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| Clear and transparent |
At a meeting in Cambridge earlier in the year, Dadi Janki, the spiritual leader of the Brahma Kumaris, aged 95! said the real cause of misery was jealousy. So I set myself to see how this works.
Do you know how jealousy feels? It is uncomfortable and it is all about me. It isn't envy because envy wants something it hasn't got. Jealousy is feeling separated and jealous of your own individual sense of self. If you feel unappreciated, it is jealousy of what you think you are or have done and it makes that transparent space green. If you see it, you have a few choices, you can choose to cut yourself off, to be miffed and to justify your miffdom by blaming the person who hasn't appreciated you and your good works. This is not a good choice because you are trapped in your justification. You can pretend you aren't hurting but you keep the jealousy in a box inside which you feed on when no one is around. I think this just concentrates the green substance into a place where every time the individual you gets into a similar position out it comes and curls round your feeling and your thinking and worse, your speaking and your actions. This choice is based on what you have a taste for. I bet, like me that you didn't think you had a taste for jealousy but to be honest, while you have a touch of jealousy, you haven't become transparent. You do have the choice of finding a way to become transparent but to have that choice, you need to see that transparency is worth working for.
Meditation on the transparent and clear reality of who we are gives a space for transforming the things we have taken to be ourselves into something cleaner. You will gather from today's blog that this is a work in progress!
It seems that there maybe to much concentration of stilling the mind and not enough on stilling emotion. Every thought seems to start with a feeling. Stilling the Heart may lead to Union.
ReplyDeletePeter T
No matter how much you try to still the emotion or even the body, it is a short term gain unless the real stillness which is unmoved in all situations is real. But your help is appreciated!
ReplyDeleteRandom thoughts from the Peterborough meeting -
ReplyDeleteConsciousness -
Another fascinating and thought provoking session-thank you!
It was interesting how, once you presented us with the list of differing levels/types of consciousness, we all had lots to say about our own or others experiences of the subject-obviously it is a hot topic!
What seems to fascinate us about the subject can, I think, be divided into two main areas: Firstly, consciousness as “awareness” or “knowledge”. There are vast areas of life which as humans we seem to have common awareness of…Elvis Presley is/was an attractive performer, man walking on the moon was a great achievement, and if you want to drive to the north of England it is best to follow the road signs that say “The North” etc. However, there are vast (and growing) parts of life that we know exist but about which we know little. These areas might be grouped under the general heading of the “non-conscious” or “unperceived”.
I accept that this might be a facile and erroneous distinction but I think it does for the moment.
Secondly, there is the vast and fascinating idea of consciousness concerned with “phenomenology”. This asks questions about what it is like or how it feels to be alive and experiencing stuff. This is arguably what life is all about. Do rocks or trees or new born babies have any sense of being alive? Does a sense of being alive only come when we have words or arts to express such feelings? These are, I think, questions about consciousness that have exercised poets and philosophers for ever!
Hello David, These questions will go on fascinating us forever but there seem to be people who have really touched pure consciousness and that enlivens the debate and maybe whets the appetite. x
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