'just be at peace'

[Raziel]

Originally Posted by Lorelyen

Interesting, because quite honestly if "Eckhart Tolle says that 'peace is our essential nature'.", then Ekhart Tolle has got it wrong.

It may be an essential aim but as essential nature it's too highly questionable. It would be stasis, a point at which 'experiencing' stops - because a) there's no need for further experiencing as there would be no further unknowns; b) what's around us doesn't stand still. One person's peace isn't another's which may be in conflict with ours unless we all reach a state of entropy in which nothing matters any longer; c) we'd have to assume every environment we enter brings no conflict thus nothing to resolve; and d) those who like a challenge (which could be seen as an arm of spiritual growth) will have to disturb their status quo to find it- or if thrown at them, are ready to meet it.

We can enjoy moments of peace; we have the capacity to be peaceful (could even be 'content') but that doesn't make it 'essential nature' which is to me balance and steady state... I am not unpeaceful most of the time because I make continual adjustments and put up with non-peace, just as one factor: having to work to earn to survive.

As I see it, anyway. But this is all too early. I need a bit of brekkies before going to zumba which will bring joy, exhilaration... but that isn't peace.
Mr Tolle needs to rethink his premise... he needs to be Tolled off!

Yup!

Everyone that proclaims that peace is our nature seems to forget about .. nature.

Everything that Lorelyen describes has seemingly always been so - except in the Garden of Eden type ideal.

Now Eden as I remember the story only had two human inhabitants so there was no competition etc etc.

~

Whatever it is that we most commonly do is exactly the same as all other species on the planet (I don't need to go into biology I hope) - sure our brain is our weapon but we use it to further our own interests just as a Tiger does with its teeth.

Our "instinct" should be peace if that is what is at our base level but it isn't.

This planet makes you have to survive be it via weather, bacteria, environment or competition from other species.

Peeps of all belief systems seem to take issue with the whole "people are just animals" notion because it knocks us off of that pedestal of being chosen or special.

One of the reasons I'd love proof of Aliens is to show us that the human tribe is actually not so different to (Xetans, Thetans, Annunaki) whomever is out there.

We are capable of great things, science, music, philosophy but it's all a big bow on the basic need to survive & improve.

~

Animals are far more honest than we are.

The most spiritual species on the planet that I have ever met are Horses - its impossible not to be at peace around them - without words or language they radiate tranquillity.

Cats are like cats & make no apologies for it, dogs are dogs, but people ... apparently we are GODS ...!?


Just an opinion.

.

[naturesflow]

Last night I happened upon a passage from a book on neurophysiology representing fairly up to date research. It'll bear repeat here in context.

Quote:

Evolution is driven and directed by the physical survival of the species not by the happiness of individuals. Thus much of the brain’s functioning is based on primitive fight or flight mechanisms as opposed to conscious and compassionate decision making. The conscious and unconscious management of fear and anxiety remains the core component of our attachment relationships.


It got me thinking. The way the brain deals with situations is an extension of its earliest incarnation, evolved over millions of years. It is still prepared for all eventualities. So it would seem that peace is not a human’s essential nature. Rather, it’s self-preservation, the brain’s job above all is keeping its owner safe.

I like your thinking. So if the brain determines all your sharing in the way your saying, what do you think determines a more conscious compassionate response?

For myself personally I tend to lean towards the Buddhist view only because it fits my own conscious healing path that has allowed me to witness myself reaching peace at the core of my core fears and attachments. Of course not everyone need be on the true self/peace path, its just the life and process one undergoes and understands more intricately if that is their path to take.

It does seem to run counter to Mr Tolle.

(But please accept...although it's probably good insomnia treatment I don't look on neurophysiology as good bedtime reading!!)

Your brain must do twists and turns all night long reading this kind of bedtime material..

Originally Posted by happy soul

Here's the problem. WE LIKE DRAMA, CONFLICT, AND PROBLEMS.

here's the problem. we like
drama, conflict, and problems.
here's the solution. we like
drama, conflict, and problems.

keep both in check

thank god.

m. m. urge of aid.

[linen53]

I am at peace some of the time and conflict at others. I don't apologize or feel guilt from my behaviors anymore. And I don't dissect every thought and action performed by moi (me).

[Jyotir]

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[Jyotir]

Originally Posted by Lorelyen

I somehow thought I wouldn't get a reply. I didn't throw that up as a challenge but a point for discussion.

A little disappointing, still....

♥

Hi Lorelyen,

I’m wondering -
What does neuroscience say about disappointment?
Also - not about the irony of it appearing in this thread - but what exactly do you find disappointing? Aren’t you content with your own explanation? I’m satisfied with, and accept that it seems to work for you, even if I have little use for it myself.

Given that, I have no interest in disappointing myself by convincing or coercing others (even by their own invitation) as to the efficacy of my own preferred constructs, means, expedients, etc., other than occasionally sharing those as pertinent to the discussion according to my own inspiration.

To be honest, I’m not really here to waste my own or others time by compelling the futility, absurdity and frustration usually encountered within the extended, compulsive, and reactive ‘convincing’ process. Rather, I have faith in the inherent divinity of each individual to guide and illumine as to the truth and utility of any personal evolutionary necessity at any given time.

However, if this helps to address the apparent disparity in views, here’s mine (and as a reference, it may be accessed more thoroughly and deeply - since challenging reading has become de rigueur for this thread? - through the writings of Sri Aurobindo, ‘The Life Divine’ in particular.

Nature is above all a stupendous process for the evolution of consciousness that begins from the involution of Spirit into a conditionally ignorant multiplicity of Self and emerges via that inherent aspiration which impels toward the realization of Self within each differentiation of that One Life which Nature is.

Matter and Spirit are not mutually exclusive; both are consciousness - but Spirit is the unconditional origin that creates the conditional limitations of that manifestation, which begins as matter, and from which the unconditional emerges by its evolution. Matter is not the origin of consciousness but is the instrumental vehicle for the dynamic emergence of its true essence - Spirit.

In this scheme, the inner precedes the outer; vision precedes materialization, etc., not the other way around. Peace, silence, static delight therefore precedes the material manifestation in its divided self-ignorant dynamically interdependent multiplicity of individuated forces. But all of that is a surface appearance of a greater and comprehensive Consciousness in which, and by which, all exists and is transformed within, through, and AS the physical.

Peace is the truest inner reality underlying all manifestation as inseparable attribute of Spirit - the essential , the essence, the origin. But, that is masked by the external dynamism and superficially evident conflict of individuated forces/autonomous wills in the physical,- which is itself a vast range consciousness. We experience that falsely by the objective movement in and through a separative cognition of phenomena - - a partial, limited, and distorted instrumental consciousness. We do not see/experience the inner stillness as the true source and innermost basis because we don’t see/experience in and through that stillness as a means - but only see the material result in and through a limited separative cognition as an end, a result, that is yet constantly shifting and changing.

Practices such as meditation are a deliberate mitigation and transformation of this normally limited instrumental consciousness, whereby we elevate our consciousness, ascend, and actually become a higher cognition, or knowing.

The practice of meditation actually transforms and expedites the evolution of consciousness by displacing a ’lower’ fragmented and limited instrumental cognition with a ’higher’ more comprehensive principle - which then becomes the instrument of experience. In other words, we acquire a higher instrumental consciousness out of the available range which provides greater access to the essential by actually and instrumentally becoming the essential itself. This is what ascension is…and realization. We outwardly become instrumentally what we inmost are essentially.

Self-conscious human beings may do this - animals can’t; neither can plants; certainly not matter. Each stage of evolution has a native range of consciousness - a conditional ’typal’ limitation which may be impressive in its own right (just look at the profusion of Nature), and may itself evolve, but realization of God-nature - the unlimited unconditional - is fully available to human beings because a significant feature of human life is a reflective self-consciousness that is only rudimentary in animals, in which there is a spontaneous purity of ‘nature’ there, but it is reflexively limited accordingly.
It is the material result that science deals with (mostly intellectually, which is an additional burden limiting in its scope of discovery) blindly seeking explanations of causes in results as its model - and why science struggles and falters the farther it gets from the study of matter ‘proper‘ in its reliable predictability - I.e., medicine > psychology > ethics > aesthetics, etc., and therefore it is inherently limited in terms of what it may discover about consciousness, which subsumes all of it, and why justifications and explanations of the spiritual by scientific means are intrinsically faulty- but conversely, why spirituality does contain and explain all of the aforementioned. Because all of it is consciousness which is self-accessible.


Consciousness emerges from matter. But matter emerging from consciousness? That horse left the barn at the dawn of time.

~ J

Originally Posted by naturesflow

Quote:
I like your thinking. So if the brain determines all your sharing in the way your saying, what do you think determines a more conscious compassionate response?

The details of how the response unfolds follow unconscious responses based on the most subtle linkages through multiple channels of rapid, unconscious communications between two brains “across the social synapse”, so I understand. Also relies on the emotional sensitivity of the compassionate person which seems to be developed very early in life. Current thinking is that the brain is a social organ that reacts to its owner's environment including people - something with which someone interested in communication can sympathise.

There's a good deal of research on emotional mimicry and contagion, probably best shown in that, say, the facial expression of person A expressing an emotion will (unless deliberately controlled) be mimicked by the listener, B. More to the point, while they may not share a common experience, the same circuitry appears to be active in both brains. Like a person crying without saying why will invoke a similar cortical responses in the listener. It's something that can be observed superficially at least.

Unfortunately it's postulated that people's emotional sensitivity is a product of their earliest development. The less caring, neglectful nurturing yields the most sensitive people. Seems a bit of a generalisation but it has been the subject of research. A mother's emotional state is transferred to the infant (Haviland and Lelica). The more empathetic a person is depends on emotional sensitivity it seems. Almost all the brain is involved calling on experiences and triggering motor responses through the somatosensory part of the parietal lobe....not forgetting the (parasympathietic) vagal nerve that reglates autonomous changes fired by the sympathetic nervous system.

There's a great deal of sharing thanks to the social brain.

Is it ok to leave it there?
I don't know if I've made sense - that would be a first!

Your brain must do twists and turns all night long reading this kind of bedtime material..

Um... what brain is that, dear naturesflow? It looks more like a dish of macaroni cheese. I put some cayenne on my head to warm it up a bit but it didn't work... Oh, woe is me....


♥

Originally Posted by Jyotir

Hi Lorelyen,

I’m wondering -
What does neuroscience say about disappointment?
Also - not about the irony of it appearing in this thread - but what exactly do you find disappointing? Aren’t you content with your own explanation? I’m satisfied with, and accept that it seems to work for you, even if I have little use for it myself.

It's ok, I asked if you had better factual evidence to support your view.
You would have saved typing just to say "no."
I'm oft times disappointed when a chance to broaden a horizon slips away.

I'm never content with my explanation when it must be so very brief and omit so much.

(I erased a question about one of your statements. Probably best to let it rest here.)

♥

[BlueSky]

I have a question that I would love those who shared in this thread to comment on.
It's pretty obvious to me that we the mind can create or see reality any way we like but whose to say that doesn't include the way we see our true nature or anything spiritual which would include seeing apart from the mind.
In other words I can create a reality where I am enlightened, at peace or of being spiritual or of being God.
What if at the foundation of everything that moves is simply the potential to be anything, and that would include everything from an enlightened monk to a Christian who is guided by the Holy spirit.
It seems to boil down to what you really want or think you want and all I'm saying is maybe that truly includes anything as far as how your reality changes for you. So in essence you don't see your true nature, you create a world where you do
I'd be interested in your comments....thanks

just be at peace

never forget where you come
from, what you are as a person,
and where you are be headed.