Today's Biggest Threat: the Polarized Mind

[manitou]

1 hour ago, Aetherous said:

 

 

It's not wise to think so highly of yourself, and underestimate your "opponents". 

 

 

 

To see others as opponents is to believe you are separate from them.  It merely affirms the ego, which as we know is a block to enlightenment.  Or do your teachings teach differently?

[manitou]

Just now, Song of the Dao said:

 

Maybe it was mini stroke?

 

 

Yes, that's always possible.

[Song of the Dao]

10 minutes ago, manitou said:

To see others as opponents is to believe you are separate from them.  It merely affirms the ego, which as we know is a block to enlightenment.  Or do your teachings teach differently?

 

This is the reason I posted the video of the woman who had the stroke. We need both sides, the Yin and Yang. We need the ego and the universal to function in the world. As spiritualists we can loose that notion and get lost in the oneness.

The ego is not a block to enlightenment, it is a part of enlightenment. Seeing your oneness is not the end, it is kensho as the Zennnists would say.

We start with all ego, wake up to the oneness, then the last task is to merge the two. That merging is enlightenment.

[Aetherous]

51 minutes ago, manitou said:

To see others as opponents is to believe you are separate from them.  It merely affirms the ego, which as we know is a block to enlightenment.  Or do your teachings teach differently?

 

I used the word "opponents" because it fit the vibe of what you said:

 

Quote

I take it this comment is a bit lofty for some, lol.

 

[manitou]

1 hour ago, Song of the Dao said:

 

This is the reason I posted the video of the woman who had the stroke. We need both sides, the Yin and Yang. We need the ego and the universal to function in the world. As spiritualists we can loose that notion and get lost in the oneness.

The ego is not a block to enlightenment, it is a part of enlightenment. Seeing your oneness is not the end, it is kensho as the Zennnists would say.

We start with all ego, wake up to the oneness, then the last task is to merge the two. That merging is enlightenment.

 

 

An ego that is allowed to exist as it is will never uncover humility.  Humility is required for true understanding of what and who we are.  A merger of Oneness cannot be done with an intact and strong ego, you will always experience yourself as separate.  A merger of the oneness (the I Am consciousness) with an un-dismantled ego will result in psychopathy.

[Song of the Dao]

49 minutes ago, manitou said:

An ego that is allowed to exist as it is will never uncover humility.  Humility is required for true understanding of what and who we are.  A merger of Oneness cannot be done with an intact and strong ego, you will always experience yourself as separate.  A merger of the oneness (the I Am consciousness) with an un-dismantled ego will result in psychopathy.

 

Have you ever lived in complete oneness? I have, and I ended up in a psychiatric ward. It is impossible to exist in that state, as we see with the woman who had the stroke, which is why we need the ego; one foot on the ground, one in the heavens. Being in the oneness makes you appreciate the ego and puts it in its rightful place. I could not be typing this if I did not have an ego, nor could I interact with you.

People striving to be "one with everything" are only striving to be insane.

[manitou]

1 hour ago, Song of the Dao said:

 

Have you ever lived in complete oneness? I have, and I ended up in a psychiatric ward. It is impossible to exist in that state, as we see with the woman who had the stroke, which is why we need the ego; one foot on the ground, one in the heavens. Being in the oneness makes you appreciate the ego and puts it in its rightful place. I could not be typing this if I did not have an ego, nor could I interact with you.

People striving to be "one with everything" are only striving to be insane.

 

 

Actually, it is a mindset of awareness that I practice whenever I remember to think of it.  I will say that it happens maybe six times a day, sometimes more, sometimes less.  I don't believe I'm insane, but I could be wrong.

 

There is much inner work on the ego that needs to be done for the right balance on this.  Of course we need a degree of ego to interact, to stay out of oncoming traffic.  It is losing the unwanted arrogance, selfishness, small-mindedness, judgment, envy, jealousy and other similar traits that stand in the way of self-realization.  It's really not a binary thing.

[lifeforce]

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Edited April 25, 2019 by lifeforce

[Song of the Dao]

12 hours ago, manitou said:

Actually, it is a mindset of awareness that I practice whenever I remember to think of it.  I will say that it happens maybe six times a day, sometimes more, sometimes less.  I don't believe I'm insane, but I could be wrong.

 

There is much inner work on the ego that needs to be done for the right balance on this.  Of course we need a degree of ego to interact, to stay out of oncoming traffic.  It is losing the unwanted arrogance, selfishness, small-mindedness, judgment, envy, jealousy and other similar traits that stand in the way of self-realization.  It's really not a binary thing.

 

Awareness does not dissolve the ego. Awareness is the ego. What/who is it that remembers or experienced that feeling while you were walking your dog, and what/who is it that has remained to express it? So what good did that moment of awareness do but to further strengthen your ego? "Look what I did"; you tell us. You remember that moment and you continue grasping for it because it was pleasurable.

 

How can something like arrogance or stand in the way of seeing your Self if arrogance IS your Self when you are being arrogant?  How can you realize the Self if you keep pushing it away and judging it? If you saw the true harm of arrogance it would end immediately like how you don't drink antifreeze because you know how harmful it is. But you do not see the harm in it, there is a piece of you that still wants it, that sees its usefulness, so you keep it in your cupboard just in case. But these traits are human traits, they are as "bad" as a tiger having sharp fangs.

The focus on, and idea of, awareness and mindfulness has destroyed spirituality because it is still dualistic; there is me being aware and me not being aware. So you judge non-awareness as bad and try to overcome it. More violence, more struggle. You moved the war from outside of yourself to inside. Still desire, still violent.

So why try and lose your non-awareness, arrogance, selfishness, small-mindedness, judgment, envy, and jealousy? How can you see the harm in them, the true harm, if you do not experience them? Forced awareness and walks in the park hide them, nothing more.

[silent thunder]

Intriguing how we all see reflections of conversations differently. 

Where I perceive no arrogance in a reply, some seem to pivot upon it.

When I look in the river's waters, what is it I see?  the River, or me?... or?

 

It's challenging to offer words for processes whose ken lies beyond the scope of words to encompass.

 

Awareness for me underlies all other processes, ego is no longer perceived as a thing, but a pull or push action.

When pulled toward a desire, when scrambling in aversion from what seems dispicable... this is egoing.

No ego object have I encountered, only a tendency toward or away usually linked by desire/fear.

 

Awareness is.  Raw.  Baseline and ascending simultaneously... utterly permeative.

 

 

[Song of the Dao]

18 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

Intriguing how we all see reflections of conversations differently. 

Where I perceive no arrogance in a reply, some seem to pivot upon it.

When I look in the river's waters, what is it I see?  the River, or me?... or?

 

Ugh, the "what I see is really me" line? If I see arrogance I am arrogance? If I see a flower am I a flower?

When I see a river I see a river. And if it's warm out maybe I will jump in it.

 

18 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

Awareness for me underlies all other processes, ego is no longer perceived as a thing, but a pull or push action.

When pulled toward a desire, when scrambling in aversion from what seems dispicable... this is egoing.

If you want to be aware, or live in awareness, that is a push or pull action, so it is the ego. To be push or pulled implies that there is direction to or from something. That something is the I, or the ego. That I does not vanish once the pushing and pulling stops. It just gets a rest.

 

18 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

No ego object have I encountered, only a tendency toward or away usually linked by desire/fear.

 

Awareness is.  Raw.  Baseline and ascending simultaneously... utterly permeative.

 

Awareness is. A river is. Everything just is. Awareness is nothing special. You are just letting the ego relax a bit.

[silent thunder]

nice, this gives rise to interesting questions.

at what level does polarization occur?

when/where does it begin and cease?

who determines right and wrong?

 

does a polarity represent two separate 'things'?

or is this a perception dependent interpretation of the expressions of one unified fluid process?

 

 

intriguing how differently a sentence, story, painting, environment, concept may be perceived and interpreted.

 

what is the truth of an elephant?  Each of these gentlemen could be very certain of their perspective.

Spoiler

when I perceive objects with my eyes... is this the truth?

certainty seems deeply entwined/necessary in polarizing mind.

 

any more, my eyes may see an elephant, but my experience of it... the ovearching sense of it is more encompassing and less defined...

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

[manitou]

3 hours ago, Song of the Dao said:

 

Awareness does not dissolve the ego. Awareness is the ego. What/who is it that remembers or experienced that feeling while you were walking your dog, and what/who is it that has remained to express it? So what good did that moment of awareness do but to further strengthen your ego? "Look what I did"; you tell us. You remember that moment and you continue grasping for it because it was pleasurable.

 

How can something like arrogance or stand in the way of seeing your Self if arrogance IS your Self when you are being arrogant?  How can you realize the Self if you keep pushing it away and judging it? If you saw the true harm of arrogance it would end immediately like how you don't drink antifreeze because you know how harmful it is. But you do not see the harm in it, there is a piece of you that still wants it, that sees its usefulness, so you keep it in your cupboard just in case. But these traits are human traits, they are as "bad" as a tiger having sharp fangs.

The focus on, and idea of, awareness and mindfulness has destroyed spirituality because it is still dualistic; there is me being aware and me not being aware. So you judge non-awareness as bad and try to overcome it. More violence, more struggle. You moved the war from outside of yourself to inside. Still desire, still violent.

So why try and lose your non-awareness, arrogance, selfishness, small-mindedness, judgment, envy, and jealousy? How can you see the harm in them, the true harm, if you do not experience them? Forced awareness and walks in the park hide them, nothing more.

 

There is our original self, the I Am.  Then, superimposed upon that, is the ego, which is the result of our conditioning and genetics.  The ego thrives on the belief that it is separate from other human beings.  But we are not separate.  Inside you is that warm, expansive presence that is always there, and never grows older.  It is 'home' in you.  I have the very same home in myself.  It is the very same home that we have in each other.  That is the thing that  is re-found when the ego, our false selves, is punctured or disassembled.  No, awareness is not the ego.  And when you ask "What/who is it that remembers or experienced that feeling while you were walking your dog....?" the answer is the I Am (some would call it God, I prefer to think of it as the indwelling Intelligence that inhabits all) recognizing itself.  This is why we're here.  To be the sensory and expressive aspect of the whole of Life (or the I Am).

 

You've heard the phrase 'As a man thinketh, so is he'.  This is the reason that the negative traits (arrogance, et al) are best removed to the best of our ability.  Proudly wearing negative traits serves no purpose other than to keep one's thoughts on a low vibration.  And we will manifest our world according to the level of our thoughts.  I can only attest to my own change of thinking - from a judgmental and arrogant police officer who saw everyone as 'the enemy' unless you were a cop - to someone who cultivates their own thought patterns.  To try and nip the negative thoughts, the judgmental thoughts, in the bud and immediately bend them upward.  I wish I could tell you how easy my life is today compared to the complicated quagmires that used to make up my life.  This is the only proof I can give - my own experience.

 

Speaking for my own experience, and I know this is not the usual path, I had to come to my spirituality through alcoholism.  Working the 12 steps required me to take a personal inventory (and continue to do so) of what kind of person I really was.  This was 38 years ago.  The process continues, the self examination.  This is where my awareness of my own character was born.  When I sought to change those things which kept me in a negative mindset (and kept me drunk) my world lightened up - a lot.  So now, I'm not plagued with the darkness I used to dwell in - and I am rewarded with the awareness of who we really are.  We are the sensory aspect of the One.  We are 'god'.

Edited April 18, 2019 by manitou

[Earl Grey]

My signature in all my posts basically sums up my view of dealing with the polarized mind. Some have set their options to not see signatures so it is copied and bolded here for emphasis: 

 

Cynics regarded everybody as equally corrupt... Idealists regarded everybody as equally corrupt, except themselves.

 

It's only possible to see people when one is able to see the world as others see it.

 

Everyone has a belief system, B.S., the trick is to learn not to take anyone's B.S. too seriously, especially your own. 

 

Of course I’m crazy, but that doesn’t mean that I’m wrong.  

 

Only the madman is absolutely sure. 

 

You are precisely as big as what you love and precisely as small as what you allow to annoy you.

 

- Snippets of Wisdom from Robert Anton Wilson

[silent thunder]

My Uncle is a retired detective.  Homicide/burglary, Los Angeles.  He's also one of the most optimistic people I've ever known.  It seems a paradox to me.  I've got a variety of career military officers and police in my family, from beat cops to CIA operatives. 

 

I asked him once out of a pressing need to understand, how he could remain so optimistic, while throughout his career of marines and homicide investigations, he was daily dealing with the 3% of the population that causes 90% of the trouble. 

 

His response resonates to this day regarding polarizing thought, self identification and how what we allow ourselves to think becomes our perception of reality, it tempers how we view reality.  It was as surprising to me as it was impacting. 

 

While a rookie, my Uncle had a veteran pull him aside and offered him potent advice that my uncle absorbed and used to seemingly great benefit.  His advice was simple: "keep your civlian friends", 'don't get lost behind the blue curtain'.  "keep your civilian friends.  Foster civilian friendships.  It will remind you that they're not all perps."  he said. 

 

"Too often in the force, and you'll see this for yourself, too often, we come to start identifying as police officers first and human second.  We start hanging out only with other cops and soon with enough exposure to perps, all civilians become 'potential perps'.  This is when you get lost, lose your perspective that most of the trouble is caused by a very small fraction of the overall population."

 

I strive to keep a wide variety of friends and to keep diaologue open to those who share my perspective and don't...

 

Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Antonin Scalia were life long friends, taking family trips together and hanging out barbequing... all the while passionately viewing the world from seemingly opposing viewpoints.

 

Much to be gleaned from this, methinks...

[manitou]

19 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

 

any more, my eyes may see an elephant, but my experience of it... the ovearching sense of it is more encompassing and less defined.

 

Nicely said.  Just this morning on my walk I was thinking about all the atoms (and form) we can't see.  Like the air, the space around us.  I breathe in the atoms, the god-idea, and contained therein are all the elements for the potential of life forms.  That too is awareness of the oneness.  We seem to be like the fish who is not aware he is living in something called water.  All the elements are there, even in the invisible vacuousness.

 

And I'll go a bit further out on the limb.  What is it that makes any object retain its form?  Why don't the atoms just fly apart willy-nilly?  It is because the lamp sitting on my desk has the awareness to retain its lamp shape.  It too is alive.  Perhaps this is why it is said 'a shaman is never alone'.  Because the shaman realizes that everything is living.  He is unafraid to befriend a lamp.  If anyone is familiar with the work of Dr. Emoto and the frozen ice crystals, it is obvious that water has awareness.  (For those not familiar, Dr. Emoto will say a word over a water sample - a positive word, like Love, or Patience - and then freeze that water sample to something like 60 below zero).  He then examines with a high power microscope the ice crystal that is formed.  Inevitably, the ice crystal that has had the positive word spoken is gorgeous -- symmetrical and beautiful.  On the other hand, if a negative word is spoken to the water, the ice crystal is malformed, misshapen, and asymmetrical.

 

Incredible, life.

[silent thunder]

4 minutes ago, Earl Grey said:

My signature in all my posts basically sums up my view of dealing with the polarized mind. Some have set their options to not see signatures so it is copied and bolded here for emphasis: 

 

Cynics regarded everybody as equally corrupt... Idealists regarded everybody as equally corrupt, except themselves.

 

It's only possible to see people when one is able to see the world as others see it.

 

Everyone has a belief system, B.S., the trick is to learn not to take anyone's B.S. too seriously, especially your own. 

 

Of course I’m crazy, but that doesn’t mean that I’m wrong.  

 

Only the madman is absolutely sure. 

 

You are precisely as big as what you love and precisely as small as what you allow to annoy you.

 

- Snippets of Wisdom from Robert Anton Wilson

Robert Anton Wilson is one of my most treasured gurus and a seemingly endless source of wokeness!

How I love that man's verbal brain droppings... like pure gold bliss, even when it's painful.

[manitou]

Just now, silent thunder said:

My Uncle is a retired detective.  Homicide/burglary, Los Angeles.  He's also one of the most optimistic people I've ever known.  It seems a paradox to me.  I've got a variety of career military officers and police in my family, from beat cops to CIA operatives. 

 

I asked him once out of a pressing need to understand, how he could remain so optimistic, while throughout his career of marines and homicide investigations, he was daily dealing with the 3% of the population that causes 90% of the trouble. 

 

His response resonates to this day regarding polarizing thought, self identification and how what we allow ourselves to think becomes our perception of reality, it tempers how we view reality.  It was as surprising to me as it was impacting. 

 

While a rookie, my Uncle had a veteran pull him aside and offered him potent advice that my uncle absorbed and used to seemingly great benefit.  His advice was simple: "keep your civlian friends", 'don't get lost behind the blue curtain'.  "keep your civilian friends.  Foster civilian friendships.  It will remind you that they're not all perps."  he said. 

 

"Too often in the force, and you'll see this for yourself, too often, we come to start identifying as police officers first and human second.  We start hanging out only with other cops and soon with enough exposure to perps, all civilians become 'potential perps'.  This is when you get lost, lose your perspective that most of the trouble is caused by a very small fraction of the overall population."

 

I strive to keep a wide variety of friends and to keep diaologue open to those who share my perspective and don't...

 

Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Antonin Scalia were life long friends, taking family trips together and hanging out barbequing... all the while passionately viewing the world from seemingly opposing viewpoints.

 

Much to be gleaned from this, methinks...

 

You've got to PM me his name.  I may well know him - I too worked homicide/sex crimes as a detective in Los Angeles.  The advice his training officer gave him was perfect, and I did it all wrong.  I was swallowed up by the blue curtain and was totally polarized, which certainly played into the alcoholism.  It was exactly that thinking that I had to deal with after my breakdown in a squad room and subsequent retirement.  And yet, I did work with partners who were well balanced and, as your uncle said, retained their civilian friends and remained human beings.  I used to believe those well adjusted sorts were naïve.  I've had to come a long way to reverse that thinking.

[silent thunder]

Just now, manitou said:

 

Nicely said.  Just this morning on my walk I was thinking about all the atoms (and form) we can't see.  Like the air, the space around us.  I breathe in the atoms, the god-idea, and contained therein are all the elements for the potential of life forms.  That too is awareness of the oneness.  We seem to be like the fish who is not aware he is living in something called water.  All the elements are there, even in the invisible vacuousness.

 

And I'll go a bit further out on the limb.  What is it that makes any object retain its form?  Why don't the atoms just fly apart willy-nilly?  It is because the lamp sitting on my desk has the awareness to retain its lamp shape.  It too is alive.  Perhaps this is why it is said 'a shaman is never alone'.  Because the shaman realizes that everything is living.  He is unafraid to befriend a lamp.  If anyone is familiar with the work of Dr. Emoto and the frozen ice crystals, it is obvious that water has awareness.  (For those not familiar, Dr. Emoto will say a word over a water sample - a positive word, like Love, or Patience - and then freeze that water sample to something like 60 below zero).  He then examines with a high power microscope the ice crystal that is formed.  Inevitably, the ice crystal that has had the positive word spoken is gorgeous -- symmetrical and beautiful.  On the other hand, if a negative word is spoken to the water, the ice crystal is malformed, misshapen, and asymmetrical.

 

Incredible, life.

I recall my father once demonstrating on a saturday morning while waiting for breakfast, the equations that delineated the likelihood that in any given intake of breath we inhale an atom exhaled by Alexander the Great with his dying breath. 

 

This equation accounted for a given the number of atoms inhaled in an average human and then accounted for the eventual dispersion over time of said atoms of an exhale through air currents over a set period of time, until an even distribution over time is likely.

 

For me it caused a reaction somewhat other than the one he intended.  My Father was as staunch a Materialist as I have encountered, save maybe for Marblehead.  In me, it caused me to immediately feel a deep unified kinship with all things that breath and instilled in my consicous awareness a raw, palpable knowingness, a beingness that we are all breathing each other's breath.

 

We are one fluid process, even though my body is actually a patterned collective of trillions of individual life cells, working in tribal units.  We are one flowing unity.  Patterns within patterns.

 

Breath is the ultimate recycling and it occurs without any training, effort or skill.

 

How lovingly, all encompassingly, bouyantly, effortlessly this shines with clarity.

[manitou]

Just now, silent thunder said:

I recall my father once demonstrating on a saturday morning while waiting for breakfast, the equations that delineated the likelihood that in any given intake of breath we inhale an atom exhaled by Alexander the Great with his dying breath. 

 

This equation accounted for a given the number of atoms inhaled in an average human and then accounted for the eventual dispersion over time of said atoms of an exhale through air currents over a set period of time, until an even distribution over time is likely.

 

For me it caused a reaction somewhat other than the one he intended.  My Father was as staunch a Materialist as I have encountered, save maybe for Marblehead.  In me, it caused me to immediately feel a deep unified kinship with all things that breath and instilled in my consicous awareness a raw, palpable knowingness, a beingness that we are all breathing each other's breath.

 

We are one fluid process, even though my body is actually a patterned collective of trillions of individual life cells, working in tribal units.  We are one flowing unity.  Patterns within patterns.

 

Breath is the ultimate recycling and it occurs without any training, effort or skill.

 

How lovingly, all encompassingly, bouyantly, effortlessly this shines with clarity.

 

 

LOL.  Damn, you're good.

[Stosh]

5 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

we are all breathing each other's breath.

 

Eeeeww !

[silent thunder]

2 minutes ago, manitou said:

 

 

LOL.  Damn, you're good.

i often feel like a goofy loose tangent tendencied oscillation of myriad counter acting forces...

 

more akin to some grinning guy mumbling to himself on the streetcorner, than some wise man.

[silent thunder]

2 minutes ago, Stosh said:

Eeeeww !

yea... there's a definite creepy factor to this notion...

I suspect this old sense is one reason I was eventually compelled to cease watching the news regularly...

 

it was all getting far too personal and flavor filled.

[OldDog]

59 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

... at what level does polarization occur?

when/where does it begin and cease?

 

I think it begins when you view others as being separate from yourself ... a decided unconnected way to view the world.

[manitou]

6 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

i often feel like a goofy loose tangent tendencied oscillation of myriad counter acting forces...

 

more akin to some grinning guy mumbling to himself on the streetcorner, than some wise man.

 

I met a homeless guy without teeth walking through a park.  We got to talking.  It was like talking with the Buddha.  I'll bet he was the mumbling grinning guy.