I've lamented about this before but...

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Hi George,

Laments have their place. If I remember my biblical instruction properly there's a whole chapter in the Bible called Lamentations; and when every time I've begun a sentence with the word ‘alas’ -I have been categorical contributor to the genre.

But I have some words to say about the phrase ‘fingers pointing to the moon’. Diane Hamilton was speaking about enlightenment; however, my own preference for this phenomenon is awakening. Regardless of the choice of words to describe this phenomenon, they all tend to fail in conveying a more complete view of this marvelous birthright.

This is because ‘descriptions’ represent an exterior view of enlightenment or awakening; and tend to come at the expense of an interior view; as interior views depend on acquaintanceship, on similar experience, on resonance, on felt sympathy, etc.

While not always being explicit about this distinction between interior and exterior, humans have never the less attempted to bridge the gap through language. Phrases such as ‘fingers pointing to the moon’ are designed to be evocative -that is capable of arousing some feeling sense in those who hear or read them.

And in a more general or a widespread view, the whole of poetic expression can be attributed to attempts to bridge this gap. I can only laugh about it now, but a salient feature of my own awakening in my early 30s, had to do with this very subject. Up until that moment, I had no idea why poetry even exists; much to my great surprise, and in one of the altered states of being in that awakening, poetry came out of my own mouth. It came in the form of an answer to what amounted to a koan that I had been working on for about a decade. (Although to be sure when I began that inquiry I had no idea that there was such a thing as koan.)

Now more directly to the point of your lament, please allow me to try to drop a context around the discussion between KW and MG about creativity. It was never meant to be a conclusive statement on this quality, but rather as introduction to a year-long attempt to explore it, culminating in a year-end event.

And as long as you have expressed an interest in shadow phenomenon, I can't help but wonder if there is some fertile but un-spaded ground in your psyche connected to issues of your own creativity. Obviously you felt strong enough about the subject to compose the post that originated this thread -and where this sort of strong feeling or resistance is often an indicator of shadow material.

I was also slightly amused by the irony that you actually were quite creative in your construction of that post, even though it was in the form of a lament, and that it was at least somewhat critical of the subject of creativity as expressed in the KW MG dialogue.

Warmly,

Charles

88W13'31" 41N54'51"             

When we answer in our defense they can see through the false pretense. 

We discussed something like this on fb & I so wanted to say something yesterday afternoon.  But I sat with it because of the issue with deleting comments I wanted to put my best foot forward, I mean really speak from the heart.   What did you have for dinner?   I had pizza.   A little too much, truth be told, but I am feeling fine now.  I can relate to gradually losing my attention.  

I love watching comedy shows (comic relief if you will).  And I love watching kw talk too but I can only do that for so long before I am full of it. Sometimes I feel like I need to get away from all the deep stuff on occasion and just do something else.  Something that makes me laugh. 

Conan, Jon Stewart, Craig Ferguson, Eddie Izzard, Louis CK, Charley Murphy, Chris Rock, George Carlin, Sam Kinnison, Richard Pryor, Sarah Silverman who said, "I am a Jew and my boyfriend is Catholic.  People ask how we'd raise our children -- well, I don't see it as a problem.  "Mommy is one of God's Chosen People.  And daddy believes Jesus is MAGIC!"") ---all frequent and welcome guests in my home. along with Tom Robbins, Stephen King (don't laugh, he's GOOD!), Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford, FM Alexander, Socrates, Jesus, the Saints, and all the Prophets.  And you (at least virtually).

They (Yogananda, to mention one) say it's not unlike eating.  He said you can get spiritual indigestion if you take in more teaching than you can properly digest.  Reading spiritual books or listening to a spiritual talk is better than reading tabloids or going to the movies, he said.  But meditation is by far superior to reading spiritual literature or listening to speeches. That is not to say there is anything wrong with going to the movies or even watching tv  (although Bill Hicks maintained watching television is akin to taking black spray paint to your 3rd Eye). 

I find that after I watch some thing such as this [I really usually need to watch it more than once to fully take it in].  In the course of an hour 6, something else will usually come up, a phone call or what have you. 

So to be fair 90% of the time when I get bored with it it's because I am not bringing enough attention to the material, I am like a D student at that point.   The other 10% of the time, I can also have actually taken in the idea but for some reason instead of meditating on it -- just keep watching -- then I liken myself to a B or C student.

Yesterday and Today I can honestly say I am acting like an A student.   I spent as much time in meditation as I did watching spiritual lectures and I spent more time doing something productive (by my relative judgment) than both of the formers.  I worked in the yard and I took walks.  I attended to my financial situation, such as I am able.   I cleaned my house, and mopped the floors, and I slept on my back.

I am drinking my strong coffee this morning, with cream no sugar, and once again I find myself tryin' ta SWEAR this will be my last pack of cigarettes. 

Sin embargo they are not wrong when they say if you plant a row of flowers, that there has never been a row of flowers just like that before.  creativity is itself inextricably woven into the fabric of the universe  I suppose using "fabric" as a metaphor for the stuff of the universe is in great measure derived from an Einsteinian point of view. 

I have two rows of peas, I could show you these two wobly little rows, 7 or eight feet long.  What you would see would depend on you.  I have been looking at them everyday for a couple weeks.  If I dropped stone dead right now and somebody else, in 2 or 3 months, ate those peas, they would literally be taking in some form of energy, that if not actually mine nonetheless came through me and was influenced by me, although I no longer existed (unless I did).

The birds singing.  There is nothing romantic about that except what YOU project on it.  But they do sing.  When the sun comes up.  You can whistle at them and they will answer you.  That is true.  Unless Man demonstrates aggression (even in one of it's more subtle forms, such as the startle so-called reflex) no animal will harm him. A cobra snake will not bite a small child.    Ahisma, I have proven for myself, actually works. Don't take my word for it.  You can test for yourself, in the so-called real world, whether defenselessness is the strongest defense, or not.  Buddha said don't mistake the finger for the moon.  There is nothing per se  wrong with pointing at the moon.  The Moral of the Story is don't look at the finger.  Look at the Moon.   

--

नमस्ते

i guess it just took me

by surprise,

certainly not entirely unpleasant,

though complex; when you

say something along the lines of not wanting to hear all the moon pointing babel or whatever

you know, i wonder

well, to be honest - i wonder

what other way is there

to get the message across

outside of direct

  t r a n s m i s s i o n ,

which seems to be

subjected to graceoften

             times.

[Can you hear it? I guess it

is a    h e a r t b e a t,

 I was maybe

too focused on the sound of

the breath and it came upon me, just

 all of a sudden...] But you know,

what else can we do,

 urgency or not?

remember?

I mean, I guess I'll just sit back and watch

all of my issues come up.

Then I can name them, or count them, or write books about them

or whatever.

Or I guess there's always

laughter and tears

nothing like Love

of life and it's                                                         force

to move

energy...

just move it.

And, you know

what e l s e is there, after all, well

before and after

words and prayers?

well, there's the force of memory, I guess, but even that requires trust.

i hope so.

Thanks for your all your replies...Charles, you mentioned that this talk on creativity was
 

"never meant to be a conclusive statement on this quality, but rather as introduction to a year-long attempt to explore it, culminating in a year-end event".

I realize that. I just think that while the talk was well intentioned, it got quite grand and I gradually lost my attention to it but it ties in with your comment about my shadow (which I will address in more detail later). In one of my past post with Annie, I mentioned my reservations about Marc..something about him just rubs me the wrong way. It's not about his past peccadilloes, rather, his philosophy. On his web site regarding amorous relationships he said that

"To enter the realm of sacred relationships is to open myself up is to be vunerable. To love someone is to say I love you enough to open myself up and become vunerable and let you hurt me. That's what the love means. The deeper you love someone the more they can hurt you. That's what the lover means. The lover means, I'm willing to get hurt in this game. So you can't enter the game of love and not be willing to get hurt"

With all due respect to Marc, this makes no sense. First off, amorous love is not a game unless your previous relationships failed in making that known to you. When he says that opening yourself up is to “become vulnerable” is another lesson not learned. Dr. Karen Horney warned us of this by referring it to an overvaluation of love (which is not confined solely to women). John Amodeo and Chris Wentworth have a lot to say as well about the risk of opening ourselves up without having cultivated our own emotional being before embarking on such ventures.

“Exclusively depending upon one other individual for our sense of self-esteem and personhood, we become an emotional hostage to that person. Having unwisely opted to surrender to this indi­vidual before a realistic sense of trust has had time gradually to develop in the natural give and take of relating to one another, we suddenly find ourselves at the mercy of his or her whims and preferences. Our position is one of helplessness resulting from the powerful effects of unrealistic romantic myths coupled with the poverty of inner resources to effectively care for ourselves”.

If there is anything we must learn from our previous discontented relationships is this:  what we thought was love was not love at all. We also ought to have learned that if we want a truly exceptional amorous relationship with another, it largely depends on our capacity in making it a living breathing reality. The only way to achieve this lies within: by a supreme concern in cultivating our emotional well being in every way possible. To the degree in which we achieve it, is the degree in which we become emotional intimate with another from strength -not weakness. Because one has dispelled from oneself the myth of romantic love which we were deeply conditioned into. As Ernest Becker said so well,
 

When Marc said “the deeper you love someone, the more they can hurt you” from what I said so far, it all depends on the quality of ones love. If the driving force of our love is neediness, insecurity, overvaluation, or cosmic heroism as Becker said, we are surely setting ourselves up for disappointment.

In reference to my shadow, I have recently acknowledged not only my judgmentalness but the way in which it has been affecting my life and those dear to me. I am being judgmental -influenced by my shadow- when I hear Marc explain his philosophy on creativity and love; you can add Michael Beckwith and Wayne Dyer to the list. I fully realize this feeling of aversion; listlessness, and annoyance when these guys go off talking about their philosophy that, in my mind, lacks depth and is just a lot of talk. While I believe there is some legitimacy to my claim, I also realize that my shadow is all too happy to call these guys out. Apparently, there is something I’m projecting onto them that I hate in myself but I have not yet been able to bring it into awareness. Would it be true to say that the driving force in being judgmental is fueled by an unconscious self hate that goes back as far as childhood where no one comes out unscathed by trauma? That this trauma, in turn, is what keeps my shadow alive in me? Is it true what Alice Miller said that  

"The truth about our childhood is stored up in our bodies and lives in the depths of our souls. Our intellect can be deceived, our feelings can be numbed and manipulated, our perceptions shamed and confused, our bodies tricked with medication, but our soul never forgets. And because we are one, one whole soul in one body, someday our body will present its bill. The wounded and lost child is only in hiding; the soul is still whole in spirit. Ultimately, our deepest self will accept no compromise or excuses, and will not stop tormenting or contaminating us until we stop evading the truth"

If this what governs my shadow, no amount of creative talk is going to resolve it. Ok, I realize that this talk on creativity was not intended to address the shadow or childhood trauma but when I see so much injustice and suffering going on in the world, talking about creativity as Ken and Marc did seems far removed from the immediacy of our lives.

Charles, when you said that

I can't help but wonder if there is some fertile but un-spaded ground in your psyche connected to issues of your own creativity.

I’m not sure what you mean by un-spaded. In reference to my creativity, I was never able to cultivate it fully as my life unfolded. Much of it has to do with my parents who did not encourage me. But it’s also because in my teenage years and as I got older, I was not interested in going to school. I just wanted to work- big mistake. But now that I know better, it’s too late. As much as I like being a research machinist, I simply can’t earn enough to make a decent living. This was one of the main reasons that discouraged me from having kids, consequently getting married, even though I really wanted both.
But my discordant amorous experiences woke me up from the delusion I was under (the myth of romantic love)  and it was indeed a harsh reality I had to face; the greatest lie ever. Then you have our political leaders who manipulate the masses to serve the ends of our corporate masters and our religious traditions who do the same in the name of God. It’s kinda hard to be creative when you live in a world that’s out to fuck with your mind.

I suppose I should consider myself lucky having shed myself from so much deceptions and delusions. But as I said in my previous post, it’s a lonely place to be when you no longer follow the heard mentality. When you no longer believe in amorous love as we were lead to believe. I like to think of having discovered these delusions as a creative act -a painful one but a creative one nevertheless. But having realized these truths my desire to be creative has -to a considerable degree- lost its incentive.

So when I hear Ken and Marc talk about being creative and Marc being beside the truth about love, it’s quite discouraging. It’s not like I can quit my job and go back to school full time to devote myself to creativity -much less find a woman who truly understands where I’m coming from. (this is my greatest rude awakening: the utter fucking delusion men and women are under regarding amorous relationships and not being able to find a woman -and friends- who have dispelled themselves from it; I’ve got professors with PhD’s who just don’t get it).

While Ken, Marc, Andrew Cohen and others talk ABOUT love, creativity, and all the rest, and while they have these seminars and retreats, the average guy like myself simply can’t afford it. If knowledge is suppose to awaken us from our delusions, if it’s suppose to liberate us from our respective ego and bring peace on this earth of what good is it if most of us can't afford it? And why should such knowledge be monetized anyway? -another pet peeve of mine but I’ll end here otherwise I won’t stop.