"Enjoying The Show" As The World Burns

[happyliza]

Great statement
Observing suffering in all its forms triggers a permanent feeling of sadness, fear and powerlessness in an empath. It is not primarily about the suffering that we perceive but about the emotion that it triggers in us. Recently, I have often asked myself whether my thinking about the external suffering that I perceive is very STS-colored.
Perceived suffering from outside triggers emotions of deep sadness, helplessness, despondency and fear within me. My counter-reaction is anger and sudden actionism. I have to do something so that I can bear it. I want to actively eliminate external suffering so that I no longer have to feel these negative emotions. The greater the external suffering, the more I want to fight against it so that I can regain my inner stability. It's like ying and yang or a balance that constantly tips to one side only.
Knowing that everything is a lesson and that it's not my job to save anyone brings me back into relative balance. But in my job, it's very difficult to stay centered, to stay grounded.

Lately I've been having a lot of apocalyptic dreams and memories of thoughts from my childhood. Perhaps I saw things as a child that are relevant today. Back then, I thought that at some point there would be an immigration of people from Africa and poorer countries. At the time, I thought practically. How can it be that we in Europe are rich, full and prosperous and children are starving to death on another continent? Another memory relates to the world's debt system. I understood that even then the world was in debt. The other visions were of a debt-free and peaceful world. And I was always aware that I would live to see it.
Keeping your own lighthouse burning, expanding and stabilizing your networks, acquiring knowledge and not losing your divine trust are probably the most important tasks at this time.

Nachtweide I hear you! One consideration that I feel is important is that for riding these times we need to be able to function outside of our comfort zone.
I love my daily routine and also dislike feeling inwardly discombobulated. Which is a common occurance now.
However, we know that things will become far more chaotic. Yet we will be severely tested to keep our wits and nerve about us when everything is chaos around us.
We owe it to ourselves to survive and be useful as long as possible.
In my weekly studies it was also mentioned that with the rise of wealth and stability in the West and other places it has become noticeable that simultaneously there becomes a rise in the loss of the connection with The Divine. As in good times without discomfort mainly feelgood things are sought after.
It was in The Messengers book that it mentioned mainly those who are poor and struggling seek to become closer to God.
Yesterday I finally had time to get into the sea with my dogs and also give them a much needed shampoo!
Once done I chose to just float on the water and let all my stress and unconscious woories just mentally dissipate.
I so love the opportunity to just float as it is the ideal exercise to test and renew your trust and connection with God.
With such beauty around you and being purely wrapped in nature lying back into the sea is a beautiful exercise in trust. To trudt that the sea will support you and just close your eyes trustingly, floating where the current takes you, helps you drift into being at One with everything with not a care in the wotld for those so precious moments.
It never fails to inspire awe and gratitude in the immensity of The Universe. As well as the fact that we are never alone, and by some miracle all our thoughts and fears are already known and shared - including for little old me!
I just cannot describe the wellbeing it evokes and fully recommend that if too cold for the sea you visit a pool at a least busy time.
I even tried this in a full bath when I got home, with nice magnesium and oils like ylang ylang, vetiver and lavender.It doesnt have the healing of the sea salt and gentle lapping of the waves to lull you into peacefulness, instead you have the effect of the warmth of the water and mix of aromas to effect same.
So peepsie do try this to strengthen your inner trust and connection with DCM in these rocky times x

 

[bozadi]

I want to share some more from Maharaj, about humanity's suffering and helping humanity. Not all of his ideas and suggestions are compatible with this forum but I think we can still find some surprising inspiration in his wisdom. I also find many similarities with the C's teaching.

Q: How can I find peace when the world suffers?

M: The world suffers for very valid reasons. If you want to help the world, you must be beyond the need of help. Then all your doing as well as not doing will help the world most effectively.

Q: How can non-action be of use where action is needed?

M: Where action is needed, action happens. Man is not the actor. His is to be aware of what is going on. His very presence is action. The window is the absence of the wall and it gives air and light because it is empty. Be empty of all mental content, of all imagination and effort, and the very absence of obstacles will cause reality to rush in. If you really want to help a person, keep away. If you are emotionally committed to helping, you will fail to help. You may be very busy and be very pleased with your charitable nature, but not much will be done. A man is really helped when he is no longer in need of help. All else is just futility.

Q: There is not enough time to sit and wait for help to happen. One must do something.

M: By all means -- do. But what you can do is limited; the self alone is unlimited. Give limitlessly -- of yourself. All else you can give in small measures only. You alone are immeasurable. To help is your very nature. Even when you eat and drink you help your body. For yourself you need nothing. You are pure giving, beginning-less, endless, inexhaustible. When you see sorrow and suffering, be with it. Do not rush into activity. Neither learning nor action can really help. Be with sorrow and lay bare its roots -- helping to understand is real help.

M: (…) Large scale calamities are the sum of numberless individual destinies and take time to settle. But death is never a calamity.

Q: Even when a man is killed?

M: The calamity is of the killer.

Q: When one looks round, one is appalled by the volume of unnecessary suffering that is going on. People who should be helped are not getting help. Imagine a big hospital ward full of incurables, tossing and moaning. Were you given the authority to kill them all and end their torture, would you not do so?

M: I would leave it to them to decide.

Q: But if their destiny is to suffer? How can you interfere with destiny?

M: Their destiny is what happens. There is no thwarting of destiny. You mean to say everybody's life is totally determined at his birth? What a strange idea! Were it so, the power that determines would see to it that nobody should suffer.

Q: What about cause and effect?

M: Each moment contains the whole of the past and creates the whole of the future.

Q: But past and future exist?

M: In the mind only. Time is in the mind, space is in the mind. The law of cause and effect is also a way of thinking. In reality all is here and now and all is one. Multiplicity and diversity are in the mind only.

Q: Still, you are in favour of relieving suffering, even through destruction of the incurably diseased body.

M: Again, you look from outside while I look from within. I do not see a sufferer, I am the sufferer. I know him from within and do what is right spontaneously and effortlessly. I follow no rules nor lay down rules. I flow with life -- faithfully and irresistibly.

Q: Still you seem to be a very practical man in full control of your immediate surroundings.

M: What else do you expect me to be? A misfit?

Q: Yet you cannot help another much.

M: Surely, I can help. You too can help. Everybody can help. But the suffering is all the time recreated. Man alone can destroy in himself the roots of pain. Others can only help with the pain, but not with its cause, which is the abysmal stupidity of mankind.

Q: Will this stupidity ever come to an end?

M: In man -- of course. Any moment. In humanity -- as we know it -- after very many years. In creation -- never, for creation itself is rooted in ignorance; matter itself is ignorance. Not to know, and not to know that one does not know, is the cause of endless suffering.

Q: We are told of the great avatars, the saviours of the world.

M: Did they save? They have come and gone -- and the world plods on. Of course, they did a lot and opened new dimensions in the human mind. But to talk of saving the world is an exaggeration.

Q: Is there no salvation for the world?

M: Which world do you want to save? The world of your own projection? Save it yourself. My world? Show me my world and I shall deal with it. I am not aware of any world separate from myself, which I am free to save or not to save. What business have you with saving the world, when all the world needs is to be saved from you? Get out of the picture and see whether there is anything left to save.

Q: Can you influence the world by your attitude? By separating yourself from the world you lose all hope of helping it.

M: How can it be? All is myself -- can't I help myself? I do not identify myself with anybody in particular, for I am all -- both the particular and the universal.

Q: Can you then help me, the particular person?

M: But I do help you always -- from within. My self and your self are one. I know it, but you don't. That is all the difference -- and it cannot last.

Q: And how do you help the entire world?

M: Gandhi is dead, yet his mind pervades the earth. The thought of a jnani pervades humanity and works ceaselessly for good. Being anonymous, coming from within, it is the more powerful and compelling. That is how the world improves -- the inner aiding and blessing the outer. When a jnani dies, he is no more, in the same sense in which a river is no more when it merges in the sea, the name, the shape, are no more, but the water remains and becomes one with the ocean. When a jnani joins the universal mind, all his goodness and wisdom become the heritage of humanity and uplift every human being.

Questioner: We two came from far off countries; one of us is British, the other American. The world in which we were born is falling apart and, being young, we are concerned. The old people hope they will die their own death, but the young have no such hope. Some of us may refuse to kill, but none can refuse to be killed. Can we hope to set the world right within our lifetime?

Maharaj: What makes you think that the world is going to perish?

Q: The instruments of destruction have become unbelievably potent. Also, our very productivity has become destructive of nature and of our cultural and social values.

M: You are talking of the present times. It has been so everywhere and always. But the distressing situation may be temporary and local. Once over, it will be forgotten.

Q: The scale of the impending catastrophe is unbelievably big. We live in the midst of an explosion.

M: Each man suffers alone and dies alone. Numbers are irrelevant. There is as much death when a million die as when one perishes.

Q: Nature kills by the millions, but this does not frighten me. There may be tragedy or mystery in it, but no cruelty. What horrifies me is man-made suffering, destruction and desolation. Nature is magnificent in its doings and undoings. But there is meanness and madness in the acts of man.

M: Right. So, it is not suffering and death that are your problem, but the meanness and madness at their root. Is not meanness also a form of madness? And is not madness the misuse of the mind? Humanity's problem lies in this misuse of the mind only. All the treasures of nature and spirit are open to man who will use his mind rightly.

Q: What is the right use of mind?

M: Fear and greed cause the misuse of the mind. The right use of mind is in the service of love, of life, of truth, of beauty.

Q: Easier said than done. Love of truth, of man, goodwill -- what luxury! We need plenty of it to set the world right, but who will provide?

M: You can spend an eternity looking elsewhere for truth and love, intelligence and goodwill, imploring God and man -- all in vain. You must begin in yourself, with yourself -- this is the inexorable law. You cannot change the image without changing the face. First realise that your world is only a reflection of yourself and stop finding fault with the reflection. Attend to yourself, set yourself right -- mentally and emotionally. The physical will follow automatically. You talk so much of reforms: economic, social, political. Leave alone the reforms and mind the reformer. What kind of world can a man create who is stupid, greedy, heartless?

Q: If we have to wait for a change of heart, we shall have to wait indefinitely. Yours is a counsel of perfection, which is also a counsel of despair. When all are perfect, the world will be perfect. What useless truism!

M: I did not say it. I only said: You cannot change the world before changing yourself. I did not say -- before changing everybody. It is neither necessary, nor possible to change others. But if you can change yourself you will find that no other change is needed. To change the picture you merely change the film, you do not attack the cinema screen!

Q: How can you be so sure of yourself? How do you know that what you say is true?

M: It is not of myself that I am sure, I am sure of you. All you need is to stop searching outside what can be found only within. Set your vision right before you operate. You are suffering from acute misapprehension. Clarify your mind, purify your heart, sanctify your life -- this is the quickest way to a change of your world.

Q: So many saints and mystics lived and died. They did not change my world.

M: How could they? Your world is not theirs, nor is their yours.

Q: Surely there is a factual world common to all.

M: The world of things, of energy and matter? Even if there were such a common world of things and forces, it is not the world in which we live. Ours is a world of feelings and ideas, of attractions and repulsions, of scales of values, of motives and incentives, a mental world altogether. Biologically we need very little, our problems are of a different order. Problems created by desires and fears and wrong ideas can be solved only on the level of the mind. You must conquer your own mind and for this you must go beyond it.

Q: What does it mean to go beyond the mind.

M: You have gone beyond the body, haven't you? You do not closely follow your digestion, circulation or elimination. These have become automatic. In the same way the mind should work automatically, without calling for attention. This will not happen unless the mind works faultlessly. We are, most of our time mind and body-conscious, because they constantly call for help. Pain and suffering are only the body and the mind screaming for attention. To go beyond the body you must be healthy: To go beyond the mind, you must have your mind in perfect order. You cannot leave a mess behind and go beyond. The mess will bog you up. 'Pick up your rubbish' seems to be the universal law. And a just law too.

Q: To be content with mere being seems to be a most selfish way of passing time.

M: A most worthy way of being selfish! By all means be selfish by foregoing everything but the Self. When you love the Self and nothing else, you go beyond the selfish and the unselfish. All distinctions lose their meaning. Love of one and love of all merge together in love, pure and simple, addressed to none, denied to none. Stay in that love, go deeper and deeper into it, investigate yourself and love the investigation and you will solve not only your own problems but also the problems of humanity. You will know what to do. Do not ask superficial questions; apply yourself to fundamentals, to the very roots of your being.

Questioner: We were talking the other day about the ways of the modern Western mind and the difficulty it finds in submitting to the moral and intellectual discipline of the Vedanta. One of the obstacles lies in the young European's or American's preoccupation with the disastrous condition of the world and the urgent need of setting it right.

They have no patience with people like you who preach personal improvement as a pre-condition for the betterment of the world. They say it is neither possible nor necessary. Humanity is ready for a change of systems -- social, economic, political. A world-government, world-police, world-planning and the abolition of all physical and ideological barriers: this is enough, no personal transformation is needed. No doubt, people shape society, but society shapes people too. In a humane society people will be humane; besides, science provides the answer to many questions which formerly were in the domain of religion.

Maharaj: No doubt, striving for the improvement of the world is a most praiseworthy occupation. Done selflessly, it clarifies the mind and purifies the heart. But soon man will realise that he pursues a mirage. Local and temporary improvement is always possible and was achieved again and again under the influence of a great king or teacher; but it would soon come to an end, leaving humanity in a new cycle of misery. It is in the nature of all manifestation that the good and the bad follow each other and in equal measure. The true refuge is only in the unmanifested.

Q: Are you not advising escape?

M: On the contrary. The only way to renewal lies through destruction. You must melt down the old jewellery into formless gold before you can mould a new one. Only the people who have gone beyond the world can change the world. It never happened otherwise. The few whose impact was long lasting were all knowers of reality. Reach their level and then only talk of helping the world.

Q: It is not the rivers and mountains that we want to help, but the people

M: There is nothing wrong with the world, but for the people who make it bad. Go and ask them to behave.

Q: Desire and fear make them behave as they do.

M: Exactly. As long as human behaviour is dominated by desire and fear, there is not much hope. And to know how to approach the people effectively, you must yourself be free of all desire and fear.

Q: Certain basic desires and fears are inevitable, such as are connected with food, sex and death.

M: These are needs and, as needs, they are easy to meet.

Q: Even death is a need?

M: Having lived a long and fruitful life you feel the need to die. Only when wrongly applied, desire and fear are destructive. By all means desire the right and fear the wrong. But when people desire what is wrong and fear what is right, they create chaos and despair.

Q: What is right and what is wrong?

M: Relatively, what causes suffering is wrong, what alleviates it is right. Absolutely, what brings you back to reality is right and what dims reality is wrong.

Q: When we talk of helping humanity, we mean a struggle against disorder and suffering.

M: You merely talk of helping. Have you ever helped, really helped, a single man? Have you ever put one soul beyond the need of further help? Can you give a man character, based on full realisation of his duties and opportunities at least, if not on the insight into his true being? When you do not know what is good for yourself, how can you know what is good for others?

M: Most of our karma is collective. We suffer for the sins of others, as others suffer for ours. Humanity is one. Ignorance of this fact does not change it. We could have been much happier people ourselves, but for our indifference to the sufferings of others.

Q: As long as I am with you, all you say seems pretty obvious; but as soon as I am away from you I run about restless and anxious.

M: You need not keep away from me, in your mind at least. But your mind is after the world's welfare!

Q: The world is full of troubles, no wonder my mind too is full of them.

M: Was there ever a world without troubles? Your being as a person depends on violence to others. Your very body is a battlefield, full of the dead and dying. Existence implies violence.

Q: As a body -- yes. As a human being -- definitely no. For humanity non-violence is the law of life and violence of death.

M: There is little of non-violence in nature.

Q: God and nature are not human and need not be humane. I am concerned with man alone. To be human I must be compassionate absolutely.

M: Do you realise that as long as you have a self to defend, you must be violent?

Q: I do. To be truly human I must be self-less. As long as I am selfish, I am sub-human, a humanoid only.

M: So, we are all sub-human and only a few are human. Few or many, it is again 'clarity and charity' that make us human. The sub-human -- the 'humanoids' -- are dominated by tamas and rajas and the humans by sattva. Clarity and charity is sattva as it affects mind and action. But the real is beyond sattva. Since I have known you, you seem to be always after helping the world. How much did you help?

Q: Not a bit. Neither the world has changed, nor have I. But the world suffers and I suffer along with it. To struggle against suffering is a natural reaction. And what is civilization and culture, philosophy and religion, but a revolt against suffering. Evil and the ending of evil -- is it not your own main preoccupation? You may call it ignorance -- it comes to the same.

M: Well, words do not matter, nor does it matter in what shape you are just now. Names and shapes change incessantly. Know yourself to be the changeless witness of the changeful mind. That is enough.

Q: (…) For you what is good and what is bad?

M: What increases suffering is bad and what removes it is good.

Q: So you deny goodness to suffering itself. There are religions in which suffering is considered good and noble.

M: Karma, or destiny, is an expression of a beneficial law: the universal trend towards balance, harmony and unity. At every moment, whatever happens now, is for the best. It may appear painful and ugly, a suffering bitter and meaningless, yet considering the past and the future it is for the best, as the only way out of a disastrous situation.

Q: Does one suffer only for one's own sins?

M: One suffers along with what one thinks oneself to be. If you feel one with humanity, you suffer with humanity.

Q: Must I wait with helping the world until I reach perfection?

M: By all means help the world. You will not help much, but the effort will make you grow. There is nothing wrong in trying to help the world.

Q: Surely there were people, common people, who helped greatly.

M: When the time comes for the world to be helped, some people are given the will, the wisdom and the power to cause great changes.

Q: What you say sounds convincing, but of what use is it to the private person, who knows itself to be in the world and of the world?

M: Millions eat bread, but few know all about wheat. And only those who know can improve the bread. Similarly, only those who know the self, who have seen beyond the world, can improve the world. Their value to private persons is immense, for they are their only hope of salvation. What is in the world cannot save the world; if you really care to help the world you must step out of it.

Q: But can one step out of the world?

M: Who was born first, you or the world? As long as you give first place to the world, you are bound by it; once you realise, beyond all trace of doubt that the world is in you and not you in the world, you are out of it. Of course your body remains in the world and of the world, but you are not deluded by it.

Q: What creates destiny?

M: Ignorance is the cause of inevitability.

Q: Ignorance of what?

M: Ignorance of yourself primarily. Also, ignorance of the true nature of things, of their causes and effects. You look round without understanding and take appearances for reality. You believe you know the world and yourself -- but it is only your ignorance that makes you say: I know. Begin with the admission that you do not know and start from there.

There is nothing that can help the world more than your putting an end to ignorance. Then, you need not do anything in particular to help the world. Your very being is a help, action or no action.

Q: How can ignorance be known? To know ignorance presupposes knowledge.

M: Quite right. The very admission: 'I am ignorant' is the dawn of knowledge. An ignorant man is ignorant of his ignorance. You can say that ignorance does not exist, for the moment it is seen it is no more. Therefore, you may call it unconsciousness or blindness. All you see around and within you is what you do not know and do not understand, without even knowing that you do not know and do not understand. To know that you do not know and do not understand is true knowledge, the knowledge of an humble heart.

Q: Yes, Christ said: Blessed are the poor in spirit...

M: Put it as you like; the fact is that knowledge is of ignorance only. You know that you do not know.

Q: Will ignorance ever end?

M: What is wrong with not knowing? You need not know all. Enough to know what you need to know. The rest can look after itself, without your knowing how it does it. What is important is that your unconscious does not work against the conscious, that there is integration on all levels. To know is not so very important.

Q: What you say is correct psychologically. But when it comes to knowing others, knowing the world, my knowing that I do not know does not help much.

M: Once you are inwardly integrated, outer knowledge comes to you spontaneously. At every moment of your life you know what you need to know. In the ocean of the universal mind all knowledge is contained; it is yours on demand. Most of it you may never need to know -- but it is yours all the same.

As with knowledge, so it is with power. Whatever you feel needs be done happens unfailingly. No doubt, God attends to this business of managing the universe; but He is glad to have some help. When the helper is selfless and intelligent, all the powers of the universe are for him to command.

Q: Even the blind powers of nature?

M: There are no blind powers. Consciousness is power. Be aware of what needs be done and it will be done. Only keep alert -- and quiet. Once you reach your destination and Know your real nature, your existence becomes a blessing to all. You may not know, nor will the world know, yet the help radiates. There are people in the world who do more good than all the statesmen and philanthropists put together. They radiate light and peace with no intention or knowledge. When others tell them about the miracles they worked, they also are wonder struck. Yet, taking nothing as their own, they are neither proud, nor do they crave for reputation. They are just unable to desire anything for themselves, not even the joy of helping others knowing that God is good they are at peace.

 

[Wandering Star]

M: Each moment contains the whole of the past and creates the whole of the future.


This sentence hit me hard.

It's perfect.

Thanks Bozadi.

 

[Ivan`88]

What I want to say actualy is a topic of „death“,that has been taboo for hundreads if not thousands of years.Topic that is hidden somewhere very deeply with the strongest guards.Anyone who approached was rebuffed.“We should not talk about that“very common sentence,“It is something horoble“.But yet it is everywhere around us.How can sometnhing be so terrible,even unaccaptable,yet woven into existance itself?It just doesnt fit.

Im preaty much sure that what we know about death is nothing else but traditional,cultural program.
Programmed from birth by parents,by school,friends,church and so on.Programmed to be in a constan state of fear,wich in turn results from our wrong idea about death.
Now please pay attention to how one wrong idea can produce so much suffering.killing,abusing,robberies…all that because of fear wich is produced by wrong idea of death.

But still you cant avoid it,no one.Its all waiting for us.

I think we should get out of the program,talk about it,find evidence of what happens after death,enable this topic to be close to us.It will allow us to get through all of this.

And only then may we understand what“enjoy the show“means.

 

[Nienna]

I think we should get out of the program,talk about it,find evidence of what happens after death,enable this topic to be close to us.It will allow us to get through all of this.

here on the forum, we have been talking about the afterlife for many years now. If you put 'afterlife' in the search function, there are several threads. Here's one of them:

Descriptions of the "afterlife"/5th Density

 

[nf3]

This popped up on my Facebook feed this morning and reminded me of this thread.

From session 498 of the Seth material:

"First of all, do not lose your sense of perspective, that larger perspective, that our work should give you."

"Within your system, for the “first time”, in quotes, individualized consciousness is strongly-enough organized to do, in quotes, “good or evil.” Before that it was protected, somewhat coddled, with instinctual behavior holding it in bounds. It is not able to utilize enough energy to maintain a system of its own, but operates as an adjunct to other stronger systems."

"Now some of those within your reality are having their first experience with an ego as you think of it. Others are returning to it, the system, in an effort to learn more. There are guardians, so to speak, within your system, reincarnated for the last time to help keep it in some kind of order while the others mature. There are also some, not physical, who keep an eye out over the whole proceedings."

"The training is necessary. The results at any given stage may not appear very hopeful, and in your terms there is indeed what seems to be a cumulative effect. There is a system of checks and balances that do operate. These exist within the inner selves. The system of checks and balances will operate up to a point, and maintain some stability."

"The race also realizes well the advantages and disadvantages of the physical reality it has adopted. It knows for example that there is a tendency to go to extremes. I mentioned earlier that the rewards, the challenges and the dangers exist precisely because so much freedom is allowed."

"Now. Those within the system know this. Regardless of what you may think of their present performance at any given “time” in quotes, it is from this system that the greatest potentials emerge; for having dealt with it, consciousness undergoes one of the severest tests in learning to handle its own energy."

"The horror and the results of mismanagement, and the vulnerability, are the teaching methods that each consciousness has accepted before entering your system. There is no way out but to learn or to ruin the entire system. In no other field of reality are the terms so drastic. For this reason the inner self withholds much of its knowledge. There must be no leaning upon the very basic fact that behind and within the system there is relief. You must believe in the physical reality and accept the vulnerability."

"First, quite simply, there are many who do not see those failings and shortcomings and trends of which you spoke earlier. They cannot be told; they learn. Now alone they would not be permitted to destroy an entire reality. The mixture of consciousness within your system gives some control. The child must mature, and your system is a maturing ground, a very primary one. A beginning school for those who are trying out for particular kinds of experience. Some simply will not succeed. They will continue instead along other lines of development."

"There are cycles of entry into your system. Now the first, quote “mass” entries do not give you war. Those entering are at first too bewildered. Manipulation within the physical universe is strange. They do not realize the potential of their own energy, and it is not until they begin to realize it that they are, quote, “led into temptation.”"

"They have to learn to handle it constructively. Now cooperation is an innate feature to these entering selves. Without it they could not survive long enough to learn anything. The warlike periods do not begin until this group achieves some ability at manipulation. Now while it seems to you that there has been little advance, there has indeed in the overall. Larger masses of individuals than ever before in this cycle realize that killing is wrong."

 

[christx11]

M: Each moment contains the whole of the past and creates the whole of the future.


This sentence hit me hard.

It's perfect.

Thanks Bozadi.

From reading the C's materials I would take one step further.

Each moment contains all possible pasts, all possible presents, and all possible futures.

 

[Wandering Star]

Each moment contains all possible pasts, all possible presents, and all possible futures.

Yes, but the moment (present) is just one for each person.

Some pasts lead to the current assembly point (moment), and the moment facilitates the possibility of choosing all possible futures by virtue of the moment (assembly point) created by the past.

The word possible in your post is important, I think, yes.

 

[christx11]

Yes, but the moment (present) is just one for each person.

Some pasts lead to the current assembly point (moment), and the moment facilitates the possibility of choosing all possible futures by virtue of the moment (assembly point) created by the past.

The word possible in your post is important, I think, yes.

Yes, I get it. But I have an even broader view, kind of like there is no assembly point. You can choose a different past and that changes the current moment, but the other current moment also still exists somewhere. You can change a future moment and that may also change the current moment, all options are open. All possibilities exist in every possible moment.

I don't know if that agrees with your description or if mine is different. I just don't have a wat to express mine differently.

 

[Wandering Star]

Yes, I get it. But I have an even broader view, kind of like there is no assembly point. You can choose a different past and that changes the current moment, but the other current moment also still exists somewhere. You can change a future moment and that may also change the current moment, all options are open. All possibilities exist in every possible moment.

I don't know if that agrees with your description or if mine is different. I just don't have a wat to express mine differently.

Yes, it is a difficult matter to discern, but there is a past in which your parents did not meet, so you do not exist.

The quantum foam is boiling with multiple possibilities.

But at all I agree with you.

 

[Joe]

Saw this on an old thread (17 years ago!) and thought it was a nice summation of the answer to the question of this thread.

She realized that what had been causing her depression was not the world around her, but the beliefs she'd had about the world. Instead of hopelessly trying to change the world to match her thoughts about how it should be, she could question these thoughts and, by meeting reality as it is, experience unimaginable freedom and joy. As a result, a bedridden, suicidal woman was instantly filled with love for everything life brings.

 

[Bastian]

(A bit off-topic.)

Saw this on an old thread (17 years ago!) and thought it was a nice summation of the answer to the question of this thread.

What a strange coincidence !

Today I had "grey" thoughts (which I'm quite familiar with), and to get rid of these I thought about Byron Katie's "the work".
So I've done a bit of it, and after a break, I thought about that thread, so I read it again, to discover a message I wrote there two years and a half ago, about an explosive article on her (that I forgot completely !). I read that article again. Summary : she's a complete fraud !

@Joe, I strongly suggest you to read this GuruMag article in details :

A Critique of Byron Katie's The Work

Is Byron Katie’s method known as The Work harmful? Some believe so. There are numerous instances of Katie on stage blaming sexual abuse victims, denying racism, stifling efforts for social change, denying the reality of abuse and accusing people of things they didn’t do. It’s all done

www.gurumag.com

I guess that you may change your mind after reading that article...

Here is an extract from it :

NOT LOVING WHAT IS
Byron Katie’s dictate to “love what is” has taken an idea that at best is a quasi-universal aspiration and awkwardly contorted into a pseudo-method for healing. For Katie, what is is. If it has happened or is happening, no point in judging it. People who lie, cheat and steal should lie, cheat and steal simply because they are doing it. This is God’s plan according to Katie. The world is a beautiful and perfect place, where nothing terrible has ever happened. Suffering only arises when we think reality should be any different than it is or was. It is our “negative” or critical thoughts about what has happened that take us away from inner peace, not the actual abuse or injustice we’ve been subjected to.

As a result of this erroneous conflation of the absolute with the relative realm, Katie has led millions of people to believe disassociating from their thoughts and feelings is a valid form of spiritual growth. If only healing were as simple as a shift in perception, or the reversal of difficult thoughts.

The Work is ultimately a double betrayal. On one level wounded participants are being deceived because they’re sold a system that most likely won’t help them. On another level, they are gaslighted to such an extent that they are coerced to say on stage in front of hundreds that their abusers never abused them, that they abused themselves and that they abused their abusers. When Katie tells students their abusers were “God in disguise” or the Buddha she has weaponized spirituality in the disservice of fragile trauma survivors.

Following Katie’s logic ultimately leads to a predicament: we can no longer try to change the world because challenging reality causes suffering. Remember, the problem in Katie’s view wasn’t the corporation polluting the world or the factory farm inhumanely processing animals. The real problem was the anger and frustration in the mind of the student discussing their concerns with Katie. She told Haaretz news that all of the problems in the world are non-existent. Katie will push back and say her intent is not to prevent people from creating change. Yet, in example after example of her doing The Work and in her statements she is doing just that.

We’ll never know the full extent of damage that Katie’s methods have caused, regardless of her claim that “it’s not possible for” her “to hurt another person.” One can only imagine the lasting confusion in the young boy who was told by an authority figure whom his parents admire that he should celebrate when a loved one dies. Or the harm caused to the World War II vet who said on stage that he looks “forward to the bombs falling again.” Or the re-victimization of the woman sexually abused by her step-father who proclaimed to an audience of several hundred that she abused him. Or the pain of someone having to list off positive qualities of their abuser. Or the stifling effect it had on the student who was passionate about reforming the factory farm industry.

It is not spiritually wise to blindly follow a dictate like “love what is” and apply it equally to all situations. We need to use discretion and critical thinking to navigate a complex and treacherous world. This is a fact that marginalized people understand much better than Katie ever will. As a wealthy, straight white woman it is much easier for her to live in a fantasy world where everything is always wonderful. And isn’t Katie merely promoting the same false story that underlies neoliberal capitalism? That everything is ok no matter how terrible things actually are? That we can grow and pollute exponentially without harm? That individuals alone are responsible for their own well-being or suffering?

In conclusion, like so many other well-meaning spiritual systems, The Work tragically leads participants away from themselves under the guise of leading them towards themselves. This is a form of toxic spirituality that we must challenge and think critically about as spiritual practitioners, journalists or concerned citizens.

 

[Natus Videre]

George Carlin knew how to "enjoy the show."

George Carlin: I found a very liberating position for myself as an artist. I sort of gave up on the human race and gave up on the American dream and culture and nation, and decided that I didn't care about the outcome. And that gave me a lot of freedom from a kind of distant platform, to be sort of amused, to watch the whole thing with a combination of wonder and pity, and try to put that into words.
Charlie Rose: Not caring about the outcome, what do you mean by that?
George Carlin: Not having an emotional stake in whether this experiment with human beings works. I really don't care. I love people as I meet them one by one. People are just wonderful as individuals. You see the whole universe in their eyes if you look carefully, but as soon as they begin to group, as soon as they begin to clot, when they are five or ten, or even groups as small as two, they begin to change, they sacrifice the beauty of the individual for the sake of the group. I decided it was all under the control of the groups now whether it's religion, business, political people or what, and I would distance myself from wishing for a good outcome. Let it do what it's going to do, and I'll enjoy it as an entertainer. There's a little bit of a sick part in this too. I root for the big comet. I root for the big asteroid to come and make things right. To get us back where we were before the first one came and knocked out these dinosaurs and let the ferrets grow. I'm rooting for that big one to come right through that hole in the ozone layer, because I want to see it on CNN. See, I'm here for the entertainment, Charlie.