“Darkness is your candle.
Your boundaries are your quest”
— Rumi
In daylight boundaries are easy to spot. We see signs or post markings that divide what is our territory and what is our neighbours. They also mark clearly areas which are known which for many of us translates to safe versus what is unknown. At night in the darkness it is never quite clear. Signs easily read in the light are missed and lines crossed without realizing. It is easy to lose our way tho that is not necessarily a bad thing.
This extends well beyond the physical. When we are satisfied and walking in sunlight, it is easier to stick with what is familiar and avoid that which is not. Oh we may dip our toes over the line but that is a far cry from immersing ourselves into the unknown. It is when we leave our safe well-lit areas behind us and turn off the blinding light of preconceptions that we can allow ourselves to wander into areas that are not ours and not necessarily safe. However they are the most likely to bring knowledge and awareness that is greater than that which we’ve known before.
Blessings, G
“And every day, the world will drag you by the hand, yelling, This is important! And this is important! And this is important! You need to worry about this! And this! And this! And each day, it’s up to you to yank your hand back, put it on your heart and say, No. This is what’s important.”
— Iain Thomas
Most days my distractions have distractions. People either message or call or show up wanting me to make their priorities my own. I like to be helpful and to feel included so way too often I say yes or take the time and my own projects fall by the wayside. Not that I can blame others for all of this. The world calls to me and I long to partake of it. Things grab my interest and I follow their siren call. This can be a new website or a new area of endeavour or sometimes just pretty pictures and Face Book statuses. Sometimes in trying to cover as many directions with my awareness as possible I find myself not accomplishing anythng. Yet my heart will always be in far off fields or friends in low and hi places and pictures of natures or sunsets or of beautiful guys and girls or anyone of a number of other things. Still I can learn to say no to the world. As long as in doing so I don’t end up saying no to myself.
Blessings, G
“Everything has boundaries. The same holds true with thought. You shouldn’t fear boundaries, but you should not be afraid of destroying them. That’s what is most important if you want to be free: respect for and exasperation with boundaries.”
― Haruki Murakami
Pushing at boundaries, every day picking an area in my life where I can go further than I have before. I walk the dog a bit further and get more exercise. I spend a few more moments cleaning up. I start a new form of ritual or meditation or meditate a bit longer. I say hello to one more person or have a conversation with a stranger. I do something I have never done before. I read more pages or post a bit more. Perhaps I find a new way of being more honest with myself and others…I still have boundaries but I’ve expanded my capacity for life. The more we can do that the more we can do and be in both an inward and an outward sense…Oh we still have boundaries…yet to be free is to be boundless so the more those boundaries are stretched the freer we are…
Blessings, G
“The simple fact is that we live in a world of conflict and opposites because we live in a world of boundaries. Since every boundary line is also a battle line, here is the human predicament: the firmer one’s boundaries, the more entrenched are one’s battles. The more I hold onto pleasure, the more I necessarily fear pain. The more I pursue goodness, the more I am obsessed with evil. The more I seek success, the more I must dread failure. The harder I cling to life, the more terrifying death becomes. The more I value anything, the more obsessed I become with its loss. Most of our problems, in other words, are problems of boundaries
and the opposites they create.”
― Ken Wilber
Whenever we describe something, we create its opposite. If that woman is beautiful then we are saying something else is not in relation to her. If we call a nation or a people free than we are saying that others are not in comparison. Thus we build walls and we fight for them…We seem to often to see in opposites, binary on/off switches where I tend to believe that most things are continuums, sliding scales that all fit on with very little at either end of the scale. To see in binary, means far too often having a preference..good/evil, left/right, black/white. In a universe of infinite colour it seems strange to want to fight for just one. I would rather experience the full range of almost any continuum. If this one life is but one act among many, than surely we are meant to have almost every type of experience and preference there is, the better to grow our souls. Perhaps I become a bit obsessed with understanding and perhaps preferences are hardwired into the package. Maybe so, but I find that the more I see things from a point of view of preferences rather than absolutes, the less I find myself in opposition.
Blessings, G
“The simple fact is that we live in a world of conflict and opposites because we live in a world of boundaries. Since every boundary line is also a battle line, here is the human predicament: the firmer one’s boundaries, the more entrenched are one’s battles. The more I hold onto pleasure, the more I necessarily fear pain. The more I pursue goodness, the more I am obsessed with evil. The more I seek success, the more I must dread failure. The harder I cling to life, the more terrifying death becomes. The more I value anything, the more obsessed I become with its loss. Most of our problems, in other words, are problems of boundaries
and the opposites they create.”
― Ken Wilber
How do we avoid creating these boundaries? Recently a FaceBook friend of mine dragged me into… er…invited me into a group she was part of. She and I have many philosophical and spiritual interests in common so I was fine with it. I didn’t have the opportunity to investigate it until today and found myself oddly fascinated.
As many of you know, I find it important that be as open as possible to other belief systems. I jokingly call it the elephant’s path after the story of the seven blind men and the elephant. As Ken Wilber says “Everybody is right” That is everybody has their own part of the truth and the trick is finding the value in each one and integrating it. In this way even if we never gain apprehension of the whole, we can gain greater and greater awareness of what the shape of Ultimate truth may be.
This group purports to teach its members how to end fear. The method seems to be to work hard at ignoring anything that may possibly cause fear. They assert that various religions have caused fear in their followers for centuries so therefore any thoughts of God or gods or religion will only instil fear so they really discourage thinking on those matters. I suppose the same holds true for war and possibly hurricanes and illness as well. Integrating this one may be very difficult . I can see where starting with a clean board may be productive but very few of us can realistically do this. When people bring up subjects that violate what they see as productive thought they resort to ridicule and anger. It seems as if in putting up boundaries against the things they feel may instil fear that they have actually become more fearful. Puzzling.
Cave Communication by G A Rosenberg 
The Coming Storm by G A Rosenberg 
