[Redys]

i continue to grow in understanding my father and myself.my dad is not a well man his alcoholism, masked a deeper problem. he is an undiagnosed manic depressive. i say that as one who is diagnozed and chooses to take medication under the supervision of my doctor. dad is a high functioning alcoholic. i lameneted recently that his alcoholism could have affected my life so deeply. it was more than one disease in operation the alcoholism only the tip of the iceberg. my grandfather ( his father ) molested his daughters and grand children. the family incest was carried out by my father with his daughter.i wasrepeatedly sexually abused by my 3 uncles, two died of aids and one who was married.
i would not blame some one for having cancer which my mother died of at a young age yet it has been so difficult to understand or accept the role of mental illness , family dysfunction and alcoholism. i dreamt recently that i curse my self. i tried to think of who did curse me . unconsciously my father cursed me and i began to do it to myself. he did not want a gay son. he blamed my mother for this. they argued over what she did to me? they both thought the military would make me a man! i had no idea what was wrong but began to think i was not okay. i began to curse myself....i began to judge who i am and i was wrong i was not okay a curse!coming out of the closet was very difficult being an oral roberts university graduate and a prospective catholic priest.
today i have a good phone relationship with my father . he is 85 suffering from alcohol dementia and pancriatitis and as my step mother euphemizes alzhiemer. my dad still knows who we are for the last 10 years . my doctor says this is not alzhiemer.
i am grateful he is around perhaps he will be here for the events of 20 12 . however i believe that my dad and i have fullfilled our contract which was to porvide me with the opportunity to know how devasting abandoment is , how destructive alcoholism is , how damaging is self aggrandizement and how illness can cause us to be mean and unkind to our loved ones. yes thank you dad for letting me know what i did unknowing to you and to myself. awareness has pain, growth and freedom to move forward to more awareness of loving opportunity even if it appears dreadful to th e observer the work is profoundly healing though painful. .

[SteantyjetMaw]

hiya chris,
fast forward to now and through my own spiritual journey, i have totally forgiven all those who hurt, betrayed and abandoned me. i actually thank them for the life lessons they taught me - although it took years to get there. i have spoken to my dad only about 3 times in 10 years and each time he says "i love you son". those words are enough - growing up without him was hard but his declaration of his love to me made all those crappy years worth it. i love you too dad!
matt

matt, i really like what you wrote here. in two months, my own father will have been gone from the planet 30 years, so most of what i have to say about him is a retrospective. needless to say, he does not look so terrifying from this perspective - although he was a holy terror (i mean literally, since he was a preacher, and he could dispense heaven or hell from the pulpit with equal ease).

i had a conversation with my mother a couple of days ago, in which she repeated something she has said often -- she wished she had been a better mother. i explained to her first that she was a product of her wwii generation. her generation wore a collective suit of emotional armor to protect themselves from the horrors of that war, even long after the war had ended. i assured her she did the best that she could, and that no one can ask more than that from anybody. secondly, i told her that if she and my father had not given me the challenges they did, that i would not have been able to offer anything to assist half the people i worked with as a counselor, because it was my experience working through my own challenges more than anything else that enabled me to be of service to others.

i'll put it like this. my studies of mythology tell me that the primal fear of mother and father are the ultimate challenges that prepare a human being to be a hero-ine, which i see as a person who actively lives facing "what is," and choosing to confront "what is" with courage rather than with fear. primal fears of one's parents tend to show up in myths in the form of giants (fathers) and sea monsters (mothers). once a potential hero slays the giant or the sea serpent, then s/he is ready to go on the quest to find the inner joy, the inner child, one's own true richness. ever dream about finding a treasure? that indicates that you are discovering your own inner deepest, most beautiful self. by then, you have worked through the various layers of your thoughts and emotional patterns, and discovered that while they are a part of you, they are not "you." now i ask you - what would be the joy of going on a fun treasure hunt, if there were not challenges to overcome?

that brings me back to my point about my own father. as i have had the opportunity to think about him, and myself, over the past almost-30 years, i have increasingly realized that the horses' hind end he could often be was his challenge to work through - and he did so, with great courage and perseverance. his physical death was the catalyst that enabled me to see it. there is little doubt in my mind that if he were still here, i would be still continuing to struggle through my images of him. the further i go in my own thinking, my writing, etc., the more i see that i really learned from him, and the knowledge & understanding i have now came from standing on the shoulders of giants. in the old stories, david cut off the head of golaith - symbolizing separating the father's thinking process from physical reality. in norse myths, odin, vili, and ve slew the giant who was their ancestor, and formed the earth from his body. we all do that. we are all david, and we are all odin, vili, and ve -- and we will not become "kings" or "gods" (however one wishes to metaphorize it) until we have broken to pieces the inner image we carry inside ourselves of our own fathers. conflict with your human father is an open invitation to begin that phase of the hero's journey and start becoming who you really are. a tyrannical father who terrorizes you will eventually catapult you further along the path of inner growth than the nice old fellow who tells you how great you are -- at least that's what i tell myself now! if i can follow that path, so can anyone. it's a matter of putting one foot in front of the other and learning to ignore than pain and discomfort of the hero's journey. you'll make it. and, it's a very nice view from the top of that mountain.

i add my thanks to those who appreciate the mod for resurrecting this topic.

-- deerclan

[Cogebrego]

hi deerclan,

thank you for that nice post.

you'll make it. and, it's a very nice view from the top of that mountain. i feel i have already made it - and you are right about the view - its great!

catch you soon my friend,

matt

[Qeiafib]

dad, i came into this world with a highly developed intuitive faculty. i have had experiences of a subjective and inner nature which long ago proved to me personally that my existance goes beyond this body, both in time and space. the world is full of millions of people who have an inner knowing and experiencing of something spiritual in scope, and yet are alike in the sense that they are pretty much unable to communicate these things to those loved ones who are still fully immersed within the matrix... so to speak.

when i send you stuff, it is with the hope of sparking some flicker of recognition of something other than mundanity. one thing i know is that there is no absolute proof of anything metaphysical in the offing. i personally know extremely gifted psychics who are able to demonstrate incredible proof of their abilities to me and others who are already able to discern some stuff, yet have learned that when their abilities are put under the focused glare of those who wish to establish clinical proof, find that their abilities mysteriously evaporate.

edgar cayce once said something to the effect that a person's free will to experience beneath the 'veil of confusion' (this being a primary law of life here on earth) guarantees that outer proofs are a very singular and personal thing, available only to those who have discovered somewhat of their own intuitive faculties.

i know a lady whom i visited a couple of years ago, on the advice of a friend who had seen her at a psychic fair. this woman knew nothing of me, and was conducting a meditation circle in richmond hill. nan had passed soon before, and as this woman was telling us of her view that we all are subject to protection of spirit guides, i wondered to myself if i've been visited by nan in some way. at the very same moment, she spun on her heel, pointed right at me and told me, "yes, nan has been to visit, and sends love and assurance that she's ok." i've seen her do this with sufficient redundancy with others in the circle to demonstrate to me that this is not a case of someone who is an astute reader of a person's character, telling people what they want to hear.

yet, no person has ever been able to establish their psychic proficiency to any final, undeniable extent in the laboratory of mainstream review, beyond critical reproach.

so, attempts to demonstrate something of these things in the manner of 'proof' remain something very interesting to me, yet those things which strike me as being somewhat evocative of evidence seem to be in some necessary way enshrouded in such 'pseudo-scientific' plausible deniability that anyone of some good measure of intellectual rigour can easily and resolutely pick apart the 'science' which does not in any way stand up to such scrutiny. i am excruciatingly aware of the flaws which can be picked out in such offerings from an intellectual standpoint, rest assured!! i'm like you in that i can spot faulty science from a mile away. but there's more to it than that.

things can resonate in a way which defines for me a sane way of approaching my inner knowing, assimilating the undeniable evidence which i have repeatedly witnessed and tried to reconcile with my intellect. there can be no merging marriage of the pure intellect and the pure intuitive. each needs to give way to the other, or you have the twin spectres of both scientific and religious fundamentalism.

one thing i have learned is that those who don't wish to let go of the comfortable shores of material and rational worldview are perfectly safe and rightfully where they belong in their sojourn thru this stage of evolution. you can't demonstrate that which is transgressing of someone's rightful place.

so, when i send you this stuff, i'm hoping that you may on your own see something which sparks a sense of wonder and 'what if?' and perhaps get past the rigours of scrutiny which will always render every phenomenon explainable in nuts and bolts and materialistic terms. that is the beauty of life, the mundanity of life can be enforced forever - until one gives way to the intuitive, and allows scientific rigour to finally allow itself to share space with the intuitive faculty. mark

[Cogebrego]

hi mark,

may i say i found your letter to your dad very touching and beautifully put together.

you put your point across so eloquenlty with heartfelt passion.

indeed, i do not think there is anyone on this forum who could not use the basic structure of what you are saying to anyone and everyone they come across, if you know what i am trying to say.

i guess if you were to de-personalise it, it is actually a message to all of humanity, gently steering them to take a look at the reality of this set up and enjoy what it is all about.

i pray your dad will dip his toe in the water at the very least.

regarding edgar cayce, i am constantly astounded how very few people have even heard of him. he was/is the greatest pyschic this world has seen and his "gifts" gave so much to mankind. sadly, i feel our controlled media would never allow such a great man to be a household name which i feel is nothing less than he deserves.

i discovered edgar cayce a few years ago and because of his work i started my journey of truth and enlightenment. i am sure he will be better known in this lifetime as david

love and light to you all,

matt

[arrendabomnem]

my dad died a dozen years ago and it was premature as i was just beginning to understand him. i had discovered that he was a much more enlightened individual that he appeared. it was he, unbeknown to me, that set me on the pathway to awareness. many years ago, he gave me a book by [please pm for author and book name]. as i read that book, i became aware for the first time that all is not as it seems, that there is a hidden truth that has been kept from the population of the world. my dad told me to read the book with an open mind, and it was the key that actually opened my mind to higher awareness. the other book he gave me was a book on native american mysticism called [please pm]. this was a second step to discovering that life is more than this physical existance and day to day oblivion.

he put me on a search for truth which i would never have been aware of had he not given me those books. i said above that his death was premature, because i had not at that time reached the point where i had release all of the old paradigm thoughts and grown to the point where i could have dipped into the well of his wisdom.

so i must say that he was the sign post to redirect my perception of reality.