There's Only One of Us Here -- Part 2 [Archive]

dazcox

09-02-2008, 07:08 AM

i'm sorry, but as much as i try to understand the premise that 'there's only one of us here', i really don't get it. it feels like mind games to me.

does anyone else feel like this, or is it just me?:confused:
nancy

i've been trying to understand why it seemed so important and hilarious to david and larry to keep bringing that up.

i get it on an intellectual level that we are all connected and essentially parts of a whole and only think we're separate but what is the point to even know that 'truth' if there's nothing that can be gained from it except making some of us even more intellectually divided?

what use is there in knowing that we are the same person when we still act like an individual, larry isn't about to donate his unused recording equipment to charity is he?

at what point does knowing that we are all one and yet choosing to live a more luxurious life than others seem hypocritical?

is the point just to figure out the 'truth' like david and larry are doing with their studies and conclusions of "oneness" or is the point to do something with this apparent perception of separateness?

i got the (possibly incorrect) feeling from pt 2 of the audio blog that there is a spiritual hierarchy where 20 or so ascended people are at the top of the pile (according to larry) then you have people like eckhart tolle who can just wander around without the shackles of society then people like david and larry who have both material and spiritual wealth and then people like you and me who at least want to understand and then everyone else.

but is that the point? a spiritual darwinian struggle to get to the top?

why is the material world a lower form of reality than just wandering around 'getting it' like tolle?

is it a 'failure' to not "get it"?

meganarline

09-02-2008, 08:46 AM

i am not a student of acim and although i have heard of it for years everything i have learned about it i learned in the last two weeks through this forum, and david and larry's blog so i by no means know much.

at first when they kept saying over and over, there's only one of us here, it's all an illusion i found myself getting a little irritated. thinking that is of no help to someone who is in pain, or suffering. their suffering is pretty darn real to them and i have no idea how the course reconciles this kind of stuff.

i find the law of one a little more practical in day to day 3d reality.

however, i did have a little bit of an epiphany when contemplating the whole oneness thing, illusion thing, and did get a glimpse of the big picture and it really is that simple. that if we are all one, if we are all god, if there is no separation then this must be an illusion because we can't see that from here.

it is hard to describe but i did feel it. it definitely deserves some more contemplation.

now we still have to deal with this illusion on a moment to moment basis and dealing with it from a space of love and forgiveness makes sense whether you are a student of acim or not.

the night after listening to this blog i had a really cool dream. i only remember part of it, but i was on a slide kind of thing, but instead of sliding down, i shot way up into the air , really high. while i was up in the air i remember feeling extremely blissful and loved. then i had to come back down from there and i was worried it was going to hurt but the landing was soft and gentle.

i interpreted it to mean that i had had a glimpse of maybe a higher dimension and was shown as well that it is possible to bring aspects of that higher dimension into day to day life to make it easier.

just some thoughts.

megan

Ewhaz

09-02-2008, 10:44 AM

mmm it might be me, but some of you sound slightly bitter or synical about this whole 'there's only one of us here' deal..

this is only a continuation of what the law of one says in its own way, wrapped and presented in a different way. we are all the creator.. the splitting of 'i am' to 'i am me' in order that we can get perspective and get a subjective understanding of the self. as they said, i am can't look back at itself.. its just awareness.

i recently caught a cold. for the first few days, i felt something different than i normally did when i experienced being ill.. it was kind of interesting.. like experiencing the experience of having a cold, thus being part of something bigger and it felt good. part of me was exilarated to be sick, to experience something in a higher mindset, it didn't bother me.. i kind of enjoyed the experience of being sick. after a few days of it though, i got tired of being sick and uncomfortable and sorta came down to earth.

i think this is what they are trying to convey, what every one is trying to convey. pain.. suffering.. are all part of feeling individual and separated. once we get past that, to the understanding of 'i am, regardless of who i am' then everything becomes an experience of the creator and since all is the creator.. nothing is unpleasant.. it is all just a cosmic dance of infinite beauty and understanding. ever since i was a child, regardless of the things i had done, i always had a sense that everything was valuable as an experience. while i wouldn't do some of the things i did again.. i wouldn't give up the experiences either.. good or bad.. they are all good in the end.

but of course, like most things, this concept is incredibly hard to get across in the realm of logicical thinking.. its a very intuitive concept and it begs you to look past your ego to the greater sense of self to realize the creator cannot turn around and slap himself, nomatter how hard he tries.. he is.. and so are we... every experience is just the creator.

part of my past time activity is to do a little role play.. i play a character that interacts with other characters.. we generate plots that we get into and work on.. playing out scenarios and having fun with each other. often times these scenarios are life and death.. massive drama and suffering.. emotional explorations, character development and the like. at one point i realized this was an analogy of our own reality.. while my character was going through massive drama and suffering.. i myself was having fun.. i knew everything that was going on, everything that was hidden from my character, the plots and the bigger picture of where i wanted my character to go. in essence, i was the higher self of my character.. i understood that while the suffering was intense and my character disliked it to a great extent, in the bigger picture it was something that was necessary for my character to understand itself better. for a moment, i felt very fractal, interacting with myself on a level that hinted at the greater picture. down here, it looks like c***, feels like c*** and we look at each other going.. why could we possibly want to continue hurting one another?

from up there however.. we understand that they are just experiences.. transient and ephemeral.. they last but a moment in the bigger picture and what lasts is the growth that results from it. it is necessary, in its way, to help us understand ourselves in a way that nothing else can help us understand. yes, there is only one of us here.. and to that one self.. every experience is a glorious expression of consciousness exploring itself.

MindOverEverything

09-02-2008, 11:42 AM

i personally feel that "oneness philosophy" in its various forms and flavors from hinduism, buddhism, loo, acim, etc are actually very empowering and liberating for the "individual" who eventually "gets it."

when someone really develops a sense of oneness, then forgiveness, compassion and love become much easier emotional states to broadcast and maintain. it also allows one to take a bigger picture perspective on suffering. looked at from a non-physical perspective, this density and this planet are here for the expression of “creative suffering.”

when we *know* (not just intellectualize) that this entire “reality” is just a figment of our collective imagination, and that we are only “bound” to this plane by learned limiting beliefs and ego, then we can stop judging suffering as “bad” and understand that it is an experience chosen simply because it was a potential to be creatively experienced.

the way i “see it” is that this reality and the higher dimensions of creation as we know it is all a simultaneous thought within the mind of god / the one infinite creator. you and i are simply manifestations of this thought: neural connections in the mind of god. the realization that this illusion is just an illusion, for me, allows me to stop worrying about the future so that i can simply be in the now, amplifying and broadcasting a loving frequency despite the ample opportunity to judge as “bad/wrong/evil” the various modes of creative suffering on this planet. this allows me to help others to transcend and heal their own pain.

we perceive this “long thought” from the inside where it seems like it takes forever for anything to happen, but the thought is already complete from start to finish, and we are simply playing in the playground of suffering. soon we will be playing in the playground of love and wisdom… but it’s all still a game.

love and laughter,
cameron

dazcox

09-02-2008, 12:48 PM

conundrum

09-02-2008, 02:36 PM

i'm sorry, but as much as i try to understand the premise that 'there's only one of us here', i really don't get it. it feels like mind games to me.

if some thing confuses you or upsets you in regards to material posted here or else where
its because you have come to a conclusion about your self and your beating your self up over it because you don't understand . dont we are as confused as you are and we don't understand every thing no one does, and the media and politics play on this fact big time.

what i do when i read this stuff is believe it to be science fiction, even dw's readings blogs ect i actually start laughing when i listen to some of them, because dw is actually a human being like me which i can relate to and i just find it amusing when he says i am ra it just gets me chuckling.

its a way to get people thinking or questioning things instead of just believing every thing
they see and here, i am pink elephant do you believe me ? probably not i have no credibility no degree's ect i am just some guy making a statement.

now what if i was a president and i said some thing like that country over there has weapons of destruction and is full of terrorists and they are going to kill us oh no the sky is falling we have to invade and destroy the enemy before they destroy us.
do you believe me now ???

what about this here is a small piece of paper its worth ten apples to get these pieces of paper you will have to come and work for me and do what i tell you to do at the end of the week i will give you a hundred pieces of paper and you can trade them for a whole bunch of apples.
do you believe me ???

how about here is some magic powder if you give me 2 hundred pieces of paper i will give you a tiny little bag of it, the reason its worth so many pieces of paper is once you smoke it you become really cool and every body will like you... you will also so have no fear of any one or any thing and any one that doesn't have any magic powder becomes uncool oh i forgot to mention it allows you to see aliens be care full they are not friendly.
hang on didn't some one say dw looked like a lizard in one of his video's he's an alien run.
do you believe me ???

i could go on and on and on but thats some thing we all need to start doing for ourselves start questioning things or maybe not ignorance is bliss and your getting sleepy.;)

One 66

09-02-2008, 05:12 PM

i just have this feeling that if we were supposed to realize that we were all the same person that it wouldn't appear to be such a philosophical/spiritual exercise.

isn't there something we are supposed to be doing while we all think we are separate? if the 'answer' to feeling separated is to find ways to accept that we aren't actually separate then why do we think we're separate in the first place? is it a race to see who figures it out first or last? are there style points for figuring out the 'answer' in a creative way perhaps?

surely the there's a reason why we think we are separate?

the idea or reason we think we are separate is to experience the illusion of separation :cool: there's no race to figuring it out, it already has been figured out. you (as in the individual out) just need to realize it. it kind of is like a mind game... but one that is not impossible to figure out.

one 66

SuperManny

09-02-2008, 06:00 PM

excellent discussion! i think both sides are being well represented; both sides are valid and no side is complete by itself. on the one hand, the idea that we are all one is very idealistic and kinda makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, but it's just not that useful when it comes to paying the bills; buying groceries, etc.

when i first started studying acim, i was actually a bit turned off by this somewhat quixotic idealism, and all the flowery language. what actually kept me interested was that the most spiritual people i knew all seemed to love it.:rolleyes:

i still find many valuable lessons in acim, but at the same time i still have trouble believing the ego is so diabolically evil. and another main cim concept is the idea that this is all an illusion. of course this is true on some level, but i sometimes think it's just downright disrespectable to us and all the other entities that invested so much time and energy in creating this space for us to learn the lessons we need to learn. according to acim the goal is to escape this illusion! :confused::confused:

i got the (possibly incorrect) feeling from pt 2 of the audio blog that there is a spiritual hierarchy where 20 or so ascended people are at the top of the pile (according to larry) then you have people like eckhart tolle who can just wander around without the shackles of society then people like david and larry who have both material and spiritual wealth and then people like you and me who at least want to understand and then everyone else.i don't know how larry and david feel about this, but i can tell you that this concept is virtually the antithesis of the course's teaching. it describes this as "special", that one would be in any way superior to another, and it is to be avoided at all cost.

isn't there something we are supposed to be doing while we all think we are separate? if the 'answer' to feeling separated is to find ways to accept that we aren't actually separate then why do we think we're separate in the first place? is it a race to see who figures it out first or last? are there style points for figuring out the 'answer' in a creative way perhaps?

surely the there's a reason why we think we are separate?
the jewel that we are searching for is in the experience itself, and our task is to recognize the love in that experience.

simply put, our capacity to understand a concept can be greatly increased by dividing it up into all its little component parts, so separation can actually be very helpful. then again, ra says that understanding is not of this density, so i believe the real key here is balance. find that point between separation and oneness, that works for you in the moment and recognize that it is always fluctuating. just remember that all your beliefs are a wondrous treasure, and all experience is sacred.

Spiral of Light

09-02-2008, 08:33 PM

so much food for thought in this thread!

is it a 'failure' to not "get it"?

that is my concern, too. and trying to 'get it' doesn't seem to be working for me at this moment on my pathway.

ra says that understanding is not of this density, so i believe the real key here is balance. find that point between separation and oneness, that works for you in the moment and recognize that it is always fluctuating. just remember that all your beliefs are a wondrous treasure, and all experience is sacred.

those words work for me.

nancy

conundrum

09-03-2008, 04:26 AM

the conundrum to waking up is that there are many systems in place that cause pain and suffering to many yet keep a few safe hidden and in power.
does one accept that pain and suffering is just an experience designed for spiritual growth and be grateful for the experience or does one rebel.
either way none of us are getting out of here alive so is it foolish for me to believe that i know a better way of doing things .

survival is an animal instinct that we all possess coming to terms with ones mortality is a hard thing to take lightly but we all know that death is part of this experience, dwelling on that fact can cause needless pain and suffering and is a waste of ones time on earth (my opinion)

maybe its better to be happy and grateful for what we all ready have instead of wanting what some one else has as the grass isn't always greener on the other side , then again
it may be fun and add to the experience of being human.

meganarline

09-03-2008, 07:18 AM

for me i think i intuitively know that we are all one. but i don't feel that we are all one. that feeling is something that i'm working towards.

when i think of the world i think of it like looking at the colour comics up close where its just all a bunch of little dots , with nothing separating all the different people or things. i know that that is the way it is, but i haven't really experienced that feeling of being one with everything.

i can't wait to , but i don't think it will happen in 3d. i think there are probably very few people who can actually say that they physically and emotionally feel one with everyone/everything all the time. (you'd get nothing done, just sit there being blissed out all the time)

i have fleeting moments where i feel like i might glimpse something like that but i don't think it's really part of my 3d experience.

i am in no rush to get there, i don't think it's a race and i think we all just walk our own spiritual paths at a pace that is perfect for us. no one is any better or worse than anyone else. you get what you need, when you need it.

sometimes i wish i had more paranormal/metaphysical experiences like other people, but i am sure my time will come.

when i listened to jill bolte taylor's experience of her stroke of insight

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.htm l

i thought she has actually experienced that oneness first hand. i'm not ready to take a fast track to oneness like she did.

love,
megan

ds37ds

09-03-2008, 10:02 AM

hi everyone. i really don't think there's anything to "get" about "oneness".

it's something you feel, something you experience. there is nothing intellectual about it. there are no words to adequately describe it. it's just like trying to describe love. any description can never really come close to the actual experience.

as megan said, i have have experienced "oneness" but it really was only a fleeting glimpse each time. i don't think this can be sustained indefinitely as it would mean leaving the 3rd density. i don't know if there are things you can do to have this experience because it's always been a spontaneous occurrence for me. it usually happens after i've had some type of realization where i add another piece to puzzle.

sometimes i wonder what would happen if we all experienced this spontaneous oneness simultaneously - even for a few seconds.

would the 3rd density simply cease to exist?

love
ds

ds37ds

09-03-2008, 11:52 AM

another way it could be seen is non-resistance to the sacrifice [the hanged man] and loss of our ego or idividuality [death] which allows us to be nothing[the universe] and ultimately everything.

love
ds

isa777

09-03-2008, 02:57 PM

i've had two experiences ~ only two ~ in many years of meditation practice, but they were both so very profound that i will never doubt the 'we are one' thing again. (i kind of imagine it like being many cells in one body, etc)

one time i was walking in the woods and the other time (few years later) i was standing in the hallway of a house on my way somewhere. in both instances, i had just come out of a very long, very deep and wonderful meditation in which i was focused on the entirety of 'everything' and just chillin' with the bliss, as it were. anyway, the experience that came over me in those two instances is impossible to accurately describe but the best i can say it is that i - my entire being/mind/consciousness, etc - became a window for a moment through which a massive eye was looking through. the overwhelming gigantic-ness of this massive consciousness is just so much more than i can ever express. but it was unmistakable; someone was looking through my identity to observe the physical world, and boy was it weird. in the moment, an incredible thrill went through me ~ i stared up at the trees just so amazed at how small i was in that little human body there on the grass - and later in the hallway it was an even shorter glimpse but the thrill was the same.

i believe that 'window' is what/who we are and that giant eye is always looking through us but we just usually aren't aware of it. if you think of breath as the giant eye (haha, no i have not eaten any mushrooms or smoked anything funny...) you can see how it can breathe its attention into and through any window it chooses at any given moment. and it is doing that at every moment, all the time! so it seems to me that we are perspectives.... each from a unique viewpoint, sending data back to the main brain :).

it has been my experience that the more i draw upon the breath of the "giant all being" (whoever that is) the more love/peace/joy etc i can 'breathe into' any situation, bad or good. because even though i've only felt that "giant someone" through my own (unique individual awareness) twice, that was enough for me to believe without a doubt that it is going on all the time. (this watching and experience through us)

now where this leaves the individual, i am not certain.i have lots of ideas, some days i think i 'got it' while other days i am not so sure at all. knowing i am just another 'form' for the 'all-seeing eye' to look through has made me crazy with questions more than anything!

:eek:

TMS

09-03-2008, 06:41 PM

i too have been a student of the course over the years prior to finding david and loo and was amazed at the similarity in teachings. i think that trying to understand the fact of "there is only one of us here" is like taking only one of the lessons from the course and then wondering why you don't get it. the course is very practical and continually stesses the simplicity of the lessons. however the lessons do take you progressively through them as a day to day experience. if you really want to get it - be willing to live the lessons. then you will know why you are having an experience of separation - to learn your lessons in forgiveness. i really enjoy the humor that david and larry bring to the discussions reminds me to lighten up about it all. tms

kensanwa

09-03-2008, 11:23 PM

i'm sorry, but as much as i try to understand the premise that 'there's only one of us here', i really don't get it. it feels like mind games to me.

well, in my opinion, we create worlds much in the same way that the creator created our world everynight. when you lay your head down, go to sleep and have a dream, there are times when, within the dream, you are not one particular person or confined to one particular space. the people seem to take on a life of their own, doing whatever it is they do for whatever reason, just like the freewill that we all exercise daily. in the dream there might be a killer, there might be a saint, there might be a dog or a demon, there might be a person named kensanwa typing a reply and a person named spiraloflight reading it, but when you wake up, you realize that they were all you. our mind works much the same as the creator's mind...the difference is only one of degree.

be well,
kensanwa

larissa

09-04-2008, 07:11 AM

the problem seems to be to try to explain nonverbal understanding with words and non conceptual reality with concepts. concepts are like illusions within the illusion.

i had a couple of "cosmic consciousness" experiences when i was young, where i became one with universe and felt nothing but love. so i need no explanations when i come accross the spiritual principles that are taught in the various modalities. how can you tell someone what an apple tastes like? they will know by biting into it.

those experiences didn't make me a saint (too bad!). but i did get to see where i was going. so frustrating that this world is so far from that reality and so am i. i loved what david said about the wanderers having to put up with this hell when they are used to something much different.

i want to send that quote to someone close to me who is constantly talking about killing themselves (that was also me most of my life). i understand now why i was so attracted to the lifestyle i wanted but never got.

if we as wanderers or whatever are here to raise the consciousness of the planet, then lets do it. there is a question asked in the course, "how many people does it take to save the world?" the answer is, "only one." i understand that now.

3D Sunset

09-04-2008, 07:40 AM

hi spiral,

if you think about it, you'll realize that the only objective proof that you have of anyone's existance is you own. by all accounts of even the most modern research and theories, it is only through your mind, and your five sense, which you observe and experience the external world. since it is possible to stimulate the mind into seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting or feeling things that are "not really there", you can easily see that everthing that happens could be "self stimulated" and is happening only within your mind.

now, to be sure there is an awful lot that is happening in that mind of yours (or mine, perhaps i should say). not the least of which is an overwhelming conviction that all these other things exist and are separate from us.

i recall that at about age 4 or 5, i developed a fantasy that there were only two people in the entire world - me and my father. i came to believe that my father was actually moving from place to place, person to person, event to event, time to time, at speeds faster than i could see, and was acting out all the other parts in the drama of my life. the belief was empowering in that i came to view every interraction with someone else as an interraction with my father playing a role, and as an opportuntiy to learn from him. as a teenager, i tried to find the underlying truth behind this "feeling" and it led my on my spiritual journey.

i think now that this "father" was a mental personification of my higher self, actively taking a role in setting up the events that i needed to experience.

so, for me at any rate, the idea that there were only two of us here came at a very early age. the realization that we two were one, followed fairly easily by my late teens.

3d sunset

conundrum

09-04-2008, 09:40 AM

i was doing some googling in regards to illusion and came across this interesting link
its an interpretation taken from the bible but not from a dogmatic religious view point and ties into what we have been discussing.

http://sigler.org/walter/illusion_1.htm

estopatitiana

09-04-2008, 08:45 PM

wow this is a good read! what they were saying made sense to me for the most part. i had a few qualms, its easy for me accept my own suffering with no problem at all. i can see how the world is your mirror, i try to use this knowledge to see into myself

on the same day i listened to the blog, i was on campus and came across a starving squirell that was literally a sack of bones, so weak he could only walk a few inches then lay down in the blazing heat. i was torn as to what to do, let "nature take its course" in the middle of a fragmented forest habitat with no predators on a college campus? or pick him up, put him in my bag and maybe get bit and risk rabies. so i rode as fast as i could back home (2 miles) to get a kennel. i came back and he was gone.

i realized in this experience even if its an illusion it was real for that squirrel, god still invested that much thought into that moment and his existance. i wont deny that. i know this experience was put in my path to show me i cant always help. or how indecisive i am at times like this.

i made the decison to help at first because i expected a good outcome, i was focused on the fruits of my decision. now that i look at it i realize that i should decide to be of service regardless of the outcome. i now am content with that decision. i pray that he has beeen reunited with the oneness and is no longer in anguish.

4d is about opening your heart, i try not to understand god. i accept the illusion, and try to help in any way i can.

ds37ds

09-05-2008, 08:30 AM

quote:
"another way it can be seen is non-resistance to the sacrifice [the hanged man] and loss of our ego or individuality [death] which allows us to be nothing [the universe] and ultimately everything."

i thought i'd better come back and explain this as it may sound freaky to anyone who doesn't understand what i mean.

i was referring to the tarot card archetypes: the hanged man, death and the universe/the world. i was using these metaphorically and not literally of course.

one of the greatest obstacles to understanding or experiencing oneness [as much as this can be done] is our ego.

the fool [the seeker] arrives at a point on his journey where he becomes aware of his existence between the material and spiritual worlds. he desires to connect his mundane material existence with the divine - he wants to connect to oneness. the fool is portrayed as the hanged man[card12] with his conciousness anchored in this materiality.

oneness is portrayed as the world/the universe [card21]. note that we are going from 12 to 21 - that's a long distance with lots of space to traverse between the two and lots of inner work still to be done.

the first and most difficult inner work to be done is surrendering the ego. the fool decides to sacrifice his ego as his desire to experience oneness becomes overwhelming. this is where the death archetype comes into the picture and starts working on breaking down or killing off the ego. during the process, the fool has glimpses of oneness but he must undergo further stages of transformation or transmutation before oneness can become a permanent state of consciousness.

hope this helps!

love
ds

Avariel

09-05-2008, 09:42 AM

*
the course in miracles seems, at first glance, to really clobber you with a few quips which, by sheer repetition, seem to bring you back time and again to themselves, as if, in the end, they are really the answer to everything (and indeed, that does seem to be the message they are putting forth):

• there is only one of us here. i'm not here. you're not here. nobody 'out there' is really there. there's only god. we are all one. there is no separation.

• this is all just an illusion. none of this is real.

• there is only now. there is no past, no future, only the eternal present. as forgiveness leads time in our illusion to collapse and condense into a single point, the end of time meets the beginning, and all points in between coalesce into an all-pervasive experience in which time is irrelevant.

now remember that the bulk of humanity is very much 3d, and many of them in the lower vibrations of 3d (whether they are really there or not :d), so their capacity to comprehend esoteric material is slow (bit-by-bit instead of all-at-once) and limited in depth to some degree or other. the purpose of programs like yours (ra material) and larry's (miracles) is to reach & guide "the common man" toward a more enlightened philosophy and road upwards in consciousness. yet, my impression of these 'simple yet incredibly far-reaching' adages are that the common man cannot easily digest them because of all the (hidden) repercussions they imply within their structure, so they instead rather easily "take them at face value" without fully trying to understand what they're incorporating. they begin spouting the lines as if they are the irrefutable answer to any inquiry, and thereby actually discourage exploration & questioning, without really understanding the real basis from which these 'truths' arise. (that's kinda dangerous! :eek:)

one of your very special gifts, david, (truly!) and the very attribute that made you the catalyst for me personally to investigate and embrace all the 2012 material, is that you substantiate your work as you go along. you back up everything you say with scientific study or other easily-referenced material. don't underestimate the power of this approach to your work, as it allows the modern minded thinker to listen to your arguments & discussion points without quickly dismissing them out-of-hand as hearsay & gibberish.

the course of miracles doesn't do this, and instead takes the road of "convincing" you of its philosophy without taking its explanations in steps, or substantiating itself along the way, building on itself. (it's kind of like a the world works like this... trust me approach.) this opens the very foundations that it's based upon to query & scrutiny, and it soon becomes evident after bouncing the ball around for awhile that it's a bit "swiss-cheesed" in its reasoning.

i'm not saying it's wrong. i'm not saying i disagree with it (i actually find it intriguing). it's just hard to take in and evaluate considering the way it's been presented. i tend to look at both philosophies (ra/miracles) like variant approaches to the study of psychology. your way (ra) might be akin to jungian psychology, and larry's way (miracles) might be akin to freud. neither philosophy stands up on its own to encompass the whole of the human mind, but each approach embellishes our understanding of the phenomenon. or, if you prefer physics, one approach is general relativity and the other is quantum physics. neither invalidates the other, but they both come together to build up our understanding of the environments & conditions where each might be more relevant as explanations to the universe.

so let's play ball a little here, to illustrate my point.

••• this is all just an illusion. none of this is real. •••

probably the easiest point to chew down, if only because it's a very common theme, at this point in our history, of many religious, cultural, & metaphysical philosophies. please bear in mind that this is not 'merely' an illusion from which we simply 'must wake up from'. it's an all-encompassing illusion that can we can't easily escape or break away from (and by 'not easily' i really mean 'almost impossible except under the most extraordinary circumstances' for average joe). so it's not to be trivialized in any way. one man's illusion is another man's all-too-real reality. this adage can actually be broken down into subheadings, each one a variant of the illusion theme:

a) when we incarnate, we pass through a 'veil', which erases all our previous memories of other lives & time spent between lives, and is largely responsible for the sense of our separation from others & god; when we die, we re-mesh with our collective lifetime memory & sense the oneness again. in other words, we are subject to the illusion while incarnate, but transcend the illusion when disembodied as a spirit/soul.

...or...

b) when we incarnate, we pass through a 'veil', which erases all our previous memories of other lives & time spent between lives, and is largely responsible for the sense of our separation from others & god; when we die, we re-mesh with our collective lifetime memory, but we are still in the illusion! we travel through what buddhists call 'samsara', restlessly ever moving on through it, until we reincarnate again. (actually, 'samsara' is the journey through death and rebirth, where we are caught up in the karma cycle indefinitely and subject to the illusion whether alive and breathing or dead and in a 'mental body'. enlightenment will allow you to pierce the illusion, but liberation is another level of achievement which allows you to finally escape from it entirely and dispense with the need to incarnate ever again.)

...or...

c) we're not "incarnating" at all. this is all just an illusion. we're still in heaven. we never left. we're just in a dream, of sorts, and simply need to "wake up" enough realization in ourselves to wake up from the dream and find ourselves right where we've always been. in heaven.

...and/or...

d) this illusion we are experiencing is twofold: people are experiencing their own "bubble realities" within a greater illusion context that is mutually agreed upon by all participants over many generations of substantiation. this sort of implies that the more generations that participate in this shared illusion, the more defined its rules become. if you slam into a rock wall, you will invariably go *splat!* because 10,000 generations of people have 'thought' the absolutely solidity of that rock wall into place which your own mere 'bubble reality' cannot easily overcome or undo.

now these are very different subheadings! with very different repercussions for those tossing around ideas here on earth about the way it all works. these differentiations deserve some in-depth discussion, or definition, or recognition at least.

it was brought up in the audio blogs that while this is all an illusion, you don't recommend that anyone step in front of a speeding car, since they will very much die by doing so. this gets contradictory to the very philosophy that the course in miracles is putting out though, however. if "this" is all just an illusion, then by definition, death is illusory as well. getting killed doesn't change the game. after all, you weren't really 'alive' in the first place. you're not really 'here' now. there's only one of us here, and that's god. we are all one, thus we are all god. etc etc. in the samsara theme mentioned above, this is well-known... one learns not to fear death since life is just "practice" for the chance of liberation that presents itself at death, and how whether alive or dead, it's all just a neverending journey anyway until liberation is achieved. so while it may not be recommended to consciously choose to step in front of a speeding car for karma reasons (i.e. suicide brings bad karma on yourself, which further deludes your perception of samsara and requires a forthcoming self-forgiveness mega-chore), getting killed not-by-your-own-doing is perfectly acceptable! then again, a 'peaceful' death is more preferable to a sudden or violent one, as it allows the soul/spirit to exit properly, and rest as it can, and make the overall transition experience more tranquil.

so, you see, if i kept on talking about this one point, it would easily get confusing and miasmic. especially to the average 3d'r. while there is merit to the "keep it simple" philosophy with the "this is all just an illusion" line, there's also an inherent need to explain the basis that the simplicity is built upon too, while also pointing out what (many-people-may-commonly-may-believe-now) it's not built upon.

Avariel

09-05-2008, 09:43 AM

*
••• there is only one of us here. i'm not here. you're not here. nobody 'out there' is really there. there's only god. we are all one. there is no separation. •••

the real toughie with this one is that we inherently very much feel like we are here (just as the illusion can feel downright real). it's easier to accept that maybe everyone else isn't really there, as part of some illusion, but "dammit, i'm sure as heck real enough!" this little perception problem gets compounded when you have a group of friends together, each insisting that they are very much 'there'. then it quickly becomes a game of "well, if i'm here, and you're really 'there', then maybe just we are really 'here', but it's everyone else you can't see who's not really there." and this quickly devolves into drawing up possible lists of who is and isn't really there, which gets far and away from the real point. it's hard to take in!

then enters immorality, where people start saying things like "well, if they're not real, then i'll just go shoot them dead, since they're not real anyway. then where will that leave things?" humans, (well most of them), place value on human life (& other forms of life), so when you take away the 'humaness' or 'realness' quality of these other life forms, they suddenly become dispensible & exploitable-for-gain. there's no need to 'respect' that which isn't really there. again, the implications of this adage are hard to take in and process properly without a relevant framework.

one common analogy used to describe us all within the context of our relationship with god is to compare it to the very cells that make up your human body. there are 'good' cells (most of them) that contribute to the body's healthy functioning and 'bad' cells (mutated or damaged or errant autoimmunes or cancerous ones) that put their own agenda above the body's, or are otherwise misprogrammed. in essence, they are all one (body), but at the same time, they are also very much themselves and very alive on their own. granted, they cannot endure without the complete system (they're co-dependent upon the maintenance of a homeostatic environment), but each is by definition, very real, and very much there. and the body couldn't do without them all. this analogy is relatively easy to digest.

but the course of miracles says, essentially, that those 'cells' aren't really there, that only the body as a whole is there, and that there is no separation between them. those cells really are just the body. well, last time i checked, my body kind of operated on a 'higher' level than on the cellular one, definitely insofar as we don't chat casually with each other (although there is definitely 'some kind' of understanding between us). ***it's really just a matter of perspective!*** to the body, the cells don't really look like they're there (unless a microscope is handy), but to the little guys, they sense that they very much are there, and it's the body as a whole they have trouble 'perceiving'.

so when the course of miracles says we aren't really here, we're all really one, and that one is god, well, that would definitely be the pov from god's perspective. from the little guys' pov, we are very much here, alive & kickin'. to purport that we are not is to align yourself with a mistaken case of pov. "truth" has always been defined as a matter of perspective. remember the saying "that which exists, exists?" (as a direct analog to "nothing unreal exists.") it's tough to accept that one's existence is unreal, since that would equate us with nothing (not with god). it's much easier to accept one's existence as real, under the adage "i am, therefore i exist."

except from a god's-eye-view, this whole statement from the course of miracles appears to be a self-denying one. people much more readily accept that a piece of god resides inside them (and thus they are co-creators). they do not want to accept that they don't exist, nor do they want to accept that they are god (and thus they are the creator). they don't want to "own" the entire portfolio... it's too big! they'd sooner picture their piece re-merging with god at some point of spiritual evolution than to claim they are already god.

••• there is only now. there is no past, no future, only the eternal present. as forgiveness leads time in our illusion to collapse and condense into a single point, the end of time meets the beginning, and all points in between coalesce into an all-pervasive experience in which time is irrelevant. •••

ah, time loops. or 'no-time' or 'all-time' points. the enigma that has killed many a star trek episode. :)

i won't go too far down this road or we'll be here all night! but while one can romantically entertain the notion of timelessness easily enough, adhering to its reality is quite another.

existence without time implies a static condition, since change can only take place over time. then there's the old saying, "time exists so that everything doesn't all happen at once," which, is in essence, the very condition we're putting forth these days as a highly-evolved goal... the collapsing of time down to an infinite moment. david's ideas of a time/space continuum vs. a space/time one like the one we're immersed in now is palpable enough (for a 4d reality stretch), but to crystallize all existence down to a singularity is a toughie on the brain. to compress all learning, all growth, all maturation, all relations, all experiences, perceptions, ideas, & innovations into a single point makes one wonder if such a state is really a desirable one!

the course of miracles sort of considers 4d, 5d, and 6d densities to be nothing more than part of the illusion, and sort of 'skip to the end' by suggesting the use of forgiveness as the tool to collapse time down to a single, yet infinite, moment where we are everything & everywhere, which is the epitomy of graduation beyond 7d, right? but if we are all god in the first place, and god is everywhere and everything and time is just one continuous moment, are we not then already at that point? and if we are, then what's the point with making it so tough to wake up from the dream? you'd think there'd by a handier "that's enough" button while indulging in a subset of all-experiences cast over time. why the forgiveness chore to get back out?

perhaps when you take god and spread him out, say, over a solar system where moving planetary bodies create the perception/reality of time, then part of god breaks into little pieces of spirit/mind/body complexes, which actually are separate from the whole, and don't reunite again until time is dispensed with once more (in 7d+).

but wouldn't that concept invalidate the course of miracles, which insists that there is no separation, and never was? if there never was, why haven't i, or can't i, see things from god's perspective? that seems to be the pov we're going for.

Avariel

09-06-2008, 04:31 PM

if you think about it, you'll realize that the only objective proof that you have of anyone's existance is you own. by all accounts of even the most modern research and theories, it is only through your mind, and your five sense, which you observe and experience the external world. since it is possible to stimulate the mind into seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting or feeling things that are "not really there", you can easily see that everthing that happens could be "self stimulated" and is happening only within your mind.

3d sunset

consider this...

a) from the celestine prophecy/tenth insight books: when some guy died, so unready was he to embrace the true nature of afterlife reality that his mind 'instantly' recreated an entire world for him to be in. angels, friends, family, and giving people surrounded his 'pseudo-reality' bubble, pouring love and light into it in the hopes that he could find points of time therein to be open enough to receive such energies so he could embrace the truth and unravel his reality bubble to once again rejoin all those people who so dearly loved him. literally, in such a circumstance, he was the "only one" there, everyone else inside it was indeed an illusion, and he had self-inflicted the dream upon himself.

b) from tibetan buddhism (and no, i'm not a buddhist, i'm just readin' the very enlightening text material of theirs): when you die and start trekkin' through samsara, you receive 'many visitations' by buddha-bodies over a span of days to weeks (which offer you chances for liberation, or to lesser reincarnation). you also visualize many other things as well, which seem to 'pursue' you and prod you to keep going and never rest (much). the whole point of the wisdom that they're trying to convey to you is that all of those things are emanations from your own mind. you, in essence, are manifesting their reality. realizing that is the first step to attaining liberation. (but, at the time you're walkin' it, they all do seem heckof real.)

so, maybe, just maybe, we are self-trapped in our own little reality bubble, and in your case, i'm just the manifestation of some love energy that's been sent your way by someone outside who's trying to get you to wake up and smell the true-nature-of-reality coffee. ;)

just a thought...

•••av•••

MarkM

09-07-2008, 05:28 PM

existence without time implies a static condition, since change can only take place over time. then there's the old saying, "time exists so that everything doesn't all happen at once," which, is in essence, the very condition we're putting forth these days as a highly-evolved goal... the collapsing of time down to an infinite moment. david's ideas of a time/space continuum vs. a space/time one like the one we're immersed in now is palpable enough (for a 4d reality stretch), but to crystallize all existence down to a singularity is a toughie on the brain. to compress all learning, all growth, all maturation, all relations, all experiences, perceptions, ideas, & innovations into a single point makes one wonder if such a state is really a desirable one!

the course of miracles sort of considers 4d, 5d, and 6d densities to be nothing more than part of the illusion, and sort of 'skip to the end' by suggesting the use of forgiveness as the tool to collapse time down to a single, yet infinite, moment where we are everything & everywhere, which is the epitomy of graduation beyond 7d, right? but if we are all god in the first place, and god is everywhere and everything and time is just one continuous moment, are we not then already at that point? and if we are, then what's the point with making it so tough to wake up from the dream? you'd think there'd by a handier "that's enough" button while indulging in a subset of all-experiences cast over time. why the forgiveness chore to get back out?

perhaps when you take god and spread him out, say, over a solar system where moving planetary bodies create the perception/reality of time, then part of god breaks into little pieces of spirit/mind/body complexes, which actually are separate from the whole, and don't reunite again until time is dispensed with once more (in 7d+).

but wouldn't that concept invalidate the course of miracles, which insists that there is no separation, and never was? if there never was, why haven't i, or can't i, see things from god's perspective? that seems to be the pov we're going for.

existence without time does imply a static condition, and the concept of infinite intelligence itself implies a state of zero experience other than awareness of a pure unity and potentiality which is purposeless without some realization of that potentiality.

i can't conceive of any means by which the potential creator may advance beyond this pure potential/no experiencing but through movement, movement into intelligent energy, and now you necessarily have everything which is implicit with that movement - for example, perception of time and space necessarily result along with a perception of movement, as does the concept of manyness (observer and observed).

the creator (now having subjected itself to mystery) marvels at the new distorted appearance of that which was/is always one, and wonders at the fact that every part of this zone of realized potentiality contains the whole of it's previous essense of intelligent infinity, including each 'part' of itself. it wonders at the fact that the tiniest, slightest movement had the effect of rippling the pond, so to speak, and distorting this perfect immobile and undifferentiated essense into a universe of infinite complexity and mystery and manyness of apparent living beings.

the creator experiences itself as being 'smeared' into infinite parts, each existing with the upward calling home, and tasked with the role of first hand discovery of itself, and it's environment and it's relationshp thereto. each part is bound to discover for itself, and nothing is given which is not the fruit of the exploration of the entity.

now maybe the creator in it's infinite intelligence knew that it would be putting itself into a state of relativity and mystery and confusion, and by incorporating torsion energy into the fabric of the universe, designed a failsafe system by which there would always be an upward-spiraling pull back towards intelligent infinity/oneness. one might call this system many things, including love, but perhaps without this failsafe, the creator would forever entropy out into it's creation, never to return.

so, now, the creator experiences the joys of experience - all the experiences of all lifeforms are the direct experiences of the creator, for in fact every lifeform is the creator in a unique place of experiencing. here, one may peruse the notion that the 'joy of life' journey through the densities by the many parts is reason enough for creation, an antidote to an infinity of potential with no experiencing.

it's not a stretch to image that from time to time, there's a pocket of life which gets drawn out of the slow, gentle upward pull back towards oneness, perhaps kind of like a leaf caught in an eddy on a stream. here, a little extra help may be required to jolt the stuck denizens into remembering somewhat that they are not intrinsically separate beings, thus perhaps helping them back into the flow of life back to oneness.

i feel that this is somewhat the case with the people on this planet - recall ra mentioning that this period of third density existence on earth was unique in that the recalcitrant, non ascending remaining populations of several other planetary third density evolutions which had since moved up into higher densities were lumped together here, as the non-ascending remainders of each of these planetary populations were too small to each warrant an entire planet to repeat third density on.

it would appear that we're largely a collection of hard-core non-evolvers, stuck in a rut somehow and unable to transcend our sense of separateness to the extent where we are repeating the same catalytic lessons ad-nauseum, yet not appreciably moving towards harvestability. thus the urgency at this juncture of history in regards to the ministrations of our kinfolk who have passed through the eye into higher densities before us. the end of a great cycle is an accelerated time of potential increase of opportunity for spiritual awakening, a time when the effect of our thoughts, attitudes and deeds is much more rapidly and clearly apparent - thus allowing an increased ability to learn from choices made.

because free will (the law of confusion) is the first distortion of existence, (thus ensuring that the creator experiences it's creation in full, without it's individual aspects (entities) being deprived of the opportunity to choose their own method of experiencing) those that would help us from the 'outside' are unable to do more than benignly suggest to us things of the nature of what we really are - as well as help facilitate the instreaming of spiritual light energy into our sphere. a truly benevolent source of help would never try to force upon an entity that which the entity wasn't ready to experience. this would be tantamount to depriving the entity of the privilege of choosing the means of it's own experiencing.

now although some folk make it sound as though we're expected to cut our inter-density journey as short as possible, i don't feel this is the general jist of what is being taught in either the acim or the loo.

- separation is ultimately illusory, and knowing/intuiting/learning to live this while we are enmeshed in the universe of apparent separateness is most useful in more gracefully and lovingly interacting with our environs, staying forwardly dynamic in the joy of discovery/illumination, and increasing our ability to serve as a conduit of love into the world at large, and our fellow travelers.

- separation is real insofar as it facilitates the experiencing of the creator/ourselves. without separation, there would be no experiencing.

a great flurry of activity exists right now in regards to helping those on earth who have been stuck, but in more general terms, i think the greatest benefit to learning the lessons of spirit is to better enjoy the ride we're all on, and to stay within the gently uprising currents of continued discovery and evolution, as opposed to trying to rush towards the end, or feeling this distorted old universe is evil or undesirable in some way - as the ride is being taken by the creator for its/our own sake.

just a personal distorted muse, filled with the 'errors' of confusion.;) mark

conundrum

09-07-2008, 11:52 PM

we are living a lie our human animal minds are convinced that it knows better than god we have stopped communicating to spiritual and believe only in the physical and duality.

our imaginations are the only lie that needs to be recognized every thing i believe to be real is made up in my human animal mind,, and i believe i am a human animal because if i stand in front of a mirror naked theres a human animal staring right back at me, not to mention all the other human animals that tell me that i am real they pinch me and it hurts so it must be real .

i can also deduce that i am a human animal because i need to breathe like an animal drink and eat like an animal crap like an animal and breed like an animal and ultimately die like an animal.

every thing we believe we are our animal minds made up

i am a good boy/girl
i am a bad boy/girl
i am smart/dumb

he/she doesn't know 1+1=2 , 'i' know it "believe it" so i am smart and good he/she doesn't know it so he/she is dumb and bad... i believe it because my parents said that if i
know 1+1= 2 that i would be good and smart and if i didn't know i would be dumb and bad and that i would not get a lolly .

i don't know what 1+1=2 means but he/she says that he/she does know and because he/she says because i don't know that 1+1=2 that i am dumb and bad boo who "i believe" i am dumb and bad.

i am a policeman
i am a criminal
i am a manager
i am a worker
i am a drug dealer
i am a drug addict
i am a school teacher
i am a student
i am a lawyer
i am a client
i am a judge
i am guilty/not guilty :confused: hmm some one that can override my belief system

take off there cloths and stand them in line they are all human animals.

the female of our species appear to be less distorted towards natural law they recognize
animals as part of them selves generally being more connected to nature as they give birth to baby human animals.
feeding and caring for infants is more difficult to distort than it is in regards to males.

a male will look at an animal and wonder what it tastes like will it do his work for him can he sell it or is it a nuisance and should he just kill it.

living in a male dominated society is it possible that we have allowed our selves to be reduced to farm animals instead of humans as it sure does appear that way to me then again i am a human animal like every one else so its just my imagination telling me lies again.

fluoride is good for my teeth, diet cola is good for me , i am a worker , money is real.
the president tells the truth, i must listen to authority figures, food is not contaminated
oil is energy , nuclear power is good for the environment, the reserve bank is all powerful.
i must pay tax.

liar :d

Avariel

09-08-2008, 12:07 AM

i feel that this is somewhat the case with the people on this planet - recall ra mentioning that this period of third density existence on earth was unique in that the recalcitrant, non ascending remaining populations of several other planetary third density evolutions which had since moved up into higher densities were lumped together here, as the non-ascending remainders of each of these planetary populations were too small to each warrant an entire planet to repeat third density on.

it would appear that we're largely a collection of hard-core non-evolvers, stuck in a rut somehow and unable to transcend our sense of separateness to the extent where we are repeating the same catalytic lessons ad-nauseum, yet not appreciably moving towards harvestability.

lol. we're a conglomerate of all the flunking classes of every planet in the galaxy (well, at least several planets therein). i guess it's like watching the movie stripes. the worst of the worst, huh? god help us. oh, wait, that's us, isn't it? well, the rest of god help us then. ;)

a great flurry of activity exists right now in regards to helping those on earth who have been stuck...

so, a bunch of higher density social workers are lending a hand to help along the spiritually-handicapped nonevolvers? it's like having the super friends working behind the curtain to sneak in their aid however they can without breaking any of the golden rules.

yet, here still so many of us are, getting d's on our ascension report cards. :p (hey, a d is still a passing grade!)

because of the fractal nature of us all, which links and weaves each of us into a cohesive whole, i almost think that by dragging our heels so much, we're somehow holding back or slowing down everyone else on the evolutionary scale as well. maybe the super friends have a good deal of motive to kick our buns into action. :)

not to rush us along. but maybe just to keep the whole ball of wax moving.

•••av•••

MarkM

09-08-2008, 10:04 PM

ha ha, yeah, what you said.:p
the worst of the worst, huh? god help us. oh, wait, that's us, isn't it? well, the rest of god help us then.;)

i just hope that god with all his (oops - her..) infinite virtue has infinite patience with those of us arcade-bound truants who have yet to 'move' or get off the can, so to speak.

it's a law of one staple that every 'part', no matter how small, is a totally necessary part of the whole, and thus none is, or possibly can be, lost. i feel it's important to consider that any perceived situation is ultimately illusory, therefore we need not consider that any are in any real danger. its, as you also say, an issue of releasing impacted pockets of fear, which impact upon all else in the greater stageplay. sure, our 'help' has a vested interest in yanking our motorcycling butts outta the mud, but my intuition is telling me that in the end, there is only service - as opposed to the dodgy, philosophically troublesome concept of sts/sto. your butt is mine, pal! (don't read anything into this, please)

forgiveness = acceptance: i'd add something to this, in light of larry saying that forgiveness collapses time. forgiveness/acceptance is the locomotive we each and collectively ride in our journey up thru the densities. as a frail human concept, it comes closest to defining that which is most wholly responsible for any forward motion in regard to our movement into bigger and better things.

to not be willing to accept an undesirable condition is to invite its persistance. to accept the condition is half the battle towards understanding what the condition is there to teach you, for everything encountered in life does appear to you in order to teach you something about yourself. the particular desireability/undesireability of a condition, as it sits with you, is always a reflection of some aspect of yourself - and if that condition is distasteful to you, it is there to point you towards some aspect of yourself that actually detracts from a fuller, better and more aware expression of who and what you are. all there really is, is awareness. this, i have come to intuit, is an absolute truism.

now, this takes some practice, and meditation is a valuable asset here, as asking the hard questions of yourself in light of this understanding will accelerate your 'coming into awareness'. the practice of attempting to live the concept of the law of one, and seeing others as different versions of your self, undergoing a different set of experiences, serves to make more readily real the idea that each can act as a dynamic mirror of and for the other.

a condition persists as long as it is useful - your experiences are intimately tied to who you are, and as cayce said, mind is the builder. an emotionally charged condition invites you to see yourself in the condition. it illustrates exactly those aspects of your self that need attention, always. here, one has the added advantage of knowing that their outer experiencing always mirrors theiir inner being, and as it can be hard to fathom one's own depths, one's outer experiencing can make this process easier and more visible.

from this, one can discern that forgiveness of self and forgiveness of outer conditions are inseparable concepts. although no one can tell you how to go about your own process of self acceptance, it helps to know that the entirety of your outer world experience has it's existence only to mirror your self back to you. if you can accept more of what you are, without guilt or shame, you will see a corresponding change in what you experience happening in the outer world.

accept/forgive your perceived imperfections, don't try to bury your distortions. bring 'em out of the closet and unabashedly look at them, and while you're at it, bless and allow the untrammeled being of your auntie mae, although she has too many cats, and her place stinks. don't be too weirded out or unforgiving of your boss, who is trying to put fear into you to increase the bottom line. that's his/her way of expressing the fear put into him/her by his/her own boss, and a challenge to you to help displace that fear with love/forgiveness. the buck has to stop somewhere.

send love and forgiveness/acceptance to those powers-that-be that seemingly corrupt and taint your world - allow/forgive them this, and you help to remove the necessity for their influence, and you allow your self to be a little more uncoupled from your own less than 'perceived' unsavory distortions and emotional hang-ups, and to become all the more unassailable by the powers that be, as you have helped remove the reason for our collective shadow side to have reactive power over us.

accept the world in it's becoming, and you allow great light and illumination into your self and thence into the world. mark

Avariel

09-09-2008, 12:31 AM

god love ya, mark. (and by that i don't mean i'm trying to send you love to neutralize your influence or reactive power over me somehow. :p) i just would like to take a moment in our collective experiencing of reality to thank you for representing the acim viewpoint, since i so very need someone to do that intelligently, and here you are doing just that. i truly appreciate it. thank you, really.

now... en guarde'!

one question that keeps coming back to mind for me over and over is about the dichotomy of "our own" personal reality vs. a "shared" collective one we all jointly & simultaneously participate in. it's hard for me to distinguish "when we cross the threshold" from one to the other, since at times it very much seems that my own experience of reality is different from other people's, while at other times, we all very much seem to be "watching the same reality movie".

as a case in point, a few months ago my girlfriend and i were walking down 4th street in san rafael. she sports "rose-colored glasses" quite a bit, and lives by a simple philosophy while ignoring much of what goes on in the world, claiming it a 'better way' of keeping happy. i usually advocate the other side of that fence. we split up in a beauty supply shop, and began having 'very different' experiences. she was caught up with this new lotion or that new hair gel, while i observed myself getting 'stalked' and psychologically prodded by the wandering salespeople to 'move along' (i'm not the typical-looking expensivo beauty supply shopper, i guess). i told my girlfriend i'd run to the bank across the street, then over to starbuck's where we'd meet up again (where's a peet's coffee when ya need one?). long story short, i had unpleasant experience after unpleasant experience within the space of just a few minutes. cow-like richie kids hogging up the sidewalk and somehow blocking any attempts to get around them while i got to overhear their egotistical, snide-filled conversational babble... traffic signals going red on me inconveniently as i tried to put some distance between us... an 'entitlist' suv driver almost barreling me over in the crosswalk 'because he could', and someone who was leaving starbucks almost walking down my back and over my body to get out before i could, even though i was ahead of him and already at the door. almost knocked my coffee clean out've my hand as he sideswiped me. it seemed everyone in the vicinity was out to "give me a lesson" in my attitude toward the snobbish, richie jetset living up here. by the time i found my girlfriend again, i was fuming at 'people in general'. she was delightfully oblivious to any of it, and simply told me it was my own fault, and that i brought it on myself. i'm sure i did.

so yes, we shared the same overall reality of being in the same neighborhood around the same time, yet our personal experiences therein were quite different.

so far, no foul.

but when you say that "forgiveness of self and forgiveness of outer conditions are inseparable concepts", well then, the question of "my" reality vs. a "consensus" reality comes into play again. taken literally, i could well interpret that as meaning that "everything that is bad in the world" (and there's no shortage of that) is somehow my fault too. (my girlfriend likes the sound of that, btw... :p). if only i could more fully embrace this "forgiveness/acceptance" concept, well then, wars would end, crime would become passe', corporate greed would evolve into generosity & public nourishment, and corruption on every level would vanish. or maybe... it would just in my reality.

there's a saying the buddhists have... the day the very first buddha attained enlightenment, the world knew peace that day. all fighting, crime, & violence stopped, all bickering and misunderstandings ceased. it was as if the whole world took pause at his enlightenment achievement, and embraced harmony in totality. (then the next day it was business-as-usual, i guess. :d).

sometimes i think we are all living in totally, completely separated realities that just resemble each other (for the sake of common points of reference), but that when we communicate with each other, we are somehow breaching those reality boundaries. in your world, you are the only one there. everyone else is an illusion. in my world, i'm the only one here. everyone else is an illusion. but we are all here (wherever 'here' is)... we're just pinched off completely from each other because we're all in separate realities, yet we're all one (attached via the godlink), so we can communicate to each other (like the way i'm communicating to you right now, via a texting device) to advise & guide & mirror each other to help facilitate the learning of our lessons.

we're all dreaming different dreams, but at the same time, we're all dreaming at once. and somehow, maybe we're all trying to help each other in our different dreams to wake up from them, even though we're all still stuck in our dreams.

wow, now i'm confusing myself. am i still making sense? :confused:

but i can verify this much for you... when i do try wholeheartedly to be more forgiving/accepting of my faults (since everything bad in my world is simply reflecting my faults to me), then the world does get marginally better for it, both locally and globally.

so there's gotta be something to all this...

•••av the dream•••

MarkM

09-09-2008, 09:29 PM

aha!

av, i think i gather what you are thinking, and it really is a mind bender, and perhaps not unlike a dog trying to get it's head around why it's human master spends so much time looking at a little lit screen going tappity - tappity.

when considering higher density issues, it seems that the more you try to unravel your intuitive gatherings into a 3d mind linear conceptual framework, the less you 'see' what it was that caused you to choke up with the ineffable beauty that seized you as you felt the connection with your source just minutes earlier. in writing about the law of one on this forum, i have noticed at times that the more i try to elucidate, the farther i get from the essential 'feelingness' in which place i most clearly apprehend my relationship with the all.

now, sometimes, the opposite is true, and when writing from the place of inspiration, i've been happy to capture a snapshot of what is within, but its just that - a snapshot.

despite our increasing inner encounters with the issues of social memory complexes and oneness, we do live in a world of manyness and many entities. unlike some, i don't believe this is a bad thing, and while we're here, we should be dealing with what our outer senses are informing us of, as there's likely a very good reason for their doing so.;)

on the other hand, each awakening soul may have some dawning inkling of what the oneness thing is all about, and as one increasingly begins to explore the things, thoughts and feelings which unite us, and dwell less on the things which differentiate and separate, one naturally begins to internalize unity and, if diligent, will grow in the natural application of these things. one who seeks to utilise the intellect in trying to fathom these things without the regular practice of applying them in daily life will be hard pressed to say the least to really attain understanding. for me, understanding is not a thing of the intellect, but rather some kind of inner, unknowing yet unmistakeably real mass of something, the effect of which can best be described as an expansion of being and an encompassing and identifying with the life of the world around me.

i believe this is something which for me is the cumulative result of forty years of dedication to the question of just what the hell am i doing here, a quest for truth, and an inner sensing i have long known that we're all connected in some invisible way.

many here, and you yourself likely know something of this, otherwise you'd not be here.

we can go only so far with intellectual understanding of these things, and for me the trick is to balance that rigour with periods of sitting still, and just passively feeling what it all feels like.

just as important is to practice looking at the many and varied things which fill every day, and projecting this growing philosophical/intellectual oneness thing into these circumstances. try seeing another as yourself in a different set of circumstances, for example. the golden rule, when diligently practiced, works wonders.

here, your intent is everything. you need to at least have the intent of some nice, loving things happening. remember, its not about lifting yourself above this world, its about taking the whole enchilada with you - as the enchilada is you. that's what the law of one is about - coming gradually to operate as being integral with, inseparable, and eventually indistinguishable from your environs/fellow man/universe. just deal with that which you have gained some resonance and understanding of, and go from there. it's all about application of that you have gained, back out into the world - creating a feedback loop allowing more understanding to grow, allowing more understanding of the way things work and are connected, filling up a bit more with light/love, allowing you to channel more light/love into the world, and etc., an expanding spiral that is essentially a for-me-for-you gift to the universe.

only by kickstarting this process and getting the pump primed and flowing as it were, does a little bit more understanding come. there can't be a boundary between where one person ends and another begins because there's only one consciousness to begin with. we deal with illusory separateness, one aware consciousness is actually the reality which is real, not this one. to perceive more of the real way things are takes much practice, acceptance, and most importantly, gratitude - as that which you are not grateful for you separate yourself from.

murder and robbery? well, be grateful that it is evidence of the spinning wheels of evolution, as everything which happens is for the purpose of providing catalyst for someone's evolution, somewhere. wars take place within the beingness of the creator, the creator is grateful for everything - to accept and find a way to be grateful for all conditions is to incorporate those things within your own being - in a way more literal than you may think! be genuinely grateful for something and you grow to encompass it and to actually be it - and it can never react against you again.

but for now, my advice to any who care to listen is to just continue as you are, don't feel that you need to get it all now. you've already been at this for millions of years. you'll get there, i'm sure.;) mark

Avariel

09-10-2008, 12:46 AM

remember, its not about lifting yourself above this world, its about taking the whole enchilada with you - as the enchilada is you. that's what the law of one is about - coming gradually to operate as being integral with, inseparable, and eventually indistinguishable from your environs/fellow man/universe.

separateness derives (at least in part) from training, at a very young age, about the concept of personal space. "stop touching me!" "leave me alone!" "give me some room." stuff like that. as we grow up and develop more sophisticated identities, we learn to keep our personal space in a harmonious state. we feel at peace within it. when someone comes along and messes with our space, we get our feathers all ruffled. it is disrupted.

this leads us, especially those of us who are trying to "peek ahead" at spiritual/metaphysical developments soon to come, that we are "ahead" of average joe. we look at the antics of base 3d behavior, whether locally or globally, and feel almost disgusted with it. we'd never be like that. we're the good guys. well maybe little spots here & there, but we're working on that, by golly, and we hope to keep that progress on track so we'll be as clean as ivory snow come 2012. those other lackeys might get left behind, poor sods. but we're good guys, so we'll help'em out as we can. because we care.

but now, the picture is changing for us. those poor sods are us. they are us in another guise. different pieces of the same puzzle. different beans in the same enchilada. and come 2012-time, it's not just ourselves we're supposed to be concerned with, it's the whole enchilada. it's not exactly an all-or-none dimensional shift where we either all make it or we all fail, but at the same time, it kind of is, too. even the loo material makes references to the world population, or at least a huge majority of it, being in-tune with the whole shift process in order for us to pull it off properly.

when i immerse myself into a crowd, whether at a ballgame stadium or in the midst of a student throng commuting between buildings on campus, and i try to key in to this 'we are all one' thing at close range. maybe it's just my scheming ego at work, but i don't usually feel anything remotely like them at all. i find myself fighting urges to put some distance between their lower vibrations and my harmonious sense of personal space, where i can breathe easier again. the 'separation' gap is a wide one.

yet once i get some distance away and find my peace again, i can indeed sense the oneness factor, and aspire to positively influence them all by accessing and contributing to our universal mind, and its thought processes. i think stuff up, and wouldn't ya know it, within six months it's in print somewhere.

with the forgiveness/acceptance factor in play, i guess i have to bring myself to be more comfortable being them, or at least being near them. they are me, and if i find myself seeking a sense of privacy away from them, or a greater sense of personal space apart from them, then i'm just really grasping at separation, which is the opposite of the oneness feeling we're supposed to be shooting for.

tough stuff for the personal growth agenda.

buggers, too, because i thought forgiveness alone was a tall order. earlier on, i was looking very much forward to a playout of justice in our futures. good guys rewarded, wrongdoers punished, that kinda thing. but with total forgiveness on our plates, justice becomes kind of meaningless. anyone who did you wrong, or even terribly wrong, in life is just another face of god playing that role to teach you a lesson about yourself. dispensing with justice has been tough on me, but i'm slogging through it with baby steps (pity to all those poor libras out there, with their innate yearning for fairness & justice!).

now i have to go hug them all too, and enmesh myself with them, and bring about a sense of oneness with them because they are all part of me.

i used to joke with my girlfriend about how "we'll all be playing volleyball with them in the afterlife"... bush, cheney, stalin, hitler, genghis khan, or any villain you'd care to name. i used to say "it'll be me & bush against you & cheney". that never failed to bristle the hairs on her neck.

but now... i gotta eat those words, because not only will we be volleyball buddies... we'll be the same persona within our oneness.

my skin's itchin' already. ;)

at least i've got 4 more years to struggle with integrating that concept. thank god for time! :d

•••av the not-so touchy, feely•••

conundrum

09-10-2008, 02:04 AM

the problem i have found with seeing myself in others or by there perspective is that they are all liars and then when i come back to my own reality i see that i am a hypocrite because i am the biggest liar of them all.

the closest thing we had for a reference point in regards to god was nature then the bible yet we are doing away with both because from our perspective it hurts to much so we put our selves above it, how many indigenous people living within nature happily have been up rooted and there lives literally destroyed while being over run by this current materialistic mind set, yet
even the most seemingly powerful of this age will have to face death eventually so in this reality they are no better off than those they have defeated or destroyed and have frowned upon.

the rockefeller's have been put under the magnify glass of late and every one is upset because of the deceptions and the negative effects they have had on every bodies lives few of us have been untouched... yet the original rockefeller whom got the ball rolling was raised in poverty and obviously had a hell of an up bringing and was most likely taken advantage of and treated badly by those around him that had some material wealth,
i believe he swore never to allow himself to be impoverished again as long as he lived.

kind of makes him sound human instead of some monster doesn't it ?

the same as that infamous aleister crowley nick named the beast by his mother whom had a strict religious christian up bringing which has been a hand me down for centuries,
makes you think doesn't it a kid being nick named the beast by his mother then educated by a religion that teaches theres a devil and an eternal hell fire.

beam me up god christ or scotty theres no signs of intelligent life down here !!
then again don't bother i am not even real i only believe that i am :eek:

god
adam
adam/eve
good/evil
adam/eve
adam
god

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1+1=2 1+1+1=3 2030 0230 02/03/2030

zero point

lies :d