To recognize the "God-place" in each other requires that we try to see our similarities rather than our differences. The ego is simply the part of us which enjoys setting boundaries, making distinctions, attempting to make permanent what it perceives as "good" and actively attempting to detour around if not destroy what it perceives as "bad," in my opinion. The ego lives in the future or the past, but never in the present, and it is always making comparisons. So, there is nothing inherently "evil" about it. It has a job, and it does it.

Lucy wrote on May 21^st, 2008 at 10:43pm:


I could not possibly agree more with Lucy on this.  Glorifying suffering in any form is a very, very dangerous thing to do.  Juditha, I do not know you, but I wish you could see how dangerous this is to anyone's stability.  If you identify yourself with suffering then you will surely suffer.  I hope you will see this in a loving way instead of a judgment.  There is nothing holy about making yourself suffer.

PUL
SHSS

There doesn't have to be a "wrong" or "right" here....?

Can we see Lucy's statement as caring and her intention as positive? It is possible for us to discuss, agree and disagree with each others' ideas without making each other "right" and "wrong" -- and we can support each other this way as well.

I think I was the first person to suggest on this thread that Juditha was not "wrong" in some way. Perhaps by saying that in those words I might have slanted this conversation in a particular direction.

I think that what Lucy was doing was trying to empower Juditha, as a sister would. As a family, we can notice that, and try to understand her statement a little better. I think that's why Juditha was asking for clarification.

love, blink

We are family. thats the way I feel. I don't even have to post here, Blink says it for me, so I can go off and have fun 

but I see both viewpoints, in that suffering, I seen myself suffering all through my miserable life when I couldn't find love anywhere, that wasn't a trade off, this for that, thus no unconditional love was around. I think that's where Juditha is at...experiencing that lack of love and learning through it, the way I did.

at the same time I knew a man who identified with his suffering and then it made him somehow special, for this reason he would not let go of suffering, and so in a way, it was a statement of pick up your cross and drag it.  you'd get a reward for that somehow. it's not the truth.

With Juditha, if I can speak for her, and surely I cannot, she needs to make a connection with Love, with PUL, with God, so she measures god's presence in each human being.

it is the ego which does the measuring. In truth, with true perception operating versus false perception, all of us are as close to God, as we can get to one another.

This entails as Blink is suggesting, and as this forum's premise must be, that there is no wrong, there is no right, all just is happening right now, and we do it together, so we don't have to come back and do it all over.
the task masters have to get it together with the bleeding hearts. I guess I'm a bleeding heart type.

love, alysia

yea, but you are asking the question why is there seeming to be evil versus good? and I wonder why the other thread didn't answer it?

I asked this question over and over for about 10 years, while I read everything I could about the holocaust Alan. I could even see my head shaved with the people. Elie Weisel, I think that's his name, a survivor, just set my mind at ease as I laid the last book down, He simply said as to the why and how some questions do not get answered. however, his last words hit me hard. he said "never again."

this to mean the human capacity  to make a decision not to repeat errors. not to take on the sins of the parents. In the end, there is just this choice to make between right and wrong as we decide what and must decide based on prevailing awareness whats wrong, what's right by where we focus our attention.

I just see that fear cannot abide where love has come to live. love is good, fear has no substance or reality. fear is not bad, it just doesn't have a basis like love does.

that doesn't explain the past, but since the past is gone we can look forward now and let that be, knowing there's some of us chanting never again.

So if I look at the idea that the ones who are suffering are closer to God because they need him more, and I say , that bothers me, because I think that sounds dangerous, what do I mean by that?

because if someone believes that they are closer to God when they are suffering, and if they want to be closer to God, then they may put themselves in places where they will then suffer, thinking that they are making themselves closer to God. They may create needless suffering.

Woldn't it be a lot simpler just to want to be closer to God?

Another aspect of the dangerous ness occurs because some folks think that inflicting suffering on others purifies the others. I had a work friend once. Wena. She grew up in the Phillippines. That is a tropical country. She once told me they had poinsettas as hedges. HEDGES. Like we have Firebush and and if you wait long enough Rhododendrum. That's tropical. And she told me that when they went to school, they had to wear long-sleeve blouses. And the schools were not air-conditioned then. She said, when they complained about this, the nuns told them that suffering was good for them.

That is dangerous thinking.

I don't like hogging the conversation. Feedback?

Isn't it just better to try to love God with all your heart, all your strength, all your might, kinda like those Loiuisville guys play ball now?

ps alysia both Pitino and Wiesel have been associated with Boston University, though not in the same capacity! small world...

Juditha

I have no doubt that you are close to God. I have never doubted that. The question was, are those who are suffering closer to God? And I do not believe that is true. We do not need suffering to be close to God.

You are right. I do not know anything about your life. And you do not know anything about mine. You assume your personal suffering is greater than mine. I do not know that that is true. It may be true, but I have no way of knowing or measuring that. So there is no need to argue about that.

Many people have suffered in the history of earth.That guy, Rick Pitino, also has sorrow. He and his wife had a baby that was sick from the start. The baby had to stay in the hospital. For months, the mom spent all her time getting up and making a long drive to the hospital, spending the day with the baby, then returning home late, only to repeat the process the next day. Seven days a week. After about six months the baby got better. The doc told him his wife needed a little vacation. So they headed out (OK to a basketball game! but he is a coach) only to be stopped by a state trooper saying to call the hospital. The baby had suddenly died. How sad! And then it also turns out that one of his brother-in-laws worked for Cantor Fitzgerald in Sept of 2001 and was in the World Trade Center when the plane hit. So he too knows suffering.

I read something once; it has probably been stated many times and places. I read it in Pat Rodegast. It was that if we could stand in the Light, anything could be healed. Anything! The question is, how does one stand in the Light? I don't know any place to go where there is a waterfall of Light that I can stand in, and that is what I want. Just plug my umbilical cord into the Light! So how does one get to stand in the Light? So I took an answer fromanother source, a tape of a channeled entity who called herself Aurora. Aurora said that in order to "get" some of this stuff, first you have to do it in your imagination. So in my imagination, I stood in the Light. And it felt nice just to do that, so I kept trying. Now, I'm not good at focusing my attention, but every now and then I do manage to focus it just a little. And I found that when I do, things change. Things get better. But it is hard to focus. It takes a lot of work. But when it works, it works!

I don't think that my way of standing in the Light is necessarily for anyone but me. We each have to find our own unique way of standing in the Light. What is yours?