Livin Your Best Life

First topic message reminder :

“Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.”

—Robert Frost

Chivo wrote:But receivers of what?

Of the Holy Spirit.

A very interesting overview of William Blake’s praise and criticism of Swedenborg below. I have to say I am mostly with Blake. If offered Swedenborg’s Heaven, I would take Hell.

It’s worth a read. One must use their inner spontaneous feeling and imagination to triumph over rules. Blake did not deny Swedenborg’s angelic conversations, but criticized him for only taking the Angel’s word and how he was idolized by his people.

I think what you see in the struggle between Blake and Swedenborg is a projection of our internal psychic struggles. The middle way seems best to me, a little sugar and a little spice.

http://viscomi.sites.oasis.unc.edu/viscomi/coursepack/criticism_etc/Viscomi-%20Evolution%20II.html

99 wrote:

Chivo wrote:But receivers of what?

Of the Holy Spirit.

I was kinda being rhetorical, but yes, the Holy Spirit, but not as tightly defined by the mainline religions and Angelic Beings, it also crosses into the virtuous and infernal parts of our psyche.

It is much deeper and mysterious and infernal than they will allow and this is partly a great veil that separates religious folks from the raw wonder and power of the spirit.

It is best spontaneously expressed and not done for merit, which stops and blunts its movement and manifestation.

The Romantics, poets and artists are the true high priests of the spirit.

This was William Blake’s hypothesis and think right on.

This is what Owen Barfield meant by needing to engage imagination and final participation to cross the Abyss within.

It is not a new gospel but one that is deeply sensual and beyond senses.

I know Jesus as a sensual spontaneous being.

Most modern Christians have no concept of who I think he really was and what he demonstrated.

Well, I think I followed his path, out of mainline religion into the imagination and a kind of divine madness and realized what he pointed to.

I don’t need to convince a soul about this, for I know it is true.

David Bentley Hart knows what I mean and written much better than I could about this.

They will eventually join me here, there are not many of us here as of yet.

Dan saw and acknowledged this as well.

Sounds interesting. Will read the link.

Update: I read that link and will comment on it in the morning... after I read it over again.

As you said, it's worth reading and I agree with you.

“Hatred destroys the hater.”

I’m not religious anymore. All respect to any with faith, but that’s your thing. You are free to worship as you like or not. That’s the beauty of America. I have no enemies. I’m not a Democrat or Republican or Libertarian or Independent. I’m for making reasonable progress and always improving things. I’m for the Earth. I’m for freedom of religion. I’m for helping people. I’m for not lying. I’m for asking the hard questions of myself and our country. I’m for give and take representative government. You won’t always get what you want, compromise!

There has never been a more dangerous group of people in America than the current day Republicans! They love material things more than the earth, they don’t love you, they are backed by big money who know the earth is on fire and they have taken a cynical approach to it. I generalize…a little, but just a little they are for life of the unborn, but not for life of the living?! Insane!

You MUST vote Democrat until their fever has broken! Hear me out.

Most of the world may be uninhabitable in 100 years at our current rate of climate destruction. Just look at the science of reputable Scientists.

F*** Fascism, Christian Nationalism, Authoritarianism and Nazis!!! Yes, Capitalism needs a major overhaul and rebalance. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than everything else we have tried so far. We know the other ways I mentioned don’t work.

- I seem to remember Jesus saying love the least of these and your neighbor as yourself. Not hate the baby killers and force my religion down everyones throat. They love Putin and wish America had a Taliban like fundamentalist government in place. Whoa.

- Last I checked the constitution guaranteed separation of church and state and freedom to practice your faith or none as you like, as long as you are not violating other’s rights.

- Millions have believed lies from a corrupt Republican party and Trump. They keep saying the election was a fake because it will get them elected, and people believe them. At what price? They think Trump is a messiah, I think he is an an Antichrist, he won the election, all voting is corrupt, keep your gun close. Nope. Democrats have their issues, but they don’t want to destroy Democracy. The Ds just want to make money, like the Republicans. These zealots are causing their own Apocalypse they dream of. A lot of modern day American Christians believe something not even in the Bible. They are the cause of their own prophecies. They are filled with hatred. Not a good recipe for love, but a good setup for love.

- People are divided like they were over slavery in the Civil War. For all intents and purposes, this is a Civil War. Let’s hope it doesn’t escalate to the worst. But it could and it will be the fault of the loudest voices and hating eveyone not like them and the quiet ones not stepping up and saying ENOUGH! I’d be fine for America to peacefully separate, but we will all be weaker and China and Russia are never going to stop pushing. We have to be at the top of our game. This division delights those who hate America and is stupid.

- Don’t even get me started about COVID. There will be many more pandemics to come. Science works! It’s the best thing we have this side of death. But it doesn’t explain why we exist, just the how.

I’m not going to naively think my words matter or we can all love each other. This is a disease 🦠 and it will have to run its course. The fever has to break. I believe in America and what many have fought and died for. I believe in a UNITED STATES. I believe in peace and love. I believe in loving the least of us. I believe in helping my neighbor. I’m not even a Christian!

I’m a Human Being.

This fever is not new, the current Republican party is sounding just like the Nazis from this famous speech in 1939 at Madison Square Garden, New York. The disease is back and it is raging! We have to take care of each other now, not hate each other.

Enough of silly muppet politics, distractions.

Buenos Aires…

They seek contact, but they ignore the ultimate contact.

Simone Weil stopped by again tonight and she was very chatty.

“It is the highest part of the attention only which makes contact with God, when prayer is intense and pure enough for such a contact to be established; but the whole attention is turned towards God.”

“Above all our thoughts should be empty, waiting, not seeking anything, but ready to receive, and it’s naked truth the object that is to penetrate it.”

“Love is not consolation, it is light.”

Those who can only understand the world through their senses are blind basically.

I’m reading “A Guide for the Perplexed” by the medieval jewish scholar, Maimonides.

There are some very interesting tips in this guide about being a Human Being and knowing truth. Even how to understand lights in the sky.

https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/friedlaender-a-guide-for-the-perplexed

We are all perplexed, until…

How'd you know they were in Buenos Aires?

Still keeping tabs?

Magick!

The pursuit of power is the real error in life.

People are turned into things instead of people.

…

The Ethics of Attention

“The great human error is to reason in place of finding out.”

—Simone Weil

She was a force.
She shames me.
She lived her philosophy.

She defined the price and purpose of philosophy. Attention for Simone was a crucial skill to develop if you were not going to live at the mercy of the the forces around you.

How to properly focus your attention was key to her philosophy.

A different experience of everything you do is available to you…right now. Or you can just accept your default perception.

You have to be open to receive what is beyond the circumstances of the moment.

This requires for you to pay attention to what is happening around you. Most just settle for their default state of attention.

Simone’s attention saw the world as sacred.

She didn’t care about becoming a famous philosopher, she was too busy living her life.

She became a teacher. She encouraged her students to think openly.

Staying open is the key to everything!

What if there is no single right answer, so common in life.

People find a position and then just vehemently defend and die on that hill.

A shame.

One must avoid this collectivist thinking.

Acknowledge at the beginning of any conservation you only have a partial truth and that there is always more to learn.

Don’t chain yourself to a fixed position. How to pay attention?

The middle path between no activity and too much activity, is to put in effort, but you remove your own prejudices from your experiences.

You look and listen and wait.

I am in awe of her focus, attention, and openness.

Amor Fati - Accept what is necessary

4.5 Years

Eh?

U crazy too ?

4.5 years?

Yeah

Wanna know God, huh?

Know thyself.

Been really enjoying my Maimonides studies.

His Guide for the Perplexed is quite amazing.

A true portal.

“It is more necessary to heal the soul than the body. For it is better to die than to live badly."

—Epictetus.

Inspiration

It is like a burning, an ecstasy. It lifts you into the clouds and can drag you into the depths and toss you around like a rag doll.

Human beings need their narratives, their stories, to be continually renewed.

You can’t seal the fire in yourself away in a bottle or hermetically sealed vessel. It wants to live and breathe and dance and burn. If it is not released, it destroys us, but to let it flow, renews us.

To create is to open yourself to burning it is unpredictable and dangerous to the common experience.

Parents know this well.

I would say one of the greatest ways to heal sadness and fracture, is to create. In creation though, you are also opening yourself to madness.

The true creator, is partially crazy, it scares the mundane.

One has to back away from it after being burned, learn how to stay close to it, without being overwhelmed by it.

No religion, person of faith, artist, philosopher, or creator has exclusive access to this burning fire.

There is a real unity underneath all things I have experienced, connection, known and expressed through our fragmented ways of expressing it. Touching that unity brings an incredible, inspiring and maddening burst of energy.

We become ruined for the ordinary material abstractions.

I found this quote by a Jewish mystic 🧙‍� resonate.

Creation is mystical.

Mysticism is the art of union with reality.

YES IT IS TRUE; THE ECSTATIC [MYSTIC] CANNOT SAY THE UNSAYABLE. HE SAYS THE OTHER THING—IMAGES, DREAMS, VISIONS—NOT UNITY. HE SPEAKS, HE MUST SPEAK, BECAUSE THE WORD BURNS IN HIM. . . . HE DOES NOT LIE WHO SPEAKS OF UNITY IN IMAGES, DREAMS, VISIONS, WHO STAMMER OF UNITY.. . . HE SAYS THE FORMS AND SOUNDS AND NOTICES THAT HE IS NOT SAYING THE EXPERIENCE, NOT THE GROUND, NOT THE UNITY, AND WOULD LIKE TO STOP HIMSELF AND CANNOT, AND FEELS THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF SAYING IT, LIKE A SEVEN-LOCKED GATE WHICH HE RATTLES, KNOWING THAT IT WILL NEVER OPEN, YET HE MUST GO ON RATTLING IT. FOR THE WORD BURNS IN HIM. ECSTASY IS DEAD, STABBED IN THE BACK BY TIME, WHICH CANNOT BE MOCKED; BUT, DYING, IT HAS FLUNG THE WORD INTO HIM, AND THE WORD BURNS IN HIM. AND HE SPEAKS, SPEAKS, HE CANNOT BE SILENT, THE FLAME IN THE WORD DRIVES HIM, HE KNOWS THAT HE CANNOT SAY IT, YET HE TRIES OVER AND OVER AGAIN UNTIL HIS SOUL IS EXHAUSTED TO DEATH AND THE WORD LEAVES HIM. THIS IS THE EXALTATIO OF THE ONE WHO HAS RETURNED INTO THE COMMOTION AND CANNOT RESIGN HIMSELF TO IT; THIS IS HIS INSURRECTION, THE INSURRECTION OF A SPEAKER: RELATED TO THE INSURRECTION OF THE POET, SLIGHTER IN POSSESSION, MIGHTIER IN EXISTENCE, THAN HIS. THIS IS THE BENDING OF THE BOW FOR THE SAYING OF THE UNSAYABLE, AN IMPOSSIBLE TASK, A LABOR IN THE DARK. IT’S WORK, THE CONFESSION, BEARS ITS MARK. (9-10)

So if you feel lost, get close to that fire inside yourself.

Watch out, it may you, but it can bring a fresh view and story to your eyes and lips.

Looney tunes rule the world.

Cross posting from the Personalism 101 thread 🧵 today…everything connects.

“Scrambled eggs” Dan is back to his old ways, I mean that in love.

My work on OMF is a form of artistic expression.

I let the work speak for itself.

But this may seem disrespectful of the themes and views folks on OMF very personally dialogue about.

I assure you, no disrespect is meant.

My art if my most personal expression.

It’s an act of creative madness.

My deliberate madness mixes with others’ here and something strange is born.

The Human Condition is marked by our attempts to control what can’t be.

I am fascinated by the evolving narratives in the world today.

They speak so much about our fear and anger at our lack of control.

It terrifies us.

Let it be known I feel Dan and his friends are very unwell.

I don’t think there is an objective sane and insane.

What makes someone unwell?

Their ability to dialogue and respect the expressions of others, even what may be considered disagreeable.

To me, anyone “locked in” to a world view or mission in the case of Dan and his friends, are very much unwell to my sensibilities.

All views and experience spring from the same source in my view.

When a muppet clings to a particular view, they are unwell.

As much as we would like, we can’t delete all we find disagreeable in the world.

Appreciating all that comes your way seems very well to me.

The Guest House
​
“This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
​
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
​
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
​
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
​
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.“

—Rumi

One’s tolerance of others I think is a very good measure of their mental health.

If you look out at the world today using that rubric, you see a lot of insanity being slung around.

It seems we are trending toward mental illness on massive scales.

The UFO, religious, and political obsessions bubbling up are building to something big big big.

I’m at ground zero of the end of an age and birth of something new I realize.

I think to pick a side is to contribute to what I call our “Great Decline.”

But we fall to rise.

I will be gentle with the old man.

I do not wish to torment Dan, neither will I blindly humor him.

I hope you have been able to fly from the cuckoos nest back to your home roost.

All my love to chick

The gold is not in Disclosure or Physics.

You can chase conspiracies forever.

The gold is found in very simple living and connecting with what is around you.

Being a good steward of those connections.

Rising to be your best, while the worst happens.

This is not some objective code or morality or creed, it’s what we know is true deep inside ourselves.

It’s the source of our joy and laughter and warmth of true companionship.

Kindness.

Patience.

Gentleness.

Long suffering.

Those sound like the sentiments of a slave perhaps to some.

But they are the only real portals to reality.

To love.

Those who insist on their missions and distractions can stick that stuff where the sun don’t shine.

You are fools.

Utterly lost.

Wayward souls.

They are missing the best part of life.

And living our best lives is all that we really can do of value.

And I would offer, our greatest act of love.

Not just my Will, but my will joined in love, is the best song I have ever heard or sung.

Those bonds are eternal and unbreakable.

But we have been given the power to turn away from this gold and to find it.

It’s not just evolution or a fluke.

It’s everything and why we exist I feel.

Have you heard me call to god or a creed?

No, we know this inside of ourselves.

It’s the oldest and truest religion.

Just offering some encouragement to the wayward who may stumble across this place.

Go back I tell you.

Stay close to love.

Nothing is worth more.

Recently I have been experiencing incredible inspiration in my life, flowing from my heart, clarifying my mind, focusing my Will.

It is not chaotic, it is this flowing, not bubbling.

I can feel deep currents stirring inside of me.

I feel deep communion with reality.

I know I am close to unity.

It brings such a silence and calmness.

Not a coldness, a special kind of inner warmth, for I know at my center, is a raging fire.

The power of it is a bit terrifying.

It is changing my speech and moving my hands in very powerful ways.

I see every input a sign and evidence of this move of the spirit.

Something is stirring me.

The finger of the unseen.

I can only speak of it thusly.

Yes, it is mystical.

There is a great unity and feeling of love that responds to the stirring.

That it would touch me is humbling.

For I am no worthy vessel.

I am always half sunk.

Well, that was more true in the past.

I am perhaps being a little hard on myself.

I still have to run my bilge pump now and then, but I could almost make a cross continental journey in this old steamer boat, just barely with average seas.

I am not quite ready to steam into the big storm.

Best to go around the storms.

Some progress has been made.

My heart speaks a word to me…take courage in your little boat.

When you no longer ask permission or seek approval and take your destiny into your own hands, as you are meant to, things will fall into place.

This is a wonder.

Heraclitus wouldn’t give it to us straight, he used metaphor.

He insisted you must go inside and look yourself.

What I see is that I am fallen.

I am a fallen one.

Fallen into a particular self.

I left the one.

Life itself a sin.

To attempt to exist outside of the one.

This was allowed.

There is an intent behind all of this, behind myself.

Some can maintain a persistent connection to the above, while also being here, below.

It was meant to be like this.

To be realized now.

I do not wish to convince anyone or free anyone or persuade anyone.

We are compelled to participate in the world of sense, but better to exist in the intellectual as well.

I am come alive again in reality.

What was dead has been born again.

I was listening to UG Krishnamurti today, that spiritual terrorist.

One must tear themselves apart.

He can shred any belief.

For he passed out of this world and saw through it.

I was laughing with him today.

This partial life offers many pleasures.

They have deceived us.

We have deceived ourselves and can only free ourselves.

The illusion is not out there, you are the illusion.

All insights may be worthless.

Something is using us.

All our experiences we think so significant, really?

I know I sound cynical, but I’m calling bullshit on all of our intellect.

We are totally addicted to thinking.

Tough to quit it

The biggest hurdle is getting past yourself.

Thought may be our enemy.

The real path leads beyond thought I feel.

The mind cannot travel there.

If we fell into these selves, we must transcend these selves.

The seer is the illusion.

The earth is not in danger.

The seer doesn’t want to end.

Goethe is a hero of mine.

He believed what you do is what you are.

How you treat others shows who you are.

He had a long, happy, abundant life.

He believed in pursuing the best in life and being your best.

Sure he suffered, but he also thrived.

Not many read him today in the west.

But all Germans know him.

What you do with what you have was everything to him.

This man I like a great deal.

What you do and what you undertake makes you who you are.

Not who you follow or what your race is or nationality.

“It is quite beyond me how anyone can believe God speaks to us in books and stories. If the world does not directly reveal to us our relationship to it, if our hearts fail to tell us what we owe ourselves and others, we shall assuredly not learn it from books, which are at best designed but to give names to our errors.”

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Howdo most respected one?

Hobbit

hobbit wrote:Howdo most respected one?

Hobbit

Hello my friend!

So good to hear from you.

I hope you are well.