http://greatday.com/cgi-bin/jsenter.pl?1706h07B4zna

I am pleased that we have been able to get back to this being a discussion.

I agree aspects of what you are saying about me are relevant for me. And it is almost certain that had i been a better communicator and listener this conversation would not have evolved as it has.

Even so i think there are aspects about the evolution of this conversation that are relevant for both of us.

From my point of view the way this conversation has developed appears to be as the result of misunderstandings by both of us I believe.

But also i think the way this conversation has developed does in some manner show the manner in which each of us responds and interacts with another person and I believe can give us insights into our wider life and what is not working for us. I also think that some of these insights are important for the conditions of nearsightedness and astigmatism we both have.

I agree i have gone completely overboard on this “listening thing” and this “points of view thing”. Even so i do passionately believe that good listening or good observation, or being a trained observer, are related to good vision.

Roberto Kaplan OD for example talks about our reaction between more or less the same thing as the blur we experience. No reaction and no tension means relaxation and simply and uncomplicatedly receiving what is there to seen. Reaction involves a process of resisting what is there to be seen. You asked early on that if a person is creating their own reality why is there illness. And i replied it suggested tension or lack of at easness with ourselves or our consciousness.

Now since i know you were very seriously ill i suppose i have been that more determined to do what i thought was going to *help* you:-). And as i pointed out earlier i think you tend to react to a person sometimes who might be wanting to help you in a way that makes you believe you are being attacked. And i linked that thru to the idea that maybe you were critisised alot when you were a kid. Now i know you said you dont want to talk about that area. Even so in the circumstances it does seem relevant for the purposes of clarification of what i think was happening for us both in this conversation.

I have tried to slip in these ideas during the conversation and i suppose just ended up with a horrible mess of complexity where you have interpreted what i am saying as being some kind of lecture where your only role is to listen and learn. And as i said above there is an element of truth in what you are saying no doubt at all.

Ok…..so thats some thoughts on the way the conversation developed from an abstract view point that tries to avoid “I said that” and “you said that” and leads us nowhere in our experience so far.

Back to the movie example since you seemed to like that one:-)

If critics respond well or badly, often the directors and writers get involved in trying to point out the message behind the film and reinforce their own message, rather than allow the critics interpretation to become the “received” idea of what the film was about.

If you were a “critic” of my film and you said

“My initial feeling to what you’ve conveyed is that the term “reality” has a very ambiguous meaning according to the way you seem to be defining it”

I might reply

“If God made us to believe we experienced reality and we share that reality experience with other people but in fact we are simply souls who experience this god given experience how would we know the difference between life as illusion and life as something real? ”

and if you replied

“Well, if we are speaking of God’s reality, then I suppose we would need to consider what is God’s reality.”

I might reply

“I was not talking of Gods reality but instead the experience of reality that God may have given us”

And so on. Where it appears to me that you have not understood what i have said.

I then tried to link this confusion with your blurred vision.

And i included in that

“It would for example be interesting to know what Brians point of view might be on what i have said here about you. Not necessarily interesting for me to know but instead interesting for you to know.”

And you replied

“I do find it interesting that you say you are not interested in Brian’s opinion, yet you want me to know his opinion. Why is that?”

And i replied:

” i am interested in brians opinion but *my meaning* was his opinion (in my opinion) is more important to you than it is to me”

So in summation it seems that we keep developing misunderstandings which take quite a bit of working with to resolve.

And yet ultimately we dont really get to the heart of the matter which (from my point of view) was to enable you to understand what i experienced since you were interested in it at the beginning anyway!

Cheers

Andrew

Perhaps you forget that it is customary for movies to be critiqued by movie critiques, which does not change the movie itself. The film makers commonly “expect” a “reaction” from those who have viewed his film. All those who participated in the creation of the movie also anxiously await reactions from those who have viewed it. And those who are interested in watching the film also read the critiques of the movie critics for their perspective as well. It is natural for people to desire interaction whereby they can receive imput as well as give imput.

You may say I have not viewed your movie, however the closest I can get to viewing “your” movie is reading your type-written words, of which I did.   So essentially, I have viewed your description of your movie.
The way I see it, you do not welcome imput. Therefore, I believe a better analogy for what has transpired here is that of a “classroom lecture” whereby students are just expected to sit, listen, and absorb hopefully for the purpose that they can regurgitate someone else’s ideas, not their own. Or another analogy could be that of a parent and a child whereby only the parent teaches the child, and that child should be quiet and obey.

Meow,

Marla

If i could sum up from my point of view.

What has happened here is a bit like the following.

I for example go to the movies and see a film you have not seen. After hearing what i have said you begin to make an argument that the film does not make sense and i point out to you that you have misunderstood what i have said about what happened in the film. So in order for you to understand the film you do need to be a good doggie and listen and understand that the film was not like the way you are describing it.

Woof woof

Andrew

I was just going to let your comments go and let this thread drop because obviously you are not interested in my points of view. However, upon reflection, this is “my” blog. This blog was created by me so that I could express myself. It was not created so that anyone could come on here and pontificate ideas and concepts of which I do not agree while I sit back and make no comment. I am happy to hear other people’s points of view even if they are contrary to mine “provided” that I be “allowed” to also air my viewpoint in response and that the exchanges are civil. These are typed words which can be read as many times as one likes. I realise people do not agree on lots of things, and if you peruse other threads on my blog, you may see that I have left conversations intact even though I did not agree with the original poster. The purpose for that is so that I allow ideas to be aired even though I do not agree with them (I do have an edit feature by which I could just delete any post, but I choose to leave them so that the discussions can be viewed). When you finish a post, my assumption is that you have completed your thoughts. I was not interrupting you or preventing you from sharing your ideas. I have read all your posts “before” I have commented. I commented according to my understanding of what you had written. You accuse me of not taking enough time to understand you even though I have read your lengthy posts and took the time to comment. You infer you are not interested in my point of view. Therefore, I am left to feel that all you wanted to do was air your thoughts “without” opposition even if there were opposition. Do not expect that here. If you want to air your points of view “without” critique, this is not the place for it.

Please understand that this is not to be hostile or unfriendly, but I must lay down the guidelines for my blog. If you comment here and I happen to find questions or disagree with what has been shared, then I “will” comment if I feel compelled, and not sit back like a good little doggie. If you are no longer interested in sharing your points of view, then that is okay, too.

I have enjoyed what I “thought” were conversations and sharing of ideas. However, from your latest reaction, I see I was mistaken. Now I feel that all I have been to you was someone to “listen” to “you” or someone by whom you want to practice psychological analysis, but not someone who was your friend just having a discussion.

Take care,

Marla

I have the feeling that in response to what i have said you are putting up all sorts of logical reasons as to why i am wrong. And yet in each example you bring up i feel your example does not make me wrong and yet i can imagine you might believe it does.

For example:

*An* elephant story is usually told as three blind men who are convinced they know what the animal is from what they can feel. You describe that part of *your* analogy accurately. But in *my* story the most *appropriate* use of the mind is *not* to be right but is rather to learn from the others so that the *most right* person can know what an elephant is like. So my story is not really taking *your* elephant story a step further but is really desciribing a new idea that i have not seen described before using an elephant:-). The bias each person brings to what they see was of lesser importance than the fact that to see the elephant each has to receive the point of view of each other person (rather than just being like a blind man who is convinced they are right as per the common use of the elephant in a different story)

My girlfriends father:

If i believe that no person can control my mind while they are asleep then my consciousness is *not* affected by their thoughts *until* such time as my belief changes. You replied logically about the aura having to change between awake and asleep but it does not have to. The issue here was one of boundaries. If my boundary is secure between myself and an asleep person then i am unaffected by their consciousness until they are awake. (In fact even when he is asleep it bothers me but much less so – but this seemed a minor point not worth mentioning)

This revelation or experience word is really bugging me.

If i said to a person, “man i had a life changing revelation over the weekend! wow it was incredible” or i said “man i had a life changing experience over the weekend wow it was incredible” To my way of thinking this amounts to as near as damn it the same thing. But for you it seems these two things are profoundly different. I just dont get where you are coming from on that. And to be honest i dont think i want to hear more about it! It seems important for you but not for me. Either way *for me* my experience was educational and revalatory and life changing no matter how you want to interpret or warp my words!

The main issue or problem i am having with the way you have replied to me thru this conversation is that i was describing my story and you have produced your own stories to decide i am wrong and yet i dont feel you have really listened long enuf to my story to understand it. And it seems that no matter what i say you are going to keep doing this.

The issue is important in eyesight i believe.

To see normally you need to allow what is there to come to you rather than superimpose what you believe is there as if the originally seen “experience” or scene or sight can only be the way you want to describe it *from your point of view*

I dont want to be unfriendly here but i think i have said all i want to say here. If you cant see my point of view then so be it.

Regards

Andrew

I appreciate that you care enough to make sure your intentions are not construed as being malicious, but rather just how you deal with these types of discussions. In situations when you want to know “why” a person believes something or “why” he does something, it does seem logical to try to put yourself in their shoes. An example is if you are trying to solve a murder mystery. However, in our discussion, I was not even attempting to figure out “why” you believed what you did, but merely taking the statements at face value of why I thought your blanket statment of us creating our own realities even to the point of God’s existence didn’t hold up in my thinking. And that is why I said that I think we can have a discussion to see if the “logic” of the “concepts” put forward regarding creating our own reality would hold up.

What I think might be happening, tho, is that you’re already starting from the viewpoint that we create our own realities and that is how your are trying to back up your point. And that is why you were trying to put yourself in my shoes. “Why” I hold my opinion is not the issue as far as I’m concerned. The issue that I thought I was discussing was “which is true?” a) do we create our own reality? or b) we don’t create our own reality. Although, I did give a third option that I believe it is both because in some situations we do affect our realities, while in other situations we don’t. Perhaps this explains it better so that you understand why I did not think my personal childhood experiences were relevant in our discussion because it’s not “me” we are talking about here, but a “concept.”

As to the difference between “revelation” and “experience,” the way I have understood those two is that a person can have a very memorable, even life-altering “experience” “without” having a revelation. This is what I thought you meant when you first wrote that you had an experience. An example of this type of experience is taking a trip to some far away place where you have the BEST time of your life and you will always remember it and hope to make changes in your life to keep that experience going. That is an experience, but there was no revelation, per se because there is no answer to a deep seated question. While a revelation doesn’t necessarily require an experience, per se. I could just be sitting out in my backyard daydreaming and all of a sudden a thought pops into my head of something that I had not thought before. And that little new thought helps to answer others queries I’ve had in the past for which I had been perplexed. That type of scenario is what I consider a revelation. Something was revealed to me, I get an “answer.” An experience doesn’t necessarily answer anything, but can be life-altering none-the-less. I suppose they can be combined, but in that case, if I were to describe it, I would describe it as an experience (and that is what I thought you meant). You didn’t mention an “event” or trip or anything, which I would have associated with an experience, therefore your thoughts to me are considered a revelation. So hopefully now we are on the same page!

Now regarding the elephant, yes, I’ve heard that analogy before. The way I’ve heard it explained is that all the people were right. You seem to be putting more into it by saying that those who saw negative aspects may be “negative” people. I don’t think the elephant analogy was trying to convey that, but rather that since all the people were looking at a different view, they all saw different things, and although what they all saw were different, they were all right. Now you appear to be taking it a step further to judge their characters, which I think given the analogy is permature because you are “assuming” that they think there is no alternative. I don’t think that’s the way the analogy goes because it doesn’t go that far. It doesn’t continue to ask each person whether there is a possibilty that things are different, etc.

Now having said that, I am going to take it one step further, too! Ha! But rather than judge their characters, I think that not only were they all right in their assesment of what an elephant is like, but they were also all wrong or rather they were all “partly” wrong because they did not see the whole. So not only is an elephant like this, but it is also like that. So again, there is the third scenario. And I suppose there must be another way to look at it that I’m not seeing!

Anyway, those are my initial thoughts for now. Brian did read this thread just before your latest 4 posts, and he was going to send a reply, but I think he got busy and side tracked, and didn’t finish. He might get to it by the weekend, ha! I did get to peak at what he was writing, but he doesn’t like me to do that, so I have to let him finish before I can read it, too, ha ha!

Okay, toodles for now!

Marla

P.S. I think I have been so focused on the first point of creating our own realities, that I still have not even really gotten to “cocreating” realities. That’s another interesting aspect, and a thought came to me regarding your girlfriend’s father’s influence on you while he is awake. You mentioned you did not feel his influence while he slept. In that case, do you think our influence is only there while we are awake? Our aoura changes when we sleep? Or were the feelings you got from him really from you and your conciousness of knowing he was awake to judge you?

Another way to see this issue of points of view is as follows:

10 people are positioned around the sides and above and below an Elephant.

One person is positioned at the rear end and only sees the rear end.

If no person has ever seen an elephant before and the elephant does not move and no person moves then the only way to find out what the elephant actually looks like is to suspend all disbelief and allow all of the various viewpoints to be considered to buid a picture of the elephant.

If one person says “it is impossible for an animal to be that large” then they limt what they can believe and they see a smaller animal and so they describe a smaller animal.

If the person at the rear end sees an ugly disgusting animal then if they keep saying to others “yes i know what you are saying but i cant see how this is a magnificant animal, it is disgusting to me” then that is what they see until they set aside their own opnions and allow in the views of the others.

Similarly if the person at the rear end keeps saying to the others this is a disgusting animal i am seeing then the others are going to see something disgusting as being the view from the rear even if there own view is magnificant. Some of them might conclude that the view from the rear is biased and some might believe it is accurate. But the most accurate viewpoint of the elephant is produced by the person who attempts to understand the viewpoint of all of these people taking into account the experiences that each of them have had. And so they understand why a person might not believe the elephant could be so big and why it seems disgusting but they themselves produce their own (in this case more accurate view)

So the most accurate viewpoint might know that the rear end view is produced by a person who tends to see negatively and who is not open to new experiences but even so the accurate view has received entirely the view of the rear end as described by the other person as they see it.

I think this is the core of the issue here.

Until you can see my point of view then you will not be able to “get your head around” or “mind warp” or “orientate” yourself to what i experienced.

I am though not sure what you mean by a “revelation”, because from my point of view had i used the word “revelation” it would be a very similar word to “experience” as a word to describe what happened. The “revelation” having created the “experience”

The result of this “word” is that the world is now seen differently by me. Or possibly more accurately, the Earth and its events that i see presented before me, and the Earth and its events that i believe exists (as i see it), is now a more integrated, understandable “thing”/”experience” for me.

For example i had previously no integrated awareness of God that existed and i was comfortable allowing to exist, without a lingering fear that i was wrong. I still dont *know* but i am far less resistive to the possibility. And for sure there is a part of me that does believe and does want to believe. I am all these parts if i am an integrated person.

Under “my logic” i am saying something *different* to this.

I am saying that when i listen to you and see things from your point of view then i *do* see as best as it possibly is to see for any other person, as if seeing via your “reality through your understanding as well”. (part in quotes modified slightly from the quoted part of what you said that i copied in at the top)

So that is why i ask “why do you think that? And that is why i “analyse/psychoanalyse what you are saying”. It is not i believe to manipulate you but it is my attempt to put myself in your shoes so that i can understand your point of view as if I was you.

To understand another persons point of view we need to see as if we had received ourselves the experiences the other person has had. So it seems valid in a discussion to kind of say “help me here please, i dont see what you mean, How are you arriving at this point of view? I just dont see it” but i guess you are right that doing uninvited analysis might be an invasion that was not wanted. And also i can see it requires a judgement by me that only via analysis of you can i hope to understood what it is you do mean………..or rather perhaps can you hope to understand what i mean! So not such a good insight for me perhaps

But either way allowing for my foibles and weaknesses, to understand another persons point of view we need to let go of our own view entirely and just receive their view as if we were that other person. But to do that often we need to also know what their experiences were that have created that view and be sympathetic to them as if they were our own experiences that we see as the other person sees..

When a person is good at this then they are “sympathetic” or “emphathetic” or “sensitive”. But rather than it being a personality/genetic trait it is simply something that a person can learn to do and is i believe part of the process of good seeing.