Topic: To love and dread

[erik]

Miguel Ruiz has said that one should not blame oneself too much for being being born into the nightmare of present dream of the world. It is not his fault that the world is such a degenerated state. One ought to focus on love and work with Self.

Don Juan as a man of much harder Toltec stream said that warrior must keep his eyes wide open and know everything that is taking place. He must be utterly aware of all around him.

These statements could be seen as a dichotomy - love and warmth, clarity and merciless reality on the other. Frequently they are treated as opposites. Yet Ruiz could have focused on love for pedagogical reasons in order to facilitate healing of fragmented self. Don Juan again was talking about the attitude of a pretty much formed and fighting warrior.

Which one is it? Love and warmth of the summer day...butterflies...couple nice daydreams...cold and ruthless realization and sensation of committed destruction...screams and whispers of dying species...increasingly polluted land and sea...sharp sensation of time running out?

Or is it both? Is the whole thing about the ability to live in this nightmare and retain and develop certain qualities? One foot in human world, one in the abyss. One eye looking into invisible world, one looking into human world...

Toltec is a fundamentally split being...

[Jennifer-]

Or is it both? Is the whole thing about the ability to live in this nightmare and retain and develop certain qualities? One foot in human world, one in the abyss. One eye looking into invisible world, one looking into human world...

 

[Jahn]

"Or is it both?"

Well since the ultimate answer (to THE Question) is a paradox - I think we got one here too.

To flex between the two different states keeps us flexible. 

And then we suddenly find a third state being and there you are!

[tommy2]

Which one is it? Love and warmth of the summer day...butterflies...couple nice daydreams...cold and ruthless realisation and sensation of committed destruction...screams and whispers of dying species...increasingly polluted land and sea...sharp sensation of time running out?

Or is it both? Is the whole thing about the ability to live in this nightmare and retain and develop certain qualities? One foot in human world, one in the abyss. One eye looking into invisible world, one looking into human world...

Toltec is a fundamentally split being...

Yes, Juhani, we ARE both sides of this proverbial coin, whether we wake up in and to the realization of it or not.  And THAT'S the crux of the matter, us who have woken up.  The choice, pleasantly, has already been made for us/by us, right?  I go back totally to "attitude" when dealing with the paradoxial two of me and languish in both as they rise and fall within my awareness.  They are tools for me in dealing with all paradox for they help me see.  I would want it no other way, my friend.  Either when Tom T. is looking at the Two Feathers, or vice versa, it's the same thing.  Both are doing and not-doing and I sit in the middle laughing my ass off, knowing this is a path long ago chosen for me.  I just stay focused on the work at hand, always reminding myself to stay very alert for each opportunity to trap the little bits of energy passing my vigilant way. 

It IS an opportunity to achieve a great end now, isn't it?


ha ha ha ha ha ! ! ! ! !

[Michael]

I must say it's not easy. To say both is easy, but in practice it becomes extremely difficult. The more one evolves, the finer become the sensitivities, the more exquisite the pleasure from quality impressions, the more pain we feel from what we perceive as a descent into human and earth sickness.

At least the earth has time on its side, so it will recover in its own sweet aeons. But humans have nearly cooked their goose, and if I dwell on that too much, I have to harden the calcifications of my soul, and adopt the warrior's stance, which is inevitable but deeply disappointing. I was more comfortable with the warrior in my youth, but now it becomes a drag. I wish all those warriors out there would just piss off and leave the place to those who seek dharma and beauty.

[Michael]

There are four paths to freedom, and each leaves by a different door, and thus a different horizon. These are for four types of beings - not everyone has the capacity to utilise more than one, but everyone has the capacity to at least utilise one.

The path of our day is love. That is why Christianity and Islam are so prominent. But to adopt this path is far from what we see around us in those who claim to the path of love. I will speak of this path later.

The next path is ritual. Ritual is not about some rigid sequence of worship. It is about transforming one's entire life and action into a dance of worship.

The next path is knowledge. Very few can take this path, as the channel from the mind's eye down to behaviour is generally severed in most people. It does not mean thinking. It means realisation and application.

The last path is meditation - "a deeper awareness of oneness which is inclusive of perception of body, mind, senses and surroundings, yet remaining unidentified with it".

In our age, which is not the age of the warrior (the age of ritual), we are in the belly of mundanity and darkness. That is why love is the recommended path for most people - it is the easiest access to light. The light of the fierce nobility of the warrior belongs to a past age. The light of the third eye belongs to an even more distant past. The light of meditation is available in every age, but truly, our species is far too distracted for this path.

[erik]

In our age, which is not the age of the warrior (the age of ritual), we are in the belly of mundanity and darkness. That is why love is the recommended path for most people - it is the easiest access to light. The light of the fierce nobility of the warrior belongs to a past age. The light of the third eye belongs to an even more distant past. The light of meditation is available in every age, but truly, our species is far too distracted for this path.

Love and heart are parts of any path. No real path is without a heart.

Yet, how sure are you about love being the way in deepening darkness, self-destruction, and mass murder of nature and species around us?

Growing violence and chaos seem to require very much the ability of a warrior to walk the path of war - without a slightest concern and with a total self-abandonment.

In dreamers language: everyone can dream alive; the trick is to dream when dead.

[Michael]

Love and heart are parts of any path. No real path is without a heart.

Yet, how sure are you about love being the way in deepening darkness, self-destruction, and mass murder of nature and species around us?

Growing violence and chaos seem to require very much the ability of a warrior to walk the path of war - without a slightest concern and with a total self-abandonment.

In dreamers language: everyone can dream alive; the trick is to dream when dead.

Yes, it's an interesting point you make Juhani. Firstly, lets be clear that everyone needs a bit of every path. But what I am referring to is the stamp of an age. Every age has had "darkness, self-destruction, and mass murder of nature and species", except perhaps the fabled age of pure dharma, if such an age existed. There is however, something about this current age. It is not characterised by the fire of the spirit, in good or evil. It is characterised by malaise.

In visual terms, the egg shape has given way to the ball - the top of the energetic 'egg' has disappeared. We live in the age of mediocrity, of the middle class, of conventionality, of convenience, where quality is replaced by 'good enough'. The enemy we face is not Dionysus but Ahriman, not passion but the 'lie'.

In such an age as this, the warrior cannot draw power from his adversary, as is the way of warriors. Think of the ages of the warrior, in Japan, in Rajasthan, in Rome, in Zululand. These were times when fighting had dignity as well as brutality. Today it is only brutality.

Any person may belong to the current or a past age, but for the bulk of people in today's age, love is the only refuge. Just look at all the dominant religions, or religious themes that have vast popular support, and you'll see they all speak of love in one way or another.

Unfortunately, all that is also a lie. But it doesn't mean that people can't seek and find pure love. It's just that in such an age as this, the age of the two-way mirror, it is harder than ever to find what the path of love really means.

[Ke-ke wan]

That is why love is the recommended path for most people - it is the easiest access to light.

I love this idea!

[runningstream]

as i read this

i searched for the words

for an answer to something

to come

nothing came

then a bird came

it glided directly towards me like a dart

it came from a very long way away

and did not flap its wings once

it was soaring on some invisible current and draft

using both the air and its own impeccable balance


like one of those guys with the wing suits on base jumping

following some lines i could not see

it was pretty damn impressive

[Jahn]

In visual terms, the egg shape has given way to the ball - the top of the energetic 'egg' has disappeared. We live in the age of mediocrity, of the middle class, of conventionality, of convenience, where quality is replaced by 'good enough'.

It is interesting, this with less luminosity. The adults when I grew up had more of that clear shape then what one can see today. The rare times when I spot someone in "good shape" it is in 9 times of 10 - a woman.