Useful Questions/Ideas

I thought about this question/thought and wanted to share it, but then I thought a better idea would be to have people add their own…

Here’s my thought/question.

Perhaps the things that we often see as being ‘the worlds troubles’ are but different methods of pressurising us into moral/ethical decisions? 

If the ‘earth as a learning tool’ is true, I think it’s worth thinking about. It takes pressure off us in one way, but does it also mean such issues will be permanently with us?

Up until now during my life, there has not been many things that pushed me in any direction, from an outside source. However I now find myself urgently feeling the need to act. Maybe I’ve just been lucky so far? It’s not a position I’m that comfortable in.

If the ‘earth as a learning tool’ is true, I think it’s worth thinking about. It takes pressure off us in one way, but does it also mean such issues will be permanently with us?

The feelings and thoughts about moral progress do - from time to time - seem to happen in synchronistic loops.

My impression is that it's like gravity, always pulling, but can be used to great advantage as leverage. 

Not that I ever do.

I'm not sure I had questions, that is to say I don't have all the answers, but I'm comfortable with that.

Still, I might ask, is Earth a learning tool?
(personally I hope not)

As an aside, since this isn't really for me a spiritual matter, a couple of times in my life I felt pushed into a need to act from an outside source. One time was when someone tried to blow my house up. Another was when I felt physically threatened. Each time I only did what I was already intending to do, so it didn't really change things, except perhaps to confirm my previous instincts.

I'm not sure I had questions, that is to say I don't have all the answers, but I'm comfortable with that.

Still, I might ask, is Earth a learning tool?
(personally I hope not)

As an aside, since this isn't really for me a spiritual matter, a couple of times in my life I felt pushed into a need to act from an outside source. One time was when someone tried to blow my house up. Another was when I felt physically threatened. Each time I only did what I was already intending to do, so it didn't really change things, except perhaps to confirm my previous instincts.

Don’t you not think there is evidence for it? NDErs hint at the possibility imo. For me life reviews definitely point in that direction, for example. 

Those sound interesting ! 

Don’t you not think there is evidence for it? NDErs hint at the possibility imo. For me life reviews definitely point in that direction, for example. 

Yes, there is evidence. But there is also perspective, interpretation, individual angles. Since for me school was a dismal and depressing time, I react with dismay towards that take on the word 'learning'. On the other hand, after I left school, times were sometimes very hard. But the one thing I had was my own free choices, onces which I never had in school. Being free to choose is perhaps the thing I value most in all this.

Those sound interesting ! 

Actually very funny. But legitimately serious. It was a long time ago now. I told a friend, just in passing, a throwaway remark about it a few days ago, and she could barely conceal her wish to burst out laughing - because she knows me well, and knows just how unlikely it sounds. But still, I was fortunate not to be making the national headlines, it really did come very close. (But I'm reminded of a line from an aging film, where someone after being threated at knifepoint, afterwards says, "Just kids having fun".)

I don't know, looking around the world I see real tragedies and horror stories, I'm very very fortunate that the things which happen to me end up as a cause for mirth - at least with hindsight.

I react with dismay towards that take on the word 'learning'.

If I said ‘growing’, would that make a difference? Thinking of the world as a ‘testing place’ really makes sense to me, like trials or something. I think I have ‘grown’ a fair bit in this life, but at the same time, I accept that I may be disappointed. 

 I'm very very fortunate that the things which happen to me end up as a cause for mirth - at least with hindsight.

I think we may all find truth in your statement - the ‘in hindsight’ makes all the difference.

If I said ‘growing’, would that make a difference? Thinking of the world as a ‘testing place’ really makes sense to me, like trials or something. I think I have ‘grown’ a fair bit in this life, but at the same time, I accept that I may be disappointed. 

Well ok. I do appreciate the value you have found in your life. The thing is, there isn't right or wrong here (from my point of view). We can each have our own perspectives and they need not be the same. The desire for orthodoxy and rooting out heresy has been the cause of too many terrible episodes in history. So we should value difference and disagreement, consider it proper.

Many times in my own life I've decided my only purpose is simply to be. To just be. Not to try too hard to do anything except just be myself. And in saying that, I extend that same view to others as well, to let others be as they wish to see themselves.

I think we may all find truth in your statement - the ‘in hindsight’ makes all the difference.

Maybe. At any rate sometimes I look at myself and think I take things too seriously - at times I switch into 'observer' mode where I look at myself going through things, and tell myself to just relax, regardless of the situation.

Maybe. At any rate sometimes I look at myself and think I take things too seriously - at times I switch into 'observer' mode where I look at myself going through things, and tell myself to just relax, regardless of the situation.

Have you ever considered the possibility that you’re being played by your ego when you go into ‘observer mode’? I know that you’re following a spiritual path, and personally I think you’re an advanced soul - if there is such a thing. Did you have any emotional reaction, however temporary, to me asking this of you? 

So we should value difference and disagreement, consider it proper.

Here we possibly think slightly differently. After all, if we are to believe it, there is the Bible story of Jesus losing his temper in a temple in Jerusalem and kicking over tables! 

There are many questions that we could ask before basing our actions on that story. However, it’s a consideration that might be included. 

I think there is a sacred value in knowing right from wrong, and that there is a difference. I presume you do too, but you seem content with ‘letting it be’ or ‘going into observer mode’ without anything further. And maybe that is what we should do, I’m not saying I’m right and that you’re wrong, I’m definitely not, but I have come to feel that there’s more to it.  

If we are able to fully get to grips with the nitty-gritty of ‘evil’, to fully understand it, is it sufficient just ‘becoming an observer’? Maybe it is, and there is much more to your understanding than I can follow. 

I think that my chosen path is to ‘show my cards’ and do what I can to help whoever I feel should 
be helped within my limited resources and abilities. ‘Be true to yourself’ to me, means not being totally passive, we can’t take on the worlds woes, but we are given the freedom to chose on a scale what is ‘right and wrong’. 

If you were to see a youth being beaten up by four others outside your house, what would you do? 

I don’t know what I’d do, but I know how I’d feel afterwards if I did nothing. I’m not saying I wouldn’t be too afraid to do something helpful, it’s quite possible that I’d disappoint myself. Until situations occur, we’re unlikely to know for sure. 

If in a situation like described above we’re able to stop the guy being beaten further (he may well deserve it in others’ eyes, which possibly adds weight to your thinking/intuition because things often get complicated real fast!) by acting wisely and while retaining ‘the observers’ non judgemental heart/soul - I think, when we are able to consistently achieve this type of level, we might be close to being done.

Have you ever considered the possibility that you’re being played by your ego when you go into ‘observer mode’? I know that you’re following a spiritual path, and personally I think you’re an advanced soul - if there is such a thing. Did you have any emotional reaction, however temporary, to me asking this of you? 

Oh no, quite the contrary. What I term 'observer mode' is to silence the ego, to listen to that 'still small voice of calm'. It isn't something I've always been able to do.

My reaction to being asked is the same one I've had my whole life, of the inadequacy of human language to communicate. So many times all of us struggle to be understood, or even to express ideas in words to one's own satisfaction, let alone to do so well enough for it to transfer one's thoughts to another person. A longing for clarity of communication and mutual understanding which is something I've often felt, but realised to be unavailable except through unspoken thought.

As for being 'an advanced soul', I have to decline to accept that, though I appreciate the generosity in which it was said. I have the grounding perspective of glimpsing a little of my self in a previous lifetime, where I doubt very much that that description would come to mind. I really don't think there is such a great shift in myself from that lifetime to this. All I would say of the present is that it is somewhat of a lull, a pause after a turbulent past.

Apologies for not addressing the rest of your post here. Though briefly, in considering the guy being given a beating, I was considering myself as one of those carrying out that act of violence, the 'observer mode' would be that thought at the back of the mind of an assailant in mid-strike, for a person to intervene in their own life. I wasn't thinking of the observer as a third party, but as within one of the participants. It doesn't imply inaction, as a self-observer one can alter the course of events, in greater or lesser ways as one chooses.