Thanks Doug.

I can tell you really dug down and were open with us, your readers. I'm glad that we have a forum like this in which it is safe to be honest with each other. In the world, I've found I actually have to filter what I reveal about myself because frequently the information is not received in the spirit in which it is given. People either do not understand or else the information is used against me at some later time.

You gave specific instances in which your sleeping mind caused you to do things you were sorry for. I could change the names and places you referred to and the stories would apply equally well to me. Every day I use anger to put someone in their place and then feel sorry for the damage I did. At the point I see the damage, I think "why don't I simply go through life without ever using anger again. After all, I know what happens every time I do." It seems like that should be pretty easy to remember, right?

Thanks for speaking from your heart; it makes me feel safer in doing the same.

Dave

Hello Doug and everybody else,

Thank you all for sharing.

I find myself unsing "violent reactions" very often in the day. Be it with the excuse of knowing what is right for my child, either arguing with my wife because I understand her and she doesn?t really see my point of view. Or maybe at work because "they don?t know what I am going trhough, how busy I am...". Obviously all these reasons just exist in my mind. The list never ends. But then, a little spark lights and for a split second you realized, is this aggresivenes or violent reaction necessary? Can?t I just make myself understood without needing to make a fool of myself?. It is funny how we can see it in others and be so blinded about ourselves.

I like the yogic principle of AHIMSA or non-violence, it has a deeper meaning; is not just when you don?t harm others but when you do do good to others.So it implies a positive state.

Love and peace.

Nino.

Dear all

Now I know you will quite rightly not approve of boxing but I wonder if you remember a match referred to, I believe, as the 'Rumble in the Jungle'?

In this one fighter looked out, he was up against the ropes taking all the hard hits from his opponent, any minute he was going to surely fall. But no, suddenly the opponent's strength seemed to wane and it was as if the roles had been reversed and this domineering powerhouse could have been knocked over with a feather. So it was that the winner was the one that had been watching the thumps coming and had used the ropes as way to help him absorb anything thrown at him. This move that won the fight became known as 'rope-a-dope-a'.

We ought to stay out of the ring altogether. However, physically we can't do this, someone some day is going to take a pop, say something that stings. Yet, we have been practicing so spiritually we can be stronger. Not hitting back; being on our toes; watching; knowing ourselves we know our opponents; deep breaths; water; slowing down; relax. The supporting rope we rely on is our supermind, truth, God. We can dance around the ring because spiritually we are not in it. The lyrics of another song go - 'I get knocked down but I get up again, you're never gonna keep me down.' When we remember awareness we are lifted.  

There has been a rumble in my office all day today - with workmen noisily drilling some walls down. Tempers have been strained, heated words have been thrown from nowhere like a boxer's haymaker coming from nowhere. It has been difficult to 'offer the other cheek', but it is all quite now - outside and within me - peace on earth. Out of the jungle, I'm still standing and I am aware of it too.

Yes, for example, the emotion of revenge carries in it an immense violence that :

- will be desesperatly "evacuated" against others, and the revengeful will continue to suffer and the cycles of violence could perpetuate themselves (because now, others are hurt and will be tempted to take revenge too);

- or will be inwardly fought, pushed back and will too continue to make him suffer very strongly (it is a state of denial, "I am a good person and I can't have really such negative emotions, energy in me and I will prove it by not doing the bad to others");

- or will finally be accepted : "Yes, I have inwardly this strong destructive force in me (I call it "the black energy") and, right now, it is taking command of my moment in life ", and this emotion will quickly disappear. It will come back from time to time, but as the person is more and more willing to accept it and go through it, the intensity will regularly decrease at each new appaearance. I don't know further than that, and all that I said is a sincere attempt to see clearer. Obviously, that doesn't mean it is the truth.

At its apogee, this sudden desire of revenge struck me while I was driving to work in 2000, it was a beautiful day, and there was apparently no reason for this emotion to come to surface. Even if the conditions on the road were perfect (no traffic, sunny day, I knew the directions by heart) it was very hard to "do" my driving while being carried away by the emotion at the same time. This "experience" was the proof that there were more than one self inside of me, at least two. Revelation of the divised mind.

These are the physical characteristics that the inner violence can cause, and that I have noted : speed-up of the blood pressure and the heart, the temples beat, the shoulders and the jaw tighten up. All of that originates from the the repressed content welling up to the surface, in my opinion.