Yes of course I see and that's where the concept of "fun" originates. Fun is the only thing one doesn't have to try to do.Pam Seeback wrote: ↑Wed Feb 28, 2018 3:14 amThe absolute You does not try to do anything. You seek to find the ideal growing conditions for berries, you cause these ideal conditions, if the berries don’t grow, they don’t grow. It is the ego that tries and then curses the universe when its trying efforts are not rewarded. Do you see how the concept of ‘trying’ is the delusion, what Buddhist’s would call the efforts of the false self?Serendipper: So we have:
-Trying to grow berries
-Not-trying to grow berries as a method of trying to grow berries
-Not caring if berries grow or not.
Ok, now with that established, what if you've found everyone to be ignorant? Would you tell society you no longer want it in your life or would you figure there is something wrong with you?If you continued to be ignorant, showing no signs of waking up to the truth that your constant self-contradiction was causing you suffering, I would tell you that I no longer want your ignorance in my life.Serendipper: So you'd be the ideal wife for every guy to pull wool over her eyes lol. At what point would you say "Enough is enough! I can't handle your inconsideration any longer!" If I kept giving you my word and not keeping it, eventually you'd not be able to believe me. After the 50th time of my not showing up, would you bother to even get dressed?
How do you compel someone else to value the truth?In conventional terms, I have been a wife for 43 years and a mother for 41. I hold my husband and children to the truth of their word as do I believe they hold me to the truth of my word. Being with the causality of 'another' isn't complicated when truth is valued about everything else.
Well I do not typically label myself, but rascal is just a placeholder to save typing. Alan says everyone has the "element of irreducible rascality", including all interpretations of god, and it's similar to the concept of yetzer hara. It's the salt in the stew wherein salt in large quantities is horrible, but in certain small quantities is delightful and in fact necessary to make stew. He parallels that with the left and right hand of the god of the bible and that is paralleled with the hindu "hide and seek". When "hide" has its day, the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, but when "seek" has its day, the right hand discovers what the left hand was doing. That is an analogy for the scientific view of the universe that everything is on and off in oscillation. So the true nature of me, it would seem, has to have a left and right hand.From the position of the ego, the false self, you are a rascal. From the position of you that is not not interpreting dualistically – rascal/not rascal – you are, as Alan Watts says, simply spitting ‘rascal’or whatever new name you are calling yourself in lieu of being a rascal, on your face. The goal is to quit calling yourself names, ultimately, they are naught but diversions to either speaking/living truth or not speaking/living truth. Think about this for a moment: a name cannot be true.Serendipper:I see what you're saying and it just means I'm a rascal.Pam: Truth: you (That which thinks) are not separate from the thoughts of the universe so stop looking up and asking Up why things (thoughts) are not going your way, ask yourself. You may not like the answer you get, but guaranteed, it will cause you to 'do something', aka to seek.
Bill doesn't care about the consequences of what's sown because what grows is carnal. It makes no difference to him how his character in the play is punished. An analogy is to suppose I drive a truck through the woods and beat it up really well, I walk away from the truck and care not what condition it's in. The actor in the play cannot be harmed; just the character. When people get shot in movies, the actor doesn't also die. So, essentially, Bill is directing his character to antagonize other characters while being completely immune from consequences because none of the characters actually exist.Let’s say for the fun :-) of it that Bill is not showing up just to piss people off, he is thinking ‘what a fine rascal am I!' Because of the truth of not being separate from what he is causing, he will reap what he sows, he will piss people off and suffer the consequences. What are the likely consequences of pissing off the producers and directors and fellow actors? Not too challenging to come with the answer. :-) Bottom line, be a rascal all you want, but you can’t cheat the causality of your rascally-false-self!But it's not an expression of not-self, it's more of an expression of a rascal-self wherein Bill agrees to meet at a certain time and place for a shoot, but doesn't show up seemingly just to piss people off.
And so this begs the question of buddhistic goal of reducing suffering: What suffering? There is no one there to suffer. If that is the truth the Buddha woke up to, then why bother to reduce the suffering that doesn't exist?
One where growing strawberries is difficult, but not impossible ;) In other words, I want strawberries to be too difficult for others to grow, but easy enough that I can figure it out so that I can brag about it and others can say "good job!" :D See? I'm a rascal! I want a game where I win all the time, but such games don't exist because if I win all the time, it wouldn't be a game. It's the eternal vexation of desiring all good and no bad. How does one transcend that without also dissolving away? Because the point of the game is to have something to do, so transcending the game is defeating the purpose of having the game. Transcendence is often also just another way of trying to beat the game.The goal of having wisdom of the true nature of Self is to quit playing the unconscious game of being a character in a movie you falsely believe someone or something else other than you is causing. What movie do you want to cause?You and I are characters in this movie or game and our characters have agreed to play by rules of morality, so enforcing the morality is part of the plot. And so to act unnaturally would be acting in accordance with knowing you're just a character in a movie rather than faithfully portraying the character by realizing that although you are only a character, the point is to have a good movie. But what is a good movie?
That impersonal force must have a front and back, inside and out, what it is and what it isn't. Why the desire to squeeze it into a nondual box?The Mr. All that is playing all the parts that is me and you and everything else if not an entity that is dualism-dependent (I’m a Joker one moment and a Priest in another moment), instead, the All (not MR. All) is the law of causality or the law of the Spirit of life, an impersonal force or will or spirit.Alan talked at length about the Joker and, admittedly, all that turns my stomach to think that an entity would get kicks from tripping others, but I suppose it just means I have not yet realized there are no others. But that poses another question:
If, let's say, Mr All is the only one that exists, and he is playing all the parts that is me and you and everything else, and he enjoys playing the parts of characters who poke fun of other characters, then what does that say about him? The one you call the real me.
We can't have the saved without the damned or there would be nothing to be saved from if everyone were saved. Salvation is dependent upon damnation in order for salvation to exist.You must ask God this very important question of identity, there is no other way to find out for sure. The question I asked God and kept asking God until I got the truthful answer was: how can you divide yourself into two separate, absolute worlds, one of bliss and one of damnation and still be connected to both worlds in order to ‘run both shows?’ Not logical, not logical at all!Alan says the Joker was necessary to remind the King not to take things too seriously and it was an important function since we can't have kings too full of themselves. I suppose that means it's not good to be too absorbed in our role?
He says the Hindu would applaud the Christian for being totally taken-in by his role; for there is one who has convinced himself of the most magnificent dilemma... eternal bliss vs eternal damnation... and it all rides on this one life. Bravo! No one could have imagined such a dramatic play as that! Does the Christian wake to find the joke is on him or is it the Hindu? What does all this mean about the nature of God?
Christians say hell is eternal separation from God who is all-good, which makes no sense because it begs the question of having good without bad. Other interpretations of hell is simply being in the presence of God is hell, which was Lucifer's problem when he compelled 1/3 of the angels to follow him out of heaven which had become hell through supposed tyrannical leadership in his view. Others may see such tyranny as bliss. So God didn't create two worlds, but one world and what you make of it depends on how you look at it.
The creators of Southpark depicted Saddam Hussein going to heaven just in time to participate in a play about "how stealing hurts you deep inside". I'm no Saddam Hussein, but that would be hell even for me! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppNHaCN1A84