However, for ourselves, we fuel our engines on a very different substance. This enables us to speed along gaily in both despair and hope, in both day and night. THAT is our secret.
And if you don't know what that secret is, best you find out before you do anything else. You are useless in the Shamanic field of Action if you have not realigned yourself to this secret. You will only muddy the water even more.
I agree with this assessment, Michael, and I do think it's critically important to address the issue of who one is speaking to. To someone who is on the path, it is patently obvious, as you stated early on in your post, that "hope is useless." In the entirety of your post, that statement carries the most weight, for the simple reason that it strikes at the heart of Truth - i.e., it says it like it is without any additional "packaging."
I also agree with your assessment about spreading hope and despair somewhat equally. In my own work, that is critical. We have to be willing to let our world(s) fall BEFORE we have much "hope" of building a new one - and lately, I've seen way too many people so high on the dope of "hope" that they are simply unwilling and (as a result) UNABLE to see beyond the narrow focus of that high. Rather like being stoned. Seems like it will last forever, until you crash, and then it's often a long, downward spiral into the darkness - which was always there, but was obscured by the "drug".
For what it's worth, I'm not "down" on hope or love and light. It is simply my "path" to be the serpent in the garden - MY OWN! *heh* And, occasionally, others are going to take the apple and then get bent out of shape because it opens their eyes to something they don't want to see. *shrugs* So I'm not sure what the answer is - seriously. Nod and smile in silent approval? I simply felt in this thread that some manner of "logical" thinking needed to be injected into the conversation. Because, frankly, ideas like "hope" and "faith" are not particularly logical, and particularly among those on the path. Sorry to be so "dark" here, but "hope and faith" are words that belong in a campaign speech or a pulpit.
Toltec is a brutal path in many ways. I don't label myself as Toltec, per se, but most of my practices & spirit-work parallel that line of thinking. Don Juan was not a man of "hope" or "faith". And there is a lot of truth in the old Biblical adage, "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here." And, yet, I also totally agree with your statement that we don't swing automatically to the other extreme - despair. To those who want/need to hear this, I will say there is a "balance" between hope and despair, and that centerpoint is, simply, sobriety - reason, clarity, fluidity. Those dwelling in "hope" cannot find that centerpoint anymore than those dwelling in despair may find it. The pendulum swings - but only if we allow it, only if we are willing to acknowledge that hope and despair are EQUALLY folly, and then find our personal centerpoint.
The "problem" as I see it is that so much new age clap trap has been injected into the world that even those who genuinely WANT to be on a path toward spiritual evolution are blinded by the "light" - e.g., the whole notion of "The Secret" is just new age feel-goodism as it was packaged (even though the core ideas may be effective, the manner in which it was sold was pure snake oil, yet gobbbled up by millions). I go into the book store and pick up books on the "metaphysical" shelf at random, and I'm appalled! "Enlightenment" is offered to us in the form of "love and light", completely ignoring the fact that "grief and darkness" are no less real - and every bit as powerful. Here in the US in particular, we are inundated with the xtian notion of some guy saving our souls so we may go to heaven, but in the same unspoken breath, this means, "Only if you are like us, only if you agree with us, only if you are a heterosexual middle-class American with 2.4 children and a willingness to turn a blind eye on all the EVIL the church does in the name of God. Hey, Brother, can you spare a dime, by the way"
So, on forums like Soma, The Sorcerr's World, and The Solitary Nagual, I tend to think that the participants WANT to challenge their belief systems every bit as much as I do. As a result, a lot of my opinions are not particularly popular, nor would I expect them to be. And that gets into a whole different area which I was attempting to express at TSN in the following comments:
Those who have known me for any length of time already know I am not particularly "sweetness and light" in my approach to this path. Quite the contrary, I have found it to be a path of "dark enlightenment" - in the sense that much of the Knowledge and experience we acquire on this path isn't particularly "pleasant". We use the term "warriors" - but what are we at war with? Simple - our comfort zones, belief systems, our ego and the baggage of the consensus we bring with us from our "ordinary lives".
Are we willing to challenge those things? Or are we only looking for a feel-good agreement to our existing belief systems?
When Orlando first began working with the three of us, he challenged us right down to the core level of our thought processes - particularly when we would respond to one of his questions with a platitude. I remember once he asked me, "Della, how do you define 'the right way to live'?" I responded with some clever (or so I thought) quip about, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Some bit of recycled sweetness & light shite floating around in my brain from my old programming. So easy to see in hindsight. So impossible to see when we are stuck in the program. Needless to say, his response was *ahem* rather brutal, as I believe both Wendy and A_____ would attest. It went something like this...
"Then how would you define doing unto others? What does that mean to you? Do you agree with them blindly in the hopes they will agree with you - even if and when you are wrong? Do you form unwritten and unholy alliances based on some notion of approval or reciprocal courtesies? And if that is the case, what do you then owe to that person, that you may not want or be able to give? Do you smile at their errors and hold your silence because that is how you would want to be treated, ignoring the fact that you will only go on repeating the same errors through ignorance? Do unto others... Is that REALLY how you would define the right way to live, or is that just some bit of garbage stuck on your hard drive that you recite when challenged by a question to which you have no answer?"
Got my attention. And it made me think.
And therein lies the rub. If we are going to be honest, if we are going to be true to our path (whatever it may be), can we afford those little consensuses that often occur on forums, wherein you agree with me and expect me to agree with you? Or, is it perhaps far more of an honor and a service to others to treat them with the dignity and respect that says, "I love you enough to challenge your thinking - and I BEG you to do the same for me!"
So, for what it's worth, that's where I'm coming from. I am very willing to commit to exploring the path with others, but not to blindly agreeing with them because it makes them "feel good". I consider that a huge disservice, and nothing more than an attempt to maintain some illusion of a "pleasant status quo." That's not what this path is about for me. We either commit to challenging down to the core level our belief systems, or we are utterly wasting our time. To me, that IS the centerpoint between hope and despair.
Just my thoughts - thanks for listening.
D