Home › Forum Online Discussion › Philosophy › Can one earn salvation or imortality through good works alone? n/t
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September 25, 2009 at 12:27 am #32170singing oceanParticipant
I don’t find it necessary to get angry with others either, I think that it can be useful as a survival response though.
I tried the “things are as they should be” technique for a while, particularly while driving in traffic (I have to drive quite a bit every day), and it did help to decrease the stress level and defuse the competitive attitude that can come up while driving.
“with the intention of creating balance” in my statement means the intention of creating balance for ME, I know the universe is already balanced, but it is not always balanced in your favor.
The idea of doing someone a favor is useful in my view (from experience), if you don’t point out that someone is doing something harmful to themselves early on, they may go on to seriously hurt themselves or others. Of course it is their choice to do so, and you could also make the choice to do nothing, and thus let them meet their rightful fate through experience, but if you take the view that humanity is a collective, and value that person’s ability to cooperate with others then there is no law saying that you can’t make a comment about another persons conduct especially if it impacts you. In fact there is no natural law that says you can’t say anything you want…only action and reaction and the center…do something, do nothing or react spontaneously on the inside or the outside.
September 25, 2009 at 12:32 am #32172singing oceanParticipantIn a dynamic process, things can never really “stop”, they only transform into other forms and non-forms.
Suppose you are standing in the middle of a highway…you have to take responsibility for being there in the first place, and wouldn’t that be asking to be run over?
My intention is not to maintain joy, but balance which is a dynamic process.
September 25, 2009 at 12:36 am #32174singing oceanParticipantIts true, this society is excess yang and always trying to overachieve, but doing nothing all the time without interaction can get monotonous too. Finding what you need to do to complete yourself is the key I guess, and that can be fast or slow depending on what you feel you need in the moment.
September 30, 2009 at 3:10 pm #32176StevenModeratorIt’s been so long; I didn’t see you responded ๐
>>>”with the intention of creating balance” in my statement
>>>means the intention of creating balance for ME, I know
>>>the universe is already balanced, but it is not always
>>>balanced in your favor.NO, I think you’re missing what I mean. I *do* mean it is always
balanced in YOUR favor. You just don’t always see “what is
best for you”.Say your alarm doesn’t go off, you are late,
you stub your toe, you drop your toothbrush into the toilet
causing you mutter under your breath and either spend even more
time trying to sanitize it or hunting for a new one, etc. Your
morning “sucks”. What you don’t realize is that had you actually
left on time, you would have gotten into a fatal car crash.Say you are married, but your spouse is cruel. They cheat, they lie,
they are unreliable, and they play mental games. You are/were
in love, but this person that you love is causing you terrible pain.
You get a divorce. You go into a depression and struggle with the
meaning of life. You seek out spiritual solace. You grow. The
“misery” you went through was horrible, but it was *exactly* what
you needed for the evolution and benefit of your soul.Things that happen to you are always for your best.
Always.
No exceptions.The realization of this is the birth of joy and peace.
>>>The idea of doing someone a favor is useful in
>>>my view (from experience), … [stuff omitted]I don’t disagree.
But there is a difference between giving advice and
becoming personally invested to the point where
their behavior disrupts your internal joy/calm.Steven
September 30, 2009 at 3:29 pm #32178StevenModerator>>>In a dynamic process, things can never really “stop”,
>>>they only transform into other forms and non-forms.I don’t disagree, and don’t believe I said they do.
>>>Suppose you are standing in the middle of a highway…
>>>you have to take responsibility for being there in the
>>>first place, and wouldn’t that be asking to be run over?It was a hypothetical. There could be any number of reasons
you were there. Something could have flown off the roof of your
car, you pulled over, and then ran out to get it. Then you
see the truck coming at you. Whatever. The point is that you
can just flow with the action by stepping aside–not trying to
stop the truck or sheepishly standing there resigned to your
fate of being run over. That was my point. Of course, if
you really want to leave this mortal coil and you want to let
it hit you, that’s your right as well.>>>My intention is not to maintain joy, but
>>>balance which is a dynamic process.OK, but that’s not my intention.
See my post on the NONusefulness of anger for more clarification.I don’t believe that balance of any form needs to be maintained.
Balance gets along just fine without a maintenance man.Everything is already balanced–both cosmically AND on an individual
soul level. All that remains is what to do with your free time.
My feeling is to use that time to create, explore, and discover–
all from a state of joy–with the intent to encourage and accelerate
the growth process that is already happening within, at a faster pace.S
September 30, 2009 at 3:33 pm #32180StevenModeratorIf “by complete yourself” you mean explore, create, discover, and
encourage the natural growth/evolution process of the soul, then I agree. SOctober 2, 2009 at 11:58 pm #32182singing oceanParticipantI hear what you’re saying about things already being balanced, but find that in my life, the exploration is directed by my intention, although we are always stepping into the unknown, and if I find there is an area that is “unbalanced”, I will take a direction that seeks to balance it.
October 3, 2009 at 12:03 am #32184singing oceanParticipantI think the divergence in our views about whether things are balanced or not on a personal level is like this – I see what you are saying as a form of “fate”, that things are written out the way they will progress, where I am saying that whatever happens to you is happening is a stream of wills that are all interacting, and you sometimes impose your will and sometimes go with the flow. I think it is undeniable that the decisions that we make in life direct our experience in particular channels. Growing and learning from making mistakes/not reaching goals is part of the process.
October 3, 2009 at 12:04 am #32186singing oceanParticipantprocess is what its all about
October 3, 2009 at 7:18 am #32188StevenModeratorI think everyone has a “larger” version of themselves
operating on higher dimensions that has a more global,
uncluttered view of what is best. The “urging” placed
upon the smaller self seems fatalistic, and all sorts of
choices seem to occur to the smaller self which cause
“misery”–but the larger self knows exactly what it is
doing, and can see the big picture.An analogy: The liver (“smaller self”) thinks it’s fate
that it suddenly has to detoxify some quantity of alcohol;
the person (“larger self”) thinks it’s free will
that it has to do so, since it “chose” to drink a glass of wine.What appears to be fate, is simply the free will of the larger
self that has a better viewpoint and a more intelligent understanding.
What appears to be free will, is simply the attempt of
the smaller self to engage the situation–already planned by
the larger self–but doing so from its limited uninformed perspective.In other words, the overall story has already been written (for
your best interest). The smaller self only chooses the dialogs
and conversations to have within the overall story . . . and in
fact: while the dialog is “ad libbed” by the smaller self, the
overall idea of what to say was suggested in advance by the larger
self all along. The interaction of a “stream of wills”, as you say,
is just the collaboration of multiple participants to the same
storyline.This is why I think that is important to not take any individual
action or set of actions that happen in everyday life too seriously,
because they are relatively meaningless to the big picture.S
October 3, 2009 at 7:28 am #32190StevenModeratorSince I would argue that things are always balanced,
what you would call “imbalance”, I would call a
desire to speed up the storyline/evolution process.
I.E. You see where you are now, and you see where in the story
you would like to be, so you attempt to get there sooner
rather than later. I think this is–in a nutshell–what
all of us in spiritual alchemy are interested in . . . SOctober 3, 2009 at 8:00 pm #32192singing oceanParticipantI both agree and disagree with certain things…
The idea that we are playing out thoughts of our higher selves makes sense, but on the other hand, the reason why we are here is to explore free will, and we are here because the higher self cannot function here.
So, yes, on one hand there are issues in the vast impersonal collective plane that need to be worked out, but we are here to actually do the dirty work and play out all the possibilities through our choices. We can make no choice and nothing happens (to change our current direction, we keep doing the same things over again) or we can make choices to do new things and have new experiences. I think we are the determining factor that gives insight to our larger collective selves.
October 3, 2009 at 8:02 pm #32194singing oceanParticipantSo you are acknowledging that we can be “imbalanced”?
I think that the physical plane is inherently imbalanced, of course in the big picture there is a perfect balance of yin and yang but on a small scale, we are constantly balancing those forces as we go through our daily lives.
October 3, 2009 at 8:47 pm #32196StevenModerator>>>I both agree and disagree with certain things…
>>>The idea that we are playing out thoughts of our
>>>higher selves makes sense, but on the other hand,
>>>the reason why we are here is to explore free will,
>>>and we are here because the higher self cannot function here.>>>So, yes, on one hand there are issues in the vast
>>>impersonal collective plane that need to be worked out,
>>>but we are here to actually do the dirty work and
>>>play out all the possibilities through our choices.
>>>We can make no choice and nothing happens (to change
>>>our current direction, we keep doing the same things
>>>over again) or we can make choices to do new things
>>>and have new experiences. I think we are the determining
>>>factor that gives insight to our larger collective selves.The idea that I’m trying to convey is hard to explain.
I’m pleasantly surprised that Rainbowbear gets it, because
it’s difficult to put into words and paint the accurate picture.
Let me try another approach.Let’s say you watch a game of tennis, but you’ve never played
tennis–just watched the game. You have a pretty good idea
of what “tennis” is all about. However, you get a much deeper
understanding of what is all about when you actually get on
the court and play your first few games. This is like the
larger self/smaller self dynamic. The larger self has an
excellent understanding of the game of “tennis” from a
theoretical point-of-view, as if it has spent lifetimes
watching the game–however, it has never played a game of
tennis. It can’t. It is outside the physical realm.
Thus it sends in the “lower self” into the physical realm
to experience it directly for itself in physical form, akin
to playing the game of tennis. The lower self is not acting
“freely” in the sense you would like, as it is completely
directed to do so by the larger self. However, it is
experiencing the game directly–by being right on the court,
and then this information is relayed back to the larger self
to give the larger self a deeper understanding of what it
*already* knows. Thus the physical exploration and discovery
acts to deepen the understanding of the “overmind” of the
larger self.To be honest, I think this is the common ground between
yours and bagua’s polar arguments. If I may paraphrase
the understanding I have of the two sides, it appears
to me that bagua believes that “we are immortal already”,
and that all that remains is to clear away the clouds
of confusion that prohibit us from seeing this clearly,
and prevent us from living from that already
existing stable core “you”;
whereas, it seems to me that you believe that we are *not*
currently immortal and that all work must be done
here on the ground floor from the lower self perspective
in order to achieve it.To be honest, I think each of these viewpoints is really only
half of the story. In my opinion, the reality is
that both sides–the larger self and the lower self
are working collaboratively, it’s just that the lower self
doesn’t realize that it is doing so and can’t see the
perspective of the larger self.The larger self is immortal; the lower self is not.
The two are working together, with the larger self as
the mentor telling the lower self what to do, so that
it can join its big brother on the immortality train.S
October 3, 2009 at 9:00 pm #32198StevenModeratorSteven said previously:
>>>Since I would argue that things are always balanced,
>>>what you would call “imbalance”, I would call a
>>>desire to speed up the storyline/evolution process.
>>>I.E. You see where you are now, and you see where in the story
>>>you would like to be, so you attempt to get there sooner
>>>rather than later. I think this is–in a nutshell–what
>>>all of us in spiritual alchemy are interested in . . . SYour reply:
>>>So you are acknowledging that we can be “imbalanced”?
>>>I think that the physical plane is inherently imbalanced,
>>>of course in the big picture there is a perfect balance
>>>of yin and yang but on a small scale, we are constantly
>>>balancing those forces as we go through our daily lives.No. ๐ ๐ ๐
As I’ve tried to explain in prior posts, everything is
already balanced. Macrocosmically, *as well as* here
on the physical plane. The lifeforce is inherently balanced
as an expression of the Dao, and we can not be separated
from it. Everything flows from the Dao; no imbalance
can exist anywhere; we are on a continuously turning wheel.I was trying to point out that what you “perceive” as
imbalance is NOT actually imbalance at all, but is instead
only a burning desire of the lower self to speed up the
storyline.There is no imbalance.
Everything is always balanced.
It is impossible to be otherwise.
All comes from the Dao.S
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