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Saturday, October 20


LAURA AND FRIENDS

JERRY: Again, rather than be concerned with the
precise teaching of Steiner, how about realizing
that you have your own knowledge/teaching of the
structure of reality and using Steiner as a guide
to reveal your own knowledge/teaching?

It's like you're in a dark room and all
you have is a blueprint of a similar room. To
follow that blueprint exactly will not reveal the
room you are in, exactly as it is. But to use the
blueprint as a guide would be very helpful, because
it's as though your room and the other room were
designed by the same architect. Like condo
complexes where every unit is basically similar,
but not quite. It's really important to understand
the room you're in and not someone else's.

MICHAEL:
This is a good point - blueprints, yes. We are all
unique and all similar. If we keep looking into
someone else's room(s) to see what they have, we
miss seeing what we have. While it can help us to
know that some other(s) kitchen is equipped with a
disposal, a dishwasher, a fridge and so on, we have
to learn to use our own appliances.

Well, this is a bit of a goofy (using condominiums
allegorically) analogy. But, it does point back to
ourselves as the place to start looking. We are all
just different enough to keep the game and flow of
life going. And we are all basically the same.

LAURA: Oh yeah, is it considered bad form to tell a
teacher his chosen philosophy sounds bogus? Maybe I
shouldn't have said that.

JERRY: You're picking up on the strangeness of his
room. It's not your room. I don't see anything
wrong with saying it. If he's worth his salt, he'd
probably agree with you.

LAURA: He did agree to a certain extent. "Every
path has it's poop" was the quote. He also often
says "Your wound is your gift." and that once a
person knows what their wound is, they start to
attract people with the same issue. Then he told me
that his "wound" is doubt, and that he's had some
intense struggles with it. I had spent a lot of the
conversation trying to clarify what Steiner was
trying to convey with his philosophy. I didn't know
he doubted, so I was saying things like "Steiner
said that, but do YOU believe that Dennis? " "You
know, that sounds really bogus" "That doesn't make
sense" etc. At one point he got this look on his
face...sort of like his teacher mask had fallen
off. Like he was doubting.

I don't get the sense that he is in the same place
some of you are, not quite locked down in where he
is, if that makes sense. I don't want to say
anything to make him doubt if doubt is a problem
for him. People around the college seem to look up
to him a lot. He's very intelligent and he's very
charismatic. Before I met him I heard people talk
about him as if he was some sort of guru, but he
doesn't present himself as one. I feel really bad
now. Should I apologize? I'm not sure how to
proceed from here. I can be pretty annoying with
all of my questions. I don't want to bug him, but I
did pay the school $6000 for a 7 month set of
classes and I want to get as much out of it as
possible. Maybe my questions had no effect on him
at all, and I just want to think they did because
that idea makes me feel more powerful. Or, if
people attract people with similar "wounds" maybe
it is for the purpose of further healing the
"wound". How does a person make a decision about
anything when nothing ever seems certain?

MICHAEL: Sometimes I just chuckle at all the
theories of the 'what is'. Can't help meself. It is
'mind' that throws up all sorts of barriers and
ideas about 'spirituality'. Well, that's the job of
'mind' you know, to figure things out. Our mind
wants a cozy and comfortable 'explaination' for
this whole thing - existence. The 'mind' is not
quite comfortable with the concept that all there
is, is god.

You see, it is story, the never-ending story. And
who doesn't like a good story? (big smiles here)

Hierarchy - ever notice that each philosophy,
religion, path etc. has its 'own' pantheon of
saints, beings, dieties and so forth? Should they
all be taken literally? Well, that can be and is
done. However, if we start to look at these
'hierarchies' as metaphorical teachings, then we
become more open to understanding the underlying
'truth' of the teachings.

We all tend to grasp onto 'something' that makes
sense of 'this'. By doing so the 'mind' seems to
gain some comfort. It is very disconcerting to
'mind' to even begin to contemplate the vastness of
creation and existence.

The whole thing (seeking and finding) gets rather
strange and can become twisted around. 'Mind'
doesn't really want to 'go there' - into the
vastness of pure 'being'. So, as the 'seeker' comes
closer and closer to 'reality' the mind just begins
to analyze and define what is going on. Sometimes
it freaks and tries real hard to put the brakes on.
Poor thing - it's way out of its element - so to
speak.

Yah, it is often as not, much more comfortable to
live in a dream-filled fantasy of god in heaven
surrounded by all sorts of angelic beings, divine
symbolism, a separate you/me, and all that.

We, however, are not separate from the universe.
Sure, this is just another concept. Heck, it's like
that old saying -'if you could just bottle that,
you'd be rich!'.

As you 'progress' along your path so many concepts
will arise. Here is some advice - toss the concepts
away as they arise. Sure, take a look at them if
you want to - then throw them away. Notice, as you
are 'doing' this how many arise - like endless
waves on the ocean, it seems.

Now, the 'mind' really really really wants to lock
things down. It is just a wee bit scared, you see?
So it puts up a good fight. Poor thing!

But, if you allow intuition/heart to do the
guiding, something marvelous happens! Yup!

Please don't take my word for it. After all 'I' am
only using words and concepts here. It would be
best if you just ignored what I am saying and dive
into the 'whole thing' for yourself.

Sure, I can say without a doubt or a hesitation
that you are what you seek. But you know that you
'have to' find out for yourself.

GLORIA: Perhaps the anxiety you feel "for him" is
really about you, your own uncertainty? I drove all
my teachers nuts that way, but most of them
appreciate a student taking a subject seriously
enough to simply think deeply about it.

Anyway, if a few questions, no matter how
penetrating and perceptive, could destroy his
"belief system" - whatever you call it, then it
needs destroying and is already worthless to begin
with. However, it is also a possibility that he he
is reflecting them back to you rather than
answering them on purpose, like any good Zen master
would. A good question will actually take you
further than an answer. An answer is a stopping
place.

Whatever, no need to apologize for asking,
questioning, doubting... that's what he is there
for. But I would consider the poop remark
seriously. It may be difficult to sort out the
shining truth from the BS, but he is so right that
every path has some. If you put a lot of energy
into searching for the "one right path" and leaving
when you find some crap, you may not get deeply
enough into any particular one to get past the BS.
Look around enough to see what resonates with you,
yet ultimately you are your own path. You make the
path by wherever you investigate and spend your
time. Enjoy the process, the journey.

MARK:
If there is one useful thing I have learned from my
spiritual quest, it is to take responsibility for
my stuff and let people take responsibility for
their own stuff. If you pushed someone's buttons,
that is a gift to him, to see how his buttons work.
Letting go of buttons seems to be the thing. (okay,
perhaps I can reword that to be more in your
vocabulary...) If you pushed your finger inside his
wound, he has the choice to make that useful (get
some information about the wound that will help him
heal it), or to let that make the wound larger. If
you poke him in his wound on purpose, hoping to do
damage, do apologize, but not so much for him, as
for you. You have to take responsibility for your
wound, and acting out of the desire to do damage is
surely a sign of your wound in action. If you poked
him there accidently and he makes a big fuss about
it, I think apologizing only supports him in his
decision to feel like a victim. (it confirms the
choice.) Who wants to do that to someone? Does that
make sense?

SUSAN:
Hi Laura,

I was fortunate to have a spiritual 'supernatural'
type awakening before I did any kind of
metaphysical studies of any type. I only had my
Christian fundamentalist background as context.

Although I am not a fundie anymore, when I first
started looking around the metaphysical landscape I
saw the same thing, hierarchies. I remember saying
to a Master, "jeez, why is this all so Catholic?"
(and I wasn't meaning brotherhoods. :) He looked
very perplexed and didn't understand my question.

Later, I came to realize that it is human nature,
the hardwiring of the brain, to put things into
organizational structures and not necessarily
multidimensionally. It is human to try to put order
into what a human perceives to be chaos or at least
confusing instead of grokking it all at once. It
gives us a false feeling of insecurity.

I find hierarchies to be useful for learning but
also limiting.

Haven't humans always been earth centric? :) Just
as our ancestors believe the sun and the planets
and the whole planetary universe revolved around
earth, metaphysical types still cling to the belief
we are spiritually 'special' and the whole spirtual
multidimension exists to serve us. LOL! It has
always been "it's all about me" at its core, don't
you think?

If it feels bogus to you, your internal BS detector
is probably clicking on...hehehe...

I can imagine we can look at it as not as levels of
separation, just a stopping place in a non-linear
pan dimensional infinite field.

We do not use or exchange energy, rather we are
unceasingly transforming energy along with the rest
of the universe. No continuum. No good, nor bad or
separation.

Human beings are more dense energy fields in
continuous exchange with their environment and the
universe also wave form patterns of fields. Fields
are infinite, in continuous motion, and always
changing. Fields are without boundaries.

Hierarchies are attempt to categorize and
personalize those fields.

Not much but I hope that helps.

GENE POOLE:
Our primate nervous system is anything but
vestigial, and consciousness 'as we know it' is
built atop the ancient bicameral mind.

The bicameral mind, as a gambit for species
survival, worked so perfectly, that the human
population increased to the point that tribal
warfare became not only incessant, but deadly. At
this point, was consciousness 'as we know it'
invented.

Consciousness 'as we know it' is also called
'ego-consciousness', and ego is essentially a force
of mediation or referee. Ego mediates between the
arisings of the bicameral mind, and the criteria of
identity. Identity is an assemblage of mutally
cohesive memory fragments, which are acquired
through life experience.

Consciousness 'as we know it', or
ego-consciousness, intercepts the constant
transmissions from the bicameral mind, or 'id'.
'Ego the referee' blows the whistle on foul plays,
as certified by the criteria of of identity, which
is learned social egalitarianism.

Chief among the residual aspects of the bicameral
mind, is the persistent arising of the spirit of
the alpha-male primate tribal chief, or as HE is
otherwise know, 'God'. Primate tribal life as
perpetuated by bicameral mind, provided for the
appearance of Big Chief Alpha-Male God, even in the
absence of other living Beings. We continue to have
this hallucination, whenever 'consciousness as we
know it' wavers or breaks down. Under those
conditions, 'God' makes an appearance, issues
orders, emits glamors, and generally compels
obedience to the way of the tribe.

Schema of layers of consciousness: (hierarchy)

* (invisible space as receptive 'female' emptiness destination)

* Top: Higher Self, Self, Universal Spirit (Superego)

* Middle: 'Ego-consciousness' ('Ego', 'Do-er') =
= (Identity [ego plug-in] =
= acquired criteria for social regulation)

* Lower self: (substrata collectively known as 'id')

-Bicameral mind (survival strategy)

-Physical layer of Being (possibility of reproduction)

-Organisation of DNA (cohesion by ordering principle)

-Matter

* Self (active ordering principle/ thrust/ 'male' issuance)

If you carefully examine the above list, you will
see that Self rests upon Self; from Self, emanates
the entire hierarchical structure, and atop of this
structure, is poised Self.

As we do not see where we came from (Self), we also
do not see where we are going (Self). We thus do
not see what is in between the arising of
everything from Self, into Self, as Self, and
finally and 'eternally' as Self.

The beginning Self is emptiness, and arising in
this selfsame emptiness, comes forth organized
(according to periodicity) matter, and patterned
flesh (bound by DNA), a mobile bit of food on the
run, chasing other food on the run.

Now arises the bicameral mind, to spare the
individual the fatal effects of individuality
(ignorance) and share the collective (tribal)
wisdom; the group survives, but the price for
survival is to live always in hierarchy under the
eye and hand of the Top Monkey/Alpha-Male/Tribal
Chief or as we know him now... GOD.

Consciousness was invented in order to halt the
incessant tribal warfare which was a direct result
of the success of the bicameral mind!

Warfare became a way of life (holy war) between
tribes SIMPLY BECAUSE each tribe had a unique God,
as unique as each lineage of tribal
Alpha-Male/Chief. It was the clash of the Gods,
which compelled endless bloodshed, and which
eventually necessitated the invention of
consciousness, identity, and egalitarian social
systems.

Ego consciousness means "ability to know the
difference".

The human ability to cogitate/think/calculate
depends upon or actually emanates from the
bicameral mind. It is the eternal conversation
between the two hemispheres of the brain, which is
the basis for the cyclic interaction of the
inductive-deductive phases of thought. It is this
cyclic digestion of sense-data, also referenced to
remembered information, which is generally called
'mind'.

We can become acutely aware of the internal
conversation, and furthermore, we can attain veto
power over any conclusion drawn by this ancient
computer. We can choose to suspend any actions
which would emanate from any conclusion. We have
the power, if we choose to employ it in service of
abiding, in abiding the conversation, and in
abiding the impulse to react.

So recently have humans gained consciousness, that
our recent history is peppered with records of
purely bicameral behaviour. The deep-seated impulse
to 'purify the race/tribe' can be seen in the
actions of many cults, including the Third Reich of
Germany under Adolph Hitler.

So recently have humans gained consciousness, that
we have not yet learned to call in the referee in
times of great tribe-ulation. Still, the shimmering
and magnetic image of the God of the tribe is
hallucinated by those who are in crisis, those who
feel disenfranchised, those who have been banished
from their own tribal lands. In the absence of an
actual God, the projected/hallucinated God takes
command, bypassing the enfeebled and unskilled
referee, and launching holy war upon those whose
God differs from tribal specifications.

It does little to no good to appeal to those whose
bicameral minds have stolen control; it does more
good to appeal to the referee, to rebuild the
referee, to construct if need be, a referee from
whole cloth. It is possible to teach consciousness,
and it is possible to for a teacher of
consciousness to 'transmit mind' to an other.

The tradition of the 'transmission of mind' is best
preserved and practiced as Zen. The master, who is
a teacher of consciousness, may employ the koan in
order to disable the regressive reasoning of the
student. Sudden awakening occurs when the
transmitted (contagioned) 'mind' has taken root and
has successfully co-opted the entire hierarchy of
consciousness within the student. Suddenly, the
whole human organism is slaved or entrained by the
imperative of space itself. In this moment,
emptiness prevails; in this moment, the receptive
has opened to the thrust of Being, and linkage has
occurred.

In this moment, there is connection from the very
core of the planet, through the root of Being
(matter) and refined through the existing protocols
of self-organisation, to emerge from the crown, as
a beam of ultraviolet 'light'; this light connects
with the ultraviolet 'aura' of the planet. A loop
of connection has occurred; lower has connected
with higher, and the two are one, at last.

The receptive (space) has always more room than
there is matter to occupy it; it is up to the human
to figure how to make this connection. Fortunately,
there is a lineage of teachers of consciousness
among us. Mind can be transmitted, and received.

Mind rages around us like a great fire, ready to
burn our fables to ash. But we persist in making
objects, which are conclusions or 'beliefs'. These
too must be incinerated in the core of the sun!

What feeds the core of the Earth, comes from the
core of the Sun; and the Sun itself is fed its own
information of existence, from the Diehold, which
itself reflects Self-organising principle. From the
Diehold emanates information of existence; matter
which obeys this principle, comes to directly
reflect the nature of the Diehold itself.

Temporary, we feel the caress of entropy in the of
embrace of emptiness, and know love. We know love
which embraces wholly, our failure to carry through
with the inevitable transmigration of matter into
energy, during our short span. Our crude atomic
technologies are a mere shadow of the nuclear
metabolism which will someday power us to drink
directly from the Sun itself.

* Or you can bypass the Sund and go to the Diehold
itself.


____________________________________________________________________

HUR GULER

I hardly ever write anything political. I used to
work as a columnist for a business magazine in
Turkey and after a couple of years my idealism
abandoned me and I stopped writing. Like many other
countries in the Near East, Turkey is not a
stranger to terrorism. It's a fact of life there. I
was sad to see that this cycle of violence, which
was once foreign to the American psyche is also
taking place in this country. What is surprising to
me is that even the so called liberal minds lost
their ideals and become attached to their imagined
national (tribal) and religious (superstitious)
identities. When I saw that hardly anyone reported
the impending genocide in Afghanistan, I considered
it to be my moral duty to point it out.

Before this piece let me state that this email
assumes:

1. What happened in NY was a horrendous crime
against humanity.

2. Those who are responsible for this act of
terrorism should be brought to justice.

Let's start with a simple question. What would you
do if someone burned your house? Would you find out
who did it and

(a) Take him to court, which means presenting
evidence. (b) Don't bother going to court, just
burn his house. (c) Burn the entire neighborhood.

While one can argue one does not need to follow (a)
if one is a super power and simply execute (b) or
(c), the obvious problem with (c) is that you are
also punishing people who had nothing to do with
the crime. This is exactly what is going on in
Afghanistan today. The innocent people in
Afghanistan have nothing to do with Taliban or Bin
Ladin and they are in fact victims of Taliban and
foreign interventions. The ironic fact is that in
the long run nothing can help Bin Ladin's cause
more than killing innocent civilians.

Most media outlets does not alert the public about
the genocide that is about to happen. Afghanistan
was in ruins already. Most farmers could not plant
and people could not feed themselves which meant
they depended heavily on foreign aid. The supply
lines have been cut. The only way they can receive
food is by trucking it and this is not possible
under the current circumstances since the US will
not allow it.

US proposes food aid by air but it will not work.
Media reports this fact without even analyzing. Is
this so hard to imagine? Let's say that you live in
Colorado. If the high flying military planes drop
food at random locations in Colorado, what is the
chance of your getting it? If don't know where and
when the food will be delivered, you won't get it.
Although you may find out about it in Colorado by
watching your local news, in Afghanistan there is
no way for you to know this logistic fact.

The undeniable fact is that under the current
circumstances by the end of winter millions of
people in Afghanistan will die, not by bombs but
from starvation. This genocide will not be
committed by an abstract entity but by you, me and
all of us.

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