyboard like an angel. There. I said it. I'm glad. Get over your pride. It is nothing other than the other side of ego. If Spirit, or Void, or It, or Whateveryoucallit wants to manifest through you, who do you think you are to think you know better, or deny it.? Now, if you want to get WAY honest we get into the arena for charging for talents, and that's a nightmare of its own. So much of a nightmare, in fact, I do most everything for free these days. How to put a price on free creativity? I really do not know. Every time I've put a price on a painting, or a piece of Joe's dremeled furniture, it's like it rips the life out of it by the throat. I'd rather give them away. Then there is love in the transfer, although of course we put Intent into each and every piece.

 

Second mistake: Basing anything on fear. At the very bottom, we manifest from love or fear; gotta be one or the other. Fear of Karma is based on fear. Base it on love instead; your karma has a loving side that you have not been able to see because you have been afraid of its underbelly. Raise your eyes a bit.

 

My actual advice, (as one who always Wanted To Be A Cowboy and never did), is to maybe devote 10% of your physical and your psychic energy to your dream. Then you won't feel like it's tapping behind you on the shoulder; you'll at least feel that you're doing something about it. The tapping will stop. Let the other 90% keep doing as it's doing. Then one day maybe you'll see that you'll be able to devote maybe 30% of your time to your dream, 70 to your other life. And so on.

 

It's just Intent. That's all. Make a promise to yourself and take the tiniest of steps every day. Each and every day. It'll happen. Strike when opportunity raises its head, which it will. Trust the universe. Be kind to everybody. Short course in wu-wei.

[zerostao]

"Trust the universe"

about the coolest thing i have heard all weekend.

but, remember to expect the unexpected

Edited March 14, 2011 by zerostao

[manitou]

but, remember to expect the unexpected

 

 

That's the cool part. Like Snoopy sitting on top of his doghouse with the wind flapping his ears back. He embraces it all.

[Cat Pillar]

What a wonderful question.

 

First mistake: calling it a spiritual mistake. It's all one. Your physical is manifested by your spiritual. The pride you feel for your talent is the same pride I felt before I started practicing my talent. I just said fuck it, as my sweet old grannie used to say. Yes. I play keyboard like an angel. There. I said it. I'm glad. Get over your pride. It is nothing other than the other side of ego. If Spirit, or Void, or It, or Whateveryoucallit wants to manifest through you, who do you think you are to think you know better, or deny it.? Now, if you want to get WAY honest we get into the arena for charging for talents, and that's a nightmare of its own. So much of a nightmare, in fact, I do most everything for free these days. How to put a price on free creativity? I really do not know. Every time I've put a price on a painting, or a piece of Joe's dremeled furniture, it's like it rips the life out of it by the throat. I'd rather give them away. Then there is love in the transfer, although of course we put Intent into each and every piece.

 

Second mistake: Basing anything on fear. At the very bottom, we manifest from love or fear; gotta be one or the other. Fear of Karma is based on fear. Base it on love instead; your karma has a loving side that you have not been able to see because you have been afraid of its underbelly. Raise your eyes a bit.

 

My actual advice, (as one who always Wanted To Be A Cowboy and never did), is to maybe devote 10% of your physical and your psychic energy to your dream. Then you won't feel like it's tapping behind you on the shoulder; you'll at least feel that you're doing something about it. The tapping will stop. Let the other 90% keep doing as it's doing. Then one day maybe you'll see that you'll be able to devote maybe 30% of your time to your dream, 70 to your other life. And so on.

 

It's just Intent. That's all. Make a promise to yourself and take the tiniest of steps every day. Each and every day. It'll happen. Strike when opportunity raises its head, which it will. Trust the universe. Be kind to everybody. Short course in wu-wei.

 

Thanks for the reply, manitou! Point taken on "spiritual mistake" versus any other kind. This in particular struck me, "Get over your pride. It is nothing other than the other side of ego. If Spirit, or Void, or It, or Whateveryoucallit wants to manifest through you, who do you think you are to think you know better, or deny it.?".

 

Never really thought about it like that. Pride is one of the biggest issues I struggle with...or rather, fear of being prideful. It seems I allow fear to guide my actions more than I really acknowledged before. In fact, I think I can point to two particular areas where this is quite applicable.

 

My response to the desire/dream is usually in a much different tone..."How arrogant you must be to have these desires. Who do you think you are? Your pride will ruin you!"

 

I believe myself to be arrogant and prideful, so I play down my victories and blow up my failures in an attempt to balance things out. Usually when I have a big victory, I'll be ecstatic for a short time, sharing the good news with friends and family...then a day or two later, I'll experience a wave of guilt over how prideful I acted, how arrogant of me it was to boast like that. I can't allow myself to feel lasting pride, because if I do people will see how arrogant my true character really is.

 

I also believe myself to be very selfish. In order to make up for this, I give away a lot of what I generate. I almost always put other people's needs before mine, unless I have nothing left to give or it puts my roof in danger. I MUST give things away and put others before myself, because if I don't others will see how selfish my true character really is. This is part of why it's so hard to find time for my practices...I've already given most of my time to helping other people pursue their dreams.

 

Interesting, how much of this is based on projected perceptions of others. I guess I really do care a lot about how other people/spirits feel about me.

 

You offer some good advice...I'll see if I can free up that 10% of energy.

[manitou]

Thanks for the reply, manitou! Point taken on "spiritual mistake" versus any other kind. This in particular struck me, "Get over your pride. It is nothing other than the other side of ego. If Spirit, or Void, or It, or Whateveryoucallit wants to manifest through you, who do you think you are to think you know better, or deny it.?".

 

Never really thought about it like that. Pride is one of the biggest issues I struggle with...or rather, fear of being prideful. It seems I allow fear to guide my actions more than I really acknowledged before. In fact, I think I can point to two particular areas where this is quite applicable.

 

My response to the desire/dream is usually in a much different tone..."How arrogant you must be to have these desires. Who do you think you are? Your pride will ruin you!"

 

I believe myself to be arrogant and prideful, so I play down my victories and blow up my failures in an attempt to balance things out. Usually when I have a big victory, I'll be ecstatic for a short time, sharing the good news with friends and family...then a day or two later, I'll experience a wave of guilt over how prideful I acted, how arrogant of me it was to boast like that. I can't allow myself to feel lasting pride, because if I do people will see how arrogant my true character really is.

 

I also believe myself to be very selfish. In order to make up for this, I give away a lot of what I generate. I almost always put other people's needs before mine, unless I have nothing left to give or it puts my roof in danger. I MUST give things away and put others before myself, because if I don't others will see how selfish my true character really is. This is part of why it's so hard to find time for my practices...I've already given most of my time to helping other people pursue their dreams.

 

Interesting, how much of this is based on projected perceptions of others. I guess I really do care a lot about how other people/spirits feel about me.

 

You offer some good advice...I'll see if I can free up that 10% of energy.

 

We have similar emotional backgrounds. For what reason, who knows? Have you ever been able to find the first moment in your very young life when you were told not to be prideful, not to boast; were you humiliated by this in some way? Did it happen at church, or something that happened with a small friend? Try to find this memory and when you do we can try to reverse it. Reimprint it. I'd be happy to help you with this, or you can work with it on your own. It's a dynamic that's rolled downhill since then and gotten bigger and bigger, and it's really getting in your way now.

This is a false pride; it's not a good thing. It is way too wrapped up in what others think of you. Another way to reimprint this is to Never judge another human being again, if you can help it. If you can do this, then you won't feel that anybody's judging you. It just works that way. Then you won't worry about whether someone feels you're prideful or not. It just won't matter - you can just do what your heart wants to do.

I think one of the ways we find our balance in the Tao is to do what is niggling in our hearts. Maybe to do it gently at first, but to do it. At the forefront of doing it must be love of self and love of others.

I never heard what the original enigma in your mind is; I'm going to feel pretty silly if we've been talking about leaving your husband of 20 years and your 4 children for a young stud of a beachboy in the Caribbean, LOL. Whatever. Be kind.

[Cat Pillar]

We have similar emotional backgrounds. For what reason, who knows? Have you ever been able to find the first moment in your very young life when you were told not to be prideful, not to boast; were you humiliated by this in some way? Did it happen at church, or something that happened with a small friend? Try to find this memory and when you do we can try to reverse it. Reimprint it. I'd be happy to help you with this, or you can work with it on your own. It's a dynamic that's rolled downhill since then and gotten bigger and bigger, and it's really getting in your way now.

This is a false pride; it's not a good thing. It is way too wrapped up in what others think of you. Another way to reimprint this is to Never judge another human being again, if you can help it. If you can do this, then you won't feel that anybody's judging you. It just works that way. Then you won't worry about whether someone feels you're prideful or not. It just won't matter - you can just do what your heart wants to do.

I think one of the ways we find our balance in the Tao is to do what is niggling in our hearts. Maybe to do it gently at first, but to do it. At the forefront of doing it must be love of self and love of others.

I never heard what the original enigma in your mind is; I'm going to feel pretty silly if we've been talking about leaving your husband of 20 years and your 4 children for a young stud of a beachboy in the Caribbean, LOL. Whatever. Be kind.

 

I don't have the exact memory of the first imprint. I know it's definitely related to church, as I had a fundamentalist/evangelical upbringing. It can be really hard for me to draw up specific memories from childhood. I'll be happy to accept your offer of help if I can ever find that first memory.

 

I have been making an effort not to judge people, but I guess I need to try harder. I'm still trying to cultivate love of self, that's still a hard one for me.

 

Hehehe, I'm not much for young studs, but maybe a sexy lady...

 

Naw, it's nothing like that. My dream is to become an Adept; to master internal and external martial arts, and the subtle energies. To experiment and try to come to new understandings about human interaction with energy.

[NeiChuan]

NeiChuan - could you expand on your first comment on feeling like you've died before? I do have a very foggy remembrance of some sort of death, like it's something I'm familiar with - and my near death experiences have had a strange familiarity to them.

I've been strangled several times, once I had to pretend that I was dead to stay alive. I just have one of those pasts. I think if I were to try and put a finger on it, I most sense that I've drowned before. But maybe that's just because we had fluid in our lungs as embryos?

 

Just to have resonance with the feeling. In the back of my mind to "Like" a near death experience cause I feel like I've been through worse before. Also when serious things happen to not really have fear of the consequences coming from it, rather just be logical > emotional.

 

If that makes sense

[thelerner]

What a wonderful question.

 

First mistake: calling it a spiritual mistake. It's all one. Your physical is manifested by your spiritual. The pride you feel for your talent is the same pride I felt before I started practicing my talent. I just said fuck it, as my sweet old grannie used to say. Yes. I play keyboard like an angel. There. I said it. I'm glad. Get over your pride. It is nothing other than the other side of ego. If Spirit, or Void, or It, or Whateveryoucallit wants to manifest through you, who do you think you are to think you know better, or deny it.? Now, if you want to get WAY honest we get into the arena for charging for talents, and that's a nightmare of its own. So much of a nightmare, in fact, I do most everything for free these days. How to put a price on free creativity? I really do not know. Every time I've put a price on a painting, or a piece of Joe's dremeled furniture, it's like it rips the life out of it by the throat. I'd rather give them away. Then there is love in the transfer, although of course we put Intent into each and every piece.

 

Second mistake: Basing anything on fear. At the very bottom, we manifest from love or fear; gotta be one or the other. Fear of Karma is based on fear. Base it on love instead; your karma has a loving side that you have not been able to see because you have been afraid of its underbelly. Raise your eyes a bit.

 

My actual advice, (as one who always Wanted To Be A Cowboy and never did), is to maybe devote 10% of your physical and your psychic energy to your dream. Then you won't feel like it's tapping behind you on the shoulder; you'll at least feel that you're doing something about it. The tapping will stop. Let the other 90% keep doing as it's doing. Then one day maybe you'll see that you'll be able to devote maybe 30% of your time to your dream, 70 to your other life. And so on.

 

It's just Intent. That's all. Make a promise to yourself and take the tiniest of steps every day. Each and every day. It'll happen. Strike when opportunity raises its head, which it will. Trust the universe. Be kind to everybody. Short course in wu-wei.

 

good stuff