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November 2009 
What would you most like to teach?
Posted on Oct 27th, 2009
by 
Centria
Centria
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for October 27, 2009:
I would like to teach people how to wake up.
But, hmmm, that would involve me waking up first.
Then you look at the answer you just wrote and think, "Do I really want to teach people how to wake up?"
Well, of course.
Do you really?
Don't I?
C'mon, be honest. Do you really want to teach people how to wake up?
I think I do, but maybe I don't.
How do you feel when you think people aren't already awake?
Hmmm....good question...kind of like something is missing. Doesn't necessarily feel too good. Feels like I think I want them to know something that they don't already know. (Got that?)
Is it possible that everyone is already awake? Or that everyone is already awake that wants to be awake at this stage of their journeys?
Yes.
Is there a value to not being awake?
There must be. Otherwise we would all be awake. Awareness obviously doesn't want to be awake. Or it would be. It wants to experience separate bodies, thoughts, beliefs & that whole hullaballoo.
So if awareness doesn't necessarily want to be awake, do you still want to teach others to wake up?
Um, maybe not.
If awareness doesn't want to be completely awake in you, do you still want to wake up?
But awareness IS awake in me! How could we not be aware? It's silly thinking we're not even awake. Silly, silly.
So you are awake.
Yes, but I forget that I am.
You could teach others that we're all awake and we forget we are.
Yep, and they could teach me, too.
Let's go back to the original question: What would you most like to teach?
Maybe the only thing we can really teach is simply by being. We are ourselves in all our amazing love and craziness and bitchiness and questioning and answering and acting. Other people witness us, and that is simply the teaching.
Are you sure?
Not at all. I am not sure of anything. Not a single thing. Except for awareness. I am sure of that. And every one of us is aware. Who we truly are can't be taught. Ever. We already know. We truly do. We just sometimes think we've forgotten.
But, hmmm, that would involve me waking up first.
Then you look at the answer you just wrote and think, "Do I really want to teach people how to wake up?"
Well, of course.
Do you really?
Don't I?
C'mon, be honest. Do you really want to teach people how to wake up?
I think I do, but maybe I don't.
How do you feel when you think people aren't already awake?
Hmmm....good question...kind of like something is missing. Doesn't necessarily feel too good. Feels like I think I want them to know something that they don't already know. (Got that?)
Is it possible that everyone is already awake? Or that everyone is already awake that wants to be awake at this stage of their journeys?
Yes.
Is there a value to not being awake?
There must be. Otherwise we would all be awake. Awareness obviously doesn't want to be awake. Or it would be. It wants to experience separate bodies, thoughts, beliefs & that whole hullaballoo.
So if awareness doesn't necessarily want to be awake, do you still want to teach others to wake up?
Um, maybe not.
If awareness doesn't want to be completely awake in you, do you still want to wake up?
But awareness IS awake in me! How could we not be aware? It's silly thinking we're not even awake. Silly, silly.
So you are awake.
Yes, but I forget that I am.
You could teach others that we're all awake and we forget we are.
Yep, and they could teach me, too.
Let's go back to the original question: What would you most like to teach?
Maybe the only thing we can really teach is simply by being. We are ourselves in all our amazing love and craziness and bitchiness and questioning and answering and acting. Other people witness us, and that is simply the teaching.
Are you sure?
Not at all. I am not sure of anything. Not a single thing. Except for awareness. I am sure of that. And every one of us is aware. Who we truly are can't be taught. Ever. We already know. We truly do. We just sometimes think we've forgotten.
Access: Public
THis was really funny Kathy.. :-)
“Everyone is doing their best according to their level of awareness”
Deepak Chopra
So yes… we should not awake.. but aware our fellow humankind…
It's as simple as saying “that will kill you” to a smoker…
but wait; awareness with compassion…
“that can kill you”
more compassion…
“umm each puff reduces seven hours of your life…”
More…
“baby; each puff reduces seven hours of your life…”
hmm…
now that could work. :-) could make someone Stop smoking…
i am reminded of the stop acronym..
S top
T hink
O rganise
P roceed
:-)
try a little sleep… (:
Janak, glad to entertain you! I love letting the inner voices have their say, oh goodness who knows what they will say NEXT? and love that addition of “baby, each puff reduces seven hours of your life…” Wonder if that would work? Love to see you!!
Oh dear changing listen2ourmusic, a little sleep is always good! I love to sleep! I love that moment when you climb in between the sheets and the sheets are oh-so-cool and enchanting and the dream-world is just a little ways away. And you lay there in utter joy thinking OH NOW I GET TO SLEEP!! It's so awesome. Isn't it the most awesome thing in the world? To sleep, perchance to dream.
Don't you love all the voices of “us” that there are? :)
i was talking to Robert on Sunday about being connected to Source - both he and I feel a strong connection to Source but had differing opinions about those who don't seem to be as strongly connected. He feels that they are connected but just not as aware, and that we can learn a lot from them, and he envies them somewhat. I feel that they may be connected but because of the lack of awareness suffer from a lot of confusion and lack of direction, like “sheep without a shepherd” (Christ weeping over Jerusalem). I want to be able to help them learn to connect.
love you so much, love your blogs always.
Hmmm, wouldn't know how to even leap in the midst of your Source discussion and offer an opinion. But double hmmm….well, here's my opinion. See all the voices represented in the above blog? Some of the voices think they are awake and others think they are not. Some of our inner selves are deeply aware of their connection and others aren't. But each voice has a beautiful piece to offer to the whole. So it is inside of ourselves…and we can give each of our inner voices a space to share their enlightenment/unenlightenment/awareness/asleepness. And the sum total of their sharing is what awareness really is.
And because the outer world reflects the inner world (or does the inner world reflect the outer world?) then we will see our inner voices both thinking they are awake and asleep in the outer world as well.
It takes great courage for us to let ALL our voices speak. We usually want to only let the polished ones speak, the enlightened ones speak, the “together” ones speak. We don't want to let the confused, the downtrodden, the weak, the frightened, the crazy, the sad voices out.
Our greatest faith is that the whole is greater than its parts. That's Christ.
Hmmmm, guess I did have an opinion. One of me, anyway. Love to you always as well, Nicole!
A sigh of delicious delight and profound peace descended upon me reading all of the energy of acceptance in these words, Kathy. Thank you with all my heart.
Love, OM Bastet
I went and layed down, but couldn't get this blog out of my head…had read it earlier, or part of it, and so, I had to come back and finish…cuz I do have something I want to say concerning this topic…
Sometimes I would like to give so many shaken-baby syndrome…LOL*
wake the fuck up to being human…dang…gol*
Ahhh, delight! Don't you love it when it happens upon us? Love you, OM.
G'morning Star. Which parts of the self would you like to shake today? I look at myself and see incredible enlightenment and incredible ensleepenment. (ha ha.) They are all precious parts. They can all speak! That, to me, is enlightenment. Letting all the parts speak. All the human parts! The human parts that think they're not enlightened. That even care about it. That love dreaming of it. They say they aren't! Let 'em be. Let the human parts with all their yearnings and anger and frustration and sadness simply be the very precious human parts they are. (Of course there are different parts of self who will disagree with this statement.) You are such an incredible supporter of the human! The human in all of us adores you. We thank you with our whole heart and roll red carpet at your feet. We say, don't shake us! You are our biggest support, our biggest love. We're such babies sometimes. Humanity! You gotta love us~~~~~~~
That's what I call “radical self-acceptance,” Kathy. It's my belief that anyone can drop into that anytime. Gay Hendricks, I think it was, a long time ago (I read this in one of his books 20 years ago) was helping people love themselves. He'd ask “Can you get into a mind-space where you love yourself?” If someone answered “No” he'd say, OK, can you get into a mind-space in which you love your inability to love yourself? Anyone who said No to that was asked, OK, can you find the place in you which can love the inability to love your inability to love yourself? Most people didn't take too many layers or rounds before they “got” it !!!!!!
It's always there, that place. If we just step back, or up, far enough.
I love the way YOU said it. I am going to save that comment and share it a lot. Says it all, in so few and beautiful words.
Treasuring every interchange before you disappear, Kathy!!! LOL !!!
Love, OM
The quiet un-assertiveness in your tone is immensely attractive to me, Kat. It's almost bordering on hesitancy… and its message seeps into me like a color wash into white cloth. I have no defense against the way you so quietly murmur your truths.
Radical self acceptance, OM. Yes. I have one remaining huge area (to me, that is…if there is a me…hmmmm) that I have not learned to love. It feels like this one area still contains so much suffering. Can't drop into a way to love it yet. Have tried and tried and tried and stopped trying and tried again for so many years. It always feels like if I could learn to love this, the whole world would open up. (Sniffing a bit right now.) Why it was possible to go into the snake's belly with everything else, except this, I don't know.
Mascha, really? This is so interesting that you would say that. I think it all borders on hesitancy because that not-knowing feels so much in the forefront. Or perhaps not not-knowing, but that both of the opposites are married together and having babies. And when so many of the sentences come out their opposites are standing their holding hands. OK, and sometimes bickering. But they are there together.
Brilliant, Kat. Yes, it's the inability to land on a definitive position and emphasize it to the exclusion of the opposite and everything in-between that characterizes much of your writing style. I'm attracted to it because I tend to be punchy, forceful, excluding of the opposite so as to heighten the impact of a point…
Hmm… interesting ponderings I've never considered before…
I'm kinda more like you, Mascha, so I am learning, too, from Kathy.
Sorry to hear of that one area, Kathy. But radical self-acceptance is available immediately for everything, via: Can you find an inner place, a spot within Awareness (at any level) from which you can love/ accept your inability to love this one area that contains so much suffering? You don't directly have to learn to love it, you can suffuse it with love indirectly by taking as many steps back as you can, til you find yourself in the kind of Love that Awareness has for all that it contains/is. And with enough steps back, that Love and Awareness, that Loving Awareness, is always already there, waiting for our arrival.
Thass my approach.
Now if I would only take my own good advice about my own areas of stubborn, persistent suffering I reject….
LOL,
OM
Masculine - feminine styles, OM. I've been aware of letting my masculinity ride out on the frontlines when writing on Gaia. Perhaps it had something to do with an imbalance I perceive here, where so many of the posts are gushy, embracing, goo-goo-ga-ga mothering and imprecise. But it also was an experiment for myself, this cultivation of a sharpness that has always been there. Now, however, I would really like to see a marriage between the masc and fem in my own authentic voice. Kat is helping me there, teaching by example without ever spelling it out explicitly. I find her special brand of un-assertiveness irresistible.
Thanks for this really interesting conversation, OM & Kat.
Jeez, you guys, you're gonna make me want to come back and blog after the month of December! Oops, I meant to write November. Hmmm, what does that mean? Seriously I've been feeling like a hit-n-run blogger this month, somebody wild and out of control, flinging words here and there. And you two come and say such lovely things (it must be your soft feminine sides, LOL…) Goes to show us once again that it's our be-ing that probably shares the most. Except, wait a second, let's not dis doing; we can't under-rate doing! On that note of trying to put both sides in two sentences, here's to our authentic voices and the marriage between masculine and feminine.
Oh and OM, thanks for your kind words of radical self-acceptance. I think I know what I need to do. I just don't know why I never do it. But something says November will have something to share about this. Love to you both…
Kat, before you leave the blogosphere for a month, I would like to mention that being aware of many different perspectives simultaneously can be crippling. For years, I was observing that ALL views have a certain validity, partial though they all are… and this has made me fall silent mostly, or overcompensate by emphatically insisting on one perspective at the exclusion of others that also have merit… or just seeking refuge in being absurdly funny.
I wonder if you and others here have experienced the same thing.
You are right, Mascha. Sometimes when there's so many different perspectives rolling around in us it can be absolutely stultifying! Have been there. You can sometimes feel like you can't even make a single decision or take another step. It's weird. Today has been such a peaceful aware day and on days like these it seems like everything is just flowing. My thoughts are refusing to cooperate by forming into any intelligent responses. And yet everything is so peaceful. By the way, you'll probably see my Gaia light on passing through to Diving Deeper during November…don't be afraid to shout out or say hello. I'm just not gonna blog here for awhile. Hey, this might be YOUR opportunity to START blogging. ha ha ha…
I just found this today… Once again you amaze me! Your Honesty, your questioning, your ability to find interest and joy in a question, just wondrous…
Can we teach another to wake up, only if they are awake (conscious enough) to hear the lesson…
The process of life is for us to experience that which we are not, so that we can re-member who we really are. (CwG Book 1).
I have been challenged with waking up again, I have allowed my self to go back to sleep until I witness words and thoughts like these. It reminds me (Higher Self) to go beyond what is out there and do and be the internal Self…
Kathy bless you and thank you for sharing your thoughts and your journey…
PS: I have not read everyones response but will get back to them…
Jeff, this really was the most amazing and interesting conversation! I am so glad you joined it. Really, don't you find most people to be honest and questioning and confused and awake and asleep and whole and halved? Sometimes I think people take a slice of who they really are and say “This is Who I am” and shuck all the other parts out the back door. But what if we are Everything? I mean EVERYTHING? Then we can afford to be confused. We can afford to be questioning. We can afford to be arrogant. We can afford to be everything, because that's who we are. I am not afraid to say I'm asleep and not afraid to say I'm awake. What part should we disown? What part throw away? What part refuse to allow a voice? Thank you thank you dear Jeff for being the ONLY Jeff in the universe with exactly what you have. I bow before your Jeff-ness. Truly.
Kathy, You are correct, we are all those aspects of ourselves, they inform, enlighten, confuse, evolve as we re-learn who we really are.
The Jeff-ness bows to the Kathy-ness of you, I honor your path as you have honored mine, even when I can not see it because it is under my feet…
I think it is the reason spiritual communities offer the novice a new “name” once they reach a new level in their castle of being… to present to the world another level of Being, level of being Higher, more awake then the one they are in when they are asleep…
I am Love, Jeff
Thank you, your Jeff-ness! Love what you said about the new “name” aspect. Almost a reminder that we are more than the earlier names we called ourselves. I am pondering stories these days while writing, pondering the benefits of stories (instead of their detriments). Ghosts have been talking to me. Ghosts point beyond the limited to the Larger Awareness. Happy Day of the Dead. Wait, that was yesterday. happy All Soul's Day!
Mascha said…I would like to mention that being aware of many different perspectives simultaneously can be crippling. For years, I was observing that ALL views have a certain validity, partial though they all are… and this has made me fall silent mostly, or overcompensate by emphatically insisting on one perspective at the exclusion of others that also have merit… or just seeking refuge in being absurdly funny.
I wonder if you and others here have experienced the same thing.
I would love to address this…would you be willing to start a blog on it…maybe with a link to Kat's blog here…but a fresh blog on this subject would be awesome…*
Ok, Mascha, have decided to just respond here…
yes, i have experienced all of what you said…
while i see the thread that connects all views…it is more like seeing the roots of a tree, from where the tree gets it's truth…but then it branches out on it's own (becoming conceptual belief systems just sitting around)…but then, it bears fruit…or just leaves…and for a season those leaves or truths are relevant…but then the season changes and the relevancy of it's truths (leaves) break off (die) and blow away…to disintegrate and rebirth new and more appropriate truths…for fresh new seasons…
so, in a sense, i can see how it could feel crippling…but for everything there is a season…for silence too…while all views have a certain validity, if you freeze and/or solidify them, it can be maddening trying to make sense…but if the truth within those views are allowed to flow…then your truth can flow with them…without the insanity of trying to establish truths as an absolute…
there is also a time when emphatic insistence is necessary…extremes are wonderful in their obsurdity…and can shock a closed down system into opening…
seeking refuge in being absurdly funny is also wonderful…esp. in sarcasm…it is a survival tool…and one that is not without it's own advantages and magical openings…
this is all the free-flow on this i have for now…
always, Star…
some more on this…
insisting on one perspective at the exclusion of another need not be the whole story…just a 'skillful means' of opening perspectives…
it is also amazing that awareness can and does do this without inquiring my opinion on it…gol…many times it is only in hindsight that this is recognized…
sarcasm as a tool can seem harsh, but then again sometimes harsh is needed…laughter is very healing…and it is so important that we don't take ourself so seriously…
except of course when we are speaking of the autrocities of humanity…
ok…that's it for now…but how wonderful of you Mascha to express this and allow for my resonating with you…*
would like to post this here just b/c…i find it relevant…and inspiring…
Translucent Revolution…
imagine that…people just waking up to their own humanity…instead of any fixed or absolute enlightenment…how refreshingly honest…and human…gol*
I really appreciate you diving into this, Star.
What I'm trying to say next is something I haven't expressed before, ever, even to myself internally… So I'm groping for the words that convey what's happening to people who I don't even know very well on the web…. And why am I doing this??
I don't even know my own motivations too well. My mind began to look to me like a jewel some years ago… a diamond maybe, with infinite facets, each one of which can get illumined at any time to reveal a certain angle on things… then that particular view falls into darkness again, out of the range of my perception. This happens at incredibly rapid speeds… This diamond-like mind is spinning in front of my awareness… but I can't land on any of its facets for too long anymore so as to totally become identified with its view.
I - the awareness itself that sees all this - is unable to totally fall for the dazzling displays of the mind anymore the way it used to. It's very reassuring that this is so – and yet, and yet, it's also stifling, since being unable to land on any definitive view for too long at the exclusion of its opposites makes you much more of an observer in life than being a totally immersed participant who is lost in self-forgetting.
I like to be lost in self-forgetting. I love being utterly absorbed in some activity, like a child, really. I want the innocence of not seeing too much, of not being aware of too many angles. There comes a point after cultivating utmost sharpness, cynicism, jadedness, worldliness - call it what you will - when a second kind of ignorance seems the only way to go.
Hope this makes rudimentary sense. (giggles)
Mwah,
m
well, it does make sense, and i seem to recall somewhere recently your saying of yourself, that you have been lazy…
we need you…and so, there is nothing left for you to do, except roll up those sleeves and dive in in any capacity that you can…where ever and whenever…you can…
so what that you cannot focus on any aspect of the diamond…go with it…don't struggle against it trying to be something that you are not or experience something other than what is in front of you…
i like to be lost in self-forgetting as well…much like a child…but there are grown up solutions needed for our children to continue in any sort of intelligent existence…so…you can dive into that second kind of ignorance…or you can awaken to a deeper level of your own humanity…
i admit…it is not always pleasant…and no matter what you choose i will support and love you…but i say again…humanity needs solutions…and i can only hope that you do not waste your drop of wisdom…for it is as an ocean in real time…
much love and joy…i also hope my honesty is accepted in the spirit is has been give…*
Intruding into the conversation instead of retiring for the day as I ought to.
I don't see self-forgetting and inability to get involved with (even if not identified with) any facet as the only alternatives.
I have to switch to a different set of metaphors, though, to explain. I can't drum up the mental acuity to adapt the ideas to your images, durn it.
Positions arise. Passions arise. Preferences arise. Some persist, if you don't push them away calling them “attachments” or “just illusions.” Some arisings are brief, others can last a lifetime. Some are extremely intense, and only the person experiencing them can tell whether they are self-forgettings, identifications, or attachments, or whether they just ARE. So one accepts their existence within oneself (we won't get into existence of “self” here; I just wanna speak loosely.)
Here's another angle to the whole discussion though. I don't think we need consciously choose between the awareness that sees it all and the awareness that is innocently absorbed in something. The awareness underlying both modes makes the choice, sometimes one, sometimes the other. Neither alternative is fundamental; Awareness is fundamental. These are just wider or narrower beams of the flashlight.
I guess we can get stuck in one or the other for a long time, but – implosion – who is making that choice? The Wizard of Oz who is behind the scene!!!!!!
To the extent one feels able to choose, perhaps choosing to be able to experience either way, as optimal and appropriate in a given situation, is the best choice. Eh? Innocent and not seeing too much at some times, is beautiful. And seeing everything at some times, is also beautiful
But perhaps that doesn't address the issues either of you was focusing on.
Thass my approach. FWIW, if anything.
Blessings, OM
Not being awake, to me means, innocence of a blissful arising yet to encounter with love's smear from a jam jellied bread on my upper lip, that was just full-filling ones face after a simple days journey of life's ful-fillment. And that not one that has traveled the ropes or hard core of life, shall we say, to be in knowledge of, but always astringent to, is blessed with the simplicity of what's ahead, and that gives it's all to each and every living creature - the mood swings of his/her balance to accommodate these treasures we so call, Love<3
Oh you sly people! You knew I couldn't stand it if you started having a discussion this juicy about awareness, didn't you? Knew I would come running over here faster than fast, just to put in some two cents worth.
Oh, Mascha…you've pin-pointed it so well where we (or at least some of us tend to get confused or aching or unsettled) and Star and OM and Mums you're all offering another jeweled facet for us to consider.
Here's what I think. There is flowing/absorption that is self-forgetting and there is flowing/absorption that is awake. And that is where I get so confused trying to express this to others! Because people assume the word “flow” is always what we're aiming for.
There are times when we're absorbed in a project or love and we're totally asleep within it. OK, or awareness itself is simply absorbed in itself. But there are other times (and I keep going back to my July/August experiences) where there was a flow, a delicious incredible flow, but it was fully awake in itself.
I do tend to judge the times where I'm completely self-absorbed (such as in this computer world)…completely unaware of the world around…yet flowing, flowing, flowing from thought to thought, paragraph to paragraph. I know that IT is choosing this, yet there is still a part of me that tends to get caught in suffering because that other flowing of awake/perceiving seems to be “where it's at”.
Now if IT is choosing the forgetting, choosing what kind of flow it's having…then it is only our egos (“only our egos” ha ha as if they are some kind of pliable easy-to-throw away things) who are being fussy without realizing that the IT itself wants to be absorbed in the diamond-facets or the forgetting.
Oh you ladies, sometimes I think if I figure out THIS VERY ISSUE then I would be perfectly awake. LOL. Because it always goes back to “Who thinks they have to figure out this very issue?” But this is the crux, you guys, where I get stuck and dangle upside down.
Ooops, what am I doing here? Must go dangle elsewhere for awhile~~love you!
Did that too, and been there as well, and am still doi'n it:) Guess that's another word for 'horny', or as life presents itself, another word for being in the middle of enjoying her wisdom, shall we say - through these times of an honored death or just a humble busy body.
Everything that we are all about is a blessing, each and everyone - with a newness of some kind of gathering, and that is all a part of us….whether we like it or not.
Don'cha know that there's a blossom of sweet nectar ready to be inhaled, and to be captivated? Now close your eyes - you lovely being, and lift up ever so higher, now tilt of your head and ohhhhh so lovingly raise it up towards the sky - smiling up in it's sweet aroma bath of a hunk……..oooops …..i mean honey of a flowers blossoming tone. Yes, , that's what I meant….”honey, sweet, succulent……you know, that lovely scent smell from the earth, that goes on…te-hee.
Oh m'god……it's life in a circle showing up…the no ending-ness of what ever it takes to love it's cascading scent of a blossoming peach tree….you know what I mean, right?……the one with the big nut'tnside:)
Aaaahhhh! How wondrously beautiful all of this is… I so long to see discussion like this as well as be part of them…
Yet at the moment my mind can't or will not wrap itself around all of this wonder!
I am grateful for each and everyone of you have shared your honest self here, questioning is the way to illumination…
Kathy, something you wrote in the last post reminded me of St Theresa of Avila… That she would have those Awesome moments of Illumination, she is said to have even risen of the floor during such moments… yet after each moment she would long to receive them again even though she knew that they set her “apart” for the others…
I don't know if those moments are moments we are to “live” in or just avenues of enlightenment? Yet always to say thank you… and do/Be everything to allow the light to shine forth from and to us…
I am Love, Jeff
Echoing Jeff's ”Aaaahhhh! How wondrously beautiful all of this is…”
I would like to go into so many of the facets y'all have brought up, but I'm overwhelmed for the time being. It's too much to address, too much to honor, too big for one small human being. This mind of ours is so awesome - literally awe-inducing. I'm like a kid on LSD. The range of avenues available to me is too great, the spectrum of possibilities is kaleidoscopic.
Besides, why say anything when you guys are already doing such a great job?… that's one facet I will mention. And also… always also, also, also… not either/or, not binary thinking, no, no, we musn't forget the other facets on the dark side of this diamond! Ha ha, I'm the Also girl in this scenario, the swamped thing that comes in 36 flavors and then some.
M~well, i love all your flavors…gol* (we b so good that we brought Kat out of seclusion…gol)…
I just realized that I was trying to do justice to all the different facets of the infinite diamond-like mind.
And I can't.
Justice, judgment… fairness, inclusiveness… such a big theme in my life of late.
Okay, I'll try this on to see how it sounds: “I am happy to have miserably failed at doing justice to everything.” Now, being admittedly unjust, partial and biased… can I move on into the second kind of innocence/ignorance that I see beckoning before me as a stage of development? This is the kind of innocence that comes after being completely corrupted by unflinching, ruthless seeing of all sides to all coins.
Good point, starlight, we brought Kathy in!!! YAY !!!! Well, I don't like licorice, but the other flavors, YES!!!! *gol* !!!!
Yes yes yes, Mascha. That kind of innocence is definitely beckoning. And IMO that is the same place where true compassion finally arises, after LIVING all sides to all coins.
“after being completed engulfed/obliterated by and then reamed out into emptiness by, unflinching, ruthless seeing of all sides to all coins.” Would you buy those verbs, too?
(Asked in an air of wide-eyed innocence:) Isn't that what a transmigration is for???
LMAO !!!!
Love to all,
OM
I seem to be at a disavantage here…
I am speaking of waking up to our full potential as humans…our humanity…
To dive deep within our human layers is a challenge…a path that we blaze our own way…a path that is our journey of awakening…
I spent years on getting to know myself…honestly…and questioning ALL my belief systems until they collapsed…and I have not nor will I rebuild belief systems upon that foundation that was so difficult to level…I am human…
I have no desire to be anything other than that…for that is what I am…
I am no spiritual giant, and I cannot tell anyone how to become enlightened…
I can share my experience, strength and hope…for humanity…
Spirituality and Religious beliefs were a crutch for me…and so was the idea of enlightenment…aka…higher consciousness…
I have had to jump into life…fully engage in being human…learning how to be human…still…awake to my own responsibilities…responsible for my beliefs, my feelings, my thoughts, my actions…owning my sadness…creating my happiness…tapping into that strength within…that starstuff that all of us are made of…using my brain…understanding it's functions…paying attention to my body…and my surroundings…and making healthy decisions from a healthy mind…there was much healing emotionally…and still…
I have learned that I don't know jack shit…and yet in that not knowing there is knowing…but I continue to inquire and question everything…looking for solutions for humanity…I refuse to give up…I refuse to fool myself or be fooled by others or traditional doctrines…old or new…
Mostly I am filled with the joy of being…and I long to share what I have learned and experienced so that others have the freedom to dance their light of day in the darkest of nights…
I am human…fully human…the magic of the real is more wonder-filled than any fantasy about any kind of enlightenment…
Look at the rainbow…how much more magical and mystical and wondrous can it get??? I don't know, but the myriad possibilities are within this human realm…our ability to create is infinite…and I am dancing it in truth and compassionate wisdom…
much love in joy, always, star…
(I haven't read Star's latest yet, she posted while I was composing this writ. Please forgive me if I'm out of sync.)
Ah yes, you get it, OM. Lovely feeling: a moment of satisfaction after reading your additional verbs and re-phrasings. I'm content to know that someone gets what I'm groping for without me having to go down the rocky road of much further explanation.
Yes, that's what transmigrations are all about: the individualized flame gathering experiences in a very wide range, broad enough so that they all finally cancel each other out. The worst and the best; the highest and the lowest; the brightest and the most dense - all these experiences come together in one soul before it flames out. Atman recognizes itself as Brahman. That's when Brahman throws a feast where all flavors are served at once. Even licorice, I'm afraid! Yeah, but it gets lost in the melee, in the fireworks arising from the quantum soup, and in the silence that follows the booming sound of Brahman himself getting reamed, having laughed her ass off one too many times.
You know whereof I speak, I trust.
Mascha, I think so. But is that something I need to worry about, the consequences of laughing my ass off “one too many times????!!!” ROTFL.
Starlight, all you said is like music to me. I danced to it. You're not at any disadvantage that I can see. I think you have a lot of “experience, strength, and hope” to share that helps people
Do you know “Is.?” What you said reminds me of things he's said, his approach to life. I think his gaia URL is dawiddahl.gaia.com.
You said
Spirituality and Religious beliefs were a crutch for me…and so was the idea of enlightenment…aka…higher consciousness…
I agree, spirituality and religion CAN be crutches for some people. If I recall rightly, you have outgrown/transcended other crutches too. What courage and freedom you are, to me, an example of!
Hugs, OM
Thnx OM…I am blazing my own path…and wish the same for everyone here…I suppose what you say makes some sense, about 'who' is really choosing…
I am doing a lot of work right now with TSK Vision, and we are singling in on all those little 'I's'…the nasty ones as well as the one's that are feeling and living their own bliss…gol…and I am beginning to see that our 'I's' do choose, or they appear to, except when it seems that 'life' steps in and says well 'look at this'…like one of my 'I's', the one that periodically would like to say fuck all this and just go get drunk…and then the one opposite it that says 'no, been there done that'…continually whispering in my ear…pst…'you do have a purpose, you did not suffer all that for no reason…etc.' then there is the 'I' that says…'bullshit…it's all bullshit'
My inquirying 'I' loves to be opened by others…and my hopeful 'I' believes that if we jumped into that wonder-filled space where knowledge creates apart from what we think knowledge to be and what it has been but including it…we Could come up with the solutions that would save the world…
I have been stuck in the cave of bliss on the side of the mountain….been awe struck by my diamond mind…and spent days on end caught up in the sheer ecstasy of my own joy of being only to dive deeper into the depths of my own darkness…it seems to be cyclic…
thnx OM for your encouraging offer…
p.s. I apologize if I sounded as if I wanted all of Gaia to fall in behind me…that is not what I want…I want us ALL to continue to question…beath our own drum…follow our own paths…together…
love and kisses…star…
OM said: Yes yes yes, Mascha. That kind of innocence is definitely beckoning. And IMO that is the same place where true compassion finally arises, after LIVING all sides to all coins.
OM, i have some questions here about what you have stated…
you say that the place where true compassion finally arises, is only after LIVING all sides to all coins…hmmmm…if the coins b infinite…in that life and it's many facets as well as the many facets of our diamond minds are infinite…then have you not just stated the impossible in an absolute context? Is that not suggesting that you KNOW what true compassion is, if not by experience at least in theory? And by further deduction that you absolutely have experienced all sides of all coins, and also KNOW this innocence? again if not in experience, in theory or idea of kinda thing which is presupposition of what is availble for experience…and still comes out as conceptual any way you look at it yes?
and on the next paragraph…
OM said: “after being completed engulfed/obliterated by and then reamed out into emptiness by, unflinching, ruthless seeing of all sides to all coins.” Would you buy those verbs, too?
how can our awakening ever be complete? how is it that emptiness can be reamed out and singled out away from the form in which it dances? and lastly, again, how again are all sides of the coin seen if coins are infinite?
i would also like to ask you concerning your term transmigration…would you elaborate on that?
thnx for this honest and open avenue of communication…*
I would like to clear up a misunderstanding. It seems that Star, and maybe others here, too, have certain ideas about what I mean by “second ignorance” or “the second kind of innocence”, but those ideas are not what I have in mind when I use those terms.
There is a very simple map of human spiritual development that I'm referring to. Imagine a movement around a circle, where the first stage is ”ignorance/innocence”. This is the ignorance we're all born into, a state of forgetfulness of our cosmic truth; a state of amnesia.
The next stage is ”enlightenment”. This simply means you start seeing the light about yourself more and more. This stage continues on throughout all the coming stages of ever deepening, endless “enlightenment”. So, none of these stages, including the first, are fixed and completely transcended at ALL times. As you continue around the circle, you have relapses into prior stages, only they don't last too long - usually, because you mainly have moved on.
The third stage is ”being”. This is where you're able to simply rest in being… though, again, not at all times. Relapses into “enlightenment” and the 1st kind of ignorance may be frequent at this stage.
The fourth stage is the ”second ignorance”. This is a fathomless deepening of the “being” stage, where mind is no longer fluttering, no longer brilliantly oscillating, giving you insights & realizations galore. I don't know this stage well enough to say much about it. I feel it beckoning mightily, though, and I have met a few beings who are at that stage, so their presence exerts an extra-strong pull…
The fifth stage is the closing of the circle, a return to Source and complete cessation, mahaparinirvana, or - perhaps - a rebirth into the first kind of ignorance.
I hope this helps to clarify how fluid the movement back and forth around the circle is in my conception, and that there is no fixed place where the thinking-emoting-mind can land for any length of time.
Star! Once again, we were posting at the same time. Coincidence? Ha hah.
We be in sync even while out of it somewhat. You dig?
Me digging it a lot.
Lurvs,
m
Mascha…too funny with that last post…
Now as far as the other one goes, i suppose i am going to step on a lot of spiritually integral toes with this post, but so be it…i have to be true and honest and speak as i see and am moved…no matter what so-called stage anyone thinks i am in…i am all colors of the rainbow and love that they are unique and infinite…love, love, love that i can see one side one way and the other another…love, love, love that my mind changes with the wind and whatever is presented…for it is wondrous to live this truth of being in each moment…
these stages that you have carved out might be comforting in the sense that while i am experiencing whatever it is i am experiencing, i can look at this map that some other individual or group of consciousness has put together and put myself in one of those little boxes…that have holes that i go a dribbling back down sometimes…gol…(i like that analogy ~M btw).
now while i do get that you said that there is not just that but a influx of other…where you have clarity of one stage that seems to be dominant but you still dive into or dribble, gol, into the others that you have supposedly transcended or transmigrated or included but gone beyond…how ever i say it…it simply means that i am expounding my spiritual development according to you, and whoever ascribes to or came up with this map or process…which is in my mind just another system of belief, which has it's good points, but is also limited in many, many ways…and limits awareness as well…
I would like to just say…I LOVE that my mind flutters…I would miss the thoughts and wonderful workings of my mind as I am certain the blue sky would miss it's clouds…and nature would miss the breeze…
I love being human, and before I go on to being something other than human, I would like to see myself as well as others reach their potential…a totally integrated humanity….now that would really be something else!!! the entire system working together in harmony as a system…the web of life…accessing it's creativity to be what so far it is not…but is capable of being…
so…basically ~M, you are suggesting that you are getting ready or you are ready to transmigrate into this stage? right here and now it is difficult for me to keep my sarcasic wiseass coin from responding…but since i know that you know me well enuf, and u know i love u and believe u to be very wise…i am gonna say what i have to…when u do transmigrate…will u please, please, please be my spiritual guru cuz u will b very enlightened at that stage, yes???
love and kisses…*
Gotta skip most of this, but want to clear up a misreading. Star, you inserted the word “only” into what I said, and I didn't mean it to be there. I said “finally,” and “after,” but I'm not sure I want to say “only.” To me those are different meanings.
OM said: Yes yes yes, Mascha. That kind of innocence is definitely beckoning. And IMO that is the same place where true compassion finally arises, after LIVING all sides to all coins.
OM, i have some questions here about what you have stated…
you say that the place where true compassion finally arises, is only after LIVING all sides to all coins.
Sorry, I shouldn't even be here, gotta run. More later.
Love, OM
you said that true compassion finally arises…
that implies that it had not yet arisen before that, iow before LIVING (your caps, not sure as to what you meant by them either) all sides to all coins…(which is quiet impossible to do in any absolute way…would you agree?)…
is that not what you meant to say?
i like that more often than not awareness seems to be pointing towards both/and.
so you can make a framework for spirituality
and yet know it is also beyond a framework.
you can have the thousand “I'-viewpoints” expressing themselves in a thousand ways
and yet none of them are awareness itself, beyond words, precious beyond the I viewpoints. And that doesn't make either the awareness or the I-viewpoints any less precious, any less themselves.
you can have the champion of humanity
alongside the champion of enlightenment.
what embraces them both?
i like that it gets larger and larger and larger. and that love itself seems to be the allowing of different viewpoints in the palm of the hand, in the hardness of the rock, in the expanse of the sky.
that compassion can exist before enlightenment and that there can be one of the many “I's” that believe in enlightenment. that compassion can exist after an enlightenment that does not exist. that the human and the divine twirl together.
that our hearts can be large enough to hold the opposites tenderly. that when we see we are really everything that is outside of us, that everyone else is simply the voice of another “I” we can hold it all like the precious blue eggshell of life that it is. Don't hold too tight or we'll crush the eggshell and the life within will die. Don't hold too loose or it will fall out of our hands altogether.
all of these 'i-viewpoints merging together”! i am in awe of the expression of that, the fragility of it, the strength of it.
very beautifully integrating expression Kathy…you b a good weaver…gol*
I'm so glad we're having this conversation in Kathy's family room, so to speak. Otherwise I would have kicked some star-dusty ass by now. And with precision.
Oh, wait. I just did… kinda, sort of, a little bit.
~ your guruji,
Lao Moo, the old cow
i would welcome you kickin up some of my star dust M…
so, i feel kinda unglad that u don't feel you can in kat's family room…i wish you would say what you want to say to me…cuz i cannot read your mind…yet…gol*
Funny, before I saw what Kelamuni asked you here on another pod, I was going to say something to the same effect…
It's not that I feel I can't say what I want to to you, Star. I already have in a PM earlier this morning. I don't enjoy going round and round in circles that look like a rut to begin with. That's all.
Hey M~
I did not see what we were doing as going round and round in circles in a rut, but I respect that you do, and your decision not to engage any further on the subjects presented or questioned…
Kat said: you can have the thousand “I'-viewpoints” expressing themselves in a thousand ways and yet none of them are awareness itself
i disagree with you on this Kat…
the 'I' viewpoints are focus points of awareness…
and awareness is expressed in many ways, words being just one…
i believe being human IS spiritual without religion or spiritual guides, or rel/spir belief systems etc…i totally see the human as divine…also the universe…this magic dance of being…how divine it is!!!
But Star I don't disagree with you! The “I” viewpoints are focus points of awareness, expressed in many ways, beautiful diamond facets! The human IS utterly divine. No separation. I agree with you to the nth degree and beyond!
The focus points of awareness, the little “I” viewpoints will so often claim that their side is the only view of reality. They have to, dear things. They are holding strong to a viewpoint, their divine duty.
But in awareness, aren't we lucky?, we can twirl the kaleidescope. We can utter a half-truth (because the I-perspective can hardly ever speak in a truth that contains the opposite of itself) and then another “I” can come forth and speak it's own half-truth and then another does. Why argue with half-truths? It's a delight when can speak half-truths!
If an “I-perspective” answered you it might get into a discussion about why your perspective is wrong and why it has the right way of viewing things. And that's human/divine, a perfect dance of story!
But Awareness itself simply spins the dial and goes to the viewpoint that has just been expressed and resonates deeply and compassionately with what is trying to be expressed. (And don't believe that pretty-sounding sentence, it's a half-truth too!)
We can spend our currency dealing in half-truths or we can align ourselves to awareness and move with infinite flexibility to whatever part of the human divinity presents itself.
And I am so grateful to you for presenting this viewpoint today that I have melted into a puddle of beautiful rainwater at your feet. Splash away, Star!
cool…u and ur half truths, whole truths…giggles…splash…*
Ok, it's official. You're my guru now, Kat.
Nothing you can do about that. Those who really no longer want it will get it in spades. Admiration, rapt attention, experiencing having an awakening ripple effect - all that. And more. Universal law.
All my other gurus are also like that. They ran from followers until their legs gave out, so they finally had to stop. Sit down somewhere and receive.
One of them is sitting on my lap. She's a cat. Teaches things by example without ever trying. She's a teacher of the first kind of innocence, though. I'm beginning to suspect you are seeping into that field where the grateful dead have gone to take a nap - a kind of deep sleep while awake.
ahh…everyone seeing what they need to see…*
Mascha my love! I shall be your guru if you shall be mine in areas where I am still so asleep in my hard identifications that I can't see clearly and operate in a half-fog of attempting to simply release into the “what is” of the little busters.
If we are made of all beings, if all beings and all views are within us, then the parts of self can guru to the other parts. I guru, you guru, we all guru, and look at your dear kitty cat guru'ing there on your lap! My children were the best gurus of all, bless their little hearts.
Star, you are so right!! We are all seeing what we need to see. So beautiful. Or so whatever it is as it sees… Awareness seeing what it needs…To hold it all in our heart, the humanity and divinity. thank you for guru'ing me that today!
Um, erm… excuse me, dear beloved guruji, but you're in no position to put conditions on my guru worship at your puddled feet. Whether I will be your guru too is up to you entirely. We're doomed to being our own ultimate authorities.
(tossing garlands in your direction while preparing an elaborate puja ceremony for Star where rose petals and oils are featured prominently).
So there.
Guruji!! laughing uncontrollably! Go back and read this original blog, Missy. But never mind. You have offered a gauntlet. Perhaps…(gulp) there is a guru in here somewhere. We may just have to let her out. As look as there are some rose petals and oil…um…that is if the guru likes rose petals and oil…. yikes!
rotfpimpfunny…
kat, she called me gurugina on my gv…LOL…omg&g…she has lost her diamond faceted mind 4 real…*
a gurugina??? oh thank goodness i was at least a guruji…the diamond facets wouldn't know how to turn that one around so quickly! ha ha so funny!!!
Yarr! Let' yer guru out for a stroll among throngs of adoring disciples (scantily clad in THONGS). That last part was for MahaStar-ji who is resisting proper guru worship at her lotus feet as we speak.
But she'll come around. What about you, OM? And everybody else. Don't you think that everyone should have their 15 minutes of gurudom (at least!) before we hit the apocalypse round about 2012 ?
OM is at the end of a long and busy day, just up for a drink of water then back to bed.
I have already announced twice in public that I would be quite willing to be a guru if I could get my feet washed, and my laundry and dishes done by adoring disciples…….
Still waiting……
LMAO
OM