I am definitely not qualified to say anything with authority ... but then I think no one is, perhaps even more so those with titles.
If we view our inability to experience peace and joy on a consistent basis itself as a sin, that is, as the thing that we have control over, then that is a much better road and future solution to the problem. It is also in keeping with humility. That is, the 'problem' is NOT out there. But the inside problem is not just various impurities of mind or behavior. Many very impure men suddenly seemed to have an insight, to 'get it.'
In far darker and more relentless times, there were men who operated in life with peace, without this feeling of always being at odds with, fighting against, the fallen world or thinking that because the world seemed even more fallen at the end of a hard day, that 'things are worse.'
The simple answer is that you can not tether your spiritual state to the state of the world if you want to have any lasting peace. "I can't be happy because nobody follows the word." "I can't be happy because liberals are winning." "I can't be happy because there is so much darkness out there."
All of these things are blatant lies. But this is where I was telling HTRN, that is pride ... the pride of believing YOUR VERSION of what is ACTUALLY going on out there. They are unconscious lies. Self hallucinations. We habitually declare that things are the way they seem to us. That is, that the way we see it is the way it is. This is the root of the delusion of suffering.
I am not talking here about the pain of hitting your head, or the suffering of enduring chemotherapy. I am talking about the suffering that is present due to no real thing, other than our own attachment to our story about 'what is going on around us, and in the world.'
There is simply no lasting peace, no matter WHAT the conditions are at this moment outside in the World, IF that peace is based on conditions in that World. It's impossible. So if someone is going to stay attached to the world, then YES, he should just decide to be depressed, because the rest of his life will be an unsatisfactory cycle of falling into desire for things to be different or to have more or to be better, followed by either never achieving that OR achieving the desired condition in which case the goalpost will shift. It is an endless cycle - attempting to try to mold the World or the fake self into an ideal.
So just accept: The World is a mess and always is. The fake self is a mess (original sin) and always is. There's no getting around it. Accept it.
Only THEN can you transcend it.
Imagine if you are a flat piece of paper on the top of Mt. Washington, which is often the windiest place in the world (or not, but it's really really windy when the weather is bad, and it's almost always windy.) So you are this piece of nice white 8.5 by 11 paper. Your are up there trying to hold your footing so you don't blow away (you are a flat pice of paper.) ... so you hold and fight and complain "this opposition is relentless! I must hold harder! Then it will be OK, maybe." But then you just get more tired. Sometimes the wind dies down and you say "Oh! I must be very strong and capable! It is not affecting me like it was" but then the wind picks up again and you say "oh! I am a depressing failure, I can't hold where I am in peace, I am being blown all over!"
But then someone says "well, why don't you just stand exactly sideways to the wind." And so you do that, and it's no effort because you are using natural law now. ALL you have to do is slightly adjust yourself as the wind adjusts direction. You have to be very aware, awake, to know how to adjust. To begin to learn the nature of the wind, how it announces that it is changing direction quickly or slowly. All you have to so is maintain your ORIENTATION to the wind, not your RESISTANCE to it, nothing else. As you do that, you realize that you no longer despair about the wind. Soon you may even use it to lift you into the air, only now YOU are ... not controlling things ... but dancing with the wind.
So as soon as you said: "I just often find, like HTRN, that the relentlessness of the opposition, can be so dispiriting." ... There is NO OPPOSITION if you don't oppose it. Accept it. Do not control the outcome. Orient yourself to it as a happy warrior, but to do so you must let go of the outcome. That part is God's job. You're only job is to be a happy warrior. Do not resist the wind. Do not resist the fallen world. ORIENT yourself differently in relation to the wind. See it for what it is. The wind is always there. So is the fallenness of the world. It's fine - it's OK! Your life is NOT the fallen world. Your life is your experience in the fallen world.
Do not believe what you think. Ever. If you do this you'll find your life will go on just like it did, even if you aren't attached to your version of what the world is.
YOU are creating the resistance in how you are oriented towards the wind. This takes some practice and requires that you see that you are totally full of sh**te. That's OK, so is everyone who thinks they know what's going on.
You have to completely divorce yourself of the notion that you have any clue what's going on. Then you won't become attached to conditions, to the World. It takes time and practice.
But you have to realize you are dead wrong about this: "relentlessness of the opposition, can be so dispiriting." There is no relentlessness, there is no opposition, there is no dispiriting. If you approach this from a purely intellectual level I get that you can argue against me that I am denying reality or something. I'm NOT. I'm the one who's not trapped in an illusion. I'm not denying reality, I'm denying your delusion. I'm telling you ... it's a made up story in your head. You don't need a nightmare story, and you don't need a happy story either.
This right now is already God's world. It's fine, it's how He made it. It's a place for you to practice discipline, purify yourself and play. ALL of those things make you more adapted to HIS world. He did not intend you to suffer. He did not intend you to think that YOU had to cause the world to not be fallen before you were allowed to see how beautiful life is.
It's very subtle and hard to see, and it takes courage ... but you have to let go of the World and your fear along with it. That's the bottom line. It's NOT an intellectual exercise. It's a big fat spiritual action. You could call it faith, because to let go of the World and especially to let go of fear and negativity, you'll think "oh no! but what will become of me!" ... so you'll choose to stay comfortable in your mildly unsatisfactory and cyclic life, generally complaining about the relentlessness of the opposition ... as if overcoming them would bring you happiness. THE LEFT and THE FALLEN WORLD is not the cause of yours or anyone else's suffering, not the root cause. The root cause is that you believe in the World more than you believe in Heaven. You are surrounded by both.
That is the allegorical meaning of the 'leap of faith.' Really, you do it standing right where you are, and you simply cast out your childlike demand that YOUR view of the world is right, and nobody's going to tell you any different. Instead you say "I am full of shit!" If you can REALLY say that, let go of everything in your head about 'what the world is' ... then you might catch an actually glimpse of what's underneath the blanket of self that makes you blind to the miracle of what's actually going on.
Your question shouldn't be 'where is happiness' or 'how can I make my conditions happy'. You have to take the position of "ok damnit I know heaven is right here, now, so how can I challenge myself to see it and experience it."
Sometimes this can come all at once ... as you learn to ride a 2 wheel bike, you may have a second of catching your balance and it's so easy and freeing ... then you lose your balance. But now you KNOW where balance is, so you keep practicing.
This balance is like the paper orienting itself sideways to the wind. Or like a leaf floating down a stream without batting the water trying to decide where it should go. There is not resistance. Occasionally there is a little adjustment to be made. That's what Will is for. It's like a little rudder on a boat. You don't use the rudder to propel yourself, you use it to adjust your orientation towards the water around you and let nature do the rest.
The main thing: "that the relentlessness of the opposition, can be so dispiriting."
Then STOP OPPOSING IT RELENTLESSLY. It is not opposing you. You are opposing IT. The 'IT' has always been, is, and will always be. Of COURSE you are dispirited! Let it be! And then choose where to fight, but leave the outcome to God or the Universe or whatever you want to call it. You are not so great as to be responsible for outcomes. You are just a man. You can BE great but only relative to the mess you actually are and the mess the world is. If you accept the mess, then you will find striving for good is enough to sustain you. SO LONG as you do not lose your balance and fall back into thinking you're so great that you can judge the world and turn it into what you want.
It's basically: Humility 101.
Sorry not going to go back and edit!
I promise you ... the way to Heaven is not a matter of adding things or changing things per se. It's removing your delusion. Heaven is already what the world is. You look at Heaven and see all kinds of things wrong with it. Why do you do this? So what do you have to remove? That thing that must be removed is part of you, it has to do with clinging to your viewpoint, your judgment of what is around you. When you put that down, you will perceive things differently and more consistently. You'll know that the wind is not your enemy, that the fallen-ness of the world has a purpose, is part of God's whole, part of the plan, and that it's not your job to fix it. You DO have a job, but it's not that.
What is your true job? Whatever your answer, you better not believe it! You have to know your job newly every moment. When you know your job, which you have to know moment to moment, just like when riding a bike you can't balance only once and expect it to last - you have to learn to keep your balance ... .... ... so when you know your job like keeping your balance ... ... ... then there is not all these hard times. Conditions will not have fundamentally changed. They may have even gotten worse. But it won't seem like 'relentless opposition.'
So I am not saying 'the world is perfect, you just won't see it', I'm saying 'the world is a freaking mess, you have to accept that, and then look more deeply.' That's practice, but it's real, and can be had by any man with the humility to realize his suffering comes from his own delusion, which comes from his own clinging to his own viewpoints as right and correct. Very blind way to go through life!
Gosh, I have to respond again; because your post 89 is the most extraordinary post in this vein that I’ve seen on FR.
I’ve copied and saved it, to keep it with me and ponder.
Thank You!
Yaaaaaack yack yack...
Surely there is a way to say this in a tenth of the words if not less.