Working to Awaken

Top 2. Aug 31, 2001 11:39 AM

» MWilliams - Re: "If it isn't fun - stop doing it!"

In response to message posted by jamenta:

John,

Thanks for your input on my article. I’m sorry my message there didn’t resonate with you, but not every idea is viable for every person.

Just to clarify, I did not mean to suggest that I hated my work. On the contrary, I love working with the horses and gain great satisfaction from it. My point was merely that many people work at things they don’t enjoy and feel that they cannot simply stop doing so. I am suggesting that there is enjoyment to be found in all work if one wishes to make it so by focusing on personal growth through work rather than dwelling on, and thus energizing, the negative emotions that can arise in such a situation.

While I am familiar with Richard Bach’s work and the ‘entity’ Seth, it would be presumptuous of me to suppose that they comprise spiritual wisdom in its entirety. Many have written on the concept of ‘living in the moment’, and I can only report that which has enabled me personally to break out of habitual existence, which prevents spontaneity and thus prevents one from being authentically oneself.

Peace to you,
Mary

-- posted by MWilliams

Top 3. Aug 31, 2001 5:06 PM

» jamenta - New Age Perspectives, yet another Perspective!

Mary,

Thanks for your reply.

You wrote:

> "I’m sorry my message there didn’t resonate with you,
> but not every idea is viable for every person.

On the contrary! I did find your article resonating
and thus my posted response. I see no need for you
to be sorry, not everyone will agree with you 100%
in what you have to say; and I am assuming the idea of
your forum on New Age perspectives is to allow for
the discussion of different view points? (If I
assume to much, please let me know, and I will write
my own New Age perspectives else where!) Indeed, what
would the world be if everyone agreed with everyone
else, and everything was absolutely perfect? Sterile
and boring would be my guess (and hardly New Age).

> Just to clarify, I did not mean to suggest that I
> hated my work. On the contrary, I love working with
> the horses and gain great satisfaction from it. My
> point was merely that many people work at things they
> don’t enjoy and feel that they cannot simply stop
> doing so.

I appreciate your candour Mary. And I believe if you
re-read my original reply, you will find I never did
make the proposition that you in particular hated your
work or found it unsatisfying. And I did understand
your point! Thus the reason why I posted my reply,
because I wanted to contribute to your forum another
"New Age perspective" in the hope it might generate
discussion and further comments.

Indeed, I am curious on what your thoughts
are in regards to the alternate "perspective" I
ventured forth? You seem to think that I did not
understand your original post, but I think I did.

You make the assumption one has to work to survive
in this reality, and if one dislikes one's work,
one can learn to focus on the positive aspects of
work instead of the negative; and one way
to do this is to focus your attention in-the-moment,
"and not withdrawing the mind from the activity".
By doing this, you claim "feelings of resentment
vanish" because one is completely immersed in one's
actions. You also state, "Only when we cease
to work in a negative and distracted state of mind
and begin to apply our will to the task can we
experience the flowering of consciousness that can
be gained from our labor".

Now that was your "perspective" that you posted on
this forum and I believe I understand it, though
I may not necessarily agree with you on the truth
of it. Since, for one - you do make the assumption
"We all have to work at something". Let me say a few
things about that one assumption...

I think you would agree with me that one well known
new age tenet is the belief there are no accidents.

And since you wrote the following to me:

"While I am familiar with Richard Bach’s work and
the ‘entity’ Seth, it would be presumptuous of me
to suppose that they comprise spiritual wisdom in
its entirety."

I will quote other authors besides Bach and Seth,
so you can rest assured that all my New Age ideas
do not come from a single source. (I am curious,
by the way Mary, from what source did you base your
original article on? I would assume since you
believe it is presumptuous that any single source
comprises spiritual wisdom in its entirety, that
your article is not based just on your own personal
assumptions?)

Let me quote from two well known, (usually)
respected authors:

"Only shallow men believe in luck"
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"That power which erring men call chance."
-John Milton (the poet)

Carl Jung also believed strongly in the concept of
asynchronous-synchronous events, based on his many
long years of study of the unconscious. His essay on
synchronicity describes in detail the idea that
an individual's reality is not governed by chance
alone.

This being said, I do not believe your proposition
"We all have to work at something" is necessarily
true. This type of statement assumes the
soul is powerless to decide its own destiny, and
again I quote your original article:

"that’s the way of survival in this particular
reality"

An assumption that this is the way reality is and
there is nothing one can do about it. And yet,
if there is anything about reality I have personally
learned over time; and which a great deal of reading
has helped teach me, it is the truth that there is still
much to learn about what reality really is, nor do
we yet know fully the role chance and "coincidence" plays
in each of our lives.

And that brings me back to the "Lillies of the field"
quote I posted in my original reply (not Seth or Bach
again, but certainly a New Age kind of thought). This
is the belief that - one does not have to work
in order to live - your soul is not forced to do anything
it does not want to do. If you have the courage to
follow your heart, to do what you really want to do,
and not do what you think you must do, because you
believe you "have to do it" or you believe reality is
this way and that's that; but rather, if you trust the
spirit within you, you will indeed find a flowering
of your consciousness much like the Lillies of the field;
and you can trust in the synchronicity of life to take
you where you want to go.

The trick is to be much like children are, spontaneous,
free to follow what is within you, and believe that
what is within you is good and right; and if you followed
those impulses from within, you would not find it
necessary to find a way to "enjoy work".

Your article did strike a resonance within me! As I
think my response to your article struck a resonance
in you Mary. And I do think my finding this forum
was no accident. And I challenge you to think more
about your concept of Work and Spiritual awakening.
I challenge your assumption one must work in this
reality we live in. And I challenge your assumption
that spiritual awakening can happen by learning to
enjoy work; for you assume one must work in the first
place, or that spiritual awakening occurs when an
individual believes she is powerless to change the
physical circumstances in which she is forced to work.

Love and Peace,

John

-- posted by jamenta

Top 4. Sep 2, 2001 1:44 PM

» MWilliams - Re: New Age Perspectives, yet another Perspective!

In response to message posted by jamenta:

You know what, John? Perhaps you're right! Your voice here is one of several that have been speaking to me, through one medium or another, for weeks now. My perspective is shifting, and I with it. Thanks for helping Spirit to catch my attention...your good deed for the day. smile

Sorry if I seemed offensive in my last reply; it wasn't my intent. I obviously didn't express myself well.

Peace to you,
Mary

-- posted by MWilliams

Top 5. Sep 23, 2001 6:49 AM

» jamenta - Work, and Yet Another Perspective

Mary, I don't know about being "right"! I'm
not trying to claim I am an expert when it
comes to New Age philosophy, only that I am
searching for answers like so many of
us.

It is true the Seth personality did say "If
it isn't fun, don't do it!" However, Seth
also said our beliefs create our reality
(literally), Lumanians once existed on the
earth, and there are families of consciousness
we each belong to. Whether any of this is
at all true, or some kind of distortion
of a truth, I really don't know.

It seems by the "fun" quote, Seth is stating we
ought to abdicate all responsibility and just
have fun. And I frankly think that is just
not possible or realistic - life is much more
complicated than that. But Seth sometimes would
say stuff just to shake people up in a way it
would get them thinking about how they
perceived and lived their life (and maybe it
was just Jane Robert's unconscious speaking).

To switch gears and get away from Seth and look
at the idea of "Work" from a different angle,
lets consider some of Carl Jung's ideas, whom
I think you might agree was certainly a New
Age type of thinker.

Jung was convinced that one of the main goals
of our being was the achievement of wholeness.
Wholeness in regards to the desires, ambitions,
abilities, and natural propensities of the self
manifesting into physical reality.
Jung would
be the first to point out that the part of
us we think is our selfhood really is only a
part. That is, the part that is
the self-aware part of ourselves he called the
"ego" but he insisted was not the entire self.

You probably already are aware of his concepts
Mary but to generalize, Jung divided who we are
into three general parts - the "ego
consciousness" - the part we most identify with
and is commonly mistaken as the complete self
and all of our identity (since it thinks it is
only aware of itself), the "personal
unconscious", and the "collective
unconscious". I am not going to go into a
dissertation on the aspects of Jung's theories
of the unconscious right here! But I do want to
comment upon some of Jung's ideas in regards
to the idea of Work and how we deal with it -
which to me, is what was so interesting about
your original post. And I think it relates to
Seth's quote "If it ain't fun, don't do it!"

For based on on Jung's ideas, one of the key
areas of personal growth and achievement has
to do with his idea of the "Ego" portion of
our personality encountering the "Unconscious"
portions, and integrating and acting upon
those "Unconscious" aspects within us. Now
here's the kicker - (in my mind at least) the
"Ego" plays a vital role in checking and not
letting the "unconscious" get out-of-control.
That is, the unconscious can and will take over
a weak ego, and this then becomes what Jung and
Freud would term a psychosis, or neurotic state.
Jung, would in fact, have to decide early on
when meeting with a patient, whether the patient
was ready to encounter her unconscious in a
direct manner, and whether the patient's ego
would survive such an encounter. This was
no laughing matter either, since Jung himself
nearly lost his mind to psychosis, fantasy, and
other strong forces of the unconscious when
he began to delve into his own psyche - during
the rocky period of his life when he began to
part ways from Freud.

On the other side of the coin, sometimes the
"Ego" can be way too controlling, not letting
the more spontaneous and deeper parts of who
we are (that reside in the unconscious) break
through, and provide us with guidance and new
direction for growth (with the caveat that the
ego itself must judge the validity of what
is arising from the unconscious and dismiss
the parts that can lead to psychosis!)

Now interesting enough, there are different
ways to reach the unconscious: dreams being
perhaps one of most direct ways, secondly,
active imagination (Art!), and yet another
way, paying attention to the numinous
synchronous events which occur (more often
then we think) during the course of our
living.

It is almost humorous to think that this great
man, Carl Jung, in order to achieve the
profound understanding he did obtain about the
nature of our psyche, pretty much went off
on his own and began (literally) building little
towns and sandcastles, started talking to
imaginary playmates that eventually appeared
in full figure before him (Salome for example)
and built himself a castle tower - all while he
almost went insane (and nearly drove his family
nuts).

Now thinking about this and your original
article and Seth and now Jung - what I find
interesting and I wanted to bring forward on
this forum is this concept of "letting loose"
as I would like to characterize it. Seth
goes to the very extreme - and says just let
loose no matter what! I don't think I
personally buy that entirely - but think it
would probably help a heck of a lot of people
who are currently very "ego" bound as Jung
would say. Jung on the other hands
says,
"let loose" but "traveller beware", and make
sure you integrate what you are letting loose
into who you are - and don't let it get out
of control. That is, that your ego is not to
be shunted aside but it plays a critical role
in the integration of your personality, and
that the unconscious should not be considered
gospel in regards to what you may find there.
Rather - a mutual joining of the two parts of
your self, where one gains from the other is
the ideal. And Jung said this was perhaps
the hardest, most treacherous work anyone would
encounter if one decided to tackle this
integration (what he called individuation)
directly!

This then brings this post back to the idea
of how to deal with Work that one finds one
part of one's self rebelling against the Work.
That is somewhere, there is a part of you that
might be saying "I would rather be having fun
with Mel Gibson or Harrison Ford right now
rather than milking the cows." Both Seth and
Jung would say - this part of you that is
saying this - you should definitely pay
attention too. However, Seth would say - pay
attention to this part exclusive to all else.
Jung would say, pay attention to this part, but
put it in perspective of the ego's awareness
of life, and explore it.

Jung would insist
that one does not DENY that one carries
the impulse to not Work and he says it is
important that one become more aware of all
the impulses, ideas, feelings one has that
is associated with the impulse "not to work"
and that you should write it down, or make
Art out of it in some way - but you should
explore it. And Jung would say that at
some point, for your own self growth, you
should then ACT upon your exploration - that
taking no action leads to stagnation and
more blockage.

I think, in many ways, you did this Mary - you
explored the feelings that arose within you
spontaneously as you worked. So it was a
definite meditation upon the self. Perhaps
it might be even lead to more growth - is to
expand upon what you discover as you Work
outside of the Work itself; and for those of
us who are rebelling against Work, discover
those aspects of our personality that are
yearning for growth in possible new directions?

John

-- posted by jamenta

Top 6. Sep 24, 2001 5:49 PM

» knightcat50 - Teach Me

Yes...We are all teachers...and we are all students...with a main purpose to learn to love ourselves, so we can then love others :-) :-o So let's lighten up...
my first visit...
Many links on my web sites into the mind, soul, spirit, and illusion...

-- posted by knightcat50