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A Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity discussion topic | |
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Copyright 2009 by K. Ferlic, All Rights Reserved | |
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Predatory world
We, as is the world we see and experience, are the material out of which Creation forms. We, as Physical Creation, may be only one aspect of Creation. Nevertheless, as the material of Creation, how we do, and don’t function, tells us a great deal about how Creation works. As discussed in the topic, "The Bohr approach" the recommendation is to look to Nature to see what it tells us about the creative process and how Creation works. In looking to Nature it can be said within an existing creation, energy can neither be created or destroyed. This means all the energy of the energy within a creation is already in form or flowing into form. In this regard, all the energy within an existing creation is fixed or committed. As such, there is always a sacrifice within the creative process to manifest something new. Everything will eat of something else in order to sustain itself and/or manifest something new. With the understanding of the equivalency of energy and consciousness, the same can be said about consciousness. That is, energy consciousness is neither created or destroyed and can only be transformed. As such there will always be a sacrifice of both energy and consciousness to create something new. Creation requires a sacrifice of energy and consciousness to create something new or to sustain an existing created form. Since all the energy consciousness of the universe is already in form or flowing into form and we are all interconnected with every other part of Creation we will have to eat some aspect of creation. Any new creation will require something to be eaten and consumed to supply the energy for that creation to come into existence and then to sustain that creation. In the same way we each drink, eat and breath, each creation will equivalently eat, drink and breath at each and every level of creation. What is consumed may be only a very small amount such that one never notices that something is being eaten and consumed it nonetheless happens. In this sense, creation is predatory and we live in a predatory world. We will have to eat and consume something for the creation we wish to manifest and similarly we will be eaten and consumed by a creation. Exactly what needs to be eaten and consumed will depend on the creation. Here again, we cannot second guess the creation process. We must give what the creation process requires even if it requires us to be eaten by the creation for it may be only in being eaten we are transformed into what we need to become. It is here the traditional concept of surrender is most applicable. We must surrender to whatever our creation requires and be consumed or otherwise the creation will not manifest in its fullness. Although all will need to eat something we can do it in separation and duality or in the communion of oneness. The difference in that in separation and duality we hold and accumulate because we fear we will not have enough to sustain ourselves and we will die. In oneness we realize there is a continual flow and unless we let go and work with the flow we ultimately shut of the source of our own being and that is our death and confines one to the proverbial hell at any level of being. As a human being for us to create both the inner and outer must change occur because of how our inner world is reflected in the outer. The seemingly chaotic stage we pass through during the sacrifice of Creation is as thought we are the scarab sampling, eating and digesting all that is laying around us only to metabolize this material into our being and out of our being flows a new creation. When we figure out what we need to eat from life that truly nourishes us and that really sustains our being, we focus in on that activity and spend less and less time exploring and a new creation rises from that focus. As the phoenix, we rise from the ashes of the understanding we have gained in the destruction of our enculturated self, that nest we build representing who we think we were that we found so much comfort. Since we are a creative living process and a creativity machine, we will always be changing Creation to create something new whether we realize it or not. We are always eating and consuming something of the existing creation. Similar, we will be eaten in some way. The question is, what do we nourish. For example companies want us to by their products. Whether we realize it or not, the company is consuming our creative life energy because we give them a piece of our life through the medium of money to buy what they produce. The whole idea of advertising is for us to willing give ourselves and our creative life energy over to what is being solicited. The point we really need to understand, whether we choose to live in oneness or separation, is that we will need to exchange the equivalent of water, air and food at each and every level of our being; spiritual, mental, emotional and physical. Similarly, we will have to give at every level of our being. Not necessarily give waste or by products like defecating, exhalation, and perspiration but rather in a way that mother gives food and nourishment. The Universe, Creation and the creation process is predatory. Each will eat of another in someway at each and every level of being and each we eaten by another. Mystical related Thoughts on the predatory nature of Creation ( Top) The more straight forward basic aspects of how we live in predatory word are provided in the overview above. The following discussion builds on these concepts but tends to be more allegorical and mystically related. As a more allegorical and mystical discussion some of the concepts discussed may be a little more difficult to understand and may not be readily obvious. However, the concepts are important and it is recommended you eat and digest what is read and allow it to grow within your understanding in its own time. In many ways, this is one of the more important topics discussed in the Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity material. A passage from the book "Cloud-Hidden, Whereabouts Unknown - A Mountain Journal" by Alan Watts sets the stage for this discussion extremely well. "At this moment, I see a gull that has picked a crab from a tide pool. Sprawling now upon the sand, the crab shrinks from the walls of its shell which is resounding to the tap, tap, tap of the gull’s beak. Who’s that knocking at my door? In this passage we see the essence of the continual transformation process of Creation and creativity. Some things will always be eaten to sustain an existing creation or to create another. Creation requires a sacrifice of energy or consciousness to create something new or to sustain an existing created form. Since all the energy of the universe is already in form or flowing into form and we are all interconnected with every other part of Creation we will have to eat some aspect of creation. In oneness we realize there is a continual flow. Unless we let go and work with the flow we ultimately shut of the source of our own being and that is our death and confines one to the proverbial hell at any level of being. We are an experience (Top): There is a subtly of Creation that concerns the ebb and flow of into manifestation and back out into the place of "no-thing-ness." It is rarely recognized and it has great bearing on how and what we eat and consume with our being. To understand what is happening we must remember all is energy consciousness. All the energy or consciousness is already in a fixed form or moving into a form begin created. To create anything new there will need to be a sacrifice. But we are not the existing form no matter what the from looks like for we are a being of experience. We are a body of experience. We are not only a disturbance of energy consciousness as discussed in the topic, "Origins of Creation." As that disturbance is occurring in this instant in time, we are the experiences we hold as our own. That is, the experiences we use to define who and what we are. We are the flow of energy flowing into and out of form. Yet although we are the flow itself, rather than being free like the wind, coming with nothing and leaving with nothing, we hold a certain set of experiences that we use to define who and what we are and then we need to have the experiences that feed the beliefs we hold. Whether we realize it or not we are drawn to eat, that is, to have experiences that continue to define us as we have defined ourselves and we avoid those that cause us to see ourselves differently. We filter the experiences we have into acceptable parts and non acceptable parts. The acceptable part feed who and what we think we are and the non acceptable pats become our waste products. This filtering process creates a barrier, a veil, a membrane, that we use to hold ourselves in the illusion of separation. Yet the filter we use is only a part of us and what we use to define where the ‘I am ...." stops and the "I am not...." beings. Energy can neither be created or destroyed and, as such, we cannot get something from nothing. This is true for each of us no matter who we are. Some form of energy somewhere will need to be consumed for us to create, or, rather, for us to even continue to exist for we exist only when there is a flow of energy that we use to define ourselves. We will eat and consume something at every level of our being to continue the energy flow and that requires a communion, an intimate sharing, at every level of being whether one accepts it as such or not. We are much like the scarab or dung beetle which was a symbol of transformation in ancient Egypt. The scarab eats the dung and excrement of animals to transform that waste into life taking from the waste the nutrient and other materials it needs to sustain its life. We do much the same thing. We can decide if we eat the waste or the fruit. For example, the following story of by Anthony DeMello of the Wheelwright brings out this point exceptionally well and the value of eating the experience of another as opposed to the fruit or waste of an individual which of course is an experience itself. The story does give us a reason to pause and think, "Are we eating another fruits or are we eating their waste products?" We all eat something of another and/or we eat the environment. The only question is, "What are we eating and is it what we need to be nourished." The Wheelwright from The Heart Of Enlightenment by Anthony De Mello. While a wheelwright was making a wheel at the lower end of the hall, Prince Haun of Ch’i was reading a book at the upper end. Putting aside his chisel and mallet, the wheelwright called to the prince and asked him what book he was reading. One of the most profound aspects of this story is when we compare it to the scarab. Life occurs when we take and eat bringing that food internally to be digested and to extract from it what we need to be nourished and to sustain ourselves. It doesn’t matter what is taken in if it is physical food like an apple or a cookie or a book for the mind. Whether it is truly dung, eliminated waste products, as with the scarab or it is the most profound wisdom found in the writings and teachings of the greatest masters it is nothing until it is consumed, eaten, digested and made our own and we create an experience of life based on what we have eaten and digested. It doesn’t matter what we call what we eat and what it looks like. The question is, does what we eat give us what we need and me our true needs. That which is of true value to us is the experience of living and life. All is only food to be eaten. All can be considered excrement and the waste left behind of a life unfolded. Even what we call the most lush and juiciest fruits are only that which has been left behind, unwanted and discarded. The veil of separation and the flow of life across the veil (Top): One can ask the question, "If everything emanates from the same Source of Being and all is one, how is it we have come to believe there is a separation between the physical and non physical realms?" The answer is somewhat surprising. It is because of the filter we ourselves have created. There is no separation between the inside and the out and there is really no difference between our fruits and our waste products. That is an illusion. All is processed by us to transform what we take in to transform into something different. We do this by a filtering process and what I as an individuated consciousness filters is not what you as an individuated consciousness filters. Much like the walls of our intestine and the membranes around the cells of our body, we create a penetrable barrier or membrane that exist between each layer of being. The members we create determined between what we consider inside or out. We define what is in and what is out, not someone or something else, only we supply the definition. This barrier acts as a filter between what we take in and what we don’t take in at every level of being and there is a slightly different barrier for each level of being. In essence we create a membrane for each level of our being or level of our beliefs that which is our and that which is not ours. To sustain creation energy of some type must flow across each of these barriers and it is our eating that fuels this process. It is this flow across the barrier that is really what defines the experience of life. It is the exchange that occurs at the barrier is where the give and take of creation occurs. We each will eat something at every level of our being to sustain ourselves in a created form. This process is most clearly demonstrated by the physical plane and what we eat. We eat food and this food is digested and separated within our being, namely our stomachs and intestine. Some of it we take into our blood as fuel and nutrients to sustain us. The remainder we allow to leave our body as excrement. The blood then carries this fuel and nutrient to our cells where they rearrange the molecules of the fuel and nutrients, building components with the nutrients and extracting the energy from within the molecules of fuel and turn it into our bio-energy that animates our life. In the process we produce waste molecules that are again eliminated. The bio-energy, that is the energy stored within the molecules and atoms of the biology then become our thinking. We have many thoughts. Some of the thoughts we take and build into who and what we think we are just like our cells take the molecules and add them to its cell structure and others we discard. Then, within our belief structure, which is only another filter we have constructed, allows some of these thoughts direct our creative life energy to give rise to feelings that flow within our heart. These feelings then become our witness to life for they are life itself. The feelings we witness and again, as before, some of the feelings we witness and hold, other feelings we allow to pass through without much attention. Our mind characterizes these feelings which arise from the creative life energy that is flowing into form and we see and experience what we perceive as the Divine and/or sacred. Which of these feelings we hold or to which we attach becomes our Divine. They ultimately defines who and what we are and who and what Creation is for us for it is this energy within the feeling that is flowing and creating our life and sustaining our life. It is only energy. But it is our creator/Creator whether we realize it or not. However, the entire process is the creator/Creator, not just what we hold as the Creator. Yet it is all only the flow of energy itself. What needs to be understood is there will be a similar taking, eating, consuming, digestion, separation and assimilation at every level of existent and our being. Additionally, the process becomes more and more subtle at each layer. Similar, at each level, we have created filters. That which we consider not essential moves out and it is discarded. That which we consider essential stays and become part of our being and our reality. There is no separation. We are a creative living process. We are an experience. We are a flow of energy. We are not our bodies nor our mind, nor the ego that we think we are. We are a flow of creative life energy aware of its own existence. We are a distortion in the fabric of Creation. We are a disturbance. There is only finer and finer levels of subtly to our creation. Each layer taking and eating from the coarser layer below it. It is one way energy is moved back "up" the flow path from the manifested realm into the unmanifested. There is death and dissolution of the creation and there is the eating and digesting. Death and dissolution is the view from within the creation. Eating and digesting is the view looking from outside the creation, looking at the whole process. If we fail to allow what is not needed to move out of our life at every level of our being, that level becomes constipated and too full an there is no room for the new. In time, much like the way a blocked river will find a release path. What is accumulated breaks free allowing the energy to be processed in some way. We must continually allow the free flow of the creative life energy in all aspects of our being and we need to continually allow all the associated process that support that energy flow to flow freely. If we do not properly defecate our unwanted wasted, our intestines and stomach will not be able to do their job and the whole chain becomes disrupted. Again, this is true at each and every level of being. We can become spiritually constipated. We can become emotionally constipated and, often not realized, mentally constipated. We must let go of what is no longer needed at each and every level of being. Similarly, if we don’t allow our fruits to manifest resulting from our creative life energy and our creative passion to expressing themselves, the flow path is disrupted and we will manifest seemingly unwanted or undesirable experiences. But we have nevertheless caused these experiences because we are the one’s who have block our energy. We truly don’t have anyone to blame. The only questions are, "What do we eat and does what we eat provide the proper nutrients for what we desire to create? What do we retain and assimilate from what we eat, and do we discard and throw away what needs to be thrown away or do we hold on and plug up the system? And of course, do we allow our fruits to blossom or do we stifle and deny the expression of our fruits?" Why Predatory? (Top): It needs to be understood that we become what we keep or that which we hold. We are what we keep or hold and the process is a never ending assimilation and discarding. Any new creation will require something to be eaten and consumed to supply the energy for that creation to come into existence and then to sustain that creation. In the same way we each drink, eat and breath, each creation will equivalently eat, drink and breath at each and every level of creation. As can be seen, there are two ways for the process to work. One is in separation and the process can be seen and felt as predatory where as the other way can be experienced as oneness and communion. We use the term predatory because that is how the sacrifice for creation and the subsequent eating process look like in separation and it is the way most people experience it. Although the word predatory may appear to be a rather strong term to describe this process, when we understand how many have experienced pain and suffering as part of this process because of how we live in separation versus oneness, predatory is an appropriate term. The definition of predatory is several related but somewhat different meanings. It is defined as of or relating to, or characterized by plundering or accustomed to or living by, pillaging. That is to act by taking money or property by open violence, especially in war and looting. It is living by preying upon others as a beast or bird or raptorial by seizing and devouring living prey. The term raptorial is characterized by having talon or claws adapted for seizing and holding pry especially said of hawks, vultures, eagles, owls and other carnivorous birds. The part of the definition of predatory that is most appropriate for this discussion is relating to or characterized by plundering and living by preying on others for that is what most of us we do in life whether we realize it or not. Rather than live in communion with others, we live in separation and perceive others separate from us although they are essential for us to have the experiences we do. Rather than live in communion with others, we live in separation and perceive others separate from us although they are essential and we can’t have our experience without them. We need to remember creation/Creation is not done alone. To eat and be eaten (Top): Everything flows into and out of form. All facets of our being, spiritual, mental, emotional and physical will need to be nourished. We are familiar with our need to eat to nourish and sustain our physical being. However, we also eat something to nourish our spiritual, mental and emotional parts also. The question is, "What are you eating and does what we eat nourish our true needs?". Or many the question should be, "Do we have any idea at to what we are eating at each and every level of being?" Everything will need to eat something as part of the sacrifice of Creation to sustain Creation. Eating is part of the process. Often the process is so slow we are unaware that it is occurring. Other times it is obvious such as when we sit down to eat a meal. However, to truly sustain our being, we need to eat what it needs not what mind wants. Nourishing is more than just eating to have fuel for energy. It is more like eating the proper balance of fat, carbohydrates, proteins, and minerals in addition to the fuel for energy to have the correct building components in our body. The body cannot always make what it needs and must get what it needs from outside itself. Often it only needs trace amounts but it nevertheless needs specific types and kinds of materials. There is a form that is assimilated and the form of what is eaten can be just as important as the energy itself. It is to be noted we use the term food as if everything is physical and that we need to eat some food at each and every level of being. However, the food we eat spiritually, mentally, and emotionally, is actually an experience we have. Experience is our true food even in the physical. At each and every level what we eat and digested is an experience. In this sense, there are two parts to the eating experience. There is the experience of eating and that nourishes our being for we define ourselves by our experience. The second aspect is what is eaten. Here the form of the experience is important and as said, it can be solely to generate energy or it can supply a particular nutrient to build and sustain our being whether it is a spiritual, mental, emotional or physical body we have created and are sustaining. We each need to look carefully as to exactly what type and kind of experience serves us and nourishes us and makes us feel alive. For example, many foods will satisfy one’s energy needs but some are more suitable to one’s sense of taste and feel of texture than others. Some provide a more intense and satisfactory experience than others. Physically some prefer a crunchy food versus a mushy food. From an emotional perspective, a hand sake is quite different than a body hug. Sometimes one’s preferences are learned preferences where as others true body preferences and just more suitable to the body and how it senses its environment. For example is the preference for a "crunch" food versus "mush" food a developed mental preference or a body preference of the tactile stimulation? In either case, when we eat that which satisfies our mental preferences we are feeding and nourishing our ego and its preferences and who and what it thinks it is. When we eat that which satisfies the body preferences such that we optimize the pleasure felt in the body, we are feeding and nourishing the enjoyment of the physical plane and being alive by enjoying the simple pleasure of Physical Creation. The difference between a developed mental preference and what the body desires can be quite subtle and is worth exploring for any preference we have will have implications for our life and they can be quite profound. Those body preferences can pull us in seemingly irrational ways. For example, smell resides in the evolved brain not in the chemicals. It is a biological preference. The evidence is that we can smell a compatible mate to produce the offspring with the best survivability and that compatible mate has an immune gene unlike one’s own and that increases the survivability of the offspring. One may have sex because it feels good but we never pay attention to why it feels good and how we choose our preferences. What needs to be understood is the human brain has evolved as an extravagance. It is essential to allow us to get what we want. The brain is bigger than necessary for the nervous system we need. Other mammals show this. They can function quite will without the size of brain we have. Decision making process resides in the brain but it was our preferences that caused it to develop into its decision making process. The same preference again and again over time causes us to evolve the ability for certain characteristics and that part of the brain develops to support those characteristics for which we have preference. In the end, many of our body preferences are only that, preferences and are, or have been of the ego and bind us to what we think is human. However, the body preferences are not the preferences of our ego but the egos who have gone before us. Once those preferences have been encoded into the body they become needs for the body to function properly for that preferences is now part of the body. Since we chose our particular body for the experiences we chose to have, we will have to give it what it needs for it to function properly. Similarly by exerting the preferences of our ego on the body, we cause the body to evolve in a given way either as a family or a society. In any case, if we don’t take the correct nutrients to meet our needs we will not be able to create what we desire either from our own heart or any other intention of the mind at any level of being. The problem is for any creation exactly what needs to be eaten and consumed will depend on the creation and the clarity to distinguish needs from wants. It is important to know what we are creating. Here again, we cannot second guess the creation process. We must give what the creation process requires even if it requires us to be eaten by another creation. It may be only in being eaten we are transformed into what we need to become to create what we desire. It is here the traditional concept of surrender is most applicable. We must surrender to whatever our creation requires and be consumed or otherwise the creation will not manifest in its fullness. The question is what do we need, not what do we want and prefer. The question that is to be asked for each level of our being is, "What do I need to be nourished not what I want but what I need?" In asking our intuitive guidance and body wisdom what we need to do to get sufficient energy and nourishment at each and every level of our being we will find certain "foods," whether spiritual, mental, emotional and physical foods, will give us all that we need although others may taste better. Our intuitive guidance and body wisdom will always lead us to what we need and it may or may not look like what we want and/or prefer. Feeding, being feed and becoming food (Top): There is a facet of creation that is somewhat difficult to accept and that is any and all creations becomes the food for another or other creations. This is true at ever level of our being. Energy can neither be created or destroyed and, as such, we cannot get something from nothing. This is true for each of us no matter who we are. Some form of energy somewhere will need to be consumed for us to create and to even continue to exist and sustain ourselves. If we deny the food we need for an aspect of our being, we will kill that part of our being. We will starve it to death. There is a predatory aspect to Creation that is unavoidable. If we deny what we need for any reason, we starve an aspect of our being and live in separation. We each need another. We each need to eat and consume another and it needs to be realized that they need to be eaten. If they cannot be eaten in the way they need to be eaten, they cannot do what they came to do just as much as we cannot do what we came to do if we don’t eat what we need. There are several aspect to this phenomenon that must be understood to understand how to create the reality of our choice. All will occur in one way or another at each and every level of our being. First, there are two ways to look at what is eaten. We either eat another creation or the fruits of the creation, or we are eaten or the fruits of our creation are eaten. Additionally, there will always be an inner and outer aspect to eating. We will always have to consume a part of ourselves to manifest a new creation. This is the way creation works and why creation is not done alone but with others. There is always a give and take internally and externally. There are two ways to eat. One is to eat in separation where we build ourselves and are predatory and when we eat it will feel predatory to the other. However, the second way is where we are in communion to nourish others and we and they are transformed. Here the feeling is not predatory but rather it is felt as bliss and joy and gives rise to the most exquisite feelings one has ever felt. Communion is about having or sharing in common. It is mutual participation. It is a mutual sharing of thoughts, feelings, and can be described as sympathetic intercourse. One of the most exquisite experiences one can ever have is to be consciously in communion with our eating at each and every level of our being simultaneously and simultaneously eating and being eaten by another where they too are simultaneously in communion at each and every level of their being. Most rarely experience this phenomenon because if they did, we will see mystics being created a dime a dozen. Although all will need to eat something we can do in separation and duality or in the communion of oneness. The choice is ours. The difference is that in separation and duality we hold and accumulate because we fear we will not have enough to sustain ourselves and we will die. In oneness we realize there is a continual flow. Unless we let go and work with the flow we ultimately shut of the source of our own being and that is our death. It confines one to the proverbial hell at any level of being. In doing so, we will eat and consume something at every level of our being and that requires a communion at every level. Two ways to become food - creating breakfast (Top): Independent of how we are eaten, we can provide nourishing food for in two ways. To see these two ways of becoming food, we look at how a pig and a chicken provide food for breakfast. It is said above one needs to become the creation and be eaten by another to if they are to be nourished and sustained. It is much like a bacon and egg breakfast provided by the pig and chicken. In becoming a creation, the pig becomes the breakfast. It in turn becomes the nourishment and food for others. Here we become the creation and give of ourselves and our energy and being. The chicken only makes a contribution. It gives an egg. Although the egg nourishes and sustains, the chicken does not become creation itself nor does the chicken become part of the one who eats. The chicken give you the "fruit" of its life or its waste products depending on how we choose to view it. So too with us. We can give our fruit much as in the story of the Wheelwright, namely the work that we do that lives after us or we can become the creation. The question is, "Who do we eat?" and "Who or what is our predators?" "Who eats us to sustain their being?" Becoming the food for our own creation (Top): One must eat to nourish a new creation. One must sacrifice the existing world to create something new. In becoming the creator we have to be prepared to be the embodiment of our creation and become the creation. We will take from our environment and others what we need to create and manifest our creations and we will need to take from ourselves within our own being that which we need. An aspect of both our inner and outer current creation will need to be sacrificed and eaten by ourselves to create the new creation we desire. Or, these aspects will be eaten by another for their creation to become what we desire. However, it needs to be understood that we will be taken by another to feed its creation as part of our own creation. We do not live in isolation. All is interconnected. In the eating and digesting we will be transformed. When we become the creation, others can eat of our creation and we become part of them. We must be prepared to be eaten and consumed by another or others. It is part of the flow of creation itself. In the reality of the process, we live in a wholeness and oneness of being. Having chosen to incarnate, we choose to become a creation, to become food and nourishment for others. It is part of the gift we bring to share and nourish those in our life. Simply because we incarnated, others will feed off us and we will feed off them. Giving a contribution or providing fruit (Top): Providing fruit and giving a contribution are subtly different. Providing fruit is a way of contributing to others or another creation but not necessarily becoming a part of their creation. What is not realized is we should be providing our fruit as opposed to making a contribution. Fruit is something that is produced naturally in the life of an organism and falls away from the organism in a natural process. The energy and time of the organism is spent producing the fruit. But, when the time is correct the fruit simply falls away. Providing a contribution is about give our time or our energy and our being. It is about others feeding off the fruit of our being before it is ripe and time to fall away and/or eating and feeding off our creations When we eat the fruit of a creation we don’t eat the creation. When we give our fruits one may nourish another but one doesn’t become the food. When we give when our fruit is ripe, we don’t give our time and effort and we don’t feel the impacts of giving. Others eat our fruits. Our time and effort goes into creating the fruits but no more. The fruits exists unto themselves. There is a subtly here that is not readily understood. In proving fruit our efforts are placed producing the fruit and nothing more. We have no interest in how the fruit is used and what we get nothing back. It is to become totally unattached to what we created. Here we can never suffer the pain in how our creation is used. We created what we did simply because it needed to be created. Participating in the creation of another we make a contribution. When we are like the chicken, we give our time and energy specifically for the creation but do not become it. Yet what is taken from us is not used in accordance with its nature. The chicken produces an egg to create an offspring. When we eat the egg before it has become the offspring we are interrupting the natural cycle. Here we take the chicken’s time and effort and make it our own. It is making a contribution because what is taken is taken before the cycle of creation is complete. Analogously it is to take the fruit of a tree before the fruit it ripe and naturally falls from the tree. That for which the egg was produced is not allow to come full cycle. It may not matter much to the chicken as far as we know. But if we were the chicken and felt with the feelings we have as a human, we would feel a life of being used and abused for our creations are being taken before their time. That is, we are not being allowed to complete what we started and the energy which flowed to a specific end is diverted and not allow to freely dissipate. Most of us give a contribution in the form of our time and effort, whether it be in actual time and effort or in the substitute form of money. We give, another our contributions to their creation for them to manifest their creation, as opposed to ourselves. Here we need to understand, if what we give is not totally in alignment with producing the fruits of our being, we will feel used and abused at some level. For example. One aspires to become an actor so they give their time and energy to a volunteer or paid theatrical job where they feel they are developing their talents. Here the process of creating one’s fruits is in alignment with giving to another and there is a mutual give and take. The process is not abusive in any way. If however, one aspires to become an actor and what they are asked to do is not helping them to develop their talents and their fruits, they are giving their time and money in a way that will feel abusive, unappreciated and not fulfilling in some way even if they get paid. We cannot give our time and energy to anything for any reason without suffering pain in some way until our fruit is ripe. We then wonder why we have low levels of pain and/or discomfort when we are asked to do certain things in life. Only when our creation process and desires aligns with another can we give our time and energy before our fruits are ripe so we do not feel used and abused. We don’t realize how we give ourselves and it is because we do not realize how we are giving that we can be abused and hurt. We work for money and/or and we give our time and energy. We are giving our life to the creation of another. If it is not in alignment with what we are here to create, we sacrifice ourselves and will feel the pain, the suffering and the predatory nature of the relationship. If what we give is used respectfully and fully appreciated for what we give in full alignment with our total needs, not just the needs for say money to live, we are not hurt in any way. However when we are not appreciated or what we give is used other than how we expected or otherwise believed about life, we are hurt at some level of our being. The problem is most think when they give their time and money either as a volunteer or for paid employment is they cannot be hurt by what is done with their contribution. However, the exact opposite is true. Because we give our time and energy to the creation we are a part of the creation and how it is used impacts us at some level. It is only where what we create is totally separate from how it is used are we not hurt. That is our fruit falls from our tree or our creative process is in full alignment with what we do. For example we paint a picture simply because we have to express ourselves. It will not matter to us how that picture is used for we have been totally fulfilled in painting the picture. There is nothing more for us to get from the picture. However, if we paint a picture for someone else for whatever reason, how it is used affects us at some level because it was not created in freedom and without attachments. We expected our efforts to be used in some way. Of course if we have detached ourselves from our feelings, we will not see the truth of what is said here. Then again, that is why we separate ourselves from our feelings because so much of our creative life energy is not used in the way we choose and we do not desire to feel the associated pain and/or discomfort. Impact of the two ways to eat (Top): This brings us back to the point that there are two ways to eat. We eat to nourish who we are and supply the energy to do what we want. One way to eat is we eat to become what we are. Eat something, digest it, and make it our own and we grow the identity of who and what we are. The food we eat then becomes a part of our being. Most of what we eat feeds the identity that is us, either our ego or our body. Most things we do are taking and eating for ourselves. We bloat our ego and it continues to grow bigger and bigger. On one level there is nothing wrong with this if one see the ego and the body as vehicles for experience. The problem is when we see the ego and body as us, that is, who we are as opposed to who we truly are, a creative living process constantly flowing and recreate itself and its reality. The second way to eat is to eat and become what we eat. In becoming what we eat, we become different and we become transformed. We become like them. This is how we are normally educated. We eat and digest what a teacher or authority provides and we become like them. We live the way we are taught to live. Any certification program, degree program, initiation program or other method that is use to identify an individual as living and performing in a prescribed way is where we have eaten and become what we eat as opposed to become our unique creation. In some eating we are nourished to become who and what we are or who and what we have created or we become what we eat. That is what life is all about. That is what creation is all about. In any case, to make life enjoyable we should start to eat one’s most juiciest and lush parts and when the fruit is ripe and time for eating. The problem is that rather than wait for us or another to become ripe and prepared for eating, that is, when they are willing and ready to be sacrificed, we become predatory and become enmeshed in predatory relationships eating another before their time is correct. Predatory identity and predatory relationships (Top): The predatory identity is the "I"" of ego where one serves the ego as our identity as opposed to seeing the ego as a vehicle for experience. A predatory relationship is one that fosters the identity we have chosen. If I need students to get my identity and feed my identity as a teacher, I feed my ego and I have created a predatory relationship. This also includes where we feed our identity as being a mother, father or any other role we choose in life. If we get our identity ["I am a...." which is only a form of "I am this.... and not that....."] from what we do, we are a parasite for we are creating conditions such that we feed off the unawareness of others. In fact, we may be a psychic vampire. That is, take their energy overtly or covertly to use as our own. Creation/creation is not done alone. We can create an other in our life to feed our identity so we can practice what we have chosen to do and become. In doing so, we become a psychic vampire. We create the space for them to unknowingly give to our purposes. For example, creating a condition of fear in another in any way and then be the vehicle to remove that fear is to become a psychic vampire at its worse. To have them believe they cannot get along without us is to create a parasitic relationship. That is, they come to believe they need us to live. If we get our energy from them, we have turned the parasitic relationship into one of becoming a vampire for we need to get our life, the experiences we cherish for our identity, from them. We manipulate them such that they live life to serve our needs. For example, in oneness, the healer needs the ill person just as much as the ill person needs the healer. Just as a teach needs students or a king needs subjects. To have an identity of "healer," "teacher," or "king" changes the relationship to predatory for we need to eat the other. As a healer, we need to eat their experience of illness. There is an unawareness or a loss of internal guidance for us to maintain our identity. Yes the healer needs sick people just as the teacher needs students or the king needs subjects. However, to get an identity from the relationship in the interconnectedness of all things, it can be said the healer is causing or creating sick people so as to have their identity. The teacher is causing unawareness to exist and the king is cause individuals to be unable to protect and rule themselves. In these cases the healer, the teacher or the king are really a little more than a parasite feeding of the lack of awareness of others. The same is true for any other occupation where the individual gets an identity from what they do. But there is another view that we can use. Being in communion (Top): We have to see each individual as a experiences to discover and explore how we create our reality and the experiences we have. If the healer does not see themselves as a healer but only discovering and exploring the universe as to how each individual point of consciousness creates their experiences, they do not create sick people. Rather, the person who is ill comes to give the healer an opportunity to learn more about the unique and creative ways we create the experience of illness, the aspect of creation the healer has chosen to study. If the healer did not treat the individuals mechanistically and objectively, they could share their insights to the one who is ill about how the experience of illness is created and, in turn, explain how one can discover and explore how we create our experiences of illness and health. If the healer can added spontaneity and innocence to their practice as opposed to staying in the requirements of their profession when their body wisdom and intuitive guidance are presenting another path, one would return to that state of childlike play and find what could only be described as miracles at their finger tips. They would find themselves dancing in a magic and mystical world. The same is true for the teacher, the king, or any other identity. In communion the teacher teaches one how to be their own teacher so that both the teacher and student can dance between learning from each other. So too with the king. If he teaches his subjects how to protect and rule themselves, he and they can dance together in oneness. If you are fully aware of how we are feeding off of another, we will respect them and nourish their growth for that is the only way we guarantee our own food supply. To live one’s heart, one will have to starve the ego, that is the identity of "I am..." and feed the heart and what it feels.. Designing Relationships (Top): In understanding that in the oneness of the universe we each need to eat and be eaten and we have pulled to us the individual that stands before us for an experience of some type for each of us to eat of the other, we can do anything we wish and never bind another and never lose our ability to play. However, one will need to be free to follow their body wisdom and intuitive guidance as opposed to their mind. As opposed to creating an identity of "I" rather we look at each interaction as a dance within a given context of music that is being played. It is to become the observer observing creation within a context of observation where neither the observer or the observed knows who the creator really is. The only thing we will have to remember is that whoever we pull to us may be unaware. If we do not respect that unawareness we will violate them in some way and we each will have to live with the consequences. We will have to work with them on their level of awareness unless we share ourselves and what we understand. In sharing they may or may not awaken to our level of awareness. So it is best to give the individual full disclosure of our intentions as to why we created them and causes them to come into our life. However to do that, we will have to know ourselves intimately at the deepest levels of our being and sufficient deep enough to understand why we have created them. We will have to share an intimacy with them that they may have never experienced before in that we will have to reveal ourselves. They may become afraid and feel as though they will lose control or fall into some bottomless dark pit or they will blowup like a balloon and explode. However, we can be assured that if the individual is open to who and what they are, they will realize at some level of their being, they heard and responded to our call and we to theirs. They are in our life just as much as we are in theirs to create a certain type and kind of experience. If however, they cannot be honest with themselves and what they are longing to create from the deepest levels of their being, they will not accept our openness and probably we will feel some hurt and pain and not feel as though we can share ourselves in the future. We will feel as thought we have been attacked as by a predator as opposed to being in communion. Yet if we remain in the feeling, we return to our own unawareness and become a parasite and predator to feed of the unawareness of others to feed our identity. Used and abused (Top). One of the ways to know if we are being eaten by a predator and in a predatory relationship is whether or not we feel used and abused and how much hurt and pain we feel. Now it needs to be understood we, the other person, or both may be causing the predatory situation. To understand who is causing the predatory feelings we will have to awaken and become aware of how separated we are within our own being. In any relationship, at one level, on the ego level, it will feel as though it is being used and abused and in many ways it is and will be. It will be used because it is needed as part of the process. It will feel abused when it is used without the love and respect for the creation process and the other taking without honoring what we give. However, if we take what happens personally, we will be reinforcing our ego developing resentments and unable to give in the way we need to give. If we understand the process and forgive those who are unaware of what they are doing, we are able to continue in the creation process without binding our energy and our creative abilities. It is only we can give what those who feed off us need do we become free. Otherwise they would be feeding of someone else. We need to remember we each are unique aspects of All That Is. We are only a reflection of a part of the other that lies buried deep within their nonconscious. We are only giving them the opportunity to bring that part of themselves into consciousness. It is all part of the process. The only question is, "Do we give ourselves freely and willingly or do we go with a struggle causing ourselves unnecessary pain?" But it needs to be remembered and emphasized, our heart must be leading who we give ourselves to and not our mind. We should be feeling an expansion or fullness of being in the process. We will need to be out of mind to find out how and to what we should be giving ourselves. There are two interesting aspects that develop in nature that develop relative to what is being eaten in the creative process. One effect of being eaten is that the feminine aspect of being or rather the feminine half of the creative effort will almost always give more than the masculine in the creative effort. It gives more of its life and energy in her nurturing and sustaining of the creation than the masculine. This phenomenon can get translated into the living pattern of species and it affects how animals mate. Many scientists who study the mating process in nature believe that the male ornaments characteristic in many species in nature are to entice the females to select them. Males fight in competition over females for the right to mate. There is a seduction through sexual display and female choice. It is believed the female chooses because of the effort expended in raising young. Because the female spends so much effort they want a good mate. Hence the males competition to get female attention. The female selects because of what she has to give to the creation. The females hold out for the best genes as displayed in what the species has evolved in the male ornaments. The important indicators of the best males, the male traits, then become bright exaggerated over time. In this process the behavioral traits can be as important a physical traits. It is interesting to note, role reversal happen in nature. It depends on which sex competes for mates and those that nurture the young. Females are observe to take on male characteristics when males nurture the young. The point that is needed to be emphasized here is the feeling of being used and abused is very real and goes beyond our conscious awareness. It seems to lie deep inside our biology. But the feeling of being used and abused will occur at every level of our being. We each have a feminine aspect that is capable of supporting and growing a powerful creation but will not act until that right, or correct, masculine aspect comes along. Until the correct masculine appears the feminine will not act and give itself over to that deep transformation process. However, when we do so, we are capable of experiencing that communion at each and every level of our being. Additionally what has been observed is that the ability to have food and survive makes a big difference in what type of society and male female relationship develops. Feeding changes life styles. When food is much more continuously available separation is not required and there is little competition for the food that is available. If food is scare one can’t be in groups but needs separation. In these cases females do not form bond with each other. When females do form bonds they dominate males. Here again what is observed in nature is true for ever level of being. We each have a masculine and feminine aspect. When we are truly nourished at each and every level of our being we do not need to live in a isolation and our masculine does not fight for survival and adequate food supplies. It can retreat and allow the feminine to surface and bond with the feminine of other beings. Then our feminine can dominate our masculine aspect of our being. As long as we live in a world where one thinks there is insufficient food at any level of being, we will cause separation to exist. It is only when we allow ourselves to feed and nourish others in the way that they need to be feed and nourished can the separation of the world be removed. For it is only when we give and allow the energy to flow within our own being that we create the flow pattern that will pull to us what we need. The creativity perspective of the eating and becoming the guru and the message in the Christ and Buddha stories (Top): In understanding and becoming the creator and to be eaten by others it is appropriate to look at the guru tradition and both the Christ and Buddha stories from a creativity perspective. In the guru disciple relationship, frequently in many Eastern traditions, it is recommended the disciple love their guru and seek to become the guru. The disciple should seek to become the guru no matter what the guru does or how they treat the disciple and no matter how the disciple feels about the relationship or what the disciple experiences. They are to feed off the guru and eat the guru to become them. That intention is, of course, for the disciple to get what the guru has - the guru’s understanding and experiences of reality. However, from a creativity perspective, one must become both the creator and the creation. When one eats and becomes the guru they do not become that new creation. They become a copy of the old. A copy of that which currently exists. Both the Christ story and Buddha story imply something significantly different. That is, the need to die to what is and become the new. They both point to becoming the Phoenix. Both the Christ message and the Buddha message are about being true to our time and place what we are here to do. To be eaten and consumed as necessary but living true to who and what we are. It is to live and be our truth. It is to give ourselves even to be eaten by the role. Christ became who he needed to become for the time and place of His incarnation as the unique creation He was. Buddha became who he come to become unique to his nature and at the opposition of the desires of his family. What needs to be understood is neither Buddha or Christ copied a master, a teacher or a guru. Each become a unique creation according to their nature. If they had copies a guru, teacher or master, people would be following that teacher and not the message of Christ or Buddha for they would have no message other than what they teacher supplied. We are not to take and eat to become Christ or become Buddha. We are to take and eat and be nourished and inspired to become our unique creation free of our past as in Buddha’s example and no matter what the cost as in Christ’s example. From a creativity and creation perspective, current interpretations of Christ and Buddha are some what understood correctly and somewhat erroneously Christ said to take and eat the bread He broke. He stated that "This is My Body (the bread) and this is My Blood (the wine)." He went on to say, "Do this in remembrance of me." That is, to take and eat this meal - The experience of His life, His Body and His Blood, and share it with those at our table. There is always an argument whether the performance of this act in His remembrance is real or symbolic. Catholic tradition has been to make this a doctrine of faith that it is real. Many Protestant sects differ. However, the traditional teaching about Christ go on to say that he was the sacrificial lamb in that He was an innocent being, in particular God incarnate, and put to death for our sins, or rather, the sins of the world. So, because of His death, we are all saved and there is little we need to do other than to believe in him and follow His way for He said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Light." None of this is disputed. It can be accepted at face value and/or interpreted how we choose. However, what is being missed is what exactly is "His Way?" Christ become the sacrifice. He become both the Creator and the Creation. He did what was required of Him for the time and place of his incarnation no matter what they cost. Namely he had a role to play. As he told his parents at about age twelve, "I must be about my Father’s business." He knew he had a role to play at the very earliest ages of his life. Additionally, He had a role to play in life that his ego did not particularly want to play. That is what is reflected in the agony in the garden on Holy Thursday. That is what the garden was about. This unwillingness of his ego that "He," as ego, did not want to face his crucifixion. His mind was opposed to doing it as reflected in the night in the garden when he asked the cup of his suffering to pass. He said, "If possible, let this cup pass." His ego didn’t want to be who He needed to be. It didn’t want to suffer and die. But the role he needed to play and what His Way was. Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Light only because he played His role to whatever was required of Him in the time and place of His incarnation unto His death. That is His message - be about our Father’s business and be true to ourselves and to that business no matter what the cost. What we need to do is be nourished and encouraged by Him and His example to similarly become the role that we need to play for our time and our place of incarnation. What we fail to understand is that people say "become like Christ, become like Buddha." The issues isn’t to become a Christ or to become a Buddha. The issues is to become true to who we are. To eat and be nourished by Christ and by Buddha and become the truth of our being for it is in us and flows through us sustaining our being just as much as it flowed through Buddha and Christ. From this perspective, Buddha’s story is the same as Christ’s. When Buddha was born it was predicted he would become a great king or a great teacher. So his biological father did everything he could to shield Buddha from life itself, especially the pain and suffering of life. His father did not want Buddha to experience anything that would cause him to become a teacher. However, Buddha did what Buddha needed to do for his time and place of incarnation. It was to reject the world of his father and of wealth and riches and to go off into meditation and isolation to come into the understanding of how one creates their pain and their suffering. In doing so, Buddha had to face the pain and suffering of untold life times. Through meditation he gained a centeredness and a calmness and an understanding of who one really is. That was his path and his role. He too was true to his role whatever it required to the very end. He too becomes the Way, the Truth and the Light. We need to eat of him and of his way and of his path and to similarly focus inward and come to an understanding of who and what we are but to become who we are. In the same way we have to eat of Christ and his path and to do whatever is required at our time and our place even if it means unto our death and unto a crucifixion What is missed in these stories is that we each have to become truth to who and what we are and true to "Our Father’s business," that is the role we incarnated to play, no matter what the cost as viewed from a physical plane perspective. However, rather than being nourished as to who we are by the Christ and the Buddha stories, we try and become like them. We try and copy them. We make them our guru. We try and do what they do rather than become our own unique creations. But to become our own unique creation we have to become the creation in the same way the pig becomes the breakfast. We have to be about our "Father’s business" and leave our human family to do what we need and came to do. It is about following the left hand path of convention whatever it looks like and whatever the consequences. We have to plan the breakfast and then die to ourselves to become the breakfast to be eaten by others, to nourish others. We do so so that they, in turn can become their unique creation. And the cycle goes on and on and on. It is much like a story told by Alan Watt in a different way of a gull trying to get into the clam. What is interesting about the Christ story and the Buddha story together is Buddha is about facing all the pain and suffering of the past that has caused us to create the world we have and we experience. As in Buddha’s story, we must sit for as long as it takes flushing out the past. However, Christ is about facing the pain and suffering that lies within our role even if we know and understand what we will face. To face it being true to it to the end no matter what it requires, even unto death. Trying to escape the pain of the past or the future only causes us to deny who and what we really are. Summary and implications (Top) We all will eat and be eaten and it is our choice as to whether we live in a predatory world or a world of communion and oneness. In any case, we will have to face both the pain and suffering of the past and the pain and suffering of the present and future to become who we really are and remain true to that truth. To live in oneness, and return to that state of spontaneous and innocent childlike play of discovery and exploration we each have to work thought the pain and suffering of the past as did Buddha and to surrender to the role we incarnated to play, "Our Father’s business," no matter what it requires of us as Christ. We come fully equipped with an internal compass and navigation system to do this. We simply need to set the clear intention to do so and follow our body wisdom and intuitive guidance. In doing so, we will return to the true state of our being that we were born with and seemingly lost, that magical and mystical state of spontaneous and innocent childlike play of discovery and exploration. In this childlike play, one is in alignment with the flow of their creative life energy and fullness of being, inner satisfaction and the internal joy and bliss that never runs dry no matter what is happening in the external world.
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