Trust me, I seek to fulfill myself spiritually everyday, regardless if I have some emotional pain or need... For me, it is as essential as food. A certain kind of spiritual food...served in the form of kriya and meditation is healing my current emotional problem. It takes time, and I have to be the one to change. The kriya won't change me...

Who said spiritual balance means not offending? BS!!! I don't mind saying, I felt pretty darn good...when the last thing I wrote to him was this:


Talk about a double whammy! First you suck up to me and then attempt to diminish me. In psychological speak, this is known as a "double bind", which has been proven to result in schizophrenia and even multiple personality type psychotic disorder in children. In laymans's terms, you offer the candy before slapping the face.

No, I have no interest in any discourse with you .. civil or otherwise. There is nothing between us. Carry on your "gaslighting" techniques with a new party.

I felt pretty good, because I thought I had offended him...but in reality someone like this can not be offended, because he has no conscious. So I lost! Anyone who thinks he/she can spar with a sociopath and win, is wrong...you will always loose that game.

The best you can do is "succeed".... Become great at something...because a sociopath spents his time putting his victim down, making her/him feel inferior. not worthy. The best advice I received was from a very good friend (Buddahist) that told me to just laugh....and he made me laugh, until I was really cracking up. You know what? I felt so renewed... A few weeks ago I was listening to Christine Amanpour speak to the Dalai Lama..and he does the same. He laughs... he laughs at the the problems the Chinese cause Tibetans...

I suppose, if there is evil, it exists in a sociopath... the lack of any conscious is as evil as I have ever encountered... This guy is an ordinary charming "joe".... He isn't a serial killer or common criminal.. He simply uses people to exist and travel through life.

I solved my issues with a similar person through divorce but what really did the trick was moving really far away.. but in the process of healing.. I didn't just re-discover myself, I left it all behind.. the illusions, the masks, the.. self that allowed that situation to occur. Well.. I began that process of purging.. It was a period of intense internal inventory-ing (new word).. that hasn't ended. I, too, turned to the spiritual to guide that healing.. instead of turning to the 'I' the 'we' was allowed .. the sheer magnificent benevolance of this universe.. God.. (I call it :)) is too amazing for me to articulate.. From that one decision.. I can't even begin to describe the joy and peace that flowed into my life.

namaste CG

I'm going to fall back, regroup, take a deep breath and dive in.

BB, what do you mean by spiritual? Do you mean something God-given or something inside you that you can't understand, God-given or not, either because you've never felt the 'need' to do so or you don't accept 'it' (whatever 'it' is) as a science?

BB, my last response was a bit hurried as i was leaving town... Yes, ultimately one of my own goals is not to choose to offend. Offense requires instigation. In my particular incidence I was more or less defending myself...and as you suggested I was also offending. Did I do both at the same time? Yes, I guess so..and for a reason. If I "appeared" defensive to my opponent, then he would have viewed me as weak..and probably his predictable reaction would have been to sneer at me. As it turned out, my response accomplished twofold, it caught him off guard...proving to him I am not the door mat he assumed...and that I am not to be under estimated. Sociopaths do not live within the structure of society.. and get away with their behavior, because they are never corrected or offended. So, yes, he fears I will "tell"....and he is right, I have told..and will continue to tell on him. Perhaps this will spar a life from his entrapment... I hope so.

So, yes, I offended him...my efford being "survival of the species". Survival of the fittest does not mean each individual survives... it means the species survives and we need to be ONE (WE) to survive....working synergestically with one another. Various animals in the animal kingdom when attacked by predators will guard each other...several will even sacrifice their lives to the predators so the rest of the pack or flock can survive. IF each member of that same pack were only concerned about his survival the pack as whole would eventually decrease.

If you were on an island alone with a sociopath...he would stab you in the back to survive. Someone else (none socio path) would take care of you and you would take care of her...likewise. Hence, your species would survive. Sociopaths are rogues... and others within my community need to know the results of dealing with people like the friend/business associate I once had.

Auric pain? Co-dependence is created when we identify with someone else to the extent that the boundaries between us have faded . We are serious addicted if we feel threatened and anxious by the loss of the relationship, regardless whether the relationship is of lovers, business or jsut friendship...or even parents or siblings.

If we feel like we will not survive if our merger with our friend is terminated and does....the temporary euphoric feeling of friendship is interrupted by painful shocks that hurt like no other wound. Being ripped apart from a substance like alcohal or drugs.. or a lover or friend creates what is called an auricpain. Only the 'real thing' can heal. The "real thing" being what Wanderingspryte describes in her quest for recovery....looking at WE and not I.... It takes time and active participation to recover from a this type of shock.

I guess I used my own example...because sociopaths do not have a conscious, and it is your conscious that is required for spiritual development. I was hoping the definition of what is "spirit" would make more sense to you if I used an example of what is not...

WS,
Thank you for sharing your insight and experience. I am not in a position to move..and the friend business associate was not my husband, nor did we share a lover's bond. I can't imagine how difficult being married to a soicopath must have been for you. My own relationship without the added bonding was hard enough..

I do travel quite a bit...and I will appreciate my future trips and not take them for granted. In fact I am away right now..in a beautiful Canadian city, enjoying all around me... When I return home, I will have an improved perspective.

Yes, it is very hard to self analyze ourselves.... to strip away the facades and ask ourselves "what" part of my being allowed me to be part of this relationship? I'm using some of this time while away to ask myself this qustion... For myself, I have become self absorbed over the past several years.... It doesn't appear this way as I have spent my time saying good bye to my mother and sister who died within two years of one another...to helping my brother with several problems and addressing my own husband who has also has a plethora of medical issues he is overcoming. Underneath this facade of caring...was a my own self buried....my own needs buried....and I was "ripe" for a toxic relationship...


Yes, WS, turning to the We has set me on the course we should be as humans together... The meaning of "united" being real to me. I continue to purge the I...

Namaste WS! Sat Nam..."we" are united.

Tell that to Galileo.

If anything it was started by the rediscovery of ancient Western knowledge by the Muslims, which in turn sparked the Renaissance in the West, when Westerners re-encountered their forgotten knowledge via the Muslims.

The Church was a fierce enemy of science for the most part.

If you look at any history of Europe you will see the Church started and encouraged modern education including science. "The cleric could at least read and write, was familiar with Latin and had enough arithmetic to calkculate the date of Easter and was often accustomed to the sedentary toil which is necessary to the regular despatch of business"Fisher [iA History of Europe). "The Society of Jesus , the Jesuits, became one of the greatest teaching and missionary societies the world has ever seen....It raised the standard of education throughout the Catholic world, it raised the level of Catholic intelligence and quickened the Catholic conscience everywhere, it stimulated Protestant Europe in a competitive education efforts"H.G Wells A short History of the World. .

It is true that lay education and culture was eclipse by the waves of Teutonic barbarism.. The Church with the help of the Muslims kept education alive during the Dark Ages.There were many orders like the Dominicans and Jesuits founded to equip the church for intellectural combat.Great minds like Thomas Aquinas and Albert the great emerged from this movemement.It is true that in the later Middle Ages the Church saw their main enemy in the new learning of the Renasiance. However they did sponsor people like Michangelo and Da Vinci.The first astronomy post was formed in the Vatican.

If the church got involved in interlectual disputes it at least shows they were interested in science. Why was Galileo tried as a hectic if the church felt what he said had no relationship to religion. The church was wrong in this case but so was the scientists of that time.

Education? Yes, in the Middle Ages the Church was in control of the universities, but we were discussing science not education. Church needed its clergy to be able to read Latin but it certainly was not going to teach something that would undermine its authority.

Yes the Church did sponsor artists, like other wealthy patrons did at the time.

Myrddin, I amnot sure what you mean by science. It started of as a form 0f speculation similar to arts or philosphy. It also involve maths. Astronomy is surely a science.

Where the conflict developed was when people like Charles Darwin used his findings to attack religion. Freud moved in the same direction.
Science including evolution is taught today in all Catholic schools.
The church has accepted the fidings of science to modify some doctrines.
All it says that a small part of belief is outside things that can be proven by science.

I've never heard of this before. Could you give some specifics and maybe some references regarding Darwin's alleged attacks on religion?