In Real Time

[Fred Steeves]

There were a series of events that happened back in the mid 90's, that subsequently took roughly 15 years of weird, and rather unpleasant dreams, to finally realize the responsibility was all mine for what happened, and I needed to own it. Finally!

When I stormed out of Avalon last December, it took roughly 4 months for it to begin to dawn on me that there was absolutely no one to blame for my actions during that period, but myself.

A few weeks ago I allowed myself to get sucked into a bad energy event on a different forum, with a parralel Skype chat, and it took until about 2 hours into it to "come to" so to speak, recognize I was spewing out bad joo joo, and words that I would regret. I was able to recognize myself f*****g up not in 15 years, not in a few months, but within a couple of hours. All due apologies were issued shortly thereafter.

The "Watcher/Observer" is now attempting to red flag improper action as it types words to post in this forum, or as the words are spoken in every day life. In Real Time.

That's the tough nut to crack, but it slowly, very slowly gets easier with practice. In the meantime, "It" also likes to meticulously comb through actions taken in the previous 24 hours, like panning for gold, searching for the ones that slipped through.

It's an extremely humbling process to take the deep dive into one's own flaws, and it strongly requires compassion for the shortcomings strewn about. Funny thing about that is, the more I recognize, come to terms with, and have compassion for my own flaws and failures, the more I am able to do the same with others.

Almost like it was meant to be that way.

Cheers All,
Fred

[modwiz]

Great stuff, Fred. I feel a skype conversation coming up soon. An enriching one.

[spiritguide]

Isn't it fun when not controlled by fear of self.

[kathymarie]

What a BIG man, you are....I mean that from the bottom of my heart. What a wonderful self-observation that when shared helps others as well....although I've never seen that side of you. You're one loveable soul imho! I just "pitched a fit" over something this morning---something I considered a breach/betrayal---- for about 10 seconds then realized my own actions are what precipitated this. I've been making an extra effort to take responsibility for what's in my own life at this point in time----and making the effort to change my thoughts and intentions and thus change some things I don't want right now. I started to say that "old habits die hard"....but just realized that's also one of the things I've held as truth that "ain't necessarily so" unless I choose it to be. Hang in there, Steve!

[modwiz]

Posted by kathymarie (here)
What a BIG man, you are....I mean that from the bottom of my heart.!

Don't believe her. She' calling you fat.

[crested-duck]

Fred- I sure can relate to that OP personally in my life lately .I recently witnesses a miracle happen to my niece, she was dead on life support with no brain function with severely burnt/blistered lungs. I along with others asked for help online and people responded positively. She is home now with a wonderfull whole new outlook on life after awakening from her death experience. Subsequently I have been reassessing my whole life lately and my thoughts about everything and everybody in it up till now. This has brought many different things to my attention, and increaseing my self awareness of my faults is just the tip of the iceburg. But it's my way of evolveing, and you are evolveing too in your own way. Don't be too hard on yourself and celebrate the evolution at hand.-Rob

[kathymarie]

ok...mod...you got me...but it was PHAT...not fat!

[Fred Steeves]

Posted by crested-duck (here)
Fred- I sure can relate to that OP personally in my life lately .I recently witnesses a miracle happen to my niece, she was dead on life support with no brain function with severely burnt/blistered lungs. I along with others asked for help online and people responded positively. She is home now with a wonderfull whole new outlook on life after awakening from her death experience. Subsequently I have been reassessing my whole life lately and my thoughts about everything and everybody in it up till now. This has brought many different things to my attention, and increaseing my self awareness of my faults is just the tip of the iceburg. But it's my way of evolveing, and you are evolveing too in your own way. Don't be too hard on yourself and celebrate the evolution at hand.-Rob

Thanks for sharing about your niece Rob, what a great story, and not just for her. Don't worry, I'm not really being hard on myself, I can probably ralate it more accurately to music. The totality of one's life in the end can be anything between the sound of a child banging on a garbage can, and a beautiful synphony. It's up to each individual what kind of a work they create, and leave behind in their wake.

When one decides they want to stop beating on garbage cans, and head towards creating a masterpiece, an ever refining ear for harmonics is required. Whenever an off note is hit, it simply needs to be noted by the composer, and adjusted accordingly.

Cheers,
Fred

[Fred Steeves]

Posted by modwiz (here)
Great stuff, Fred. I feel a skype conversation coming up soon. An enriching one.

I look forward to that.

[ljwheat]

Respect for another’s thread or church, how do we get so complacent with blogs? When I woke up to what I was doing I was so embarrassed I had to apologize to a lot of people. But the damage was done that I can never get back or undo. So now I am so, so, careful in if I can’t say something to add to the flow, that I just stay out of the water and build a bridge of understanding over it. Or wait till the tide go’s out and tip toe across later.

But gaining respect for someone’s thread was a hard one for me, and know exactly were your coming from. Good job Fred, it’s a start, never think it’s the end. It takes practice. John

[sandy]

Great Post and Thread Fred

As usual I love your realness, vulnerability and self truths. YOUR THE MAN !!!

[another bob]

Posted by Fred Steeves (here)
...the more I recognize, come to terms with, and have compassion for my own flaws and failures, the more I am able to do the same with others.

Almost like it was meant to be that way.

Indeed -- it''s also called the birth of Bodhicitta -- real compassion -- without which, there is no real evolutionary progress or advancement in this or any realm.

[gripreaper]

That is the hallmark of growth, when the distance between the reaction and the realizations get shorter and shorter. It does feel great when something we have been working on for years finally clicks.

[Jenci]

Posted by Fred Steeves (here)
There were a series of events that happened back in the mid 90's, that subsequently took roughly 15 years of weird, and rather unpleasant dreams, to finally realize the responsibility was all mine for what happened, and I needed to own it. Finally!

When I stormed out of Avalon last December, it took roughly 4 months for it to begin to dawn on me that there was absolutely no one to blame for my actions during that period, but myself.

A few weeks ago I allowed myself to get sucked into a bad energy event on a different forum, with a parralel Skype chat, and it took until about 2 hours into it to "come to" so to speak, recognize I was spewing out bad joo joo, and words that I would regret. I was able to recognize myself f*****g up not in 15 years, not in a few months, but within a couple of hours. All due apologies were issued shortly thereafter.

The "Watcher/Observer" is now attempting to red flag improper action as it types words to post in this forum, or as the words are spoken in every day life. In Real Time.

That's the tough nut to crack, but it slowly, very slowly gets easier with practice. In the meantime, "It" also likes to meticulously comb through actions taken in the previous 24 hours, like panning for gold, searching for the ones that slipped through.

It's an extremely humbling process to take the deep dive into one's own flaws, and it strongly requires compassion for the shortcomings strewn about. Funny thing about that is, the more I recognize, come to terms with, and have compassion for my own flaws and failures, the more I am able to do the same with others.

Almost like it was meant to be that way.

Cheers All,
Fred

It’s a romantic notion after spiritual awakening that I will become a better person; no longer displaying ugly characteristics like hate, anger, stubbornness, judgement, impatience, intolerance etc and just projecting loving kindness all around me to other people.

Of course it is the ego’s notion of what being spiritual is. The ego takes a situation and always asks “what’s in it for me?” and the spiritual awakening is no different as it seeks the person to become a better person.

In the end, this illusion must be smashed and usually life has a habit of doing this for us as there is something far more intelligent at work than the fragile, limited ego.

Perhaps if we could lock ourselves away from the world in relative isolation from other people who stir these characteristics up in us then I am sure we could probably do fairly well at behaving loving, kind and spiritual all the time.

But if we could, we would miss the point about what this life is about.

We would get to miss out on the astounding beauty of life’s flow, untouched by the ego’s wants, to allow awareness to penetrate all of the illusion.


Adyashanti calls life the place where the “spiritual rubber hits the road” and sometimes it hits the road with a bump and the terrain is very rough going.


So after awakening we have this new awareness which means we are more aware of our behaviour, including the subtleties which were hidden from us before.

At this stage if we are being sincere about what is motivating us and we can see the ego’s desire to want to fix us to become a better person and leave it well alone, then we will get to see all our flaws and frailties in most intimate of details.

When we do this from awareness, life becomes up close and personal. It can be raw and painful as we watch ourselves being everything that our ego would rather us not be, playing out in real time in front of us, powerless to do anything about it. We can no longer avoid or bypass our discomfort and we truly come out of hiding and allow awareness to penetrate every single one of those dark, hidden corners of the illusory self.

To experience this is to truly experience the unconditional love that we are, unfolding and revealing itself as the illusion dissolves into it. I liken it to a mother wrapping her arms around a child, loving them despite the wailing, screaming and fighting of the tantrum.

When we bring awareness to everything we do, including our anger, our hate, our jealousy, our intolerance, our judgement, our cruelty, our stubbornness, our prejudice, our fear, this unconditional love, which is awareness, opens us to empathy and compassion.

Our ego’s desire to be the better person is forgotten and we come to realise that we are no better or different than everyone else. We come to understand finally why people do what they do; why they behave in ways that always used to cause us so much distress and conflict in our lives.

Our judgements fall away as we merge into one with others, no better or different than anyone.

Ramana Maharshi said to use a thorn to remove a thorn and then throw both away. I happen to think that man knew what he was talking about

The key is bringing awareness to what we do, not trying to change it.

Great to hear your story of discovery, Fred.

[WhiteFeather]

Posted by modwiz (here)
Great stuff, Fred. I feel a skype conversation coming up soon. An enriching one.

Its part of the learning curve fred. Wanishi for sharing your thoughts. We love you bro. Glad to see you back. Please stay awhile longer this time.

What is Skype? How come i do not have this technology yet. Is this alien technology/blank slate technology. Please LMK : )
Anxious in NY.

[greybeard]

With ref to what Jenci and others expeienced.
An Eckhart Tolle quote.
"If you think your enlightened go spend a weekend with your parents/relatives/family."
The buttons you though no longer existed get pushed hard.
If you are truly enlightened there is no reflex fright reaction. ie if a loud noise happens there is no nervous jump.
Nothing is taken personally.
However Nasargadatta-- persona was firey but one moment the temper flared the next he was joking as though nothing had happened.
So the form and reaction of every enlightened being is different but as formless they are ONE.

Chris

[scanner]

Arr the EGO wins again .

[Fred Steeves]

Posted by Jenci (here)
In the end, this illusion must be smashed and usually life has a habit of doing this for us as there is something far more intelligent at work than the fragile, limited ego.

You're whole post is right on, as usual Jenci. I reckon Roger Waters had it nailed dead to rights with his "The Wall" analogy back in '79. The nice thing about the walls we all build around us is they either take a lifetime, or perhaps even thousands of lifetimes to meticulously construct. But once recognized, they can be smashed, or better yet allowed to crumble under their own odious weight, just as quickly and efficiently as the observer dares do so.

Me thinks this can be perceived as anything from terrifying, to exhilarating. Personally I've found it terrifyingly exhilarating, right along the lines of jumping out of an airplane. Terrifying while still hanging on, and exhilarating once let go.

Cheers,
Fred

[Dennis Leahy]

Posted by Fred Steeves (here)
...
When one decides they want to stop beating on garbage cans, and head towards creating a masterpiece, an ever refining ear for harmonics is required. Whenever an off note is hit, it simply needs to be noted by the composer, and adjusted accordingly.

Cheers,
Fred

Love that analogy! Thanks, Fred.

Dennis

[another bob]

Posted by Jenci (here)
When we bring awareness to everything we do, including our anger, our hate, our jealousy, our intolerance, our judgement, our cruelty, our stubbornness, our prejudice, our fear, this unconditional love, which is awareness, opens us to empathy and compassion.

Yes!

And that's the key to real transformation.


Great to see your post again, Sister!