.

I'm an engineer. I spend my day working at a power utility. I mostly spend my evenings and weekends with friends and family. That doesn't really tell you much about my quality of consciousness though does it? Just that I perhaps fall under the fat portion of the bell curve (I'm not a serial killer or a Mother Teresa).

Personally, I think I'm pretty selfish. I work on trying to be more selfless and kind towards others each and every day. It's tough, but I've had measurable results for the past year or so from what I've been applying that I learned in MBT. At about this time last year, I made up, apologized, and forgave my parents for an argument we had had several months prior (and we hadn't talked since). The major admission I made to them was that I was selfish. Once I said that to them it's like everything switched around. My relationship with them is great now. It's a similar story with my girlfriend's parents. There's plenty more but overall, I'm living a happier and richer life. It's far from perfect though and I see plenty of room for improvement. That's my pudding tasting.

What you see in this VR is a product of our quality of consciousness. Material comforts isn't the point, we all die some day! What's your long term view?

Your statements that say you have nothing to do but serve yourself is a belief trap. I don't know what reality you live in (perhaps one limited by your beliefs?), but the people I know appreciate being helped, and I appreciate being helped. Do you not appreciate the help we're trying to give you on this forum?

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Mike

Hi Marcello.

Maybe I can clarify some bits and pieces regarding your questions and insights. In the example about the man that wanted to have 100k and then his family died the message wasn't that you can't get what you want but the intention that comes before the desire, the wanting. We have no way to know for sure what are the circumstances, the details in the man's life. Maybe he had a fear related to money, that money is the root of all evil but still wanted to get it anyway. That's one idea. In this case the law of attraction works. But that's my supposition, my interpretation. Like I said it may not even be accurate.

In Napoleon Hill writings I've come across the same thing. Intent is the key. Napoleon Hill said that the people who we're wealthier did enjoy what they did because that was the way they were at the core. Being happy selling from door to door or by selling with the help of the companies they created, they did it because they enjoyed it. They did not have any fear attachments regarding their desires.

In Abraham Hicks teachings is about getting into the vortex. It's the same thing. She overemphasizes the importance of being at the same level as the thing that you want. If you are below it (emotionally) you will not get it.

I think the work of Tom is about the model of reality and not about giving examples. Examples for applying low entropy can be found in many other writings. You can read and supplement in your own way what you've learned from Tom with your experience. That's the work my friend, that's the pudding you're tasting.

In general if you are honest with yourself you know when you want something because it would make you feel better or because it is something that defines you. Listen to the little voice inside yourself and you will know the answer. There's no one that can do that for you. You must decide, you are the only one that can choose and know that. Intent is the key.

Marc,

The whole deal with MBT (it is explicitly stated early on in the book) is that you develop your own "TOE", your own world view. So when you sort through this one (model), or any one, just, you know, note what seems interesting and possibly useful. Leave the rest go for now.

Totally separately </inserts ear plugs and puts on armor> you sound ripe and ready for Ayn Rand's book "The Virtue of Selfishness". It's a worthwhile read, for sure; even if a person finds her ideas not to their taste, the whole package taken as a set requires some serious attention to refute or even moderate.

Now, again separately, I really don't think that Tom means to assert that want and desire per se are so bad. For one thing, without them, no one would ever get out of bed in the morning. It is the attachment to and identification with those wants and desires that keeps a person sucked in and imprisoned. (A good deal of human want and desire is ego-related, that is, related to a person's belief that his model of himself IS himself, and so the model components ... thoughts or maps about career, family, nationalism, sex, clothes, property, skills, talents, emotional and agencenic patterns.. etc etc....... ARE the self.

But, they're not.

When you leave behind the human form, all that is gone gone gone ... and it becomes obvious that that stuff was never you at all ... you, while in the human form, just developed a taste or distaste for the various items but they were never you.

Just my 2 cents,
Montana

Marcello,

I think I begin to see a glimmer of what you are about. You are misunderstanding that MBT is somehow about how you should live your life while it is about how reality works instead. Or perhaps you know that it is not and wish that it was. How nice for you that you have lucked into something which you find pleasant. Tom never said that you have to suffer or feel guilty if you are not suffering. That will not change the way the book was written so you can find an easy and simple justification for your life. That does not change the way that reality works. The degree of trouble in a given life is largely a matter of the luck of the draw with some more advanced being directed to what they need for balanced development, which might include more problems.

What Tom has to say is about how you live your life affects your development. Not a matter of telling you how to live it but what principles to apply in doing so for optimum development. You want it to be simplified for you as you find your life simple and pleasant and not requiring a great deal of work. What I keep saying and you keep rejecting is that there is no such easy path. You must figure it out by trial and error and watching the feedback. That is simply the way that our reality works. It is your interactions that improves you or not. There is no map that applies at all times other than as said before, do the best you can and pay attention to the feedback. Continue on that path and it gradually becomes clearer and better. But as I have also said, you do not have to pay any attention to any of this. The system will work just fine without any effort on your part. Just do what comes naturally and you will gradually improve. Perhaps more slowly than otherwise but just as surely.

Ted

Just to back that up a bit:

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Mike

Thanks Mike~

Or, to pack up the whole thing briefly:

"I want and desire to evolve".

A little attention to the dividing meanings behind that statement should clear it up. The difference between the ego-directed motivations and the non-ego-directed motivations should become sensible upon inspection.

-Montana

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great discussion guys. thank you

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LOVE is the answer

peace
patrick

.

Not a lot of time to write at the moment Marc, but here are a few things:

The whole anecdotes business... I understand your want for these. Nothing could be more human. As far as I know, in all human societies and cultures of any sort, teaching involves story telling, tales of events past to fill out descriptions of world views that are imparted to new members. It is an important part of teaching that.

It happens though that when someone does that with someone else, they are creating a link with them ... the strength of the link may be mild, as the butcher might purchase the services of the shoemaker who in turn buys his steaks, or stronger, as the doctor repairs the health of the ill banker who underwrites his insurance, to critical, as the heart feeds the liver and the brain, etc. So when we tell tales, there is at least that consequence.

Yet another thing that happens is that, when telling personal tales, one can inadvertently (or intentionally) give away pieces of one's energy, as well as open ones' self up to approach. This is like going into a darkened motorcycle club house at midnight on a Halloween full moon with a pocket full of cash and having sex with anything that touches you. .... :Yuck.

Still a third reason to be wary of telling tales is that many of us are of a radically, fundamentally different nature.... just as different animals have different ways, styles, fates, proclivities, and optimal diets and ecosystems, so do 'spirits', of 'souls' or "IUOCs". Hearing tales that belong to a kind of being much different from your own can lead you down the wrong path, doing and living things and ideas you should not now be touching, and consuming non-physical products that are not good for your health, all the while missing the items and experiences that you SHOULD be consuming if only you were following your own in tuition.


As I said, not a lot of time, not even to review and correct spelling mistakes in the above.

In general, you are right to follow your own intuition, follow your own guidance, and don't attach too much importance to the words of others, unless they seem to make sense to you, and even then, test the ideas.

In general, we gather here in this forum because we like the atmosphere of the world view (or, if you like, meta-world view) that Tom presents. A human-enough by product of that is that most or all of us tend to read things or slants in Tom's words that Tom never intended while at the same time missing key points that he DOES intend.

In general, these are not hair-standing-on-end issues.

Welcome to the boards.

-Montana

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"If you could eliminate a need than it wasn't really a need to begin with" is the basic idea. It is a common idiom to say 'I need'. I need a cigarette, I need a woman, I need a drink, I need an income of . . ., I need a bigger house, I need a new and fancier car, I need, I need, I need! Don't get caught up in quirks of language. You need to breath. You need to drink water and eat food. That is part of the PMR rule set. The rest is fantasy. Get rid of fantasy. That is the same thing with "get rid of ego". Get rid of fantasies about yourself and others.

It actually is not a bad idea to learn of the ephemeral nature of "the actual wants needs and desires". Be prepared to let go of everything at some time or another. It is something that frequently happens.

Ted

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But Tom attributes our decisions to our Intent, capitalized to indicate that it is his special meaning of intent. Not to our desires. You no doubt saw his reference to intent in his books. It is not so much a special place as in a physical place, compared to some particular place in our brain, but where our understanding of ourselves and ourselves in relationship to others, as IUOCs, is stored. It is the basis upon which we make our decisions as we interact with others and the PMR environment. Look this up. Again, do not be caught up in language. Find out the true meaning. Much is said about desire in this sense of meaning but it is instead stated as intent and you are missing the reference.

Ted