Bob Johnston's Post

Hi Barbara ~ scanning, is that the same as lurking?

Anyhow, it's good to hear you sounding more chipper these days.

Yeh, the anonymous ancient philosopher had something, didn't he? There's a time for ebb and a time for flow . . . ebb and flow . . . ebb and flow . . . hmmm, might make a light rock tune.

Wonder why he didn't want his name attached? Ebb and flow . . .

And those Eagles, great lyrics except for the one about "Don't even try to understand." That's not for me, I love trying to push Sisyphus' rock up the mountain of discovery. Only thing is the more I know, the more I come to realize I don't know.

With empathy and health,

Bob

Unencumbered
Bob,
I knew you would say something about "Don't even try to understand."
Rightfully so...That part doesn't float my boat. Still, there is a time for everything. In my life the "Don't even try to understand." is a good way to handle paperwork that is basically senseless. So, why try to understand after a point? Just gotta take it easy there, or the sound of my own wheels will drive me crazy. Just tryin' to loosen my load (the Eagles).

Lurking? Nah. Lurking has a dark connotation. Scanning is like skimming. There are clear pedagogical definitions for scanning and skimming. Right now, my brain is malfunctioning (senior blip). It seems that scanning is looking at written material in a global fashion, while skimming involves more reading. I haven't tried lurking...but you never know. Where's a good place to lurk?
Best of Everything,
Barbara

Thank you for your response . . . ain't this fun :-)

Well, John, with all due respect to you and Heisenberg, I view his principle as an option for consideration and useful application in other areas of life, such as physics and engineering, but it is not a scientific principle which I have found particularly useful in healthfully and effectively managing my responses to life.

So far during my almost seventy-nine years in this body I have not found Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle as a necessary ingredient for my integral health -- mind-body, social, familial, vocational, economic, and ecosystemic health. I am the most integrally healthy I have ever been (twelve consecutive years of perfect health according to my physician).

And that to me is the bottom line for every belief, value, theory, hypothesis, principle, practice, whatever. If it contributes to my integral health I keep it, if not it's just another option I cannot for all practical purposes use although I support its use by others if it pleases them.

Of course it's for the same reason I choose to have an identity, even though most people view it as a 'nothing identity'. Using the 'working hypothesis' that I am pure, transparent, timeless awareness at one with our non-judgmental Source gives me complete freedom to use all temporal beliefs, values, attitudes, intentions, methods, processes, behaviors, and possessions as options as I see fit for integral health, full functioning, and wellbeing without identifying with and getting all mucked up with any of them.

I can put them on and take them off like different pieces of clothing depending on what the situation at hand calls for. So with all the success I have enjoyed with this non-identity identity :-) I'm sticking with it. What's the old cliche? 'When you're at the ball having a great time dancing with all kinds of folks don't forget who brung ya.'

Any feelings? Thoughts?

Love ya, man . . .

Bob

I find it really interesting to see what follows "with all due respect". LOL. It is usually along the lines that what you are saying (meaning what I am saying) sounds good but it is a bunch of crap. LOL This makes me laugh. Thanks.

I am a OK with someone saying things sound like crap to them. I look at the source decide if it is worth acknowledging. I respect you, your thoughts, positions, feelings, ideas and so forth and add it to my library. I can hold positions that appear to conflict. I am not so interested in whether something is right or wrong as whether it is useful. I can take what you write and add it and so it becomes useful to me. I worry about the areas of my life that I am personally bothered by if someone disagrees with me. It triggers in me a look to see why I have a charge on it. I don't have a charge on what I wrote and hey, maybe it is crap. Like I said I look for useful and your post is very useful and for me Heisenberg is useful to me.

BTW; Health is an interesting topic. What we considered to be healthy 30 years ago is not entirely the same as today. There are lot that is the same, and things that have changed quite a bit. What was considered healthy eating has changed by the decade if not in shorter times. How does that relate to your integral health?

Yes, it is fun.

Best

John

Unencumbered
Hi John,
My husband says, "With all due respect..." To me, it means, "You are full of crap." I hate it. Still, I don't really think it means "You are..." to him. His father was older, probably in the generation of Bob's father even though my husband is 59. It is a genteel way of disagreeing. Come to think of it, if my husband told me I was full of crap, I'd throw something at him.(A time for everything!)
Regards,
Barbara

John, we're gonna havta stop meeting like this . . . people will be talkin' :-)

Anyway, with all due respect . . . yup, I use it quite often to just emphasize I do respect an individual and their right to their views even though I may disagree. And I don't privately think of their position as necessarily as "crap". This has been reinforced in my consciousness by one of the Seven Principles espoused by the Unitarian Universalists (they don't have a creed, it's everybody is responsible for their own belief system). The First Principle is to ". . . affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person." I like that principle and try to do it.

You wrote, "What we considered to be healthy 30 years ago is not entirely the same as today. There are lot that is the same, and things that have changed quite a bit. What was considered healthy eating has changed by the decade if not in shorter times. How does that relate to your integral health?"

Actually it all comes down to what nutrition, exercise, visualizations, etc. is consistently producing integral mind-body health for me. I don't care if it's old data, current, or 'breaking news' type research data. Actually, after doing some very intensive research in 1996-67 into many kinds of lifestyles and then experimenting with what produced the best results as evidenced not only by absence of trips to my physician (last year none)but by blood tests, I selected the practice I've been following religiously since then (about 12 years). If you want more info see my SIA Share Integral Healthful Aging: My Noetic-Based Checklist http://www.shiftinaction.com/node/3130.

Thank you for your interest, John.

Best wishes,

Bob

In ministerial school, our required reading included a wonderful story about the monks in a region whose monastery was next to a river. Some of the monks had been at the monastery for most of their lives. Each year as the new monks were in the process of becoming initiates they were taken to the edge of the rushing river. Teachers, students, young and old leaped into the white foaming waters and floated down the river. Boulders causing obstacles and harsh challenges loomed from the chaos like writhing dragons.

The new initiates would invariably thrash and flail their limbs and scream from the emotion of the wild and uncertain future. The old monks, however, floated listlessly with the current in an almost connectedness with the currents and eddies.

Perhaps we are not always able to chart our exact course, but if I take the wrong one, I know in my heart that sometimes it is good to keep a careful eye on the shore. There always has to be a place to exit the experience. Even the river provides intermittent choices.

Love and Light,
As always,
Jane

Unencumbered
Jane,
Love that story!
Barbara

Thank you, Jane, for the interesting story. Warmly, Bob

As one story teller to another, I find your stories interesting too. Love and Light'
As always,
Jane

This thread is inspiring! Thanks, Bob, John, Barbara, Jeff and Jane (and those whose thoughts and intentions blend with the written word to transmit meaning).
My life has been guided, from one perspective, by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle: Certainly nobody could have predicted that the historical facts and influences would have brought me to where I am today (or even that I'd still be alive).
I've been identified as a 'Flow Master' in one book, yet like the monks jumping into the river I know that it is only from one perspective, and that I needed the experience of watching everyone end up downriver, struggle or not, to learn to drift with the flow (which brings me to the finding from psi research attampting to achieve replicability that success generally comes when one quits trying - a finding that I've morphed into: 'You cann ot get there by doing the work, but you have to have done the work to get there!').
I agree wholeheartedly with the idea that Teilhard de Chardin is said to have expressed as 'We are not physical beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a physical experience!', however I do not accept that I'm pure anything: I believe in growth, the pure concept of Karma in which I must find my next level through successive 'lives' (not that I have to atone for past misdeeds), expanding my knowedge as I go (and thus raising the level of the Source (or the zero point field, if one wishes to use the current understanding of quantum physics).
This is my understanding at this point. Maybe in eight years, when I'm 79, my understanding will be different - it probably will be different, in fact.
I do not have a clear picture of what it means to operate in harmony with the different levels of existence: All I do is pray each day that I'll do the right thing, then go into the day bravely assuming that my instinctual reaction to events will be the proper one (trusting in God, is another way of saying this), then at the end of the day review my actions and form the intention to remedy those I might find lacking. I find less and less that I want to change, as time passes.
Maybe, as the salmon whose path upstream is blocked, I am destined to discover another place to spawn, or maybe I'll grow wings and learn to fly to the old place? Perhaps the 'old place' is like the generations of women who cut the end off the roast 'because mom idd it that way', only to find out that great-grandma just did not have a big enough pan, and that's why she cut off the end ...
Off to water aerobics, see y'all tomorrow.

Peace and Love
Glenn

Howdy Glenn,

Thanks for your feedback, comments, and insights. It's always a pleasure to hear from you.

Empathy and Integral Health,

Bob