Zigzag Idiot

@Alex bAlex ?? Sounds like you got some good and solid Contemplative Psychoanalysis going on.

That cracked me up. ? I see,,,, Thank you for making those connections! I look forward to your new channel.

Seems like you may be pointing towards a possible hierarchy of duct tape wizards,,,,

@Emerald I just started a topic on the meaning behind regular playing cards under Free Wisdom books in High Consciousness Resources. It's from chapter 9 of Chance and Choice. I would be welcome to a synthcizing with the Tarot if you're interested. It may have to be moved to somewhere else. I just now posted it,,, Do you think that would work at all?

This is a study of the From Chapter nine of Chance and choice - interpretations given about the meaning of the regular playing cards which hold a correlation to thr Tarot. But for those on a spiritual path, who choose to follow their own dream, not the dream of others, the cards are a powerful tool. They show 13 steps of wisdom applied with 52 basic components. Each of the thirteen steps is fourfold, starting in the sequence, diamonds-matter, clubs-consciousness, heart-energy, spades-self organizations. The everyday cards thus provide an archetypal guide for all those on a spiritual path, as soon as you know how to use them. The first step in this knowledge is to comprehend the sequence of the cards. The cards in the order which follows mirrors the path. They show the natural progression of the way of wisdom. Remember, this is not a path for beginners, but for the mature, the Masters. It is a path where the mastery of the King is the beginning point. Its goal is the Ace, the holistic unity where Being connects Self with God. FACE CARDS KING: The start is to have the right livelihood , to have friends of other walks of life, to accept your instincts and needs , and to know in which field you have real mastery. Thus the path to Wisdom starts from mastery, from a position of health and attainment, and goes to the Ace, the unified field of awareness. QUEEN: The mastery and competence should become the status, a profession respected by others. You have to accept your place in society and family and become a personality , visible and desirable to others, being honest, sincere and trustworthy, not hiding any weakness. JACK: Due to our brain structure we learn our whole life. The starting point is work. By working to make things better, you evolve, make progress and join a team working to the same end. Out of this group effort your belief system improves and your faith is born. This will lead to fulfillment in your Spiritual Path . NUMBER CARDS (10) - In the depth of your Self, the core of your Being, you have the vision of ideals to attain. This vision gives you hope and the courage to strive: Beauty for sensing, Truth for thinking, Goodness for feeling, and impartial Justice for willing. Justice, not in the Roman, but in the Chinese interpretation: finding your right place in the cosmic order and in the golden chain of being. (9) - The striving for these infinite ideals enables you to plan and invent your own future projects. You program your own human computer, and carrying out your inventions as scriptwriter, producer and actor. You plan your life software, putting in additional time, linking it up with your dream , and thereby find the link to the muses , the inspiration. (8) - You then accept full responsibility for your dream and position. To do this, and act consciously as a leader, you must be able to explain , and to create appropriate methods or rituals for common action. You learn to trust the beyond, your angel , and your inner voice. (7) - Knowing your stand you have to fight for your values, even to death. You have to take the initiative. Remain open to questioning and assertions , nobody is ever totally in the right, the devil and evil are an invention of power people. You have to realize that forces of nature help you to find your individuation by way of omens and agreements, getting help from the nature spirits , the elementals. (6) - Whoever has real power can communicate , discuss and make statements in dialogue, instead of argument. You thereby establish the right priorities and link your own work with history and the ancestors . (5) - Having thus fulfilled your public and social duties, you turn to your own life. You start to have deeper insights into your self and your way, to discern more and more clearly and distinctly. You qualify and fine tune and analyze your statements about reality. Knowing your norm , your competence never transgresses it. In this way you find your true human identity . (4) - The real human will be able to take their wishes, their true desires as positive motivations. They will see them in their totality, in mental representations, and balance them in the center. Then you will develop the right strategies to attain them, just like any animal, trusting your communion with their world and attain wisdom in acting. (3) - The wishes will lead you again unto the way of knowledge, to study, the pursuit of knowledge of what really interests you. You will then gain a better understanding of others and yourself. As you do you will strive to discover your highest potentiality, your archetype , to evolve, trusting in natural growth like a tree. (2) - The tree has flowers, your capacity to create will grow and flower like the mature tree. If your conception is large enough, if you adapt to the prevailing conditions and take the technological world as your field of actualization, then you and others will be able to relate to your creations. (1) - Finally, knowing that you are not the creator, but only His tool or transmitter, you will let the force of healing flow to you. You will trust in your overall grasp of the whole in absolute confidence that it will never lead you astray. This will lead to a complete opening to the east, the voice of continuous revelation , the spirit of the times. You will attain the Ace of Spades - the symbol of true wisdom. Your journey to full wisdom will be complete.

If this thread went ahead to include everything that has to do with Self Inquiry as it falls under the Gurdjieff umbrella, I think that would be great. @LeoGura and Moderators I welcome guidance,,,,, This is one of my favorites that I've posted before. I'm not in 100 % in agreement with Martin about everything but he has helped me a lot.

@Petals it's seems arcane maybe because it's overall vast in scope and generally things highly driven people don't want to take a look at. Nothing is really hidden anymore about the Work but due to our childhood conditioning, even adulthood conditioning nowadays helped by multinational corporate advertising propagagandas, its more difficult to be pulled out of the cultural conditioned trance.There are several areas in my life has which been helped in seeing my self as a 3 brained being (3 centered human) basically. And then work towards balancing. A person has to be completely sincere in willing to see ones own lies and self deception and to just stand the middle of it and let it burn. Feel it fully let it burn, let it transform. It has made me a more forgiving person. I'm not as reactive as I was once and im more indifferent or less reactive to rather intence feelings. I don't react impulsively as I used to. I still do. It's an ongoing battle and it does become easier with practice. Mainly having understandings through the uselessness of complaining. But also in seeing the things that are in other people that piss me off and being willing and able to admit that aspect about myself, a peace arrises in me when this happens because I no longer hate. In one feel swoop through - UNDERSTANDING -sometime I'm able to completely forgive others as well as myself. This seems to free up the heart, and some awareness. In many instances, these times of forgiveness cycle around. It has taken me years and years to finally let go of some of my really ingrained greivences. In the past I would occasionally wordvomit hatred towards others who let me down in someway. It always resulted in a loss of life force and a loss of inner quiet. The troubling part is how many times I had to go through this hellish routine before the lights really came. Some more than others. Purifying the emotional center is not a quick undertaking for the majority. Theres A multitude of different kinds of Inquiry based groups. I've dipped into and out of a few of them. A long time student of the work, Martin Butler, said something that I really appreciated - "we have to find our own way in a sense". One has to learn enough about the Work and then make it your own as it applies to ones own life. At the base of it all is actually be able to contact our Conscience while listening past the noisy screaming and manipulations of the ego and superego who has allies in our mind - heart - and instinctive center. Until we can ground through sensation and develop presence in the body then it will be the intellectual/emotional complex pulling our puppet strings. The Fourth Way teaches that we're a multiplicity. Some more than others but along side this is the phenomena of having psychological blind spots . That means we see it in others and not ourselves and within this lies layers of self deception hurt and confusion. This is not a very cheery summary but there are definitely good things to be had by doing the work. Having or developing a love for truth in itself is so vital.. Hope my blunt words were helpful. Im glad you asked!

I see travel in my future.

I posted a critique by Cynthia Bourgeault on Ken Wilber's interpretation of the Trump phenomenon in High Consciousness Resources. This is around the time right after Trump was elected. A rich snippet. Orange may be individualistic while green is pluralistic, but both are relying on the mental egoic operating system (“perception through differentiation”) to run their program; green’s “groups”, therefore, are merely “individuals writ large,” (which “co-exist,” not a new holonic unity [which “coalesces”]). Or another way of saying it: green is simply orange looking through a post-modern filter.

These 2 videos have a little cringeworthyness about them but to me it doesn't matter because they sing so beautifully. They both came out and we're playing on the radio when I was a little kid. I remember really liking both songs.

WILBER’S TRUMP AND A POST-TRUTH WORLD: AN OVERVIEW AND CRITIQUE February 1, 2017/43 Comments/in Contemplative Wisdom, Teilhard de Chardin /by Cynthia Bourgeault Cynthia Bourgeault offers a critique on Ken Wilber’s article “Trump and a Post-Truth World: An Evolutionary Self-Correction” as a study guide for contemplatives. Now that Ken Wilber’s paper on “Trump and a Post-Truth World” is officially posted and making its rounds on the internet, I feel at liberty to share my initial “cliff notes” and comments a bit more widely. My comments below were generated originally (and somewhat hastily) for a group of senior Wisdom students who are already working their way through this tract. It is still to be regarded as primarily a “working draft” for limited circulation, not a formal response to Ken’s thesis. The first part is a quick overview of the main points of Ken’s argument as I understand it. The second part raises a few points for feedback/critique/further reflection. I. THE ARGUMENT IN A NUTSHELL Ken Wilber’s wide-ranging and fundamentally hopeful monograph is an analysis of the recent presidential election from the perspective of levels of consciousness as developed primarily according to his own Integral Evolutionary Theory. The powerful contribution he brings here is to move us beyond the reactivity gripping both sides of the political spectrum and offer a much broader perspective. He proposes that Trump’s upset victory reflects an “evolutionary self-correction” necessitated by the fact that the leading edge of consciousness, the so-called greenlevel, lost its way in a mass of internal self-contradictions and gradually failed to lead. His 90-page paper is a lengthy, often verbose, occasionally brilliant analysis of how this situation came to be and what needs to happen to heal it. To enter this discussion, one first needs to have some familiarity with the general schematic of levels of consciousness which Wilber has been steadily developing and refining for more than thirty years now (since his Up from Eden, first published in the early 1980s). Wilber summarizes this in an early section of his paper, but here’s the cliff notes version: Levels of consciousness are “color coded” as follows: Red: egocentric, self-referential, instinctual Amber: (alias “mythic membership”): ethnocentric, authoritarian, pre-modern Orange: world-centric, rational, individualistic, modern Green: world centered, pluralistic, post-modern Green, the highest evolutionary level consistently attained to date, began to emerge in the 1960s and has gown steadily for the new [following] five decades, to the point that by Wilber’s estimate, some 25% of the population are presently functioning at that level (how does he generate this data?). But along the way, green began to wander off course, increasingly caught in some internal contradictions that were inherent in its worldview from the start; i.e.: Its inherent tendency to relativism, which progressively morphed into the notion of the claim that there is no such thing as universal truth or universal values. An inherent “performative contradiction” between its claim that all values are equal and its inner assurance that its value (“that there is no universal truth”) is nonetheless normative and binding. A failure to distinguish between “dominator hierarchies” (based on oppression) and “growth hierarchies” (based on evolutionarily necessary differentiation), and a general dislike of all hierarchy. An [increasingly] hyper-sensitive political correctness that consistently stirred the pot of resentment and anger (both within green itself, the so-called “mean green meme,” and certainly against it, among the other levels of consciousness). This “aperspectival madness,” as Wilber terms it, left the ostensible evolutionary leading edge caught in an increasing cul de sac of “nihilism and narcissism.” Trump was able to successfully fan the smoldering fires of resentment building at all three lower levels — red, amber, and orange — into a roaring blaze of anti-green sentiment — an “anti-green morphogenetic field” that went on to torch the entire green value system. However apparently contradictory and volatile Trump’s agendas may be, Wilber points out, the common denominator is that they are always anti-green. Without condoning these agendas, Wilber does lay out a scenario through which it is possible to discern a coherence (I’ll stop short of saying a “justification”) behind the otherwise unfathomable upheaval that awaited the world on November 8. Rather than simply further demonizing Hillary’s “basket of deplorables” that put the man in office, or resorting to ominous and paralyzing specters of Hitler and Armageddon, Wilber’s hypothesis offers a way to make sense out of what happened —and to cooperate with evolution in making the necessary adjustments. In the final section of his paper, Wilber does exactly that. He lays out several steps (some theoretical, others quite practical) whereby green could help heal itself and get back on track. In the end, however, Ken’s conviction becomes increasingly transparent — and finally explicit — that the basic performative contradictions inherent in “green-think” are so deep as to be unsalvageable, and that the only long-term and truly satisfying solution will come only from a robust emergence of the next level of consciousness: Integral (color-coded turquoise or teal), which is truly “second tier” (i.e., transitioning to the non-dual), capable of integrating and including all perspectives, unafraid of healthy hierarchy, and hence truly able to lead. It is from this level, he believes, that the ultimate evolutionary resolution will emerge — once a “tipping point” of about 10% of the population functioning at that level is stabilized. If it takes the Trump election to create this evolutionary jolt, so be it; the important thing is not to miss the window of opportunity now that it has so dramatically opened. II. Comments and Critique 1. The greatest contribution of this paper is that it gets the scale right: it “nails” the arena in which events are actually playing out and offers a plausible hypothesis as to the underlying causes, a hypothesis which restores both coherence and an empowerment. Virtually every other analysis I have seen — political, sociological, Biblical — is working from too narrow and limited a perspective (that’s the nature of intellectual discourse in the post-modern era; you either get rigor or breadth, rarely both). While I do not share all of Ken’s conclusions, I am totally in agreement that the evolutionary frame offers our best shot at a coherent explanation and a mature and skillful resolution. 2. And as Teilhard discovered a generation before, it is at the evolutionary scale — i.e., over deep time — that “deep hope” becomes possible. I am gratified that Ken seems to agree with Teilhard that evolution is intrinsically purposeful (and in much the same terms as Teilhard sees it: moving toward greater “complexification/consciousness” — not specifically so-named — and an ever-fuller manifestation of Love (or “Eros,” in Wilber languaging). I wish Teilhard were more generally cited in Wilber’s work; it would certainly draw the dual streams of Teilhardian and Integral Evolutionary Theory into a more creative and ultimately illumining dialogue. 3. I continue to suspect that Wilber often conflates “levels of consciousness” with “stages of growth.” The two are not identical, at least according to the criteria I have gleaned from my own Christian contemplative heritage. I remain to be convinced that orange and green are actually different levels; to me they look more like simply progressive stages of the same level. Orange may be individualistic while green is pluralistic, but both are relying on the mental egoic operating system (“perception through differentiation”) to run their program; green’s “groups”, therefore, are merely “individuals writ large,” (which “co-exist,” not a new holonic unity [which “coalesces”]). Or another way of saying it: green is simply orange looking through a post-modern filter. This, incidentally, I believe to be another fatal “performative contradiction” undetected by Wilber; greens think FOR oneness but FROM “perception through differentiation;” how crazy-making is that? It’s a pretty significant developmental gap to navigate, causing their minds always to be out ahead of what their psyches can actually maintain. Hence the anger, the arrogance, and the hypocrisy. 4. I’m no political historian, but I think Wilber takes some pretty large leapfrogs through the history of the political parties in the US. I’d be highly skeptical that he can make his assertion stick that Democrats by and large function in a higher level of consciousness (green/orange) than Republicans (orange/amber). This may be true of the past few decades, but given that prior to its infiltration by the Religious right, the Republican party was more often the standard bearer for the leading edge of consciousness, case in point: Abraham Lincoln), while the Democratic party was the home to most ethnicities and nearly all of the South. Thus, it’s difficult to see how it would be without its share of well-entrenched ethnocentric (amber) perspectives. 5. Finally, and most substantively, the most important corrective the Christian mystical tradition has to bring to current secular or Buddhist-based models of “second tier” (and higher) states of consciousness is the insistence that the leap to this new level of conscious functioning is not simply an extension of the cognitive line but requires “putting the mind in the heart,” not only attitudinally but neurologically. There is a supporting physiology to each tier of consciousness (which is why I think green and orange are still basically at the same level), and that all-important shift from 1st-tier to 2nd-tier will only happen when grounded in an active awakening of the heart. And this means, basically, it will happen in the domain of devotion — i.e., our heart’s emotional assent and participation in the ultimate “thouness” of the cosmos and the experiential certainty of the divine not simply as “love” but as Lover. That is to say, I believe it happens beyond the gates of secularity, in the intense, holographic particularity of the upper echelons of each sacred tradition. This is for me the profound strength of Teilhard’s model, as over and against Wilber’s more secular model; it unabashedly is able to stir the fires of adoration and spiritual imagination as it “harnesses the energy of love.” Striving to light this same fire with metaphysical matches, Wilber is left essentially “anthropomorphizing” evolution, transforming it into a new version of the classic demiurge, the creative and implementing arm of the logoic omniscience. I look forward to hearing your comments and feedback. I repeat: this is a groundbreaking and heartening essay, at the right scale, and headed in the right direction. It’s worth taking the time to grapple with.

I haven't Red the book but right after Trump got elected, Cynthia Bourgeault started distributing Ken Wilburs material about this phenomena. A portion of which I'll go look for and paste below. ,,,,this is the heart of the article I just posted below : An [increasingly] hyper-sensitive political correctness that consistently stirred the pot of resentment and anger (both within green itself, the so-called “mean green meme,” and certainly against it, among the other levels of consciousness). This “aperspectival madness,” as Wilber terms it, left the ostensible evolutionary leading edge caught in an increasing cul de sac of “nihilism and narcissism.” Trump was able to successfully fan the smoldering fires of resentment building at all three lower levels — red, amber, and orange — into a roaring blaze of anti-green sentiment — an “anti-green morphogenetic field” that went on to torch the entire green value system. However apparently contradictory and volatile Trump’s agendas may be, Wilber points out, the common denominator is that they are always anti-green. Without condoning these agendas, Wilber does lay out a scenario through which it is possible to discern a coherence (I’ll stop short of saying a “justification”) behind the otherwise unfathomable upheaval that awaited the world on November 8. Rather than simply further demonizing Hillary’s “basket of deplorables” that put the man in office, or resorting to ominous and paralyzing specters of Hitler and Armageddon, Wilber’s hypothesis offers a way to make sense out of what happened —and to cooperate with evolution in making the necessary adjustments. Cynthia Bourgeault is a leader in the Contemplative Christian move movement

"This is the difference between us and the angels. Angels are perfectly made and, therefore, naive and stupid; they can only do what they are made for. Humans have many more possibilities. There is more joy in heaven for one perfected human being than for a thousand angels." - Ocke de Boer " If you could float above the earth and become aware of all the negativity that is going on, you would never laugh again. The world is ruled by negative emotions." - Ocke de Boer " I hate to bother God. Sometimes when I'm drunk I Pray to Judas instead of that little skinny Jew" - Gurdjieff

Recorded in John Bennet's diary quoting Gurdjieff - "Hell is only terrible first few days"....

This topic will be on the book. There is a lot to be had on YouTube,,,,

Ted Nottingham's YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe4MMC-2xAHvKDPxQo_A1YA

Youre comment reminded me of the James Franco quote above which I remember appreciating at the time when he said it. I've described myself to others as a psychologically gay, heterosexual.

"There is a bit of overfocusing on my sexuality, both by the straight press and the gay press, and so the first question is why do they care? Well, because I’m a celebrity, so I guess they care who I’m having sex with. But if your definition of gay and straight is who I sleep with, then I guess you could say I’m a gay c—k tease. It’s where my allegiance lies, where my sensibilities lie, how I define myself. Yeah, I’m a little gay, and there’s a gay James." https://time.com/4300920/james-franco-says-hes-a-little-gay/

In order to help letting go of inner considering, I feel the need to point out my hyperbole and lying in the above post. My remark about working in a nursing home was sincere but I have no practice that involves laughing about at everything.

I should have added, just do two 20 minute sessions of Centering Prayer Meditation a day. It's a concentrated practice of letting go of thoughts. Besides being an Idiot, my nature has been overburdened with false seriousness and so learning to laugh at everything has been a beneficial practice for me. "Absence of joy is slow suicide." - Ocke de Boer

This is only speculative on my part but if you don't like reading then go get a job in a nursing home, to get Realization. If you have children then neither are required. You're already most of the way there,,,,

My favorite Almaas book - https://www.diamondapproach.org/public-page/facets-unity