Heya Michael,
I am glad your trip is really special for you.
A little context for the statement you quote may help. It was in response to the first pic of all the people on the ghat, in the river. As I watched the pic, abstractly my AP went there. I felt the automatic responses to those feelings of being there, and I noticed them. I traced them back to their belief systems I was raised with. Obviously, I still hold them, to some extent. To a great deal, though I don't still hold to those beliefs. I still have some of the resulting automatic responses, even if I don't act on them, and even if they don't have power over me, the urges are still there. The programs don't actually run, but the data is still on the disk, so to speak. It's like when you delete a file on a disk, you still haven't erased it until you write over it.
not sure you have got that right there todd. i'd guess the first part, 'typical of most Americans' is the more accurate part. so i would ask, are you an 'American'? i mean in your essence?
No, I'm not an American, in essence. I'm way, way more than that. I was raised in America, and inculcated in those American beliefs, especially those of the upper middle class. That's my experience in this focus, in this present now, but in essence I'm much more than that. That's something I'll never get all of, either, which is the exciting part.
it reminds me of gurdjieff, who went to egypt because of the possibility he 'would become someone different'.
That's the funky part of identity in consciousness. We are never who we were a moment ago, and we are not the future probabilities we create in the now, either. But, we are. *smiles*
i suspect the fatigue is more about not wanting to go through the agony you know is in store in crossing those boundries of your identity. and let me assure you, india means agony. so i feel you know well what is in store for you.
You speak as if the fatigue is something in store for my future. I speak of it as something in the past. You haven't the benefit of my recapitulations of my many other focuses. Nothing wrong with that. For example, the pic of the people on the ghat and in the river
reminded me of agony of being there, and experiencing that. Those feelings were contrasted in energy with the feelings of my beliefs in my present American focus. In essence, it felt like the fatigue of age, when you know it's time to move on.
east was better than west, but that is not true - i love east because of a personal quirk. any world will do, as long as it isn't yours.
*smile* I agree with this--nothing's better than anything else. It's all preferences and choices and experience. Oh, how that makes people twinge!! That's okay. Made me twinge, too. Still does every time I'm reminded after I forget.
In my present now, I'm crossing the borders of my inner worlds. Some are agonizing, some blissful. So I wouldn't say that agony of crossing borders is an absolute. In my past, I've crossed physical borders, and some I found blissful, some fearful, some agonizing, some fun. I think the fear of crossing borders comes from making an absolute truth of the belief in "normalcy" and unacceptability of differences. It's been agonizing in the past so it MUST be agonizing in the future. Incorrect. That is not an absolute.
BORDERS Those are unique places and only the most accepting of people can experience them fully. I don't think I expressed my feeling there accurately. Words draw boundaries, and there are none in the spaces between worlds.
Namaste'
Todd
