The Lion, the Witch and the Ego

[Why Syzygy]

So, I moved into a communal living situation with five other WOMEN! Feel free to question my sanity.

The good news is that all of us are committed to spiritual growth, although their's is the traditional religion route. Since that is the prevailing "right way", my beliefs, if I mention them at all, are often couched in terms they can relate to. Having a familiarity with the Bible helps there. I'm not looking for converts of course. I offered to hold my beliefs to myself. Then I realized, as a wholistic practitioner, it is impossible to separate "beliefs" from "who I am and what I do". That is something I longed for when I was on the traditional (Christian) path.

Per the rules of the house, we do have to handle conflict in constructive ways.
(I have already learned something important about myself and how others may be apt to perceive a certain characteristic. This is something that could have been an unseen problem maker in my life in the past. I was UNAWARE.)

I got involved with Oprah's book club and Eckart Tolle, as we discussed here. When I was reading and going to study group, I was living ALONE, with my kitty. I was working in a one person office. ALONE.
It all made perfect sense and oh so simple.
How little I was paying attention!

I am surrounded in close proximity by pain bodies and EGOS! My ego has been getting right in there and identifying with pain, past and present. As a result, I have returned to the book on a more serious level. I do not want to live that way. So, as ET explains, AWARENESS is key.

As I became aware concerning the living situation, this led to more self reflection, and lo and behold, I see how egotistical I have acted in this forum. I'm not sure what the ramifications are for that awareness; other than, I am now writing to let you all know that at least I am now aware of it. I don't know if I would have changed a thing I've said or done or not. It's not really even an issue because Now starts here.

Peace on.

[Callie McAllie]

1. I do not think you have been

egotistical at all in this forum! (Or maybe I'm just as guilty, which is why I don't recognize it?) I am glad you are learning, but please don't be too hard on yourself.

Your new living arrangement sounds great. One of the best living arrangements of my adult life was in a house full of women. I had been reading Marge Piercy's book Small Changes, and that gave me the idea. It was something I felt at the time I needed; I had gone to a women's college, and missed my female friends. So I found a house, put an ad in the paper, filled the spaces in a first come, first served manor without any kind of selectivity (something I would never do now!) Fortunately, the universe was looking out for me, because the one woman I realized after the fact would be a problem dropped out. We filled her space with a different woman and the group was just great. We were very tight, although very different.

We took turns cooking for the group each night, and doing dishes afterward. Ate dinner together at a big wooden picnic table in the dining room, with old church pews on either side for seating. Each of us had a weekly job (cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming, etc.) and each had a monthly job (paying bills, getting groceries). We moved in together in September and by Christmas we all had our periods the same week. We drank wine together on the weekends, baked cookies together in the winter, went dancing together at the bar, shared clothes, shared a car, conforted each other when things went wrong.

There were 7 of us in the house and someone's boyfriend described that as "Seventh Heaven." It became our name for the place. Another women's father made us a wooden sign with those words burned onto it; we hung it in the dining room. I am still in touch with some of them, and still drive by the house when I have a chance (it's in another city nearby).

So good luck and enjoy.

:hug:

[Delphinus]

3. Hi Callie,

I absolutely *LOVE* your story! How cool!

[Celebration]

2. oh, that would make it interesting

I can imagine that reading Tolle in that living situation would take on a whole different meaning. That was an interesting lecture by Tolle on Youtube that you put up in another thread.

Everyone that we interact with are like mirrors for ourselves. We can learn so much about ourselves with each human interaction, and probably the difficult ones most of all. Thanks for sharing. I have a fairly healthy ego myself, in that my ego doesn't want to be overly associated with others that I think of as being the "mess" of the human race/condition (the pain bodies, would Tolle say?). I am not exactly sure how to appropriately deal with those feelings. I suppose the recognition that these are just the "pain bodies" of the real spiritual person is helpful.

Once I heard Billy Graham talk about good and evil on a Phil Donohue TV show. After he was through expounding, Donahue said, "But you make it sound like one big superbowl with God on one side and Evil on the other." Rather than cringe from that representation, Graham embraced it. Evidently he was talking about the pain bodies.

[Dora]

4. Ahhhh.

I read your post, and it read like a big sigh of relief.

:hug:

O8)