"The dependence on logic is misleading and false. Something can be true and yet not have a basis in formal logic, while something based on formal logic can be quite false...spiritual medicine deals not with logic but with truth."
"Another distinction between logic and truth involves the difference between what is and what may be... Truth always concerns itself with what is, with what presents itself to us and our perceptions in the immediacy of the present moment... The trouble is that the future doesn't exist -- it is simply potential."
"Leave the personal past. What happened, happened already. It is dead, gone, buried. It is in the realm of finished experience. Hanging on to it is to perpetuate your enslavement .. the idea that your past experience dictates your future experience... We cling to this way of thinking to help us fix the future, to gain control of it... Abandon the future, abandon the past. Put your trust in the moment, in the instant, in the presence of the present."
~~Healing into Immortality, Gerald Epstein~~
I imagine that I am going to need to let go of those vines -- even if that means a precipitous drop to the ground below. My mind wants to KNOW what will happen if I just let go. I've got a whole litany of fears and anxieties about the outcome of that. I want to be able to predict and control and manage what comes next. I am grieving the loss of what was, wishing for a return to that happier, lighter time that now exists only in my memory. And so the admonition to "abandon the past -- abandon the future" is for me. The present is here. I just have to figure out how to "come into that present."
Sue
I read this and I recall the earliest joke I learned with my classmates in elementary school. I think I was in the first grade, when my class mates and I began regaling each other with the riddle, "What were Tarzan's last words?" and the answer, "Who greased the grape vine?" The really funny thing is it was not until two or three years later I had any idea why that story was in the slightest (very much the slightest) bit humorous.
ReplyDeleteI am entirely caught up in the present. Im my present I am fearful, in pain, lost, betrayed, distrustful, wounded, unable to live as I chose to, etc. It is exactly my pesent that leads me to not wish to exist.
If you find embracing the present healing in some way, more power to you.
Tom
I do think allowing myself to "live in the present" (or maybe I should say forcing myself to do so) is paramount.
ReplyDeleteIt means opening myself to what this moment right now can teach me. It means letting go of my determined pre-conceptions and embracing the unknown.
And it's hard.
Maybe for everyone, maybe especially though, for people who are "control-freaks" like me, and others who are drawn into power-exchange relationships.
I'm not a very trusting person by nature, or possibly some of my inability to trust is not nature as much as what I've learned from those who have betrayed that trust in the past.
So making myself stop fighting to make my present what I think it should be and what I want it to be is extremely hard. (That really isn't a strong enough word to express the depth of difficulty I experience, but I can't think of a better one right now.)
And yet, I have also learned in the past few years that if I can succeed in letting go a little, and being present to this very moment, the Universe is generally very faithful to provide.
So now I'm just trying to learn how to do this more often and more consistently. I seem to be a slow learner.
I wish you all the best, never give up!
Tapestry
I have a fridge magnet that says "Leap and the net will appear". I believe it, sort of, sometimes. And then sometimes I just wish I could. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteI have decided to go back and read this journal from the beginning. The first post I read seemed to really be a comment for you to read after having written the above.
ReplyDeleteI worried for how the weekend was going to go for all three of you so I am glad to see it was ok.
I thinking after you read what you wrote, you will have more comfidence into taking that leap into the present.
"""""I've learned that I am stronger than I once believed I could ever be -- and softer than I ever let anyone know or see. I've learned truly what it means to "be owned" in times when that has meant to be cared for and indulged and protected and treasured, and too, in times when that reality has demanded that I bend to a will that demands all that I have had to give. I've learned to serve and love and open and give, and I've been hurt for the sake of that love. I've wept and I've sung and I've trembled and I've laughed.
I would do it all again.
When the year winds down to the closing moments, I will look back at lessons learned, at joys shared, at sorrows borne together, at pain and pleasure given and received, at love wrapped around it all, and know that it has been a year I will always be glad to have shared with Master and with T.
"To believe in something not yet proved and to underwrite it with our lives: it is the only way we can leave the future open." -- Lillian Smith
K
I also admit to being a huge member of this club, and I agree with Tapestry that those of us that feel a need to control things have the biggest problem with it. It was easier for me when I realized it was all about trying make myself feel safe: making me safe, making my family safe, and that is really not in my hands. It took a big loss for me to get that. I can make things better or worse, but I can't control them. The control I have is whether life is worth living while we weather them. I use this mantra: "If something terrible is going to happen, this is the last good time we have and we must make the most of it, if it is not, I don't need to worry about it about it because there is no need. I'm not perfect, but it helps me to live that way much more, and I've used it on some mighty big things.
ReplyDeleteHold tight all, and please hug T. for me while she sits with her mom...
Oh sue, I wish there was something I could say or do to help you find the answers you are looking for, but even if I did have them it is you that must find your way back to the happiness you are looking for it to mean anything to you.
ReplyDeleteSo, I hope you will just know that I am there for you in spirit and thought and if you do need something that I can be of assistance with then do drop me a line and I will be there...
Warren
Living for the day ...for the moment..something we shoudl all strive for. Enjoy what you have, instead of fretting what will be tomorrow. As humans, so hard to achieve.
ReplyDeleteHugs and hope to all of you
abby