So I ended up reading this correspondence first but it has been very revealing to me as I was able to connect just how I am being and affecting others and how others affect me in real time. One of the things that this highlighted for me is the nature of this feeling of doubt inside me that other people know something that I don’t. But what’s actually happening is there’s a “battle” or undercurrent in what they are saying versus what they are being. This is most apparent in my relationship as I find that there are times that my partner and I “butt heads”. I feel like I am saying something reasonable or sensible but underneath I am battling in force feeding my point to her. I am more acutely aware now of ‘me’ in everything I say or do that gets in the way of peace and harmony.
At work I was speaking with someone casually (while I was feeling good) and noticed intuitively how I had an automatic “tuning in” to the other person. How I was being pulled to them in a way and I instinctually pulled back. Which instinctive tug-of-war is apparent now in every interaction. Just yesterday I also saw actively while speaking with my partner how it was ‘me’ that was in the way when I was offering my thoughts to her. The moment I dropped below feeling good while speaking with her, I noted what it was. And in every instance it was my expectation or desire of how I wanted her to receive my thoughts. And that seeing was enough for me to get back to feeling good. It didn’t matter how she received it as long as I was really feeling happy and harmless. And it’s strange as I write that as it seems like I’m being accused of being uncaring. But I also note how completely different this is from the application of morality as even an action imbued with love is also an exertion of power. So much interaction is actually a subliminal power battle and it makes me wonder what exactly is the need for it.
I’ve never looked at it in the way of seeing it as compassion before but it does make sense. There are times I do imagine being a “Saviour” and how if I could just end the suffering of others I would. All the while in the back of my head, I know it to be very insincere as I would at root be the same as everyone else. Reading that audio-taped dialogue, what I realized is how any action taken by being the love or compassion is ultimately bound to fail (in effecting peace and harmony). I can see how this fits in with the psychic web as well. I am reminded of an instance where one of my friends had been sharing her emotional turmoil in regards her relationship. The entire time she was talking I was tuned into how she was feeling and as I was suggesting my advice to her, I was simultaneously and subliminally turning her ‘bad’ feeling into a ‘good’ feeling in myself and reflecting it back at her. But I found doing this kind of thing as rather exhausting. And I can’t seem to find the correspondence so I may be off in my recall but I remember reading something Richard wrote where how the help or caring being provided when one is compassionate or empathetic is the very compassion or empathy itself and not any actual help. That has stuck with me for some reason.
But back to identifying with the ‘many’ who suffer. I tune into the suffering because I feel that by tuning in I could do something about it. But now I find that the only action I can take is compassion and/or becoming a “Saviour” of some sort. Then also I must tune in (which I note that the tuning in is also being the suffering) or otherwise I am accused of being selfish. I’ve noted this before so I’m going in circles maybe. But seeing as how even the biggest action of Compassion (such as that with Buddha) has not alleviated the suffering, what other action could there be aside from compassion? What is it to be of an actual help?
I must say I had to read this three times because I did not quite “get it” but I was able to apprehend something intuitively with the following two parts that stuck out to me:
I will also comment that one of the reasons that I resent having to work is the unpleasantness of vibes. But previously I was “helpless” so now I do not have to be.
I was more likening Spongebob in that video to the figurative sponge that absorbs insults and the attacker as delivering the rudeness, insults, and slights with his punches. And further in the video, Spongebob goes about his day happily while the “punches” have no effect as he is a sponge and neither does he have to wringe it out. And in the final part, it was shown that his attacks fell flat (also found funny that this aggressor’s name was Flats). Although I am aware that it’s not saying the same thing as Richard. Or I could be off the mark even with that understanding. Either way it may be too much of a digression.
But to come back to the topic, I do find it interesting that giving and taking offense relates directly to vibes and psychic currents. Now that I am casting more attention on this phenomenon, I am rather astonished at how much of a role it plays in the real world. Maybe respect and disrespect as it is talked about in the real world also relates to giving and taking offense. I liken this part to “keeping your hands in your pockets”:
..absorbing all the rudeness, all the insults, all the slights (no knee-jerk reactionary rudeness; no retaliatory retorts; no keeping score, even, of past incidences)..
My question now is, if as a ‘being’, I am always involuntarily transmitting and receiving vibes and psychic currents, how can I as a ‘being’ have this affective and psychic attacking/defending fall flat? My current understanding is that the conceiving of being a sponge is maintaining the intent to be happy and harmless in every situation or circumstance. I would still experience those vibes and have a reaction accordingly, but I would neither repress or express them if they came up. To bring it back to more of an experiential understanding, I wrote earlier that how I was able to choose feeling good. This understanding came when I realized that there are no rules or anyone standing in my way in being happy and harmless and that it is my choice alone. I can feel good come what may and it is ‘me’ that is standing in the way.
This section was very elucidating:
Richard: Thus the identity in situ at the beginning of 1981 went right to the heart of the matter from the get-go. The crux of the issue is that, as each and every identity is a feeling-being at root (i.e., ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’), all identities are hereditarily programmed by blind nature to emotionally-passionally react, instantaneously, to affectively-felt and/or psychically-intuited threats to their existence because, at their very core, it is ‘being’ itself at dire risk (i.e., ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself).
(It is a genetic hangover from long-ago ancestral eras already many millions of years old when sapience emerged around 100+ millennia ago – as a boy, a youth, a young man, hunting game in the wild plus interacting daily with domesticated animals, revealed to me how they relied as much, if not more, on what was known generically as a ‘sixth sense’ as upon an acute sense of smell, alert hearing and keen eyesight in order to evade predation – which has become a liability, for modern-day humankind, rather than the asset it once was).
Now, because the pure consciousness experience (PCE) – where ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is in abeyance (unlike an altered state of consciousness (ASC) where ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being reigns supreme as ‘Being’ itself) for the duration – experientially demonstrates how each and every identity has no existence whatsoever in actuality then any such offensiveness (previously experienced as affective/ psychic threats to ‘my’ existence/ to ‘my’ very ‘being’) loses its existential sting/ no longer has its dire effect.
Indeed, ‘all the rudeness, all the insults, all the slights’, and etcetera, soon become rather exquisite aids in ferreting-out any aspects of ‘me’ which have eluded exposure through hands-on inspection up till then (hence my parenthetical remark about the metaphorical ‘wringing it out’ ploy not being necessary, in practice, and my further above observation regarding the absorbability of offensive language/ offensive gestures being nigh-on infinite in regards quantity).
The part that I bolded sticks out to me the most and has been happening more and more.