The Warrior's Predicament

[Maguru]

Originally Posted by SonoranBob

Well ... if someone makes me angry, my most natural reaction might be to stove their head in with a crowbar,

nice thought but you would never do it would you? I think your natural response is the anger itself. The reaction comes in through the head from past experience/conditioning. Anger in itself is a healthy emotion. It's when it is out of control that it becomes harmful. Angry behaviour is totally different to feeling angry, don't you think so?

but I am comfortable admitting that might not be the best possible response, and that the consequences I would then likely know would be excessively bad for me, too. Society has rules to balance my need to honestly feel and express my anger with the right of other people to not have their heads bashed in. And I think that's mostly a Good Thing.

Societies' rules did not stop me from losing my temper or behaving violently. My feeling like **** did

I am always judging my reactions but not in the sense of condemning and criticizing myself for having the reactions. Rather, I look for the most effective ways to take responsibility for what I feel and to communicate that (or sometimes not!) to others. For example, it's usually better to say to myself, "I am feeling angry" than to say to myself, "I am angry". You can validate the feeling without identifying with it. Then you can more objectively decide what to do with the feeling. I usually feel better when I handle myself skillfully under stress, even though if I don't manage that, I don't beat myself up about it, either.

Yes, I use this method of dealing with my emotions but it was difficult to claim them as mine sometimes. In validating my own feelings such as anger, I am in control instead of being controlled. I can then decide on a course of action or not.

Yes, it's a weakness of mine sometimes. There are times when people do need to be whacked upside the head to snap them out of their dream world and I'm usually a day late and a dollar short when it comes to that sort of thing. Sorry! As my wife was fond of saying, "your greatest strength is also you greatest weakness".

--Bob

Self-awareness at it's best.

[Maguru]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

That would be true, if you were an earthworm. Then you and your other earthworm friends would all react the same way every time I did something, like shine a bright light at you.

Once upon a time, I knew a big group of men.

All of them had the same food. All of them lived in the same place. All of them did the same things at the same time throughout the day. All of them wore the same clothes. All of them were allowed to have the same personal items, nothing more, nothing less. None of them had the freedom to go anywhere else.

Out of this group, there were diverse responses.

Some had a great time. They saw the whole experience as a great adventure. They found it exciting and fun.

Others had mixed views. They found it enjoyable at times, but it was very tough at other times.

Some saw it as an honour to be there.

Yet others found the experience totally repulsive. One killed himself by shooting himself in the chest.

These were people I knew, when I was in the military. As I mentioned, they were placed in identical conditions. Same food; same clothes; same number of hours of sleep; same training; same bathrooms; same haircut; beds of the same size and shape; same guns; same distance to be run at 5:30 am every morning.

Their situation is as "same" as you'll ever get. Why are the responses so different? I think it's largely got to do with what's in their heads.

I would say it has 'everything' to do with what's in their heads and regardless of the uniformity, the murder/suicide would probably still have occurred. How do things get in our heads?
From life. The life the individual has experienced up til now.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by SonoranBob

This feels to me like a typical false dichotomy. Any time you have two extreme positions (I'm in control of everything vs I'm in control of nothing) there is generally a middle ground where you find balance.

Some things can be changed, some cannot. Some things require courage and heart to effect change, some require courage and heart to accept What Is.

Neither Angela nor I can change our age, gender, memories, mortality, and a host of other things that just are what they are. I will not side with Kurt Vonnegut, who mocked the Serenity Prayer in Slaughterhouse Five ("among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present and the future") but I will say that one does need the wisdom to know the difference.

--Bob

Then why are people so geared up about LoA? It's because they think they can control everything. Anything that manifests was already in the works by the time you are conscious of it. It could be that we just think we are making changes in our lives when really we are just experiencing life.

We have created all this complicated thinking to observe and make tricks to entertain our sense of self that perpetuates itself by asserting control.

The control by thinking is what creates the illusion of a separate self. So, next time you have to decide something, see if you can really tell who made that decision. You may say it was me. But it was your thinking. What is thinking but the self created separate self interpreting life?

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

Therefore there is no "natural" way to respond to a situation. Or if you prefer, there are numerous "natural" ways to respond to any situation.

The reaction that occurs is the natural response. Every action that comes about is the natural coarse. There is no action that is not "what is". Otherwise it wouldn't be. Anything that is/happens - is natural.

In this discussion, I am highlighting the ability of an individual to choose his own thoughts. Naturally some individuals have this ability to a greater extent; some to a lesser extent; some may be more able to choose their their thoughts in particular areas of their lives or in particular kinds of situations.

Thoughts are commentary of life in our heads - not something we get to control.

So I am telling everyone now - this is a useful ability. It is something you should seek to develop and cultivate. Whatever your current level of ability is, it is a worthwhile pursuit to seek to raise the level. Among other things, it will help to alleviate your suffering (whatever your suffering is) and it will bring you more happiness.

Trying to control things will bring me more happiness? Is that true? Trying to cultivate what exactly?

The alternative is that you are simply, as J Krishnamurti would put it, unconscious. You're sleeping. You're just a more complex species of earthworm. You react to a wider range of stimuli than an earthworm, but your reaction is still automatic and a pure result of your past conditioning.

Maybe this is true. Everything is conditioning - or everything about a personal self is conditioning. That's what the ego, the sense of self, the desire to achieve this and that is, it is learned mind stuff. We learn everything that made us feel like separate individuals.

Everything that we learned is making us think we aren't responding properly or are out of alignment or need to be better at something or kinder, etc... If we didn't believe all that, we'd know our responses are natural, instead we see everything as maybe that was wrong or maybe I didn't do the right thing or some other judgment that asserts the self again.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by SonoranBob

That in my view is one of the things that is provisionally on the list. People have more influence over it than they generally think, but most people probably have less influence over it than you think.

Permit me to mangle Shakespeare: Am I not a man? Do you cut me and do I not bleed?

How about: "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players"

People who laugh at funerals are considered inappropriate jerks.

I am just trying to understand what happens when the disconnect between what is happening to you and what you are feeling becomes total.

I am also trying to understand how practical it'd be to be in a state of bliss all the time. I've heard more than one person talk about cultivating the state of bliss with some successful consistency, then getting fired from their jobs because they are space cadets.

--Bob

Maybe chasing bliss is a mind created indulgent pursuit that it likes to do, instead of actually being and feeling the natural response to life. Meditation is a shutting down of life and it's signals so there is less to respond to.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

Actually at those periods in my life where I am disciplined enough to meditate regularly, I become much more effective at work. These are some of the effects:

1. Basically nothing distracts me from whatever I want to focus on.

2. I have no sense of procrastination. I automatically do what's most important, without any sense of resentment, frustration or dislike.

3. My concentration is formidable. Strong, without tension.

4. I listen much more attentively to others, and pick up nuances in their words and body language that I ordinarily wouldn't. Therefore I know better what they are trying to communicate.

5. I exude calm and confidence.

How do you know you haven't just applied a placebo that came from conditioning of hearing others say: if you sit down and relax you will get these benefits? So what, right? if it works.

The space cadets you refer to are the ones who got unbalanced in the sixth chakra. Feels nice, but spacey. There is a simple cure for that. It's called a grounding exercise. It's got to do with pushing energy down; it takes only a few minutes and you can feel it very clearly, like physical movements inside your body.

Space cadets have also programmed an experience they wanted. It is indulgent of the self to follow bliss and disregard what life is presenting.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

...
a movement of electrical impulses in your brain is causing you to suffer,

and you are able to alter your suffering state

by altering the movement of electrical impulses in your brain

that is to say, by changing your thoughts.

So there we go ..... Your suffering is the movement of a couple of little electrical impulses in your brain!

How do we know these electrical impulses are ours? And not just picking up what is going on with life? And as such what we think are our thoughts are just side effects. When we think we are changing our thoughts it is really just how it goes. As players of life, we get to indulge a self that believes thoughts are actually under our control and are "ours".

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

... I am only saying that the trap is also in their own heads. Therefore the solution is for them to do something to their own heads.

The problem is thinking there is a problem that needs a solution. It is a self created issue. Trying to solve it with their head may be difficult because it's all the thinking that made up some sort of problem to be solved to feel important or special - that we aren't aligned or thinking right or need to be more kind or appropriate.

I would not say that it is easy. It really depends on a range of factors. It could be very easy for me to change my thoughts about a certain matter, but very difficult for me to change my thoughts about another kind of matter.

Change is what real life is. There is no need to chase change. It happens with or without us noticing. Trying to make something change is trying to control life. I know it can feel like we get to think whatever we want. This was learned too. We were brought up to think that we decide and choose. I'm just wondering if that's true. It could be one big program that is running, unfolding and we are taking a ride.

However, many people will never even get that far, because they do not even see that the problem usually lies in their heads, and that the solution therefore lies in their own heads.

If a person does not even see that, he won't even explore the possibility of changing his own thoughts.

What is that saying about the master's tools won't dismantle the master's house?

Or: "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

[Maguru]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

What is that saying about the master's tools won't dismantle the master's house?

I would think they would. What other tools has he? He would just work in reverse as in 'physician, heal thyself'.

[Acting Like Godot]

Wolfgang, your propositions are all very good and well, for someone who can stop thinking.

If you cannot stop yourself from thinking, then I would suggest that you should try to think better - whatever you consider "better thinking" to be. However, whatever you consider "better thinking" to be, I am guessing it won't be a fixation with unhappy thoughts.

I have reconsidered some of the points in this thread. I think that I may have overstated my position. Perhaps it is true that some of you are genuinely unable to change your thoughts on some matters (or perhaps it is just too difficult to try).

Well then, if those thoughts are negative / unhappy, it's really just a case of "too bad for you". You have to suffer those thoughts then.

Myself, I'm still testing the malleability of my own thoughts, step by step - so far, I haven't reached the limits yet. But that could just be me. Some of you guys might be different.

[Maguru]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

Wolfgang, your propositions are all very good and well, for someone who can stop thinking.

If you cannot stop yourself from thinking, then I would suggest that you should try to think better - whatever you consider "better thinking" to be. However, whatever you consider "better thinking" to be, I am guessing it won't be a fixation with unhappy thoughts.

I have reconsidered some of the points in this thread. I think that I may have overstated my position. Perhaps it is true that some of you are genuinely unable to change your thoughts on some matters (or perhaps it is just too difficult to try).

Well then, if those thoughts are negative / unhappy, it's really just a case of "too bad for you". You have to suffer those thoughts then.

Myself, I'm still testing the malleability of my own thoughts, step by step - so far, I haven't reached the limits yet. But that could just be me. Some of you guys might be different.

I read between the lines of my own posts to test the malleability of my thinking and also who I am being. No need to wait or take a step at a time. For example, reading the 2nd and 4th paragraphs of your post, I would ask myself, who am I being?
It's sometimes difficult to detach from the issue, but hey you can change your thinking can't you?