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I took this idea from Echart Tolle's autobiographical account of his experience of going from deep depression and suicidal thoughts to a life of happiness in less than a day.
This is what he describes
“I cannot live with myself any longer.” This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. “Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with.” “Maybe,” I thought, “only one of them is real” (http://ir.nmu.org.ua/bitstream/handle/123456789/132423/644a08f155f9a22882b5aefa9a94d7f5.pdf?sequence=1). (Audio book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pexwgk6pabQ)
Discuss.
vespa68
09-02-2016, 09:33 AM
It definately was not in a day. There are many steps involved in letting your higher self take over but he could not explain all that in a book. I did like his book however because he did explain how things work but its not so easy as he says. He is talking about facing fears, facing oneslef to find the highest truth of who you are. This takes a long time and what he describes was only the first time it happened to him. But belive me he had much further to go along.
Not sure I undrrstood your title by the way.
It definately was not in a day. There are many steps involved in letting your higher self take over but he could not explain all that in a book. I did like his book however because he did explain how things work but its not so easy as he says. He is talking about facing fears, facing oneslef to find the highest truth of who you are. This takes a long time and what he describes was only the first time it happened to him. But belive me he had much further to go along.
Not sure I undrrstood your title by the way.
The title is explained in this sentence:
If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with.” “Maybe,” I thought, “only one of them is real”.
He claims there was an overnight transformation from the night before, which is described in the the quote in the OP.
The next morning he describes as:
I was awakened by the chirping of a bird outside the window. I had never heard such a sound before. My eyes were still closed, and I saw the image of a precious diamond. Yes, if a diamond could make a sound, this is what it would be like. I opened my eyes. The first light of dawn was filtering through the curtains. Without any thought, I felt, I knew, that there is infinitely more to light than we realize. That soft luminosity filtering through the curtains was love itself. Tears came into my eyes. I got up and walked around the room. I recognized the room, and yet I knew that I had never truly seen it before. Everything was fresh and pristine, as if it had just come into existence. I picked up things, a pencil, an empty bottle, marveling at the beauty and aliveness of it all. That day I walked around the city in utter amazement at the miracle of life on earth, as if I had just been born into this world.
Tolle describes the whole episode on page 8 (highlighted in yellow) on the pdf here:
(http://ir.nmu.org.ua/bitstream/handl...pdf?sequence=1 (http://ir.nmu.org.ua/bitstream/handle/123456789/132423/644a08f155f9a22882b5aefa9a94d7f5.pdf?sequence=1))
naturesflow
09-02-2016, 12:00 PM
I took this idea from Echart Tolle's autobiographical account of his experience of going from deep depression and suicidal thoughts to a life of happiness in less than a day.
This is what he describes
“I cannot live with myself any longer.” This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. “Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with.” “Maybe,” I thought, “only one of them is real” (http://ir.nmu.org.ua/bitstream/handle/123456789/132423/644a08f155f9a22882b5aefa9a94d7f5.pdf?sequence=1). (Audio book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pexwgk6pabQ)
Discuss.
I haven't read his autobiography and didn't realize this about him.
In this realization, I can see how that kind of shift and awareness can reveal itself simply by speaking the way he was to himself. Some might deem this as negative self talk leading to wanting to die, but in fact it was leading him to end his own separation and the point of *surrender* in training his mind to not want to live with himself any longer, opened the self he could live with.. I guess his separation/depression/willingness to give up, took him *deep* enough to open a gateway of awareness spontaneously which is not uncommon for people who are deep in depression and have lost the will to live. The pain body I imagine has consumed them to a point where the true self takes over. A point of surrender as I call it. Or as I use to have noted it at times, kind of like a bridge within, where you actually cross over from the pain body and open awareness of the real you.
naturesflow
09-02-2016, 12:07 PM
Actually I may have read it in the power of now. Reading your other extract I think I read that in this book.
Actually I may have read it in the power of now. Reading your other extract I think I read that in this book.
All the quotes are from The Power of Now. I linked a pdf of it, and the audio book read by Tolle himself, in the OP.
I was really trying to focus on his turning point, where he was so depressed and suicidal, and then he came across that question:
“I cannot live with myself any longer.” This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. “Am I one or two?"
Lorelyen
09-02-2016, 01:33 PM
Actually I may have read it in the power of now. Reading your other extract I think I read that in this book.
It can happen to us all. I was a teenage were-gerbil until I discovered condensed milk and I was instantly transmogrified.
:wink:
Well, not so far fetched. I started out as a moderately abused rebel, hating my parents. I was placed with new parents and even now am surprised at how quickly I slammed the door on that past. The me was bursting to get free and - very luckily - was given the chance. I look back to see only a spiritual prison.
I haven't read his autobiography and didn't realize this about him.
In this realization, I can see how that kind of shift and awareness can reveal itself simply by speaking the way he was to himself. Some might deem this as negative self talk leading to wanting to die, but in fact it was leading him to end his own separation and the point of *surrender* in training his mind to not want to live with himself any longer, opened the self he could live with.. I guess his separation/depression/willingness to give up, took him *deep* enough to open a gateway of awareness spontaneously which is not uncommon for people who are deep in depression and have lost the will to live. The pain body I imagine has consumed them to a point where the true self takes over. A point of surrender as I call it. Or as I use to have noted it at times, kind of like a bridge within, where you actually cross over from the pain body and open awareness of the real you.
From that quote I made in my previous post, it seems to me that he lived as a person broken into two halves, 'I' can't live with 'myself'. He then thought, now that is strange; is there two of me? Surely not. It sounds to me like he very suddenly realised that this can't really be true, and it all collapsed on himself. I was never a big fan of Tolle, but I like everything he says, and this question, that turned his life around, is particularly interesting.
naturesflow
09-02-2016, 01:38 PM
All the quotes are from The Power of Now. I linked a pdf of it, and the audio book read by Tolle himself, in the OP.
I was really trying to focus on his turning point, where he was so depressed and suicidal, and then he came across that question:
“I cannot live with myself any longer.” This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. “Am I one or two?"
Oh ok I didn't open the link more was focused in his words you laid out for us to focus on.
So in your focus what arises to share about this?
My focus was on looking at understanding it from my perspective but I am interested for you to share further your own thoughts on this?
naturesflow
09-02-2016, 01:43 PM
From that quote I made in my previous post, it seems to me that he lived as a person broken into two halves, 'I' can't live with 'myself'. He then thought, now that is strange; is there two of me? Surely not. It sounds to me like he very suddenly realised that this can't really be true, and it all collapsed on himself. I was never a big fan of Tolle, but I like everything he says, and this question, that turned his life around, is particularly interesting.
Ok I see now. Yes I am with you, it is like he collapsed on himself, I would say I can relate to this personally myself, but not in the way he experienced it of course. I certainly understand how you can shift perspective when you become aware your own self talk in this way, as being something separate to your true self.
He was obviously someone who lead the way in opening up awareness of this in a more faster manifestation process. It shows that the depth of the painbody when you enter it deep enough can trigger a shift to let go or even look more closely at yourself through thought processors.
I mean we are it all and unless you make a connection to move yourself into a new direction with awareness in this way, it can be like being totally consumed by the painbody, which I fully understand.
Oh ok I didn't open the link more was focused in his words you laid out for us to focus on.
So in your focus what arises to share about this?
My focus was on looking at understanding it from my perspective but I am interested for you to share further your own thoughts on this?
I never had experience that resembles Tolle's, but the basic principle, there is a point where one turns their life around. It's similar to Tolle because it's like, smething isn't right, this whole thing isn't even true! Who is 'I' and that other me called 'myself'
When we have self narratives, there is two people in there: so the question would become, who is talking to who?
naturesflow
09-02-2016, 01:59 PM
[QUOTE=Gem]I never had experience that resembles Tolle's, but the basic principle, there is a point where one turns their life around. It's similar to Tolle because it's like, smething isn't right, this whole thing isn't even true! Who is 'I' and that other me called 'myself'
Yes and the way I relate to this is like a readiness, which I feel we can shift into through some kind of trigger. Almost like a light bulb moment that awakens something to see your walking blinded by separation or the feeling awakens something more to look at yourself more closely. It is quite remarkable how it opened for him all the same. I wonder about this as the edge, you know where we discussed somewhere else. That edge of life where he was hanging, makes me wonder if at that point he had reached deep enough in himself, to realize death itself without realizing it or entering it, and as it wasn't his time to die, he had to transform in another way. Like the end of his tether gave him his wings, to ground..
When we have self narratives, there is two people in there: so the question would become, who is talking to who?
Gracey
09-02-2016, 02:09 PM
I took this idea from Echart Tolle's autobiographical account of his experience of going from deep depression and suicidal thoughts to a life of happiness in less than a day.
This is what he describes
“I cannot live with myself any longer.” This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. “Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with.” “Maybe,” I thought, “only one of them is real” (http://ir.nmu.org.ua/bitstream/handle/123456789/132423/644a08f155f9a22882b5aefa9a94d7f5.pdf?sequence=1). (Audio book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pexwgk6pabQ)
Discuss.
Thanks for the links, I have avoided his books and stuff for years. Good time to pay attention to them now.
[quote]
Yes and the way I relate to this is like a readiness, which I feel we can shift into through some kind of trigger. Almost like a light bulb moment that awakens something to see your walking blinded by separation or the feeling awakens something more to look at yourself more closely. It is quite remarkable how it opened for him all the same. I wonder about this as the edge, you know where we discussed somewhere else. That edge of life where he was hanging, makes me wonder if at that point he had reached deep enough in himself, to realize death itself without realizing it or entering it, and as it wasn't his time to die, he had to transform in another way. Like the end of his tether gave him his wings, to ground..
It is my view that this thing isn't a process, and it is instantaneous. Still, with that being said, there are unending depths of self awareness, but, we are self aware right now.
My statement is this: we are conscious now, and that is clear. There is no future state of consciousness that exists. 'You' are not a person remembered in the past nor the person to become in the future . You are as you are now, and that is the true state of consciousness.
Thanks for the links, I have avoided his books and stuff for years. Good time to pay attention to them now.
I like the audio book as one can really listen and introspectively investigate as Tolle is reading, and because it is in his own voice, it is read with the right inflections.
vespa68
09-02-2016, 07:26 PM
Actually I read that book and went through the same thing as he did. The stage he talks about is the last stage, the letting go part. He worked on facing himself for years and was ready to let go. This is similar to the last stage of a full kundalini awakening. There are many stages, many levels, to get to the truest part of who you are. Its better not to lie to oneslef about that. Its an extremely difficult process and difficult to describe in a book.
naturesflow
09-02-2016, 07:37 PM
[QUOTE=Gem][quote=naturesflow]
It is my view that this thing isn't a process, and it is instantaneous. Still, with that being said, there are unending depths of self awareness, but, we are self aware right now.
Yes so I guess in some ways it lays there dormant, waiting to make the *connection*, to become aware we are aware. So that moment even as defining for him in his way became, might be a moment we all have in the now at some point perhaps in potential? If you look at his life leading up to that moment, you could say it was an instantaneous shift from what had been so far/in his process for him, but he could see himself more clearly at that point of his own process. His painbody was about himself and he probably didn't blame the devil or god. Could he have had this had he not let go to the depth he did in his process? I mean people call this stuff gods intervention, the holy spirit intervening, a miracle, but you don't necessarily have this stuff happen because you believe in anything of that nature, it can happen to those who are just being and living their life as they are, no belief at all. Just immersed in themselves as they are. (I don't know if he had beliefs in this way I should add, maybe you would know this, it has been that long since I read this book, that the that now is no longer now..lol )
I am only exploring this, nothing in me is fixed with my flow of ideas, I should add.
If you don't know yourself as being more than the me confined then that other me is going to make itself known one way or another perhaps? So if you believe the other me is God outside of yourself or spirit outside of yourself and not you as it all creating in this aware, then you may never fully see yourself as being the awareness/creator of your own life as you are and are being.
My statement is this: we are conscious now, and that is clear. There is no future state of consciousness that exists. 'You' are not a person remembered in the past nor the person to become in the future . You are as you are now, and that is the true state of consciousness.
Yes I get it. But through my own separation and perceived state of fear or painbody as he often refers to it as, we create some funny ideas about ourselves, I know I did. I guess if we become detached enough in our thinking, we actually allow ourselves some space to observe ourselves more so, being more present with ourselves in the now that we are holding onto and seeing ourselves as it all creating it all. And then naturally asking yourself, who is the one creating this separation of me's, because I certainly don't believe anyone else is creating this in me but me? I think for someone without beliefs in something outside of themselves would potentially have more hope of seeing themselves more clearly than with them.
naturesflow
09-02-2016, 07:55 PM
Actually I read that book and went through the same thing as he did. The stage he talks about is the last stage, the letting go part. He worked on facing himself for years and was ready to let go. This is similar to the last stage of a full kundalini awakening. There are many stages, many levels, to get to the truest part of who you are. Its better not to lie to oneslef about that. Its an extremely difficult process and difficult to describe in a book.
This is what I mean by his process. He did work on himself to create this moment of now he landed in. I don't call them levels, more the unfolding of self from what was to what is in each moment life unfolding and me unfolding with it. His life was his process as it was through each moment. Leading to another moment. Which opened the power of now. I mean the power of now was him meeting himself for the first time really. The person/or potential of himself yet to be known. Which of course is a constant deepening process once your self aware in this way. The power of now revealing more of you, you did or do not know.
We are part of nature, we have our own seasons, cycles, how long we endure these cycles might be determined by how much we let go of in them. How far back to death/emptiness itself we can let go in them in the now. He was ready to die in himself, (not fully conscious of how he was going to die, but his mind talk shows he was ready to end and shift his own process to that degree of opening to himself. He was creating his own process :)
Our true nature naturally knows how to flow and be one with all we are in the now, but the painbody holds on to itself because if it doesn't know their is another me in there creating it, it cannot believe their is more of me than this process one is in.
7luminaries
09-02-2016, 08:13 PM
The title is explained in this sentence:
If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with.” “Maybe,” I thought, “only one of them is real”.
He claims there was an overnight transformation from the night before, which is described in the the quote in the OP.
The next morning he describes as:
I was awakened by the chirping of a bird outside the window. I had never heard such a sound before. My eyes were still closed, and I saw the image of a precious diamond. Yes, if a diamond could make a sound, this is what it would be like. I opened my eyes. The first light of dawn was filtering through the curtains. Without any thought, I felt, I knew, that there is infinitely more to light than we realize. That soft luminosity filtering through the curtains was love itself. Tears came into my eyes. I got up and walked around the room. I recognized the room, and yet I knew that I had never truly seen it before. Everything was fresh and pristine, as if it had just come into existence. I picked up things, a pencil, an empty bottle, marveling at the beauty and aliveness of it all. That day I walked around the city in utter amazement at the miracle of life on earth, as if I had just been born into this world.
Tolle describes the whole episode on page 8 (highlighted in yellow) on the pdf here:
(http://ir.nmu.org.ua/bitstream/handl...pdf?sequence=1 (http://ir.nmu.org.ua/bitstream/handle/123456789/132423/644a08f155f9a22882b5aefa9a94d7f5.pdf?sequence=1))
I also have never read much of Tolle, though his quotes and excerpts from others often seemed on point, even if summed up or in high-level form.
What he describes here is what everyone who has experienced depression knows about. The "lifting" of the depressive state (perhaps having gone on for months or even years) is frequently if not always marked first not by the return of the feeling of well-being...which may be subtle or gradual...but by the re-colouring of your daily life, and of the world around you. Tastes, sounds, smells, sights...everything is experienced more deeply and once again you find yourself in the moment.
This re-colouring is always tied to a particular day when first you became aware you'd "re-emerged", and it does make an impression. The awareness itself is a spiritual moment and has an uplifting quality.
If this has underlain Tolle's spiritual experiences, then this makes him more interesting IMO. Thanks for sharing.
Peace & blessings,
7L
Mr Interesting
09-02-2016, 08:18 PM
Mr Tolle goes on to define this all or nothing falling off the cliff scenario as advantageous over the longer term coming to a realisation with the argument that the ego, or identified and attached self, basically has more to lose because of something approaching equanimity as the ego refines itself in accordance with what might be termed the actual higher self.
Argumentatively though this is of the ends justifies the means whereas the longer term process of skimming off ego and attachment seems more in line with the means justifying the ends and I tend towards this idea as being more practical in a sense of having the process, as it goes towards the end of the unattached self, being more available to others and of a material efficiency in the sense that slow change of the world around us feeds back into what could be an economy of spirituality.
There is also some possibility that one must of had at least some similar circumstances occur as what happened to Mr Tolle to at least have that inkling of a possible perspective to at the very least be able to define the position to take his words to heart which then leads to a wider definition of allowing all kinds of speech back from the point of enlightening which would then need as many perspectives as is possible to create the connections of the relevant perspectives the uninitiated would have.
With all this said I do think we're all getting better at such things to the extent that eventually an understanding of the accumulative ego of the novice would be seen in a better light as to what particular approach would be most valid even to the extent that less ego would be created from the outset of any individual life.
I saw a video yesterday of a dog balancing on a rope and it occurred to me that whilst a dog may only achieve the intelligence of a human at the age of three or four years old the fact they do so quickly, within months, and then have twelve to fifteen years to widen that expression was,for me, a very interesting possibility.
naturesflow
09-02-2016, 08:38 PM
[QUOTE=7luminaries]I also have never read much of Tolle, though his quotes and excerpts from others often seemed on point, even if summed up or in high-level form.
What he describes here is what everyone who has experienced depression knows about. The "lifting" of the depressive state (perhaps having gone on for months or even years) is frequently if not always marked first not by the return of the feeling of well-being...which may be subtle or gradual...but by the re-colouring of your daily life, and of the world around you. Tastes, sounds, smells, sights...everything is experienced more deeply and once again you find yourself in the moment.
Reading this make me wonder about being immersed in depression, everything is there regardless of how I or another might be feeling, everything is there to see regardless of what I or another is seeing. It would only take a view or a feeling opened to feel and see more. In some ways this can occur spontaneously, for any number of reasons. Being present with yourself and opening that way, (inward reflecting) externally reaching outward for something to create something new. We really do seek out our own process and unfolding even without full realization of those processors we are engaging in ...Life calls us in so many ways and life affects us in so many ways. So where we are relating makes no difference, it really just creates a life and process the way we are creating it. Which of course is important to the whole process. If we tip the balance, balance seeks itself in some form of balance that life has created it, which is, everyway of itself.
This re-colouring is always tied to a particular day when first you became aware you'd "re-emerged", and it does make an impression. The awareness itself is a spiritual moment and has an uplifting quality.
This particular day would be about the unfolding that cannot be by passed perhaps? Even as some might determine things as spontaneous, it is in fact what many might refer as *timing* or as I have heard others refer- divine timing. Which really is that your ready for more. TO see more, feel more, your unknown opening to reveal itself. In some ways speaking like this really does make this earth appear to be a kind of *university* of life and learning, through the whole creation of life as it is. We are all part of that process collectively and individually and everything in process in everyway it is in process will be created and manifested as it will by everything we are.
If this has underlain Tolle's spiritual experiences, then this makes him more interesting IMO. Thanks for sharing.
Peace & blessings,
7L
7luminaries
09-02-2016, 08:57 PM
Mr Tolle goes on to define this all or nothing falling off the cliff scenario as advantageous over the longer term coming to a realisation with the argument that the ego, or identified and attached self, basically has more to lose because of something approaching equanimity as the ego refines itself in accordance with what might be termed the actual higher self. Yes...well said. The ego is slowly shown or guided by the higher self...and comes round slowly...such that the higher self is more and more actualised and increasingly comes through in one's daily life. Whilst the distance or dissonance between ego and higher self becomes smaller and smaller. Temporary setbacks notwithstanding :D
Argumentatively though this is of the ends justifies the means whereas the longer term process of skimming off ego and attachment seems more in line with the means justifying the ends and I tend towards this idea as being more practical in a sense of having the process, as it goes towards the end of the unattached self, being more available to others and of a material efficiency in the sense that slow change of the world around us feeds back into what could be an economy of spirituality.
Yes. This is a great concept and a great way to look at it all, from a more organic, interactive perspective. It seems that a fuller study of spirituality at this level is calling out to be observed, discussed, and revised (in the sense of the interactive growth of human consciousness at both micro and macro levels, and various associated measures of both individual & social change) .
There is also some possibility that one must of had at least some similar circumstances occur as what happened to Mr Tolle to at least have that inkling of a possible perspective to at the very least be able to define the position to take his words to heart which then leads to a wider definition of allowing all kinds of speech back from the point of enlightening which would then need as many perspectives as is possible to create the connections of the relevant perspectives the uninitiated would have.
With all this said I do think we're all getting better at such things to the extent that eventually an understanding of the accumulative ego of the novice would be seen in a better light as to what particular approach would be most valid even to the extent that less ego would be created from the outset of any individual life.
I think that would be an ideal long-term result...a more balanced individual across the globe, focused equally on the good of others as on his or her own good. And with the confidence to let the higher self lead (so to speak).
I saw a video yesterday of a dog balancing on a rope and it occurred to me that whilst a dog may only achieve the intelligence of a human at the age of three or four years old the fact they do so quickly, within months, and then have twelve to fifteen years to widen that expression was,for me, a very interesting possibility.
Hahaha...so if dogs reach maturity at a year, we'd need to live nearly 18 to 20 times (allowing for brain maturity too) as long as we currently do, to enjoy things as dogs do. We've got a looooong way to go...but at least we've got them to show us the way.
Peace & blessings,
7L
naturesflow
09-02-2016, 09:03 PM
You really only get from life what you put into it. So where your putting in, is filling up regardless even without full awareness. So if your full of pain, eventually that pain in your own balance will tip the scale back on itself. How that occurs is mostly related to the process your in process with for your own path and how you have managed that pain in yourself and life as one. For some it may mean an entire life of pain body for some and death may bring the balance. But who knows, I don't. :)
7luminaries
09-02-2016, 10:00 PM
[quote]
Reading this make me wonder about being immersed in depression, everything is there regardless of how I or another might be feeling, everything is there to see regardless of what I or another is seeing. It would only take a view or a feeling opened to feel and see more. In some ways this can occur spontaneously, for any number of reasons. Being present with yourself and opening that way, (inward reflecting) externally reaching outward for something to create something new. We really do seek out our own process and unfolding even without full realization of those processors we are engaging in ...Life calls us in so many ways and life affects us in so many ways. So where we are relating makes no difference, it really just creates a life and process the way we are creating it. Which of course is important to the whole process. If we tip the balance, balance seeks itself in some form of balance that life has created it, which is, everyway of itself.
This particular day would be about the unfolding that cannot be by passed perhaps? Even as some might determine things as spontaneous, it is in fact what many might refer as *timing* or as I have heard others refer- divine timing. Which really is that your ready for more. TO see more, feel more, your unknown opening to reveal itself. In some ways speaking like this really does make this earth appear to be a kind of *university* of life and learning, through the whole creation of life as it is. We are all part of that process collectively and individually and everything in process in everyway it is in process will be created and manifested as it will by everything we are.
I think that's all true...I've certainly learnt alot about working with energy and/or light/colour to assess spiritual, emotional, and physical health and balance. It reveals the truth of the body on all levels, including the energy body, which connects and is connected to all aspects of your being. The body and what we call the soul or the higher self have a purity, innocence and truth that reveal everything, including where love is lacking and things are out of balance. Particularly in the realm of spirit, the purity and strength of what is, the simple truth of your being, is absolute bliss as so many have experienced.
I know that when you are in a state of depression, even mild depression, you don't realise it fully but the fullness of colour is dampened or drained off because depression takes you somewhat out of the now, in a very specific way. Just like shock, trauma, grief, or similar...all of which can cause forms of depression....you are (in energetic terms) cut off from your heart centre, or partially cut off. When you reach a tipping point in your healing, the colour (physical sensory awareness and being in the moment more fully) returns such that it makes a conscious impression.
Again, in energetic terms, depression means is some of your channels are blocked or damaged, both energetically (and ultimately physically) and are in need of healing. Often it is just as the psychologists have said...grief and anger are often buried deep. The spiritual, emotional, physical and psychological sources need to be owned and honoured. Loss, shock, injury, trauma or abuse, and so forth are real causes of depression and everything needs its own time to be processed.
Whilst in a state of depression, you yourself cannot do much but ride it out and stay open to the pain. Not fun but very effective at lessening the duration. Grounding and flowing are key. To say that you need to bolster your water and earth elements are an understatement. It is the only way. You need to consciously nurture &/or muster large and ever-replenishing amounts, hahaha! And they must work together...you must be simultaneously deeply rooted in the known of who you are (energy of earth) and yet flexible, interconnected, and open to the unknown of who you are (water energy), through grace and Spirit, to ride the waves.
If you, your personality, your constitution, your work or your daily life, &/or your society does not build or reinforce the elements of water and earth, then your middle chakras are vulnerable...particularly the heart chakra, which is vulnerable to depression and stress on every level, including the physical. To say that Western society does not honour the balance we all need in our lives is pretty obvious...and that's true for many societies.
But it is the simple honouring of Maslow's hierarchy (a modern parallel of the chakras without the energy and metaphysical stuff) that allows us to honour our need to nurture the body and the heart, to grieve, to deal with trauma, depression, and so forth, and thus to heal and seek other things like lifelong learning, peace of mind, equanimity, and various other individual and communal endeavours.
Otherwise depression could keep a person trapped in this state for far longer, ages even. If you have learnt to work with energy for healing, particularly heart healing, it is extremely helpful BTW. Supporting yourself positively and staying connected in ways that work for you, whenever possible, are also extremely helpful. So if we're here to learn, I've learnt some useful things (for me) in the realm of energy work and heart healing.
And apologies to Gem if I was a bit off topic...
As to the me and the me...IMO the one that is always seeking to be heard is the you at centre. Which some call the soul and others, the higher or core self (or Buddha nature). The one that has to learn to listen is the conscious mind, which is interwoven with our ego for both survival and individuation (and they too were interwoven).
Because the truths of the soul or embodied consciousness are often delivered in packages of core, deep-seated emotion (such as pain and intensity), they are often difficult to face or sort. The eternal truths (I am worthy of love or I need to honour the body and rest) may need to be parsed a bit from the pain (feeling abandoned or feeling wounded or exhausted) in order for us to process the eternal truths. But not too much...the body's truths are delivered in their wholeness, and that's how they are best received and sorted IMO, with all their colours, difficult as it may be.
Peace & blessings,
7L
Yes so I guess in some ways it lays there dormant, waiting to make the *connection*, to become aware we are aware. So that moment even as defining for him in his way became, might be a moment we all have in the now at some point perhaps in potential? If you look at his life leading up to that moment, you could say it was an instantaneous shift from what had been so far/in his process for him, but he could see himself more clearly at that point of his own process. His painbody was about himself and he probably didn't blame the devil or god. Could he have had this had he not let go to the depth he did in his process? I mean people call this stuff gods intervention, the holy spirit intervening, a miracle, but you don't necessarily have this stuff happen because you believe in anything of that nature, it can happen to those who are just being and living their life as they are, no belief at all. Just immersed in themselves as they are. (I don't know if he had beliefs in this way I should add, maybe you would know this, it has been that long since I read this book, that the that now is no longer now..lol )
I am only exploring this, nothing in me is fixed with my flow of ideas, I should add.
If you don't know yourself as being more than the me confined then that other me is going to make itself known one way or another perhaps? So if you believe the other me is God outside of yourself or spirit outside of yourself and not you as it all creating in this aware, then you may never fully see yourself as being the awareness/creator of your own life as you are and are being.
Yes I get it. But through my own separation and perceived state of fear or painbody as he often refers to it as, we create some funny ideas about ourselves, I know I did. I guess if we become detached enough in our thinking, we actually allow ourselves some space to observe ourselves more so, being more present with ourselves in the now that we are holding onto and seeing ourselves as it all creating it all. And then naturally asking yourself, who is the one creating this separation of me's, because I certainly don't believe anyone else is creating this in me but me? I think for someone without beliefs in something outside of themselves would potentially have more hope of seeing themselves more clearly than with them.
I think Tolle gets at the 'funny ideas' when he noticed that peculiar thought, 'I' live with 'myself'. This I think is true of the dilemma people face, that division of selves. On this is the story about a person who is the product of the past, both in their life and intergenerationally and also out of society.
My view is, the next story about how all these life problems need to be resolved first before the light comes on is just a continuation of the same story about 'myself'. As Tolle describes, being in that deep depression and anxiety did not have to be processed. He just noticed that funny idea: a 'myself' that 'I' have to live with, and immediately touched the void.
I was so stunned by this strange realization that my mind stopped. I was fully conscious, but there were no more thoughts. Then I felt drawn into what seemed like a vortex of energy. It was a slow movement at first and then accelerated. I was gripped by an intense fear, and my body started to shake. I heard the words "resist nothing," as if spoken inside my chest. I could feel myself being sucked into a void. It felt as if the void was inside myself rather than outside. Suddenly, there was no more fear, and I let myself fall into that void.
wolfgaze
10-02-2016, 05:06 PM
It definately was not in a day. There are many steps involved in letting your higher self take over but he could not explain all that in a book. I did like his book however because he did explain how things work but its not so easy as he says. He is talking about facing fears, facing oneslef to find the highest truth of who you are. This takes a long time and what he describes was only the first time it happened to him. But belive me he had much further to go along.
He does say (elsewhere) that what happened to him is uncommon... Not in the sense that it makes him special, just that people usually do not experience the shift in awareness in the manner that he did...
"For most people, spiritual awakening is a gradual process. Rarely does it happen all at once. When it does, though, it is usually brought about by intense suffering. That was certainly true in my case." ~ Eckhart Tolle
wolfgaze
10-02-2016, 05:21 PM
Thanks for the links, I have avoided his books and stuff for years. Good time to pay attention to them now.
Gracey, here is an excellent series of videos someone composed using audio commentary from Tolle's book 'Stillness Speaks'... The videos are additionally nice because the commentary is set to beautiful nature scenery and relaxing music... These will give you a good idea about the nature of his thoughts and the style of his writing/communication...
The Now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkgNIJLpBEI
Suffering & The End Of Suffering
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDd-_Mdeksc
Silence & Stillness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B0n4IGVWEc
Acceptance & Surrender
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9JgLgBtV-M
Death & The Eternal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ft1rYcht0c
:redface:
Mr Tolle goes on to define this all or nothing falling off the cliff scenario as advantageous over the longer term coming to a realisation with the argument that the ego, or identified and attached self, basically has more to lose because of something approaching equanimity as the ego refines itself in accordance with what might be termed the actual higher self.
I sometimes talk something like an all or nothing, and I simply don't believe there is a process in this regard. I steer clear of stories about a higher self. He makes a good point about equanimity. I don't think we want the 'ego' to refine itself, because my view is, that is actually more like a cleverer disguise for the 'ego'.
Ego according to Tolle:
The term ego means different things to different people, but when I use it here it means a false self, created by unconscious identification with the mind.
In the meditation at the ashram I found the pure equanimity of the mind, and it effectively revealed the ego. It can not attach to me with a still mind. This was clear and tangable - I could watch it as though as though it was a ghost who was very convincing, making me believe it was me. As I watched it with calm curiosity, it became all panicky and I could sense it trying to find a gap in my attention which it could use to get back into me without me noticing it - unconsciously. This isn't something that can integrate with the stillness of being... it has to die.
When I watched this scene of Peaceful Warrior, it was like a deja vu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp53t2ivDYs
The integration is something I experience through the body, but there's no self impressionism or imagery involved with that one. I think that's a side affect of self awareness?
Argumentatively though this is of the ends justifies the means whereas the longer term process of skimming off ego and attachment seems more in line with the means justifying the ends and I tend towards this idea as being more practical in a sense of having the process, as it goes towards the end of the unattached self, being more available to others and of a material efficiency in the sense that slow change of the world around us feeds back into what could be an economy of spirituality.
I think that's right, justifying the ends. I consider ends to be a futuristic projection of 'myself', which I consider to be the projection of 'ego' through time. I'm not sure what kind of story goes on about whoever is getting to the end, but I do believe in listening to what is being said in stories that pertain to 'myself'.
There is also some possibility that one must of had at least some similar circumstances occur as what happened to Mr Tolle to at least have that inkling of a possible perspective to at the very least be able to define the position to take his words to heart which then leads to a wider definition of allowing all kinds of speech back from the point of enlightening which would then need as many perspectives as is possible to create the connections of the relevant perspectives the uninitiated would have.
I'm sure everyone has a very immediate sense of their own presence of being, but maybe it's just the mind trying to figure it out, after the fact, that makes it somewhat obscure?
With all this said I do think we're all getting better at such things to the extent that eventually an understanding of the accumulative ego of the novice would be seen in a better light as to what particular approach would be most valid even to the extent that less ego would be created from the outset of any individual life.
I saw a video yesterday of a dog balancing on a rope and it occurred to me that whilst a dog may only achieve the intelligence of a human at the age of three or four years old the fact they do so quickly, within months, and then have twelve to fifteen years to widen that expression was,for me, a very interesting possibility.
wolfgaze
10-02-2016, 05:42 PM
Gem here is another similar observation on par with what is being communicated in the opening post...
How often do we hear people say something along the lines of "My mind won't stop running", or "My mind is driving me crazy"... We would say this to ourselves but never really stop and become aware of the profound realization that the 'mind' in this instance is being referenced as an object... The 'my' is a possessive pronoun and this directly infers that we exist as the subject and the mind is the object that we express possession of... Therefore we are not and cannot be it (the mind)! "Awareness transcends what it is aware of." ~ Michael Singer... We do not exist as the physical mind (brain), but rather utilize it as a tool during this human lifetime. When we foster this awareness sufficiently, we learn to stop seeking an identity in our physical mind's activity and whatever it's doing - we stop mistaking it for our higher sense of self (identity)... This is how we bring about liberation - freedom from mental suffering... We stop getting lost in the mind's influence and we discover the 'self' that exists above and independent of the physical body & mind.
:icon_smile:
He does say (elsewhere) that what happened to him is uncommon... Not in the sense that it makes him special, just that people usually do not experience the shift in awareness in the manner that he did...
"For most people, spiritual awakening is a gradual process. Rarely does it happen all at once. When it does, though, it is usually brought about by intense suffering. That was certainly true in my case." ~ Eckhart Tolle
Tolles account of what happened to himself sounds like an apt description - but I don't believe the quote in blue is accurate.
wolfgaze
10-02-2016, 05:50 PM
Tolles account of what happened to himself sounds like an apt description - but I don't believe the quote in blue is accurate.
Can you elaborate on what you're thinking?
knightofalbion
10-02-2016, 05:56 PM
The real 'you' is your higher self which is being held hostage by your lower self ...
A human Being
10-02-2016, 06:32 PM
The real 'you' is your higher self which is being held hostage by your lower self ...
So what is this lower self, if it isn't the real you? Is it the person one imagines oneself to be, the illusory sense of self? The implication seems to be that one is really holding oneself hostage by believing in this fiction.
Can you elaborate on what you're thinking?
I did elaborate quite a bit in previous posts, but I'll just take another angle. It's what I'd call a 'fortunate accident'. Suddenly, 'it' is noticed. From my perspective, I can't see how it would be possible to 'progress' to that.
Under this, from our individual perspective, the living consciousness is 'you as you are'. It is not a future imaginary more progressed you. You are not imaginary. You only exist at the moment, just as you are. One can try to exist in the future, or the past - impossible. Consciousness is here because you are here. This is obviously the case.
knightofalbion
10-02-2016, 07:29 PM
So what is this lower self, if it isn't the real you? Is it the person one imagines oneself to be, the illusory sense of self? The implication seems to be that one is really holding oneself hostage by believing in this fiction.
'You' have come from the Divine and one day you will return to the Divine.
naturesflow
10-02-2016, 07:51 PM
'You' have come from the Divine and one day you will return to the Divine.
What if you just come from life as life is and you return to life?
The notion of divine might simply be that somewhere in you, you still separate existence into divine and not divine?
Where as the totality of life and existence is just being itself.
Feeling something compared to something else we name it something to make it be higher compared to something that is in totality all life as one source in everyway created through life.
We move through the whole of course in awareness of how feelings open us to be. It is all here and now, it is all moving through everything as it is, so where is that place we return too?
We also use the mind to call feeling something, where as feeling is just what you feel.
naturesflow
10-02-2016, 08:10 PM
[QUOTE=Gem]I think Tolle gets at the 'funny ideas' when he noticed that peculiar thought, 'I' live with 'myself'. This I think is true of the dilemma people face, that division of selves. On this is the story about a person who is the product of the past, both in their life and intergenerationally and also out of society.
Yes it shows in everyway of division if you look more closely at your own mind and how it does this. I would agree with what you saying about being a product that in fact reveals the nature of ourselves that is not us. It is in fact the world around us created and perceived by us into being. So in what you sharing here, it makes sense we at some point will get what we really are..in the whole process of life and death itself as the continuation. I say continuation only based on my own previous awareness of people passed over and what I sensed through them and their connection at those times. But I don't really know for sure.
My view is, the next story about how all these life problems need to be resolved first before the light comes on is just a continuation of the same story about 'myself'. As Tolle describes, being in that deep depression and anxiety did not have to be processed. He just noticed that funny idea: a 'myself' that 'I' have to live with, and immediately touched the void.
Ah yes the story and others story, that was my dream space last night. Becoming aware of not entertaining others stories when you end your own to stay more present with what is. So what your sharing here fits this whole idea about process. I see that in how we get it, tolle probably was one of the first main roles to share this finding of himself which in turn opened a *new awareness* for people. We tend to believe that everything has to be a certain way, but potentially their is anyway to open awareness without entertaining what we know. If you think about it, if that other self is a product of everything else in the world we lived and created through, we end it all and how we end it all is our call. My feeling is through my own evolvement and awareness of myself, is that we can meet ourselves deeply and direct or we can take our time. In seeing both we then actually might have more choices and people tend to lead this awareness to support others to see this as he shows. Finding a space to actually become the witness of yourself in everyway you are created. Direct to ones knowing. Direct to ones awareness, which I guess resides in the void of all that is in you.
What is interesting though is that he in his direct to the void, opened up a series of books to share about his process and story, so he still entertained us with what the whole ripple of life in its continuation of itself does all the way through with stories and a process just moved in a new direction of itself. He found a point to enter into to create a story, that didn't entertain his suffering, but more entertained his awareness. And these stories probably made him rich in everyway. He found his abundance direct.
You know stories upon stories in everyway of themselves doesn't end while alive, unless you don't share anything and just sit in a room silent somewhere all day long... :)
I was so stunned by this strange realization that my mind stopped. I was fully conscious, but there were no more thoughts. Then I felt drawn into what seemed like a vortex of energy. It was a slow movement at first and then accelerated. I was gripped by an intense fear, and my body started to shake. I heard the words "resist nothing," as if spoken inside my chest. I could feel myself being sucked into a void. It felt as if the void was inside myself rather than outside. Suddenly, there was no more fear, and I let myself fall into that void.
Silent mind opens everything we need to live more consciously aware of ourselves in everyway we are.
Lucyan28
10-02-2016, 08:36 PM
I took this idea from Echart Tolle's autobiographical account of his experience of going from deep depression and suicidal thoughts to a life of happiness in less than a day.
This is what he describes
“I cannot live with myself any longer.” This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. “Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with.” “Maybe,” I thought, “only one of them is real” (http://ir.nmu.org.ua/bitstream/handle/123456789/132423/644a08f155f9a22882b5aefa9a94d7f5.pdf?sequence=1). (Audio book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pexwgk6pabQ)
Discuss.
Hi Gem,
I believe that we all have many "MEs" inside of us, but the important ones are: the "Higher Self" the "Ego" and the "Observer". I used the " " because at the end all of those "MEs" are the same big consciousness. It is helpful to <<separate>> the "MEs" just as a point of reference.
Maybe the suicidal thoughts are some kind of message from your higher self referring to "kill" (transform) the ego (the lower self). What I mean is that you could be experiencing a transformation phase, which is exciting :hug2:
These kind of transformations are really difficult but they're a 100% worth it.
A human Being
10-02-2016, 08:36 PM
'You' have come from the Divine and one day you will return to the Divine.
The implication being that 'you' and the Divine are separate, which I believe to be a mis-perception (though of course, talk is cheap, and it means nothing if you don't know it to be true).
Lucyan28
10-02-2016, 08:43 PM
The implication being that 'you' and the Divine are separate, which I believe to be a mis-perception (though of course, talk is cheap, and it means nothing if you don't know it to be true).
Separation-Union :hug2: just a dualistic perspective of a whole :D
but we still might need such words just to understand it with our logic/language.
[quote]
Yes it shows in everyway of division if you look more closely at your own mind and how it does this. I would agree with what you saying about being a product that in fact reveals the nature of ourselves that is not us. It is in fact the world around us created and perceived by us into being. So in what you sharing here, it makes sense we at some point will get what we really are..in the whole process of life and death itself as the continuation. I say continuation only based on my own previous awareness of people passed over and what I sensed through them and their connection at those times. But I don't really know for sure.
.
Ah yes the story and others story, that was my dream space last night. Becoming aware of not entertaining others stories when you end your own to stay more present with what is. So what your sharing here fits this whole idea about process. I see that in how we get it, tolle probably was one of the first main roles to share this finding of himself which in turn opened a *new awareness* for people. We tend to believe that everything has to be a certain way, but potentially their is anyway to open awareness without entertaining what we know. If you think about it, if that other self is a product of everything else in the world we lived and created through, we end it all and how we end it all is our call. My feeling is through my own evolvement and awareness of myself, is that we can meet ourselves deeply and direct or we can take our time. In seeing both we then actually might have more choices and people tend to lead this awareness to support others to see this as he shows. Finding a space to actually become the witness of yourself in everyway you are created. Direct to ones knowing. Direct to ones awareness, which I guess resides in the void of all that is in you.
What is interesting though is that he in his direct to the void, opened up a series of books to share about his process and story, so he still entertained us with what the whole ripple of life in its continuation of itself does all the way through with stories and a process just moved in a new direction of itself. He found a point to enter into to create a story, that didn't entertain his suffering, but more entertained his awareness. And these stories probably made him rich in everyway. He found his abundance direct.
You know stories upon stories in everyway of themselves doesn't end while alive, unless you don't share anything and just sit in a room silent somewhere all day long... :)
Silent mind opens everything we need to live more consciously aware of ourselves in everyway we are.
When I look at the 'I' and 'myself' it's both the same thing, and not two things. It's a very subtle area because the personality is formed by all the past... if I could talk through this it would be a mighty feat... it's just that there no 'myself' as a story about me, just descriptions of my experiences and mannerisms from my upbringing, culture, age and gender. This comes out in any spontaneous activity and is not other than the expression of consciousness as Gem. I.e. consciousness is as I am. This leads me to suggest, all that about 'you as you are' is 'it'. The last thing I want to do is create an impression that anyone has to be different, on the contrary, How could anyone be different to how they are right now?
A human Being
10-02-2016, 09:03 PM
Silent mind opens everything we need to live more consciously aware of ourselves in everyway we are.
Couldn't agree more, self-awareness is a radical and powerful tool, imo, as it helps to prevent us from being completely overtaken by the dream state :smile: (to be aware of ourselves as the one experiencing the thoughts and feelings, which is essentially what caused Tolle's realisation, I think, is what is known as being 'awake inside the dream,' though I could be wrong on that).
A human Being
10-02-2016, 09:22 PM
Separation-Union :hug2: just a dualistic perspective of a whole :D
but we still might need such words just to understand it with our logic/language.
Not sure I entirely understand, maybe you could elaborate? As I understand it, separation is an illusion and union is the true nature of life, which we fail to see when we identify with form (or to put it another way, when we think in terms of 'me' and 'not me').
Hi Gem,
I believe that we all have many "MEs" inside of us, but the important ones are: the "Higher Self" the "Ego" and the "Observer". I used the " " because at the end all of those "MEs" are the same big consciousness. It is helpful to <<separate>> the "MEs" just as a point of reference.
If I may be frank, from my perspective, the accounts of different me's and selves is a tall story. I have no notions at all of a 'higher self'. In this thread I refer to Tolles definition of ego: A false sense of self created by identification with mind. I am the observer (and the observed in self reflection).
Maybe the suicidal thoughts are some kind of message from your higher self referring to "kill" (transform) the ego (the lower self). What I mean is that you could be experiencing a transformation phase, which is exciting :hug2:
These kind of transformations are really difficult but they're a 100% worth it.
I don't experience suicidal thoughts myself, but I refer to Tolle's account of his experience with it.
P.s. Please no hugs icons for me.
naturesflow
10-02-2016, 10:44 PM
Couldn't agree more, self-awareness is a radical and powerful tool, imo, as it helps to prevent us from being completely overtaken by the dream state :smile: (to be aware of ourselves as the one experiencing the thoughts and feelings, which is essentially what caused Tolle's realisation, I think, is what is known as being 'awake inside the dream,' though I could be wrong on that).
Yes I have heard it called being immersed in the dream within the dream, so in some ways this is kind of like seeing the nature of individuation within the greater whole state. I remember when I was awakening at a deeper level of myself, I had a lot of spontaneous moments of creativity. I do recall this day sitting down drawing how the awakening space felt in me. I drew all this little shapes all joining up together. In some ways it was ending separation in myself, stepping outside of myself to find me in the whole mess created in me in both feeling and seeing, which is what I was doing in myself as one source.
Now of course when you speak the way your showing, the reflection to that is that I would draw a circle within a larger circle for that realization.
But when I actually sit and connect intuitively to the depiction of now in myself and if I were to draw it. It would be infinite (impression of )dark space and light fragments like stars everywhere,so I guess I could draw that in part :)
God-Like
11-02-2016, 09:35 AM
All me's are me ... like each colour makes up the rainbow .
Which colour is more real than the other is a non starter I would say .
x daz x
All me's are me ... like each colour makes up the rainbow .
Which colour is more real than the other is a non starter I would say .
x daz x
I can't see how that means anything. Is it just said as something to sound cute?
God-Like
11-02-2016, 11:24 AM
I can't see how that means anything. Is it just said as something to sound cute?
If we associate the rainbow colours to an individual that feels happy or suicidal then each feeling had that 'me' feels is equally real / unreal .
Feeling happy or joyful is not more real than feeling happy / depressed .
This is my point in that all colours / states of mind are me ...
There is only me ... so any state of mind attained will be 'me' that is of that state of mind .
Tolle contemplates the suicidal me and the non suicidal me as two me's ...
I say there isn't two me's, there is only 'me' feeling suicidal and not .
x daz x
Mr Interesting
11-02-2016, 08:20 PM
I came across a friend this morning on facebook who stated, with an air of perplexed consternation, where are all the queer artistic post structuralists?
Now I don't know what post structuralists are so I googled same and found one one those elaborately constructed intellectualism's that is called philosophy so I went in and read stuff which meant quite a bit of stopping and starting to get my head around what it actually was, and excuse what might be my ignorance, but it seemed rather simple actually and merely stated that a reader can only bring what they understand to any writing. At the same time I was kinda thinking of my friend and wondering why she might require so much structure... for a post structuralist in the sense that the post structuralists were also into de-constructing whatever might have been the construction in some sense to determine the actuality of whatever knowledge was either present or in need of dissemination...
I don't know then if it's all quite paradoxical or merely irony that to advance post structuralism requires it sits on a defined structure.
In this regard doesn't post me-ism require to an extent the structure of me even if the me has been de-constructed to the extent that hardly any 'me' exists? Because without trying to be pedantic the body and the mind which seems the focus of the 'me' still goes on existing with all the other 'me's', as in other body and mind 'me's' and whilst some of the me's are less, and even completely far less constructed as all the other 'me's' even that almost non-me is still a me to all the other 'me's'.
So this me that is me has sat within silence and felt, and been entirely enamoured of that feeling as a whole existence, that unending formlessness as everything as nothing, and enjoyed it all rather immensely though within that too there felt to be an intentiveness to the body, a sense of it connected within the materiality of the world which required further investigation. That, yes one could go off and be within nirvana, as it were, but that the body still felt and was inquisitive as to the possibilities of less restrictive acclimatisation to materiality.
It's the almost like the structured post structuralism in the sense that identity requires re-embracing of itself in a kind of de-constructive process but not that it is de-constructed into nothingness so much as it can be re-constructed that the construction isn't the centre so much as outer layers... a part of many parts but not the whole as we know it.
naturesflow
11-02-2016, 08:33 PM
I came across a friend this morning on facebook who stated, with an air of perplexed consternation, where are all the queer artistic post structuralists?
Now I don't know what post structuralists are so I googled same and found one one those elaborately constructed intellectualism's that is called philosophy so I went in and read stuff which meant quite a bit of stopping and starting to get my head around what it actually was, and excuse what might be my ignorance, but it seemed rather simple actually and merely stated that a reader can only bring what they understand to any writing. At the same time I was kinda thinking of my friend and wondering why she might require so much structure... for a post structuralist in the sense that the post structuralists were also into de-constructing whatever might have been the construction in some sense to determine the actuality of whatever knowledge was either present or in need of dissemination...
I don't know then if it's all quite paradoxical or merely irony that to advance post structuralism requires it sits on a defined structure.
In this regard doesn't post me-ism require to an extent the structure of me even if the me has been de-constructed to the extent that hardly any 'me' exists? Because without trying to be pedantic the body and the mind which seems the focus of the 'me' still goes on existing with all the other 'me's', as in other body and mind 'me's' and whilst some of the me's are less, and even completely far less constructed as all the other 'me's' even that almost non-me is still a me to all the other 'me's'.
So this me that is me has sat within silence and felt, and been entirely enamoured of that feeling as a whole existence, that unending formlessness as everything as nothing, and enjoyed it all rather immensely though within that too there felt to be an intentiveness to the body, a sense of it connected within the materiality of the world which required further investigation. That, yes one could go off and be within nirvana, as it were, but that the body still felt and was inquisitive as to the possibilities of less restrictive acclimatisation to materiality.
It's the almost like the structured post structuralism in the sense that identity requires re-embracing of itself in a kind of de-constructive process but not that it is de-constructed into nothingness so much as it can be re-constructed that the construction isn't the centre so much as outer layers... a part of many parts but not the whole as we know it.
I juggled with this and tossed it around and it made me reconnect with Mr tolle and his experience. When I think *intuitively* about this moment after reading this share of yours, I see that even though Mr Tolle became aware of two me's he actually then opened to more. A view never seen before in himself because he was so heavily loaded by his depression. And in this realization of course his view and world opened in such a way that suddenly he was now immersed in everything he was and knew himself to be.
So in some ways their is no real deconstruction (as you show)going on for him in this way and Gem is noticing, just by being aware of something more in his own mindset and conditioned belief about himself, he then opens to more in feelings and consequently his view. Hence the morning after glow he experienced.
I mean their are so many morning after glows we can experience in engaging in more or experiencing something new overnight.. So it fits really. :wink:
7luminaries
11-02-2016, 10:44 PM
If we associate the rainbow colours to an individual that feels happy or suicidal then each feeling had that 'me' feels is equally real / unreal .
Feeling happy or joyful is not more real than feeling happy / depressed .
This is my point in that all colours / states of mind are me ...
There is only me ... so any state of mind attained will be 'me' that is of that state of mind .
Tolle contemplates the suicidal me and the non suicidal me as two me's ...
I say there isn't two me's, there is only 'me' feeling suicidal and not .
x daz x
Hey there Daz...
I agree it's all you and that all the colours are real, are good, and are you. Or, that it's all "me".
But I also think we can seem to notice different aspects of consciousness at some times that may even appear to be seated at different places in the physical body, even though it is all one ultimately.
This perception may stem from the brain (mental apparatus) receiving and translating consciousness, which is everywhere but which in the individuated sense appears to centre in us at the centre :smile: ...somewhere around the heart area. This "body wisdom" can make it seem that there is a me (observing) and a me (ultimate being)...as I described below at the bottom of my post to NaturesFlow.
As to the me and the me...IMO the one that is always seeking to be heard is the you at centre. Which some call the soul and others, the higher or core self (or Buddha nature). The one that has to learn to listen is the conscious mind, which is interwoven with our ego for both survival and individuation (and they too were interwoven).
Because the truths of the soul or embodied consciousness are often delivered in packages of core, deep-seated emotion (such as pain and intensity), they are often difficult to face or sort. The eternal truths (I am worthy of love or I need to honour the body and rest) may need to be parsed a bit from the pain (feeling abandoned or feeling wounded or exhausted) in order for us to process the eternal truths. But not too much...the body's truths are delivered in their wholeness, and that's how they are best received and sorted IMO, with all their colours, difficult as it may be.
Peace & blessings :hug3:
7L
If we associate the rainbow colours to an individual that feels happy or suicidal then each feeling had that 'me' feels is equally real / unreal .
Ok rainbow colours represent emotions. Good idea. I think colours are emotive.
Feeling happy or joyful is not more real than feeling happy / depressed .
This is my point in that all colours / states of mind are me ...
There is only me ... so any state of mind attained will be 'me' that is of that state of mind .
This is basically what I've been saying about the true state of consciousness being 'you as you are'. The 'being this and that' is like a reference to the presently changing perceived/felt phenomena, but the self is consistent and present as these things continue changing.
Tolle describes it as:
There is the voice, and here I am listening to it, watching it. This I am realization, this sense of your own presence, is not a thought. It arises from beyond the mind.
So when you listen to a thought, you are aware not only of the thought but also of yourself as the witness of the thought. A new dimension of consciousness has come in. (Page 14: http://ir.nmu.org.ua/bitstream/handle/123456789/132423/644a08f155f9a22882b5aefa9a94d7f5.pdf?sequence=1)
Tolle contemplates the suicidal me and the non suicidal me as two me's ...
I say there isn't two me's, there is only 'me' feeling suicidal and not .
x daz x
I came across a friend this morning on facebook who stated, with an air of perplexed consternation, where are all the queer artistic post structuralists?
Now I don't know what post structuralists are so I googled same and found one one those elaborately constructed intellectualism's that is called philosophy so I went in and read stuff which meant quite a bit of stopping and starting to get my head around what it actually was, and excuse what might be my ignorance, but it seemed rather simple actually and merely stated that a reader can only bring what they understand to any writing. At the same time I was kinda thinking of my friend and wondering why she might require so much structure... for a post structuralist in the sense that the post structuralists were also into de-constructing whatever might have been the construction in some sense to determine the actuality of whatever knowledge was either present or in need of dissemination...
Yea - structuralism, by its very definition, doesn't become a thing until it is put in context.
I don't know then if it's all quite paradoxical or merely irony that to advance post structuralism requires it sits on a defined structure.
Precisely.
In this regard doesn't post me-ism require to an extent the structure of me even if the me has been de-constructed to the extent that hardly any 'me' exists? Because without trying to be pedantic the body and the mind which seems the focus of the 'me' still goes on existing with all the other 'me's', as in other body and mind 'me's' and whilst some of the me's are less, and even completely far less constructed as all the other 'me's' even that almost non-me is still a me to all the other 'me's'.
This is a mental requirement for distinction and comparison, that there need be a 'being of me' or 'non being of me'. In the deeper Buddhist philosophy it is explained that these are views, and as such, are wrong perceptions.
So this me that is me has sat within silence and felt, and been entirely enamoured of that feeling as a whole existence, that unending formlessness as everything as nothing, and enjoyed it all rather immensely though within that too there felt to be an intentiveness to the body, a sense of it connected within the materiality of the world which required further investigation. That, yes one could go off and be within nirvana, as it were, but that the body still felt and was inquisitive as to the possibilities of less restrictive acclimatisation to materiality.
Nice! That's what I call 'philosophy'.
It's the almost like the structured post structuralism in the sense that identity requires re-embracing of itself in a kind of de-constructive process but not that it is de-constructed into nothingness so much as it can be re-constructed that the construction isn't the centre so much as outer layers... a part of many parts but not the whole as we know it.
God-Like
12-02-2016, 11:17 AM
Hey there Daz...
I agree it's all you and that all the colours are real, are good, and are you. Or, that it's all "me".
But I also think we can seem to notice different aspects of consciousness at some times that may even appear to be seated at different places in the physical body, even though it is all one ultimately.
This perception may stem from the brain (mental apparatus) receiving and translating consciousness, which is everywhere but which in the individuated sense appears to centre in us at the centre :smile: ...somewhere around the heart area. This "body wisdom" can make it seem that there is a me (observing) and a me (ultimate being)...as I described below at the bottom of my post to NaturesFlow.
Peace & blessings :hug3:
7L
Hey :)
I agree that one can notice different aspects of themselves or consciousness as you have put it . Some peeps experience transformations within themselves that beggars belief, it's almost as if they are a different person but it's not so much about the self prior too was not 'them' also .
Most people notice changes within themselves even in the instance of when the thumping headache ceases or their back pain is no longer, these basic experiences are easy to digest .
If we remove every influence or condition in some shape or form within our lives then one can say this is how I now feel without any .
Is it safe enough to say that what is real is beyond any such influence / conditions, I say not but I understand the connection as to why folk can see it that way ..
A man feels hot one minute and cold the next, if his temperature was at a steady constant then there would be no comparison had ..
Suggesting what is the real me and the unreal me through experiences had is the same thing as experiencing both hot and cold in a simplistic way .
I think beyond the range where hot and cold is felt is just what we are beyond the range of where hot and cold is felt and is neither real or unreal in that respect .
x dazzler x
naturesflow
12-02-2016, 12:29 PM
Hey :)
I agree that one can notice different aspects of themselves or consciousness as you have put it . Some peeps experience transformations within themselves that beggars belief, it's almost as if they are a different person but it's not so much about the self prior too was not 'them' also .
Most people notice changes within themselves even in the instance of when the thumping headache ceases or their back pain is no longer, these basic experiences are easy to digest .
If we remove every influence or condition in some shape or form within our lives then one can say this is how I now feel without any .
Is it safe enough to say that what is real is beyond any such influence / conditions, I say not but I understand the connection as to why folk can see it that way ..
A man feels hot one minute and cold the next, if his temperature was at a steady constant then there would be no comparison had ..
Suggesting what is the real me and the unreal me through experiences had is the same thing as experiencing both hot and cold in a simplistic way .
I think beyond the range where hot and cold is felt is just what we are beyond the range of where hot and cold is felt and is neither real or unreal in that respect .
x dazzler x
I am practicing Daz how to quote the first box the right way like wolf gaze showed me.
Wolfgaze is that right?
God-Like
12-02-2016, 01:05 PM
This is basically what I've been saying about the true state of consciousness being 'you as you are'. The 'being this and that' is like a reference to the presently changing perceived/felt phenomena, but the self is consistent and present as these things continue changing.
Yep,
And I would say one can only be as they are and that can change from momento to momento as you have stated ..
x dazzle x
God-Like
12-02-2016, 01:06 PM
I am practicing Daz how to quote the first box the right way like wolf gaze showed me.
Wolfgaze is that right?
Good for you ... practice makes perfect as the saying goes :biggrin:
x daz x
naturesflow
12-02-2016, 01:15 PM
Good for you ... practice makes perfect as the saying goes :biggrin:
x daz x
Or in my case practice and fifteen messages explaining makes perfect..lol
Jyotir
12-02-2016, 01:49 PM
:hug2:
Consciousness,
which is all there is, all that exists - is fluid, plastic, and can identify (focus attention) with any 'one' aspect of the all-consciousness exclusive of any other - or may identify with The One which is All-conscious, Transcendent, Absolute - and therefore inclusive of all 'aspects' of that One Self.
So...it's all 'me' (theoretically), but (practically) 'I' may concentrate attention on any aspect of totality exclusive of any other - or all, e.g., the totality Itself.
The latter would be (in the full, permanent expression) what is called God-realization.
The former - if unconsciously exclusive, as in the attached identification with the illusion of surface appearance of temporal material 'reality' - would constitute 'normal' waking consciousness (in whatever form) of the unrealized status, hence the experience of division and separation.
In the example of Tolle, he was experiencing the detached observation of one aspect of 'self' simultaneously through another - actually fairly common, i.e., 'I am angry'. One aspect observes/witnesses another. Both however, are in essence and ultimately equally self, even if anger is a very limited and limiting expression of it and the detached observer a relatively higher expression.
:hug:
~ J
How do you know you are?
If one answers, 'someone must be here perceiving all this and thinking this and that,' that's identification with the mind, as it means all this is happening to 'someone'. But, We can see how 'someone' is only a part of the sentence, and has no actual substance.
If there is no answer, but a conscious presence of awareness... we might say, I'm self aware. This gets beyond the rainbows and feelings people seem to think that they are and touches on 'what it is like to be'.
In my case, I am not a rainbow of things. The emotions, like thoughts, are of the body and mind, and that I am isn't the mind. The body and mind are full of passing sensations and emotions and thoughts. The self remains ever presently aware.
Tolle describes:
You may not yet be able to bring your unconscious mind activity into awareness as thoughts, but it will always be reflected in the body as an emotion, and of this you can become aware. To watch an emotion in this way is basically the same as listening to or watching a thought, which I described earlier. The only difference is that, while a thought is in your head, an emotion has a strong physical component and so is primarily felt in the body. You can then allow the emotion to be there without being controlled by it. You no longer are the emotion; you are the watcher, the observing presence. (p.25 (http://www.orgone.ro/doc/The-Power-of-Now.pdf))
It seems that the PDF I posted in the OP and made reference to in the thread has become inactive. From now on I will refer to this PDF http://www.orgone.ro/doc/The-Power-of-Now.pdf
7luminaries
14-02-2016, 03:15 PM
Hey :)
I agree that one can notice different aspects of themselves or consciousness as you have put it . Some peeps experience transformations within themselves that beggars belief, it's almost as if they are a different person but it's not so much about the self prior too was not 'them' also .
Most people notice changes within themselves even in the instance of when the thumping headache ceases or their back pain is no longer, these basic experiences are easy to digest .
Hey there Dazzle :)
Agreed. The difference is most ppl aren't discussing the perception of different aspects of consciousness (me observer and me ultimate being)...largely because they just disregard the body unless they are feeling physical pain or pleasure.
They disregard the truth of their being or heart centre, or are unaware of it most times...unless they are experiencing extreme emotional pain or occasionally great joy.
Most people blithely and blindly assume that the me observer is the only "real" source of their consciousness and ultimate being, however they understand that. That might include many folks on this site as well.
And thus, even though we all may know it is somewhat artificial to speak of me observer and me ultimate being, I think it may still have an awful lot of value just in the mentioning.
So thanks for bearing with me :wink:
If we remove every influence or condition in some shape or form within our lives then one can say this is how I now feel without any .
Is it safe enough to say that what is real is beyond any such influence / conditions, I say not but I understand the connection as to why folk can see it that way ..
Yes - I agree all experiences are real, in the sense of "what is" or of what exists most broadly. Experiences are either real in the concrete, material sense, or they are real in the mental, emotional, or spiritual non-material sense. We experience them either externally and/or internally, through either material or immaterial apprehension and/or engagement.
All our perceptions are equally real, although I completely agree with you that they may be attached to different levels of awareness, or to what appear to be different "seats" or aspects of consciousness. And thus some are always real, in the sense you mean, in that they are enduring and not changeable.
That's where wisdom comes in...as the perceptions of our ultimate being (our centre) are likely to be more enduring and core than the perceptions of our mental apparatus and external sensory translation (our brain).
Initially, this dawning awareness is often experienced as a crisis or a dark night of the soul...but afterwards, it yields great freedom :)
A man feels hot one minute and cold the next, if his temperature was at a steady constant then there would be no comparison had ..
Suggesting what is the real me and the unreal me through experiences had is the same thing as experiencing both hot and cold in a simplistic way .
I think beyond the range where hot and cold is felt is just what we are beyond the range of where hot and cold is felt and is neither real or unreal in that respect .
x dazzler x
I agree we are one and that all exists, both material (finite or temporal existence but recurring in various aspects, like supernovas forming new planets, etc) and immaterial (enduring and existing in all things at all times variously).
So in that largest and broadest sense, I do agree "what is" is not dependent on what we say is real or unreal (this is Einstein's perspective)...but I would still also say that -- to the degree we can apprehend it at all -- it is still all real for us :D...with a big nod to Tagore.
Tagore's position says if we cannot apprehend it, it either doesn't exist or at the very least it doesn't exist (or matter) to us. His position is a little mind-bending but really is more a corollary to Einstein's view, because Tagore's view speaks to the impact of our expanding consciousness on our reality and the nature of truth.
Peace & blessings,
7L
7luminaries
14-02-2016, 03:21 PM
:hug2:
Consciousness,
which is all there is, all that exists - is fluid, plastic, and can identify (focus attention) with any 'one' aspect of the all-consciousness exclusive of any other - or may identify with The One which is All-conscious, Transcendent, Absolute - and therefore inclusive of all 'aspects' of that One Self.
So...it's all 'me' (theoretically), but (practically) 'I' may concentrate attention on any aspect of totality exclusive of any other - or all, e.g., the totality Itself.
The latter would be (in the full, permanent expression) what is called God-realization.
The former - if unconsciously exclusive, as in the attached identification with the illusion of surface appearance of temporal material 'reality' - would constitute 'normal' waking consciousness (in whatever form) of the unrealized status, hence the experience of division and separation.
In the example of Tolle, he was experiencing the detached observation of one aspect of 'self' simultaneously through another - actually fairly common, i.e., 'I am angry'. One aspect observes/witnesses another. Both however, are in essence and ultimately equally self, even if anger is a very limited and limiting expression of it and the detached observer a relatively higher expression.
:hug:
~ J
Agreed...nicely said, as always!
Peace & blessings,
7L
7luminaries
14-02-2016, 03:44 PM
How do you know you are?
If one answers, 'someone must be here perceiving all this and thinking this and that,' that's identification with the mind, as it means all this is happening to 'someone'. But, We can see how 'someone' is only a part of the sentence, and has no actual substance.
If there is no answer, but a conscious presence of awareness... we might say, I'm self aware. This gets beyond the rainbows and feelings people seem to think that they are and touches on 'what it is like to be'.
In my case, I am not a rainbow of things. The emotions, like thoughts, are of the body and mind, and that I am isn't the mind. The body and mind are full of passing sensations and emotions and thoughts. The self remains ever presently aware.
Tolle describes:
You may not yet be able to bring your unconscious mind activity into awareness as thoughts, but it will always be reflected in the body as an emotion, and of this you can become aware. To watch an emotion in this way is basically the same as listening to or watching a thought, which I described earlier. The only difference is that, while a thought is in your head, an emotion has a strong physical component and so is primarily felt in the body. You can then allow the emotion to be there without being controlled by it. You no longer are the emotion; you are the watcher, the observing presence. (p.25 (http://www.orgone.ro/doc/The-Power-of-Now.pdf))
There is a truth here that we can identify strictly with the observer, and there is also a truth to that which Jyotir and others have said, including you...that all is one, including observer and ultimate being. There is a truth in the integration process, which is ongoing.
But I don't agree with Tolle that the sublime joy or expansive love of our being, which I also call emotion in the sense of foundational or core emotions, are superfluous or that we ever get past emotion. I don't quite understand Tolle here, nor anyone who feels the need to parse out and separate some emotion, being the "bad stuff", as superfluous whilst others, being the "good stuff" are somehow not emotion at all.
Emotion exists on a spectrum, and contrary to what some may say, IMO it is a fundamental aspect of being and of consciousness. Dealing with the two polar ends, just for simplicity...
There is core emotion from our centre which is more awakened and aligned in the enduring sense. These are experienced as sublime joy or even bliss, as expansive lovingkindness, and eventually the equanimity which is the product of the two. The equanimity does not cancel out the others, but finds a place alongside them after one regains that golden balance at centre.
And there is emotion which is not from our centre but is more a product of our mental apparatus and its various neural survival-related mechanisms...such as fear, anxiety, anger, jealousy, etc. These can be fleeting but also maybe quite enduring and quite entrenched...if we are less awakened and aligned to our true nature.
I think it doesn't help the discussion at all to split emotion into good and bad, or emotion which is emotion (bad and somehow only tied to the body??? but not the mind???) and emotion which isn't emotion at all (good and thus somehow not tied to the body at all ???). The latter being praised as acceptable emotion (but which thus must not be "just" emotion), such as lovingkindness, joy, equanimity, etc. I don't know why Tolle or anyone does this, really, and I've never quite sorted it...I'm sure they have their reasons, but I think it confuses, alienates and shames people, potentially.
Instead of denying them or just finding a new way to label them, I believe it's better to just say we have emotions and we can experience more of the good stuff, the more awakened and aligned with our centre & our true natures that we are. It is a by-product of right alignment and right action, etc...but these core emotions serve as guideposts and for many, as strong incentives and reinforcement.
Then a whole new universe of discussion and reflection opens up, about integrity and right alignment. About what we're doing and saying right now in our daily lives, and how it is or is not aligned with who we really are at centre.
Peace & blessings,
7L
blackraven
14-02-2016, 04:38 PM
I took this idea from Echart Tolle's autobiographical account of his experience of going from deep depression and suicidal thoughts to a life of happiness in less than a day.
This is what he describes
“I cannot live with myself any longer.” This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. “Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with.” “Maybe,” I thought, “only one of them is real” (http://ir.nmu.org.ua/bitstream/handle/123456789/132423/644a08f155f9a22882b5aefa9a94d7f5.pdf?sequence=1). (Audio book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pexwgk6pabQ)
Discuss.
Gem - I read the Power of Now and it impacted me quite a lot. Having been in the same situation earlier in life, I asked myself what was so miserable and what I came up with was the (my) ego self. Some have said the ego is the enemy of the real self. Getting to that real self doesn’t necessarily mean giving up the ego self, but moving past just the ego self. I have heard some people say depression is anger turned inward, but when the ego is involved more so than the genuine self, it seems more to me it’s anger turned outward toward others that threaten what we defend as the “self”. Losing control of what one wants to project cracks and the “self’s” essence falls apart because depression skews ones view of self worth, life meaning and purpose, in my experience.
Definition wise, the self is the subject of one's own experience of phenomena: perception, emotions and thoughts. Life experiences get factored into there too. I is a name we refer to self to separate the self from others, like saying “I (me) am going to the store; (not we).
To be quite honest ‘the self’ and ‘I’ get kind of intermingled in my mind. Which me is me? Both. One does not exist without the other. Mental health depends on a healthy relationship with the two living as one as apposed to one fracturing the relationship.
Perception, emotions and thoughts combined with life experiences impact a detachment from both ‘the self’ and ‘I’ or as a puzzle not yet put together. But I feel when one moves away from just ego to a consciousness of just being and seeing others as just being too, a new kind of respect and maybe awe for who one is can start to take place. I think that’s what The Power of Now capitalizes on and hits home with a lot of people. If one can let go of all past conditioning from life experiences and let go of worrying about the future (outcome of ones life), all that is left is the existence of self/I in the present moment. Taking away pain and suffering of attack on the ego leaves a healthier means of living…just being.
There is a truth here that we can identify strictly with the observer, and there is also a truth to that which Jyotir and others have said, including you...that all is one, including observer and ultimate being. There is a truth in the integration process, which is ongoing.
I claim that self is without regard to phenomena. The self is present witness to change as it is unfolding. This seems quite obvious.
But I don't agree with Tolle that the sublime joy or expansive love of our being, which I also call emotion in the sense of foundational or core emotions, are superfluous or that we ever get past emotion. I don't quite understand Tolle here, nor anyone who feels the need to parse out and separate some emotion, being the "bad stuff", as superfluous whilst others, being the "good stuff" are somehow not emotion at all.
I'm not sure Tolle said that. I quote.
an emotion has a strong physical component and so is primarily felt in the body. You can then allow the emotion to be there without being controlled by it. You no longer are the emotion; you are the watcher, the observing presence.(p.25 (http://www.orgone.ro/doc/The-Power-of-Now.pdf))
Emotion exists on a spectrum, and contrary to what some may say, IMO it is a fundamental aspect of being and of consciousness. Dealing with the two polar ends, just for simplicity...
Even at a pure logical level, we know it only exists momentarily. This isn't often realised directly, but we at least can understand it as self-evident.
What people think of as 'my emotions' are feelings extended into memory and projected futuristically in the imagination. This makes it seem like there is someone who endures them - but we can at least logically deduce that there is only a momentary experience.
How many people stop and feel? Not try to heal or feel better or fix it; or otherwise, cling to it, try to make it last or attempt to invoke a feeling they remember, but simply feel?
One of the main tasks of the mind is to fight or remove that emotional pain, which is one of the reasons for its incessant activity, but all it can ever achieve is to cover it up temporarily (p.28).
If the emotion is there, it is there, and the last thing we want to do is go into conflict with it. We don't have to repress it, or express it. It's there, as a fact, and the ego wants to get all involved in making it about 'me', but the emotion is the real phenomena, and that me story is untrue. To be there with it, or as it, if you prefer, means to be presently aware of it without becoming disturbed by it (equanimity) - without any choice to accept or reject or allow or resist or whatever, but simply to know what it is like. It will unwind into that quiet awareness and become fully understood.
In regards to love and joy, these are intrinsic to presence of being. Our presence can be aptly described as the outpouring of love.
There is core emotion from our centre which is more awakened and aligned in the enduring sense. These are experienced as sublime joy or even bliss, as expansive lovingkindness, and eventually the equanimity which is the product of the two. The equanimity does not cancel out the others, but finds a place alongside them after one regains that golden balance at centre.
Yeppers.
And there is emotion which is not from our centre but is more a product of our mental apparatus and its various neural survival-related mechanisms...such as fear, anxiety, anger, jealousy, etc. These can be fleeting but also maybe quite enduring and quite entrenched...if we are less awakened and aligned to our true nature.
This sounds about right.
I think it doesn't help the discussion at all to split emotion into good and bad, or emotion which is emotion (bad and somehow only tied to the body??? but not the mind???) and emotion which isn't emotion at all (good and thus somehow not tied to the body at all ???). The latter being praised as acceptable emotion (but which thus must not be "just" emotion), such as lovingkindness, joy, equanimity, etc. I don't know why Tolle or anyone does this, really, and I've never quite sorted it...I'm sure they have their reasons, but I think it confuses, alienates and shames people, potentially.
I don't know who split emotion into good as bad. I didn't notice that in Tolle (though I only glanced over the book). I think if we understand equanimity, we also understand the suffering inherent in not emotion per-se, but emotional reactivity. It's obvious that this both disturbs a person's peace of mind and is hurtful to those around them.
Instead of denying them or just finding a new way to label them, I believe it's better to just say we have emotions and we can experience more of the good stuff, the more awakened and aligned with our centre & our true natures that we are. It is a by-product of right alignment and right action, etc...but these core emotions serve as guideposts and for many, as strong incentives and reinforcement.
We tend to find that people try to evoke 'positive emotion' in the pursuit of pleasure, which has no lasting affect, and is core to addiction, obsession etc, and is more like a 'positive suffering'... so the emotional topic is a complex one... difficult to generalise on.
Then a whole new universe of discussion and reflection opens up, about integrity and right alignment. About what we're doing and saying right now in our daily lives, and how it is or is not aligned with who we really are at centre.
Peace & blessings,
7L
In the end, we can go on any tangent, but the real deal is bring the attention back here and be present. It's not a complicated or 'spiritually advanced'. It's very simple to just feel ones own presence.
Gem - I read the Power of Now and it impacted me quite a lot. Having been in the same situation earlier in life, I asked myself what was so miserable and what I came up with was the (my) ego self. Some have said the ego is the enemy of the real self. Getting to that real self doesn’t necessarily mean giving up the ego self, but moving past just the ego self. I have heard some people say depression is anger turned inward, but when the ego is involved more so than the genuine self, it seems more to me it’s anger turned outward toward others that threaten what we defend as the “self”. Losing control of what one wants to project cracks and the “self’s” essence falls apart because depression skews ones view of self worth, life meaning and purpose, in my experience.
Oh dear, why do people pretend to know what depression is and try to rationalise it? Isn't it ironic that we rationalise madness and emotion? hahaha. I don't think there is a thing such as the ego self that is apart from thoughts that pertain to the self. In this context I become agreeable that 'we are the emotions' (or more to the point emotional reactivity). In this sense there is no me apart from the emotion because the ego is within, and is not other than emotional/psychological reactivity. The listener, who hears or is aware of internal narrative knows that the story isn't pertinent to itself, but pertains to a dream figure who is not apart from the process of belief and thought. If we can just stop and listen, then there is a sense of present awareness within which this entire process happens to be unfolding. That is not a quest to quell the emotion (adversity to the emotion is just a continuation of the battle) - it's coming back to the truth of the situation.
Definition wise, the self is the subject of one's own experience of phenomena: perception, emotions and thoughts. Life experiences get factored into there too. I is a name we refer to self to separate the self from others, like saying “I (me) am going to the store; (not we).
Indeed the persona is formed by all the past, and the subject 'I' is not other than that. The self I refer to is not actually regarded as I as it pertains to the individual. The self I refer to is present and that isn't different for me and you. It is the same for every person irrespective of all the past.
To be quite honest ‘the self’ and ‘I’ get kind of intermingled in my mind. Which me is me? Both. One does not exist without the other. Mental health depends on a healthy relationship with the two living as one as apposed to one fracturing the relationship.
Same here. I suppose the self is in self reflection (self awareness?), even at a very fundamental level. It seems that the very artifact of acknowledgment is an inter-definitive dual, but is understood heartfully, and difficult to articulate.
Perception, emotions and thoughts combined with life experiences impact a detachment from both ‘the self’ and ‘I’ or as a puzzle not yet put together. But I feel when one moves away from just ego to a consciousness of just being and seeing others as just being too, a new kind of respect and maybe awe for who one is can start to take place. I think that’s what The Power of Now capitalizes on and hits home with a lot of people. If one can let go of all past conditioning from life experiences and let go of worrying about the future (outcome of ones life), all that is left is the existence of self/I in the present moment. Taking away pain and suffering of attack on the ego leaves a healthier means of living…just being.
Sounds just right.
7luminaries
27-02-2016, 11:03 PM
I claim that self is without regard to phenomena. The self is present witness to change as it is unfolding. This seems quite obvious.
Sorry for the delay Gem...I saw this had several parts and so I wanted to come back when I could respond properly.
I don't locate the self purely in the observer state. Nor in the ultimate being state. Both of these aspects have both temporal and enduring qualities IMO. In our individuated existence, self to me (in whatever fashion we understand it) seems most properly realised as the integration of the two. But certainly the self as observer is a part of our reality.
I'm not sure Tolle said that. I quote.
an emotion has a strong physical component and so is primarily felt in the body. You can then allow the emotion to be there without being controlled by it. You no longer are the emotion; you are the watcher, the observing presence.(p.25 (http://www.orgone.ro/doc/The-Power-of-Now.pdf))
Yer perhaps not...however to my mind, when Tolle says emotion is primarily felt by the body and that you can detach yourself from it, then IMO he has both denigrated and objectified emotion to suit his purposes...which seems to be implicitly antagonistic (you must detach and observe so it does not control you).
I get the positive aspects of making space to get some perspective, and of learning to be more self-aware. It's just that personally I don't think getting away from one's emotions is the best way to make peace with them -- much less to progress spiritually -- and it's not clear to me if many of the gurus understand that.
Many other ordinary folks have simply said count to ten, call a friend, deep breaths, come over for tea and we'll talk, or meditate on it. Or, go to your happy place, etc. Perhaps Tolle really does understand it in this way (?), that emotion is primarily "in the body", although it does not align with my understanding at all. I find this sort of odd, dualistic conceptualisation to be common in many spiritual circles. I find the whole concept extremely alienating and artificial, but if it helps some then good on them.
I also disagree with the assertion that emotion is felt by the body (does he mean the heart? I rather assume he literally means the body)...rather than being felt (experienced) by the heart/mind/consciousness. The heart itself is not strictly a physical entity but is heavily involved in entraining mind and body to spirit or pure consciousness. I cannot fathom the purpose of this sort of assertion except to allow many of us to separate and disassociate from ourselves and our feelings...even though I'm certain that's not what is actually stated.
Even at a pure logical level, we know it only exists momentarily. This isn't often realised directly, but we at least can understand it as self-evident.
What people think of as 'my emotions' are feelings extended into memory and projected futuristically in the imagination. This makes it seem like there is someone who endures them - but we can at least logically deduce that there is only a momentary experience. Agree and disagree. I think there are momentary, passing emotions, and I also think there are enduring, awakened emotions. All are emotion but since we experience them so differently (fleeting sadness or happiness, fear or anger, say, versus enduring joy, lovingkindness, or equanimity) that many think they need to use emotion only for what is fleeting but once emotions become more enduring and expansive, they must be something else somehow and not emotion at all.
I don't find this distinction to be true to my experience and again, I find it unnecessarily confusing. I think we experience emotion one way when we are less awakened to our true nature, whilst we increasingly experience them another way once we begin to awaken to our true nature. We begin to realise that certain enduring emotions are the very ground of our being. They colour or saturate our experience of life and of consciousness (for lack of a better term) in a way that is beyond our comprehension until that time.
How many people stop and feel? Not try to heal or feel better or fix it; or otherwise, cling to it, try to make it last or attempt to invoke a feeling they remember, but simply feel?
One of the main tasks of the mind is to fight or remove that emotional pain, which is one of the reasons for its incessant activity, but all it can ever achieve is to cover it up temporarily (p.28).
If the emotion is there, it is there, and the last thing we want to do is go into conflict with it. We don't have to repress it, or express it. It's there, as a fact, and the ego wants to get all involved in making it about 'me', but the emotion is the real phenomena, and that me story is untrue. To be there with it, or as it, if you prefer, means to be presently aware of it without becoming disturbed by it (equanimity) - without any choice to accept or reject or allow or resist or whatever, but simply to know what it is like. It will unwind into that quiet awareness and become fully understood.
Absolutely agree with the need to experience it rather than deny it, box it in, categorise it, or any of that. I disagree however that the me story is untrue. It is true, but only in part. It is not the only truth, and it must be sorted and evaluated by you for its contribution to the totality of your truth. For example...persistent, deep-seated emotional pain surfaces (or subsurfaces) for a reason...and typically it is for acknowledgment, acceptance, grieving, and healing.
If the larger totality of your truth is that you must not only own your pain but that you need to change your environment to prevent recurring abuse or trauma, then it is not enough to either ignore your pain (bad) or even to continue to accept and endure it as your lot (insufficient). Here, it is the persistent and recurring aspect of your emotional pain that is its most meaningful contribution to the totality of your truth at this time.
Because rational evaluation of our situation rarely yields our deepest insights or revelations, our emotions are our truest guides when they are aligned with spirit (balanced, centred, and expansive, and otherwise seeking toward these states) and thus situated within the larger totality of our truth.
In regards to love and joy, these are intrinsic to presence of being. Our presence can be aptly described as the outpouring of love. Yer agreed and very nicely said. I would even more specifically state that the emotions of love and joy are foundational and intrinsic to the presence of being, and that the more awakened we are to our true natures, the more we realise the truth of these foundational and intrinsic emotions (or, emotional states, which implies a persistence and an enduring quality).
I don't know who split emotion into good as bad. I didn't notice that in Tolle (though I only glanced over the book). I think if we understand equanimity, we also understand the suffering inherent in not emotion per-se, but emotional reactivity. It's obvious that this both disturbs a person's peace of mind and is hurtful to those around them.
I don't know either but I see it all over the place. Yes - that is a great distinction and a very important one to make. I think you hit on the very essence of it. Just because emotional reactivity is often unpleasant and negative, that doesn't mean emotion -- the whole lot of it -- is bad or low. This is a weird sort of transference that so many seem to make and it is always odd and jarring to me. We know that lovingkindness and joy are wonderful things, so how could emotion as a whole be bad or undesirable?
It's clear where this comes from, IMO. Emotional pain can be so brutal and unbearable, so toxic and caustic, that sadly many spend their lives and even their spiritual pursuits in search of new ways to "transcend" the hell of unawakened emotion. They do so without realising that peace, love, and balanced emotion will permeate and suffuse their awakened being. And that ultimately they can't progress (so to speak) out of that hell whilst they've put their emotions on ice and disallowed their own experiences, feelings, and progress to flow naturally.
We tend to find that people try to evoke 'positive emotion' in the pursuit of pleasure, which has no lasting affect, and is core to addiction, obsession etc, and is more like a 'positive suffering'... so the emotional topic is a complex one... difficult to generalise on.
Addiction is a huge problem in our society today, the vast part of it being unacknowledged, routinised, and even condoned as "mainstream behaviour". The degree to which this misdirects, erodes, and destroys personal growth in every aspect of life is not to be understated, that's for certain.
Feeding addictive patterns in pursuit of pleasurable feelings is not at all what I said or meant, but I agree that seeking positive emotion primarily in pursuit of pleasure is a real danger for many and will misdirect them greatly. It's really not the same thing at all at that point, is it?
What I spoke of was positive emotion tied to right-aligned intent, word, and deed. That will tend to steer one in the right direction as a general guide, and the positive emotion that is associated with right alignment is just as we've been saying all along...it is sublime joy, lovingkindness, and/or equanimity.
How we as a society redirect individuals away from the web of addictive patterns in core aspects of their lives -- particuarly when society itself actively condones, encourages, and reinforces addictions whilst condemning those who are addicted -- is another discussion entirely, but a good one and a necessary one.
In the end, we can go on any tangent, but the real deal is bring the attention back here and be present. It's not a complicated or 'spiritually advanced'. It's very simple to just feel ones own presence.
Agreed...simple but not always easy if we have been told by various spiritual authorities all over the place that various fundamental aspects of our being (like emotion) are all or largely all bad, or need to be detached from, got over, or transcended. Or rigorously beat out of us by mortifying the flesh, LOL, or whatever. Our presence is all of that...it is the physical presence, it is the observer, it is the ultimate being, and it is the ground of lovingkindness and sublime joy.
Peace & blessings,
7L
Sorry for the delay Gem...I saw this had several parts and so I wanted to come back when I could respond properly.
I don't locate the self purely in the observer state. Nor in the ultimate being state. Both of these aspects have both temporal and enduring qualities IMO. In our individuated existence, self to me (in whatever fashion we understand it) seems most properly realised as the integration of the two. But certainly the self as observer is a part of our reality.
I don't see any reason to validate self's in whatever fashion we understand it when there are clear cases of false self identification. I don't see any temporal aspects of the self, and I only see an individuated existence in the sensory experiences of different bodies.
Yer perhaps not...however to my mind, when Tolle says emotion is primarily felt by the body and that you can detach yourself from it, then IMO he has both denigrated and objectified emotion to suit his purposes...which seems to be implicitly antagonistic (you must detach and observe so it does not control you).
I think the point is, you are either overwhelmed by emotion, or not. Emotion is obviously felt throughout the body, so one can approach it through body awareness. It's a good idea.
I get the positive aspects of making space to get some perspective, and of learning to be more self-aware. It's just that personally I don't think getting away from one's emotions is the best way to make peace with them -- much less to progress spiritually -- and it's not clear to me if many of the gurus understand that.
Emotions is a feeling so all Tolle is saying is, feel it without becoming all involved in it. It's a passing thing which is felt.
You remain present while it changes. I think that's quite obviously the case.
Many other ordinary folks have simply said count to ten, call a friend, deep breaths, come over for tea and we'll talk, or meditate on it. Or, go to your happy place, etc. Perhaps Tolle really does understand it in this way (?), that emotion is primarily "in the body", although it does not align with my understanding at all. I find this sort of odd, dualistic conceptualisation to be common in many spiritual circles. I find the whole concept extremely alienating and artificial, but if it helps some then good on them.
The count to ten is a control or suppression technique, so effective in immediate circumstances but not a healing strategy. Meditation, as Tolle describes it, is through the body, so it involves feeling it.
I also disagree with the assertion that emotion is felt by the body (does he mean the heart? I rather assume he literally means the body)...rather than being felt (experienced) by the heart/mind/consciousness. The heart itself is not strictly a physical entity but is heavily involved in entraining mind and body to spirit or pure consciousness. I cannot fathom the purpose of this sort of assertion except to allow many of us to separate and disassociate from ourselves and our feelings...even though I'm certain that's not what is actually stated.
I feel emotion in the body. Maybe as a psychic affect throughout the body.
Agree and disagree. I think there are momentary, passing emotions, and I also think there are enduring, awakened emotions. All are emotion but since we experience them so differently (fleeting sadness or happiness, fear or anger, say, versus enduring joy, lovingkindness, or equanimity) that many think they need to use emotion only for what is fleeting but once emotions become more enduring and expansive, they must be something else somehow and not emotion at all.
I've never felt an enduring emotion of any kind, just changing feelings.
I don't find this distinction to be true to my experience and again, I find it unnecessarily confusing. I think we experience emotion one way when we are less awakened to our true nature, whilst we increasingly experience them another way once we begin to awaken to our true nature. We begin to realise that certain enduring emotions are the very ground of our being. They colour or saturate our experience of life and of consciousness (for lack of a better term) in a way that is beyond our comprehension until that time.
'True nature' is the same as 'self'. I see the 'ground of being' like the outpouring of love, which is inherent to nature.
Absolutely agree with the need to experience it rather than deny it, box it in, categorise it, or any of that. I disagree however that the me story is untrue. It is true, but only in part. It is not the only truth, and it must be sorted and evaluated by you for its contribution to the totality of your truth. For example...persistent, deep-seated emotional pain surfaces (or subsurfaces) for a reason...and typically it is for acknowledgment, acceptance, grieving, and healing.
The story about me isn't true. I don't have a 'your truth' and I only know truth in terms of honesty and trust. Indeed, emotional pain is acknowledged to be healed... but that's not personal per se - it's more like something to do with the greater overall consciousness.
If the larger totality of your truth is that you must not only own your pain but that you need to change your environment to prevent recurring abuse or trauma, then it is not enough to either ignore your pain (bad) or even to continue to accept and endure it as your lot (insufficient). Here, it is the persistent and recurring aspect of your emotional pain that is its most meaningful contribution to the totality of your truth at this time.
Things that are true are universal and apply to everyone. I can't remember Tolle or anyone else saying to ignore pain. I think it's more like giving no importance to it. It feels bad for a while then it changes. If people are attached to it then they find ways to reproduce it, and when they are tired of it they stop repeating that behaviour, and thus make changes in their life. I guess Tolle got tired of perpetuating his misery and stopped. Meditation stopping, so all that has been avoided catches up and all that is desired is let go. There becomes no importance to past events or future conjectures, and one surrenders to this inevitable moment.
Because rational evaluation of our situation rarely yields our deepest insights or revelations, our emotions are our truest guides when they are aligned with spirit (balanced, centred, and expansive, and otherwise seeking toward these states) and thus situated within the larger totality of our truth.
You seem convinced that individuals have possession of the truth.
Yer agreed and very nicely said. I would even more specifically state that the emotions of love and joy are foundational and intrinsic to the presence of being, and that the more awakened we are to our true natures, the more we realise the truth of these foundational and intrinsic emotions (or, emotional states, which implies a persistence and an enduring quality).
I don't know either but I see it all over the place. Yes - that is a great distinction and a very important one to make. I think you hit on the very essence of it. Just because emotional reactivity is often unpleasant and negative, that doesn't mean emotion -- the whole lot of it -- is bad or low. This is a weird sort of transference that so many seem to make and it is always odd and jarring to me. We know that lovingkindness and joy are wonderful things, so how could emotion as a whole be bad or undesirable?
The suffering is withing the psychological reactivity, so resistance and avoidance of 'bad emotion' or attachment and craving/clinging to 'good emotion' is suffering. At the center of this is 'me who avoids and craves', and that's what I call 'ego'. Things are not actually undesirable or desirable. This is just a subjective matter of preference.
It's clear where this comes from, IMO. Emotional pain can be so brutal and unbearable, so toxic and caustic, that sadly many spend their lives and even their spiritual pursuits in search of new ways to "transcend" the hell of unawakened emotion. They do so without realising that peace, love, and balanced emotion will permeate and suffuse their awakened being. And that ultimately they can't progress (so to speak) out of that hell whilst they've put their emotions on ice and disallowed their own experiences, feelings, and progress to flow naturally.
That's basically why we shouldn't stop a feeling or a thought from happening. What we call 'bad emotion' is really just feelings that were stopped. All we do from now on is leave the thoughts and feelings alone, being aware of what we think and feel, without trying to control and stop and allow and resist. That means the avoidance/controlling behaviour stops, so nothing new is being added, and by the same token, the old rubbish burns off its psychic energy.
Addiction is a huge problem in our society today, the vast part of it being unacknowledged, routinised, and even condoned as "mainstream behaviour". The degree to which this misdirects, erodes, and destroys personal growth in every aspect of life is not to be understated, that's for certain.
Feeding addictive patterns in pursuit of pleasurable feelings is not at all what I said or meant, but I agree that seeking positive emotion primarily in pursuit of pleasure is a real danger for many and will misdirect them greatly. It's really not the same thing at all at that point, is it?
Addiction must be the avoidance of withdrawl symptoms and the seeking of more pleasurable sensations. This, more often than not, has an emotional component to it.
What I spoke of was positive emotion tied to right-aligned intent, word, and deed. That will tend to steer one in the right direction as a general guide, and the positive emotion that is associated with right alignment is just as we've been saying all along...it is sublime joy, lovingkindness, and/or equanimity.
I think this hinges on honesty, and walking in the truth will lead in the optimum direction, which requires trust... (bit of a complex subject)
How we as a society redirect individuals away from the web of addictive patterns in core aspects of their lives -- particuarly when society itself actively condones, encourages, and reinforces addictions whilst condemning those who are addicted -- is another discussion entirely, but a good one and a necessary one.
Agreed...simple but not always easy if we have been told by various spiritual authorities all over the place that various fundamental aspects of our being (like emotion) are all or largely all bad, or need to be detached from, got over, or transcended. Or rigorously beat out of us by mortifying the flesh, LOL, or whatever. Our presence is all of that...it is the physical presence, it is the observer, it is the ultimate being, and it is the ground of lovingkindness and sublime joy.
Peace & blessings,
People really don't need spiritual authorities to tell them how to be. The sense that I am here isn't obscure and there are no guidelines to it. One's presence is easily acknowledged, like, this consciousness is here... need I state the obvious.
7luminaries
28-02-2016, 07:47 PM
I don't see any reason to validate self's in whatever fashion we understand it when there are clear cases of false self identification. I don't see any temporal aspects of the self, and I only see an individuated existence in the sensory experiences of different bodies.
That's fine if that's true for you (at this moment).
I see a more deeply connected multidimensional individuated existence with non-temporal and non-sensory aspects (at this moment).
We can agree to disagree and that's fine with me.
I think the point is, you are either overwhelmed by emotion, or not. Emotion is obviously felt throughout the body, so one can approach it through body awareness. It's a good idea.
It's not a good idea unless that's what you're experiencing. For you, perhaps it's a good idea and that's fine.
For me, there is some truth to locating emotional experience in the body, some of the time. But it is partial even then and does not fully or accurately describe my emotional experience or its physical location.
In fact, it's detrimental and misdirecting to the point that it is actively not helpful for me to try to fit my emotional experience into the "body" box.
I also don't feel overwhelmed with emotion even when I am fully suffused with maximum bliss or lovingkindness. Or even when I have endured deep wounds over periods of months and years. I think that's another immeasurable (cannot be measured) aspect here...If we have great emotional fortitude and flexibility, we are not overwhelmed even with what might be seen by others as great or overwhelming loads of emotion.
A vast emotional range and capacity is a great thing. So too is equanimity. I would not put one over the other. Both, for me, are necessary aspects of who I am.
Emotions is a feeling so all Tolle is saying is, feel it without becoming all involved in it. It's a passing thing which is felt.
You remain present while it changes. I think that's quite obviously the case. For transient emotion, I completely agree. For sublime joy and lovingkindness, which feel foundational and underlying, I don't agree. Clearly, IMO, some emotion (unawakened) is more transient and other emotion (awakened) is less so. In fact enduring emotion is furthermore transformative of consciousness and also of the physical, bodily processes.
The count to ten is a control or suppression technique, so effective in immediate circumstances but not a healing strategy. Meditation, as Tolle describes it, is through the body, so it involves feeling it.
I feel emotion in the body. Maybe as a psychic affect throughout the body.
I've never felt an enduring emotion of any kind, just changing feelings. Ok. Then I understand and Tolle's distinctions will be more useful for you. I think that's really how this sort of thing works. Some of it (or much of it) will be very useful to some and not to others. So long as we keep that in mind, we understand no one set of processes or interpretations has to fit everyone. I'm good with that.
'True nature' is the same as 'self'. I see the 'ground of being' like the outpouring of love, which is inherent to nature. I see it also like metamorphoses...which happen throughout our lives and seem more obvious or apparent at various points of physical and mental development. At those more obvious times of greater change, we know that we are in many ways completely transformed to what we were earlier, even though we are always "ourselves". I see that tranformation occurring when emotion and consciousness are awakenend and entrained or aligned to the ground of being. At that point, we are able to look back and note that we are fundatmentally different to what we were before, and yet we have always been ourselves.
The story about me isn't true. I don't have a 'your truth' and I only know truth in terms of honesty and trust. Indeed, emotional pain is acknowledged to be healed... but that's not personal per se - it's more like something to do with the greater overall consciousness. I can see your perspective. But I don't like to say that your story is not true. Rather that it is not fully true and it is in process of becoming more centred in the truth of your awakened being.
I will say that whilst your pain is in many ways yours to bear and mine is mine to bear, I also do agree that for humanity it is ultimately a matter of interbeing, and that this interbeing is also the most effective way to bring love and healing to a situation and to a person.
Things that are true are universal and apply to everyone. I can't remember Tolle or anyone else saying to ignore pain. I think it's more like giving no importance to it. It feels bad for a while then it changes. If people are attached to it then they find ways to reproduce it, and when they are tired of it they stop repeating that behaviour, and thus make changes in their life. I guess Tolle got tired of perpetuating his misery and stopped. Meditation stopping, so all that has been avoided catches up and all that is desired is let go. There becomes no importance to past events or future conjectures, and one surrenders to this inevitable moment.
Yes agreed.
You seem convinced that individuals have possession of the truth. I think we are all in pursuit of more fully discovering who we are and more fully aligning ourselves with Spirit. This is what I mean by your truth and discovering your truth. It's not fixed but rather just what is.
The suffering is withing the psychological reactivity, so resistance and avoidance of 'bad emotion' or attachment and craving/clinging to 'good emotion' is suffering. At the center of this is 'me who avoids and craves', and that's what I call 'ego'. Things are not actually undesirable or desirable. This is just a subjective matter of preference.
That's basically why we shouldn't stop a feeling or a thought from happening. What we call 'bad emotion' is really just feelings that were stopped. All we do from now on is leave the thoughts and feelings alone, being aware of what we think and feel, without trying to control and stop and allow and resist. That means the avoidance/controlling behaviour stops, so nothing new is being added, and by the same token, the old rubbish burns off its psychic energy.
Addiction must be the avoidance of withdrawl symptoms and the seeking of more pleasurable sensations. This, more often than not, has an emotional component to it. I don't have an addictive personality but I see that many do and that the vast majority are not even dealing with it because society condones and encourages it, and calls it normal and productive. However calling emotion of the body or something to be transcended is not ultimately productive IMO.
Emotion will suffuse and positively transform one's consciousness when awakened, in ever more permanent form. Addicts may need to know how to better handle this rather than to detach from emotion. It seems like more balance (discipline and equanimity) is required, rather than less emotion or fobbing emotion off to the body box, which seems very simplistic to me as a long-term approach.
I think this hinges on honesty, and walking in the truth will lead in the optimum direction, which requires trust... (bit of a complex subject)
People really don't need spiritual authorities to tell them how to be. The sense that I am here isn't obscure and there are no guidelines to it. One's presence is easily acknoagwledged, like, this consciousness is here... need I state the obvious.
Agreed... spiritual authorities can be helpful but should not be viewed as definitive!
Peace & blessings,
7L
That's fine if that's true for you (at this moment).
I see a more deeply connected multidimensional individuated existence with non-temporal and non-sensory aspects (at this moment).
We can agree to disagree and that's fine with me.
It's not a good idea unless that's what you're experiencing. For you, perhaps it's a good idea and that's fine.
All people feel emotion throughout the body.
For me, there is some truth to locating emotional experience in the body, some of the time. But it is partial even then and does not fully or accurately describe my emotional experience or its physical location.
In fact, it's detrimental and misdirecting to the point that it is actively not helpful for me to try to fit my emotional experience into the "body" box.
Where else is it felt other than through body?
I also don't feel overwhelmed with emotion even when I am fully suffused with maximum bliss or lovingkindness. Or even when I have endured deep wounds over periods of months and years. I think that's another immeasurable (cannot be measured) aspect here...If we have great emotional fortitude and flexibility, we are not overwhelmed even with what might be seen by others as great or overwhelming loads of emotion.
A vast emotional range and capacity is a great thing. So too is equanimity. I would not put one over the other. Both, for me, are necessary aspects of who I am.
Equanimity is basically the capacity to feel without becoming overwhelmed by emotional/psychological reactivity.
For transient emotion, I completely agree. For sublime joy and lovingkindness, which feel foundational and underlying, I don't agree. Clearly, IMO, some emotion (unawakened) is more transient and other emotion (awakened) is less so. In fact enduring emotion is furthermore transformative of consciousness and also of the physical, bodily processes.
Ok, but I don't experience constant unchanging emotions.
Ok. Then I understand and Tolle's distinctions will be more useful for you. I think that's really how this sort of thing works. Some of it (or much of it) will be very useful to some and not to others. So long as we keep that in mind, we understand no one set of processes or interpretations has to fit everyone. I'm good with that.
I see it also like metamorphoses...which happen throughout our lives and seem more obvious or apparent at various points of physical and mental development. At those more obvious times of greater change, we know that we are in many ways completely transformed to what we were earlier, even though we are always "ourselves". I see that tranformation occurring when emotion and consciousness are awakenend and entrained or aligned to the ground of being. At that point, we are able to look back and note that we are fundatmentally different to what we were before, and yet we have always been ourselves.
I can see your perspective. But I don't like to say that your story is not true. Rather that it is not fully true and it is in process of becoming more centred in the truth of your awakened being.
I really don't see how there can be self referential thoughts, the story about me, which are true. Maybe they only describe a self imagery which is concocted in the mind.
I will say that whilst your pain is in many ways yours to bear and mine is mine to bear, I also do agree that for humanity it is ultimately a matter of interbeing, and that this interbeing is also the most effective way to bring love and healing to a situation and to a person.
Yes agreed.
I think we are all in pursuit of more fully discovering who we are and more fully aligning ourselves with Spirit. This is what I mean by your truth and discovering your truth. It's not fixed but rather just what is.
I don't have an addictive personality but I see that many do and that the vast majority are not even dealing with it because society condones and encourages it, and calls it normal and productive. However calling emotion of the body or something to be transcended is not ultimately productive IMO.
Transcended just means not being caught up in it all.
Emotion will suffuse and positively transform one's consciousness when awakened, in ever more permanent form. Addicts may need to know how to better handle this rather than to detach from emotion. It seems like more balance (discipline and equanimity) is required, rather than less emotion or fobbing emotion off to the body box, which seems very simplistic to me as a long-term approach.
Equanimity is basically the same as detachment. There's no less emotion, on the contrary, one would feel more deeply and intrinsically. Its a matter of turning off the story about me and simply being there as things change. Then the mind will transform because there's nothing conflicting or resisting, not some thoughts trying to control some other thoughts, not an internal argument or expectational 'shoulds' or other judgments, or anyone striving to be anything other than as they are.
Agreed... spiritual authorities can be helpful but should not be viewed as definitive!
Peace & blessings,
7L
naturesflow
28-02-2016, 10:40 PM
Gem Quote
Where else is it felt other than through body?
I am as curious about this answer myself..
7luminaries
28-02-2016, 11:41 PM
I experience emotion in heart and mind and consciousness as well as body. Body is not separate. Nothing is separate. Therefore Tolle's distinctions are not very useful for me. That is not to say they are not useful for others.
I also don't agree fully with many of your other assumptions or statements but I think it's often a matter of nuance and interpretation. And I've already made my points in the previous few posts.
I'm not that interested in restating myself repeatedly but I've enjoyed the conversation.
Peace and blessings,
7L
7luminaries
28-02-2016, 11:44 PM
I am as curious about this answer myself..
Naturesflow I experience emotion such as loving kindness and sublime joy through all of my being, not only my body. If it's not an either-or thing.
Peace and blessings,
7L
naturesflow
28-02-2016, 11:53 PM
Naturesflow I experience emotion such as loving kindness and sublime joy through all of my being, not only my body. If it's not an either-or thing.
Peace and blessings,
7L
Thankyou for explaining further.
Where is your being located?
In the here and now of you or somewhere outside of you?
naturesflow
28-02-2016, 11:56 PM
I experience emotion in heart and mind and consciousness as well as body. Body is not separate. Nothing is separate. Therefore Tolle's distinctions are not very useful for me. That is not to say they are not useful for others.
I also don't agree fully with many of your other assumptions or statements but I think it's often a matter of nuance and interpretation. And I've already made my points in the previous few posts.
I'm not that interested in restating myself repeatedly but I've enjoyed the conversation.
Peace and blessings,
7L
Where is your heart and mind located if not in body? Where is consciousness experienced from?
Rah nam
28-02-2016, 11:56 PM
I took this idea from Echart Tolle's autobiographical account of his experience of going from deep depression and suicidal thoughts to a life of happiness in less than a day.
This is what he describes
“I cannot live with myself any longer.” This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. “Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with.” “Maybe,” I thought, “only one of them is real”
It is quite clear what Echart Tolle went through.
He started to realize he is not the body/mind, he is spirit. And never was and never will be the body/mind. Yet the body/mind has it's own learning path. And to align the those is the difficult part.
naturesflow
28-02-2016, 11:58 PM
Or I could ask this another way.
What allows you to experience yourself as you, in everway you experience yourself 7luminaries?
naturesflow
29-02-2016, 12:15 AM
Love, joy, and peace are deep states of Being or rather three aspects of the state of inner connectedness with Being-Tolle
So who is the one being? experiencing being interconnected?
What allows you to experience this awareness of feeling and being all this in you connected aware?
Instead of constantly thinking, we become still and quiet, and we become conscious of being conscious. This is the realization of I AM, the realization of Being, our essence identity. When we are rooted in that, thinking becomes the servant of awareness, rather than a self- (ego) serving activity. It becomes creative, empowered-Tolle
The word Being explains nothing, but nor does God. Being, however, has the advantage that it is an open concept. It does not reduce the infinite invisible to a finite entity. It is impossible to form a mental image of it. Nobody can claim exclusive possession of Being. It is your very essence, and it is immediately accessible to you as the feeling of your own presence, the realization I am that is prior to I am this or I am that. So it is only a small step from the word Being to the experience of Being-Tolle
Accessible to you as the "Feeling" of your own presence.
It is quite clear what Echart Tolle went through.
He started to realize he is not the body/mind, he is spirit. And never was and never will be the body/mind. Yet the body/mind has it's own learning path. And to align the those is the difficult part.
It seems to me that Tolle's pivotal moment was realising the inconsistency of the dual self - The 'I' which can't live with 'myself', as he puts it. In the book, he's very vague about the process. He makes a brief description about the immediate affect this realisation had - and then he woke up happy the next morning. This lack of descriptive process is probably due to there being no process. Others have disagreed, but I believe it is instantaneous, as Tolle describes, and there is no gradual approach.
I approach this in a logical way to illustrate the self evident. One can only exist right now just as they are at the moment. The self that progresses from the past into the future must be imaginary - because this presence is momentary - and there's no process that leads to here.
It seems to me that the mind and body undergo a purification, and there are endless depths to self awareness. I once read Ramana say something like, the mind sinks into the heart. I describe the mind as a channel that the outpouring of love flows through to be expressed manifestly in daily life via out bodies.
The learning path, I suggest, is like a psychological/emotional clearing, which enables a free flow of that outpouring. Perhaps we're born to a particular purpose, or path, that best expresses this outpouring, which is self expression.
7luminaries
29-02-2016, 02:31 PM
Or I could ask this another way.
What allows you to experience yourself as you, in everway you experience yourself 7luminaries?
Naturesflow, "it" (lol) is both material and immaterial, both temporal and non-temporal. It is individuated consciousness. The soul (or spirit, or consciousness...whatever term you prefer) inhabits and animates the body. It is not that we must have body...it is not that we must have soul or consciousness...in order to be and experience that which we are in this place and time.
Is is both that we must have...meaning all things temporal and non-temporal, all things material and immaterial.
And as Rah Nam stated, it is the integration of both that is the more complex aspect for most.
I can be more specific though, if it wasn't clear before. Emotion is reflected onto the physical and causes physical reactions. Emotion or trauma (physical or non-physical) may be stored in the body. But this is not the same thing as being "located" in the body. Any action of spirit or consciousness is reflected onto the physical being...that is the nature of emanation from spirit to matter.
But when I experience sublime joy or expansive love, it is not located solely in the body. It can only be said to be located everywhere at once, emanating from my whole being (spiritual and physical). Consciousness awakens to the ever-present nature of these foundational emotions...thus we increasingly experience these emotions as constant and enduring. And not just "of the body".
Peace & blessings,
7L
7luminaries
29-02-2016, 02:52 PM
Emotion will suffuse and positively transform one's consciousness when awakened, in ever more permanent form. Addicts may need to know how to better handle this rather than to detach from emotion. It seems like more balance (discipline and equanimity) is required, rather than less emotion or fobbing emotion off to the body box, which seems very simplistic to me as a long-term approach.
Equanimity is basically the same as detachment. There's no less emotion, on the contrary, one would feel more deeply and intrinsically. Its a matter of turning off the story about me and simply being there as things change. Then the mind will transform because there's nothing conflicting or resisting, not some thoughts trying to control some other thoughts, not an internal argument or expectational 'shoulds' or other judgments, or anyone striving to be anything other than as they are.
Actually Gem, there was one thing I did want to comment on. And it was a little further discussion of equanimity. It is probably among the least well known aspects of personal development across the broad swath of humanity.
And yet it is near and dear to so many of us.
As I see it, equanimity first and foremost means and brings balance...and with this, peace of mind and deeper centredness also typically result. All good things. But it is the nature of the balance you seek and which you individually may require that gives equanimity the depth and breadth of all its various permutations.
For me and for many like me, equanimity for the purposes of handling the fullness of my emotional capacity was already present. That was not the equanimity I experienced in more recent years on my journey. That equanimity was present in me from a young age.
But I realise you are correct in that it is not present in so many, and thus they suffer not only from the ebb and flow of strong emotion but also, due to lacking sufficient equanimity from early ages, they may graduate to detaching in the sense of numbing out to their emotions, simply as a way to cope.
This fundamental level of equanimity you are describing is absolutely necessary in order to fully experience your emotional range naturally and without fear -- I completely agree. But there are other aspects of equanimity...and again, there are probably strong individual and social components to those other aspects.
For me, it was not this fundamental aspect of equanimity that I lacked...rather, it was the aspect of equanimity that specifically relates to valuing and loving the self equally to that of others. This is another fundamental aspect of equanimity which has allowed me and many others to overcome social conditioning that says women should practice abnegation and should find their value in serving others at the expense of self. And yet this is a very destruction message, which results in a lot of misalignment and misdirection, spiritually speaking, involving various forms of physical and emotional trauma, abuse, and neglect for so many.
Equally dangerous and toxic, this message - once absorbed - allows for more pliant conditioning and commodification of the female person for general exploitation and degradation by others, who have also received the same message (and who also have to reject and overcome it, for their own growth -- here, equanimity in the sense I am describing will also allow them to value others equally to the self).
Equanimity is such a beautiful thing in that it provides balance in many areas, each one equally fundamental and corrective in its own way.
Just thought I'd expand on that a bit.
Peace & blessings,
7L
naturesflow
29-02-2016, 08:42 PM
[QUOTE=7luminaries]Naturesflow, "it" (lol) is both material and immaterial, both temporal and non-temporal. It is individuated consciousness. The soul (or spirit, or consciousness...whatever term you prefer) inhabits and animates the body. It is not that we must have body...it is not that we must have soul or consciousness...in order to be and experience that which we are in this place and time.
Wouldn't you say the experience of you as you can only know yourself to be here and now is that this body allows for you to express, be this, present, know and support all this you are sharing here in this moment? I don't have any must have's in place in my curiosity of how you view this, so I am not really relating this to anything more than here and now, the present moment. The fact is you in this body knowing all this and presenting all this. You cannot know yourself beyond this moment of now as you are any other way because you are whole and complete in a body being all this?
Is is both that we must have...meaning all things temporal and non-temporal, all things material and immaterial.
How do you see that it is a must to have both? In my ever changing view of the nature of reality as every changing moment presents itself to me, life goes on in more ways than just the awareness of knowing these things. Just as I might have been informed of these things and hold them as my awareness, there is so much more occurring within the whole nature of this experience. As one aspect of my own knowing, each aspect of the whole nature of reality is a constant reflection of more, constant integration of deepening and letting go. So the whole when presented in the facts of what I know of the past, have built as my knowing of now, are constantly shifting, deepening, experiencing more in the infinite flow of all of life in everyway of life as it reflects.
And as Rah Nam stated, it is the integration of both that is the more complex aspect for most.
But what you or I or Rah Nam are aware of and doing for our part or anyone else for that matter, is just the expression of our own experience in this body as of this moment aware. The knowing and awareness is a constant deepening process. The complexity you see is the complexity of all life moving through the whole as its part in expression as it knows itself to be in body here and now. So it is this that makes up the whole and where you are looking at being everywhere in your experience as a spiritual emanation of yourself, then everywhere is everything being itself, in all life presenting an expression of the whole, of itself through the whole of life as we know it is and do not know it is.
I can be more specific though, if it wasn't clear before. Emotion is reflected onto the physical and causes physical reactions. Emotion or trauma (physical or non-physical) may be stored in the body. But this is not the same thing as being "located" in the body. Any action of spirit or consciousness is reflected onto the physical being...that is the nature of emanation from spirit to matter.
Any action of spirit or consciousness is reflected into the physical being?
When you say this, this is how it appears your relating this. So bare with me. Its like your saying that spirit reflects from outside of you into you? Where as I see my mind body spirit as one in me? This body allows my spirit and whole self to experience itself as I know myself right now in this moment. Each piece of myself experiencing and integrated as one source brings to life the awareness of what is all within me. The external views are only bringing to life a reflection of what I am complete within. What I am incomplete as part of everything reflecting constantly back to me its expression of itself that I do not know as myself, but it is part of everything I am in my knowing of my own integration process. So each moment arising shifts me into a deeper state of being complete. But that is just my experience of many experiencing as one source together.
But when I experience sublime joy or expansive love, it is not located solely in the body. It can only be said to be located everywhere at once, emanating from my whole being (spiritual and physical). Consciousness awakens to the ever-present nature of these foundational emotions...thus we increasingly experience these emotions as constant and enduring. And not just "of the body".
Even as you know yourself out of body as a spirit, and I know myself as complete in body as mind/body/spirit, in these feelings of sublime joy and expansive love as being located everywhere at once that you say exist I am still confused how you do not see all this you typed as your own expansive nature of being the whole complete in you experiencing all this as the whole being? For me joy and expansive love is constant and reflected through what I am as I know myself to be as a whole connected being in this body. It is part of the whole experience in this body as I know myself to be. What I know of myself out of body is what I know through this vessel as a source that allows me to experience myself in any way I create and open to know and build as myself in this body. In sharing this the integration of all this in me, leaves me with the reflection that what was out there no longer reflects out there but from within me, expressing as I am now.
SO I suppose in your sharing and knowing I relate to the awareness your sharing in my own awareness of myself, but it seems you express yourself as something out of body and in body at the same time. Where as I experience my out of body in this body expressing as a whole. My experience has shown me everything is within, even as I might perceive everything outside of myself. The whole is the whole of life expressing itself in everyway of itself. I cannot know and express the experience of this present moment without the inclusion of the whole in this way. I am that being this experience as I am in everyway I am, have been and are right now in this moment, inclusive of this body in the whole connection of all life being itself as it only knows itself to be.
7luminaries
29-02-2016, 10:50 PM
Naturesflow...thank you so much for your thoughts :hug3:
It is really lovely that you put so much time and care into your responses.
I am often overwhelmed by the number of separate response paragraphs in a response when I see it...and it may take me days or weeks to come back to it in order to digest & respond properly. But I will try to do so, I promise.
Until then, I will just say that I pretty much said what I have to say and I probably don't have any better or fancier way to say it :tongue: But lest I let too much time go by till I come back to it...
Let me most definitely agree that whatever you have said about integration and flow is generally all good as I see it...and it applies as I see it to what I was trying to say as well. What I had to say was completely valid for me, but I sometimes don't feel comfortable parsing it out too much further. Integration is the point of it and sometimes I feel I spoil my own words when I try to take them down into too many separate pieces. Words are great but regarding integration and a unified mind-body-consciousness perspective, sometimes they just don't cut it too well.
And yet I do want to be sure to affirm that your contributions and your focus are equally valid for you, as are Gem's for him...and I respect all of that, including everyone's own way of conceptualising and describing their experiences. It's all good. I wouldn't want my way, my being, and my understanding to be the way for all eternity...nor yours or his. That would be such a drag, eh? :biggrin:
I'm very comfortable having my say, and you having yours, and letting it all coexist as we learn and observe from one another's perspectives.
Peace & blessings :hug3:
7L
naturesflow
29-02-2016, 11:10 PM
Naturesflow...thank you so much for your thoughts :hug3:
It is really lovely that you put so much time and care into your responses.
I am often overwhelmed by the number of separate response paragraphs in a response when I see it...and it may take me days or weeks to come back to it in order to digest & respond properly. But I will try to do so, I promise.
Until then, I will just say that I pretty much said what I have to say and I probably don't have any better or fancier way to say it :tongue: But lest I let too much time go by till I come back to it...
Let me most definitely agree that whatever you have said about integration and flow is generally all good as I see it...and it applies as I see it to what I was trying to say as well. What I had to say was completely valid for me, but I sometimes don't feel comfortable parsing it out too much further. Integration is the point of it and sometimes I feel I spoil my own words when I try to take them down into too many separate pieces. Words are great but regarding integration and a unified mind-body-consciousness perspective, sometimes they just don't cut it too well.
And yet I do want to be sure to affirm that your contributions and your focus are equally valid for you, as are Gem's for him...and I respect all of that, including everyone's own way of conceptualising and describing their experiences. It's all good. I wouldn't want my way, my being, and my understanding to be the way for all eternity...nor yours or his. That would be such a drag, eh? :biggrin:
I'm very comfortable having my say, and you having yours, and letting it all coexist as we learn and observe from one another's perspectives.
Peace & blessings :hug3:
7L
Thankyou, I suppose I could be more direct in my asking to deepen understanding of your view. So if you like ignore responding up there if that helps.
It seems to be arising both here and in Miss H's thread about the nature of our beliefs around spirit.
So maybe this will help you with less complexity.
DO you see yourself as separate to spirit? As spirit reflecting upon you into your being and not the other way around, meaning - That you are the reflection of the whole and that the non physical aspects are not you inclusive, reflecting in everything, here and now in this body and in all life as it is?
Actually Gem, there was one thing I did want to comment on. And it was a little further discussion of equanimity. It is probably among the least well known aspects of personal development across the broad swath of humanity.
And yet it is near and dear to so many of us.
As I see it, equanimity first and foremost means and brings balance...and with this, peace of mind and deeper centredness also typically result. All good things. But it is the nature of the balance you seek and which you individually may require that gives equanimity the depth and breadth of all its various permutations.
Yep, equanimity, balance, poise, peace of mind, stillness - a rose by another name. It basically means not reacting to the experience.
For me and for many like me, equanimity for the purposes of handling the fullness of my emotional capacity was already present. That was not the equanimity I experienced in more recent years on my journey. That equanimity was present in me from a young age.
But I realise you are correct in that it is not present in so many, and thus they suffer not only from the ebb and flow of strong emotion but also, due to lacking sufficient equanimity from early ages, they may graduate to detaching in the sense of numbing out to their emotions, simply as a way to cope.
I don't suggest numbing emotions, but perhaps for severe cases some avoidance is the usual survival strategy. It seems to to me that repressed trauma comes about in that way. It follows that later healing is founded on equanimity (the ability to feel without being overwhelmed).
This fundamental level of equanimity you are describing is absolutely necessary in order to fully experience your emotional range naturally and without fear -- I completely agree. But there are other aspects of equanimity...and again, there are probably strong individual and social components to those other aspects.
It's pretty simple equanimity is inverse in proportion to psychological reactivity. A proper meditation would bring about awareness of this and also reveal the persons limitations.
For me, it was not this fundamental aspect of equanimity that I lacked...rather, it was the aspect of equanimity that specifically relates to valuing and loving the self equally to that of others. This is another fundamental aspect of equanimity which has allowed me and many others to overcome social conditioning that says women should practice abnegation and should find their value in serving others at the expense of self. And yet this is a very destruction message, which results in a lot of misalignment and misdirection, spiritually speaking, involving various forms of physical and emotional trauma, abuse, and neglect for so many.
Indeed, many cultural norms entail inequitable and unrealistic expectations that cause people harm. I think in that case wer speak of equity, which pertain to social paradigms, where equanimity is usually descriptive of a personal disposition.
Equally dangerous and toxic, this message - once absorbed - allows for more pliant conditioning and commodification of the female person for general exploitation and degradation by others, who have also received the same message (and who also have to reject and overcome it, for their own growth -- here, equanimity in the sense I am describing will also allow them to value others equally to the self).
I'm pretty sure this has to do with equity, but I can see the corrolation. There's a deeper power issue to it written into the social narrative on gender and sexuality... and I'm reading Foucault's History of Sexuality now, actually.
Equanimity is such a beautiful thing in that it provides balance in many areas, each one equally fundamental and corrective in its own way.
Just thought I'd expand on that a bit.
Peace & blessings,
7L
I'd probaly use the term 'equity' in regards to social inequality, and use 'equanimity' to refer to disposition, just for the sake of making the distinction, but I agree there is a correlation.
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