Category Archives: Attitudes can be seen

I Ching 23 – Stripping Away

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The way we live should express both our inner and outer values, in harmony with each other.

I Ching as a Way to Enlightenment

Today’s I Ching – 23 – Stripping Away

 

Mountain above. Earth below.

Stripping Away follows Adornment.

 

Spirit Explains:

 

Adornment suggests excess of what is functionally necessary.

Stripping away reduces some of this excess.

 

It is time, He tells me, for a new beginning; to live a more

Simple and uncluttered lifestyle. The way we live should

Express both our inner and outer values, in harmony with

Each other.

 

How is that possible, without the material means to express

Oneself as one would?

 

Then we do what we can with what we have. And, He suggests,

There are always areas of excess in our lives.

 

Such as?

 

Excess of inactivity could be reduced with exercise.

 

I give up.

 

Yes.

 

 

 

 

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The Game Plan in The World of Mind

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Desire and intention as the only way for any two or more individuals, groups, or nations to learn to communicate and harmonize with each other.

Grass-Roots Spiritual Philosophy 101

A simple seeker seemed to be rapidly slipping into concepts of cosmic reality beyond her depth.

How do you know?

What?

Anything  about anything.

By daring to question what it might mean?

Yes. So why don’t we play that game with the seeming relationship between Chockmah and Malkuth on The Tree of Life in The World of Mind?

How to begin, and where, when there seems to be no clear beginning?

There’s always a shadowy beginning that emerges from some earlier experience.

Okay. I was developing a sense of harmonizing the different aspects of The World of Consciousness; the world that gradually merges into Mind.

Yes. You reached a tipping point that became the densest form of mind, which, in Kabbalah symbolism is referred to as Malkuth.

It’s hard to believe that I’ve come this far, unless you’re testing my ego.

What difference would that make to today’s lesson.

What…

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Compassion Expresses Care

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A spirit teacher tells me that, at a grass-roots level,
compassion is as sophisticated a way as any to express
genuine care.

Gentle words of love and caring serve a need, both to
the giver and to the one receiving; but only when the
words are supported by caring deeds can they, at least
be seen to be genuine expressions.

Compassion is a beautiful word that expresses a deep but
simple emotion; genuine care for someone or something.
But, saying it is never enough. We need to support our
caring words with caring actions.

I could still be pretending.

Yes.

To Tolerate Ignorance is Disrespectful

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A spirit teacher shares gems of wisdom with me, and I share
some of what He shares with me, with you. No charge.

He tells me that to tolerate ignorance, and other base
qualities in oneself or in others is disrespectful of those
others and oneself.

It is counter-productive as it slows spiritual development,
and so is also disrespectful of our future.

Then, how to respond?

Compassion is the answer and is the only way to achieve
peace of mind. Pity is arrogance pretending to be
justifiably superior.

If I pity the wretched conditions of others, then I am
not one of them, and, Spirit claims, to be with them and
not of them is impossible, as there are no faults of others
that we, ourselves, do not, at least potentially possess,
if only hidden at some level of our soul or psyche. How else
could we recognize the qualities of others without awareness
of them?

I know you, He tells me, because I know myself.

Where Does Chaos Rule?

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A spirit teacher shares His understanding of timeless wisdom.

He tells me that there was a time, not very distant into
the past, when children everywhere learned, at a very young
age, to understand and to speak a particular language, and
the language they learned to understand and to speak became
their language, and more; much more.

From a child’s perspective, language is a means for sharing
his or her world with other people, their people.

Also, many of us learned to believe in a particular religion
at a very young age. Whether we were aware of it or not, we
also learned social rules specific to that particular religion.
as separate from legal or traffic rules. The religious rules
we learned served as a social code, to guide the way we would
learn to live our life.

Many of us no longer live in a community where we all understand
and speak the same language, or accept the same religion, and
the same specific social rules that specific religions teach.

Perhaps even the same traffic rules may not apply to all
communities?

Yes.

Where does Chaos rule?

Chaos never rules except as a transitional force between
one set of rules and another, or between individuals or
groups of individuals adjusting to the larger realities of
Life, and learning to understand that no rules are necessarily
acceptable to all people in all places, or for all time,
unless they serve and make sense to all people.

All languages and all religious social customs or rules serve
or did serve a purpose, when societies lived separate from
each other. They provide or did provide a sense of community.

Today, for many of us, it is the language, religion, or social
customs of others, not our own, that contribute to disharmony
and conflict in our relationships within a world community.

Our attitudes may invite Chaos to rule, when simple respect
would serve to unite us.

Where

Dreams Serve us Well

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A spirit teacher shares His understanding of timeless wisdom.

He tells me that dreams serve us well, even if we can’t remember
them, upon awakening.

They’re designed to help us see symbolic meaning between
situations and personalities, whether human, animal, or
imaginary creatures, within the dream and similar situations,
events, and characters within our everyday non-sleeping world
of illusion.

Situations and stories play out in dreams, He tells me, and
then, usually, end suddenly. We wake up to a different world;
one of more easily understood situations and characters.

Perhaps we have just become accustomed to the events, and
actors in our waking world?

Yes, and familiarity can easily breed deceit.

In what way?

There have always been some unethical advertisers, politicians, false prophets, etc. who use a pretense of authority and truth
to persuade or pressure trusting minds.

But, in a dream I witnessed a crow doing what crows couldn’t
likely do.

Were you aware of this during the dream?

I seem to remember being confused and in awe.

But, you accepted the situation as being valid?

Yes.

Why didn’t you question something that didn’t seem to make
sense?

Because I was witnessing the event. It was only in my mind
that it didn’t make sense.

You read fictitious stories without expecting them to be real.

Yes, of course but, surely, real life is not a fictitious story.

Then, why don’t you question events and situations in your
so-called waking life that don’t seem to make sense, and
people who claim to be be what you suspect the’re not.

Perhaps they have a hidden agenda?

Yes.

But, I’m only one person. What possible useful purpose
would it serve for me to …

So, you adopt a more socially acceptable position of
pretending not to know?

I guess. But, if whatever untruth is generally accepted
then surely some others must also know the truth and, like me,
pretend not to.

Why?

It’s easier, and possibly safer.

Yes.

Abusive Habits Become Addictions

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A Spirit Teacher shares His understanding of timeless wisdom
as it applies to human nature in every situation and in every
culture; past, present, and future.

How can wisdom be timeless?

Because human nature is also timeless, in that it is grounded
in emotion.

That may be true, but …

It is true.

How does timeless wisdom apply to abusive behaviour?

Timeless wisdom inspires healthy emotions, thoughts,
and actions. Abuse of others or of self is neither
healthy nor life-sustaining.

Should we forgive those who abuse us?

How dan abuse be forgiven? That would be an unhealthy
response. What good purpose would it serve? None at all.
In fact, it might even encourage more abuse.

Abuse, He tells me, is unhealthy behaviour regardless of
who is abusing whom, or even whether the one being abused
accepts ill treatment. That would express self-abuse.

How then can we respond in a healthy way to abuse when we
can’t protect ourselves from it?

We make choices, and perhaps past choices helped to create
the abusive situation.

Why do you speak of an abusive situation and not of an
abusive person.

There are none.

Please explain.

WE develop abusive habits or we don’t.

As an addiction?

Yes.

A Tree of Compassion

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Spirit asks me what I will do to celebrate
my recovery.

I haven’t fully recovered, yet.

Do you expect to?

More or less.

Then, it is time to plan to celebrate.

How will I celebrate.

You could give thanks to the Universe.

I do, now.

How do you express your thanks?

In action?

How else would it be possible?

What would you suggest?

You could plant a tree.

Where?. My small garden is crowded, now.

Is your heart also crowded?

What kind of tree could I plant in my heart?

A tree of Compassion.

Compassion for whom?

And what?

How can I feel compassion for …

Go on.

For Life?

Is that not possible?

It would include myself.

And?

To feel compassion for myself would require
separating myself from myself.

Can you do it?

Separating the actor from the role she plays?

Yes. Separating essence from form.

It wouldn’t be easy, for me.

I didn’t promise easy.

Intentionally or Otherwise

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My spirit teacher tells me that we are whom we are,
intentionally or otherwise, and that we each share
with the world we live in and are a part of
the essence of our life.

A rose is a rose even when it has been planted
among vegetables, and a sheep grazing with cattle
is still a sheep.

But, He tells me, a rose growing among vegetables
has an opportunity to become aware of being
different from her or his neighbours, as does
a single sheep among cattle, in a way
that would not have been possible if they each
had been surrounded only by their own kind.

Is this about individuality?

In what way?

Awareness of our uniqueness.

Yes and no.

Please explain.

What?

No. Why?

Why what?

Please explain why awareness of being different
from those around us is not about uniqueness.

Each of the cattle and vegetable plants
are also unique in some way.

But, not nearly to the extent that a different
animal or plant would feel.

Were we talking about feeling unique
or being unique?

How is one possible without the other?

Awareness or lack of.

How can awareness change reality?

Awareness is reality.

Attitude Exists Unseen

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A spirit teacher tells me that attitude exists unseen

and yet very visible to those who have eyes to see.

 

How can we learn to see attitude?

 

Whose attitude?

 

Our own and that of others.

 

Meditation.

 

Meditation on what?

 

Not what, why.

 

Why what?

 

Yes.

 

What does that mean?

 

What does it seem to mean?

 

To meditate on why we do what we do?

 

Yes, and to dare to question our basic motives

for doing what we do.

 

There might be many.

 

Such as?

 

Survival.

 

Yes.

 

Survival may be our primary motive,  but

but there are surely many possible others.

 

No.

 

Please explain.

 

Survival is maintaining what we have

at any given time, of any given possession,

real or imagined.

 

An imagined possession?

 

Yes.

 

How can we m imagine we possess

what we do not?

 

Faulty vision.

 

What causes faulty vision?

 

Attitude.

 

Attitude towards what?

 

Whatever.

 

Priority?

 

What about it?

 

It just seemed to come to mind.

 

Whose mind?

 

Is there more than one?

 

No.