Changes

Welmek: Thank you for [[sharing]] that. I know it is not easy, what I am asking you to impart this evening, but I do ask you to bear with me while we move through this [[exercise]]. If this is uncomfortable for you, then I do not [[expect]] you to answer. It is not as important to reveal the circumstances as what you experienced or felt than what that circumstance was in your life.

Welmek: Thank you for [[sharing]] that. I know it is not easy, what I am asking you to impart this evening, but I do ask you to bear with me while we move through this [[exercise]]. If this is uncomfortable for you, then I do not [[expect]] you to answer. It is not as important to reveal the circumstances as what you experienced or felt than what that circumstance was in your life.

Student: Welmek, I had a very philosophical, reflective [[father]] and I think I developed an [[illusion]] all through high school, to be kind of a loner, being overly [[sensitive]]. I had this enormous illusion, that a certain kind of grasp of life was possible. I could actually know what is was all about. And I looked around, and it seemed everybody else was lost in their own little world, there own little [[subjectivity]] and if we could just be [[objective]] about life, it would be a [[Paradise]]. Everything would be all right, everything would be solved. And sometime during my freshman year in [[college]], a circle closed in my mind, a circle of [[logic]] in which I realized that what I needed most to know had to be questioned for that very reason, because I needed so [[desperately]] to know what was the truth. And once that, I guess I was [[listening]] to the [[Existentialism|existential philosophers]], I went through a several year period of kind of questioning a state of [[doubt]] that seemed to be spiraling down and down til finally I was able to make a breakthrough by holding a cocked and loaded pistol to my head and realizing that between my [[brain]] and my [[intention]] and my finger on that trigger, there was a "oneness" to me and of course then I was [[horrified]] several minutes later to think: "If this thing had gone off by mistake, what my [[family]] might have suffered". But there was a period of a number of years that extended clear into the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Corps Marine Corps] and all that I experienced in there that; it was a questioning of my own existence and, really the [[goodness]], if you will, of the creation. It was very much in doubt for a long time.

Student: Welmek, I had a very philosophical, reflective [[father]] and I think I developed an [[illusion]] all through high school, to be kind of a loner, being overly [[sensitive]]. I had this enormous illusion, that a certain kind of grasp of life was possible. I could actually know what is was all about. And I looked around, and it seemed everybody else was lost in their own little world, there own little [[subjectivity]] and if we could just be [[objective]] about life, it would be a [[Paradise]]. Everything would be all right, everything would be solved. And sometime during my freshman year in [[college]], a circle closed in my mind, a circle of [[logic]] in which I realized that what I needed most to know had to be questioned for that very reason, because I needed so [[desperately]] to know what was the truth. And once that, I guess I was [[listening]] to the [[Existentialism|existential philosophers]], I went through a several year period of kind of questioning a state of [[doubt]] that seemed to be spiraling down and down til finally I was able to make a breakthrough by holding a cocked and loaded pistol to my head and realizing that between my [[brain]] and my [[intention]] and my finger on that trigger, there was a "oneness" to me and of course then I was [[horrified]] several minutes later to think: "If this thing had gone off by mistake, what my [[family]] might have suffered". But there was a period of a number of years that extended clear into the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Corps Marine Corps] and all that I experienced in there that; it was a questioning of my own existence and, really the [[goodness]], if you will, of the creation. It was very much in doubt for a long time.

Welmek: Thank you for your openness and [[honesty]].

Welmek: Thank you for your openness and [[honesty]].

Student: Welmek, I can share what I'm feeling now. And I feel [[happy]], I have a [[smile]] on my face and I feel a lightness in my heart and a trust that everything will be OK. Welmek: Thank you.

Student: Welmek, I can share what I'm feeling now. And I feel [[happy]], I have a [[smile]] on my face and I feel a lightness in my heart and a trust that everything will be OK. Welmek: Thank you.

Student: Welmek, I had an [[experience]], I must have been about twenty-five, I was just out of the [[military]] and back from overseas and the [[Far East]] and [[Vietnam War|Vietnam]]. And I think I've learned that simply, if you [[persist]], it you don't give up, if just keep staying true to yourself, even in this state of enormous [[doubt]]. I had a whole, on a mountaintop down at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Sur Big Sur]; I had a complete [[super-conscious]] kind of [[death]] and rebirth [[experience]] that has remained thirty-five years later still, ineffable. I just suddenly, I came into [[existence]]. I was no longer questioning even whether I was, what my nature was. I simply - was. And part of that experience was just a [[feeling]], a knowing that there was an absolute [[goodness]] in [[existence]]. It seemed like a [[perception]] at the time. Although, now I think it's more a matter of [[faith]]. But my life just turned around and forever since that time, I was actually kind of giddy and high for several years afterwards. I got accused of being a "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollyanna Pollyanna]", and not taking life seriously, I was just so overwhelmed with that [[experience]]. But, it stayed true!

Student: Welmek, I had an [[experience]], I must have been about twenty-five, I was just out of the [[military]] and back from overseas and the [[Far East]] and [[Vietnam War|Vietnam]]. And I think I've learned that simply, if you [[persist]], it you don't give up, if just keep staying true to yourself, even in this state of enormous [[doubt]]. I had a whole, on a mountaintop down at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Sur Big Sur]; I had a complete [[super-conscious]] kind of [[death]] and rebirth [[experience]] that has remained thirty-five years later still, ineffable. I just suddenly, I came into [[existence]]. I was no longer questioning even whether I was, what my nature was. I simply - was. And part of that experience was just a [[feeling]], a knowing that there was an absolute [[goodness]] in [[existence]]. It seemed like a [[perception]] at the time. Although, now I think it's more a matter of [[faith]]. But my life just turned around and forever since that time, I was actually kind of giddy and high for several years afterwards. I got accused of being a "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollyanna Pollyanna]", and not taking life seriously, I was just so overwhelmed with that [[experience]]. But, it stayed true!

Welmek: And; Is this what you [[experienced]] now; when you asked for the light to shine within you"?

Welmek: And; Is this what you [[experienced]] now; when you asked for the light to shine within you"?

Student: Yes! It's still there, as something that - kind of an [[assurance]]. [[The textbook]] has, put it in one little sentence that: "we little [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollywogs pollywogs], we little human beings, we out here in the nurseries of [[time and space]], taking our first tiny, tiny little baby steps into [[eternity]] - we actually [[participate]] in [[God the Absolute]] in the simple fact of our [[existence]]". That one sentence gave me a great joy.  

Student: Yes! It's still there, as something that - kind of an [[assurance]]. [[The textbook]] has, put it in one little sentence that: "we little [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollywogs pollywogs], we little human beings, we out here in the nurseries of [[time and space]], taking our first tiny, tiny little baby steps into [[eternity]] - we actually [[participate]] in [[God the Absolute]] in the simple fact of our [[existence]]". That one sentence gave me a great joy.  

Welmek: Thank you.

Welmek: Thank you.

Welmek: And how does this factor in your internal environment?

Welmek: And how does this factor in your internal environment?

Student: That's where [[death]] is swallowed up in [[victory]], like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handel's_Messiah Handel's "Messiah"], the death has no more sting. The defeat was real at the time, because it was a time [[burden]], that I knew was going to happen, but the [[Thought Adjuster]] contact is the bright light, almost a literal light, in the [[dark]] valley of real [[suffering]].

Student: That's where [[death]] is swallowed up in [[victory]], like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handel's_Messiah Handel's "Messiah"], the death has no more sting. The defeat was real at the time, because it was a time [[burden]], that I knew was going to happen, but the [[Thought Adjuster]] contact is the bright light, almost a literal light, in the [[dark]] valley of real [[suffering]].

Welmek: And do you feel a sense of relief or a release? (Student: Tremendous! Yes!) Thank you. Student:  

Welmek: And do you feel a sense of relief or a release? (Student: Tremendous! Yes!) Thank you. Student: