Looking past the Person

[anna]

Mmmmmmm, Bhakti, nice contribution.

You know, it is possible that the demented person is actually a clear image of what we all are in actuality. As I get less attached to my "person", and thus clearer and wiser in my dotage, I see clearer, and find that none of us are actually "sane" in the true sense of the word. If you truly listen to another, you will find constant contradictions, actual sub-personalities, and all the rest of it, surfacing, and the only reason it appears to be rational is that we, as the listener, create a pattern out of those contradictions in order to impress continuity, and thus a kind of sanity on our outer world.

The beauty of the demented is that they are no longer trying to impress anybody, and thus are totally uncooperative with the facade that folks agree to abide by in relationship. (Sorry, Miko, but I think it is a good word despite Bush's use of it Don't let him ruin it for you.)

Perhaps the demented are only those individuals who no longer inhibit the expression of the true state of mind - which is a hodge podge of accumulated concepts which we carefully arrange to coincide with one another enough so that we can feel secure in that arranged hodge podge and appear to others to be "consistent" within that arrangement. But as I said, if you listen carefully, very few folks are truly consistent. Indeed, only the silent ones are probably consistent.

I think that your dancing the dance with Eva is what is natural and beautiful, and right. She is fortunate to have you beside her, and you're both contributing to one another, how great is that?

[iamDiane]

Hello Bahkti,
How true that is! ‘Being” practical in the moment is experiencing all that one is!
What a wonderful experience to be & share totally with another aspect of oneself! Touché to that!

I can very much relate to your sharing!

Other than my counselling, I also work as a residential support worker for people with a diagnosed mental illness, such as schizophrenia, Bi-polar, developmental delay or dual diagnosis, some of which has been the result of or drug induced.
Many of who, are ignored or shunned by society at large. Primarily, I personally feel this is due to either ignorance or preconceived ideas and fear and perceptions that predetermine these people, don’t fit into the “NORM” pigeonhole & don’t want to know about them!
Anyway, “What is Norm or sane”? & Who Says So! I wonder!

However, I feel I am very privileged to be in this position, it is so rewarding & grounding! I feel very humbled by the total presence of each person. They have no inhibitions, whether sad, lonely, depressed, angry, fearful, happy, excited, or even lose control over their bladder, or walk naked around the street.

They express themselves in the moment with the spontaneity of a child & pure naturalness. They express their emotions freely, radiating love & acceptance, most of the time, unless they are agitated & then they let you share in that also! How many people could say their work rewarded them with a great big smile & excitement that always leads to a hug or cuddle every time the residents see you coming in for a shift or leaving! Wow!

So Being practical & real, has many rewarding gifts, it allows one to be united as one in the moment, and even better, if the moment happens to last for an 8, 10 0r 15 hour shift, that’s when real magic happens > The child in me celebrates!

Namaste
DianeJ

[Bhakti]

Anna has said:

You know, it is possible that the demented person is actually a clear image of what we all are in actuality. As I get less attached to my "person", and thus clearer and wiser in my dotage, I see clearer, and find that none of us are actually "sane" in the true sense of the word. If you truly listen to another, you will find constant contradictions, actual sub-personalities, and all the rest of it, surfacing, and the only reason it appears to be rational is that we, as the listener, create a pattern out of those contradictions in order to impress continuity, and thus a kind of sanity on our outer world.

I posted a note on the Obsessed or Focused subject of the forum about Gregory Batson. A while ago, I came across one of his books, Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Batson is an anthropologist who talks about metadialogues, art, schizophrenia, and many other topics that have to do with grace, consciousness, and relationships.

He quotes Aldous Huxley who said that humans have lost "grace," which animals still have. God resembles the animal rather than the human because, like the animal, God is unable to deceive and is incapable of internal confusion.

Bateson believes that through art, humans quest for grace. By this, I believe that he means that art (not only art works but the art of the heart) brings out the animal or autistic nature of humans. He says that it's impossible to be totally conscious. Consciousness can see only short arcs of brain circuits that we purposely direct. "Consciousness unaided by grace must always tend toward hate, not only because living by unaided consciousness is good common sense to exterminate the other fellow, but for the more profound reason that, seeing only arcs of circuits, the individual is continually surprised and necessarily angered when his hardheaded policies return to plague the inventor.

"If you use DDT to kill insects, you many succeed in reducing the insect population so far that the insectivors will starve. You will then have to use more DDT than before to kill the insects which the birs no longer eat. More probably, you will kill of the birds in the first round when they eat the poisoned insects. If the DDT kills off the dogs, you will have to have more police to keep down the burglars. The burglars will become better armed and more cunning . . . and so on.

"That is the sort of world we live in—a world of circuit structures—and love can survive only if wisdom (i.e., a sense or recognition of the fact of circuitry) has an effective voice."

Without the aid of grace, if our mind circuitry is confused or wants to remain confused—whether we're supposedly demented, sane, or insane—we'll be confused and attached to this mindset throughout life (or many lives), I think. Blessings, Bhakti

[iamDiane]

Thanks Anna,
Yes, a fine line between insanity & sanity as the pendelum swings to & fro
I will endeavour to get hold of a copy of "Steps to an Ecology of Mind", sounds like it could be interesting reading & an advantage to have a deeper insight that can support me in this field of work.

namaste

[zoofence]

In this interesting discussion, Bhakti posted the following very cool line from Gregory Bateson's book Steps to an Ecology of Mind: "the individual is continually surprised and necessarily angered when his hardheaded policies return to plague the inventor".

My own experience as a seeker clearly indicates to me that often (always?) my best course when confronted by almost any opportunity to act is to do less rather than more; whereas, in my youth, before encountering the spiritual path, my first inclination always was to do more, not less.

Thus, it is increasingly apparent to me that the Universe (including we ourselves) is designed to function without our intervention. The Universe is self-starting, self-regulating, self-monitoring, self-correcting.

Our function is not to do but to experience, to share, to enjoy, to learn, to appreciate, to acknowledge, to applaud, to welcome, to grow, to relate, and so on ... all of which, I suppose, amounts to love. If/when we perform our function properly, the doing takes care of itself. But if and when we insist on doing -- that is, exceed the definition and limitations of our natural function -- we often (always?) find ourselves later undoing or repairing or amending or amplifying or modifying or editing whatever we did, and frequently (always?) the most apparent effects of our inappropriate doing are evidenced in our physical/mental health.

All of the Teachers I have encountered address this issue in one way or another. In the end, it is all about surrendering to the Universe. Thy Will be done ... unconditionally. Letting God be God. It is one of the hardest lessons to accept, to embrace, to learn, to apply. But once we do, the rest -- all the rest -- follows.

[anna]

Yes, yes. And that undoing to which Zoofence refers is "karma" - no?

[anna]

I find in my own life now that the "karmic debt" that I inevitably incur by simply interfering in the working of the universe, even to the point where stating an opinion contrary to the one I am opposed to, I reap the rewards almost immediately, and find that I must go back to the beginning to unwind it right then and there, or over a fairly short period of time. There was a time when that karmic debt was not obvious to me, or for that matter, in action, or at least I could not find it. I have to conclude therefore that those particular karmic debts were piling up so heavily, and I was so immersed in time and space so deeply, that the debts would accrue over millennia, as opposed to one life. But now, it is more commonly immediate. Interestingly, this points to what I perceive to be a shrinking of time, perhaps what some religions call the "latter days" or "the end of time".

I cannot help but conclude that the process of unwinding the preoccupation of the Self, or Consciousness, or the Soul, with the personality, or the person, is a gradual process, or CAN BE a gradual process, if that works for you. Nisargadatta once stated that it can be gradual, as opposed to suddenly (the latter which is more frequently written about in biographies). Perhaps the compressing of time can be evidence of "success" (please forgive the use of that word in this context! ) in extricating oneself from separateness and all that implies?

[zoofence]

Perhaps the compressing of time can be evidence of "success" ...

It figures that the more open and receptive we become (allow ourselves to be) to the reality of our nature -- and particularly to where and how our "personality" evolves, our inclinations, habits, preconceptions, opinions, attitudes, preferences, and so on, all of which determine how we act and react -- the more ready we are (1) to acknowledge that our perspective (our agenda?) is nothing special, and (2) to recognize the residue of our thoughts and actions, and (3) to clean up after ourselves.

All of this is undoubtedly always evident almost immediately... to those with eyes that see. But clearly, we cannot see any of it until we are able and willing to see ourselves as we are, or at least to begin to do so. And the more able and willing we become in that regard, the more readily we see and understand what is happening around us and as us.

In my experience, karma is initially all about reward and punishment. And why not? As long as everything is about "me", so is karma. We can't see karma (or anything else) any other way because "me" is the essence, catalyst, and focal point of everything for us. "Me" is the glasses through which we see and experience everything. "Me" is our environment.

As we release and transcend that separative perception ("I am me, and you aren't me"), karma loses its "me-ness". Slowly, gradually, we begin to see that, like life itself, karma is not personal (not about "me"); it just is.

[Bhakti]

And without me-ness, karma or whatever happens from minute to minute becomes, as Aldous Huxley has said, "unable to deceive and incapable of internal confusion. His quote from Bateson's book is this:

Humans have lost "grace," which animals still have. God resembles the animal rather than the human because, like the animal, God is unable to deceive and is incapable of internal confusion.

I look at it in this way: If we acknowledge that our agenda is nothing special and if we clean up our thoughts and actions, what care do we have? We care only for Oneness.

I realize that UG would not agree with this last statement, but that's UG and he's realized. I'm not and can express the unexpressible only with this human body and mind called Bhakti. Ave atque Blessings