To: K-list
Recieved: 2003/02/19 22:45
Subject: Re: [K-list] Cliff Jumping
From: Mystress Angelique Serpent
On 2003/02/19 22:45, Mystress Angelique Serpent posted thus to the K-list:
At 01:18 PM 19/02/03, felix wrote:
>Unlike Castenada, who was brought to the mountain top by Don Carlos and
>Don Genaro, who had their disciples jump off because of their faith in
>their teachers,
This is a common Zen story too.
>I did this for about 7-10 years between the ages of 15 into my 30s. During
>this series of sojourns I fell into many situations like the Yosemite
>experience, where divine power was the only thing that allowed me to survive.
I did some similar things, but on a much, much smaller scale. Enough,
to learn "Goddess provides." and that reality is not solid, but self
created of belief.
>The ones who appeared to be appointed always gnew exactly what I most
>desperately needed and offered it up without my asking. Upon reflection, I
>truly do not think they were regular human beings.
Angels among us.
>That's why I think the command was given to go out under those conditions.
The Buddha made a similar instruction to his devotees.
Elsewhere, and at other times, I have written that in my experience,
getting past scarcity consciousness cannot be taught, or given, but it can
be learned. Leaps of faith coming in baby steps, faith as a muscle that
gets stronger with use, until evidence and validation turns faith into
knowing. Beliefs change, reality changes.
>Some British philosopher/poet called Alexander Pope made a statement I
>read somewhere: Modesty is the art of power. I take that to mean that
>unless power is dealt with in an artful manner it will destroy you.
With Kundalini, using power for ego purposes makes a karmic feedback
effect, smack upside the head. The miracles come of surrender, humility...
> The Yosemite thing was the most powerful humiliation I ever received...
> that I remember. Everything I thought I 'knew' was brought to nothingness.
So it is. Destruction as a divine gift. Tarot card of the Tower.
>This is why I think in the Gospel of Thomas Jesus said that to follow him
>one had to hate their mother and father. They have to hate having infinite
>potential devastated by accepting those limitations imposed by one's
>caregivers.
For me, the plantpot incident... the realization I knew things my
Mother did not, and so I could not trust her to really parent me... but
also that I was small and weak, and would have to pretend I belonged. The
social mask of ego is born, but fractured.
Such experiences happen to all children. On some level, they are told
that they have to play the game of being physical, and forget where they
came from. Most, do. Some remember later, discover it by accident or as a
result of a spiritual path.
The ego is important for a child's socialization, necessary for
learning. The North American Natives, before the white man came held a
coming of age ritual for their pubescent children... an ego-death, where
the child and the things of childhood was symbolically killed, and the new
adult was sent off to visionquest without food or water for three days
alone in the wilds, till they had a vision that gave them their new name,
new sense of self. The child ego is necessary, but once its purpose is
done, it was dismantled and released.
"All my relations", they were all enlightened, aware of their unity
with all, and their individuality. "Today is a good day to die", whole
different sense of mortality.
A Pagan High Priest friend tells the story of visiting a Native Shaman.
A hunter came in, paid the Shaman $50. to ask, "Where are the elk?" The
Shaman did his thing, with the drumming and the fire and the dance, and
told him "there are five elk in this place." The hunter left, satisfied.
Another hunter came in, paid the $50, and asked the same question. Same
result, the drumming and the fire, etc except the answer was, "There are 50
elk in this place." The second hunter left, satisfied.
My Pagan friend asked the Shaman. "Why did you do the ritual again, when
you already knew the answer, and why tell one man 5 elk and the other 50 elk?"
The Shaman responded: "First, they both paid for the show, so they got
the show.. Second, the first man only has the ability to see 5 elk, the
other man can see 50.
Leaving my friend with his brain turned inside out, to how the world
appeared to the Shaman's eyes. I think I understand the Shaman's
perspective better than my Pagan friend, the world is not fixed, but
fluid... but I see the Shamans vision as superior to my own. Perhaps,
because I was never made to jump off a cliff. : )
A man came to me, wanting to be slave and devotee. I set him to work,
weeding my garden, with instructions to also harvest the potatoes that
where planted here and there. It was to be an exercise in mindfullness. He
bombed. Spent the whole time being angry at being asked to do the work. He
did not see a single potato, not even the bright red ones sitting right on
the surface of the soil he had dug up. He had ripped the potato tops off,
as weeds. Told me emphatically "There are no potatoes in this garden." I
pointed the obvious potatoes out to him and sent him home.
Days later, I sent another slave student, out into the garden to dig
for potatoes... the tops no longer present to mark the location. She came
back with a bushel load. It became a catch phrase for scarcity
consciousness, a running joke. "No potatoes." I dug the garden myself,
later and it seemed every shovelful of dirt had a potato in it, even dirt
from plantpots where no potatoes had been planted, had at least one potato
appearing inexplicably. The flower gardens in the front yard yielded some
potatoes too.
The following year, there were even more potatoes we had missed
sprouting all over the gardens.
Last fall, I dug up many potatoes, but they were all small, and full of
worm holes... a message to me that "something is out of tune." I'll give
them to the compost.
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