Great River Institute - Conflict of Cain and Able Discussion

What are you really offering in the moment?

When we set ourselves to practice our reason for being, are we able to remember what it is? Do we look for it and stand on it, hoping for an even clearer version to appreciate? Do we respect it when it peeks through the moment at us enough to acknowledge it? Do we appreciate it and grow it into a more capable position? Do we show gratitude when the better version presents itself? Do we respect the improvements enough to live on them, sharing them and growing them more in our lives?

When we consider something in the moment, do we practice our reason in that consideration? When we wish everyone, or someone, in our life would be more understanding of our reason, do we offer them what we say we really want to be more about, or do we give our own reason away expecting them to do what we have trouble doing? Do we value frustration, anger, forgetfulness and all the ways of being that upset us more than we value genuine effort and practice? Do we give others and do we give our difficulties the reasons and ways of being that we tell ourselves we are all about being more of?

How can we truly practice more gratitude when we enter into hard moments being forgetful of what we are supposed to be more grateful for? When the way we want to be more about is happening, what do we do to honor that offering? How can we better recognize the living form of our reason for being when it is being expressed by ourselves or someone else?

The four principles of Giving are showing us how to be in better attunement with our reasons for being and how to recognize them in others. These principles help us recognize and build a more in the moment relationship with the ways we claim we want to be more about. Our givings are our life offerings and they represent our relationship to the line of reasoning.

The conflict of Cain and Abel, the first sons of Adam and Eve, is about understanding the value of our offerings to the Lord. Abel's offering brought him closer to the Lord. Cain's offering led him to the land of Nod, where he continued to dwell and multiple his value, while nodding off to the reason he was created to be more about. Adam and Eve were unABLE to be with Cain because he had gone to dwell in the land of Nod.

We are unable to connect to the Lord unless we are Able. Able, or Abel, exists as a point that can connect to the Lord on the matter side of Adam and Eve. But we need to know Able if we want to connect through that inner point of dwell. And we need to know how to recognize Cain and the land of Nod, if we want to awaken from our turning away from the better offerings of life..

The moment is often offering us the pathway to a better understanding. When it appears, we must respect it, even when it comes through someone else's offering.

Sensei

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Cain and Able

OK, now I think I may have grasped something about this 'Art of Giving' business - or, at least, I hope I have! ;-)

This, at any rate, is what looking at this behavior, from the beginning, or onset, of an idea, moves in me.

When we 'have' an idea, we simply assume we have created it. We may not be sure, exactly, how we've done this, but it seems obvious that we must have done something to make it happen. We take it - and, in some cases, do something with it - but it never occurs to us to offer anything back to where it came from. We can't see where it came from, because we're looking outwards. But we have the arrogance to believe that everything that suddenly appears from 'behind' us is ours. 'Behind' what we see is the 'looker', which is 'me' - so everything 'behind' must be me too, surely?

Yet we stand with Eden behind us. And everything that comes from The Lord is born from Adam's seed through Eve's womb into the matterwards facing point that is the standing place of Cain/Abel. As Cain/Able, we take a thought and appreciate it. But Abel recognises that it doesn't come from him, so he turns sourcewards with respect and offers some of the value he has appreciated back as gratitude. Cain, however, thinks that the thought has come from him, so his gratitude is towards himself. Abel says: "How Great are you, Lord!" But Cain says: "How Great am I!"

Cain's offering is rejected by the source, which is his own deepest Self. A 'reprimand' comes, but in a form which makes us feel that we are not accepted - not acceptable - to ourselves. We're uncomfortable in our own skin. So we look for someone else to blame, and project our sense of being unwelcome and unworthy onto another. We enter our darkest, least conscious places - ultimately finding ourselves dwelling in the 'outer darkness', alone, alienated, utterly in denial of the Source, believing that everything that we're doing to ourselves is really what others are doing to us.

But by then, Cain has killed Abel: there is no way back through respect and gratitude; the possibility is dead, the door slammed shut.

If there is enough real contrition at this state of affairs, in the parts of ourselves represented by Adam and Eve (between our habitual 'point of dwell' and The Lord), then a replacement for Abel can be born: Seth.

October 27, 2009 at 9:07 | JS

As you can see, the way we give can lead us to the source in very real ways. Now, consider your view of Cain. You have the door slammed shut tight as though there is no way back through respect and gratitude. But there is a way back and it IS through respect, appreciation, gratitude and the value that leads that way. Find where you turned away from that answer in your post and see what happens when you practice giving through the four principles to produce a way back for yourself.

October 27, 2009 at 9:52 | sensei

Gosh, that's a really really interesting challenge! ;-) (I suspect it is also the answer to much of what we've been discussing recently)

What is it that Cain has left to appreciate, in the land of Nod? If compassion is extended to him, he can appreciate that, and offer it back with respect and gratitude. But what does that mean, exactly,,, (I'm trying to work this through as I write). And there is also the possibility of forgiveness...

Although he's in denial of The Lord, he can't obliterate this from his consciousness. It is there, as conscience. (In fact, that makes me realize that it must be as conscience that he experiences the rejection of his offering). So conscience is the key here... If he reaches back towards where his conscience leads him, to where it comes from, he can offer his repentance. What is that offering? He's basically letting go... 'giving up' seems a nice phrase here... his attitude, his mindset. He's giving up his 'rightness' of what he's doing, his belief that he is right in what he's doing. (I sense a connection there, too, with 'the knowledge of good and evil'). He's offering up his certainty, and his suffering, and making a properly contrite and respectful sacrifice of it to The Lord.

This is the way out of our own 'hells', isn't it? And the answer for the Extremist who is locked in certainty, even though he wanders forsaken in the Land of Nod. I also can't help thinking that our compassion is a co-factor in this 'turning about' - that unconditional love softens the certainty and affords greater clarity and strength to the voice of conscience.

That would make of Seth the redeemed Cain, as well as the renewed Abel.

October 27, 2009 at 10:22 | JS

"We are unable to connect to the Lord unless we are Able."

what if Cain would have understood he IS Able... ? ... what if any of us would do that ?... clearly Cain cared because when his offering was rejected it made him hurt, and therefore his givings became about anger and jealousy... these kinds of givings for any of us do effectively manage to "raise Cain", and do lead us deeper into the kind of desperate thinking that we are dis-Abled or un-Able... so why not just be Able?

October 27, 2009 at 12:42 | JO

I'm still fumbling around this issue, but it seems to me that Cain's rejection describes a common experience. What is it that causes us to unleash a torrent of misdirected anger - or even just to snap irritably? What hurts that makes us want to hurt others?

What are our offerings? I don't mean 'us' as practitioners of giving (or, at least, would-be practitioners!), but 'us' as ordinary human beings. When we do something, and it goes well, what do we want? Generally some kind of recognition - respect. We want others to respect us, but generally they don't. Maybe, like a mediocre schoolteacher or a petty official, we demand respect. But whilst we can make others go through the motions, we still know that there isn't any real respect there. (And that's what 'politeness' is all about, isn't it?) There's a link here with self-importance... We want people to respect our suffering, too - to recognize what we're going through. This reminds me of Sensei's example of the Extremist, who feels people aren't listening to him, and who becomes desperate. Or what about the young gang member in the ghetto, who feels that he's being 'dissed' - and pulls a knife. There's a real hair-trigger around this area.

But - thinking aloud - all these examples are about us not feeling respected. Yet we're talking about Cain not paying sufficient respect. What's the connection? Maybe it's something like this. The things we expect respect for are the things we are appreciating, but not offering. For instance, suppose we keep the house really clean, but our partner never seems to notice. Then he finds fault with something small, and we snap at him. Or maybe we make nice little compliments to her about how nice she looks, but she takes them for granted. Then one of her girlfriends says that she looks really good in something, and she looks really pleased. That hurts - it makes us feel invisible and unrecognized, and it can generate a lot of resentment. (Perhaps this is what happened with Cain and Abel - that Abel said to him: "well, what do you expect if you just offered a load of old vegetables" and Cain just lost it, hearing his life's work described in these terms?)

What seems to be happening here, though, is that something important is missing. We've cleaned the house, which is an act of appreciation, but what have we offered? We may feel we've done it for our partner, but in reality we've done it for ourself. We're offering ourself our partner's praise and satisfaction, which is going to make us feel good about ourself. But when it doesn't come, it makes us angry.

Where should we be offering it? Suppose we clean the house and we offer our efforts to The Lord. OK, we enjoy the benefit of a clean house, which is our appreciation. But what we're offering is our desire to be recognized, to be praised - we're giving it up, offering it up. Having made a sacrifice of our efforts, and offered it in gratitude, our attitude is now quite different. We're no longer expecting to be noticed, recognized, respected and thanked. It's become something private between us and The Lord, and there is a growing of the value of our 'reasons for being'.

And here's a thought - now I'm right out on the edge, not at all sure what I'm saying - but could it be that our (unjustified) anger towards others is our unoffered, unaccepted respect, turning in on itself? (Better shut up now! ;)

October 27, 2009 at 13:47 | JS

Sensei,

I'm unsure whether your "very good" was a comment meant purely for JS, or for both him and me. So I don't know if there was any element in what I said that might be on the right track. Just to remind what I said:

Okay. You pose an interesting question, and I'm not sure I know how to address it, so I'm just going to brainstorm it on the hoof and put it out there for consideration.

I suppose that at the innermost position within each one of us is the Adam/Eve principle. Fundamentally, this is the idea that in the post-Fall world, the two are supposed to be acting as one at the Christ point.

Adam came first, straight from the workbench, and then Eve followed. Now: we are currently living in the world, and it's interesting that the first son was Cain, the one who had the tendency to move outwards, losing sufficient respect for the Lord. This mirrors our actual ontological development. We spend the first couple of years of our lives developing a sense of ourselves as separate, culminating in what for most people is the most violent and selfish time in their lives – the so-called “terrible twos”. It is fortunate that at this age we are small and not very powerful and have our parents to keep us from harm.

Such things as spirituality and morality come later, and tend to be inculcated in us. Our Abel is taught a sense of good and evil. Good is in Abel, and evil is in Cain, who none of us like to think is inside us, so we tend to externalize him.

So what has happened? Far from carrying forward into life the principle of two acting as one, the two act as if they are two. Abel doesn’t want to hurt Cain, but by acting alone, although he knows how to Respect the Lord, he can’t help doing that. Cain doesn’t want to kill Abel, not really, but as he can’t get his offering accepted, seeks respect in another way, by removing what he sees as the barrier to that.

If this is right, both Cain and Abel are on the wrong track. And who can see this? Only that principle within us that can act as one, namely Adam and Eve. When they see in our moments that we are acting as two, they want us to act as one. They want the offering to the Lord to come from the One, not the Two. There is a way to offer jointly so that the offering is accepted equally from both.

So in all our moments, Adam and Eve are appealing to us to realize this. Because of the murder of Abel and the exile of Cain, they understand what the problem is, and want to us to bring into existence Seth as a unified entity, a One, who in the world, in our living and giving, embodies the internal Adam/Eve principle.

I think it’s possible that in my recent postings I’ve been tacitly accepting the separation of Cain and Abel. I can see that I’ve been struggling, in a way, to exile my Cain, to disown him. Somehow, I want to be Abel, to have my offering accepted, heedless of Cain’s similar desire to have his accepted. Perhaps I need to have compassion for him, to see that he is Abel's necessary other half, and that our joint offering will be more valuable than Abel's offering alone. I need to be acting in the world as one, to be mirroring as a single entity, Seth, the inner Adam/Eve principle.

October 27, 2009 at 14:45 | ML

Incidentally, I don't mind whether or not what I said was on the right track. It's not that I've made an offering and don't feel it's accepted. So in this example, I'm choosing not to give Cain his head. My intention is to offer sensei respect, letting him know that I value his opinion and advice, and don't want to waste his or anyone else's time chasing red herrings.

When I said "I" above, who was I talking about? What is this thing in me that doesn’t “give Cain his head”? I have a passing acquaintance with this chap. Is it Abel?

Well, Abel may be in the mix somewhere, but is that the whole story? Is this an occasion where Cain has for some reason decided not to kill him? Or one where Abel has dominated through superior power?

I don’t at the moment think this, though that could change real soon in the light of anything yet to be said. No: what I think currently is that, effectively, Abel can rise from the dead and Cain come back from the land of Nod, and the pair of them decide to work together according to the innermost position of the balanced Adam/Eve principle.

Of course, they didn’t do that in the bible, but Seth could maybe symbolize that state of affairs. He could represent, for each one of us, a particular manifestation of the innermost position of Adam/Eve. He could be, in practical, every-day-living terms, the means for us to act at the Christ point.

If so, then yes, Abel is in the mix, and he is the one who knows how to make an offering that is accepted. But Cain is also needed, has to be included, or in the end, he will get angry and kill his brother.

The fact that Seth is a One seems to me to further emphasize the union of the brothers, that this isn’t just Two living in an uneasy alliance, but a new, composite entity that has its own way of being.

October 27, 2009 at 15:18 | ML

The Drift Into Appreciation

Your comments are also very good as were JO's and MW's. You have been facing inward and moving into a better position of understanding. Remember we are learning about space as well and we are targeting a particular space and reason.

We are getting more to the point, but there is still a lot of drift into appreciation in everyone's posts. Here is the point. I have offered it several times, but due to a lack of respect, it is not becoming the value we are centering on. We are circling it, but not centering yet.

I can say the point again, but before I do, let’s remember why and what we are here practicing. We are learning about an art…an art of giving…and way of being in the moment that can unlock the inward understandings of everything.

Now here is the point: when you post and practice, you have to go through the prime positions to bring anything into being. You may be at a distance in your awareness to the prime positions, but that would only be true if you were following Cain’s way into the land of Nod. If you follow Abel, you will be more Able in everything, but you must have the respect required to be Able (Abel).

In your posts, you start to track the pathway to the Lord. Then, something happens…you start to drift outward. Why? Because you lacked the Respect of being Able. Then, if you continue drifting outward, you end up nodding out in the land of Nod. The turning point is the thing you must find and you need Respect for it if you want to find it.

Why continue outward when our practice is to see the Lord. You must learn to give what is Able to show the respect required to continue inward. I have described how the principles, when applied as an inward directed loop, can take you to an understanding of everything. I have pointed to the moments of turning toward and away. This point is your target. Can you give an understanding of that target? If you do, it needs to contain all four principles, and to see the Lord, you will need to be giving all four continuously for that reason.

October 27, 2009 at 15:47 | sensei

Sensei,

Thank you for your response, and apologies to JO and MW for not mentioning them.

This stands out:

Why continue outward when our practice is to see the Lord. You must learn to give what is Able to show the respect required to continue inward. I have described how the principles, when applied as a inward directed loop, can take you to an understanding of everything. I have pointed to the moments of turning toward and away. This point is your target. Can you give an understanding of that target? If you do, it needs to contain all four principles, and to see the Lord, you will need to be giving all four continuously for that reason.

Let’s see if I can follow the pointing finger. The following was something I intended offering at a future class, but with a little tweaking, I’m hoping it’s going to be useful here.

Monday night, not long after class, I visited the TED web site, and came across a stunning video at:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/evelyn_glennie_shows_how_to_listen.html

In this video, Evelyn Glennie, the world-class percussionist who also happens to be nearly completely deaf, gives a talk on how to listen. I was absolutely entranced by it, and asked myself why that was so. Then it came to me: it was because she was living in the moment her reason for being, and as a result, as night follows day, she was oozing gratitude from every pore. Her gift flowed like sweet wine, and this is probably a rare example captured so strongly on camera.

I was on the receiving end, and this was the first time that had consciously occurred to me with such force: I was being given, and for once, I was open and receptive. And receiving that gift, deep and genuine gratitude arose in me. Had I been present at the talk, I'd have felt impelled to go to her afterwards, express my appreciation, and offer my heartfelt thanks. At this moment, I'm doing the next best thing: sharing this opportunity, as a sign of my gratitude, for readers to see Evelyn Glennie's gratitude in action.

Turning this over, I made an unexpected connection. My mother and I had a rather stormy relationship. We loved one another, but we didn’t always like one another very much, as they say. One day, when, as I occasionally did, I took my father and her out on a day trip in my car, we had a snack somewhere. This was always the highlight of an outing for my mother, who loved her food. But on this particular occasion, I was for whatever reason receptive, and I happened to notice her eating with indescribable delight some titbit or other.

It was as if I had never seen her before – and I mean that very literally. She was transcendently beautiful, a being I had never before properly seen. And belatedly, I think that this happened because, when eating the titbit, she was living in her reason for being in that particular moment.

Casting my mind back, I can remember other occasions when she was probably like this – for instance, when doing jigsaws or fussing over her grandchildren. And I have observed something similar with other people, quite often children unselfconsciously playing. So I’ve long known, without realizing it, what the receptive side of gratitude is like. My regret, however, is that I so very rarely returned gratitude, offered it back as my own gift. I may have savored it once with my mother, but it was so very difficult to return it in the moment of its arising.

So then, I asked myself, well, when am I like my mother was that time, or like Evelyn Glennie was in the video? When am I on the giving side? And then, I realized, a typical example is when, as now, I am writing about something I really care about. I don’t mind getting things wrong, I don’t mind telling things like I think they are, as long as I’m genuinely striving to increase my understanding. And exploration through writing, through discovery/invention as I go along, is for me like my mother’s titbit. It’s something in the moment that connects me with my reasons for being.

And why is that possible on this forum? Only because of your teachings. On other forums, I’ve discussed matters I care about before, but this one is by far the most important and useful to me. It’s the one where I feel I have been learning most. And out of that realisation, sure as night and day, gratitude arises.

So who is it who respects your teaching, who hopefully appreciates, has gratitude for, and is developing new values based on it? Is it that guy Cain, who loved my mother but often didn’t like her very much and so turned away into Nod? No way. Is it Abel? Well, as I said, I think he’s in the mix.

When my mother was eating her titbit, Abel felt deeply grateful to Source. But did Cain show any sign of this to her? No. She went to her grave not knowing how beautiful I had found her that day. Cain was still in the land of Nod, still hurting from the past, and couldn’t bring himself to turn inwards enough to cooperate at the Christ point with Abel. He didn’t express inwards-facing appreciation to her, and so didn’t connect with her, didn’t show compassion.

Had he done so, she might have become more receptive, have appreciated that, and been able to turn inwards in gratitude, so that she and I could meet inwardly and grow that value. What a waste of a perfect opportunity.

In every moment, we need to be Seth, our own specific manifestation of the position of the inner Adam/eve model at the Christ point. Cain and Abel need to become like conjoined twins – on second thoughts, more like a single body, where many organs are paired or at least bilaterally symmetrical.

The One being takes Cain and Abel with it on every journey, be that into the land of Nod or anywhere else. Each needs the other for the offering to provide a platform for continuing inward movement, both for ourselves and other people. Without this, there can be no true compassion.

October 27, 2009 at 21:28 | ML

This is a good realization and I am quite sure your mother felt it as you wrote it here. I appreciate your kind words and I respect your sharing these thoughts and concerns. A new value can come out of that respect that leads more inward to the Lord. We must aim for the Lord, not as an icon...but as a state of being.

Now go even further inward ML. It's our reason for being here. Use the principles...all four of them and use them again. Look to the moment when Abel is dead and Cain is nodding off somewhere. Look to see Adam and Eve in that moment. What are they going through? Look to see this scenario in your own posts, where you have made a respectful offering and then started nodding off, killing the more inward movement. Pick any post or idea and look into it to find the point we are looking for. You are on the right track with Gratitude, but remember, it was Respect that the Lord found lacking in Cain. You are stopping one principle too soon and this prevents you from starting the Giving loop again. Go inward and more inward. Look to understand where the Cain and Able point of conflict is in your own offerings now. Don't be concerned about Seth yet. We will get to him, but not until we reconcile where these points are in the moment.

October 27, 2009 at 22:37 | sensei

Sensei,

Thank you for you thought about my mother. As I was writing my previous post, I was thinking about her, wondering if somewhere, somehow, she could detect my regret. It would be a great consolation if she could.

What are Adam and Eve going through when Abel is dead and Cain snoozing? I have a tremendous block here. They seem so very far in, so abstract, and one doesn’t know where the literalism stops and the inner message starts. Literally, parents who lose one child to the grave and the other, who put him there, to exile, won’t be best pleased. I’d imagine they’d be feeing a certain amount of guilt; did anything they do help make Cain the way he was? Could they have foreseen and intervened? They’ll also be missing them, of course.

What were their reasons for bringing them into the world? Well, they had fallen, and must have wanted their children to do better. But now they were both gone, and there would have been no way to resolve it through discussion or persuasion, for example. A lost opportunity: the crushing guilt and regret. But at some stage, surely, the desire to solve the problem, to move on and try again?

Let’s think of one of my own moments. What was it that mourned and regretted and felt guilty that Cain nodded off, after killing Abel, in the instance with my mother? Maybe I missed that. Could it have been Adam and Eve? Have I been making them too abstract, too distant? Are they at the very core, and am I beginning too far out?

Let’s imagine that’s the case. One thing about Adam and Eve is that they are male and female, and so can between them generate new lives, new beginnings. Even disregarding Seth as advised, in practice in the psycho-spiritual realm, which is what I think we’re actually dealing with, the tableau plays itself out countless times.

Abel and Cain and are continually being conceived in hope, being born, making offerings that do or don’t respect the Lord, getting killed and exiled. Likewise, Adam and Eve are continually experiencing the pain, guilt, regret, sorrow, and trying again.

But they don’t seem to be learning very quickly. They don’t go through it once or twice and then come up with the solution. No: it seems entirely possible that throughout their lives, for some people, Adam and Eve never learn, never come up with the solution, just keep regenerating the same two children who suffer the same fate.

If this is so, then the first people who need to wake up are them. They have to stop forgetting, have to become aware of what is happening. Somehow, it has to register. Cain and Able, their offering to the Lord, perhaps, needs to be accepted by Him, and if it were, maybe He’d show his appreciation and gratitude, give them the grace they need to achieve their aim. So they have to start first with respect for the Lord, and maybe grace comes first in the form of awareness, of registration of what their situation is? And an idea of how to escape the destructive loop?

Let’s look into a moment where I might have caught my Cain about to kill my Abel, and stopped that happening. It says a lot that I have to pause and really think about that to find a definite example, but I suspect it has happened. What was it doing the stopping? Let’s assume it was Adam and Eve, that in that moment they were aware and acting with the grace of the Lord. I imagine that at that time, they were in balance at the Christ point.

What then? Well, I suppose that the grace of the lord is then being channelled through them to their children. For once, the latter are working together one step further out than Adam and Eve, helping them achieve the Lord’s aim for humanity in the world, which entails each of us returning respect, appreciation and gratitude to Him, and creating ever new and better values nearer to our very most important reason for being, the completion of the rise after the fall, the redemption, the return home to Source.

And the conflict in my offerings? Perhaps it is that you have said on several occasions that I need to look at how Adam and Eve might be feeling about the loss of their children, and I haven’t followed that up, and didn’t begin by respecting that point.

October 28, 2009 at 2:25 | ML

Respecting the Point

Very good! Remember we are exercising in the space of understanding, moving inward on the line of reason, discovering points of value that lead to the Lord. We HAVE to learn to Respect certain points in the moment or we will tend to fall away into outward ways of being.

You have a well presented consideration in your post. Now listen carefully, because you want to do an even more inward example by finding the values that are most inward in your post (an act of gratitude) and then looking at your post for the point in the post when you were closest to that value and when you fell away due to the presence and lack of Respect.

This will be your study example of an in the moment living version of Abel and Cain's conflict. It has to be one that is actually occurring in your way of being in the moment. Be clear about what you are looking for. Doing this will require the Respect that Abel shows and that Cain is lacking.

October 28, 2009 at 8:24 | sensei

I've been trying to stay with this for the last day or so, and this is where I've got to with it.

Adam - or Adam/Eve - is the point that contains all of the possible expressions of what it means to be human. There is nothing human outside of Adam, so he stands - as Sensei has said elsewhere - at the very edge of what it means to be human. The Lord got Adam to 'name' everything: "And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof." By this I understand that Adam encompasses all of the possible 'reasons for being' of humankind, and that thus every reason comes, from The Lord, through Adam.

So, first is respect - to realize that every reason that we have has come to us, through Adam, from The Lord. And that all reasons are united in Adam. Adam is for human beings what I had described as 'Plant' is for individual plants: the all-inclusive archetype, the definition of what it means to be human.

Cain and Abel, as ML has observed, "Abel and Cain and are continually being conceived in hope, being born, making offerings that do or don’t respect the Lord, getting killed and exiled." They would seem to represent the ways that we, as individual expressions ('sons of Adam') relate to source and matter. Abel respects that all of his reasons for being (or his fundamental reason for being) comes to him from The Lord through his father Adam. He appreciates it, returns a tithe of it in gratitude, and thus grows its value on both the 'matter' and 'source' sides. He represents each of us, as individual human beings, in a harmonious relationship 'between Heaven and Earth'.

Cain, on the other hand, believes that his reasons for being are his own - he doesn't recognize that they are given to him, but believes he has created them. He appreciates them, but only to offer them back to himself in the form of arrogance and self-importance. He grows their value only on the matter side. And we know the rest...

Adam - Adam and Eve - are thus in a continuous relationship with, on the one side, The Lord, and on the other, with their 'children'. They are the possibility of every form of expression, but as such they cannot express it - they need the individual expressions, Cain and Abel, to actualize these possibilities. When Abel is killed, and Cain is lost in the dark slumber of Nod, there is no possibility for expressing these reasons. There is no recipient for their giving. Their existence and purpose is thus compromised. Adam/Eve need us to realize the purpose of their existence - their 'reason for being', which is an all-inclusive reason for being - by receiving from them, in respect, our reasons for being, appreciating them, offering back our gratitude for them to the source, and thus growing their value .

This possibility is open to us with every thought, every breath, everything that comes to us in the form of experience. But, at the critical 'hinge point', where we could actualize its possibility, we allow ourselves to drift outwards and lose the point. My sense is that we're being pointed towards the fact that 'respect' is the crucial issue here: that as soon as we lose sight of 'where' our reasons for being in the moment have come from, what they really are, what real potential is, we're lost. When a thought occurs, do we allow ourselves to be carried along with it, or do we try to sense what its reason for being is, to see what is on the source side of it, to follow it back towards its unity 'in the breast of Adam'?

October 29, 2009 at 7:46 | JS

Sensei,

Remember we are exercising in the space of understanding, moving inward on the line of reason, discovering points of value that lead to the Lord. We HAVE to learn to Respect certain points in the moment or we will tend to fall away into outward ways of being.

I had to take a breather on this and come back a bit more fresh in mind.

Now listen carefully, because you want to do an even more inward example by finding the values that are most inward in your post (an act of gratitude) and then looking at your post for the point in the post when you were closest to that value and when you fell away due to the presence and lack of Respect.

Reviewing my post, I felt it might have begun to go fall away out around the paragraph that began “If so, then the first people [i.e. Adam and Eve] who need to wake up are them...” Up until then, I was, I feel, closer to Adam and Eve as real aspects of myself. I was seeing them, or trying to, as part of my own being. After that, I think I may have been distancing myself from them, seeing them more as entities separate from myself. And maybe that wasn’t treating them with respect.

If I’m right, then in that moment of turning away and losing respect, I was exemplifying Cain’s offering that lacked sufficient respect. And what I need to do now is allow Abel to show that respect rather than killing him and wandering off to Nod. This would be an in-the-moment living example of catching Cain about to kill Abel and stopping that.

Let’s ask the question: how do I experience Adam and Eve? This will hopefully be keeping me close to them in the space of understanding, moving inward on the line of reason, discovering points of value that lead to the Lord.

In every moment, I am aware of something that is a very real part of me that is watching and evaluating my thoughts and actions. It is setting the boundaries of what I am prepared to do or not do, because I get a sense of approval or disapproval, and naturally enough prefer the approval. Approval is a sign that my offering has been accepted, at least as far as this inner faculty is concerned, and that acts as surrogate for the Lord’s grace or blessing.

On what basis does the faculty operate? It is associated with a being, me, who necessarily lives in the world. Nothing I think or do can avoid having some material component. So we can’t dismiss matter as being irrelevant. If there are thoughts and actions that are nearest to the ones that deserve the Lord’s grace, then they will have both a material and spiritual component.

I know from personal experience that this faculty is plastic; its values change at different stages of life, and also within a given stage. Earlier in life, I was more focused on certain material things than I am now; there’s been a definite shift in bias in a more spiritual direction.

The hope is, that in shifting towards a new balance point, this faculty approaches nearer to the values the Lord intends us to live (our true reasons for being as incarnated individuals), so that the sense of approval we get comes closer to the actual grace of the Lord, not just the faculty that stands in for it.

The ultimate point of respect is the Lord, but we get to that via this faculty. It acts as intermediary between the Lord and our thoughts and actions. The nearer that it is “synchronized” with the Lord’s intentions for us, the more graceful we become. And conversely, the less synchronized, the less graceful we become, and we can detect that as a sense of disapproval.

We can react to this sense in one of two ways. First, we can accept it constructively, just as a good student accepts the constructive criticism of a teacher, and set about changing how we think and act. This is the way of Abel.

Second, we can become angry and resentful, taking the disapproval as a slight against us by the Lord. This is the way of Cain, who chooses to kill off the potential of Abel behavior, go off into the land of Nod, and sever his connections with Adam and Eve. There’s really very little difference between Cain’s hurt and the hurt of the child that goes off to its room to sulk, cutting itself off from its parents. They may not be perfect parents, but they are probably trying their best.

Adam and Eve were the parents of Cain and Abel; like our parents, they greatly influenced the values adopted in life by their children. So Adam and Eve may symbolize our conditioning, that which results from the influence of parent figures in our life – which can include ideology, religion, culture, and so on. This greatly influences the inner faculty that stands in for the evaluation of our offerings by the Lord.

Not all conditioning is worthless; if it can be appreciated in the right way, if we are selective about what we respect and how we understand it, then the proper way for us to be and make our offerings in life is very probably available to us from it.

Maybe it’s not so much that Adam and Eve need to wake up and change, but that we need to change the way we understand them. The approval we seek from them, as from our own parents, needs to be based on what they actually are, or have the potential to be. Because, when that potential is fulfilled, they accurately reflect the way that the Lord wants us to be. They and the Lord are in sync, and we are fulfilling our true reasons for being.

Cain and Abel potentials are always within us, like two sides of the same coin. If we are being Abel in this moment, we aren’t being Cain. And vice-versa. I’m trying to be Abel in this very moment of writing – so what are my Adam and Eve saying about that? Are they approving or disapproving?

I sense they’re applauding my intention, but is my offering acceptable to the Lord? If it is, then I am truly being Abel, and, moreover, that means that Adam and Eve are in sync. with the Lord (i.e. at the Christ point). If not, then somewhere along the line, I lost respect again. Put another way, whether or not I am able to show respect depends on where Adam and Eve are currently balanced, as I understand that.

I’m hoping that’s at the Christ point, but if not, Abel is dead and Cain snoozing. But here’s one ray of hope: if you tell me I lost respect again somewhere, Adam and Eve haven’t given up. Once again, they will spawn an Abel/Cain. Once again, there will be the chance to get it right. So maybe it’s not that they are stupid and forgetful, repeating the same mistake over and over, but that they are eternal optimists, and that could be a sign of the endless love, compassion and mercy of the Lord.

October 29, 2009 at 15:15 | ML

JS;

You are honing in on our point even better. You are dwelling closer now to our target. Here is the interesting thing: The issue on the table has to do with Able's Respect and Cain's lack of it. Your post takes Able through Gratitude and omits the Respect the Lord was wanting and takes Cain through Appreciation and omits Gratitude. So you can see you are one principle behind in each case.

You will not see the Lord unless you advance your use of the principles.

Focus tighter. It's all about the RESPECT right now. Find the point in there. Use the four principles to bring yourself inward to the space between their differing forms of Respect and what happens to Adam and Eve as a result.

You are certainly seeing more inward, but I want you to realize this particular place in their offerings of Respect and of your offering of Respect...or your lack of it. Although you are working your way in, you are still separating yourself from the reason. This is exactly what the Lord was showing Cain and Able. You want to be very interested in the truth of this. It will lead you to more Truth and understanding in the moments you are actuating. See it in your post. See it in the moment.

October 29, 2009 at 19:18 | sensei

ML;

Yes! Now you are tracking the point within.

Remember, we all have an agreed to reason for being here: to practice using the principles and to see how, with proper practice, they will lead to the Lord in Anything. So, our need for approval should be based on whether we are approving the truth of these teachings and of the success of our practice when we properly employ them and whether the disapproval comes when we neglect to apply them. There is no personal criticism intended, although we will feel joy or apprehension depending, on how true to the intended practice we are willing to be.

The faculty you mention is Appreciation and Gratitude. Why not call it by the principles that are giving the faculty? This, being our reason to understand, becomes another form of separation when we are clearly here to practice these principles and then ignore the truth of them. This causes some outward drift. When that happens, you lose the more inward position that you had established.

Your understanding of grace needs to be connected directly with Gratitude, otherwise you will be lacking respect for the truer understanding of how grace occurs. While, we do not need to name our study principles in everything we do, we are here to study them and see how they are present in the naming of KEY moments in time…and to see how they truly lead to the Lord.

Your writing is very close to point. You are doing really well. See the pathway into understanding! Remember why we are here…

October 29, 2009 at 19:38 | sensei

Feeling that I wasn't really grasping the nature of respect, I went fishing in the files list and saw MW had posted up something called "The Inclusive Nature of Respect". Opening it, I immediately realized it was Sensei's message of a few days ago, which I had read and re-read. But somehow I had missed that the whole issue of respect was spelled out there. And re-reading it again, after just this last exchange of messages, was like reading something completely new.

There is much there that resonated strongly with where we have got to in this exploration, but this perhaps resonated most:

If we are so caring of others, do we even take the time to care for the inward values others are reasoning for? Seriously…is your ear trained to hear the inward positives the other person is trying to express? Are you truly working to find a better way to say and live what you most inwardly value in life?

So... respect is perceiving the inward positives of our reasons, and 'hearing' those reasons in others' expressions. I think of ML's recent description of watching his mother eating, and this comes through very strongly - there is this perception of the 'inward positive' behind an otherwise normal act, that is so transfiguring and beautiful. What does it take to perceive this? 'Time to care' seems to be the operative phrase, with 'an ear trained to hear the inward positives' being the corollary to it.

Abel takes the time to care about what are the inward positives of his - and Cain's - reasons. He holds open a space of clarity, which he doesn't allow to fall into preoccupation with the material expressions of those values. He listens and looks for them, with greater and greater alacrity. And as his respect deepens, it brings him closer and closer to the all-inclusive reason of Adam. Cain's lack of respect - and focus on appreciation - takes him, on the other hand, to a more and more exclusive position, until ultimately this becomes the darkness of Nod, where everything becomes separate and different from him.

So, to look at the question of what happens to Adam/Eve after Abel's death and Cain's 'banishment', from this perspective, it is that the inclusivity of the reasons for being that constitute Adam/Eve - the oneness of those reasons - is fragmented and narrowed and channelled outward into reasons that now appear to have no connection with their source, because there is no respect for the more 'sourceful' values of those reasons that lie in their inward positives.

October 30, 2009 at 9:34 | JS

Do you see the continuous movement inward being produced in our practice? and, do you want to be more direct?

JS;

You are continuing inward. This direction is our way to the Lord. Here is a question for you: Do you see the continuous movement inward being produced in our practice? and, do you want to be more direct? If you answer yes to both, then let's agree to see where you are actually engaging these points in real time (through your posts) where I will meet you in the space we are learning to dwell in. If the answer to either question is no, then let's practice with the concept some more.

October 30, 2009 at 13:05 | sensei

Yes! Now you are tracking the point within.

Phew! Thank heavens for that! :-)

The faculty you mention is Appreciation and Gratitude. Why not call it by the principles that are giving the faculty?

As an educator, I am aware of a teaching approach known as Constructivism. When a teacher introduces a new topic, s/he allows learners to express, from first principles, based on their own experience, their understanding of the topic. After that has been explored, s/he may then introduce more formal definitions and terminology.

What I did was the mirror image of that. I already have your definitions and terminology, but I expressed my understanding starting from first principles, based on my own experience, using my own terms. I wanted to find out whether my own understanding of your terms was correct, and that I wasn’t just parroting them.

The terms “gratitude” and “appreciation” are perhaps the two I find most slippery, which is why I asked you at last week’s class to provide an example based on biology. You gave the example of a tree, which helped, and my approach in my post was another way to refine my understanding.

Your writing is very close to point. You are doing really well. See the pathway into understanding! Remember why we are here…

Thank you for saying so; I think positive feedback where due is very valuable, not merely pleasing. I will now try my best to use “standard terminology”, and try to discover how grace is directly connected to gratitude.

As I see it, Abel is aware of the values of Adam and Eve when they are balanced at the Christ point. Appreciating these when he comes to make his offering to the Lord, the outer value of his offering is in favorable balance with its inner value, gratitude, which is the main driver, in fact.

As an example, suppose I want to perform an action (make an offering, give of something truly valuable) in line with my deepest reasons for being, which will, at the Christ point, be consonant with the Lord’s purpose for me in creation. The main driver is to honor and respect the Lord, to show him my gratitude for His creating and loving me. But there will inevitably be an appreciative component because I am currently incarnated in the world.

Let’s suppose I want to act generously. The focus has to be inwards in gratitude, but I also have to express my way of being generous outwards, through appreciation, to the object of my generosity. Then the outer value of my action will be in suitable balance with its inner value as an offering to the Lord.

As a concrete example, perhaps I want to help a poor person. Focusing on gratitude, on my reasons for being as determined by the Lord, I want to do that because in helping this person, I will be helping him realize his own reasons for being.

What I mustn’t do is focus on my own appreciative values – for instance, the ego trip I will get if I pat myself on the back for being good. As soon as I do something like that, the coin flips and I become Cain, off in the land of Nod. Abel lies slain and Adam and Eve have lost their progeny.

I think this is why the Sufis always emphasize that charity should be anonymous. One should never be ostentatious in giving. However, whilst anonymous giving guarantees that we can’t grow fat on the praise of others for our generosity, it still doesn’t guarantee that our ego won’t grow fat in our own minds; so there must be integrity and sincerity, and we mustn’t dwell on our own feeling of goodness and piety. This ensures that we remain focused on gratitude.

Like the Sufis also say, you only get paid once. If you choose to get paid in the currency of the ego (i.e. in terms of appreciative values), you can’t also get paid in the currency of Essence (i.e. in terms of the values of gratitude). Thinking about it, that’s another way of saying that either Cain kills Abel and gets exiled, or Abel makes an offering that is accepted by the Lord.

So what is this “getting paid”? In terms of an offering that is accepted by the Lord? I don’t think it’s a mere commercial exchange. It’s not that the Lord wants to reward us for being goody-two-shoes, and so gives us his blessing and grace.

No: I think it’s more that a successful offering is something that connects the offerer with the Lord, enabling the grace and blessing that has always been freely available to flow. It’s as if it opens a one-way valve – say, clockwise. Cain stubbornly tries to turn it anti-clockwise, having no idea what clockwise means. Nothing ever comes through. But Abel, he has come to understand the meaning of clockwise, which is a sincere offering made by respecting the Lord, and living/giving focused on gratitude. It’s simply the way an evolving universe has to work. If it didn’t work that way, no evolution would be possible.

Transposing it to the example of the tree you provided, first, it has to respect the things that conduce to its germination and growth: the soil and its nutrients, water, oxygen and carbon dioxide, and so on. It will get nowhere if it says to itself it’d prefer to live in outer space in a substrate of candy floss. It appreciates its nutrients by growing roots, a trunk, branches and leaves. Pointless to try to grow into anything else: this is how the Lord wants it to grow.

But it also needs gratitude: it needs to put something back – its leaves fall and form fertiliser; it outputs a surplus of oxygen which keeps non-photosynthetic organisms alive; it binds the soil to prevent erosion; it provides dwelling places for birds and other animals; it produces flowers for the bees, and fruits for many other organisms. It can’t say that it won’t do these things; that it will just keep on growing and giving nothing back. If it does, that will spell its own death, because in the cycle of nature, if organisms don’t give, then they become extinct. So actually, giving is the most important thing. A tree that tried to hog everything for itself would be a Cain tree, not an Abel tree. But it can only legitimately hang on to what it needs to live.

Look at the trees, all the other organisms, the stars and planets, the atoms and electrons. They know how to give whilst receiving only what they need. And out of their giving, look how much can arise, as well as sustain itself appreciatively. A universe of Cains is an impossibility. But because so many things are Abel, the infinite bounty of the Lord can flow. The universe is full of His blessing and grace.

All the human Abel is doing is connecting himself to it through his conscious giving. And when he receives grace, it shifts the balance of his values even closer to the Lord, and respecting that allows him to appreciate and show gratitude even better. He becomes engaged in a virtuous circle whose evolutionary limits we can only guess at. I see it as just a continuation of the unconscious virtuous circle in beings that preceded him in evolution.

October 30, 2009 at 18:56 | ML

ML,

You are showing even more understanding of the generalized forms and your descriptions are becoming still more focused on the space we are studying. Every example is being well presented and an overall appreciation is developing.

We want to take this further inward, so let's choose a paragraph from your post and just work to go more inward on that. You can choose any one.

October 30, 2009 at 21:05 | sensei

In-stance - The Inner Stance

Sensei,
Once again, thank you for your helpful feedback.

We want to take this further inward, so let's choose a paragraph from your post and just work to go more inward on that. You can choose any one.

I think I will choose the last:

All the human Abel is doing is connecting himself to it through his conscious giving. And when he receives grace, it shifts the balance of his values even closer to the Lord, and respecting that allows him to appreciate and show gratitude even better. He becomes engaged in a virtuous circle whose evolutionary limits we can only guess at. I see it as just a continuation of the unconscious virtuous circle in beings that preceded him in evolution.

We are self-conscious beings. Our incarnated forms can trace their lineage all the way back to interstellar hydrogen gas, and even that has a kind of consciousness. Hydrogen atoms have properties (mass, charge, and so on), and immanent in those, through evolution, are all subsequent forms, including humanity. I feel all of evolution could probably be described in terms of myriad loops of practice of the art of giving.

Why did the Lord choose to create through time, employing matter as well as spirit? Why not instantly create perfect beings that exist only in the numinous realm? Had He done so, I don’t suppose there would be any need for the principles of the art of giving.

Maybe it’s because of His love and compassion. The Catechism says He created us to Know and Love Him. But love can only be genuine when freely given, so there has to be the ability to resist coming to Know and Love him. There can be no fait accompli or coercion. So we must be able to screw up. And because He has given us that ability, it can’t be a matter of Him awaiting our success so He can reward, or our downfall so He can punish. That would plainly be unjust – and can the Lord be unjust?

Cain is an expression of the ability to resist, and Abel, of the ability to overcome resistance. When resistance dominates, creations can’t connect with the grace of the Lord, and they suffer (in terms of increased separation from Him) because of that. But even in that suffering, there is hope, and encouragement to change. Nothing is irretrievable. Abel is constantly being re-spawned in hope.

I see that as a sign of the infinite compassion of the Lord; and since the space we have been considering for some time is compassion, let’s consider that. It is said we are made in His image and likeness, and so we should try to emulate His compassion. Maybe we can do that by trying to look from a larger perspective, nearer to His. I think that might be a useful step inwards.

Let’s imagine ourselves as but one instance of a being, created from a template, whose purpose is to freely come to Know and Love its creator. In this sense, each of us is no different from any other instance. The Lord sees the template in all of us. He has no reason for loving any instance more than another. Each of us is as good or bad an example of an instance to examine as any other. Like any instance, relative to our current state, each of us has made a certain amount of progress and has certain resistances and abilities to overcome resistance.

Through the art of giving, each of us can overcome resistances it is currently engaging with. This applies to any instance one cares to name, say Saddam. The key to the instance that is writing this, ML, overcoming its resistance is by giving from gratitude to the Lord. So it must give, from gratitude, to Saddam, or any other instance.

By giving to Saddam, ML is emulating the Lord; it is giving of such grace from the Lord as it might steward, and Saddam, just as ML does, has the choice whether to resist or overcome resistance. The Lord has given ML this choice, and it has often turned away, like Cain, from it. But He has never given up on it. Through Adam and Eve, He eternally provides fresh chances to act with the gratitude of Abel.

Just as He does not turn away, nor must ML from Saddam. If it does, it becomes Cain, itself turned away from the Lord. By emulating the Lord’s unconditional giving, instances can pass on to other instances - if those choose to respect it - the grace of the Lord that they steward. So instances can help one another through the proper stewardship of grace from the Lord. And in doing so, they are not only helping the others, but helping themselves, to become more graceful. They are coming to be more in the image and likeness of the Lord.

Grace ultimately originates with the Lord. I don’t think instances generate it, only steward it. All instances, including Saddam, steward a certain amount of grace because they always have a certain degree of ability to overcome resistance, however restricted that might be, and however selectively they might be able to apply it. Moreover, all instances can lose some of the grace they steward if they choose to turn away where formerly they showed respect.

Looked at from this perspective, we can see all instances more compassionately. There is no need to judge the particulars of their ability to resist or overcome resistance. We can cease comparing our state of development with others so that, finding them wanting, we can turn away from them. The Lord doesn’t turn away, so why should we? Do we know better than He does how things work? How He designed them to work? Of course not.

I see them as working through the transmission of grace, made freely available to all who can find the strength, as Abel can, to overcome the resistance to coming to Know and Love the Lord. That grace can come direct from Him, or in a thousand other ways through the stewards of grace. These might be people, scripture, literature, music, art, architecture, nature... anything.

They can all be instances of things that give from gratitude, and so these are the things we should respect, appreciate, and in gratitude create our new values from which ourselves to give. This can be a never-ending process, and it’s often called evolution, though some, mistakenly I believe, see that as a blind process with no particular purpose.

October 31, 2009 at 23:22 | ML

ML,

You concluded with, "They can all be instances of things that give from gratitude, and so these are the things we should respect, appreciate, and in gratitude create our new values from which ourselves to give. This can be a never-ending process, and it’s often called evolution, though some, mistakenly I believe, see that as a blind process with no particular purpose."

So then, let's focus more inward on this. You state that "we should respect, appreciate, and in gratitude create our new values from which ourselves to give. This can be a never-ending process..." Look at the word instance. In-Stance. The instance refers to some form of inner stance. Go inward now into this using the four principles.

November 1, 2009 at 8:07 | sensei

Sensei,

An inner stance. How to appreciate that? I couldn’t come up with anything. Any way, I went to browse the TED web site again, and found that there have been a number of video talks, apparently just posted, on the subject of compassion. One of them is by Rabbi Jackie Tabick (see: http://www.ted.com/talks/jackie_tabick.html).

She tells a story of a rich man who got the notion that God wanted some bread. So he bakes some loaves, goes to the synagogue, opens up the ark, and puts the bread in. Then later, the cleaner of the synagogue, poor and unable to feed his family properly, prays to God for food. When he smells the bread, he opens up the ark, and thanks God, thinking his prayer has been answered.

Back home, the rich man’s having second thoughts. What was he thinking? Why would God want bread? So he goes back to the synagogue to take back the bread, only to find it’s gone. “Good heavens,” he thinks, “God wanted my bread after all.” So he goes back to the synagogue after the next Sabbath, and after many subsequent Sabbaths, to put bread in the ark, and the cleaner collects it every time to feed his family.

Eventually, a new Rabbi finds out what is going on and calls the rich man and the cleaner to talk with him, and explains everything.

“So God didn’t really want my bread?” says the rich man.

“And God didn’t really answer my prayer for food for my family?” says the cleaner.

The rabbi takes hold of the hands of the rich man and says: “Don’t you realise, these are the hands of God?”

[Incidentally, I think the tale itself illustrates the four principles: there’s the respect of the rich and poor men towards God, the differing ways they appreciate the meaning, and the gratitude and new value enunciated by the Rabbi]

Going inwards with this, the rich mans could be seen as being as an agent of God. For the purposes of the story, he wasn’t aware of that, but I suppose we can all consciously be aware of a role as an agent of God. Cain isn’t interested in that, but Abel is. His real being is as that agent, and in that being is the fulfillment of his central reason for existence.

His aim isn’t to achieve something for himself – redemption, enlightenment, nirvana, call it what you will, but to act out his agency; salvation comes as a by-product of that rather than being the main aim. Compassion isn’t so much an attitude we should adopt, as what happens when we act out our agency, transmitting the grace of God.

A Swami in one of the other TED talks about compassion notes that English doesn’t have a verbal form (such as “to compassionate”). It’s what we do, he intimates, when we have an awareness of ourselves as not so much a part of the whole, as the whole itself. The whole is (but this can only be perceived by Abel), the totality of God. Cain sees everything as separate, unconnected.

And this links in with a third talk on compassion by a Sufi who quotes Rumi’s famous tale about the lover who comes to the beloved’s chamber and knocks on the door.

“Who is that?” asks the beloved.

“It is I,” answers the lover.

“Go away!”

Later, the lover returns and knocks again.

“Who is that?”

“It is thou.”

“Come in,” says the beloved.

The true lover, the true agent, sees no distinction between himself and the beloved.

November 2, 2009 at 1:05 | ML

Please note: the sentence reading:

"Going inwards with this, the rich mans could be seen as being as an agent of God."

Should have read:

"Going inwards with this, the rich man's stance could be seen as being an agent of God."

November 2, 2009 at 1:59 | ML

ML;

In each instance, or post, or individual ideas being expressed in the post(s), you yourself are demonstrating a stance. There is an in-stance where you are being right at the point of offering that Cain and Able symbolize. I am asking you to find that place in yourself, in your post, in your idea, in the living, right now moment. You are doing very well at appreciating the point and seeing it in its expressed forms. I am asking you to see it in the moment you are in by seeing yourself in the instance you are passing over that point.

If you need me to give you a clear example, I will. Remember we are here to see the Lord. We don't need someone else's seeing to be our seeing. We can see for ourselves, but we must go into our own offerings with the Respect the Lord said was worthy.

November 2, 2009 at 10:18 | sensei

Sensei,

Apologies. I hadn’t realized that you wanted me to demonstrate “in-stance” in relation to myself, without reference to anything else.

You say:

There is an in-stance where you are being right at the point of offering that Cain and Able symbolize. I am asking you to find that place in yourself, in your post, in your idea, in the living, right now moment.

The underlying idea in my recent posts, if I try to stop and winkle it out, is finding the balance point for values that will enable me to view the other in a compassionate way. I suppose I am looking to take a detached stance.

I realize that there’s a danger in this, in that it could become just an attitude that enables me to escape, to hover away from it all without actually being engaged in living and giving. This would still be a turning away into appreciative values, a resort to Cain. It’d just be looking to protect myself from having negative feelings for the other, even a disguised way of feeling superior.

However, I am acutely aware of the danger. The Abel focus still needs to remain on the more inner, grateful value of respecting the other as truly a worthy being, with the same considerations applying to him and his reasons for being as to myself... “Do unto others”.

I’ve mentioned sincerity and integrity before, and I think they’re very important. It’s difficult to be sincere in being Abel if you aren’t aware of Cain, of what he’d like to be doing, and why he’d like to be doing it. If you are, then in the moment, you are aware of the potential conflict, and the choice you have is very clear. I think this makes it harder to consciously choose the way of Cain, because in so doing, you KNOW that you are making a conscious choice to turn away. I don’t think that generally, people consciously choose “evil” when they actually know that doing it is such.

More usually, they don’t know what they are doing, and it’s a matter of making a mistake. They will still suffer from separation on account of that, but they won’t, perhaps, be as distant as the one who chooses "evil" consciously.

So the value is: be aware in the moment both of what Abel and Cain want to do, and make the conscious choice for Abel. You need to be clear in the moment what the options are, and if you don’t feel you are clear, you need to stop and practise to gain more inwards insight so that your action is in line with your reasons for being in that moment.

November 3, 2009 at 19:20 | ML

Options in the Moment

ML:

You wrote, in your last paragraph, "So the value is: be aware in the moment both of what Abel and Cain want to do, and make the conscious choice for Abel. You need to be clear in the moment what the options are, and if you don’t feel you are clear, you need to stop and practice to gain more inwards insight so that your action is in line with your reasons for being in that moment."

In this example, as Cain I would respond by seeing some value present in this and then nodding off what it means to live it. As Abel, I see you are talking to me. You are saying that I need to be clearer with you by giving you more options about what I am asking for in this study. You want me to stop and practice to put my more inward insight into a form of action that shows my reason more clearly in the moment. So this is what I will do.

I will say that your request for options is a good one. This is my Respect. Your request is an indirect one, but with compassion, I can see the request and need for options showing through. This is because compassion allows space for the inner reason to be better understood.

Here are some options.

Option One: I will take a sentence to show Cain and Abel and the offering of Respect. Your words at the beginning of this post will be my study sentence. “So the value is: be aware in the moment both of what Abel and Cain want to do, and make the conscious choice for Abel.” So let’s say this is all I have to work with, or that this is where I want to apply the study. In this, Cain says that the Value is present in both offerings and should be recognized. The offerings should be of equal value because they are both offerings. But the Lord says Able’s has a Value that Cain is lacking: Respect. Cain dismisses the respect because he wants to stop giving at Gratitude. Abel says, I want to be more inwardly respectful with my offering. So where is the Respect? I can see it being implied in your comment about making “a conscious choice for Abel,” which is the potential Respect I am looking for in our study. So, as I respect this idea of making a conscious choice for Abel, I am concerned that it may not be one of respect. We could choose many choices for Abel, but the Lord said it was Respect that made the difference. Cain made a conscious choice for Abel and that was to kill him. It was another lack of respect, and the Lord tried to counsel Cain again. So any conscious choice other than respect at this particular point would be away from our study interest. I would call anything turning away from a respect for the study to be Cain. When turning away, we tend to drift away from the point and this leads to the land of Nod.

Let’s see what happens next by looking at the next sentence in our example from your post. “You need to be clear in the moment what the options are, and if you don’t feel you are clear, you need to stop and practice to gain more inwards insight so that your action is in line with your reasons for being in that moment." This seems like a call for Respect and I believe if Cain had done what this suggests, the Lord would have found more favor in his offerings. So in these examples, I am seeing Abel better and I feel that you are moving toward the Lord with your offerings. But, I am also seeing Cain better and this is happening because I am applying Respect to the offering and this opens the space for a more compassionate understanding. Since Cain lacked the more inward Respect, he was also lacking compassion, which led to his killing of Abel.

In this first Option, we are treating your post as an offering example showing Cain and Abel’s call to Respect and how their ways of respecting the offerings lead to different points in understanding. The option considers the post as a living example of our study interest. Each sentence, each phrase is an example of the study.

Option Two: You said you want options, because you want more clarity in the moment. I am Respecting what you are saying and I am considering your offering to be about the current moment I am in. If I respect it as Abel, I will apply it right now to see the truth of it. If I see it as Cain, I will drop it on the altar and leave it for someone else to make use of later. So, my Cain is not concerned about further use. As Cain, I see the offering and feel like we are finished. Thank you for your comments and great ideas, ML. The offering is made and that’s what counts. Taken further, Cain will kill anything that proves to be calling more inward. As Cain my offering should be enough. As Abel, I respect the offering as an opportunity to become closer to my reason for living. I am more interested in moving closer in. The offering is offering me that opportunity. So, as Abel, right now on this issue I say hmmm, I need to be clearer about my options in life. Okay, let me become clearer right now. I will respect that by bringing more clarity now. This post is a form of that. I am practicing to apply the idea now. And as Abel, I am willing to respect what is more inward. In this option, I practice my offering as I write or live, experiencing my application of the living form. I view my words and actions as my living demonstration. In other words, your post shows your compassion as you are discussing compassion, shows your respect as you discuss that and so on.

Here is Option Three: If Cain had asked for more clarity, I think the Lord would have given it. But that clarity has to come from within the more inwardly, or it will not be clearer. Because Cain was unwilling to recognize another step inward, he was unAble to work with the offering of options made by the Lord’s comments. We can see this truth when we look at how you asked for options. When I respect what you are saying more deeply, I can find ways to improve my offerings. If I do not respect what you are saying, I am unable to hear your more inward call.

The Art of Giving is a way of being in the moment. The Lord’s givings were of a different resolution and Cain was not Respecting that difference. Abel was respecting this to some more inward degree. So, in Option Three, we look at your paragraph as it relates to your reason. Are we seeing the Lord? Are you practicing to see the Lord through your living offerings? Do you Respect the pathway in, or do you turn outward with your offerings. You wrote, “So the value is: be aware in the moment both of what Abel and Cain want to do, and make the conscious choice for Abel. You need to be clear in the moment what the options are, and if you don’t feel you are clear, you need to stop and practise to gain more inwards insight so that your action is in line with your reasons for being in that moment." Are your practicing what you just wrote? Do you respect what you just said you need to do? Or do you think that saying it is enough? This is another example of Abel and Cain working in the moment. When I read your post, am I practicing the reasoning while I am reading, or am I just going through the motions with no intention of living the reasoning to understand better. The Abel position respects the offering in the moment and continues to practice even now. Cain is going through the motions and may have some wonderful offerings, but does not respect the moment to be what the offering is actually about. Option Three practices as it lives and gives.

November 4, 2009 at 11:47 | sensei

"If Cain had asked for more clarity, I think the Lord would have given it. But that clarity has to come from within the more inwardly, or it will not be clearer. Because Cain was unwilling to recognize another step inward, he was unAble to work with the offering of options made by the Lord’s comments."

from Genesis 4: 6-8... "Then the LORD said to Cain, 'Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.

Now Cain said to his brother Abel, 'Let's go out to the field.' And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. "

Cain doesn't respond by asking for clarity about what the Lord means when he says to "do what is right" ... instead, his response is to go to the field and kill his brother... why not stop and ask the Lord a question about what it would mean to "do what is right"? ... many of us can relate to situations where we didn't ask a question and know it would have been very helpful to have done so... sometimes we're just too fearful to ask a question... it makes us feel vulnerable and afraid of looking stupid... or maybe there is arrogance in thinking we already have the answer, or pride that if we don't already know we can figure it out on our own... or we get so distracted or tied up in making our own point we just pass over something completely unaware that we could have had an opportunity for better clarity... or maybe we take a side trip into confusion and we think we don't even know what question to ask, even though that could be a question in itself...

"But that clarity has to come from within the more inwardly, or it will not be clearer."

i'm still trying for better understanding on inwardly ( i feel like outward isn't nearly as difficult to understand, which must be teaching me about my own orientation)... would it be more inward for Cain to ask for clarity about what the Lord means when he says "do what is right"?

November 4, 2009 at 14:14 | JO

JO;

When Cain invites Abel “out” to the Field, where he attacks and kills his brother, he is inviting Abel outward to his (Cain’s) dwelling place. This kills Abel and Abel’s blood goes to ground. Cain grounds Abel out to kill Abel’s more inward dwell by centering on a more outward disposition. This is describing something that occurs in many moments and at the point in anything that humanity expresses these attributes. We must not let our more inward respect to get grounded out. We must continuously live to give more inwardly or we will die and become separated from the more inward way of being.

When we ask a question of the Lord which Cain chose not to do, we are asking for the more inward understanding to be revealed through our continued offerings in the Art of Giving. Our offering, when we practice the art of Giving as I have described so many times, is asking to see the more inwards value through our Respect, Appreciation and Gratitude. We are asking to see the next principle so the more inward value can show itself. We must be living to give, through our offerings a constant respect, appreciation and gratitude for the more inward values. The Lord reveals more understanding if we continue to respect that the more inward is always present. We access this more inward through our Giving and the Art of Giving describes the continuous form. Cain stopped at gratitude while Abel continued another step inward with Respect for the more continuous application of his in the moment offering. Abel went more inward and the Lord was pleased. Cain not only went outward…he took Abel with him and killed the more inward point that Abel had established. Abel followed and lost his more inward connection at that more outward point of matter in the field of Cain’s dwelling point. This is why the Lord went looking for him in the field. The field was more outward and was not where the Lord was meeting Abel and Cain before. And even when the Lord moved outward, Cain chose to go even further outward.

The Lord will meet us in our offerings. When we turn to meet the Lord, we turn to the more inward value. We can only sustain this relationship by giving the more inward values. The Lord dwells on the more inward side of any moment and chooses to be more inward even when going outward.

This is not an abstract myth. This is how it works. This is all happening in every moment with the many variations dependent upon our choices and givings. Will you continue to give more inwardly or turn away to ground out your inward progress? This question is a very important one to reconcile. Your inward offerings should be forever asking for another more inward value to respect. With enough Respect, you will reach the Lord and the value of your offerings and givings will be offering a present, a present moment, a oneness with the Givings of the Lord.

November 4, 2009 at 19:22 | sensei

ah yes... i do respect this is how it works... clearly any moment provides an opportunity to see our own turning... even the moments that happen here in this discussion... even in the hardest of moments there is opportunity... even in things we think are impossible there is possibility... i wonder if this is sometimes what is meant by a miracle... making that turn toward the Lord, respecting the more inward value, makes all things possible...

for months i was struggling with jealousy directed toward a woman i admire... jealousy for all her life was about, all she gives, all she expresses... i thought i couldn't help it... every time i looked at anything she did all i wanted to do was see all the ways i wasn't her and could never be like her... i convinced myself there wasn't anything i could do about it... every moment i was following jealousy, and murdering what was on the other side... i would make excuses and tell myself a person feels the way they feel, after all... you can't force yourself not to feeling something... etc... and then a bit like being hit over the head, finally a realization... what was deeper than the jealousy?... all it took was finally opening enough to ask a simple question, and sincerely want the answer to be a more inward value... literally in an instant i was "healed" of this jealousy... it was replaced by love... love for what flows so effortlessly through her, for her giving, for her reason for being... love inside myself for loving her reasons and knowing there are reasons we share with one another... i could easily use the word miraculous for it...

ML's lovely example some posts back reminds me of something very similar... even in what we might consider the most difficult of circumstances we have an opportunity to open up to more inward values than what we've been looking at, even when we've been facing that direction for years...

to have genuinely realized there is choice is something that has immense value to me... it's one thing to say you understand you have a choice, it's another to see how it can be applied in any moment through practice... and once the realization happens it has shifted everything... because if i had the realization of my choice once in one circumstance, i know i can always choose my turning no matter what a moment may present me with....

November 5, 2009 at 10:08 | JO

Sensei,

Many thanks for your last response to me. I have been deliberating about whether to reply, because I have drafted something and I don't think it's something I should be posting in a public forum. I'm even unsure whether I should send it to you by private email. Perhaps I shouldn't even mention it - the only point here is that you went to a lot of trouble responding to me, and I felt I had to at least thank you.

November 6, 2009 at 9:48 | ML

ML;

There is no need to compromise yourself on this forum. You are welcome to email me if you like. And you are welcome to not respond. The principles we are learning help us to improve our understandings and inner relationship including challenging areas of discovery. Sometimes these challenges are intriguing and sometimes they are pointing towards very significant life issues. We will be met with a more inward understanding if we are willing to practice Respect, giving Appreciation and Gratitude for the Values we want to be more about.

You are certainly welcome to keep the more inward discoveries private. What is important here is that our practice does lead us to more understanding and that we can continue to grow inwardly when we apply ourselves in that way.

November 6, 2009 at 11:30 | sensei

This is just to say that I haven't gone to sleep. I am still practicing. Call it a moment of consolidation of things learnt if you like. I will be back in the fray in due course, maybe when a new discussion thread is raised.

November 13, 2009 at 1:00 | ML