Actually, it's more likely a case ofnot heeding good advice, like  "Better be silent and thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt. " But in the ego-less state, who could care?

My true intention was to confuse your ego less.

All that stuff can be gleaned from a quck review of the three basic yogas - but a nice reference is Stages of Meditation by the Dalai Lama. "Selflessness is understod by the wisdom that finds that both the perceiving mind and the perceived objects lack any self identity in the ultimate sense." (p 136)

The point I was making is that virtually  everyone seems to understand this. To understand means that we have the experience. To have the experience means that we are intrinsically selfless - except to the degree that we act otherwise.

When Fritz Perls was doing psychoanalysis, he used a Buddhistic paradigm in many respects, although it was called "gestalt". He identified several layers of self and attachment. To talk about the basic therapeutic process was sh*t. To talk about how we feel about the basic therapeutic process was bull sh*t. And to talk about others in the therapy group was elephant sh*t. Evidently, I have adequately fertilized the discussion. I think I better take my elephant and go home.

d

Thanks Dave!

Thanks ALL !

Sure, involving our selves in speaking of self-lessness can get into a bit of  a predicament  but it's very fascinating to find the state described so wonderfully with such insights !

Now turn that elephant around, Dave, before we attempt to start describing that beast!   

Love, Bets

thanks everyone good thread getting even more interesting; I can almost see all your faces in my mind  I so enjoy Dave's yoga talk and Ian's Buddha talk and Oliver's gentle probing mind, Kathy's well placed question, the way Bets celebrates life.
and you can let the elephant stay here Dave if I can just have my soap opera without being attached to the outcome.

just wanted to add something to Dave's post, about the attention when doing the weight lifting, this attention does, for a moment allow us to experience egolessness, or; non attachment to objective, and just let us be in the moment of experiencing.

what I call my guides can be seen as a persistent voice in my programmed brain, but I believe, or prefer to believe, and sometimes this is substantiated or verified within a nonordinary way, that we have helpers of nonphysical stature, and that they are necessarily perhaps, in a state of being of unselfishness, by the deliverance of reminders to the truth, which we may be forgetful, how to do this thing called life.

for instance, I used to be more impatient than I am now. it would cause me not to notice where my big toe was ending up. I would stub it. I felt I was in training many years how to walk. I would hear a voice say, place foot down, notice where foot is being placed..is there an obstruction to movement? if so, be conscious where foot is ending up..now that you have the right foot safely landed, place other foot slightly in front of the other..its called walking consciously. Believe it or not, when you do these exercises, and Dave's weight lifting example is just as good as mine, when u do these, you are training your internal energy body to remove the impatience.

from a religious perspective it could be seen to be walking with god. then if I were to say I do that, I would be asking that I can be graceful, or to have grace enter my body, but it has to find an inlet in my mental body also before it can enter the physical. then new age wise, a lot of us know about the now moment. being in the now moment would be also to place attention on the moment at hand, not on the future or thoughts of what we would like to attain and which is obviously not at hand, such thoughts belong to the ego, whose job it is to be perceiving lack.
the ego, call it selfish if you want, can be taught to perceive correctly. the ego is not a bad thing. how could we live here without a sense of identity which ego tries to provide by comparing yourself to others..(get over that!)
to train the ego to perceive correctly, here's how:

when ego says your cup is half empty say to ego, correction: my cup is half full.
to say it a different way, ego is defined in ACIM to either bring you news of a deficiency in your character or it will as often as not, cause you to define self as superior to these others it sees as separate from itself.  Neither perception of the ego is correct perception, but is limited and narrow, is why TMI coined the phrase that C1 consciousness is limited consciousness.

egolessness then can be seen as one begins to have a universal approach, everyone becomes like a long long friend as the oneness is perceived correctly, or to focus on the oneness, as opposed to maintaining the illusion that we are all separate (ego)

then u enter a training period where u begin to see we are all in truth one, and at first you just see that we are connected, and then the emotions begin to belie this truth, we are one universally and spiritually, so we are all responsible for one another, what we say to each other, we must take responsibility for clarifying that in our oneness, we desire health and to first do no harm, and these are intentions. sooner or later we can observe intentions behind mere words, then we can see we are one, when we share the self same intentions ..one by one. here's something I read, I posted on another thread an announcement of this Aussie's lady's website.
It gives us hope to consider, it may be true...


Interesting blog on myspace

{url}http://www.myspace.com/lightascension{/url};

The minimum number of people required to "jump-start" a change in consciousness is the square root of 1% of a population.
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so dear lite Ian, I can sometimes hear you sigh over there. you are such a friend to me I decided maybe you would take some cheer from the above statement, and I always thought new thought to be effective would need 51% of the vote, or slightly over 50% to be effecting of the 100th monkey theory, but maybe not?

now for the million dollar question: what is the square root of 1% of a population of 6 billion? 

actually, I am not a numbers person, but I appreciate them that are. I am an ACIM student/teacher. In there it does say it only takes one savior to save the world. You.

because all those others are you also.

so if I want to love myself and kiss myself in the mirror, I am allowed to do that.

I get a different result for what the square root of the population is.

A square root of a number is another number which multiplied by itself, makes the first number - like the square root of 9 is 3 (3x3=9).

1% of 6 billion is 60 million

the square root of this, is roughly 7,746

That's how it seems to me anyway.

Give yourself a kiss from me as well Alysia!  

[quote author=dave_a_mbs link=1193927314/15#22 date=1194386373]The square root of  1% is 10%. ( .10 * .10 = .01) Sounds like a pretty fair estimate.

Alysia - that's as good a summary of Vipassana "walking meditation" as I've heard anywhere.
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Interesting about Vipassana Dave. I compare Vipassana to the devout priests and nuns who walk about "praying without ceasing."
I have this little habit which seems natural now, which developed from several years back regarding my expressions on this board. I hear in my head my own post being repeated back to me sometimes word for word. I think it is our collective mind I am participating in when this happens. sometimes I am lucky enough to perceive who is about to respond to a post, and I'll come here and I have verification that it was the person I saw in my mind, and it was our connection point.
I am grateful when this happens because I sense PUL operating. well, gratitude is PUL if you ask me. it is not clairaudience though. I wouldn't want clairaudience all the time, it shocks a little.
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Dave said:
Using the same general idea in sitting meditation, the focal point can be moved from the effort of motion to the process of breathing, as if each breath is an utterance without words. Once the sense of inner silence is gained, and then stabilized, the ego-toolkit can be turned on and off as needed, such as when we need to solve an equation.

I recall a Tibetan author mentioning that all the temples in Lhasa were built "without thinking".
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When I did my karaoke thing, the same principle was involved; sing without thinking about how to sing. thats when we had the most fun!
In Bruce's books the breath is used a lot, and in most meditations mention is made of the breath. The breath can be seen as the wind of god. we wouldn't even be alive physically without the breath..and seems like meditation is always about life and death.

there was a few years back a thought which would come out of the blue to me which put me into instant meditation. I suppose we all might have a trigger like this at some time in life. It's almost like the thought came from the outside and was placed in my head intermittently, and when it came in it created a space where I floated for a minute in wonderment before getting grounded back into whatever I had to get done.

It was just this: "I'm alive."
to take it a little further, the voice would say "who is it that is alive and how much of you is enjoying being you, being here now?"

hard to impart the flavor of that mini meditation but I was always pleasantly shocked and it was like spirit was bringing me a map, pointing to the map and saying "you are here."

it often caused me to reflect, if I am alive and here now, where else would I be but here, and what does it mean to be alive and to feel totally alive? then what does it mean to feel deadened to sensory input? I think we all know what that feels like!
thanks Dave. nice chatting witcha!

author=vajra - Thank you for that nice and bubbly but spot on post Alysia.  You're most certainly allowed to smoogie up the mirror. Didn't think I was sighing quite that loudly so that you could hear it from over here!!  That said I'm probably more optimistic than i sometimes sound in my half empty moments.
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I think you are one of our hard workers Ian. not pessimistic. just a hard worker.
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That root of 1% of the population idea is interesting. My personal (C1 logic and proably fairly worthless) take on consciousness and what's needed to create some sort of lift off for humanity is that it doesn't need to be all that much to create a chink of light in the mind of most (having got an inkling I think they will then rapidly catch on), but it does need to be very widespread so that those manifesting right behaviours don't get abused and taken advantage of. (we're probably all in this boat together!)
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I see your chain of thought somewhat Ian and I understand. you need not worry about being abused or taken advantage of if we can master the subconscious field, not of the other person, but your own subconscious, and my own I mean. people pick up things on subconscious levels, even body language betrays what u are really thinking while the mouth may be saying different. what I mean in other words, it is impossible to be abused unless there is a pattern of guilt being held within the subconscious mind which invites abuse..thats because you can instantly change the negative thought into the positive thought, which changes the other person's reactionary pattern.

when out of body this happens also..that u may float in your light body and come across a dark being..as your light permeates into the dark field, the dark field becomes lighter..in order for the dark being to continue being dark they must flee from the light as they are feeling exposed or naked..I think that's why people go to their own bst's (belief system territories) as each bst sustains it's own peoples, in various states of light and color as spirits.
have u ever noticed though that bad things do happen to good people? it all depends on what u think is not good. to the oversoul, what happened that didn't seem right was exactly what that soul needed to push it into another brighter pathway and affirm for itself what reality it would be choosing for itself through its will and forethought.
I know, seems crazy sometimes, the disharmony that happens. it seems we thrive on the contrast here and go thru these conflicting belief systems and have to throw some of our head trips away, keeping what feels right and what serves higher purposes better.
Ian said:
- celestial broadband.
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I like that term! did u make it up? I'm going to remember that one!
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Ian said:  I found out the hard way just how it can make you ill just by focusing me too much in my intellect - the energy goes where the attention is, and other functions suffer accordingly.
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agreed. intellect is fine, our society thinks intellect is more important than emotions; I think they are both equally important expressions or tools of awareness. what u said about energy going where attention is at...precisely correct statement. what outpictures is what is being focused on in C1..and there is much indeed to choose from to focus on!

u r very open minded Ian, so I want to share some very special tool thoughts that I came across which I experimented with to my benefit. I'm straying away from personal accounts of my experiences a bit here because I think you might also enjoy these thoughts as much as I did. Some of us here towards eastern flavor meditations.
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4/9/03 the Pathway: (Cozzolini) THE POWER IS HELD IN THE ABILITY TO CHOOSE WHERE WE FOCUS OUR ATTENTION as to what our experience will be.
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your head must not be larger than your heart (I made this up 
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FROM Elias: (not exact quote, expect my coloring)  expectations limit your method.   your choice follows the direction of your desire. your desire is the movement of your intent.
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ELIAS: (this is exact quote) you are creating an actual flesh and blood individual through your perception, therefore you are creating the individuals state of being.
now as you have stated and have allowed an awareness of,
this individual quite efficiently REFLECTS to you what you create inwardly. now allow yourself the genuine view; this individual IS you, for this individual is your creation as a REFLECTION of you.
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you shall be free fractionarily; for time is that fraction of eternity. source unknown.
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the following I believe is mostly Gibran with my thought at the end:
you will laugh, but not all your laughter, you will cry, but not all your tears, you will think, but not all your thoughts, you will feel, but not all your feelings, you will die, but not all your deaths, you will climb all your mtn peaks and plummet all your vallys, yet not all of them in a single life.
take my hand so that we do this together and throw me not away, for too soon it seems, I become someone else’s life. (reincarnation)
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*RA:  This is the only place of forgetting. It is necessary for the 3rd density entity to forget what it really is so that the mechanisms of confusion or free will may operate upon the newly individuated consciousness complex. (B1, 193)
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*RA: The entity which reaches intelligent infinity most often will perceive this experience as one of unspeakable profundity. It is not unusual for the entity to immediately desire the cessation of the incarnation. (read about NDE folks regarding returning to Earth)
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I didn't find the thing I wanted in my notes for you..but it was basically what you already said..the focus, your attention where you place it is also your desire. the mind follows the attention, where one focus's the most often, so if you are one pointed about an area of your life, that is where you will see the most creativity taking place.
love, alysia