We the Choir Gather and We Learn to Sing Together

[Steppingfeet]

By now, Sf, I can't help wondering if we're arguing two sides of the same coin, contending over that slender territory in between?  If we agree on the premise that the point of life--in the fullest, multi-density, etc. sense of the term--is exploration of self, then maybe we can agree that sometimes this aim is best served in a collaborative social context and sometimes solo?

Absolutely. This would have been my position at the start of the thread, too. Like you rightfully indicate, one may journey (I presume) millions of years as a solo actor in the fifth density. Maybe a few less here in third.

I just didn't read you as using an "and" earlier on.

But even on a seemingly solo journey, I would note, one always carries the collective with them. I don't mean in the sense that the "practitioner contains the creation" and is ultimately all things in the One Creator, but rather and more specifically that the structure of our mind itself has collective layers in its subterranean strata, moving down from the individual conscious and the personal subconscious minds to the racial mind, the planetary mind, the archetypal (sub-Logoic) mind, and eventually the cosmic mind.

Moreover, our seemingly individual identity has been forged by the conditioning, inputs, responses to and dances with various collectives, particularly our planetary home group. There is no such thing as an island, in my understanding.

My own journey has fluctuated between solo and involved periods.

Apparently, it just so happens that you find the Eisenstein material helpful and supportive at this particular time in this incarnation while others do not.

This is a true statement and perfectly acceptable to me.

PS: I can't help but note here that the conversation was much more interesting when we disagreed than this post ever could be.

Well, we're both SFs. Or sometimes maybe MFs. : )

I am saying that there is value in supporting one another in shared culture. Wasn’t that one of your primary hopes and objectives when asking whether the forums ought to be closed? You seemed to want a more curated environment in a protected space that cut out the “detuning” elements so that harmony, connection, community, and upward movement would be more readily available.

I may be misreading your contributions to this thread. If so, I apologize. If not, I would be interested to know how your thoughts in this thread square with your previous visions for Bring4th.

That still sounds good to me, however, as things have transpired since then, said hopes have become recessive.  In the first place, there was very little support voiced for such at that time.  Secondly, the way things are going, these forums just don't seemed destined to go in that direction.

Is that the square? That is, you were seeking something in the direction that I described above, but your contributions to this thread veered from those earlier thoughts because "said hopes have become recessive" and "the way things are going, these forums just don't seemed destined to go in that direction."

That's fine, just assuring that I understand.

You may be aware that by participating in the larger L/L Research mission (itself just a specialized subset of the general wanderer mission), you are dreaming the impossible dream, as Carla always had it. In other words, persist in hoping and efforting, Sacred Fool, the results are less important than the intentions. And in that persistence, you are a light to others.

[Said humbly from one peer stumbling in the dark to another.]

This speaks to me of the hero's journey: separation, initiation, and return.

If you'd be interested in sharing, I'd be interested in hearing. What was your cold unknown, the dark tunnel, and the pearls gained thereby?

Beyond that metaphor, sometimes a big point of resistance has been my reluctance to take on more responsibility as I moved closer to rapprochement with my heart.  My strong will helped me immensely to move through blockage after blockage, but at a later point it was that same will that retarded as much as it could the acquiescence of this identity as a progressing seeker in favor of that as a conduit for Love & Light.  It's almost (not quite) funny how much darkness and difficulty can be squeezed into the tight space of that particular threshold.  For some reason, I am expecting this dynamic to recur many times.

Artistic and general as your impressions are, I see some of my own patterns in here as well. Thank you for sharing, SF.

My big separation/initiation/return unfolded incrementally over the course of an undefined several years as an old identity of conformity and sleep died to make way for the spiritual seeker twenty plus years ago. A change in worldview, values, peers, desires, identity. An increased sensitivity to suffering. It was accompanied with no small amount of confusion, darkness, and pain. I simultaneously had direction and burning desire, but felt quite adrift and alone. Since then, there have been smaller cycles but big initiations, and many misteps in the night along the way.
 

Speaking again of groups now, I'm wondering how L/L Research has interacted over the years with the Law of Responsibility.  Has this presented any challenges or difficulties as your group becomes more propinquitous to light?

This measure will be known when in our violet-ray beingness we are seen fully in the light. But from my limited and quite human perspective, challenges have been abundant over the decades, both long before and well into my time. As with any human endeavor, especially when under so blazing a light, shadows come to life, projections are cast, and the question of "whose distortions are whose?" becomes difficult to unpack. Situations enhanced, I would imagine, by a loyal opposition that would love nothing more than to cease or discredit the light of such efforts by breaking up groups and exacerbating disharmony.

The Law of One text doesn't buffer against the fact that we are all wounded human creatures in a veiled environment where we are hidden from each other and literally from ourselves; where we may not be communicating what we're actually feeling, or not hearing what the other is actually saying, or may be not understanding anything at all, really.

In the quote you mentioned, Ra also says "The duty to refrain from contumely, discord, and all things which, when unresolved within, make way for workings lies before the instrument of which you speak."

[Contumely can be defined as an insulting rudeness in speech or manner; scornful insolence; an insult, or an insulting act.]

I think that as a general cardinal rule, two or more people can work out most anything with determined but compassionate, responsibility-taking communication. The L/L group has suffered some entropy as a result of the blockage of this avenue due to whatever reason, sometimes by my own distortions. Disharmony erupts. Egos flare. Hearts hurt. Misunderstanding abounds. People go their separate ways to follow their own lights. Both successes and failures (or "learning opportunities") have been our lot.

But that which endures does so because of the capacity to work through disharmony with compassion. Not to exclude the many others who participate in this mission over the years by doing that sort of work, but just to focus in on our core small band in Louisville, we have been reliably able to do precisely that over the years, maintaining open hearts in harmonics of harmony. For example, Carla, Jim, and I have all butted heads with one another due to missteps on all of our parts, but at the end of the day we never failed to restore harmony, usually quickly, by hewing to that "propinquity to the light" and simply talking things through. Austin and I run into some turbulence every rare once in a while too, but without exception we talk our differences of perception kindly and respectfully to one another, even if initially feeling hurt by the other, and we resume shared mission with shared heart.

A key point in navigating the challenges that will arise for any group includes remembrance of one of Carla's favorite phrases: We are all bozos on the bus.

We will err, we will say or do something stupidly, we will hurt one another, and the cutting of slack, the forgiving is key to creating the environment wherein the light may be carried. And oh what an often hard journey it is to learn that forgiveness. The fires are intensive, they are.