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Fuck!

Avoiding what is harmful has nothing
to do with non-acceptance or
not
loving. I may "accept" lions and
tigers and cobras, but that
does not
mean I have to allow myself to be
eaten or bitten. To love
implies seeing
something as it is, and respecting
distance if necessary. To
love may
also mean expressing your real
emotional state, rather than
covering it up
with sweetness and light.

I understand what you are talking about. The difference between
self-improvement and working for being is the difference in where
it is coming from not what it is. Ego self-improves. Essence
wants
growth of being.

how people respond to you has less to do with
who you are....than with who 'they' perceive themselves
to be....and how well your presence enhances the experience
of their lives.

I don't know that it is that complicated. I think we each should
basically take responsibility for ourselves.

1) If we take responsibility for how we feel, we needn't worry
about
analyzing everything that everyone else does to see if it harms
us.
Rather, we make the decision up front that it won't and learn how
to
walk the walk. I'm not saying it's easy, I'm saying it's
impossible if
we don't find a way to practice it.

2) If we take responsibility for what we put out to others,
checking
before we send it out if it serves love, then we are doing our
part. If
they don't see that it was put out to serve love, then that is
their
problem, just as in part 1). (I mean that they have to take
responsibility for how they interpret our outgoing messages.) I
certainly do agree that how we check to see that our outgoing
stuff
serves love takes practice and will change with experience, but I
think
getting the intent right and maintaining a correct intent is
plenty of
work for now, so trust that the Universe made you well and that
you will
get good at it with practice. (but by all means, practice...)


3) On rare occasions, we may need to intervene to prevent someone
who
disregards 1) and 2) from harming others. Yes, it's a judgement
call,
but I am finding that with careful attention to 1) and 2), 3)
pops up
less and less. My interpretation of what is harmful is
changing. I
don't think anything that has happened here need have harmed
anyone
unless they wanted to be harmed. I do think that noticing what
harms us
is worth the effort, and that much less apparent harm will be
done to
those who work to look at it all closely. I think one word that
has
been used here to describe behavior has been "ignorance".
Ignorance is
the act of ignoring. If we ignore our buttons, then we deserve
to
suffer, cause there is alway someone around to push the button.
I think
dismantling the buttons is the only sensible course of action
here.
These are just my opinions, and my strategy. I hear often that
opinions
and strategies are the problem. I think that opinions and
stategies are
needed as long as there are buttons, and when there are no
buttons,
opinions and strategies become traps. So when my buttons stop
operating, I'll stop having the opinion that my buttons should
stop
operating.
At last you suggest we both take lovers
but continue to live "officially" together,
long evenings spent comparing notes
on the young scapegoats send into our desert.

Did you think we were jockeying for position,
determined to influence the turn of events,
to susidize feelings and control the world?

Poor fool, in love with an image of yourself!

In the end you even came to believe in yourself,
your sensible advice and reasonable demands,
as the burning bush might have mistaken its flowers
for flames, or the rustling in its spindly branches
for the indrawn, unreliable voice of God.

J.D. McClatchy
>From "Ten Commandments", an excerpt from "Betrayal"

" We have a language that is capable of comprehending life as we
live it,
but we have no language to comprehend that life which we have
never lived.

If a useless thing has to be explained, we have clever words to
express it.

Do you realize that when you are angry you become so garrulous,
but when it
comes to expressing love you fumble for words? You can hardly
find words
when it comes to prayer! We have language for anger but no
language for
love. The language of love can only develop if we have a closer
understanding of ourselves. The language of anger is easy
because it
concerns other, who is apart and away from us.

We cannot express our love half as much as we can express our
anger. The
lover is always lost for words. What should he say, how should
he say it?
But the same lover will not find himself lacking for words when
he is
filled with anger or hate. He will have enough to say, and more.
We have no
language to express that which is closest to us. "

OSHO
- The Way of Tao - part II

Certainly the mask is one of the
functions of personality, but I see more in us as individuals and
to each other than a
defensive/offensive mask. The human face is far more than a mask.
We are different
from other animals because we live with the full awareness of
death. In the relative
world we are persons, full of complexity, ambiguity,
individuality. Saying the
personality interface is only a defense mechanism is like saying
making art and poetry
is only a way to get laid, you can argue it that way but it's an
oversimplification.

All this doing, all this effort to see, to know, what drives you
from day to day, from the depths of your heart is this search,
which is nothing but an identity of unhappiness.
Apart from that, there is nothing. What else can I say?
Surprised yet? :-)

As Gurdjieff says - stop. What more kind of information
do you need about yourself? Sheesh.
I mean, I need more information like I need a hole in the head!
:-)
Unless my hair is on fire or something, then I might need that
bit of information. :-)

___________________________________________________________________________

I like this one better : enough is enough


We don't see things as they are,
>we see things as we are.
>
> Anais Nin

A beauty!
An rose for the garden,
from Anais - an arrow
hitting the target!

Discover all you are not. Body, feelings, thoughts,
ideas, time, space, being and not-being, this or that
- nothing concrete or abstract you can point out to
is you. A mere verbal statement will not do - you
may repeat a formula endlessly without any result
whatsoever. You must watch yourself continuously
- particularly your mind - moment by moment, missing
nothing. This witnessing is essential for the separation
of the self from the not-self.

Nisargadatta Maharaj


Expectations lead to frustrations.


~ The key is in intent - are you looking into your personal self
in the service of freedom, or are you indulging in the self-
gratification of pleasure and pain in your unique delusions.



Compassion is openness...
unclouded interbeing...
the original unconditioned awareness
actively doing nothing.
It is open to pain, to joy,
to love, to sorrow, and to
the nothingness of interbeing.


Enlightenment? Enlightenment? There ain't no stinkin
enlightenment.

Gautama said it and i agree. 'When I attained pure and perfect
enlightenment I saw that there was no such thing as pure and
perfect
enlightenment! Wonderful! Wonderful!'

Awaken and realize - there is only me - the I AM.

Fuckity Fuck.

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