Throughout my time working in the music and entertainment industry, and to a lesser extent in the world of religion/spirituality and other walks of life, I have encountered many, many people motivated completely by selfishness, egotism, and greed.  These people are often extremely focused, personable, outgoing, talented, and hard working. But, underneath that, is fiery, unquenchable and blinding pain. 
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This pain is so unbearable that it prevents people like this from being not only not being able to understand the difference between true compassionate intention, harmless ignorance, and actual malevolence, but actually interpreting harmless and well-intended things as personal attacks - in fact, *everything* is a personal attack or threat, unless it directly bolsters their sense of pride.

They often develop what Bill Hamilton describes as something like ‘psychotic / paranoid omniscience’ or something like that. Essentially they develop some sort of siddhis / sensitivities that allow them to sense very well when someone can ‘see through’ their charade.  

When this sense is activated,  they either flee, or they react angrily and often violently.  They feel very little or no shame or ‘real’ pain - the kind that hurts in a good way.  People around them get hurt constantly, and their lives become a series of travesties, moving out of one battle into the next. 

It is through this siddhi (or, sometimes, just through luck and circumstances entirely out of their control) that many of these types find success, sometimes tremendous success.  Because they have found a way to play into the baser and more shallow natures of humanity from a sociological/societal perspective, to their advantage, and to perhaps a much lesser and ultimately vapid 'advantage' (really, extreme harm) to those who support them and look up to them.

A wonderfully simple metaphor that can be used to describe this phenomenon, from Chris (maybe echoed from one of his teachers?):

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

I’ve seen some crazy crazy and scary shit. And unfortunately I myself have done some crazy and scary shit. A large part of process of awakening (which is obviously still ongoing) is coming to terms with, growing past, and improving upon the behaviors and underlying biological factors that have caused me to act in crazy shitty ways. And I still definitely feel the need to constantly be checking myself, because I mess up and I have much to learn.

It is because of people like this that ‘normal people’ have to treat genuine kindness with suspicion and/or are unable to see it around them. The same reason they treat any talk of 'awakening' or 'spirituality' with suspicion. They have no choice but to treat it with suspicion, for purposes of survival. It is an immense privilege to be able to take a risk when there is a possibility of being hurt - and many (like, perhaps, myself) take such risks when they really shouldn't.

At the same time, I think that when something is expressed in a truly obvious and genuine way, that comes from a place of depth and honesty, it becomes more clear for others to understand.

As I sit here thinking about these people that I have encountered throughout my life (unfortunately including members of my own family), and feel sympathy and sadness for them and wish that they may find a way past their issues, but also a sense of calmness and certainty within myself, even when I think about the times where I have myself acted in ways where I have not respected boundaries, unintentionally (or intentionally) hurt people, I feel cautiously confident that I have stumbled upon a beautiful truth that is not dependent on any person, place, thing, or idea, but is simply always there, waiting to be cultivated.

I will continue to check in here, on my log (maybe time for a new one?) a bit less frequently maybe, over the next few months, as this calmness is challenged and tested and report in.

Too much? Maybe… 

If it is, please let this be harmlessly ignored and practice and progress continue undisturbed and peacefully. 

If not, let this perhaps resonate from across the singularity, a gentle nod in acknowledgment of ‘getting it’It can be quite rare to find those that do.

But if anywhere to share, this is the place. And it just feels so good to get this out.
So Thank you for being a place where things like this can be shared. Even if it’s woo woo or raises alarms and what not.  Thank you. And I apologize if this is crossing boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed.

I guess this is my ‘manifesto’ for the time being. Now I think I need to take a step back, listen, and spend some time cultivating acceptance and gratitude, while at the same time, investigating and acknowledging the subtle sense of self and the grasping that is still present. right now at least, the subtleness is a bit more obvious, and it is more clear than ever before where I need to go from here. 

(bows)

Any feedback, advice, or etc is humbly welcomed. Metta
John

(EDIT: I had originally titled this My "Manifesto" but then realized that first of all that is not really the correct word for what this is, but also has certain connotations that might be off putting due to... historical factors.  

So, retitled 'attainment' or whatever. I dunno it's just how I feel! Lol
i don't know what word to use.
Sorry for the confusion)

Also, of course; open to any questions around phenomenological presentation / tech speak / methodology / history / etc etc

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I can definitely relate to this 100%. Like I got started meditating from a place of tremendous pain, and at first nothing happens. But then you stick with it and bit by bit you start to see how it's created, how trying to avoid your pain or end the burning feeling of craving drives you to do all sorts of things in life. You start to see that you're a ship on the ocean being blown around by the winds of desire and aversion. Over time though, you learn how to just be with them, and the strength of those forces dwindles. 

Finally you can breath a bit. But with more space and clarity you look around and see lots of other people being blown around and not even realizing it. Then the question comes up, what can you do? For me, I just try to help out in ways I can - listening, if they are a yogi help to encourage there practice or give them bits of advice that really helped me when I was where they were. I remember one time I went on a sutta retreat, and the monks picked out a bunch of suttas where the Buddha talks to lay people. His advice usually had nothing to do with meditation, I suspect because on some level he knew they wouldn't do it, but instead was things about saving money well but not hoarding or being stingy, marrying basically within your age and socioeconomic class so you're not stressed about not being good enough for your spouse, don't drink booze or you might become and alcoholic and ruin your life, and things like this. It's interesting when you hear some accounts from arhants, where they talk about how sometimes time and space pops into and out of existence, and they are completely nondual wrt their senses, and all this crazy shit - then to see the king of kings basically walking around and just giving people like mundane self help advice. 

Man. I'm glad you can relate. And of
course - every single person feels that pain. Every living thing feels that pain.

But most people, everyone really, also feels the other side of it, the warmth and the gratitude and the desire for happiness for yourself and others-not necessarily like a clinging desire but just the wishful lovingkindness. If you're here and you're working on yourself you're almost certainly feeling it / have felt it / can feel it.

and how to express or share it -- sheesh, that's a tough one. Like Bill says 'I've got a pot of gold that nobody wants'.
In my personal experience- its a challenge - most of my friends are not religious or spiritual at all. It feels weird talking about spirituality even a little bit, cause people get weirded out and uncomfortable. Which sometimes makes it difficult for me. But at the same time, the same thing can be expressed without spiritual language. Using the language of nature, or of the mundane, for example. There's really no need for spiritual language a lot of the time.

thanks for chiming in.
I'm getting all mushy mushy now. I need to go do some cartwheels or something. Haha

Very nicely put. 

Yes, lots of wounded geniuses out there who think they are great because they are geniuses but do everything they can to hide (and not "own" and fix) their woundedness.

And developmentally all of us are wounded in the context of love. Parents and friends and lovers hurt us the most particularly because they were supposed to be parents and friends and lovers but they betrayed us (which probably has an origin in them being betrayed by parents and friends and lovers). So it makes complete sense to be wary when love or goodness or wisdom or kindness is presented to us, because that was also the context for our wounds.

All of us have been wounded and have wounded others in the past, but now is now. What do you do now? 

Ultimately, the conscience knows what to do, or at least what to try next. It is important to try. Stop waiting for perfect understanding and confidence, and instead just try your best based on what you know right now. If mistakes get made while listening to our conscience, then the result is a more finely tuned conscience --- which is what we want and need. If we ignore our conscience and just try to get by and do something that's "good enough", then we miss an opportunity to develop and refine our conscience. Life is very short and the art of healing and awakening is long...

It is very very very very amazing that there is an inner wisdom/intelligence in us that can "smell" the "perfume" of wisdom or goodness of others. It is very bizzare how you can read the words of others of some teachers and smell the wisdom comming off of it. Even sometimes when you don't understand the actual words or the lived experience of what is being described, the smell can be there. It's like a trail that's layed down by others, that awakes/feeds us along the way.

And it can't be faked, not really. Eventually the initially seductive teachings of a deranged teacher smell a bit rank. (They give off the same toxic smell as the narcissist genius that "feeds" off of others...)  It's very important to stop and get away when this happens. Many cults teach some true wisdom initially to get you hooked, and then slowly begin the exploitation of its followers...

Ultimately there is no way that we can be "teached" anything about healing our wounds or awakening our minds --- we simply have to stumble along and learn the solutions for our self. We need to take and reject words and advice according to our own path. I wish it was easy and I wish it was universal and I wish that someone could "do it for us" --- but just isn't that simple. It really is a personal journey we have to take for ourselves. But the great thing about it is it is a personal journey we get to take for ourselves.

Best wishes!!

Well I think a lot of talented people think that their talents come from their pain. For example I've heard a lot of comedians think that if they quit drinking or drugs they won't be funny anymore. The logic seems to be better to rule as a titan with a shot to become a god than wallow as a mortal.

One good thing about (not)experiencing cessation (SE path moment) is it shows you that mortal or not-existence is not a scary thing at all. Once this is realized then clinginess to realms is not that strong, not as sticky. Sure thing the 2nd path will teach another aspect of thisness unfolding but the main fear of oblivion, not-existing, mortal, dead, ... is not a big issue and as such opens up the possibility to look at arise-passing stuff in maybe a different way. Maybe it will result in a bit more patience and curiosity for what is, rather than what I wish it should be.

Not sure if this makes sense. Its ok if it doesn't. Just move on  

Just to add one aspect; one can cling to emptiness after realizing that not-existence is not that scary really. So the existence-experience could become the unwanted aspect and aversion to existing could take place. So desire for just being gone, dead, the idea of pari-nibbana can feel like a nice thing without suffering, but this too is clinging big time! Clinging to emptiness. 

And here we continue to learn about the 2nd Noble Truth. (all)Clinging leads to Suffering. We go down the 2nd Path to learn the lesson here. 

Best wishes! 

“Stop waiting for perfect understanding and confidence, and instead just try your best based on what you know right now. If mistakes get made while listening to our conscience, then the result is a more finely tuned conscience --- which is what we want and need.”

Thanks Shargrol, as always, and this pretty much hits the nail on the head as to where I am right now (Review?) and part of the reason behind posting this in the first place.

It’s tough talking about how you feel, whether that’s using spiritual language or not. But when you’re talking about ‘enlightenment’ or ‘realization’ it’s especially difficult. In my case it is often (almost always) it’s better to not talk about it. What resonates and is understood positively by one person may send another running for the hills. So, I feel vulnerable and hesitant, uncertain when it comes to self expression a lot of the time.

On the one hand, it’s like, why do you have to talk about awakening at all. You can use whatever language, for me obviously just songwriting. But on the other hand, is it really a good reason not to talk about ‘thisness’ for example, because it may freak out one or two people even if you are coming from a genuine place?  Especially when a lot of the time people get freaked out simply because it brings up things that they are uncomfortable with within themselves, that probably *should* be thought about?

People talk about ‘thisness’ all the time using other language, why is it a problem to talk about it directly too every once in a while if you want to?

I mean, how are you supposed to talk about it? You have to say something. 
So yeah, it’s just part of the learning process, it’s messy and you’ll make mistakes along the way (I already have). And as you can see, something I’m actively working out. I could go on but, anyway…

Thanks For the encouragement all

(PS hmm this seems kinda similar to where I was a couple of years ago but... different hmmm)

@Geoffrey
Yeah that makes a lot of sense. Ultimately like shargrol said I think it's more about the karma ... most often broken family situations etc. Can some of them grow and maybe even be cured? Sure, maybe, anything's possible, but they will probably hurt more people along the way.  And you shouldn't hold your breath.

@Sir Papa - I think that is helpful and I will keep thinking about it, thank you sir!