A deeper listening to my labels

The "conversation with God" post (two below here) was deleted from its source post by the owner of that blog- as well as some other comment-posts that I made there by way of explaining my not needing to hang on the word "God" for what I was meaning to say. It seems my explanations were not effective- everything got deleted, apparently for the use of the word "God" (Im sad that I did not save my "explanation" posts, they are lost) ... so, this has been with me since the day of the post, as well as the irony that all of this was around our human propensity to "Label"...

I also promised Val, in my comment to her comment (below)- that I was holding her "Labels" post with my lookings, and that I would have more to say "later"... this took some time, to absorb the ironic nature of all of this looking, and what my own comments might be... put another way, my promise to Val got caught up in the deletion of my comment from Forest Wisdoms blog...

below, is what came to me this morning about all of this- it is what came to me as I looked again at Val's posts (If there's one thing I hate... and Words Reduce Reality) and all of the comments there, about "Labels" - and true to form, it ended up quite lengthly- so Im putting it here rather than burdening Vals blog with such a long comment...

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It seems to me to be an important thing, that when I see what is false about labels (or words which as Tolle and others have said, are also labels in their way- more essential to the problem perhaps) ...when I see what is false about labels, its important that I trace it back to as far as I can possibly go- to get to the root of whatever might create conflict with "what is"...

when I trace back words and labels to their root, and look at how they create conflict, it seems to always come upon this movement of "agree/disagree"- accept/reject- fight or flight- what a friend once called the "purr and flinch"- ... this movement of opposites takes many forms, but these forms are, at their base, just opposites... this is what seems undeniable about them...

its not a meaningless paradox to notice that even in this, one might have the impulse to agree or disagree...

this movement seems to be near the very source of labels... indeed, of words- of language itself...

so when we move to "do something about" labels, then the simple question comes to the fore, "have I just labeled labels?" - as good/bad - acceptable/unacceptable - worthy of keeping as is/worthy of needing to change- on and on we go with the movement of opposites...

I think we can trace back this movement of opposites to a "Prime Opposite"- that which supersedes all others- "I/other"... and this may be the thing that inevitably creates conflict with "what is"

here, Im saying "what is" is the world AS it is- without opposites... here, Im saying that in order to understand more of what is, one must find the place within oneself that can rest with what is, WITHOUT the use of agree/disagree... WITHOUT the purr or flinch...

this has been called many things- space- silence- listening- peace- looking... whatever part of the human engages with the world that has not yet created a label, made a word or a thought out of it- whatever that place in the human experience might be, that place can see what the world without opposites really is... that place can consider what it is the sage sees when he says "you ARE the world"... that's the place that can understand deeper things... it may return to the world of words in order to communicate what was seen, but it has nothing invested in those words- there is no longer a movement of "agree/disagree" ... when the gateway of that paradox has been gone through, there is no longer conflict with "what is" - no separation from "you" and "me" and "them" and "us"...

here, everything is telling the truth...

this understanding can only ever be held "lightly" - ever so delicately, gently - as an invitation, not ever as a claim... as soon as something contains the energy of a claim- then it goes back into the world of opposites again, and it has no life to understanding the world as it is, without opposites... this is what I mean when I ask "why do we measure?" - its not to suggest that we "shouldnt" measure, because then we have merely created another opposite out of it... its a true invitation into that silent place, where there is no separation from you and me- its been called "oneness" as well, and thats as good a word as any...

when we measure our existence, we kill what we are- life itself- we make a dead thing out of what was just alive within us- in order to carry it to the next experience - in order to "have" it, so that it might keep us safe- this is what our labels intend to do, to keep us safe by keeping us separate from that which the brain (thought/word/measuring center that it is) is helpless to miss- utter connectedness...

all of the agree/disagree that we do misses this connectedness- it separates by its very nature... if you agree with me, then you have done the same thing as if you disagreed with me- you have killed the invitation to life- this movement of opposites is what keep us missing life- it may create wonderful cathedrals and bridges and art and culture and rockets to the moon, when in its place- but it slips out of its place so easily, into the psychological- into a belief that we are separate from everything else- and this creates the "what about me" thought, that in turn leads to every war this planet has ever experienced...

life is an invitation... we kill it when we meet it with anything but like invitation... if we insist on any conclusion, then we are not living in this invitation- we are insisting on opposition- this will drive us deeper and deeper into self-involvement, as is quite evident by the world we see around us... there are natural corrections to this, but when we strive for "better/more/faster" in any way, then the intelligence that is natural to this universe is laid aside, so that the "what about me" thought can reign supreme...

this language... this poor poor language- it's so innocent of its shortfall... it is built to make claims- it is so very difficult to hold invitation... but if we look, if we look carefully, those of us who have been as thoughtful as we can be about all of this- we will see that its not the language that attracts us, that resonates within us- but the poetry... the energy of connectedness... that which is willing to drop the words, and look again, in silence- in space- in peace... just that looking alone, will see into the truth of what we are...
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