To think that it can be said in so many ways. This was so clear and logical. Thank you.

I like this observation- suffering feels false. When the veil falls over one's eyes, suddenly everyone turns into actors in a play and everything's made of cardboard. It is as if they could all stop and look at you and ask- does it look real? Are you enjoying yourself? Does the play satisfy you still or shall we take off the masks? The person- masks?

"To be or not to be? There's no alternative to being; we only have to decide the quality of being, whether to be trapped or free. The most interesting life anyone can lead is a life of self-exploration, not in the interest of pleasing God or gaining knowledge, but to discover once and for all if absolute freedom is attainable." - Deepak Chopra

Thank you (((((Deepak)))))

I was talking to my mother about what you said above before the quote I posted, as I pondered upon God yesterday on the phone.

I am beginning to think that freedom is really what it this is all about (living and life), as we each try to figure out how to possess the ultimate gift.

But like everyone else, I cannot seem to rise above pleasure/pain, love/hate, etc, as I am bound in this prison of mine. So today, I will just ponder upon it all, as I suffered (that word again) a set back and fell flat down on my face last week. It's like I went around and around the circle, but found no doors, windows, nor gates. And each of us holds our own key to freedom, but I can't seem to find mine and I know it's there! It's got to be. I think I perceive freedom as lose, so I obviously need to work on seeing the truth as it really is :-)

Love, Char

Does anyone have a definition for evil? It would certainly help make this discussion clearer. Thank you.

To be free, you have to be out of your mind and be o.k. with that.

I used to fear being called crazy. I guess I myself feared to be crazy...but yet something pushed me further and further into abstract thinking...into thinking outside the box....in thinking deeper and deeper thoughts.

When nothing..not even my own beliefs made any sense any more...I let go and was free : )

Free to be....crazy, intelligent, here, now, up or down....everywhere and nowhere.

Dear Deepak

I don't think cruelty and vengeance are so inherent in human nature. I think they're dramatized because they're the exception, not the rule. Those who create often do so to work out their angst. Where does their angst come from? Maybe from early encounters with people who are cruel and vengeful. Not everyone writes. Not everyone creates. Why not? Those who make art are self-selecting for sensitivity and high exposure rates to others' ugly behaviors, isn't it. Dramatists dramatize, too.

Everyday people, as well as Jesus and Buddha, "gave up on hand-wringing, moralizing, and wishful thinking." What was revolutionary about Jesus and Buddha was their profound, genuine, consistent, all-encompassing compassion, that no one has been able to achieve since.

"Aiming at a spiritual revolution that far exceeds spiritual reform, they had to connect pain with a more profound problem: evil." -- this sounds too much like a present-day theory than an on-the-ground reality of Jesus or Buddha, at least as it's stated.

I'll stop here and ask you three questions:

What is evil, really? What are pain and pleasure? What are the associations between evil, pain and pleasure?

love, h

Dear Deepak Sir,
As always,you have hit the nail on its head.Buddha and Jesus,and many other religious masters have seen through this game of life.They have realised that we cannot fight against evil in ourselves,for in actuality we are fighting against ourselves.We all can transcend good and evil,and this transcendence can happen only in this human form.That is the reason why human life is so prized.Do keep enlightening us with your wisdom asrai

Read this gem by A S Rai. Should find its place in the IB Hall of Fame:

"We all can transcend good and evil, and this transcendence can happen only in this human form. That is the reason why human life is so prized."

You will understand how screwed up some hindu fundies have become in their interpretation of Vedanta.

Understand this: you cannot transcend good and evil in animal form, mosquito or bacteria form. That is either animals are good or evil based on their actions ..like whether a dog chooses to protect his master from a break in or eats a domestic hen.

If you can't transcend good and evil in your present human form, you may or mayn't get another immediate chance through reincarnation, you may have to be born as an amoeba and work y ladder up to the highest form , the human form for another go a "good and evil".

#6
should be...'for another go *at* "good and evil".'

#4 Dear Heath, you ask:-
"What is evil, really? What are pain and pleasure? What are the associations between evil, pain and pleasure?"

Of course I can't answer for Deepak, Heath. He has promised replies in the past ;)

To see young animals, including our own children, at play, suggests there is a great joy in having a body here on Earth's body. The realisation, the thought, that this may be cut off at any time is regarded as evil in all its ramifications and something to be resisted, indeed overcome.
There seems something special to fight for. The pain/pleasure seems to be the measure of whether we are winning or losing.

Then we may come to Jesus Christ who, somehow encapsulated the whole gamut in one fowl swoop!
The whole thing, for me, then rests on a resurrection, an ability to manifest again to his friends, to the world, and yet be able to unmanifest again to allow the lesson to sink home, oh so slowly.

Physical death, (that veil?) stands in the middle of it all, slowing our progress to a dribble.
Could it be that Christ represents, indeed opens, a door in our psyches, through which all 'quantum' possibilities may flow, but until all dare to face that enormity and in unison, then the fight and the pain continue and, paradoxically, the something special worth fighting for is blown?

The "E-veil" is what Dave Hall was wont to call it.

.

Beauty has often been depicted as the culprit who 'covers up'.

Ugly hurts my eyes and sours my stomach.

Ex: Some grotesque, bloody guts

found there way to my porch Sunday morning.

Poor rabbit. But hey! My cat, Faith, is God2, so what?

```
"Do you believe," said Candide, "that men have always massacred one another as they do today, that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious, bloody-minded, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites and fools?"

"Do you believe," said Martin, "that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them?"

"Without doubt," said Candide.

"Well then," said Martin, "if hawks have always had the same character, why should you imagine that men have changed theirs?"

"OH!" said Candide, "there is a vast deal of difference, for free will......"

```
Candide, Voltaire(1694-1778)

Hello Deepak and Everyone,

Deepak you write, "It is in our nature to transcend our nature." I think that says it all, as children we run the spectrum of feeling, from, love to hate, from, wanting to protect to wanting to kill and as we grow we learn to handle or control our urges, we learn to understand the motivating forces behind the feelings, we learn to choose our actions and reactions to feeling feelings, we learn to own or deny them. We also get stuck in repeating those and acting out those we have not understood, owned, or integrated into our body/mind make-up then the feelings start taking control, needing expression in some form to release the built up stress tears occuring in our body/mind. But, all of this is our learning process toward the ultimate goal of our transcending our human nature where once it's influence was front and center in our attention and focus to where it is more the background music, while, once, trancended, we can enjoy being the witness to our beloved human nature. WE get to experience our human nature while observing it at the same time. We are not lost in our human nature, not a victim to it as one who is unconscious of the fact that there is something more, a possibility of, actually, being able to transcend it's push and pull on our being.

have a great day ruth

'Experiencing and observing', Ruth, and then what?

Can we trace the source of those love/hate feelings that you state children,(surely not all children,) run the spectrum of? Is this really inherent from conception or is it the wash of vibes they 'swim' in from womb to adulthood?

What really is the background music that shapes the dance and is it that fixed once the whole realises its creative freedom.
There is no transcending to my mind, though it's a useful word. There is just a realising which is as equally downscending.

Dear Ed

Re #9
Could it be that busting through the delusional veil always spells acceptance of more tough news? In our case, this means reconnection with the earth, and embracing the suffering and eventual death it provides every living thing as a matter of physics and cosmic order. That's where it begins and ends. Everything in between is just the signal static,the self-enforced interference between ourselves and the worthwhile goals left by the Buddha and Jesus, humility, forgiveness, compassion and reconnection(ressurection) with the spirit.

After all, it is not the coursing energy of the human spirit that is doomed. It never has been and never will be so long as a single newborn baby still squalls out "I AM" immediately upon its delivery, even into this most recent issuance of "the world" we have allowed to happen in the name of reason, progress, science, democracy, religion, or any other excuse we can come up with.
The animating forces of creation of the universe seem unmoved by the collision of planets and implosions of supernova, much less the outbreak of the life form called man on a speck of cosmic dust called earth.

That Kingdom promised us rests at the end of no mortal road.

B

Hey Ed,

When you use any of your other languages my receiver has a hard time tuning in, but boy, when you use the one in your # 9 and 13 you are a treat and come in loud and clear.

Where have you been? What happened?

#14 Dear Bonnie, I don't think you have quite got my meaning. Like Ruth you seem to be coming from somewhere fixed, making what we think we know the launching point rather than the launched.

If you had never seen a flower, would you ever conceive that a growing point producing a mundane stem and some leaves could morph into a vital flower. That growing point, in essence, is our birthright, too, and now we are becoming conscious WITH it.

#15 Just Wondering...an excellent name. I don't think you are that far off my 'just meandering.'
To let fly, I have to reach the point of pointlessness, like, I'm about to walk away....my horse is dead! I have to believe I can breath new life, cos I'm stuck out here in the wilderness...I need my horse to get me back to those I love and, note, I just got back to you.
Thank you for just noticing or even teasing me out.
Ed.

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.

William Shakespeare

Hi Ed,

you ask, "Can we trace the source of those love/hate feelings that you state children,(surely not all children,) run the spectrum of? Is this really inherent from conception or is it the wash of vibes they 'swim' in from womb to adulthood?"

It is my experience and that of others that yes the source of our feelings can be traced if we are so inclined to investigate. Children have love/hate relationships with their parents, brothers, sisters, and friends for the most part these feelings just flow, easily, but there are times where many of us get stuck in something that is more than we can let go of easily and need help figuring out... And, if you watch children interacting with other children, when one wants another's object of desire things can get pretty serious in the feelings department, children do not hide their inner monster for the most part...they share it with the whole world, tantrums are an example...children's feeling capacity is immense, their feelings are not blocked or censored....when they are loving you and happy there is nothing greater but when they are angry...or frustrated, and want to get back a toy taken from them by a playmate...watch out...many times a good shove or bite will be their chosen recourse, that is,, until they are taught a better way to handle the situation.

It is usually in early childhood where we develop and nuture out addiction to pain, it is, in fact, a very common occurence that a little therapy in adulthood can help dissolve.

Transcending our human nature does not mean we stop experiencing our human nature or the spectrum of feelings that go with it. Actually, in transcending we get to experience more of the spectrum because we are no longer ignorant or fearful of our own nature. We are no longer at war with different aspects of our nature and that usually means that once you have made peace with your own human nature....in essense you have made peace with the whole world.

I think that for the most part the fact that our world is still so full of war and violence is simply because as as species we are emotionally ignorant, emotionally immature, we are, still, very much in the acting out early adolescent stage of the human species, with lots of the toddler's tantrums stage, also, in our make-up. As, a species we gots a long ways to go before we do any serious transcending as a species...our ignorance is grand when it comes to handling our human emotions....but tech wise...it is a different story...The other day I was in a room with about 10 other people and everyone was talking at the same time....but they were all talking into their cell phones while sitting side by side....really, I was the only one without a phone...and no one to talk to :))) it was such a strange experience, being in that room, I felt a bit sad, for us, at that time, a bit sad for this strange tech direction that we are taking...oh well...

have a great evening, ruth

Dear Bonnie,

#14: Magnifico!

My bad, my interference.

Digital, I am not! Me Neither

Hi
((((Keith)))

Anna Log

#14
"That Kingdom promised us rests at the end of no mortal road."

Agreed, Bonnie.

#19 Dear Ruthie, thank you for your kind response. We draw closer.

"it was such a strange experience, being in that room, I felt a bit sad, for us, at that time, a bit sad for this strange tech direction that we are taking...oh well..."

Yes, I feel sad, too.

Dear Ed
Re #16

Love sees you as the entire plant, from seed to stalk to leaves to bud to flower to seed again, not just the growing "point."

Love You
B

Dang, Bonnie, I was seeing the growing point IS Love! Point of manifestation.... the magic of meioh!ses and mytoeses not to mention the cambibulum widthing.
I saw something immaterial, anyway and got quite excited, then you couldn't have seen what I saw, which throws me of me horse. Ah weel, back to the boring drawed.

;)

Dear Ed

I see LOVE as the activator of the growing point.
That which gives the flower the energy to unfold from unmanifest to manifest. Love is magical. :)

B

Life is a paradox. Find the One who makes you turn around and hold on tight.

#27 Life is indeed a paradox, Phadrea, not likely to be resolved here at IB. We can't even do it in our own homes.

No reflection on you, Bonnie. I'm sure a face to face would marry our languages, if we were to sit still :)))