Éiriú-Eolas - Breathing Program

[herondancer]

Hi all,

Thanks Oxijil for posting about the vagus nerve and digestion. I've also lost a lot of weight in the last year, but I was attributing it to the diet (no gluten, no sugar etc.) It's interesting that the vagus responds more strongly to proteins than to glucose. If you are following the diet, you aren't getting a whole lot of glucose! Since the vagus helps program future approaches to digestion, maybe it's "revving up" the system to deal with the larger amounts of animal and plant protein we are consuming. The article doesn't mention the response to fats.

@LoveandLight:

imho the simplest explanation for your discomfort is have tight or shortened muscles in your torso and between your ribs (intercostal muscles). If you have been a shallow breather all your life, or have a fairly sedentary occupation, these muscles will have very little capacity to expand. Are you doing the warm-up stretches that are given in the video portion of the program? They will gently increase the volume available for your lungs to fill.

Having said that, not feeling like you are getting enough air could also mean you've found the physical expression of an emotional block. This has happened to me a lot doing this program, and I've done tons of yoga over the years. Physical capacity is not an issue. But now and again there will be sessions where I sort of gasp for extra air at the end of each breath in, or cough/choke on the exhalations. Or, I will find myself focusing on one part of my body that wants "stretching" when I breath, like under the collar bones, or the sides of my body. Most recently this has been the sternum. I feel compelled to push against it with the air as I breathe in. On the exhalation it sinks in and softens almost like a deflated balloon. I don't know what is going on here, though I have some theories about the heart chakra, plus the few times I've had anxiety attacks, they were centred in the breastbone. So maybe it's clearing. These things are interesting to note, but I don't know if they are important in themselves. The overall emotional balance (or lack therof) is the focus.

Still not seeing lights (darn), still zoning in the middle of the POTS. One night, I actually zoned right at the start of the ba-ha breath, returned just as it ended, then stayed perfectly awake during the meditation! Ya never know what's gonna happen.

Herondancer

spelling corrections

 

[RflctnOfU]

What puzzles me is that some of us are eating more and we can't see where it goes!

Perhaps one of the effects of the breathing program is an increase in metabolism? That would explain why we can't see where it goes.

Hmm, there is this?

_http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n22_v150/ai_18947098/

How the brain knows when eating must stop - vagus nerve responds differently to each nutrient to decode what and how much has been eaten - Brief Article

At some point during a meal, the brain instructs the hand to put down the fork: The diner has had enough. The brain sends this message before all the food has left the stomach and entered the bloodstream. In probing what signals satiety, psychologists have identified a novel method by which the brain evaluates the contents of the gut.

The vagus nerve, which carries two-way communication between the gut and the brain, transmits distinctly different patterns of electric signals in response to carbohydrates and to protein in the gut, finds Gary J. Schwartz of Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore. These signals largely reflect gut wall contractions-mechanical motions that mix and grind up food, he reported at last week's Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington, D.C.

There's another component of the vagus nerve's reaction to protein. Schwartz suspects that hormonelike peptides produced by the gut in response to food are responsible for amplifying the signals triggered by the motions of the stomach and small intestine.

Most scientists had assumed that nerves sample gut contents through receptors that, like taste buds on the tongue, directly discriminate specific classes of chemicals being eaten, Schwartz notes. His data from anesthetized rats now indicate that this gut-level "tasting" may rely instead on indirect cues from nonspecific features of the digestive system, such as gut wall motility. Because other stimuli can also elicit both these motions and peptide production, the brain apparently decodes what's eaten-and how much-from the distinctive pattern of the vagus nerve's response to each nutrient, together with other information the brain receives from the gut.

Most nutrient absorption occurs in the stomach and duodenum-the upper segment of the small intestine. As Schwartz and his team infused glucose, a sugar, or peptone, a protein, directly into the duodenum, they recorded both gut wall movements and the corresponding signals to the brain.

In terms of the intensity and timing of contractions, and the corresponding intensity and duration of the vagus nerve's electric firing, "2 calories of the protein produced about a 30 to 40 percent larger [and longer] response than did 2 calories of glucose," Schwartz found.

He suspects that part of the effect may be mediated by the mast cells of the immune system. Present throughout the gut, these cells "are almost the perfect, ubiquitous transducer," he explains. "They can change a mechanical, thermal, or chemical stimulus into a neural signal." Moreover, he notes, vagus nerve fibers winding throughout the fingerlike villi lining the duodenum "are in a perfect position to taste what's happening to those mast cells."

"These are wonderfully coherent, novel, and interesting results," says Gerard P. Smith of Cornell Medical Center in White Plains, N.Y. While "we knew the gut talks to the brain over these [vagus nerve] fibers, what no one before has shown us is how the fibers respond to nutrients by changing their neural firing."

Adds Jaak Panksepp of Bowling Green (Ohio) State University, this information may prove "very important in learning what terminates a meal." However, he notes that over a day or so, the body adjusts its calorie consumption based on past meals and current needs. Therefore, Schwartz's new findings, he says, may have small consequences for how animals adjust their 24-hour caloric intake.

Wow! Thanks for this Oxajil! I have been experiencing a much larger appetite as well lately since practicing the Program.

Kris

 

[Username]

Hello everyone. I just wanted to talk about an experience that showed to me the power of pipe breathing. It was almost two weeks ago. I woke up at five in the morning, with much anxiety for an exam that I had to vigilate later that morning (I'm the assistant of a course of Ethics in the university). It was the first time that I had to face a class and I had to be prepared well enough to be able to answer the questions that could arisen. So, there I was in my bed, unable to calm down and continue to sleep until I started to do the pipe breathing. After a few breaths the anguish vanished completely and I could sleep. It was amazing. Once in the university, before entering to the classroom I also did it. And again it was a great help. I was calm and everything went well. So, I just wanted to say again: Thanks Laura!

 

[LoveAndLight]

Hi all,

Thanks Oxijil for posting about the vagus nerve and digestion. I've also lost a lot of weight in the last year, but I was attributing it to the diet (no gluten, no sugar etc.) It's interesting that the vagus responds more strongly to proteins than to glucose. If you are following the diet, you aren't getting a whole lot of glucose! Since the vagus helps program future approaches to digestion, maybe it's "revving up" the system to deal with the larger amounts of animal and plant protein we are consuming. The article doesn't mention the response to fats.

@LoveandLight:

imho the simplest explanation for your discomfort is have tight or shortened muscles in your torso and between your ribs (intercostal muscles). If you have been a shallow breather all your life, or have a fairly sedentary occupation, these muscles will have very little capacity to expand. Are you doing the warm-up stretches that are given in the video portion of the program? They will gently increase the volume available for your lungs to fill.

Having said that, not feeling like you are getting enough air could also mean you've found the physical expression of an emotional block. This has happened to me a lot doing this program, and I've done tons of yoga over the years. Physical capacity is not an issue. But now and again there will be sessions where I sort of gasp for extra air at the end of each breath in, or cough/choke on the exhalations. Or, I will find myself focusing on one part of my body that wants "stretching" when I breath, like under the collar bones, or the sides of my body. Most recently this has been the sternum. I feel compelled to push against it with the air as I breathe in. On the exhalation it sinks in and softens almost like a deflated balloon. I don't know what is going on here, though I have some theories about the heart chakra, plus the few times I've had anxiety attacks, they were centred in the breastbone. So maybe it's clearing. These things are interesting to note, but I don't know if they are important in themselves. The overall emotional balance (or lack therof) is the focus.

Still not seeing lights (darn), still zoning in the middle of the POTS. One night, I actually zoned right at the start of the ba-ha breath, returned just as it ended, then stayed perfectly awake during the meditation! Ya never know what's gonna happen.

Herondancer

spelling corrections

Hi Herondancer,

Ive been a shallow breather my whole life and I was thinking the same thing. I haven't been doing the warm up exercises because Ive been focused on learning how to pipe breath correctly still,but I will take your advice and start doing them routinely. It also could be emotional blockage as you have said, but I guess the best thing would be to keep practicing the EE program and theses issues will resolve with the the practice of the EE program. Thanks for the input.

 

[mkrnhr]

Ive been a shallow breather my whole life and I was thinking the same thing. I haven't been doing the warm up exercises because Ive been focused on learning how to pipe breath correctly still,but I will take your advice and start doing them routinely.

I had some difficulties at the beginning to do belly deep and slow breathing. I started to "train". Whenever I remember it, I start to breath deeply and slowly with the belly, wherever I am, at the office, at home, walking in the street... And now it is all natural. What I want to say is that it came very fast :)

 

[Joe]

Quote from: Perceval on Yesterday at 07:09:39 PM
Quote from: rrraven on Yesterday at 10:46:04 AM

bringing me to another question...should we try and work out how and where to meet to dance?

I would like to offer my bush property on the mid north coast where forum members could meet and camp by the creek and dance under the new moon anyone interested?

Hi rrraven, the dances will evolve as things progress and be developed by Laura et al. At the moment focus should be maintained on the breathing program. As a general rule, impromptu in person meet-ups between members are a bad idea and discouraged. Such meetings lack the protection of the many eyes of the network here and would provide a perfect opportunity for predators to take advantage. Remember, no matter how close we may feel (and be) to each other here, it's still a jungle out there and the forum is not immune to wolves in sheeps clothing.

yes I know that...that's why I posted here and did not try and send PM s to other Australian forum members and I am not suggesting a ''impromptu'' meeting with complete strangers or ''making up'' our own dances ,I was wondering about the logistics of getting 7 to 8 people from this forum to the same place once a month(new moon)in this huge country of ours----when the time comes

Best to leave such a discussion until "the time comes" then, yes?

 

[gotogo]

Ive been a shallow breather my whole life and I was thinking the same thing. I haven't been doing the warm up exercises because Ive been focused on learning how to pipe breath correctly still,but I will take your advice and start doing them routinely.

I had some difficulties at the beginning to do belly deep and slow breathing. I started to "train". Whenever I remember it, I start to breath deeply and slowly with the belly, wherever I am, at the office, at home, walking in the street... And now it is all natural. What I want to say is that it came very fast :)

I have a smiler observation as well. I am surprised myself by how slow I can now exhale "haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"!
And the pipe breathing is very handy and I now feel my body wants to do it as much as it can.

 

[Joe]

As far as keeping sensations below the neck, I think I've missed to read it. If it's not too much to ask, can you point it out ? Is it in regard to physical/inner sensations or in regards to feelings/behaviors/actions that arise & projected to external world (aka in work - keep your anger below the neck )?

Just for the sake of clarity here, "keeping emotions below the neck" does not mean not expressing emotions, it means not allowing emotions (or emotional energy) to be "usurped" by the intellect and converted into theories etc. It is better to simply express the emotion as it is, in some way or other.

 

[Oxajil]

Anyway, since I read here, or recall reading that some people have felt extreme sadness and cried, I thought maybe it has to do with the pipe breathing or something. I just wanted to share…
And I do know that I should do the full program, but part of me is kind of scared. I’m scared that if I’m crying this much right now, what am I going to be like when I start the full program? :(

Hi Deedlet,

It seems something is happening with your emotional center. I'd like to ask, how do you feel after crying for so long? Do you feel relief of some kind?
I guess it's somehow part of cleansing yourself. I'd advice you to just keep on observing yourself while this happens and just let it flow naturally. If you're scared of doing the full program and you feel like things are just going too fast for you or it's too overwhelming, then I think it's okay to not do the full program and pick it up when you feel more relaxed doing it. I think it's great that you do pipe breaths regularly. Do you also do the meditation every night?

There is something interesting that I'd like to post, it's from here:

But true evolution cannot occur except on the basis of the original film - after all artificially added elements have been eliminated. The latter is conditional on a return to the PURITY of the centers, especially the emotional center which - at least at the start - is the sole receptacle of Cosmic Solar influences.

Maybe also a good reminder would be Don Juan saying:

"The difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse."

Maybe a different perspective of what is happening to you might help you as well. Maybe you ''should'' just see this as a challenge, maybe your body or soul is somehow relieved when it cries. I for example had moments that I just couldn't stop laughing and tears came from my eyes! I've never laughed so much in years! But I've also experienced some ''uncontrolled'' crying as well. And it doesn't matter (imo) if it's either laughing, crying or any other way of expressing emotions, what matters is is that you ''allow'' it to happen naturally. That your body or soul, or yourself, can be relieved. Or so I think.

edit: Bo's post might help you enormously

 

[Bo]

As far as keeping sensations below the neck, I think I've missed to read it. If it's not too much to ask, can you point it out ? Is it in regard to physical/inner sensations or in regards to feelings/behaviors/actions that arise & projected to external world (aka in work - keep your anger below the neck )?

Just for the sake of clarity here, "keeping emotions below the neck" does not mean not expressing emotions, it means not allowing emotions (or emotional energy) to be "usurped" by the intellect and converted into theories etc. It is better to simply express the emotion as it is, in some way or other.

just wanted to add something to this,

Most people avoid their (painful)emotions by supressing them, in this process the invidual believes that he has moved on, if someone looks at ones own painful emotions, it's quite clear that you will experience suffering, but this suffering is needed for you to accept the emotion, understand the emotion, and move beyond it.

We all have our attachments to certain emotions, it is such a relief to deal with these emotions, you feel like reborn, a feeling which can not be described.

Bringers Of The Dawn

One of the big secrets that has been kept from you as a species is the richness and wealth that
accompanies emotion. You have been steered away from exploring emotion, because through emotion you can figure things out. Your emotions connect you with the spiritual body. The spiritual body, of course, is nonphysical, existing on the multidimensional sphere..

You will also realize that the more you deal with your repressed emotions, the more easier you will be able to see yourself.

You have to develop skills and abilities within a few
hours that will allow you to travel a few decades in your own emotional
evolution. You are going to have to travel the emotional highway,
because the human body expresses itself through the emotions. That is
the uniqueness and gift of your species.

First you will need to open the emotional highways to areas that you
have hidden from yourself in this particular lifetime. Memories may
flood in as this data is lined up inside you memories about events that
were difficult for you at the time or perhaps that you did not have a
context for. Some of you may uncover the events of extraterrestrial
contact that all of you had when you were children. Some of you may
uncover expressions of sexuality that you did not understand at the time
you were involved in them, whether you were a passive or an active
participant. Such things have been buried by the human emotional body
because it is very sensitive to judgment, and the mental body passes
tremendous judgment. The emotional body, linked to the spiritual body,
hides from this.

Many of you don't want to go beyond these emotional barriers and through
your personal boundaries because it might be painful. You'd like to say
"abracadabra" and just have them be gone. Pain brings you feeling. If
you can feel in no other way, sometimes, in order to capture your
attention as a stubborn human, you create pain to show yourself the
range of your abilities and to bring yourself into life. In this way,
you can feel the richness of being alive.

Most human beings are afraid of their emotional or feeling center; they
are afraid to feel. /Trust your feelings no matter what they are. /Trust
that they lead you to something and that the way you feel can bring you
a realization. You all want to be in life and be removed from it at the
same time. You say, "Let me just be here and be a powerful person, but I
don't want to feel or participate too much because it hurts too much and
then I will get sucked down. I don't trust life."

When you are not afraid of feeling, and you move past judgment and allow
yourself to feel all the ways you feel, you will have a tremendous
breakthrough because you will be able to /ride feeling into other
realities. /Some of you are afraid to feel and participate in this
reality; let alone ride into other realities, because you do not trust
your feelings. If you wish to have an acceleration, dive into something
that brings up feeling. Stop skirting the issue so that you can think
you are in control. Dive in the middle of it and then see if you are in
control.

It's not that you don't know how to feel, it's that you are /afraid of
your feelings. /You don't know what to do with them when you have them.
They bring up a sense of powerlessness within you, so you associate
feeling with a sense of, "Oh, no, I blew it." You have a boundary in
your belief system that states that when something comes up that is
emotional and brings pain or anger, then it is not good. It is time to
stop tiptoeing around things and avoiding your emotions.

Anger serves a purpose. All of you want to get finished with it: you
want to sweep it under the rug and act as if it is no good. You act like
it is rotten vegetables, throw it out, and bury it in the back garden as
if there is no purpose to it. We are emphasizing that there is a purpose
to fear and a purpose to anger. If you would allow yourselves to express
and experience your fears, which might lead to the expression of your
anger, you would learn something. Those of you who want desperately to
avoid fear and anger, and who are really afraid of these feelings, have
something great to learn through these emotions. They are techniques
that move you beyond your personal boundaries of identity and behavior,
and you are simply afraid to experience this.

Most of the time, all you want is to be accepted. You feel that no one
will like you if you do certain things or feel certain ways, so you
don't give yourself permission to have those certain feelings. That is
where the anger comes from. You have anger because you make judgments
about what you can and cannot do. If you do not give yourself permission
to feel, you cannot learn. Feeling connects you with life.

Feelings serve a variety of purposes in human beings. We encourage all
of you to please trust and cultivate and rely on your feelings.
Understand that your feelings are your ticket to ride into
multidimensional realities, where you must go if you are seriously
playing this game. In multidimensional realities, you learn to hold and
focus many different versions of yourself at once. Feelings can take you
to these places, particularly feelings that you trust. Many of you are
very suspicious and masterful over your feelings. You will not allow
certain feelings to come forward, or you judge them when they come up
instead of observing where they take you or what they do for you.

Because you have a fear of something, you keep yourself from
experiencing it because you put up a wall that says, "If I go there, it
is bad." You put the brakes on. In actuality, your fear will eventually
energize the experience into your realm of development because all
thought is drawn into form based on the emotional influence behind it.
So sometimes the greatest thing to do is to simply say, "What the heck,
I will go there. I surrender." Then deal with being there and don't
worry about being centered while you are in your feeling center. If you
intend to go into your feeling center and always be in control, you are
not giving yourself the range of movement that is needed to ride the
emotions that knock down boundaries and belief systems.

You must learn to /love your emotions. /As long as you describe
something as difficult, you are making it difficult. No one else is. You
are resisting and judging the changes coming about. You are feeling that
you do not know what is going on, and you wish to be in control. Control
is something very convenient and very handy. It must be applied at the
right place at the right time, like super glue. Super glue in the wrong
place doesn't do much good. Did you ever super glue your hands or lips
together? You must learn to exercise control in the way you use super
glue. If you screw up with super glue, you get stuck and you can't do
anything. Control is the same way: you get stuck with it, and it sticks
you to something that you don't need to be stuck to. You must be very
selective about what you decide to control or not control. The old human
pattern, or the paradigm that exists, says, "You must be in control."

Get clever. Next time you come into one of these emotional situations,
say to yourself immediately, "Alright, I know what is going on; I'm not
getting caught in this one. I know there is something here for me to
learn, and something for me to change. I believe that I am guided and
that I am following a blueprint, so I will check out what is in this for
me by not judging it and by going with the flow. I request that all my
changes come in joy and safety and harmony. That is my decree.
Everything in my evolution I am intending is covered by that: I
experience joy and safety and harmony. So I will go with this energy and
see what is changing for me and what I need to give up."

Feeling is what connects you to your humanity; feeling is what connects
you to your emotions. Emotions connect you in this realm of existence to
your spiritual body. What we are saying is that emotions, or feelings,
are the key to being alive in this reality. Many realities exist without
emotions, but in this reality they are your greatest gift. If you deny
your emotional self in this lifetime, then you had best realize that you
have hung it up. If you are not going to be part of your emotional self,
then you are never going to make the game we are talking about. You will
simply be one of the masses who watches television and feels like a
victim over and over again. If you are feeling pain within your
emotional body, ask yourself why you believe the pain is there, what
purpose the pain serves, and why you are choosing to create pain through
your emotions. Why is it not your choice to create joy? /All /is
/choice. /We need to remind you of this.

 

[kujo]

Bo, are all the following quotes from Bringers of the Dawn? Thank you for posting them, those words really have rung clearly for me today, and are a great reminder to be friendly with our emotions. I specially found these words in particular to be quite powerful.

You must learn to /love your emotions. /As long as you describe
something as difficult, you are making it difficult. No one else is. You
are resisting and judging the changes coming about. You are feeling that
you do not know what is going on, and you wish to be in control. Control
is something very convenient and very handy. It must be applied at the
right place at the right time, like super glue. Super glue in the wrong
place doesn't do much good. Did you ever super glue your hands or lips
together? You must learn to exercise control in the way you use super
glue. If you screw up with super glue, you get stuck and you can't do
anything. Control is the same way: you get stuck with it, and it sticks
you to something that you don't need to be stuck to. You must be very
selective about what you decide to control or not control. The old human
pattern, or the paradigm that exists, says, "You must be in control."

and...

So sometimes the greatest thing to do is to simply say, "What the heck,
I will go there. I surrender." Then deal with being there and don't
worry about being centered while you are in your feeling center. If you
intend to go into your feeling center and always be in control, you are
not giving yourself the range of movement that is needed to ride the
emotions that knock down boundaries and belief systems.

The last quote seems to go along with the purpose of The Swamp thread. A place to surrender for a moment, to not worry about being in control, to not worry about being centered. A place to observe and be observed. There are times when I recognize within myself that I maintain a strong hold on staying level, to not allow certain emotions to show themselves, thinking that if I keep them in control and maintain balance as best I can that it's a sign of progressing strength. However recently, while working to mirror others who seem to be sweeping their emotions under the rug, I suggested that in order to see what's under the surface, we've got to be "naked" in the presence of one another and ourselves equally. To surrender that control and observe openly. To get acquainted. Recalling those words earlier in the week, I realized that I may be holding on to the control of my emotions too tightly myself. That those words could be more realized and practiced on my part as well.

Once again thanks for those reminders, a great tool to add to the belt... and perhaps a good way to encourage those hidden emotions to rise above the surface.

An image that comes to mind: Imagine sitting around a kitchen table with your emotions, as separate from one another. Conversing over coffee maybe... asking questions of one another... observing... laughing... recalling stories from their lives. ::shrugs:: FWIW, it may be useful.

Keep up the good work!

 

[MetaDjinn]

Hello Bo,

I too wanted to thank you so much for posting this. I am just beginning the process with all this and it has been... oh, I cannot even summon the words... you all know how it goes. In the past month or so, I have become active here, turned my marriage upside-down, read three of the "Big Five", started therapy and have been doing EE through it all. I have also started a journal and this morning I was not doing well at all so I tried to write. Afterward, I went through the guided meditation and then read the new posts here. Your post was the first I read and I really hit home. I didn't realise how hard all this emotional stuff was going to be. Today I just overwhelmed by the feeling of desperately wanting to blast through all of this. Here is what I wrote in my journal:

I do not know what to do with myself: I just sit here and hurt like the pathetic piece of s*** that I am. I want to find the fast-forward button and skip all of this. I know what I am and what I do; how I feel and think is so “textbook”, so predictable and boring – why do I have to go through all of this? Just look it up – I'm on page 22.

I somehow thought that recognition and acceptance and responsibility would be enough and like everything else, I could skip to the end and claim my handsome reward. Wrong! What I need is to go through the process and feel. I always cut out, bury, sidestep the emotional part; my intellect blankets every facet of every experience. I'm so scared and so uncertain but I must continue. This quote:

Many of you don't want to go beyond these emotional barriers and through
your personal boundaries because it might be painful. You'd like to say
"abracadabra" and just have them be gone. Pain brings you feeling. If
you can feel in no other way, sometimes, in order to capture your
attention as a stubborn human, you create pain to show yourself the
range of your abilities and to bring yourself into life. In this way,
you can feel the richness of being alive.

Most human beings are afraid of their emotional or feeling center; they
are afraid to feel. /Trust your feelings no matter what they are. /Trust
that they lead you to something and that the way you feel can bring you
a realization. You all want to be in life and be removed from it at the
same time. You say, "Let me just be here and be a powerful person, but I
don't want to feel or participate too much because it hurts too much and
then I will get sucked down. I don't trust life."

... is exactly what I needed to read to today!!! I so desperately want to "feel the richness of being alive". I have a lot of work to do. There are no shortcuts. I was reminded of something I heard in a 12 Step program a while ago - this guy used to say that T.I.M.E is about the "Things I Must Earn". I hate all those corny sayings but he is right: I have to earn this and it will take time. I'm starting to understand more and feel more. I just need to get over myself and remember myself more and to get my predator's claws out of my back. Thank you all so much for being here!!!


--Christopher

 

[Navigator]

just dropping by to say that I completed the program for the first time after weeks of getting a hold of diaphragm and pipe breathing, I was emotional at some points at the end of the recording, saw a few lights with my eyes closed and ended up with a somewhat bitter feeling in my mouth, like if I just had suck on a lemon. Very emotional on the "cleanse my heart" part of the prayer of the soul, now that I remember.

 

[knowledge_of_self]

It seems something is happening with your emotional center. I'd like to ask, how do you feel after crying for so long? Do you feel relief of some kind? I guess it's somehow part of cleansing yourself. I'd advice you to just keep on observing yourself while this happens and just let it flow naturally.

Well the night I cried, I felt kind of numb afterwards. I was thinking why did you cry so much? I wrote about it a little in my journal. I don’t know if I would call it relief because I couldn’t stop thinking about how weak I am to cry and be so emotional. Which I think is my inner parent speaking osit.

Bo's post might help you enormously

Yes bo’s post DID help me enormously! Thank you bo! I need to read that book!
This part rings so true, and it is evident from my own post. I said,

And I do know that I should do the full program, but part of me is kind of scared. I’m scared that if I’m crying this much right now, what am I going to be like when I start the full program?

Many of you don't want to go beyond these emotional barriers and through
your personal boundaries because it might be painful.
…
As long as you describe
something as difficult, you are making it difficult. No one else is. You
are resisting and judging the changes coming about. You are feeling that
you do not know what is going on, and you wish to be in control.

I can see now, that it is an “emotional barrier” that makes me afraid to explore what happens if I do the full program. And deep down I hate the feeling of losing control to my sadness and tears. I hate it, maybe it Is as the quote says, that I hate to have no control over my emotions.

Do you also do the meditation every night?

No, I’m embarrassed to say I have not been, but I will start from tomorrow. Monday! I’ve only been doing like 2 or 3 sets of pipe breathing every day & night I really wanted to get a hang of the breathing before I moved on, and also just a little afraid. But I don’t want to let emotional barriers and the inner parent guide me. As the Don Juan quote you posted so elegantly stated, I wan to strive to be like the warrior and see this as a challenge, and move forward! Always moving forward!
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

 

[Laura]

The passages from Bringers of the Dawn are excellent adjuncts to the program! Barbara Marciniak certainly deserves many thanks for her work!

Here I want to quote a bit from al-Arabi on the topic. This was my guide while going through all this:

"The experience of unveiling opens up an infinite expanse
of previously unseen ralitites to the heart of the seeker. The realm into which
the adept first enters is, after all, the "imaginal world," or world of the mind.
Its byways never end. Unveiling opens the door to direct experience of the myriad
worlds of Samsara.

"By being taken up in a state of love, yearning, fear, thanksgiving, dread, or any
other psychological and spiritual attribute, the adept gains first-hand knowledge
of the unseen realities which these states manifest.

"Like a madman, the possessor of the state loses his reason in the operpowering
experience of his state.

"The word 'hal' or 'state' is derived from an Arabic root meaning
self-transmutation, to change from one situation to another. The state is the
situation, condition, predicament of change.

"A state is for you to be susbsistent, or annihilated, sober or drunk, concentrated
or dispersed, absent or present... the experiences are broadly divided into pairs
of opposites and you experience both. First one way, and then the other.

"The states are the divine tasks, the continual transmutation, self-disclosures of
God within, the new creation at each instant.

"A state is that which enters in upon the heart without self-exertion or any
attempt to attract it. One of its conditions is that it disappear and be followed
again by its like, as in waves, until it subsides.

"The state is the changing of the attributes of the servant. Once they become
established, they become 'stations.'

"States are bestowals and through the states come earnings.

"States signify certain dimensions of spiritual realization that differentiate the
advanced seeker from ordinary individuals.

"The state also denotes special powers which are accruing to the seeker as a result
of the station that may be acquired.

"The state is associated with several other terms which denote extraordinary feats
or miracles which the friend of God may perform. These include exercise of
governing control over secondary causes, bringing things into engendered existence,
acting through resolve and producing effects in the outside world.

"The possessor of the state is he who is able to exercise these extraordinary
powers.

"The possessor of the states engenders things through their resolve and throw the
secondary causes far from them.

"When anyone sees such a servant in the extremity of his weakness during the
states, he will remember God. God has singled out such as these for himself.

"The states present dangers to the person who experiences them. Though they are
divine bestowals, there is always the risk of thinking one has deserved them and
becoming proud, or losing mental equilibrium. The states are as trials that the
traveler has to undergo.

"When the seeker is overcome by states, they become as madmen, and as a result they
are no longer answerable to the Law. In this world, the state is an imperfection,
while in the next world it is perfection.

"The 'inrush' arrives at the heart without self-exertion and enters in as a
manifestation of one of the divine attributes.

"Sometimes the inrush is greater than the strength of the soul, so it rules over
the soul. The state turns the seeker this way and that. If he does not master the
state, there is danger of losing his rational faculty.

"The object is to increase the ability to receive 'inrushes' without being
outwardly affected by them.

"Without doubt, the possessors of the states exercise a penetrating power and
governing control through which they are able to perform the putting aside of
secondary causes.

"But, exercising governing control may also become a veil past which the seeker
must ultimately move.

"Deception is the continuation of favors in spite of the seekers opposition. A
seeker may be able to retain the state and perform the miracles without divine
command and without punishment. This is due to God's deceiving of the servant and
providing him with knowledge which demands practice and then deprives him of
sincerity. Or, he may give the knowledge and deprive of the ability to practice.
When you see this in yourself, know that he who has such an attribute is the object
of deception and must penetrate this veil."

(Excerpts from "Futuhat al-makkiyya" of Shaykh Muhyi al-Din ibn al Arabi, 1165-1240
A.D.)

There is more about the physiological things that accompany the states and how to
specifically identify them.

The main point I received from this was that the state must be controlled and
absorbed into the system somehow as it confers power.

At the time I was going through some of this, I wrote to Ark:

.... I am not entirely sure I can stand
getting it this way! Holy Frijoles! For the past two weeks, it has been trickling
and gushing in surges. Last night it really ripped through me.

And, I think I ought to consider that this sort of thing could also be some sort of
frequency modulation.

So, yes, you are right that the internal state must stabilize and then the external
conditions will change accordingly. But, if God had a suggestion box, I think I
would suggest that we start earlier on these things so they can be done in smaller
steps.

Then, there is also this:

"[Lying] can only be destroyed through suffering. ...The
principle reason for it is that it is impossible to sit between two stools; you
cannot acquire the new and preserve the old. ...This is a law: it is very
difficult to climb the hill, but very easy to slide down it. ...I have already
said before that sacrifice is necessary. Without sacrifice nothing can be
attained. ...Nothing can be attained without suffering, but, at the same time
one must begin by sacrificing suffering. ...To destroy suffering would mean,
first, destroying a whole series of perceptions for which man exists, and
second, the destruction of the force which alone can change the situation. The
work [of awakening] consists in subjecting oneself voluntarily to temporary
suffering in order to be free from eternal suffering. But, people are afraid
of suffering. They want pleasure now, at once and forever. They do not want
to understand that pleasure is an attribute of paradise and that it must be
earned. If a man gets pleasure before he has earned it, he will not be able to
keep it and pleasure will be turned into suffering. The way lies through
suffering."

What Gurdjieff meant by "sacrificing suffering" is that one must give up the idea of focusing on the flesh as the means of "salvation." Whatever a person thinks they can DO to suffer and thereby gain knowledge, will be wasted. The object is to attain the knowledge. The suffering will manifest all by itself.

And, what Gurdjieff never spoke about, and he may or may not have been aware of it, was the nature of beings at higher levels who seek, consciously, to keep knowledge from us and who inflict all kinds of suffering on us either literally or symbolically, to drive us from the path. As a friend of mine says: "If ignorance were painful, everyone would strive for knowledge!" But, it is exactly the other way around. And, the majority of people cannot understand this nor do they wish to accept it. They want to make a profession of faith in Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha or Swami Gotcha and let them "take the burden" of "sin"
while the people pursue pleasure at the very least, in terms of feeling that they have "done all that is necessary" and now it is just a matter of following some simple rules of minor suffering; i.e. abstention from foods or drink or certain sensual behaviors.

The truth is, becoming a vegetarian or teetotaler will do nothing to make one holy, though it can certainly "prepare the vessel." But that is not really suffering - as those who go through this process well understand. No fleshly suffering undertaken to acquire knowledge will have any effect whatsoever except to support an illusion that one is "more holy than others." No fleshly abstention is useful except as a preparation for the "real thing".

When new knowledge is acquired, it can be accommodated up to a point, at which the whole system must then "come to pieces" and reorganize in a new way. This is, I believe, what the C's mean when they talk about knowledge and lessons and the relation of being at a given point on the learning cycle and "all conforming" to the new knowledge and awareness as a "spherical mosaic consciousness."

Seeing my own experiences in perspective, I saw this pattern, though it was certainly taking place in modest steps. Since 1985, it has been a constant series of internal reorganizations of the dissipative structure type. And, each reorganization has a serious effect on me in a physical way that has MEANING. I noted that when the suffering of knowledge came upon me, it manifested in ways that have MEANING in my personal experience. I lose my sight, voice, hearing, or ability to feel in a strictly physical way, and to use my limbs effectively. When I make the adjustments, bring the awareness to consciousness, pass through the emotional gauntlet, then the physical manifestations clear up.

The eyes represent the ability to see clearly, past, present and future. The arms, (where the problem is manifesting) represent the capacity and ability to hold the experiences of life (or lives). Tears are the river of life.

So, in trying to fit all the pieces together, the suffering in the eyes shows me that I am SEEING something that is difficult to HOLD and that what I am seeing and trying to hold is an integrated WHOLENESS that comes from accessing and accumulating past, present and future.

I wrote more at the time I was going through these things, mostly to Ark. You will see that these things - this effort to understand the emotional cleansing - became seeds for the writing of The Wave:

There are many, many pieces to this mosaic. Many things from the distant past,
my early life, my recent life, the present, and probably the future. And all
of these things are like packets of energy being added into the system... and,
it may be that the more evolved the system, the less energy is needed to
destabilize the dissipative structure.

The fact is that some sort of energy entered the system and I am now seeing in
a different way, and have passed through a psychic storm of the flying apart of
the structure, and it is manifesting physically in some damned uncomfortable
ways!!!

Can we think that this may also be imposed on us consciously from some other
level of being in attempts to dissuade us from the path? Can these "attacks"
be designed to "separate the sheep from the goats?"

It is true that, at the time that the UFO showed itself to me and my children
on August 16, 1993, that this was the beginning of the SERIOUS suffering
relating to the present conditions. Prior to that, the problems were centered
in the heart and reproductive system. Those problems have ceased. (But, we
can see that problems with the heart relate to lack of joy and love and
problems with the reproductive organs relate to denial of the self as creative.)

Now, having moved past the "lack of joy" because I was denying my own
creativity, and having become joyful in discovery and dedication to knowledge,
I find an entirely new set of effects!!!!

For example, for eleven months (there is that number 11 again) after the
UFO sighting, my eyes and throat swelled shut every night at the same time and
I was forced to exist on antihistamines to control this angioedema. Once the
C material started coming through, some of that lessened, and it then became
more of a period of relative calm and ease of movement followed by a leap in
perception and understanding accompanied by massive physical "fall out." I
thought I had been through the absolute worst back in late March and early
April {1996} when I began to perceive the true difference between free will and lack
of free will, sts and sto, subjectivity and objectivity. This perception
caused me to take very definite actions in my life which included divorcing my
husband and eliminating a lot of people from close association because I could
clearly see that they were not interested in knowledge at all, but merely the
idea that I might be able to teach them some means of manifesting materially or
"creating" for selfish reasons.

At the human level, this created massive and overwhelming suffering, both
physical and emotional. I was unable to speak for several weeks due to a major
inflammation of the larynx, my eyes swelled shut and refused to respond to
either anti-biotics or any other form of treatment, my ears rang constantly,
and I had difficulty breathing and moving. Every joint and muscle in my body
hurt as though they were broken and torn. Having a baby was easier than all
that! I felt as though I were being literally crushed. I thought I would go
mad from the pain and the grief of seeing what my life truly was and being
forced, by virtue of my quest, to modify everything I thought I knew. At that point,
I could have plunged back into denial for the sake of peace and keeping everything
stable, but I had a dream that clearly told me that I was in mortal danger if I
did not take immediate action.

Now, Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes about the "Dark Man" in people's dreams.
I have connected the pertinent elements here and modified it slightly, but
it is mostly her words.

"The natural predator of the psyche is not only found in fairy tales but
also in dreams. "There is a universal initiatory dream, one so common that
it is remarkable if a person has reached age 25 without having had such a
dream. The dream usually causes the person to jolt awake, striving and
anxious. The dream usually involves being in a house with danger outside or
darkness outside. The dreamer is frightened and frantically tries to obtain
assistance. Suddenly, they realize the danger is virtually on top of them,
or right with them, or cannot be overcome or avoided, or that they have lost.
The dreamer awakens instantly, breathing hard, heart pounding.

"There is a strong physical aspect to having a dream of the predator. The
dream is often accompanied by sweats, struggles, hoarse breathing, heart
pounding, and sometimes crying and moans of fear. We could say the
dream-maker has dispensed with subtle messages to the dreamer and now sends
images which shake the neurological and autonomic nervous system of the
dreamer, thereby communicating the urgency of the matter.

"The antagonists of the 'dark dream' are, in people's own words,
'terrorists, rapists, thugs, concentration camp Nazis, marauders, murderers,
criminals, creeps, bad men, thieves.' There are several levels to the
interpretation of the dream..."

Oh, if Clarissa only knew the true level of interpretation!!!!!

"For instance, often such a dream is a reliable indicator that a person's
consciousness is just beginning to gain awareness of the innate psychic
predator...."

And who might that be??? Could it be those slimy little Gray
guys and scaly dudes? How about some blond, blue eyed liars who are so
beautiful that we think they are gods?

"The dream is a harbinger; the
dreamer has just discovered or is about to discover and begin liberating a
forgotten and captive function of the psyche.

How about being warned about the psychic danger of the hyperdimensional
beings or the controllers from higher densitites?

"The dark man dream tells a person what predicament they are facing. The
dream tells about a cruel attitude toward the dreamer. Like Bluebeard's
wife, the dreamer can consciously gain hold of the 'key' question about this
matter and answer it honestly, and can then be set free. ...

"The dark man appears in dreams when an initiation - a psychic change
from one level of knowing and behavior to another more energetic level of
knowledge and action is imminent. The initiation creates an archway which
one prepares to pass through to a new manner of knowing and being....

"Dreams are 'portales,' entrances, preparations, and practices for the
next step in consciousness.

"Dark man dreams are wake-up calls. They say: Pay attention! Something
has gone radically amiss in the outer world. ....The threat of the 'dark
man dreams' serves as a warning to all of us -- if you don't pay attention,
something will be stolen from you! The dreamer needs to be initiated so that
whatever has been robbing her can be recoginzed, apprehended, and dealt with.

"In the Bluebeard story we see how a woman who falls under the spell of
the predator rouses herself and escapes him, wiser for the experience. The
story is about transformation through knowledge, insight, voice, decisive
action. We must unlock the secrets and use our abilities to be able to stand
what we see. And then, we must use our voice and our wits to do what needs
to be done about what we see.

"When instincts are strong, we intuitively recognizes the innate predator
by scent, sight, and hearing... we anticipate its presence, hear it
approaching, and take steps to turn it away. In the instinct-injured (i.e.
nuts and bolts person) the predator is upon them before they register its
presence. We have been taught to be nice, to behave, to be blind, and to be
misused. We have been hypnotized to give up our flesh and skins.

"The young and the injured are uninitiated. Neither knows much about the
dark predator and are, therefore, credulous. But, fortunately, when the
predator is on the move, it leaves behind unmistakable tracks in dreams.
These tracks eventually lead to its discovery, capture and containment.

"Wild Ways teaches people when not to act 'nice' about protecting their
souls. The instinctive nature knows that being 'sweet' in these instances
only makes the predator smile. When the soul is being threatened, it is not
only acceptable to draw the line and mean it, it is required. ..."

And this is a key to free will.

There is more from William James' "Varieties of Religious Experience."

"At our last meeting, we considered the healthy-minded temperamemt, the
temperament which has a constitutional incapacity for prolonged suffering,
and in which the tendency to see things optimistically is like a water of
crystallization in which the individual's character is set. We saw how this
temperament may become the basis for a peculiar type of religion, a religion
in which good, even the good of this world's life, is regarded as the
essential thing for a rational being to attend to. This religion directs him
to settle his scores with the more evil aspects of the universe by
systematically declining to lay them to heart or make much of them, by
ignoring them in his reflective calculations, or even, on occasion, by
denying them outright. Evil is a disease and worry about evil is a disease
in itself. Even repentance and remorse.. may be but sickly impulses.

"Let us now... turn towards those persons who cannot so swiftly throw off
the burden of the consciousness of evil, but are congenitally fated to suffer
from its presence. ...there are different levels of the morbid mind... there
are people for whom evil means only a maladjustment with things, a wrong
correspondence of one's life with the environment. Such evil as this is
curable... by either modifying the self or the things or both at once.
There are others for whom evil is... a wrongness or vice in [their] essential
structure, which no alteration in the environment, or any superficial
rearrangement of the inner self, can cure, and which requires a supernatural
remedy. On the whole, the Latin races have leaned more towards the former
way of looking upon evil, ...while the Germanic races have tended rather to
think of Sin in the singular, and with a capital S, as of something
ineradicably ingrained in our natural subjectivity, and never to be removed
by any superficial piecemeal operations.

"...we speak of the threshold of a man's consciousness in general, to
indicate the amount of noise, pressure, or other outer stimulus which it
takes to arouse his attention at all. One with a high threshold will doze
through an amount of racket by which one with a low threshold would be
immediately waked. Similarly, when one is sensitive to small differences in
any order of sensation, we say he has a low 'difference threshold.' His mind
easily steps over it into the consciousness of the differences in question.
And just so we might speak of a 'pain threshold' a 'fear threshold,' a
'misery threshold,' and find it quickly overpassed by the consciousness of
some individuals, but lying too high in others to be reached by their
consciousness.

And this reflects also quantum transitions, as well as dissipative structures.
Those individuals with a "high threshold" are probably beings which have just
transitioned into this density from a lower one and therefore are able to
accommodate more 'packets' of energy introduction into their systems without
major disturbance. Those that are on the verge of "quantum transition" would
be more sensitive to these energies and have a lower energy addition tolerance.

"Goethe [expressed] 'I will say nothing against the course of my
existence. But at the bottom it has been nothing but pain and burden, and I
can affirm that during the whole of my 75 years, I have not had four weeks of
genuine well-being. It is but the perpetual rolling of a rock that must be
raised up again forever.'

"And Martin Luther said: 'I am utterly weary of life. I pray the Lord
will come forthwith and carry me hence... rather than live forty years more,
I would give up my chance of Paradise.'

"The only relief that 'healthy mindedness' can give is: 'Stuff and
nonsense! Get out into the open air! Cheer up, you'll be all right if you
will only drop your morbidness!' But, to ascribe spiritual value to mere
happy-go-lucky contentment is but the very consecration of forgetfulness and
superficiality. Our troubles are that we CAN die, that we CAN be ill, that
we ... need a life not correlated with death, a health not laible to illness,
a good that will not perish... said a friend: 'The trouble with me is that I
believe too much in happiness and goodness and nothing can console me for
their transiency.'

"[And so those who experience] a little cooling down of animal
excitability and instinct, a little loss of animal toughness, a little
descent of the pain threshold, brings the worm at the core of all our usual
springs of delight into full view, and turns us into melancholy
metaphysicians.

"Conceive yourself, if possible, suddenly stripped of all the emotion with
which your world now inspires you and try to imagine it as it exists, purely
by itself, without your favorable, hopeful or apprehensive comment. It will
be almost impossible for you to realize such a condition of negativity and
deadness. Whatever of value, interest, or meaning our world may appear
endued with are pure gifts of the spectator's mind. [For example] love
transforms the creature loved as utterly as the sunrise transforms Mont Blanc
from a corpse-like gray to a rosy enchantment. [So with our emotions] if
they are there, life changes.

This alone should tell us how easily our emotions can be used to control or
hypnotize us!

"In Tolstoy's case the sense that life had any meaning whatever was for a
time wholly withdrawn. The result was a transformation in the whole
expression of reality. When we study the phenomenon of regeneration, we
shall see that a not infrequent consequence of the change is a
transfiguration of the face of nature in his eyes. ...An urgent wondering
and questioning is set up, a poring theoretic activity, and in the desperate
effort to get into right relation with the matter, the sufferer is often led
to a solution...

"Tolstoy writes: '...I was neither insane nor ill. On the contrary, I
possessed a physical and mental strength which I have rarely met in persons
of my age. I could mow as well as the peasants, I could work with my brain
eight hours uninterruptedly and feel no bad effects. And yet I could give
no reasonable meaning to any actions of my life. And I was surprised that I
had not understood this from the very beginning. My state of mind was as if
some wicked and stupid jest was being played upon me by someone. One can
live only so long as one is intoxicated, drunk with life but when one grows
sober one cannot fail to see that it is all a stupid cheat. What is truest
about it is that there is nothing even funny or silly in it; it is cruel and
stupid, purely and simply. But perhaps, I said to myself, there may be
something I have failed to notice or to comprehend. it is not possible that
this condition of despair should be natural to mankind. And I sought for an
explanaton in all the branches of knowledge acquired by men. I questioned
painfully and protractedly and with no idle curiosity. I sought, not with
indolence, but loboriously and obstinately for days and nights on end. I
sought like a man who is lost and seeks to save himself - and I found
nothing. I became convinced, moreover, that all those who before me had
sought for an answer in the sciences have also found nothing. And not only
this, but that they have recognized that the very thing which was leading me
to despair - the meaningless absurdity of life - is the only incontestable
knowledge accessible to man.'

And I can echo the above with certitude as having been my own experience.
Only, I did come to a conclusion: that the object of this knowledge is to move
to an entirely new level of being.

"The only thing that need interest us now is the phenomenon of this
absolute disenchantment with ordinary life... when disillusionment has gone
as far as this, when one has tasted of the fruit of the tree, and the
happiness of Eden never comes again... the only happiness that then can come
is something vastly more complex, including natural evil as one of its
elements. The sufferer is born again as a deeper kind of conscious being
than he could be before.

"Having arrived at this point, we can see the antagonism that must arise
between the 'healthy-minded' optimist and the morbid-minded who take the
experience of viewing evil as essential. To the latter, 'healthy-mindedness'
seems unspeakably blind and shallow. To the former, the latter seems seems
unmanly and diseased. They believe that there is something almost obscene
about these children of wrath and cravers of a second birth. And, if
religious intolerance, hanging and burning at the stake, were still in vogue,
there is little doubt that the 'healthy-minded' would advocate the
destruction of the morbid minded rather than the other way around.

"The method of averting one's attention from evil, and living simply in
the light of good is splendid as long as it will work. ...yet there is no
doubt that 'healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine,
because the evil facts which it refuses positively to account for are a
genuine portion of reality; and these evil facts may be, after all, the best
key to life's significance, and possibly the only openers of our eyes to the
deepest levels of truth.

"The lunatic's visions of horror are all drawn from the material of daily
fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles and every individual
existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony. To believe in the
carnivorous reptiles of geologic times is hard for our imagination - they
seem too much like museum specimens. Yet there is no tooth in any one of
those museum skulls that did not daily hold fast to the body struggling in
despair of some fated living victim. Forms of horror just as dreadful to the
victims fill the world about us today. Here, on our very hearths, the
infernal cat plays with the panting mouse or holds the hot bird fluttering in
her jaws. Crocodiles, pythons and rattlesnakes are vessels of life as real
as we are; and whenever they or other wild beasts clutch their living prey,
the deadly horror which the morbid minded feels is the literally right
reaction to the situation.

"...Since the evil facts are as genuine parts of nature as the good ones,
and our philosophic presumption should be that they have some rational
significance, then systematic failure to accord these things active attention
is less complete than those systems that attempt to include these elements in
their scope. The 'healthy-minded optimists only need to be born once, but
the 'sick souls' need to be born twice to be happy.

The result is two different conceptions of the universe:
subjective and objecfive.

"In the once born, the world is a one-storied affair... whose parts have
just the values which they appear to have... [to the twice born] the world
is a double-storied mystery. Natural good is not simply insufficient in
amount and transient, there lurks a falsity in its very being. It keeps us
from our real good and renunciation and despair of it are our first step in
the direction of the truth. There are two lives, the natural and the
spiritual and we must lose the one before we can participate in the other."
(William James from "Varieties of Religious Experience")

Someone wrote to me, regarding the C material and the ideas above:

"So, Jesus gives us the message, asks us to learn from it, but surely doesn't
force it on us. He was an optimist. Offered us the best of both worlds-- a no
lose proposition!"

I responded with quotes from the NT:

"I have given and delivered to them Your Word; and world has
hated them, because they are not of the world - do not belong to the world - as
I am not of the world."

"Peace I leave with you; My peace I now give and bequeath to you. Not as the
world gives do I give to you."

"The world cannot hate you, but it does hate Me, because I denounce it for
its wicked works and reveal that its doings are evil."

"He said to them, You are from below; I am from above. you are of this world
- of this earthly order. I am not of this world. "

"Any one who loves his life loses it. But any one who hates his life in
this world will keep it to life eternal. Whoever has no love for, no concern
for, no regard for his life here on the earth, but despises it, preserves his
life forever and ever."

"Now the judgment of this world is coming - sentence is now being passed on
this world. Now the ruler, evil genius, prince of this world shall be cast
out -expelled. And if I be *lifted up from the earth,* I will draw and
attract all men to myself."

Juxtaposing the above sayings of Jesus against the passages from James
gives fuller insight into the process. It seems to me that we can achieve
knowledge only by comparing the two sides, positive and negative, which have
become separated from each other. As long as the two sides are together,
there is no creation. The visible world is only recognizable because of this
separation from unity in which nothing and everything are at rest within each
other.

All creation is like a tree which bears positive fruit on one side and
negative fruit on the other. It is still on the same tree. Only through
this separation and comparison is it possible to achieve recognition and
knowledge, and because of this, the material world must consist of good and
evil. Otherwise, nothing could exist.

The material world is the tree of knowledge of good and evil. To eat of
something is to become identical with it; for what you eat is what you will
become. By identifying in any way with this world, we retain this fruit
within us. We have identified our consciousness with it and become subject
to it. Therefore, the material world is the result of separation. Our
bodies are the material, manifested part of our true selves.

The striving for reunion is the desiring of the manifested part of the
consciousness to reunite with the unmanifested God consciousness. This
striving toward the "God state" or unification of positive and negative
forces is the source of all power in the manifested world. And, opening to
the objective, but painful, reality of the material world is crucial to this
process. Wherever negative forces are manifested, positive forces are
present in the unmanifested state. So, it might be said that the more
darkness one can be aware of, the more light one is capable of receiving.

So, for all of you "going through the fire", just know that you are not alone. Also know that it doesn't last forever ... though at some points, it may be so intense that you think you are going mad. What's a few weeks of madness to pay for the bestowal of SEEing?