Thank you for writing about that personal sea of energies, gifts and blessings that you swim in and supports you. For me what you wrote was very beautiful.
I like the statement "We are swimming through a sea of archetypal energies that interact with one another to produce the world of external phenomena..." Language is an external phenomena that comes out of and reflects an archetypal energy, and conversely language can invoke that underlying energy. For example, the word 'invoke' comes out of our energy and experience of calling on something, and the word 'invoke' stirs the vibe of invoking and brings out our invoking. I became aware of the energy behind words when I got into appreciating word etymology which reveals the energy in and and behind words. New experiences, especially surprises and disorder, and being open to such experiences shake my world in a minor or major way and throw a wrench into the inertia of inherited patterns in life and cause disruption that can be new learning and growth.
For me, life is precious mainly because it is. It's a precious miracle. Enjoy and make the best of this bodily life while it lasts. The fleeting nature of one's bodily life is certainly one factor in it being precious. l remember as a young child thinking/hoping I would be the one person God would spare from dying -- that hope is almost entirely gone. I became aware of life's being valuable related to its fleeting nature as a child -- when my dear grandmother died when I was almost 7, when others died when I was a child, when I was an altar boy as a child and served at many funerals and witnessed peoples' intense grief, sadness, and crying. What helps me appreciate impermanence is that it's all around, everything comes and goes, and learning to accept and appreciate that that is how existence is.
I like this essay. I think of 'live as you like but renounce internally' as 'be in the world but not of it'. For me, both statements say play the game of living as you want in the external world of appearance while internally renouncing the external as appearance and knowing the real is internal or essential self. I think of my objective knowledge as belonging to the world of appearance and being as real and true as the world of appearance. Likewise, I consider knowledge within my dream to be true only within my dream. My awareness emerged as I learned and reflected about 20 years ago. For me, a big part of disproving my ego's existence is awareness that Real I or Self has been present for as long as I know, and I am confident was present and will be present before and after that, and awareness that ego emerged when I was a child and I am confident will die with my body.
Freedom is the ability to choose. Acceptance of what is is an expression of freedom. We are free to accept what is. The primary what is I am referring to is what I am experiencing. What I am experiencing is me, and in accepting what I am experiencing I accept what is, and I am free. There are times I have felt fully reconciled with whatever was happening, felt in harmony with what was happening, felt on top of the world, felt like I was walking a foot off the ground. Such times haven't lasted long as I bog myself down in circumstances of life, not going with the flow and not accepting what is or what I am experiencing. What helps me accept what is is knowing I'm alive only in what I am experiencing in the present, and the more I accept my present rather than fight it or try to control it the more alive I am.
For me, your question is a difficult one. My thoughts: Love is the oneness of all that is. Some of what is we judge to be evil. If something is judged to be evil, it is still part of the one whole. I may not like what is judged to be evil and I may not like that it is part of the whole, but love is that it is part of the whole, and in that sense love includes acceptance of evil.
I don't think desire is painful. I think desires come and go. I think if desire is painful, it is we who create the pain related to desire. I think it is the letting desire pass or not being attached to it that gives rise to satisfaction. I met desire with compassion and a satisfaction in momentary beauty when I recognize it as a passing experience, and when I realize that it is not good for me such that it will mess up my life to a small or large degree. What helps me is seeing that pain is provided by life, and suffering or my way of dealing with pain is provided by me. I am the cause of how I suffer pain. I don't weed out the cause of my suffering because that would be me weeding out me. What I do when I do it is make an effort to weed out grasping desires that aren't good for me and weed out suffering that is ineffficient for me.
I agree with the notion that affirming and accepting ourselves lowers the perfectionism bar. Problem is, really affirming and accepting self in a way that makes much difference is difficult. Not accepting self is deeply ingrained, and intellectually reminding self that we're good is too superficial and doesn't penetrate to where not accepting comes from. As for perfect, we are perfect when we allow our real self to be and express -- I believe our real self is our God self. I'm always able to love myself unconditionally, but I don't -- times of loving myself unconditionally are few and far between. I think loving myself unconditionally ended by age two, which I think is true for most of us. One big help for me in accepting me is loving and positive responses from others.
My understanding is that explain means to make something clear by flattening it out. To explain is also to defend. To sing is to use one's voice to produce musical sounds. I think we exist to live and blossom, and we can let our feelings in living be expressed in singing, and we are not here to flatten life in order to understand it better, not here to flatten ourselves, and not here to defend ourselves. When my father died, I sobbed like I don't remember having done before. As far as I know, my sobbing was my grief and was the seed of sobbing about many additional sadnesses that I felt and was sobbing at the birth of a new chapter in life. For me, faith is accepting that life is unknown and always changing, which helps me prune back regrets that life isn't known or set, and that lets faith grow further.
My view seems to be pretty much the opposite of the view of Jac O'Keeffe. For me, there is no mind-body split. Mind-body is a unity, a continuum. I don't see mind as the boss in charge of body and using body for its own purposes. There was a time that I thought mind and body were real and separate and the two of them together made 'I'. That changed, and I awoke to seeing 'I' as real and as the only real. For me, 'I' is not ego or personality. 'I' is real and is essence, and mind-body is 'I' in form, is an experience of'I'. If anything exists in imagination, it is mind and body, not 'I'. Mind-body is what gets addicted. I agree that nothing outside of 'I' can make 'I' feel happy or whole. I'm not beyond the 'I' story; I am beyond the story of mind and body being two separate entities that comprise 'I', and beyond seeing 'I' as imagination. For me, 'I' is all that really is, and mind-body comes and goes.
For me, Blackstone's references to inhabiting the body imply separation between me and my body, and I have difficulty with that. I believe unitive consciousness embodies and there is no separation between being and body. The time is now that I see oneness, more than connection, between my perception and my physiological process. I think, similarly, that there is no separation between tree and what tree is made of, or tree perception and its physiological process. What helps me maintain inward contact is a sensation or some experience in my inner space catching my attention and my going with it. Belief in inner space and unitive consciousness help me to allow or embrace some amount of unitive consciousness at times. It helps me to sometimes get a little bit outside thinking and language which separate.
My associations about passing through the gateless gate are 1) that it's not a place but a state of consciousness, and 2) no one allows me in but me and no one keeps me out but me. For me, passing through the gateless gate means to wake up, remove the cataracts, see a broader slice of what is, be less in the world and more not of it. In my early waking up, I saw a commercial in which an American Indian was looking out over the territory and said to a little boy next to him, "It's all alive." I related to that and still do. I see more often and more clearly that all existence is one and is alive and I am a part of of the one. What helps me is I'm stronger and I think more elusive in being awake, still I'm careful with showing however much being awake I am, and I'm aware of awake me being always present even if off stage somewhere in the background.
I relate to what Chelan Harkin writes. I learned prayers and said prayers to a separate God out there. It is only in the past 15+ years that I became aware that all is one and all is God in form. Since that awareness, my prayer is from that awareness of oneness and intimacy of all, and my prayer seems to slowly enhance that awareness. I think dissatisfaction with prayer and religion that I grew up in helped me search and be open to seeing the connection of all that is. My reading, discussing, and reflecting help me see and sometimes feel my connection to all that is. The connection I am aware of with self, with others, and with the world increases and I think is itself a prayer.
Taking my mind-body unity seriously means to me living in truth. My mind-body are one, and we separate them in our thinking and in our ignorance. I was probably 20 when I started to become aware that my way of being and my feelings affect one another. At that age I started going in a direction in my life different than what significant others, especially my mother, wanted, and I knew that was the origin of the stress and turmoil I was suffering. What helps me investigate how I live my life is knowing that how I live is very involved in how I am physically and emotionally. That all existence is one and is totally interrelated is a big part of my spirituality. Attending to how I live my life supports and is part of my spirituality, and my spirituality supports and is part of my attending to how I live my life. I take seriously the unity of mind-body and the unity of my way of living and my spirituality.
There are times a plenty that I have a flash of awakening, sometimes triggered by something someone says-does and sometimes not, and I see differently, see outside the box, outside the narrow bandwidth of existence I have been bamboozled and squeezed into, just like has happened to you. Such experiences are eyeandme opening, newlifing, resurrecting. What boosts my courage is increase in age and not-give-a-damnness -- I've been damned and damned me enough, and I have accelerated my freedom giving to myself to see and be my way, all of which is exciting meaning beyond searching for meaning, and beyond seeking much of anything. Find more, seek less. Be more, try less. Who knows, I may freebe any day now.
Being contextually relevant means being relevant to the present context I am in, that is, relevant to the present times, people, and events. I act in solidarity with Life when I am open to and listen to others and to myself, when I am in solidarity with my truth, that is with what I am experiencing, thinking, feeling, and when I am responsive to and not reactive to what is happening. What helps me engage in the work without feeling the obligation to complete it is my belief in doing the work, which I have some control over, and not in outcome, which I don't control. What also helps me is my belief in what I am doing and my belief that there is always more that can be done. What helps me not feel obligation is that I've pretty much given up operating by obligation in regard to anything. I do what I do out of believing it it and believing it is the right action.
On Oct 27, 2024 David Doane wrote on A New Energy Grid, by Jonathan Harris: