Just saying hello

[Sebbi]

(This tread is about the importance of others in the path)

Juan always attended Sunday services at his parish. But then he began to find that the pastor always said the same things, so he stopped going to church.
On a cold winter’s night two months later, the pastor paid him a visit.
“He must have come to try to convince me to go back,” Juan thought to himself. He imagined he could not tell the real reason: those boring sermons. He had to find an excuse, and as he was thinking he pulled two chairs up close to the hearth and began talking about the weather.
The pastor said nothing. Juan, after some vain attempts to start up a conversation, sat in silence too. They both sat there without speaking, just looking at the fire for close to half an hour.
Then the pastor rose, and with the help of a branch that had not yet burned, pulled an ember aside and placed it far from the fire.
The ember, without enough heat to go on burning, began to go out. Juan quickly tossed it back into the middle of the fire.
“Good night," said the pastor, rising to leave.
“Good night and many thanks,” answered Juan. “No matter how bright it is, an ember removed from the fire will end up going out quickly. No matter how clever a man may be, far from his neighbors he will never manage to conserve his heat and his flame. I will be back at church next Sunday.”

There are some people who wish to draw heat from you but give you very little of their own and these are those I would advise you not to keep company with, or at least not give your all to.

It used to be that I gave my all to everyone, there was one person who really made out that she appriciated me and then turned round and made me feel stabbed me in the chest. Ok this doesn't seem like an uncommon situation but it really broke my heart because I loved this person SOOO much and felt really misled and misused.

My sensai said "You give your all to absolutely everyone, which is good in a way, but you need to learn to protect yourself. Give your all to everyone who's worthy of it and no-one else."

How do you make that judgement?

"It's now a judgement Sebbi, it's a feeling in your gut."

When I went into school on Monday I had about 20 or so friends who didn't really care about me and I left the same day with 2 friends who both love me to pieces and who I would give the world for.

And the thing is I felt so much less lonely for it as well, going back to the embers, I'd taken away the embers that were taking but not giving, so there was more heat for me to burn with.

Since then I've burned so much more brightly and recently another ember has been added to the fire. She said to me "I want to have the same degree as closeness and Lizzie and you have." Lizzie is one of the 2 people I was left with (the other one likes to be treated as the earth likes the sun to treat it, likes to bask in your rays and be fulfilled with your warmth but if you get to close you'll burn him, he gives his love back in his own way though).

And since the new ember in the fire has said this it's unbelievable how much warmer I feel.

One person really does make all the difference.

Blessings

Sebbi

[angelgodiva]

What a lovely post, Sebbi. Thank you so much for sharing that story. Blessings and love to you.

[oldwolf]

Hear you Sebbi - We've been trying to do the same in finding like minded people to Grow with in community - quality is always better than quantity
Blessings along your Way

[Sebbi]

Hi OldWolf.


I've been meaning to post something here but I didn't really have anything to say until now.

I'll let you know if I get any more insights.

So, where's your path going?

Blessings

Sebbi

[oldwolf]

Honoring the Now
Being True to Self
Paying Attention
Being

Without the One the All cannot exist
Without the All the One never was
We are all Connected

Blessings along your Way

[Sebbi]

Blessings along your Way
Thank you.

My way is music and my order is almost as tall as yours (become one of the greatest musicians alive), so it's a steep hill that I've got to climb. Blessings always appriciated:)

Blessings to you too

Sebbi

[Sebbi]

Because it might just come true.

This morning I remembered something very daunting, and very frightening, but somehow liberating.

I remember how about a year and a half ago I was reading some material about Christian Mysticism and Karma. I remember it saying that we can take on the Karma of other people and release it. I remember in a great act of compassion wishing all the Karma of my loved ones upon myself and wishing that all the Karma I accumilated (by myself, not just the karma taken on from others) be fulfilled.

I was basically asking to suffer so that others may be happy.

My wish (for suffering), unfortunately, came true. I had the worst year of my life. My girlfriend's (at the time) dad died, we split up very painfully.

It is only now that I remember my wish.

Karma, is something the stains our energy field, thereby attracting corresponding events, and influences our mindset. How could I possibly lift this from someone else and take it on for myself.

The best way to release Karma is through rebirth (forgiveness of the self). You let that part of you that commited deeds, you wish were never committed, die. Leaving energy and space for the new person that will never commit such crimes again.

This is something I cannot do for someone. I can do my best to set up the conditions that will make it easiest and most likely to occur but I can not do it for them. I can forgive them, openly, which will hopefully make them see it's alright to forgive themself. Apart from that, it's up to them.

Back to original chord.

This week, I advise, you make sure you keep your heart clear of any wishes that may bring about harm. Also shine light into the dark corners of your hearts and sweep away some cobwebs.

We wayfarers are in an important position because whenever we want something, the entire universe conspires to help us achieve it.

Blessings

Sebbi

[Sebbi]

I was just talking to someone on MSN when this came out. Enjoy.

"You should always forgive yourself. Whatever you did, you had a reason for doing, everyone does the very best they can in the given situation. They make mistakes, and every flower needs shit to grow in.


When you forgive yourself you are undergoing a rebirth. You are allowing a part of you that did something you regret die, and you allow new energy and life to go into what fills that gap. It's easy to ask other people (or God) for forgiveness, but forgiving yourself is much harder. The only time you should forgive yourself is if you don't feel remorse.



I'll tell you how I learned this:



When Kat and I split up, I felt angry. In my anger I did some things that I wish I had never had done. I know that when I did them I was doing the very best I could to act in the "right" way and do what's best for everybody, but I couldn't do it. It simply wasn't in my capacity, that's why I did the things I did.



Everyone around me pointing their fingers at me but and I really wanted forgiveness, but it took me a long time to forgive myself, when I did, they stopped pointing the fingers.



If a Buddhist monks does a bad deed, they need in front of their Buddha statue (which represents their potential to attain perfection) and say:

"I did something I regret and I wish I had never done it.

I promise to do my best to be mindful to not repeat the mistake.

I promise to do my best to repair what damage I did.

What is in the past is in the past, and we can change the future, but not the past."

Blessings

Sebbi

[Sebbi]

"When you are in love and act on it you are following your passions to such a great extent, you have to submit to the deepest currents of life even if that means you've got to sacrifice some of the things you think are permanent and enduring

Love is like an invitation to Shiva, who destroys all that stands in the way of emptying yourself to make space for the greatest of joys to fill."


-Myself

[Sebbi]

The first golden law of Alchemy is:

"Everything has a purpose and destiny."

When I went to Germany I had a hard time coming to terms with this. As I suppose we all do, I have many contradictions within myself that both have destinies and it seems difficult to reconcile the two.

I've also been searching for the fire that burns within me. "The great well" as Lao Tzu (1000 B.C. he wrote the Tao Te Ching, good book, if you want to borrow it I've got a copy) calls it.

Two put it in terms I maybe don't feel most comfortable with but in terms that you will all understand - I've been searching for my soul.

I came to an important realisation - every part of me is part of my soul, to find it I've simply got to allow every part of myself to exist, dark side and light.

Another important realisation is I came to is not to think to much about it, I've been taught that the fire is resides in our passions, so as long as I live my dreams, I should be alright.

So what am I trying to say (writing is the art of feeling inadequate by the way, you'll probably see me saying this quite a bit)?

Become whole with yourself. There's a poem I read and it's by Derek Walcott:

"The time will come,
When, with elation,
You will greet yourself arriving,
At your own door, in your own mirror,
And each will smile at each other's welcome.

And say sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart,
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you.

All your life, whom you ignored
For another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf

The photographs, the desperate notes,
Peel your own images from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life."

All the best and much love to you all

Sebbi

[Sebbi]

I hate to be writing this post, I really do, but it's just something I need to understand at the moment, not understanding it could seriously set me back a lifetime or two.

Someone told me once that we can do anything but not everything.

In our quests along the journey that is life, when we are set at achieving a goal, we are often faced with an opposing force (see Newtons 3rd Law). This force has the purpose of testing what we've learned in the path along the way to the challenge set and of testing our determination.

Most of the time the opponent doesn't come in human form, but sometimes it does.

If the opponent is human there is certain protocol, that I think it is neccesary to observe.

1. I was at a bus stop once that was right in front of a Quaker meeting house and a sign outside it said "If you talk to the good in people you'll get an answer".

Observe the fact that the opponent is human and has the same needs and emotions and humanity as us. They are not opposing you because they are malicious but are acting in a way that they consider to be the most neccesary.

2. The original hippie told us "love your neighbours but love your enemies also." This doesn't mean you have to like them. Our opponents teach us a lot more than our allies do a lot of the time, so we should appriciate this.

3. Avoid malicious thoughts on your part. Be frustrated by all means, but don't believe it. Paulo Coelho said "A warriors purpose is to alieviate the suffering of his fellow man, not to judge his neighbour." (See "The Manual of the Warrior of Light" on 'the oppressor and the warrior').

Deal with your opponent appropriately but giving in to hatred means the battle is already lost.

4. Fight for your goal. A warrior has a goal and is open to anyone joining him on his quest, but is implacable when it comes to opposition. If they are actually standing in the way, then they better get out.

5. Be like a water - adapt to the situation and deal with it in as non-violent a way as possible.

6. Use minimum ammount of force - every martial artist knows when their opponent is not going to get back up and fight, and knows how to get them to that stage whilst causing as little harm as possible.

7. Choose your battlefields - do not fight a fight that is not yours. The only battles to fight are those for our dreams.

8. Act like a rock - There is a story:

"Who is the best swordsman?" Asked a soldier to the swords master.
"The one who is most like a rock"
"What do you mean?"
"Go to a rock and insult it."
"It wouldn't do anything, I would just be wasting my breath."
"Then pick it up and shout at it."
"It would just sit in my hand"
"Then punch it."
"I would bruise my hand."
"Then hit it with your sword"
"But that would blunten it."
"The best swords man is the one who only responds when they have to and responds to their opponents sword effectivally and without hesitation."

I think that's all. A bit of cultural context for those who don't already know, I'm having a bit of a fall out with someone at the moment and he came very close to physical violence today. I have to really appriciate that he's hurt at the moment and I seem an obvious cause of that pain.

I've also got to appriciate that I've got my own goals that I need to fulfill and that no-one in the world can stand in the way of that. I really have got to respond to each situation appropriately, remembering the rock and the water.

Wish me luck and may you overcome all obsticles that are testing you at the moment.

Sebbi

[Moving_cloud]

Hello Sebbi

Ah contradictions ... but still you are the one creating and testing all those obstacles and what-ifs, and also the passages, gates, windows and goals without a letup.

And no matter how many lifetimes you are taken back or forward now, they all will be just there, to be the inevitable reflection of your own wonder ... to tell you just, ah see you are already here ... no hurry my friend.

Much love

[Sebbi]

I've been reading "Postcards from No-mans Land" by Aiden Chambers recently
and here's some thoughts I've been having. A large part of my path recently
has also been to explore what it means to be human and Chambers has put into
imagery what I've been thinking about, he's also inspired me to think about
some things that hadn't crossed my mind.

(Diary entry - 13th Feb)

"It seems one of the curses humanity bestows on us today, is that we are oblivous to to each others suffering.

Maybe this is one of the shells that love is designed to crack open.

We humans live in fear, we are afraid that an understanding of eachother's suffering will bring percution and torment.

It is a need to feel loved but none of us have the guts to show any affection.

This is why I hearby declare the importance of giving before one is asked."

(Diary entry 14th - Feb)

"I realised today that there are are so many who, like myself, are not satisfied.

The lonely people flock the street this valentines day and probably every other valentines.

Perhaps loneliness and dissatisfaction is yet another part of humanity.

Yet there are some who are satisfied - today I watched Nat King Cole with his wife. I heard him sing Love Songs - Nature Boy - 'The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return'

This man was happy, he radiated it. So how does he achieve it?

I believe that it was by never uttering the phrase 'This isn't quite how I wanted it'"

There are two halves to this story, and what inspired me for the first entry was reading a part set in the second world war - when common folk knew that all those around them were suffering and knew how to give affection.

The other half of the story explores the unsatisfactory nature of Jacob Todd's life, and Chambers portrays this very clearly - I get a feeling that Jacob Todd, although he feels alone in this, is actually a very good cross section of humanity.

Much Love

Sebbi

[Sebbi]

It's been a while hasn't it.

Just letting everyone know I'm still alive and kicking.

I've had a pretty tough year really, it's had lots of ups and downs and to be frank probably more downs.

I've hit rock bottom a few times and the decided that enough is a enough, I deserve better than this, so I've fought for what I believe in, I've gained it, I've lost it and I've carried on fighting.

I've broken promises I've made to myself, I've given up on God, I've grown wings.

So all in all, it's been pretty intense.

How has everyone else been doing?

Sebbi

[Moving_cloud]

Hello Sebbi

growing, becoming who we are ... we become one with all that is ... but all that is is growing as much ... and so we all become even more

:) Much love

[Sebbi]

If you believe in something, and you strive for it you'll get it.

Trust me.

Blessings

Sebbi

[kitty fabulous]

sometimes it's better to believe in something, and to not strive for it, but to let it happen.