I have found, that the biggest ‘deterrent’ for me from getting something new done is a version of visual/mental overwhelm: when my wires get crossed.
Any occurrence of not understanding something begins the process.
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Tag Archives: Cult
What makes Sophie cry? Why is she crying?
What makes Sophie cry?
Some people like rants, others hate them. For many listening to rants is entertainment. For others ranting, yours or someone else’s is a release, like a good dump.
I hate rants, I hate ranting, and yet, occasionally getting what bugs you out to the open can be therapeutic. This article… I guess, is a rant.
On Tithing and The Law of Attraction
Tithing is a voluntary contribution. It is a giving back where you got your spiritual nourishment, your inspiration. It is keeping the blessing in movement. It is an expression of your abundance regardless of the circumstance, so it is also a state of mind creator. It has its roots in the Jewish mitzva (commandment) of leaving the edges of a cultivated land unharvested so the poor can come and collect the food. The Jewish long sideburn is a reminder of the mitzva, and tithing has some relationship to it with the Christian twist of where to give back.
I have found that tithing is a great activator of the Law of Attraction. Especially if you give often, and with the right mindset. According to Kabbalah the right mindset is a kind of spiritual or enlightened greed, give hungry for your own growth and your own enlightenment, and not from do-gooding. do-gooding is from ego (Satan)
My specialty is the mindset (or the seed level) of spiritual growth.
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Remembering Yourself… Staying Awake
I have been reading Colin Wilson: The Outsider.
Colin Wilson is one of my favorite writers. I started my course of study with him with The Mind Parasites, a science fiction novel, back in 1987.
In the books I have read, Colin Wilson is only interested (really) in a few questions: What does it mean to be a Human Being, and how to accomplish that? What is the purpose of life, and how to fulfill on that purpose?
These are exactly the questions I have been pondering for about 23 years.
If we consider the question a jigsaw puzzle, he provides the final picture, and some methodology, I provide mostly methodology.
I need Colin Wilson. My faculties to think “What is the purpose of life” are somewhat impaired. It is not my strength. My strength is to provide Kaizen type (transformative) exercises to
prepare yourself
accomplish the task.
Like any worthy goal, the preparation, the becoming the kind of person who can reach the goal, is 99% of the job. 1% is crossing the finish line.
Doing The Dishes, Kaizen, Boundaries
As difficult as dirty dishes can be, they’re even worse when you let them sit for a while. And the longer they sit, the harder they are to clean.
This is life. Something that is potentially easy to clean up right after it happens – an unkind word to your father, a lie to your best friend, an insensitivity to your girlfriend – can become a difficult mess if you don’t deal with it now.
Do the dishes today.
I have been thinking about Kaizen a lot. Kaizen can be the saving grace for a lot of people, because Kaizen is a way of life, a non-threatening way, but it is an awake way, and most of us are not awake, get jolted out of our sleepwalking by big things only. I am awake, and Kaizen is for me.
So I decided to use Kaizen to ease back into exercising. Since I stopped exercising, my face aged 10-20 years. That is a lot. I used to have no wrinkles, now I have folds, and wrinkles inside the folds… not pretty.
I have no special occasion to be pretty at, I just think that looking into the mirror should be a joyous occasion, not an occasion to berate myself.
So I am now doing 15 seconds of the exercise I used to do. I am happy. It is starting to show on my face. Hm.
Another Kaizen thing: in airplane bathrooms there is a sign that says something like this: would you be so kind as to use your paper towel to clean the sink before you throw it away?
Very Kaizen. Imagine going to the bathroom and someone’s soapy dirty washwater is still in the sink. (The airplane sink stopper needs to be manually lifted, otherwise it stops the water from emptying…) I would never wash my hand again on an airplane. But with that little Kaizen note, most 99% of the passengers follow the instructions, and everyone washes their hand. (I think that sign also reminds people to wash their hands, which many people don’t see a reason for… ).
And the third Kaizen example I read about in a Kaizen book, and it is about Toyota. The factory. They learned Kaizen from Americans… who would have thought… from Americans.
At Toyota, manufacturing cars happens on the assembly line. Nothing new there. In a normal assembly line everyone is concerned only about their part of the assembly, and the occasional errors are noticed and corrected, or not noticed and not corrected at the quality control station.
Toyota’s then CEO installed a rope switch above every workstation along the assembly line, where workers were asked to pull the rope every time they noticed an error in the work on the half-assembled car in front of them. The pull stopped the assembly line, they corrected the error, and pulled again to re-start…
It was a heretic idea, going counter with mass production. American auto manufacturers, that relied on quality control, had thousands of cars recalled, paid billions in restitution for tiny errors that weren’t corrected right after they happened.
Toyota went on to become the most reliable car. 250K cars are still sold and they run the highways: it
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Satan? Ego? Useful or Faulty Design?
I have been observing myself as a spiritual practice. Trying to “remember myself” as Gurjieff would say it, call upon the “witness” or “observer”. Be awake. Either way, I have noticed something remarkable about myself: see if you can relate.
When I am in front of my computer* (where I spend most of my day) and I encounter something that requires the slightest push on my end, I see myself automatically going to the computer game of my choice, freecell.
I began observing this phenomenon about 6 months ago (it was there, unobserved, for many years). But 4 days ago I decided to employ “restriction,” which is one of Kabbalah’s main tenets, and see what will happen.
For about 36 hours I closed the freecell program as soon as I opened it. Then every time I was “awake” which means I was by myself and I was still observing myself. On the other hand, every time I was on the phone, or watching a video on my computer, or listening to an audio file, my attention wasn’t on myself, and I played… until I “woke up.”
Still curious, more interested in the experiment than conquering the force that moves my hand, I saw something today that is worth sharing.
Since I have started this blog, I have been watching how I somehow leak the energy that is necessary for creative thinking and expression… by talking on the phone, by playing freecell.
Every occasion when I need the little push and I opt to play instead, two things happen: 1. I have diminished the internal discomfort 2. I have successfully diverted my attention from what is important to me.
The first one is good, right? Who would want to be uncomfortable, after all.
What is Kabbalah and Why Should You Care?
Imagine that you got yourself a car without a user’s manual. Or a computer. And there would be no person that you know that even knows what they are about… these items would rust, collect dust, be in the way… instead of giving you the power to quickly get from one place to the other, or to solve seemingly impossible problems, communicate to millions with your computer.
This is exactly the situation with regards to life on Earth, with regards to human beings.
Billions of people wonder, daily, why they are here, and what they are supposed to do. Are you one of them? I sure am and have been.
Billions of people wonder why life isn’t working the way it is supposed to work… because somehow we KNOW that life is supposed to be satisfying, joyous, and full of light and love and pleasure.
What if there were a User’s Manual, and it were being “translated” little by little, so every human being that is interested in “riding the horse in the direction it’s going” could figure out which direction the horse is going. Because with life it is not that easy: even though the smell (life stinks) gives us clues… but life is ultimately more complicated that riding a horse.
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Kabbalah String aka Red String
This blog (on Kabbalah) is new, and I decided to look for a logo image for it. A picture of a left wrist with the famous red string around it felt like an excellent idea.
So I went on Google and search for “Kabbalah String.” What a mistake. First off, there were 420 thousand pages listed. Intimidating. Second: most of those sites are hellbent at throwing dirt, venom, spit, at Kabbalah, and everything that has anything to do with Kabbalah. They call it a religion: it is not. They call it a cult: it is not.
I resisted being sucked into …
Make your plane go where you want it to go… or what one thing you want to learn from Babe Ruth
Make your plane go where you want it to go…
This is probably the most shocking sentence in the whole 67 step program.
I literally don’t know anyone who lives that way.
People try to succeed, try a diet, try this and try that… while their plane crashes in every area.
So what is the difference between who are like that, who are on their way to become that kind of person, and others who never ever land their plane on the landing strip?
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Your life is like a boat on sea… Where it’s going is given by the drift 96%
Every learning is becoming. Every action that is aimed at learning but doesn’t lead to becoming… is not learning, it is just a pretense. Treading water. The drift.
But becoming is not easy, and it takes longer than you would expect. OK, longer than I expect. Longer than I have been expecting… 🙁
Why? because some of the learning requires you to be “right there”, ready for that particular learning. You first need to become ready.
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