A logical wedge of absolute liberation and therefore, humor.

reply to post by WanDash

Are you a man or a woman (I think I can deduce that you're somewhat elderly, retired)?

Just a few questions and then let's see if I can tell you something capable of making all those tears make perfect sense AND that will also make you laugh out loud at the absurdity of the predicament when the "wedge" or "double bind" unravels and you find yourself released from the "chinese handcuffs" (don't worry they're not that painful).

Let me ask you this while I'm at it - how did you respond to this situation? where on the one hand scary Dad rages, even gets violent, and on the other mother (who serves as protector, even if only in the form of consolation, of suffering with and for you) is of such poor health that it's rather precarious one's assurance of comfort and safety, because if she goes then there's nothing at all as a counter measure to Dad's rage?

In other words what did you DO in response to try to make it alright in terms of how you related to others and the world around you, including your own self, what did you do to compensate for this predicament or more specifically to shield yourself from it's negative consequences?

P.S. I admire your courage, not just to share, but to cry for a year, suffer with dignity and good spirits, ill health, etc etc.

And unless you're like really old, you never know, there might even be something vital in the undoing of the mechanism by which you became ill in the first place because it sounds to me like you've been carrying a very heavy load for a very longgg time.

Luv, (don't care if you're a man or a woman or even who you are when I say that),

NAM

Originally posted by WanDash

Originally posted by NewAgeMan

Ironically what might be called our "strong suit" or special talent and gift has been formed by a reactive response to this drama, they key here being, in recognition, to become wholly authentic relative to what was entirely superficial or inauthentic, making of what was a strength relative to a weakness feared, a REAL strength once accepted and reintegrated for what it is, and that's funny...

Don't know that I'm getting this last part...
Maybe - if you could rephrase it...

It will become apparent as we progress if you're willing to continue to participate in this inquiry.

Originally posted by NewAgeMan

We cannot deny who we are, but we can become authentic about it, and in the process experience the absolute liberation to be and to become who and what we want to be and become without constraint or limitation...

Pairing this with the reposted story of your "dark night of the soul"...
Well - I had something...then lost it...so - maybe it will return in time to edit this...or, for another post...or - maybe it's gone for good.
Thanks again.

I hope it comes back to you whatever it was because it sounds like you were onto something and often the best ideas just get snatched away from us as if for no reason..

Originally posted by WanDash

Originally posted by NewAgeMan
reply to post by vethumanbeing

 

It's funny you should say that..

Here's what happened to me - for your reading pleasure, told twice (take one and take two) from the thread
...

Sorry for cutting it down...but, I'd have no room to reply,otherwise.
Something quite similar happened to me...including - returning to the room of absurdity.
You say, you spent two weeks in the hospital --- ?
Did you walk-in, or did someone-else send you there?

Originally posted by NewAgeMan

Originally posted by WanDash
You say, you spent two weeks in the hospital --- ?
Did you walk-in, or did someone-else send you there?

It was a mutual decision but I went willingly. [snip for brevity]
When I went in, I RAN into the hospital as if excepting something quite extraordinary to happen

Oh God it's all so very very funny! You have no idea - or maybe you DO!

Don't worry I'm ok now (i think i am?) LOL

In hindsight it's all just a drama you see, but it's not really a drama at all - it's a comedy!

And yes there ARE tears of sorrow, and, of absolute hilarity on the far side of sorrow where joy triumphs, the joy of truth, and self-knowledge, by comparison, to the sorrows and the suffering and the "vicissitudes of life". It's simultaneously inexplicable and yet the only thing that makes any sense in the final analysis, so it's also a standard a high standard of love, relative or against which the absurd and the ridiculous has nothing it can do but crumble in a heap of laughter at love's loving feet (loves reason). It holds, in reserve, on the other side of the double bind, everything that's worthwhile in life including the restoration of our humor, our charm, our inner child, and the possibility of a whole new domain of new life and new creative possibility for us the human being even as a present moment experience in shared laughter and love, stories told and shared, tears hugs, more laughter, and more food and drink in consumption and integration and re-integration of real self knowledge and awareness - at our communal table. Amen?

"The more that sorrow and suffering has carved into your being - the more joy you can contain."

~Kahlil Gibran

"All happiness for man must arise exclusively only in relation to some unhappiness, already experienced."

~ George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (Russian: Гео́ргий Ива́нович Гурджи́ев; January 13, 1866 – October 29, 1949) God rest his soul.

What a conundrum.. /

Where to draw the line...?

Is it ok to make this distinction? Absolutely 100%. Freedom - absolute liberation, isn't that what we've been wanting all along..? (gee wiz how far are we prepared to flee from our own happiness and our own true self?)

Courage - the courage to BE happy, do we have it in us? Or must we really go the other route into increasing absurdity, ridiculousness, even neurosis to avoid the truth that we are doing this thing to ourself at each and every moment where our principal dilemma was in an action that we were performing moment to moment tricked by the stratagems of Narcissus into taking ourselves as being what's REAL and taking ourselves or who we took ourselves to be - seriously. And as we'll soon come to discover, when we take this inquiry to it's logical and rational conclusion it was a farce a sham a projection a deflection a pretender a defender etc etc - a protector, that became our own oppressor, jailer and in the final analysis - victimizer, of ourselves. Our "strong suit" didn't really work.

What's our "strong suit"?

Stay tuned...


Best Regards,

NAM

"The unexamined life is not worth living."

~Socrates

Originally posted by NewAgeMan
...It was a mutual decision but I went willingly. It did go a little over the top however and was a tad delusional to be honest. When I went in, I RAN into the hospital as if excepting something quite extraordinary to happen, the result of which I got manhandled and restrained. Then, as they wheeled me around in a wheelchair from place to place I kept expecting the great surprise to reveal itself at any moment (I would even close my eyes and then open then whenever the chair stopped). Needless to say in the final analysis that the great surprise was that the was no surprise waiting at all!

That is Funny!
I didn't run, or freak anyone out...but boy, did I keep expecting a "great surprise" at every turn.
I thought that everyone who talked to me might be passing me the secret password, or schedule, or whatever... They let me go the same night I went in... It was one of the coldest nights of the year... Rain turned to sleet...windy... I went walking, instead (didn't get out of the hospital 'til after midnight)...and...what a night that turned into. Another story in itself!

...I think in today's modern world that the sensitive or the empathic almost has to undergo a shamamic type of "dark night of the soul" if only to stay in contact with a touchstone of reason and sanity!

Could be... I guess I'm still waiting to arive at a conclusion on "what actually happened?".

Originally posted by NewAgeMan
...Are you a man or a woman (I think I can deduce that you're somewhat elderly, retired)?

Rip Van Winkle - no less!

...Just a few questions..
...how did you respond to this situation? where on the one hand scary Dad rages, even gets violent, and on the other mother (who serves as protector, even if only in the form of consolation, of suffering with and for you) is of such poor health that it's rather precarious one's assurance of comfort and safety, because if she goes then there's nothing at all as a counter measure to Dad's rage? ...

I can only guess...seeing that I'm looking at it all from behind the mask...and can't say I know where the mask ends and I begin...
Always tried to stay out of the way of the axe. Of the three siblings, what I did (or would do...or was perceived to have done) received the most violent &/or savage outbursts. I was generally the "peacemaker" (between a younger brother and older sister)...but they could get away with "questioning" and "back-talk", etc...or - more than I could (even as adults).
So - I guess, I never tried to stand out... Or - always tried to stand out as one who didn't stand out...
One time, on an Easter Sunday...he was terribly angry (when we couldn't find the location of the church picnic), and in a mass of confusion, he and I accidentally collided, and I dropped the cake my mother had made for the occassion. He believed I collided with him out of disobedience (or something)...went to a large mesquite tree in the backyard, cut 13 mature branches off it... Whittled the thorns away...made me strip naked and lay across his bed until he'd whipped me with all 13...'til they were each useless. Afterward, my mother drew me a warm bath, and came in and washed the blood from my back.
That kind of behavior (from my mother) was not usual...but, in this instance, I think she believed he went too far.
Aside from trying not to stand out...I did try to stand out in arenas that might draw his approval. And, while I did (on occassion) find success in said arenas...it never drew his approval.
If it sounds like I hold any grudges or hard feelings toward him...that's really not the case. I am simply relating how it was back then. I came to terms long ago, with the fact that he was doing things the way he believed he should...in order to gain God's (and his own father's) approval...and, in so doing...he was doing it as rightly as he knew how.

......unless you're like really old...there might even be something vital in the undoing of the mechanism by which you became ill in the first place because it sounds to me like you've been carrying a very heavy load for a very longgg time...

Who knows?
I carry a lot of stress inside, and...my heart told me to try and take it a little easier...

What we're wanting to examine is the mask and how it was formed and what it's made of.. something that can be examined from a certain perspective, of being unconcerned with one's "self". Then we begin to discover how once formed the ways in which it directed our life's path and journey even right up to the present.

We must become educated in the ways of our own mask and see clearly that on the inside of it remains an effort at virtue no matter how poorly one's "assignment" (Hero's journey) has been carried out so far, even to the present moment (as I sit typing from the hostel that I've been staying in for the past few months..lol).

Taking the following lecture by Manly P. Hell seriously and as a real education (for those who are interested in the philosophical inquiry of this thread - it's an hour and 20 minutes long) - I encourage you to watch it lightly and playfully in the mirthful humor of understanding.



Then we'll be in a position to examine the inside of "the mask" for the true virtue that we were looking for all along in the play of the drama of our own entire life's story including the nature and even dysfunction of our own family of origin and for those with families of their own, their present moment family. This inquiry will at that precise moment then re-cognize a healing action or activity in all our human inter-relations, including that which we enjoy (or detested) in relation to our own selves. The healing of forgiveness in true understanding and full and complete comprehension - in the humor of real knowledge, wisdom and maturing and growing personal experience or self-knowledge

Then we can take a look at our "strong suit" and reclaim it's virtue on the other side of was otherwise entirely contrived and inauthentic, and we will come to laugh and sing at the communal table of the family of God with God as our own true condition in eternity. At that table we wear "masks" of our own virtue or in other words we see face to face as we each of us are, authentically, and not as we project or pretend(ed) to be both to others and to our own selves - turning what was a lie, into the greatest personal truth ever known in the quest for what is virtuous and of the highest quality and attribute of the divine principal (which is an evolutionary, resurrection principal) that is by it's very nature already present and therefore within and among us as the Reality (and resurrection) already experienced or realized.

"...but he who loses his life for my sake will find it again."

This is the domain where the masks of mythology comes to life as intended all along, and then vanish, leaving only the thing itself.

Remember to watch it lightly and with passive awareness mirth and charm.

Then we'll be all up to speed, and onward to the final inquiry which will leads us, according to reason and logic, while still alive, into the domain of heaven where we can at last get to enjoy a mere taste for the living water of true life that, once tasted, wells up from within unto the eternal life in spirit and in truth.

Werd. (not weird, but word)

Originally posted by NewAgeMan

The human being is a process, not a thing.

We are life itself experiencing life. We are not our ego, and neither are we an "it" as if we can step outside our own experience in separation and point to ourself and say "there I am". It just doesn't work that way because life is an experience and it's meant to be experienced.

What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

~ Psalm 8:4

It's a real predicament being this human part of a process that is so grand, so vast, so intrinsic yet so intimate, that it is at once the very height of mystery and the simple fact of being alive, what are we to do?

I think we should practice this presence of the spirit of life more and more and then begin to enter the fray with our whole being, playing whatever role is assigned to us or that we have chosen for ourselves or both, to the hilt but without confusing the role with the creative, playful, childlike heart of wonder that we are in the open and receptive position that a child has towards the experience of life.

It's still there. It never went away.

It's a cosmic palace made to contain us, with man included and not excluded, with man as intrinsic to the ENTIRE process of life, which includes every chemical reaction in the whole universe as a cosmological unity. Therefore let us "up our game" a tad shall we?

Or is it back to the same old mask hidden away in the corner of a very absurd and ridiculous self administered prison cell for FEAR of the good life and everything that's worthwhile and worth living for..?

So you can't tell me that there isn't a phenomenal and wonderful opportunity for great humor here at the expense of our prior absurdity and ridiculous nature.

And in terms of the "who" that we are being, we even have the luxury of starting out by being the one that we were pretending to be, yet accepted, known and reintegrated, the inauthentic rendered authentically inauthentic.

The "way" of being though -- no one can describe it in mere words, but nevertheless it is immediately available and every present, so we can rejoice in the knowledge and comfort that God never went away.

So he who laughs he is the one who knows that God is very much alive because he knows that he lives in God with God alive in him, and that God isn't a "you" as in other, but a thee or a thou.

It's all so wonderful and so very funny both, imho.

Sad also to the degree that we are all still locked up in a false and inauthentic reality - come out come out of your cell, and play! You can do it. I can do it. In fact I'm pretty sure that it's the kind of thing that we can only do together or there's nothing to share and explore, together.

So it's a "koinonia" or a shared intimate participation and communion with life itself and with one another as we really are. That's a celebration, and a Wedding Feast (in partnership with God).

Don't miss out - forget the give yoke of oxen you just purchased which are in need of your inspection, or the land you just bought, or whatever your attachment is - come on to the party, you will learn how to celebrate once you go in, and I guess I'm your doorman..

opens door __/ (doorman look)

This will make you feel very small and pathetically insignificant, or, you will laugh and realize that such a presumption must by it's very nature be absurd, given the truth that we are included and are intrinsic to the entire cosmic evolutionary process..

Originally posted by NewAgeMan

The appropriate response might be a supreme facepalm "OMG I was such an IDIOT!" and on the release from the "predicament" (everything that we'd trapped ourselves into believing as if it was REAL) - laughter at all our shortcomings, limitations and prior constraints on a human life otherwise lived more fully and freely. and a great sigh of relief like that of the Prodigal Son having "come to our senses" to set off from the land of starvation to make his way home only to experience the joy of being swept right off his feet in a great and unexpected hug even while still a long way off!


I love you God. (just need to say it out loud).

So in terms of real knowledge and understanding and awareness, absolute uncertainty and mystery is the highest state, and in spite of the ego's fears and reservations about this domain of being/knowing, it's SAFE and you can live there and be at peace in the realm of the unknown unknown, experienced (known). The Reality cannot possibly be understood. It can only be lived.

Compared to this, prior knowledge, both in terms of what we thought we once knew and even what we thought we knew we didn't know, begins to fall apart, and then what emerges in the field of knowing relative to ourselves is an awareness that we are something wholly greater by many many orders of magnitude, than who and what we once took ourselves to be, and we re-discover, like the faded memory of a long lost golden age, that we are life itself, like children of God. It's something that the ancients knew and taught (like virtue) but that modern man has all but forgotten. Thankfully however, it never went away and was always there waiting for us the whole time with unending patience, kindness, mercy, love and absolute freedom without which life has no point or purpose or creativity and freedom of expression.

This puts a whole new spin on things, and in a moment of intuitive insight suddenly we come to the end of our life's drama and after the tears and the laughter exclaim with childlike glee - what now?!

This isn't an after-life thing, it's a present moment life thing from moment to moment in eternity as our already always state of being, state of mind and heart and soul.

Death loses it's meaning in this context where life swallows death whole in an evolutionary resurrection process of life meeting new life, already now!

There's no greater treasure than to discover this buried treasure, this precious pearl sought after, while still on the way, and no greater act than to die to a false reality and a pretentious inauthentic self and become resurrected in the life eternal where God always lives, always has and always will.

It's not a faith based thing though nor a superstition, but simple logic and reason and intuition beginning with the astonishing fact of our own inclusion.

This doesn't mean that we now have to climb even higher nor perform another heroic act, or do anything in particular except rest assured in the heart knowledge of the virtue, the kindness, graciousness, generosity of God's mysterious creative process which appears now in hindsight to have begun with the end in mind including man, with intent, making us "children of God" (of source) in partnership with God no matter how mysterious and inscrutable the infinite eternal Godhead may be with we ourselves the human being at the right hand of God (as beloved and beloved) standing atop of mountain of cosmic evolution.

At this juncture, If we then notice for example how our large singular moon is a perfect reflection of the sun at this moment in earth history, why then first/last causes take on another dimension/implication altogether.. (but that's another thread for another day but perhaps something that may be worth addressing here just for the AWE factor..).

The signs are there, all around us and within us - it's no accident, not an impersonal random happenstance. Our own experience tells us otherwise and it's not the delusion but the truth and the life and the reality in delusion's undoing.

So while it (reason and logic) leads to humor at the tip of the wedge of what's reasonable to deduce, at the very end there's just joy, peace, happiness, satisfaction.

This tells me how Jesus' cryptic sayings might all be considered statements of truth and fact and even humility where it may be said that humility is to know one's self as you truly are.

So when you thought you got the joke or some astonishing realization, it only gets funnier and even MORE astonishing if such a thing were possible, and it is.

I almost feel a baptism of some kind coming on here..


Be baptized in the name of Christ! (what the heck).

"Life is a Mighty Joke. He who knows this can hardly be understood by others. He who does not know it finds himself in a state of delusion. He may ponder over this problem day and night, but will find himself incapable of knowing it. Why? People take life seriously, and God lightly; whereas we must take God seriously, and take life lightly. Then, we know that we always were the same and will ever remain the same.......the Originator of this joke. This knowledge is not acheived by reasoning.
But it is the knowledge of experience."

~ Meher Baba

The Sermon on the Mount

The Wise and Foolish Builders

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.

~ Mathew 5:24-29

What's makes it (the teaching of Jesus) a "rock" and a "firm foundation" is it's reason and logic where the precepts and ideals are in congruent alignment with the creation itself.

The Four Absolutes
Absolute Honesty
Absolute Unselfishness
Absolute Love
Absolute Purity

In truth and in the final analysis there's nothing else worth doing or striving for - that's reasonable.

Anything less is beneath us in regards to our true nature and destiny.

Originally posted by NewAgeMan
...The Four Absolutes
Absolute Honesty
Absolute Unselfishness
Absolute Love
Absolute Purity
...In truth and in the final analysis there's nothing else worth doing or striving for - that's reasonable.
...Anything less is beneath us in regards to our true nature and destiny.

NewAgeMan - Thanks for all the thought, time and effort you've put into this treatise.
I've been reading each post.
I must tell you, though, that it is difficult for me to put much more stock in what one person (guru, teacher, sage, etc...) says over another. There are so many brilliant thinkers (philosophers, etc...), however...that seem to have devoted years, decades --- a lifetime --- into the construction of their world-views...that I will never know "who" is right...IF ANYONE...is right.
I spent years putting together my own "treatise" that ultimately led me away from (as opposed to a deeper into) my life-long belief system...and, as an elderly person, who must still work day in and day out...to stay afloat, I simply don't see an opportunity arising to divert my attention (from earning wages) to these questions...or to revisit the arena of "supernatural" experiences that were my life (deluded or otherwise) for two years (minimum)...only two to three years ago.
My former belief system would have defined me as "demon possessed"...for that period...UNLESS...my former belief system would have seen ALL that happened (like - being URGED to go where people were going to talk about Jesus, and "lay hands on me", and...prophecy...and...on and on and on...).
If a demon was in any way associated with me...IT had no problem with Jesus, or The Name of Jesus...or any other such token/s.
Nevertheless - I have genuinely appreciated your concern and consideration in our conversations...and, I admire your determination and dedication to seeking out...the truth (whatever that really is).
I am not signing off from conversation with you...but am not requiring or needing you to reply to this, either.

I get you.

And of course I'm going to use the opportunity to say something anyway..

I'm not really trying to do a thesis, just try different paradigms on for size, philosophical viewpoints, as much tp UNDO everything I used to think I knew.

Posting this thread and conversing with you is like a practice for me and it really helps me get into the right place from which to speak or have a voice or be myself.

I brainwashed myself as well, we all did.

Where this can have practical application however if we so choose is in the present moment action of our being and becoming, once that activity is recognized and the principal or the false principal of the self undone why then we are free to be whoever we want including who we were already being to begin with!

So it's "nothing special" as an uncaused or unexcelled enlightenment - just humor, charm, and grace, and the virtue, which is really nothing but love, self love and acceptance.

I'm not trying to convince YOU of anything or change you in any way, and if wouldn't be possible even if I tried. I'm trying to convince myself that the experience is real, and it DOES rejuvenate me and give me positive dreams at night.

So even if you didn't or don't get a whole lot out of this thread I would like to thank YOU for listening. Seriously, without you the reader my own strides and gains wouldn't be possible. That's the power of love - you don't even have to be aware of it for it to be effective, but when you do love me, as I love you, then we're in communion whereas I was just alone before. I'm convinced there's something to this form of communication at a forum like this. People many people read these threads. Lurkers they call themselves, but to them I say come on in and play and enter the fray with your whole being!

reply to post by WanDash


And to you my bearded friend in West Texas (don't worry I'm not trying to identify you, or come after you LOL), I wish you peace and joy and happiness in spite of the circumstances and the vicissitudes of life - you're so much like me based on what you've indicated you've done through, like a hero's journey. That's what I said to the creepy Catholic lady Dr. at the hospital as I was being transferred out of that section - "It was just a mythological hero's journey, that's all!" but it didn't seem to satisfy her in who's view I was still a very sick man.

Now here I am attempting to perform Jungian Psychology in its truest form, an ex-mental ward patient, so by no means do you want to take MY word for it! I'm "crazy"!

Originally posted by NewAgeMan
...That's what I said to the creepy Catholic lady Dr. at the hospital as I was being transferred out of that section - "It was just a mythological hero's journey, that's all!" but it didn't seem to satisfy her in who's view I was still a very sick man.
...Now here I am attempting to perform Jungian Psychology in its truest form, an ex-mental ward patient, so by no means do you want to take MY word for it! I'm "crazy"!

We're all crazy...according to someone-else.
I was highly intrigued by his (Jung's) attempts at gaining insight into "synchronicity". At the time, I believed that virtually everything...everything...in my life, was a synchronicity.
What began for me as a "hero's journey", eventually turned into a journey to hell...where even hell, itself, sought to spit me out (if it could find somewhere to defecate)... I often saw myself being expelled, encapsulated in total isolation...from All That Is...
Not a good note to end such an experience/epsiode on...
I hope the path you're on... or the path you believe the answer to lie on...holds great joy, harmony, liberation, and/or, at least (or ultimately - however it should be phrased) peace.

reply to post by WanDash


I will laugh, but I want you to laugh with me, even at the very worst aspect of what we used to be now looking back in the rear view mirror of near 20/20 historical hindsight (how's your vision?).

I went through exactly the same thing, but it had a grace to it, behind the scenes, like a wind that blows.

But freaked right out, synchronicities even in my case actual telepathy at one point when I turned my full attention onto a newcaster on TV to make him totally screw up all his lines and what freaked me out was it WORKED!

Went to the nurse to report it. She was very rude to me and exclaimed that if that were the case I would be God and that she could personally assure me that I'm NOT God (phff!).

For me it's all just comedy the whole thing, and I know that God has a fun and magnificent joke in store for us at the end of time, which will ultimately be by far and by many more magnitudes happier and more joyful than we could ever possibly imagine. (edit: well I'd guess we'd have to at some point..)

And this is from an absolute wretch of a human being let me tell you here and now.

.."Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.... LOL!