posted May 12, 2006 03:04 AM              

What happens when we lose our selves?

posted May 12, 2006 03:39 AM              

There have been times in my life when I was very depressed but I never had the feeling that I lost myself so I don't understand.

I have discovered that any time I feel down or whenever I start feeling really sorry for myself the best cure for it is to come out of myself and reach out to others. Sharing myself with others and doing things for others not only takes my mind off my own troubles it gives me a feeling of happiness and purpose.

St. Francis describes that coming out of ourselves and reaching out to others in his peace prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
Where there is hatred, let me sow love:
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not
So much seek to be consoled
As to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born
to eternal life.

When it comes down to what is really fulfilling and important in life it is less about us than we think.

posted May 12, 2006 03:57 AM              

The Good News is....
There is nothing you need to do.

The Bad News is....
There is nothing you can do.

Deep breathing is useless.
Yoga is useless.
Losing hope is useless.
Gaining hope is useless.

You are in the current.
And you are the current.

There is nothing but you.
Nothing to act upon.
Nothing to refrain from.

These words tell you nothing.
You cannot understand,
or fail to understand them.
You cannot agree or disagree.
You can neither obey,
nor defy these words.

It is useless to comment on this,
useless to ignore it.

What will be, will be.
You have no power.
You have no powerlessness.
Resist, and the universe resists.
Assent, and the universe assents.

There is nothing to be gleaned.
You cannot find out the answers,
or learn to give up the questions.

There is nothing to hope for,
nothing to fear.
But you cannot stop hoping,
or being afraid.

Winter is no threat to Springtime.
Springtime is no destroyer of Winter.
Springtimes pass but Springtime is forever.
Winters die, but Winter is eternal.

If this affected you,
you learned nothing.
If this did not affect you,
you learned nothing.

"Be still,
And know that I am the Lord, thy God,
and there is none beside me."
- The Holy Bible

Act or do not act;
there is no difference.
Speak or do not speak;
nothing is spoken,
nothing is left unsaid.
Think or do not think,
there is no mind at all.
Be or do not be,
there is no question of being
or ceasing to be.

There is no end and no beginning.
No present moment to observe.

YOU are not here.
Here is no place to be,
or not be.

This is not a trick,
or a way to enlighten you.

There is nothing to hide,
nothing to be revealed.

posted May 12, 2006 04:50 AM              

"What makes you feel that you have lost yourself, HSC?"

What makes you think I feel that I have lost myself?

I was just speculating.

But thank you for your concern,
and your kind, informative words.

I have always liked that Prayer.
Thank you.
I ought to read it every day,
at least a hundred times.
Then, I might learn it.
Then, I might read what is written INSIDE it.

Someone said "great souls suffer in silence".
You dont seem to agree with this.
I'm not sure I do either.

Actually, I dont know if there are any rules.
Maybe only what is right can ever occur.
And it is always changing;
rewritten for everyone.

I don't know.

thanks again,

HSC

posted May 12, 2006 10:30 AM              

there is comfort in tao...

its essence is real.

blessings and love and light....

posted May 12, 2006 03:52 PM              

God, make me a channel of thy peace;
that where there is hatred, I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
that where there is error, I may bring truth;
that where there is doubt, I may bring confidence;
that where there is despair, I will comfort and help to restore optimism;
that where there are shadows of ignorance, I may bring the light of knowlege;
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.
God, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;
to understand, than to be understood;
to love, than to be loved.
To know that I do not need to seek these for myself,
For it is by giving freely that the same will be returned to me in time.
It is by forgiving that one is free of the anger towards those who wronged us..
It is by knowing and being true to oneself that we come to recognize the presence of God who is ever within us All..

posted May 13, 2006 01:48 AM              

HSC, if great souls suffer in silence I must not possess a great soul because I really don't suffer well, and I suffer in anything but silence.

It was German Dramatist Friedrich Schiller who said that and he also said:

Disappointments are to the soul what a thunderstorm is to the air.

Not sure I believe that one either.

Sorry that I misunderstood and thought you were expressing a feeling that you had.

What I meant by coming out of ourselves when we are depressed or hurting and being with others is that I think we are all here to help each other carry our crosses or burdens in life. So I guess I don't believe in suffering in silence.

No one likes to suffer. We don't ask for it and we don't welcome it. Yet it is something that we all do in life in one way or another...sooner or later. It's a part of life.

I guess like everything else in life suffering has it's purpose. If we allow it to happen it can teach us valuable lessons. Unfortunately it's usually the bad things that happen to us that teach us the greatest lessons in life.

posted May 13, 2006 10:39 AM              

Kamilla, I very much like what Pema Chodron said.

quote:

---

we must realize that we can endure a lot of pain and pleasure for the sake of finding out who we are and what our world is. If we are committed to comfort at any cost, as soon as we come up against the least edge of pain, we are going to run: we'll never know what's beyond this particular barrier or wall of fearful thing."

---

How very true that is!!!!

It's unfortunate that our society today promotes the committment of comfort at any cost. We see that all the time with one T.V. ad after another offering new drugs for just about every problem we have. Designer drugs they are called.

One of the drug ads that disturbs me the most is the one that implies there is something drastically wrong with being shy. Many people are just shy by nature. It isn't exactly a curse as the ad would have us believe. Even so, if a shy person wants to be less shy that is an inner thing that we can work on ourselves without popping a pill. Psychology has a very good method for developing self-confidence and overcoming shyness. It's called " act as if." Act as if you aren't shy and when practiced over a period of time it becomes a behavior pattern. True, it's one of those things that are easier said than done, but each new effort and each new thing attempted builds up self-confidence and self-esteem.

Change of any kind takes time - it doesn't come about overnight - and we are being conditioned in our society to expect instant gratification and instant results. Much easier to take a pill. Yet those are mind altering drugs that have not been tested over a period of time. For that reason, I for one would rather do it the hard way and let changes come about gradually because that is personal growth and it's character building. It also helps us to come to embrace and accept ourselves just the way we are.

Thanks for putting up with my rants.

posted May 14, 2006 12:48 AM              

My husband's moon is in Scorpio and with this full moon being in Scorpio he has been a bear to live with today. Very irritable and somewhat spaced out.

posted May 14, 2006 02:25 AM              

But I kicked the habit.....

I never watch it now....only the occasional dvd.....

It killed conversation and broke down communication to a certain degree.....

Glad I kicked it up the butt......

posted May 14, 2006 03:44 AM              

The drug ads that I spoke about are oddly enough shown during the news every day. I guess the drug companies feel that is the best place because if you watch enough news you want to do drugs just to escape the reality of what is going on in the world.

posted May 14, 2006 01:27 PM              

Silence stands often behind the nearly continuous wonderful conversations with my husband when he is home.
I love it when it is so quiet one can hear the clocks ticking...the mourning doves calling, the peepers chirping and the beezes rustling the leaves and grass.
Last night a new owl came.

posted May 14, 2006 06:42 PM            

Most of the time I prefer to turn off this world and play in my own lol... cant play properly without my soundtrack to guide me

posted May 14, 2006 11:47 PM              

Your choice is not mine to make, but,
perhaps I can ensure that it is well-informed.

Know this much:

That, if you give it a minute,
your ears will surely adjust
to hear the songs of silence.

posted May 15, 2006 10:22 AM              

"There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other. -- Douglas Everett, American Hockey Player

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. -- Albert Einstein

The point of life is not to be married or single - it is to be. We are human beings, or humans being. It does not matter so much what lifestyle we choose - it's what we make of the opportunities to grow, that counts. -- Alan Cohen, Rising in Love

"Every time you make a choice you are turning the control part of you, that part that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, you are slowly turning this control thing either into a heavenly creature or a hellish one." - C.S. Lewis