Strength (Warning: Long)

[Guest guest]

On Thu, 27 Apr 2000 11:00:21 Robert Weil wrote:

 

Mark:

>>(That's a purr)

 

Thank you very much Mark.

Mmmmm, I love purrs.

>>I love your post. I think Hell is incredibly

>>(understatement of a lifetime?) painful, if you take it personally. The

>>less you do so, the more tolerable, and even interesting it can be.

 

Yes, it sure can.

There seems to be an endless variety of Hells and

I too find it important to take as little as possible of it personally.

("Poijsonally", as they say in

New Joisey

>>I know I have views that I hold unconsciously, so I

>>have to look at my behavior and try to find the causes. That takes

>>persistence. Sometimes, I find that accentuating an emotion helps clear

>>it.

 

Yup, that's something I really recognize.

To bring up the emotion or thought and then magnify it

as much as you can until it fills your field of "vision". And then try and see

what the emotion

is. Also, a lot of held views pop when faced squarely,

when becoming known to the conscious mind, the

view can be let go of.

 

Swami Lakshmanjoo has written (website)

that it is possible

to use any emotion and any sensory perception, any

movement within the mind, as a core of meditation

and even samadhi.

>>So taking it

>>personally and being aware seem at odds... (are they opposites?)

>>Hmmmm...

 

Hmmmm... not necessarily.

I think one can take it personally, be insulted or

feel injustice etc and still be aware,

be aware of these feelings.

In fact, some traditions hold that strong emotions

are good tools for finding where they come from,

to find the center of consciousness.

But it does require a motivated mind to do this.

 

Actually, my personal experience is that when the

mind is flooded with impressions and emotions,

a watcher state appears quite effortlessly,

perhaps as a defense against the input overload.

But this is a different topic than the usage of

emotion to trace consciousness.

 

Rob:

>Without going into masses of boring detail and frankly embarrassing public

>confessions (unbidden are the worst, doncha think?),

 

LOL ! Yes, they can be.

>the thing that the

>post hit was a place where I cannot seem to resolve a very cruel end to a

>relationship that still appears in person every now and then, but will not

>allow any open meeting to finalise things, while claiming there is no

>animosity. Communication breakdown of a high order, >difficult to let go of

stuff you don't understand.

 

Sounds very difficult indeed.

When you are unable to try and resolve the issues

and have to keep a straight face as the other does not

want to hear what you have to say can be painful and

confusing. How do you resolve a conflict b/n you and

someone else only you feel, or is unacknowledged

or unaccepted by the other ?

 

I honestly don't know how this can be resolved,

although

I have been in the same situation myself.

I can merely supply some reflections on the issue,

all from the mind.

 

Maybe it can help writing what you want to say in

a letter, rant and rave and accuse and cry and

say all the things you want to say but can't

in it.

Then you keep the letter for a while, then look at it

again after some time and see if you still feel as

unresolved.

When letting one's own often bottled

anger go, and kick up some dust, it can be easier

to see what lies beneath, usually hurt, and

address this.

 

There are probably many ways of resolving issues

like these. One can use will and hold onto the

awareness when this happens, one can meditate on it,

one can try and see oneself in the situation of the

other and see if one would have reacted in the same

way.

 

One could also try a gentle confrontation with the

other, tell the other that you feel there is a conflict

and sound the other and see if s/he is interested in

a dialogue.

However, from personal experience, a claim of "no

animosity" often makes this negotiator

approach useless.

 

If anyone has a stock solution to conflicts,

including "invisible" conflicts like this,

they should share with us.

I don't know the solution.

>I need to resolve this (no sh*t!). It's blocking my

>heart chakra at a deep level, about where compassion and unconditional love

>would flow out to everyone, and the world would appear suffused with love.

>It stops just short of this person, and gets blocked.

 

That sounds familiar.

>I'm either crazy (not a bad option, but not helpful) or I'm

>coming from the right place and don't know how to proceed.

 

I think you are coming from the right place.

With blocks like these, I have often found that

the solution is already there, deep within oneself.

It is a question of finding it.

That can be very hard work addressing the issue and

try to resolve it though, often one can go looking in

completely wrong directions and end up quite confused.

 

The first place to start though may be to acknowledge anger and hurt and try not

to feel guilty about

feeling that way. Try not to think that one shouldn't

feel hurt, that one should be reasonable and adult

and spiritual and so forth.

That's the beginning of letting go.

>There, now I expect ppl will think I'm an obsessive character.

 

Not at all, not more than the rest of us.

We all have issues of personal conflict we just

couldn't resolve and ppl of the past we still feel resentment towards, even

though the moment is long

past and we have changed and so has the person

we had the conflict with.

Most ppl just choose not to talk about it.

The mind and heart can overlook many things,

but we all have certain issues we are unable to

overlook or "ignore".

>I'm not

>expecting anyone to have practical advice, (tho' some useful wisdom here

>would be appreciated), just to recognise how some things can leave you

>hurting and unhealed at a deep level, and perhaps there's nothing you can do.

 

We certainly can recognize that.

We are sadly quite helpless and cannot avoid

feeling hurt and angry at times, the same way we

cannot avoid most other things in life.

We do not like it, but we have precious

little control of our lives.

Especially over what we feel hurt by and not.

 

Also, I find the issue of past hurt and

letting go, directly

addresses the nature of suffering and

conflict.

 

As I see it,

conflict is always a conflict of desires and interests,

emotional, economical, geographical, intellectual,

social, romantic etc interests .

 

One way of trying to break through a conflict such

as this can be to envision what one want to happen.

Do I want an argument ? Do I want

the other to acknowledge my hurt and apologize ?

Or do I want to ask for forgiveness myself ?

 

Trying to divide guilt and causes may only lead to

new conflict, as few egos are prepared to take

accusations and anger without defense and trying

to send accusations back, no matter how much they

love each other.

 

By trying to center on solution instead of conflict,

some sort of resolution may be reached.

>Then what? To let go of that means to let go of one's humanity

 

In one way, if being human means reacting knee jerk

fashion to others, to be owned by situations of the

past and not the other way around, to find oneself

pitted against the ego views of others.

 

However, being human may also mean letting go

of the past, letting go of sadness and

see that the reason the sentence

"I am hurt" linguistically and teleologically

starts with "I", then "am" and then "hurt",

indicating that "hurt" is separate from "I"

and "I" will always be separate from all other

labels, linguistically and perceptually,

no matter what happens or what will happen in the

future.

>I am aware that my own viewpoint is relative. It doesn't

>matter from that perspective. All I wish for is a resolution that I can see

>from a perspective of love. This one is as deep as the problem I had as a

>child at school. The cruelty is hard to bear.

 

This one is really difficult and again, I doubt there

are any stock answers, as we all have somewhat

different emotional responses and views.

 

I have found issues like these to belong to both

the heart and the third chakra, which is situated

below the heart chakra.

 

I do hope you are able to resolve the block,

or at least lessen the frustration it is

causing for the moment.

 

Let us hear how you do.

We are here listening.

 

I will give this issue more thought and see if I can

come up with something really smart in connection with

it (but I doubt so).

 

Love and good night,

 

Amanda.

 

 

 

 

Angelfire for your free web-based e-mail. http://www.angelfire.com