Learning How To Be Free: An Invitation, from a painter Options

[painter]

NOTE: The original Topic Title of this thread was "Learning How To Read . . ." but I've changed it in hopes that we can begin to escape the literal associations of the word "read". If "free" suffers the same fate, I may change the Title yet again.

I've been thinking about this for a long time. Months.

Over the course of being a member of this forum, especially in the context of "Alternative Theories," I've occasionally mentioned the necessity of "knowing how to read." Of course what I mean by this isn't directly related to knowing how to read the words you see before you here. All of us know how to do that more or less. If you're not familiar with my having said anything about this, I point you specifically to this post on my pinned and closed 'esoteric' thread here: http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum//index....t&p=7894218

A few members of this forum have asked me to say more about what I mean by this "learning how to read" business and it is this that I've been contemplating for a long time now. Having given it some serious consideration I've decided to post and pin this thread here as an open "invitation."

First I am inviting you to engage with me and one another in some discussion here about this topic. However, I am very aware that discussion of this topic is by necessity limited so long as it remains nothing more than discussion. To go further requires something more of us: Specifically a willingness to engage in exercises and experiments which can begin to move us beyond mere discussion into the realm of actual experience and knowledge based upon that experience.

This invitation, therefore, is offered as a starting point in the hope that some of you may wish to go further and take all this to another level. All I will say about that at this point is that the possibility exists, although necessarily limited by this forum/text medium within which we correspond. For this purpose I'm in the process of establishing another forum, participation in which will be by invitation only and will require that users not be anonymous and have a genuine interest in coming to a more direct understanding through observation.

So, I will leave this as it is. Feel free to ask whatever questions you wish and we'll see how this goes.

[painter]

Source: http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum//index....&p=10758781

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Now I feel like I'm swimming underneath the thick primordial muck
with only and inkling of a memory that there is
a less viscous atmosphere above.

hmm...attention...
how does one maintain, awareness of the moment, constantly,
without drifting off into distraction?

still wiggling left toe,
cheers, lunk

Your sense of humor will be a help when it doesn't work against you, as well as the quality of "memory" you speak of.

The answer to your question has to be found for yourself. That is part of the beauty of it. But, in brief, how do we learn to do anything we want to learn? In most respects this is no different. We have to want to enough to overcome the inner and outer obstacles that inevitably come up, we have want to do the necessary preliminary work and research and then we have to want to enough to take the step beyond "theorizing" or "dreaming about" it to actually make the effort to try something, to practice and observe and learn directly from these observations. This is where the "matter of knowledge" comes into play because when we actually learn something, a certain amount of material has been digested and incorporated into our being. Something gets "deposited" and is not so easily lost or taken away. If this progresses, the center of gravity of our attention becomes more even, more stable, more consistent and possibly deepens.

However, there are also "differences". For one thing, it may be helpful to understand that this "drifting into distraction" is lawful (cosmic law). This is the human condition as we are at our current level of being. I'm always a little reluctant to say things like that because it creates in the mind of the reader that I "understand" what these laws are and how they work but the truth is my "understanding" and "knowledge" of these things is limited. What one must be cautious of here is "believing" anything that has not been confirmed by one's own experiential observation. I certainly have confirmed for myself that achieving the aim of maintaining an more or less continuous awareness of the moment is almost impossible. It seems like it should be the simplest, easiest thing imaginable but the fact is it isn't. The question, then, becomes something like "why?" and "what can I do about it?" Esoteric writings indicate that the "reason" is "lawful" (as everything that happens is lawful, however much we may not understand this). "Laws" are "forces" at work. In this instance we are speaking of forces in exactly the same way that certain physical principals of the universe are "lawful". As an analogy, if I toss a rock into the air it will come back down according to the "law of gravity" and when and where it will come down can be predicted provided I understand the principals of "law" that are at work. Moreover, if I can toss the rock at the correct trajectory and with sufficient velocity, the rock can break free of Earth's gravity. But all this, too, is "lawful". It isn't that the "law" has been broken but that it has been understood and compensated for. The rock is not free from "the law of gravity" or any other physical constraint but has moved beyond the influence of the Earth's gravity. Perhaps it will become an orbiting satellite or perhaps it will continue onward out into space. All this, too, is "lawfully" determined.

So, I have to study this phenomena in myself. It may be helpful to also study what has been written by others about this but it will be of no use to study what others have written or said if I do not simultaneously make the effort to try. There are practices and experiments which may also be a help. I might discover that certain conditions are also helpful. The closest I can come to giving you any specific suggestions at this point is to say that I find it helpful to consider that it is somewhat like breathing. I can not only breath in or only breath out, there is a natural rhythm to my breathing that changes with changing conditions. I can observe this for myself. Perhaps in certain quiet conditions when my attention isn't demanded by external influences, I can study this 'rhythm' and movement of attention.

Finally I'll only say that nothing is possible outside the laws which govern our existence. This simple thing that interests us would be impossible were it not for the fact that it is lawfully possible for us to pay attention to our attention itself -- at least now and then, at least a little bit, at least under certain conditions or at least when we remember to try. You began your post above with an analogy and a moment of self-awareness. You are not literally "swimming underneath the thick primordial muck." But there is a truth there, an awareness of something. You've presented it to yourself and to us with an analogy coupled with an "inkling of a memory that there is a less viscous atmosphere above". Just as a stone can be catapulted into orbit or further out and free from the influence of Earth's gravity, intuitively you sense that there is a possibility to be differently than you are. This intuition is a signpost to the path. We only need to be careful not to become too fixated on how our minds articulate these impressions of what may be possible such that they become further distractions. (This is why religions, lawfully, always fail, by the way; and this is the source of the admonitions against "idolatry", which themselves, in turn, have become 'idols' of a sort.) The ordinary mind that has been conditioned by life may not understand any of this very well and yet something within us that the ordinary mind blinds us to (the way the sun blinds us to the constant shining of the stars) is capable of knowing -- and capable of growing. But it is very subtle and easily lost or distorted. Even saying anything in words about it is two-edged for, on the one hand, it may need to be said because it resonates with what is lawfully and truly possible but, on the other hand, if it simply is recorded by the ordinary mind or some portion of it and becomes a matter for "belief" or "disbelief," its transformative potential is lost. This, too, is lawful.

Read again what I wrote in the OP of my "Learning How to Read/Be Free" thread and we'll take it from there.

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