Many years ago I heard a Taoist teacher give a lecture where he said that people in the West with their pop-spirituality and opening their hearts to project energy for world peace without understanding what they were doing was a fine way to serve up an all you can eat buffet to whoever and whatever might be hungry.
Now - I am not saying the Essene stuff risks that as it clearly recommends some form of sphere of protection kind of thing as well as closing things off when finished.
Has anyone else had thoughts on the idea of offering blessings willy-nilly?
With the last three yrs weirdness, a pattern I caught myself dropping into was seeing people out alone (outside or in a vehicle) wearing a mask of some description and my response began as 'what are you thinking?!' and many less polite variations thereof. Anyway, it started bugging me that I was creating a mental rut that could be progressive, so decided I needed an alternative track. Given the practices I was doing at the time, with the masked this manifested first as 'fair enough you need to do what you need to do'. There was no requirement for me to have an emotional response.
Then tried applying it to people doing really dodgy driving and changed from a string of invective to a more observational stance where the thought process began as "They are doing what they are doing and I get to choose how I respond to that."
My first reaction to someone nearly forcing me off the road was not to bless them, but, over time my reaction to things like that has changed - things have moved from invective, thru neutrality to something different. It began with substituting a reaction by instead asking a question: "What am I not seeing here?" And then that morphed into "In everything there is the divine" and then onto "We are each aspects of the divine" and "If I don't like you and we are each part of the divine, doesn't that mean I do not like myself?"
So, I'm not at the stage of radiating love to all the bipeds [the birds and other critters and plants and trees are another matter :) ], but have got around that by using a different approach - to respect that the divine is in everything and feel gratitude for that.
As an old martial artist, it fascinates me that recognising this divine in all people, would not be deleterious to a robust response if needed - more it is like offering respect to the individual and gratitude to the divine. So, I am not offering blessings but am trying to pay attention in a way that acknowledges their existence through respect and recognition that we are all part of the dance by gratitude to the divine.
Working with the creatures and living plants and even seemingly inanimates is currently easier than offering blessings to every biped.
My guess is that probably reflects more about me than it does about the humans!
On the blessing walk
Now - I am not saying the Essene stuff risks that as it clearly recommends some form of sphere of protection kind of thing as well as closing things off when finished.
Has anyone else had thoughts on the idea of offering blessings willy-nilly?
With the last three yrs weirdness, a pattern I caught myself dropping into was seeing people out alone (outside or in a vehicle) wearing a mask of some description and my response began as 'what are you thinking?!' and many less polite variations thereof.
Anyway, it started bugging me that I was creating a mental rut that could be progressive, so decided I needed an alternative track.
Given the practices I was doing at the time, with the masked this manifested first as 'fair enough you need to do what you need to do'. There was no requirement for me to have an emotional response.
Then tried applying it to people doing really dodgy driving and changed from a string of invective to a more observational stance where the thought process began as "They are doing what they are doing and I get to choose how I respond to that."
My first reaction to someone nearly forcing me off the road was not to bless them, but, over time my reaction to things like that has changed - things have moved from invective, thru neutrality to something different. It began with substituting a reaction by instead asking a question:
"What am I not seeing here?"
And then that morphed into "In everything there is the divine" and then onto "We are each aspects of the divine" and "If I don't like you and we are each part of the divine, doesn't that mean I do not like myself?"
So, I'm not at the stage of radiating love to all the bipeds [the birds and other critters and plants and trees are another matter :) ], but have got around that by using a different approach - to respect that the divine is in everything and feel gratitude for that.
As an old martial artist, it fascinates me that recognising this divine in all people, would not be deleterious to a robust response if needed - more it is like offering respect to the individual and gratitude to the divine.
So, I am not offering blessings but am trying to pay attention in a way that acknowledges their existence through respect and recognition that we are all part of the dance by gratitude to the divine.
Working with the creatures and living plants and even seemingly inanimates is currently easier than offering blessings to every biped.
My guess is that probably reflects more about me than it does about the humans!
[earthworm]