truth seeker
The Living Force
Thanks much for the clarification AI and apologies for any confusion everyone. :)
Gertrudes said:Oxajil said:Yes I would say you are. If you are directing to DCM, you are directing to Him/Her. You decide that, I think. And I think you've been doing it just fine with asking for help. And you could also ask things that don't have much to do with your learning directly, for example asking for help with money, or asking for protection etc.
Thank you Oxajil.
I'm still working on my "talks" with DCM.
Despite the fact that I have lately tended to be more concrete, I have often hesitated when asking for help with some specific things, such as money for example. I don't know what is or isn't part of my lesson, so I tend to ask DCM to help me see and understand what I need to in order to progress with those specific issues. I think that you have worded it well when you said: "help with money", it doesn't dictate how you wish to see you request fulfilled, but rather expresses an open wish for help with a particular problem.
Approaching Infinity said:If a prayer is said so that the meaning of each word is considered and questioned (e.g. the prayer "God have mercy upon me"), then the thoughts and questions that accompany the prayer will do for the man what he asks God to do. However, this prayer repeated mechanically can have no beneficial results. ... While his wife was dying, Gurdjieff asked [Fritz] Peters to make a strong wish for her, saying that a wish from the heart can help, like a prayer, when it is for someone else, through not for oneself ...
AI said:So there are wishes/prayers for others, and for ourselves. To me, a prayer to DCM is a kind of "fake it till you make it" thing. By repeating the prayer and really meditating on it, we hope to live and experience the content of the prayer, for example, clearing our eyes and hears, cleansing our heart, knowing and loving true existence, embodying the DCM in our daily lives and being sustained by it. And we can pray to our higher self, our ideal, to keep what we have experienced and learned in our Being, to integrate into ourselves. Gurdjieff and Dabrowski talked about the ideal as an "intermediate self". It's the part between us "as we are", and God/DCM. It's the personal ideal we strive towards, step by step.
AI said:There's also this to consider, from the Wave:
AI said:I think this is important to keep in mind when making "petitioning" prayers for certain things or outcomes. That's not the purpose of real prayer, as in the POTS. By meditating on the words of the POTS, it's like we resonate with them, with the effect that the words become true in our lives. Focusing on the meaning, and feeling the content of the words, turns off the left-brain anticipation.
AI said:It's saying "yes" and being open to the words of the prayer in the present, as opposed to the "no" which is inherent in anticipation.
Oxajil said:Yes, but also open the possibility that you will not be helped. It's like, just asking, and at the same time working for it too. In my opinion, it has a lot to do with your intent.
I've been praying all my life and DCM seems to surprise me every time. Sometimes I think She helped me in the past, because I can repay her now. But I think it's more of a continuous thing, you give and receive. Sometimes you can handle things on your own, sometimes you need some help. The key is to always remain open. That is what I've learned. I also find AI's post very interesting.
Oxajil said:To remain on topic, I have observed that somehow, my bond with DCM, is stronger than ever. I think the meditation and POTS has helped with this very much. Since it is more like a feeling of a strong presence, I can not be objective about this of course, so I remain open to what it is.
What is wrong with efforts to send love and light, the achieving of the goals of world peace or personal prosperity? What is wrong with wanting a return to God, or higher consciousness or any of the touted experiences that are guaranteed to initiate a person to whatever they desire? The problem is anticipation. When you seek any of these things by holding the thoughts in the left-brain in anticipation of making it real, you are raping the maiden of the well.
What if you are just trying to believe it is now? Belief is a function of the left brain; it blocks the manifestation of creativity because the creative right brain is also the empirical half of the brain that observes the dichotomy between the belief and the reality.
Desire is anticipation. Anticipation is read by the right brain as in the future, therefore not right now, and the right brain can only create now. When we desire, we have a future object in mind. The right brain only knows now.
If we desire to love God, we have a concept (left brain) of the future goal of loving God. It can’t exist now. Therefore we experience struggle to constantly love God, against the ongoing now of not loving God.
If we desire to win the lottery, and produce in the left brain future image of money flowing into our life, it isn’t now. So now continues moneyless.
If we desire happiness, and create the concept in the left brain, we have future happiness in mind. And the right brain reads it as unhappiness now, and this can manifest in thousands of unhappy experiences.
By the same token, if we send love and light to any directed recipient, we are holding a concept of future fixing that signals a state of brokenness now to our right brain, and the repercussions are felt in our life. In a larger sense, we may be signaling the collective right brain that a future state of peace is desired, and therefore, now is not peaceful. And so the right brain creates now. The perception of linear time constantly projects rewards into the future, blocking access to the present, like a donkey chasing a carrot for all eternity.
Gertrudes said:I think that you might be answering to my previous question here. There is a difference between anticipating, and feeling and incorporating the prayer's content into one's being. It is a tricky issue. Perhaps it has partly to do with the nature of the wish, combined with how opened one is in the present moment to the content of what he/she is praying.
Although for the exact definition of the second of these human
impulses in the contemporary English language there is a word, namely
"wish," it is nevertheless employed by you Americans, as well as by the
English people themselves, only in order to vary, of course
unconsciously, the degree of the expression of that so to say "slavish
impulse" for which there are, particularly in this language, a multitude
of words as, for example, "like," "want," "need," "desire" and so on. ...
When "I wish"—I feel with my whole being that I wish, and can
wish. This does not mean that I want, that I need, that I like or, lastly,
that I desire. No. "I wish." I never like, never want, I do not desire
anything and I do not need anything—all this is slavery; if "I wish"
something, I must like it, even if I do not like it. I can wish to like it,
because "I can."
I wish—I feel with my whole body that I wish.
I wish—because I can wish.
Bluestar said:So for example instead of praying for well being and health, we give thanks for our well being and health or instead of praying for money, we give thanks for the ability to afford all that is needed for what is needed?
Gertrudes said:Oxajil said:Yes I would say you are. If you are directing to DCM, you are directing to Him/Her. You decide that, I think. And I think you've been doing it just fine with asking for help. And you could also ask things that don't have much to do with your learning directly, for example asking for help with money, or asking for protection etc.
Thank you Oxajil.
I'm still working on my "talks" with DCM.
Despite the fact that I have lately tended to be more concrete, I have often hesitated when asking for help with some specific things, such as money for example. I don't know what is or isn't part of my lesson, so I tend to ask DCM to help me see and understand what I need to in order to progress with those specific issues. I think that you have worded it well when you said: "help with money", it doesn't dictate how you wish to see you request fulfilled, but rather expresses an open wish for help with a particular problem.
When I Asked God for Strength, He Gave Me Difficult Situations to Face
When I Asked God for Brain & Brawn, He Gave Me Puzzles in Life to Solve
When I Asked God for Happiness, He Showed Me Some Unhappy People
When I Asked God for Wealth, He Showed Me How to Work Hard
When I Asked God for Favors, He Showed Me Opportunities to Work Hard
When I Asked God for Peace, He Showed Me How to Help Others
God Gave Me Nothing I Wanted, He Gave Me Everything I Needed
- Swami Vivekananda
Approaching Infinity said:But before one can truly wish (and here I think wish has something to do with having a true will, not a will influenced by programs), one needs knowledge and being. Just like Gurdjieff advised to "remember to self-remember" (because self-remembering isn't possible at first), maybe one must "wish to Wish". How do you do that without anticipation?
I wish—I feel with my whole body that I wish.
I wish—because I can wish.
"If knowledge outweighs being a man knows but has no power to do. It is useless knowledge. On the other hand if being outweighs knowledge a man has the power to do, but does not know, that is, he can do something but does not know what to do. The being he has acquired becomes aimless and efforts made to attain it prove to be useless.[...]
"The difference between knowledge and understanding becomes clear when we realize that knowledge may be the function of one center. Understanding, however, is the function of three centers. Thus the thinking apparatus may know something. But understanding appears only when a man feels and senses what is connected with it.
"According to real, exact knowledge, one force, or two forces, can never produce a phenomenon. The presence of a third force is necessary, for it is only with the help of a third force that the first two can produce what may be called a phenomenon, no matter in what sphere.[...]
"But by studying himself, the manifestations of his thought, consciousness, activity—his habits, his desires, and so on—man may learn to observe and to see in himself the action of the three forces. Let us suppose, for instance, that a man wants to work on himself in order to change certain of his characteristics, to attain a higher level of being. His desire, his initiative, is the active force. The inertia of all his habitual psychological life which shows opposition to his initiative will be the passive or the negative force.
The two forces will either counterbalance one another, or one will completely conquer the other, but, at the same time, it will become too weak for any further action. Thus the two forces will, as it were, revolve one around the other, one absorbing the other and producing no result whatever. This may continue for a lifetime. A man may feel desire and initiative. But all this initiative may be absorbed in overcoming the habitual inertia of life, leaving nothing for the purpose towards which the initiative ought to be directed. And so it may go on until the third force makes its appearance, in the form, for instance, of new knowledge, showing at once the advantage or the necessity of work on oneself and, in this way, supporting and strengthening the initiative. Then the initiative, with the support of this third force, may conquer inertia and the man becomes active in the desired direction.
"Examples of the action of the three forces, and the moments of entry of the third force, may be discovered in all manifestations of our psychic life, in all phenomena of the life of human communities and of humanity as a whole, and in all the phenomena of nature around us.
When one is torn by internal struggle, it is because down in the depths one knows that one is incapable of refusing the agreement that an indispensable part of the self, the glowing coat of awareness, is going to serve as an incomprehensible source of nourishment to incomprehensible entities. And, another part of one will stand against this situation with all its might.[...]
The essence of Creation is the fact that, beneath the empirical, observable "real world" is the realm of potentials and our physical world is manifested out of the underlying potentialities by our perspective. The "gift of Free Will" of the Creator is our ability to CHOOSE our perspective. We can choose "living water" that becomes "a spring of water welling up continually within," to "eternal life/creation," or we can choose the water from the "well of Jacob the supplanter," which will leave us thirsty again and again. And it is in this choice that we come to the remark of Don Juan "... As awareness reaches levels higher than the toes, tremendous maneuvers of perception become a matter of course."
Bluestar said:So for example instead of praying for well being and health, we give thanks for our well being and health or instead of praying for money, we give thanks for the ability to afford all that is needed for what is needed?
Approaching Infinity said:Well, one thing to consider is "wishing" itself. Here's what Gurdjieff wrote in Life Is Real:
AI said:By meditating on God "living in us", God comes to live in us. That's a slightly different approach than asking and begging God to live in us. It's also different than just saying, "God lives in me," which isn't really different than many New Age affirmations. It's a subtle difference, and I don't know if I'm doing a good job of trying to explain it.
AI said:As for immediate problem issues, I'd recommend dealing with them more as problems to be solved. "What can I do about this?" "What might be the belief influencing this particular area in my life?" If money is an issue, don't just pray for money. Do the POTS. Also, actively think and try to come up with possible solutions. For example, I know some business owners who struggle with money. In their cases it helps to ask, "Am I doing everything I can with my business? Are there areas I can focus on that might bring in more money? Am I perhaps not charging enough for certain services, and too much for others?" Those kinds of things.
Windmill Knight said:This discussion reminded me of this little poem that is found all over the web:
Keit said:And so it appears that true wishing is active. Perhaps initiated and then maintained by the whole being. It is not a momentary "I like" or "want" right now, but it is like a constant background flow that sends out a signal to the Universe similar to a frequency signature. Perhaps it is something that can be considered as a phenomenon:
(...)
Perhaps realm of potentials is a realm of wishes waiting to be manifested if the right vessels will be present. And in order for the vessel to be ready, one has to work on resolving inner struggles, because this will allow the wish, that utilizes and works in unison with the whole body and being, to be manifested.
In this context, Prayer of the Soul is perhaps a signal to the Universe that one is willing and open for the Universe to assist and present one with what ever modifications required for the wish become a manifestation. And sometimes it requires some really hard core modifications! Grin Maybe the saying "be careful what you wish for" can apply here! Smiley
Windmill knight said:Gertrudes said:Oxajil said:Yes I would say you are. If you are directing to DCM, you are directing to Him/Her. You decide that, I think. And I think you've been doing it just fine with asking for help. And you could also ask things that don't have much to do with your learning directly, for example asking for help with money, or asking for protection etc.
Thank you Oxajil.
I'm still working on my "talks" with DCM.
Despite the fact that I have lately tended to be more concrete, I have often hesitated when asking for help with some specific things, such as money for example. I don't know what is or isn't part of my lesson, so I tend to ask DCM to help me see and understand what I need to in order to progress with those specific issues. I think that you have worded it well when you said: "help with money", it doesn't dictate how you wish to see you request fulfilled, but rather expresses an open wish for help with a particular problem.
This discussion reminded me of this little poem that is found all over the web:
(Disclaimer: I have no idea who is this Swami V. guy nor what he preaches, but I find the words very accurate.)
When I Asked God for Strength, He Gave Me Difficult Situations to Face
When I Asked God for Brain & Brawn, He Gave Me Puzzles in Life to Solve
When I Asked God for Happiness, He Showed Me Some Unhappy People
When I Asked God for Wealth, He Showed Me How to Work Hard
When I Asked God for Favors, He Showed Me Opportunities to Work Hard
When I Asked God for Peace, He Showed Me How to Help Others
God Gave Me Nothing I Wanted, He Gave Me Everything I Needed
- Swami Vivekananda
I should add that more often than not, my prayers to DCM are answered through me, and not coming from outside. That is, I get a new idea to try, or see things from a different and more empowering perspective, get some sort of inspiration or understanding, or inner strength - rather than 'winning the lottery'. It happens very subtly but also very efficiently.
Also, I've noticed that DCM puts me into difficult situations because I need to learn from them, but is usually very kind and gentle in not letting me break or collapse completely. Like, I will have periods of poverty but I haven't yet had to sleep on the street, nor go a day without eating (of course I don't discard those things happening if that's my lesson). Or like my father used to say rather humorously: "God yawns but does not sleep."
There is also the fact that "God moves in mysterious ways". Dark and depressive periods can lead to wonderful insights, for example, and in the end I'm almost grateful that I went through all that trouble!
Another thing is that the Cs did say that prayer requests are balanced vs lessons profile and granted accordingly so as to not interfere with those lessons - or something along those lines. Maybe I'll find the quote.
Oh, and one more thing. For me, these recent days my thoughts about DCM focus on the idea of loving Her exactly as She is, with all the very interesting and exciting ups and downs of life, the joyous and the upsetting, light and dark, etc. It's like fully accepting a lover with all her virtues and flaws,simply because that is who she is, except that this lover is to be found everything and everywhere.
Not necessarily. Take an example from the POTS: "Oh Divine Cosmic mind, holy awareness in all creation, carried in the heart, ruler of the mind, savior of the soul, live in me today." When meditating on these words, and divining their meaning, certain questions might come up, for example, "What does it mean that DCM is "carried in the heart"? What does that "feel like"? What is it like for it to "live in me today?" The associations of thought and feeling, as Wellbeloved says in the quote, will do for us what we ask God to do. By meditating on God "living in us", God comes to live in us. That's a slightly different approach than asking and begging God to live in us. It's also different than just saying, "God lives in me," which isn't really different than many New Age affirmations. It's a subtle difference, and I don't know if I'm doing a good job of trying to explain it. I think the safest bet is just to continue with the POTS, because it's consciously designed and written in language that is very effective. Results will make themselves apparent in our lives as a result. As for immediate problem issues, I'd recommend dealing with them more as problems to be solved. "What can I do about this?" "What might be the belief influencing this particular area in my life?" If money is an issue, don't just pray for money. Do the POTS. Also, actively think and try to come up with possible solutions. For example, I know some business owners who struggle with money. In their cases it helps to ask, "Am I doing everything I can with my business? Are there areas I can focus on that might bring in more money? Am I perhaps not charging enough for certain services, and too much for others?" Those kinds of things.
Hope that helps!
obyvatel said:I think gratitude or thankfulness is a state of the mind. When I find myself in this state and give thanks, it is a true expression. If I give thanks when I am not in this state, it feels different. It could be useful in a social interaction context, but in terms of a prayers and guidance, I feel it is important to stay as true as possible according to our current level.