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Greenkitchen	More of a Comment Or 2 Rather Than A Question or 2	Lead	[-]
Posts: 43 (05/16/09 04:45:14) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Tags : None So I read in Erich's book about not deciding and going with the flow and it resonates with me because I do that sometimes and I don't do it other times and the rest of the time I really don't know what I'm doing so I figure I'm going with not deciding ahead of time as often as possible and then I realize ...that was a decision....and start laughing out loud...literally. I happened to be on line (a very long one I might add) at the DPS renewing my drivers license at the time, so there I was, all tarted up in business attire, with this book featuring a photo of a girl on her head with twinkly toes on one cover and a twisty bendy guy on the other cover and people are looking at me and craning their necks to peek at the photos and I'm getting the full realization of being deep in the heart of Texas and then I start to laugh again (inwardly this time, I'm not a complete idiot!) at the utter incongruent nature of what this scene must look like from all points of view. It reminded me of a really cool answer I once recieved to the Zen coan, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" which was posed at a dinner party where one child of nine happened to be in attendance. After a mere second of thought the kid slapped himself in the face with one hand...a perfectly instinctive, non decisional gut response to the question which made all the adults giggle. So my coan is this; How do you decide not to decide? You decide. Giggle. Susan
Sri D		#1	[-]
Posts: 11753 (05/16/09 06:24:54) Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Vewy, vewy, cawe-fuwy.... Sri
Erich Schiffmann		#2	[-]
Posts: 3688 (05/16/09 09:15:07) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Hi Susan! Yes, keep reading. I'm pretty sure I get into that deeper in the book. That was my koan, also. The quick answer is this: Deciding not to decide is a way of using your thinking to get beyond thinking. It's using your free will to get beyond personal willfulness. You could say it's the last decision you'll ever have to make. It's how you do "Thy Will be done." Deciding not to decide is a way of using your mind, because you're always doing something in there. It's a reminder to pause or hesitate, for even just a split mind-moment before thinking or acting, long enough to divert your attention away from what you would normally do, so as to lean into the flow and let it whoosh you along. The full instruction is: Don't decide in advance; instead, LISTEN INWARDLY for what to do. Be attentive inwardly. Feel into your heart about what's right to do or not do. And it's interesting you used the phrase "You decide" up there. That is a phrase I've used for a long time. Initially, it always had an exasperated feeling-tone associated with it, a feeling that I was a failure for not knowing what to do, not being good at going with the flow, and feeling squeezed because I needed an answer fast. But I gradually learned it was just the smartest thing to do. Now, whenever I'm not sure what to do, or when I need to make a decision and I remember that my perspective is necessarily limited, I inwardly say "You decide" to Jesus (or whoever your favorite Awakened one is), and then just start listening, hope for the best, and follow the signs. Deciding not to decide, or saying, "You decide," and then LISTENING is how you yoke, how you join, how you implement the act of yoga. Erich Last Edited By: Erich Schiffmann 05/16/09 09:17:28. Edited 1 times.
Christi57		#3	[-]
Posts: 211 (05/16/09 09:38:49) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	"Deciding not to decide, or saying, "You decide," and then LISTENING is how you yoke, how you join, how you implement the act of yoga." Love you Erichji!!! Christi
Greenkitchen		#4	[-]
Posts: 45 (05/16/09 10:38:13) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Erich, When I wrote 'you decide' my mental emphasis was on the word decide but reading your response made me realize I wrote a pun..... Reflecting back over my life I can see that by deciding in advance and not really listening, I've created most of the trauma I've endured. I don't mean major trauma, but the little stuff that builds up over the years and stays in the body as blockages. I'm pretty clear that "in the body" also means "in the brain" which would explain why, with blockages there, I've been able to understand a concept intellectually but have a difficult time putting it into practice, especially if I've decided I don't like "it" which gives me the excuse not to really listen. I find this duality of mind facinating. Susan
Dancing Lotus		#5	[-]
Posts: 4937 (05/16/09 10:44:06) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	This reminds me how the limitations I face are mainly of my own doing! ~ ~ We Radiate rainbows for the benefit of all humanity.
Frangipani		#6	[-]
Posts: 111 (05/16/09 13:23:47) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Daring to go beyond duality..pausing...with grace..on my face, in my hands, on my knees, on my lips..pausing..you are helping me..pause.. deep breath here...smooth, soft, easy deep full victorious breath...pausing.. The ants in my pants want to dance and not pause...I can feel it..they wiggle too much..and I decide to pause..and wait..until.... Guidance is...powerful and watery in my eyes..guidance is quiet and clear...not frantic and interruptive..being more still, more often Loving the practice Om
KFN		#7	[-]
Posts: 4299 (05/16/09 14:35:32) Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	What I've finally come to see is that the 'pause' part gives me the opportunity to see what I'm clinging to or pushing away and let it go... then there is less impetus to decide in advance, more space for guidance to enter and be heard. karen
omcasey		#8	[-]
Posts: 8407 (05/16/09 14:42:51) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Is there space yet to receive/know who the guidance specifically is?
KFN		#9	[-]
Posts: 4302 (05/16/09 14:46:01) Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Casey, it doesn't feel like a 'specific' who in the way I understand you to mean.... more like 'that'.
omcasey		#10	[-]
Posts: 8408 (05/16/09 14:58:32) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	I understand. Could it not be both simultaneously?
KFN		#11	[-]
Posts: 4303 (05/16/09 15:16:11) Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Casey, I don't think I'm ruling it out, I've just never experienced it that way.
Greenkitchen		#12	[-]
Posts: 46 (05/16/09 15:43:34) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Casey, I've come to know that not knowing and still following is the upmost in trust and faith. I've struggled with that for years even though I have plenty of evidence to the contrary. Erich teaching me now, finding all of you and going to CA is the strongest confirmation of that I have ever recieved. Susan
omcasey		#13	[-]
Posts: 8409 (05/16/09 15:59:39) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Karen, I'm taking in the theme this year from Camp Allen - "I am That... You are That... We All are That... and That's That!" - it is fitting here, yes? If I am That and you are That and we all are That, then That is you and me and every (specific) one. No difference between That and who That is being -or communicating Itself through to in 3D. "That" has never come through to me in 3D directly, it is always through an interface, such as yourself - a "who" - an energy that is either 'local' or close enough to local that I am able to pick up on it, relate to it. Without the intermediary there is no ground. Or rather, there IS ground, but that ground is not earth, if you know what I mean. It is way way away, haha.. When I finally realized, quite recently, that I wanted to be a part of grounding "That" here on earth, guidance for me began presenting as a "who", it is being quite fun, I smile alot with it .
KFN		#14	[-]
Posts: 4304 (05/16/09 16:09:58) Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	CaseyLove, it surprises me not that your specific experience and mine are quite different in appearance, and yet "All This is That", and as you have said more than once, "there is no distance between us". k
omcasey		#15	[-]
Posts: 8411 (05/16/09 16:24:40) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Goodness, I am not seeing them as different at all, Karen, not in an opposing sort of way -only as moving, morphing/morphable..
KFN		#16	[-]
Posts: 4307 (05/16/09 16:35:52) Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	No, not different in an opposing sort of way, but in a surface sort of, language sort of, appearance sort of way, yes.
omcasey		#17	[-]
Posts: 8414 (05/16/09 16:48:20) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Susan, "Not knowing and still flowing" - this is lovely - yet my curiosity piques to hear more - "still flowing" on what? . . In this place of not knowing, what is it that moves you, and what is this moving you toward? .
omcasey		#18	[-]
Posts: 8415 (05/16/09 16:58:02) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Karen, I guess I'm really just trying to express my newly enjoyed degree of realization that, without any diminishment at all, I/you/we can receive and experience 'That' as a 'who' if we want to. this is wondrously surprising to me .
noswrite	More of a Comment Or 2 Rather Than A Question or 2	#19	[-]
Posts: 4570 (05/17/09 04:52:24) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	"I/you/we can receive and experience 'That' as a 'who' if we want to." "If you come to a fork in the road, take it." - Yogi Berra
Greenkitchen		#20	[-]
Posts: 56 (05/17/09 05:21:42) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Casey, I mean that not knowing (the outcome) and having the courage to listen to and follow (the guidance) is the basis of faith. I love that you said flowing instead of following...to me that actually describes what I wanted to say better so I bow to you my teacher! Susan

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