Transformation

[Nick_A]

Hello All

We've been relating on several topics including this power of love and how it relates to being. I've brought up how much our scattered being and our imaginations and useless fears deny the help from above we need to advance beyond a certain level.

Yet there are these moment that cannot be denied where our need of help from above transcends our egotism and our defenses are abandoned. No more Oprah wonderfulness. It is like hitting bottom which is just reaching a state of humility that egotism cannot dominate. There is no longer anything artificial to defend. It no longer matters. Such a state of humility and openness is a very powerful state and invites reality. The affects of the experience of reality are often obvious to everyone. The person is literally transformed in some way.

Take for example the powerful testimony as recorded in the following letter from Bill W to Carl Jung concerning his alcoholism. In it, the following is included:

http://www.hazelden.org/servlet/hazelden/c...t&page_id=25426 (http://www.hazelden.org/servlet/hazelden/cms/ptt/hazl_alive_and_free.html?sf=t&sh=t&page_id=25426)

Bill knew the doctor's prognosis. "My depression deepened unbearably and finally it seemed to me as though I were at the bottom of the pit," he wrote to Jung. "All at once I found myself crying out, 'If there is a God, let Him show Himself! I am ready to do anything.'"

At that moment, Bill wrote, his hospital room seemed to flood with white light. "I was caught up into an ecstasy which there are no words to describe. It seemed to me, in the mind's eye, that I was on a mountain and that a wind not of air but of spirit was blowing. And then it burst upon me that I was a free man."

So what happened? He hit bottom and the intensity and purity of his need invited and enabled help from above. The acquired freedom is not imagination. No new knowledge was learned and no speeches from experts were listened to. It was something from a different quality and I believe part of the power of love to reorient our being, and a love that is far beyond us either to give or receive simply because we live life in a dream. Bill W's need was no longer a dream but an expression of need far more real and essential than that of a new car or job etc.

I find it sad how often humility is associated with weakness and yet the courage to experience it can lead to the type of change many seek through self esteem. Yet how many can have this courage? We are lucky if we can be brought to it by accident when we are in such need. Such is the nature of grace. But we can know for sure that something has happened and some transformation has occured to enable this freedom.

But the difficulty with normal conscious human transformation is that our dreams no longer allow us to feel the need. Strange??

"Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, 'Where have I gone wrong?' Then a voice says to me, 'This is going to take more than one night.'" -- Charles M. Schulz, Charlie Brown in Peanuts:)

[bito]

Nick

When we come to the point where our ego-voice seems like a hollow echo in an empty cavern, and we cannot find a way through the apparent paradox of wanting so desparately to be in control and knowing, somewhere down deep that we are never really in control, yes, some sort of emotional, cathartic event(s) would seem to be needed to breakthough this paradoxical-madness-mind-heart grip upon self.

The self feels and cannot stop feeling. The self thinks and cannot stop thinking. Who or what is in control of this feeling, this thinking, this feeling and thinking that we did not will upon ourselves, rather, was willed upon us? How are we to understand the meaning, the purpose of this life we did not create?

Does this understanding have to be as Bill W experienced? Down on one's knees, begging for help? This may be one way, but I do not believe it is the only way.

Raging at Source is another. Sobbing, another. Withdrawing into the void, another. Many ways to break ego's resistance in seeing that no matter how we slice the bread, we are not the baker, we are the bread. Is this humbling to accept that we are bread? I would say that from the ego's perspective, it is most humbling. But from the tired, exhausted self's perspective, it is acceptance, pure and simple. A final shrug that says, OK, I'm tired of trying to figure out who or what is this baker that prepared my dough without consulting me - finally, I'm ready to be that cooked dough.

Me? I'm a warm, harvest crunch loaf, thickly cut, smothered in strawberry jam.

:)

[bito]

It strikes me that the concept of suffering fits in here somewhere - the suffering of man in his awareness of 'being consciousness squeezed' and the suffering of Consciousness in 'squeezing'.

And maybe, in bliss, when God and man are One, the price of wearing pajamas that are at least a gazillion times too small seems a small price to pay.

:)

[Nick_A]

Bito

How are we to understand the meaning, the purpose of this life we did not create?

Yes I know this question; why are we here and for what purpose. In the words of Anatole France: "If God did it, he committed an act of supreme imprudence."

It can create a real need as it did with bill W when he found himself totally in opposition to himself and hooked. Like you I believe this need can bring results in other ways. It just seems that if need is coming from the depths of one's being it nullifies the ego and can invite real results. What I like about Bill W's story is that it is verifiable. A hopeless alcoholic is freed in a manner beyond secular understanding. This is not imagination.

I agree we are the bread. The question becomes if we can ever be able to do any baking ourselves that is not purely the result of egotism.

Me? I'm a warm, harvest crunch loaf, thickly cut, smothered in strawberry jam.

Well if that's the case I can see why you call yourself bito since I feel like taking a bite out of you myself. :)

It strikes me that the concept of suffering fits in here somewhere - the suffering of man in his awareness of 'being consciousness squeezed' and the suffering of Consciousness in 'squeezing'.

Yes it does. This is another matter and something to be taken seriously since mistakes here can cause harm for yourself. The type of suffering that can strengthen need is related to a much misunderstood human quality called "conscience". We normally consider it purely as a subjective quality and linked with cultural ideas of right and wrong. Conscience can also be awakened as a real human perception beyond egotism. With those not knowing what they are doing, it also can become tainted. Fortunately for us, it is not easy to know ourselves enough to begin to experience objective conscience thereby preserving its purity and our opportunities..

[sahyo]

as a real human perception beyond egotism



can separate imagining-ego-imagining-perceptioning?

[Nick_A]

Asheera

can separate imagining-ego-imagining-perceptioning?

Imagining-ego could be wearing rose colored glasses. Taking the glasses off and allowing the impressions from sight to be consciously experienced would be visual perception. I see them as different and separated.

[bito]

Well if that's the case I can see why you call yourself bito since I feel like taking a bite out of you myself. :)

:lol:

My nic is pronounced bee-toe rather than bite-o; a childhood nickname. A sing-songy ending to my given name.

I agree we are the bread. The question becomes if we can ever be able to do any baking ourselves that is not purely the result of egotism.

The only way would seem to be to pay attention to feelings of separateness and self-righteousness within. But, yeah, we can kid ourselves big time, especially when we're with others who share our opinions, perceptions and understandings. Perhaps the biggest test is to offer one's thoughts and feelings into an arena that is inhospitable to one's beliefs and likely to incite self defences.

To remain calm and lovingly detached in ALL situations - to be this perfected - wow - a tough field to hoe indeed.

But to always hold this ideal as the candle in the dark... :thumbsup:

[sahyo]

Imagining-ego could be wearing rose colored glasses. Taking the glasses off and allowing the impressions from sight to be consciously experienced would be visual perception. I see them as different and separated.

imagining-ego as though a-'point'-somewhere is different than imagining-perception as though a-'point'-somewhere?

[Nick_A]

Asheera

imagining-ego as though a-'point'-somewhere is different than imagining-perception as though a-'point'-somewhere?

This is probably where we see it differently. Correct me if I'm wrong but from your response it seems as though you feel perception is illusory. Here we would disagree. The process of perception is the taking in of impressions and their transformation. This is a source of nutrition without which we would be dead instantly as opposed to within a duration of time in the absence of air, food, and/or water.

There is a difference between the process of perception and its interpretation. If you believe this process is an illusion I would have to disagree.

[sahyo]

imagining "taking in" as though somewhere to take in to
and somewhere to take out of?

"dead"?

[Nick_A]

Asheera

Damn woman, you'd be a tough date. :) Its hard to find common ground to begin

I guess you must believe that trasnformation itself is an illusion since there is nothing really to transform.

[sahyo]

Damn woman, you'd be a tough date. :)

hehehe

Its hard to find common ground to begin

not loving... dancing... singing... eating... sleeping... ? :)

I guess you must believe that trasnformation itself is an illusion since there is nothing really to transform.

maybe, but hasn't happened thinking-believing that

[Nick_A]

Asheera

not loving... dancing... singing... eating... sleeping...

I wasn't clear. On a date when there is the delightful exchange of male/female energies, then of course the above fits the bill. But in a discussion on the varieties of human transformation, I believe something may be lacking.

I can admire and respect your need want to be natural. But the idea of transformation seems to suggest that there is something beyond being natural. It is though the first thing necessary is the ability to be natural and then to grow from it.

I remember once having this strong vision of a puppet in a very lucid dream. It was of an extreme clarity enough for me to know that it wasn't just the usual dream function of energy escape. It finally dawned on me that it was an inner recognition that I was a puppet. Now granteed in those days I was an unnatural puppet with too many defense mechanisms. But still, the feeling was that something was pulling the strings and I was just reacting.

So how to react naturally without defense mechanisms? After a while It dawned on me there was more to it then just being a puppet even with less defense mechanisms. I felt a certain freedom in that beyond what was experienced by feeling natural. It was as though a feeling of "home".....to be less of a puppet so as to return home.

[sahyo]

But the idea of transformation seems to suggest that there is something beyond being natural.

ah, "idea"

if living as though puppet,
living not as though puppet might be thought as though 'natural'
and "there is something beyond being natural"
...when ceases comparing,
"natural"
"something"
"beyond"
ceases

but, words
cannot
say

:)

[bito]

So how to react naturally without defense mechanisms? After a while It dawned on me there was more to it then just being a puppet even with less defense mechanisms. I felt a certain freedom in that beyond what was experienced by feeling natural. It was as though a feeling of "home".....to be less of a puppet so as to return home.

Nick - is "home" feeling open-being?

[Nick_A]

Bito

Nick - is "home" feeling open-being?

I don't know what you mean by "open being". We live in a dream so even though we could be open, we're caught up in imaginations, justifications and the like which just keeps us internally scattered. I feel it more as a sense of direction. I've read of this in Christianity as "metanoia" or a change of direction, where meaning is searched for internally rather than from external life. It is as though this inner direction could allow me to put the external world into perspective rather than just reacting to its influences much like a puppet reacts to its strings being pulled. This inner direction points the way "home"

[Nick_A]

Asheera

when ceases comparing,
"natural"
"something"
"beyond"
ceases

Quite true. But why do you consider this to be something desirable? You could say it is life itself but this denies the possibility of a relative quality of life possible for us. It really is an ancient calling. This inner comparison is the essence of the biblical story of the pearl of great price. It is the result of imagination that one can feel that they already have it.

[bito]

I don't know what you mean by "open being". We live in a dream so even though we could be open, we're caught up in imaginations, justifications and the like which just keeps us internally scattered.

By living in a dream, are you referring to the living by what you call the 'corruption of our ego'?

Open being is what/who we really are. I say open as a way to see that we are taught, at an early age, to close our being. If we were born free of the need to defend or attack, this would be living 'from' being...a readiness and willingness to love and think freely, without worry of judgment from other defending and attacking closed beings.

As early as five years old, we are pitted against our fellow man. In the western world, this translates into school sports, report cards, spelling bees, gold stars, admonishing from parents to be like this or like that...sh*t, by the time we're seven, we have learned to define ourselves almost entirely by what others think/feel of us.

And yes, this other-definition of self does indeed create a confused and internally scattered "I", prone to imaginations and justifications. Escape and self-blame-other-blame. Hell, it's is all the other-defined self knows...until inner questioning begins...

I feel it more as a sense of direction. I've read of this in Christianity as "metanoia" or a change of direction, where meaning is searched for internally rather than from external life. It is as though this inner direction could allow me to put the external world into perspective rather than just reacting to its influences much like a puppet reacts to its strings being pulled. This inner direction points the way "home"

Perhaps our meaning of 'home' is not that much different, but I'm not sure... :unsure:

To me, 'home' is when one rediscovers being (all the muck of external self-definition is cleaned off). This 'place' of nakedness, purity, love-light-feeling, listening...IS home. This nakedness is both empty and not empty. It is empty of all external self-defining voices, but not empty of wisdom memory-experiencing. I sense that for you, this wisdom memory-experiencing is conceptualized as levels of being, a descent from 'higher' that blends with the energies of 'lower'. I would love to understand how you tie in 'emotion' and 'feeling' with your mental awareness of these levels. If we metaphored the 'higher' and 'lower' and 'middle' levels with water, what would you see/feel?

My probing into your waterworks :D comes from an honest desire to understand what makes your spirit 'tick', but feel feel to tell me to shove it where the sun don't shine!

;) :)

[bito]

I found this description of metanoia on the net:

http://www.stjosephdg.org/parish/about/metanoia.html

If I'd looked it up before my last post, it would have helped me better understand your meaning of 'sense of direction'.

Always good to do the research before asking irrelevent questions...:examine: :)

[Nick_A]

By living in a dream, are you referring to the living by what you call the 'corruption of our ego'?

Yes but I must clarify what this means. Our five senses, emotions, and thoughts connect us to the external world. Our sensitivity can be improved. However, the real problem is in how they are connected. It is in the connections that the corruption occurs and unnecessary fears and imagination take the place of the attention that should connect them. They do not work together as a complimentary unit which they could. This lack of unity, as I understand it, is the ancient meaning of original sin. Imagination must enter to allow us to accept such conditions.

Open being is what/who we really are. I say open as a way to see that we are taught, at an early age, to close our being. If we were born free of the need to defend or attack, this would be living 'from' being...a readiness and willingness to love and think freely, without worry of judgment from other defending and attacking closed beings.

I agree with a lot of this but it is easy to get too cutsey pooh and lose meaning. For example, it is neither attack or defense that is in opposition to ourselves, it is the motives of attack and defense where we begin to react unnaturally. Attack and defense in the process of service to the earth is necessary.

As early as five years old, we are pitted against our fellow man. In the western world, this translates into school sports, report cards, spelling bees, gold stars, admonishing from parents to be like this or like that...sh*t, by the time we're seven, we have learned to define ourselves almost entirely by what others think/feel of us.

The same thing applies here. In the animal kingdom such playful competition is natural and necessary since it hones and develops our skills. The problem again is in our motivations....how are connections to the external world are out of whack and been corrupted with all this imagination, fears, justifications and all the misguided myriad forms of false pride and vanity. I find it ironic that "natural man" can only be considered theoretically.

To me, 'home' is when one rediscovers being (all the muck of external self-definition is cleaned off). This 'place' of nakedness, purity, love-light-feeling, listening...IS home. This nakedness is both empty and not empty. It is empty of all external self-defining voices, but not empty of wisdom memory-experiencing. I sense that for you, this wisdom memory-experiencing is conceptualized as levels of being, a descent from 'higher' that blends with the energies of 'lower'. I would love to understand how you tie in 'emotion' and 'feeling' with your mental awareness of these levels. If we metaphored the 'higher' and 'lower' and 'middle' levels with water, what would you see/feel?

Here we disagree a bit. It is one thing to rediscover being and quite another to allow such awareness to have its rightful place in the totality of our human organism. Again I would ask you really to ponder what Paul is saying in his description of the "wretched man". It is not that he is unaware since he most definitely is. He found himself in opposition to himself. He may desire one thing from his being and another from his corrupt nature. They reach a stand-off and without help, one remains in this perpetual struggle. As a plurality, there is only a small part of us that appreciates esoteric ideas and the desire for being. The majority of ourselves has no interest and some of what is within ourselves actively struggles against it.

I sense that for you, this wisdom memory-experiencing is conceptualized as levels of being, a descent from 'higher' that blends with the energies of 'lower'.

If it did, there wouldn't be a problem. The problem is that the result of the blend is imaginary so they remain separate.

Emotion is a tough one. Especially in modern times, their qualitative distinction is virtually unknown. In New Age circles such an idea would probably be considered offensive It is all lumped together into one.

In the Bible the idea of water is associated with emotion. Consider the internal meaning of the following.

Genesis 1
3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning-the first day.
6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning-the second day.

This is extremely profound but few realize it because of all the "debates"

There are two levels of emotions (waters) and notice that they are not connected. There is not a "water" between them but instead: "sky". This is the place for the potential sould that unites the higher and lower.

Some in old Christianity knew of this. Evagrius Ponticus, a fourth century spiritual teacher, who caught all sorts of grief for undersnding a few things, wrote about "Apatheia" which as so often happens, was translated wrong into "apathy". But apatheia means "freedom from emotions"

The idea here is that thoughts provoke emotions of a lower level that begin to dominate our being. Emotion is much quicker than thought so while it is possible through several means to not pay attention to circular thinking, emotional volatility is something else.

Being needs to be helped by emotions that arise from the level of the higher water. It's a completely different experience for those that have felt it. I read this level of emotions described as "feelings" while our normal earthly emotions remain "emotions.

I remember reading from Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh that "We have to get rid of emotions...in order to reach...feelings".

This would bring scowls of righteous indignation to a great many since lower emotions are so often glorified. This is why it must be remembered that such ideas are not for everyone. In fact it is probably only a relative few that would begin to differentiate here and have the humility to proceed with this understanding. Going wrong here will only cause more misundertanding.

I always appreciate efforts of people to want to understand rather than condemn. Have no concerns over this. Astronomers have recently discovered places in the universe where the suns don't shine or nothing returns. They call them black holes. I wonder if, on a larger scale,....hmmmm :)

[bito]

It is truly an adventure of discovery to share each other's inner thoughts...thanks.

Astronomers have recently discovered places in the universe where the suns don't shine or nothing returns. They call them black holes. I wonder if, on a larger scale,....hmmmm :)

:lol: :)

[bito]

Nick, are you meaning that imagination via symbols and archetypes is the connecting conduit to actualizing Godself? That this Godself is objective in intention, but subjective in expression? And that we are fearful of this objectivity? And, in this fear, we fall back on applying personal meaning (imagination) to these symbols and archetypes?

Just four teensy-weensy questions... :D

[Nick_A]

Nick, are you meaning that imagination via symbols and archetypes is the connecting conduit to actualizing Godself? That this Godself is objective in intention, but subjective in expression? And that we are fearful of this objectivity? And, in this fear, we fall back on applying personal meaning (imagination) to these symbols and archetypes?

Just four teensy-weensy questions...

You have the biggest teensy-weensy questions I ever read. :)

I was speaking of the creation of the soul as the connection. I don't know if that's what you mean by "godself". Man has two natures. One originates from above and one from below. They can to be connected. It is not necessary for man on earth, but to evolve as we can somehow they must be connected? It is a very strange feeling when somehow accidentally you experience both simultaneously.

Obviously this connection or "soul", (I), will be receptive to the higher and affirming of the lower. In this way we are "one".

It is really hard to describe but building on the experience requires the tool of consciousness or "attention" which is another thread. I'll copy Prof. needleman's experience with this while in the presence of Father Vincent in the book "Lost Christianity". It may help to clarify things.

He really didn't care for Father Vincent at first since he didn't seem priestly at all. He would at times sit around for example watching football and belching. Yet Prof. N began to learn certain incredible things about Father Vincent and his experiences in Africa that he was also attracted to. He began to be both attracted to and repulsed by the same thing. The usual thing to do is to just move away from this experience but Prof. N started to sense that the "voluntary suffering" of remaining attentive to it was somehow enlightening. From P. 69 referring to voluntary suffering:

.........But no other words seem adequate to describe the persistant sense of "being-in-between" that accompanied my talk with Father Vincent. My religious side and my "worldly" side were both suspended--or,rather, both existed and pulled me, but neither by itself nor both together could prevail.

I discovered that there is an aspect of my nature that is neither spiritual nor worldly, and to be situated in that part of myself meant to experience a sort of suffering that simultaneously was new to me and had a flavor of familiarity, a distinct "my-own-ness." Also, and most important, I had constantly to choose it.

Had Father vincent more "credentials," had I been able to say to myself that he was making me uncomfortable as a form of "skillful means," my experience no doubt would have been very different--as it has been when I have met spiritual personages from the traditions such as Zen masters, Tibetan lamas, or Sufi sheiks.

What is this place between my two natures? Why is it such bitterwsweet suffering to be situated there? Bittersweet because the sense of my-owness was really quite extraordinary. I was lost, uncertain, irritated, frustrated, and yet somehow I wished to remain in that state. I existed. And I must say, without being able to prove it in writing, that this wish had a completely different flavor from what usually goes under the name of desire or "interest" or "religious yearning."

I have since learned that this expeience, unforgettable though it was, is only the merest foretaste of the reality between the two natures of man, and certainly only the merest brush with the suffering (the bitter) and the "voluntary (the sweet) that it entails..........................

This, as I unnderstand it, is what real "I" does. I hope it helps because without the experience, it is so hard to describe. So symbols and the like are indicative of something and serve to help in the recognition of something but this "something" I believe is what Prof needleman experienced; that which connects our two natures.

The experience comes and we cannot retain it so we "fall back". It takes a while to achieve the balance necessary to ride a bike and likewise, I believe, a certain learning and creation of something to balance these two opposing natures of ours is the direction for which a lot of seekers yearn for but are unaware of.

[sahyo]

It is truly an adventure of discovery to share each other's inner thoughts



:lol: