much appreciated, this

HI - Regarding the Loft Series reading of One Taste, I appreciated the length to which Ken goes in differentiating translation from transformation, and introduced out of the two functions of religion. I liked the reminder of scale of how rare is the transformative occurrence, where often ego can be in drag as it tries to effort some big change - I especially liked the descriptions of how much we really try to maintain a comfort zone for the self. If we allow ourselves into the whirling maelstrom of authentic change or the unknown zone where normal gravitational forces fail to hold us together - our selves, our preciously nurtured accoutrements of being would fly apart, collapse, disintegrate in terrifying experience. Who wants that?

In my tissues - not me.

Can translation actually sneak you up close to the dreaded edge where you might be blown off by mighty winds of truth? Still, who wants it, other than as a merit badge to validate one's egoic worth. Maybe there is a stage progression, 7, 9, or 3, or 37, and one's wants and fears are overridden, despite one's conscious and unconscious mappings.

I thought of Eric Fromm who I think commented  that a person's belief systems that are part of who they are as a personality/person are like an individualized religion. To the extent that this is helpful to consider, one is trying to hold meaning together, and themselves together through meaning, as a function of self and not just "religion". And we are assiduous in this. I am. I feel way better now that I don't fly apart so easily.

I actually expect that for my tenacious self it will take dying of disease or dying in some unexpected, slow-enough way, to trump this translational insistence. It will take confrontation with the authentic encompassing/imbuing field to present inescapable nature of life. And there is some sadness because this self thinks it would like to experience it, know it, live with it and as it, with human consciousness before that light goes out. Some thoughts like that.

The selection of taking a vacation was fun, and until hearing and being reminded by ken of the warm almost indescribable azure and multi-colored waters, I have felt no inclination to visit them.

To just hang out, bobbing-like, each in our own ways. Thanks for posting this.