Separate and Balance

"Listen, you have now found the conditions in which the desire of your heart can become the reality of your being. Stay here, until you acquire a force in you that nothing can destroy. Then you'll need to go back into life, and there you will measure yourself constantly with forces which will show you your place."

Oh Berkeley Rep, I miss you.

No,,it's not enough.

mantra

"if the elevator tries to break down,,,go crazy,,,,,Punch a higher floor!"

-Prince & the Revolution from "Let's Go Crazy"

In order to walk one must crawl, For work on all universally etc...

Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave.

For exact understanding exact language is needed.

A man may be born, but in order to be born he must first die, and in order to die he must first awake.
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Upadana means clinging and who among us does not know clinging
intimately? A child clings to its mother when it feels afraid. Some couples
cling to each other because they are afraid of being alone. In psychological
jargon, this is called codependency. Clinging is craving intensified. When
the road that began with avijja ends at the ninth nidana, another round of

Addiction is another word for clinging and clinging is another word
for addiction. From addiction to food, pot or pornography, the child in us
clings to a self-soothing object. Strangely enough, we even cling to objects
or people that we despise. Many people are trapped in a perpetual state of
anger years after their lover betrayed them or their parents failed them.
How many people are caught in a visceral hatred for an opposing political
belief? This is total clinging. Craving puts the object within close reach but
clinging is the grasp, the absolute conviction that “this is mine. I am this.”
It is what Gurdjieff calls crystallization. Through the unconscious process
of identification, the ego mirrors and then becomes the object: “I am my
body” is clinging. “I am a victim” is clinging. “I hate her; I need him” are
both examples of clinging. The seer has become the seen.

Joseph Goldstein reminds us that the very foundation of our
mindfulness practice is to acknowledge this is suffering or dissatisfaction
and identify what it is that we cling to, moment by moment. Then, let it go.
That moment of letting it go is a moment of freedom.
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In light of this, with a helpful guide, not proclaimed teacher, slowly letting go of everything. Personally I cling to the "past" what was and is no longer. It's amazing how beautiful it is to "let go" of all of those things.

No Projection, preaching, identification, expectations all these things must be let go of...

This is the difficult way. "Work work work work work work work work work work, don't whine" as an old professor recently said.

A wise man once said, " To be truly free from fear, one must become self-less.  Through thinking of others and not oneself, you become free from fearfulness and help the ones around you prosper."

from "Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramahansa Yogananda

"As the power of a radio-broadcasting station is regulated by the amount of electrical current it can utilize, so the effectiveness of  a human radio depends on the degree of will power possessed by each person.

All thoughts vibrate eternally in the cosmos.  By deep concentration a master is able to detect the thoughts of any man, living or dead.  Thoughts are universally and not individually rooted; a truth cannot be created, but only perceived.  Any erroneous thought of man is a result of an imperfection, large or small, in his discernment.  The goal of yoga science is to calm the mind, that without distortion it may hear the infallible counsel of the Inner Voice."

-page 178

Remembering

"'Here there is not one but a number of questions,' said G. 'In the first place sexual abstinence is necessary for transmutation [i.e., formation of the astral body] only in certain cases, that is, for certain types of people. For others it is not at all necessary. And with yet others it comes by itself when transmutation begins. I will explain this more clearly.

i) For certain types a long and complete sexual abstinence is necessary for transmutation In to begin; this means in other words that without a long and complete sexual abstinence transmutation will not begin. But once it has begun abstinence is no longer necessary.

ii) In other cases, that is, with other types, transmutation can begin in a normal sexual life -- and on the contrary, can begin sooner and proceed better with a very great outward expenditure of sex energy.

iii) In the third case the beginning of transmutation does not require abstinence, but, having begun, transmutation takes the whole of sexual energy and puts an end to normal sexual life or the outward expenditure of sex energy.'" [...]

"Then the other question—'Is sexual abstinence useful for the work or not?'

"It is useful if there is abstinence in all centers. If there is abstinence in one center and full liberty of imagination in the others, then there could be nothing worse. And still more, abstinence can be useful if a man knows what to do with the energy which he saves in this way. If he does not know what to do with it, nothing whatever can be gained by abstinence."

"Speaking in general, what is the most correct form of life in this connection from the point of view of the work?"

"It is impossible to say. I repeat that while a man does not know it is better for him not to attempt anything. Until he has new and exact knowledge it will be quite enough if his life is guided by the usual rules and principles. If a man begins to theorize and invent in this sphere, it will lead to nothing except psychopathy.


Gurdjieff

Knowledge from the pages.

From Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda:

"In sleep, you do not know whether you are a man or a woman," he said.  Just as a man, impersonating a woman, does not become one, so the soul, impersonating both man and woman, remains changeless.  The soul is the immutable, unqualified image of God."

Sri Yukteswar never avoided or blamed women as the cause of "man's downfall."  He pointed out that women, too, have to face temptation from the opposite sex.  I once asked Master why a great saint had called women "the door to hell."

"A girl must have proved very troublesome to his peace of mind in his early life," my guru answered caustically.  "Otherwise he would have denounced, not woman, but some imperfection in his own self-control."

(page 148)

from A Moveable Feast

I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry.  You have always written before and you will write now.  All you have to do is write one true sentence.  Write the truest sentence that you know." ----E. Hemingway

From Chapter on "Essence is Life".

"...Because our environment wasn't hospitable, compassionate, loving, or supportive, we think we can get satisfaction by getting an environment that is loving, compassionate, perceptive, and appreciative of who we are. What we are saying is that we want that positive merging again, otherwise we're not going to feel good. "I have to have somebody who loves. I have to have somebody who sees me, who values me." It is true that this is useful and supportive at the beginning, but if you continue depending on it, this will stop you from owning and being who you are. Being who you are, being your essence, should be completely independent of any other factor, inner or outer. As I said in the beginning, Essence is life. Essence is the fullfillment. It's not the environment, not the situation, not the job. It is Essence itself, your essence."-A.H. Almaas

The Stranger: Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes, well, he eats you.

-from The Big Lebowski

Quote

"...It took a while for the personality of civilization to become so dominant. The more mechanical we become, the more culture is a matter of filing holes. Many people say that in the past there was more love and presence, more recognition of reality, and that people were more in touch with their essence than they are now. You've heard of the Golden Age? In the Golden Age, people experienced their essence, no holes. The Silver Age began as Essence diminished and the holes began to appear. Then came the Bronze Age. Now we're in the Iron Age. It's the darkest and heaviest. Iron is nothing but defense...."

"Being who you really are means being free of all the identifications from the past that have built your false sense of identity; it does not depend on what you do in the world. What you do in the world can be an expression of who you are, but it does not define you. When you are your Personal Essence, your own true sense of identity, anything you do will have an essential orientation. You usually think that the job you choose, whatever it is-gardner, physicist, mother-will make you feel who you really are. But that means you are identified with being a part of the world. It means there is a distortion of reality."- A.H. Almaas, Diamond Heart, Elements of the Real in Man

Friday Night

Ah, the end of the week. Yet the beginning of the weekend. Should I be drinking? Tired of drinking, so boring, relentless, useless, waste of time, and keeps me from my run in the mornings.

Perpetually twelve years old am I jumping up and down on the trampoline trying pull the apple out of tree. Then, I hit my head and complain, yelling and swaring at the branch, but later hugging the trunk telling it how much I love it's beautiful "permanence". What a brat! Seriously, I need to severly tape my mouth shut in order to avoid what my friend Sarah calls, word vomit.

Am I stressed out? Uh..a little...ok a lot. So that's what exercise is for right? Well, ok do that three times a week, or more. Still out of shape...another one of those questions. What does that mean?!! Am I supposed to be a circle, triangle, rectangle, or a square? Hmm Passive=Circle???? But I like squares...and why can't I go way out and be a dodecahedron! Platonic solids rock, and they have lots of meaning. Of course, I don't know if I want my definition to be "The Universe in all it's infinite wonder." I don't know about you, but that's a little too much pressure for me. Hmm maybe the center of a simple round circle within a circle...within a circle. Yes ok, I've read way too much esoteric babble and it ends up in one tangled mess of an equation inside my head. A Sculptor I knew put it like this, "They make artists go to school and learn equations with all these x's and y's, why not something like

CAR(BUS) +LIMOUSINE = DOUBLE WIDE??

Yes, that is the kind of language that most certainly makes sense. Except in my head not only do you get automobile algebra, but houses, and pathways, and weird laughing libriarians with pet snails. Yes, a surrealist for sure. I like to think of it as putting it altogether in one cohesive vision so anyone could relate or understand. Of course, I'm more than likely insane.

A Moment

Sitting in my room early one morning, it became clear that I've been lying to myself over and over again. Every time, that I watch myself doing this, I stop, but then comes an external lie. Wondering what is happening?, and constantly looking for a group. There is no where for me to go alone and this is something I've known for quite sometime. Keep making inquiries, but little or no response. It's out here, I've heard. That's ultimately why I drove 2025 miles exactly, dumped all those attachments and "belongings". And what does belonging mean? Looking back, how?

Despite my current struggles, finally really beginning to see who H. is...if she is? What am I? A machine only wishing to be human? If so, tired of mechanics. It doesn't make sense.

Ultimately, What does it mean to be conscious?