posted December 28, 2008 07:51 PM           

I think we're on a similar page. I'm not a fan of the New Age fluff anymore and havent been for awhile. Still, there are some gems out there that might get lumped into that catagory. And lookiing back all of those books and classes i took were good stepping stones along the journey.

"People want to act evolved and look evolved, but no one wants to go through the dirty work."

I knooooow.

"I do not believe in this ritualized sort of forced way of making ourselves 'more evolved'...it feels extremely inauthentic to me. It looks extremely forced. "

I've never been one for rituals either. I see what you are saying. But not everything is always forced for everyone. Even though to you something they may be doing may appear to be that way and a route you'd never take. What's forced for one might be natural and a fit for another.

"I'm simply more interested in balance and authenticity, as opposed to associating too much with dark or light. But really, by focusing too much on dark or light, we're defining one or the other too much and are over-identifying with it..."

Ah I see what you are saying....I think. I think that often when people read light and dark, they only hear good and bad. Maybe that's part of this.....I don't think of it that way but...

You know i think this is simply a perspective and language thing. As usual! lol

posted December 28, 2008 11:55 PM         

I just thought of adding this from a purely light-hearted, playing-with-ideas perspective:

Light -> Prism -> Colors

Cosmos -> Human Being -> Emotions

It gives a whole new meaning to "Taste the Rainbow", doesn't it?

posted December 29, 2008 03:12 AM           

I hear what you are saying, I like your thinking.

However, I do believe there is a different perspective available or presented to different levels of awareness.

posted December 29, 2008 04:42 AM           

26Taurus is dropping wisdom all over the place.
I hope I'm not the only one picking it up.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

MVM,

No, I'm not playing "both sides of the field". I'm not seeing this in black and white, and I'm not seeing two sides of the field.

I know it can be a little involved, and frustrating to some, but my thinking is grey and subtle, much like Nietzsche's.

And I'm not surprised you dont like Nietzsche. He's not for everybody.

But it's not about theorizing the life out of it; its about putting actual reasons where my arguments are,
as opposed to just repeating a soundbite and calling it "pontificating" when anyone tries to go a little deeper.

My posts are long because my thoughts are long.
I tend to consider a problem from multiple angles,
which requires space and, yes,
more than an ounce of patience on the part of my readers.

Great video, btw.
I especially like where he mentions hostility,
as a symptom of the illusion of separateness.

quote:

---

But now that I think of it, I don't feel the term you're using here fully describes what you're talking about....I don't feel you're talking about anger or even righteous anger. It's bitterness that you're talking about. That's what makes people horde their feelings, that's the acidity which comes from repressed emotions of all kind.
So maybe the question is, Is there such a thing as justified bitterness?

---

To me, this just reads like semantic hair-splitting, but, if it helps you to understand my point, go with it!

quote:

---

Or, at the core, of it, are we really talking about fear?

---

Fear is at the root of anger, yes.

You've agreed that anger, when held onto, becomes destructive.
My point is but a stone's throw from there; just look around.
I think that, by the time anger is expressed, its already been held in.
If you dont hold onto it, it never reaches that point of expression.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

katatonic --

I think I see what you are saying, and I hope I can make myself clear.
Basically, what I am talking about here is an ideal to be aimed at.
I am not saying that I lack concern for the complexities,
and that I expect everyone to behave themselves like saints.
I certainly understand where a terrorist's anger comes from,
and, in a certain sense, I too can discuss how it is justified.
As a determinist, I can "justify" anything, because everything is caused.
You could say there is a good reason for everything,
because a reason, in order to be "good", just has to be causal.
But, in another sense, a higher sense, I do not justify it,
and, instead, I try to look for better ways to channel it.

Jesus said "The devil has nothing in me."
What this means is that, if there is no place inside you
where anger may take hold, and take root, then, you cant get angry.
The devil can only tempt you, if he is already inside you.
And, of course, I realize this is a very high and idealistic teaching.
It is not, by any means, something I would expect others to be capable of,
and I would hope never to judge a person for not being Christ incarnate.
Nevertheless, the ideal is true, and ought to be spoken,
even when it forces us to be dissatisfied with our humanity.
I believe that dissatisfaction is not the enemy,
but, rather, one of our greatest allies in the quest for spirit.
But, again, like anger, it should not be held on to,
and, ideally, not be expressed, but, simply worked with.
Though everyone must work at the level at which they find themselves.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Chyseis --

You're Welcome.

Thanks.

quote:

---

However, I do believe there is a different perspective available or presented to different levels of awareness.

---

I most definitely agree.

I just dont think there is a higher perspective
which would incite a person to feel or act on anger.

And I think that, when people really have attained a higher perspective,
they tend not to be at a loss for ways to articulate it.

Of course, that doesnt mean others will be capable of grasping their meaning.

quote:

---

On the marriage of two principles, I think it might actually be three, a trinity so to speak.

---

Yes, most definitely.

But the marriage is precisely that third.

The trinity of the Greek logicians is just that:
Thesis... Antithesis... SYNTHESIS

The third member of the trinity is the union of opposites.

"Enantiodromia" means the complimentarity of opposites.

"Truth is not in things, but in between them." ~ G.B. Shaw

posted December 29, 2008 06:09 AM           

I think you are right.

But distinguishing that true knowing, from self-delusion....

Is it even possible?

Is some element of faith necessary?

hmm...

And, yet, faith goes nowhere without her shadow of doubt.

Are we ever meant to rest secure in our knowing?

Or, as some have suggested...

posted December 29, 2008 07:10 AM         

HSC - you are highly subjective, like me. I do recognize that. We like to dig into our corners. The abstract stuff is good, and I like things explained that way to a degree, but at this point they are getting WAY too abstract. They feel impersonal and really disconnected. Once things get to that point, I don't feel I'm even having a human experience so much, I just get this 'I am reading text' kind of sensation. Sorry
It's just me - this feels way too dense (and there ya go, maybe that's why I don't like Nietzsche LOL...I feel disoriented and disjointed when I read him, like I am not reading something human LOL!!)

It's all good, either way though
I still believe we're talking about the same thing. The technicalities and our use of language is actually just not clicking, even though we're not talking about anything so different.

posted December 29, 2008 07:29 AM         

And they freaked out and started stammering and stuttering that god was not dead, but they looked really, really guilty lol.
One of them got up and tried to steer the spaceship and couldn't, and just gave up and said, 'God's dead. I'm sorry. I didn't know how to do it, but we all were part of it, we've got ourselves to blame."

posted December 29, 2008 09:26 AM           

quote:

---

I think we're all splitting hairs here and talking about the same thing but in a different language.
I just think we experience things differently and yet we are very much talking about the same things here.

---

You may be right.

I think its very hard to tell where we agree, and where we may be disagreeing.

Even if all we disagree on is subjective, resolving that confusion is our greatest lesson.

quote:

---

HSC - you are highly subjective, like me. I do recognize that. We like to dig into our corners.

---

Hmm...
Well, you have Mars/Asc, right?
And I have Moon in the 1st.
Both very subjective.

But I like to think that I exhibit, by turns, just as much objectivity.
I'm sort of a man of extremes, if you havent noticed.

Moon in Aquarius, Uranus (exalted in Scorpio) conjunct my Sun, Venus, and Midheaven, and almost all my planets in the latter six signs and houses, ought to make me pretty aware of other people's perspectives. And I honestly believe that the effort to bridge perspectives, and to understand other people's points of view, has been thematic in my life so far. I'm also born in the year of the Earth Horse, and we are said to be the ultimate mediators, who sit on the fence and see all sides of a problem. Earth horse is called "the wise one".

quote:

---

The abstract stuff is good, and I like things explained that way to a degree, but at this point they are getting WAY too abstract. They feel impersonal and really disconnected. Once things get to that point, I don't feel I'm even having a human experience so much, I just get this 'I am reading text' kind of sensation. Sorry
It's just me - this feels way too dense (and there ya go, maybe that's why I don't like Nietzsche LOL...I feel disoriented and disjointed when I read him, like I am not reading something human LOL!!)

---

Okay. I can understand that. It upsets me a little, because I sort of want to be all things to all people, and I want to balance everything. One of my favorite writers is Marcel Proust, and what astounds me about him is that, the very instant I begin to feel that he is being overly-analytical, he becomes profoundly human, and vice-versa; when he starts getting sentimental, he introduces a perfectly scientific tone. Most of the time, he masterfully blends these two. I do understand your taste, I think. I just broke up with a woman who was very critical of my writing. She wants everything to be passion, blood, guts, ashtrays and bruises. She thought I was, by turns, too flowery and too impersonal, and the amount of abstract thinking in my work just struck her as heady, and ungrounded. I really took her criticisms to heart, and started hating my work. She would say that the great minds of the western intellectual tradition were all "stuffy old men". She thought it all sounded too high-minded; pretentious. Personally, I like that airy tone, and, for me, it doesnt get in the way of all the passion, sentiment, and realism I see in many classics.

What I find ironic is your appraisal of Nietzsche, since he also sort of saw that tradition as the tyranny of stuffy old men. He appeared on the intellectual scene like a lightning bolt, and both his writing and philosophy struck the world as intensely human, passionate, and soulful. And when I read him, that is what I find; a dense jungle, full of all sorts of creeping, crawling, running, jumping, soaring, soft and sharp, hard and delicate creature-thoughts. Far from being dry, his books are like dank jungles of the soul. He is, and understood himself to be, positively Dionysian; a bonfire of humanity, lust, vitality, and color. At least, this is characteristic of his masterwork, "Thus Spoke Zarathustra". To me, he was the first great shaman of western civilization, rattling his shackles like bracelets with little masks and skulls on them, stomping up dust, and swirling both chains and dust around him into marvelous figures. He is hard to grasp, like truth and water. He is the intuitive thinker par excellence, and his purpose was not to replace old paradigms with new ones, but, rather, something far more revolutionary. He put on ideas like masks, but tore them off before they could eat into his face, and the purpose was to break up rigid thought-forms, and teach us how to flow. He understood perfectly what Plutarch meant when he said, "The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." He wasnt trying to fill our heads with his own thoughts, but, to set fire to our mental constructs; to create a bonfire in the mind, and throw on as much fuel as possible. He is very close to my heart, and it pains me to hear him criticized and misunderstood. And while all these ideas may seem remote, icy, and impersonal to you, I assure you, to me, they are deeply personal, immediate, and alive. They are the very element in which I "live, move, and have my being". They are God, to me! They are sacred.

posted December 29, 2008 06:52 PM           

And he whom you cannot teach to fly, teach to fall, faster!

posted December 29, 2008 07:09 PM           

But he who discovered the land "man", also discovered the land "man's future".
Now you shall be sea-farers, valiant and patient.
Walk upright betimes, O my brothers; learn to walk upright.
The sea is raging; many want to right themselves with your help.
The sea is raging; everything is in the sea.
Well then, old sea dogs! What of fatherland?
Our helm steers us toward our children's land!
Out there, stormier than the sea, storms our great longing!

posted December 29, 2008 07:20 PM           

Break, break, O my brothers, these old tablets of the pious.
Break the maxims of those who slander the world.

posted December 29, 2008 09:38 PM         

I do recognize my silent rage whenever it occurs within me, though this is very rare nowadays. It never lasts long.

I'm not a very abstract individual. I personally think under certain circumstances, anger can indeed be justified. So is "righteous anger".

Anger should not be denied or repressed. But it should not be encouraged or glamourized, either.

D

posted December 30, 2008 05:05 AM           

Its nice to see someone with an open mind, and honesty enough to admit when they've changed it.

I read "Does It Matter?" years ago.. like, over a decade, lol. I liked it, but just never got into him, for some reason.

And I saw Campbell's interviews with Bill Moyers on The Power of Myth. Very cool. Campbell is so impressive, I think.

I like to speak of all great spirits, living or dead (but are great spirits ever really dead?), in the present tense.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra is the one to read. It must be Walter Kaufmann, though. Other translations I've seen depress in comparison.

I prefer the In Search of Lost Time translation to "Remembrance", but both are adequate.

Also, you must read The Brothers Karamazov, if you haven't yet. Dostoevsky is.. like.. my father.

Tolstoy's later short stories and essays, and his last novel, Resurrection (Vera Traill trans.), are all good.

Wise Blood is good, too, and almost anything by Flannery O'Connor.

Ofcourse, you've got to read and reread all of Salinger.

And Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen.

posted December 30, 2008 05:08 AM           

I want to get into Jung, but I find him difficult.

posted December 30, 2008 12:34 PM         

I LOVE Flannery O'Conner...Wise Blood was tremendous. A Good Man is Hard to Find also really got to me. That woman was so good, it's scary.

I'm not a huge fan of Watt's writing, actually...no so far anyway. I just finished Does It Matter? and I liked it, and I heard The Wisdom of Insecurity is great. I'll read his work, but it's his spoken 'lectures' and series that get me - he was quite the speaker, and I love his voice and laugh also (that probably sounds superficial, but he's a very engaging speaker...it surprised me that he had so much Capricorn in his chart). I have some of his collections from the electronic library that his son compiles.

Dostoevsky I really want to read, just haven't made the time yet.

Have you read any Krishnamurti? After reading Think On These Things, I think my life changed. He's mentioned by Alan Watts on some of the lectures. He's very simple but articulate. Once of these guys who answers Big Questions with ease, makes being alive look easy. I have weird admiration for that (since I complicate everything LOL).

posted December 30, 2008 03:50 PM           

Start with Care of the Soul.

I LOVE Flannery O'Conner...Wise Blood was tremendous. A Good Man is Hard to Find also really got to me. That woman was so good, it's scary.

Yay! We have something else in common.

I'm not a huge fan of Watt's writing, actually...no so far anyway. I just finished Does It Matter? and I liked it, and I heard The Wisdom of Insecurity is great.

oh, sh!t, yeah, i think i did read that one, too. its really short, right?

I'll read his work, but it's his spoken 'lectures' and series that get me - he was quite the speaker, and I love his voice and laugh also (that probably sounds superficial, but he's a very engaging speaker...it surprised me that he had so much Capricorn in his chart). I have some of his collections from the electronic library that his son compiles.

nothing wrong with that. i dont find it superficial. i think it is part of the art of oratory, and the speaker must have a talent for conveying his meaning not just by the succinctness and clarity of his words, but, by the power of his innate charisma. The voice is a vehicle to convey that meaning, and ought to possess a sonorous quality, and a performer's instinct for effectively stressing and inflecting his speech. and, of course, we're all disarmed by a handsome, and handsome-sounding man.

Dostoevsky I really want to read, just haven't made the time yet.

Might I suggest you set aside a few hours every week, like, say, Sunday Mornings?
Seriously, though, you can light some incense and recite a few litanies before sinking your teeth in.

Have you read any Krishnamurti? After reading Think On These Things, I think my life changed. He's mentioned by Alan Watts on some of the lectures. He's very simple but articulate. Once of these guys who answers Big Questions with ease, makes being alive look easy. I have weird admiration for that (since I complicate everything LOL).

No, I havent. I wasnt sure where to start with him; hasnt he written like a hundred books? How easy can his answers be, if he needs a hundred books to get them out, lol? Kidding. Have you read "The Science of Religion" by Paramahansa Yogananda? Talk about a clear, concise distillation of religion. Of course he recommends his chosen practice of Kriya Yoga as the most effective means for attaining liberation, but only toward the end of the text. The bulk concerns basic characteristics common to all people and all effective religious traditions, then he goes into a brief explanation of Sat-Chit-Ananda, and explains the history of Yoga, and its proven efficacy for safe, well-directed consciousness expansion. I hope someday to be able to express my own perceptions with a similar ease, but I guess I'm still in the kitchen, with them, you know? Most of what I have to show, at this point, is still pretty half-baked. But I think part of that is due to the fact that I am not just here to paraphrase what I've received on faith, or even to exhibit my own discoveries, but to attempt an exploration; to spontaneously live my spirituality, by allowing my intuitive mind to take the reigns and spiral off for a little while, potentially into some original and uncharted territories. You could say I'm fishing in deep waters, for strange fish.

My favorite book of all time is probably A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. I know it's fiction and all that, but I pick it up every couple of weeks and read a few lines and it just makes me laugh so hard. I've been re-reading that book on and off for the past 13 years and still haven't tired of it. I know it's not really a spiritual book or anything, but reading it makes me aware of the hilarity of being human.

I really love that book, too.
Who knows what else Toole might have written, had he lived.
Have you read The Neon Bible. Hard to believe he wrote it when he was 16.

posted December 31, 2008 05:57 PM           

~ Julian of Norwich

posted January 01, 2009 06:21 AM           

Something for fun and contemplation...

Gradual, residual, basket-weaving midget,
(transl: take a topiary and plant it on your front doorstep ie. a fan-type frond will pull in long licks from lola the lascivious)

Tack-a-mon, parthenon, pokemon cleaver-edge,
(transl: bark like a dog, this is seen as very mischiev-e-ous ie. no 'walter cronkite reporting'...just 's*x')

Pixels and cart trash,
Fax macho bra fest
Qabbalistic gringo,
Sapphiric bean schlick.
(transl: look ho, some new and current appeal underwear in bright colours ie. satin boxers with superheroes or sumthin similar)

teehee, oopsie

posted January 01, 2009 05:41 PM           

u crack me up