Bad Advice
Advice often comes from the Blind. People in emotional pain reach out, to anyone, even those that don’t know how to help. Although they try to help, and intend to help, they don’t. Sometimes they just make things worse.
In a forum someone wrote:
I am very miserbale and sometimes feel like giving up. What are some things that I can do to be happy. Do you know of any websites I could use?….ANYTHING
Are you happy?What makes you happy? — Miserable
One of the bits of advice they got back was:
Think about a warm puppy. Another person suggested to forget about your self for a while and focus on helping others.
Other bits were helpful, but too often people give advice that can’t be integrated. IF this person is really miserable then it is unlikely that they will be able to focus their attention on a warm puppy. They might think about a warm puppy, but jump to the fact that they want one but don’t have one. If a person doesn’t have the skill to focus their attention where they choose, then suggesting that they focus on something positive is not just a waste of time, but setting them up for failure. This will take them on a deeper downward spiral.
If a person is drowning, do you suggest to them that they try the breast stroke?
Then if a person is drowning in emotional suffering there are many good intentions, suggestions, and advice that don’t amount to a life raft or a helping hand. If you don’t have something that you know will help, then don’t throw anything that will help them sink further.
Learning Self Mastery Skills takes Time
What does it take to learn the skills to master your attention, focusing your mind, beliefs, and your emotions? These are all skills that lead to Self Mastery
In spite of what the inner judge expects, it will take some time. How much time would you give your self to become good at playing a musical instrument? Perhaps a year with hard work. Even after that you would continue to improve on those skills for years afterwards.
The skills of mastering your mind and emotions deserves that same respect of time.
If this were just the knowledge that comes from reading or memorization then that would be a different matter. But that isn’t the case.
JW. asks about Control Folly
So I’m battling with this idea of controlled folly. ( I think I know what you would say, don’t believe in controlled folly, lol). Do you have your own personal idea of what that is? I have a couple of interpretations of what that means. One would be to live in a state of love and grace while still respecting peoples fear boundary’s. Another would be to extract deeper meaning from what people say while still acting like there is little meaning in the way things happen.
Thanks for your time Gary, I always appreciate hearing from you.
JW
Dear JW.
For a Spiritual Warrior Control Folly doesn’t have much value as a practice until they have cleaned their mind of all old beliefs and social domestication. At that point a warrior has the option to act in any circumstance with an infinite number of choices. Any one of his actions is completely unimportant. However if a Spiritual Warrior chooses, he will engage in the experience in a way that is deeply connected and meaningful. That is Control Folley.
To engage in a way that is with complete respect and with unconditional love is just the common sense choice to be Impeccable.
Control Folly is really only something that can be done once a Warrior has cleaned their mind of old beliefs and dispensed with all their old habits. Until then a person can too easily delude themselves into believing they are making a choice.
Gary
The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking. - John Kenneth Galbraith
Learning to think for your self requires that you first un-learn how society and the world taught you to think.
Since we are so enmeshed in our own world of thinking and beliefs it isn’t a straight forward process. It is further complicated by the fact that you only have at your disposal your current thinking process to figure out how to dissolve your thinking.
You can not be sitting in your current belief system and use it to get our of the belief system you are in.
This is one of the reasons why the Nagual (Guide to the Spirit) provides the minimal chance for a Spiritual Warriors personal freedom.
Loyalty, like any trait, can be an exemplary quality stemming from your integrity, and it can also be your down fall into misery.
To stay in your integrity you will need to balance loyalty with flexibility and freedom.
A personal development program or Spiritual Teacher doesn’t empower individuals. No program or person can “empower” someone. People already have extraordinary personal power. It’s just that people typically expend their extraordinary power on ordinary activities and limiting fear based beliefs.
A Teacher doesn’t empower you. A Teacher or process assists you in clearing away the fears, illusions, and beliefs that have trapped your personal power. Thereby making it free for you to use.
In the beginning was the word.
Shortly there after came misinterpretation, assumptions, and misunderstandings.
Then came the chaos.
