19-21 - Our human to and fros

[Maxine was the scribe who wrote this essay]

In our journey of life and learning we inevitably to and fro between being open to learning and then being more closed to change.I believe this is part of being human, to be reluctant to give up what has become ‘part of us’ perhaps a precious lesson or experience.So we do the best we can, often seeing as ‘out there’ what is difficult to see within.

Part of our experience of being young ones and looking up with wide eyes to the older and the wiser is in part informed by our deep wish that there really is someone older, wiser, who can teach us about the world.That we may not have to learn from our own experience.Some of the dialogue from Teddybears conveys this longing in playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/2009/0/2009.03.20_01%3a00_Even_teddybears_have_their_own_secret_sorrows

And we may also yearn for havens of retreat, places for repose and refreshment which can shield us from the to- and -fros of internal and external tussles, uncertainties, doubts, as in http://playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/2009/03/2009.03.19_19%3a00_-PaB_retreat

And when we become occupied with RL events, we may then feel our SL attendance may be encumbered.A couple of entries suggest this may have occurredeither from RL concerns or possibly fatigue about always being in attendance as a couple of chatlogs during this period suggest.

But in the issues of schooling of our young, learning selves as well as our ever-learning selves, we can see the tension between structure that may be needed for containment and presentation of learning for the newbie self, and that sense that the child self, of any age, can be the director of that learning. In the chatlog Homeschooling there is informing discussion between a teacher by profession and some who have followed the homeschooling and unschooling path. Here I think the beginning trust and mistrust about structure may be evident.

playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/2009/03/2009.03.20_13%3a00_-_Homeschooling_or_Ritalin%3f

And then some more specific notation about spiritual thought vs dogma. In this lovely, lively discussion there are some clear almost pure statements about love and sin as the moving away from love which the group could listen to for a little while but then seemed to have to meander away to definitions of heaven, and perhaps other distractions.I wondered whether again it is hard to stay with the pure thought as nearly unthinkable…and that we need to meander to distract ourselves a bit, and we may distract ourselves considerably in terms of ‘sin’ being jazzed up into sexuality, because the moving away from love as the clearly offered definition of 'sin' is too difficult to just stay with.

Again I think this suggests that we can tolerate only a bit of new pure idea at a time, and we provide our own distractions.We blame external dogma, in this session the Church, the Pope, but also complaints about rules for sexual behavior but we can barely seem to appreciate the simple statement about love.

playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/2009/03/2009.03.21_07%3a00_-Sin_and_Karma

This point is beautifully summarized in the following session in which the mind which can not bear to think collapses intoe 'tell me what to do" (rules): 

playasbeing.wik.is/Chat_Logs/2009/03/2009.03.21_13%3a00_-_Love_God_and_Love

Pema Pera: [2009/03/21 7:12] Geo Netizen: Movement away from love can create currents that sweep others away.  Pema Pera: [2009/03/21 7:12] Geo Netizen: People generally find this to be vague and they say “Just tell me what to do”. [2009/03/21 7:12] Geo Netizen: That is why rules and commandments are very popular; the ‘thou shall nots’. [2009/03/21 7:12] Geo Netizen: The breaking of these rules is a sin, not because a rule is broking, but because the act that breaks the rule is a movement away from love. [2009/03/21 7:13] Geo Netizen: The sin lies in the movement away. [2009/03/21 7:13] Geo Netizen: One who moves continually towards and embraces this love does not need rules and laws and is free from them. [2009/03/21 7:13] Geo Netizen: This is, to the surprise of many Christians, a fundamental Pauline idea. :)) 

In this hour there was appreciation about the honesty of the discussion without dogma and rules, and Pema was able to suggest getting below the dogma which certain folks hold in order to access their feelings, that is to the human underpinnings.

  These and other glimpses into those aspects of our humanity re what we can bear to think about, and to embraceand then gain distance from -- those aspects of our all too human limits and limitations.