h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is turning into a lovely place. Group hug time.

What is so wonderful - and so difficult - is that an act I perform today and every day can mean something different each time. Even simple things. I'm trying to train myself to really experience things. Not to just perform tasks mindeslessly, no matter how trivial they seem.

Thanks to all of you for your wisdom and encouragement. This conversation is helping me get back on track. Just being able to be honest about how I feel is enormously helpful. There isn't anyone I can really have a serious talk with about spiritual matters in person. So I really value being able to do that here.

I'm even bucking up enough courage to try the meditation exercises again.

H

I get these little inspirational sayings in my e-mail box every day. this one goes along with Momenta's fluid theme.




Now I have given up
The body and the world,
I have a special gift.

I see the infinite Self.

As a wave,
Seething and foaming,
Is only water.

So all creation, Streaming out of the Self,
Is only the Self.

-Ashtavakra Gita

H

Hypatia that is a small but mighty step you are taking to "perform tasks mindfully, no matter how trivial they seem" it's bigger than it sounds

It's enormous really isn't it? Being mindful, honouring the moment, whether the activity be seemingly trivial or not. If one is mindful, instead of being off somewhere in your head, or attaching meaning to what is happening that may not actually have any bearing; you actually get the opportunity to see the beauty there. All the time.

Synchronicities come at you constantly, insights into both others and yourself. You can act with care and thoughtfulness and find everything, whatever it is, pleasant or unpleasant, a joy.

I have absolutely no idea why I feel moved to post this little anonymous quote here, it doesn't seem relevant, but I am only practicing what I preach: (hopefully)

'Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.'

momenta's thought for the day!

That is my favorite quote about resentment

Can't add much to that. Love ed.

'Experience is not what happens to you, it's what you do with what happens to you'

Aldous Huxley

Not a grave I am sure eddispond, for I am sure you swim well, and going with the flow can bring exactly what one seeks. There is another quote which comes to mind about having to let go of the shore, or lose sight of the land, or some such thing, to get to a foreign land.

Sometimes the water moves fast, or there is a storm, or one finds one can no longer swim in the direction one would like. But that surely is the nature of fluidity, and there is something to be gained, learned or let go of in everything. You have said something very similar yourself somewhere.

Huxley is right on that

Many of the things we experience are beyond our control. But we can control our reactions and responses. My biggest struggle has always been controlling my anger and impatience. I'm getting better at it but it still pops up on occasion.

I would like to be this serene Buddha letting everything just wash over me. But I find myself wanting to take a club to people sometimes. And I had an experience recently where I was too judgmental. Not a good thing to be. So I'm really trying to not assign values to people and their actions but to view them as impersonally as possible.

Working with the public can certainly be a trial sometimes. Treating everyone equally is tough. But I'm doing beter.

H

My mother always used to say,"The course of true love never runs smooth"
I think that may be correct no matter how lofty the ideal, although she was talking about romantic love. There is another saying "There is only one love but there are a thousand imitations" I am humbled by this as I fail daily. I think it is human ,Hypatia to suffer impatience with the daily grind but a disservice to ourselves to be impatient with the things of the spirit. What each of you has to say does wonders to the echoes of my mind, if that makes any sense. It puts me firmly in my place. I just have to try and stay there. love to all, ed.

I have often said, but rarely listened to it,(a common fault among preachers!),that it is not possible to come to a conclusion about anyone until you know their story. A person's story is ever-moving along in a multi-facetted way and, even if you make some initial headway into understanding,you will have to devote your whole life to them and then only to mesh with that story. By then judging will no longer be an issue.
On the other hand, if we can refrain from the urge to judge,(not a natural human talent),then we may well find a natural empathy emerging.
Sorry I've "double-clicked" here, but it has been on my mind all day. Love to all, ed.

Wise words, Ed. We can never know what truly motivates others. So things that appear one way are often quite the reverse.

I keep telling myself that it isn't our place to judge anyone. We don't have the authority to either forgive or condemn. And since we're not able to get inside anyone else's mind, we don't truly know what caused them to do whatever action seems inappropriate to us.

Then the question becomes whether or not by adopting that attitude we encourage evil. Which leads to the problem of defining evil and the question of how we should deal with it when we encounter it.

If we are individual parts of one whole, then we are as much a part of the serial killer and rapist as we are of the saints. If we cannot separate ourselves from the whole, then where does the culpability actually lie?

H

Good stuff, hypatia, you are on form. You have really hit the crux of the matter. What I have wrestled with for some time now, in Christian terms is :-does Satan as an entity really exist? What I would argue is that there is a definite corrupting influence in the heart of humankind. How this arises I'm not sure. Is it simply a blocking of our spiritual flow. Perhaps like any "pipeline" a pressure builds up until bursting point is reached when, as we say, all hell may be let loose. Your simple question was "where does the culpability lie?" I will have to give that some serious meditation tomorrow (Weds. our time, England) when I am up trimming my hedges. Love and peace ,ed.

Oh my, big subject. I agree with all you both say. The trouble with judgement has to be that unless we have ALL the facts we are not in a position to judge. Since often we don't even have all the facts about ourselves, let alone anyone else, our judgement must then inevitably be flawed.

I am moved to say two things here. Firstly, that we tend to see the world, indeed perhaps it is, a mirror of ourselves. This is not to say that we are responsible for everything that happens or that we see. But what about that which we react to? There then is the mirror; because that reaction tells us that there is something within for us to see. A silly example. There are some things people could say to me that I might be a bit offended or upset about. Not that many really, because an opinion is only an opinion. But if someone called me fat I would laugh, because I know I am not. Accused, do we ever react to something we do not believe there is an element of truth to? Someone causing a reaction in us is surely them giving us a gift: the opportunity to see something and release it.

Secondly, respect. Whatever appearances may be, however someone else might behave, do they have the power to force us to see them in a particular way? If someone behaves in a way we might consider evil, does that give us the right to act against them? Or does that make us just like them? Also, the respect we have for ourselves means that while we are part of the whole, too we are a unique part, and it is only us we can choose for. No one has the right to tell us who to be or how to see things.

I'm going to say more than two things now. We can sometimes be so deluded, any one of us. Someone I know on another forum (nothing to do with anyone here at all) has it in their head that another person is behaving in a particular way becuase of them. The reality could not be further from the truth; but it is the way they choose to see it and nothing I nor anyone else might say will change that. Perhaps our greatest responsibility is to be scrupulously honest with ourselves (and in a beautiful and typical synchronicity I was having a conversation less than an hour ago about just this with my trainee), and that is an ever deepening knowledge of ourselves, a daring to face the truth of who we are and what we might be feeling, even if it hurts. It is these illusions we hold so dear which stand between us and the fluidity, because they makes us separate.

I've gone on

Well now I'm going to emulate you Ed and say two things, because I posted my long burble, and there was another one from you. So first off I wasn't responding to that, but now I am, but only a little.

Some years ago I denied the existance of evil, funnily enough in a room full of Christians. The following day, literally, I was forced to eat my words. I will not go into it because the thought of it still curdles my blood. All I would say is I now feel evil to be more than man behaving in a selfish or cruel manner, and I now treat anything of that nature with great respect and caution. Just as there is the divine, there is also something darker for those who wish to lose themselves in the mistaken belief that it will give them power.

How to deal with evil has always been one of my major questions. I do believe evil exists. I'm not prepared to say that there is one supreme evil entity like Satan who is the antithesis of God, but if the Yin/Yang thing works for everything else........

If man is not inherently evil, but a conduit for evil, then he isn't inherently good either. At this point it becomes garbage in/garbage out. And conscioulsy deciding to do good becomes the single most important decision we can make. Even if we arent always successful, at least we are moving in the right direction.

Evil is seductive. I understand how people can be caught up in it. But do we understand it enough to make value judgements even about evil? I believe that all things exist for a reason. So evil must play a necessary role in the overall scheme of things. If we find a way to banish evil, what happens to the good? Does it go as well? Are we left with nothing?

But, by holding this opinion, am I complicit in evil? Should I be out there fighting it?

H

I've slept on this and come back to find some magnificent posts from you both. I think we are dealing with paradox,paradox of right and wrong. Yes, Hypatia we should be out there fighting something but without this polarisation. Part of our stategy has been staring us in the face, momenta's fluidity. We should hone this fluidity right down to,dare I say it, the moment. I think we might be into Quantum here and binary which I can only pay lip-service to. Back to paradox,we need to make snap moment decisions about right or wrong and we can't do that with our normal thinking apparatus. So what are we left with? We are left with what momenta calls the infinite, what Christians call faith. It is that shot in the dark which allows something greater than the sum of its parts ,(us) to emerge. Paradox! the "evil" all along has been the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We just do not "know". "Empty vessels make the most sound!" We fight by by not fighting it at all.It is total surrender ,momenta. I said you had taught me surrender.Thinking after wards I said to myself this is not true. I have spent most of my life doing that, reluctantly. In the name of love?? There was a finer distinction. You taught me to do it willingly. Here is another tool for our fight. Always be prepared to grow, to see the finer distinction. I'm tingling all over now and must rest my case. love to all, ed.

I believe there is evil.
I think it's perfection is as rare as the pure of heart.
It is often found among the inapproprately self pro-claimed reverent.

Striving for *power over* invites it in.
I think it can escort and court you for some time.
It gives you plenty of opportunity but you must surrender to it (as with love and/or God) to get it's power.

Knowledge is power. I relate some of my need to be comfy with mystery to my understanding (right or wrong) of it being part of the plan. If you have faith you do not need such a tight grip on knowledge-power. Wanting to know all will surely include some darkness. Living with mystery requires some faith , I think all the knowledge in the world would never negate the need for the faith, trust.

I have wondered if most religions leave room and need for mystery.
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"I denied the existance of evil, funnily enough in a room full of Christians."
I think that was the perfect place to elicit an answer.

"The following day, literally, I was forced to eat my words"

That gave me chills to read as I have experienced similar and timely events. Evil coinciding with the presence of purity, the doubt evil exists along side the knowledge that good does, will surely invite a visit. One taste of evil and mystery may have more appeal!

Paradox, polarity, surrender, the moment. All key words I feel in the 'fight' against evil. There of course is the greatest paradox of all, because it is in not fighting it, in seeing the oneness that goes beyond good and evil, a return to innocence, that wins this particular 'battle'. Inverted commas, because there is no fight, no battle.

After all, in the end it is ourselves we fight, ourselves we can choose to become, and keep becoming in the moment, and it is only through love that this can be achieved. Do I love enough to see where I am tempted to live in polarity, to see myself as separate, as somehow better or worse than? There is another interesting concept. Comparison, which of course is the root cause of judgement. Without comparison we just are; not separate, not alone, never better or worse than, perfectly imperfect.

Evil is not as it seems, or rarely. Ugly evil is not the truly scary aspect. Beautiful, seductive, subtle evil is. After all, evil is said to be the deceiver. In your face horribleness deceives no one. It usually appears to be fear based, it feeds on fear, so perhaps our task it to dare to view our own fear and what it causes us to do, and learn to see beyond that. But fear can make us build ourselves up in a whole range of ways, not just break ourselves down. I have felt fear in the past 24 hours. It was something pretty unimportant, but I still needed to see that I was making myself separate and drawing in so that I could release it, open myself to all that is again. To love.