Topic: Dangerous Minds

[niamhspark]

Per the offended thread, I thought I'd try to expand the point, taking a smaller issue, making it into a bigger one. A little bigger. By doing so, maybe some will understand my thought process.

None of it is an issue of right or wrong in what I'm trying to get across. What I'm trying to get across is questioning. Questioning what we're taught. Questioning what we're told. So DJ says a warrior is offended, he's in the wrong. Do we just accept this? Or do we question? Some say yes, others like myself say, no. Because at least with my thought process, scenarios are born which don't necessarily groove with the statement. Others have put up their reasons for why it fits. But I just can't wrap my mind around this and accept this as an absolute. I can't accept it as a principle which is correct in all cases. I couldn't do it if I tried. I can't make myself believe it for all cases.

Maybe it's the word "wrong." Shit, I could go into the right/wrong argument, supporting either side if there's a right and wrong. How do we know what is right and wrong, or if it exists? In truth, rules are what we create. To survive in society, we founded "rules" and "laws" and codes, and for Toltec, the Right Way To Live. Funny that. In TNF sometimes seen is folks saying there's no right and wrong. If this is so, how can you follow a man who said a warrior follows the princile of the Right Way To Live then? Scattered, dangerous minds. Ahhh, conflict of the mind, turning up and down, topsy turvy.

How about the expression "Make up your mind?" This is a funny saying. Make up your mind -- means to decide on something. I can't decide whether to order sushi or a salad. "Make up your mind and order!" My mind is having conflict, can't decide which I want right then. Is it a right or wrong issue if I choose sushi over a salad? Make up your mind. Make it make it make it.

The media knows how vunerable the mind is. This is why advertising dollars are used to get you to "make up your mind."  Oh look at that big juicy hamburger on tv! Flame broiled, three patties of meat. Oh look at how Tide makes those dingy clothes look so shiny and white! Oh look at Dreyers ice cream! Oh look, here comes the President of the United States! So convincing he is there's weapons of mass destruction in Iraq! We don't have to be controlled with force -- just appeal to that "mind" and when you think you're making up your mind, you find out in the end, you had nothing to do with it. That mind of yours has been programmed for a long, long time. Something else has been in the drivers seat, chattering away, good old internal dialogue, and your eyes have been shut, duping yourself to believing you've been in control all along!

If we weren't such vunerable saps, there would be no need for advertising "gimmicks." There would be no need for vision quests, spiritual experiences, seeking, solving mysteries.

So I'm saying this: question what we're being told, by any source, anything. Question and know that the mind is vunerable. We still have to work with the mind, but question even what we've been believing for decades if necessary! We can't put aside experience because of words. We got to be sure, or else we'd be adopting principles which may not be good for us.

That's what I'm saying.

[erik]

Niamh, as this way (or whatever we do here) is practice only, there is only one way to question DJ's words thoroughly. That is, live them.

It is only about living them.

[Taimi]

This was my first thought too here - this is why a warrior chooses to act not to think.

[niamhspark]

Niamh, as this way (or whatever we do here) is practice only, there is only one way to question DJ's words thoroughly. That is, live them.

It is only about living them.

I hear you on this and it resonates as truth. BUT we're still confined to DJ's words when we're absorbing what he said. And even in applying the principles, I will still have this principle burned in the psyche, and compare what he said to what I experience, say...when I feel offended. I know nothing is perfect. Just wanted to be able to express my thought process when I question. Thinking outloud, you could say.

[niamhspark]

This was my first thought too here - this is why a warrior chooses to act not to think.

Or sometimes don't even choose. Mind may not even do this. They act, applying their training to do what they must. Without obstruction, hesitation. Just act.

But they still train beforehand, though, when time to act. They all have to learn somewhere, have a starting point as it is.

[nichi]

We should stalk everything -- even the stuff we take as truth.

[daphne]

Per the offended thread, I thought I'd try to expand the point, taking a smaller issue, making it into a bigger one. A little bigger. By doing so, maybe some will understand my thought process.

The way i feel about the 'offended' issue is that offended is a mental concept. It is 'of the mind'. The thing is, before that, the body reacts to a stimulus, an emotional reaction. The mind then jumps in and identifies that reaction as 'offended'. But the reaction, as I see it, is emotional and so 'offended' can then become one way of going away from the emotion to see what the emotion really is and instead become a mental exercise in wrongs and rights.
In all ways, it will always come back to an experience we have had and that we at some later stage defined as 'offended'. Once we can work with the source emotion, the meaning of 'offended' takes on a different aura.

That there is injustice in the world and all sorts of 'bad' things happen, we cannot deny because we hold them against a measure of 'something' - our 'sensibilities' are offended - but that again is a mental construct.
The emotional reaction to feeling offended comes from a thought form, something that we believe, and will almost certainly be personal ie refer to our own person. Unlikely to feel offended on behalf of another - it has to trigger something within us to be an emotional reaction. It is in the stalking of that, and in releasing the emotion attached to that, that we can then respond as we wish, without feeling offended.

It is good to question everything, but at the same time also to question what we question and why. Why 'that' particular question and not another.  Sometimes the questioning itself can be a means to detract from the emotion.

The conflict of the mind - like in 'make up your mind' is also a conflict that has its roots in an emotion. We may feel one way, and think another way.. and a conflict arises.
It is usually connected to being able to make a choice and not see it as a mistake in hindsight but rather as just a choice. When we see something as a mistake, or we believe it to be so, then emotions are brought into the equations, and there is no reasoning with emotions. They do not work the same way as mental processes.

A good "starting point" is the emotion connected with "offended".

[nichi]

Offendedness leads to judgement,
Judgement leads to petulance,
Petulance leads to posturing,
Posturing leads to aggression,
Aggression leads to destruction,
and it then no longer matters who was first offended.


Damn, I think I just made that up.
Or someone did.
 
Maybe it's Lao-Tsu.

[niamhspark]

That's awesome Vicki -- I like it!

[nichi]

(I think I must have unconsciously lifted it from lao tsu.)

[daphne]

Offendedness leads to judgement,
Judgement leads to petulance,
Petulance leads to posturing,
Posturing leads to aggression,
Aggression leads to destruction,
and it then no longer matters who was first offended.

I tried to explain that once to my cat...   

[nichi]

I tried to explain that once to my cat...   

lol! :D:D

[Michael]

brilliant vickles (and daphne)

[Josh]

Being offended means that someone or something has transgressed against you in some way - against your possessions (your body, your ideas, your feelings, your home, your space, etc. etc.)  It is a threat to the stability of the order of things as they are held by you.  An assault on a defensible position, in an idealogical sense.  At heart it has to do with ownership, or territory.  You lay claim to a certain order of things, and any disruption to that order is unwelcome. 

It is also very much connected with the idea of something being of principal value, or to use an extreme word - "sacred".  People often like to say "its just the way things are" as a way to defend being offended about something.  It has the air of an implicit higher standard.

Questioning everything is the key tenet of original buddhism - the kind spoken of in the Pali Canon, transmitted by Guatama.  It is a path in and of itself, a relentless method of discovery.  However this practice was not one designed to be compatible with schools or groups which are arranged heirarchically.  It is the method of the final solitude.

In the case of other paths that involve teachers, guides, and so on - the most extensive submission possible is often of key importance.  Gurdjieff explained it thus: that the man who has no will must submit to the will of another in order to gain his own.  He cannot do for himself, so he must allow another to do for him - to show him the way it is done.  He gives himself over to the will of higher man, first externally and eventually internally - when it is sufficiently developed within himself.

The toltec path illustrated in CCs books was even more harsh than what Gurdjieff did with his pupils.  It was literally pushing the student into a position where he must either learn or die.  There was no choice in the matter.  In such a situation, questioning the orders of a superior commanding force would be pointless at best.  It was also of a much darker nature, a "grey" path that made full use of myriad energies and powers to achieve its objective.  Describing this path as dangerous only scratches the surface.

It is much different than the toltec path described by Don Miguel and others who have come along since then, but only in the sense of how far they are willing to go in terms of practices and methodology.  Power plants are hardly mentioned at all, as well as inorganics, etc.  Considering the majority of the population, it is for the best this way.

In general, the shamanistic layer of practice is fraught with peril and not compatible with society at large.  It is also a tradition of apprenticeship, where questioning teachings isnt even considered in the first place, much less desirable.  When you are amongst the unknown itself, questions and answers lose significance.  That is the time for action.

[Nick]

In the case of other paths that involve teachers, guides, and so on - the most extensive submission possible is often of key importance.  Gurdjieff explained it thus: that the man who has no will must submit to the will of another in order to gain his own.  He cannot do for himself, so he must allow another to do for him - to show him the way it is done.  He gives himself over to the will of higher man, first externally and eventually internally - when it is sufficiently developed within himself.

True he did say this but didn't he also say that in the beginning there were many things that needed to be understood and verified for oneself and that there is little to nothing that should be accepted on blind faith? I could be mistaken I do believe he said something like that.