The Torn Page

Student Question: We have talked about a healthy super ego. For example, recognizing where one has been inaccurate, even if it’s subtle, and not wanting to repeat that behavior again. I can see how that recognition could escalate into more of a negative attack but, how do you discern the difference?

Student Question:  What is the relationship between karma, transformation and the supreme will of God?

Student Question: What is the superego? If you dissolve the ego, will the superego still be there?

Excerpt: “Philosophy in the modern West . . . distinguished religion from science. Religion was mythical, and science dealt with facts. . . . Postmodern Western philosophy now conceives that science itself is a myth. . . . When it comes to ultimate questions, science has no answer to them; it has to presume an origin, but it doesn’t even attempt to account for it because it cannot account for anything ultimate because that would be religion. But if, in fact, there’s no difference between religion and science, and if they are both mythological constructs, then it’s important to understand what myth is. And as Joseph Campbell has explained very clearly in all of his works, myth is metaphor. But what is it that’s being metaphorized?” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, April 26, 2012.

Excerpt:  “We are here to realize the true self.  The implication of that is that we have not been living in our authentic self, but in some false - unreal - persona… and if we are not living in our real self then we are not living in the real world either…  and if the world is false and the self is false, then things are going to happen that are unsustainable because the false cannot survive the test of truth… and because so many on this planet are now living in the false self, we have a false world that is collapsing… you cannot live in that state of hypocrisy without karma hitting you pretty hard….  So everyone is getting lessons in karma nowadays but we are not here to worry about the political issues of the world and their karma… we are here to work out our own karma…  to make sure that we are not secretly killing elephants when we are pledged to protect them… to make sure that if we are Sat Yogis, we are living up to our vows and living a yogic life and living as what Linji - the great Zen master - the great wild Zen master - called the true person – the one true person of no rank.  He said every ego is out to try and get to as high a rank as possible and to try to improve its status in the world and that is all it is really interested in, and there is one true person who doesn’t care about that… who realizes that there is no such thing as rank….  It is interesting that rank has these two meanings.   One is a bad smell, and the other is status….  It is rank if you are interested in rank… but he said there is only one true person of no rank and that everyone else is interested in rank and prestige, status, possessions and power - all of that… but that the one true person is the incarnation of God… the Christ…. Don’t think the Zen masters don’t believe in Christ.  They do, but they have another word for that being...”  Recorded on the evening of, Thursday, April 19, 2012.

Student Question:  What is déjà vu?

Student Question:  How can I know if my meditation practice has stagnated?

Student Question:  How can we guide children from a very early age to find their awareness?

Student Question:  Is the body a reflection of the mind?

Student Question:  Something that I have been thinking about recently is this idea of “the third.”  I know you mentioned before when we were talking about the “I of the Statement” and the “I of the Enunciation” that there is also the “Third I”; the “I of Awareness” or the “I of Shiva.”  We have also studied a module in which the father comes in as the third to break the mother and child dyad, and I am sure there are many other examples, but I was just curious about the significance of this idea of the third and what it really means.