Can one earn salvation or imortality through good works alone? n/t

In a dynamic process, things can never really “stop”, they only transform into other forms and non-forms.

Suppose you are standing in the middle of a highway…you have to take responsibility for being there in the first place, and wouldn’t that be asking to be run over?

My intention is not to maintain joy, but balance which is a dynamic process.

It’s been so long; I didn’t see you responded 🙂

>>>”with the intention of creating balance” in my statement
>>>means the intention of creating balance for ME, I know
>>>the universe is already balanced, but it is not always
>>>balanced in your favor.

NO, I think you’re missing what I mean. I *do* mean it is always
balanced in YOUR favor. You just don’t always see “what is
best for you”.

Say your alarm doesn’t go off, you are late,
you stub your toe, you drop your toothbrush into the toilet
causing you mutter under your breath and either spend even more
time trying to sanitize it or hunting for a new one, etc. Your
morning “sucks”. What you don’t realize is that had you actually
left on time, you would have gotten into a fatal car crash.

Say you are married, but your spouse is cruel. They cheat, they lie,
they are unreliable, and they play mental games. You are/were
in love, but this person that you love is causing you terrible pain.
You get a divorce. You go into a depression and struggle with the
meaning of life. You seek out spiritual solace. You grow. The
“misery” you went through was horrible, but it was *exactly* what
you needed for the evolution and benefit of your soul.

Things that happen to you are always for your best.
Always.
No exceptions.

The realization of this is the birth of joy and peace.

>>>The idea of doing someone a favor is useful in
>>>my view (from experience), … [stuff omitted]

I don’t disagree.

But there is a difference between giving advice and
becoming personally invested to the point where
their behavior disrupts your internal joy/calm.

Steven

If “by complete yourself” you mean explore, create, discover, and
encourage the natural growth/evolution process of the soul, then I agree. S

I think the divergence in our views about whether things are balanced or not on a personal level is like this – I see what you are saying as a form of “fate”, that things are written out the way they will progress, where I am saying that whatever happens to you is happening is a stream of wills that are all interacting, and you sometimes impose your will and sometimes go with the flow. I think it is undeniable that the decisions that we make in life direct our experience in particular channels. Growing and learning from making mistakes/not reaching goals is part of the process.

I think everyone has a “larger” version of themselves
operating on higher dimensions that has a more global,
uncluttered view of what is best. The “urging” placed
upon the smaller self seems fatalistic, and all sorts of
choices seem to occur to the smaller self which cause
“misery”–but the larger self knows exactly what it is
doing, and can see the big picture.

An analogy: The liver (“smaller self”) thinks it’s fate
that it suddenly has to detoxify some quantity of alcohol;
the person (“larger self”) thinks it’s free will
that it has to do so, since it “chose” to drink a glass of wine.

What appears to be fate, is simply the free will of the larger
self that has a better viewpoint and a more intelligent understanding.
What appears to be free will, is simply the attempt of
the smaller self to engage the situation–already planned by
the larger self–but doing so from its limited uninformed perspective.

In other words, the overall story has already been written (for
your best interest). The smaller self only chooses the dialogs
and conversations to have within the overall story . . . and in
fact: while the dialog is “ad libbed” by the smaller self, the
overall idea of what to say was suggested in advance by the larger
self all along. The interaction of a “stream of wills”, as you say,
is just the collaboration of multiple participants to the same
storyline.

This is why I think that is important to not take any individual
action or set of actions that happen in everyday life too seriously,
because they are relatively meaningless to the big picture.

S

I both agree and disagree with certain things…

The idea that we are playing out thoughts of our higher selves makes sense, but on the other hand, the reason why we are here is to explore free will, and we are here because the higher self cannot function here.

So, yes, on one hand there are issues in the vast impersonal collective plane that need to be worked out, but we are here to actually do the dirty work and play out all the possibilities through our choices. We can make no choice and nothing happens (to change our current direction, we keep doing the same things over again) or we can make choices to do new things and have new experiences. I think we are the determining factor that gives insight to our larger collective selves.

>>>I both agree and disagree with certain things…

>>>The idea that we are playing out thoughts of our
>>>higher selves makes sense, but on the other hand,
>>>the reason why we are here is to explore free will,
>>>and we are here because the higher self cannot function here.

>>>So, yes, on one hand there are issues in the vast
>>>impersonal collective plane that need to be worked out,
>>>but we are here to actually do the dirty work and
>>>play out all the possibilities through our choices.
>>>We can make no choice and nothing happens (to change
>>>our current direction, we keep doing the same things
>>>over again) or we can make choices to do new things
>>>and have new experiences. I think we are the determining
>>>factor that gives insight to our larger collective selves.

The idea that I’m trying to convey is hard to explain.
I’m pleasantly surprised that Rainbowbear gets it, because
it’s difficult to put into words and paint the accurate picture.
Let me try another approach.

Let’s say you watch a game of tennis, but you’ve never played
tennis–just watched the game. You have a pretty good idea
of what “tennis” is all about. However, you get a much deeper
understanding of what is all about when you actually get on
the court and play your first few games. This is like the
larger self/smaller self dynamic. The larger self has an
excellent understanding of the game of “tennis” from a
theoretical point-of-view, as if it has spent lifetimes
watching the game–however, it has never played a game of
tennis. It can’t. It is outside the physical realm.
Thus it sends in the “lower self” into the physical realm
to experience it directly for itself in physical form, akin
to playing the game of tennis. The lower self is not acting
“freely” in the sense you would like, as it is completely
directed to do so by the larger self. However, it is
experiencing the game directly–by being right on the court,
and then this information is relayed back to the larger self
to give the larger self a deeper understanding of what it
*already* knows. Thus the physical exploration and discovery
acts to deepen the understanding of the “overmind” of the
larger self.

To be honest, I think this is the common ground between
yours and bagua’s polar arguments. If I may paraphrase
the understanding I have of the two sides, it appears
to me that bagua believes that “we are immortal already”,
and that all that remains is to clear away the clouds
of confusion that prohibit us from seeing this clearly,
and prevent us from living from that already
existing stable core “you”;
whereas, it seems to me that you believe that we are *not*
currently immortal and that all work must be done
here on the ground floor from the lower self perspective
in order to achieve it.

To be honest, I think each of these viewpoints is really only
half of the story. In my opinion, the reality is
that both sides–the larger self and the lower self
are working collaboratively, it’s just that the lower self
doesn’t realize that it is doing so and can’t see the
perspective of the larger self.

The larger self is immortal; the lower self is not.
The two are working together, with the larger self as
the mentor telling the lower self what to do, so that
it can join its big brother on the immortality train.

S