smiileyjen101 wrote:ah KM, yes, you and me have gone down this path before with the '... and other laws' thread in this section. What fun that was too!!
Yes, it's fun. I'm not all interested in messing with people's beliefs. But with the loa it seems the attachment is so ferocious that it brings about defense and offense and the seeking of confirmation in a way which is instructive in itself.
I can't think of very many other belief systems which brings about this kind of attachment--maybe the ideas around religion and nationalism do.
So it's fun! For a bit.
Take this in the energy of a curious / detached throw away notion
Sandyjoy wrote: As we let go the old limited view and open our heart to an expanded view of our Self, we open the doors of perception, or we could say we rise to higher point of view--- and begin to understand many things that were not seen before.
KM said: Yes, exactly. The Law of Attraction is a poignant example of a very limited view. As we let go of old limited views like the loa and remain in humble space of openness, life becomes extraordinarily satisfying.
If however you are having discussion among some of those who are not aware of energies in motion....
it might be kind to point out some of the things that are 'impacting' upon them.
That's cool. You talk about people about your experience. That's what I do too.
When I say curious / detached... for me I see this discussion as no different to having a discussion with a pre-pubescent or pubescent child about the 'workings' of hormones and some of the effects on the body that they create, not as a big fuss, absolutely as 'natural', but as yet for them unknown as to the impacts.
hehe, it turns out that I was a single parent so I've actually had the discussion of adolescent hormones with my girls. And other stuff. I didn't talk to them about the loa. I did tell them to try to observe their thoughts. Which has done its job; they explore on their own now. I don't quite know where I'm going with this.
You're probably saying, what's wrong with talking about your own experience when your experience includes an exploration and confirmation of natural energies or the loa, etc?
There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
But it's misleading to suggest this in the context of awakening.
A critical insight in awakening is that it has nothing to do with mental ideas or beliefs.
This statement is actually a very neutral statement. But when identification with the belief is very strong, it can seem like an attack, even a personal attack.
The focus here has been loa--but that's not the only idea which is a misdirection. Another example of a common misdirection is the tendency towards spiritual validation. We love our spiritual beliefs and ideas--we find it very validating to quote the "I" and capitalize Awareness and Conscious and Self, atma and vichara and samadhi and advaita, and ah! the golden flowery language of validation. And that's misdirection.
Nisargadatta gave the world a very simple and direct technique. Just go an look at you, the sense of you, the sense of being. It's easy and effective. it does not require belief. But we can see what happened--people pestered him with spiritual questions and he went along. That was disservice to the world--his technique is effective but very few will actually try it.
Ramana gave the world a very simple technique, really the same one as Nisargadatta, to look at the sense of you. He used the word atma-vichara which doesn't translate well and so many interpreted this as an inquiry, as some sort of inner exploration to suss out the real you. But he was just saying to look, to remain in the sense of self. The very ordinary sense of self, which is immediately accessible. It works.
ET gave the world a very simple technique. Be aware, be present, observe thoughts, and allow the natural intelligence to do its work. He does not talk about specific mental ideas or beliefs and very often points out that identification with particular beliefs can be an obstacle.
So in the context of awakening, no, I would not recommend the loa to people even if I believed in it. It is misleading.
For three years, I completely simplified my life. And it was very helpful to me. But I don't recommend it to people in the context of awakening. It would be very misleading.
The basic problem is fear, and all our mental processes and beliefs form in the context of fear. It's an insanity. And of course every solution we seek, even our most cherished spiritual solutions, are part of the problem, part of the context of fear. As Ramana said, everything is uncertain.
So if we're attached to particular ways of seeing things or particular terminology or particular lifestyles--that's completely fine. And of course when there is attachment to any of these, there is defense and there is offense and as we see some of these attachments bring about an uncanny ferocity. Add to this a bit a familiarity with concepts like the ego and awareness, and we get a pretty explosive mix.
In the Indian epic, the
Mahabharata—the great 50,000 verse epic poem of human delusion and foible, the climactic scene takes place in
Kurukshetra, 5000 years ago, when two powerful, unmovable armies of men, elephants, camels, sharp steel, fiery missiles and blood-lust face each other, and the heroic warrior-prince Arjuna, throws down his weapons, refusing to fight. He does not want to kill.
Krishna talks him into it. Krishna tells him he must
slay his attachments.
Maybe it's not easy to see that our deepest attachments are our fondest ideas.
But nevertheless I don't recommend to people to try give up their beliefs--that's very difficult to do; as Krishna suggests that can take destructive violence.
It turns out it's not necessary to destroy the attachment to beliefs.
It just takes observance, looking. This is what ET essentially says, but he's not clear enough. Looking the sense of self, in the way Nisargaddatta and Ramana and John Sherman suggest, is particularly effective, and I haven't quite worked out why.
With observance, fear goes, and as fear goes so does the attachment to beliefs and terminology and spirituality. It's a natural and inevitable process of letting go.
This doesn't make beliefs wrong. We're free to play. But it's misleading to suggest that awakening has anything to do with any particular belief or lifestyle or terminology.
The 'limited view' needs to be grown through, and if it can be assisted with understanding then it's a conversation worth having.
Okay. Yes, I do see the ideas around loa as very limiting. The ferocity of attachment is a good hint about their limits.
Noticing is a good start. But clearly it does not completely circumvent egoic reaction. The absence of fear does.
Does the absence of fear come from understanding that which was previously not understood?
.
No, it's not a specific fear we're talking about. Yes, there are fears and anxieties we can resolve with understanding. Releasing is even more effective in my experience. That's not what I meant by fear though.
Honestly, I have not developed the articulation of this sufficiently yet. I suggest you check out John Sherman. I'd be interested in what you think of it.
