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Conference hydra::dejavu

Title:	Psychic Phenomena
Notice:	Please read note 1.0-1.* before writing
Moderator:	JARETH::PAINTER

Created:	Wed Jan 22 1986
Last Modified:	Tue May 27 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	2143
Total number of notes:	41773

1725.0. "Influences - from where? - meaning what?" by BIGUN::KNOWLES (Don't look back ..) Mon Aug 31 1992 12:57

    I have been thinking about those influences that seem to come from
    outside our normal prosaic world - even though they may be
    delivered by `normal' people or by our own senses. For me they
    come from reading or hearing words that seem to give a glimpse
    into something else - I'm struggling for words here - or from
    suddenly perceived scenes or from buildings that have some special
    integrity or from paintings or from music or from sounds - like
    the sound of a raven crying when you're standing alone and quiet on
    a hill -

    hey - you know what I mean, don't you? Everybody experiences this,
    don't they? That moment that makes you come out in goosebumps,
    that brings you vividly to your senses from the usual waking sleep
    of our existence ... 

    Let me give you a few of my favourite written ones that still have
    their effect and remind me of personal equivalents that have
    sprung out on me and will spring out on me at unknown intervals.

    (Authors deleted so as not to distract you from the essence)

    Dave K
    ----------
     
    Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, 
    the nearing tide, that rusty boot.
    
    What spectacle confronted them when they, first the host, then the 
    guest, emerged silently, doubly dark, from obscurity by a passage 
    from the rere of the house into the penumbra of the garden?
    The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.
    
    The winter time is coming
    The windows are filled with frost
    I went to tell everybody 
    But I could not get it across
    
    Bird crying, the mountain silence deepens.
    
    Mount Lu in misty rain: the River Che at high tide.
    When I had not been there, no rest from the pain of longing.
    I went there and returned ...It was nothing special:
    Mount Lu in misty rain: the River Che at high tide.
    
    Sitting quietly, doing nothing,
    Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.
    
    I said to the almond tree
    Sister, speak to me of God
    and the almond tree blossomed
    
    To live outside the law, you must be honest.
    
    I put my fingers against the glass
    And bowed my head and cried.
    
    At dawn my lover comes to me
    To tell me of her dreams
    With no attempt to shovel the glimpse
    Into the ditch of what each one means
    
    Those who know do not speak;
    Those who speak do not know.
    
    The perfect Way is without difficulty,
    Save that it avoids picking and choosing.
    Only when you stop liking and disliking
    Will all be clearly understood.
    
    A split hairs difference,
    And heaven and earth are set apart!
    If you want to get the plain truth,
    Be not concerned with right and wrong.
    The conflict between right and wrong
    Is the sickness of the mind.
    
    Saunter along and stop worrying.
    If your thoughts are tied you spoil what is genuine ...
    Don't be antagonistic to the world of the senses,
    For when you are not antagonistic to it,
    It turns out to be the same as complete Awakening.
    The wise person does not strive;
    The ignorant man ties himself up ...
    If you work on your mind with your mind,
    How can you avoid an immense confusion?
    
    The centipede was happy, quite,
    Until a toad in fun
    Said, Pray, which leg goes after which?
    This worked his mind to such a pitch,
    He lay distracted in a ditch,
    Considering how to run.
    
    It was my thirtieth
    Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
    Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
    O may my heart's truth
    Still be sung
    On this high hill in a years turning.
    
    The dewdrop slips into the shining sea.
    
    Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
    Cannot bear very much reality.
    
    These are only hints and guesses,
    Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
    Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
    The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, 
    is Incarnation.

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
1725.1	.. and I know I'll be there soon..	VERGA::STANLEY	what a long strange trip it's been	`Mon Aug 31 1992 14:33`	8
	"Inspiration, move me brightly, light the song with sense and color, hold away dispair, more than this I do not ask, faced with mysteries dark and vast, statements just seem vain at last, some rise, some fall, some climb to get to Terrapin"
1725.2	When you receive input without the usual filter	KERNEL::BELL	Hear the softly spoken magic spell	`Tue Sep 01 1992 10:01`	18
	Re .0 (Dave) > hey - you know what I mean, don't you? Everybody experiences this, > don't they? That moment that makes you come out in goosebumps, > that brings you vividly to your senses from the usual waking sleep > of our existence ... I think I know what you mean. (Unfortunately, I found that it also heightens the dissatisfaction with the "usual waking sleep" that habit obliges us to return to). Such occasions have been described as "peak experiences" which conjures up a more vivid image for me than the description intended - not merely the peak of living (when all senses are sharpened) but also being at the peak of a mountain, looking out above the clouds that normally surround us. [ One book that I found seemed to strike a chord with me was Colin Wilson's "Beyond the Occult" - I'd recommend it ]. Frank
1725.3	this is fun!	SCHOOL::SUSEL	Danced my feet down to the knees!	`Tue Sep 01 1992 14:24`	8
	Counting starts by candlelight all are dim, but one is bright spiral like a venus, rising first and shining best all along the northwest corner of a brand new crescent moon crickets and cicadas sing a rare and different tune Terrapin Station
1725.5		HOO78C::ANDERSON		`Wed Sep 02 1992 14:53`	7
	Re .4 >you mean when thinking stops? and you see truth? No when thinking stops, someone comes along and sells you a bridge. Jamie.
1725.7		VERGA::STANLEY	what a long strange trip it's been	`Wed Sep 02 1992 15:32`	3
	yes no yes
1725.8		FORTY2::CADWALLADER	Reaping time has come...	`Wed Sep 02 1992 16:05`	5
	I saw my life flash before me once... I was bored for a few seconds. - JIM CAD*
1725.9	Depends on which way you go.	TNPUBS::PAINTER	worlds beyond this	`Wed Sep 02 1992 17:07`	11
	Re.5 Jamie, If you lapse into the subconscious when thinking stops, then you are correct. However, I believe .4 was referring to the superconscious state. Cindy
1725.11	Moments of grace	BIGUN::KNOWLES	Don't look back ..	`Wed Sep 02 1992 20:23`	27
	Re .2 (Frank) - Receiving input without the usual filter I wasn't thinking so much of peak experiences (which I'm not sure I've ever had, and which I assume are profound experiences that may change your life in some way) as "epiphanies" or small moments of grace and clear vision that drop on you out of the blue. Like driving over to a customer's yesterday and suddenly "seeing" a tree in blossom in all its pink "suchness" - like you've stopped the endless thought and intellectualising that goes on in the head and which act as dirty filters to the world that is and this lets the world appear in sudden clarity. I think (!) that if a bloke came up to me and wanted to sell me the Brooklyn bridge and if I was in a state of clear seeing (not thinking in the sense of not intellectualising) then I would "see" the greed and deceit in his being more clearly ... ? Talking about birds and mountain silences ... I first heard the squawky "carolling" of the Australian magpie early on the first morning of a holiday here when I was relaxed and at peace and, ever since then, the sound has acted as a trigger to come back to my senses. When it stops the silence deepens and then I am aware of all the other sensations of hearing, smelling, sensing that the filter of my intellectualising mind had been shutting out. Dave
1725.13		PLAYER::BROWNL	Lemon shoes?	`Thu Sep 03 1992 14:48`	4
	Perhaps someone would be kind enough to tell me what "intellectualising" means. As far as I'm aware, there is no such word. Laurie.
1725.14		HOO78C::ANDERSON		`Thu Sep 03 1992 14:50`	6
	Re .13 Why pick on that one Laurie? About 5% of the words in this conference don't have any defined meaning. Jamie.
1725.16	Centipedes shouldn't think	BIGUN::KNOWLES	Don't look back ..	`Thu Sep 03 1992 20:42`	40
	Re: .13 (Laurie) "intellectualise" It's in my Concise Oxford dictionary - what I was trying to convey was something like the definition under "intellectualism" - (excessive) exercise of intellect only. We spend so much of our working life operating with our brain in thinking mode that sometimes we forget we can perceive the world in other ways. I guess you could say what else would the brain do but think? Have you not had the experience of driving along say and seeing something that catches your attention, then you start thinking about it, then "wake up" 5 miles later realising you've been driving on automatic and not noticed anything? Your brain can be so occupied with the internal thoughts that it pays no attention to what is happening in the exterior world. Have you not known people who are considered very bright who are incompetent at everyday things and with relationships? Or, conversely, people who have very little schooling who seem to be integrated with their world? How about the experience of doing some complex physical rhythm then starting to think about what you're doing and not being able to do it any more? The centipede was happy, quite, Until a toad in fun Said, Pray, which leg goes after which? This worked his mind to such a pitch, He lay distracted in a ditch, Considering how to run. I think (?) we are sometimes so busy thinking obout things that we forget to perceive what's really out there. This is what I was trying to get at. .15 (hamer(!)::montalvo) [first name?] - hits it on the thumb! Dave
1725.17	... so when we do, we are suddenly refreshed and marvel at what we've been missing.	KERNEL::BELL	Hear the softly spoken magic spell	`Fri Sep 04 1992 08:38`	14
	Re .16 (Dave) > I think we are sometimes so busy thinking obout things that we > forget to perceive what's really out there. I'd agree with that ... an extended case of "Can't see the wood for the trees" : we can identify each tree in sight, measure it's height, girth, age, test it for all known diseases, classify each organism upon it (no matter how large or small) but far too often fail to recognise the whole of the wood as an entity in it's own right, appreciate it's beauty or see how it fits into the overall pattern of life. Frank
1725.19		HOO78C::ANDERSON	The wettest drought on record.	`Mon Sep 07 1992 07:52`	9
	Re >Note 1725.18 Influences - from where? - meaning what? 18 of 18 >HAMER::MONTALVO "everything just happens" 14 lines 4-SEP-1992 13:46 >yes, this message WILL be deleted tomorrow!!! >wally-johnn (wallijon) Oh no it wasn't.