I share the questions below. It would be nice if some realized people here would address these questions on the basis of firsthand knowledge. Or those of great book-larnin' could tell us what the sages say. Still, my comments are interleaved below.
> > Gillam: > > > > The Witness can discern whether thoughts are green > > or grey, pleasant or boorish. Discernment is different > > from judging. > > Stein: > > I've never been clear how the Witness can > discern, or discriminate, or differentiate. > That seems like a mental function to me. > I thought the Witness just *be's*. Initially, yeah, which is why we don't notice it. But with all this meditating and sidhis-doing, the mind cultivates the ability to entertain activity along with the silence. > > Gillam > > > > enlightened people can be assholes. They > > have no motivation to change because their > > relative personalities, jerks though they may > > be, are fine to the non-judgmental Self. > >Stein: > > Well, but their relative personalities might > engage in self-criticism just as anyone's does. This is an idea I'd like clarified: the idea of self-reflection. Who's reflecting on what? Is it really the relative, small "s" self reflecting on itself? Or could something bigger be going on? > Stein: > > Most people have mental > dialogs like this at times. Seems to me Tolle > bounced off a very common experience to come to > his realization. What's unsual is what he got > out of the experience, not the experience itself, > no? Yes, and what intrigues me is the possibility that I could get something profound out of the same mundane experience. That's why I'm inquiring into it, and inviting input from others. > Stein: > > here's a famous passage from St. Paul that > hints at the same dichotomy, albeit expressed as a > magnificently messy tangle: > > For that which I do, I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; > but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I > consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that > do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, > in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; > but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I > would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I > do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that > dwelleth in me. > > I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with > me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see > another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and > bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. > O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this > death? > > I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I > myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. > > --Romans 7:15-24 (KJV) Someday I hope to see the glory in Paul's thoughts, but today I have to say he strikes me as one messed up dude. - Patrick Gillam To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
