Saturday, November 29, 2008

the god question....

someone on a forum i frequent was asking about the 'feeling' of closeness to god, and that just caused some thoughts to rise:

if i had to label myself spiritually, i would say i am a christian non-dualist. however, i don't subscribe to the traditional western ideas about jesus as moral teacher, but rather as one who came into being to preach against the dualisms of the culture at the time, as they contributed to forming the values reflected in hebrew [moral code, ie right and wrong, do's and don'ts] and greek culture [early philosophers ideas about ethics and phenomenon of opposites].

then as christianity developed its ideas out of the current philosophies and theologies of the day, christ's intended teaching missed it's mark. but that's ok, because that's the way it was 'supposed to be'. nothing has gone wrong in any way. some people think that christology has been defamed, but it has not, rather it is continuing to develop as the universe unfolds. BUT not in the way that churches believe it 'should'.

on the other hand, that which grows out my experience of eastern philosophy and theology, the non-dual aspect of my understanding, has more to do with the idea that beyond and prior to the concept of god, there exists formless presence of awareness that essentially cannot change. the world appears in all of its dualistic phenomena, but we have mistaken that for 'the real', and that is where suffering begins.

from a very early age, one is taught to identify with, to assign labels and meaning inherited through the social dna of the family [ and by extension cultural] system. as the 'i' continues to develop and emerge, it tries to make sense with what it notices is appearing through its perception scope on the front of the face, in the tactile, in the vibrations of air waves against eardrums, and so forth. its ongoing growth process involves synthesizing all of the data consumed by the senses from moment to moment, and inculcating into the functionality of the human mechanism.

now religion comes along and makes rules by which the mechanism must abide, and politics creates laws for protection, and philosophy tells it how to think about itself, but there lies the rub. humans rarely take time to self-reflect, simply because the western culture is a culture that encourages the fulfillment and elevation of self as its supreme acquisitive characteristic. if we were taught to reflect more frequently on the efficacy of self development then gaining wealth, popularity, titles would lose their value and thus their hold on us to form us into the misshapen subjects that we tend to become over time.

so we go along believing, steeled from youth for the battle to acquiesce, that we will someday achieve all that we have been trained to hope for and to desire, forgetting along the way to identify our deepest needs, in favor of our wants.

it's no wonder the further along this path that we trod, that we become more and more disenfranchised from the sense of 'the real'. we have buried ourselves in our acquisitions, material and sensual, and placed those as a wall between us and god.

and god is one, without a 2nd, but we live primarily identifying with ourselves, our egoity, as though we are separate, but we are not. and all the things we desire come to possess us in the sense that we cannot live without them.

yes, we cannot live without god either, but if we take our cues from the cultural matrix, then all we need do is make god into a picture in our heads and nod to it every now and again, making that the primary relationship with god, replacing it with the true joy and bliss that could be known if we would learn to dispossess ourselves of the stranglehold of egoity.

in summary, thoughts and feelings are all products of an ego that has entrenched notions which have spawned want and desire. to the extent that those are not fulfilled there will be frustration and grief.

but a very smart man said this about the god question:

'As long as there is enthusiasm for seeking amid life's alternatives, these questions remain superficial. But when death becomes real, or when deep disillusionment with the possibilities of experience overtakes the being, then one can no longer avoid the confrontation with fundamental questions. At such moments, the heart is open, inconsolable by ordinary means. Then there is a ripeness, an urgency for Truth, Reality, and Real God.'

in other words, until nothing else is of prime importance, not even one's own physical life, then the things that have come to possess us will continue to deter-mine the arc of life's choices.

the beauty of it all, is that all through life, god is always there, as god is now for you in this questioning, beckoning us to, calling us deeper and deeper into relationship.

to the extent that we yield, incrementally, such as you are seeking to do now, life becomes a series of moments unfolding to reveal the truth of our true nature, that being that we are not separate now, nor have we ever truly been, no will we ever be.

someone else said that the purest prayer is to ask the question: 'who am i?'.

in closing i share another prayer that arose in me during my time in the monastery. this prayer is based on the deepest human needs; desire, hunger, and thirst, the three things needed to 'live'.

god alone

may my only desire be for god
my only hunger for christ
my only thirst for the spirit
of god alone

Saturday, November 22, 2008

pesky retirement

i am just beginning to taste the drudgery of excessive leisure time. chances are any of us who make it to the point of 'retirement from', must needs have a plan for 'retirement to' to take its place.

even tho i am not fully retired, my job only requires about 15-20 hours each week of physical presence on the job. now, to be sure, i invest more as i am so inclined in developing creative aspects of it, but my input beyond the required time is self-determined. if i am feeling creative on a particular day, i may decide to spend time expanding on my usual investment. it pretty much goes with what i am in the mood for. i kinda like that. it does not have me rolling in dough, but i made a decision when i relocated back to my hometown pittsburgh, that would not get involved in work that would put my life in overdrive. if i wanted to, i could build up a clientele of private students which would completely diminish the level of flex time i currently have, eliminating the pleasure and leisure for reflecting on the role of the sexual abuse in my life, and how it had led me to construct myself ostensibly.

i think that having all this headspace is what many people will have to deal with in retirement.

what is retirement? most of my life i had thought of it as a time where i would just cruise around the world sipping martini's and gazing into grand canyons. but then as i got older and the reality of economic issues came to the fore, i soon realized that retirement would more or less be a pretty vacant lot.

and in my current semi-retired state, as i choose not to be overly preoccupied with activity that would distract and further disenfranchise me from my coming to terms with my inner world, i am getting hit real hard with the brickbat of the past, and being forced to disengage from obsessive compulsive behaviors and processes which kept me from developing greater knowledge of my own life motivations.

often times, that means resisting the the tendency to flee the indicting oracle of the moment, and allow myself to just bask in the glory of the untainted blistering here and now.

often times, i have to impede the fear of the future as it casts its shadow over everything. then i simply return to the knowledge that there will come a time, if i am kept alive, that my physical and mental disintegration will bring me to a moment when i will no choice but to face all the truths i wish to flee from today.

so, i ask, if not now, when?

and in the meantime, i am looking for things to do that will work in harmony with my desire to stay connected to the eternal vacancy of now. engage in a craft. reinforce my self-discipline as i advance thru the degrees of karate. try to balance eating well with treating myself to not so healthy delectables. commit some of my free time to the work of an organization that gives service to others.

retirement will be a chapter i hope to be ready for. and i hope others who enter this domain continue to share their experiences and show the rest of us how ease-fully it can be done.

Friday, November 21, 2008

excessive apology

in light of the conjoining in my brain of the two recently emerging topics of both excessive apologizing and shame, i felt a sudden attraction to this thread.


so taking a little desk chair excursion i visited a couple of cyber lands.


first stop, etymology dictionary which gives this info about the word 'sorry':


O.E. sarig "distressed, full of sorrow," from W.Gmc. *sairig-, from *sairaz "pain" (physical and mental); related to sar (see sore). Meaning "wretched, worthless, poor" first recorded c.1250. Spelling shift from -a- to -o- by influence of sorrow. Apologetic sense (short for I'm sorry) is attested from 1834; phrase sorry about that popularized 1960s by U.S. TV show "Get Smart."


second stop, to the definition of 'sorry' itself:


1. Feeling or expressing sympathy, pity, or regret: I'm sorry I'm late.
2. Worthless or inferior; paltry: a sorry excuse.
3. Causing sorrow, grief, or misfortune; grievous:
a sorry development.


then it was suggested: 'see sore', so i saw 'sore':


1. Painful to the touch; tender.
2. Feeling physical pain; hurting: sore all over.
3. Causing misery, sorrow, or distress; grievous: in sore need.
4. Causing embarrassment or irritation: a sore subject.
5. Full of distress; sorrowful.
6.
Informal Angry; offended.


what i realized is that when we speak about 'sorry' the reference is more to the 'is-ness' than the 'does-ness' of apology, or rather, perhaps appall-ogy.


appall:


1. To depress or discourage with fear; to impress with fear in such a manner that the mind shrinks, or loses its firmness; to overcome with sudden terror or horror; to dismay; as, the sight appalled the stoutest heart.


i think the 'appall' part comes from toxic shame [as opposed to healthy shame]. the state of being that living breathing apology [n] for daring to present myself in public in the first place. then, at times when my presence collides or intersects with that of another in a moment or place in temporal space, all of my toxic shame buttons get pushed by the 'man behind the curtain' who works tirelessly to ensure that no one be harmed by the leperous 'me'. like in younger times when the social practice was that lepers had to call out to warn people of their approach.


'i am coming, look out, don't get 'me' on you! run for your life, your 'chi'. don't be sullied by my presence!'


yes for me, obsessive appall-ogy underscores the subconscious notion that i am worthless and don't deserve to cause any type of feeling mechanism to activate in you. you should not have to react to me. you should not have to be impeded in your line of travel by the vehicle of 'me'. your right to occupy that physical space, to breath that air, is so much greater than mine. in fact all of your rights come first. mine are secondary, because mine don't count. i should remain the silent invisible nothingness that i was groomed to be in a family system that used me as a scapegoat for it's own toxic shame. its own sense of restraint for ever causing offence to anyone.


toxic shame assumes all people are unequivocally offensible, and that i am unworthy of any type of loving consideration. that i am not a man among equals.


i bury myself in moral platitudes and create a belief system that if i follow all of those things that would keep me from winning the disapproval of other, then i will be safe.


you see, it's so important to avoid the disapproval of other, and that is the 'sorry' truth of the toxic shame bound person, is that we don't merely seek others' approval, but rather must avoid their disapproval at all costs, because deep down, we sense that we would never be worthy of it, and so the solution of course then is to hide, to isolate from the very possibility of affronting someone with my useless self. to create a life where one would never have to engage in any type of personal relationship, because we are not worthy of it! every breath taken, and every move made becomes a strategic investment in the cause for avoiding offense of others' sensibilities.


in that sense life becomes a silent apology that no one ever hears.


i must stop for a bit and process these feelings that have come up before they turn themselves into thoughts and file and galvanize themselves in the steel trap of my mind.


thanks for the platform.


have a day, good peeple, see you in the next thread.....


ron


ps. the tendency to grandiosity is overcompensation, an attempt to prove and hide from myself the sad fear that all of the above is not true, and is merely the flip side of the toxic shame coin; i know because i have lived there, too. peace...




Thursday, November 20, 2008

ostensibly yours: a sequence in haiku



why have i emerged

a puppet bird formed and wrapt

in fleshly prison

+

forging agency

from former imagining

a dream in a dream

+

bid the puppet sing

to dance and scrape and bow

for sheer delighting

+

sprout wings, mount the skies

then fall to the ground a heap

of broken carnage

+

graceful gravity

joins forces with secret reich's

of phantom powers

+

to dare and to damn

an unproven destiny

commingling death

+

ostensibly yours

succomb to fair blue maya

matrix, womb and tomb

things that make you go 'mmmmm'

in light of ted haggard's recent revelation that he was sexually abused at age 7, i wanted to post this. he does not get a free pass from me regardless of the circumstances. his parenthetical institution, the evangelical culture of deceit, hate and manipulation thru fear, has spawned an evil monster. the havoc he has wreaked on the gay community because of his bigoted rhetoric is reprehensible.....but this video helps make up for it!  take that ted!!!!!

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

The Things I Can and Cannot Change Part II

this stuff has sat in my craw this weekend. and i came to the realization that the use of the computer and tv is not an issue in itself.

it's only when it is used obsessively or compulsively.

well, i've thought about it and talked about it with others, and realize that it's not the issue i am making it out to be.

i seem to have this tendency to make issues out of everything! these tapes play relentlessly! i have a couple beers and it's.... 'OMFG! i'm alcoholic! i should be using this time constructively and here i am just drinking the hours away'. or i spend time on the computer [usually while doing other things that pertain to work] and it's 'i'm addicted to the internet! oh no! i gotta control this situation or it might control me!!!'

meanwhile when i step back, i realize that i have a very good balance between work and leisure activites. it just so happens that surfing the net is just filler. sure, i need to examine the choices and often times need to exercis other options when bored. but even realizing that gives me the power to do so!

my own need for drama and the tendency to keep stoking the fires of the inner voices that continually cause me to judge and berate myself as useless, flawed and headed for 'hell in a handbasket', seem to be stuck to my shoe like gum.

the fact is, i have a very well balanced life, and sure, it would more than likely benefit me to spend less engaging in on-screen activities, but i have to stop judging these things as inherently 'evil'.

after all, technology is a gift! is has given many people a means of employing their natural given talents. it is helping expand our economy [but that does not necessarily follow that we have been good stewards of it]....i'm just saying, i gotta stop demonizing.

and it has to begin with me.

now THAT, i CAN change.

Friday, November 14, 2008

the hypocracy of it all! probirth, not prolife, there is a difference, 'church'



the unmitigated gall of this self-righteous creepzoid!


after this church has aborted living people spiritually, psychically, emotionally and physically thru the abortion of war and by perp priest shoving their cocks up the asses and down the throats of innocent young victims, all the while the church turns a blind ear to their plight.


i think jesus just threw up in my mouth


email 'father': JayScottNewman@me.com

Sunday, November 9, 2008

The Things I Cannot Change

i've noticed recently that all through my recovery i've heard and read much about 'boundaries', 'boundary issues', 'lack of boundaries', 'in/appropriate boundaries' etc.

but lately, i've been thinking more about limitations, not so much in the sense that they are related to boundaries, but in the sense that they are not related to boundaries. that the idea itself has a different shade of meaning for me.

not to seem sacraligious to the guys and gals who worship at the feet of st. bill w, [ah c'mon it's joke...poke-poke] but i guess if i rewrote the serenity prayer, it might say:

grant me the serenity to accept my limitations,
the courage to create boundaries,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

what i mean is mostly acceptance of the limitations of myself, and those of others. i'm speaking less specifically of acceptance, and moreso pointing to the notion that the idea of limitations can be further unpacked.

in light of the most recent realizations i've had stemming from the pondering of shame, questions have come up for me about how i managed to miss recognizing the value of understanding my own limitations.

for instance, having constructed a life out of the substance of having being born and bred in the odeur of toxic shame, it occurs to me, that i missed noticing my own limitation because i bought into the solution that i could be anything that i wanted to be if i wanted it bad enough.

with that thought as primary motivation, i proceeded to to invest tons of money time and psychic energy into constructing a person that, miles down the road of recovery, was a person i truly was not created to be.

in other words, i did not have the form and substance in my psychic dna to become that end result that i targeted for myself.

sure, i created boundaries for myself, and honored those of others, but i failed to recognize that the world of possibility was not infinite. being so overfocused on my own goals, i missed a lot of opportunity along the way to smell the roses of empathy and compassion, since i had turned all of my life into an opportunity for proving that i was just 'as good as the next guy'.

unfortunately, i had quantity all mixed up with quality, and uniqueness confused with specialness.

well i am at a crossroads now that enough light has escaped inward to reveal this little nugget of truth, and i find myself wondering in my new recovery era of honoring limitations, learning at any given moment to be satisfied with my allotted portion: where do i go from here?

i certainly don't think i have solved the riddle of my limitations, and i don't think that that could happen as long as i get up every morning and immediately go into robotic mode.

robotic mode for me is waking up, turning on the computer getting a cuppa joe and hanging out on the web. this is beginning to feel like a trap, a limitation of sorts, but one that i have the power to remove.

i wonder if i have the courage.......

as i was thinking about all of this, i thought it would be interesting to make a commitment to spend a day, say a 24 hour period, not engaging in any type of computer or tv activity.

is that a scary thought or what?

if i did that, i would have to do something else instead, or not do anything else instead.

i don't know how to live outside my routine. i mean i know i could but i fear trying.