Turq wrote:
The future -- meaning external reality -- has its own
existence, and its own set of dreamers, all trying to
"create their own futures." We are just one more input
into that gigantic computer program, not the writers
of it. Sometimes it works out according to our input,
other times according to other people's input.
Bronte writes:
I agree mostly. But I would say we all create reality together. We all have
access to the same computer -- okay, kind of like Fairfield Life. What appears
on the screens of FFL is not what Bronte wants to appear there nor what Turq
wants to appear there nor Off-World, Lurk, etc. What appears on FFL is what
anyone who belongs to it wants to input there: it ALL shows up, everybody's
contribution. I can influence the direction of what appears on FFL in the
future by creating some interesting threads that others may want to glom onto,
but I can't control what others are creating. The end result is a big mosaic
that includes every contributor's wonderful creativity.
I think life is like that, or reality. We all are co-creating it all the
time. There's no pre-arrangement for what will show up -- it's whatever we and
our fellow creators put there. We all work off the same power, the same
computer program, that sustains all of our contributions, even the nasty ones.
On FFL, we are sustained by the computer program that is its basic framework.
That much of what happens is provided by "our creator." What we do with the
program, though, how we use it, is up to the collective us.
Turq wrote:
The New Age crowd tends (IMO) to glom onto the occasions
in which things work out the way they want them to,
and believe that they "created" things happening that
way. At the same time, they conveniently forget the
far more numerous times when things *didn't* work
out the way they wanted them to.
Bronte writes:
Yeah, I see that, too. I think the reason it happens like that is (1) that
people aren't taking into the account the other creators of reality, and the
potential of those people's desires to cancel out their own, and (2) that our
mind's aren't always in one piece about what we're creating: we may be working
on wealth, for instance, but if part of us thinks wealth is creepy, that will
work against wealth coming into our life. Again, it's like two waves cancelling
each other.
As far as other people's desires cancelling out our own goes, I've given some
thought to that. What I've come up with is that if you have a desire that is so
universal in aspect that it includes not just what you want but what everybody
in the situation wants, that desire will meet with no resistance in the
universe -- it won't get cancelled out. For instance, suppose you and Mr. X are
competing for the same job. You both desire it greatly, so your desires may
cancel each other. Or, whosever desire is strongest will win. Alternatively,
you could revise your desire from "I hope I get the job and beat out Mr. X" to
"I want that guy and me both to get great jobs -- each of us finding one that
lets us be creative to the max and that suits our personal requirements to a
T." With that kind of reality-creating, you and X will both get great jobs, and
whichever one gets the job in question will be the one it's best suited to.
There are no losers in such an arrangement.
IMO, if we can tap into that level of universal harmony when we think a
thought (have a desire), it will be fulfilled, and in a way that harmonizes
with the desires of everyone else on the playground.
Turq wrote:
Me, I'm happiest with remembering both sides of the equation and just
trying to live well with whatever future presents itself, without expectation.
Bronte writes:
Nothing wrong with that either. But whenever you do have a desire, it helps
to know you can manifest it if you want to, that the cosmic computer will
respond to your input if you input mindfully.
Turq wrote:
Another example of the synchronicity thing happened to my friend Robert Crumb
last year....Iterdependent origination. Neither of them was looking for that
particular conjunction of interests; they just happened. But because they were
both inspired by the same thing, their paths crossed. Life is weird, eh?
Bronte writes:
Another cool story. By the way, I shared the Joni Mitchell and key stories
with a friend last night who was feeling she had no control in her life, and
she said they were "medicine stories" that uplifted her spirit and made her
week.
With the Robert Crumb story, that may be an example of like attracting like.
Or maybe, one of the two people had a desire to hook up with another person who
shared their interest in Genesis. In any case, the same last name and the mail
mix-ups in the past? That is really just mind-blowing. It appears the universe
has a sense of humor.
I used to work at a high-powered corporate law firm years ago (as a legal
secretary), and was always amazed and amused at the telling names attached to
particular cases. On a lumber suit, you had people named Timber and Oakes. On
other cases you had lawyers named Swindle and Lyer.
TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bronte Baxter
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> I LOVED your Road Trip story! Talk about being in the groove!
> Your friend Dakota sounds amazing.
He is.
> But does he (do you) ride the wave of Tao with these
> synchronicities or are you creating the events by
> expecting them?
A good question. I would say that Dakota expects
them; his whole life is based on waiting for nature
to reach out and "support" him. I'm not quite like
that; these days I find that I don't have very many
expectations, and yet I keep running into cool
moments anyway. All in all, I like my method better,
but different strokes, etc.
> The latter wouldn't be the case in instances like the
> girl who you gave the key to, as you didn't expect it,
> you just went somewhere on a hunch. But even in that
> case, was it she, in her need, who created the event?
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Buddhism
settles this issue by talking about interdependent
origination; it's a combination of the two. As for
the chicken and the egg question, the best answer
to that one was an old cartoon I saw in Playboy.
A chicken and an egg are sitting in bed, smoking
a cigarette, and the caption reads, "Well...I guess
we settled that question, didn't we? :-)
> Dakota's certainty that he would run into Joni Mitchell
> could be explained as expectation creating reality. I
> wrote a ten-lesson course on that subject: "Imaginate
> Your Way to a Better Life."
Could be. It felt more like Castanedan "seeing" to
me -- catching a glimpse of an alternate future and
getting a feeling that it was a true "seeing."
> I don't deny the reality of Tao-surfing, though. If
> we create reality (and I think we do), we create it
> on those waves. All hail to the Tao and the magic of
> the moment! Thanks for some wonderful reading, Turq.
De nada. I'm not convinced that we "create our future."
I'm far more of an interdependent origination kinda guy.
In my book no one -- no matter what their state of
consciousness, no matter how powerful their Woo Woo
Rays might be -- has the ability to "create" a future
timeline unless the future itself decides to cooperate.
The future -- meaning external reality -- has its own
existence, and its own set of dreamers, all trying to
"create their own futures." We are just one more input
into that gigantic computer program, not the writers
of it. Sometimes it works out according to our input,
other times according to other people's input. The
New Age crowd tends (IMO) to glom onto the occasions
in which things work out the way they want them to,
and believe that they "created" things happening that
way. At the same time, they conveniently forget the
far more numerous times when things *didn't* work
out the way they wanted them to. Me, I'm happiest
with remembering both sides of the equation and just
trying to live well with whatever future presents
itself, without expectation.
The fascinating thing for me in the difference between
Dakota and myself is that we're still great friends,
we still are almost completely devoted to our respec-
tive spiritual paths, and we had similar backgrounds.
He was a TM teacher; I was a TM teacher. We never met
during the TM days, but when we did we discovered that
we actually had girlfriends in common. Both of us
blew out of that movement early, and found our Way
to the Rama trip. Both of us blew out of that trip
at about the same time as well, for different reasons.
He continued along the path of Guru-Of-The-Month,
flitting from teacher to teacher...and it seems to
work for him; he seems happy. I went the other direc-
tion and focused more on life as the teacher, not
teacher as life. We're like Hesse's Narcissus and
Goldmund in a way. But I'd say we're both old farts
who are managing to have a lot of fun with our lives
at an age when a lot of the older people we see around
us aren't, so I think that despite the focus of our
respective paths, the general direction of those paths
is the same.
Another example of the synchronicity thing happened
to my friend Robert Crumb last year. He is working on
a fairly serious project for him, doing his version
of the book of Genesis from the Bible. And he's doing
it seriously -- no parody or satire. But Robert is
easily distracted, and the summer was going to be an
endless stream of guests through his house, so he
was looking for an apartment in the vicinity in which
to "hole up" for the summer and get some serious work
done on the book.
So what does he find? An apartment being rented by
an English woman with the last name of Crumb, whose
mail they used to get by mistake when they first
moved to France 15 years ago. As he's walking around
the apartment checking it out, he notices the book-
shelves and their contents. It turns out that this
woman did her Ph.D. thesis at Oxford on Genesis, so
the bookshelves are full of those books. She is an
expert on the ancient languages of the time, and is
fascinated enough by his work to offer to act as a
consultant to him any time he needs one.
Interdependent origination. Neither of them was look-
ing for that particular conjunction of interests;
they just happened. But because they were both inspired
by the same thing, their paths crossed. Life is weird, eh?
---------------------------------
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