Proust on wisdom

We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.

           -- Marcel Proust

About humility

I am no more humble than my talents require. 

- Oscar Levant

It may be true that humility is part of the road to Awakening. But I feel that when others demand that you must be humble, it may have more to do with the fact that a lack of humility is offensive to other egos, they may feel trampled on or looked down upon. 

"Do we praise the blade of grass which stand taller than the rest?! No, we cut it down!" 

A personal learning of truth is a different matter, of course, here you may learn that personal differences are all illusory.

Update:
Funny koinkidink: a couple minutes after posting this, I was chilling to a silly cartoon, Kick Buttowski, and in that particular episode Kick, a kid who's big raison détre is daredevilry, find's out his mom is one too, and famous too. And he's bummed out. Explaining, he says: "somehow Mom being awesomeness makes me... less awesome." His friend says: "Since when does Awesome + Awesome make Less Awesome? 

Welcome To Reality / Adyashanti

He was born in 1962, he was almost fifty here (it seems to be rather recent), I wouldn't have guessed.
Good interview. Insight into a Driven Personality related to achieving enlightenment.

Some would say that Awakening is a one-shot thing, a decision, one thing or another. But it seems to me that almost anybody who seems to have achieved it went through a long process. Long, often intense process. And even for those who seem to not have, well, they lived half a life before it happened, and possibly many lifetimes before, who's to say a Process didn't happen in all that time, beyond their awareness?

Blossoming

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

           -- Anaïs Nin

-----

I feel this nails it. 

Unfolding and softening is a long and painful process, but at some point it just become preferable. It does take time though, so we should not be impatient with ourselves or each other. 

Milhouse

"...Milhouse? Funny little guy. Afraid of the dark. And the light." 
- Bart Simpson


A very funny line. And as usual, no joke without a bit of truth. I think we all may be, at least metaphorically, more afraid of the Light than of the Dark. Why else would we be here instead of with the Light?

Lord of the flies

Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.  - Bertrand Russell

Punishment

Punishment is always the great preserver of sin; treating it with respect, and honoring its enormity. What must be punished, MUST BE TRUE. And what is true MUST be eternal, and WILL be repeated endlessly.

-- A Course in Miracles, chapter 19

Taken out of context, it looks like The Course supports punishment, but it's the opposite, it is talking about the belief of the Ego, which is wrong.
So long as you believe "sin" must be punished, you are just making it real and perpetuating it. 

Laughter gives us distance

Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on. 
- Bob Newhart

And I think this is true whether it is directly connected to events in our own life or not. (Since they are all equally illusory anyway.) Large dozes of comedy, whatever works for one, is recommended, both for relaxation and for deeper healing.

Anne of Green Gables. And, we don't want our medicine

I really like the books of LM Montgomery. They are often regarded as childrens' or young-girls' books, but they reach well beyond their genre, and they are very funny and wise.

By far the darkest one is Rilla of Ingleside, because it relates to WW1.
In it, one character comments to another about the past two years which have been very difficult. And she asks her if she would exchange them for two years of happy times. And the other character said that she would not, because of how much she has changed and grown.
But they agree that they would not have the heart to ask for two more similarly hard years, and the older character says how it's remarkable that even if and when we recognize how hardship has made us grown, we never want more of that kind of medicine, which is why we are not ourselves in charge of our path.
I thought that exceptionally wise.

The first book in the loosely-connected series by the way is the famous Anne of Green Gables. I think Lucy Maud Montgomery did a fantastic job in making a series of books taking place through the life of Anne Shirley, and have them all fit but yet be independent. Some of them don't even have Anne as main character, which is true of Rilla (Anne's daughter), and Rainbow Valley, one of my favorites, which is about two sets of siblings. The most important set of siblings is not even in Anne's family, but the book still fits perfectly in the whole saga.
The books are pretty much independent, but I think one may find greater satisfaction by reading them in sequence.
Almost all of them can be found on paper, ebook, and audiobook. (Though I haven't been able to find the sixth one, Anne Of Ingleside, in audio. If anybody knows of it...)

What is nothing?

There is still a difference between something and nothing, but it is purely geometrical and there is nothing behind the geometry.

           -- Martin Gardner, "The Mathematical Magic Show"

How to be passersby

The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own.

- Susan Sontag

Apropos sound alienation, thanks to TCG and Biblegateway for these interesting bible verses: 

John 15:18-21 

18 "If the people of this world [a] hate you, just remember that they hated me first."

19 "If you belonged to the world, its people would love you. But you don't belong to the world. I have chosen you to leave the world behind, and that is why its people hate you." 

I suspect that alienation is a necessary step towards Awakening. 

Steps (and rest)

What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it.

           -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.

           -- Ovid

What god can do

Even God cannot change the past.

           -- Agathon

I'm a little astonished at the postulates people are willing to put forth about what God can or can't, or will or won't, do. How can we possibly know? It's like amoebe claiming to know what humans can do.

As a simple example: let's say God changed the past so that ants became the intelligent race and ruled the earth, and humans numbered a few thousand, cowering in trees. Well, the present might change as well, and how would the inhabitants of this world know that it had ever been any different? Heck for all we know, ants were our masters until last week, when God got bored and changed it all. 

Be a doubter

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

the "Zebra Personality"

Have you come across people, particularly various kinds of spiritual teachers, but also other kinds of leaders, who obviously have a lot of light and wisdom in them, but can also be nasty, vicious people? For example they will be very loyal to a friend, but if they decide that the friend have "betrayed" them, they will see him like the devil and treat him like caca.

I call them "zebra personalities". I see that in this lifetime they have made a jailbreak attempt from this world and the ego, and they made a very strong one and got very far, which is why they can be so inspired and inspiring.
But they only made it half the way. And because they are very strong people, their Ego is very strong too, and this sudden collision with The Light of Source made the ego freak out and go into super-high gear.

This mixes with the blessed part of their personality, and you get a person with almost no grey tones, only stripes of black and white. Thus the "zebra".

You would think that such light and such darkness could not co-exist in one person, and normally they can't, but we are talking about very rare, exceptionally strong and bright people, and they can hold together a functioning personality even though the conflicts between such strong light and darkness would tear a normal person apart.

Doing the Work Of Good is hard work

I’m reading “Living with Miracles”, new book by D. Patrick Miller. 

He quotes from the Course about how Harmless and Helpful goes together. I was reminded: 

LR Hubbard said that a man is as happy and productive as he perceives himself to be dangerous to his environment. 

He said he’d realized this after he'd been walking home one night, and he was threatened by three drunk sailors. He “handled” them in the violent fashion of one of his own fictional heroes, including a broken bottle into the face of one of them. And after that he said, he was super-productive and on top of the world for days! 

You’ll notice that for this to be true, a person must be basically on permanent and essential war footing with the whole of the rest of creation. 

BTW he may have just made it up (the fight), but doubtlessly it was in line with his beliefs. He saw himself as the greatest spiritual king of ages, battling alongside a ragged bunch of incompetent but lovable rascals against incredible odds, to literally save not only the Earth, but the whole universe and all universes beyond it from the otherwise inevitable slide into something which would make Dante’s Inferno seem like a day at McDonalds. 

Literally, no irony, no metaphors, no exaggeration. Saving the *whole* of creation, by himself with a little help. 

And his enemies were similarly great, of course, with “Xenu” being the yang to his Yin, the evil being of evil beings, who apparently also almost single-handedly engineered the “downward spiral” of the universes since time began. 

And so it goes without saying that if you have to main and kill at little at times in order to achieve such ends as Saving Civilization, that’s trivial. Nay, admirable, because you did what you had to without hesitation or fear of reprisal. 

Funny enough that last philosophy is echoed by many hard-science-fiction authors, like Robert Heinlein, Algis Budrys, van Vogt, Orson Scott Card, Jerry Pournelle… 

Of course it’s just a slightly bigger vision of the whole “Dirty Harry” syndrome of the Ego’s, that if there’s evil out there, you kill it. And if you happen to find pleasure in such killing and maybe shoot a few times more than strictly necessary (notice how Dirty Harry movies (and "Unforgiven") always end in an orgy of shooting), then that’s of course only because you’re the Good Guy and you enjoy doing the Work Of Good. 

And you know that you are the Good Guy because you are doing the Work Of Good. And, er, vice versa! Perfect logic! 

And you know who the bad guys are, because they shoot first! Except of course at times when you, the Good Guy, has to shoot first to stop the Bad Guy from doing it. It’s all obvious and can be seen by everybody except those who are either Enemies or Traitors. (And the number of traitors which can stack up by a really great Good Guy is fabulous.) 

Asking Big

Laurie commented: "We ask too small."

It's a good point. Not long before I really encountered non-duality (in the form of The Disappearance Of The Universe), I was for a while into the whole Manifestation thing (which later hit big with The Secret). But I was already losing my interest in earthly manifestations like the trappings of success etc. So in the end, the only thing I really put my wish-force behind was wanting stronger communication with Everything.

Everything and everybody in the universe. But when it comes down to it, what's "everything" except Source, or God? So my rewards in that direction have gone into hyperdrive since then.

Full disclosure demands that I reveal that this does not necessarily mean an easier life, at least not for a while. To speed up spiritual contact also means to speed up the shedding and shredding of old, hard-packed energies full of beliefs and fear and anger and such. And this process can be highly stressful. But I do believe that there's an end to anything, except Truth.

One's own heart

It is a fine thing to establish one's own religion in one's heart, not to be dependent on tradition and second-hand ideals. 

- D. H. Lawrence

"Cosmic Consciousness"

Below is an excerpt from an interesting book, "Cosmic Consciousness".
It can be found on Amazon on paper or electrons. (Be sure to get the right one, by Richard Maurice Bucke, it's a century old.)

(Click for easier reading.) 

Study assumptions

Study the assumptions behind your actions. Then study the assumptions behind your assumptions. 

— Idries Shah

One of the most basic and wise sayings I've heard. 

Harder than you'd think, though. Because we all tend very strongly to confuse our assumptions with facts. That's why we assumed them after all. 

Book: "Living With Miracles"

D. Patrick Miller, the original publisher of The Disappearance Of The Universe, has a new book out: Living with Miracles (author's page and Amazon page).

I warmly recommend it both as a gentle and easy-to-read introduction to the Course, and paradoxically also, for me at least, further study around the basic ideas of the Course for more advanced students.

For example the book contains one of the best definitions I have seen of the "Holy Spirit" of the Course: "an intuitive communication link between our own seemingly limited consciousness and the unlimited consciousness of God".

"Intuitive communication link", that's just spot-on.

I asked D. Patrick:

What's the raison d'étre, amidst all the other books on the subject?

My previous book UNDERSTANDING A COURSE IN MIRACLES was mostly history and journalism, describing  how the Course came to be and became influential, and providing a summary of its chief principles. I told a few personal stories of how it had affected me, however, and I noticed that those were the parts of the book most often mentioned by readers. So I thought there would be some interest in a book that focused on stories of how the Course had affected students, including myself. So it's a more personal book in that respect, and is more about the *experience* of ACIM than its history. 


Thanks for the write-up! BTW I just published an e-book that provides an in-depth study of healing a relationship with forgiveness, entitled THE PERFECT MOTHER.  

On gratitude

Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favors.

           -- Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Wow, what a cynical thing to say. I hope this was said by a fictional character, for a person must have had a poor life indeed to never had felt any real gratitude for anything. 

I remember when I was around 7 or 8, all summer we went to the beach every day, we had a very nice beach nearby, all light sand, no stones etc. But I was afraid of getting my head under the water. A pal of mine, a year or two older, coached me into getting used to it, and swimming under the water became one of the most fun things I ever did. I got so extremely grateful to him that I kept saying I Love You to him, something Scandinavians are not wont to, being a very reserved people. I had to stop that since it embarrassed him. But that was real gratitude, somebody had really enhanced my life. And I certainly did not have any "hope of further favors", what would that be, teaching me mountain climbing?  (In Denmark! Haha, the tallest place is like 1500 feet.)