Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by atypican on January 20, 2013 at 8:35pm

I will agree that one cannot make a serious study of what is good without also paying due attention to it's opposite. I will also agree that the most enlightened among us are ever cognizant of the understanding they lack. However I am not so sure that growth must happen in two directions. I will admit that with increased good comes the potential for increased evil, but just as a gardener can vigilantly weed his garden, so can we cultivate our thoughts. Light drives out darkness, by no means does it create it.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Kernel John on January 20, 2013 at 9:48pm

Hi atyp, You say, "the most enlightened among us are ever cognizant of the understanding they lack."  How can anyone know what they don't know?  We can only know what we know and perhaps it's place within a greater domain.

atypican said:

I will agree that one cannot make a serious study of what is good without also paying due attention to it's opposite. I will also agree that the most enlightened among us are ever cognizant of the understanding they lack. However I am not so sure that growth must happen in two directions. I will admit that with increased good comes the potential for increased evil, but just as a gardener can vigilantly weed his garden, so can we cultivate our thoughts. Light drives out darkness, by no means does it create it.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by atypican on January 20, 2013 at 10:10pm

I wouldn't say that we can know what we do not know, but I would say that we can be sure of what we are trying to find out. If I had said "the most enlightened among us are busy trying to learn what they have not yet learned" would you understand me better?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Kernel John on January 23, 2013 at 3:52am

Yes, I think that might be a much better way to approach the topic. . . but, what exactly would be the point of this statement.

   "The most enlightened among us are trying to learn what they have not yet learned"

Here's what I'm hearing.

  "Those who are trying to understand what they don't know, are on the path of enlightenment"

Does that make any sense?  Is it close to what you were saying?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Joy B Tobin on January 24, 2013 at 9:41am

I had a meditative realization... which looks something like this.

In the manifest world... everything matters.  Doing and being good is of extreme importance because each being/person that we interact with is only the visible tip of a metaphorical iceberg.  Everything has meaning.  Everything effects everything else.  There is no true isolation... even the act of isolation has consequences for self and others.  There is an impact which will be felt somewhere by someone.

In the internal world... everything is good.  There is nothing inside of me that it not of me... In essence the definition of good or bad becomes meaningless, since it's already in there.  There is no escaping from what is bad into what is good.  A move toward the light only makes the shadows appear bigger.  In exploring the inner realm we are not learning to differentiate good behavior from bad... the important quality here is meaningfulness... not everything matters on this plane.  A nightmare, dream or fantasy cannot be qualified as good or evil, only as meaningful or nonmeaningful. 

I'm starting to think that some people have their understanding inverted.  In the outer world they try to look for what matters... on the inner world they seek what is good.  Destructive behavior comes from determining that certain things of the outer world don't really matter, or labeling certain things of the inner world as bad or evil.

I don't know that I'm describing what I mean very well... it's hard to express this concept clearly... but it makes a lot of sense to me.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Kernel John on January 25, 2013 at 8:05am

Good one Joy.  Well put. 

You mentioned that in the outer world we try to look for what matters. . . in the inner world, we seek what is good.  In other words, when the inner and outer correspond, in the outer world we create what matters.

Neither the flag moves in the wind nor does the wind move the flag.  The only thing that moves is the mind.  Right?  :  )

Your insight is appreciated.

Joy B Tobin said:

I had a meditative realization... which looks something like this.

In the manifest world... everything matters.  Doing and being good is of extreme importance because each being/person that we interact with is only the visible tip of a metaphorical iceberg.  Everything has meaning.  Everything effects everything else.  There is no true isolation... even the act of isolation has consequences for self and others.  There is an impact which will be felt somewhere by someone.

In the internal world... everything is good.  There is nothing inside of me that it not of me... In essence the definition of good or bad becomes meaningless, since it's already in there.  There is no escaping from what is bad into what is good.  A move toward the light only makes the shadows appear bigger.  In exploring the inner realm we are not learning to differentiate good behavior from bad... the important quality here is meaningfulness... not everything matters on this plane.  A nightmare, dream or fantasy cannot be qualified as good or evil, only as meaningful or nonmeaningful. 

I'm starting to think that some people have their understanding inverted.  In the outer world they try to look for what matters... on the inner world they seek what is good.  Destructive behavior comes from determining that certain things of the outer world don't really matter, or labeling certain things of the inner world as bad or evil.

I don't know that I'm describing what I mean very well... it's hard to express this concept clearly... but it makes a lot of sense to me.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by andrewjvb on February 2, 2013 at 6:16pm

My dad was a sociopath, and I never wanted to be like him.  But growing up, no one was there for me.  I even watched my mother, who I loved and still love very much, brought down by this man into believing that no one cares.  And I've been on the precipice of madness myself, habitually questioning my own love and if anybody really cares.

When you get that close to that kind of insipidness and disgust, I don't know.  Maybe there are different levels of looking into one's own darkness.  But I don't get people who think this is some kind of game or something.  I have seen the darkness within, and it's not pretty.  We're talking pain and disgust and vomiting. 

What I feel I've been shown in my "enlightenment" is that everything is actually really ok and we don't have to tear ourselves apart.  Go on and make mistakes, do dumb things.  You always end up being yourself, and that's really where it's at.  I think if God were here and could tell us anything, he'd just tell us that it's really okay.  We're not huge disappointments and the little things we do that we blow way out of proportion really aren't that big of deals and we're not ruined by them. 

I think you're right.  People do have it backwards.  They think that through rejecting their inner nature they can get closer to godliness, when it really exacerbates the inner turmoil.  What you find when you give it up is that you really don't even want all of these bad things that are causing you guilt.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Sidian M.S. Jones on February 2, 2013 at 7:51pm

Agreed, Andrew. And it seems we have much in common.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Joy B Tobin on February 7, 2013 at 1:13pm

Wow andrew thank you for sharing all of that.

I grew up with a mother diagnosed with bi-polar disorder.  She had a major mental breakdown when I was in the 7th grade and was put in an institution for recovery... she was released about a month later, but was heavily medicated and has not really been the same since.  My dad seemed pretty normal while I was growing up.  But looking back on things he was often cruel to my mother, and had a very rigid, repressed way about him.

There were times when I was a teenager when I would become upset, yell or cry about something and I was told that I was abnormal, my father several times threatened to put me in an institution and frequently compared me to my mother.  I became very frightened of my own emotionality and believed that emotional expressivness was an indicator of mental instability and abnormal psychology.

My ex-husband did a lot to reinforce my fear of my own emotionality.  I don't think either my father or ex had intended to damage me through this... I think it was just easier to get me to shut up by taking advantage of my self-repressive tendencies than to have to deal with an emotionally expressive woman.

I've been dealing with my inner darkness, self-loathing, fear and such for a long time now, and I am always looking for new methods of relaxing myself into inner calm and self acceptance.

I think though that I also sometime do treat my inner darkness like a game, but I do this not because I fail to recognize the horror of what lurks there... but rather because it makes it easier to hold that awareness while functioning like a normal person.  It is still my primary imperative to be self contained emotionally, and to maintain a facade of healthy normal modern woman.  When I do engage with the true darkness of my being it gets hard to put it away again so that I can resume normal functions.  I have developed a system of soothing techniques to allow myself to systamatically shut down that darkness.  Most of the time I deal with my own darkness indirectly... I look at it through glass. I turn it into a game, or more accurately an intellectual excercise.  These things have been helpful.  I very rarely feel like I'm on the precipice of a break down when 10 years ago that was the constant state of my being.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by andrewjvb on February 7, 2013 at 4:24pm

Yeah I agree, a sense of humor about things is probably the most powerful thing a person can have.  So I guess it is sort of a game.

• ▶ Reply

▶ Reply to Discussion