“There are lots of things a warrior can do at a certain time which he couldn’t do years before. Those things themselves did not change; what changed was his idea of himself.”
― Carlos Castaneda
When we’re younger, we have a strange mixture of foolhardiness and lack of confidence. We’ll do things to do things not worried about whether they work or not and tend to give up on things faster if they don’t work the first few times we do them. Other things we won’t try at all because we doubt that we have the expertise or knowledge to pull them off successfully. As we age and gain in knowledge and experience and perhaps even wisdom (if we’re lucky) we develop both more patience and more confidence. We are willing to make mistakes and try again after we’ve learned that very few mistakes are permanent. We have seen evidence that if we follow through on our intent, eventually we will be successful and perhaps that willingness to see something through is the beginning of wisdom.
Blessings, G
“It is a mistake to consider any belief more liberated than another. It is the possibility of change which is important. Every new form of liberation is destined to eventually become another form of enslavement for most of its adherents. There is no freedom from duality on this plane of existence, but one may at least aspire to choice of duality.”
― Peter J. Carroll
There is no system whether it is of government or belief that will not eventually break down. Something that seems new and refreshing like Democracy did in the 1700’s (and yes I know that it was used well before the USA adopted it yet arguably not on the scale and range that the early founders set up) will eventually become the bureaucratically moribund system that it has. To see it happen with Socialism, just read Animal Farm by George Orwell, a thinly veiled metaphor for the Russian Revolution and ensuing decades. I have heard it said (I believe by Spider Robinson tho others may have expressed similar thought) that it it takes 30 years to go from being a liberal to a conservative without changing one belief. Any system or school of thought that does not adopt to changes in culture and consciousness will eventually become its own shadow. Of course given time the pendulum swings in the opposite direction yet even then the system remains closed not open. It behooves us to constantly be willing to question even our most sacred and firmly held beliefs no matter what they are in order to free ourselves from the tyranny of this pendulum and our own inner calcification.
Blessings, G
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Passing Through Gateways That Break Chains by G A Rosenberg
“Man’s task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.”
— Carl Gustav Jung
Have you had any inappropriate thoughts lately? Things that ran across your mind that startled you and made you uncomfortable and you immediately suppressed it and thought of something else? I don’t believe that there is any such thing as an inappropriate thought. It is all information that comes to us and if we can avoid judging our own minds, we can gain invaluable insight into our shadow selves. We all have darkness inside and the more we expose it to air the more light we will find as well. So next time you have thoughts of putting rat poison into somebody’s coffee or kicking a dog or other things that you tell yourself that you would never think of, instead of revulsion and suppression why not try curiosity? Look at the thought and say “That’s interesting. I wonder where that came from? You might find out something about yourself, resentments you’ve kept hidden away, little kinks that when looked at and exposed will be liberating rather than frightening. To paraphrase the old radio series, it’s our shadow that knows what evil lurks in our hearts and maybe its not evil, just suppressed.
Blessings, G
“People have a very firm conviction, or belief, that they speak the same language, that they understand one another.
Actually this conviction has no foundation whatever. The language which they speak is adapted to practical life only. People communicate to one another information of a practical character, but as soon as they pass to a slightly more complex sphere they are immediately lost, and the cease to understand one another, although they are unconscious of it.”
— G I Gurdjieff
Language is a tricky business. People talk at each other and seldom realize that they are using the same words to mean two or more different things. Words like war or freedom or love or concepts like free will, acceptable losses, faith, religion, or meme. The words that people use in conversation with each other without sharing meaning is nigh endless. What’s even stranger is how often we use these words without having a full understanding of what we ourselves mean when we use it and how for many of these ambiguous terms, our meaning changes from day to day, conversation to conversation or hour to hour. When we say God do we mean an all-knowing guy in a white beard strolling through the sky? Do we mean an archetype, one of several that is part of the shared unconscious of mankind, an all-loving compassionate being, an angry vengeful parent. Is he internal or external? Then we can talk about love. I love you. Do I mean by that that I feel affection towards you and am trying to elicit whether you feel affection back? Do I mean it in a general sense that I love all of mankind and since you are part of that you share in my love? Does it mean I want to make love to you? Does it mean I would lay down my life for you or put your needs above my own? What if I’m not sure and it just seems like a good thing to say at the time? It always seems somewhat miraculous that any of us are able to communicate with each other at all. I guess we should thank god (or gods or goddess) for small miracles.
Blessings, G
“People have a very firm conviction, or belief, that they speak the same language, that they understand one another.
Actually this conviction has no foundation whatever. The language which they speak is adapted to practical life only. People communicate to one another information of a practical character, but as soon as they pass to a slightly more complex sphere they are immediately lost, and the cease to understand one another, although they are unconscious of it.”
— G I Gurdjieff
Language is a tricky business. People talk at each other and seldom realize that they are using the same words to mean two or more different things. Words like war or freedom or love or concepts like free will, acceptable losses, faith, religion, or meme. The words that people use in conversation with each other without sharing meaning is nigh endless. What’s even stranger is how often we use these words without having a full understanding of what we ourselves mean when we use it and how for many of these ambiguous terms, our meaning changes from day to day, conversation to conversation or hour to hour. When we say God do we mean an all-knowing guy in a white beard strolling through the sky? Do we mean an archetype, one of several that is part of the shared unconscious of mankind, an all-loving compassionate being, an angry vengeful parent. Is he internal or external? Then we can talk about love. I love you. Do I mean by that that I feel affection towards you and am trying to elicit whether you feel affection back? Do I mean it in a general sense that I love all of mankind and since you are part of that you share in my love? Does it mean I want to make love to you? Does it mean I would lay down my life for you or put your needs above my own? What if I’m not sure and it just seems like a good thing to say at the time? It always seems somewhat miraculous that any of us are able to communicate with each other at all. I guess we should thank god (or gods or goddess) for small miracles.
Blessings, G
“Anyone is capable of anything (will plus belief is ability) if they themselves create the opportune moment and incentive. Heaven gives no genius to disbelievers and no vengeance worse than the body denied.”
— Austin Osman Spare
With the will to do it and the willingness to be totally focused on the desire at hand to the exclusion of all other things, we can do miraculous things. We can get ourselves out of the worse situations. We can create totally new lives for ourselves. Yet developing the will and the incentive can be a sticking point. Too often, what others may think of us or what we may think or feel for them becomes a consideration. Distraction is always there. This is why almost any spiritual or magic discipline involves the training of the will and concentration. Imagine if we all actively focused on making a better world, no matter our conception of it without worrying what others were doing. We can manifest anything. Despite the inertia that we have built up in our lives.
Blessings, G
“Fear can make you do more wrong than hate or jealousy… fear makes you always, always hold something back.”
― Philip K. Dick
Fear maybe our biggest enemy. It causes us to not take chances, to play it safe. It stops us from telling people we love them and risk rejection. It stops us from standing up for ourselves when facing bullies, even the ones in our own heads. For fear of what others think of us, we withhold opinions that we know may be unpopular or we react totally the opposite and say things we know will be unpopular, daring others to reject us. When we do this we withhold the part of us that may actually agree but then this too is out of fear. Feeling fear is normal but if we cause it to freeze us in our tracks than we severely limit how far we can travel..It is only when we say “I fear that this will happen but I will do it anyway” that we exceed beyond our greatest expectations.
Blessings, G
Click on images to see full-sized:
Facing the Cosmic Drama by G A Rosenberg
Entering Darkness to Find the Light Within by G A Rosenberg