Being, or Stephen Hawking vs Million Dollar Baby

[stardustpilgrim]

The elements have a certain being, plants have a certain being, animals have a certain being, humans have a certain being. Each is more complex than the lower. And there is a certain evolution, in time, there is an order of appearance. Why should we suppose that mankind is the highest expression of being.

We rather think of Stephen Hawking as having a disadvantaged life. Because of his ALSB from his 20's onward he lived mostly in his head. But this allowed for no distractions, so he was probably a greater physicist because of his disability. Million Dollar Baby was a very good film, Clint Eastwood knows how to tell a story. But Maggie, his fighter, ended up paralyzed because of a sucker punch. Unlike Stephen Hawking, Maggie decided she did not wish to live an immobilized life (granted, she was a fictional character). Maggie became the daughter he did not have because he had screwed up the relationship with his own daughter. So her Manager, Clint/Frankie decided to fulfill her wishes and put her to sleep, permanently, it was an act of love. He did this knowing he would permanently disrupt his own life, so he gave up his life for her death.

Earth is a school and life is a spiral, either an upward spiral or a downward spiral. We tend to think of time as either linear or circular, but it is both.

We cannot see above our own level of being. This can be seen every day here on ST's, we can see people post who we are convinced understand the universe less than we do. But not everybody here stops and considers there is someone ~above~ me who understands the universe better than this no-mind-body-"person".

Energy flows where attention goes. I think I can get put up a moving torus. This is what we look like, what we as a being quite simply are. I put this together over the years. When I was about ten, fishing in Grandma's pond, I could see a moving pattern either on still water or in a cloudless sky. I would look and look and could not see if the pattern emerged from the center and moved outward or came from the outside and moved and disappeared in the center. Later, over a period of years, mostly accidental discovery, I realized I was seeing either the top of a torus or the bottom of a torus. If I can get put up what I'm looking for, you can see the movement either inward or outward depending if you look at the "top" or the "bottom". I didn't realize it, but sometimes I was seeing the top, and sometimes the bottom, this is why the direction of the moving pattern seemed to shift.

My Teacher was never taught sensing, AKA noticing. This is precisely ZD's ATA-T, for us it is preparatory work. Early, the first of my Teacher's three Teachers, said to give that new young man the personal work. This was out of the ordinary as new people are usually given preparatory work. I was given the preparatory work my second or third meeting. In part, you can notice sounds, the shapes of material objects, colors. You can notice sensations in the body, tension, your gestures, your large muscle body movements, the sound of your voice. Noticing anything that comes through the five senses, is sensing.

Why is sensing preparatory work? Because it is not enough. Energy flows where attention goes. Everything is based on energy, a certain quality of energy and a certain quantity of energy. So with ATA-T, as usually described by ZD, the attention is moving outward, away from the organism. What's another name for a torus? A vortex. So you are essentially a vortex. Each of your 7 chakras is a torus/vortex. They are a link to a higher dimension. If you don't know what a higher dimension is, check out the Seth material, Seth lives in a higher dimension. So our being extends to higher dimensions, and different time scales.

The lady that said give that new young man the personal work, was bedridden. Now, we have a certain language, a language that ZD doesn't like. But this lady was what we call a conscious woman, she had a higher level of being than the ordinary. But, basically, for one thing, this meant was that she was not bound by either space or time. So she was no Maggie, who decided it was not worth it, living bedridden. She wasn't even like Stephen Hawking, who lived through his mind, through abstract thought. She lived almost wholly through her attention and through her awareness, this is how she attained a higher level of being. She did not experience the distractions we all do.

If one's attention and awareness completely leaves the organism, one loses energy, according to, energy flows where attention goes. But if one does not lose energy in this manner, this is what leads to a higher level of being. This is probably going to be another one of my short threads. But remember, you are a torus/vortex. If you feed the torus, eventually it can become aware of itself. Then, it becomes self-validating.

From the beginning to minute 1:30, and then if you advance to 3:30, top left view, this is what I could see as a kid, so I didn't recognize it was a torus. Except it was a constant movement, the "fishnet pattern" (like a mesh fruit bag), not oscillating as in the video. And it was clear and pattern-(darker), no color.

[stardustpilgrim]

1946

Man is created up to a certain point to serve nature's purpose. But to get something for himself depends upon another part of him-a part that does not work yet and has to be created. Development is against the current, against lower laws, against nature. What is natural is what happens. But struggle against what happens, struggle to discriminate happening from doing, struggle to make order in oneself, is the direction of development.

Nature arranges that life influences play on the human organism, and it works accordingly. How do nature's purposes make themselves felt? By the feeling of pleasant and unpleasant. Following the pleasant and avoiding the unpleasant keeps the organism working as nature requires. This is what's 'natural'. All this merely happens, and it happens in the only way it can happen. It happens according to tendencies inherent in the construction of the human organism, which works in a certain way and no other. This is the circle of the mechanicalness of nature which man is a part.

How to come out of this circle? Remember there is in the human organism the possibility of being. What does being mean? Being is conscious, voluntary, has choice. Being means the possibility of acting from within, instead of only as the result of external stimuli. Being is something which must be created beyond the point of what nature gives. It does not yet exist. This is what is meant by 'man is a self-developing organism'.

If man believes he is already awake, will he make effort to wake up? Change of viewpoint is needed before anything can come. Man who allows himself to believe in 'I', to feel superior, or that he is unfairly treated, can get nowhere. Because everything he does will be built on imagination, not fact. The fact is that man has many 'I's', is asleep, can do nothing. Seeing this fact brings change in point of view.

Try to distinguish everything that belongs to the old point of view from what belongs to the new-the old Adam from the new man. Change of point of view is what sorts people out, the sheep from the goats. Belief in 'I' is what nature only gives.

If a man already knows everything, naturally he does not need help or conditions. But one who realizes he has nothing or is nothing looks, has possibilities. "Know that this house can be useful only to those who have recognized their nothingness and who believe in the possibility of changing".

People expect help. Who can be helped? People cannot be helped because they do not know what they want. It is as if you go to a shop and do not know if you want to buy chocolates or boots. Man cannot work unless he both knows what he wants and has enough determination to get it.

Everything is under law. Remember the three storied factory, the organism. Up to a certain point, everything in man works by nature, for nature's purposes. Man eats, sleeps, moves, loves because these activities are part of nature's needs. All this merely happens. Man is a piece of meat in his lifetime, a process in nature for nature's purposes. Never forget that the earth occupies a very bad place in the universe.

Beyond this point man must strive for himself. To be a self-creative being needs great desire. Desire includes mind, is based on the realization of what a man needs in order to escape. Desire shows the origin of level of desire-'Who in me desires what?' When a man feels the immense greatness of the world and his own smallness, nothingness even, desire to grow develops.

Someone asked about imagination. If we accept we are always in imagination, we must accept the result. This means that man sleeps, only serves nature's purposes. Our System says, as long as we allow imagination to control us, nothing can come. If you think imagination is innocent, only worse and worse can follow. It is a liar, a devil. If we know imagination, we know our enemy. The chief characteristic of imagination is that it gives no result. It is a deceiver. You can imagine a tree-but try to get an apple off it. Not even a cow will be satisfied with imaginary food.

First it is necessary to see, then choose. Choice is between real and unreal. Which do you value? If you want something real, imagination immediately becomes poisonous. Discrimination comes from reason. Reason shows that imagination has no foundation, shows that everything is limited by time and space. Where imagination is, nothing real can exist. We need to be on guard against imagination, to struggle with it, to accept that it brings only evil results. First, attitude must change for if imagination were innocent there would be no need to struggle.

Everybody speaks about their own opinions. Opinions are of no interest. Is a man content with himself as he is? Is he dissatisfied with his state and longs to escape from it? It is by this criterion that men go into different barrels, different categories. Not by their opinions, which belong to personality and can never change anything.

To talk of 'Carbon 12' and other numbers is absurd. These things must be spoken of as facts, not as numbers. Someone said that they did not understand where Carbon 12 had come from. This is comic. Madame also does not understand and had never mentioned it. The question is, does something exist which judges impressions and reactions as they arise? Is some aim already formed which stands guard, accepting or rejecting impressions or thoughts according to whether they are helpful or harmful.

Someone else was not clear about Do 48. Do 48 is personality, imagination, opinions, the whole unreal structure of thought which keeps us in sleep. Is there or is there not a part which wants to see, wants to know the truth, and can therefore judge Imaginary I. This part has to be created. People do not realize what a long process it is. They take it as something sudden and definite. Realization comes first by flashes only. It grows gradually as a result of long process, long work. From dissatisfaction with one's state, desire to escape grows. From desire and knowledge aim is formed. Where aim exists, everything in man is revalued and judged from this point of view. What is found to be against aim must be vigorously struggled with. This gradually appears.

Individual man, his position and possibility of escape, is the starting point of the System and our work. Man is simply a process. This means that change takes a long time. Nothing is possible suddenly. Man can only accept or reject. By accepting one set of influences, rejecting the other, change is possible. Yet all of you continue to speak from the point of view of 'I', of 'doing'. People think that they have 'rights' because they have heard the Ideas over many years. If they don't change, they blame the System. But a process has no 'rights'. We don't realize the miracle of these ideas--we see elephants flying and think it is ordinary. It means the greatest effort and longest struggle. Man, who wants something very badly, sells everything else to buy it. Work depends upon strongest desire. For this, energy must be there. How is that possible? Only by saving, drop by drop. Only in the actual moment of work do you save energy. Only in the actual moment of great effort is a drop of energy saved. Man's possibility is like water which drop by drop wears through stone. Persistence, perseverance, beating the same point.

Only a man who really feels how desperate his position is will attempt to escape. Yes, we say, we want to escape from prison but in the same moment we feel it is not too bad, perhaps not really prison at all. How can a man with such feelings undertake the difficulties of escape? One must be longing, crying. What will one give for it? That is the test. What will one give? You don't know how little time there is. Now is our chance. But for how long?

1947

We are not what we could be, not what we should be. So long as we do not realize this, we have no possibility of change. Change means not altering on the same level, but being part of a different world, living under different laws. As we are, we cannot perceive Reality, we cannot imagine what Reality is like. The first real change comes as a perception that we are not separate individuals with separate existence. We only exist as part of a larger Whole. Either we can belong to a growing part or else we belong to the outer darkness which can only increase in chaos. This is our choice.

How is change of being possible for man and on what does this depend? The first thing is lack of concentration, wandering attention. If we direct attention on our aim, for how long can we keep it? Only for a very short moment because everything drags us away. By resisting we can find what drags us and see where we stumble. Where our attention is, there we are. Because our attention is dispersed we have no unity, we do not exist. We consist of many small, separate I's. In order to direct attention we need energy which we do not have because we waste it all the time. We have to collect this energy drop by drop. Work means directed attention, always toward aim. Only directed attention gives observation.

1946

Question: What is the difference between actually seeing illusions in oneself and and simply accepting the idea?

Answer: Seeing dreams depends on the degree of awareness in that moment. Awareness depends upon energy accumulated in previous moments.

Question: How to have these realizations more often?

Answer: By effort, by work. Work means saving energy. Our System shows everything is limited. Energy is limited. The question is for which purpose it is used? Self-remembering depends upon how much energy is saved in reserve for this purpose. Save, and you can remember yourself. Waste, and you sleep. To discriminate between saving and wasting, it is necessary to know right use of energy is what helps you remember aim, wrong is what prevents you.

Question: Is belief that I can change part of a wrong point of view?

Answer: If there is only the machine, Imaginary I, nothing can be done. A sense of 'I' is part of the machine, and cannot grow. But something else is possible. Man is like a person with a very big house, who lives only in the cellar. If he begins to realize he is in the cellar and that there are better places in the house, something may begin. The desire to achieve grows from dissatisfaction.

Our System shows that man is a machine, has no I, no will, cannot do, that everything happens in him. He is asleep. As a man begins to realize these things, he begins to hate his state. Desire grows in him to come out of it, to acquire what he has not. He wishes to be--to remember himself.

Saturday Evenings At Mendham, Conversations With Madame Ouspensky, 2021

[stardustpilgrim]

I will edit down the second post to the most pertinent, edit and bold and highlight for emphasis. I will add a little commentary, [in brackets]. In the Work, awakening from sleep means reaching a different state of consciousness, a something (else) that doesn't presently exist, a different level of consciousness. So recognizing one is asleep is not the same thing as awakening. So, the Work is not like anything else written about here on ST's, not exactly. The written word cannot contain it. I recently acquired this newly published book, not lengthy but powerful. It is a rare and unusual expression of the Work ideas. It is the essence of the essence, as much as can be put into words. One little wink is for ZD, two actually.

Nov 18, 2022 10:14:11 GMT -5 stardustpilgrim said:

1946

Man is created up to a certain point to serve nature's purpose. But to get something for himself depends upon another part of him-a part that does not work yet and has to be created. Development is against the current, against lower laws, against nature.

Nature arranges that life influences play on the human organism, and it works accordingly. How do nature's purposes make themselves felt? By the feeling of pleasant and unpleasant. Following the pleasant and avoiding the unpleasant keeps the organism working as nature requires. This is what's 'natural'. All this merely happens..... This is the circle of the mechanicalness of nature which man is a part.

How to come out of this circle? Remember there is in the human organism the possibility of being. What does being mean? Being is conscious, voluntary, has choice. Being means the possibility of acting from within, instead of only as the result of external stimuli. Being is something which must be created beyond the point of what nature gives. It does not yet exist. This is what is meant by 'man is a self-developing organism'.

If man believes he is already awake, will he make effort to wake up? Change of viewpoint is needed before anything can come. Man who allows himself to believe in 'I', to feel superior, or that he is unfairly treated, can get nowhere. Because everything he does will be built on imagination, not fact. The fact is that man has many 'I's', is asleep, can do nothing. Seeing this fact brings change in point of view.

If a man already knows everything, naturally he does not need help or conditions. But one who realizes he has nothing or is nothing looks, has possibilities. "Know that this house can be useful only to those who have recognized their nothingness and who believe in the possibility of changing".

Everything is under law. Remember the three storied factory, the organism. Up to a certain point, everything in man works by nature, for nature's purposes. Man eats, sleeps, moves, loves because these activities are part of nature's needs. All this merely happens. Man is a piece of meat in his lifetime, a process in nature for nature's purposes.

Beyond this point man must strive for himself. To be a self-creative being needs great desire. Desire includes mind, is based on the realization of what a man needs in order to escape. Desire shows the origin of level of desire-'Who in me desires what?' When a man feels the immense greatness of the world and his own smallness, nothingness even, desire to grow develops.

Someone asked about imagination. If we accept we are always in imagination, we must accept the result. This means that man sleeps, only serves nature's purposes. Our System says, as long as we allow imagination to control us, nothing can come. If you think imagination is innocent, only worse and worse can follow. It is a liar, a devil. If we know imagination, we know our enemy. The chief characteristic of imagination is that it gives no result. It is a deceiver. You can imagine a tree-but try to get an apple off it. Not even a cow will be satisfied with imaginary food.

First it is necessary to see, then choose. Choice is between real and unreal. Which do you value? If you want something real, imagination immediately becomes poisonous. Discrimination comes from reason. Reason shows that imagination has no foundation, shows that everything is limited by time and space. Where imagination is, nothing real can exist. We need to be on guard against imagination, to struggle with it, to accept that it brings only evil results. First, attitude must change for if imagination were innocent there would be no need to struggle.

Everybody speaks about their own opinions. Opinions are of no interest. Is a man content with himself as he is? Is he dissatisfied with his state and longs to escape from it? It is by this criterion that men go into different barrels, different categories. Not by their opinions, which belong to personality and can never change anything.

To talk of 'Carbon 12' and other numbers is absurd. These things must be spoken of as facts, not as numbers. Someone said that they did not understand where Carbon 12 had come from. This is comic. Madame also does not understand and had never mentioned it. The question is, does something exist which judges impressions and reactions as they arise? Is some aim already formed which stands guard, accepting or rejecting impressions or thoughts according to whether they are helpful or harmful.

Someone else was not clear about Do 48. Do 48 is personality, imagination, opinions, the whole unreal structure of thought which keeps us in sleep. [IOW, Do 48 is the cultural self, small s self, "SVP", ego, note sdp]. Is there or is there not a part which wants to see, wants to know the truth, and can therefore judge Imaginary I. This part has to be created. [IOW, it doesn't presently exist, it exists only in embryo, note sdp]. People do not realize what a long process it is. They take it as something sudden and definite. Realization comes first by flashes only. It grows gradually as a result of long process, long work. From dissatisfaction with one's state, desire to escape grows. From desire and knowledge aim is formed. Where aim exists, everything in man is revalued and judged from this point of view. What is found to be against aim must be vigorously struggled with. This gradually appears.

Individual man, his position and possibility of escape, is the starting point of the System and our work. Man [as he is] is simply a process. This means that change takes a long time. Nothing is possible suddenly. Man can only accept or reject. By accepting one set of influences, rejecting the other, change is possible. Yet all of you continue to speak from the point of view of 'I', of 'doing'. People think that they have 'rights' because they have heard the Ideas over many years. [IOW, people continue to operate from the standpoint of Imaginary I, note sdp]. If they don't change, they blame the System. But a process has no 'rights'. . We don't realize the miracle of these ideas--we see elephants flying and think it is ordinary. It means the greatest effort and longest struggle. Man, who wants something very badly, sells everything else to buy it. Work depends upon strongest desire. For this, energy must be there. How is that possible? Only by saving, drop by drop. Only in the actual moment of work do you save energy. Only in the actual moment of great effort is a drop of energy saved. Man's possibility is like water which drop by drop wears through stone. Persistence, perseverance, beating the same point.

Only a man who really feels how desperate his position is will attempt to escape. Yes, we say, we want to escape from prison but in the same moment we feel it is not too bad, perhaps not really prison at all. How can a man with such feelings undertake the difficulties of escape? One must be longing, crying. What will one give for it? That is the test. What will one give? You don't know how little time there is. Now is our chance. But for how long? [IOW ~we~ can shift from Imaginary I to something real, and back and forth and back and forth. The something else that is real begins small and weak and fragile. It can die before anything significant is reached. note sdp].

1947

We are not what we could be, not what we should be. So long as we do not realize this, we have no possibility of change. Change means not altering on the same level, but being part of a different world, living under different laws. As we are, we cannot perceive Reality, we cannot imagine what Reality is like. The first real change comes as a perception that we are not separate individuals with separate existence. We only exist as part of a larger Whole. Either we can belong to a growing part or else we belong to the outer darkness which can only increase in chaos. This is our choice.

How is change of being possible for man and on what does this depend? The first thing is lack of concentration, wandering attention. If we direct attention on our aim, for how long can we keep it? Only for a very short moment because everything drags us away. By resisting we can find what drags us and see where we stumble. Where our attention is, there we are. Because our attention is dispersed we have no unity, we do not exist. We consist of many small, separate I's. In order to direct attention we need energy which we do not have because we waste it all the time. We have to collect this energy drop by drop. Work means directed attention, always toward aim. Only directed attention gives observation.

1946

Question: What is the difference between actually seeing illusions in oneself and and simply accepting the idea?

Answer: Seeing dreams depends on the degree of awareness in that moment. Awareness depends upon energy accumulated in previous moments.

Question: How to have these realizations more often?

Answer: By effort, by work. Work means saving energy. Our System shows everything is limited. Energy is limited. The question is for which purpose it is used? Self-remembering depends upon how much energy is saved in reserve for this purpose. Save, and you can remember yourself. Waste, and you sleep. To discriminate between saving and wasting, it is necessary to know right use of energy is what helps you remember aim, wrong is what prevents you.

Question: Is belief that I can change part of a wrong point of view?

Answer: If there is only the machine, Imaginary I, nothing can be done. A sense of 'I' is part of the machine, and cannot grow. But something else is possible. Man is like a person with a very big house, who lives only in the cellar. If he begins to realize he is in the cellar and that there are better places in the house, something may begin. The desire to achieve grows from dissatisfaction.

Our System shows that man is a machine, has no I, no will, cannot do, that everything happens in him. He is asleep. As a man begins to realize these things, he begins to hate his state. Desire grows in him to come out of it, to acquire what he has not. He wishes to be--to remember himself.

Saturday Evenings At Mendham, Conversations With Madame Ouspensky, 2021