Zigzag Idiot

An idea that caught on with me is that we have to develop a healthy ego before it can be transcended. Maybe I heard Ken Wilber put it that way. The idea is also repeated elsewhere such as the Fourth Way. I just got 2 entries out of 18. Confusion About the Term "Ego" Here we digress to point out a source of confusion about the term “ego.” Readers who know both the spiritual and psychological literatures will find the term freely used in both, but with no general agreement on what the term refers to. This ambiguity often leads to confusion. The literature on spiritual development, on essential or inner development, on all matters of religious concern, generally uses the term “ego” to mean something which is seen as the barrier to spiritual realization. The literature on depth psychology, however, uses the term with a very different meaning. The ego referred to by Freud, and which ego psychology studies, is not the ego which is the barrier to spiritual development. They are two different concepts. The psychoanalytic term “ego” refers, rather, to the functional self, which is the site, organizer, and coordinator of the functions of perception, memory, mobility, and so on. There is, however, a concept in depth psychology and ego psychology that coincides with the ego of spiritual literature: it is called the “ego-identity,” and is sometimes referred to as the sense of self, or the sense of identity. This sense of self or separate identity is the main concern of ego developmental theory. This identity is, in fact, the acme, the most important outcome of ego development. It is ultimately the organizing center of the psychic apparatus. This psychic apparatus includes as one of its units the Freudian ego. In other words, the Freudian ego is part of the mind, is a structure or a structured process in it, while the self is a sense of identity and a center of action. The exact sense in which the ego identity is a barrier to spiritual development will become clear in later chapters. The Void, pg. 9 Object Relations Theory Object relations theory has become the dominant psychoanalytic theory of ego development. Its main insight is that the ego develops, primarily through the integration of early experiences, into organized mental structures. These mental structures, termed ego structures, are systems of memories that have become organized through the processes of assimilation or introjection, identification, integration, synthesis, and so on, into an overall schema patterning the self. The Point of Existence, pg. 54 Taken from https://www.diamondapproach.org/glossary/refinery_phrases/ego Other categories in the glossary Ego Ego Activity Ego Alien/Ego Syntonic Ego Boundaries Ego Death Ego Defense Ego Deficiency Ego Development Ego Functions Ego Ideal Ego Identity Ego Inadequacy Ego Life Ego Line Ego Metabolism Ego Self Ego Structures

Received Pronunciation in the old school style. If I got that right. That’s a new one for me. Thanks for the reply @LastThursday From Sheldrake to the Beatles, Zeppelin and Pink Floyd to Maurice Nicoll to Monte Python. I’ve always been heavy in interest and admiration for things British. I’ve wondered if at some point I might uncover past life memories from that part of the world. Being a descendent of Oliver Cromwell as well. Long live a John Cleese! If You Feed It, It Becomes A Monster by Dr. Jim Rosen ©2021 Dr. Jim Rosen Don't feed that ugly emotion. Emotions are like living, breathing creatures. When you act on a negative emotion, such as insecurity or anger, and you do or say the insecure or angry thing, you are feeding the very emotion you don't want. So it grows bigger and bigger, sometimes into monstrous proportions. Then it seems to take control of you and it dominates your life. But if you don't feed it (if you don't act on it, if you don't do or say the ugly thing), it shrinks little by little. So instead, no matter how small they may seem in comparison, you can feed your beautiful emotions (such as security and outward loving and confidence). By doing the secure and loving and confident things, your beautiful emotions are the ones that grow bigger and stronger. Slowly and surely, these positives become the dominant emotions in your life.

I most always enjoy Rupert Sheldrake’s talks. Here he gets into telepathy and similar topics. Is it a specific kind of regional accent that I’m unaware of that makes him sound so proper? Or just what is it? It goes well with his dry sense of humor, anyway.

Anthropology Merle Haggard was very stage blue back in the day. Compare it to the video of him and Willie pasted below. Merle’s dead body was put into the earth in 2016.

I think it’s possible to be quiet and still be responsible. This was a realization I had a few years ago. - “It’s okay to have nothing to say”

I became depressed for a while today. Reflecting on what a shit I’ve been at times in the past brought it on. Not a distant past either. Kind of a mixture of recent and distant occasions. Fell into self criticism I guess, actually. I don’t feel I’m any improved for putting myself through that. Along with the useless self criticism though was something else. Remorse. The Oracle of the Cosmic Way points out the fallacy of guilt. With guilt we only put poison arrows in our psyche. These poison arrows perpetuate a fate that keeps the whole thing going. More or less it says the idea of sin and guilt is just plain bullshit that divides people against themselves. If we’re out of balance with the Cosmos, remorse of conscience can make the necessary adjustments. No need for a permanent stain of guilt that only cripples us psychologically. To me it jives perfectly with what Jesus is teaching in ACIM. Forgiveness or overlooking of grievances. Letting go of grievances. Not holding grudges. Not getting caught up in the glue-like stickiness of self-criticism or guilt or judgment or keeping score. No need for keeping accounts or seeking merit either. Everyone is innocent in a sense. Even Hitler. Just let go. Go beyond. Metanoia? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanoia_(theology) My sister shared this YouTube with me and I watched it later in the day. This guy makes sense. Has a sense of humor too. https://youtu.be/53RX2ESIqsM

I’m enjoying a lot of Leo’s short clips. We all lie to ourselves. As unflattering as it is, I still do I have to admit. Do you acknowledge any of your lies that you tell yourself? Do you justify your negative emotions when they crop up? I view expressing negative emotions to be about on the same level as lying. I’m not encouraging the suppressing of them. Just the non-expression of them. There’s wisdom to be gained whenever you’re able to hold your tongue. Do I still express negative emotions at times? I do. Red Hawk uses an interesting expression in his book Self Observation: The Awakening of Conscience. An Owners Manual- which is - “Sometimes I eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats me.”

I forgot to post Jim’s mini column on Sunday. An interesting one for sure. Her Angry Rash by Dr. Jim Rosen ©2021 Dr. Jim Rosen It certainly wasn't all in her head. It was right there on both arms. Red - swollen - broken skin - oozing pus - and it itched terribly. She'd had it for ten years by the time she came to see me. She had been to several medical doctors and taken numerous medical treatments for it, but none gave her lasting relief. After some initial psychotherapy, including hypnosis, the source of the rash came to the surface. There had been a very loud disagreement with her boss at the time, and she had erupted with a kind of hostility that disgusted her and frightened her badly. From that point on, she was too afraid of her own anger to let it come out. So, consciously she didn’t let it come out. Instead, anger had been expressing itself unconsciously by erupting on both her arms. Well, a psychological problem deserves and requires a psychological solution. After some additional psychotherapy, she learned to not be afraid of her anger. The rash soon disappeared. She learned to assert her anger appropriately, without damage to herself or other people, and the rash stayed gone.

”He was born in the summer of his 27th year,,,,,,” That would be close to his Saturn return.

We certainly cover a wide spectrum of music. That’s good!

It did. @UDT Thank you for the detailed response!

I think this may count. Back in the 1930’s and 40’s there was a group of women artists and writers. Most who happened to be lesbian that we’re interested in the Work that Gurdjieff was teaching. One book called The Rope was specifically about this group which included Kathryn Hulme, Margarette Anderson, Georgette Leblanc, Solita Solano and others. Besides The Rope, Two books of Kathryn Hulme’s that I really enjoyed was The Nun’s Story and Undiscovered Country. https://www.gurdjieff.org/rope.htm

Some people will fully admit to having an addiction but will flatly refuse any kind of help or treatment. Often saying that they simply don’t want to quit. That was me with cigarettes. From the first time I really considered it until the day that I actually wanted to sincerely give it a try. It was 4-5 years. You can’t make someone want to quit an addiction. A lot of people, professionals included will often try shaming the addict. As far as a lot of Trump supporters go that I’ve observed. There often seems to be an ingrained cynicism or often taking pleasure in negative circumstances. Very often also having an ax to grind on some particular issue related to some aspect of liberalism. You can very much sense the feeding on negativity. That seems to be where they get ‘the juice’. Many of them anyhow.

I was shocked to see that about Ivermetin. Before the patent for Ivermectin expired I switched my method for deworming cattle to mixing diatomaceous earth in with their minerals. Had great success with it also. At the time I think the cost was around $7.00/head per treatment with Ivermectin to about about .30 cents/per head with diatomaceous earth. Its too bad diatomaceous earth couldn’t be as effective against COVID as it was for deworming and delousing cattle. The thought crosses my mind about the placebo effect maybe contributing to the success of Ivermectin against COVID ???? Any thought? Excuse me if this has already been discussed. If so, I just overlooked it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomaceous_earth

This one and the next are promotionals for The Point of Existence. I probably struggled more with this one than any other of Almaas’s books. But in the end, it was very fulfilling and quite rewarding!

@tsuki Glad you mentioned that. I almost quoted you from last week in the post above about how much you liked and learned from that book of Bennett’s.

The Causal realm has also been referred to as the Imaginal realm. I cannot emphasize strongly enough that the word imaginal does not mean “imaginary.” That unfortunate but all too understandable confusion was created by Henry Corbin, the noted Islamic scholar, when he introduced the term Mundus Imaginalis to name that intermediate, invisible realm of causality that figures so prominently in mystical Islamic cosmology.,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,This is exactly what Corbin was trying convey by the word “imagination,” understood in the traditional sense. Imaginal reality is a valid construction which, by changing consciousness in its inner ground, changes the nature of reality in the outer world. For this world as we know it is simply the outer form—Isaak Dinesen’s snake skin— within which runs that fiery, innermost aliveness. At least when things are working well, that is. A reference about the Islamic Scholar Henry Corbin in 3 part blog written by Cynthia Bourgeault- https://northeastwisdom.org/2018/12/is-the-imaginal-realm-real/

Leo, I felt the question asked by @Adam M last Saturday and his requesting your time of birth so he could do your birth chart didn’t seem all that unreasonable. Especially with how he prefaced it. Would you care to elaborate on why you poo pood it? Do you really think it’s nonsense or are you just wanting to prevent anything that might over time get twisted and start to give the appearance of cult phenomena or cult of personality phenomena?

The first one of these excerpts I’ve posted so much I bet some may be getting sick of seeing it. These excerpts about basic trust go so well with what @Intraplanetary wrote so beautifully I couldn’t resist adding a few more from that glossary page. I didn’t get all of them though. Basic trust is such a crucial element,,,, ',,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, The Innate Sense that Life is Fundamentally Benevolent The presence of basic trust indicates that you have the innate sense that life is fundamentally benevolent, and that benevolence exists independent of you and your actions. You will have this sense to the extent that your grounding in the universe has not been disturbed. The relative presence or absence of basic trust is a belly quality, something one’s whole being is either grounded in or not. The disturbance of basic trust is a significant factor in ego development because the perspective of ego is diametrically opposed to the sense of basic trust. The ego’s perspective arises out of a lack of this trust. It is based on distrust, on paranoia, on fear, on the conviction that you're not going to be adequately taken care of and that the universe is not there to hold and take care of you in the ways that you need. This conviction causes you to believe that you have to engage in all kinds of manipulations and games to get your needs met and to make things work out. Facets of Unity, pg. 25 Trusting the Dynamism of the Inquiry In time, you develop basic trust and you learn to trust the dynamism of the inquiry. This will happen as result of several things: first, clearly recognizing the optimizing force in the dynamism of your own unfolding; second, truly seeing that optimization is the nature of the dynamism; and third, having faith that the optimizing is occurring even when you can’t feel it in the moment. Then you are trusting the guidance and the unfoldment. Basic trust – the knowing that you just need to relax and things will work out fine – is an automatic result of this developing knowledge of reality. Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg. 122 With Basic Trust You Take Risks When you have a lot of basic trust, you are courageous and authentic. You take risks. You don't sit on your capacities. You engage in life wholeheartedly, doing what feels appropriate to you with the confidence that it will work out. Without much basic trust, you are paralyzed with fear of failure and fear of rejection. ',,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Facets of Unity, pg. 28 Without Basic Trust We Live Our Lives Defensively If basic trust informs your experience, your psyche is relaxed. Your soul is at peace with itself and with your situation, resting in the unquestioned confidence that the universe provides, that you have, and will receive, what you really need, and that things are workable. If we really have this trust, this deep inner relaxation, it becomes possible to live our lives out of love, out of an appreciation of life, out of enjoyment in what the universe provides for us, and out of compassion and kindness for others and ourselves. Without it, we live our lives defensively, in conflict with others and with ourselves, becoming self-centered and egoistic. To find our basic trust is to reconnect with our natural state that we have become separated from. When we are innately infused by reality, our soul or consciousness is completely transparent to the truth that we and the universe are one, that we are supported by reality and that reality is by its very nature good, and that what happens is inevitably right since it emerges out of that inherent perfection. When you understand this, it becomes obvious why it is so difficult to relax and let go, and why it is so important regain our basic trust. Facets of Unity, pg. 32 Without Basic Trust We React According to Our Conditioning Now we can see how the presence or absence of basic trust is crucial to the initial step in the process of the transformation of any sector of the ego. This step is only completed by giving up the particular structure we have been holding on to. Basic trust gives you the capacity and the willingness to let go of the images, identifications, structures, beliefs, ideas, and concepts -- the remnants of the past that make up the ego. Implicit in this initial step is the second one: If you are able to surrender, then you are willing to be. You are willing to not try to change things, to not manipulate them, to not push and pull at them. You are willing to just be present, which is a sort of realization itself. First, then, is the death of the old; second is the realization of Being. If you don't have basic trust, you will react to what arises in accordance with your conditioning and will want your process to go one way or another. You won’t let yourself just be present; you’ll be tense and contracted. So basic trust is needed for you to be able to allow the ego to die, and also for you to be willing to just be, without reacting. Facets of Unity, pg. 26 taken from - https://www.diamondapproach.org/glossary/refinery_phrases/basic-trust

J G Bennett lived a very long life with many chapters. He met Gurdjieff in Constantinople as a young Officer in the English Army. He had an off & on relationship with Gurdjieff until late in Gurdjieff’s life where he spent two years or so with Him until Gurdjieff’s death in 1949. During that time Bennett and his wife Elizabeth kept diaries. It was from these diaries that the book - Idiots in Paris - was put together. Bennett was very much a free thinker. There’s a lot about his life after the death of Gurdjieff that I’m unfamiliar with. A quote from his website- To replace all negative attitudes towards the existing world by a feeling of confidence and love towards the new world which is being born, towards the still unborn child that is the future mankind, to arouse in oneself constantly this love of the future humanity. Every time one observes in oneself some kind of negative attitude, to take this as the reminder that we human beings live on this Earth in order to serve and particularly to serve the future, and to serve with love, with hope, with confidence that it is possible for mankind to be born again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Bennett https://www.jgbennett.org/ https://www.gurdjieff.org/bennett.htm

Yep and all of us are right. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Being as the Actual Presence of True Nature We are in not using the term "being" in its everyday sense. Usually, "being" means mere existence, and that "existence" is, like everything else, experienced conceptually. The spiritual traditions, on the other hand, use this term to refer to the actual presence of true nature, which can be directly experienced. We are using the term in this latter sense. As human beings we are Presence, we are Being, we are actuality; we are not simply mental constructs. Pearl Beyond Price, pg. 27 The Experience of True Nature as Nonbeing Does Not Mean that there is No Reality, No Soul or Manifestation True nature is absolute being, but also absolute nonbeing. It is both presence and absence of presence. It is both but not exactly, because these are conceptual elaborations of which true nature is innocent. We say it is both being and nonbeing, or neither, only because these are fundamental concerns for the soul. Being is the last thing the soul needs to surrender as she opens up to her true nature. As she does this she learns about nonbeing. She experiences the emptiness and ontological absence of her existence, and everything else in manifestation. So she may believe that true nature is total emptiness, absolute nothingness, complete absence of existence. The experience of true nature as nonbeing or emptiness does not mean that there is no reality, no soul or manifestation. This is a nihilistic perspective that experience and understanding do not support. The wisdom of emptiness or nonbeing is an attempt to understand the final ontological mode of things. We normally believe that things exist when we perceive them. This belief is accompanied by a subtle underlying feeling or sense of what existence is. Things feel real in a substantial way. We consciously or unconsciously feel that the existence of things is a substantial solid quality. Existence becomes the existence of substance and solidity, which becomes opaqueness if we continue in this direction. In other words, we not only perceive that things appear to our perception, and not only believe that this appearance is objective and independent of our imagination and mental construction, but feel at the same time a sense of substance to this appearance, a sense of solidity. Existence for us then is not only the true appearance of things in perception but the imbuing of what appears with a quality we call Being. The Inner Journey Home, pg. 258 None of Us is to be Blamed for Our Shortcomings Each of the boundless dimensions in our work reveals to us and teaches us something about reality and about experience. We learn that reality has true nature. We’ve been using the concept of true nature in our teaching for a long time, and now I’m introducing Total Being, which is an overlapping, though not completely identical, concept. I am leaving it ambiguous on purpose. True nature is total purity and freedom all the time. If we only say, “Everything is always true nature,” that doesn’t account for the fact that most people don’t experience things that way. We could explain this by saying, “Well, that is because they are not aware of it.” But when we understand reality or true nature, we realize that people don’t really exist the way we think they do. So when we say, “They don’t understand true nature,” we believe that they are responsible for not understanding it. But when we blame somebody for not understanding it that way, we ascribe to them an independent existence apart from Total Being. They don’t have that; nobody does. So actually, it is Total Being that is ignorant—not the individual. An individual does nothing on his own because he is a manifestation of Total Being. So none of us is to be blamed for our shortcomings. Runaway Realization, pg. 170

Relative vs. Absolute Truth I’m watching Leo’s latest video Relative vs. Absolute truth. I always like to see if Leo’s Teaching meshes with that of The Diamond Approach. It usually does. Quite often they mesh pretty well. Because Absolute Truth has a listing of excerpts in the glossary, this would be a good time to see if there are any discrepancies. I haven’t found any. If anyone does find discrepancies, let us know. Arising of Relative Truth is Dependent Upon and in Response to One’s Personal History and the Present Situation The kind of objective truth that I have just described is not what is usually called ultimate truth in most spiritual traditions. But in our approach, when we talk about finding the truth, we include this kind of truth. I call it relative truth. By relative I don’t mean that different people will experience the same phenomenon differently. For example, what I feel as sadness, another person will not feel as hatred; if another person feels what I’m feeling, he or she will feel sad. It is relative truth because its arising is dependent upon and in response to one’s personal history and the present situation. It is the truth we find in the conventional dimension of experience. So, in the previous example, the sadness is an objective phenomenon, but it is dependent on my present experience, in the sense that it arises in response to specific conditions of this time and place. As those conditions change, the truth will change, which makes it relative. Furthermore, another person will likely have another phenomenon or feeling under similar circumstances, because each person’s experience is dependent on personal predispositions and history. It is easy to see this when we look at percepts such as sadness, anger, or love. These simple percepts always arise embedded in specific circumstances, and they are easy to agree upon as being objective truth. The same is true of actions, reactions, and behaviors; it’s easy to see what an angry reaction or a loving response is, for example. Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg. 345 At the Beginning of Inquiry, what You are Exploring is Relative Truth The exact nature of basic knowledge can be understood more precisely when we consider essential experience. At the beginning of inquiry, what you are exploring is relative truth, the truth of conventional experience. In the territory of relative truth, the fact that whatever you are experiencing is basic knowledge is not strikingly obvious yet. You do experience sadness and sensations, but you are still not recognizing those perceptions as knowledge, or knowingness, because of the dichotomy of observer and observed. Knowledge is still seen as the meaning or insight that you discern from your immediate perceptions. You believe that it is something added to the simple perception. Thus in conventional experience, when you see some relative truth, you end up with insights, and the content of those insights is considered to be knowledge. At some point, however, you come to the recognition of what we call “essential truth.” Essential truth is not an insight about something but the apprehending of the immediate reality of the moment. This immediate reality is presence—the quality of beingness—as when one is experiencing an essential aspect, such as Compassion or Strength. Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg. 80 The Fact of What is Happening The first type or level of truth that we encounter is what we call relative truth. Relative truth is the fact of what is happening, and we call it “relative” because it is specific to the person, the situation, and the time in which the experience is taking place; this means it is constantly changing. For example, the relative truth right now is that you are sitting reading this book, and a while ago the truth was that you were doing something else. The relative truth depends on the situation, and tells us the facts of what is happening now. These truths are the most obvious ones, and are the points of departure for contacting a deeper level of truth. If you inquire more deeply into the relative truth of a situation, you will find that the psychodynamic and existential bases of it begin to reveal themselves. Then, at some point, you might start to experience what we call the essential truth, which is the presence of Essence itself. Facets of Unity, pg. 75 Quotes about Absolute Truth Absolute Truth is Non-Spatial We need to remember that the absolute truth is non-spatial, and hence its inseparability from manifestation inevitably means coemergence. It is inseparable from any of its manifestations and therefore absolutely coemergent with all the manifest dimensions. It pervades everything so completely that there is no region, horizontal or vertical, where it does not reach. In fact, it is this understanding that led us to recognize, in chapter 21, that there is only the absolute. For if it pervades everything absolutely, then there is no region where it does not exist. If anything is not it, then it does not reach there, does not pervade it yet. The Inner Journey Home, pg. 438 Every Aspect, Even those of the Nonconceptual Reality and the Absolute Truth is Integrated Through Successive Steps The perspective we follow in this book is that the human being is born with many and various potentials. The more he actualizes these potentials the more he develops and matures. This process of maturation is the realization of his potentials. Most important of these potentials is Being, with all its aspects and dimensions. Each aspect, even those of the Nonconceptual Reality and the Absolute Truth, is integrated through successive steps: the discovery of the aspect of Being, the permanent realization of this aspect, and the actualization of the aspect, meaning the complete integration of it in one’s human life. Any of these steps can be termed enlightenment. However, each one of them involves the working through of some segment of ego, i.e., complete metabolism of it. This working through can appear as a process or as a sudden realization. Furthermore, the human potential cannot be encompassed by the imagination, for it is ultimately beyond conceptualization. Hence it is not possible to imagine something like the realization and actualization of all human potentials. Pearl Beyond Price, pg. 184 Self-realization of the Absolute Truth of Being The student may also come to understand that the love might be passionate and consuming, sweet and heavenly, but even that will tend to separate her somewhat from her beloved, for it relates her to it instead of totally disappearing into it. This only deepens her love to the point of totally annihilating all self-recognition. This precipitates the self-realization of the absolute truth of Being, where she becomes one with this dazzling mystery, totally identified with this luminous, crystal black vastness. The student realizes at this point that she is infinite and boundless, a vastness that has no end. It is as if she becomes the vastness of intergalactic space, seeing that this absolute blackness has a crystalline purity and clarity which make the blackness shimmer and glitter with indescribable brilliance. Her mind explodes into absolute clarity and brilliance, her heart a vastness of annihilating intimacy and bliss, and her body a shimmering which is the appearance of the totality of the universe. The Point of Existence, pg. 423 The Absolute is the Absolute and Final Truth of the Soul and Everything Else The aspect of Truth, for example, functions in helping the soul to discriminate between truth and falsehood, and hence guides her in her life and development towards greater and deeper truth. The deepening experience of Truth opens the soul to the ultimate truth, which is revealed to be the Absolute. In other words, the aspect of Truth reveals itself ultimately to be simply the manifestation of an implicit perfection inherent in the Absolute: The Absolute is absolute Truth. It is the absolute and final truth of the soul and everything else. Therefore, the aspect of Truth functions to provide the soul with the capacity of discrimination necessary for her life and development in the world, but also, and at the same time as it does that, it connects her with the Absolute, revealing it as her ultimate truth. The Point of Existence, pg. 441 The Absolute Truth of Being is Absolute Existence which is, at the Same Time, Absolute Absence of Any Weight or Substance She recognizes that it feels mysterious because she cannot determine its nature, which is absolutely indeterminable. She feels total solidity, a crystalline diamond solidity, but at the same time recognizes that she is absolutely nothing, that she is absence itself. The absolute truth of Being is absolute existence which is at the same time absolute absence. It is the source and essence of everything, but at the same time it is total openness, an absolute absence of any weight or substance. The fact that it is absolute nonexistence gives it its annihilating power. The self feels annihilated because it discovers that its absolute essence is total absence. There is actually no annihilation, only the realization of the selflessness of Being, whose absolute essence is totally ungraspable, completely beyond definition. This indeterminacy is experienced as a paradox of being and nonbeing, existence and nonexistence, neither and not neither. The Point of Existence, pg. 423 The Transition From Pure Consciousness to Absolute Truth is a Spontaneous Process. You Just let Yourself Be We each require different lengths of time to dissolve the habit of assumption and the belief in concepts. Some concepts are easier to abandon than others. But the fundamental idea we have to see through is the concept of being a separate entity. Once that goes, everything else becomes easier. You realize little by little that you don’t experience yourself as a separate person. Although you behave as a person and you do things as a person, you don’t feel that way. The transition from pure consciousness to the absolute truth is a spontaneous process. You just let yourself be. Then the darkness encroaches upon you little by little and you get eaten up. That’s probably why people have so many fears about being eaten up and swallowed whole. Ultimately, we will be consumed. From this perspective, the many things that people say about giving, loving, serving, and sacrificing mean seeing through the entity and all of its attachments. What you surrender is your mind. Being a giving person means not holding on to an entity. Surrender means losing the belief that you are an entity. Service means that being an entity is not the end. All of these are conceptual ways to approach the reality. But, in a sense, the reality cannot be approached, because the moment you approach it, you are already dealing in concepts. You are already taking yourself to be something approaching something else. Reality doesn’t really work that way. Diamond Heart Book Five, pg. 178 When You Realize the Absolute Truth You Realize that Everything is the Truth When I say that our orientation is to follow truth all the way to the Ultimate Truth, I mean that the inner journey transcends life and death. When we talk about the ultimate or absolute truth, we don’t mean some kind of mysterious thing someplace. In the beginning it might appear that the truth is some kind of distant, mysterious, unknowable thing, maybe at the depth of your heart or at the center of the universe. But the truth is everywhere and is everything. When you realize the absolute truth, you realize everything is the truth. You cannot see that until you realize the Absolute, its reality and its purity. Then you realize there is nothing else. You forget about spiritual experience. You are not spiritual anymore. You become this-worldly instead of otherworldly. You realize that the world is the Absolute. Everything you see is the spirit, the Absolute. There is nothing else. Diamond Heart Book Five, pg. 150

My I Ching reading today just had one changing line in Hexagram 33. Line 4