Lightworking is Self Honouring

[Andrew Gubb]

You could say "being a lightworker makes you happy, so you are being selfish".

But, I would say, "Happiness tells me if I am being true to myself or not. I choose to be a lightworker because this is what I am. I chose to be a lightworker because unhappiness told me that what I was being, was not what I was."

Labels can be annoying at times, but I felt like slashing through that apparent paradox.

If you want to take a different lens, of course lightworking is selfish. But (at least if it's pure lightworking) doesn't have the same energy as acquisition or other typically "selfish" in the negative sense things have. Because it's a pleasure you know you don't have to struggle for; it's a win-win rather than a win-lose. It's based on the idea that nothing can really be win-lose cause we're all in this together.

I like the phrase "self honouring". Lightworking is self honouring. Cause love is the greatest pleasure there is. Heaven on Earth is the only thing worth fighting for, working for, or living for. Everything else is just distraction.

[Elrond]

I guess you are supposing that selfishness is always a bad thing.

But I guess you can spin a thousand tales to rationalize how it really isn't selfish in this and that definition, make up new phrases etc to make you feel better about this concept of selfishness if it doesn't feel good for you. Whatever floats your boat.

[Cado]

You can't deny yourself completely and maintain polarization. I could be wrong, but it seems a solid observation. People who lightwork and hate it are doing it out of guilt and don't really "get it" ergo they are, at best, delusional.

You will not honor yourself to same degree or in the same way that I am. There is a fundamental difference and it's not positive or negative, it's more like light filtered through a prism. From one angle it produces one color, and from another... And so on. Selfish/selfless is just two sides of the same coin. The question is what's going on underneath.

[AaronB]

Originally Posted by Illustro Cado

You can't deny yourself completely and maintain polarization. I could be wrong, but it seems a solid observation. People who lightwork and hate it are doing it out of guilt and don't really "get it" ergo they are, at best, delusional.

You will not honor yourself to same degree or in the same way that I am. There is a fundamental difference and it's not positive or negative, it's more like light filtered through a prism. From one angle it produces one color, and from another... And so on. Selfish/selfless is just two sides of the same coin. The question is what's going on underneath.

To say that I honor myself more or less than you seems like a difficult thing to measure. What's the point of honoring myself? What's the point of polarizing myself? They seem like strategies to get me somewhere else, but where is that somewhere? If honoring myself or polarizing myself do something for me then that's great, but they don't sound like ends in themselves.

I like the concept of the selfish/selfless coin. That's new to me. The coin seems to relate to someone out there waiting for something to get done for them. If I was the only one on this planet then the coin would have no value at all. Selfish/selfless are usually used in a religious sense, to help foster a sense of guilt and obligation. When there is no concern about guilt or obligation, the idea of selfish/selfless probably won't show up.

[Cado]

Originally Posted by AaronB

To say that I honor myself more or less than you seems like a difficult thing to measure. What's the point of honoring myself? What's the point of polarizing myself? They seem like strategies to get me somewhere else, but where is that somewhere? If honoring myself or polarizing myself do something for me then that's great, but they don't sound like ends in themselves.

It's quite simple, actually. One will have you broaden your focus, the other will narrow it. On one path the question is what's best for the whole and on the other the only question is what's best for me.

Lightworkers by definition are not as self-focused as darkworkers are. This distinction retains value because we have certain limitations as human beings which prevent us from expanding in two directions at once. Our ultimate nature may be unlimited but if we use that intellectual realization as a replacement for action we stay stuck. If we act we make more headway by consistently moving in one direction or the other. That doesn't mean that a self-focused person cannot give or cannot love but it does mean they'll focus on the benefits they get from it over how it benefits other people. (And the warm fuzzies count as benefits in themselves; not everything needs to result in monetary or material gain, nor is it a veiled grasp for power. If I've deemed someone worthy of my time and my love it's the only condition that needs to be met.)

If we are all the same god as many, including Asmoday, would posit, then there's ultimately no difference between choosing myself or choosing others. It leads to the exact same place. It's a completely different experience along the way though, and who knows what it's ultimately leading up to? In the here and now the only thing any of us can do is pick what feels best and run with it.

[AaronB]

Then I would fit way on the dark worker side. My belief is that focusing on myself ultimately leads to more benefit to the rest of society, but ultimately if I had to pick one, that is the side I'd pick. I don't think they lead to the same place. Doing what is best for myself is the only way to really get to know myself, and over time discover what really is best for me. The whole point is unraveling social conditioning to find my own sense of direction and live that out fully.

The word dark here unfortunately carries so many connotations, but I like the idea that any cell in my body performs optimum when it processes all the available information and chooses what is in its own best interest every time. That belief suggests that cells are designed to inadvertently serve the whole by seeking out their own self interest. Any other design sounds too complicated to me. Any other focus assumes that self interest opposes the whole, which would be like having cells that don't trust themselves. They'll work but it's going to be a bumpy ride.

[Cado]

Hmm, I've met lightworkers that don't see self-focus as inherently detrimental to the whole but they are a minority, unfortunately. Light and dark tend to get painted as good vs. evil when really there are layers of depth to both and they both have their beautiful and ugly sides.

Something of note is that the majority of would-be lightworkers aren't really lightworkers. Light is something people tend to think they understand way better than they actually do. It's because they intellectualize it rather than tapping into the energy behind it. You can mentally focus on serving others and force yourself to act in accordance with that and you'll eventually embody the light but most who go that route will never reach that stage. Instead they'll get stuck inside their heads and their biases will take precedence over real, lasting change.

I say that not as an authority on the light but because it holds true for darkworking. The paths mirror each other in a number of ways and based on what I have observed this appears to be universal. Self/others makes for a good focal point because it's something everyone can understand but the real core of each path goes deeper. The reason I'd point to the self/others dichotomy is because it's the most readily visible trait of a polarized person.

And we need both, we really do. For myself I do the greatest good by turning inward and focusing on how best to serve my desires but if everyone were on the same wavelength there wouldn't be a sustainable energy output. Similarly, if everyone were a lightworker there would be too much energy; the world would have no coherency. Light and dark are the ebb and flow of the universe and are themselves contained within something greater. What that is is something we seek to understand by exploring the shades of light and dark it contains.

[AaronB]

Originally Posted by Illustro Cado

Hmm, I've met lightworkers that don't see self-focus as inherently detrimental to the whole but they are a minority, unfortunately. Light and dark tend to get painted as good vs. evil when really there are layers of depth to both and they both have their beautiful and ugly sides.

To me this sounds similar to good and evil. Beautiful is more like good and ugly is more like evil. It's just a little toned down. It's another version of more acceptable versus less acceptable. (To tone down a little further you could say that they both have their peachy and unpeachy sides...)

The idea that light workers aren't really lightworkers creates a definition, defines someone by it, and shows that they don't meet the definition. (which is unpeachier then living exactly according to the definition as Webster understands it) Then why define people by something and say they fail to live up to the definition? For me the idea of "not living up to my definition" would be significant if I used the title lightworker to give myself some sort of status, then what you're saying would imply I don't deserve the status and I'd feel threatened or discouraged.

Perhaps if we changed the word lightworker to chickenplucker, people wouldn't feel a need to identify with it so much. It could mean all the same things, it's just that a lot of chickenpluckers out there aren't the real deal.

The whole idea of creating definitions (even ones with oodles of layers of depth to them) only to discover that most things don't fit into them to me implies I'm not really good at creating definitions. Once I'm really really good at it, then I can create them in a way that everything fits in. I can even throw away that damn "other" category that seems to be way to full right now.

I don't think we need both. I don't think we really need either, that life would actually function just fine even if I completely forgot about chickenplucking or darkworking. Without the concept of chickenplucker and darkworker what would we be? A lot more similar then we thought we were. At least for most of our lives. I'd eat breakfast and put pants on and brush my teath a whole lot like a darkworker without even realizing that I'm the same or different.

[Andrew Gubb]

I felt like posting those thoughts but I don't feel like continuing the conversation much, though I will say there are some very interesting posts from Cado as always.

A clarification, if it wasn't clear, by saying that lightworking is self honouring I want to clear people's heads of the idea that it's self sacrificing.

Lightworkers view happiness slightly differently... well in my view. Happiness isn't the goal, but it IS a side effect of doing things right (i.e. expressing your highest path and purpose, doing your mission within the flow of the Highest Good of All). So lightworking is very self honouring, but that's not the main focus exactly.

I mean happiness isn't a goal, it's viewed more as a messenger. There is no goal but to BE. Living in the now and all that.

[Cado]

Originally Posted by AaronB

snip

These things exist apart from the definitions and that's why I say we need both. If the term lightworker fell out of style lightworkers would still exist, and so would darkworkers. In fact they've always been around, this is just the new age iteration of the idea. The worth of a definition is determined by whether you'd still need it if it went away, IE it defines a real phenomenon and acts as a tool for understanding it. The way energy works you'll always have light and dark, the only question is what it'll be called and what paradigm will contain it.

And within any label you'll have truth and falsity, things which it applies to and things which it doesn't. The fact that there's so much confusion concerning who is and isn't lightworker or a darkworker doesn't discredit the meaning of the labels, it reveals how few people grasp the energy at work. You can't think your way through polarity but that's precisely what most will try to do.

[AaronB]

Do things really exist apart from definitions? Existence itself is only a matter of influence. If something has no influence, it does not exist in any meaningful way. So we're left with noticed influences and unnoticed influences, but even unnoticed influences must eventually lead to a noticed effect. If all effects go entirely unnoticed for all eternity, then from that particular point of view it really does not exist.

So nothing can exist apart from having some effect (indirect or direct) from a viewpoint that is influenced. From this viewpoint, everything that affects it is connected in some way. You could say that is what makes up the point of view. It is a bunch of effects bumping into each other. Meanings bouncing off of other meanings to give them meaning, and a perceived you in the middle of it all which is still just another meaning.

What is a lightworker apart from a darkworker? They both define each other by being different. But do these concepts exist when they are not really influencing anything? When you brush your teeth does it really have any effect at all whether or not you are a lightworker or a darkworker? Can you really brush your teeth like a true darkworker? In that moment the distinction lightworker/darkworker actually has no effect, so it literally does not exist. The lightworker/darkworker distinction can exist anywhere in a large continuum of apparent effect, from points of not existing to being all that exists. To say that it is a universal trait regardless of whether it is noticed or not is just a way of increasing the lightworker/darkworker distinction at the cost of less investment in the tooth brushing distinction. Tooth brushers everywhere might feel slightly offended about this. Both distinctions are equally valid, but none need to be a fundamental universal underlying energy to be experienced right now. If reality could continue unperturbed for a brief instant without the existance of lightworkers and darkworkers, then it couldn't possibly be a requirement for reality.

[lookcloser]

Originally Posted by Andrew Gubb

You could say "being a lightworker makes you happy, so you are being selfish".

Aristotle called that 'higher selfishness'

[lookcloser]

Originally Posted by Andrew Gubb

You could say "being a lightworker makes you happy, so you are being selfish".

Aristotle called that 'higher selfishness'

[royster]

Seems to me you're ALL on top of it.
I truly appreciate these musings.

[lifeforce]

Originally Posted by Andrew Gubb

You could say "being a lightworker makes you happy, so you are being selfish".

I think selfish versus altruistic is asking the wrong question, cause we can always circle back to feeling good or looking good to others, witch is a tad selfish.

I think the right question, to distinguish between the darkworker/lightworker way, is not asking "how" or "what". People seem to have various opinions about what a darkworker is, what he does and how he does it. But rather, we need to ask the right question, witch is the big "why". This is the big hairy question that no one seems to be focusing on. What are the reasons you do the things you do. What motivates you to take action. What goals inspire you and why? Darkworkers and lightworkers are the typical achiever type who focus on achieving their goals. Look at the first few articles on "achieving peak motivation".


Why, why, why. That is the question. Do you find methods to pay as little taxes as possible so you can support your favorite charity and help others? If so, thats a lightworkers "why" to avoid taxes. Your "why", your reasons, to do something, determines your polarity.


If you label yourself as a lightworker, and all you do is radiate love and happiness, or work in the spiritual realm, you´re not really lightworking. Cause once you´ve made someone smile or given some advice a person, that same person will continue their day and revert back to whatever they were doing. It´s not lasting change. Look at Steve. He is creating change in people on a massive scale. He has strong "whys". And it compels him to take action and influence people.