Starry-eyed Pirate---
I am not able to tell you ?the difference in Black Elk?s mind between ?sacred? and ?holy??. I would only be able to talk about how I took the words first time I heard them and how I continue to hear them today?tween my own two ears.
?Where east meets west, north meets south and up meets down is holy ground? ---
The term ?holy ground? struck me at the end of that sentence with a great sense of, ?I KNEW THAT?. But I trivialized that intuitive hunch (for lack of a better word) by thinking, ?No, there is more to it than that!? Yet each time my mind went to the absoluteness of that realization, one that I was always ?told? was a bad thing?you think you?re the center of the universe or that I thought that everything revolved around me.
Back in the day?ahem?I was told in my environment that is was selfish and narcissistic to think this way. But it was more than a thought system; I could not shake the fact that my eyes were designed to look outward and everything I saw was indeed?revolving or rather unfolding around me. I was direct center of all my experience, that fact was permanent. And so, the word ?Holy? as I took/take it points to that which is permanent.
?The rest is sacred.?---
I look all that is around me as experience, I look beyond my experience as observation. These things are impermanent and as I think I said before, are of entertainment value. They can be debated, discussed, ignored, fought for or against, liked or disliked. Some opinion can be drawn against everything outside of the absolute knowledge that I exist. The only meanings these things have are the ones I attach to them. And these ?meanings? can vary as well?even the ?meanings? I attach, are impermanent.
Other than that, I can only offer my spin on the words, I am not sure (as I said earlier) what Black Elk meant. And since I do not know the exact intent of the words, I am left to think on the words literally. What is the harm in trying to think along those lines? The question is would I be willing to think along those lines? And the answer to that is?Not always.
Your sentence that said; ?The disease of mental slavery.? caught my eye and invoked an immediate thought process which ended in the image in my head of a patient in a white hospital gown suffering from the idea of being a slave to his own thoughts. Would make for a piece of art, not that it would be a big seller, but art it would be.
??Maybe it don't really matter even.?
Ideals, like anything else have only the meaning attached to them. I forget who introduced me to an observation of the IFD Cycle. IFD an acronym, Idealism, Frustration, Demoralization. First there is an attachment made to an ideal and that ideal is strived for. Because of its lofty nature, success is impossible and so frustration soon sets in. After prolonged frustration demoralization festers until we say ?FUCK IT??.But it is an IDEAL, and because of the very definition applied to the ideal, it must be achieved. And so the second revolution of the cycle begins.
The nature of the IFD Cycle is the perfect mind fuck and works every time?without fail. Once engaged in the cycle the results are guaranteed. The question them becomes simple, would I rather be right, or at peace? It?s ironic to me that I am unable (seldom if ever) to always have both simultaneously.
??Woof-a-doof, what do you mean by "sat with Gangaji", are you talking about some kind of meditation or what.?
I traveled from Clearwater Florida to Crestone Colorado and Marin County (Sausalito specifically) California and sat in her audience. I listened to her and spoke with her. I also met her husband Eli. Yeah, there was a time for meditations but those times were by my own initiative. Gangaji never as I recall endorsed or spoke poorly of meditation. She does talk about ?mindfulness? or ?keeping vigil?. These two actions/inactions really say the same thing and a lot less energy is used compared to many many many meditation methods. ?Keeping vigil??simply watch, and where is the effort to watch? Well, ya gotta see first. Where is the effort in seeing and watching what you see?
The last I ?sat with Gangaji? I understood that she was a road sign of sorts and merely pointed in a direction. She like her teacher, like Krishnamurti, like Nisargadatta, like Ramana Maharshi wanted no following. This is also something I find ironic, that they have following, yet emphasis is on Self-Inquiry. Then I ask myself why I made the effort to sit with her? The importance I gave it at the time was one of validation. In looking back, I question the need for such validation. A vision that comes to mind is one of a droplet of water facing the enormity of the oceans. The droplet and the oceans are of the same make up: water. Yet the droplet glistens in fear as it approaches the ocean, no longer will it be special, no longer will it be apart from, but a part of?.the ocean. And in the end, it simply is the ocean.
In Peace
