Waves of Consciousness

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Permalink Reply by Debrah McCabe on September 13, 2011 at 4:04am

That consciousness that we aspire to is a two edged sword.  With that will come an awareness of the brutality of human beings and it brings emotional anguish to those who are so 'blessed'.

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Permalink Reply by Anshu Patre on September 13, 2011 at 4:26am

As ken wilber says "It hurts more, but you feel it less" The realization that you are everyone means that although you feel deep compassion for all things, there is an understanding that everything thats happening will happen no matter the "anguish" you feel. With that comes acceptance and thus detachment. What will be will be. if you can take action to alleviate suffering, then take it, if not then why be depressed and poison the atmosphere around you. This is easier said than done, but everytime i feel sad about somalia or something, i put space around my sadness, allowing me to feel compassion while accepting things as they are.

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Permalink Reply by Debrah McCabe on September 13, 2011 at 6:52am

Very nice words, but as you say, easier said than done.  I live in a farming community.  Everytime I drive down the road, the evidence is there, animals confined in filth and squalor, suffering and in pain and there is nothing that I can do.  It is accepted, possibly even by you.  I do not feel it less because that deep compassion is activated day after day after day.  And hot on the heels of the empathy with the creatures so confined is the knowledge that we do the same thing to human beings.  Wikileaks has done us the service of laying bare the corporate and military abuses of the helpless people in countries around the world and we the public wring our hands and the violence continues without even a ripple.  The journalists who were shot down by an American helicopter crew have never seen justice despite the fact that the evidence is there, in the open.  Afghanny toddlers, found with handcuffs on and a bullet in the head, have never seen justice.  It doesn't hurt less, and you feel it more because living in this world is like picking the scab off a wound so that it never heals.  Putting the sorrow in a box, locking it and turning away, only leaves me with the full knowledge that on the shelf in my closet is a box filled with pain.

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Anshu Patre on September 13, 2011 at 2:40pm

You are right, it is tough, and it is a great thing that you feel such indignance and have empathy for other Beings. But I don't know how to explain except that you have to transcend the dualities of aversion and desire, you have to trascend both caring and not caring. Its paradoxical but im sure you realize it is your desire to alleviate suffering that causes you suffering. And it is your aversion to injustice that causes you suffering. God is both good and bad. Love and hate. Everything has a purpose. Yes it is terrible, but even the suffering of other Beings is a prime motivating factor for others to awaken. I know it was for me, who was formally addicted to drugs. It is was the suffering that brought me out of it. Its tough to explain in words but everything is connected and meant to be, as we see the suffering brought on by our egoic race is creating a shift in conciousness. Do not lock anything away in a box, through meditation i find that I can truly be above my desires and emotions, i accept suffering, i bring awareness to my suffering, i become suffering thus i do not suffer. I do not forget it. Your suffering is an emotional, physical reaction. By realizing the underlying awarness that pervades your Being and all things, essentially the spritual conciousness that is the space in which your thoughts and emotions happen, by realizing that you accept and transcend. I reccomend you read Eckart Tolle's A New Earth. It really helped me understand whats going on in my head. One thing is for certain, suffering is unneccesary. 

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Permalink Reply by Lee Tamplain on September 13, 2011 at 5:16pm

I appreciate your words, Anshu.  I will also look for Eckart Tolle's "A New Earth".

Anshu Patre said:

You are right, it is tough, and it is a great thing that you feel such indignance and have empathy for other Beings. But I don't know how to explain except that you have to transcend the dualities of aversion and desire, you have to trascend both caring and not caring. Its paradoxical but im sure you realize it is your desire to alleviate suffering that causes you suffering. And it is your aversion to injustice that causes you suffering. God is both good and bad. Love and hate. Everything has a purpose. Yes it is terrible, but even the suffering of other Beings is a prime motivating factor for others to awaken. I know it was for me, who was formally addicted to drugs. It is was the suffering that brought me out of it. Its tough to explain in words but everything is connected and meant to be, as we see the suffering brought on by our egoic race is creating a shift in conciousness. Do not lock anything away in a box, through meditation i find that I can truly be above my desires and emotions, i accept suffering, i bring awareness to my suffering, i become suffering thus i do not suffer. I do not forget it. Your suffering is an emotional, physical reaction. By realizing the underlying awarness that pervades your Being and all things, essentially the spritual conciousness that is the space in which your thoughts and emotions happen, by realizing that you accept and transcend. I reccomend you read Eckart Tolle's A New Earth. It really helped me understand whats going on in my head. One thing is for certain, suffering is unneccesary. 

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Permalink Reply by Debrah McCabe on September 13, 2011 at 6:35pm

God'Is".  It is we who are both good and bad.  It is we who are filled with love and hate.  There is no purpose, it all just 'is'.  And the game goes on and on and on. And when this cycle is done and the universe contracts, it will begin again and to what end?   Nothing is 'meant to be' as though that is a reason for it. It just is.  We hurt, and harm and then go home to happily congratulate ourselves on being such good people because we love our children or we are kind to our old parents, or today we petted a dog instead of kicking it and all the while we (the human race) continue to abuse anyone or anything as we deem 'necessary'.  Our compassion comes when it is convenient for us and the thought of acting for the sake of others at the expense of our appetites is seldom acceptable.

I have read Eckhart Tolle's writings, I have read Neale Donald Walsh, I have read Jiddu Krishnamurti and Gandhi's words and I have read many others.  And the suffering continues and the pain ebbs and flows and washes over the world and the empathy that I feel acknowledges the suffering of the helpless and the hapless.  I am past suffering and I am angry, and we should all be filled with anger instead of justifications or excuses for the harm that comes out of this miserable humanity.  I understand the spirit in which you offer up these soft words, but they do not change anything.  At best, they do not add to the violence that exists and for that at least I am grateful.  I am glad that you've been able to find a way to 'rise above suffering', but in truth, the suffering is still there, and they still scream and cry out to those who torture them, to us, to end the agony, to bless them, human and animals, with peace.

Anshu Patre said:

You are right, it is tough, and it is a great thing that you feel such indignance and have empathy for other Beings. But I don't know how to explain except that you have to transcend the dualities of aversion and desire, you have to trascend both caring and not caring. Its paradoxical but im sure you realize it is your desire to alleviate suffering that causes you suffering. And it is your aversion to injustice that causes you suffering. God is both good and bad. Love and hate. Everything has a purpose. Yes it is terrible, but even the suffering of other Beings is a prime motivating factor for others to awaken. I know it was for me, who was formally addicted to drugs. It is was the suffering that brought me out of it. Its tough to explain in words but everything is connected and meant to be, as we see the suffering brought on by our egoic race is creating a shift in conciousness. Do not lock anything away in a box, through meditation i find that I can truly be above my desires and emotions, i accept suffering, i bring awareness to my suffering, i become suffering thus i do not suffer. I do not forget it. Your suffering is an emotional, physical reaction. By realizing the underlying awarness that pervades your Being and all things, essentially the spritual conciousness that is the space in which your thoughts and emotions happen, by realizing that you accept and transcend. I reccomend you read Eckart Tolle's A New Earth. It really helped me understand whats going on in my head. One thing is for certain, suffering is unneccesary. 

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Permalink Reply by Debrah McCabe on September 13, 2011 at 7:31pm

And if suffering is unnecessary, than what are we to do with it?  And are we only concerned with our own suffering?   Do we content ourselves with sitting upon the meditational throne and seek our own little nirvana, and tell them who do suffer, to buck up, and it's all good, all for a purpose?  Does change come then out of our 'piety' and our personal peace, or does it come because something in us rises and says to the world that what they do, what we do,  is not right?  And I realize that using the words 'right or wrong' in a forum like this, are loaded words, but there is no other way to say it.  And if suffering has a purpose, then what stops me, what stops you, from kicking the dog, from abusing a child, from shooting an unarmed man? Do we not do them because we accept that they are 'wrong' things to do?   Or maybe we are to be the instrument of their evolution by bringing the necessary suffering to them and should hasten to help them reach their level of transcendance.. 

 

It is one thing to be unattached to outcomes, people, things, places, but it is another to see the torment of another and leave it there as though it's own existence justifies it.  This shift in consciousness comes about when those who become aware of the oneness of us all are willing to speak, to become a signpost to a better way.  Does the signpost stand mute, with no letters upon it's face to give a clue as to the 'better' way, or does it make a declaration and where does that declaration come from?  How can you declare a better way if you are not willing to 'make aware' the wrongness of the other way.  If society wants to get to a state of gentleness and compassion (let's just pretend here for a moment), and they are involved (unknowingly) in violence, is there not a legitimate call for pointing out that they are going the wrong way. And to disqualify the emotions that that direction rises out of, is effectually ignoring a part of us, which is part of the Source.  It is all one, it is part of joy and without that grief, how can we know joy?  If all I do is meditate to find peace, and having found peace dwell only there, how long before I do not realize that I have joy for there is nothing to compare it to.

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Eric Allen Bell on September 13, 2011 at 11:45pm

Pull back from the picture for a moment.  Step outside the story...

 

Who is suffering?

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Debrah McCabe on September 14, 2011 at 1:50am

Those who are weak and helpless.  Those who have no voice.  Those who cry out, those whom we choose not to hear.  And to suggest that they 'chose' to incarnate into the lives they have and so we must not, cannot, should not worry about it, is to ignore the possibility that those choices were made for your sake, to see how you will become involved, how you will help them as part of your own/my evolution. And if that is the case, than are our efforts to not 'feel' their pain, to let the suffering just be, is that not possibly short circuiting our own evolution and disrespecting of their 'sacrifice'?  Can we who claim to be aware take that chance?

How much of the 'story' of transcending the duality of aversion and acceptance, caring and not caring, comes out of Eastern religions that exist in a culture of caste systems and untouchables and how much of that is merely a justification for human ego, (I am superior, therefore I cannot touch, therefore I must not and need not become involved or feel their pain) because this is the life those who are lower, who suffer, have chosen? A social system that has become codified so to speak in religious beliefs and teachings and subsequently accepted by the Western world as we seek means to rationalize the brutality of humans against humanity, animals, the natural world.

Perhaps in accepting the story of 'transcendance......', we have done what the Hinda caste system sought to do, which is find reason and excuse for the violence that is wrought in our names and on our behalf.

 

Eric Allen Bell said:

Pull back from the picture for a moment.  Step outside the story...

 

Who is suffering?

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Lee Tamplain on September 14, 2011 at 7:16am

Debrah, do what YOU can.  What is it that you are looking for?  For governments to help all the oppressed; the victimized?  Most of the times it's the governments that are the oppressors.  What do you want done?  Who will do it?  At this point it comes down to doing what you can for those near you who are suffering and realize you are not the sufferer. My guru used to say "The suffering suffers", meaning the being involved does not suffer.  Sorry, I'm not trying to pull the rug from under you, but those were His words.  I'm not there yet.  I suffer.  Does the "soul" suffer?   Help those you can.  Perhaps it will alleviate your pain at other's suffering.

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Permalink Reply by Eric Allen Bell on September 14, 2011 at 9:53am

Debrah -

 

Pull back even farther from the story, lose the narration, pull back so far from the story its uncomfortable.  Then ask yourself the question - and this is not just some dumb exercise - this is a very serious question that demands a very serious approach if you really want to know the truth:

 

Who is suffering?

 

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Permalink Reply by Eric Allen Bell on September 14, 2011 at 9:56am

Lee - if by your own admission you do not understand the situation, is it wise to give advice about it?

Lee Tamplain said:

Debrah, do what YOU can.  What is it that you are looking for?  For governments to help all the oppressed; the victimized?  Most of the times it's the governments that are the oppressors.  What do you want done?  Who will do it?  At this point it comes down to doing what you can for those near you who are suffering and realize you are not the sufferer. My guru used to say "The suffering suffers", meaning the being involved does not suffer.  Sorry, I'm not trying to pull the rug from under you, but those were His words.  I'm not there yet.  I suffer.  Does the "soul" suffer?   Help those you can.  Perhaps it will alleviate your pain at other's suffering.

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