Some thoughts upon wandering through Work forums on the internet

I've recently been going around the 'net to various Fourth Way sites and forums and reading bits here and there. It causes unique reactions for me. I mean feelings, thoughts. Much of what I find on the 'net doing this comes across as helter skelter, almost hellish in a sense. And you find the usual forum nonsense. The control, banning (not me, I havn't been participating, but of people who are not conforming to the moderator's program, all that). The usual nonsense.

The usual scent of cult activity and personalities not far away, if not directly present (though that seems rare on the internet).

It also makes me question my own relationship with the Work. I saw one comment that referred to "B Influence junkies" and wondered if I'd fallen and rested comfortably a bit into that characterization.

But more deeply questions of connection come to the fore; that vertical connection that was once so real.

It seems that when I was in that connection I didn't realize how I was viewed by the world (and really didn't care). But I know now.

I think what my parents must have thought (but strangely I seemed to in some way have brought them along with it, evidence being my father's talking of recurrence on his death bed). In their old age they were kind of living in a timeless realm anyway at that point. Their past life, and eras of their lives were pretty far away at that point, and they were static, in the same house at the end for years, same chairs, same routine.

The fact is, you're going to effect your entire family when you truly change internally and develop to some real degree. Without realizing it of course because that is not part of your motive or anything you are aware of at the time.

I think prayer to the Holy Spirit for guidance here is in order. At this stage. We rarely think of praying directly to God the Holy Spirit, yet He it is that guides us in our sanctification after regenerating us and after our conversion.

That's really what is going on, perhaps. A larger stage (as in theatre) is reached. (I always seem to want to spell theatre the English way when I use the word like that.)

Just as in the past when I had a real connection I wasn't aware of it being real spiritual warfare, at least not directly, yet then that aspect comes to the fore in a big way. A bigger stage. Less innocence.

Before I didn't have the armor of God, let alone the full armor of God. Now I am conscious of needing the full armor of God.

The Holy Spirit doesn't abandon us, yet graduation seems real regarding stages of the Work. That can't be denied.

I can walk down the same roads, metaphorically speaking, as I did back then, doing the Work, yet the difference I have to recognize is the spiritual warfare nature of it. I've sort of recognized that in the last several years, yet I've not been walking those old roads like of old. I've just been recognizing spiritual warfare in everyday life experiences, including more rare experiences.

Two things: prayer for guidance to the Holy Spirit, and also a recognizing of that hardcore Work practice of being present for duration, depth, and frequency. Both are needed. The latter doesn't become beneath us. It is what leads to true change and true new realms. The former, all of the faith, is the foundation and guidance and everything too. But that true effort of self-remembering, non-identifying for real duration, uncomfortable, and then dealing with the backlash, and everything else, is what makes your connection real or not.