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Trying to become something else - 8/19/2007 8:03:11 AM   
zenmember

 

Posts: 381
Joined: 2/26/2007
From: Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
Status: offline 		The very awareness of what is is a liberative process. So long as we are unaware of what we are and are trying to become something else, so long will there be distortion and pain. The very awareness of what I am brings about transformation and the freedom of understanding.

                                                                                                                                             - JKrishnamurti.org - Daily Quote
Post #: 1
RE: Trying to become something else - 8/19/2007 4:47:15 PM   
artemis611

 

Posts: 387
Joined: 7/20/2007
From: Oklahoma
Status: offline 		I find this to be so true in my life.  I think it was probably meditation that made me more aware of how often I would have "an argument with reality" in my head, like I could change it somehow.  Now I catch myself before I spend much time dwelling on it, which is good because if I dwell on it long enough I reach a "point of no return."  When I notice I'm doing it, I remind myself that it doesn't matter why it is, or it doesn't matter that it doesn't make sense, it just "is what it is." 

I read this somewhere and I can't remember where, that suffering is "seeking happiness where it can't be found."  Your post reminded me of that.

_____________________________

To truly listen is to perfect one's own virtue.
Post #: 2
RE: Trying to become something else - 8/19/2007 10:23:33 PM   
Hildegard

 

Posts: 2720
Joined: 8/30/2006
From: Chicago
Status: online 		"...trying to become something else.." reminds me of the chapter "Integrity" in Thomas Merton's "New Seeds of Contemplation, which we recently read in our prayer group:

"It is not humility to insist on being someone that you are not....How do you expeact to arrive at the end of your own journey if you take the road to another man's city? How do you expect to reach your own perfection by leading somebody else's life?" (page 100)

That's the challennge to see and acknowledge who I am now and who I am meant to be!

Edda

_____________________________

Peace and joy!
Post #: 3
RE: Trying to become something else - 8/20/2007 9:10:10 AM   
zenmember

 

Posts: 381
Joined: 2/26/2007
From: Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
Status: offline 		Caught in the net of time

As long as you are looking for transformation, a result to be gained, there will be no transformation. As long as you are thinking in terms of achievement, in terms of time, there can be no transformation, for then the mind is caught in the net of time. When you say you are thinking in terms of immediate transformation, you are thinking of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Such transformation within time is merely change, which is modiied continuity. When thought is free of time, there will be a timeless transformation.
                                                                                                         JKrishnamurti.org - Daily Quote
Post #: 4
RE: Trying to become something else - 8/20/2007 9:22:32 AM   
zenmember

 

Posts: 381
Joined: 2/26/2007
From: Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
Status: offline 		All of this comes back to stuff that was recorded four or five thousand years ago (remember, Buddha was a Hindu)
This of all the Upanishads, was deemed by Gandhi to be the epitome of man's wisdom:
                                             Isa Upanishad


Behold the universe in the glory of God; and all that lives and moves on earth.
Leaving the transient, find joy in the Eternal; set not your heart on another's passion.
Working thus, a man may wish for a life of a hundred years.
Only actions done in God bind not the soul of man.
There are demon-haunted worlds, regions of utter darkness.
Whoever in life denies the Spirit falls into that darkness of death.
The Sprirt, without moving, is swifter than the mind;
the senses cannot reach him: He is ever beyond them.
Standing still, he overtakes those who run.
To the ocean of his being, the spirit of life leads to the stream of action.
He moves, and he moves not. He is far, and he is near. He is within all, and he is outside all.
Who sees all beings in his own Self, and his own Self in all beings, loses all fear.
When a sage sees this great Unity and his Self has become all beings,
what delusion and what sorrow can ever be near him?
The Spirit filled all with his radience. He is incorporeal and invulnerable, pure and untouched by evil.
He is the supreme seer and thinker, immanent and transcendent. He placed all things in the path of Eternity.
Into deep darkness fall those who follow action. Into deeper darkness fall those who follow knowledge.
One is the outcome of knowledge, the other is the outcome of action.
Thus have we heard from the ancient sages who explained this truth to us.
He who knows both knowledge and actioin, with action overcomes death and with knowledge reaches immortality.
Into deep darkness fall those who follow the immanent. Into deeper darkness fall those who follow the transcendent.
One is the outcome of the transcendent, and another is the outcome of the immanent.
Thus have we heard from the ancient sages who explained this truth to us.
He who knows both the transcendent and the immanent, with the immanent overcomes death and with the transcendent reaches immortality.
The face of truth remains hidden behind a circle of gold. Unveil it, O god of light, that I who love the true may see!
O life-giving sun, off-spring of the Lord of creation, solitary seer of heaven!
Spread thy light and withdraw thy blinding splendour that I may behold thy radient form; that Spirit far away within thee is my own inmost spirit.
May life go to immortal life, and the body go to ashes.
OM. O my soul, remember past strivings, remember!
     O my soul, remember past strivings, remember!
By the path of good lead us to final bliss,
O fire devine thou god of who knowest all ways.
Deliver us from wandering evil. Prayers and adoration we offer unto thee.

_____________________________

"We must be the change we want to see in this world."

Please light a Candle in the "zendo"
Post #: 5
RE: Trying to become something else - 8/23/2007 7:04:11 AM   
zenmember

 

Posts: 381
Joined: 2/26/2007
From: Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
Status: offline 		Most of us are trapped, whether we like it or not, because that is our world, that is our society; and awareness in relationship is the mirror in which we can see ourselves very clearly. To see clearly, there must obviously be no condemnation, acceptance, justification, or identification. If we are simply aware without choice, then we can observe not only the superficial reactions of the mind, but also the deep and hidden reactions, which come out in the shape of dreams, or in moments when the superficial mind is quiet and there is spontaneity of response. But if the mind is conditioned, shaped, and bound by a particular belief, surely there can be no spontaneity, and therefore no direct perception of the responses of relationship.

                                                                                                                            - JKrishnamurti.org - Daily Quote

_____________________________

"We must be the change we want to see in this world."

Please light a Candle in the "zendo"
Post #: 6
RE: Trying to become something else - 8/25/2007 4:23:05 AM   
china34doll

 

Posts: 94
Joined: 6/22/2007
Status: offline 		I love the spirituality;so much inspiration;I lived in darkness for years but if it hadn't been for watching others would I have ever known which path to choose? my internal self was spiritual my outer self was searching?

  Change your thoughts and you change your world!(working on that) Vincent Peal
Post #: 7
RE: Trying to become something else - 8/25/2007 5:50:35 AM   
buttington

 

Posts: 2244
Joined: 6/9/2007
From: UK
Status: offline 		Dear Judy,

Don't worry.....you are just like the rest of us Most people don't 'wake up' spiritually until mid-life.     J

_____________________________

Love is the only way
Post #: 8
RE: Trying to become something else - 8/27/2007 8:17:45 AM   
zenmember

 

Posts: 381
Joined: 2/26/2007
From: Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
Status: offline 		Today I pass along some quotes from Dr. Wayne Dyer:



You came from greatness.
You must be like what you came from.
You should never abandon your belief
in your greatness;
And the greatness of others.


 
It makes no sense to worry about things you don't control

           It makes no sense to worry about things you do control

          So, what else is there to worry about ??

  In a world of oneness there is nothing to balance !!!
 
Post #: 9
RE: Trying to become something else - 8/27/2007 8:36:26 AM   
Hildegard

 

Posts: 2720
Joined: 8/30/2006
From: Chicago
Status: online 		Richard, thank you for these quotes.

Worrying is the most useless activity! My head knows this, but my gut does not always follow!

Edda

_____________________________

Peace and joy!
Post #: 10
RE: Trying to become something else - 8/28/2007 10:33:11 AM   
zenmember

 

Posts: 381
Joined: 2/26/2007
From: Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
Status: offline 		Edda;
 
After reading your yesterday's respose I came across this small verse which seems appropriate.






The One Thing Needed
(taken from a folktale of Indian mysticism)
 
What use this restless , hurrying activity ?
This heavy weight of earthly duties ?
God's purpose stands firm,
And you, his little one,
Need only one thing;
Trust in his power, and will, to meet your need.
Your burden lies safe on him,
And you, his little one,
May play securely at his side.
This is the sum and substance of it all:
God is, God loves you, God bears all you cares.


_____________________________

"We must be the change we want to see in this world."

Please light a Candle in the "zendo"
Post #: 11
RE: Trying to become something else - 8/28/2007 12:29:04 PM   
Hildegard

 

Posts: 2720
Joined: 8/30/2006
From: Chicago
Status: online 		Thank you, Richard!

How true! Trust in God's love and help is the one thing necessary to live without undue worries and fears. I know this in my heart and yet, this faith - trust does not always come easy! Even Mother Theresa had her struggles as we have been learning!

Peace,
Edda

_____________________________

Peace and joy!
Post #: 12
RE: Trying to become something else - 8/28/2007 7:30:10 PM   
artemis611

 

Posts: 387
Joined: 7/20/2007
From: Oklahoma
Status: offline 		The One Thing Needed reminded me of Thoreau's To Live Deliberately, probably because it started off the same way.  The point was different, Thoreau doesn't speak of the love of God, but talks about how to live.  It's one of my favorites:
**************

Why should we live in such a hurry and waste of life?
We are determined to be starved before we are hungry.

I wish to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.
I wish to learn what life has to teach, and not, when I come to die, discover that I have not lived.

I do not wish to live what is not life, living is so dear.
Nor do I wish to practice resignation, unless it is quite necessary.

I wish to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.
I want to cut a broad swatch, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.

If it proves to be mean, then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world;
Or if it is sublime, to know it by experience, and to be able to give a true account of it.

*********



_____________________________

To truly listen is to perfect one's own virtue.
Post #: 13
RE: Trying to become something else - 8/29/2007 5:58:01 PM   
zenmember

 

Posts: 381
Joined: 2/26/2007
From: Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
Status: offline 		Thanks Lori, I had forgotten Walt's contribution.  Come to think of it, do you imagine he read the Upanisads before he wrote that verse??
Post #: 14
RE: Trying to become something else - 8/29/2007 6:02:37 PM   
zenmember

 

Posts: 381
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From: Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
Status: offline 		Sorry Lori, I got that confused with Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, another great comntributor; with similar outlooks.  However, the question above stills stands.
Post #: 15
RE: Trying to become something else - 8/29/2007 10:39:50 PM   
artemis611

 

Posts: 387
Joined: 7/20/2007
From: Oklahoma
Status: offline 		I wouldn't be at all surprised.  A lot more "western" in language, but I wouldn't be surprised if he were influenced by eastern thought.  He was part of that whole transcendental movement, along with Emerson (and I think Whitman too, wasn't he?).   I like Whitman, but I don't think I've actually read Leaves of Grass.

Lori 

_____________________________

To truly listen is to perfect one's own virtue.
Post #: 16
RE: Trying to become something else - 8/30/2007 7:58:25 AM   
zenmember

 

Posts: 381
Joined: 2/26/2007
From: Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
Status: offline 		You probably didn't get to read Leaves of Grass because Whitman was partially banned; he was thought to be too erotic for innocent minds, as was DH Lawrence.  But both were to my mind  very much plugged into the cosmos.  It is by reading the classical mystics that one can realize and release creative/spiritual energy.  But, there is also a universal connection which is unexplainable in concrete terms.  For example, how was it that Hildegard of Bingen was able, almost 1000 years ago, to sketch her vision of the egg of life in detail that was unknown to science until only 50 years ago upon the development of the electronic microscope?
Post #: 17
RE: Trying to become something else - 8/30/2007 8:15:15 AM   
zenmember

 

Posts: 381
Joined: 2/26/2007
From: Sarnia, Ontario, Canada
Status: offline 		Perhaps a better depiction of Hildegard's visions is to be found at this site put up by Dr. Deborah Vess
Post #: 18
RE: Trying to become something else - 8/31/2007 10:16:03 PM   
artemis611

 

Posts: 387
Joined: 7/20/2007
From: Oklahoma
Status: offline 		I'll check out that site.  

I grew up Catholic, reading the stories of the saints, their visions and their miracles.  I still have a lot of respect and graditutde for that tradition (that's where I learned contemplative prayer, for example), but I tend to be a little too cynical and I belong to a different denomination now.  I remember reading those stories of the saints, and asking myself about some of them (not Hildegard of Bingen, who was clearly a mystic), Were they mystic or psychotic?  And in the case of the very early ones, my cynical mind always assumes the stories were embellished due to lack of documentation at the time.  But I agree that there is something out there, that genuinely does "speak" to mystics in one way or another, ways that are unmistakable.  And that "speaks" to all of us in less apparent ways all the time. 

This one is Emerson: 
Within us is the soul of the whole; the wise silence, the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal One.  When it breaks through our intellect, it is genius; when it breathes through our will, it is virtue; when it flows through our affections, it is love.

Lori

_____________________________

To truly listen is to perfect one's own virtue.
Post #: 19
RE: Trying to become something else - 9/1/2007 1:04:26 PM   
buttington

 

Posts: 2244
Joined: 6/9/2007
From: UK
Status: offline 		Lori, I LOVE that quote!

I too am a cynic!!!!!   J

_____________________________

Love is the only way
Post #: 20
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