Self-expression

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by Gem

Well we all have our two faces, like our 'have a nice day' smile and a real full smile, so it's just a way of reserving to ourselves ad expressing ourselves, ad the bottom line is, people get to decide what they show and what they keep private.

I don't think of myself as a sensitive person, but I was favoured in the ashram community because I could detect very slight signs of people who were struggling as the intensive meditation touches on deeper life issues, and just check in with them and see if they'd be alright... In my work with general duties like room cleaning and preparing meals for 100 or more people, my purpose is to benefit the people who come to learn meditation. I would be able create a working environment suitable to ashram life. People are complex and the spiritual environment made it so personal life issues were always coming up and affecting people's emotional state. People liked me because I was tuned in at work and the kitchen was busy but silent. I would never speak across, but would walk over to a person and speak quietly, and if I heard too much raised voices, I remind them like 'voices everyone'. The ones who ran the place and the higher up ones who taught meditation loved to see a busy kitchen with no voices. The top guy would tell me, 'you run the kitchen and make sure they are happy'. People who were more serious, the long term meditators, could go come into a space which is all about constant mindfulness in everything they do. People come to practice, even the work is practice, and that's the environment we needed to keep. I can tell when there is a disturbance to that type of space. Any slight movement, a sound within a laugh... whatever, and I always say, the art of these things in how to create that space.

Sure, we can't be perfect, but we can self reflect afterwards, and try to improve for next time. I mess up all the time in casual things like forums, but in my working space I can't afford to step out of place at all, because things are hanging in the balance a lot of the time. If I talk about it on the forum it helps me to remind my self, because this is't an ashram space; it;s a noisy old world with a lot of distractions, and I'm not in a working space so I can cut loose, be controversial, challenge popular spiritual assumptions ad so on, but I keep my attention here with me, I stay in tune with my own living experience, as best I can. This way I can have hard conversations and stay on track even if people are dragging me in to accusations and personal challenges, and mostly, I'm reminded that I'm the boss of me and I know what's going on with myself. I'm a hard man with difficulty in my past, and I'm not a nice person or a spiritual person, so I don't talk like 'I'm supposed to', but I also don't pretend to be other than who I am, which is nothing like the ways in which I am described. Now I slipped up because I wasn't strict about assertions, but I learned it's better to clarify the boundaries straight away so people understand. It's simple too, I get to talk about myself ad articulate and portray myself as I see it, and no one else can speak about or for me. If people are interested in me, they can ask, but I'm not obligated to answer and I get to determine what I will say.

I understand.

In coming to know myself through all the aspects I discovered I held in me, I wanted to turn away from them, not look at some of those in myself, as being about me, I came to realize that the pretty fluffy perfectly painted views of life I attached too, only kept me from the gutz of things. And I wanted the gutz and the glory so I went for it... My new faces one might say..

(And I don't mean glorified godly being, I mean the glory of being me more aware of myself complete in everyway I am, was and can be- mindfully of course.. )

So lets just say your gutz and glory is shining today Gem..(sit ups can support this glory too.. )

[Gem]

Originally Posted by naturesflow

I understand.

In coming to know myself through all the aspects I discovered I held in me, I wanted to turn away from them, not look at some of those in myself, as being about me, I came to realize that the pretty fluffy perfectly painted views of life I attached too, only kept me from the gutz of things. And I wanted the gutz and the glory so I went for it... My new faces one might say..

(And I don't mean glorified godly being, I mean the glory of being me more aware of myself complete in everyway I am, was and can be- mindfully of course.. )

So lets just say your gutz and glory is shining today Gem..(sit ups can support this glory too.. )

Sure, in speaking for myself, I'm just a guy like other guys, and I have my strengths weaknesses and attributes and faults and gifts and life issues and the whole dilemma of humanity. I just do a bit of meditation and a life practice of self-awareness, and without supernatural or status as a spiritual being of some sort, I only make meaning in what I say from the insights of my lived experiece. People do try to cast aspersions on my integrity, but speaking for myself, I hold the truth in the highest regard of all, and I'm trustworthy as a plain everyday person. People are safe with me, despite what faults I have. Yes, I'm gutzy, but also sincere, and have not a shred of malice within me, however, I demand at least a modicum of respect and I'm not to be messed with. I might be challenging on views and beliefs and so on at times, and I don't buy into spiritual platitudes, but I do not put people down with personal comments. Everyone is OK in my eyes, in the way they are. I want to cut through empty words and really talk about things, and find myself at a loss with that a lot of the time. That, I think, captures my self expression in how I articulate myself

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by Gem

Sure, in speaking for myself, I'm just a guy like other guys, and I have my strengths weaknesses and attributes and faults and gifts and life issues and the whole dilemma of humanity. I just do a bit of meditation and a life practice of self-awareness, and without supernatural or status as a spiritual being of some sort, I only make meaning in what I say from the insights of my lived experiece. People do try to cast aspersions on my integrity, but speaking for myself, I hold the truth in the highest regard of all, and I'm trustworthy as a plain everyday person. People are safe with me, despite what faults I have. Yes, I'm gutzy, but also sincere, and have not a shred of malice within me, however, I demand at least a modicum of respect and I'm not to be messed with. I might be challenging on views and beliefs and so on at times, and I don't buy into spiritual platitudes, but I do not put people down with personal comments. Everyone is OK in my eyes, in the way they are. I want to cut through empty words and really talk about things, and find myself at a loss with that a lot of the time. That, I think, captures my self expression in how I articulate myself

To be a model of both your strengths and weakness's gives others permission to be as they are in this way. Like you I am very sincere and honest and I actually like people. I tolerate a lot in others as they are. That is just me. I will give people chances to redeem if they hurt me or upset me. That is my nature. I think being a self reflective person, I cant ignore in myself what part is mine in relationships or life where I might have difficulties. I can sulk and hang on in me sometimes, I can speak up, be more direct and raise my voice, I feel all emotions as required for my world and life. But generally underneath I am always reflecting, letting go when I have too, listening deeper and always looking to reconcile in myself and often the external as one. People have hurt me, I have hurt others, I am as real as anyone.

I am aware of myself consistently as I see that is the only way to be aware of life more clear as it is.

[Mr Interesting]

Well, that was all rather interesting except I suppose I'm rather lazy so I have kinda gone over all these posts since I last wrote here, and enjoyed Gems reply to that, and simply found found it all vaguely amusing... I'm of the opinion that myself and Gem have a certain camaraderie, through a cognisance of a similar set of experiences, to the extent we can pull each other rather non-existant chains... which seems to have resulted in others finding their own chains, oops, but, and Gem might agree, often being somewhat over many of lives obstacles there is a certain tendency to be able to 'bring' them out in others... and hopefully in places and situations where some care is forthcoming.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Mr Interesting

Well, that was all rather interesting except I suppose I'm rather lazy so I have kinda gone over all these posts since I last wrote here, and enjoyed Gems reply to that, and simply found found it all vaguely amusing... I'm of the opinion that myself and Gem have a certain camaraderie, through a cognisance of a similar set of experiences, to the extent we can pull each other rather non-existant chains... which seems to have resulted in others finding their own chains, oops, but, and Gem might agree, often being somewhat over many of lives obstacles there is a certain tendency to be able to 'bring' them out in others... and hopefully in places and situations where some care is forthcoming.

I describe it by saying I'm a guiding light, but like that of a lighthouse, which is there to be avoided. Don't go toward it or you'll crash on the rocks. Hahaha.

I can't say I even know what you're talking about exactly most of the time, but yes, this is amusement and entertainment where only dynamics are real. Nothing ever takes a surely recognisable form. Like a cute kitty loves nothing more than torturing smaller animals, and has nothing to offer but their mangled corpses, but we love our kitties regardless, because we're bigger... until we wrestle with lions, that is. Then we're no longer men, but meat, much like a mouse. The love of cats, some hate them, but this split pertains not to the animal itself, but to the creature's imagined existence in the mind. I sometimes I wonder on how removed from the real we can be in addressing the being who's really here, or addressing the imaginary figurines of our imagination. What nature of projection appears on a screen that looks like John Wayne, who actually died a long time ago, but remains widely known, not as a person, but as a flickering of light, which twice removed is only an icon existing as a psychic impression, but generally, we love our iconic menagerie. For the love of things, which are mere sensational apparitions, yet from inside it comes, having no source other than ourselves... to be given... in the same way as your cat might proffer small dead bodies, that you really don't want. Well it's the thought that counts.

[Mr Interesting]

Well, I think I'll join you Gem, as I don't have much idea myself about what I'm talking about either.

I think I do though tend towards sensing things and allow that sense to just be a sense and don't really try at all to nail it down and in that I feel a lot of gratitude towards what might be defined as spiritual practise in giving myself a kind of freedom where whatever sense it is I might be sensing is allowed to remain 'sensible' or maybe 'sensitive'.

So even the writing here that I do isn't so much about conforming to how I might be understood, as in a translation of whatever sense appears into a reasonable and active acclimatising to what the ideas of what something is as understanding, so much as I just go with whatever the sense might sense itself as being sensible of itself as a sense.

And I've found somewhat that time is a factor as well as space. This stuff comes out and is whatever it is and the sense that makes a sense is often nonsense but in bringing it to words, or even pictures etc, that eventually what might be within it does makes sense.

This, to me, is self expression. Not that I am a self that exists and should therefore be expressed so much that it is a self not yet expressed and expressing that becomes the self.

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by Mr Interesting

Well, I think I'll join you Gem, as I don't have much idea myself about what I'm talking about either.

I think I do though tend towards sensing things and allow that sense to just be a sense and don't really try at all to nail it down and in that I feel a lot of gratitude towards what might be defined as spiritual practise in giving myself a kind of freedom where whatever sense it is I might be sensing is allowed to remain 'sensible' or maybe 'sensitive'.

So even the writing here that I do isn't so much about conforming to how I might be understood, as in a translation of whatever sense appears into a reasonable and active acclimatising to what the ideas of what something is as understanding, so much as I just go with whatever the sense might sense itself as being sensible of itself as a sense.

And I've found somewhat that time is a factor as well as space. This stuff comes out and is whatever it is and the sense that makes a sense is often nonsense but in bringing it to words, or even pictures etc, that eventually what might be within it does makes sense.

This, to me, is self expression. Not that I am a self that exists and should therefore be expressed so much that it is a self not yet expressed and expressing that becomes the self.

Hi Mr I.

I just wanted to add to your eloquent post that even as we are unaware of all being expressed, life is our feedback (if we allow it to be)that can opens us to relate to ourselves in reflection of all life in everyway we are and are not being the self expressed and being expressed. So within all that is something we can gain for deeper awareness of self and expression as one.

In this way their is a conscious awareness of others and their is also an awareness of yourself interacting with others. If one is a natural inwardly reflecting/processing ( I kind of call this, my check in to myself points if I have too) this seems to be an easier task in interactions. But for some one more outwardly expressing and not in their inward processing mode as one, this can miss little bits of self flying around the table unexpressed but infused within the whole relating. When this occurs if you have someone who senses their own subtle layers within, you sense these as one moving through all that. If one is unaware of themselves in this way and the external/life is showing some disturbance for yourself, then it pays to listen deeper in yourself, and look at that if need be.

When you talk/share/reflect/express I listen deeper to your sharing and deeper in myself. Its interesting but one could ask why does that occur?

Its all so interesting Mr Interesting..

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Mr Interesting

Well, I think I'll join you Gem, as I don't have much idea myself about what I'm talking about either.

I think I do though tend towards sensing things and allow that sense to just be a sense and don't really try at all to nail it down and in that I feel a lot of gratitude towards what might be defined as spiritual practise in giving myself a kind of freedom where whatever sense it is I might be sensing is allowed to remain 'sensible' or maybe 'sensitive'.

So even the writing here that I do isn't so much about conforming to how I might be understood, as in a translation of whatever sense appears into a reasonable and active acclimatising to what the ideas of what something is as understanding, so much as I just go with whatever the sense might sense itself as being sensible of itself as a sense.

And I've found somewhat that time is a factor as well as space. This stuff comes out and is whatever it is and the sense that makes a sense is often nonsense but in bringing it to words, or even pictures etc, that eventually what might be within it does makes sense.

This, to me, is self expression. Not that I am a self that exists and should therefore be expressed so much that it is a self not yet expressed and expressing that becomes the self.

In the end, Mr. I, you write a lot of really good stuff, and as you imply, it's not by way of forming a certain known meaning, but as one might sense something in the abstract.

In my case the sense involves the feel of things, and I also know how language is used to steer other people, and I suppose to paint another as a known persona within ones own mind involves the contrasting of a self portrait defined by comparison, and the steering of others a form of self validation. There is a lot in the social life; in culture and domination, which indicates this is generally the case, the primitive against the civilized, the moral against the degenerate, and at the top of the pyramid of dominant ideology, is God, and a hierarchy of positions beneath with a 'spiritual man' at its head.

In my mind, there is no way of understanding 'you', as I do not believe that a person is is reflected in what they say, it's more like they said that and now they are not saying that anymore, and if I do imagine their image, my self image also appears in relation, and I can tell when I'm seeing things that aren't really there (however, some say I'm quite mad), though I can be enthralled enough to wish they were, and believe it for a while. But you can only listen to Stairway to Heaven so many times before it becomes a cliche that all guitarists know how to play (yet I still have Smoke on the Water as my ringtone).

[Mr Interesting]

I was quite chuffed when recently I started working with a woman I found out on the edges and she read some of my stuff and then commented how much she enjoyed what I wasn't saying. It was the underneath, as it were, and she was able to read that and know it was there.

I'd seen her ages ago and she seemed to have an ability to question things in a very interesting way, that though she might be within whatever was somehow destined for her, she still managed to stand quite distant from that, but then again it almost. too, felt that there was a spoiling and it felt she was still a little lost in that so I sort of just let it go.

But then she appeared on the edges again, and much closer, as if she had sensed I had been watching her, that she had felt something on her own edges and decided to come looking. So I wondered again what her edges might be, the size and glow of her spark, and so I kind of went fishing with what is underneath and though I have no idea how she works or what she found, and finds palatable, she took my bait but still seemed a little lost.

Then I decided I needed something specific and her help was needed and obviously taunted her to hurry up... I can actually be quite rude at times though, and when she did haul me up on this, I admitted freely to being the son of an unwed mother and that my own personal idiocy is often unleashed despite consequences, except the purpose was served and we did work together.

Me, I have somewhat decided she would be an able companion yet within the strictures of the society we share this is totally and completely audacious of me to assume such a celebrated personage might find me willing. Yet I enjoy the joke of it all. I don't at all care where the explorers find themselves or that what they might be exploring is of different hues... they are explorers and that is all that matters to me.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Mr Interesting

I was quite chuffed when recently I started working with a woman I found out on the edges and she read some of my stuff and then commented how much she enjoyed what I wasn't saying. It was the underneath, as it were, and she was able to read that and know it was there.

Sure, it's the underneath that it has that makes it "good stuff". Maybe one has to be out on the edges to see it. Dunno.

I'd seen her ages ago and she seemed to have an ability to question things in a very interesting way, that though she might be within whatever was somehow destined for her, she still managed to stand quite distant from that, but then again it almost. too, felt that there was a spoiling and it felt she was still a little lost in that so I sort of just let it go.

Sounds like my soulmate.

But then she appeared on the edges again, and much closer, as if she had sensed I had been watching her, that she had felt something on her own edges and decided to come looking. So I wondered again what her edges might be, the size and glow of her spark, and so I kind of went fishing with what is underneath and though I have no idea how she works or what she found, and finds palatable, she took my bait but still seemed a little lost.

Then I decided I needed something specific and her help was needed and obviously taunted her to hurry up... I can actually be quite rude at times though, and when she did haul me up on this, I admitted freely to being the son of an unwed mother and that my own personal idiocy is often unleashed despite consequences, except the purpose was served and we did work together.

I don't think I've ever seen you be rude. I get being an illegitimate idiot, though, which is something I often am, and I sure do pay in consequences.

Me, I have somewhat decided she would be an able companion yet within the strictures of the society we share this is totally and completely audacious of me to assume such a celebrated personage might find me willing. Yet I enjoy the joke of it all. I don't at all care where the explorers find themselves or that what they might be exploring is of different hues... they are explorers and that is all that matters to me.

It is the exploration that makes the finding out possible, but then, if the finding is set in knowledge it closes a door to all that will change, and I think a lesson which I learned is how to live and act according to what insight I have, rather than according to the stuff I know.