Gaia: The Integral Pod - Inspirations, Influences, Pandits and Exemplars - Robert Augustus Masters

Re: Robert Augustus Masters

http://aqalicious.gaia.com — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:26:52 GMT

Robert's answers to the questions for this week have been posted in the Facebook group; six great questions - including those by Bill and Gitanjali - along with six fascinating answers. :)

cheers,
Arthur

Re: Robert Augustus Masters

http://gitanjali.gaia.com — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 03:35:55 GMT

yay! my question can go to....

Re: Robert Augustus Masters

http://aqalicious.gaia.com — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 02:24:34 GMT

Bill: I tried a question.

~

Excellent - I saw it over there. I'll be sending them in tomorrow. :)

cheers,
Arthur

Re: Robert Augustus Masters

http://telesterion.gaia.com — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 01:26:26 GMT

I tried a question.

Re: Robert Augustus Masters

http://aqalicious.gaia.com — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 16:53:10 GMT

Update: the "Ask Robert" thread is up, there are already over a hundred members, and the Discussion Board is getting lively. Wheeeeeeeeee!

spiral out,
Arthur

Re: Robert Augustus Masters

http://aqalicious.gaia.com — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:08:56 GMT

Glad to hear of your FB-induced mood boost, Gitanjali. :)

BTW I'll be starting a thread on the FB group soon in which people can ask Robert questions...so if anyone has got questions they'd like to ask him, that will be the place to do it.

The group only started a few days ago and already has 56 members, whoo-hoo! A lot of familiar faces, and some new ones as well. It's off to a great start.

cheers,
Arthur

Re: Robert Augustus Masters

http://gitanjali.gaia.com — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 06:17:58 GMT

heehee I still call it zaadz (dont tell GD)

PS: I just joined that group on the just joined facebook and for some reason its boosted my mood! I dunno why?

Re: Robert Augustus Masters

http://aqalicious.gaia.com — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:17:15 GMT

gitanjali: Oh no!!!! now I'm gonna gave to join facebook :(

~

Don't worry, you'll still like Gaia better. :)

spirals,
Arthur

Re: Robert Augustus Masters

http://gitanjali.gaia.com — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:35:06 GMT

Oh no!!!! now I'm gonna gave to join facebook :(

Re: Robert Augustus Masters

http://aqalicious.gaia.com — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 16:54:49 GMT

Bill: Cool. Now all we have to do is think up some killer questions.

~

Yeah, baby! That's the spirit! :)

FYI, I'm experiencing weird technical problems over on FB and losing the ability to access groups - including the one I created - for long periods of time. Hopefully it will be resolved soon.

loving Gaia and all who sail in her,
Arthur

Re: Robert Augustus Masters

http://telesterion.gaia.com — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 04:53:22 GMT

>>>> Robert will be periodically answering questions from the group.

Cool. Now all we have to do is think up some killer questions.

Re: Robert Augustus Masters

http://aqalicious.gaia.com — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:46:31 GMT

FYI, I just created a Robert Augustus Masters Facebook group. If you'd like to join, you can either search Facebook groups under his name, or PM me your email address and I'll send you an invitation.

Nomali Perera and Lindsey Wilkinson have agreed to serve as Officers - whoo-hoo! - and Robert will be periodically answering questions from the group. It'll be a blast. :)

cheers,
Arthur

Re: Robert Augustus Masters

http://singerseeker.gaia.com — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:19:53 GMT

Juliee, that's so beautiful. Personally, I am going through a very intense time of healing and growth, so it really resonates.

love,

nicole

Re: Robert Augustus Masters

http://julieaerwin.gaia.com — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:23:15 GMT

Funny - I was just thinking about forgiveness.

I particularly valued this

No longer am I going to turn the hurt you have done me into an excuse to dehumanize or violate you. Although I may never again have or make contact with you, no longer will I keep you out of my heart, however difficult that might be."

Juliee

Re: Robert Augustus Masters

http://aqalicious.gaia.com — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:33:15 GMT

Re: Robert Augustus Masters

http://aqalicious.gaia.com — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 18:52:05 GMT

see also Spiritual Bypassing

Re: Robert Augustus Masters

http://aqalicious.gaia.com — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 00:08:46 GMT

FORGIVENESS: SACRED CLOSURE

Forgiveness is the greatest weapon.

— Neem Karoli Baba

Forgiveness is the heart’s pardon. Sacred closure.

To forgive doesn’t mean to excuse or condone, but rather to cease dehumanizing and excluding from our heart our offending other or others.

When we forgive, we neither bypass nor gloss over injury, but instead embrace and embody a perspective in which injury is not given the power to obscure or diminish our compassion.

Although forgiveness might seem to some to be an act of acquiescence or weakness, it is actually an act of great power, for it not only retrieves us from the past, where we’re emotionally bound to those whom we won’t forgive, but also from the future — where we’re similarly bound — thereby bringing us present, undividedly and wholeheartedly present.

Forgiveness is a radical act of love not only for the offending other, but also for oneself. In forgiving someone, we are, in so many words, telling that person, “I no longer am interested or invested in having anything damaging happen to you. No longer am I going to turn the hurt you have done me into an excuse to dehumanize or violate you. Although I may never again have or make contact with you, no longer will I keep you out of my heart, however difficult that might be.”

Thus do we disconnect in order to connect at a deeper level.

We then stop feeding our resentment, realizing as we do so that it was actually feeding on us, consuming our energy and attention. Our appetite for vengeance naturally shrinks, like any other shadow, in the light of our forgiveness. Then the courtrooms of our mind are not so readily populated by us — wanting to be right no longer so easily recruits and centers us. We may still get angry, but will be far less likely to infuse it with ill-will or hatred, or let it transmute into aggression. Caring for the other becomes more important than getting even, regardless of the consequences that may be deemed fitting for whatever harm may have been done.

“Love your enemies.” This may be the most practical (and marginalized) of all of the teachings of Jesus. Rooted as it is in our capacity to forgive, it cuts through the rigidly dualistic “I” versus “you” or “us” versus “them” mentality that so easily infects and aberrates us. Loving — not necessarily liking, but loving — our enemies is a kind of radical sanity, for in loving them, in wholeheartedly wishing for their freedom from delusion, we are not only ceasing to demonize them, but are also aligning ourselves with their healing. Their healing — our healing.

If our enemies were to find and embody their innate happiness, if they were freed from their suffering, if they were to heal, then they would no longer be motivated or driven to harm us. Is there a more potent and user-friendly catalyst for disarmament than forgiveness?

Implicit in the practice of forgiveness is the willingness to place ourselves — and not just intellectually! — in our offending others’ shoes and skin, to the point where they are no longer “other,” but rather only us in our less appealing facets.

Forgiveness does not depend upon what the offending other does.

That is, we don’t have to wait for that person to make amends. (And, at the same time, it is essential to realize that we do not have to forgive until we are truly ready to do so — to forgive prematurely is of no more use than putting off the forgiveness of which we are capable.) Sometimes we may be so righteously caught up in waiting for and expecting our offending others to make amends or to say that they’re sorry, that we don’t notice we are being held hostage by our expectations of them.

If I refuse to forgive you until you “deserve” it, then I am simply punishing you, keeping myself negatively bound to you, or to the storyline with which I associate you.

If I won’t forgive you until you have “earned” it, then I am keeping myself, however subtly, a victim of what you’ve done to me. And, if I am getting something out of staying in my “wounded” role — such as having a “valid” reason for not taking more responsibility for where I’m at in my life — I am likely going to continue to postpone forgiving you.

In the process of forgiving, we may have to, at least some of the time, reframe the harm-doing we have suffered. Perhaps the pain inflicted on us by our offending others has actually been of genuine benefit to us; perhaps we needed to be hurt, disappointed, betrayed, or left; perhaps we needed to learn something that could not be learned without being treated as we were treated by our offending others. This, of course, does not mean that their actions should therefore be condoned or praised, but that they be viewed from a perspective that’s not rooted in an eye-for-an-eye morality.

Then we can clearly recognize such harm-doing as part of us. What I condemn in you also exists in me (and in everyone else), and there’s no way that it’s going to be healed if I persist in treating it as something alien to me.

None of this is to say that forgiveness is an easy practice. For example, the path to forgiveness may initially be — and may need to be — paved with hatred. We may need to feel and fully express our hate for another before we can even approach forgiving that person (as is often the case with those who have been raped). This, however, doesn’t mean that we have to literally act out, or even share, such dark feeling with our offending other or others. If we can give our hate sufficiently free rein and voice, and just the space to be, in a safe environment — like that of good psychotherapy — we’re not only going to feel, through our rage-releasing, a much needed sense of empowerment, but we’re also bound to get to what underlies our hate, so that we can fully feel our hurt and thereby move through it.

And at the heart of that hurt is not more hurt, but a love that cannot help but forgive.

This love is self-radiant, effortlessly ego-transcending, simultaneously innocent and wise. It forgives us our trespasses, our forgettings of the Sacred, our stupidities large and small, and it does so instantaneously. It does not make a problem out of our mistakes. When we allow ourselves to house — and ultimately to be — such love, we do not see errors, but only incarnation’s fleshdance in sacred transparency. Which is but the shortest of steps to remembering with our whole being What-Matters-Most.

Sometimes the process of forgiveness may seem to break our heart, but it is only the armoring around our heart that breaks. Or melts. Forgiveness brings us in out of the cold, potently reminding us of who we really are.

When we choose to forgive, we are entering the morality of the Divine. In choosing to forgive, we deepen our intimacy with the Beloved.

Forgiveness is not only the essence of true kindness, but also an act of genuine power.

May we all embody it.

Re: Robert Augustus Masters

http://aqalicious.gaia.com — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:36:41 GMT

There will be a Robert Masters Workshop in Boston, March 1-2, 2008

If you know any Bostonians who might be interested, please direct them to that thread.

cheers
Arthur

Re: Robert Augustus Masters

http://aqalicious.gaia.com — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 02:05:07 GMT

Hey, hey DJ

You're very welcome. :)

And now, a groovy announcement:

~~~

Some of you have listened to the excellent interview with Robert Augustus Masters held recently on Real Coaching Radio Network (if not, you can follow that link to find out how to listen to an archived version).

I'm delighted to report that this Friday, Dec. 21st at 9:00am PST, Robert 
and his wife (and co-therapist) Diane Bardwell) will be doing another interview.
It'll be the same format as the previous interview, and the key topic will be, 
not surprisingly, transformation through intimacy.

To hear the show live, go to: 
http://www.nowlive.com/show/coachstevetoth

~~~

spiral out,
arthur

Re: Robert Augustus Masters

http://djnutz.gaia.com — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:36:07 GMT

Arthur! Thanks for bringing this GUY up!!!!

I have read his essay on being present and it all has just settled-in in me, sinking deep into my being. It is a marvellous piece, a non-compromisingly clear guide to integral presence indeed.

"Real spiritual opening is not some cleancut or antiseptic undertaking, but rather is an inherently messy undertaking, as intense, unpredictable, and alive as birth, eventually necessitating wholehearted entry into everything that we are, including what we despise about ourselves. The dirt cannot be avoided, and nor should it be. In fact, it needs to be appreciated and known without gloves, or else it will not become soil for our emergence."

a messy undertaking!! brilliant!!

enjoy the dirt! :)