Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Specialness and special teachings

A fellow spiritual seeker wrote to me:

I had been participating in an online group (MysticalPrinciples), and the "teacher" of that group spoke of a series of tapes that Joel Goldsmith made of a "secret" (closed) series of classes to his inner-circle students back in 1953.
Apparently the transcripts of these "closed" talks were so powerful, to study them (if you could get your hands on them) would lift you up and out of all illusion, the fast track! One woman in England actually typed out the transcripts of these talks, and only a few people were permitted to purchase the book form.

This "teacher" made a series of 20 talks based on these other talks, and charged for them. He insisted that only the most serious students apply, and not to pass on these teachings publicly, not quote from them on other groups etc. So it was HIS tapes for sale that I bought, and began to study.

I began to feel the "specialness" creep in of the whole thing. That only a few could access them, that they were for sale, that we were among the elite so to speak, that within the year we would be finished. Through. Fully into the next dimension of Truth. If we did EXACTLY what the teacher recommended.

God. I was taken. I paid that teacher money for those tapes, and halfway through, seeing clearly my error, threw them in the outdoor trash barrel and started a bonfire.. It was not the tapes themselves that were trash, it was the mind of "special-seeking" in myself, the mind that was duped again, that was trash.

I had felt part of a group, part of a special "thing", a communion of others, I had, temporarily gotten rid of the horrible solitariness, loneliness, I had felt for so long.

I am back to lonely. Solitary. The weight on my chest feels more okay, somehow lighter.

Now I see others making VERY special these tapes, this series of teachings. I no longer post on that, or any site, and realize I have to come upon it honestly, alone. Unspecial. Hard. Not knowing when it ends.

--

Friday, December 26, 2008

Oneness and art

I had a breakthrough yesterday regarding the connection between Oneness and art. I posted it on my art philosophy site, here.

Monday, December 22, 2008

Results

Here's a good point I just read: why shouldn't you watch for results in The World after applying Advanced Forgiveness? Because when you do, you're saying these conditions are bad and these are good... in other words judging them, and that keeps it real.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Ken on YouTube

I didn't even know: it seems the Foundation For ACIM is now putting Ken wapnick videos on YouTube! Excellent.
Free content like this is a fantastic promotional tool, it's great for the Course, for FACIM, and for students.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Roger Linden Interview on nonduality



More parts to the interview here.

There's also a good interview with Tony Parsons.

I'm still trying to understand why A Course In Miracles says that you can work towards enlightenment (a no-self state) and all those other teachers claim very definitely that you can't, it just happens when it happens. Strange.

Friday, December 5, 2008

Symbols of the Separation

Not long ago I had the strong perception and revelation that I now suddenly find that DU also tells us clearly*:
As long as you believe in the reality of the World, seeing objects outside of you is a constant and painful reminder of the separation from god. (Because the seeming separation between you and the objects is symbolic of the seeming main Separation.)

This also tells us that unless somebody is genuinely awakened, then happiness in this world is false, anything looking like happiness and enthusiasm is probably more like an armour put on to copy with "life".

*I have never before had a book I can continue to hear/read new things in after half a dozen re-reads. I'm an excellent student, and almost no books made it past one re-read for me before.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

A forgiveness method

I just found this old post on the YahooGroups D.U. list by Olga (looking to see if the book she mentions had already been recommended on that list), and I want to commend her for some really pertinent truths there.

Love, Eolake

----
Olga wrote:

Recently I have started, inspired by "Busting Loose from the Money Game" to do a variation of an exercise in that book. Then I go to the feeling as before, and then amplify it if I can. Then I say "I take the power back now, from this miscreation. I know there is no Truth in this, this is just something I made to feel limited/vulnerable/etc. I take the power back and I feel it reintegrate and surge through me. I am Infinite Love. I am Infinite Abundance. I am Infinite Trust."

Basically I don't think letting the feeling go is enough, as you say, that could be avoidance. Allowing the negative feeling/situation is key to me, but it has to be combined with the practice of allowing of the Holy Spirits speedy intervention :). A touch of eagerness to open up to that, but not an eagereness that would constitute resistance.

Sometimes I feel a shift when I do a forgiveness process, but I would not depend on that, but trust HS is working behind the scenes wether I feel it or not. Also, as I understand it, tthe guilt is not necessarily connected to one special area, since it is really impersonal and has nothing to do with form. So, I may forgive a situation, but from that "pool" of unconcious guilt may pour in more guilt into manifestation in that particular situation, AGAIN. And we go "Oh no", but not to worry, it is all the same, and we just have to start forgiving again. Because of that there is no sure way of monitoring your advancement.

As to be "out there" or not, I don't think it matters. I'm a bit of a hermit, but my forgiveness lessons seems to come to me all the same :). Just follow guidance to the best of your ability, and then you will find the lessons that you need.

Love, Olga

Friday, November 28, 2008

Lehrer

I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that!
-- Tom Lehrer

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Leap the movie

Gary Renard is featured in the new movie Leap.

It's a bit unclear from the over-dramatic trailer whether this one, unlike The Secret, actually goes beyond the Dream, or whether it's another effort at Making A Better Illusion.

If the former, it'll be a hard sell, because there's nothing dramatic about heaven, and you can't sell to humans without drama.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Emerson

A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

"Do not seek yourself outside yourself."

Thursday, November 6, 2008

For unity

[I posted this on my regular blog yesterday, but it might fit better here.]

I give my congratulations to American president-elect Obama, may god be with him in a very tough job.

My wish for the coming four years, the coming twenty years, the coming one hundred years, is that each American as well as each inhabitant of planet Earth will take the opportunity to strive always to correct his vision towards that of unity rather than that of partisanship.

That's not an easy thing. The devil in this universe is obviously a little man in the heart of each of us, telling us that "evil" is out there. It's in the other person, it's in the other group, it's in the other nation. Lord forbid we should ever look into our own heart for the origin of evil and suffering, for this would be too fearful.

Still it can be done and it is being done, and in unity is salvation.

Unexpected

I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.
-- Jack Handey

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Spirit doesn't make anything happen

I think the below (particularly the first half) is one of the things which depart most radically from other spiritual traditions, even the most modern ones:

"The ego, or wrong mind, makes everything that appears to happen on the level of form. Spirit makes nothing happen on the level of form, which is why you shouldn't spiritualize events or objects in the universe. The right mind gives the Holy Spirit's interpretation of the level of form, leading you -- and by you we mean that observatory part of the mind that has identified with and thus bound itself to the ego -- back home. Home is unchangeable spirit."
-- The Disappearance Of The Universe, page 223


This is also one more explanation why it's fruitless to try and change the world: if spirit makes nothing happen in The World, what force is there to make this a "good world"?

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Humility

I've just started reading the centuries-old book The Dark Night Of The Soul, by Juan de la Cruz (John of the Cross). Seems interesting so far.
One of the points he brings up is that people who consider themselves less than others are further in their journey towards Source/god than people who consider themselves more than others.
I wonder if it's true. Isn't that kind of humility just inverted pride?

I think it's much more true to recognize that if you feel pride or humility, it doesn't matter. It's just the ego's games, and will blow over in time. The truth is neither, since any separation and differences between yourself and others is an illusion.

Source is Source.
God is.
The rest isn't.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

The Translucent Revolution

If you sometimes feel a connection, in your life or work, to "Something Great, Beyond It All", and you feel this has happened more in the last twenty years and not just for you, you might be interested in the book The Translucent Revolution.

Anon commented:

I know this book, explaining the spiritual journey as three steps:
1. ego-bound state,
2. translucent state,
3. enlightened state.

It reminds me on Osho, explaining the spiritual journey also as three steps:
(Quote, as far as I remember)
"Enlightement comes in three steps:
1. the Buddha is following you like a shadow,
2. you are following the Buddha like a shadow,
3. you have dissolved into the Buddha - now you ARE the Buddha."
(/Quote)

I'm not shy to out me as a long-year sannyasin of Osho; BTW the author Arjuna was also sannyasin.

And I'm also not shy to out me as a long-year "dirty old man" - enjoying much your DOMAI site, Eolake ... many thanks to you for doing that. IMO without a sense of beauty and humour any spiritual journey is simply not possible. In tantric tradition the whole universe is seen as "Leela" = Shiva and Shakti enjoying the erotic play of male and female forces, this game of hide-and-seek, of parting and unifying again. Basically a big YES to all what is, meaning: Tantra is basically non-dual, which is necessarily always misunderstood and misinterpreted by the dual mind. But you can live it, stepping out of your mind (the literal meaning of "ecstasy"), transcending it - remember your "DOMAI-moments" ...

Back to the book: In a way it is very comforting for anybody on a spiritual journey to know about being part of some "global alternative movement", so you don't feel alone anymore ... but on the other side it is also very much hindering your journey out of this very reason: Nobody can eat for you, nobody can drink for you, and nobody can do your spiritual journey for you, except yourself. A very simple and basic fact. So, you HAVE to be alone and to go alone into the darkness of knowing nothing, stripping away finally ALL your ego-feeding attachments (doesn't matter whether "negative" or "positive" ... ALL). Very painful, agonizing, a death in all aspects except your body. Very few people are doing this consequently, most people are avoiding this with all one's strength, even if they say: "I'm on a spiritual journey" - especially then. I see it all around.

In my experience, much more helpful in this way are the books of Jed McKenna (www.wisefoolpress.com, or look at amazon.com), who also describes three states of development:
1. Human Childhood,
2. Human Adulthood,
3. Spiritual Enlightement
(aka abiding non-dual awareness,
aka Un-truth Un-realization).

His books are true masterpieces, plain English without guru babble, humorously in a subtle way. I would like to quote something of the epilogue of "Spiritual Warfare":

"There are two emotions that inform and animate the human animal; fear, and a gratitude-love-awe mix that might best be called agapé. As fear goes out, agapé comes in. More accurately, a pure white light of consciousness hits the prism of self and splits outward to become the universe as we experience it. If the prism is gray and murky with ignorance, choked with fear, contaminated with ego, then so becomes the universe that radiates out from it. It's that simple. As the prism becomes free of such flaws, then the whole universe changes with it. It resolves into clarity, becomes brighter, more playful and magical. Because we are the lens through which it is projected, we are participants in its shape and motion; co-creators of our own universe.

That's Human Adulthood. Spiritual Enlightement is just the same, except you take the final step in purifying the prism of self: You remove it."

So, I recommend everybody: Have a sincere look at it, and review your life "dealing with your shit honestly" ...

Thanks for your comments, you have some good points.
Indeed The Translucent Revolution, while a good book, is limited. It firmly sticks around in the area where you still regard the Self and the Ego as real.
I recommend The Disappearance Of The Universe to augment it.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Peace Pilgrim

"I began to realize that it's as though we have two selves or two natures or two wills with two different viewpoints. Because the viewpoints were so different, I felt a struggle in my life at this period between the two selves with the two viewpoints. So there were hills and valleys - lots of hills and valleys. Then in the midst of the struggle there came a wonderful mountain-top experience, and for the first time I knew what inner peace was like. I felt a oneness - oneness with all my fellow human beings, oneness with all of creation. I have never felt really separate since. I could return again and again to this wonderful mountaintop, and then I could stay there for longer and longer periods of time, and just slip out occasionally. Then came a wonderful morning when I woke up and knew that I would never have to descend again into the valley. I knew that for me the struggle was over, that finally I had succeeded in giving my life, or finding inner peace. Again this is a point of no return. you can never go back into the struggle."
-- Peace Pilgrim
Article
videos

Nonessentials

One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.
-- Henry Miller

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a nobler art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials.
-- Lin Yutang

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Self-development

Article on my other blog, about openness and outer and inner worlds.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Talking about houses...

Until a couple of years ago I was quite occupied for a while with what kind of home I'd ultimately like to have. Would it be a cool self-built house for instance?

I sort of lost interest, mostly. And reading DU it was confirmed to me that this is because your external circumstances are of no consequence.

Of course if one recognizes that, one can still do what one wants.

I think as humans we tend to try to change our external circumstances (like get a bigger home) in order to change our spiritual life (feel better). The thing is this does not work.

However I think one could change one's external circumstances to *reflect* one's inner state. Have an inner affluence spill over into an outer one.

But I suspect that if it feels *important* to do so, probably one is not so happy and free as believed, and needs to work on the Inner life some more.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Dream of a house

I dreamed that I moved into a room in a big, old house. (From 19 til 36 I lived in a succession of rented rooms, since I didn't care to spare the attention or money yet to get a real home, I was too busy with my spiritual development.)

The house was really huge, and it was in a city. It had many floors, and lots and lots and lots of interconnected room and stairs and halls and spaces. For some reason it had been built with very uneven floors, some dramatically slanted, especially high in the house. Very eccentric, and very interesting and pleasing, and solid.

It turned out many of my old friends lived there already. Some even from back in school.

I walked around and up and down, it was evening, and I saw people/friends occupied with doing the dishes and such. Everything was open, I saw no closed doors. I thought I'd love to hang out here, but right this moment I was too excited to sit down, I wanted to see everything at once.

After I woke up I was in an odd but highly pleasant glow, an intense high that lasted for hours. This was just fantastic.
(I've had that a couple of times before, one of them after self-therapy. If I could get it in pills I'd be rich. And hooked :-)  .)

Success

Look at what your idea of success would be. The more that you take in external motivators, the more it reduces your ultimate satisfaction because it doesn't come from inside.
-- Chris Messina

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Ridikkulus

Look for the ridiculous in everything and you will find it.
-- Jules Renard

The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.
-- Nicholas Butler

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Doubt

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
-- Rene Descartes

Monday, September 22, 2008

Adyashanti

"What is looking through your eyes does not have a problem."
- Adyashanti

---
I'm listening a bit to Adyashanti. He has some good points.

He gives a meditation which seems to go to the heart of matters; just let things be as they are.

If the mind wants something to do, tell it to Let Things Be As They Are.

Tension in areas of the body are indicative of areas where you are not letting things be as they are.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Solzhenitsyn

Do not pursue what is illusory - property and position: all that is gained at the expense of your nerves decade after decade and can be confiscated in one fell night. Live with a steady superiority over life - don't be afraid of misfortune, and do not yearn after happiness; it is after all, all the same: the bitter doesn't last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing.
-- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The human condition

The human condition is like a big vase which has broken into a thousand pieces, and here is this tiny shard lying under the couch thinking: "I'll be all right, I just have to polish my rough edges, work hard and develop myself, I can be the most awesome shard in the world".

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Quotes

Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism. Confronting your fears and allowing yourself the right to be human can, paradoxically, make you a far happier and more productive person.
-- Dr. David M. Burns

The world is wide, and I will not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.
-- Frances Willard

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

The Tao

Give evil nothing to oppose
and it will disappear by itself.

-- Tao Te Ching

Monday, September 15, 2008

Lessons from all

Have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you?
-- Walt Whitman

Saturday, September 13, 2008

On trains

I dreamed I was in Tokyo, and we were on our way home, and I got separated from my friends during a train change.
I continued merrily. After a long journey there was another train change, and then it began to occur to me that maybe I was not going in the right direction. After all I had no clue what or where anything was, and could not speak the language. So I asked a Japanese girl I'd been chatting up for help.
But then I met my teacher/boss. And he said to me: "did you know that in this place you can't get lost? Once you have your ticket, you're always on the right train to arrive at your destination."

Thursday, September 4, 2008

The end of the world

"The world will end when its thought system has been completely reversed. Until then, bits and pieces of its thinking will still seem sensible.

"... The world will end in joy, because it is a place of sorrow. When joy has come, the purpose of the world has gone. The world will end in peace, because it is a place of war. When peace has come, what is the purpose of the world?"

- A Course In Miracles, Manual 14

Franklin

Who is wise? He that learns from everyone.
Who is powerful? He that governs his Passions.
Who is rich? He that is content.
Who is that? Nobody.

-- Benjamin Franklin

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Advanced books

I've been amazed to discover how many books there are these days in the non-duality/awakening arena.
But I'm also astounded to find out how advanced The Disappearance Of The Universe and A Course In Miracles are compared to them all.

None of the other books mention the most central facts.
  • They don't mention that the world does not exist at all, and so ultimately is irrelevant.
  • They don't mention that Source is the only thing which is real.
  • They don't mention the Guilt which keeps the world in place, and which is the reason it's so hard to evolve.
  • They don't mention how the world came to exist.
  • They don't mention the illusory Separation, and how everything in the wold is symbolic of it.
  • They rarely even mention fear, which is the biggest roadblock of all.
  • And of course they don't give any practical techniques for aiding your awakening.
Even taken separately, these are huge differences. Collectively they add up to night and day.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

A 90-degree shift

"The world's training is directed toward achieving a goal in direct opposition to that of our curriculum. The world trains for reliance on one's judgment as the criterion for maturity and strength. Our curriculum trains for the relinquishment of judgment as the necessary condition of salvation."
- A Course In Miracles, Manual

This is something I learned very gradually. You can't proselytize ACIM, because there is no on-ramp to it. There's is almost nothing, except for a general loving and peaceful attitude, which points in the this direction. Nothing in the field of personal development, because that all points towards becoming stronger and more independent.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Forgiving excitement

I think Excitement is about as big a trap as fear or anger.
It is also a contributing cause to depression.

I find I can forgive it, just like fear or anger.

Main thing is to remember to do it, because by its nature, when you're excited, you are caught up in the illusion and may not notice your state.

Periodically stop up for brief or longer periods, relax and remind yourself that the excitement and what you are excited about does not exist.

It also help to deliberately relax. Breathe very deeply, and take twice as long to breathe out. This sends a signal to the nervous system which relaxes the body.

And while breathing out, visualize the excitement radiate away from you like heat, draining.

A little wrinkle I sometimes add personally: when breathing in I fold up my arms and hands against my body, and when breathing out (longer) I let them unfold like a flower opening. It helps with visualizing the tension energy softening and flowing away.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

A recluse

They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.
-- Emily Dickinson

Monday, August 25, 2008

Physical and limited

I am of the persuasion of those who believe the universe is not real, but created by the Mind.
And it seems provable to me.

Since the universe is physical, it must be limited.
But what is it limited by? Anything that can limit it would have to be in the universe.
So clearly the universe can't be real.

The second part seems bullet-proof to me, but the first part merely seems obvious. How do you prove that something which is physical has to be limited?

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Slow growth

The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshall replied, 'In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon!'
-- John F. Kennedy

Acting loving or being a bastard

It is a common misunderstanding amongst people on a spiritual track, and one which I've had myself, that one has to act kind and loving all the time. Just not true.

For instance, I just watched a movie which just really rubbed me the wrong way, I just hated it.

Last year I would have hesitated (longer) to write a very negative review. But now I did it.

Just for one thing, if I'm right about the movie, it may save others the agony of watching it. And that is loving on a higher scale than being kind to the movie.

For another thing: even if my allergic reaction is just my own BS acting up, and an ego thing, so what? Spiritual paths are not a system of ethics, they are not made to make the world a more pleasant place. They are made for inner progress. And that is not accomplished by suppressing our nasty tendencies. They are made by looking at and recognizing our nasty tendencies. Self-awareness.

I am not saying go wild and be a bastard. I am saying that if you suppress all your impulses except the most saccharine ones, you're not doing anybody any favors, and least of all yourself. You can't change your mind by changing your behavior, you change your mind by changing your mind.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Small holy moments

"The simplest level of teaching appears to be quite superficial. It consists of what seem to be very casual encounters; a "chance" meeting of two apparent strangers in an elevator, a child who is not looking where he is going running into an adult "by chance," two students "happening" to walk home together. These are not chance encounters. Each of them has the potential for becoming a teaching-learning situation. Perhaps the seeming strangers in the elevator will smile to one another, perhaps the adult will not scold the child for bumping into him; perhaps the students will become friends. Even at the level of the most casual encounter, it is possible for two people to lose sight of separate interests, if only for a moment. That moment will be enough. Salvation has come."
ACIM Manual section III

I have felt this instinctively. Some moments have just felt special and holy even if very small. For instance, once I borrowed a pen from a stranger in a supermarket, or even once my eyes met with those of a nun's on the street for a split second. I just knew something special had happened.

Danger

"Let the fear of danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not, gives advantage to the danger."
-- Francis Quarles

What a load of bollocks. Common sense protects you from danger. Fear paralyses you and destroys your health.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Anxiety

Many people get anxiety problems after some time on a spiritual path.

Rebecca had this comment:
A famous psychiatrist, Stanislav Grof, (whom I like and respect) once said,
“Anxiety is a fear that’s half-way out. Too often people and doctors want to stuff it back down with drugs.”

The Most Important Thing

An old spiritual teaching goes:

The most important thing is to find out what is the most important thing.

I've been working on that most of my life.
And I think if you're honest and keep at it, it'll keep changing. Nudging you closer and closer to Truth.

A breakthrough for me was when I realized, many years ago, that for me the Most Important Thing is something abstract, not something specific. It didn't make life easier, for sure, but it made it more true.

The best word I've found for that abstract quality, for me, is:

Warmth

Another word for it is Beauty. But that is often used in very different ways.

Another word is Love. But that is used in even more different ways. In too specific ways. Like, many people believe that you can only really love one person. I think universal love is a quite different thing. Abstract, and yet more real.

I found the "Warmth" thing by looking at why was Art so important to me, and what as the most important ingredient for me in art, both my own and others'.

Late eighties and unity experiences

From The Translucent Revolution (2005) page 31:
"All over the world, from every imaginable background and system of belief, people report the trance of separation being broken. For the majority, this radical awakening has occurred within the last fifteen years."

That's what I've always been saying, something happened in the late eighties. It definitely did to me, and I've heard it from so many sides also.
And so it's one of the small things which puzzles me about D.U.: Arten and Pursah's claim that the reason more people are waking up is just that ACIM is here, nothing more.
If you look around, there's overwhelming evidence that big numbers of people have "unity experiences" (as I call them, I don't think it's a generally used term), and that most of them have never heard of ACIM.

Of course, maybe A and P were only talking about the final product, full awakening, no "guilt" or ego left at all, final lifetime. And it's clear that most people (including certainly me) who have these experiences have quite a ways to go before that.
But even so it seems to me that there's something going on which goes far beyond what the blue book is causing.

And actually the book itself more than hints at something like this, see here. It is clear that from a universal perspective, these are End Times, and it's playing itself out in myriad ways.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Things Take Time

I Meditate, I do Yoga, I Chant
and some days I still want to mess someone up!

The Road

"The road of enlightenment is surely onto like half a mile of broken glass."
- Mort, by Terry Pratchett

Half a mile? I wish.

Activity without competition or rules

Over fifteen years ago, but later than my first Unity experiences, I invented an activity which I gave the silly name "aesthetics chess". It consisted of two players and a chess board, and the "players" do not move the pieces to win, but instead they move a piece according to what movement they consider beautiful or interesting. A sort of dance.

I tried it with three different people at three different occasions, all of them intelligent people and occasional chess players. And all of them... couldn't do it!
They said so and stopped, all three, after less than two minutes. They simply couldn't stick to this activity without "purpose", goals, and rules. It upset them.

I think this is a rather potent illustration of how solid a grip the ego has on our desire to "win" in an activity, and also how solid a grip the human mind has on our desire for logical rules to an activity.

I am not sure which of those two limitations is most relevant here, but the second one is surely interesting. Most of us find it nearly impossible to willfully do anything which is illogical or silly.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

"How does it look to you now?"

A wonderful healing process is:
"How does it look to you now?"
Just get an answer and repeat the question, until relief.
Can be used solo too.

It can be used for looking at situations, or directly at energy or mental phenomena.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

What you do

"The holy spirit knows that with the exception of forgiveness, it does not matter what you do."
- The Disappearance Of The Universe, by Gary Renard

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Duane Michals

Powerful photo artist Duane Michaels talks about many things, including some that clearly indicated an awakened viewpoint.

Comedy

I've realized why I'm getting less and less interested in drama, and more and more in comedy.

Drama comes from the standpoint that the things that happen to us are very real and very important.
Comedy comes from the standpoint that they are not important and maybe not even real.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Using words

Marian makes an interesting comment on the Choose Again blog, regarding the terms in A Course In Miracles.
"Why would I then take these processes, no matter how benevolent and full-of-grace they may be, and name them "Jesus and the Holy Spirit?" Why does the verb have to turn into a noun? And is that really a helpful step to take? What is the difference between bare attention to these aspects of experience, and giving them names? Isn't the giving of a name an increase in separation?"

Well, I think it is OK to name, since if you're in a well, you have to use the well to get out, even if the goal is to not be in the well. And while some people will spontaneously discover the "process" called the Holy Spirit, many will be helped by having a pointer, methinks. And it's hard to point to something which does not have a name.

But it's similar to the protest I had initially at least: why use well-known terms only to redefine all of them? Isn't that just an unnecessary detour? For example, to me, "God" is/was defined as "the person who created the Universe"... and then the first thing we learn from ACIM is that he didn't create the universe and isn't a person! Why not use a different term? (I tend to use "Source". It seems it is understandable by many.)

But I guess the answer is similar: if you are in a specific well, you need to climb up from that specific well. And many, many people in this world have instinctively reached for religious mysticism only to get stuck in religious dogma. God is what they want, not "Source". So you take it and you gently redefine it. At least that's what I guess is what the Course is doing. Of course it can only help those why are not too stuck, but that will always be the case.

Saturday, August 9, 2008

One of the awakened guys in Everyday Enlightenment speaks to me particularly. He says for example that his awakening was gradual, he didn't have the big sudden one like some have. He says:

"I think I was too mental for that. I'm a very mental person. I'm a very, very bright guy with an incredibly powerful mind, which I worked on for years. I made it. It was a deliberate effort to turn it into a powerful weapon. It's pretty hard to deal with once you've got it. It wants to run the show all the time. It's super powerful, and having constructed the "Death Star" (Star Wars metaphor) you can't deconstruct it that quickly. You've got to wear it out a bit. That was one reason why it was a slower process, more of a dissolving rather than being able to leave it behind like that.

"The mind is very helpful. The mind is a good thing in its place. Being identified with the mind is horrible. It's a state of imprisonment."

Friday, August 8, 2008

Will Durant

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
-- Will Durant

How ACIM is different

It seems to me that most people who speak about nondualism stand in sharp contrast to A Course In Miracles (and Disappearrance Of The Universe). They say stuff like: "There really isn't a person. You can't have a journey to enlightenment, because there isn't a you. You can't do anything to accomplish it. There aren't any levels. There aren't any steps on the road, and no road. You can't do anything to achieve enlightenment. It can't be done on purpose. There is no process. It only happens when you stop searching." In other words, not very helpful.

Maybe some people, unlike me, find it helpful. Maybe those people are a lot closer to enlightenment than me. So they can suddenly change their mind and get there.

In contrast, ACIM speaks on different levels, and it *does* provide things one can *do* to accomplish enlightenment. The fact that it works within the illusion to undo an illusion is of no consequence. In fact it's the only place you can work with the illusion.

Pursah in DU actually says something like this, she says that just telling people that life is an illusion does not help them very much, you have to teach them advanced forgiveness.

I think that those "most speakers" I talked about may possibly be speaking from an enlightened viewpoint, but that they have no clue how they arrived there, and so they can't help very much. They especially seem to have no clue about the existence of The Guilt, or how to deal with it. For them it's not there. Which is true, but not helpful to people who still believe it is.

Another thought on the Enlightenment stories I'm reading (the book Everyday Enlightenment): they must seem quite depressing to most people because all they say is all the time: "nothing really matters" and "you are not in control".

They are missing the ingredients the reason nothing matters is that nothing we see is real.
And that Heaven/Source *is* real, and it's what matters, and it is what we have in the end.
And that "we" are not in control because the Higher Self is, but this is also us.

Basically 90% you hear about nondualism is seen from a human standpoint, which makes it very depressing.

In most writings there is an absence of data about why is there an illusion/world, and why is there suffering. How did it come about? How do we undo it?

It seems that for people who have crossed over, the Guilt is not existing and it's like it never was. And it seems to them so easy to change your mind, why can't everybody do it?

This is why ACIM is different, and also it is more or less the only non-dualistic teaching which includes teaching about Source, or god. Which one might consider pretty damn important, since it is everything there is!

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Relationship addiction

I was watching the wonderful show Dharma And Greg, an episode where Greg is going away for the first time since they got married. And Dharma freaks out, she really doesn't want him to go, and when she's alone in the double bed, she gets the dogs to get into it to fill the empty space.

And it hit me: having to have a relationship is just another addiction. It's comfort. Distracts from the pain/Guilt.

Levels of enlightenment

It seems to me that there has to be more levels of "enlightenment" than one. Just for example, Arten and Pursah says that Buddha only ended his trek in a later lifetime "which the world doesn't even know about". Clearly he had not undone all the guilt yet in the Buddha lifetime. And yet we would call him enlightened.

Also in reading about various people who have reached what seem to be stable levels of oneness and peace, some of them say that they still have phenomena like falling in love and being upset at a breakup.

Maybe we could call it levels of enlightenment, or maybe we could guess that for some there are restful plateaus on the way which are mistaken for real enlightenment.

Gary Renard interview

An older interview with Gary Renard, for some reason I'd forgotten to mention it here.

Absolutely nothing

How can the separation and the universe have happened if all is complete oneness?

I think this is one of these things we just can't understand with a human (ego) mind. The human mind is completely based on time and space, and can't think with them not being there.

One of the early experiences I had when practicing these materials is that I was looking at the Universe from outside, willing to see it as it really is. And then I saw it as being nothing. And what really impacted on me was that I saw that it was not just "nothing really" or "ultimately nothing", it is absolutely nothing.

That is a great relief (or will be), and obviously a fact which changes everything.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Money and the Guilt

[Green text is from other sites. Blue text is from comments on this blog.]

The text below is from fACIM's wonderful Q&A. (No longer a functioning answer service, but still a fantastic resource. Try using the alphabetical index.)

Q #113: I seem to have this recurring problem of never making enough money or never getting enough work for my business, especially during these periods of recession, although I am a highly-educated professional. Although over the years of practicing the process of forgive ness on this, I now have more and more peace when this problem occurs, I still get irritated and wish that I could get rid of this problem altogether and not have it occur again. From the perspective of A Course in Miracles, is there anything I else I can do to “cure” this issue? Will looking at the guilt or the origins of the guilt help in any way? What do you suggest?

A. We can only comment in general about the type of situation you have described, but it may be of help nonetheless. First, the purpose of the world is to be a place where we have an endless num ber of problems to solve. It is a smokescreen designed to hide the real problem, which is the decision we are constantly making in our minds to live separately, apart from God, as individuals, and to hold others responsible for our condition. Whether we are plagued by one recurring problem or by a multitude of problems does not matter. Problems come up in our lives because we need them to be there -- obviously, on an unconscious level. Therefore, if we are unaware of the real source of our problems (the decision in our minds) it would be fruitless to hope for a problem-free life; we would just be fighting against ourselves. Moreover, part of the ego’s strategy is to have us keep hoping that our problems can be solved, and that the day will come when we can live problem-free in the world.

Friday, August 1, 2008

Monsters

Monsters in the movies, just as other powerful symbols, can teach us a lot.
Example: Frankenstein's Creature. Because of how it looked, everybody treated it with extreme fear and attacks, and it reacted fearfully and destructively. But then it met the old blind man, who couldn't see the apparently ugliness, and so just treated it as a potential friend, and they became friends. An excellent symbol of what we get back from the world is merely what we project upon it.

I enjoy movies and good TV shows a lot as relaxation. But I also use my hyper-active mind constructively by applying forgiveness when I'm watching. Double reward.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Symbolism and hard or soft energy

Again with Buffy The Vampire Slayer... I have now finished re-watching all seven seasons (144 episodes of 40 minutes each!), and it's just excellent.

In the very last episode, there are two incidents which especially resonate with me. One is about a vampire who used to be the epitome of evil and sadism, who has slowly turned himself around and is redeeming himself. At the end he has gotten a magic amulet, which lets him, deep underground, blast through to the sunlight high above and gather it in himself and redistribute it to blast away hundreds of attaching vampires who are threatening mankind. And of course it kills himself in the end, in burning agony. That burning force is a powerful symbol of the effect The Light has on persons or situations which are deeply enmeshed in The Ego. It's good, but painful. It burns stuff away.

And on a higher level, a similar thing happens. A powerful good witch, who has had trouble controlling her power in the past and staying on the side of Good, uses her power and a magic talisman to gather and pass on a great power for good to many people around the world who need it. And she is cleansed and uplifted in the process, saying after the energy rush something like: "Wow, that was cool!!"

Both feel very familiar to me, regarding when I connect to Source and sometimes pass it on. At the lower levels and mostly in the past, it's a good, but painful and burning force. At the higher levels and mostly now, it's an uplifting and cleansing power which exhilarates.

I think early on in the Journey, the energy of the Guilt and the Ego is hard as rock and it does not break up peacefully. But as you progress, it warms up and starts melting away instead of breaking up, and the process becomes much more pleasant. The light coming through  the dark… I think it’s “Burning" when the energy is still pretty tight. When it’s loose, it more of an orgiastic experience, like good sex on a higher level.

When I was a kid, I found some substance, pitch, which looked like black glass, very hard. But when I held it in my hands for a while, it would warm up and become malleable. And if I'd warmed it up more, it would have become liquid, and ultimately gaseous.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Loss for words

"As you forgive, you may find yourself to be more at a loss for words than you used to be. Don't worry about that. This isn't about looking smart; it's about being healed by the Holy Spirit. This process is already accelerating within you. As the Course says, you are no longer wholly insane."
- The Disappearance Of The Universe by Gary Renard, page 196

It's not what you choose, it's that you choose

First of all, I recommend the lectures by Ken Wapnick. They really cast light on the Course. I buy them as MP3 CDs, and make them into audiobooks for my iPod and iTunes with Audiobook Builder (Mac only, but there must be a Windows equivalent) (if not, it also works to just drag the files into iTunes. Makes many more "song" files though).

You can get the lectures here. If you want to use iTunes/iPod, get the MP3 versions, you save much conversion work.

I am currently listening to the lecture set Rules For Decision. A wonderful point Ken brings out is that getting yourself to a point where you are aware that you are constantly making a choice between the Ego and the Higher Self is much more important than which one you choose!

If you think you have to choose the HS every time (never get upset etc), you will have a lot of frustration and guilt, because you can't. And it doesn't matter. Just the fact that you are aware that you are choosing, no matter which side, will do it. Because it will eventually become very evident to you which side works best, and the rest will happen automatically.

Ken stressed this as hugely important.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Being spiritual

I got a comment to one of the ACIM videos I have posted on YouTube:

"The whole world is being taken into Satan's greatest last day deception--spiritualism. The Bible reveals how God reveals information to prophets, and He certainly doesn't do it by dictating to some atheist what He wants the human race to know..."

I find it interesting that this person seems to claim that God or Jesus would only ever speak to somebody who is already a believer/Christian. I think this goes very much contrary to what we know about Jesus. He talked to everybody, whores, thieves, tax men, everybody.

Also I find the claim interesting that spirituality is contrary to God's plan. To me that's like saying that eating is contrary to getting fed. It was pretty late in my life that I was shocked to realize that many Christians are not spiritual at all. They don't believe in the spirit! Many of them believe that Heaven will appear on Earth and the physical bodies will resurrect. I don't know what they think will re-animate the bodies if not a spiritual force. A Frankenstein machine?
(Even more incredibly, many believe that Jesus will appear as a warrior and slay the sinners and the unbelievers before Heaven appears for the worthy. This just goes so opposite to everything Jesus said that it leaves one speechless.)

Obviously this is no condemnation of Christians in general. Like Pursah says, in any religion there are highly spiritual people, and people who are rocks.

Ends and goals

"You must have noticed an outstanding characteristic of every end that the ego has accepted as its own. When you have achieved it, it has not satisfied you. This is why the ego is forced to shift ceaselessly from one goal to another..."
ACIM chapter 8

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Magic

"She said that if using magic can give people what they want, then not using magic can give people what they need."
- Granny Weatherwax in Terry Pratchett's Equal Rites

Monday, July 14, 2008

Communication

"Certainly there are many "psychic" powers that are clearly in line with this course. Communication is not limited to the small range of channels the world recognizes. If it were, there would be little point in trying to teach salvation. It would be impossible to do so."
-- ACIM, Manual For Teachers

A bit lower:
"The seemingly new abilities that may be gathered on the way can be very helpful. Given to the Holy Spirit, and used under His direction, they are valuable teaching aids. To this, the question of how they arise is irrelevant. The only important consideration is how they are used. Taking them as ends in themselves, no matter how this is done, will delay progress."

Note it says "will delay progress". It does not say it's a sin. So far as I can see, the only real system of ethics we should have is: will this delay the Awakening process or speed it up. It does not matter what something you do does to the world, because the world does not exist.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

The pain under addiction

Carol Howe's book Healing the Hurt Behind Addictions and Compulsive Behaviors taught me a lot about addiction and pain.

  • Anything can be an addiction: cocaine, tea, work, TV, sex, exercise...
  • The reason for an addiction is running away from an unseen pain.
  • You can't cure an addiction if you don't heal the pain which caused it.
Ultimately, Life, The Universe, And Everything* is an addiction, caused by the pain of the (illusory) separation from Source/God. But of course it's possible to use a less absolute viewpoint on it. Somebody is always surfing the web until four in the morning even when he has to be up at seven? Addiction? Somebody is always getting into fights or in trouble with the law? Addiction?

One of the ways you can see an addiction is something which can keep your attention. Or something which makes you feel better for a little while.

How do you heal the pain? Wow, big question. There are many, many methods. Hypnosis, EFT, emotrance, therapy, meditation, etc etc. Of course if you want to get at the bedrock pain underlying all the smaller specific problems, I recommend "quantum forgiveness", as outlined by A Course In Miracles and The Disappearance Of The Universe.

* This of course was the question that Douglas Adams was seeking the answer to in the book of that name.

Marian added something in Comments I had actually intended to include in this post:

"An interesting thing about pain is how often it can be healed by the "not-doing" of refusing the tendency towards aversion (which is another way of saying forgiveness but might be an easier way to understand that forgiveness is not a doing of anything).
In other words if you are willing to shine the light of awareness on the pain, it is seen as dissolving. So you volunteer to suffer for a brief interval while watching the pain dissolve. And then you can see that what actually created the psychological hurt wasn't the pain itself but the aversion reaction.
The mind that wants you to run from the pain, IS the pain.
Shining the light of awareness on the pain, by the way, doesn't mean trying to figure out why the pain happened, or getting involved in finding the "cause" of the pain through mental analysis. Those tendencies are also aversion reactions...
What I'm talking about is just being with it, just sitting in it and feeling the essence of it and watching what happens without thought or judgment about the process."

Indeed. Like the Course says, what allows the pain or the Ego to persist is that we don't look at it. I find that as I have advanced, I have gotten able to see Pain or Fear or Guilt directly as abstract "blobs", and just relax with them, look at them, or even reach out and "touch" them in my mind, and they will gradually melt away. Sometimes it takes some determination and concentration, since the Ego would rather do anything else.

What you are doing in therapy is usually look at your ideas or past events, and when this works, it is because you have also indirectly been looking at the underlying abstract pain. When you don't do that, you can chew over the past or your ideas forever without getting any better.

Monday, July 7, 2008

A colorful dream

I had another lucid dream. Like the first one, it was totally real and detailed to me, and I was aware, much of the time, that I was dreaming.

But it lasted much longer. And it was so pleasant and big and beautiful. Everything in it (like architecture) was beautiful, and richly colorful, and interesting, and the people were friendly, I met old friends and made new ones.

It was just like a taste of how much better The Dream can become without the Fear and Guilt. (While surely being not a patch on Reality and Heaven.)

Just one detail, the colors, were amazing enough. I don't often dream enough colors to notice it, but this was just like... a genius painter's version of the world.

Also for a while there I could decide myself where to go in the cityscape (near the sea). I knew I was exploring a dreamed reality, and I was aware that it was shown to me for a reason.

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Creating "evil"

A few years before finding ACIM, I had a "vision". (I saw it more as a perception, because it was not visited upon me, I looked for it.) Of how the concept of "evil" or "wrong" was created.

In the very early days of Time, before there really was a World, the Holy Spirit, or at least a very inspired (in spirit) indidual, was more or less the only one to see that Something Was Wrong. Because practically nobody could see it, and thus didn't do anything or communicated, the "lie" of Evil was created.

I saw it as just little black dots outside ourselves. The dot just symbolizes something that is outside. And as soon as it it outside, you can see it. And then you can blame it, and call it Evil. And since then has been a lengthy process of communication, which has solidified a universe and concepts like good and evil, heaven and hell.

And now we have arrived at the point where Evil is very clear to everybody, there is awareness that Something Is Wrong, just witness the Holocaust and 9/11.

So the next step is waking up to the fact that the Problem is actually not Outside ourselves, that is just a little projection we put out there.

---------------
This was inspired by part of this observant post on the "Choose Again" blog.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Fixing problems

I think most of us at some time will try to use the Course to fix our problems. And that's not understanding correctly what it is. Using the Course and Quantum Forgiveness is like a savings account: it becomes very important in the long term (decades) but in the short term it does not fix anything at all, in the short term you need a hands-on approach.

Monday, June 30, 2008

Value

"You do not want the world. The only thing of value in it is whatever part of it you look upon with love."
- A Course In Miracles

Friday, June 27, 2008

Wake up, Buffy

"It's not going to be easy, Buffy. You have to take it one step at a time. You have to start ridding your mind of those things that support your hallucination. You understand? There are things in that world you cling to. For your delusion they're safe holds, but for
your mind, they're traps."
-- Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when Buffy finds out her world is a fantasy, and doctors in the real world are trying to help her wake up.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

A crack

There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
- Anthem, Leonard Cohen

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Buffy in heaven

I was happy. Wherever I was, I was happy. At peace. I knew that everyone I cared about was all right. I knew it. Time didn't mean anything... nothing had form, but I was still me, you know? And I was warm, and I was loved... and I was finished. Complete.
I don't understand about theology or dimensions, or... any of it, really, but I think I was in heaven.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Depth of Winter

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
-- Albert Camus

I think he was talking about a "dark night of the soul" phenomenon, which I'm quite interested in. It seems to be a spontaneous journey to the Light, via a years-long passage through Darkness in the form of depression, pain, or anxiety.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Perceptions

Communication is not limited to the few channels the world recognizes.
Blog post about "blindness".

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Self-importance

"Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it - what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellowmen. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone."
-- Carlos Castaneda

Organized religion

I feel that this post on my main blog is relevant here.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Symbols of symbols of symbols

Many of use love the smell and feel of paper books. If you think about it, that can only be because of association with the stories and ideas we've read in them in the past. The stories represent people and things in the world. And those stand in for Source.
So we are attracted to symbols of symbols of symbols!

As we are

We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.
-- Anais Nin

Friday, May 23, 2008

D.U. and the male/Western Ego

Why is The Disappearance Of The Universe drawing in a 50% male crowd, when spiritual events usually are attended by 80% women?

My guess is that the book embodies a certain "male ego" quality which spiritualism usually doesn't. I have it a lot myself. It's also a Western quality. It is "I'm the master of my own life, dammit."

Gary even says it directly in the book, when A&P tells him he is going to write a book. He says "I'm glad you think you know my future, but I'll be the one who decides what I'm going to do." (Or words to that effect.)

It's a good quality in the world of form, as you can see in the Western world, where the male ego has raised living standards way above what's typical in the Eastern world.

But ultimately it's an Ego quality, it's part of what keeps us separate from others.

Most spirituality does not reach people who are in that mind-set. We get the hives from the sweetness-and-light quality and the "surrender yourself" attitude.

Which is why D.U. is so brilliant. It clearly outlines a compromise-free metaphysical spiritual philosophy which makes it clear that ultimately you will have to give up individual existence, but it does so while maintaining an edgy attitude and language which the male/Western person can appreciate. The rock-and-roll orientation. The dry humor. The smart-ass comments. Gotta love it.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Anger

"Holding onto anger is like grasping onto a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else. You are the one who gets burned."
-- Gotama Buddha

Monday, May 19, 2008

Picturing the divine

"Consciousness by its very nature tends to make the divine into its own image and likeness; the only problem is, the divine has no image or likeness. hence consciousness, of itself, cannot truly apprehend the divine. Christians (Catholics especially) are often blamed for being the great image makers, yet their images are so obviously naive and easy to see through, we often miss the more subtle, formless images by which consciousness fashions the divine. For example, because the divine is a subjective experience, we think the divine is a subject; because we experience the divine through the faculties of consciousness, will, and intellect, we think the divne is equally consciousness, will and intellect; because we experience ourselves as a being or entity, we experience the divine as a being or entity; because we judge others, we think the divine judges others; and so on. Carrying a holy card in our pockets is tame compared to the formless notions we carry around in our minds; it is easy to let go of an image, but almost impossible to uproot our intelletual convictions based on the experiences of consciousness. Still, if we actually knew the unbridgeable chasm that lies between the true nature of consciousness or self and the true nature of the divine, we would despair of ever making the journey. So consciousness is the marvelous divine invention by which human beings make the journey in subjective companionship with the divine; and, like every divine invention, it works. Consciousness both hides the chasm and bridges it - and when we have crossed over, of course, we do not need the bridge any more."
- interview with Bernadette Roberts

Update: it is very remarkable, that BR, in this quote:
"Four years later, however, I came across two lines attributed to Buddha describing his enlightenment experience. Referring to self as a house, he said, "All thy rafters are broken now, the ridgepole is destroyed". and there it was - the disappearance of the center, the ridgepole; without it, there can be no house, no self. When I read these lines, it was as if an arrow launched at the beginning of time had suddenly hit a bulls-eye."

... Talks about an arrow from the beginning of time, hitting a bulls-eye. Several years ago I had a perception that Our Path is "endeth", we are done, we are free, only we just need to shake off the residual pain to realize it. And I got a vision: A huge crystal arrow sitting in a big target, a perfect hit. I was mightily struck with the perfection of this hit, and with the finality of it. And also of the knowledge that it had been launched with such precision from the beginning of time.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Curing anger

"If you would cure anger, do not feed it. Say to yourself: 'I used to be angry every day; then every other day; now only every third or fourth day.' When you reach thirty days offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the gods."
-- Epictetus

Bill Thetford used as a measurement of progress: how long does it take you to let go of enmity? If it gets shorter, you're progressing.

Enemy outpost

"It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head."
-- Sally Kempton

Indeed.
And if one looks further, one finds that the outpost is what makes the enemy. If you remove it, no more enemies.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Western mystic traditions

"That said, there are historical reasons that the inner Western paths are not well-known or understood. They had to survive in an extremely hostile environment for hundreds of years. In medieval times, a mystic or a theologian who stepped outside the limits of conventional Catholic dogma would be condemned. And condemnation in those days was not just a matter of failing to get tenure: it meant poverty or even death. We can only admire the courage of the people who kept these traditions alive against all odds.
"Today, at least in the Western nations, nobody is going to be persecuted for having esoteric beliefs. Even so, the climate is not terribly favorable. Religion is either highly rationalistic (as in the mainstream Protestant denominations) or fundamentalist. In either case, everything is understood only at the lowest level. The media either portray the higher spiritual search in a clichéd form — everyone has a shaven head and a saffron robe — or they focus on the most obvious nut cases, the latest batch of Kool-Aid drinkers or what-have-you. This is part of what the spiritual master G.I. Gurdjieff called “the mechanism of self-calming”: you laugh at the nut cases to reassure yourself that there’s nothing to this spirituality business."

-- Interview about Western mystic traditions

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Amelia Earhart and courage

"Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace."
-- Amelia Earhart, Courage, 1927

I've never been a courageous person in the physical sense. You wouldn't get me do a bungee jump. But it's my unprovable conviction that being adventurous in the spiritual realm takes a much deeper kind of courage.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Belief in pleasure from The World

J says of the body:
"While you believe that it can give you pleasure, you will also believe that it can bring you pain."
(ACIM chapter 19)

It strikes me that the same can be said for the world of form in general.

It does not seem easy to give up the Pleasure of The World. I think desire will only go away when the need for it, the addiction, is gone. When the reservoir of Guilt is gone, or at least nearly.

When you have nothing more to run from, there will no need for anything to run to.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Is Guilt energy

I am often struck by the apparently quite mechanical quality of spiritual progress, and the necessity that it takes time. I am wondering if the "Guilt", while obviously illusory like the rest of the universe, is an actual energy. A quantity. If it's mechanical rather than conceptual. If it was just conceptual, one should be able to change one mind instantly. So it seems to me there has to be a mechanical change which has to happen over time. "Erasing" energy bit by bit by stopping believing in it and stopping fighting it. Or some such.

Friday, May 9, 2008

End of a journey

"You have reached the end of an ancient journey, not realizing yet that it is over. You are still worn and tired, and the desert's dust still seems to cloud your eyes and keep you sightless."
ACIM chapter 18

... That's another section which resonates powerfully for me. I had a mystical awakening about 20 years ago, and one of the things which kept returning to me in various guises over the years has been a strong subjective perception that we are done. That anything seemingly left to solve is just the dust settling.

One of the visions I had a few years ago of this idea was a great, shining crystal arrow sitting in a target. The arrow had been fired from the other side of the universe and from the other end of time, and the aim was perfect and it was all done.

Another vision I had was of a swimmer who has crossed an entire ocean. He is in the breakwater, and actually he is already crawling on the sand under eight inches of water, but he is not sure he can feel it with his numb and cold limbs.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Commenting

I've just found out to my irritation that this blog for some reason had been set to not accept comments from anybody except Blogger users. I don't know how that happened, but I've corrected it now. You can comment as Anonymous now, or you can just write in a name (I prefer that, rather than having a bunch of Anons to confuse).

I appreciate comments, and read them all, even comments to old posts.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

The extra-physical experience

"Everyone has experienced what he would call a sense of being transported beyond himself. This feeling of liberation far exceeds the dream of freedom sometimes hoped for in special relationships. It is a sense of actual escape from limitations. If you will consider what this “transportation” really entails, you will realise that it is a sudden unawareness of the body, and a joining of yourself and something else in which your mind enlarges to encompass it. It becomes part of you, as you unite with it. And both become whole, as neither is perceived as separate. What really happens is that you have given up the illusion of a limited awareness, and lost your fear of union. The love that instantly replaces it extends to what has freed you, and unites with it. And while this lasts you are not uncertain of your Identity, and would not limit It. You have escaped from fear to peace, asking no questions of reality, but merely accepting it. You have accepted this instead of the body, and have let yourself be one with something beyond it, simply by not letting your mind be limited by it.

"This can occur regardless of the physical distance that seems to be between you and what you join; of your respective positions in space; and of your difference in size and seeming quality. Time is not relevant; it can occur with something past, present or anticipated. The “something” can be anything and anywhere; a sound, a sight, a thought, a memory, and even a general idea without specific reference. Yet in every case, you join it without reservation because you love it, and would be with it."

-- Course in Miracles
Text, Chapter 18 - VI. Beyond the Body

This section is important to me. I have powerful experiences like that with art, both my own and that of others.

Lucid dreaming

"All your time is spent in dreaming. Your sleeping and your waking dreams have different forms, and that is all. Their content is the same."
T-18.II.5:12-14

I had an amazing experience the other night. I'm not sure if it will seem extraordinary to anybody else, but to me it really was.

I was dreaming in the night, and it was just about walking around in my old home town with some friends and having various experiences. But it was parts of the town I had not seen before, and since I know every inch of it, I knew it was not real.

Whether for that reason for inspiration, I became aware that I was dreaming. And I became aware that I might wake up, but not necessarily immediately, and it did not matter.

The really amazing thing, though, was that the dream and everything in it was astoundingly detailed. It was every bit as detailed as what I see in "reality" every day. Perhaps even more, I think my eyesight was better in the dream.

It was a fantastic experience to walk around in this world which I knew was a dream, and yet it continued, and yet it was fully as detailed and real-looking as anything I'd ever seen.

It might not be proof that "reality" is actually a dream. I don't know if that can be "proved". But it can't be proved that it's real either. Any proof you need to prove that it's real, you can also dream up!

But it did prove to my personal satisfaction that a dream can seem at least as real and detailed as what we call reality, and therefore there's no reason, apart from emotional necessity, to assume that reality is not a dream.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Quotes

No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently.
-- Agnes de Mille

How helpless we are, like netted birds, when we are caught by desire!
-- Belva Plain

You must dare to disassociate yourself from those who would delay your journey... Leave, depart, if not physically, then mentally. Go your own way, quietly, undramatically, and venture toward trueness at last.
-- Vernon Howard

Friday, April 25, 2008

Going all the way

"If you are willing to follow the Holy Spirit through seeming terror, trusting Him not to abandon you and leave you there . . . . For it is not His purpose to frighten you, but only yours. You are severely tempted to abandon Him at the outside ring of fear, but He would lead you safely through and far beyond."

The Two Worlds, ACIM
pg. 394

The supreme

"Many people just think about eating, sleeping, and having sex. That is not much. Animals do the same, so this is nothing special. The real purpose of having a human body is to recognize the Supreme."
- Shastriji

Thursday, April 24, 2008

The Great Yucky

Spiritual progress will feel yucky (by depression or anxiety) not as a side effect, but because that is the process! Experiencing the "yucky" unflinchingly is the process you have to go through.

The whole basis of the dream world is that it is symbolic of an idea so unpleasant that it just can't be faced (the illusory separation from god). The idea and the feeling it engenders are greatly repressed, and you can't get free without facing them, and you can't face it without feeling the Great Yucky.

One might even say that the worse you feel, the better progress you're making, though obviously that's a very unpopular idea. Happiness in the nightmare is only possible through repression, and it is thin and shortlived.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Three points to do

There was a nice little summary in Gary's latest podcast: the three most important things to do is:
1: Quantum forgiveness.
2: Give control to the HS.
3: Make contact with Source.

I think that's good, since DU puts such an emphasis on forgiveness that one might forget about the other two.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Beginnings

"Genuine beginnings begin within us, even when they are brought to our attention by external opportunities."
-- William Bridges

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Birth and death

"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval."
-- George Santayana, Soliloquies in England, 1922, "War Shrines"

Fortunately, since then a cure was invented.

Friday, April 4, 2008

Helen Schucman remembered

Helen Schucman remembered, video
Judith Skutch Whitson, Bill Thetford, and Ken Wapnick talk about 'A Course In Miracles' scribe Helen Schucman. From the mid-eighties.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Slow growth

"The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for 100 years. The Marshall replied, 'In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon!'"
-- John F. Kennedy

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Lawana Blackwell

"Forgiveness is almost a selfish act because of its immense benefits to the one who forgives."
-- Lawana Blackwell

Friday, March 28, 2008

The Light

"You don't need to solve this problem, you just need to step into the light."

Paraphrasing of a message from J to me in a specific circumstance.

(I don't often get guidance from Outside, normally it comes to me as intuition)

Monday, March 24, 2008

Practicality

An excellent article about why The Course is not more practical.

And another one about wanting to improve the external world.


"Certain it is that all distress does not appear to be but unforgiveness. Yet that is the content underneath the form" (W.pI.193.4:1.1)

Humor

We are able to laugh when we achieve detachment, if only for a moment.
-- May Sarton

Humor is one of the Holy Spirit's most important tools.
-- Pursah

Friday, March 21, 2008

Stuart Wilde

Stuart Wilde is a prominent spiritual leader out of the UK. He's a "Wilde and crazy guy" who tells about his travels in other dimensions and dealing with weird creatures.

He has some interesting ideas, but the main thing I notice is how he, even after a lifetime of learning and teaching spirituality, is still spending a lot of his time *fighting*. He's constantly battling these parasitic and malevolent little spiritual thingies he calls "ghouls", and so on.

Being that anything can happen in the Dream, all of that may be real. For sure it's real to him. But fighting Evil will never make him free. To stop fighting will. The more he fights evil, the more real it will seem to him, and the more it will fight him back.
-----
Note: Stuart's book The Trick To Money Is Having Some is great. It made it a lot easier for me to become affluent. But I've read several of his other books, and the long of the short is that I mainly find them confused and confusing.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Poetry

"You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some with you."
- Joubert

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Lennon/buddhism

PLAYBOY: "Why does anyone need $150,000,000? Couldn't you be perfectly content with $100,000,000? Or $1,000,000?"
LENNON: "What would you suggest I do? Give everything away and walk the streets? The Buddhist says, 'Get rid of the possessions of the mind.' Walking away from all the money would not accomplish that. It's like the Beatles. I couldn't walk away from the Beatles. That's one possession that's still tagging along, right? If I walk away from one house or 400 houses, I'm not gonna escape it."

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Cogito cogito

"Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)"
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

This is funny. And it's true too. And if you look at it from a Course viewpoint, it's absolutely true, and important too.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Not true

"Salvation lies in the simple fact that illusions are not fearful because they are not true."
- ACIM chapter 16
"To lift the veil that seems so dark and heavy, it is only needful to value truth beyond all fantasy, and to be entirely unwilling to settle for illusion in place of truth."
ACIM chapter 16

Another great quote.
It always seemed to me that if anything is valuable, it's truth. And ultimate truth will be ultimate value.

Occasionally when the ego kicks in, whimpering in fear about losing its individual existence, I think about how yes, that seems scary, but if that existence is not true? No matter how desirable something seems from this viewpoint, if it's not true, I don't want it.
(And of course if it should turn out that individual existence is true, then it can't be destroyed, and there's nothing to fear.)

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Attempt at a bulwark

"The special love relationship is not seen as a value in itself, but as a place of safety from which hatred is split off and kept apart."
ACIM, chapter 16

Monday, February 25, 2008

Perfect communication

"The holy instant is a time in which you give and receive perfect communication."
- ACIM chapter 15.

Wow, this may be my favorite ACIM quote ever.

Book scholarship

Announcement

During February 2008: if you want to get The Disappearance Of The Universe by Gary Renard, but can't afford it, I will pay for one for you.

Write in comments, or e-mail me at eolake [at] gmail [dot] com

Vacation

"No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one."
-- Elbert Hubbard

Ain't it the truth? But why? I think it's because "work" is one of the main ways of running from the Ego and the Guilt. When you suddenly have time, they turn up and smack you in the face.

Appearing

"Such is the irresistible nature of truth that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing."
-- Thomas Paine

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Postpartum Depression

A thought occurred to me: why is Postpartum Depression (after birth) so common in new mothers?

Because it's post partum. "After separation". It's symbolic of the seeming separation from Source.

Devoted to misery

"You who are steadfastly devoted to misery must first recognize that you are miserable and not happy. The Holy Spirit cannot teach without this contrast..."
ACIM chapter 14

This explains why you can't show the way out to somebody who considers himself happy in this universe.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Judith Skutch Interview

Here is a cool audio interview with Judith Skutch Whitson. She is a pleasure to listen to, and the interview tells many interesting things about Helen and Bill which I did not know before, despite me having read a lot about them before. For example Bill's humor, and his ability to pull up miracles at will, even in the world of form.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Core mistake

"The core mistake is underestimating the ego, not recognizing how much we are identified with it. That leads to the idea that we can just set the ego aside and give it to the Holy Spirit. People try to skip over steps. And one of the important steps is learning to look at the ego without judgment."
- Ken Wapnick interview
------

And here is another very interesting interview with Ken.
...it is the first I ever hear that Ken was led to mysticism/God through music!
This is highly relevant to me, since I've at times been wondering whether my earlier belief was wrong, that art can lead to Source. (Though surely not as effectively as the Course.)

Becoming invulnerable

"Yes, the time will eventually come when you will never suffer. That is one of the long-term payoffs of this spiritual path. Even while you still appear to be in your body, it is possible for you to attain phychological invulnerability."
- The Disappearance Of The Universe by Gary Renard, page 111

Don't prejudge answers

Note from J, regarding asking the HS for advice (from Absence From Felicity):

"Prejudge His answer not, for if you do, you will not hear it."

Slow trees

The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.
-- Moliere

This resonates with me, as a person, and an artist, and a Course student. I may once have felt a little pang of jealousy at the people who become millionaires at 24, but I now realize that even when you do things and grow as effectively as you can, the best things just Take Time.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Pithy quotes

"A Course In Miracles is not a religion."
- The Disappearance Of The Universe by Gary Renard, page 101
(This whole sentence is italized in the book, for emphasis.)

"The Course has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the physical world."
- The Disappearance Of The Universe by Gary Renard, page 99

How Fear Works

How Fear Works.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

All The Same

"Even judgement in its most basic form, such as to label something as good or bad, would be to differentiate between things that are actually the same due to their unreality. Thus, it is not really valid to judge anything." 

- The Disappearance Of The Universe by Gary Renard

Expressions are legion

"...it's not the form but the content. And the content of God's Will is present in everyone. The forms in which it is expressed are legion. To pull out certain ones as being more special than others or holier than others or more God's word than others is to make the mistake of spiritual specialness."

Ken Wapnick interview.

We Love Mysteries

"In our steadfast devotion to understanding that which cannot be understood, we express our devotion to the ego. We enjoy complexity and unsolvable riddles, especially of the metaphysical variety, for they proclaim the ego real and offer wonderful opportunities for distraction and delay from the simplicity of salvation."

- from article by "ACIM monk"

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Paths

"Don't take another's path as your own, but neither should you judge it."
- Ken Wapnick, quoting J talking to Helen

Ch-ch-changes

Isn't it funny how things, or ourselves, can change without us noticing it?

For example, I had not noticed this change: until a few months ago, I was quite concerned about how long it would take until the whole world becomes enlightened. And very interested in how long it will take for the whole universe to do so, and thus disappearing.
Now I find I don't care at all. It will happen, it has happened, and it's only happening in a dream.

Saturday, February 9, 2008

Fear of Love

"Your fear of attack is nothing compared to your fear of love."
- ACIM chapter 13

This is another quote which I would have expected to see all over the place. It's simply stated and a profound truth. Yet I don't find it quoted anywhere on the web, not a single place. This is interesting. I am guessing it's just too fearful to face.

It's very much been my own experience for the last two decades that this is so. Things turned after a big spiritual breakthrough in the eighties, and I found myself being much more disturbed by love and beauty than by Evil.

It is one of the good examples of the big counterintuitive-ness of A Course In Miracles. Because "everybody knows" that what we really want is Love. And yet if we look, it is clear that we don't. When we get love, we kill it as fast as we can.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Unilateral surrender

Many years ago, a friend (hi Rene) told me about a colleague he had: there was a big personality clash between them, and it was a problem for him.

He wanted to talk to her, and what he did was write down a list of bad points she had that he would wish she would change. And he wrote down a list of her good points also, to balance it.

Then for some reason he decided to just throw out the list of bad points, and he read her the list of her good points.

He told me that she totally changed after that. Even her voice changed.

I think the pure application of forgiveness is total unilateral surrender. You completely give up attack, and you don't hinge it in the least on whether the other party changes or takes responsibility. You accept that there is a chance that you might "lose" the war because you give it up. Of course what usually happens is that the war goes away, not that you lose it.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Humor

"My guess is that there aren't a hundred top-flight professional comedians, male and female, in the whole world. They are a much rarer and far more valuable commodity than all the gold and precious stones in the world. But because we are laughed at, I don't think people really understand how essential we are to their sanity." - Groucho Marx

Humor is one of the most important tools of the human spirit. (DU)

Old saying

There's so much good in the worst of us
and so much bad in the best of us
that it's ill advised any of us
to speak against the rest of us

Fear and keeping apart

I had a realization the other day:
Fear has nothing to do with what may happen to us, it's just a mechanism for keeping up apart.

One illustration is how irrational it is. For example I'm afraid of spiders (not much though). No spider has ever harmed me. Another one is fear of terrorism. Almost nobody dies from terrorism compared to traffic and illness.

Copilot

Here's a line from the TV show Studio 60:

"My mom would say, if Jesus is your copilot, you should switch seats."

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Wanting the world

"You do not want the world. The only thing of value in it is whatever part of it you look upon with love."
- ACIM chapter twelve

I would have thought that this would be one of those lines from the course which are quoted everywhere. But not so, it's quite rarely quoted. Nice to blast trails. :)

I like it especially because the subject was one I've been thinking about recently, and it was exactly the conclusion I'd reached myself.