Zigzag Idiot

Yep and all of us are right. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Being as the Actual Presence of True Nature We are in not using the term "being" in its everyday sense. Usually, "being" means mere existence, and that "existence" is, like everything else, experienced conceptually. The spiritual traditions, on the other hand, use this term to refer to the actual presence of true nature, which can be directly experienced. We are using the term in this latter sense. As human beings we are Presence, we are Being, we are actuality; we are not simply mental constructs. Pearl Beyond Price, pg. 27 The Experience of True Nature as Nonbeing Does Not Mean that there is No Reality, No Soul or Manifestation True nature is absolute being, but also absolute nonbeing. It is both presence and absence of presence. It is both but not exactly, because these are conceptual elaborations of which true nature is innocent. We say it is both being and nonbeing, or neither, only because these are fundamental concerns for the soul. Being is the last thing the soul needs to surrender as she opens up to her true nature. As she does this she learns about nonbeing. She experiences the emptiness and ontological absence of her existence, and everything else in manifestation. So she may believe that true nature is total emptiness, absolute nothingness, complete absence of existence. The experience of true nature as nonbeing or emptiness does not mean that there is no reality, no soul or manifestation. This is a nihilistic perspective that experience and understanding do not support. The wisdom of emptiness or nonbeing is an attempt to understand the final ontological mode of things. We normally believe that things exist when we perceive them. This belief is accompanied by a subtle underlying feeling or sense of what existence is. Things feel real in a substantial way. We consciously or unconsciously feel that the existence of things is a substantial solid quality. Existence becomes the existence of substance and solidity, which becomes opaqueness if we continue in this direction. In other words, we not only perceive that things appear to our perception, and not only believe that this appearance is objective and independent of our imagination and mental construction, but feel at the same time a sense of substance to this appearance, a sense of solidity. Existence for us then is not only the true appearance of things in perception but the imbuing of what appears with a quality we call Being. The Inner Journey Home, pg. 258 None of Us is to be Blamed for Our Shortcomings Each of the boundless dimensions in our work reveals to us and teaches us something about reality and about experience. We learn that reality has true nature. We’ve been using the concept of true nature in our teaching for a long time, and now I’m introducing Total Being, which is an overlapping, though not completely identical, concept. I am leaving it ambiguous on purpose. True nature is total purity and freedom all the time. If we only say, “Everything is always true nature,” that doesn’t account for the fact that most people don’t experience things that way. We could explain this by saying, “Well, that is because they are not aware of it.” But when we understand reality or true nature, we realize that people don’t really exist the way we think they do. So when we say, “They don’t understand true nature,” we believe that they are responsible for not understanding it. But when we blame somebody for not understanding it that way, we ascribe to them an independent existence apart from Total Being. They don’t have that; nobody does. So actually, it is Total Being that is ignorant—not the individual. An individual does nothing on his own because he is a manifestation of Total Being. So none of us is to be blamed for our shortcomings. Runaway Realization, pg. 170

Relative vs. Absolute Truth I’m watching Leo’s latest video Relative vs. Absolute truth. I always like to see if Leo’s Teaching meshes with that of The Diamond Approach. It usually does. Quite often they mesh pretty well. Because Absolute Truth has a listing of excerpts in the glossary, this would be a good time to see if there are any discrepancies. I haven’t found any. If anyone does find discrepancies, let us know. Arising of Relative Truth is Dependent Upon and in Response to One’s Personal History and the Present Situation The kind of objective truth that I have just described is not what is usually called ultimate truth in most spiritual traditions. But in our approach, when we talk about finding the truth, we include this kind of truth. I call it relative truth. By relative I don’t mean that different people will experience the same phenomenon differently. For example, what I feel as sadness, another person will not feel as hatred; if another person feels what I’m feeling, he or she will feel sad. It is relative truth because its arising is dependent upon and in response to one’s personal history and the present situation. It is the truth we find in the conventional dimension of experience. So, in the previous example, the sadness is an objective phenomenon, but it is dependent on my present experience, in the sense that it arises in response to specific conditions of this time and place. As those conditions change, the truth will change, which makes it relative. Furthermore, another person will likely have another phenomenon or feeling under similar circumstances, because each person’s experience is dependent on personal predispositions and history. It is easy to see this when we look at percepts such as sadness, anger, or love. These simple percepts always arise embedded in specific circumstances, and they are easy to agree upon as being objective truth. The same is true of actions, reactions, and behaviors; it’s easy to see what an angry reaction or a loving response is, for example. Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg. 345 At the Beginning of Inquiry, what You are Exploring is Relative Truth The exact nature of basic knowledge can be understood more precisely when we consider essential experience. At the beginning of inquiry, what you are exploring is relative truth, the truth of conventional experience. In the territory of relative truth, the fact that whatever you are experiencing is basic knowledge is not strikingly obvious yet. You do experience sadness and sensations, but you are still not recognizing those perceptions as knowledge, or knowingness, because of the dichotomy of observer and observed. Knowledge is still seen as the meaning or insight that you discern from your immediate perceptions. You believe that it is something added to the simple perception. Thus in conventional experience, when you see some relative truth, you end up with insights, and the content of those insights is considered to be knowledge. At some point, however, you come to the recognition of what we call “essential truth.” Essential truth is not an insight about something but the apprehending of the immediate reality of the moment. This immediate reality is presence—the quality of beingness—as when one is experiencing an essential aspect, such as Compassion or Strength. Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg. 80 The Fact of What is Happening The first type or level of truth that we encounter is what we call relative truth. Relative truth is the fact of what is happening, and we call it “relative” because it is specific to the person, the situation, and the time in which the experience is taking place; this means it is constantly changing. For example, the relative truth right now is that you are sitting reading this book, and a while ago the truth was that you were doing something else. The relative truth depends on the situation, and tells us the facts of what is happening now. These truths are the most obvious ones, and are the points of departure for contacting a deeper level of truth. If you inquire more deeply into the relative truth of a situation, you will find that the psychodynamic and existential bases of it begin to reveal themselves. Then, at some point, you might start to experience what we call the essential truth, which is the presence of Essence itself. Facets of Unity, pg. 75 Quotes about Absolute Truth Absolute Truth is Non-Spatial We need to remember that the absolute truth is non-spatial, and hence its inseparability from manifestation inevitably means coemergence. It is inseparable from any of its manifestations and therefore absolutely coemergent with all the manifest dimensions. It pervades everything so completely that there is no region, horizontal or vertical, where it does not reach. In fact, it is this understanding that led us to recognize, in chapter 21, that there is only the absolute. For if it pervades everything absolutely, then there is no region where it does not exist. If anything is not it, then it does not reach there, does not pervade it yet. The Inner Journey Home, pg. 438 Every Aspect, Even those of the Nonconceptual Reality and the Absolute Truth is Integrated Through Successive Steps The perspective we follow in this book is that the human being is born with many and various potentials. The more he actualizes these potentials the more he develops and matures. This process of maturation is the realization of his potentials. Most important of these potentials is Being, with all its aspects and dimensions. Each aspect, even those of the Nonconceptual Reality and the Absolute Truth, is integrated through successive steps: the discovery of the aspect of Being, the permanent realization of this aspect, and the actualization of the aspect, meaning the complete integration of it in one’s human life. Any of these steps can be termed enlightenment. However, each one of them involves the working through of some segment of ego, i.e., complete metabolism of it. This working through can appear as a process or as a sudden realization. Furthermore, the human potential cannot be encompassed by the imagination, for it is ultimately beyond conceptualization. Hence it is not possible to imagine something like the realization and actualization of all human potentials. Pearl Beyond Price, pg. 184 Self-realization of the Absolute Truth of Being The student may also come to understand that the love might be passionate and consuming, sweet and heavenly, but even that will tend to separate her somewhat from her beloved, for it relates her to it instead of totally disappearing into it. This only deepens her love to the point of totally annihilating all self-recognition. This precipitates the self-realization of the absolute truth of Being, where she becomes one with this dazzling mystery, totally identified with this luminous, crystal black vastness. The student realizes at this point that she is infinite and boundless, a vastness that has no end. It is as if she becomes the vastness of intergalactic space, seeing that this absolute blackness has a crystalline purity and clarity which make the blackness shimmer and glitter with indescribable brilliance. Her mind explodes into absolute clarity and brilliance, her heart a vastness of annihilating intimacy and bliss, and her body a shimmering which is the appearance of the totality of the universe. The Point of Existence, pg. 423 The Absolute is the Absolute and Final Truth of the Soul and Everything Else The aspect of Truth, for example, functions in helping the soul to discriminate between truth and falsehood, and hence guides her in her life and development towards greater and deeper truth. The deepening experience of Truth opens the soul to the ultimate truth, which is revealed to be the Absolute. In other words, the aspect of Truth reveals itself ultimately to be simply the manifestation of an implicit perfection inherent in the Absolute: The Absolute is absolute Truth. It is the absolute and final truth of the soul and everything else. Therefore, the aspect of Truth functions to provide the soul with the capacity of discrimination necessary for her life and development in the world, but also, and at the same time as it does that, it connects her with the Absolute, revealing it as her ultimate truth. The Point of Existence, pg. 441 The Absolute Truth of Being is Absolute Existence which is, at the Same Time, Absolute Absence of Any Weight or Substance She recognizes that it feels mysterious because she cannot determine its nature, which is absolutely indeterminable. She feels total solidity, a crystalline diamond solidity, but at the same time recognizes that she is absolutely nothing, that she is absence itself. The absolute truth of Being is absolute existence which is at the same time absolute absence. It is the source and essence of everything, but at the same time it is total openness, an absolute absence of any weight or substance. The fact that it is absolute nonexistence gives it its annihilating power. The self feels annihilated because it discovers that its absolute essence is total absence. There is actually no annihilation, only the realization of the selflessness of Being, whose absolute essence is totally ungraspable, completely beyond definition. This indeterminacy is experienced as a paradox of being and nonbeing, existence and nonexistence, neither and not neither. The Point of Existence, pg. 423 The Transition From Pure Consciousness to Absolute Truth is a Spontaneous Process. You Just let Yourself Be We each require different lengths of time to dissolve the habit of assumption and the belief in concepts. Some concepts are easier to abandon than others. But the fundamental idea we have to see through is the concept of being a separate entity. Once that goes, everything else becomes easier. You realize little by little that you don’t experience yourself as a separate person. Although you behave as a person and you do things as a person, you don’t feel that way. The transition from pure consciousness to the absolute truth is a spontaneous process. You just let yourself be. Then the darkness encroaches upon you little by little and you get eaten up. That’s probably why people have so many fears about being eaten up and swallowed whole. Ultimately, we will be consumed. From this perspective, the many things that people say about giving, loving, serving, and sacrificing mean seeing through the entity and all of its attachments. What you surrender is your mind. Being a giving person means not holding on to an entity. Surrender means losing the belief that you are an entity. Service means that being an entity is not the end. All of these are conceptual ways to approach the reality. But, in a sense, the reality cannot be approached, because the moment you approach it, you are already dealing in concepts. You are already taking yourself to be something approaching something else. Reality doesn’t really work that way. Diamond Heart Book Five, pg. 178 When You Realize the Absolute Truth You Realize that Everything is the Truth When I say that our orientation is to follow truth all the way to the Ultimate Truth, I mean that the inner journey transcends life and death. When we talk about the ultimate or absolute truth, we don’t mean some kind of mysterious thing someplace. In the beginning it might appear that the truth is some kind of distant, mysterious, unknowable thing, maybe at the depth of your heart or at the center of the universe. But the truth is everywhere and is everything. When you realize the absolute truth, you realize everything is the truth. You cannot see that until you realize the Absolute, its reality and its purity. Then you realize there is nothing else. You forget about spiritual experience. You are not spiritual anymore. You become this-worldly instead of otherworldly. You realize that the world is the Absolute. Everything you see is the spirit, the Absolute. There is nothing else. Diamond Heart Book Five, pg. 150

My I Ching reading today just had one changing line in Hexagram 33. Line 4

I’ve copied and pasted below some interesting comments from Osho regarding the Science of Idiotism. Osho on Gurdjieff's Science of Idiotism Gurdjieff certainly forced people to drink, but only the people who were against alcohol. He used to make toasts every night for all the kinds of idiots in the world. He had twenty-one categories of idiots. I don′t know to which category you would belong, but you must belong to some category. Unless you are awakened you are bound to belong to some category or other. An idiot is a person who is trying to find joy where joy does not exist at all, who is trying to search for something which he has never lost in the first place. The enlightened person is one who has looked into his being before searching for anything anywhere else. It is better to look in your own house. He has looked in and has found it there. Now his search has disappeared. The person who is interested in alcohol must be living in misery, in a kind of suffering. That′s why he wants somehow to forget it all. Alcohol is nothing but a chemical strategy to forget your miseries, anxieties, your problems, to forget yourself. My whole effort here is to help you to remember yourself - and you want to forget yourself. By forgetting yourself you will be creating more and more hell for yourself and for others. Remember, rather, remember yourself. My methods are different from George Gurdjieff′s. I am not in favor of any alcoholic beverages. I am not in favor of any psychedelic drugs either, because they all create illusory worlds for you and they all are distractions. They make you more and more oblivious of your own being, unaware of your own self. My work is based in awareness. The word ′awareness′ is the golden key here, the master key. You have to learn to be more aware. Howsoever painful it is in the beginning, be more aware, because it is by becoming more aware that one day you will become part of the celebration of the whole. Aes Dhammo Sanantano - this is the eternal inexhaustible law. taken from https://www.satrakshita.com/osho_on_the_science_of_idiotism.htm More here about the Science of Idiotism from the same website - https://www.satrakshita.com/the_science_of_idiotism.htm There are several discrepancies among those who are brave or foolish enough to offer ideas or facts about the Science of Idiotism. I’m still of the opinion that Bruno Martin’s book - The Realized Idiot - offers the most complete view of any one work.

Likewise, @tsuki Thanks for stopping by,,,

I’m just not relationship material I found a degree of peace in giving up the idea of having a relationship with a significant other. I’m content being single and to be honest, I’m too selfish to be in a relationship. I’ve lived alone too long. I like the freedom that comes with living alone. After my last relationship ended about 5 or 6 years ago I decided I wouldn’t put another woman through the misery of being in a relationship with me. Do I have second thoughts at times? Sure,,, I guess I’m a proponent of never say never. But deciding or realizing I didn’t have to be married or in a committed relationship to be happy has saved me a lot of worry. So I’m content being a loner and a introvert and a hermit. I don’t like public speaking and I’m ok with that too. I think I’m a person of empathy but on the other hand I care less and less about what other people think of me. In the past I was prone to being a doormat for others or at least worrying what other people’s thoughts were about me. I didn’t realize how insecure I was. It feels good to have put a lot of those insecurities behind me. I find that the old saying is so true that finding or having peace is an inside job. No one can do it for you.

I got turned off from country music years ago when I saw so many country music artists overdoing it with putting a ‘countrified twang’ in their voice. A good many of them just appeared artificial to me. The group Alabama always seemed authentic to me. They put out some mellow yet good tunes,,,

A.H. Almaas/the Diamond Approach/ Ridhwan School has only put out a few short clips until recently. I’ve been encountering clips with some excerpts in the glossary more and more. A few days ago they released several short clips on YouTube. A few are just book promotions. Some may find them interesting nonetheless.

I killed this copperhead in my backyard yesterday. Usually I’ll always leave non poisonous snakes alone. Especially King snakes but not one like this. My sister was bitten by a copperhead when she was about 15 and she almost lost her leg. I think she was in the hospital for nearly a week. One reason I have no mercy towards any poisonous snakes I encounter close to my house. I always get a case of the heebie jeebies for the rest of the day whenever I have an encounter like this one. Cottonmouths are probably the kind of venomous snakes that I dislike the most because they can get huge and also aggressive. I’ve seen cottonmouths that were close to 6 feet in length and as big around as the calf muscle in a persons lower leg. They have a strong smell about them as well. Copperheads have their own distinct smell but they’re not as pungent as Cottonmouths.

i like the term transpersonal psychologist Charles Tart used sometimes. The "cultural consensus trance" Within that I see a lot of people in SD Orange level and their priority is in materialism. Chasing the dollars and going after the goodies of the world

Strength Comes A Little Later by Dr. Jim Rosen ©2021 Dr. Jim Rosen You might think it takes a lot of strength to do the things I ask you to do – like being assertive, or accepting life the way it comes to you, or changing your angry and fearful thoughts into loving ones, or deciding to believe that God is really with you and within you. But these things don’t require strength; they build strength. These things are strength giving. What is required are simply the ‘want to’ and the ‘willingness to.’ Being human, you will think it’s scary and risky. You will experience feelings of fear and guilt as you proceed to make these changes. But only because fear and guilt are habits of yours – habits that you’ve carried with you for perhaps far too long. I encourage you to hang in there. The fear and guilt and other negatives will drop away. What you’ll discover are their replacements. You will see your inner strength building. You will find your ability to be much more of your true and worthy inner self.

This is more of a rant to be honest,,,, Fundamentalist Christianity amounts to a heartbreaking stupidity essentially being as Yogananda termed it. "Little more than the practice of " Jesusism" and "Churchianity", One reason Is the refusal of those to have an honest look at what was perpetrated by the Roman government's influence in manipulating many of the early Christian texts such as what occurred in the Council of Nicaea around 325 AD. Those who take the dogma handed down and accept it as a belief are doing them selves a grave disservice by simply perpetuating simply no other than a vested interests in knee high bullshit. What sense is there in an Anthropomorphic God the father scapegoating his son in a horrific sacrifice and torture because he made a snafu when he’s supposedly created us yahoo’s. I do give credence to the idea that there was an historical Jesus though who did carry out an act for demonstrating a much needed lesson for the evolution in consciousness for the betterment of mankind. That of mercy towards others and overlooking of grievances or forgiveness. But do you think this highly conscious being actually wants to be worshiped as a sort of idol? In my mind Jesus wants for all of us to be gifted with the kind of understanding whereby we can see though the ignorance and violence of those who still get caught in its grip. I have to admit that I’m still one of them but I keep on trying as best as I can. From Maurice Nicoll- THE LAW OF THE PENDULUM “Our moods are all hung on to pendulums. We should not trust them. Unfortunately, we identify with them. We take them as ourselves. We say: ‘I feel,’ ‘I think,’ and so on. We forget that ‘Real I’ is in the centre of the pendulum-swing, and we allow ourselves to swing between ex- citement and dejection, between enthusiasm and depression, between over-valuation and under-valuation, between conceit and humility, and so on, endlessly. In all this there is no centre of gravity.” V. 1, pp. 328-9 THE FEELING OF NOTHINGNESS “When the Work says that a man must come to realize his own nothingness before he can be re-born, it does not mean that he must humble himself and so on, but that he must by long self-observation actually begin to realize that he is nothing and that there is no such person as himself. The object of this is to get into a position, psycho- logically speaking, between the opposites...Why is it so important to get somewhere into the centre of the pendulum and not swing to and fro? Because here, between the opposites, lie all the possibilities of growth. Here influences from higher levels can reach us. Here, in this place where one can feel one’s own nothingness (and where one is therefore free from contradictions), influences and meanings com- ing from higher centres, which have no contradictions, can be felt. Not regarding yourself as good or bad, not priding yourself on being just or otherwise, not thinking you are well-treated or badly-treated, not being caught by either movement through identifying, you come into this mid-position. This is not easy! With personality active, it is impossible.” V. 1, p. 329 INTERNAL PHARISEES “They read about the Pharisees and Christ’s continual condemnation of them, but they do not see that it applies to themselves—to their own False Personality. The Pharisee in you is your False Personality; it is always pretending to be what it is not.” V. 3, p. 916 CHANGE OF MIND “The mind must change before the rest of the man can change. This is the same teaching as in the Gospels where it is said a man must first repent which really means in the Greek, change his mind. To change one’s mind means to think in a new way. But, to think in a new way, one requires to have new ideas and new knowledge.” V. 2, p. 430 CHANGE OF MIND II “Now Man, a self-developing organism by creation, does not realize how much he owes by remaining asleep in life. He thinks he is owed. Thinking sensually, he must. This attitude needs to be reversed. It cannot be except by ideas that bring about metanoia—that is, change of mind...Now when a man in the Work begins to realize how much he owes by his life of sleep and yet can have it cancelled, he ceases to preoccupy himself daily with what he believes others owe him.” V. 5, pp. 1649-50

Thank you for your well thought out response. I agree very much with what you’ve written. In ancient Egyptian or maybe it was another Mediterranean culture for a while there was a time when there was a martifocal culture in which they pretty much ruled the culture. What I say next may cause an uproar but I’m not meaning to do so. I see that women are much more relational to a great extent and romantic relationships of a sort between woman seems quite natural and men of various dispositions can sometimes be a complimentary aspects to such relationships. This idea will fly in the face and probably cause an upset among those of a conservative mindset, to say the least.. IDK it’s just an imaginative conjecture that I’ve had concerning the possible evolution of the relationships between men and women sometime in the future. maybe what got me considering such a senecio was a remark made my cousins wife in that in her view women in general are only about two mixed drinks away from having a same sex experience with another women. I also know this most likely is something that doesn’t apply to all women. I hope this somewhat radical idea didn’t offend .

Don’t know for sure but Jana Dixon’s Biology of Kundalini might be a book that would go hand in hand with this book you mention. Especially for those who may run into extreme upheavals at one time or another. Maybe, maybe not,,, http://biologyofkundalini.com/

I agree with @LastThursday . I think that the meaning of the word mortgage translates into something like deathgrip. But for those with a do-it yourself mentality building your own home is a good idea. Maybe subcontract parts of the construction that in areas which you see it to be a benifit. I had a small nest egg and owned the ten acres I built on when I started it but it took me two years working on it every chance I got . Being creative in shopping for building materials can also be a big help I got finally borrowing $10,000 to get it finished when I was close to completion. Having so little borrowed money allowed me to forego having a homeowners policy which in the last 25 years has saved me roughly $20,000 if not more over the years. It takes a hell of an effort and a do-it-yourself frame of mind. But if anyway possible the rewards for going this way can be great. My house has been paid for now for many years. It’s one reason I’ve been able to go into semiretirement at 50 years old. Never getting married or having children and living a minimalist lifestyle also made this possible. So you can see this way is not for everyone but for those with the ability to do so the rewards are great. It takes a hell of an effort and I should also add that I can guaruntee that it will cost more then what you figured. Something to definitely to keep in mind. I was in my late 20’s when I took this project on. If you have to borrow the majority of the money, I would say it’s not worth it but if you have a small nest egg and a bit a ground that’s paid for and also paying for a lot of it as you go along. It can put you ahead in life. It takes one hell of an effort though. As a side note, I’ve seen the stress of building house has been the cause of quite a few divorces.

Claudio Naranjo heralded the end of Patriarchy in a way. He published three books on the Enneagram of Personality, as well as The End of Patriarchy, which is his interpretation of social problems as the expression of a devaluation of the nurturance and human instinct and their solution in the harmonious development of our "three brained" potential.,,,,, ,,,,,His most recent book (2010), Healing Civilization: Bringing Personal Transformation into the Societal Realm through Education and the Integration of the Intra-Psychic Family, is both a continuation of and a turning point in Naranjo's lifelong work. For in this book, which has a foreword by Jean Houston, Naranjo explored what he saw as the root cause of the destruction of human civilization (as evidenced in the 2000s (decade) as war, violence, oppression of women, child abuse, environmental endangerment, etc.)—patriarchy—and brought both the problem and the solution home to an intra-psychic level. Patriarchy, he said, has taken root over millennia in the workings of our own conditioned minds.[citation needed] He also offered a remedy, which derives from the work of Tótila Albertregarding the "triune" being of our nature: the "Inner Father" (corresponding to the head), the "Inner Mother" (corresponding to the heart), and the "Inner Child" (corresponding to the instincts). As people learn to integrate these three "brains", Naranjo believed, they may bring about a functional, even divine, family within. And this, he believed, in addition to transforming education oriented to personal and collective evolution, could bring about the healing of civilization.[citation needed] In the Watkins' Mind Body Spirit Magazine he was listed as one of the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People of 2012.[7] From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudio_Naranjo My own two cents is that a part of the deal is the need for women to take the initiative in ending the notion of romantic love relationship. Expressed in A Course In Miracles as ‘the special relationship. I put the burden of this on women because they perpetuate this cultural ideal more than men. Perhaps my thinking is skewed here. A bit from ACIM- VII. The Needless Sacrifice 1. Beyond the poor attraction of the special love relationship, and always obscured by it, is the powerful attraction of the Father for His Son. ²There is no other love that can satisfy you, because there is no other love. ³This is the only love that is fully given and fully returned. ⁴Being complete, it asks nothing. ⁵Being wholly pure, everyone joined in it has everything.⁶This is not the basis for any relationship in which the ego enters. ⁷For every relationship on which the ego embarks isspecial. 2. The ego establishes relationships only to get something. ²And it would keep the giver bound to itself through guilt. ³It is impossible for the ego to enter into any relationship without anger, for the ego believes that anger makes friends. ⁴This is not its statement, but it is its purpose. ⁵For the ego really believes that it can get and keep by making guilty. ⁶This is its one attraction; an attraction so weak that it would have no hold at all, except that no one recognizes it. ⁷For the ego always seems to attract through love, and has no attraction at all to anyone who perceives that it attracts through guilt. 3. The sick attraction of guilt must be recognized for what it is. ²For having been made real to you, it is essential to look at it clearly, and by withdrawing your investment in it, to learn to let it go. ³No one would choose to let go what he believes has value. ⁴Yet the attraction of guilt has value to you only because you have not looked at what it is, and have judged it completely in the dark. ⁵As we bring it to light, your only question will be why it was you ever wanted it. ⁶You have nothing to lose by looking open-eyed, for ugliness such as this belongs not in your holy mind. ⁷This host of God can have no real investment here. 4. We said before that the ego attempts to maintain and increase guilt, but in such a way that you do not recognize what it would do to you. ²For it is the ego’s fundamental doctrine that what you do to others you have escaped. ³The ego wishes no one well. ⁴Yet its survival depends on your belief that you are exempt from its evil intentions. ⁵It counsels, therefore, that if you are host to it, it will enable you to direct its anger outward, thus protecting you. ⁶And thus it embarks on an endless, unrewarding chain of special relationships, forged out of anger and dedicated to but one insane belief; that the more anger you invest outside yourself, the safer you become. (ACIM, T-15.VII.1:1–4:6) From https://acim.org/acim/chapter-15/the-needless-sacrifice/en/s/196 You can do a search on this site and get more regarding the ‘special relationship. For me the question is what would our culture and our lives look like with no notions of romantic love. It sounds far out but I’ve been wanting to express this for a while. In my mind it’s up to women to lead the way out of patriarchy and then the world will be their oyster. What do you think?

Don’t forget to stop and appreciate fine art

An interrupted chapter from my youth,,,

@Nahm Thanks I’m really interested in getting a better understanding of your use of the term ‘sensational guidance’ and what it entails. The trouble with words,,, If you know what I mean. For instance, using words to define and describe Love. This is similar to what I feel in making distinctions between ‘sensational guidance’ and ‘diamond guidance’. It’s not that I’m trying to insist that they are the same thing but rather when I look at them in comparison, I see and feel more similarities than differences. As in the following excerpt - Diamond Guidance Discriminates the Immediacy of What We are Experiencing This brings us back to the discerning and knowing capacity of presence itself—the higher intellect, essential nous, or what we call “diamond guidance”—which reveals that freedom has other meanings and other horizons. The thing that we need to understand about this discerning capacity is that it discriminates not only our knowledge and the content of our mind but also our direct experience. It discriminates the immediacy of what we are experiencing by discerning, seeing, and revealing what is there. It can extract the meaning and the implications of the experience, which in any experience of true nature are countless and varied. When I say “higher intellect” or “divine mind,” many people misunderstand and consider these to be mental faculties. But the heart is vital to this kind of creative discrimination. The functioning of this capacity actually happens through the unity of mind and heart because without love, there would be no compassion or sensitivity to the mind’s discernment. The creative discrimination of presence is activated by the participation of the heart. This discrimination arises according to true, deep, existential need and only when we have the right orientation—a loving desire to know the truth. Runaway Realization, pg. 232 As it turns out. While composing this response, the condition I referred to in my first reply to the Op has appeared. A delicate pulse in the region of the prefrontal lobes. I feel my next step should be to take in more and sit with the material you provide at your website. This is REALLY interesting stuff! Thanks again,,,,

I’ve experienced this off and on for about 15 years. What I’ve experienced fits well with what AH Almaas has named the Diamond guidance in his teaching. Or rather it’s a symptom of when this Diamond Guidance comes online. This is not a phenomena related with only his teaching. In the second excerpt I post there will be some elaboration. I’ll have a remark after the excerpts. Feeling the Presence of the Diamond Guidance Usually the Diamond Guidance operates as a presence in the center of the forehead. When it arises in support of discrimination and understanding, we become aware of an expansion as space opens up in the forehead. With that expansion comes a sense of peacefulness; the Black aspect at the center of the forehead opens and we feel stillness and spaciousness. When the Diamond Guidance arises in this peacefulness, we feel a delicate presence, a pulsating energy that possesses a sense of clarity and transparency, an intelligence, an illumination. This delicate, pulsing, breathing presence appears as understanding, as insight, as intuition. As the forehead opens, we feel the Diamond Guidance as a tingling, an energetic throbbing – but very soft, very delicate, very subtle. If we are not attuned, we might dismiss it as just a physical twitch. Or if there is a lot of blockage, as is often the case in the early stages of the development, the diamond might feel hard. Due to the blockage it can’t get through, so it feels almost like a rock. But if we are relaxed and open, we feel it as a softness, a delicacy. Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg. 226 The Angel of Revelation In other traditions, the Diamond Guidance is sometimes called the angel of revelation, the holy spirit that brings the word or message from the source. It is the angel that guides us to Beingness that is our ground, our nature, our source. It is the true friend, the total friend, because the Guidance’s only concern is for you as a soul to go back to your source, to be who and what you can be, with total acceptance, total support, total guidance, total kindness. The soul needs to place herself in the right attitude for this kind of blessing to come. You have to do the work of correctly orienting yourself. Basically this means harmonizing your consciousness with the mode of presence and operation of the Guidance. This is what we are exploring when we discuss inquiry – the right orientation, the right posture, the ways of being and functioning that will invite the Guidance. Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg. 223 taken from https://www.diamondapproach.org/glossary/refinery_phrases/diamond-guidance and there are more as well. In @Nahm’s Actuality of Being YouTube video he names something which seems very similar to this which he calls sensational guidance. I’m curious if he’s noticed any phenomena like this? With myself it was first noticed in the late two thousands when I was doing inquiry and reading Almaas’s Diamond mind series. It came and went over the years and manifested in ways similar to what he describes. It came on in a stronger way after I had been doing Centeing Prayer for about a year in 2017- 2018. I noticed that it started appearing consistently coinciding with whenever I achieved some measure of non-conceptual awareness which is more or less the aim of Centering prayer.

?‍♂️ I tried golf too 5 or 6 years ago. I mostly swung as hard as I could to the exasperation of those who were trying to teach me. To smack one solidly every now and then offered a sweet cathartic,,,, something.... I plowed a lot of dirt also and got tired of it. Almost felt like I had the fear that I was in danger of becoming a snob. I don’t mean that as a jab towards those who golf. That’s just my baggage. Jim’s weekly mini column Go Beyond the Rules by Dr. Jim Rosen ©2021 Dr. Jim Rosen While I am not advocating that you break the law, I am suggesting that you reach higher and deeper within yourself. It is a lot harder to follow your own convictions than it is to merely follow the rules. Adherence to the rules can get you other people's approval, because you'll be living their idea of what your path should be. Following your own convictions is being true to your higher and deeper self. When you go beyond the rules, you will probably notice other people's disapproval and displays of upset. (Give yourself a pat on the back, because this disapproval is a sign that you’re doing it right.) Other people may believe you’re lost and separated from them, and they’re trying to manipulate you to what they think is the way. Nevertheless, it's not wise to cave in and follow their rules. There is a higher standard of right and wrong - above what other people pressure you to believe. To get to the higher level, you have to face your fears of rejection and aloneness. You have to accept that you are usually the best judge of what is right and true for you.

As a teenager battling addictive compulsions, anxiety, depression, and deep confusion, my path began there in trying to see my way out of that mess. After 10-15 years of struggling up that ladder, I realized it was leaning against the wrong wall,,,, Beginning around 2000, I began to encounter the kind of knowledge that could be built upon in developing understanding.

That God is the whole of the universe whereby humans are something akin to atoms in the molecules (solar systems) of the cells (galaxies) in the tissue (galaxy clusters) in the body of God. I don’t KNOW, know it viserally or in a gnostic way, but hold it in the ‘as if’ category conceptually until a better idea comes along,,,, So I reason that if God is that big, then God has a vast consciousness and really big ears. This would kind of go along with Leo’s video on Holons. As well as Rupert Sheldrake’s arguments about panpsychism.