Avi
Jedi Council Member
Dear Laura, Slowone and All,
I just wanted to add one quick thought. Though it is taking me some time to adjust to the nature of this forum I believe that by and large the participants ARE sincere and for all the hard work that I know goes into making such a forum wanted to say thank-you.
The bit I wanted to add however is that, and I hope I express this well, even though it is obvious you, Laura, take a lot of personal responsibility for the nature of the forum, the content, etc, I think at some point people do have to do more than "meet you half way" in that each and everyone of us, myself included, must take responsibility for our own learning and what we want not only from this forum but also both within and from life.
After all didn't the C's say "learning is fun!"?
:)
Learning to relate is challenging too. Add to this the component of the tricky perceptions, the emotional baggage, the clear signs of this world going to hell in a hand-basket and it appears grim at the best of times!
Yet no one here can relate or learn for me, not even with the purest intent in the world.
I have a responsibility to learn. Relating on this forum is part of that responsibility.
That is how I see it anyways.
With kind regards,
Avi
I just wanted to add one quick thought. Though it is taking me some time to adjust to the nature of this forum I believe that by and large the participants ARE sincere and for all the hard work that I know goes into making such a forum wanted to say thank-you.
The bit I wanted to add however is that, and I hope I express this well, even though it is obvious you, Laura, take a lot of personal responsibility for the nature of the forum, the content, etc, I think at some point people do have to do more than "meet you half way" in that each and everyone of us, myself included, must take responsibility for our own learning and what we want not only from this forum but also both within and from life.
After all didn't the C's say "learning is fun!"?
:)
Learning to relate is challenging too. Add to this the component of the tricky perceptions, the emotional baggage, the clear signs of this world going to hell in a hand-basket and it appears grim at the best of times!
Yet no one here can relate or learn for me, not even with the purest intent in the world.
I have a responsibility to learn. Relating on this forum is part of that responsibility.
That is how I see it anyways.
With kind regards,
Avi
Laura said:Slowone, you have my deepest apologies if the atmosphere of the forum has hindered your posting and progress. Things are changing, as you can see. We learn - I learn - constantly, and when I see that the compass heading isn't taking us where we want to go, I'm ready to adjust.
In the beginning, this was supposed to be a forum dedicated to "The Work" more or less as Gurdjieff conceived it with modifications based on Mouravieff and Castaneda, modern psychology including cognitive therapy, etc. It was a way of working that brooked no whining and crying, and sought to deal with emotional issues strictly from an intellectual point of view. It works for some people... but that number seems to be VERY small. So, we we are in the process of seriously modifying that idea. Maybe that's why Gurdjieff didn't get any further than he did - he got stuck on one method that he had conceived and experimented with, and could go no further. He was so screamingly, in-your-face right about so many things, but his approach just never got off the ground.
Obviously, the majority of human beings are very complex creatures with a strong component of emotion. If we will admit right up front that probably most normal people THINK with emotional energy, then we are one step ahead. But then, we have to figure out why and ameliorate those conditions.
Most often, people think emotionally because they have a lot of scars of the soul and repressed and suppressed emotions, mainly painful emotions. There are also cognitive reasons why emotions tend to dominate thinking but I don't have the resource to hand at this moment to quote that most interesting research. I'll come back with it later.
In any event, we are now in the midst of a most exciting experiment in a NEW WAY of working on these problems that amounts to a "course correction" - the Eíriú-Eolas - Program. The initial results are VERY encouraging and I can see major changes in people's thinking (by reading their posts) on a daily basis.
So, unless a person shows clear signs of pathology, I - and all the moderators - will make a concerted effort to accommodate the many emotional issues of the forum members as long as those members are making every effort to meet us half way! Because, we do have a destination and we don't have a lot of time, so it's a good idea for everyone to put their shoulder to the wheel in every way they can so we can move this Ark where we want to come to shore!
Meanwhile, consider the following essay which is a very easy way of understanding how tricky the mind can be. I read this guy occasionally. He can be so close, and never get there, and so wrong with the right data. Typical. What he writes here touch directly on "The Work" in a simple, easy to understand way.
http://www.increasebrainpower.com/power-of-the-mind.html
The Dangerous Power Of The Mind
Steve Gillman
When people speak of the power of the mind they typically are assuming
that it is a good thing. Sometimes anecdotal stories also refer to the
mind's "unusual" powers, like using visualization to cure an illness.
But there is a dark side to our mental powers as well.
Any power can be used for good or bad purposes. The problem with the
power of the mind is that it not only can be used for bad purposes, but
it can simultaneously convince the "user" that his or her purposes are
in fact good. I put "user" in quotation marks because in these cases we
are not really using the mind so much as it is using us.
Granted we have to allow ourselves to be used, but this is common. Once
we identify strongly with our own thought processes and accept the
mistaken idea that our mind is our "self," we tend to follow it blindly.
(A person is much more than a mind, but that's a discussion for another
time.) And it is powerful. The mind is able to find a logical reason for
almost anything that we find ourselves doing or thinking.
A quick example: Suppose you saw a man going into a theater mumbling, "I
hate this movie." Later he comes out complaining about it. Then you see
him return to the same movie again and again, the whole time hating it
and complaining about it. You might think this is silly at best, or
verging on mental illness. But how often do people return to the same
mental movies (bad memories) again and again even though they cause
pain? The mind has an excuse ready, of course. It might suggest that
this is how one "resolves" issues from the past - despite no evidence of
any resolution. In fact, some people can revisit the same negative
memories and thoughts for a lifetime.
(Finding some resolution to problems through revisiting the past may be
possible when it's the actual goal and when appropriate techniques
and/or professional help are used. But this is not what most dwelling on
the past is about though.)
That's an example of being under the influence of the mind. All of us
have times when the mind is using us rather than the other way around.
This can be especially true in those who have made a form of religion
out of logic and reason.
For an example of that lets look at the June 2008 issue of Liberty
magazine, whose writers and readers are known for their esteeming of
reason above almost everything else. In that issue they published the
results of a poll of readers. Here are some of the questions they asked:
"Suppose that a parent of a newborn baby places it in front of a picture
window and sells tickets to anyone wishing to observe the child starve
to death. He makes it clear that the child is free to leave at any time,
but that anyone crossing the lawn will be viewed as trespassing. Would
you cross the lawn to help the child? Would helping the child violate
the parent's right?"
Fortunately, despite all of their arguments for property rights and the
rights of all people (including babies) to be left alone to make their
own decisions, 90.9% said they would cross the lawn. Of course the scary
part is the 9% who would not help. In fact, in response to the second
question, 24.1% said crossing would violate the parents rights.
This is fascinating, and I think it serves as a good example of being
under the influence of the power of the mind. Virtually everyone's first
reaction is to help the baby, yet some people are so under the control
of the thoughts in their own minds (their philosophy) that they would
refuse, or at least feel bad for "violating the parents rights" as they
followed their hearts.
In another question, more than more than 80% of respondents viewed
forcing ones way into a home to survive when caught in a deadly blizzard
as "an act of aggression," and a fourth of those said you shouldn't do
it - and so presumably risk death instead. In other words, they place a
higher value on an idea - in this case a stranger's right to not be
inconvenienced - above survival. You may not agree, but I'm suggesting
that this is mental illness, and that a healthy use of the mind serves
the purpose of life, not of ideas.
By the way, I didn't get into the details of the reasoning for people
not helping the baby or not even helping themselves. Why? Because the
whole point here is that they are not using their minds but being used
by them. I could find a reasonable argument for the contrary views -
complete with perfect logic. That is the power of the mind. It can find
the arguments it desires.
Now we arrive at the scary part for some people. If we can either use
the mind or be used by it, how can we tell the difference, and where do
we derive our decisions and actions from if not from rational thought?
This suggests a world of uncertainty. But the world is uncertain! And
our thoughts, motivations, and actions are less than perfect. So we do
our best to understand, without pretending that our present thoughts
alone can contain the truth.
Look, if you had no language and so no ideas about logic or reason, you
still would take actions to eat, to survive, to help others. Now what
would happen if you were taught twenty or thirty words, and those were
used by another person or your own mind to convince you to do something
that felt totally wrong? Isn't it possible that with only a couple dozen
words your thinking ability would still be too limited to trust
completely over your immediate intuition about what to do? And isn't it
possible that even with all the words we have now we cannot fully
understand all things through them, and that the thoughts created with
them may mislead us in any case?
I'm not suggesting that we blindly follow our feelings, but there is a
difference between an urge that comes from an unhealthy place and one
that comes from love or clear seeing of what needs to be done. Call it
conscience if you like, but we all can see and experience the difference
in motivations that we have. So we do our best to act from a healthy
place and use our minds to help us towards those goals that we see as
right. Then the power of the mind is working for us, rather than leading
us astray.
I hope this was clear enough to get you to doubt your own minds
insistence on its right to direct your life (and please take that
metaphorically), and its ability to find certainty. History is filled
with examples of great crimes perpetrated by those who were certain
their thoughts were correct. In fact, it is hard to imagine people doing
some of the horrible things they have done if they had doubted their
thinking.