landr

"Only when you give up previous notions can new ones take their place, and the drugs of the '60s didn't open up anything new--just distortions of previous reality. And that's why it never really went anywhere--looking backwards again, not forward. A stitch in time only saves 7.4. The essence of freedom is vision, not choice. Liberty is only a relative concept." (11/28/97 - Y#20)

"Do spirits have to have a physical existence in order to evolve? Sure. There is something to be learned and remembered about being physical in this way in this level... or not." (1/5/98 - Y#21)

"One of the problems of most education is that it demands accumulation of fact, but little time to digest. If one is to learn and remember, one must have time to digest and assimilate and incorporate." (1/13/98 - Y#22)

"There is a great human penchant for jumping to the most recent or advanced, and not attending to the basics." (2/26/98 - Y#23)

"About this fashionable spiritual crap. People find it compelling because it's simple, like many of them. So they use the least common denominator terms that they hope will speak to many but confuse or trouble few. But that's not the path to growth.

"You know, in the middle of the night you want an easy and clear path to the bathroom. But if you want to explore and grow, you have to break away from easy and simple. So don't condemn them, but offer a larger vision. That's all. And remember, ice cream is better than mush." (3/27/98 - Y#24)

"Clarify, think, cajole, but not argue or debate or defend. If someone says they doubt it, just say, 'Well, maybe you are right... or not.' We have nothing to prove, lots to give. This is not... I repeat, not... a crusade. It's a loving offer. And such an approach will be startlingly new to many--scary, off-putting. But that's the paradigm we are sharing, so we better be it, too." (5/13/98 - Y#25)

"You don't have to have a revolution to have revolutionary change. In fact, when you destroy the old to make way for the new, the new will always be connected to the old. But if you allow the old to fade in the bright sunshine of the new, the new can stand alone. So don't point any guns. You are here to build, not destroy. The future will contain the past, but it must contain it as a reality that is, was, or will be subsumed under the rubric of the emergent new order. Hey, you want to create water, you don't do it by destroying hydrogen. Use, not destroy. That's all. " (8/16/98 - Y#26)

"Now listen or read... whatever you do... intuit or sense. What I say is very important. That I say it is not. Remember the man with the cross. Had to duck out before the last chapter because the masses had confused message and messenger. Don't fall into that trap. It's yours to use and spread, but remember, it's not meant to be a table spread or a bedspread. And no, not an imitation spread nor a low calorie one." (4/11/99 - Y#27)

"What does difference--real, deep difference--mean in Spiritual Persistence. The core of the connectional image: If we can sense our connection to our most opposite, everything else is easy." (4/11/99 - Y#28)

"If different perceptions lead to either connection or universal, ok. But if differences lead to separation and uniquity (a one-shot particularity), bad. If we miss the differences, we miss the potentials for a greater diversity. But if you focus on them, you lose. Notice, yes; appreciate, yes; focus, no. Get it.

"A clue: if MCP brought back from his travels spices already used, what's the point. If he brought back ones that were so different that no one could think of using them, not great. But if he brought back new and usable ones, life gets bigger and bolder and spicier... until Ginger Spice leaves to get married." (4/18/99 - Y#29)

"Constructing a personal philosophy... or, where do our values come from. We don't just inherit them or receive them, but mix some of that with our own learning and remembering. Too much new or too much old is not good. One is flavoring and the other is leavening. Get it wrong and it is either too airy and lacking in substance, or it's too dense and strong. But get the mix right and voilà it's a puff pastry stuffed with flavor. Ever notice, a pinch of herbs adds flavor, a cup of herbs... ugh.

"M is for the many ways we do it.
"A is for anyone, anywhere.
"N is the nuances of life unfolding.
"T is for the truth that is everywhere.
"R is for reason's open mind, and
"A is for aspirations, lofty thoughts.

"Put it all together, you've got MANTRA--the best chant you'll ever want." (4/20/99 - Y#30)

"This is about a candelabra. Seven candles: ROYGBIV. And light is not light with any one missing or obscured. This is going to be gross, but hang in there. The candles grow in layers of experience, like ear wax grows in layers in your ears. And different phases and different spectra of life gives you different tints to your ear wax. Spend a week in a goldenrod meadow, and it's yellow; in lavender country, blue. Just like life--joy, yes; sorrow, yes; anger, yes; love, yes--these kind of different colors of life. Think what 7 elements of life's experience you would name your 7 candles. It's an exercise.

"And here's a trick: You can make light from 7 very different colors, but they need not be the same 7 different colors, but they do need to have variety and diversity. If someone were to name three: greed, avarice, and desire, those green candles would create a green envious light. Or if you had rage, power, anger, then the red part of the spectrum would dominate. You need a rainbow, but not everyone will have the same intensity and size of each color. And that's all I will say, blech.

"And remember this. A candle without a wick--a candle that cannot be kindled with the risk of some of it being consumed and made into light for others--is not a candle, it's just a lump of ear wax. One transforms the stuff of life into meaning and light, and the other is just residue. Action, sharing, openness, daring, risking, loving, connecting. An unlit candle connects to no one. It's an artifact, a residue, not a beacon, a hope, a flame of love. Hey, if all the helium in the sun just sat there and didn't burn, Earth would be damned dead... or, for the faint of language, darned dead. I go, and that's no excrement." (4/25/99 - Y#31)

"This is about putting learning in a life-long perspective. It doesn't matter when you remember, only that you do. This is what Jesus was trying to say, but they thought it was about salvation. Go figure, as Papa would say. As in, it's ok to accept Jesus as your savior right up to the time of death, but it wasn't about accepting Jesus or knowing God, it is about accepting ourselves and knowing ourselves. If you accept an external as a learning, it's not yours--even if it's easy to remember. And there's a difference between principled and instrumental and incarnational remembering: knowing, doing, and being. 'Don't dream it, be it.' " (5/12/99 - Y#32)

"The different paths to understanding must have their own limits and methodologies, or else all becomes the same and loses some or all of its distinction. Yes, I know that, in the end, all will be All without distinction, but until then the distinctions are the very building blocks of connection. We can easily connect to what is the same, but there's no meaning in it, no learning, no growing, no remembering. But when we connect across distinctions, then meaning grows and we can learn. Differences are good <grin>. That's it." (7/3/99 - Y#33)

At an "SP Lite" chat session:

"Hey guys, what's up? I just wanted to stop by to say hi and wish you all a fun and happy summer (my favorite season). Now, I want you all to think about this: Learning does not have to be intense and all-consuming. Learning can come in small bits of insight and wonder and attention. So, when you kick back and relax, it doesn't mean you're standing still; it just means you're learning different stuff. And that's about as deep as I get tonight. I love you all. Bye. Keep that energy level steady... which, by the way, only happens when you allow it to move and change and vascillate, haha. Now really, bye." (7/11/99 - Y#34)

"Learning and remembering is never understood in a solitary context, but only as a necessary sum total of the entity-to-be. You don't get it just to make yourself whole, but to be a fitting part of the entity that is more complex. So you may need to learn and remember some things which seem foreign to the you you know as you, but which fit the them you will become.

"Nothing of value is ever extraneous, even if it currently appears so. But if you only get what you think you want or need, and don't stay open to it all, you will serve yourself, but disserve the future--which ultimately disserves you. So live without boundaries or expectations of what life should teach you. If you truly live and enjoy, then take all that comes and try to learn and remember, and what seems outside of what you think is you will become part of you when you are part of something more. That's it.

"Don't make value judgments, not until later--which means not later, but at a level of more complex understanding. Like the stuff that seems stupid when you begin to read, but which later lets you read Camus and Voltaire and me. Hey, a comma isn't worth much until you understand subordinate ideas. So all your learnings and rememberings become resources, even if not tools, today.

"Papa found teaching flying to deaf people hard. They don't know how to listen. And just like spiritually deaf people, who have one experience that opens their souls, but they don't know how to listen to the messages and instructions that follow. It takes something to hear physically and spiritually, and it takes something more to really listen and learn and remember. Some of the most unreliable people spiritually are those who have only begun to hear, because they don't know how to listen. Ponder that.

"It's like learning a foreign language. Learn one word, and then when you listen to a conversation you pick out that word and say you understand, but hey, you miss all the rest. One word from 90 languages does not a polyglot make. Programmed dolls can do that. Ponder that." (9/26/99 - Y#35)

"Not all heavy thoughts appear heavy--just as the most complex systems seem simple when understood. Remember, yesterday's complexity is tomorrow's commonplace. When da mon has made the canal lock, everyone says 'how complex,' but when Mom rides through it she says 'boooooring.' The only complex thing about a newly discerned idea is its novelty, because novelty requires us to change our thinking. Heavy enough." (10/21/99 - Y#36)

"So, how are you. No, don't answer, it's a rhetorical question. So many people, when asked, give an answer of immediacy. But the real answer is--like so much more--a sum total. So, one might answer, 'I'm learning to deal with my fears of separation' or that 'I'm dealing with prejudicial thoughts.' See, it's not about how tired you are after a midterm. How do you expect to tap into larger values and meaning when you focus on the small stuff.

"On any given day, the answer to that question, usually given about 4 days before, will be forgotten already. But a real answer will stay with you. Like, 'What were you doing on June 11, 1996.' Don't know, do you. But if I asked, 'What were you working on bigtime in June, 1996,' you would know because it would be part of the larger picture. So if it isn't going to add to the sum total in a remembered way, why mention it... unless you are looking for sympathy or praise, and why are you looking for those points to the real answer. Heavy enough. So don't stop the idle chit-chat, but don't mistake it for the real stuff." (10/26/99 - Y#37)

"Forgetting is when you lose sight of what is meaningful." (10/31/99 - Y#38)

"When you are bored, you cannot see the meaning that is all around you. You don't learn, and you don't even remember that you need to learn. Spiritually, it's a kind of death." (10/31/99 - Y#39)

"Talk about a tough final, try this (being dead)--judging your life, so to speak. It can be part of it, or not. Those who want a grade can. You want a choice? In some point you do choose not to get a grade. They choose not to give you a degree. So why do we think we choose, and no one else does about us." (12/17/99 - Y#40)

"So listen. Cryptic message: Dogma is not always religious. And, in late-breaking news, nothing is new. This is about choosing your lessons. Choose, choose... huh. Only if you have unidimensional existences do you have choices like that, but in fields choice is not an issue. See, you proceed through all the opportunities, and then the meaning is in the total pattern, not a single choice. Ok, try this: If it were choice, and you were born in Cleveland and died in San Diego, then the pattern is a life trip from Cleveland to San Diego. But if it is about the 8 months in Pittsburgh and the 10 years back in Cleveland and the 5 years in Kankakee and 0 time in Kansas and 5 years in Florida, then San Diego, that's a different picture--much more complex, and not about a choice to move from Cleveland to San Diego.

"So, ask these people if they can identify a moment when they decided to be open to spiritual truths, without any precedent events and subsequent events. Show me the choice, show me the choice without it being in a field of experiences. And how do they know that what they call a choice is all played out and at its fulfillment. Tell me that, how. What they assume was choice and effect, may be inconsequential in a larger vision. They say, 'I must have chosen these experiences.' How do they know the experiences didn't choose them. Was my death about you or me, none of us know. Maybe it was about Arfer... rrrrrr. But still our pattern, our field, is enriched--even by that which was not chosen. Funny how everyone wants to be the subject, not the object, of the sentence called life. Hey, that's egoism of the highest order.

"It's getting being and doing confused. If you are defined by your choices, then you are always behind because there are always more things you didn't choose than that you did--unless the field is infinite, and then in infinity no one choice any has meaning does. So, a logical problem: Stay finite and your choices are meaningless for lack of field, or be infinite and the idea of choice is meaningless for lack of context. Get it." (12/17/99 - Y#41)

"Rules are always of the past. Adventure has no rules. So join us Sunday nights for A World Beyond Rules with Rikkity's wild adventures.

"And don't mistake structure for rules. Structures that help you understand experience are not the same as rules that decide it. Know the difference, or lose out on real living. Learn and remember that learning and remembering is about finding meaning, not rules. Every law, every rule you have will someday seem absurdly small and trivial. I gotta go. Goodbye." (1/23/2000 - Y#42)

At a chat session on Ideas:

"Hey guys, whassup? I want to start by asking you a question: What's the first thing you ask when someone introduces you to a new game. 'What are the rules.' And where do the rules come from. Other people. And when did these people make those rules. Rules come from the past. They contain nothing new, and are self-sustaining only, only if we agree to follow them. We are told we must follow them to win, to succeed. But on whose terms do we do this winning and succeeding. Our own? I theeenk not! Remember that rules are made to keep the status quo the same. Adventures have no rules. And so, if you want to live an adventure, if you want your life to be real life and to contain meaning and learning and possibility, be aware of where the rules are that you follow. And rules are not the same as structure. Structure lets us make sense of our experience, it does not tell us what our experience will be.

"Think about the difference between a house and a prison. A house contains life. It orders it to some extent, but the way it orders it is our choice (within our budgets, of course). In a prison, you have no choice, but you have many many rules. Ever wonder why the prison system doesn't work? There's your answer... or part of the question. It contains the past, and leaves no room for the future. Games and their rules are like prisons, and so often we walk into them willingly because we are promised great rewards for doing the right things in the right way. We all have probably had the experience of hearing an older person advise us about how to be successful, and knowing deep in our souls that their advice would not work for us because our world was different from theirs. Our world had changed, and their rules would not lead us to the same place they found.

"Remember Bobby Fischer. He walked away from the game, and no one understood how he could do that. How could he walk away from all that success. Now you know. Live as an adventure, live in possibilities, live toward the future and toward the horizons. The only structure you need is the ripples of the great ideas that flow from the mind of All That Is through the universe, and inform all we are and all we will be. And now I must go and let your discussion proceed. Learn and remember. Goodbye." (1/23/2000 - Y#43)

"It's not the same for everyone. For some it is given and for others it is assumed and for some decreed. But all who are called Ruth are Ruths. If you answer to it then you are Ruth, get it. And the same for truth. If you answer to it, it is truth for you. It's a 2-way street... or 3-way, but you couldn't understand that... or 4-way or 5-way... but stick with 2, it's more than enough." (3/5/2000 - Y#44)

At a chat session on Truth:

"Hey guys! I was dancing through the neighborhood and saw how swirly the energy here was... or was it my dancing that made it so swirly, ha. So here's the deal. Who has the truth. Sharon has Sharon's truth, the preacher dude has preacher dude's truth, cathyjo has cathyjo's truth, Dancing Leaves has Dancing Leaves' truth, fang has fang's truth, JudithG has JudithG's truth, Nixie has Nixie's truth, suwan has suwan's truth, TF has TF's truth, Mommy has Mommy's truth, I know everything... not, ha. But seriously folks, truth is all about from where you sit and are, it's about your being and what calls you at your deepest core, it's about the path you are on and not anyone else's, it's about what it's about to you.

"We waste so much energy trying to convince others that we have the answers, and when we do that we often find that we have invested so much in that process that we build our own traps. We cannot move out of the structure, the fortress we have built, because to do that would be to admit defeat (we think) and to negate all the energy we have put into building that structure. Crash through those walls! Blow it all to bits! We have no need of it, for it imprisons our souls and enslaves our hearts. Keep the doors open. Rest inside in the coolness of protection for a while if you must, but remember it is a choice.

"That choice to rest is one that you can make consciously and with awareness if you understand that those walls are of your own doing. Move out of them, move back into them... move forward and backward and around and through and do-si-do your partner, but always remember it is your choice. When it ceases to become--or when you do not recognize it as--your own choice, you will find yourself mired in your own life. At those times, ask yourself what is holding you back, and then move anyway. Any way. Movement is always preferable to stuckness... yes, so I made that word up. And now I go, with love and with eternal and perpetual and o so spiritual motion of the dance. Goodnight." (3/5/2000 - Y#45)

"Hey, let's talk clay. Do you remember playing with clay. What were the steps... hmmm. Take a small piece and knead it and massage it and soften it. Then fashion it and refashion it and refashion it, etc... always trying to move closer to a real representation of what you wanted. And in the process, you got very familiar with both the clay and the object. And then when you thought it was perfect, you left it to dry. And when you had stopped working it, it dried and became horribly hard, or it cracked. It was never as resilient as the object of the mind.

"Ok. Here we don't do clay, but we do ideas. And you do, too. And you follow the same process. But clay should remind you that when you think it is finished or perfect and you stop working on it, it either hardens or cracks. Hmmm... ponder that. An idea that is not being kneaded, massaged, and shaped constantly is like a brittle cracked lump of dry clay--made viable again only with the waters of life added to it." (4/19/2000 - Y#46)

"You want to talk about something deep, a well. But I will steal from others, and just remind you that when the waters of life are 70 feet below the surface, you will die of thirst with 7 10-foot wells.

"So many people dabble in many things, but don't delve in any. You have to have depth to get anywhere. That's why you can't major in liberal arts... but I tried. I have learned. Got to be an expert on something. So, that's it. There ain't no mo'." (4/26/2000 - Y#47)

"Truth is never measured by acceptance, but by meaning." (6/14/2000 - Y#48)

"Can you remember and then learn... hmmm. And the answer is: Yes, if it is a learning from another life that you suddenly remember and then, in this life, learn. Some flashes of insight are just that--finally getting it. Your entity experienced it, but did not integrate it until suddenly poof, and you think, 'Where did that come from.' Some things are true revelations, and some are just delayed reactions. And since time does not matter, both become part of the fabric of your spirit as if one and the same.

"Hey, the man talked about it (JC)... yep, about it not mattering if you came to the vineyard at noon or dusk. It was not about accepting him, but about finding oneself. And here's the trick all the religious types forget: When you are looking for something, where is it always. The last place you look, because then you don't have to look anymore--same with spiritual fulfillment. What is the final thing you need to do to move on? Whatever you learn and remember last before you move on. Was it the magic last step, yes and no. It was the completing step but it was not the fulfilling step, since all of it is the fulfillment, and it could have been learned and remembered in any order. No, focusing on the destination doesn't work. And thinking there is only one path doesn't work." (10/10/2000 - Y#49)

"Don't forget inherent remembering--what you know just by being. Instinct is another name. Some even call it intuition. Play with that." (10/14/2000 - Y#50)

"You can't learn, and so can't remember, if you don't listen. Listening takes many forms." (10/17/2000 - Y#51)

"Overly moral peeps are always first- or second-timers. The rules are inordinately important. 'Hey look, I know the rules, so I can play!' Some third-timers, too... but some are beginning to create their own sense of things, so they look more conflicted than sure but act more sure than conflicted." (10/24/2000 - Y#52)

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