Since it's a rainy day in Sauve, and my planned hike in the Mer des Rochers is on hold, I'll have fun playing with Edg's post instead.
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Duveyoung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Turq, > > I say to you, as Crocodile Dundee said to the African-American > chauffeur (after that guy had thrown his limousine's trunk-hood, > boomerang shaped, radio/phone aerial at a fleeing mugger,) "I > knew you were tribal." > > I love that you're promoting a film about God. Why not? The movie is fictional; so is God. :-) Sorry 'bout that. Just couldn't resist. :-) > Hee hee! Oh, don't get upset and smack me for saying this. Not if you get that the above really was a joke. > Truly, I think I'm starting to grok your reasons why using > the word God is a slippery slope for you. That's it exactly. It's like dating a woman who comes with a lot of baggage. :-) Really, it is. As has been pointed out in another thread by Curtis, people have a tendency to use the word God without defining what it means to them. And so the listener is forced to try to figure that out for themselves. Is the person thinking about the all-powerful white guy with the beard sitting on a massive throne in Heaven, dispensing justice, or is it some big-ass blue guy talking with his chariot driver, trying to convince him to go out and waste as many people as he possibly can, or is the person talking about some all-pervading entity that has no physical form and yet has a Plan For All Of This, or is the person talking about some kind of formless, sentienceless Void? Too much baggage to sort through. I just try to use neither the concept nor the word. > Me too. I love to talk about the "the plot of the script > of the Author of All Creation," and to do that I must > assume that there's a Writer... I don't assume that. Really. I don't think that there is either a script or a screenwriter. Or even a director. It's just a movie that's making itself, has always been making itself, and will always be making itself. The words "The End" will never appear onscreen. > I don't know you, but I'm getting to know my inner model of > you, that processing inside my brain I label as "Turq stuff." > That side-character in my mentation, that placing holding Turq > Doppelgänger, is starting to become tribal to me -- you' > ve got a skill set with the God tools, ya know? You can sling > it with the best of us. I'll take that as a compliment. Slinging is an underappreciated artform. :-) > Turq, help us in our cliff-notes-of-Turq, would you say that, > if folks had to have a "well known reference" to grok you, > that you be more like a Zen monk, Buddhist wandering monk, > Buddhist Ashram's Top Devotee, Kwai Chang Caine, Master Li > Mu Bai, Mr. Miyagi? I think there's a strong case to say > you're like that blind monk, Pai Mei, that taught Uma how > to fight in Kill Bill, but maybe you see his ferocity and > unbending anger that "anyone would purposefully not be > focused on the path to freedom" may make him more of a Master > Sergeant than a Master Swami. Still, sometimes I do see that > deep-heart intent in your presentations here that could come > off as quite scary to those who can't see the "spiritual > professionalism" of it. If I had to put money on it, I'd say > you're more like Nisargadatta's temperament. All of the above, and so many more. Really. The spiritual teacher I studied with for a long time after I left the TM movement once created a lapel button that said, "Know Thyselves." That's really who I am. These days I seem to "swap out" selves at least once a day, sometimes more often. The basic metaphor is that rather than believe that each of us has a fixed self, with different "sides" of our "personality," I believe instead that each of us has *millions* of selves that "swap out" on a fairly regular basis in anyone who is making any kind of spiritual progress. It's actually not a favor to try to "bag" someone who believes this :-), because our path is to become "bagless," to keep flowing with it all, and to have fun with whatever self we might wake up wearing, or shift into later that same day. That said, the best way I can think of to "bag" the particular self-in-charge on this rainy day is to pursue your movie metaphor and tell you the movie characters he identifies with strongly. That would be Philbert in "Pow Wow Highway," Mal and *all* of the other regular cast members of "Firefly," Lester Burnham in "American Beauty," Amélie Poulan in "Amélie," Seth in "City Of Angels," Constantine in "Constantine," Baptiste Debureau in "Children Of Paradise," both don Juan and his shrink in "Don Juan de Marco," Steve in "The Tao of Steve," Joel Goodman in "Risky Business," Chance in "Being There," the Little Tramp in "The Gold Rush," Jeremiah Johnson in the film of the same name, Frank in "Thief," all three principal characters in "Mindwalk," George Malley in "Phenomenon," Miyamoto Musashi in "The Samurai Trilogy," Zatoichi in the series of Japanese films made about him, Richard Courtois in "The Advocate," Elvis in "Bubba Ho-Tep," Harley Stone in "Split Second," Brother Cadfael in the "Cadfael" series, Brother William in "The Name of the Rose," Kyle Reese in "The Terminator," Butch *and* Sundance, Bill *and* Ted, Romy *and* Michelle, Thelma *and* Louise, Joe in "Joe vs. the Volcano," Kaiser Soeze in "The Usual Suspects," and Rick in "Casablanca." And that's just who I am on Fridays. :-) > Since there's no "you" really to be found in any localized > sense... Or an infinite number of them. > ...and no symbol of you can be anything but a truly colossal > besmirching of your true status... Or an elevation of it. :-) <snip> > I like the idea that if I point a stick anywhere, I'm pointing > at creation. Like that, when I say, "Here's Turq," I'm merely > pointing anywhere and hitting your bull's eye. Here a Turq, > there a Turq, everywhere a Turq Turq, Old Man Do-good had a > farm, e i e i o. Exactly. > There's that story about the person who died and the wise men were > called to bring him back to life, and those priests called for his > soul to return from heaven and reanimate his body once again, but > nothing happened. So they called for his soul to return from any of > the "three worlds," and yet he still did not return. Finally, the > priests ran out of options, and with a great sigh said, "Soul, come > back from where ever you're at." And the soul returned. Like that, > maybe Turq, the real and only Turq is only present where no one can > find him -- even his own ego must perforce search fruitlessly about > in that very tiny space called "that which can be known." > > Something like that? > > Help us out! There is no real and only Turq, as far as I can tell. There are many of them, and all of them are equally "me" and equally "not me." They come and go, while "I" remain, and try my best to remain unattached to them *as* they come and go. > But, hey, no complaints about me, cuz you used the word God first! Great tag line. :-) Unc
