Reasoning and Value
JO;
I enjoy your posts, your contributions and I can appreciate the difficulties you express. You have given many examples of positive value and there have been many examples of positive values given back to you. It’s also okay to look at negative things and problems. The things that concern you are things you are considering to be reasonably valuable or you would not consider them so much. So, let’s look at the reasoning and value a little.
If our goal is to be more understanding, we need to also understand how we tend to understand. Sometimes when we look at the moment we only see the reasons that support the way we already understand. If we want to understand more, we have to be careful with what we choose to understand more of and what we use to understand with. We can find reasons to support any value in life including the negatives. If you want more positive reasons for living, you have to find ways to value the positives more.
ML commented to you that there is nothing invalid about your truth. I would like to offer that there is something invalid about your truth. When you treat truth like you are an invalid who cannot do anything with it, you end up living like you are a invalid, and this can lead to you invalidating the more positive aspects of your life. It becomes an invalid truth when we keep choosing to invalidate ourselves and our Selves and we can all find reasons to support doing that. But those choices do not have to be our only form of reasoning.
Invalid truths are still truths. An invalid truth is a truth that immobilizes or grounds out our reasons for being. A valid truth is one that supports and serves us well.
You have often demonstrated your ability to validate the truth. Everybody practices validating and invalidating truths as they justify their positions in Truth and in their own reasoning. If we want to feel bad, we find a reason to validate that and just like that, we feel bad. If we want to feel good, we validate that. If we think we are unappreciated, we will invalidate any appreciation, refusing to count the values.
Driving a car requires validation and invalidation. Which road and turn will best serve our reason for being on the road today? We say yes to what we feel is best and we say no to what would take us away from our goal. What road are you taking where? Some will lead to dead ends, some to swampland, some to scenic overlooks and some to friends and our truer nature.
Here is an important question: What truths do you want to be about validating? The world is full of every example. There will always be forms of under-appreciation, problematic behaviors, and judgement problems. Just focus on what you want to appreciate and become closer to the value and reason you want to be more about.
You are showing Gratitude for the on-going studies here and you are validating that gratitude and the appreciation that has led to it. Now, be careful when you offer how you sometimes turn away. It’s okay to share that truth and it is a valid one. But do not invalidate the turning toward that you are also doing. If you do invalidate it, you become the invalid unable to stand, or to walk in life. Invalids become invalids because they invalidate their reason for being, always finding a reason to not see the value. It is not because they are disabled, it is because they give their reason for being away to the problems and difficulties. That behavior can disable anybody.
I have known many people with disabilities who have walked where others cannot. I have seen people unable to use their legs go into places where others have not ventured and I have seen people who cannot use their eyes see what others cannot see.
Turn your gifts and dreams into being what you want to be more about and validate when it happens. If you want to invalidate something, invalidate the value of what used to bother you. Is it really that valuable to you? If it is, figure what the real value is and let go of the unwanted negative.
I know someone who refuses to trust love simply because they had a problem in it. I recognize the problem as real, but I saw where the love that was being shown was 10,000 times more present than the problems and all this person can see, even to this day, is the microscopic problem, which they have developed the skills of magnifying to larger than life. What’s worse, and it’s true, is that in becoming this way, they cannot even dwell in the love when they see it is True (big “T” True) because they have now become so in love with their ability to magnify the dirt, they actually prefer to live where they can find more of it! And they give away True Love for a true love of finding the problems they hate. It becomes like someone trying to sweep the dirt off the grass outside. If you work at it hard enough, you will end up destroying the grass and all that will be left is the dirt you wanted to remove!
We have to become reasonable in our values and we need to be careful that we do not invalidate the True love and understanding in our life, just because we can see a problem somewhere.
Think about what you really want to validate and focus on that. Don't spend so much effort and time validating the negatives that you want to distance yourself from. There is plenty of negative in life and you do not have to be the person who validates all that. If you see yourself turning toward what is better, validate it. If you see yourself turning away, validate it and turn toward again. As you practice appreciating the moment of turn, show gratitude for the values that bring about the turn and respect the values that allow you to turn toward the better way.
Just for fun, picture yourself sitting at the negativity counter validating every bad thing that you can see. Here is a negative, there is a negative and way over in the corner is a negative. Yes, we can see them and yes, they are negative. Oh, here comes a positive... will you validate it as a positive or choose to invalidate the positive because you can see a negative coming along with it. Now, please know there is certainly a value in being able to discern negative and positive. And both are present in everything including GOD. It is important to know this and to know the difference, because it helps measure your position in the reason for being in the moment. But think about this: You can choose to validate any part of the moment and any part of life that you want to be more in line with. And if you practice the principles of giving to the validations that support what you want to be more about, you will find more of those reasons and values to support and validate. Why not surround yourself with those?
Why not stand and walk in Love where it is Truly available? Why give our hearts away to what we do not love? Why make our relationship to God mostly about the negatives? Do we think God doesn’t know? Do we think we need to do this job for God? If it is meaningful to us, it must be positive work. So, then let’s see the value.
Instead of invalidating yourself because you, like the rest of us have and can see some negatives, and instead of waiting for others to validate you, consider that your life may have more to do with you taking responsibility to see those inner values even when others don't. Maybe it is important for you to see for a very good reason.
I can tell you this with certainty: Your reason for living and being is being validated by Heaven by the simple fact that you are here. If you invalidate that reason, you will miss many of the most important examples of your own life's value and lessons. We all do in fact have a reason for being, but if we spend our time invalidating it we become invalids to living it.
The most important thing we can do to validate ourselves is to know we are living the examples of an important life value. Once we validate that, we can begin to grow more productively into what we want our lives to be more about. When we choose to grow inward toward more truth, we are improving the values of our lives.
It may be very important for you to see how you have been turning away. But the only reason it is important has to do with you turning more toward. So put the higher value on the times when you are turning toward and when you actually make the turn, realize that moment may be what best reveals your current reason for being.
Often we get upset with others when they reflect the problems we are supposed to be learning to deal with. Funny how it doesn’t even bother the other person sometimes. Isn’t it possible that it’s our assignment to work out? Or that it's "a sign meant" for us?
sensei
September 17, 2009 at 23:05 | sensei
JO,
See what I meant about my footwork? :-)))))
September 18, 2009 at 0:34 | ML
ML;
What I have written is to honor your footwork, JO's turnings, and our many ways of finding our way to understand that our lives are full of reason. The Truth is all around and we often dismiss the most revealing aspects. When you draw attention to your footwork, you are shining the light on your way of walking the path. When JO shines the light on her turnings, she is asking for an understanding of the turning point. Why else would she point to the turning?
When you say hers is not an invalid truth, you are right. It is a truth that counts. But if our truths are not serving us well, are they validating our course? What is being counted and validated? Is it what we want to understand? Or is it what we want to move toward? Or from? Why don't we consider these things?
When we are in Love don't we pursue more of that Love? Your footwork, as described in the three phases of your spiritual journey counts for more than you may even realize. The stumblings, the easy goings, the uphills and the flatlands all have value, yet we often invalidate the most important parts and validate what does not even serve us well. I know you can see value in each phase. Can you love each phase? Can you love each stumble? Can you love when you choose left, knowing you should go right? How about when you choose left because you cannot see what is right? and you end up going in circles. Can you love that?
Imagine walking this way...stepping where we don't want to go and then affirming the step. Maybe if we affirm the wrong direction enough, we will be happier. But what is the right way? Sometimes the right way might be a way we don't want to go where right feels wrong. How could it be right and wrong?
When we fell in the lives of Adam and Eve, we fell into a world of right and wrong, good and bad, mistake and correction. God said, then you will have to find your way through that and you will have to live and die until you do. And so we have been.
As we study together here, let's remember that becoming aware in the rights and wrongs of anything and everything is our path home. And let's Love home more than our rights and wrongs. We are here to look in between the positive and negative. They can both be our friends when we stand in a better understanding of them. The path to Truth and Love is forever in between our rights and wrongs. No one can be only right or only wrong. Being all right or alright is when you are open to all forms of right. It is not the same as only right. God is everything and the Lord balances in the rights and wrongs of Everything for the Truer Reasons for Being in Love.
This is why the Lord's Love is eternal, forgiving, unconditional, and why his rod and staff comfort. To see the Lord, we must meet the moment where the Lord resides. Let's face our turnings and footwork in that direction and in that way of being in our moments.
sensei
September 18, 2009 at 2:39 | sensei
Sensei and ML...
well... the word invalid is what's making me turn my head right now... first appropriately introduced in your fine footwork by the way, ML, and then opened wider by Sensei... an extremely deep chord strike... interestingly the word "dreams" Sensei also mentions, as well as the word "invisibility" (which is just another word for invalid in this context) have been coming up a lot lately... "invisibilty" and "dreams" both playing big for me over the last few weeks, both in my way of being and in my writing elsewhere... and the ways i invalidate my dreams... i've gone so deep into it i've paralyzed myself with worry and invalidation for weeks... shutting down creatiivity, little sleep, emotions, etc.
invalid... the ways i've turned myself toward invalidation as a habitual way of being, consistently finding and accepting from others all the ways they invalidate me and then adding my own dose of invalidation on top... being immersed for a long time in religious studies that further encouraged invalidation (by my perception anyway... i understand it was my responsibility for turning toward that bit of truth in those churches)...and then to so completely dwell as an invalid my body responds year after year in the only way one would expect it to... it's just following my lead...
it seems so simple to suggest just making a turn to validate the positive will make the difference... i do know it's possible to validate because i can look at my own reachings and searchings to see it is possible... and i can easily see the ways i validate the positive... dwelling there all the time on behalf of other people...even other people no one else sees anything positive in and are quick to judge or even write off... if i can do it for others i must know i can do it for myself... but instead i do return to the habitual dwelling point of the invalid ... (which reminds me of the learned helplessness studies of Martin Seligman)... but certainly if you can learn to invalidate yourself... you can learn to validate yourself... with opportunities presented here in these discussions, and other opportunities in my everyday life, i have to know it is possible... otherwise there wouldn't be any reason for me to go back to those sources over and over again, to choose these sources, to respect, appreciate, be grateful for and find value in them... even when i may think i'm at the very deepest level of dwelling in invalidation, i must not be... because i still come back to them and still read and still listen and still find validation and still acknowledge and still think things through and still see the truth (and love the truth)...
i can even see in this moment here right now that i am not fully immersed in invalidation... because i could find a way to take offense at the comments above, or maybe take them and construe them in a way that validated more of my invalidation... but that isn't the turn i made when reading them the first or second time (and i will study them again to practice more)... instead it feels really good that both of you can see the truth so well just from those few sentences i offered, and then open that truth wider and wider on my behalf, so much so i'm nodding and then nodding some more because there are connections and "aha's" that i know are true but i wasn't necessarily aware of until i could see it all written out for me...you both care enough to see and consider and take the time to expand for me and call it what it is... it helps me see that others are validating me, even when i may not be making that turn for myself, or have even lapsed in my awareness that i'm even making that turn toward invalidation... and while it is my responsibility to keep practicing and making the turn toward what i want... toward validation... it is very helpful when there are others who are willing to help along the way as i learn and unlearn and re-learn and stumble and get back up again...
(and so ML... i want to make sure i'm validating your footwork... and i hope you are validating your footwork too... you see Sensei validated it :)
September 18, 2009 at 7:44 | JO