[John Freestone]

Originally Posted by Dharma

Why would any sane person accept a dismal moment as his/her choice? Because they created it? Any resistance to it keeps it in manifestation. If you receive the moment as it is, fully, it is allowed to evolve, in an instant!

I'm sorry, Dharma, but I'm struggling to understand this. I think it makes sense, though, from the point of view of subjective reality, so perhaps that is what you mean. That is to say that there is no objective reality to any moment, because each of us creates every moment. Is that what you mean by the first part. If so, I still struggle to understand the difference between resisting a moment and receiving it fully, and how the first of these 'keeps it in manifestation' and the second allows it to 'evolve, in an instant'. Is there a Personal Development for Stupid People Forum - maybe I should go there.

If it seem preposterous to accept the moment, whatever it is, there is an underlying presupposition of perfection in there.

This too is confusing me. I would say the opposite, you see, that if it seems reasonable to accept the moment, whatever it is, there is an underlying presupposition of perfection in there (i.e. in it, the moment). This was part of what I think tk was saying, and to which I felt empathy. It expresses in another way what you have described as receiving the moment as it is, fully'. I felt that this was in contradiction of tk's next bit, where he suggested that the purpose of accepting the moment in this perfect-whatever-it-is way was so that you could change it to whatever you wanted it to be. Maybe I've misunderstood both of you.

Like we, spirit, God, are supposed to know what we're doing and can't play a game of denial with ourselves?? But, that's exactly what we are doing. Can you accept that?

Lost me again.

If you ask "why????", that's more mind-candy. There is no why. I choose to pretend (use denial).... a lot. It's a habit I have.

But what's neat is I'm having to use my ego consciousness (that part of me I bitch about and blame all my shortcomings on) to re-educate the "higher" parts of self. [the whole of self is evolving and sometimes the higher parts can't get something from where they are at, so the issue is moved down to the physical experience for the ego-self to work out. ] So throw out any ideas of spirit being perfect. It doesn't exist, except in our minds.

This all seems mixed up as well, and at odds with more traditional understandings of higher self and ego and spirit (IMHO). I tend to think that if I have a higher self, it is always streets ahead of any ego consciousness (i.e. my thinking, which as you say can just be mind-candy), but in order to consolidate experience of a higher-self nature, whether spiritual experiences from meditation or drug-induced insights or whatever, sometimes my lower mind has to work out intellectually what it was about. In fact I'm tempted to say that it is always necessary for us to integrate higher learning at an intellectual level to really honour it and make use of it in the world. People who don't do this are prone to losing their way, becoming psychotic, believing anything at all, and have no conceptual grasp of their spiritual gains.

I seem to be less comfortable with the equation 'we, spirit, God' than you are, although I could see that from that perspective it would make sense to say 'throw out any ideas of spirit being perfect'. I am separating the dimensions of self and spirit and, in the traditional way, seeing self as limited, in partial darkness, not fully lit (enlightened), and Spirit as absolute, perfect, God. Thus, from my perspective, if I accept the moment as it is and, in buddhist stylee, refrain from attributing goodness or badness to it or wishing it to be any different from how it is, I am practising ... whatever you want to call it ... communion with God, prayer, meditation (certainly this is the central practice of Vipassana insight meditation and Mindfulness, being in the moment without judging it.

Where are our views at odds, I wonder? Do you really see the higher self as unable to 'get' things, which have to be referred (downwards?) for your physical-ego-self to 'work out'? Can your lower self educate your higher self, and if so, what does the higher-lower distinction mean?