"B" <BGKent@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message news:aY6Wj.247$ll1.197@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On May 11, 7:37 pm, Jani <j...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> "B" <BGK...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>>
>> news:n0OUj.37966$zw.11902@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>> > Long ago I've learnt by the grace of God to look at others and send
>> > them a loving thought...a spiritual hug as it were. Sometimes we have
>>
> **snip
>
>> There was a recent discussion elsewhere about the ethics of 'sending
>> energies', whether well-meant or not, to other people; the general
>> consensus
>> was that it was intrusive and unacceptable. I'm not sure if a Christian
>> prayer *for* someone, rather than an 'unblocked-Christ-channel' thought
>> sent
>> *at* them, would be a rather different concept, though?
>>
>
> B - I find a big difference in sending someone a thought of love and
> then sending them energies that focus on them "doing something". I'm
> not here to manipulate anyone.
That wasn't the distinction I was making, though. "Sending a thought" is a
direct person-to-person connection, whereas a prayer is addressed to a
deity.
>
>> As to thinking of the person as a baby - well, whether it's
condescending
>> or
>> not, it would still seem to be something the sender, or the pray-er, is
>> doing to make *themselves* feel better about the recipient.
>
> B - well we each have our own beliefs about that obviously. Since all
> of us were once babies...I see it as a way
> to look at each of us as that same loving being...vulnerable...needing
> love etc.
Well, that's the point I'm making - why is it necessary to see people as
helpless babies, before they can be 'loved'? That's rather like trying to
train a dog by treating it like a suckling puppy. Won't work ;)
[]
> As I understand
>> it, 'love your neighbour as yourself' doesn't mean that you first have
to
>> re-shape the 'neighbour' into something more lovable, otherwise
'loving'
>> would be remarkably easy.
>
> B - loving another as myself means, for me, that I have to see myself
> in that person..Ie: empathy...and to do that
> means I have to see that person as ONE with me.
I think this is part of the problem - you say "myself ... for me.. myself
..
I ... ONE with me" but at the same time, you're *also* saying "my whole
impetus is to extinguish my ego". Do you see the inherent contradiction,
there?
[]
>> One of the points in the Bible that I do
>> > believe is truth..is that God wants us to come to it as little
>> > children..in that we are to be open and trusting and love...pure love
>> > getting past all the ego onion layers that we build on us as we get
>> > older. Ever see how children can play and get along before they learn
>> > how to distrust? before they learn how to over-identify with the
>> > differences and not the similarities?
>>
>> What age-group do you mean, here? Very small children *have* to learn
to
>> recognise difference,
>
> B - again..it is a matter of degrees. When I go to a flower garden..I
> love the differences, I love the variety but I am
> always connected to how they are as a group..how they are alike as
> well....
> I tend to notice similarities first and differences second...probably
> why I was not ready to exclude others on the basis of looks or race or
> what have you as a child but sought to include everyone as valid.
Yes, but I wasn't asking about that. If you didn't mean very small
children,
and you were referring to learned cultural differences, that's another
matter.
[]
I think it's very dangerous to
>> project one's own motives on to someone else's behaviour, and act
>> accordingly. That *is* egotistical. In the situation you describe, your
>> initial response - that you didn't like the girl's clothes, and found
>> them
>> irritating and ridiculous - was set aside not while you considered why
>> *you*
>> didn't like them, but while you constructed a motivation of 'screaming
>> for
>> love' and 'fear of being picked on' for her, and then approached her
with
>> that construct in mind. Did you *really* love the chaps, as you told
her
>> you
>> did? Or did you love *yourself* better, for being nice to someone *you*
>> had
>> categorised as insecure and exhibitionist?
> B - good point. I actually did like the chaps...I actually wanted to
> love the girl but I found a stupid irritation building in me out of
> something... Yup I could easily have been putting my whole spin on the
> situation...I acknowledge that...
It's a particularly hard lesson to learn when the 'object', so to speak,
doesn't fit into one's personal boxes. It's a lot easier to think that the
person who dresses differently *really, madly, deeply* wants to dress as
you
(generic "you", there, not personal :) do, but is driven by insecurity and
dysfunction and so on to do otherwise.
[]
I can only say...I loved myself and her both better for the
> learning experience.
Clearly you learned something, and learned more from posting it. That's
good. But - what did the other person learn? Not that random strangers
look
at her clothes, contemplate their own prejudices, overcome them to some
extent, and say "I like how you look". The 'love' benefits your personal
growth, sure, but it does nothing for her. Where is the 'compassion and
empathy'?
If I love someone ...it comes back to me and vice
> versa because I tend to see me in them and them in me. If one wants to
> read in these posts of mine "ego" ...then so be it...I post certain
> posts like these because I felt that I learnt a good lesson and I
> wanted to share.
I'm not denying that you learned a lesson; I'm just not sure it's what you
*think* you learned.
[]
Thanks for
> reading and presenting me with more ways to look at something.
Eh, well, "know thyself" is, as Didactylos says, a bugger ;)
Jani
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