Zigzag Idiot

?‍♂️ I tried golf too 5 or 6 years ago. I mostly swung as hard as I could to the exasperation of those who were trying to teach me. To smack one solidly every now and then offered a sweet cathartic,,,, something.... I plowed a lot of dirt also and got tired of it. Almost felt like I had the fear that I was in danger of becoming a snob. I don’t mean that as a jab towards those who golf. That’s just my baggage. Jim’s weekly mini column Go Beyond the Rules by Dr. Jim Rosen ©2021 Dr. Jim Rosen While I am not advocating that you break the law, I am suggesting that you reach higher and deeper within yourself. It is a lot harder to follow your own convictions than it is to merely follow the rules. Adherence to the rules can get you other people's approval, because you'll be living their idea of what your path should be. Following your own convictions is being true to your higher and deeper self. When you go beyond the rules, you will probably notice other people's disapproval and displays of upset. (Give yourself a pat on the back, because this disapproval is a sign that you’re doing it right.) Other people may believe you’re lost and separated from them, and they’re trying to manipulate you to what they think is the way. Nevertheless, it's not wise to cave in and follow their rules. There is a higher standard of right and wrong - above what other people pressure you to believe. To get to the higher level, you have to face your fears of rejection and aloneness. You have to accept that you are usually the best judge of what is right and true for you.

As a teenager battling addictive compulsions, anxiety, depression, and deep confusion, my path began there in trying to see my way out of that mess. After 10-15 years of struggling up that ladder, I realized it was leaning against the wrong wall,,,, Beginning around 2000, I began to encounter the kind of knowledge that could be built upon in developing understanding.

That God is the whole of the universe whereby humans are something akin to atoms in the molecules (solar systems) of the cells (galaxies) in the tissue (galaxy clusters) in the body of God. I don’t KNOW, know it viserally or in a gnostic way, but hold it in the ‘as if’ category conceptually until a better idea comes along,,,, So I reason that if God is that big, then God has a vast consciousness and really big ears. This would kind of go along with Leo’s video on Holons. As well as Rupert Sheldrake’s arguments about panpsychism.

Being that it’s Turquoise that’s being talked about, I would vote for the term ‘Illumination’ as being more in alignment.

To save any confusion among some here. Might need to specify that Leo was referring to Eastern or Russian Orthodox Christianity if I’m not mistaken.

@Someone here Ok, We’re talking about a forest in which there are no mammals or birds or insects to detect the crash of the fallen tree? Pretty unlikely I’d say. But if that’s the case, then wouldn’t God hear it anyway? Since we live in a conscious universe?

I’ll be devils advocate and say yes. A squirrel or a rabbit may hear it. Maybe a deer or some coyotes or some crows. If no mammals or birds are around then most likely at least some insects will feel the vibrations as the tree hits the ground.

??????? Jesus Christ!! Brother man. I got butterflies in my stomach just reading about it.

I like that,,, Re: Why not Hedonism Only on Tuesdays and Fridays,,, Although if you’re relatively young, beautiful, successful, never experienced any measure of hardship and you seem to be celebrated by people most everywhere you go,,, I got bad news for you. You’re just really fucked.

I’m still trying to figure out what his brand of Buddhism is. A new and improved version or interpretation,,,,? Can anyone say? He seems sincere but,,,, I don’t know. ?‍♂️

This is how I mow the lawn these days. I don’t know what to call it. It’s a form of sling blade I guess. I’ve put a smaller handle in it to make it more compatible for using it with one arm. That’s all that’s needed really. That way I’m able to switch out and let the left arm take over for a bit while resting the right while I’m constantly moving. Almost in a kind of rhythmic dance and shuffle. I know I look funny using it that way because I can hear the neighbors laughing . It gives me plenty of exercise though and allows me to improve my hand to eye coordination. Swinging this to within an inch or two from the ground is not the easiest thing to do. Especially on uneven ground while navigating trees and rocks and whatnot. This week I’ve been sweating out a change of clothes 3 times before noon. I’m mean soaked all the way through. Aside from doing my lawn with it. I also use it in clearing the rough ground on the remainder of my hill and the right of way along my driveway on my neighbors land. I’ve already wore blisters and have started to build calluses. Actually I find it enjoyable in building up my skill in using it. It’s like a 3 centered practice if I use with certain concentration and split my attention . Instinctive/moving center, intellectual center, and emotional center all become engaged. It’s nice also because it has no motor that doesn’t want to start or requires gasoline. Just walk out the door, pick it up and I’m immediately in action,,, Adapting it for use with just one arm seems to have been a good idea,,,,

Would non-attachment be a better descriptor?

@Eternal Unity Well put! I see a distinction between crying and giving voice to a negative emotion. I wouldn’t suppress crying but that just my opinion.

“I” has to incarnate in “it” “I” is “it” in a state of becoming Going to Church once a week and promising God you’ll try to do better while feeling guilty is not anymore effective than staying lost in your imagination while you pretend to be a compassionate spiritual person or some other version of a New Agey Spiritual seeker. I lost the following post to the computer glitch last week. This will be different from what I posted though. As a preamble to the poem by Jesse Dwight. I’m leaving a quote from Ocke de Boer concerning making the distinction between one’s Soul and one’s body which parallel the distinction between feeling and sensing. This is about eventually purifying the emotional center that’s not only corrupted with negativity but also one’s own imagination with the self images you have of yourself being a wonderful person all the time when you’re really not. You know when you’re sleep deprived or hungry and irritable or you’ve been at work all day with a bunch of morons and you just want to choke the shit out of them. Or maybe you’re watching TV and have to look at Donold Trump or some other two faced phoney politician tell lie after lie. Maybe some drunk just ran over and killed your dog and then laughs and gives you the bird as he drives off. When you get angry you’re stupid. No matter the justification. I was really glad to see @Nahm’s video on the Actuality of Being and see how much he stressed the importance of feeling everything fully and not repressing feelings as we are encouraged here in the West. Especially men. The road out is the road through. That means abandoning a certain use of imagination. Maurice Nicoll puts it well- CLEANING THE MACHINE “The first stages of the Work are sometimes called ‘cleaning the machine.’ . . . The Work tells you more about what not to do than about what to do. Now people often ask: ‘What am I to do?’ On that side the Work says only two definite things: ‘Remember yourself’ and ‘Observe or notice yourself.’ That is what you must try to do. But on the other side the Work says many things about what not to do. It says, for example, that you must try to struggle against being identified, try to struggle with mechanicalness, with mechanical and wrong talking, with every kind of internal considering, with every kind of self-justifying, with all the different pictures of yourself, with your special forms of imagination, with mechanical disliking, with all va- rieties of your self-pity and self-esteem, with your jealousy, with your hatreds, with your vanity, your inner falseness, with your lying, with your self-conceit, with your attitudes, prejudices, and so on.” V. 1, pp. 160-1 NEGATIVE STATES II “In dealing with negative states, look at the ‘I’ in you and not at the person with whom you are negative. The real cause of the negative state is the ‘I’ that is speaking in you...Its only object is to make you negative and absorb as much of your force as it can. Every negative ‘I’ has only one purpose—to get hold of you and feed upon you and strengthen itself at your expense.” V. 1, p. 162 ‘WHEN YOU ARE READY’ “The Work acts on people very gently and only in reference to what each of us can stand. When you really begin to see something in yourself, then it means that you can stand it. If you cannot see any ‘I’s it means you are not ready.” V. 1, p. 276 YOU HAVE A RIGHT NOT TO BE NEGATIVE’ “Now the Work says you have a right not to be negative...To be able to feel this draws down force to help you. You stand upright, as it were, in yourself, among all the mess of your negativeness, and you feel and know that it is not necessary to lie down in that mess. To say this phrase in the right way to yourself, to feel the meaning of the words: ‘I have a right not to be negative,’ is actually a form of self-remembering, of feeling a trace of real ‘I,’ that lifts you up above the level of your negative ‘I’s which are all the time telling you without a pause that you have every right to be negative.” V. 1, p. 161 GIVING UP SUFFERING “A man, a woman, cannot awaken if they retain this dreadful weight, their mechanical suffering, and nourish it, by a continual process of justifying it.” V. 4, p. 1240 I got carried away with the preamble. This is a clever poem though. It’s really worth pondering. Said ‘I’ to ’it’ I’d like to know Why you act as though I were a part of you You never ask me if I may Do this or that or feel or say You always have it your own way And never ask my view. Said ‘It’ to ‘I’ You’re first a mite You haven’ even earned the right To tell me what to do If you aid me, actualize A small portion of your size Is not a help, don’t criticize But try to do something new. Said ‘I’ to ‘It’ Like a machine You act and feel: Iv’e never seen You do a single thing You’re always prompted by a word A book you’ve read, a scheme you’ve heard First image; feeling doing third They’re all on the same string. Said ’it’ to ‘I’ You do not know The reason these things are so Because you’re sleeping now If you’ll wake up and be aware Of what I do and how I fare I’m sure you will not even care For what I do or how. Said ’I’ to ‘it’ That may be true But after I’m aware of you What happens to me then? Will circumstances govern me With no more will than I can see Possessed by animal or tree Or by the present ‘men’? Said ‘it’ to ‘I’ You’ll find it true That I’ll shall be part of you Not you a part of me You’ll be grown up to a proper size My wish and my will harmonize And you alone can ‘BE’ Said ‘l’ to ‘it’ ‘Twould almost seem as if you acted in a dream Or shall I say react? In when you ‘Reason’ takes a hand Emotion cannot understand Instinctively you re-act, and This is indeed a fact. Said ‘it to ‘I’ Perhaps I do And what has that to do with you If you think you’re too smart Observe me, be aware and see Then not identify from me Have ‘Individuality’ And don’t be just part of me. Said ‘I’ to ‘it’ Why take such pain You think that you possess brains But one of then is small Although instinctively you grew Your head brain’s almost lost view Your solar plexus spins in you You have no heart at all Said ‘it’ to ‘I’ Why can’t you see That you should be the rest of me? Instead you only whine Wake up and see what you can do Give me the rest the lack you due And then the brain which is in you Will join the half of mine.

@habed345 No disrespect, but that doesn’t sound like an awakening.

Doesn’t being identified usually precede desiring? Also, is all suffering the same? I’ve copied and pasted the following several times in the forum. No one has ever really commented on it one way or another. Four types of suffering For whatever it’s worth,,, Intentional suffering is sometimes referred to as Conscious suffering in the Fourth Way. In Talks on Beelzebub's Tales, Bennett distinguishes four types of suffering - Unnecessary Suffering, Unavoidable Suffering, Voluntary Suffering and Intentional Suffering. Lets have a look at each of these to see if they can help our understanding: The first is Unnecessary Suffering. This would be the type of suffering that we incur because of our unreasonable attitudes and expectations towards others, from our ill-will, hatred and rejection of others, from doubt, possessiveness, arrogance and self pity. In other words, suffering arising from our self-importance. The second is Unavoidable Suffering. This would be the type of suffering that comes to us by accident or from events beyond our control, such as interpersonal conflicts, war, disaster, disease or death. Third, we have Voluntary Suffering. This would be the type of suffering that we take upon ourselves in order to accomplish a personal aim, such as an athlete who disciplines himself to win a race, or a student who labours to get good grades. And finally we have Intentional Suffering. According to Bennett, this would be the kind of suffering that we take upon ourselves in order to accomplish an impersonal or altruistic goal, one that is directed more towards service to others or to the Work, and not for any personal gain. Bennett assumes that this is what Gurdjieff meant by Intentional Suffering. From an article on the second Conscious Shock https://www.endlesssearch.co.uk/philo_is_talk_ae2005.htm

The scapegoating of Osho was done by Fundamentalists no doubt. It’s Ironic because the Fourth Way is often referred to as esoteric Christianity and no one advanced that notion more than Maurice Nicoll Oslo and Gurdjief′s fingers have been, and are, pointing to the same Moon. See in this regard Osho′s statements about Fourth Way books, especially those about Maurice Nicoll′s Commentaries. Osho's opinion on Nicoll's Commentaries Osho: "Nicoll was a disciple of Gurdjieff, and unlike Ouspensky, he never betrayed, he was not a Judas. A true disciple to the very last breath and beyond it too. The Commentaries of Nicoll are vast. I don′t think anybody reads them. Thousands and thousands of pages, but if one takes the trouble one is immensely benefited. Nicoll′s Commentaries should be considered as one of the best books in the world." (Osho - Books I have Loved) Short review by Sam Copley Possibly Osho considered Nicoll to be one of Gurdjieff′s most important disciples, because Nicoll had a light touch in his teaching and writing and warned that anyone who adopted a serious demeanor to appear to be a follower of "The Work" probably was far from it, this in accordance with the saying inscribed on a wall at one of his group houses: "Serious things can be understood through laughable things." In his Commentaries he writes, after having explained something to his readers, "Now you may think that this is a little solemn. Actually it is not so, but, like everything else in The Work, must be taken with a grain of salt." And: "What is this Work about? It is about enjoying yourself, but people cannot enjoy themselves. It is the most difficult thing to do." from https://www.satrakshita.com/gurdjieff_books.htm

My beard has gotten ridiculous. This was my uncles hat. I wear it backwards because it fits better that way. Sometimes I feel just as crazy as I look.

Everyone of us are prone to overlook Being and instead get caught up in mind and thinking. This is a forgetting of sorts. We can let go of mind and return to a degree of peace and understanding that comes from a certain kind of remembering of something that deep inside we already knew. We Don’t Sufficiently Value Simply Being So can you let yourself be? I am not suggesting that you let yourself be to get anything or do anything, even to understand anything. I mean just to be. Are you giving yourself the simple privilege of being, of existence? Why do you think that what you do, what you have, what you get or don’t get are more important than just being here? Why are you always wanting to get something or go somewhere? Why not just relax and be here, simply existing in all your cells, inhabiting all your body? When are you going to let yourself descend from your lofty preoccupations, and simply land where you are? Stop striving after all kinds of things; stop dreaming, scheming, planning, working, achieving, attempting, moving, manipulating, trying to be something, trying to get somewhere. You forget the simplest, most obvious thing, which is to be here. If you are not in your body, you miss the source of all significance, meaning, and satisfaction. How can you feel the satisfaction, if you aren’t here? We miss who we are, which is fundamentally beingness, existence. If we are not here, we exist only on the fringes of reality. We don’t sufficiently value simply being. Instead, we value what we want to accomplish, or what we want to possess. It is our biggest mistake. It is called the “great betrayal.” We are always looking for pleasure, frantically seeking happiness in many ways, and totally missing the simplest, most fundamental pleasure, which actually is also the greatest pleasure: just being here. When we are really present, the presence itself is made out of fullness, contentment, and blissful pleasure. Diamond Heart Book Three, pg. 12 from: https://www.diamondapproach.org/glossary/refinery_phrases/being-simply-being Most of the Time You do not Know Where You Are Practices that aim to put you in a particular state have a whole mind-set attached to them, which is the mind-set of that particular state. The problem is that this can become your mind-set, providing you with a mental framework, which means a particular orientation toward your experience. And we want to be free from any mental framework. So true meditation, true practice, according to the Diamond Approach, consists of following your thread, which means being where you are and continuing to be where you are without trying to make your experience go in any particular way. This requires practice because most of the time, you do not know where you are, you do not understand where you are, or you are fighting and rejecting where you are. This is the normal state of the ego-self, for the ego is always trying to get someplace, to make itself be a certain way. The ego-self is constantly judging and rejecting its arising state and trying to fit itself into a certain ideal. It is not just being where it is and allowing itself to unfold freely. As a result, it does not understand where it is, for it is invested in being somewhere in particular, being a certain way, or i satisfying a particular ideal. And even if this ideal is taken from spiritual teachings, the same mechanism of ego activity is in operation. Trapped in the ego-self, you do not trust that Being itself will take you where you need to go. Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg. 185 from: https://www.diamondapproach.org/glossary/refinery_phrases/being-where-you-are Being Where You Are This process of locating yourself is a profoundly personal one, a subtle and sensitive unfolding of inner awareness that does not use obvious external signposts to tell you where you are at any given time. It requires discipline and patience, gentleness and attunement, because the only one who can know where your consciousness is is you. To truly be where you are requires a capacity for listening, a willingness to be open, and a curiosity about your own experience that most likely few people have ever shown toward you. What this calls for is the development of your ability to truly witness yourself, to be a pure and undistorted mirror for where and how you are appearing in the moment. Ultimately, this means seeing yourself without the aid of anyone else’s perspective, anyone else’s experience, or anyone else’s beliefs and judgments. It means not seeing yourself from the outside or locating yourself by where you are relative to external criteria. It is by seeing yourself from inside, from the center of your own experience, that you can discover your own truth, the untouched True Nature of what you are. The Unfolding Now, pg. 224 Many more excerpts about Being can be accessed through the ‘B’ page of the glossary- https://www.diamondapproach.org/glossary/alphabetical?alphabet=2

A quote from Maurice Nicoll- THINKING VERSUS THOUGHTS “We are not responsible for our thoughts but responsible for our thinking...A thought enters the mind and seeks to attract you. If it does, you begin to ‘think it’—that is, think from it. You begin to enlarge this thought, by paying attention to it and thinking from it, until it grows in all directions and forms, as it were, a little tree of thought in you, that bears fruit, and seeds other similar thoughts. . . . What is necessary to realize at present is that thoughts are of every possible kind and that they are not yours, but that you make them yours by identifying with them.” V. 1, pp.289-90

Your Informed Heart by Dr. Jim Rosen ©2021 Dr. Jim Rosen In making relationship decisions, it's a good idea to use both your mind and your heart. It's called "the informed heart." If you rely on only one or the other, on just your head or just your heart, you're likely to fall prey to poor judgement. That's when you will get involved with that someone who isn't right for you, or when you will fail to give yourself to the someone who is right. In The Prophet, author Kahlil Gibran writes, "For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction." Reason and passion (or you might say logic and emotion) are both necessary ingredients in matters of healthy love. You can rely on your logical mind to help educate your heart, and you can rely on your passionate heart to help give you an open mind. You can learn to rely on both, and balance the two.

Notes on Nahm’s Actuality of Being YouTube talk. This was the first time that I’ve seen or heard Nahm talk. I like how chooses his words carefully and speaks somewhat slowly and deliberate. This to me suggests his center of gravity is most likely in the Kings or the intellectual part of the Centers. His phrase ‘Sensational guidance ‘ probably stood out the most to me along with the significance he gives to one’s fully feeling whatever it may be and not repressing. Wow, I love it! And so true. I equate this with Gurdjieff’s stressing about sensing the body in order to get out of the head. But also discovering and making the distinction between one’s sensing and feeling. In my mind they’re both talking about the same phenomena. A.H. Almaas in his Diamond Approach is very much on the same page. Nahm’s sensational guidance and Almaas’s Diamond Guidance have many similarities . The whole approach that each takes seems to be quite similar in many ways. Expressing is always the key and removing the charge,,,, he said, if I remember right. I’ve mentioned before about the technique in Scientology of what’s called auditing. It’s the one thing that really does help people more than anything in that organization,. Too bad though that it lends credibility to what is basically a rather malignant cult. The arc and the loop he talks about reminds me of Heinz Kohut’s tension arc. https://www.encyclopedia.com/psychology/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/bipolar-self Releasing emotional energy The off feeling Nahm mentions connected with the arc. That reminds me of the term Almaas uses in connection with his theory of holes. https://www.diamondapproach.org/glossary/refinery_phrases/theory-holes That is ‘deficient emptiness’. https://www.diamondapproach.org/glossary/refinery_phrases/deficient-emptiness Seeing so many similarities is encouraging to me because it points to truth being arrived at in independent ways. I may pick this up again in comparison sometime but I’m getting sleepy and starting to fade. @Nahm If you happen to read this. Thank you for your Work.