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Proximity Creates Possibility: it is Always there but Hidden from View
There are many ways of looking at power, but for our purposes here, power is the capacity to act effectively, to generate significant change, to impose one’s will on one’s environment, human and otherwise. Is there something generous within ourselves? We begin to see that, as we let go resisting the feeling of generosity, there is kindness. I do, in fact, enjoy giving to others under certain circumstances. When I give to people who truly deserve it, I feel a White Squall of good feelings that arise when I express gratitude and acknowledge the gifts that others have given to me. There is nothing wrong to want to overpower another under certain conditions, such as fiercely competitive, yet still mutually respectful game of tennis. Nor is it wrong to exult in our achievements at such times. However, there is also a deeper game to be played, a game in which far more is at stake than our ego’s status. Most people’s consciousness remains restricted to a single plane of reality: dualistic perception, as fabricated by the conditioned egoic mind, which sets up a solid division between the separate self over there and everything else over there.
All our main patterns of self-defense—repression, resistance, denial, avoidance, withdrawal, projection, judgement, rejection, dissociation, aggression—are ways of separating ourselves from reality, standing apart from it, and substituting a mind-created unreality in its place. This tendency to fabricate our own separate reality is a way of trying to protect ourselves against other—those elements of reality that appear alien of threatening. The dualistic eg0-mind is essentially a survival mechanism, on a par with the fangs, claws, stingers, scales, shells, and quills that other animals used to protect themselves. By maintaining this unreality self-sense, the ego attempts to provide a haven of security in an impermanent World marked by continual change, unpredictability, and loss. Yet the very boundaries that create a sense of safety also leave one feeling cut off and disconnected from reality. So unless we develop beyond the defensive ego-mind, we remain subject to endless inner conflict, alienation, and suffering. One has to take more time for themselves and cultivate their inner life.
In the ancient World, the organ for perception of the world was the heart. Present perception tends to be bi-located—in the head and in the genitals—with a great cavity of repressed anxiety in between. We see not what is there but what we conceptualize, and imagination collects around sex. It is the heart, however, that is simultaneously the organ of perception and the imagination. The heart responds to beauty. It can also project beauty. Because technical architecture is said to not have a soul, a soul must be given to it. We make a building beautiful when we stop for it, suspend the motion of thoughts, and linger with it, rather than merely using it. A glass tower is not unlike a computer. Both are media whose message is to increase efficiency. To spend time each day giving attention to a technical building where one works is a very unfamiliar gesture toward a thing designed to receive little attention, designed to focus attention on efficient work. The soul work here consists of defamiliarizing it, loosening the web of anesthesia.
Splitting of Heart Rate Reactions—if I Owned Half that Dog, I would Kill My Half!
Human interactions can produce measurable, sometimes dramatic, and occasionally even lethal effects on the heart. No one really wishes to live in constant interpersonal chaos or to be the cause of frequent disruptions of human relationships. Loneliness, the lack of love, divorce, and the loss of one’s children or loved ones—these are not situations enthusiastically embraced by the vast majority of people. The lack of human companionship, the sudden loss of love, and chronic human loneliness are significant contributions to serious disease (including cardiovascular disease) and premature death. An honest man is one of the few great works that can be seen for nothing. Do you not think that, even today, really good work will sooner or later be recognized? Today, forgetting has perhaps grown more puzzling than remembering, even though what for a long time we believed forgotten may suddenly return to consciousness. Today, when I was sitting down, everything was normal and I felt like I was going to pass out, this moment stayed with me for a few moments. Then I went for a walk, and after seeing my dad, then walking back to my apartment, the feeling came back. I am rather inclined to believe that there are underlying circumstances, which are causing me to feel this way.
When people are constantly under stress and experiences things that are done frequently to upset them or stress them out, and they cannot respond, some internalize these feelings. After all, now days when a person does something that is truly offensive and you confront them about it, they pull the “What are you talking about” card knowing good and darn well he or she knows what he or she did was done out of malice and inappropriate. Others are constantly making derogatory comments about loved ones, people who have passed away, or implying that they had sex with your spouse, and after a while it takes its toll, especially when a group of people is targeting you. These are not common situations where someone might accidentally say the wrong thing. This is like a group of adults, who engage in clicks, like those in Mean Girls with Lindsey Lohan, and try very hard to manipulate, sabotage, and convince you something is wrong or that something happened, even when it is false. These are the type of people who find out traumatic events and your allergies and use this information to hurt you. For example, the may have killed your uncle, and the anniversary of his death just happened to be on a Friday, and you are at a party and they start talking about it and making jokes and just do not stop. The purpose is to upset you so they can have a reason to rage against you and fight.
Another example, is these people find out you have a latex allergy, a few months have passed since the death or your uncle’s allergy, and you have recovered from some bad false news about your relationship, which turned out to be false, but nonetheless, shattered your soul. Your uncle’s birthday is coming up, you live in a high-rise building, no one else on your floor has a birthday, and the rules say that decorations in the common areas have to be approved by management. However, someone hangs latex balloons and happy birthday banners all over the floor. Because of the latex, you have problems breathing. Latex allergies cannot shut down the respiratory system, which mean you will choke to death. You report to the management what is happening. They agree to take the balloons down, and you showed them evidence from a doctor’s note stating you have a latex allergy. The next day, the manager wants to meet with you and says it is a festive building and the residences have a right to hang latex balloons, and suggests that she makes a flier with your picture on it so people know it is you with the latex allergy and circulates it around the building. First of all, medical information private and disclosing someone’s medical information is a violation health information privacy. Also, that is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires that reasonable accommodations are necessary. It is truly painful to be thus made to live around people who wish you harm and no one is doing anything to stop it.
A person can only endure so much before they have an adverse reaction. And while these people are trying to offend and hurt one to provoke overt behavioral movements, some people experience internal symptoms. If your heart continues to react strongly to a signal, then such a reaction becomes maladaptive. In essence, it is a form of biological preparedness that is unnecessary and will eventually wear out the heart. Research indicates that normal stress is bad, but one can cope with it. However, when you have a group of adults targeting you and getting away with it, for years on end, it does take its toll. Developmental difference in responding to fear and pain were studied in children. About 50 percent of all children placed in the stressful environment of a dental chair do not exhibit overt signs of fear. That is, when they are placed in dental chairs, when they are given a topical anesthetic, or even when they are given a local anesthetic injection, they do not move around or struggle. What was of special interest, however, was that if a child showed no bodily movements, then no heart rate changes were observed. Only when the children moved in the chairs or struggled with the dental assistant did these children show heart rate changes. Their anxiety or fear was expressed simultaneously in both their behavior and their hearts.
This behavior displayed by the children marked contrast to adults who often show striking cardiovascular changes in threatening environments without exhibiting any overt behavioral movements. There is a marked split in some adults between what they exhibit behaviorally and what is exhibited in the hearts. This splitting of heart rate reactions from overt behavioral reactions might be one of the sources of the development of heart disease. The overwhelming physical and emotional destructiveness of this type of social deprivation is clear. Because there are so many aggressors and they have powerful positions, they believe that no one will break up their mob and they can do as they please, even if they are slowly killing an individual. To them, it is a game, and it is fun to watch a person in physical and emotional pain. And if I end up dead, they figure nothing will happen to them because no one is paying attention. However, he or she who kills a man has all his sins to answer for as well as his or her own, because he gave him not the time to repent of them that Heaven designed to allow him.
The Ensouling of City
The city houses the communal soul. Restoring the city means restoring its soul, wrapping the city daily with the act of imagination. The city can no longer be limited to distinct places, for the imagination of city now encompasses the World completely, even if one lives on a farm or spends time in the wilderness. Renewal of the soul can no longer rest on a fantasy of returning to nature; renewal rests on returning to the nature of soul. Rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repent him of the evil. Now nature too is a psychological construction; it did not exist until the advent of the modern city. Now that city is all pervasive, we need not hold on to nature’ instead we must relate city to Earth. The city is our home, but the Earth is our dwelling place. We live on the Earth, beneath the Sky, the drifting clouds, and the Stars, and the golden Sun. The Sun lights our World and gives warmth and measure the course of day; the glow of Moon bathes the night and its changing cycles from the rhythms of the ocean and growing plants. The weather forms the season. They play of all these elements differs according to where we are on Earth, so that a city is not just anywhere, it is a particular locus of the Earth elements, an expressive play of those elements that are the forming forces of its soul. The love of God hath been shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit which was given to us. The Lord has risen indeed. The first act of imagination required to regenerate the soul of the city is the locating of the photograph within actual places of the World. Imagination congeals into the city—a complete imaginal, mythical World that grounds, sustains, and enlivens the soul, clothing it with a habitation and name. However, the city, seen through the soul, is a gathering together of elemental beings of the World soul into a particular landscape in order to be brought further into the workings of the World—as city.
Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people: for unto you is born the city of Sacramento, which is the city of sacrifice to the Lord our God, as he belongs to mercies and forgiveness. Landscape becomes art when shaped into the architecture of the city. When cities begin to all appear the same it is because the Earth has been forgotten. The concern with planetary ecology represents a similar forgetfulness of the particularity of a place, requiring a disembodied caring that leads to abstract programs and ideologies. Better to awake each morning with the small exercise of remembering that you are here, not everywhere. The ensouling of city then becomes an individual task, a daily exercise that strengthens the powers of the soul. Better city planning will not alter anything because such planning takes place in a technical World. Each individual must open the door to the World, travel through the image. How can we possibly say what might be good for a city when we have only to focus attention on the first object in sight to find that no one has ever really looked from its point of view. If we are to speak of the city, we must become unconscious of ourselves and take the side of the soul of the city. See what other people are choosing to blame. Other people who have had similar circumstances have forgiven, forgotten, and handled the same situation in a totally different way. We have to be honest and realize that we are blaming because we choose to blame. This is true, no matter how justified the circumstances may appear to be. It is not a matter of right or wrong; it is merely a matter of taking responsibility for our own consciousness. It is a totally different situation to see that we choose to blame rather than think we have to blame.
Why do people blame others? In this circumstance, the mind often thinks, “Well, if the other person or event is not to blame, then I must be.” Blaming others or ourselves is simply not necessary. Most of us struggle with feelings of uncertainty about ourselves. Much of the time these are not intense; occasionally, they rise like a flood, threatening to drown us in the White Squall of worthlessness. Usually, such feelings are minor in intensity and manageable in their effects. For despotically dependent persons, however, the sense of insignificance ruthlessly rules their lives. These people not only feel, but also believe, that they can have no real say in their lives. Their position does not warrant it; their abilities to cope do not include it. We have to find a way to assist the dependent person to move from a feeling that he or she can have no say to a feeling that he or she has some say. Enable oneself to be responsible for not acting responsibly. At the core of unhealthy powerlessness lies a healthy power. It is that power—that source of ability and intention, that source of significance and satisfaction—which we seek to liberate. No one can give another a sense of significance. All we can do is to resist the undertow of helplessness and hopelessness. All we can do is to encourage the flowing tide of risking responsiveness. We shift the focus from ourselves to the other, from our carrying the weight of the other’s life to the other, from our carrying the weight of the other’s life to the other carrying the weight of his or her own life. As the balance of burden shifts to a proper balancing of interdependency, what had once been a depressant turn into a source of delight.
Let’s go Play in the Snow–who does what Work in the Relationship?
Human life is like a shadow, no sooner seemingly enjoyed than vanished. Nobody can perform the most basic human acts for another. Nobody can believe for me; nobody can be baptized for me; nobody can die for me. These—and other—fundamental personal acts can only be done by myself. There can be no proxies, no stand-ins, no substitutes. Either I respond or there is no response. Either I work or there is no work accomplished. Either I grow or there is no growth in me. Meaning for myself is my work, work which nobody else can do on my behalf. Oh God, who art the author of peace and lover in concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom: Defend us thy humble citizens in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in thy defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries, through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. The virtue of the World is not mainly in its leaders. In the midst of the multitude which follows there is often something better than in the one that goes before. As a strong and supportive helper, or a strong and involved leader, or a distrusted and rejecting exploiter (depending upon the pattern of the dependent person), I can advance ideas, hunches, strategies, and meanings. They are all grist for the mill. However, in the end—in that decisive moment of transformation from the possible to the actual—it is the other who thinks ad knows and acts. And if the other does not, no thinking and no knowing and no acting on my part matters.
Nothing is more common than to call our own condition the condition of life. What works for us may or may not work for others. This is especially so when we experience the pressure of the dependent person to have us do his or her work. My meaning, the way I connect this event with that event, can never finally constitute another’s meaning, the way the other connects this event with that event. Whenever you experience the lethargy of dependency in another, examine closely who is doing what work in the relationship. Whenever you find you are feeling too supportive or too directive or too exploitative, you may be certain you have taken over too large a share of the load. Even more, under such circumstances you are doing what you cannot do: namely, express the uniqueness of another’s life experience. The feeling state of apathy is associated with the belief, “I cannot.” The mind does not like to hear it, but in reality most “I cannots” are “I will not.” The reason the mind does not want to hear this is because “I cannot” is a cover-up for others feelings. These feeling can be brought to awareness by posing the hypothetical question to oneself, “Is it true that I would not rather than I cannot? If I accept that ‘I will not,’ what situations will be brought up and how do I feel about them? It must be remembered that we are free to acknowledge and surrender our feelings, and we are free not to surrender. We are free agents. However, it makes a big difference in our self-concept to realize that “I will not do something” is quite a different feeling than to think that “I am a victim and I cannot.”
Trust a boat on the high seas to bring out the Irrational that lurks at the bottom of every thought, sentiment, sensation, or emotions. If we want, we can choose to hate somebody. We can choose to blame them. We can choose to blame our circumstances. However, being more conscious and realizing that we are freely choosing this attitude puts us in a higher state of consciousness and, therefore, closer to greater power and mastery than being the helpless victim of feeling. However, we may find ourselves provoked into reacting in certain ways because of the exaggerated intensity of the dependent responses. We feel an obligation to care about the other. We know the demand to dominate the other. We sense the pressure to exploit the other. We find ourselves trapped in a box of logical illogicalness. The dependent person narrows his or her actions in such an aggressive way that the World around is trained to take over. The biggest payoff of blame is that one gets to be the innocent victim and the other party is the bad one. We see this game played out in the media constantly, such as the endless blame games dramatized in a multitude of controversies, character assassinations, and lawsuits. In addition to the emotional payoff, blame has considerable financial benefits; therefore, it is a tempting package to be the innocent victim, as it is often financially rewarding. However, blame is the World’s greatest excuse. It enables us to remain limited and small without feeling guilty. Also, the role of victim brings with it a self-perception of weakness, vulnerability, and helplessness, which are the major components of apathy and depression.
You are Requested to Shut the Eyes
At a New Year’s Eve dinner the host, the patriarch of the family, ushered in the New Year with a speech. One of his sons-in-law, a lawyer, was not inclined to take the antiquated man seriously, especially when in the course of his speech he expressed himself as follows: “When I open the ledger for the Old Years and glance at its pages, I see everything on the asset side and nothing, thank Lord, on the side of liability; all you children have been a great asset, none of you a liability.” On hearing this the young lawyer thought of X., his spouse’s brother, who was a cheat and a liar, and whom he had recently extricated from the entanglements of the law. When the man opened the ledger, on the side marked asset, he saw his name among others, but on the other side, marked liability, there was the name of his brother-in-law, X. However, the word Liability was changed into Lie-Ability, which he regarded as X.’s main characteristic. His uncle gives him a kiss in the automobile, this means auto-erotism. Some people feel compelled to give expression in an expensive luxury automobile because of all the thoughts and expectations aroused by it. The image chosen for persons who are undergoing psychoanalytic treatment, as a rule of a journey, usually in a motorcar, this being a modern and complicated vehicle; in reference to the speed of the car the patient’s ironical humour is given free play. If the unconscious as an element of waking thought, is to be represented in the dream, it is replaced, appropriately enough, by subterranean localities which at other times, when there is no reference to analytic treatment, have represented the body or the rear end. Below in the dream very often refers to the genitals, and it is opposite, above, to the face, mouth or chest.
He was taken in the car by wild beast, the dream-work usually symbolizes passionate impulses; those of the dreamer, and also those of the other persons of whom the dreamer is afraid; or thus, by means of a very slight displacement, the persons who experience these passions. From this it is not very far to the totemistic representation of the dreaded father by means of vicious animals, dogs, wild horses, etc. One might say wild beasts serve to represent the libido, feared by the ego, and combated by repression. Even the exhibited in the dream as an independent person. I can remember that when I was a child, I repeatedly dreamed that God wore a conical paper hat on His head. They often used to make me wear such a hat at table, so that I should not be able to look at the plates of the other children and see how much they had received of any particular dish. Since I had heard that God was omniscient, the dream signified that I knew everything in spite of the hat which I was made to wear. One might think that in this day and age each of us has plenty to work about—pollution, devastation of land and forests, extinction of the Rhinos, acid rain, overdevelopment; now we are told that in addition, we have to worry about our consciousness. For the real problem is diseased consciousness. This unfortunate effect of the work will stimulate soul capacities that have slumbered long in the history of humanity. You may feel an initial hopelessness as you enter into the faces of the World that I present; but that feeling too is the feeling of being in exile, while nonetheless, within the midst of everything of the World. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, we do not just see out of windows, we see through them. This turns the subtlety of psychic reflection inward. We are drawn to staring through the soul, as if in a dream state induced by this medium.
You every wonder why some adults are mean, always engaging in trouble, and just rotten people to be around? Well, it is because their thoughts, emotions, or sensations or conditioned responses arise to distract attention from the quiet, peaceful emptiness and equanimity of who we all really are which are peaceful people. Some are able to access the different, deeper, impersonal self. When the emotional disturbance is desensitized and no longer experienced in the body, and one is relaxed and peaceful, one can review life lessons during eye movements and describe any distractions from peace and contentment. Targets for eye movements are distractions. Distractions are often persistent habits of mind, obsessive and intrusive thoughts, cravings, desires and addictions, memories, fantasies, self-talk, sleepiness, numbing out, physical pains, itches, discomforts, noises, smells, or visual images, and the full gamut of emotions including strong, good ones. Dissolve any blocking beliefs and go deeper for equipoise in difficult situations, relationships, and distracting environments. Now, what distracts from you being content in life? Do you have any new desires? Sometimes I find that I forgive people too much and feel like my spouse loves me more than anyone else in the World. I went to the door of the temple and went inside. I had become more religious and am married to God, and he is an even higher power than he was before. And I spend hours every day praying to God and trying to do things to restore that inner light in myself which attracted God in the first place. I heard about my brother’s death while eavesdropping, crouched on the upstairs landing, up too late and being wild. I overheard my parents talking about it. I had an image of a peaceful, loving God, who holds us all close to his heart and sees everything and will protect you. I have to be a good guy so God will love me.
My brother’s death created, a traumatic event about which I had been mourning. As a child, I felt that his death and my being wild by staying up late without permission and spying on my parents were somehow linked, and that God was protecting us. That loss can be terrifying because one had denied in oneself and given to others the very qualities necessary for being itself. By acting warmly dependent, one reduces the anxiety and uncomfortableness of having to be responsible. Behavior is directed toward getting from others the very support and strength one feels one does not have in oneself. Others experience the pull of caring, helping, nurturing, teaching and so tend to respond with strong, friendly behaviors. By pleasing and appeasing, one secures both protection and help. The behavior appeals to love. The seeking of love from others, obviously, is neither unusual nor abnormal. It is love that makes the World go round. However, the exaggerated seeking of strong love creates the drag of the warmly dependent personality. “If you love me, then you will not hurt me. I love you dearly; therefore, you should love me in return and give up everything for the sake of my love. Because you mean so much to me, you should take care of me and my requirements. I am unable really to take care of myself. I look to you to give me answers. Since you are so wise and I admire your insight, you should share your wisdom with me.” The personality, requirements, and limitations of the strong, loving person are disregarded. A result of the anxiety which prompts the neurotic to cling to the other person. One who is drowning and clings to a swimmer does not usually consider the other’s willingness or capacity to carry him [or her] along. All that matters is one’s own desperation at being left alone, deserted, and abandoned. Precisely because one is both weak and warm, others are expected to be strong and supportive.
The Wisdom
What joy is to health, what pleasure is to longevity, I wish you pleasure every day. Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven, Give us today our daily nourishment. Forgive us our debts, as we have also forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Be sure that all who are enraged against you will be ashamed and disgraced; those who contend with you will become as nothing and perish. Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop. Standing in your power without disconnecting from the heart. A man who can truly father himself is no longer at the mercy of unhealthy fathering, whether from his own father, other men, or the authoritarian dictates of various elements of his culture. I am in good hands. My ground is solid and true. I am capable of deep relationship. What is mostly in the way of meaningful man-to-man connection is the investment that one or both men have in keeping up a wall between them—a barrier that, however soft, keeps them safe from being vulnerable or embarrassed, or being otherwise unpleasantly exposed to each other. Knowing your shadow and integrating it.
The ethic of men’s allegiance to keeping distance from each other needs to compassionately be laid bare, along with their fears of what might happen if that ethic were to be deconstructed—fears that range from being rejected (as may have happened during boyhood when they showed vulnerability) to being seen as gay (as if being gay means having less than many qualities). Connections with others should feel natural, easy, satisfying, and respectful. Doing such practices is not just great for deepening a man’s relationship with his children, but also for deepening it with an intimate partner. Freeing sex from the pressure to make me feel better. By having a sense of others emotional and psychological whereabouts allows me to more skillfully navigate my interactions with them. Something more deeply interactive is required, something that many men long for with other men, but do not approach, keeping not just a respectful distance in meetings, but also an emotional and psychological distance, a gap that is often also present in their relationships with women. Perhaps the biggest and most relevant challenge for men is doing what it takes to be established in truly intimate relationship. I am not longer under the inner critic’s thumb.
By intimate, I mean loving, cherishing, and being very close to another, and not just sexually, in ways that deepen both partners’ connection and their individuality. The commitment that centers this is not only to making relational closeness—whatever its from—a central priority but also the well-being and growth of the partners. And what are the essentials for being in such relationship? First, explore the relevant connections between your past and present, seeing what circumstances in your early life generated your current automatic and reactive behaviors with gut-level honesty. Commitment to working on yourself—and the relationship—more than just intellectually an abiding, ever deepening interest in and love for the other. Ceasing to be run by your conditioning is very difficult to do on your own; most require skilled guidance in doing so. Also, turn toward your pain, including emotionally, rather than continuing to distract yourself from it. Do not let your anger or shame turn into aggression. Practice emotional literacy and opening by displaying integrity. Acting from your innate sense of wholeness; taking full responsibility for what you do, internally and externally; making your and the other’s highest good your priority in whatever interaction you have with them. Emotional literacy and openness will allow you to deeply listen and display zero tolerance for disrespect and abuse.
When you present everything with all respects, happy look will fall down upon you. For true happiness in the World is not acceptance, but presentation! Being consistently reliable, dependable, and trustworthy; making no excuses for your less-than-healthy behavior; being your own source of accountability is what demonstrates the beauty and excellence of anything but its reverse? Thus, the beauty of day, and that of Spring, is set off by the horror of night and Winter. It is astonishing what a different result one gets by changing the metaphor! You do not have to have perfected all the ideals before you enter into intimate relationship! You thought that you were the victim of your feelings. Now you see that they are not the truth about yourself. Enter—and further enter into the spirit of adventurous exploration by cultivating intimacy with everything that you are, learning bit by bit to allow all things—high and low, pleasant and unpleasant, dark and light—to awaken, hone, and further you. Such is the edge and great challenge that brings forth, honors, and refines the deep masculine. We have to remind ourselves sometimes what we were like before we started the process to keep track of progress, many people keep a chart of their gains. Let go of negative feelings. Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is near.
The North was Little Boy Blue
Men who will not shrink from the danger and toil of penetrating the polar basin will shrink from the troubling of their own thinking. This is the experience I have with people who have a dependent personality. Every endeavor to relate seems thwarted. Every effort to respond comes to naught. Every attempt at ministry goes astray. One is bogged down, engulfed by other’s needs. Let me put the problem differently: one does not know what the dependent person is experiencing because he or she withholds information necessary to the development of a mutually satisfying relationship. Thus, one finds oneself doing extra work. The harder the responder tries to respond, the less satisfied the other seems. Perfect love has a breath of poetry which can exalt the relations of the least-instructed human beings. When we try to help a dependent person, sometimes a little help mysteriously expands into the demand for a lot of helping. A little care somehow gets transformed into endless caring. What begins as meaningful support turns into an irritating Albatross caught up in w White Squall. Once cannot figure out what has gone wrong. The perplexity differs from those who are dependent. They experience themselves as dead, helpless, victimized, and so they behave as though they have no responsibility. Life does not depend on them. Something external determines the course of events. They themselves are unable to engage life in meaningful and significant ways.
Though grace is shown to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness; even in a land of uprightness, they go on doing evil, and regard not the majesty of God. The hand of God is lifted high, but they do not see it. Let them see your zeal for your people and be put to shame; let the fire reserved for your enemies consume them. See, all your enemies lie there, confused and humiliated. Anyone who opposes you will die and come to nothing. With my God I can scale a high rise, you made my enemies turn their backs in fight and I destroyed my foes. They may say that it is their misfortune to be criminal; I answer that it is their crime to be unfortunate. Fortunate is the gentleman that can obtain even a reluctant and merge justice. Light of hearts, Sanctifier of souls; behold me prostrate in Thy presence. I adore Thee with profoundest homage: I bless Thee a thousand times and with the Seraphim who stand before They throne, I firmly believe that Thou are eternal, consubstantial with the Father and the Divine Son. I hope in Thy goodness that Thou wilt deign to save and sanctify my soul. I love Thee, O Divine Love, with all my affections above all things of this World, because Thou art Infinite Goodness, alone worthy of all love. I beg Thy pardon a thousand times, and am more sorry for having offended Thee, the Sovereign Good, than for any other evil.
I know, a place without water is a desert; I know, a place without sound is loneliness. I offer Thee this most cold heart of mine, and I pray Thee to pierce it with a ray of Thy light, and to spark of Thy fire, which shall melt the hard ice of my iniquities. You are the rain to water my heart; you are the sound to accompany me in my life course. You have enlightened my mind with the knowledge of eternal things. True masculine power happens when courage, integrity, vulnerability, compassion, awareness, and the capacity to take strong action are all functioning together. Such power is potent but not aggressive, challenging but not shaming, grounded but not rigid, forceful, but not pushy. Again, it required head, heart, and guts in full-blooded alignment. Because of social engineering in our society, people even suppress and repress their good feelings. Suppressed love results in the broken hearts of the heart attack. Suppressed love re-emerges as excessive adoration of pets and various forms of idolatry. True love is free of fear and characterized by non-attachment. Fear of loss energizes undue attachment and possessiveness. For example, the man who is insecure about his spouse is very jealous. When the pressure of suppressed and repressed feelings exceeds the individual’s tolerance level, the mind will create an event “out there” upon which to vent and displace itself. Thus, the person with a lot of repressed grief will unconsciously create sad events in life.
The fearful person precipitates frightening experiences; the angry person becomes surrounded by infuriating circumstances; and the prideful person is constantly being insulted. Why do you see the splinter, which is in your brother’s eye, and do not feel the beam, which is in your brother’s eye, and do not feel the beam which is in your own eye? All the Great Masters point us within. Life events become influenced by our repressed and suppressed emotions on the psychic level. Thus, anger attracts angry thoughts. The basic rule of the psychic Universe is that like attracts like. Similarly, love promotes love, so that the person who has let go of a lot of inner negativity is surrounded by loving thoughts, loving events, loving people, and loving pets. Real love is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole World. Giving up your heart and spirit to the smiter. The true lover’s mind is completely permeated by the beloved object of his affections. Mystery and disappointment are not absolutely indispensable to the growth of love, but they are, very often, its powerful auxiliaries. That simple, primitive love which knits us to the beings who have been nearest to us, in their times of helplessness or of anguish. Love does not aim simply at the conscious good of the beloved object: it is not satisfied without perfect loyalty of heart; it aims at its own completeness.
Is not Love God’s doing?
I do not live the rest of my Earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. For many have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. They think it is strange that we do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. However, they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. Therefore, be clear minded and self-controlled, and above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins, offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. We cannot love just where other folks would have us. There is nobody, but God can control the heart of man. Feeling is so subtle. You cannot reject its coming, neither can you keep it back, however you try, when it ebbs. Honest heart is a vast sea and I keep the image of your sail in my heart. It is difficult to send a letter to the sea. No matter which direction I post my letter, voice of the tide in night would bring the scattered sentence back to my dream once again. Everything is possible that is possible. It is hardly an argument against a man’s general strength of character that he should be apt to be mastered by love. A fine constitution does not insure one against passion stronger than vanity. The beloved lover is always called happy, and happiness is considered as a well-fleshed indifference to sorrow outside. If I loved, I should love at once and without change. Perfect love has a breath of poetry which can exalt the relations of the least-instructed human beings. Outside the inn on the ancient road is the lush grass extending afar. The evening breeze ripples the mind of a wanderer gazing at the setting Sun over ranges after rangers of the hills. If I show only empathy, I have created the illusory what is of my own.
I find that I am hostile, demanding, domineering, smothering, dependent, clinging, passive-aggressive, I wonder whether I really do want to help. That is, do I genuinely intend movement toward and contact with people in pain? Am I prepared for real love? No one ought to answer that quickly. Do I really want to put myself at the disposal of other people’s need and to put my own real needs aside? So I want to show genuine respect for others no matter how obnoxious they may be and no matter how much garbage may come my way? I have to ask whether or not I am prepared to experience and face failure. Others may not want me to be at their disposal. They may not accent my good intentions and genuine respect. They may use me in ways that are self-defeating for them and exploitative of me. They may never do their own work. I always loved that boy as if he had been my-my-my own grandfather. To be fond of dancing was a certain attachment and so much reason to love the World. One needs to ask this question of wanting to help before one enters into responding relationships, otherwise feelings of disappointment and resentment creep in. They do not appreciate all I am doing for them. If they did, they would change as I want them to change. Also, they would like me. Such feelings in a helping person reflect the inner child of the past behind the mask of a nurturing parent. Am I am genuinely wanting and willing to risk the peace of my life for the sake of others? Am I really prepared to experience the disturbing depths of others’ turmoil? I have to ask whether I am prepared—really—to manifest intelligent, outgoing concern for others’ well-being independent of my own. For I can only face in others what I am able to face in myself.
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Secrets and Lies and Sex and Lies—in them Guts
He is in charge; he decides who gets to have him. He has not at all worked through what his mother did to him—he simply has a place where she is excluded, even though his unresolved issues with her provided the fuel needed to keep this place afloat. Listen, O Heavens, and I will speak: hear, O Earth, the words of my mouth. Let my teachings fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants. I will proclaim the name of the LORD. Oh, praise the greatness of our God! He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he. They have acted corruptly toward him; to their shame they are no longer his children, but a warped and crooked generation. Is this the way you repay the LORD, O foolish people and unwise individuals? Is he not your Father, your Creator, who made you and formed you? They scarified to demons, which are not God—goes they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your fathers did not fear. You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth. The LORD saw this and rejected them because he was angered by his sons and daughters. He said: I will hide my face from them and see what their end will be; for they are a perverse generation, children who are unfaithful. They made me jealous by what is no god and angered me with their worthless idols. I will make them envious by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation that has no understanding.
It is always some ridiculous manmade day in American, used to evoke feelings and make you feel unworthy and spend money or make you feel loving and spend money or make you feel like it is a good idea and get drunk at Purgatory and spend all your rent and light bill money on a cute little piece of white ass, or some big black booty. Someone tells you it is doughnut day and you run out and buy a doughnut and post it on social media. Love is more than flowers, smiles, kisses, and spring breezes, and it is also the pine trees in Winter and the sparkles at night and the mutual hand-in-hand support in a trudge. As long as your scent is in my eyes, and a sincere poem is in my heart, our life is fraught with nectar and honey and coffee. Someone has said change is just the meeting of two clouds, it will continue as long as we grasp chance well; our love will have a result as along as we value it. May the LORD bless this land and let the beloved of the LORD rest secure in him for he shields him all day long, and the one the LORD rests between his shoulders. May precious dew from Heaven above and with the deep waters that lie below make the Earth green and healthy, with the best the Sun brings forth and the finest the moon can yield; with the choicest gifts of the ancient mountains. I hate the man in whom kindness produces no responsive affection, and injustice no swell, no glow of resentment. Strong minds perceive that justice is the highest of the moral attributes; mercy is only the favorite of weak ones. Dear friends, do not ne surprised at the painful trail you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. However, rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the sinner?
It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the LORD is good. All knowledge is dangerous. It matters not that the law prohibits teaching [slaved] to read, oral instruction is as dangerous as written; and the catechism is nothing but a Bible in disguise. The more knowledge a man has, the better he will do’s work; and feeling’s a sort o’ knowledge. Alves, submit yourselves to your master’s with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. For it is commendable if a man bears up under the pan of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. However, how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? However, if you suffer from doing good and endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate. By over focusing on the must in lust, eroticists cheapen sexual desire, stripping it much of its natural spontaneity and expansiveness, injecting it with compensatory fantasy. As such, eroticists are no more than a misuse of imagination. If we need to fantasize to have “good” sex, then we are not so much interested in sex as we are in mind games that primarily aim to maximize pleasurable sensation and release.
Sex does not require thought- and image-generating activities of mind in order to function well, and in fact will not flow fully and freely and lovingly if thoughts and fantasies are allowed to intrude into and dominate its domain. And what happens to eroticists when sex is no longer allowed to go to mind (or be conceptually engineered)? What becomes of it when we put the effort into facing and healing the very wounding that first drove us into it? What becomes of it when love is already present, and both lovers are already open, relaxed, and in deep communication? Eroticists then loses its mind and operational imperatives, becoming the playful expression of sexual desire and passion, its face that of longing—not a tense or ambitious or desperate longing, but a heartfelt open-eyed longing—a yearning to share our depths with our partner through sexplay that s as loving as it is alive, as joyously embodied as it is intimate, as subtle as it is powerful. A good place in possession is better than one in expectation. The point is not to shame ourselves for being caught up in eroticitis, but to put as much energy as possible into facing and working through whatever underlies it. The more we keep what is unhealed in us in the dark, the more likely it will show up in our sex lives. Our unresolved wounds—and insufficiently met or badly handled needs—inevitably show up in our sexuality, however indirectly, often masquerading as a part of a healthy sexual life, the characteristic of which may be taken as nothing more than natural aspects of our sexuality. What is being acted out sexually then goes unseen, getting no more from us than an undiscerning greenlight. As such, sex does a double duty, on the one hand dramatizing what is unhealed in us, and on the other briefly taking the edge off it.
As a boy, Ben Crawford (Ryan Phillippe) was heavily rejected by his mother, which led to him to assume he was worthless and have a charge (a compelling excitation, whether negative or positive) both with not feeling wanted and with wanting to be wanted. He grew up expecting and attracting rejection—and found plenty of it—as well as craving full acceptance. As a teen, he eroticized this charge, absorbing himself in masturbatory fantasies in which he was unquestionably wanted sexually, without any trace of rejection. This has continued into his adult years. His sexual fantasies are more elaborate, but are still basically all about him being surrounded by individuals who aches for him sexually, and would never reject him. I have been setting down the structure and procedures for responding. In this has been the assumption of unquestioned responsiveness. Before turning to more specific expressions of pain, we need to step back and take a hard look at the personal demands confronting the person who would respond. Instead of looking outward, we are to look inward. While we ourselves are still the key, the inward look now serves a different purpose, namely, asking “Am I able to respond?” There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like school [children]: they cheat their master by copying the answer out of the book without having worked the sum out for themselves.
I Left my Heart in Ibiza
I always say in the morning to myself that the hard weather will be over in the end and the way of melancholy will not be too long. A long night brings back the past happenings that seem to have happened yesterday, which makes my heart no longer as tender. Who will gloss over my loneliness, and I will say no more after the wind passes by. When the seed of love is sown into our hearts, you have to water it with loyalty and I have to cultivate it with sincerity, and then the fruit it bears is sure to be happiness. You left behind the image and the fragrance of flowers as well as the hope that we have jointly cultivated. When I think of you, my days will stay fresh and aromatic. Let the color lights at Club Amnesia Ibiza accompany you and guide you on your way to early success. All I know are sad songs. Darling, all I know are sad songs. The return to medicine—and a society—that once again recognizes the healing power of human contact will meet resistance from many sources. The point of view of human relationships, in some ways, is a radical prescription for the maintenance of health. Traditional medical wisdom has viewed other humans largely as a primary source of communicable disease. Leprosy was controlled by ostracizing the afflicted from the community; the spread of smallpox and tuberculosis has been restricted through quarantine.
In these and other cases, human contact has been considered a means of spreading disease and death. This ancient and time-honored attitude makes it difficult to accept the fact that human relationships also function in the opposite way to prevent disease. I was not entitled to speaking out this more, but it is you who have granted me this privilege and begun to love me. Hence, I have become so fresh, and want only to ask you for more and more love for me. There is an even more basic reason why so many will find it hard to accept the prescription to nourish human relationships for the sake of one’s health. The reality is that all relationships inevitably will be dissolved and broken if we do not protect them. The official price exacted for commitment to other human beings’ rests in the inescapable fact that loss and pain will be experienced when they are gone, even to the point of jeopardizing one’s health. However, you never want to step off that roller coaster and be all alone. You do not want to ride the bus like this, never knowing who to trust like this. You do not want to be stuck up on that stage singing sad songs. It is a toll that no one can escape, and a price that everyone will be forced to pay repeatedly. And I cannot keep a girl, no because as soon as the Sun comes up, I cut them loose and work’s my excuse, but the truth is I cannot open up.
However, you do not want to be high like me, never really knowing why like me. Like the rise and fall of the ocean tides, disruptions of human relationships occur at regular intervals throughout life, and include the loss of parents, death, of a mate, divorce, marital separation, death of family members, children leaving home, death of close friends, change of neighborhoods, and loss of acquaintances by retirement from work. Infancy, adolescence, middle age, antiquated age—all seasons of life involve human loss. What I pleaded with you for you will never forget, and what you told me about I will keep every bit and drop forever. To us, memory will never be gone with the wind, nor will fade with every passing day. A prescription to nourish human companionship is, therefore, a unique type of healthy tonic. Part of the inescapable human dilemma is that the same companionship that keeps people healthy can also seriously threaten their when it is taken away. For each of us, the chief obstacle to a good life is oneself. Yet if we learn to live with it, and like Ulysses find a way to resist the siren song of its needs, then self can become a friend, a helper, a rock upon which to build a fulfilling life.
Randolph Harris II International Institute 