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FooZe
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Default Aug 25, 2024 at 12:41 AM
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by MuddyBoots View Post
At what point does "I've never looked at this in that way" turn into "loss of touch with reality?"
As I see it, it depends on how successful you are (or aren't) at inviting others to join you in exploring your version of reality. If they happened to be already freaked out from some previous encounter with you -- or if you just happened to remind them of someone else they'd been freaked out by -- they might not want to go there.

That reminds me of Ram Dass's take on a somewhat related question, from when he was visiting his brother who was inpatient. Let's see if I can make it a little bit short but not completely unrecognizable:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ram Dass
My brother was producing voluminous amounts of material, reading Greek, which he had never been able to read before. He was doing a number of phenomenal things which the doctors saw as pathological -- his agitation, the fact that he could steal, lie, and cheat and tell that he was Christ. He escaped from the hospital a number of times, a very creative fellow.

My reading of his materials showed me that he was tuned in on some of the greatest truths in the world that have ever been enunciated by some of the highest beings. He was experiencing these directly, but he was caught in a feeling that this was happening only to him. In other words, he had taken an ego with him into this other state of consciousness and he was experiencing it as unique to himself. And, therefore, he got into a messy predicament of saying, "I've been given this, and you haven't," you see. As we decided to share time and space, he noted that everything he said on this level I understood, and we could talk at this level together, although the psychiatrist sitting in the room was having a very difficult time dealing with this visitor who was obviously crazier than the patient, you know. And my brother often said to me, "I don't know," he says, "I'm a lawyer, I'm a decent citizen, I've got a tie and jacket, and I go to church, and I'm a good person, and I read the Bible. Me they've got in a mental hospital; you, you walk barefoot, you've got a beard, you've got a funny name, you really wear . . . you, you're out, free. How do you explain that?" And I say, "Well, I'll show you how." I said, "Do you think you're Christ? The Christ in pure consciousness?" he says, "Yes." I say, "Well, I think I am, too." And he looks at me and he says, "No, you don't understand." I say, "That's why they lock you up," you see. Because the minute you tell somebody else they're not Christ, they lock you up. The minute you say, "I am and you're not," then you gotta go. It's very clear. That's the way the game is played.
-- From The Only Dance There Is, pp. 70-72
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Thanks for this!
mote.of.soul, MuddyBoots