Zigzag Idiot and the ladder of Objective Reason

[Zigzag Idiot]

I didn’t post Jim’s weekly column last Sunday like I usually do. Here it is.

Self-love or Just Plain Selfish? (part 1 of 3)
by Dr. Jim Rosen
©2021 Dr. Jim Rosen
 

    There is a line that goes from selfish at one end to people pleaser at the other.  Right in the middle is self-love, where you live a balanced lifestyle - sometimes taking care of yourself and sometimes taking care of others.  Balance is the key; neither extreme is a virtue.  Taking care of other people, listening to their needs, setting aside your own plans - all are qualities of love.  But if you do nothing else, you become a doormat.  You don't listen to your own needs.  You don't extend the same empathy to yourself that you extend to others.  This will cause you to devalue yourself and resent other people.  The opposite end of the line is no more virtuous.  It's very important to attend to your own needs.  But if you always look out for yourself, you're taking from others in order to build yourself up.  It certainly isn't because you like yourself.  It's really because you feel unimportant.  Fear, hurt, anger and jealousy gnaw at you.  You take for yourself to try to quiet these feelings, and you disregard other people.  This isn't self-love; it's selfishness.  (To be continued)

[Zigzag Idiot]

From the perspective of the Earth time Humans are a very recent phenomena. Taking the creation of the Earth 4.6 billion years ago to the present as one year of time, the evolutionary jump to Man in 8800 B.C. occurred only one minute ago.

This was something I ran into n the foot notes of http://www.chanceandchoice.com/

                                                                          Passive Aggressiveness

In discovering my own passive aggressive tendencies years ago, which was an uncomfortable experience, I began to experience seeing it more in others and how it remains largely unconscious.I feel that seeing it in myself, I was allowed to see it in others more because I could forgive them or more accurately, at times, overlook passive aggressive jabs from others. I’m not trying to come off as any kind of saintly figure. Anyone who follows this journal any already knows that.

The thought recently that plausible deniability and passive aggressiveness go together like peanut butter and jelly got this going. More accurately perhaps, plausible deniability is a component of passive aggressive jabs. There’s a form of suffering that’s going on with people who do this. I can say that because it was a part of my experience. Feeding on negativity is an element of this suffering.  Schadenfreude is a German word whose definition comes real close to what I’m saying.

When I was under this spell of subtle suffering, it seems now that I wasn’t really conscious of it. It’s easier to see in other people than in oneself actually but I believe that seeing it in oneself is key for becoming free of it in both cause of it and effect of it. Plausible deniability is also probably an ingredient in how we bullshit ourselves that we don’t do it. The mood is a toned down version of - I’m unhappy so everyone needs to be unhappy,,, Most everyone probably has someone in their life who really exemplifies this. That is, unless you’re one of the lucky ones. ?

In self observation or inquiry, this kind of brutal honesty is necessary for getting anywhere in removing some shadow from our lives, I believe.

[Zigzag Idiot]

The Law of attraction and the flow state

Years ago after beginning self inquiry I began to notice a peculiar phenomena.  On days when my internal dialogue was filled with negativity, it would mirror outside in the world around me as being clumsy, stubbing my toe or getting fingers smashed, etc.,, Also my efficiency In carrying out tasks would go down the tubes. 
On the reverse side, when experiencing a state of flow, tasks would be knocked out with rapid efficiency accompanied by a quiet inner state.

Yesterday while climbing up the side of the paint booth in our shop I recalled an incident years ago. I was on the roof of the shop near the peak temporarily removing a sheet of tin to repair a bad place in the peak. In doing so I mistakenly removed all the screws in the sheet of tin which sent it flying outward and down dumping me into the shop. God saved an Idiot I thought yesterday in going by that spot. Fortunately I fell downward two inches onto a rafter rather than 18 feet onto concrete with steel scattered about.

My task yesterday was repairing some high pressure air line. Just a few seconds after going by the spot where the incident happened years before I walked across the top of the paint both and grabbed the high pressure line with intentions of snapping it off where the air was spewing. I thought enough air had been released that it would be safe to do so. I was wrong. It exploded and laid a raspberry across my face and shoulder and slightly blacking one eye. Even while the pain was still throbbing I thought something like “a benevolent God has once again saved an Idiot”. Knowing that I had just came extremely close to having lost my right eye being partially hit by the blast.

The Oracle of the Cosmic Way points out how we create fates in our lives by the words we use which become spells in creating those fates. The spoken words and phrases we tell ourselves as well as the internal dialogue going on as we go about our day have very real consequences. I notice this phenomena more and more as time goes on. There’s a subtlety here as well I’ve noticed. In acknowledging a benevolent God/Universe, I was indeed spared from a more serious trauma. Had I been in a really poisonous frame of mind, things would probably been much worse. Despite years of noticing this phenomena, still there are days experienced in varying degrees of spiritual sleep. That’s a pointer to the difficulty in being and remaining in a state of higher consciousness.

[Zigzag Idiot]

About 6 years ago I was in a little online ACIM discussion group. This idea popped into my mind one day and I produced a quote of my own. 

There’s nothing wrong with having nothing to say.

At the time it produced a sense of groundedness. I’m usually a quiet person. The more quiet I am, the more grounded I feel, as a rule. I don’t get trapped up in my head in inner considering. Inner considering is a Fourth Way term roughly synonymous with neurotic thought. The more insecure a person is the more of a plague inner considering is, IMO. I’ve posted this little two minute video several times. With only 300 views, I bet 50 of them are mine. I really like all the short videos this guy made. I remember Castaneda writing that sometimes for the truth  to stick we must repeat them to the point of exhaustion. He said something close to that anyway.

Another thing which keeps me grounded in the body more and stuck less up in my head is not wearing glasses. I can’t see far off and I can do without glasses. A few years ago I noticed that with glasses on my frame of vision is closer to tunnel or predator vision. With glasses off I feel more spacious,,, more oceanic, more embodied and I’m tuned into my peripheral vision. Having split attention between predator and peripheral vision for me is a hallmark of or a part of being in Witness consciousness. In witness consciousness there is never a startle response experienced. In my experience anyway.

[Zigzag Idiot]

We are a different person every 5 minutes, all day long.

Terence. McKenna said - “Rome falls nine times an hour.”

[Zigzag Idiot]

The quickest way to become miserable and confused is to reach conclusions.

Most of my life I’ve been terrible at living with ambiguity, though. It’s gotten easier somewhat as I’ve grown older.

[Zigzag Idiot]

Self-love or Just Plain Selfish? (part 2 of 3)
by Dr. Jim Rosen
©2021 Dr. Jim Rosen
 

    Self-love is a feeling of positive regard.  When you have true self-love, you guide this positive regard toward yourself and toward all of humanity.  You show love to yourself because you're a person - a creation of God.  You show love to the rest of us for the same reason.  Of course you don't love everyone's behavior.  What you love is their heart, their core.  You love the soul of humanity, because they hurt and yearn and need like you do.  Deep feelings - of love, trust, faith, and security - give birth to self-love.  When you love yourself, you put trust and faith in yourself.  You recognize that your needs and wants are real.  You feel worthy and you want to be good to yourself.  So, you learn to be giving and kind to yourself and appropriately assertive.  You strive to pay attention to your own needs, and you give them equal importance to other people's needs.  (To be continued.)

[Zigzag Idiot]

Projections can quietly and steadily gain momentum.

To gain clarity is to become free inside of all the others in order to hear again one’s inner truth. Inner truth connects all the way back to beginners mind. Cleaning one’s atmosphere is paradoxical in that becoming free of everyone, unity is attained with all others. Clearing the luminous egg and then metaphorically making it hermetically sealed is an act of Will and Love. The luminous egg needs to be clean while the assemblage moves or slightly shifts to keep one’s awareness free from liens  and mortgages. Don’t put a property tax on a burned out village. Let go and become free once again in unity and inner quiet. 
In times past that seemed extraordinary, I found it necessary and worthwhile to build an adjoining pen to my luminous egg in order to let the ego run wild. The pen encircled the luminous egg making it seem larger than it actually was. Having attained inner quiet in a particular way, there is an obscure bylaw which allows one to make up rules within certain parameters. It was an unexpected discovery. Being free from negativity and violence bestows on one a curious power. If you expectantly look for it though, it will not appear.

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

Robert Thurman, Buddhist scholar and Deepak Chopra toss it back and forth. I bought this dvd off Amazon a few years ago. It’s both entertaining and educational.

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

Friends don’t let friends get stuck and stay in their head. A good friend will recognize the phenomena and say, “Hey, you’re thinking too much” or “”Hey! -friends name- do you realize you’re stuck in your head?” “You’re not going to be able to embody diddly-squat while you got that going on,,,,”
A good friend will be a placeholder and their effectiveness in busting someone out of neurotic thought and thinking too much can be a measure of their skillful means. This can mean initiating conversations with friends while they’re  in different states of consciousness and help to stretch their frame of reference so that later on a simple statement can be enough to help bust someone out.

[Zigzag Idiot]

What I was describing above is ‘inner considering’ using Fourth Way lingo. Itoklanoz awareness was the phrase used in Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson which means two centered awareness.  Three centered awareness which is proper for 3 brained Beings was referred to as Fulasnitamnian awareness. 
To enter the Kingdom, which is at hand by the way, requires Fulasnitamnian awareness. We can’t maintain any kind of balance or “have our being” if we’re lopsided in our awareness.

 

This morning,,, well, yesterday morning now, in my I CHING reading I got -

hexagram 27 - Nourishing lines 2,3 and 6 creating a second hexagram 11- Peace

I’ll share the interesting commentary from line 6 of hexagram 27-

 

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

The amount of projecting that goes on in the world is staggering.

 

 

The amount of identifying that goes on in the world is staggering also.

Its not sex but negative emotion that makes the World go around. People unconsciously feed on negativity. Observe the media,,,

Everyone is a multiplicity but everyone thinks they are the exception.

[Zigzag Idiot]

Still a lot of projections and miss interpretations going on. IME I’ve been pretty busy lately. I’m tired and sleepy now. I’m going to try not to overanalyze if I can remember that there’s nothing wrong with having nothing to say. For now anyway. ✌️ 

[Zigzag Idiot]

Self-love or Just Plain Selfish? (part 3 of 3)
by Dr. Jim Rosen
©2021 Dr. Jim Rosen
 

    Perhaps you haven't learned to balance your own needs with the needs of others.  So you don't yet have true self-love.  You're either too far one way or the other, and you need to learn the skills at the other end.  If you've been too self-centered, you need to acquire the skills of giving before you can have self-love.  You won't learn these skills by doing them occasionally.  Instead, you have to make a devoted study of other people's needs, and forget about yourself for the next year or two.  You need to be like Scrooge after being visited by the Spirits of Christmas.

    But if it's your life pattern to be the people-pleaser, then you need a long-term visit with the needs of self.  For the next year or two, your task is to say "no" to other people and "yes" to yourself.  Your primary questions have to be "what do I want?" and "what do I need?"  You will not become a selfish person.  That's just your fear.  You'll actually learn to value yourself, and you'll discover that others value you too.

    With much practice, your new learning becomes your new habit.  Now you’ve acquired the skills at both ends of the continuum.  So, now you’re able to make real choices – you’re not just stuck in one place.  This is where balance and true self-love come to the forefront.  Sometimes you choose to take care of yourself, and sometimes you choose to take care of others.

[Zigzag Idiot]

Integration and Individuation 

Should and ought to are usually coming from the voice of the superego. I’m not completely done by all means but I’ve come a long way. I got the following in my email a couple of days ago. To me it looks like work on superego. That’s good,,,

A liberated sexual energy is fuel for the spiritual journey. 

Dear spiritual voyager, 

What is actually happening in you when you respond to a situation with strength and confidence? What fuels that boldness? And why can you do this sometimes, yet at other times, you shrink back; from your boss or your parents, or from overwhelm at the immensity of current events like the pandemic or environmental crises? How can you be more consistently courageous and self-assured?

On April 24 & 25, Diamond Approach teacher Zarina Maiwandi will host Boldness to Be, the third installment in our six-part Lightness of Being series. Zarina will guide us back to that subtle quality of being, the red latifa, that supports our natural fieriness of spirit and sense of adventure, that allows us to, as she says in this short video, “get big in the face of something big.”

 

In Boldness to Be, we will learn that:

Inquiring into where we are in this moment is the portal to reconnecting with the fiery initiating force of our natural boldness and strength
 

The purity of our boldness and strength can help us channel our anger and aggression in healthy and effective ways in our lives
 

This force helps us dismantle old assumptions about our bigness that come from our personal histories, our conditioning, our society, and other sources
 

We can meet the world’s difficulties—and our own—in bold and daring ways

“What if the scale and might and vibrancy that you see outside…is also possible inside you?” asks Zarina. “What would that be like?”

We invite you to come find out for yourself.

 

Edited April 20, 2021 by Zigzag Idiot

[Zigzag Idiot]

My I CHING reading this morning.

hexagram 2- Nature line 4 forming 2nd hexagram 16- Enthusiasm 

Just a part of line 4-

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

Ive reached my limit for attachments to my Journal. Actually this happened a few months ago and I’ve gone in and deleted a good many of them but I’m reaching a point where I just hate to erase any more like the one above which I’ve copied and pasted from my attachments list. I could use some input from someone on my options for being able to upload new attachments.
Can/should I start another journal for this purpose? If no one responds, I’ll make contact with a moderator for advice.

[Zigzag Idiot]

                                                                                  My Death Wish

I would like to cultivate the state of mind where I eagerly await death. To do it sincerely and not be doing it to just be putting on a show. That would be a real accomplishment. To look forward with curiosity instead of dread or macabre false bravado. Physical death of the body is pretty inevitable so why not? I’ve already decided in the past it would a good thing to not have any money left in the bank. I’ve always paid my bills and stayed away from debt so I wouldn’t want to owe money to anyone. My house could be either clean or dirty. It doesn’t matter. It’s a sure thing that I won’t die with good teeth. I’ve still got my hair but if I were to go bald, it doesn’t matter either. 
I would feel better if I had more lucid dreaming under my belt or some serious mystical experiences to inform my intuition . To absolutely not fear death and instead be looking forward with an optimistic curiosity would definitely be a good thing. 
My father left this Earth at 66 years old. He wore his body out and Cancer got a hold on him at 63. I’ve probably been exposed to as many carcinogens as he had been exposed to and the thought already occurred to me at the time of his death that I should not take for granted a life lived past 66 for myself. That gives me about 12-13 years left. The last 12 years has flown by so it will be here before I know it. In Gurdjieff terms. Will I have a completely formed causal body?
 

This also brings up a notion that  I heard recently expressed by Alan Watts. How can we part if we’ve never met? 
 

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

In going through my previous attachments that I’ve posted I’m encountering a few that I’m going to share again. This is from Nassim Haramein. 


 

Above chart is from Cynthia Bourgeault’s book Eye of the Heart in which she discusses the Causal Realm or as she uses the phrase Imaginal Realm. She places the Kingdom of Heaven beginning at World 24 (Gurdjieff terminology)  Today I realized what a handy description of the Ray of Creation the following 3:43 YouTube gives.

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

 I fell asleep and woke up as Leo’s video Understanding impermanence from September of 2019 was playing. Very pertinent concernmy “Death wish” expressed earlier .

 

Another topic.  Love with  a big L, agape is Love for all. If held as a standard to live by, it turns into an ego trap or fate creating falsity.

Some quotes about Love.

The idea of both conditional and unconditional love comes from the collective ego, and reveals its thinking in terms of opposites. Giving love on conditions is the ego's way of withholding love until it gets what it wants. True love is a Cosmic gift to a person's true self, and is meant to flow from there to other's true selves, and back to the Cosmos, in a complete circle. This Cosmic gift is never meant to be thrown away at the ego because the ego is outside the Cosmic principles. The collective ego has invented the idea of unconditional love to rob the True self of its very life force, under the pretense that it is "spiritual" to extend one's love to everyone, regardless of the ego's presence."

-from The Oracle Of The Cosmic Way.

When You are Complete Love Arises for Everyone and Everything

When you are complete, the action is love. Just as your body needs food and safety when you're taking care of it, your environment needs care when you're complete. From the perspective of completeness, the whole universe is your body. There is no separation, so you take care of it as an action of love. There is no sense of isolation, of feeling you are separate from other things and not caring about them. Love arises for everyone and everything. 

Diamond Heart Book Three, pg. 98

Your Personality or Ego Does Not Know How to Love

The first thing you need to know is that your personality or ego does not know how to love. It cannot love. When you say, "I love you," it is always a lie, because the person who says, "I" cannot love, and doesn't know what love is. The personality does not know how to love. The personality is the product of the lack of love, so how can it know love? The personality is what you usually think is you, what you call "I," "myself." When you say "I," it is a lie. "I" doesn't love. "I" doesn't know how to love. "I" is there because you don't know how to love. "I" is there from the beginning because of the loss of love. The very existence of an "I" is the absence of love, the blockage and distortion of love. The "I" knows how to need; the "I" does not know how to love. It is not possible. What we call "I," our separate identity, is our self-image. Even if the self-image knows what love is, it does not have the love and cannot be a source of love. In fact, when there is love, love tends to melt away the "I." The "I" relaxes and gets out of the way. 

Diamond Heart Book Two, pg. 153