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Sunday, 9 April 2006
A little sometime from my email
Mood:
 a-ok
 Ego based humans always look for an enemy to blame things on. It is humans nature to be deluded. Going back to the earliest humans, man has always looked for an 'enemy to blame' for lack of rain, too much rain, pestilence, disease and all the rest of his 'supposed' ills. Sometimes there is someone to blame for certain problems, which is usually US. Other times it is just how things are and no one is to blame.
When you stop looking for an enemy to blame your problems on you have made a big break through with finding acceptance and peace. It is always good to remember that all problems are created in the mind...man's mind. As well that all of man's problems are 'individual ones' and are not the problems of anything other than 'individual' man's. When a forest fire occurs from natural means and burns a mans home or kills him it may be 'bad' for him. But nature has bigger goals in mind than pleasing the self centered wishes of puny man. The forest fire serves other purposes of regeneration within natures plans and not mans demands. When it floods, nature is just reclaiming what is hers. But man decided he 'owns' nature and does not wish to give it up...greed, attachment and delusion. Again, nature has bigger plans than mans when it floods and replenishes nutrients and keeps the balance in check with its work. It is good to remember that nature does not bow to man and in the end all men will bow to nature.
But what else can you expect from an ego based, delusional human that thinks the world revolves around them? One that thinks even nature and God must serve them, each of them as an individual, above everyone and everything else? This is why Buddhism stresses the idea of no self, a concept that helps cut through these delusions. It is an important concept in itself, one that is too long to go into here, so study it up on your own if you wish to lose the delusion and think clearer. But Buddhist are not out of the water by any means. Much delusion in that tradition as well. Instead of God to blame, they dump it on karma...man has always looked for an enemy to blame his woes on.
In Buddhist practice they distinguish the three unwholesome roots as the roots that cause suffering within man. They are: DELUSION, GREED and HATE. Out of these three, delusion is the foundational root, for without seeing delusions for what they are, you cannot distinguish the other two unwholesome roots of greed and hate. But this is only restating the eightfold path of right actions, right thoughts, right view, right intentions, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. Within the sickness of self delusional mind many spiritual practitioners get stuck in the place of trying to be God. They think they know better than God. They think they rule nature and know better than nature. As such they demand their prayers must be answered in full or their ego gets hurt. Deliver the goods God ... or I will not worship you.
In the 12 and 12 of Alcoholics Anonymous it tells us we mistakenly think God is Santa Claus and must come through with our demands, just as we did as greedy children making up a long, impossible list for Santa to fill. Can you imagine if everyone's prayers were answered according to our self centered and conflicting demands? Everyone would be billionaires, some would sprout wings and fly or grow gills and live underwater and no one would grow old. Death...no one would ever die...except ones "enemies" that the misguided might prayer
for to die. This is not how the world and spiritual laws work. In the bible it reminds us that God's way is not man's way, and we can all be very grateful for that, as we can see what has happened when demigods take power on earth.
Many women say they can't understand men, just as many men say they can't understand women. Well, to further distill this we can say that God's way /
Higher Power's Way / Nature's Way is not man's way as well as man's way is not woman's way. Every creature has it's way and when you can come to peace with this you will have an easier time of it. To start on your peace journey look for insight into the other creatures suffering and problems. This technique comes from my Buddhist practice. This is easier to do with men or women than
with God. But it can still be done non the same with your higher power, as I mentioned above with the impossibility of satisfying all the demands of a selfish and conflicting world.
The 12 and 12 of AA also reminds us that believing in God or a Higher Power requires "reliance and not defiance." Once we have this reliance and lose the
defiance we can develop "faith that works under all conditions" and we come to realize that "our whole trouble had been a misuse of willpower. We tried to
bombard our problems with it instead of attempting to bring it into agreement with God's or our Higher Power's intention for us." There never is a good time for most of us to die, yet we all come under natural law and must die. so making gocentric demands on God to bypass natural law to be immortal for us or our loved ones is not realistic. My earlier post called "The Definition of a Miracle is the Suspension of Natural Law" discussed this issue.
Change is internal It seems that many of us get stuck with looking for hope of change someplace
else other than within us. All change is ultimately internal in nature, but we have hopes that someone else will do it for us, rather than we doing it
ourselves. Many religious practitioners feel that any good change in their lives will come from the outside -- as a gift from God / gods without much effort from ones own self to change...all they have to do is to pray 'hard' enough - again delusional thinking. There is nothing wrong with asking humbly in prayer or meditation, but there is something wrong with delusional prayer...especially when you think you are the God and know better than the God or Nature. Whenever I pray I always end it with AA's Step 11 - "Praying only for knowledge of God's will and the power to carry it out." I take it out of my hands and turn it over to God. Developing gratitude is very helpful with recovery
work. Now, some people talk of enlightenment or miracles happening, but even these areas of great change still must be ultimately rooted inside the person, as no one can beat them over the head with them and force the change upon the individual. One thing to be mindful of is that once we do change life will still not be perfect. Perfection is again ego based as it is the nature of humans
to not be perfect. As the old Buddhist saying goes: Before enlightenment you chop wood and carry water ~ After enlightenment you chop wood and carry
water. So, develop all the positive changes you can in your life, but be sure to look at such changes in proportion and not as some magic bullet to nirvana. True happiness and serenity is composed of many qualities and not just one. The
first step in finding peace with these subjects is to cut through the
delusion.
Whether you believe in God or not, delusion will undermine either path you take as is shown I the quote I include above from (...). Developing a good
vipassana practice of seeing things clearly in terms of impermanence, suffering and non-self is very important Seeing things for what they are helps prevent further uprising of new passions from ignorance. Once the new flow of delusion has been lifted, you start the process of 'awakening.' You awaken to a whole new life.
A quote on finding peace from Thich Nhat Hanh "There is no way to peace, peace is the way. This means that we can realize peace right here in the present moment with our look, our smile, our words and our actions. Peace work in not a means, each step we take should be peace. Every step we take should be joy. Every step we take should be happiness. Are you massaging Mother Earth every time your foot touches her? Are you planting
seeds of joy and peace? Enlightenment, peace and joy will not be granted by someone else. The well is within us and if we dig deeply in the present
moment the water will spring forth. If we are determined, we can do it. We don't need the future. We can smile, breath fully and relax Everything we want is here in the present moment. Peace is every step. Shall we continue our journey?"
Take Care,
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