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I am
seriously considering starting a monastic order using (at least) the guidelines
of Bernard and Benedict.
There are
websites on the Benedictine rule, the tradition.
The following
is important because it is the backdrop behind the rules.
Monastic
life is extremely efficient, anything
not an emanation of truth, love, forth-rightness and forth-withness deserves no
time, no space, no consideration.
Time and
space allocation for 'observances', 'work', 'self-reintegration’ (ora et labora
et cetera) can therefore be (and is) rigidly outlined. Silence is extremely
important, no political talk, no dramatizing, no fascination (if it is at the
cost of inclusivity), moodiness is not allowed, no posturing for position, no
intrigues.
The
contemporary rules will also allow for good and tasty food (no exclusivity),
ecstasy, dance, exuberance, eroticism, relish, music in addition to traditional
chants any more ideas?
I see 7
layers and 7 energy centers (at least) to the human reality (seen in analysis
only e.g. koshas, chakras) each of these layers need to be addressed. We are
dealing with integral-ity, the whole human/divine. Transcendence of any of
these layers would be un-wholesome and will lead to deviation and aberration.
Financing
would be provided by: (1) grants from community at large (2) proceeds from
wages earned while active in community at large (3) alms and donations (4)
monastic industrial endeavours. (Yes, why not making triple Trappist beer,
Triple Sec etc, Cointreau, Ambrosia, Vibuti?
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Although
I don't smoke and don't advocate smoking, I advise clients of mine who have difficulty quitting
to change over to organic tobacco (e.g. American Spirit), roll their own
cigarettes by hand and use rice paper (e.g. Rizla).
My own
experience with smoking, up to 1977 was a good one. I don't think I ever smoked
a hand rolled cigarette without deep pleasure. I used to mix a very good
quality pipe tobacco with Virginia, for the taste as well as for the aroma. I
remember that at one point Rolling Thunder (a Hopi medicine man) was in
Vancouver (1977). I felt compelled to give him my tobacco pouch with a good
blend of Dutch Drum tobacco. He appreciated it tremendously. (Of course that
means nothing, and is not an endorsement, it is just a dear memory of mine.)
I do know
from other experience that nicotine is helpful with mentally ill people, but so
seems marihuana.
From the readings that I do with my aura sensor I notice though that marihuana hides symptoms of
mental stress, the stress increases in the background though... so in
the long run the smoker is not better off. With nicotine I do not notice this
effect... the stress stays visible but somehow can be handled better. If they
cannot quit, I support nicotine users in their habit providing they get to the
hand rolling/organic tobacco method. When I do this, the urge to smoke
gradually decreases as the self healing increases. With marihuana users, I do
support them for the sake of support but not for the sake of the habit. I find
that is better for marihuana users to quit the habit ASAP... which in a
controlled (the Montessori meaning) and supportive environment appears not too
hard. The client wants to see the symptoms I find, once he/she is ready for the
healing. The cancer connection to nicotine is of course there... but so is the lifestyle
connection of the very same people. It is complex... The second hand smoke is
to be stopped... Patches? It is better to quit anyway, of course.
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My hope
is that I can write as much as possible using current language and use as little old terminology,
metaphors and ideology as possible. It is not easy and maybe not as
needed as we think but I think we should in this day and age be able to
describe the world in our own authentic terms, would be almost like Adam and
Eve in Eden who had a chance to do the same. (Their life is a memory of mine.)
My soul
work, personal and social and spiritual, is very concrete and hands on, if I
may say so. When I write about my reality, it is based on energy work, my point
of departure is not mental, philosophical, rational... at least that is what I
try... I have had enough 'conceptualization'
in my life... No no, I do not implicate that I criticize what you are doing...
Just make sure that your philosophical endeavour and digging stays well on the
road of truth and wisdom (philosophy) and does not veer of into some conceptual
side roads... Check with and against life and energy always, lest the side
roads turns into a dead end street... (Verbalism is always around the corner, in my case
anyways.)
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The biggest problem that people have
with communication is that they use it to NOT communicate.
Someone
wrote:
“You
mentioned that knowing something doesn't help. That depends...”
Well I'm
sure that I mentioned that, "Knowing something doesn't help..."
because I tend to say that kind of thing. The context in which I said those
words does not really matter, because it is one of those statements that deals
with the absolute. That means it must be true in any circumstance, it must have
to do with Truth period. Yes, I take some audacity in saying this and that is
the point. I don't say this absolute kind of thing so that it can be argued
with, otherwise I may as well not have said it. Those things are said to be ‘seriously
considered’.
Now,
instead of considering this 'truth statement' and communicate the recognition
of it in love, happiness, joy and hugs, you counter-acted as so many people would do. Instead
of picking up on the irrefutability of the statement (God forbid, that may have
enlightened you) you said, "That depends...." and you started arguing,
beating around the bush with observations, reasonings and subtle signs of
escape and counter manoeuvres. All very well meant, obviously worth a lot to
you, I have no right to discount any of it and to argue with you. I've gone
through lots of countering
strategies myself (I must have exasperated quite a few) and...
eventually found that those strategies didn't work.
So the
point of communication is, when you encounter ANY statement (verbal, emotional,
physical, artistic etc.) it may well have to do with truth, consider it instead
of countering it. The hugs will spontaneously follow...
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Alex:
“How is
it possible to experience devastation
at aloneness when
there is no emotion there? When I experienced oneness with the Self (or THOUGHT I did, and there's the rub) there
was just serenity there. No love, no hate, no judgements or opinions, just
serenity.”
Wim:
I have
never understood the talk about divine aloneness. Only found MY aloneness (and that only
sometimes) on my way to that serenity (as you say it so clearly).
Also
somebody mentioned one time something about suffering in relation to God, I did
not find that divine suffering either within the divine unconditioned. Only
divine play, some very primal humour that is indescribable. I will of course
try to describe it…
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Someone
wrote:
“Why is it that people find it so easy to ridicule and belittle sex between men or between women,
when heterosex is considered sacred manifestation of the dance of energy
between Shiva/Parvathi, Yin/Yang, or whatever other cosmic male/female dualisms
you may choose to read it as? Come on, folks; dances of energy have no specific
gender, as far as I can tell. And 'spiritual' queer-bashing strikes me as
particularly weird, given that the spiritual quest is supposed to teach us
about the falseness of
commonsense ideas of gender and sexuality...”
Someone
else responded:
“You
know, I'm really upset with the way people can bash homoerotic sex with
impunity if they're talking about religion. This really hurts my feelings,
especially since I have experienced some pretty interesting spiritual awakenings from jacking
other guys off and sucking another guy's penises and having mine sucked… Is it
possible to discuss this topic without making homoerotic sex seem like a crime?
I may be over reacting, but I've held my tongue on this topic.”
Wim:
Excellent,
and I like your forthrightness. Glad you did not hold your tongue!!!
I have
alluded to some of what you say in some of my previous responses, and mine had
to do with heterosexual sexuality as well. The lady who at one point appeared
on my doorstep, had a lot to teach me physically about things I only new
mentally that they should be all right... and am still learning...
Kundalini is initially foremostly about
sexuality... and it
gets pretty divine... It is about participation in the great universal creation process...Yes we
have to get rid of all morality and conceptuality about that before we can even
begin to talk about the dynamics of it. Political correctness, moral
correctness and any kind of conditional correctness has to be dissolved till
only unconditionality is the source of reality.
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Peter:
“Hope
this helps you, you go were your mind goes! The initial period in the border-plane bardo is the
closest and they need a lot of prayer whilst in there, it seems to help them
move on. In my experience nobody stayed in there for more than a week. However
there are lost souls and pretas or ghost that can hang around.”
Wim:
I love
what you write here about the after life contacts. I do actually a lot of work in the realms of what used to be called
purgatory or hell. (My past is showing.)
Don't feel like going into that right now, except I would
like to say that many more people are involved with this nowadays than ever
before, or so it seems, and... sometimes unbeknownst to them. (It has got to do
with the Tibetan monks leaving Tibet, so many more Bodhisattvas.) I see the functionality and
residue of that work in the human aura, luckily this Aura/Chakra rendering
device that I use helps people recognize it and see it easier in themselves.
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Paul:
“…If one
happens to get Samadhi, good for him, I
must admit that mine transformed my life completely, but it's really nothing to
be bragged about... It might well be
that "strong" personalities never have any spiritual experiences at
all, while "weak" personalities exhibit them as some sort of
erroneous functioning.”
Wim:
I have been thinking about a similar conclusion, about no ultimate need to have
distinct spiritual experiences. Except I would not have used the terms 'weak'
or 'strong' and definitely not the word 'erroneous'. There is some law of
probability at work here, I am sure. The "strong" personalities
referring to “whole beings” may be very rare, just on the perimeter of a 3
dimensional bell curve.
Pete:
“What's a
3 dimensional bell curve?”
Wim:
A normal bell curve is two dimensional. Has to do with statistical distribution.
Something like this:
---
-- --
--- ---
---- ----
----- -----
I wanted
to give my observation of the statistical rareness of the “whole being” or
"strong" personality a multi dimensional feeling. In fact if I would
have had more time, I would have described such a being in more glowing and
energetic terms. But I thought, maybe just a hint of something multi
dimensional will do the job. I did not want that post to turn lengthy... but
then I use these un-intelligible picturizations.
The
reason I use strange picturizations in my writing is that I do not see the
world as people 'normally' do, I traverse the realms differently... I try, in
my writing and otherwise, to help people get unstuck a bit: so that more divine
truth shines through the multifaceted crystals of life. That may not work all
the time...
We
are
zero
dimensional ego points who in this
one
dimensional appearance of time aim for
three
dimensional freedom in a
multi
dimensional world.
having a
hard time not to live as
two
dimensional beings (flat landers)
with
undimensional center points
within
the constrictions of linear time
So when I wrote "three dimensional bell curve" I
had a brass bell in mind (ding dong), but I did not have the time to play with
it, like include more of the sensual (sound, feeling, vibration, weight,
colour, etc.... Ah, the one dimensional linear time constraints eh?
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Wim:
“Am stuck
for time right now. Got to pay some bills, good thing we can now use Internet
banking. Am stuck for money right now too. Wish we could use virtual money...
Come to think of it: energy is virtually everything...”
Gladys:
“Why
don't you visualize money? I do it and it works... when in need, call out to
the universe and watch what unfolds!”
Wim:
You know
what, I may just do that.
We have
another way of helping ourselves here though, more prosaic and not as direct as
what you suggest but we have a lot of fun with it. And it works quite well...
Quite
well ? Maybe not... it seems we will have to try your method.
Our
method...? When we clean the sink of all dishes, that is, when both sides of
the sink are cleaned up of pots and pans and china and cutlery and stuff....
washed and stashed away the phone usually rings that day and I get 1 or more
clients. It will pay a bill or two... And if not, at least the sink is cleared.
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