ChapTwo JKsD Particpants Input Unlocked 19th Sept 2021

[robinleeds]

Ready for  participants to contribute personal I^4. Impressions, Insights, Irritations and Inspirations.

Unlocked from 19 Sept 2021.

[Dan G]

These were my favorite quotes from chapter 2 and my reactions:

“Do not expect the power of God to function in the dream, but rather to break the dream" - Goldsmith.
This may be helpful when I’m thinking of applying the 12-step system to seeking. I pray for help thinking it’ll be on the level of the personal issue, but if it breaks the dream that’s good too.


“Concentrating the mind solely on the Self will lead to happiness or bliss. Drawing in the thoughts, restraining them and preventing them from straying outwards is called detachment. Fixing them in the Self is spiritual practice. Concentrating on the Heart is the same as concentrating on the Self. Heart is another name for Self," - Ramana Maharshi
This is the fast path. We talk about it like if we can just do this we can finish this search. Have I ever had a thought about the Self?


These four levels of going within seem helpful:
“The course of self-observation can be said to progress through four general levels of concern: 1) witnessing sensations, feelings, and thoughts as pure data happening in consciousness (phenomenology); 2) intuiting the inner nature and meaning of psychological experience (insight); 3) objectively studying the origin and mechanics of mental experience (impersonal inquiry); and 4) finding a gradual shift in identity occurring to that which is watching what is seen (returning to the Self).”
-Goldstein.


Some of Roy Masters’ perspectives on sexual dynamics seem old fashioned but not entirely wrong.


“The keynote of esoteric asceticism is the concentration of energy, not the avoidance of evil; for the esotericist holds nothing evil which God has made, but right in its own time and place, and right for him too, however lofty his aspirations, at a certain phase of his development. His asceticism is practiced by directing the life-forces to those planes whereon he requires them, and inhibiting them from those on which he does not require them at the moment; not because such use would be evil, but because it would be wasteful. Until he has gained (such) mastery, he cannot control the forces of the inner planes, which, if they were prematurely placed in his hands, would turn and rend him. Hence the secrecy which guards these forces, for on the plane of mind, a thought is a thing and a mood is a place.” - Fortune
Interesting perspective. Could be related to why people who start to study energy dynamics can get into being superstitious about energy. That feels like a trap a lot of people get into because it’s hard to prove anything about energy.