Zigzag Idiot

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A good percentage of us here, if not right now, will be at some point in the future, just somebody's crazy uncle. Life speeds up the older you get and goes by in a hurry.

That's how I usually check "I am enlightened AMA" threads, purely based on compassion. Doesn't mean you agree with everyone, it means you are You. Both this expression and the question it was aimed at remind me of - Conscience. My own experience of what Conscience is and how this experience has changed as I have gotten older. To say an increase in conscience means also an increase in Being feels accurate to me. It also feels like the more shadow is removed from my consciousness/subconsciousness, the clearer I can hear the small, still voice, as the saying goes. But primarily Conscience reaches me through feeling. The more shadow work done, the cleaner the emotional center is, which results in increased accurate intuition. Clairvoyance is experienced in the beginning only as brief flashes. At most, the beginning is all I've reached and a shaky one at best. So I'm not implying any kind of great one time sweeping realization or attaining superpowers. ? To get rid of guilt is primary. Implanting in humanity the notion of inherent guilt is/was a horrible joke/spell/curse/whatever. I'm not implying psychopathy as a way of life but rather than guilt- remorse- is the correct feeling when I/we have caused harm or violated Conscience. You have awakened Conscience when you are you and not the reaction from the stern inner voice of the Superego telling us how naughty we've been. The Superego by its nature keeps guilt within the framework of our experience. This highlights the need for individuation which requires integration of our inner aspects which are contradictory or seemingly so. Morality changes from culture to culture and also over time through history. Awakened Conscience has universal unchanging empathy and compassion and is not as changeable as morals yet has a definite tone of responsibility. People who speak completely different languages can understand each other with the 'language of the smile'. I try to express from my being rather than my personality but ironically my inspired expressions can have the tone arrogance or of telling everyone what's what. So I add this little disclaimer of having unaware unconscious, blatant arrogance and hope rather that the reader hears me with their being rather than their mind as well as overlooking my run on sentences and inevitable typos.

We need to develop a healthy, functioning ego before we can transcend it. So there are two different usages for 'self love' . One is honest and innocent in a sense and the other is narcissistic and self important, full of vanity and pride. We need the self importance of a healthy self esteem and only then go about purifying the self importance out of it until we experience the nothingness of the false personality in us that is full of mechanical associations and reactivity. This usually marks the beginning of the experience of being or as Jesus said " having our being". I'm speaking from personal experience here also. I went into some of these harsher exercises while still being a somewhat unstable character years ago. Sometimes I'm still uncertain about the gains I've made. I can say without a doubt that I'm not as negative or violent as I used to be which definitely has resulted in an actual felt sense of being more stable compared with the past. For those who may have been following along. I felt the need to express this to save my last few entries from appearing too harsh or self contradictory. Nicoll refers to self love with a negative connotation,,,, Its tough when life is experienced as an ongoing depression or an emotional roller coaster. Sometimes the harsher methods in small doses can do some good. If you can genuinely pull off making fun of your own self pity while in that condition, it's amazing the state changes one can rapidly go through. But in dealing with others who are in a fragile condition, heart felt empathy should be the rule but definitely not pity. That's another thing I appreciated about Castenada's languaging. Divine Love he refers to as "the place of no pity". And usually a state of anger lies between depression and vibrancy. So if you witness a family member getting rather harsh with another, don't be too quick to condemn them. Their intuitive actions may have a genius quality in pushing the right keys in order to get another family member out of a funk. It seems to be an awful fine line though,,,, I don't know how true it is but I once heard a story about the Cosmic trickster Carlos Castenada. One of his girlfriends called him out concerning his own self importance and by some quirky rule within his group, she had authority to give him a particular practice. It turned out that he worked incognito, as a dishwasher, in some greasy spoon cafe, somewhere in the U.S. southwest for three solid years in order to help him overcome his own self importance.

Leo's last video on introspection is great! As Gurdjieff used to say, He was busy stepping on people's korn's. Notice when you're lying to yourself. Notice when you're flippant. Notice when you're arrogant. Notice when you're playing a victim. Notice when you're fanticising. Notice when you're in a bad mood. Notice when you're manipulating others. Notice you're social conditioning. Notice posturing and being phony and fake. Notice when you aren't understanding other people. Notice and catch you're mind creating problems. Notice when you're being selfish. Much of what Leo said mirrors the Teaching of the Fourth Way which centers around noticing you're spiritual sleep. Two main practices in the Fourth Way are self observation and self Remembering. Maurice Nicoll on the Fourth Way- INTENTIONAL SUFFERING “Now self-observation is very harsh and becomes more harsh. If done sincerely it will hurt. But it lets light in and stops all sorts of rank weeds from growing within, and amongst them all the strange growths due to internal considering and self-pity and song-singing. And then at last we begin to see what it means that a man must realize that he is nothing beforehecanexpecttobesomething.”V.1,p.259 INTENTIONAL SUFFERING II “You may often say you are to blame for something, but if someone agrees with you, it is startling and you feel offended. Yes, we easily pretend we are wrong. But to see it, direct and unmistakeable, in one- self, is pain. This is real, and so useful, suffering, for all real suffering purifies the emotions.” V. 1, p. 166 INTENTIONAL SUFFERING III “I have found nothing flattering in this teaching. There is nothing flattering, for axample, in being told that we are machines that have no Real ‘I’, that we are nothing but pictures of ourselves, that what we call ‘I’ is nothing but imagination, that we have no Real Will, that we are a mass of contradictions which we do not notice owing to hav- ing so many buffers and different forms of padding, that we are not conscious yet, and so on...All awakening has a sour taste—like going back to school.” V. 3, p. 825 INTENTIONAL SUFFERING IV “A man must suffer from his observation of himself, but never become negative.” V. 3, p. 1203 SELF-SATISFACTION “Try to see what you are resting on, all of you. Try to see the basis of your self-satisfaction. You will understand that unless this basis is com- pletely broken up there can be no change of being.” V. 1, p. 338 SELF-SATISFACTION II “As regards the remark that this Work is selfish, you must all under- stand that this Work . . . is something that destroys your self-compla- cency, your selfishness, your self-esteem, your fantasies about yourself, your pictures of yourself and, in short, your False Personality. It makes you see yourself naked—makes you see that you have to do some- thing about yourself before you try to help other people.” V. 3, p. 849 SUFFERING ONE’S SELF “When I am in that state of insight I will continually suffer from myself—from Nicoll and his mechanical reactions. Then I will in a certain sense have to endure this external, mechanical, reacting person that hitherto I have taken as myself but which the Work has gradu- ally shown me I must separate from.” V. 2, p. 644 SEEING DIFFERENT ‘I’S “Perhaps, owing to a grain of modesty or a sense of humiliation or, better still, owing to increasing consciousness of yourself, you may realize that you are not one—not a fully conscious individual, willing his life consciously at every moment, but at one moment a mean per- son, at the next an irritable person, at the next a benevolent person and the next a scandalous or slanderous person, at the next a saint, at the next a liar.” V. 1, p. 26 WHO IS RUNNING THE SHOW? “Have you seen a view of yourself marching along as a crowd of ‘I’s, some good, some evil, some in tatters, some over-dressed, some well-meaning, some slanderous, some brave, some self-pitying, some intelligent, some stupid, some a little developed, some undeveloped and childish, and so on? This marching column, marching anyhow, now some leading, now others, this haphazard crew, is leading one’s life for one.” V. 3, p. 975 PRIDE AND VANITY “You must study Pride and Vanity in yourselves and all their different gradations. Do you know your own forms of Vanity and how much they occupy you? Do you know where your Pride lies? Where do you feel that you love yourself, that you admire yourself? Where do you most feel that you are utterly different from other people? Where are you most conceited? What do you boast about? What are you silent about? Vanity is frequently very talkative, whereas Pride is silent. Which is the deeper wound, wounded Vanity or wounded Pride? What is it you cannot forgive? You know that if you cannot forgive it is because of some form of self-love which, ideally speaking, has to be smashed out of you.” V. 1, p. 360 REAL POSITIVE EMOTIONS “If you, all alone, in this solitary place, in yourself, full of the integrity of your most Real I, have decided, made a decision, not to identify or feed a particular negative emotion . . . you will taste positive emotion for a brief moment—something blessed—that is, filled with such bliss that nothing of human love-hate emotions can be compared with it... Such emotions . . . never change into their opposites but visit us and then withdraw.” V. 4, pp. 1238-9 All of these taken from Gems of Wisdom. Similar and more can be found here-

@DrewNows love and appreciate ya, brother man,,,

Between the both of us. Your zoo and my ship of fools, were a veritable Noah's Ark! I or maybe I should say all of us, appreciate your intelligence and sincerity, and respect you a great deal, or maybe we should say all of y'all,,,,??‍♂️??‍? Glad to see you posting,,,

Cultivating discipline and reducing self-importance I feel at times bullying oneself with carrying out dull practices can actually rob one of energy which can lead to apathy and then just giving up in working on oneself. Neo-Shamanism introduced me to the practices of 'Not doing.' I view these practices as a hole card in case you hit some serious doldrums in your Spiritual practice. Victor Sanchez, a student of Carlos Castaneda, put out a book called The Teachings of Don Carlos. He mentions that self importance is one of the most energy consuming activities in the life of someone working on themselves. One exercise that is rather extreme, is making use of a petty tyrant. So if you encounter one - how lucky you are! Classifications of Petty tyrants: Excuse the stains. I tend to treat my books rough. A little bit on the strategy that he gives in dealing with a petty tyrant- Victor Sanchez also gives some practices called -Acting for the sake of Acting, that falls under the category of overcoming self importance. My favorite is taking your dishes for a ride once a week. These practices are not for everyone. They are for those whose persona matches the qualities for being a 'Stalker'. A warrior who stalks their own weaknesses. The other practices in Neo- Shamanism are for 'Dreamers'. For these, one has to have the capacity for lucid dreaming. I remember from Castaneda's book- The Art of Dreaming, that he recommends looking for your hands in any dream as a trigger to induce lucidity in your dreamworld.

Is That Your Beach Ball? by Dr. Jim Rosen ©2020 Dr. Jim Rosen Mom was feeling very stressed because, on top of all her other responsibilities, she was getting her should-be-grown daughter ready for college. Beth, her daughter, wanted a new laptop to take to college, and Mom agreed to pay for it. However, Mom also agreed to research laptops and find out what Beth supposedly needed. I asked Mom why Beth didn’t do her own research. Mom said she had tried coaxing her to do the research for herself, but Beth just kept dawdling. So Mom took up the cause, and now she was feeling the added pressure to study all about laptops. I explained to Mom that every person has a beach ball that represents their own responsibilities. These beach balls are light and colorful and easy to toss to somebody else. And most people, if given the chance, will toss their beach ball to somebody else, because then they are off the hook. If you hold onto their beach ball for them, then they don’t have to do anything and they don’t have to change. As a matter of fact, nobody can change without holding onto their own beach ball. Mom thought about it and made a healthy choice. She set Beth’s beach ball down at Beth’s feet. In other words, Mom decided to let Beth decide whether of not to pick up her own beach ball and take up her own cause.

I just made a comment in the forum from which I may draw heat. Here is some elaboration on that statement. Trump is crystallized between both the Arch Idiot and the Objectivity Hopeless Idiot which makes him a hasnamuss supreme and a petty tyrant. He's completely divorced from Ordinary Idiot which is very unfortunate. I return to Ordinary Idiot frequently and as needed to rest in 'beginners mind'. We are all the same here,,,, no one is better. 1 - The Ordinary idiot - Ordinary Idiot is always with me in my Belly Center (hara). 2 - The Super idiot 3 - The Arch idiot - 4 - The Hopeless idiot - There are 2 kinds of Hopeless Idiots. Objective and Subjective. 5 - The Compassionate idiot This is a sticking point for a lot of Green as well as those who have a 'spiritual ego'. I've paid my dues. I was a Compassionate Idiot for a long time. 6 - The Squirming idiot 7 -The Square idiot 8 -The Round idiot - When I spent time as Round Idiot, I saw and understood how my negativity was hooked into and propelled my reactive self. 9 -The Zigzag idiot - Experiences of self reflective and narrative consciousness dominate up to here. This is where the path of Knowledge ends and the path of Being begins. 10 - The Enlightened idiot - Experiences Witness Consciousness 11 - The Doubting idiot - Still has episodes of narrative Consciousness 12 - The Swaggering idiot. - This character is paradoxical. Periodically experiences the heart soaring like a hawk. 13 - The Born idiot 14 -The Patented idiot - aka Authentic Idiot 15 -The Genial idiot 16 -The Polyhedral idiot 17 - The Master idiot 18 - The Perfect idiot - aka The Realized Idiot This is as far as human beings can go. 19 - The Holy idiot 20 - The Cosmic idiot Jesus is a Cosmic Idiot 21 - The Unique idiot God is Unique Idiot

I rarely drink coffee anymore.Never really thought that would become a reality. Doing some serious fall cleaning of my house today. Had a nice fire going out back. Burned perfectly good boxes, old income tax reports, old mini blinds. I even got in a rebellious mood and burned my high school diploma. Gathered up all my old coffee cans and ended up with 5 large hefty trash bags of them. One trash sack with solely the old metal cans. Besides a collection of coffee cans, I have a collection of old cigarette lighters; about 2 shoe boxes full. A coffee can full of used up and empty chapsticks and about 2 coffee cans full of old batteries - AAA, AA, C's, D's, a few of the square nine volt batteries and a fair amount of those little round ones. That's about it other than a few unique rocks that line my porch. Oh yeah, my biggest collection is books. In the last year I've built a few book shelves which has allowed me to declutter the house quite a bit. Next, I've decided to go through my clothes. Some are 30 years old. 80's and 90's dated styles. I don't consider it a collection though. For some reason I've had a great deal of indecision about culling them through the years and it has resulted in some serious piles and stacks. I have some friends who have kids that are about my size. Whatever they don't want I'll haul to the local goodwill store. There's a nice stack of carhart work coats and coveralls with worn out zippers. I may take some of the better looking ones to someone who can sew in new zippers. This is boring stuff. I'd rather Journal about psychological issues, Actualization, human behavior, typologies, and such. In dealing with my housekeeping, I note a good deal of the Squirming Idiots presence.

This was similar to my experience but I determinedly moped my way through it. One aspect it showed me though was my discontinuity of Consciousness. It took me almost three years to finish it because if the exercises slipped my mind in the morning or for a large part of the day, I would just wait until the next day and as much as possible, carry them out as instructed.The workbook was definitely the least favorite part of the Course for me. The main text was a completely different experience. I loved it and read it through it very quick and have continued to reread it off and on. It truly inspires me to do the difficult things. Such as forgiveness instead of grudge holding. Letting go of grievances and overlooking or looking past others transgressions against myself or others. The practice of not judging or forgiveness in my opinion is the main focal point ACIM. It is such powerful thing, yet the practice of forgiveness will never be a popular teaching. IMO It does have a definite patriarchal tone which for some is just too much. It bothered me somewhat but I was able to let go of the associations and thoughts which cropped up at times. To get rid of, or reduce one's violence and negativity is terribly difficult task but has a really powerful transforming effect. It can give one an unsought new virtue or maybe an unexpected curious kind of a new power or will that's hard to explain. My friend and Teacher recommends reading 3 pages of the text along with doing one of the workbook exercises per day. Doing this makes it a one year Course. I enjoyed Gary Renard's books after I read the main text.

So true. I lived it all through my twenties with insecurities and being socially awkward with attempts to cover it over with cynicical attitudes. It's a cold place and it seems very dark and unfair. I would recommend to those in that inner condition- cultivating some form of gratitude, radical authenticity, spontaneity and light heartedness instead of doing calculated cold approaches. Especially if you're not a natural bullshiter.

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I agree. Our being attracts our life.

Welcome. It's good to have another student of the Gurdjieff work here. The movements are one aspect of the Work that I've not participated in. I would like to though sometime. I'm a Mars Essence type with a center of gravity in the instinctive moving Center. Through Cynthia Bourgeault's Work, I've come to appreciate doing sittings as well as physical sensing of the body. Feel free to visit my Journal and make comments if inclined. I'm a rogue student of the Work as well as the Almaas material. There's also a Gurdjieff thread in High Consciousness Resources.

This is a decent movie about Gurdjieff's life. It's got a bit of that 70's cheesiness in it, though,, This scene has a bit of a riddle in it. It's based actually on a book Gurdjieff wrote. The most readable Of his books IME Here also is a bit of Gurdjieff's sense of humor. Brother sez and Brother al ,,,,, The riddle concerns them.

Leo, Have you enneatyped yourself? If so, what was your conclusion? Wouldn't by chance be a type Nine? How about Essence or Endocrine-body type? I guess you to be Lunar/Venusian. ?‍♂️ The chief feature of Lunar types is said quite often to be willfulness,,, ? Also a question that's fairly woo woo,,, as if the first two weren't. If it wasn't for Faith Javane's books, I probably would never have gotten interested in numerology. I noticed your Birthdate in Pythagorean numerology reduces down to 33/6. In case you've ever dug into your numerology, any comments about that? I understand if you skip over my questions. In answering them, you'd probably catch a lot of hell over it,,, however you answered them. I'm into typologies so I had to ask. I appreciate your work.

Jean Houston has led an extraordinary life,,,

"Crystalization can happen on a right foundation or a wrong foundation"

I like that! ? It serves as a description of the state aimed at in Centering Prayer most often referred to as objectless awareness or nonconceptual awareness. IME This is what Gurdjieff was pointing to in Beelzebub's Tales To His Grandson with the term 'Kundabuffer'. If we don't have a solid grounding in the body, Kundalini runs wild into our imagination which keeps people stuck in their head and emotions. It's power is so great and yet subtle, at the same time that our imaginings mix with our ego structures in the above mentioned feedback loop to form a custom reality from our own personal history. I might propose that taking note of one's own internal dialogue in general, could be viewed as strong circumstantial evidence that one is polluted by their own ego structures. Just the very fact of nonstop thinking in general or as some say, "monkey mind" points to that foreign installation that Oscar Ichazo referred to as the "word mechanism". The mind's role in Three Centered Awareness is simply to provide space or as Echart Tolle might say, spaciousness. A still, quiet mind has the quality of spaciousness. True thinking is a slow deliberate function. Much slower than the speed of emotions, which most often is what gets us all in trouble. Emotional reactivity,,, As the theory goes one's enneatype is simply a polluted form of one of the nine Holy Ideas. The ultimate meaning of the Enneagram. The following is a piece of Ichazo's description of point nine where he uses the phrase "word mechanism". Holy Love which when appears in polluted form, the personality is described as being possessed by sloth. According to Ichazo, Divine Love is “The awareness that though the laws which govern reality are objective, they are not cold, because these cosmic laws inevitably lead to the creation of organic life, and Life itself, like all natural phenomena, fulfills a cosmic purpose. As soon as the mind’s word mechanism is destroyed, love, the natural condition of the mind, appears. Love begins the moment man contemplates the Creation and says, ‘Thank you, God.’ All men feel this somewhat, no animal can feel this at all. Man alone can know that all comes from God.” Excuse me if I've gone off on an inspired tangent,,,, Seems relevant though.

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A Bad Joke by Dr. Jim Rosen ©2020 Dr. Jim Rosen I just heard a bad joke. It’s got to be a joke, because things like this don’t really happen, do they? I spoke with a woman who I’ll call Sharon. Sharon has been treated for years by a medical doctor for severe headaches caused by stress. The headaches are so severe that she has even been hospitalized for them. Stress is certainly psychological. So has her medical doctor ever recommended psychological treatment? No. It’s also relevant that Sharon was severely abused as a child, both sexually and physically, by her mother and stepfather. Did she tell her physician? Yes. Did he recommend psychological treatment then? No. Instead he responded by giving her more medication. What happened to this woman is no joke, and the need for appropriate treatment is no joke either.