As I get older I relax into the finite nature of my mind and my abilities as a human being, as a man. "It's okay to be human", I tell myself. "It's okay to be a common man of modest means. It's quite alright not to be perfect by other people's standards." I am relaxing into Who I Am.
It's arresting that on the average it takes a male human half of his life more or less, hopefully less, to come to some point of katabasis-tic inner realization. The author Robert Bly has some very interesting things to say about this stage of a male's development in his remarkable book 'Iron John'.
In 'Iron John' he speaks of a stage called Katabasis ( Greek word meaning 'descent') in which a main takes his personal pain seriously because he has no choice. He has escaped from it over and over over and now realizes that he is 'back here once again' (at 35 or 40 or even 45 or beyond) and that he MUST go through it if he is Ever to find the 'Golden Ball' that he has been searching for all of his life. Katabasis is the cessation of trying to overcome inner grief by 'flying' over the offending material of our past. Instead, it is coming to the point where one stays on the 'ground' meeting the goblins and such that are there and walking through our 'emotional offspring' that we have heretofore pushed aside or denied the existence of altogether. In our Western culture this perversion is extremely pervasive. This is not a 'wallowing' in pain nor an indeterminate 'poor me' session, but rather a moving through one's pain via careful steps of Honesty and Acceptance from one's Self to one's self. In humility (if you're really here this is all you've got!) you take these badges of experience and mix them into a foundation upon which you live a life that means something....to you...and to human kind, the joined human experience.
Our past does not have to enslave us. It can infact enrich us, if we so chose it. We can use the jewels of our past located in the mire that we try so hard to ignore to be the fuel for a really meaningful life, not only for ourselves, but for all.
S.T.C.
Perhaps I am missing something~I hope I am.
I have the Apple universal dock w/ HD Apple AV cable, an iPhone3G, and an HD TV. Everything is hooked up correctly. I can display and hear YouTube video and iPod video, but I cannot display the music portion of the iPod on the TV. This seems so odd to me. You get a remote control that will control the music portion of the iPod from. 30' away, yet you have to walk up to the iPhone screen to SEE who and what is playing??? It just doesn't make ANY sense. Is it really supposed to be this way or is something off in my iPhone? What is important is to see and to listen...and in that seeing there is all beauty, and with beauty there is love. Then when there is love you have nothing more to do.
J. Krishnamurti
I have the Apple universal dock w/ HD Apple AV cable, an iPhone3G, and an HD TV. Everything is hooked up correctly. I can display and hear YouTube video and iPod video, but I cannot display the music portion of the iPod on the TV. This seems so odd to me. You get a remote control that will control the music portion of the iPod from. 30' away, yet you have to walk up to the iPhone screen to SEE who and what is playing??? It just doesn't make ANY sense. Is it really supposed to be this way or is something off in my iPhone? What is important is to see and to listen...and in that seeing there is all beauty, and with beauty there is love. Then when there is love you have nothing more to do.
J. Krishnamurti
I think many problems between people in relationships could be set at ease if they would fight fairly. How soon we forget to treat others like we ourselves want to be treated. We sabotage our efforts by diving in with knives. We are the only ones who can actually stop ourselves from doing this. It takes patience, balance, and peace along with clear self awareness in the moment to argue fairly. This is because you must give the other the benefit of the doubt. You cannot be doing this if you start in with accusations half way through a debating thought sequence. You must slow down in order for this to work, not speed up.
Most arguing sequences are looking for who is to blame. This psychological modus operandi is a Destroyer. If you are operating in this psychological mode you must choose a different way of looking at the problem if you hope to take the disagreement/source of contention to a higher level. Otherwise the process of fault finding leaves smudges of bitterness on our soul that we are constantly having to clean off and out through ceremony/spiritual practice.
Can you find the source--the begining of the hurt? This cause of the ensuing charade gets masked quickly by other thoughtforms going in all kinds of directions: thoughts in support of our premise, mainly via other thoughts that justify our blaming of this person, etcetera.
Staying with the source of our pain requires vulnerability though. This most often yields to a protective instinct. The protective instinct leads us away from Heart vulnerability and into the warrior mode which is where we make accusations and place blame. This is the illusion of protection though because it also has the effect of tearing down our relationships and leaving us isolated and in pain. It also hurts us to hurt others whether or not we realize it or acknowledge it's truth. Chances are we will realize it at some point as hindsight is generally much sharper than foresight. This residue (of the pain we inflict) gets left as a kind of 'after image' of the conflict. Also, it 'protects' us so much so that we are alone because of it. So this 'protection' has led to isolation. Is that a victory?
We must choose a different way if we are to become closer as people Growing Healthily Through the conflicts that sooner or later and to a greater or lesser degree will arise. How will we do it? Will we consult with our Heart on the material of our mind? A truly humble person knows how vain they are...that is humility.
Most arguing sequences are looking for who is to blame. This psychological modus operandi is a Destroyer. If you are operating in this psychological mode you must choose a different way of looking at the problem if you hope to take the disagreement/source of contention to a higher level. Otherwise the process of fault finding leaves smudges of bitterness on our soul that we are constantly having to clean off and out through ceremony/spiritual practice.
Can you find the source--the begining of the hurt? This cause of the ensuing charade gets masked quickly by other thoughtforms going in all kinds of directions: thoughts in support of our premise, mainly via other thoughts that justify our blaming of this person, etcetera.
Staying with the source of our pain requires vulnerability though. This most often yields to a protective instinct. The protective instinct leads us away from Heart vulnerability and into the warrior mode which is where we make accusations and place blame. This is the illusion of protection though because it also has the effect of tearing down our relationships and leaving us isolated and in pain. It also hurts us to hurt others whether or not we realize it or acknowledge it's truth. Chances are we will realize it at some point as hindsight is generally much sharper than foresight. This residue (of the pain we inflict) gets left as a kind of 'after image' of the conflict. Also, it 'protects' us so much so that we are alone because of it. So this 'protection' has led to isolation. Is that a victory?
We must choose a different way if we are to become closer as people Growing Healthily Through the conflicts that sooner or later and to a greater or lesser degree will arise. How will we do it? Will we consult with our Heart on the material of our mind? A truly humble person knows how vain they are...that is humility.