2008.07.25 07:00 - Measure of Trust

Adams Rubble was the guardian and the comments are hers for now (see two images below)

I arrive first and am soon joined by Pema. We discuss my recent experience I recounted on my blog http://rubblebornthoughts.wordpress....2nd-daily-log/

Adams Rubble: Hi Pema :)
Pema Pera: Hi Adams!
Adams Rubble: I am absorbing what you wrote to me
Pema Pera: We all are absorbing what you write on your blog, daily :-)
Adams Rubble: It has been quite a bit lately

Storm and I had a series of exchanges discussing spirituality, paths, and destinations. Storm had pointed out that everyone might have the same destination. Often people were on the wrong bus. I picked up on this analogy and it has been one of my favorite metaphors the past couple of days

Adams Rubble: I like Storm's analagoy of riding buses
Adams Rubble: I think I have been on a wild ride
Pema Pera: oh, yes

Doug is next to arrive follwed by Maxine; Pema and I finish our conversation

Adams Rubble: Hi Doug
Pema Pera: hi Doug!
Adams Rubble: I don't know if it is the right bus but I am enjoying the ride
doug Sosa: hi!
Pema Pera: :)
Adams Rubble: I don't think the God part of my experience is important
Adams Rubble: If I am correct that this came out of my subconscious...
doug Sosa: "right bus but i enjoy the ride." great thought to come in on.
Pema Pera: :)
Adams Rubble: then the last part was just contrived
Adams Rubble: it is the first part that is important
Pema Pera distrusts any sentence with "just" in it
Adams Rubble: Hi Maxine :)
Pema Pera: hi Maxine!
Maxine Walden: hi, Adams and Pema and Doug
Adams Rubble: hmmm
doug Sosa: hi Maxine
Adams Rubble: Well leave out the "just" then
Adams Rubble: :)
Pema Pera: ;)
Pema Pera: perhaps no need at this stage to judge
Pema Pera: but yes, the experience itself is the most important, I agree
Pema Pera: and to continue exploring the experiences
Adams Rubble: maybe try a different bus?
Pema Pera: sure!

Pema then turns his atention to Maxine and Doug, continuing the discussion from yesterday http://playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/...orld_Needs_Now

Pema Pera: Maxine and Doug, I hope my stubbornness yesterday was not too unpleasant :-)
doug Sosa: not at all, very evocative.
doug Sosa: also wonderfully serious.
Pema Pera: feel free to correct me if you think I was not accurate in some sense, or you think I misunderstood some aspect(s)
Maxine Walden: it felt important, and a bit intense at the time, but it feels so important to try to be clear, each of us, and to sort these various things out...
doug Sosa: I felt invited to listen more carefully, wait to "see".
Maxine Walden: so that we can 'speak' and feel 'spoken to', in all the little nooks and crannies
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: I had lunch with Stim yesterday in RL
Pema Pera: and we discussed this intensity question
Maxine Walden: ah...yes?
Pema Pera: he emphasized how little we know about each other, about who's behind the avatars, with no body language and so on, no way to see literally eye-to-eye person-to-person
Pema Pera: of course, Maxine and Doug, I have the great advantage of having met both of you in RL
doug Sosa: yet there is a new kind of intimacy here.
Pema Pera: if that had not been the case I probably would have been more cautious
Pema Pera: or maybe not -- hard to say
Pema Pera: Yes, Doug, that is definitely the case
Pema Pera: I haven't met Adams in RL
Pema Pera: and I don't feel I'm particularly more cautious in dealing with her :-)
doug Sosa: But the beautiful women are both blood warming and eye distracting - but i wouldn't have it otehr wise. If only in rl..!
Pema Pera: since so much is being expressed in her blog -- even up to the point of Adams talking to her typist :)
Pema Pera: :-)
Adams Rubble: :)
Maxine Walden: it speaks to the measure of trust that is growing here among us...
Pema Pera: YES!
Pema Pera: that's one of the really AMAZING aspects
Pema Pera: of what we're doing
Maxine Walden: the level of trust?
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: I used an image the other day
doug Sosa: It feels "natural", as though in rl we somehow miss each other, but here our more natural tendency to trust comes out.
Pema Pera: of a burning house
Pema Pera: guardians standing outside next to house
Pema Pera: a group of PaB guardians
Pema Pera: holding up one of those trampoline like devices
Pema Pera: to save people jumping out of the building
Pema Pera: each pulling in their own direction away from the others
Pema Pera: to make room in the middle, a safe place for others to land
Adams Rubble: Hi Gaya
Pema Pera: (what do you call these things?)
doug Sosa: hi gaya.
Pema Pera: Hi Gaya!
Maxine Walden: it also feels so important to be able to come back like this morning and re-visit these intense times and speak to the perhaps ruffled buts
Gaya Ethaniel: _/!\_
doug Sosa: safty nets.
Adams Rubble: safety net?
Pema Pera: ah!
Maxine Walden: ruffled bits, sorry, typo
Maxine Walden: hi, Gaya
Pema Pera: safety trampoline?
Adams Rubble: funny tyoe
Pema Pera: not quite a net
Adams Rubble: typo
Maxine Walden: typos have their own wisdom
Pema Pera: Maxine, do you want to say more re bits?
Pema Pera: the ruffled ones?
doug Sosa: the net, each pulling away from the others, as if by pulling away they are pulling together. I love "ruffled bits".
Maxine Walden: not sure it is necessary, but I was aware that I took a few heavy, doubting feelings from yesterday's conversation, and did write a note to you about them, which you responded to in a way which helped the 'bits.'. I am so awed by how vulnerable we can feel, us as 'grownups' mostly still with open hearts and earnest hearts, can feel some pain in these frank discussions...
Pema Pera: yes, absolutely
Pema Pera: I am feeling vulnerable here on a daily basis :-)
Adams Rubble: You are putting yourself out there, Pema
Maxine Walden: and yet it is so necessary to be able to have that openness and frankness and feel whatever doubt there may be and then come back, trusting that we can all grow and help each other...feeling vulnerable does feel like such an essential part of all of this exploration
Pema Pera: yes
Gaya Ethaniel also agrees that supportive environment is important
Maxine Walden: and I am aware of feeling it a lot...does bring that 'child' part out which is there is us all, all the time
Maxine Walden: oh, I have to watch the time, will need to leave in about 5 min, just a forwarning so that I don't seem to disappear
Adams Rubble: I feel that this little separation, i.e. we hide a bit behind our avatars, helps ease that vulnerability a bit
Gaya Ethaniel wonders whether Maxine sees the child or idenfy/immerse in the child
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Maxine Walden: In my vulnerability to doubt and openness to learning, I feel that vulnerability to make me feel childlike, Gaya, does that speak to your question?
doug Sosa: one of the things i think i've learned here is that we really are not so vulnerable. No physical thraet, and psychicly we can leave at any moment. "sticks and stones..but name can never hurt me" seems more real here. The lesson is we could go farther faster in honest speech, with faith that we can recover from anything.
Gaya Ethaniel: no one sees me blushing :)
Adams Rubble: I feel much of what you describe Maxine
Maxine Walden: ah, yes, Adams
Gaya Ethaniel: yes Maxime you're being one with the child rather than watching/aware of it
Gaya Ethaniel: imo, such identification would lead to you feeling emotions attached to that child
Adams Rubble: yes Doug
Maxine Walden: I do want to mention, may make Pema blush, that i find it rather astounding how direct he can be, righteous about Being at times, and very gracious, generous, patient with all the tos and fros that he encounters with us
Adams Rubble: :)
Pema Pera: Thank you, Maxine
Pema Pera: and the only reason that can happen
Gaya Ethaniel feels that PaB needs Pema as he has been
Maxine Walden: takes a wide-ranging sense of humanity to bridge all those aspects of 'being-Being'
Adams Rubble: yes
Pema Pera: is that simultaneously "pema" operates on two levels so to speak
Pema Pera: allow me to try to express that
Pema Pera: since that is really at the heart of everything
Pema Pera: somehow the "distillation" effect of SL seems to make it more possible
Pema Pera: or more easily possible
Pema Pera: to abandon myself -- my self
Pema Pera: to let something speak through me
Pema Pera: for short I call that Being
Pema Pera: although I could use longer expressions
Pema Pera: depending on how this "inspiration" as we may call it presents itself
Pema Pera: so basically with each sentence I type there are two things going on at the same time
Gaya Ethaniel wonders how Pema can type his thoughts from Being out here so fast...
Pema Pera: there is Being speaking -- in a very direct way, it feels
Pema Pera: and at the same time there is Piet/Pema watching
Pema Pera: and completely aware what is going on
Pema Pera: yet standing aside, so to speak
Pema Pera: as an instrument, being played by Being
doug Sosa: Buddha compared, i think, the elf to the onion. what i have been learning here is to let there be space between each layer. And let that continue opening ..
Pema Pera: So yesterday, Maxine and Doug, that is what I tried to empasize
doug Sosa: "self"
Pema Pera likes the "elf of the onion" :-)
Maxine Walden: yes, I think I can gather that, and identify with, feel as well here right now. Does not feel so for me all the time, but right now yes
doug Sosa: Pema, what strikes me in what you say is the either or binary way of expressing your understanding. .
Pema Pera: So that is one point I'd like to make clear; the second one is that all that gets very hard to express when we project it back into ordinary mind function and language to describe that . . . .
Maxine Walden: oh, dear friends I have to go, will look to the log for the rest of this wonderful discussion. Be well, all.
Pema Pera: Yes, doug, there is a phase shift, there are two side
doug Sosa: such as only self or outside the self. ther is something to the in between?
Pema Pera: *sides, and nothing in between
Pema Pera: they are qualitatively different
Pema Pera: like a hand and a handpuppet
Adams Rubble has to expand the chat window to get all of that
Pema Pera: when something drops, it drops, it doesn't float halfway somehow
Pema Pera: :)
doug Sosa: outside time?
Gaya Ethaniel slips one of herself rarely now otherwise Being sees and decides for them
Pema Pera: ultimately yes, Doug
doug Sosa: I too must go. awkwardly, bye.
Pema Pera: but there are many gradations there on the "no-self" side
Gaya Ethaniel: _/!\_
Adams Rubble: bye Doug
Pema Pera: bye Doug!

Doug leaves and Pema has a few more observations to make to me

Pema Pera: Adams, if I can get back to your blog briefly
Adams Rubble: yes?
Pema Pera: I very much think that your experience of God #1 is an important part of your quest, your journey
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: and interpreting that as "subconscious" probably short changes it
Pema Pera: promoting it as "the truth" overcharges it
Pema Pera: It sounds like a wonderful experience, to be tasted and then swallowed
Gaya Ethaniel says that their #1 God was Gaya to begin with
Pema Pera: very much like Storm described it
Adams Rubble: you mean not to hold on to it?
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: good to write down
Pema Pera: and in so doing letting go of it
Pema Pera: paradox!
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Adams Rubble: It was so wonderful that it will make it hard to do
Pema Pera: writing down can actually free up
Adams Rubble: yes, it did in a way
Pema Pera: no reproduction later on
Pema Pera: the experience was unique
Pema Pera: can't be repeated
Pema Pera: that would be pinning a butterfly on a piece of paper
Pema Pera: would be most disrespectful to even try
Pema Pera: something else will come next time
Gaya Ethaniel nods

..and then Pema has some more thoughts about Maxine and Doug and for the rest of us; Pema and Gaya start a new thread

Pema Pera: I'm sorry I did not have time to finish my thoughts to Maxine and Doug, but
Pema Pera: what I tried to say was that the shift from self to no-self is a break
Pema Pera: not a gradual thing
Gaya Ethaniel: Pema - do you mean like a blink or lightening moments?
Pema Pera: but once you get a taste for the no-self, then there there is an enormous landscape, a very wide spectrum of deeper and deeper insights
Pema Pera: Not so much in time, Gaya
Pema Pera: although the transition can happen that way too
Pema Pera: how to express this
Gaya Ethaniel: for me it suddenly happened with no gradual development or expectation on our part
Pema Pera: again, let me go back to the movie
Adams Rubble 's body language is showing she is thinking quietly
Pema Pera: seeing a scene as part of the movie story and as light are two ways of watching a movie scene, and there is no in between
Gaya Ethaniel zooms around to see Adams
Pema Pera: :)
Pema Pera: can you say more Gaya, about suddenly happening?
Gaya Ethaniel: hm... looking lovely today Adams
Gaya Ethaniel: hm... i left a comment on Adam's blog think yesterday's
Adams Rubble: yes
Gaya Ethaniel: can't exactly duplicate here - would you mind having a look?
Gaya Ethaniel: maybe Adams paste here for us?
Adams Rubble: It was on the "Behold Being" post
Gaya Ethaniel: k one sec
Adams Rubble: "Adams, since last night, I now see myself feeling the tingles when listening to music rather than feeling the tingles. Used to feel moved and totally immersed in music; there was a connection or communication between music and myself if you know what I mean. Last night I attended a concert and during the second half of the programme, this happened - seeing this RL person feeling the tingles. Other things which I am unable to spell out followed… anyhow, can you believe that at the time, the orchestra was actually playing Vaughan Williams Sympony #4? Well so it was more like shivering was felt by us :) I had expected to have such experience with Mahler or Bach..."
Gaya Ethaniel: fast Adams
Adams Rubble knows how to copy and paste
Pema Pera: :)
Gaya Ethaniel is just too slow
Gaya Ethaniel: Are you into Classics Adams?
Gaya Ethaniel: classical music*
Pema Pera: thanks for sharing that, Gaya!
Adams Rubble: Yes, I like classical music
Gaya Ethaniel: np
Gaya Ethaniel: maybe then you understood what i was talking about a little?
Adams Rubble: yes, I think I do
Pema Pera: yes, you talk about stepping aside, I think
Gaya Ethaniel smiles
Pema Pera: letting what appears appear by itself
Pema Pera: without you doing it
Pema Pera: or holding on to it
Pema Pera: so you can also watch it
Gaya Ethaniel: and.... i'm reluctant to discuss the actual experience but... everything was felt
Gaya Ethaniel: all for one, one for all so to say :)
Pema Pera: :)
Adams Rubble: :)

Gaya makes some points about my experience and a possible attachment

Gaya Ethaniel: it wasn't a blissfulness you've described though Adams
Gaya Ethaniel: was more like tranquil Awareness that lasts and lasts
Gaya Ethaniel: there has to be a trigger Adams but in my case, i just let it be not forcing the process
Adams Rubble: Yes, Gaya. I knew it wasn't complete :)
Gaya Ethaniel: it will come just 'drop' your attachment to your experience
Adams Rubble: :)
Adams Rubble: another attachment
Gaya Ethaniel nods

Pema comes back to the movie analogy

Pema Pera: If I may come back to the movie analogy: while seeing the movie as movie, as stories unfolding, there is a whole spectrum of holding on to the story more tightly or more relaxedly, more loosely -- and there is a whole spectrum of how to deal with the movie-as-light, with the room, the setup etc -- but between the two is the gap I talked about with Doug
Gaya Ethaniel: one can be blind to see if attached
Gaya Ethaniel: that reads badly in terms of grammar :(
Pema Pera: now when we are talking here, it may be very very hard to see at any given moment whether someone is talking from the one side or from the other side of the gap . . . . . . .
Gaya Ethaniel: i do feel though once people get to know each other well, the distiction can be made... maybe not the trasition between the two very well
Pema Pera: in RL it is easier to recognize, from so many clues; here it really is far more difficult, something Stim emphasized during the lunch I mentioned
Gaya Ethaniel: hm... funny you've said that Pema - sometimes i 'see' expressions on your face when you say something. For me the line between SL and RL are getting blurrier each day
Pema Pera: My response is to not want to make a judgment type distinction myself in so far as who experiences what -- but I do make distinctions between how we talk about it, as I did yesterday with Maxine and Doug
Pema Pera: yes, Gaya, I have that experience too
Pema Pera: it is all very intriguing
Pema Pera: at the same time we also have to be careful
Pema Pera: it is also very easy to project our own understanding into what the others offer here
Pema Pera: so there are two effects, pulling in two directions:
Pema Pera: the distillation and projection effects
Gaya Ethaniel: hm... not sure about projecting anymore - used to do that before yesterday now there is no distiction between us and everything around us and the world we are in
Pema Pera: When you are talking, you distill your experience and presence here, making it more powerful in some sense, more focused, yet in some other sense much is left out, and to reconstruct I have to use my own experience to do so
Pema Pera: Like watching a cartoon
Pema Pera: in a few lines someone is sketched
Pema Pera: but I have to use my whole life's experience interpreting the cartoon
Pema Pera: and the interpretation can be rather dependent on culture and background
Pema Pera: and different for different people
Pema Pera: so there is enhancement and dilution both going on at the same time
Gaya Ethaniel: i see where you're coming from Pema - looks like you're describing the existence of different paths available to all beings
Adams Rubble: yes, very complicated
Gaya Ethaniel thinks that Pema and we are on different pages from somewhere...
Pema Pera: :)
Gaya Ethaniel thinks that she should script a translator for talking in PaB

I try to make a point about trust but don't get it out. What I was trying to do was to recognize that my experience was one of those unusual events in which it case it might be helpful to be able to read my body language because it stretched belief (at least for me)

Adams Rubble: That's where the trust factor comes in
Pema Pera: I'm talking more simply how the presentation of a person as an avatar distills some traits, highlighting them, while leaving out oather aspects that are imporant too
Gaya Ethaniel: trust and compassion/love Adams
Gaya Ethaniel: i see Pema - i've understood what you meant about yourself when doug was here all along :)
Pema Pera: In a couple minutes I have to move to a different part of SL, to an astronomy meeting
Pema Pera: starting iat 8 am
Gaya Ethaniel: Adams, the trust and compassion is already in you - you just need to see it
Adams Rubble wants to say more...doesn;t have the thought completed
Gaya Ethaniel: sure Pema have fun I hope
Pema Pera: oh sure, it is all fun
Pema Pera: please, Adams, do go ahead
Pema Pera: I still have a couple minutes
Adams Rubble: I feel that a certain turst has developed between you and I because I think we have both been open
Gaya Ethaniel regrets saying all these stuff as they could sound corny
Pema Pera: not to worry, Gaya
Adams Rubble: But I understand that the experience yesterday goes beyond that
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Adams Rubble: But I think you have trust my veracity on that
Gaya Ethaniel: because you were developing trust with yourselves
Gaya Ethaniel: however many you have at any given moments
Pema Pera: you mean I have trusted you in speaking the truth, Adams? Sorry, just want to make sure I understood that correctly
Pema Pera: trusted that you spoke the truth?
Adams Rubble: yes
Gaya Ethaniel looks up dictionary for 'veracity', golly these people use fancy words
Adams Rubble: :)
Pema Pera: oh, yes, that is central
Pema Pera: and given in all we talk about here
Adams Rubble: It seems unbelievable to me :)
Pema Pera: in that sense there is no judgment
Pema Pera: and the hardest part is to have no juddment to yourself
Pema Pera: not to judge yourself
Gaya Ethaniel nods
Pema Pera: we are here together
Pema Pera: and we have a tendency to judge each other :)
Pema Pera: and we learn to do that less than we usually do
Pema Pera: so dealing with different guardians
Pema Pera: and learning to not judge them
Pema Pera: is like playing scales
Pema Pera: practicing not to judge yourself :)
Pema Pera: which is the hardest performance :-)
Pema Pera: (using Gaya's music metaphor here)
Gaya Ethaniel has learnt not to judge so much by allowing 'room for doubts' in given situtaion
Pema Pera: well, have to run now
Pema Pera: wonderful talking with you all here!
Gaya Ethaniel: Good day Pema
Adams Rubble: OK, bye Pema :)
Gaya Ethaniel: _/!\_
Pema Pera: c u soon!