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It is said that a great military general has the breadth of heart to take hearts. Enlightening being is having the heart to take the heart of creation, according to the time. The heart is not taken in terms of a motivational desire. The heart of Creation is taken over in terms of the situation. The heart of creation is the heart of heaven and earth; essence is total, yet it is accessed by one's own "heart of heaven and earth" via an initial breakthrough called the aperture of the Mysterious Female. From then on, all the elements and processes of alchemy are found therein. Desire is the phenomenal aspect of compassion leading one along precisely, in a commitment to seeing the inevitable end (of each particular energy cycle), which is karmic. No, there is no end, ultimately, as situations are the stuff of eternity …meanwhile all sorts of things keep popping up and fading out. So what does one's commitment to inevitability depend on? It is up to the time, which is a very peculiar thing. It is not linear, and it is repeatable. It can be compressed. It turns over on itself. And it has gaps. It is really a strange thing, to write about changing or not changing in the midst of whatever is changing or not changing as if it matters. It’s not called subtle adaption by mistake. In the final analysis, one’s freshness of potential, ongoing, through thick and thin, is what passes through, or, rather, essence is the fundamental expression of Unity without remainder. In terms of abiding in unity, arrival is perpetual. To say one resides in the highest good is the same as saying, in perpetuity, the result is nonoriginated. Just this abiding in the pivot of aware presence, neither coming nor going, is resting in the highest good. When you go along with changes, it’s a new old thing; in not going along with changes, the same fresh energy abides. Actually, it’s the same energy either way, yet in seeing potential, there is actually something to this bit about immortalism, after all. To speak of it in terms of reversal is just a device. Actually, there are no words. Adaption is an unchanging process of alternations, yin to yang, until you die. Circumstances themselves are literally a random inert agent. Pure selfless open sincere desire is the motivation for compassion seeing through each cycle. What takes the heart is the knowledge of timing, and the timing is such only by virtue of one’s access to the impersonal awakened real knowledge I refer to as seeing. The Dharma Eye sees through cause without destroying its momentum, or, rather transforming psychological momentum into potential. It's not that seeing changes anything, one just sees reality as is without originating the personality's habitual pattern-awareness perspective. This means that one’s active duty to inevitability is determined by the celestial timing visible through the course of events by one’s awakened Dharma eye. This is another meaning of using the false to arrive at the true. Situationally karmic cycles are the means by which one discerns the real by increments in the situational context. This is the gradual path en total. We use the gradual aspect of incremental temporality to gather the potential reality of the sudden in order to first, see eternity, then step over it, and continue on in the endless path of refining the immaterial energy body naturally. Eventually each one’s karmic momentum is worn out like an old shoe. For example, in theory, as one's situational involvement starts out, one is barefooted. Otherwise, If you're not barefooted, it's not a new energy cycle, or you are wearing shoes where bare-feet are appropriate, and your basis for spontaneous interaction is cloyed— further compounding falsity. Old polluted energy (psychological/karmic momentum) concretized by the fallacious personality, is perpetuating ignorance of reality by virtue of habituation to carrying the burden of cause from created cycle to created cycle. The point is that being barefoot doesn't depend on thoughts or actions; it depends on reality— and that cannot be forced. By pure acceptance in selfless wonder, without enabling clinging energy or concepts of cessation, through a long process of self-refinement, conditioned psychological energy can be seen to slow down naturally and without accruing additional momentum. Eventually, what's left is… bare feet. The allusion to innocence is not accidental. What ultimately needs to be accepted is that the personality is only a circumstantial element, insignificant in and of itself, permitting facilitation of process within the context of nefarious realms of compounded incremental existence. Accepting it in terms of its function, not in terms of one's identity is most advantageous. Why then is it necessary to be able to see the nature of creation as eternity? Because it is a monumental error to conceive of eternity as being of the nature of the celestial, the immortal, the inconceivable. Eternity is the whole of creation. Creation is ultimately the dregs. When people can see creation as it is and know that its essential nature as eternal is not celestial, then they might hesitate to get bogged down in its particular aspects and ramifications relative to the person. Karma is eternal. Yet one must never forget that it is, above all else, created— so enlightening beings do not work with eternity, they just see it for what it is, and without entertaining self-reflective fascinations, they step over it, without rushing ahead. Continuing on, in terms of presence, is not relative to conditions. It is, rather, that eternity moves on by its own conditional momentum. Awareness in itself, has never moved. Reality is neither relative nor absolute~ this being the raison d'être of enlightening activity. Enlightening beings are whole in the midst of karmic cycles coming and going. This is what I mean by continuing on. It is not that one “moves on” and gains “closure”, in terms of situations. “Closure” is the phenomenon of people successfully rationalizing their denial when they cannot rely on the power of ignorance to forget. Earlier I wrote (in another thread), “Closure is for wimps”. What is the basis of continuing on? Although it is the intent of inherent essential nature presently functioning transcendently in the midst of conditions, it is habitual perspectives of the human mentality hopelessly lost in particular aspects of eternity bound to endless karmic rounds of suffering that stultify the spirit of one’s natural transcendent function. As such, the psychological posture of "continuing on" is evidence of karmic bondage, not innocence. The point of penetrating, activating, and then eventually realizing one’s essential nature is that Eternity can only be transcended by the awake, practiced and developed knowledge of the beginningless, of the causeless. One can simply fall into this realization and benefit by it instantaneously for no reason. No reason is what open sincere intent is. Camping out in one's inherent unborn mind results in seeing. Yet one must learn to act on this knowledge or the memory of sudden illumination itself becomes a barrier, no different than eternity, to advance enlightening practice. How can that be? It is mind alone. Holding the absolute in referential terms to the facetious knower, thinker and liver of life, liberation reverts to bondage on the spot. It is unborn mind. In order to be it, one must continuously see it. And that, alone, is authentic self-refining practice of subtle continuous concentration observing mind. This your own mind right now, as is. This is just your own functional awareness right now. It is not a matter of philosophy because there is nothing whatsoever to understand. Your real identity is Unborn Mind. It's not the experiential absolute— that's just interruption of consciousness. Your own mind right now is the unborn, as such, void of self-reifying pattern awareness. Just see reality as is without thinking right or wrong, good and bad; leaving out personal values for all time. Of course that means nothing to anyone on an intellectual level. And it also has no power for people who are habituated to using awareness in the most limited ways imaginable. Due to habituation solely to the personality’s center of reason/talking that conceives sensuality to be the only means of perceiving and relating to particulars, people cannot awaken to the power and freedom that nothing to understand is something literally and figuratively beyond reason. The beauty of unbending impersonal intent is that it can be used powerfully to facilitate the very (dis)function that reason craps out in the first place. To do that, one must first penetrate causelessness, and set up camp in terms of nonorigination, so to speak. This is the place where one can begin to see. Anyone can understand understanding, yet only a sage can understand not-understanding. Delusion and enlightenment is the same mind whereby the enlightening function can operate freely within delusion, yet delusion is already deluded within delusion, and cannot fathom enlightening perspective in its midst. Truth be told, enlightening perspective has no perspective, as it is the nature of no-mind. When someone doesn’t mind (in the conventional sense), it is not necessarily that they don’t care, it is that there is nothing to understand (relative to their personal habits, whims or perceived vulnerabilities). This is understanding not-understanding perfectly, as knowledge is a matter of nothing to know. That’s really how it is. It’s “What’s to know?” Penetrating perception based on this what’s to know is reality perceived without bias or inclination in the midst of affairs. Mind is the ever-awakening nature of no-mind aware of its unborn, natural inconceivability functioning beginninglessly and presently in perpetuity. Intellectually biased ignorance must be stripped away in order to see this mind by a long long process of correctly oriented self-refinement. It’s not the equivalent of ego as you might know it, or anti-ego as you might imagine it. If you knew that the real aspect of ego is just a function facilitating the personality of the being that is going to die, you might be able to intuit that the function of your real identity is equally selfless and nonexistent. Perpetuation of ego depends on reason, whereas awakening to and penetrating the function of nonoriginated selflessness depends open sincere intent. Intent’s intent is openly sincere open sincerity. This intent is already inherently in a state of potential until the moment you permanently drop your selfish habitual antics perpetuating the false self and awaken to presence as authentic impersonal spiritual function. "Awakening" to this does not depend on sudden enlightenment. It is simply "nonoriginating" delusion by awakening to the Unborn mind. Nevertheless, stabilizing this awakening comes by fits and starts, the very reason for self-refinement. Ego-consciousness fixating of accomplishing "sudden realization" is to be pitied— even should it succeed. Why? It is analogous to picking a fruit too early. It's not ripe. It's not edible, or if it is, it won't beneficial or as beneficial to the being as if it had been left alone until it "dropped off" naturally. Ask me why I know. Please don’t be hung-up on the personality as you’re stuck with it (mine and yours)!! I’m living proof of that for those of you who are hung up on my supposed narcissism. The personality doesn’t go anywhere. In effectively realized individuals, it just takes up its position in service of the autonomous illumined being within, which has never entered the sphere of the created. Nothing changes except a little swap, like musical chairs whereby the personality permanently attains balance naturally, and continues on by not clinging to situations, places, people and things— because finally, much less is invested in ego function's perpetuation. So, the world at large is not created, while the self-observer (awakened to one’s own unborn awareness) isn’t created as well— and one proves it in everyday ordinary affairs again and again and again. It’s an all-at-once, all-or-nothing proposition (not to discount ones inexorable fits and starts). It is seeing that all things are the nature of awareness, which is unborn. Stabilizing this perspective is the gradual work of self-refinement before and after (in the case of the sudden, should that happen). It’s called work because the world doesn’t know… Creation is a bitch. Do you think she’d go along with you, if she knew? If she knew, she’d get your ass AND whatever’s going along with it too. That’s what she already got your ego to do. Ya gotta give that bitch the slip (without its knowing) and steal back your inherent presence. AND THAT’S NO JOKE. It is called inconceivable spiritual adaption taking over creation and stealing its potential without admitting one’s own power for a reason, it seems. ed note: typo 12 paragraph

I'm not, but the only one that matters to is the human I am dressed up as. Your mistake is to think that I'm supposed to look a certain way. You're a knowledge addict, you need those hits of understanding, that is why you prefer me in a mystical form rather than this form. This form is exactly where Love is. See? I can talk God language too! Personal pronouns or impersonal ones, it doesn't actually matter, you can't get closer or further away from what is, there is no need for anyone to GET that. Words are sneaky, what is pointed to isn't found in anything it is everything, so it isn't found in the words, it is the words. The pointing is the pointed to.

I'm not sure about it because if the person is the experiencer in terms of ultimate authentic experience, that's not it. Why? Because there is no person. If it's you who is accomplishing by actions and momentum, that basically proves that whatever you're accomplishing isn't it. On one level, these things are cumulative, as long as potential is not leaked habitually. Nevertheless, it's not a matter of "progress." Whatever the nature of the experiencing, just avoid anticipatory consciousness, which strengthens the very thing that obstructs nonpsychological clarification. The deal is, the nature of reality is already complete, perfect and selflessly unified; that's one's inherent identity right now, so realizing this in terms of this shouldn't (can't) be dealt with by virtue of an instrument as crude as the psychological apparatus— simply because its operative function obscures reality. Awakening to nonpsychological awareness and nurturing its subtle function requires self-refining processes which serve to reform and revert the psychological apparatus (reversing its development) into its original supporting role (to nonpsychicological functionality). Sudden realization should be seen as a naturally occurring validation/proof of the foregoing self-refinement instead of a bulldozing effort to arrive at a predetermined experiential parameter. Taoism says to refine the self (first) and await the time (of proof). Strive to activate the mind without dwelling on its contents in terms of the scene before your eyes, and activate the natural subtly adaptive impersonal function by seeing through phenomena without denying their characteristics. That's dealing with things as they are without employing "belief" in their existence. The only reason I say this is because in the aftermath of the sudden, it's all you will be doing anyway. ed note: add last line

Eckhart is correct. "The witness" as most people try to concieve it,is not a position of playing as a "witness-er", standing back and watching thoughts,feelings emotions etc.,. That position, is the I-thought/identity/ego/ playing the role of not being a thought,watching thoughts. It can seemingly play the two positions of I and You. It can refer to itself as I(singular individual) and can also refer to that same 'I" it was just playing ,as You (i.e., other),as if playing the part of a separate individual/therapist/criticizer to the "I" singular individual. It can treat itself as subject and object. But the 'trick" it's playing is that it's one thought playing different"personal" roles,and being that it is only a thought/idea,it has no existence. Realizing this is realizing there's "no-self". What one thought and identifiied as "I",me,myself" ,was/is , just a made up thought/idea,and thus not a reality. The real and only non- individual/,impersonal,undivided "subject" is the one,eternal,boundless,timeless Existence-Reality alone.

THE INORGANIC BEINGS ~ “THE OLD SHAMANS DISCOVERED THAT THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE IS COMPOSED OF TWIN FORCES, FORCES THAT ARE AT THE SAME TIME OPPOSED AND COMPLEMENTARY TO EACH OTHER. IT IS INESCAPABLE THAT OUR WORLD IS A TWIN WORLD. ITS OPPOSITE AND COMPLEMENTARY WORLD IS ONE POPULATED BY BEINGS THAT HAVE AWARENESS, BUT NOT AN ORGANISM. FOR THIS REASON, THE OLD SHAMANS CALLED THEM INORGANIC BEINGS. I TOLD YOU THAT IT’S OUR TWIN WORLD, SO IT’S INTIMATELY RELATED TO US. THE SORCERERS OF ANCIENT MEXICO DIDN’T THINK LIKE MOST DO IN TERMS OF SPACE AND TIME. THEY THOUGHT EXCLUSIVELY IN TERMS OF AWARENESS. TWO TYPES OF AWARENESS COEXIST WITHOUT EVER IMPINGING ON EACH OTHER, BECAUSE EACH TYPE IS ENTIRELY DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHER. THE OLD SHAMANS FACED THIS PROBLEM OF COEXISTENCE WITHOUT CONCERNING THEMSELVES WITH TIME AND SPACE. THEY REASONED THAT THE DEGREE OF AWARENESS OF ORGANIC BEINGS AND THE DEGREE OF AWARENESS OF INORGANIC BEINGS WERE SO DIFFERENT THAT BOTH COULD COEXIST WITH THE MOST MINIMAL INTERFERENCE. “ “THE INORGANIC BEINGS WHO POPULATE OUR TWIN WORLD ARE CONSIDERED, BY THE SORCERERS OF OUR LINEAGE, TO BE OUR RELATIVES. THOSE SHAMANS BELIEVED THAT IT WAS FUTILE TO MAKE FRIENDS WITH OUR FAMILY MEMBERS BECAUSE THE DEMANDS LEVIED ON US FOR SUCH FRIENDSHIPS ARE ALWAYS EXORBITANT. THAT TYPE OF INORGANIC BEING, WHO ARE OUR FIRST COUSINS, COMMUNICATE WITH US INCESSANTLY, BUT THEIR COMMUNICATION WITH US IS NOT AT THE LEVEL OF CONSCIOUS AWARENESS. IN OTHER WORDS, WE KNOW ALL ABOUT THEM IN A SUBLIMINAL WAY, WHILE THEY KNOW ALL ABOUT US IN A DELIBERATE, CONSCIOUS MANNER. THE ENERGY FROM OUR FIRST COUSINS IS A DRAG! THEY ARE AS MESSED UP AS WE ARE. LET’S SAY THAT THE ORGANIC AND INORGANIC BEINGS OF OUR TWIN WORLDS ARE THE CHILDREN OF TWO SISTERS WHO LIVE NEXT DOOR TO EACH OTHER. THEY ARE EXACTLY ALIKE ALTHOUGH THEY LOOK DIFFERENT. THEY CANNOT HELP US, AND WE CANNOT HELP THEM. PERHAPS WE COULD JOIN TOGETHER, AND MAKE A FABULOUS FAMILY BUSINESS CORPORATION, BUT THAT HASN’T HAPPENED. BOTH BRANCHES OF THE FAMILY ARE EXTREMELY TOUCHY AND TAKE OFFENCE OVER NOTHING, A TYPICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TOUCHY FIRST COUSINS. THE CRUX OF THE MATTER, THE SORCERERS OF ANCIENT MEXICO BELIEVED, IS THAT BOTH HUMAN BEINGS AND INORGANIC BEINGS FROM THE TWIN WORLDS ARE PROFOUND EGOMANIACS. ANOTHER CLASSIFICATION THAT THE SORCERERS OF ANCIENT MEXICO MADE OF THE INORGANIC BEINGS WAS THAT OF SCOUTS, OR EXPLORERS; THAT IS, THE INORGANIC BEINGS THAT COME FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE UNIVERSE, AND WHICH ARE POSSESSORS OF AWARENESS INFINITELY SHARPER AND FASTER THAN THAT OF HUMAN BEINGS. THE OLD SORCERERS SPENT GENERATIONS POLISHING THEIR CLASSIFICATION SCHEMES, AND THEIR CONCLUSIONS WERE THAT CERTAIN TYPES OF INORGANIC BEINGS FROM THE CATEGORY OF SCOUTS OR EXPLORERS, BECAUSE OF THEIR VIVACIOUSNESS, WERE AKIN TO MAN. THEY COULD MAKE LIAISONS AND ESTABLISH A SYMBIOTIC RELATION WITH MEN. THE OLD SORCERERS CALLED THESE KINDS OF INORGANIC BEINGS THE ALLIES.” “THE CRUCIAL MISTAKE OF THOSE SHAMANS WITH REFERENCE TO THIS TYPE OF INORGANIC BEING WAS TO ATTRIBUTE HUMAN CHARACTERISTICS TO THAT IMPERSONAL ENERGY AND TO BELIEVE THAT THEY COULD HARNESS IT. THEY THOUGHT OF THOSE BLOCKS OF ENERGY AS THEIR HELPERS, AND THEY RELIED ON THEM WITHOUT COMPREHENDING THAT, BEING PURE ENERGY, THEY DIDN’T HAVE THE POWER TO SUSTAIN ANY EFFORT. I’VE TOLD YOU ALL THERE IS TO KNOW ABOUT INORGANIC BEINGS. THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN PUT THIS TO THE TEST IS BY MEANS OF DIRECT EXPERIENCE.” EXTRACT FROM “THE ACTIVE SIDE OF INFINITY” BY CARLOS CASTANEDA

Gaslighting is a form of vague lying. Truth is power and the only reason anyone avoids it is in favor of lies is fear and insecurity which comes out of misunderstanding. The lie is a way of perpetuating misunderstanding. While it appears that the person telling the lie DOES know how things really are and that can be infuriating, misunderstanding is still the name of the game. Both parties are focusing on their own inadequacy. The difference is that in identification one looks like the abuser and one looks like the victim, but those judgements are very short sighted. People deny and reflect different behaviors out of fear. Some become aggressive, some become shy and passive in response. It's as impersonal as a color appearing as the color that it reflects or rejects, all colors are born out of and seen in white light, in all potential of the separate colors. One of the major issues that comes up in communities like this is that encouragement to drop what we know in order to let in a deeper Truth, Love or clarity often is first judged or passed off as a kind of gaslighting or avoidance. It's not. You, only YOU, know it for yourself by how it feels. The whole point is to connect YOU with your own inner power, which turns out to be quite impersonal and therefore... unlimited. We don't see clearly or allow this power unless we are in a relaxed, allowing states. You could say that sitting to meditate is gaslighting yourself, but if you've done it for very long you've seen it as an opportunity to let insight and new perspectives in that truly heal rather than perpetuate the feeling of inadequacy that brought the gaslighting. When you pay attention to how you feel, you go immediately for the healing you seek and you also allow the specific healing you seek to find you. Concepts of abuser and abused prevent this. Healing is wholeness, if you keep defining the separation, you don't allow the healing to occur on its own. That doesn't mean that we don't sometimes hold people accountable or call them out. We do. But your own inner view of the situation and your role in it is critical. Healing does not come from believing that your relief comes from the other's suffering. There's no eye for an eye in healing, just two lost eyes. You're thoughts are more powerful than you realize. You are more powerful than you realize.

"I act on what I feel and never deal with emotion", hearing this simple line hit an interesting chord in me when I was listening to this What's the difference between feeling and emotion? Feeling=sensation perhaps. Talking about things in terms of "sensations" sounds rather impersonal and cold. "Sensations", in a vacuum that sounds like an impersonal word but it needn't be. It has those cold associations due to it being a scientific/mathematical/logical description, but those associations of mine are a complete invention and story. Why should or would math/physics be inherently cold and impersonal? Ofc in the context of the song its a bit different. Phish is saying he just acts on what he feels like doing without thinking about it, but in a stage red greedy manner. Regardless of the song context, it's an interesting thing to investigate.

Your personality vanishes. Personality remains but it's impersonal and it only exists as a concept. You experience the paradox of an impersonal personality in the conceptual mind. You experience the extinguishment of base personality. This impersonal personality is no longer constrained by the limiting force of the ego. This allows it to evolve freely. The ego is what made you believe that your personality is somehow solid. You begin to realize that your personality is an act. Your mind creates the idea of a personality. You are an actor. An actor who never stops acting. An actor who has no base personality to fall back on. This is how Jim Carrey had an awakening into no self. He got so immersed in his characters that he realized he was a character to begin with. Of course you'll still be in the habit of playing a certain role, but once you realize that you've been acting, you allow yourself to be the actor of any role(s) you desire. Society gave you an audition that you both passed and failed. It's time to become the director and then the entire movie itself.

Storyteller (Minstrel, Narrator) The classic Storyteller/Minstrel archetype relays the wisdom or foolishness, mistakes and successes, facts and fiction, and tales of love and the impossible, on a plane that is often exaggerated beyond ordinary life. Love is greater, power is more daring, successes are more astonishing, foolishness is more obvious. We have an archetypal need to be spoken to through stories because they bring us into contact with our inner being. We are, in fact, storytellers by nature. Those who have this archetype find that the Storyteller’s voice and methods are essential to their way of communicating and perceiving the world. Some teachers are also connected with the Storyteller archetype, but not all Storytellers are teachers. Not all writers are Storytellers, but authors of fiction must be. A Storyteller communicates not just facts but also a metaphoric learning or experience. Storytellers abound in any walk of life, not just among professional writers. The tradition of the Minstrel reveals how essential the Storyteller’s role was in medieval culture, because Minstrels were expected to tell stories and sing stories as a way of entertaining a group as well as passing on the news of the day. The shadow Storyteller is, in the extreme, a liar, and, in moderation, an exaggerator. The temptation always exists to misuse the skill of storytelling to your own advantage when sharing information. The shadow aspect manifests when we can’t resist making up a story to conceal something we don’t want to be truthful about. But the universal appeal of storytelling throughout history suggests some deeper connection of this archetype with the human soul. The oldest written works we possess, from the Gilgamesh Epic to the Bible to the Odyssey, use storytelling to make their points. Maybe it’s simply a reflection of the sense that each of our lives is a story worth telling, or a desire to impose order on what sometimes seems like a chaotic and random universe. Student (Disciple, Devotee, Follower, Apprentice) The student archetype suggests a pattern of constant learning, an openness to absorbing new information as an essential part of one’s well-being. The Student archetype suggests an absence of mastery of any one subject but rather a continual pursuit of intellectual development. Within the spiritual aspect, the Student, Disciple, Devotee, and Follower imply that one has found a source of teaching, such as a Guru or Spiritual Master, who becomes the instructor and spiritual guide. The shadow Student usually manifests in tandem with the shadow Teacher or Mentor, avidly learning all the tools of the wrong trade or misusing the knowledge learned. This was graphically depicted in Walt Disney’s animated imagining of Paul Dukas’ “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” in Fantasia, in which Mickey Mouse portrays the Student Wizard who gets carried away with his own unperfected talent and causes havoc. The sahdow can also show up as the eternal Student who never embarks on the sea of life in earnest, but manages to find ever new reasons to continue being schooled without ever putting that knowledge to the test. People who continually use the excuse that they are not ready or have not yet learned enough to advance with their dreams should take special note of this archetype and whether they have a shadow bond with it. Teacher (Instructor, see also Mentor) Teaching is the art of communicating knowledge, experience, skill, and wisdom to another. Teaching, or offering instruction of any kind, can manifest through parental guidance, business apprenticeship, or by inspired instruction in ethics or kindness. To determine whether this archetype is part of your support team, ask yourself if others look to you as a teacher in any situation. Are you the one that others seek out for the richness of your experience, or to teach them the ropes? The shadow Teacher manifests as a desire to manipulate or abuse those you are instructing; to be more concerned with recognition than with imparting knowledge; or, like the shadow Mentor, to teach negative traits and destructive skills, like burglary or how to cheat on the job. Thief (Swindler, Con Artist, Pickpocket, Burglar, Robin Hood) The Thief is thought of as a nocturnal, hooded figure who slips silently into places and takes what he wants. In the hierarchy of thievery, the most respected is the Jewel Thief, associated with glamour, class, and sophistication. The Good Thief steals on behalf of others, as in the case of Robin Hood, and appears to be relieved of all wrongdoing because of his benevolent motive to be of service to others, but often that is just a rationalization. The Bank Thief maintains a degree of respect because the target is corporate and impersonal and the implication is that the thief has an intelligent and strategic mind. The Street Thief and Pickpocket, on the other hand, rank lowest because they rob ordinary individuals and their methods yield small gain. Symbolically, theft can take many forms, including plagiarism, stealing ideas and even affection. Taking what is not yours because you lack the ability to provide for yourself implies the need to learn self-respect. This archetype prods you to learn to generate power from within. As with so many archetypes that initially strike you as completely unrelated to who you are, this archetype should be evaluated from its symbolic meaning. You may never have stolen one thing at the physical level, but you also need to take into consideration your emotional and intellectual arenas.

First thought experiment - Self Referential Variable Personal Life Perspectivism Seeing my life from the perspective of any one being that’s ever existed or could exist, flexibly moving from the personal (someone I don’t like) to the impersonal (someone or something I’ve never met). Strategy - just invent imaginary profiles and see what novel insights I get from that perspective: 1) from the perspective of an old transsexual (just as a cultural mindfuck seeing I’ve never met one nor do I have any particular interest beyond say scientific exploration) with a bionic arm and sexual ornament (which changes shape and sexual orientation depending on preference at the time) that’s now the first human to have lived 200 years old 80 years from now, what do they think of my life, what I have done, where I plan to go. More to their profile: - they have a genius IQ - they are homophobes (I am not nor am I homosexual so don’t be reading too much 8nto just having fun with this) - they are high in conscientiousness, with strong perfectionistic tendencies - they have an originally Greek background, but because they have lived for decades in a number of varying cultures due to their high openness, they can no longer be easily classified outside of certainly now falling to the category of Global Citizen - they hold a position in the United Nations, and in this situation the UN now actually do something meaningful compared to today’s times and aren’t corrupt - they are enlightened, but they don’t need to believe in any so called absolutes - they are ambiverts have a social circle that is moderate and consists of mainly people that support their cultural causes they support in the UN - they are 9 feet tall so they needed their own plane built for themselves for their UN travels that taxpayers complain about 2) from the perspective of God. Build the profile of many variants of your perception of God so that you can see how foolish the endeavour actually is. One that is all benevolent and loving, notice the psychological effects of having them view your life. Now one that I’d indifferent, imagine how having them view your life produces different emotional effects. Now one that is like an authoritarian parent. Now correlate people’s perceptions of a God with either religious teachings, parental styles they were brought up with or the inverse of that sometimes. 3) from the perspective of a younger, older, wiser version of yourself. A clone of yourself and imagine how you might communicate with said clone to bring about an insight feedback loop between one another. A version of yourself that grew up on a farm instead, purely in the city or in a luxury environment in the mountains. Imagine the things they might say, insights they might draw, etc. 4) an extraterrestrial, again similar to the latter two create multiple kinds of personality, bodily and cognitive profiles and do so even far richer than the profile noted in the first example (9ft 200yr old transsexual). 5) Literally anything, a bird, plane, giraffe, something completely imaginary. It's all up to you. The Earth. The universe. So on and so fourth. Test what you're able to connect with. Explore. 6) Now discover the perspectives that are most meaningful to you. The people that have influenced you most in your life, what would they think about what I have done? What I am doing? Where I am going? What I will accomplish or not accomplish? Where I may fail? Maybe you imagine your life from the perspective of your parents, which I believe many people do and think these kinds of experiments have many real world observational subjective implications as it concerns understanding what motivates peoples sociocultural inner reality, the latter which can be described as containing these figures in their imagination that they commune with subconsciously to determine the rightness and wrongness of their lives. In understanding the deeper limits here, we can augment that process through discovering the imaginative heights that can help us entertain higher wisdom. Understanding the relationship between imagination, motivation, sociocultural inner landscape, model, reality.

This is an older writing of Deci's from daobums.com that was very helpful. If she wants it taken down, let me know: "So when I speak of appearances that do not confuse people in the midst of situations, it is just that there is no personalistic psychological locus existent to posit confusion because there is no habitual thought based on the facetious personality of the being that is going to die. This thing of no location is universal. The Center is the totality of reality with neither inside nor outside. Though its (transcendent) effect does not rely on the sudden—experientially, it's you: therefore, you are not it by virtue of its (your) selfless nature. There is nothing to maintain for appearances sake. I have been bouncing back and forth between the relative and the absolute in terms of appearances for a reason. THEY ARE SAMENESS. THERE IS NO TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN. THERE IS NO COIN. Just smile! It goes without saying that you do not constitute a point for confusion to accumulate. And by that, in terms of the relative, I mean there is really no self to maintain in terms of a psychological locus for confusion to accumulate. There is already nothing whatsoever to account for in terms of self and other relative to conditions. When Gautama buddha held up the flower, Mahakasyapa just smiled. Confusion? How can there be confusion where there is nothing to understand? Confusion is only possible by referencing the personality's construed psychological awareness in terms of its own relative not-self, whereas nonpsychological awareness' perspective is in terms of the present impersonal situation. The only reason the authentic teachings exist is to counter habit energy being YOUR habit. Conditioned energy is karmic— it just is, whether you see your nature or not. The provisional teaching of emptiness or the illusion of temporal existence is just so people will avoid losing themselves unawares long enough to develop an independent perspective based on nonpsychological awareness in order to forget the self-reifying thoughts and feelings that bind one to karmic existence. Reality and delusion appear the same because they are the same. Substantial stability of clarity functioning in the midst of appearances has no confusion because there is no psychological locus (location) for habitual self-reifying thoughts and feelings (confusion) to accumulate. What's left is impersonal characteristics. Just this is the basis of one's response. Effective response is the result of seeing through phenomena without denying their characteristics. Abiding here (enlightening being) is the incipient pivot of the creative arising undifferentiated radiating aware essence. The creative is itself potential, if one sees. If one doesn't see, it is creation/karmic evolution. If one sees, then one can use it. Arising undifferentiated is Complete Reality; this being the Center. Obviously, it is the self. Radiating aware essence is presence. This is one's function. Just smile.❤︎"

The voice is just the voice . I mean, it's not like the silence, or emptiness identifies with itself. I've had experiences when the mind was gone and the only thing that remains is that emptiness/silence. When experienced, it is bliss, pure love and everything I could ever dream of. At the same time, it is what remains when the mind is gone, so death is the best thing that will ever happen to me. Not that I seek death, on the contrary, I enjoy life and are enamored with it, I just know that when I'm gone, then I'm really not gone . Sorry if it makes no sense to you. I used to seek to create more space, but I no longer do. The space is only needed to observe the mind carefully, but not with the intent of fixing it, but rather to trust it. It is absolutely genius and wonderful. The second best thing after emptiness. Ever since I understood what love is, I want to simultaneously be both something and nothing. I know that it sounds stupid, but these are not mutually exclusive. The first step was just the unreflected voice talking as me, as in, there was no voice observed, not even thoughts being recognized, just me. When I woke up to the existence of the voice, I gradually became more interested in understanding what language is, etc, and started observing the voice as something that happens, as if it was something external (even though it exists in the private space). I began to learn to distinguish the moments when I'm thinking consciously/deliberately and when the voice talks by itself. At some point, after observation of the voice, I became interested more in it and asked myself, who talks as this voice? This is where I started to recognize that it's conditioned by interactions, something akin to a more sophisticated voice recorder that can model personalities. As I became more in touch with how my psyche works, it became apparent that there are more and less privileged voices that influence other voices. Not by talking to each other, but rather, some personalities that have been modeled by the voice, use voices of other people, "parrot" these people, to gain control over the will. The most dominant voice in there was my critical mother. "She" would use other people's voices to criticize "me" from within me. This had the effect of not actually living my life and having no actual center of my own, no heart, so to speak, recycling same stuff over and over again. Finding the real me within me, or rather, dropping falsehood, is the most significant accomplishment of my life. No, on the contrary! It is the voice that lies, always. Lying is not the correct word, really, at its core it's completely innocent. The voice is literally an infant. After language was learned, it never matured, it was just picking up on things and repeated them without knowing what it talks about. Some genuine insights were had, but they turned to knowledge through representation and lost its "spark". So the snowball of misunderstandings started to weave until it was too great to stop. Really, when it comes to "the other person", then it has to be said explicitly that the voice is the main culprit of all misunderstandings and not being able to see the other in a deep, meaningful, way. Most insights that were had during re-conditioning were actually gained by seeing the falsehoods that kept perpetuating the chatter. They were false/incomplete models that the voice recorder made, so to speak. Some of the insights were also about feeling myself more and prioritizing that over thoughts. This had the effect of deep compassion towards everyone because this condition is not really exclusive to me. My mother, for example, never went through the process I did, so she simply perpetuated the hurts that her parents inflicted. Even though it's the most personal thing, it's also completely impersonal at the same time. Only after seeing through the voice, I am able to experience others truly. There are very few people like that. When it comes to "re-conditioning" the voice, the only thing that was added was my therapists' presence that I modeled automatically. She is a wonderful, supportive, woman that is the mother that I always needed. Having a supportive presence that stops the inner turmoil is very, very helpful and I am very grateful to her. In part, thanks to this very conversation, I began to be more interested in interacting consciously with music and I noticed that there is a distinct kind of pain that I sometimes experience when I'm listening to it. I grasped that it is a warning and I recently stopped the music after feeling it. So far, no repeats . Consciousness and unconsciousness, as I call it, are not distinct entities, so to speak. They only seem that way because our conscious processes are based upon distinctions. The deeper I go into myself, the more in touch I am with the Unconscious, and I am very much convinced that it plays a significant, active, role in how we develop and grow. We seek experiences that mature us and this is what the Unconscious orchestrates. This is what I meant by the "double person" when I talked about observing and interpreting myself. It is not something that I can stop doing, this is how maturation progresses. This is how something and nothing are the same. When there's nothing left to crumble, I mean, literally nothing, the mind is completely gone, and you are love, then you can't help but to give birth to yourself . This is love - it is how reality is "made". Thank you! When I pondered my first awakening after coming down off it, I remember saying to someone that it felt as if reality was raping itself and it felt good. You are very inquisitive and open, I really enjoy reading your questions. Keep doing that and I'm sure that you will get your answers, eventually.

Hi Breakingthewall— excellent comments. Yes, the vision of the dance is in perpetual subsumption, where the symbolic mystical vortex of particulate light and even more glistening dark elements churn tacitly in what taoist mysticism calls the liquid pearl. "Out of the dim void, a point of illumination hovers auspiciously in stillness." Existence, illusion; just this is truly the mystery of mysteries. The Absolute is no mystery. The homeland of nothing whatsoever is just the seat of selfless nonoriginated wonder… miraculously aware. Who knows? The Absolute is as far as human awareness can go. It is not the person. Taoism calls this the true human with no status. But there is always that which is beyond the limit of the limitless. Such is the realm of unknowability even beyond our puny human inconceivable nature. Having returned from the voidless void, where absence has no precedent, just here in the presence of inherent open awareness, one sees through illusion and gathers its potential. By virtue of the realm of karma itself, one joins in true partnership with the creative by seeing Change and thereby transcends its rounds of birth and death throughout endless cycles of creative momentum— thus, by somehow standing aloof in the midst of delusion, one "gathers" its potential, grain by grain, while biding one's time in the highest good of receptivity to incipient potential by virtuous nonresistance. Who knows the essence of reality? Only those with the eyes of subtle spiritual accord in reality to do so. Authentic practice is a matter of perpetually clarifying and preserving the fundamental. It's not somewhere else, but you (the person) are not it. When it's you and yet you yourself have never been such a one, you're close. It's a matter of intimate knowledge beyond judgements and opinions. Real knowledge is immediate and impersonal, independent of the thinker, the knower and the liver of life, so there is no how involved. Why? Because reality truly has no pattern, action relative to psychological process is eons away. In seeing the essence of reality, in terms of ordinary situations, one does not partake of relative manipulations, only adapting to present conditions without seeking honor nor avoiding ignominy— all the while abiding in clear, open sincerity. ed note: tweak 2nd paragraph; add starting with "…but you (the person) are not it", ending with …eons away." in 3rd

Setting the Standard Rising above one's ingrained sarcasm, indifference, apathy, intellectual conceits, self-satisfaction, guilt-trips and dualistic attitudes attributable to a lifetime's accretions of learned and inherited ignorance is accomplished by setting the standard by which to wrap up one's personal history for all time. Just set the standard above the selfish reifications based on your limited view of your own life's perceived experiences and motivations. It isn't a matter of condescension or condemning one's personally perceived indemnities and vulnerabilities in order to punish oneself or otherwise surpass them somehow. In transcending ego, there is no value judgement employed~ one simply arrives at a point of failing to posit circumstantial identities altogether by a process of refusing to entertain self-reflecting notions of thought and feeling at a subtle level of unbroken concentration over a very long period of time. What happens is, the intellectualized rationalistic self-reifying habit-function defining one’s personality eventually craps out on its own. The personality doesn’t go away— but by self-refinement, just the apparatus seemingly needing to sustain it does. Ego has real jobs to do, and sustaining the false identity isn’t one of them. So instead of harboring destructively self-reifying anticipatory consciousness by waiting for this to happen, it’s like wearing out a shoe. The world already provides the abrasive means naturally. Self-refinement is just adapting to this all-pervasive abrasive quality of delusional conditionality to get the desired result, which is the elimination of habit-energy in one's life that continuously wastes pure energy potential on superfluous ego-antics. Eventually, over a long period of time, the habit-patterns perpetuating the delusional faculties drop off one by one by the enlightening process dealing with everyday ordinary situations effectively. It is by the authentic practice of enlightening activity adapting to conditions with selfless spiritual subtlety not relying on one's personal power that refinement of the human mentality comes about. This enlightening process is the natural subtle capacity of self-refinement carried out by first learning to forget feelings by spiritual clarification. The basic inability to free oneself and to keep oneself free of cloying emotional consciousness is why one must learn how to maintain open sincerity. One immediately knows what is what without having to posit self-reifying (selfish) emotional postures relative to self and other. Stopping at sufficiency is essential to the development of authentic practice. When one gains insight, habit energy must be cut off deliberately, at first, or its momentum will naturally destroy that insight. This must be done over and over and over again at the precise instant that habit-energy appears in the aftermath of insight. It is accomplished simply by subtle observation. In noting the flow of conditioned thought and not following its stream unawares, the flow evaporates on the spot. Second, on must learn to forget opinions. Opinions of self and other must be forgotten. An ancient saying is that it is easy to forget one’s body, but very difficult to forget one’s opinions. One day, after a long, long time, you just …forget to remember. (That sounds like the lyric of an old Country/Western tune~ heehee!!) "Empty the mind and fill the belly.” This ancient taoist phrase means to empty the human mentality and see real potential. The process of self-refinement is getting rid of delusional consciousness and beckoning the real by sustaining open sincerity where feelings and opinions once crowded out naturally arising enlightening potential. When one learns to rest in the highest good of open sincere clarity, the real will alight naturally day by day. The achievement of enlightening experience is none other than an instance of having forgotten your lifetime up to that point which has the beneficial result of severing the root of compulsive action. The compulsion to act is the tap-root of karmic existential identity (being bound to endless rounds of birth and death in this lifetime) from time immemorial and beyond. Having the will to sustain a subtle consistency of psychological clarity and stillness over a long period of time arrives at the world-honored result. One spontaneous burst of inconceivable velocity cultivated by virtue of the unbending extreme limit held in an impersonal love so hopeless, death so open, and sincerity so world-shattering in scope that a spontaneously selfless movement extending beyond the blinds and bounds of conditioned awareness altogether is witnessed. In its aftermath, after a long time of advanced practical application of self-refinement induced by re-orienting one's sustained psychological and intellectual fasting in the course of assessing objectively and responding impersonally to ordinary situations, one continues to forget to bring one's conditioned personal identity along for the ride. And in endless instances, endless transformations, one leaves it for all time with respect to the incremental exigencies of karmic evolutionary nature. Such is the life of buddhas and ignoramuses. All phenomenon and gradual practice leading to sudden realization of nonorigination and beyond unfathomable worlds are one singularity; a seamless continuum. In a moment of having forgotten one's facetious identity for the first time, one's karmic debt of lifetimes of personal histories— is altogether forgotten along with all creation; in a trice, one's true original aware potential sees itself as having always been aglow without beginning. Here one surpasses in discovering the great matter of birth and death once and for all in the dim splendor of inherent Bright Virtue. Experiencing the Unborn, one discovers living awareness as the heart of non-being on the verge of action in perpetuity. This is the limit of the limitless, neither stillness nor movement beyond conception. It is another universe within one's innermost true self. There is no thing. Selfless open aware potential in pervasive suffusion by beginningless readiness that has never moved …a quickened energy hovering in stillness above the primal organization and its sprouts of cyclic existential process. There is no knowledge. Awake selfless non-being, aware, miraculously aware. In rising above habitual selfish views of one's ingrained sarcasm, indifference, apathy, intellectual conceits, self-satisfaction, guilt-trips and dualistic attitudes, one makes enlightenment the standard to die by. In taoist spiritual alchemy, the basic sequence of developing and stabilizing the authentic unity of potential in terms of conditional evolution is a long process. In this post, I have established the first two stages of developmental practice as clarifying the body of awareness and reforming the psychological apparatus of the being that is going to die. These two steps, carried out in one's life with unbending intent, establish the basis of fundamental accord in reality, wherein one arrives at seeing potential by nonpsychological awareness, which is the same mind previously (pre)occupied as the errant human mentality of psychological pattern-awareness. The false and the true arrive at Suchness; there is no other mind. Enlightenment and delusion have never been separate. Mind is one. The formal organizational overview of taoist spiritual alchemy is as follows: First, refine vitality into energy (the subject of this thread); second, refine energy into spirit; third, refine spirit into openness; fourth, shatter space and empty out openness; five, enter the Tao in reality. ed note: Split last sentence in fourth paragraph; add a bit at end of the 5th; add quip in 7th; change "binds" to "blinds" in 10th; add "I" and last two lines in penultimate paragraph

"The story of Adam and Eve is an allegory describing the loss of “paradise” through the arising of self-knowing. So, it seems, there is wholeness (paradise) and within that boundless, free-floating, causeless energy, something appears which experiences itself as being separate from that wholeness (paradise). Here is a metaphor pointing to what seems like “the story” of self-consciousness, out of which is apparently born the knowing and experience of free will, choice, time and space, purpose and direction. As “the story” unfolds, so the self learns to know “the world out there” and attempts to negotiate the best deal possible for itself . . . it apparently takes action to find pleasure and avoid pain. The greater the knowledge the more effective the action, the results and the apparent sense of personal control . . . or so it seems. All of these efforts bring varying results, and so the individual comes to know fluctuating states of gratification and disappointment. However, it can be noticed that there seems to be an underlying sense of dissatisfaction which drives the self to find a deeper meaning. Because the apparent self can only exist through its own knowing, its search for a deeper meaning will be limited to that which it can know and experience for itself. Within these limitations there are a multitude of doctrines, therapies, ideologies, spiritual teachings and belief systems that the seeker can come to know. There can also be the knowing and experiencing of states of silence, stillness, bliss, awareness and detachment, all of which seem to come and go like night and day. All of these teachings, recommendations and prescriptions are attempting to provide the seeker with answers to that which is unknowable, and ways to find that which has never been lost. So the self is the separate seeker that pursues everything that it thinks it can know and do, excepting the absence of itself. That absence is the emptiness which is unknowable, but paradoxically is also the very fullness, the wholeness (paradise) that is longed for. Should the apparent seeker meet with a perception which reveals in great depth the real nature of separation and also exposes, without compromise, the sublime futility of seeking, there can be a collapse of the construct of the separate self. That totally impersonal message carries with it a boundless energy into which the seemingly contracted energy of self unfolds. A resonance can arise which is beyond self awareness . . . something ineffable can be sensed . . . a fragrance and an opening to the wonder of unknowing can emerge. Suddenly, there seems to be a shift and an impersonal realisation that this is already wholeness. The boundless, naked, innocent, free-floating and wonderful simplicity of beingness is already all there is . . . it is extraordinary in its ordinariness and yet it cannot be described. -- Tony Parsons

@Batman Thank you for posting this take on the mind. Just for the sake of reference, did you write it? It gives a very nice synopsis of how mind is actually secondary to Intelligence, which actually informs mind from its impersonal, transcendental viewpoint. The sense of self, identity, world knowledge, and experience are of the mind. More often than not, peeps never actually awaken from that world of boundaries, concepts, and delusion, living a life cut off from and, seemingly, lacking Wholeness. Consciously be aware of when, as Intelligence, touching the mind takes place and the bifurcation into/as duality begins. The sum of such bifurcated "parts/distinctions" will never amount to Wholeness/Oneness.

In a prior thread, I used the ancient phrase "it has no location" in reference to the Center, which is the impersonal unity of the immaterial body of awareness. Another related alchemic phrase is to "float around in the center of the compass." That it has no location is not to mean that it is somewhere else. It is a teaching device to prevent misguided materialistic people from attempting to pander to the development and/or pursuit of derivative psychological spinoffs characteristic of habituation to pimping aesthetic naming and their values, indulging in self-reifying visualization practices, addiction to formal quietism or psychosomatic techniques (energetics) that only confuse the order of authentic practice by the mishandling of the terminology of alchemy only to fool themselves and others unfortunate enough to be misled by such calculated activity. The reason that [having] no location is emphasized, is because even though the effect of the Center is by virtue of having a physical body, and it is not beyond the body of the being that is going to die, there is nothing relative to personal aesthetic, mental or physical manipulation, deprivation or effort relative to the body, in private or in public situations, or is there any part of the body, physical, plasmic or subtle, that constitutes this Center of the immaterial Body of Awareness. Therefore consciousness itself cannot be construed to have any such personal attributes constituting it. Consciousness cannot have an appreciative or antagonistic perspective relative to itself or any thing. Consciousness has no point of reference such as sentient beings do. Why? Consciousness is simply the quality and capacity of one's selfless awake nature. It has no point of view. Consciousness doesn't see. It is seeing itself and is therefore selfless, uncreated; no different than true reality, nonoriginated. This is the inconceivable nature of ignoramuses and buddhas alike. Even in ordinary situations, they are hardly discernible to the awakened, but for tell-tale signs of karmic momentum, which cannot be stopped. In other words, this Center, being the body of immaterial awareness, is not relative to the physical body nor is it accessible in terms of any of the so-called "apertures" in the body used by the lowest of the low who employ perverted practices to "nurture essence", or else obscured by the attempts by some to posit identity values with respect to what it is. When people see this for themselves, they are liberated from the tyranny of psychological qualifications pertaining to self and other, including personalistic value judgements relative to self-reified projections identifying "creativity", "beauty", good and bad, right and wrong, and before and after. Liberation is liberation from having a self to posit as "self." This is realizing the nature of "awake" as itself, stripped bare, utterly naked with nothing to hide, nothing to show, and most importantly, nothing to know. To float around "in the center of the compass" is to be just this quality of awake in the very midst of delusional, situational, karmic existence. Applying the selfless intent of open sincerity liberated from habit energies relative to egoism hiding behind personal views and projections, and without dwelling on anything or clinging to anything is the highest practice of self-refining enlightening activity, in which vulnerability to what is, is the basis of carrying out subtle spiritual adaption in the midst of everyday ordinary affairs, neither courting perfection nor avoiding potential impurities in terms of peoples' habit-energy, or blind malpractice (agreeable or otherwise) constituting situationally karmic momentum.

For that, she needs to be aware first. How would he react if she were to interact with young guys? What if she acts in a child-like manner - would he get annoyed? Does he act in an authoritative manner around her, just because he is older to her? You can look at a lot of things - and believe me, it’s easier, too - given this age difference. There’s some well-defined territories here, that can be used as a means for assessment. Also, to truly get to know any individual- no matter what the age- takes time. There’s going to be an investment of time and energy, and we cannot deny that. The only thing I would advice is - stay close to her, talk to her about it, and do the impersonal assessment yourself. Your sister is going to be invested, and people in relationships overlook these things and give too many chances. To be very honest, you got to be her rock. @BornToBoil

Those who glibly claim to have "no practice" and trumpet simply living as "my life" are sadly deluded. This is because following random activity and calling that spontaneity, may be accomplishing "no practice", but this has no affinity with the function of subtle concentration observing mind and arriving at perpetual cessation of random consciousness. This is because "my life" at this point is not yet one's own, independent of conditioned existence. This is because "my life" at this point is bondage to karmic momentum where one follows thoughts unawares, only occasionally glimpsing moments of open lucidity and being thoroughly unable to sustain authentic acquiescence in perpetual inevitability. Such sustainability is not straying from the perpetual incipience of enlightening potential before the first thought. Until ignorant individuals arrive at the will to enlightenment and struggle deliberately for years to turn their lives around by reversing the light of their own consciousness, and finally arrive at the incipience of Complete Reality, will they discover for themselves that "my life" has no power in or outside of karmic evolution until it is blown away forever by realizing enlightening nature void of self. Until practice reaches the realm of unattributability, there is no autonomy because until one is finally and continuously aware of causelessness, one cannot transcend being bound by the conditioned self which constitutes the incrementally kinetic karmic matrix going through its inexorable cycles of birth and death in the perpetual revolving nature of created yin and yang (the oscillating polar nature of duality for agnostic readers). Obviously, it is only when individuals reach their serial impasses do they endeavor to deploy their defiant "my life" proclamations. This would be the very antithesis of the selflessly autonomous adaption of enlightening being in everyday ordinary situations unbeknownst to anyone which is the middle way whereby neither absolute nor mundanity stand. The "middle way" is a technical buddhist term of authentic teaching pointing to the nature of reality, which is immaterial. The definitive term is not relative to a sense of "moderation" per se, although in provisional teaching, this term is relevant to carrying out reformative practices. True effective practice is arrival at the subsequently permanent activation of reversal to illuminate enlightenment at its source and have that source void of self or other identify one's life. Those who fall back to the refuge of "my life" when it suits them are proving their ultimate ignorance of the source of spontaneity and their partnership as coeval with creation— and not subject to it. This is then where phenomena is empty and characteristics have their variables. Enlightening being is governed by random karmic activity in that selfless response has no set categories, only relying on the timing of heaven, the situations of earth, and the phantoms of self and other in concert as the creatively evolving karmic matrix alternates cyclically. Operating independently in the midst of bound creational influence doesn't mean existence is in isolation, as is what already constitutes the perspective of the deluded. It means one is dedicated to unmitigated vulnerability to such influence, as the essence of true potential is not relative to the person— it is inherent in the situation itself. That is, it is through our relationships that potential becomes apparent. That is not to say that unmitigated vulnerability is being a spineless psychological and emotional doormat for others. What is most critical in terms of true vulnerability to absorbing selfless potential is that one must stop letting the natural expression of true enlightening potential be a doormat for the false consciousness of habit energy. That means false identities of pattern-based ego function is ultimately subordinate to the impersonal nonpsychological enlightening function. Self-refinement is the long process of reverting the false identity from a position of dominance which obscures enlightening potential to a relational function in service of the subtle nonoriginated awareness. The person comes to assist the expression of Complete Reality by virtue of recognition of the true potential inherent in all created situational cycles through exercise of natural principles. In terms of the situation, such practice is called subtle adaption. In terms of potential, such practice is called the firing process of yin and yang, paying critical attention to the timing of the waxing of generative energy and the arising of the natural influence of each created cycle's killing energy. These two aspects of evolutionary and devolutionary process operate in both temporal and spiritual realms of manipulation. In taoist spiritual alchemy these aspects of enlightening practice are called the sciences of life and essence. In terms of the realm of enlightening potential, it simply is not and has never been an issue of good and bad, right and wrong, self and other or before and after. The issue is awakening to the the quality of awareness in which one assimilates in moment to moment adaption in everyday ordinary situations. It is the degree of variability between projections of self and other and the amorally selfless open sincerity of human being void of personality biases and inclinations. Enlightening function simply isn't the person, even though it is none other that who you really are. Arrival in terms of enlightening function transcends the puny morality of "my life" in that one sees through phenomena without denying their characteristics. You see through your life without denying its characteristics as well. Therefore one does not go along with conditions but subtly stands apart by not harboring ulterior motives in speculation on outcomes or for one's ego-securities, only adapting impersonally by assessing potential objectively in the midst of situational changes. The primal and temporal are originally not two. This is not beyond the function of enlightening being seeing through "my life". Complete Reality is one's function in terms of unity of absolute and conditional in one breath. Otherwise, what would be the point of seeing your nature? It is just to enable one to activate the real in ordinary situations unbeknownst to anyone. If anyone knew, it wouldn't be real~ nor would it be natural. "Nevertheless, it is necessary to wind up at the point where 'heaven is open, earth is broad, and all things are just as they are,' for only this can be considered attainment." ed note: add "at" in first sentence of 7th paragraph; split 8th paragraph in two

Rupert Spira made a comment once which made sense to me. I forget the details, but the gist was that for most people, nondual experiences are beauty and love. Beauty is when you forget yourself in something impersonal, like some art, or nature like a beautiful sunset. Love is when your ego merges or expands into another person. Basically you realise the boundaries of self are relative, change according to the situation, not fixed to your individuality.

AWARENESS OF THOUGHTS MEDITATION By learning to watch your thoughts come and go during this practice, you can gain deeper insight into thinking altogether (such as it’s transience) and into specific relationships among your thoughts and your emotions, sensations, and desires. This practice can also help you take your thoughts less personally, and not automatically believe them. Additionally, this meditation can offer insight into any habitual patterns of thinking and related reactions. Observe your thoughts as they arise and pass. By “thoughts,” we mean self-talk and other verbal content, as well as images, memories, fantasies, and plans. Just thoughts may appear in awareness, or thoughts plus sensations, emotions, or desires. Sit or lie down on your back in a comfortable position. Become aware of the sensations of breathing. After a few minutes of following your breath, shift your attention to the various thoughts that are arising, persisting, and then passing away in your mind. Try to observe your thoughts instead of getting involved with their content or resisting them. Notice the content of your thoughts, any emotions accompanying them, and the strength or pull of the thought. Try to get curious about your thoughts. Investigate whether you think in mainly images or words, whether your thoughts are in color or black and white, and how your thoughts feel in your body. See if you notice any gaps or pauses between thoughts. Every time you become aware that you are lost in the content of your thoughts, simply note this and return to observing your thoughts and emotions. Remember that one of the brain’s major purposes is to think, and there is nothing wrong with thinking. You are simply practicing not automatically believing and grasping on to, or ‘clinging’ to your thoughts. When you are ready, return your attention to your breath for a few minutes and slowly open your eyes. Optional: There are various metaphors and images you can use to help observe your thoughts. These include: Imagining you are as vast and open as the sky, and thoughts are simply clouds, birds, or planes passing through the open space. Imagining you are sitting on the side of a river watching your thoughts float by like leaves or ripples in the stream. Imagine your thoughts are like cars, buses, or trains passing by. Every time you realize you are thinking, you can “get off the bus/train” and return to observing. Please be gentle with yourself if you notice that you are constantly caught up in your thoughts instead of observing them. This is both common and normal. When you realize that you are thinking, gently and compassionately return to observing your thoughts. If the content of your thoughts is too disturbing or distressing, gently shift your attention to your breathing, sounds, or discontinue the practice. Remember that you are not trying to stop thoughts or only allow certain ones to arise. Try to treat all thoughts equally and let them pass away without engaging in their content. This practice can initially be more challenging than other meditations. As you are learning, practice this meditation for only a few minutes at a time if that is easier. It can be helpful to treat thoughts the same way that you treat sounds or body sensations, and view them as impersonal events that arise and pass away. Some people like to assign numbers or nicknames to reoccurring thoughts in order to reduce their pull and effect.

I wanted to have my kids my whole life, and I have two kids now, but I had two miscarriages before I had them and no way of knowing that I'd ever have a baby. I remember what hearing pregnancy announcements or seeing babies would feel like during that time. It was joy for someone else, but I was NOT seeing it. I know this probably seems like it has nothing to do with your situation, but it has everything to do with it, because it's just the tendency of the mind to notice what is missing. Don't look at what is missing, look for what is there. A sunset is stunningly beautiful, but you don't get tempted to try to claim it, own it or get worried that you won't be able to have it or hold on to it. If you can train that sort of impersonal appreciation of little things, you can apply them to the things you really, really want. Then you can take intelligent or inspired action to experience those things too.

I decided to create a character for myself that will help me understand what I want better. I name this character Parsivales Ritter and the nickname is Ute Lyttle. I kinda felt odd referring to myself as Dear Preety in my personal letters in my journals. It felt too personal that way. So I decided that I had to have an impersonal way of reference and I was interested in this character that I created in my head. I was literally trying to grow into this character. So I will refer to myself as "Dear Ute" in letters addressed to me. I get a certain joy in talking to myself. I know it sounds odd. I also have an idea how Ute is going to look like.

Get curious about the mystery of the mind. . . It’s not personal. I’m pointing to something impersonal. At one cognitive level, it’s perceived as “a flaw in the individual”. At another cognitive level, it is seen as a mind dynamic, integrated between individual and collective. An interesting development. . . ? This is within the perspective of a mind identified and attached to “the social issue”. Notice the repetitive assumption of the social issue. That is a major assumption and the key to expansion. If that assumption is deconstructed, the mind can expand another cognitive level. Yet the assumption serves as the grounding for which the whole story is based. There are many ways to look at this “social issue”, yet doing so destablizies the story that “there is a serious problem and social issue here that needs to be addressed”. Story vs anti-story is a block to story transcendence. When there is a block from transcendent views, engaging within the block re-enforces the block. It increases construction. It makes it feel even more real and problematic.

Not every thread is about self-development. When someone points out an issue he observes within a given society, not always is it appropriate to point to the flaws of the individual who is pointing out the issue. It seems like there is an underlying assumption here that the issue I am describing is not real and that it is limited to my own projections. This is already very close-minded. This thread was not about the importance of curiosity, it was about the importance of a very particular curiosity, a unique kind of curiosity that I described in my first post. It seems to me that you could have dismissed any criticizism possible with the way you are looking at this. You do not seem to recognize the complete relativity of what you deem distracting. To you, this thread is a distraction from an opportunity of self-observation. To someone else, your persistent pointing out of this individual problem is a distraction of the pointing out of the societal issue. You yourself are actively engaged in creating a story of a problem, and you are quite persistent at doing this. You are here protecting your own story, your own problems, and it seems like that is your priority, rather than listening to what the student is saying. Everything can be a distraction. There is a time and place for everything. I am glad that you are trying to help, but as so many times before, your impersonal communication feels to me inappropriate in this setting. It is perceived primarily as a dismissal, rather than a genuine effort to help.