Click here to go to the next issue.

8/26/01 Sunday

**********
GENE & VALERIE

Excerpts from a long dialogue

Gene Poole wrote:

> <snip>
> If I assume that there is some point at which I can let it all go, I
> will be irritated, annoyed, depressed, and even despondent that I am
> not at that point 'yet'. This position, one of brash idealism, causes
> the continual comparison between 'what is' and 'what should be'. The
> consequence of this continual comparison, is a sense of discontent, a
> pain, an angst, which serves to drive me to ever-greater feats of
> spiritual attainment.

yes I have noticed a vascillating sense of being there -
detached/non-attached/less-attached - then - (later that day) aiyeeee!!! I
WANT something/somebody or - I AM attached again - back and forth. This
awareness serves like a bait, to make me aware that I am being less than
"good" or "spiritually correct" when I AM attached, and makes the sense of
desire even more painful, if anything.

> How could I possibly take a rest, how could I justify just sitting
> around, doing nothing? And worse, how could I justify having a
> thought, without a concurrent feeling? Shouldn't every thought, be
> accompanied by an emotion? What kind of person has no feelings, no
> attachments, no opinion, no preference? Isn't that like brain-death,
> or something?

No. Inasmuch as the brain is a house for the spirit then isn't the spirit
the master of the brain - well, they live in consort anyhow.
As an empath who also has a mood disorder, I guess you could say I've had to
pay extra close attention to feelings and moods and feelings. There are
feelings which are triggers from past experiences, there are feelings which
come from other people in the area which one may or may not even be aware
of, there are feelings caused by one's own biochemistry, any combo thereof,
and also I believe sincerely in past life events which bring people and
feelings into this life. Truly bizarre they are - feelings.
My problem with them is - I seem caught in the misery part way too often.
Just coasting in neutral - the *non-attachment* would be such a reprieve to
climb out of the pits - say - where's the sun?? ;-))

> Certainly, we must always strive to the ever-upward direction,
> cultivating sensitivity to the higher vibratory states and realms? I
> mean, isn't that how you escape of the hell that life is? Isn't that
> what transcendence is for? After all, if I can sense that something
> is wrong, shouldn't I strive to fix it, and to move to make the world
> a better place, as well? Isn't that how I avoid 'making more Karma',
> too?

yes - and the world being relatively what we make of it - seems to be a
spiritual malaise or angst or turmoil because we here at our computers
obviously aren't homeless or starving or suffering the throes of torture or
bloodshed or war - so why the angst? How do we "tune our (spiritual) radio
signals" to pick up the non-attachment - and/or more sublime radio
frequencies?
Meditation of itself is a good fix but being transitory unless one can spend
all day there. I wonder if there is an eastern answer to this question? but
any answer will do! :)

> The vast disparity of idealism, is the disconnect of detachment; the
> world 'isn't real', until I see it correctly. When I see the world
> correctly, then, the world is real, because I am then proved to be
> real, by my ability to see what is real, as opposed to what is
> illusory. When the scales are removed from my eyes, by the advent of
> my own cosmic purity, only then, will I be able to see and understand
> what is real. At least, that is the idealistic version of things.

But what is real is also relative - hey? Another matter of opinion...
I don't think our mortal brains are hard wired to conceive of the vastness
of what IS really real, really.
But just what will work to get us by with the least amount of pain, doing
the most good that we can
until we know what comes next. Playing it by ear...

> lacking idealism, I find no immediacy, but what is now; even this, is
> a flux of events, which I experience as a conversation to which I am
> witness, but am not conscious of originating. I can imagine myself as
> the creator, but somehow that does not lend itself to a wholistic
> experience; I am still drawn to learning. I am still vulnerable,
> tender, and still tend to get hooked. That is why I practice
> non-attachment. I do not deny what is, I do not know what is, but I
> am at peace with what is, most of the time.

And being at peace with *what is* - does this mean that YOU are *what is* ?
How do you define *what is* that you might be at peace with it?

> There are moments when I feel the arising of discontent, I have
> conditioned myself to ask myself just what is really going on. Most
> of the time, the answer I get is that I am running a racket, usually
> one of either fear and selfishness or idealism. And each of those
> camouflages the other; each justifies the other.

hmmmm.
just the arising seeds of discontent, hey? Somewhat further along than these

righteously angry people needing spiritual enemas before they even get to
that point!
seems like the more refined the work on the self gets, the harder it becomes
to pin down
specifically - more illusory - like myself, sitting here on my rock in the
rain and sideways gales...
ain't nothin' wrong with my perspective that a look-see at what other people
are doing, perchance to be of service - wouldn't cure - *sigh* but the
intellectual knowledge bounces off the malaise rather than assimilation.
You know - they took my daughter overnight - guess I was sposed to go out to
the bars (alien flora and fauna) you know, you know - for my birthday -
mebbe I *shoulda* - in lieu of the Peace Corps... *sigh* too late now!

> By following myself around, I am able to pick up my own leavings. As
> witness, I am aware of when I am taking a dump on someone, and thus I
> strive to not dump, no matter how much the other may seem to 'deserve
> it'. I understand that once the first turd is thrown, certain
> reactions are quite predictable. Non-attachment allows the turd to be
> seen as a neutral entity, rather than as a weapon.

yeah - I have had to learn to not take things personal as a "TOO sensitive"
being - I *cringe* at TOO sensitive, because being very sensitive I see as a
spiritual gift, even if it IS oftentimes a BEAR of one. But other people's
turds being neutral entities - yes - water off a duck's back for sure. There
are ways to psychically guard one's self from the "slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune", if one is aware. As for myself slinging turds as
weapons, I don't. They come back threefold almost instantly in my case!

> Our reactions portray our assumptions, far more accurately and
> honestly than do our professings and protestations. A person may
> state high ideals, and believe thus to have high ideals, but the
> whole thing can be a circuitous racket, denial enabling resentment,
> resentment fueling incessant acting-out, and the inevitable reactions
> of others, justifying endless cycles of this tail-chasing fury.

Yes, I think I ken your meaning. And such as taking responsibility for some
situations and not leaving them in fantasy land but becoming as clear as
possible in the true light of day. Ye gads, that takes a lot of courage
sometimes!
To make peace within and have interactions become responses, not reACTions -
which I think are borne of triggers from every other time but the NOW real
time.
wish me good luck...

> I live on the end of the tip of the tongue of the Living Universe, a
> surfer whose balance is his only grace, hanging ten over the keyboard
> here , riding the endless wave, propelled by the momentum of life,
> and basically making it up as I go along. It helps to have a big
> vocabulary and a bigger knowledge-base. What distraction can I
> afford, from the effect of an unbalanced relationship? Am I so
> skilled, powerful and wise, that I can afford to ignore or deny any
> facet of my seeming experience?

that is very poetic, oh great oracle :-) - I wonder if you will tell us
whether you think you can afford to ignore or deny any facets of your
seeming experience?
But from my position - I never seem to have room in my psyche to be
consciously aware of ALL of my experience at the same time - so YES - like
it or not - I cannot but help ignore, if not deny portions of subconscious
terrains of experiences I have access to somewhere in my (psyche) hard
drive...

> When I cease depending upon external sources of 'wisdom', do I find
> or notice grace balance; I cease seeking formulas for liberation,
> knowing I do not have the judgement necessary to know the difference
> between liberation and anything else. In the meantime I abide, but I
> abide as one who stands always naked under the downpour of a powerful
> waterfall, not sure what to make of the water. I abide not knowing,
> and in that state of liberation from assumption, find that I can
> understand something of the language which the Vast Living Universe
> is constantly speaking and manifesting, this conversation known as
> 'reality' or 'what is'.

so, once giving up *assumption* and relying upon each our source of inner
wisdom - we are all connected by the Great Light of God/dess/Creative Force
- and this is how we are all connected, behind our veils?

> Now I give this back, back and out, a re-transmission of what I hear
> and observe. I try to be as accurate as possible in this expression.
> I do not see much in the way of creativity going on in me, just
> mainly a lot of reassessments and ongoing modifications of past
> judgements. It is a work in progress, but one illuminated by the
> intense thousand-petaled lotus which creates my awareness, a living
> mandala of form changing in emptiness, a fluctuation in space. It is
> the points which shift the least, which I attend to as guides to
> going deeper.
>
> It is the deepest beacons which create the highest mountains.
>
> ==Gene Poole==
>

wow. to see consciousness as form and emptiness within the vastness of space
and time - how will our consciousness look to an electron telescope 3
billion lightyears away from a distant galaxy?
oh poor small things *sniff!*
Now, if I must ever weep, I shall weep for us all instead!
may all love and light be within us all today and forever...
valerie


ERIC BLACKSTEAD

Gene & Friends,

Your 'non-attachment' post to Valerie was a nice piece of work.

> Our reactions portray our assumptions, far more accurately and> honestly
than do our professings and protestations.

And this in particular seems spot on. When you add in the rest of your
paragraph you have a fairly accurate discription of almost every other
"spiritual" site on the web, Harsha being the almost magical exception.

A person may> state high ideals, and believe thus to have high ideals, but
the> whole thing can be a circuitous racket, denial enabling resentment,>
resentment fueling incessant acting-out, and the inevitable reactions> of
others, justifying endless cycles of this tail-chasing fury.

To make peace within and have interactions become responses, not
reACTions -which I think are borne of triggers from every other time but the
NOW realtime.wish me good luck...

This is the irony of the 'work' of witnessing, isn't it, and why it functions
as a sadhana before it becomes a fact.

Earlier you had said: How do we "tune our (spiritual) radiosignals" to pick
up the non-attachment - and/or more sublime radiofrequencies?Meditation of
itself is a good fix but being transitory unless one can spend all day there.
I wonder if there is an eastern answer to this question? but any answer will
do! :)

For me, this is where the guru comes in. Baba would call Siddha Yoga a
perfect yoga. Well, I'm not qualified to make too many assumptions about
that, but I'm not so insensitive that I didn't notice that "turning within"
was much more like "being turned within", and both witnessing and
non-attachment seemed to rise, at least at times, automatically from this
same "within" in the company of the guru.

yours in the bonds,
eric

top of page