From: smd@sl0091.srl.ford.com (Steve Dahmen)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.newage,alt.meditation.transcendental
Subject: Re: Becoming aware
Followup-To: talk.religion.newage
Date: 6 Oct 1992 15:18:40 GMT
Organization: Scientific Research Lab, Ford Motor Company
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: sl0091.srl.ford.com
Keywords: anger,meditation,balancing,healing
Originator: smd@sl0091.srl.ford.com


Sorry for being late with this, but my poster broke last week and just came up.

In article <19mgooINN34j@gap.caltech.edu>, tt@wag.caltech.edu (Toshi Takeuchi) writes:

Toshi,

While I appreciate your efforts here, there are some major points really hit me
that I feel moved to mention.  BTW, I've a successful meditator for the
past 10 years.

:How often do you gossip and speak falsely about others?
:
:How often do you feel sexual desires and feelings?
:
:How often do you think of something nice to do for others, but are
:unwilling to act upon this thought of kindness?

Are you aware of the implied shame in these statements?  Although something
could be said about speaking falsely about others, I see nothing wrong with
sexual feeling and desire. Awareness of these things are good, but we (as a
planet) have to get off this thing about Sex not being spiritual.

[deletion]
:--One of the key aspects of most meditations is the fact that you
:  begin to obtain a focused mind.  How can better focus help your
:  daily life?
:
:Consider what happens when someone gets angry at you...
:
:1. Your gut reaction may be to get angry back.
:
:	How many times have you gotten angry and in the heat of the
:	moment done something that you regretted later?
:
:2. You may instigate further anger in the other person by intentionally
:   making the other person angrier.
:
:	Is it in your nature to make someone suffer and feel bad if
:	you felt bad about something they did?
:
:	If someone pisses you off, then do you want to piss them off 
:	even more to make you feel you got the better of them?
:
:--What is it that is within us that we may do some bad things in
:  the heat of anger?
:
:We become caught up with our emotions and lose all awareness of our
:actions.
:
:We act from animal instinct and knee-jerk reflex rather than with awareness.
:

Um, I'd say it's time to look deeper.  Being in your emotions doesn't 
mean you have to lose awareness.  In fact, your emotions can provide
VITAL awanress that you can't get by retreating into meditational distance from
them.  Your FEELINGS are verily your feminine nature speaking out!!! We must
begin meditating WITH our emotions if we are to find completion in the most
profound sense.

This whole "spiritual" (male spiritual) atttitude of detaching from your
feelings really, deeply bothers me, for it points to a profound SPLIT
that pervades spiritual culture. It evolves your Spirit side without
evolving and healing (which is what's needed most) your Emotional/FEminine
side.  Actually, it goes way beyond bother... perhaps to Rage.  Mostly my
own Rage that I have kept away from Me over lifetimes and lifetimes.

Emotions require expression, and should be expressed.  The problem is that
generally, our emotional experiences have gone so unprocessed that the only
way we know some times is to fight back so that our Rage is felt and heard.
Better than shaming ourselves for having an "animalistic" reaction, would be
to acknowledge the feeling, watch it, meditate with it, see what It has to say,
and if moved, vent the feeling in our own space.

It's NOT shameful to feel.  In fact, if you start feeling less and less as you
meditate, know that you are spearating yourself... more than likely floating
away from the emotional issues that should be dealt with head on.  There is
enormous power locked up in denied emotional expression, and the more you
deny your emotional side, the more you deny the power of the GOdforce
within You.

Embrace It.  You don't have to Love it, but you do need to be open to what 
it has to teach.

:
:How can we deal with our reactions?
:
:By balancing ourselves and focusing ourselves as in meditation
:DURING the heat of the anger.
:
:--When you feel anger or any other strong emotions, refocus your attention
:on balancing yourself as in meditation.  If you do that, then your actions
:can be done with awareness.

And denial.  If you consistently deny your emotions, ESPECIALLY the strong
ones, in my vision you are stunting your overall spiritual growth. You may
gain some outer appearance of peace, but the issues behind your emotion
do NOT go away.  They just remain.  You can deal with them now, or in
another incarnation. Some say it doesn't matter; that peace NOW is what
counts.  I, and others, say that we must begin to heal the emotions.
It's the lack of attention given to the Emotions that have created a good
deal of the situation on Earth now.

:Going beyond ---healing yourself and others.

Going beyond what? Going beyond your emotions.
:
:You've heard the expression:
:Make Love not War
:
:Well, when you diffuse your anger during the heat of a battle, you are
:making love in a sense rather than going to war.

You are, as a good therapist friend of mine once noted, pouring cream
over the shit. 
:
:To put it in simple terms, you help to diffuse and heal the anger in the
:other person and yourself when you consciously refocus your anger.

You do diffuse it, but again, you aren't healing anything by getting mental
about it.
:
:How is this healing?
:
:IF you realize that dealing with anger in that way is not constructive,

Now I agree with that, in that dumping on another person is NOT constructive.
You are correct, anger must be refocused.  But not into Denial.... not by
turning away from it.

:then the lack of anger within you, causes the anger within the other person
:to decrease.  In a sense, you teach the other person (and yourself)
:how to retain calmness in a troublesome occasion.

You're actually teaching them how to repress their emotions.  Which is
at one time a great feat, and at the same time no great feat.  It seems
that many people "have a problem" with letting their emotions rule their
behavior, yet a great majority of supposedly "evolved" people have an enormous
difficulty being real with their emotional existence due to guilt, etc. about
emotional expression.  We teach our children from day one that emotions
are generally bad and we have all agreed on certain behaviors so that nobody
has to get uncomfortable.  So we teach them these behaviors so they can
"get along."
:
:(Is it easier to yell at someone who is angry and yelling or someone who
: is calm and dispassionate?)

I have yelled most successfully at both parties. :-)  Usually the calm 
and dispassionate one is ignoring, cutting off, their own emotional side,
which tends to make me even MORE emotional.
:
:Remember:
:
:Ask not your will but the highest will be done.

Consider:

Perhaps our will is a part of God's Will just as our Light is a part of
God's Light.  I know there's a tons of programming around this, but I had
to mention it for those that might be able to hear it. I know all the 
issues around this statement, so don't bother flaming :-).

You have a good heart, Tagi, and I appreciate your sharing.  Please do not
take a personal offense.  I am aiming my thoughts and feelings more at
the traditional programming that your approach indicates, rather than at you.
I'm definately from the spiritual counterculture,
though I have been involved in "traditional" spiritual programming for years,
so I understand it.  I've also had some powerful visionary experiences which
have lead me to reconsider the role of emotions in spiritual life.  Our emotions
are a part of the Mother of All Things, who has gone largely ignored during our
stay here on Earth.  The energy on our planet is increasing, and its going to
be bringing up massive emotional stuff for people, and meditation is going 
to be important, but its not the whole picture.     In fact, the more you
meditate, the stronger your ability to feel your emotional stuff is going
to be.  So in addition to learning to focus the mind, people must find
instruction on how to deal with emotions, because they're going to be
everywhere you turn; more than you can imagine.  The L.A. Riots were
just an appetizer.

Unfortunately, the situation of the Emotional body on Earth, its causes
and implications are very complex.  Most assuredly I have left out great
leaps of insight in my writing... time just does not permit me to expand
upon everything enough to be a logical progression.  But its enough to
trigger the people that need it.  Perhaps this is
a starting ground where some discussion and elucidation might happen.

If any of the trna readers have an interest in connecting more with their
own emotions and the emotional ehaling process from a "cosmic" perspective,
do check out the "Right Use of Will" series of channeled books by/through
Ceanne deRohan.  They're not for everyone, but they have something to offer
anyone ready to consider healing their emotionas/Feminine side.  This series
of five incredibly powerful books address the complexities of the situation
on Earth as it relates to deeper soul issues created way back when creation
started.  They are supposedly a channeling directly from the GodForce, to the
individual, so they bring up lots of issues for people, including whether
or not God could actually communicate with Us this way. I feel the material is
right on and free of the Denial found in most spiritual teaching on earth,
one of the few exceptions being certain forms of Tantric experience from
India and the orient.

So, in summary, we MUST begin to reinspect ALL of our spirtual culture.
We need to get a big enough frame of reference to see how much of the culture
we have come to agree upon as "truth" is agreed upon because we all share so
many of the same denials, many of the same misconcepts about the why and
how of things in our Universe, especially some core issues of sex, Love,
service, power, survival, and emotions.  And that these misunderstandings come
not from just our cultures, but from where our cultures sprang... literally
back to the time when we first entered bodies on this or any other planet.
Actually, I would say that much of the core stuff comes from the time when
our Essence was Emerged from the Godhead forever ago. 

Not everyone can heal at this level... some people are in so much denial
that they cannot break free of their soul's programming.  But those that can,
need to start!!

Well, enough rambling.

Steve.


-- 
Steve Dahmen ** Graphics Application Programmer
Ford Motor Company
smd@sl0091.srl.ford.com
313-594-3229 (work)
-- 
Steve Dahmen ** Graphics Application Programmer
Ford Motor Company
smd@sl0091.srl.ford.com
313-594-3229 (work)