Self Chosen states of consciousness

[adamkade]

Originally Posted by TzuJanLi

Greetings..

To be 'offended' is to be attached to a result, to have expectations..

I do have expectations, and it is my intention to not be attached to those expectations, and.. to understand i am not defined by the expectations, whether fulfilled or not..

I will share one of my 'expectations': that when someone actually realizes that we/us/Life are many independently functioning versions of One interconnected existence, that realization is sufficient to neutralize violence except as the tool of last resort to neutralize violence by those that haven't yet had the realization..

The 'state' of understanding consciousness is the result of choices i have made.. and, i am free to choose again and again, to redefine myself in harmony with Life and its greatest potentials..

I am seldom personally offended, but occasionally i am offended on behalf of Life, on behalf of a Cosmos that has evolved into this current magnificent self-aware Now, and.. which Cosmic Experience is trivialized and abused by those that choose to advance their personal or group condition at the expense of the conditions of others.. extracting resources that can advance the whole existence experience for all participants, and allocating extracted resources to a select class at the expense of those that have actually made it possible..

Be well..

The most certain indication of 'forgiveness', is to conduct myself as if there were nothing needing to be forgiven.. attachment to a forgiveness process/ritual, keeps the 'offense' current and present, distracting from the present..

Well, sometimes I have offended someone, and I have asked them at the end of the conversation. Did I offend you? They then said yes. At this point I came to an understanding that I previously did not have. So to communicate my change of understanding, I then said sorry. By saying sorry to this person I was informing that I cared about their state of being, and I had no wish to accidentally cause them upset again. "It is the last thing that I would want to cause harm to you." I think my words were. They then having heard this felt much more comfortable around me because of my sensitivity to the way that they felt.

By doing this we actually went through several stages and past through several "nows"

With respect, as I read some of your words I get the impression that the concept of oneness etc is understood by yourself primarily as an intellectual thought construct and not witnessed in your reality. If this is so I commend you on your ability to conceptualize. If oneness has been known in your experience, rather than merely within the mind. Then you can look forward to experiencing oneness in the future.

If you do already experience such states of oneness. I would be eager to read about them. I hope that you don't mind me being so forth right. Though to consider that you may or may not mind would be to anticipate your state of being, and thus assume that you will be attached to consequence. Yet I am also convinced that though your pursuit of intellectual detachment of attachment of coincidence or result, you will experience attachment nonetheless. Which would mean that you are indeed stationed in perception reality after all.

Note my smiley face:

Peace. XXX

Greetings..

Hi Adamkade: I experience myself as Part and Whole, sometimes both simultaneously, and.. the experience is dependent on where i place my awareness.

Originally Posted by adamkade

With respect, as I read some of your words I get the impression that the concept of oneness etc is understood by yourself primarily as an intellectual thought construct and not witnessed in your reality.

What is it about "some of my words" that gives you that impression'? I disagree with your assessment, but i am interested in your reasoning..

Be well..

[BlueSky]

Some say that there can be realization without it becoming experience. In this way they say, it becomes permanent.

Actually it was Bernadette Roberts who said this.

I can relate to that.

[chadley]

Originally Posted by in progress

Emotional states pre-exist any occurrence of it's expression in the outside world. I say this based upon the idea that our outside world is a 100% reflection of what's inside us. So the feeling state that leads to being offended pre-existed the situation that arose outside ourselves to cause us to feel offense. One might even say we created the situation to show us that we are feeling offended already.

Then we have to take a step back, of course, and dig a little deeper. Why am I feeling offended? Do I love myself unconditionally? Have I given away my power? Etc.

So are these states chosen? Yes they are. We can empower ourselves by realizing this. We can choose a new feeling state. We can start to practice this by stopping and asking ourselves often, "How do I feel?" Really becoming aware in the moment, being present.

People who are in a lower state of awareness may say these states are not chosen. They are simply unaware, as of yet, they can make a choice. I guess that's why the term "awareness" is sometimes used! This is not meant to be insulting to anyone. We are all fully aware, divine light beings under the hood. We are simply playing roles of those who are in various states of awareness, like characters in a drama.

Back to feeling states. Even though we realize it's a choice this does NOT mean we are to suppress what we feel. We must feel what we need to feel first then choose a new feeling state. Choosing a new feeling state focuses on the heart. One can use breathing and/or heart meditations to do this. After practice we will be able to change our feeling states quickly. Our bodies know and remember them.

I've been working with this and have had some success. Recently I've had situations arise where I would normally become upset or angry but did not. So my "reaction" was surprise!

I thought I was reading one of my own posts. I strongly agree with everything you say here.

Originally Posted by chadley

Hi there, my name is Chadley. (giggles)

I've been a member for a while and I've both watched and participated in many heated discussions on this forum and sometimes feelings even get hurt or people get upset or plain offended.

If anyone will join me, I'd like to talk specifically about the reaction caused by "being offended". I'd like to see if anyone here would say that the state of consciousness of, "being offended" is self-chosen or purely involuntary, or somewhere in between.

The reason i ask this, is because often excellent discussions are marred by the reaction of some of its participants.

When looking inside for deeper meaning, and then bravely communicating it, it can be hard to take if someone challenges your beliefs or ideas. And sometimes, even if your momma does wear army boots, its still difficult to admit, even to yourself.

What if we tried to, as often as we can, look inside when we are offended?

My other question is, When seeking the truth, is it really relevant whether or not someone's post is insulting? Is it possible to look beyond the insults and focus on the merit of the statements made themselves?

It is my position that with a few deep breaths and a bit of discipline and practice, it is possible to avoid the nasty little state of consciousness that is, "being offended".

Whadda yuh tink, huh?

Chadley.

It is to some extent possible to train oneself to no longer feel offended by certain things, if you can change the beliefs, convictions, and perceptions that the feeling stems from. But that doesn't exactly mean that feeling offended is a choice. Feelings arise naturally from perceiving oneself to be in certain situations. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Feelings serve the purpose of increasing ones awareness of certain things and spurring one to certain actions. Each kind of feeling is something we evolved because it was at some point generally useful for the individual and the species to have certain reactions to certain situations. The problem is that these days those instinctual reactions are often not beneficial for the individual or the species. The trick is to control your behavior and really think about what the consequences of your actions will be before reacting (or perhaps not reacting outwardly if that is better).

The feeling of being offended can arise when there is a sense of unfairness or injustice for oneself or others who one identifies with, a perception that someone is insulting oneself or others, or that some kind of harm will come to oneself of others due to someone's actions. That in itself is not such a bad thing. The feeling lets you know that something does not seem quite right. So you can look to see why that feeling arose. It seems the hardest part for most people is stopping themselves from just going ahead and doing what they feel an urge to do, since that reaction will very often be one that just creates or perpetuates a sense of unfairness/injustice/offensiveness/etc. for your perceived offender.

Though some may find this hard to believe, offending back does not solve anything. It doesn’t make things become fair when the offended offends back. Usually you just end up with two or more sides going back and forth endlessly. Nothing actually gets solved that way. On completely unmoderated forums where there is nobody to step in and break it up, it can go on for years repeating over and over and the offended feelings on each side never stop. They don’t work things out by discussing their issues with each other. That doesn’t happen. A successful solution would require breaking that cycle, doing something different from trying to even the score over and over, and really trying to understand the perspective of the one you feel offended by or at least understand that from their point of view things also seem unfair/unjust/etc to them. While that might not make sense to you, it might not make sense to them that you feel that things are unfair/unjust/etc. You’ve got to step back and look at the bigger picture.

Looking beyond the insults to focus on the other statements is possible, and it can be good way to break this cycle or prevent it from starting. Back when I was on an unmoderated forum, it used to be my strategy to respond only to the parts of a post that actually address the thread topic and behave as if any negative comments about myself or my character or other people are not influencing my response. I would carefully look over my responses and read them while imagining myself as the other person, looking for any comments that are about the person rather than the topic, removing things and editing accordingly until I had a response that would hopefully stop the cycle of insult/offense instead of perpetuating it.

It isn’t that I did not feel offended by the personal comments. I did feel that. It felt frustrating at times not to satisfy the urge to throw something back, and it felt unfair at times to be insulted while the other person was not getting insulted or called out for it... But I also realized that outwardly reacting to that would not be beneficial for myself or others and would only make things worse and hinder the chances of people being able to communicate about the thread topic with each other. Seeing how doing this affects the environment in terms of people being able to learn from each other and communicate effectively, versus how it affects the environment when people bite back at each other repeatedly instead... that was rewarding enough to give me a better kind of satisfaction anyway. In the end, it felt very worth it to try to control my reactions and deal with my feelings of offense or frustration somewhere else in a healthier way.

This strategy can work pretty well, if there aren’t too many other people who get stuck on the insults and react to them. Not only can it sometimes work to get the person who was originally starting to post personal comments to at least cool it a bit, it can sometimes influence others who enter the thread to follow the good example. I was not perfect at using this strategy, and I am even less talented at it now. But I know it can be done and this is what we ask members to do here.

[sound]

Originally Posted by arive nan

They don’t work things out by discussing their issues with each other. That doesn't happen.

i enjoyed reading your post arive nan and agree with most of what you shared, however i don't agree wholeheartedly with what you say in the quote above ... I have seen it/discussion between people improve their understanding of each other, and am required to promote it in my daily work on a regular basis. I have also seen it work here under certain conditions. People, world-wide are encouraged to communicate their thoughts and feelings ... I understand from a moderator position it may not always be possible to allow discussion to 'evolve' while still remaining within the framework of the site rules but i know, through my own experience that when people can speak with each other and express themselves, issues can indeed be resolved ...

[adamkade]

Originally Posted by TzuJanLi

Greetings..

Hi Adamkade: I experience myself as Part and Whole, sometimes both simultaneously, and.. the experience is dependent on where i place my awareness.
What is it about "some of my words" that gives you that impression'? I disagree with your assessment, but i am interested in your reasoning..

Be well..

Yes, we do experience in part, though perhaps never truly as a whole. Yet we simply are unable to experience the whole of everything. We can expand our awareness and even share our being with the Divine, yet, we are limited in any given moment by our capacity to do so. The Divine too is limited by how much that he/she is able to share with our being, because of our limited capacity. Yet there is a merging occurring, a Divine sharing in our meditations and through our daily lives.

It is wonderful is it not? What is your take on this, this sharing and merging of our being?

What is it about "some of my words" that gives you that impression'? I disagree with your assessment, but i am interested in your reasoning..

It was more of a feeling than reason. Is it not so?

[adamkade]

I liked your post arive Nan.

I think that sometimes I feel angry, when others do not understand me, or acknowledge me for who I am. The opposite is true also. It is lovely when others have commented and have shown an awareness of myself and of themselves. It is nice, when there is a mutual respect.

Thank you for such a lovely post.

Peace. XXX

Originally Posted by sound

i enjoyed reading your post arive nan and agree with most of what you shared, however i don't agree wholeheartedly with what you say in the quote above ... I have seen it/discussion between people improve their understanding of each other, and am required to promote it in my daily work on a regular basis. I have also seen it work here under certain conditions. People, world-wide are encouraged to communicate their thoughts and feelings ... I understand from a moderator position it may not always be possible to allow discussion to 'evolve' while still remaining within the framework of the site rules but i know, through my own experience that when people can speak with each other and express themselves, issues can indeed be resolved ...

I have seen people come to understand each other too, but that doesn't come from more of the same kind of back and forth comments about what the people don't like about each. With no moderation that just goes on for years without end unless at least one of the people actually stops continuing that cycle. You have to stop that and do something different in order for any real progress to be possible. People are capable of this if they are both willing to try to come to an understanding of each other instead of continuing the cycle of fault finding and such. And it's not people are not allowed to resolve issues with each other on here if they are both willing to sincerely try to do that, but speaking from a moderator's POV those conversations belong in private message where they don't interfere with discussions on the forum.