goyacobol said:
I think it's OK if you express how you really feel too. :( :)
Everything is a metaphor...as if I know the difference anyway :)
I'm fascinated by what appears as cause and effect, because so much introspection and meditation and self-enquiry over the years has convinced me that there can be no such thing. It was always perplexing to me when so-called spiritual teachers would profess that the world is an illusion. Actually, it was more than perplexing. It was downright infuriating, and painful, and it lit a fire in me. So, introspection and meditation and self-enquiry "did" me. And looking back, it did so on its own, whatever "it" is. Some potentiality was always there, having nothing to do with cause and effect, and instead a continuously flowing cause-and-effect. One of my favorite authors, he used to make me mad with all that talk of illusion, is the late Dr. David Hawkins of "Power vs. Force" fame. He sums it up nicely for me. "Everything happens as a result of karmic propensity and prevailing local conditions." And of course, the gem of gems from his writing, IMO, "[consciousness] is context devoid of content." Well, what I learned about context started out in a literary sense, where the context of a story is full of content, such as tables and chairs on a stage, various characters, and the overall setting. But how can all that content be context, and how can context be devoid of content? What causes context, devoid of content, to include contextual content? "And for my next trick," says Maya, Diving Mother Nature, "now, something completely different! Hey, dummy, it's just an illusion."
Huh? An illusion? But I see it! It's right here in front of me! How can it be an illusion! Look, see? The Gulf Stream is slowing down! That's the effect of some cause, right? And these really smart people have figured out that melting Greenland ice sheets are upsetting the Atlantic overturning circulation.
Well, it depends on which side of time you're on, and on what exactly is time. Cause-and-effect is whole and singular, while cause and effect is a discontinuous sequence of others. So, for me, while I enjoy (sometimes, not so much) the play of life in this realm, and the wonder of what may come in the next moment, seemingly separate from this one and following as its effect, on a deeper level, I just see it differently.
As an example, I remember during the Clinton Administration, thinking, kind of an epiphany, that we always get the President we deserve, like it or not, and that we are so interconnected in what appears as cause and effect, we don't see that everything is perfectly harmonious and whole. I didn't vote for Clinton. I don't so much regret voting for GHW Bush, more that I voted at all in a system that presents apparent choices when nothing changes. And in retrospect, that's part of the epiphany. It doesn't matter who is "in charge", because they are not. Mother Nature is in charge, of us and everything else in this manifest universe, and it is as perfectly harmonious as She is. Sure, it's hard to imagine the world we live in today as being harmonious by any stretch of the imagination, but how can it be otherwise? In the moment I had that thought, I began, just began, to understand collective karma.
Regarding the causes and effects of Gulf Stream slowing and so many other signs of the times that the Cs have revealed, how could it be? The answer is obvious to me. Consciousness, unburdened by time, sees all. Not necessarily "all things all the time." Lincoln had that right. But non-linear consciousness doesn't see cause and effect. I experience it, sure, as I am karmically embedded in it....for the moment. Of course, I'm also not. When the Cs say they're Laura in the future, that only applied in terms of linear consciousness, where cause and effect is a conditioned way of experiencing. But, as they say, the Cs don't see it the way we do. So is the Gulf Stream really changing due to some cause? How many possible futures are there? What are their causes, and how do all those possible futures overlay outside of time, as eternally co-existent "realities"? If the Gulf Stream is slowing, or is the Cosmic Mind imagining that is learning something that it already knows?
Well...why not all of the above? When focused, I can't see it any other way. Sure, I still fumble through this linear path going from one cause to an-other effect and thinking I am doing something. But, at the same time...
always at the same time even if I don't see it right away, I notice I'm not doing anything at all, and neither is the Gulf Stream, and it's fun. Then I go right back to worrying that my clients are getting pissed that I'm not delivering on time :)
That's how I really feel, but wait 5 minutes.
