Re: What does it mean to become noble concerning passions?

["Ravi Mohan" <magesmail@...>]

Rawn,


> It does concern me that this discussion has centered so much around
> 'what if's and around what *others* *might* encounter but not about
> *your* own experience of these matters. 

ok . fair enough :-)
I *thought* I was on topic :-)
I guess this does reflect my experience in a way . 
But that is a long story .Suffice to say that when i created my mirror
with "good" and "bad " attributes , with the "good" and"bad" coming
from social conditioning and "socially accepted" mores, i found
myself striving to become someone *I* didn't want to be . The "how
*you* feel and think is good " meme , in one of Rawn's earlier mails
struck a chord and hence my posts .
One simple example is an item on my mirror "Pride" . I plonked this
into the "black" mirror and intended to work towards being "humble"
(culturally pride = bad, humility == good ).On reflection, i find
there are TWO kinds of hunility , one of being humble because you
*know* (not think... know) that however high your achievements, there
are people better than you and you always have more to do and become(i
call this humility based on *perception* ) and the other is being
humble because that is "good" (i call this humility based on a notion
of "goodness" ).In *my* world the former is different from the
latter. Suffice to say i encountered tremendous resistance trying to
be "nice" (which is what i equated "positive" to) . I am now redoing
my mirror based on who and what *I* want to become .

I guess in a nutshell, i find that many of my mirror items are
misclassified and the "bad" items have components of"good" and vice
versa .Now my mirror is looking very different , and many of my
"positives" and "negatives" don't look anything like my "culture
sanctioned" values . I guess there is still some residual confusion
there . Aplogies if any of this was rather fuzzily expressed .



> What did you think Bardon's listing of the positive and negative
> characteristics was about if not a *universal* statement of positive
> BEing? 

Ahhh but i thought we should NOT rely on BArdon's charactersitics
?What i found out after a long struggle to be "good" was that each of
these characteristics , say "humility" looked very different to me
than what is "commonly" accpeted as its meaning. maybe i would have
saved a lot of time and effort if i had figured this out earlier .

> How *you* feel *inside* is not rooted in your culture. It is *modified*
> by your culture, but the root is in *you* (i.e., the Individual Self).

ok . i need to think on this further .


> >> b)the 'real world effectiveness' problem <<
> 
> I don't understand what you're trying to say here. If you think that
> the character transformation work is "fluffy bunny" or leads in some way
> to "fluffy bunnyness" then it is clear you are not talking from
> practical experience. I suggest that you focus on practice and see for
> yourself. The character transformation work anchors you very clearly in
> THIS world. :)

ok sorry rawn :) i guess i was just angry at the notion that virtue==
"goodness" concept . i often found myself trying to be "humble"
magnanimous" etc and feeling and being very ineffective in real world
situations consequently . I was just trying to make the point that
with mirror work one should become MORE effective not less in the
physical world and if not there is something wrong . I am sure it is
blindingly obvious to lots of people. :-|


> If this is what you *think* then try it out and see if it *works*. :)
> All of your speculations about what might or might not be possible have
> yet to be tested through experience. Hermetic *initiation* (as opposed
> to the intellectual study and speculation) is founded upon *your*
> *experience*.

Makes PERFECT sense !! 

Thanks again,
ravi