Post No. 651 – Engagement vs. Withdrawal

Something I’ve posted about previously (see here and here) is engagement vs. withdrawal. In essence, what I’ve posted previously is along the lines of:

• my attitude, throughout most of my life, that the better form of Spirituality * is that which engages with the world, whilst recognising that there are times when one has to withdraw, partially or totally, to develop oneself and one's skills;
• I’ve more recently recognised the need to withdraw for healing as a result of things like the struggles, strains and outright damage caused by living in "the world" ** (dealing with other people's leaky auras, the combative pressures of commercial reality, and discrimination and other forms of abuse from people who, frankly, are bigots using ignorance as an excuse);
• it is possible for Spiritual people to lack any psychic ability, just as it is possible for Psychic people to be lacking in Spirituality, and Spiritual people, however, may alternate between periods of retreat and periods of activism (during which a spiritual person engaging with the world is not going to adopt a harmful, negative lifestyle), whereas a psychic may need to be more withdrawn, not out of spiritual motives, but out of simple self-preservation.

What I have realised more recently is that:

• it is possible to be engaged and working at making this world a better place while living a very withdrawn lifestyle (my meditation-clearing project demonstrates this, with people in one part of the world acting for the benefit of many other people and places in the world – as is the case with other, similar projects);
• it is possible to trapped in an “engaged” situation (for instance, by financial pressures or family commitments), and this can cause massive harm – to the point of potentially psychologically destroying a Sensitive; 
• many people hide from (actually, actively block out, is a better way of putting it) their Higher Self, Spirituality and Psychism by living noisy, highly interconnected, sensual lives *** - and I’ve come across several such in recent years in the polyamorous and Pagan communities, and some teenagers I’ve had contact with in recent years. Such people can be recognised by their proselytising for family and relationships and sex ahead of all else in life, and – to use a different perspective on the matter  are stuck at living in their base, second and solar plexus chakras. This also enables to materialistic forces that are destroying this world to control such people, as do many moves towards “improved economic efficiency” which, in the West, are really about keeping people too busy and off-balance to think about their lifestyles.

Next, some points about “interconnectedness”:

• non-physical, BPLF entities do count, if one is sufficiently Psychic;
• non-human lifeforms also count – in fact, our cats are one of the reasons I can’t do some of the psychic exercises I want to, as, even when the other humans are not present in this house, the cats are (they’re indoor cats, for environmental reasons), and are either on or beside me, or, if I shut the door, yowling outside …

Finally, the trigger for writing this post. Whilst browsing the web, I came across some pages on the Earth Spirit site referring to a series of magazines called “Fireheart”,and articles from that now defunct magazine, including five articles from a series referred to as “the Eightfold Path” – obviously a Pagan version, rather than the Buddhist Eightfold Path.

The Pagan Eightfold Path included:

• meditation, which is about “stilling the sense”:
• chanting, whether for raising energy or inducing trance (some interesting comments about biases in Pagan movements against trance – which need to be balanced by consideration of the need for grounding), and possibly used in conjunction with drumming and/or dance (why do people who like dance assume that, because they like dance and it is good for them, it will be beneficial for others, and proselytise that? Haven’t they heard of the dangers of penicillin, and drawn a few parallels/connections from that?) and is based on sensory restriction (after, say, half an hour of chanting) and rhythm;
• fasting, which has some very good comments about biases in the Pagan world against this, but needs more in the discussion of risks (which it does do) on consideration of health issues (fasting can be problematic for diabetics, for instance);
• breathing, which sets the context quite well, but does not include any specific exercises; and
• isolation.

The latter article supports the need to be isolated for some parts of one’s Spiritual / Psychic development, and I will end this post here, Dear Reader, so you can read the links and so thinking on your own :)

 * In much the same way that Pagan should be capitalised out of respect, I consider there is an argument – albeit lesser in validity – for the same respect towards those who choose to be Spiritual, but not aligned to any particular religion, and hence I am going to try out capitalising the words Spiritual and, in some usages, Psychic.

 ** This is something which is taking up much of my time and energy at the moment- doing Soul Retrievals on myself, patching up tears and other damage in my aura, and so on. It is extremely difficult to do this whilst living in the midst of four million leaky auras, and I could really do with a couple of years living either in the country, on a boat (again … sigh), or at least in an outer suburb.

 *** It is also possible to live highly interconnected, sensual lives and be at least reasonably Spiritual and/or Psychic – and I have also come across a few such people in the polyamorous and Pagan communities, along with one teenager, in recent years.

[1] BPLF = Balanced Positive (spiritual) Light Forces. See here and here for more on this.

[2] Please see here and my post "The Death of Wikipedia" for the reasons I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia. I'm also exploring use of h2g2, although that doesn't appear to be as extensive (h2g2 is intended - rather engagingly - to be the Earth edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy").

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr, Wéofodthegn

(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear"; ... aka Bellatrix Lux … aka Morinehtar … would-be drýicgan or maga ... )

My "blogiography" (list of all posts and guide as to how to best use this site) is here, and my glossary/index is here.

I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue (see here and here), and it grew ... See here for my group mind project, here and here for my "Pagans for Peace" project (and join me at 9 PM on Sunday, wherever you are, to meditate-clear for peace), and here for my bindrune kit-bag. I also strongly recommend learning how to flame, ground and shield, do alternate nostril breathing, work with colour, and see also here and be flexible.

I am a Walker upon the Path of Balanced Positivity, seeking Spiritual Maturity.

• neither eloquence nor inarticulateness inherently indicates correctness, but, as words can kill, the right to freedom of speech comes with a DUTY to be as well-informed, objective and balanced as you can be.
• Gnwmythr's Stropping Strap: Occam's Razor only works if  the simplest solution is actually recognised as being the simplest, rather than the one that best fits one's bigotries being labelled 'simplest'.
• I mourn the desecration of the term 'Light Worker' by commercial interests, and the warping of the word 'Light' away from 'Clear Light' by the "White Lighters".
• Our entire life experience, with all the many wondrous and varied people, places and events in it, is too small a sample for statistical reliability about Life.
• May the world of commerce and business be recognised to be a servant, not a master, of the lives of people.
• Being accustomed to interacting via certain rules makes those rules neither right nor universal.
• Like fire to the physical, emotions to the soul make a good servant, and a bad master.
• The means shape the end.
• My favourite action movie of all time is "Gandhi", although I've recently come across "Invictus" and might put that one in to that category. However, I loathe the stereotypical action movie - and, for similar reasons, I loathe many dramas, which are often emotionally violent, more so in some cases than many war films.
• All of the above - and this blog - could be wrong, or subject to context, perspective, or state of spiritual evolution ...

Human dignity is the inherently cumulative holistic combination of human rights, wellbeing and potential, and all actions or interaction which promote, realise or facilitate same. The converse also applies: whatever degrades, diminishes or robs humans of dignity, is inherently undignified.

Gnwmythr

The “purpose” of spiritual evolution is not the attainment of “spiritual perfection” - not in the sense of not having to evolve further, at any rate, since there is no such thing. We need to evolve in order to grow - but we can take rest breaks (hopefully well earned :) ) along the way. No, the “purpose” of evolution is, rather, to perfect our ability to learn, and thus grow.

Gnwmythr

Our greatest struggle with, to borrow from pop culture, the Jedi-Sith scale, is not with the Sith, whether they are hiding or not: it is with the annoying, snotty-nosed, heroine/hero-worshipping little kid who keeps intruding, stopping us from being cool enough to be with our heroines/heroes, the big kids ...

Gnwmythr

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Females, get over 'cute'. Get competent. Get trained. Get capable. Get over 'cute'. And those of you who are called Patty and Debby and Suzy, get over that. Because we use those names to infantalise females – we keep females in their 'little girl' state by the names we use for them. Get over it. If you want to be taken seriously, get serious.

Jane Elliott

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing.

(based on writing by) Edmund Burke

We didn't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we only borrowed it from our children

Antoine De Saint-Exupéry

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.

John F. Kennedy

Tags: attitudes, aura, auric tears, healing, materialism, paganism, psychic damage, psychic development, relationships, society, Spiritual Maturity, spirituality, withdrawal,

First published: Manadagr, 2^nd February, 2015

Last edited (excluding fixing typo's and other minor matters): Monday, 2^nd February, 2015

Post No. 403 - Withdrawal vs. engagement

One of the topics I have posted about on this blog is:

• is it "better" to withdraw from the world, or engage with it? 

See here for example, but, in brief, I largely inclined towards the view that withdrawal and engagement are both correct - at different times. I realise today, however, that I have made two mistakes in how I approached this in the past. Before I get into those, let me give some context.

First off, I have posted before about why I avoid Aussie pubs (basically, the discrimination and negative energy). Today, I was persuaded to try another pub in Melbourne, and found it actually wasn't too bad - it certainly didn't have a mainstream crowd, and the eight spirits I rescue weren't the usual dead (literally!) drunks, they were people who had simply died, got lost, and were now drawn to the conviviality of the place. However, at the end of a few hours there, I was ready to run screaming into the street.

Why? Well, that leads me into the two errors I have been making:

1. I have been conflating [1] "spiritual", and "psychic"; 
2. I have also been conflating "engaging with" and "indulging or living in". 

The first point is, I would hope, fairly obvious: it is possible for spiritual people to lack any psychic ability, just as it is possible for psychic people to be lacking in spirituality (some effective con people have this combination). Someone who is psychic, such as myself, will find the experience of being crammed in close proximity with other people to be a major ordeal - because of their sensitivity. Spiritual people, however, may alternate between periods of retreat and periods of activism - i.e., engaging with the world for the purpose of making it a better place.

The next point, which I am going to meditate on over the next few months, is that engaging with the world for the purpose of making it a better place is a different matter to living a materialistic, consumeristic manner. Hence, a spiritual person engaging with the world is not going to adopt a harmful, negative lifestyle.

At the same time, a psychic may choose a lifestyle that is more withdrawn, not out of spiritual motives, but out of simple self preservation.

Hmmm. I'll see if I can express this better at some time in the future ...

PS - one aspect of the meetup which was extremely disturbing was hearing a friend talk of the prolonged harassment she had received at the hands of a woman, including physical assault (grabbed by the throat) and being sexually assaulted. The responses she ahs received have been pretty appalling, and it is especially disturbing to me, in light of a security officer in Mongolia starting to get a bit free and easy with her hands, that the sexual assault was dismissed because of it being "girl on girl". That is bloody appalling, and TOTALLY unacceptable - just as is the dismissive attitudes towards men who are sexually assaulted (including rape).

I am well aware of the powerful impact that such assaults can have on people: part of the domestic abuse I've had in past includes sexual assault by a female partner (as of some years, ex-partner , thanbk the Goddess!) (actually, that happened in two past relationships, now that I think of it), and in that same relationship part of the abuse I received from step kids including one of them, a particularly violent male, grabbing me by the throat and not letting go. Part of the response my friend made when she was violently assaulted included striking her assaulter. I can fully understand that, as when I was struggling to get away from my attacker, with his hands around my throat, I was deliberately backing towards a kitchen drawer, and if he hadn't let go I would used a kitchen knife on him.It was either that, or I die.

Our biology is equipped with a fairly strong survival instinct - it is why we flinch from hot things that could burn, and when our survival is at risk, it will drive us to respond in some way (and it is idiotic AND WRONG stereotyping that assumes women are incapable of physical violence or inclined towards not being physically violent - in fact, that sort of "sugar'n'spice'n all things nice rubbish is responsible for some women getting away with horrendous violence ... not always physical).

There is a fair bit of information circulating these days about the impact that sexual assaults can have, and there is starting to be a LITTLE about the effects of domestic violence, but I've yet to see anything that really addresses the impacts of things like someone - particularly, as was the case for me, someone bigger and stronger - cutting off your lifeblood, in a sense, the very air you breathe. I don't think anyone who hasn't been through that can possibly come close to understanding it. You can read the media reports of victim statements, or even the victim statements themselves, but these are ordinary everyday people largely, and it takes a skilled wordsmith to effectively convey that feeling, just as it was the skilled writing of James Clavell in Shōgun that is the only thing that comes close to conveying the emotions around an incident where you were certain you were about to die through a violent accident (read the scene where John Blackthorne attempts to commit hari kari). I had experienced around half a dozen such incidents by the time I was 28, and it had a major effect on me - moved me away from the superficial towards trying to find and fulfill my purpose in life (I'm still working on that one!).

Note that I am being precise in my terminology here: other encounters with death, such as through illness, starvation, sentence of death, etc, etc, etc are different again.

From the responses my friend has encountered, I suspect some people either doubt her word on the assault, or think she shouldn't have struck her attacker. That's like saying someone who is drowing shouldn't struggle, or even hold their breath. It is utter, bloody nonsense. Yes, a world where that sort of assault doesn't happen would be ideal: we don't live in such a world, and there are times when things like violent people being forcibly restrained will be neessary, such as happened in NSW (last year, I think - I published the link somewhere ... ) when someone with a knife attacked a pacifist group (he was shot just as he was about to stab one member of the pacifist group). This situation needed both the pacifists to move the world towards being a better place, and the police to deal with the current imperfections while idealists make it better for all of us.

The world is not ideal: deal with it. 

[1] Please see my post "The Death of Wikipedia" for the reasons I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia.

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear")
My "blogiography" is here.
May the world of commerce and business be recognised to be a servant, not a master, of the lives of people.
A home is for living in, not feeling, becoming or being rich or a “better” class than others.
The International Labour Organisation's definition of "full employment" is wrong, useless and misleading.
Armageddon is alive and well and happening right now: it is a battle between the indolence of "I only ..." and/or "I just ..." on one side, and perspicacity on the other.
Like fire to the physical, emotions to the soul make a good servant, and a bad master.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing. EDMUND BURKE

Your children are not your children. ... They come through you but ... they belong not to you ... for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow KAHLIL GIBRAN

We didn't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we only borrowed it from our children ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY

 Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Those whom we cannot stand are usually those who we cannot understand P.K.SHAW

Tags:about me, attitudes, change, society, withdrawal,

First published: Sunnudgar, 16th September, 2012

Last edited: Thursday, 20th September, 2012

Post No. 250 - Withdrawal vs. engagement

I have had the attitude, throughout most of my life, that the better form of spirituality is that which engages with the world, whilst recognising that there are times when one has to withdraw, partially or totally, to develop oneself and one's skills.

I'm now modifying that slightly, by adding a need to withdraw to allow one to recover and heal from the struggles, strains and outright damage caused by living in "the world". The sorts of pressures that can lead to needing to withdraw include:

• other people's leaky auras (a MAJOR problem where I live, surrounded by four million other people);
• the combative pressures of commercial reality (again, a particular problem for me in my day job, as, if I don't win enough bids for work, I don't ultimately get to keep my job);
• interactions with people that others take for granted - which is a particular problem for me as a member of several minorities (hence, for instance, for every function I have to attend for work or as a result of friendships, acquiantanceship or other connections [e.g. through partners], my second consideration is along the line of am I going to be abused, assaulted or ignored, or in some way have to defend myself verbally, physically or legally [my firstconsideration is how much psychic and spiritual protection I am going to have to exert]).

I think there is something to say for the idea of having a retreat from time to time ... now, if only there were pagan-friendly retreats, or pagan retreats that weren't based on high levels of interaction and forced intimacy with total strangers - which is not the best idea for psychically and otherwise sensitive folk such as myself ...

Love, light, hugs and blessings

20 March, 2011

Stupid people, reasonable people and forms of travel

I was originally going to call this post "Stupid people, reasonable people, ..." but I decided that was a bit harsh, so so I changed the name to "Nongs, reasonable people, ..." - I've started referring to The L Word as The Nong Word, as the people in it are, quite simply, mostly nongs - the character of Jenny Schecter in particular, is quite alien to the down-to-earth dykes I know, and Alice Pieszecki is not like any bisexual I know. However, then I saw the episode [1] where Jenny's rank stupidity gets Moira assaulted, and reverted back to the original title.

(At least things get a bit better as the seasons progress ... I particularly liked hearing that Captain Tasha Williams "doesn't do drama". Mind you, my partner has commented that the character of Jenny seems to almost have a dissociative personality disorder ... at times they all seem to have a bit of this: oh well, it is a TV drama ... )

This choice of title was reinforced recently when I was buying petrol: as I was being served the service station attendant, someone who is quite polite and pleasant - and the reason I go there to buy my petrol - asked how I was, and the young male idiot behind me answered! What an absolute moron! Did that cretin think that because a female was in front of him the female didn't count? Or was he just up himself and decided that no-one else in the world was of enough importance for anyone to talk to so of course he was being addressed. Either way, he was a complete jerk.

There are, in my opinion, too many examples of people being, well, stupid is too harsh a word, but let's say at least foolish, or maybe naive. For example, I recently joined a few Yahoo groups. I left one when racist tripe started being thrown around, and then on one of the others, it became clear to me that someone responding to a comment from myself had completely misinterpreted the article we were discussing, thinking it was favourable, not critical, of the person we were discussing. This was then compounded when everyone seemed to buy into an apparently inspiring story about Herman Rosenblat - which even came with advice to Google him. Well, I prefer Dogpile, but in this case, I used Wikipedia, and found out that, yes, he is a genuine Holocaust survivor, but no, the amazing story he claimed was true was actually a hoax.

Another example of the sort of behaviour I am thinking of is the person who, when told I most missed giving up honey when I found out I was diabetic, said "Oh, but honey is healthy! You should still eat honey, it can't harm you". Well, stupid, actually, yes, it can - its is 80% sugar, sugar in a more natural form than refined sugar, but still SUGAR, and the blood tests I did on myself when I tried one honey sandwich proved how catastrophic it can be for a diabetic.

The important question here is: why? Why do people do, think and say these stupid things? In general, I consider people fall into many of these traps out of desperation. They want something, whether it is a feeling of connectedness, a feeling of affection, or feeling that they have got a bargain (which has at least two or three layers of emotion under it that I can identify without trying), and they allow that desire to override common sense - which, sadly, as the saying goes, is far from common.

Another view on this is Lobsang Rampa's comments, in several books that, allegedly, signals are not getting through to us from our Overself. If that is so, it would certainly explain the importance of meditation, which fosters that connection (when done properly, and not debased into an exercise to try and force relaxation rather than addressing the causes of tension).

On the other hand, at the opposite end of the spectrum is the legal concept of a "reasonable person". This is the basis of legal advice I have had, for instance, that here, in Victoria, Australia, someone using the wrong pronouns to refer to a trans person is doing something that a reasonable person would find offensive. The concept refers to someone who is mature, properly informed, without unreasonable biases - so not a fundamentalist extremist of any persuasion. (You can find a more formal definition here, and a recent opinion expressing doubt about the currency of this concept here.)

Finally, I want to touch upon the concept of physical travel. Yes, this can be enjoyable, and can even broaden the mind - particularly if you've had a sheltered upbringing (it is arrogance to presume that it will broaden the mind of everyone: some people have travelled well with their minds already, through things like ... reading, meditating, growing, their own life experiences, astral travel, etc). Personally, I often find, at this stage of my life, travel of the mind/spirit/soul better ... Travel to the country to escape the psychic pressures of the city can be rejuvenating for me, and international travel, in these post 9-11 days, is fraught with so many problems because I don't fit into the "normal" boxes that the experience in-between the trip there and back is more than outweighed by the trauma caused by security theatre. There are some places I would like to see, but I will happily wait a decade or two until the current insanity dies down and decisions about security are no longer being made by people who tend towards the stupid end of the spectrum because of their limited understanding of human beings ... which is an assessment a reasonable person would agree with :) For more on this, see here, here (especially the comments about security theatre; also, try following aviation safety generally for a little while, and then assess your perception of security risks ... ) and here (which I particularly agree with, having had some sexual assaults in my life).

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr
(Pronounced "new-MYTH-ear")

This post's photo is yet to be posted.

Tags: psychic development, psychic health, retreats, self defence, society, withdrawal

First published: Sunnudagr, 20th March, 2011

Last edited: Sunday, 20th March, 2011