Gaia: Lose Your Mind ~ Light Vision

Re: Life Purpose

http://skydancer.gaia.com — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 22:04:56 GMT

"I read some where that studies of people who described themselves as happy also revealed that those people felt that they were in charge of their lives and in control..... I thought that this was a very fragile kind of happiness, because it was based on the illusion of control."

So very true. Even our conception of what happiness actually is turns out to be a delusion. People confuse the absence of worry and presence of optimism as happiness. But that is all about the future. Happiness is not something based in the future. Basically these people are describing themselves as happy, but not only is their happiness fragile due to its predication on a deluded belief that they are in control of their lives, but on top of that, what they are calling happiness isn't even happiness to begin with. It is, of course, possible that they are also experiencing true happiness in addition to the optimism and productivity they feel about their ability to make their future according to their desires. It's just that one has nothing to do with the other.

"I feel a little sad, to let that go."

I sometimes feel sad in thinking about this also. There is a disillusionment we must all go through when we think about the meaning of life. It's an existential issue we all face. Life truly has no purpose other than being alive. We have succeeded as much as we ever will as soon as we are born. The rest is just a series of happenings and experiences of those happenings to which we apply meanings we create. We use various standards to manufacture those meanings, such as social conditioning and lifetimes of karmic conditioning, but ultimately the significance of anything that happens in our lives is all made up by us. There is no ultimate judge somewhere deciding who lived a good life and who did not. All life is equally good, to anyone other than the person living it. We are the only judges and so we must value our own judgment enough to seek no other.

That can be a lonely feeling, and even a hopeless one. That's just it. There is no hope. We really have to be hopeless. The sadness that comes with hoplessness, however, is just a phase. As my lama says, it is always frightening and very painful if we only go part of the way towards letting go. It's like you jump out of a plane with a parachute but you keep holding onto a rope attached to the plane. The parachute can't open and meanwhile you're getting banged against the underbelly of the plane. Ouch! And pretty darn scary. But to let go all the way is freedom. You can't fly free so long as you remain on the plane. You have to jump, and you have to completely let go. What happens next isn't scary or painful, but you can only know that once you get there, because it isn't a story.

Re: Life Purpose

http://symbol.gaia.com — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 10:07:11 GMT

I have been in love with my stories so long, it would be hard to leave them behind!
Of course i tell them over and over in different ways, for different reasons different ears, and i know that history changes every time it is retold.
Telling stories for an audience is different from the plot lines i use to describe my own life.
With an audience i have a script but i'm never really in control of the story which comes from somewhere else. If some one asks a question the the story leans in that direction. Sometimes something new appears. There is a duck in the story. Tell about the duck. I may be thinking about lunch or wonder why one child never smiles, but i trying to remain in the present non-grasping.

I read some where that studies of people who described themselves as happy also revealed that those people felt that they were in charge of their lives and in control. Comparison revealed that happy people in control had just as much randomness in their lives as people who were discontented.
Similar circumstances different outlook.

I thought that this was a very fragile kind of happiness, because it was based on the illusion of control. Surrender to the present, releases our grip on the karmic plotlines we follow, but it also releases us from this sense of purpose and control which is a strong component of well-being for many people.
I feel a little sad, to let that go.

Life Purpose

http://skydancer.gaia.com — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 21:16:58 GMT

For years now I have looked at the issue of life purpose as if trying to plot a successful life story. I now see that my life is not a story. Life is a present moment experience, and it isn't "my life," it's just "life."

If we look at life as a story we can't help being pulled into the ego's game of trying to control the future and regreting things about the past. But if we see life as a present moment experience, then all our karmic conditioning for how we are to judge what we are experiencing simply falls away. There is no way to judge without comparison, and yet the present moment can't be compared to past of future moments. Whenever we are comparing we have stepped out of present experience.

So I can't have a successful life story or an unsuccessful life story. And without a story, there is no such thing as success or failure at all.

All I get is life. I am consciousness. When I drop my stories, I experience the presence of an infinite intelligence, a measureless love, complete compassion and generosity, unlimited power and eternal existence. Greeting this with an open heart and a mind unclouded by preconceptions about what it should find, I discover an experience of awe and love. I weep actual tears, I am so overcome by emotion. This is beyond words, though I attempt to use words to share it with you. Really this can only be an invitation. I invite you to say "yes" to this moment, right now, just as it is. I invite you to embrace life and call that "enough."

Do not strive for enlightenment, anymore than you strive for riches or fame or any other phantom. There is nothing to attain. Even your confusion is your enlightenment, merely having taken a form that makes it difficult for you to comprehend your true nature. Embrace even your confusion as your enlightenment, and be free. Whatever "It" is, this is "It."

Detachment

http://skydancer.gaia.com — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 23:18:02 GMT

Just a reminder that too often we can get lost in the philosophy of spirituality and forget the point of the philosophy. The only value thinking about spirituality has, beyond entertainment for one's ego, is when it reminds us how important it is to stop thinking so much.

There is a detached spirituality I see too often among many practitioners, a desire to stay safely hidden within the mind instead of moving out into full emotional contact with life. The concept of witness consciousness is especially distorted.

To be a witness to one's thoughts and experiences, in the spirit of Vipassana or Zen, does not mean to stand 3 feet behind your body and watch life unfold without any particular interest in what is occurring. That is hiding from life while pretending to be spiritual.

Awareness is immersed in your present moment experience right now and when you align yourself with its point of view instead of being lost in the habitual point of view of your separate ego identity you too are immersed. You aren't lost in it. You are identified with the emotions and thoughts floating through your experience. But you are fully present and really feeling all of it.

You don't have to have opinions about what you are experiencing in order to be fully experiencing it. And you don't have to avoid fully experiencing life in order to be free from opinions. The point is simply to stop believing your thoughts and feelings are true and meaningful, not to stop all thought and feeling. Be fully here right now and just let awareness enjoy this moment. That's all that is asked of us. If only we could rest in that, truly feeling that it is enough. This is my prayer for you right now.

Re: Beliefs About Abundance & Lack

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 06:48:59 GMT

That is so true.

About beliefs within us and how that affects us.

Suze Orman has made a fortune teaching that kind of stuff...

My growing up was in an Air Force family and we lived overseas... and since we had medical, commissary food, and basically everything we needed although we were not rich ... my dad was an NCO I grew up thinking we were rich... and have kept that with me...

And I notice that people I've known ... friends, etc.. always thought that I was "rich" ... I guess I never complained about money or something... or I gave off "rich" vibes... maybe it was "content" vibes.

Anyway I don't mind not being "rich"... I get by, although I have to save up to buy a sheet of plywood... but I grow most of my own food... so in a way I am rich.. very rich...

= = =
it is all what you believe, no?

love and peace
donald

Re: Anti-Egoism Ribbon Campaign

http://zack.gaia.com — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 02:23:50 GMT

This is great! I laughed, I cried, I took a good hard look in the mirror. LOL, I had no idea this was out there and BRAVO! What a really good idea to get the awareness thing going around this. thanks for putting it out there! -Z

Re: Techniques we use

Sun, 30 Jul 2006 19:48:54 GMT

Hay sky

Well written, but I can't think of a reply... I don't disagree, but I wanted to reply some how????

Personally, I have seen or experienced the mind of god, I've seen the energy dance that masquarades as solid matter... and my thoughts are ...

... ok, I can reply to one thing... you said that thoughts are not objects... so I also would say that... but people who study this stuff do say that thoughts are "objects" of one can describe them as a distinct thing... not a "solid" object... but a mind object... distinct, definable, with a beginning and an end...

so thinking is not an object... but items that bubble up can be described as "thought" objects...

but this does not change, or modify, or diminsh anything you said... just an observation ...

it's all good

love and peace

donald

Re: Techniques we use

Sun, 30 Jul 2006 19:43:38 GMT

Hay sky

Well written, but I can't think of a reply... I don't disagree, but I wanted to reply some how????

Personally, I have seen or experienced the mind of god, I've seen the energy dance that masquarades

Re: Techniques we use

http://skydancer.gaia.com — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 20:01:47 GMT

What am I? Am I these thoughts?

Of course I'm not. I know that there are ideas about matter that create the appearance of form, but no form or matter apart from these ideas. And I know that my sensory system relies inherently on this non-existent matter, or else there would be no body to sense anything. And I know my mind sets to making meaning out of that sensory experience, deciding what it wants more of and what to avoid based primarily on past training. And of course I know that anything made solely out of ideas is non-existent, since ideas aren't objects. They are just imagination.

This world is not figuratively imagined. It is literally imagined and cannot be otherwise unless matter was actually solid, which it has been conclusively proven not to be by both philosophical insight and scientific experiment. People may say, "well why aren't we all walking through walls then." And I say, "if at a cellular level we were fully convinced of how thoroughly insubstantial both our bodies and walls are, we could walk through walls." In fact, if electronic microscopes could walk, they'd be walking through walls all the time.

Yet here I remain. I can be non-reactive to my opinions and emotions. I know they're just made up stuff. But who am I? How can it be that I don't exist when I am sitting here writing this right now? I am aware of myself. So how can I not exist? How can the non-existent be aware of itself? That is a logical fallacy.

I note that I seem to be a composite of body, habitual meaning-making and reaction patterns, and memories.

I have already established that the body is not solid. It's just a bunch of ideas about solidity. So I can't exist as that or I'm back to not existing again.

Similarly, meaning making and habits are obviously nothing more than ideas. They are purely and directly nothing but idea. That's what they are about, our ideas about what is happening within the supposedly solid matter we are sensing around our supposedly solid bodies, about what we intend to do about it, and about what we think about the situation (the judgment which further entrenches the meaning making and reaction habits).

So the only thing I could actually be that would make me existent are my memories. I remember all kinds of scenes, experiences, thoughts and emotions from my life that all come together to form a cohesive story of a person called Me. That must be who I am.

Yet how can I be a story!? A story is not only a set of ideas, but made up ideas about the past, which definitely would be no longer existent even if it ever had truly existed. My life story is more imaginary and subjective than any of what I have so far examined. It is the least solid of all things.

Stories about the same matter, the same experiences, the same meaning-systems even, vary not only from person to person but within the same person from day to day. I summarize the story of my life differently depending on what's "up" for me lately and my frame of mind. I forget all kinds of details that don't fit my governing story, then remember them when I "reframe" the story to highlight different features. If that is what I am I am not very substantial. To be so insubstantial, so arbitrary, so made up out of selective attention, doesn't make me feel particularly real.

And yet, who is writing this? Clearly I exist, but I do not exist as any of what I can point at. I can't talk about what I am. I have no characteristics to speak of.

Words like Love and Peace and Unity have been pointed at me, but really that's just mirror games being played. More ideas. Nice ideas, but still not anything real in themselves. Love is an idea. Peace is an idea. Unity is an idea. If ideas are real I might as well just settle for being the idea of a body having sensory experiences that have certain meanings that I know well and am prepared in advance to respond to in the way I judge to be best. At least that has a whole mythos built around it. It comes with a whole world to support it. Choosing to be an unpopular idea is foolish.

I cannot accept that I am an idea. If I exist, I exist as something beyond ideas, something that can't be touched by ideas, something that is bigger than ideas and more substantial. Something that actually is real and existent. Yet my mind only knows how to work with ideas. I can't think of myself without ideas. I can't be anything to my mind other than a set of ideas.

So if I will ever know myself, it will not be with my mind.

Re: Anti-Egoism Ribbon Campaign

Sun, 16 Jul 2006 14:25:06 GMT

A BIG virtual HUG as a tear of joy - love squeezes out of my eye, ready to gush... my heart sends love to my sister ... who wants to heal the planet and is very well into it ... now both eyes get the flow... peace and love, donald

Re: Anti-Egoism Ribbon Campaign

http://skydancer.gaia.com — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 05:18:09 GMT

You brought a smile to my face. Peace, Earth Energy, you beautiful being.

Re: Techniques we use

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 18:43:21 GMT

Neale Donald Walsch - wrote the Conversations w/God

James Redfield - wrote the Celistine Prophacy...

= = =

just in case someone is looking it up ... well, they will probably find it anyway... no biggie...

Re: Techniques we use

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 18:38:34 GMT

Dear Skydancer:

This is a link to my blog about Vipassana... it is similar to what you described... and you are right... it is awesome... thank you.

http://earthenergy.zaadz.com/blog/2006/6/official_recognition_of_vipassana_by_the_government_of_india

Re: Anti-Egoism Ribbon Campaign

Wed, 12 Jul 2006 17:08:25 GMT

This is the exact answer... this is it...

we don't need anything else... just this...

you got it !

totally

correct-o-rama

right on

nothing else need be said

= = =

get it or get lost

= = =

this is the teaching, this is the story, this is the important thing

= = =

all else is.... well, ego...

Anti-Egoism Ribbon Campaign

http://skydancer.gaia.com — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 23:40:13 GMT

Jeolous of all those yellow "Support our Troops" ribbons, red AIDS awareness ribbons, and the many other ribbons for various causes? Well check out the Black Ribbon Campaign representing "the fight against ego everywhere."

http://www.theblackribbon.org/

To quote from the site: "According to a recent Population Reference Bureau study on cross-cultural neuroses, over 2.5 billion people around the world suffer from the same disease: narcissism. By late 2012, through the increasing trend of globalization, or what New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman calls the "flattening" of the world, this epidemic may affect nearly every human being on the planet. The plague is only growing. It's time to find a cure."

Though we would probably estimate the number of people worldwide with ego problems as somewhere closer to 6 billion (the number of inhabitants on the planet) I think we can at least applaud their recognition that at least egoism (narcissism) is a problem. What they call death of ego is really not so much about true spiritual ego dissolution. Even their imagery (if you look at their memeware page) is about violence against the ego, yet any type of violence is exactly what ego thrives on. Their campaign is really anti-narcissm, not anti-ego. Still, it's a start.

Re: Techniques we use

http://skydancer.gaia.com — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 18:58:32 GMT

Krisztina wrote: "within the space the meditation creates, we can allow the thoughts to be without going on the rollercoaster ride they tempt us with."

That is what I love about awareness meditation myself. I like the extra umph I get from Dzogchen, which is classified as a form of awareness meditation if I recall correctly, because it adds the understanding that all that I do see as I witness my thoughts and emotions is just the play of Mind. Not even my private mind, since I don't exist so how could I truly have an actual mind of my own. It's just the play of Aliia (which I'm sure I am misspelling).

A Course in Miracles takes it even a step further than that and says that not only is what we see when we watch our thoughts the play of something other than our private mind, but it is all a projection of our unconscious guilt and is always designed to place us in either a state of blame or shame.

Whether with regular awareness meditation, Dzogchen, or ACIM, when I watch my thoughts I realize that I am not the one causing them to arise. They arise and disperse on their own if I don't cling to them and make them out to be something important and real that I need to ponder and do something about. Just watching causes the peaks and valleys of the roller coaster ride you mention to lessen over time. As I decide not to react I confirm to my unconscious that what I see does not warrant reaction, it is all so insignificant. That is good training for being less affected by the inevitable ups and downs of life.

Beliefs About Abundance & Lack

http://skydancer.gaia.com — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 00:05:44 GMT

For months now a member of my family had me convinced that she was in dire financial straits. I had Ram Dass giving me advice on how to help her within a room of 100 or so people. I had visiting lamas staying with me and all I could do was be depressed and ask for their prayers for this relative who I thought was in jeopardy of losing everything. I was sleepless at times, trying to think of ways I could generate more income so that I could help this person, when actually I am just getting by myself. I had even written a story in my mind in which my family was cursed by an unconscious belief in scarcity and I spent a great deal of time trying to find ways of freeing myself from this legacy and laying plans for how I would then teach whatever worked to all my family members when next I would be able to go visit them. It became a focal point in my life for several months.

Then yesterday I was looking at this game that helps people develop meditation abilities but that costs $160. I really don't have the money, but I had enough credit on one of my credit cards that I could buy a copy and was intending to buy it for this relative since she had told me previously that she was unable to meditate. I think that being able to enter the meditative mental state is incredibly important for manifestation work, and meditation practice is the most efficient way of doing that, if you can do it at all, so I had been looking for ways to help her with that for several weeks.

On the verge of spending what for me was a lot of money I don't really have, I decided to give her a call and see if she had listened to either of the recordings I had sent her a week before on coming into full self acceptance and letting go of unconscious guilt, shame and unworthiness. I figured if she hadn't bothered to use what I had already sent, no point in putting out money I might need in the future to pay bills.

Good thing I decided to ask the question! It turned out that not only had she not listened to any of what I had sent in the week she had it, but on top of that -- get this -- she had decided to take a couple thousand dollars out of her retirement savings to pay off most of the bills that were behind. And she still had tens of thousands of dollars left!

All the time I had been worrying about her, utterly convinced into believing her story of lack to such an extent that I was spreading the story to others, she was sitting on enough money to not only pay off all her debts, including her car loan, and still have thousands of dollars remaining, and I was the one really squeeking by with no savings!

I then came to understand a very different story of my family legacy. It isn't poverty that runs in my family. When I really think about it with this new frame of mind, I see that all my family members own their own homes. They have multiple color TVs. They eat out all the time. Some even have kids in private schools. My family is abundant! It is the story of victimhood and the sense of deprived entitlement that goes with that story that is imprisoning my family. That story had me convinced that this family member's entire life had been one of unfair deprivation by a world that did not value the incredible kindness and long suffering self-sacrifice of this person. I had all kinds of examples built up in my mind to confirm this belief. And it simply WAS NOT TRUE!

My point in sharing this with all of you is this, don't believe the lies your mind is telling you.

You may have a rock solid story built in your mind for lack or whatever limitation you have identified with, but no matter how convincing that story is, that doesn't mean it's true.

Just after I had this awakening moment yesterday I started listening to some other recordings that had been sent to me by Sounds True (they send me a bunch because they like for me to interview their authors on my radio show). This one was by Gary Renard and called "Secrets of the Immortal." On one of the first couple of disks in the set there is this wonderful meditation in which you place whatever you think you need or want on the altar to God and let God absorb it back into the pure light of its essence, back into God itself. You then allow yourself to dissolve back into that same Source. You then have whatever you gave away because you have become all of who you are, which contains that and all else.

I am going to make that a daily meditation, because I think it is absolutely the essence of manifestation work and spiritual surrender work. If you want it, surrender it to God and surrender yourself to God as well. Don't believe your stories about lack. Those are just false teachings that assume you are a limited being who is separate from God. You are not separate from God, so how could you lack anything? No matter how convincing the stories are, they simply ARE NOT TRUE!

Many blessings to you ~ Skydancer

Re: Techniques we use

http://skydancer.gaia.com — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 00:03:29 GMT

Cool. I'll check it out.

~ Blessings

Re: Techniques we use

http://Arhat-Ra.gaia.com — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 18:23:37 GMT

Hi Sky,

I have several techniques listed at my pod if you're interested. There are single experiences as well as an entire week long program to try.

Check it out if you'd care to at:

Discovering the extraordianary http://pods.zaadz.com/profound_reconcilitation_of_life

Love,

Alex

Re: Techniques we use

http://ladybird.gaia.com — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 04:48:14 GMT

hello! i am just joining this pod so greetings to you all. i am a visionary artist which in many people's understanding means i must take entheogens (it sounds nicer than drugs) to get my visions. i don't. several years ago i was leading a very self destructive lifestyle to put it mildly and then one day i blacked out and saw a mandala (i learned it to be called later) spinning and rotating in on itself, made of eyes and fire. i began painting it immediately and became obsessed with it for months. a friend turned me on to Jung's work with mandalas where he would have his patients draw pictures of mandalas and as their mental health grew better, the mandalas became more whole and cohesive. i realize then that my mandala came to heal me and that this was a sign i needed to pay attention to. i recieved several more very powerful visions throughout the coarse of the next few years which i also painted, but i realized that the visions were like holding a sleeping lion at the end of a leash. i needed guidance on how to handle these things. i have taken up shambhala meditation in the last 6 months and have found it amazing. it has a sitting practice of meditation which creates a space for all of our discursive thoughts which pop up within us. within the space the meditation creates, we can allow the thoughts to be without going on the rollercoaster ride they tempt us with. this space is an opening up, a gentle loving powerful sadness in which we live. many blessings, krisztina