Zigzag Idiot

I'm a novice carpenter. Still waiting to see a board stretcher hit the market. ? I'm my best friend as well as my worst enemy. We're all going to hang out together this weekend.

Psychonaut report On Lsd my boundaries disappear for the most part = Love Although chemically induced, it provides one with the experience of 'stepping onto the ground.' Under the influence I've noticed I'm really in tune with my cat as opposed to when I'm in narrative consciousness. No problems. Terence McKenna prefered mushrooms as a psychedelic over Lsd. He said lsd was like Psychological drano. I get along with both ok. Everyones chemistry is different. Using psychedelics needs to be approached with caution and common sense. Being in tune with ones inner truth every now and then as a signpost on the path is a necessity.

Watching the movie Terms of Endearment works for me.

@GrowthPilgrim @Waken I very much agree with both of you. Pardox is near. ?

I got started making comments above about the Terence McKenna clip below regarding the idea of the noosphere. Guess I should have mentioned that and maybe include the clip.

I thought some contemporary students of Teilhard de Chardin had proposed the idea that the internet was connecting us together, manifesting as the noosphere or global mind. ?‍♂️ There is probably more to it than what I summarize with just one sentence. Jung brought the notion of individuation being a crucial aspect of Actualization. Individuation requiring integration of our varied aspects. This is where I see the genuine True Self and false self acting as basic mirrors or templates to one another. The false self acting unconsciously and the True Self rising from the ashes of the Alchemical fire or switching metaphors being born out of the processes of integration and individuation. Ive said that what Almaas refers to as the "Diamond Guidance" is the same thing as the Holy Spirit in the Christian Tradition. This note is just a preface to a quote of his below from The Pearl Beyond Price. Ever-Deepening and Expanding Individuation The presence of the Personal Essence makes it possible to have direct contact with present-centered experience, to be present, open and vulnerable to experience. This capacity, aided by the operation of the objective understanding of the Diamond Guidance, makes it possible to absorb present experience readily. One’s life becomes the metabolism of the interaction of the essential aspects with the environment. This continuing and ever expanding integration is the process of development of the Personal Essence. This ever-deepening and expanding individuation and maturity leads ultimately to the nonpersonal realms of Being, like those of Cosmic Consciousness, Nonconceptual Reality and Absolute Truth; this is the natural and spontaneous outcome of the development of the Personal Essence. It is part of the human potential, and if the process of maturation is proceeding in its correct path, then it is bound to occur. The presence of the Personal Essence is a sense of Being, of experiencing “I am.” There is presence without resistance. So it is bound to go deeper into more expanded realms of Being. This understanding that the experience of “I am” can lead directly to the nonpersonal realms is not an uncommon one among teachers of Being. Pearl Beyond Price, pg. 195 from: https://www.diamondapproach.org/glossary/refinery_phrases/individuation

Good video! ? Thanks, Marc

From narrative (egoic operating system) to witness Consciousness Going back and rereading in my journal has helped me to see how much I repeat myself. Some of what I've written, I feel, is pretty good, though. Some of it is a little embarrassing. I probably quote A.H. Almaas too much but that's okay in part because no one else hanging around Actualized.org. quotes him at all and he deserves to be quoted some. One reason for my reviewing was to look for and retrieve the following quote by Cynthia Bourgeault. “The repetitive motion of finding oneself through Identification (even true and worthy descriptions) keeps the being energy just below the critical velocity needed to escape the gravitational field of narrative selfhood.” - Cynthia Bourgeault The internal dialogue you keep up inside yourself, regardless of whether it's praise or blame, cuts you off from Witness Consciousness. Witness Consciousness is a state of consciousness that's a treasure which is also a container of being. Witness Consciousness is a state of equanimity that has within it the inherent capacity for self observation. Not so when I'm caught up in my own narrative and opinions and looking for validation of some kind. To bask in the inner silence of Witness Consciousness is unexpected and a felt blessing that was never anticipated. For me, anyway. Witness Consciousness is a state of consciousness. States of consciousness come and go. States of being identified with the story we may have in our head is like unknowingly hitchhiking into hell. The "gravitational field of narrative selfhood" is a state when one is identified with one's own thoughts and emotions. It's easily seen at times in the facial expression of others but rarely recognized about oneself.

Life is beautiful. The paradox of existence. Maurice Nicoll referred to life on earth as a pain factory. “Saints are the eaters of suffering.” said Ocke de Boer Life is still beautiful.

I know a little of what you're dealing with. It seems to me there is more disfunction within families than is usually thought because it's so often covered up when around friends and aqauntances are around. I introduced the word and the concept of shardenfrued to a couple of family membors who are college educated that I thought might be open to pondering the phenomena. It seemed to pique their curiosity and as a result,,,, just may be doing some good. Other family members simply don't care and don't want to know. I would wager that most of the emotional pain we endure come from dealing with semi-toxic/toxic family members. With this element ,, it reminds/helps me to double up my efforts practicing forgiveness and letting go and not being reactive which just feeds the turmoil. Good luck,,,,

I did a trip on an auyawasca compound today. A friend was with me who took 5 dried grams of Cubensis. During the peak of the trip I had a vision of sorts. We were in my bedroom letting the conversation flow where it wanted to. I've painted this room black and have strung some Christmas lights around so It makes for a good setting. Staring into a bookshelf, some small items within transformed into an image of a person sitting in meditation next to a tree. The canopy of the tree no longer stretched toward the sun but instead bent over and drew to a concentration over the top of the meditator where it was then feeding on chi energy flowing out the top of the meditators head. ?‍♂️

@mandyjw I appreciate the spirit of integration with different Teachings which you suggest in your last podcast. One of my former Fourth Way teachers could be described as a lineage holder in a certain line of the Gurdjieff Work. I was really into Castenada at the time as well as Ken Wilber and Eckart Tolle. He would not engage in talking me through the commonalities from these different Teachings and it really turned me off from wanting to continue with him. Lineage holders by nature are often very conservative about what might be considered systems thinking. I was unable to just drop my 1/2 understandings of these other teachings to only concentrate on what he was offering. I know there are some good arguments for my former teacher to have had this stance but the point you made about resolving the disparities between these Teachings which are pointing at the same truth, could be a big boost for a definite percentage of seekers. I may offer possible bridges or common denominators between Abraham Hicks and The Girdjieff Work at some point using the language of Law of Vibrations. Perhaps it's already been done and I'm just not aware of it. To give a peak at this possibility, I googled Gurdjieff law of Vibrations and picked a random result to paste here. -- The law of Seven is a law of vibrations. Just as in modern physics, this ancient idea considers the world to consist of vibrations, and this is a general law to help understand this, for practice use. To increase the rate of vibrations of a material, we need to apply energy to it. E.g, to raise the temperature, you need to apply heat to a substance. In popular physics not much attention is given to the fact that the increase in the rate of vibrations is not always directy related to the rate of application of energy, i.e. applying energy at a constant rate does not always give a constant increase in the rate of vibrations. A very simple example is in heating water from ice to steam - there are two points, the point when the ice is at 0 degrees C, but not yet melted, and the point when the water is at 100 degrees C, but not yet steam. At these two points, one has to keep applying heat for a longer period of time for the temperature to rise... taken from- http://fourthwayschool.org/7law.html ???‍?

taken from -

About 3 years ago I learned a couple of practices that incorporate sensing the actual physical heart. Physical sensing on the outbreath and then feeling with the inbreath. Sensing with out-breath,,,, feeling with inbreath. I find myself being surprised by how powerful these practices are when only just practiced for a short time. Making the difference between sensing and feeling pays good dividends. Feeling through the physical heart seems to open my space up. Doing this for only three minutes a couple of times a day does some good.

Magnetic center Ted brings in the specific Fourth Way term "magnetic center" which refers to those who have a hard-on for spiritual awakening more than the average person. Arnold Keyserling gets credit for the earthy phrase of someone having a hard-on for spiritual awakening. ? This attribute is also indicated by a certain line in the palm of the left hand. See the end of Chance and Choice chapter 7 - http://www.chanceandchoice.com/course-overview/energy/ Interesting theory anyway,,,, From a certain angle, prayer has become a polluted concept/activity, tangled with magical thinking along with a childish petitionary helplessness. Petitionary Prayer is most often divorced from authentic reverence, gratitude and the law of attraction. Ken Wilber has described petitionary Prayer as - " Hey God, here is my ego,,, now give me something." In this ten minute talk, Ted offers some good articulation. I used to follow abstract thinker, Jonathon Zap, in years past. Below this link to his website is an article he wrote and later made into a podcast which gives good food for thought. https://zaporacle.com/

Thank you, @fridjonk Also, in regards to resistance there is a saying in the Work that says the act of opposing second force only increases second force. An example is trying to oppose alcoholism with will power. One reason why that method doesn't work very often. Whatever I fight only increases the power of whatever it Is I fight. What a weird thing,,, ?‍♂️ -------------------------------- Now, metaphorically, I'm going to write a little bit about my struggle with the issue of gossip. In the right hemisphere of my brain, there is a tiny strip mall. One of the establishments in this strip mall is a magnet for juicy gossip. There's a pretty steady hand running the joint now, finally. It hasn't always been that way. I drop in there now from time to time and put out some special air freshener that secretly neutralizes cynicism. That seems to help a lot. Resisting the temptation to gossip has been a long ongoing battle among my ship of fools. There's law somewhere that states if you hold your tongue and successfully outmaneuver acting out the inner gossip Queen, you get bonus points in addition to attracting even more juicy gossip which presents to you once again the temptation associated with knowing secrets. A part of this law states that if you spill your guts in order to get the short lived inner sunburn of relating juicy gossip; then all your power is swept away, a quick amnesia appears and you're also automatically cast into the cultural storm of confusion-ignorance. Gossiping dims third eye capacity. Gossiping can have an especially pernicious tendency with some people. Having compassion towards these people helps me which secretly helps them I discovered. We're all alike in ways and connected too. One bad mood with an episode of word vomit in accompaniment can temporarily destroy it all. The stakes are high in this game. But the fact that it's a game that's so big that we're in the middle of it and can't even see its a game, is also our saving grace. So, that makes it a really weird game,,,, A few months ago I watched a Brad Warner podcast that opened up a can of worms about a spiritual teacher who was in the process of having a messy separation from Jack Cornfields Retreat Center out in California called Spirit Rock. I like Brad and really do consider him a contemporary Zen Master. The manner in which he was addressing these issues were appropriate in my estimation. A part of all this scuttlebutt was that Jack and his crew had supposedly declared that a certain kind of psychedelic was more or less now a part of their spiritual practice. I didn't relate this to the forum at the time because it just felt like gossiping. For reasons I can't explain it no longer feels like gossip but as a relevant issue and consideration. I like Jack Cornfield. The dude has been around awhile. I've been waiting to learn more about this story as well as what the "substance" they have allegedly incorporated into their practice is. If anyone runs across any recent articles or podcasts which are credible and shed light on this, please share,,, It seems like sometimes what determines the difference of whether something feels like gossip or not is simply the presence of a cynical atmosphere. ?‍♂️ I could be flacky also. That's always a possibility, as well. One which is most often never recognized until the revelatory perception of hindsight. It's not the end of the world though. I've been busted a lot of times for being flacky. ??‍???❤️

@Waken Hi, The daily exercises/lessons were a chore for me. Some of them are a little more time consuming but most of them require just a few moments scattered throughout the day. I knew I would have little chance in maintaining a daily discipline with them so I cut myself some slack and tried to do at least 3-4 days a week but really try to do them the best I could on the days I did them. It may have been closer to 3 years before I finally got through them all. My ACIM teacher stressed though that the lessons go congruently somewhat with the text. I went ahead and did it the way that I thought I could more realistically carry them out, though. IMO - The daily lessons strengthen the 'muscle' of -continuity of Consciousness- in addition to boosting the information given in the text. I read the text in just a little over a year and still enjoy rereading it. Not so much the lessons though. They are kind of a chore,,,,