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xan:

...It's amazing how many people are terrified of an honest expression of
feeling...
-------------------------
Melody:

An honest expression of feeling is the most terrifying
monster of all. It also guards the deepest treasures,
doesn't it?
________________________________________________________________________

Larry:

Thanks for the many responses to my question about what is the
problem. They all seemed to suggest that whatever is the cause of
unhappiness, it's my fault. How can that be??? I didn't do any thing;
I'm just sitting here.
--------------------------
skye:

yeah with an attitude, shining one ;-)
--------------------------
xan:

It's not your fault.
How illusion began is a mystery.
It is your opportunity to be part of the Awakening.
--------------------------
Jan:

It isn't a matter of "anyone's" fault; it isn't even a
construction fault. Think of unconditional happiness "the
other way around": who would care to go on living "as usual"
when unconditionally happy? Life would grind to a halt
completely, with all creatures just belly gazing :) So there
is a reason why unconditional happiness isn't accessed at the
flick of a switch. Just sitting is quite OK, it reminds of the
muddy pond with rotting leaves etc., stirred up by the winds
of thoughts and emotions. When the winds subside and the mud
has sunk, a piece of the bottom can be seen and it appears to
be made of the purest gold. Then, a big clean up follows,
taking many years.
---------------------------
art:

there is no denying that depression sucks. the mind spins on occasion,
and
settles on occasion. its all monkey mind. in the midst of it all, it
doesn't matter how we feel-----although easier said, than "done" when
missing the conscious connection with Being. its there alright, we just
miss the forest for the trees at times due to lifetimes of social
conditioning and security, survival issues deeply engrained. grace is
responsible for being awake to truth, whether we feel connected to it or
not. perservere. be with like minded people who understand and
celebrate
when you can.
--------------------------
Don:

HEY, peon knows of no better medicine than "just sitting".
--------------------------
Dan:

I see no fault being assigned to you. I didn't hear such suggested
in the responses I read, simply indications related to being aware. I
guess it's all a matter of interpretation. If just sitting and doing
nothing is working, and if there is no unhappiness "caused", then there
is no problem, and nothing that needs to be done.
________________________________________________________________________

Larry:

I don't understand the "who am I" question/practice. I suppose the
usual response is "not this, not this" (not this thought, not this
feeling, not this body), but it makes sense to me to say I am both
subject and object. Why limit it to subject only? Thanks for your
boundless enthusiasm.
--------------------------
xan:

Whatever might be the "usual" response matters not at all. Discovering
the wordless, non-conceptual answer is where subject and object
disappear.

You could read the dialogues of the father of self inquiry as
"Who am I?", Ramana Maharshi, for more understanding.
--------------------------
art:

inquire as to the questioner, who is the ego who bothers to ask.
pin point the ego and it vanishes like a shadow. what is left is the
answer you seek.
________________________________________________________________________

glo:

... Perhaps no one knows anyone, including knowing ourselves.
Neither seriousness nor humor seems to help at this point.
________________________________________________________________________

Melody:


...Frankly tonight I'm kind of sick of people talking
about love and enlightenment and happiness, all the
while hitting another with a stick, as if for entertainment.

Tonight I feel hypocrisy all around me. (Shall we
assume that we all understand that 'the external is a
reflection of the internal', and proceed from here?)
I know it's all a 'mirror'. I'm just sick of the
mirror.

I'm sick of people saying words of love, and 'teaching'
and 'enlightenment' and 'still point', and all the time
I'm feeling this passive aggressive 'jabbing'.

Who loves me enough to really talk to me straight
tonight....without laughing at (or taking what I say
as an affront) what's moving thru me tonight?...
________________________________________________________________________

Xanma:

I'm pondering this question:

What do we do when we find someone
on the forum/life irritating or wrong or
wish they would change or shut up or
go away?
----------------------
Tim:

Change, shut up or go away ourselves.
----------------------
Petros:

Three impossibilities.
----------------------

How could "I" leave, since there is no "I" to leave? If "I" were to
leave,
"you" would leave, for are not "I" you? What is there but the One? Are
there "levels" of nonduality?
----------------------
Tim:

Then bless and thank that
person for
acting as a mirror and helping us with the incentive to lose more ego.
----------------------
Petros:

Bless you . . . and thanks, for giving more people the incentive to lose
more ego than just about anyone else on the list!
----------------------
Tim:

Thanks, for showing me how NOT to communicate, and for demonstrating
what a real ass a person can be, so I can avoid being that way myself.
Bless you for your ignorance, rajasic personality, nastiness, overblown
ego
and unnecessary insults. Now I know how not to behave on a mailing
list.
Thank you for tempting this ego to respond to your insults with insults,
and helping to delineate it, so it can be gotten rid of all the faster.
----------------------
Petros:

Why get rid of it?
----------------------
Dan:

For me, on list or "real life", I experience the irritation or
frustration as fully as possible. I don't separate myself from the
experience by "blaming" it on something outside of me. I seek to
interact with this "other person" in whatever way seems wisest in the
situation as I perceive it, and that rarely involves being reactive to
an emotional state ("mine" or "theirs").
There is a difference between awareness and reactivity, and for me,
noticing this difference assists me in interacting.
----------------------
Gene:

Hi Xan, glad you asked!

Here are the Top Ten ways to deal with irritating and/or annoying,
wrongheaded list subscribers who just won't go away!

10 - eVooDoo

9 - Consult with TG (moderator, I AM list, also known as 'the
lobsterator')

8 - Provoke them to an angry, obscene outpouring of dysfunctional crap,
which will get them unsubbed

7 - use a posterbot to post every 10 minutes, a posting which calls them
a
'big doo-doo head'

6 - Tell them that you will not miss them when they die, or if they move
to
antarctica

5 - Criticise them with words which you know they cannot understand

4 - Give their email address to thousands of 'free XXX pics' spammers

3 - Send them weblinks to pages which advertise free lobotomy-reversal
surgical operations

2 - Post a letter generated by: <
http://www-csag.cs.uiuc.edu/individual/pakin/complaint>

... And the number one way to deal with irritating posters...

1 - Hire Gene "eHitman" Poole to write a scathing, critical letter!
Reasonable rates!
----------------------
xan:

If misidentification is a form of dishonesty
"I am this body, this name, this career ....."

then misplacement of blame is also dishonest.
"My discomfort is your fault."

If this truth is known
"I am undefinable, unlimited Being."

then honesty of personal expression
knows there is no outside causation.
"I got really bugged when I read your message.
It's my personal pattern and thank you for
reminding me of what I have kept excluded
from the truth."
________________________________________________________________________

xan:

I can tell you my experience of this point. When
'stepping beyond it' stopped working I learned to
just face it. To be simply fully present with
whatever shows up that seems to be excluded
from the purity of wholeness is miraculous.

Melody:

"It doesn't feel like enough" is my first response to
your suggestion. I do that..... but then I start to
get aggravated that 'nothing's changed'. I get aggravated
not that external events are unchanged, but that 'I' still
want to be different, and am not.

Listening to my thoughts just now, I'm hearing a lot of
self-judgment. I'm hearing my self say that it's okay
to be accepting of whatever comes 'out there'....but it's
still rejecting of whatever arises 'within'.

I'm seeing right now that I reject the part of me
that is 'rejecting'.

<..taking a big gulp and a deep breath..>

Thank you, Xan. It's one thing to 'know' what
one's shadow is, and another thing to 'touch it'.
--------------------
xan:

I have thought of this as letting the finite and the infinite touch.
Of course, it's only a mind trick that thinks anything has been
held apart, but since it is, another trick can begin the undoing of it.
________________________________________________________________________

skye:

...All I know is that if I trust, accept and know myself, I
don't have the need to protect or defend myself, for no one
can hurt me without my participation and without my
permission. I think it extremely important to recognize that
I am the one who is hurtful to me, not another individual.
It is my choice to be hurt by another or their opinion.

I love the different ways you all say your wise shit!
Most of us here have learnt the tough lesson that, to accept
others, you must accept yourself, and the best way to accept
self is to exercise your freedom to "not agree" with others
and be who you are.

When we are all truly accepting of self, we can indulge in a
lot more "friendly disagreement" which I think we need in
order to grow. Accepting others does not mean I have to
agree with them. Reality is infinitely richer now that I am
not holding myself to any one particular explanation of it.

Obviously, there are still fears and unfaced issues within
me but I no longer project those out onto other people and
see *them* as threats to my peace of mind. Honesty (with
one's self) opens us up and lets vitality rush in...
________________________________________________________________________

Petros:

About humor: I always thought "laughing at oneself" was a cover for
seeing
the truth, i.e., that we all only care about ourselves first and
foremost,
and value our self higher than anyone else.
________________________________________________________________________

Dan:

...There is much more to intelligence than intellect, than the
use of thought. We even know this in our human life - there is
perceptual intelligence, movement intelligence. How much more so for
the universe -
the intelligence to "grow" a solar system. This is more than an
"intellectual accomplishment"! Pure awareness extends far beyond the
realms of thought, and yet with such awareness, thought's dimensionality
expands greatly.
________________________________________________________________________

Jerry:

I'm wondering whether, when on death bed, there'll be the
feeling that lives today are in some ways missing something.

For there is plain silence. Either one has yet to come to
that silence or already has and still has energy to prattle
about it.

There is that deep silence to come to. That is the final
stage prior to death (it is inseparable from death) and it
finds one utterly alone, if even for a moment.

I don't know of anything to come to except the silence that
eats all identity.

Anyone who's come to it and still has that energy to prattle
might look around and say, Enlightenment is wasted on the
enlightened.

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