Physically - absolutely!
Emotionally - definitely!
Mentally - well I think I am - and that's the point isn't it - 'cos they're not in my head anymore
zensim
JoinedPosts by zensim
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36
******* Are you much healthier, now that you're out? *******
by FlyingHighNow inmuch, much healthier.
being a jw takes it's toll on people's physical and mental health.
jw's are always sick.
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86
On the sound use of mental suicide.
by Narkissos inthis topic is meant as a follow-up of my recent conversation with r. crusoe on different threads.. it seems to me that the current popularisation of eckhart tolle's philosophy, resurrecting what i think is the very core of age-old mystical traditions (to put it shortly: death of the culturally constructed "self"), without the collective mythological, institutional and social settings for such an experience, is potentially very liberating but also very dangerous.. i am sensitive to that because i went through a similar experience when i left jws -- i felt both its empowering and destructive force, and, although i certainly don't claim to have dealt with it optimally (is that an adverb?
), i'm hoping that experience, good or bad, may benefit others, to an extent.
and i'm sure that i'm not alone in that case.. so i'd like this thread to be primarily supportive, even though that may include some theoretical and practical criticism.. .
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zensim
Nark:
I feel that every social context ... there is a tiny window of helpful and genuine communication between the meaninglessness of "expected speech" ... and the meaninglessness of obscure gibberish ... . I feel we've got to take advantage of such "windows" when we happen to find one -- and don't worry too much about the silence or misundestanding in between
I am intent on creating this with each person I meet and I believe it is only by being silent we can take advantage of such 'windows'. This is why I feel it is important to understand communication which happens on other levels.
To enable me to create an opportunity for that window I pause, open my being, and create an embrace - and this is a very conscious action(although that conscious awareness shifts and grows). In being open to all, even that which I find it hard to tolerate, I don't need to believe it or even tolerate it, but I do need to be willing to know it.
That 'tiny window' is a vast window sometimes, especially when you have two people with the same intent. I love how you fill in all the gaps for me. You describe everything in such a unique way it feels like I am floating on a cloud of words that are supportive and fascinating at the same time.
To me it all starts with the simple act of intent.
Lately I have found so many people saying 'thank you' to me because I have somehow clarified something for them, or said 'just the right thing' and yet I feel like I have said or done nothing special (or different to what I have always done/said). However, something has shifted inside me and I know now that me just opening allows the truth of the moment to be revealed. It is their truth, not mine - and I feel so honoured that they have let me witness it, so when they say 'thank you' to me - I cannot conceive of how I even did anything except be present?
I cannot claim clarity, yet I can be clarity. At this point, it will always go beyond words because it is experiential. And so the 'window of helpful and genuine communication' ceases to exist as it has just be blown wide open!
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Kigdom Halls/Starbucks/Mayhem
by aquagirl inok,so i get invited to go to the "circus servant"special talk thingy tomorrow..this c.s.
is such a dick,that this is his last time here.not even the dull witted members of the local congregation like him.and they are the ones that like having one of the most evil bast**** as their head guy,leader,boss what ever its called now...i am so tempted to go and cause some mayhem.on a most tasteful plain,of course..any one ever cause any mayhem,at the hall?like,just for the hall of it?im open to suggestions...one kid lit a stink bomb in the hall one sunday,when i was a kid..it was a hoot!!!
!..and,who dosent think that starbucks would do well at the k.h?
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zensim
Oh Unconfused. I haven't been visiting this site for almost a year and I forgot how god damn funny you are! Thank you for that, I am still pissing myself laughing.
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what is there to find "beyond" reason? (inspired by BurnTheShips)
by inkling ini was struck by the honesty of a recent comment by burntheships,.
but i didn't want to hijack the thread.... [w]e see a lot of threads where atheists try to disprove that god exists.
atheism is a universal negative, how can one know for a certainty that something does not exist without infinite knowledge?
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zensim
On the other hand, for those who want to know God (if he is there) he says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.”
Interestingly, it was this earnest prayer (probably the most pure prayer I have ever prayed), desperately prayed for about a year, which led me away from the JW's. And, in 'knowing God' I have come to accept that not only do I not know God, I don't even believe in God - at least no God man has made in his image. The paradoxical feeling is, that if there is a God of which I cannot concieve, then my prayer has been answered in a way deemed worthy of me as a unique and precious manifestation of spirit.
That quote from Contact captures the joy of having such an experience and the anguish of not being able to reach others from that experience.
I do sometimes wonder though whether or not we in fact created all of this? That it is only our linear minds, limited by our concepts of time and space, that cannot fathom that we are ourselves 'god' and in fact created everything? What if we are intelligent design continually re-creating ourselves?
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On the sound use of mental suicide.
by Narkissos inthis topic is meant as a follow-up of my recent conversation with r. crusoe on different threads.. it seems to me that the current popularisation of eckhart tolle's philosophy, resurrecting what i think is the very core of age-old mystical traditions (to put it shortly: death of the culturally constructed "self"), without the collective mythological, institutional and social settings for such an experience, is potentially very liberating but also very dangerous.. i am sensitive to that because i went through a similar experience when i left jws -- i felt both its empowering and destructive force, and, although i certainly don't claim to have dealt with it optimally (is that an adverb?
), i'm hoping that experience, good or bad, may benefit others, to an extent.
and i'm sure that i'm not alone in that case.. so i'd like this thread to be primarily supportive, even though that may include some theoretical and practical criticism.. .
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zensim
but now I really know I know
To hear my own words coming out of someone else's mouth
It is like holding the hand of a two year old as you go for a veeeeery slooooooooow waaaaaaaaaalk and re-discovering the fascination of a bug, a leaf, a rock - of seeing life through eyes of wonder. It is seeing the world afreshly all the time and falling in love - again and again and again.
There is grace here. To be is to feel the effortlessness, the beauty, the bliss. It is also to know this as a birthright of every human being. Not mistaking the luxury in being able to say "this is worth passing through the abyss", forgetting the pain and struggle of others who are still contracted in their focus. This is why I have issue with a lot of 'gurus' who speak of this, yet offer little practical skills for people to grow in awareness. I have been too many times in the presence of pseudo peace - which reeks as much as any other religious practice. Mind you, there is also a plethora of 'self-help' manuals/courses out there - yet, in my experience, most of them fail to create an embrace of sacredness because they are still focussed on the 'doing'.
"Who am I?" is a useful practice for focussing the mind - it will burn away all extraneous thought and everything that is not truth. In all honesty though, I hate it - lol. Resistance is just as welcome as any other emotion.
The 'unbearable lightness of being' indeed says it all.
E B Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men might strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if god choose,
I shall but love thee better after death. -
86
On the sound use of mental suicide.
by Narkissos inthis topic is meant as a follow-up of my recent conversation with r. crusoe on different threads.. it seems to me that the current popularisation of eckhart tolle's philosophy, resurrecting what i think is the very core of age-old mystical traditions (to put it shortly: death of the culturally constructed "self"), without the collective mythological, institutional and social settings for such an experience, is potentially very liberating but also very dangerous.. i am sensitive to that because i went through a similar experience when i left jws -- i felt both its empowering and destructive force, and, although i certainly don't claim to have dealt with it optimally (is that an adverb?
), i'm hoping that experience, good or bad, may benefit others, to an extent.
and i'm sure that i'm not alone in that case.. so i'd like this thread to be primarily supportive, even though that may include some theoretical and practical criticism.. .
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zensim
The fire which enlightens is the same fire which consumes.
- Henri Frederic Amiel, philosopher and writer (1821-1881)
I know my speak sounds mystical and this is not something I am happy about. As TallPenguin says "the language I have for what I'm experiencing just doesn't cut it". It will always sound the same in the end - because the experience (that de-ja vu) is the same, one just knows it again and again and again - each time more deeply, more expansively, more exquisitely.
So when one accepts this and surrenders - there is that sense of there being less of me and, simultaenously, more of me (in an expanded sense). Dualism still exists and we still play out the dualism - forgetting, remembering - yet from a place of awareness that encompasses both and doesn't get 'stuck' in either state. I am happy to forget, there is so much compassion in forgetting. The 'in and out pattern' is genuine.
About four years ago I saw a 'vision' of myself five years down the track and all I could see was a dark figure in blackness and it scared the bejesus out of me (I was just beginning to leave the witnesses) because I 'knew' that it was my future self and I was (in my limited understanding and labelling back then) "shamanic"! (ooooooh). Now, if you met me, all you would see is a suburban mother of two, reasonably well kept (happy for you to think 'yummy mummy' though), married, trying to do the best she can and, by no means do I look hippy, shamanic, new agey etc :) I thought I consciously chose the path I was on - but at the conscious level there was a lot of resistance - and now ... I don't completely know. All I am aware of is that there is something deeper inside which drives me, pushes me, pulls me. I don't consider myself shamanic anymore than I consider myself anything else - I understand that anyone who delves into that abyss will appear to others (and even in our own undeveloped eyes) as mystic, shamanic, crazy, simple etc etc. I find the same essence in science. I love science and delve into it as much as I can and I see the same intensity. It is there within anyone who is pushing the boundaries of consciousness. Whether it looks 'light' or 'dark' is, again, just a play of shadows.
TallPenguin (and this is limited to me knowing nothing about you or how long you have been out of your old constructs, so please take it in that spirit) - the dark moments become less debilitatingly dark in the sense that your willingness to be taken there increases. I think this is what Nark was talking about when he says you fall in love with death, because in every moment there is a small death to the previous moment. You step into knowing and, as soon as you have that 'aha' moment of "I know" you realise that you don't know and fall into the abyss again of "and even this is not it". I found reading your words was like reading my own :) I especially liked "I feel like I am at one with life, in love with it, making love to it." Just yesterday, after posting, as I was going about the shopping centre preparing for my daughter's b'day today, I was wondering "How do I post onto this topic what it feels like to have so much energy in your body that you feel as if you want to have sex with everyone and everything?". This could be so wrongly interpreted by so many, yet those who have experienced it will know what I mean. It is the orgasmic bliss one feels when one has let go of all attachment to any one thing, one person, one situation as bringing it about. It isn't about sex (although my Salt'n'Pepper vid was taking a poke at myself because I believe in the end it always comes back to sex) because it feels so pure, like you can feel every cell in your body vibrating. As in that Jill Bolte video, I am often wondering "How do I fit into my body?" This is beyond feeling whole as a person, this is the experience of universal wholeness that I can only describe as such pure potential that it is the uncreated, the unmanifest and the unborn.
The living here becomes easier as you become more at ease with this state, so I can only encourage you that you are in fact in a most wonderful place! In fact, I now know we don't actually 'forget' or step out of this flow. I just think that when we open and grow newly, for a moment we feel the intensity of that new state. I used to get frustrated because then 'it' would go away and I would go back to my default setting. I was attached to that first feeling of excitement, of aliveness. What I finally came to accept was that my 'default' setting (that feeling of neutrality, which can look/feel like the grey zone until you re-frame it mentally) was in fact the state of mastery, when I had come to embody what I learned and it was now an effortless (or at the very least, easier) part of my being. So I enjoy this state as much as the feeling of being in the flow. It has stopped being 'neutral or grey' and rather I know it as the stillness, the potentiality of everything that ever was and ever could be. You don't live here - you live from this.
I am so beyond caring now whether I am this or am not this, including enlightenment. I have called off the search to find myself or to find anything outside myself. All I want to do is to grow in my ability to be all this. This thread is about being aware of those who are just entering this seeking consciously and you can't say to them "stop seeking' because it is like saying to a baby "stop crawling" - it is a necessary part of development to get to walking.
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I have a theory regarding Elders
by Peppermint inthere has been much talk about the reasons for the demise of the book study.
the society claim rising gas/petrol prices, which of course is not the real reason.
some here think its down to declining numbers of elders and those who are reaching out.
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zensim
A plausible theory.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1607103640159076451&hl=en
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Why does an atheist have to disprove anything?
by digderidoo ini have noticed alot of debate in posts lately between an atheist argument and a christian one.
it seems to me that the atheist is asked to disprove god's existence.
some times these debates have started to get personal with one side attacking the other with insults and i do not want to start another argument like these.. but i dont get it?
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zensim
We know now that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day's work at Auschwitz in the morning. -George Steiner, professor and writer (b. 1929)
Belief is an important factor in all this, but (as much as I abhor religion) - it is too simple to just use the argument "look what has been done in the name of religion".
I am with Bring_the_Light. Whilst important to learn from history, as much as I see athiesm as an evolutionary necessity, we are in fact choosing to explore the future, the questions, the mystery - together. What you choose to call the gaps in knowledge is your personal preference.
To the athiests I say: It is very neat to say to theists 'prove your god', but if you really spend time individually with a theist, you will discover whether they believe in a personal god or a god of reason and order. One is a closed, finite god which is made in man's image, the latter is an openness which allows for as much learning and scepticism as the agnostics and athiests claim.
In choosing the words 'prove' and 'disprove' the issue is really "how far/willing is the person prepared to go to defend/support their belief?" and comes back to a question of ethics. Discover and explore might be more creative words to use whilst we also explore intention and expectation :)
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On the sound use of mental suicide.
by Narkissos inthis topic is meant as a follow-up of my recent conversation with r. crusoe on different threads.. it seems to me that the current popularisation of eckhart tolle's philosophy, resurrecting what i think is the very core of age-old mystical traditions (to put it shortly: death of the culturally constructed "self"), without the collective mythological, institutional and social settings for such an experience, is potentially very liberating but also very dangerous.. i am sensitive to that because i went through a similar experience when i left jws -- i felt both its empowering and destructive force, and, although i certainly don't claim to have dealt with it optimally (is that an adverb?
), i'm hoping that experience, good or bad, may benefit others, to an extent.
and i'm sure that i'm not alone in that case.. so i'd like this thread to be primarily supportive, even though that may include some theoretical and practical criticism.. .
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zensim
SPAZnik - just my sudden awareness today of "I have a committment issue" alone has, once again, thrown me in the deep end of never ending internal exploration - lol.
So I am hijacking this thread before I take myself too seriously - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzfo4txaQJA
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86
On the sound use of mental suicide.
by Narkissos inthis topic is meant as a follow-up of my recent conversation with r. crusoe on different threads.. it seems to me that the current popularisation of eckhart tolle's philosophy, resurrecting what i think is the very core of age-old mystical traditions (to put it shortly: death of the culturally constructed "self"), without the collective mythological, institutional and social settings for such an experience, is potentially very liberating but also very dangerous.. i am sensitive to that because i went through a similar experience when i left jws -- i felt both its empowering and destructive force, and, although i certainly don't claim to have dealt with it optimally (is that an adverb?
), i'm hoping that experience, good or bad, may benefit others, to an extent.
and i'm sure that i'm not alone in that case.. so i'd like this thread to be primarily supportive, even though that may include some theoretical and practical criticism.. .
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zensim
So many responses have arisen within me and I can't choose which ones are worthy of expression. I have found lately that I have a committment issue with thought. Whilst on one hand I find it amusing that my thoughts are beginning to be bored with me (or I with them?), on the other hand it still scares me. Is this my growing awareness that resistance is futile as no mind (or 'big mind') beckons?
Maybe it is just I realise there is too much to say, it has all been said, we are just finding different ways to express same, we actually all agree and so I am left with no option in the end but to honour with silence. I guess there are always two options - stillness or growth - neither being better or less than the other.
Nevertheless, I will choose to respond to that which made me pause most:
My impression is that the "unchanged" in identity applies not only to what makes me "one" with others but also to what makes me "different" from them . I often thought that the essential distance between people doesn't really change much in a lifetime, no matter how much they talk and interact, live together or apart. That's why I feel true encounters are rare and precious.
Even in 'oneness' I find a different kind of egocentricity which keeps present the perception of separation - this is that "I" 'know' this 'Oneness' but others don't, thus it is my purpose to help others realise same (this applies to me no less). Which is what I was getting at when I said "I wonder if I can even tell the difference ...?" and the necessity of grading consciousness? So, for me, I endeavour to also feel and intuit - because there is more than consciousness of the mind at work here, there is the consciousness of the cells, of life force, of collective consciousness etc, of intention and manifestation (which I know is what you are also conveying).
I admit I was disappointed to go through mental suicide and to arrive 'here' and realise that what you say above is true - that there is an essential distance which always exists - it just looks and feels different now. As such:
as long as one can stand unconsciously playing his/her individual "part" in the social/mental play (taking him/herself "seriously" if you prefer) s/he just does.
... never seems to end in my view. So I think that the purpose of this thread is to identify the markers of the most crucial time (often that first BIG awakening in whatever form it comes) in a person's life when it is possibly dangerous (to themselves and others).
True encounters are rare and precious. However, when one is in state of wholeness, in that healthier state of being you can create or be more aware of opportunities for being totally present with another human and life. This is why teachers speak so much of gratitude and of bringing your attention back to this moment, as this is very much tied in with living in awareness. I have arrived at the point of knowing these opportunities are available in every moment. Whether it happens in every moment is another matter and part of my ongoing learning.
The irony of the quest to realise this as a permanent state is that it is already here - there is nowhere to go.
As antithetic as it may seem I think it is another of "its" names indeed.
(Have you ever read Borges' short novel Undr ?)
I know it may have sounded antithetic. And yes, it was on some level - because I am enjoying (at the risk of sounding like "you are the wind beneath my wings") sharpening my mental axe on your stone :) But to convey what I mean by 'life' would be another whole thread. I am not talking life in a general sense - people, nature, earth. I am talking about feeling a love so pure, for an energetic force which (again at risk of being interpreted very differently because in no sense did this feel religious and I am vehemently anti-religious) felt like I was drinking life's water, a water that not only refreshed my thirst in that moment, but felt like it quenched every thirst I had ever had and ever will have. I can't even describe it as just a spiritual experience because it felt so physical.
No, I haven't read Undr - I will take up your recommendation. I do feel out of my depth when you all discuss classic literature. I am a voracious reader - I am afraid I am a grazer though :)
VoidEater:
I doubt there's much value in long term mental suicide. Short term can grant perspective and insight to more effectively live in the social, ego-bound culture we live in; but to stay in that place would be an attempt to live in a place that isn't here (and, one would have to ask, what would be the point of being here but choosing to ignore being here?).
Yet it is interesting that so many of the great teachers speak of the value of 'long term mental suicide' :) . Maybe it is just semantics, but as I have discussed above, whether you view it as 'long term' or a series of stop and start 'short term suicide' - it is an ongoing process which you can either choose to be aware of or not.
I don't believe it is a 'place' but a way of being. Rather than 'choosing to ignore being here' it is quite the opposite - one is so present to life, to the moment, to what is right here in front of you, that you realise there is nowhere else to go. One isn't choosing to ignore what is here, one is only choosing the meaning they ascribe to it, conscious that this 'place' shapeshifts constantly and is not static or a place to land.