Abrogating power Options

[Apres Laulyam]

Well I for one will eschew the taking of another master. That sounds full of hubris but, isn't part of the anguish of having had a spiritual master, and then through some crisis, saying, oh no ye don't, doesn't that make you feel like there was a huge abrogation of power? In the end, whoever stands in front of us, with whatever documentation or mantra or musical accompaniment, well, we are the ones who say 'Yes, this is so.'

[Homer]

If we learn to receive the wisdom each person can impart to us, then all we meet become our spiritual masters.

[Kalisurfer]

If we learn to receive the wisdom each person can impart to us, then all we meet become our spiritual masters.

I do like the idea that everyone we meet has something to offer us Homer. Every interaction we have with strangers, friends, family and workmates, not to mention even that of the animal world and nature in general has something to inform or teach us something. That even the more negative personalities that we cross paths with in our daily lives leave some type of information that we can use, learn and grow from. Bad experiences allow us to reflect upon our immediate initial reaction, be it anger, fear, hurt, confusion or perhaps understanding, compassion and a realization of why such an event has transpired on our watch. All this makes sense in some way, that the world and our life can be the greatest teacher we can have if this is the personal life choice one makes in lieu of being an ascetic monk, living a life separate from society in solitude, while traveling to the more interior regions of awareness, to the degree that such contemplation slows down the process of thinking and analyzing things, perhaps getting to the source of consciousness and awareness in whatever spiritual tradition it is practiced.

Taking ownership of our life choices and our responses to daily situations are in themselves a spiritual path for me personally. The idea that one purported man of knowledge has to be my guide through life, that I am beholden to him for eternity by some magic chord that binds us on a soul level eternally, being bestowed during a symbolic ritual from medieval India has all the quality of a science fiction or fantasy novel when looked at objectively through the lens of time and separation. There is a side of me that rather liked the more primitive indigenous rituals that I experienced as a devotee, like fire sacrifices and the recitation of ancient words and sounds that still seem rather uplifting and attractive when stripped of their intellectual meaning and negative associations in my mind, but the whole concept of the eternal guru, that does now seem like the highest form of paternalistic utopian ideas I ever engaged in, the idea of the eternal daddy who has a special phone line to other eternal daddies that goes all the way to the switchboard manned by angels who report directly to the ultimate big daddy in the sky! Wow!

The idea that my eternal daddy would suffer on a spiritual karmic level when I did wrong, or would prosper when I did the right thing (whatever he told me to do), now seems rather irrational and something extremely naïve. That my eternal daddy-o was someone that I had to confide my most intimate life details toward, someone whom I had to ask permission of to have children or seek a new career seems almost scary now in retrospect, making me ask in a strong shouting voice, “How Could YOU?”

Many people live by this idea, be they Buddhist, Hindu, Christians or Muslims (or many thing in between the cracks, “Ain’t that right Dear Father Ronnie Hubbard!”), and sometimes they have a direct source to heaven type Dad that is rather sane with a sense of humor, which offers them a life run smoothly and without much harm, but these dads seem rather the exception to the rule.

I am a spiritual orphan now by choice, but a grown up orphan that is not looking for paternal direction or guidance, be it for the better or worse at times of personal crisis. I do have family and friends though, which includes many of you here reading this, and that is what I am grateful for, and that is the source of my sustenance and growth in all things. The beauty of having the world be your teacher is, you never know at any moment when you will learn something profoundly new and relative to current reality of the life being lived, like what stranger is about to be your friend, or what adversary is about to awaken a new realization, so this life as teacher can be an extremely available and profound indeed, and it does not have to be a know-it-all guy either!

[Homer]

Haha, Kali. Really the whole show is ridiculous - life and everything around it.

We have such a limited vision of such basic things such as the intellect and intelligence. I listened to a radio show the other night wherein the latest scientific evidence is that animals are far, far more intelligent than we have ever recognized or admitted, unless one counts the mystics and sensitives who are able to 'see.'

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stori...009/2497230.htm

I doubt many people would recognize truth even if they tripped over it.

No wonder we are so willing to give away our personal spiritual responsibility to some crass jerk who uses guilt to quiet the flock.

[zanardi]

Kali, can one agree more than I do with you? If anybody does, it is a new world record!

ps. can I use your text?

[Apres Laulyam]

Move over Zanardi, I may not agree with Kalisurfer more than you, but just as much!

Homer, yes, and Kalisurfer, yes yes yes. It's too early in the morning for me to say more than that. I would just botch it.

Let me just say, you ease my soul-cramp.

I'll have to come back later, as this is irresistible.

[angrezi]

I agree with zanardi more than kalisurfer

[Kalisurfer]

Kali, can one agree more than I do with you? If anybody does, it is a new world record!

ps. can I use your text?

Kiittää te lähimmäinen!

Wow, likewise to a fellow literary traveler in the colder northern lands across the ocean! Yes, you can use the words any time you wish, which is quite an honor really ... Thanks!

[Kalisurfer]

Move over Zanardi, I may not agree with Kalisurfer more than you, but just as much!

Homer, yes, and Kalisurfer, yes yes yes. It's too early in the morning for me to say more than that. I would just botch it.

Let me just say, you ease my soul-cramp.

I'll have to come back later, as this is irresistible.

What a great name for a band, "The Soul Cramps!"

Thanks for the kind words, really appreciate it all, but the same exists from reading your posts, so likewise sister Apres!

[Kalisurfer]

I agree with zanardi more than kalisurfer

As I agree with U!!!

though i think we may be wringing out all the gree in agreement.

[0Seeking Truth0]

What a great name for a band, "The Soul Cramps!"

Indeed, the name is right up there with the band some women friends and I were getting together before I left Alachua: The Raving Bitch Bhajan Band.

[0Seeking Truth0]

Seriously.....yes, Apres Laulyam, there was a huge abrogation of power. A huge, unnatural, dysfunctional, damaging abrogation of power. Of our inner voice. This was one of my reasons for reaching the conclusion that I stated elsewhere, that we do not need someone between us and God. Especially someone who's not qualified and who, after screwing up our lives, forces us to say, "Oh no you don't!"

And Homer, this is a beautiful concept of spirituality which you have articulated. It is a concept that existed, unarticulated, within my heart. And, weirdly, I have to say that I feel much more able to pursue it, to practice it, outside of ISKCON.

And Kalisurfer, your writing is just beautiful.

[metamorphosis]

abrogate
To abolish, do away with, or annul, especially by authority.

abolish
1. To do away with; annul.
2. To destroy completely.
annul
To make or declare void or invalid, as a marriage or a law; nullify.
To obliterate the effect or existence of:

[Apres Laulyam]

I am not able to sort out everything I want to say. So I'll just jabber it out.

This place, all I've read, it is causing, as I maybe suspected it would, a veritable fire-storm in my mind, also my heart. A writer whose opinion I respect, once 'yelled' at me, in another world, (site), that we KNOW ourselves, and if we 'write, to find out what we mean', that we are LYING. I do not feel, that I am transparent to myself, or, maybe it is that I am an expert hider, (liar). So, since I am dealing with non-transparencies, I find my reactions to these conversations surprising. I am 'finding out what I think and feel'. Possibly it is also because I have spent waaaay too much time in my own head, alone. It is revelation upon revelation, that I am giggling, pondering, looking away and remembering long-buried feelings, not only about the movement, but all subjects of, loss, integrity, awareness, loyalty, sexuality, honor, et cetera et cetera.

Homer and Kalisurfer;
yes that is the way I deal now. Man, when some people come in my life, they are like walking messengers, flipping Tarot Cards, or 'trouble in a three piece suit'. I know from the get-go, we are going to 'learn'. And, as Kalisurfer said, every creature, every person and incident, every modality, the wind and rain, our own bodies changing, all of it, can be significant, in ways that we once thought, perhaps, only shastra, the guru, and such, could be.

But also, Kalisurfer;
Yes, that being an orphan, but a grown-up orphan, spot on! In many ways, when I left the movement, I took up as the girl I was. A girl. Without a Supreme Daddy. And so, had to take up the learning that in some ways I 'put off', in ISKCON. In many ways, I had to learn what my friends who did not join religious movements already knew. How to stand on my own hind legs. How to feed myself, how to discern true friends, how to make a living, all of it. How to be.

Now I am editing myself; I doubt that saying more here, will be of any benefit to anyone else but me. I see by my readings here, that people 'go at' life, from different perspectives, with different tools. This is natural, and we may change 'valencies' or methods, in one lifetime. I am most like an emotional douser. I sense life through my body and emotions, although I am deeply attracted and respectful of the more cerebral approach. But my compass, is busted. Maybe it would have gotten busted anyway, without my having left a whole way of life behind. I see that some of you are erudite, verbal and learned, in ways that it's probably too late in my life to adopt. But that's alright. Somebody's got to play the lute (Orpheus, Jimi), somebody's got to be an interpreter, somebody else is a hopeful romantic. I admire the healers here. The cooks, and farmers, the arguers, the mothers and fathers. I couldn't really DO that freely, in ISKCON.

One more thing; I see that some people left on terms of escaping brutalities, to their emotions and bodies. Some people left because their thinking pierced the veil, and they were left intellectually unsatisfed, hungry. Others were simply horny, or people who wanted to laugh and sing songs, that were sacred to them, but did not appear in the Vedic norm. What ye gonna do? At the end of the day.

Oh criminy. I am over-stimulated here, but that's because all of this stuff was waiting, subterraneanly, (I never can spell that word). I can't parse it out. But you all in your different ways, ARE messengers to me, diplomats and emissaries, with your different languages and pursuits. We have in common some fundamental things. (or at least they appear to be fundamental; we'll see what happens when the sun comes up, eh?) I very much appreciate that, as Seeking Truth said, some of you have been through all this hashing, but you continue to explain and listen and tell your stories, for those of us who are just comin' through. I REALLY APPRECIATE that.

Which leads me to another thread that I just GOTTA respond to. Stimulus, response, stimulus, response. Hahahaha ha.

[0Seeking Truth0]

abrogate
To abolish, do away with, or annul, especially by authority.

abolish
1. To do away with; annul.
2. To destroy completely.
annul
To make or declare void or invalid, as a marriage or a law; nullify.
To obliterate the effect or existence of:

Yeah, Meta, AL is one smart and sophisticated chick - ahem, I meant to say, woman. And I guarantee she doesn't use a thesaurus. These words, like abrogate, are all in her head.

[Apres Laulyam]

I can't spell subterranean. Hey, I did it, by accident! No squiggly lines underneath.

[0Seeking Truth0]

I can't spell subterranean. Hey, I did it, by accident! No squiggly lines underneath.

I took Latin for seven years (from a fallen and deeply sensual Franciscan monk).....

Sub, below. Terra, the earth. Then just tack on the end.

[Apres Laulyam]

you took latin from a, what else don't I know about you?
Seven YEARS? 'deeply sensual Franciscan monk'?! Sub terra nean. Subterranean. Hey! It works!

Gosh, I would've gotten an F.

uh, I better go eat something.

[0Seeking Truth0]

[quote name='Apres Laulyam' post='68976' date='Feb 25 2009, 02:04 AM']what else don't I know about you?
[quote]

[evakurvan]

Sub terra nean.

sub = below
terra = earth

If you want to make more a game out of spelling that word further switch to french

sub terra -- nean

neant = nothingness, void, emptiness, nil, space.

so,
below the earth, ______ .