The Whole

[Joe Mc]

A thought or idea that has been kicking around with me for a couple of years now. I thought i'd write it down.


Life can only be understood as a whole. When we try to squeeze life into something called an individual entity with an individual brain we will definitely come up with answers, connotations, permeations but we cannot expect to have our questions answered concerning deeper matters and if we try to answer our quandaries using the attitude of the single individual brain etc. to experience this wisdom regarding deeper matters expect to be frustrated. We will be lost in the circularity of the ego self with some smidgens of purported freedom thrown in to the search on occasion which keeps the contusion evolving and frustrated. In wholeness there is peace. Real authenticity and uniqueness and individuality contains the whole and is never far from wholeness even when the task to hand seems very worldly. As a man once said to Tiger Woods back in his day, You're never far from the hole !!!

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by Joe Mc

A thought or idea that has been kicking around with me for a couple of years now. I thought i'd write it down.


Life can only be understood as a whole. When we try to squeeze life into something called an individual entity with an individual brain we will definitely come up with answers, connotations, permeations but we cannot expect to have our questions answered concerning deeper matters and if we try to answer our quandaries using the attitude of the single individual brain etc. to experience this wisdom regarding deeper matters expect to be frustrated. We will be lost in the circularity of the ego self with some smidgens of purported freedom thrown in to the search on occasion which keeps the contusion evolving and frustrated. In wholeness there is peace. Real authenticity and uniqueness and individuality contains the whole and is never far from wholeness even when the task to hand seems very worldly. As a man once said to Tiger Woods back in his day, You're never far from the hole !!!

It takes practice to get that hole in one all the same..
If all understood it as a whole, yessiree.

People are all so unique in how they build the whole view through their own abilities, limitations and connections from within, to know this. When you know your wholeness/centre is peaceful and your true nature and you have tools to find it in yourself, regardless of what moves in yourself it all works great .... In saying that, most people even if they know their own wholeness, still go through normal process of life experiences and all its affects upon them, I guess for them they know its a temporary process. I for one had to build the bigger picture to know I was whole and complete, but prior to that a very real perceived disconnection created a totally disconnected view in myself and the process felt like hell on earth that was never ending. If I actually understood the whole and peace before walking through, I think it would have helped greatly. But alas it wasn't to be...

[slash112]

Love this.

I love all the different ways you can talk about the whole. A particular favorite of mine is "the witness" or "the true self". The true self is always the whole, and all appearances happen inside it and as part of it. That true self is always there to be recognized, even from the relative point of view of our mind. The whole is just always there.

Such magic surrounds us, but it's only magic from the relative. From the absolute, it simply is.

[Joe Mc]

Originally Posted by naturesflow

It takes practice to get that hole in one all the same..
If all understood it as a whole, yessiree.

People are all so unique in how they build the whole view through their own abilities, limitations and connections from within, to know this. When you know your wholeness/centre is peaceful and your true nature and you have tools to find it in yourself, regardless of what moves in yourself it all works great .... In saying that, most people even if they know their own wholeness, still go through normal process of life experiences and all its affects upon them, I guess for them they know its a temporary process. I for one had to build the bigger picture to know I was whole and complete, but prior to that a very real perceived disconnection created a totally disconnected view in myself and the process felt like hell on earth that was never ending. If I actually understood the whole and peace before walking through, I think it would have helped greatly. But alas it wasn't to be...

It's closer than your own breath as I have heard it said. To use Christian terminology and terminology that has been used in certain ways of recovery from drink and drugs, You have Self Will which is characterised by small mindedness, acts of self centredness, self centred thinking and then you have God's will. An image came to me yesterday, Self will is like being very focused on a coin, accompanied perhaps a sense of stress or contraction, we say, this is my life and im going to make it work even if it is not God's will. So you force your way to the top, standing on people as you go.

God's will is when you look up from that very tightly focused concern and see that the coin (your life) is on a football field, and it is an endless football field and what's more its accompanied by countless other coins all side by side. As I said in a quote that came to me yesterday its the authenticity (which i wrote in affirmations) of the giving that counts in life not necessarily what is given, you might be given the world in terms of material wealth lets say or be given modest means etc.

Also this has been spoken about I think in the Buddhist parable of Indra's net which speaks about countless jewels shining and reflecting each other across the universe. Or the Buddhist concept of interdependence also has this going on I think. In Christianity it also goes on in sayings like every hair on your head is accounted for, meaning you are not only infinite in your being, every atom, quark etc. is accounted for but it also exists inside the totality of which your body and mind is a unique totality of and in itself. Again sages have said it would be better that someone like Tiger woods kicks a ball against a wall on a street corner for the rest of his life if he is not acting from an authentic space but i reserve judgment on that one as I don't know that man personally etc.

[Joe Mc]

Thanks Slash. Yes there are countless ways of describing it and there is magic as you say surrounding it. The witness is a great one too, or totality, God, Buddha nature..etc. endless terminology. Yes the true self is there and depending on the realisation and our congruence if you like with the relative mind as you say you can describe it up to a point. Some people might use Art to try and express or describe it or others might just leave it alone as it is and live out a 'normal life' whatever that is lol.

[Joe Mc]

Originally Posted by slash112

Love this.

I love all the different ways you can talk about the whole. A particular favorite of mine is "the witness" or "the true self". The true self is always the whole, and all appearances happen inside it and as part of it. That true self is always there to be recognized, even from the relative point of view of our mind. The whole is just always there.

Such magic surrounds us, but it's only magic from the relative. From the absolute, it simply is.

Thanks Slash. Yes there are countless ways of describing it and there is magic as you say surrounding it. The witness and true self is a great one too, or totality, God, Buddha nature..etc. endless terminology. Yes the true self is there and depending on the realisation and our congruence if you like with the relative mind as you say you can describe it up to a point. Some people might use Art to try and express or describe it or others might just leave it alone as it is and live out a 'normal life' whatever that is lol.
__________________

[slash112]

I love the coin and the endless football field thing, that's basically how I see it too. As the "normal" identity of the ego, we are holding the coin right up to our eyeball. Letting go of the ego (as in, stopping holding onto it for dear life), the coin just kinda floats away and we start to see the football field we have been standing in the while time.

And yeah, I've tried to use art a few times to describe it, but I tend to work a lot on how to bring people to the seeing of it through the use of words. Ever since I discovered the beyond-words, I've been trying to put it into words, I've been experimenting with ways to bring people there. I mean, is it just me or will this thing be the end of suffering?

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by slash112

I love the coin and the endless football field thing, that's basically how I see it too. As the "normal" identity of the ego, we are holding the coin right up to our eyeball. ... I've been experimenting with ways to bring people there. I mean, is it just me or will this thing be the end of suffering?

LOL! The ways in which peeps can see and not see at the same time!

What I 'see' is that 'suffering' is one of the transpersonal 'coins' on or, if you wish, one of 'sections' of that football field. So the desire to 'end' suffering therefor appears to reflect a wish to just play with/on a part of the whole field. What's up with that?

That's just a rhetorical question to set the stage for my 'revealing' the answer.

Quite a while ago, when about half my present age, my understanding (i.e. subordination to the requirements) of the Entity/Entirety of Life reached the point where I realized that if I could just snap my fingers and eliminate all suffering (injustice, etc. etc. etc) in the world - hahaha, talk about playing 'God'! - I wouldn't do it. Why? Because I reached the point where 'saw' that without 'suffering' 'injustice', etc., things like empathy, compassion, caring-love (not just I 'love' ice-cream kind of love), wisdom (etc.) would never be stimulated to develop. So 'ending' these would just result in an 'ecological' (I reference spiritual ecology, now) disaster!

Two quotes to stimulate further thought in this regard:

"In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." (from John Ch.16)

"The righteous who worship Me are grouped by stages: first, they who suffer, next they who desire knowledge, then they who thirst after truth, and lastly they who attain wisdom." (from The Bhagavad Gita, Ch.7)

Oh, and one more, for grasshoppers (click here for the meaning) who think they have gotten to the point where they actually 'see' (i.e. understand) it all:

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." (from I Corinthians, Ch.13)

[Joe Mc]

Originally Posted by slash112

I love the coin and the endless football field thing, that's basically how I see it too. As the "normal" identity of the ego, we are holding the coin right up to our eyeball. Letting go of the ego (as in, stopping holding onto it for dear life), the coin just kinda floats away and we start to see the football field we have been standing in the while time.

And yeah, I've tried to use art a few times to describe it, but I tend to work a lot on how to bring people to the seeing of it through the use of words. Ever since I discovered the beyond-words, I've been trying to put it into words, I've been experimenting with ways to bring people there. I mean, is it just me or will this thing be the end of suffering?

Thanks Slash. It's great that your attempting different ways to describe 'it' in words. I find it pretty difficult and I don't really trust people who find it easy. Sometimes I will get my terminology wrong and it seems that there are people here and out there ready to pounce Some kind of lapse in the describing through language and they are in there faster than a hot snot !! telling you what the score is and how you've messed up badly and what it is you should be saying etc. lol !!! . Yes you could say its the end of suffering ? To be cliched about it, its not the end of pain ..but now im forgetting what suffering is ..whats suffering ? lol

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by Joe Mc

Thanks Slash. It's great that your attempting different ways to describe 'it' in words. I find it pretty difficult and I don't really trust people who find it easy. Sometimes I will get my terminology wrong and it seems that there are people here and out there ready to pounce Some kind of lapse in the describing through language and they are in there faster than a hot snot !! telling you what the score is and how you've messed up badly and what it is you should be saying etc. lol !!! . Yes you could say its the end of suffering ? To be cliched about it, its not the end of pain ..but now im forgetting what suffering is ..whats suffering ? lol

Whatever 'suffering' is, I am saying that the 'goal' of 'ending' it is as ecologically (as I said, I am speaking of spiritual 'ecology') short-sighted, and will 'boomerang' just as 'badly', as eliminating physical death (for humans or any other particular species) on our planet. It is an unholistic, unwholesome and unactualizable ego 'dream', which will end as 'badly' as all egotistical 'dreams', IMO.

I didn't say anything about any what anything should be BTW. that is your pejorative(?) projection onto me.

Talk about 'hot snots'! Live and learn, Bro!