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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 8th mo. 8, 2016 at 12:56pm

But suppose we simply aren't "in bondage to them" (though many are, 'tis sadly so)?

I'm not saying you need any outward system of moral accounting; but you realize that those books too need to balance.

This should not lead one into the position of one of those sleek, healthy rats in the 1960's crowding experiments (the ones who would pass blithely through the gangs of insanely screwing-&-trampling-everything rats whose social instincts had utterly collapsed amid the overstimulation of too many neighbors & interactions.)

But to an outside observer, it's very hard to know whether that may have actually become your position. How many of our fear-crazed fellow rodents are really capable of taking your message at all seriously?

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Permalink Reply by Keith Saylor on 8th mo. 8, 2016 at 1:09pm

I have no idea how many will actually take it seriously. I do know from testifying to the witness that most people do not take it seriously upon the first hearing. Some people take it seriously immediately. It is really not a concern of mine how many people take it seriously. Because, whether they actually take it seriously has nothing to do with me. I'm not invested in people taking it seriously or not taking it seriously. Either way, I speak I AM.



Forrest Curo said:

But suppose we simply aren't "in bondage to them" (though many are, 'tis sadly so)?

I'm not saying you need any outward system of moral accounting; but you realize that those books too need to balance.

This should not lead one into the position of one of those sleek, healthy rats in the 1960's crowding experiments (the ones who would pass blithely through the gangs of insanely screwing-&-trampling-everything rats whose social instincts had utterly collapsed amid the overstimulation of too many neighbors & interactions.)

But to an outside observer, it's very hard to know whether that may have actually become your position. How many of our fear-crazed fellow rodents are really capable of taking your message at all seriously?

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 8th mo. 8, 2016 at 2:00pm

Keith Saylor said:

I'm not invested in people taking it seriously or not taking it seriously. Either way, I speak I AM.

Those who don't respond to the One True Message are S.O.O.L; and that's just ~'not your problem'?

[It might well be fairer to your position to put it more like: "If they don't want it there's nothing I can do for them." I do understand that a person is only ready for what they're ready for when they're ready, not when someone else thinks they should be...

But I do feel that this was not Jesus' position, which I do see as far better.]

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Permalink Reply by Keith Saylor on 8th mo. 20, 2016 at 12:41pm

In your original post you wrote:

"the thing itself is not a method."

"What Jesus said wasn't: "If you're doing this right, you'll experience '_this_'!" He said, "Seek and you will find..." "Knock, and the door will be opened."

When the thing itself becomes method there is no need for a method.

When the activity of seeking and knocking becomes practice there is no need for a practice.

You asked: "Can people always know whether they are actually "turned to the Spirit", rather than: 'thinking that they're turned to the Spirit' "

Yes, people can know they are turned to the Spirit because it is the act of turning, seeking, knocking itself and in itself that is turning to the Spirit. If a person is thinking about being turned to the Spirit they are by the very act of thinking about it not actually in the activity of turning, however, the thinking about it manifests or presages the intention of stepping onto the porch and participating in the activity of knocking. It is a good thing to think about knocking; it is the thing itself to actually knock. It is in the knocking to live in the eternal method itself in itself without regard for any outward method or practice.

"Some people find it an easy call; how nice for them. And the rest of us...?"

As Jesus is recorded in scripture to have said, so it is with the rest of us. All we need do is turn from a life anchored in and informed by outward forms, practices, methods, institutions, bureaucracies, committees etc., and turn to a life anchored in and informed by the thing itself. It is in the activity of turning that is the thing itself itself. For those who do not find it easy to turn from outward forms, the promise is, even in the dis-ease of the act of turning and knocking ... There is grace and the door is opening.

Yes, Forrest. It is very "nice" (a wonderful blessing) for those is us who have entered into the activity of knocking itself in itself and been blessed by a life in the opening. For those who have yet to step into the activity itself in itself, for whatever reason, we admonish them otherwise. However, it is not ours to force another's conscience. It is ours to share a different way of being on this earth without being invested in the conformity of another conscience to the message.

The answer your question of how we practice turning to the Spirit? The activity of turning itself in itself is turning to the Spirit and is sufficient in itself. There is no need for an outward practice or method or committee to mediate or mitigate. To mitigate by committee manifests being outside the activity itself in itself and embracing outward prescriptions.

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 8th mo. 20, 2016 at 1:59pm

"When turning to the Spirit and thinking, just turn to the Spirit and think."

Some people can tell if they're thinking because when they think they're thinking they skrunch up their faces in some way.

But of course they don't really think any better that way. In fact, they're still thinking even if they don't skrunch up their faces.

No doubt 'turning to the Spirit' is analogous. They might also be thinking; they might not; that just isn't primarily what they uh.... think they're doing.

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Permalink Reply by Keith Saylor on 8th mo. 20, 2016 at 2:08pm

"When turning to the Spirit and thinking, just turn to the Spirit and think."

Are you quoting someone? Or is this your interpretation of my response? Because these are not my words.

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Permalink Reply by Forrest Curo on 8th mo. 20, 2016 at 3:04pm

I was just thinking of something a Zen teacher might say , along the lines of "When you're talking, just talk." (Hmmm, come to that, I don't think that Zen teachers actually say that; but then that might well be the way that 'dharma talks' are constructed.)

I guess the point I'm finding uncomfortable to lay down on is that such 'turning-to' is as much internal to a person who in fact turns to the Spirit -- as one's own awareness of existing, being, etc. There's a distinction between believing that I exist as a conscious being, and the awareness that I do -- which I find quite impossible to convey to a materialist, because that awareness is 'an illusion' in his mental map of the universe. Sometimes I think I 'catch' that awareness of existing, quite aside from any of the particular contents of such awareness -- but trying to talk about it, I find it-in-itself rather elusive...

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Permalink Reply by Keith Saylor on 8th mo. 20, 2016 at 4:52pm

"There's a distinction between believing that I exist as a conscious being, and the awareness that I do -- which I find quite impossible to convey to a materialist..."

I have not found it impossible to covey this distinction when it is made in the context of existence as a conscious being that based reflections through feelings, thoughts, desires, perceptions, institutions, The physical body, etc. Most people, whether overt materialists or not, will readily admit that their consciousness is dependent of being reflected through these forms once you ask them to consider being without them. Generally, the answer is that without these things consciousness goes dark. Now, taking it a step further, I ask them who it is that is perceiving their body, or the natural world, or who it is that is thinking those thoughts and feelings those emotions. That is, who is looking into those mirrors and seeing their reflection?

I essence I am asking them to turn from outward forms, to turn away from the mirrors they are reflected in and through. I am asking them, whether they experience anyone or anything without looking in the mirrors... Are they aware? Do they see and participate in immanent Being.

Many times, I have witnessed the Light shine ... Awareness happens to them and they know consciousness in a different way. This is the turning of which I am speaking. Others, have witnessed it, but do not trust it. Others, don't want to hear it. Others, just honestly don't see it. It is all just reality. In any, it is conveyable to some people, but that receptiveness is not my prerogative.

Today, I've been staining my deck around the house. It is not a task I am inclined to enjoy in itself. However, or of the ramifications of participating in immanent being is my identity, meaning, and purpose is not reflected through what I may be doing at the moment. I do not look forward to something I would rather be doing or think about what I have done in the past. Immanent Presence shows up in everything. Joy and peace is in Presence itself in itself and manifests even as I stain the deck. I know peace in all things and circumstances because awareness is not conditioned upon outward thoughts and activities I may be engaged in at a particular moment. What a blessing to no longer live, exist, and participate in a reflective consciousness.

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