Economic Meltdown Fears

I've enjoyed reading many comments here. Thankyou.
From where I live, I try to discern the underlying issue at the level of personal responsibility and relationships - for the nature of what is commonly held to be our human consciousness is not so different from what I see as our social and economic expressions of that consciousness.

Because I seek to speak from a different starting point, I can rarely make sense to any who presume their own self definitions and mutually agreed definitions to be self evident, but there is a difference between real wealth and money, between mutual agreements (that are generally tacit), and reality.

The myth of the Faustian pact serves well enough to illuminate that we can use deception and manipulative intent to gain a temporary experience of becoming or getting something that then cuts us off from our truth, wholeness and health - and whose seeming reality then disintegrates to reveal us hollow and without substance in the face of an overwhelming self-damnation.

But the fact is, that what is true remains always true - and is never a matter of definition, ownership or argument, but is a present discernment to which our heart surrenders and to which our mind must align. Sanity is not a matter of maintaining a private self interest at the cost of all else - even if in panic of fear, that is all that seems available to invest in. Nor is it devising a system of mutuality with the intent of balancing such fearful self manipulative intent so as to minimise the more extreme effects of coercive will - though this too is sometimes the best we can find until we calm to a deeper perspective.
A Foundations of sanity must begin with trust - for only the trusting can afford honesty.To 'trust' in deceptions is insanity no matter how many seem to share in it.

What are the real values in our intimate experience of life - and in the commonwealth of the world we share?
Are these discerned and embraced with joy and gratitude?
Or do we accept a substitute life in which we are essentially programmed by a false self interest easily manipulated even though led to believe it is independent?

The disintegration of what we thought real or a real protection, may be fearful - but at some point fear itself is realized to be an inherent aspect to the problem and a greater willingness to release old certainties or preconditions must rise.

Prayer is not so much a petition of beliefs - but a profound emptying or calming of the distractive layer of thought and emotion and experience - so as to become truly receptive - and directly so. Transformationally so.

I cannot tell you what it is to be restored to a wholeness of being - for it is not available outside the willingness that allows it. But I do say that such a willingness becomes the basis of an entirely different perspective because it is alive and awake prior to any machinations of a thinking, defining and judging mind - such as has become the currency of a 'reality' by which we deceive ourselves.

The nothing-ing of what we thought was in our power or possession is a great opportunity to awaken at a depth that before was unavailable - because we successfully insulate our awareness from our real relational being.

What cannot be allowed gracefully, will nonetheless be accepted ultimately - if it is simply true.

The entire basis of our thinking is being brought to view on the big screen. Not to judge or hate or rebrand in less toxic appearance - but to recognize ourselves in and become free of an ignorance and available to what is actually here.

Are confidence tricksters the guides for living? A wholehearted commitment to life cannot come from such a mentality. But don't pretend it is only in the those who exemplify it in the script of the world.

Maslow's pyramid must stand on its head - not for others - but for oneself. Cultural renewal does not come from incremental additions to man's estate - but discerning and following the call of life now. Always now. Then let all else be done within and out from such a relational connectedness. It is not religion in the sense of making and asserting an identity for oneself - but more in the spirit of uncovering a shared meaning in our relationships. We will see a different world from such a willingness and acceptance.

Beware the seductive attraction of conflict. It offers a cheap thrill that dopes its victim for the slaughterhouse. Watch the mind that thinks to 'watch the world in private'. The art of self deception is in pretending not to know. When this is fuelled by great fear its demands are ever more cunningly fulfilled - as a maze of un-understandable complexity. But it is the wish NOT to know that underpins the whole enterprise.
Whatever the world does or seems to be - our own experience is determined by the structure of our values, beliefs and commitments. If we are lost in a 'bubble' of an inflated self, then we can only miss the point and know not what we do

Being offended and taking offence

The law is not a tool to make reality - even the law of the sword. But if we use it for such then we will suffer the law of the sword.

In my own terms - my human identity is a personal and cultural structure through which I have experience. Such experience is 'created' or rather interpreted through the filters and distortions of my identity. If this identity is running as if it were in fact true - then I will war or compete with others in order to prevail, get even or protect my 'self'. This brings suffering - even if the call to war is seductively right or hopeful.

But there is a greater, deeper or more direct appreciation of identity than any derivative form of self image or self concept.
One way to access this is to notice when I take offence, pause from legitimizing reaction of my own thinking - and enquire directly and honestly into my own part in the disturbance. Why am I not at peace?
What is in my mind that agitates me? A willingness to learn of what are the triggers to war in my own mind will reveal a mind of judgement and blame. In the past this has been called the devil - for it is a deception wherein one's own shadow is denied and put upon the 'other' - where it can be hated, denied or used for selfish ends and yet be seen as if one were righteous or protective or helpful.

Whatever the human culture, there are fundamental laws and responsibilities of mind that cannot be escaped. The attempt to escape them brings suffering because it becomes an attempt to fight or defend against Life, The Nature or Reality, God, Truth, or the Way Things Work.

Freedom to express is active within relationship - not in a vacuum in which some right is enshrined to any individual. That we can think and act as if we are independent from our relational being is an unconsciousness or ignorance. Stumbling in the dark, following the blind, brings suffering.

Our shadow, is those aspects or our own self judgement - that we have denied and become fearful of. To reclaim a true wholeness of being we must become more honest than our minds or society are perhaps accustomed. In the west, we tend to worship our conceptual constructs as if they were Fact rather than story or interpretation. Our minds are thus not only closed in judgement - but deny us the sensitivity of a direct participation in Creation - in the relational field of Being.

Conflicts serve a purpose of bringing attention to what needs to be brought into awareness. If we allow the denied mind to be known and released of the need of hiding and defence - then the conflict is no longer serving purpose and will not find soil in which to grow.

In all situations, there is a way of communicating without judgement - because there is a way of expressing one's own true feeling being - TO another in a relational honesty. Learning such ways of communicating are part and parcel of learning more deeply and directly of one's own heart and mind.

The temptation to conflict is as deceptive as is the temptation to avoid or deny it. The 'self' acting outside a true relational awareness brings suffering. It can also justify and 'legitimise' suffering and declare it natural, inevitable or 'the human condition' or God's Will. But suffering has our participation although we are generally culturally fitted to agree to hide this active element.

Trouble abroad serves to distract from trouble at home. See how the mind works and become free of a self illusion that brought suffering.

If we find how we become deceived by our own certainties - then we have a basis for a compassionate approach to others who are just like us.

Trying to make a mind of rules cannot substitute for a real relationship.

Life doesn't abide by our rules and if anything our rules deprive us of life. But law in its true sense is not wishful - but demonstrable. All of us will in time come to teach and learn so as to align with law because we will lose our capacity to 'enjoy' or abide in suffering. Perhaps this will be on our deathbed - but perhaps such a 'now' is whenever we are willing to truly listen or discern in place of 'expressing a freedom of thought against the grain of the guidance of our heart'.

Of course we do not enjoy being intimidated or inhibited by force or threat of violence, but are we already active as such to others?

The Golden Rule is not wishful thinking - but speaks of an innate law of action and reaction at the most fundamental level of our mind.
The desire to hate, kill or deny those who do what you hate in yourself is a perversion of the Golden Rule. But seeing this IS the opportunity of salvation or awakening from a hidden, fearful deceptive identity.

Thankyou for your attention