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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mira.net.au!news.netspace.net.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.Hawaii.Edu!news.hgea.org!newsjunkie.ans.net!newsfeeds.ans.net!rcogate.rco.qc.ca!sunqbc.risq.net!imp.ch!univ-lyon1.fr!howland.erols.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!news.enteract.com!ix.netcom.com!news From: svanier@ix.netcom.com(Stephen Paul Vanier) Newsgroups: alt.consciousness.4th-way,alt.music.4-track,alt.2600.414,alt.irc.42,alt.music.4ad,comp.bugs.4bsd,eunet.bugs.4bsd,alt.consciousness.4th-way,rec.autos.4x4,law.class.581-goldstein,alt.SbC.604,alt.collecting.8-track-tapes,fr.news.8bits,fr.usenet.8bits,alt.tv.90210,bit.listserv.9370-l,alt.2600.AOL,alt.cars.Ford-Probe,alt.bloated-ego.Master-Ti-Chi,alt.law-enforcement.O_P_P,alt.2600.QnA,alt.test.a,soc.culture.a,alt.music.a-cappella,rec.music.a-cappella,anarch.lists.a-infos,anarch.lists.a-infos-d,alt.r ecovery.aa,alt.tv.ab-fab Subject: Julian, you notice who I x-post too? Date: 5 Nov 1996 05:58:06 GMT Organization: Netcom Lines: 175 Message-ID: <55ml1e$9h2@dfw-ixnews10.ix.netcom.com> References: <62.6541933268309@news.nemonet.com> <55gqh5$626@decaxp.harvard.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: wck-ca14-25.ix.netcom.com X-NETCOM-Date: Mon Nov 04 11:58:06 PM CST 1996 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au alt.consciousness.4th-way:6663 alt.music.4ad:4836 comp.bugs.4bsd:2138 rec.autos.4x4:48168 alt.collecting.8-track-tapes:1500 alt.tv.90210:3631 bit.listserv.9370-l:136 alt.cars.Ford-Probe:2335 alt.music.a-cappella:3962 rec.music.a-cappella:12555 alt.recovery.aa:42300 alt.tv.ab-fab:4269 I x-post to alot of get rich quick to mirror them back! It's what I do!So Jim from Jerksville, you have a good story: Newsgroups: alt.consciousness.4th-way,alt.consciousness.jancox From: kana@Fair.net (Jim from Jerksonville) Subject: Re: Living with life. Date: Tue, 05 Nov 1996 02:18:20 GMT svanier@ix.netcom.com(Stephen Paul Vanier) wrote: besides, >when the whole mess collapses, they'll have bailed out with big stock >options and golden parachutes ;-)************(What are these feelings? > You have fear, insecurities, know them when they are happening, I was just being descriptive, not resentful. I am no longer concerned with their practices ;-)*****(Bullshit, it's called jealousy, go into it!)********* *(What you mean, if the body becomes >total, becomes totally occupied by some task, silence can enter. You >ever get sick, the mind is shut down because all resources are being >used to heal the flu? This is the most blissful of times, no worries, >because the mind has no fuel, just be aware and this same situation >reveals itself, it's a ledge that you can climb to rid yourself of the >fear and anxiety that we all feel during times like this.) A very good example. I recall one of the happiest times of my life was a day when I had the flu as a child. I lay on the living room hide-a-bed, so my parents could watch my fever. I had no worries about school or the other things that trouble a child -- just getting better. I had just finished a really inspiring book about travel to the stars, closed it, and felt Totally at peace, happy, content -- something rare, as I was a very nervous child. *************(Yes and each year with more and more repressed crap you just get doubled over with the weight of life.)********** And now that I think of it, I get this same warm fever-but-not-a-fever feeling from the Silence. In fact, I foolishly tried describing some of my sensations to what I thought was a sensitive co-worker, and they immediately told me to go to a doctor. Just what I need, to be drugged back into robot hood. ****************(Oh, this happened to me too, swine and pearls. I told this one gal about merging with the whole, about being alone in nothingness without body just a burning spirit so blissful and complete, and she was horrified, like I had been with the Devil. She wanted to call the cops, but what for?)************ *(Labels mean you are confused about what you are >experiencing and consoling yourself)*************** I will agree here. Cosmologies, theories, labels -- there are entirely too many of them in the spiritual movements, which are ossifying around "concepts" just the same as the old major religions have. The concepts are a lot shinier, from crystals to channeling, but it's the same old shell game. I was just looking for analogies for others, but it's nothing I would hold tight to. The more concepts I can abandon, the better. The main reason I am trying this group is that I know Gurdjieffans are rather hard-nosed, and not going to put up with a lot of Pink Light theorizing, or repetition of the Universe Accoring to Shirley MacClaine ;-) Besides, I already answered that idea to myself once. I once postulated that they had finally discovered the Grand Unified Theory, and a combination of physcists and mystics had answered Everything and written it in a Very Large Book. Assume this is true. So what? It wouldn't mean a damn thing to our being in the world, or the mystery of our existence. Not if every single question we could possibly ask was answered. Have one recording machine ask the questions and another one answer them all day long, and it would do you as good. ************(What are you talking about? Who are you talking too?)******************** *(Is what I say about being aware that you are >looking out the eyes to see, that whatever is conscious in you can grab >the moment and just force itself to awaken, to be totally present? >This state is so ordinary, yet you can't remain there, you wake totally >up and you go "So? So what?" But in going "So, So what?" This is the >first sign of the ego putting this state down, being negative, it is >subtly gaining control of the situation again, and you are subtly >falling back to sleep which is the worries and the fears that you >feel)****** And this gets the most agreement of all. The ego is a Sneaky devil.. You know, I Still go through some of my old emotional routines, even when the Emotion isn't there. Habit is Sooooo strong. And one drifts off into reverie and ugly thinking Soooo easily. It bears continual watching. The one thing that is with me is simply that the old state of mind was Painful compared to the new. Yet the painful state of mind still seems to Attract -- like a magnet. Perhaps because it is so noisy -- it gets your attention, like the squeaky wheel. And I am Well aware of this dangerous "so what" So what am I gaining by this? So maybe it's just a delusion, or I just feel so good because I'm about to get a fever and have that pleasant pre-flu lassitude. So how have I changed? And I Still have a crummy job ;-) ha, ha, ha. The ego is Really hitting me with everything it's got. Now and then I think "I wish I was dead" and that Really scares the ego -- which tries to convince me I'm going crazy. But I know exactly what I'm about. I mean the Peace of ego-death, not physical death. Nearly All the trouble in the world comes because one ego wants to impress other egos, and yet they are all fictitious entities. What a very strange joke on us all. **********************(Tonight I went to dinner with my partner, and he was there and I was there and Judi was there, and I started to tell a story about Samson and my Jaw, and I said two three words and he cuts me off and starts to tell this other story that he knew on my subject which was a new subject. I cut him off, "Do you ever wonder what I would have talked about if you hadn't just cut me off?" And nobody listens, so I am like another Mystic, "I'm a parrot on a pole for forty years, and nobody to hear!" Said Kabir. All this pain, caused by nonexistent, imaginary constructs trying to impress other nonexistent, imaginary constructs. There is some sort of flaw in our wiring, it seems to me. ************(Nobody home at all, just a happening, of energy, of the play of society of the ant farm. Not even worth a capital letter.)************ I have friends that are just so much in a crisis >that no matter what they do, it's a crisis. They need a vacation from >life, because living in a crisis is a burden. Relax, the world is >controlled by God, and all will be well, and in short order too!)* Yes, we'll all be dead -- ha, ha, ha. I begin to see what Walt Whitman meant when he said that was a state that was luckier than could be imagined. Still, it's Very hard to stay awake when the very Design of the world, especially if you have to live and work and survive in it, is designed to get you so preoccupied with its craziness, that you fall asleep again. Although it's a rather Noisy sleep. It is certainly true about your friends, though. Most crises Are self-generated. And Very habitual. I am Still, now and then, going through an old conflict that I really should drop. But sometimes, when I am not quite myself, my body, mind, and mouth move into it Automatically. What we do is largely automatism, and I thought that would stop immediately -- but I have discovered that it has great Inertia, and will probably take a while to wind down. It may even try to get me into trouble so I'll forget what I'm about. Although I am not Sure what I am about. As Judi mentions in a post, it is more in the nature of a gift that does not have to be understood, just opened. But it is a gift that I think is a bit slippery at first -- hopefully, my grip will improve ;-) ******************(You want the truth? I would guess and my guess is about as good as an answer of anyone you know. I would guess that you can stay awake looking at Gurdjieff's second hand watch test, maybe seven seconds and a normal person is five or six, but still that 20 percent more than everyone else. Just a bit more, but noticeable, especially when crisis hit. But what's that mean? You have hardly started, and I'm tough, as tough a teacher as they come, and I don't ever stop form self-observation, and even now, with a self induced labotomy done naturally by nature, as the mind refines itself to just a problem solving wisper, I still think much work needs to be done on my own machine, so I say to you, "pull the beam from your own eye, and cease to worry about your neighbors splinter!: kana@fair.net <Jim Mooney> Friend of Coyote, the Trickster -- Aarrrooooooo!