Getting Me – Getting IT

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• Niggers, Negros, Coloreds, Blacks (words they never assigned to themselves) used to be told to act, look, speak...more like whites and they’d get along better in life*.

• Faggots, Homos, Queers, Gays ( “ ) have been told to act...like they are not and they’d get along better in life*. *Over time – these do not prove true.

• The message of: conform to fit in – how “I perceive” you should be – eventually becomes very grating.

• Gays have spent too much time being told (and thinking) they are not how they “should” be. Eventually,
they stop listening to others who think they should be different than they are and they head toward health.

• That’s why ‘out’ gays are not inclined to be open to how others ‘feel’ they should be.

• I spent much of my life with a Savior Complex – subliminally thinking that by Saving others, maybe someday someone would stick up for, and save, me –OR– by “Saving” others, I neglected the attention needed to save myself and that’s why my life shattered.

• S says that he never wanted to play “that game”, which wasn’t his game – there’s no way to win someone else’s game with their rules.

• When I first got together with S, I was so intrigued with how comfortable he was in his skin – with whom he knew himself to be – yet he was very shy and socially insecure. I was the opposite and I wanted what he had inside.

• I was proud of how well I had played “the others’ ” game; by “their rules” for so long and how I had convinced “others” I was winning – while I was losing to myself. It was always such a challenge trying to choose the appropriate costume.

• Once the costume came off for good, S helped me to see that naked – myself – was so much more comfortable and not to be fooled into thinking “dressing up” for others would ever make me feel fulfilled.

• Coming from the extreme ‘right’ religiously and politically, initially, when S would present new concepts or information to me, as quickly as possible, I’d categorize it as opposing my views and box it as ‘bad’; then I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore. Over time, because of S’s gentle ways, I realized that the concepts he relayed had value and were workable. I learned not to reject concepts simply because they were counter to my previous perceptions of how things “should be”.

I do not hold to one philosophy or teaching, much like the Vedas, this is generally my view:

Vedanta is a philosophy taught by the Vedas, the most ancient scriptures of India. Its basic teaching is that our real nature is divine. God, or Brahman as it is called, exists in every living being.

Religion is therefore a search for self-knowledge, a search for the divine within ourselves. We should not think of ourselves as needing to be "saved." We are never lost. At worst, we are living in ignorance of our true nature.

Vedanta acknowledges that there are many different approaches to God, and all are valid. Any kind of spiritual practice will lead to the same state of self-realization. Thus, Vedanta teaches respect for all religions.