daily affirmations

[bunny]

The 'we co-create our reality' philosophy has been around for a while. Inevitably the questions are asked, "What about the people who get cancer?" "What about a child who's dying of leukemia?" "What about people being massacred?" "What about people with birth defects?" "What about the tsunami?" & etc.

My take on it is, there is stuff that happens that people did NOT create on their own. They can NOT change it. They did NOT contribute to it happening to them. They are INNOCENT VICTIMS and not actively making it happen to themselves. And they are often VERY BRAVE people who are facing unimaginable horrors. So "they are suffering because of fear" makes no sense. I'm a total coward and my "reality" is far superior to most of the world who are braver than I.

So flat-out I don't buy the co-creating reality deal. What I do buy is people contributing to interactions in ways that may be problematic and cause their own misery.

bunny

[phillip]

Dr. Brian Weiss, a pioneer in past-life regression therapy, relates a story about how he got into this field.  He was a psychiatrist.  One day he was doing some hypnosis work with a client.  Out of the blue she mentioned his infant son, by nickname.  She told him under hypnosis that the reason the child was born to him, was to bring him the lesson that some things science could not fix.  Up to that point he considered himself to be a purely pragmatic scientist.

The woman who spoke to him under trance had no knowledge of his son, his nickname or his condition.  You see, his son was born with his heart placed backwards.  This occurs in 1 in 10million births and is always eventually fatal.

This is not my story, it is his.  According to Weiss, the only reason for this soul to be born, was to bring him this message.  The message the woman delivered to him was to propel him beyond rational science.

[Wispery]

If you believe in re-incarnation, (for which there is no tangible proof...) and that we choose which life or body to be born into in a past life (or that period of time between lives to choose) then we knew before hand the hardships we would face, yet still elected to come to earth this way, in order to learn some "lesson" or what have you...so that in essense would definitely be us creating our realities beforehand, as in, we knew what we were walking into when being born into a specific body, mother, father, etc....


You would have to believe in the unprovable. I do not believe we know before hand, I do not think we live more than one life. I would have to see proof.

[BlueTopaz]

So flat-out I don't buy the co-creating reality deal.

What I do buy is people contributing to interactions in ways that may be problematic and cause their own misery.

This reminds me of the point that inner and outer realities "created" are two separate issues in not all, but many ways, which sometimes get jumbled together & cause confusion. I think it helps to differentiate them, which the above message does.  

I think we are the masters of our perceptive/emotional inner reality  (mindset, perceptions we choose, belief systems) in situations, which can affect our outer reality much (not all) of the time, but there are very many things about our outer reality that we don't have control over (as in "co-create"), especially, but not limited to, large scale horrific acts, maiming accidents, debilitating illnesses (not caused directly by self abusive lifestyle), other's nasty reactions & behaviors towards us without provocation.    

As I already mentioned, it is ability to create our emotional/inner reality as to how we will perceive & react to whatever it is that is dished out to us externally.  

But we don't always have control over what it is that is dished out to us.

On a collective level, we probably all have helped to create "world reality" or worldly dynamics in very intricate & subtle ways we wouldn't even imagine, but that is another whole ball of wax and it's after 2 am. in my neck of the woods.  Right now, I am going to enjoy the reality of my warm bed!  

BT

[bunny]

I forgot to mention that in the "co-creating reality" idea, after the moral questions are raised about innocents being punished, the REINCARNATION theory is inevitably brought up to rationalize it.

I don't buy that one either.

bunny

[Anonymous]

My understnading of the idea of creating our own reality is that we do so by what we decide to think, by what we keep the focus on in our minds.

I think we have complete power over that, much of the time.  We can choose to believe whatever we want and we can decide to change whenever it suits us.  Unless we become mentally altered, brain-washed.

I have no idea what it is to survive atrocity such as war, living in a country ruled by a heartless dictator, etc,   but I have read many accounts of such, by those who have, and I find common threads among many such as:

They seemed to have kept positive thoughts in their heads as often as possible, while acting as required.

They had faith and determination to withstand and survive.

They looked ahead to victory and dreamed, fantasized about it.

They adapted to negative changes in their environment by finding mental distractions and by assuming that the awful situation would end.

I think these people did indeed create their own, more comfortable, hopeful, soothing, focussed inner realities, and by doing so they managed to put up with stuff most of us might think impossible to tolerate.

Which brings to mind another quote:

"To accomplish great things,
        we must not only act but also dream,
              not only plan but also believe."

                      Anatole France


GFN

[Learning]

Hi All,

I also could not resist this topic.  

The question of how and why people persevere through really horrific living conditions is one that I've spent alot of time on.  I've travelled a bit in my life and I can personally say that there was at least one time that I truly felt like kissing the ground when I returned to the U.S.  

That was a life changing trip for me.  To see how others survive in conditions that seemed so intolerable to me (and that country was definetly not the worst out there).  

I have friends who have walked out of a country through mountainous terrain, because of the extreme government there.  They knew that if they were caught, they could be killed.  They did it anyway.  They were the exception to the rule.  Most of their people stayed.  

I'm not convinced that fear was the only motivator in why the others stayed.  I think alot of it is actually because of love and faith.  They love the people there, the countryside, the things that they know.  They have faith that if they stay and persevere, that the future can be brighter.  They have faith that the hardships they endure in this life will help prepare them for the next (not reincarnation).

I think faith in a higher power is a really big key to how people deal with hardships.  

I don't believe that they (or anyone else) co-created the conditions they were placed in.  I do believe, as Blue Topaz mentioned, that collectively we all have the ability to change those conditions.  

Peace,
Learning

[mum]

Interesting thing we have going here.  I spend most of my alone time mulling over this very thought.   I believe I have created this life and these life situations and challenges.  If I think my ex is responsible for my pain, then I give him power over me.  I made choices....I married him in the first place...I could leave if I left my children, something I choose not to do.  In my darkest days regarding things, I saw my choices as somewhere between a prison designed by my ex, with the help of the courts, and death (life without my kids).  I don't see it with so much drama now, but I do see that I made a choice, and I make one every day about how I will feel.
      I also think about people in such horrifying life situations as were described and what part they play, spiritually, in that.  
     If you ever get a chance to read anything about "Hurricane Carter", please do.  He was unjustly imprisoned in racist plot and became the angriest man on the planet....but during this long imprisonment, he changed.  He did get out, and he lives in Canada now.  There was a movie about him not long ago, Bob Dylan wrote a song about him, and last year I read an awesome interview with him in "the Sun" magazine. He describes most people as asleep..He, like Nelson Mandella, is one of many voices for becoming concious and "awake".  Ekhart Tolle mulls this over in "the Power of Now" as well.  He has some great thoughts on being chase by a tiger and making choices (most of us in "pain" here are probably not in dire danger).

The fear of death drives everything.  The buddist teachings offer a lot of discussion on that topic.  If we were not afraid then what?  Pain has us so stuck on this planet, that we collectively, agree to war, anger, jealousy, all kinds of pain expressions to "get out of it" (death/pain). What if we were not afraid of dying?  What if we could manage pain or tranform it?  

I am not in a life/death struggle and I have great compassion for those who are.  I am not convinced however, that we know enough in this incarnation to even discern completely what role we play in making our reality, if any.
I do know, that for me, I will attempt to see what it is about while I am here. It is all here for me to learn.  
There is always choice.

Here's one I've been mulling over recently:
The only reason money doesn't fall out of the sky is that there is a collective consiousness here on the planet that it will not.

[Anonymous]

Unknown Author:

Feed your faith and your fears will starve to death.

GFN