What Joesus is up to, a philosophical exploration Options

[Dan]

Joesus, you are clearly a philosopher in that you present a consistent message to any and all queries. We, the rabble, like to project our biases onto you and you, in turn, filter what you receive and (from some magic core of interest) express responses that we in turn see as projections. While that is all fun, it can obscure the transmission of fundamentals. As most understand, fundamentals are powerful thought-forms that enable gestalts while specifics are generally useless.

Can you perhaps lay out an outline of fundamentals that might serve as an efficient starting point for one seeking answers from you? I'm not asking for concepts per se, just your best shot at getting us started in the right direction before we start getting frustrated by too many specifics.

For my part, I want to know why you care enough to live. Why not just let go? Is there some compelling outcome of interest? Is there a concern that persists? Do you have a say in the matter?

[Joesus]

I am glad to hear that you remember my temper. I hope you haven't driven too many people insane.

Me drive someone insane? I find myself responsible for the way I attach myself to others thoughts and actions, and I would hardly give less credit to anyone else.

I am still with the Indian woman, and her father is still leading a rabble of enlightenment hopefuls who drive us nuts most of the time. Luckily they do not live near us.

There's an old saying, "Before enlightenment, chop wood carry water... after enlightenment, chop wood carry water.." Some things look the same in appearance and action but the assessment of reality thru the psychological association of the observer to the observed is never the same.
Somethings may never change when it comes to inlaws

what follows the thought back? Or, more precisely, who?

What or who is it that can? That is worth discovering.

How can you be sure? What if your beliefs on the intent of the questioner are misguided? Maybe you have extensive experience as a guide, but is it foolproof?

It's like playing an instrument.. at first it doesn't look pretty, but then you kinda get the hang of it. Ultimately it doesn't matter if it is foolproof or not, but that you engage in your relationship with the world in the first place in more ways than were previously imagined.

Are you separated into parts?

No

I thought the parts were just a relative mental apparatus, to be realized as such. Why service that?

Parts are the illusion of separation, servicing those parts that are not of the whole would be like trying to fix rain.

I am struck by the statement "I get something out of it". Why does it matter that something can be gotten at all?

Ultimately what you get is multidimensional and part and parcel to other actions and their effects of those parts that one is not always consciously aware of. Like you being aware of what is happening in your cells. Does it matter to you? It might if they are dying in huge numbers and not being replaced.
At a cellular level, it matters to your cells if you are depressed, because that depression or stress transmits itself into the awareness of cellular consciousness.
Because your consciousness is connected to everything it matters to everything, and everything is consciously connected to your consciousness.
When I say it matters, I mean there is an effect within the relative boundaries of physical manifestations connected to the reality of cause and effect. The cells do not fret over changing conditions like the human ego, but they do possess a functioning quality, and when forced outside of those qualities will move to self correct.

It does sound like an important process for you psychologically, the unraveling of yogamaya and the attainment of freedom. However, I am not sure how you perceive this process to be intrinsically life-affirming. In particular, what do you mean by "creative impulse"? I suspect this impulse remains mysterious.

No experience can contain the absolute. It can only reflect an aspect of possibility. In that, life affirmations are endless and sometimes senseless or meaningless since they can change with changing beliefs. As you immerse your awareness in consciousness itself, there is something much more than meanings of relative measure. The potential of conscious energy takes the imagination beyond the box and beyond purposes but it does not leave you senseless or without desire to create relative purpose within the parameters of the physical reality that you have created for yourself. It can and will enliven you when you immerse the awareness in that potential. That is what is referred to as the Bliss or Joy of Brahman/Consciousness. The mind bathing itself in the infinite, is relieved of its sense oriented boundaries of self measure and self worth programs accumulated by the ego. Of course the mind returns to its house of beliefs and boundaries, and it can re-assume its identity with thoughts and feelings, but it will not lose that experience. When a person dips their awareness repeatedly into the infinite absolute it becomes a permanent part of the awareness, like dipping cloth into dye makes the color permanent in the cloth.

Tho the mind is always connected to the infinite, the direction of the senses taken by the ego into the relative boundaries of belief programs, adopted by the family that raised the individual and shared by the common beliefs of society have colored so to speak the sensibility of the individual, and the relationship to the infinite has most often atrophied. One need only familiarize themselves with what is already there to begin to lift the awareness of the individual consciousness from limited beliefs in separation from the infinite self.

Surely the great realization is that any state that one finds oneself in may at some time be forgotten. If no state can be considered permanent, then no state can be relied upon as a final resting "heaven". This doesn't mean that temporary states are meaningless, just that they are not self-sustaining. "Heaven" may come, but it may also go. If there is no permanent "heaven", then what?

A greater heaven than the one that was surrendered upon reaching the new one... ad infinitum...

I suppose a good first step is to know what there is behind the curtain of maya, and then go from there. This is what you are up to, or what you did, right?

Any journey begins with the first step. Asking the question, "Who am I" is a good start.
What many enlightened texts point toward is an absolute which can be experienced, and ONE with which a relationship can be cultured.

Suffering may be your own making, or it may not. You can only be sure of the suffering resulting from the relative that is your making. You may want to believe that you can escape suffering by ceasing to make it, but can you be sure? I guess you can try.

You can certainly discover the relationship you have with suffering and master that.

Grasshopper, know this impulse ... allow this impulse to become You. Who are you, Impulse? Why do you come?

Those are some common questions of life aren't they. Anyone can speak of it, create an imagined belief about it, but not many will search it out, and know it.

Submission is overrated. It may work in the sense that it bypasses lots of psychological baggage, but it often serves as a trap for the follower and for the guide. Followers by definition do not know, but they must choose to submit based on belief that the master does know. How do they come to this belief? Is this belief a reliable guide to finding a proper guide? And what of the person assuming "master" duties? Mastery of one's ship does not mean one has traversed the sea. I am sure many "masters" are aware of this at some level, but this may be obscured by the desire for being validated by having a following. Pity the "master" who realizes this but cannot cut loose from the dragging following.

There are inherent senses that are engaged, when one is seeking within the measure of their ability to comprehend.

Ultimately there are no limits to the human condition, but the ego often distracts the subtle senses so that the inherent senses only serve in the capacity toward which the mind is thinking/directed.

1 Cor 13:11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.