posted July 13, 2007 08:41 PM         

p. 135

Until we fully appreciate that the ego is the impostor within us, we often feel embarrassed to admit to ourselves, not to mention anyone else, the games we play. Instead of feeling compassion for ourselves, and remembering that our neuroses are our wounds, we tend to be too ashamed to look at them. We think we're bad. 'We think that if we, or anyone else God forbid, were to see the real truth about us, we would all recoil in horror.' The truth, rather, is that if we, or anyone else, were to see the real truth about us, we would all be dazzled by the light.
In looking deeply into ourselves, however, we first have to face what A Course in Miracles calls the 'ring of fear.' Before the Prince can save the damsel in distress, he has to slay the dragons that surround her castle. So do we all. Those dragons are our demons, our wounds, our egos, our brilliant ways of denying love to ourselves and others. the ego's patterns have to be rooted out, detoxed from our system, before the pure love within us can have a chance to come forth.

posted July 16, 2007 03:22 PM         

Feel free to add any excerpts if you ever feel the urge. I'd like to add more but I'm often typed out for the day.

posted July 16, 2007 05:56 PM         

The first step in Buddhist practice is "stopping".

One cannot think as clearly
or act as calmly and decisively,
from a place of restlessness,
as one can from a place of stillness.

We are all equals, but our gifts are vastly unequally distributed, according to the grace which is given us, and which is no credit to ourselves, but only to the Giver, to whom all credit is due. Some may think more clearly from a place of restlessness than others do from a place of stillness, but each individual, taken separately, will tend to think more clearly from a place of stillness than he or she would from a place of restlessness.

Therefore, the first step is "stopping".

All true moral teachings have begun with the practice of purification. Before one may begin a life of good works, or increased good works, one must cease to live a life of evil works, or, decrease the number of evil works one has been conditioned and habituated to perform in the past. Chief among the methods of purification is the practice of stillness, or stopping. After this, there is fasting, and fasting itself is just a more specific form of stopping. To fast is to abstain from something that is harmful, but, more than this, it is to abstain from something which may otherwise be good, but which has become polluted by the subsequent introduction of impurities. Fasting from food gives the body time to release toxins, and provides a much needed rest from the constant processes of digestion and assimilation, which take such a toll on the body's energies. Fasting from sleep is another means of disrupting the natural or customary rhythms of the body, and this has a corresponding effect of creating a break with the past, and past habits, as well creating a kind of dissociation from the body and the cycles of time, to which we are otherwise slavishly wedded and identified. Both forms of fasting have been traditionally held to be among the surest means of re-establishing a connection with the transmundane, spiritual realms. Whatever the diagnosis, in many tribal cultures across the world, the first prescription is a fast.

Many revered healers throughout history have come to the conclusion that the source of all disharmony in the body, soul, and personality, is some kind of blockage. Hippocrates said that the colon is the seat of all health, and a blocked colon is the effect of a sustained introduction of impurities into the body, and the cause of all subsequent disorders within the various organs and systems of the body. Like a roadblock, a blocked colon creates a kind of traffic jam, in which impurities cannot pass quickly enough, and cannot therefore be evacuated from the body. What happens next is that more and more toxins collect, not only in the colon and digestive tract, but, also in the organs of the body themselves. The weakest organ, whatever it may be, depending on the individual's constitution, is the first to go. Popular Western Medicine has failed to see, or refused to admit, this phenomenon, with the result that, in the West, mainstream doctors focus on the localized problems associated with the various organs (which are themselves merely symptomatic), and neglect to address the actual cause of the problem. They say, "he had a bad heart", or, "he had a bad liver", etc., and assure us that these horrors are relatively uncaused and unavoidable; the way of all flesh. They seek to cut out, surgically, or else treat with expensive medications (themselves toxic and unnatural to the body), the places in which toxins are most concentrated, rather than eliminate the blockage in the colon, which ultimately led to the concentration of toxins in other areas in the first place. In reality, the greatest concentration of toxins is always in the colon itself, although the places that become inflamed, and which make the most fuss, are the ones that get the attention of the most superficial healers, of which there are many.

The requisites for a degree in medicine, in most industrialized countries, are not intelligence and healing gifts, but, rather, an ability to memorize what other people tell you, and to take direction without question. These kinds of "booksmarts" are common enough, and what we end up with is a collection of common, untalented, unintelligent people holding positions of the utmost authority and importance in our society. This uniquely empowered confederacy of dunces discourage patients from asking questions and delving beneath the surface of things, because they are themselves unquestioning, superficial types, who have attained notoriety and wealth precisely on account of these "abilities". Nevertheless, case studies show that the highest recovery rates continue to exist among patients labelled "difficult", while the rest continue to "go quietly into that goodnight". Likewise, recovery rates among adherents of alternative medicine are astounding in comparison to those who follow the path most travelled.

Naturally, one must wonder why this information is not public knowledge and why the medical industry has yet to perform a 180° about face. The answer is simple, and it is the same answer we find at the root of a great many injustices. The answer is money. The people at the top are making billions keeping these things secret, not just from the public, but from the doctors who blindly carry out their agendas. As they see it, there is no profit in making people well. The real profits (monetarily, anyway) are acheived by keeping people sick, and, specifically, by giving the appearance of healing people, while, actually, charging exorbitant fees to patch up the arising symptoms of disharmony, while ingoring, and, in many cases, even encouraging, the ultimate causes.

It's sometimes hard for good people to believe that there could really be so many corrupt individuals in the world, and in positions of real authority. Their credulity is no accident, but is, in fact, painstakingly manufactured by the corrupt individuals themselves, through the use of billions of dollars worth of propaganda (i.e. advertising) and by keeping people too sick, slow, lazy, and dimwitted to think for themselves and bother to stem the tides created by those in high places. With the cleverness of serpents, they prey on people's fears. They know that people are afraid to believe in conspiracies and in any far-reaching insidiousness. They know that people are afraid to be different, and risk being ostracized, by adhering to some form of treatment not popularly sanctioned (and which the propagandists assure them is only for the birds, flakes, and crackedpots). Indeed, they know, above all, that the public has always been ruled, not by reason, but by emotions. Hence, they have merely to play upon people's emotions, in order to hide from them the reasonable truth.

The only effective counter-measure is truth itself, and time, which brings all truth to light. Always, there will be freethinkers, and freethinking pockets of resistance. The laws of natural selection demonstrate plainly enough that, as more and more suckers drop off like lemmings, the percentage of people willing to think for themselves and to confront authority with courage and self-reliance continues to grow. Sooner or later, the majority will consist of conscientious objectors, and not servile automotons. When that day comes, woe to the people who pull the strings, for they will find nothing but corpses at the end of their ropes.

posted July 16, 2007 06:12 PM         

that was so awesome!

(reminds me of the terminology in Health and Healing ~ the medical theocracy and LG's death merchants...)

posted July 17, 2007 01:25 PM         

Thank you...!!

posted July 18, 2007 04:44 PM         

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?"
Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.

Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that
other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give
other people permission to do the same.

As we're liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

~by Marianne Williamson
in A Return to Love: Reflections On The Principles of A Course In Miracles,
p. 165, HarperCollins, 1992

Steve, I also remember you quoted the end of this excerpt on the quotes thread.