?Linda writes:

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>>I think it would be best for me if I share with others forgiveness stories that are current. I also agree about excessive >>swapping of quotes being boring.

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??????????? The emphasis is, of course, on “excessive”? which I would loosely define as “That which substitutes for original thinking

??????????? instead of illuminating an original thought”. ?There’s nothing meaningful that someone sharing from their day to day

??????????? experiences directly.?

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>>Although I don't think the answer is as full, I have gotten some support from reading Nisargadatta Maharaj, >>Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta's student, Ramesh Balsekar. Currently now, though, thanks to reading >>Disappearance, I am going back to the Course to study it more deeply rather than dabbling with these others.

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??????????? Without Disappearance my 1^st edition copy of the Course would still be gathering dust on a bookshelf.? Actually it is still ??????????? gathering dust: I quickly got frustrated looking up footnotes which are referenced to the 2^nd edition so I ordered a hardback

??????????? copy from the Foundation (I anticipate giving it a workout).?

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??????????? An important idea here seems to be to somehow have a radically different EXPERIENCE (what Zen refers to as “direct ??????????? 办苍辞飞颈苍驳”.? This always made a lot of sense to me and I have always intuited it as something that tended to be

??????????? missing in traditional Christianity.? I was raised Presbyterian with a number of somewhat bizarre (in my opinion)

??????????? principles, not the least of which was the central notion that all that was required was that one believe certain ideas

??????????? (which in themselves were extremely problematic to me even as a child).

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??????????? I’ve explored a number of ways to have different experiences and I’m still looking to find the experience which is different ??????????? enough to make a difference.? Something in Disappearance has raised a powerful hope, but I still hold a lot of doubt (and ??????????? probably a lot of other unconscious chaos) that simply reading the Text and following the Workbook will result in an

??????????? experience powerful enough to bring about a non-dualistic state of being.

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??????????? As a result I have a tendency to look around for alternative sources to augment anything I’m exploring.? 滨迟’蝉 hard to trust just

??????????? one source when so many sources are available. I WANT to; 滨迟’蝉 just hard. I also have a pronounced tendency to want my ??????????? spiritual instruction to be clear, detailed, specific to me, and authoritative.? Someone once asked what I was looking for and ????? I responded without hesitation “A burning bush” (which met these criteria for Moses!).? Visits from ascended masters would ?? work too!? Perhaps these are issues of faith.

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??????????? Namaste,

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??????????? Jim