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Self recognition - one of those strange things

Freddd

Senior Member
Messages
5,184
Location
Salt Lake City
Most sick people don't want to get well, because the illness so quickly becomes a part of their identity.

A few, like you, break out of that, and pay the price of a 'new me'.

In the hunter-gatherer tribes which have survived, the 'shaman's journey' involves getting very, very sick for quite a while. When you are healed, you have become someone capable of healing others. You have also become a new person with a different personality.

I'm guessing this may be our evolutionary model.

As an alchemist, there is "perpetual change" all the time. That is in the world of our souls. "Trial by illness" and "Trial by Death" are things that one may experience and be transformed. There are years of work involved to get started and then it is a way of life, a way of "eternal" life some would say.

A non dualist finds ones highest identity in the Absolute. The nature of change as one progresses is predictable in certain ways and changes the nature of the self. The change is one of allowing more of the "energy" (Kundalini or whatever one wants to call such energies) to flow and to be information. This flow between persons is Shaktipat. That all becomes normal enough

The "feeling" of different, not normal, because of changing symptoms of illnesses or healing of them is different from the energy changes of alchemy though there can be some crossover of feeling.

One man I taught for some years put forth the idea that each person is doing quite literally the best they know how. We might not understand their understanding that leads them that specific "doing", we might not agree with it. We also don't know what effects what they are doing has on their being which the purpose of the whole process.

The price is high; all ones hopes and dreams, fears and nightmares, all of ones fantasies and wishes and ignorance. And in the "way of ordinary life" it is the challenges of ordinary life that provides the context.
 

rosie26

Senior Member
Messages
2,446
Location
NZ
I like that @Freddd " .... that each person is doing quite literally the best they know how". There are so many things happening in peoples lives, different challenges, ability to handle those challenges. Unless you have walked in someone else's shoes...
 

Johnmac

Senior Member
Messages
756
Location
Cambodia
As an alchemist, there is "perpetual change" all the time. That is in the world of our souls. "Trial by illness" and "Trial by Death" are things that one may experience and be transformed. There are years of work involved to get started and then it is a way of life, a way of "eternal" life some would say.

A non dualist finds ones highest identity in the Absolute. The nature of change as one progresses is predictable in certain ways and changes the nature of the self. The change is one of allowing more of the "energy" (Kundalini or whatever one wants to call such energies) to flow and to be information. This flow between persons is Shaktipat. That all becomes normal enough

The "feeling" of different, not normal, because of changing symptoms of illnesses or healing of them is different from the energy changes of alchemy though there can be some crossover of feeling.

One man I taught for some years put forth the idea that each person is doing quite literally the best they know how. We might not understand their understanding that leads them that specific "doing", we might not agree with it. We also don't know what effects what they are doing has on their being which the purpose of the whole process.

The price is high; all ones hopes and dreams, fears and nightmares, all of ones fantasies and wishes and ignorance. And in the "way of ordinary life" it is the challenges of ordinary life that provides the context.

It seems healthy to me to ground all our scientific talk with the occasional philosophical discussion. It gets dull otherwise.

I can tell which generation you are from, Freddd.

I haven't contemplated much of this stuff for years, because most of the famous 1970s gurus who taught it were undone by some ghastly scandal or another - usually sexual, tho mine turned out to be an alcoholic. (The follies of youth.)

Doesn't invalidate it tho. Personally I'm on the knife-edge between belief & non-belief - i.e. I don't know - which (after trying everything else) I've found to be the most comfortable spot. If there is an Absolute, a head full of ideas about it would surely occlude it.

I like the ideas of "Trial by illness" and "Trial by death". The reality is that illness does re-shape you - you're not the same person when it's over. Probably the greater the illness, the greater the re-shaping.

I too like the idea of every person doing the best they can; seems true on one level.

"The price is high; all ones hopes and dreams, fears and nightmares, all of ones fantasies and wishes and ignorance." Yep, though life quietly relieves you of those anyway. Maybe that's why illness is seen as sacred: it distills the process of life, and dramatises it.
 

Goodness to M.E.

Senior Member
Messages
102
Location
Adelaide
I have spent most of my working life working in welfare/housing and in that time there is not much I haven't seen or had shared with me.

The atrocities experienced by those in concentration camps, refugees from war torn countries spending years in camps after escaping from villages where family members where murdered and raped.

Others where born with chronic disabilities or those who acquired them through a range of living-accidents or dis-ease.

People who suffered multiple mental health issues along with drug and alcohol abuse to name a few. Veterans maimed in many of the wars past and present.

Children, men and women who didn't go to war but lived in war-torn families where they where abused and neglected with many years of 'family' torture resulting in being too paralysed and degraded to know what to do with no-one to stop the abuse or help them escape before the damage was done.

What I did learn from this is that there are some who become their experience and cannot find hope to rebuild or redesign their life. It appeared they had personally made the decision that the past defined just an existence with no entitlement to a quality of life and sadly they did not have the hope or courage to rebuild a new and better life.

Others had the innate spirit, courage and hope that a better life could be achieved and in the face of adversity, they set about by taking personal responsibly by choosing what they truly desired their life to look and feel like, and set about redesigning and work incredibly hard to be proud of themselves by achieving this.

This group was very clear about their 'circle of influence' their goals and values and where to focus their energy to succeed. They did not become victims of their past or present and had the capacity to accept and close the book on their past and move forward with optimism.

How these two groups differed was those that succeeded took self-responsibility, worked out what they could do why and how, they also lacked a sense of entitlement from others and had moved on from blaming others for their past, present and future.

IF IT'S GOING TO BE, IT'S UP TO ME....... no matter how long it takes me and I refuse to surrender my pride!

What I've learnt from this experience serves me well in living with the daily challenges of M.E. I use my energy to focus on what I can do NOW that best serves me and NOT on what others should be doing for me or blaming them when they cant/dont understand!

I focus and use my energy to remain my own person. I avoid talking about my illness with others unless asked and then keep my responses light and short.

Being unwell with a chronic and limiting health condition for me is not an excuse for either bad manners, a selfish attitude or seeking attention or sympathy from others.

My experience is that doing this will push away the people who love us and often the little support we are given!
 
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golden

Senior Member
Messages
1,831
Hi Goodness To ME :)

Its nice to read you have a nice structured format of protecting and nourishing yourself. A belt and braces approach?

People are very different though and everyone has their own ways.
 

Freddd

Senior Member
Messages
5,184
Location
Salt Lake City
It seems healthy to me to ground all our scientific talk with the occasional philosophical discussion. It gets dull otherwise.

I can tell which generation you are from, Freddd.

I haven't contemplated much of this stuff for years, because most of the famous 1970s gurus who taught it were undone by some ghastly scandal or another - usually sexual
, tho mine turned out to be an alcoholic. (The follies of youth.)

Doesn't invalidate it tho. Personally I'm on the knife-edge between belief & non-belief - i.e. I don't know - which (after trying everything else) I've found to be the most comfortable spot. If there is an Absolute, a head full of ideas about it would surely occlude it.

I like the ideas of "Trial by illness" and "Trial by death". The reality is that illness does re-shape you - you're not the same person when it's over. Probably the greater the illness, the greater the re-shaping.

I too like the idea of every person doing the best they can; seems true on one level.

"The price is high; all ones hopes and dreams, fears and nightmares, all of ones fantasies and wishes and ignorance." Yep, though life quietly relieves you of those anyway. Maybe that's why illness is seen as sacred: it distills the process of life, and dramatises it.


I can tell which generation you are from, Freddd.

I haven't contemplated much of this stuff for years, because most of the famous 1970s gurus who taught it were undone by some ghastly scandal or another - usually sexual

Maybe right on the generation, but probably for the wrong reasons. I got married in 1970. After my back was broken and I had spent 18 months recovering we moved to Utah and got season passes at Snowbird, and then Alta. We skied almost full time for about the next 5 years. I never had anything to do with any gurus or their organizations. I didn't need to. I started waking up to being a Tantric Alchemist in 3rd grade. By 6th or 7th grade I was practicing Tantra, celibate style, as was appropriate for my age at that time. This gets into carryover of previous life knowledge by reincarnation or something. The gurus of the period who got in trouble over sex did so because they were trying to deny sex it's place in such teachings and practices in the first place. This has been a battle going for many years, in a "holier than thou" type of occurrence. .

Personally I'm on the knife-edge between belief & non-belief - i.e. I don't know - which (after trying everything else) I've found to be the most comfortable spot. If there is an Absolute, a head full of ideas about it would surely occlude it.

I don't think that "belief" has anything to do with it. I teach various practices and skills, not beliefs. I use a set of semi traditional vocabulary. In calling certain experiences "living goddess communion" or whatever is descriptive of what people experience and requires no belief it any of it in a literal way. It's an experience of two or more people meditating/praying in certain ways. There is Prayer Absolute taught by another group of people I know. I have performed it with groups of up to about 100 people and have the experience every time. There really is an experience that most who participate, have. What it "means" I couldn't tell you. One needs no "belief" to have the experiences.
 
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Johnmac

Senior Member
Messages
756
Location
Cambodia
Yes I wasn't trying to suggest you'd been a guru-follower.

Nor that what you practise is a belief. I was just positing that if I believed something it would be a limiation. For that reason I like the idea that no-one knows what your experience means.

I'm also agnostic on past lives, never having remembered any. Seems like you have a different experience there though...
 

Freddd

Senior Member
Messages
5,184
Location
Salt Lake City
Yes I wasn't trying to suggest you'd been a guru-follower.

Nor that what you practise is a belief. I was just positing that if I believed something it would be a limiation. For that reason I like the idea that no-one knows what your experience means.

I'm also agnostic on past lives, never having remembered any. Seems like you have a different experience there though...

I wasn't meaning that you had any other than your stated positions, fence sitting etc I was commenting on all sorts of gurus teaching all kinds of beliefs, lots of casualties as you commented.

Consider GROUNDHOG DAY. How does one tell where most of the memories come from, which specific past version of the day except for the very few things that make each one unique?

I have lot's of experiences and there are multiple hypotheses about their nature. I really don't know what it all means. I'm a pragmatist as a mystic, I do what works and can be taught. I work on the "Could it maybe be described and worked with if considered as xyz?" I don't know, how does anybody work out practical metaphysics? I learn things from all sorts of people and put it all together.

Maybe what I did was change my being to fit best into the version of the (universe) world (quantum theory multiple universe version) which allowed me to heal with the selection of products that works in that quantum universe version. Within this hypothetical structure each of us lives in our own quantum world version within a common background. Science and nutrition are the language of this invocation

I'm sure that there are lots of different descriptions. I'm glad to be healed of at least CFS/FMS and congestive heart failure (and a miscellaneous dozen or so other diagnoses) or at the very least not having the symptoms, recovered and rehabilitated, except for mostly SACD problems like vastly increased typos compared to prior to when it started 22 years ago.

Harold Shea, the mathematical shaman of THE INCOMPLETE ENCHANTOR, was an inspiration.