One of the Gita’s most misunderstood teachings is that non-attachment is not the opposite of love; it is what allows love to become unconditioned. Krishna never asks Arjuna to stop caring. He asks him to act without clinging to outcomes or identities (niṣkāma karma). The hand still moves, but it no longer closes into a fist around “my success,” “my virtue,” or “my role.”
The Īśa Upanishad carries the same current: “He who sees all beings in the Self, and the Self in all beings…” Compassion begins to lose its center of gravity. The boundary between “the one who helps” and “the one being helped” grows unexpectedly thin. What remains is not indifference, but a quieter intimacy with life itself.
I especially appreciated your distinction between presence and performance. The ego is remarkably adaptable. It can wear humility as easily as pride. It can become attached even to being detached. That is why Vedanta invites us to look beyond our actions and ask who it is that wishes to claim them.
Perhaps compassion absolute is what remains when there is no one left trying to be compassionate.
I appreciate this perspective and teaching so much. My job as a sound healer requires me to listen deeply - to the way sound interacts with the body and biofield primarily - but also to listen to their answers when I say, "How can I help?" and especially "How do you want to feel when you get up off the table today?" Listening without judgment or attachment to an agenda or outcome is essential. And extremely challenging sometimes.
Thank you, Monk Boy for continuing to turn the fire hose on my ego which by the way looks very good in an apron. I have a drawer full of them.
The ground underneath my way of being is shifting as a result of doing this work: studying Kabir Helminski‘s “ Living Presence” with loving support from Cynthia Borgeault, lynn C. Bauman, and yourself.
I’m doing this study on my own, and wonder if you know of any community around all of this where folks come together and practice, discuss, and learn from each other?
Here is what I was taught born a Quaker in 1955 before we could walk we were taught “ All our tears are the same” then as we got older we were taught wee ones had to learn at a young age to understand and how we applied it this was my education it is called SPICES
S- Spirituality
P- Peace
I- Integrity
C- Community ( Come Unite)
E- Equality
S- Stewardship
These are the seeds that were planted for humanity as you look around you perhaps you may think “ yeah that really worked out well” yet it wasn’t taught to everybody just a few that carry it everywhere throughout their lives they go and just share it don’t demand it these seeds are for ALL Humanity.
"That is a much more uncomfortable question because the ego does not mind service at all. Service gives it excellent wardrobe options."
But what many folks forget is that at some point the ego itself stops wanting to enact a sort of charm offensive or masquerade. Freud basically popularized the contemporary and modern sense of the term "ego", but all he meant by this was "the I". So ego is, in a sense, self, but ... yeah... it's more complicated than that, ultimately, because of what you have called the "false self" -- the image of self which forgets it's just an image or a story of self and not self, really.
The very clean and clear way to work with all of this stuff (or play with it) accurately is to just drop the paradigm which keeps things glued together in the familiar pattern.
The actual self is f**king weary of its burden in almost all cases. It longs to return to its own true nature, which is not a static fixation on "me". But ego-talk and ego-thinking tends to deny the very existence this real, actual self. It happens in many traditions. And they are all ... well, mistaken.
What happened, I think, is that the modern / and Western world forgot about kosmos, and without a kosmos meaning can only dwell inside of what Western philosophy and psychology calls "subjects".
... and "subjects" are interiorized objects (called "entities") which are juxtaposed sharply against "objects". And that, my dear, is how kosmos disappeared from the modern and Western world. With it "psyche" and "soul" became fully interior to a "self" -- but that self is a full out misrepresentation of self. Or "I". Because self is always and can only be fully and radically relational, not oppositional.
I have a better form of medicine. I call it "relational kosmology". Not relational ontology. Ontology is what caused the trouble. Ontology is founded on the concept of independently existing "entities" -- always counted up to the number one, But if we do not begin with a count? Then what? Then self can be self and also be in relation--as relation.
Kosmic love is grounded and rooted in radical relationality. It is what self really is.
I'm trying to say that we lost ourselves when we lost kosmos.
"Most of us were taught, directly or indirectly, that attachment is what motivates love."
True. This framework seems to be valid and real only when "self" becomes a self-enclosure. But self does not self-enclose naturally. It has to be beaten into submission to forget itself so badly. And this is precisley what the modern world demands and expects of us -- to transform care and compassion into transaction rather than belonging.
Real or true self is not self-enclosed. It dwells and has its life in belonging-with. It is not a thing or an object or an enclosure..., but our being together.
This resonated deeply.
One of the Gita’s most misunderstood teachings is that non-attachment is not the opposite of love; it is what allows love to become unconditioned. Krishna never asks Arjuna to stop caring. He asks him to act without clinging to outcomes or identities (niṣkāma karma). The hand still moves, but it no longer closes into a fist around “my success,” “my virtue,” or “my role.”
The Īśa Upanishad carries the same current: “He who sees all beings in the Self, and the Self in all beings…” Compassion begins to lose its center of gravity. The boundary between “the one who helps” and “the one being helped” grows unexpectedly thin. What remains is not indifference, but a quieter intimacy with life itself.
I especially appreciated your distinction between presence and performance. The ego is remarkably adaptable. It can wear humility as easily as pride. It can become attached even to being detached. That is why Vedanta invites us to look beyond our actions and ask who it is that wishes to claim them.
Perhaps compassion absolute is what remains when there is no one left trying to be compassionate.
I appreciate this perspective and teaching so much. My job as a sound healer requires me to listen deeply - to the way sound interacts with the body and biofield primarily - but also to listen to their answers when I say, "How can I help?" and especially "How do you want to feel when you get up off the table today?" Listening without judgment or attachment to an agenda or outcome is essential. And extremely challenging sometimes.
Thank you, Monk Boy for continuing to turn the fire hose on my ego which by the way looks very good in an apron. I have a drawer full of them.
The ground underneath my way of being is shifting as a result of doing this work: studying Kabir Helminski‘s “ Living Presence” with loving support from Cynthia Borgeault, lynn C. Bauman, and yourself.
I’m doing this study on my own, and wonder if you know of any community around all of this where folks come together and practice, discuss, and learn from each other?
the knowing clears it all up..ty
Here is what I was taught born a Quaker in 1955 before we could walk we were taught “ All our tears are the same” then as we got older we were taught wee ones had to learn at a young age to understand and how we applied it this was my education it is called SPICES
S- Spirituality
P- Peace
I- Integrity
C- Community ( Come Unite)
E- Equality
S- Stewardship
These are the seeds that were planted for humanity as you look around you perhaps you may think “ yeah that really worked out well” yet it wasn’t taught to everybody just a few that carry it everywhere throughout their lives they go and just share it don’t demand it these seeds are for ALL Humanity.
Compassion
Com - together
Patior - to suffer (as in the Passion of Christ)
True compassion is the ability to see them, sit in their suffering together with them, and trust in their ability to heal themselves.
As one friend said to me: it’s bloody hard to be a truly compassionate parent….
"That is a much more uncomfortable question because the ego does not mind service at all. Service gives it excellent wardrobe options."
But what many folks forget is that at some point the ego itself stops wanting to enact a sort of charm offensive or masquerade. Freud basically popularized the contemporary and modern sense of the term "ego", but all he meant by this was "the I". So ego is, in a sense, self, but ... yeah... it's more complicated than that, ultimately, because of what you have called the "false self" -- the image of self which forgets it's just an image or a story of self and not self, really.
The very clean and clear way to work with all of this stuff (or play with it) accurately is to just drop the paradigm which keeps things glued together in the familiar pattern.
The actual self is f**king weary of its burden in almost all cases. It longs to return to its own true nature, which is not a static fixation on "me". But ego-talk and ego-thinking tends to deny the very existence this real, actual self. It happens in many traditions. And they are all ... well, mistaken.
What happened, I think, is that the modern / and Western world forgot about kosmos, and without a kosmos meaning can only dwell inside of what Western philosophy and psychology calls "subjects".
... and "subjects" are interiorized objects (called "entities") which are juxtaposed sharply against "objects". And that, my dear, is how kosmos disappeared from the modern and Western world. With it "psyche" and "soul" became fully interior to a "self" -- but that self is a full out misrepresentation of self. Or "I". Because self is always and can only be fully and radically relational, not oppositional.
I have a better form of medicine. I call it "relational kosmology". Not relational ontology. Ontology is what caused the trouble. Ontology is founded on the concept of independently existing "entities" -- always counted up to the number one, But if we do not begin with a count? Then what? Then self can be self and also be in relation--as relation.
Kosmic love is grounded and rooted in radical relationality. It is what self really is.
I'm trying to say that we lost ourselves when we lost kosmos.
"Most of us were taught, directly or indirectly, that attachment is what motivates love."
True. This framework seems to be valid and real only when "self" becomes a self-enclosure. But self does not self-enclose naturally. It has to be beaten into submission to forget itself so badly. And this is precisley what the modern world demands and expects of us -- to transform care and compassion into transaction rather than belonging.
Real or true self is not self-enclosed. It dwells and has its life in belonging-with. It is not a thing or an object or an enclosure..., but our being together.