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       #Post#: 36969--------------------------------------------------
       Sandra Anne's New Book (currently untitled)
       By: Jed McKenna Date: January 8, 2019, 6:19 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Hi, My name is Sandra Anne. I have been reading and following
       Jed for a few years now and while doing the Nav Series I felt
       inspired to write. He encouraged me and must like my work
       because he suggested publishing it on the forum. I was delighted
       and am going to post one a week. It's kind of a stream of
       consciousness on the unraveling of me.  If you are here reading
       this,  then you were always going to read it,  so don't ever
       wonder if you are in the right place.  Where ever you are is the
       right place.  That should be a relief.  Likewise whatever
       appears here just appears but nevertheless, welcome, my heart
       goes out to you and I wish you the best in every conceivable but
       mostly inconceivable imaginable way.
       Love, Sandra Anne
       You are welcome to share your thoughts in the thread.
       "You think you're lost, but that's not true.  You simply lived a
       dream or two, you traveled all this way to find, you never left
       your home behind.  Home is a place in your heart, every journey
       leads you back to where you start."
       
       Already Home by Andrew Lloyd Webber
       Chapter One
       I'm not writing this, in fact, this writing is not even
       happening, whatever words you think you are seeing here are not
       really here, you can't read them and I can't write them.  I am
       literally just a figment of an imagination in the one dreamer as
       are you so whatever I say here is not really being said.  I
       don't have to worry about what I say here because I'm not saying
       it and nothing is being said, even so this writing appears to be
       happening, even though it's not.  This is probably the weirdest
       way to start a book, if it is a book, which it isn't, there
       aren't any books anyway, not like you think there are.  Weird
       isn't a thing either just another idea in the head that you
       think you have, which you don't but don't worry, any worry you
       have or have ever had is not real either.
       That's the good news.  This whole thing is actually good news,
       if you can grasp it, you might find out that everything is
       actually okay and always was and always will be.  I suppose
       that's why I try to say anything even when I don't.  Trying is
       not a thing either so don't even try to understand this, it is
       what it is and that's all.
       Never-the-less, here's the story.
       I had a sad life for as far back as I can really remember.  I
       started crying, really crying, like when your heart is truly
       broken, like how you cry when you know that no one in the entire
       world loves or cares about you at all, like how it feels when
       you think that there is something so terribly wrong with you
       that no one could ever love you, totally forlorn crying, broken
       hearted crying at around the age of thirteen.  At fourteen I was
       sure that I wanted to just die but I couldn't do it so I starved
       myself in hopes that it would happen on it's own and just in
       case there was someone who did or could love me there would be
       time for them to save me, time for someone to rescue me right
       before it happened.  So I became both bulimic and anorexic and I
       started drinking and life became more and more intolerable.  I
       don't need to go into it,  just know that life sucked for me
       from a pretty early age and that's how it started. I was,
       however, wildly efficient and good at crying and though I
       couldn't have known it at the time, it was probably this
       blessing that saw me through.
       Around the age of 18, I finally managed to get pretty thin and
       oddly enough I started to feel better about things.  I remember
       thinking I didn't care anymore what anyone said or did after all
       I could die so what would it matter and that thought actually
       made me happy.  Now when my parents yelled at me or during
       whatever shit anyone was doing, I would think "go ahead, what do
       I care, I'm probably not sticking around for much more of this
       anyway."   All of a sudden there was an innocence about me and I
       became rather childlike, unable to make sense of my situation I
       think I finally accepted it and somehow that freed me.  To the
       world, it would seem I had just given up and I had but my total
       surrender brought relief and I was able to enjoy many simple
       things again. I was no longer looking for the future to fulfill
       me since I didn't see that I had one anymore.
       Looking  back, I don't think I was ever in any real danger of
       actually physically expiring but it was bad enough that my
       parents finally decided it was time to put me into some kind of
       treatment and my happiness was short-lived.  Probably my "I
       don't give a shit anymore" attitude and my utter non-reactivity
       was troubling to my parents so they sent me to this one month
       treatment program which managed to normalize my eating for the
       time I was there (then it just went right back).  Nobody was
       addressing my drinking so on our nights off, I went out and got
       drunk.
       Afterwards was a long draw out weekly therapy session with a
       lady named Anne whom I rather liked and looked forward to
       seeing.  I don't really remember what we talked about other than
       my family, traumatic events, and how I could learn to deal with
       things better.  She tried several times to bring my parents into
       the discussion but that was a no go since my parents wanted no
       part of it.  My eating was back to being a mess and my drinking
       was absurd for someone my age but you know it was what it was.
       All hopes for me coming back to a resemblance of some kind of
       normal life were squashed.  Anyway after about a year with her,
       everything rather suddenly came to a head so to speak and I had
       something of a nervous breakdown or looking back now probably a
       breakthrough.  During this time, I became intensely fearful that
       I might disappear.  What I really thought would happen was that
       my "I" as in my mind would somehow cease to exist and that I
       would be completely unaware of the fact that I was gone.
       Needless to say, I was drinking heavily as that was the only way
       I could keep the fear at bay but on one night it was so severe
       that I was certain that "I" as in my mind would die, it  might
       happen at any moment, it felt like it was very close to
       happening.  I was going to lose myself.  I might go crazy and
       not even know it that was my fear.  It was so intense that I
       simply became so utterly terrified that in the middle of a
       snowstorm my mother actually had to drive to the emergency room
       where I somehow explained the situation and I was given a
       sedative and sent home.
       On contacting my therapist Anne the next morning, an emergency
       meeting was made for that or the next day.  Now Anne was located
       in the next city over which was about 100 mile drive because at
       the time, eating disorders were so rare that no one where we
       lived specialized in them.  At any rate, both my parents drove
       me to my appointment, which was odd because my father rarely (if
       ever) went along and for a time I actually was driving myself,
       but this time they were both in the car and during that drive I
       tried to explain to them that I could "see" why everything in my
       entire life had worked out exactly the way it had.  I could see
       how this event shaped this event and how this feeling about this
       event had shaped my reaction about a next thing, on and on.  It
       was like I could see the whole thing had just followed a path
       that naturally would have followed,  I remember trying to
       explain to my parents how nothing was anyone's fault and that
       whatever happened just naturally happened on it's own according
       to what it had to work with.  My parents of course weren't
       having it because I was saying things like "when you did this,
       and I thought that, then that's why I did this" and they still
       thought I was blaming them and they wanted me to see that
       nothing was their fault, that they hadn't been a part of any of
       it and that whatever misfortunes I had and whatever behaviors I
       had were all of my own making completely fabricated by me.  Long
       story short, I was given a prescription at the meeting which
       greatly relaxed me and my "vision" disappeared and I went back
       to the way I was, misery intact.
       What happened next isn't important (none of this is after all
       it's just a story) but my life was on it's own trajectory and
       according to what most people call "normal", it wasn't and never
       will be.  Suffering and fear were my base emotions through most
       of it.
       Fast forward 25 years, I'm now 43 years old and I have three
       small children, and a husband who wanted nothing do with us and
       had run off and I'm back to living at home with my parents.  As
       it happened, my son was attending kindergarten at the local
       school and one of the parents of his classmates happened to
       "mention" to me that she had seen a book at Walmart that day or
       that week that "reminded" her of me.  Now we were all in the
       habit of sitting outside the school waiting for our children to
       exit everyday and I do remember talking with this lady once
       maybe twice on the lawn when the weather was nice but we were
       hardly close friends and at best just acquaintances.  Looking
       back, I don't really remember thinking of myself as a
       particularly "spiritual" person, I did think the whole religion
       thing was a crock of bogus shit and I might have dabbled in
       meditation a few times but as far I remember nothing really
       stands out so why this lady thought of me when she saw "A New
       Earth" by Eckhart Tolle for sale at Walmart and mentioned it to
       me is just the way the universe works.  It knows exactly what
       you need when you need it.  As it happens, I thought it so odd
       that she thought of me at all that I immediately ran down to
       Walmart and purchased the book.  I think I did take it as a sign
       that I was meant to read it so I guess that was kind of mystical
       of me.  I had to borrow the money, had to talk my mom out of $10
       bucks which was no easy task, she had plenty of money but it was
       "her" money and she had to think about whether I deserved it or
       not, go figure, but I think she did give it to me or maybe I
       stole it, either way I got the book straight away.
       Anyway, I loved the book, really couldn't put it down and read
       it in like 2 days, then I realized that I had checked out "The
       Power of Now" about a month before from the library but I didn't
       read it because I couldn't get into it.  I had no idea what it
       was talking about but even so something in me saw the pattern of
       it all mainly that I was meant to read it though I didn't really
       know why.  I think it's safe to say I was in quite a bit of pain
       at the time though this was a normal condition for me by then as
       I've already said too many times. My parents were constantly
       berating me, what a loser I was for marrying a loser and now
       living with them.  I was on food stamps which was literally the
       only source of income I had had in quite some time.  I hated
       living with my parents but I had no where else to go.  I hated
       them too.  I had for some time actually hated everything about
       them, the pettiness of their characters, the total lack of even
       the smallest amount of compassion for me seemed to go all the
       way back to the day I was born.  My parents were both from
       Germany and their cold hearted nature had completely baffled me
       all my life.  Love and or forgiveness was not something I had
       ever experienced, not by them, not for myself and not by anybody
       else either but I had children now and I'd be damned if I would
       ever let anyone lay a finger on them or hurt them in anyway.  I
       forgave my children for any and all misgivings, tantrums,
       anything at all with a ferocity that you'd be hard pressed to
       find anywhere.  My father had once slapped my son across the
       face, he was just a baby about 2 years old and I had attacked my
       father with every riding toy in the room hurling them at his
       head.  Half eaten dishes sitting on the table were thrown,
       missed and broken against the wall splattering food everywhere.
       I was asked to move out after that and left to be homeless with
       my children for a few months. Well, it hardly matters now but
       the fucked up nature of the life I was living can not be
       overstated.
       Moving on, I was so enthralled by the teaching of Eckhart Tolle
       that I must have looked it up online and found out that there
       was a Meet-up Eckhart Tolle group nearby my home and I decided
       to go.  I had never been to anything like this before but on the
       night in question my parents agreed to watch my children for me
       while I got out of the house.  Well long story short that's the
       night it happened.  That's the night I disappeared, completely.
       Seriously, when I got back from the meeting and walked into my
       parent's house I was no longer with us.  The Sandra that I
       thought I was my whole life up until that point in time was
       gone.  Sandra didn't even know she was gone so she wasn't
       worried about it because how could something that was no longer
       there worry about anything.  The person was not there to do it.
       In fact, although I seemed to know the place, after all I drove
       home and knew how to get there, knew my parents and of course my
       children and the house and things like that, I knew these things
       but the "who" that knew these things was not there.  It was like
       the body was there and even the mind was there but the entire
       history of this person was gone.  I did not even know it but I
       was in heaven.  I had no judgement about anything at all,
       nothing bothered me, I simply had no context for anything to
       bother me, no context within to judge anything as being better
       or worse than anything else, everything just was and what was
       was apparently all right with me.  I did not want anything else,
       didn't need anything to happen or not happen.
       For instance, two events still come to mind about this time.
       One was when I got home from the meeting to find my mother drunk
       and hurling cuss words at my father in the big living room with
       my children just wandering around playing with their toys, they
       were only 5, 4, and 3 years old at the time.  Normally this
       would have pissed me off to high heaven as I was hell bent on
       giving my children a better early life experience than the one I
       had but I literally could find nothing wrong with the situation
       except that I possessed the thought to take my children out of
       the whole thing and upstairs to the room we shared and put on a
       movie so they couldn't hear it.  This just happened naturally
       and there was no worry involved about children being scarred or
       traumatized.  There was no thought that anything wrong was
       happening or shouldn't be happening, no thought that my parents
       were being horrible people and irresponsible, nothing like that.
       About an hour later, my mother knocked on my door and we sat on
       a small couch that was situated outside my room and I listened
       for about an hour to her drunken venting about what a complete
       asshole my father was.  Now this wasn't a new behavior on her
       part and had I been in my "usual" state she might have been met
       with a "For God's sake, shut the fuck up and go to bed already."
       Well, they say the apple never falls far from the tree.
       However, I  neither agreed nor disagreed with her, I think I
       never said a word but she seemed to want me there so I sat there
       with her completely unaffected,  I neither cared what she said
       and I had no caring whether I sat there or not.  This went on
       for a time until she went to bed and so did I.
       The other event happened later that week, I was sitting at the
       computer and for some reason my mother came into the room and
       completely laid into me with every insulting remark you can
       think of, basically cursing at me and ripping apart my character
       from top to bottom.  Once again, I just sat and stared at her, I
       had no feeling one way or the other about any of her words, I
       made no move to escape or to engage in my own defense.  I was
       simply not there to do it.
       Other than that, I vaguely remember laying down to go to bed
       each night with all my children cuddled around me and feeling
       the most exquisite sensations I had ever had.
       This went on for two weeks until for some reason it occurred to
       me that I might want to stop smoking and so I tried to quit
       smoking and just like that Sandra was back, and bam, so was
       misery.  I didn't know what happened, I had no background to
       know what happened just that I liked the way that I was then and
       now I didn't.
       So that's how it all got going, not really, nothing is going
       anywhere but let's pretend it is.  It's not a pretty story but
       it takes what it takes, anyway none of that really happened,
       sometimes you get a nice dream (probably people with nice dreams
       don't come here but you never know) and sometimes its closer to
       a nightmare, either way you're fine.  Well, you might not feel
       fine, maybe you feel like shit, maybe you are sitting there
       comparing and thinking "shit and I thought I had it bad" or
       "that's nothing, my life was ten times worse."  Either way, it's
       all going to work out since you are literally dreaming, and
       sooner or later you can't fail to realize that you were never
       anywhere and nothing ever happened.
       Unfortunately, the dream is basically all laid out for you in
       childhood and the only reason it feels like a problem is that
       you think it's real in the way everyone else does.  Once you
       know it's not things tend to go in a better direction.  The one
       thing I can say about my dream is that if some dreams are better
       at making their dream characters go in search of the truth, mine
       was exceptional.  I couldn't have asked for a better story.
       End of chapter
       #Post#: 36970--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Sandra Anne's New Book (currently untitled)
       By: breakup Date: January 8, 2019, 6:51 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       That entire first paragraph of chapter 1 looks like something
       pulled straight out of autolysis.
       I can relate to the fear of disappearing. The other night i lost
       my arm for a moment and I panicked. Tonight I wrote a line and
       don't remember writing it. I think this is where all the writing
       is going but of course nothing is going anywhere, no writer to
       be found, anything written a made up context (and no context). I
       can't even say for certain my arm vanished anymore. I dunno
       #Post#: 36972--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Sandra Anne's New Book (currently untitled)
       By: Jed McKenna Date: January 8, 2019, 8:02 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Keep looking, awareness is the ultimate solvent.
       Love ya, Jed.
       #Post#: 36975--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Sandra Anne's New Book (currently untitled)
       By: abrakamowse Date: January 8, 2019, 10:53 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Sandra, hi...
       Thanks for sharing your story. Really cool. I think most of us
       have a similar "story". I noticed lots of common things to what
       happened to me.
       The more similar I found what the part where you mention that
       you saw how everything was in the correct place as it was
       supposed to be. In my mind I remember seeing like a giant puzzle
       with all my memories happening the way they happened because my
       father die, so I did this... then something else happened and
       that was why I behave in certain way... very clear. The only
       difference is that I didn't talk to anyone about that.
       That made me realize that the personality we "have" is not made
       by us, but by the whole. The Universe, or whatever you wanna
       call THAT.
       And the biggest difference is that I didn't loose my identity so
       strongly as you. In my case is still happening and very slowly.
       I think is because I was so attached to my idea of myself, that
       I went crazy went I realized that we don't exist.
       I was in a mental hospital too, but now I know that it wasn't me
       who was crazy... it was my idea of my I thought who went crazy
       because It couldn't accept the truth.
       Thanks!!!
       #Post#: 36976--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Sandra Anne's New Book (currently untitled)
       By: guest1668 Date: January 8, 2019, 12:51 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Hi Sandra Anne
       I have mixed feelings.
       On the one hand, you write sincerely.
       On the other hand, I can't accept this story as a whole.
       I'm sensing some kind of inconsistency.
       The first two paragraphs of the first Chapter contain the
       correct words. But it feels like you're just repeating it as a
       learned lesson. They don't come from inside you.
       Just my senses, nothing more than that.
       Then I read further, and again there was some kind of
       dissonance.
       Maybe because if a person is indifferent to stories, he doesn't
       describe everything in such detail and this way.
       Maybe something else. Here I don't want to go to BS.
       Anyway, thank you for your open heart. All the best to you.
       #Post#: 36983--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Sandra Anne's New Book (currently untitled)
       By: Sandraanne Date: January 9, 2019, 1:16 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       First of all, I would like to thank all of you for taking the
       time to respond with your comments, they've all been very
       thoughtful and also helpful.
       I think the "fear" of disappearing is clearly of the ego and
       it's probable that the organism was always meant to shed the ego
       in adolescence but since no one else around us has done it, it's
       frightening because we don't know that it's actually not needed
       to function once we've learned what the basic elements of
       survival are in our environment.  Otherwise, we might actually
       look forward to it and welcome it's happening.  Of course, if
       all the people around us had already done it, we would know what
       to expect when it occurred and it would even be encouraged.
       The 'vision" that occurs is one of seeing that you are not the
       doer of anything and never have been.  Call it random
       circumstances or even chance how the dream unfolds from the
       beginning but no one has ever behaved or done anything by their
       own free will.  All the conflicts of the dream revolve around
       everyone believing that they are the "doer" and so is everyone
       else.  Once seen, total forgiveness and acceptance of yourself
       and everyone around you becomes inevitable but up until then
       your dream is like chain reaction and you are the reactor.  So
       all your character's behavior is reactionary to emotions and
       thoughts and nothing more.  You aren't creating them as you go
       along, like you think you are, the flow of thoughts come from
       the conditioning of your early environment.  Losing the ego
       means losing the conditioning and now you can really function
       without impediment and just as consciousness.  Who knows what
       you might do?  Probably, that's what this "free will" everyone's
       so fond of talking about really is.  Consciousness expressing
       itself as itself and nothing more.
       Once seen, it would be "validated" by all the other organisms
       and you could all have a good laugh at whatever nonsense was
       dreamed up by the ego but since it's not validated and seen as
       "insanity" it's lost again as quick as it came because the
       reinforcement for it was not there.  For a moment, you've
       forgiven everyone, seeing that it had to be the way it was
       through no fault of your own or anyone else's but now everyone
       thinks your just crazy and you need to take responsibility for
       your behavior and life and so they convince you that that's a
       nice lovely idea (and very convenient for you don't you know,
       "Are you saying we should just forget everything that's happened
       and just move on?, they might ask) but that's not the way it is.
       Talking to anyone about it, even a therapist, won't help if
       they haven't made the trip.
       Of course, if it was "normal" for people to lose their egos in
       adolescence, this little dream we're having would be a most
       wonderful one and not contain the suffering you see now.
       @Breathe. I find your sense of "inconsistency" curious because
       this writing is clearly a tale by a fictional character.  There
       are actually a lot of 'inconsistencies" in the dream that we
       conveniently overlook on a daily basis so if you "sense"
       inconsistency in this story then you are correct.  Perhaps you
       can look for some and let me know what you find in your own life
       or even in this story.  I hope you will continue reading and
       thanks for your comment.
       Thanks to all of you,
       Love Always,
       Sandra Anne
       #Post#: 36984--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Sandra Anne's New Book (currently untitled)
       By: guest1170 Date: January 9, 2019, 1:41 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Awesome Sandra
       #Post#: 36985--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Sandra Anne's New Book (currently untitled)
       By: guest1668 Date: January 9, 2019, 3:46 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       [quote author=Sandraanne link=topic=1699.msg36983#msg36983
       date=1547018219]
       ...let me know what you find in your own life...
       [/quote]
       Typical Jed's phrase.
       I doubt you are really interested in this.
       Other comments were positive. My comment contained doubt. And
       you answered me separately. You have inner resistance hidden by
       pious words.
       But ... from your point of view, if I don't accept something in
       your words, then because of my illusions.
       OK.
       #Post#: 36987--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Sandra Anne's New Book (currently untitled)
       By: Kati Date: January 9, 2019, 2:03 pm
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Dear Sandra Anne,
       Thank you for the first tastes of your book and your post.
       Once I read your post today, I noticed there something I had
       been experiencing, but not being able to share it with anyone
       for real. It seems that fear takes different forms and I didn’t
       see it as fear before I read your post. I’ve been having
       feelings and thoughts, that I’ve had to keep inside, because
       they haven’t been exactly, what this society would like anyone
       to think or feel like. I’ve become very cold, and if people
       around me would have known what I was thinking and feeling, or
       more accurately, what I wasn’t, they would have seen me as a
       terrible person and sociopath. I learned to act, look like I’m
       interested in their stupid stuff, though sometimes it’s still
       difficult. I still act, that’s just the way it goes, things just
       go smoothier that way. The whole thing became easier, when I
       realized that lacking of warmth and social interest is just the
       way I am now. It has also shown how things are so made up in
       this world. It took a long time for me to get this new way of
       being. I’ve spent many years in a fog and things just started to
       appear in cellular level, slowly, bit by bit but I didn’t get
       it, maybe because I was disappearing. After some time of this
       cellular change and wondering why I see and feel things so
       differently, I saw that my world looked like that, because there
       actually wasn’t “me” anymore. That was the only explanation.
       It’s strange how things just start changing, mind doesn’t get it
       and therefore the whole thing is pretty difficult to be
       processed either. It has taken me a long time to see what’s
       going on, and I guess I’ll be doing that for the rest of my life
       in this human-doll-form.
       You mentioned “seeing” how things got triggered by some small
       events and all that took everything to the way all is. It’s
       wonderful to see that clarity. I’ve had some similar
       experiences, it opens a whole new world and releases a lot of
       burden.
       I remember Jed ranting about thoughts and people been like
       radiotransmitters or something like that. About a month back the
       same thing came to my consciousness a bit wi(l)der. I’m not a
       big fan of speaking about vibrations, it takes so quickly to new
       age bs, but I saw that vibrations, different kind of frequencies
       are all over this so called universe, and depending on the
       channel one is on, one catches different things, like thoughts,
       people’s behavior, and appearance of the world. And all that is
       related on things happening certain way and leading to different
       kind of outcomes. It was wonderful to see that actually
       something that appears so complicated would actually be so
       simple. That way seen, people are just antennas on certain
       channels. I realized that I had been trying to be on the channel
       I used to be, but I was on a new channel and it’s okay to be
       there. I don’t have to be on many channels simultaneously,
       because that’s what I had been doing and it took a lot of
       energy. I can still see and hear what happens on the other
       channel, but I don’t have to be there. Realizing this
       channel-thing made me see that it had happened because I wasn’t
       the same I used to be, like I wasn’t the being I used to be. I
       still don’t know what I am, but I know what I’m not, and I find
       that very valuable.
       Love,
       Kati
       #Post#: 36990--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Sandra Anne's New Book (currently untitled)
       By: Sandraanne Date: January 10, 2019, 5:30 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       @ Kati
       Thank you so much for your letter.  I loved hearing about your
       experience with the social aspect.  I don't know if I ever
       thought of myself as "cold" really just totally uninterested.  I
       mean at first I felt I really had to dis-identify with the
       others because I felt their ego was trying to engage mine and
       basically since everyone is acting from the belief that this
       consensual reality is real and I was trying to see through my
       own delusion , it wasn't helpful to me to carry on
       conversations.  Also, really after any interactions I just felt,
       I don't know what to call it, the word "wrong" comes to mind or
       maybe "untrue" works.  Well, it wasn't a pleasant feeling at all
       (like I was missing) so I've stayed to myself most of the time
       except that I have children and I can easily relate to them
       without issue.
       I think the most disturbing aspect is my utter unbelief at the
       fact that anyone is able to settle for what is called "a normal
       life" or even accept that "this is it", this is what life is but
       I guess if the thought or opportunity doesn't arise in you then
       it just doesn't arise.  Sometimes I feel like I'm "acting" with
       my children or I might say things that I know I can't really
       know just to create a sense of well being for them but where I'm
       apparently willing to do that for them,  I'm not much of a
       talker with anyone else.  Probably, I just listen and  maybe say
       "well, don't worry it will all work out one way or another"
       because I know things are just appearing and disappearing just
       as fast and nothing is really happening.  Of course, whatever I
       might say, is just arising as well and I don't feel like I have
       anything to do with it.  Compassion actually arises quite often
       for me but when it doesn't well it just doesn't.  I work in a
       semi hostile environment as you'll find out as the book
       progresses, so when people are upset and attacking, sometimes
       what arises is nothing.  I just stare at them and don't say a
       word, like just nothing.  That's weird but if no words arise
       then there's just silence and that seeems to be more awkward for
       them then for me.
       I think in some ways the body is also just on auto pilot, and
       the conditioning continues, for instance, I still find myself
       getting in my car and driving to work at the right time.  Like
       where ever I find myself is where I find myself and what ever I
       say is whatever I find myself saying.  Writing seems to appear
       the most, go figure.  Things do change like you say though.
       That's good news.
       Thank you again for your letter.  This is actually the first
       time I've ever had the chance to relate to anyone else who knows
       though I know I'm only talking to myself, and I don't really say
       anything which feels new and really quite nice at the same time.
       Love,
       Sandra Anne
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