The following is part of a private dialogue I’m having…a very precious individual is right at the doorway of making a big leap. And we are discussing the veil that is in the process of being dissolved. I shared that the reason why we see what we do on our world stage is due to a lack of love being expressed. And of course, the response I got was in denial of my statement. It’s not that there’s not love; it’s because there is so much anger, hate, envy, etc.
And I’m insightful enough to recognize “Blame” being expressed when I hear it.
“It’s not *us*. It’s *them*.” It’s not the *Light* but the *Darkness*. It’s not the *good* but the *bad*.
So my response is this:
The reason we see the effects of a lack of love, is because of a lack of love being expressed. I say what you and most of us have been taught to call ‘love’, isn’t ‘love’ at all nor what ‘love’ is remotely about. And that’s why it doesn’t attract into creation loving experiences. It’s fear, so it creates fear and attracts fear, so it can then live off fear.
What we imagine to BE ‘love’ ISN’T “love” at all. It’s fear. Human survival fear. This survival fear runs concurrent, in contradiction with and to…Recognition and Realization of ourselves as Spiritual Beings, Infinite and Eternal in Nature. In order to feel and act in accordance with our shared survival fears, we have to DENY and NEGATE the other. A Sovereign is only victim of his/her own ideas. To be a victim of another, is to deny being Sovereign.
It’s a matter of goals. Is my desire to uplift and enlighten? Is my desire to promote limitation and darkness? Either choice being “OK”. Simply a matter of purpose and goals. Do I desire a chocolate cake or a cherry pie? Which ever choice I make as a goal, requires I use the correct ingredients and substances, mixed in balanced proportions, if I desire my activities to be result-oriented.
If results don’t matter, if my intent is all that counts and to hell with results and consequences, then, of course, ANYTHING GOES! Which we are looking at on the World stage right now.
So what’s it going to be?
The time now is for Leadership with Vision to rise. Especially in consideration of all that has come to Light, regarding those in leadership positions, that LACKED Vision. One thing that can be said about EVERY corporation going down and in straits right now, is that it LACKED Vision when it came to market potentials and future trends. The blind led the blind and everyone ended up going face down into the ditch.
2000 years ago, we, as a whole, didn’t have the slightest feelings of Sympathy towards one another. What’s really *sad*, is that there are groups of us today, that still express being lacking in this sensitivity. Dullards of Awareness. For Sensitivity is Awareness, not a lot of hu-rah ugga ugga cave man or boohooing poor thing.
Sympathy is an EXCELLENT leap we have made in our Progressive Evolution. Now it’s time we take our next step. Towards Compassion. Sympathy is not Compassion. Since it’s not, it doesn’t have the same effect or results.
Choice/Consequence. Cause/Effect. Goal/Achievement.
It is a contradiction to claim one, and live in denial of the other.
Like I said, Sympathy is not Compassion. Just like a sow’s ear is not the same as a silk purse. No matter what I make the sow’s ear to look like, it will still be a sow’s ear, made of an altogether different substance then is silk.
I can put cherries in my cake mix all I want and a chocolate cake will never come out of my oven.
I asked questions about “caring for each other”?
The reason I ask is because of the essential underlying substance that fuels our feelings. I ask in Acknowledgment of Praise for the Evolutionary Progress we have achieved, expressed by us feeling ANYTHING. We have come a long way from where we were 2000 years ago. At least most of us.
The best and most commonly known example I can think of right now to convey the difference between Sympathy and Compassion, is that of Mary, Mother of Jesus. She nurtured her Son with Compassion and Understanding. She did not smother him with worries and fears about his survival. What was her Son’s goal? What was her Son’s Purpose? What was her Son’s Soul Passion? Did she act in support of it? Did she act in denial and resistance to it? Did she fan the flames of Courage? Did she fan the flames of victim hood?
Did she Love her son? Was her love about him?
Did she just love what he meant to her and her life? Was her love about herself? About maintaining the world she was comfortable living in, with all the people that satisfied her various emotional needs?
Do you imagine Mary limiting her experiences of happiness to only those situations where everything was going her way?
What Path did Mary support her son in walking?
Now THAT was Love.
What was mentioned was:
“Love others as I have Loved you.”
The *knowing* is all in the phrase: “Pick up thy bed and walk.”
In that statement is the Acknowledgment and Recognition of the Presence within, capable of achievement. Respect for that Presence. Honor for that Presence. It was a statement of Compassion. What was expressed was a *knowing* of what it is like to be human and a *knowing* of our Spiritual Nature as well. Fused and combined in that one statement.
And you’re never going to be able to sell me the idea that all our “poor suffering victim”, helpless, hapless, victims of Creation nonsense is Loving AT ALL. It’s definitely Human, though.
What goal does Sympathy achieve?
Keeping each other BLIND and living in restriction and limitation of our creative powers over our own reality. So long as we continue to choose to see ourselves as victims, we are forever helpless and hapless when it comes to improving any of our living conditions and circumstances.
We choose our Beliefs citing respect for our freedoms of choice,yet totally deny responsibility and accountability for the consequences and results of those beliefs that we have to life with. Yes, live with.
Of what earthly or practical USE is ANY belief system or philosophy of Life, that only promises rewards after we’re dead?
One that is useless in improving any conditions while we’re alive.
Like I’ve been saying…
“Fear of Death”, a “love”, a “caring” focused and fueled by feelings of fear for survival is NOT the same as “Love of Life”, which is fueled by Respect and Recognition of the Infinite and Eternal Nature of all Life’s expressions. One code of ‘morality’ operates by creating conditions, where Life is admired and where it is not, depending on how and what that Life is expressing. The other “moral’ code operates in extending Appreciation and Love for sharing the experience of Life itself, uncolored by any conditions.
The Law of Karma operates through those conditions, where Life is accepted and where it is not, with intrinsic Value of Life itself being denied, regulated, with external conditions created to take Life’s place. Judgments of value, of person, based on race, gender, sexual orientation, job, family, community, nation, which end we break an egg, etc. The Law of Karma is based upon pure SUPERFICIALITY.
The Law of Grace operates by looking BEYOND purely superficial appearances, and RECOGNIZING the Spirit of Life expressing itself, any time one of us says anything. First, there was the WORD. “SELF” Expression. “Self” IN Expression is what Existence and the Whole of Creation is all about.
For it is the expression of Consciousness. And it is very PRECIOUS. In whatever form it takes.
Consciousness and Existence, they go together, like one hand washing the other. I can’t very well experience being conscious if there was nothing to be conscious OF, now can I? What’s the use of having any senses in a sense deprivation tank? And existence, how would I know anything existed if I wasn’t conscious to begin with?
Aha! Must be one of those hilarious jokes like “peacekeeping”…how can we keep what we do NOT have?
Tell me, how much money could I spend, building a vault to keep all the money I don’t have?
Is the song we’re singing “Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?”?
Or is it “Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow”.
One Mary bitches and whines and complains about how her garden grows. The other guards the Immaculate concept within all sheep.
What song is being sung by the Mother of our emotional natures?
Sympathy does not accomplish, what only Compassion can empower.
Extending fear, is not the same as extending Love.
Sue Ann Edwards
tumel
and in re-reading this time I found...
Surface Earth
February 9th, 2009 - 10:53 am
So many feelings came to me after reading this Sue Ann, and it as well brought reflections on the birth of my children, the type of reflections I found when thinking of here, brings more and more and I feel they are tied in to what you write about here, not just this entry but others you have made about letting go of attachments, and I want to share them. I began to in this comment, but now erase them like a ctrl copy, to a little document then ctrl erase them here because when writing of them here I wish for more time than I have now, or time without other distractions, to continue, so thank you:)
February 9th, 2009 - 11:06 am
and a thank you too, to the precious individual in the beginning of your post.
February 9th, 2009 - 3:51 pm
Thank you (and tumel too) – you say the nicest things! I hope you’re right about that leap…
I’m just going off for a few days so I’ll print this out and take it with me. See you when I get back…
February 13th, 2009 - 2:44 pm
The definition of “sympathy” includes the idea that it is – actually – an impulse of COMPASSION.
Tieing it so tightly with ‘victim’ doesn’t really do it justice. Just because people are sympathetic, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are enabling.
Showing compassion to others through the medium of sympathy is one way that we can reach them with “something better”. It demonstrates that we are on their side and have their interests at heart. It compels us to feel what they are feeling and to partake it in with them.
WHich is exactly what Jesus did. He came and experienced all that we are – all that we feel – all that we put ourselves through. And by sympathizing with us, He was able to show us a better way.
February 14th, 2009 - 1:07 pm
{{{Grace}}}}
No…to everything you just shared. I remember when I used to tell myself the same thing. And I was blind because of what I didn’t want to see about myself. And I mean this *kindly*.
“Sympathy” has NOTHING to do with “Compassion”. Nothing. Zip. Nada. Sympathy is PITY, “oh you poor thing, you’re such a victim of the cold, cruel world”. “Sympathy” is DIRECTLY related to VICTIMS. It is what VICTIMS seek, *not* “Compassion”. VICTIMS energetically FEED off “Sympathy”. “Sympathy” is ALWAYS “enabling”, because of what it IS. It is a PIG’S EAR and not SILK.
For instance…
A woman sits across from me sharing her woes and troubles. What comes out, is that she’s afraid of growing old. She’s tried face lifts and botox injections, working out at jazzercise and lathering her skin with emollients, yet….there is no way she can compete with younger women, in the Spring of their life, when it comes to attracting men.
This woman is looking for sympathy. And the fact that she is speaking to me, means she’s not going to get any. For out of COMPASSION, I’m going to tell her that she BETRAYED her own Self by choosing Values that were plastic and superficial. Like a “barbie”, plastic on the outside and hollow in the inside. She chose to negate the value of her own person to begin with.
And then I’m going to share with her that when and if we choose to peddle ourselves as pounds of flesh,then we can’t cry ‘foul’ when we’re treated like it. “Beefcake” has a short shelf life.
Out of COMPASSION, I’m going to tell her things she does NOT want to hear, for it is NOT going to be in support of her ‘reality’, that she is a ‘poor mistreated victim’…’sacrificing herself for those she loves’. I will expose her reality for what it is, an illusion of appearances. And will illuminate PRECISELY what attitude/belief about herself, that created her woe filled circumstances. I will illuminate how she has had power over her reality every step of the way, simply been clueless and in denial just like the rest of us.
“For the love of others” has NO power, when we have NO love to give. What kind of an example would I be for my daughter, if I put up with abuse and being treated with a lack of Respect? My actions and behaviour revealing I basically had no love for my own Self, my own Happiness or my own Joys? Revealing that the value and the purpose behind my OWN Life, was defined BY OTHERS and it was FOR OTHERS that I lived. “I’m just a sheep on the altar of other people’s needs”. *Ick, ick, ick, ick, ick, ick, ick.*
For the love of others” and “for the good of others” are attitudes and expressions we’ve been using in order to fumigate our REAL desires of serving ourselves and to suit our own emotional needs. Our primary emotional NEED to be INSULATED from “unpleasant” life experiences.
Jesus walked a Path and said FOLLOW it, not worship him for walking it. And this Path was laced with “unpleasantries”. He “LOST” everything tied to his ‘human’ Identity in order to REALIZE His Divine One. He “let go” of a bunch of nothing in order to realize EVERYTHING. And he had to face his own devil in his own desert in order to do it. And confusing “sympathy” with what is Loving and Respectful to others, is one of those “demons”.
Now, chances are, this woman is not going to like me, for what I shared was NOT “sympathetic” to her cause of “needing to be energetically fed”. Nor did I support her reality of being “a paragon of pitiful and pathetic virtue”, for instead, I illuminated where she didn’t posses any. I was *mean*. I was not ~nice~. I did not *respond* in the way she had been programmed to expect BECAUSE I was not coming from being “Sympathetic” but rather from being “Compassionate”.
My *responses* are integrated with my genuine Desire to see an end to suffering and lack, which can only come as a result of our realizing and recognizing what we’ve been in denial of. Facing our inner demons that we’ve been projecting upon others. Facing our delusions about ourselves. Because it is in actually DOING this, that our Divine nature is Realized and Recognized. By others? NO!!!!! By us! WE recognize it about Our SELVES. We are EACH a UNIQUE expression of “ONE” unto ourselves! Pillars!!!!! not sticks leaning together to form a teepee so every stick can then resemble being “uprighteous” as support by the group.
Sympathy is like a smoke screen, like the scene from the Wizard of Oz, “I am the great and mighty Wizard of Oz” and there’s nothing behind it but a small person who is living in fear and doesn’t know what to do, either.
Chances are, this woman is going to RE-ACT, according to subconscious behavior of feeling “threatened”. Why? Because I did not VALIDATE her beliefs or her reality. Because she did not ‘get’, what she was after, which was ‘me’ using my life’s energy, to support and nurture hers. She wasn’t after Compassion. She wasn’t looking for Understanding nor to Understand.
She wanted ’sympathy’, She wanted me to agree with her way of ’seeing’ things and since I didn’t, she felt threatened. Just like our dearly departed President’s behavior revealed about himself, anytime he didn’t get the agreement he sought.
Any of our inner realities that have to be fed by others through their agreement, are FALSE realities. They are ILLUSIONS, simply because of the fact that they need to be supported by others.
If what we believe IS “True”, then it provides us with all the assurances we require or could possibly need. For the Essence of Truth is TRUE. The fact so many of us NEED Validation from others, indicates how many lies we believe to be true, that aren’t.
Just as President Bush being so emotionally NEEDY of agreement, REVEALED how many lies he was sharing, right as they were coming out of his mouth. Our whole 9-11 re-action, was sympathy based. We did *not* re-spond in Compassion. And because we did not, the causes of such action have not yet been addressed. All our actions did was pour more fuel on a fire that had already reached a point of combustion. I *SAW* the downfall of our Economy, as BEGINNING on 9-11. EVERYTHING we’ve done since then, has been nothing more then a smoke screen, trying to disguise and distract us from realizing and recognizing it.
What is revealed through Sympathy, is Pity, NOT Compassion, dis-empowerment, not em-powerment, NEED, not LOVE. And I will be so bold as to tell us, that confusing the two, is about as common now-a-days, as confusing “credit” with “capital” and confusing “potential” with “realized”. It’s a whitewash job, in support of our delusions and vanities, disguising our LACK of VIRTUE, or our LACKS in genuine substance of spiritual character. If we but bothered to look within, and take an inventory of the quantities and qualities of our characters, we would automatically ’see’ why our ‘fortunes’ and ‘illusions of abundance’, have been disappearing, LATELY.
This sort of thing is what is behind all our emotionally insecure “control freak” activities, which are actions revealing a FEAR and aren’t even “respectful”, much less “loving”. “Sympathy” is THE cause, and expressions of ANGER are THE consequences. It is the SUPPOSED “good” that is CREATING the “bad”, because “good” isn’t all that “good” to begin with. The “love” that is being extended is the cause of the “hate” BECAUSE the “love” being extended isn’t “love” at all. It’s FEAR. Just as Sympathy is NOT Compassion. Both a sow’s ear and silk purse are soft; only one of them is made of silk.
Who is to say what is “better” for the Soul’s growth and evolution of another? That is an attitude of Arrogance and Self Righteous Judgment, even though that is not our intent. What is often to the Glory of our Soul, runs right over the irrational and emotionally insecure wishes of our Personality’s.
Jesus did not pick up people’s beds and carry them for them. He said “pick up your bed and walk” AND “love others as I have loved you”. The whole suffering martyr thing, is a *sick* idea, revealing NO Understanding of the Path, the Master Jesus walked.
What ‘Sympathy’ does, is keep us co-dependent upon others. What ‘Compassion’ does, is inspire us to Trust in ourselves, rather then in others. It’s the difference between being a Pillar of Light and just a leaning stick in a teepee. A Sovereign is NOT a co-dependent.
There is a genuine difference between needing someone in our lives and simply enjoying them and respecting their freedom to “BE”. As they desire to be, not as we desire them to be.
Just as there is a BIG difference between saying, “Oh man, I know what it feels like; my heart goes out to you. I remember when I made the same mistakes and the same foolish choices and ended up feeling the same thing” and, “Oh you poor thing, you poor mistreated, misunderstood, and unappreciated thing. ‘They’ have no idea how much you’ve sacrificed for them, how great is your virtue for those you love.”
“The Lord help those who help themselves.”
If we don’t want to claim our choices and the power of them, and the mistakes we’ve made in them, there is NO hope that anything in our lives is ever going to change, for we are not trying to help ourselves, by changing and learning how to make wise ones. A fool that never claims being a fool, is the fool that forever remains one.
Sympathy lives off of judging others as the fools, and not claiming to have been one, ourselves.
February 15th, 2009 - 8:34 am
Sue Ann – been a while since I stopped by, and I’m so glad I did after reading this post! Thank you for delineating the difference between sympathy and compassion. I hadn’t seen it myself before, but I agree wholeheartedly with what you say. I think many of us, and I include myself in this because in the past I have as well, think only of compassion being all soft and fluffy, and thus we’re able to confuse it with sympathy which I see as soft and fluffy and completely lacking substance, as it is 100% superficial and self-serving, and I agree – allowing others to remain in victim energy, and through its giving, it allows the giver to remain in victim energy as well. Compassion, on the other hand, I see as truth-bringing. And people, again myself included, don’t want to face truth a lot of the time. I came to think of compassion in an entirely different way after reading China Galland’s The Bond Between Women, which focuses on the idea of fierce compassion which is not what many would think of as compassion. Highly recommend that book
Thank you also for your words regarding validation. During a relatively recent theta healing session I had, my healer confronted me (compassionately!) with the idea that I refuse to validate my own self and instead seek that validation from others. The main focus of the healing was to eliminate the false beliefs I held that were disabling me from loving my self unconditionally. She said something that struck home for me when I asked her about the validation piece: If you Love yourself, you do not need to validate yourself or seek validation from anyone else.
“Any of our inner realities that have to be fed by others through their agreement, are FALSE realities. They are ILLUSIONS, simply because of the fact that they need to be supported by others. ” This is absolutely fabulous!! I want to tattoo it into my consciousness…though I suppose it’s already there, and I only needed to find it…
My major life lesson this time around is unconditional love. Thank you for this post because just yesterday, I knew I needed to get to a place of unconditional love for some that I was seriously struggling with. Reading your words here has eased that struggle and helped me to shift my energy to where it needs to be.
Many blessings to you, lady!
February 15th, 2009 - 4:04 pm
{{tumel}} }
These are issues every mother faces, “How do we insure the security of our children?”
It was in answer to that question that I chose to nurture and support my children turning inward. To teach them to listen to their own hearts and then tell me, what their own heart says.
I asked them what they *knew* in their hearts? I asked them to share that *knowing* with me, so I could act in support of it. I taught them to look within themselves and discover the Voice that lived there. That was with them always.
I *knew* to walk the Path of their own Mastery, they needed to feel free of me.
My goal was that they would not grow up “needing” me. Loving me, yes, needing me, no.
Our “culprit”, our “Villian”, is our need to be needed. A lot of us women grow up with the idea that “loves means needing to be needed”. With that idea in mind as the pinnacle of our Value and Virtue.
One of the *magical* and *wondrous* things about us is that whatever Ideal we Idolize, is exactly what kind of person we become. Someone who needs to be needed in order to feel secure.
The thing about it, coming from a state of mind where it’s all about being needed in order to feel “secure”, we are bound to think and act, in support of our goal OF
KEEPING needy people needing.
So they will always keep needing US.
It’s a relationship pattern with emotional breastfeeding as its expectation and continuing to be breastfed as its condition.
Underneath our physical appearances of seeming “adulthood”, are emotional babies. And the reason I say “babies” is because only “babies” require continuous breastfeeding. Emotionally or physically.
Ponder it:
Mommy doesn’t want to cut the cord because mommy fears becoming separated from her child.
Then there’s an underlying issue, especially with us women, of “needing daddy’s approval”, which is the same thing as “Needing the approval from an “authority figure”. The same thing that George W. Bush exemplified about himself.
And if the majority of us in this country weren’t just like him, he would have never become President in the 1st place, representing as he did, Our Figurehead…
an emotionally needy man. To me, that sounds like an oxymoron. For what is “manly” about being emotionally needy? I *know* the ego of a man, question his performance and he’ll rise above it, every time. (winking)
The reason I say “us” and “we” and “our” is because I am not separating myself from the rest of our human race. These issues and beliefs are lurking inside each and every single one of us.
And those of us whose heart’s passion is to uplift us out of the muck of our own creations, are the ones of us that are and have been, facing these issues within us. These *uglies*.
Because since “Sympathy” is an act of Self Denial, it carries the Justice of Self being Denied with it. Fair is fair. “What goes around comes around” It’s known as the “Golden Law” or the “Law of Correspondences” or the “Law of Circles”. It is Sympathy itself that fuels “Karma” and continued bondage to limitation.
Since “Sympathy” is in itself a “repulsive” form of energy, that of Self Denial, shoving it down other people’s throats in the name of a pretended “love”, is BOUND to result in ~unpleasant~ and ~disappointing~ achievements.
If I used my beliefs to force people to walk planks not of their own choosing, then it’s fair that I find myself being forced, by circumstances, into walking off that same plank.
If our life’s energies have been used to drain other people’s of theirs, then it is our life’s energies that are currently undergoing being drained,….in stead.
if all we do is enable, then are CAPACITY to keep enabling, is DISAPPEARING.
We sow Self Denial. We reap Self Denial.
Our outward expression of seeking validation is a RESULT of our “failure” to LOVE Ourselves! Just as you mentioned.
ONLY UNconditional Love is “love” at all.
Conditional Love has “NEEDY” written ALL over it.
NOBODY needs to look to OTHERS for APPROVAL or VALIDATION, once we claim to be OUR OWN “authority figure”. SOVEREIGN over the contents of our OWN Hearts & Minds!
Any one of us ‘women’ walking around expressing the need for approval and validation, isn’t any kind of REAL “woman” at all, but an emotional child, looking for ‘daddy’ to “care” for her and about her.
The other side of the coin for this model of relationship is the emotional little boy looking for ‘mommy’.
That’s how we all go around in pairs. The rocks in one head fit the holes in the other, *perfectly*. Or in terms of quantum physics, “A negative magnetic field will ALWAYS attract a negative pole.”
I have the FREEDOM to think Loving thoughts about myself. I have the FREEDOM to cherish and value my OWN life! I have the FREEDOM to APPROVE of MYSELF!
I AM my OWN “Author-ity”. I AM writing my OWN “Play of Consciousness” and leave it up to every*one* else, to be the Author-ity over *theirs*.
February 16th, 2009 - 11:24 am
{{{Aerolin}}}
I wrote the above comment yesterday, as Wordpress was doing a tweaking…
I had addressed the comment and sent hugs to BOTH *you* and {{Tumel}} but between all my back spacing to save and copy the post when Wordpress went ~down~, it didn’t come out like I had in mind!
One of the things I’ve always said is, “The only way to overlook the obvious is not to look.”
Because once we begin to look at ourselves closely, intimately…beyond superficial appearances and words, we ’see’ what’s been right before our eyes and obvious all the time.
I don’t care what personal ‘hell’ I happen to be walking through, the very LAST thing I need is a “Pity Party”.
“Oh poor me, I’m so pathetic won’t someone feel sorry for me?”
It makes my skin crawl just typing the idea. It’s such an UN”Loving” and Repulsive way for me to think of myself I don’t want to be inside my own body.
I’m not inept or incompetent when it comes to my coping skills. For I *know* there is within me the Presence and the Power to rise ABOVE any situation. It is my Divine Heritage just that same as it is everyone else’s who chooses to claim it.
It’s kinda’ like a muscle. We have to use it and require the use of it, in order to build up the strength and the power of it. There are many of us who have been sort of….ummmm….
“pounded” by experiences over the past decade or two.
This hasn’t been because there has been something *wrong* with us. It has been to prepare us AHEAD of time, for when there would be teachers needed.
*Teachers* not *Preachers*. The difference between the two, is that a *teacher* isn’t looking for validation the way all *preachers* do. And *teachers* only share their wisdom with those who are interested, not insist everyone be interested the way *preachers* do.
Right now, our World’s Collective is reeling. Chaos reigns in many lives. Because the structures those lives were built upon went *POOF*. “Reality” shifted.
You’ve been through the experience. You *know* how to cope with it. You *know* how to look within and reach a point of *balance* whenever reality shifts right out from under your feet. It’s this Wisdom, this *knowledge* or *knowing* that you have in abundance to now share.
We’re not going to get through the changes we are facing using “Sympathy” that’s for sure. “Compassion, yes; Sympathy, no. Sympathy keeps feeding people fishes, making them dependents. Compassion teaches people how to fish for themselves.
The best way we can help the impoverished people’s of our World, is not to be one of them. And I *do* mean Spiritually impoverished.
I will certainly look up the book. Thank You for introducing me to the title! The phrase that comes into my mind is that it is about women with inner backbone. The kind of backbone it takes to pioneer a wilderness with the Law of Grace. The Divine Feminine is active, not passive. In symbolism, the “Sword of Michael” of Willpower, is named “Faith”. And it is a Flaming sword.
My “Mary” had a little lamb, *me*, whose fleece was white as snow. But it took a lot of scrubbing and cleaning and combing and brushing to get all the dirt and knots out, so I could see this for myself. And you bet I cried “ouch” at every tangle, cursing my “Mary” every time her comb found one.
February 16th, 2009 - 12:59 pm
I absolutely agree, especially on it being a muscle. No muscle can grow without being worked and developed, and this can seriously be rough some times. In my experience, it’s well worth it!
I love your last paragraph about your “Mary!” My experience of the Divine Feminine is also that She is very active. That is exactly what my relationship with the Her has been – She continually kicks my ass (working out those tangles), and I grow as a result.
The second part of the book’s title is “A Journey to Fierce Compassion.” It’s a great book, as is another written by the same woman that focuses on the Buddhist/Hindu Goddess Tara and the Black Madonna called “Longing for Darkness.” I recommend both!
Hugs and blessings to you!
February 16th, 2009 - 1:19 pm
{{Simon}}…
Our discussion has grown, you see! Look what has come up because of it.
What I have been trying to convey, though inadequately, is that the “oneness” so many of us keeping thinking of, is a kind of ‘oneness’ where we are attached to each other through bonds of need and limitation. Each of us interconnected through and by our lacks.
To some of those of us with Sight, these bonds between us look like slimy, grey-green to black, cords of attachment.
They are not bonds of Love & Light. They are cords of need and bondage.
The purpose or our goal, is to sever all these slimy cords, holding us in bondage. So that they can then be REPLACED with cords of Love & Light.
“Oneness” is an Intimately PERSONAL and INDIVIDUAL experience. We experience being “One” within ourselves, no longer conflicted about Whom we Are, human or Divine. For we have become “One”. “The Father’s Will and mine are ONE.
It is only at this level of realization and DEPTH of understanding that we can Truly *KNOW* ourselves to BE “One” with all Existence.
And we can PROVE it by standing in Acceptance of ALL of it! Because we *Know* everybody is “one” with Creation, too. No matter what things look like.
Like I keep saying:
Sympathy is NOT Compassion. Credit is NOT Capital. Potential is NOT Realized.
Like the beginning of the classic story…
“I Am Hera-kles. I Am my Soul’s Glory”.
And the answer he gets back is,
“You have yet to prove yourself.”
The person he has to prove Himself to, is himself.
The difference between Potential and Realized, is Recognition, which actually leads to and creates, “Realization”.
{{Simon}} I just bet that somewhere in your past you desired and wished for ‘peace’ in the latter years of your life. Who would have imagined that in order to fulfill your request, instead of the landscape changing, you had to learn to see it through different eyes?
February 16th, 2009 - 4:13 pm
SMILING…
Aerolin, just like you shared. It’s ALL about growth, inner growth, and that means expanding ourselves beyond our comfort zones.
Rather then insisting Reality stay inside of them.
February 17th, 2009 - 10:00 am
[...] Ann over at Always Embraces All Ways recently wrote a fabulous post in which she makes the point of delineating the difference between Compassion and sympathy. [...]
February 17th, 2009 - 10:04 am
I have a question now and I ask this of you because I just begin to realize myself what you mention of the way you have raised your children. I know I can love them unconditionally, I know that no matter what they do I will still love them. I can deal with whatever they do. My question or my fear sometimes is ‘whether they can themselves’ and I know when I ask this, I question the ‘god essence’ within them.
I just wonder sometimes if whether or not I should tell them my fear, if by telling them my fear I raise this fear in them? or if by telling them my fear I raise something that they might not be consious of as yet? that by telling them my fear I somehow avert the consquences that I feel might come to them, because of their actions.
An example, this weekend my son got into a fight, at a party with much drinking, which caused a lot of stitches to both involved. I did not feel angry at this, but I did feel upset, and I observed my responses. One response I had was in asking him ‘are you able to handle the consequences of this’? he said yes, that the consequences might not be too bad, in that it was a first offence. I extended this question, to a what if, this ‘what if’ came from my fear for him being able to handle, or my imagination of what could have happened.
‘What if someone had died because of this fight, what if the person you were fighting fell and hit his head, and instead of just stitches their life was taken. ‘Could you handle the consequences of this?’ He became quiet and said he didn’t want to talk about it anymore, and so it was left.
When he first told me of this fight, I saw remorse of this on his part, I saw it because he needed/wanted to share it with me, and in sharing it with me, in a way asked my thoughts? He knows how I feel about fighting so he must have known a little how I would respond, or maybe not, because my way of responding is a little different now than what it used to be, he asked what about my stitches? my hurts, and I asked ‘is it sympathy you want?’ I was not sympathic to this, to me they are a little reminder to him of this fight, but I looked at them to make sure they were healing well.
What has been going through my head though, is this fear I gave him of mine, and whether I averted something he was meant to learn on his own. Do I allow him, by not telling him what I fear for him, to expereience what might be? do I interrupt what he must learn? by expressing what I think might be? or is it I was meant to, if these fears for him came from my heart, as his parent, his guide, of being in his life for whatever reasons I am in it.
February 17th, 2009 - 10:29 am
I’ll keep my response short.
Collectively, the “official” definition of the word “sympathy” includes a component of compassion – and that was what I was referring to.
“Who is to say what is “better” for the Soul’s growth and evolution of another? That is an attitude of Arrogance and Self Righteous Judgment, even though that is not our intent.”
I agree
February 17th, 2009 - 11:14 am
{{{Grace}}} Our collective tries to pass off a lot of crap for the sake of the herd’s moo-t points.
We can IMAGINE a connection between “Sympathy” and “Compassion” all we’d like and it still won’t change one into the other. Anymore then calling my Pig’s Ear a silk purse over and over again, is going to change it into one. It doesn’t matter how many people believe in a something; it doesn’t make it any more True. It simply means there are a lot of gullible hypocrites.
All it means is that the collective will remain clueless and living in self denial, like rats in a sinking ship.
What you are meaning is called “empathy”, which is basically being able to see ourselves in another. Which is what I already gave us credit for achieving over the past 2000 years. *NOW* it’s time we take a look at WHAT are we feeling? Fear or Love, for they are different. One emotion comes from being centered in our guts, in the animal level of Instinct. And it’s ONLY in lifting ourselves OUT of this level, to our hearts rather then our guts, that our Higher level Awareness, or Intuition is accessed.
In my 9-11 example, I cited we reacted with “Sympathy”, not “Compassion”. We were very “sympathetic” with all those of us who were directly effected, the ‘victims’. But we were NOT “Compassionate” in our response to those who carried out the attacks. In only “sympathizing” (for a short time) with the “victims”, we have done nothing out of “Compassion” that would put an end to all such activities.
There are those our Hearts go out to
And there are those for whom it doesn’t.
This expresses a LACK, a limitation, in the qualities and substance of our characters.
I can’t emphasize enough, the importance of us getting clear about what our deep motives have been when it comes to our uses of power.
February 17th, 2009 - 1:33 pm
{{tumel}}
{{{HUGE HUGS}}}
~sigh~ Boys will be boys.
Hurrah, tough stuff. What is it? “Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails?”
My husband grew up in a violent neighborhood. He didn’t like to fight, not at all. He had enough beatings at home, from dad. So I’m going to pass along to you, what he told me.
He never picked a fight but when he found himself in one, he’d give them such a thorough beating that they wouldn’t ever think to pick a fight with him again.
To quote from the movie “World Cop”,
“It takes a dick to screw an asshole.”
Did you ask your son if the other kid looked worse then he did?
One time my youngest son was getting thoroughly frustrated. One child in particular, kept hitting. He was the son of one of my husband’s friends, who would always come over to our house whenever he had visitation.
Our son didn’t want to get into trouble or make his father’s friend angry, so he put up with it as long as he could. Then one day came and asked his dad about it.
What his dad told him to do, was to hit the kid twice, for every time he was hit, and make sure he hit him twice as hard.
It’s important to know the use of force and its consequences. It always comes back on us.
What’s important for ‘boys’ is to know they CAN stand up for themselves, that they have the Courage to not run away. It’s important to them for their feelings of Self Confidence and Self Assurance. Just like it is for all of us, but girls tend to do it in a different way.
I am a “Completely” Response-Able human being. I am capable of the complete spectrum of human feelings and experiences. We all are.
So maybe look at our attitudes ABOUT fighting and conflict? Look at how Accepting and Understanding We are, when it comes to these things?
Obviously, we all feel the same feelings and experience wanting to ring someone neck’s every so often. And our airways are crammed with traffic carrying Drama ALL the time.
Ever thought that maybe we are ADDICTED to the Drama and the adrenalin rush OF “conflict”?
Maybe guide your son into investing some time in martial arts or boxing? So that next time he can deliver his *punch* without getting beat up so much in the process?
Your son *knows* ~YOU~
I bet if you simply smiled in acceptance and expressed being able to roll with the punches, too, he’d smile through all his bruises. Just let him know you’re not about to waste a good steak on him, no matter how black his eye looks. Look at him with a twinkle in your eye and say “Ouch even.”
Love the MAN in him, the “grrrrr” part and remember that even Jesus wasn’t ever all smiles and sunshine. What else did he do to the money lenders in the temple but pick a fight? And seems to me I remember something about a tree that didn’t have any fruit on it being cursed.
In answer to the question, “What would Jesus do?”, tell your son to try not to kill anyone, until after he knows how to bring them back to life.
Never know, maybe turning them into a fish would be more satisfying…
Make Light of the Darkness of it.
February 18th, 2009 - 7:38 am
I think to have been imagining or questioning what Mary would have done:). This feels so right though Sueann, to always try to make light, even in the darkess of things. I forget this at times
thank you.
February 22nd, 2009 - 10:51 am
To sense everything you believe and know as a human being is dissolving is a stage of progressive enlightenment. You are evolving to deliberately give up what you thought you wanted in order to realize you never wanted anything.
February 23rd, 2009 - 3:34 pm
Hi Liara!
{{hugs}}
You bet! The enlightenment process ALWAYS goes hand in hand with disillusionment. It’s the disillusionment part that flubs a lot of us up. We have a lot of emotional and prideful attachments to our illusions most of the time.
Even though our illusions do not serve us, nor have ever served us, they still mean staying in our comfort zones. And we LIKE staying inside our comfort zones.
Things get a LOT easier on us when we realize that growth means being pushed out of our comfort zones and growing is nothing to fear. Facing an “unknown” is a lot different then facing an “unknowable”.
And True, once we realize all we HAVE, then we do not NEED so much.
Greetings!
March 4th, 2009 - 2:45 am
Hi Sue!
Reading this after two emotional phonecalls with my next of kin. My dad is in rehab since jan after a TIA, with serious aphasia. I visited him regularly, always entering an emotional rollercoaster afterwards. After the most recent visit, I knew that I feel angry about having to give him so much attention now, when he has neglected me – both my true being and my live walking body – so, both during the time we were a family and after the divorce.
I decided I need distance now, for I feel I have given him all I can and more. More than he deserves – here comes the blame part: I blame him for not being more of a nurturing parent to me.
So now, at this moment, I read your post, when I havent visited here in what seems like ages.
And I wonder about the blame. I agree with all you say, but … – how does that affect my decision now? Am I spreading darkness and limitation, when what I want to do is spread light?
I guess I did self-express – not to the patient though, I dont think it would serve him – but to my next of kin – why I feel and act the way I do, now. I expressed a desire to stay in communication about this. And I do feel I have given in this situation, what I can and what was mine to give. Now, I must turn to my own life and family, to do and be what I can.
Printing this out (nice tip, Simon) to read the comments, too.
Thank you Sue, once again, for expressing your views, and thereby strengthening my beliefs.
Love!
March 5th, 2009 - 3:55 pm
{{Hugs}} Tink!
I reread your comment several times. Each time I read it, I got the same Understanding.
First, it reminded me of a conversation I had with one of my sons one time. He was speaking of his ‘birth’ father, not the man he knows as his ‘dad’.
My son was weeping. His tears were an expression of how much hurt he had felt, in never gaining his ‘father’s’ *coughcough* approval.
And I asked him these questions:
Have you ever known your father to be an accepting kind of person?
Have you ever known him to be a tolerant kind of person?
Have you ever known him to be a generous and understanding kind of person?
In general, is he an approving sort of person to begin with, never mind with whom?
When he extends himself to others, what qualities of character does he extend?
As I asked these questions, he began to think it out for himself. Next thing I did was ask him to take a step back from the relationship for a moment. And asked him:
Why do you seek something he hasn’t got to give? Who is to blame, who is responsible, for the choice of seeking water from a dry hole?
Then it all *clicked* into place.
You mention divorce. Maybe ‘mom’ got fed up with the game? Maybe it’s not so much as dad doesn’t deserve to be loved or isn’t/hasn’t been loved, as it is that he’s got none to extend back.
That’s the creed and the code of self sacrifice. I don’t abide by it myself. I love myself and my own life too much to resign myself to living without being loved and appreciated and all the joys that go with it. I’m not going to negate my life, in order to supposedly ’serve’ anyone else’s.
The Whole is NOT served through the negation of ANY part.
Look at your relationship again. For where ever we see the word ‘blame’, then ‘guilt’ is close by.
I simply ask the question,
why should you feel guilty for having *NO* desire to be around someone who hasn’t treated you with love and respect?
Why?
Look at your desire and see “cause and effect”.
He has given you no CAUSE to feel attracted. So why should *you* feel guilty?
Look at the inner character of the ‘authority’ figure you’ve been trying to please. Look at his choices of values. Look at the life he has lived.
Then ask yourself if in the confines of your own heart, do you choose those same values and do you choose to live the same kind of life?
We reap as we sow.
Seems to me there are many of us who desire to reap a harvest of plenty, without sowing the seeds and cultivating any fields. What do you think?
More important, what does your heart say?
March 5th, 2009 - 4:07 pm
I’m going to add in here a comment about the code of sacrifice. It’s a bass ackward kind of code.
Look at it closely…
In order to qualify as a ’sacrifice’, it’s got to hurt. We’ve got to really love it and really value it, otherwise, throwing it away on someone or something else doesn’t count.
It is not a sacrifice for a woman to buy milk for her baby instead of new shoes for herself, UNLESS she is the kind of woman who VALUES the shoes more then her baby.
It is not a sacrifice for a man to die fighting for his freedom, unless he’s the kind of man who would rather live as a slave.
It is not a sacrifice for a woman to throw her life away on a man, unless he has no love of his own to give.
A moral code where the pinnacle of achievement is to hold our own lives as worth no other value then fodder for others. The Ideal, an Identity equal to ZERO.
Smiling…
No thanks!
“Self-less-ness” as a goal and economies dumping ‘worth’ all over the place. I guess there’s a lot of “selfs” feeling worth less, huh?
Maybe someone could write a book called “quantum physics for dummies?”
April 3rd, 2009 - 6:14 am
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SUEANN!!!!!!!
If I am correct, today is SueAnn’ birthday! I think I know how old she is(n’t), but I’ll leave that for her to tell.
I hope you have a terrific day, filled with joy and love and family and friends!
Much love and ((((HUGS!!)))) Robin
April 3rd, 2009 - 1:22 pm
Why Thank You!
But today is not my birthday! I’ve got a couple of weeks to go, before I will be….
53! I’m the 23rd, not the 3rd. My husband’s birthday is tomorrow, so he’s before me. For that matter, I think YOUR birthday is before mine, so I hope yours is filled with joy and smiles and being with family and friends and those you love, too!
It’s brought a smile to my face just to hear from you {{{Robin}}}}!!!!!
Thank you so much for your {{{{HUGS}}}} and {{{{SMILES}}}} !!!!!!!
April 3rd, 2009 - 3:45 pm
Rats!
Missed it by a mile!
Hey, I got the 3-part.
OK, see ya in 20 days!
(((hugs!)))
November 2nd, 2009 - 10:56 am
[...] http://www.hera-kles.com/Blog/2009/02/08/progressive-evolution/ [...]