--- In [email protected], maskedzebra <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> Dear Feste36,
> I didn't miss seeing this, and as you will understand, it (and because of
> where it seemed to come from) was consoling to me. Indeed at the point that I
> read it, I was seriously considering suspending operations (for at least a
> week: the proper sentence for having abused my privileges here on FFL). I was
> not enjoying the persecution, and thought: Do I need this? Your few words
> restored my spirits somewhat, and I have renewed posting here. So thanks,
> Feste36.
> MZ
I've been enjoying your posts because of the intense intellectual, spiritual,
and emotional drama they reveal going on at what sounds like a very exalted
level of experience. I find these accounts quite remarkable, worthy of a
Nietzsche or a William Blake, both of whom lived vast inner lives, and very
dramatic ones, too, where few could follow. It cannot be easy.
I also found it very interesting, indeed unique from what I know of, to read of
someone who consciously removed himself from unity consciousness and
reestablished his identity as a personal, individual self that stands in a
subordinate relationship to a divine Other.
This struck a chord with me because my own experience seems to have followed at
least something of the path you outline, but without the feeling that one
perspective must be right and the other wrong. By that I do not mean that I
have ever experienced unity consciousness, but I have all my adult life (I
started TM when I was 17) imbibed the Indian philosophy of "unity is all there
is." And thanks to spiritual teachers who showed me how simple it is, I do
experience myself, whenever I choose, it seems, as existing within a vast
Nothing that is also myself (there seems to be no other way of describing it)--
although I do not experience that Nothing as God. That's not the word that
comes to mind at all.
My experience of God -- and it is an unmistakable and quite recent experience,
unlike anything else I've ever had -- is of a being who is quite Other than me,
completely separate from me, and yet who knows me intimately, and has infinite
compassion and a complete lack of judgment about me (neither of which qualities
have I ever been able to muster by myself to apply to myself), and all without
making a big deal out of it -- it's very gentle and quiet and simple and
practical. I find it rather humbling to have such experiences, the most recent
of which came at a time of crisis, and I don't think I am fooling myself about
it. I was being guided at that time by a Being who, one would have to say, even
though it feels rather awkward, is worthy of the name Lord or Heavenly Father,
just as the Christians say. I did not in any way at that time feel that I was
being guided by my "higher self," an overused New Age term which is probably
due for retirement.
Mind you, I'm not convinced that there is a dichotomy between these two
perspectives. They are just different viewpoints.
After all, in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna early on that the eternal
is within him. He is, in essence, a part of the one reality and can therefore
never cease to exist. (I take that to be close to the "Nothing" that I seem to
be able to experience at will.)
But when Krishna reveals himself to Arjuna in Chapter 11 in his full glory, he
is a Being who stands wholly apart from Arjuna, superior to him and infinitely
more vast than he, in every way imaginable.
Arjuna, then, in addition to receiving the knowledge that he is eternal -- he
is the vastness of the absolute that cannot, in the nature of things, ever pass
out of existence -- also has an experience of God as Other, as Not Myself.
I would like to continue to live with both perspectives. I can feel the
presence of the Nothing as the Self, but I don't feel that that invalidates an
I-Thou relationship between the individual person and the all-knowing and
all-seeing God who knows even when a sparrow falls to the ground. It's a
paradox in which the individual self may at once know a Unity that brings peace
and a sense of the vastness of Being, but also an Otherness that is beyond
anything that the individual self can merge or be at one with. It is just too
vast to be comprehended.
Such are my puny musings on a hot humid Saturday night in Fairfield, IA.
Once again, I have enjoyed your posts, MZ, which are written with such grace
and conviction and ruthless honesty. I think you are on an amazing journey.
>
> --- In [email protected], "feste37" <feste37@> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > Don't go, Masked Zebra. We love you. You make us think. Usually we just
> > hurl insults.
> >
> > --- In [email protected], Tom Pall <thomas.pall@> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 6:49 PM, maskedzebra
> > > <[email protected]>wrote:
> > >
> > > > Dear Tom,
> > > >
> > > > Just to clear one thing up. I never paid any attention to post counts,
> > > > because I never knew anything about limits. I probably should have; no
> > > > doubt
> > > > I was sent this information. But if ignorance is no excuse under the
> > > > law,
> > > > you at least should know that I was plumb dumb about this regulation,
> > > > and it
> > > > did not seem indulgent for the authorities to overlook this initial
> > > > flouting
> > > > of the rules, when, as a recent arrival in this country (FFL), I had no
> > > > idea
> > > > that there were any binding laws of the road. And besides, I found
> > > > myself,
> > > > once I began posting, having to fend off or respond to a multitude of
> > > > voices, each one more or less making a demand upon me to clarify, to
> > > > prove
> > > > myself.
> > > >
> > > > Of course had I known about the rule, you may be sure I would have
> > > > conformed. And since it is the spirit not the letter of the law that
> > > > counts,
> > > > are you willing to say that, in suspending the normal punishment when it
> > > > came to me, the editors at FFL violated your sense of justice?
> > > >
> > > > Because if this is your experience, I am willing, in being sincerely
> > > > convinced of this conviction of yours, to TAKE THE NEXT WEEK OFF FROM
> > > > POSTING.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > RC, don't place limits on yourself like that. Take next week and the week
> > > after and the week after.
> > >
> > > But Nature's already taking its course. You're quickly becoming
> > > irrelevant
> > > here just as you've become irrelevant wherever you've squatted. Soon all
> > > that be left behind will be some rotting turds, a God awful stench and
> > > flies.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > > Would it seem a more just universe if I did this? I assure you I am
> > > > willing
> > > > to bear the consequences of my actions.
> > > >
> > > > MZ
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
>
