Category Archives: compassion

[thoughts from   ~burning woman~   ]

I know now that for a life to have any sort of meaning it has to be experienced from the point of view of having asked one big question. You may well ask, what do you mean by ‘a big question’ and I will reply, I mean such a question which, no matter how you try to find an answer for will remain unanswered. You can watch TV ‘til your cross-eyed, scour the internet, pray, ask whomever, do research, meditate, ponder. You can read philosophy, study all the greatest collected wisdom, watch Ted Talks or even play with algorithms and everything you put in that basket will fall out the bottom.  

That’s it, that’s what real life is: a question bigger than anything a single life can ever answer and no one else has ever asked and given answers to. You see, a big question does not lead you in circles. You’ve all heard the saying, that doing the same thing over and over expecting different results is the definition of insanity. So think: isn’t that what our civilization (so called) has trapped the population of an entire world into doing? It’s our endless search using repetitive small questions that is bringing us and our bullshit accomplishments (again so-called) to their ignoble and much deserved end.

You may not agree and that is certainly your prerogative. You may continue to think about your traditional answers to your endless small questions and they will gladly continue to drive you to power society’s squirrel cage with their trite, repetitively useless non-answers.

If you would put an end to your personal contribution to society’s merry-go-round; if you would figure out a way to exercise your mind outside the pointless running with the herd up the forever collapsing side of the squirrel cage, try to ask one really big question.

The answer is always in the question, of course, or there could be no question, but you have to know how to ask the question if you would extract an answer from it. It takes imagination, courage, daring, commitment, dedication and I daresay compassion to ask one big question knowing that eventually an answer will begin to form to hang over your head like the sword of Damocles.

Each big question’s answer will demand your life. No, not your physical life, that is of little consequence to any big question, but your mind’s life. It will demand that you be ready to change your mind completely and endlessly – without ever reverting to simplistic answers given by little questions. Without ever going back to the squirrel cage even if you discover that you are the only one who jumped out and are standing alone while the herd frantically continues to power the spinning wheel that makes all the great evils of this world endlessly possible, or as endless as there is a world to sustain such foolish and enormously wasteful expenditure of finite energy.

Whatever your big question was that propelled you out from the thundering stampede, it now begins to formulate an answer.

You didn’t start out to go on some quest to the top of a mountain, to the jungle or in the deep desert – no, no such romantic idiocy that also brings you full circle. You just asked one big question, your big question. And only you, standing alone “far from the madding crowd” can ever formulate and hear the bits and pieces of your big answer. Only then will you also realize that it is on the formulation of that answer that you will cross the threshold into death and beyond where you will continue from one existential riddle to the next.  

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Inland pond – along the Fraser River, August 15, 2020

 

What it means to Believe

[thoughts from  ~burning woman~ …]

For those who have, or want to take, the time to read. I’m not sure the title is appropriate but here’s the story anyway.

I remember much of what I’ve been told over the years, even those things I came across I couldn’t as yet understand. Much was a jumble of contradictions but isn’t Earthian life a barrage of contradictions? Notice I leave nature out of this argument. Natural or non-people life exists in its created/evolved/adapted state (take your pick on that) accepting it, trusting it and using it to fulfill awareness. Unlike with my observations of Earthian life I see no conflict there.

Earthians (the people, man, homo sapiens, whatever label we give ourselves – again take your pick) need to constantly invent pseudo-realities, each one built upon another but each one further from sky, land and water; from the natural order we should be existing under. Let me qualify that by saying it is not our problem, per se. It is “how” we arrive at this perceived need. Maybe I can explain with this story.

Years ago I had a vision. A “god” showed me what he saw in me. He said to me, “You are of us – specifically, you are mine, though you do not at this time remember why that is, nor how it came about. The time has come that I must open your mind to another reality – beyond that of earth, beyond that of your fellow-man. I am going to give you the power, the strength and the understanding to be a bridge between realities. In time it will kill you but it won’t destroy you – you will survive for you are made of god-stuff. After you re-learn to walk between worlds in detachment and compassion you will form a bridge between two worlds: that of earth and that of man for make no mistake, these exist as two distinct dimensions however cleverly that truth is hidden.” (…to paraphrase Kipling here, O man is man and earth is earth and never the twain shall meet…)

“This bridging will seem a rather foolish and pointless thing to do because few of the rank and file will become aware of the existence of this thing. Fewer will understand and fewer yet will be changed by it. But you will know, and knowing, you will complete your labour. When it is done, and you have died from so much expenditure of energy, from abuse, exposure and time, I will give you a new life. You have been tested and you will not fail because you can no longer fail yourself. Use the information that is in your mind: think, speak and act accordingly. There is no need for more.”

And so, in the vision, I became this living bridge. Few indeed could understand the meaning. Predictably many of the ruling classes who knew of this “bridge” felt threatened by this presence. The consensus was that I posed a danger to the established order and  should be destroyed. So I was killed, my bridge-body cast down into emptiness. That should have been the end of the story. It wasn’t.

I reawakened in another place, another reality. My pain eased then left me. Only memories of what I’d tried to do remained; the sorrow that I could not make “them” understand. Now that hourglass’ sand had run down. I could not go back, certainly not in time to prevent a great tribulation from devastating man’s earth. In a dream state, I heard the cries and the screams of a world that was burning. I felt the hot breath of billions of prayers passing through my mind – but they had no substance and could not be focused. We the “Outsiders” (for now I was with my own people again) could only feel great sorrow; we could not reach back to prevent, nor heal. Because man’s spiritual reality was so dimmed, there was no return passage: the heart-rending prayers had no power to take us back to them. Had we done so of our own will, at the sight of us they would have forgotten both their prayers and their immediate pain. They would have blamed us for their troubles and would have killed us again.

I have pondered that vision over the years. Being a “bridge” can have many meanings. Let me talk a bit about “faith” for that concept properly understood is itself meant to be a bridge between worlds as those who remain religious or have passed through that stage should well know.

Recently I found myself, in my avatar mind, interacting with individuals who believe in their God; who pray to that God, and yet seem woefully lacking in the kind of power that

would help them overcome the tricks, traps and ruses of the Matrix complex. These people exist within the same maze as other Earthians, those who believe in other gods, goddesses or man-made powers, those who don’t, those who could care less: the selfish, the greedy, the ignorant, the narcissists. The God people remain helpless to break out and reach for that desperately needed fresh air of above/beyond-earth reality. They are

confused by many things, fearful, doubtful or unaware of the terrible responsibility they accrue when they claim to believe but do not live the life of obedience that demonstrates the truth of that path. They cover over this instability with verbal pronunciations of faith and attempts at imposing their religions upon others through subterfuge; by usurping

the democratic political process and spending huge monetary resources on ostentatious infrastructure. Failing that, as we see happening, they resort to overt violence and war. There is little else to show for all that religious effort.

So I found myself in an in-between position, between my life as an aspiring avatar (no faith in anyone but self) and God’s path for his followers or faithful. In these exchanges, I realized that being an avatar allows me to “obey” my detached reality while providing insight to other observers. I realized that if I am interacting with an individual who prays to God, hence must have faith in God, my task is to look into that one’s faith to see why it does not produce the fruit inherent to the basic tenets of that faith. Whether you are an avatar, or you are a disciple of Christ or believe in God in some way, the path is similar if you are fully aware of this one fact: that it demands total detachment from the things of earth (the System and its fruits) and living in a constant state of self-sacrifice. You are in the world but not of the world and you can never, ever, be confused as to what it means to live thus.

Believing in God when you live on earth and you are Earthian could be a good thing if that is lived correctly, i.e.,in humility and compassion. What I see, why Earthian faith, though widespread shows so little fruit, or I should say, produces so much bad fruit, is because people have used a book, the Bible (or Koran or any other “holy” book of any state sanctioned, incorporated religion) and relied on non-spiritual teachers and interpreters to anthropomorphize the ancient, original creator God into a modern travesty of a man-made Santa Claus who gives gifts only to those who can afford to buy them for themselves.

The kind of “faith” I would talk about from experience isn’t religion, science, or a product of evolution. Spiritual faith, to have meaning, must rely upon a holistic and whole aspect of man in relationship with spirit. In my earlier interactions with spirit or transcendent divinity, and in my readings about such, my spirit awareness has always been a call to compassion through self-sacrifice. That is the basis of any faith in any “real” divine entity. That is the only “proof” any faith-based life can give to the world. The believer or disciple’s life is the proof, positive or negative, that God not only exists, but is truly a good, loving, compassionate deity. The believer is called but to one thing: to make it so as if it was God itself in thought, word and deed. The believer is by definition the mirror image of her/his chosen divinity. When the world looks for some proof of God’s existence it isn’t in nature but in the self proclaimed exceptionalism of that God’s followers. Try as one might there is no other proof for God’s existence.

True faith has no use for wishful thinkers, deal-makers, “gimme-gimme’s” and much less for controlling power-wielders and greedy oppressors or liars. A man-made god is always conned, being but an idol, not so the intent of faith in a real divinity. Whatever the

shenanigans of organized religion to create a path to an imaginary god that by-passes volitional self-sacrifice, it’s fiction. The faith-based path to faith-based divinity and to wherever that may lead is one of selflessness, of self-sacrifice, of total abandonment to that divinity’s will. And where does that lead? To insane inner joy even while walking through a hell of sorrow.

So, what is that “will?” The funny thing about God’s will is that it cannot, ever, be found at the beginning of one’s walk. One has to “give in” and take the journey without ever looking back. One must turn from selfishness to servant-hood before any understanding can

manifest in the mind. I know this because I’ve passed through that stage. I know how it works and I know that organized religion’s sole purpose is to guarantee that no one will ever get it. Nothing is more dangerous to the organization than the one who has discovered how to synchronize one’s will with that of a faith-based divine will. Once

that is grasped, there is no need for religion anymore. Obedience is all that matters and that is the key to self-empowerment.

Do you see what I have done? I’ve logically concluded that this faith-based divinity can be none other than myself. I made a covenant with myself to think a certain way, to reason and live in such a way. Then I placed myself on the altar in obedience to my life choice.

This is where the vast majority of Earthian sheeple bleat their frustration, their anger, their rejection. Sheep, by nature, obey the herd instinct. Sheeple are bound by groupthink. There’s nary an independent mind among them and that one is always on the brink of being discovered and eliminated as a threat to the herd. Religions serve the herd. Faith serves only the individual.

By dropping the now-utterly useless God label and trusting in one’s self to make all life and death decisions, that is what self-empowerment means. One thing I’m sure of, it will not lead me to that never-never land the sheeple call heaven. For that I’m thankful. I’ve seen enough “heaven” here on earth to know I’ve had enough of it. But let me add this: I know, as a personal inner awareness, that I am an infinite being with infinite life behind and before me. My “home” is the cosmos and my “assurance of salvation” is the degree of compassion I express to myself and the world I exist within – however temporary the relationship.

Quote: An unconventional individual is never bound by conventional wisdom, tradition or belief system. (anonymous)

Quote: Milena lived in a culture that replicated itself endlessly but never gave birth to anything new. (Child Garden – Geoff Ryman)

 

 

A Very Bad Choice

A very bad Choice
[thoughts from   ~burning woman~  ]

Without thinking much about it, it seems that in my mind I’ve taken this time, this summer, as a time of reflection. That exercise has caused me to come face-to-face with continuing aspects of my thinking, and consequently expressing, that I often literally despise. I chose, because it is always the easiest path, to engage aspects of “this world” that I know I should have been done with long ago.

Do I really want to engage the various political, economic and even religious aspects of the so-called pandemic? No, I do not.

Do I really want to engage the many unsavory aspects of America’s president and join the choruses that chant his demise? No, I do not.

Do I want to belabour the point of those “working” Canadians who choose not to return to work because they are getting a temporary COVOD-19 relief from their government and it’s beach season? No, I do not.

Do I want to carry the heavy personal burden regarding victims of war, refugees, and the deaths by famine continuing to plague this world? No, I do not.

Do I want to live with visions of genocide and the plight of migrant workers in my mind? No, I do not. 

There are many other such questions to which I could also reply, No, I do not, and I base this on my personal inability to do anything about the things brought to my mind by the media, acquaintances, other bloggers, friends, even clients.

If you demonstrate that you are a conscientious person, those around you will want to engage you; will want to know how you respond to the questions that plague us all.

What if I have developed a real conscience? What if I hold to myself that being a compassionate person is the highest any sentient can ever hope to achieve? What if it is more than a belief; what if it is demonstrated to me in both, positive and negative ways, simply by the way I respond to a query, to a crisis; how I engage it; what I’m willing (or not) to invest of myself in these? What if they are brought to my attention but remain beyond my reach to intervene?

I haven’t had much to say lately. Some off the cuff remarks here and there about man’s ongoing, repetitive follies and their drastic consequences, but of substance? None, nothing. When I was seriously religious, these dog days of summer were called the dark night of the soul. I think they should more appropriately be thought of as the dark days of the mind.

I have not been “religious” for some decades now, and I certainly do not miss that aspect of my life… except for the teachings that came with it, that uncomfortable aspect of religion that most faith cling-ons as a general rule refuse to consider.

In Christianity there is a central teaching called “the gospel” found, not surprisingly, in the synoptic gospels purporting to tell the story of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, in which he lays out the personal costs that will always be demanded of those who chose to walk that particular path.

Two things I know now. One, I left Christianity, not because it was difficult but because it was impossible to not be in it except as a complete hypocrite. Two: when I encountered “the Teachers” it became clear to me as they expounded on how to live a human life that much of what they presented me with I already knew because, again not surprisingly, I had, read, studied and learned much of it from the biblical gospels.

I was reminded that the foundation of a human life is to become (you must become before you can be) good, kind, humble, a peace maker without exception, patient, gentle, inclusive and of course, compassionate. These were not “extras” you had the option to practice after you were baptized, after you voluntarily and with a clear mind, literally gave your life to Jesus. The proof that  you lived thus would be stamped on your admittance ticket. If they were not, profess away, it would avail nothing. 

Something terrible has befallen man in these last days, something unthinkable. The creature has chosen to fall from grace, not the grace of discipleship to a god, but the grace that accompanies living the life of a real human. Our world is sick; our civilization is imploding; our religions are compromised and corrupt beyond any hope of redemption – all of them, no exception; our moral values have plummeted into the negative wherein vices are more often than not accounted as virtues.

Currently our world is being driven to the edge of its abyss by greed, felony, perversion of justice, lies stacked upon lies, reviling and mocking, and finally murder; mass murder. Life holds no sanctity because the morality that, even if weakly, supported our social institutions some years back, instead of being built upon, was smashed down with utter abandon, as if ridding society of all moral constraint was the guarantee that society would improve.

Well, don’t take my word for it when I say that people, as a collective, have made a very bad choice. Just look around, and do a little reading, a little studying.

I close by saying that I have never been so disappointed, dispirited and disgusted by myself, first and foremost, and by my fellow earth walkers as I am during this time of reflection.

 

What I see, what I feel, what I do

[thoughts from   ~burning woman~   by Sha’Tara]

You wouldn’t know it from the weather here, a few miles above the 49th parallel, west coast, but it’s the middle of summer. If it briefly hovers around 20 degrees on that infamous Celsius scale and it isn’t pouring rain, we’ve hit a heat wave!

Some things I’ve noticed recently. For one, our mosquitoes absolutely refuse to adhere to the new social distancing measures. In fact they seem to be more numerous and nastier than ever. Why don’t they give them a seasonal jail term or at the very least, quarantine them to their swamp where they come from? My American friends may complain that their Orange Twitter Twat hasn’t done much in draining their swamp but the swamp ain’t drained up here either, neither in the slough at the back of my house nor in the House of Commons (which has never housed a common to my knowledge but I’m not going there). So due to fortuitous circumstances for the little blood suckers, they’re having a great time vaxxing all and sundry, and to hell with the consequences.

Good, bad, or indifferent, there is a definite lack of enthusiasm from the consuming sheeple these days. Are they all suffering from consumption? Over consumption? Boring consumption? There’s the odd ones wandering from aisle to aisle, their expressions veiled by their muzzles which they insist on wearing as a sign of their accepted martyrdom on behalf of the common good or is it on behalf of the common who shop for goods. It is truly sad when no one gets excited over a head of lettuce or a “President’s Choice” jar of fake Dijon mustard. So sad, I’m seriously thinking of relocating to Namibia and pitch a tent in the middle of Etosha national park. I’d like to get away from it all, the only problem is, it will probably find me there as well. What’s that saying? “You can run but you can’t hide!” I’d be willing to bet that the Etosha mosquitoes are at least as effective as vaxxers as are our Canadian ones.

That’s it, I’ve used up my mildly funny-funny. Time to turn serious. No, really, I’m serious.

I’ve also noticed that some bloggers I have had great and serious conversations with are not blogging recently. Is it that, like me, they have become hesitant about sharing their thoughts on the times? Why expose our thoughts to a world that is programmed to listen only to the rich and infamous? OK, admittedly it is a waste of time. But what if there is a bit of time to waste?

I’ll say this, and this is truly mine, no one else’s. For some time now I’ve become more aware of a sense of, what shall I call it – doom? I don’t know. How about a feeling of pain that isn’t mine but imposes itself on my consciousness? I call it sorrow. It isn’t about me, my current days are relatively blissful and my future is assured so what I am feeling, which often causes tears to flow, is the pain of this world. The pain can be physical, as in hunger or deep loss, or it can be psychological, as in fear. Many things can cause fear, of course, and with 7.5 billion people tossing their feelings into the ether, there’s plenty for the empathetic mind to feel.

I knew, some time ago, that choosing to become a compassionate being would entail awakening empathy. I was also warned that to be an empathetic being on a world such as this in which so much pain is deliberately induced would be a difficult thing to bear.  I was also carefully taught that I would know joy in the midst of the sorrow and that would make one bearable while preventing the other from becoming nothing more than a selfish pursuit of personal happiness in dissipation or the drive to become successful.

The teachings and warnings are proving correct. There is sorrow but there is joy. Between them, interfacing with them, is the compassion I am slowly, perhaps too slowly, learning to express to this world. It’s at this point that detachment comes into play. What I feel is generic sorrow, not immediately personal, therefore bearable.

Bearable is OK, I can do bearable. I will post this and return to observing and feeling. It’s what I do.

 

Antierra Manifesto – Blog Post #107

I watch her working her mind to find names for the other women.  She frowns deeply and certainly works hard to find fitting names.  She knows these women, a couple of whom are just small girls barely thirteen I’d wager, someone having faked their brands to expedite their sale and make a quick buck.  They likely went over the edge from sexual and other physical abuse, torture, overdosing on chakr or from having witnessed horrors their young minds could no longer absorb.  It could be all of the above.  The most dangerous part of any young fighter’s life is the trip from the crèche to the fighter arena.  I try not to imagine watching these children being set upon by males to be dismembered while still alive and their parts thrown over the walls into the crazed crowd, but the image remains nevertheless.  This is one more horror I must remember, in case the temptation to forget becomes too seductive.

End blog post #106
—————————-

Start blog post #107

I know Tomia will give them appropriate names or titles and know the ploy will work.  Always it has.  For we are also the names we bear and the more names we use the broader become the personalities we may properly express, for each name is associated with a partial through our remembrances.  Each partial, associated with one or several past lives, carries a vital part of who we are.  These partials will be with us in the arena tomorrow and how much we will need their presence and strength then!  Goddess help these ahyas tomorrow when I no longer can!

When the servant women return to clean up after us and feed us I seek out the messenger.  She comes over but before she speaks I ask her if she desires a secret name if she hasn’t got one yet.  She indicates she has no name, just her branding. 

“I name you Angelia.”  In their tongue it’s pronounced ‘aneya.’  “It means special messenger.  Do you have message for me from goronda?” 

“Goronda say, ‘Your friend is well on planet Koron.  Now she is teaching a new course in ethics at the high academy for philosophers.  Also she is being studied, at her insistence, by medical authorities for possible cloning.  We are excited at the possibilities and everyone who knows her loves her.  The President of the Koron World Court has given her a special citizenship.  She is citizen of the entire world of Koron, not just one of its fifty-two countries.  She can freely travel to any part of the world she wishes and no one can question her as to motives.  She also expressed her undying love for the fighter Antierra to be conveyed to her whenever possible.’ 

“That is what goronda say.”

“Thank you Angelia.  You are a perfect messenger.”

“Thank you for name.  May I share with goronda?”

“Yes you may.  She will understand and help you with it.”

“I know you die tomorrow.”  There are large rolling tears on her white pinched face.  “I not know to say proper, wish you not die.  Wish you stay to teach more.”

“Listen Angelia.  No one really die.  Just body die, give much hurt but after, one alive again, free.  Maybe I return and teach you when you training for fighter.  I look different but it be me.  I make sure you know.  Take my hand, hold tight.  Touch me and take from me what is left.  You be the last fighter to take Antierra power.  Use it well, Angelia.  Be not sad.  Is good for me go away tomorrow into timeless.  I come back: this believe.  Now is good for you learn name, practice self-empowerment.”

“What means self-empowerment?”

“Ask goronda to explain.  She know you better.  She mind touch, explain with power.  She very good ahya.  Trust goronda, Angelia.  Go now, or guards punish you.”

She slips through the returning trainees and disappears. 

It is always especially quiet in the cages any night before an orgy.  Tonight seems even more so.  I can just make out the silhouette of Tomia sitting quietly.  I try to focus on her thoughts but I encounter the white noise again.  She has shut down, just waiting.  I swing my gaze around, see the two little trainees lying down.  One is crying, whether in knowledge of tomorrow’s horrors or from some other nightmare, I’ll never know.  I wish I could reach over and hold her.  We can’t even comfort one-another.  These people’s cruelty seems boundless.  Yet how many times have I encountered the same, in quality if not in quantity, on Túat Har?  The people there had the same lack of awareness of the pain they inflicted on others, including millions of non-human sentients who shared planet space with them; the same lack of empathy towards those of their world who died every day so some could become rich and be comfortable.  This is nothing new, just more of same in a concentrated bitter brew.  Indeed, that is the lesson of the stack worlds, isn’t it. 

As below, so above my teachers insisted on telling me.  Here you no longer doubt the wisdom of that saying.

I must sleep now.  Tomorrow I will be empowered, one last time, to use every technique, every trick with weapons I’ve ever learned and used or can remember.  I will be free to grab an opponents weapons if I so choose and use it against him, or them.  There are no rules tomorrow.  I plan to use Tomia as a bulwark against the attacking males to protect the two young trainees for as long as we can, if the girls will let us.  At least that will give us a common purpose, apart from just tearing men apart and being torn apart by them in turn.

Tomorrow is our future.   

 

 

 

End blog post #107