Zigzag Idiot

I've heard it said that "Saints are the eaters of suffering. I forget which book but Castenada was in a funk of anxiety and depression. He said Don Juan Matus leaned in close to him and with mock tenderness asked, "Are you in the throes of self-pity? This line was so memorable that when I later found myself in a similar condition, my mother asked with a look of concern how I was doing. I told her that I was in the throes of self-pity. She busted up laughing which is quite unlike her ordinary reactions. Being able to crack a joke at my depressive condition and it having that effect on her was in a small way a turning point in a part of my work on the emotional center. My emotional life has often been situated on a wide ranging pendulum. An Astrologer once proffered that it was because my moon was in the sign of Leo in my birth chart. ?‍♂️ At one point, not too many years ago, I recognized an amnesia of sorts that existed Whenever a low point would show up, the vibrancy of the high or peak experiences seemed to be false or completely forgotten whenever the more severe lows set in. To me, one element of my own integration has had to do with balancing out these emotional swings with a form of beingness, for lack of a better description.

One sad song and one soulful song. Evidence that perhaps my tragic-romantic Idiot is at the Helm.

I've found these 4 divisions of suffering helpful in my Work on self. The first is Unnecessary Suffering. This would be the type of suffering that we incur because of our unreasonable attitudes and expectations towards others, from our ill-will, hatred and rejection of others, from doubt, possessiveness, arrogance and self pity. In other words, suffering arising from our self-importance. The second is Unavoidable Suffering. This would be the type of suffering that comes to us by accident or from events beyond our control, such as interpersonal conflicts, war, disaster, disease or death. Third, we have Voluntary Suffering. This would be the type of suffering that we take upon ourselves in order to accomplish a personal aim, such as an athlete who disciplines himself to win a race, or a student who labours to get good grades. And finally we have Intentional Suffering. According to Bennett, this would be the kind of suffering that we take upon ourselves in order to accomplish an impersonal or altruistic goal, one that is directed more towards service to others or to the Work, and not for any personal gain. Bennett assumes that this is what Gurdjieff meant by Intentional Suffering. from: https://www.endlesssearch.co.uk/philo_is_talk_ae2005.htm I take Intentional suffering to be synonymous with Conscious suffering

I love this Rumi quote. May the force be with you,,,

I happened on to a good 8 minute YouTube I had forgotten about. Systems thinkers may find this of interest. It adds much to what I was trying to express concerning C. B's book Eye of the Heart. The Ray of creation. A 7 octave system. Descending down the Ray, each successive "World" falls under more laws 3 - 6 - 12 - 24 - world 48 - world 96. Im pretty sure some of the text from All and Everything is being read to go with the unfolding scenes.

I just posted a couple of country songs in the music thread that are probably considered politically incorrect. A lot of this political correctness has increased inauthentic behaviors in a lot of people and also cultivated anger and an atmosphere that has helped Trump to play many of these people. Him knowing which buttons to push,,,, I want no part in prejudiced or racist worldviews. It's negative in tone and goes in the downward spiral towards violence. No thank you. Im glad Leo mentioned how the lower levels on the Spiral are racist though. I know this to be true because I've grown up around a good deal of it. And earlier in life held some of these views at times myself. I recognized that a bunch of these views are born out of fear as well as ignorance. The Bellamy Brothers song - You Ain't just a whistling Dixie mentions Robert E. Lee and the confederacy. I'm not identified a bit with the Confederacy nor do I care when I see another Confederate monument get dismantled. Some should be. Maybe all of them. I don't know. Haven't really thought about very much I remember William Patrick Patterson stating the nothing grows a person's Being faster than to endure an injustice. It goes on the list with unrequited love, I guess. I've pondered on this the last 6 -7 years and it's helped my understanding . When observing another or myself having to endure an injustice. You see how asleep people can be and it's usually fueled by some form of fear. In connection with Cynthia Bourgeault adaopting the phase 'Imaginal realm' which I believe was coined by Henry Corbin. I believe it's synonymous with what Ken Wilber calls the Causal realm. Carol Anthony in her redoing of the traditional I CHING states that the realm of the atom is the realm of consciousness. Sounds very similar,,,

Some Disco. Some country

Finally got started on Cynthia Bourgeault's book - Eye of the Heart. This book is going to raise some eyebrows. She's using some of Gurdjieff's concepts and even some of his made up words like trogoautoegocrat. Even better is her use of Gurdjieff's cosmology of different 'worlds of hydrogens'. In doing this she's introducing a scale of consciousness basically. Definitely it's a scale of human behavior as well. This will allow a way to communicate many subtitles. Put roughly World 96 is the criminal world. World 48 is Spiral Dynamics levels blue, Orange, and green. World 24 begins capacity to love. I may elaborate later about this. World 12 is higher emotional center and World 6 is higher Intellectual center. Just guessing but I would put the Kingdom of Heaven beginning at World 12, World 6' World 3,,, If there happens to be a mention of it anywhere I'll report back,,, Eye of the Heart A Spiritual Journey into the Imaginal Realm by Cynthia Bourgeault (Shambhala Publications) This groundbreaking book shares the evolution of Cynthia Bourgeault’s spiritual journey and offers a new map to understanding energy and our collective reality. In Eye of the Heart, Cynthia Bourgeault investigates the imaginal realm–an energetic realm well known to the mystical traditions but often forgotten in our own times. It is invisible to the physical eye, but clearly perceptible through the eye of the heart. The imaginal realm has long been associated with the personal world of dreams, prophecy, and oracles, and it also points toward a higher vision of our human purpose that is both evolutionary and collective. Bourgeault explores both aspects of imaginal reality and shows readers how we can cooperate more fully with its guidance in our lives. Expertly blending her own lived experiences with research on the imaginal realm, Bourgeault explores how her personal relationships have helped to bring these teachings into sharper focus and the role this realm plays in Christian and other mystical traditions. She delves into the connections between our inner consciousness and what happens in the world, exploring the transformative energy and governing conventions that make the manifestation of this realm possible. from https://wisdomwayofknowing.org/resource-directory/eye-of-the-heart-by-cynthia-bourgeault/

Good Harmonies They sang best when they were Younger. Just looked on google, LarryGatlin is 72. I guess they’re considered country music.

This concept/practice/phenomena as given by Maurice Nicoll has been a big help to me. In a way, it involves arriving at Self compassion from an unexpected viewpoint. EXTERNAL CONSIDERING “External considering is thinking of others. It is one of the few things in the Work that we are actually told to do...If you have taken an album of good photographs of yourself through long self-observation, then you will not have to look far in it to find in yourself what you object to so much in the other person and then you will be able to put yourself in the other person’s position...Remember that when you find the same thing in yourself that you are blaming in someone else it has the magical effect of cancelling the whole situation out. This is real ‘forgiving.’ ” V. 1, p. 259

More 80's music,,,,

I quit a 15 year, 2 pack a day habit. This was right at 20 years ago. At the time I also quit coffee during the first month but made the mistake of going back to habitually drinking coffee again, At the time I had heard that processed sugar spiked the blood sugar similar to the way cigarettes do. So sugar intake can create a stronger urge to smoke. Don't know how true that is but I made it a point to refuse as much sugar as possible the first few weeks. After a time though, I backslid on that one. The first month was hell, At six months I still craved at times. At around a year though, the cravings were completely gone. I could even enjoy a whiff of others cigs and still not crave one. I've heard ex_smokers are often the most radical about others second hand smoke. I feel fortunate to not have fallen into that. My point is that you can look forward to a time when you won't crave a cigarette anymore. I chewed a lot of sugarless gum and especially during the first 2 -3 weeks practiced the three minute rule when a cigarette craving came on strong. That meant the farthest I looked to the future was just three minutes. That helped a lot. Hanging in there maybe for even just one minute at a time I think it was probably one of the most effective practices that I used in successfully quitting the habit. Good luck!.

What's being described here to me sounds like the phenomena of being identified. It's something we all do and do it everyday to some extent. Much of it already in place from our childhood conditioning, education and cultural expectations. In the Fourth Way there are different divisions between the authentic and inauthentic depending on lineage. Most of the differences are just "in the semantics" as is said and confusion from others talking past one another because their usage of the their common words slightly differ. Some say division between authentic and inauthentic is simply between personality (being false) and synonymous with egoic and essence being what's real about individuals. Some schools add more distinction and make the divide between personality and false personality. When the false personality is seen and worked through and shadows integrated, the True Self or Pearl beyond Price is attained in which our expressions are from aspects of Essence. This doesn't happen overnight and usually requires years of work and Inquiry. Essence almost synonymous with being and presence but rather as aspects, flavors, finer distinctions of Being. Anytime I catch myself hooked, trigggered, reactive, it usually means I'm in a state of identification and usually while being in that state, do not want to admit it. But as the saying goes, it's better to eat crow while it's fresh,,, if possible.

Their both anthropormorhizing God it seems. The interviewer seems to be a Devils advocate, enneatype 6 in the first tier of Spiral Dynamics practicing Jesusism, being a little argumentative.The kid being interviewed is looking at everything in a more abstract way. Seems they were talking past each other, in the beginning at least. In Alchemy, water represents feeling. To me Living waters represents truth or purified heart. There are other takes on what water represents. In a following YouTube, the interviewer seems even more stage blue, very dualistic with fundamentalists frames of reference. Just my 2 cents. I would be interested in hearing others views.

That's great! @Raptorsin7 Better sounding news sure,,, Sounds like more experiences of Being and presence while letting go of thinking mind and narrative consciousness, perhaps? Anyway, Glad to hear your good news,,,

From Shame Faced to Self-Esteem by Dr. Jim Rosen ©2020 Dr. Jim Rosen Perhaps you feel ashamed of yourself … ashamed of your behavior … ashamed of the way you look … ashamed of your past. And you may think that you’re defective and inadequate somehow. Maybe you think there is something deeply wrong with you that makes you different from other people. Worst of all, you might think your problems cannot be fixed. Wrong! Totally wrong! The shame and the dirt are not etched in stone. Your behavior, whatever it is or has been, is not who you are inside. Your behavior is a reflection of what you believe you are. Your behavior, past and present, reflects your sense of self-esteem. “There is overwhelming evidence that the [lower] the level of self-esteem, the more likely one will treat others with [disrespect, unkindness and selfishness]. People who do not experience self-love have little or no capacity to love others.” (Nathaniel Branden) Without question, you have the capacity to raise your self-esteem and learn to love yourself and others - deeper and better than ever before. If you are willing to raise your self-esteem, it is a choice that you can make, a choice that is available to you. When you make this choice, your behavior reflects your new purpose. You evaluate your behavior by asking the question, "does this help to raise my love of self and others?"

In Gurdjieff's Opum Magnus- All and Everything he describes something that is fairly similar to the Akashic records. What he calls the second great ‘Transapalnianperturbation which wipes out Atlantis corresponds to what Graham Hankock has been reffering to in the last few years as the Younger Dryas event. If anyone's interested,,,, 23 The Fourth Personal Sojourn of Beelzebub on the Planet Earth 23.293 “A Teleoghinoora is a materialized idea or thought which after its arising exists almost eternally in the atmosphere of that planet on which it arises. 23.293 “Teleoghinooras can be formed from such a quality of being-contemplation as only those three-brained beings have and can actualize, who have coated their higher being bodies in their presences and who have brought the perfecting of the Reason of their higher being part up to the degree of the sacred ‘Martfotai.’ “And the sequential series of being-ideas, materialized in this way, concerning any given event, are called ‘Korkaptilnian thought tapes.’ 23.293 “It seems that the said Korkaptilnian thought tapes concerning the history of the arising of the learned society Akhaldan were, as I found out much later, deliberately fixed by a certain ‘Eternal Individual,’ Asoochilon, now a saint, who became coated in the common presence of a three-brained being named Tetetos who arose on your planet on the continent of Atlantis and who had existed there four centuries before the second great ‘Transapalnianperturbation.’ 23.293-4 “These Korkaptilnian thought tapes are never destroyed as long as the given planet exists, which is in what is called the ‘tempo of movement of the prime arising’; and they are subject to none of those transformations from any cosmic causes whatsoever to which all other cosmic substances and cosmic crystallizations are periodically subject. “And however long a time may have already passed, every three-brained being in whose presence there has been acquired the ability to enter into the being-state called ‘Soorptakalknian contemplation’ can perceive and cognize the texts of these Korkaptilnian thought tapes. from: https://ae.gurdjieff.org.gr/terms/en50/0392.htm

A gillion different people have sung this song but I think Perry Como's version is the best of the men. Roberta Flack's version of the Women. I get tickled watching Dusty Hill's backwards and forwards nonchalant shuffle in this video.

There are at least 3 versions of the following saying that came from Gurdjieff. "Happy is he who has a soul; happy is he who has no soul, and woe and shit for those who are in between." Purifying the emotional center doesn't happen overnight,,,, I'm still not done with mine. An old poem called "Rafais Dervish Song"- The greatest thing, you will ever know Is to remember yourself wherever you go For when you do not identify You will never cease to be. But when you do identify You will become a thing and lose your I.

As a rogue student of the Diamond Approach, I was learning about what Almaas called the Diamond Guidance from reading his books and doing Inquiry on my own without a group. It's a capacity that one develops in doing Inquiry. This is my paraphrasing. Having read his book Spacecrusier Inquiry for about the third time, he made a statement that I had missed before and you could have knocked me over with a feather. More or less he said, oh yeah, this, what I've been calling the Diamond Guidance is just another name for the Angel of Revelation or the Holy Spirit. This was around the time I began experiencing the phenomena of a slight throb or pressure in the forehead. It's the sixth chakra or third eye starting to blink open,,, No extraordinary revelation of rapture or thunderbolts or anything like that but just increased intuitiveness. A very subtle capacity. Actually my first real Inner seeing wasn't pleasant at all and didn't occur until 8 years after this. About 3 years ago. It was horrifying and I'm glad I wasn't shown this ,,, revelation until then. I wouldn't have been able to handle it earlier in life.. 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 from-https://www.diamondapproach.org/glossary/refinery_phrases/diamond-guidance many other excerpts to be found here also

More interesting quotes I just thought of further on in the text- You ARE the Kingdom of Heaven, but you have let the belief in darkness enter your minds, and so you need a new light. The Holy Spirit is the radiance that you must let (in to) banish the idea of darkness. His is the glory before which dissociation falls away, and the Kingdom of Heaven breaks through into its own. The voice of the Holy Spirit does not command, because it is incapable of arrogance. It does not demand, because it does not seek control. It does not overcome, because it does not attack. It merely REMINDS. It is compelling only because of what it reminds you OF. It brings to your mind the OTHER way, remaining quiet even in the midst of the turmoil you have made for yourselves. The voice for God is always quiet, because it speaks of peace. Yet peace is stronger than war, because it heals. War is DIVISION, not increase. No-one gains from strife. Actually this is from the Urtext- http://a.courseinmiracles.com/urtext/chapter-5/section_4.php#gsc.tab=0 And more- How willing are you to forgive your brother? How much do you desire peace, instead of endless strife and misery and pain? These questions are the same, in different form. Forgiveness IS your peace, for herein lies the end of separation, and the dream of danger and destruction, sin and death; of madness and of murder, grief and loss. This is the "sacrifice" salvation asks, and gladly offers peace INSTEAD of this. - http://a.courseinmiracles.com/urtext/chapter-29/section_7.php#gsc.tab=0 And this- The miracle forgives; the ego damns. Neither need be defined except by this. Yet could a definition be more sure, or more in line with what salvation is? Problem and answer lie together here, and having met at last the choice is clear. Who chooses hell when it is recognized? And who would not go on a little while when it is given him to understand the way is short and Heaven is his goal?