Forum: ShadowStats: Ego caught red-handed (again?)
Only one universal “grounded” rule for this forum:
All testimony will not spill out onto the page until the one getting prepared to share an experience has dismissed all arguments and rationalizations initially used by the ego to support their initial (ego) premise. Given enough time and honest soul-searching we will always quietly and calmly get to the actual description of the ego’s game/trick/ruse/deception that we initially bought off on.
Clue: The resulting description will never be about “the other guy/gal” - it will always be an enlightening discovery of and about you.
Conclusion: Every time any one of us gets through one of these egomaniacal ruses, designed by the ego to keep us distracted, autonomous, proud and separate from the One we really are, we move one step away from fractal chaos illusion and one step closer to Ascension - you know, Whooooshhhh!!!
Allow me to prime the pump of this new forum for healing confessions from “shadowland” with one of my own recently, a perfect case study for featuring so much of what Eckhart Tolle is talking about in his book. And to set your beautiful hearts and minds at ease, you will be heartened to know I contacted Riversong privately to ask for his blessing/consent collaborative agreement before posting a scenario where he became unwittingly involved.
How’s that for “Law of One” fundamentals in action!!
Last thot before presenting this first case study and example: Egos can only attack other egos in a “thoughtland” of illusion. It is utterly impossible to successfully attack the “ONE” that is ALL that’s really real, sacred, inviolate and completely unassailable....
Here it goes girls and bros!
Man, I am sooo excited Riversong for everything I Am learning lately in regard to Ascension! I’m sitting there last night watching “Weeds” (Excellent Showtime series now available on DVD) and not even really watching at times, thinking about my less than impeccable response to your forum of “isms”, demons and shadows.
Now stick with me for a moment while I define my ego’s involvement in my response.
I’m (my ego) thinkin’, “I’m not so wrong about my suspicions about all of this!”
“There is something He’s not sayin’ about some experience in his past concerning women or “woman”. Otherwise, why would his argument for transcending “isms” and demons be so dominated by concerns about feminism and women’s lib movements?”
“What demon is he not facing?” (central thought relating to my patronizing, presumptuous post).
And then it hits me like a ton of beautiful liberating bricks! Everything I have been thinking has been coming from my insane ego’s perspective which means everything, regardless of whether or not I ever get any of it right (being correct is not always being correct), is all about how "I" was choosing to “think” at the time!! You, as pure stimuli and as my beloved brother, trigger something in my ego that I must then honestly and soberly discover, recognize, own up to, and then simply dismiss as a misinterpretation of my brother - a simple mistake, as if the light had been turned on and I can see again.
And so we simply return to the truth that we are brothers and very conscious of being brothers in arms, just like our fellow brothers and sisters fighting side by side in any war, we become the best of friends, “thick as thieves” if you will, because we fight side by side in the same spiritual war, a war that struggles to recognize and then dismiss the mistakes of the ego, carry the wounded out of the jungle of confusion and chaos, and then become lifelong friends by way of the wartime experience.
I have been reading Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose”, and his impeccable and exquisitely exhaustive coverage of the ego’s tricks and ruses is an amazing godsend that, I swear, may very well end up folding time right over some of the “bad” part of all that is going down if we collectively, and one by one, get this right! When I "choose" to think how I was thinking, with ego at the wheel, it then becomes all about “me” and I have reduced my “brother” or “sister” (or “whatever”) to mere stimuli, like so much fodder for the ego, and I have reduced myself to an "affirmation masturbation ritual" for insane ego banter and illusions in shadowland.
I am not "my thoughts", which naturally means you are not "my thoughts".
Closing argument: You can never start being "my thoughts" and you can never stop being "my sister/brother"!
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You said,
"So you weren't completely off base with your observations, but it did feel like your ego was projecting them in a less than constructive way, as if you were trying to assert your spiritual superiority (but perhaps that's also my own ego interpretation)"
You also are not too far off base! I had (I wont say have because he has softened much over time) a very domineering authoritative father who was absolutely sure everything he said was gospel, so I can sling "spiritual superiority" nonsense in my sleep and have to keep a very short leash on dat lil bugger...
Thank you so much for posting/responding/defining/relating! Perfect gift for a Friday afternoon dear brother,
Chris
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Hey Chris
What a great and brave post....
I have a saying which I have adopted since I got to the portal, I found it in myself and now try to look at others words with it....it has changed my perspective of people greatly.....
"we are all just talking to ourselves"
sounds simple enough and probably not totally true "always" but it works for me in understanding others better.....when I hear peoples words and apply it everything changes....I see myself doing it constantly...I share and speak to better understand myself....this perspective allows me to take things less personally....many people here helped me to realize this, including Stefa, as I am sure she is aware, and I notice is just above this reply...
Thanks to everyone here that I have shared with and have been such a wonderful sounding board for me...
With love and Joy
Jez
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As I read all of these beautiful affirmations of self-recognition I am blessed with the visual imagery/analogy of watching flowers bloom and open up to the sun in the morning light. Jez, I can really relate to your "inside take" on how to "recognize". My little personal choice is recognizing that when I am triggered by anything, I need to look at exactly what triggered me and then I am sure to find the very same thing swimming around in myself somewhere.
Thank you Stefa for being you. I am always going to be compelled to lift you up because I sense that you get down sometimes with all that you try to take on. I see you as courage in the face of temptation of depression and hopelessness. That is always going to be some of the most courageous behavior I feel I could ever witness and it always inspires me! The only thing I feel you do not quite have down yet is the sure knowledge that someone like Christ had, as an Ascended Master, of his being being absolutely unassailable, while he was completely exposed to the virtual reality of hopelessness and depression (sense of emptiness), but then, who does? Keep fightin' the good fight, if for no other reason then being sure that if you had to go down fighting, go down fighting for what you believe in. In spite of that, the real fight will always remain within ourselves - to come to recognize that which is really Us, that which is truly unassailable.
Dear Brother Riversong - their is a whole friggin' book in the wonderful ritual you described in your latest post above! WOW!!! While creating a "safe place" for release of burdens and baggage, others are concurrently learning to recognize the Christ (Ascended Master) nature in them by having their egos tempted and tested - kind of a turbo-dismissal of useless ego rhetoric from the mind's thought patterns. How rewiring-efficient is that!!!
Hey Carrie! Thank you sooo much for your affirmation and jumpin' in. Always love what you have to share....
In Love, Light, and Self-Recognition,
Chris
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You said, "Take him off that pedestal!"
You would have to be assuming I put him up on one. I did not, I promise you. What I am doing is pointing toward the duality paradigm of no matter how close you may feel to your creator, you will still have human experiences (just like the one you mentioned of him up on the cross).
My use in conversation of any of these human examples in history is as a road sign that indicates something is there for us to get and understand by the example set.
As far as using the term "Ascended Master", I am not so much relating to his time on earth (for he had not ascended yet), but to his alleged appearances following his death. If the man we speak of did appear to some of his friends after his death, than ascended master is as appropriate a verbal device as any I can think of. But upon reading my above post again (with the way I ran my words together) I can sure see how you would read/understand it the way you did.
I will continue to use these examples in my correspondence with others and I will continue to try to express myself clearer, and I will continue to run the risk of being misunderstood, which is just the way it is when discussing anything sounding remotely religious.
As the mice in the movie "Babe" said, "The Way Things Are"....
Chris
Long life to you my friend.
Usually I am able to navigate my daily life aware that everything I sense and the ongoing commentary in my thoughts is only my beliefs projected outward. There is a witnessing awareness that reminds me that I am always looking, hearing and seeing through these filters. Sometimes I get drawn into dramas that seem never ending, yet they are thin like a veil with something elusive inviting me inward. If I open to the invitation, sensed by a grip in my belly that moves me into my head to some intellectual debate, an image of rays moving out like ripples from my body appears. These rays are my relationship to my beliefs about mySelf moving out cloaking everything in my environment, which includes my thoughts. Somehow this witnessing awareness reminds me to ride these rays and return home to that primordial, unbiased wisdom. Returning to the illusive quality of the projections is sometimes with grief and pain, others with the equanimity of joy to have found my way home.
I write this not knowing how this technique every became a real "ride" for me and wondering if others have examined a progression of associations that takes them home.
Namaste,
Tricia
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"How does what I've said land with you, Chris?"
I was definitely projecting oh so dear friend in this oh so interesting journey. And you have completely relieved me of that projection while aptly reintroducing your self to us. I cannot thank you enough for what I learn from you just being you. I am a bit of a manic when I get on a role and I can definitely go over the top or overcook something that could have remained simple and to the point. Your post centers me, like the bird that got into the house, hitting the ceiling, and you open the front door to let it out.
And to Triciascapes - what a post! You've been doing your homework and extra credit! WOW! You expressed so well what each of us has to find a way of understanding that I have to consider it somewhere between prose and poetry! I have another post that relates, called "Ton of Bricks 2" (coming to a theater of thought and ponder near you!).
And to Nada! You are simply poetry in motion! You are the liberated child who skips past the conversation and says hi! Just keep being you and we all are one step closer to fine (Indigo Girls reference alert)
What a great virtual neighborhood we live in!!!!!
Chris
Got hit by another wonderful ton of liberating bricks again! Think I'll keep a brick on the nightstand for special occasions, or whenever the mood "hits" me, HAHAHA.
It be this dearest ones of the One: Why should "I" feel so utterly compelled to explain or clarify myself? The "I" I really "Am" has no need for such compelling impulses, so what is that (rhetorical question alert)? "Am" just "is" - "I Am, that I Am. Tell them I Am sent you" (I do so love the discovery embedded in that phase). Stripped of all I am not, what a beautiful and liberating feeling and affirmation of what remains.
For whom the "Tolle" bells, it "Tolles" for thee! Thank you Eckhart Tolle for being so darn available and unassailable.
Hey Jez! I thought of another one of those little helper phrases: "Before thinking, speaking or writing, think what I would want to say to the collective - to the One"
I realize now that I can be truly thankful for absolutely every "thing". If I have a perceived "good" experience, that gets recorded simply as pleasant, and if I have a perceived "bad" reaction experience than I am graciously being made aware of something in myself I wish to face, dismiss and be free of ("One less thing!" Forest Gump reference alert).
As a course in miracles so aptly put it, "The world/universe is neutral - what we perceive "it" to be is only my ego's up or down take on "it" (paraphrased a bit). I am inescapably in charge of my "perceived" experience.
How liberating is that!
In Love, Light and Discovery of the way home,
Chris
I too have been reading Tolle's A New Earth which was sent me by our dear sister Kristyne (bless you!)...I love the way he puts things we know together into new things which we find we also somehow knew. His writing is like the sun coming through the haze.
Chris, I know that "ton o' bricks" feeling! Darn right ya see stars! You'll like this...one evening a few years ago, Kaye was on the phone with a young woman we used to know. I think I was writing something, maybe reading. Suddenly a new thought struck me and I jumped up and probably yelled something akin to "Eureka!" Or maybe "Oy vey!" Anyway, I heard Nafetah in the background saying, "Oh, that's Dave. He's having another epiphany." Our friend said, "Oh my gosh! Is he alright?"
8-D
This list has given me the Thing I can hold in my hand. It's a tool I was searching for! I have one and only one addition:
5. Don't be afraid of being an outlaw.
Love ya, bro.
8-D
Thanks Dave for the delicious treat of a perfect anecdote!
Chris
You're pretty much on-target as far as the historical Jehoshua is concerned. And that's not the same as the semimythical Jesus, as you know. But some extraordinary individual existed, and inspired those who knew him (or said they did) to spread remarkable stories. That'd be a good topic amongst folks who don't make assumptions and don't take things personally. I don't mind using the familiar name Jesus most of the time because it's by no means clear which historic person we are referring to.
I resonate intensely with what you say about honoring the shadow. As you say, it's part of our reality, part of us. By honoring it we honor ourselves, and begin to step beyond the terror it inspires. In the darkness we cannot see each other even though we know we're not alone. We are invited to look inward. We carry with us our knowledge of the light, and the faith that it will return. And we devise lanterns. But also, our other senses extend, allowing us to partially make up for our lack of vision.
What is darkness, but a witholding of the light? How real is it? Is it, for instance, as real as a dream? Surely not, for darkness (and so also with the darkness we call evil) is a manifestation of absence. It is as real as zero. It exists, but only by default. And lest we rush to fill every corner with light, let us remember that it allows us to rest and to dream. It essentially doubles reality. Once again, sacred duality turning in the circle of the Real.
As for accountability, we are all accountable. One of the deepest and most inspiring lessons for me in the TC was the one on Total Responsibility. This one unit transformed my thinking about my status in the "villain-victim" areas of my life, and also gave me the basis for understanding intuitively the wonder of ho'oponopono and my appreciation of the four mighty pillars of the shaman way you brought to the table including: Be impeccable in your word. This strikes the heart of what integrity means to me.
We are all accountable. Should I hold you accountable? How can I possibly know all the things you are accountable for, and if I did, would I get to pick a juicy one? What's far more important to me is: do I know all the things I am accountable for? I am not always sure that I do.
Am I "responsible" for all that I do? Maybe not. So what am I then, irresponsible? I must be responsible for my responses. It's even the same word. If not me, who? My father who rejected me or that *** of an ex-wife who took my stuff and hired a lawyer? How about the teacher who belittled me in front of my classmates? Or the closet-homosexual staff sergeant who tried to grope me on the blind ward? And how could I not include the government in my grief and my rage? And the church, the Illuminati, the blind craziness of television.....yes, I long to go live in a cave sometimes! I'd fix it up cozy and invisible so that no one could find it.
Speaking of the same word, I can suffuse responsibility with responsiveness and vice versa. But first, I have to take a deep breath.
I am, in truth, responsible for my responses. It only follows naturally that I must master them - and that doesn't mean tamp them down and suppress them. I am a sovereign integral, a note in the grand symphony, a node in the Mother Field, a manifested intention of All That Is. As are you. My responses to the symphony of stimuli around me are my song on the divine instrument. As are yours. Who would we rather own them?
So you're right on both points. We do have to do both, take accountability while honoring the shadow, in order to take the next step, and I thank you for making the point.
8-D
Dearheart, thank you for that! It's probably best for my peace of mind that I can't actually see the kitty dance, but I love you for being there!
8-D
As I was reading your post Dave, I was remembering what Eckhart Tolle was saying about all of this. That we are addressing the unconscious most of the time. It is an interesting question, addressing accountability, especially when most of us have our hands full with just addressing our own...
Chris