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We have to develop and maintain our relationship with our core-- the old Taoists referred to it as our original nature. It's our essence, our essential self, who we are
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We think in terms of freedom from all the things that keep us from being free to do what we want-- as though having what we want is the solution to all of our problems ever. Here is the irony: We talk about "freedom from want," but we do not mean from wanting, but from going without, from being without the things we want! We need to be free from wanting! What does wanting know? When has wanting ever been satisfied? When has anyone ever been at the place of having nothing else to want? Wanting is insatiable, voracious, gluttonous, greedy, ravenous unending forever and always. We can never have enough to not want more. We have it right, though we do not know what we are saying. We are desperately seeking freedom from want! We get their by being mindfully, compassionately, aware of our situation, knowing what's what and what needs to be done about it and doing it. What needs to be done about it is shifting our perspective from having/getting to doing/being- shifting our perspective from freedom from to freedom for. Freedom is for (in the words of Joseph Campbell) "For something-- something fresh and new: a spontaneous act"! The old Taoists have talked about this from the beginning, and have lived as models of what they were talking about, incarnating opposites and exhibiting their original nature in responding to what is called for in the present moment, moment-by-moment in each situation as it arises all their life long. They have danced before us from 5,000 years before Christ, who took up the dance 2,000 years ago, calling us to be free for doing what is called for here and now, no, here and now, no, here and now...forever. They all call us to do what is called for, and live as children at play, doing what the play requires in the spirit of those who take not being serious seriously and give themselves to the part they are playing in the play, and play it to the hilt, being what is called for, doing what is needed, moment-by-moment, living spontaneously in response to here and now, no, here and now, no, here and now... inventing new-and-appropriate responses to fit every occasion, without worrying about Thou Shalt in doing what needs to be done, anyway, nevertheless, even so, doing what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, where it needs to be done, the way it needs to be done, because it needs to be done forever. Or, as Campbell put it: "We are to carry the point of view and spirit of humans-the-players (Homo ludens) back into life--as in the play of children, where, undaunted by the banal actualities of life's meager possibilities, the spontaneous impulse of the spirit to identify itself with something other than itself for the sheer delight of play, transubstantiates the world, in which, actually, after all, things are not quite as real or permanent, terrible, important, or logical as they seem" (Primitive Mythology (The Masks of God, Book One). If we live to get that down, we will be the Christ, the Buddha, and all the Taoists before them, and after them, and what a world it will be then!
Love you, brother. I used to think you would be the perfect A.A. speaker. However, now I see though it is the same message, it is a different language. I predict a future soul will discover your writings and make a thesis out of them. Thanks, best, good luck, & may you continue to go with God! ✌🙏💕 e$
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