I have a very strong desire to cook your noodle & flip your paradigm & worldview upside down.

a reply to: leolady


You get it.

Question is - what do we do now?

Refreshing thread. I bounce back and forth between thinking i know everything and thinking i know nothing. It must be the latter, because I'm no better off than when I was 3 years old. This can be frustrating, because it lends me to believe that all my supposed learning is ultimately erroneous... but that can't be the case, because I do feel like I am developing in ways that are difficult to articulate. Confusion seems to be a necessary precedent for revelation.

I would think a return to naturalism would naturally root out any unnatural occurrences happening to our being. But I know to be careful with any claims of what ought to be done. I'm so done with the Egyptian phase of my soul. It frustrates me to work for something I know I can't keep... but there has to be some purpose to the process, even if it inevitably seems futile from the bigger picture. It's not like Jesus came out of the womb and crucified immediately. He went through the motions too

a reply to: cooperton


Thank you for participating and contributing.

It's like there really is a pattern to it, where we would hope that the more that sorrow and suffering has carved into our being, the more joy we can contain, and where for man, all happiness must arise from some unhappiness, already experienced (Gibran and Gurdjieff, paraphrased).

It takes a lot of courage to seek the face of glory or to let it shine through us, to be a light to the world without trying to attract attention to one's self.

It's very hard to be extra special and nothing special both at the same time, but isn't that where the mirth and charm and joy is?

I've had some experience in going a little crazy and through the ringer or what some call the dark night of the soul. I've followed, to a degree the hero's journey, and then basically chickened out and blew my assignment, whatever that might have been.

I think that God and fate plays tricks on it, intentionally to poke and prod and to squeeze us and test our mettle. I suppose I should be grateful that I'm not Job.

I think in this regard, that the main distinction between insanity and perfect mental health resides in the difference between a necessary, and an unnecessary suffering.

I've studied a bit of Joseph Campbell & Carl Jung in an effort to try to make sense of what I went through and all my best ideas are stolen, even the language patterning that I use tends to follow the same grooves of the same tracks that I've been laying down for over 20 years now, where my spiritual crisis, whether entirely authentic or not (my mother called it an authentic spiritual experience which helped strengthen her faith ie: she thought I was "touched" by God), was really driven by this same powerful urge, to influence, and ultimately to be loved and to love, and while being recognized as special, but isn't that really nothing but a form of vanity?

Absurd, really, when you think about it, to be EXTRA special, as in moreso than others, no that's not it, it doesn't satisfy, what did Jesus say "If I were to seek only my own glory then that would be no glory at all!" (as I insert what some might interpret as the inkling of a Christ complex!).

Speaking of Jesus, (God forbid?), wasn't he or wouldn't he have been utterly charming and smiling all the time? or most of the time? I should say (man of sorrows).

I once read, when I was into popular science writings about the implications of Quantum Mechanics, even though I don't profess to understand it, that they have something called a sum over histories, pointing to the idea of a common denominator that is made up of story, or in other words that life, which is framed within the context of the time-space continuum, is actually made of story.

That story, is the very stuff of life, and thus, if the quantum realm has any correlation with reality (it seems to hold water as a predictive tool), it could then be said that - meaning and context, are decisive. (an axiom borrowed by the loose multidisciplinary pseudo science of NLP or Neurolinguistics Programming).

In this way, one might consider the Bible itself and other sacred writings as the root and source of the logos or "the world" where even were heaven and earth to one day pass away, that fundamental word, would remain.

This is a type of logic and reason, and love and mutuality that is on a completely different level, like a quantum leap - it's discontinuous, it's uncompromising, and once gotten or "grokked" it simply cannot be ungrokked or unlearnt, yet even still this touchstone or keystone at the center of our table is so easily lost or forgotten or set aside as we chase the material way of life and to look good in the eyes of the Jones'.

If you're going to take a stand and stand up, then by God you'd better be funny and not take yourself too seriously.

C.S. Lewis, a crafty and somewhat rebellious creative writer who was actually friends with J.R.R. Tolkein of "Lord of the Rings" fame and who was converted to the Christian faith by Tolkein in examining the underlying nature of the story and concluding that it was so alien to our traditional notions about things like truth and justice and self-knowledge within the context of what I call the relativity of human being - he concluded, that the only possible way that we can have any real fun, while in the words of Carl Jung, entering the fray with our entire being is if, in relation to ourselves and one another we both take ourselves infinitely more seriously and infinitately less so according to our prior valuation of ourselves and others.

How to do this properly and effectively however, since it cannot and does not arise from the prior ego-state or condition (thought prison), can only rely on the leading of the Spirit of God that cohabitates with us, and where that brings up joy and mirth, humor and charm within us, and courage, that's a rather funny and interesting resolution to the fundamental predicament that we were in before.

Then in a heartbeat or even fast in the twinkling of an eye, we cross the threshold and into the holy of holies, for many of us whether we like or or not, and for every one of us, even in spite of ourselves and all our foilbles and piccadilos and all our prior heartaches, dramas, and failed relationships, even to the very relationship that we have with our own selves!

We were absurd. We were jerks.

So while we can't deny who we are as sacred beings and as beloved childre of a loving God framed as family at a cosmic table, neither can we deny our failings and all our shortcomings.

This would leave us in an inconsolable state if there were not a hand capable of wiping away the tears from our eyes, perhaps even leading us into a state of such utter hilarity that the tears change form.

I once did a lot of crying myself. I felt like King David (there I go with the special me stuff again) crying into my pillow on my couch beset from all sides with terror, fear and anquish and dispair. I was under what can only be described as spiritual attack by dark forces.

I would wake up with night terrors, heart palpitations, and the sense of being under observation with malevolent intent.

Now I sleep like a baby and have for years.

For me, and I can't speak for anyone else, but trusting in God and asking God for help in protecting me is what saved me from being lost in an ocean of confusion and even insanity.

But to think of it as a kind of joke that was waiting for me all along, with all the ups and downs, the trials and tribulations, the pain surrounding the family of origin (we all have it), and how to resolve the problem of love and it's failure, is hard to fathom, because we all like to have a drama and a story that we are playing out and because we've all rather missed the mark in being everything that we could have been or were meant to be.

It's a resurrection by the lion's paw, the real one and not an imposter (Masons?).

It doesn't leave a person stoic or dour faced, not by any means.

It is the humor of the knowledge of true understanding.

This knowledge isn't accessible by reason alone, but it IS the knowledge of experience, and of story.

The only question that might arise at this point, once again, however, is

WHAT DO WE DO NOW?!

This is where a song or a great joke or story would be wonderful because I can't do all the talking and have said my piece.

Ank sits down with a strange smile on his face

a reply to: AnkhMorpork

Maybe, where we are headed, maybe things are not dualistic (word ? lol), you know what I am saying.. Maybe the difference is no longer required? Either way, there is nothing wrong with a little house cleaning on occasion..

None of us do great with change..

a reply to: AnkhMorpork

I wanted to add, that it is incredibly complicated....yet incredibly simple as well... The crisis you feel, I think many have experienced.. At the end of the day, there are no mistakes.. Find a way to be a service to others, and you may find yourself..

originally posted by: AnkhMorpork
a reply to: cooperton

This is a type of logic and reason, and love and mutuality that is on a completely different level, like a quantum leap - it's discontinuous, it's uncompromising, and once gotten or "grokked" it simply cannot be ungrokked or unlearnt, yet even still this touchstone or keystone at the center of our table is so easily lost or forgotten or set aside as we chase the material way of life and to look good in the eyes of the Jones'.

I loved everything you wrote but want to focus on this. For the love of my soul, this dichotomy has nearly torn me in two. To know what is to come (again, the danger of thinking I know anything) but to still live among the Jones' consciousness. If I'm not careful I find myself neck-deep in the dark waters chasing some material bait that leads me into misery and insatiable desire. It's like a cat. It will come and be all affectionate but when you go to pet it, it scurries away. When I focus my attention back to my life's journey, it comes on back, dancing on my keyboard.

So I pleed to the maker of my path and the knower of my way, "is there any worthwhile endeavor in this world?" Or is it as the writer of Ecclesiastes posits, "a chasing of the wind"? I also fear that marrying any sort of material condition that falls short of my destined path would be a grievous sin, and I would miss out on my inheritance. which I then counter with, well, God wouldn't let that happen, would He? Can the Elect be deceived? Am I even a chosen one of God? If not I might as well dive into hedonism, because I'm not getting through the fiery cherubim regardless if I am not appointed by God. Although I know that piety is it's own reward, and the fruit of being good is good, and being bad is bad.

Yet even if there is no unveiling, which as I type it I know (hopefully) that can't be the case, so many have come and sacrificed their lives to say there is, and to keep going, persevering, and refining every day until there is no internal division. Until then it is best I don't let my right hand know what my left hand is doing. How can I judge myself when I am still blind? Why would I judge myself when I am still blind?

I'll keep on following the way as best I can, and not be lured away by the sirens this time.

a reply to: cooperton

I don't know what I know of course, but maybe, the whole point is to grow? To build? A better you. And a better world. You are a being of order in a universe of both order and dis-order. What does order do? It builds. So, go and build. Ignore others and outside pressures, because they are temporary, and the only thing that you get to take with you, is you.

So maybe work there a bit? Idk..just mho, fwiw..

a reply to: cooperton


Because your heart is in the right place, you'll be forgiven, and if you're merciful then you're already there, to forgive as we are forgiven.

God is too good to us, this is the supreme challenge how to accept and receive, not whether we can or can't be "good enough". It's all good news that's capable of wiping away the tears from our eyes with a smile.

We were each to a one chosen in some way, the difference being to know that we are beloved of God, to really KNOW.

That's a mediation and something that we should just practice "steeping" ourselves in and it's also our natural state of being, and our true condition, when we can let go and unclench our fist - leaving in it's wake a certain humor and charm. That's real knowledge because it's the knowledge of personal experience in a "being with", and this is another reason why we desperately need one another's company, to remind and bring to presence these vital considerations and wellsprings of new possibility in a much more expansive domain of freedom.