Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: My Dad the Alcoholic
On Jan 15, 2007, at 9:04 PM, lurkernomore20002000 wrote: Story 1: My dad was an alcoholic. Story 2: My dad was an alcoholic who sexually abused me from the time I was around 4 or 5 until my early teens... I find these stories fascinating. To be thrown knuckle balls like these, and be able to work through it. Pretty neat. What a brave woman and the makings of a great yogini.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: My Dad the Alcoholic
On Jan 16, 2007, at 1:55 PM, sparaig wrote: H... How's that explanation of Jewish belief in reincarnation coming? Sha'ar ha Gilgulim is rather interesting and would be a great topic!
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: My Dad the Alcoholic
On Jan 16, 2007, at 2:42 PM, Larry wrote: H... How's that explanation of Jewish belief in reincarnation coming? Jonah and the Whale is a spot-on description of reincarnation - not that there's anything wrong with that Well and of course the Sermon on the Mt. in the NT.
RE: [FairfieldLife] Re: My Dad the Alcoholic
I really appreciate these posts. My dad was an alcoholic too. He never abused any of us sexually, but he did so verbally and emotionally for many years. Drove my mother to the mental hospital. I think the stress of WWII drove him to drink. He was traumatized by it all his life. Dwelling on his positive qualities helps me to forgive him. He was a sensitive, intelligent man - a professional artist. Very creative, an excellent cook, an organic gardener way back in the 1950's, appreciative of music, took me skiing, on Boy Scout camping trips, etc. So many good qualities. But a real SOB when drunk.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: My Dad the Alcoholic
On Jan 15, 2007, at 10:44 AM, curtisdeltablues wrote: Me: Which one of your virtue sidhis were you expressing here? Let's see, not compassion or friendliness...Oh I know smug happiness that you understand how the world works so well that you need to tell people that they deserved their suffering. Excellent response Curtis (the whole post). Applying this philosophy, designed to justify the caste system's repression, as well as genocide, and a whole host of other evils as well. to your own life to re-frame your suffering seems like apsychologically useful technique Or maybe almost an automatic response to something Bob really doesn't understand and doesn't want to acknowledge...who knows why. Or maybe he understands it all too well and just wants to bury the anger instead of dealing with it in a responsible way. I don't see how people who mindlessly repeat that children got what they deserved can live with themselves.
RE: [FairfieldLife] Re: My Dad the Alcoholic
Or maybe almost an automatic response to something Bob really doesn't understand and doesn't want to acknowledge...who knows why. Or maybe he understands it all too well and just wants to bury the anger instead of dealing with it in a responsible way. I don't see how people who mindlessly repeat that children got what they deserved can live with themselves. OTOH, if God doesn't play dice with the universe, if it is a just universe, if what we experience is meant to be an evolutionary lesson of some sort, how else do you explain the suffering of apparently innocent people?
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: My Dad the Alcoholic
On Jan 15, 2007, at 12:18 PM, curtisdeltablues wrote: Thanks Sal, I figured that you would understand. On re-reading what I wrote, I was wondering why I sound like a bit of a pompous dick. (Immediately rejecting the option that this is what I actually am!) Well, whether you are or not, the post was still right on. :) I actually don't think the post sounded like that at all. I realized that this issue has a lot of charge for me. Of all the mistaken opinions I gained in my association with MMY, I consider my belief in so called Karma to be the worst of the lot. As I said, it is one thing to use it to prop yourself up when the S hits the fan, but applying it to others really gets my hackles up. Yep. If I was able to look beyond my own issues with this topic I might have more generously thought that this mental re-frame technique worked so well in Bob's life that he wanted to share the insight to help. If this is the case then my initial response was too harsh. Fortunately for Bob, he knows that I will get what is coming to me if this was the case! Exactly. The whole notion becomes amongst other things simply a way to create and maintain various revenge fantasies--either one's own or somebody else's. If everyone is getting what they supposedly deserve, there's never any impetus to deal with personal issues responsibly, move on, or do anything for anyone else. I think the lives people live who follow this philosophy speak for themselves--they seem, at least on the surface, pretty lonely and without many meaningful relationships. Happy New Year to you and your brood Sal. Thanks, Curtis--we all survived!
RE: [FairfieldLife] Re: My Dad the Alcoholic
Exactly. The whole notion becomes amongst other things simply a way to create and maintain various revenge fantasies--either one's own or somebody else's. If everyone is getting what they supposedly deserve, there's never any impetus to deal with personal issues responsibly, move on, or do anything for anyone else. I think the lives people live who follow this philosophy speak for themselves--they seem, at least on the surface, pretty lonely and without many meaningful relationships. As Amma puts it, it may be someone's karma to experience suffering, but it's our karma to help them.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: My Dad the Alcoholic
On Jan 15, 2007, at 2:41 PM, Sal Sunshine wrote: If I was able to look beyond my own issues with this topic I might have more generously thought that this mental re-frame technique worked so well in Bob's life that he wanted to share the insight to help. If this is the case then my initial response was too harsh. Fortunately for Bob, he knows that I will get what is coming to me if this was the case! Exactly. The whole notion becomes amongst other things simply a way to create and maintain various revenge fantasies--either one's own or somebody else's. If everyone is getting what they supposedly deserve, there's never any impetus to deal with personal issues responsibly, move on, or do anything for anyone else. I think the lives people live who follow this philosophy speak for themselves--they seem, at least on the surface, pretty lonely and without many meaningful relationships. Oh come on Sal, wouldn't you have loved your parents, as your first gurus, to arrange your marriage partner for you! Mother knows best! :-) (heaven forbid if you were gay)
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: My Dad the Alcoholic
On Jan 15, 2007, at 2:08 PM, Vaj wrote: Oh come on Sal, wouldn't you have loved your parents, as your first gurus, to arrange your marriage partner for you! Mother knows best! :-) (heaven forbid if you were gay) I don't really have many problems with that particular tradition. It's appeared in most cultures all over the world, and, in general, seems to have worked better, at least historically, than what we've been able to manage in modern times. That's at lest one reason why it lasted so long. The problems come in when people deliberately match their kids with others they can pretty well guess will be unsuitable, because of wealth considerations, or whatever. But the tradition, when practiced responsibly, seems to have produced fairly stable families and cultures, at least in many places outside of India. Sal
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: My Dad the Alcoholic
Instant karmas gonna get you Gonna knock you right on the head You better get yourself together Pretty soon youre gonna be dead What in the world you thinking of Laughing in the face of love What on earth you tryin to do Its up to you, yeah you Instant karmas gonna get you Gonna look you right in the face Better get yourself together darlin Join the human race How in the world you gonna see Laughin at fools like me Who in the hell dyou think you are A super star Well, right you are Well we all shine on Like the moon and the stars and the sun Well we all shine on Evryone come on Instant karmas gonna get you Gonna knock you off your feet Better recognize your brothers Evryone you meet Why in the world are we here Surely not to live in pain and fear Why on earth are you there When youre evrywhere Come and get your share Well we all shine on Like the moon and the stars and the sun Yeah we all shine on Come on and on and on on on Yeah yeah, alright, uh huh, ah Well we all shine on Like the moon and the stars and the sun Yeah we all shine on On and on and on on and on Well we all shine on Like the moon and the stars and the sun Well we all shine on Like the moon and the stars and the sun Well we all shine on Like the moon and the stars and the sun Yeah we all shine on Like the moon and the stars and the sun curtisdeltablues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Well pull up a chair Sal, Turq and I (having solved the big questions of the universe) are about to pound a few and sing until the bouncer delivers our karma and kicks us out! --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Sal Sunshine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Jan 15, 2007, at 12:18 PM, curtisdeltablues wrote: Thanks Sal, I figured that you would understand. On re-reading what I wrote, I was wondering why I sound like a bit of a pompous dick. (Immediately rejecting the option that this is what I actually am!) Well, whether you are or not, the post was still right on. :) I actually don't think the post sounded like that at all. I realized that this issue has a lot of charge for me. Of all the mistaken opinions I gained in my association with MMY, I consider my belief in so called Karma to be the worst of the lot. As I said, it is one thing to use it to prop yourself up when the S hits the fan, but applying it to others really gets my hackles up. Yep. If I was able to look beyond my own issues with this topic I might have more generously thought that this mental re-frame technique worked so well in Bob's life that he wanted to share the insight to help. If this is the case then my initial response was too harsh. Fortunately for Bob, he knows that I will get what is coming to me if this was the case! Exactly. The whole notion becomes amongst other things simply a way to create and maintain various revenge fantasies--either one's own or somebody else's. If everyone is getting what they supposedly deserve, there's never any impetus to deal with personal issues responsibly, move on, or do anything for anyone else. I think the lives people live who follow this philosophy speak for themselves--they seem, at least on the surface, pretty lonely and without many meaningful relationships. Happy New Year to you and your brood Sal. Thanks, Curtis--we all survived! - Never miss an email again! Yahoo! Toolbar alerts you the instant new Mail arrives. Check it out.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: My Dad the Alcoholic
On Jan 15, 2007, at 2:27 PM, curtisdeltablues wrote: Well pull up a chair Sal, Turq and I (having solved the big questions of the universe) are about to pound a few and sing until the bouncer delivers our karma and kicks us out! And then he'll get *his* karma back for being mean to you...and well, the fun just keeps on rolling. Sal
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: My Dad the Alcoholic
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Exactly. The whole notion becomes amongst other things simply a way to create and maintain various revenge fantasies--either one's own or somebody else's. If everyone is getting what they supposedly deserve, there's never any impetus to deal with personal issues responsibly, move on, or do anything for anyone else. I think the lives people live who follow this philosophy speak for themselves--they seem, at least on the surface, pretty lonely and without many meaningful relationships. As Amma puts it, it may be someone's karma to experience suffering, but it's our karma to help them. Amen. Sal
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: My Dad the Alcoholic
Karma is more subtle than most understand. It is the entire field of activity and so as such is more a portrait in 3D of ones innate need more than anything. Youth for all is the time of formation through the crucible. Many don't make it past youth. Youth we learn what we desire and the rest of life we actualize our needs for resolution - this is life - infinite play of desire and fulfillment. Mahakali has given to each their own. What an amazing maya! That is karma. Shining infinite display of Mother Maya Pragyaparamita . How beautiful. She makes me weep. May everybody have what they really need and plenty more of what they just want :) - Original Message - From: TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 12:37 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: My Dad the Alcoholic --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, curtisdeltablues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I realized that this issue has a lot of charge for me. Of all the mistaken opinions I gained in my association with MMY, I consider my belief in so called Karma to be the worst of the lot. As I said, it is one thing to use it to prop yourself up when the S hits the fan, but applying it to others really gets my hackles up. I can understand your feelings, but just as a counterpoint (*not* an argument), I'll present my point of view. I'm a firm believer in the existence of karma, and to me it presents the MOST fair system I could possibly imagine. The reason is that the philosophical concept of karma is *not* what many in the TM movement considered it to be, some kind of fixed destiny, which has to happen. Karma is just the accumulation of the effects of past actions, *combined with* free will, in the present. Karma *without* free will makes no sense. That would imply a deterministic universe, with the outcome of all actions and the fate of all beings having been set at the begin- ning by whomever/whatever designed the system. But the returning effects of one's past actions (karma) do *not* result in a fixed result; they are merely an influence. At any moment, any being can interface with its returning karma, feel its influences, but *change* the outcome. That is what free will is about. So nothing is fixed, everything is in flux, and everything is remarkably fair. The influences that come back to you as karma were YOUR DOING. The decision to succumb to the ones you consider negative is YOUR DOING, the result of free will. And the ability to *not* succumb to the ones you consider negative, and to turn them into something positive instead, is also YOUR DOING, again the result of free will. When seen in this light, the combination of karma and free will strike me as remarkably fair and balanced, to steal the Fox News slogan. It seems a far more balanced view of the universe and the weird things that happen in that universe than, say, feeling that one is a victim to negative things that happen to them, either at random or as the result of some malevolent god. When faced with something negative in my life, I can sit back and say to myself, Self, what is it that I could have done that might have set this particular set of circumstances into motion? And, more important, what can I learn from this, and how can I turn these seemingly negative events into a positive, both for myself and my environment? It's a way of taking *responsibility* for the things that happen in one's life, as opposed to feeling like a victim of them. But it's an individual thang, and I'm not trying in any way to convince you, merely to present the other point of view for your consideration. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: My Dad the Alcoholic
Well said, Curtis. --- curtisdeltablues [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bob: It's important to understand that anybody who had an abusive father or mother got that unfortunate circumstance because that was the karma one sent out in previous lives returning to oneself. Me: Which one of your virtue sidhis were you expressing here? Let's see, not compassion or friendliness...Oh I know smug happiness that you understand how the world works so well that you need to tell people that they deserved their suffering. Applying this philosophy, designed to justify the caste system's repression, to your own life to re-frame your suffering seems like a psychologically useful technique, if you can't just face that life is random. But applying it to others when they express their real suffering seems like a lapse in human understanding and compassion. Believing that babies born with deformities deserved it may be a nice way to get yourself off the hook emotionally, but I sure am glad I don't live in a country where this antiquated theory is taken seriously. You don't know how things work universally just because you read it in some old book. We are all in a state of not knowing why bad things happen. Some of us are comfortable with that ambiguity, and some clutch at pre-fab easy answers. Pointing out to someone that they deserved an abusive father is a nasty little trick. I reject it as a spiritual insight. As far as Hiranyakasipu (was he Hawaiian?) I think his son would have done better to invoke the twin saints Smith and Wesson. Please don't get angry with me for calling you out on this. Remember you did something bad and deserved this post. Just passively accept the criticism like good old Prahlada. That is what God wants you to do. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, bob_brigante [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, suziezuzie msilver1951@ wrote: My dad was an alcoholic. Naturally, I didn't realize this as a young kid growing up but I knew he was different from other fathers. It was about the age of 12 that I began to associate the bottle of liquor he consumed every night and the transformation that took place that became his drunk personality. He was the angry silent drunk who after dinner would go around slamming doors and arguing with anyone who said the wrong thing. I remember my mom asking me if I wanted to go for a drive just to get out of the house. The funny thing is though, that in the morning he never was hung over even after consuming his normal half bottle of Vodka the night before. He was perfectly normal, open and articulate as he prepared himself for work. He owned and ran an electronic wholesale business and successfully bought up cheap southern California property when it was cheap back in the sixties. No one knew he was an alcoholic, no one except our family. He kicked my brother out of the house when he was 21 and continued to emotionally abuse my mother until that fateful day when I came home from school and was greeted by my aunt who informed me that, you're dad has died of a heart attack. He was only 59 but I suppose the fast order food, drinking and smoking eventually caught up with him. I remember the strange feeling of walking into my house and seeing all the people who worked for him along with friends. They all seemed to be enjoying a cocktail party. I went into my room, laid down on the bed and pretended to be sad. My brother came in and gave me a hug but I didn't feel anything possibly because there had been no feelings between a son and a drunk. I've never felt anything since about him. My brother feels the same. My mother sometimes asks me if I ever have any good memories of dad and I reply, No, how can I, he was a drunk. * It's important to understand that anybody who had an abusive father or mother got that unfortunate circumstance because that was the karma one sent out in previous lives returning to oneself. There's a famous story in the Vedic lit about Prahlada, whose father was way- over-the-top abusive: Hiranyakasipu could not kill his son by throwing him beneath the feet of big elephants, throwing him among huge, fearful snakes, employing destructive spells, hurling him from the top of a hill, conjuring up illusory tricks, administering poison, starving him, exposing him to severe cold, winds, fire and water, or throwing heavy stones to crush him. When Hiranyakasipu found that he could not in any way harm Prahlada, who was completely sinless, he was in great anxiety about what to do next. Even though Hiranyakasipu was such an evil father, Prahlada felt compassion for him, and recognized that his abuse was
