I love potential, I hate to limit it by putting the word human in front of it as a qualifier, though. To me there's not any kind of potential, human or otherwise - there's just potential.
Introspection
JoinedPosts by Introspection
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4
The Human Potential.
by Blueblades incan life retain it's potential meaning in spite of its tragic aspects?.
such as the pain ,guilt and death that we all experience.the human potential allows us to yes to life in spite of everything,making the best of any given situation.. "the human potential ,when at its best allows for us to turn suffering into a human achievement and accomplishment;to derive from guilt the opportunity to change oneself for the better;and deriving from life's transitoriness an incentive to take responsible action.
" viktor e.frankl.. now,for those of you who are former jw's and have suffered pain in all its forms,felt guilt,and feel the transitoriness of life,years lost etc.have you developed your human potential,are you able to make the best of any given situation, are you able to yes to life in spite of everything that has happened to you or what?.
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Don't know what to do with myself
by berylblue inand i don't feel like doing anything at all.
does anyone else ever feel this way?.
guess i'll go listen to some al stewart.. rosemarie
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Introspection
Just let yourself do nothing - and really get into it. If you feel bored, really get into being bored. I say since boredom is a part of life, to experience life fully you want to be fully bored at times too.
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108
do you believe in karma?
by SpiceItUp inwe have all heard the cliche' "what goes around comes around" but do you really believe it?.
i know this person that for many years has been unkind, devious and vengeful and then over more recent years has had bad luck everywhere they turned around.
i mean one thing after another.
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Introspection
Maybe you have too much self-discipline.. ;)
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do you believe in karma?
by SpiceItUp inwe have all heard the cliche' "what goes around comes around" but do you really believe it?.
i know this person that for many years has been unkind, devious and vengeful and then over more recent years has had bad luck everywhere they turned around.
i mean one thing after another.
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Introspection
Ok I got a lot of stuff here, I'm afraid it won't be very organized so be forewarned - hopefully it will be of some interest to read though..
Hmm, it's interesting to look at the scriptures in the beginning Matthew 7 again. Now it's one thing to say we're humans, we're too small to be judging things and so forth, but it's another to look at what it's saying here in terms of how we might be projecting our perspective into what we see. Even if you don't consciously judge someone by the same standard, you have set up that perception. Since it IS a part of your mind guess what.. it's more immediate and direct than someone else - even the idea of a separate God - taking those same standards and judging you. I'm not even talking about morality here, I'm simply pointing to the mechanics right - if you frame things a certain way, that's how you see things. Could it be that what's being talked about here, atleast in part, is not a judgement in the sense of "you're bad, you die" (or I just really won't like you) - but judgement in terms of perception? I'm sure some of you are familiar with this idea of what you put out there you attract back to you, yes?
Here's something to think about: is belief a judgement?
Remember the rest of that first paragraph says to take the rafter out of your own eye - it's easy to think in terms of the rafter being bigger than a straw, like "you got more to work on than the other guy," but it is also a matter of clear seeing. Regardless of how big the thing is if you got something in your eye which shapes your perceptions, then you will not be able to see things clearly from the perspective of pure awareness, which isn't a perspective actually but you get the drift. To me this scripture isn't just a simple "hey who are you to judge", but rather it gives insight into the mind, that it's dualistic in nature.
Imagine.. What if thought and action (karma, basically) are one? Where does judgement fit in then? In that case it wouldn't be a two step process - like you come up with a judgement about someone else or yourself (either positive or negative, by the way) and then acting on that like you're reading instructions off a piece of paper or something, but you'd just act accordingly, at the same time. Of course, even if you just sit around and think about stuff that is also karma, just cause and effect.
Judgement itself is a relative function and thus not ultimately real, as is the case with any kind of perception. We first have a judgement, then we have positive and negative, and of course it's human nature to want to cling to the positive. The thing is though, even if it is the positive you are still confined to karma in that way, you are caught up in cause and effect. When we stop creating a division against ourselves, we stop being a slave to karma so to speak - this is most notably something seen with time. (you need relative time for cause and effect) Consider the classic JW mindset: Be (or act) 'theocratic' now, get paradise later. When you act with integrity 'in the moment', you are free of karma. Of course, if you identify with - say a future point in time that hasn't happend yet - then you lack integrity in that way, and of course you're going to feel crappy, there's that pull of duality nagging at ya. It's much nicer to feel whole..
Sorry if this is confusing, I'm sure it will be for many, but I think there are some who will atleast get a sense of what I'm talking about here. I'm fairly new at talking about this actually, so please excuse the disorganized presentation.
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Does having chapters and verses in the Bible obscure the Bible's message?
by truthseeker ini was just thinking to myself the other day, why were chapters and verses in the bible, but precious few other books?
most people would say to make it easier to read, easier to locate "scriptures".
i mean, when you write a letter to a friend, do you break it down into chapters and verses?
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Introspection
I don't remember when they added the chapters and verse system, but this is a good point. Just once I'd like to see someone tell a person who is starting to look at the bible that common sense dictates you read things in context, and then see how they interact with those that jump around with various specific scriptures to "make their point."
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108
do you believe in karma?
by SpiceItUp inwe have all heard the cliche' "what goes around comes around" but do you really believe it?.
i know this person that for many years has been unkind, devious and vengeful and then over more recent years has had bad luck everywhere they turned around.
i mean one thing after another.
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Introspection
Etymology: Sanskrit karma fate, work
Main Entry: 1 work
Pronunciation: 'w&rk
Function: noun
<snip>2 a : energy expended by natural phenomena b : the result of such energy <sand dunes are the work of sea and wind> c : the transference of energy that is produced by the motion of the point of application of a force and is measured by multiplying the force and the displacement of its point of application in the line of action
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108
do you believe in karma?
by SpiceItUp inwe have all heard the cliche' "what goes around comes around" but do you really believe it?.
i know this person that for many years has been unkind, devious and vengeful and then over more recent years has had bad luck everywhere they turned around.
i mean one thing after another.
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Introspection
As Dansk pointed out, karma is just cause and effect, pretty simple. It's another thing altogether to think of karma as some kind of cosmic justice imposed on individuals, this is just a popular story people added to make sense of it personally. While sometimes what people do may come back to them in some way, it is often indirect and you'd be hard pressed to actually connect the dots through cause and effect. Obviously, though, others can often see how a person acts and choose to deal with them differently, but then that falls into the sphere of more direct cause and effect relationships. The real meaning of karma requires no belief, because it is a plain fact. If you find yourself believing something about it then you are really adding some kind of story to it.
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Being your own best friend!
by LDH intonight while reading sheila m's post about thunder's parents not even saying anything nice to him when he got his book published, put me in mind of something i've been thinking for a while.. today, all you hear about is "self-esteem" this and "self-esteem" that---a lack of it causes everything from suicide to eating disorders and everything in between.
i believe concerned parents today are much more in tune with rewarding postitive behavior by reinforcing it through praise.. as a jw child, what special assaults on your self-esteem did you suffer and how did you deal with it?.
in short, are you your own best friend?
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Introspection
I just wanted to be clear that I'm simply offering another way to look at this issue, I'll try to sum it up here:
Basically, since people speak of low self-esteem vs. high, to me this just implies judgement. All I'm saying is drop all of that and accept yourself as you are, unconditionally.
If someone was to say something that is intended to put me down or something, my response now is not one of defense or offense or even feeling bad or upset, it's that they basically don't know what they're talking about. If they did know what they're talking about they would mention something specific, but any kind of personal attack designed to elicit an emotional response is pretty much empty of content.
I think we can see how this even applies to parents - isn't it true that when they get older in age sometimes the children has to take care of them, because the parents have become more like children? I think often times it doesn't even have to get to that point - when you've gone through your own growth you just come to see that they don't really know what they're talking about, and in that case there's no reason for it to affect your self-esteem anyway.
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Being your own best friend!
by LDH intonight while reading sheila m's post about thunder's parents not even saying anything nice to him when he got his book published, put me in mind of something i've been thinking for a while.. today, all you hear about is "self-esteem" this and "self-esteem" that---a lack of it causes everything from suicide to eating disorders and everything in between.
i believe concerned parents today are much more in tune with rewarding postitive behavior by reinforcing it through praise.. as a jw child, what special assaults on your self-esteem did you suffer and how did you deal with it?.
in short, are you your own best friend?
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Introspection
To me a better question is not how much self-esteem there is but what is the self that you have esteem for? I only see it as meaningful if it is qualified rather than a quantified thing, something along the lines of having a lot of good feelings is just not that meaningful. I'm good at some things, I'm not so good at others - I don't really bother coming up with some kind of judgement good or bad. I would think at some point we have to move beyond being motivated by positive reinforcement. Don't get me wrong, I do nice things for myself, but I don't really think of that as any kind of reward, I just go out and do it - in fact I don't have to wait for anything to be done so it isn't a reward, I just enjoy nice things. I know you don't mean this literally, but all the same I can't think of myself as my best friend, because there is only one of me. I live with myself quite nicely though - since there's just one of me I'm alone, but not lonely. It's just fine.
"I'm good enough, smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me!" -Stuart Smally
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Intro's quote-o-rama
by Introspection ini guess i've been inspired by stephen's quote threads, so i'm going to start one myself.. not one particular author here, just whatever i can find:.
q: why do you think that people are so protective of their egos?
why is it so hard to let go of one's ego?.
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Introspection
Neo: Why do my eyes hurt?
Morpheus: You've never used them before.-The Matrix
