Steve Beckow: I’m noticing a linkage with your discussion on acceptance.
The Buddha, when he was sitting on the banks of the river meditating before his final enlightenment, heard a vina master tell his student on the other bank of the river that the strings of the instrument could not be too tight ot too loose; otherwise it would not play.
The Buddha saw that his ascetic way was too tight and he decided to relax his discipline. He accepted a bowl of rice pudding from a passing village girl and then, refreshed, sat down to meditate under the bodhi tree. We all know the rest of the story.
He called this relaxation of practice the “middle way.” Modern meditation masters call it “equanimity.”
When I presided on refugee hearings, I also saw the need to come from the middle place. We called it “impartiality” or “fairness.”
The “middle” was not a point. The closer I approached it, the more refinements could be made. Perhaps it is a vanishing point.
Encompassing both opposing viewpoints, which is something I know you do well, also involves embracing impartiality, equanimity, or this middle position.
The whole Vedantic discussion of detachment from things and experiences is preparation for embracing equanimity, impartiality, and the middle way.
Is this middle the same, or nearly the same, as your acceptance?
Are we pointing at different parts of the same elephant?
Chris: I think you’re identifying a real correspondence here, Steve.
What I’m left wondering now is if, with a collective awakening phenomenon like Ascension, we are confronting what amounts to a collective process of awakening that includes all individuals on Earth at this time, at every station.
The traditional approach of awakening as an individual discipline *may* not apply as it has before now. I don’t know. I merely pose the question.
Regardless, yes, your observations about traditional analogies to The Middle Ground seem to reflect and mirror my framing of universal Acceptance quite neatly.
As for how individuals are to navigate this growing wave, and what kind of difference stations of practice and awareness make for individuals, I return to Sheldan Nidle’s (and others) suggestions that abundant help will be given to all following First Contact. (1)
We may still be too early, in other words, to be having this discussion. It may be that, yes, a standing wave of universal acceptance is congealing into the fabric of space-time as we speak.
And it may also be the case that humanity is not quite ready to grok that wave en masse just yet.
Instead, it may be that we have to wait just a little bit longer for a quality of assistance to arrive that can allow us to integrate with this wave fully, directly, and thoroughly.
In the meantime, we do our best, some perhaps more easefully than others. We have these dialogs and we try to navigate our way forward.
But the great meeting point between New Age perspectives about the reality of galactic presence on Earth and traditional teachings about enlightenment and nondual awakening may be postponed a little while further.
The great convergence may come when our galactic friends at last arrive; when the controllers of the planet migrate elsewhere; when humanity is suddenly free of malicious oppression in all forms; and when we can open our eyes together, assess our situation, breathe full breaths together, and be inducted into a collective awakening process whose time will only come after the aforementioned events have transpired, and not before.
Until then, folks like us who take seriously both the reality of galactic presence and the truth of nondual enlightenment — it may be our lonely job at this time to simply pose these questions and put them before us, simply, clearly and well, so as to initiate this discussion and get it going. I would say that the time has clearly come for at least this much to occur, wouldn’t you?
Steve: I do. I notice in myself an expanding sense of the acceptance or equanimity and I labor to discover whether it is me unfolding or the energies rising. I’m not sure if I can ever know.
But usually this feeling is the aftermath of a transformational experience whereas at this time I can’t discern whether the cause lies “within” myself or within the energies.
In the face of whatever it is that is happening, I’m draw away from extremes and into the middle.
Footnotes
(1) On the help that will be available to us after First Contact, see https://www.angelfire.com/space2/light11/fc/afterfc1.html#how1