Out in the cold too long?

[jenjulian]

Posting on this subject and all of the great ideas that were generated has helped me so very much. It has resulted in a decision to make a move in my life. I moved back to western Kansas 10 years ago, after leaving an abusive marriage and struggling with addiction, Well, basically, I was a broken mess, and I'm so grateful that I had a place to come to. God awoke in me during this time and I had also come 'home' and worked through all of those demons of the past that had haunted me for years.
I have decided that as my son leaves today to move near Kansas City, I also am returning to central Kansas, to a larger city, where I have more resoures, a more comfortable surrounding to live as I live. There is a unity church I used to attend that is purely spiritual that I think will help fill this void I'm having. I never would have made it through this last year without The Zoo Fence. You all have been like God reaching down and holding my hand, walking with me, surrounding me in safety. This is my safe haven, the place I can say what I need to and think things through. Never imagine that what you all do is not HUGE in the lives of many of us.
SO, off we go on the adventure this weekend, looking for a new place to be, live, to grow. WOOHOO, Isn't life fun?

[W4TVQ]

Ah, the mad enterprise known as MOVING. Can't tell you how often Peg and i have done that, and swron we'd never EVER do it again, only to do it again.

You'll be out of "computer" touch with us during the transition, but we'll be in touch with you in the Spirit. If you need us you can undoubtedly borrow a computer or use one in the library to check in here. Get back with us as soon as you can -- we'll miss you.

Namaste
Art

[jenjulian]

Thank you Art. We are moving in May, so lots of time to attempt to do this move in an organized manner, which you know if you've moved a lot, there is no such thing. I think this will be awesome for us. We are taking my daughters best friend too. Her mother is losing her struggle with cancer and she needs to know Crystal will be okay. She has stayed with us off and on this last year and it is time for her to move in with us. I'm not so lucky to live in cool places like Florida or Maine, or California. BUT, when my daughter is gone, I am moving back to Arizona, That is the place I used to live and love the most.

jen

[W4TVQ]

And that's why we don't plan to move again any tIme soon ... the only "easy" move we had was the move out to Kwajalein. We could only take 1000 lbs of stuff with us, so we got rid of almost everything we had. Of course, we accumulated more "stuff" out there, so we brought back 2100 lbs. And today our little tiny double-wide is crammed with STUFF. I swear, STUFF has rabbit DNA and multiplies geometrically in the dark while we sleep. You know, the way coat hangers do in a dark closet.

Anyway, glad you'll be with us for a while longer. You and your friend will be in our thoughts and prayers.

Arizone seems to have a great appeal. Our acupuncturist, whom we loved dearly, pulled up stakes and moved to Sedona. Haven't found a good acupuncturist since. At least, in AZ you don't have to sweat hurricane season the way we do here.

To change the subject, I just finished the Baghavad-Gita. Though I had read it 2 for three times before, it was like readng it for the first itme. So very much of what Krishna says is identical to statements made by Jesus about Himself. So much so that one cannot escape the conclusion that the same Spirit is speaking in both persons. I highly recommend re-visiting the Baghavad-Gita and the Upanishads. Like the bible, every time you read them you find something new and wonder, "was that in there before?"

More later

Namaste
Art

[jenjulian]

This is also what I find so amazing, the more different sources I read, the more the same thread is found weaving through them all. I am reading I Am That and I cannot believe how much of Simone Weil's philosophy and writings have the same ideas, and she was into more of the gnostic christian view with a strong Eastern philo religious beliefs. I've read the Baghavad- Gita once and it was a while back, before I studied the Bible more, so I'm planning on reading this next, to see what I hear in it new, or see with more clarity.

I'm enthralled with I AmThat, right now. I agree with Stephen, it is as though he is in the same room teaching us. I like the dialogue writing much better than an essay. I think being questioned is a great way to teach. It is truly taking me out of my lower self at times. I was riding in a vehicle today for work, coming back from an out of town doctors appointment with a client and my memory was triggered of the jenny of young, and while I was connecting with who this person is/was/has become, it dawned on me, the I am so very strongly. I guess I really like that word clarity right now. It was clear, very clear. Who was watching and examining this picture of who this person, jenny is? I've worked on shedding the ego for a long time, but this was one of those moments of clarity. If "I" am examining this 'person', then "I" am NOT that person. No matter how often you read those words or say them, it isn't the same as when you experience it, down from that place that is looking out. It was more than I am not this mind and I am not this body, (my mind tells my I'm not this body and my times of meditation, when I feel the core of me tell me I'm not my mind) but it was more like, I am not this collection of expericens and memories that make up jenny. It is all a smoke of thoughts and there is nothing there, Wow, this is hard to put into words, isn't it?

Thanks for the thoughts and prayers. The stuff issue. If you move at least once a year, it keeps the stuff under control...

jen

[W4TVQ]

"I am not this collection of expericens and memories that make up jenny. It is all a smoke of thoughts and there is nothing there, Wow, this is hard to put into words, isn't it?"

Hard? I'd say, impossible ... because we are dealing with paradox and the human psyche rejects paradox; our minds cannot wrap themselves around paradox, so we tend to deny it instead. The paradox here is that You both are and are not that "collection of experiences and memories." That "collection" is part of the human sub-creation; we know it is not "real" in the sense that I AM is real, but in another sense it is real. Ruby Nelson states it thus: To call the web of human sub-creation "appearances" is not to say that it is imaginary. Actually, it is real, painfully -- sometimes inhumanly -- ral and active. Within the web of collective forces are included many experiences which are accepted as the way life is -- wars, confliucts, violence, strife and trubles in any form, poverty, disease, old age, the cycles of death and rebirth, the struggle of mankind to understand himself and his universe. And of course, all of The Door of Everything is dedicated to the process of transcending the web of human sub-creation.

Yet the reality of this particular "person" is fleeting: it is the reality of the wave which the ocean manifessts and then reclaims. "We all come from the Goddess, and to her we shall return like a drop of rain flowing to the ocean." The body I inhabit and the life I live in the flesh are certainly not "imaginary" to me: I experience the pain of the sciatica that at this moment is tormenting me; I interact with my incredibly wonderful wife, body communicating with body as vessels of soul communicating with soul; just yesterday I found an image of the church in which I "grew up" in Orlando, and made it the desktop on my computer, a memory that is integral to "who I am." Somtimes in trying to grasp the paradox of I AM vs. I AM NOT I find myself relegating my life to the realm of the imaginary, and it is not imaginary at all. I believe this particular experience that is currently called "me" will be eternally an integral part of the Grand Cosmic Being that I am eternally becoming. One might say, the ocean retains a memory of every wave it has ever manifested, or of every raindrop that ever made its way back to the Source..

And yet, having said all that, I perceive this life as something to be -- not denied or rejected-- but transcended. It's a station along the track of a journey with an destination not yet fully comprehended. If I am to glean the values and lessons inherent in this particular station i must embrace it and in fact "become" it until it is no longer immediate and necessary. But I must also be ready at a moment's notice to "drop it" and move on, to go beyond, like the Bodhisattva of Compassion: "Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone beyond the beyond." All that I "am" now is the seed, hidden within the husk, and that seed is the beginning of the Grand Cosmic Being -- the seed being absolutely real, but ultimately incorporated in the Being that results from its stirring to life. The seed cannot be the tree now, but the tree is the reality contained in it, and thus it is as much "there now" as if it were fully formed. I am a work in progress, and always will be. The idea of "having arrived" at full realization bothers me: it implies ceasing to grow, to develop, to pass from the old and enter the new, and thus to me it implies stagnation. I am so utterly repelled by the common Christian image of heaven as a place where one sits on a cloud and plays a harp forever and ever. Yikes! Give me hell instead! Surely there will always be another galaxy to explore, another black hole to pass through, another nebula to pass through, another aspect of the infinite I AM to encounter and marvel at. And surely the person "I am" right now will be incorporated into the being that explores those galaxies and grows; otherwise the struggle we face here now to learn, grow and develop will have been a pointless waste of time and space. In the divine economy things change, but nothing is ever lost. If I can recall my youth as an altar boy at St. Luke's now, and if I can recall a previous life as an Egyptian slave, then the Grand Cosmic Being soaring across the expanses of the universe wil recall having been "me" and all of the totality of experiences that collectively became "it".

I'd better post this before I hit the Mystry Key that occasionally deletes all the work I've done up to a point. And bfore i get so entngled in my own verbiage that I can't extricate myelf from it. It's all JMO anyway.

Namaste
Art

[jenjulian]

I believe it is real, (with a little r) the pain in this world, but I think that whether we immerse ourselves in the changing up and downs of the world and our egos or whether we immerse ourselves in our center and allow the web and flow of life to flow through us, while we stay anchored in the REAL, makes a difference in what kind of suffering we will experience. The teachers, to me, are telling us that we don't have to suffer like that. I really like an example used of the projecter. The light is the One, our thoughts create the images that end of on the screen. If we become immersed in the story on the screen, we will stay deeply involved in the world of our minds and whatever happens. But if we turn and look the other way and look at the light, see that we are only making the light make images, then whatever images are on the screen will be experienced differently.

What I have touched on lately, is this place of absolute peace. I don't even have to meditate anynmore, it is like a door has opened and I simply close my eyes and I'm in that dark quiet peace, but the word 'peace' doesn't give justice to what this place is like. I'm drawn here and I'm standing here more and more, rather than in my emotions, or thinking or reactions to the world, and it gives a different persepective, or is starting to.

I don't have any answers about whether we maintain our personalities. Maybe we do and then eventually we don't, when we are ready not to?

[W4TVQ]

"I simply close my eyes and I'm in that dark quiet peace, but the word 'peace' doesn't give justice to what this place is like. I'm drawn here and I'm standing here more and more, rather than in my emotions, or thinking or reactions to the world, and it gives a different persepective, or is starting to."

I expect to reach that quiet place myself ... when I am ready for it.

Sounds a lot like what Krishna asks for in the Gita (18:65f): "Give thy mind to me, and give me thy heart, and thy sacrifice, and thy adoration. This is my Word of promise: thou shalt in truth come to me, for thou art dear to me. Leave all things behind, and come to me for thy salvation. I will make thee free from the bondage of sins. Fear no more." As ACIM words it, "If you knew who walks beside you on the way that you have chosen, fear would be impossible."

I said, "when i am ready," in the sense of "at the right time;" I do not expect or wish to become totally absorbed in the numinous while driving on I-75 in heavy traffic, and those on the road with me would no doubt agree. Nor do I wish to have any revelation that I am not yet prepared to receive in an ego-less manner. The full revelation of Krishna to Arjuna takes place at the end of the Gita, when Arjuna has been fully prepared by Krishna to receive the vision of God.

We're all on the same path, though I am new to it and far, far behind; so what? We all end up in the same place, so there's no hurry to "get there first." I'm enjoying the scenery in this part of the journey. And I think the journey wil continue forever; there's an intinerary, but no ETA.

Namaste
Art