Maintaining a L of 1 perspective in the face of adversity...

[curball2002]

hey everyone,

bill brought up an interesting point and one that i have trouble
with occassionally. how does everyone maintain their spiritual
sanity in the face of hard criticism from others? sorry to say it,
but particularly the hard core christian right? or those who insist
on saving and changing you for your own good?

i feel i am comfortable with my beliefs, where i am in life, and
where i am going. though it can be difficult at times to maintain
relationships with others who push their beliefs too much, judge
mine harshly or just are critical about my core beliefs in general.
despite being rather 'new agey' my family is all catholic and very
accepting of me. many friends are christians too. but there are
those in my life, often people i care about who seem so set
on 'knowing' their truth and insisting i accept it as mine as well.

all the best to you all, and happy thanks giving to all the
americans on the list. lots to be thankful for!

bradly

[Robin]

hi bradly,

your question, about the difficulty with others and
their belief systems is indeed, pretty awkward and
certainly not uncommon, especially in our world where
most of the money and power are belief-system-based.
perhaps the most common example: just look at the tv
(if you watch that thing, ha-ha), it's most primary
function is to program the viewer in the commercially/
politically 'acceptable' manner - which is why i don't
watch it.

not likely that many others would go this route:
become a recluse, heh-hee (kidding - partly). i live
in the maine woods, having (thought i) escaped here
from the rat race in 1976.

when i learned meditation (my first real departure
from conventional social awareness) i realized that
most humans (amongst those in my environment and
visible through our standard media) are mostly not
even vaguely awake - most particularly to our own
emotions and spiritual abilities.

learning about macrobiotics (the modern version of
traditional japanese holistic medicine), then later
yoga, i became viewed as being a "very weird person"
- for pursuing a lifestyle and study mainly interested
in health & consciousness, environment and (current
through ancient) human evolution, etc. yet unlike you,
i have no close family nor religious 'community' to
contend with, and i had no religious belief system
imposed upon me by my family.

my mom was so harshly parented by her roman catholic
family (with a wwi mustard-gassed, invalid father),
that she told me during my childhood that she 'could
not believe there is any all-knowing creator
intelligence, no god'. so there was no religion in
our home. she did learn to meditate.

she was artist, dancer, musician, (unpublished) poet
& writer. when i escaped to the maine woods, she
escaped to greece - she loved the climate and the
people (and i think she liked to romp in the hills
with the spirits). i think when she left earth, she
quit the dance and just flew off.

i collect many quotes from reading. i'll offer three
by a clever fellow who was even discussed in the ra
material - albert einstein:

"the most beautiful thing we can experience is the
mysterious - it is the source of all true art and
science."

"whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in
the field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by
the laughter of the gods."

"we have to do the best we can. this is our sacred
human responsibility."

so brad, mostly we must be compassionate, as people
generally do the best they can with what they have to
work with. be as supportive as you can and honor
their free will. unless they challenge it, they are
what they have been taught to believe.

somehow find your way to ask them to honor your free
will. the example you set may help them a great deal.

namaste

robin

======

--- in asc2k@yahoogroups.com, "curball2002" <curball2002@...> wrote:
>
> hey everyone,
>
> bill brought up an interesting point and one that i have trouble
> with occassionally. how does everyone maintain their spiritual
> sanity in the face of hard criticism from others? sorry to say it,
> but particularly the hard core christian right? or those who insist
> on saving and changing you for your own good?
>
> i feel i am comfortable with my beliefs, where i am in life, and
> where i am going. though it can be difficult at times to maintain
> relationships with others who push their beliefs too much, judge
> mine harshly or just are critical about my core beliefs in general.
> despite being rather 'new agey' my family is all catholic and very
> accepting of me. many friends are christians too. but there are
> those in my life, often people i care about who seem so set
> on 'knowing' their truth and insisting i accept it as mine as well.
>
> all the best to you all, and happy thanks giving to all the
> americans on the list. lots to be thankful for!
>
> bradly
>

[dibbyruth]

dear bradly:

you wrote of your discomfort when being preached to by others who want
to convert you to their religion:

> >
> > ...how does everyone maintain their spiritual
> > sanity in the face of hard criticism from others? sorry to say it,
> > but particularly the hard core christian right? or those who insist
> > on saving and changing you for your own good?...
> >
> > bradly
> >
>

robin, from the maine woods, wrote:
>
> ....so brad, mostly we must be compassionate, as people
> generally do the best they can with what they have to
> work with. be as supportive as you can and honor
> their free will. unless they challenge it, they are
> what they have been taught to believe.
>
> somehow find your way to ask them to honor your free
> will. the example you set may help them a great deal.

ruth here:
to robin's insightful message, i'd like to add that recently i read a
section in a wanderer's handbook where carla brought up the issue of
being proselytized by others. i think it may help a bit:
"....if trapped by worried inerrantists, my usual approach is to ask for
their prayers for me and thank them for their concern. not that this
does any immediate good at getting them off our backs, but at least it
gives us something to say when they want a response."

there's more in a wanderer's handbook (chapter 4, page 93, ff.) on the
llresearch site, including some interesting stuff by q'uo on why people
proselytize.

http://llresearch.org/main.htm <http://llresearch.org/main.htm>

a wanderer's handbook may be found in their library link.

hope it helps.

blessings,
ruth





[non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[curball2002]

thanks robin and ruth for your thoughts... guess i needed some r and
r. hehe

yes i will get to the wander's handbook again soon i think. i'm
chewing/wading through the law of one series right now. happily i'm
on book five and it's so nice to have jim and carla explaining so
many things and giving so much backstory and whatnot... especially
compared to book four which can be hard to get through at times!

i liked your stratagies about dealing with these kinds of
relationships and they are along the lines of what i was already
thinking. from what the two of you said a couple more thoughts
occurred to me.

one is that it's easy to become overattached to what others think of
you. or to want or need their love or approval... (funny thing to
say when the co-dependency thread is in full swing!)

the other is that when others are pushing their beliefs on me, maybe
it's a mirror opportunity for myself to look and see if i am coming
on too strong with my own beliefs...

hmm lots of catalyst to work with out there!

thanks again and lots of love,

bradly