People are interested in finding principles, concepts that govern creation. The search for fundamental equations and causes has dominated Philosophy, Physics, and in a way, Religion. The reason Creationists even bother to rebut ideas like evolution or the big bang is because they think these ideas are plausible or have explanatory power. But the universe is not governed by principles, equations or concepts.
I was reading a question on a Physics Q&A site about whether Newton's Second Law implies cause and effect. Well, in a naive way it seems to: Force causes Acceleration. Acceleration cannot pull a Force in to existence. But in terms of science, this law does not imply causation. Science says that cause and effect are not part of what has been discovered so far, and don't seem likely to show up.
Shouldn't that mean that scientists should not waste time positing a big bang at all then? It has been criticized as untestable, unfalsifiable, unnecessary, in a word: unscientific. But, inquiring minds want to know! Trying to find reasons for things is dualistic: it separates you from what is. That doesn't mean you should never do it, it just means that as dualistic thought, it is not definitive or ultimately true, it leaves something out. It leaves you and your experience out. If it can exist without you, then you can exist without it. So, drop it.
Monday, October 17, 2016
Wednesday, July 6, 2016
Flowerpot
I was writing this morning about how dualistic thought arises: people take in to themselves values and ideas from others without consideration of how they themselves are actually affected. They take the ideas on, not provisionally, or as an advisory, but as absolutes. Then their world becomes full of "imaginary icebergs" and they are run by fear and desire.
So I thought of a metaphor of how I got free: a flowerpot. The flowerpot can hold any sort of plant. It does not have a self in the sense of preferring something or rejecting something. I was willing to empty myself of the views and tendencies that I had developed over my life, to take on ideas from someone else: my Guru. The method was that those "seed" ideas from her would be how I could develop a more... Wow. I was about to write "correct".
The dualistic tendency is so prevalent that even in trying to just set it down there is inherent bias and preference. Not only that I unconsciously prefer or whatever, but deeper than that: it is hard to even notice or remember something without contrast and difference. We remember things as their difference to other things. So saying what I set out to do contained a built-in bias: I wanted to improve, and I thought that someone else's ideas would help with that. Yes, sure, but also, keep the bias and predetermination in mind, not just throw myself in to the fire and hope for the best!
Anyway, I wanted to improve, which is already a state of pre-judgement. I was willing to empty myself of my views and preferences and divest myself of my things, as much as I was able. Like dumping out a flowerpot, the old plant goes on the compost pile, the dirt goes in to be mixed with other dirt, and new soil and seeds are planted.
Then, over long time, very long, patient work, something new emerges. Years of bonsai: trimming, watering, adjusting, seeking the best light for this particular plant, the best window, when to put outside, when to bring in... A plant takes shape. Grows. Becomes beautiful. One day...
This is a new thing. A never-before-seen light. The patience and willingness has paid off. The desire in the beginning for we-know-not-what has led to an opening of awareness. Then, more blooms. Now we know for sure that the process worked. The payment of time, things, letting go, has produced something that could not have been before, in the old soil and conditions. This plant can bloom in other places, it can be moved and bring light elsewhere. "Bloom where you are planted", yes, but as a flowerpot, be willing to be emptied, refilled, then be moved.
The empty flowerpot of itself had the wisdom to see a new possibility that was not obvious. It had the hope to proceed in darkness, and the endurance to be emptied, to have basically everything taken away, and then be reused for a new end: to hold an emergence of beauty and love. Not because someone else knew better and managed the process, not even from faith. But purely of its own nature, the ability to be a Container. To hold and nurture new life.
What we are is empty. We are possibility. A shape to hold things that could be. The shape of time. The form of emptiness. We are not a thing. We are not what is. We are the light that moves through and makes what is. But not even that. Just an arrangement. The product of time and energy, which is infinity, all from nothing. Just be willing to be emptied of whatever you thought was "you". It is not. Every conception is already wrong.
The only right thing is to be worked. Allow time and circumstances to work and see what comes of that. Nothing permanent, that is for sure. A bloom, a blossoming tree. Perhaps.
So I thought of a metaphor of how I got free: a flowerpot. The flowerpot can hold any sort of plant. It does not have a self in the sense of preferring something or rejecting something. I was willing to empty myself of the views and tendencies that I had developed over my life, to take on ideas from someone else: my Guru. The method was that those "seed" ideas from her would be how I could develop a more... Wow. I was about to write "correct".
The dualistic tendency is so prevalent that even in trying to just set it down there is inherent bias and preference. Not only that I unconsciously prefer or whatever, but deeper than that: it is hard to even notice or remember something without contrast and difference. We remember things as their difference to other things. So saying what I set out to do contained a built-in bias: I wanted to improve, and I thought that someone else's ideas would help with that. Yes, sure, but also, keep the bias and predetermination in mind, not just throw myself in to the fire and hope for the best!
Anyway, I wanted to improve, which is already a state of pre-judgement. I was willing to empty myself of my views and preferences and divest myself of my things, as much as I was able. Like dumping out a flowerpot, the old plant goes on the compost pile, the dirt goes in to be mixed with other dirt, and new soil and seeds are planted.
Then, over long time, very long, patient work, something new emerges. Years of bonsai: trimming, watering, adjusting, seeking the best light for this particular plant, the best window, when to put outside, when to bring in... A plant takes shape. Grows. Becomes beautiful. One day...
A Bloom appears, and opens.
This is a new thing. A never-before-seen light. The patience and willingness has paid off. The desire in the beginning for we-know-not-what has led to an opening of awareness. Then, more blooms. Now we know for sure that the process worked. The payment of time, things, letting go, has produced something that could not have been before, in the old soil and conditions. This plant can bloom in other places, it can be moved and bring light elsewhere. "Bloom where you are planted", yes, but as a flowerpot, be willing to be emptied, refilled, then be moved.
The empty flowerpot of itself had the wisdom to see a new possibility that was not obvious. It had the hope to proceed in darkness, and the endurance to be emptied, to have basically everything taken away, and then be reused for a new end: to hold an emergence of beauty and love. Not because someone else knew better and managed the process, not even from faith. But purely of its own nature, the ability to be a Container. To hold and nurture new life.
What we are is empty. We are possibility. A shape to hold things that could be. The shape of time. The form of emptiness. We are not a thing. We are not what is. We are the light that moves through and makes what is. But not even that. Just an arrangement. The product of time and energy, which is infinity, all from nothing. Just be willing to be emptied of whatever you thought was "you". It is not. Every conception is already wrong.
The only right thing is to be worked. Allow time and circumstances to work and see what comes of that. Nothing permanent, that is for sure. A bloom, a blossoming tree. Perhaps.
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Blue Dot
How do you know where you are and which direction you are going? On GPS maps there is a blue dot which shows your location, and the area around. It is implied that the dot means "You are Here". The map shows you what is nearby.
In life it is not always so clear. There is no longer a general "map" of what is best to do. Society, Religion and other situations used to provide a structure, they dictated the terrain. But those are falling away and we are outgrowing them. How do we know what to do, the best route, the valuable destinations? What I can say is that each person is the blue dot. They are where they are and they decide where to go next.
But what of the map? There is no map. There is not a structure saying what is best, where to go or what to do. It never really existed and that is becoming obvious now. There is not an authority that one can turn to and get answers. You are your own authority. You decide, not based on something someone told you, or a scenario that other people laid down, but based on your perception and needs.
A common saying is: "If the map doesn't match the terrain, trust the terrain." That is the answer. And: there is no map. Just the blue dot moving through the terrain, and that is you. You are the blue dot. There isn't anything to tell you what is real and where to go, you are on your own.
In life it is not always so clear. There is no longer a general "map" of what is best to do. Society, Religion and other situations used to provide a structure, they dictated the terrain. But those are falling away and we are outgrowing them. How do we know what to do, the best route, the valuable destinations? What I can say is that each person is the blue dot. They are where they are and they decide where to go next.
But what of the map? There is no map. There is not a structure saying what is best, where to go or what to do. It never really existed and that is becoming obvious now. There is not an authority that one can turn to and get answers. You are your own authority. You decide, not based on something someone told you, or a scenario that other people laid down, but based on your perception and needs.
A common saying is: "If the map doesn't match the terrain, trust the terrain." That is the answer. And: there is no map. Just the blue dot moving through the terrain, and that is you. You are the blue dot. There isn't anything to tell you what is real and where to go, you are on your own.
Friday, April 29, 2016
More about Vision
[This builds on an earlier writing where I quoted Grandfather Stalking Wolf: "A man who is not living his Vision is living Death."]
I realize that I enjoy being knowledgeable when I am teaching class. This is ego of course but also something to build on. I am an Instructor, it is my role to have knowledge to impart. And the sort that interests me is not technical information because most of that is in a book and one can locate it, or absorb a lot through self-teaching. What matters to me are the somewhat hidden things which someone has to discover by experience, and which when passed on, give a perspective and save the person from going down the same blind alley. Communicating what doesn't work, and the subtleties of some things that do is important if people are to make progress. We shouldn't all waste time (and other commodities) re-doing the same things! It reminds me of a friend's story of why he became a Trainer. Well, now I am a Trainer, too! It might be a natural role as one gets older. Soldiers (employees) become Officers (managers) who become Generals (Trainers and planners, CEOs, etc). This could seem like puffing myself up, except that what I teach is just some bits of Programming (no pun in 1010-did), and that not even very well - as I was reflecting yesterday in the Thinking Room.
So this is still about the Vision of belonging and being part of and having a role. It is just levels of Maslow's enormous pyramid-scheme, which dominates the skyline no matter where one lives. I feel safe knowing that some part of me (my contribution) will live forever entombed in the monument of Ego to the future. Perhaps that is just part of being Human (or human beings) so I am not going to fight that. But I won't roll myself up in it like a blanket and go back to sleep either. The question is: How to have a Vision without being a Subject? That is all.
This morning as I woke I had some sort of insight in to that (which I have forgotten). I came across what I wrote a month ago about Vision, and how at home I can have things however I want (because I live alone). OK, that is ego too, but it keeps me from having to re-visit some issues endlessly. As Dr. Bronner said, "Unless constructive-selfish ... like Mark Spitz..." So being that way is simply efficient, as long as I am not attached to the details (which would be, well, attachment. I am running out of parentheses.)
I need to combine efficiency when alone, with effectiveness when with others, and steer around the ego-boulders all the while. That only gets me started on the vision-journey, it doesn't even address where to go, or how. This might take a while... What is worth working toward?
I realize that I enjoy being knowledgeable when I am teaching class. This is ego of course but also something to build on. I am an Instructor, it is my role to have knowledge to impart. And the sort that interests me is not technical information because most of that is in a book and one can locate it, or absorb a lot through self-teaching. What matters to me are the somewhat hidden things which someone has to discover by experience, and which when passed on, give a perspective and save the person from going down the same blind alley. Communicating what doesn't work, and the subtleties of some things that do is important if people are to make progress. We shouldn't all waste time (and other commodities) re-doing the same things! It reminds me of a friend's story of why he became a Trainer. Well, now I am a Trainer, too! It might be a natural role as one gets older. Soldiers (employees) become Officers (managers) who become Generals (Trainers and planners, CEOs, etc). This could seem like puffing myself up, except that what I teach is just some bits of Programming (no pun in 1010-did), and that not even very well - as I was reflecting yesterday in the Thinking Room.
So this is still about the Vision of belonging and being part of and having a role. It is just levels of Maslow's enormous pyramid-scheme, which dominates the skyline no matter where one lives. I feel safe knowing that some part of me (my contribution) will live forever entombed in the monument of Ego to the future. Perhaps that is just part of being Human (or human beings) so I am not going to fight that. But I won't roll myself up in it like a blanket and go back to sleep either. The question is: How to have a Vision without being a Subject? That is all.
This morning as I woke I had some sort of insight in to that (which I have forgotten). I came across what I wrote a month ago about Vision, and how at home I can have things however I want (because I live alone). OK, that is ego too, but it keeps me from having to re-visit some issues endlessly. As Dr. Bronner said, "Unless constructive-selfish ... like Mark Spitz..." So being that way is simply efficient, as long as I am not attached to the details (which would be, well, attachment. I am running out of parentheses.)
I need to combine efficiency when alone, with effectiveness when with others, and steer around the ego-boulders all the while. That only gets me started on the vision-journey, it doesn't even address where to go, or how. This might take a while... What is worth working toward?
Saturday, April 2, 2016
Tiamat
This is what is real. In Egyptian naming there is Ma'at, the Divine World Order. This is everything that we know, everything we can know. Everyone is in love with what we can see, talk about. Of course. What else is there?
But there is also Tiamat: primordial chaos. Chaos is an unfortunate word here, because what was before what is, was peaceful. It was simply unformed, not turbulent. There were no forces clashing, or things being created and destroyed: this was before all that. This is like the Void that I talk about - all possibility, no actuality.
The Void gave rise to all that is - Experience. These are the Two Real Things. When people talk about Nirvana or culmination of some kind, they always ask, "What are we going toward? What is there after this?" The least cruel answer is that there is nothing else. All that is, all that God made here and now, is sufficient! It doesn't matter if there is a Heaven or Hell, because we cannot confirm or deny it. It is irrelevant to the people looking back at you today. It is said that we are made in God's image. But the important point is that what we call God is only an image. Tiamat gave rise to it. Vishnu is said to dream all of Creation. Shiva is said to dance existence in to being. There is no other God, or reality. You are that. You are God's fingers and eyes and ears. You are the love of God. Not as a metaphor or a symbol: actually. All that you see, everyone you know is "What God Hath Wrought." Nothing else exists. Is that not enough?
The reason that I am on to this right now, is that I listened to a song called Procession, by New Order. I used to listen to it long ago, but had to stop, because at that time the person that you would say is "me" was not happy. Perhaps not actually depressed in the clinical sense, but he had no one right then to care for, or to lean on. He had to be self-sufficient. I heard the song again last night when looking for something else, and I was crushed by the wave of horrid feelings that washed over me. Had I been so sad before? I had stopped seeing my friends because I was weighing on them. My family was far away and I would not have sought them out for that anyhow. So when I heard the song last night for the first time in probably two decades or more, I suddenly faced a terrifying gulf. Everything I know about myself now seemed blythe and unimportant. What could I say to that person?
Recently I was talking with my fiancee and she wondered what makes some people go forward in to growth and flourishing, and other people fall back, or give up? This is in fact a version of Camus' famous statement: "The only real Philosophical question is whether or not to commit suicide." Few people do, and I am not so much talking here about actually taking one's own life, but I would have words for someone who makes that choice. Everyone faces difficult, painful, or perhaps even shattering experiences. Au'hua'a saw her community self-destruct and a thousand people throw themselves off a cliff.
But this is not "your" pain. Your experience does not belong to you. It is all that is, you don't get to claim any of it for "yourself", because remember? You of yourself do not exist except as part of Tiamat, rendered in to form as Ma'at. Your pain is the pain of being, of creation, of giving birth. All that is, is Formlessness changing in to Form. It is painful! That does not belong to you!
In the song it says:
You have the power to go forward, or not. You choose and it is so. But your choices affect others. Not only ones you know, but people around you, and in your future that your touch could heal. You have the power, but not the right, to make others' world turn black and white.
For me, this song is like a thread. I had very little support in my life for my view. I was not a spiritual person at all then. The thread, playing over and over as I listened to the song driving on dangerous snowy roads was like hearing the Sirens sing, and also hearing people who cared about me, people I know I could help, crying out. I was being torn in two. But when my fiancee asked me the other day what made me go forward a few years ago when it seemed like I was facing only walls, I had no words for her. I felt it, with my very being. There is no other answer.
It is not a question of good and evil, of chaos being bad and life being good. There is only one thing, and it leaves us no place to hide in Philosophy, ideology or Religion. We are meant to create, not hide. There is only forward. If you choose to permanently exempt yourself from being, or just fully being, you will be missed. There is no replacement.
But there is also Tiamat: primordial chaos. Chaos is an unfortunate word here, because what was before what is, was peaceful. It was simply unformed, not turbulent. There were no forces clashing, or things being created and destroyed: this was before all that. This is like the Void that I talk about - all possibility, no actuality.
The Void gave rise to all that is - Experience. These are the Two Real Things. When people talk about Nirvana or culmination of some kind, they always ask, "What are we going toward? What is there after this?" The least cruel answer is that there is nothing else. All that is, all that God made here and now, is sufficient! It doesn't matter if there is a Heaven or Hell, because we cannot confirm or deny it. It is irrelevant to the people looking back at you today. It is said that we are made in God's image. But the important point is that what we call God is only an image. Tiamat gave rise to it. Vishnu is said to dream all of Creation. Shiva is said to dance existence in to being. There is no other God, or reality. You are that. You are God's fingers and eyes and ears. You are the love of God. Not as a metaphor or a symbol: actually. All that you see, everyone you know is "What God Hath Wrought." Nothing else exists. Is that not enough?
The reason that I am on to this right now, is that I listened to a song called Procession, by New Order. I used to listen to it long ago, but had to stop, because at that time the person that you would say is "me" was not happy. Perhaps not actually depressed in the clinical sense, but he had no one right then to care for, or to lean on. He had to be self-sufficient. I heard the song again last night when looking for something else, and I was crushed by the wave of horrid feelings that washed over me. Had I been so sad before? I had stopped seeing my friends because I was weighing on them. My family was far away and I would not have sought them out for that anyhow. So when I heard the song last night for the first time in probably two decades or more, I suddenly faced a terrifying gulf. Everything I know about myself now seemed blythe and unimportant. What could I say to that person?
Recently I was talking with my fiancee and she wondered what makes some people go forward in to growth and flourishing, and other people fall back, or give up? This is in fact a version of Camus' famous statement: "The only real Philosophical question is whether or not to commit suicide." Few people do, and I am not so much talking here about actually taking one's own life, but I would have words for someone who makes that choice. Everyone faces difficult, painful, or perhaps even shattering experiences. Au'hua'a saw her community self-destruct and a thousand people throw themselves off a cliff.
But this is not "your" pain. Your experience does not belong to you. It is all that is, you don't get to claim any of it for "yourself", because remember? You of yourself do not exist except as part of Tiamat, rendered in to form as Ma'at. Your pain is the pain of being, of creation, of giving birth. All that is, is Formlessness changing in to Form. It is painful! That does not belong to you!
In the song it says:
Its a problem, you know, that's been there all your life:
How to make you see the world without you, that just turns black and white?
You have the power to go forward, or not. You choose and it is so. But your choices affect others. Not only ones you know, but people around you, and in your future that your touch could heal. You have the power, but not the right, to make others' world turn black and white.
For me, this song is like a thread. I had very little support in my life for my view. I was not a spiritual person at all then. The thread, playing over and over as I listened to the song driving on dangerous snowy roads was like hearing the Sirens sing, and also hearing people who cared about me, people I know I could help, crying out. I was being torn in two. But when my fiancee asked me the other day what made me go forward a few years ago when it seemed like I was facing only walls, I had no words for her. I felt it, with my very being. There is no other answer.
It is not a question of good and evil, of chaos being bad and life being good. There is only one thing, and it leaves us no place to hide in Philosophy, ideology or Religion. We are meant to create, not hide. There is only forward. If you choose to permanently exempt yourself from being, or just fully being, you will be missed. There is no replacement.
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