sparklekaz
Someone asked me.. What is your religion? I said, "All the paths that lead to the light".
Posts: 3,658
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Post by sparklekaz on Mar 15, 2013 21:06:46 GMT
Have you ever heard a story so powerful that it reverberated loudly through your interior landscape? Or it stopped you cold in your tracks and made you think – hard – about your life? I want to share a story with you about a very special person, his name is David Chethlahe Paladin. I hope it resonates with you as it did with me. David Chethlahe Paladin is a Navaho Indian living on a reservation in Arizona. David would laughingly say that his mother was a nun, and his father was a priest. It turns out his mother became pregnant by a visiting priest. She, in turn, decides to become a nursing nun and leaves her son in the care of the extended family of the tribe.
David and his cousin spend a great deal of time leaving the reservation and going into town. They drink a lot, and they think life is better in the white man’s world. The local constabulary is forever returning the boys to the reservation. By the time David is 13 years of age, he is an alcoholic.
David and his cousin decide that this time they are going to make it off the reservation – and they do. They find their way to California, wherein they lie about their ages and sign up for work with the Merchant Marines. During this time, David befriends another young man from Germany. He also begins drawing; some of his sketches include the eventual bunkers that the Japanese are building on the atolls in the Pacific Ocean.
World War II is declared. The US Army tells David that since he lied about his age with the Merchant Marines he has a choice. He can go to jail for a year or enlist in the army. David enlists. He is a teenager.
The army tells David as he is a Navaho, they are going to drop him behind enemy lines and use him as an information gatherer in their special services. David, using his native language, is to relay his findings to another Navaho in the army. Their language becomes a code that the Germans are unable to crack, much less decipher.
David is dropped behind enemy lines. Ultimately, he is captured and interrogated for information. The German officers find him useless and direct that he be sent to a death camp and executed as a spy.
Imagine, if you will, the scenes we all have invariably seen of the railroad station and the platform filled with lines of prisoners being pushed into box cars for transport to the camps.
Here is David. He is being pushed and shoved into a boxcar. There is German soldier behind him saying “{italic}Schnell, schnell{/italic}” (quick, quick). David stops, turns around and looks at the German soldier. It is his friend from the merchant ship. The friend recognizes David and ushers him to a different box car that will send David to Dachau.
In the barracks at Dachau, David sees an older man, a fellow prisoner, drop something. David bends down to retrieve it. The guard, who has witnessed this moment, asks David, “Are you the Christ?”
The guard, then, orders that David’s feet be nailed to the floor and that David stand there with his arms outstretched for three days like Christ on the cross. Every time David would falter and crumple the guards would hoist him up again.
In the middle of the night, someone would sneak in and cram raw, maggot-covered chicken innards into David’s mouth.
When the Allies open up this camp, they find David a mere shell of a man, weighing maybe 70 pounds, and speaking Russian*. They turn David over to the Russians. David later speaks English and gives his name, rank and serial number to the Russians who transfer him back to the US military.
David is sent to a VA hospital in Battle Creek Michigan where he spends the next 2 years in a coma. At the end of two years, his legs are encased in metal braces, similar to what polio patients used. David, a young man, maybe not even 21 years of age, is to be sent to a VA home for the rest of his life.
David asks if he can visit his family on the reservation. The answer is, “Of course.” David literally drags himself onto the reservation. He meets with the elders of tribe. They ask to hear his whole story. David tells them every horrible thing that he endured. He is full of anger, rage and hate.
The elders confer and tell David to meet them tomorrow at a designated point on the Little Colorado River. David agrees and at the appointed hour he arrives. One of the elders tethers a rope around his waist; others remove the braces from his legs. They hoist David up into the air and as they throw him into the raging current of the Little Colorado River, they say, “Chethlahe, call back your spirit or die. Call back your spirit or die.”
And, that, dear readers, is what I think healing is all about for each of us. It is calling home our energy; it is calling home our disenfranchised pieces and parts. It is reclaiming ourselves.
In David’s case, it was releasing all the rage and pain that coursed through his system. It was moving into a place of release, a release catalyzed by forgiveness that allowed him to have the energy to move his withered legs and to reclaim his essential life force.
Those six words, “Call back your spirit or die,” are so powerful to me. They are a mantra for healing and transformation. They are a call to wholeness.
David would later say that those moments in the Little Colorado River were the very hardest of his life. He had to fight himself for himself. "Calling back my spirit, was the most difficult thing I have ever undertaken. It was more difficult then having my feet nailed to the floor. I saw the faces of those Nazi soldiers, I lived through all those months in the prison camp. I knew that I had to release my hatred and anger. I could barely keep myself from drowning, but I prayed to let the anger out of my body. That's all, I prayed, and my prayer's were answered."
David reported he was able to see the big picture; he understood why things unfolded as they did. For example, he realized that the raw chicken parts were meant as a source of protein to sustain him so that he might live.
David Paladin was thrown into the river as a very broken – and broken on every level -- man. And David emerged out of the Little Colorado River like the phoenix out of the ashes. He had metaphorically walked through the fire, or, in this case, swum through the currents, and had come out alive. He was born again.
To my understanding, David did not need his braces anymore, and he went on to work with priests and addicts. He became a shaman, a teacher and an artist. He died in his middle years in the mid ‘80s. David Chetlahe Paladin, radiated a quality of power, that felt like grace itself. Having survived a confrontation with the darkest side of power, he transcended the darkness, he spent the rest of his life healing and inspiring people, to 'call back their power' from experiences that drain the life force from their bodies.Not many people realise that every thought, deed and experience throughout their lives, imprints itself upon the energy of the body. Anything that goes against our inner beliefs and moral compass. Anything negative that we think and do, and the affects of negativity directed towards us. Good and bad, all either empower or disempower us. Toxic relationships, with others and with ourselves, all drain the body of life force, which is absolutely vital for health. Emotionally, physically and spiritually. This story, illustrated for me just how important it is to release ourselves from the negative emotions of the past. I would love to hear your thoughts about this story. Love and light Kaz
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Post by skydalon on Mar 16, 2013 0:40:17 GMT
fantastic inspirational story Kaz great stuff, thanks for taking the time to share that
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Post by aceofcups on Mar 16, 2013 7:46:42 GMT
Thank you Kaz,, very powerful story..... It made me also want to look up some of his art work..found a few pieces on-line I would like to share here.peace aceofcups
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Ishtahota
The one question that anwsers all other questions. Who am I?
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Post by Ishtahota on Mar 16, 2013 11:45:56 GMT
When you hate someone who has hurt you or others around you that you care about, you think about them. You think about what they did to you in the past and what you might do in the future. You are not living in the now. That is your personal power or life force, or your spirit that you put on a silver platter and then you gave it to your enemy. It is very literally a piece of yourself. If you can see into that energetic part of life you can see energy travel from one person to another.
When we do not know source we get power from outside of self. From drugs, alcohol, sex, money, control over other people and so on. Gathering personal power and reclaiming the authentic self, getting power from source on the inside and not from the outside is a must if we want to make a spiritual journey.
Gathering power unlocks knowledge and a deeper comprehension of that knowledge which is already in us all. Instead of guessing and learning, we simply know. Learning changes into remembering.
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Post by holistichealer on Mar 17, 2013 14:55:23 GMT
Most everyone who is spiritual, into metaphysics, etc., has heard the concept that "energy follows thought". This thread reminds me of that. David Paladin was placed into a literal "sink or swim" situation, in which he had to "swim" by regaining the focus of his thoughts and reclaiming the personal power that had been "leaking away", for lack of a better way to say it. Ishtahota made a very insightful comment regarding controlling your thoughts and referred to the energy behind them as "literally a piece of yourself". My personal spirituality could best be described as a mix of Gnosticism and Native American philosophies. And from the perspective of Gnostic Christianity (and I don't think that Jesus came here to start a religion), no one is a better representative of it than Sytlianos Atteshlis (a.k.a., "Daskalos", the subject of the book "The Magus of Strovolos" and two other books by the same author). Daskalos had a lot to say about this very subject. He said that thoughts are literal creations that we all continuously create, that have their own energy, which we supply. These thoughts are known in his vocabulary as "elementals", and elsewhere, often termed, "thought forms". Daskalos said that elementals operate under the law of "like attracts like". And as a result, the more we think of a certain thing, the larger the elemental of that idea becomes. Sounds a lot like the topic of this thread, doesn't it? Further, Daskalos said that there are two basic types of elementals: The ones we generate sort of accidentally- via random thoughts. And the ones we generate intentionally- as we learn the validity of the concept of elementals and begin to take responsibility for our thoughts. Taking this further, Daskalos said that our present personality is actually the sum- total of the elementals we generate. Elementals is a topic that Daskalos had a lot to say about. He spoke of it often and in detail. I quote: "Every thought, emotion and desire creates and transmits an elemental - also called thought-form - that carries on an existence of its own. We create and regenerate two types of elementals. When negative emotion prevails over thought, we have created emotional thought-forms, or desire-thoughts. When our ideas, desires and emotions pass through reason and love, we create reasoned thought-forms, or thought-desires. An elemental can never be destroyed, only disenergized (when no longer fed with etheric vitality). Elementals of a kind collect to form powerful group elementals. If an individual, or a collection of individuals, are vibrating at the same frequency, they will attract such group elementals. Archangels also create elementals (e.g. nature spirits and angels) in the service of the Divine Plan.
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"With appropriate training, we can project and direct etheric vitality from the etheric doubles of the bodies and send it over vast distances, and perform so-called miracles. To do this we can take part of the Mind-substance of etheric vitality, give it form and project it as a mental image, outside both our gross material body and our etheric double.
"This happens consciously when we form what we call "thought-desires", but unconsciously when we form "desire-thoughts". Jesus Christ called the latter "deaf and dumb spirits" (Mark 9:25). These two types of thought forms, because they are both living forms, we call "elementals".
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"With every thought, each glance, idea, distraction or feeling we create elementals. Even as we sleep, we are emitting elementals that will affect us and those around us.
"The elementals are emitted with an intensity corresponding to the strength of the desires which gave birth to them. When they have reached their goal and served their purpose, they return to their creator to be projected once again with ever increasing power. This procedure is repeated many times, creating within our personality, either a terrible environment of darkness if the elementals are of low degree, or a strong atmosphere of love if they are good thought-desires
"In the same way we can poison the material body by consuming harmful food, or can cleanse it by improving the way we care for it, so we poison or cleanse our personalities. This is how human character evolves."The above is a small excerpt from a much larger description Daskalos presented on the subject of "Elementals". More can be found here if you find this of interest: www.researchersoftruth.org/ELEMENTALS.htm
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Post by holistichealer on Mar 17, 2013 17:10:57 GMT
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sparklekaz
Someone asked me.. What is your religion? I said, "All the paths that lead to the light".
Posts: 3,658
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Post by sparklekaz on Oct 11, 2014 12:15:38 GMT
Dear Friends,
I have been looking back at some of my old posts and came across this one. The message behind the story is one that I needed to be reminded of, and feel it is something that will resonate with you all too. For those who have never read it before, I would like to hear your thoughts on it. For the ones who have read it before, but feel it is relevant for where they are at right now, or like me needed a reminder. I would like to hear your stories too.
Love and light Kaz
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Post by tribunalofmercy on Oct 11, 2014 16:07:01 GMT
Hi Kaz This story was very painful for me to read, but I made myself read it several times...I could not Possibly see myself as someone with the kind of Grasp of "tough love" as to throw someone into the river that way and mean those words... However, it is no coincidence that you pulled your thread from the depths Now, because my spirit guide Just declared "tough love" with me the other night (that whole spirit guide thing may souns strange, but he is like having a Live-in teacher, so). Being bipolar AND being the baby of my human family, I am an "undisciplined" sort, and must impose limits, constraints and deadlines on Myself on a continual basis or I will Never live up to Anyone's "expectations" (even though I said I Had none from the outside world, I have Many for myself. lol) ...Perhaps the better phrase is to feel I am Not "calling my true spirit out", my true nature, as long as I put my Own life-experience in the front of me, filling up my vision with all the manifestations of Useless energies (worldly desires in Any form) I have allowed to imprint while here....I so appreciated your last paragraph in the original story, Kaz. It's funny...there truly IS "no fear in love, (for) Perfect Love casts out fear" (1 John 4), yet a healthy dose of FEAR has gone a long way to making me who I Am, just because I have Forced it on myself. I come from a long line of passive-aggressive family, co-dependents and enablers, and at one point in my life I could truly say I had Never done anything "hard" in my Life. Many people look at my life and don't see that; they see me doing hard things all the time, but those things are not hard for "me". The things that truly Are difficult for me, that require me to put forth Effort and strength of Will, I have avoided whenever possible. And this shames me...it has only been in the past 3 years I have Forced myself into the water, sometimes Without the rope or safety net, and told Myself something similar: "Call forth your spirit - or Else." 'To whom much is given...much shall be required'... *sigh* Thank you again for sharing; I know I needed to think about this today. Love and Wisdom, Mary Anne
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Post by gruntal on Oct 11, 2014 23:04:06 GMT
I find it disconcerting to think of all the years I spent in study that won't last beyond the life time. The experiences were rarely if ever up to expectations. A waste of time? And yet it seems it is those very things - trivial things - that I was born to do. Things like the decisions I made; the burdens I bore; they were based on things that touched me in ways I did not realize at the time. Our sense of fairness is usually in real time.
Or we dismiss some things as merely distractions.
Now I am taught there is no statute of limitations. It is not so much punishment as it is working out what was so as to not to continue doing it. If you can not accomplish that in your life time it was not a life well spent.
Besides only in retrospect can a tragedy be differentiated from a hilarious hazing ritual ...
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donq
[img src="[storage.proboards.com/1400695/images/U0vmMtloGmL0onhnuezY.png"]
Posts: 1,276
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Post by donq on Oct 12, 2014 3:09:37 GMT
Hi Karen,
As I’m from Buddhist tradition, let me share you the following story. I heard it long time ago, but this is written in English by Bhikkhu Bodhi.
The story concerns the woman Kisagotami. She was a poor woman who had married into a wealthy family, but she did not bear children and was thus scorned by her in-laws. This made her very miserable. But after some time she conceived and gave birth to a son, who became for her the source of boundless joy. Now that she had brought forth an heir to their wealth, everyone else in her husband's family too accepted her. But a few months after his birth the child died, and Kisagotami became distraught. She refused to believe the boy was dead, but convinced herself he was only ill. Thus she went around everywhere asking people to give her medicine for her son. The townsfolk ridiculed her and abused her, calling her a mad woman, until she finally came into the presence of the Buddha. When she asked him for medicine, he did not give her an eloquent sermon on impermanence. He told her that he could indeed make some medicine for her son, but first she would have to bring him one ingredient: mustard seeds from a home where no one had ever died. Quite optimistic, she went from house to house, asking for mustard seeds. At each door people readily gave her seeds, but when she asked the donor whether anyone in that home had ever died, she was told, "Here a father has died, here a mother, here a wife, here a husband, a brother, a sister," and so on. She thus came to see that death is the universal fate of all living beings, not a unique calamity that befell her own son. So she returned to the Buddha, aware now of the universal law of impermanence. When the Master saw her coming he asked her, "Did you bring the mustard seeds, Gotami?" And she replied: "Done, sir, is this business of the mustard seeds. Grant me a refuge." The Buddha had her ordained as a nun, and after some time she realized the highest goal and became one of the most eminent nuns in the Bhikkhuni Sangha or Order of Nuns.
There’s a psychoanalytical term called, “abreaction” which is about reliving an experience in order to purge it of its emotional excesses; a type of catharsis. Sometimes it is a method of becoming conscious of repressed traumatic events. As for “Catharsis”, it means "purification" or "cleansing"; the purification and purgation of emotions—especially pity and fear—through art or any extreme change in emotion that results in renewal and restoration. Urh…Nay, that was too academic, right? I kind of like something more simple, like the saying, “the more you could belittle yourself (make yourself smaller), the more you would be happy.” I think it resonates the deep meaning, too. About our ego. How to purify our ego, that seems to be the goal in Buddhism (or any spirituality). “Let it go” has many layers of meaning: from letting go anything outward to anything inward. “Attachment “ versus “Detachment.” The world is as it is, on one can change it. The Dukka (suffering) arises when we try to change what cannot be changed, or try to hold on (cling to) what is changing. Oh! I was preaching. Sorry. Hahaha. What I try to say is any spiritual work need to be done, too. As a Chinese proverb said, “A roast duck will never fly into anyone’s mouth by itself.” Whatever problem we have, we have to deal with it and fix it. And don’t ever think that “my problem is bigger than yours” as it’s not true. Never! There are always millions of people out there who have more bigger/serious problems than us. This is the fact.
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Post by beverley on Oct 14, 2014 11:06:53 GMT
What a moving and uplifting story. How fortunate that his Elders were wise.
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Post by baangus on Oct 15, 2014 0:32:46 GMT
Love the title of this thread, so inspired. My spirit (higher self) called me back in this life. I was sound asleep there for the first 2-3 decades. Age 29 I was sitting alone one afternoon when a voice called my name, twice, then told me what I needed to do with myself. In a very real way I have since spent my life healing, and finding beauty and inspiration in this world. That was a true 'call back to power' experience for me.
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Post by hemantm on Oct 17, 2014 9:23:57 GMT
Wow what an inspirational story thanx for posting such a story. Looking forward to see more stories like this. Keep posting
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