Zero- or total tolerance

I think there are two basic attitudes in undoing the ego. Maybe they are different stages, I don't know.

One is zero-tolerance of ego.

The other is total tolerance of ego.

Very oddly, I suspect they both work well.

There is order looking right at you

I was just settling in to watch a good movie, it seemed better than expected.
And it did not seem to be all that related to the movie, I’m actually not sure, but I just suddenly felt relaxed and had the feeling that:

“It’s all right.”

It felt profound.

To dot the i, I watched five more seconds, and the main character comes on, and the first line out of his mouth is: “You know, just when you think there is no order anywhere,  there is order looking right at you.”

One of my old theories about art/aesthetics, is that art is a higher, um, order of order. Things organized in harmony, which shows we can think in oneness.

Is it too hard to do?

I have learned during this lifetime, that yes, sometimes the right thing to do is hard. But often, if it is very, very hard to do, it's just not the right thing to do, at least for now. 

It could be your Higher Self trying to block you from making a mistake, for reasons you can't see or understand.

Adyashanti tells a story which is a good example. As a young man, he was into bicycle racing, and was very good at it, and he was very competitive.
But then he got dramatically sick, for months, and couldn't do it.
When he got well, he just biked for fun. But then he got better yet, and soon he was into full competitive racing again.
And: he got dramatically sick once more.
This time he got the message.

We often can't see or understand the whole picture, but our Higher Self can. And while its messages are often subtle, sometimes they are not!
So, don't give up easily, but think twice if something just seems way too hard. If it's the right thing for you at that time, it should not be that hard.

Message from Carol

Straight over to my friend Carol Howe:

Hello, everyone,


It's been a long time since I've touched base and want to wish you all well as we travel through these very intense times.  So many are commenting on their experience of time decreasing and demands upon that time increasing - a circumstance that calls for our using the spiritual practice of choice to maintain peace of mind and a clear, non-judgmental head! To that end, I want to remind you about Bill Thetford's biography, Never Forget To Laugh, since its purpose is to foster hope, good will, and peace of mind.


The website  contains much information of interest - articles about Bill, reviews of the book, many testimonials, three sections to read free, and other stories about Bill not included in his biography.  Several more segments of this extra material will be added in the next few months.  Please feel free to avail yourselves of this opportunity to find out how A Course In Miracles led Bill to an awakened state and offers assurance that we can follow him.


Never Forget To Laugh will soon be available on the Amazon Kindle and other ebook readers.  Stay tuned!


With kind regards,
Carol
www.carolhowe.com   

Eye of the Beholder

"People often say that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves."
           -- Salma Hayek

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By the way, "Eye Of The Beholder" was the title of a horror comic story I read when I was very young (I had a period where I was a big fan of horror comics). It was about a young man whose young, beautiful wife died. And he went to a magician to ask to get her back somehow. And the magician fulfilled his wish, while reminding him that he could only do so much.

The Bride turns up at his door, beautiful as ever, and they are both tearfully happy about the reunion. But things are wrong, animals freak out around her and so on. Near the ending, he hugs her to comfort her.
But then as he is hugging her, he sees the reflection of them both in the mirror. The mirror is not fooled, he can now see that he is hugging a months-old rotting corpse.

Nice reading for kids.       :-)
But I think that horror stories have the important mission of, with aesthetics to sweeten the medicine, showing us the real face of this unreal life.

Loori

"Cause and effect are one thing. And what is that one thing? You. That’s why what you do and what happens to you are the same thing."
- Zen teacher John Daido Loori