The New Spirituality Page for the OLD TA group :-) Welcome friends xoxo

You betcha, I got a few.

I wish I'd said everything better, done things better, and whined less.

I think it is a good mechanism, that gives us vision of improvement. It arrives after the event, but we can store the wisdom for the next event.

Better than nothing.

God may be a simple "explanation" for all the complexity of nature, but it makes explaining by God's impossible complexity.

It's the same complexity, we just move it from one
word to another and thus explain nothing.

Bad things aren't indictments of what we are, they are what we did. It is a miracle to know the difference, but clocks just go clockwise.

There is no innate qualification to love and be lovable, but judging self instead of actions can kill it.

Haven't you tried to love someone that had judged themselves into a mean person?

I'll bet a donut they projected their meanness onto you, and then expected you to remain loving.

They weren't trying to pull you down, they were trying to pull themselves up.

Dysfunctional people can be pretty darn needy.

If you are still here, it's because they didn't need all your blood.

By using the entity called God, we can psychologicallly address all of nature, and we need
to do that. We need to see the miracle as one shebang, to honestly realize how wonderful our self really is.

The Old Testament God was one mean jealous critter, and I'm awfully sure that mean people thought him up.

Winning the lottery for birth is a zillion times less likely than Powerball odds, and that gets us into
Heaven already.

So you fellow angels out there take care, I gotta go back to work.

A labor of love, actually.

: )

There seems to be a mechanism within me that lets me know that something I did or said or didn't do or didn't say didn't sit well. I donno what causes that. Do I need to know?

Is it okay to just la de da my way through the day and allow stuff I got warped with earlier to make my life less pleasant or the life of someone who has to be around me less pleasant? Or does it make sense to deal with it in whatever fashion will move me on to the next rung in the ladder. Okay so maybe there is no rung and no ladder but find me a way to express better what I am trying to say and I will use those words.

The word "evolve" has different meanings to different people. I'm only responsible for the one I have. :)

The facts are there - we can be down right bad asses when we choose to be. We can allow ourselves to become susceptible to forms of subtle and aggressive meanness or outright warped, vengeful actions. Temptations await!

Daddy says don't swim with alligators, in a very serious voice.

The kid soon sees another kid taken by a gator.

Dad says, same voice, we must sacrifice the cat or rain for crops won't come.

What does the kid know, but a kid and a cat are missing?

Humans hang on to false information that was
obtained while young, then teach it to their offspring.

Why are there people?

God designed us. He instructs all the molecules to change us over time. He also hears billions of human thoughts, and responds to millions of prayers at the same time.

He heals a few and kills the rest. Hey, He can do everything and respond to people in their own language.

He could blow wind thru a salvage yard and assemble a car, but apparently doesn't want to.

You should feel guilty about not doing what you imagine He wants you to do, or what your parents tell you He wants.

If you don't believe in Him, He won't do nothin' for you. But you can start believing, and He will forgive your not believing before - even on your death bed.

It is never too late to be saved and forgiven. However, after knowing of this deal, delays will cost you. The sooner you start the bigger the rewards, and you get a nicer place in heaven.

So, don't delay, come on down.

Remember, Evolution explains how everything got to be the way it is, but it's not true.

Go ahead and get well with genetic treatments, just don't buy Evolution hogwash.

You can go to Hell, you know. Just ask that Muslim psychiatrist that gave 13 people early dispatch down in Texas.

Going to Hell from Texas may be an easy transition, but think about missing your loved ones.

Oh, forget being okay. That doesn't happen, because everyone is a disappointment to our perfect God.

Almost forgot, you need to remember Hell is forever.

That's a long time, pilgrim.

Think about it.

We grab onto the coat tails of some religion or way or philosophy and think, "Okay! Now I have arrived!" then we sit back and say something like, “I am enlightened (or saved or forgiven) or whatever the word that signifies that I am now officially okay. Nothing left to do now but sit back and enjoy.

Can it be that simple? Ha!

We are ever evolving whether slowly or at a faster pace all the time. We can figure out ways to cooperate with that process or to slow it down. I reckon the more we are open and flexible and desirous to keep on keeping on, the faster we move though sometimes the hurdles get higher and wider.

How many times have I had to back up and regroup? Too many to count. But I usually know when I have bumped against yet another automatic response that got commissioned back in my earlier evolution days - like defense mechanisms that seemed to be appropriate at the time given my frame of mind.

The way to break a habit or thought pattern or automatic dysfunctional response is to catch it as early as possible and then do the opposite or just allow it to drop. If we don't feed it, it will eventually die.

Are we, that is the stuff that we really are, perfect? Yes but the warped ego never gives up trying to distract us from that fact. When we know and remember the "truth" it gets easier to ease the ego out instead of "God". Some have used the expression that ego stands for Ease God Out. Maybe they have something there.

Clarifying shampoos get all the stuff that is not hair
out of your hair.

Dropping everything from mind that is not in the moment clarifies the moment.

Worries of the future and regrets from the past are self generated confusions of the moment.

Anticipated future delights and fond memories also
cloud the moment.

Today is a pretty day, good for basking. Wish I had a hammock and lemonade, and nothing to do.

I'm switching engines in my car, and have equipment on rental. I'll have moments absorbed
with the joy of mechanical work.

Still gonna take a break in the afternoon sun, relax and listen to the neighborhood.

It'll be pretty good, despite no dancing girls.

I should go to Hawaii sometime, and have some clarified moments

: )

One of my favorite authors. :)

"Resting here completely -- steadfastly experiencing the clarity of the present moment -- is called enlightenment."

Doing so is an attempt to make bird tracks in the sky.

I recall things when recall is prompted by a fresh reminder. I continuously forget the Alamo, parents,
God, and everything else that doesn't stay in my face.

The conscious wouldn't work if thoughts left tracks
in it. The constant flocks of information flying through are followed by an eraser. The only permanence is by stuff that stays in our senses.

It gives the impression that life is flying by, and people wish for life to be "grasped" and made more fulfilling.

The old wish for "more".

It can also be called "clinging", which is trying to keep birds in the sky. Imagine what a sky full of birds will do to our car's paint job.

It is a desire to hang on to life, which is trying to hang on to what you are so you will be more "you".

Clinging is a bad thing, so quit.

There are other sources of understanding that bring deep amazement, but don't cling to those either.

The lesson for those that spiritually awaken is let it go.

The spiritually sick need a huge home full of furniture. The spiritually sound can get by with a mat, robe, and bowl.

I feel profoundly rich with a 1 bath home, heated and cooled. I gots a tv, 'puter, net, fridge, zapper, and internet.

Flippin' heaven, it is. But I would not be less of a self without them.

They could disappear like bird tracks in the sky, and so will I someday.

I hope it's not today.

: )

Please tell me about this Passport Card.

Paths

"A bird is flying:he will leave no footprints in the sky. The sky will remain a vacuum. The bird has flown: he has not left any footprints. No bird can follow his footprints. The sky is always empty. Another bird, any bird who has to fly, will create his own path."

Hi Clayt: I enjoyed the above quote that you left here a few days ago. But, a trite observation. The sky, i.e., the Earth's atmosphere, is by no means a vacuum; it is filled with the molecules of its constituent gasses. Without those molecules the bird could neither fly nor breathe. And while we can't see footprints in the sky because of our human limitations, were we able to see molecules we could see the disturbances caused by a wing's flapping.

Several weeks ago you kindly asked if in my travels I came close to Buffalo, NY. The answer is yes. This Spring & early Summer I drove twice to Columbus, Ohio: once for my youngest daughter's senior recital (voice) and again for her college graduation, with return trips. I also drove twice to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan via Toledo to visit a lady friend. With all four trips I chose to take route I-86 instead of the NY Turnpike (I-90) because by-and-large it is a more attractive route, especially through the northern Alleghenies, a region I love. I now have secured a "passport card" so I'm able to get to my lady friend in the U-P via Montreal, Canada, and that cuts out one day of driving.
I sometimes do the following, though. From Greensboro, NC (visiting a daughter there) I proceed north through Western Pennsylvania to spend the night in Slippery Rock; then I visit the oil regions around Titusville, perhaps see a friend in Edinboro, PA. and then proceed to Columbus, OH. I love to drive!

good try Irene - but typical eh? Page not found.

I wondered which word, you meant, then recall a couple of games. They used to be down the side of this page - on the right where it said all discussions.
I don't see them now, and not in favourites - that could be when I swapped to the Mac!

Anyway I'll have a look around later.

I've stopped the screaming - and decided to LAUGH at the mess of life right now. All good fun really.

Mess before enlightenment, mess after enlightenment.

It is finally dawning on me that maybe I have become enlightened - early days yet though - another four weeks to get through yet, and this was day one!!

you are missed in Word, both of them :-)

html: for this one you must put words after the closed code

Even though you don't post here anymore wishes for your day to be a most wonderful one is on my mind.

Love ya guy! :)

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Uh oh! another opportunity to look at my character. ;)

Some good reading on your link.

You are very proficient at putting up links and images. Could you explain the html code you use.

Whilst waiting for workmen etc, I shall browse through some of the articles on the site you posted. Many thanks.

Women's Circles

Every blessed time I think I am beginning to get my act together the parts run off in ten different directions.

I'm LIKE so aware and can make choices that don't hurl thunderbolts out into the blue and hurt others and think, "Okay, Bren my girl, you are putting your money where your mouth is, you are walking your talk, etc,." Then an ant walks across my bridge and it collapses. ARGHHHHHHH!

At least now I am motivated to move my prescriptions to another pharmacy. ;) Took getting ticked off to do it. I mean REALLY ticked off.

Before enlightenment, get ticked off. After enlightenment, get ticked off. ROFLOL!

Been there done that plus burned on the way down. Not a joyful experience no matter how one cuts it.

Here's what prepared me to follow the tunnel and see the light., which came sooner than I could comprehend at the time.

Faith! Faith that I would somehow make it.

Faith is believing I already had what it takes.
( the saying was just as important as the believing.)

Then the acting on that belief. I Concentrated on the Word, not on my lousy condition. I no longer believed in the problem I faced or felt (which was crappy at times) I continually renewed my faith and talked positive because constantly talking about my problems attached them to me tighter.

Every day I reminded my mind and body that conditions would be fixed and eventually they were and I have never looked back.

There comes a time (I believe) in all our lives when we have to let go and let God work through us.

Just my thoughts!

Light (faith) and darkness (fear) cannot coexist. Put your armor on (faith) and stand your ground.

God sent His Word to heal us in so many ways and His Word worked.

I just turned it - and crash, bang, wallop, life will be in unexpected chaos for the next month.

Got to accept that it is all part of life, and hopefully live through it - I daren’t say richer for the experience... until the bills are paid!!

.

Brenda- "Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water."

And Clayt’s - “......no footprints in the sky ... Another bird, any bird who has to fly, will create his own path."

Max - “The spiritual lessons about breathing is attempting to see miracle in, miracle out.”

Yes Brenda, I am with you about the inside “knowing” that makes the changes.
The wonder of those changes are the miracle of every waking hour. I am not a worshipper - but give lots of praise to no one in particular, and remain very very aware of being enshrouded in an amazing energy that is safe and protective.

Sometimes there are fleeting fears that this bubble will burst - especially relating to physical health and loss of independence, but even those fears are quickly allayed by an energy or thought or perception - that all will be well and as it should be.

To live in this age seems an incredible miracle, so full of choices, compared to the age of our parents - who could be totally bogged down and narrowed by their religions.

Every time I am aware of God in, as, and through all that is, what better worship can there be if worshiping is important to a person.

I see You.

I know You.

I thank You.

I love You.

You are heart of my heart.

You are bone of my bone.

You are flesh of my flesh.

Can any more praise be given than that?

Live AND cultivate awareness of who/what does the living and who/what is aware otherwise nothing has changed. And nothing really does change on the "outside". It is the inside/knowing/perception of reality that changes.

A rock is still a rock but you see the rock differently. Some part of you knows what it didn't know before when viewing the rock or washing the clothes or doing the shopping or sending a text message on your iPhone or cell phone.

That's why it is said, "Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water." You still do what you do but you "be"/see differently. No one but you knows that anything is different.

You don't have to find God and worship "Him". Just look around. There is no place, nowhere that God is not. And it's okay if you don't believe in God because probably what you think you believe in is just someone's concept anyhow, including your own idea of what God must be ...or not. It isn't about a concept. Most of us have made God into our "image" of God (I think that might be what was originally meant in the Bible about "false" Gods or "graven images"). But that's just what I think and I am no one's authority but my own. Probably those who don't know if God exists or think God doesn't exist at all are no further away from knowing what/who God is than those who have an idea, concept, or image of what/who God is. (Did you follow that? LOL) Because any idea, belief or concept of God is NOT God. We can't put God into anything that small. In fact, we can't PUT God anywhere. (God won't go. I tired. LOL)

Wake up - LIVE your day, and go to bed!
The operative word being LIVE.

Paying your taxes and paying your bills is a spirutal experience too. ;)

Can't get away from spiritual experience. Thank God!

Doin' a what comes naturally. :)

"Emptying the mind is not getting rid of 'bad' stuff, it's taking a break and getting aware of awareness itself." (Max) Yep!

Try to get rid of the "bad" stuff and more stuff pops up anyway.

Stuff is a quantity of little value, in the normal usage of the word.

If we say everything is because mindless little pieces are just doing their thing, then God doesn't have a job.

I'm talking about amazing stuff that forms into minds and everything perceived, all of which is interdependent.

I don't like the word ego. I use it to mean the shell
of illusions about being separate from the miracle of all that is.

There is a resistance to believing we are particle flow, because of the view that the physical universe is stupid.

That view is why people have long thought there is a genius creator hiding somewhere. It seems obvious that dumb uncaring particles can't just randomly make smart people.

The intelligence of design has long boggled scientists, just considering the physical universe.

It is a real leap to include the wonder of man in that same system. Instead of tearing down an exalted view of man, how about raising everything else to exalted status?

The spiritual lessons about breathing is attempting to see miracle in, miracle out.

Don't be fooled by physical forms!

Let God have a better job, as creator of an evolving masterpiece.

We cannot give stuff too much importance, or too little. That is opinion, and the Way operates with no regard of such.

The Way is matter and energy that has life.

There would be zero life with nothing to perceive.

We are what we perceive. All of self is perceptions and the resulting thinking about what was perceived.

Perceive your nose, perceive a mountain, perceive that you think.

What do you have to think about, but It?

What pieces are you made of, but pieces of It?

Have a spiritual experience, like mowing your lawn
or washing your dishes.

It's a miracle, dammit.

That means you can't do anything that is not miracle.

Thinking is the most special part of the miracle, in
my opinion. Emptying the mind is not getting rid of 'bad' stuff, it's taking a break and getting aware of awareness itself.

Then live knowing your a pot made to fill, and your empty vessel overflows.

Life is pot filling, meaning the pot and contents make life.

No contents, no life.

No pot, no life.

Keep your pot clean.

: )

Last nite I watched a Nat Geo program on the Universe-- it's vastness -- the billions of years -- the various formations and complexities, and yet it's order and preciseness. How awesome it all is and how minuscule I am in it.. And yet some how, in some tiny way, I must have value to the overall to be linked to the power broker who calls the shots.

I choose to believe in that link because of a silent, inner communication which has strengthened my faith that someone besides me is looking out for me -- guiding me. Such thinking is impossible without God.

Because of it all, I know there is more of me to discover today by focusing my mind on the possibilities yet to be, and that even contradictory paths can lead me to the center point of it all. But time is shortening so it's important for me to be life-affirming.

I know this is all my interpretation.

I have a 3x5 card with this saying which captured my imagination years ago.

"A bird is flying:he will leave no footprints in the sky. The sky will remain a vacuum. The bird has flown: he has not left any footprints. No bird can follow his footprints. The sky is always empty. Another bird, any bird who has to fly, will create his own path."

The essence that is us always did and always will exist but the persona that we think ourselves to be probably will exist in some memory somewhere but I am not certain about that.

We have to hold onto both self minus ego and the perception we are. Otherwise we couldn't navigate in the body and carry out the role we play in the master play we are all in. We just have to remember it is all stuff. Sometimes we give "stuff" far too much importance. ;)

Miracle. I think words can trip us up. It is just as easy to say it is all God as to say it is all Miracle.

I don't know about how highly ordered perceptions are (LOL) but the "we" we think ourselves to be is more perception than reality. Think person in a play. There is a character with lots of props including a past, ideas, beliefs, problems, relationships, clothing, gadgets, etc. but the "thing" playing the part is not the part or the beliefs, or problems or ideas, or clothing, or any of the props or plots.

Finding that all stuff including me, you, and everyone else is One Thing makes us the same except for the perceptions and props and other assimilated molecules. That starts dawning on you and then everything that used to mean you were different or better than or worse than or lacking in or rolling in has less meaning if any meaning at all. You just get out your play dough and do your thing knowing that you have never been and never will be truly separated from that which some people call God nor from things nor other people even when you (in your perceived self) wants to pinch their head off.

It is all important. It is all unimportant.

It is all what it is. It is what you perceive it to be whatever it is that you are perceiving including your perception of God and how all that works.

I just be but I think and choose and eat and sleep and play and cry and laugh and go and partake or leave. I do it all while being. I'm just not always conscious of my being or oneness but that doesn't change the fact that it is so. It is to my advantage to be as conscious as possible because I find less reasons to fight, less reasons to get in a dither, less reasons to have an ego to defend, and I probably make better choices for myself that have better consequences but that's probably a perception too. LOL

Okay, that's my two-cents worth and that won't even get you a cup of coffee. What do you expect for 8 a.m.? he he he he he

Do you believe that we always did and always will exist, and that what we have now is human experience with its ego,disappointments, education, ownership and limits.

How long can you hold on to the self minus ego? I mean in real time experience of life.

Is miracle that we are as humans - the same miracle of whatever Eternity is?

- Or are we just this highly ordered pile of perceptions, which are merely fleeting molecules in the hierarchy of stuff.

So if there is just stuff - and it is alive, and we come to experience that - then how does it affect our daily human behavior and relationships.

I'm trying to stop thinking - and just be. Not easy!

It would seem to me that as one grasps/knows that all are the same miracle regardless of appearances, the ego would have less to hold onto.

Watcha think Max?

Along with waking up, and dropping the ego burden, one gets much lighter and wishes everyone could flee the ego jungle.

Some get to a clearing, and figure they are out of the jungle. A lot of them imagine that is the best
anyone can get, respite of ego.

The self minus ego has true pride and true humility.

Pride in being a miracle is very easy, humility because all men and women are miracles.

All miracles that have no place above nature, or below it.

But all refuse to understand they are such.

It's a mess.

: (

As much as we would like to portray our surrendered openness to receive and just be, the density of our egos ( admitted or not) is a barrier to just being -- IMHO.

and enjoy the trip Brenda.

"There is just stuff and It is alive. Wow!"

So whether you are playing with math or gadgets or puppy dogs or skipping stones or eating a banana, it's all ONE thing and you are It too.

When men put together the Bible they came up with "There is one God." They must have missed something in the translation accidentally or deliberately because "God is One" and with one slip of the translation anything could have happened. The Aramaic language is a mystical type language and the translators' languages through the centuries were more concreat than abstract. Hard to translate one from the other. But maybe Biblio can shed more light on the language thing.

I'm going back to GA today for a couple of weeks so will catch you guys later.

"On the road again...." La la la la la la lalala

Since we are the total of our perceptions, is that
fact pertinent?

We experience taste on our tongues, wind in our hair, pain in the #$$; but we feel love all over.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

Actually, the whole is flabbergastingly discombobulatingly amazing.

Just can't get that feelin', until the above pertinent fact is realized.

Yer not just putting together a "self", by totaling up perceptions.

1/2 of life pieces are your pieces, the other 1/2
are outside your skin. Eyes + light, ears + sound,
tongue + sugar.

1/2 + 1/2 = 1 life.

If, in meditation, someone realizes they are what they perceive, they will awaken.

The tongue is a swinging door between two parts of the universe.

Even that is too much. Erase that tongue, because that is universe too.

Look in your mirror. Nothing but It is in your perceptions. You are It looking at Itself.

How do you control self, if 1/2 is atmosphere, water, light, sound?

You are nature, acting on Itself. What wins with
self control, Nature or Nature?

Any mental division between you and It takes credit for life away from It.

You are smarter than rocks, but you can't have smarts without seeing rocks and all the other stuff.

Erase the word "other", since no stuff can be other.

There is just Stuff, and it's alive.

Wow

: )

I wish I could use Clayts quote:

"To know and not talk about it is to follow nature. To know and talk about it is to follow man." Tao

But I DON’T know, and I DO talk about it – so of course I am still following man down the blind alleys of perception. It’s fun though – so long as we never forget that we will lose this form within a few years or decades.

Yes Brenda – a good concept to grasp is “Mindfulness just takes BEING PRESENT/AWARE while doing whatever is at hand”. Reminds me of Cesar Milan teaching people to handle their dogs.

“My” mind has migrated to learning about fractals again. Silly really because I don’t understand the mathematical formulas, – but find the software and effects rather like life itself.

Reading the Quick start tutorial, I am told that as a Zen explorer one can mutate the image space and create art.

What has this mathematical software learning got to do with spirituality. To me – everything, but I cannot explain why.

WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET

That's what it boils down to.

What's all that got to do with spirituality? Everything.

What's all that got to do with worshiping God? Nothing really. But if worshiping God is what you are after you can have that. It's your mind/perception and you can shape it anyway you want to.

What's it got to do with how you live your life? Everything. When you see more "rightly"- that what perceive as "out there" is really "in here" - then you know you can choose differently about everything. It causes you to re-think your relationship to your self, to others and even to your God (however you perceive that). When you think “rightly” dualistic thinking is upstaged even as you live in a dualistic world of "right" and "wrong", good and bad, acceptable or not acceptable. Why? Because you still need to discriminate the various shades of everything - all of the diversity - and make choices or selections. But if you see rightly then you will know that whatever is happening is the one thing playing many parts and unfolding forever. You prefer to call this unfolding, creating, energy God but It is What It Is no matter what you call it.

Many of us have had or will have a hard time depersonalizing God - doing away with our concept of God as having just human attributes. Many have a child-like concept of God similarly to the mighty and powerful leader of Oz in the Wizard of Oz. You remember what happened when the curtain was pulled back don’t you?

IF God rules then it is within us and all around us and all through all that is because That is what makes everything tic including our minds.

It's scary climbing out on that limb though. We have been told that if we do that then we are lost forever, condemned to hell or worse. I wonder what worse is? Second though I don’t want to think about that. I could warp my perception. And what I “see” is what I get.

Keep going, around your universe. Each thing you perceive is that part of your mind. Go full circle, adding all perceptions that are mind to total what mind is.

All you can perceive is all of you, including perceptions remembered. There is no other miracle to form our perceptions.

What you see is indeed what you are.

You can't be anything "more" or "less".

In fact, there is nothing but It, any Way.

No mirror, no place for dust to land.

Just a highly ordered pile of perceptions.

Well, that's life.

: )

The first thing that prevents something from happening or that closes the door is,"In reality, we can't do that." Granted there are some things in "reality" that we cannot do in the body like flap our arms and fly over roof tops but we can climb aboard an airplane or helicopter or helium balloon and get over those roof tops.

Just imagine what it would be like to try to get from the U.S. to Italy when you only have a week or so for vacation because some one said that in reality we cannot "fly" and so the airplane, jets no less, would not be in our reality.

Mindfulness just takes BEING PRESENT/AWARE while doing whatever is at hand.

If anyone can grasp this sentence from that excerpt, "...the perception of an object is not different from the mind that perceives it" what a great door opener that would be.

Now there's something to meditate upon. :)

Wow! Wouldn't that be sompin' if we all embarked on that journey. What a world it could be Brenda.

But in reality, a change of circumstances and the arrival of opportunity do not leave room for cultivating much mindfulness within the average person struggling along in life.

"It is the everlasting and unchanging rule of this world that everything is created by a series of causes and conditions and everything disappears by the same rule;everything changes, nothing remains constant."

More Buddha wisdom.