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#Post#: 1794--------------------------------------------------
Jed on marriage, mirages, good and evil
DIR By: Jed McKenna
Date: September 27, 2014, 11:29 am
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Let me ask you a question. You are an adult, obviously and I'm
sure you are quite intelligent (statement, now for the
question). Have you ever looked at yourself and your behavior
and marveled at how idiotic, immature and un-productive it is?
Perhaps you saw the same stupidity in your parents marriage,
maybe not.
When you and your husband/wife argue over inconsequential things
and then feel like crap afterwords, don't think for a moment
that your children respect you, look up to you or envy you in
any way. They see you as idiots. Sadly, you know this but just
keep repeating the same behavior. Mostly because it's the crap
you learned from your parents and you never made a decision for
it to be some other way.
Please don't take this as a personal assault, it is an assault
on ALL personalities. You have raised children (or perhaps only
one) and modeled out behavior that is, IMHO, somewhat behind
that of baboons or dolphins, or perhaps elephants.
Most marriages could just be conducted by having two tape
records playing on and on, each mindless of what the other is
saying... both parties spinning their wheels and going nowhere.
Please don't just nod your head, I would really like you to look
at this. 'Lives of quiet desperation' doesn't begin to describe
the average marriage as I have observed them.
I'm not saying there is anything wrong with it, I am just a
relatively disinterested observer. Well, not quite, I am a
fascinated observer. It's a wonderful argument for no-free-will
because given an choice, I don't think anyone would consciously
choose this 'typical' way of relating.
If no two people have ever loved each other and no two people
have ever met each other, (as BK wisely observes) what could one
do? IMHO relationships are deals. Some folks are better at
making deals than others. So, what is the deal? I'm going to
meet your needs, hopefully a goodly number and you are going to
meet my needs. Now, that sounds like a reasonable deal to me.
What kind of deals have you made?
You can observe the exact opposite on soap operas. In
particular, the Korean ones. Nobody gets what they want in a
soap opera. They all make ****ty deals and someone else gets
what you want. We enjoy soaps because they are so stupid they
make us feel smart which just shows how dumb we are.
Reflect, is your life that much different? Do other people get
what you want, darn near all the time? The problem is, as
Nisagardatta said, people like one part of the dream more than
another part. Simple as heck really.
Do I like this relationship insanity? I love it because as with
everything else, it is only, has always been and will forever be
entertainment.
Relationships are the biggest conduit for delivery and
expression of ego, of separation and difference. The 'other'
that is nearest to you is, in fact, you. How do you treat
yourself? Do you treat the other in a similar fashion? I don't
know. I am only asking the question. Awareness of it may open
some of the doors you have held desperately shut. We are also
looking at the main sources of pain when one begins to strip
away meaning with SA.
If the above outlined mechanism did not exist, T/R would go very
smoothly. In most cases it doesn't. This relationship behavior
is a symptom of the belief in separation. You can deal with it
at the relationship level and certainly make surface
improvements, however, like face lifts and implants, reality
eventually sets in and things slide back.
Go for the root. Just hack at that root with the intention of
bringing the whole tree of illusion down, the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. Now there you have a much overlooked
truth. No good or evil and you are in paradise. Who makes
anything good or evil. You tell me. Feedback welcome, but please
make sure it's about you and your experiences.
Love ya, Jed.
#Post#: 1798--------------------------------------------------
Re: Jed on marriage, mirages, good and evil
DIR By: bone_gravy
Date: September 27, 2014, 12:21 pm
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Speaking for myself, it's mostly a good deal. It's been mostly
friendship and enjoying each other's company for 12 years
now....but we have our moments, this morning a reflection of
that. You're right about our kids thinking we're idiots when we
argue....they didn't even seem that shocked at our
antics....some eye rolling and even my youngest on a couple of
occasions giving us the "Mom...dad!" in the same scolding tone
I use when I say "Children!" when trying to get them to quit
acting like them.
Nisagardatta's right too...I like the dream deal, for the most
part, but have difficulty with the parts I don't like....and
when I get bogged down in the muck of the parts I don't like,
that's when I pitch a fit. I agree, the root of the issue is
"me"....The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil....good
metaphor for dualism/sense of separation....the source of all
the trouble. I agree that dealing with everything at the root
is the best way....I just have a hard time even remembering it
when engaged in interaction/activity. It's one thing to bring
the edge of contemplation to the root while sitting
undisturbed....it's another when engaging in
interaction...especially the kind of interaction where the
reflexive urge to defend the self comes on hard and strong. My
initial hope was that if I made enough in-roads with the
meditation/contemplation sessions that it would automatically
start to bleed into and envelop those interactive moments
but....it's been about 15 years now and its just not happening.
I just have to find a way to apply the edge to the root amidst
those moments, no matter how impossible/unlikely it seems.
"Unbending intent" as Juan Matus called it.....all the time in
all things.
#Post#: 1839--------------------------------------------------
Re: Jed on marriage, mirages, good and evil
DIR By: Tetirtat
Date: September 28, 2014, 8:34 am
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I don't know if I would even call it a deal, which implies a
conscious choice. It's more like a groove one is placed into, a
social convention that one is programmed into.
If one is at all interested in any kind of spiritual search, it
seems to me you would want to conserve your energy for that,
which in itself could take a lifetime.
I love my wife and kids and have been married for 10 years.
Knowing what I know now, I'm not sure I would have done it
again. I'm sure that there are relationships out there where
one's search for Truth is supported and perhaps even catalyzed,
however, most marriages I see are a prison of resignation and
cynicism.
#Post#: 1844--------------------------------------------------
Re: Jed on marriage, mirages, good and evil
DIR By: GromerCop
Date: September 28, 2014, 9:31 am
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The only HONEST basis for interaction between a man and a woman
is sex. Sex rules the world, money and power are secondary to
that. Marriage is societal mostrocity to secure 'the pray' (on
both male and female sides, for different reasons). For better
or for worse? 'Guarantees' written on paper or unwritten through
shared children/resources, possessions
We may as well go and take out a marriage insurance or some such
thing... or wait,, it already exists, the prenuptual agreement?
Hypocricy at its best. Masquarading as 'noble'.
#Post#: 1845--------------------------------------------------
Re: Jed on marriage, mirages, good and evil
DIR By: guest89
Date: September 28, 2014, 9:43 am
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Marriage is the for-better-or-worse binding together of two
souls adrift in that endless, dark ocean you wrote about. It
makes the endless, dark part something not as bad as that - and
life slightly less intolerable because of it...in the
existential sense of things.
In the everyday sense of things, jeez, I just love and admire
her. A partner is an interesting mirror to have in front of you,
doncha think? 29 years in here and more in love than when we
first hooked up in college. She's matured and evolved smoothly
and rendered more beautiful, no doubt in part as a result of her
choice in partners... while I've regressed into a foetal knot as
a result of mine. ;)
On the serious side: I'm rendered enspasticated by my inability
to effectively enunciate this journey to her. Have broached and
am having sporadic conversation around the topic, but anybody
have any suggestions? How do you talk about attachment falling
away without it sounding like you're dumping someone?
#Post#: 1846--------------------------------------------------
Re: Jed on marriage, mirages, good and evil
DIR By: know1
Date: September 28, 2014, 10:23 am
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"On the serious side: I'm rendered enspasticated by my inability
to effectively enunciate this journey to her. Have broached and
am having sporadic conversation around the topic, but anybody
have any suggestions? How do you talk about attachment falling
away without it sounding like you're dumping someone?"
The addiction to partner (handy sex, defrayer of loneliness,
distraction from truth et al.) is the biggest reason I've seen
(outside of the horrifying idea of no Self) for peoples return
to Maya after their initial wake up call. No one dumps that life
for the elimination of Self, unless that life is more painful
than the alternative (Lisa in Warfare) and even then it's a
largely unconscious movement. If you are happily married with
children you won't have the fuel necessary to gain orbit, you
will be sucked back to planet Maya before you even reach the
tree tops.
Even HA will tend to be a difficult graduation if your partner
doesn't subscribe because if you do attain it, your marriage is
no longer two stars revolving around one another (albeit in a
non truth realized state), it will devolve to a planet/moon
arrangement (mentor/student) which is subsequently untenable
long term for one of the two participants, one of which
eventually finding the inequality too much to bear and
jettisoning.
Consequently, even in a partnership, in seeking truth one finds
that they are all alone anyway and always were. Back to the swan
dive, we can never "know" another, regardless of how deep you
believe your relationship to be, in the end it is only a belief
and no belief is true.
#Post#: 1863--------------------------------------------------
Re: Jed on marriage, mirages, good and evil
DIR By: bone_gravy
Date: September 28, 2014, 1:11 pm
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I realized I never answered your original question "Have you
ever looked at yourself and your behavior and marveled at how
idiotic, immature and un-productive it is?" I have......many
many times. I've also looked, with sheer amazement, at the
fact that even after acknowledging how idiotic, immature and
un-productive this behavior is.....it doesn't seem to be enough
to put an end to it. I concede, however, that I probably
haven't looked really very closely
#Post#: 1872--------------------------------------------------
Re: Jed on marriage, mirages, good and evil
DIR By: Jed McKenna
Date: September 28, 2014, 2:13 pm
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You're alone.
love ya, Jed.
#Post#: 2237--------------------------------------------------
Re: Jed on marriage, mirages, good and evil
DIR By: guest89
Date: October 4, 2014, 11:47 pm
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I was writing before about my marriage, not the institution
itself.
I have a pair of cats. They seem to live a pretty good life. I
feed them and they lie down next to me for a scratch sometimes,
or just the warmth. It’s a pleasant symbiosis. I don’t know what
they believe about our relationship and even my notional labels
that calls them “pets” and me “owner” is more perceptual than
believable. So what’s the value in trying to get them to
understand it? ...because it’s “true”?
Because it’s not….but even if it was, so what? Attaching labels
to things is the start of a tail-wags-dog process and makes
things sticky.
If I’m unhappy or dissatisfied in a relationship (because of the
relationship) then it makes sense to me to alter the terms or
dissolve it, whatever the cost to others.
But if I’m not unhappy or dissatisfied then what’s the point?
Because it’s “untrue” - in a world where nothing is true? It
seems capricious...
Finding the words to explain to somebody that they’re a dream
element in my mental landscape seems a fool’s errand. If it
means I want out, it would be simpler to follow Paul Simon’s
advice and “just slip out the back, Jack.”
"It’s not that 'my love' or 'your love' is deficient or
defective, babe, it’s that the underpinnings of love itself is
fear and clinging.” ...What do you do with that?
Well, you can drop everything, rock off into the hills and
become a hermit until you sort your **** out. Or you can hunker
down in-situ and start to process this new and brighter reality
in the only place where everything happens: in your head. It’s
the difference between circumstances and context... isn’t it?
If you are looking to escape a dissatisfying relationship then
blaming it on the fact that it’s all an illusion anyway can
appear an (almost) noble exit strategy. “Sorry, you’re a
dream…and I’m waking up”.
If you're waking up from “love” and other such emotional bondage
and find yourself unable to stomach the lie of “relationship”
then the warrior’s path seems pretty clear: slice and dice.
I know and fully recognise that I am alone. I’ve felt this my
entire life. Jed’s work has been the Rosetta Stone for so many
things I read before and many of this life’s experiences. Thanks
to his work, it is with cold, clear, clinical precision that I
finally understand the reason why: because it’s true and this
validates and has begun warming a place in me that has long been
out in the cold, ostracised for being so out of synch with the
lie.
I’m not dissatisfied with many elements of my dream. I’m just
very dissatisfied that it is a dream... I’m at the place where
Arjuna fell.
...I also see that I didn't directly address Jed's question at
all.
#Post#: 2260--------------------------------------------------
Re: Jed on marriage, mirages, good and evil
DIR By: kate
Date: October 5, 2014, 10:43 am
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yes - have looked and seen how idiotic the movements are that
seem to radiate upward and outward from heart and mind. just
pure idiocy - used to be shocking - just what an as*hole this
personality is, the things it says, does. now it's sometimes
just funny, or mostly just a small sigh as this living called
kate seems to be wrapped around a machine that generates idiocy
like it's on a schedule.
the journey is almost totally alone. has been for about eight or
so years. the attachments fell away and now it seems that there
are a few random people that come and go - i have something to
give them, they have something to give me. but there is no real
relationship. it's like living inside a world of robots (but
still can only know i'm a robot, can't live it - some piece
still connects into the belief that there is an i.) the work i
do is around people, but have generated a shell of personality
that enables a living to be made, though it can be exhausting at
the end of a day of pretending. though probably everyone feels
like this, even if they aren't conscious of why they feel so
shi*ty.
i do feel really blessed. not in the round misty eyed way. but
just glad - that and that i mostly get to be left alone, except
for the job. and that i get to live with three sweet weaselly
kitties and one hilarious huge headed dog. we keep each other
amused. i'm an idiot in relationship with them, but they
forgive me and we just sort of shrug and then go have a snack,
and then the dog eats kitty poop and we all go "OH MY GOD, DOG"
and make him eat an apple so that his breath doesn't kill us,
and then a kitty, in the middle of the night, climbs into my
shirt and pokes his head up thru the neck hole and we all purr
and what's not to love? even as the knowledge of their coming
death is with me.
yes - it's much smoother since the realization of what an idiot
this personality is has been faced. but the body is mainly where
the stuckness is currently occurring - but addressed that in
another post and have been hacking away at it the past few
years.
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