Topic: Empty the self, keep nothing to oneself

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From Active Side of Infinity:

"It is the workings of infinity," he replied. "Something happened to your way of perceiving the day you met me. Your sensation of nervousness is due to the subliminal realization that your time is up. You are aware of it, but not deliberately conscious of it. You feel the absence of time, and that makes you impatient. I know this, for it happened to me and to all the sorcerers of my lineage. At a given time, a whole era in my life, or their lives, ended. Now it's your turn. You have simply run out of time." He demanded then a total account of whatever had happened to me. He said that it had to be a full account, sparing no details. He wasn't after sketchy descriptions. He wanted me to air the full impact of what was troubling me.

"Let's have this talk, as they say in your world, by the book," he said. "Let us enter into the realm of formal talks."

Don Juan explained that the shamans of ancient Mexico had developed the idea of formal versus informal talks, and used both of them as devices for teaching and guiding their disciples. Formal talks were, for them, summations that they made from time to time of everything that they had taught or said to their disciples. Informal talks were daily elucidations in which things were explained without reference to anything but the phenomenon itself under scrutiny.

"Sorcerers keep nothing to themselves," he continued. "To empty themselves in this fashion is a sorcerers' maneuver. It leads them to abandon the fortress of the self."

I pondered on this statement a bit today when reading it. Its very interesting DJ mentioned emptying the self, a very buddhist technique. But it almost goes contrary in the other ideals about being inaccessible. He does say, sorcerers keep nothing to themselves as well. Not of,which makes me wonder if the sorcerer is then accessible in such a manner, of course they are empty, granted that, but still, the emptiness is accessible.

Just some thots on an intriguing statement I was having while pondering on this.

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One of the things I was getting at, to make it clear was, is it necessary for one to empty oneself, to another individual? Like Im reading a book called Daughter of Fire, where a woman who wanted to be trained in a particular sufi order, was asked by her teacher, to write out a confession of every wrong she had ever done in her life, that this was a necessary thing for her to do. And, when she wrote it out she felt really bad, getting down to the finer details of various things. I still can see some strange value in this, however, doing a confession to someone, in some way. I can see it serving as a mirror back to the self, of how imperfect that ego-mind can be, when it comes down to acting on those thoughts which either arent ours via programming, or are our thoughts but they are 'unwholesome' like the mighty saints and lamas and the like, put it.

I wonder if, such a thing, beyond recapitulation is necessary, and it could be part of the 'album' or maybe a different sort of album, one to empty and toss into the fire when done. Its not ignored is the point, the 'stains on the soul,' and the repeat mistakes the tyrant of mind does, if its all faced in some way.

So I wonder if this emptying, or even a confessing, is actually something which could work. Trouble is, most are unwilling to do it, because they fear too much the response and the judgments of another, say even if one is a shaman, a teacher of some sort, a lama, guru, guide, whatever, it almost would seem overwhelmingly worse, to confess to such an individual, and empty out in front of them. Perhaps necessary, but it would seem worse. Like unloading all of that and laying it in some holy temple, it would seem almost too trashy to do. Serve as some strange mirror to the self. Hard to do. Its difficult to get it on paper enough.

Anyway just more thoughts on it. I suspect very few in here have ever really done that. I dont even know if I could say, write all down, empty my 'self' to another in such a way. It would lead to progress, but would be a very difficult thing to do.

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It is disgusting, my boy," he said, shaking with feeling. "I want you to know that I am behind you one hundred percent when-ever the moment comes to redress wrongdoings."

He insisted over and over that I had to forgive the people who had wronged me.

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Bumping this. I cant speak for all, but during the purge, I did confession. This does not need to be done in a church. But it needs to be done. This took months. Yes, when you start facing these things, you realize, just how much you did. HOW MUCH. It adds up. Then its much harder to point fingers at others, once you do this.