A New Earth discussion
Chapther Three: Share Your "Aha" Moments
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I'm as far as Chapter Three right now. This was me, reading alone in a chair, (talking outloud mind you): "Oh my. Mmmhmm, sister. I do that. I mean, oh, how awful...I've never seen myself like that. Oh dear." There is one word for it: Jolt! I'll post a few of my favorite quotes and thoughts later. But for now I'm going to crawl back into bed and get some more sleep. The train just blew it's whistle, so I know I'm not the only one awake right now.
Wow, that comment about making war with life and life making war with you back really struck me on the knoggin. What would my day look like without a cause to take issue with?
All through this chapter I kept nodding in agreement. Most of it pertained to sections I came to terms with a long time ago in my life, i.e., the rationale beyond all the hate killings, the way people put others down because they really have low opinions of themselves...What it didn't cover was how you create the distance needed to eliminate your association with the latter. It think that's important. How can you, politely, remove yourself from people that CONSTANTLY criticize, argue, feel the need to put others down? I've done it the hard way and it was awful.
The "Ego and Fame" really hit me hard because a few years ago it became apparant to me who my "true friends" were and who were just hanging around with me to be associated. Nearly broke my heart, but I'm better for it now. I have dear friends that I've known for 25 or more years that are "keepers" and I treasure their friendship.
Well, I have gone back to "the Secret" to fill in some of the blanks. One of the things that I got a tremendous amount of relief from when I first started applying some of the ideas from "the Secret" was to examine my thought-life. When I started examining my belief systems and started feeding myself positive messages I noticed that I had less inclination to take in the negative inputs I was given in my environment. This actually helped me to just tune out and stop being so darn reactive. Something Oprah said left an impression on me. She said "you can't fight [anything negative], you instead have to add to the [good]" I was so happy during that time, but alas, I let myself slip back into old thought ruts.
I too came back to "The Secret" and related it to this chapter. If you have a negative outlook or thought process, life will not be good because you are holding onto negativity, but as soon as you let it go and realize that you cannot control everyone and everything around you, then life gets better.I have my moments where I have resentment of people/things (I think most of us do) but luckily I can let go of that resentment and move on and realize that while "in the moment" I didn't like the situation and for a short period afterwards, that I cannot do anything to change the other person until they decide they want to change.
I like this statement from pg 70 - The Truth was considered more important than human life. (when talking about the crusades and other senseless killings). I think that people having differing opinions is what makes this world great, that there are always 2 sides to a situation if not more.
Complaining and Resentment, Reactivity and Grievances, Being Right Making Wrong, In Defense of an Illusion, Truth: Relative or Absolute?, The Ego Is Not Personal, War Is a Mind-set, Do You Want Peace or Drama?, Beyond Ego: Your True Identity, All Structures Are Unstable, The Ego's Need to Feel Superior, Ego and Fame.