01-01-2014, 12:00 AM
SelfHealedMadman wrote:~
Usually, when we think of a ‘warrior,’ someone drawing a line in the sand, making their last stand on earth, we think they are committing themselves to an all-or-nothing battle: here and now, on this spot, live or die. That's the kind of ultimatum Carlos and others often describe. They make it sound like a fight, like put up yer dukes, but it's really not.
It's the end of fighting, the end of a lifelong struggle.
Drawing this line doesn't mean battle stations, red alert, defcon one and all that. It’s not that kind of battle. It means we have to lower our shields, not raise them. That's how easily and effectively we are undone, and it's because the enemy is within, running the show, redeploying all of our mental and emotional resources against us.
Instead of adopting a warlike posture, we must, counter-intuitively, lower our shields and defenses. This seems confusing until we understand that we are both the protagonist and the antagonist in this
conflict, both attacker and defender.
This is the paradoxical nature of the struggle. We can't win by fighting. The very thing that fights, that resists, is the thing we seek to overthrow. Only by vanquishing self importance can we prevail. Only in surrender can we
find victory. This is the part so few get, and fewer get beyond. This is the part where everything starts sounding all sagely or zenny, but that can't be helped. If you want to say that all religions and spiritual teachings share a
core truth, it can only be this: Surrender is victory.
Yet, this isn’t the end.
It’s only the beginning.
Once we surrender, the Work starts.
The warrior battles with his or her own defences. The stuff that the warrior needs to drop, the bs, is what makes the defences/barriers (and this activity of noticing it and dropping is what makes the 'fight'. the fight consists of being aware, attentive and resisting the urge to follow the same pattern and/or habit in one's emotional reactions, ID, etc). The bs/defences/barriers is what bends things that are going from out in and bends the things that are going from in to out. The biggest (if not all) junk of that is fear based. Here is where one can make a link to DJ's/CC's 1st enemy of the man of knowledge: fear.
It is easily visible in many people, how things bend or just plain do not get inside them, how things are deflected before they reach behind the barrier. The barrier, if left to its own devices, hardens, crusts. This links to 4th enemy: old age. Having no crusted barrier is what keeps youth, fluidity, flexibility.
I like the spin you put on it. Of course looking at what I just wrote one might conclude that there is no other fight but with the self. Still, fighting with it can be seen as keeping it in focus, makes it into something that it is not. That would not be eer productive to do . I focus on the bs and stuff that bends, through that I see what the self would like to hold on to to create itself, when I drop that then I see that part of what I thought was myself disappear. Like a could of smoke, as if it was never there. For a moment Im in a not clear space zone.. one realizes there is no such thing as what one thought was the self, or that it is not what one thought it was. For a moment it feels like I am nothing and everything, I do not know where exactly I end, where are my boundaries, cause they are not where they were before. I just spill over.
Either way, I cannot say I have it figured out. Just an hour ago I was thinking, while walking along a big river, that maybe I am going about it the wrong way. What if instead of catching the reactions and then dropping whatever it is that lets them emerge, I should encourage it more so more shows and I can burn out all of it. Of course in the first method I go with what shows, but maybe I should encourage the reaction so maybe more gets shown too
Maybe I should go the other way. Sometimes after exploding it is easy to drop something cause one sees it in all its ugly nonsensical glory. For all I know, maybe this links to the surrendering you speak of .
Let go of the control. What tries to keep the control is the self anyway. The realness behind it has no need for it.
Just a thought
Usually, when we think of a ‘warrior,’ someone drawing a line in the sand, making their last stand on earth, we think they are committing themselves to an all-or-nothing battle: here and now, on this spot, live or die. That's the kind of ultimatum Carlos and others often describe. They make it sound like a fight, like put up yer dukes, but it's really not.
It's the end of fighting, the end of a lifelong struggle.
Drawing this line doesn't mean battle stations, red alert, defcon one and all that. It’s not that kind of battle. It means we have to lower our shields, not raise them. That's how easily and effectively we are undone, and it's because the enemy is within, running the show, redeploying all of our mental and emotional resources against us.
Instead of adopting a warlike posture, we must, counter-intuitively, lower our shields and defenses. This seems confusing until we understand that we are both the protagonist and the antagonist in this
conflict, both attacker and defender.
This is the paradoxical nature of the struggle. We can't win by fighting. The very thing that fights, that resists, is the thing we seek to overthrow. Only by vanquishing self importance can we prevail. Only in surrender can we
find victory. This is the part so few get, and fewer get beyond. This is the part where everything starts sounding all sagely or zenny, but that can't be helped. If you want to say that all religions and spiritual teachings share a
core truth, it can only be this: Surrender is victory.
Yet, this isn’t the end.
It’s only the beginning.
Once we surrender, the Work starts.
The warrior battles with his or her own defences. The stuff that the warrior needs to drop, the bs, is what makes the defences/barriers (and this activity of noticing it and dropping is what makes the 'fight'. the fight consists of being aware, attentive and resisting the urge to follow the same pattern and/or habit in one's emotional reactions, ID, etc). The bs/defences/barriers is what bends things that are going from out in and bends the things that are going from in to out. The biggest (if not all) junk of that is fear based. Here is where one can make a link to DJ's/CC's 1st enemy of the man of knowledge: fear.
It is easily visible in many people, how things bend or just plain do not get inside them, how things are deflected before they reach behind the barrier. The barrier, if left to its own devices, hardens, crusts. This links to 4th enemy: old age. Having no crusted barrier is what keeps youth, fluidity, flexibility.
I like the spin you put on it. Of course looking at what I just wrote one might conclude that there is no other fight but with the self. Still, fighting with it can be seen as keeping it in focus, makes it into something that it is not. That would not be eer productive to do . I focus on the bs and stuff that bends, through that I see what the self would like to hold on to to create itself, when I drop that then I see that part of what I thought was myself disappear. Like a could of smoke, as if it was never there. For a moment Im in a not clear space zone.. one realizes there is no such thing as what one thought was the self, or that it is not what one thought it was. For a moment it feels like I am nothing and everything, I do not know where exactly I end, where are my boundaries, cause they are not where they were before. I just spill over.
Either way, I cannot say I have it figured out. Just an hour ago I was thinking, while walking along a big river, that maybe I am going about it the wrong way. What if instead of catching the reactions and then dropping whatever it is that lets them emerge, I should encourage it more so more shows and I can burn out all of it. Of course in the first method I go with what shows, but maybe I should encourage the reaction so maybe more gets shown too
Maybe I should go the other way. Sometimes after exploding it is easy to drop something cause one sees it in all its ugly nonsensical glory. For all I know, maybe this links to the surrendering you speak of .
Let go of the control. What tries to keep the control is the self anyway. The realness behind it has no need for it.
Just a thought