My Awakening. Or Grand Delusion. You Choose.

[Tenet Nosce]

Anytime anyone says or does anything there are others who are going to react in a seemingly "negative" way. They will disagree or push back. It doesn't mean either party is doing something wrong.

I appear to recall, somewhere in the depths of my being, a type of existence where this does not occur. As such, confusion is confusing to me.

Tenet Nosce, I read all your posts here and went back and read some of the threads you linked to try and get a good idea of what you're going through.

Thank you for taking the time. It is meaningful to me that another would even bother with such a task.

My verdict: learn to accept the drama, the froth, the whipped-up-ness. It's okay to have drama.

You make perfectly reasonable and often very good posts, and then people disagree, and there are hurt feelings. This is ok. You aren't responsible for other people's feelings. Your own hurt feelings are also OK. Give yourself permission to be human.

It does bring me relief to hear that my posts appear "reasonable" despite having drawn some false conclusions. It has caused me suffering to think that I might possibly be completely irrational, and grandly deluding myself, with respect to such ideas.

You are right. I am not responsible for other people's feelings. Although it would appear the vast majority of other-selves would disagree, I also cannot control their own perceptions with regard to their own lack of control over their own feelings.

I do struggle with this human-ness. It seems very odd to me. I will ponder more deeply upon my choice to experience myself in this temporary human form.

But, might I add, in an environment such as this web forum which was created with the intention of seekers having the opportunity to share ideas and collaborate with one another- that is would be highly preferable for all to "assume good faith" with respect to other's posts, and to refrain from derailing threads when their personal issues get triggered. I count myself among those who would benefit from keeping this in the forefront of their mind.

Your responsibility is to be authentic and genuine and (from STO perspective) to do your best to help out. Maybe sometimes this means saying things that trigger people, that upset them. Maybe the upset is part of their process and is what they really needed.

Thank you for reminding me about the boundary of my responsibility to others. I will refrain from commenting on other-selves here, however will observe in my own experience many occasions where the experience of "upset" was the trigger which caused me to seek more deeply within myself. Had not the "upsets" occurred, I may not have been compelled to take a closer look at that aspect of my psyche.

You can't control how people react to your posts. All you can control is your sincerity and intention. You do your best to be fair, kind, and clear, and you answer people's questions as best as you can and explain yourself as best as you can. You don't have any maliciousness or hostility in your posts that I can detect, at all. But even if you did it would not be the end of the world, because that's the nature of being human. Nobody's perfect.

Thank you for this.

There's nothing wrong with drama. It's all a part of the process. All of the "negativity" you see has nothing to do with you and is just humans being human. Allow them to be human; accept them as they are and don't worry about it.

Accept those people as the emotional, upset, angry, imperfect humans they are.

Also it's very likely that whatever negativity you're seeing, you are reading into it too much. It's so easy to think that someone is angry over the internet when they are just trying to be use a clear tone, for instance.

Thanks also for this, and I concur with the observations of yourself and others that I have been placing too much emphasis on this phenomenon. Let me clarify... concern over whether or not I have angered an other-self is secondary to the desire to simply make posts on this forum without the concomitant derailment which I have repeatedly experienced.

I have also observed a great number of members who very infrequently post, or don't at all. While I recognize this as a perfectly valid choice, I wonder if some of those members have chosen to participate less due to similar experiences of derailment and mischaracterization of their intent.

This saddens me, as I feel that there are many thoughts and ideas which these other-selves could share with me, were they to feel that they could post openly without being "jumped upon".

Hell, in one thread on this forum people were calling me a racist genocidal social darwinist neo-nazi or something and it was a complete misunderstanding. But you know what I realized? It's not a big deal. "We're all bozos on this bus" and I know these people aren't seeing me accurately, so all I can do is laugh and try to tell them that they've got it wrong. But this isn't always possible. And that's okay too.

Barring transient emotional outbursts and normal "being human" type stuff, it still does astound me that such accusations could fly around a forum ostensibly for spiritual seekers. This just seems beyond the bounds of what I conceive spirituality to be about. Clearly, I have much to learn.

I think your lesson here is to accept the things you can't change while still having the courage to speak your truth.

You are right. I must accept the inevitability of being perceived negatively by other-selves while these conditions remain. I look forward to a time/space where entities may more clearly perceive each other's hearts.

I, for one, think you are a great poster who contributes invaluably.

Thank you for this. I find it to be encouraging, while not at all "ego-inflating".

It is impossible to please everyone all the time.

Are we not all things? <--- this was my attempt at making a "funny".

But your true goal in posting isn't to please people, is it? It's to express yourself and your opinion and your truth. Be comfortable with the knowledge that you've been doing this, and be comfortable with the fact that in the process of being yourself there are some people who are gonna be mad at you no matter what.

You are again correct. And this does hit right at the crux of the matter, for self-expression seems to me to be the meeting-point between STS and STO. I am primarily here for my own spiritual evolution, and secondarily I am hoping that my attempts at self-expression and discovery serve as catalyst for others to also evolve.

I do apologize if this offends the sensibilities of other-selves, however to present myself as acting completely free of intent for "personal benefit" would be a lie, and quite possibly the grandest delusion one could put upon oneself... the delusion of "selflessness".

It is my understanding that in serving myself- that is to say my taking care of my own needs first- I empower myself to greater abilities to serve others when called. Thus it is possible for one to be firmly on the "STO" path, while taking actions which are self-serving. The question is the net polarization which occurs when all is said and done. I do not subscribe to the belief that self-serving behavior must needs lead to enslavement of other-selves.

The key is, of course, to recognize the unity of self with other-self while understanding the futility of attempting to acquire greater freedom through the enslavement of others.

Thank you for your discussion and insights into this matter.