Don't you wonder some time?

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Working on the Soul

Whenever we do any work on ourselves, or engage in any way in the inner journey, we are invariably working with our soul. - A.H. Almaas

Mostly the path leading us to make the decision to "work" on ourselves is littered with frustration, heartbreak and suffering. Many will say the motivation lies in more altruistic spheres, but observation will show that happy, content minds and personalities are not that motivated to change. What the personality wants is to maximize pleasure while minimizing its involvement with pain or suffering.

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The World is but a Dream

Everyone Should Visit Petoskey, MI at Least Once

Last year, I visited Petoskey, MI three times. My little sister has been trying to get me visit for years. Last June I had to make the trip as my niece was getting married. What an experience Petoskey is.

Petoskey sits on the shores of Lake Michigan about 70 miles north of Traverse City. The downtown are is about 10 square blocks and my sister's house is only half a block up Mitchell (the main street) from the library.

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Use Guidance & Common Sense When Expressing Emotions

When is physical discharge of a very strong emotion (e.g., anger or grief) better than continuing to sense it as an observer while refraining from discharging it?

There is no general rule here. There is a need for guidance, from teacher or from one’s own guidance. But common sense is important as a guide. In other words, we express our emotions when they are appropriate to the situations and proportional to the stimuli.  However, to know what is appropriate requires a great deal of understanding of ourselves and awareness of our situations and environments. Before we can do that we do our best, employing our common sense, our intelligence and the guidance of our teachers.

Body, Soul, Consciousness & Beginning of Life

The debate goes on:

• Where does life begin?
• When does self-reflective consciousness begin?
• Where does consciousness reside?

I do believe it has been proven that early conditioning begins in the womb as the fetus and its (consciousness, psyche, soul) are subjected to the mother's responses to her experience. These responses can be emotional, energetic, physical (muscular contractions [patterns], chemical, mental attitudes), and who knows what else. There is but one undifferentiated consciousness at this point that contains mother and infant. Many wonder, question and pursue knowledge of past lives. I have observed many hours and opportunities in this life wasted on concern with past lives. Of course, the constant projection of the past onto the present by the conditioned (normal) mind means that over 90% of the population is actually involved in the living of a past life.

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Utterly Naked

The Pleasures of a Tangerine Sky

Night and Intimacy

Night

Came silently into my house

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The Reclamation of Basic Trust

I have very much enjoyed reading Facets of Unity. I am very curious, however, about a relevant issue that I have not been able to discern within its pages. My understanding is that the loss of basic trust in the child results from the child’s perception of a loss of holding in the environment. The enlightened soul, however, is one in which basic trust predominates. External events that most of us would call terrible do not jeopardize or diminish the experience of basic trust of the enlightened soul.  In the midst of these circumstances, the enlightened soul does not experience itself as helpless or choice-less.

Yet, the perspective offered in your book, along with my own observations of children, suggests that they do start out with a predominance of basic trust...but it is eventually lost. This suggests that there is some aspect in the enlightened soul that is either not present, or not as developed, in the soul of the child. In our common understanding we would say that the child simply does not have understanding and maturity.  Yet, we might then ask: what is it that enables this understanding and maturity in enlightened soul?  So, it appears that there needs to be some aspect that not only enables the development of understanding and maturity, but also allows for its retention...some kind of constituting factor.  My questions, therefore, are:

1)    Am I correct that there is a constituting factor present in the enlightened soul that is either not present or not as developed in the child soul?

2)    If so, what does the Diamond Approach perspective explain this constituting factor to be, how does it arise and develop, and how does its presence enable the retention of basic trust in the enlightened soul?

The enlightened soul definitely includes an important factor not so present in childhood. This is the capacity for discrimination, the discerning knowingness. It exists in childhood in a very rudimentary manner. The infant is not dissociated from true nature but it does not have the discriminating and self reflective capacity to know this true nature and to recognize that it is its nature.

The lack of dissociation is the reason behind basic trust, for basic trust is fundamentally the implicit confidence that expresses the fact that we have a timeless true nature. Through ego development we become dissociated from our true nature, with a resulting limitation in our basic trust, yet this development is a stage necessary for the development of our discriminating capacity.

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