HBO Conversation Show #8 Ego and Faith - The Struggle by Levy Rivers

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HBO Conversation Show #8 Ego and Faith - The Struggle

Posted on Mar 7th, 2007 by

This is the 8th show I've prepared for the blog talk network. In it I will focus on the struggle addicts experience in making life decisions. It is also an introduction to Changed Life's educational program that combines the use of social media and positive coaching skill building in a program that will be introduced in the coming weeks here in Chicago. To sign up please send an email

A Scared YES

What is most difficult is I dare to take all things as my will and exult in my strength and deny myself the calmness of Thy Grace. There are great changes that come about in the darkest hours where there is, despite my claims, no memory of hope and the encircling gloom is terrifying to the heart. It is this difficulty where the tussle takes Repose

me. Calmness in the midst of chaos, serenity in the midst of feverish activity is on one side. On the other is my ego that takes pride in climbing high mountains to tempt the tempter, feeds on the acorns and grass of knowledge and for the sake of community, suffering a hunger in my soul with a glint of haughtiness. There must be a secret that all commanders know, the secret revealed in crisis, that the soul that is calm with controlled emotion is performing an act of faith – the battle continues.

Doubt and Faith

"We think having faith means being convinced God exists in the same way we are convinced a chair exists. People who cannot be completely convinced of God's existence think faith is impossible for them. Not so. People who doubt can have great faith because faith is something you do, not something you think. In fact, the greater your doubt the more heroic your faith."

Ego and Spirituality

At every corner the ego stands and tries to attract attention to itself. Recently I have been doing this trying to attract visitors to this this radio blog and will continue to so. I might never realize the distinction between what my ego demands and my faith requires. The struggle is to see beyond the power trip to realize I am doing well, even if I don’t realize the success my will demands. My life as a blogger often sees me becoming a mind-droid until I notice it. I stop searching for the links for the purpose of recognition; I stop writing articles to attract links and write from the heart. When what you do is both your life's ambition and your job needing to attract attention it is difficult to not to fall into calling the effort a ego trap.

Desire

Steve Pavlina describes struggle to move your mind from a place of willing to a place of Grace as channeling.

Channeling is similar to automatic writing, except that you aim to tune into a spirit guide, deceased person, astral entity, or some other non-physical being. You ask questions and allow their answers to flow through you. If that explanation is too new agey for you, then just think of it as a conversation with a projection of your subconscious mind. In my creative process I begin with Howard Thurman then let the spirit of is word rush through my mind until some stick or spark other words that I take and engage.

Steve Pavlina describes desire as

Ultimately the nature of desire is to help you raise your awareness and bring you back to love. He says that you can truly have whatever it is you desire. It is not the nature of the universe to deny your wants.

When the universe fulfills some of your desires, in even the smallest degree, how do you receive them?

Do you disdain them?
Do you wish you never wanted them?
Or do you accept them with appreciation and gratitude?

How you receive these gifts will determine how they continue to come into your life

Desire for Sex

Caveh Zahedi's 2005 film "I am a Sex Addict" includes interweaving personal narratives, historical and cultural asides, meta narrative reflections, recursive recounting of events, pseudo-documentary expositions and re-enactments. The narrator is engaging and personable, revealing his weaknesses and faults, yet engaging us with his honesty and courage, while still exposing his ignorance. It leads to me wonder how I often mask my own desires and needs, if only we all were so honest (but then he is never truly honest with himself, no matter how desperately he tries)? This is a philosophical film about addiction.

We are presented with the full enactment of his so-called true desire, he is with an Asian prostitute and he finally acts out his aggressive sexuality and feeling somewhat guilty is amazed that she pats him on the ass and says come again… having someone, anyone seeing you for what you are, beneath all of those layers, and having them accept it, or at least not be horrified… is exhilarating and liberating for him; of course, any thinking person must question this exchange, it is so loaded with inequality, perhaps intentionally so?

In this we realize that this is his exchange with a prostitute and the ugly nature of the exchange, but still it speaks to the anxieties we all suffer in letting our suppressed nature/needs becoming “completely” exposed (as is my desire to promote my blogs and radio program) and the dsyfuntional/abusive outlets that result from repression. Did sex become linked to power or did power link itself to sex (and in a capitalist world we are talking about money, for some drugs, material goods, and other means)? Or is it more likely that power was and is present in all relationships meaning that it can not be escaped no matter how we frame the question.

Serve Somebody

Do You Really Want to Be Happy?

An in depth article in Sunday's New York Times adds to the growing list of recent reports on the psychology of happiness and they say what I've known for a long time: the widespread belief held by average Americans that the pursuit of happiness is the same thing as the pursuit of really cool stuff, especially when it's on sale, is just not cutting it for most people. As the article states, there is a difference between feeling good, which according to positive psychologists only creates a hunger for more pleasure — they call this syndrome the hedonic treadmill — and doing good, which can be taught on the way to a life of thriving..

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HBO Conversation Show #8 Ego and Faith - The Struggle

A Scared YES

Doubt and Faith

Ego and Spirituality

Desire

Desire for Sex

Serve Somebody

Do You Really Want to Be Happy?

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HBO Conversation Show #8 Ego and Faith - The Struggle

A Scared YES

Doubt and Faith

Ego and Spirituality

Desire

Desire for Sex

Serve Somebody

Do You Really Want to Be Happy?

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Inspire

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