Gaia: 50+stars*~Half a century & more on earth - Around the Fire

Re: Seeking a new purpose in life

http://Meenakshi.gaia.com — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:30:48 GMT

I have no doubt you will be able to do so, FreeGoddess. Perhaps it has already begun?

Re: Seeking a new purpose in life

http://freegoddess.gaia.com — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:09:08 GMT

Blessings to you for your wise insight and comment. It brought me to tears because you held a mirror up to me and allowed me to see and feel more tangibly what I had sensed only fleetingly. Wow...hmmm...powerful stuff indeed. What makes it more compelling is that maybe, just maybe, I can help others in the same way.

So much to think about...

Re: Seeking a new purpose in life

http://Meenakshi.gaia.com — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 03:59:37 GMT

FreeGoddess, welcome to this group and thank you for coming with the gift of an incredible sharing.

What is so miraculous to me in your sharing is that it offers a glimpse of 'you'--not only through the traumas you experienced; but through the one who is observing. I feel that you have allowed us to meet the one who has written:

"I'm learning to detach from these feelings and see them for what they are - expressions of my 'sleeping self' for lack of a better term. The emotions of a human being who hasn't yet awakened to her divinity."

If I may gently point out: you have just shown us that divinity lovingly talking of the aspect that is awakening.

Thank you so much!

Seeking a new purpose in life

http://freegoddess.gaia.com — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:58:41 GMT

After having gone through a recent physical and emotional health crisis over the past year during which I almost lost my life (twice), I'm finding myself finally rediscovering my sense of purpose. Today, as I enjoyed the beautiful, rare warm November day, I reflected on how much trauma I've experienced over the past few years. These events included:

- the death of mother and step-mother,
- witnessing a fatal car accident during which I helped tend to the victim as he lay dying on my front lawn,
- the loss of a 7-year relationship,
- two car accidents which totalled each vehicle,
- the birth of my granddaughter (the only positive event!)
- then dealing with an excruciatingly painful breast condition which, while not fatal, absolutely consumed me with thoughts of death and dying since both mother and sister were diagnosed with breast cancer in the same month 6 years ago.

Since reaching a crisis point in July of this year, it has been a very long and difficult struggle not just trying to find a reason not to give up, but to actually decide to find a reason for living. It once amazed me that people who were in even more dire straights than I was could possible keep getting up each day and function. I couldn't understand. But then, when you're in the thick of severe depression and illness, you can't make sense of very much at all.

I feel that I've 'turned the corner' and have achieved a higher level of awareness and acceptance and forgiveness of myself, but also acceptance and forgiveness of others. This was the most difficult part for me in my journey. In my physical pain, I felt utterly helpless and from that developed a rage against myself for being weak and toward others for either not being able to fix what was wrong, but for not being grateful that they had so much to be thankful for compared to the situation I was in.

What I've become much more conscious of is the ego within and all the baggage that it dumps on one's soul. Guilt, fear, anger, helplessness, disappointment, rejection, paralysis and so on. I'm learning to detach from these feelings and see them for what they are - expressions of my 'sleeping self' for lack of a better term. The emotions of a human being who hasn't yet awakened to her divinity.

It's fascinating to me how many times I've had to learn the same lessons, go down the same road, experience similar experiences in order to finally 'get it'. Even then, I can't take this recent awakening for granted. Every day and every challenge is a test of how deeply I've learned what I need to know.

For now, I'm resolving always to be gentle with myself and others. Someone once said, 'if in doubt about what to do, always be kind.' That statement resonated with me then and still does.

Re: Gaia Redefined

http://FloatingOnSmiles.gaia.com — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:18:00 GMT

I also enjoyed this thread, many aspects are what I am learning on my path. Thank you for sharing your insight!

Re: There's a Novel in there Somewhere- NaNoWriMo!

http://Meenakshi.gaia.com — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:00:13 GMT

On the Diving Deeper Writers Workshop, there are a number of us signed on, and there's a lovely thread where we can share our experiences. Sandra, the cultivator, has a thread going for inspirations and sharing. We're on DAY THREE - 2009

Re: There's a Novel in there Somewhere- NaNoWriMo!

http://Meenakshi.gaia.com — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:22:57 GMT

It's so strange; when I was signing on, they asked for user name and out of nowhere, appeared
GenieInABottle

Strange, right?

Why did I even sign on when this is a month when my parents are visiting; I'm feeling a little under the weather; already feeling overworked all over the place and then this need for daily writing a fair number of words?

Two reasons. One really:
When I woke one morning, the novel was writing its way in my head.
Strange, right?

Novel writing is something like how marriage and having kids was for me.

Till I met Praveen I didn't want to get married. I actually DIDN'T want to go married.

Till I had kids I didn't WANT to have kids. I was happy as I was. AND NOW I LOVE BEING A MOM.

I HOPE writing these many words will do it for me. I won't say I never wanted to write; I always did, and always have. Only, not yet; so let's see what happens.
One of my earliest memories of childhood is of writing furiously as the friends were playing in the garden...asking me to come out and play!

I couldn't- it was the end of the novel I wrote.

It's lost now, in the frequent transfers we had with my dad who was in the Railways. Lovely homes; lovely lifestyle; but...obviously lots got lost!

There's a Novel in there Somewhere- NaNoWriMo!

http://Meenakshi.gaia.com — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:14:39 GMT

Hey 50+ *** people! We all have a novel or more in there somewhere, right? After all, we've lived enough years to have if nothing else, our own story to tell.

So --are you NaNoWriMoing?

Click here to know more:
National Novel Writing Month

Don't you believe it. It's not National...it's INTERnational!

Basically it's a movement to write madly for one month in November each year ---just write and write and write up to 50000 words and then in December and later, edit and fashion it into a novel.

I'm in...we'll see how far these aging ;p fingers will be able to type.

Are you ?

Re: What Makes You Feel Good?

http://inlink2009.gaia.com — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:34:16 GMT

If you want to know why my reality is good, and why I feel good, I suggest that you go to my blogs, the three parts On the What, How and Why of Reality.

Re: What Makes You Feel Good?

http://inlink2009.gaia.com — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:16:56 GMT

On grasping a cause bigger than my own cause, here are some of my thoughts.
I don’t claim to be an authority. I have no particular training. From my earliest memory, though, I’ve been asking WHY. My father told me I asked too many questions. My mother answered my questions with, "Y is a crooked letter. Just do what I told you to do." Authorities hate to be questioned. Is that a good enough reason not to question them?

My only qualification is a long life of asking WHY. My questions cover a broad range of happenings and provide reasonable answers, something authorities in government, religion, the law, and science are not prone to do. Since I’m not an authority, I’ll explain in layman language reason to doubt the authorities and trust your own God-given reason more.

It’s just too convenient for practitioners of the law, for instance, to leave it to religion to explain God’s will. Why is the law excluded from God’s will? It was "God’s will" for religious fanatics to take down the World Trade Center and kill over 3,000 people. Practitioners of the law call it an "illegal act," an act to be tried in a civil court of law, at the same time saying that religion has no place in the law. I asked a geneticist from whence comes the genetic code. His answer: "We don’t get into that." What is the supernatural? It is anything religious authorities say it is. And no questions? Why? Are you not here in the image of your Creator?

The ancient Greeks invented city-states and democracy. We discover that custom was neither immutable nor invariable, which impelled the Sophists to conclude that justice was either merely the interests of the strong or at best a convention entered upon by men on consideration of expediency. It is impossible to regard something convenient that cannot possibly maintain itself by reasonable standards of justice, for instance, in black slavery and more lately tax slavery. There is no free lunch. Why don't we question?

If private industry were to keep its books like Uncle Sam keeps his books, the law would condemn private industry as beng lawless. Figures don’t lie but lying politicians figure. If you added all the accrued liabilities politicians have heaped on the American people, every man woman and child in America would owe over $300,000, an unsustainable debt. Ignoring this fact, the politicians are now struggling over how to "give" everyone health care. What are the politicians thinking about?

What are you thinking? Didn't your creator not bless you with reason and logic? Why are you not asking why? Don't you think you have a right? What about your children? Do you give them due credit for being born with the capacity to reason?
　
　

What Makes You Feel Good?

http://HolEssence.gaia.com — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:51:22 GMT

inlink2009 - I very much enjoyed when you said, "Grasping a cause bigger than my own cause empowered me." That's a wonderful prescription for a multitude of things that ail us!

Re: What Makes You Feel Good?

http://Meenakshi.gaia.com — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:33:04 GMT

wow--lovely words, inlink. so much conveyed in the few short words...

Re: What Makes You Feel Good?

http://inlink2009.gaia.com — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:21:54 GMT

So what was the change in me that made me feel good? By giving for my son's sake, I got more. Grasping a cause bigger than my own cause empowered me. Finding someone to love and be loved back, the best that can happen, gratitude for all that we have makes our dreams come true.

Re: What Makes You Feel Good?

http://inlink2009.gaia.com — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:21:21 GMT

Indeed, something greater than me is in control of my life.

I’ve learned the hard way the change I needed in my life. I’m one of those down to earth people who sees the way to cross the threshold to our future—to the human we were meant to be—less the animals we are now, still living by the law of the jungle. Just yesterday, more than a hundred people were killed in Pakistan by a car bomb. Most were women and children. This power to intimidate and frighten people into submission has been going on ever since Abraham’s one God came into existence, and long before.

Jews, Arabs, and Christians have been fighting holy wars to determine whose God is the real God for 5,000 years. It goes back to the time before man became a moral creature, with a sense of right and wrong. My life is representative of what it takes to cross the threshold into a world wherein there are no coercive efforts to turn the masses into behavioral animals jumping through the hoops of the powers that be.

In 1973, my 25 year lumber career and my second marriage were both on the rocks. My life had been like trying to climb a greased pole. I’d done all I could. I was playing the blame game. I went to the county law library to study the law, with the idea of suing the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. One of the powers that be, American tycoon banker J. Pierpont Morgan, said to be America’s greatest banker, can be credited with today’s federal income tax and the Federal Reserve System, both currently being employed by the powers that be to implement the carrot and stick approach; you get a treat if you obey. Now billionaire Wall Street investor George Soros, the reincarnation of banker Morgan, with his billions of dollars, he controls American politics, brings to our attention Obama’s Marxist approach, the international terrorist approach, the authoritarian approach no matter what it is called. It is the dominant of the species taking charge of the herd.

We were not created to be behavioral creatures. The authoritarian approach has never worked and never will, yet people have been allowing the dominant of the species to lead them since times immemorial. While studying the law, I got the feeling that voices of the past were speaking to me. My time in the county law library resulted in a bigger than life calling—bigger than my personal grudge against federal income tax.

In the spring of 1975, I cut from the herd. Jesus did the same. To my second wife, I was deserting my responsibility to our son. Jesus said, "let the dead bury the dead." There was a bitter divorce trial. The court gave me what remained of my 30 acre spread, the note on the 15 acres I sold, and all the improvements, including my home, barn, equipment, and other improvements. The court gave my ex wife the furniture, one of our two cars, and 30 days to get off of my property.

The dumbed down masses don’t see cutting from the herd as a proper thing to do. The sympathy on my wife’s side. It caused her to try to grab everything and leave me with nothing. She asked the divorce court to repudiate our property settlement agreement, which had given her the lion’s share of everything. My ex wife made a great mistake in attempting to grab it all. The court allowed her to repudiate our property settlement agreement so it could give me all that the law allowed. Texas law said that since I owned the land prior to our marriage, the land and all the improvements were mine.

My ex wife’s ace in the hole was custody of our son. For his sake, I agreed to the original property settlement agreement. I didn’t have to. My decision came from within. By turning loose of my failed life,and freed from guilt, free to do my thing, I bought a live-aboard sloop and set sail on the South Atlantic Ocean. My plan was to live on a boat for a couple of years and then seek to build a new life from scratch.

At sea, I had no one to blame but myself if things went wrong, when things could have very well have gone wrong. Everything went right. I went to the law library and felt that voices of the past were speaking to me. It was a bigger than life calling. I departed my life at sea captain of my ship, reborn the person I was meant to be, and all on my own—without asking God to forgive me for my sins.

This person I was meant to be, in early May 1980 met Karen. I knew from the moment we met that she was made for me. How did I know? It came from internal control, my God/self. Through thick and thin, there has never been a doubt that we were made for each other. We’ve just celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary.

Internal control is a marvelous asset. I’d always dreamed of retiring in the mountains. In March, 2008, we moved into our dream home in the tall timber 30 miles east of Mount Hood. If life could be any better, I don’t know how. I can only speak from experience, but it seems to me that knowing both good and evil is the only way to learn how to live the good life. And, after all, is that not what distinguishes humans from animals?

In the Garden of Eden, there was a tree of knowledge of good and evil. God forbid Adam and Eve from eating the fruit of that tree. My father told me that God gave Adam everything he needed. Isn’t that what the welfare state does? Adam and Eve disobeyed God. Adam was made to till the land for his livelihood. Isn’t that what you do in a free market economy? Was I born in sin because the first man disobeyed God? Is the only way to God’s grace to confess my sins and beg forgiveness?

I can’t tell you exactly why my reality is the best it can be, but it is. I can tell you this: In the county law library I learned that in the law there is such a thing as circumstantial evidence—testimony not based on actual personal knowledge or observation of the facts but from other facts from which deductions can be drawn, and from which juries may infer, to reasonably follow according to common experience. And so from common experience the facts speak for themselves. I’m not born in sin. I’m born with reason and logic.

Being born with reason and logic, I’ve learned that, although nature keeps certain secrets, the facts speak for themselves: the cutting edge of science has discovered a nonlocal force in the universe I believe must be involved with my internal control.

Quantum physics bears me out. Animals live by instinct. The physical domain is governed by immutable laws, but these laws leave open a range of happenings that are left to the selection of the mind. Quantum physicist Evan Harris Walker has found in quantum theory that "we exist as more than pieces of matter." Says quantum physicist Walker in The Physics of Consciousness. "The observer emerges as a co-equal in the foundry of creation. . . Tests of Bell’s theorem have shown us that objective reality as it has been conceived is not the true fabric of reality. . . It is the quantum mind that is the basic reality." Thus, with a mind of my own, subjectively, I created a new and far better life. I see no difference in what Jesus taught and what I learned on my own, without the help or advice of anyone. Quantum physicist Walker is accused by the authorities of trying to smuggle God into physics.

Speaking of America’s judges, political justice is part natural, part legal. Hitler was legal. The principal distinction in lawful and legal, I learned in the country law library, was that lawful contemplates the substance of the law, legal the form of law. Federal income tax is legal; it is not lawful. I won my case, not in the courts, but by going to the media with my cause. This nobody from nowheresville caused the media to investigate my claim. It was the power within me working, something the powers that be could not have imagined. The IRS admitted in the Palm Beach Post that for 11 years it had been "mistaken" in the money it confiscated from me. The IRS apologized and gave all my money back with interest.

No, it is not the luck of the Irish. It is not the dogmas and doctrines of religions. It is not a caring government. It’s all manmade malarkey. America is now being led by self-serving con artists and control freaks. We are living in a time when triumph has turned into frustration. What’s the way out?

The Higher Law, the background of the U.S. Constitution, at the core of America’s tradition, is the belief in constitutional government. There is no conflict in democracy and the original intent of America’s Constitution. The latter is nothing more nor less than a guarantee that the former will be carried out through safe, sober, predictable methods. Look what the law has done for me. It is nothing short of miraculous what the law can do for you.
　

Re: Breathing out....and breathing in

http://seekingperspective.gaia.com — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:18:44 GMT

I really like that --

If you don't understand my silences,
you won't understand my words either."

I know too many people who need to fill the quiet moments with chatter. The idea of just breathing, being in the moment, seems impossible for them to achieve. Teaching them the flow, the back and forth of communication, breathing in, breathing out, is hard. Teaching them about how important those silences are to me, harder still. But essential.

Thanks for this.

Re: What Makes You Feel Good?

http://bkjagadish.gaia.com — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:25:39 GMT

Hi Meenakshi !

...Thanks for sharing your Fabulous Thoughts !

...i keep reading & re-reading it to make it sink into my psyche !

...thanks so much again 1...

love & hugs ,

-jagadish

Re: What Makes You Feel Good?

http://bkjagadish.gaia.com — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:21:11 GMT

Hi Joseph ,

My curiosity took me to your Profile page and on concluding with what you 've expressed over there , without my knowledge my lips were uttering the words--" Hey, This Man is really Great " !...

...thanks for all that you have shared

.i particularly liked your Status-line -

" I'm feeling great today.

Someting greater than me is in control of my life."

.love & hugs

-jagadish

Re: What Makes You Feel Good?

http://Meenakshi.gaia.com — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:17:17 GMT

Inlink: No matter how bad your life may be now, there is something about you that can lead you to say, “my life is good.”

So true! Every day as I go around the Gaia Community, I see that people are feeling this way; and it's not just us old elders only;p
Here's another:
crudebliss' blog entry Unemployed ? Not to worry... i have a new meaning for it..

What we seek to teach has already been learned. We teach from our very essence, and it is absorbed by all around us....we learn from the oneness. The next learning is to develop eyes to see and ears to hear and senses to smell, feel, touch the beginnings of what we are seeking are already here.
That takes courage too; to know that the best teaching is in being. Not in speaking, but in listening.
Which I'll do now.

What Makes You Feel Good?

http://inlink2009.gaia.com — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:48:09 GMT

At this difficult, transitory time, what makes you feel good? What if it were something you never heard of?

Being retired and nothing better to do with my time, I wrote a book of memoirs and self-published it. The book didn’t sell but my effort was rewarding. I continued to write my thoughts, if for no one else’s benefit, my own. More lately, I’ve been posting my thoughts on the Gaia Community.

No matter how bad your life may be now, there is something about you that can lead you to say, "my life is good." I didn’t learn this something about you from anyone, but who am I to say? I’m not a recognized author. I’ve no training that would qualify me to advise you. If you are curious about why I’m saying, "If life could be any better, I don’t know how," please let me know. I’ll tell you.

Re: Consciousness and Light

http://inlink2009.gaia.com — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:20:56 GMT

It amazes me how closely my conscious awareness of what’s going on resembles those with pedigrees when my education has been largely in the school of hard knocks. I guess I'm open to ideas.

Daniel C. Dennett, in Conscience Explained, refers to a defining aspect of what he calls Cartesian materialism, which he considers to be the often unacknowledged remnants of Cartesian dualism in modern materialistic theories of the mind.

Descartes claimed that consciousness requires an immaterial soul, which interacts with the body via the pineal gland of the brain, says Dennett. When dualism is removed, what remains of Descartes' original model amounts to imagining a tiny theater in the brain where a homunculus (small person), now physical, performs the task of observing all the sensory data projected on a screen at a particular instant, making the decisions and sending out commands.

In other words, Cartesian materialism is the view that there is a crucial finish line or boundary somewhere in the brain, marking a place where the order of arrival equals the order of "presentation" in experience because what happens there is what you are conscious of. Many theorists reject this as nonsense, but the persuasive imagery of the Cartesian Theater keeps coming back to haunt us — laypeople and scientists alike — even after its ghostly dualism has been denounced and exorcized, says Dennett.

Why do we find it so hard to admit that we are more than flesh and bones, that we have souls---immaterial, animating, and the cause of our existence? Two reasons: control freaks and materialism.

It’s said that necessity is the mother of invention. There is no boundary of the state of conscious awareness. Unless we admit that we have souls, we’re reduced to an animal state---jumping through control freaks’ hoops. We’ve a choice: experience the power that lies within or listen and act according to the “authorities.”