What Is Your New Spirituality?

[DesertBob]

Bob, your frustrations are painful to read as I can easily place myself in your shoes ... Personally, living as an expat largely does it for me. It's not a cure all to the frustration that comes with the banal, but it certainly goes a long way ...

I have thought of living abroad myself, but I would probably have to be alone to do it. My fiancee is attached to her kids, particularly her son, who is a bit of a late bloomer and will probably be somewhat dependent on her for advice and support for awhile. I don't think she wants to move very far from him, at least until he's out of undergraduate school, but at least she feels a strong need to get the hell out of the small bedroom community she's stayed in for years (again, mostly for the sake of the kids, who, predictably, don't really appreciate it). We may end up someplace like Milwaukee, a place that is reasonably well supplied with freethinkers, in part because it's essentially a college town. That or something like it will do for now I suspect. Not exotic or fascinating but at least not this sterile. And we will travel regularly -- just got back from Vietnam and places like India and Australia are in our travel plans. If things continue to go reasonably well we can afford to spend 2 to 3 weeks abroad each year.

 

For us it's not so much the need for something completely different as it is the need to have more readily available options and an environment where you can meet interesting people. There's not even a decent community college anywhere close to here, much less a quality university environment; the political leaning is decidedly conservative and people are decidedly cliquish; the arts are pretty much limited to community theater. The variety of eateries is not great. And so on.

 

We'll figure it out. In the meantime it will take a good deal of tedium to unwind all the entanglements here, plus my remaining connections to the Phoenix area. Between us, we have three homes to sell into a soft market, I have a 33 rank digital organ I need to unload someplace, a grand piano to move up here ... even though we are both simplifying our lives it astounds me sometimes how much logistics is involved in something seemingly as simple as combining households and then moving to a different city!

[Vigile]

even though we are both simplifying our lives it astounds me sometimes how much logistics is involved in something seemingly as simple as combining households and then moving to a different city!

 

When I moved to DC, I only had two duffel bags full of belongings and it was everything I needed. I got married about a year later and when we moved out of the apartment a few months after we were married we had to rent a mid-sized Ryder truck to haul our belongings.

 

and places like India

 

One of these days, if my health holds up, I'd like to head back to India and rent a Royal Enfant bike (India's Triumph) and take a road trip across the country. It's such a beautiful country and culture. (think Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance India style) And I found if you ask the taxi drivers or other locals for advice on where to eat, the quality of the food you eat increases at least ten fold while the prices decrease at least half. Considering you can eat in most places there for about a dollar, you can eat like a king for fifty cents.

 

BTW, I'm having visa problems in Russia right now, so looks like I'll be heading back to Thailand for at least the next couple of months.

[DesertBob]

When I moved to DC, I only had two duffel bags full of belongings and it was everything I needed. I got married about a year later and when we moved out of the apartment a few months after we were married we had to rent a mid-sized Ryder truck to haul our belongings.

Heh ... reminds me of when I drove up here from AZ to get to know my fiancee better, I came with one station wagon full of computers and clothing and lived in an Extended Stay America for several months. It was all I needed, too. In between his marriages I remember my older brother thinking seriously about "decorating" his apartment entirely with bean bag chairs. We dudes know how to travel light!

BTW, I'm having visa problems in Russia right now, so looks like I'll be heading back to Thailand for at least the next couple of months.

I don't know about Russia, although my stepson would love to go there (his adolescent reason, which is plenty good enough for him, is "they have such bad-ass names, like Vladimir!"). Thailand is a place I'd definitely like to check out, though.

[Vigile]

Ha! My American friend had a visit from a couple of his grad student roommates a couple of weeks ago and one of them brought his 22 yo son who just graduated from a university in TN. The old guys forced this young guy to do the museum tours and thought that would be a good Russian experience for him. So, I took him out to a strip club, hookah bar and walking around the center until the metros opened in the a.m. to give him a taste of real Russia. Poor kid fell in love more times than I can count and committed himself to finding a career in Russia. I probably ruined his life.

[DesertBob]

Ha! My American friend had a visit from a couple of his grad student roommates a couple of weeks ago and one of them brought his 22 yo son who just graduated from a university in TN. The old guys forced this young guy to do the museum tours and thought that would be a good Russian experience for him. So, I took him out to a strip club, hookah bar and walking around the center until the metros opened in the a.m. to give him a taste of real Russia. Poor kid fell in love more times than I can count and committed himself to finding a career in Russia. I probably ruined his life.

You are a bad, bad man, Vigile. When my stepson is ready to have some sense fucked into him I will send him to Moscow for one of your guided tours :-)

[lynx]

Bob, your frustrations are painful to read as I can easily place myself in your shoes had I made other choices or were I able to step back into my past. I can't know or tell you what will work for you. Personally, living as an expat largely does it for me. It's not a cure all to the frustration that comes with the banal, but it certainly goes a long way, at least for me. When I talk to others who wonder why I don't want to return to the US, my honest answer is I spent more than 30 years there and it no longer holds any mysteries for me (at least none of the profound kind), while every day I seek to unwind mysteries that surround me and learn to see the world from a perspective I'd not contemplated.

I would love to do what you've done, Vigile. I have always felt like a fish out of water. I don't seem to fit into the culture I live in. I know that living abroad is not a cure-all for the existential angst that plagues me, but it may be a cure-all for feeling so completely out of place and out of sync with everyone around me. The fast-paced US culture, with its focus on "productivity" and social status, where people are identified by "what they do", not who they are, and a myriad of other empty, superficial notions hold zero value for me. I would like to live in a place where slowing down to reflect on life and enjoy the simple things without the constant hustle and bustle of "accomplishing" something every second is not viewed as laziness. The only people who seem to be excused from this characterization are the upper class or wealthy, since they are viewed as having already accomplished what they should have, so they're free to relax and enjoy life without the "lazy" characterization. Everyone else is expected to keep a raging fire lit under their ass, because they haven't arrived yet. What a crock.

 

I think this thread has been hijacked, thanks to DesertBob. It's not really about spirituality anymore. Great thoughts, Bob. It's been a very interesting read.

[Margee]

Bob, your frustrations are painful to read as I can easily place myself in your shoes had I made other choices or were I able to step back into my past. I can't know or tell you what will work for you. Personally, living as an expat largely does it for me. It's not a cure all to the frustration that comes with the banal, but it certainly goes a long way, at least for me. When I talk to others who wonder why I don't want to return to the US, my honest answer is I spent more than 30 years there and it no longer holds any mysteries for me (at least none of the profound kind), while every day I seek to unwind mysteries that surround me and learn to see the world from a perspective I'd not contemplated.

I would love to do what you've done, Vigile. I have always felt like a fish out of water. I don't seem to fit into the culture I live in. I know that living abroad is not a cure-all for the existential angst that plagues me, but it may be a cure-all for feeling so completely out of place and out of sync with everyone around me. The fast-paced US culture, with its focus on "productivity" and social status, where people are identified by "what they do", not who they are, and a myriad of other empty, superficial notions hold zero value for me. I would like to live in a place where slowing down to reflect on life and enjoy the simple things without the constant hustle and bustle of "accomplishing" something every second is not viewed as laziness. The only people who seem to be excused from this characterization are the upper class or wealthy, since they are viewed as having already accomplished what they should have, so they're free to relax and enjoy life without the "lazy" characterization. Everyone else is expected to keep a raging fire lit under their ass, because they haven't arrived yet. What a crock.

 

I think this thread has been hijacked, thanks to DesertBob. It's not really about spirituality anymore. Great thoughts, Bob. It's been a very interesting read.

 

Lynx - I swear we are soul sisters! This is a good thread and why can't this type of living be our new spiritualiy? Enjoying life to the fullest - giving up the whole struggle to 'get ahead'. No matter how hard I work, it's never enough anyway. There's always something that takes your money from right out of your hand.........

 

I am working myself bone tired. Have been for years............ I just got rid of half my clientele and decided to go part time for a year. T he past couple of weeks have been some of the happiest moments because I don't have 100 people grabbing at me. It's a huge relief for me. I'm happier. I just told my girl and 2 grandkids that I can actually go to the beach with them tomorrow. They were so excited! This is what I want to do. I may not be able to move to Russia like Vigile - but I can create my own 'Russia' right here if I want. (I know it won't be the same Virgil, but you know what I'm sayin'?)

[lynx]

Lynx - I swear we are soul sisters!

I think the same thing when I read your posts, Margee.

 

This is a good thread and why can't this type of living be our new spiritualiy? Enjoying life to the fullest - giving up the whole struggle to 'get ahead'. No matter how hard I work, it's never enough anyway. There's always something that takes your money from right out of your hand.........

Yes, why can't it be our new "spirituality" (using the term very loosely)? That sounds good to me.

 

I am working myself bone tired. Have been for years............ I just got rid of half my clientele and decided to go part time for a year. T he past couple of weeks have been some of the happiest moments because I don't have 100 people grabbing at me. It's a huge relief for me. I'm happier. I just told my girl and 2 grandkids that I can actually go to the beach with them tomorrow. They were so excited! This is what I want to do. I may not be able to move to Russia like Vigile - but I can create my own 'Russia' right here if I want. (I know it won't be the same Virgil, but you know what I'm sayin'?)

Wow, do I ever understand! I'm so glad you're making the change, Margee. We don't know if we have tomorrow. We need to make NOW count. I guess Canada is high pressure too?

 

My life as an artist (or the many other talents I have a potential for that I actually enjoy and find interesing) somehow passed me by. After working the job from hell in a very negative work environment for 60+ hours a week, constant overtime being the expectation otherwise I was not a loyal employee willing to sacrifice my entire life and well-bring for the good of the company, I've had enough. I got so burned out that I can't face going back to the rat race again. I figure I'll either find another way to survive, or I'll end up as a homeless beggar. I'm not far from that now. It's absolutely frightening, but hey, maybe that's when I'll really become "enlightened", when I've got nothing but the clothes on my back and I'm sleeping under a bridge.

[MultifariousBirdLady]

After the amazing outpour of posts due to my last post, I wanted to ask you guys a question. What is your new religion or spiritual path after you left Christianity? After the oil spill I remember that a lot of Pagans here got together to summon their deities to summon global healing. I know there are a lot of agnostics and atheists here too. I want to hear from people about any organized or unorganized faiths they practice.

 

So...what do you believe or practice?

 

I've been out ~ 20 yrs, and it's changed somewhat over time.

 

When I first got out, I was a somewhat wavering atheist... wavering because I'd had some meaningful spiritual experiences in Christianity and it was hard to just dismiss that as complete delusion. Even if there was no God, there was something important to be found in spirituality.

 

I became Pagan... Wiccan at first, since that's what I was able to find, and what most Pagans I encountered were. Most Pagan group practice in this area remains Wiccan in nature.

 

Now the "short answer" is that I call myself a Hellenic Pagan and Chaote, but I've been influenced by Tibetan Buddhism and Greek philosophy as well.

[Vigile]

I don't seem to fit into the culture I live in. I know that living abroad is not a cure-all for the existential angst that plagues me, but it may be a cure-all for feeling so completely out of place and out of sync with everyone around me.

 

Yeah, that's definitely me too. I didn't know there was anything wrong with me until I lived in Italy for a while. I felt at home and like I belonged for the first time in my life. After returning to the US I just itched to get out again until I finally made the move and did it. I'm not so sure this is an indictment of the US as much as it is me and how I'm personally wired.

[DesertBob]

Yes, why can't it be our new "spirituality" (using the term very loosely)? That sounds good to me.

+1 from the peanut gallery :-)

 

I don't bother to separate my spirituality into some separate compartment that takes all the mystery out of my moment to moment existence and wraps it in some kind of ritual and labels. If one's "spirituality" (in the sense of one's metaphysical beliefs and ethics and morality) aren't integrated with one's practical living, what good is it?

 

So I didn't mean to hijack anything, I was just taking the convo where it seemed to naturally go for me :-)

 

--Bob

[Antlerman]

Yes, why can't it be our new "spirituality" (using the term very loosely)? That sounds good to me.

+1 from the peanut gallery :-)

 

I don't bother to separate my spirituality into some separate compartment that takes all the mystery out of my moment to moment existence and wraps it in some kind of ritual and labels. If one's "spirituality" (in the sense of one's metaphysical beliefs and ethics and morality) aren't integrated with one's practical living, what good is it?

 

So I didn't mean to hijack anything, I was just taking the convo where it seemed to naturally go for me :-)

 

--Bob

With this I would agree. Being spiritual is less about a particular state, as it is a nature, even in the mundane affairs of life, in the pains of it, in ignorance and in insights. It's about our being, and being aware. It's not about feelings. It permeates everything, in the way being rational isn't just a single state of thought.

[NaturalMary63]

With this I would agree. Being spiritual is less about a particular state, as it is a nature, even in the mundane affairs of life, in the pains of it, in ignorance and in insights. It's about our being, and being aware. It's not about feelings. It permeates everything, in the way being rational isn't just a single state of thought.

 

(emphasis mine)

 

Well put!

 

Except the part with it not being about feelings.... I'd say that since permeates everything, it cannot help but be about emotions as well. Emotions are necessary expressions of thought, and I believe I recently read research showing that emotions are necessary in order to have rational thought. (I don't have time to double-check that assertion at the moment, but I think that was the gist of it.)

 

btw - for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, be sure to watch this video (sorry for x-posting)

[Antlerman]

With this I would agree. Being spiritual is less about a particular state, as it is a nature, even in the mundane affairs of life, in the pains of it, in ignorance and in insights. It's about our being, and being aware. It's not about feelings. It permeates everything, in the way being rational isn't just a single state of thought.

 

(emphasis mine)

 

Well put!

 

Except the part with it not being about feelings.... I'd say that since permeates everything, it cannot help but be about emotions as well. Emotions are necessary expressions of thought, and I believe I recently read research showing that emotions are necessary in order to have rational thought.

I didn't mean to suggest it isn't experienced emotionally. What I meant is that its not "about" emotions. Many people go seeking after transcendent experience in pursuit of the spiritual, and then as the experience subsides they feel that "God" is absent. They equate the experience of the spiritual with spirituality itself. That's the misnomer. It's not about the experience, but to be sure we can and do experience what can be called the spiritual, which by definition and experience transcends the rational. And in that transcendence, it permeates all the way down into the rational, and the pre-rational as well. It impacts everything.

 

This comes a little to what I was talking about with Bob earlier, which I owe him a response to, where I was talking about the locus of our self-identity. By that term locus, I mean the seat, the core of where we place that sense of 'self'. People normally identify their 'self' with that busy mass of thoughts swirling about in their heads; their perceptions, thoughts, feelings, anxieties, doubts, worries, joys, self-image grounded in ego, relations, finances, possessions, etc; all those things we identify our "self" with. In the same way people identify the spiritual with its symbol sets; gods, rituals, myths, 'woo-woo' feelings, etc. The locus of spiritual identity becomes confused with all the symbols; in just the same way ego identity becomes confused with its symbols.

 

We touched on meditative practices. For me in a very simple (yet difficult) act of suspending all the swirling of thoughts in our heads, you begin to see them more as like processes of the body, like the aches and pains and twitches of muscles, except they are activities of the brain in cognitive processes. In the same way you don't place the locus of self-identity with your muscle twitches, or that gurgling in the stomach, we come to recognize that "I" am not self-identified by my thought processes, my job, my house, my garden, my friends. Those are clothing, so to speak, just as my physical body is. In that simple recognition, you are able to step free from very much of the degree of anxieties about all those things we identify with, as they are less a threat to our existential being. They are less a threat because the locus of self-identity is not rooted in them.

 

For me the spiritual is the ultimate locus of identity, it permeates down into all understanding, into all experience. My identity is timeless, spaceless, and as such eternal. One thought to add to this is the confusion of prerational with the spiritual. The spiritual is experienced at all levels of awareness, since it is the very Nature of all things. But that the world in a prerational, superstitious stage talked about the spiritual in prerational language does not define the spiritual as prerational, anymore that a child who talks about love defines love for every adult. There are increased depths of experience and understanding about love as we mature. So the rational mind can embrace the spiritual as well, as it is not defined by the rational, but can be experienced within the rational. As I said in another thread, it enhances the rational without violating it.

 

Hope that wasn't too much of a ramble of thoughts....

[DesertBob]

By that term locus, I mean the seat, the core of where we place that sense of 'self'. People normally identify their 'self' with that busy mass of thoughts swirling about in their heads; their perceptions, thoughts, feelings, anxieties, doubts, worries, joys, self-image grounded in ego, relations, finances, possessions, etc; all those things we identify our "self" with. In the same way people identify the spiritual with its symbol sets; gods, rituals, myths, 'woo-woo' feelings, etc. The locus of spiritual identity becomes confused with all the symbols; in just the same way ego identity becomes confused with its symbols.

I recognize that I am not my feelings or thoughts, however, I do experience them, and they are elicited by certain stimuli. They reflect, basically, the intersection between my needs / preferences and my experience, and the fit (or lack thereof) between them. I can have my locus anywhere I want and stuff still happens. Whether or not that stuff registers as a threat seems to me more a function of experience and perspective than it does of locus.

We touched on meditative practices. For me in a very simple (yet difficult) act of suspending all the swirling of thoughts in our heads, you begin to see them more as like processes of the body, like the aches and pains and twitches of muscles, except they are activities of the brain in cognitive processes. In the same way you don't place the locus of self-identity with your muscle twitches, or that gurgling in the stomach, we come to recognize that "I" am not self-identified by my thought processes, my job, my house, my garden, my friends. Those are clothing, so to speak, just as my physical body is. In that simple recognition, you are able to step free from very much of the degree of anxieties about all those things we identify with, as they are less a threat to our existential being. They are less a threat because the locus of self-identity is not rooted in them.

I am more able to regard, say, my house as a fungible commodity than, say, my fiancee. Some things are just more valuable than others. Now, some people consider their material possessions of paramount importance, and I can see where doing so would create considerable stress and misery that I do not personally have. But one doesn't have intimacy or companionship or camaraderie with a house or a boat like you do with your wife or your children. The result being that even someone who is focused on possessions and the status they confer in the minds of some, can usually awaken from that trance after a tornado carries it all away and leaves them with their loved ones intact. It puts things in perspective very quickly. Whereas the inverse is not true; someone who cares about their loved ones and has them borne away by a tornado finds no consolation in that house and boat they were sanguine about all along.

 

So ... my relationships, mere clothing? I don't think so.

 

I think that the Buddhists recognize this implicitly when they basically require their holy people to become monks or nuns. If this is a requirement to achieve the highest spirituality in that ancient belief system, then we can conclude that there are limits to how much a spiritual locus exempts you from any concerns about anything you might care about.

[Antlerman]

Whether or not that stuff registers as a threat seems to me more a function of experience and perspective than it does of locus.

And how does that perspective change except by the vantage point?

 

So ... my relationships, mere clothing? I don't think so.

What I meant is that we identify ourselves within those associations. Not that relationships are mere trappings. Not at all. But we can and do place too much of ourselves in others. We should embrace them and make them part of our worlds, and they become part of the fabric that defines our own uniqueness. All I am saying is that it is all temporal. Embrace others, embrace life itself, love it fully, but hold it with an open hand. In order to do that you have to be more than them.

 

I think that the Buddhists recognize this implicitly when they basically require their holy people to become monks or nuns. If this is a requirement to achieve the highest spirituality in that ancient belief system, then we can conclude that there are limits to how much a spiritual locus exempts you from any concerns about anything you might care about.

Well I'm not sure about all the various disciplines out there, but am aware of those who believe we should cut ourselves off from the world in pursuit of the Divine. I would be of the mind that from the Divine flows Life itself, and as such we should embrace life through it, not cut ourselves off from it in some selfish pursuit. It's a matter of overcoming selfishness, in order to understand and become Life Itself. From the many to the One; from the One to the many. I believe in living.

[Galien]

Interesting discussion so far. Vigle hit the nail on the head when he said we are all wired differently and we ARE. Nothing annoys me more than attempts to fit us all into the same little box.

 

For quite a few of us life will always be a hard slog, because we love too much, care too much and feel too much. The result of decades of that is that it all becomes TOO MUCH. We have already overcome selfishness, or never had it anyway, and we live in a world full of people who not only wallow in their selfishness, but in some cases are proud of it. It is anathema to us, like living in a country where no one speaks the same language, and no one ever will.

 

People devise all kinds of things to get around this terrible truth, but some of us have nothing. ZIp, zilch, we are stuck with the knowledge. Some of us can never see the puppy dogs and rainbows that populate some people's schemas, no Oneness of the divine for us, no reframing it to make it more "positive" life just is what it is, and the depth of it is heart breaking, soul crushing and entirely disturbing. It has some lovely pleasant little suprises at times, but overall its not a cake walk.

 

We live in a world of hunger, greed, lies, corruption, avoidance of reality, more lies, insitutionalised dishonesty, rampant and unashamed pursuit of self and a hundred other disgusting, life draining realities. We deal the best way we can. A week long holiday in Bali and I was a basketcase because the stark poverty against the affluence of the visitors did my head in. I FEEL the wrong of it like most people feel the need to take a dump. I can't escape the WRONGNESS of the world I live in and there is not a damn thing I can do about it. And I am not the only one, am I guys

 

 

 

[DesertBob]

For quite a few of us life will always be a hard slog, because we love too much, care too much and feel too much. The result of decades of that is that it all becomes TOO MUCH ... I FEEL the wrong of it like most people feel the need to take a dump. I can't escape the WRONGNESS of the world I live in and there is not a damn thing I can do about it. And I am not the only one, am I guys

No, you most definitely are NOT the only one.

 

My fiancee describes it this way: she is a sponge. She absorbs the pain, the love, the hatred, the delight of others. Some of the less savory others know this and use it as leverage against her. Others are oblivious how much her heart breaks for them. Others simply don't understand her motivations and assign blame or ulterior motives where they don't exist. She told me last night that by this point in her life if someone could give her a painless Injection Of Instant Death, and she could take it without hurting anyone, she's more than ready. She's exhausted. But she knows it would hurt people -- particularly her son, her brother, and yes, me. So she keeps slogging on.

 

She calls it "sponge", I term her an empath. I am one also. I suspect you are, Galien, as well as Lynx and others here. My fiancee says, no one would want to be her. I have had the same thoughts about myself. This is part of what draws us to each other despite being in some ways quite different people and responding to this burden rather differently.

 

Caring too much and trying too hard is part of our nature. I have learned to care less and try less in part by acknowledging that most of my caring and striving is an exercise in futility. Others who awake each morning full of the joy of living and ready to trip on their relationships and interests, see this as self-absorbed moroseness. I have reached the point where I no longer particularly care what people think or what their flip judgment of the day is. They cannot walk a mile in my shoes even if they were so inclined, so I can't really expect their understanding or compassion. I envy them their limitations. I can't seem to do anything useful with the fact that I'm on to this game called life, to its pointless hue and cry. I would rather see the puppy dogs and rainbows, but I cannot see what isn't there.

 

What you said about Bali resonates. I remember visiting Puerto Vallarta once, and the surreal experience of being chauffeured to a restaurant outside the town, past a ramshackle village, a starving, skeletal dog, begging children. I experienced it in Vietnam last month, being bussed to the Perfume Pagoda past fields of rice with people wallowing waist deep in mosquito-infested water filled with water buffalo crap, down country roads where people slaved away in the hot sun, hand-threshing on the asphalt. I cringed when my stepdaughter asked the guide what these people earn. He reckoned it was the equivalent of about $3 US a day.

 

I can only derive pleasure from that by disassociating from the unsavory bits but the fact I have to consciously disassociate means that at some level I am still bearing witness to all this human suffering and exploitation. A little bit of me dies every time it happens. I wish I could exult about what a beautiful country it was, how kind and gentle, yet strong the people are, how exotic and fascinating the culture was. All true, but ... my god, they lost a million and a half dead to say nothing of the physically and psychologically maimed, in just our own interventionist war, never mind the French occupation or the Chinese incursion. All so they could have their little third world shithole to themselves. That's also a face of the truth, as AM would say.

 

How do people do it? How do they exist amidst and in spite of all this, much less in peace? It beggars the imagination. Then on top of that we have our own dreams, hopes, aspirations ... or had them ... and not one of us is anywhere near where we planned or hoped to be by this point in our lives. These are just simple facts. Don't shoot the messenger. It is what it is. My life is filled with obscenities that cannot be resolved, undone or unmade. It also is filled with some good things -- which CAN be undone or unmade, pretty readily. And I'm supposed to apologize for feeling sad or anxious? All righty then.

[DesertBob]

Whether or not that stuff registers as a threat seems to me more a function of experience and perspective than it does of locus.

And how does that perspective change except by the vantage point?

So locus = vantage point? Okay, I'll buy that. Many of my vantage points have changed. Some of those changes were of neutral significance to me, some were actual improvements, and some felt like losses -- many of those actually were losses. No doubt you would regard the losses as necessary deaths.

But we can and do place too much of ourselves in others. We should embrace them and make them part of our worlds, and they become part of the fabric that defines our own uniqueness. All I am saying is that it is all temporal. Embrace others, embrace life itself, love it fully, but hold it with an open hand. In order to do that you have to be more than them.

I see ... I think I have heard this "hold it with an open hand" concept somewhere before. The concept as I recall being to not grope at things in life, to allow them to flow in and out as they will. I am learning to do that, in some ways more successfully than others. My guess is that it is only a partial solution, but it sometimes does help.

I would be of the mind that from the Divine flows Life itself, and as such we should embrace life through it, not cut ourselves off from it in some selfish pursuit. It's a matter of overcoming selfishness, in order to understand and become Life Itself. From the many to the One; from the One to the many. I believe in living.

Not sure I grok this statement entirely. To do so would require me to regard life as something that does not happen to and around me but something I'm inherently one with or something. It would also require me to embrace some ineffable is-ness called "the divine". I am pretty sure if you hunted back even a year in anything I've written you would find an implicit assumption of, or at least serious flirtation with some such thing, but with every passing day I am less and less convinced that the divine is anything more than a thought construct we create because we want it to be there.

 

If I understand correctly, to you the divine is not god or a diety or demigod or belief but some underlying transcendent quality of oneness and unity that just is ... I remain agnostic concerning that but cannot shake the suspicion that it exists only as a subjective personal experience of people with a particular intersection of personality and brain chemistry that I clearly lack. Or at least, that's a requirement for one to access it in a way that adds something to one's quality of life.

[Antlerman]

Whether or not that stuff registers as a threat seems to me more a function of experience and perspective than it does of locus.

And how does that perspective change except by the vantage point?

So locus = vantage point? Okay, I'll buy that. Many of my vantage points have changed. Some of those changes were of neutral significance to me, some were actual improvements, and some felt like losses -- many of those actually were losses. No doubt you would regard the losses as necessary deaths.

What I am driving at with talking about that locus of self-identity is a vertical change in perspective. We change perspective all the time within a lateral plane, basically different vantage points within a general mode of thought, but within that general mode of thought the locus of self-identity remains the same. It's the same set of eyes interpreting the world in different ways.

 

It comes back to what I know we've talked about before, but maybe not quite in this context. In developmental stages of humans, and our species itself in its evolutionary history, that locus of self-identity changes as it first emerges as we move in awareness from an undifferentiated state with the world to an awareness of a distinction of 'me', which is not an ego identity but somatic identity. Our "me" is a body-self. As we develop that distinctiveness of "self" it becomes about all those things that make me a separate individual from you; the development of ego. And in that development of ego there are clear stages of its maturity, becoming fully realized in the self-actualized individual. But the locus of self-identity is still the ego, even if they are mature and selfless individuals - that self actualized person. Ego is not bad, by the way. Only ego-centric, or narcissistic ego is when we are supposed to me mature egos. It's a sign of immaturity, like a child is naturally.

 

What I am talking about in a shift of the locus of self-identity is comparable to the vertical change between somatic or body-identity, to egoic identity. I am talking about a trans-egoic self-identity. As I said to someone else before you never rid yourself of the ego-self, any more than you do your body-self, but just as you no longer have the seat of your self-sense centered within you body, you also no longer have it centered within your ego. We always carry our distinctiveness of our bodies, as well as our personality traits, our psyches with us, but the center of that self-identity is now more world-centric, or universe-centric, and ultimately the Divine itself.

 

So yes, there is a different vantage point but in a vertical direction like rungs on the ladder. And on each of those rungs, there are different vantage points horizontally. And so forth.

 

I see ... I think I have heard this "hold it with an open hand" concept somewhere before. The concept as I recall being to not grope at things in life, to allow them to flow in and out as they will. I am learning to do that, in some ways more successfully than others. My guess is that it is only a partial solution, but it sometimes does help.

It's very difficult to do. As I find that clinging to surface in me, it hopefully causes me to recognize old learned patterns from entangling again. In other words, they serve as signs or signals to some internal thing that is happening. Two steps forward, one step back. I find that as that becomes more natural, simply as a result of that general average mode of being, it makes the experience of others and beauty that much more wonderful. It's free. I'm free. We shine for a time, in brilliance and beauty. We are life.

 

I would be of the mind that from the Divine flows Life itself, and as such we should embrace life through it, not cut ourselves off from it in some selfish pursuit. It's a matter of overcoming selfishness, in order to understand and become Life Itself. From the many to the One; from the One to the many. I believe in living.

Not sure I grok this statement entirely. To do so would require me to regard life as something that does not happen to and around me but something I'm inherently one with or something. It would also require me to embrace some ineffable is-ness called "the divine". I am pretty sure if you hunted back even a year in anything I've written you would find an implicit assumption of, or at least serious flirtation with some such thing, but with every passing day I am less and less convinced that the divine is anything more than a thought construct we create because we want it to be there.

Indeed it can be nothing more than a thought construct, a metaphysical construct. Or it can be a direct experience that has nothing to do with descriptions of it, and all that is used to describe it are just signifiers. It is an easy thing to fall into where the symbols become the source of the experience, and not the other way around.

 

I was just having this discussion last night with a dear soul-friend of mine that all these ways to describe or talk about this sort of thing are just models. They are not the substance of what it is, they are not facts that if you hold to as truth it is now realized in you. Rational descriptions at best offer a way to look at and talk about experience. What I see in religious expressions is both the metaphysical aspects which many hold to as symbol sets that define and impart meaning and experience, and where they are in fact expressions of actual realization. The reality of the experience itself is heard through the symbols, and those symbols can be widely varying and categorically non-literal.

 

So yes, people can be motivated to manufacture various states in order to "believe" and deal with a whole range of psychological needs, to escape suffering, etc. In the end it will ultimately fail and potentially leave them disillusioned. The irony is in that in seeking it it is actually an act of avoiding it. In fact that pretty much describes all our projects. Religion can actually be about avoiding God, ironically. Substitutes for that true realization of our true identity, which requires the death of our separate self.

 

But in the end, at the end of all those projects, its not anything manufactured. It is simply becoming what we already are. It's opening that window that doesn't exist. It is natural growth into who we are.

 

If I understand correctly, to you the divine is not god or a diety or demigod or belief but some underlying transcendent quality of oneness and unity that just is ... I remain agnostic concerning that but cannot shake the suspicion that it exists only as a subjective personal experience of people with a particular intersection of personality and brain chemistry that I clearly lack. Or at least, that's a requirement for one to access it in a way that adds something to one's quality of life.

I can call it God and not be concerned, as in no way do I see it anthropomorphically. I do not see some separate deity out there who has a separate mind and personality, who has an individual will and thoughts like "me", that it is some super-realized ego of infinite size and dimension with me here and God there in some sort of relationship like a parent and a child. Nothing like that. Although, I can recognize the role that imagination about God plays in human psychology on an individual and cultural level, particularly as a developmental stage of evolution itself. I just can't relate to it like that. When I hear someone refer to "the man upstairs", or hear some Christian music talking to God up there, praying for guidance from Him, talking to the Lord, etc, I can simply no longer relate to that. It makes it so small. It makes it rather trite.

 

Does "it" exist only as a subjective personal experience with people of certain types of personality? I'll respond by asking rhetorically does the experience of life exist only as subjective personal experience? Do all people experience all life in the same way? Do you experience life now the same way you did when you were 14? That experience of life, our 'beingness' is experienced by everyone, and frankly everything in some way or another. And we all go about trying to describe it to ourselves and others in some symbolic way. As you experience greater depth of that beingness through your evolved awareness, it takes on greater dimension and is seen in an ever-expanding, ever-deepening ocean of infinity. It is there. It is experienced.

[Deva]

We touched on meditative practices. For me in a very simple (yet difficult) act of suspending all the swirling of thoughts in our heads, you begin to see them more as like processes of the body, like the aches and pains and twitches of muscles, except they are activities of the brain in cognitive processes. In the same way you don't place the locus of self-identity with your muscle twitches, or that gurgling in the stomach, we come to recognize that "I" am not self-identified by my thought processes, my job, my house, my garden, my friends. Those are clothing, so to speak, just as my physical body is. In that simple recognition, you are able to step free from very much of the degree of anxieties about all those things we identify with, as they are less a threat to our existential being. They are less a threat because the locus of self-identity is not rooted in them.

 

Yes, I think that is what meditation does. I started with formal meditation practice (sitting) about four years ago. It is hard at first because you get all caught up in the thoughts. Then you focus on something and you can just see the thoughts go by. Yes, it is like what you are describing. You don't identify with the thoughts as much, they are like any other bodily activity. It does help to an extent although there are some situations in life where I have found nothing helps and the anxiety and panic sets in (like losing my job last year).

 

I have been wondering lately about the power of this imagination that I possess. It is simply amazing how vivid it is. Unfortunately it runs to the negative. For example, I was thinking up this future scenario at work that went badly. It never happened, it probably never will happen (can't even remember now what it was), but it was so vividly imagined it was as if it actually did happen! I experienced all the negative emotions and there would not have been an iota of difference if the scene had actually taken place. The question is, what if this power could be used for the positive instead of the negative?

[Antlerman]

It does help to an extent although there are some situations in life where I have found nothing helps and the anxiety and panic sets in (like losing my job last year).

I touched on this a moment ago in my response to Bob how we have learned patterns of behavior that continue to come up, despite having grown in general beyond them. We fall back sometimes to habits. I was talking to my son about anxiety and how he sometimes experiences panic attacks. I suggested practicing mediation to him and he assumed I was suggesting that he should try to mediate in the middle of an attack. Of course not, by then its too late!

 

What I suggested, and what my experience is is that even the simple practice of a mere 10 minutes of silencing the mind completely in the morning before the day, makes the entire day more focused, grounded, connected, calmer, fluid, etc. In doing this, developing a new habit of control of mind, anxieties become less prone to attack uncontrollably. In other words, we aren't in the habit of running off in uncontrolled responses of thoughts into a cycle of emotional chaos and a seizure of anxiety. We are calmer people - period.

 

When crap does come up, we take what we have developed and interact with those problems with that new set of skills, just as we handle things much differently. We are always impacted by life, we never avoid pain and senses of loss, but how we respond is certainly within us to develop. We're never immune from things that upset. But in order to be the most effective in response, we have to be more in control, more finely tuned if you will. Developing that is a process.

 

 

As for why we run off in anxious and neurotic habits of mind, it's simply that we have large brains! We're bored, and so we busy it feeding it things that engage us. Unfortunately its often based in fear. Which comes square back to the clutching and clinging to that locus of our self in our ego-identities. We don't want to lose that identity. We want to protect it from upset and threats. We cling to it rather than release it. So a simple practice of meditation helps to develop control, and through that an opening into a greater reality of what exists in us beyond our simple egos.

 

I have been wondering lately about the power of this imagination that I possess. It is simply amazing how vivid it is. Unfortunately it runs to the negative. For example, I was thinking up this future scenario at work that went badly. It never happened, it probably never will happen (can't even remember now what it was), but it was so vividly imagined it was as if it actually did happen! I experienced all the negative emotions and there would not have been an iota of difference if the scene had actually taken place. The question is, what if this power could be used for the positive instead of the negative?

Oh absolutely. It's no small thing to say that how we imagine the world and interact internally with that imagination, creates a living reality of it in ourselves which then will and does affect the external world, creating it in an objective way. And that goes for the positive as well. In no small way is the term self-fulfilled prophecy based squarely in this.

 

This is why to me, in moving beyond anxieties and concerns, falling into the nature of being itself, our spiritual nature realized, it will affect the mental, emotional, and physical reality not just for ourselves but the entire world. We indeed are all interconnected, and how this begins inside of us, within us and flows out to the world is in fact that wellspring of life itself in action, from the unmanifest to the manifest world.

[lynx]

What you said about Bali resonates. I remember visiting Puerto Vallarta once, and the surreal experience of being chauffeured to a restaurant outside the town, past a ramshackle village, a starving, skeletal dog, begging children. I experienced it in Vietnam last month, being bussed to the Perfume Pagoda past fields of rice with people wallowing waist deep in mosquito-infested water filled with water buffalo crap, down country roads where people slaved away in the hot sun, hand-threshing on the asphalt. I cringed when my stepdaughter asked the guide what these people earn. He reckoned it was the equivalent of about $3 US a day.

 

I can only derive pleasure from that by disassociating from the unsavory bits but the fact I have to consciously disassociate means that at some level I am still bearing witness to all this human suffering and exploitation. A little bit of me dies every time it happens.

This describes my experience of living too. These are the same things I notice and am acutely aware of. I'm not capable of turning a blind eye to these realities and avoiding their sobering effect.

[Vigile]

What you said about Bali resonates. I remember visiting Puerto Vallarta once, and the surreal experience of being chauffeured to a restaurant outside the town, past a ramshackle village, a starving, skeletal dog, begging children. I experienced it in Vietnam last month, being bussed to the Perfume Pagoda past fields of rice with people wallowing waist deep in mosquito-infested water filled with water buffalo crap, down country roads where people slaved away in the hot sun, hand-threshing on the asphalt. I cringed when my stepdaughter asked the guide what these people earn. He reckoned it was the equivalent of about $3 US a day.

 

I can only derive pleasure from that by disassociating from the unsavory bits but the fact I have to consciously disassociate means that at some level I am still bearing witness to all this human suffering and exploitation. A little bit of me dies every time it happens.

This describes my experience of living too. These are the same things I notice and am acutely aware of. I'm not capable of turning a blind eye to these realities and avoiding their sobering effect.

 

I was watching the new X-Men (normally I avoid blockbusters, but watched it because I really liked the director's last film Kick Ass), and one part reminded me of what Bob wrote here. The character Erik had a great deal of suffering in his past as his family were killed by the Nazis and he had lived in a concentration camp. The character Charles Xavier, however, had the ability to explore other's minds and he was able to uncover parts of Erik's past that were crowded out by his obsession with his past suffering.

 

Long story short, I think we sometimes oversimplify the plights of others and there is a real danger of misunderstanding because we apply our own perspectives, which are not applicable in the lives of others with different experiences than ours. For example, I've spent time in India where the rice workers work in similar conditions. While I personally wouldn't want to be in their shoes and while they would no doubt want a higher status in life and a life that was easier, I doubt very much most of their lives are as awful as we imagine they might be.

 

For example, if you made Paris Hilton work in the rice paddies, she likely wouldn't last an hour and it would be the longest hour of her life. But those people weren't raised to be as spoiled and coddled as Paris, so the burden they face isn't the same burden Paris would. In other words, I think we can agree that this extreme at the very least tells us that the amount of suffering someone endures is at least in part influenced by perception. To what degree, is debatable.

 

Moving on. I'd rather be a rice worker in India than a homeless person in DC. I've seen how both live and without a doubt, the rice workers have it better. If they are homeless, they build a shack on the side of the road using palm branches. They have cell phones, they have motorized scooters, they have their family with them, and they are not shunned by the rest of humanity.

 

In Vietnam they make $3/day, and in India, they make $1/day. These numbers sound shocking to an American or other westerner, but that too is because we apply our own perspective to it. We could never survive on such a small amount, but in India, rice costs you $0.05 a day and you probably raise your own chickens and pigs for meat if you eat meat. Other costs are virtually nil, so they can in fact save their money and buy the cell phones and motor scooters I mentioned earlier. When I first met my wife, she was working for $50 a month in Russia. On that and a few extra dollars she was able to scrape up selling lost and found items from the train station she worked at, she was able to take vacations to Europe once a year, she bought a $600 fur coat, and lived a decent life.

 

People do indeed suffer in this world and it's an awful thing. But we can also overestimate their suffering when we don't understand the details of their lives, their cultures and their experiences.

 

Just food for thought.

[lynx]

People do indeed suffer in this world and it's an awful thing. But we can also overestimate their suffering when we don't understand the details of their lives, their cultures and their experiences.

 

Just food for thought.

I think that is very true, Vigile. I can't speak for Bob, but I am already aware of those factors. When I look at it as a whole, I'm considering those in this life who ARE truly suffering unbearable, from their own perspective, not mine. I know it exists. I don't apply it to every single individual or situation I see, but rather, the things I see are a reminder of that fact, that's all.