Religious Conflict and Deep Listening

The following dream interview is an example of how personal dreamwork can reframe political, social, and cultural realities in ways that make one stop and look at ancient problems in new ways.

Temple Mount

I am on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  The Israelis have just attacked it and very quickly and efficiently wiped out the Palestinian defenders.  There are concrete and metal gun supports on the pavement, but that is all that remains.  Maybe some places where the blood stains have been washed off but still leave some traces.

Associations: Dunno.  Haven’t been thinking about this topic recently.  I am a long-time opponent of Zionism and Israeli nationalism.  Nationalism is a disease; when you mix it with religion, you get psychopathological radicalism and intolerance, whether it’s Jewish, Islamic, or Christian.  I have been to the Temple Mount, long ago.

What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?

1.  Taking my practice of waking up to the next level.

2.  Doing a better job of following self-aspect recommendations.

3.  Remembering to frame the moment in terms of the Three Outcomes: prosperity, joy, and luminosity

If one character had something especially important to tell you, which would it be?

The Temple Mount

Temple Mount, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?

I have been here a long time.  Stupid people have built a lot of stupid structures on me.  They have done a lot of stupid things on me.  They have fought stupidly over me.  They have killed each other for stupid reasons on top of me.

Wooo, Temple Mount!  You seem just a little judgmental!

What do I care whether you think I’m judgmental or not?  Don’t ask my opinion if you don’t want to hear it.

What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?

I like that I signify man’s search for transcendent meaning in his life.  I like that I’ve survived all this stupidity all these millenia.

What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses?  What are they?

There’s nothing I dislike about myself.  I could say I don’t like what’s happening on me, but if it has to happen, if there has to be some place that people have to kill each other in the Name of the Sacred, I guess it might as well be me.

(Character), you are in this person’s life experience, correct?  They created you, right?_____  (Character), what aspect of this person do you represent or most closely personify?

The underlying ground of reality beneath drama: personal, political, social, cultural.

(Character,) if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change?  If so, how?

I don’t think so.  It is enough to be listened to, as I am now.  No one ever consults me to see what I think.  It’s all about them and what they do on me and what they don’t think should be done on me.  No one ever asks me MY opinion.  See, if I shook myself, for instance, to get their attention, they wouldn’t get the wake-up call, just like they misinterpret everything else in their lives, from their dreams to the intentions of each other.  So no.  I would keep my form, but people would come to me to interview me, not to fight over me or to tell me what I represent or to act stupid, which is mostly what they do.

(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)

(Character), how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing?  Why?

x

Confidence:          10 Nothing is going to change me, regardless of how much or how little blood they spill on me.  I don’t have anything to be afraid of.

Compassion:           9 Yeah.  I’m compassionate enough to be me and do my job.  I provide a context, a space in which man can mostly learn who he is not and what doesn’t work. There’s faster ways – man could interview me.  Someday he’ll wake up and start doing that.

Wisdom:                  9 I’m wise enough to not react to any of this.  I’m wise enough to know the difference between stupidity and ignorance.  What people do on me is mostly stupidity.  The information about what doesn’t work is out there.  They ignore it.  It’s not ignorance.  It’s stupidity.

Acceptance: 9 I probably sound judgmental to you.  Too bad.  I’m very accepting.

Inner Peace:              9 Tons of it.  But still able to send you a wake-up call in the form of this dream!

Witnessing: 10 What’s there not to witness?

(Character,) if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different?  If so, how?

No, not really.

How would the life of the person who created you be different if he/she naturally scored high in all six of these qualities all the time?

He wouldn’t do drama. He’d be way centered.  He would be a whole lot more powerful because he would know who he is and act like it.

If you could live the life of the person who created you for him, how would you live it differently?

I wouldn’t be concerned about the stupid things that he does or that go on in his life.  So what? They come, they go!  Focus instead on waking up, and the best way to do that is to listen to me.  I am the Foundation of the Sacred.

Yeah, but not for everyone.  Just the three Western monotheisms.

I personify the sacred that is obscured by the drama triangle.

If you could live this person’s waking life for him today, would you handle his three life issues differently?  If so, how?

Just work at listening more.  Just work at applying in your life what you hear and learn.  Leave the results to themselves.

What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his/her life?

The above.

In what life situations would it be most beneficial for this person to imagine that they are you and act as you would?

Whenever he finds himself in drama: fighting with himself or with life or with others.  Trying to rescue himself or someone else.  Being passive.

Why do you think that you are in this person’s life?

To wake him up, of course!

How is this person most likely to ignore what you are saying to them?

By not doing the above.

What would you recommend that they do about that?

More regular interviewing. Read them over.  Work at taking more recommendations to heart.

I think this person had this dream because

It shows him the stupidity of focusing on the conflicts in his life as if they were real or substantial.  Compared to me, they are neither.

I think this dream event happened or (some character) was in the dream because…

He is presently at a place where he does not identify with internal conflict much, and it’s over quickly and relatively painlessly, but it’s still there.  I’m about taking that to the next level.  I’m about disidentifying totally with the natural and inevitable conflicts of life.

What have you heard yourself say?

Hmmmm…that the sacred in me thinks the dramas that occupy my waking mind are stupid, because I know better.  That if I want to give them up, I need to become the Temple Mount part of myself.

If this experience were a wake-up call from your soul, what do you think it would be saying to you?

To make the dramas of life irrelevant in the context of the power and eternity of my actual beingness, which is life itself, without real identity.

Nov 24, 2009

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• Dream, Religion

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