For what it's worth: I grew up in a household that was to some extent emotionally dysfunctional. The reason I ranted about religion is that the Roman Catholic aspect of my education exacerbated that. What did serve, as far as my ability to take advantage of the excellent academics offered by the parochial school and Catholic high school I attended, was an atmosphere of respect for and encouragement of reading. Some of this may have come from the bi-lingual necessities of being an immigrant family from Europe, along with the fact that my Dad had had ambitions of becoming a professor of Hungarian literature before his education was truncated by the exigencies of war and escape.
Books were valued in our home, as was conversation about ideas. The children were, if not included in adult conversations, at least within earshot and never banned from being in the room when matters of interest were debated or argued. And though physical curiosity was mostly discouraged, intellectual curiosity was held in esteem. So were trips to the library, where we were let loose to explore the stacks and (remember them?) the card catalogs.
Paper and pencils, crayons, glue and scissors were always available. And we did a lot of things together, even as supplements to the family income. I don't think either of my folks know how much I appreciate their hard work, as I only later came to understand what that meant. But it all came together for all of the four children that we did well at school. And I'm sure beyond doubt that a great deal of that had to do with the setting at home in which scholarship was cooperatively valued and exemplified, as was activism.
What I'm saying is that when we got to the teachers, they had something to work with. We were not, in a sense, in an unfamiliar environment. And whatever we were presented with as subject, we had already as tools such faculties as interest, confidence, and willingness to research on our own. Our intellectual, other than religious, autonomy, was supported and fed. And a few even allowed us or--rarely--encouraged us to examine why we had faith, and in what, and how.
But in my case, at least, the term e-ducate (>educare, to lead out of) evolved through appropriate means as an actual process of learning being elicited as an experience from the interior, that trackless infinitude of Space and Meaning behind our eyes. It wasn't easy, and sometimes I had to fight for the integrity of my discovered conclusions. But they were, in essence, discovered. Even if it was some idea from yore, I owned it because the connections that made that idea real and actual were my at least intellectual experience capable of then being tried in the world. And I am grateful for that.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Letter to Hugh
I thought that this letter to a friend, my former NLP instructor, was worth saving. He humorously referred to this State as "Fornicalia."
Hi Hugh,
Fornicalia is, in my experience, a wonder to live in. Even with the financial stress these days it is difficult to complain. But as you know, happiness is a matter of choice, focus, and action. But between even my shortcomings and that of my environment, the overwhelming nod goes to happiness.
I recently met a wonderful woman and we are getting along very well. We have very similar interests and spend a lot of time just talking with each other. She makes me smile just being around.
I continue to be grateful for the education I had under your tutelage. I use it on myself and sometimes others if asked. I am increasingly inclined to do more, and am quite sinecure in my saying that I would attended your sessions there. Here the economy is such, though, that I do not bring in monetarily but a ridiculously small portion of what I made very easily there. That, really, is my only regret about being here, other than missing my good friends. Don't get me started. But though it is easy to blame, I am responsible for how I set my rudder, so I keep trying.
Yes, Fornicalia would be an apt title for the shenanigans going on here on many levels, but there are so many books, essays, and shows on the topic, I feel it is well covered and that I can devote my energy to more viable pursuits than chronicling evil and complaint. I am often active in City and County level meetings and activities and do some volunteer work. That is what I have to offer in that arena, and it is enough to tell me much about how government works.
Mostly it is not in the interest of stakeholders, but of those who have money enough to hire others to harangue policy makers. That tells me that most lawmakers have little of their own minds, little education in social, civic, and financial dynamics, and are mostly self interested. Usually I vote to get people out, as choices for those who are sane are radically limited. But as you might see, this Country has devolved into a second rate nation already, and people being what they are seek refuge in denial and inaction until there is an actual incontrovertible disaster. "Stataras Flondarans": Pity the poor Earthians.
But the mass psychology only effects what I have to deal with, not how I feel about myself. I wish there was a global "Reset Your Brain," but short of a Day the Earth Stood Still scenario (the old version,) it ain't gonna happen. Maybe the race will have another choke point and the survivors retain some good sense this time. Too bad; this planet could be a Paradise beyond imagining save for fear and greed. The root of morality goes widely undiscovered despite being readily available apart and distinct from denominations and -isms. But money and power are fabulous insulators. And so it goes, and so history unwinds.
But that, Hugh, is why we owe gratitude to you and others who maintain and promote sanity. Those who do that are to a degree anti-entropic. We have to be happy about that as we benefit greatly from such work. And we do know that the emergence of higher forms of anything always comes with fragility, and fewer numbers, and a commensurate vulnerability to the vagaries of anything, especially ignorance.
But I think that that is what makes it such a thrilling adventure. Life is Good, Hugh, and it will try anything, even its own destruction, to express every possible mode of experience. Who can fault that? It is the Great Unfolding, the Great Experiment of "What if???" Pretty darned exciting, eh?
Best,
Anton
Hi Hugh,
Fornicalia is, in my experience, a wonder to live in. Even with the financial stress these days it is difficult to complain. But as you know, happiness is a matter of choice, focus, and action. But between even my shortcomings and that of my environment, the overwhelming nod goes to happiness.
I recently met a wonderful woman and we are getting along very well. We have very similar interests and spend a lot of time just talking with each other. She makes me smile just being around.
I continue to be grateful for the education I had under your tutelage. I use it on myself and sometimes others if asked. I am increasingly inclined to do more, and am quite sinecure in my saying that I would attended your sessions there. Here the economy is such, though, that I do not bring in monetarily but a ridiculously small portion of what I made very easily there. That, really, is my only regret about being here, other than missing my good friends. Don't get me started. But though it is easy to blame, I am responsible for how I set my rudder, so I keep trying.
Yes, Fornicalia would be an apt title for the shenanigans going on here on many levels, but there are so many books, essays, and shows on the topic, I feel it is well covered and that I can devote my energy to more viable pursuits than chronicling evil and complaint. I am often active in City and County level meetings and activities and do some volunteer work. That is what I have to offer in that arena, and it is enough to tell me much about how government works.
Mostly it is not in the interest of stakeholders, but of those who have money enough to hire others to harangue policy makers. That tells me that most lawmakers have little of their own minds, little education in social, civic, and financial dynamics, and are mostly self interested. Usually I vote to get people out, as choices for those who are sane are radically limited. But as you might see, this Country has devolved into a second rate nation already, and people being what they are seek refuge in denial and inaction until there is an actual incontrovertible disaster. "Stataras Flondarans": Pity the poor Earthians.
But the mass psychology only effects what I have to deal with, not how I feel about myself. I wish there was a global "Reset Your Brain," but short of a Day the Earth Stood Still scenario (the old version,) it ain't gonna happen. Maybe the race will have another choke point and the survivors retain some good sense this time. Too bad; this planet could be a Paradise beyond imagining save for fear and greed. The root of morality goes widely undiscovered despite being readily available apart and distinct from denominations and -isms. But money and power are fabulous insulators. And so it goes, and so history unwinds.
But that, Hugh, is why we owe gratitude to you and others who maintain and promote sanity. Those who do that are to a degree anti-entropic. We have to be happy about that as we benefit greatly from such work. And we do know that the emergence of higher forms of anything always comes with fragility, and fewer numbers, and a commensurate vulnerability to the vagaries of anything, especially ignorance.
But I think that that is what makes it such a thrilling adventure. Life is Good, Hugh, and it will try anything, even its own destruction, to express every possible mode of experience. Who can fault that? It is the Great Unfolding, the Great Experiment of "What if???" Pretty darned exciting, eh?
Best,
Anton
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Answer to a soldier upset about economics and Pledge of Allegiance
I didn't serve because of a 4-F rating. But many of my friends died in the Nam conflict. And I do believe in and serve as best I can the purported ideals of this Country by taking part in the political scene and volunteer work in the community.
I am also aware of history. Whatever first brought folks here, this Country that we love was founded by rich white men primarily on the ideals of commercial enterprise and the oppression of commerce in the colonies exemplified by, say, G. Washington having to send cotton to England to have it made into clothes as that was not allowed to be done here by King George. Slavery and indenture were common, as we know, and even Jefferson, whom we look to for our best Democratic ideas was a slave owner. In fact, it is arguable in some respect that this Country is still a corporation founded and owned by Great Britain.
I am, as an independent business man and entrepreneur who has made his own living for the past seven years, quiet aware as well of what is required of one to make a living by wits and talent in this economy. And being 63 years old and starting my life in a DP camp and then living in a ghetto and successively twice after in primarily black neighborhoods, I also know a bit about poverty. And having co-managed two multi-million dollar estates I know a bit about wealth. And my Dad being active in politics at every level for all of his life, I know a bit about that scene as well.
From this perspective I can readily say that though there are a few people who are lazy and feel entitled in the lower classes that we publicly rail about, this feature of human immaturity is, I greatly assure you, endemic in every class. The difference is that not only can those who have money, lots of it, protect themselves by legal entitlements under other names, eg subsidies to oil, corn, and tobacco corporations, they can also use their wealth to ever extract more from those who have less and vote themselves more. If you can read history books and interpret the news, you know this.
We have, in fact, in this country and adversarial plutocratic republic, and no one wishes to openly talk about the elephant in the room because guess where campaign funding comes from?
And even on the local scene, as I know from attending City Council and County Board of Supervisors meetings when I can, the people who have an actual and living concern with outcomes are busy working while lobbyists who are paid to push special interests swarm over such meetings and even have influence behind close doors, which we have plentiful evidence of.
So while I'm one who believes that people such as you, and others who have served by putting their lives on the line, perhaps have a claim to citizenship and the vote above the common person, I have my serious doubts, even supported by the views courageously expressed by Dwight Eisenhower, that our astonishingly expensive and invasive military tactics go a bit beyond the ideals of the Democracy they are purported to serve. Indeed, 1/40th of that budget could easily erase the health and social security concerns we now face. And remember, the next largest military budget in the world is 1/4 ours and belongs to an ally. The budgets of our "enemies" are crumbs compared to ours.
And as for blaming Obama? Where were the blamers during Bush's administration, and going back to Reagan when the safety net now proved to be an essential part of our society was first attacked? Indeed, look at the records Republican Congresses, which were a great majority from that era to this, and see who spent how much. In fact, the things now in the public eye as fear factors regarding where our money is going were generated by financial favors to the very rich at the disproportionate expense of the middle, which is why that exceptionally stabilizing element in a healthy society is dissolving in ours. And the very very rich. And beyond that rich. If you are not familiar with a thing called the "L" curve, I encourage you to take a look at it.
Am I against people having money? NO, I am not. I am against people who have the power to vote themselves favors doing so at my and your expense and blaming their own kind who have less as the culprits in problems while they often get rewarded beyond our financial imagination for doing us the favor of stealing from us. This is exactly what Jefferson predicted 200 years ago would be the end of Democracy. I might suggest that the battle for that Ideal may not be for the most part on foreign soil, but in our own systems.
I am also aware of history. Whatever first brought folks here, this Country that we love was founded by rich white men primarily on the ideals of commercial enterprise and the oppression of commerce in the colonies exemplified by, say, G. Washington having to send cotton to England to have it made into clothes as that was not allowed to be done here by King George. Slavery and indenture were common, as we know, and even Jefferson, whom we look to for our best Democratic ideas was a slave owner. In fact, it is arguable in some respect that this Country is still a corporation founded and owned by Great Britain.
I am, as an independent business man and entrepreneur who has made his own living for the past seven years, quiet aware as well of what is required of one to make a living by wits and talent in this economy. And being 63 years old and starting my life in a DP camp and then living in a ghetto and successively twice after in primarily black neighborhoods, I also know a bit about poverty. And having co-managed two multi-million dollar estates I know a bit about wealth. And my Dad being active in politics at every level for all of his life, I know a bit about that scene as well.
From this perspective I can readily say that though there are a few people who are lazy and feel entitled in the lower classes that we publicly rail about, this feature of human immaturity is, I greatly assure you, endemic in every class. The difference is that not only can those who have money, lots of it, protect themselves by legal entitlements under other names, eg subsidies to oil, corn, and tobacco corporations, they can also use their wealth to ever extract more from those who have less and vote themselves more. If you can read history books and interpret the news, you know this.
We have, in fact, in this country and adversarial plutocratic republic, and no one wishes to openly talk about the elephant in the room because guess where campaign funding comes from?
And even on the local scene, as I know from attending City Council and County Board of Supervisors meetings when I can, the people who have an actual and living concern with outcomes are busy working while lobbyists who are paid to push special interests swarm over such meetings and even have influence behind close doors, which we have plentiful evidence of.
So while I'm one who believes that people such as you, and others who have served by putting their lives on the line, perhaps have a claim to citizenship and the vote above the common person, I have my serious doubts, even supported by the views courageously expressed by Dwight Eisenhower, that our astonishingly expensive and invasive military tactics go a bit beyond the ideals of the Democracy they are purported to serve. Indeed, 1/40th of that budget could easily erase the health and social security concerns we now face. And remember, the next largest military budget in the world is 1/4 ours and belongs to an ally. The budgets of our "enemies" are crumbs compared to ours.
And as for blaming Obama? Where were the blamers during Bush's administration, and going back to Reagan when the safety net now proved to be an essential part of our society was first attacked? Indeed, look at the records Republican Congresses, which were a great majority from that era to this, and see who spent how much. In fact, the things now in the public eye as fear factors regarding where our money is going were generated by financial favors to the very rich at the disproportionate expense of the middle, which is why that exceptionally stabilizing element in a healthy society is dissolving in ours. And the very very rich. And beyond that rich. If you are not familiar with a thing called the "L" curve, I encourage you to take a look at it.
Am I against people having money? NO, I am not. I am against people who have the power to vote themselves favors doing so at my and your expense and blaming their own kind who have less as the culprits in problems while they often get rewarded beyond our financial imagination for doing us the favor of stealing from us. This is exactly what Jefferson predicted 200 years ago would be the end of Democracy. I might suggest that the battle for that Ideal may not be for the most part on foreign soil, but in our own systems.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Belize time
Here's a short synopsis of the trip to Belize. It was an education and an adventure. I really enjoyed my experience there with Michael and John. It is a place radically different from anywhere I've been before.
We started after meeting each other at the airport by staying at a place in Belize City. I quickly became acquainted with some of the more fundamental differences twixt here and there, namely sanitation, poverty, and general state of things. Everything looked built out of second-hand materials and appeared unfinished and in disrepair. Most cars appeared to be salvaged from the wrecking yard. The few places and things that were exceptions only added to the impression. *
Our room the first night, with its exposed wiring and jury-rigged plumbing, made me think that it was illegal there to follow anything that resembled building codes as we know them. For instance, the sewage system worked by gravity, of which there is none, as the city is pretty much all at sea level. The Caribbean merrily wended its way up the gutters at high tide in many places. Michael said that there was a portion of town that was built on a foundation of discarded rum bottles. That was easy to believe. Nevertheless, there was a sense of adventure and vague danger in the air. This was added to on the last day of our stay in a nearby place, the Aguada, which had signs nearby advising against swimming due to crocodiles in the canal. Indeed, one local individual not two blocks from there had thus met his demise a week before.
Our second day was mostly comprised of a bus journey that gave empirical credence to all the pictures and stories of third world bus travel. This was a nine-hour tour of exceptionally lush beauty, especially in the mountainous regions. It was a span of hours punctuated by stops in vaguely populated places wherefrom emerged locals dressed in well-used clothes, often appearing almost like single or grouped scarecrows with faces carved with the evidence of lack of everything but, in most cases, happiness. Periodically vendors of peanuts and cotton candy incongruously worked the aisles at the few rest stops we had in places that in no way resembled a bus terminal as we might know it. These were more like small warehouses whose contents were mysterious locals, occasional white backpackers, and rag tag yet bright groups of refugee looking folks with too many children and too heavy baggage.
At one crest of the road we were stopped by Belizian military sporting cocked semi-automatic rifles. They were checking for thieves returning to Guatemala with stolen cash, etc., I was told. I didn't mind the fellow who carefully inspected his way through the sea of faces towards the back where we were, and was pretty satisfied with his choice of interviewees, in fact. The one who concerned me was the very young and obviously raw recruit outside who scanned the bus ceaselessly with his eyes, his finger a hairs breadth away from the trigger of his weapon in the attitude of one willing, able, and desirous of shooting. The incident passed quickly and we were back on track to the ramshackle capital of Belmopan, our one-third way mark.
We passed in this way through jungle so thick a house cat couldn't penetrate it, I'm sure. There were more kinds of plants in any area than anywhere I'd ever seen, even in a nursery. Palms, more kinds than I could count, grew everywhere amongst even more numerous other trees, shrubs, plants, and grasses. It would make any botanist's head spin, I'm sure. Many of them were what we would consider here to be expensive house plants. Some of those were used as fences and hedges by villagers, most of whose homes were built on stilts with thatch or tin roofs. Indeed, it looked like an inconceivably large exotic plants nursery was randomly poured out over the landscape years ago and the precipitate took a stranglehold on the landscape.
There were open spaces, many of them slash and burn, or more established areas that are now hoary orchards, mostly of orange trees. Surely tankers of orange juice, their main product there, left daily to all parts of the world, and through one passage the scent of orange hung thick in the air, veiling even the smoke of the brush fires that seemed to be rampant throughout the country. One of these on the way back I thought would be the choking end of us, but Michael heroically got us through it.
After our unceremonious disembarkation at a location named "Dump," we stayed at a wonderful place run by Bruno, a tall and burly German fellow, and Mellisa, a diminutive local with a lilting laugh who nearly choked in merriment when I revealed that I've a bit of Transylvanian in my blood. Coincidence? I think "Bruno" means "bear" and "Mellisa" mean "honey." A wonderful if oddly paired couple. He has high certifications as a tour guide and is the Justice of the Peace in the area, and she, about half his size or less, runs the place in the practicalities of it, which in my case means she cooked a wonderful breakfast along with ultra fresh mangoes, papayas, watermelon, and, of course my addiction, coffee. We commuted daily from there to work on the Giles Estate and Plantation, a wondrous place in the midst of the living jungle, presided over in a loose way by a Mr. Tot in Michael's absence.
Mr. Tot is a character believable only by direct association. He hailed from Guatemala and speaks Kekchi, or lowland Mayan, as distinct from Yucatec. I won't try to go into many details about him and his family, though we learned much about and from him. He had a rough life by any standards, and is illiterate except in the lore of surviving in the jungle by wits and strength, aided only by rubber boots, a razor like machete, and a 16 gauge shotgun. Here is a man to whom, necessarily, mind you, the preservation of endangered species means nothing, as they are his food amongst the meager offerings of the jungle and his own patch of corn and cows down the road. He killed, during the tenure of our visit, a fer de lance, a gibnut, and a jaguar. He showed us how to open a tree fresh coconut, from the right end, and drink its heavenly sweet milk. We tasted various species of cacao goo fresh from pods growing there in abundance on many trees. He helped me dig a latrine 3x4x3 in the root bound soil behind the cabin there. Astounding stories fell from his lips as easily as breath, about his life and times, with high pitched prolonged "whooooooooooooooo!"s sprinkled liberally for emphasis.
He was a character, heading up his family of seven children and a wife all of whom lived nearby the front entrance in shacks with no water or electricity. These structures were comprised of corrugated metal wired to posts for walls and thatch for a roof, and no windows. I wondered how they fared, considering that in the Giles' manse we killed upwards of 20 four inch scorpions in two days of cleaning. Despite their devilishly menacing aspect, these would only cause an hour of intense pain which would taper off in a few hours. In the end I was much more concerned about the snakes (one would far rather meet a large rattle snake than the dreaded fer-de-lance) and ticks.
We also killed thousands of scrambling termites that exploded from a nest on the house's edge. The nest was about the size of two basket balls. Many applications of Dursban (c) later, along with major surgery on the part holding the nest, it seemed that we had at least for the moment, won against the termites. We shall see. Many parts of the structure had to be replaced with new wood. We found that batteries for the portable tools that Michael had schlepped from home were the biggest bugaboo. They were too soon defeated by the incredible hardness of even the local pine. Teak and mahogany are common structural elements there, but all the wood seems to be dense. There is one species called "Cortes" I believe, that Bruno told me you could soak with kerosene and still not get it to burn.
We also erected a platform about eight feet high for a cistern, and Michael plumbed it to an existing gutter and one that John installed. Supplies were imported to the site by Michael, who on one of his forays was stopped by the local police. They scolded him for not wearing a seat belt, but despite seeing it, ignored the open and half consumed bottle of beer in his lap. We together did a lot of cleaning of the insides of the place, even to taking out some useless structures and bookshelves that could hide scorpions above eye level. These cleanings were peppered with the occasional frenzy that accompanied the discovery of yet another black scorpion scuttling for cover, I'm sure, but to us they always seemed bent on attacking any bare piece of flesh. I for one was glad for the heavy rubber boots I'd originally bought in Canada, and I was grateful for any implement at hand that could dispatch these creatures that were much larger in my imagination than in actual size.
It was clear in short order why one doesn't go anywhere in the jungle without a machete, a knife, and water. And always with wits about. I don't think my eyes ever stopped moving when we were in the thickets, such scans necessarily including everything from the ground to the sky and all sides, and in as great detail as possible. Few people get such a valuable lesson in awareness, save a local who lives there, or a point man of a military patrol. Compared to those, mine was only a mild taste of what it takes, far from even a good dose.
There are Mayan ruins on the land there, and a stele. Over our time there we visited three sites that were Mayan ruins, and each had its particular feel and presence. We went to Lubaatun, Uxbenka, and Altun Ha. Those can be Googled for complete sets of photos. My favorite was Uxbenka, though it was the least excavated and restored. Here we went for a jaunt through the jungle on an ill marked trail that had been surely supplanted for the important part by an improvised corn field and nearly lost our way. Before that I sat for a while at the ruin's highest point and heard...nothing. Nothing but the wind caressing the lushness of jungle around it. Not a car, not a voice, not a bus or plane, nor the usual civilized hum of electricity and the cumulative noise of humanity. Nothing but the wind and my heart. What a rare experience for someone like me living usually in "civilization." How precious. How foundational.
So I learned and experienced much. Michael treated us to his wonderful cooking many times, and I made a comparatively comical effort one evening with some fish he obtained at a local market, where the Garifuna culture is found, along with their unique music. But we lived through even my attempt at food prep. I left the country after a long drive with Michael back to Belize City by way of Orange Walk and the semi-paved old North highway. Michael had to deal with a flat tire on the morning I left, so it ended up that the son of the innkeeper at Aguada got me to the airport in good time. Michael saw me board the plane, but not thinking he would be there by then I didn't look up to the observation deck and missed him, as well as Frances, his wife, who arrived later that day. We had seen John off the day before.
Now I am home, by way of Sedona, which was a wonderful experience for both me and a friend, who was welcomed by all there, and was included in the activities. We had the great fun of being the only members of the group who camped out as distinct from staying at the lodge. We enjoyed the several humorous moments that sprang from our far-too-formal for camping duds as we prepared to leave for the morning session from our location at Dead Horse Ranch, 17 miles south of Sedona. But you know what? I wouldn't trade for the experience of experiencing the event that way. We had a completely lovely time there and at the activities surrounding the seminars. Now I'm happy to be back home after visiting Tucson very briefly to re-connect with a friend and I'm happy to be sharing these moments with family and friends.
Two Youtube clips that show some of Belize City
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg6SQKqXAv4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIkt4TzUHRY&feature=related
We started after meeting each other at the airport by staying at a place in Belize City. I quickly became acquainted with some of the more fundamental differences twixt here and there, namely sanitation, poverty, and general state of things. Everything looked built out of second-hand materials and appeared unfinished and in disrepair. Most cars appeared to be salvaged from the wrecking yard. The few places and things that were exceptions only added to the impression. *
Our room the first night, with its exposed wiring and jury-rigged plumbing, made me think that it was illegal there to follow anything that resembled building codes as we know them. For instance, the sewage system worked by gravity, of which there is none, as the city is pretty much all at sea level. The Caribbean merrily wended its way up the gutters at high tide in many places. Michael said that there was a portion of town that was built on a foundation of discarded rum bottles. That was easy to believe. Nevertheless, there was a sense of adventure and vague danger in the air. This was added to on the last day of our stay in a nearby place, the Aguada, which had signs nearby advising against swimming due to crocodiles in the canal. Indeed, one local individual not two blocks from there had thus met his demise a week before.
Our second day was mostly comprised of a bus journey that gave empirical credence to all the pictures and stories of third world bus travel. This was a nine-hour tour of exceptionally lush beauty, especially in the mountainous regions. It was a span of hours punctuated by stops in vaguely populated places wherefrom emerged locals dressed in well-used clothes, often appearing almost like single or grouped scarecrows with faces carved with the evidence of lack of everything but, in most cases, happiness. Periodically vendors of peanuts and cotton candy incongruously worked the aisles at the few rest stops we had in places that in no way resembled a bus terminal as we might know it. These were more like small warehouses whose contents were mysterious locals, occasional white backpackers, and rag tag yet bright groups of refugee looking folks with too many children and too heavy baggage.
At one crest of the road we were stopped by Belizian military sporting cocked semi-automatic rifles. They were checking for thieves returning to Guatemala with stolen cash, etc., I was told. I didn't mind the fellow who carefully inspected his way through the sea of faces towards the back where we were, and was pretty satisfied with his choice of interviewees, in fact. The one who concerned me was the very young and obviously raw recruit outside who scanned the bus ceaselessly with his eyes, his finger a hairs breadth away from the trigger of his weapon in the attitude of one willing, able, and desirous of shooting. The incident passed quickly and we were back on track to the ramshackle capital of Belmopan, our one-third way mark.
We passed in this way through jungle so thick a house cat couldn't penetrate it, I'm sure. There were more kinds of plants in any area than anywhere I'd ever seen, even in a nursery. Palms, more kinds than I could count, grew everywhere amongst even more numerous other trees, shrubs, plants, and grasses. It would make any botanist's head spin, I'm sure. Many of them were what we would consider here to be expensive house plants. Some of those were used as fences and hedges by villagers, most of whose homes were built on stilts with thatch or tin roofs. Indeed, it looked like an inconceivably large exotic plants nursery was randomly poured out over the landscape years ago and the precipitate took a stranglehold on the landscape.
There were open spaces, many of them slash and burn, or more established areas that are now hoary orchards, mostly of orange trees. Surely tankers of orange juice, their main product there, left daily to all parts of the world, and through one passage the scent of orange hung thick in the air, veiling even the smoke of the brush fires that seemed to be rampant throughout the country. One of these on the way back I thought would be the choking end of us, but Michael heroically got us through it.
After our unceremonious disembarkation at a location named "Dump," we stayed at a wonderful place run by Bruno, a tall and burly German fellow, and Mellisa, a diminutive local with a lilting laugh who nearly choked in merriment when I revealed that I've a bit of Transylvanian in my blood. Coincidence? I think "Bruno" means "bear" and "Mellisa" mean "honey." A wonderful if oddly paired couple. He has high certifications as a tour guide and is the Justice of the Peace in the area, and she, about half his size or less, runs the place in the practicalities of it, which in my case means she cooked a wonderful breakfast along with ultra fresh mangoes, papayas, watermelon, and, of course my addiction, coffee. We commuted daily from there to work on the Giles Estate and Plantation, a wondrous place in the midst of the living jungle, presided over in a loose way by a Mr. Tot in Michael's absence.
Mr. Tot is a character believable only by direct association. He hailed from Guatemala and speaks Kekchi, or lowland Mayan, as distinct from Yucatec. I won't try to go into many details about him and his family, though we learned much about and from him. He had a rough life by any standards, and is illiterate except in the lore of surviving in the jungle by wits and strength, aided only by rubber boots, a razor like machete, and a 16 gauge shotgun. Here is a man to whom, necessarily, mind you, the preservation of endangered species means nothing, as they are his food amongst the meager offerings of the jungle and his own patch of corn and cows down the road. He killed, during the tenure of our visit, a fer de lance, a gibnut, and a jaguar. He showed us how to open a tree fresh coconut, from the right end, and drink its heavenly sweet milk. We tasted various species of cacao goo fresh from pods growing there in abundance on many trees. He helped me dig a latrine 3x4x3 in the root bound soil behind the cabin there. Astounding stories fell from his lips as easily as breath, about his life and times, with high pitched prolonged "whooooooooooooooo!"s sprinkled liberally for emphasis.
He was a character, heading up his family of seven children and a wife all of whom lived nearby the front entrance in shacks with no water or electricity. These structures were comprised of corrugated metal wired to posts for walls and thatch for a roof, and no windows. I wondered how they fared, considering that in the Giles' manse we killed upwards of 20 four inch scorpions in two days of cleaning. Despite their devilishly menacing aspect, these would only cause an hour of intense pain which would taper off in a few hours. In the end I was much more concerned about the snakes (one would far rather meet a large rattle snake than the dreaded fer-de-lance) and ticks.
We also killed thousands of scrambling termites that exploded from a nest on the house's edge. The nest was about the size of two basket balls. Many applications of Dursban (c) later, along with major surgery on the part holding the nest, it seemed that we had at least for the moment, won against the termites. We shall see. Many parts of the structure had to be replaced with new wood. We found that batteries for the portable tools that Michael had schlepped from home were the biggest bugaboo. They were too soon defeated by the incredible hardness of even the local pine. Teak and mahogany are common structural elements there, but all the wood seems to be dense. There is one species called "Cortes" I believe, that Bruno told me you could soak with kerosene and still not get it to burn.
We also erected a platform about eight feet high for a cistern, and Michael plumbed it to an existing gutter and one that John installed. Supplies were imported to the site by Michael, who on one of his forays was stopped by the local police. They scolded him for not wearing a seat belt, but despite seeing it, ignored the open and half consumed bottle of beer in his lap. We together did a lot of cleaning of the insides of the place, even to taking out some useless structures and bookshelves that could hide scorpions above eye level. These cleanings were peppered with the occasional frenzy that accompanied the discovery of yet another black scorpion scuttling for cover, I'm sure, but to us they always seemed bent on attacking any bare piece of flesh. I for one was glad for the heavy rubber boots I'd originally bought in Canada, and I was grateful for any implement at hand that could dispatch these creatures that were much larger in my imagination than in actual size.
It was clear in short order why one doesn't go anywhere in the jungle without a machete, a knife, and water. And always with wits about. I don't think my eyes ever stopped moving when we were in the thickets, such scans necessarily including everything from the ground to the sky and all sides, and in as great detail as possible. Few people get such a valuable lesson in awareness, save a local who lives there, or a point man of a military patrol. Compared to those, mine was only a mild taste of what it takes, far from even a good dose.
There are Mayan ruins on the land there, and a stele. Over our time there we visited three sites that were Mayan ruins, and each had its particular feel and presence. We went to Lubaatun, Uxbenka, and Altun Ha. Those can be Googled for complete sets of photos. My favorite was Uxbenka, though it was the least excavated and restored. Here we went for a jaunt through the jungle on an ill marked trail that had been surely supplanted for the important part by an improvised corn field and nearly lost our way. Before that I sat for a while at the ruin's highest point and heard...nothing. Nothing but the wind caressing the lushness of jungle around it. Not a car, not a voice, not a bus or plane, nor the usual civilized hum of electricity and the cumulative noise of humanity. Nothing but the wind and my heart. What a rare experience for someone like me living usually in "civilization." How precious. How foundational.
So I learned and experienced much. Michael treated us to his wonderful cooking many times, and I made a comparatively comical effort one evening with some fish he obtained at a local market, where the Garifuna culture is found, along with their unique music. But we lived through even my attempt at food prep. I left the country after a long drive with Michael back to Belize City by way of Orange Walk and the semi-paved old North highway. Michael had to deal with a flat tire on the morning I left, so it ended up that the son of the innkeeper at Aguada got me to the airport in good time. Michael saw me board the plane, but not thinking he would be there by then I didn't look up to the observation deck and missed him, as well as Frances, his wife, who arrived later that day. We had seen John off the day before.
Now I am home, by way of Sedona, which was a wonderful experience for both me and a friend, who was welcomed by all there, and was included in the activities. We had the great fun of being the only members of the group who camped out as distinct from staying at the lodge. We enjoyed the several humorous moments that sprang from our far-too-formal for camping duds as we prepared to leave for the morning session from our location at Dead Horse Ranch, 17 miles south of Sedona. But you know what? I wouldn't trade for the experience of experiencing the event that way. We had a completely lovely time there and at the activities surrounding the seminars. Now I'm happy to be back home after visiting Tucson very briefly to re-connect with a friend and I'm happy to be sharing these moments with family and friends.
Two Youtube clips that show some of Belize City
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg6SQKqXAv4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIkt4TzUHRY&feature=related
Monday, May 25, 2009
Response to article on working with your hands.
This article reminded me of my last couple of years in the Toronto area ("GTA," locally) and my experience there with the labor force. I was active in the trades, mostly as an interior painter, but was associated with a company that did disaster mitigation work for insurance companies. I was often surprised when going on to a job site that most of the tradesmen were my contemporaries. I was pushing 60 at that time, so you get the picture. There were a few younger people on site, but mostly they were people who couldn't find an "electronic" job or who were otherwise computer challenged.
I don't think it was mi imagination, because almost daily there were non-commercial pleading through the media for people to enter the trades. This was backed by many news reports that, despite the wages of blue collar workers approaching or equalling some college supported jobs, there was a dearth of tradesmen and women. This is anecdotally confirmed by friends I hear from now who live there and can't find a plumber or painter or whatever who can do a job satisfactory even to the unpracticed eye of a homeowner.
For my part, though I've done a few stints at the keyboard and screen, I have worked mostly with my hands in the construction trades. I owned and operated a landscape design/installation company specializing in xeriscapes and water features (there's a contradiction for you!) and did a great deal of household renovations as well. I was younger then, able to swing a pick for most of a day in 110F on hardpan surrounded by white walls, if called to. Not any more, lol!
But I always remember the satisfaction at the end of a day. Whether it was a coat of gloss paint on a wall that showed no roller marks in the glare, or the sound of three tones of water falling into a fishpond we just finished. That was, interestingly enough, a great contrast to the drudge I felt in office jobs where the chief satisfaction was usually social, in that I got along well with co workers and management or not.
The choice is easy for me. There is clarity, virtue, and reward in working as a team with competent craftsmen. There is fulfillment in seeing something that was not long ago "just" an idea take shape not only before your eyes, but under your hands. There is a connection between the imaginative, cognitive, and technical skill realms of experience that precipitates a feeling of wholeness.
I can't work now like I did then, I'm 62 years old and feel some of the symptoms of six decades of engagement with the world and its personal exigencies. But I still work with my hands, doing painting, some building trades, and most interestingly, work in ceramic art that is moving into a satisfying realm of recognition even in this economy. For me the case for working with your hands is moot. It's been my life. My hands, looking at them, is a history of my labor and my love of expression. The scars are there from tool cuts to surgery for removal of cactus spines. The texture is there from exposure to sun in the Sonoran desert for 23 years to thick spots where mortar burned my skin. The feeling is there from an iv that nearly wrecked a nerve to the occasional twinge from what I hope isn't incipient arthritis.
We all have ours stories. If it is true that Romans were allowed citizenship by the calluses on their hands, I would have made the cut. But mostly I feel the rewards of complicity to the demands of using skills best expressed with my hands. When I shake hands with another tradesman, farmer, craftsman, artist or musician, there is a feeling of respect and gratitude that flows through those fingers and palm that, like mine, have a treasured grip on reality.
I don't think it was mi imagination, because almost daily there were non-commercial pleading through the media for people to enter the trades. This was backed by many news reports that, despite the wages of blue collar workers approaching or equalling some college supported jobs, there was a dearth of tradesmen and women. This is anecdotally confirmed by friends I hear from now who live there and can't find a plumber or painter or whatever who can do a job satisfactory even to the unpracticed eye of a homeowner.
For my part, though I've done a few stints at the keyboard and screen, I have worked mostly with my hands in the construction trades. I owned and operated a landscape design/installation company specializing in xeriscapes and water features (there's a contradiction for you!) and did a great deal of household renovations as well. I was younger then, able to swing a pick for most of a day in 110F on hardpan surrounded by white walls, if called to. Not any more, lol!
But I always remember the satisfaction at the end of a day. Whether it was a coat of gloss paint on a wall that showed no roller marks in the glare, or the sound of three tones of water falling into a fishpond we just finished. That was, interestingly enough, a great contrast to the drudge I felt in office jobs where the chief satisfaction was usually social, in that I got along well with co workers and management or not.
The choice is easy for me. There is clarity, virtue, and reward in working as a team with competent craftsmen. There is fulfillment in seeing something that was not long ago "just" an idea take shape not only before your eyes, but under your hands. There is a connection between the imaginative, cognitive, and technical skill realms of experience that precipitates a feeling of wholeness.
I can't work now like I did then, I'm 62 years old and feel some of the symptoms of six decades of engagement with the world and its personal exigencies. But I still work with my hands, doing painting, some building trades, and most interestingly, work in ceramic art that is moving into a satisfying realm of recognition even in this economy. For me the case for working with your hands is moot. It's been my life. My hands, looking at them, is a history of my labor and my love of expression. The scars are there from tool cuts to surgery for removal of cactus spines. The texture is there from exposure to sun in the Sonoran desert for 23 years to thick spots where mortar burned my skin. The feeling is there from an iv that nearly wrecked a nerve to the occasional twinge from what I hope isn't incipient arthritis.
We all have ours stories. If it is true that Romans were allowed citizenship by the calluses on their hands, I would have made the cut. But mostly I feel the rewards of complicity to the demands of using skills best expressed with my hands. When I shake hands with another tradesman, farmer, craftsman, artist or musician, there is a feeling of respect and gratitude that flows through those fingers and palm that, like mine, have a treasured grip on reality.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Re: the Third Jesus
Respectful greetings, Abaase,
I use that salutation advisedly, because I know from my own experience that sincerity of inquiry takes great courage in an enviroment that does not necessarily welcome it, especially in certain forms. I started on my own journey of inquiry while attending a Catholic high school. In retrospect, a triad of events sent me looking for answers that were not forthcoming from the source that I had considered infalible and inexhaustabel to that point. It seemed I had, despite its good service and good intentions, broke the camel's back. After some time I could no longer even bear to attend the mass I had loved so much, as it only reminded me that I had hit a wall of impenatrable opacity within the Church. This was mitigated later, but in an unexpected manner.
I was not so fortunate as you as to have such a book as "The Third Jesus" to use as one of my mile markers, though I did have other exceptional resources. I also framed my question in somewhat wider terms than you did. Having made a similar observation to yours about the complexity involved not only in Catholicism, but in other faiths as well, my inquiry centered on the matter of "How do I know God directly?" I was, as you might suspect, aware of the injunction that "No man enters Heaven except through me." Well, that statement became a bombshell of exceedingly great proportions, and the portal through which I entered a profound rebirth of understanding.
I must say here, that though I only heard it much later, it was when it was already impossible to turn back that I heard the following injunction: "The search for Reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings, for it destroys the world in which you live." Also this one: "Spirituality is not a child's play. My words will tear apart anyone who listens to them." Though they were spoken by Nisargadatta, and not the words of my own Mentor, I understood from my own experience what this meant.
We are primarily mental creatures, as far as our perceptions of the world go. This means that in order to survive, as children we internalize by unconscious imitation the ideas and dynamics that form our environment. These are somewhat mitigated by our inborn propensities, wherever those may come from. The meaning of the above statements bear direct consequense on one's perception of the world. I had the imense good fortune to be with a Mentor who knew that as the false perception of Reality is disassembled as a scaffold for experience, the structure of Truth must already be there to enliven the experience of the seeker.
All that is to say that not only did I find a more profound Way of understanding the significance of Jesus, salvation, and all the galaxy of ideas that go with that, but I saw clearly and incontrovertably that the whole of religion as I formerly knew it was an innocently or deliberatly degraded husk of something that is fundamentally profound and miraculous, yet knowable. Indeed, the conjoining of the [I]feeling [/I]of knowing and the ability to see a clear cognative line of understanding precipitated for me a completely different world view than is common among our friends and loved ones. It resloved many seeming contradictions and gave a profound depth to both science and religion that both had previously lacked for me. This also brings with it a profound sense of the void between the fundamentalist practitioner of any form of christianism or strict scientism, even on one who has no more than an intellectual, but clear and certain understanding of the Third Jesus of whom Chopra speaks.
His line of reasoning has no doubt led you to some ideas that are different and disturbing in terms of the Catholic faith. They are mild compared to what is actually the difinitive experience behind them. I urge you to be careful in your desire to discover, because if you continue on this path you will change profoundly. You will become a pink monkey in the pack of furry brown ones. You will not feel seperate from them as you will see that we are all God's creatures, but they will not return that affection. Au contrair. We are a race that tends to crucify its saviors and innovators, or disdain and ignore them at best. It is not for nothing that what you might be embarking on is sometimes called "The Path of Ultimate Responsibility" or "the Way of the Lonely Ones."
You will have to come to the realization that your sole/soul friend is your own eternal Essence. There will be others like you, but they are few and far between with few exceptions. But like my Mentor said, "If you want a friend, be one/One!"
Yet this is the most glorious, if not also the most frustrating in terms of everyday life, aspect of it. One gains an experiential understanding of the root of the Golden Rule in both its forms, and one is found on an unshakable base for a real morality free of dogma. I think it is what has been refered to as "The Peace that passeth understanding" and "being above the Law." It is not that one is without rules, it is that "Thy Will is written in my heart, oh God" and one is rendered incapable of doing harm.
It is this aspect of the Law and Will being in one's own heart that has a transformative value. It is the knowledge and experience of what that means that may distinguish you from the majority of others.
I do not know your age, disposition, or support system as to any profound questioning you might undertake. I simply urge you to be careful, because you are talking here about taking the red pill, in case you have seen a movie called "[I]The Matrix[/I]." Though the merit of the sequels is dubious, the first part has some very significant analogies to the discovery of the true state of Man in the spiritual sense.
So, there you have it in brief. I can be a resource for you if you wish, but it may not be easy for you. I can refere you to others, if that is more helpful. In any case, you have my profound good wishes, as you seek to be a.....what? Something words cannot describe, other than as a transparency to the Divine
I use that salutation advisedly, because I know from my own experience that sincerity of inquiry takes great courage in an enviroment that does not necessarily welcome it, especially in certain forms. I started on my own journey of inquiry while attending a Catholic high school. In retrospect, a triad of events sent me looking for answers that were not forthcoming from the source that I had considered infalible and inexhaustabel to that point. It seemed I had, despite its good service and good intentions, broke the camel's back. After some time I could no longer even bear to attend the mass I had loved so much, as it only reminded me that I had hit a wall of impenatrable opacity within the Church. This was mitigated later, but in an unexpected manner.
I was not so fortunate as you as to have such a book as "The Third Jesus" to use as one of my mile markers, though I did have other exceptional resources. I also framed my question in somewhat wider terms than you did. Having made a similar observation to yours about the complexity involved not only in Catholicism, but in other faiths as well, my inquiry centered on the matter of "How do I know God directly?" I was, as you might suspect, aware of the injunction that "No man enters Heaven except through me." Well, that statement became a bombshell of exceedingly great proportions, and the portal through which I entered a profound rebirth of understanding.
I must say here, that though I only heard it much later, it was when it was already impossible to turn back that I heard the following injunction: "The search for Reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings, for it destroys the world in which you live." Also this one: "Spirituality is not a child's play. My words will tear apart anyone who listens to them." Though they were spoken by Nisargadatta, and not the words of my own Mentor, I understood from my own experience what this meant.
We are primarily mental creatures, as far as our perceptions of the world go. This means that in order to survive, as children we internalize by unconscious imitation the ideas and dynamics that form our environment. These are somewhat mitigated by our inborn propensities, wherever those may come from. The meaning of the above statements bear direct consequense on one's perception of the world. I had the imense good fortune to be with a Mentor who knew that as the false perception of Reality is disassembled as a scaffold for experience, the structure of Truth must already be there to enliven the experience of the seeker.
All that is to say that not only did I find a more profound Way of understanding the significance of Jesus, salvation, and all the galaxy of ideas that go with that, but I saw clearly and incontrovertably that the whole of religion as I formerly knew it was an innocently or deliberatly degraded husk of something that is fundamentally profound and miraculous, yet knowable. Indeed, the conjoining of the [I]feeling [/I]of knowing and the ability to see a clear cognative line of understanding precipitated for me a completely different world view than is common among our friends and loved ones. It resloved many seeming contradictions and gave a profound depth to both science and religion that both had previously lacked for me. This also brings with it a profound sense of the void between the fundamentalist practitioner of any form of christianism or strict scientism, even on one who has no more than an intellectual, but clear and certain understanding of the Third Jesus of whom Chopra speaks.
His line of reasoning has no doubt led you to some ideas that are different and disturbing in terms of the Catholic faith. They are mild compared to what is actually the difinitive experience behind them. I urge you to be careful in your desire to discover, because if you continue on this path you will change profoundly. You will become a pink monkey in the pack of furry brown ones. You will not feel seperate from them as you will see that we are all God's creatures, but they will not return that affection. Au contrair. We are a race that tends to crucify its saviors and innovators, or disdain and ignore them at best. It is not for nothing that what you might be embarking on is sometimes called "The Path of Ultimate Responsibility" or "the Way of the Lonely Ones."
You will have to come to the realization that your sole/soul friend is your own eternal Essence. There will be others like you, but they are few and far between with few exceptions. But like my Mentor said, "If you want a friend, be one/One!"
Yet this is the most glorious, if not also the most frustrating in terms of everyday life, aspect of it. One gains an experiential understanding of the root of the Golden Rule in both its forms, and one is found on an unshakable base for a real morality free of dogma. I think it is what has been refered to as "The Peace that passeth understanding" and "being above the Law." It is not that one is without rules, it is that "Thy Will is written in my heart, oh God" and one is rendered incapable of doing harm.
It is this aspect of the Law and Will being in one's own heart that has a transformative value. It is the knowledge and experience of what that means that may distinguish you from the majority of others.
I do not know your age, disposition, or support system as to any profound questioning you might undertake. I simply urge you to be careful, because you are talking here about taking the red pill, in case you have seen a movie called "[I]The Matrix[/I]." Though the merit of the sequels is dubious, the first part has some very significant analogies to the discovery of the true state of Man in the spiritual sense.
So, there you have it in brief. I can be a resource for you if you wish, but it may not be easy for you. I can refere you to others, if that is more helpful. In any case, you have my profound good wishes, as you seek to be a.....what? Something words cannot describe, other than as a transparency to the Divine
Friday, January 2, 2009
Response to "The Pagan Chist"
I was going to post this on Catholic Answers Forum in reply to someone who couldn't understand the idea that Jesus was 100% both and each God and man. In Catholic theology this teaching is called the hypostatic union. Here is my answer, which is still oversimplified, but touches the main points as best my understanding and language permit. This is something I've been avidly looking into since high school, when three experiences set me on that path. I've also signed and dated this monograph some time ago as wishing to take responsibility for its contents.
I would also like to quote here a pertinent statement from my Mentor, Dr. Kenneth G. Mills, who said "All of the logic in the world could never unbind the fetters that systems of belief have engendered in the lives of mankind. Of course, those in high places of power are always trying to keep from those who inquire the actual truth of what is happening, and there is nothing more insidious than to have partial truths." This tract, being written word, is inherently incomplete, but is an attempt to point to the Living Presence that constitutes the reason and manifestation of the reader. It also points to what I have come to feel to be my own Truth.
"Here is a perspective I've not seen on here regarding all of these questions. I figure it is OK, since this is the "Non-Catholic Religions" part of the forum and we can allegedly say here things that others believe in order to put them on the table. If that is [I]not[/I] OK with you, stop here and go read something else, because this one was a depth charge for me. It is posted in the spirit of the Sage who said [B]"The search for Reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings, for it destroys the world in which you live." [/B]That is how serious this is. I'm assuming you are not on here to play, as this search is analogus to taking the red pill, for those who have seen the first installment of The Matrix.
This all goes along wiith the proposition that man is a rationalizing animal. It also goes with the proposition that a single act of creation followed by a period of temporal maintainance and an attempt to "fix" a broken part of that Creation is inconsitent with an eternal God. Eternality has NO component of duration. It is also a low level logic and lack of introspection that to presume that life forms are the demonstration of life. LIFE is a constant unchanging pressure that will seek out every possible form and function of energetic combination as an expression of itself above, below, and including the frequency range of the perceptions of Man. This holds, whatever the opinion, based on limited frequency response and intellectual/affective ability, of any specific examples of its own manifestations.
"The point of view I will try to delineate here is that of the growth of the component in the human we call "awareness." I am distinguishing it here from a word often used interchangeably with it. That word is "consciousness." Here, awareness refers to the ability to experience as an individual. Conscious-ness refers to that quality in the abstract, taken as an underlying Reality.
"As simply put as I can, here it is: Since man has had the ability to reflect on himself, he has had a masculine and feminine component to his awareness as manifested in the two halves of the brain. In the womb, these function as one, and there is only the unawakened feeling of "I." At birth, the awareness must start to distinguish between "this" and "that" in its myriad senses in order to function. This is the knowledge of duality, or of +&-, or of "good and evil." This engenders the sense of being a discreet individual, or "me" as distinct from "you" or "it," etc. The feminine, intuitive side, "eats" of this experience and brings the male component into a dualistic sense of existence, casting the entire [I]sense[/I] awareness from its Eden of wombish bliss as it receeds into the background. The male side goes about the world suffering the pangs of a subject-object awareness, taking the female [I]side[/I] with it. This is especially so in patristic societies, e.g. the church and Western christianist culture.
"The Ancients had among them a few who understood the split within man and knew that healing lay in raising the feminine intuitive to reunite with the masculine logical as an experience in Consciousness. (The experience of the brain surgeion who witnessed her own stroke as the rational portion of her was damaged points to this aspect of awareness.) This healing ( Jesus was in older translations refered to as "Healer" as distinct from more current translations,)constituted "salvation" or [I]realization[/I] of the sense of unity within oneself. This brought with it an ability to realize as well the sense of Unity with Nature, or God.
"The way to this revitalizing of awareness was accomplished by myth and ritual. These myths from at least 5K years ago included virgin birth in a cave or manger, miracles, an ignominious death, and a Resurrection. All these were tied in as well with the cycles of Nature as a mnemonic system.
"Over the ages thousands of people who knew these stories went into the desert and came back with their particular revelations of the meanings for them, with or without the actual intended end of the reunification of the individual sense of Self.
"Three or four of these revelations came into popularity for one reason or another. As they became politicized and degraded for public consumption, the mystery was lost and the husk was systematized into dogma.
"In the case of the Roman Church, and thereafter other forms of christianism, the mystery of transformation became historicised by being attributed to an historic person. It was taught that Divinity in Man occured solely in this one individual, whereas in the mystery religions and Eastern philosophies it was known to be the reward of a particular kind of effort. This new teaching which coalesced about the third century, effectively acted as a prophylactic against the knowledge that the hypostatic union is the inheritance of every person who does the work of transformation. It is yet understood in many systems that in the three centuries after Jesus, the milieu of ideas surrounding the transformative act became lost in the dogmatic-ization and historicization of a remote and singular.god-man who symbolically did what is in fact our own life's work.
"This teaching also accounts for the attribution of personality to God, or Consciousness, or Principle, and duration to eternality, both of which concepts are semantic impossibilities. It also accounts for the "fides sola," etc. approaches all of which require a remote savior. It also militates against the working our of our own salvation in fear and trembling (and love and joy) as Paul recommended.
"So, the anointed (Christ, or 2nd person) aspect of Jesus is his awareness of the Unity of Conscious-ness which he expressed as "I and the Father are One." History give other examples of such realizations. Thus, he is 100% God as recognition of his [I]Essence[/I] stemming from and being equal to Divinity, and 100% man because he was and we are, "the son of man." As a human He was one who had the distinction of being one of the Accomplished ones.
"As for the trinity, the "I" or the Pure Consciousness factor of Being can be equated with the Father. (Masculine.) The "I [I]AM[/I]," the creative, (Feminine, 'Elohim' is plural feminine) can be equated with the Holy Spirit. Thus, Man, capable of both practical (subject-object) and "nirvanic" or contentless unitary awareness is created in the "image and likeness of God." The Son can be equated with the knowledge [I]by identity [/I]of the essential root and stemming of each of us from THAT Source. It may be stated as "I AM THAT I AM." "The I AM is the vine, the "you's" and "me's." the branches. The nervous system is the "bush." or the "tree with its root in heaven," or the human body that burns without being consumed upon the realization of this Fact. In some traditions, when this realization occurs, the exclamation sometimes is [I]"I have not been deceived![/I"' and can be accompanied by a great feeling of heat in the body as it readjusts itself to the new perspective.
"This new "born again" understanding is also the basis of a viable morality. If one, in his deepest feeling of being, understands the Unity of all life, he is incapable of doing harm to living things or their support system and can only do works which promote the over all Good, as whatever he does, he does to himself. This psychologically, spiritually, and practically fulfills both the positively and negatively stated Golden Rule. It also fulfills "Love thy neighbor as thyself."
Much of this viewpoint is delineated very well in a book by Tom Harpur, a former Anglican priest and long time religion editor for the Toronto Star. It is called "[I]The Pagan Christ: Is Literalism Killing Christianity?"[/I] It is written from the standpoint of revitalizing the interpretations of the Bible and the Christian faith in general. I doubt it will have much popularity. I will be glad to furnish you with other titles if you are interested. What I personally like about this direction of understanding is that it comprehends the basics of many religions while de-fusing the encrustations of emotionally laden dogma that act to separate all those who purport to believe in one God.
I would also like to quote here a pertinent statement from my Mentor, Dr. Kenneth G. Mills, who said "All of the logic in the world could never unbind the fetters that systems of belief have engendered in the lives of mankind. Of course, those in high places of power are always trying to keep from those who inquire the actual truth of what is happening, and there is nothing more insidious than to have partial truths." This tract, being written word, is inherently incomplete, but is an attempt to point to the Living Presence that constitutes the reason and manifestation of the reader. It also points to what I have come to feel to be my own Truth.
"Here is a perspective I've not seen on here regarding all of these questions. I figure it is OK, since this is the "Non-Catholic Religions" part of the forum and we can allegedly say here things that others believe in order to put them on the table. If that is [I]not[/I] OK with you, stop here and go read something else, because this one was a depth charge for me. It is posted in the spirit of the Sage who said [B]"The search for Reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings, for it destroys the world in which you live." [/B]That is how serious this is. I'm assuming you are not on here to play, as this search is analogus to taking the red pill, for those who have seen the first installment of The Matrix.
This all goes along wiith the proposition that man is a rationalizing animal. It also goes with the proposition that a single act of creation followed by a period of temporal maintainance and an attempt to "fix" a broken part of that Creation is inconsitent with an eternal God. Eternality has NO component of duration. It is also a low level logic and lack of introspection that to presume that life forms are the demonstration of life. LIFE is a constant unchanging pressure that will seek out every possible form and function of energetic combination as an expression of itself above, below, and including the frequency range of the perceptions of Man. This holds, whatever the opinion, based on limited frequency response and intellectual/affective ability, of any specific examples of its own manifestations.
"The point of view I will try to delineate here is that of the growth of the component in the human we call "awareness." I am distinguishing it here from a word often used interchangeably with it. That word is "consciousness." Here, awareness refers to the ability to experience as an individual. Conscious-ness refers to that quality in the abstract, taken as an underlying Reality.
"As simply put as I can, here it is: Since man has had the ability to reflect on himself, he has had a masculine and feminine component to his awareness as manifested in the two halves of the brain. In the womb, these function as one, and there is only the unawakened feeling of "I." At birth, the awareness must start to distinguish between "this" and "that" in its myriad senses in order to function. This is the knowledge of duality, or of +&-, or of "good and evil." This engenders the sense of being a discreet individual, or "me" as distinct from "you" or "it," etc. The feminine, intuitive side, "eats" of this experience and brings the male component into a dualistic sense of existence, casting the entire [I]sense[/I] awareness from its Eden of wombish bliss as it receeds into the background. The male side goes about the world suffering the pangs of a subject-object awareness, taking the female [I]side[/I] with it. This is especially so in patristic societies, e.g. the church and Western christianist culture.
"The Ancients had among them a few who understood the split within man and knew that healing lay in raising the feminine intuitive to reunite with the masculine logical as an experience in Consciousness. (The experience of the brain surgeion who witnessed her own stroke as the rational portion of her was damaged points to this aspect of awareness.) This healing ( Jesus was in older translations refered to as "Healer" as distinct from more current translations,)constituted "salvation" or [I]realization[/I] of the sense of unity within oneself. This brought with it an ability to realize as well the sense of Unity with Nature, or God.
"The way to this revitalizing of awareness was accomplished by myth and ritual. These myths from at least 5K years ago included virgin birth in a cave or manger, miracles, an ignominious death, and a Resurrection. All these were tied in as well with the cycles of Nature as a mnemonic system.
"Over the ages thousands of people who knew these stories went into the desert and came back with their particular revelations of the meanings for them, with or without the actual intended end of the reunification of the individual sense of Self.
"Three or four of these revelations came into popularity for one reason or another. As they became politicized and degraded for public consumption, the mystery was lost and the husk was systematized into dogma.
"In the case of the Roman Church, and thereafter other forms of christianism, the mystery of transformation became historicised by being attributed to an historic person. It was taught that Divinity in Man occured solely in this one individual, whereas in the mystery religions and Eastern philosophies it was known to be the reward of a particular kind of effort. This new teaching which coalesced about the third century, effectively acted as a prophylactic against the knowledge that the hypostatic union is the inheritance of every person who does the work of transformation. It is yet understood in many systems that in the three centuries after Jesus, the milieu of ideas surrounding the transformative act became lost in the dogmatic-ization and historicization of a remote and singular.god-man who symbolically did what is in fact our own life's work.
"This teaching also accounts for the attribution of personality to God, or Consciousness, or Principle, and duration to eternality, both of which concepts are semantic impossibilities. It also accounts for the "fides sola," etc. approaches all of which require a remote savior. It also militates against the working our of our own salvation in fear and trembling (and love and joy) as Paul recommended.
"So, the anointed (Christ, or 2nd person) aspect of Jesus is his awareness of the Unity of Conscious-ness which he expressed as "I and the Father are One." History give other examples of such realizations. Thus, he is 100% God as recognition of his [I]Essence[/I] stemming from and being equal to Divinity, and 100% man because he was and we are, "the son of man." As a human He was one who had the distinction of being one of the Accomplished ones.
"As for the trinity, the "I" or the Pure Consciousness factor of Being can be equated with the Father. (Masculine.) The "I [I]AM[/I]," the creative, (Feminine, 'Elohim' is plural feminine) can be equated with the Holy Spirit. Thus, Man, capable of both practical (subject-object) and "nirvanic" or contentless unitary awareness is created in the "image and likeness of God." The Son can be equated with the knowledge [I]by identity [/I]of the essential root and stemming of each of us from THAT Source. It may be stated as "I AM THAT I AM." "The I AM is the vine, the "you's" and "me's." the branches. The nervous system is the "bush." or the "tree with its root in heaven," or the human body that burns without being consumed upon the realization of this Fact. In some traditions, when this realization occurs, the exclamation sometimes is [I]"I have not been deceived![/I"' and can be accompanied by a great feeling of heat in the body as it readjusts itself to the new perspective.
"This new "born again" understanding is also the basis of a viable morality. If one, in his deepest feeling of being, understands the Unity of all life, he is incapable of doing harm to living things or their support system and can only do works which promote the over all Good, as whatever he does, he does to himself. This psychologically, spiritually, and practically fulfills both the positively and negatively stated Golden Rule. It also fulfills "Love thy neighbor as thyself."
Much of this viewpoint is delineated very well in a book by Tom Harpur, a former Anglican priest and long time religion editor for the Toronto Star. It is called "[I]The Pagan Christ: Is Literalism Killing Christianity?"[/I] It is written from the standpoint of revitalizing the interpretations of the Bible and the Christian faith in general. I doubt it will have much popularity. I will be glad to furnish you with other titles if you are interested. What I personally like about this direction of understanding is that it comprehends the basics of many religions while de-fusing the encrustations of emotionally laden dogma that act to separate all those who purport to believe in one God.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
About open mindedness
For me a clarifying point regarding open mindedness is a dynamic posed by Don Juan Matus. He posited that each of us has an assemblage point. It is the point or perspective around which we consciously and unconsciously yet deliberately assemble the picture of our world that we call "real." Many factors enter in to the positioning of this point. Religious faith is one of these, but most of the factors are subliminal and not available to our reasoning minds--yet we sense that we are reasoning. This dynamic is born out to a great extent not only by a study of human mentality as a discpline, but by self examination as well. The injunction "Know Thyself" is not to be taken lightly, but is a tool for honesty, insight, and wisdom.
On the level of religious affiliation, if we accept this idea of an assemblage point, we could ascribe that name to our understanding of our own faith, that of others, and of their relative positions on various value scales. Yet, as someone earlier on in this thread mentioned, what we profess and how we act as Catholics are quite dissimilar according to pew polls. I would imagine that in order to remain sane, it would be necessary to "compart--mentalize" our thinking in order to experience a smoothness that includes contraries. Mark Twain said that man is not a rational animal, he is a retionalizing animal. There seems to be some truth in that.
K.G. Mills said ""Perhaps the root of the problem within the world and within yourself is the refusal to face conflicting beliefs, which are obliterated by correct Identitiy." Correct Identity, we might say, can be approached by knowing our Self. This is an intense activity requiring aciduous honesty. There is no room for dogmatic piety or parochial attitudes in this search. So I would say that being closed or open minded is an internal function relative to the integrity one has within the entire arena of their awareness.
For my own part, I had to go through a revison of my entire inventory of beleifs when I had a near death experience. I had to incorporate new experiential data. You might say that my assemblage point was moved for me. It was a rude awakening. I saw clearly that I was not allowing communication between different "persona" which emerged in different situations. There were too many "me's" to have any sense of integrity. I can't say at this time that I am healed and whole, but I can say that I see with different eyes and have compassion for myself and those who are in the trap of a mind closed to itself. I guess I am now more concerned with the beam in my own eye as distinct from the mote in someone else's. It allows me to talk dispassionatley about potentially "loaded" subjects with other "beamers." You might say that my mind is more open because I saw how closed my own can be.
On the level of religious affiliation, if we accept this idea of an assemblage point, we could ascribe that name to our understanding of our own faith, that of others, and of their relative positions on various value scales. Yet, as someone earlier on in this thread mentioned, what we profess and how we act as Catholics are quite dissimilar according to pew polls. I would imagine that in order to remain sane, it would be necessary to "compart--mentalize" our thinking in order to experience a smoothness that includes contraries. Mark Twain said that man is not a rational animal, he is a retionalizing animal. There seems to be some truth in that.
K.G. Mills said ""Perhaps the root of the problem within the world and within yourself is the refusal to face conflicting beliefs, which are obliterated by correct Identitiy." Correct Identity, we might say, can be approached by knowing our Self. This is an intense activity requiring aciduous honesty. There is no room for dogmatic piety or parochial attitudes in this search. So I would say that being closed or open minded is an internal function relative to the integrity one has within the entire arena of their awareness.
For my own part, I had to go through a revison of my entire inventory of beleifs when I had a near death experience. I had to incorporate new experiential data. You might say that my assemblage point was moved for me. It was a rude awakening. I saw clearly that I was not allowing communication between different "persona" which emerged in different situations. There were too many "me's" to have any sense of integrity. I can't say at this time that I am healed and whole, but I can say that I see with different eyes and have compassion for myself and those who are in the trap of a mind closed to itself. I guess I am now more concerned with the beam in my own eye as distinct from the mote in someone else's. It allows me to talk dispassionatley about potentially "loaded" subjects with other "beamers." You might say that my mind is more open because I saw how closed my own can be.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
My "religion."
I sent this as a repy to someone who asked what I beleive in as a religion. I am open to any comments or criticsms from anyone who was an associate of Dr. Mills, or anyone who experiential knows the meaning of "Advaita" or "Non-dualism."
"Thanks for your interest. What you might term a religion, I might term a "Standpoint." Though I am not a Christian Scientist, the founder of that faith put it rather well: "The Universe must be interpreted from the Standpoint of the Creator of the Universe.." She also said "God is universal; confined to no spot, defined by no dogma, appropriated by no sect." It should not be mistaken from my quoting her that she is by any means the sole or definitive example of what I stand for. My own Mentor in this Way, Dr. K.G. Mills, used every appropriate quote or passage from any Proponent of this Way he could find. Like a good piano teacher, which he was, he instructed his associates by the study of passages appropriate to the moment, using his own experience and statements as an encouragement and example for the growth in unique expression of each of his voluntary charges.
I say "voluntary" because his contract with us was that he would speak if asked, and otherwise remain ordinary in appearance. Yet I would class him in terms of understanding and action with such Giants as Buddha, Lau Tze, Jesus, St. Francis, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta, Merrell-Wolff, Shankara, Byron Katie, and others of their ilk. "Their ilk" is the company of all those Saints and Sages of the ages who, independent of time, location, culture, or training, had and were examples of a revelation of amazing homogenaiety. This revelation has been called Advaita in the East, and I use that name only as a convenience. In the West it might be called Non-Dualism. That said, any "ism" is a limit and makes distinctions, as such is the nature of mortal mind.
In any case, the revelation predicates itself on an experiential understanding of the Allness of God. This makes all of these folks "atheists" in the realm of the ordianry understanding of God as a Being apart and objective to a Creation. The sole reason for this radical* understanding is that the fundamental premise of this Way is the knowledge by Identity** that the component we call "I" is not seperate from God. If a god seems separate, it is due to the misallignment of the component called "me" or "person" which necessarily exists only as an aspect and function of time and space. The delusion of separation is due to the false association fo the "I" with the appearance and association with the limited sensatons of living as a seeming "part" in space/time. This association with a viewpoint also strongly fosters the convincing need for a subject/object mode of awarenss, as distinct from the undifferentiated Consciousness from which it stems and is not separate from.
On examintation, it is possible to discern that we interpret our experience according to language and assumptions we accept, necessarily, as children, from people whose experience is generally survival oriented and parochial to whatever degree. These languages and attitudes have inherent defects due to their temporal and "ad hoc" origins and nature. If we use our innate ability to step outside ourselves and see ourselves in a greater context, as a phenomenon, then we are proceeding in a direction of discovery as to the Nature of our experience as distinct from its circumstances. The examination of this Nature is found to be rooted in Consciousness. Without Consciousness as a Principle supporting our experience as awareness, we really have no life. My Mentor stated that "Consciousness is the Light to the awareness of ideas and thoughts."
The Understanding of life and its exigencies, as well as its natural phenomenon, structures and systems, each and all, from the Standpoint of interpretation that it is all at the root ONE expression of undivided Divinity, with our individual senses of existance not seperate from that, might be said to constitute the premise of Advaita or Non-Dualism. This is not a denial of any feeling or appearance of individuality, it simply attributes the Source of that feeling, etc. more correctly as a pointing to its actual origin.
From that premise comes the ultimate sense of morality. How could I do wrong to myself appearing as another, whether that is person, place, or thing? Is God divided against himself? No. But mentatlity in a space time continuum, due to the appearence of difference, can construe arbitrary divisions based on an animalistic sense of survival not founded in Reality. Knowing that Reality of root Oneness precludes harm to others by any means.
Think about it. If people who dump crap in streams or empty stacks into the air asked themselves " Would I put this in my own home?" woud there be pollution? If people who create money as banks from nothing against your labor and added value asked themselves " would I commit usery on myself?" would we be in the current financial crisis? And on it goes.
A vast simplification of Advaita is simply stated in the two forms we all know the name of: "Do not unto others what you would not have done unto yourself; do unto others as you would have done unto yourself." What does anyone think those admonitions are based on? For may part, a correct reading of the Bible would reveal that Jesus Himslef was a proponent of Advaita. He pretty much declared it by saying "It is not the son of man that doeth the works, but the Father in me that doeth them. " and "I and the Father are One." Not "me," dear angel, but "I." The one and only "I" that ever was or will be, appearing for the sake of the play and brief moment on the stage as you an me. That is a mystery, a miracle, and a joy passing understanding.
I hope that the above has been of some use in a way of understanding at least in theory what is being pointed to."
* it would be worth looking up "radical" and discovering its word origin.
**There is a saying in Borneo: " All knowledge is theoretical until it is in the muscles." Knowledge by Identity is distinct from book learning, assumptions, prejudices, information, beliefe, or any other way of "knowing." It is well and thoroughly treated in Merrel-Woff's book "The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object." His arrival at the points therein are fascinatingly described in his first book, "Pathways Through to Space."
"Thanks for your interest. What you might term a religion, I might term a "Standpoint." Though I am not a Christian Scientist, the founder of that faith put it rather well: "The Universe must be interpreted from the Standpoint of the Creator of the Universe.." She also said "God is universal; confined to no spot, defined by no dogma, appropriated by no sect." It should not be mistaken from my quoting her that she is by any means the sole or definitive example of what I stand for. My own Mentor in this Way, Dr. K.G. Mills, used every appropriate quote or passage from any Proponent of this Way he could find. Like a good piano teacher, which he was, he instructed his associates by the study of passages appropriate to the moment, using his own experience and statements as an encouragement and example for the growth in unique expression of each of his voluntary charges.
I say "voluntary" because his contract with us was that he would speak if asked, and otherwise remain ordinary in appearance. Yet I would class him in terms of understanding and action with such Giants as Buddha, Lau Tze, Jesus, St. Francis, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta, Merrell-Wolff, Shankara, Byron Katie, and others of their ilk. "Their ilk" is the company of all those Saints and Sages of the ages who, independent of time, location, culture, or training, had and were examples of a revelation of amazing homogenaiety. This revelation has been called Advaita in the East, and I use that name only as a convenience. In the West it might be called Non-Dualism. That said, any "ism" is a limit and makes distinctions, as such is the nature of mortal mind.
In any case, the revelation predicates itself on an experiential understanding of the Allness of God. This makes all of these folks "atheists" in the realm of the ordianry understanding of God as a Being apart and objective to a Creation. The sole reason for this radical* understanding is that the fundamental premise of this Way is the knowledge by Identity** that the component we call "I" is not seperate from God. If a god seems separate, it is due to the misallignment of the component called "me" or "person" which necessarily exists only as an aspect and function of time and space. The delusion of separation is due to the false association fo the "I" with the appearance and association with the limited sensatons of living as a seeming "part" in space/time. This association with a viewpoint also strongly fosters the convincing need for a subject/object mode of awarenss, as distinct from the undifferentiated Consciousness from which it stems and is not separate from.
On examintation, it is possible to discern that we interpret our experience according to language and assumptions we accept, necessarily, as children, from people whose experience is generally survival oriented and parochial to whatever degree. These languages and attitudes have inherent defects due to their temporal and "ad hoc" origins and nature. If we use our innate ability to step outside ourselves and see ourselves in a greater context, as a phenomenon, then we are proceeding in a direction of discovery as to the Nature of our experience as distinct from its circumstances. The examination of this Nature is found to be rooted in Consciousness. Without Consciousness as a Principle supporting our experience as awareness, we really have no life. My Mentor stated that "Consciousness is the Light to the awareness of ideas and thoughts."
The Understanding of life and its exigencies, as well as its natural phenomenon, structures and systems, each and all, from the Standpoint of interpretation that it is all at the root ONE expression of undivided Divinity, with our individual senses of existance not seperate from that, might be said to constitute the premise of Advaita or Non-Dualism. This is not a denial of any feeling or appearance of individuality, it simply attributes the Source of that feeling, etc. more correctly as a pointing to its actual origin.
From that premise comes the ultimate sense of morality. How could I do wrong to myself appearing as another, whether that is person, place, or thing? Is God divided against himself? No. But mentatlity in a space time continuum, due to the appearence of difference, can construe arbitrary divisions based on an animalistic sense of survival not founded in Reality. Knowing that Reality of root Oneness precludes harm to others by any means.
Think about it. If people who dump crap in streams or empty stacks into the air asked themselves " Would I put this in my own home?" woud there be pollution? If people who create money as banks from nothing against your labor and added value asked themselves " would I commit usery on myself?" would we be in the current financial crisis? And on it goes.
A vast simplification of Advaita is simply stated in the two forms we all know the name of: "Do not unto others what you would not have done unto yourself; do unto others as you would have done unto yourself." What does anyone think those admonitions are based on? For may part, a correct reading of the Bible would reveal that Jesus Himslef was a proponent of Advaita. He pretty much declared it by saying "It is not the son of man that doeth the works, but the Father in me that doeth them. " and "I and the Father are One." Not "me," dear angel, but "I." The one and only "I" that ever was or will be, appearing for the sake of the play and brief moment on the stage as you an me. That is a mystery, a miracle, and a joy passing understanding.
I hope that the above has been of some use in a way of understanding at least in theory what is being pointed to."
* it would be worth looking up "radical" and discovering its word origin.
**There is a saying in Borneo: " All knowledge is theoretical until it is in the muscles." Knowledge by Identity is distinct from book learning, assumptions, prejudices, information, beliefe, or any other way of "knowing." It is well and thoroughly treated in Merrel-Woff's book "The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object." His arrival at the points therein are fascinatingly described in his first book, "Pathways Through to Space."
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Elections, "opposames," and helmet straps
Sorry, the original entry was deleted due to its rather negative perspective. This is a time where we really need to look to what is the very Best in ourselves and all around us. We can all find lots of information that leads us to an unsavory picture, but it is by looking at our highest possibilities that we have and are a Star to steer by. By that means, anything that is unlike an Ideal will be revealed as specious and unworthy of our attention.
Update: I was just sent this by a good friend. It is a quote from our Mentor, Dr. K.G. Mills, and it applies here.
"Why should we, in our thought - organized and manifested life stream, ever consider those moments when nothing seemsto be happening to be devoid of the incredible Spirit of Newness and Fecundity? Yet we feel the "depression" is something that has come upon us by means that are totally blamed upon a handful of people. Perhaps it has, but we don't have to believe that Power rests in such control." >>Kenneth G. Mills, The Key: IdentityGreen Stuff pg. 334
http://www.kgmfoundation.org/
Update: I was just sent this by a good friend. It is a quote from our Mentor, Dr. K.G. Mills, and it applies here.
"Why should we, in our thought - organized and manifested life stream, ever consider those moments when nothing seemsto be happening to be devoid of the incredible Spirit of Newness and Fecundity? Yet we feel the "depression" is something that has come upon us by means that are totally blamed upon a handful of people. Perhaps it has, but we don't have to believe that Power rests in such control." >>Kenneth G. Mills, The Key: Identity
http://www.kgmfoundation.org/
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Letter to the Venus Project
I recently encountered a wonderful site on line that advocates the idea of a resource based economy as distinct from a scarcity based economy. It is called The Venus Project. (http://www.thevenusproject.com/) I liked what they had to say, but was concerned about a procedural matter, so wrote them the following:
"Dear Friends,
"I call you 'Friends' because I feel a bond with anyone who is doing work toward the fulfillment of our potential as Conscious Awareness Beings on this Earth. I have some questions that I do not see addressed in your material, at least in any heading form. These questions have to do with the deconstruction of the present form of plutosocial systems that are in the hands of private individuals and which control governments. As we have seen, money obstructs change. We have also seen that possession of a human body only denotes potential, not fact or fulfillment. It does not even imply control of that body or its potential ability to precipitate experience, including technology, but especially change within or without the person. In apparent fact the vast mass of humans is unaware of other than their immediate circumstances and the needs engendered by such. This is true of persons living in hunter/gatherer societies even through the populations of great cities which use the inventions of others and therefore think themselves civilized.
"When Mahatma Gandhi toured London he was asked by a reporter "Mr. Gandhi, what is your opinion of Western civilization?" He replied "I think it would be a very good idea." This statement epitomizes the dilemma of the soul based Conscious awareness confronting the plutosocial momentum of those manipulating and those enslaved mentally to the systems currently holding sway over our ways and means. In other words, the general population is unaware of any other way, or even the possibility of any other way. Indeed, if such a way is suggested, as I am sure you know from experience, it is most likely met with the resistance of a cornered animal. A case in point might be the popular ignorance of the actual mechanics and consequences of the fractional reserve banking system.
"So, from the economic top one percent of the world population which owns about 40% of the world's defined material wealth, down to the economic bottom 50% which collectively owns about one percent, we are dealing with a mass of animal reactivity momentum interspersed by a fractionally very small number who are capable of conceiving original thoughts and directions. It is these few who can technologically change things whether by language or instrument. That change is mitigated, as stated, by the factor of those who are invested in the protection of paper and material wealth. The level of attachment indicated by that protection includes every kind and degree of inhumanity ever perpetrated. We have to conclude that there is an immense dysfunction for these people and their minions of whatever description in the quale of self identity. That self identity is attached to and greatly resists being dislodged from identification of self with material comfort and power.
"So, to my question: How do the proponents of the Venus Project, as vastly wonderful as their vision is, propose to confront the laws of inertia as manifested in the plutosocial realm? I greatly acknowledge in this regard the importance and basic rightness of your vision. Indeed, it says in one book that "a nation without vision shall perish." It means, I think, vision in accordance with Nature, and we are currently witnessing and experiencing the lack of vision on the part of the population that has allowed themselves willingly into slavery. I am asking, therefore, what steps you advocate, other than disseminating information encompassing the Project and agreement with it, to precipitate the changes you desire?
Best regards and Q'plah,
Anton Nemeth"
"Dear Friends,
"I call you 'Friends' because I feel a bond with anyone who is doing work toward the fulfillment of our potential as Conscious Awareness Beings on this Earth. I have some questions that I do not see addressed in your material, at least in any heading form. These questions have to do with the deconstruction of the present form of plutosocial systems that are in the hands of private individuals and which control governments. As we have seen, money obstructs change. We have also seen that possession of a human body only denotes potential, not fact or fulfillment. It does not even imply control of that body or its potential ability to precipitate experience, including technology, but especially change within or without the person. In apparent fact the vast mass of humans is unaware of other than their immediate circumstances and the needs engendered by such. This is true of persons living in hunter/gatherer societies even through the populations of great cities which use the inventions of others and therefore think themselves civilized.
"When Mahatma Gandhi toured London he was asked by a reporter "Mr. Gandhi, what is your opinion of Western civilization?" He replied "I think it would be a very good idea." This statement epitomizes the dilemma of the soul based Conscious awareness confronting the plutosocial momentum of those manipulating and those enslaved mentally to the systems currently holding sway over our ways and means. In other words, the general population is unaware of any other way, or even the possibility of any other way. Indeed, if such a way is suggested, as I am sure you know from experience, it is most likely met with the resistance of a cornered animal. A case in point might be the popular ignorance of the actual mechanics and consequences of the fractional reserve banking system.
"So, from the economic top one percent of the world population which owns about 40% of the world's defined material wealth, down to the economic bottom 50% which collectively owns about one percent, we are dealing with a mass of animal reactivity momentum interspersed by a fractionally very small number who are capable of conceiving original thoughts and directions. It is these few who can technologically change things whether by language or instrument. That change is mitigated, as stated, by the factor of those who are invested in the protection of paper and material wealth. The level of attachment indicated by that protection includes every kind and degree of inhumanity ever perpetrated. We have to conclude that there is an immense dysfunction for these people and their minions of whatever description in the quale of self identity. That self identity is attached to and greatly resists being dislodged from identification of self with material comfort and power.
"So, to my question: How do the proponents of the Venus Project, as vastly wonderful as their vision is, propose to confront the laws of inertia as manifested in the plutosocial realm? I greatly acknowledge in this regard the importance and basic rightness of your vision. Indeed, it says in one book that "a nation without vision shall perish." It means, I think, vision in accordance with Nature, and we are currently witnessing and experiencing the lack of vision on the part of the population that has allowed themselves willingly into slavery. I am asking, therefore, what steps you advocate, other than disseminating information encompassing the Project and agreement with it, to precipitate the changes you desire?
Best regards and Q'plah,
Anton Nemeth"
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Antidote
I received a return e-mail from a dear friend who bemoaned the depressing nature of some forwarded information on food addatives. Here is my reply:
"Yes, there is a lot of depressing stuff going on, the worst of which "they" are not even telling us, if my alternate sources are correct. However, that is not the point, as I see it, anyways. We are here to grow in Conscious awareness, and promote that growth overall by our presence as the Light to the mundanities of life. Part of that, for me, is being aware of the exigencies of existence in an ego maniacal world. That means information, both about Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie, and their ilk, as well as MSG. It is why I am associated with the Consciousness Cinema here, and with other local groups working to reduce suffering through knowledge of whatever sort.
"Primarily, I feel we need to build the harmonious community of our friends. If anything, we can foster the feeling of being more than "this." You do that by just being who you are, _____. It is a great work in this day and age, just Being. There is no other antidote to ego. So, it isn't about saving the world, or fighting the corporations or the governments, or any such thing. It is about being Awake. The enemy is not an institution, it is sleep and ignorance of Self. When we are awake, good public results may follow. Or not. No one said that the human experiment had to work. We are a race that traditionally crucifies its saviors and in the name of a loving god commits wholesale slaughter. But we are also gifted with Giants, such as our dear Teacher, Guide, and Friend. We are privileged to stand on his shoulders and the shoulders of others like him and thus be granted a larger, more inclusive view. And don't discount that you chose to climb up to stand there, however much MSG of any psychic or other form you might have swallowed. That's what counts, my friend. That's why we feel the love that we do."
"Yes, there is a lot of depressing stuff going on, the worst of which "they" are not even telling us, if my alternate sources are correct. However, that is not the point, as I see it, anyways. We are here to grow in Conscious awareness, and promote that growth overall by our presence as the Light to the mundanities of life. Part of that, for me, is being aware of the exigencies of existence in an ego maniacal world. That means information, both about Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie, and their ilk, as well as MSG. It is why I am associated with the Consciousness Cinema here, and with other local groups working to reduce suffering through knowledge of whatever sort.
"Primarily, I feel we need to build the harmonious community of our friends. If anything, we can foster the feeling of being more than "this." You do that by just being who you are, _____. It is a great work in this day and age, just Being. There is no other antidote to ego. So, it isn't about saving the world, or fighting the corporations or the governments, or any such thing. It is about being Awake. The enemy is not an institution, it is sleep and ignorance of Self. When we are awake, good public results may follow. Or not. No one said that the human experiment had to work. We are a race that traditionally crucifies its saviors and in the name of a loving god commits wholesale slaughter. But we are also gifted with Giants, such as our dear Teacher, Guide, and Friend. We are privileged to stand on his shoulders and the shoulders of others like him and thus be granted a larger, more inclusive view. And don't discount that you chose to climb up to stand there, however much MSG of any psychic or other form you might have swallowed. That's what counts, my friend. That's why we feel the love that we do."
Friday, July 11, 2008
Quotes from Nisargadatta Maharaj
I was introduced to the words of Nisargadatta Maharaj by my Dear Mentor, Dr. Kenneth G. Mills, without whose instruction and example as Presence the following quotes would have no meaning for me. I offer them as an invitation in the consideration of what constitutes our right Identity, That, which we are before we think we are this, and without which there could not be the perception of thought.
"The search for reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings for it destroys the world in which you live."
***
"I do not accept paths... All paths lead to unreality. Paths are creations within the scope of knowledge. Therefore, paths and movements cannot transport you into reality because their function is to enmesh you within the dimension of knowledge, while reality prevails prior to it."
***
"Realization is of the fact that you are not a person."
***
"Personal entity and enlightenment cannot go together."
***
"There can be no person that is Self-realized."
***
"Why does this conflict normally occur? Why this dispute between us? People come here with some profound concept of spirituality. They think they have spiritual knowledge and they want me to give them a clean certificate: "yes, you are knowledgeable". This I don't do. I blast their concepts, and hence the confrontation... All knowledge is ignorance."
-Nisargadatta Maharaj
"The search for reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings for it destroys the world in which you live."
***
"I do not accept paths... All paths lead to unreality. Paths are creations within the scope of knowledge. Therefore, paths and movements cannot transport you into reality because their function is to enmesh you within the dimension of knowledge, while reality prevails prior to it."
***
"Realization is of the fact that you are not a person."
***
"Personal entity and enlightenment cannot go together."
***
"There can be no person that is Self-realized."
***
"Why does this conflict normally occur? Why this dispute between us? People come here with some profound concept of spirituality. They think they have spiritual knowledge and they want me to give them a clean certificate: "yes, you are knowledgeable". This I don't do. I blast their concepts, and hence the confrontation... All knowledge is ignorance."
-Nisargadatta Maharaj
Irony
Yes, irony is rampant in this world. I think that the greatest one is that a biological group that is emotionally and intellectually underdeveloped, due to misidentification of Self, is charged with its own survival in a very adverse and catastrophic situation of its own creation that can take not only other species but also global systems with it. We have the gift of foresight and insight, and as a group subvert those to fear and greed. Our public policies are all of the "last man standing" philosophy, exactly the opposit of what is desperately needed. The last lesson of all this in retrospect will be: "We should have dropped everything and cooperated for all our own best interest." But we seem to want to have that conclusion forced on us as a consequence as distinct from a free choice, a joy, and an adventure into newness. What will change this, our suicidal, fratricidal group tendency?
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
A city with a view
I maintain that cities ought to be designed around people. That means to me, that since the human brain is wired, they say, for about 500 close "people recognition" connections, cities ought use units of + or - 450 people as an organizational basis. This means that a city could be built of "blocks" that precisely house that number of diverse occupants, with perhaps "blocks" that house specialty cultural components, such as artisans or bachelors, or whatever. Each of these "blocks, would have upper and lower story buildings that house a family on one level and a business on the lower level. This eliminates needs for both community stretching and travel for basic goods.
Then we could add Paulo Solari's verticalization ides and have these units stacked in buildings that would have internal transportation built in, as well as an energy producing skin incorporating the energies of sun, wind, and falling water. Any idea how much energy a 50 story rain downspout can produce and cache as drinking, etc., water? This concept also frees up land for agriculture, perhaps recapturing some of the field and orchards acreage we have paved over to provide insularity for our overblown sense of consumerism and artificial false privacy. Our "current" society is geared to make money for everything that depends on oil, and we have forsaken the treasure of ourselves so that we can commute an hour or more to get a home with a view.
I'd personally be happy with a home having a large deck 25 stories up that overlooked farmland or ranches that provide my food, and from which I could commute to work by elevator and slidewalk. I could even have neighbors to talk with and go shopping on foot on the way home. Heck, Bucky Fuller even designed self sustaining cities for 10,000 that could float not only in water, but also in the air, freeing even more land. The problems really are in our greed and in commercial favoritism, and that means, again, that we do not think for ourselves and vote with our money and our voice at crucial times. Who said "It is great luck for leaders that men don't think?" It was Adolph Hitler. Anybody remember him?
Consciously or not, haven't we cooperated with corporations who, consciously or not, have cooperated with this observation by one of the most adept mobilizers of these last so many decades? How can we more quickly mobilize the same amount of energy and organizational ability to do good, even to the point of saving ourselves from an ignominious end? Was Walt Kelly right when one of his characters misquoted and said "We have met the enemy, and he is us!" Or was it a misquote? Either way, wouldn't our own defeat of our own squanderous ways be our most glorious victory?
Then we could add Paulo Solari's verticalization ides and have these units stacked in buildings that would have internal transportation built in, as well as an energy producing skin incorporating the energies of sun, wind, and falling water. Any idea how much energy a 50 story rain downspout can produce and cache as drinking, etc., water? This concept also frees up land for agriculture, perhaps recapturing some of the field and orchards acreage we have paved over to provide insularity for our overblown sense of consumerism and artificial false privacy. Our "current" society is geared to make money for everything that depends on oil, and we have forsaken the treasure of ourselves so that we can commute an hour or more to get a home with a view.
I'd personally be happy with a home having a large deck 25 stories up that overlooked farmland or ranches that provide my food, and from which I could commute to work by elevator and slidewalk. I could even have neighbors to talk with and go shopping on foot on the way home. Heck, Bucky Fuller even designed self sustaining cities for 10,000 that could float not only in water, but also in the air, freeing even more land. The problems really are in our greed and in commercial favoritism, and that means, again, that we do not think for ourselves and vote with our money and our voice at crucial times. Who said "It is great luck for leaders that men don't think?" It was Adolph Hitler. Anybody remember him?
Consciously or not, haven't we cooperated with corporations who, consciously or not, have cooperated with this observation by one of the most adept mobilizers of these last so many decades? How can we more quickly mobilize the same amount of energy and organizational ability to do good, even to the point of saving ourselves from an ignominious end? Was Walt Kelly right when one of his characters misquoted and said "We have met the enemy, and he is us!" Or was it a misquote? Either way, wouldn't our own defeat of our own squanderous ways be our most glorious victory?
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
About the possibility of a "Dark Age."
(This post is an excerpt from an ongoing discussion about such books as "The Long Emergency" and "The Comming Dark Age" as it appears in a forum called JUSTCOZ at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/justcoz. It is a site dedicated to the promotion of self sufficiency in local communities.)
Yes, Jacob's thesis (in "Dark Age Comming") appears pessimistic, but she states clearly that it is the description of a tendency, not a fate. She has great faith in our ability to change our course and the book is meant as a lens to focus our energies on specific leverage points.
In this regard I certainly agree with the simile of wealth as energy. Money is a symbol of work done, therefore can represent energy and its governance. Faith based and politically based systems are inadequate to deal with money as they are, to various degrees, adversarial systems, and though possibly valid within themselves,
ultimatley not accurate as models distributed wholley over the Universe. Being that they are localized, they are parochial attempts to get by in and explain "Life," and are, as we know them, at the root of the failure of Western society to cope with the world as it actually IS in an epistemological or ontological sense. That is why
societies that percieve Mankind as a function of Nature as distinct from a controler of Nature have a more one-to-one accuracy in their experience of existence, and a more accurate psychological map of our relationship with the World. Anyone as a physcist might appreciate the importance of this perspective as it is outlined in
Bohm's "Wholenesss and the Implicate Order" or Talbot's "The Holographic Universe."
Herein lies the link between personal maturity and responsibility. I am personally convinced that the founders of the great religions had the insight that we (I) and the Universe IS One in Essence, and based their ethic on that premise. This was dogmatized into faith systems, corrupted, naturally, into that by lesser souls who sold it to well meaning folk of lesser insight who were ready to recieve whatever
leadership would help their emotional nature cope. This is the human way. The "highest" path described in religious literature that I am aware of is known by its practitioners, among other names, as "The Path of Ultimate Responsibility."
That Path is at the root of the desired success of the bumper sticker that says "Do No Harm." Why would one harm what or who is Essentialy themselves, or their Self? The vastly immature understanding and practice of the concept of "Self" contributes to the afformentioned adversarial relationships in the most destructive ways. It is why the "Golden Rule" in either form lacks practice. I suspect that if translators had a more accurate grasp of the implications and referents of the the word idea translated as "I" from Aramaic and other languages, we might have a far different face on our dogmatized faiths, whether religious, political, or scientific. The idea of discreet individuals in competition with Nature and each other is an egoic invention punctured by the demonstrations of cooperation based on Love. That sees only Itself growing in maturity and wisdom, incapable of not bringing all its manifestations as people and their world with it. Such a standpoint also enables the perception of dissolution to be experienced as a function of creativity, where the
falling apart of a system is only the necessary step required for the enabling of a more encompassing functional understanding. But again, that requires the impersonal maturity and responsibility of the participents, eh?
Yes, Jacob's thesis (in "Dark Age Comming") appears pessimistic, but she states clearly that it is the description of a tendency, not a fate. She has great faith in our ability to change our course and the book is meant as a lens to focus our energies on specific leverage points.
In this regard I certainly agree with the simile of wealth as energy. Money is a symbol of work done, therefore can represent energy and its governance. Faith based and politically based systems are inadequate to deal with money as they are, to various degrees, adversarial systems, and though possibly valid within themselves,
ultimatley not accurate as models distributed wholley over the Universe. Being that they are localized, they are parochial attempts to get by in and explain "Life," and are, as we know them, at the root of the failure of Western society to cope with the world as it actually IS in an epistemological or ontological sense. That is why
societies that percieve Mankind as a function of Nature as distinct from a controler of Nature have a more one-to-one accuracy in their experience of existence, and a more accurate psychological map of our relationship with the World. Anyone as a physcist might appreciate the importance of this perspective as it is outlined in
Bohm's "Wholenesss and the Implicate Order" or Talbot's "The Holographic Universe."
Herein lies the link between personal maturity and responsibility. I am personally convinced that the founders of the great religions had the insight that we (I) and the Universe IS One in Essence, and based their ethic on that premise. This was dogmatized into faith systems, corrupted, naturally, into that by lesser souls who sold it to well meaning folk of lesser insight who were ready to recieve whatever
leadership would help their emotional nature cope. This is the human way. The "highest" path described in religious literature that I am aware of is known by its practitioners, among other names, as "The Path of Ultimate Responsibility."
That Path is at the root of the desired success of the bumper sticker that says "Do No Harm." Why would one harm what or who is Essentialy themselves, or their Self? The vastly immature understanding and practice of the concept of "Self" contributes to the afformentioned adversarial relationships in the most destructive ways. It is why the "Golden Rule" in either form lacks practice. I suspect that if translators had a more accurate grasp of the implications and referents of the the word idea translated as "I" from Aramaic and other languages, we might have a far different face on our dogmatized faiths, whether religious, political, or scientific. The idea of discreet individuals in competition with Nature and each other is an egoic invention punctured by the demonstrations of cooperation based on Love. That sees only Itself growing in maturity and wisdom, incapable of not bringing all its manifestations as people and their world with it. Such a standpoint also enables the perception of dissolution to be experienced as a function of creativity, where the
falling apart of a system is only the necessary step required for the enabling of a more encompassing functional understanding. But again, that requires the impersonal maturity and responsibility of the participents, eh?
Thursday, June 26, 2008
"My" world
Lately I have been playing a game that defeats blame and makes me take responsibility for the things I like to complain about and forces a different perspective. When I see something in the news or wherever that I don't like, I say to myself "That's me; I am doing that." That one statement dumps responsibility for my life squarely where it belongs: with me. It is not the other guy's responsibility to change my life and make me live a default. I make my life as it is by creating a harmonic way or by accepting someone else's plan for me as their cow. My Mentor, Dr. KG Mills, said "'You' are the world you wander through. What will it be like?"
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Declaration:
It is a gift of the Human condition that critical circumstances are generally met with spontaneously creative innovations that speak immediately to the challenge at hand. This is true in our local situations, whether household or community. Finding now that due to the measurably global impact of our local actions, our definitions must grow to include all the peoples of the world, because these impacts cumulatively and seriously can be seen to threaten our viability as men, women, and children on this planet, as well as the viability of global systems that sustain any and all life as we know it.
As a response in kind, we choose to form cells and organs of perception and action to meet these challenges that are now widely recognized to impinge on all the peoples of our planet. These challenges are personal, spiritual, economic, psychological, and political in scope, encompassing a re-examination of the very nature of our being as humans and our roles within ourselves, within our families, within our communities, within all levels of our commercial and financial systems, and within all levels of our govern-mental structures.
To these ends we unite in circles of group action, that like the rings of a small stone tossed in the water reach to all the shores of perception and action as waves of change. Remembering that the root meaning of "eco-" means "house," these changes are collectively intended to harmonize with and support the laws and means of nature without harm to its systems on any level of ecology, as Stewardship, of this, our global home.
We know that there is no certainty or law that says our collective experience, encompassed as the Human experiment, will succeed. Nevertheless it is our will as the masters of our individual ship and collective fleets of soul, to steer as the Star of success innate in each of us in our synergized endeavor to grow into an unexpected and yet abundant fulfilment of our highest possibilities.
As a response in kind, we choose to form cells and organs of perception and action to meet these challenges that are now widely recognized to impinge on all the peoples of our planet. These challenges are personal, spiritual, economic, psychological, and political in scope, encompassing a re-examination of the very nature of our being as humans and our roles within ourselves, within our families, within our communities, within all levels of our commercial and financial systems, and within all levels of our govern-mental structures.
To these ends we unite in circles of group action, that like the rings of a small stone tossed in the water reach to all the shores of perception and action as waves of change. Remembering that the root meaning of "eco-" means "house," these changes are collectively intended to harmonize with and support the laws and means of nature without harm to its systems on any level of ecology, as Stewardship, of this, our global home.
We know that there is no certainty or law that says our collective experience, encompassed as the Human experiment, will succeed. Nevertheless it is our will as the masters of our individual ship and collective fleets of soul, to steer as the Star of success innate in each of us in our synergized endeavor to grow into an unexpected and yet abundant fulfilment of our highest possibilities.
Monday, March 10, 2008
What to do: a mustard seed.
Recently I was confronted with a cloud of ideas that had to do with solving this or that problem in the world. This came in the form of a letter by e-mail from someone concerned with the world situation. This was my reply:
I have considered this matter for years, since my childhood. At first I took it personally, as in dealing with "my" problem. How could I do otherwise? A child learns to make do in his own environment. But as I grew up, I saw that there were others who were having the same problems as I was. I started to postulate the problem as one that "we" had, or as the problem of a bigger "I." A lot of "us" who are part of a "we" make a larger "I." Later, I found out some astonishing properties of this "I." There is even a book now, by a doctor, called The I that is we.
To make a long story short, I realized that we make our problem(s) worse by labeling them as specific to a group. In other words, names divide. I saw clearly that we disipate our energies and fight our like minded brethren by calling a problem as having specifically to do with a group o other person. We call it a problem with American teens, or with immigrants to our country, or of the illiterate in our cities, or the homeless in Chicago. We call it the terrorists, the Mafia, or the government, or the corporations o the banks. We even call it religion and the love of God. We manifest it as a race by acting like animals that defacate in the space that they live without cleaning it up.
What we fail to notice is that in dividing it up like that and not cleaning up our mess, we are missing the core perception of the problem, which is the only level at which we can do any good or effect any real change other than cosmetic. Without naming all the links in the chain, we can go directly to the piece that anchors the problem in our experience. That piece is Identity.
All problems are expressions of the activity of defining identity. Fear is the feeling of threatened identity, love is the feeling of validated identity. Fear is the threat of being a solitary entity against a hostile environment, Love is the feeling of being so One with it all that any threat of the perceived environment is trivial.
What we might need to address is how the human system of conscious awareness, which has now been proved to stem from an identical source in Africa, can globally function at every level of organization with the result of promoting and fostering the feeling of Unity with all his fellow humans, but especially with that "I" that is we.
The Human Idea is of a piece. We now know that at many levels, from the genetic to the cosmic. What we don't know is how to install a pattern of behavior in our children that is big enough to accommodate growth into a cooperative global economy. Now remember, that "economy" stems from a word that means "household management." I cannot think of a more appropriate word to encompass the enormity of all the levels of human experience from internal physiopsycospiritual health to the finding of pied a terre's sin the stars.
In the same way that my Mentor stated that "Consciousness is the Light to the Awareness of Ideas and thoughts" we can and must, if we wish to continue as a productive growing species, proceed in our relations with each other from the most fundamental of ideas. This idea has to be rooted in the muscles so deeply that we cannot harm another. and that brings it back to Identity. If I am established in the feeling that the other person is myself wearing another suit, how could I do harm? Would I harm myself? The Bhagevad Gita says "Established in Unity, act." The two forms of the golden rule say "do unto others as you would have done unto you." and "Do not do unto others what you would not have done unto you." It also o says "Know ThySelf." Could this last have a greater fruit that an experiential knowledge of the "I" that is we? Who would not want to help themselves?
This alone may be our only fundamental problem, and our only task might be to see the fundamental unity of all the seemingly seperate systems that constitutes our world. The most basic system is the human pattern and we share it, each an every single an plural one of us. We carry within us, as our own conscious awareness, the solution to all our ills. It is the recognition that WE ARE ONE is not platitude, it is a Way, but as GK Chesterton said about Christianity, "it's not that (it) doesn't work, it just hasn't been tried yet."
I have considered this matter for years, since my childhood. At first I took it personally, as in dealing with "my" problem. How could I do otherwise? A child learns to make do in his own environment. But as I grew up, I saw that there were others who were having the same problems as I was. I started to postulate the problem as one that "we" had, or as the problem of a bigger "I." A lot of "us" who are part of a "we" make a larger "I." Later, I found out some astonishing properties of this "I." There is even a book now, by a doctor, called The I that is we.
To make a long story short, I realized that we make our problem(s) worse by labeling them as specific to a group. In other words, names divide. I saw clearly that we disipate our energies and fight our like minded brethren by calling a problem as having specifically to do with a group o other person. We call it a problem with American teens, or with immigrants to our country, or of the illiterate in our cities, or the homeless in Chicago. We call it the terrorists, the Mafia, or the government, or the corporations o the banks. We even call it religion and the love of God. We manifest it as a race by acting like animals that defacate in the space that they live without cleaning it up.
What we fail to notice is that in dividing it up like that and not cleaning up our mess, we are missing the core perception of the problem, which is the only level at which we can do any good or effect any real change other than cosmetic. Without naming all the links in the chain, we can go directly to the piece that anchors the problem in our experience. That piece is Identity.
All problems are expressions of the activity of defining identity. Fear is the feeling of threatened identity, love is the feeling of validated identity. Fear is the threat of being a solitary entity against a hostile environment, Love is the feeling of being so One with it all that any threat of the perceived environment is trivial.
What we might need to address is how the human system of conscious awareness, which has now been proved to stem from an identical source in Africa, can globally function at every level of organization with the result of promoting and fostering the feeling of Unity with all his fellow humans, but especially with that "I" that is we.
The Human Idea is of a piece. We now know that at many levels, from the genetic to the cosmic. What we don't know is how to install a pattern of behavior in our children that is big enough to accommodate growth into a cooperative global economy. Now remember, that "economy" stems from a word that means "household management." I cannot think of a more appropriate word to encompass the enormity of all the levels of human experience from internal physiopsycospiritual health to the finding of pied a terre's sin the stars.
In the same way that my Mentor stated that "Consciousness is the Light to the Awareness of Ideas and thoughts" we can and must, if we wish to continue as a productive growing species, proceed in our relations with each other from the most fundamental of ideas. This idea has to be rooted in the muscles so deeply that we cannot harm another. and that brings it back to Identity. If I am established in the feeling that the other person is myself wearing another suit, how could I do harm? Would I harm myself? The Bhagevad Gita says "Established in Unity, act." The two forms of the golden rule say "do unto others as you would have done unto you." and "Do not do unto others what you would not have done unto you." It also o says "Know ThySelf." Could this last have a greater fruit that an experiential knowledge of the "I" that is we? Who would not want to help themselves?
This alone may be our only fundamental problem, and our only task might be to see the fundamental unity of all the seemingly seperate systems that constitutes our world. The most basic system is the human pattern and we share it, each an every single an plural one of us. We carry within us, as our own conscious awareness, the solution to all our ills. It is the recognition that WE ARE ONE is not platitude, it is a Way, but as GK Chesterton said about Christianity, "it's not that (it) doesn't work, it just hasn't been tried yet."
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Rant
Jane Jacobs said in her book "The Coming Dark Age" that the disappearance of the middle class is the cause of the abyss of ignorance that constitutes such a period. My guess is that such a period is somewhat of a time of egoistic safety and power for those stuck in the trap of "wealth equals good." In my opinion, all the greedy people could have ten or more times what they think they don't have if they took others with them, i.e. promoted global popular wealth at least to just over the point where each person could have some leisure from economic pursuits and be insured of health and elder care. Along with that would have to go some education, a terrifying prospect for bankers. Such global enhancement would mean cooperation and a seeming reduction in personal power for those who control comparatively vast amounts of money.
I think that personal power without an underlayment of wisdom is a very destructive aberration of the human psyche, as far as it is based on separatism and blindness to the underlying Unity of Nature, and therefore of our ties with each other. Such might be the corporate, and especially the banking mentality of today, which in one documentary was shown to be sociopathic. But if anyone can see the "other" as an aspect of their own self, how could they do harm? Who would deliberately harm themselves? Yet the illusion of being discreet individuals allows many to seek dominance rather than cooperation. One of the forms of this dominance is the destruction of the educational system, especially any aspect of it that fosters the ability to think rationally or feel deeply. It may be why we have gone from first in education in the industrialized world to 29th in 20 years. This may very well be one of the factors in the growing, unfilled gap between the very rich and the very poor in this country.
Many look to the "American Dream" of making it on yur own. And of course, this does work, but again, it seems it is for the few. Rugged individualism also, as an American ideal, is a wonderful phase, and necessary, but it is a teen years phenomenon, necessary only for separation of the sense of self from identifying with the parents. A mature adult has a sense as well of community to which he can fully give that sense of uniqueness he has acquired through trial, and a sense of that community's interdependence with Resource. Yet we are popularly trained to be emotionally reactive, thalmic based cash cows for the comfort of the few and the destruction of all. "Be the best that you can be" should not only be the motto of the US Army recruiters, but of all the educators and their students. But in order to do that there has to be a major reassessment as to the ends and means of society, and therefor of what individuality truly means. Historically, this has happened mostly on a one-by-one basis, and we have for the most part crucified one way or another those who would lift us up, all under the auspices of fear agitated by those who would loose their economic comfort. As a good friend said, "money (of the very rich) stops progress," and this seems to be so for the general population as they are drained of economic resources by miseducation and the ideal of comfort, as corportions infest the public thoughts with false ideals, and the lack of education stops the supply of ideas and patterns fostering wisdom and insight.
I think that personal power without an underlayment of wisdom is a very destructive aberration of the human psyche, as far as it is based on separatism and blindness to the underlying Unity of Nature, and therefore of our ties with each other. Such might be the corporate, and especially the banking mentality of today, which in one documentary was shown to be sociopathic. But if anyone can see the "other" as an aspect of their own self, how could they do harm? Who would deliberately harm themselves? Yet the illusion of being discreet individuals allows many to seek dominance rather than cooperation. One of the forms of this dominance is the destruction of the educational system, especially any aspect of it that fosters the ability to think rationally or feel deeply. It may be why we have gone from first in education in the industrialized world to 29th in 20 years. This may very well be one of the factors in the growing, unfilled gap between the very rich and the very poor in this country.
Many look to the "American Dream" of making it on yur own. And of course, this does work, but again, it seems it is for the few. Rugged individualism also, as an American ideal, is a wonderful phase, and necessary, but it is a teen years phenomenon, necessary only for separation of the sense of self from identifying with the parents. A mature adult has a sense as well of community to which he can fully give that sense of uniqueness he has acquired through trial, and a sense of that community's interdependence with Resource. Yet we are popularly trained to be emotionally reactive, thalmic based cash cows for the comfort of the few and the destruction of all. "Be the best that you can be" should not only be the motto of the US Army recruiters, but of all the educators and their students. But in order to do that there has to be a major reassessment as to the ends and means of society, and therefor of what individuality truly means. Historically, this has happened mostly on a one-by-one basis, and we have for the most part crucified one way or another those who would lift us up, all under the auspices of fear agitated by those who would loose their economic comfort. As a good friend said, "money (of the very rich) stops progress," and this seems to be so for the general population as they are drained of economic resources by miseducation and the ideal of comfort, as corportions infest the public thoughts with false ideals, and the lack of education stops the supply of ideas and patterns fostering wisdom and insight.
Monday, March 3, 2008
A reply to someone who credited the "fish brain" as the root of evil.
I agree with you about the fish brain (also known as the reptilian or monkey brain to some) theory to some extent. One of my favorite sayings is Gandhi's reply to a reporter who asked him, after a tour of the modern wonders of London, what he thought of Western civilization. Gandhi replied "I think it would be a very good idea." I took that mostly to mean that appearance dosn't necessarily mean substance, despite our looking like, or agreeing with each other that we are cultured.
Similarly, it is my opinion that Satan, the name for the fallen Lucifer, is a symbolic--yet very functioning--aspect of awareness. More precisely, of the lack of awareness of higher functions and perceptions, particularly those having to do with the unitary nature of Being. Lucifer means "Light Bearer." In the scheme of things, it seems to me that the fall of "Lucifer" from Heaven is the development of the human ego. My mentor said that hell is the sense of separation. Conversely, the feeling of Unity can be called heaven. And this to me is the crux of "salvation." Salvation is the deliberate or serendipetous regaining of the feeling of Unity with the Source. It is why the religions that postulate a god seperate from a creation can only be misleading the "faithful." They who believe that are doomed mentally to found their belief in god as one irrevocably separate. How hellish is that? And there can be found the foundation of guilt. On the other hand, one who feels that the "other" is an aspect of his own impersonal Essence, though seemingly different, cannot do harm. Who would harm themselves? And thereon is founded an actually viable morality, as far as I can tell.
Similarly, it is my opinion that Satan, the name for the fallen Lucifer, is a symbolic--yet very functioning--aspect of awareness. More precisely, of the lack of awareness of higher functions and perceptions, particularly those having to do with the unitary nature of Being. Lucifer means "Light Bearer." In the scheme of things, it seems to me that the fall of "Lucifer" from Heaven is the development of the human ego. My mentor said that hell is the sense of separation. Conversely, the feeling of Unity can be called heaven. And this to me is the crux of "salvation." Salvation is the deliberate or serendipetous regaining of the feeling of Unity with the Source. It is why the religions that postulate a god seperate from a creation can only be misleading the "faithful." They who believe that are doomed mentally to found their belief in god as one irrevocably separate. How hellish is that? And there can be found the foundation of guilt. On the other hand, one who feels that the "other" is an aspect of his own impersonal Essence, though seemingly different, cannot do harm. Who would harm themselves? And thereon is founded an actually viable morality, as far as I can tell.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Friday, February 29, 2008
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Maki gamma
If you are the tribal sort, or a potter, you would have enjoyed the event that I found myself invited to and participating in last Friday night. A local professor in the ceramics program at Folsom College has a large "maki gamma" on his property. That is Nipponese for "wood kiln," this variety being based on a sixth century model also known as a "dragon kiln." Such a kiln is loaded and fired with great ceremony and celebration.
The kiln, about 40' stem to stern, is decorated with offering ranging from flowers and fruit to sake and cakes. Candles and incense are everywhere. Excepting a thin moon, the stars, and a rare shooting star, that is the only light in the pitch black countryside. The other, but small, exception is a campfire nearby where tidbits from a table laden with potluck offerings are washed down with lemonade or ale. It was quite a spectacular sight . There were circumambulations, prayers, invocations, offerings, libations, and many thanksgivings. Then one of the students who had been active on the project was surprised with the honor of actually starting the fire.
The kiln will get increasingly hot over 24 hours with folk tending it over night and through the day. At peak, it will reach 2300F, no little accomplishment using only wood. At its height the kiln will spout an eight foot flame from the flue, signifying its having reached the height of its ability. The over 100 pieces stacked in the belly of the beast in ranks reflecting the seniority of the potter's work included, will be soaked in fire and wood ash, giving them the characteristic chocolaty rust color of such a firing, with white accents form the lime in the rice straws on those so decorated before immersion in the heat.
After the lighting the forty or so people, who came to partake of the initial ceremony or to aid with the vigil of stoking the dragon over night, stayed for food and drink that was there in generous supply. There were home made soups, enchiladas, pot stickers, munchies and chips of every description, and a rainbow of drinks. All this was had around a four foot fire ring that contained a blaze made from 8" aged pine logs cut in 1' segments. Soon it felt like the campfire was competing with the kiln, and all the folk around it from all their walks of life were making a happy noise of talk and laughter, doing what people are meant to do: be together in the love of life, enjoying their cooperative productivity. With all the harvest offerings on the kiln, and this being the Thanksgiving season here, it somehow felt like home, if one feels that the presence of heart makes it so.
Reading back, there was an element of the kiln lighting ceremony I neglected to mention. I had said about the circumambulations. I had also said about the profusion of candles and incense. What I didn't do was adequately describe the trappings and surroundings of the kiln, a factor which led to one of the thrills of the evening, as you shall see.
Imagine, if you will, a structure framed of 6"x6" timbers holding up a corrugated tin roof, the far end of which was pierced by the diameter of the kiln flue. The mouth of the kiln faced a bank of straw bales which served as seating for many of the participants. On either side, about four and eight feet left and right, was stacked cord wood of several descriptions intended for different stages of the firing, such as warming, ash production, and final heating. Over everything between these walls of cord wood, including over the kiln itself, was
a layer of rice straw of various thicknesses. At about three feet, set all around the kiln, was a 3" hawser elaborately woven of rice straw, the purpose of which was to define the sacred space of the kiln within which the Fire Goddess would do her work. On the kiln itself there was an additional burden of festive autumn leaves and pine boughs. These were over the layer of base straw. This was the setting into which were placed some 80-odd candles and perhaps an equal number of incense sticks, all aflame.
It was a scene to make a fire marshal have a serious threat of cardiac arrest, especially had such an official seen the tentative and indecisive placement of some of those fiery objects in their bed of tinder. A further agitation might have been the casual use of smudge bundles and punks that were part of the assemblage of incense offerings. None of this compared, however, to the final insult to any consideration of safety. I speak of the companion of the minister who, wearing a styled western hat, black overcoat, boots and beads, was doing the walk arounds, chanting and waving feathers and a rope of smoking sweet grass.
The companion to this picture of shamanic priesthood was a mutt of large size and, most notably, of wagging tail and inquizitive muzzle. This creature, judging from its coat, must have had as parents a dalmatian and a large Labrador. Certainly, whoever they were, each contributed a very active happiness-and-tail-wagging gene to the animal in our company. I nearly jumped and grabbed the dog a number of times, as his tail whisked within inches of a candle or votive. I felt great relief when it settled down and ceased threatening to cause a conflagration that might be seen for miles, had it happened. But that was short lived, as the beast again took to patrolling too near the many flames, any of which could have brought the whole structure to an untimely end. Indeed, as the dog made some turns in the narrow spaces, I thought of Mrs. O'Leary's cow and the great Chicago fire. We were, you know, surrounded by feilds of dry grass and a pine/oak forest.
Nothing happened as a result of the dog in the space of time between the lighting and the final self-immolation of the candles. All the straw on the kiln, and the offerings, were at a certain point removed. The growing heat of the kiln itself demanded that. But the whole scene with its inherent dangers left an impression on me. I remembered all the dangers and stupidities I had miraculously survived, especially in my younger years. No doubt, had we enough time for their stories, each one there could have told tales of escapes from near certain death. Somehow, with all the adrenaline generated by the thrill of the event, augmented by the random threats of a dog's tail, I was left with a greater trust in the wonder of life, and a feeling of an inherent good intent.
Was it chance that saved the scene from a wagger knocking over a candle? Or did the fashioning of the protective dragon at the prow of the kiln, all the elaborate thanksgivings and prayers for success, did these form a shield of safety and well being around and through the event? Was there a Fire Goddess, or was this simply the working of our own Nature intent on an end? In any case, I felt part of something special, an event of gathering, doing and finding. And as is the usual case, more than anything else, I found more of the adventure of my own self's journey.
The kiln, about 40' stem to stern, is decorated with offering ranging from flowers and fruit to sake and cakes. Candles and incense are everywhere. Excepting a thin moon, the stars, and a rare shooting star, that is the only light in the pitch black countryside. The other, but small, exception is a campfire nearby where tidbits from a table laden with potluck offerings are washed down with lemonade or ale. It was quite a spectacular sight . There were circumambulations, prayers, invocations, offerings, libations, and many thanksgivings. Then one of the students who had been active on the project was surprised with the honor of actually starting the fire.
The kiln will get increasingly hot over 24 hours with folk tending it over night and through the day. At peak, it will reach 2300F, no little accomplishment using only wood. At its height the kiln will spout an eight foot flame from the flue, signifying its having reached the height of its ability. The over 100 pieces stacked in the belly of the beast in ranks reflecting the seniority of the potter's work included, will be soaked in fire and wood ash, giving them the characteristic chocolaty rust color of such a firing, with white accents form the lime in the rice straws on those so decorated before immersion in the heat.
After the lighting the forty or so people, who came to partake of the initial ceremony or to aid with the vigil of stoking the dragon over night, stayed for food and drink that was there in generous supply. There were home made soups, enchiladas, pot stickers, munchies and chips of every description, and a rainbow of drinks. All this was had around a four foot fire ring that contained a blaze made from 8" aged pine logs cut in 1' segments. Soon it felt like the campfire was competing with the kiln, and all the folk around it from all their walks of life were making a happy noise of talk and laughter, doing what people are meant to do: be together in the love of life, enjoying their cooperative productivity. With all the harvest offerings on the kiln, and this being the Thanksgiving season here, it somehow felt like home, if one feels that the presence of heart makes it so.
Reading back, there was an element of the kiln lighting ceremony I neglected to mention. I had said about the circumambulations. I had also said about the profusion of candles and incense. What I didn't do was adequately describe the trappings and surroundings of the kiln, a factor which led to one of the thrills of the evening, as you shall see.
Imagine, if you will, a structure framed of 6"x6" timbers holding up a corrugated tin roof, the far end of which was pierced by the diameter of the kiln flue. The mouth of the kiln faced a bank of straw bales which served as seating for many of the participants. On either side, about four and eight feet left and right, was stacked cord wood of several descriptions intended for different stages of the firing, such as warming, ash production, and final heating. Over everything between these walls of cord wood, including over the kiln itself, was
a layer of rice straw of various thicknesses. At about three feet, set all around the kiln, was a 3" hawser elaborately woven of rice straw, the purpose of which was to define the sacred space of the kiln within which the Fire Goddess would do her work. On the kiln itself there was an additional burden of festive autumn leaves and pine boughs. These were over the layer of base straw. This was the setting into which were placed some 80-odd candles and perhaps an equal number of incense sticks, all aflame.
It was a scene to make a fire marshal have a serious threat of cardiac arrest, especially had such an official seen the tentative and indecisive placement of some of those fiery objects in their bed of tinder. A further agitation might have been the casual use of smudge bundles and punks that were part of the assemblage of incense offerings. None of this compared, however, to the final insult to any consideration of safety. I speak of the companion of the minister who, wearing a styled western hat, black overcoat, boots and beads, was doing the walk arounds, chanting and waving feathers and a rope of smoking sweet grass.
The companion to this picture of shamanic priesthood was a mutt of large size and, most notably, of wagging tail and inquizitive muzzle. This creature, judging from its coat, must have had as parents a dalmatian and a large Labrador. Certainly, whoever they were, each contributed a very active happiness-and-tail-wagging gene to the animal in our company. I nearly jumped and grabbed the dog a number of times, as his tail whisked within inches of a candle or votive. I felt great relief when it settled down and ceased threatening to cause a conflagration that might be seen for miles, had it happened. But that was short lived, as the beast again took to patrolling too near the many flames, any of which could have brought the whole structure to an untimely end. Indeed, as the dog made some turns in the narrow spaces, I thought of Mrs. O'Leary's cow and the great Chicago fire. We were, you know, surrounded by feilds of dry grass and a pine/oak forest.
Nothing happened as a result of the dog in the space of time between the lighting and the final self-immolation of the candles. All the straw on the kiln, and the offerings, were at a certain point removed. The growing heat of the kiln itself demanded that. But the whole scene with its inherent dangers left an impression on me. I remembered all the dangers and stupidities I had miraculously survived, especially in my younger years. No doubt, had we enough time for their stories, each one there could have told tales of escapes from near certain death. Somehow, with all the adrenaline generated by the thrill of the event, augmented by the random threats of a dog's tail, I was left with a greater trust in the wonder of life, and a feeling of an inherent good intent.
Was it chance that saved the scene from a wagger knocking over a candle? Or did the fashioning of the protective dragon at the prow of the kiln, all the elaborate thanksgivings and prayers for success, did these form a shield of safety and well being around and through the event? Was there a Fire Goddess, or was this simply the working of our own Nature intent on an end? In any case, I felt part of something special, an event of gathering, doing and finding. And as is the usual case, more than anything else, I found more of the adventure of my own self's journey.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Response to a lady about interrracial dating
I thought I would respond to your correction, not having seen your original post. It sounds like you were sincere. I'm a "white boy" and took no offense from your use of that phrase. I think that was, though, because of how I grew up: as the child of immigrants in Berkeley, CA, where we lived on Ashby street where the BART station now is. My best friend was Jimmy, the son of a black family we were very close to. I was often there, and even, to my recollection, went with his folks on shopping trips. They had a car, we didn't. I guess that looked odd to some folks, the sight of a dark black family with a lily white blond boy in tow. I was close to them to the point that I was at their house on Christmas day for several years. I had not only seen a picture of Jimmy sitting on Santa's lap, but sat on Santa's lap myself a few times. My Mother didn't know what to do with me the first time I saw a white Santa. I freaked, wondering what had happened to dear Santa!
Anyway, that is just to say that I grew up close to black people in a number of settings. There are some stories around that, for sure. I lived and worked with "people of color" all my life and always found it awkward to make any distinction based on color. There were so many beautiful colors in my experience. For many years my closest friend was a wonderful Jamaican man. My white wife and I were often some of the very few whites at some major parties in our neighborhood, both at our house and at others. My distinctions were always behavioral distinctions. If a person was courteous, kind, considerate, and aware, they were OK in my book. This allowed for differences in education, and even of temperament. I was always interested in some one's story. I was without exception disappointed when someone attributed a fault in behavior to "race." I found people of any color did this: misattribute behavior to race. It was, to me, similar to religion. I saw that religious people were not necessarily good or bad by way of their particular religion, they were that way by way of conviction, something that to me was deeper than religion, but could find its expression through religious beliefs.
All I'm saying here is that we have some basic wiring going on that we misunderstand. We are, to make an analogy, very much like similar computers that have the same DOS but are loaded with different programs. We make a HUGE deal out of the differences in programs, ignoring that they are content, not substance. And we ignore, as well, that our basic operating system is identical. So we do what? Argue and get emotional about differences in programming instead of going back to our basic operating system and move from a point of agreement to see how the differences were programed in. Then we can find what is universally common, like air, food and water, clothing, shelter, MUSIC, etc, and go from there. Anyway, I could write a book, but this is already too long.
So yes, I would go out with a black woman, and gladly. Right now, lol, I'd be glad to go out with anyone, lol! I would also know from experience that there would be inherent difficulties both from within and without. Any man and woman getting together have problems, because they are individuals, not because they are of different races. Interracial couples might have external problems as well. I remember walking with a dear friend, very black, very pregnant, and the wife of a white friend of mine. We loved to talk with each other and I went with her for her exercise when her husband couldn't go. We lived in the same house with some other friends, and that was easy to do. We were all in our late 20's. We were occasionally cursed and sworn at, even threatened, by some passing black men. It was very uncomfortable, as you might imagine. It is too bad. It didn't stop me or her, and it didn't stop me from dating black women (I've even been propositioned a few times as well; that was nice, lol) but it has it's social baggage in some areas. I find this very sad, and don't know what to say about it generally, except people would do well to grow up. To me, that means to get out of a limited personal perspective, back off, and look at a BIG picture, and start questioning a LOT of assumptions. The best piece of advise I ever got was to question my mind. Like Taj Mahal says, "Take a giant step...outside your mind."
Well, there is my two cents worth. I hope it might mean something to you. I think it was courageous of you to ask. Thanks.
Anyway, that is just to say that I grew up close to black people in a number of settings. There are some stories around that, for sure. I lived and worked with "people of color" all my life and always found it awkward to make any distinction based on color. There were so many beautiful colors in my experience. For many years my closest friend was a wonderful Jamaican man. My white wife and I were often some of the very few whites at some major parties in our neighborhood, both at our house and at others. My distinctions were always behavioral distinctions. If a person was courteous, kind, considerate, and aware, they were OK in my book. This allowed for differences in education, and even of temperament. I was always interested in some one's story. I was without exception disappointed when someone attributed a fault in behavior to "race." I found people of any color did this: misattribute behavior to race. It was, to me, similar to religion. I saw that religious people were not necessarily good or bad by way of their particular religion, they were that way by way of conviction, something that to me was deeper than religion, but could find its expression through religious beliefs.
All I'm saying here is that we have some basic wiring going on that we misunderstand. We are, to make an analogy, very much like similar computers that have the same DOS but are loaded with different programs. We make a HUGE deal out of the differences in programs, ignoring that they are content, not substance. And we ignore, as well, that our basic operating system is identical. So we do what? Argue and get emotional about differences in programming instead of going back to our basic operating system and move from a point of agreement to see how the differences were programed in. Then we can find what is universally common, like air, food and water, clothing, shelter, MUSIC, etc, and go from there. Anyway, I could write a book, but this is already too long.
So yes, I would go out with a black woman, and gladly. Right now, lol, I'd be glad to go out with anyone, lol! I would also know from experience that there would be inherent difficulties both from within and without. Any man and woman getting together have problems, because they are individuals, not because they are of different races. Interracial couples might have external problems as well. I remember walking with a dear friend, very black, very pregnant, and the wife of a white friend of mine. We loved to talk with each other and I went with her for her exercise when her husband couldn't go. We lived in the same house with some other friends, and that was easy to do. We were all in our late 20's. We were occasionally cursed and sworn at, even threatened, by some passing black men. It was very uncomfortable, as you might imagine. It is too bad. It didn't stop me or her, and it didn't stop me from dating black women (I've even been propositioned a few times as well; that was nice, lol) but it has it's social baggage in some areas. I find this very sad, and don't know what to say about it generally, except people would do well to grow up. To me, that means to get out of a limited personal perspective, back off, and look at a BIG picture, and start questioning a LOT of assumptions. The best piece of advise I ever got was to question my mind. Like Taj Mahal says, "Take a giant step...outside your mind."
Well, there is my two cents worth. I hope it might mean something to you. I think it was courageous of you to ask. Thanks.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
