It is better if they differentiate history and teaching stories. (From a dinner conversation with friends yesterday, where they got into talking about some of the non-Biblical scriptures such as the gospels of Thomas and Mary Magdalene.)
- True?
Yes. Feels like it there and then. Experience discomfort when they don’t. I tell myself stories about how they should. - Sure?
No. Don’t know. - What happens when I hold onto that belief?
- I experience discomfort in the body. Restlessness.
- I go into stories of how it would be better if they differentiate history and teaching stories.
- I attach myself to one position and make it right.
- Sense of separation, to myself, them, the topic of conversation, life.
- Embarrassed by going into all this. Want to leave, because see how I am gong into my own hangups around this.
- How do I treat them? I put them down, in my own mind. I see them as wrong. As novices. As someone who doesn’t get it.
- What am I not able to appreciate? Their interest in the topic. Their excitement about it. Their innocence in how they relate to it, which is quite beautiful. >> That it is not so important to differentiate the two, they get what they need out of it anyway.
- When did I first have that thought? Probably in mid-teens, when I got into Jung and learned to see history and teaching stories as distinct from each other. One belongs to history, the other to psychology and spirituality. Whether something is “true” or not historically doesn’t impact the value of the teaching story.
- Who would I be without it?
- Interested in the conversation. Curious. Friendly. Sense of intimacy with myself, them, the topic, life. Relaxed. Enjoying myself. Fullness of hara.
- What am I able to appreciate without the story? Them. The conversation. Our connection. Life happening.
- What is available to me without the story? Seeing the beauty of their interest.
- Turnarounds.
- It is worse if they differentiate history and teaching stories.
- Yes, because that is not where they are. It is not their interest right now. It is not within their perspective right now.
- It is worse because it wouldn’t help me find this belief, and take it to inquiry.
- It is better if I differentiate history and teaching stories.
- Yes, the advice is for myself. It is something that is important for me, so I am the one to do it.
- I am the one to share it with them. In that situation, it is coming up in me, so I am the one invited to share it with the group. (I can see the beauty in that.)
- It is worse if they differentiate history and teaching stories.
- If the universe is a friendly place, why wouldn’t they differentiate history and teaching stories?
- To allow me to see my own hangups around this, and explore it.
- Because it is not needed for them to benefit. They have a different interest in it.
- It leaves it as something for them to discover in the future. (Or not.)
- It leaves it as something I can share with them, something I can contribute.