Usually people sort of blend into the background noise going through the motions of spirituality, but some do stand out.

People tend to form gestalt constructs in my memory. I know that I have remembered someone when they fit one of those complexes, but how people identify themselves is not how I identify them anyway. It never has been. They don’t really like that about me. I guess they want respect for their self image or something, but I can hardly perceive their self image.

I don’t reject any paradigm, but zealousness is blinding and I can grow to resent it if people insist on only one grammar for the discussion of enlightenment. Jargon and self righteous rhetoric doesn’t serve any goal of insight to my view.

Yes, because we may be saying the same thing, just not in the same way. I think it’s better to listen and figure it out. I agree. If I am unenlightened that’s fine with me.

To some you are the villain. We are all villain to someone. Someone told me I don’t have her sympathies. Despite myself she does have mine, as does anyone who feels strongly about their beliefs but cannot see validity in another’s. I can understand passion/conviction/commitment, but Reflection Island in Second Life was founded to share the common ground, not as a battlefield for whose view is genuine/superior. If someone finds that Tolles insights speak to them profoundly, I feel that’s great. But despite your “standards for truth” we discuss all views here if they can be discussed civilly, and we discuss them in the paradigm they originate from. I think that’s the only way they can actually be understood. If a Christian wants to tell me about Christ, I need to discuss it in the context of their creed/paradigm. Then if I move on, I move on and they can too.

I will engage in criticism of paradigms, but I hope I don’t seem to espouse an oppositional view in any absolute sense. I don’t feel antagonism of any effort to understand, just of attitudes some people have about the process of understanding. I feel that if anyone has a genuinely “privileged” view, truly substantiated by literal fact, they would likely be very quiet people.

People do tend to have an object/subject of reflection in my experience. So it helps if you treat those with some consideration. One can just blather transcensional rhetoric. There is a language to that. The Tower of Babble didn’t fall completely and the “gift of tongues” did linger on. Though in today’s understanding it does seem really weird, fantastical.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~