Love and Hate at the level of the heart

[Jeff]

Naw, the refinement process does not require "one to let go of those issues and fears [to] (become sagellike)".

 

Best --

CHAPTER 16

 

Empty the mind of everything, let it reside in peace.

 

Being at peace you can watch the Ten Thousand Things rise and fall.

 

They follow their natural path and eventually return to the source of all things. This is the way of Nature.

 

Returning to the source is stillness, for Nature is unchanging. Knowing this constancy is having insight into all things. Not knowing this leads to disaster.

 

Knowing the source, the mind is open. When the mind is open the heart will be open too. Being open hearted, you can act naturally. Acting naturally, you will be at one with the Dao. Being at one with the Dao, you will be at one with Heaven and Earth. Being at one with Heaven and Earth, you can become eternal.

 

Although the body dies, the Dao will always be eternal.

 

(TTC - SFH version)

 

Empty the mind of all of the crap (issues and fears)...

[blue eyed snake]

Ok, no problem on disagreeing.

 

Also, I am not saying "saintly", just relative clarity across various frequencies/channels.

 

Did you ever do any of that healing while you were in the middle of a temper tantrum? Or, was it when your mind was quiet and as you said let go of your "me-sense"? (My original point was that Jesus could not have been angry or having a temper tantrum and healed the guys hand.)

 

Additionally, as we have discussed before, I would definitely believe that you could heal/channel as a child.

 

I don't get what you mean with " relative clarity across various frequencies/channels"

 

and no, healing during a tempertantrum, i do not think that is possible, but rage, is overtaking someone. that's different from recognizing that anger bubbles, observe it, be aware where it comes from and then releasing it. in the latter case the neurotransmittersystems are calm afterwards, with tempertantrum/rage, the whole body is in an uproar afterwards.

 

so that's the distinction I would like to make, between being possesed by your anger or simply letting go of an old piece of anger. 

[blue eyed snake]

Makes sense.

 

But, in Taoist terms one must refine the energy to raise it to the higher levels. That refinement requires one to let go of those issues and fears (become sagelike) to be able to access and process higher energies. One does not skip dantiens, you fill (clear stuff) and move higher.

 

 

reading this, i think you're not well versed in daoist practices ( neither am I for that matter, but it is my root)

[Jeff]

Flowing Hands translation (above) for the first line of chapter sixteen is

 

Empty the mind of everything, let it reside in peace.

 

Two other versions of the first line are

 

Attain the emptiness.

 

-

 

Attain the highest emptiness.

 

^^

Simple, direct, clear.

 

 

Peace is a high spiritual aim. It is an enjoyable state to experience.

 

edit: I'd speak more about emptiness, but talk is not the best tool towards spiritual understanding. Jesus achieved the emptiness. Maybe he spoke more about peace because a mind can know peace readily. It is an admirable and achievable goal. Peace can be the gateway to emptiness. Emptiness does not equal the act of emptying the mind, nor require it.

 

Sounds like it would be an interesting discussion. I look forward to you hopefully starting a topic some time on your definition of highest emptiness.

[Jeff]

I don't get what you mean with " relative clarity across various frequencies/channels"

 

and no, healing during a tempertantrum, i do not think that is possible, but rage, is overtaking someone. that's different from recognizing that anger bubbles, observe it, be aware where it comes from and then releasing it. in the latter case the neurotransmittersystems are calm afterwards, with tempertantrum/rage, the whole body is in an uproar afterwards.

 

so that's the distinction I would like to make, between being possesed by your anger or simply letting go of an old piece of anger. 

As 3bob touched upon in his earlier post, different types of energy flow at different frequencies. One can be relatively clear in one area, but still have a major issue/fear in another. Such a fear can cause a normally nice person, to fly into a rage when such a deep fear is hit.

 

Anger is anger, whether childish tantrum or rage from being stuck in traffic. But, I would agree that seeing the anger bubble up, being able to catch it and not get caught up in it is a much more advanced understanding/state.

 

The basic stages are: overwhelmed by the anger; realize you are getting angry, but can't help yourself; catch your self and watch it; catch yourself and laugh at how silly it all is; let it go and clear sailing, while responding effectively to the situation... that is being a sage...

[blue eyed snake]

Anger is anger, whether childish tantrum or rage from being stuck in traffic. But, I would agree that seeing the anger bubble up, being able to catch it and not get caught up in it is a much more advanced understanding/state.

 

The basic stages are: overwhelmed by the anger; realize you are getting angry, but can't help yourself; catch your self and watch it; catch yourself and laugh at how silly it all is; let it go and clear sailing, while responding effectively to the situation... that is being a sage...

 

yes, reading them I recognize these stages, was not able to find them in my memory though...

 

but, there's more. People can become angry being unaware of it and bottle it up and people can  become aware of becoming angry and bottling it up.( In both cases thickening a blockage)

 

But then you can choose to go to the 'place' of your old anger, I've done that standing, emptying the mind and feeling into the body, when you've found the source you scream ( imagine that, a screaming serpent  ) an effective way of getting rid of old stuff. ( but warn the neighbors beforehand  )

 

It does not leave the body with ' angerstuff' but rather with relaxation and a sense of something being more open.

 

now I can imagine that when someone/something touches on such a tender spot, you can act on it by for instance making an irritated remark, or maybe throwing over some tables in a temple, thereby getting rid of something old, but keeping your calm/cool. Not to say that i'm able to do that, but i can imagine that could work that way.

[Jeff]

yes, reading them I recognize these stages, was not able to find them in my memory though...

 

but, there's more. People can become angry being unaware of it and bottle it up and people can  become aware of becoming angry and bottling it up.( In both cases thickening a blockage)

 

But then you can choose to go to the 'place' of your old anger, I've done that standing, emptying the mind and feeling into the body, when you've found the source you scream ( imagine that, a screaming serpent  ) an effective way of getting rid of old stuff. ( but warn the neighbors beforehand  )

 

It does not leave the body with ' angerstuff' but rather with relaxation and a sense of something being more open.

 

now I can imagine that when someone/something touches on such a tender spot, you can act on it by for instance making an irritated remark, or maybe throwing over some tables in a temple, thereby getting rid of something old, but keeping your calm/cool. Not to say that i'm able to do that, but i can imagine that could work that way.

 

 

Excellent decription and very cool approach. Also, thanks for pointing out that issues and fears are stored in the (energy) body.

[Bindi]

Perhaps something along these lines...

 

“Many spiritual traditions... insist we transform our anger into compassion, implying that anger is not a “spiritual” emotion. This idea confuses anger with aggression, the emotion with “what is actually done with anger.” Anger can actually be an expression of compassion, a willingness to uphold boundaries that are sacred, or stand up for someone who is being oppressed. Compassion and anger can absolutely coexist.”

 

http://spiritualityhealth.com/blog/julie-peters/spirituality-anger

Edited October 17, 2016 by Bindi

[blue eyed snake]

Perhaps something along these lines...

 

“Many spiritual traditions... insist we transform our anger into compassion, implying that anger is not a “spiritual” emotion. This idea confuses anger with aggression, the emotion with “what is actually done with anger.” Anger can actually be an expression of compassion, a willingness to uphold boundaries that are sacred, or stand up for someone who is being oppressed. Compassion and anger can absolutely coexist.”

 

http://spiritualityhealth.com/blog/julie-peters/spirituality-anger

 

thank you Bindi, this looks a bit like what i was trying to say

[cold]

I struggle with compassion and anger.

 

My being ("Ego") if you will has a lot of time and energy invested in my garden.

 

Most produce goes to local food banks. The compassion angle.

The anger comes in when the critters nibble at a fruit or vegetable, decide no not for me and continue to nibble damage down the row.

 

I know on an intellectual level that's the way the world works.

Emotionally I feel robbed. ( Lol )

The fields are fenced, and walked daily.

 

Development pressure is increasing all around, new houses, less trees, less options for the critters.

Trapping is an option.

So is acceptance.

 

If I didn't care I wouldn't get angry, cause I wouldn't plant.

I cry over spoiled fruits of my labor.

And laugh of the absurdity of the tears.

 

I intervene as little as possible.

Struggling for balance.

[Orion]

English is clumsy because we only have one word for love. The love/hate level is a different kind of love than the love of realized compassion. One is based on temporal conditions while the other is a spacious state that is a simple result of freedom.

 

I don't know how else to put it.

 

If you can conceptualize love into linguistic terms then you aren't talking about the love that arises in the presence of the ultimate. It's not higher or lower, it just is. It's not something you reach for, it's merely a condition that becomes apparent when all else is relinquished.

[redcairo]

Hi Bindi,

 

Working on the assumption that consciousness rises progressively from lower to higher

...maybe. I'm no expert at anything, but in my own experience, it's more like a sort of shallow spiral upward, where every spiral you gain another odd %, except, within that spiral, there are tons of places where you are 'missing spots' and some where you have more than one layer in some little spot. By the time you get a little ways up, which you (I mean me) may think is progress but is probably infintesimal LOL, from the top down it probably looks less like anything opaque or a road than it does a very low % array of white noise, interspersed with spots all over that run the spectrum from higher than average level to utterly empty. I run into the same things over and over and over again, but it always seems like "a new level of understanding." A new level of the spiral.

 

Which reminds me of one of my favorite paintings, "Modern Shalott" by John Stephens:

 

I loved that pic partly because I had once had a deep dream where (to summarize greatly) I was cared for by a part of my larger-soul working as a medical guy, in a cave up high, then run down a winding path in a rickshaw by another part (my twin/mate), then put in a small boat with my hands crossed on my chest and sent down a river. I loved the symbolism of that later when I thought about it! This pic made me think of it.

 

RC

Edited October 28, 2016 by redcairo

[redcairo]

blue eyed snake wrote:

Me thinks, when the heart starts to open itself, ' stuck' emotions will flow out of it, both of positive and of negative nature. During that process one might observe that these emotions are attachments from the ego to the other. Having more connection with the own ego/ being extensions of the own ego, they have not much connection with the perceived other.

Mine certainly has both polarities, the whole spectrum. I have been dealing with issues of the heart chakra for some years. Physically not just 'spiritually'. I do not actually consider these unrelated because I believe the body/mind/spirit are really just different perspectives on the same group of energy. (Easy to say, harder to live.)

 

I've had a really difficult time of it as I've had some serious blockage there. Not anymore. Kundalini cleaned me out one night, at request, which was quite lovely until the heart attack it inspired right after that of course (just what I asked for, perhaps not what I wanted). In any case, after spending years dying of an undiagnosed genetic heart valve defect, I then spent six months officially dying of it, but got surgery and four months later I am doing really well. It'll take me a couple years to develop the body systems to handle the 70% higher flow of oxygen/nutrients (good grief! no wonder all the docs were so amazed at how 'with it' I was despite those stats), and quite some time to get properly mobile again given three years of nearly bedridden, and to deal with a truly insane amount of edema slow to come off it seems. But it's all good now... it's all getting better though I have a long way to go. On the bright side, as the docs said in real surprise, my arteries etc. in the heart area where all totally clean but for that valve's problems. So at least there's that...!

 

Since then I have not been meditating very well or often I confess, but I am still at a low level working on my heart and I think spontaneously my 'self' is trying to help, because I find that lately a few things from my past keep coming to mind and really bothering me. Stuff I haven't much thought about in eons and seldom think about.

 

They are all things where people I was forced to be close to really, really hurt me. Thing is, I'm a pretty assertive personality and not particularly emotional (that is changing radically as I age but wasn't present until recently). So the number of people that have hurt me seems pretty small, maybe it's not. Most of my relationships have been positive and many life-changingly good. But there are five (I am 51, I've had some time :-) is that a lot?) who were all in job or avocational areas (nothing romantic, but the force of association made us very close and it became personal), and one past relative, so that's over a period of 35 years... even when I try to be objective, I simply cannot understand it.

 

I literally have to invent in my head some hypothesized past life where I must have like, kidnapped and tortured them for years to account for anybody being so pathologically lying, intentionally devious, ongoingly evil and harmful toward me and so very personally, when I was actually so good to them (unusually so in most the cases), and totally believed in them (to the degree of refusing to believe indicators and others telling me of the problems, I gave them the benefit of the doubt). I believe that reality is a reflection (or rather, the actual embodiment of) my energy, so I "assume it's my fault" (I know that is the wrong perspective; it isn't about fault). Clearly, if something happens more than once (which with a list of five, it has, although of course all were very different in detail, though similar in nature in some points) then I am part of that energy, or all of it. I know the energy is rooted in me, and I want to take responsibility for that and not just blame others.

 

But it is so difficult not to feel the emotion now. I think most of it, I felt then and suppressed and repressed, and now that my heart body issues have actually seemed to open me up a lot more to emotion, I am suddenly 'dealing with' emotion stored up over the last 35 years about this. I don't feel like I have anger or rage, but I do think hearing of their as-soon-as-possible and as-painful-as-possible demise would seem well deserved and make the world a better place, so obviously I am not at all clear with myself, I must have those emotions or how could I be that way. Consciously I still just feel horribly abused but mostly just so betrayed, due to my trust, and the surreal injustice of the situations.

 

I realize their known pathologies are part of it. They all had literal extreme-textbook-degree pathologies, but some are the sort that are hidden as part of the pathology itself. Like reactive attachment disorder, which is mostly in kids/teens but does not magically vanish when people turn 18, it just makes them the most terrifying person short of kidnappers and serial killers to be loosed on the adult world. Because nobody ever suspects, why would you, that anybody would behave that way and it is self-protective (and well practiced, and pathological liars are the most utterly convincing people in the world). It's such a horrible condition, a psych friend told me all the mental health places he knows of in this region will take anything in a teen or young adult, suicidal, homicidal, you name it, but will not accept people with RAD. It is just that difficult to deal with and that scary... you can't fix it and it is about 100% certain to cause serious problems with the staff who have to work with them. It's like people are just broken and we should take them out and shoot them for the good of society or something. Another in my life was later diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic but I don't blame myself for that one! -- my father married her when I was young.

 

I know the constant reminders -- I just keep thinking about this stuff when I haven't thought about most of it very often since it happened, some for decades -- is my inner world telling me this is energy in focus now, I need to deal with it.

 

I do have some exercises the sun (an archetype whom I consider a friend) gave me that are kind of like a heart energy kata and help "push out" "stuck energy forms" in the body (in the heart area in this case). He helped me push out one that was very powerful, from a traumatic experience I actually had in meditation/dream nine years prior (can't recall which it was, my dreams are unusually linear and vivid, and I have visions, and I do imaginal meditations, so frankly it's really all part of the same spectrum for me), that had created immense grief and fear in me ever since. As the shape (that had about the size, shape and firmness of a peppermint patty :-)) pushed out of my chest finally, just as it started hitting near the surface, I was totally "In" that energy -- as if that event were happening literally in the moment but condensed in time, and I was literally wailing loudly in reaction to the condensed pain -- but as it passed out of me, then it was gone. Utterly! I still remembered the event but it was "Information, not emotion" after that. Wow. Just totally gone.

 

It was slow though. I know I should do more of that (and I will) to help with these other things but every time I think of any of these people I had those hurts from, my sudden desire to stick a knife in them (still absent the conscious recognition of rage) interferes. :-)

 

I used to think of myself like a jellyfish in air instead of water, and wind and emotion would "blow through me." It was a good exercise for letting go, especially when working to be calm with thoughts and not hold on to things... not so good at that now... and these things just trigger me. I fall into daydreams where oops. They accidentally die horribly. Haha! Too bad! (mwahahahaha) So far it's just not ending well for my enlightenment, suffice to say... :-(

 

Any exercises besides "just let it go" -- obvious, but obviously not easy for me -- I'd be happy to hear from anybody.

 

RC

Edited October 28, 2016 by redcairo

[redcairo]

About anger. I have felt anger clearly but when I do, it's in the 2nd chakra not the 4th. In fact, one time, sun and I were having a talk about this. I was really mad about something and he told me "the sword is love, not anger." And I got all belligerant and argued that being angry had given me the will to accomplish plenty of stuff (in meditation, I meant, mostly). And he said in those cases I accomplished it and had that will despite my anger, not because of it. And I wanted to know why that was, why he would say that. And 3rd chakra piped up and told me it was because anger is from below him and drains some of his energy downward to feed it, while love is above him and pours some of its energy downward into him.

 

For whatever that's worth -- I am not any kind of enlightened being, and even if my HGA, archetypes and aeons and guides are valid and have decent info, translating it through the usual muck of me might make it worth what yer payin' for it.

 

I think I might have a difficult time allowing myself to feel anger/rage. Maybe lack of allowing that is actually the underlying problem, less a heart issue than a 2nd chakra issue (I have other issues there, significantly, so maybe so). But I feel like those issues are interfering with things at the heart.

 

RC

Edited October 28, 2016 by redcairo

[redcairo]

Jesus certainly wasn't working to the stereotype then when he referred to the Scribes and Pharisees as fools, hypocrites, blind guides, whited sepulchers, murderers, and a generation of snakes, and to the spiritually unworthy as dogs and swine.

And drove the evil spirits into the swine who drowned themselves. What did the pigs ever do? Oh, and cursed the fig tree for not growing! (That'll teach you to not grow! Now you'll not grow more! So there!) :-) :-)

 

I have nothing against the dude. I'm being light hearted there. Anybody who cares is sometimes irritated, I suspect.

 

I once had a dream where a voice told me that Jesus and Martin Luther King Jr. had this in common: that neither were nearly as perfect as everybody assumed they were, and that they both to a great degree lived for what amounted to an ideal and a dream they held. No idea why I dreamed that as I certainly hadn't been thinking of either of them for any reason.

 

RC