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"The Current of Love" #2 of 10
"Filtering out love and connection-- getting past all our filters, symbols and programs.

The current of intentionality that we create with our thought forms."
Being in touch with the organism; orgasmic sensibility;
reframing our ideations; honing attention to what serves."

 11-17-98
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Troimille (yours truly)
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Troimille: Good evening, dear friends. Are we having a topic tonight?

Alisnntrnt: lol, you are the topic Barry

Troimille: Well, we could talk about the homework while other people are finding their way over here...

Alisnntrnt: sounds good

GAY GOOEN: homework?

Honorble4U: ought ooooo

Troimille: Did any of you go around "tasting" your world?

Alisnntrnt: I did Barry

Honorble4U: that is not called homework in my life, lol

Alisnntrnt: lol, that's what I said last week Honor!

Honorble4U: What did you taste Ali?

Troimille: Alisnntrnt, how was it for you?

Alisnntrnt: great

Alisnntrnt: kept me in the moment

GAY GOOEN: Hmm...I guess I tasted the jacket of the man in front of me on

the moving floor at O'Hare.

Alisnntrnt: lol

Troimille: GAY GOOEN, that's how it starts-- at O'Hare... :)

Honorble4U: I doubt that is all you tasted

Alisnntrnt: lol

GAY GOOEN: (grin)...Now Honor.

Honorble4U: :)

Troimille: Honorble4U, what about you? Have you seen your world with

"beginner eyes"?

Honorble4U: oh yes

GAY GOOEN: What a lovely way to put it...

Troimille: GAY GOOEN, I think that was from Al Huang.

Honorble4U: Letting energy go through me, and feeling colors, is that what

you mean Barry?

Troimille: Honorble4U, exactly right-- like an organism instead of an acculturated person.

Honorble4U: esactly

Honorble4U: can't spell though

Troimille: How about somebody who hasn't spoken yet?

Honorble4U: need some healing spelling energy, :)

Honorble4U: Vic, you have tasted Winter, I know you have..

Troimille: Is anybody here new to Buddhist/Tantra practices?

Tafc323: Yes! I have indeed tasted Winter

Troimille: Anybody have any questions from last time before we get started tonight?

Troimille: Welcome, Esnshl4me-- we've just been "going around the room" so

far...

Troimille: Ok, then I shall begin-- I'll scroll out a couple of paragraphs, and then we can talk about it...

Esnshl4me: thanks

Troimille: I am glad to see you all! I'd like to start by focusing a little of my own

Troimille: biography on the subject at hand: How we originally did know love and

Troimille: connection, why and how we shut it down, how we conjured up a life of "faking it" to avoid intimacy,

Troimille: how we made it everyone else's responsibility to make us feel "worthy"

Troimille: and "loved," and why we eventually run into a wall-that wall being the

Troimille: conflict between the house of cards we've built our lives on, and the sacred dream of our hearts.

Troimille: I remember, as a child, "knowing" what kind of world I wanted to live in,

Troimille: and being horrified at all the pain and misery I saw around me and coming at me.

Troimille: This dichotomy was so intense for me that I built a kind of turtle shell to

Troimille: crawl into, to try to feel safe and to stop feeling the impact of the lying

Troimille: and cruelty I was perceiving "around" me.

Troimille: This shell was so "effective" that my teachers sent me to get my

Troimille: hearing checked, as I was no longer answering to my name.

Troimille: I went through six years of therapy at that time, which helped some, but

Troimille: I became a drifter in college and, afterwards, a drifter in my "career." I

Troimille: was not in touch with my feelings, so I couldn't set an aim for myself in life.

Troimille: But what about you? Do you feel that you have somehow made it this far

Troimille: without cutting yourself off from your core feelings? Or do you justify

Troimille: yourself that you need to "take care of yourself", make sure you don't get

Troimille: hurt (again), or that you have to compete in order to "survive"?

Troimille: Who do you know that is in touch with their feelings? Is it healthy for them?

Troimille: Why or why not? What would it mean to be truly innocent? Why would

Troimille: you want that?

Troimille: Ok, do you have all that? Questions? Comments!

GAY GOOEN: I can start...cutting myself off from core feelings would be like dying...

GAY GOOEN: before I was ready.

Troimille: But haven't we all done that already?

GAY GOOEN: No. I haven't done that.

GAY GOOEN: It is sometimes a greater effort to be vulnerable than not to be, but mostly, I chose it.

Honorble4U: Yes, I have died a million times, each time I have chosen to close down.

Troimille: Gay, then is everything already open to you? Do you know your true Self?

GAY GOOEN: I think I am intimate with it, Barry. ...and it has taken a life time.

Troimille: Welcome, SoulMan and Tanajtras-- we just started a few minutes ago...

Tanajtras: Kewl! Thanks

Troimille: GAY GOOEN, I guess I am asking, is there still more you wish for yourself, from yourself?

SoulMan911: good evening Barry..and everyone ...

GAY GOOEN: always...and in ways it is a choice...to go for more...or to be quiet and just BE...

Troimille: How about the rest of you? Lightbr8, is there anything that you would like to

Troimille: open in yourself?

Lightbr8: Yes...my heart

Troimille: Lightbr8, maybe your heart already *is* open... how are we disconnected?

Lightbr8: I have closed it for protection of not being hurt once again

Troimille: I can tell if I am yearning for something, then that wish is open in my heart,

Troimille: but I just don't have the connection to it.

Troimille: We'll go into these disconnections more, in a minute.

Lightbr8: Not sure I even yearn any more....have separated that much

Troimille: Lightbr8, then why can I feel your yearning right thru my screen?

SoulMan911: I find that once you make the connection to your self ...you have opened your heart soul and mind

Lightbr8: Are you sure???...My wall is very strong

Honorble4U: I feel a lot of healing in here. This is truly wonderful

Alisnntrnt: agreed Honor

Troimille: SoulMan911, for me it wasn't _once_ -- it's been hundreds of times-- then I

Troimille: shut down again, but not all the way, not as far. Little by little, we pry

Troimille: ourselves loose from our chains and dungeons-- what is awaitiing us?

Troimille: Honorble4U, I feel it too-- you are all wonderful!

Honorble4U: You have to accept with faith that what is ahead is certain to be better than what has been left behind

Troimille: Welcome, Mrgrta4u-- you didn't miss too much. We're discussing whether

Troimille: there is any hope for us...

Troimille: Honorble4U, for sure! I made about six decisions not to suicide, along the way.

Troimille: Anyone else before I continue?

Esnshl4me: just that you are singing my song, Troi

Troimille: : ::::::: blushes with Esns's comment ::::::::::

SoulMan911: always hope ...and faith ...and once you smell and taste all around you ,..you see..

Troimille: SoulMan911, it doesn't get easier, though, does it-- but the rewards are so lovely...

Troimille: Ok, continuing...

Troimille: Now, can you remember how you shut down, little by little, and sometimes

Troimille: a lot at once? As an empath, everything impacted me a lot in the first

Troimille: place, but in my family, it was not permitted for us to express what we were

Troimille: feeling, nor even think the "wrong" thoughts!

SoulMan911: not easy , but take it as bitter with the sweet

Troimille: Even in the best of families and circumstances, wasn't everything polarized

Troimille: into "acceptable" and "unacceptable", didn't we have guilt trips laid on us

Troimille: like "You're killing your mother" or "I've slaved all day for you" (so therefore,

Troimille: whatever you were _going_ to express to me will be unacceptable)

Troimille: "but now, what is it you were going to tell me?" Did you ever hear "Mommy

Troimille: or daddy is doing this because s/he loves you" or "it hurts me more than it

Troimille: hurts you"?

Troimille: Then we got peer pressure to fit into assigned roles and express only what

Troimille: fit within the group's mould; this includes cultural group, family "values" and

Troimille: even local neighborhood "morality", right?

GAY GOOEN: Absolutely...

Troimille: tell me, friends-- how did any of us escape from all that?

Lightbr8: Sure enough

GAY GOOEN: Maybe we didn't escape it...but maybe we worked through it...

Tafc323: Why "escape" it? Why not use it as a lesson?

Tafc323: The soul builds on many things!

Troimille: Tafc323, well, for sure-- that's all that's kept me going, to find meaning in it all,

Troimille: and then beauty...

SoulMan911: all cliches to restore control ..

Esnshl4me: <---escaped in books, fantasy>

GAY GOOEN: I "split"...

Troimille: SoulMan911, isn't it amazing how even bright people no longer realize that all

Troimille: their "thoughts" are cliches?

Troimille: Esnshl4me, me too, big time!

GAY GOOEN: Language is limiting, Troi.

SoulMan911: all what we are taught

Troimille: GAY GOOEN, it can be, but the Higher Astrals and Others have been teaching us

Troimille: some new Language-- breathtaking!

SoulMan911: yes ..a better way

GAY GOOEN: yes...but I'm talking communication on the Earth plane... among each other...between each other...

Troimille: Welcome, LisasubNH (North Hollywood?)-- we're discussing how we got

Troimille: trapped, and then how we have emerged.

GAY GOOEN: emotional intelligence, I call it.

SoulMan911: spiritual communication

LisasubNH: Hello Troimille, everyone NH=New Hampshire

Troimille: GAY GOOEN, yes-- ever notice how little you have to say to a friend for them to

Troimille: understand you, and for some strangers, no amount of words will do it? What's

Troimille: underneath our words?

Lightbr8: Communicating energy

Troimille: Lightbr8, you got that right! Have a cigar. But what the heck is it?

GAY GOOEN: Troi...IT is communion.

Lightbr8: It is the energy that you send and receive from others Much truer than words

Troimille: Lightbr8, I have been wondering if it is the dance of Being, "i" into "you" into

Troimille: "them" back to "i"...?

Lightbr8: I like that...good way to put it

Troimille: So that if I flow with the dance, I have to understand you!

Lightbr8: Not sure you have to understand me...just feel me

Troimille: (Just finished reading "The Dancing Wu Li Masters")

GAY GOOEN: yes, yes...makes perfect sense...

Troimille: Lightbr8, wouldn't you like to be understood and fully appreciated? I know I would!

Lightbr8: If you "feel " me...then the understanding is already there

Troimille: Lightbr8, instantaneously, isn't it?

Lightbr8: To answer you question...yes...but if you can feel my energy...then you do understand me

Troimille: Ok, makes sense. Anybody else before I go on?

Lightbr8: LOL...sorry...I'm using my voice I never had as a child

Troimille: Lightbr8, and I am sorry too, for presuming to "teach" you, since Love is what I

Troimille: am learning (to be).

Lightbr8: Yes...I think we all are...

Troimille: Ok, ready for more?

Troimille: So then, what is it that we have left? For some people, nothing! That's why

Troimille: honor students throw themselves off the bridge the minute they don't "measure up".

Troimille: Why is it that artists, poets and musicians are expected to be at least a little

Troimille: crazy or eccentric? We are told "Just be yourself", but to many people, that

Troimille: means a few drinks to "get relaxed"-- but then the "just themselves" that

Troimille: emerges is obnoxious or even violent!

Troimille: What would _you_ have left if you were suddenly stripped of your social

Troimille: framework, or the handy categories of "thought" that you've developed your

Troimille: whole life? Would we lose control?

Troimille: Would we reveal how terrified, violent and ashamed we all are? Is that really

Troimille: necessary, to lose all our comfort and stability, in order to really love and

Troimille: communicate with each other? In order to know ourselves?

Troimille: Why can't we have what we want without really changing? Didn't God make us

Troimille: perfect? Why doesn't _everyone else_ have to change, instead?

Troimille: Ready to hear from also those who have not yet shared...

Troimille: Welcome, BHab8-- you'll get the hang of where we are easily enough...

BHab8: thanks

Troimille: Hi, KenOakHill-- great to see you. See if you can catch on to where we are in

Troimille: this discussion-- ask any questions you'd like...

GAY GOOEN: Barry...Do you think that if God makes us "perfect" -- we still don't suffer?

Troimille: GAY GOOEN, does God "suffer"? Can we "suffer" differently than we've been doing?

GAY GOOEN: I'm asking about suffering on Earth...I find that most people create situations

GAY GOOEN: in which they "suffer"... and they seem to choose it... want to be in pain, many of them.

GAY GOOEN: It confuses me...I don't understand it because I can't imagine choosing to suffer.

SoulMan911: The closer you get to self the less you suffer...the more you understand

GAY GOOEN: But I see it all around.

Troimille: Actually, we all suffer like dogs instead of humans. How could a Human "suffer"

Troimille: consciously, with joy and devotion and gratitude?

GAY GOOEN: So if you're asking me, "Does God Suffer"...the answer is that the part of us that IS God...must.

GAY GOOEN: And that's not the joy filled part of us. But the part of us that wants to live in the mundane.

Troimille: In my view, God is the moment of suffering All at once, in Eternity, with no

Troimille: resistance at all.

GAY GOOEN: yes...makes sense.

Troimille: GAY GOOEN, can we take joy in the mundane? Look at these wonderful mystics

Troimille: who gained enlightenment while scrubbing scullery or picking weeds...

Lightbr8: Isn't it all a matter of perception??

GAY GOOEN: Yep. In my discipline we call it "Seva"...the work through which we see God.

Esnshl4me: joy ... takes it out of the mundane

Troimille: I think that this is how we serve God-- by experiencing all these levels and

Troimille: intricacies with delight. Yes, Seva.

Honorble4U: And that is how we serve each other as well

Troimille: Then what in us has any wish to endure without joy?

Lightbr8: Those old messages of unworthiness

GAY GOOEN: The part of us that disconnects from self..and lives in the mundane.

Troimille: Honorble4U, serve and honor and cherish and take delight in one another, eh?

Honorble4U: exactly

Troimille: GAY GOOEN, from my self-study, such "parts" do not even truly exist-- when I

Troimille: remove artificial separation, every "part" of me dances with joy.

Honorble4U: The path to ecstasy

SoulMan911: we have to understand the mundane to learn how to serve others in joy

GAY GOOEN: That is a state when all of our "aspects" come together...we are, when we live in

GAY GOOEN: mind, quite separated, I believe.

Troimille: ... and yet I am still doing the dance of separation, complete with Anxiety

Troimille: Disorder-- but I don't even mind anymore!

Troimille: GAY GOOEN, exactly!

GAY GOOEN: So...there IS hope...for all of us.

GAY GOOEN: It's definitely an altered state...the coming together of all of us...

GAY GOOEN: I think it is the reconnect with God.

Troimille: GAY GOOEN, if we *wish*, then we have the capacity for our wish, right?

GAY GOOEN: (grin)...I'm not willing to answer that so easily, Troi. I don't know, really.

Troimille: GAY GOOEN, I think it is *separation* which is the altered state, IMHO.

GAY GOOEN: I know about "intention"...and "purpose"...and "focus"...

GAY GOOEN: but I'm still in my own process...and so I haven't made decisions about that yet.

GAY GOOEN: ...and when I "arrive", it won't matter, will it?

Troimille: GAY GOOEN, why not "arrive" here/now where you always *are*? What are we waiting for?

GAY GOOEN: Someone said, "Wherever you go, there you are." ...old Buddhist saying...

Troimille: Welcome, SoCurious-- we're discussing why we think we are separate and

GAY GOOEN: so we're all "here"...

Troimille: "waiting for something".

SoCurious: ah.... I feel quite connected.... always have.... it's been honoring that connection that

SoCurious: has taken time..... the something was always there

SoulMan911: well said ,,,,curious

Troimille: In that sense, feeling the connection has been all the more frustrating-- it

Troimille: seems to stay just beyond reach for so long, no?

SoCurious: aha..... I've called that my "ache"..... have grown to love it

Troimille: Good way to put it, Curious

SoulMan911: maybe so ...but you know it's there

Troimille: I'd like to hear from some of you quieter people before going on... questions?

Troimille: Disagree with anything?

Tanajtras: LOL disagree and still agreeable

Honorble4U: I would like to talk more of the suicide feelings Troi, what happened to pull you out of that

Troimille: (You can tell if you have been quiet by whether you have said anything).

Honorble4U: Was it a feeling or a connection with something far beyond or what?

Honorble4U: Simply faith?

MBA500: suicide feeling .. .. ."walking in the valley of death"

Honorble4U: I believe the valley of death is the place of the most beautiful light. It is the entrance.

MBA500: while walking in the valley for me it became a matter of listening to the silence

Troimille: Honorble4U, what "happens" is what has thrown me into "despair"-- and then,

Troimille: at the bottom of the well, I come up against something ineffable but irrefutable.

MBA500: "for I am one with .. .."

GAY GOOEN: And that was?

MBA500: what ever divinity you believe in

GAY GOOEN: But what was it for you, Troi?"

MBA500: quantum energy .. ..life force.. . .which tends to thin from time to time in life's winters

Troimille: I've stood sobbing in front of the mirror, begging for release, and then clearly

Troimille: heard "On this earth there is nowhere to lay your head. You will complete all

Troimille: the way through this time."

Honorble4U: OMG, I have heard the same thing. I really have. But Samuel, to fear no evil? I question

Honorble4U: that one! Think about it!

Troimille: .. And in my encounters with Death (beginning at about 7 years old) I *saw*

Troimille: that the best I could hope for, if I ended my life, would be to start over,

Troimille: probably worse off.

Honorble4U: Evil is inherent in the world and beyond, if all things are to balance, as all things must!

MBA500: well the Jesuits would say that "fear is the beginning of all knowledge"

GAY GOOEN: Yes, Troi...yes, indeed.

Troimille: Honorble4U, what world have you been conjuring??? I find no inherent "evil" in my world...

Honorble4U: yes, Troi, what if huh?

Troimille: Welcome, Joymoon-- we are discussing what has made us go on after reaching the Bottom.

Honorble4U: Where there is darkness there is also light, Samuel, what is it you said once about too much

MBA500: Hnorbl.. .not sure if so call evil is inherent .. there is such thing as deep imbalances

Honorble4U: blinding you?

GAY GOOEN: Troi...have you seen "What Dreams May Come"...?

Joymoon: Thank you for informing me

MBA500: that create great havoc .. .which could be perceived as evil

Troimille: GAY GOOEN, sure-- it's great with the sound off, so I don't have to hear the

Troimille: childish, silly dialogue.

MBA500: yes .. .that Taoist concept of balance between light and darkness

Troimille: GAY GOOEN, but the images have stayed with me.

GAY GOOEN: It's the images....

Troimille: Any more comments before we go on?

Tanajtras: Imbedded in the heart? The images?

Troimille: Tanajtras, whom are you asking?

Tanajtras: With what you were referring to

Troimille: Tanajtras, something that somebody else brought up, but it would take us off-

Troimille: topic, I'm afraid.

Troimille: Now we get to what all this has to do with Tantra. First we must learn our

Troimille: selves, down to the bottom, and all our self-comforting and "reasons" and

Troimille: justifications, but without judgment-- just stark recognition of who and what we

Troimille: are, and what we have become.

Troimille: Next we must practice some disciplines in order to acquire the stability,

Troimille: stamina, quietness and centeredness to be able to undertake transformation.

Troimille: Then we must find out what to change in ourselves, and how to do it. All the

Troimille: while we are learning these things, we must start making tiny changes from the

Troimille: very beginning.

 Troimille: Stop our unconscious reactions for a moment. Rechannel the automatic

Troimille: expression of negativity. Quiet the incessant self-destructive internal chatter.

Troimille: Learn how to align energies with the breath, with postures, with movements and

Troimille: tones.

Troimille: Learn how to control dreaming and astral traveling. Go through shamanic

Troimille: deaths without losing integrity. Make appointments with Power, and surrender

Troimille: to the inconceivable Mystery. Why the heck would we ever want to bother with

Troimille: all that??? :)

SoCurious: because it makes us what we are

SoulMan911: all has to do with enlightenment

Troimille: Why do we *need* enlightenment?

SoulMan911: seekers of the truth of what we are

Lightbr8: That is where we have "chosen" to be

SoCurious: to me it's more about being capable.... and useful.... and able

KENOAKHILL: perhaps more philosophers in hell than heaven

Troimille: Why can't we just go about our lives, love people, raise families, have careers,

Troimille: and die peacefully? Do we have some kind of worm eating at us?

Tanajtras: Would not enlightenment be an expectation?

MBA500: yes doubt

Troimille: Welcome, MaleBoomer, MariGina and BriteFire-- we're trying to decide why we

Troimille: should bother with all the trouble of Enlightenment.

Lightbr8: It is the path we chose when we came here this time

SoulMan911: it is imbedded in our souls

Troimille: Lightbr8, it must have been for me, for sure! I don't know how I would have

Troimille: lived through everything without that inner connection.

Lightbr8: It is part of our purpose this time

MaleBoomer: You often cannot understand why to bother with enlightenment until it has happened

Troimille: MaleBoomer, enlightenment *happens*?

Honorble4U: What is the definition of enlightenment?

SoulMan911: until you see a light ..you will be in pain

Lightbr8: LOL..sometimes I wonder if I got on the wrong line...why should I have to work so hard

Troimille: "Enlightenment" = NO DEFINITION!

GAY GOOEN: Enlightenment: Being still and knowing that you are God.

MBA500: Hnorbl. . . .naked awareness

MaleBoomer: It has been my experience that it happened. Perhaps I set the stage but it sort of happened

Troimille: MaleBoomer, you are enlightened now?

Tanajtras: Enlightenment = to behold

MaleBoomer: Oh far from it, but I think we have enlightenment in stages we can handle. Not a "big bang"

Troimille: Tanajtras, must be the same as "martyr" = "witness"

Tanajtras: witnessing the self, the atman

SoulMan911: only what we are capable of seeing ...and understanding

Troimille: MaleBoomer, I guess the fact that we are still 'alive" is "proof" that we could

Troimille: "handle" the stages, eh?

MaleBoomer: Yes, I have found for myself that enlightenment came when I could handle it

GAY GOOEN: I suspect that enlightenment is always there...for the surrendering.

Troimille: But I am not ready to declare enlightenment for myself. I have seen and

Troimille: experienced miracles, but my wish demands that I get to the top of the mountain.

Lightbr8: "came"??? Past tense??

MaleBoomer: The goal it would appear is to improve our ability to handle enlightenment than search for per se

SoulMan911: in that case Troi ....you have an infinite journey...

Troimille: MaleBoomer, what distinction are you making?

Lightbr8: Troi...I feel that when you reach the top of the mountain...you will be read you leave...you

MaleBoomer: Light my experience is that what I now see is enlightenment was only clear after the fact

Lightbr8: are here to experience...

Honorble4U: So the definition of enlightenment is each to his own? As is the journey?

Troimille: SoulMan911, it has already been infinite, but I have eternity available to me--

Troimille: cuts through lots of infinities, I find.

GAY GOOEN: I do need to leave, and I do want to say thank you, Troi. Very enlightening discussion.

Troimille: Lightbr8, try again? Some of what you said got garbled in transmission...

SoulMan911: are there any shortcuts Troi?

MaleBoomer: Honorable I think what is enlightenment to me may not be to others. Its my enlightenment on my path

Troimille: GAY GOOEN, thank you, dear! Try us again in two weeks?

GAY GOOEN: Same, Honor. A demain...Yes, Troi, two weeks. Namaste, friends.

Troimille: SoulMan911, yes, but they've all taken me a long way around... :)

SoulMan911: Peace Gay

Honorble4U: no shortcuts Soul.

Troimille: Nice to see you, Gddsshuntr and Tamerri! We are trying on Enlightenment.

Honorble4U: Gddss, can you speak to the Goddess path to enlightenment?

Honorble4U: Or would that be out of turn here?

Gddsshuntr: sorry but have not been following the discussion, Honorble...

Troimille: Honorble4U, in a way-- Gddss hasn't had a chance to get comfy yet here tonight.

Gddsshuntr: the topic is extraordinarily person-specific...

Gddsshuntr: as Troimille has observed

Troimille: Gddsshuntr, actually, that wasn't the topic over-all-- it was really "What is in the

Troimille: way of Love?"

Troimille: We just ended up on enlightenment. But anything you'd like to share would be welcome.

Gddsshuntr: I my humble view, the way of love is the way of living in the miracle moment.

Gddsshuntr: the way of living with all the senses alive and "listening"

Troimille: Gddsshuntr, wonderfully put!

Gddsshuntr: such that all experience contributes to the knowledge of love

SoCurious: mmmmm..... so many possibilities!

Gddsshuntr: again, in my humble view, the body, the mind and the spirit all contribute to the experience of love

MBA500: SoC .. .possibilities is a good word

Gddsshuntr: of loving

Troimille: Gddsshuntr, then why do we get in the way of that experience?

Gddsshuntr: karma gets in the way. how else do we explain it?

Gddsshuntr: our past negative experiences confuse our Being...

Gddsshuntr: confuse our seeing

Troimille: Gddsshuntr, I'm having to explain without "karma" these days.

Gddsshuntr: I see

Gddsshuntr: well, past experience is a weight each of us carries

Troimille: Then we are left with choice-in-the-moment, right?

Gddsshuntr: yes, we are left with a choice of the moment, influenced by the

Gddsshuntr: weights of the past, or by the "lightness of being" if we have done well.

Troimille: That is, *despite* everything I have dragged along with me, I now choose

Troimille: gratitude, I now choose, joy, I now choose devotion, I now choose to love.

BriteFire: why weights of the past? wouldn't it be weights in the present?

BriteFire: weights we are continuing to hold?

Troimille: It's amazing how these tiny choices, moment-by-moment, change my reality.

Tafc323: Choice is a gift to not be taken lightly

Troimille: What do you all find?

Gddsshuntr: weights make themselves known in the present, yes Brite...

BriteFire: weights we are choosing to hold...

Gddsshuntr: yet they accumulate based on the negativity created by past actions.

Troimille: Gddsshuntr, to me, all those past histories are nothing but excuses-- they don't

MBA500: choosing to belief

Troimille: have independent existence, I find.

Troimille: MBA500, how's that?

Honorble4U: Do you understand what a gift "choice" is though?

MBA500: Troi .. .there are many possibilities .. .. in fact often a desire not to believe

MBA500: in the possibilities

SoulMan911: but they do have influence on the choices one makes Troi

MBA500: its why I say "power and belief are one

Troimille: Gddsshuntr, do you disagree? Can we make an independent choice to release,

Troimille: to forgive, to open right now this moment without reference to some past event?

BriteFire: MBA...I concur

Troimille: MBA500, I think that is what has trapped us for so long...

Gddsshuntr: such choices seem to require extraordinary courage, Troimille

Gddsshuntr: and unique preparation

Honorble4U: so true

Troimille: Gddsshuntr, you bet! And desperation, and devotion, and commitment, and Power.

MBA500: Troi .. . .culturally conflicting beliefs yes

Gddsshuntr: demanding extensive preparation beforehand

BriteFire: Gddss...seems to me the only courage that is needed is to make the choice

Honorble4U: and positivity, one must be open to the light

Troimille: MBA500, that's why (as you'll see in the log) I started out with our cultural biases.

Tafc323: Without the gift of choice you would just "be" and that is not "being"!!!!!!

Honorble4U: What is the difference Vic?

Troimille: Honorble4U, for sure -- absolutely *demand* the Light, right?

Honorble4U: yes.

Troimille: Tafc323, just being is not being???

Lightbr8: Gddsshuntr...could you explain "preparation"

Tafc323: One has freedom and the other does not.

Gddsshuntr: preparation. discipline. dedication and devotion to the Path.

MBA500: Gddhtr... .discipline is another good word

Gddsshuntr: disciple. discipline. the word roots are the same, Lightbr8.

MBA500: met a wiccan at a gathering this past Saturday .. .older woman .. very wise

BriteFire: I don't see that one would need devotion to a particular path to choose to release old

Lightbr8: thank you

BriteFire: rubbish ... or old beliefs for that matter

MBA500: she said "I can not teach anyone the mysteries I can only show them"

Gddsshuntr: all paths are the same Path, Brite... in my view.

Lightbr8: Brite...you make it sound so easy

Troimille: Gddsshuntr, I think *choice* is a special "handicap" we threw into the game.

Troimille: Power animals have no trouble with either Being or Power without this "choice"

BriteFire: Light...it is

Troimille: MBA500, that's what my teacher says, too.

MBA500: Brite .. .mastery requires discipline ... it depends on how serious you are on a given path

MBA500: "the 64 A&S"

Gddsshuntr: I'm sorry Troimille, but I'm confused. it seems even the power animals express choice...

BriteFire: what path? why does one need a path?

Gddsshuntr: the Raven by its selection of power objects, for example...

Troimille: Gddsshuntr, not the kind of choice we are talking about.

Gddsshuntr: the Bear, by is selection of ways and means to achievement.

Gddsshuntr: I see

MBA500: path is only a word .. .symbolizing a journey towards a vision quest

Gddsshuntr: yes, MBA.

Troimille: Gddsshuntr, they express *intent*. The choice that we dance around in circles

Troimille: about is sort of a decoy.

BriteFire: when you make a choice and commit to it...you give it your energy

BriteFire: that is power

Honorble4U: I love that MBA

Gddsshuntr: yes. power goes where intention goes, in my view, Brite.

BriteFire: MBA...it doesn't even have to be toward a vision quest necessarily

Troimille: BriteFire, right on! Or we could say, "We invoke Power to channel its

Troimille: expression through us", no?

Gddsshuntr: the mind, consciousness, is the source of All That Is, Brite...

BriteFire: Troi...where is the choice in that?

MBA500: Brite .. .free flow is all good .. ..however evolution . .within a brief lifetime of 90 or

MBA500: 100 years requires discipline

Troimille: BriteFire, it's a very different kind of choice- the kind that the magical beings make.

BriteFire: MBA...I choose effortless instead effortlessness that is

MBA500: in my own personal case .. .often before momentum builds towards my desire

MBA500: direction for evolution . .. . fate seems to throw challenges obstacles

Troimille: Well, friends-- it looks like you are all doing fine here, and I've said everything I

Troimille: wanted to for tonight. I'll leave you with another homework assignment...

BriteFire: MBA...fate? fate has power over you?

Gddsshuntr: thank you Troimille.... and goodnight from here as well.

MBA500: it is at this point that my discipline becomes in direct contrast with the challenge

MBA500: discipline for perseverance .. .relentlessness to excel

MBA500: it has power over one that has not enough life force energy to overcome it

MBA500: winter always come .. .5 years ago you may have broken down not so this year

MBA500: precisely because of discipline

Troimille: Homework #2: Notice whether your "choices" are conscious or habitual. Notice

Troimille: what you really have any choice about. Notice whether you can intend beyond

Troimille: circumstances.

Troimille: Any questions about the assignment?

Troimille: I guarantee that if you can follow this "assignment" once a day, you will

Troimille: accumulate new Power and sensibilities.

Esnshl4me: thanks Barry.

KENOAKHILL: chat is the perfect forum for these discussions.....no visual prejudices. Thank you all.

SoulMan911: thansk Troi...have a peaceful evening ..to one and all

Troimille: Sweet dreams, friends.

Lightbr8: Thank you very much for sharing....

BriteFire: Namasté Troi

Troimille: Lightbr8, and thank *you* for opening up so much!

Alisnntrnt: Namaste' everyone

Lightbr8: Nite Mary

Alisnntrnt: thanks to all of you for contributing

Lightbr8: :)

Troimille: BriteFire, I can always feel your supportive strength.

BriteFire:

Esnshl4me: G'night all

LadyWolffe: thank you all for being so thought provoking

Troimille: MBA, I wanted to acknowledge your clarity of observations at the end there, but

Troimille: was preoccupied with closing the lesson out.

LadyWolffe: goodnight all.......

Troimille: Good night, till next time... <poof>

MBA500: everyone live long and prosper

Lightbr8: Nite all