posted March 20, 2007 09:49 AM         

- hsc

posted March 20, 2007 10:19 AM         

I don't suppose you care enough about your point to articulate it?

posted March 20, 2007 11:09 AM         

One day, perhaps years later, an ephiphany occurs as they recollect that person they once knew (or the experience with them)
and what all along they so earnestly were trying to tell or show them. It happens only when they are ready, never before. The person coming from wisdom knows this, therefore endures with quiet faith. The person who knows this at any moment could be condemning or arrogant in their position, but when you reach this space, within yourself, you cannot react in any other way than compassionate, hopeful and patient of a long-term broader Vision of Potential that is evolving in its time.

A seed is planted. Very seldom does it immediately bear fruit.
Like the story about the farmer who so eagerly kept checking his crop. Dozens of times a day, tugging at the sprouts, over-watering it.
If only he had planted the seed and let go
with faith, his crop would have thrived, instead he kills it with anticipation.
As well as with impure intention. Why does he so eagerly push his crop? Is it really for giving intentions, or is he hopeful for recognition and acclaim for his success? Results manifest from intention.

This is how it happens. It is a very attuning alignment within. Timeliness is imperative. If your soul is not in an aligning moment of openness, the potential Awareness will pass on by, unnoticed. Soul-time has no likeness to World-time and cannot be hastened, except by awareness and innocence through life's challenges and trials.

"If there is no host on the inside to receive the Tao, it will not stay."
~Taoism, Chuang Tzu 14

Stephen, I've been discussing philosophy with you for over a year now. I've appreciated your interest in my thoughts, and I believe you sometimes earnestly listen. Many times, you were the only person that listened and responded to my ramblings. lol. I've been grateful.

But, as I read here of what you value, I realize you don't really hear me, nor do you believe I have wisdom, nor have you recognized my complexity, nor my original thought. (yet you expect me to recognize it in you)
Should I be offended? No...your personal values would not shake what I have so earnestly sought and discovered. I do not Value the same things. I know what that discovery is transcends intellect and words. I sit quiet, knowing that no one else could understand the inner transformation that has rocked my entire Being. Nor would I ever expect them to.
For part of the discovery is realizing I'm entirely alone in it, accepting that, and not needing any confirmation or acknowledge of it from outside of myself. Also realizing it was the Journey of Experience and it could have happened no other way.

I don't know if you realize what you do to people, when you so casually dismiss their entire faiths and in doing so, dismissing the uniqueness of their entire Existance; the worthiness of their very life's breath that has endured many challenges and suffering and trudged onward, so fervently trying to hold onto their Innocence and Hope in a corrupt, superficial World.
I can't be your cheerleader for this, and I hope you respect that. I can't encourage You. I myself would rather have one person who would be Real with me, then to be surrounded by adulators with self-fulfilling agendas.

Although, I can equally entirely believe in your compassion, care, humility and openness, because I've experienced it myself and witnessed it in your interactions with others many times. I always see your beautiful Core, even at times when it appears you are distracted from it. I never forget. I always believe in you. The path before you is amazing and wondrous. I can forsee it will be of monumental Awakenings. Instinctually, you realize you are a teacher.
I believe there is a reason You know this.

Something that helped me aquire Patience at a time I felt so Restless was a simple phrase:

"Do not attempt to go beyond where you haven't yet begun." (Ralph Blum~ Book of Runes)

I was striving earnestly in desire for something that my Soul wasn't yet ready to receive. It did come when I let go of Desire and remained Alert.
Crazy, Magical Cosmic Timely Waves.

Love You, Stephen.

posted March 20, 2007 11:12 AM         

Interesting strategy.

posted March 20, 2007 11:29 AM         

I myself have been adamant that I have come upon some "truth" in the past, only for the flame of life to burn at a different degree or from another angle and illuminate something that wasn't even in my oh-so-powerful vision at that moment.

But I do know that no-one can see for me. Nor can I see for them.

A hard lesson, but never a truer one will ever come to you.

posted March 20, 2007 11:53 AM         

Thanks for your reply.

I understand that you would be 'wary of the claims of knowledge made by those who can supply no clear reasons in support of them'. I on the other hand am wary of those who think that 'the truth' can be contained in any number of words and 'justified' by any number of reasons.

You missed one very important part of the analogy of the 3rd grader. The '3rd grader' may not even want to let you know what he knows. Who knows, he is mentally cracking another problem, and cud be least bothered with the one placed before him. May be he is finding it irritating to be asked to solve a problem he knows already.

I know that it is going to frustrate you, but I CANNOT explain any further. There are many reasons for that, not the least of them being that firstly I don't think I have the capability to express it in a way that you would 'understand' it. I'd like to give a metaphor here (look i'm trying my best to make u understand why i can't make you understand...lol). Suppose that you were asked to describe the color orange. How would you do it? can you do it? lets say u try, but are you sure that what u see as orange is what the other person sees when he sees orange. for all you know your orange might be their blue. is there any way at all to know who sees what ?????? any attempt tht one person makes to describe their mental picture, is going to require a medium. and therein lies the whole problem. if only one cud directly transmit their mental picture to the other person's mind !

But do u think it is even important what they see??? perhaps what is more important is that they can both enjoy this colorful world in all its splendor....that they both see beauty and harmony in a sunset....

Perhaps it is best that it is so. Truth, I believe, should be 'earned'. (Swerve and Lialei said it better than me)

I know you would come up with some argument to show how this is not applicable to 'the truth'. May be it is not a very good example. But this is the only one that came to my mind, as i grasp the futility of trying to explain my truth to you.

I don't know whether what i know as 'my truth' is 'the truth', let alone the 'The Truth'. All i know is that it is what i had always been looking for. and that is all that matters to me.

ILWL

posted March 20, 2007 12:22 PM         

we learn from our mistakes, the more pain and sufferimg involved the more there is no choice, but to know God, to truly want to understand...
Why?
things happen....
everything happens for a reason...

look how stupidly I have acted in the past...
but accept those mistakes as teachers, all of you are my teachers,
and I thank you from the bottom of my heart...

Stephen, keep going, accept your mistakes...
and Learn and Grow...
with reverence for all...

posted March 20, 2007 12:51 PM         

- bukowski (i think)

"I like people. I just feel better when they're not around."

- bukowski

posted March 20, 2007 01:04 PM         

You have a wonderful chance here to forge the iron of your sword amongst the fire of other peoples knowledge and perspectives...

and you sulk.....

That is of course always your choice.

posted March 20, 2007 01:23 PM         

HSC

You are never alone. No one is ever alone. But yes, I think we all need to traverse this path 'alone'.

Swerve, all things happen in their own time. And all good things take time.

posted March 20, 2007 01:37 PM         

"Beautiful words are not truthful.
Truthful words are not beautiful."
- tao te ching

"We need strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly."
- Michel de Montaigne

"Speak the truth, but leave immediately after."
- Unknown

"He who tells the truth must have one foot in the stirrup."
-- Armenian Proverb

"The average man does not get pleasure out of an idea because he thinks it is true; he thinks it is true because he gets pleasure out of it."
-- Henry Louis Mencken

"From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth, from the laziness that is content with half truth, from the arrogance that thinks it has all the truth -- Oh, God of truth, deliver us!"
-- Unknown

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened."
--Winston Churchill

"The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls."
-- Elizabeth Cady Stanton

"Telling the truth when we feel vulnerable is one of the hardest things to do. We might fear rejection, abandonment, disapproval, disappointment, rage, hurt, or just the raw exposure that's an unavoidable part of the process. Yet most every time we're willing to tell a hard truth, we grow and deepen in presence, no matter the response. The energy that we previously lock up up to maintain a false front is now freed to uplift and enliven us."
-- Raphael Cushnir

"Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it's not going to go away."
-- Elvis Presley

"Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence."
-- Henri Frederic Amiel

"The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is."
-- Willa Cather

"Truth springs from argument amongst friends."
-- David Hume

"Say not unto thyself, Behold, truth breedeth hatred, and I will avoid it; dissimulation raiseth friends, and I will follow it. Are not the enemies made by truth, better than the friends obtained by flattery?"
-- Akhenaton

“It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts... For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.”
-- Patrick Henry

"It is dangerous to be right on a subject on which the established authorities are wrong."
-- Voltaire

"A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it."
- G.K. Chesterton

"All truth goes through three stages.
First it is ridiculed.
Then it is violently opposed.
Finally, it is accepted as self-evident."
- Schoepenhouer

"Rather than love, than money,
than fame, give me truth!"
- Thoreau

"I don't want any yes-men around me.
I want everybody to tell me the truth,
even if it costs them their jobs."
- Samuel Goldwyn

"The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth."
- Goethe

"A great philosophy is not one that passes final judgments and establishes ultimate truth.
It is one that causes uneasiness and starts commotion."
- Charles Peguy

"The pursuit of truth shall set you free -
even if you never catch up with it."
- Clarence Darrow

"I love you, and because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies."
- Pietro Aretino

"The truth will set you free,
but first it will **** you off."
- Unknown

"Dare to be true: nothing can need a lie;
A fault which needs it most, grows two thereby."
-- George Herbert

"When fiction rises pleasing to the eye,
Men will believe, because they love the lie;
But truth herself, if clouded with a frown,
Must have some solemn proof to pass her down."
- Charles Churchill

"I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him; you have no business with consequences, you are to tell the truth."
-- Samuel Johnson

"The terrible thing about the quest for truth is that you find it."
- Remy de Gourmont

"The dream begins, most of the time, with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you on to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called truth."
-- Dan Rather

"Truth never damages a cause that is just."
- Mahatma Gandhi

posted March 20, 2007 01:40 PM         

I've always had a soft spot for HSC, which I think is quite an easy thing.

Perhaps that was a little harsh because of that.

posted March 20, 2007 02:13 PM         

"It is immediately clear of course, that to attempt a generalization of (insert 'truth' instead of 'equation 39' here) would at this stage be prohibitively cumbersome."

I'll leave you with my wicked grin and my convenient signature

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The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. - Henri Bergson