SEEKING... AND FINDING?

LOFF56:

"Wow, I'm a little befuddled, (and impressed I might add), that you managed to turn this: "I believe every single person has their own lower case "t" truth which is of equal validity to my truth and of everybody else's truth." around into meaning I think with my ego. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I'd have to argue that thinking that everyone else is on equal footing with myself is exactly the opposite of thinking with an ego. If you ask me, believing that one knows what 'God's' will is (or at least purports to be riding the river in the right direction as it were) is not only thinking with an ego, but is delusional in any assessment that would make them believe that the Truth with a capital T' that they seek differs in any basic way from any traditional Religion with a capital 'R.'
Furthermore, to bestow an absolute quality to the Truth that you personally seek, is to transfer your personal responsibility to an entity that is larger than yourself (that you created). That's what you do when you 'eliminate beliefs and opinions in myself'. In doing so, you also eliminate personal responsibility.
And it's not that I don't seek truth. I do. I seek my own personal truth with a lower case "t", because that's what I feel comfortable being responsible for.
Then again, maybe I'm wrong. Is the Church of FPL taking new members at this time?"

PL:

Definitely no churches here, L56, so there's nothing to join.

Let me clarify. When I speak of the ego, I don't mean it in layman's terms. Most people only think of ego as making someone act arrogant or self-aggrandizing, but ego can just as well make someone act self-effacing and impotent. This can lead to not taking responsibility for oneself and one's actions.

Here's a great passage attributed to both Nelson Mandella and Marianne Williamson on this subject:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. And as we let our own light shine, we subconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

As you yourself just said, L56: "I seek my own personal truth with a lower case 't', because that's what I feel comfortable being responsible for."

When I seek to eliminate my beliefs and opinions, L56, it is not to avoid responsibility, it is to take full responsibility. Full permission living can only be undertaken when one is ready, willing and able to take full responsibility, and not just for what one is "comfortable" taking responsibility for, but for what we are all really responsible for in the big picture - each other. "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together."

We don't need moral or legal principles to rule our behavior if we are connected empathetically to all others. We won't hurt others because it will hurt us, not because there are judgments or legal repercussions.

Finally, the current of God's will that I speak of is not coming from a parental deity that dictates our actions (again, you're caught in a dualistic paradigm), but rather from the collective consciousness of All That Is. Just as every cell in our body has its own life force and "will," but yet is subject to the greater will of the whole body, as individual "cells" within the entire body of beingness, each of us is uniquely free and yet one with the movement of all.

Now, just as people can create evil and dysfunction or peace and harmony, the cells in our body can create vibrant health or illness, but not without it being part of the person's ultimate intention for itself, even though that intention might indeed be subconscious at times. This is why it becomes so important to make what is subconscious in yourself conscious, so you can have more direct access to where you create your individual life from at this level.

Whew!

Thanks, L56.

And...

LOFF56 again:

"Well, to clarify, I do understand your definition of ego, and it doesn't change the way in which I used it.
I do love the quote from Nelson Mandella and Marianne Williamson. Although I think I interpret it differently than you do. I see the "fear that we are powerful beyond measure" as being a fear of being on our own, away from any comfort that "God" or equally (by your definition) the collective consciousness of All That Is.
And I agree, one must take responsibility for one's own actions and as they put it "let our light shine" in order for others around us to have permission to let their own lights shine. That's very well put. But I just don't believe that someone will get that "permission" if we allow our light to be defined in any way as absolute or part of a greater power.
I like your analogy of the cells in a human body, it does highlight your point particularly well. But I think it breaks down in a specific way. The human body is a concrete entity that we can measure. The collective consciousness (or God depending on your point of view) is an abstract construct subject to the relative interpretation of an individual like you or I. It depends solely on what you believe the entity of your choosing actually has control of. If at all.
This is a pretty in depth discussion, but I hope you realize that you and I are ultimately after the same thing. The same goals for ourselves and humanity. I think maybe our search is the same, but perhaps how we define what we've found is bound up in semantics or the filter of our own egos (now I'm simply defining ego as simply a personal identity). I do find merits in some of your arguments. I hope you find some in mine too."

PL:

I do indeed find great merit in our dialogue, LOFF56, and I believe that many readers of this blog do as well.

I will only respond to the latest by saying this - there are some things that you cannot know with the intellect alone, or even with the intellect at all, as Einstein, considered one of the greatest "intellects" of his century, tried to tell us when he said: "Imagination is more important than knowledge."