The Known
ML;
Source not only wants to be Known, it is the Known. It has to want to be Known or it would not be Known. When we do not Know it, we are choosing to want something else. This is the nature of our separateness and can be overcome through our givings, if we are willing to improve the way we give.
I will run an example using your values. Bear in mind, these are values you produced in your practice. I will show you how close to Source you are and then you can start up again by appreciating it according to your practice. Then, after you do, choose your point of gratitude carefully. You want to use every repetition to go further in, even if it’s just a little.
Let’s look at your accumulated appreciative values. One, a place where you can make heroic efforts. Two, dwelling in the Hovel. Three, knock on the door and it will be opened and Four, your new one, it must concern not-ego – essence.
Now, the value we started with here is Source not only wants to be Known, it is the Known. So, this repetition HAS to be about Source being Known, therefore I will show gratitude for knowing that.
Here goes the repetition: The place where you can make the most heroic efforts is where your connection to Source is working through the hovel of your temporal dwelling point. But there is a door in that hovel that connects directly to Source and that allows you access to the many mansions available to you in that realm of being.
Since this has to be the state of Knowing, it has to be true, therefore, I am now ready to go into that more Knowing relationship by knocking now. This begins a new repetition as I just passed Respect again. As I, or you, now move deeper, you/we must appreciate the truth of this and go in by showing gratitude for Knowing this. Maybe we will only know what this means, but when I go in, I expect to Know and when I recognize the Known showing through, I know I will need to make a heroic effort to stand up for that Value in what may appear to be a Hovel of confusion. If I can see that Value and knock on the inward side or meaning of that Value, I will be even closer to Source and since that is what I am living to do, I will show Gratitude when I see it. This is how Source becomes better known and my attitude becomes the portal you mentioned in your latest Value.
Knowing this helps me realize that every moment I share from this inward direction is a heroic effort, a knocking on the portal that exists in the hovels of misunderstanding. So I am making a heroic effort right now to show you this ML. This forum may not seem like a heroic application, because it is a humble abode. It may even appear to be a hovel to some who expect spiritual teaching/learning to be happening in cathedrals and with people bearing ornamental titles and robes. Even the everyday situations we have chosen to work in may seem like unattractive personal hovels but if we consider this work for its inward value we can see these situations represent a noble view that when coupled with a heroic effort in difficult points of dwell, produce a portal into the inner understandings and applications. When you knocked on the door of understanding by asking for help, I responded with this example so you can see that this is a truth that works. We are now more inside and the understanding is becoming recognized as an expression of the Known.
You can continue this more inwardly by comparing this position to your original reason. Your own way of Appreciation and Gratitude, what you truly respect and value will have to do with where this goes from here.
sensei
August 28, 2009 at 16:05 | sensei
Sensei,
Source not only wants to be Known, it is the Known. It has to want to be Known or it would not be Known. When we do not Know it, we are choosing to want something else. This is the nature of our separateness and can be overcome through our givings, if we are willing to improve the way we give.
I can accept that Source is Known – by some. Also, that if it didn’t want to be Known, it would not be Known – by those who Know it. More subtle is the idea of Source being THE Known, if you are using the definite article advisedly. To me at least, this seems to imply that Source is the totality of what can be Known – that anything else can’t be Known at all. You acknowledged earlier in our dialogue that there can be degrees of Knowing, and the value that gets tentatively born for me is that everything is the Known. It might not be Known perfectly and completely, and it might in some cases only be known in more or less distorted forms; and in still others, it might be unknown, or completely unconscious, but that would presumably be because of a defect in one’s awareness; it would still be there to be Known regardless of one’s state of awareness.
I will run an example using your values. Bear in mind, these are values you produced in your practice. I will show you how close to Source you are and then you can start up again by appreciating it according to your practice. Then, after you do, choose your point of gratitude carefully. You want to use every repetition to go further in, even if it’s just a little.
Let’s look at your accumulated appreciative values. One, a place where you can make heroic efforts. Two, dwelling in the Hovel. Three, knock on the door and it will be opened and Four, your new one, it must concern not-ego – essence.
Now, the value we started with here is Source not only wants to be Known, it is the Known. So, this repetition HAS to be about Source being Known, therefore I will show gratitude for knowing that.
Here goes the repetition: The place where you can make the most heroic efforts is where your connection to Source is working through the hovel of your temporal dwelling point. But there is a door in that hovel that connects directly to Source and that allows you access to the many mansions available to you in that realm of being.
Many thanks for the help: I can understand that. I guess what it raises for me is the possible distinction between a “temporal dwelling point” and ego. I’ve often taken ego to be in that place, in effect. But as I think the Adam/Eve concept illustrates, at any given point of dwell, there is a balance between essence and ego. The balance may not be at the ideal point, the Christ point. The ego isn’t all bad; it’s more that it is misguided and ignorant. It could be a good working partner if essence were more in the driving seat.
Since this has to be the state of Knowing, it has to be true, therefore, I am now ready to go into that more Knowing relationship by knocking now. This begins a new repetition as I just passed Respect again. As I, or you, now move deeper, you/we must appreciate the truth of this and go in by showing gratitude for Knowing this. Maybe we will only know what this means, but when I go in, I expect to Know and when I recognize the Known showing through, I know I will need to make a heroic effort to stand up for that Value in what may appear to be a Hovel of confusion. If I can see that Value and knock on the inward side or meaning of that Value, I will be even closer to Source and since that is what I am living to do, I will show Gratitude when I see it. This is how Source becomes better known and my attitude becomes the portal you mentioned in your latest Value.
Knowing this helps me realize that every moment I share from this inward direction is a heroic effort, a knocking on the portal that exists in the hovels of misunderstanding. So I am making a heroic effort right now to show you this ML. This forum may not seem like a heroic application, because it is a humble abode. It may even appear to be a hovel to some who expect spiritual teaching/learning to be happening in cathedrals and with people bearing ornamental titles and robes. Even the everyday situations we have chosen to work in may seem like unattractive personal hovels but if we consider this work for its inward value we can see these situations represent a noble view that when coupled with a heroic effort in difficult points of dwell, produce a portal into the inner understandings and applications. When you knocked on the door of understanding by asking for help, I responded with this example so you can see that this is a truth that works. We are now more inside and the understanding is becoming recognized as an expression of the Known.
You can continue this more inwardly by comparing this position to your original reason. Your own way of Appreciation and Gratitude, what you truly respect and value will have to do with where this goes from here.
At this point, I feel I need to bring in something you said that has been conveyed to me privately by MW– I know you haven’t been mentioning it explicitly out of concerns for my privacy, but I don’t mind factoring it in, or you taking that further here should you wish. It just seems impossible to proceed optimally without making it explicit. This is that at a certain point in going deeper, I hit a barrier and don’t know how to get past it. I want to get past it, but because I can’t, that leads to frustration that may affect not only my spiritual, but possibly physical, well-being.
Actually, having heard this from MW helps me make more sense out of what you have said. If there is this block, it is probably the most pressing existential problem I have at the moment – have had for a long time, in fact. I am in this Hovel, and I can readily see and accept that – it is felt to my innermost core, impinges on everything I do.
You see, there is this Known or Source or Something, and I have felt its call all my life, right from early childhood. I have never truly been the least happy with things that matter. But to make the heroic effort, an act of faith is required. And what lays the ground for faith is trust. It’s not good enough simply to knock on the door: behind the knocking has to lie sufficient sincerity. I think one may have to let go completely, submit completely, but some part of me likes to hedge its bets; a part that’s afraid of making wrong choices, and not without some precedent for having done that in the past, and thereby suffered the consequences.
For some, submission seems somewhat easier than for others. That may depend in part on prior experience, prior evidence. In my school, for example, I know those who claim to have had some pretty convincing experiences that they can trace directly to the teacher, and I have no reason to doubt their sincerity. They feel an enormous affection for, and gratitude towards, him. They have “clicked”. But I have never clicked with him. I wish I had, but I can’t deny that I haven’t. I have in fact clicked more with you than him, but whether that’s ultimately relevant, I can’t say.
I realize this is going into knowings and not Knowings, but content is relevant, I feel, if only for purposes of contextualization. The more inner point, irrespective of particular circumstances, is this internal barrier, which I carry with me and which modulates all my attempts at making further spiritual progress.
It’s to do with crediting the possibility that someone, something (scripture, for example), can lead to, or facilitate, the move Sourcewards. One can gabble on endlessly about this in intellectual terms, and even get that right in pure informational terms, but at some level, one needs to be actually invested, at the deepest level of one’s being, in it. I guess that to date, I have only managed to invest myself to a certain level, and that I may, subconsciously, be waiting for the hero principle to be sprinkled on the situation by someone or something else. Maybe the subconscious reasoning is that proceeding as I am now will at some point garner enough Brownie points so that the breakthrough will come.
But what I take from what you are saying is that I need to be my own hero; no-one, nothing else, is going to ride in on the white charger and rescue me. Okay; if that is what is needed, I am willing to try it. But in purely practical terms, I’d love to know how to proceed with that. Are the principles the means? Are there other things I could be doing to facilitate matters? Whatever it is, I want to hear it and try to invest myself in it. I’m not asking you to be the hero on my behalf; it’s more that I am seeking some kind of guidance about how to be my own hero.
August 30, 2009 at 10:08 | ML