A Noisy Squirrel Cage

spatialbean · Post by **spatialbean** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 2:46 am

Lisa!

You can have your cake and eat it, too.

Don't take your marbles and go home unless you must, but I challenge you that that is your ego speaking! No big whoop.

*passes out never ending cake to everyone*

phil · Post by **phil** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 3:39 am

spatialbean wrote:*passes out never ending cake to everyone*

Ha! That's funny Claudia. Pass a piece of never ending cake over here to Ted Nugent, would ya?

I can relate to Lisa's post, as I share her hermit tendencies to a degree. Just not to the degree of avoiding even Internet friends, who can be turned on and off at the flick of a mouse.

I observe that limiting my social involvement does make my life more peaceful, but probably not as ego educational.

Everybody creates their own balance between peace and education. I don't have an expert opinion on what that balance should be for me, let alone someone else, but I'm pretty clear there should be some kind of balance.

Even within a social setting, what's the right balance between letting the ego off the leash, and keeping it in the cage?

We get more education if we let the ego run a bit, but more peace if we don't.

My personal vote is that, long term, we get more peace from the educational process than overly managing the ego to keep everything sweet and nice etc.

be-lank · Post by **be-lank** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 5:15 am

IYIYI!

I knew I should of jumped overboard!

Okay. Okay.

I read and received what everyone wrote, and I feel very…. Loved! And back at ya’s.

This issue has been going on with me throughout. And increasingly so. Thus when Heidi posted about what makes you unpresent- the first thing that came was- “this.” It was like a sign!

I did not want to admit it, but I was not going to deny it.
If it were up to me, this would not be so for me.

This was not a need for attention. Though I do admit, it’s kinda groovy.

Here’s the plan. (Oh boy- a plan!)

There’s a few things I want to tend to through the site yet, and may comment- Oh hell you know I’ll comment!- on some things.

But then I will take a week or so off from the site. And I’ll see what happens. Then private Lisa will report back from the front lines.

And we’ll see what we shall see.

Now, whose up for ice-cream?

spatialbean · Post by **spatialbean** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 5:20 am

Hi Justphil,

Perhaps we have different ideas of what the ego is.

I guess we need education from ego experience until we don't anymore. Meaning, when we have awoken.

Being awake doesn't mean everything is sweet and nice, but it does mean that when "bad" things happen we don't have to be battered by them. Situations happen, war happens, death of loved ones happens. We shouldn't expect to not respond to that or to smile nicely thru it but we also don't have to throw ourselves on the pyre along with anyone.

There are things about Buddhism or whatever you want to call what Tolle teaches that do fly in the face of what we have all grown up thinking is the right way to behave or to react or to live. There is no making sense of it until it is completely accepted and the leap has been taken to incorporate what he teaches into your life completely. It is not something the mind can wrap itself around and experimented with mentally, it has to be lived.

I don't know if everyone has seen one of Tolle's DVDs where he is talking about a man who came to see him for counselling. The man talked all about his story and Tolle was smiling. The man became enraged and asked Tolle how he could smile at his dreadful story and he got up and walked out. From all "normal" life experience what Tolle did would be considered rude and unkind, but he was smiling at the man's attachment to something that didn't exist.

Anyway, I don't know where I am going with all this. My ego is a little ruffled right now and I feel defensive.

be-lank · Post by **be-lank** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 5:41 am

Claudia, you rock me in such a good way!

No matter what you write, I am either laughing or smiling.

Big Yes Dudette!

L. Bryson · Post by **L. Bryson** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 5:50 am

Claudia, I really liked your comment about not having to " throw ourselves on the pyre ".... I know I have done a marvelous job of not allowing myself to become overly invested in ANYTHING. I beleive balance is always the trick, and letting go and breathing our way through the BS that shows up at times.

I don't beleive " ego "is bad from an observational point of veiw.
We all like to play, have fun, be silly. Childlike not childish.
Ego really only becomes an issue when judgements and right/wrong,
" I'm.... better/smarter,wealthier, than.....thou. Therefore I AM
in some way BETTER THAN WHATEVER. I love people , I truly enjoy the way all the differences show up, I also pay attention to my inner voice and take periodic sabbaticals from the vortex of our madcap culture.

I keep my phone on permanent " Do not disturb" I watch for the little blinking light ( like the BATLINE

) Then I choose when and if to answer.
I think a common misconception in personel/spiritual growth arena's is that one must ascend to some monk like existance.... complete celibacy and solomness. I am way too vibrant for that! And, thats ok too.
It's all good.
Lining ourselves up with other likeminded individuals does'nt hurt either.
It is true we are often our own worst enemy's. Too hard on ourselves.

L.
[/b]

spatialbean · Post by **spatialbean** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 6:00 am

Yes no investment! Not making the self more or less by what is going on around it.

And the middle path...yes!

phil · Post by **phil** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 6:56 am

Hi Claudiabean!

spatialbean wrote:I guess we need education from ego experience until we don't anymore. Meaning, when we have awoken.

Well OK, agreed. When we have fully awoken, whenever that is.

In an interview with Andrew Cohen (if I recall correctly) even Tolle wondered aloud how his new popularity and schedule might effect his silence.

Until we have fully awoken, the potential for self deception remains high, eh?

I agree with you in theory, but in practise how many people have we met that are so present so often that they no longer can benefit from the observations of others?

I'm just trying to reflect upon the real now world, not the someday later world...

spatialbean wrote:Being awake doesn't mean everything is sweet and nice, but it does mean that when "bad" things happen we don't have to be battered by them.

I hear you. I'm with you that some space is better than no space. Agreed.

I'm just not taking the next step in to "the more space the better".

For 500 years the western world worshiped thought. And that brought us to a place where we are no longer working in the fields until the sun goes down, so we can reflect upon silence.

To this day, Tolle books are distributed world wide through a system that is powered by profit, ego and noise.

Kill the silence and the book loses it's power, kill the noise and the book never reaches our house.

Silence and noise working together, as a team, a unified system. Non dualistic.

spatialbean wrote:The man talked all about his story and Tolle was smiling. The man became enraged and asked Tolle how he could smile at his dreadful story and he got up and walked out.

Good for the man! What would we consider appropriate behavior here on the forum if someone arrives to share "my drama". Giggle at them and their illusion??

Laughing with each other while we're lost in illusion is a different matter.

Sounds like Tolle forgot the difference between laughing with someone and at them on that occasion. Which is OK, nobody bats 1000.

spatialbean wrote:Anyway, I don't know where I am going with all this.

Ha, I never know. I just sit down at the keyboard and play whatever song comes to mind.

spatialbean wrote:My ego is a little ruffled right now and I feel defensive.

Is that good, or bad? Or both?

spatialbean · Post by **spatialbean** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 7:21 am

Hi Justphil,

Wow I get confused talking to you sometimes. I thought we were talking about something else.

My ego is a little ruffled right now and I feel defensive.

Is that good, or bad? Or both?

Neither...it just is.

Claudiabean

summer · Post by **summer** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 7:36 am

There is a full moon shining brightly in the sky lately. Luna has her way of making us all act a little loony when she casts her magic spell on our Earth. The coyotes howl and holler, the wolves howl all night, and us humans feel restless too.

phil · Post by **phil** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 2:57 pm

spatialbean wrote:Wow I get confused talking to you sometimes. I thought we were talking about something else.

OK, I'm confused too. I tried to reply to five different quotes from your post.

OK, perhaps my reply in the 2nd section didn't follow your thread precisely, I can see that. You know, I guess I'm not clear exactly what the subject is here in the squirrel cage, as various folks make various contributions, each exploring their own way of seeing things.

The other replies I offered you seem like a direct reply, as best I can tell.

If you care to share what it was about my reply that seemed confusing, I'm listening.

phil · Post by **phil** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 2:24 am

In another thread John said,

Egoicmidget wrote:Mindstuff might be getting in your way to just being, without the what or why.

Deep intellectual observations might be interesting to verbalize and I think your about as smart as the mind can get but you can go beyond thought to the realm of vast understanding by simply letting it happen.

I see you standing at the door of no agenda, no mind just Phil and nature
a unity and oneness and a realization that this isn't all about mindstuff as you merge into the reality of the everpresent now.

I see you realizing not through your mind but your spirit (the silent observer) that we are all one.

Tolle mentions just allowing the NOW to be as it is.

John, well said. You've correctly identified the analytical nature of my personal form, and accurately described some of it's limitations.

Accepting those limitations is part of my practise, because what personality type could I be that would have no limitations? And what are the chances I could even change my personality type, given that I've been this way since before I was born? No kidding, I'm a mirror image of my Dad in this regard. That reality is a real teacher for me.

And besides, doesn't Tolle say we should accept now? I'm trying to take him literally when he says that. Here I am. Now. Human, imperfect, limited. I accept that gift/burden, most of the time anyway.

I realize that my analysis is perhaps louder and longer than some others. That would certainly be a reasonble observation.

But my friend, this entire forum is analysis, mind stuff.

We've all had some experience of now, or we wouldn't be here. That experience is not mind stuff.

But everything we say about that experience is. And there's not much to do here but talk, eh?

We want to change, and call that acceptance. We analyze the situation, and declare ourselves against analysis.

Mindstuff is limited no doubt, but it's also like a broom that can tidy some of this messiness up.

In my very big fat opinion!

Thanks for your interest!

phil · Post by **phil** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 10:32 pm

The comic strip Doonesbury in today's Sunday paper reminded me of us.

spatialbean · Post by **spatialbean** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 11:47 pm

You mean this one, professor?

http://i1.tinypic.com/mtun4k.gif

phil · Post by **phil** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 2:29 am

Thank you, that's it! Good Net work!

I was sorta disapointed though, they didn't get my top hat right.