What's beyond the walls? discussing aspects of existence

Hiiii Angel6,
Nice to hear from you, thought you were MIA.
More than glad to answer your question:
First of all let me ask you a 2 part question. Do we die and if we do, what happens to us?
Think of the gate and how it opens and what is meant by the definition because of who uses the phrase.

The narrow road: We do not choose the road. It chooses us!
It is a popular thought, especially in religious rigidity, that we choose God, but rather the reality is God reaches down to us. Religion is us reaching to God. Relationship is God reaching to us.
Therefore the option of the 'road' is given to us. Free will is always a factor, but the choice changes when we are 'touched.'

Angelsix, apologies for the use of 'small mind' without giving its full context. 'Small mind' is an expression used vis-a-vis 'Big Mind'.



We human beings all have a 'small mind' perspective when we come from 'self' as our primary way of relating and understanding the world we live in. No problem, no blame. We just do. Big Mind describes a perspective where there are no self-created boundaries, in fact, where small mind is accepted as being an aspect of Big Mind. It is accepting that we have a self, a sense of separation, of doer-ship, me-consciousness, and, seeing that, transcending and 'dying' to it. It is recognizing that we are not just small mind (body/mind, unit, self), but limit-less and form-less as well.



As far as I know and practice, it's the perspective that sees 'others' as different but not separate from 'me', from where one is able to love one's neighbour as one's own self.



Over time I found myself pushing this 'don't believe in' stance. That's because over the many years as a 'seeker', I became stuck on believing in this or that scripture, this or that guru/teacher, this or that concept, etc. which at the time I considered ‘my’ knowledge. I had attached my identity to some specific knowledge, a belief system, living and understanding life vicariously through it. That is a strong feature of 'small mind' perspective. Other strong features are: accepting one belief and rejecting another, comparing and judging events, etc. as good and bad, right and wrong; and the inclination to understand life through thought and concepts (even when things ‘make sense’ it doesn’t mean they are true).

Therefore, I don’t ‘believe in’ Jesus (Buddha, Krishna, etc.). I heard what they said and checked out how valid it is in my life. Even more emphatically, I don’t ‘believe in’ the Bible, Koran, Vedas and Sutras but I have read them and consider (most of) them as valid pointers to how to live the Divine Life.

Meeting a modern, living sage is an unbelievable gift. There are quite a few around nowadays. Adyashanti is one. However, the gift can get spoiled when we start to believe in the messenger rather than hearing and living the message.


Back to ‘small mind’: it’s not a description of ‘you’. It’s not personal. It’s a way of seeing. I think that’s what Kolomo and Clouddust are also saying. Unless we engage in some form of inquiry of who/what we are (e.g. Who Am I?) we are not likely to see it as an impersonal mechanism.


That may be all pretty heavy stuff, so like many other things that are said, take it just as an open expression of someone’s experience. I found it’s critical to find one’s own voice and way of expressing what one knows.


Let us hear what you know.

Although I believe there is a core commonality in all our views, the angle of our personal beliefs may be quite different. I see this site simply as a place to express and hone our personal beliefs, not to critique or instruct others. Now with that in mind, I very much appreciate Bees views expressed in his post but my view is quite different and for some reason while sitting in bed Saturday morning I felt a desire to express them. I am not a big fan of karma. The way I see it (I’m not saying anyone is right or wrong) the concept of karma is too relative depending on culture conditions. People involved in what we call terrorist groups may have a very different code with respect to creating ‘good’ karma. I see karma as an artificial construct for a society to control people. I also have trouble with this big mind, small mind business. To me it seems like all these ideas and mental constructs are part of the dreamed world. Who is to say what is big mind or small mind? Is that not just the objectified self (the dreamed one) spinning off concepts? In other words, the dreamed figure dreaming he or she has found truths. Yet, at the same time, I see these appearance are none other than the truth. It is a matter of discriminatingly identifying with the objectified content of a thought instead of there being a recognition that phenomenal appearances (created by thought) are of the formless (not one, not two) truth, much as expressed though the wave and ocean analogy. This site is a bit unique because we all have very different views. I sincerely hope that I am not critiquing or criticizing anyone.

There is nothing quite like different points of view of life being expressed to question our old belief systems.
Take a subject like karma.
Do I believe I have the ability to make decisions?
If I decide to step off a cliff am I then surprised what will happen?
No, as I know there is a natural law called gravity because the effects are immediately obvious.
So is there not a natural law that is far more complex and profound but hidden that we could, for want of a better word, call karma?
This has nothing to do with any belief system of mine as it is something I have been able to observe. Holding an open awareness I have observed the outcomes over time of using the motivation of love and what it can affect in my life.
I know I have the choice of viewing life with an underlying total acceptance, or more accurately, with what I call love.
Love is the welcoming, it is the invitation of where my attention is focused.
I can apply it to all life, to others, to animals, to plants, and also to circumstances. Sometimes not easy but it is my invocation, I alone decide how I view all life, no one else but me. I can also not apply love or acceptance and blame others for outcomes and aspects of my life.
Karma is just a word which often can lead us to delve into our belief systems, but I use it for want of finding a more fitting description of my choice in the underlying energy I use to partake in this life.
No one else has the choice of what energy I do use but me.
Everything has it's outcome, the reasons though are not as obvious as the law of gravity.

PS. They way I am free to look at these events in Paris is I am able to hold a realisation that the majority there are safe and protected and have a freedom many others in the world do not. I can open my own heart and see the love and care and the way they all have supported each other. I have total freedom to see their love for each other and not the fear.

What is life?
Is it not part of 'All That Is'?
If we say yes and acknowledge It is then for life to continue It simply has to be self-renewing.
All Life Itself has cycles and these cycles play out in the naturalness of all creation. Cycles also happen in the manufactured as opposed to the natural environment, but when we remember that, everything regardless still occurs in and as the One nature.
All death is the cycle of renewing, but often as we are so caught in the particle as opposed to the Whole, we don't see It.
Life renewing Itself is growth otherwise the opposite is decay.
All the facets of love enable us to have a more conscious self-renewing.
So what are the mechanics and how do we describe the process of all nature's evolution?
Is there another name better to use than karma, maybe remembering that this description may have a much broader application than our rather narrow understanding allows us to perceive the fullness of how it describes all the growth and self-renewal involved in evolution?

Hi everyone (Arlene, are you still con?),
I’m glad that there is a new sense of meaningfulness to our exchange of views and expressions. In fact, I feel there is a more conscious recognition of the benefit of diversity (in style, emphasis, interest) as we address some big questions on “We are all IT”.

At the risk of revisiting that theme once more, it’s important for me/us not to get attached to anything I/we say (the words, the content itself) and yet say it with all the conviction that we have in our current, present understanding (the spirit, the context of those words). What I say is not about being objectively ‘true’, but speaking my truth, as a reflection of ‘where I’m at’, of my state of consciousness. The great benefit in putting it out there for others to look at and comment on is that we get a reality check. The universe, in the form of other humans, is responding back!

I’ll be away for the next fortnight and will not be able to participate in these conversations. So, here are a few thoughts on the latest posts.

‘Small mind’ and ‘Big Mind’. They are not two ‘things’, they are aspects, descriptions of the One No-Thing; similar to ‘lower’ and ‘higher ’self, yin and yang. Right Now, if I don’t think about it, things are as they are, they simply arise. There is neither small mind nor big mind. It’s all Mind, as the Buddhists like to say! The small mind expression is pointing to the experience of a sense of ‘me’ acting, choosing, and living independently within an environment made of ‘others’ (people and objects). If I come to believe that ‘me’ is the center of my life, I am acting from ‘small mind’. That generates karma. If I recognize that ‘me’ is not the center but a perspective, that in fact Life is without a center, boundless and timeless, seeking nothing, Accepting this ordinary life of birth and death part of All There Is, then I am acting from Big Mind: no karma. From Big Mind I can ‘forgive them because they know not’. It’s the Mind of Love and Compassion. One can experience moving up and down the ladder of consciousness. Death and rebirth make sense in that context of ongoing evolution or regression.

Right and wrong (good and bad). These are adjectives that we use to describe our reaction to events. As they say, “a man’s meat is another man’s poison”; what I consider wrong may well be right for someone else; same for good and bad (Shakespeare’s “There is no such thing as good and bad, but thinking makes it so”). In other words, they are man-made. If that question is applied to acts of criminality (including terrorism) then it's a very complex issue as to what motivates people. A psychopath, for example, can kill and feel no remorse. Others do it out of anger, mental illness, etc. Many terrorists, I understand, come from a deeply held belief that what they are doing is somehow worthy (they have been radicalized).  Cain and Abel is the primordial case of any man killing another. The root cause is that they do not see the other as their own self. That happens only when unconditional love arises as a primary perspective.