MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH CINEMA, FROM TEN SECONDS TO HELL, HURRICANES, AND THINGS TO COME, CINEMA PARADISO, AN EDUCATION, AND DISILLUSIONMENT

Posted on January 11, 2017 by theburningheart

“For me, film making combines everything. That’s the reason I’ve made cinema my life’s work. In films, painting and literature, theater and music come together. But a film is still a film.”

Akira Kurosawa

My love of movies

I was probably six years of age when my parents took me to see my first movie ever, at the time movie theaters didn’t allow children less than seven years of age in to the theaters, at the 8:00PM show mainly I guess at least in my days as a child they put us in bed just after diner no later than 9:00PM, or not to disturb the adults at the theater, besides most movies were foreign movies and had subtitles, if you were too young to read there was no point to take a child to the movies. The movie I remember was Ten seconds to Hell, a movie by Robert Aldrich with Jack Palance, and Jeff Chandler, the movie was sort of a failure, and not memorable, except to me, since it was the first of thousands of movies I have watched through the years.

Fortunately I learnt to read at five, so I could read the subtitles, now there was no television in town, a thing hard to understand to people now days , but I got to remind you this was 1959, there was no satellites even if the first Russian Sputnik was launched in October 1957, first time ever than TV signal was transmitted from a satellite wasn’t until July 23, 1962, but since in my town we lacked a tower to capture the signal, in fact not until 1968 our town got a TV tower for the first time.

So as a child I missed watching TV, but in our small town we had been watching movies since 1897 two years just after the Lumiere brothers offered their first picture to the people of Paris, and in my childhood we possessed a whooping six movie theaters, or at least three of them running continually, since one did not have a roof and run at night only for obvious reasons, (but not a drive in) aptly named “Tropical” and two of them were out of action periodically, theaters would start selling tickets at 3:30PM, and punctually at 4:00PM the magic of turning off the lights and start rolling the first movie would begin, you could adjust your watch to it, possibly the only thing that would run on time in my town!

And we had at each theater three old movies on Monday, three different on Tuesday, and Wednesday, Three more on Thursday, and Friday to Sunday two new releases, if my math is correct we had at least from 33, to around 60 different pictures, you could choose to watch at any given week, not counting matinees who were meant for children, and that I did, watching on the mid sixties to the early early seventies, numerous films, being at the theater four, or five times a week! An evening without going to the theater was a bore, even on school days being out of school by five we could be at a theater to catch the second picture, and stay there if we wish to do so until the end of the last picture around midnight.

Growing Up Nurtured by Movies

Now I used to joke if it wasn’t for the big old theaters at home showing us so many movies, and a respite to our daily boredom, in a town where the only two things a young person could do was go to the beach during the mornings, and to the movies during the evenings, pretty much there was nothing else to do but to read a book, or go to a bar to drink!

I believe the movies saved many of us young people of becoming early alcoholics, sad to say but on those days there where bars everywhere, I remember a particular corner with a bar in all it’s three points, and the fourth point, the local beer brewery! Movies was an innocent healthy escape you could say, not to talk a respite to the heat as well, since few people could afford air condition, and above all, truly an education on cinema, a window to the world seen on celluloid, in a time when communication with the outside world meant to be able to travel. Going to the movies on the other hand, was relatively cheap, around 35, 0r 40 cents depending on the theater.

And what a first class cinema education I got, the rich fare we were served, through our theaters we saw every movie made around the globe, not only by Hollywood, but French, Italian, British, Swedish, German, Japanese, Spanish, Indian, Mexican, Argentinian, Brazilian, and anybody who could make a movie, somehow slowly but surely the heavy canisters of the rolls of celluloid would reach our theaters, and were loaded into the big old projectors. In my opinion the golden age of cinema was reached on the late fifties, through most of the sixties, and had been a long slow decline since, to the point that long after I ceased to go to the theaters, in the early eighties, and renting them instead to watch at home, and finally cancelled my Netflix account quite a few years ago, now days I ever hardly watch a movie, and haven’t been to a theater in ages, by that I do not mean good movies are no longer made, they do, not just that often.

Cinema Paradiso

I saw Cinema Paradiso on video, some years after it was released in 1988, already somewhat disenchanted with the mass production of movies on a totally corporate business like, industrial line of production, not that old movies were not done that way, but wised up by age, disillusioned, with the so named seventh art, maybe too much of a cynic. One of the reasons for the success of Cinema Paradiso, no doubt was that Toto’s story it’s for many of us who grew up in a small town, our own story, people like me who left for good their small town, in an age where people abandoned their small towns to go to the big cities to study, or try their luck in search of work, and a better life somewhere else, and the local movie theater was the window that provided the necessary inspiration to look for bigger horizons.

And we share the same story with some variants no doubt, but pretty much on the same lines, leaving a young High school sweetheart behind, family, and friends, to face life in the big city, with farther, and farther in between visits to home, and family, and when back, the heartbreak from seeing the abandoned remains of the old movie houses, where we spend our childhood, for so many hours dreaming…

My Story, A Matinee, and Things to Come

Only twelve years of age on September 26 1965, a Sunday my elder brother and myself did what we used to do every Sunday morning, and that was to go to the matinee that started a 10:00AM. every Sunday, it matter little to us what movies were playing, as long we had not see them yet, we used to go along with three or more friends, little did matter also that the day was sort looking like rain was coming, in those days without satellites to track the weather they relied on weather balloons that would send up every day sketchy weather information, our mother hesitated a little before letting us go, since it looked like a storm was about to hit town, but we went anyway prevailing over our mother’s fears, we arrived to the old theater and there were two movies to watch, and that was all we cared, we took our seats in our favorite spot and saw the first movie without any incident worth talking, I can’t even recall what movie it was, but during the second movie an interesting old British prewar movie, about half into it, we start noticing that the old theater roof was having leaks of water here, and there, first slowly, but as the minutes went by, more and more water start leaking down on us, suddenly a ceiling panel with a loud noise ripped off the false ceiling, and a veritable waterfall equal to emptying a swimming pool on top of our heads come down the theater!

A Hurricane!

The movie being of interest to us took a second seat to the real show when every panel of the ceiling start being coming apart under the weight of the water accumulated, between the roof, and the false ceiling, we were exposed not only to get soaked wet, but in danger of a piece of ceiling hitting us, so we run for cover, not out of the theater as we should have done, but under the projection cabin, to protect us from the water, and the more dangerous debris from the roof, and just sat there to weather the storm and keep watching the movie, and the falling debris of the ceiling!

Incredible enough the movie kept playing and we didn’t abandon the protection under the cabin until every piece of the roof was gone, and the corrugated sheets of asbestos were totally torn off by the storm, and flew away one by one, like if they were sheets of paper, still wonder where they landed, they probably did great damage!

Water kept pouring and we decided we had enough, mainly because we couldn’t see the movie anymore, there was no roof anymore, and the place look like if it was a drive inn with seats, even if the projector kept running and the light of the day, and the rain made it difficult for us to keep seeing the action on the movie, just as we started to leave the theater finally the power gave out, no doubt an electricity pole falling down somewhere, or many!

Every employee of the theater had abandoned the theater, including the projectionist, in fact we were the last to leave the now totally wrecked theater, my surprise had no end, when we descended in to the lobby and saw the candy shop under water, and the popcorn floating around!

The theater was located in a low zone of the city, in terrain that very likely was a estuary, or a marsh, if not outright land gained from the ocean, that naturally flooded when a storm of the magnitude of Hurricane Hazel hit the city.

Luckily the employees of the theater, who obviously knew better, had deserted us for quite some time, but didn’t even lock up the theater, or turn the projector off. With water to our chest and waddling through a current of water holding ourselves cautiously from the iron works of the house’s windows along our way we reached narrow Constitution street where water was running with the force of a river rapid, and had a first hand knowledge at that moment as to the why the sidewalks on that street where that high! We solved the problem by walking back in the opposite direction from where the water was coming, and forded the current so we could come out successfully at the opposite sidewalk, crossing the street at an angle, now reflect how lucky we were of not been swept away by the strong current!

From there we reached high ground on Plaza Revolucion, right at that corner in the picture below, although the plaza didn’t look as nice as in the picture!

There was no a tree left standing, every heavy Indian Laurel fig laying on the ground, but to us was an adventure just crossing the park through the the jungle of fallen branches, by that time the storm had subsided, and we reached home all excited by such great adventure, in our young lives, of course mother had another view of the event, herself a victim of an earlier Hurricane adventure, my poor mother was scared out of her wits, and blaming herself for letting us go to the matinee, posted to the window through the storm in hope to see us come safe home that day, and later more terrorized by our account of the destruction of the theater, and the general mayhem at the town caused by the storm.

Aftermath

Later next day my father who was out of town arrived home, and we drove on his car avoiding all sort of obstacles, like downed trees, and big water holes, and cautiously made our way along the coast seeing the devastation of many places and kept driving until we reached a point called Sabalo, at the time way out of town, where the lonely figure of a local character, famous for his jolly occurrences, nicknamed Pacharo, who had recently acted on a minor role, a little above extra, working for scale on a non talking role, along Yul Brynner and George Chakiris on a forgetful movie named Kings of the Sun, filmed on location on the outskirts of our town, Pacharo who owned a palapa restaurant by the beach, and faced the storm all by himself, very little remained of his destroyed place, but he was so happy to see us, being the first people to be able to reach his place since the day before the storm, he recognized us and yelled my father’s name running toward us as soon he saw us, as we got out of the car to talk to him, in character with his recent movie exploits he exclaimed: I withstood the storm all alone; Like Attila frente a Roma! (Sign of the Pagan) thing that provoke all the members of our family to laugh, and remember through the years Pacharo’s ordeal.

Not My First One

It was not even my first Hurricane, I had a first seat from a window at home, as a witness of great mayhem occasioned by a Hurricane in 1958 or 1959? When I was only five or six years of age and our house’s windows faced another park, and saw every huge Indian Laurel tree in the park being lifted in to the air pulled by the roots like a carrot, and crash with an uproar, like thunder sound, just fifty feet from our house, meanwhile I watched my father and an elder cousin who where trying to rescue my mother who had the bad idea just before the Hurricane hit, to go and fetch up a bag of coffee at the grocery store for breakfast that day, mother spent most of the hurricane a block from home holding in to the iron bars of a window until my father and cousin could rescue her, and brought her back home safe, a home that no longer exist, and was located in front of the park on the upper right corner in relation to the park (middle) in the picture below.

Neither those Hurricanes were the last ones, been on six Hurricanes through my life, however non as exciting as the two first ones, for many years between our friends who participated on that faithful matinee in September, try to figure out what was the name of the movie we never finished, the main problem being because at that age we cared little to read the credits, all we wanted was for the credits to end soon, so we could start watching the movie, that and the fact we didn’t knew the original title in English, on those days the translators would change the original name and give it any name they saw fit, or they pleased, as an example the Sound of Music was translated as La Novicia Rebelde! (The Rebel Novice) go figure!

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H.G. Wells

Well, after almost fifty years later could figure it was Things to Come (also known in promotional material as H. G. Wells’ Things to Come) is a 1936 British black-and-white science fiction film from United Artists, produced by Alexander Korda, directed by William Cameron Menzies, and written by H. G. Wells. The film stars Raymond Massey, Ralph Richardson, Cedric Hardwicke, Pearl Argyle, and Margaretta Scott.

Thanks to the Internet, and Youtube could solve the mystery, we went to a matinee to watch Things to Come, and what it come was a Hurricane!

Ironically in my town, the oldest of all the theaters, was the only one to survive, and after it’s almost total destruction by another Hurricane in 1975 was beautifully restored and you can appreciate it on the third picture, now the place for all kinds of cultural events.

Wonderful Memories

I have wonderful memories of the great many movies I had watched through the years of my life, even if now days hardly watch a movie, tired of the direction movies in general have gone, some people mainly young ones, sometimes try to talk me into watching this movie, or that other one, rarely if I do, care too much about it, at least not as I did so many years ago, I guess I have changed, lost that sense of wonderment you carry as a young person, and look at things, and life with different eyes, I will not go to specifics, too well known by many, and in fairness there is a few movies made that are good, and enjoyable no doubt, but I am no more the same small child who looked in wonderment from my seat, in the cool darkness, and silence of the old theaters, with devotion like in a temple, to the magical reflection on the screen that opened new worlds of discovery to my young eyes, and imagination.

Posted in Cinema, Cinema & Literature, Cinema Paradiso, Criticism, Cynicism, Dreams, Family History, Hurricanes, Imagination, Inner Journey, Inspiration, Memories, Old Movies, Old Theaters, Personal Story, Ten Seconds To Hell, Things To Come, Uncategorized, Watching Movies | Tagged An Education, Cinema, Cinema Paradiso, Disillusionment, Growing Up, Hurricanes, Kings Of The Sun, Sign Of The Pagan, Ten Seconds To Hell, The Age Of Movies, Things To Come | 48 Comments

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE INFLUENCED BY CINEMA, AND OTHER FORMS OF MEDIA.

Posted on December 13, 2016 by theburningheart

“When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!”

― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

The Silver Age of Literature

The world’s first hand-tinted motion picture was produced by Thomas Edison’s company, Edison Studios, in 1895, more than 115 years ago. The dancer, Annabelle Moore (1878-1961), was just a teenager when this film was released, and her dance caused both a sensation and a scandal.

Ironically the end of the Nineteen century and the beginning of the Twenty century, those were the heydays of Literature, with writers in Russia like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Turgenev, Andreyev, Bunin, Bulgakov In England Dickens, W Eliot, Bronte, Hardy, Kipling in America Poe, Whitman, Melville, Twain, in France Balzac, Baudelaire, Hugo, Dumas, Flaubert, Zola, Maupassant, Proust, in German Fontane, Rilke, Musil, Roth, Mann, Kafka, Hesse, in Hungary Kosztolányi, Poland Sienkiewicz, Bruno Schultz, and Gombrowicz, in Italy Pirandello and Svevo, in Spain Perez Galdos, Leopoldo Alas, Palacio Valdes, Valle Inclan, Pio Baroja, Blasco Ibañez, in Portugal, Eça de Queirós, Ireland, Wilde, James Joyce, Norway, Ibsen, and Hamsun, Sweden, Strindberg, Lagerlöf, and Lagerkvist.

And this it’s not an exhaustive list, just a few well known names to a roster of great writers of many nations who wrote great many books in a sort of Silver age of writing after the Golden age of Shakespeare, and Cervantes.

Literature As Art, Or Entertainment?

Before starting throwing accusations to contemporary literature, in all fairness let’s say most people read as an utilitarian occupation, in order to learn something, like a subject at school, like math, History, Biology, etc. We will not talk about business since if you are not able to read basically it’s even hard to get a job!

Then some may read as entertainment like reading a thriller, or a detective story, romance novel, science fiction, etc. This it’s what we call genre novels, whose main objective it’s to fill our time to avoid boredom, now some may be pretty good, and engaging, some may even border on real Literature…As to when a piece of writing crosses the line and become an authentic piece of Literature, it’s hard to tell, since most people have different standards to qualify a work of art, sad to say but now days our standards are very low, we consume a lot of garbage, in food, music, movies, television, and mass media.

It doesn’t help that the prime motivator of writing a novel it’s to sell it, not to promote Literature, or good taste on people’s reading habits, so bottom line is that a novel in order to be successful is necessary to produce money to the writer who laboriously wasted uncounted hours writing it, and to the editors as well, who need to profit from the book, so the first requisite of a writer it’s not to produce a piece of art, but something that sells, and here comes the editor saying : Sorry your work it’s very good, but I will not be able to sell it, there is not a car chase, nobody gets kill, there is not even steal something, or nothing really exciting ever happens, there is not even bad words, or sex! How do you expect for me to sell this?

Exhibit Number One, The Thriller

Thriller is a broad genre of literature, film and television, having numerous sub genres. Thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety. The Merriam Webster dictionary: one that thrills; especially : a work of fiction or drama designed to hold the interest by the use of a high degree of intrigue, adventure, or suspense.

Writer Vladimir Nabokov, in his lectures at Cornell University, said: “In an Anglo-Saxon thriller, the villain is generally punished, and the strong silent man generally wins the weak babbling girl, but there is no governmental law in Western countries to ban a story that does not comply with a fond tradition, so that we always hope that the wicked but romantic fellow will escape scot-free and the good but dull chap will be finally snubbed by the moody heroine.”

Thrillers may be defined by the primary mood that they elicit: suspenseful excitement. In short, if it “thrills”, it is a thriller. As the introduction to a major anthology explains:

Thrillers provide such a rich literary feast. There are all kinds. The legal thriller, spy thriller, action-adventure thriller, medical thriller, police thriller, romantic thriller, historical thriller, political thriller, religious thriller, high-tech thriller, military thriller. The list goes on and on, with new variations constantly being invented. In fact, this openness to expansion is one of the genre’s most enduring characteristics. But what gives the variety of thrillers a common ground is the intensity of emotions they create, particularly those of apprehension and exhilaration, of excitement and breathlessness, all designed to generate that all-important thrill. By definition, if a thriller doesn’t thrill, it’s not doing its job.

Common methods and themes in crime and action thrillers are mainly ransoms, captivities, heists, revenge, kidnappings. Common in mystery thrillers are investigations and the whodunit technique. Common elements in dramatic and psychological thrillers include plot twists, psychology, obsession and mind games. Common in horror thrillers are serial killers, stalking, deathtraps and horror-of-personality. Elements such as fringe theories, false accusations and paranoia are common in paranoid thrillers. Threats to entire countries, spies, espionage, conspiracies, assassins and electronic surveillance are common in spy thrillers.

Characters may include criminals, stalkers, assassins, innocent victims (often on the run), menaced women, psychotic individuals, spree killers, sociopaths, agents, terrorists, cops and escaped cons, private eyes, people involved in twisted relationships, world-weary men and women, psycho-fiends, and more. The themes frequently include terrorism, political conspiracy, pursuit, or romantic triangles leading to murder. Plots of thrillers involve characters which come into conflict with each other or with outside forces.

The protagonist of these films is set against a problem. No matter what subgenre a thriller film falls into, it will emphasize the danger that the protagonist faces. The protagonists are frequently ordinary citizens unaccustomed to danger, although commonly in crime and action thrillers, they may also be “hard men” accustomed to danger such as police officers and detectives. While protagonists of thrillers have traditionally been men, women lead characters are increasingly common.^[ In psychological thrillers, the protagonists are reliant on their mental resources, whether it be by battling wits with the antagonist or by battling for equilibrium in the character’s own mind. The suspense often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another’s minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the other’s mental state.

An atmosphere of menace and sudden violence, such as crime and murder, characterize thrillers. The tension usually arises when the character(s) is placed in a dangerous situation, or a trap from which escaping seems impossible. Life is threatened, usually because the principal character is unsuspectingly or unknowingly involved in a dangerous or potentially deadly situation^.

Hitchcock’s films often placed an innocent victim (an average, responsible person) into a strange, life-threatening or terrorizing situation, in a case of mistaken identity or wrongful accusation.

Thrillers take place mostly in ordinary suburbs and cities, although sometimes they may take place wholly or partly in exotic settings such as foreign cities, deserts, polar regions, or the high seas. These usually tough, resourceful, but essentially ordinary heroes are pitted against villains determined to destroy them, their country, or the stability of the free world. Often in a thriller movie, the protagonist is faced with what seem to be insurmountable problems in his mission, carried out against a ticking clock, the stakes are high and although resourceful, they face personal dilemmas along the way forcing them to make sacrifices for others.

Yes unfortunately it’s true, if a novel doesn’t hit us with the brutal force of a koboko whiplash and wake us from our dense, saturated, and insensitive slumber we will not be able to read the book, our attention span, it’s getting shorter, and shorter does not tolerate anything less than a high doses of peak events, like an earthquake, or a tremendous explosion, the hijack of a terrorist, the threat of a nuclear explosion, police descending in mas like the invasion of an army, a terrific car chase where cars fly through the air like airplanes, and explode like bombs, why bother to keep reading? Regardless of the fact many of us never will be in the cross lines of a rifle sight held by a professional killer. A far fetch concocted piece of trash designed as junk food for our minds, the Doritos bag of chips to go along our Friday movie night watching of an exciting movie. This genre pretends to make us believe that what you see in the news as incidents of a highly unusual nature, that are one in a million, it may be happening to you at any moment, when your chances of being hit by lightening are higher, but not as high as wining the lotto!

In principle I am not oppose to consider this type of writing, as Literature if it’s very good, but just like twins conjoined are one in 200,000, and of those only about 5% survive, they are oddities, and the subject is not something it may happen to you, words that come to mind are epic, implausible, far fetched, contrived, Manichean, (good vs evil) it points out as writing for entertainment, Literature in my opinion it’s something we all can relate, and identify as happening to any of us, what makes it great, and different, is just the way is told.

Exhibit Two, the whodunit

Detective fiction in the English-speaking world is considered to have begun in 1841 with the publication of Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” itself, featuring “the first fictional detective, the eccentric and brilliant C. Auguste Dupin”. Poe devised a “plot formula that’s been successful ever since, give or take a few shifting variables.” Poe followed with further Auguste Dupin tales: “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” in 1843 and “The Purloined Letter” in 1845.

Poe referred to his stories as “tales of ratiocination”. In stories such as these, the primary concern of the plot is ascertaining truth, and the usual means of obtaining the truth is a complex and mysterious process combining intuitive logic, astute observation, and perspicacious inference. “Early detective stories tended to follow an investigating protagonist from the first scene to the last, making the unraveling a practical rather than emotional matter.” “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” is particularly interesting because it is a barely fictionalized account based on Poe’s theory of what happened to the real-life Mary Cecilia Rogers.

The period of the 1920s and ’30s is generally referred to as the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. During this period, a number of very popular writers emerged, mostly British but with a notable subset of American and New Zealand writers. Female writers constituted a major portion of notable Golden Age writers, including Agatha Christie, the most famous of the Golden Age writers, and among the most famous authors of any genre, of all time. Four female writers of the Golden Age are considered the four original “Queens of Crime”: Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham. Apart from Ngaio Marsh (a New Zealander) they were British.

Various conventions of the detective genre were standardized during the Golden Age, and in 1929 some of them were codified by writer Ronald Knox in his ‘Decalogue’ of rules for detective fiction, among them to avoid supernatural elements, all of which were meant to guarantee that, in Knox’s words, a detective story “must have as its main interest the unraveling of a mystery; a mystery whose elements are clearly presented to the reader at an early stage in the proceedings, and whose nature is such as to arouse curiosity, a curiosity which is gratified at the end.” In Golden Age detective stories, an outsider, sometimes a salaried investigator or a police officer, but often a gifted amateur investigates a murder committed in a closed environment by one of a limited number of suspects.

The most widespread sub genre of the detective novel became the whodunit (or whodunit, short for “who done it?”), where great ingenuity may be exercised in narrating the events of the crime, usually a homicide, and of the subsequent investigation in such a manner as to conceal the identity of the criminal from the reader until the end of the book, when the method and culprit are revealed. According to scholars Carole Kismaric and Marvi Heiferman, “The golden age of detective fiction began with high-class amateur detectives sniffing out murderers lurking in rose gardens, down country lanes, and in picturesque villages. Many conventions of the detective-fiction genre evolved in this era, as numerous writers, from populist entertainers, to respected poets, tried their hands at mystery.

The murder, or the detective novel, a simple premise someone gets killed, no one seems to know who did it, so a policeman, or a private detective have to uncover the mystery surrounding it, and catch the perpetrator(s). A genre so common that many of the writers get a style that it’s easily recognizable by the readers, and even if this give us a pretty good idea how the novel will develop, and after reading two, or three novels by the same author we can figure pretty easy who did it, either you stop buying the author, or keep coming because you identify with the hero, or enjoy his witticism. The novels are done with a mass audience in mind who are not hard to please, and do not demand much of you as a reader, usually short, and very formulaic, successful authors know this, and do not bother to come with anything new, why bother if your books sell? So you keep making the same book over, and over, changing names, and situations a little, just enough to justify the different title. Of course depending on the author this genre can be very entertaining, regardless of it’s merits as Literature, and taken to the big screen very often.

Exhibit Number Three, Science Fiction.

Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or scifi) is a genre of speculative fiction, typically dealing with imaginative concepts such as futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, faster than light travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life. Science fiction often explores the potential consequences of scientific and other innovations, and has been called a “literature of ideas.” It usually eschews the supernatural, and unlike the related genre of fantasy, historically science fiction stories were intended to have at least a faint grounding in science-based fact or theory at the time the story was created, but this connection has become tenuous or non-existent in much of science fiction.

Literature of ideas a most generous name given to this genre, if you ask me, but like in anything there is some good storytellers, far and few needless to say.

Science fiction is largely based on writing rationally about alternative possible worlds or futures. It is related to, but different from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically established or scientifically postulated physical laws (though some elements in a story might still be pure imaginative speculation).

The settings of science fiction are often contrary to those of consensus reality, but most science fiction relies on a considerable degree of suspension of disbelief, which is facilitated in the reader’s mind by potential scientific explanations or solutions to various fictional elements. Science fiction elements include:

A time setting in the future, in alternative timelines, or in a historical past that contradicts known facts of history or the archaeological record.
A spatial setting or scenes in outer space (e.g. spaceflight), on other worlds, or on subterranean earth.
Characters that include aliens, mutants, androids, or humanoid robots and other types of characters arising from a future human evolution.
Futuristic or plausible technology such as ray guns, teleportation machines, and humanoid computers.
Scientific principles that are new or that contradict accepted physical laws, for example time travel, wormholes, or faster-than-light travel or communication.
New and different political or social systems, e.g. Utopian, dystopian, post-scarcity, or post-apocalyptic.
Paranormal abilities such as mind control, telepathy, telekinesis (e.g. “The Force” in Star Wars.)
Other universes or dimensions and travel between them.

The annual Hugo Awards for science fiction and fantasy have been running uninterrupted (with the exception of a brief hiatus in 1954) since 1953. Voting is open to anyone prepared to stump up the money (currently $40) and the ceremony has been held all over the world. As such, the awards can lay serious claim to being one of the most venerable, democratic and international in existence, not to mention one of the most transparent

Outside the sci-fi community, however, the awards barely resonate. Leaving aside the (admittedly interesting) question of whether democratic voting will always select the best novel over that year’s populist Dan Brown equivalent, there’s the well-known snobbery around these genre books. Science fiction may be one of the defining literature of the last century, but it’s rare that its products get any kind of acceptance by the academy (and when they do, they’re then generally called something else).

I got little taste for this type of writing, born by the advent of our contemporary Science, and based on the infatuation from our Western obsession with Science, at the root a staunch materialism, from people with the idea Science it’s a panacea for Mankind, a delusional idea if there is one, who even ignore the second law of Thermodynamics: Entropy, yes the Universe had a beginning, and consequently would have an end, therefore a material existence ends with death, there is no hope of extending life beyond it’s end, however rosy a picture you may have of a fictional future brought by Science and technology, there will not be eternal life, at least not on this material dimension, so go seek it elsewhere!

To be fair there is nothing wrong to read for entertainment purposes, neither a desire to be thrilled, and we have the freedom to choose and pick our own form of entertainment, even if we secretly may feel guilty of indulging our time in such pursuits, myself a clear example of it, for many years I read WWII History, and biographies, knowing that they didn’t add a thing, but to my knowledge of History, if that has any value at all, now days once in a while pick one of this books, read it and feel a little bit guilty afterwards, in fact reading any book that doesn’t make me feel I learnt something valuable, even if I enjoyed it make me feel that way!

As a fellow blogger just read recently describe himself:

“As my faithful readers must have surmised, I like to touch upon a variety of subjects. I was diagnosed “borderline dilettante” at an early age. Fortunately my Juvenile records are sealed. Fiction, non-fiction, gender, travel and the accompanying “yours truly’s” photographs.”

Other Genres

Genre is a label that characterizes elements a reader can expect in a work of literature. The major forms of literature can be written in various genres. Genre is a category characterized by similarities in style, or subject matter.

The classic major genres of literature are:

Fiction
Comedy
Drama
Horror
Non-fiction
Realistic fiction
Romance novel
Satire
Tragedy
Tragicomedy
Fantasy

My original intention was to talk about all of these, however for the sake of brevity we would end this post right here, and we may tackle the subject on further posts.

Posted in Cinema & Literature, Criticism, Cultural Attitudes, Imagination, Language, Literary Criticism, Literature, Novels, On Reading, On Writing, Science Fitction, Thrillers, Uncategorized, whodunit | Tagged Literary Criticism, Literature, Literature influenced by Cinema, Our Reading Habits, Science Fiction, The Novel, The Silver Age Of Literature, whodunit | 35 Comments

MY FRIEND BOB, CALENDARS, AND THE RELATIVITY OF SYSTEMS OF MEASURE

Posted on November 14, 2016 by theburningheart

“The first men to be created and formed were called the Sorcerer of Fatal Laughter, the Sorcerer of Night, Unkempt, and the Black Sorcerer … They were endowed with intelligence, they succeeded in knowing all that there is in the world. When they looked, instantly they saw all that is around them, and they contemplated in turn the arc of heaven and the round face of the earth … [Then the Creator said]: ‘They know all … what shall we do with them now? Let their sight reach only to that which is near; let them see only a little of the face of the earth!… Are they not by nature simple creatures of our making? Must they also be gods?”

Popol Vuh

The Devil’s Advocate

My friend Bob it’s a very nice guy, but a little on the stubborn side, when it come to arguing about anything, he rather choose an eccentric point of view than a logical one, he prefers to abandon common sense than to be subjected to established rules, or measures of any kind, as an example recently it took me half an afternoon to explain him, against his better understanding of why we have leap years, his argument was since a day has 24 hours and a year consist of 365 days why we have a need of leap days, and leap years?

When I pointed out a year has no relation to the rotation of the Earth around it’s axis, 24 hours a full rotation known as a day, but to the Earth orbit around the Sun 149.60 millions kilometers, 92.96 million miles, he couldn’t figure out why there was not a synchronicity relationship of exactly 365 days, but a leftover roughly a quarter of a day (256. 363 004 parts of a day), and therefore the need every four year to add a leap day to keep an accurate calendar system, I tried to explain him to the best of my ability that a calendar it’s just a conception of the measure of time for utilitarian purposes, and point to the fact even our months are not all of 30 days thanks to the 5 days over 360, a beautiful division of our 360 degrees of a circle, in twelve months of 30 days, but in reality an idealized way to divide a circle, if we wouldn’t add a leap year in a century we would be roughly 25 days off time, and in a millennium that would add up to 250 days off the mark and that would throw off the seasons, our January first would be somewhere in early September.

Of course my friend Bob argued that if calendars were arbitrary and relative measures of time why we couldn’t just divide time as we pleased, as simple as cutting a cake in 365 equal parts!

Neither to say at this point of the conversation I had to point to the obvious need of an standard system of measure, in order to have consensus, that it may be relative to, but not arbitrary, just like going to his house the time it may take him in his car, has no relation as to how many times it’s wheels may spin, since that it’s determine, by the diameter of the wheels, x π (pi)=circumference or size of the wheel, in relation to the distance, regardless of the speed, he could be driving 5 miles an hour, or 60, it will not matter, the number of spins from the wheels will be the same, independent of the time it make take him to get there.

Cuneiform Tablets

Measure it’s related to honesty, and justice, maybe you will be surprised to know how our writing it is related to this virtues, not surprising writing was not as we know it today. In Mesopotamia it started out as simple counting marks, alongside which sometimes a non-arbitrary well understood sign, in the form of a simple picture image, that was cut into wood, stone, pots but more often pressed onto clay tokens. In that way, recorded accounts of amounts of goods involved in a transaction could be made. This convention began when people developed agriculture and settled into permanent communities that were centered on increasingly large and organised trading marketplaces. These marketplaces traded sheep, grain, and bread loaves, each and every one of these items was recorded by clay tokens. These initially very small clay tokens were continually used all the way from the pre-historic Mesopotamia period, 9000 BC, to the start of the historic period around 3000 BC, when the use of writing for recording was widely adopted.

No doubt this was simply a practical reason to keep record of any transaction, and in this way to keep people of short memory honest!

Any measure it’s Relative to

We have come a long way since, and a preconception of time involve a complex set of variables for a celestial planet, or star in relation to other celestial objects, just like our planet Earth year it’s in relation to our Sun, by it’s orbit, so do the rest of our Solar system, as for example a year in Venus it’s 224.7 days long, but a day in the other hand takes a whooping 243 day of our Earth, imagine a day in Venus, is longer than a Venus year!

A year in Jupiter it’s the equivalent of 11.86 years on Earth. As for a day time it depends on where you are in Jupiter! Because Jupiter is not a solid body, its upper atmosphere undergoes differential rotation. The rotation of Jupiter’s polar atmosphere is about 5 minutes longer than that of the equatorial atmosphere; three systems are used as frames of reference, particularly when graphing the motion of atmospheric features. System I applies from the latitudes 10° N to 10° S; its period is the planet’s shortest, at 9 hours 50 minutes 30.0 seconds. System II applies at all latitudes north and south of these; its period is 9h 55m 40.6s. System III was first defined by radio astronomers, and corresponds to the rotation of the planet’s magnetosphere; its period is Jupiter’s official rotation.

Human measure systems

As we saw every planet has it’s own particular conditions, and therefore ruled by different time standards in relation to one another, but this is not so different from our way to measure anything here on Earth.

We had so many calendars through History, by every civilization you can think of, that a whole post wouldn’t be big enough to enumerate, and do justice to the subject. There is Solar calendars, Lunar calendars, and Luni-solar.

A little known fact outside of France was the French republican calendar also commonly called the French Revolutionary Calendar (calendrier révolutionnaire français), was a calendar created and implemented during the French Revolution, and used by the French government for about 12 years from late 1793 to 1805, and for 18 days by the Paris Commune in 1871. The revolutionary system was designed in part to remove all religious and royalist influences from the calendar, and was part of a larger attempt at decimalization in France (which also included decimal time of day, decimalization of currency, and metrication).

Each day in the Republican Calendar was divided into ten hours, each hour into 100 decimal minutes, and each decimal minute into 100 decimal seconds. Thus an hour was 144 conventional minutes (more than twice as long as a conventional hour), a minute was 86.4 conventional seconds (44% longer than a conventional minute), and a second was 0.864 conventional seconds (13.6% shorter than a conventional second)

There were twelve months, each divided into three ten-day weeks called décades. The tenth day, décadi, replaced Sunday as the day of rest and festivity. The five or six extra days needed to approximate the solar or tropical year were placed after the months at the end of each year and called complementary days. This arrangement was an almost exact copy of the calendar used by the Ancient Egyptians, though in their case the beginning of the year was marked by summer solstice rather than autumn equinox.

A period of four years ending on a leap day was to be called a “Franciade”. The name “Olympique” was originally proposed but changed to Franciade to commemorate the fact that it had taken the revolution four years to establish a republican government in France.

The leap year was called Sextile, an allusion to the “bissextile” leap years of the Julian and Gregorian calendars, because it contained a sixth complementary day.

Weights and measures have taken a great variety of forms over the course of history, from simple informal expectations in barter transactions to elaborate state and supranational systems that integrate measures of many different kinds. Weights and measures from the oldest societies can often be inferred at least in part from archaeological specimens, often preserved in museums. The comparison of the dimensions of buildings with the descriptions of contemporary writers is another source of information. An interesting example of this is the comparison of the dimensions of the Greek Parthenon with the description given by Plutarch from which a fairly accurate idea of the size of the Attic foot is obtained. Because of the comparative volume of artifacts and documentation, we know much more about the state-sanctioned measures of large, advanced societies than we do about those of smaller societies or about the informal measures that often coexisted with official ones throughout history. In some cases, we have only plausible theories and we must sometimes select the interpretation to be given to the evidence.

By studying the evidence given by all available sources, and by correlating the relevant facts, we obtain some idea of the origin and development of the units. We find that they have changed more or less gradually with the passing of time in a complex manner because of a great variety of modifying influences. It is possible to group official measurement systems for large societies into historical systems that are relatively stable over time, including: the Babylonian system, the Egyptian system, the Phileterian system of the Ptolemaic age, the Olympic system of Greece, the Roman system, the British system, and the metric system.

Standard weights and measures have existed in the Indus Valley Civilization since the 5th millennium BCE. The centralized weight and measure system served the commercial interest of Indus merchants as smaller weight measures were used to measure luxury goods while larger weights were employed for buying bulkier items, such as food grains etc.Weights existed in multiples of a standard weight and in categories. Technical standardization enabled gauging devices to be effectively used in angular measurement and measurement for construction. Uniform units of length were used in the planning of towns such as Lothal, Surkotada, Kalibangan, Dolavira, Harappa, and Mohenjo-daro. The weights and measures of the Indus civilization also reached Persia and Central Asia, where they were further modified.

Every System Had A Utilitarian Purpose

My point is every measure system had a human origin base on a practical purpose, and could differ according to the specific needs of the task, and the cultural backgrounds of the people who invented the system, a relatively new invention The metric system is a called a decimal-based system because it is based on multiples of ten. Any measurement given in one metric unit(e.g., kilogram) can be converted to another metric unit (e.g., gram) simply by moving the decimal place. Adopted by most of the countries in the world even England the creators, except us here in the United States of America we keep company with Myanmar, and Liberia the other two countries where we cling to the more complicate British Imperial, or Exchequer System.

However no system it’s a God’s given system attuned to every need since as we see in the Heavens every planet, and Star holds different conditions particular, and specific to the given celestial body with their own calendar. Could we have a better calendar now days? Very likely, however changing a calendar just because it’s better it’s not practical just like the Republican French found out, people it’s used to what we have, changing things may bring a lot of unhappiness for the sake of accuracy, an expedience.

As a bit of anecdote the Toltec, Olmec, and the Maya build their calendar, according to their own Cosmological views with their own logic, that until recent were totally unknown to the rest of the world, some people argue the Julian it’s still a better calendar, but the fact remains the Maya adjusted their calendar five days every 52 years, meanwhile in the same period we adjust it 13 times!

Posted in Ancient Civilizations, Calendars, Cosmology, Cuneiform Tablets, Decimal System, French Revolutionary Calendar, History, Inspiration, Maya Calendar, My Friend Bob, Relativity, Science, Uncategorized, Weights & Measures | Tagged Calendars, Decimal System, Jupiter, My Friend Bob, Relativity, Venus, Weights & Measures Systems | 31 Comments

STATIONS VS STATES, THE CASE OF MOTHER TERESA AND HIS CRITICS

Posted on October 15, 2016 by theburningheart

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

The verses below reportedly were written on the wall of Mother Teresa’s home for children in Calcutta, India, and are widely attributed to her.

A Personal Anecdote

First let me say I was born a Catholic, perhaps a little of a misnomer, no one is born having a particular Religion, or Faith, our parents give us that as a fact of life, few parents would choose a different Faith for their children like in the Gandhi movie where an individual full with repentance feelings after killing a Muslim, Gandhi recommends for him to raise the child of an orphan from Muslim background as his, but not in his own Faith but as a Muslim, as an act of atonement for his crime.

Nevertheless I was a sort of precocious child and from an early age I start to question my Faith, and figure it was my own teachers who provoked me in to question that Faith being them Italian Francis Xavier missioners priest, not that they want me to change my Faith, however they provided me with the base of a solid education, that I will be grateful for life, but of my own inquisitive mind, and not doubt a germ of a rebellious nature typical of youth, combined with a curious disposition, and an skeptic character of mine. Let me just say that by the time I was twelve years of age, I no longer considered myself a Catholic, and even if at this time kind of smile at my early change of mind, and now understand the Faith of my parents far better than I did then, never return to the fold of the Catholic church, as a matter of fact do not think Spirituality as an Institution it’s the way for me, whatever Religion it may be.

A picture of my eldest brother, and me on our first communion at six, or seven years of age with our Godfather, Father observing in the background the man with the black tie by the doorway.

Now the anecdote; a brother of a close friend of mine interviewed Mother Teresa for the radio, a few years before she died in 1997, and despite of him being a Catholic he still hold reservations about the church condemning birth control, and from all the questions he could choose to ask her, having a short chance to talk to her, he could only make one question to her, he picked that one, asking her opinion about it.

Of course Mother Teresa a good Catholic she was, cited 1968, Pope Paul VI landmark encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (Latin, “Human Life”), which reemphasized the Church’s constant teaching that it is always intrinsically wrong to use contraception to prevent new human beings from coming into existence.

My brother’s friend, naive as he was in those matters try to argue with her about it saying: “But Mother what about all those children who are born out of wedlock and live in poverty, and many are just abandoned, and thrown in to the streets with no help of anybody, by the thousands?”

Mother Teresa looking him on the eye and holding his hand said: “Do you know a child abandoned?”

He answered: “Well no, but I know there is many!”

Mother Teresa still holding his hand said: “Then what business it’s for you to question the church stance on these matters?”

My friend’s brother stammered something about the injustice of it. Mother Teresa smiling said: “Do not worry my son, whenever you find an abandoned child, if you can’t take care of him, bring it to me, I will take care of him, and that will take the worry out of your head.”

Releasing his hand, and walking away she still turn around and said: “Bring as many as you can find, I will take care of all of them!”

Now my friend’s brother despite being a Catholic didn’t like the answer Mother Teresa gave him, and had a poor opinion of her, I sort of smiled and said to him:

“I didn’t knew much about Mother Teresa to have an opinion about her, but now you have left no doubt in my mind Mother Teresa is a saint!”

Mother Teresa Critics

According to a paper written by three Canadian academics, Serge Larivée, Geneviève Chénard, and Carole Sénéchal, Teresa’s clinics received millions of dollars in donations, yet their conditions drew criticism from people disturbed by the shortage of medical care, systematic diagnosis, and necessary nutrition, as well as the scarcity of analgesics for those in pain;^[ they said that “Mother Teresa believed the sick must suffer like Christ on the cross”. Some have argued that the additional money could have had transformative effects on the health of the poor by creating advanced palliative care facilities in the city. Abortion rights groups criticized her stance on abortion, while anti-abortion advocates praised her support of fetal rights.

One of Teresa’s most outspoken critics was the English journalist, literary critic and antitheist Christopher Hitchens, who wrote the extended essay The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (1995) and wrote in a 2003 article, “This returns us to the medieval corruption of the church, which sold indulgences to the rich while preaching hell fire and continence to the poor. [Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.” He also accused her of hypocrisy for opting to receive advanced treatment for her heart condition.

Hitchens thought he was the only witness (Chatterjee, another with views antagonistic to Teresa, was also called) called by the Vatican to give evidence against Teresa’s beatification and canonization process, because the Vatican had abolished the traditional “devil’s advocate” role which fulfilled a similar purpose. Hitchens said that “her intention was not to help people”, and that she lied to donors about the use of their contributions. “It was by talking to her that I discovered, and she assured me, that she wasn’t working to alleviate poverty”, he said, “She was working to expand the number of Catholics. She said, ‘I’m not a social worker. I don’t do it for this reason. I do it for Christ. I do it for the church.

The Dark Night of the Soul

Analysing her deeds and achievements, John Paul II asked: “Where did Mother Teresa find the strength and perseverance to place herself completely at the service of others? She found it in prayer and in the silent contemplation of Jesus Christ, his Holy Face, his Sacred Heart. Privately, Mother Teresa experienced doubts and struggles over her religious beliefs which lasted nearly 50 years until the end of her life, during which “she felt no presence of God whatsoever”, “neither in her heart or in the Eucharist” as put by her postulator, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk. Mother Teresa expressed grave doubts about God’s existence and pain over her lack of faith:

Where is my faith? Even deep down … there is nothing but emptiness and darkness … If there be God—please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul.

With reference to the above words, Kolodiejchuk (the official responsible for gathering the evidence for her sanctification) said he thought that some might misinterpret her meaning, but her faith that God was working through her remained undiminished, and that while she pined for the lost sentiment of closeness with God, she did not question his existence, and that she may have experienced something similar to what is believed of Jesus Christ when crucified who was heard to say “Eli Eli lama sabachthani?” which is translated to “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Kolodiejchuk drew comparisons to the 16th-century mystic St. John of the Cross, who coined the term the “Dark Night of the Soul”. Many other saints had similar experiences of spiritual dryness, or what Catholics believe to be spiritual tests (“passive purification”), such as Mother Teresa’s namesake, St. Therese of Lisieux, who called it a “night of nothingness.” The Rev. James Langford said these doubts were typical and would not be an impediment to canonization.

Teresa wrote many letters to her confessors and superiors over a 66-year period, most notably to Calcutta Archbishop Ferdinand Perier and a Jesuit priest, Celeste van Exem, who had been her spiritual adviser since the formation of the Missionaries of Charity. She had asked that her letters be destroyed, concerned that “people will think more of me—less of Jesus.” Despite this request, the correspondences have been compiled in Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday) In one publicly released letter to a spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, she wrote, “Jesus has a very special love for you. [But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see,—Listen and do not hear—the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak … I want you to pray for me—that I let Him have [a] free hand.”

Stations and States

The various stages of self-awareness on the Sufi path are known as ‘Maqamat’, or the ‘stations’, which are attainable through continuous spiritual practices and sincere efforts. However, ‘haal’ or ‘state’ can only happen by the Grace of God.

Rumi has described these stages poetically as: ‘Maqam’ is the (King’s) being alone with the bride while ‘haal’ is like unveiling of the beauteous bride.

To elaborate these stages further:

‘MAQAM’ represents a spiritual station, where the seeker finds him after sincerely treading the spiritual path for a while. With gradual polishing of the mirror of the heart through meditative exercises, he keeps on becoming aware of the spiritual subtleties behind the physical realm. With each breakthrough, he finds a new level of awareness. In this process, his previous level of awareness serves as the ‘Maqam’ where he becomes stationed till he moves on. Maqamat or Stations can also be perceived as the ascending rungs of the spiritual ladder. With continuous spiritual practices, a seeker ascends on this ladder. While moving from station to station, he may be touched by the special Grace or HAAL from time to time.

HAAL occurs spontaneously as a spiritual gift. While walking in the spiritual forest amidst pathways decorated with dancing trees and perfumed flowers, a soft cloud appears on the horizon, engulfs the seeker while quenching his spiritual thirst then moves on leaving him in a state of awe. In this state, a seeker neither expects what comes to him from the unseen world nor has the slightest idea about the nature of experience. He is simply taken over by an overwhelming compassionate power. It reflects a state, where a door opens out of nowhere and breeze from the garden of eternity surrounds the seeker and colours him with its perfume. A realm of ecstasy prevails due to unbearable display of beauty. This state of Hal comes and goes on its own. A seeker can never claim such a state due to its extraordinariness and his ordinariness. It always happens as a Grace.

Such stages are not some concrete milestones depicting progress on the Sufi path step by step rather reflects inner spiritual development. This is why; there exists no consensus among Sufi’s on the number and details of these stages.

Conclusion

I never cared much for the late English journalist, literary critic and antitheist Christopher Hitchens a controversial figure to say the least, after describing himself a socialist, a Marxist and anti totalitarian, made a turncoat move to the far right, joining and supporting with his jingoistic tirades in the news media the second Bush invasion of Iraq, this actions left no sympathies in me for his opinions, as for his criticism of Mother Teresa, I question how much he was motivated by his personal atheistic beliefs, and personal complacency, as my friend’s brother, and many others, who having an opinion, on every subject imaginable, and supposedly worrying about multiple things, still without moving a finger to do anything about it! On that respect any opinion you may express, in my view has little value whatsoever, and more when you do not know nothing about it, specially when you are far from being a saint, yourself!

Another close friend of mine a rabid atheist, in a very recent conversation, a few days ago, or I should said argument, he carried against some nice young Jewish Lubavitcher followers just because he can’t imagine any rational being to posses Faith, and belong to a Religion, who just happen to ask us if we were Jewish, immediately my friend engaged them on an argument about their Faith, for quite some time, one of the nice young men mentioned in his arguments that his father run a kitchen for the homeless in another country where he serves 70,000 meals a year to the poor, my friend after they left, dared even to question the reasons this person may have in doing this, fed up with his reasoning I said: “Stop it, as far as I am concern he feeds 69.999 people more a year, save my occasional guest, than I do, and probably more than you do as well, so you have no right to question his motives!

Errare humanum est, sed perseverare diabolicum:

‘To err is human, but to persist (in the mistake) is diabolical.

Mother Teresa was a human being, maybe she did a lot of mistakes like we all do, but she worked tirelessly most of her life helping the downtrodden, and that in my opinion, it is to have achieved a higher Spiritual Station, regardless if she never experienced bliss, or ecstasy like some saints do, the more merit to her since she only relied on Faith to sustain her, and to persist on her work despite her dark night of the soul.

God Intoxication

I may write in a further post about Saints, Sadhus, Babas, Aghoris, and Holly men who become God intoxicated through meditation, singing, and dancing as Dervishes do, others they even smoke ganja, or drink herbal brews of a psychotropic nature, and acquire Ecstatic states, some briefly, others for days, weeks, even months, some even years, but as we read above, bliss, ecstasy it’s a grace, or a gift if you wish, not really difficult to experience, the path to Godhead or Spiritual Realization comes not in a single fashion, but in myriads of ways, some, or most I should add we do not know nothing about, so we can’t judge easy in matters of Spirit when we have no knowledge of it, but to reach a high Spiritual Station it’s what make a Saint great, not the states. In other words; Spiritually it’s not what you take, but what you give what it is important.

Posted in Criticism, Grace, Inspiration, Mother Teresa, Personal Story, Religion, Saints, Spiritual States, Spiritual Stations, Spirituality, The Dark Night Of The Soul, Uncategorized | Tagged Christopher Hitchens, Dark Night Of The Soul, Ecstasy, Mother Teresa, Saints, Spiritual States, Spiritual Stations | 43 Comments

THE TWENTY CENTURY AN AGE OF FAILED DREAMS, AND DISAPPOINTMENTS, A BLEAK FUTURE

Posted on September 16, 2016 by theburningheart

The twenty century has been marked by cynicism,

selfishness, greed, and the desire to please,

all without changing the status quo.

In the 21st we must resurrect solidarity and

compassion.

Oscar Arias, Nobel Peace 1986

A century of wars, and failed utopias

At the beginning of the Twenty century the world was involved in a class struggle over a hundred years old, since the French revolution, the American independence, the beginning of the end of colonization, and old Empires, monarchies become obsolete, and state nations like America surged here, and there, in other parts like in Russia the monarchy come to a bloody end, after the hecatomb of the First World War, basically a scramble for power between old, and outdated Empires, as the British, Austro Hungarian, German, Russian, and Ottoman Empires. And the start of America flexing it’s new power around the globe.

The Russian revolution saw the emergence of Socialism, and the utopia of communism, a reign of terror of unimaginable proportions, First World War was just a preamble to the unsolved problems of what yet was to come The Horrific World War II that culminated in the destruction of most of Europe, were not only soldiers fought and lost their lives, but also civilian population was involved and not spared, along with genocide, and not only of Jews, but of many other people like Chinese, Asians of many nations, Eastern Europeans, and even the Japanese bombed twice with atomic bombs, as for the need of it with Japan on the brink of collapse justifications are numerous, but of dubious necessity, or credibility.

A cold war soon after, and an armament race that exhausted Soviet Russia, but empowered brutal capitalism and an industry based on manufacturing weapons instead of looking for a better use of science in the benefit of society at large. Mini wars here, and there, all over the globe feeding the war industrialist, and solidifying Capitalism, and shoving it down the throats of undeveloped Nations all over the world.

A sad, and shameless History was the Twenty Century if you ask me, and so far on this new Century doesn’t look any better!

The facts about the twenty century and our current condition

No, I do not live with the idea that past times were always better, but neither believe that our time it’s the best ever. It is hard to describe this without being accused of nostalgic idealization of the past, and biased interpretation of History. It’s hard to quantify the degree of deterioration to the quality of life, not only of the privileged, as well of those living in poverty, and disadvantaged, life that has been cheapened and debased, despite the so much vaunted progress, in every sphere of knowledge, and technology, social inequality still reigns unabashedly in most parts of the world, regardless of the relative comparisons between what they didn’t have in past centuries, to our days, since if they lacked many of the advances in technology, science, medicine, and the many trinkets we enjoy today, nevertheless, they enjoyed a more tranquil, and quieter life without the fast pace, and stress imposed on us since the Advent of modernity, slavery has been abolished in the Nineteen century, but another type of hopeless servitude still exist well and alive now days in many parts of the world.

Few examples are necessary to prove my point, people with only a few years of school made more money, and lived in bigger, and more comfortable surroundings, than most people in their present life today, many mothers as housewives never needed to look for a job, they enjoyed a quieter life, and at more relaxed surroundings than most of us do, herded in crowded apartment buildings, and run down neighborhoods, and neither commuted two hours just to get to work, never the worker was asked to do so much work for less money, as plutocrats now days take for granted you will work for less, not since the time of the industrial revolution the progress of labor have being so dismal. Some may argue the past generation they were smarter, or better than we are now days, being called by some, “The greatest Generation” a myth if I had heard of one, if anything they should be called “The Great War Generation” (That by the way wasn’t WWI but WWII) who just happened to benefit from the work brought by an Industrial war machinery, and from Roosevelt’s New deal together with the GI bill who granted free education for veterans, unlike now days were you have to pay dearly for an education, even to the point to be saddled with debt for the rest of your life! But we also witness that despite their great assets, they also suffered substantial set backs on their later years, as result of the new winds of change enveloping all of us in the new game of greater effort, more skills, and bigger sacrifices demanded from you, for less rewards, a common state of affairs we live now days, nevertheless they fared way better than my generation, were we now endure this trend even from early age where you have to compete as a child through the years we need to spend in school where more is demanded from you, as a preparation for the work ordeal you got to face, and endure now days, for far less return, and without a job security as our fathers took for granted, but a shifty, insecure, and for precarious prospects, with the consequent deterioration, and diminishing in the quality of life for the majority. Like if by the mere fact of your existence you would not deserve, or grant you a fair chance, and decent conditions of living, but have to wrestle it away from other less lucky. My question to you is, what sort of benefit it’s to live under these so much vaunted conditions of “Freedom and Democracy”? When you are not even a person but a consumer=a sheep to be fleeced! Just read an article were old medicine drugs, costing a dollar, and necessary for many people suffering decease, are revamped and sell in new patents for over $500 dollars! These type of abuse its an everyday occurrence so common as to be relegated to the back pages of the newspapers.

In Brief, an outmoded, and obsolete form of government.

We remain as spectators, and helpless victims of a political system that now days it’s as inefficient, and out of pace with our current needs, whose only reason for it’s existence is to enrich the few, and as useless as Monarchy was at the beginning of the Twenty Century, it just doesn’t work and we need to shake it!

There is a chasm that keep on widening, fueled by rampant privatization, mass incarceration, the demolition of the welfare state, a consumer culture, the corruption by money of the democratic process, a failed judicial branch of government, police militarization, military solutions, instead of diplomacy, that favors interests rather than justice, global inequality, the despoliation of resources of the poor countries, by the rich countries, the subjugation of the same nations by credits who benefit few, but saddle the countries with enormous unpayable debt, the spread of a capitalistic global octopus who cares little what may be the result of such despoliation, and governments that in fact are accomplices of such barbaric enterprises, but above all the corrosive lie that they keep spreading; that things can’t be different or be changed, propagated by a media apparatus of Orwellian proportions, whose labor it’s to control opinion, by a relentless barrage of misinformation, that keep people brainwashed in to believing any effort to confront them it’s futile, and useless, and to accept as normal what should be intolerable.

Posted in A World in Crisis, Capitalism, Consciousness, Corruption, Crisis, Critical Thinking, Cynicism, Democracy, Disillusion with Capitalism, Economy, History, Obsolete Government, Orwellian Media, Plutocracy, The Twenty Century, Uncategorized | Tagged Business as Usual, Obsolete Government, Orwellian Media, Plutocracy, The Twenty Century | 38 Comments

A MISGUIDED BUT COMMON IDEA ABOUT DEMOCRACY, THE FIFTEEN MINUTES OF FAME IN AMERICA, AND TO KNOW YOURSELF.

Posted on August 17, 2016 by theburningheart

Dreams of finding Self (Rene Magritte homesickness)

“IN THE FUTURE EVERYBODY WILL

BE WORLD FAMOUS FOR 15 MINUTES. ”

ANDY WARHOL

THE NATIONAL DREAM

In the United States of America everybody is entitled to become famous, rich, successful, popular, even infamously, if its necessary, by doing whatever you dream, and aspire to become, regardless of your merits to do so, or at least have a chance to win the big one, playing the lottery, and daydream how you would expend your winnings, once you get the winning ticket.

Most people consider you a rare bird if you do not hold any such lofty aspirations, like becoming somebody worthy of praise by getting rich, or achieve your rightful place in history by succeeding on your not so secret dream of becoming an actor, tycoon, Rock musician, artist, or in whatever field of choice lays your ambition, to make a statement of success.

Once many years ago by ill fortune, and self made mistakes, I had fallen in hard times, and this may be a subject for another story, anyway I took a low level job since I needed a job ASAP. One thing I had clear on my mind at the time was, that whatever it was needed from me, I would do in order to do a great job of a bad situation, taken one thing at a time, and try my best, despite the drudgery of the work, my attitude after a year was rewarded with a promotion by my good performance, however because my honesty when asked by the head of the personnel department what were my future plans for advancing with the new job position in the company, and manifested I had none, I was dismissed, the offer was cancel, and sent me back to my old position!

My lack of ambition was judged as a clear sign that I was not good for the growth of the company, despite my excellent work performance at the same, and the reason why my immediate boss applied for my promotion, ignoring the fact I was willing to do as much effort on my new assignment, regardless of not allowing myself to build sand castles on my imagination, and was perfectly capable of fulfilling such task properly. Soon after, another company offered me a better paid job, took the new position, and did as well, or better in that company as the last one, got numerous awards, being the first, or second employee of the month, gaining numerous prices, and incentives straight for two years, until the company moved elsewhere in the country, being one of the few 4, or 5 employees in over two hundred employees to receive an offer to be paid for moving to the new location on the other side of the country, and it would represent a good career move for me, regardless I decided not to, since had no desire to start my life at a new place where had no interest to relocate, judging I would do well at any future job I may be offered in my city, and there was no need for me to start in an unknown city, preferring familiarity, and old friendships, over success, and a monetary reward of dubious satisfaction, since happiness it’s such a subjective, and relative thing.

City skyline

FIFTEEN MINUTES OF FAME

German art historian Benjamin H. D. Buchloh suggests that the core tenet of Warhol’s aesthetic, being “the systematic invalidation of the hierarchies of representational functions and techniques” of art, corresponds directly to the belief that the “hierarchy of subjects worthy to be represented will someday be abolished,” hence anybody, and therefore “everybody,” can be famous once that hierarchy dissipates, “in the future,” and by logical extension of that, “in the future, everybody will be famous,” and not merely those individuals worthy of fame.

On the other hand, wide proliferation of the adapted idiom “my fifteen minutes” and its entrance into common parlance have led to a slightly different application, having to do with both the ephemeral nature of fame in the information age and, more recently, the democratization of media outlets brought about by the advent of the internet. In this formulation, Warhol’s quote has been taken to mean: “At the present, because there are so many channels by which an individual might attain fame, albeit not enduring fame, virtually anyone can become famous for a brief period of time.”

There is a third and even more remote interpretation of the term, as used by an individual who has been legitimately famous or skirted celebrity for a brief period of time, that period of time being his or her “fifteen minutes.”

Andy Wharhol

DEMOCRACY VS MERITOCRACY

One of the breakthroughs of political history was the invention and implementation of democracy in the West. Its virtue was that it could take absolute power away from despots, tyrants, autocrats, and monarchs and emperors parading under a Divine Right, and hand a lot of that power to the formerly oppressed citizens, thus evening up the odds.

In a world where ideas and information flow freely, where governments have to answer to other governments, and where free speech is a sign of a healthy civilization, democracy becomes especially important and valuable, and suggesting that it is not up to snuff is a tricky business. Even in cases where corruption perverts a democratic system, it’s usually traced to a deviation from this ideal, not to the ideal itself.

Although meritocracy as a term is a relatively recently coined word (1958), the concept of a government based on standardized examinations originates from the works of Confucius, along with other Legalist and Confucian philosophers. The first meritocracy was implemented in the second century BC/BCE, by the Han Dynasty, which introduced the world’s first civil service exams evaluating the “merit” of officials. Meritocracy as a concept spread from China to British India during the seventeenth century, and then into continental Europe and the United States.

With the translation of Confucian texts during the Enlightenment, the concept of a meritocracy reached intellectuals in the West, who saw it as an alternative to the traditional ancient regime of Europe. In the United States, the assassination of President James A. Garfield in 1881 prompted the replacement of the American Spoils System with a meritocracy. In 1883, The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act was passed, stipulating government jobs should be awarded on the basis of merit through competitive exams, rather than ties to politicians or political affiliation.

The most common form of meritocratic screening found today is the college degree. Higher education is an imperfect meritocratic screening system for various reasons, such as lack of uniform standards worldwide, lack of scope, not all occupations and processes are included, and lack of access, some talented people never have an opportunity to participate because of the expense, most especially in developing countries. Nonetheless, academic degrees serve some amount of meritocratic screening purpose in the absence of a more refined methodology. Education alone, however, does not constitute a complete system, as meritocracy must automatically confer power and authority, which a degree does not accomplish independently.

Zhou Dunyi Confucian scholar

MY VIEWS ON THE MATTER

I will not ramble on the merits of one system over the other, my point it’s to make aware my fellow Americans that we should never confuse our much vaunted democracy as our natural right to success, and fame. Democracy it’s a form of government that allows us to be consider as equals, when it come to our rights as individuals, and we deserve to be respected individually, regardless of our humble rank as the garbage collector, or as the powerful first citizen, the president of the United States of America. Sure almost any citizen could be president according to our laws, but I remind you that in 240 years of our history, we had only 43 presidents a rather short number if becoming a president would be God’s given right of every Harry, Dick and Tom in America.

Freedom for any individual to pursue a possibility doesn’t mean it’s a free pass for everybody to have a right to become exalted in rank in whatever you do, just because you have dreams of obtaining your fifteen minutes of fame without having to work hard for what you believe to deserve.

Dreaming it’s fine, dreaming too much and lacking the skills, or means to realize your dream it’s practically the definition of a fool. And who wants to be a fool?

06aba53f54b873b730b842f3fc97aa9c

Well judging by the numbers, it seem many of us fit the definition, I will not tire you with anecdotes of such foolery I am sure you have many anecdotes of your own, from relatives, friends, acquaintances at work, or elsewhere, maybe at one point in our life, ourselves played such role.

Yes we all deserve a chance, and yes we all should do our best to succeed, but before dreaming too high, we should do better by studying our shortcomings, and see a way to amend them, after all, success function more like a Meritocracy, than a Democracy despite both being not perfect. There is not a substitute for working hard at what you want, and sometimes that it’s not enough, other factors weight on the balance, so a philosophical attitude it’s necessary to deal with our lot in life, but please do not expect that after a life of mediocrity, and lack of effort to be rewarded with fame, and richness if you didn’t inherit a legacy from a rich family. If we examine our life and figure our handicaps, but are not willing to do anything, oh well, you can still buy your lotto ticket and dream like anybody else!

you-do-not-need-win-lottery-pursue-your-dreams

But my advice save the money of the ticket the odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are roughly 1 in 259 million, not very good, rather look at the other side of the coin, and that is to realize, and discover who you truly are, what its important is to be happy with yourself, and there’s nothing wrong with realizing that you are not ambitious, while this does not bother, or disturb you, the important thing is to be happy in your heart with who you are, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to be better, just the realization of knowing yourself it’s preferable than winning the lotto, in fact winning the lotto it may destroy your life. Meanwhile knowing yourself will be your real winning.

For many years I thought there was something wrong with my character, since never cared to become rich doing this, or that, neither to achieve success, or pursuing concrete goals, actually I was pretty indifferent to acquire lots of money, and as long as I had enough to go by, was pretty happy with, until…

Well that, is another story to be told on a future post, let just me say, that after years discover that my lack of ambition, turned to be my biggest treasure, and what an asset this is! Precisely my lack of ambition freed me of the need to be the kind of person I was not, and it was not in my nature to be, and stop me from pursuing the wrong things, the kind of stuff that would have been detrimental to my soul.

Life it’s an irony, doesn’t it?

But a wise irony it is!

Carl Jung said: “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials. Lin Yutang

Sitting quietly,

Doing nothing,

Spring comes,

And the grass grows by itself.

Zen proverb

Posted in Arete, Carl. G. Jung, Celebrity, Counsciousness, Critical Thinking, Cultural Attitudes, Democracy, Dreams, Fame, Illusions, Know Thyself, Meritocracy, Money, Personal Story, Self, Success, Uncategorized, Wisdom | Tagged Andy Warhol, Democracy Vs Meritocracy, Dreamings, Fame And Fortune, Fifteen Minutes Of Fame, Happiness, Know Thyself, Success, Winning The Lotto | 35 Comments

LOVE IS REAL, ILLUSIONS ARE NOT

Posted on July 19, 2016 by theburningheart

Love Yourself

Love cannot be found in erudition and science, books and pages. Whatever is discussed by people, that is not the way of lovers. Whatever you have said or hear is the shell. The kernel of Love is a mystery that cannot be divulged.

Rumi

Why Romantic Love Seems Destined For Failure?

On our day an age we are no wiser that our forefathers were, in fact we seem to fall in to folly easier!

We spoke before about Romantic Love on April 2015 here we go back to it adding unsaid things about Love. For those of you who never read it maybe it will be useful to do it, since I prefer not to repeat saying the same things already treated on another post, but briefly I would say our notions of romantic love, and expectations for most of us in our predominant Western culture are totally out of whack with reality, feed by the media, movies, TV, romantic novels, and crass commercialism, hey it’s not a secret, Love sells! We celebrate it on every occasion, Valentines, super expensive weddings, jewelry, gift cards, flowers, chocolate, cakes, and any other present made in the name of love, from diners, movies, cars, houses, diamonds, serenades, dances, vacations, clothes, makeup, hairdos, you want to look good, and any conceivable expenditure made on the name of love too many to exhaust easily, weddings are also the foundation of a multi-billion dollar industry rife with questionable traditions and irrational expenses.

expensive-wedding

Our youth of course it’s the primary target for buying the idealization of love so when they marry can’t be strangers to the idea of throwing the house through the window, and in fact most parents paid for these weddings which tell you how even if the parents are already divorced themselves, still marrying your daughter or son becomes a matter of prestige, to expend extravagantly on a wedding.

With all these high expectations for happiness out of romantic love no wonder the letdown of failing to fulfill that happiness is anything but brutal.

If you look at the history of weddings only the nobility would celebrate sumptuous weddings, kings and princes would celebrate weddings, the rest of the people would have if lucky a blessing by a priest of their religion, before going back to milk the cow, or cook the daily meal. My point if you notice, is that a lavish wedding celebration now days is trying to mimic a fairy tale dream of kings and princesses, living happy ever after. What sort of model is that for realistic expectations for your average couple struggling to make a living?

Royal-Wedding-Pictures

But being the juicy business it is do not expect a change of values, since it is business who fuel the romantic notions of what love should be, my only advice if you want to be a fool for love, is hold on to your wallet, and get rid of fairy tales expectations about love, it is not real!

Love to begin with it is not infatuation, I will not try to define love, there is many degrees of love, but it’s not illusion, to care dearly for a woman, or a man is fine, to expect things to be a fairy tale, well that is a whole different story.

Fairy tales we tell children, hopefully with a moral story to help them to implant good values on them, but for adults to enact these fantasies, at a great price no doubt, tell us the children in us is well and alive, nothing wrong with it you may think, but it will be unwise not to realize there lays an Archetype dream, and that to try to become that Archetype it is not a good idea, since we always be short in fulfilling dreams.

Fairy tale wedding

Archetypes are innate universal pre-conscious psychic dispositions that form the substrate from which the basic themes of human life emerge. The archetypes are components of the collective unconscious and serve to organize, direct and inform human thought and behavior. Archetypes hold control of the human life cycle.

As we mature the archetypal plan unfolds through a programmed sequence which Jung called the stages of life. Each stage of life is mediated through a new set of archetypal imperatives which seek fulfillment in action. These may include being parented, initiation, courtship, marriage and preparation for death.

Hindsight is 20/20 we like to say, as we live the experience we learn from it, but of course it’s too late to change anything, at least for some if not everybody, old age brings maturity and set illusions to rest, and we can see the folly of our past actions, and too understand our dreams, and expectations were too big, and that romantic love was frail with all sorts of illusions that not correspond to our imperfect world of painful realities.

In India the Sanatana Dharma followers call this Maya; Illusion sometimes translated as the world to be an illusion, it is more subtle than that, more like not seeing truthfully things as they are.

Maha Maya

“YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD

WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL,

AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND”

“YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD

AND HIM ONLY SHALL YOU SERVE”

As a child remember in my Catechism classes the rule that only God you could adore, and worship, humans and other things you could love, but adoring them and worshiping them was tantamount to idolatry. I guess that was my first hint that you have to take romantic love with a grain of salt, and not to make idols with clay feet. Not that it made me any good later, but we will not get in to that, since either yourself went through it, or you will likely find out on your own!

Relationships they are never perfect, more likely something we have to cope with it, a noble enterprise if you wish, marriage is a such a quandary state of living, as a friend of mine liked to quote her mother: “Marriage is the art of reaching a committed agreement, where the force of habit triumphs over hate.”

Not very romantic, but pretty good advice to any sensible, but full of illusion person wishing to get marry. So do not go overboard with romantic illusions, be practical keep your feet on solid ground, realize marriage it’s not a joy ride, more like a tough endurance race, that you bear with, for love.

And no, this is not a final word about love, Love is inexhaustible doesn’t it? So there will be more of it on future posts.

Simple Wedding

Posted in Archetypes, Capitalism, Crisis of Values, Critical Thinking, Cultural Attitudes, Cynicism, Disillusion with Capitalism, Love, Love Illusions, Marriage, Maya, Romance, Uncategorized, Weddings | Tagged Capitalism explotation of Love, Idolatry, Love as an Illusion, Marriage a Committed Agreement, On Marriage, Over Romanticism, Weddings | 60 Comments

MASTERY, AND THE MEANING OF PRACTICE

Posted on June 19, 2016 by theburningheart

Sensei's Dojo

If people knew how hard I worked to get my

Mastery it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.

Michelangelo

Practice it is what is needed in order to achieve Mastery, and practice is work, the amount of time you work in your practice it will depend on the seriousness of your intention, and the will you exercise in to it, and that’s practice.

My Aikido, and Zen teacher, will scratch his head when a student with false expectations would abandon the Dojo after a few lessons, realizing it will be impossible for them to acquire easily the skills necessary to be like the heroes of the many Martial Arts movies that at the time where big hits, but now days are a dime a dozen, and shaking his head my Sensei would say:

“Don’t they understand? It’s only a movie!”

Media it’s so powerful today that is easy to forget most things require a great effort to be achieved, at least those things that have any value, they require long time and much practice, be these working as a chef, fishing for crab in Alaska, become a great musician, or a great artist in the diverse fields of Arts, or simply following a Spiritual path.

The results of most enterprises will depend on the amount of time , effort, and work you put on any task at hand, period. To believe otherwise is to be fooling yourself, and setting yourself for disappointment

Excellence has a price, and you got to be willing to pay the price, otherwise you are wasting your time, another great anecdote from my Sensei come to mind.

Concerning a female friend of his who decided to study ceramic making with a great Sensei living in Japan, she announced to him she was leaving for Japan in order to become an apprentice with such Master.

A couple of years later he run in to her at a bank, my Sensei was very surprised to see her since he expected her to be in Japan at the time studying as he was told by her, after a brief conversations they went for coffee so she could explain to him why she was back, and here is what she told him.

ochawan_tea_ceremony_japan_mar_2015_2013

HER STORY

“I was very naive at the time, I loved the beautiful ceramics and thought I could learn this beautiful craft just going over there and learn it easy, but to begin with as you know my Sensei live in the mountains far from populated areas, one of the reasons is that in order to set the ceramic pieces in the kilns a lot of wood it is necessary for the fires to keep them going day, and night for up to a month of work.

As I arrived in the mountains realized how rural, and simply my Sensei lived, there was no electrical power, no modern conveniences, or appliances of any kind, even the simplest tasks like cooking with firewood, or washing clothes by the creek in the cold waters of the mountain had to be done by hand, the same way with cleaning the wood floors, or mats, on your knees and with wet rags, also we had to care for a plot of land where we grew vegetables for use in our cooking, we cleaned, cooked, mended clothes, and all kind of chores necessary to run a household, plus taking instruction from Sensei about pottery making.

japan-rural-Takayama-home1

You go to bed after diner basically and it’s necessary to do it early because you got to get up very early every day of the year at 3:00 AM in order to go out and collect firewood, every one is required to bring a pack load of wood more or less the equivalent of your weight, and because you can’t just go and cut a tree you are only able to pick dead branches, and for that it’s necessary to walk for miles, up and down the steep mountains with hardly any tracks for you to walk bringing the wood from miles around, in the summer months it’s not an easy task, but in the winter months with the snow well…you can imagine how hard to find the wood in the snow, and darkness, dig it out, and to carry such heavy weight through the snow back to the house. Not to talk about how cold it gets out there, your hands and feet are numb all the time, and with chilblains, it’s brutal.

frozen forest Japan

During the summer the Master will put the completed ceramic pieces in the kilns and set the fires burning that required vigilance and attendance 24 x 7 for weeks to feed the fires and make sure the temperatures of the kilns will be correct, and everything would go according to Sensei’s orders, of course that mean we couldn’t go to sleep guarding the fires until the whole thing was done, this was an ongoing thing for a whole month!

Excuse to tell you we hardly slept at all for the period and we where totally exhausted by the end of it.

During that time I did a lot of thinking about my vocation to be a Master ceramist, specially when I found out it will take twenty years of my life to live along Sensei in the conditions described, with no life but the study under Sensei’s rules, but what about my own life, and being a young woman. what about finding a husband, making a family, visiting my own parents in America was troublesome, so with heartbreak, and sorrow come to the conclusion being a Master ceramist wasn’t mean for me, and here I am…

Japanese kiln in the mountains

In a time when we are so removed from simple living by the use of technology we almost live in a virtual world, wherever you go you see people walking holding their new gadget that allow them to live in cyberspace for hours at a time. Our tastes are now dictated by media like movies, and TV, where actors portray fantasies that are confuse with reality by many. We choose to follow the example of fictitious characters portrait by actors in movies, in my city the joke says every waiter it’s an aspiring actor, rock musician, script writer, plastic artist or at least a poet, but in fact I had run in to many other occupations who are in pursuit of the fame dream, or rag to riches dream, I use to meet casually at the place I work before the crash of 2008 with a lot of phone stock market brokers, now a not so popular occupation, who dreamed of making scripts, or movies, and at restaurants and cafes all kinds of people are in search of a person who may connect them to the right place in order to pedal their dream wares, there is an industry now who prey on these dreamers and help them put together a script, or a small movie, shot with aspiring actors looking themselves for their big chance, and all kind, of advice, and seminars in how to achieve your dreams. If you haven’t watch Zizek’s “The pervert guide to cinema” you should.

To have a vague fantasy of something you want to do, will no turn to be what in reality it is, confused by the romantic side, or the glamour of certain activities, like acting, or being a rock idol, have a way of confusing people’s minds in to believing something unreal to be real, deluding themselves in to making things work according to their fantasies.

When concerned with life as it is, as oppose as how you imagine things to be, things take a turn for the unexpected and we learn a lesson in humbleness after hardship, and enduring trials, and tribulations when you pursue anything of value. For those who go through such experiences there is something gained, even the knowledge that such thing wasn’t for you, or having grown up, character building, a great inner knowledge, and satisfaction of learning a precious thing about yourself.

And for those that endure to the end and Master whatever they choose to do, there is even a bigger reward of Spiritual worth.

Achieving Mastery

Posted in Cultural Attitudes, Direct Spiritual Experience, Dreams, Illusions, Infatuation, Inner Journey, Inspiration, Know Thyself, Mastery, Mysticism, Personal Story, Reality, Self, Spirituality, Uncategorized, Wisdom | Tagged Ceramics, Dojo, Hard Training, Illusion and Reality, Mastery, Movies, Pottery making, Sensei, Training | 52 Comments

EARTH HISTORY, MOTHER AS AN ARCHETYPE, AND SPIRITUAL REALIZATION.

Posted on May 21, 2016 by theburningheart

mother-earth

Great Mystery spoke to our heart

and told us that Earth Would be

the Mother of countless life forms.

Cherokee Nation oral tradition

The age of Earth is approximately one-third of the age of the universe. An immense amount of geological change has occurred in that time span, accompanied by biological change.

Earth formed around 4.54 billion years ago by accretion from the solar nebula.Volcanic out gassing probably created the primordial atmosphere and then the ocean; but the atmosphere contained almost no oxygen and so would have been toxic to most modern life including humans. Much of the Earth was molten because of frequent collisions with other bodies which led to extreme volcanism. A “giant impact” collision with a planet-sized body is thought to have been responsible for forming the Moon.

The water must have been supplied by meteorites from the outer asteroid belt and some large planetary embryos from beyond 2.5 AU. Comets may also have contributed. Though most comets are today in orbits farther away from the Sun than Neptune, computer simulations show they were originally far more common in the inner parts of the solar system.

As the Earth cooled, clouds formed. Rain created the oceans. Recent evidence suggests the oceans may have begun forming as early as 4.4 Ga. By the start of the Archean eon they already covered the Earth.

Earth_formation

Theories for the formation of the Moon must explain its late formation as well as the following facts. First, the Moon has a low density (3.3 times that of water, compared to 5.5 for the earth and a small metallic core. Second, there is virtually no water or other volatile on the moon. Third, the Earth and Moon have the same oxygen isotopic signature (relative abundance of the oxygen isotopes). Of the theories that have been proposed to account for these phenomena, only one is widely accepted: The giant impact hypothesis proposes that the Moon originated after a body the size of Mars (sometimes named Theia) struck the proto-Earth a glancing blow.

The collision released about 100 million times more energy than the more recent Chicxulub impact that is believed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. It was enough to vaporize some of the Earth’s outer layers and melt both bodies. A portion of the mantle material was ejected into orbit around the Earth. The giant impact hypothesis predicts that the Moon was depleted of metallic material, explaining its abnormal composition. The ejecta in orbit around the Earth could have condensed into a single body within a couple of weeks. Under the influence of its own gravity, the ejected material became a more spherical body: the Moon

Artist's collision for the formation of the Moon This is of course a very brief synthetic version of the formation of the Earth, my intention its not a thorough scientific exposition of Earth history for those interested on Geological, and biological phenomena you can look elsewhere. My views concern more on looking at our Mother Earth in more than Historical scientific facts, and more towards her Archetype role model, and it’s Spiritual connection with ourselves, her children, since Earth it’s our Mother.

Native American

Native Americans say: One general truth that threads throughout the Native American spiritual beliefs is the belief of the Mother Earth spirituality. The Native Americans felt that the earth is our mother, the sky our father, and all things were interconnected. The many Creation myths of the Native American stress the mutuality and interdependence between people and other forms of life. There is mutual respectfulness required when interacting with trees, birds, and plants and also natural forces such as the wind and the rain. Their creation stories empathize that Creation did not just happen a million years ago and end there, but that the Spirit that first infused the world is still with us now and can be experienced as “immanence”, the spirit which imbues all things.

There were 500 hundred plus nations scattered from “sea to shining sea” north to Alaska and south to Land’s End, on Tierra del Fuego (Patagonia) It is a mistake is to believe that all of the 500-600 tribes were alike in their beliefs. Like most indigenous peoples, their ceremonies were tied to the land and their way of life. Each tribe’s rituals were connected to the specific qualities of the land that they called “home”. Because of the particular history of these tribes, their way of life was severely curtailed by the coming of the European settlers, and many spiritual practices and rites have been lost forever.

Although most of Native American societies did not have a written language or holy book, some tribes were very advanced and had written history and very organized spiritual ceremonies and practices. Some tribes were totally destroyed and others moved thousands of miles from the ancestral home. It is only in the last 25 years has the importance of the Native American culture and spiritual beliefs became more popularly known. By delving into the practices and beliefs and experiencing their essence for ourselves, we can be enriched by them and reach a better understanding of traditions that have been practiced for thousands of years.

Amazon forest native shaman Mother as an Archetype

It always strike me as naive, and lack of an interior life by those who miss the connection between the Earth and the Mother archetype, not only when it come to recognize the correspondence between Earth as the mother of every living creature in it, but our own relation with our carnal mothers as a mystery to be solve by our own development as Spiritual beings.

The mother archetype is a particularly good example. All of our ancestors had mothers. We have evolved in an environment that included a mother or mother-substitute. We would never have survived without our connection with a nurturing-one during our times as helpless infants. It stands to reason that we are “built” in a way that reflects that evolutionary environment: We come into this world ready to want mother, to seek her, to recognize her, to deal with her.

So the mother archetype is our built-in ability to recognize a certain relationship, that of “mothering.” Jung says that this is rather abstract, and we are likely to project the archetype out into the world and onto a particular person, usually our own mothers. Even when an archetype doesn’t have a particular real person available, we tend to personify the archetype, that is, turn it into a mythological “story-book” character. This character symbolizes the archetype.

The mother archetype is symbolized by the primordial mother or “earth mother” of mythology, by Eve and Mary in western traditions, and by less personal symbols such as the church, the nation, a forest, or the ocean. According to Jung, someone whose own mother failed to satisfy the demands of the archetype may well be one that spends his or her life seeking comfort in the church, or in identification with “the motherland,” or in meditating upon the figure of Mary, or in a life at sea.

Earth Mother image from an alchemical text

Of course this examples are generalizations, it is to each individual to dive in to his own subjective self (soul) to discover how the Mother archetype affect him and what self discovery it’s necessary for the individual to make the connection that will bring resolution to his anima, and put him in harmony, not only within himself, but bring outward this realizations to make his actions on Earth in accordance with this inner self, and become positive steps for a better relationship not only with the environment, the treatment of women as second class citizens, and abuse, but a total understanding as Thelema quoting Aleister Crowley:

“As the Great Mother, represents MATTER, a word which is derived from the Latin word for Mother. She is the physical mother of each of us, the one who provided us with material flesh to clothe our naked spirits; She is the Archetypal Mother, the Great Yoni, the Womb of all that lives through the flowing of Blood; She is the Great Sea, the Divine Blood itself which cloaks the World and which courses through our veins; and She is Mother Earth, the Womb of All Life that we know.”

Carl Gustav Jung suggested that the archetypal mother was a part of the collective unconscious, a term I always like to substitute by subconscious) of all humans, and various Jungian students, e.g. Erich Neumann and Ernst Whitmont have argued that such mother imagery underpins many mythologies, and precedes the image of the paternal “father”, in such religious systems. Such speculations help explain the universality of such mother goddess imagery around the world.

All ancient civilizations had their Cosmogonies, what we call now creation Myths, and explanation of the birth of the Cosmos, or Earth, and the beginning of life, we will explore those in further posts.

Goddess Durga-Chandrima Dhar

Posted in Alchemy, Ancient Religions, Archetypes, Carl Gustav Jung, Cosmogony, Cosmology, Ecology, Environment, Gaia, Historical Evolution, Indigenous Cultures, Inspiration, Mother Earth, Mother Goddess, Myth, Pachamama, Spirituality And Environment, Uncategorized, Unconscious | Tagged Aleister Crowley, Anima, Carl Gustav Jung, Cosmogonies, Environment, History of the Earth, Mother Earth, Native American, Thelema | 48 Comments

ON ANGELS AND DEMONS, WHY ANGELS ARE FASHIONABLE AGAIN

Posted on April 21, 2016 by theburningheart

Angel

So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life

Genesis 3-24

WHY ANGELS?

Hardly explainable on an age of skepticism, and Science explanations for all kind of phenomena, Angels are now treated like a sort of New Age fad. They are something we associate with beautiful Pre-Raphaelite and renaissance paintings, carved statues accompanying Gothic architecture and supernatural beings who intervene in our lives at times of trouble.

An angel is a primarily spiritual being found in various religions. In Abrahamic religions and Zoroastrianism, angels are often depicted as benevolent celestial beings who act as intermediaries between God or Heaven and Earth, or as guardian spirits or a guiding influence. Other roles of angels include protecting and guiding human beings, and carrying out God’s tasks. The term “angel” has also been diverse to various notions of spirits or figures found in many other religious traditions. The theological study of angels is known as “angelology”.

If we look for the origin of Angels we can track them down to Chaldean Zoroastrian beliefs and further back to Indian Devas.

Deva (Sanskrit: देव, Devá) means “heavenly, divine, anything of excellence”, and is also one of the terms for a deity in Hinduism. Deva is masculine, and the related feminine equivalent is devi.

In the earliest Vedic literature, all supernatural beings are called Asuras. The concepts and legends evolve in ancient Indian literature, and by the late Vedic period, benevolent supernatural beings are referred to as Deva-Asuras. In post-Vedic texts, such as the Puranas and the Itihasas of Hinduism, the Devas represent the good, and the Asuras the bad. In some medieval Indian literature, Devas are also referred to as Suras and contrasted with their equally powerful, but malevolent half-brothers referred to as the Asuras.

Devas along with Asuras, Yaksha (nature spirits) and Rakshasas (ghosts, ogres) are part of Indian mythology, and Devas feature in one of many cosmological theories in Hinduism.

Devas

JUDAISM

In Judaism an angel (Hebrew: מַלְאָךְ‎ malakh, pluralmalakhim) is a messenger of God, an angelic envoy or an angel in general who appears throughout the Hebrew Bible, Rabbinic literature, and traditional Jewish liturgy. Angels in Judaism are categorized in different hierarchies. The figure of “the angel of Yahveh” (Heb. מלאך יהוה) has been perceived by generations of exegetes and interpreters as theologically troublesome due to its obscure and perplexing identity. Yet, mal’akh Yahvehseems to conceal the answer in regards to the origins of the idea of angels as heavenly commissioners.

Jewish mysticism or Kabbalah describes the angels at length. Angels are described in Kabbalah literature as forces that send information, feelings, between mankind and the God of Israel. They are analogized to atoms, wavelengths or channels that help God in his creation, and it is therefore, reasoned that they should not be worshiped, prayed to, nor invoked. They are not physical in nature but spiritual beings, like spiritual atoms. Therefore, the Kabbalah reasons, when they appear in the Hebrew Bible their description is from the viewpoint of the person that received the vision or prophesy or occurrence, which will be anthropomorphic. However, they are not material beings but are likened to a single emotion, feeling, or material, controlled by God for his purpose of creation.

On returning home from services on Friday night, the eve of Shabbat, or at the dinner-table before dinner Friday night, it is customary in Orthodox Judaism and Conservative Judaism to greet ones guardian angels (Angels of Service or Ministering Angels) with a traditional hymn beginning with:

Peace be unto you, Malachai HaSharet (Angels of Service)

Angels of the Most High

From the King of the kings of kings

The Holy One Blessed Be He

Before going to sleep, many Jews recite a traditional prayer naming four archangels, “To my right Michael and to my left Gabriel, in front of me Uriel and behind me Raphael, and over my head God’s Shekhinah [“the presence of God”].”

On the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, it is customary to call all the boys (in some synagogues, all the children) to the Torah reading and for the whole congregation to recite a verse from Jacob’s blessing to Ephraim and Manasheh (Manassas).

May the angel who redeems me from all evil, bless the children, and let my name be named in them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and let them flourish like fish for multitude in the midst of the land (Genesis 48: 16)

Alexandre-Louis-Leloir-Jacob wrestling with the-angel

In Christianity mainly new converts belonging to pagan religions to begin with, had no qualms in accepting Angels, demons and whatever follows along with.

An Angel Appears to Mary

²⁶During Elizabeth’s sixth month of pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, ²⁷to a virgin. She was engaged to marry a man named Joseph from the family of David. Her name was Mary. ²⁸The angel came to her and said, “Greetings! The Lord has blessed you and is with you.”

²⁹But Mary was very startled by what the angel said and wondered what this greeting might mean.

³⁰The angel said to her, “Don’t be afraid, Mary; God has shown you his grace. ³¹Listen! You will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. ³²He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of King David, his ancestor. ³³He will rule over the people of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will never end.”

³⁴Mary said to the angel, “How will this happen since I am a virgin?”

³⁵The angel said to Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will cover you. For this reason the baby will be holy and will be called the Son of God. ³⁶Now Elizabeth, your relative, is also pregnant with a son though she is very old. Everyone thought she could not have a baby, but she has been pregnant for six months.³⁷God can do anything!”

³⁸Mary said, “I am the servant of the Lord. Let this happen to me as you say!” Then the angel went away.

Mary Visits Elizabeth

³⁹Mary got up and went quickly to a town in the hills of Judea. ⁴⁰She came to Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the unborn baby inside her jumped, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. ⁴²She cried out in a loud voice, “God has blessed you more than any other woman, and he has blessed the baby to which you will give birth. ⁴³Why has this good thing happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?⁴⁴When I heard your voice, the baby inside me jumped with joy. ⁴⁵You are blessed because you believed that what the Lord said to you would really happen.”

Mary Praises God

⁴⁶Then Mary said,

“My soul praises the Lord;
⁴⁷my heart rejoices in God my Savior,
⁴⁸because he has shown his concern for his humble servant girl.
From now on, all people will say that I am blessed,
⁴⁹because the Powerful One has done great things for me.
    His name is holy.
⁵⁰God will show his mercy forever and ever
    to those who worship and serve him.
⁵¹He has done mighty deeds by his power.
    He has scattered the people who are proud
    and think great things about themselves.
⁵²He has brought down rulers from their thrones
    and raised up the humble.
⁵³He has filled the hungry with good things
    and sent the rich away with nothing.
⁵⁴He has helped his servant, the people of Israel,
    remembering to show them mercy
⁵⁵as he promised to our ancestors,
    to Abraham and to his children forever.”

⁵⁶Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.

FRA ANGELICO Annunciation

In Islam Angels Arabic: ملائكة‎ malāʾikah; singular: ملاك or مَلَكْmalāk are heavenly beings mentioned many times in the Quran and hadith. Unlike humans or jinn, they have no free will and therefore can do only what God orders them to do. Believing in angels is one of the six Articles of Faith in Islam. Just as humans are made of clay, and jinn are made of smokeless fire, angels are made of light

In Islam, the functions that the angels perform vary, one of the most prominent of these functions is their function as messengers. The angel Jibreel (Gabriel) is the most important (prominent) messenger angel, as in Islam, he delivers the message of God (Allah) to the Islamic prophets. Angels cannot be seen as they are heavenly beings but that can take on different forms, including human.

Ibn Arabi discussing why Angels and Jinns can’t be seen said:

God hid them from our view, so we cannot see them except when He wants to unveil them to some of His servants and let them see them. Since they are from the world of insubstantiality and subtlety, they can take on the appearance they wish to adopt among the sensory forms. The original form attributed to them is that of spirit, or to be more precise, this was the first form they received when God created them. Later they took on diverse semblances in accordance with how God wishes them to be. If God were to unveil our ordinary sight so that we could see what form is given by the faculty of image-making which God entrusts with making representations in the imagination of those of us who use imagination, then you would come to see in time the human being (insān) in various forms quite unlike each other.

The Archangel Gabriel carries Mohammed on his shoulders over mountains where angels are shown among golden flames. In the Topkapi Palace Library, Istanbul.

Angelic hierarchy

The Jewish angelic hierarchy is established in theHebrew Bible, Talmud, Rabbinic literature, and traditional Jewish liturgy. They are categorized in different hierarchies proposed by various theologians. For example, Maimonides, in his Mishneh Torah or Yad ha-Chazakah: Yesodei ha-Torah, counts ten ranks of angels.

The most influential Christian angelic hierarchy was that put forward by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in the 4th or 5th century in his book De Coelesti Hierarchia (On the Celestial Hierarchy). During the Middle Ages, many schemes were proposed, some drawing on and expanding on Pseudo-Dionysius, others suggesting completely different classifications. According to medieval Christian theologians, the angels are organized into several orders, or “Angelic Choirs”.

Pseudo-Dionysius (On the Celestial Hierarchy) and Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologica) drew on passages from the New Testament, specifically Ephesians 1:21 and Colossians 1:16, to develop a schema of three Hierarchies, Spheres or Triads of angels, with each Hierarchy containing three Orders or Choirs.

Michele Tosini The Archangels Raphael, Michael, and Gabriel

First Sphere

Seraphim

Cherubim

Thrones

Second Sphere

Dominions

Virtues

Powers

Third Sphere

Principalities

Archangels

Angels

There is no standard hierarchical organization in Islam that parallels the Christian division into different “choirs” or spheres, and the topic is not directly addressed in the Quran. However, it is clear that there is a set order or hierarchy that exists between angels, defined by the assigned jobs and various tasks to which angels are commanded by God. Some scholars suggest that Islamic angels can be grouped into fourteen categories, with some of the higher orders being considered archangels.

There is also an informal Zoroastrian angelic hierarchy, with specific angelic beings called yazatas having key positions in the day-name dedications on the Zoroastrian calendar.

Francesco Botticini The_Assumption of the Virgin

The Skeptical view

Two-thirds of all Americans believe not only that angels and demons exist, but also that they are “active in the world.” Skeptics are dumbfounded by such “archaic nonsense.”
To believe in nonphysical beings—souls or spirits without bodies or brains—in today’s world may seem, well, delusional. But there are serious scholars who take angels and demons seriously. Why?
Certainly, nonphysical beings would challenge the scientific worldview that only the physical is real. Certainly, angels and demons, in one form or another, populate most of the world’s religions. But do angels and demons really exist?

Dean Radin, a leading researcher in extrasensory perception, has special ideas about angels and demons. “I view them as a projection of the unconscious,” he says. “You don’t need to go too far into the ESP world to appreciate why people persist in believing in such things. There is some kind of inter subjective reality, a reality that we create between ourselves and others by sharing thoughts and feelings.”
This is more than personal psychology. “It’s a natural extension of the idea that you’re not locked inside your head,” Radin says. “The moment that you make the leap of faith that our intentions, to some degree, can affect the world around us and what other people think, then you might create a shared mental space which can appear as if it were an angel or demon. It will seem just as real as a hard table would seem real, but it’s different in type.”

Carl Jung asserted that we must embrace the inner darkness. The shadow must be faced to overcome it. It is our awareness of this inner demon’s existence that brings freedom from its control.

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious.” – Carl Jung

Rilke’s Duino Elegies excerpts

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the Angelic

Orders? And even if one were to suddenly

take me to its heart, I would vanish into its

stronger existence. For beauty is nothing but

the beginning of terror, that we are still able to bear,

and we revere it so, because it calmly disdains

to destroy us. Every Angel is terror.

And so I hold myself back and swallow the cry

of a darkened sobbing. Ah, who then can

we make use of? Not Angels: not men.

Finally they have no more need of us, the early-departed,

weaned gently from earthly things, as one outgrows

the mother’s mild breast. But we, needing

such great secrets, for whom sadness is often

the source of a blessed progress, could we exist without them?

Is it a meaningless story how once, in the grieving for Linos,

first music ventured to penetrate arid rigidity,

so that, in startled space, which an almost godlike youth

suddenly left forever, the emptiness first felt

the quivering that now enraptures us, and comforts, and helps.

Hieronymus Bosch Ascent of the Blessed

Posted in Ancient Religions, Angels, Archetypes, Dreams, Genies, Gospels, Hinduism, History, Ibn Arabi, Imagination, Inspiration, Jinns, Kabbalah, Literature, Mary, Miracles, Mundus Imaginalis, Mysticism, Mythology, Paradise, Religion, Revelation, Spirituality, Subconscious, Symbols, Uncategorized, Unconscious, Western Civilization | Tagged Angels, Archangels, Asuras, Cherubim, Devas, Dominions, Powers, Principalities, Pseudo Dionysius, Rakshasas, Rilke’s Duino Elegies, Seraphim, Suras, Thrones, Virtues, Yakshas | 27 Comments

DEMOCRACY A WEAK SYSTEM AGAINST CORRUPTING TYRANNY AND OLIGARCHY, OSTRACISM AS A PREVENTION IN ANCIENT GREECE

Posted on March 22, 2016 by theburningheart

E0702 KLENZE 9463

It’s always strike me as a great irony that the name of Marcus Junius Brutus Minor is an infamous name to many in our Republic history, and that most sympathize with Caesar.

“Et tu, Brute?“and you, Brutus?” or “you too, Brutus?”, purportedly as the last words of the Roman dictator Julius Caesar to his friend Marcus Brutus at the moment of his assassination. The quotation is widely used in English-speaking world to signify the utmost unexpected betrayal by a person, such as a friend.

The fame of the quotation is entirely due to its occurrence in William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, as Caesar utters these words as he is being stabbed to death, having recognized his friend and protege Brutus among the assassins. However, there is no evidence that Caesar actually said these words. Despite Brutus friendship.

Whatever unknown reasons Brutus may had in the killing of Caesar, it is suspected he was his illegitimate child, and he was a favorite of Caesar, still the fact is that he was defending the Republic against tyranny, and together with many senators was doing the killing of Caesar a sort of heroic act, in order to save the Republic from tyranny. Maybe it reflect our subconscious sympathies for our undemocratic love for empire.

Vincenzo Camuccini, “Morte di Cesare”, 1798,

Ostracism (From the Greek ὀστρακισμός, ostrakismos) was a procedure in which any citizen of ancient Athens could be expelled from the city-state for ten years. While some instances clearly expressed popular anger at the citizen, ostracism was often used preemptively. It was used as a way of neutralizing someone thought to be a threat to the state or potential tyrant. It has been called an “honorable exile”

Ostracism is derived from the ostraka, referring to the potsherds or pieces of broken pottery that were used as voting tokens. Broken pottery, abundant and virtually free, served as a kind of scrap paper, and was used by the citizens of Athens to write down the name of the one they wised to be ostracized. In contrast, papyrus, which was imported from Egypt as a high-quality writing surface, and was thus too costly to be disposable.

Ostrakon_Thémistocles

Ostracismwas a pre-emptive strike to take down any citizen who seemed to be trying to take control of the city. Because it could be done so early in anyone political career, it helped defuse any major confrontations between rival politicians or political groups before it overheated into civil war.

Each year, around January or February, the Athenians were asked in the assembly whether they wished to hold an ostracism. If they voted “yes”, then an ostracism would be held around two months later. In a roped-off area of the agora, citizens scratched the name of a citizen they wished to expel on pot shards, and deposited them in urns. The presiding officials counted the ostraka submitted; if a minimum of six thousand votes were reached, then the ostracism took place: the officials sorted the names into separate piles, and the person receiving the highest number of votes was exiled for ten years.

Crucially, ostracism had no relation to the processes of justice. There was no charge or defense, and the exile was not in fact a penalty; it was simply a command from the Athenian people that one of their number be gone for ten years. The person nominated had ten days to leave the city, if he attempted to return, the penalty was death.

The first rash of people ostracized in the decade after the defeat of the first Persian invasion at Marathon in 490 BC were all related or connected to the tyrant Peisistratos, who had controlled Athens for 36 years up to 527 BC. After his son Hippias was deposed with Spartan help in 510 BC, the family sought refuge with the Persians, and nearly twenty years later Hippias landed with their invasion force at Marathon. Tyranny and Persian aggression were paired threats facing the new democratic regime at Athens, and ostracism was used against both.

Harmodius and Aristogeiton The Tyrant killers

In 443 BC Thucydides son of Milesias (not to be confused with the historian of the same name) was ostracized. He led an aristocratic opposition to Athenian imperialism and in particular to Pericles’ building program on the acropolis, which was funded by taxes created for the wars against Persia. By expelling Thucydides the Athenian people sent a clear message about the direction of Athenian policy. Similar but more controversial claims have been made about the ostracism of Cimon in 461 BC.

In part ostracism lapsed as a procedure at the end of the fifth century because it was replaced by the graphe paranomon, a regular court action under which a much larger number of politicians might be targeted, instead of just one a year as with ostracism, and with greater severity. But it may already have come to seem like an anachronism as factional alliances organised around important men became increasingly less significant in the later period, and power was more specifically located in the interaction of the individual speaker with the power of the assembly and the courts. The threat to the democratic system in the late 5th century came not from tyranny but from oligarchic coups, threats of which became prominent after two brief seizures of power, in 411 by “the Four Hundred” and in 404 BC by “the Thirty”, which were not dependent on single powerful individuals. Ostracism was not an effective defense against the oligarchic threat and it was not so used.

Athèns AcropolIS Caryatides

As we can see ancient Athenians used ostracism as a defense mainly towards powerful, rich citizens, who using their money, and influences were potentially capable of destabilizing the State, by undermining democracy, oligarchs who through diverse ways tried to take over power either to become tyrants, or just to profit from their dealings at expense of the people. It could be alleged that on the long run didn’t work out, but we can’t deny that at least they tried to curb the ambition of the powerful so unlike today were the rich through corporate power basically do whatever they please to our expense, and we are incapable to defend our so much vaunted, but in fact ineffective democracy.

Our oncoming elections a clear example of the abuse of the powerful against the common interest of the many, where our are choices are dictated by the infamous 1% and the inevitable choice between the less of two evils takes effect, rather than what would be ideal for the common good.

tumblr_o1jv86erl11tw4zw8o1_1280

Posted in Ancient Civilizations, Caesar and Brutus, Corruption, Crisis of Values, Critical Thinking, Democracy, Disillusion with Capitalism, Freedom, Greed and Impunity, History, Howard Zinn, Oligarchy, Ostracism, Politics, Uncategorized, Western Civilization | Tagged Ancient Athens, Caesar and Brutus, Control of Elections by Oligarchs, Democracy Failure, Oligarchy, Ostracism, The Less of Two Evils | 33 Comments

EDUARDO GALEANO, CAN WE BE LIKE THEM?

Posted on February 21, 2016 by theburningheart

Continue reading →

Posted in A World in Crisis, Capitalism, Climate Change, Crisis of Values, Cultural Attitudes, Disillusion with Capitalism, Ecological Crisis, Eduardo Galeano, Environment, Globalization, Greed and Impunity, Uncategorized | Tagged Capitalism, Contamination, Deforestation, Different Values, Ecology, Eduardo Galeano, Latin America, Overconsumption, Overwork, Stress | 10 Comments

MONOTHEISM VS POLYTHEISM, WHY? SANATANA DHARMA AND TOLERANCE

Posted on December 24, 2015 by theburningheart

In his famous book, MOSES AND MONOTHEISM, Sigmund Freud concluded that monotheism was not a Jewish but an Egyptian invention, descending from the cult of the Egyptian sun god Aten. Moreover, upon applying his psychoanalysis to the myths/stories of the Hebrew bible, Freud not only argued that Moses was an Egyptian priest but he was also perplexed by how the whole story of Moses/Exodus, according to the oedipal pattern of analysis, was inverted and didn’t make sense the way it had been told. In other words the Hebrew myths/stories didn’t seem original.

Introduction

First let me say there is a lot of nonsense and misunderstanding related to the why of Monotheism, including Sigismund Freud idea of psychoanalyses of the Hebrew Bible!

Second let me say the word God it’s a loaded issue in itself!

Why is a loaded word? Because God means a myriad things to a myriad of people, in fact there is no man who may have a similar idea of the word God, and what it encompass. And that it’s why some religious people prefer not to give it a name, unfortunately because the intolerance of many religious groups and individuals through History the word God has become a word of dissension rather than unity.

One thing it’s not disputable is the fact that the word God encompass our private idea about it, which it’s by far not the same idea other individual may have. And if we can’t agree in a definition, or a meaning, how we will be able to sort this issue?

For some the word God it’s just a word, with no real existence, to others it’s not just a word but an experience, a way of life.

Some people rather than use the word God like to say it’s a Mystery, to which I wholeheartedly agree, ultimately any idea, or definition will be lacking…

Sadhus

POLYTHEISM

Polytheism refers to the worship of or belief in multiple deities usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own religions and rituals. In most religions which accept polytheism, the different gods and goddesses are representations of forces of nature or ancestral principles, and can be viewed either as autonomous or as aspects or emanations of a a creator God transcendental principle a monists theologies, which manifests immanently in nature as panetheistic and pantheistic theologies.

Unfortunately some of our Western pagans when trying to defend their views rely more on emotional issues like Patriarchy and it’s nefarious historical ramifications than on rational, and solid theological grounds.

And this by no means to dismiss their just claims, Patriarchy should be remember it’s a tribal institution adopted by migratory clans, shepherds and the like, who it’s independent of theological argument, unfortunately Monotheism was invested with these social garments in the Abrahamic religions, but I want to remind the reader these social characteristics are of no relevance when it come to the theological argument, of an All inclusive God, Transcendent and Immanent, I don’t see any problem with a vision of a religion with different social trappings based in equality and justice not only between men and women, but one that include social justice to the environment, Pachamama, our Mother Earth, and any non human creatures. There is a social problem around the world of a male dominated society independently of Religion, that of course reflects in our way of living, consequently some religious groups may still embrace this ossified mentality which it’s deplorable at this day an age.

Raphael Olympians

VIEWS FROM SANATANA DHARMA =HINDUISM

Ed Viswanathan on : Am I A Hindu says:

“Hindus consider it absurd to state that any other true religion of the world is false.”
“The Bhagavad Gita (4:11) Krishna (a Hindu word for God) says: ‘Whatever and whichever way men approach Me, even so do I accept them; whatever paths they may chose finally lead to Me’….. From these lines, one can easily understand that Hinduism does not project itself as the only way to God-realization. It claims no monopoly on wisdom. It tolerates all forms of thoughts. A Hindu Yogi will never try to convert a person from another religion to Hinduism. Instead he will try to make a person’s faith steadfast in his/her own religion. The Gita says, ‘In whatever form a devotee seeks to worship Me with faith, I make his faith steadfast in that form alone.'”
“So, in Hinduism, you can worship the Almighty, which is formless and timeless, as Krishna, Jesus, Allah, Moses or as anyone or anything. As long as you have faith in that form of the Almighty, you will be following a true religion and you will ultimately realize the truth, even if you are following a crude form of worship. No one can be lost, according to Hinduism. In whichever way one may seek God, one is always in the path of God.”

“When someone calls ‘It’ Jesus Christ, ‘It’ comes as Jesus Christ; when someone calls ‘It’ Lord Krishna, ‘It’ comes as Lord Krishna. The great Muslim mystics, the Sufis, said, Wheresoever you turn, there is the face of Allah. In all forms of worship, ultimately the worshiper will transcend the name and form of his/her personal god. All of them started with their attachment to a personal god and finally ended up with an almighty which is timeless and formless…. The word Islam means submitter to the will of Allah, and Allah has no proper definition…. No religion has a monopoly on God.”

“All came from that which cannot be defined called Brahman (monism).” “All came from That, so all existence is good and divine (pantheism).” “There is only one God (monotheism).” “All of us are Gods. This, of course, is just like saying that if you analyze one drop of seawater, then you know everything about the entire sea, or that if you the properties of electricity within the light bulb, then you know all about the electricity in the entire network.” To search for God is like a pinch of salt finding the depth of the ocean, it becomes part and parcel of the ocean. Similarly, a devotee who seeks God becomes part and parcel of That.”

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THE MYTH OF IMMUTABILITY IN RELIGION

The idea that religions are immutable in character it’s more a wish idea than anything close to reality, religion it’s linked to Man, and men change with time, places, customs, Historical periods, and new ideas, who come to discard old ideas who had lost their contemporary appeal, or reinvigorate them with new leaven, that it’s why it is of no point to stick to the letter in scriptures, literal interpretations encase words in to a straight jacket, when what it’s really important is to embrace the Spirit of it, and Spirit it’s a living thing, not a fossil encased on an old interpretation of a word, just like languages they evolve and change to become richer and useful, or they die and disappear as dead languages. “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me, that you may have life.” (John 5:39,40).

This was true on Jesus days, as it is now. The world will be a better place if men will defend Truth, rather than words.

The baptism of the Christ

Posted in Ancient Religions, God, Goddess, Hinduism, Historical Evolution, Monotheism, New Values, Pagans, Polytheism, Spirituality, Theology, Transcendence, Uncategorized, Wisdom | Tagged Abraham Religions, God, Monism, Monotheism, Polytheism | 55 Comments

ONEIROMANCY DREAM INTERPRETATION, THE RAMESSIDE PAPYRUS, ARTEMIDORUS ONEIROKRITICON, SHAMANIC DREAMING, AND IBN SIRIN

Posted on September 27, 2015 by theburningheart

80. With these last words the dying Enkidu did pray

and say to his beloved companion:

“In dreams last night
the heavens and the earth poured
out great groans while I alone
stood facing devastation. Some fierce
and threatening creature flew down at me
and pushed me with its talons toward
the horror-filled house of death
wherein lrkalla, queen of shades,

90. stands in command.There is darkness which lets no personagain see light of day.

There is a road leading away from
bright and lively life.
There dwell those who eat dry dust
and have no cooling water to quench their awful thirst.
As I stood there I saw all those who’ve died and even kings among those darkened souls have none of their remote and former glory.

100. All earthly greatness was forfeitand I entered then into the house of death.Others who have been there longdid rise to welcome me.”

EPIC OF GILGAMESH

THE SCIENCE OF DREAM INTERPRETATION ONEIROMANCY

Oneiromancy It is defined as :(from the Greek όνειροϛ oneiros, dream, and μαντεία manteia, prophecy) is a form of divination based upon dreams; it is a system of dream interpretation that uses dreams to predict the future.

I m not in agreement with the definition, specifically with the idea it’s some sort of divination, a bad word that our Jungian friends would be insulted if we would define them as diviners, rather than interpreters, or analyzers of dreams, I agree Intuition may play by no means a small role, however this it’s not to imply a supernatural science, but rather a long time of study, and the acquisition of wisdom by experience and skill, that makes to the eyes of the uninitiated appear like a magic trick or divination.

Dream interpretation it’s not a new science, it was well known to our ancestors the Egyptian, Babylonian, Sumerian, Indian, Chinese, Greek, Roman, Celt, Maya, Aztec, Inca and all Native Americans Nations in North, Central, and South America on prehispanic times, and today between the Shamans of the Amazon basin and anywhere on America or Africa, or Asia, and Oceania including Australia and New Zealand, where Native Indigenous cultures have survived the onslaught of so call Western civilization.

Sigismund Freud, and The Swiss psychotherapist Carl Gustav Jung they didn’t discovered a new science they made the role of the High Priest, and the Shaman in to a methodological approach named psychiatry, and developed the field of analytical psychology, focused this idea and formed theories, experiments, and terminology around Oneiromancy, although if in need of therapy maybe with a few exceptions I would rather entrust myself to a wise Shaman in Amazonia, or elsewhere than to a run of the mill psychotherapist, a product of academy and dependent on pharmaceuticals for treatment.

Ancient Egypt

A unique exemplar of a book of dream-interpretation survives from pre-Hellenistic Egypt, the so-called “Ramesside Dream-Book”

The Dream Book

From Deir el-Medina, Egypt19th Dynasty, around 1275 BC

Papyrus giving a list of dreams and their interpretations

The meaning of dreams is a subject that fascinated the ancient Egyptians. This hieratic papyrus, probably dates to the early reign of Ramesses II (1279-1213 BC). On each page of the papyrus a vertical column of hieratic signs begins: ‘if a man sees himself in a dream’; each horizontal line describes a dream, followed by the diagnosis ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and then the interpretation. For example, ‘if a man sees himself in a dream looking out of a window, good; it means the hearing of his cry’. Or, ‘if a man sees himself in a dream with his bed catching fire, bad; it means driving away his wife’. The text first lists good dreams, and then bad ones; the word ‘bad’ is written in red, ‘the colour of ill omen’.

The papyrus had several owners before it was, presumably, deposited in the cemetery at Deir el-Medina. It is uncertain who the original owner was, but it passed into the hands of the scribe Qeniherkhepshef; on the other side of the papyrus, the scribe copied a poem about the Battle of Kadesh, which took place in the reign of Ramesses II (1279-1213 BC). The Dream Book passed to Khaemamen, Qeniherkhepshef’s wife’s second husband, and then to his son Amennakht (both added their name to the papyrus). The Dream Book was part of an archive, including a wide variety of literary, magical and documentary material, which passed down through the family for more than a century.

Artemidorus Daldianus

During the Hellenistic era all across the Mediterranean, the practice took place in temples that were staffed by priest-physicians. In fact, dream temples made up the single most popular spiritual healing institution in the Mediterranean world.

These restful sanctuaries were designed to produce dreams that provided healing wisdom — and also instant cures — if we are to believe the boasts of ancient graffiti. Successful cures were honored with inscriptions on the walls of the sanctuaries, acting as advertisements as well.

The dream healers of ancient Greece were also surgeons and herbalists, teaching their young doctors the art of empirical observation coupled with an environment of safety and spiritual cleansing. Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, learned from his dream healing mentors to make empirical observations rather than simply following untested beliefs. Hippocrates is also cited as writing a medical dream dictionary that focused on a number of common dream symbols that indicate bodily ailments, although many scholars attribute the work to his disciples.

Artemidorus (Greek: Ἀρτεμίδωρος ὁ Δαλδιανός) or Ephesius was a professional diviner who lived in the 2nd century. He is known from an extant five-volume Greek work, the Oneirocritica or Oneirokritikon (English: The Interpretation of Dreams)

Artemidorus was surnamed Ephesius, from Ephesus, on the west coast of Asia Minor, but was also called Daldianus, from his mother’s native city, Daldis in Lycia. He lived in the 2nd century AD.

According to Artemidorus, the material for his work was gathered during lengthy travels through Greece, Italy and Asia, from diviners of high and low station. Another major source were the writings of Artemidorus’ predecessors, sixteen of whom he cites by name. It is clear he built on a rich written tradition, now otherwise lost. Artemidorus’ method is, at root, analogical. He writes that dream interpretation is “nothing other than the juxtaposition of similarities” (2.25). But like other types of Greek divination, including Astrology, celestial divination and pallomancy, Greek dream divination (Oneiromancy) became exceedingly complex, a given dream subject to a number of interpretations depending on secondary considerations, such as the age, sex, and status of the dreamer. At other times, subtle distinctions within the dream itself are significant. In a particularly memorable passage, Artemidorus expounds upon the meaning of dreams involving sex with one’s mother:

“The case of one’s mother is both complex and manifold and admits of many different interpretations—a thing not all dream interpreters have realized. The fact is that the mere act of intercourse by itself is not enough to show what is portended. Rather, the manner of the embraces and the various positions of the bodies indicate different outcomes.”

I rather put my allegiance to Artemidorus than to Sigmund Freud when it come to dreaming about the Mother, obviously an Archetype of primordial proportions , and to his practical skills as a priest of the temple of Ephesus where the sick specifically went to find an oracle to cure their sickness or deal with their problems, let’s just say that Artemidorus knew some ill patient was about to die when it’s dream was having sex with their mother and she was on top, an obvious allusion to the fact of been covered by mother earth, a returning to the womb we all come from.

The first three books of the Oneirocritica are dedicated to one Cassius Maximus and were intended to serve as a detailed introduction for both diviners and the general public. Books four and five were written for Artemidorus’ son, also Artemidorus, to give him a leg-up on competitors, and Artemidorus cautions him about making copies.

According to the Suda The Suda or Souda (Medieval Greek:Σοῦδα Soũda) is a massive 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Suidas. It is an encyclopedic lexicon, written in Greek, with 30,000 entries, many drawing from ancient sources that have since been lost, and often derived from medieval Christian compilers. (Alpha 4025), Artemidorus also penned a Oiônoscopica(Interpretation of Birds) and a Chiroscopica (Palmistry), but neither has survived, and the authorship is discounted. In the Oneirocritica, Artemidorus displays a hostile attitude to palmistry.

Among the authors Artemidorus cites are Antiphon (possibly the same as Antiphon the Sophist), Aristander of Telmessus, Demetrius of Phalerum, Alexander of Myndus in Caria, and Artemon of Miletus.

Shamanism And The Dream

For thousands of years, many indigenous tribes and cultures have valued dreaming. The Shaman’s journey to other worlds in non-ordinary reality to commune with the spirits, to retrieve lost soul parts, to find healing for their community. Aborigine tribes of Australia believed dreaming was a way to travel to other places. Cultures used dreaming to foretell the future so they could plan for what was coming.

Dreaming is a time when we can turn off our conscious and third dimensional mind chatter and enter into a world of vivid imagination where the subconscious and our creativity connect to the sacred divine. Our dreams are gateways, they tell us a story, and it is up to us to follow the storyline and find the meaning.

There are many ways of dreaming, the Shamans use journeying, and employing all their senses to be able to walk in both worlds. Lucid dreaming and guided meditation are other forms of being able to travel the worlds. I would not like to dwell too much on these practices, since it would be too extensive to cite examples of many cultures around the world, with their own set of beliefs, and rituals, some may include entheogens, some may not, it’s just enough to say wherever there is an indigenous group of people who preserve their culture, despite the encroaching of the prevailing dominant Eurocentric culture, there you will find Shamans who will dream, and interpret dreams as a Spiritual quest, and as healing tools.

Ibn Sirin

Ibn Sirin, Muhammad was one of the first ascetics of Al-Basra. He became the prime imam in religion and an erudite in the Qur’an. He was described by one of his contemporaries (Abu Ná’eem) as wise, heeding God and perspicacious, sharing food with his brethren and travelers, strongly interceding in favor of the lonely and those who were punished for one reason or another. He was alert, cautious, honest and properly maintaining whatever was entrusted to him. He used to weep at night and smile and rove around all day. And he fasted every other day. No one was as religious or as knowledgeable as him in his art. His family was so generous that they would not hesitate to offer to their visitor the last loaf of bread in their house. He used to savor and recite poetry.

He was particularly renowned for his extraordinary skill in interpreting dreams as attested by the Arabs’ greatest intellectuals, such as Al-Gaheth, Ibn Qutaybah and Ibn Khaldoun, who considered his work as crucial in this field.

The most notable of the books attributed to him is Dreams and Interpretations. Ibn Al-Nadim says that he was the author of Taabirul Ro’oya (What Dreams Express), which is different from or an abridged version of Muntakhabul Kalam Fi Tafsir El Ahlam (A Concise Guide for the Interpretation of Dreams) first printed in Bulaq, Egypt, in 1284 AH, in Lucknow in AD 1874 and in Bombay in 1296 AH. It was subsequently reprinted numerous times in various parts of the Arab World under different titles.

It’s very likely Ibn Sirin never wrote anything, but his fame was so great that later composers of books about dream interpretation used his name in order to add prestige to the books in question, the fact remain this book it’s a great help to interpret dreams.

My personal Views

Dream interpretation it’s as old as the time of the first dream, which set the date of dream interpretation way back to the time the first Man had a dream, and that is why Dream, and Myth are closely link by Archetypes. Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung were pioneers in our current Western culture for a systematic study approach to it, but by no means were discoverers, the same way Christopher Columbus didn’t discover America, Indigenous people did Thousands of years ago, and populated America, Christopher Columbus just made people in Europe aware of it.

By the very nature of dreams, their fluid state, and the myriad of objects, and situations, books about dream interpretation, can only be of help to recognize a symbolic meaning to objects without been categorically the last word, the dream interpreter has to analyze the dream taking in to consideration many factors, that may scape the neophyte, a dictionary of dreams it’s ultimately one of the many tools a skillful dream interpreter has resort to when the meaning it’s not clear, but as any tool it’s the skill of it’s use that brings good result to the enterprise, regardless of the tool itself, therefore dream books are just a general guide for interpretation, and the interpreter can’t rely solely on the book period.

Questioning the dreamer about the details of the dream can be useful, the more a person can recall about a dream the clearer the interpretation can be revealing in the details, sensations, feelings, colors, etc. The meaning of the dream, deep knowledge of Symbology, the use of analogy, are key factors, Spiritual awareness brings light, in to many affairs, and Intuition, plus knowledge about the dreamer facilitate the interpretation.

“There are as many paths to God as human souls on earth”. Ibn Arabi

You must only follow your path, path of the heart, learn how to feel and this way see beyond the mask, (ego) because reason, it sees the mask, the outside, the logic, but heart connects to one reality beyond it. Spiritual awareness shouldn’t be discarded either, on the contrary it’s closely linked in to the language of symbols.

Posted in Artemidorus, Carl. G. Jung, Counsciousness, Dream Interpretation, Dreams, Gilgamesh, Ibn Sirin, Mundus Imaginalis, Myth, Mythology, Oneiromancy, Ranesside Dream Book, Shamanism, Spirituality, Symbology, Symbols, Uncategorized, Wisdom | Tagged Artemidorus, Carl Jung, Dream Interpretation, Gilgamesh, Ibn Sirin, Oneiromancy, Ramesside Papyrus, Shamanism, Symbology, Symbols | 32 Comments

THE IMPORTANCE OF SYMBOLS, CARL G. JUNG, SYMBOLISM NOT JUST AN ANCIENT SCIENCE, BUT IT’S RELEVANCE TODAY

Posted on July 30, 2015 by theburningheart

Dreams are often parables that contain hidden treasure

if you’re willing to search for it. The condition of your heart

directly affects your spiritual insight and understanding.

Are you distracted or captivated by the gift God may

be giving you in your dreams? …It may reflect the condition of your heart.

Jesus only spoke in parables to the unbelieving because

He wanted them to have to apply their heart. He says in Matthew 13:13-15

This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see;

though hearing, they do not hear or understand. 14)

In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: ”

‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding;

you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. 15)

For this people’s heart has become calloused;

they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes.

Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears,

understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’

Symbol

I sort of smile, when reading about something were the author goes on with his dissertation ignorant about the many issues surrounding the topic he is talking about specifically one sided explanations, that ignore the deep power of symbols, and the use the ancients had for them way before we come to lost our way around them, this a profound loss for the understanding of an issue, even the explanation of the symbol itself!

According to the dictionary

symbol

/ˈsɪmbəl/

noun

something that represents or stands for something else, usually by convention or association, specifically a material object used to represent something abstract

an object, person, idea, etc, used in a literary work, film, etc, to stand for or suggest something else with which it is associated either explicitly or in some more subtle way

a letter, figure, or sign used in mathematics,science, music, etc to represent a quantity, phenomenon, operation, function, etc

But of course there is more, a lot more than that!

As for example:

Word Origin and History for symbol Expand

n.

early 15c., “creed, summary, religious belief,” from Late Latin symbolum “creed, token, mark,” from Greek symbolon “token, watchword” (applied c.250 by Cyprian of Carthage to the Apostles’ Creed, on the notion of the “mark” that distinguishes Christians from pagans), literally “that which is thrown or cast together,” from syn- “together” (see syn- ) + bole “a throwing, a casting, the stroke of a missile, bolt,beam,” from bol-, nominative stem of ballein “to throw” (see ballistics).

The sense evolution in Greek is from “throwing things together” to “contrasting” to “comparing” to “token used in comparisons to determine if something is genuine.” Hence, “outward sign” of something. The meaning “something which stands for something else”first recorded 1590 (in “Faerie Queene”).

Symbology

In considering the effect of a symbol on the psyche, in his seminal essay The Symbol without Meaning Joseph Campbell proposes the following definition: A symbol is an energy evoking, and directing, agent.

Later, expanding on what he means by this definition Campbell says:

“a symbol, like everything else, shows a double aspect. We must distinguish, therefore between the ‘sense’ and the ‘meaning’ of the symbol. It seems to me perfectly clear that all the great and little symbolical systems of the past functioned simultaneously on three levels: the corporeal of waking consciousness, the spiritual of dream, and the ineffable of the absolutely unknowable. The term ‘meaning’ can refer only to the first two but these, today, are in the charge of science – which is the province as we have said, not of symbols but of signs. The ineffable, the absolutely unknowable, can be only sensed. It is the province of art which is not ‘expression’ merely, or even primarily, but a quest for, and formulation of, experience evoking, energy-waking images: yielding what Sir Herbert Read has aptly termed a ‘sensuous apprehension of being’.

Heinrich Zimmer gives a concise overview of the nature, and perennial relevance, of symbols.

“Concepts and words are symbols, just as visions, rituals, and images are; so too are the manners and customs of daily life. Through all of these a transcendent reality is mirrored. They are so many metaphors reflecting and implying something which, though thus variously expressed, is ineffable, though thus rendered multiform, remains inscrutable. Symbols hold the mind to truth but are not themselves the truth, hence it is delusory to borrow them. Each civilization, every age, must bring forth its own.”

In the book Signs and Symbols, it is stated that A symbol … is a visual image or sign representing an idea — a deeper indicator of a universal truth.

Symbols are a means of complex communication that often can have multiple levels of meaning. This separates symbols from signs, as signs have only one meaning.

Human cultures use symbols to express specific ideologies and social structures and to represent aspects of their specific culture. Thus, symbols carry meanings that depend upon one’s cultural background; in other words, the meaning of a symbol is not inherent in the symbol itself but is culturally learned.

Symbols are the basis of all human understanding and serve as vehicles of conception for all human knowledge. Symbols facilitate understanding of the world in which we live, thus serving as the grounds upon which we make judgments. In this way, people use symbols not only to make sense of the world around them, but also to identify and cooperate in society through constitutive rhetoric.

Carl Gustav Jung and the Collective Unconscious

Carl Gustav Jung ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961), often referred to as C. G. Jung, was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology. His work has been influential not only in psychiatry but also in philosophy, anthropology, archaeology, literature, and religious studies. He was a prolific writer, though many of his works were not published until after his death.

Collective unconscious, a term coined by Carl Jung, refers to structures of the unconscious mind which are shared among beings of the same species. According to Jung, the human collective unconscious is populated by instincts and by archetypes: universal symbols such as the Great Mother, the Wise Old Man, the Shadow, the Tower, Water, the Tree of Life, and many more.

Jung considered the collective unconscious to underpin and surround the unconscious mind, distinguishing it from the personal unconscious of Freudian psychoanalysis. He argued that the collective unconscious had profound influence on the lives of individuals, who lived out its symbols and clothed them in meaning through their experiences.

In Jung’s 1916 essay, “The Structure of the Unconscious”. This essay distinguishes between the “personal”, Freudian unconscious, filled with sexual fantasies and repressed images, and the “collective” unconscious encompassing the soul of humanity at large.

In “The Significance of Constitution and Heredity in Psychology” (November 1929), Jung wrote:

And the essential thing, psychologically, is that in dreams, fantasies, and other exceptional states of mind the most far-fetched mythological motifs and symbols can appear autochthonously at any time, often, apparently, as the result of particular influences, traditions, and excitations working on the individual, but more often without any sign of them. These “primordial images” or “archetypes,” as I have called them, belong to the basic stock of the unconscious psyche and cannot be explained as personal acquisitions. Together they make up that psychic stratum which has been called the collective unconscious.

The existence of the collective unconscious means that individual consciousness is anything but atabula rasa and is not immune to predetermining influences. On the contrary, it is in the highest degree influenced by inherited presuppositions, quite apart from the unavoidable influences exerted upon it by the environment. The collective unconscious comprises in itself the psychic life of our ancestors right back to the earliest beginnings. It is the matrix of all conscious psychic occurrences, and hence it exerts an influence that compromises the freedom of consciousness in the highest degree, since it is continually striving to lead all conscious processes back into the old paths.

On October 19, 1936, Jung delivered a lecture “The Concept of the Collective Unconscious” to the Abernethian Society at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. He said:

My thesis then, is as follows: in addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.

Jung’s work on himself and his patients convinced him that life has a spiritual purpose beyond material goals. Our main task, he believed, is to discover and fulfill our deep innate potential. Based on his study of Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Gnosticism, Taoism, and other traditions, Jung believed that this journey of transformation, which he called individuation, is at the mystical heart of all religions. It is a journey to meet the self and at the same time to meet the Divine. Unlike Freud’s objectivist worldview, Jung’s pantheism may have led him to believe that spiritual experience was essential to our well-being, as he specifically identifies individual human life with the universe as a whole. Jung’s ideas on religion gave a counterbalance to the Freudian skepticism of religion. Jung’s idea of religion as a practical road to individuation has been quite popular, and is still treated in modern textbooks on the psychology of religion, though his ideas have also been criticized.

It is only through comparative studies in mythology, folk-lore, religion, and language that we can determine these symbols in a scientific way. The evolutionary stages through which the human psyche has passed are more clearly discernible in the dream than in consciousness. The dream speaks in images and gives expression to instincts that are derived from the most primitive levels of nature. Consciousness all too easily departs from the law of nature, but it can be brought again into harmony with the latter by the assimilation of unconscious contents. By fostering this process, [one comes to] the rediscovery of the law of one’s own being

“We have no symbolic life, and we are all badly in need of the symbolic life. Only the symbolic life can express the need of the soul – the daily need of the soul, mind you! And because people have no such thing, they can never step out of this mill – this awful, banal, grinding life in which they are “nothing but.” . . . Everything is banal; everything is “nothing but,” and that is the reason why people are neurotic. They are simply sick of the whole thing, sick of that banal life, and therefore they want sensation. They even want a war; they all want a war; they are all glad when there is a war; they say, “Thank heaven, now something is going to happen – something bigger than ourselves!”

These things go pretty deep, and no wonder people get neurotic. Life is too rational; there is no symbolic existence in which I am something else, in which I am fulfilling my role, my role as one of the actors in the divine drama of life.”

My Personal Views

I never liked the word Unconscious, which in my opinion represents more a physical state, like when someone pass out by a blow on the head, or by the effects of anesthesia, rather than representing the substrata of impressions of the individual, the term Subconscious fits more my idea of things, something that it’s present in the background, but not necessarily, an active and present awareness of it on our immediate consciousness, but nevertheless present, and can be recollected under close examination of memory, or in the substance of our dreams. I believe this slight, but fundamental differentiation on the meaning of the word, would make it more palatable, and acceptable, and would take the hocus pocus aspect of it, that rational, and scientific minds oppose.

There is such a thing as knowledge by inference that doesn’t come to the mind in an obvious and categorical way, at least in the beginning, but on reflection, and meditation subtleties come to mind, like the meaning of a dream by analogy, and relations of symbols, and constitute a revelation to our conscious mind. This may appear out of nowhere, or magical, to many, but it’s rather an Intuitive, but perfectly logical way of cognition, once this symbolic associations are known.

Albert Einstein, now a darling of truism in quotes of many subject matters, not my favorite person to quote, not fault of his own, but for the way he has been abused in this respect by the many, plus the fact he had it’s failures as we all do, but are not dwelled on, as much as his triumphs, Einstein’s dreams and it’s conclusions lead to the discovery of his famous theory of Relativity, now there is so many versions of different dreams he had, that I hesitate to describe one as the dream that give him the key, but nevertheless point out to the usefulness of the symbolic in order to clarify, and reveal the hidden. The following quote attributed to him reveals the value he conceded to the Symbolic.

Conclusion

The importance of the study of Symbols as a way to access our subconscious stratus of our minds, what the ancients use to name as Soul it’s as relevant today as it was in the past, this can’t be done without a personal effort in our part to seek clarification, to our hidden life and motivations, that propel us here, or there, ignoring the why?

Arnold J. Toynbee a historian philosopher argues:

First the Dominant Minority attempts to hold by force – against all right and reason – a position of inherited privilege which it has ceased to merit; and then the Proletariat repays injustice with resentment, fear with hate, and violence with violence when it executes its acts of secession. Yet the whole movement ends in positive acts of creation – and this on the part of all the actors in the tragedy of disintegration. The Dominant Minority creates a universal state, the Internal Proletariat a universal church, and the External Proletariat a bevy of barbarian war-bands.

If you examine the general state of affairs of the World, where rules, and commands are handled down from a one percent corporate capitalistic outlook with few regards for the lower workers, the actual majority, and where the State itself is just the tool this minority uses as a machine of control for their own ends, and where a breakdown of values it’s just a constant increase, where the dispossessed, and disfranchised majority suffers the will of this entrenched minority who do not comprehend their actions will lead to a total breakdown of society as we know it, is not hard to understand that the new creed represents liberation from oppression, and a new form of social contract would emerge, where the rewards of the new system must satisfy not only the lower material needs of society, but it’s higher Artistic, and Spiritual needs as well, a recovery of Soul it’s specifically need it in order to bring psychic wellbeing to the individual, and therefore to society at large.

Satisfaction to the material needs of society will always be a primordial goal, but ignoring our Spiritual and hidden subjective side, will bring always a backlash of sorts, that would not take a no for an answer, and would demand it’s share, as in Mathew 22:21 “They say unto him, Caesar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.”

It’s is not hard to see, that with our way of living we are rapidly approaching a breaking point, when now even the World Ecology of which all living beings depend it’s at risk of collapse, meanwhile our Nations States, pay a lip service, but actually do nothing to alleviate the impending crisis.

Posted in Archetypes, Being, Carl. G. Jung, Counsciousness, Dreams, Inductive Knowledge, Inner Journey, Mythology, Subconscious, Symbology, Symbols, Transformation, Uncategorized, Unconscious, Wisdom | Tagged Carl G. Jung, Dreams, Mythology, Subconscious, Symbolism, Symbols, Unconcious | 36 Comments

SCIENTIFIC HUBRIS THE FALLACY OF THE ALTRUISTIC GENE, MAYA THE NATURE OF ILLUSION

Posted on June 2, 2015 by theburningheart

Sociobiology is a field of scientific study which is based on the hypothesis

that social behavior has resulted from evolution and attempts to explain

and examine social behavior within that context. A branch of biology that

deals with social behavior, it also draws from ethology, anthropology,

evolution, zoology, archaeology, population genetics, and other disciplines.

Within the study of human societies, sociobiology is very closely allied

to the fields of Darwinian anthropology, human behavioral ecology and

evolutionary psychology.

From a Darwinian viewpoint, the existence of altruism in nature is at first sight puzzling, as Darwin himself realized. Natural selection leads us to expect animals to behave in ways that increase their own chances of survival and reproduction, not those of others. But by behaving altruistically an animal reduces its own fitness, so should be at a selective disadvantage vis-à-vis one which behaves selfishly. To see this, imagine that some members of a group of Vervet monkeys give alarm calls when they see predators, but others do not. Other things being equal, the latter will have an advantage. By selfishly refusing to give an alarm call, a monkey can reduce the chance that it will itself be attacked, while at the same time benefiting from the alarm calls of others. So we should expect natural selection to favor those monkeys that do not give alarm calls over those that do. But this raises an immediate puzzle. How did the alarm-calling behavior evolve in the first place, and why has it not been eliminated by natural selection? How can the existence of altruism be reconciled with basic Darwinian principles?

Enter Genetic Altruism!

In the study, published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, German researchers took a saliva sample from 101 men and women, using the sample to extract DNA from the participants’ cells. The researchers were focusing on the three variations of a gene called the COMT gene, which influences how certain neurotransmitters are activated in the brain. Previous research has linked those particular neurotransmitters, including dopamine, to positive emotions and social behaviors like bonding.

After providing the saliva sample, the participants had to try to memorize a set of numbers and repeat them as accurately as possible; they received five Euros for completing this memory test. After the test, they could try to increase their reward by gambling with it.

Finally, the participants were shown images that were taken from an ad for a charity: a picture of a little girl—named Lina, from Peru—and a bracelet she had knitted. The experimenters left the room and told the participants they could anonymously donate to the charity some or all of the money they’d earned, though the experimenters were actually able to keep track of how much money each person gave. (After the study ended, all money the participants chose to donate was in fact given to the charity.)

The researchers discovered that people with either of two of the variations of the COMT gene (called the Val/Val and Val/Met variations) donated twice as much money to the charity as people with the other variation (called Met/Met), regardless of their gender. In fact, more than 20 percent of the people with the altruistic variations donated all of their money.

In the general population, the number of people with the altruistic variations of the COMT gene varies by ethnicity, says study author Christian Montag, a psychologist at the University of Bonn. Among Caucasians, the ethnicity of all the participants in this particular study, roughly 75 percent carry one of the two altruistic variations: 25 percent carry the val/val, 50 percent carry the val/met, and 25 percent carry the met/met variant.

While researchers have had evidence for years that altruistic behavior is at least partly influenced by genetics, that evidence has come mainly from studies of twins reporting how altruistic they are, which have found that people with identical genetic material show similar patterns of altruism. This is the first study to link altruism to a specific gene.

Psychologist Sebastian Markett, a study co-author also at the University of Bonn, says the results show how a single genetic mutation can have a large effect on our behavior. But he believes science still has much to learn about the genetics of altruism.

“There must be more genes which influence altruistic behavior whose association has not been discovered yet,” he says. “Our future objective will be to identify all of those genes and how they interact with each other to eventually put a pretty complicated puzzle together—with the goal to understand who we are and why we are how we are.”

However

The “selfish gene” is a catchy anthropomorphic metaphor for a basic evolutionary truth: The goal of every organism is to perpetuate its own DNA. Metaphors may be useful in providing “handles” for understanding complex processes, but they are loaded with booby traps. In the case of “the selfish gene,” the metaphor has morphed into a slogan and the slogan acts as an enemy of thought.

Dawkins’ premise is that the human capacity for sacrifice is the product of a gene for altruism that somehow sneaked past the “survival of the fittest” screen. He bases his premise on studies by W. D. Hamilton, who showed self-sacrificing behavior to be statistically possible, if the sacrifice was of value sufficient to enable close kin to survive. But Hamilton’s research was based on social insects, in which the reproductive role is limited to a few ants and bees in the hive or nest — these are the units of natural selection. Observations of a social organization in which the rank-and-file do not have sex and do not compete as mammals must do for mates, are hardly applicable to humans.

Scientists in the Human Genome Project have determined that no single gene determines a particular behavior. Instead, many genes are involved in determining behavior, and their effects are often influenced by environmental factors. Even disregarding Dawkins’ anthropomorphism in using the word “selfish,” to focus on a gene is spurious. Social behavior can’t be answered by specific genes, but by learned lessons of subjective nature with little relation to mere chemical interactions.

Wilson Flip Flop

In 1965, Wilson, then a young entomologist, was one of the first scientists to grab hold of Hamilton’s equation and used it to explain altruism he observed in ant colonies. Wilson quickly became an evangelist for the idea, championing the theory that altruism had emerged through natural selection as a means to pass on genes to the next generation, not as a selfless act of moral transcendence.

But over the years Wilson saw cracks in the armor of the theory of inclusive fitness. His doubts continued to build around a theory he had helped elevate to the level of near scientific consensus. Eventually the errors piled too high for Wilson to ignore. In 2010, he and his colleagues published a paper in the prestigious scientific journal Nature claiming a paucity of real-world evidence supporting the claim that organisms displaying altruistic behavior follow the rule rB>C. The authors went further to say that the factors in the equation, B and C were too difficult to quantify. Wilson, for his part, admitted that the equation was elegant and alluring, but just too simple to work in practice.

Wilson’s “flip-flop” (said with great respect, as changing one’s mind in science is more often a virtue than a vice) has caused an uproar in the scientific community and drawn heavy criticism from some of the most vocal evolutionary biologists, including Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins. Wilson’s critics have said he is using his authority to make assumptions without backing up his claims with real-world data. The critics also point out that a large group of evolutionary biologists (more than 140) have publicly announced their support for the theory of inclusive fitness despite Wilson’s apostasy. Wilson has countered his critics by pointing to a lack of biological examples showing altruistic traits emerging in species that follow Hamilton’s equation. The dust-up makes for the juiciest kind of intellectual debate, one that sends scientists out into the field in search of more evidence.

Subjective and individualistic Social Experience; Wisdom

First let me say it outright, in case the title of my post had not alerted you about my stand on this issue, I am not merely in disagreement on this issue, but I hold in total contempt the idea that there is a gene for altruism, just because it will be the only rationalistic, and materialistic explanation to such behavior, when in actuality not such a gene has ever being discovered and isolated as proof of such behavior, that without it, humans would behave like beast of prey, a far common behavior, not due to a gene, but to selfishness, born out of ignorance, not of a gene, in my view the lack of a spiritual approach from contemporary science force them in to idiocy!

Moral qualities are not born of a gene but out of the subjective experience, and social interaction of intelligent individuals and passed not on our genes but taught, by men of virtue, many times at the price of their life like a Socrates, or Jesus.

The danger with discarding any other explanation not subjected to a total materialistic view of existence it’s here patent, sending this supposedly well educated, but nevertheless misguided individuals looking for a gene in our DNA, well good luck!

This is what happens when ideology trumps common sense, and everything it’s reduced at chemical neuron interactions which bring the old Vedanta philosophy, of our scientist pursuing illusions (Maya) :

Just because a rope in the dark can be perceived as a snake and this trigger the chemical reaction of fear, doesn’t mean the danger was real, once light allows to see the rope, there is no more fear, here you have to differentiate the gene producing the chemical reaction to a perceived treat, to the knowledge making us see the reality of it, you may argue the capacity of understanding knowledge to be in our genes, but not that the knowledge it’s itself the product of a gene, but the subjective quality of discrimination, just like Virtue, or altruism subjective experiences, and not genetically engineered, but the product of wisdom, particular to the individual experience, and not subjective to be inherited as such, at least I never heard wisdom to be inherited, but earned through hard work on an individual basis, like earning a degree in college is not an inheritance but hard work, unless your super rich dad, bought you a title, but still this was not a genetic transmission, but a shameless social behavior!

MAYA

The Upanishads describe the universe, and the human experience, as an interplay of Purusha (the eternal, unchanging principles, consciousness) and Prakṛti (the temporary, changing material world, nature). The former manifests itself as Ātman (Soul, Self), and the latter as Māyā. The Upanishads refer to the knowledge of Atman as “true knowledge” (Vidya), and the knowledge of Maya as “not true knowledge” (Avidya, Nescience, lack of awareness, lack of true knowledge). Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, states Ben-Ami Scharfstein, describes Maya as “the tendency to imagine something where it does not exist, for example, atman with the body”. To the Upanishads, knowledge includes empirical knowledge and spiritual knowledge, complete knowing necessarily includes understanding the hidden principles that work, the realization of the soul of things.

Hendrick Vroom explains, “The term Maya has been translated as ‘illusion,’ but then it does not concern normal illusion. Here ‘illusion’ does not mean that the world is not real and simply a figment of the human imagination. Maya means that the world is not as it seems; the world that one experiences is misleading as far as its true nature is concerned.” Lynn Foulston states, “The world is both real and unreal because it exists but is ‘not what it appears to be’.” According to Wendy Doniger, “to say that the universe is an illusion (māyā) is not to say that it is unreal; it is to say, instead, that it is not what it seems to be, that it is something constantly being made. Māyā not only deceives people about the things they think they know; more basically, it limits their knowledge.”

Māyā pre-exists and co-exists with Brahman – the Ultimate Principle, Consciousness. Maya is perceived reality, one that does not reveal the hidden principles, the true reality. Maya is unconscious, Atman is conscious. Maya is the literal, Brahman is the figurative Upādāna – the principle, the cause. Maya is born, changes, evolves, dies with time, from circumstances, due to invisible principles of nature, state the Upanishads. Atman-Brahman is eternal, unchanging, invisible principle, unaffected absolute and resplendent consciousness. Maya concept in the Upanishads, states Archibald Gough, is “the indifferent aggregate of all the possibilities of emanatory or derived existences, pre-existing with Brahman”, just like the possibility of a future tree pre-exists in the seed of the tree.

The concept of Maya appears in numerous Upanishads. The verses 4.9 to 4.10 of Svetasvatara Upanishad, is the oldest explicit occurrence of the idea that Brahman (Supreme Soul) is the hidden reality, nature is magic, Brahman is the magician, human beings infatuate with the magic and thus creating bondage to illusions and delusions, and for freedom and liberation one must seek true insights and correct knowledge of the principles behind the hidden magic. Gaudapada in his Karika on Mandukya Upanishad explains the interplay of Atman and Maya as follows,

The Soul is imagined first, then the particularity of objects,

External and internal, as one knows so one remembers.
As a rope, not perceived distinctly in dark, is erroneously imagined,

As snake, as a streak of water, so is the Soul (Atman) erroneously imagined.
As when the rope is distinctly perceived, and the erroneous imagination withdrawn,
Only the rope remains, without a second, so when distinctly perceived, the Atman.
When he as Pranas (living beings), as all the diverse objects appears to us,
Then it is all mere Maya, with which the Brahman (Supreme Soul) deceives himself.

—Gaudapada, Māṇḍukya Kārikā 2.16-19

Conclusion

If every behavior has to be rule by a gene I muse, in my daily commute to work wonder what gene rules exiting the bus by the front door, despite the automated voice at every stop warning to leave by the two back doors, and the many signs saying so on the bus, instead many people like to jam themselves against the incoming persons who are boarding the bus paying their fare, inconveniencing many, and delaying the bus in the process, now the whole thing it does not make any sense, if most people would walk away from the bus heading in the direction ahead of the bus, at least I could understand, they want to save 2 or 3 seconds, but my amazement grows when most of the time people after leaving the bus by the front door, head towards the opposite direction, the one the bus was coming, the back of the bus, they would have been better served by exiting through the back doors, without inconveniencing anybody! How do you explain that?

What about a gene for the ones who despite many empty seats on the bus, like to ride gunshot standing near the driver, in the narrowest place of the bus, inconveniencing incoming people, and the ones who try to jam their way out through the front door, with the added risk of exiting the bus through the windshield, if the bus has to break suddenly?

Trying to use genes for explaining human behavior is nonsense, hubris, and a waste of time. What about looking for a gene for behavioral Idiocy?

Posted in Altruism, Ancient Religions, Arete, Critical Thinking, E.O. Wilson, Genetics, Hinduism, Inspiration, Know Thyself, Maya, Science, Science and Belief, Scientism, Spirituality, Subjective, Uncategorized, Virtue, Wisdom | Tagged Altruism, Darwin, E.O. Wilson, Genes, Genetic Evolution, Hinduism, Hubris, Illusion, Maya, Scientific Determinism, Sociobiology | 15 Comments

MALEBRANCHE, SUAREZ, IBN ARABI, COUNTERENLIGHTENMENT, A RETURN TO METAPHYSICS, AND ONTOLOGY A SEARCH FOR OUR LOST SOUL

Posted on May 3, 2015 by theburningheart

After all we do not come to a curandero just to jam together and listen

his singing while we stay under influence, but we come as individuals

with specific issues to solve, and we need to be treated so.

There are songs designed and/or improvised for each person, each case,

sung directly to them, this is what traditional practitioners do,

not just singing for all and limiting personal treatment to blowing smoke

at each participants. One of the few places I could experience that was

at Laura and Ines, Shipibo ceremony at Arco Iris place, and here,

so even if you are charged 200 soles per night, it is worth it.

There is a lot of work done in this place and you will get your money’s

worth before the morning comes, and afterwards,

integrating the night into your life.

“I was traveling in the joy of completion. I guess Roman sensed this, for when it my turn to approach him, after a short conversation he decided to sing icaro of coronación for me, crowning meaning a mark of completion of certain level, progress and a confirmation of stability. This was the way I understood this, because this was the way I felt. That coherence was the reason I was able to accept this, otherwise I tend to be staying away from all those hierarchies, status points, titles, all those things dangerous because of the way they can inflate already large egos.

That night, that moment I felt I deserved it. I knew more and more of how little I understood the Great Mystery, but the best was that insatiable greed of knowing was going away, that I was content with knowing nothing, I was content in the bliss of ordinary, regular breath, working bowels, the song of jew’s harp on my lips, company of good men and women, breeze of the night and clearly visible stars, in the empathy and co-creating, in health. I was content in being there, and in the awareness of leaving soon. I knew I deserved that symbolic crown for the precise reason of not needing it.

This feeling is something, really, ineffable. I can use words, and yet, what it means to you when I say “I was feeling alive”? Can one understand it without approaching death? Can you be really grateful for something you were never about to loose?

All other things mean nothing, and we all here knew that. We could joke without any shame about Ed shitting in his pants, because we all know it matters nothing. Money, job, success, pride, law, jail, culture, all is just bullshit. Experiencing this is another step from which there is no turning back. It is lasting, it is permanent, it is healing. If one can help in any way, even one more person, to participate in the experience, what best there is to do?

Sincere thanks to Joel and fellow pirates. That was the port I will always remember and try to come back whenever around.”

Recognizing the Problem

The first thing in order to fix a problem, it’s to recognize there is a problem, unfortunately our Western society have gone in a wrong direction for too many years now, centuries in fact since Descartes, or somewhere around that time I hate to blame it in a single individual, or event, no doubt the problem existed at many levels, some of them subtle causes, that escaped the critical eyes of historians, like the choosing of Aristotelian philosophy to meet our materialistic ends, to view a world devoid of causa prima (first cause ) rather than a Platonist approach, if instead of following the ideas rationalist, and positivist philosophers who since the Enlightenment launched us in to a false search for truth, in a denial of Spirit, as a reaction to the abuses of kings, and church who falsely claiming the rights as the representatives of God on this Earth, decided to throw the baby with the bathwater, if we only had stick to now days obscure philosophers like:

Malebranche

Nicolas Malebranche 1638-1715 was a French Oratorian priest and rationalist philosopher. In his works, he sought to synthesize the thought of St. Augustine and Descartes, in order to demonstrate the active role of God in every aspect of the world. Malebranche is best known for his doctrines of Vision in God and Occasionalism. In 1664, Malebranche first read Descartes’ Treatise on Man, an account of the physiology of the human body. Malebranche’s biographer, Father Yves André reported that Malebranche was influenced by Descartes’ book because it allowed him to view the natural world without Aristotelian scholasticism. Malebranche spent the next decade studying the Cartesian system. In a section of the third book of the Recherche devoted to “the nature of ideas,” Malebranche argued for his famous doctrine of the vision in God. The argument for this thesis begins with the claim at the beginning of this section that “everyone agrees that we do not perceive objects external to us by themselves” since it can hardly be the case that “the soul should leave the body to stroll about the heavens to see the objects present there”

Suarez

Or Doctor Eximius et Pius Francisco Suarez 1548-1617. For Suárez, metaphysics was the science of real essences (and existence); it was mostly concerned with real being rather than conceptual being, and with immaterial rather than with material being. He held (along with earlier scholastics) that essence and existence are the same in the case of God (see ontological argument), but disagreed with Aquinas and others that the essence and existence of finite beings are really distinct. He argued that in fact they are merely conceptually distinct: rather than being really separable, they can only logically be conceived as separate.

On the vexed subject of universals, he endeavored to steer a middle course between the realism of Duns Scotus and the nominalism of William of Occam. His position is a little bit closer to nominalism than that of Thomas Aquinas. Sometimes he is classified as a moderate nominalist, but his admitting of objective precision (praecisio obiectiva) ranks him with moderate realists. The only veritable and real unity in the world of existences is the individual; to assert that the universal exists separately ex parte rei would be to reduce individuals to mere accidents of one indivisible form. Suárez maintains that, though the humanity of Socrates does not differ from that of Plato, yet they do not constitute realiter one and the same humanity; there are as many “formal unities” (in this case, humanities) as there are individuals, and these individuals do not constitute a factual, but only an essential or ideal unity (“In such a way, that many individuals, which are said to be of the same nature, are so: only through the operation of the intellect, not through a substance or essence of things which unites them”). The formal unity, however, is not an arbitrary creation of the mind, but exists “in the nature of the thing, prior [ontologically] to any operation of the intellect”.

His metaphysical work, giving a remarkable effort of systematization, is a real history of medieval thought, combining the three schools available at that time: Thomism, Scotism and Nominalism. He is also a deep commentator of Arabic or high medieval works. He enjoyed the reputation of being the greatest metaphysician of his time. According to Christopher Shields and Daniel Schwartz, “figures as distinct from one another in place, time, and philosophical orientation as Leibniz, Grotius, Pufendorf, Schopenhauer, and Heidegger, all found reason to cite him as a source of inspiration and influence.”

Ibn Arabi

William C. Chittick give us a glimpse of this extraordinary Sheik Al-Akbar

“Ibn ‘Arabî (1165–1240) can be considered the greatest of all Muslim philosophers, provided we understand philosophy in the broad, modern sense and not simply as the discipline of falsafa, whose outstanding representatives are Avicenna and, many would say, Mullâ Sadrâ. Western scholarship and much of the later Islamic tradition have classified Ibn ‘Arabî as a “Sufi”, though he himself did not; his works cover the whole gamut of Islamic sciences, not least Koran commentary, Hadith (sayings of Muhammad), jurisprudence, principles of jurisprudence, theology, philosophy, and mysticism. Unlike al-Ghazâlî, whose range of work is similar to Ibn ‘Arabî, he did not usually write in specific genres, but tended rather to integrate and synthesize the sciences in the context of thematic works, ranging in length from one or two folios to several thousand pages. Nor did he depart from the highest level of discourse, or repeat himself in different works. The later Sufi tradition called him al-Shaykh al-Akbar, the Greatest Master, a title that was understood to mean that no one else has been or will be able to unpack the multi-layered significance of the sources of the Islamic tradition with such detail and profundity.

Ibn ‘Arabî’s writings remained unknown in the West until modern times, but they spread throughout the Islamic world within a century of his death. The early Orientalists, with one or two exceptions, paid little attention to him because he had no discernable influence in Europe. His works, moreover, are notoriously difficult, making it easy to dismiss him as a “mystic” or a “pantheist” without trying to read him. Not until books by Henry Corbin (1958) and Toshihiko Izutsu (1966) was he recognized as an extraordinarily broad-ranging and highly original thinker with much to contribute to the world of philosophy. These two scholars, however, limited their attention almost entirely to one of his short works, Fusûs al-hikam (“The Ringstones of the Wisdoms”). Although Ringstones was the focus of a long tradition of commentary, it represents but a tiny fraction of what he offers in his massive al-Futûhât al-makkiyya (“The Meccan Openings”). More recently, scholars have begun to look at this work (which will fill an estimated 15,000 pages in its modern edition), but less than ten percent of it has been translated into Western languages and even this has not been explained and interpreted adequately.”

Why?

You may be baffled as to why I bring forth these philosophers, who may appear on the surface post-medievalist, and obscurantist, well not so fast, first let’s explore what it’s wrong with our current society.

Since the Enlightenment many early Romantic writers such as Chateaubriand, Novalis and Samuel Taylor Coleridge inherited this Counter-Revolutionary antipathy towards the philosophers. All three directly blamed the philosophers in France and the Aufklärer in Germany for devaluing beauty, spirit and history in favor of a view of man as a soulless machine and a view of the universe as a meaningless, disenchanted void lacking richness and beauty. Of particular concern to early Romantic writers was the allegedly anti-religious nature of the Enlightenment since the philosophers and Aufklarer were generally deists, opposed to revealed religion.Yet many Romantic poets were either Deists or Pantheists, and neither they nor the Enlightenment Deists can be considered anti-religious, unless in a fundamentalist sense. Rather, they questioned the idea of a personal anthropomorphic God who interfered with the laws of nature. Some historians nevertheless contend that this view of the Enlightenment as an age hostile to religion is common ground between these Romantic writers and many of their conservative Counter-Revolutionary predecessors. However, Chateaubriand, Novalis and Coleridge are exceptions here: few Romantic writers had much to say for or against the Enlightenment and the term itself did not exist at the time. For the most part, they ignored it.

The philosopher Jacques Barzun argues that Romanticism had its roots in the Enlightenment. It was not anti-rational, but rather it balanced rationality against the competing claims of intuition and the sense of justice. This view is expressed in Goya’s Sleep of Reason (Above), in which the nightmarish owl offers the dozing social critic of Los Caprichos a piece of drawing chalk. Even the rational critic is inspired by irrational dream-content under the gaze of the sharp-eyed lynx. Marshall Brown makes much the same argument as Barzun in Romanticism and Enlightenment, questioning the stark opposition between these two periods.

By the middle of the 19th century, the memory of the French Revolution was fading and Romanticism had more or less run its course. In this optimistic age of science and industry, there were few critics of the Enlightenment, and few explicit defenders. Friedrich Nietzsche is a notable and highly influential exception. After an initial defense of the Enlightenment in his so-called ‘middle period’ (late-1870s to early 1880s), Nietzsche turned vehemently against it and subscribed to the earlier view of conservative Counter-Revolutionaries like Burke and Maistre who attributed the French Revolution (which Nietzsche always hated) to the Enlightenment.

It was not until after World War II that ‘the Enlightenment’ re-emerged as a key organizing concept in social and political thought and the history of ideas. Shadowing it has been a resurgent Counter-Enlightenment literature blaming the 18th century trust in reason for 20th century totalitarianism. The locus classicus of this view is Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), which traces the degeneration of the general concept of enlightenment from ancient Greece (epitomized by the cunning ‘bourgeois’ hero Odysseus) to 20th century fascism. (They say little about Soviet communism, referring to it as a regressive totalitarianism that “clung all too desperately to the heritage of bourgeois philosophy”).

While this influential book takes ‘enlightenment’ as its target, this includes its 18th century form – which we now call ‘the Enlightenment’ – epitomized by the Marquis de Sade. Many postmodern writers and some feminists (e.g. Jane Flax) have made similar arguments, likewise seeing the Enlightenment conception of reason as totalitarian, and as not having been enlightened enough since, for Adorno and Horkheimer, though it banishes myth it falls back into a further myth, that of individualism and formal (or mythic) equality under instrumental reason.

Michel Foucault, for example, argued that attitudes towards the “insane” during the late-18th and early 19th centuries show that supposedly enlightened notions of humane treatment were not universally adhered to, but instead, that the Age of Reason had to construct an image of “Unreason” against which to take an opposing stand. Berlin himself, although no postmodernist, argues that the Enlightenment’s legacy in the 20th century has been monism (which he claims favors political authoritarianism), whereas the legacy of the Counter-Enlightenment has been pluralism (something he associates with liberalism). These are two of the ‘strange reversals’ of modern intellectual history.

The key of the problem

Now let’s go to the heart of the problem, the roots of the accusation “Devaluing beauty, spirit and history in favor of a view of man as a soulless machine and a view of the universe as a meaningless, disenchanted void lacking richness.”

Perhaps we can resume it by saying that by abandoning Metaphysics, and Ontology, we have abandoned our subjective Self, our Spirit, and Imagination, now we are reduce to the empire of mechanized solutions to our more subjective and complex problems, like for example our mental health, and to minor degree our physical health, where we look for a cure on drugs, that would cure a chemical imbalance in the brain, rather than seeing it for what it is a sickness of the soul, but of course, if we don’t believe in a soul, how can we heal it..?

No wonder when our physicians declare you incurable, you start looking for other solutions, and may decide to look for a Shaman in the Amazon! At least they don’t lack imagination!

Posted in Counsciousness, Crisis of Values, Direct Spiritual Experience, Enlightenment, History, Ibn Arabi, Imagination, Indigenous Cultures, Inductive Knowledge, Materialism, Metaphysics, New Values, Nicolas Malebranche, Ontology, Self, Spirituality, The Subjective, Transcendence, Uncategorized | Tagged Counter Enlightenment, Francisco Suarez, Ibn Arabi, Imagination, Malebranche, Metaphysics, Ontology, Platonism, Shamanism | 2 Comments

ROMANTIC LOVE, HISTORY OF COURTLY LOVE, INFATUATION, AND BIASES ON OUR CONTEMPORARY CULTURE

Posted on April 5, 2015 by theburningheart

Infatuation is the state of being completely carried away by unreasoning passion

or love; addictive love. Infatuation usually occurs at the beginning of relationship

when sexual attraction is central.

“They do not love that do not show their love.

The course of true love never did run smooth. Love is a familiar.

Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love.”

“Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-browed night;

Give me my Romeo; and, when I shall die,

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night…”

William Shakespeare

Our Cultural Attitudes About Love

It always bother me when reading, or watching the news how easy we presuppose that our way, it’s not only the best way, but far vast superior to other cultures ways, like for example love. In our culture we are free to choose our partner in love or at least we believe to be so, a young man, or woman can choose the love partner of their choice, and be happier ever after. This simplistic notion we extol everywhere, movies, novels, etc. And no wonder we take for granted, ignoring that not long ago (relatively speaking on historical time) we didn’t had the same social practices on matters of marriage, and romance as we know it, well in fact they didn’t exist!

Actually up to a a little more than a hundred years ago, most people wouldn’t marry anyone that wasn’t chosen by the family members, or at least approved by them, I dare to say that up to this day even if you have the freedom to fall in love, or marry whoever you want, to bring it to the members of your family for approval, can be a little bit of a challenge, since we all know many other factors, and considerations weight on the balance beside your infatuation for that particular person, this could be economic, religious, education, social class, race, age, political, etc. We all know that love it’s not the only factor that counts for a successful union, however we extol the love factor in our culture through our media, novels, movies, etc. That it appears as the only factor that matters, which it’s of course untrue.

Infatuation or what it pass for love in our culture

Sheri Meyers a family and marriage therapist writes:

“Love — a wildly misunderstood although highly desirable malfunction of the heart which weakens the brain, causes eyes to sparkle, cheeks to glow, blood pressure to rise and the lips to pucker.” — Author Unknown

Ahh… love. Is there anything else that feels quite so sublime?

Your heart’s pounding, you’re flush with excitement and giddy with anticipation. You jump every time your smartphone pings you with a text, hoping it’s from them. You can’t focus on your work. You’ve lost your appetite for food because you’re reminiscing about how delicious it feels to be in their arms.

Nobody “gets” you the way your sweetheart does. The connection you feel with them is out of this world. It’s as if you’ve known each other your entire life. You can barely stand to be apart.

You have no qualms announcing your good news to your friends and family — you’ve finally found “the one”!

Along with the dizzying heights, there are the terrifying lows, too. They forget to call and you’re anxious. They are in a bad mood and you obsess over whether it’s your fault. They express their doubts about the relationship and you’re in agony for days.

In spite of the occasional pain and uncertainty, the sheer magnitude of emotion just proves how much you love each other — or so you believe.

If this isn’t real love, what is? Right?

Actually, not so fast.”

As a relationship therapist, whenever I hear my clients describe their relationship as an all-consuming, exhilarating, obsessive tidal wave of emotion, I know that what they’re describing isn’t real love, but an immature, attachment-based infatuation.

Are you focusing solely on how your partner makes you feel, both good and bad? How empty life feels when you are apart from each other? How you want your partner to change so that you can maintain the high? How you’ve never felt like this before and the relationship is everything you’ve ever wanted? Do you feel more whole now because this person is in your life? Chances are, when you’re obsessing on what you’re feeling, needing and wanting from the relationship, you’re experiencing an immature, attachment-focused infatuation, not real love.

With infatuation, you create unrealistic expectations and beliefs about your partner in order to maintain that incredible high. You expect that because you love each other, the relationship should always feel good and that your needs should naturally be fulfilled. You can’t stand the thought that relationships do take work, don’t always feel perfect or that your partner won’t change in order to please you. When things go awry, you shut down, cling or pull away, and fear that the relationship is over.”

History of Courtly Love

The conception of romantic love was popularized in Western culture by the concept of courtly love. Chevaliers, or knights in the Middle Ages, engaged in what were usually non-physical and non-marital relationships with women of nobility of whom they served. These relations were highly elaborate and ritualized in a complexity that was steeped in a framework of tradition, which stemmed from theories of etiquette derived out of chivalry as a moral code of conduct.

Courtly love and the notion of domnei were often the subjects of troubadours, and could be typically found in artistic endeavors such as lyrical narratives and poetic prose of the time. Since marriage was commonly nothing more than a formal arrangement, courtly love sometimes permitted expressions of emotional closeness which may have been lacking from the union between husband and wife. In terms of courtly love, “lovers” did not necessarily refer to those engaging in sexual acts, but rather, to the act of caring and to emotional intimacy.

The bond between a knight and his Lady, or the woman of typically high stature of whom he served, may have escalated psychologically but seldom ever physically. For knighthood during the Middle Ages, the intrinsic importance of a code of conduct was in large part as a value system of rules codified as a guide to aid a knight in his capacity as champion of the downtrodden, but especially in his service to the Lord.

In the context of dutiful service to a woman of high social standing, ethics designated as a code were effectively established as an institution to provide a firm moral foundation by which to combat the idea that unfit attentions and affections were to ever be tolerated as “a secret game of trysts” behind closed doors. Therefore, a knight trained in the substance of “chivalry” was instructed, with especial emphasis, to serve a lady most honorably, with purity of heart and mind. To that end, he committed himself to the welfare of both Lord and Lady with unwavering discipline and devotion, while at the same time, presuming to uphold core principles set forth in the code by the religion by which he followed.

Religious meditations upon the Virgin Mary were partially responsible for the development of chivalry as an ethic and lifestyle: the concept of the honor of a lady and knightly devotion to her, coupled with an obligatory respect for all women, factored prominently as central to the very identity of medieval knighthood. As knights were increasingly emulated, eventual changes were reflected in the inner-workings of feudal society. Members of the aristocracy were schooled in the principles of chivalry, which facilitated important changes in attitudes regarding the value of women.

Behaviorally, the manner in which a knight was to regard himself towards a lady, was with a transcendence of premeditated thought; his virtue ingrained within his character. A chevalier was to conduct himself always graciously, bestowing upon her the utmost courtesy and attentiveness. He was to echo shades of this to all women, regardless of class, age, or status. Over time, the concept of chivalry and the notion of the courtly gentleman became synonymous with the ideal of how love and romance should exist between the sexes. Through the timeless popularization in art and literature of tales of knights and princesses, kings and queens, a formative and long standing (sub)consciousness helped to shape relationships between men and women.

De amore or The Art of Courtly Love, as it is known in English, was written in the 12th century. The text is widely misread as permissive of extramarital affairs. However, it is useful to differentiate the physical from without: romantic love as separate and apart from courtly love when interpreting such topics as: “Marriage is no real excuse for not loving”, “He who is not jealous cannot love”, “No one can be bound by a double love”, and “When made public love rarely endures”.

Some believe that romantic love evolved independently in multiple cultures. For example, in an article presented by Henry Grunebaum, he argues “therapists mistakenly believe that romantic love is a phenomenon unique to Western cultures and first expressed by the troubadours of the Middle Ages.”

The more current and Western traditional terminology meaning “court as lover” or the general idea of “romantic love” is believed to have originated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, primarily from that of the French culture. This idea is what has spurred the connection between the words “romantic” and “lover,” thus coining English phrases for romantic love such as “loving like the Romans do.” The precise origins of such a connection are unknown, however. Although the word “romance” or the equivalents thereof may not have the same connotation in other cultures, the general idea of “romantic love” appears to have crossed cultures and been accepted as a concept at one point in time or another.

Love Marriage Versus Arranged Marriage?

Arranged marriages last longer than love marriages! Here is the reason. For two persons to get along in a close relationship, they have a greater chance of succeeding if they are alike. In arranged marriages – still practiced in Japan and India- the elders in a family look for a partner, seeking one of similar background, religion and ethnicity. In love marriages, the assumption that “love conquers all” is patently false, for love will eventually fade and then you will be faced with a person dissimilar and often opposed to your lifestyle. This makes the getting along more difficult, resulting in sequential marriages. This does not bode well for kids, for they need both parents to raise them.

Arranged marriages, offer more protection and security to the women as the parents decide the family. Parents make use of their maturity and decision while choosing suitable spouses for their children. The decision of parents sometimes helps to make the right choice. But it doesn’t mean that arranged marriages are ideal marriages.

A good marriage is based on love, respect, trust, commitment, compatibility, loyalty, common views and opinions, and being willing to constantly work on your marriage. And you have to be good to each other, as well as good for each other. Think of a marriage as a living, breathing being, which needs constant nurturing. You can’t neglect it, nor can you abuse it, and expect it to work.

The above it’s well known for those who study dating, or in the dating industry, I will add my two cents in to the pot, if you get in to a boxing match, you better know what you are doing, I mean you got to study under an expert, train frequently and with dedication, and be ready to go through punishment and pain, lots of it! You may find the analogy hideous, but it’s naive in the part for most couples to go in to marriage just for the initial infatuation, and for our misguided ideas about romantic love.

Unfortunately our culture it’s not good at prevention, we get lots of help, but only after the fact! Kind like our medicine, it’s only after they roll you out of the operation room that a new life it’s possible for you through diet, and exercise, and stop eating all that junk food that is high in carbs, sugars, fats, and low in nutrients, but that nevertheless it’s easily available everywhere 24/7! Just like romance movies or novels with happy endings, but you never hear of a class in college named: “How to pick a partner for life” or “Before marriage, you should be prepared” Or see many romantic movies where our happy couple end in disappointment, instead we go instilling the idea that infatuation, so call romance is the way to go, and we toss aside any other consideration, and to make things worse we publicly deride Cultures were our way is not their way, and look at them with a highbrow, compassionate attitude: “Oh my God, the poor things, veils, arranged marriages, so barbarous!”

Of course all this can be easily rebuffed saying there is nothing to impede you to go in to marriage with your eyes wide open, and not to drink from our fairytale social culture waters, and be practical, but in the meantime you go through a cultural barrage as a young person of romantic ideals, that are nothing but hogwash, were the only warning sign for those alert are the tabloids at the check out counter at the market!

As to what is real love?

Well, for the sake of brevity, we will talk about in a future post.

Posted in Crisis of Values, Critical Thinking, Cultural Attitudes, Cynicism, Education, Infatuation, Life Liberty and the pursuit of happines, Love, Romance, Uncategorized, Values, Western Civilization | Tagged Arrenged Marriages, Courtly Love, Cultural Attitudes, Infatuation, Love, Romance | 32 Comments

ADBUSTERS:THE WAR AGAINST TOO MUCH OF EVERYTHING

Posted on March 4, 2015 by theburningheart

Grant Harder

In a better world, there’d be no reason to write this.

In that world, plastic bags would be outlawed,

rednecks would voluntarily stop driving those obnoxious

Ford F-350s and the yogis in yuppie neighborhoods

would stop believing that a hybrid SUV could save the planet.

But that’s not the world we live in.

Unless humanity breaks through the denial,

unless we start to get angry—fuckin’ angry—

then we won’t ever be able to accept the challenge

at hand. We won’t ever be able to rise up and face

our planetary reality … we won’t ever be able to fight …

and we won’t be able to win.

DARREN FLEET, STEFANIE KRASNOW

By JEFF SOMMER

Published: December 22, 2012 NYT

IF you haven’t finished your holiday shopping yet, don’t bother. An Adbusters message on holiday overconsumption has been mostly ignored, unlike its campaign a year ago that led to Occupy Wall Street.

Skip the mall and the neighborhood store, resist the urge to shop online and, by all means, don’t buy anything you don’t truly need.

So says Kalle Lasn, 70, maestro of the proudly radical magazine Adbusters, published in Vancouver, British Columbia. Mr. Lasn takes gleeful pleasure in lobbing provocations at global corporations — and his latest salvo is “Buy Nothing Christmas.”

“As our planet gets warmer, as animals go extinct, as the humans get sicker, as our economies bail and our politicians grow ever more twisted,” Americans just go shopping, Adbusters says on its Web site. Overconsumption is destroying us, yet shopping is “our solace, our sedative: consumerism is the opiate of the masses.”

“We’ve got to break the habit,” Mr. Lasn said in a telephone interview. “It will be a shock, but we’ve got to shift to a new paradigm. Otherwise, I’m afraid will be facing a new Dark Age.”

Of course, retailers will be facing a Dark Age if people really stop shopping. And because consumer spending accounts for roughly 70 percent of United States gross domestic product, an abrupt shift to nonconsumption would drive the already faltering economy to its knees.

There are no signs that consumers are heeding Mr. Lasn’s call, says Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst at the NPD Group. “I find that people are shoppers or they’re not,” he said. “Shoppers keep shopping.”

So it’s easy to dismiss this latest campaign as yet another empty gesture from a figure on the radical fringe. Why take Mr. Lasn’s words seriously?

Well, last year, a campaign prompted by Mr. Lasn and his magazine improbably caught fire. It was Occupy Wall Street.

Adbusters gave Occupy its name and opening date and designed the poster with Occupy’s defining image: an elegant ballerina perched atop Wall Street’s raging bull while gas-masked figures loomed in the background. The poster contained this text: “What Is Our One Demand? #OccupyWallStreet. Sept. 17th. Bring Tent.” A digital version went viral.

Mr. Lasn’s main role in the Zuccotti Park occupation, however, pretty much ended there: he remained in Vancouver, never visiting the Lower Manhattan encampment and participating in the local organizational work that made it possible. But his contribution began long before then.

Born in Estonia, Mr. Lasn lived for several years in German resettlement camps with his parents after they fled the advancing Soviet army toward the end of World War II. The family moved to Australia when he was 7. He graduated from the University of Adelaide, where he studied theoretical and applied mathematics and then worked four years for the Australian military, writing computer code for war games.

Then he moved to Tokyo, where the skills he developed in Australia served him well. He started a market research company and, he says, did computer-based studies of ad campaigns for global corporations. The work was lucrative, and he used his money to see the world. It was 1968, and a left-wing student rebellion in Paris resonated worldwide. He says he imbibed the spirit of rebellion, and it changed him.

“Until Occupy, the greatest political movement I’d ever seen was the uprising of ’68. It really inspired me, and I’ve been running on that energy — and have been trying to recapture it — ever since.”

LAST year, he says, he did recapture it. Stirred by the uprisings in Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt — the Arab Spring — he and colleagues at Adbusters “began to consider the possibilities of achieving a soft regime change in the United States, of finding some way to tap into the revolutionary zeitgeist.” Out of those discussions came the idea of Occupy Wall Street.

Max Haiven, a postdoctoral fellow in art and public policy at New York University, who has studied Adbusters for years, said: “That was a fantastic initiative for them. They’ve been in global anticonsumption battles for years, and Adbusters has called for many big campaigns that never really happened. This one did. In a way, they got lucky.”

He added: “What led to Occupy Wall Street taking off was not just the iconic image of the ballerina and the bull but a number of factors — including on-the-ground activists building an organization through many, many meetings and relationships and hard work in New York and elsewhere. Adbusters didn’t do that. Other people did it.”

Mr. Lasn acknowledges the truth of that, and says he’s not a community organizer and certainly not a graceful politician. “I’ve said some things that have pissed people off,” he says. And it’s not just corporations like Nike, McDonald’s and Philip Morris that have been stung by him. Israel’s policies toward Palestinians are an Adbusters target.

A blog post in February 2011, for example, “Friends Don’t Let Friends Violate International Law,” compared Israel to a drunk friend: “For over half a century, America has been Israel’s bartender and enabler: each year dumping billions of dollars in military aid that is used to oppress Palestinians.”

The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy organization, says the magazine’s provocative statements have occasionally contained anti-Semitic elements.

“While anti-Semitism is not part of their overarching message or mission, Adbusters makes no apologies for spreading Jewish conspiracy theories and promoting offensive analogies to the Holocaust,” said Abraham H. Foxman, the league’s national director. “Some people want to get attention to their cause, but unfortunately Adbusters has found it convenient at times to play into age-old conspiracy theories about Jewish control of the government in an effort to get attention to themselves.”

In one instance, in 2004, Mr. Lasn published a list of 50 people who, he said, were prominent American neoconservatives and influenced American policy in the Iraq war. Half of them appeared to be Jewish, he wrote, and affixed a mark next to those names. He said American Jews tended to vote Democratic and that many were opposed to the Bush administration’s foreign policy and to at least some Israeli policies. But, he said, the “neocons seem to have a special affinity for Israel that influences their political thinking and consequently American foreign policy in the Middle East.”

In an interview, Mr. Lasn said he was “naïve” in publishing that list. “I had no idea of what the effect would be,” he said, “and if I could do it over again I’d do it differently.”

He added that “I don’t have an anti-Semitic bone in my body” and that “when I was young one of my dreams was to live on a kibbutz.” He said he admired many of Israel’s founders, “who were lefties,” but says, “I must admit that lately I think Israel has been making a big mistake, and I think it’s important to say it.”

One of Mr. Lasn’s favorite words is “meme,” as in: “Adbusters floated the meme of occupying the iconic heart of global capitalism.” The biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term: a meme is a unit of cultural information spread among people like a gene. Spreading radically subversive memes is Mr. Lasn’s avowed mission.

He has written a new Adbusters book, “Meme Wars: The Creative Destruction of Neoclassical Economics” (Seven Stories Press). It is a lavishly illustrated collection, with photographs, drawings and essays that exhort university students to become “meme warriors” and revolutionize the field of economics. Like the magazine, the book elaborates on an old theme: his belief that core economic values must shift from profit-making and expansion of the gross domestic product toward improvement of human health and protection of the planet.

Accomplishing that requires overturning economic orthodoxy and capitalism as we know it, he says. “We have to do this,” he says. “With climate change, and the exhaustion of the planet’s resources. I believe the alternative is apocalypse.”

Despite these portents of doom, he says, “the waves of global activism that we’ve been seeing, with Occupy and everything else — this fills me with more optimism than I’ve felt for many years.”

THE magazine is published by the nonprofit Adbusters Media Foundation, of which Mr. Lasn was a co-founder in 1989 with a close friend, Bill Schmalz, a wildlife cinematographer. As Mr. Schmalz recalls it, Adbusters arose from a battle over conservation that the two men were waging against a Canadian logging company.

“Basically, they were cutting too many trees for the forest to regenerate,” Mr. Schmalz, 71, recalled in a telephone interview. “We wanted that to stop.”

The men met at work. In those days, Mr. Lasn, like Mr. Schmalz, was a documentary filmmaker working on projects for the National Film Board of Canada. He had moved to Canada with his wife, Masako Tominaga, so that he could leave advertising behind and embark on a film career.

What influenced him to head in that direction? He says it was the politics of the ’60s, combined with the movies of the era, especially “The Graduate,” the social satire. Mr. Lasn says he identified with its young star, Dustin Hoffman, who played a newly minted college graduate about to take up a career in what was then the hot new corporate field: “plastics.” He rebels instead. “In his own way, he was a revolutionary,” Mr. Lasn says. “In his own way, he stumbled through life and had some epiphanies and seemed to come out O.K. at the end.”

Mr. Schmalz and Mr. Lasn collaborated on a 30-second television spot on the log-cutting controversy, but they were denied airtime. They started a long, inconclusive legal battle for the right to broadcast their “uncommercial,” and decided to start a newsletter, Mr. Schmalz recalls. In 1992, it became Adbusters magazine.

Even then, he says, the focus was on protecting the earth’s battered environment, fighting against overconsumption and jousting with corporate giants.

Mr. Lasn set the tone. “Kalle’s a feisty guy and that comes across in the radical voice of the magazine,” says Mr. Schmalz, now semiretired. “Some of what you’re seeing and hearing is really just attention-getting.”

Adbusters became a multimedia platform for barbed social and political critique. The ad industry has been a favorite target. A series of satirical print “subvertisements” uses what Mr. Lasn calls “jujitsu” to turn a company’s own ad campaigns into a liability. He terms this approach “culture jamming.”

Consider Adbusters’ mordant “Joe Chemo” ads. They show Joe Camel, the tobacco mascot, receiving treatment for cancer.

Today, the Internet provides an outlet for the organization’s video “uncommercials.” They are discomfiting, especially if you’re a target. In a spoof of McDonald’s, a juicy Big Mac is lifted toward a consumer’s face as an announcer officiously describes its fat content. The consumer drops the burger in disgust.

In another video, a young man on a couch watches TV. “Your living room is the factory,” a deep voice intones. “The product being manufactured is you.” The camera swivels to the back of the man’s neck, revealing a tattooed bar code.

“TV Turnoff Week,” held in April, was perhaps the most successful Adbusters campaign before Occupy Wall Street. It urged “addicted television watchers to just turn off the set and cleanse their minds,” Mr. Lasn says. “Addictions have broadened,” he says, and that campaign has become “Digital Detox Week,” aimed at getting people to turn off all of their digital devices, meditate, enjoy the quiet and spend time with family and friends.

Then there’s the “Consumer Pig” video. It depicts North Americans as voracious despoilers who can’t bear to stop shopping. “Give it a rest,” an announcer intones in a promotion for the “Buy Nothing Day” campaign. That effort takes place in the United States on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, a time of intense bargain-hunting. Adbusters asks shoppers to cease and desist.

Buy Nothing Day is the older sibling of Buy Nothing Christmas — an effort to extend one day of abstention to the entire holiday season. Mr. Lasn says it was the idea of a former editor at Adbusters, Aiden Enns.

Mr. Enns now lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, from which he operates a separate Web site for the campaign, in tandem with the Adbusters’ effort based in Vancouver. He describes himself as a “progressive Mennonite” and says his approach is a “pretty mellow campaign not driven by high-energy organizers.”

Advocating a life of material simplicity and spiritual richness, Mr. Enns urges people to “make things for others themselves, not to just go out and buy.” He says he and his wife make gifts like wooden figurines and animal dolls for children, and salsa and relish for adults.

“The point is that we make them ourselves,” he says. “They’re a gesture of love.”

He says he is in general agreement with Mr. Lasn and with Occupy Wall Street. “I believe our economy isn’t sustainable,” he says. “I believe it needs to change.”

But as a pacifist, he adds, he is at odds with elements of the global Occupy movement.

Mr. Lasn’s words and tactics are more combative. From his Vancouver base, he says he is trying to “re-energize” the Christmas campaign.

Adbusters is asking demonstrators to storm Times Square, “the iconic center of global capitalism” — and march around with “#BuyNothingXmas” signs through New Year’s Day. There hadn’t been much response as of Friday, but no matter: sparks don’t always catch fire.

MR. LASN freely acknowledges that he is inconsistent — enmeshed in the advertising-saturated material world he is battling. For example, he doesn’t make gifts for friends and family; he buys them — usually, smoked salmon and vodka.

“They love it,” he says. “I love it. That’s why I do it.” The vodka is usually Stolichnaya, however, not Absolut, whose stylish ads are skewered by Adbusters.

One such subversive ad is a poster, “Absolute on Ice.” Bathed in unearthly blue light, the sole of a foot is visible on a morgue gurney bearing the tag “D.O.A.”

And Mr. Lasn says his lifestyle isn’t really sustainable. He commutes 30 minutes each way from the magazine to his home on five acres of countryside. He and his wife are occupying too much land, and his little Toyota Echo burns too much fuel for the planet’s health, he says: “What can I do? Living there helps to keep me sane.”

And despite all of those online campaigns, Mr. Lasn is an analog man in a digital world. He favors spoken conversations, not e-mail or text messages, and owns only a simple cellphone — no iPhone or iPad for him.

He doesn’t use the cellphone often. It’s locked in his car. “It’s there for emergencies,” he says.

Mr. Lasn does the initial design and editing of Adbusters on paper. Digitally savvy colleagues transfer his work online. The magazine’s paid circulation, which Mr. Lasn says is 60,000 to 70,000 worldwide, is overwhelmingly print, not digital. Digital subscriptions and downloads are cumbersome and must be improved, he says, although he doesn’t understand the processes.

“We’ll be working on this,” he says. “It’s odd. We’re a print magazine. But already, most people come to Adbusters through our Web site and our list-serv and on Twitter.” He is also trying to revitalize another Adbusters project, the sale of Blackspot Unswooshers — its own brand of “sustainable, fair trade” hightop sneakers. The shoes, he says, pose a challenge of sorts to “that multi-billion-dollar brand, Nike.”

“On a very limited budget we are using Nike’s own brand power against them,” he adds. “We’re unswooshing them.”

But he says the sneakers haven’t caught on the way they should. The original Blackspots, which bear a passing resemblance to Converse Chuck Taylors, will be discontinued. “We haven’t really gotten the idea of our brand out there successfully yet — the idea that indie businesses can really combat global megacorporations.”

THAT message may be the problem. Adbusters has been criticized as confusing the issue: asking people not to go brand-name shopping but asking them to buy its own brand. As Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter put it in the book, “Nation of Rebels,” when Blackspots went on sale in 2003, it became “obvious to everyone that cultural rebellion, of the type epitomized by Adbusters magazine, is not a threat to the system — it is the system.”

Such apparent inconsistencies, and the magazine’s incendiary tone, can be maddening and even offensive, yet this rambunctious approach is also deeply appealing, some critics say. As Mr. Haiven, of New York University, puts it: “I’ve certainly been very critical of them but I’m also very glad they exist. I think they do very important work sometimes, in their own way.”

He adds: “I think the answer is not so much that they should be doing something different but that there should be more alternatives out there. There is nothing else quite like Adbusters.”

Posted in A World in Crisis, Adbusters, Capitalism, Climate Change, Consciousness, Corruption, Counsciousness, Crisis of Values, Critical Thinking, Disillusion with Capitalism, Ecological Crisis, Ecology, Economy, Environment, Freedom, Future, Government and Free Markets, Greed, Greed and Impunity, Justice, Kalle Lasn, Materialism, Meme, Money, New Materialist, Over Consumption, Politics, The Rights of Nature, Uncategorized, Wall Street fiasco, Western Civilization | Tagged Adbusters, Buy nothing day, culture jamming, Destruction of Neoclassical Economics, Digital detox, fighting against over-consumption, Meme Wars, Social and political critique, subvertisements, the Earth’s battered environment, Unsustainable economy | 5 Comments

PATRICK LAUDE’S IMAGINATION ON THE VOID

Posted on February 3, 2015 by theburningheart

The Names . . . have existed from all eternity:

these Names are designated as “Lords” (Arbab),

who often have all the appearance of hypostases

though they cannot strictly be defined as such.

We know them only by our knowledge of ourselves

(that is the basic maxim). God describes Himself to us

through ourselves.

Which means that the divine Names are essentially relative

to the beings who name them, since these beings discover

and experience them in their own mode of being. . . .

Thus the divine Names have meaning and full reality only

through and for beings . . . in which they are manifested.

Likewise from all eternity, these forms, substrate of the divine

Names, have existed in the divine Essence (A ‘yan thabita).

And it is these latent individualities who from all eternity

have aspired to concrete being in actu. Their aspiration

is itself nothing other than the nostalgia of the divine

Names yearning to be revealed. And this nostalgia of the divine Names

is nothing other than the sadness of the unrevealed God,

the anguish He experiences in His unknownness and occultation.

Know that you are imagination, and all that you perceive

and about which you say “that’s not me”, is imagination.

So the whole of existence is imagination within imagination.

Ibn al-‘Arabi (1165 – 1240)

THE AMBIGUOUS POWER OF IMAGES has never been as pervasive as it is today through the world of media and virtual reality. Images shape ideas and tendencies, determine action, invade daily consciousness, and sometimes rule over opinion. They can hypnotize and control; they can feed all sorts of delusions and foster imbalance. In short, images fill up the vacuum left by the spiritual disarray of our contemporary world. So saturated is modern life with myriads of images of all kinds that we don’t take notice to most of them anymore. One must wonder what may remain of the power of creative imagination when such a passive, hardly conscious relationship with images has settled in and become second nature.

Notwithstanding, modern man still values imagination as a rare, mysterious, and awesome faculty. Our schools encourage children to explore, display, enrich their imagination, although what we mean by it is far from clear, so blurry and capricious have become the criteria that validate its worth and function. When we try to specify what imagination entails, the most likely associations involve subjectivity, individuality, and freedom from boundaries. Imagination is a private, idiosyncratic realm that makes one enjoy the oft-complacent delights of being special. As a comforting haven of fantasy, it protects us from the harshness of an objective world of drab realism and cold, inhuman structures. It seemingly frees one’s mind and heart from the strictures of an industrialized world of tedious, mechanical, senseless activity. From all of this we may infer that imagination is akin to a world of unreality to which we turn to find solace from a reality that alienates us and robs us of meaning and happiness. The imaginary is not the real: its very raison d’être is to be a sort of parallel reality to which we may escape.

In a world in which reality is defined by action and outer realizations, imagination is also prized for its prospective, unconventional, creative power of exploration and discovery. To the impediments of memory, akin to the hindering weight of the past, modern man espouses the seemingly unlimited power of projection of an imagination that defies the constraints of reality as it is known. Modern science and technology thrive on this sense of unhampered liberty to question, inquire, and fathom. This is, in a sense, the very pride that modern mankind boasts as its uncontested superiority over ages of allegedly conformist compliance with unexamined beliefs and unscrutinized customs. There is no modernity without unconstrained imagination, imagination to think, to do, and to be.

CRITICS OF MODERNITY HAVE SUGGESTED that such highly subjective, individualized, and metaphysically unrestricted understanding of imagination may ultimately confine us to alienation and Prometheism. The artificiality of many of its productions reinforces mankind’s chronic separation from its environment, short of integration with a qualitative universe of meaning. It erects walls of isolation among humans by means of mesmerizing power of technological creations and projections. Television and the internet are substitutes for bonds of friendship and communication. Furthermore, the unbound, directionless, and idiosyncratic imagination of our times is suspected of opening a chasm between humanity and the divine: it is likely that the myriads of imaginary dreams of virtual reality produce a world in which God has become implausible and seemingly unneeded. Imagination, pushed to the limits of its demiurgic élan, ends up evoking a ghostly, and ghastly, counter-reality: it is indeed the imagination of the sorcerer’s apprentice. At the end of the road this counter-reality overuns and cancels out what is counters. The virtual becomes more real than the actual; it dispels ontological boundaries and realizes the old prophecies of a world totally enmeshed in the alluring net of Maya, or swept up in the whirlwind of exponential “surreality.”

To attend to this crisis of modern imagination, a few questions are in order. Should imagination be confined to the realms of the subjective, the individual, and the phantasmatic, and has it always been akin to them? Is imagination free from laws, and independent from any objective grounding? Is the contemporary disconnection between imagination and “things as they are” and “things as we know them” the fundamental rule, or rather the circumstantial exception?

TRADITIONAL WORLDS have been unanimous in their metaphysical and spiritual embrace of imagination. The world of images has been universally conceived as an inspiring and pacifying treasury of wisdom: not only a horizon of dream but a space of knowledge. Pre-modern mankind was quite aware that visual representations provide a more direct access to reality than concepts and discourses. It highly prized the power of imagination as a privilege to relate to the beyond. This is why words referring to seeing and “imagining” often denoted, or connoted, a sense of knowledge. Thus, a “theory” amounts to none other, etymologically, than a “vision” of reality. Rites and symbols bear witness to this benefit of directness and integrality with which the discursive process of reason can never catch up. Myths, parables, icons, visionary dream,s sacred ideograms, all bear witness to the instantaneity of the manifestation of the sacred in and through images. Even the most iconoclastic of traditions, namely Judiasm and Islam, have not been able to dispense with the human need for visual imagery, if only through their inspiring cultivation of the illumination and calligraphy of the word of God.

Such pervasiveness of the imagination of forms in the world of religions may surprise: is not the end of the spiritual journey most often envisaged as a transcendence of all imaginary and discursive forms? Certainly so, but this transcending motion cannot bypass images themselves since it takes as its starting point the world of forms in which we live and “imagine,” and since images ultimately point to that “unimaginable” that is both their root and their end. Sacred imagination proceeds from the divine source of tradition that it prolongs and unforlds, thereby providing us with its iconic power of allusion to the intimation of the unseen. It offers us a way to gaze upon the Divine Mystery that we cannot grasp and that our reason can only infer without ascertaining it with full existential certainty. God escapes our imagination in His essence, but He mercifully manifests the beauty of His manifold qualities in the world of sacred imagination.

AS A SCHOLARLY “PROPHET” OF IMAGINATION, Henry Corbin emphasized, in the wake of Swedenborg and Shi’it and Sufi theosophy, that the world of imagination is an objective and universal domain, not a purely private bubble of fiction. The necessary distinction between the latter and the former demanded that he coin a new word, i.e., the “imaginal,” to prevent his readers from confusing spiritual imagination for the individual inventions that we fancy. Imagination is indeed a “world, the mundus imaginalis, a world more real than our daily dream. In it and through it the higher realm of spiritual realities becomes proportionate to our terrestrial faculties of perception: the imaginal unfolds a bridge between the celestial and the terrestrial. In other words, the “imaginal world” is the intermediary realm that joins the spiritual spheres with physical realities. As for the “imaginary” domain that we vaunt and value, it is nothing more, at best, than the residual manifestation of the imaginal realm. Thus, contemporary forms of arts, such as moving pictures, can become the vehicles of the imaginal archetypes of the myths of old, and many “imaginative” works of literature are half unconscious channels of truly imaginal realities, half phantasmatic fabrications of an old artist engrossed with his own genial figments. Literary and cinematic works may flaunt imaginal realities in contexts that often trivialize their modes of manifestation, but they cannot but be the vehicle, albiet in a passive and unconscious way, of their ultimate meaning.

Imagination has not only its ontological province, but it also possesses its own laws. In his ANTHROPOLOGICAL STRUCTURES OF IMAGINATION,Gilbert Durand drew an extensive repertory of the ways in which imagination has manifested and functioned through myths and symbols, through religions and arts, through ages and lands. He has shown that mankind has been remarkably one in its understanding and use of imagination as a faculty that makes us feel at home in the world of forms in which we live. Genuine and sound imagination is neither severed from the cosmos, nor from the gods, nor from the One. It obeys, for example, the fundamental laws of cosmic alternation epitomized by the sequence of days and nights. There is, therefore, a diurnal and nocturnal regime of imagination: the first provides images of separation, differentiation and opposition, as the day that projects diversity and contrast, yang, whereas the second proposes visions of reconciliation, fusion and union, like the night that envelops and disposes to sleep, yin.

Imagination lies at the juncture of death and life, absence and presence. It has been hailed as a victory over death and putrefaction. Is not the image a surrogate for the living reality that has elapsed or vanished? Paintings, photographs, are images proposed to memory: we willingly evoke the presence of those we love by means of the magic of representation, or we restore, through it, a symbolic life to those who have passed away. In Rome, the imago was a mortuary mask of the dead that patrician families carried in a funerary procession. It was then placed on the alter of ancestors, like a permanent reminder of death in life and life in death. The image is a presence in absence, but it is also an absence in presence. It is never a full adequation, nor an utter distance. Imagination lies in this ambivalent realm that is neither real nor unreal. As the symbol–which etymologically refers to a token only one half or one side of which is presented as a sign of recognition–it always presents us with a reality the true face of which is to be found beyond.

From etymology to entomology, our exploration of the connotations of the imago teaches us that this term may also refer to the final stage in the development of an insect. This not only alludes to the idea that the true “image” may be taken to be the goal of the end result of the creative process, it also points to a sense of perfection, as well as to an intuition of a being’s essence. The image is more than a representation, it is the ultimate form of being, and imagination captures nature at a stage, or on a level, that is more real than what we flatly call reality.

IMAGINATION FILLS A GAP, but it does so in two very different ways. As Corbin reminds us, it can be, positively, like a bridge, or a pathway, between the world of visible, physical forms, and the realm of suprasensory, archetypal, spiritual realities that cannot, as such, be perceived by our senses, nor enter the world of forms. This is the intermediary world of similitude in difference and difference in similitude. Similitude is the key to interpretation, the science of deciphering messages from the beyond; but such a translation is not one-sided and quasi-automatic like that of a sign-post or an allegory, meaning this is that and that’s it. Difference introduces a wealth of levels and correspondences that makes the symbol ever more than what it appears to be. Imagination is the faculty that gives access to this full domain of meaning. On the side of creation, it crystalizes, as it were, spiritual intuitions and realities into formal, symbolic realities. On the side of interpretation it “frees” meanings from their formal shell and connects them to living sources of Reality. It does not create symbols out of nothing, it simply perceives, or unveils, their objective reality as merciful and fruitful intermediaries between the spiritual and the physical. This imaginal domain is not vain, phantasmagoric imagination at all: it is an objective domain to which visionaries, shamans, and mystics have had access, a symbolic book which we can read in order to reach intimations of the Beyond as “through a glass” not “darkly, but rather through the many “colors” of divine theophanies.

By contrast with the substantive and sustentive nature of spiritual and symbolic imagination, the trivial market of our “imaginary” life amounts to no more than a “filler” in the most pejorative sense of the word. This is imagination as “filler of the void,” to use Simone Weil’s phrase: “It is continually at work filling up the fissures through which grace may pass.” There are the fissures that result from our relativity, from the fact that we are neither self-sufficient nor self-fulfilled. The “void” that is to be filled is the incompleteness of our terrestrial being, of our individual experience. It is from or through the “void” resulting from our relativity that the “fullness” of the Real can be unveiled. In need of Reality, our incomplete, fragmentary being should open itself to the completeness, the absoluteness of the Divine, which is the only fully satisfactory response to it. But such an opening implies a “dark night” that our soul does not want to bear with patience, or in waiting, to use again one of Weil’s powerful spiritual metaphors: hence the compensations of illusory imagination. Wandering imagination, sterile imagination, serves our delusions of metaphysical “immunity,” in the hope of forgetting the void that is growing within us, and threatens to make walking dead of ourselves.

EVEN THOUGH the contemporary concepts of the “imaginary” and imagination fall short of the full reality of the imaginal domain and the plenary spiritual function of images, they cannot but testify to the latter as their distant or inverted reflections. Reality is one, and there is no absolute “error” in being. First, the subjective bias of our current concept of imagination does not only stem from an ignorance of the ontological objectivity of the imaginal, it also remains, positively, as a faint mirror image of divine Self-knowledge. This is suggestively taught by the hadith: “I was a hidden treasure and I desired to be known, so I created the world in order to be known.”

Imagination is an objectification of the divine Subject through which God knows Himself in the mode of multiplicity and contrast. Imagination is the exteriorized “content” of the Divine Subject in the way of a wealth of creative meanings “passed into” imaginal forms. The world springs forth out of God’s imagination, and human imagination can, and must, unfold into an analogous creative process. Human art mimics divine art. In parallel, the individualistic bent that characterizes modern imagination, despite its flowing from an inordinate cultivation of arbitrary idiosyncrasies, can also be understood and as an obscured and indirect sense that imagination does indeed relate each and every soul to the whole of being, and to the Principle of the whole. Ibn Arabi’s concept of the “God of belief” as a personal imaginal reality, that William Chittick also defined as “self-disclosure of the Real (that) ties a knot in the fabric of existence,” is of necessity limited and colored by the size and hues of the individual recipient. There is no way for the limited to be connected with the Unlimited but through representations or limitations that are as many imaginal apprehensions of the Real. These limitations are not exclusive of liberty, and our modern equation of imagination with freedom is not unfounded, although not fully understood in its foundations.

Imagination is liberation because it reflects God’s utter freedom to create. It is the projecting and creation power of His infinity. Reflecting this divine freedom on the human level, only the sage and the saint have enough imagination to become other than themselves, and one with all selves.

Posted in Archetypes, Barzak, Consciousness, Cosmology, Counsciousness, Dreams, Heart, Henry Corbin, Ibn Arabi, Imagination, Inner Journey, Metaphor, Metaphysics, Mundus Imaginalis, Mysticism, Mythicist, Ontology, Patrick Laud, Philosophy, Reality, Sacred Grounds, Spirituality, Symbology, Symbols, Theophany, Transcendence, Uncategorized, Wisdom | Tagged Archetypes, Dreams, Gilbert Durand, Henry Corbin, Ibn Arabi, Mundus Imaginalis, Patrick Laud, Prometheism, Reality, The Power of Images | 21 Comments

AXIAL PRECESSION, AND COSMOLOGICAL RELIGIOUS CYCLES IN ANCIENT CULTURES, THE AGE OF AQUARIUS

Posted on January 4, 2015 by theburningheart

And from its midst was the likeness of four living beings,

And this is their appearance; they had the likeness of a man.

And [each] one had four faces, and [each] one had four wings.

And their legs were straight legs, and the soles of their feet were

like a round foot, and they sparkled like the color of burnished copper.

And human hands were beneath their wings on their four sides,

And their faces and their wings were [the same] to all four of them.

Their wings joined one to the other; they did not turn when they

Walked; each one would go toward the direction of his face.

And the likeness of their faces was the face of a man,

And the face of a lion was on their right, to the four of them,

And the face of an ox to their left, to the four of them,

And the face of an eagle [was] to the four of them.

Ezekiel – Chapter 1. 5-10

Axial Precession or the Precession of the Equinoxes

In astronomy, axial precession is a gravity-induced, slow, and continuous change in the orientation of an astronomical body’s rotational axis. In particular, it refers to the gradual shift in the orientation of Earth’s axis of rotation, which, similar to a wobbling top, traces out a pair of cones joined at their apices in a cycle of approximately 25,920 years.The term “precession” typically refers only to this largest part of the motion; other changes in the alignment of Earth’s axis – nutation and polar motion – are much smaller in magnitude.

Earth’s precession was historically called the precession of the equinoxes, because the equinoxes moved westward along the ecliptic relative to the fixed stars, opposite to the yearly motion of the Sun along the ecliptic. This term is still used in non-technical discussions, that is, when detailed mathematics are absent. Historically, Hipparchus has been credited with discovering the precession of the equinoxes, although evidence from cuneiform tablets suggest that his statements and mathematics relied heavily on Babylonian astronomical materials that had existed for many centuries prior. The exact dates of his life are not known, but astronomical observations attributed to him by Ptolemy date from 147 BC to 127 BC.

With improvements in the ability to calculate the gravitational force between and among planets during the first half of the nineteenth century, it was recognized that the ecliptic itself moved slightly, which was named planetary precession, as early as 1863, while the dominant component was named lunisolar precession.Their combination was named general precession, instead of precession of the equinoxes. Lunisolar precession is caused by the gravitational forces of the Moon and Sun on Earth’s equatorial bulge, causing Earth’s axis to move with respect to inertial space. Planetary precession (an advance) is due to the small angle between the gravitational force of the other planets on Earth and its orbital plane (the ecliptic), causing the plane of the ecliptic to shift slightly relative to inertial space. Lunisolar precession is about 500 times greater than planetary precession.In addition to the Moon and Sun, the other planets also cause a small movement of Earth’s axis in inertial space, making the contrast in the terms lunisolar versus planetary misleading, so in 2006 the International Astronomical Union recommended that the dominant component be renamed, the precession of the equator, and the minor component be renamed, precession of the ecliptic, but their combination is still named general precession. Many references to the old terms exist in publications predating the change.

This of course it’s only the astronomical point of view, of celestial mechanics,to understand the phenomena of the precession, but little to do with the Ancient interpretations of this movement denominated by some of them as the Platonic Year. The Platonic Year was named after Plato (427 – 347 BC) because of his conviction of the intimate relationship between space and time. Plato believed that the heavens were “designed” by God for the measurement of time. He called one complete cycle of the bodies a ‘Perfect Year’.

Although there is no written testimony of a recognition of precession before the Greeks, it is clear from Greek testimony (such as from Aristotle), that Egyptian and Babylonian sciences were shrouded in mystery and only available to the ‘initiated’. However, this lack of written evidence by no means precludes such knowledge from being understood, as the numbers that represent the precessionary cycle, can be found in the dimensions of ‘sacred’ structures and mythologies from around the ancient world as the following examples illustrate.

Turkey – (See Metsamor). First recorded division of the sky into 12 equal parts. Metsamor was identified by Livvio Stecchini as an ancient oracle centre. It lies at the foot of Mount Ararat, and archaeology has shown that the area was home to a sophisticated culture that was present in Anatolia from c. 6,000 BC.

Sumeria – Gudea, a ruler of ‘Lagash’, of Sumeria, recorded that he was given instructions in a vision. “A wise man that shone like the heaven,“ by whose side stood “a divine bird,” “commanded me to build this temple”. Gudea employed a male ‘diviner, maker of decisions’, and a female ‘searcher of secrets’ to locate the site. He then recruited 216,000 people for the job. (23).

Babylon – The Babylonian historian Berossus (third century BC) ascribed a total reign of 432,000 years (120shar’s of 3,600 yrs each), to the mythical Kings who ruled the land of Sumer before the flood. He also ascribed a period of 2,160,000 years to the period ‘between creation and universal catastrophe’. (21)

The King-List known as W-B/144, records the following:-

‘when kingship was lowered from heaven, kingship was first in Eridu’

The following lengths of time were given for each ruler:-

Alulim – 28,000 yrs Alalgar – 36,000 yrs Enmenluanna – 43,200 yrs Enmengalanna – 28,800 yrs Dumuzi – 36,000 yrs Ensipazianna – 21,600 yrs Uburtutu – 18,000 yrs

The Sumerian text W-B/62, adds Larsa and its two divine rulers to the King-List, also multiples of 3,600. (23).

We can be fairly sure that the Sumerians were aware of the cycle, as we can see from the table above that it offers a natural division of both time and space into 360°, from units of 6 and 10. The Sumerians are the earliest culture to measure both time and space in units of 6 and 10. A system called the Hexi-decimal system.

Remarkably, time and space are still measured today by the same units of measurement. For example, we can see the year divided by 12 months, with each day being divided by 24 hours, each one divisible by 60 minutes, and each minute by a further 60 seconds. Similarly, the earth is divided by 360 degrees, each degree being divisible by 60 ‘minutes and each minute by a further 60 ‘seconds’ of an arc.

China – Early Jesuit scholars, who were among the first Europeans to visit China had the opportunity in the imperial library, to study a vast work consisting of 4,320 volumes, said to have been handed down from ancient times and to contain ‘all knowledge’. This great book included a number of traditions which told of the consequences that followed when mankind rebelled against the high gods and the system of the universe fell into disorder’: ‘The planets altered their courses. The sky sank lower towards the north. The Sun, moon and stars changed their motions. The earth fell to pieces and the waters in its bosom rushed upwards with violence and overflowed the earth’. Extract from (21).

The Great Pyramid of Giza.

It has been shown that the exterior measurements of the ‘Great’ Pyramid of Giza are an accurate representation of the Earth’s’ northern hemisphere on a scale of 1:43,200.

A number that proves highly significant when one considers the method of doubling/halving the numbers that was used in ancient Egypt (kemi)

25,920 years / 12 = 2,160 (x 2 = 4,320)

In relation to this, it has been pointed out that the possibility may exist whereby the numbers expressing the Precessionary cycle (Approx’ 26,000 years), when viewed as fractals may be translated into the 60-based system of degrees (26° 00′ 00″). Modern pocket electronic calculators have a key (DD>DMS) for this function.

The Platonic Year of 25,920 years would produce the following numbers:

25.92 (doubled) = 51.84 where, 51.84° is 51° 50′ 24″.

In other words, the angle of inclination 51° 50′ 24″ would express the decimal number 51.84°, which is the fractal expression of double the 25,920 Platonic Year number (25920 x 2 = 51840).

This would mean that the angle of inclination cited by Piazzi Smyth for the Great pyramid of Giza of 51° 51′ 14″ would reflect the decimal number 51.85399° or the fractal halved to that of 25,926.995 years (51,85399/2=25,926.995). A number which appears at very least, an extraordinary coincidence considering the astronomical references to the pyramid throughout history.

From the Ox Apis to the Water Bearer

An astrological age is a time period in astrologic mythology which astrologers claim parallel major changes in the development of Earth’s inhabitants, particularly relating to culture, society and politics. There are twelve astrological ages corresponding to the twelve zodiacal signs in western astrology. At the completion of one cycle of twelve astrological ages, the cycle is claimed to repeat itself every 25,920 years.

The Age of Aquarius is an astrological term denoting either the current or forthcoming astrological age, depending on the method of calculation. Astrologers maintain that an astrological age is a product of the earth’s slow precessional rotation and lasts for 2,160 years, on average (25,920) year period of precession / 12 zodiac signs = 2,160 years).

There are various methods of calculating the length of an astrological age. In sun-sign astrology, the first sign is Aries, followed by Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces, whereupon the cycle returns to Aries and through the zodiacal signs again. Astrological ages, however, proceed in the opposite direction (“retrograde” in astronomy). The Platonic year because it’s base on the Axial Precession of the Equinox runs in retrograde, Leo, Cancer, Gemini, Taurus, Aries, Pisces, therefore, now we are beginning the Age of Aquarius.

Dr. Serge Raynaud de la Ferriere a Scientist and an Astrologer who studied the Religious cycles or Ages from the Platonic year and the ancient cultures of the World wrote last century on the forties:

“Speaking of God is to the sky that we look at, as from early ages man has raised his eyes towards the sky, and the myriads of stars have had to intrigue (we now know that it exists by the hundred of millions, of which roughly 6,000 are visible to the naked eye).

When one rises to look at these stars, how not to find so many parallels that make us understand the homogeneity of the Great Whole? Microcosm and macrocosm are closely linked and Dr. Lavezzeri already revealed the curious relationship between astronomical life and human life.

The heartbeats from a man in good health are at 72, the same employing the sun to move one degree across the sky on the Platonic year.

The heart beats 4 times when we breathe once, ie the number of breaths per minute is 18, corresponding to the 4 seasons and 18 years of nutation of the Earth’s axis under the lunar influence.

As for the 25,920 breaths in 24 hours, remind us of the precession of the equinoxes, by the number of years the famous Great Cycle, which finally closed its Zodiacal constellations turn; there also derive the great precessional Eras: (25,920 / 12 = 2160 years by sign) and from 4320-2160 before of the Christian era, the Cycle of TAURUS symbolized Egypt, Chaldea, etc. Then came the era of ARIES that transformed religion: Moses forbade the Jews worshiping the Golden Calf (Apis Ox). The Christian Era corresponds to the sun penetrating since the year I was in the new sign of PISCES (Did not Jesus was represented by this emblem?).

Naturally this symbolism is not of absolute precision, but it should be noted that the large cycles mark the history of the World and it’s people.

Obviously the history of mankind is not cut into equal pieces because everyone knows that winter comes a little in the Spring; the summer often extends over the Fall; therefore the fact of passing in to another sign does not imply an abrupt renewal; however, all the Great Civilizations are characterized by the precessional motion, which makes many say we approach the Golden Age.

The Age of AQUARIUS must effectively symbolize a new cycle of 2000 years or so and make a renewal. Some are based to enunciate as a result of the discovery of the splitting of the atom, calling our age Atomic Age, which can be symbolized by the planet Uranus characterizes sudden events and governs precisely the sign of AGUADOR (Aquarius).”

The Ages or Cycles

Every zodiac Age has a particular symbolism that affect the destiny of History, and the tendencies of the particular age in question, according to some students of the occult the half of the Ages are Positive, and half Negative in polarity manifesting the characteristics of the Zodiac sign that rules at the time.

“The Age of Earth, I have, or I want, Agriculture and the Bull” This age is claimed to have occurred approximately around the time of the building of the Pyramids in Egypt.

Religious similarities Bull worshiping cults began to form in India Assyria, Egypt and Crete during this mythological age.

Ankh: thoracic vertebra of a bull – Egyptian symbol of life
Worship of Apis, the bull-deity (see also Bull (mythology)), the most important of all the sacred animals in Egypt, said to be instituted during the Second Dynasty of the Early Dynastic Period of Egypt and worshipped in the Memphis region until the New Kingdom (16th century BC).
When Moses was said to have descended from the mountain with the ten commandments (c. 17th – 13th century BC, the end of the Age of Taurus), some of his people or followers were found by him to be worshipping a golden bull calf. He instructed these worshippers to be killed. This represents Moses “killing” the bull and ending the Age of Taurus, and ushering in the Age of Aries, which he represents.
Marduk
Tauroctony

“The Age of War, Fire and the Ram”

I Am.

Historical similarities Aries represents a Fire symbol as well as bold actions, a lot of these behaviors can be seen during any age. However, the themes emphasized during this age relate to courage, initiative, war and adventure. Nations during this age such as the expanding empires of China, Persia, Greece and Rome, are often cited as examples of the archetypes of Aries in action. Also the Aries constellation shows a ram running. This could correspond with the sacrifice of Abraham’s Ram. While the number of names containing the sound of the ram during this period is noted: Ra (Sun God), Ram, Rama, Brahman, Brahma, Abram/Abraham, Amon Ra, and Ramesses I. The battering ram was employed by the Assyrians, Greeks and Romans with great success during this time. (The symbol of Mars, the planetary ruler of Aries, evokes this interpretation.) According to the Roman state religion, the Roman people were the “Sons of Mars”.

Aries is associated with the metal iron, and iron ore was for the first time smelted and worked into iron swords in Anatolia during the early phase of this era, replacing the heavier, softer-metaled, duller-edged bronze swords of the previous Taurus Age.

Traits of Aries such as ‘initiative’ may suggest the explosion of originality in the development of social aspects, sciences and arts in regions such as Ancient Greece but at the same time traits such as ‘Impulsivity’ may be attributed to the various Wars of the time.

Religious similarities The Age of Aries ushered in efforts to replace polytheism with monotheism. The earliest known attempt was by the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten, who, in about 1350 BC, decreed the Sun God Aten to be the supreme deity, apparently in reaction to his earlier lack of inclusion in religious rites by his family. After his death, however, power reverted to the original polytheistic priests, who re-established the old religion. Speculation (including that of Freud) has it that later, during the reign of Ramesses II, Moses was influenced by Akhenaten’s revolutionary idea, and grasped the idea of a single supreme God, who especially favored his people, as an inspirational mechanism that best suited his people held in bondage. The symbol of Aries can be seen as representing the power of multiple gods streaming down into a single god-head.

Moses (born c. 16th–13th century BC; 7 Adar 2368 – 7 Adar 2488 in the Hebrew calendar), an early Biblical Hebrew religious leader, lawgiver, prophet, and military leader, condemns his own people upon finding them worshiping a ‘golden calf’ (a symbol of the previous Age of Taurus and of the worship of the bull deity) after coming down Mount Sinai. These events may have occurred during the Age of Aries.

The Age of Pisces is – The Age of Monotheism (one God), Spirituality, and the Fish. It is characterized by the rise of many religions such as Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. This represents the “spiritual” nature of Pisces. Throughout most of Pisces though this spiritual side is for the most part seen as the truth hidden behind the five senses. Spirituality was seen in relation to the world, not through an innate knowing of divinity. And the fact many Religions reverted to, or adopted the old pagan Gods in to saints, adopting a middle ground where idolatry was not abandoned completely, and where most of the times what you preach it’s not what you do, look at the great religious wars in the name of God all through the Age of Pisces.

The Fall of Rome began at the beginning of this Age

As with all Great Cycle changes the Age of Pisces began with chaos. Rome fell and chaos was rampant as the great change of power began. It was the birthing of the Middle Ages.

Egypt’s Isis was dropped and Mary mother of Jesus came into being replacing her near the close of the Age of Aries. Jesus is said to have been born of the Virgin Mary. Virgo is the polar opposite sign of Pisces. The Age of Pisces also represents charity, mercy, sacrifice, compassion and pardon, which are the virtues taught and lived by Jesus.

Water played a prominent role in the teachings of Jesus, and Pisces is a water sign. The fish is the symbol of Pisces. Many of Jesus’ gatherings were near lakes and water. Fish were a big part of the diet of Jesus, his disciples and the multitudes. Water was used to baptize the people.

Jesus was sacrificed because he was the “Lamb” of God. This represents the sacrificing of the RAM of Aries, which ended the Age of Aries the astrological age before Pisces.

Earlier on in the Age of Pisces, the Europeans, the Vikings, and more integrated with other cultures on mass. In recent history, China, India and much of the East have found their economic might and now the economies of the West are totally reliant on this trade. The East and West have merged as never before making it difficult for wars and other negative activities to continue.

Religious wars have been ramped during Pisces, with people killing others simply because they didn’t have the same religious beliefs. No specific religions need be singled out, since this phenomena occurred throughout most of the “civilized” world from East to West. The value of organized religion should diminish as the grip of Pisces comes to a close.

On the other hand the Age of Pisces has also been a very spiritual age. Monasteries, ashrams, temples, and pilgrimages, all came into being during this age. Many started “on the path” back to the creator. But few were able to get to it because they were heavily tied to the senses. This searching will come to fruition in the Age of Aquarius and the greater meaning of things will be known.

The Piscean Age is a time of gentleness, materialism and artistry, but also it’s impracticality. This is possibly due to the rise in the European empires. To the spiritually undeveloped person Pisces represents “servitude.” To the disciple or aspirant, the vision of “service to humanity…world savior” as Jesus, came to the forefront. Good recent examples are Mother Theresa and the Dali Lama.

During the Age of Pisces, we were told what to BELIVE (Pisces word I believe) through religions, authority figures, dictators, etc. These powers have been losing ground and the shift is towards “power over self.” This debacle of power will escalate now that the Age of Pisces has ended.

The Age of Aquarius

Aquarius sign it’s represented by a man bearing a pitcher of water, represented Ganymede who was abducted by Zeus from Mount Ida, near Troy in Phrygia. Ganymede had been tending sheep, a rustic or humble pursuit characteristic of a hero’s boyhood before his privileged status is revealed. Zeus either sent an eagle or turned himself into an eagle to transport the youth to Mount Olympus.

In Olympus, Zeus granted him eternal youth and immortality and the office of cupbearer to the gods, supplanting Hebe. Edmund Veckenstedt associated Ganymede with the genesis of the intoxicating drink mead, which had a traditional origin in Phrygia. All the gods were filled with joy to see the youth, except for Hera, Zeus’s consort, who regarded Ganymede as a rival for her husband’s affection. Zeus later put Ganymede in the sky as the constellation Aquarius, which is associated with that of the Eagle (Aquila). A moon of Jupiter, the planet named for Zeus’s Roman counterpart, was named Ganymede by astronomer Simon Marius.

Plato accounts for the pederasty aspect of the myth by attributing its origin to Crete, where the social custom of paiderastía was supposed to have originated. He has Socrates deny that Ganymede was the “catamite” of Zeus, and say the god loved him non-sexually for his psychē, “mind” or “soul,” giving the etymology of his name as ganu-, “taking pleasure,” and mēd-, “mind.” Ganymede, he points out, was the only one of Zeus’s lovers who was granted immortality. This points to the new general tendencies of using drugs as mind alter substances some with the purpose of ecstatic states of consciousness, therefore the symbolic “Eagle rapture.”

We talked briefly as to when the Aquarius age started or would start, there is many opinions on the subject, my opinion is that we are already in it, I wouldn’t put a date to it but events like the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the invention of the airplane, rockets, the Atomic bomb, the landing of the Moon, the satellites, and the exploration of Space, the switch form a Newtonian physics, to an Einstein Relativity, to a Quantum physics, Electricity, Telegraph, Radio, TV, and now Computers, Robotics, Nanotechnology, and all kind of breathless advances in Science, that it’s hard to keep pace with it, the fact that science, reason, and a new spirit of emancipation it’s sweeping the World at all levels, equality for women, gays, (Ganymede the water bearer) and the oppressed no longer tied to ancient dogmas, or beliefs, talk loudly of leaving the age of Pisces behind.

John 14. 12

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

Luke 22. 10

And he said unto them, Behold, when you are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you, bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he enters in.

The Age of Aquarius encourage us to look beyond the five senses and experience true living by relying on our guidance from within. Aquarius will be an Age when we truly realize that the love we show towards our brothers is the love we feel towards ourselves. This represents the oneness of all things which fosters unconditional love.

Science and technology will be used to improve human and environmental situations on earth, and not for monetary gain. We will finally know the true meaning of “progress.” In the Aquarian Age progress will represent decisions or activities where ALL things and people gain from the change. Sound impossible? It’s not.

We will finally KNOW (Aquarius word) we are not “victims” of circumstances, but the “creators” of our experiences. We are also the ones to change our earthly situation. The focus will be on making our lives a heaven on earth.

Now here I am expressing many opinions about this subject, if I agree with some of these views and predictions, do not necessary share all these diverse, and wide views, but agree in a transformation of Human consciousness towards ways of life with a lot of more Wisdom, that in the past, were the study of History it’s mainly the study of Human conflict, wars, conquest, empires, and the Geopolitical shaping of the Earth through these methods. Also would like to express that the subject matter is too big to put it here in a single post, so by the sake of brevity, omit many other great information.

A new way of thinking, acting, and living it’s not only possible, but now on it’s way.

Posted in Age of Aquarius, Ancient Civilizations, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Religions, Astrology, Axial Precession, Consciousness, Cosmogony, Cosmology, Counsciousness, Ganymede, Gospels, Historical Evolution, History, Moses, Mysticism, Myth, Mythology, New Age, Platonic Year, Precession of the Equinoxes, Revelation, Science and Belief, Symbology, Symbols, Uncategorized, Wisdom | Tagged Aries, Astrology, Axial Precession, Eagle, Ezekiel, Historical and Religious Astrology, Piscis, Platonic year, Precession of the Equinoxes, Scorpio, Taurus, The Age of Aquarius | 30 Comments

TITUS BURCKHARDT, INSIGHT IN TO ALCHEMY

Posted on December 5, 2014 by theburningheart

Alchemy it’s not the pseudoscience of transforming

Base metals in to gold as many naïve Individuals who

May believe to be just Hocus Pocus tales, or at best the

Beginning of chemistry, but Alchemy it’s the art to

Elevate our souls from the gross in to the

Sublime. The true alchemist is the one who

Through the hardship of the furnace (life)

He is capable through time and effort

To bring change in to his soul

And become transformed, analogous to be

The “Materia prima” transformed in to the

Body of Light, or the gold seek by the

True Alchemist.

B.A.

Titus Burckhardt on alchemy

To make of the body a spirit and of the spirit a body”: this adage sums up the whole of alchemy. Gold itself, which represents outwardly the fruit of the work, appears as an opaque body become luminous, or as a light become solid. Transposed into the human and spiritual order, gold is bodily consciousness transmuted into spirit, or spirit fixed in the body.

For the base metal, which represents the material ready to be worked, is none other than consciousness linked with the body and as if steeped in it. It is the “metallic body” from which must be extracted the “soul” and “spirit,” which are Mercury and Sulphur. If the body were not an inner reality it could not serve as material for the spiritual work.

With the average man, “to know” and “to be” are polarized, as it were, in thought and bodily consciousness; the first represents an intelligence separated from the being of its objects; whereas the second is a passive state of being and as if bereft of intelligence. This dichotomy is noticeable even in the dream state, where the psychic form of the body is more or less detached from its sensory form. The return to the Centre, to the heart considered as “place” of the spirit, will comprise an integration and something like a reversal of the two poles: bodily consciousness will become in its way intelligent; it will transmute itself into a static state of knowledge, and at the same time thought—or the mentality—will crystallize out under the lightning action of the spirit.

This transmutation from spirit into body and from body into spirit can be found in a more or less direct and unmistakable manner in every method of spiritual realization; alchemy, however, has made it its principal theme, in conformity with the metallurgic symbolism founded on the possibility of changing the “state of aggregation” of a body.

At the beginning of the work, the bodily consciousness is chaotic and obscure. It is then compared to lead and the “order” which corresponds to this state of “matter” is attributed to Saturn. This planet represents the principle of condensation, and it is this which explains its seemingly contradictory assignment to the metal lead among things corporeal and to reason among the faculties of the soul; in relation to the existential dimension of the other faculties, reason is like a point without extension. The polarity of thought and bodily consciousness, the opposition “spirit”—“body”, is thus to be found in the nature of Saturn, and this corroborates the hostile character, impeding and even sinister, which this planet assumes in divinatory astrology.

On the plane of method, saturnine condensation becomes concentration; the intelligence withdraws from the exterior to the interior; having become a single point it submerges itself in the inner darkness of the body.

According to alchemical doctrine every metal is constituted by the more or less perfect union of two principles called Sulphur and Mercury; just as bodily consciousness, assimilated to metal as transformer, is woven from these two principles or subtle forces, at the same time opposite and complementary; Sulphur, which is male, and Mercury, which is female, are combined in the chaotic bodily consciousness—or in the base metal—in a manner in which they neutralize or shackle one another.

Basil Valentine writes: “Where soul, spirit and metallic form are present, there, too, must be found quicksilver, sulphur and metallic salt….”Therefore he likens Mercury to the soul and Sulphur to the spirit, and it is thus that the two principles should be understood, always bearing in mind the fact that alchemy considers these primarily as powers or forces co-operating on the same plane of “nature.” If it happens that the same author, or other alchemists, call Mercury “spirit,” it must be understood that its “volatile” nature is here opposed to that of inert or solid bodies; in this sense both Sulphur and Mercury are “spirits.” On the other hand, Mercury, as “substance” of the inner or psychic form of the body, corresponds to the vital principle, intermediary between soul and body.

According to Galen, the vital spirit is a very pure substance distributed in cosmic space, and which the heart assimilates by a process analogous to respiration, thus transforming it into animal life. It is easy to see that this corresponds to the role of prana, the “vital breath,” as conceived by the Hindus; its employment in laya-yoga, the “yoga of solution,” appears to be exactly analogous to the use to which the alchemists put their “universal solvent.”

Just as breathing rhythmically re-establishes the link between the physical organism and the cosmic environment (a tie which the progressive solidification of the body tends to break) so this parallel, but more intimate, assimilation of the vital breath maintains the continuity between the psychic form of the body and the cosmic substance. Brother Marcanton writes on this subject: “It is not that I do not know that your secret Mercury is none other than a living spirit, universal and innate, which ceaselessly descends from heaven to earth, in the form of an aerial vapor, to replenish its porous belly, and is then born amongst the impure Sulphurs, and in growing passes from a volatile to a fixed nature, giving to itself the “radical humid” form. The “porous belly” of the earth here corresponds to the human body; as for the “impure Sulphurs” they are nothing but the gross bodies confining, as it were, their Sulphur, which is their formal principle, In allying itself with the psychic form of the body, Mercury is solidified, so to speak, while forming at the same time its “humid radical,” its hyle,or plastic substance.

With regard to ordinary mercury, it is noteworthy that, alone amongst metals known to antiquity and the Middle Ages, it occurs normally under the liquid aspect which evaporates under the action of the craftsman’s fire; it is thus, at one and the same time, both a “body” and a “spirit.” Through it gold and silver can be liquefied; it also extracts the noble metal from a mixture of impure and insoluble minerals; the amalgam being exposed to the fire expels the mercury and lays bare the gold.

Just as common mercury forms an amalgam with gold, so subtle Mercury contains the germ of spiritual gold; the vital breath, while being “humid” by nature, as with the feminine cosmic energy—the Shakti of Hindu doctrine—carries the igneous principle of life. Reduced to its universal prototype, Mercury corresponds to the primordial ocean of Hindu mythology, to Prakriti, which carries Hiranyagharba, the golden embryo of the world.

Conformably with this universal prototype, Mercury includes a maternal aspect; more precisely, it is itself the maternal aspect or power of the materia of the world of the soul. On this account alchemists sometimes give it the name—a little disconcertingly—of the “menstruum”; they mean by that the blood of the matrix which nourishes the embryo as long as it does not flow outwards to become corrupted; Mercury indeed nourishes the spiritual embryo enclosed in the hermetic vessel.

It is through bodily consciousness, apparently closed in on itself, and within its innermost enclosure that the alchemist recovers this cosmic substance, Mercury. In order to “win it over” he relies on a bodily function such as respiration, and this is significant for all spiritual arts related to alchemy; starting out from a physical modality, the consciousness, which is essentially intelligence, ascends through its own “sheaths” to arrive at the universal reality of which this modality is the reflection or echo. Such an integration cannot however be achieved without some kind of grace; moreover it presupposes a sacred framework as well as an attitude excluding every kind of promethean or egoistic adventure.

Mercury is thus, at the same time and according to the different planes of its manifestation, the subtle “breath” animating the body, the transient substance of the soul, lunar power, the materia of all the world of the soul, and finally the materia prima. Just as the universal energy which the Hindus call Shakti possesses not only a maternal but also a terrible and destructive aspect, so Mercury is at the same time the “water of life” and the “mortal poison”; that is to say its “humid” nature is generative or dissolvent, according to circumstances.

“Let us leave the compound” wrote Synesius,

take its simple (sic)for it is its quintessence. Observe that we have two bodies of great perfection (gold and silver, or the heart and blood) filled with quick-silver. Thence draw your quicksilver and you will make of it the draught, which is called quintessence, having a permanent and ever victorious power. It is a living light which illuminates every soul that has once beheld it. It is the knot and bond of all the elements, which it contains in itself, just as it is the spirit which nourishes and vivifies all things, and by means of which nature acts in the universe. It is the force, the beginning, the middle and the end of the work. To tell you all in a few words, know, my son, that the quintessence and the occult thing of our stone is no other than our viscous soul, heavenly and glorious, which we hold by our mastery of the ore-bearing mine which alone engenders it and that it is not in our power to make this water by any art, since nature alone can beget it. And this water is the sharp vinegar which makes a pure spirit from the body of gold. And I tell you, my son, take no account of any other things, for they are vain, but only of this water, which burns, whitens, dissolves and congeals. It is indeed that which decomposes, and that which makes to germinate.

Although Mercury, after the manner of universal substances, contains all natural qualities in potentiality—it is also often represented as androgynous—it is polarized in relation to Sulphur and manifests itself as cold and humid, while Sulphur manifests as warm and dry. It should be noted here that warmth and dryness, which are the two masculine qualities, correspond to expansion and solidification, and that the two feminine qualities of humidity and cold represent solution and contraction. To a certain extent Sulphur imitates, in a dynamic and indirect way, the action of the formal principle, of the essence, which “deploys” forms and “fixes” them in a certain plane of existence. Solution and contraction, on the other hand, which originate from Mercury, express the receptivity of the plastic or feminine principle, its faculty of embracing all forms without being held by them, as also its delimiting and separate action, which is an aspect of the materia.In the order of craftsmanship, the analogy of Sulphur with the formal principle is evinced in the coloring action of the former: thus the union of common sulphur and mercury produces cinnabar, in which the fluid mercury is at one and the same time fixed and colored by sulphur; now, in metallurgic symbolism color is analogous to quality, therefore to form, according to the traditional significance of the term. However, it should be stressed that cinnabar is only an imperfect product of the principles concerned, just as common sulphur and common mercury are not identical with the two alchemical principles they symbolize.

In the first phase of the work, it is the solidifying and coagulating action of Sulphur which is opposed to the liberation of Mercury, even as the contracting action of the latter neutralizes Sulphur. The knot is loosened by the growth of Mercury: to the extent which this dissolves the imperfect coagulation which is the “base metal,” the expanding warmth of Sulphur comes into play in its turn. At the beginning Mercury works against the solidifying power of Sulphur; but after that, it awakens its generative force, which manifests the true form of gold. Here we have the analogy of the love contest between man and woman; it is the feminine fascination which dissolves the “solidification” of the virile nature and awakens its power. It is sufficient here to remark that it is this fascination, spiritually canalized, which plays a certain part in Tantric methods.

In Les Noces Chymiques de Christian Rosencreutz, Johann Valentin Andréae narrates the following parable: “…a beautiful unicorn, white as snow, and wearing a gold collar inscribed with certain signs, advanced towards the fountain, and bending its front legs knelt as if to do obeisance to the lion who stood upright on the fountain. This lion, who because of his complete immobility seemed to be made of stone or brass, forthwith seized a naked sword which he held in his claws, and broke it in twain: I think the two halves fell in the fountain. Then the lion continued to roar until a white dove, carrying an olive branch in its beak, flew towards him as fast as it could; she gave the branch to the lion who swallowed it and became quiet once more. Then with joyous bounds the unicorn returned to her place.” The white unicorn, a lunary animal, is Mercury in its pure state. The lion is Sulphur, which being identified with the body of which it is the formal principle, appears at first immobile as a statue. By the homage of Mercury he wakes and begins to roar. His roaring is none other than his creative power: according to the Physiologus, the lion vivifies the still-born whelps by his voice. The lion breaks the sword of reason and the pieces fall in the fountain, where they will be dissolved. He does not stop roaring until the dove of the Holy Spirit gives him to eat the olive branch of knowledge. This seems to be the meaning of this parable of which Johann Valentin Andréae certainly was not the author.

In certain conditions, Sulphur, when fettered, is the reason and contains the gold of the spirit in a sterile state. This gold has first to be dissolved in the fountain of Mercury, in order to become the living “ferment” which will transform other metals into gold.

The first action of Mercury is to “whiten” the body. Artephius wrote:

The whole secret…is that we should know how to extract from the body of the Magnesia the non-burning quicksilver, which is Antimony, and the Mercurial Sublimate; that is to say, it is necessary to extract an incombustible living water, then to congeal it with the perfect body of the Sun, which is dissolved in it in a white substance, coagulated like cream, until it all becomes white. However, first the Sun, by the decomposition and solution it undergoes in this water, will lose its light, will be obscured and darkened; then it will rise on the water and, little by little, a white color and substance will float on the surface; it is this which is called whitening the red brass, its philosophical sublimation and reduction to its primary matter, that is to say, to incombustible white sulphur and fixed quicksilver. Thus, humid when limited, that is to say gold, our body, having undergone repeated liquefaction in our dissolvent water, will be converted and reduced to sulphur and fixed quicksilver; and in this way the perfect body of the sun will take life in this water and be vivified and inspired; it will wax and multiply in its own kind, as do all other things.…

The sun referred to by Artephius, which dies and is dissolved in the mercurial water before being reborn, is none other than the individual consciousness bound to the body, the bodily ego, as it were, which is only gold or sun in a latent condition. Alchemists often gave the name of “gold” or “sun” to that which is gold in a virtual sense.

The “whitening” of the “body” which follows the “blackening” is sometimes described as a dissolution of the body in the mercurial water and at other times as a separation of the soul from the body. This is because the reduction of bodily consciousness to its psychic substance causes the soul to withdraw from the sensory organs and go out, so to speak, into a “space” which is both inward and unlimited. “It mounts from Earth to Heaven—says the Emerald Tablet—and re-descends from Heaven to Earth, thus receiving the power of both superior and inferior things.” In the same way, one

speaks of a sublimation which has to be followed by a new coagulation.

When the inner consciousness is thus reduced to its primary matter, similar to the moon and silver, Sulphur reveals itself in its true nature, which is a power emanating from the mysterious center of the being, from its divine essence; it is the roaring of the solar lion, which is like a sonorous light, or a luminous sound. Sulphur “fixes” the fluid and ungraspable substance of Mercury by giving it a new form which is at the same time both body and spirit.

Artephius wrote:

…natures change from one to the other, since the body incorporates the spirit, and the spirit changes the body into spirit both colored and white…boil it in our white water, that is in Mercury, until it is melted into blackness; then, through a continuous decoction, the blackness will disappear, and in the end the body thus dissolved will mount up with the white soul (bodily consciousness reabsorbed into the soul), and the one shall blend with the other, and they shall embrace in such a way that they can nevermore be separated; it is thus that spirit and body are united (by a process inverse to the first) with true harmony, and they become one permanence (the body “fixing” the spirit and the spirit restoring the bodily consciousness to the pure spiritual state) and this is the solution of the body and the coagulation of the spirit, which are one and the same operation.

Most alchemists only speak of Sulphur and Mercury as natures constitutive of gold; others, such as Basil Valentine, add Salt. In the order of craftsmanship, Sulphur is the cause of combustion and Mercury of evaporation, whereas Salt is represented by ashes. If Sulphur and Mercury are “spirits”, Salt is the body, or more accurately the principle of corporeality. In a certain sense Sulphur, Mercury and Salt correspond respectively to the spirit (that is to say to the spiritual essence), the soul, and the body of man, or again, to the immortal soul, the vital breath, and the body.

If the distinctions between these three natures do not always seem clear in descriptions of the alchemical work, this results from their not being considered in themselves, but only through their action on the cosmic plane, or, more exactly, on the subtle or animic plane, where their forces blend in countless ways. On account of the complexity of this realm, the most “archaic” descriptions of the work are the most accurate because they include everything in their symbolism; which brings to mind the words of the Emerald Tablet: Sulphur, solar power, Mercury, lunar power, are the “father and mother” of the alchemical embryo; the “wind”, which is no other than the vital breath, second nature of Mercury, has “carried it in its womb”; the earth, that is to say, the body, is its “nurse”.…

When the body, or more exactly the bodily consciousness, is purified of all passional “humidity”—and in this connection it corresponds to “ashes”—it helps to retain the “fugitive” spirit; in other words, it becomes the “fixative” of spiritual states which the mind could not by itself sustain. This is so because the body is the “inferior” which corresponds to the “superior,” according to the formula of the Emerald Tablet.

The spiritual state which “leans” on the body has, however, no common measure with the latter; it is like a reversed pyramid of unlimited extension, having its point resting on the earth; it goes without saying that this picture, which suggests a state of instability, is only valid in relation to space.

In the realm of sacred art, the human likeness which most directly expresses the “spiritualization of the body and the embodying of the spirit” is that of the Buddha: the analogy with alchemical symbolism is all the more striking since this figure comprises solar attributes—halo and rays—and is often gilded. We have in mind more particularly the statues of Mahāyana Buddhism, which at their best, perfectly express, in the plastic quality of their outward appearance, that plenitude which is both immutable and intense and which the body contains but cannot enclose.

Basil Valentine compares the result of the union of spirit and body to the “glorious body” of the resurrected.

Morienu says: “…Whosoever shall have truly known how to cleanse and whiten the soul and make it ascend on high; and shall have guarded his body well and removed from it all obscurity and darkness together with any bad odor; it (the soul) shall then be able to be restored to its body, and at the time of their re-conjunction great wonders will appear….”

And Rhases writes: “…Thus each soul reunites with its first body; and in no case can it unite with any other; from thenceforth they will never again be separated; for the body will be glorified and brought to incorruption and to an unutterable subtlety and luster, so that it will be able to penetrate all things however solid, since its nature will then be the same as that of a spirit.

Posted in Alchemy, Emerald Tablet, Inner Journey, Inspiration, Mysticism, Spirituality, Symbology, Symbols, Titus Buckhardt, Transformation, Transmutation, Uncategorized, Yoga | Tagged Artephius, Baslie Valentine, Brother Marcanton, Cinnabar, Galen, Hiranyagharba, Johann Valentin Andréae, Morienu, Rhases, Spiritual Alchemy, Sulphur and Mercury, Synesius, Titus Burckhardt, Transformation | 18 Comments

ANANDA K. COOMARASWAMY SYMBOLS AND SIGNS

Posted on November 6, 2014 by theburningheart

Since the most remote antiquity Man has used symbol

as means of communication were everyday reality

Acquires a character of sacred, or the other way around

The Sacred become tangible through symbols.

B. A.

Symbols and signs, whether verbal, musical, dramatic or plastic, are means of communication. The references of symbols are to ideas and those of signs to things. One and the same term may be symbol or sign according to its context: the cross, for example, is a symbol when it represents the structure of the universe, but a sign when it stands for crossroads. Symbols and signs may be either natural (true, by innate propriety) or conventional (arbitrary and accidental), traditional or private. With the language of signs, employed indicatively in profane language and in realistic and abstracted art, we shall have no further concern in the present connection. By “abstracted art” we mean such modern art as willfully avoids recognizable representation, as distinguished from “principial art”, the naturally symbolic language of tradition.

The language of traditional art—scripture, epic, folklore, ritual, and all the related crafts—is symbolic; and being a language of natural symbols, neither of private invention nor established by conciliar agreement or mere custom, is a universal language. The symbol is the material embodiment, in sound, shape, color or gesture as the case may be, of the imitable form of an idea to be communicated, which imitable form is the formal cause of the work of art itself. It is for the sake of the idea, and not for its own sake, that the symbol exists: an actual form must be either symbolic—of its reference, or merely an unintelligible shape to be liked or disliked according to taste. The greater part of modern aesthetics assumes (as the words “aesthetic” and “empathy” imply) that art consists or should consist entirely of such unintelligible shapes, and that the appreciation of art consists or should consist in appropriate emotional reactions. It is further assumed that whatever is of permanent value in traditional works of art is of the same kind, and altogether independent of their iconography and meaning. We have, indeed, a right to say that we choose to consider only the aesthetic surfaces of the ancient, oriental, or popular arts; but if we do this, we must not at the same time deceive ourselves so as to suppose that the history of art, meaning by “history” an explanation in terms of the four causes, can be known or written from any such a limited point of view. In order to understand composition, for example, i.e. the sequence of a dance or the arrangement of masses in a cathedral or icon, we must understand the logical relation of the parts: just as in order to understand a sentence, it is not enough to admire the mellifluent sounds, but necessary to be acquainted with the meanings of separate words and the logic of their combinations. The mere “lover of art” is not much better than a magpie, which also decorates its nest with whatever most pleases its fancy, and is contented with a purely “aesthetic” experience. So far from this, it must be recognized that although in modern works of art there may be nothing, or nothing more than the artist’s private person, behind the aesthetic surfaces, the theory in accordance with which works of traditional art were produced and enjoyed takes it for granted that the appeal to beauty is not merely to the senses, but through the senses to the intellect: here “Beauty has to do with cognition”; and what is to be known and understood is an “immaterial idea” (Hermes), a “picture that is not in the colors” (LankāvatāraSūtra), “the doctrine that conceals itself behind the veil of the strange verses” (Dante), “the archetype of the image, and not the image itself” (St. Basil). “It is by their ideas that we judge of what things ought to be like” (St. Augustine).

It is evident that symbols and concepts—works of art are things conceived, as St. Thomas says, per verbum in intellectu—can serve no purpose for those who have not yet, in the Platonic sense, “forgotten”. Neither do Zeus nor the stars, as Plotinus says, remember or even learn; “memory is for those that have forgotten”, that is to say, for us, whose “life is a sleep and a forgetting”. The need of symbols, and of symbolic rites, arises only when man is expelled from the Garden of Eden; as means by which a man can be reminded at later stages of his descent from the intellectual and contemplative to the physical and practical levels of reference. We assuredly have “forgotten” far more than those who first had need of symbols, and far more than they need to infer the immortal by its mortal analogies; and nothing could be greater proof of this than our own claims to be superior to all ritual operations, and to be able to approach the truth directly. It was as signposts of the Way, or as a trace of the Hidden Light, pursued by hunters of a super‑sensual quarry, that the motifs of traditional art, which have become our “ornaments”, were originally employed. In these abstract forms, the farther one traces them backward, or finds them still extant in popular “superstition”, agricultural rites, and the motifs of folk-art, the more one recognizes in them a polar balance of perceptible shape and imperceptible information; but, as Andrae says (Die ionische Säule, Schlusswort), they have been more and more voided of content on their way down to us, more and more denatured with the progress of “civilization”, so as to become what we call “art forms”, as if it had been an aesthetic need, like that of our magpie, that had brought them into being. When meaning and purpose have been forgotten, or are remembered only by initiates, the symbol retains only those decorative values that we associate with “art”. More than this, we deny that the art form can ever have had any other than a decorative quality; and before long we begin to take it for granted that the art form must have originated in an “observation of nature”, to criticize it accordingly (“That was before they knew anything about anatomy”, or “understood perspective”) in terms of progress, and to supply its deficiencies, as did the Hellenistic Greeks with the lotus palmette when they made an elegant acanthus of it, or the Renaissance when it imposed an ideal of “truth to nature” upon an older art of formal typology. We interpret myth and epic from the same point of view, seeing in the miracles and the Deus ex machina only a more or less awkward attempt on the part of the poet to enhance the presentation of the facts; we ask for “history”, and endeavor to extract an historical nucleus by the apparently simple and really naive process of eliminating all marvels, never realizing that the myth is a whole, of which the wonders are as much an integral part as are the supposed facts; overlooking that all these marvels have a strict significance altogether independent of their possibility or impossibility as historical events.

Posted in ANANDA K. COOMARASWAMY, Ancient Civilizations, Archetypes, Language of Signs, Metaphor, Myth, Mythology, Symbology, Symbols, Uncategorized | Tagged ANANDA K. COOMARASWAMY, Archetype, Art and Symbol, Signs, Symbols | 15 Comments

PRECEPTS AND ENVIRONMENT BY JOHN DAIDO LOORI, JOINING ESPIRITUALITY AND ENVIRONMENT

Posted on October 7, 2014 by theburningheart

Love all of God’s creation, the whole of it and every grain of sand.

Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light! Love the animals.

Love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will

soon perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it,

you will begin to comprehend it better every day.

And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all

-embracing love.

Love the animals. God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy

untroubled.

Do not trouble their joy, do not harass them, do not deprive them

of their happiness do not work against God’s intent.

Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to animals; they are without sin,

and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it,

and leave the traces of your foulness after you ??

alas, it is true of almost everyone of us!

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Precepts and Environment

Dharma Discourse by Abbot John Daido Loori, M.R.O.

Imagine, if you will, a universe in which all things have a mutual identity. They all have a codependent origination: when one thing arises, all things arise simultaneously. And everything has a mutual causality: what happens to one thing happens to the entire universe. Imagine a universe that is a self-creating, self-maintaining, and self-defining organism – a universe in which all the parts and the totality are a single entity, all of the pieces and the whole thing at once, one thing. This description of reality is not a holistic hypothesis or an all-encompassing idealistic dream. It is your life and my life. The life of the mountain and the life of the river. The life of a blade of grass, a spider web, the Brooklyn Bridge. These things are not related to each other. They’re not part of the same thing. They’re not similar. Rather, they are identical to each other in every respect. But the way we live our lives is as if that were not so. We live our lives in a way that separates the pieces, alienates and hurts.

The Buddhist Precepts are a teaching on how to live our lives in harmony with the facts described above. When we look at the Precepts, we normally think of them in terms of people. Indeed, most of the moral and ethical teachings of the great religions address relationships among people. But these Precepts do not exclusively pertain to the human realm. They are talking about the whole universe and we need to see them from that perspective if we are to benefit from what they have to offer, and begin healing the rift between ourselves and the universe.

First among the sixteen Precepts are the Three Treasures. We take refuge in the Three Treasures – the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. Understood from three different perspectives, the Three Treasures present different virtues. The first perspective is called the One-Bodied Three Treasures. The second is called the Realized Three Treasures, and the third is called the Maintained Three Treasures.

From the perspective of the One-Bodied Three Treasures, anuttara-samyaksambodhi, supreme enlightenment, is the Buddha Treasure. Being pure, genuine, apart from the dust is the Dharma Treasure. The reason it is apart from the dust is that it is the dust. That is what the virtue of purity is about. There is nothing outside of it. The merits of harmony are the Sangha Treasure. Together, these are the One-Bodied Three Treasures. To realize and actualize Bodhi or enlightenment is the Buddha Treasure of the Realized Three Treasures. The realization of Buddha is the Dharma Treasure, and to penetrate into the Buddhadharma is the Sangha Treasure. These are the Realized Three Treasures. Among the Maintained Three Treasures, their manifestation in the world, guiding the heavens and guiding people, sometimes appearing in vast emptiness, sometimes appearing in dust, is the Buddha Treasure. Sometimes revolving sutras and sometimes revolving the oceanic storehouse, guiding inanimate things and guiding animate things, is the Dharma Treasure. And freed from all suffering and liberated from the house of the Three Worlds is called the Sangha Treasure. This is what we take refuge in. These Three Treasures are the universe itself. They are the totality of the environment and oneself.

Next are the Three Pure Precepts. The first of the Three Pure Precepts is not creating evil. This is based on the assumption that there is an inherent purity and goodness in the universe. Actually, there is neither goodness nor badness, neither good nor evil. These polarities don’t exist until we create them. This precept is saying that not creating evil is the abiding place of all Buddhas, the source of all Buddhas. The second of the Three Pure Precepts is practicing good. Not to create evil means not to get involved in any activity that is going to give rise to evil. Although from the absolute perspective, there is neither good nor evil, every activity is going to create some consequence in the world of phenomena. The minute there is action, either good or evil comes up. So, do not let evil come up, but rather practice good. This is the Dharma of samyaksambodhi, the way of all beings. The third of the Three Pure Precepts is actualizing good for others. This is to transcend the profane and go beyond the holy, to liberate oneself and others. The Three Pure Precepts are a definition of harmony in an inherently perfect universe, a universe that is totally interpenetrated, codependent, and mutually arising. But the question is, how do we accomplish that perfection?

The Ten Grave Precepts point that out. Looking at the Ten Grave Precepts in terms of how we relate to our environment is a step in the direction of appreciating the continuous, subtle and vital role we play in the well-being of this planet – a beginning of taking responsibility for the whole catastrophe.

The First Grave Precept is affirm life – do not kill. What does it mean to kill the environment? It’s the worst kind of killing. We are decimating many species. There is no way that these life forms can ever return to the earth. The vacuum their absence creates cannot be filled in any other way, and such a vacuum affects everything else in the ecosystem, no matter how infinitesimally small it is. We are losing species by the thousands every year – the last of their kind on the face of this great Earth. And because someone in South America is doing it, that doesn’t mean we’re not responsible. We’re as responsible as if we are the one who clubs an infant seal or burns a hectare of tropical forest. It is as if we were squeezing the life out of ourselves. Killing the lakes with acid rain. Dumping chemicals into the rivers so that they cannot support any life. Polluting our skies so our children choke on the air they breath. Life is non killing. The seed of the Buddha grows continuously. Maintain the wisdom life of Buddha and do not kill life.

The Second Grave Precept is be giving – do not steal. Do not steal means not to rape the Earth. To take away from the insentient is stealing. The mountain suffers when you clear-cut it. Clear cutting is stealing the habitat of the animals that live on the mountain. When we over-cut, streams become congested with the sediments that wash off the mountain slopes. This is stealing the life of the fish that live in the river, of the birds that come to feed on the fish, of the mammals that come to feed on the birds. Be giving, do not steal. The mind and externals are just thus, the gate of liberation is open.

The Third Grave Precept is honor the body – do not misuse sexuality. Honor the body of Nature. When we begin to interfere with the natural order of things, when we begin to engineer the genetics of viruses and bacteria, plants and animals, we throw the whole ecological balance off. Our technological meddling affects the totality of the universe and there are karmic consequences to that. The three wheels: body, mind and mouth; greed, anger and ignorance are pure and clean. Nothing is desired. Go the same way as the Buddha, do not misuse sexuality.

The Fourth Grave Precept is manifest truth – do not lie. One of the very common kinds of lying that is popular these days is called green-washing. Green-washing is like whitewashing – it pretends to be ecologically sound and politically correct. You hear Monsanto Chemical Company tell us how wonderful they are and how sensitive they are to the environment. Exxon tells us the same thing. The plastic manufacturers tell us the same thing. Part of what they are saying is true. You couldn’t have a special pump for failing hearts without plastic. You couldn’t have an oxygen tent without plastic. Sure, fine, thank you. But stop making plastic cups and plates that are not biodegradable and are filling up the dumps. Another kind of lying is the lying that we do to ourselves about our own actions. We go off into the woods, and rather than take the pains to haul out the non-biodegradable stuff that we haul in, we hide it. We sink the beer cans, bury the cellophane wrappings under a root. We know we have done it, but we act as though it didn’t happen. Gain the essence and realize the truth. Manifest it and do not lie.

The Fifth Grave Precept is proceed clearly – do not cloud the mind. Do not cloud the mind with greed, do not cloud the mind with denial. It is greed that is one of the major underlying causes of pollution. We can solve all the problems. We have all the resources to do it. We can deal with our garbage, we can deal with world hunger, we can deal with the pollution that comes out of the smokestacks. We have the technology to do it, but it is going to cost a lot of money, which means that there will be less profit. I f there is less profit, people will have to make do with a little bit less, and our greed won’t let us do that. Proceed clearly, do not cloud the mind with greed.

The Sixth Grave Precept is see the perfection – do not speak of others errors and faults. For years we have manicured nature because in our opinion nature didn’t know how to do things. That manicuring continues right here, on the shores of our river. We have concluded that the river is wrong. It erodes the banks and floods the lowlands. It needs to be controlled. So, we take all the curves out of it, line the banks with stone, and turn it into a pipeline. This effectively removes all the protective space that the water birds use to reproduce in, and the places where the fish go to find shelter when the water rises. Then the first time there is a spring storm the ducks’ eggs and the fish wash downstream into the Ashokan Reservoir and the river is left barren. Or we think there are too many deer, so we perform controlled genocide. Or the wolves kill all the livestock, so we kill the wolves. Every time we get rid of one of species we create an incomprehensible impact and traumatize the whole environment. The scenario changes and we come up with another solution. We call this process wildlife management. What is this notion of wildlife management? See the perfection, do not speak of nature’s errors and faults.

The Seventh Grave Precept is realize self and other as one – do not elevate the self and put down others. Do not elevate the self and put down nature. We hold a human-centered notion of the nature of the universe and the nature of the environment. We believe God put us in charge, and we live out that belief. The Bible confirms that for us. We live as though the universe were spinning around us with man at the center of the whole picture. We are convinced that the multitude of things are there to serve us, and so we take without any sense of giving. That is elevating the self and putting down nature. In this universe, where everything is interpenetrated, codependent and mutually arising, nothing stands out above anything else. We are inextricably linked and nobody is in charge. The universe is self-maintaining. Buddhas and ancestors realize the absolute emptiness and realize the great earth. When the great body is manifested there is neither inside or outside. When the Dharma body is manifested there is not even a single square inch of earth on which to stand. It swallows it. Realize self and other as one. Do not elevate the self and put down nature.

The Eighth Grave Precept is give generously – do not be withholding. We should understand that giving and receiving are one. If we really need something from nature, we should vow to return something to nature. We are dependent on nature, no question about it. But there is a difference between recognizing dependency and entering it consciously and gratefully, and being greedy. Native Americans lived amidst the plenty of nature for thousands of years. They fed on the buffalo when they needed that type of sustenance. We nearly brought that species to extinction in two short decades. It wasn’t for food. Tens of thousands of carcasses rotted while we took the skins. It is the same with our relationship to elephants, seals, alligators, and countless others. Our killing has nothing to do with survival. It has nothing to do with need. It has to do with greed. Give generously, do not be withholding.

The Ninth Grave Precept is actualize harmony – do not be angry. Assertive, pointed action can be free of anger. We can fence the deer out of our garden and prevent them from eating our vegetables without hating the deer. Also, by simply being patient and observing the natural cycles we can avoid unnecessary headaches and emotional outbreaks. Usually we will discover that the things we think get in the way are really not in the way. When the gypsy moths descended in swarms one year and ate all the leaves off the trees so that in the middle of June the mountain looked like it was late fall, the local community got hysterical. We made an all-out attack. Planes came daily and sprayed the slopes with chemicals. People put tar on the bases of trees to trap the caterpillars. The gypsy moths simply climbed up, got stuck in the tar and piled up so others could crawl across the backs of the dead ones and went up the trees to do what they needed to do. Amidst all of these disasters, with the leaves gone and the shrubbery out of the shade, the mountain laurel bloomed like it had never bloomed before. I had no idea we had so much mountain laurel on this mountain. However, the gypsy moths definitely damaged the trees. The weak trees died. By the time July came around, there were new leaves on the trees, and the mountain was green again. But the anger and the hate we felt during those spring months was debilitating and amazing. The air was filled with it.

In another incident, the fellow who owned the house that is now the monastery abbacy had beavers on his property. They were eating up his trees so he decided to exterminate them. A neighbor told him that they were protected, so he called the DEC. The rangers trapped and removed the animals. When we moved into the house, however, a pair of beavers showed up and immediately started taking down the trees again. In fact, they chomped down a beautiful weeping willow that my students presented to me as a gift. I was supposed to sit under it in my old age, but now it was stuck in a beaver dam, blocking up the stream. With the stream dammed, the water rose and the pond filled with fish. With the abundance of fish, ducks arrived. That brought in the fox and the osprey. Suddenly the whole environment came alive because of those two beavers. Of course, they didn’t stay too long because we didn’t have that much wood, so after two seasons they moved on. Nobody was taking care of the dam. The water leaked out and the pond disappeared. It will be like that until the trees grow back and the next pair of beavers arrive. If we can just keep our fingers out of it and let things unfold, nature knows how to maintain itself. It creates itself and defines itself, as does the universe. And, by the way, the weeping willow came back, sprouted again right from the stump. It leans over the pond watching me go through my cycles these days.

The Tenth Grave Precept is experience the intimacy of things – do not defile the Three Treasures. To defile is to separate. The Three Treasures is this body and the body of the universe, and when we separate ourselves from ourselves, and from the universe, we defile the Three Treasures.

To practice the Precepts is to be in harmony with your life and the universe. To practice the Precepts means to be conscious of what they are about – not just on the surface, but on many levels, plummeting the depths of the Precepts. It means being deeply honest with yourself. When you become aware you have drifted away from the Precepts just acknowledge that fact. That acknowledgment means to take responsibility for your life; taking responsibility plays a key role in our practice. If you don’t practice taking responsibility you are not practicing. It is as simple as that. There is nobody checking when you are doing zazen whether you’re letting go of your thoughts or sticking with them. It has to do with your own honesty and integrity. Only you know what you are doing with your mind. It is the same with the Precepts. Only you know when you have actually violated a precept. And only you can be at one with that violation, can atone. To be at one with it means to take responsibility. To take responsibility means to acknowledge yourself as the master of your life. To take responsibility empowers you to do something about whatever it is that’s hindering you. As long as we blame, as long as we avoid or deny, we are removed from the realm of possibility and power to do something about our lives. We become totally dependent upon the ups and downs that we create around us. There is no reason that we should be subjected to anything when we have the power to see that we create and we destroy all things. To acknowledge that simple fact is to take possession of the Precepts. It is to make the Precepts your own. It is to give life to the Buddha, this great earth, and the universe itself.

Posted in Buddhism, Buddhist Monk, Counsciousness, Environment, Extinction of Species, John Daido Loori, Love of the Beautiful, Spirituality And Environment, The Rights of Nature, Uncategorized, Zen | Tagged Buddhist Precepts, Environment & Spirituality, Environment Responsbility, John Daido Loori, Precepts and Environment, The Ten Grave Precepts, Universal Oneness | 14 Comments

OUR SHORTSIGTHED WORLDVIEW, CULTURE SHAPE MADNESS, ANCIENT COSMOLOGY, DAVID FIDELER ON PHYTAGORAS

Posted on September 8, 2014 by theburningheart

Who’ll tell me my secret,

The ages have kept?

I awaited the seer

While they slumbered and slept…

“The fate of the man-child;

The meaning of man;

Known fruit of the unknown;

Daedalian plan;

Out of sleeping a waking,

Out of waking a sleep;

Life death overtaking;

Deep underneath deep?

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The hubris of our contemporary civilization is the belief that never in the world has existed a time better than our own, of course the only reason we can uphold such a statement it’s by our ignorance, and the shortsightedness of our weltanschauung (encompassing World view a philosophy or view of life; the worldview of an individual or group.) who is happy for the simple conveniences of life, like automated anything, and everything like a calculus machine that can do complicated arithmetic’s meanwhile we conveniently forget how to add or multiply, or the fact that more and more people it’s dependent on ready meals, that you pop on the microwave, and little by little forget, or never learn how to cook a good meal from scratch, thousand of examples come to my mind, but it will be useless to enumerate them, too much time consuming, and after all what we seek it’s saving time, shorten the instant we will receive gratification to the satisfaction of our desires, with the minimum of effort, and cost on our consuming part of the bargain, ignoring conveniently the labor, of others, and the real cost that entitles, not only in money, but in the destruction of our environment, the suffering of many other people on third World countries, were labor it’s so cheap that it’s more convenient to freeze fish caught by Scottish fishermen in the North Atlantic, send it in a boat to China, clean, and fillet it there paying very little for it, freeze it back, and send it back to Europe for consumption, saving on wages, that produce unemployment in Scotland, plus pollution all around the World, If that is progress, well I hate to be the bearer of bad news to you, but if I don’t it will defeat the purpose of you knowing the truth, about what is very important to be aware, since our future depends on it, sorry if I spoil your diner!

We posses a lot more than we did in the past, but we are not happy and never have enough, we eat more than we ever did yet we suffer of all kind of degenerative ailments, and overweight because of it, we travel at will only limited by your funds, and time available, you can be in Beijing in 11 hours and 45 minutes if you are in Venice Italy, something that would astonish Marco Polo and his father, and uncle who reached it after 3 and a half years!Not to talk you can be connected in seconds trough telephone or a computer.

Despite the numerous advantages you can cite, and they are many, we ignore what we have lost, and in my opinion weights on our future a lot more of what we have gained, which it is basically more comfort, and goods at the expense of ruining our environment, our health (based on our actual physical wellbeing, like being fit and in shape, not in our ability to fill a diabetic prescription that would keep you alive).

Gary Greenberg’s on Joel and Ian Gold on Suspicious minds how Culture Shapes madness

We not have lost our physical health, but our mental health here we have some excerpts that appeared in the NY Times.

“Joel Gold first observed the Truman Show delusion — in which people believe they are the involuntary subjects of a reality television show whose producers are scripting the vicissitudes of their lives — on Halloween night 2003 at Bellevue Hospital, where he was the chief attending psychiatrist. “Suspicious Minds,” which he wrote with his brother, Ian, an associate professor of philosophy and psychology at McGill University, is an attempt to use this delusion, which has been observed by many clinicians, to pose questions that have gone out of fashion in psychiatry over the last half-century: Why does a mentally ill person have the delusions he or she has? And, following the lead of the medical historian Roy Porter, who once wrote that “every age gets the lunatics it deserves,” what can we learn about ourselves and our times from examining the content of madness?

The Golds’ answer is a dual broadside: against a psychiatric profession that has become infatuated with neuroscience as part of its longstanding attempt to establish itself as “real medicine,” and against a culture that has become too networked for its own good. Current psychiatric practice is to treat delusions as the random noise generated by a malfunctioning (and mindless) brain — a strategy that would be more convincing if doctors had a better idea of how the brain produced madness and how to cure it. According to the Golds, ignoring the content of delusions like T.S.D. can only make mentally ill people feel more misunderstood, even as it distracts the rest of us from the true significance of the delusion: that we live in a society that has put us all under surveillance. T.S.D. sufferers may be paranoid, but that does not mean they are wrong to think the whole world is watching.

Having replaced, or at least augmented, neurobiological accounts of the mind with evolutionary and cognitive accounts, the Golds set the stage for considering what biological psychiatry has elided in its rush to reduce mental illness to brain dysfunction: the environment as a causal factor in mental breakdown. They note that the psychiatric disorders in which delusions play a role are more common in cities than in rural areas, which indicates that the more relationships one has to negotiate, the more likely the navigational apparatus is to break down. And, they point out, Internet-enabled cameras and cellphones, not to mention National Security Agency snooping, have turned the entire world into a single, if virtual, city and “a bizarre delusion about being watched into a sober worry.” Mass culture has become a “Panopticon of the 21st century”; we have achieved through technology what Jeremy Bentham’s infamous prison design tried to achieve by architecture — an arrangement in which inmates must always assume they are being watched. People with T.S.D. are those who, for whatever reason, are uniquely sensitive to the resulting loss of privacy. They are, in other words, the canaries in the data mines of the surveillance society.”

The Wisdom of The Ancients

But above all our loss our capacity to be one with our environment, and wise on the ways of Nature, most of us I dare to say we are not even aware we live artificial lives sustained by our technology, lives, that soon would come to an end if our society would suddenly collapse due to many factors, like wars, famine, or other natural disasters we have no control, ironically our indigenous communities around the world have a better chance of survival than we supposedly educated, and cultured individuals, for them things can get a little harsher than usual, but they are well equipped to deal with such contingencies. What passes as a wise man of today, are not wise at all, most them know a lot, but of very little, and ignore lot, gone it’s the ideal of a Renaissance man who would encompass all knowledge, an impossible thing today, but I will be happy with men/women with wisdom. In our search to dig in the structure of matter we have lost our ability to look at the heavens. And what I mean by that it’s just not only the physical facts of traveling outside of the city lights and look at the heavens like an astronomer, but to the fact we have lost our Myths, with first Christianity who persecuted the pagans, but also the Enlightenment, and modernism who discarded Spirit, ancient Religions wrongly named Mythology now days, possessed a holistic view of the World and the Universe, were all the aspects related to Nature and Man were integrated in to their World View and were capable to see the whole picture rather than just the details, as our shortsighted World View does now, were the sciences and the arts belong to the specialist, not to the common individual, and even our so called specialist, with few exceptions, are incapable of linking Music with Architecture, or Mathematics with any of the seven arts, or Astronomy with psychology, or agriculture, or religion, I could go on, and on giving examples of this sort of links between the sciences, the arts, the crafts, medicine, metallurgy, gemology, and many other obscure branches of knowledge the ancient cultivated since for them no phenomena was outside of their Cosmological World View, and everything was related by analogy, the base of Theurgy.

Theurgy (from Greek θεουργία) describes the practice of rituals, sometimes seen as magical in nature, performed with the intention of invoking the action or evoking the presence of one or more gods, especially with the goal of uniting with the divine, achieving Henosis, (Mystical Oneness, Unity) and perfecting oneself.

We have been diminish by our success, we live a life fragmented, disconnected, and most of the time devoid of meaning, and purposeless, yet in fear, and anxiety, searching for whims, and momentary pleasures to drown our sorrows, and existential voids chasing childish empty, and illusory dreams, mostly too crass, and materialistic in nature to bring real joy, peace and fulfillment to our subjective self, that the ancients used to call soul.

Ancient men were connected to the cycles of heaven by watching the stars, unlike today were we do rarely rise our heads to the night sky to be fill with awe, wonder, knowledge, and wisdom…

David Fideler on Pythagoras Cosmovision

The universe is a kosmos, because it is perfect and “adorned” with infinite beauty and

living beings.

—Pythagoras

In a living cosmovision, the world is luminous and transparent. It radiates a divine beauty in which we are embedded. In the modern world, however, a great confusion has arisen about beauty. We see it as subjective, “in the eye of the beholder,” or as culture-specific, rather than seeing it as an objective quality of nature. Under the spell of materialism and the quest for efficiency, the world grows increasingly heavy and opaque. We are surrounded by the beauty of nature on every side, but fail to see it. And when we have become anesthetized to the beauty of the world, the world itself becomes exploitable—just “a natural resource” for human consumption. If we could come out of our protective, closed-down cocoons and once again see the world with unclouded vision and appreciation, we would treat it with reverence and realize that beauty reveals a deep and essential aspect of the cosmic pattern. While our human tastes are certainly in some ways individual and culture-specific, beauty itself is rooted in the deep structure of the world.

By destroying the beauty of nature in the name of economic growth, we are destroying our most vital link with the depths of the cosmic pattern. In terms of our evolutionary heritage we emerged from the beautiful, organic harmonies of the world fabric, but when we no longer have direct access to the organic harmonies of living nature something of our own nature is lost or forgotten. As the biologist Gregory Bateson pointed out, the aesthetic unity of nature reveals an ultimate unifying pattern far deeper than the findings of quantitative science can describe. He also wrote that the lost sense of this aesthetic unity—the common possession Beauty, Desire, and the Soul of the World of all traditional peoples—is one of the most serious failings of the modern world.

By entering into a deep experience of nature’s beauty, we are able to experience directly the vital patterns and organic harmonies that connect flowers, starfish, and galaxies, and our own human lives with the greater tapestry of the living universe. As Goethe wrote,“The beautiful is a manifestation of secret laws of Nature, which, but for this appearance, had been forever concealed from us.”

Ultimately, the beauty that we can perceive directly at all levels of existence and scale reveals the whole of nature to be an organically interconnected and comprehensive unity.

The Greek word kosmos cannot be translated in to a single English word,but refers to an equal presence of order and beauty. When the Greek philosopher Pythagoras first called the universe a kosmos, he did so because it is a living embodiment of nature’s order, beauty, and harmony.

The fact that the physical world embodies beauty and harmony can be demonstrated in many ways, but rational proof is only required when we have forgotten our own connection with the underlying fabric of life. When we can view the exquisite grandeur of a forest, mountain range, or the form of a distant galaxy with a clear and untroubled heart, the beauty and harmony of the universe becomes immediately obvious—not through argument, but through direct perception. As William Blake wrote, “If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”

In this sense, the perception of the world’s deep, intrinsic beauty and harmony was the starting point of ancient science and philosophy. In the vision of the ancient philosophers, the universe itself was seen as an embodiment of beauty, which is itself a manifestation of value.

Hence Pythagoras (570–496 b.c.) called the universe cosmos— a “beautiful order” — and explained that the world-structure arises from harmony or the “fitting together” of different elements through proportional relationships.

We can see the patterns of harmony reflected in the structure of galaxies, trees, snowflakes,the deeply elegant forms of living creatures,and the proportions of the human body. In the harmonic structure of the living universe, all the individual parts fit together to make up the greater whole.

For Pythagoras there could be no separation between science and religion or between the worlds of fact and value. The cosmos reflects a universal order, which is a fact, but is also an embodiment of beauty,which is a manifestation of value. Fact and value are not opposed,but two interrelated aspects of the same pattern, because it is from nature’s organic order that the beauty of the world arises. The cosmos is a living unity in which all things are related through kinship, harmony, proportion, and sympathy. Referring to the teachings of the Pythagoreans, Plato wrote that “the wise men say that one community embraces heaven and earth and gods and men and friendship and order and temperance and righteousness, and for this reason they call this whole a cosmos, my friend, for it is not without order nor yet is there excess.”

Or, in the words of another ancient writer, “there is a certain community uniting us not only with each other and with the gods but even with the brute creation. There is in fact one breath pervading the whole cosmos like soul, and uniting us with them.”

Posted in A World in Crisis, Ancient Civilizations, Ancient Religions, Being, Consciousness, Cosmology, Counsciousness, Crisis of Values, Education, End of materialism, Environment, Future, History, Holistic View, Indigenous Cultures, Madness, Materialism, Mental Health, Myth, Mythology, New Values, Pythagoras, Specialization, Theurgy, Uncategorized, Weltanschauung, World View | Tagged Ancient Religions, Cosmology, Culture Shapes Madness, Cycles of Heaven, David Fideler, Joel Gold, Kosmos, Materialism, Myth, Pythagoras, Theurgy, World View | 33 Comments

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS ON THE KILLING OF ANIMALS, IDEAL KOSHER PRACTICES, DIVERSE RELIGIOUS VIEWS, AND ATHEISTS ON VEGETARIANISM

Posted on August 10, 2014 by theburningheart

“The blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh.”

Deuteronomy 12:23-24

The Torah gives precise details on how animals are to be sacrificed

and slaughtered (shechita). According to Rabbis Shlomo Ephraim Luntschitz

and Abraham Isaac Kook the complexity of these laws were intended to

discourage the consumption of meat. Kashrut may also be designed to remind

Jews of the magnitude of the task undertaken in killing a living being.

Peter Singer Ethical considerations for Vegetarianism

“The case for vegetarianism is at its strongest when we see it as a moral protest against our use of animals as mere things, to be exploited for our convenience in whatever way makes them most cheaply available to us. Only the tiniest fraction of the tens of billions of farm animals slaughtered for food each year—the figure for the United States alone is nine billion—were treated during their lives in ways that respected their interests. Questions about the wrongness of killing in itself are not relevant to the moral issue of eating meat or eggs from factory-farmed animals, as most people in developed countries do. Even when animals are roaming freely over large areas, as sheep and cattle do in Australia, operations like hot-iron branding, castration, and dehorning are carried out without any regard for the animals’ capacity to suffer. The same is true of handling and transport prior to slaughter. In the light of these facts, the issue to focus on is not whether there are some circumstances in which it could be right to eat meat, but on what we can do to avoid contributing to this immense amount of animal suffering.

The answer is to boycott all meat and eggs produced by large-scale commercial methods of animal production, and encourage others to do the same. Consideration for the interests of animals alone is enough justification for this response, but the case is further strengthened by the environmental problems that the meat industry causes. Although Mr. Justice Bell found that the allegations directed at McDonald’s regarding its contribution to the destruction of rain forests were not true, the meat industry as a whole can take little comfort from that, because Bell accepted evidence that cattle-ranching, particularly in Brazil, had contributed to the clearing of vast areas of rain forest. The problem for David Morris and Helen Steel was that they did not convince the judge that the meat used by McDonald’s came from these regions. So the meat industry as a whole remains culpable for the loss of rain forest and for all the con sequences of that, from global warming to the deaths of indigenous people fighting to defend their way of life.

Environmentalists are increasingly recognizing that the choice of what we eat is an environmental issue. Animals raised in sheds or on feedlots eat grains or soybeans, and they use most of the food value of these products simply in order to maintain basic functions and develop unpalatable parts of the body like bones and skin. To convert eight or nine kilos of grain protein into a single kilo of animal protein wastes land, energy, and water. On a crowded planet with a growing human population, that is a luxury that we are becoming increasingly unable to afford.

Intensive animal production is a heavy user of fossil fuels and a major source of pollution of both air and water. It releases large quantities of methane and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We are risking unpredictable changes to the climate of our planet—which means, ultimately, the lives of billions of people, not to mention the extinction of untold thousands of species of plants and animals unable to cope with changing conditions—for the sake of more hamburgers. A diet heavy in animal products, catered to by intensive animal production, is a disaster for animals, the environment, and the health of those who eat it.”

Kosher Laws and Vegetarianism

Jewish vegetarianism is the belief that following a vegetarian diet is implied in the Torah While it is neither required nor prohibited for Jews to eat meat, a number of medieval scholars of Judaism, such as Joseph Albo and Isaac Arama, regard vegetarianism as a moral ideal, not just out of a concern for animal welfare but also the slaughterer. Jewish vegetarians also cite health and environmental reasons for adopting a plant-based diet.

The Jewish Dietary Laws recognze that shehitah (ritual slaughter) and kashrut (the dietary laws) represent the fundamental principle that while the eating of meat is permitted, “, ..we must learn,” in Dresner’s words, “to have reverence for the life we take. ” Pinchas Peli puts it this way:

Accordingly, the laws of kashrut come to teach us that a Jew should prefer a vegetarian meaL. If however one cannot control a craving for meat, it should be kosher meat, which would serve as a reminder that the animal being eaten is a creature of God, that the death of such a creature cannot be taken lightly, that hunting for sport is forbidden, that we cannot treat any living thing callously, and that we are responsible for what happens to other
beings (human or animal) even if we did not personally come into contact with them.

This interpretation of vegetarianism as an ideal is a well-established view in Jewish tradition.The Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 59b) as well as many commentators, including Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Nachmanides, and Cassuto, make note of the fact that the permission to eat meat after th3 flood (Genesis 9:3) is a distinct departure from the original vegetarian diet which was intended for all creatures, including man and woman (Genesis 1 :29-30).Nachmanides, Cassuto, and others share the view, which is elaborated upon by Rav Kook, that the permission to eat meat was granted as a concession to human weakness and imperfection. And interpreters of Jewish practice from Maimonides, in the Guide of the Perplexed,9 to Dresner (The Jewish Dietary Laws) recognize that shehitah (ritual slaughter) and kashrut (the dietary laws) represent the fundamental principle that while the eating of meat is permitted, “, ..we must learn,” in Dresner’s words, “to have reverence for the life we take. “

A Dialogue Between a Jewish Vegetarian Activist and a Rabbi

Rabbi: I would be happy to discuss this with you. But, I hope that you are aware that Judaism does permit the eating of meat. Some scholars feel that it is obligatory to eat meat on Shabbat and holidays.

JVA: Yes, I recognize that Judaism permits people to eat meat. Jewish vegetarians do not argue that Jews must be vegetarians. We recognize that people have a choice, but we feel that this choice should consider basic Jewish teachings and how animal-based diets and modern intensive livestock agriculture impinge on these teachings. For example, we should recognize the current and increasing tension between the permission to consume animals for human benefit and the extremely cruel treatment they now receive in preparation for such consumption on factory farms, which have become more prevalent in response to population increase and efficiency and cost concerns. With regard to eating meat on Shabbat and holidays, according to the Talmud (T. B. Pesachim 109a), since the destruction of the Temple, Jews are not required to eat meat in order to rejoice on sacred occasions. This view is reinforced in the works Reshit Chochmah and Kerem Shlomo and Rabbi Chizkiah Medini’s Sdei Chemed, which cites many classical sources on the subject. Several Israeli chief rabbis, including Shlomo Goren, late Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel, and Shear Yashuv Cohen, Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Haifa, have been or are vegetarians. Also, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom is a vegetarian, as is Rabbi David Rosen, former Chief Rabbi of Ireland.

Rabbi: we also should recognize that there is much in the Torah and the Talmud about which animals are kosher and about the proper way to slaughter animals. So eating meat is certainly not foreign to Judaism.

VJA: Yes, that is certainly true. But, there is also much in the Torah and our other sacred writings that point to vegetarianism as the ideal Jewish diet. For example, as the Torah verse below indicates, God’s initial intention was that people be vegetarians.

And God said: “Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree that has seed-yielding fruit — to you it shall be for food.” Genesis 1:29

The foremost Jewish Torah commentator, Rashi, states the following about God’s first dietary plan: “God did not permit Adam and his wife to kill a creature to eat its flesh. Only every green herb were they to all eat together.” Most Torah commentators, including Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra, Maimonides, Nachmanides, and Rabbi Joseph Albo, agree with Rashi.

In addition, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook, first Chief Rabbi of pre-state Israel and a major Jewish 20th century writer and philosopher, believed that the messianic period would also be vegetarian. He based this on Isaiah’s powerful prophecy that “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, … the lion shall eat straw like the ox…. and no one shall hurt nor destroy in all of God’s holy mountain… (Isaiah 11:6-9). Hence the two idea times in Jewish thought – the Garden of Eden and the messianic period – are vegetarian.

Almost every religion has a group(s) who follow a vegetarian diet, I will not go on detail, otherwise this post would be a book.

Vegetarianism is strongly linked with a number of religions that originated in ancient India (Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism). In Jainism, vegetarianism is mandatory for everyone; in Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism, it is advocated by some influential scriptures and religious authorities. Comparatively, in the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) and in Sikhism, vegetarianism is not promoted by mainstream authorities, although in all these faiths there are small groups actively promoting vegetarianism on religious grounds.

Hinduism

Hindu scriptures belong or refer to the Vedic period which lasted till about 500 BCE according to the chronological division by modern historians. In the historical Vedic religion, the predecessor of Hinduism, meat eating was not banned in principle, but was restricted by specific rules. Several highly authoritative scriptures bar violence against domestic animals except in the case of ritual sacrifice. This view is clearly expressed in the Mahabharata (3.199.11-12; 13.115; 13.116.26; 13.148.17), the Bhagavata Purana (11.5.13-14), and the Chandogya Upanishad (8.15.1). For instance, many Hindus point to the Mahabharata’s maxim that “Nonviolence is the highest duty and the highest teaching,” as advocating a vegetarian diet. It is also reflected in the Manu Smriti (5.27-44), a particularly renowned traditional Hindu law book (Dharmaśāstra). These texts strongly condemn the slaughter of animals and meat eating.

The Mahabharata (12.260; 13.115-116; 14.28) and the Manu Smriti (5.27-55) contain lengthy discussions about the legitimacy of ritual slaughter and subsequent consumption of the meat. In the Mahabharata both meat eaters and vegetarians present various arguments to substantiate their viewpoints. Apart from the debates about domestic animals, there is also a long discourse by a hunter in defence of hunting and meat eating. These texts show that both ritual slaughter and hunting were challenged by advocates of universal non-violence and their acceptability was doubtful and a matter of dispute

Essential scriptural evidence

“What need there be said of those innocent and healthy creatures endued with love of life, when they are sought to be slain by sinful wretches subsisting by slaughter? For this reason, O monarch, know that the discarding of meat is the highest refuge of religion, of heaven, and of happiness. Abstention from injury is the highest religion. It is, again, the highest penance. It is also the highest truths from which all duty proceeds. Flesh cannot be had from grass or wood or stone. Unless a living creature is slain, it cannot be had. Hence is the fault in eating flesh… That man who abstains from meat, is never put in fear, O king, by any creature. All creatures seek his protection. He never causes any anxiety in others, and himself has never to become anxious. If there were nobody who ate flesh there would then be nobody to kill living creatures. The man who kills living creatures kill them for the sake of the person who eats flesh. If flesh were regarded as inedible, there would then be no slaughter of living creatures. It is for the sake of the eater that the slaughter of living creatures goes on in the world. Since, O thou of great splendor, the period of life is shortened of persons who slaughter living creatures or cause them to be slaughtered, it is clear that the person who wishes his own good should give up meat entirely… The purchaser of flesh performs himsa[violence] by his wealth; he who eats flesh does so by enjoying its taste; the killer does himsa by actually tying and killing the animal. Thus, there are three forms of killing. He who brings flesh or sends for it, he who cuts off the limbs of an animal, and he who purchases, sells, or cooks flesh and eats it—all of these are to be considered meat-eaters.” (Mahabharata 13.115)

“Those sinful persons who are ignorant of actual religious principles, yet consider themselves to be completely pious, without compunction commit violence against innocent animals who are fully trusting in them. In their next lives, such sinful persons will be eaten by the same creatures they have killed in this world.” (Bhagavata Purana 11.5.14)

“A person fully aware of religious principles should never offer anything like meat, eggs or fish in the Sraddha ceremony, and even if one is a Kshatriya (warrior), he himself should not eat such things.” (Bhagavata Purana 7.15.7)

Atheism

And last but not the least Atheist and vegetarianism excerpts:

“I became atheist in 2003. It wasn’t until a saw a video of factory farms and slaughterhouses that I stopped eating animal flesh in 2004, and made the logical step to go vegan in 2005.

Even though I was never very religious growing up (I went to a Catholic church on Christmas and Easter with my mom and sister while my dad stayed home), I think atheism helped me see that it was wrong to eat, wear, and otherwise exploit animals. As an atheist, it was easy for me to reject the supernatural belief in a species hierarchy and instead view the human species as merely one animal among many in the animal kingdom.

I see atheism and veganism as separate, but I definitely think a move to atheism across human society will help free minds of speciesism and affect a shift towards veganism.”

Brandon Becker

“My regard for animals does not derive from my regard towards any god or religion, or the lack thereof. My compassion and passion for things in life derives from the simple fact that I am not an asshole and that even though I don’t believe in heaven after I die, I still strive to be the most foremost person that I can be.

I became a vegan before I realized I was a free-thinker. Vegans and atheists believe in a lot of different things, but wow, how we believe is so much the same! We are both non-conformist. We go against what society has deemed “social norm,” and what they see is correct or acceptable. Vegans and atheists need hard facts. We don’t believe in things because someone tells us to. We need hard proof of new ideas presented to us. And even then, we are going to need some more convincing. Vegans and atheists also share strange ‘askews’ in the picture society has painted us to be. Just as all Atheists aren’t goth, dark depressed people, neither are vegans all granola-eating hippies living in the woods in yurts.

Vegans and atheists tend to have louder voices in the crowd. We have to have bigger voices to let our smaller message to the world to be heard. Every day we are further pushing the boundaries of the First Amendment, and it’s exciting.”

Meggan Anderson

“At some point growing up, I recognized that the stories and rituals surrounding the supernatural being that I was taught to worship as a Jew simply felt unnatural and contrived. I have been critically questioning religion in general ever since.

How does this relate to veganism? I think it’s obvious.

For the majority of my life I had no idea that the food I ate had any backstory whatsoever. I simply never thought about it. Just as religious parents feed stories and scripture to their children, my parents fed me animal products for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It was simply the norm in my culture, just like believing in a supernatural being. When I met my wife, she showed me that in fact the food I was consuming did not appear magically, but actually came from somewhere. She showed me the truth about factory farming and I discovered that I was literally paying corporations to cause enormous amounts of suffering to billions of my nonhuman fellow earthlings.

I self-reflected. I chose to apply the most basic definition of morality to my life, and have since been committed to a vegan lifestyle. Simply put, without god or religion defining right from wrong, all I needed were facts to commit to the lowest possible bar of morality – not contributing to torture.”

Avi Brown

“There are countless ways both atheism and living vegan inform each other and there are important parallels with both for me too.

The first is that one can live a perfectly happy, healthy, fulfilling life without eating animals or without ever believing in a supernatural being who listens to one’s prayers and cares who we might sleep with.

The second parallel is that neither veganism nor atheism is part of a belief system. To live vegan or as an atheist, no dogma whatsoever can be embraced. Rather, both veganism and atheism are rejections of irrational, sometimes very dangerous and harmful belief systems themselves. In this context religion and speciesism are nearly identical twins. There’s nothing about living vegan one has to believe in to realize it’s wrong to kill someone for the mere taste of his or her flesh. There’s nothing an atheist has to believe in to go through their normal day without including Allah in their thoughts.

The third parallel really shows how being an atheist and living vegan are two peas in the same pod. This can be noticed in our daily interactions where we seem able to criticize a person’s belief on any subject we want, except…two. We can’t criticize someone’s personal beliefs about God, or their complicity in exploiting or killing non-human animals for pleasure. Which, of course, includes eating them. The fact is that it remains absolutely taboo in nearly every area of society to question someone’s religious faith or to criticize their omnivorous behavior. Those who do are accused of being self-righteous, insensitive, rude, or un-American. Both of these subjects remain completely off-limits for criticism, and this has terrible consequences.”

Philip Steir

Posted in Animal cruelty, Atheism, Biblical Studies, Buddhism, Environment, Garden of Eden, Hinduism, Kosher Laws, Philosophy, Religion, Sanatana Dharma, Suffering, The Rights of Nature, Uncategorized, Vegetarianism | Tagged Animal cruelty, Kosher Laws, The industrial slaughter machine, The rights of animals, Towards a new eating consciousness, Vegetarian Atheists, Vegetarianism | 64 Comments

SCIENCE AND TELEOLOGY, MIND AND COSMOS THOMAS NAGEL’S CHALLENGE TO SCIENTIST, AND ARETE

Posted on July 11, 2014 by theburningheart

Imagine not being able to distinguish the real cause,

from that without which the cause would not be able to act,

as a cause. It is what the majority appear to do,

like people groping in the dark; they call it a cause,

thus giving it a name that does not belong to it.

That is why one man surrounds the earth with a vortex to make the

heavens keep it in place, another makes the air support it like a wide lid.

As for their capacity of being in the best place they could be at this

very time, this they do not look for, nor do they believe it to have

any divine force, but they believe that they will some time discover a

stronger and more immortal Atlas to hold everything together more,

and they do not believe that the truly good and ‘binding’ binds

and holds them together.

—Plato, Phaedo 99

TELEOLOGY

The word comes from the Greek τέλος, telos (root: τελε-, “end, purpose”) and -λογία, logia, “a branch of learning”. The term was coined in 1728 by the German philosopher Christian von Wolff in his work Philosophia rationalis, sive logica.

A teleology is any philosophical account that holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that — analogous to purposes found in human actions — nature inherently tends toward definite ends.

Teleology was explored by Plato and Aristotle, by Saint Anselm during the 11th century AD, in the late 18th century by Immanuel Kant as a regulative principle in his Critique of Judgment and by Carl Jung. It was fundamental to the speculative philosophy of Hegel.

A thing, process, or action is teleological when it is for the sake of an end, i.e., a telos or final cause. In general, it may be said that there are two types of final causes, which may be called intrinsic finality and extrinsic finality.

A thing or action has an extrinsic finality when it is for the sake of something external to itself. In a way, people exhibit extrinsic finality when they seek the happiness of a child. If the external thing had not existed that action would not display finality.

A thing or action has an intrinsic finality when it is for none other than its own sake. For example, one might try to be happy simply for the sake of being happy, and not for the sake of anything outside of that.
In modern science, explanations that rely on teleology are avoided, either because they are unnecessary or because whether they are true or false is thought to be beyond the ability of human perception and understanding to judge.But using teleology as an explanatory style, in particular within evolutionary biology, is still controversial.

Thomas Nagel Challenge to Science

The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology.

Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such.

Nagel’s skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic.

In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.

The critics

Of course there is many critics of Thomas Nagel’s thesis here is one John Dupre:

“So here is the first problem. Reductionism can be understood as a metaphysical thesis, typically based on an argument that if there is only material stuff in the world (no spooky stuff), then the properties of stuff must ultimately explain everything. This is a controversial thesis, much debated by philosophers. But what the last 50 years of work in the philosophy of science has established is that this kind of reductionism has little relevance to science. Even if it turned out that most scientists believed something like this (which I find incredible) this would be a psychological oddity, not a deep insight about science. A more sensible materialism goes no further than the rejection of spooky stuff: whatever kinds of stuff there may turn out to be and whatever they turn out to do, they are, as long as this turning out is empirically grounded, ipso facto not spooky. Such a materialism is quite untouched by Nagel’s arguments.”

My response to Mr. Dupre will be not to try to paste up the fact that many scientist are ignorant of their own metaphysical stands as Material reductionist even if he find it incredible! Why? Because in their arrogance they have embraced scientism as a religious dogma without considering a valid argument for the subjective from a philosophical stand, you can’t blame philosophers for thinking clearly and recognize the value of consciousness and the subjective, regardless if many scientist reduced it to a mere chemical reaction, and the words yourself describe it to dismiss it as:

”a psychological oddity”! What argument will make many scientist understand they are trapped in an ideological position?

Thomas Nagel is asking them to get off from their high horse and bring the goodies, if they can find them!

Now I am aware of Mr. Dupre is a philosopher himself and of his fight against material reductionism:

Dupré advocates a pluralistic model of science as opposed to the common notion of reductionism. Physical Reductionism suggests that all science may be reduced to physical explanations due to causal or mereological links that obtain between the objects studied in the higher sciences the objects studied by physics. For example, a physical reductionist would see psychological facts as (in principle) reducible to neurological facts, which is in turn are reducible to biological facts. Biology could then be explained in terms of chemistry, and chemistry could then be explained in terms of physical explanation. While reductionism of this sort is a common position among scientists and philosophers, Dupré suggests that such reduction is not possible as the world has an inherently pluralistic structure.

And if he criticize Nagel, he ends his critic in a lukewarm embrace, why be so inhibited by what may scientist think?

Can’t philosophers have the right to criticize scientist, if they see them steer from the right course, would Socrates should be in fear to criticize it’s fellow Athenians?

From Nonlife to Life

By Michael Chorost

“The idea of natural teleology would be bolstered if scientists could create life from scratch, using conditions that could have existed on the early earth. Addy Pross, a chemist at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in Israel, says that while it wouldn’t prove that life had, in fact, emerged in just that way, it would suggest that natural laws make its emergence either likely or inevitable. Such a scientific breakthrough would also allow a philosophical breakthrough, emboldening the search for natural laws mandating the ascent of life and mind.

In fact, scientists have been trying to create life in a test tube ever since the classic Miller-Urey experiment, in 1952, in which sparking a sealed bulb of chemicals yielded fistfuls of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins.

Life from nonlife is a tough problem, but Pross sounds a note of optimism in an e-mail: “Being in the thick of this problem I can say that after decades of confusion the new area of chemistry—systems chemistry—is now making significant progress.”

Robert Hazen, a mineralogist and biogeologist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, believes that he sees the outlines of the solution: “The real killer experiment will be to develop some kind of flow-through reactor where you keep the whole cycle going, and you actually increase the concentration of all of those components just by providing CO2 and water and hydrogen. If you can do that, it’s a solved problem.”

However, that would not be the end of the intelligent-design argument. ID theorists could ask, reasonably enough, “Where do the natural laws come from?”

The answer is far from clear. Cosmologists have long known that if the universe’s laws were even slightly different, it would not have been possible to form molecules, let alone life. For example, the nuclear strong force has a value of .007. Were it .006, the universe would be entirely hydrogen, and were it .008 the universe would have no hydrogen at all.

Similarly, it’s probably going to be easy to show that such hypothetical life-creating forces as autocatalysis, zero-force evolutionary laws, and dynamic kinetic stability could not exist in universes even slightly different from our own.

The simplest solution is to invoke the strong anthropic principle, according to which infinitely many universes exist, and we live in one that randomly got its constants and laws set just right for us. If you listen to cosmologists like Brian Greene, of Columbia University, you’ll hear that this argument is close to becoming settled physics. We can’t actually see these other universes, Greene concedes, but the math makes other predictions that we can confirm.

Few people find this a truly satisfying answer. It’s not settled physics, say some. It’s an explanation that doesn’t explain, say others.

Regardless, the actual creation of life from nonlife would make it possible to produce a more scientifically grounded version of Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos. Such a book would be able to argue, from actual evidence, that there are physical laws that push the universe through profound phase changes from nonlife to life, from instinct to intellect. A Mind and Cosmos II would be an epoch-making book: the Origin of Species of the 21st century.”

My views on the teleological argument

Mr. Nagel profess to be an atheist, I will not argue about it, but it seems to me he challenge scientist to come to with the discovery of teleological laws, knowing beforehand, it will be the equivalent of producing something out of nothing, since in my particular view Teleology is just another name for a factor that religions call God, the Divine, the One with No Name, etc. To try to invent another name for it, makes no sense, and it’s high time for scientist to figure out that by themselves, without philosophers, or religious persons to call attention to this fact.

My Conclusion and a word: Arete

For many years many scientist have run roughshod believing to be the panacea to every problem and that time would bring the answer to every incognita, and bring solutions to each one of them, some in their arrogance have declared philosophy to be a closed book, and one not long ago declared Philosophy is death.

My answer what a bunch of hot air!

We are so far from solving the mysteries of life, in fact we believe to discover the solution to a problem to be confronted, by many more new incognitos, and subsequent problems, we can figure out the solution for the common cold, or the cure of many maladies that plagues us not only in the medical field, but in many other areas, like our environment and the fragile ecological balance, that our new discovered technology a product of science discoveries had brought, and I am not blaming science but our own human shortsighted understanding of the limitations we are subject to, same limitations that sprung more from the nature of our character as human beings, prone to weakness, and lack of virtues, that are subjective in nature, but that bring fruit in to the objective, what we call mistakes, shortsightedness, selfishness, greed, and every other malady of human character who make others suffer for our foibles, and flaws as human beings.

And here is my point we can’t dismiss the subjectivity from our own nature, and that ancient Greek aphorism”know thyself” Which exist for a good reason, it’s at the root of our own Western philosophy, the Greeks named it Arete.

Areté is explicitly linked with human knowledge, where the expressions “virtue is knowledge” and “Areté is knowledge” are used interchangeably. The highest human potential is knowledge and all other human abilities are derived from this central capacity. If Areté is knowledge and study, the highest human knowledge is knowledge about knowledge itself; in this light, the theoretical study of human knowledge, which Aristotle called “contemplation,” is the highest human ability and happiness.

And no amount of technological gadgets, or scientific discoveries, will ever replace the fact that the supreme achievement of Mam will not be immortality (a dubious proposition, since the law of entropy, and the sure death of the Universe) or many other future scientific breakthroughs, and discoveries, on the outward material sphere, will not surpass the achievement of wisdom, and the acquisition of virtue within, the subjective self.

Posted in Arete, Cosmology, God, Human Nature, Know Thyself, Materialism, Philosophy, Plato, Reductionism, Science, Science and Belief, Scientism, Subjective, Teleology, Thomas Nagel, Uncategorized, Western Philosophy, Wisdom | Tagged Arete, Contemplation, John Dupre, Know Thyself, Michael Chorost, Plato, Science VS Religion, Teleology, Thomas Nagel, Virtue | 24 Comments

THE TRAP OF THE SELF, OR THE LIMITATIONS OF EXISTENCE, EPICTETUS SUBJECTIVE FREEDOM

Posted on June 12, 2014 by theburningheart

“If life was a dream, then dying must be the moment when you woke up.

It was so simple it must be true. You died, the dream was over, you woke up.

That’s what people meant when they talked about going to heaven.

It was like waking up.”

Ian McEwan,

The Daydreamer

We wake up on the morning after living in a fluid Universe of flowing images we call dreams, and believe we have come back in to ourselves, when it’s the other way around, we abandon the Self in order to descend to our material existence. It’s true those fluid images can be vague and confusing on waking up, but that is due to our lack of preparedness, or the contamination our spiritually polluted consciousness impede a more luminous dreaming were reality, is more impressive than our so call reality.

Which of those who have lived a full life, has not have a dream were a reality beyond our material existence, and the idea we make of ourselves from our daily experience, has not at least wonder at the marvelous luminosity of a lucid dream?

A reality that surpass so call reality, our our wakeful state, and that it is not perceived by our physical senses, but by our inner senses corresponding to a realm beyond matter, but to our subjective self!

A realm that it’s consider nothing but our neurons misfiring and doing the wrong chemical connections..!

To which my response would be: What a glorious misfiring!

THE LIMITATIONS OF FREEDOM

Freedom it’s a word of many different things to many people, it’s arguable what really the meaning of freedom would be in a world were limitation is the rule rather than the exception.

Since we are born we are given many limitations, as for example we didn’t choose to be born, that was someone else choice, we didn’t choose either our parents, neither the color of our eyes, or our skin, our sex, health, none of the physical characteristics, that were determined by genetics and not us, how tall, or how short, curly hair versus straight hair, blond versus black, big mouth, small nose, freckles, smooth skin, great legs, short legs, our handsome features, and good looks, as to what it’s perceived as ugly looks.

We can’t choose either how rich, or poor our parents are gone be, neither were they live, and you along, or what church they attend, so not freedom to choose another religion who may suit you best, at least until you become a lot older, neither the type of meals your mom, or dad cooks for you, and your diet will be dictated by them until you can get your own meals, or your clothes at an early age, for all you know you will be wearing your elder siblings handouts, until you can purchase your own. And talking about siblings you can’t choose them either, even if you hate them, as well as any other member of the family, like grumpy grandpa, or sweet, or nasty grandma. Or the type of education you would receive, at least in the early stage of your life, education that will be formative, and that in great way would affect the outcome of who you will be.

In a way conditions of life are given to us, we may try to change them later, with various degrees of success, recently read a story of black man who is gay and in love with another black man who never corresponded his love by the mere fact of being heterosexual, and in love with diverse white women, during their long friendship, and his resentment of it, described painfully by him, his story reminded me of how we can make of our life misery, wanting the almost impossible to happen.

Our so named freedom it’s limited by who we are in the physical, and by whatever chance throw at us in the many other dimension of our life.

EPICTETUS

Epictetus Ancient Greek: Ἐπίκτητος; AD c. 55 – 135) was a Greek sage and Stoic philosopher. He was born a slave at Hierapolis, Phrygia present day Pamukkale, Turkey, and lived in Rome until his banishment, when he went to Nicopolis in northwestern Greece for the rest of his life. His teachings were written down and published by his pupil Arrian in his Discourses.

Philosophy, Epictetus taught, is a way of life and not just a theoretical discipline. To Epictetus, all external events are determined by fate, and are thus beyond our control; we should accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. However, individuals are responsible for their own actions, which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline.

The name his parents gave him is unknown; the word epíktetos (ἐπίκτητος) in Greek simply means “acquired.” He spent his youth as a slave in Rome to Epaphroditos, a wealthy freedman and secretary to Nero.

Early in life, Epictetus acquired a passion for philosophy, and with the permission of his wealthy owner, he studied Stoic philosophy under Musonius Rufus, which allowed him to rise in respectability as he grew more educated. He somehow became crippled, with Origen stating that his leg was deliberately broken by his master, and Simplicius stating that he had been lame from childhood.

Epictetus obtained his freedom sometime after Nero’s death in 68 AD, and began to teach philosophy in Rome. About 93 AD Emperor Domitian banished all philosophers from the city, and Epictetus fled to Nicopolis in Epirus, Greece, where he founded a philosophical school.

His most famous pupil, Arrian, studied under him when a young man (c. 108 AD) and claimed to have written the famous Discourses from his lecture notes, though some argue they should be considered an original composition by Arrian, comparable to the Socratic literature.^[Arrian describes Epictetus as being a powerful speaker who could “induce his listener to feel just what Epictetus wanted him to feel.” Many eminent figures sought conversations with him, and the Emperor Hadrian was friendly with him and may have listened to him speak at his school in Nicopolis.

He lived a life of great simplicity, with few possessions and lived alone for a long time,but in his old age he adopted a friend’s child who would otherwise have been left to die, and raised him with the aid of a woman. Epictetus was never married. He died sometime around 135 AD. After his death, his lamp was purchased by an admirer for 3,000 drachmae.

HIS PHILOSOPHY

Epictetus maintains that the foundation of all philosophy is self-knowledge, that is, the conviction of our ignorance and gullibility ought to be the first subject of our study. Logic provides valid reasoning and certainty in judgment, but it is subordinate to practical needs. The first and most necessary part of philosophy concerns the application of doctrine, for example, that people should not lie; the second concerns reasons, e.g. why people should not lie; while the third, lastly, examines and establishes the reasons.This is the logical part, which finds reasons, shows what is a reason, and that a given reason is a right one.This last part is necessary, but only on account of the second, which again is rendered necessary by the first.

Both the Discourses and the Enchiridion begin by distinguishing between those things in our power (prohairetic things) and those things not in our power (aprohairetic things). That alone is in our power, which is our own work; and in this class are our opinions, impulses, desires, and aversions. What, on the contrary, is not in our power, are our bodies, possessions, glory, and power. Any delusion on this point leads to the greatest errors, misfortunes, and troubles, and to the slavery of the soul.

We have no power over external things, and the good that ought to be the object of our earnest pursuit, is to be found only within ourselves. The determination between what is good and what is not good is made by the capacity for choice (prohairesis). Prohairesis allows us to act, and gives us the kind of freedom that only rational animals have. It is determined by our reason, which of all our faculties sees and tests itself and everything else. It is the right use of the impressions (phantasia) that bombard the mind that is in our power:

Practice then from the start to say to every harsh impression, “You are an impression, and not at all the thing you appear to be.” Then examine it and test it by these rules you have, and firstly, and chiefly, by this: whether the impression has to do with the things that are up to us, or those that are not; and if it has to do with the things that are not up to us, be ready to reply, “It is nothing to me.”

We will not be troubled at any loss, but will say to ourselves on such an occasion: “I have lost nothing that belongs to me; it was not something of mine that was torn from me, but something that was not in my power has left me.” Nothing beyond the use of our opinion is properly ours. Every possession rests on opinion. What is to cry and to weep? An opinion. What is misfortune, or a quarrel, or a complaint? All these things are opinions; opinions founded on the delusion that what is not subject to our own choice can be either good or evil, which it cannot. By rejecting these opinions, and seeking good and evil in the power of choice alone, we may confidently achieve peace of mind in every condition of life.

Reason alone is good, and the irrational is evil, and the irrational is intolerable to the rational.The good person should labor chiefly on their own reason; to perfect this is in our power. To repel evil opinions by the good is the noble contest in which humans should engage; it is not an easy task, but it promises true freedom, peace of mind (ataraxia), and a divine command over the emotions (apatheia). We should especially be on our guard against the opinion of pleasure because of its apparent sweetness and charms.The first object of philosophy, therefore, is to purify the mind.

How many of contemporary men even think of such things, like working on our subjective, rather than strive wildly on the objective, for no purpose, but for ephemeral material gain, or to inflate our egos?

Remember the old Socratic advise: The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being. Real freedom it’s within, we got to live in the prison of the self, but remember we are here just for a little while, and we can always relied on our subjective self rather that on our always changing material circumstances.

Posted in Being, Counsciousness, Crisis of Values, Critical Thinking, Dreams, Ego, Epictetus, Freedom, Imagination, Inspiration, New Values, Ontology, Philosophy, Self, The Subjective, Uncategorized, Values, Virtue | Tagged Dreaming, Epictetus, Freedom, Illusion and Reality, Personal circumstances, Philosophy, Reality, The Self, The Unexamined life | 31 Comments

A PLANET IN CRISIS, TIME TO GROW UP AND SAVE MOTHER EARTH

Posted on May 13, 2014 by theburningheart

“Nowadays man finds himself to be a technical giant and an ethical child.”

Humanity, in essence, is in a race between potency and awareness.

The outcome will determine the quality of our species’

journey and will leave an indelible mark,

for better or worse, on the planet we inhabit.

A few years ago, I proposed that we are experiencing

“puberty on the scale of a planet.”

Global trends echo that awkward, sometimes damaging,

transition from teenage-style ebullience

To the more measured norms of adulthood.

And just as a teenager resists calls from elders to grow up, societies

– only naturally – have been initially resistant to scientists’

warnings of irreversible damage to the planet’s biological patrimony,

risks attending unabated climate change and long-distance

impacts of consumptive resource appetites.

Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga

We live in a time of constant crisis, the problem with this is like when you live in a big city in America or any other place on Earth, on my long commute to work twice, the daily back and forth from home to work, and back, I am stop by traffic sirens at least three or fourth times, sometimes more, to the point you become immune to the thought that in the whining and pesky ambulance there may be a person dying… I know the bus driver pull to the side of the road fulfilling his side of the bargain, his/hers civil duty, but this not stop of becoming a nuisance too often repeated until you become immune to the thought there is someone who need instant medical attention his life in danger, this is an analogy to the repeated but now old news, and most likely, every time we skip the article were a new evidence for Global warming, contamination of soils, or fresh water resources, depletion of natural resources, the dying of species, etc.

Just to illustrate the degree of biodiversity loss we’re facing, let’s take you through one scientific analysis:

The rapid loss of species we are seeing today is estimated by experts to be between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate.
These experts calculate that between 0.01 and 0.1% of all species will become extinct each year.
If the low estimate of the number of species out there is true – i.e. that there are around 2 million different species on our planet** – then that means between 200 and 2,000 extinctions occur every year.
But if the upper estimate of species numbers is true – that there are 100 million different species co-existing with us on our planet – then between 10,000 and 100,000 species are becoming extinct each year

That could be then between 27.3 to a whooping 274 species eliminated of the face of the Earth daily! The figures are staggering one way or worst the other one!

Unlike the mass extinction events of geological history, the current extinction challenge is one for which a single species – ours – appears to be almost wholly responsible.

This is often referred to as the 6th extinction crisis, after the 5 known extinction waves in geological history.

So without arguing about who’s right or wrong.

Or what the exact numbers are.

There can be little debate that there is, in fact, a very serious biodiversity crisis.

TIME TO GROW UP

We live a crisis that fundamentally encompass every sphere, or dimension of Man; Physically, too many, economically, too much, with big inequalities, educationally, too little, politically, a joke, our governments not only do nothing, they are big part of the problem, spiritually, totally bankrupt. I will not add more dimensions since we are lacking in almost everything, but it’s easy to see the thread to our maladies, form ancient times through religion we have been told that Man it’s the Vice-regent of God on Earth, well I know some people would argue this point, but it’s of no doubt our responsibility in this crisis, we want it or not, we are now responsible of what it’s happening in this crisis, so it’s time to grow up, and act as responsible adults, period.

This entitle us to each one of us to act responsibly and fulfill our duties as managers if you dislike the term Vice-regent and start facing up responsibility in our daily living, or our own survival as a specie will be in doubt.

This means to live with no waste, less growth (sorry for those who believe we have to live with more, we no longer can afford to deplete the finite natural resources like water, food, and biodiversity to make your pockets bigger at the expense of a degradation, and ultimately endangerment of life on Earth) The party it’s over time to clean up the mess and look for a way to solve the crisis, one thing it’s certain our way of life has to be different.

Our leaders in government can’t be drive by greed and following outdated economical models, the goals of economy policies need to be rewritten, in accordance with the new scientific ecological conservationism efforts in mind, forget the idea of running government as a business model, it’s not working, and is responsible of the crisis. Conservation, and wise management of resources should trump greed, and a right to destroy in order to profit.

Economics of small scale, and strategic planning to reduce our impact on nature based on wise and sound measures of production with little or no waste, of non renewable resources should be implemented. As for the efficacy of producing wealth, this should be of no concern or at least secondary, immediate action to reduce population in the form of regulation of birth control world wide should be adopted as soon as possible.

Education should be an effort worldwide, revision, and elimination of outdated forms of education needs to be eliminated as our current models in our centers of education, teaching ecological conservation, and sustainable economical models rather than the old let’s rip mother Earth apart in order to make a buck need to be discarded totally. The selling of our natural resources by our governments in the form of concessions to companies and capital to despoil nature should not exist, or only be lightly penalized for despoiling Earth, but criminalized heavily to deter perpetrators, waste regulations of any kind strictly enforced.

I know all this may seem radical, and too much for conservative minds to take, but in fact I believe that only will take a few years for more, and bigger catastrophes to make clear this state of affairs can’t continue, imagine this; having to abandon the city you love, and your property, just because either there is no water to sustain life, or there is too much of it and you are underwater!

Posted in A World in Crisis, Capitalism, Climate Change, Crisis of Values, Critical Thinking, Disillusion with Capitalism, Doomsday, Ecological Crisis, Ecology, Economy, Education, End of materialism, Environment, Extinction of Species, Future, Greed, Greed and Impunity, Uncategorized | Tagged A World in Crisis, Constant Estate of Alert, Ecological Collapse, Extinction of Species, Governments a Joke, Time to Grow Up, Towards a politics of Ecology | 38 Comments

LONELINESS, THE DEATH OF MEANING, THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECTIVE, THE LIVING DEATH

Posted on April 13, 2014 by theburningheart

“We have become victims of our own art.

We touch people on the outsides of their bodies,

and they us, but we cannot get to their insides

and cannot reveal our insides to them.

This is one of the great tragedies of our interiority-it

is utterly personal and unrevealable.”

Ernest Becker

Solitary confinement is among the worst punishments human beings inflict on one another. Social isolation has profound negative effects on health, from reduced lifespan in the fruit fly, Drosophilamelanogaster, to decreased anti-inflammatory responses and survival rates in mice following induced stroke (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009). Feelings of loneliness might have evolved as a signal to human beings that their social connections are in need of repair (Cacioppo & Patrick, 2008). University students, particularly in their first year, are especially susceptible to feelings of loneliness (Cutrona, 1982

Loneliness is a complex and usually unpleasant emotional response to isolation or lack of companionship. Loneliness typically includes anxious feelings about a lack of connectedness or communality with other beings, both in the present and extending into the future. As such, loneliness can be felt even when surrounded by other people. The causes of loneliness are varied and include social, mental or emotional factors.

Research has shown that loneliness is widely prevalent throughout society among people in marriages, relationships, families and successful careers. It has been a long explored theme in the literature of human beings since classical antiquity. Loneliness has also been described as social pain — a psychological mechanism meant to alert an individual of isolation and motivate him/her to seek social connections.

The existentialist school of thought views loneliness as the essence of being human. Each human being comes into the world alone, travels through life as a separate person, and ultimately dies alone. Coping with this, accepting it, and learning how to direct our own lives with some degree of grace and satisfaction is the human condition.

Some philosophers, such as Sartre, believe in an epistemic loneliness in which loneliness is a fundamental part of the human condition because of the paradox between the desire of man’s/person’s consciousness to have meaning in life conflicting with the isolation and nothingness of the universe. Conversely, other existentialist thinkers argue that human beings might be said to actively engage each other and the universe as they communicate and create, and loneliness is merely the feeling of being cut off from this process.

The Death of meaning

We have reach a historical moment in time were through our values, and beliefs we have reached a end to meaning. The current era has seen radical changes in both formal and popular conceptions of human nature. The knowledge disclosed by modern science has effectively rewritten the relationship of humankind to the natural world. Advances in medicine and technology have freed humans from significant limitations and ailments of previous eras, and philosophy particularly following the linguistic turn, has altered how the relationships people have with themselves and each other are conceived. Questions about the meaning of life have also seen radical changes, from attempts to reevaluate human existence in biological and scientific terms as in pragmatism and logical positivism to efforts to meta-theorize about meaning-making as a personal, individual-driven activity (existentialism, secular humanism).

These various movements often lead to the notion that language ‘constitutes’ reality, a position contrary to intuition and to most of the Western tradition of philosophy. The traditional view (what Derrida called the ‘metaphysical’ core of Western thought) saw words as functioning like labels attached to concepts. According to this view, there is something like ‘the real chair’, which exists in some external reality and corresponds roughly with a concept in human thought, chair, to which the linguistic word “chair” refers. However, the founder of structuralism, Ferdinand de Saussure, held that definitions of concepts cannot exist independently from a linguistic system defined by difference, or, to put it differently, that a concept of something cannot exist without being named. Thus differences between meanings structure our perception; there is no real chair except insofar as we are manipulating symbolic systems. We would not even be able to recognize a chair as a chair without simultaneously recognizing that a chair is not everything else – in other words a chair is defined as being a specific collection of characteristics which are themselves defined in certain ways, and so on, and all of this within the symbolic system of language. Thus, everything we think of as reality is really a convention of naming and characterizing, a convention which is itself called language. Indeed, anything outside of language is by definition inconceivable (having no name and no meaning) and therefore cannot intrude upon or enter into human reality, at least not without immediately being seized and articulated by language. Of course there are those who oppose this view.

Scientific Realism

Scientific Realism is, at the most general level, the view that the world described by science is the real world, as it is, independent of what we might take it to be. Within philosophy of science, it is often framed as an answer to the question “how is the success of science to be explained?” The debate over what the success of science involves centers primarily on the status of unobservable entities apparently talked about by scientific theories. Generally, those who are scientific realists assert that one can make reliable claims about unobservable (viz., that they have the same ontological status) as observables. Analytical philosophers generally have a commitment to scientific realism, in the sense of regarding the scientific method as a reliable guide to the nature of reality. The main alternative to scientific realism is instrumentalism.

My Views on the Matter

We are suffering a crisis of values we dethroned God and kicked him out of our lives embracing materialism, and when Thomas Reid said:

“If there are certain principles, as I think there are, which the constitution of our nature leads us to believe, and which we are under a necessity to take for granted in the common concerns of life, without being able to give a reason for them–these are what we call the principles of common sense; and what is manifestly contrary to them, is what we call absurd.”

We have taken the path of supposed common sense to the bitter end, where there is no longer meaning to life, and existence, is just is, and you got to take it and swallow it even if it choke you to death with the lack of meaning!

We can’t pretend to go on living without meaning ignoring totally that we are subjective beings even before we realize we have legs to walk, hands to grasp, and eyes to see. Giving no reason for existence kills the spirit, and killing the spirit we kill ourselves of what it’s more precious; an inner life that bring peace, and joy to our subjective being.

Denying spirit it’s denying our souls, denying our souls it’s to be participants of a dehumanizing society were the bottom line it’s not consciousness. but a philistine society were money and selfishness is the rule not the exception, by the simple fact of a life lived with a lack of meaning, where there is nothing sacred, and therefore everything it’s for sale, we exchange our wellbeing and future generation’s as well for some instant gratification, be this monetary like the selling of our ecosystems, weather, you can buy anything if you have the money and willingness like individuals, corporations, and governments, and countries if this will increase your wealth!

By no means I advocate a religious complaisant, and complicit bigotry who with a vision of a sure Apocalypses they cross their arms and do nothing waiting for this to happen, but for a real activism of moral value, this is what Paul named to live in the flesh:

For if you live after the flesh, you shall die: but if you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live.

The business of living it’s not n easy one, but I believe as a human being, even if subjectively alone, we are burdened with consciousness, and therefore with moral choices, and responsibility, do not be of those who docilely participate in the senseless destruction, and corruption of the world by being a passive conformist, or permissive with a who gives a damn attitude of: If it does not affect me personally, why should I care? The world it’s what we want to make out of it, so do not be a zombie, take action, stop being an obedient follower, and consumer of all that junk they sell you, materially and morally, this may be a product that will damage our environment, our health, or our an idea like mindless entertainment that keep you distracted of what really it is important, and would corrupt our souls, and make out of us part of the living dead.

I do not believe, I know that our current cultish obsession, with vampires, zombies, apocalyptic scenarios, in our novels, media, and cinema it’s part of our subjective, and subliminal spirit warning us of what we are becoming as a society in general, so be one of the awaken ones, rather than a living death.

Posted in Consciousness, Counsciousness, Critical Thinking, End of materialism, Future, Loneliness, Nihilism, The Death of Meaning, The Subjective, Uncategorized, Values, Weltanschauung, Western Civilization, Western Ideals, Western Philosophy | Tagged Consciousness, Death of Meaning, Lonliness, Scientific Realism, The Living Death, The Subjective, Zombies | 31 Comments

A BRAVE NEW WORLD, THE ANONYMUS PHENOMEN, A CHALLENGE TO THE STATUS QUO

Posted on March 16, 2014 by theburningheart

“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire,

but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen.

To shame it. To mock it.

With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness,

our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness

– and our ability to tell our own stories.

Stories that are different from the ones

we’re being brainwashed to believe.

The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse

to buy what they are selling

– their ideas, their version of history, their wars,

their weapons, their notion of inevitability.

Remember this: We be many and they be few.

They need us more than we need them.

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.

On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

― Arundhati Roy, War Talk

From some time now, I am sure you have run in the net with the guys with the Guy Fawkes mask is a stylized depiction of Guy Fawkes, the best-known member of the Gunpowder Plot, an attempt to blow up the House of Lords in London in 1605. The use of a mask on an effigy has long roots as part of Guy Fawkes Night celebrations.

A stylized portrayal of a face with an over-sized smile and red cheeks, a wide mustache upturned at both ends, and a thin vertical pointed beard, designed by illustrator David Lloyd, came to represent broader protest after it was used as a major plot element in V for Vendetta, published in 1982, and its 2006 film adaptation. After appearing in Internet forums, the mask became a well-known symbol for the online hacktivist group Anonymous, the Occupy movement, and other anti-government and anti-establishment protests around the world.

Anonymous is tired of corporate interests controlling the internet and silencing the people’s rights to spread information, but more importantly, the right to SHARE with one another. The RIAA and the MPAA feign to aid the artists and their cause; yet they do no such thing. In their eyes is not hope, only dollar signs. Anonymous will not stand this any longer.

Since the release in 2006 of the film V for Vendetta, the use of stylized “Guy Fawkes” masks, with mustache and pointed beard, has become widespread internationally among groups protesting against politicians, banks and financial institutions. The masks both conceal the identity and protect the face of individuals and demonstrate their commitment to a shared cause.

David Lloyd, V for Vendetta illustrator and co-creator, is quoted as saying:

“The Guy Fawkes mask has now become a common brand and a convenient placard to use in protest against tyranny – and I’m happy with people using it, it seems quite unique, an icon of popular culture being used this way. My feeling is the Anonymous group needed an all-purpose image to hide their identity and also symbolize that they stand for individualism – V for Vendetta is a story about one person against the system. We knew that V was going to be an escapee from a concentration camp where he had been subjected to medical experiments but then I had the idea that in his craziness he would decide to adopt the persona and mission of Guy Fawkes – our great historical revolutionary.”

Ironically someone is making money selling this mask:

According to Time in 2011, the protesters’ adoption of the mask had led to it becoming the top-selling item on Amazon.com, selling hundreds of thousands a year. Time Warner, one of the largest media companies in the world, is paid a fee with the sale of each official mask, as it owns the rights to the image.

As to what all this will amount? We do not now, but it’s a symptom things are not working, and that there is people who is aware of what’s going on, and are fighting back against the system one way or another.

A TIME OF CHANGE IS UPON US

I am not sure what form exactly this phenomenon will take, neither I can predict at what time it would come to a full expression, or the place were it will explode, as an example to follow, but one thing is sure, its, coming!

Change it’s inevitable, if I do not believe in a progressive sense of History for the good, I do believe in an evolution of ideas, and a discarding of old values, and ossified structures that limit the individual, and society at large as a consequence of events we like to call historical in lack of a better name since what we name History it’s nothing but a selective look at events from a particular point of view, past events always can have a different interpretation based on our own interest, that it’s mostly based in conflict, science, and technology, with some sociology, and anthropology throw as scholastic disciplines of interest only to the specialist of diverse branches of knowledge, like art, music, food, or any conceivable thing, like the history of weaving, ceramics, agriculture, or metallurgy, you name it, and you can have History of X.

If you have been following my blog you will know that I believe as a whole we are fed up with the current paradigm of frenetic consumerism, and a society based in material values, who keep us locked in working situations for the most of us not of our choice, but as a matter of survival, when conditions could be a lot better for most of us with some basic changes in our outlook on life, and what we desire for our well being, not only from a material point of view, that no doubt it’s necessary, but not at the price we have been paying for it. There is another dimension to Man and that it’s the subjective, spiritual, moral, or humanistic side of it, for too long people has been forced in to a slave mentality where the individual it’s lost to forces not of his choice but imposed on him by the rule of governments who do not have his best interest on mind, but the interest of the few who profit in these state of affairs.

Same governments who in the guise of defending democratic values are lackeys to plutocracy, and socialism for corporations and the rich, and enablers of ecological mayhem for the world, wars, famine, and all sort of crimes against the common man, if not by crimes of design, by crimes of ideology, or omission.

And an end of this state of affairs is urgent, period.

Posted in A Brave New World, Anger and Violence, Capitalism, Counsciousness, Crisis of Values, Critical Thinking, Democracy, Disillusion with Capitalism, Ecological Crisis, Economy, End of materialism, Freedom, Future, Greed, Historical Evolution, History, Justice, Life Liberty and the pursuit of happines, Materialism, Progress, Uncategorized | Tagged Anonymus, Arundhati Roy, Democracy Failure, Discontent, Government Failure, Guy Fawkes mask, Plutocracy, Political activism, Political future | 13 Comments

IGJUGARJUK, ON SUFFERING AND TRANSFORMATION, ALCHEMY, THE EMERALD TABLE, AND OTHER FORMS OF COMMUNION

Posted on February 12, 2014 by theburningheart

” True wisdom,

is only to be found

far away from people,

out in the great solitude. “

Igjugarjuk

Knud Rasmussen quoting on Inuit shaman Igjugarjuk

“When I was to be a shaman, I chose suffering through the two things that are more dangerous to us humans, suffering through hunger and suffering through cold. First I hungered five days and was then allowed to drink a mouthful of warm water, the old one say that only if the water is warm will Pinga and Hila will notice the novice and help him. Thereafter I went hungry another fifteen days, and again I was given another mouthful of warm water. After that I hungered fro ten days, and then could begin to eat…

Later, when I had become quite myself again, I understood that I had become the shaman of my village, and it did happen that my neighbors or people from a long distance away called me to heal a sick person, or to inspect a course if they were going to travel. When this happened, the people of my village were called together and I told them what I had been asked to do. Then I left tent or snow house and went out into solitude: ahiarmut, away from the dwellings of man…

If anything difficult had to be found out, my solitude had to extend over three days and two nights, or three nights and two days. In all that time I had to wander about without rest, and only sit down once in a while on a stone or a snow drift. When I had been out long and had become tired, I could almost doze and dream what I had come out to find and about which I had been thinking all the time. Every morning, however, I could come home and report on what I had so far found, but as soon as I had spoken I had to return again, out into the open, out to places where I could be quite alone…

These days of ‘seeking for knowledge’ are very tiring, for one must walk all the time, no matter how the weather is like and only rest in short snatches. I am usually quite done up, tired not only in body but also in head, when I have found what I sought.

We shamans in the interior have no special spirit language; and believe the real angatkut do not need it. On my travels sometimes I have been present at a séance among the saltwater-dwellers, for instance among the coast people of Utkuhigjalik . These angatkut never seemed trustworthy to me. It always appeared to met this saltwater angatkut attached more weight to tricks that would astonish the audience, when they jumped about the floor and do tricks, nor does he seek by the aid of darkness, by putting out the lamps, to make the minds of his neighbors uneasy. For myself, I do not think I know much, but I do not think that wisdom or knowledge about things that are hidden can be sought in that manner. True wisdom is only to be found far away from people, out in the great solitude, and it is not found in play but only through suffering. Solitude and suffering open the human mind, and therefore a shaman must seek his wisdom there.”

Suffering is the key word of the Spiritual work, it is a birth labor, a shedding of the skin, a furnace were the Soul it is transformed in to a luminous being, a crucifixion were the ego is put to die, not an easy work, now days with so many people searching for Spirit and in consequence the many self anointed spiritual guides of all kinds of nature, it is easy to believe the Spiritual path it is an easy, and joyful ride, full of magical, and extraordinary experiences, yes there are many of those, but not without been brought by a lot of work, suffering, and the taming of ego.

Why Suffering?

Suffering it’s necessary for the soul in order to detach of the objective, and realize the subjective, it’s the shedding of the skin so to speak of the serpent, so it can grow, the pain of birth that brings a new being, along with happiness and joy. It’s the realization that we are here to be a shining mirror of Spirit, and it’s necessary for us to be better polishing ourselves, and realize that even if we are made of flesh, and bones, this is not our final destination, but the place were we are tested, thrown in to the river bed as rough rocks rubbing off the sharp corners, pebbles tossed in fast flowing waters become beautiful to be transformed in to polished pebbles by the continuous rush of the water.

Life, and living itself is the furnace of the alchemist where base metals are transformed in to gold, by the relentless heat, and the long time it requires for this elements to transform, which it is a lifetime pursue, and the the explanation as to the title of my blog KONE KRUSOS KRONOS

KONE= The furnace

KRUSOS= The Gold

KRONOS= The Time

The Emerald Tablet

Tis true without lying, certain & most true.
That which is below is like that which is above & that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracles of one only thing
And as all things have been & arose from one by the mediation of one: so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation.
The Sun is its father, the moon its mother, the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth is its nurse.
The father of all perfection in the whole world is here.
Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth.
Separate thou the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross sweetly with great industry.
It ascends from the earth to the heaven & again it descends to the earth & receives the force of things superior & inferior.
By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world
& thereby all obscurity shall fly from you.
Its force is above all force. For it vanquishes every subtle thing & penetrates every solid thing.
So was the world created.
From this are & do come admirable adaptations whereof the means (or process) is here in this. Hence I am called Hermes Trismegist, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world
That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished & ended.

Devour by a Bear

The selection and initiation process of the Inuit Angakoq is slightly different from that of the Noaidi, although it does follow the same traditional patterns of spiritual death, rebirth, and contact of spirits for aid. Unlike many Noaidi, who are typically selected by a personal spiritual calling, the older Angakoq selects the new pupil as a young child. These are usually children that have either already demonstrated unusual dreams/visions or seem especially gifted for the position. As demonstrated earlier with the reference to attacks by tuurngait, the initiation process of the Angakoq is a bit more inclined towards the aspect of spiritual death and metaphorical dismemberment than the initiatory sequence of the Sámi Noaidi. “The anagkok teaches him to isolate himself in a lonely place—beside an old grave, by a lake—and there to rub two stones together while waiting for a significant event. ‘Then the bear of the lake or the inland glacier will come out, he will devour all your flesh and make you a skeleton, and you will die. But you will recover your flesh, you will awaken, and your clothes will come rushing to you’” (Eliade 2004). In other stories, the Angakoq is ripped apart or slowly drowned at the bottom of the sea. “The ecstatic experience of dismemberment of the body followed by renewal of the organs is also known to the Eskimo. They speak of an animal (bear, walrus, etc.) that wounds the candidate, tears him to pieces or devours him…” (Eliade 2004). Then, he is reborn into his old body with a new sight. It is often described as light pulsating through the shaman’s body and interweaving through the eyes to create new vision.

Dionysus

The idea is to die to the body to be reborn in the Spirit, a symbolic image that it’s recurrent in all myths, and Religions; Jonas in the belly of a whale, Crist crucified, the Dionysus myth the bacchants Cultic rites associated with worship of the Greek god of wine, Dionysus (or Bacchus in Roman mythology), were allegedly characterized by maniacal dancing to the sound of loud music and crashing cymbals, in which the revellers, called Bacchantes, whirled, screamed, became drunk and incited one another to greater and greater ecstasy. The goal was to achieve a state of enthusiasm in which the celebrants’ souls were temporarily freed from their earthly bodies and were able to commune with Bacchus/Dionysus and gain a glimpse of and a preparation for what they would someday experience in eternity. The rite climaxed in a performance of frenzied feats of strength and madness, such as uprooting trees, tearing a bull (the symbol of Dionysus) apart with their bare hands, an act called sparagmos, and eating its flesh raw, an act called omophagia. This latter rite was a sacrament akin to communion in which the participants assumed the strength and character of the god by symbolically eating the raw flesh and drinking the blood of his symbolic incarnation. Having symbolically eaten his body and drunk his blood, the celebrants became possessed by Dionysus. Is this not communion analogous to the celebration of mass and the sharing of the body of Christ?

Posted in Alchemy, Cosmogony, Dionysus, Direct Spiritual Experience, Dreams, Ego, Emerald Table, Heart, Mundus Imaginalis, Myth, Mythology, Religion, Spirituality, Suffering, Symbology, Symbols, Transcendence, Transfiguration, Transformation, Transmutation, Uncategorized | Tagged Alchemy, Angakoq, Bear, Communion, Dionysus, Emerald Table, Igjugarjuk, Shamanism, Suffering nd Spiritual transformation, To be Reborn, Transmutation | 10 Comments

MATHEMATICS THE HIDDEN ROOT OF THE PLATONIC ARCHETYPES, A STORY OF EROS AND THE LOVE OF ABSTRACTS IDEALS

Posted on January 15, 2014 by theburningheart

Beginning from these very beauties,

for the sake of that highest beauty he ascends eternally,

just as if employing the rungs of a ladder, from one to two,

and from two to all beautiful bodies;

from beautiful bodies he proceeds to beautiful pursuits,

from pursuits to beautiful sciences,

and from these sciences arrives at that science which is

concerned with the beautiful itself and nothing else,

so that finally he comes to know what the beautiful is.

Socrates, on Diotima’s wisdom, on Plato’s Symposium

My views on Plato’s Archetypes

I am opposed to the idea of Platonism as an independent and abstract dimension concept that split Man from the Archetypes, (Theory of forms) as the result of the separation of the Physical from the Spiritual, as to deny the subjective integral world of ideas, as unreal on the basis it’s is a mind product, and not an objective reality. Mathematicians, at least some of them have seeing the intimate reality of conceptual ideas on the way the Universe works; Not only is the Platonism under discussion not Plato’s, Platonism as characterized above is a purely metaphysical view, it should be distinguished from other views that have substantive epistemological content. Many older characterizations of Platonism add strong epistemological claims to the effect that we have some immediate grasp of, or insight into, the realm of abstract objects.

I believe Semantics is at the root of the problem, and the long but now obsolete definitions of charged words like Metaphysics, it is really conceptual ideas, subjective insights that define something beyond our physical dimension, really something beyond ourselves the creators of the ideas, the definers of concrete objects, and subjective images, and understanding?

The Universe can exist without Man as a witness? No doubt, considering the relative young age of Man, but it’s not Man the essential key to explain it? No Man, no consciousness, no consciousness, not even conceptual existence, since the conceptual is totally dependent on the conscious observer…Of course it could be argued that consciousness it’s in everything even in the mineral kingdom, to which I agree, the Universe/s it’s consciousness.

“I was a Treasure unknown then I desired to be known so I created a creation to which I made Myself known; then they knew Me.”

Islamic Hadith

For those interested on the Platonic Archetypes you can read my post of THE WORLD WITHOUT DUST GEOGRAPHICAL ARCHETYPES OF THE SOUL, posted on March 2012

Love and Math: The Heart of a Hidden Reality

Here are long excerpts of the New York Review of Books article by Jim Holt on Edward Frenkel’s book Love and Math: The Heart of a Hidden Reality, a very interesting article that deal in a quasi mystic idea of the existence of the Independence of mathematics in relation to our understanding that Mathematical objects are independent of intelligent agents and their language, thought, and practices.

“For those who have learned something of higher mathematics, nothing could be more natural than to use the word “beautiful” in connection with it. Mathematical beauty, like the beauty of, say, a late Beethoven quartet, arises from a combination of strangeness and inevitability. Simply defined abstractions disclose hidden quirks and complexities. Seemingly unrelated structures turn out to have mysterious correspondences. Uncanny patterns emerge, and they remain uncanny even after being underwritten by the rigor of logic.

So powerful are these aesthetic impressions that one great mathematician, G.H. Hardy, declared that beauty, not usefulness, is the true justification for mathematics. To Hardy, mathematics was first and foremost a creative art. “The mathematician’s patterns, like the painter’s or the poet’s, must be beautiful,” he wrote in his classic 1940 book, A Mathematician’s Apology. “Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.”

And what is the appropriate reaction when one is confronted by mathematical beauty? Pleasure, certainly; awe, perhaps. Thomas Jefferson wrote in his seventy-sixth year that contemplating the truths of mathematics helped him to “beguile the wearisomeness of declining life.” To Bertrand Russell—who rather melodramatically claimed, in his autobiography, that it was his desire to know more of mathematics that kept him from committing suicide—the beauty of mathematics was “cold and austere, like that of sculpture…sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection.” For others, mathematical beauty may evoke a distinctly warmer sensation. They might take their cue from Plato’s Symposium. In that dialogue, Socrates tells the guests assembled at a banquet how a priestess named Diotima initiated him into the mysteries of Eros—the Greek name for desire in all its forms.

One form of Eros is the sexual desire aroused by the physical beauty of a particular beloved person. That, according to Diotima, is the lowest form. With philosophical refinement, however, Eros can be made to ascend toward loftier and loftier objects. The penultimate of these—just short of the Platonic idea of beauty itself—is the perfect and timeless beauty discovered by the mathematical sciences. Such beauty evokes in those able to grasp it a desire to reproduce—not biologically, but intellectually, by begetting additional “gloriously beautiful ideas and theories.” For Diotima, and presumably for Plato as well, the fitting response to mathematical beauty is the form of Eros we call love.”

As with Galois theory, the Langlands Program had its origins in a letter. It was written in 1967 by Robert Langlands (then in his early thirties) to one of his colleagues at the Institute for Advance Study, André Weil. In his letter, Langlands proposed the possibility of a deep analogy between two theories that seemed to lie at opposite ends of the mathematical cosmos: the theory of Galois groups, which concerns symmetries in the realm of numbers; and “harmonic analysis,” which concerns how complicated waves (e.g., the sound of a symphony) are built up from simple harmonics (e.g., the individual
instruments). Certain structures in the harmonic world, called automorphic forms, somehow “knew” about mysterious patterns in the world of numbers. Thus it might be possible to use the methods of one world to reveal hidden harmonies in the other—so Langlands conjectured. If Weil did not find the intuitions in the letter persuasive, Langlands added, “I am sure you have a waste basket handy.”

But Weil, a magisterial figure in twentieth-century mathematics (he died in 1998 at the age of ninety-two), was a receptive audience. In a letter that he had written in 1940 to his sister, Simone Weil, he had described in vivid terms the importance of analogy in mathematics. Alluding to the Bhagavad-Gita (he was also a Sanskrit scholar), André explained to Simone that, just as the Hindu deity Vishnu had ten different avatars, a seemingly simple mathematical equation could manifest itself in dramatically different abstract structures. The subtle analogies between such structures were like “illicit
liaisons,” he wrote; “nothing gives more pleasure to the connoisseur.”

As it happens, Weil was writing to his sister from prison in France, where he had been temporarily confined for desertion from the army (after nearly being executed as a spy in Finland).

The Langlands Program is a scheme of conjectures that would turn such hypothetical analogies into sturdy logical bridges, linking up diverse mathematical islands across the surrounding sea of ignorance. Or it can be seen as a Rosetta stone that would allow the mathematical tribes on these various islands—number theorists, topologists, algebraic geometers—to talk to one another and pool their conceptual resources. The Langlands conjectures are largely unproved so far. Are they even true? There is an almost Platonic confidence among mathematicians that they must be. As Ian Stewart has remarked, the Langlands Program is “the sort of mathematics that ought to be true because it was so beautiful.”

Quantum Physycs Connection

The next move was to extend the Langlands Program beyond the borders of mathematics itself. In the 1970s, it had been noticed that one of its key ingredients—the “Langlands dual group”—also crops up in quantum physics. This came as a surprise. Could the same patterns that can be dimly glimpsed in the worlds of number and geometry also have counterparts in the theory that describes the basic forces of nature?

Frenkel was struck by the potential link between quantum physics and the Langlands Program, and set about to investigate it—aided by a multimillion-dollar grant that he and some colleagues received in 2004 from the Department of Defense, the largest grant to date for research in pure mathematics. (In addition to being clean and gentle, pure mathematics is cheap: all its practitioners need is chalk and a little travel money. It is also open and transparent, since there are no inventions to patent.)

This brought him into a collaboration with Edward Witten, widely regarded as the greatest living mathematical physicist (and, like Langlands himself, a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton). Witten is a virtuoso of string theory, an ongoing effort by physicists to unite all the forces of nature, including gravity, in one neat mathematical package. He awed Frenkel with his “unbreakable logic” and his “great taste.” It was Witten who saw how the “branes” (short for “membranes”) postulated by string theorists might be analogous to the “sheaves” invented by mathematicians. Thus opened a rich dialogue between the Langlands Program, which aims to unify mathematics, and string theory, which aims to unify physics. Although optimism about string theory has faded somewhat with its failure (thus far) to deliver an effective description of our universe, the Langlands connection has yielded deep insights into the workings of particle physics.

This is not the first time that mathematical concepts studied for their pure beauty have later turned out to illumine the physical world. “How can it be,” Einstein asked in wonderment, “that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality?” Frenkel’s take on this is very different from Einstein’s. For Frenkel, mathematical structures are among the “objects of reality”; they are every bit as real as anything in the physical or mental world.

Moreover, they are not the product of human thought; rather, they exist timelessly, in a Platonic realm of their own, waiting to be discovered by mathematicians. The conviction that mathematics has a reality that transcends the human mind is not uncommon among its practitioners, especially great ones like Frenkel and Langlands, Sir Roger Penrose and Kurt Gödel. It derives from the way that strange patterns and correspondences unexpectedly emerge, hinting at something hidden and mysterious. Who put those patterns there? They certainly don’t seem to be of our making.

The problem with this Platonist view of mathematics—one that Frenkel, going on in a misterioso vein, never quite recognizes as such—is that it makes mathematica lknowledge a miracle. If the objects of mathematics exist apart from us, living in a Platonic heaven that transcends the physical world of space and time, then how does the human mind “get in touch” with them and learn about their properties and relations? Do mathematicians have ESP? The trouble with Platonism, as the philosopher Hilary Putnam has observed, “is that it seems flatly incompatible with the simple fact that we think with
our brains, and not with immaterial souls.”

Perhaps Frenkel should be allowed his Platonic fantasy. After all, every lover harbors romantic delusions about his beloved. In 2009, while Frenkel was in Paris as the occupant of the Chaire d’ Excellence of the Fondation Sciences Mathématiques, he decided to make a short film expressing his passion for mathematics. Inspired by Yukio Mishima’s Rite of Love and Death, he titled it Rites of Love and Math. In this silent Noh-style allegory, Frenkel plays a mathematician who creates a formula of love. To keep the formula from falling into evil hands, he hides it away from the world by tattooing it with a bamboo stick on the body of the woman he loves, and then prepares to sacrifice himself for its
protection.

Upon the premiere of Rites of Love and Math in Paris in 2010, Le Monde called it “a stunning short film” that “offers an unusual romantic vision of mathematicians.” The “formula of love” used in the film was one that Frenkel himself discovered (in the course of investigating the mathematical underpinnings of quantum field theory). It is beautiful, yet forbidding. The only numbers in it are zero, one, and infinity. Isn’t love like that?

Posted in Archetypes, Counsciousness, Diotima, Edward Frenkel, Eros, Love of the Beautiful, Mathematics, Metaphor, Mysticism, Philosophy, Plato, Science, Semantics, Uncategorized | Tagged Analogy, Andre Weil, Archetypes, Diotima, Edward Frenkel, Eros, Love, Mathematics, Plato, Robert Langlands, Science | 7 Comments

GREED AND IMPUNITY THE LAW OF THE LAND, GOVERNMENT, AND FREE MARKET ECONOMY IDOLS WITH CLAY FEET, A FUTURE OF UNCERTAINTY

Posted on December 17, 2013 by theburningheart

²⁹“As Your Majesty was lying there, your mind turned to things to come, and the revealer of mysteries showed you what is going to happen.

³⁰As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have greater wisdom than anyone else alive, but so that Your Majesty may know the interpretation and that you may understand what went through your mind.

³¹“Your Majesty looked, and there before you stood a large statue—an enormous, dazzling statue, awesome in appearance.

³²The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze,

³³its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay.

³⁴While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them.

³⁵Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.

Daniel 2

Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream

Greed and Impunity

The decay of our society as we speak it’s terrifying, you may think its business as usual, I agree that it is, I do not believe time past were better, however the difference is in the scale, and scope of it, never before so much was at a stake, as it is now, we seem to be at the edge of a precipice were our fall it is almost inevitable and we will be sucked up by an enormous sink hole, a hole made by ourselves, and our greedy capitalistic entrepreneurs, abetted, and shoved down our throats by our elected politicians that myopically and greedy are selling our future for any chump change they can get in to their pockets, it’s a crisis of values of Babylon’s proportions were and end like in the style of Sodom and Gomorrah is foreseeable, brought not by Angels, but Ecological disasters, floods, draughts, global warming, contamination, financial ruin, famine, sickness, crime, anarchy, and all the evils you can think about brought by a World society falling apart at the seams by selfishness and the law of the jungle brought by greed, and impunity.

Whistler Blower

in September 22, 2013 in the New York Times, Opinion there is an article by William D. Cohan titled: Was This Whistle-Blower Muzzled?

Here are some extracts of it, you can find the whole article on line.

Mr. Bowen, who was featured in a piercing “60 Minutes” segment in December 2011, had discovered that for years before the crisis, Citigroup, like many other Wall Street firms, had been purchasing tens of billions of dollars’ worth of risky home mortgages and then packaging and selling them as investments. “When I started screaming,” he told me, “I was just trying to do my job. Silly me.” At wits’ end, on Nov. 3, 2007, Mr. Bowen sent an e-mail to a small group of Citigroup executives, including Robert E. Rubin, a former Goldman Sachs executive and former Treasury secretary who was then chairman of the bank’s executive committee (and who received $126 million during his decade at Citigroup). “The reason for this urgent e-mail concerns breakdowns of internal controls and resulting significant but possibly unrecognized financial losses existing within our organization,” Mr. Bowen wrote.

Mr. Bowen told me that the following Tuesday, a Citigroup lawyer told him of his e-mail: We’re taking it seriously. Don’t call us. We’ll call you. He sent more e-mails to the lawyer, but heard nothing. “I mean, silence,” he said. (Months later, the two men did talk about Mr. Bowen’s e-mail to Mr. Rubin.)

Mr. Bowen, who is now 66 and teaches accounting at the University of Texas, Dallas, was fired in January 2009. (After signing a separation and confidentiality agreement, he received a severance package of less than $1 million.) And Citigroup went on to receive a $45 billion bailout from the taxpayers, plus guarantees on nearly $300 billion of securities, some of which were most likely crammed with the very low-quality mortgages Mr. Bowen had warned about.

America became inured to the sight of one extremely wealthy former Goldman Sachs senior partner turned Treasury secretary (Mr. Rubin) asking another (Mr. Paulson) for a favor. But what Mr. Bowen believes happened to him after Citigroup fired him still has the power to shock anyone who cares about accountability and justice. He feels he was muzzled; others involved are adamant that he was not.

In 2008, after his note to Mr. Rubin and after his responsibilities were vastly reduced at Citigroup, but before he was fired, Mr. Bowen decided to become a whistle-blower. That April, he filed a complaint, under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration claiming he had been retaliated against after writing his e-mail to Mr. Rubin. (The complaint was settled as part of his separation agreement with Citigroup.) Then, in July, Mr. Bowen went to the Securities and Exchange Commission. “I testified before the S.E.C.,” he told an audience in Texas earlier this year. “I told them what had happened.” He gave the S.E.C. more than 1,000 pages of documents. “Mr. Bowen, we are going to pursue this,” the agency told him. He never heard back. “Not only did they bury my testimony, they locked it up,” he said in his speech. (The S.E.C. has denied my numerous requests under the Freedom of Information Act for access to Mr. Bowen’s file, even though he has given his permission, claiming that the material was “confidential” and included Citigroup “trade secrets.” On Sept. 11, the S.E.C. denied my administrative appeal of its decision.)

Of course, it’s the old story on Wall Street: One man’s aggressive lobbying is another man’s undue influence. Mr. Kardell believes that “there’s no question that Richard was censored.”

Mr. Bowen told me that, despite the denials from Mr. Karp and Mr. Bondi, he continues to believe he was censored and bullied into changing his testimony. The experience has shaken his faith in the country’s institutions.

“It was devastating,” he said. “It truly was. From my standpoint, the corruption extends to the highest levels of government. I feel absolutely, completely violated. Every principle that I grew up with, and even when I did a brief stint in the R.O.T.C. and the Air Force, it’s just completely violated.”

He plans to keep talking about what happened to him. “By God, I’ve got to leave this country better off than the way I found it.”

Typhoon Haiyan

Just as the world was beginning to take in the almost unimaginable devastation wrought by typhoon Haiyan, a young Filipino diplomat, Naderev Sano, was getting ready to lead his country’s negotiations in the UN climate talks in Warsaw, Poland. Yeb, as he is known, is a scientist and head of his country’s national climate commission and had flown out of Manila just hours before the vastness of Haiyan had become apparent.

By Monday morning, Sano knew that the Philippines had been struck by possibly the strongest storm ever measured, killing many thousands of people and making millions homeless. He took the floor and, in some trepidation in front of the delegates of 190 countries, gave an extraordinary, passionate speech in which he clearly linked super typhoon Haiyan to manmade climate change and urged the world to wake up to the reality of what he said was happening from Latin America to south east Asia and the US. He lambasted the rich countries, and dared climate change deniers to go to his country to see for themselves what was happening.

When he sat down, sobbing, he was given a standing ovation.

This was not just diplomatic theatricals or righteous grandstanding by a developing-country diplomat about the snail-like speed of the climate talks, which have dragged on for years and are not likely to conclude until 2015. What few people in Warsaw knew until Sano had nearly finished his speech was that even as he was addressing the UN, his brother was digging people out of the rubble of the ruined city of Tacloban and he and his family still did not know the fate of other relatives.

Normally stone-hearted diplomats broke down, and Sano, who calls himself a “revolutionary” and a “philosopher” on Twitter [@yebsano], said later he would go on hunger strike for the whole of the two-week meeting. In the last 24 hours he has been joined by 30 activists.

When it comes to connecting the dots between climate change, extreme weather and health, the lines are clear. The earth is saying something with record heat, drought, storms and fire. Scientists are telling us this is what global warming looks like.It’s time to listen – and take action. There’s plenty we can do. Carbon pollution is the main reason our planet is getting hotter, increasing the chances of weather disasters, drought and flood and hurting our health. There are solutions. For starters, we can cut carbon pollution by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and increasing our use of clean, renewable energy. And we can implement policies that help us prepare for flooding, drought, storms and other consequences of climate change. But first, we need national leadership that will stop ignoring what the earth and scientists are telling us about climate change, and instead start ignoring those who continue to deny it is happening.

“If the movie had ended in Hollywood fashion, the Copenhagen climate conference in 2009 would have marked the culmination of the global fight to slow a changing climate. The world’s nations had gathered in the December gloom of the Danish capital for what a leading climate economist, Sir Nicholas Stern of Britain, called the “most important gathering since the Second World War, given what is at stake.” As Danish energy minister Connie Hedegaard, who presided over the conference, declared at the time: “This is our chance. If we miss it, it could take years before we get a new and better one. If ever.”

In the event, of course, we missed it. Copenhagen failed spectacularly. Neither China nor the United States, which between them are responsible for 40 percent of global carbon emissions, was prepared to offer dramatic concessions, and so the conference drifted aimlessly for two weeks until world leaders jetted in for the final day. Amid considerable chaos, President Obama took the lead in drafting a face-saving “Copenhagen Accord” that fooled very few. Its purely voluntary agreements committed no one to anything, and even if countries signaled their intentions to cut carbon emissions, there was no enforcement mechanism. “Copenhagen is a crime scene tonight,” an angry Greenpeace official declared, “with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport.” Headline writers were equally brutal: COPENHAGEN: THE MUNICH OF OUR TIMES? asked one. “ (Rolling Stones By Bill McKibben)

Government VS Free Market Economy

Government clotted with the bureaucracy and ossification that have piled up over two centuries of the industrial age, government today is among the forces in society most resistant to change, it doesn’t adapt and innovate in order to work successfully, government seems to grow more bloated and ineffective as its leaders claim they are making it leaner and meaner.

Meanwhile, in the private sector, the forces of free-market competition who provided society’s most powerful spur for change and innovation in the last half of the Twenty Century, and that supposedly would make Government obsolete, proved themselves to be a an idol with clay feet. In contrast to Washington’s dismal performance in recent decades, not to mention the sorry history of the former socialist states which somehow managed throughout their 70-year history to remain wholly incapable of providing so much as a decent kitchen appliance to their citizens, the free market in contrast has shown itself to be the most effective force in society for creating new wealth and the infamous 1% spreading that wealth unequally thin among the rest of the population, who is growing dissatisfied with both Government, and the shameless Wall street speculators, bankers, insurance companies and financial mavericks who selfishly bought Government to change the rules of the game in their dream of maximizing profits, at the expense of Nature, and society at large who suffer Ecological disasters, lack of proper services, healthcare, social services, education, jobs, and proper wages, have turned many citizen in to cynics, impotent to see and end to so much corruption, and a lack of empathy to resolve the common problems who affect the most to the less privileged masses of individuals who join not the new market forces, but the homeless and the disfranchised, who wander in droves around our cities as an spectacle of shame, and hopelessness of a better future.

A Brave New World

So what is the future? I do not want to be an alarmist, but I am neither an optimist about the situation we face in a world obvious too big, and complex to be able to predict a future, but I am certain that if the change that it’s coming soon, it will be not so much about the exploitations of resources, or the creation of more wealth, with better infrastructures, and a more just and inclusive distribution of goods and services, maybe this no doubt can be better, but I foresee more a switch in a radical change in goals, aspirations and objectives in our way we live, see and understand ourselves within our environment, and Nature, the dream of the winner takes all, the maverick in pursuit of money success, luxury, and the fine things in life will have to change and become a dream of downsizing to live in an ecological balance with Mother Earth, were wealth would not mean how much you can own for yourself, but as to adapt ourselves to live better with less, an to loose interest in amazing money for the sake of it, but to exchange it for peace of mind, and community interaction, abandoning the idea of consumerism to create an economy, but of embracing quality craftsmanship of goods made not by fabrics, but by individuals, for local consumption, simpler lifestyles rather than expensive ones, recycling of everything, sewing buttons, mending clothes, like our grandmothers did, the abandonment of plastic, chemicals, and synthetic materials in favor of natural ones, the abandonment of big cities in favor of small rural, organic self sustain communities, the total renunciation of the car as an individual mode of transportation in favor of community transportation, the demise of the big chain markets for the farmer markets, the elimination of the big agribusiness complex, pharmaceutical complex, oil complex, and any other enterprise that require the automated, and the mass produced goods, along with the factories, that need a large pool of people concentrated in small areas we call now days cities.

I could go on and on, but with this you get the idea, downsize and go green, I am sure a lot of you will smile, and dismiss this as naïve, utopian, impossible, etc. However one thing I can tell you, if we don’t, there will be no future for mankind, the model that we live right now, it is no longer sustainable and its condemn to fail, and fall apart as it is clear to see it happening as we speak, how long we will be able to go on like this, I ignore it but it may not take long, unless we reestablish harmony between Man and Nature.

Posted in A Brave New World, Capitalism, Climate Change, Corruption, Counsciousness, Critical Thinking, Cynicism, Democracy, Disillusion with Capitalism, Ecological Crisis, End of materialism, Future, Globalization, Government and Free Markets, Greed, Greed and Impunity, Materialism, New Values, Politics, Progress, The Rights of Nature, Typhoon Haiyan, Uncategorized, Wall Street fiasco | Tagged A Brave New World, A New Way of Living, Capitalism Failure, City of the Homeless, Daniel's Dream, Downsize and go Green, Ecological Collapse, Government Failure, Greed and Impunity, Idols with Clay Feet, Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream, Respect for Nature | 2 Comments

MY VIEWS ON RELIGION, ATHEISM, BUDDHISM AND OTHER MANIFESTATIONS OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT, HOUSTON SMITH A LIFE ON RELIGION

Posted on November 17, 2013 by theburningheart

It is very good to be born in a church,

but it is very bad to die in a church.

Swami Vivekananda

It may come as a surprise to my readers, my particular views on this issues, Religion, Atheism, and Buddhism, and other manifestations of the human spirit, I do not expect for my readers to share my views, after all they are mine! And more than mine, it is my experience through years of practice, study, and life acquired knowledge, distilled in to wisdom, or my lack of it, that can be communicated, but not shared in equal degree, because after all as incarnated sentient beings in this realm that we give various names: The World, Mankind, Life, or even negate as Maya (Illusion) it really come to our own solipsistic nature that we experience the world not through somebody else perceptions, but our own, rendering each experience unique, and limited to our corporeal person, subject to our particular set of circumstances, as our sex, family, language, nation, occupation, historical period we live in, socio-cultural, educational, and economic backgrounds, that define us, including the Religion, or lack off, in to what we are born in, or choose to change it later, as it may be the case.

I am a deeply religious person but do not have a Religion, I am not a Christian, even if I was born and baptized as Catholic, never care too much about the apostolic side of it, that either is missionary in nature, or to ratify hierarchical authority, do not care, or wish to convert people to my beliefs, and if believe there are Hierarchical values in Spirituality, I do not like Religion as an institution, I see Christ more as an example to follow, than a personal savior, I am neither a Jew, if most interested in Kabbalah, I am disqualified by being a Goyim , nor a Muslim since I had never embraced totally the five pillars of Islam I do my daily prayers but not always in a ritualistic way, plus I don’t think I will ever become a Haji, this doesn’t mean I am an Atheist, or even if I respect and admire Buddhism. And at one point in my life, my inclinations was to embrace Buddhism, never did, serious Buddhism it is monastic in nature, and I do not see it as a way for me, or for most part of Mankind as a matter of fact, and no, categorically I am not an Agnostic, I find the term rather lukewarm, From Agnostic to Atheist there is really little difference if you consider it is just a subjective idea of admitting belief, or disbelief, with little relevance one way or another one, to my knowledge there is not such a thing, as Agnostic activism, like there is some Atheist who are in a crusade to propagate their lack of faith, they believe man will be free if unshackled of belief on a higher power, a rather mystifying belief on itself, since freedom it is such a subjective, and relative word…

However if I respect their right of disbelief on a personal God, or an Immanent God, what I find odd , it is many of the limitations such position entails, it was not until I started to understand how diversely different a concept of God vary from individual to individual, Religion, to Religion, and from sect to sect that realized how complex a subject it is, and how little explored by many who declare himself an atheist on the face of their particular choice, rather than conclusions after a lifetime of study, and experience on the matter, instead than a choice he took after he read the last bestseller book from Richard Dawkins, a popular writer of atheist books, whose lingua franca is arguably the Scientific method of a biologist! With little relation to the study of Ontology, Philosophy, or Theology, and many other branches of knowledge besides biological determinism, and Darwinism.

The late Ronald Dworkin did an essay entitled: Religion without God, Mr. Dworkin a Constitutional lawyer and anti-positivist, no doubt fed up with the idea that the dominion of science, should be applied in to such a subjective Sociological field as Law, but very possible an atheist on the principle of denying a personal God argued for a defending an atheism, that sound now days more like a “Cosmic Force” “Awe of Nature” or some other Euphemism for God, cited Einstein, a favorite undisputed darling of scientific oriented, or not, but of a large section of mankind, believers, or unbelievers alike, whose words are the final verdict of truth, Dworkin quoted Einstein:

“To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men.”

What do you know? Einstein if alive would be classified as; Spiritual but not Religious, quite a big umbrella for many whose beliefs could be as different as night from day! With that thought in mind, my point is the diversity of personal unbelief can be as baffling, complex, supercilious, or idiotic, as that of many believers. Dilettantism on almost anything seems to be the rule rather than the exception.

Yes, also I know the History of intolerance by religious authorities, wars, genocide, murder, torture, abuse, and so many other crimes.

However I like to point out there not seem to be a cessation, or decrease of this crimes just because people has abandoned belief. Political, social, economical, racial, family, and so many other issues, seem to be the source of continued unabated violence, and crimes regardless of belief, or unbelief.

The Root of anger and Violence

Maybe it has to do more with how we react to issues, our virtue, wisdom, or lack of it, and not our belief, or unbelief that is responsible for our bad behavior? What I mean we can believe whatever we may wish to believe but it is the capacity of self restrain, against anger, violence, greed, opposed by the virtues of compassion, love, tolerance, and wisdom of the individual, groups, societies, nations, that will determine their actions, in other words Moral Virtue sorely lacking in most of the leaders of mankind, and people in general around the world at the present moment, otherwise the world wouldn’t be in such a mess, doesn’t it?

Perpetrators of violence exist at all levels of society, and hardly any particular individual is free from it, consciously, or unconsciously we are all perpetrators of violence, male or female. I will not go in to a full study of the causes of anger, fear, and human weakness that are responsible for it. But we can point out, to countless of historical examples from Hitler, Stalin, Pol-Pot to Attila, Tamerlane, Genghis-Khan. Suffice is to say that religion, or lack of it has little to do with it, more to do with the family structure, and the values, and pressures broth in to such families by an unjust society:

“The violence inflicted by human adults on themselves, each other and the Earth is an outcome of the visible, invisible and utterly invisible violence inflicted on them as children.”

Robert J, Burrows

At the time, in the moment, violence makes emotional sense to the perpetrator because it feels “right.” It also feels “free” because social restraints are suspended. And it feels satisfying to let angry impulse rule, anger the most common justification for violence. Why is that?The awareness of anger is usually identified by such thoughts as, “this is wrong,” “this isn’t what I like or want,” “this isn’t fair,” “this shouldn’t be going on,” “This must be stopped.” So the function of anger is to patrol a person’s wellbeing, identify possible violations, and energize some expressive, protective, corrective, or aggressive action in response, regardless of how misguided may be.

Mankind seems to be historically every moment at a crossroads of sorts, driven by our foibles, and weakness, rather than by our wisdom, or good judgment were the future, and our human survival, and that of the world seems to be in question, a estrange and mysterious state of our Human condition…

SPIRITUAL BUT NOT RELIGIOUS

Spiritual but not Religious it is a common expression used now day to denote you believe there is such a thing as Spirit, but you do not conform to the norm of following a established religion, unfortunately the term now days it is so common, that the phrase is used world-wide, but is most prominent in the United States where one study reports that as many as 33% of people identify as spiritual but not religious. On the other side it means little to too many, and I will be the first to admit the bad connotations associated with this term, many serious religious observers claim people who embrace this rubric, are people who lack to avoid commitment, and the sacrifice that making a difference in embracing a religion imply, they say:

“Do you like feeling good without having to act on your feeling? Boosting your self-esteem no matter your competence or behavior? Then I’ve got the religious program for you, Spiritual but not Religious!”

“The thing is, SBNR folks, you may know more about what we’re supposed to be doing than we do. I mean, church — if it’s done right — involves inconveniences like missing brunch with friends on Sunday morning, money that could be spent elsewhere given away, old people calling you by the wrong name and occasionally boring sermons.

Being transformed and transforming the world together takes commitment and hard work. It’s a messy engagement that sometimes hurts. It’s caring and sticking around, changing systems and continuously inviting a world in desperate need to witness communities of transformation and prophetic witness

It’s a fair question to ask why you would add that kind of inconvenience to your life if you didn’t have to.”

My response is of course they do not understand how fed up we are with dogmas, ossified institutions who are a waste of time, who follow the letter, but the Spirit flew away millennia ago, hierarchical, authoritarian figures who tell us what to do, how to think, and what to say, when most of the time they do not follow their own rules, and not only that, they claim to be the voice of God, and go on committing on their sheep flock serious abuse crimes too well known to bother to talk much about it, from the historical Inquisition Auto da Fe, to contemporary now unfortunately common sexual abuse, to monetary exploitation of the believers by leaders, gurus, and all kind of spiritual scoundrels ready to make a buck out of the innocent.

NO SMOKING ALLOWED

But above all, that barking at the wrong tree talk, blaming the SBNR for being wishy-washy, the key factor, that most organized religions are missing in their discourse against the SBNR it is not the disappointment of people with religious institutions, or the implied flakiness, selfishness sunset watching, and lack of seriousness of SBNR, but the lack of direct Spiritual experience that is absent in their own Religious Institutions, or pseudo spiritual communities, and that are unable to provide, because simply put; They do not have it!

That is on my view the real culprit why people do not flock in to their churches, temples, synagogues, etc..After all there is religious groups that thrive, when others fail, I used to joke with a friend, when years ago we explored different Spiritual groups on the fringes, who promised an esoteric knowledge of sorts, I remembered a comment the painter Edgar Degas made when visiting the House museum of Gustave Moreau a French symbolist painter, when a friend pull out a cigarette to smoke meanwhile he walked through the house, Degas, said something of the sort: “No smoking allowed here, after all we are in the house of a very sick man.” A harsh criticism from the painter, no doubt on Moreau’s art, but visiting ourselves the temples, or saloons of many of this religious, or quasi religious museums of time past, mockingly I would use the same phrase, or if the group or church were vital, and thriving with plenty of people, I would said admiringly: “You could have a few fat, big cigars here, nobody will die!”

HISTORY

However it is true that if serious about your spirituality you will better be an exceptional individual, who apply itself to a Spiritual practice, rather than remain a spiritual dilettante for life, a common case now days, regardless of claims of high spirituality when the only spiritual exercise you do is having a vague idea of a supreme deity, or pagan deities, as a reaction against an unfortunately association between old religions, and patriarchal Monotheism, ignoring Oneness of Being as the essence of it, not the tribal patriarchal context it come from. Or what is very fashionable now days naively become a Buddhist, just because it suit your ideas that Buddhism it is not a religion, a statement that it is half true, to a point, but since most of it is organized as any other religious institution, with it’s rituals, scriptures, chants, temples, rules, and hierarchical, and monastic dogma, and where abuse it is not unheard for those in the know. To our eyes perhaps, a new dish exciting like an exotic, fragrant, and foreign plate, but old, agonizing, and decrepit on it’s place of origin, and no less unappetizing than our Judeo-Christian fare, after all fossilized as well.

Since the Renaissance it has been fashionable to revive ancient beliefs, there was a religious and moral, or, as usually expressed, an irreligious side to the classical revival in Italy which cannot be passed wholly unnoticed. In the first place, the study of the pagan poets and philosophers produced the exact result predicted by a certain party in the Church. It proved hurtful to religious faith. Men became pagans in their feelings and in their way of thinking, not that Christian in Europe ever abandoned paganism entirely, merely adapted it, like making the pagan gods, in to saints. Italian scholars and Italian society almost ceased to be Christian in any true sense of the word. And although Europe remained Christian the Pagan gods and goddesses of Ancient Greece jostled with the patron saints of Christianity on public monument, and classical philosophy began to change the way people thought about ethics and morality.

I kind of smile when contemporary church leaders complaint at the decline of believers, abandoning the church, in fact the Protestant Reformation, was an effort to bring back the old Spirit of Christianity in what was considered a decadent, immoral, church with obsolete doctrines, rituals, leadership and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, through the centuries since then the germ keep propagating, bringing more enlightenment, humanism, atheism, and rationalism, with the subsequent backlash of more offshoots of more radical Christian fundamentalist, until even those movements loose impetus and embrace modernity, to the point of Nietzsche famous declaration: “God is dead.”

What it seems to be missing it is the understanding that the Christian church in general can’t survive postmodernity if a new Spiritually a live current doesn’t come to revitalize it, not only in the logical, and conceptual side of it, were all the efforts seems to be made, forgetting the most vital, and essential part of it, which it is not the rational part, but the non rational, and emotional side of it, as the Theologian Karl Rahner expressed it:

“The Christian of the future will be a Mystic or not exist at all.”

The dilemma

Shamanism, Paganism, and a host of Oriental religions and practices, like Vedanta, Yoga, Taoism, Sufis, Gnosticism, not to talk of the revival esoteric traditions like Theosophy, Kabbalah, Hermetic,and now New Pagans like Druids, Wicca appear to hold high court for a few years, then to loose their initial impetus to settle down as a small communities, who struggle to survive, and prosper on the fringe of the mainstream religions.

What this groups intent, it is to offer an alternative to the decadent, but still dominant mainstream religions, some with more luck than others, some falling in to what is no different, than a novelty with the lifetime of a short summer that goes in to an early cold Autumn. Some of this groups start with a charismatic leader, or guru, who is able to inspire people to spiritual action, and religious fervor for a while, just to disappoint them after some scandal, or other. Others if better, as soon as the charismatic leader pass away they fall on the hand of uninspiring leaders, who institutionalize the teaching, and set shrines to the memory to the personality of the individual in question, and soon forget the essence of the message to become death letter, worried with the prosaic practicality of supporting a church, and the memory of the death leader. Many times a struggle for power ensues between the disciples of such leaders, and many followers leave disappointed, usually schism promptly follows, and two, or many other splints of the original group take place, and attack each other from a distance claiming legitimacy over the others.

It seem Human social interaction with our eternal companion, our egos it is at the base of conflict and lack of ecumenical understanding between nations, societies, groups, religious institutions or not. All this is antithesis to Spiritual pursuits, and here is when we come to the dilemma of involving ourselves with a particular religion, or spiritual fringe group, and get bogged down in our search for true Spirit, since not only we have to deal with our inner struggle, weakness, and temptations as limited, and imperfect individuals, but add to our misery the weight of a spiritually death congregation.

The Spirit bloweth where it listeth

The great explorer of Religion an acquaintance of mine, Houston Smith, of who I read some of his books, and listen to his talks when in town, and if too briefly engaged in conversations with. Interviewed about the subject said:

Loudon: I would think that Thomas Merton’s experience might bear out the legitimacy of this gradual independence within an ongoing dialectic between freedom and form.

Smith: It is a dialectic. The Zen tradition, as we know, has many stipulations like “When you see the Buddha, kill the Buddha!” or “Tear up the Sutras! Such teachings have their place, but we tend to overgeneralize them, divorcing them from the contexts for which they were intended. Too early in the game, we appropriate to ourselves the right to take the liberties they counsel.

Loudon: Might there be a special temptation for Westerners, with the emphasis on freedom and individuality, to avoid the early stages of
initiation into a teaching?

Smith: Yes. And there is a sizeable streak of counterdependence in our culture. “Don’t tell me what to do!” The Fritz Perls attitude toward life.

Loudon: And if you say that at the start, you may never get off the ground.

Smith: Exactly.

Loudon: Does following a religious way, a path of faith, necessarily involve spiritual disciplines of some sort?

Smith: Yes. Again, we must recognize that “the spirit bloweth where it listeth,” so there may be one in a million who may be the exception.
But overwhelmingly the need is for wisdom and method both; all the traditions so teach. As the saying goes, we need to walk on both
feet: right views and right practice.

Loudon: How can a person understand a religious tradition that he or she does not practice?

Smith: Very imperfectly. There are those who see the promised land, get some intimation of what lies there, but for some quirk within them
just do not take the steps to cross over into it. But the rule in religious matters is that understanding proceeds through living what
one is trying to understand.

Loudon: So it is only by living a tradition that one comes to understand it and gains thereby the resources to understand other traditions?

Smith: That’s true. Noam Chomsky once said that there is a very real sense in which to understand fully how one language functions is to
understand how they all function. The situation with religious traditions is comparable.

Loudon: Is the advanced, scholarly study of the particular traditions a necessary or vital part of the interplay between knowledge and practice?

Smith: One has to ask, “Necessary for what?” You see, I believe that Black Elk [Lakota Sioux medicine man] or an Australian aborigine living the Dreamtime that Eliade talks about had everything“ necessary unto salvation,” as the saying goes. Scholarly equipment would be irrelevant to the depth and quality of their awareness. When it comes to religious living, the kind of information that appears in scholarly journals is quite expendable. Even so, the mind is a part of the human complement, and one can become interested in comparative religions as one can in other things. Lunching with a
colleague, Bertrand Russell listened attentively to his report of a discovery in brain functions that he had made, and then commented quietly “It’s nice to know things.” That holds for religions too. I am constantly grateful for such historians of religion. As you may know, I chanced myself to stumble on one remarkable fact in this area: the capacity of certain specially trained lamas to sing multiple tones simultaneously. Was that discovery important?
Probably not. It was a grace, you might say; a grace, moreover, from which one can learn something beneﬁcial.

Loudon: So it’s not necessary, but such study can be enriching.

Smith: It can also be distracting, because if one isn’t careful one’s attention can get sidetracked into merely collecting information. In
which case living, organic wholes get pulverized and become like dry sand.

Loudon: Regarding the interrelationship of religious traditions, what about the individual traditions’ claims of exclusivity and preeminence?

Smith: It’s totally understandable, because that to which one gives one’s life one must think is ultimate. Otherwise, it doesn’t deserve ultimate allegiance. If one gives one’s life to Christ, exoterically conceived, then it’s almost as though one wouldn’t be wholly committed to Christ unless that Christ were absolute above all other exoterically nameable deities.

Loudon: Otherwise you’d always be on the threshold of commitment and never committing yourself actually.

Smith: That’s why Schuon says that for the exoteric the preeminent, privileged status of one tradition is not only inevitable, but appropriate. Now, such people are going to have problems, because we live in a world where people are aware of other traditions. And how God’s mercy is to be reconciled with his apparent favoritism for one
tradition will probably be a lifelong koan for those people. But whatever one says, this is no problem for the esoteric, because the esoteric core is common to them all.

(From the book The way things are Conversations with Houston Smith)

Posted in Ancient Religions, Anger and Violence, Atheism, Buddhism, Cosmogony, Crisis of Values, Critical Thinking, Cynicism, Direct Spiritual Experience, Freedom, Future, History, Houston Smith, Human Nature, Inner Journey, Inspiration, Mysticism, New Age, New Values, Personal Story, Religion, Secular Society, Solipsism, Spiritual but not Religious, Spirituality, Subjective, Uncategorized, Western Ideals, Wisdom | Tagged A New Way, Anger and Violence, Houston Smith, Institutional Failure, Mysticism, Personal Views, Religion, Spiritual but not Religious, The Future of Religion, The Need for a Personal God | 15 Comments

TURNING OUR DREAM METAPHORS IN TO SPIRITUAL REALITY, AND TURNING OUR SPIRITUAL REALITY IN TO LIFE WISDOM

Posted on October 17, 2013 by theburningheart

Imagination it’s like a musical instrument all Men posses,

but few know how to play.

B.A.

The Language of Metaphor

Metaphor is a figure Rhetoric of identifying a real term (R) with one imaginary (I) between which there is a similarity or analogy: Metaphor comes from Greek meta (outside or beyond) and pherein to move. To move a meaning beyond a boundary of reason, to a place of the Imagination by analogy, and similitude.

Viewed as an aspect of speech and writing, metaphor qualifies as style, in particular, style characterized by a type of analogy. An expression (word, phrase) that by implication suggests the likeness of one entity to another entity gives style to an item of speech or writing, whether the entities consist of objects, events, ideas, activities, attributes, or almost anything expressible in language. For example, in the first sentence of this paragraph, the word “viewed” serves as a metaphor for “thought of”, implying analogy of the process of seeing and the thought process. The phrase, “viewed as an aspect of”, projects the properties of seeing (vision) something from a particular perspective onto thinking about something from a particular perspective, that “something” in this case referring to “metaphor” and that “perspective” in this case referring to the characteristics of speech and writing.

When we dream mainly we do it in images with a Metaphoric content, rarely we have straight dreams were there is not a series of symbols constructed as metaphors, that require interpretation.

We could say that our dreams are the metaphors of our life reflected in the mirror of our consciousness, a realm of the Imagination that open the gates of insight in to the nature of Being beyond it’s material manifestation in to the realm of Spirit.

Metaphore in Native Cultures the Yaminahua of the Western Amazon Forest

The shamans themselves understand very clearly the meaning of these metaphors and they call them ‘tsai yoshtoyoshto’, literally “language-twisting-twisting.” Graham Townsley translates this expression as “twisted language.”

The word ‘twist’ has the same root as ‘two’ and ‘twin’. ‘Twisted’ means, technically, “double and wrapped around itself.”

Why do Yaminahua shamans talk in twisted language? According to one of them: “With my koshuiti I want to see – singing, I carefully examine things – twisted language brings me close but not too close – with normal words I would crash into things – with twisted ones I circle around them – I can see them clearly. “

For Townsley, all shamanic relations with the spirits are “deliberately constructed in an elliptical and multi-referential fashion so as to mirror the refractory nature of the beings who are their objects.” He concludes: “Yoshi are real beings who are both ‘like and not like’ the things they animate. They have no stable or unitary nature and thus, paradoxically, the ‘seeing as’ of ‘twisted language’ is the only way of adequately describing them. Metaphor here is not improper naming but the only proper naming possible.”

Graham Townsley

“The central image dominating the whole field of Yaminahua Shamanic knowledge is that of Yoshi, spirit or animate essence. In Yaminahua thought all things in the world are animated and given their particular qualities by Yoshi. Shamanic knowledge, is above all, knowledge of this entities, which are also the sources of all the powers that Shamanism claims for itself.

Everything about the domain of Yoshi is marked by an extreme ambiguity, not only for the outside observer, but for the Yaminahua themselves. For most Yaminahua they are things associated with the night, the half seen and dreams. They are called upon to explain a host of events that seem uncanny, strange or coincidental. However their significance goes far beyond this; they are implicated in all the literally vital questions of Human existence: birth growth, illness and death.”

After a lengthy explanation of Yoshi that can be analogous to the Chi, or Ki of the Chinese and Japanese. Concepts similar to qi can be found in many cultures, for example, prana and cit the serpent power Kundalini in Hindu religion, mana in Hawaiian culture, lüng in Tibetan Buddhism, ruah in Hebrew culture, and Vital energy in Western philosophy. Some elements of qi can be understood in the term energy when used by writers and practitioners of various esoteric forms of spirituality and alternative medicine. Elements of the qi concept can also be found in Western popular culture, for example “The Force” in Star Wars. Notions in the West of energeia, élan vital, or “vitalism” are purported to be similar.

Townsley goes to the use of metaphorical allusions of the Shamanic songs of the Yaminahua that never call things by their name, but by their similitudes as visually perceived:

“The important thing, emphasized by all shamans, is that none of the things referred to in the song should be referred by their proper names. One might assume that this circumlocutions were not consciously metaphoric usages at all, but cultural fixed equivalents which were learnt and employed automatically with no awareness of their metaphorical content. This is certainly not so. In every instance the metaphoric logic of these songs could be explained with no hesitation. In every case the basic sense of this usage was carried by finely observed perceptual resemblances between the song-word and its referent. Thus fish become “white-collared peccaries “ because the resemblance of a fish gill’s to the the white dashes on this type of peccary’s neck; jaguars become “baskets” because the fibers of this particular type loose-woven basket (wonati) form a pattern precisely similar to a jaguar markings, rain becomes “big cold lean-to” because the slanting sheet of rain in a downpour resemble the slanting roofs of the lean-tos wich the Yaminahua built for shelter when they are away from the village.

But Yoshi are much more than this. They also have an intelligent, volitional existence in a supra-sensory realm. It is this fact which, for the Yaminahua, makes them so hard to know. The only established discourse about this realm is that of mythology. The creation myths which tell how, out of the original chaotic flux of the “time of dawnings”, the things of this world came to be, are not simply regarded by shamans as tales of some distant past. The powerful flux of the “time of dawnings” is regarded as in some senses still present in the spirit world. It is precisely these mythical, transformational powers with which yoshi are charged and that shamans see themselves as tapping. Origin myths are seen as providing “paths” into this spirit world and true accounts of the nature of yoshi. This is why shamans will sometimes chant origin myths, transformed into the elliptical language of shamanic song, because these are “the paths which take you to a yoshi”. The Yaminahua are only too aware of the extreme ambiguities and paradoxes surrounding yoshi. All accounts of them stress their mutability and the fundamental difficulty of knowing them. As a shaman, who like all shamans claims to see and deal with them directly, said to me: “You never really know yoshi — they are like something you recognize and at the same time they are different — like when I see Jaguar — there is something about him like a jaguar, but perhaps something like a man too — and he changes …” For the Yaminahua there is no possible unitary description of a. yoshi. They are always “like . . . and not like”, “the same . . . but different”. This profound duality marks not only all accounts of them but is reflected in all shamanic and ritual dealings with them. As I will discuss later in this paper, these are consciously and deliberately constructed in an elliptical and multi-referential fashion so as to mirror the refractory nature of the beings who are their objects.

As far as the Yaminahua are concerned, the key to the nature of this yoshi- world is the dream. Dreams, of course, are precisely understood as the wanderings of the human yoshi in this ordinarily unperceived world. Perhaps the best image we can have of the way they view their knowledge of this world is the one the Yaminahua use themselves when they refer to both myths and shamanic songs as “paths” (wai). These are the hunting paths which radiate out from every Yaminahua village into the vast surrounding forest. Near the village the paths are open, wide and well-trodden. These are the myths, the shidipaowo wai, the “paths of the old ones who went before”, transited by everyone and well known.”

And here we go a little further in Graham Townsley discourse in to the nature of the Shaman use of metaphor.

“Shamans are clearly aware of the underlying sense of their koshuiti metaphors and refer to them as tsai yoshtoyoshto — “twisted language” (literally: language- twisting-twisting). But why do they use them? All explanations clearly indicated that these were associated with the clarity of visionary experience which the songs were intended to create. “With my koshuiti I want to see — singing, I carefully examine things — twisted language brings me close but not too close — with normal words I would crash into things — with twisted ones I circle around them — I can see them clearly.”

There is a complex representation of the use of metaphor and its capacity to create immediate and precise images, contained within these simple words. Everything said about shamanic songs points to the fact that as they are sung the shaman actively visualizes the images referred to by the external analogy of the song, but that he does this through a carefully controlled “seeing as” the different things actually named by the internal metaphors of his song. This “seeing as” in some way creates a space in which powerful visionary experience can occur. It is in this visionary experience that the magical efficacy of the song is thought to lie. The song is the path which he both makes and follows. It sustains and directs his vision. Whether or not the patient can understand the song is irrelevant to its efficacy as far as he is concerned.”

And he conclude

“In showing how shamanic visions and song-images are constructed and sequenced, how the “paths” are made and followed, crisscrossing the boundaries of the yoshi-world of myth and this one, I hope also to have shown how the descriptions of the world contained in an Amazonian cosmology are actually known and constructed. This emphasis on the techniques of knowledge helps us to see how such a cosmology, far from being a complete and ready-constituted system of things known is, for the Yaminahua themselves, always a system in the making, never finished and always provisional. It certainly has stable reference points fixed by tradition, such as the “wide paths” of the myth-songs, however there are not very many of these and once off them, the song-paths followed by shamans are multiple and idiosyncratic. In this context we should pay attention to their own image of their knowledge as a network of paths. These paths are tenuous and impermanent, threading their way through a vast and refractory space of signs and images which, like the forest and the dream, offers the occasional glimpse of something, but is fundamentally opaque.

Yaminahua shamans have no certainty about what this space contains and are always ready to discover something new in it. It should not be surprising that they have been so ready to embrace the experiences of the transformed setting of their modern-day existence. Yaminahua shamans have now made koshuiti to almost all aspects of this world. There are songs to outboard motors (hard- fire-baskets), good for curing headaches and working on the resemblances between the sound of a distant outboard and the throb of a headache; to engine oil (fire-sun- water), good for children’s diarrhoea and working on the remarkable similarities between the used oil of an outboard and a child’s diarrhea; also to airplanes, shot-guns, cinemas, radios, sunglasses and much more. “When we first saw these things we examined them carefully, asked ourselves what their yoshi were like, and then found their song.” These are viewed as welcome and important additions to their repertoire.

Like good bricoleurs, Yaminahua shamans have found a use for everything. Along with the social circumstances paradoxically favorable to them, it is this creativity of Yaminahua shamanic knowledge which has contributed to its growth in the modern context of violent social transformation.”

The Yaminahua are of course not the only tribal culture where metaphor is the key that open the door of spirit, mankind through History, and around the world have used metaphor to connect and translate spiritual experience in to earthly wisdom, I like to offer a different view on the same subject but in a total different Historical, and Geographical context to look for parallelism, and analogy despite their obvious disconnection.

IbnArabi

“When the knowers of God enter the Universe of spiritual meanings they are in the presence of a reality in which what is hidden to the rational faculty, and therefore deemed sometimes impossible by it, actually occurs and it is witnessed. it’s a spiritual reality teeming with the impossible and the coincidence of opposites. The unaided rational faculty has no direct access to this world and cannot countenance it’s true reality. it is the world where the impossible is given form, sense perception its the nearest thing to the imagination, since imagination takes forms from sense-perception, then discloses meaning through those sensory forms, it sees knowledge in the form of milk, honey , wine, and pearls…It sees religion in the form of a cord…the Real in the form of a human being or a light.

Its an Ontological realm in which spiritual meanings are given tangible form, and tangible forms become subtle spiritual meanings. The sensory thing cannot be a meaning, nor can the meaning be a sensory thing, but in the supersensory realm of the Imagination meanings are literally embodied, and sensory things subtilized.”

This Ontological realm is called in many cultures with many names, but we can resume saying we all men have the faculty of dreaming and to be connected to this realm by the fact of being human, however we have to point, that most men due to an impoverished culture of Spiritual values, had lost their ability to understand what their dreams are all about, few even care to find out, most they just dismiss it as nonsense, and are happy to go through life even thinking they do not dream, and if they do, it has no relevance in their life, they do this at their own loss ignoring we are the substance of dreams, and we are immersed in this metaphorical reality, where we can discover meaning, and purpose for a life of wisdom.

Posted in Ancient Civilizations, Archetypes, Barzak, Cosmogony, Ibn Arabi, Imagination, Inner Journey, Inspiration, Language, Metaphor, Metaphysics, Mundus Imaginalis, Mysticism, Myth, Mythology, Ontology, Revelation, Shamanism, Uncategorized, Yaminahua | Tagged Amazonian Cosmology, Dreams, Graham Townsley, Indigenous People, Metaphor, Mythical Wisdom, Mythology, Ontological realm, Shamanism, Twisted language, Yaminahua, Yoshi | 11 Comments

THE ILLUSION OF TRUTH, MEMORY, ARCHETYPES AND THE DREAMLIKE LANDSCAPES OF THE SACRED

Posted on September 18, 2013 by theburningheart

“The only real treasure is in your head.

Memories are better than diamonds

and nobody can steal them from you”

Rodman Philbrick

Most of us, specially those who can claim we had a happy childhood we hold our memories of youth dearly, specially as we grow old the past come to our minds often, and sometimes with great detail, at least of certain things we cared about, or paid enough attention, since memory is selective, my relatives, and friends seem to remember things that I can’t recollect, and likewise I remember things they may have a vague idea, or not at all.

The Great Neurologist Oliver Sacks says about our fleeting memories:

“There is, it seems, no mechanism in the mind or the brain for ensuring the truth, or at least the veridical character, of our recollections. We have no direct access to historical truth, and what we feel or assert to be true depends as much on our imagination as our senses. There is no way by which the events of the world can be directly transmitted or recorded in our brains; they are experienced and constructed in a highly subjective way, which is different in every individual to begin with, and differently reinterpreted or re-experienced whenever they are recollected. (The neuroscientist Gerald M. Edelman often speaks of perceiving as “creating,” and remembering as “recreating” or “re-categorizing.”) Frequently, our only truth is narrative truth, the stories we tell each other, and ourselves—the stories we continually re-categorize and refine. Such subjectivity is built into the very nature of memory, and follows from its basis and mechanisms in the human brain. The wonder is that aberrations of a gross sort are relatively rare, and that, for the most part, our memories are relatively solid and reliable.

We, as human beings, are landed with memory systems that have fallibilities, frailties, and imperfections—but also great flexibility and creativity. Confusion over sources or indifference to them can be a paradoxical strength: if we could tag the sources of all our knowledge, we would be overwhelmed with often irrelevant information.

Indifference to source allows us to assimilate what we read, what we are told, what others say and think and write and paint, as intensely and richly as if they were primary experiences. It allows us to see and hear with other eyes and ears, to enter into other minds, to assimilate the art and science and religion of the whole culture, to enter into and contribute to the common mind, the general commonwealth of knowledge. This sort of sharing and participation, this communion, would not be possible if all our knowledge, our memories, were tagged and identified, seen as private, exclusively ours. Memory is dialogic and arises not only from direct experience but from the intercourse of many minds.”

One of my personal experience with the treachery of memory, came in the form of two decorated with relief figures clay pots for plants my Grandmother had inside at the house, as a child the figures fascinated me, and I remembered pretty well, or so I thought, the fact that I even dream about them in a couple of occasion, in my memory they had a dark green color as background for the reliefs figures, and that I last saw when my Grandmother was alive, sometimes I dreamed of the house and the mentioned pots, thirty years later visiting my family by chance I saw those same pots visiting the office of my brother in-law, my carnal brother who work with my in-law looking at my surprised face, told me he brought them there. The shock of seeing them at the entrance of the office, two hundred miles from their original place, when their lost was almost certain, accompanied by the fact the color of the pots wasn’t green, but a dark blue!

Our memories can seem true, but in reality are a sinuous, intricate path, with a historic shaky reality, that didn’t exist but in our minds, a road and foggy path, that may lead to a land of no where…

The Method of Loci

The ancients aware of this fact devised a method to exercise the mind to be able to recollect things in an accurate way, the Method of Loci.

The Method of Loci (plural of Latin locus for place or location), also called the memory palace, is a mnemonic device introduced in ancient Roman and Greek rhetorical treatises (in the anonymous Rhetorica ad Herennium, Cicero’s De Oratore, and Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria). The items to be remembered in this mnemonic system are mentally associated with specific physical locations. It relies on memorized spatial relationships to establish, order and recollect memorial content. The term is most often found in specialized works on psychology, neurobiology and memory, though it was used in the same general way at least as early as the first half of the nineteenth century in works on rhetoric, logic and philosophy.

In this technique the subject memorizes the layout of some building, or the arrangement of shops on a street, or any geographical entity which is composed of a number of discrete loci. When desiring to remember a set of items the subject literally ‘walks’ through these loci and commits an item to each one by forming an image between the item and any distinguishing feature of that locus. Retrieval of items is achieved by ‘walking’ through the loci, allowing the latter to activate the desired items. The efficacy of this technique has been well established (Ross and Lawrence 1968, Crovitz 1969, 1971, Briggs, Hawkins and Crovitz 1970, Lea 1975), as is the minimal interference seen with its use.

However my interest it is not the recovery of memories for practical reasons, or historical truth, but as to the realization, that our memories, are a device from our Alter ego, to guide us to a specific end, where memories, and dreams melt in to what becomes our Loci of Imagination a very useful tool to advance our understanding of ourselves, and our development as Spiritual beings.

There are the three dimensions that we are all aware of, but there is the fourth dimension, which is also a spatial dimension, but we don’t perceive it as that, we perceive the distances of the fourth dimension as the passage of time. If time is just a perception with no reality inherent, but to our vision of existence, as limited, and perishable, we experience time as a continuum passing through, but if we change our view in to a four-dimensional solid in which time is not passing, where every moment that ever existed or will exist is suspended, forever unchanging, from within this immense solid of space-time. Then the passing of time is an illusion that is only apparent to us as we move through this huge solid along what we perceive as reality.

If time is an illusion, then all movement and change are also illusions. So the only thing that gives us the illusion of movement and change and events and time is the fact that our consciousness is moving through this thing called existence, If you imagine it as a film, a movie encased in existence, each of those individual small moments are a part of a large frame, If they each represent a moment, that only is changed by our inability to recognize our consciousness is moving along . Individual moments are not going anywhere, but as the light, or focus of our consciousness passes across them, it provides the illusion of movement, this produces an idea of a past, who has never really passed, it just exist somewhere else.

But as we saw before, this reality of the past if it ever existed, has been transformed in to the new reality of our memory, and de facto transformed in to our new reality, as untrustworthy this may seem, this process allows to bend time, and have a rich malleable repository of experience an Akashic record. In theosophy and anthroposophy, the akashic records (from akasha, the Sanskrit word for ‘sky’ ‘space’ or ‘aether’) are a compendium of mystical knowledge supposedly encoded in a non-physical plane of existence known as the astral plane. A library, or file cabinet of Universal knowledge, rising in the mist of our consciousness, when we are ready to dip on it, for Spiritual progress.

Our personal Heaven

This bring us back to our personal reality, our individual sack of memories, given to us by the Ontological fact of existence, existence that allow us a myriad of memories, different but analogous to some one else, our own private Universe of consciousness.

I remember as a child the long trips to reach the towns were my to Grandmothers lived, like a pair of opposites, they were antithetical in geographical location, one living north of us, the other south, a contrast on environment and weather as well, desert like in the north, humid, tropical, dense jungle forest like in the south, those conditions now days I realize were excellent for creating a rich environment for my web of dreams, providing numerous symbolic archetypes to my future dreams.

Relatively recently a tree in the property of my maternal Grandmother become a sort of secret Axis Mundi of my Imagination, now in my Grandmother house were numerous trees, and at the time during my childhood never saw anything remarkable in this particular tree, neither remember hearing anything about it, however from time to time I will dream about this tree. A few years ago a little before my mother died I had a powerful dream were my mother signaled the tree, and indicated she wanted to put her ashes under the Nacapule tree. Immediately asked for a leave of absence at work, and went to visit her, she was living with my sister at the time, and as soon as my sister could talk in private to me she let me know, what already I knew by the dream, my mother was living her last days. Without revealing my dream, I just mentioned I was aware of the situation, later talking to my mother, I asked her about the tree of course without telling her the dream, to my surprise the tree had a very interesting story; my Grandfather a man who died eight years before I was even born, brought the tree from his old town and planted it like some sort of connecting symbol between his new home and the old one, and the tree was his special care, and worry, suffering the harsh desert heat, and even strafing by airplane in 1929.

When grandmother died in 1973 the house was sold, and the new owner destroyed the house to the ground , and cut all the many trees of the property, and beautiful garden, except for the Nacapule tree, and two palm trees, to my further surprise Mother produced an old piece of paper with a poem about the house and the tree made by an aunt of mine, her sister when they sold the house, poem that I translated and posted in this blog on May, 2010.

On many of my dreams the tree, and the town of my Grandparents had been a recurrent dream of mine, one theme that appeared frequently was the desire to take young spiritual friends of mine to that particular place, but in my dreams always was frustrated in this endeavor, they will excuse themselves for one reason, or another, or I would be by alone myself in this Archetype Geographical paradise, to the point I was a little bit sad to the fact it seemed I will never be able to show them what it is Sacred ground for me. Finally one day I had a dream, that at the old house were many Nacapule trees, all over the yard, and in each one a friend of mine resided, I interpreted the dream to mean, that this particular tree it is my personal Archetype axis mundi symbol but that each individual has his own according to their own life circumstances, regardless of how estrange, particular, or mundane this relations may be, a few days later a friend of mine told me something he considered strange about another common friend of us, he told me confidently:

“I spent a whole day with X and all we did was going around this lackluster neighborhood (the place is known as very unhip, and drab place to live among people who is familiar with this place, and of course do not live there.) and he showed me his old house, his old school, his grocery shop, etc. It was weird, the place is so uncool, what possible he could see in it?”

I understood that we all have a heavenly place in our memories, and has nothing to do with it’s beauty, or his lack of it, this place come to us from time, to time, but in our dreams this place is special, and much more beautiful, that it is in our wake up reality, after all this place it is unique since it belongs to our hearts…

Posted in Akashic Record, Archetypes, Axis Mundi, Counsciousness, Dreams, Family History, Garden of Eden, Imagination, Impermanence, Inner Journey, Inspiration, Memories, Memory, Method of Loci, Mundus Imaginalis, Na-kojd-Abad, Nacapule Tree, Paradise, Personal Story, Pure Land, Reality, Sacred Grounds, Sacred Tree, Symbology, Symbols, Tree of Life, Uncategorized | Tagged Archetypes, Dreams, Gerald M. Edelman, Illusion and Reality, Imagination, Loci of Imagination, Memories, Memory, Sacred Landscapes, Spatial Dimensions, Spirituality, The Method of Loci, Time and Relativity | 4 Comments

URBAN AND ECOLOGICAL DECAY, THE EROSION OF DEMOCRACY, CAPITALISM THE GOD THAT FAILED, AND WHAT IS THE SOLUTION FOR A BETTER WORLD

Posted on August 20, 2013 by theburningheart

“The government failed us.

The market failed us.

Harvard, Yale, and the

University of Chicago

failed us.

Our government

–The government-

doesn’t belong to us.

Forget them;

they forgot us.

We need to solve

our problems

Ourselves.”

J.R. Fleming

The end of dream

Who that lived during that day on November 9, 1989, and the following days could forget the exhilaration of seeing that symbol of hate, separation, cold war, and suffering, a wall fall, signaling the death of an era, and the beginning of hope in a new future.

But actually things have not turned as rosy as people hoped to be, Lane Wallace from the Atlantic tell us:

“The dream in its ideal form didn’t last long, of course. The revolution was wrought by factions, burdened by bureaucracy and characterized more by brutality than any cooperative utopia from almost its first bloody days. But when I left Vienna, I discovered that the taxi driver taking me to the airport was a recent émigré from Berlin. East Berlin. I asked him about how reunification was going, and he told me about some of the same problems I’d heard before: East Germans being second-class citizens, economic resentment on the part of the West Germans who had to pay to upgrade East Germany, and the like. But then, he said:

“You know, everyone sees it as the West helping the East. But it could have been done better. We could have helped them, too. But nobody wanted what we had to offer.”

Intrigued, I asked him to explain. There was a long pause. Then he answered:

“For all the problems of the system, in East Germany, it wasn’t all about consumerism. It wasn’t how much you could buy, how much ahead of your neighbor you could get. We really did have more of a sense of helping each other out. Community really mattered more to us than things.”

Who better to see the difference than those people behind the iron curtain, who now face consumerism, naked capitalism, and the rat race to survive in a world were you are on your own, and get nothing but stabs on the back by the people who suppose to uphold our Government, and our private institutions like our banks who gambled and lost with our money?

Who, or what will bridge this gap in our political, and economical system, now wide open?

Richard Heinberg, director of the Post Carbon Institute, begins his book, The End of Growth, as follows: “The central assertion of this book is both simple and startling: Economic growth as we have known it is over and done with.” He then presents over 300 pages of various kinds of supportive evidence backing up this conclusion. The book was published in 2011, the evidence in support of this conclusion seems stronger than ever.

The reason are complex, and many, but simply put unlimited growth, and unlimited consuming, in a finite, and ecological frail world, this cannot be sustained. In the past we liked to tell ourselves that continual progress in science and technology will keep paying off by creating the new energy sources and the improved technology that we need to maintain ourselves and solve our problems, especially when we take care to grow in a smart way with sensible restraints. It is obvious this is not possible, the Achilles heel of expanding economies is the necessity for them to grow producing goods, and consumerism, this has brought an ecological nightmare at our doors, that we can no longer ignore, but our governments married to capital, refuse to yield to reality, the fact is we do not trust our government any more, and even less when there is not a system in place to make sure people in power behave ethically, and think first on the well being of others, rather than the benefit for their pockets, and bottom lines, that by the way they seem to be insatiable.

Few economists in the day of Adam Smith or Marx, with the notable exception of Malthus, could foresee a day that there would be any important limits to economic expansion that could not be overcome by human ingenuity and continually improving technology. If there were such limits, it was presumed that these were local limits that could be dealt with rather easily. If natural resources such as metal mines were exhausted in one area, one could always move to a fresh area, and use the advantages of continually improving technology to keep production expanding, ad infinitum.

In reality it is found that technology tends to harvest the low hanging fruit in terms of available resources first and then moves on. While there was an abundance of cheap energy available, this exhaustion of resources and a simultaneous increase in unwelcome consequences could be concealed for a time. In the USA, there has been a well-funded, right-wing corporate disinformation campaign to lead the public to deny that burning fossil fuel is changing the climate for the worse. Now people are beginning to realize the unhappy truth.

Are we facing a doomsday future?

The Optimistic View

Theoretically, there is enough acreage already planted to keep the planet fed forever, because 10 billion humans is roughly where the United Nations predicts that the world population will plateau in 2060. But success depends on portion control; in the late 1980s,Brown University’s World Hunger Program calculated that the world then could sustain 5.5 billion vegetarians, 3.7 billion South Americans or 2.8 billion North Americans, who ate more animal protein than South Americans.

Even if fertility rates rose again, many agronomists think the world could easily support 20 billion to 30 billion people.

Anyone who has ever flown across the United States can see how that’s possible: there’s a lot of empty land down there. The world’s entire population, with 1,000 square feet of living space each, could fit into Texas. Pile people atop each other like Manhattanites, and they get even more elbow room.

Water? When it hits $150 a barrel, it will be worth building pipes from the melting polar icecaps, or desalinating the sea as the Saudis do.

The same potential is even more obvious flying around the globe. The slums of Mumbai are vast; but so are the empty arable spaces of Rajasthan. Africa, a huge continent with a mere 944 million people on it, looks practically empty from above. South of the Sahara, the land is rich; south of the Zambezi, the climate is temperate. But it is farmed mostly by people using hoes.

If food became as pricey as oil, we would plow Africa, fish-farm the oceans and build hydroponic skyscraper vegetable gardens. But they see the underlying problem in terms more Marxian than Malthusian: the rich grab too much of everything, including biomass.

Possibility does not imply Feasibility

Vegetarians are minority as right now maybe not even 6% of the population today, and that would be a very optimistic, more likely a 2% or 3% at most, besides it ignores that the production of meat it is a well established machinery, that provide ample profits for those who control it, not likely to be abandoned just because suddenly everybody got conscious and decided it was morally unjustifiable, a waste of resources, like water, grain, and arable land, on top a great source of methane, and the pollution of our water, air, and land, contributing to global warming, just like people do not abandon alcohol, sugar, tobacco, coffee, tea, oil, carbon, and many other consumer products, that are not good for our health, but that produce wealth for some, and satisfaction for many.

As for the world population fitting in to Texas, I am sure the nice folks of Texas would be very happy to pack up the rest of the world in their back yards, as no doubt the cosmopolitan, and always nice to all, Manhattan people, would have no qualm to pile more people up! And for that matter any other people around the Globe, will be reluctant to be the safe haven for millions of ecological refuges, now think on billions! it is unrealistic to expect borders, and governments of many nations to melt away, and disappear when asked to sacrifice themselves in order to make room for those who lost their ecological resources, and now bent in taking over theirs as well!

If there is vast unpopulated areas of the glove are for good reasons, they lack water, or the weather is extreme like in the Artic, not fit for living and not capable of sustaining population, ecologist cringe at the idea of robbing Peter to pay Paul, which it is basically what happens, when we shift resources, like water for irrigation to desert areas, or destroy forest to cultivate the land, basically we are borrowing with a high interest, that would be very unlikely we will be able to repay, destroying ecological habitat that it is not renewable, and irreplaceable, for short time gain.

Technological innovation, so far if smart, had proven no solution to ecological mayhem, if anything they have been the cause of most of the problems, and to the challenges we face today, there is no easy solution, or shortcuts to fix our problems, but to acquire the wisdom to live in Harmony with our environment, regardless of the loss of revenue this may inflict on our consumer slash, and burn make a quick profit economy of today, pay with high interest tomorrow based economy society, the time of blind exploitation need to be over, and done, for the survival not only of our own, but for life on Earth, and the only solution, is a more wiser, and conscious Mankind who by force of survival will manage our resources better.

The God that failed

Democracy: The God That Failed is a 2001 book by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, containing a series of thirteen essays on the subject of democracy. The book “examines modern democracies in the light of various evident failures” which, in Hoppe’s view, include rising unemployment rates, expanding public debt, and insolvent social security systems. He attributes democracy’s failures to pressure groups seeking increased government expenditures, regulations and taxation and a lack of counter-measures to them. He discusses as solutions secession, “shifting of control over the nationalized wealth from a larger, central government to a smaller, regional one” and “complete freedom of contract, occupation, trade and migration introduced”. It concludes that democracy is the primary cause of the de-civilization sweeping the world since World War I, and that it must be delegitimized.

Hoppe characterizes democracy as “publicly owned government,” which he compares to monarchy “privately owned government” to conclude that the latter is preferable; however, Hoppe aims to show that both monarchy and democracy are deficient systems compared to his preferred structure to advance civilization—what he calls the natural order, a system free of both taxation and coercive monopoly in which jurisdictions freely compete for adherents. In his Introduction to the book, he lists other names used elsewhere to refer to the same thing, including “ordered anarchy,” “private property anarchism,” “anarcho-capitalism,” “auto government,” “private law society,” and “pure capitalism.”

The title of the work is an allusion to The God That Failed, a 1949 work in which six authors who were former communist (or former communist sympathizer) describe their experience of and disillusion with communism.

A change is Needed

On my view the models based on the wrong values we pursue today are at the root of our problems, the accumulation of wealth it is not a bad thing in itself, but has been corrupted almost totally, almost to the exclusion of any other considerations, and it has been an individualistic quest, with the exclusion of others, were the disparity lays naked in front of us for all to see. Our governments have become accomplices in this ruthless enterprise, corporations, had hijacked the agenda, and made their policy to make our goals, and structure society according to their benefit regardless of the cost, as long it is not their cost.

This state of affairs need to be over, we need to move to a total new way to make society work, it is my thought that we have been shepherded in to compliance by our apathy, and reluctance to get involved in to the political process, after all busy with a full day at work, and the burden of making ends meet, bills to pay, children to care for, and educate, who has time, or energy to confront and battle the status quo?

Sure we have an ecological, and environmental problem in our hands, but the origin of it is like Uruguay’s President Jose Mujica told at the Rio Summit:

“Today, man does not govern the forces he has unleashed, but rather, it is these forces that govern man; and life. Because we do not come into this planet simply to develop, just like that, indiscriminately. We come into this planet to be happy. Because life is short and it slips away from us. And no material belonging is worth as much as life, and this is fundamental.But if life is going to slip through my fingers, working and over-working in order to be able to consume more, and the consumer society is the engine-because ultimately, if consumption is paralyzed, the economy stops, and if you stop economy, the ghost of stagnation appears for each one of us, but it is this hyper-consumption that is harming the planet. And this hyper-consumption needs to be generated, making things that have a short useful life, in order to sell a lot. Thus, a light bulb cannot last longer than 1000 hours. But there are light bulbs that last 100,000 hours! But these cannot be manufactured, because the problem is the market, because we have to work and we have to sustain a civilization of “use and discard”, and so, we are trapped in a vicious cycle. These are problems of a political nature, which are showing us that it’s time to start fighting for a different culture.

I’m not talking about returning to the days of the caveman, or erecting a “monument to backwardness.” But we cannot continue like this, indefinitely, being ruled by the market, on the contrary, we have to rule over the market.

This is why I say, in my humble way of thinking, that the problem we are facing is political. The old thinkers. Epicurus, Seneca and even the Aymara put it this way, a poor person is not someone who has little but one who needs infinitely more, and more and more.” This is a cultural issue.

So I salute the efforts and agreements being made. And I will adhere to them, as a ruler. I know some things I’m saying are not easy to digest. But we must realize that the water crisis and the aggression to the environment is not the cause. The cause is the model of civilization that we have created. And the thing we have to re-examine is our way of life.”

Mujica, 77, former guerilla who spent more that 14 years in prison, two at the bottom of a well, gives 90% of his salary to charity, refused to live in Presidential Palace and continues to stay at his little farm, guarded by a three legged dog, excuse to say that if our presidents, and government officials would live that way, then we may have a chance of a better future.

Posted in Berlin Wall Falling, Capitalism, Counsciousness, Crisis of Values, Cynicism, Democracy, Disillusion with Capitlism, Doomsday, Ecological Crisis, Economy, End of materialism, Environment, Globalization, Greed, History, Malthusian Future, Mother Earth, New Materialist, New Values, Politics, Uncategorized, Urban Decay, Utopia, Western Civilization | Tagged Capitalism Failure, Change is Needed, Democracy Failure, Doomsday, Ecological Collapse, Government Failure, Jose Mujica, Malthusian Future, New Values, Politics, Possibility and Feasibility, Solutions for the Future, The God that Failed, Urban Decay | 7 Comments

DREAMS AND MYTHS, CROSSING THE WATERS OF KNOWLEDGE, ARCHETYPES OF WISDOM, AN INNER JOURNEY

Posted on July 22, 2013 by theburningheart

On that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth,

and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.

Genesis 7. 11

On Archetypes Myth, and Dreams Analogy

“The archetypes to be discovered and assimilated are precisely those that have inspired, throughout the annals of human culture, the basic images of ritual, mythology, and vision. These “Eternal Ones of the Dream” are not to be confused with the personally modified symbolic figures that appear in nightmare and madness to the still tormented individual.

Dream is the personalized myth, myth the depersonalized dream; both myth and dream are symbolic in the same general way of the dynamic of the psyche. But in the dream the forms are quirked by the peculiar troubles of the dreamer, whereas in myth the problems and solutions sown are directly valid for all mankind.”

Joseph Campbell

I pretty much agree with Joseph Campbell statement, although I go further reasoning that there is no difference between the individual, and mankind, yes cultural patterns may be different but the essence of the Archetype remains the same regardless of the changing circumstances of the dreamer, or the details of the dream. The whole point of it is the analogy that points to the solution of the dreamers problem, it serves a s a guide, or sketch map, that would help the psyche, or soul of the individual in question to solve the existential riddle. A sort of finding our Soul, or Heart revelation of a Spiritual nature, that would bring us to an Eden like place after facing turmoil, ugliness, suffering, constriction, and all kind of troubles that afflict our spirits at certain times in our life.

Campbell, then goes to describe the dream of a woman:

“I was walking alone around the upper end of a large city, through shimmy, muddy streets lined with hard little houses,” writes a modern woman, describing a dream that she has had. “I did not know where I was, but liked the exploring. I choseone street which was terribly muddy and led across what must have been an open sewer. I followed along between rows of shanties and then discovered a little river flowing between me and some high, firm ground where there was a paved street. This was a nice, perfectly clear river, flowing over grass. I could see the grass moving under the water. There was no way to cross, so I went to a little house and asked for a boat. A man there said of course he could help me cross. He brought out a small wooden box which he put on the edge of the river and I saw at once that with this box I could easily jump across. I knew all danger was over and I wanted to reward the man richly.
In thinking of this dream I have a distinct feeling that I did not have to go where I was at all but could have chosen a comfortable walk along paved streets. I had gone to the squalid and muddy district because I preferred adventure, and, having begun, I had to go on… . When I think of how persistently I kept going straight ahead in the dream, it seems as though I must have known there was something fine ahead, like that lovely, grassy river and the secure, high, paved road beyond. Thinking of it in those terms, it is like a determination to be born—or rather to be born again—in a sort of spiritual sense. Perhaps some of us have to go through dark and devious ways before we can find the river of peace or the highroad to the soul’s destination.”

My Analogous Dream

Personally, when as Dante’s open lines to “Inferno”from his magnificent Divine Comedy:

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,ché la diritta via era smarrita.

Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte

che nel pensier rinova la paura!

Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say

What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,

Which in the very thought renews the fear.

I have found myself in that place many years ago at the Midway upon the journey of my life at 42 years of age, by my unconsciousness, bad judgment, and ignorance found myself facing the dark forest of middle age, it was not a nice place having lost almost everything, materially, emotionally, and not in a very good shape spiritually speaking, I was in a hole, a dark situation in every sense you can imagine, no money, a work I hated, lost love, few friends of not much help, and no sense of where to go, or what to do in order to extricate myself of that situation, I was very depressed, and very much in pain, to the point were my heart hurt so badly it was almost a physical feeling on my chest. Regardless I was determined to ride the storm, and face the consequences of my actions face on, I was willing to take the bull by the horns and die if this was necessary, and above all I kept quite about the whole thing, and pretended in front of my few friends everything was fine, despite my sense of hopelessness, and despair. But something was clear, I wouldn’t take the lower road, and turn bitter towards the person that hurt me the most, and I wouldn’t blame anybody for my situation. But I was dying from the inside.

Ironically at one point my dally life a drudgery, my dreams turned in to incredible visions of beauty, paradisiacal in nature, when waking up, to my dark reality my thought was that I was about to die, and somewhat disconcerted about the whole thing couldn’t figure out what was going on.

The night before my climatic spiritual experience, I dreamt that I was traveling to my father’s town, but we were stop by a block on the road by police, a river was flooded, and had took the bridge down, a line of cars, were being turned back, and I was advised to so as well, curious I parked the car, and went to the river shore to look at the disaster, the river was rough cresting with waves and a hard current, in my youth I had witnessed several floods of this nature, and I thought myself full of confidence, “I bet I can cross it!” Somehow I produced a painted canvas, and used it as a surf-board, I defied the current of the flooded river, and safely reached the other shore, and proceeded with ease to my father’s town with no further trouble.

Ibn Arabi on Moses

The analogies are many, and vary in many different stories, from Noah building an Ark, Moses is left in a basket amid the reeds and bulrushes along the Nile, to latter part the waters of the Red Sea, on the flight from Egypt. Ibn Arabi wrote in is Fusus al-Hikam:

“As for the wisdom of Musa being put into the ark and then cast into the river, the ark (tâbût) is his human nature (nâsût). The river is what he received of knowledge through his body by what the power of discernment and the sensory imaginative faculties accorded him. Only by the existence of this elemental body does the human self have these faculties or their like. When the self comes to this body and is commanded to freely dispose of it and manage it, Allah gives it these faculties as instruments by which it obtains what Allah wills that it obtain in the management of this ark which contains the sakina of the Lord. Musa was cast into the river in order to receive various knowledge by these faculties. Thus Allah taught him that the spirit which manages him is the ruler. He is only managed by it. It gives him the command of these faculties of phenomenal being which are in this nâsût that is designated by the ark in the field of indications and wisdoms.

The form of casting Musa into the ark and then casting the ark into the river is outwardly a form of destruction. Inwardly, it was his rescue from being killed. He was brought to life as the self is brought to life by knowledge from the death of ignorance as Allah says, “Is someone who was dead (i.e. by ignorance) and whom We brought to life (with knowledge) and supplied with a light by which to walk among the people (which is guidance) the same as someone who is in utter darkness (in being astray) unable to emerge from it (i.e. will never be guided)?” In itself the matter has no end at which it stops.”

The solution to the Soul riddles are based in our willingness to face the dangers face on, and give ourselves to the mercy of God, the keyword is trust on a higher wisdom than ours, the life of Moses exemplify the Myth of the hero who overcame trials, tribulations, and great peril, armed with courage, oblivious to his mortality, but trusting in faith.

Cracking the constructs of the ego, and be able to let go of the unnecessary things that keep us slaves in a foreign land, like the story of Israel in Egypt, a great analogy for the soul enslaved to a material existence without a sight of it’s promised land who flows with the symbolic spiritual milk and honey for the soul, a return to the paradise lost, that Moses exemplify abandoning the life of a prince of Egypt for the uncertainty of persecution, the escape to the perils of the desert where he s offered water and shelter by the daughters of Jethro, the priest of Midian the archetype Abraham encounter as well as Melchizedek.

The Story of Musa and Al-Khidr

On the Qur’an Musa (Moses) meets Khidr. Musa got up to deliver a speech before the Children of Israel and he was asked, “Who is the most learned person among the people” Musa replied, “I am.” Allah rebuked him because he did not refer the knowledge to Allah. So Allah revealed to him: “At the junction of the two seas there is a servant of Ours who is more learned than you.” Musa asked, “O my Lord, how can I meet him” Allah said, “Take a fish and put it in a vessel and then set out, and where you lose the fish, you will find him” So Musa took a fish, put it in a vessel and set out, along with his boy-servant Yusha` bin Nun, peace be upon him, till they reached a rock (on which) they both lay down their heads and slept. The fish moved vigorously in the vessel and got out of it and fell into the sea and there it took its way through the sea (straight) as in a tunnel. Allah stopped the flow of water on both sides of the way created by the fish, and so that way was like a tunnel. When Musa got up, his companion forgot to tell him about the fish, and so they carried on their journey during the rest of the day and the whole night. The next morning Musa said to his boy-servant, (“Bring us our morning meal; truly, we have suffered much fatigue in this, our journey.

Musa did not get tired till he had passed the place that Allah had ordered him to look for. His boy-servant then said to him, (“Do you remember when we betook ourselves to the rock I indeed forgot the fish; none but Shaytan made me forget to remember it. It took its course into the sea in a strange way.”) There was a tunnel for the fish and Musa and his boy-servant were amazed. Musa said, (“That is what we have been seeking.” So they went back retracing their footsteps.”) So they went back retracing their steps until they reached the rock. There they found a man covered with a garment. Musa greeted him. Al-Khidr said, “Is there such a greeting in your land” Musa said, “I am Musa.” He said, “Are you the Musa of the Children of Israel” Musa said, “Yes,” and added, “I have come to you so that you may teach me something of that knowledge which you have been taught.” Al-Khidr said, (“You will not be able to have patience with me.) O Musa! I have some of Allah’s knowledge which He has bestowed upon me but you do not know it; and you too, have some of Allah’s knowledge which He has bestowed upon you, but I do not know it.”

The rest of the story is well known, however what I want to point out is the importance of the meeting place, that is primordial to our point. They need more detailed information about the exact location, because the area described as “At the junction of the two seas ” is quite large. Without this detailed knowledge, they might have trouble finding this person. This is where one of the reasons for the fish’s escape becomes apparent: It is a sign, because the fish pinpoints the exact location for this meeting.

He has let loose the two seas, converging together, with a barrier between them they do not break through Q. 55. 19,20

The junction of the two seas is a barzak is something that separates two other things while never going to one side, a line like the one that separates light from shadow, an unknown, from a known, an existent from a non existent, consciousness from dream, a gate, a passage in to an Imaginal world, where coincidentia oppositorum.The meeting place of opposite things can take place. A gap like a tunnel the kind like the one the fish fall through and was the signal to the place where this spiritual meeting should take place, an entrance in to a numinous state of consciousness were truth it is revealed to the individual going through this barrier. The Symplegades (Greek: Συμπληγάδες, Sumplēgades) or Clashing Rocks, also known as the Cyanean Rocks, were, according to Greek mythology, a pair of rocks at the Bosphorus that clashed together randomly. A common myth through the world in different cultures, were the individual, or the shaman, look for revelation of spiritual nature, as to the quandaries he may be facing.

Gilgamesh, the Waters of Death and the Sacred Reed

The Sumerian Hero Gilgamesh a legendary king, who set forth to attain the watercress of immortality, the plant “Never Grow Old.”After he had passed safely the lions that guard the foothills and the scorpion men who watch the heaven-supporting mountains, he came, amidst the mountains, to a paradise garden of flowers, fruits, and precious stones.

This numinous place once the gate is trespassed if bearing a familiarity to a geographical place of our own we realize is the archetype of such location, in it rivers of clear waters, and sceneries of heavenly beauty, were even the light, and colors are more vivid give the dream a psychedelic like experience, were colors, and moods are so closely related that we can say we can taste them, or experience them as bliss, and joy.

Gilgamesh pressing on, he arrived at the sea that surrounds the world. In a cave beside the waters dwelt a manifestation of the Goddess Ishtar, Siduri-Sabitu, and this woman, closely veiled, closed the gates against him. But when he told her his tale, she admitted him to her presence and advised him not to pursue his quest, but to learn and be content with the mortal joys of life: Gilgamesh, why dost thou run about this way?

The life that thou art seeking, thou wilt never find.
When the gods created man,
they put death upon mankind,
and held life in their own hands.
Fill thy belly, Gilgamesh;
day and night enjoy thyself;
prepare each day some pleasant occasion

Day and night be frolicsome and gay;
let thy clothes be handsome,
thy head shampooed, thy body bathed.
Regard the little one who takes thy hand.

Let thy wife be happy against thy bosom.

Gilgamesh of course pay no attention to the Goddess and our hero with the ferryman Ursanapi convey him across the waters of death. It was a voyage of one and one-half months. The passenger was warned not to touch the waters. once reaching Utnapishtim a Noah archetype who instructed him in how to obtain the reed of immortality “Gilgamesh, something secret I will disclose to thee,and give thee thine instruction: That plant is like a brier in the field;its thorn, like that of the rose, will pierce thy hand. Bat if thy hand attain to that plant, thou wilt return to thy native land.The plant was growing at the bottom of the cosmic sea. Ursanapi ferried the hero out again into the waters. Gilgamesh tied stones to his feet and plunged.

Down he rushed, beyond every bound of endurance, while the ferryman remained in the boat. And when the diver had reached the bottom of the bottomless sea, he plucked the plant, though it mutilated his hand, cut off the stones, and made again for the surface. When he broke the surface and the ferryman had hauled him back into the boat, he announced in triumph: Ursanapi, this plant is the one . . .By which Man may attain to full vigor. I will bring it back to Erech of the sheep-pens. . . . Its name is: “In his age, Man becomes young again. ” I will eat of it and return to the condition of my youth.

Gilgamesh didn’t enjoy the fruit of his labors, meanwhile he slept a serpent took hold of the sacred reed and ate it.

The River Acheron, or Styx

The myth is archetypical some years before reading this story, but after my dream of flooding I dreamt I was in a paradise like shore, with beautiful forest around me the place was of unimaginable beauty, as I walked delighted I run in to this wide river, it’s waters looked fresh and clear, intrigued by the other side decided to take my clothes off and swim across, the water was very clear, and nice to swim in to, after some time I reached the other shore with no problems, as I got in to a place somewhat different than the other shore, there were fewer trees, and some people come to my encounter, and asked me where I come from I told them I swim the river from the other shore, their face changed immediately and said to me: “That’s impossible, no one can cross that river and be alive!” I thought estrange their claim, and I said “Well I just did.” As I stand there naked more people began to congregate and tell each other: “He just cross from the other shore!” Feeling somehow aware of my nakedness I said, “Well I will have to go back, I left my clothes there.” Immediately everybody exclaimed: “No, no, you can’t do that, you will die if you do that!” Finding the whole thing ridiculous, and sure of myself, at the same time I considered important to get back in to my clothes, without further delay I jumped back in to the river and start to swim back listening to a clamor of voices telling me to come back to the shore, as swam deeper in to the river, the river seemed the same, but then a multitude of death animals, and human corpses floated down the river alongside me, my only thought was that they were not there on my first swim, after avoiding the corpses, finally reached the other shore, were I found my clothes and put them on, and that was the end of the dream.

It didn’t take me long to figure to figure the meaning of the dream, I had been at the threshold of Life and Death, a sort of crossing the river Acheron, or Styx, at first my thought was there was no difference between one shore and the other, returning to my clothes seem obvious enough to consider I returned for my body, however the more I think about it, the more convinced it was the other way around, the first shore was amazingly beautiful, heavenly and there was no people on it at all, the fact the waters were crystal clear, and unpolluted by carcasses, besides why the dead should fear death? And why the trial should be in the return? And not in the first crossing, I still ponder?

Entering the Waters of Wisdom

Besides this dream many dreams I had of bathing in clear waters, or crossing familiar places were there is crystal clear waters, when in reality there are non, and the strange fascination I had since a child of bathing in rivers of clear waters, that later impulse me in to pursue snorkeling, and diving in my younger days, of course at the time couldn’t figure out the symbolic analogy between the two.

However the important thing about it is the knowledge we receive out of this experience, is a knowledge that is transmitted in a richly symbolic way, sort of the equivalent of bathing on the waters of wisdom, and thus acquiring wisdom by the fact we bathed on it’s Sacred waters, like the many familiar myths of yore, like the fountain of youth, or like Achilles by been submerged on the river Styx, now I do not want to confuse the reader, in to believe this can be easily obtained, the Hero has to successfully pass the trials and tribulations of the path, were these are many. Like Musa’s journey, Some of the scholars of the Arabic language said that Huqub means a year in the dialect of ﴿the tribe of﴾ Qays,” then he narrated that `Abdullah bin `Amr said, “Huqub means eighty years.” Mujahid said, “Seventy years.” Ali bin Abi Talhah reported that Ibn `Abbas said that it means a lifetime. Qatadah and Ibn Zayd said likewise.

Regardless, entering the waters of wisdom it is possible, if we are ready.

Posted in Ancient Civilizations, Ancient Religions, Archetypes, Barzak, Counsciousness, Dante, Dreams, Garden of Eden, Heart, Ibn Arabi, Imagination, Inner Journey, Inspiration, Khidr, Melchizedek, Moses, Mysticism, Myth, Paradise, Personal Story, Revelation, Rivers, Self, Spirituality, Subjective, Symbology, Symbols, Theophany, Transformation, Transmutation, Uncategorized, Wisdom | Tagged Barzakh, Dreams, Flooding, Gilgamesh, Ibn Arabi, Joseph Campbell, Khidr, Moses, Symbolism, The Water of Life, Theophany, Trials of the Soul, Waters of Wisdom, Wisdom | 15 Comments

REDUCTIONISM, DETERMINISM VS SOCIOLOGY, THE TRUE NATURE OF MAN, AN ETERNAL NOW

Posted on June 21, 2013 by theburningheart

Reductionism can mean either an approach to understanding the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be reduced to accounts of individual constituents. This can be said of objects, phenomena, explanations, theories, and meanings.

Reductionism strongly reflects a certain perspective on causality. In a reductionist framework, phenomena that can be explained completely in terms of relations between other more fundamental phenomena, are called epiphenomena. Often there is an implication that the epiphenomenon exerts no causal agency on the fundamental phenomena that explain it.

An example of reductionism will be like the views of certain individuals sustain in fields they lack specialization, in order to explain or rationalize their own views on their field of specialization, example: Religious reductionism generally attempts to explain religion by boiling it down to certain nonreligious causes. A few examples of reductionist explanations for the presence of religion are: that religion can be reduced to humanity’s conceptions of right and wrong, that religion is fundamentally a primitive attempt at controlling our environments, and that religion is a way to explain the existence of a physical world. Anthropologists Edward Burnett Tylor and James George Frazer employed some religious reductionist arguments. Sigmund Freud’s idea that religion is nothing more than an illusion, or even a mental illness, and the Marxist view that religion is “the sigh of the oppressed,” providing only “the illusory happiness of the people,” are two other influential reductionist explanations of religion, that try to reduce the Spiritual side of Man to fantasies and fairies.

E.B. Tylor argued that in the past, religion was used by people to account for or explain things that occurred in the world.He saw that it was important for religions to have the ability to explain why and for what reason things occurred in the world.For example, God (or the divine) gave us sun to keep us warm and give us light. Tylor argued that animism is the true natural religion that is the essence of religion; it answers the questions of which religion came first and which religion is essentially the most basic and foundation of all religions.For him, animism was the best answer to these questions, so it must be the true foundation of all religions. Animism is described as the belief in spirits inhabiting and animating beings, or souls existing in things.To Tylor, the fact that modern religious practitioners continued to believe in spirits showed that these people were no more advanced than primitive societies. For him, this implied that modern religious practitioners do not understand the ways of the universe and how life truly works because they have excluded science from their understanding of the world. By excluding scientific explanation in their understanding of why and how things occur, he asserts modern religious practitioners are rudimentary. Tylor perceived the modern religious belief in God as a “survival” of primitive ignorance.He claimed the contemporary belief in God to be a survival, because science could explain the phenomena previously justified by religion.

We would smile now a this patronizing views on Religion if not for the fact many contemporary, supposedly well educated men share this outdated outlook on the issue. A simplistic chain of causality it is frequently heard by completely rational, scientifically oriented individuals when co-relating phenomena to cause an effect. For example, a reductionist believes that the complexity of the human brain is a result of complex and interacting physical processes. If scientists research and understand these underlying chemical reactions, then they can explain intelligence, emotion and all of the other human conditions. Of course this is tied to the ideological concept of scientific determinism.

Scientific Determinism and it’s problems

Determinism (specifically causal determinism) is the concept that events within a given paradigm are bound by causality in such a way that any state (of an object or event) is completely, or at least to some large degree,determined by prior states. In physics, this principle is known as cause-and-effect.

Determinism is also the name of a broader philosophical view, which conjectures that every type of event, including human cognition (behavior, decision, and action) is causally determined by previous events.In philosophical arguments, the concept of determinism in the domain of human action is often contrasted with free will. The argument called in-determinism (otherwise “non-determinism”) negates deterministic causality as a factor and opposes the deterministic argument.

Determinist believe any determined system is fully governed by causal laws resulting in only one possible state at any point in time. A debate within determinism exists about the scope of determined systems, with some maintaining that the entire universe is a single determinate system and others identifying other more limited determinate systems. Within numerous historical debates, many varieties and philosophical positions on the subject of determinism exist, most prominently the free will debates involving compatibility and incompatibles.

Predeterminers proposes there is an unbroken chain of prior occurrences stretching back to the origin of the Universe.”

The problem with this view of course is that exclude Free Will, in a deterministic Universe, your choice has being predetermined by a particular previous cause. Even physicists are finding that the quest for fundamental particles making up matter and governing the laws of the universe may be much too difficult to study, without looking at the model as a whole.

Unlike Newtonian physics, modern research takes into account the complex interactions between the particles, rather than looking at them individually. Chaotic systems, such as turbulence, weather patterns and even the behavior of crowds are difficult to explain by the process of scientific reductionism.

In addition, isolating one phenomenon and studying it often changes its behavior. For example, it is impossible to measure both the position and speed of an electron, because measuring one affects the other. Therefore, the very purest reductionist principles cannot be used to describe anything. Scientific reductionism is too flawed to act as a valid philosophical viewpoint.

Aside from the problems involved in applying the idea to abstract ideas such as emotion and being, it is very impractical. Many areas, such as quantum physics, are too complicated to describe by studying the individual parts, and doing so does not always give the best picture.

Scientism

This is known now days as Scientism, the “ism” added to signify dogma I guess, following is an excerpt of Science Delusion by Curtis White:

“Scientism is essentially the belief, the faith, that all problems and questions are potentially soluble by empirical investigation (and that if they’re not, they’re somehow not real questions, not real problems). But there are large areas of human experience for which science has no convincing or compelling means of accounting. I am, I suppose, more or less an atheist, but when I read the Book of Genesis, I find that there is something profoundly true about the picture of human nature in those verses—a picture of our perversity and self-alienation that neuroscience, for instance, has no way of getting at or talking about. Schopenhauer, Freud, and Heidegger all give us comparable forms of truth—truths that aren’t verifiable or measurable in the same way as those of science, but that are no less valuable. The most important truths are often untranslatable into the language of fact.”

Just like the picture above you got to stand back figuratively, and literally in order to look at the whole picture, it always irritate me when mechanic materialistic explanations for social phenomena, with vaguely analogies to Physics, or Mathematics, Just because we can quantify statistics about it, like divorce, homicide, crime, etc. Doesn’t mean the phenomena in question is a mathematical problem, or some biologist mixing different categorical realms, try to reduce complex issues like love, attraction, procreation, to a genetic component, or to pheromones, or chemical reactions, etc.. Ignoring complex cultural, historical, and sociological structures, who may radically vary geographically, and were the person you may end marrying and procreating, was not even your choice, but imposed to you by tradition, like arranged marriages so common in many cultures, all to do with social, political, and religious structures, nothing to do with the chemistry of hormones, and biological attraction!

A Vow from an Arranged Husband

I don’t know who you are, or where you come from. I have never met you so I don’t know what you look like. I don’t know what makes you laugh, what makes you sad, what makes you cry, what makes you tickle, and what makes you scared. I don’t know what book is your favorite or whether you read books or magazines. I don’t know what lipstick you wear, what color is your favorite. I don’t know what you like to eat or whether you enjoy cooking. I don’t know whether you like love stories or you are into die hard action. I don’t know whether you believe in love on first sight, or love at all. All I know is that you are out there and you are my future wife. I haven’t found you or you have not been found for me, yet. But deep down, beneath all the skepticism that I have for this system, I know you are out there. Whether you will read this or not, I write this vow, this promise that I make, not to portray myself as a poet or some romantic but to ease my own uneasiness. This world will ask you to leave your family, your home, your sanctuary, your childhood, and swear in front of a crowd of witnesses with judgmental eyes, that you, in sickness or death, in good times and bad, accept me as your husband and bind you fate to mines. I pray and I pray from the deepest depths of my heart, with all the will and strength in my body that I have, that when you take that vow, you do it out of choice not coercion. When you do make that choice, your choice, and you take that bold leap of faith.

A Giant Leap

The above paragraph I included just to prove my point, and to show how biological determinism based on some supposed biological mechanism, come to nothing when confronting cultures, and complex social issues that transcend the realm of biology, Man may be an animal, and genetically very similar to an ape, a friend of mine, a scientist liked to remind me of the fact we share a 98% genetic material, to justify his materialistic, mechanical views, recently read new discoveries that say it is only 95%, but regardless, 98%, or 95%, means little, my answer to my friend was to tell him to focus not on the 98%, but on the 2% difference, and reminded him that the 2% difference allowed Neil Armstrong’s famous phrase when he landed on the Moon:

“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”

Just to point out we can’t reduce Man and the Universe, to a mere mechanical happenstance, and dismiss Man Spiritual side, that in my opinion is by far more important as a deterministic element in Man’s true nature.

Rudolf Steiner on the Nature of the Ego

“Through self-consciousness man describes himself as an independent being separate from all others, as “I.” In his “I” he brings together all that he experiences as a being with body and soul. Body and soul are the carriers of the ego or “I,” and in them it acts. Just as the physical body has its center in the brain, so has the soul its center in the ego. Man is aroused to sensations by impacts from without; feelings manifest themselves as effects of the outer world; the will relates itself to the outside world, realizing itself in external actions. The “I” as the particular and essential being of man remains quite invisible. With excellent judgment, therefore, does Jean Paul call a man’s recognition of his ego an “occurrence taking place only in the veiled holy of holies of a human being,” for with his “I” man is quite alone. This “I” is the very man himself. That justifies him in regarding his ego as his true being. He may, therefore, describe his body and his soul as the sheaths or veils within which he lives, and he may describe them as bodily conditions through which he acts. In the course of his evolution he learns to regard these tools ever more as instruments of service to his ego. The little word “I” is a name which differs from all others. Anyone who reflects in an appropriate manner on the nature of this name will find that in so doing an avenue opens itself to the understanding of the human being in the deeper sense. Any other name can be applied to its corresponding object by all men in the same way. Anybody can call a table, table, or a chair, chair. This is not so with the name “I.” No one can use it in referring to another person. Each one can call only himself “I.” Never can the name “I” reach my ears from outside when it refers to me. Only from within, only through itself, can the soul refer to itself as “I.” When man therefore says “I” to himself, something begins to speak in him that has to do with none of the worlds from which the sheaths so far mentioned are taken. The “I” becomes increasingly the ruler of body and soul.

Steiner on the Spiritual Nature of Man

The soul nature of man is not determined by the body alone. Man does not wander aimlessly and without purpose from one sensation to another, nor does he act under the influence of every casual incitement that plays upon him either from without or through the processes of his body. He thinks about his perceptions and his acts. By thinking about his perceptions he gains knowledge of things. By thinking about his acts he introduces a reasonable coherence into his life. He knows that he will worthily fulfill his duty as a man only when he lets himself be guided by correct thoughts in knowing as well as in acting. The soul of man, therefore, is confronted by a twofold necessity. By the laws of the body it is governed by natural necessity. It allows itself also to be governed by the laws that guide it to exact thinking because it voluntarily acknowledges their necessity. Nature subjects man to the laws of changing matter, but he subjects himself to the laws of thought. By this means he makes himself a member of a higher order than the one to which he belongs through his body. This order is the spiritual. The spiritual is as different from the soul as the soul is from the body. As long as only the particles of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen that are in motion in the body are spoken of, we do not have the soul in view. Soul life begins only when within the motion of these particles the feeling arises, “I taste sweetness,” or, “I feel pleasure.” Likewise, we do not have the spirit in view as long as merely those soul experiences are considered that course through anyone who gives himself over entirely to the outer world and his bodily life. This soul life is rather the basis of the spiritual just as the body is the basis of the soul life. The biologist is concerned with the body, the investigator of the soul — the psychologist — with the soul, and the investigator of the spirit with the spirit. It is incumbent on those who would understand the nature of man by means of thinking, first to make clear to themselves through self-reflection the difference between body, soul and spirit.”

Ibn al-Arabi

God has intended man to know himself and creation. For Ibn al-`Arabi the highest form of knowledge is the knowledge of oneself, which is really God knowing Himself through the human consciousness as in the Hadith, “He who knows himself knows his Lord.” Knowledge is not just a bunch of information as we tend to think of it, but it is a knowing of oneself and life, which is to know the unity in oneself and with life. In other words, it is a knowing of God, within oneself and within the world. Ibn al-`Arabi says:

“All the infinite objects of knowledge that God knows are within man and within the cosmos through this type of nearness. No one knows what is within himself until it is unveiled to him instant by instant”

Al-khalq al-jaded – the world goes on being created anew at every single moment, the Absolute is continually manifesting itself in the infinity of ‘possible’ things.The manifest universe is manifest into existence instant by instant, without this continual recreation of all reality it would cease to exist.

The world in its entirety is perpetually changing. And every thing in the world is changing in itself from moment to moment. Thus every thing becomes determined at every moment with a new determination which is different form that with which it was determined a moment ago.

Thus the Absolute reveals itself perpetually in these successive self-manifestations, while the world is perpetually being lost due to its annihilation at every moment and its renewed birth at the next moment.

In this world-view expressed by Ibn Arabi, nothing remains static; the world in its entirety transforms itself kaleidoscopically from moment to moment, and yet all these movements of self-development are the ‘ascending’ movements of the things toward the Absolute-One, precisely because they are the ‘descending’ self-expression of the Absolute-One.

The ‘new creation’ he speaks of concerns the concrete things of the sensible world, and not the permanent archetypes themselves.

Thus in Ibn Arabi’s thought, everything in the world is constantly changing, but underlying this universal flux of changing things there is Something eternally unchanging.

The Descent is followed by its reversal, that is, Ascent, thus the whole process of creation forms a huge ontological circle in which there is in reality neither an initial point nor a final point, the whole circle is a trans-temporal or a-temporal phenomenon, everything is an occurrence in an Eternal Now.

Posted in Crisis of Values, Determinism, Eternal Now, God, Ibn Arabi, Materialism, Metaphysics, Mysticism, Oneness of Being, Ontology, Philosophy, Physics, Positivism, Post-Positivism, Reality, Reductionism, Science, Science and Belief, Scientism, Secular Society, Subjective, Tawhid, Uncategorized | Tagged Body, Eternal Now, Ibn Arabi, Reductionnist, Rudolf Steiner, Scientific Determinism, Scientism, Sociology, Soul, Spirit | 2 Comments

EDUCATION, A CRISIS OF VALUES, VIRTUE A RETURN TO ARCADIA, OR HOW TO GET OUT OF THE QUAGMIRE OF MATERIALISM

Posted on May 24, 2013 by theburningheart

And if I say that the greatest good of a man

is daily to converse about virtue,

and all that concerning which you hear me

examining myself and others, and that

the life which is unexamined is not worth living.

Plato in Socrates Apology.

After finishing reading a brilliant article, one of many that I frequently encounter randomly in prestigious magazines of diverse content, I ponder at the cleverness of certain individuals to make light of what really is going on, versus the abysmal state of education in our Nation, and the masses of uneducated fellow Americans, and not only those who barely accomplished a High-School education, but of those who having attended higher education remain at best mediocre, and at worst unable to tell the difference between objective news that inform without bias, and what I mean by bias is the slant that our general corporate media infuse the news, as to reflect an uniformity of consensus with the explicit purpose to subdue peoples minds in to conformity with agendas designed to control minds and behaviors, in to submission to particular interests not necessarily in the benefit of the general population, actually against their own well being, the same who support and blabber back the same slant in the news they docilely are fed, with disastrous end results to our lives, keeping society at the mercy of unscrupulous individuals whose only concern is to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest, who sheepishly follow lead never questioning where they are lead, and what price we all will have to pay for their folly.

So who, or what are the reasons for this sad state of affairs?

Obviously the reasons are many, Historical, political, social, etc. We can’t in this post make an exhausting analysis of every reason, we will concentrate on the education factor.

There has been a long decline in education towards the abandonment of a classical education, to the utilitarian, and philistine approach for “practicality” and the teaching of a professional education, were basically the skills to make a living are emphasized over the teaching of critical thinking like that provided by classical education.

The curricula and pedagogy of classical education was first developed during the Middle Ages by Martianus Capella, and systematized during the Renaissance by Petrus Ramus. Capella’s original goal was to provide a systematic, memorable framework to teach all human knowledge. The term “classical education” has been used in Western culture for several centuries, with each era modifying the definition and adding its own selection of topics. By the end of the 18th century, in addition to the trivium and quadrivium of the Middle Ages, the definition of a classical education embraced study of literature, poetry, drama, philosophy, history, art, and languages. In the 20th and 21st centuries it is used to refer to a broad-based study of the liberal arts and sciences, as opposed to a practical or pre-professional program. The University of Pennsylvania seal (1894) depicted the trivium as a stack of books providing the foundation for a quadrivium of mathematics, natural philosophy (empirical science), astronomy, and theology.

The Eschaton of Belief

We have reach the Eschaton (end of days) of our beliefs, what I mean it is a sort of end of the beliefs that propelled us as a civilization, particularly what we call Western civilization, some call this a Post-Modern state of affairs, the end of belief in progress, Industrialism, corporatism, commercialism, scientism, institutionalism, Socialism, Capitalism, and so many other words ending on ism!

Nietzsche famous proclamation: “God is death.” Now also old, and passé can be analogized by the thought that our Western Ideals are death… Our ideals only have carried us to a death end of history, we are jaded, and cynicism are embraced almost by all, eternally lied by our politicians, misguided by our Religious leaders, robed, and impoverished by those who supposed to protect our money, our bankers, the media pimps for selling us products we do not need, and sold to those who wish to keep us obedient, peaceful and blind consumers of goods and iniquity, our scientist a clog of our materialistic, pragmatic, and utilitarian end on itself (profit) technology who inundates our world with an infinitude of junk, weapons, oblivious of environmental destruction, we feel like prey to the wolves who profit from our economical, and moral dispossession, a sad, and apparently death end with no solution in sight but our destruction, it is not a miracle than we wake day, after day feeling anxious, impotent, afraid and insecure?

How education can extricate out of this quagmire, when the very institutions of higher education is part of the problem?

Suzy Lee Weiss a senior at Taylor Allderdice High School in Pittsburgh.:

“Like me, millions of high-school seniors with sour grapes are asking themselves this week how they failed to get into the colleges of their dreams. It’s simple: For years, they—we—were lied to.

Colleges tell you, “Just be yourself.” That is great advice, as long as yourself has nine extracurriculars, six leadership positions, three varsity sports, killer SAT scores and two moms. Then by all means, be yourself! If you work at a local pizza shop and are the slowest person on the cross-country team, consider taking your business elsewhere.

What could I have done differently over the past years?

For starters, had I known two years ago what I know now, I would have gladly worn a headdress to school. Show me to any closet, and I would’ve happily come out of it. “Diversity!” I offer about as much diversity as a saltine cracker. If it were up to me, I would’ve been any of the diversities: Navajo, Pacific Islander, anything. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, I salute you and your 1/32 Cherokee heritage.

I also probably should have started a fake charity. Providing veterinary services for homeless people’s pets. Collecting donations for the underprivileged chimpanzees of the Congo. Raising awareness for Chapped-Lips-in-the-Winter Syndrome. Fun-runs, dance-a-thons, bake sales—as long as you’re using someone else’s misfortunes to try to propel yourself into the Ivy League, you’re golden.

Having a tiger mom helps, too. As the youngest of four daughters, I noticed long ago that my parents gave up on parenting me. It has been great in certain ways: Instead of “Be home by 11,” it’s “Don’t wake us up when you come through the door, we’re trying to sleep.” But my parents also left me with a dearth of hobbies that make admissions committees salivate. I’ve never sat down at a piano, never plucked a violin. Karate lasted about a week and the swim team didn’t last past the first lap. Why couldn’t Amy Chua have adopted me as one of her cubs?

Then there was summer camp. I should’ve done what I knew was best—go to Africa, scoop up some suffering child, take a few pictures, and write my essays about how spending that afternoon with Kinto changed my life. Because everyone knows that if you don’t have anything difficult going on in your own life, you should just hop on a plane so you’re able to talk about what other people have to deal with.

Or at least hop to an internship. Get a precocious-sounding title to put on your resume. “Assistant Director of Mail Services.” “Chairwoman of Coffee Logistics.” I could have been a gopher in the office of someone I was related to. Work experience!

To those kids who by age 14 got their doctorate, cured a disease, or discovered a guilt-free brownie recipe: My parents make me watch your “60 Minutes” segments, and they’ve clipped your newspaper articles for me to read before bed. You make us mere mortals look bad. (Also, I am desperately jealous and willing to pay a lot to learn your secrets.)

To those claiming that I am bitter—you bet I am! An underachieving selfish teenager making excuses for her own failures? That too! To those of you disgusted by this, shocked that I take for granted the wonderful gifts I have been afforded, I sayshhhh—”The Real Housewives” is on.”

Education as a Business

You may smile, be indignant, or blame Suzy, and their parents, but the fact is higher education has become a business to make money out of the students, caring little what happen after! Here an excerpt from Charles M. Blow A Dangerous ‘New Normal’ in College Debt, The New York Times, March 9, 2013:

“The student loan debt crisis has become a drag on the economy. Younger Americans who are saddled with bankrupting payments — or credit ratings damaged by delinquency — are in no position to buy homes, save for retirement or start businesses.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently released a study showing just why many young people are being strangled by student loans. It found that 43 percent of 25-year-olds had student debt in 2012, an increase from 27 percent in 2004.

Unemployment and the collapse of household income in the recession only made the borrowing problem worse.

According to the new study, student debt almost tripled between 2004 and 2012, and is approaching $1 trillion, while the percentage of borrowers who were more than 90 days delinquent had risen to 17 percent, from 10 percent in 2004. In addition, student loan debt was the only kind of household debt that continued to rise through the Great Recession, and it is now the second largest after mortgage debt.”

Numb To Bullshit

Here an excerpt from the middle finger project, by Ash:

We’re numb to bullshit.

We eat bullshit for lunch.

We smear it all over our faces and then dutifully smile for society’s camera.

Yet, even though it surrounds us and we’re practically choking on the stuff, we somehow still manage to swallow and look the other way.

We’ve convinced ourselves that surrendering to bullshit is necessary in order to get ahead (the ever popular default goal–also bullshit), and we prance around in bullshit all day because we’re too chicken to do anything about it.

Bullshit runs our lives.

Almost. Every. Waking. Minute. Of. It.

And we let it.

Bullshit is the politics that drive decision-making processes instead of what’s best for our citizens, consumers, elderly and children.

Bullshit are the values that we’ve been spoon fed since day one, encouraging us to idolize all that is superficial, and shove the rest under the rug. We get high off of purchasing big ticket items, and as soon as the high comes, it goes, leaving us with nothing more than the angst to do it again. We’re akin to nation of crack addicts, always looking for our next high…except ours comes in the form of consumerism.We disregard the value of people. Of relationships. Of human beings and authentic, genuine interactions. These things are all of secondary importance, because we’re taught that we’re only as good as the car we drive. (By the way, if you really want to see someone fighting against the consumerist movement, check out my friend Everett. You’ll be amazed & will want to throw your TV off the roof, as he says.)

Bullshit are the federal agencies, such as the USDA, who have marketed themselves nicely as a watchdog agency looking out for our safety, but in fact, the USDA is nothing more than another big business.

Bullshit is the way we can justify engaging in war over oil, yet sit back and do virtually nothing about.

What it comes down to, in the end, is the mighty dollar. We’re so desperate for it, that all bets are off when it comes to ethics. And I find that unacceptable.

But most of us will continue to ignore the bullshit; we’ll just keep climbing to the top of it, and then maybe eventually hope that some suit and tie corporate manager will let us have a slice of the pie someday. And then it’ll be even easier to swallow & turn our heads, once we’re making the big bucks.

Because after all, isn’t that all that matters these days?

A CRISIS OF VALUES, AND THE WAY OUT OF THE QUAGMIRE

The fact is that contemporary education is totally off the mark, it is because instead of educate our young, on Ideals, and higher aspirations, education has become a tool for our money obsess society in order to produce tangible value, in the form of material gains, with the feeble excuse of “progress, and well being” to make every individual a cog of the machinery, and a mammon worshiper, forgetting totally the Galilee advice: ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE’ Mathew 4:4 And this not a Religious statement the kind it is trying you to go and joint a particular church or cult, we know you probably are too cynic for that, I just want to point out the root of the problem is a crisis of values, we can’t expect to teach practical, utilitarian and money oriented goals in to our young, to the exclusion of anything else and expect a generation of people of virtue when we teach greed, selfishness, and crass materialism devoid of spiritual values!

You may argue that the study of Ethics is enough, it is many years I took a class on Ethics, and remember very little, but the fact that to my young mind it was boring!

Nevertheless, a sense of idealism, and the pursuing of Virtue was instilled in me by the study of the Humanities, particularly Philosophy, now days a career on Humanities is perceived by most as a waste of your time, and good luck of ever finding a job!

Who said everything should be about money?

One of the greatest myths of our time is that public services including Education can be made more efficient if we run them as businesses. The commercialization of our public services has been a manifest failure, and the response offered by the mainstream parties is that we simply haven’t commercialized them enough. What they fail to understand is that a public service as Education, and a business are inherently different beasts, and asking one to behave as the other is like asking your two year old child to pay for food, and lodging, nonsense!

The primary aim of Education is to educate the people, and can’t put enough emphasis on this, this service of education exists to avoid negative social impacts, creating a future better society and protect the individual, as much as society in general, with a crucial social welfare from the instabilities of capitalism.

The unsustainability of Capitalism going awry

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.

~Mohandas K. Gandhi.

Here in brief a paper showing that greed could be acquired just by studying Economics by:

Wang, Long; Northwestern University

Murnighan, J. Keith; Northwestern University

Greed is a classic topic in human development (Balot, 2001; Robertson, 2001) and it inevitably affects many of our choices and decisions. Although greed is typically viewed as uniformly negative and reprehensible, we propose that people‟s attitudes and opinions about greed are actually subject to change. In particular, studying economics may help legitimize and even beautify greed. Previous research shows that economics education might make people more self-interested because self-interest maximization is central to most economic models (Marwell & Ames, 1981; Frank, et al, 1993). Because greed and maximizing self-interest are sometimes difficult to separate, conceptually or empirically, we propose that studying economics may make people view greed as potentially positive and beneficial. Two complementary studies support our proposition. Study 1 shows that students who are pursuing economics view greed more positively than students who are pursuing other majors and taking other courses. Study 2 indicates that positively priming greed can significantly increase people‟s positive attitudes and opinions about greed.

Greed and Economics Greed is a basic element of human nature (e.g. Plato, Aristotle & Thucydides). Defined as “an excessive desire to get more … a primarily materialistic type of desire” (Balot, 2001: 1), greed is generally viewed as reprehensible (Wang and Murnighan, 2008). Greed stimulates rather than sates, creating a vicious cycle of extravagant, insatiable desire to procure. At the same time, paradoxically, it may have been an essential element in our evolutionary ancestor‟s survival. In addition, the basic logic of capitalistic economics, to maximize one‟s outcomes, makes it difficult to clearly delineate basic self-interest from overindulgent greed. Thus, greed is a two-edged sword: on the one hand, it can help drive economic growth (Hume, 1739/2001; Smith); on the other, it encourages immorality and societal injustice (Plato). Wall Street encourages organizations to maximize their profits: as profits increase, so do stock prices, impressing analysts and leading to more positive recommendations. Although CEO salaries are not directly related to organizational profitability (e.g. Tosi & Gomez-Mejia, 1989), employees‟ returns on their profit-sharing plans are. Thus, in the corporate world, the push for more is pervasive, traditional, and taken-for-granted.

The economics literature takes the same stance: it has long portrayed homo economicus as a rational choice profit maximizer. The assumption of self-interest, which inherently implies the desire to achieve and/or maximize material gains and to minimize losses, is central to most economic models (Frank, et al, 1993). The notion of maximizing gains does not include a stopping mechanism: the accumulation of economic gains need see no end. Instead, rational choice implies unlimited wants and unrelenting greedy action (Schwartz, 1986). A purely economic approach to greed pays little attention to ethical issues, values, or human motivations

(Stigler, 1980; Sen, 1987). Economics encourages greed and the maximization of self-interest, with guile, as long as a person‟s actions fall within the rules of the game (Friedman, 1962). The current study investigates the relationship between economics and greed. We investigate how people view greed, and we study whether students who are pursuing economics view greed differently from students who are pursuing other majors and taking other courses. Though not conclusive, previous research suggests that studying economics might encourage the pursuit of self-interest and inhibit cooperation (Marwell & Ames, 1981; Frank, et al, 1993). Because economic models draw – at best – a fine line between self-interest and greed, we predict that studying economics will lead people to have more positive views of greed and, as a result, might make them more likely to engage in greedy action. Thus, our investigation assesses not only the selection effects of individuals who have chosen to be economics majors but also whether taking more economics courses leads people to view greed as being potentially positive and beneficial and see their own greedy actions as more favorable than others might see them. We conducted two studies to test this proposition; the results indicate that studying economics significantly increased people‟s positive opinions and feelings about greed. This suggests that greed is not only evolutionary inherited, but also socially and educationally espoused.”

Greed is bad after all

Their conclusion:

Negative Priming: Greed can get out of control. “If you have an unregulated arena, cheaters win,” says Michael Josephson, a radio commentator and president of the Josephson Institute of Ethics in Marina del Rey, Calif. “But if you have a civil society, which we do, with a series of checks and balances, by all means the honest people can win. … Honesty and integrity is the way to conduct business.” This is echoed by Paul Krugman, a notable economist. “Now, as each day seems to bring a new business scandal, we can see …. a system that lavishly rewards executives for success tempts those executives, who control much of the information available to outsiders, to fabricate the appearance of success. Aggressive accounting, fictitious transactions that inflate sales, whatever it takes.” Ken Lay, Gary Winnick, Chuck Watson, Dennis Kozlowski — we’re not talking about a few bad apples. . Statistics for the last five years show a dramatic divergence between the profits companies reported to investors and other measures of profit growth; this is clear evidence that many, perhaps most, large companies were fudging their numbers. “Now, distrust of corporations threatens our still-tentative economic recovery; it turns out greed is bad, after all.”

Hardly a surprising conclusion, after all Virtue is not only a word, or an idealistic thought, but words like Justice, Goodness, Wisdom, Peace, Truth, are virtues, and are the axis of which every life should be lived, to avert ruin, and catastrophe, not only in our personal lives, but that of society as well. Should not Virtue then be thought, with emphasis at our schools, rather than selfishness, and greed?

The walls of Jericho

This is a moment of true for all citizens of this world, the walls of Jericho are tumbling down, as you read this. For many, it is clear the show it is over the the musicians had put away their instruments and are going out the door, the dance is over! Do not try to cling to the falling wall, you will go down with it, some like the ostrich choose to bury their head in the sand, our surround themselves with trivia, and irrelevance never to face the disquieting thought: This is it, now what?

This thought, once you get to it, demands something of you, it demands a quest for real values, a new evaluation of your life, and the way you live, new ideas and a new you. It may be scary to be one of those a top those walls, jump before is too late.

No matter how hard those on the walls try, the walls are going down, and all the toys, and trinkets you have will not make a difference to fill the void, our crass materialism, consumerism, and zombie like life had soaked our soul to the point of sickness, and alienation, from our inner being, our true Self, who doesn’t need trinkets or toys but the real important things in life, Love, Truth, Justice, Knowledge Peace within, and without, and that is what we need to teach at schools to our children, youth and to all.

“Consider your origin. You were not formed to live like brutes but to follow virtue and knowledge.”

Dante Alighieri

Posted in Bankruptcy, Capitalism, Crisis of Values, Critical Thinking, Democracy, Economy, Education, End of materialism, Future, Greed, Justice, Politics, Progress, Student debt, Uncategorized, Virtue, Western Ideals, Wisdom | Tagged A new direction, Capitalism, Critical Thinking, Education, Idealism, Justice, Materialism, Real Education, The failure of society, The future of education, The quagmire of education | 2 Comments

EROS SUBLIMATED, THE MUNDUS IMAGINALIS OF DANTE’S DIVINE COMEDY, AND IBN ARABI’S TARJUMAN AL-ASHWAQ

Posted on April 24, 2013 by theburningheart

“Beauty is the reflection of reality in the mirror of illusion”

“And there is no more powerful creature in the universe than woman

– for each angel that God has created from the breaths (anfas)

of women is the most powerful of angels.”

Ibn Arabi

DANTE AND ISLAM

Miguel Asín Palacios (1871–1944) was a Spanish scholar of Islamic studies and the Arabic language, and a Roman Catholic priest. He is primarily known for suggesting Muslim sources for ideas and motifs present in Dante’s Divine Comedy, which he discusses in his book La Escatología musulmana en la Divina Comedia (1919). He wrote on medieval Islam, extensively on al-Ghazali (Latin: Algazel). A major book El Islam cristianizado (1931) presents a study of Sufism through the works of Muhyiddin ibn ‘Arabi (Spanish: Mohidín Abenarabe) of Murcia in Andalusia (medieval Al-Andalus). Asín also published other comparative articles regarding certain Islamic influences on Christianity and on mysticism in Spain.

Perhaps Asín Palacios a is best remembered for his 1919 book, La Escatologia Musulmana en la Divina Comedia,which suggests Islamic sources for the memorable context and perspective used by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) in his work La Divina Commedia. Specifically, Asín compares the Muslim religious literature surrounding the night journey [al-‘Isra wal-Mi’rag] of Muhammad (from Mecca to Jerusalem and thence up with the Prophets through the seven heavens), with Dante’s story describing his spiritual journey in which he meets various inhabitants of the afterlife and records their fate. Accordingly, Asín (I) discusses in detail the above night journey in Muslim literature,(II) compares it to episodes in the inferno, the purgatorio,and the paradiso of La Divina Commedia, (III) investigates Muslim influence on corresponding Christian literature predating the poem, and (IV) conjectures how Dante could have known directly of the Muslim literature in translation. Asín remarks that notwithstanding these Muslim sources, Dante remains a luminous figure and his poem retains its exalted place in world literature.

Asín’s book inspired a wide and energetic reaction, both positive and negative, as well as further research and academic exchanges. Eventually two scholars, an Italian and a Spaniard, independently uncovered an until-then buried Arabic source, the eleventh century Kitab al-Mi’raj [Book of the Ladder (or of the ascent)], which describes Muhammad’s night journey. This work was translated into Spanish as La Escala de Mahoma by a scribe (Abrahim Alfaquim) ofAlfonso X el Sabio in 1264. Information surfaced about another translation into Latin, Liber Scalae Machometi, which has been traced to the Italian milieu of the poet, Dante Alighieri. It appears that Dante’s mentor Brunetto Latini met the Latin translator of the Kitab al-Mi’raj while both were staying at the court of the Spanish king Alfonso X el Sabio in Castilla. Although this missing link was not available to Asín, he had based his work on several similar accounts of Muhammad’s ladder then circulating among the literary or pious Muslims of Al-Andalus.

The Kitab al Miraj (Arabic: كتاب المعراج “Book of the Ascension”) is a Muslim book concerned with Muhammad’s ascension into Heaven (known as the Miraj), following his miraculous one-night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem (the Isra). The book is divided into 7 chapters, and was written in Arabic using the Naskh script.

Kitab al-Miraj is believed to have been written by Abu’l-Qasim ‘Abdalkarîm bin Hawâzin bin ‘Abdalmalik bin Talhah bin Muhammad al-Qushairî al-Nisaburi أبو القاسم عبد الكريم بن هوازن بن عبد الملك بن طلحة بن محمد القشيري (born 376 – died 465 A.H.).

In the second half of the 13th century, the book was translated into Latin (as Liber Scale Machometi) and Spanish, and soon thereafter (in 1264) into Old French. Its Islamic depictions of Hell are believed by some scholars to have been a major influence on Dante’s 14th century masterpiece, the Divine Comedy, including Miguel Asin Palacios, and Enrico Cerulli .

I got no problem finding this associations merely anecdotic, sure reading Kitab al Miraj could had being a source of an idea, that by the force of the Genius, and the Imagination of Dante, united to the Cosmological views of his Age contributed to his magnificent work. But I will like to point out the similitudes of the Mundus Imaginalis shared by Christain and Muslims mystics alike,as defined by Henry Corbin: Na-kojd-Abad, the “land of No-where.”

Many centuries ago, the philosopher Suhrawardi coined the term “Na Koja-Abad” (Nowhere Land) to refer to a mythical, but nevertheless real place, situated in a kind of interworld between the realms of the senses and those of the intellect. Later Shi’ite traditions referred to it as “Hurqalya” and mentioned its two emerald cities (Jabarsa and Jabalqa) capable of being perceived solely by the Creative Imagination. (This is not the “imagination” of fancy or of wish-fulfillment, but the “Imaginatio Vera” of the medieval philosophers: a kind of organic mirror where according to certain Ishraqi philosophers — images from the material world and archetypal forms from the sphere of the intellect are able to come together and react). Hurqalya was believed to be the real theater of life, bubbling up images into the conscious mind in the form of myth and legend.

The Oxford dictionary define it as:

The term was used first by Suhrawardi to define a ‘boundary’ realm that connects the sensory and the abstract intellectual segments of the whole continuum of being, and is the distinguishing component of non-Aristotelian cosmology in Islamic philosophy . It is constructed as the locus of visions, prophecy, and sorcery, and also defines eschatology . This wonderland is described by negating Aristotelian logical principles and laws of physics, and is employed to explain non-standard experiences such as ‘true dreams’ and ‘miraculous powers’. As the individual subject moves away from the center of the sensory segment of the continuum nearing the boundary realm, qualitative change takes place. Material bodies change to imaginalis ones; time changes, no longer confined to measure of linear space; and space is no longer limited by the Euclidean.

LA VITA NUOVA

Dante wanted to collect and publish the lyrics dealing with his love for Beatrice, explaining the autobiographical context of its composition and pointing out the expository structure of each lyric as an aid to careful reading. Though the result is a landmark in the development of emotional autobiography (the most important advance since Saint Augustine’s Confessions in the 5th century), like all medieval literature it is far removed from the modern autobiographical impulse. Instead the they are suffused with the Imagery of the Mundus Imaginalis. However, Dante and his audience were interested in the emotions of courtly love and how they develop, how they are expressed in verse, how they reveal the permanent intellectual truths of the divinely created world and how love can confer blessing on the soul and bring it closer to God

According to Dante, he first met Beatrice when his father took him to the Portinari house for a May Day party. At the time, Beatrice was eight years old, a year younger than Dante. Dante was instantly taken with her and remained so throughout her life even though she married another man, banker Simone dei Bardi, in 1287. Beatrice died three years later in June 1290 at the age of 24. Dante continued to hold an abiding love and respect for the woman after her death, even after he married Gemma Donati in 1285 and had children. After Beatrice’s death, Dante withdrew into intense study and began composing poems dedicated to her memory. The collection of these poems, along with others he had previously written in his journal in awe of Beatrice, became La Vita Nuova.

According to the autobiographic La Vita Nuova, Beatrice and Dante met only twice during their lives. Even less credible is the numerology behind these encounters, marking out Dante’s life in periods of nine years. This amount of time falls in line with Dante’s repeated use of the number three or multiples of, derived from the Holy Trinity. It is more likely that the encounters with Beatrice that Dante writes of are the two that fulfill his poetic vision, and Beatrice, like Petrarch’s Laura, seem to blur the line between an actual love interest and a means employed by the poet in his creations.

Dante in chapter XXIV, of La Vita Nuova “I Felt My Heart Awaken” (“Io mi senti’ svegliar dentro a lo core”, also translated as “I Felt a Loving Spirit Suddenly”), Dante accounts a meeting with Love, who asks the poet to do his best to honour her.

Io mi senti’ svegliar dentro a lo core

Un spirito amoroso che dormia:

E poi vidi venir da lungi Amore

Allegro sì, che appena il conoscia,

Dicendo: “Or pensa pur di farmi onore”;

E ‘n ciascuna parola sua ridia.

E poco stando meco il mio segnore,

Guardando in quella parte onde venia,

Io vidi monna Vanna e monna Bice

Venire inver lo loco là ‘v’io era,

L’una appresso de l’altra miriviglia;

E sì come la mente mi ridice,

Amor mi disse: “Quell’è Primavera,

E quell’ha nome Amor, sì mi somiglia.”

I felt awoken in my heart

a loving spirit that was sleeping;

and then I saw Love coming from far away

so glad, I could just recognize.

saying “you think you can honor me”,

and with each word laughing.

And little being with me my lord,

watching the way it came from,

I saw lady Joan and lady Bice

coming towards the spot I was at,

one wonder past another wonder.

And as my mind keeps telling me,

Love said to me “She is Spring who springs first,

and that bears the name Love, who resembles me.”

Following their first meeting, Dante was so enthralled by Beatrice that he later wrote in La Vita Nuova: Ecce Deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi (“Behold, a deity stronger than I; who coming, shall rule over me.”) Indeed, Dante frequented parts of Florence, his home city, where he thought he might catch even a glimpse of her. As he did so, he made great efforts to ensure his thoughts of Beatrice remained private, even writing poetry for another lady, so as to use her as a “screen for the truth”.

Dante’s courtly love for Beatrice continued for nine years, before the pair finally met again. This meeting occurred in a street of Florence, which she walked along dressed in white and accompanied by two older women. She turned and greeted him, her salutation filling him with such joy that he retreated to his room to think about her. In doing so, he fell asleep, and had a dream which would become the subject of the first sonnet in La Vita Nuova.

In this dream, a mighty figure appeared before him, and spoke to him. Although he could not make out all the figure said, he managed to hear “Ego dominus tuus“, which means “I am your Lord”. In the figure’s arms was Beatrice, sleeping and covered by a crimson cloth. The figure awoke Beatrice, and made her eat Dante’s burning heart. An English translation of this event, as described in La Vita Nuova, appears below:

This was the last encounter between the pair, since Beatrice died eight years later at the young age of twenty-four in 1290.

The manner in which Dante chose to express his love for Beatrice often agreed with the Middle Ages concept of courtly love. Courtly love was a secret, unrequited and highly respectful form of admiration for another person. Yet it is still not entirely clear what caused Dante to fall in love with Beatrice. Since he knew very little of the real Beatrice, and that he had no great insight to her character, it is perhaps unusual that he did. But he did, and there are clues in his works as to why:

“She has ineffable courtesy, is my beatitude, the destroyer of all vices and the queen of virtue, salvation.”

Dante saw Beatrice as a savior, one who removed all evil intentions from him. It is perhaps this idea of her being a force for good that he fell in love with, a force which he believed made him a better person. This is certainly viable, since he does not seem concerned with her appearance – at least not in his writings. He only once describes her complexion, and her “emerald” eyes.

Let’s Dante speak and tell us of his sublimation of Eros in to Agape:

“Nine times now, since my birth, the heaven of light had turned almost to the same point in its own gyration, when the glorious Lady of my mind, who was called Beatrice by many who knew not what to call her, first appeared before my eyes. She had already been in this life so long that in its course the starry heaven had moved toward the region of the East one of the twelve parts of a degree; so that at about the beginning of her ninth year she appeared to me, and I near the end of my ninth 2year saw her. She appeared to me clothed in a most noble color, a modest and becoming crimson, and she was girt and adorned in such wise as befitted her very youthful age. At that instant, I say truly that the spirit of life, which dwells in the most secret chamber of the heart, began to tremble with such violence that it appeared fearfully in the least pulses, and, trembling, said these words: Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi [Behold a god stronger than I, who coming shall rule over me].

At that instant the spirit of the soul, which dwells in the high chamber to which all the spirits of the senses carry their perceptions, began to marvel greatly, and, speaking especially to the spirit of the sight, said these words: Apparuit jam beatitudo vestra [Now has appeared your bliss].

At that instant the natural spirit, which dwells in that part where our nourishment is supplied, began to weep, and, weeping, said these words: Heu miser! quia frequenter impeditus ero deinceps [Woe is me, wretched! because often from this time forth shall I be hindered].

I say that from that time forward Love lorded it over my soul, which had been so speedily wedded to him: and he began to exercise over me such control and such lordship, through the power which my imagination gave to him, that it behooved me to do completely all his pleasure. He commanded me oft times that I should seek to see this youthful angel; so that I in my boyhood often went seeking her, and saw her of such noble and praiseworthy deportment, that truly of her might be said that word of the poet Homer, “She seems not the daughter of mortal man, but of God.” And though her image, which stayed constantly with me, gave assurance to Love to hold lordship over me, yet it was of such noble virtue that it never suffered Love to rule me without the faithful counsel of the reason in those matters in which it were useful to hear such counsel. And since to dwell upon the passions and actions of such early youth seems like telling an idle tale, I will leave them, and, passing over many things which might be drawn from the original where these lie hidden, I will come to those words which are written in my memory under larger paragraphs.

When so many days had passed that nine years were exactly complete since the above-described apparition of this most gentle lady, on the last of these days it happened that this admirable lady appeared to me, clothed in purest white, between two gentle ladies who were of greater age; and, 4passing along a street, turned her eyes toward that place where I stood very timidly; and by her ineffable courtesy, which is to-day rewarded in the eternal world, saluted me with such virtue that it seemed to me then that I saw all the bounds of bliss. The hour when her most sweet salutation reached me was precisely the ninth of that day; and since it was the first time that her words came to my ears, I took in such sweetness, that, as it were intoxicated, I turned away from the folk; and, betaking myself to the solitude of my own chamber, I sat myself down to think of this most courteous lady.

And thinking of her, a sweet slumber overcame me, in which a marvelous vision appeared to me; for me thought I saw in my chamber a cloud of the color of fire, within which I discerned a shape of a Lord of aspect fearful to whoso might look upon him; and he seemed to me so joyful within himself that a marvelous thing it was; and in his words he said many things which I understood not, save a few, among which I understood these: Ego Dominus tuus [I am thy Lord]. In his arms me seemed to see a person sleeping, naked, save that she seemed to me to be wrapped lightly in a crimson cloth; whom I, regarding very intently, recognized as the lady of the salutation, who had the day before deigned to salute me. And in one of 5his hands it seemed to me that he held a thing which was all on fire; and it seemed to me that he said to me these words: Vide cortuum [Behold thy heart]. And when he had remained awhile, it seemed to me that he awoke her that slept; and he so far prevailed upon her with his craft as to make her eat that thing which was burning in his hand; and she ate it timidly. After this, it was but a short while before his joy turned into the most bitter lament; and as he wept he gathered up this lady in his arms, and with her it seemed to me that he went away toward heaven. Whereat I felt such great anguish, that my weak slumber could not endure it, but was broken, and I awoke. And straightway I began to reflect, and found that the hour in which this vision had appeared to me had been the fourth of the night; so that, it plainly appears, it was the first hour of the nine last hours of the night.”

THE HIEROS GAMOS

Hieros gamos or Hierogamy (Greek ἱερὸς γάμος, ἱερογαμία “holy marriage”) refers to a sexual ritual that plays out a marriage between a god and a goddess, especially when enacted in a symbolic ritual where human participants represent the deities. It is the harmonization of opposites.

The notion of hieros gamos does not presuppose actual performance in ritual, but is also used in purely symbolic or mythological context, notably in alchemy and hence in Jungian psychology. The three Monotheistic Religions share in the Hieros Gamos symbolism.

Ralph Austin tell us:

“Here is introduced a theme, curious, but persistent in the three great monotheisms, of the secret consort of the High God.Whether in human or angelic form, who seems to be an essential part of the scheme of creation and salvation and who constantly, especially in mysticism, manifests the deepest desires and dreams of the Godhead. Thus, in Judaism we meet the powerfully feminine Shekinah, Cherubim and Matronit who, according to R. Patai in his very interesting book The Hebrew Goddess, personify and symbolize the maternal and feminine aspects of the divinity. In Christianity, one need only point to the overwhelmingly influential cult of the Virgin Mary with its myriad ramifications in Christian culture. Even Islam, that bastion of patriarchal ascendancy, expresses, albeit enigmatically and cryptically, subtle but pervasive images of the “eternal feminine”, especially in Sufism and Shi’ism, as has been so well elaborated in H. Corbin’s fine work on Ibn Al-‘Arabi. Man, we are taught, is created in the image of God, his Creator, so that we may expect to find the hieros gamos, or sacred marriage of heaven reflected in human experience. Of course, men and women relate to each other in many ways, and their mutual and elemental attraction serves many quite ordinary and mundane purposes, not the least of which are the procreation of the species and the proper ordering of society. They also, however, serve as powerful images and archetypes of suprahuman forces and realities, thus opening up to each other visions and insights, mysteries and secrets which greatly transcend the ordinary and every-day concerns and experiences of the mundane world; indeed, by virtue of Man’s special intermediary and linking function in the Divine—human—universe scheme of things, both sexes serve to manifest transforming forces which may, in certain circumstances, as Rumi says, “transfigure the dustbin of this world into a rose garden”, or give flesh and substance to spiritual realities. In all of this we enter, unavoidably, into that area of human experience which is still, even in our own cerebral culture, a sphere of magic and mystery.

IBN ARABI AND LADY NIZAM

Ibn Arabi like Dante, a century earlier produced an ode to Mystical Love, disguised as courtly love when he wrote the Tarjuman al-Ashwaq (The Interpreter of Desires) Later he had to mount an apology to his critics that his poems where erotically profane, explaining the symbolism of his poetry.

His inspiration was Lady Nizam.The way in which such an image and presence serves in such cases to inspire and enrich is very well described by a recent writer on the life and work of Dante, whose own experience of Beatrice is so remarkably close to that of Ibn ‘Arabi. William Anderson writes towards the end of his book, Dante, The Maker.

Through his love of her on Earth he formed an indissoluble union of love with her that transcended the incident of her death. She mirrored to him the Incarnation of Christ, and, in purifying his individual nature as a Christian, he found that the only way to the sight of God was through her as the revelation of his soul… so she, as his illuminated soul represents the search for unity and contains in herself the still causes of history and of creation. Through the love of her his love expands to become the love of God… she is in him the gateway to ecstatic joy. the source both of his inspiration and his salvation, the maker of him as a torch of living flame and his guide towards the peace which his difficult temperament and the sorrows of his bitter political life so long denied him. Through her guidance he achieved a total transformation in his emotional and intellectual being

Here Ibn ‘Arabi is describing his encounter with a very beautiful and spiritual young woman whose physical as well as her spiritual charms affected him greatly. Here we are in the presence of a wonderful human being of flesh and blood whose memory will torment him down through the years.

Ibn Arabi relates his encounters with the sublime Nizam. Of his first meetings with her, the daughter of a Persian scholar of Isphahan. he says:

Now this shaykh had a daughter, a lissome young girl who captivated the gaze of all those who saw her, whose mere presence was the ornament of our gatherings and startled all those who contemplated it to the point of stupefaction. Her name was Nizam (Harmonia) and her surname “Eye of the Sun and of Beauty”. Learned and pious, with an experience of spiritual and mystic life, she personified the venerable antiquity of the entire Holy Land and the candid youth of the great city faithful to the Prophet. Her glance, the grace of her conversation were such an enchantment… If not for the paltry souls who are over ready for scandal and predisposed to malice, I should comment here on the beauties of her body as well as her soul, which was a garden of generosity… And I took her as a model for the inspiration of the poems… although I was unable to express so much as a part of the emotion which my soul experienced and which the company of this young girl awakened in my heart, or of the generous love I felt… since she is the object of my quest and my hope, the Virgin most pure…

“Whatever name I may mention in this work, it is to her I am alluding. Whatever the house whose elegy I sing, is of her house that I am thinking…I never cease to allude to the Divine Inspirations, the spiritual visitations, the correspondence of our world, to the world of the Angelic Intelligences…this is because the the things of the invisible world attract me more than those of actual life, and because this young girl knew perfectly what I was alluding to.”

However, at the Ka’abah in the sanctuary at Mecca, he has a very different sort of meeting with a transfigured and ethereal Nizam, who proves to be a stern initiatrix into the rigors of the divine mysteries. He says:

One night I was performing the ritual circumambulations of the Ka’abah… suddenly a few lines of verse came to my mind. I recited them loudly enough to be heard… No sooner had I recited these verses than I felt on my shoulder the touch of a hand softer than silk. I turned around and found myself in the presence of a young girl, a princess from among the daughters of the Greeks. Never had I seen a woman more beautiful of face, softer of speech, more tender of heart.

This brings us to opening a window from which we can view Ibn ‘Arabî’s perception of female beauty, as far as we are able to tell. We say that the desired woman for whom Ibn ‘Arabî yearns is the woman created in his image. And by looking into his private life, we discover that Nizam bint Makinuddin is the only woman who was capable of becoming to him the “Eve” who came out of the body of “Adam”, and with whom he yearned to unite to achieve his satiation in being. He describes her at the beginning of his Diwan by qualities that serve to confirm what we have mentioned. He says:

[She is] the incomparable one of her era. Her home is the pupil in the eye, and the heart in the chest. She is of long experience-

Tarjuman Al-Ashwaq

From the tranlation of Reynold A Nicholson, and others, even mine.

Would I know if she knew what hearts she possessed?

I wish I knew what mountain pass her heart threaded!

It is the heart of my beloved throbbing for me,

or it is dead towards me?

My beloved has her beloved in her heart, but her beloved is in love

with someone else!

Lovers lose the way in love and become entangled!

Spiritual Interpretation

They,’ i.e. the Divine Ideas , of which the hearts (of gnostics) are passionately enamored, and by which the spirits are distraught, and for whose sake the godly workers perform their works of devotion.

‘What hearts’: he refers to the perfect Muḥammadan heart, because it is not limited by stations , Nevertheless, it is possessed by the Divine Ideas, for they seek it and it seeks them. They cannot know that they possess it, for they belong to its essence, inasmuch as it beholds in them nothing except its own nature.

What mountain-pass they threaded,’ i.e. what gnostic’s heart they entered when they vanished from mine. ‘Mountain-pass’ signifies a ‘station’, which is fixed, in contrast to a ‘state’, which is fleeting.

The Divine Ideas, quâ Ideas, exist only in the existence of the seer; they are ‘dead’ in so far as the seer is nonexistent.

Lovers are perplexed between two opposite things, for the lover wishes to be in accord with the Beloved and also wishes to be united with Him, so that if the Beloved wishes to be separated from the lover, the lover is in a dilemma.

Greeting to Salmá and to those who dwell in the preserve, for it behooves one who loves tenderly like me to give greeting.

And what harm to her if she gave me a greeting in return? But fair women are subject to no authority.

They journeyed when the darkness of night had let down its curtains, and I said to her, ‘Pity a passionate lover, outcast and distraught,

Whom desires eagerly encompass and at whom speeding arrows are aimed wheresoever he bends his course.

She displayed her front-teeth and a levin flashed, and I knew not which of the twain rent the gloom,

And she said, ‘Is it not enough for him that I am in his heart and that he beholds me at every moment? Is it not enough?

Commentary

‘Salmá’: he alludes to a Solomonic ecstasy , which descended upon him from the station of Solomon in virtue of a prophetic heritage.

‘In the preserve,’ i.e. an unattainable station, viz. prophecy, whereof the gate was closed by Muḥammad, the last of the prophets. Solomon’s experience of this Divine wisdom (###) in so far as he was a prophet is different from his experience of it in so far as he was a saint, and we share it with him only in the latter case, since our experience of it is derived from the saintship which is the greatest circle

God does nothing of necessity: whatever comes to us from Him is by His favour. The author indicates this Divine Solomonic apparition (nukta) by the term ‘marble statues’ (i.e. women fair as marble statues). He means that she does not answer by speech, for if she did so her speech would be other than her essence, whereas her essence is single, so that her advent is identical with her speech and with her visible presence and with her hearing; and in this respect all the Divine Realities and Attributes resemble her.

They journeyed,’ etc.: the ascension of the prophets always took place during the night, because night is the time of mystery and concealment.

The darkness of night,’ i.e. the veil of the Unseen let down the curtains of gross corporeal existence, which is the night of this animal organism, throwing a shroud over the spiritual subtleties and noble sciences which it enshrines. These, however, are not to be reached except by journeying through bodily actions and sensual thoughts, and whilst a man is thus occupied the Divine wisdom goes away from his heart, so that on his return he finds her gone and follows her with his aspiration.

Speeding arrows’: he describes this celestial form as shooting his heart, wherever it turns, with the arrows of her glances, as God said, ‘Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of Allah‘ (Kor. ii, 109).

She displayed her front-teeth,’ etc., i.e. this lover found his whole being illuminated, for ‘God is the light of the heavens and the earth‘ (Kor. xxiv, 35), and the Prophet also said in his prayer, ‘O God, put a light into my ear and into my eye,’ and after mentioning the different members of his body he concluded, ‘and make the whole of me one light,’ viz. by the manifestation of Thy essence. Such a manifestation is compared to a flash of lightning on account of its not continuing. The author says that he did not know whether his being was illuminated by the manifestation proceeding from this Divine wisdom, which smiled upon him, or by a simultaneous manifestation of the Divine Essence.

She said,’ etc., i.e. let him not seek me from without and let it satisfy him that I have descended into his heart, so that he beholds me in his essence and through his essence at every moment.

And for last his most famous, and commented Divan :

O Marvel! a garden amidst the flames.

My heart has become capable of every form:

it is a pasture for gazelles and a convent for Christian monks,

and a temple for idols and the pilgrim’s Kaa’ba,

and the tables of the Torah and the book of the Quran.

I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love’s camels take,

that is my religion and my faith.

Curro Piñana from his album De lo Humano a lo Divino (From the Human Realm to the Divine) He sings Ibn Arabi’s Poetry, here he interprets the above divan.

Posted in Alchemy, Archetypes, Being, Courtly Love, Dante, Divine Comedy, Dreams, God, Heart, Hierogamy, History, Ibn Arabi, Imagination, Inner Journey, Inspiration, La Vita Nuova, Literature, Mundus Imaginalis, Mystical Tales, Mysticism, Na-kojd-Abad, Oneness of Being, Paradise, Poetry, Romanticism, Spirituality, Subjective, Symbology, Tarjuman, Transcendence, Transformation, Transmutation, Uncategorized, Wisdom, Writing | Tagged Agape, Archetypes, Asin Palacios, Beatrice, Courtly Love, Dante, Divine Comedy, Diwan, Eros, Eros Sublimated, Hierogamy, Hurqalya, Ibn Arabi, Kitab al Miraj, La Vita Nuova, Lady Nizam, Mundus Imaginalis, Mystical Love, Na-kojd-Abad, Tarjuman | 11 Comments

DELEUZE, WESTERN PHILOSOPHY AND THE ENDLESS REVERSING OF THE SOCK, THE CONCEPT, A SISYPHEAN TASK, ONENESS OF BEING, ZEN AND THE EVER CHATTING MIND

Posted on March 25, 2013 by theburningheart

It is too clear and so it is hard to see.
A dunce once searched for a fire with a
lighted lantern.
Had he known what fire was,
He could have cooked his rice much sooner.

Joshu

A SISYPHEAN TASK

In Greek mythology Sisyphus (pron.: /sɪsɪfəs/; Greek : Σίσυφος,Sísyphos) was a king of Ephyra (now known as Corinth) punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this action forever.

King Sisyphus promoted navigation and commerce but was avaricious and deceitful, committing many crimes, not only against mortals, but also against the gods, even deceiving Thanatos the god of death. As a punishment for his trickery, King Sisyphus was made to roll a huge boulder up a steep hill. Before he could reach the top, however, the massive stone would always roll back down, forcing him to begin again. The maddening nature of the punishment was reserved for King Sisyphus due to his hubristic belief that his cleverness surpassed that of Zeus himself. Zeus accordingly displayed his own cleverness by enchanting the boulder into rolling away from King Sisyphus before he reached the top which ended up consigning Sisyphus to an eternity of useless efforts and unending frustration. Thus it came to pass that pointless or interminable activities are sometimes described as Sisyphean.

Friedrich Welcker suggested that he symbolizes the vain struggle of man in the pursuit of knowledge. Albert Camus, in his 1942 essay The Myth of Sisyphus, saw Sisyphus as personifying the absurdity of human life, but Camus concludes “one must imagine Sisyphus happy” as “The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart.”

Maybe Camus was referring to the happiness of our Western philosophers, in their unstoppable pursuit of eternally “reversing the sock” inwards an outwards!

GILLES DELEUZE

Reversing the sock one more time

Deleuze’s main philosophical project in the works he wrote prior to his collaborations with Guattari can be baldly summarized as a systematic inversion of the traditional metaphysical relationship between identity and difference. Traditionally, difference is seen as derivative from identity: e.g., to say that “X is different from Y” assumes some X and Y with at least relatively stable identities (to name one example: Plato’s forms). To the contrary, Deleuze claims that all identities are effects of difference. Identities are neither logically nor metaphysically prior to difference, Deleuze argues, “given that there exist differences of nature between things of the same genus.” That is, not only are no two things ever the same, the categories we use to identify individuals in the first place derive from differences. Apparent identities such as “X” are composed of endless series of differences, where “X” = “the difference between x and x'”, and “x” = “the difference between…”, and so forth. Difference goes all the way down. To confront reality honestly, Deleuze claims, we must grasp beings exactly as they are, and concepts of identity (forms, categories, resemblances, unities of apperception, predicates, etc.) fail to attain what he calls “difference in itself.” “If philosophy has a positive and direct relation to things, it is only insofar as philosophy claims to grasp the thing itself, according to what it is, in its difference from everything it is not, in other words, in its internal difference.”

Deleuze’s virtual ideas borrows from Plato’s Archetypes but denies it’s transcendence, superficially resemble Plato’s forms and Kant’s ideas of pure reason, they are not originals or models, nor do they transcend possible experience; instead they are the conditions of actual experience, the internal difference in itself. “The concept they [the conditions] form is identical to its object.”A Deleuzean idea or concept of difference is not a ghost-like abstraction of an experienced thing, it is a real system of differential relations that creates actual spaces, times, and sensations. In my opinion a clever Sisyphean cunning to deny the Idealism of his idea, good try although I prefer Plato original Archetypes.

Thus Deleuze, alluding to Kant and Schelling, at times refers to his philosophy as a transcendental empiricism. In Kant’s transcendental idealism, experience only makes sense when organized by forms of sensibility (namely, space and time) and intellectual categories (such as causality). Assuming the content of these forms and categories to be qualities of the world as it exists independently of our perceptual access, according to Kant, spawns seductive but senseless metaphysical beliefs (for example, extending the concept of causality beyond possible experience results in unverifiable speculation about a first cause). Deleuze inverts the Kantian arrangement: experience exceeds our concepts by presenting novelty, and this raw experience of difference actualizes an idea, unfettered by our prior categories, forcing us to invent new ways of thinking. Once more reversing the sock: His Transcendental Empiricism vs. Kant’s Transcendental Idealism, may be considered original by some, repetitive, and in vogue with our politically correct materialism for others …

Univocity

Simultaneously, Deleuze claims that being is univocal, i.e., that all of its senses are affirmed in one voice. Deleuze borrows the doctrine of ontological univocity from the medieval philosopher John Duns Scotus. In medieval disputes over the nature of God, many eminent theologians and philosophers (such as Thomas Aquinas) held that when one says that “God is good”, God’s goodness is only analogous to human goodness. Scotus argued to the contrary that when one says that “God is good”, the goodness in question is exactly the same sort of goodness that is meant when one says “Jane is good”. That is, God only differs from us in degree, and properties such as goodness, power, reason, and so forth are univocally applied, regardless of whether one is talking about God, a person, or a flea. Note the inversion of what is above is equal as to what is below, but nevertheless I agree that is does not matter where you find God, since He is in the flea, and the Transcendent.

Deleuze adapts the doctrine of univocity to claim that being is, univocally, difference. “With univocity, however, it is not the differences which are and must be: it is being which is Difference, in the sense that it is said of difference. Moreover, it is not we who are univocal in a Being which is not; it is we and our individuality which remains equivocal in and for a univocal Being.” Here Deleuze at once echoes and inverts Spinoza, who maintained that everything that exists is a modification of the one substance, God or Nature. For Deleuze, there is no one substance, only an always-differentiating process, an origami cosmos, always folding, unfolding, refolding. Deleuze summarizes this ontology in the paradoxical formula “pluralism = monism” Wahdath al-Wujud (Oneness of Being)

Difference and Repetition is Deleuze’s most sustained and systematic attempt to work out the details of such a metaphysics, but his other works develop similar ideas. In Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962), for example, reality is a play of forces; in Anti-Oedipus (1972), a “body without organs”; in What Is Philosophy? (1991), a “plane of immanence” or “chaosmos”.

Wahdat al-Wujud

Wahdat al-Wujud literally means the “Unity of Existence“. Ibn Arabi is most often characterized in Islamic texts as the originator of the doctrine of wahdat al-wujud, however, this expression is not found in his works and the first who employed this term was perhaps, in fact, the Andalusian mystical thinker Ibn Sabin. Although he frequently makes statements that approximate it, it cannot be claimed that “Oneness of Being” is a sufficient description of his ontology, since he affirms the “manyness of reality” with equal vigor.

In his view, wujūd is the unknowable and inaccessible ground of everything that exists. God alone is true wujūd, while all things dwell in nonexistence, so also wujūd alone is nondelimited (mutlaq), while everything else is constrained, confined, and constricted. Wujūd is the absolute, infinite, nondelimited reality of God, while all others remain relative, finite, and delimited.

But we need to be careful in asserting wujūd’s nondelimitation. This must not be understood to mean that wujūd is different and only different from every delimitation. The Shaykh is quick to point out that wujūd’s nondelimitation demands that it be able to assume every delimitation. If wujūd could not become delimited, it would be limited by its own nondelimitation. Thus “He possesses nondelimitation in delimitation” Or, “God possesses nondelimited wujūd, but no delimitation prevents delimitation. Rather, He possesses all delimitations, so He is nondelimited delimitation, since no single delimitation rather than another rules over Him…. Hence nothing is to be attributed to Him in preference to anything else” . Wujūd must have the power of assuming every delimitation on pain of being limited by those delimitations that it cannot assume. At the same time, it transcends the forms by which it becomes delimited and remains untouched by their constraints.

As you can see Deleuze’s metaphysics is as new, an original as cooked beans, if you consider that the Andalusian mystics precede him by eight-hundred years!

With the added fact that the Andalusian mystic Ibn Arabi wrote volumes on the subject, and the above it is just a very limited view of the theme.

Epistemology

Deleuze’s unusual metaphysics entails an equally atypical epistemology, or what he calls a transformation of “the image of thought”. According to Deleuze, the traditional image of thought, found in philosophers such as Aristotle, Descartes, and Husserl, misconceives of thinking as a mostly unproblematic business. Truth may be hard to discover—it may require a life of pure theorizing, or rigorous computation, or systematic doubt—but thinking is able, at least in principle, to correctly grasp facts, forms, ideas, etc. It may be practically impossible to attain a God’s-eye, neutral point of view, but that is the ideal to approximate: a disinterested pursuit that results in a determinate, fixed truth; an orderly extension of common sense. Deleuze rejects this view as papering over the metaphysical flux, instead claiming that genuine thinking is a violent confrontation with reality, an involuntary rupture of established categories. Truth changes what we think; it alters what we think is possible. By setting aside the assumption that thinking has a natural ability to recognize the truth, Deleuze says, we attain a “thought without image”, a thought always determined by problems rather than solving them. “All this, however, presupposes codes or axioms which do not result by chance, but which do not have an intrinsic rationality either. It’s just like theology: everything about it is quite rational if you accept sin, the immaculate conception, and the incarnation. Reason is always a region carved out of the irrational—not sheltered from the irrational at all, but traversed by it and only defined by a particular kind of relationship among irrational factors. Underneath all reason lies delirium, and drift.”

Zen Buddhism and the Yoga Sutras

Deleuze’s peculiar readings of the history of philosophy stem from this unusual epistemological perspective. To read a philosopher is no longer to aim at finding a single, correct interpretation, but is instead to present a philosopher’s attempt to grapple with the problematic nature of reality. “Philosophers introduce new concepts, they explain them, but they don’t tell us, not completely anyway, the problems to which those concepts are a response. […] The history of philosophy, rather than repeating what a philosopher says, has to say what he must have taken for granted, what he didn’t say but is nonetheless present in what he did say.”

Likewise, rather than seeing philosophy as a timeless pursuit of truth, reason, or universals, Deleuze defines philosophy as the creation of concepts. For Deleuze, concepts are not identity conditions or propositions, but metaphysical constructions that define a range of thinking, such as Plato’s ideas, Descartes’s cogito, or Kant’s doctrine of the faculties. A philosophical concept “posits itself and its object at the same time as it is created.” In Deleuze’s view, then, philosophy more closely resembles practical or artistic production than it does an adjunct to a definitive scientific description of a pre-existing world (as in the tradition of Locke or Quine).

Maybe what Deleuze understood was that the whole canon of Western philosophy is based on concepts, and that the study of philosophy in it’s Western way, is the study of words, a hopeless pursuit and not truth in a enlightened way.

Zen emphasizes the attainment of enlightenment and the personal expression of direct insight in the Buddhist teachings. As such, it de-emphasizes mere knowledge of sutras and doctrine and favors direct understanding through zazen and interaction with an accomplished teacher.

if you’re a westerner you may find it hard to shake off the intellectual and dualist ways of thinking that dominate western culture: these can make it difficult for westerners to come to Zen.

Zen Buddhists pay less attention to scripture as a means of learning than they do to various methods of practicing Zen. The most common way of teaching is for enlightenment to be communicated direct from master to pupil.

Zen practices are aimed at taking the rational and intellectual mind out of the mental loop, so that the student can become more aware and realize their own Buddha-nature. Sometimes even (mild) physical violence is used to stop the student intellectualizing or getting stuck in some other way.

Students of Zen aim to achieve enlightenment by the way they live, and by mental actions that approach the truth without philosophical thought or intellectual endeavor.

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali tell us:

Before beginning any spiritual text it is customary to clear the mind of all distracting thoughts, to calm the breath and to purify the heart.

1.1 Now, instruction in Union.

1.2. Union is restraining the thought-streams natural to the mind.

1.3. Then the seer dwells in his own nature.

A far cry from “conceptual philosophy”

In his later work (from roughly 1981 onward), Deleuze sharply distinguishes art, philosophy, and science as three distinct disciplines, each analyzing reality in different ways. While philosophy creates concepts, the arts create novel qualitative combinations of sensation and feeling (what Deleuze calls “percepts” and “affects”), and the sciences create quantitative theories based on fixed points of reference such as the speed of light or absolute zero (which Deleuze calls “functives”). According to Deleuze, none of these disciplines enjoy primacy over the others: they are different ways of organizing the metaphysical flux, “separate melodic lines in constant interplay with one another.”For example, Deleuze does not treat cinema as an art representing an external reality, but as an ontological practice that creates different ways of organizing movement and time. Philosophy, science, and art are equally, and essentially, creative and practical. Hence, instead of asking traditional questions of identity such as “is it true?” or “what is it?”, Deleuze proposes that inquiries should be functional or practical: “what does it do?” or “how does it work?”

My Zen Teacher would complain: “My novice American students, ask me to explain the concept of Zen, or how does it work? My Oriental students, ask me: ‘How it feels like?”

Zen it is not a concept to understand with our minds, it is not a definition that you put in a file on your memory, and bring it up when somebody ask you about it, as the way you learn formulas for your chemistry test, or when somebody ask you have you read so, and so? And you say yes, I read it, you have not grasped it! Zen flesh, Zen bones! Just because you climb a small hill, doesn’t mean you can climb Everest, or if you swim a few laps means you can cross the English Chanel, or because you know how to ride a bicycle means you can compete in the Tour de France, however like Zen, there is some people who do just that.

The Meaning of Practice Dogen Zenji

One of my teacher’s favorite anecdotes was Dogen meeting of his Teacher Rújìng. In 1223, Dōgen and Myōzen undertook the dangerous passage across the East China Sea to China to study in Jing-de-si (Ching-te-ssu, 景德寺) monastery as Eisai had once done.

In China, Dōgen first went to the leading Chan monasteries in Zhèjiāng province. At the time, most Chan teachers based their training around the use of gōng-àns (Japanese: kōan). Though Dōgen assiduously studied the kōans, he became disenchanted with the heavy emphasis laid upon them, and wondered why the sutras were not studied more. At one point, owing to this disenchantment, Dōgen even refused Dharma transmission from a teacher.Then, in 1225, he met a master named Rújìng (如淨; J. Nyōjo), the thirteenth patriarch of the Cáodòng (J. Sōtō) lineage of Zen Buddhism, at Mount Tiāntóng (天童山 Tiāntóngshān; J. Tendōzan) in Níngbō. Rujing was reputed to have a style of Chan that was different from the other masters whom Dōgen had thus far encountered. In later writings, Dōgen referred to Rujing as “the Old Buddha”. Additionally he affectionately described both Rujing and Myōzen assenshi (先師^?, “Former Teacher”).

In those days, even the shortest trips of this nature were arduous, and very dangerous. It took its toll on Dogen as well, who become very sick on the way. As soon as he arrived, however, his spirit returned and he set off to the Temple to begin his training. But much to his disappointment, it was not what he had expected. The training was lax, there was no discipline, and all the priest were lazy, not pursuing any types of studies at all. Heartbroken he returned to the ship thinking about heading home to Japan.

He had spent about two weeks in the ship waiting for departure, when he happen to look at a decrepit priest of about 60 years of age, who had come to the ship to buy dried mushrooms from Japan. Dogen with nothing else to do began casual conversation with him. “What business do you come for?” Inquired Dogen.

“I have come to buy dried mushrooms for tomorrow’s soup at my temple.” Replied the old man.

“Where is your temple?”

“About 14 miles away.”

“You come that distance just for mushrooms? You are old; aren’t there younger priests who can do this work? It so hot outside and you must be very tired.” Replied Dogen.

“I have to do this work because it is my work and no one else.” Said the monk.

“Why don’t you rest here tonight and go back tomorrow morning when it is more cooler.” Dogen offered.

“I must return today because this is for tomorrow’s soup, which I must prepare. I will leave as soon as I buy this mushrooms.”

“You are obvious a senior monk at your Temple. Why don’t you spend your time studying the teachings instead of doing such menial work which the younger priest should do?” Demanded Dogen.

“The younger priest are not me, I am not them. This is my job.” Then added: “Obviously, you don’t understand the meaning of practice.”

“What do you mean by that?!” Asked the astonished Dogen.

“In anything in this world, there is nothing hidden,” said the old monk, and he left, vanishing down the road.

Of course at that time young Dogen still cling to the mind for answers, even if what he was looking for was a rigorous practice.

The Swordsman and the Cat

From an old book on swordplay, probably written by
an early master of the Ittôryû school, which was founded
by Itô Kagehisa in the seventeenth century.

“After listening intently to the wisdom of the Cat, Shôken proposed this question: “What is meant by `There is neither the subject nor the object’ ?”

Replied the Cat: “Because of the self there is the foe; when there is no self there is no foe. The foe means an opposition as the male is opposed to the female and fire to water. Whatever things have form exist necessarily in opposition. When there are no signs stirred in your mind, no conflicts of opposition take place there; and when there are no conflicts, one trying to get the better of the other, this is known as `neither foe nor self’. When, further, the mind itself is forgotten together with signs of thought, you enjoy a state of absolutely-doing-nothingness, you are in a state of perfect quiet passivity, you are in harmony with the world, you are one with it. While the foe-form ceases to exist, you are not conscious of it, nor can it be said that you are altogether unconscious of it. Your mind is cleansed of all thought movements, and you act only when there is a prompting.”

“When your mind is thus in a state of absolutely-doing-nothingness, the world is identified with your self, which means that you make no choice between right and wrong, like and dislike, and are above all forms of abstraction. Such conditions as pleasure and pain, gain and loss, are creations of your own mind. The whole universe is indeed not to be sought after outside the Mind. An old poet says: `When there is as particle of dust in your eye, the triple world becomes a narrow path; have your mind completely free from objects — and how much this life expands !’ When even a tiny particle of sand gets into the eye, we cannot keep it open; the eye may be likened to the Mind which by nature is brightly illuminating and free from objects; but as soon as an object enters there its virtue is lost. It is said again that `when one is surrounded by an enemy — hundreds of thousands in strength – this physical form may be crushed to pieces, but the Mind is mine with which no overwhelming army can have anything to do.’ Says Confucius: `Even a plain man of the street cannot be deprived of his will.’ When however this mind is confused, it turns to be its own enemy. This is all I can explain here, for the master’s task cannot go beyond transmitting technique and illustrating the reason for it. It is yourself who realizes the truth of it. The truth is self-attained, it is transmitted from mind to mind, it is a special transmission outside the scriptural teaching. There is here no willful deviation from traditional teaching, for even the master is powerless in this respect. Nor is this confined to the study of Zen. From the mind-training initiated by the ancient sages down to various branches of art, self-realization is the keynote of them all, and it is transmitted from mind to mind — a special transmission outside the scriptural teaching. What is performed by scriptural teaching is to point out for you what you have within yourself. There is no transference of secrets from master to disciple. Teaching is not difficult, listening is not difficult either, but what is truly difficult is to become conscious of what you have in yourself and be able to use it as your own. This self-realization is known as `seeing into one’s own being’ which is satori. Satori is an awakening from a dream. Awakening and self-realization and seeing into one’s own being — these are synonymous.

To make Nature display its mysterious way of achieving things is to do away with all of your own thinking, contriving, and acting; let Nature have her own way, let her act as it feels in you , and there will be no shadows, no signs, no traces whereby you can be caught; you have then no foes who can successfully resist you. “

Posted in Buddhism, Buddhist Monk, Conceptualism, Cosmology, Counsciousness, Critical Thinking, Deleuze, Dogen Zenji, Epistemology, Ibn Arabi, Language, Metaphysics, Mysticism, Ontology, Philosophy, Postmodernism, Semantics, Spirituality, Subjective, Transcendental Empiricism, Uncategorized, Univocity, Wahdat al Wujud, Western Civilization, Western Philosophy, Wisdom, Writing, Yoga Sutras, Zen | Tagged Albert Camus, Concepts, Dogen Zenji, Gilles Deleuze, Ibn Arabi, Joshu, Patanjali, Philosophy, Practice, Sisyphus, The swordsman and the cat, Unity of Existence, Zazen, Zen Buddhism | 2 Comments

THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION, WESTERN CIVILIZATION, DUALISM, AND SEPARATEDNESS, TECHNOLOGICAL DETERMINISM, E.F. SCHUMACHER AND THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING, THE EASTERN VIEW

Posted on February 25, 2013 by theburningheart

We are here to awaken from the

illusion of our separateness.

Thich Nhat Hanh

The Copernican Revolution

It is common in our Western societies too look in to the other to assign blame for whatever is wrong with the World, or with ourselves, our way to solve our problems it is related, not in what to do with ourselves, but how to deal with the other, if you can’t be on time because you were delayed by traffic, it drive you nuts, and you blame those morons who decided to take to the road at the same time you did. If things do not work at work it is easy to assign the blame to this , or that person, who dropped the ball, just like the idiot who fumbled the football on the last game of your favorite team, and therefor they lost the game. If our love relationship is not working, usually is because our partner it is not doing, this, or that, or because he/she does exactly the opposite of what you expect.

You may be wondering what Copernicus has to do with all this?

Well, his heliocentric model, with the Sun at the center of the universe, demonstrated that the observed motions of celestial objects can be explained without putting Earth at rest in the center of the universe. His work stimulated further scientific investigations, becoming a landmark in the history of science that is often referred to as the Copernican Revolution.

But what interest us here it is not the change from the Ptolemaic system of an Earth centered Universe, to an Heliocentric, but far vaster consequences; Not only the Earth was not the center of the Universe, and orbited around the Sun, but the idea of a center, in an Universe constantly in motion lost it’s appeal, from there to believe that Man as subject of knowledge it is no longer the central reference point of what he knows, just like the Earth, and the Stars, it lost the center idea that Man was the measure of all things.

Therefore the Self was relegated to a dustbin in history.

Jean Laplanche, and Freud

Following the introduction of the theory of generalized seduction, French philosopher Jean Laplanche published a collection of essays under the title “The Unfinished Copernican Revolution” which referred specifically to the “object” of psychoanalysis, the unconscious – the generalized seduction theory emphasizing that such a revolution is “incomplete.”

Freud, who repeatedly compared the psychoanalytic discovery to a Copernican revolution, was for Laplanche both “his own Copernicus but also his own Ptolemy.” On the Copernican side, there is the conjoint discovery of the unconscious and the seduction theory, which maintains the sense of “otherness”; on the Ptolemaic side, there is (to Laplanche) the misdirection of the Freudian “return to a theory of self-centering”. Thus ‘what Laplanche calls Freud’s “going astray”, a disastrous shift from a Copernican to a Ptolemaic conception of the psyche…occurred when Freud replaced his early seduction theory…of sexuality as an “alien-ness” decentering the psyche’with one centered upon the individual – ‘the illusion of a universe that Laplanche would characterize as Ptolemaic, where the ego feels it occupies the central position’.

Laplanche wasn’t too happy with Kant, he accused him to revert to a Ptolemaic position, despite his Copernican Revolution.

Immanuel Kant

THE ANTINOMY BETWEEN THE IDEAL OF SCIENCE AND THAT OF PERSONALITY IN THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON

Actually KANT’s “Copernican deed”, i.e. his critical reversal of the relation between the knowing subject and empirical reality, his fundamental break with dogmatic metaphysics, in short the whole content of his Critique of Pure Reason, acquires its essential significance only in the light of the new relationship between the ideal of science and that of personality, in the basic structure of his transcendental ground-Idea.

If one isolates KANT’s epistemology from the latter, KANT’s Copernican deed, which is usually considered to be a radical revolution in modern philosophy, is, in itself, in no wise radical.

It is quickly forgotten that since the time of DESCARTES, Humanist philosophical thought had been characterized by the tendency to seek the foundations of reality in the knowing subject only. HUME had with extreme acuteness tried to show that our experience is limited to sense phenomena. In distinction to the “objective” metaphysics of Greek and medieval philosophy, the Cartesian adage “cogito, ergo sum,” signified the very proclamation of the sovereignty of subjective thought. Insofar as the Humanist ideal of science, with its logistic principle of continuity, developed without a real synthesis with medieval or ancient metaphysics, its deepest tendency was the elevation of mathematical-logical thought to the throne of cosmic ordained. If any one doubts this, he may return to the sources of the Humanistic science-ideal and behold once again the cleft which separates modern Humanist thought, with its essentially nominalist concept of substance, from the old objective metaphysics of substantial forms. He may examine once again the experiment of HOBBES, as presented in the preface to his “De Corpore“, according to which the entire given world of experience is theoretically demolished, in order that it may be reconstructed by the creative activity of mathematical thought.

Kant’s major work, the Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781), aimed to unite reason with experience to move beyond what he took to be failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics. He hoped to end an age of speculation where objects outside experience were used to support what he saw as futile theories, while opposing the skepticism of thinkers such as Berkeley and Hume.

He stated:

“It always remains a scandal of philosophy and universal human reason that the existence of things outside us … should have to be assumed merely on faith, and that if it occurs to anyone to doubt it, we should be unable to answer him with a satisfactory proof.”

Kant proposed a ‘Copernican Revolution’ in reverse, saying that:

“Up to now it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to the objects; but … let us once try whether we do not get farther with the problems of metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform to our cognition.”

Western civilization and it’s Copernican Revolution, in is rejection of Metaphysics, and it’s embracing of a Secular non-Religious views find fault with Kant, precipitating Scientific methodology, and abandoning the subjective Self, in my opinion bringing the disastrous materialistic condition we live today at the rejection of Spirit, and the scandalous downfall of the dream of the modern Man in to the quicksand of Postmodernism pessimism.

Leo Marx holds that the boundless optimism that bolstered the hopes of Americans until the Second World War has dissipated into “widespread social pessimism.” The reasons for this change in attitude, according to Marx, are complex. They are to be found in specific technological disasters (Chernobyl and Three Mile Island), in national traumas (the Vietnam War), and more generally in a loss of faith in technology as “the driving force of progress.” Marx places this change of expectations in historical context by examining the role of the mechanical arts in the progressive world view and showing how “both the character and the representation of ‘technology’ changed in the nineteenth century” from discrete,easily identifiable artifacts (such as steam engines) to abstract, scientific, and seemingly neutral systems of production and control. With its “endless reification” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the newly refurbished conceptof “technology” became invested with a “host of metaphysical properties and potencies” that invited a belief in it as an autonomous agent of social change. By mystifying technology and attributing to it powers that bordered on idolatry, mid-twentieth century Americans set themselves up for a fall that prepared “the way for an increasingly pessimistic sense of the technological determination of history.”

Marx concludes that postmodernist criticism, with its ratification of “the idea of the domination of life by large technological systems,” perpetuates the credibility of technological determinism.

E.F. Schumacher and The Great Chain of Being

For Schumacher one of science’s major mistakes has been rejecting the traditional philosophical and religious view that the universe is a hierarchy of being. Schumacher makes a restatement of the traditional chain of being.

He agrees with the view that there are four kingdoms: Mineral, Plant, Animal, Man. He argues that there are critical differences of kind between each level of being. Between mineral and plant is the phenomenon of life, As Schumacher says though scientists say we should not use the phrase ‘life energy’, the difference still exists and has not been explained by science. Schumacher points out that though we can recognize life and destroy it, we can’t create it. Schumacher notes that the ‘life sciences’ are ‘extraordinary’ because they hardly ever deal with life as such, and instead content themselves with analyzing the “physical-chemical body which is life’s carrier.” Schumacher goes on to say there is nothing in physics or chemistry to explain the phenomenon of life.

For Schumacher, a similar jump in level of being takes place between plant and animal, which is differentiated by the phenomenon of consciousness. We can recognize consciousness, not least because we can knock an animal unconscious, but also because animals exhibit at minimum primitive thought and intelligence.

The next level, according to Schumacher, is between Animal and Man, which are differentiated by the phenomenon of self consciousness or self awareness. Self consciousness is the reflective awareness of one’s consciousness and thoughts.

Schumacher realizes that the terms—life, consciousness and self-consciousness—are subject to misinterpretation so he suggests that the differences can best be expressed as an equation which can be written thus:

‘Mineral’ = m
‘Plant’ = m + x
‘Animal’ = m + x + y
‘Man’ = m + x + y + z

In his theory, these three factors (x, y and z) represent ontological discontinuities. He argues that they are differences can be likened to differences in dimension; and from one perspective it could be argued that only humans have ‘real’ existence insofar as they possess the three dimensions of life, consciousness and self consciousness. Schumacher uses this perspective to contrast with the materialistic scientism view, which argues that what is ‘real’ is inanimate matter; denying the realness of life, consciousness and self consciousness, despite the fact each individual can verify those phenomena from their own experience.

He directs our attention to the fact that science has generally avoided seriously discussing these discontinuities, because they present such difficulties for strictly materialistic science, and they largely remain mysteries.

Next he considers the animal model of man which has grown popular in science. Schumacher notes that within the humanities the distinction between consciousness and self consciousness is now seldom drawn. Consequently, people have become increasingly uncertain about whether there is any difference between animal and man. Schumacher notes that a great deal of research about humans has been conducted by studying animals. Schumacher argues that this is analogous to studying physics in the hope of understanding life. Schumacher goes on to say that much can be learned about man by studying minerals, plants and animals because man has inherited those levels of being: all, that is, ‘except that which makes him human.’

Schumacher goes on to say that nothing is ‘more conducive to the brutalization of the modern world’ than calling humans the ‘naked ape’. Schumacher argues that once people begin viewing humans as ‘animal machines’ they soon begin treating them accordingly.

Schumacher argues that what defines man are his greatest achievements, not the common run of the mill things. He argues that human beings are open-ended because of self awareness, which as distinct from life and consciousness has nothing mechanical or automatic about it. For Schumacher “the powers of self awareness are, essentially, a limitless potentiality rather than an actuality. They have to be developed and ‘realized’ by each human individual if he is to become truly human, that is to say, a person.”

The Eastern View

Shvetashvatara Upanishad

1 What is the cause of the cosmos? Is it Brahman?

From where do we come? By what live?

Where shall we find peace at last?

What power governs the duality

Of pleasure and pain by which we are driven?

2 Time, nature, necessity, accident,

Elements, energy, intelligence —

None of these can be the First Cause

They are effects, whose only purpose is

To help the self rise above pleasure and pain.

3 In the depths of meditation, sages

Saw within themselves the Lord of Love,

Who dwells in the heart of every creature.

Deep in the hearts of all he dwells, hidden

Behind the gunas of law, energy,

And inertia. He is One. He it is

Who rules over time, space, and causality.

4 The world is the wheel of God, turning round

And round with all living creatures upon its rim.

5 The world is the river of God,

Flowing from him and flowing back to him.

6 On this ever-revolving wheel of life

The individual self goes round and round

Through life after life, believing itself

To be a separate creature, until

It sees its identity with the Lord of Love

And attains immortality in the indivisible whole.

7 He is the eternal reality, sing

The scriptures, and the ground of existence.

Those who perceive him in every creature

Merge in him and are released from the wheel

Of birth and death.

8 The Lord of Love holds in his hand the world,

Composed of the changing and the changeless,

The manifest and the non manifest.

The separate self, not yet aware of the Lord,

Goes after pleasure, only to become

Bound more and more, When it sees the Lord,

There comes an end to its bondage.

9 Conscious spirit and unconscious matter

Both have existed since the dawn of time,

With maya appearing to connect them,

Misrepresenting joy as outside us.

When all these three are seen as one, the Self

Reveals his universal form and serves

As an instrument of the divine will.

10 All is change in the world of the senses,

But changeless is the supreme Lord of Love.

Meditate on him, be absorbed in him,

Wake up from this dream of separateness.

11 Know God and all fetters will fall away.

No longer identifying yourself

With the body, go beyond birth and death.

All your desires will be fulfilled in him.

Who is One without a second.

12 Know him to be enshrined in your heart always.

Truly there is nothing more in life to know.

Meditate and realize that this world

Is filled with the presence of God.

Even if I got no sympathy for the idea of Reincarnation a common occurrence on Indian thought, for it lacks Ontological soundness, since it gives autonomous reality to the individual self that goes on reincarnating until achieving personal liberation, or Oneness with Brahman, when to begin with the individual self is illusory, and therefor non-existent, so how can have existence even after death? It is rather more simple for Brahman to be the only existent, and the separation illusory. In Advaita philosophy, individual souls are called Jīvātman, and the Highest Brahman is called Paramātman. The Jivatman and the Paramatman are known to be one and the same when the Jivatman attains the true knowledge of the Brahman (Skt. Brahmajñāna) . In the context of Advaita, the word Paramatman is invariably used to refer to Nirguna Brahman, with Ishvara and Bhagavan being terms used to refer to Brahman with qualities, or Saguna Brahman.

However having this in mind, the Shvetashvatara Upanishad is a wonderful example of seeing the Self as One.

Posted in Buddhist Monk, Capitalism, Copernicus, Cosmogony, Cosmology, Counsciousness, Critical Thinking, Deconstruction, Dualism, E.F. Schumacher, Ecology, Economy, Future, Globalization, Historical Evolution, History, Human Nature, Jean Laplanche, Kant, Leo Marx, Metaphysics, Myth, Mythology, Otherness, Philosophy, Politics, Postmodernism, Progress, Science, Self, Shvetashvatara Upanishad, Spirituality, Technological Determinism, The Great Chain of Being, Uncategorized, Western Civilization, Wisdom | Tagged Copernican Revolution, Copernicus, E.F. Schumacher, Eastern View, Heliocentric, Kant, Leo Marx, Otherness, Ptolemaic, Technology, Western Civilization | 1 Comment

GAIA, PANPSYCHISM, NEW MATERIALISM, THE RIGHTS OF NATURE, A NEW ECOLOGY FOR MANKIND, NEOPAGANISM, AND OLD RELIGIONS ON CONTEMPORARY ISSUES.

Posted on January 26, 2013 by theburningheart

“Oh all you sentient beings of this threefold world

[i.e. the entire universe, both visible and invisible]!

Because I, the All-Creating Sovereign, have created you,

you are My children and equal to Me.

Because you are not second to Me, I am present in you …

Oh all you sentient beings of this threefold world,

if I were not, you would be non-existent. …

Because all things do not exist outside of Me,

I firmly declare that I am all – the All-Creating One.”

Kulayarāja Tantra

I kind of smile, at looking at contemporary, urgent political, and ecological issues, taking resource at what just some years ago, most of Mankind sneered as a discarded Old Mythology, or at best ancient dead Religions!

In philosophy, panpsychism is the view that all matter has a mental aspect, or, alternatively, all objects have a unified center of experience or point of view.Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz, Gustav Theodor Fechner, Friedrich Paulsen, Ernst Haeckel, Charles Strong, and partially William James are considered panpsychists.

Panpsychism is related to the more holistic view that the whole Universe is an organism that possesses a mind (see pandeism, pantheism, panentheism and cosmic consciousness). It is claimed to be distinct from animism or hylozoism, which hold that all things have a soul or are alive, respectively. Gustav Theodor Fechner claimed in “Nanna” and “Zend-Avesta” that the Earth is a living organism whose parts are the people, the animals and the plants.

Many Neopagans worship Gaia. Beliefs regarding Gaia vary, ranging from the belief that Gaia is the Earth to the belief that she is the spiritual embodiment of the earth, or the Goddess of the Earth.

Gaia (pron.: /ˈɡeɪ.ə/ or /ˈɡaɪ.ə/; from Ancient Greek Γαῖα, a poetical form of Gē Γῆ, “land” or “earth”; also Gaea, or Ge) was the goddess or personification of Earth in ancient Greek religion, one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia was the great mother of all: the heavenly gods, the Titans and the Giants were born from her union with Uranus (the sky), while the sea-gods were born from her union with Pontus (the sea). Her equivalent in the Roman pantheon was Terra.

The Gaia hypothesis, also known as Gaia theory or Gaia principle, proposes that organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a self-regulating, complex system that contributes to maintaining the conditions for life on the planet. Topics of interest include how the biosphere and the evolution of life forms affect the stability of global temperature, ocean salinity, oxygen in the atmosphere and other environmental variables that affect the habitability of Earth.

The hypothesis was formulated by the scientist James Lovelock and co-developed by the microbiologist Lynn Margulis in the 1970s. While early versions of the hypothesis were criticized for being teleological and contradicting principles of natural selection, later refinements have resulted in ideas highlighted by the Gaia Hypothesis being used in disciplines such as geophysiology, Earth system science, biogeochemistry, systems ecology, and climate science. In 2006, the Geological Society of London awarded Lovelock the Wollaston Medal largely for his work on the Gaia theory.

Gaia theory, which views the biosphere as a self-regulating system, that maintains homeostasis in relation to many vital chemical and physical variables, is sometimes interpreted as panpsychism, because some think that any goal-directed behavior qualifies as mental. However, the goal-directed behavior of the biosphere, as explained by the Gaia theory, is an emergent function of organised, living matter, not a quality of any matter. Thus Gaia theory is more properly associated with emergentism than panpsychism.

So-called naive panpsychism, as opposed to philosophical panpsychism, is sometimes used to refer to the idea of inanimate objects as sentient and/or intentional. This is similar to animism. The attitude of labeling this philosophy “naive” could be considered a vestigial Eurocentric belief in the inaccuracy or unimportance of non-Western world views. It could be considered to be a colonial artifact utilized as a tool of domination to discredit the philosophical contributions of the colonized. In addition, it downplays the possible role that indigenous philosophies may have played in the formation of panpsychist ideas in the Western world.

Panpsychism, as a view that the universe has “universal consciousness”, is shared by some forms of religious thought: theosophy, pantheism, cosmotheism and panentheism. The hundredth monkey effect exemplifies the threshold for this applied cosmic consciousness. The Tiantai Buddhist answer is that “when one attains it, all attain it.”

Panpsychism also plays a part in Hindu, Buddhist, Dzogchen and Shinto mysticism, and for that matter in most if not all Animistic Native Religions, and Mother Goddess Cults, like Pachamama, in the Andes, Rhea, for the Greeks, Durga, or Kali for the Hindus, Nerthus, for the Germanics, Dea Matrona, for the Gauls, Ninhursag for the Sumerians, Tuuwaqatsi for the Hopi, Nut, or Isis for the ancient Egyptians, etc. It will be hard to find a place on Earth were the ancient goddess has not being worship.

To many specialist this may strike as oversimplification, syncretism, or whatever they may choose to name it, however in an age of rapid, and expanding communications, and the phenomenon we call Globalization, it is impossible now for people around the world not to see the same phenomena expressed under a different guise all over the Earth, by those old, native cultures who perennially have lived close to the land, and that colonization, and modernity has not alter the close connection to their roots, in a world hybridized by the seed of our Western disconnected ways, our lack of awareness, on many Ecological issues, something as simple as were food come from, not from our sterile well provided markets, packaged in attractive colored containers for us to buy, actually the packages seem to create more garbage volume than the product itself!

In my view Panpsychism it is a way for the reductionist, mechano-materialist to reconnect with an emergent ecological consciousness, for so long time sleep in our Western culture without give in totally to a Theistic world view of the world, fine, and dandy, if you are too proud to apologizing for your past mistakes it is beyond you, if backtracking to a Theistic view it is too much to bear, after you unshackled yourself of the heavy yoke of God, ignoring that there is more to God than the Paternalistic Judeo-Christian, chauvinistic male centered views, associated with the word God, or sin…uhh, scary!

Anyway welcome to fight for your hard won new ecological panpsychic awareness! Now let’s look what those poor, ignorant, undeveloped third world people are doing down South!

Rights of Nature

President Evo Morales of Bolivia, Morales has declared himself Bolivia’s first Aymara president. this may not be true by blood only, since other presidents had some native blood in them, however Evo Morales is the first president of Bolivia who grew as an Indigenous individual, and that by class, and socioeconomic factors belong to the real native people of Bolivia, and do not serve the Criollo’s policies, subservient to an Eurocentric colonial model of economics, and racism, were for centuries the native people has been marginalized from education, and economic opportunities a sort of an apartheid not institutionalized by laws, like in South Africa, but enforced by custom, and racist behavior from the classes in power. Together with Rafael Correa president of Ecuador in 2010 issued a declaration of Rights of Nature. (See my post on this blog of June 2011, PACHAMAMA; MOTHER EARTH, GODDESSES,THE STRUGGLE OF INDIGENOUS CULTURES, AND THE MESSAGE OF THE MAMA KOGUIS TO YOUNGER BROTHER.)

By comparison native cultures, unlike us a supposedly more advanced culture we lag behind on defense of Ecological issues, muddled in a morass of rampant commercialism, corporatism united to a corrupt government, and media who it’s married to a exploitative plutocracy who despoils Mother Earth at will, and export our Eurocentric views, and way of life to the poor, and practically defenseless Native Cultures, with our implicit consent, since we do not even object to be labeled “consumers” and passively accept to go out and shop for whatever they advertise to sale us .

In contrast Indigenous cultures still are close to the land and know were food come from, and because their dependence, it is immediate to the source were food come from, and their survival depends on it, their ecological awareness usually it is not clouded by our modern commercialism, and lack of connection to Mother Earth. Many governments in third World countries follow the same obsolete, and harmful policies that big money dictates, and despite their “Independence” from a colonial past, they are still subjects of our Imperial economic policies, and they lack the power to be truly independent, and not subjects to the whims, and caprice, dictated by our corporate plutocrats, and “free market”capitalism, so individuals, and small communities, have to organize and fight for their Indigenous rights to have access to their own land, water, and many other resources, that manly foreign capitalist ventures, came to their lands to exploit, despoil, and marginalize this people even more, ignoring their rights to life, clean soil, clean water, and free access to it, in their blind pursuit of wealth, they trample on the natural rights of this poor people who have lived with their ancient ways close to the land, Mother Earth who give sustenance to all of us.

NEOPAGANISM

Because of the principle of separation of church and state, the U.S. government does not formally maintain a list of recognized religions. Both the U.S. and Canada register religious groups as tax-exempt organizations and grant clergy the right to conduct marriage ceremonies.

However, many European federal governments have ecclesiastical affairs ministries which do formally recognize religions. The governments of: Iceland in 1973, Norway in 1996 and 1999, and Denmark in 2003 have officially recognized Neopagan religions which worship Viking Gods such as Odin and Thor.

HISTORY

The Romantic movement of the 18th century led to the re-discovery of Old Gaelic and Old Norse literature and poetry. Neo-druidism can be taken to have its origins as early as 1717 with the foundation of The Druid Order. The 19th century saw a surge of interest in Germanic paganism with the Viking revival in Victorian Britain and Scandinavia. In Germany the Völkisch movement was in full swing. These pagan currents coincided with Romanticist interest in folklore and occultism, the widespread emergence of pagan themes in popular literature, and the rise of nationalism.

During this resurgence in the United Kingdom, Neo-druidism and various Western occult groups emerged, such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the Ordo Templi Orientis, who attempted to syncretize “exotic” elements like Egyptian cosmology and Kabbalah into their belief systems, although not necessarily for purely religious purposes. Influenced by the anthropologist Sir James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough, several prominent writers and artists were involved in these organizations, including William Butler Yeats, Maud Gonne, Arthur Edward Waite, and Aleister Crowley. Along with these early occult organizations, there were other social phenomena such as the interest in mediumship, magic, and other supernatural beliefs which was at an all time high in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

Another important influence during this period was the Romantic aesthetic movement, which venerated the natural world and frequently made reference to the deities of antiquity. The Romantic poets, essayists, artists and authors who employed these themes in their work were later associated with socially progressive attitudes towards sexuality, feminism, pacifism and similar issues.

It is the belief of modern Pagans that the religious beliefs of pre-Christian Europe “possess continuing value for us in our own time, even after centuries of suppression and neglect.” Strmiska asserted that contemporary Paganism could be viewed as a part of the “much larger phenomenon” of efforts to revive “traditional, indigenous, or native religions” that were occurring across the globe.

Contemporary Paganism, Modern Paganism, or Neopaganism,

Is an umbrella term referring to a variety of contemporary religious movements, particularly those influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various historical pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe. Although they do share commonalities, contemporary Pagan religious movements are diverse and no single set of beliefs, practices, or texts are shared by them all.

Contemporary Paganism has been characterized as “a synthesis of historical inspiration and present-day creativity”, in this manner drawing influences from pre-Christian, folkloric and ethnographic sources in order to fashion new religious movements. The extent to which contemporary Pagans use these sources differs; many follow a spirituality which they accept is entirely modern, whilst others attempt to reconstruct or revive indigenous, ethnic religions as found in historical and folkloric sources as accurately as possible.

Most modern pagan religions celebrate the cycles and seasons of nature through a festival calendar that honors these changes. The timing of festivals, and the rites celebrated, may vary from climate to climate, and will also vary, sometimes widely depending upon which particular pagan religion the adherent subscribes to.

Some pagans also draw inspiration from modern traditions, including Christianity, Buddhism and others, creating syncretism like “Christian Witchcraft” or “Buddheo-Paganism”. Since many pagan beliefs do not require exclusivity, some pagans practice other faiths in parallel.

Eclectic pagans take an non dogmatic religious stance, and therefore potentially see no one as having authority to deem a source “apocryphal”. Contemporary paganism has therefore been prone to fakelore, especially in recent years as information and misinformation alike have been spread on the Internet and in print media. A number of Wiccan, pagan and even some “Traditionalist” or “Tribalist” groups have a history of “Grandmother Stories” Typically involving initiation by a Grandmother, Grandfather, or other elderly relative who is said to have instructed them in the secret, millennia-old traditions of their ancestors. As this “secret wisdom” can almost always be traced to recent sources, tellers of these stories have often later admitted they made them up.

A number of Wiccan, Neopagan and even some “Traditionalist” or “Tribalist” groups have a history of spurious “Grandmother Stories” usually involving initiation by a Grandmother, Grandfather, or other elderly (and conveniently dead) relative who is said to have instructed them in the secret, millennia-old traditions of their ancestors. As this “secret wisdom” has almost always been traced to recent sources, or been quite obviously concocted even more recently, most proponents of these stories have eventually admitted they made them up. These “origin myths” are sometimes also referred to as “The Myth of the Wicca.” In these cases, rather than a case of folklorists from outside the community calling the Wiccan stories “fakelore”, phrases such as “Grandmother Stories” and “The Myth of the Wicca” have become synonyms and shorthand for a specific type of fakelore found within the communities in question.

Some claims of continuity between contemporary paganism and older forms of paganism have been shown to be spurious, or outright false, as in the case of Iolo Morganwg’s Druid’s Prayer. Wiccan beliefs of an ancient monotheistic Goddess were inspired by Marija Gimbutas’s description of Neolithic Europe. The factual historical validity of her theories has been disputed by many scholars, including historian Ronald Hutton.

While most pagans draw from old religious traditions, they also adapt them. The mythologies of the ancient traditions are not generally considered to be literally factual by pagans, in the sense that the Bible and other Abrahamic texts are often thought of by their followers. Eclectic pagans in particular are resistant to the concept of scripture or excessive structure, considering personal freedom to be one of the primary goals of their spirituality. In contrast, some Reconstructionist movements, like those who practice Theodism, take a stricter religious approach, and only recognize certain historical texts and sources as being relevant to their belief system, intentionally focusing on one culture to the exclusion of others, and having a general disdain for the eclectic mentality.

In all honesty most Western Neopaganism are fringe groups not taken very seriously by most, and easy to criticize by serious scholars like The English academic Graham Harvey noted that Pagans “rarely indulge in theology.” And I will add a magnet for people wanting to fulfill personal fantasies, or break the mold that our current society impose on us as acceptable behavior, and traditional thinking, Neopaganism is a way to liberate the individual from the prevalent Materialism, and Judeo-Christian mental, and psychological moral straightjackets, the downside of it is that in many cases some individuals embrace Neopaganism as a license for a “anything goes” type of behavior, inspired no doubt, by an oversimplification of historical accounts, and Hollywood portrayal of Arthurian legends.

The Earth Connection

Contemporary paganism emerged as part of the counter-culture, New Age and Hippie movements in the 1960s to 1970s. Reconstructionism rose to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s. The majority of pagans are not committed to a single defined tradition, but understand paganism as encompassing a wide range of non-institutionalized spirituality, as promoted by the Church of All Worlds, the Feri Tradition and other movements. Notably, Wicca in the United States since the 1970s has largely moved away from its Gardnerian roots and diversified into eclectic variants.

Paganism generally emphasizes the sanctity of the Earth and Nature. Pagans often feel a duty to protect the Earth through activism, and support causes such as rainforest protection, organic farming, permaculture, animal rights and so on. Some pagans are influenced by Animist traditions of the indigenous Native Americans and Africans and other indigenous or shamanic traditions.

Eco-paganism and Eco-magic, which are off-shoots of direct action environmental groups, have a strong emphasis on fairy imagery and a belief in the possibility of intercession by the fae (fairies, pixies, gnomes, elves, and other spirits of nature and the Otherworlds).

Some Unitarian Universalists are eclectic pagans. Unitarian Universalists look for spiritual inspiration in a wide variety of religious beliefs. The Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans, or CUUPs, encourages their member chapters to “use practices familiar to members who attend for worship services but not to follow only one tradition of paganism.“

In my view this fringe groups are part of a new global consciousness who is trying to correct the disconnection, and ecological blindness brought by industrialism an economic and social system based on the development of large-scale industries and marked by the production of large quantities of inexpensive manufactured goods and the concentration of employment in urban factories, the abandonment of our agrarian past in favor of an urban culture that cuts our connection with Pachamama, our Mother Earth, and that Native, and aboriginal cultures still embrace, preserve, and respect. This inevitable point for a break from our blindness, and the path in to ecological unsustainable living, and a re-encounter of the eternal values that promote sustainability based in our wise, and respectful use of Nature, a recognition that historically the Western dominant culture went astray with Industrialism, and the values of modernism, that calls for our humility to recognize our failure, and a return to embrace Mother Earth as the sustainer of life, and a return to Her, embracing the ancient values that sustain, and preserve Her.

Posted in Ancient Civilizations, Ancient Religions, Capitalism, Counsciousness, Critical Thinking, Ecology, Environment, Gaia, Globalization, Goddess, Indigenous Cultures, Materialism, Mother Earth, Mythology, Neopaganism, New Materialist, Pachamama, Pagans, Panpsychism, Politics, Religion, Spirituality, Syncretism, The Rights of Nature, Uncategorized, Western Civilization | Tagged Druids, Eco-Paganism, Ecology & Spirituality, Evo Morales, Fakelore, Gaia, Goddesses, Indigenous People, Mother Nature, Native Cultures, Neopagans, Panpsychism, Political Ecology, Theodism, Wiccan, Witchcraft | 1 Comment

THE MYSTICAL TALES OF THE 1001 ARABIAN NIGHTS, SYMBOLS OF THE HEART OF SECRETS.

Posted on December 27, 2012 by theburningheart

“We lay veils upon their hearts lest they understand it…”

Qur’an (17:46)

Many years ago in my youth when I meet my Spiritual Teacher, I heard someone ask him what were his favorite movies, to my surprise he said:

“I love those movies, about Sinbad the Sailor, Ali Baba, The thief of Bagdad, and that type of movies.”

I was floored, an avid movie fan at the time I couldn’t figure out a man of his Spiritual realization would care for such cheese B movies made on the fifties, and sixties, with second rate actors like Steve Reeves, and other perhaps more memorable, like Douglas Fairbanks earlier and many others, since Hollywood love for the exotic, an adventures has been a cash cow, and every so many years they bring to the screen the tales of the Arabian Nights in a new form, with little, or any artistic relevance, .

At another occasion I heard him express the same opinion, fortunately someone asked him why he loved such movies, his answer made me realize he didn’t care too much for the artistic side of the movies as for the stories themselves, without giving too much explanations he said:

“The spiritual symbolism of those stories is great, like the seven gates, the seven voyages, the magic carpets, lamps, the Genies. etc. And the trials of the soul has to go through in order to find the treasure.”

It was until many years later that I read The Arabian Nights, and I had to agree with my Teacher.

Brief Official History

One Thousand and One Nights (Arabic: كتاب ألف ليلة وليلة‎Kitāb alf laylah wa-laylah) is a collection of West and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the Arabian Nights, from the first English language edition (1706), which rendered the title as The Arabian Nights’ Entertainment.

The work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators and scholars across West, Central, South Asia and North Africa. The tales themselves trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian, Indian, Egyptian and Mesopotamian folklore and literature. In particular, many tales were originally folk stories from the Caliphate era, while others, especially the frame story, are most probably drawn from the Pahlavi Persian work Hazār Afsān (Persian: هزار افسان‎, lit. A Thousand Tales) which in turn relied partly on Indian elements.

What is common throughout all the editions of the Nights is the initial frame story of the ruler Shahryār (from Persian: شهريار‎, meaning “king” or “sovereign”) and his wife Scheherazade (from Persian: شهرزاد‎, possibly meaning “of noble lineage”) and the framing device incorporated throughout the tales themselves. The stories proceed from this original tale; some are framed within other tales, while others begin and end of their own accord. Some editions contain only a few hundred nights, while others include 1,001 or more.

Some of the stories of The Nights, particularly “Aladdin’s Wonderful Lamp”, “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” and “The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor”, while almost certainly genuine Middle Eastern folk tales, were not part of The Nights in Arabic versions, but were added into the collection by Antoine Galland and other European translators. The innovative and rich poetry and poetic speeches, chants, songs, lamentations, hymns, beseeching, praising, pleading, riddles and annotations provided by Scheherazade or her story characters are unique to the Arabic version of the book. Some are as short as one line, while others go for tens of lines.

The tales vary widely: they include historical tales, love stories, tragedies, comedies, poems, burlesques and various forms of erotica. Numerous stories depict Jinns, Ghouls, Apes, sorcerers, magicians, and legendary places, which are often intermingled with real people and geography, not always rationally; common protagonists include the historical Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid, his Grand Vizier, Jafar al-Barmaki, and his alleged court poet Abu Nuwas, despite the fact that these figures lived some 200 years after the fall of the Sassanid Empire in which the frame tale of Scheherazade is set. Sometimes a character in Scheherazade’s tale will begin telling other characters a story of his own, and that story may have another one told within it, resulting in a richly layered narrative texture.

The history of the Nights is extremely complex and modern scholars have made many attempts to untangle the story of how the collection as it currently exists came about. Robert Irwin summarizes their findings: “In the 1880s and 1890s a lot of work was done on the Nights by the scholar Zotenberg and others, in the course of which a consensus view of the history of the text emerged. Most scholars agreed that the Nights was a composite work and that the earliest tales in it came from India and Persia. At some time, probably in the early 8th century, these tales were translated into Arabic under the title Alf Layla, or ‘The Thousand Nights’. This collection then formed the basis of The Thousand and One Nights. The original core of stories was quite small. Then, in Iraq in the ninth or tenth century, this original core had Arab stories added to it – among them some tales about the Caliph Harun al-Rashid. Also, perhaps from the tenth century onwards, previously independent sagas and story cycles were added to the compilation. Then, from the thirteenth century onwards, a further layer of stories was added in Syria and Egypt, many of these showing a preoccupation with sex, magic or low life. In the early modern period yet more stories were added to the Egyptian collections so as to swell the bulk of the text sufficiently to bring its length up to the full 1,001 nights of storytelling promised by the book’s title.”

The Mystical aspect of some of the Tales

What western writers and Scholars had put little effort to study, or to show, is the Mystical aspect of some of the tales like Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves, The Seven Voyages of Sinbad, and other tales, of the Arabian Nights, not surprising since early in the History of the Western discovery of Oriental texts, and their translation in to Western languages, specially coming from Islamic countries, there was an emphasis to demystify them, and rendered naked from their true link to Islam, making them profane stories with no connection to their roots in Islam, denying their Mystical origin, and castrating them from their true Symbolic meaning, and the facto making them in a Historical context, children’s stories, material for movie adventures, or at best medieval Oriental legends, of little interest for the contemporary reader! When they posses a rich vein of Mystic knowledge, that goes beyond a moral tale. A few Western readers had glimpsed beyond the common Western trite characterization, and the materialistic, unimaginative, or biased mind of scholars.

The Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini observed:

“Every tale in The Thousand and One Nights begins with an ‘appearance of destiny’ which manifests itself through an anomaly, and one anomaly always generates another. So a chain of anomalies is set up. And the more logical, tightly knit, essential this chain is, the more beautiful the tale. By ‘beautiful’ I mean vital, absorbing and exhilarating. The chain of anomalies always tends to lead back to normality. The end of every tale in The One Thousand and One Nights consists of a ‘disappearance’ of destiny, which sinks back to the somnolence of daily life … The protagonist of the stories is in fact destiny itself.”

Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing is the self-fulfilling prophecy, which dates back to the story of Krishna in ancient Sanskrit literature. A variation of this device is the self-fulfilling dream, which dates back to medieval Arabic literature. Several tales in the One Thousand and One Nights use this device to foreshadow what is going to happen, as a special form of literary prolepsis. A notable example is “The Ruined Man who Became Rich Again through a Dream”, in which a man is told in his dream to leave his native city of Baghdad and travel to Cairo, where he will discover the whereabouts of some hidden treasure. The man travels there and experiences misfortune, ending up in jail, where he tells his dream to a police officer. The officer mocks the idea of foreboding dreams and tells the protagonist that he himself had a dream about a house with a courtyard and fountain in Baghdad where treasure is buried under the fountain. The man recognizes the place as his own house and, after he is released from jail, he returns home and digs up the treasure. In other words, the foreboding dream not only predicted the future, but the dream was the cause of its prediction coming true. To the aware individual it will be useless to explain the rich Spiritual meaning of this story, to those thick of understanding, is easy to point out that there is no need to look for richness outside of us,True richness lays at the heart of our Being, not outside of us.

Story of the Blind Baba-Abdalla, and Ali Baba

The owner of eighty camels runs in to a dervish, who offer him a treasure for his help, but greed consumed his heart, and ended in misfortune. Here I show the always secret place that is full of precious jewels of all kind and plenty of gold.

“I did what I was bid, and rejoined the dervish, whom I found trying to kindle a fire out of some dry wood. As soon as it was alight, he threw on it a handful of perfumes, and pronounced a few words that I did not understand, and immediately a thick column of smoke rose high into the air. He separated the smoke into two columns, and then I saw a rock, which stood like a pillar between the two mountains, slowly open, and a splendid palace appear within.

But, Commander of the Faithful, the love of gold had taken such possession of my heart, that I could not even stop to examine the riches, but fell upon the first pile of gold within my reach and began to heap it into a sack that I had brought with me.

The dervish likewise set to work, but I soon noticed that he confined himself to collecting precious stones, and I felt I should be wise to follow his example. At length the camels were loaded with as much as they could carry, and nothing remained but to seal up the treasure, and go our ways.

Before, however, this was done, the dervish went up to a great golden vase, beautifully chased, and took from it a small wooden box, which he hid in the bosom of his dress, merely saying that it contained a special kind of ointment. Then he once more kindled the fire, threw on the perfume, and murmured the unknown spell, and the rock closed, and stood whole as before.”

Of course because his bottomless greed and not listening to the warnings, he ended blind not only morally but physically.

“Miserable dervish!” I shrieked, “so it is true after all! Into what a bottomless pit has my lust after gold plunged me. Ah, now that my eyes are closed they are really opened. I know that all my sufferings are caused by myself alone! But, good brother, you, who are so kind and charitable, and know the secrets of such vast learning, have you nothing that will give me back my sight?

“Unhappy man,” replied the dervish, “it is not my fault that this has befallen you, but it is a just chastisement. The blindness of your heart has wrought the blindness of your body. Yes, I have secrets; that you have seen in the short time that we have known each other. But I have none that will give you back your sight. You have proved yourself unworthy of the riches that were given you. Now they have passed into my hands, whence they will flow into the hands of others less greedy and ungrateful than you.”

Is this a Spiritual lesson, or what? The usual elements in the story that are so common to the many other stories in the 1001 Arabian Nights, like Ali Baba and the Forty thieves, it is this Secrets Caves, Underground Vaults, Hidden Palaces where it can only by access by special secret words like:

“Open Sesame” (Arabic إفتح يا سمسم iftaḥ ya simsim ‘open, O sesame’) is a magical phrase in the story of “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” in One Thousand and One Nights. It opens the mouth of a cave in which forty thieves have hidden a treasure; “Hemasas Nepo” was the original phrase to re-seal the cave, but in recent stories, it was “Close Sesame.“

This secret caves, rich hidden palaces,or enclosures, were inexhaustible wealth abounds, are allegories for the Human Heart, but like in Ali baba’s tale forty thieves jealously guarded the cave, ready to kill any intruder, just like the passions of an impure heart are ready to commit mayhem, and guide the person to an unfortunate end. Only those possessing a pure and kind heart can have access.

Surah Yasin 9. And We have put a barrier before them, and a barrier behind them, and We have covered them up, so that they cannot see.

Thus according to the Holy Qur’an, the hearts are:

• Alive (to guidance)

• Dead (absence of Tawheed)

• Hard (obstinate in disbelief)

• Soft (in remembrance of Allah)

• Pure (free of materialism, empty for Allah)

• Impure (polytheism, disbelief)

• Diseased (un-Godly)

• Sealed (will not receive Truth)

• Pious (God conscious)

• Veiled (from guidance)

• Open (to truth)

• Blossom (become enlightened)

• United (with the believers)

• One heart in each person (it contains either Allah or the world)

Ali Baba’s brother whose heart was veiled, and deceased with greed and forgetfulness, is caught in the cave by the forty thieves.

Ali Baba brings the body of his death brother home, where he entrusts Morgiana, a clever slave-girl in Cassim’s household, with the task of making others believe that Cassim has died a natural death. First, Morgiana purchases medicines from an apothecary, telling him that Cassim is gravely ill. Then, she finds an old Tailor known as Baba Mustafa whom she pays, blindfolds, and leads to Cassim’s house. There, overnight, the Tailor stitches the pieces of Cassim’s body back together, so that no one will be suspicious. Ali Baba and his family are able to give Cassim a proper burial without anyone asking awkward questions.

Morgiana keep fooling the thieves with clever ruses so they could not get a hold of Ali Baba, and she finally dispatch the forty thieves, and later the chief of the thieves, that with cunning had found his way in to Ali Baba’s house, and planed to kill him, now why a simple slave girl would take the stage, and be the protagonist of the story, rather than Ali Baba?

The slave girl represent Ali Baba’s soul that is totally at his service, and rejecting the vices that afflict the heart and passions represented by the thieves she triumph over them, and it is rewarded in the end and brought in to the family.

On the necessity of self-control, the Glorious Qur’an says:

وَ أَمَّا مَنْ خافَ مَقامَ رَبِّهِ وَ نَهَى النَّفْسَ عَنِ الْهَوى‏ فَإِنَّ الْجَنَّةَ هِيَ الْمَأْوى‏

And as for him who fears to stand in the presence of his Lordand forbids his own soul from its whims and caprices then surely Paradise is the abode. (79:40 & 41)

يا داوُدُ إِنَّا جَعَلْناكَ خَليفَةً فِي الْأَرْضِ فَاحْكُمْ بَيْنَ النَّاسِ بِالْحَقِّ وَ لا تَتَّبِعِ الْهَوى‏ فَيُضِلَّكَ عَنْ سَبيلِ اللَّهِ إِنَّ الَّذينَ يَضِلُّونَ عَنْ سَبيلِ اللَّهِ لَهُمْ عَذابٌ شَديدٌ بِما نَسُوا يَوْمَ الْحِسابِ

O David! …do not follow the whims of your own soul for they will lead you astray from God’s path. (38:26)

يا أَيُّهَا الَّذينَ آمَنُوا كُونُوا قَوَّامينَ بِالْقِسْطِ شُهَداءَ لِلَّهِ وَ لَوْ عَلى‏ أَنْفُسِكُمْ أَوِ الْوالِدَيْنِ وَ الْأَقْرَبينَ إِنْ يَكُنْ غَنِيًّا أَوْ فَقيراً فَاللَّهُ أَوْلى‏ بِهِما فَلا تَتَّبِعُوا الْهَوى‏ أَنْ تَعْدِلُوا وَ إِنْ تَلْوُوا أَوْ تُعْرِضُوا فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ كانَ بِما تَعْمَلُونَ خَبيراً

O you who have faith! Be maintainers of justice and witnesses for the sake of God, even if it should be against yourselves or [your] parents and near relatives, and whether it be [someone] rich or poor, for God has a greater right over them. So do not follow [your] desires, lest you should be unfair, and if you distort [the testimony] or disregard [it], God is indeed well aware of what you do. (4:135)

وَ الشَّمْسِ وَ ضُحاها وَ الْقَمَرِ إِذا تَلاها وَ النَّهارِ إِذا جَلاَّها وَ اللَّيْلِ إِذا يَغْشاها وَ السَّماءِ وَ ما بَناها وَ الْأَرْضِ وَ ما طَحاها وَ نَفْسٍ وَ ما سَوَّاها فَأَلْهَمَها فُجُورَها وَ تَقْواها قَدْ أَفْلَحَ مَنْ زَكَّاها وَ قَدْ خابَ مَنْ دَسَّاها

I swear by the sun and its brilliance and the moon when it follows the sun and the day when it makes manifest the sun (and her beauty) and the night when it covers the sun and the heaven and Him who made it and the earth and Him who extended it and the soul and Him who made it perfect, then He inspired it to understand what is right and wrong for it. He will indeed be successful who purifies it and he will indeed fail whoever pollutes and corrupts it. (91:1-10)

Purification of the soul is a prerequisite for closeness to God. Indeed, the whole point of morality and spirituality is to purify one’s soul. It is only then that the soul starts shining, receiving and reflecting utmost radiation and light from God. If we want to meet God, Who is the Most Pure, then we need to achieve purity. It is impossible to be polluted and then try to go towards God.

The Seven Voyages of Sinbad

While Burton and other Western translators have grouped the Sinbad stories within the tales of Scheherazade in the Arabian Nights, they apparently originated quite independently from that story-cycle and modern translations by Arab scholars often do not include the stories of Sinbador several other of the Arabian Nights that have become familiar to Western audiences. However this is no doubt an Islamic story. The Persian name Sindbad (“Lord of the Sindh River”) hints at a Persian origin. The oldest texts of the cycle are however in Arabic, and no ancient or medieval Persian version has survived. The story as we have it is specifically set during the rule of the Abbasid Caliphate and particularly highlights the reign of Harun al-Rashid. The name Sindbad indicates the name of the Indus River(Sindhu). The Sindhi Sailors, who became famous due to their skills in navigation, geography and languages may very well have inspired the stories of Sindbad the Sailor. Sindh is actually mentioned in the story of the Third Voyage: (“And thence we fared on to the land of Sind, where also we bought and sold”).

Like the 1001 Nights the Sinbad story-cycle has a frame story, which goes as follows: in the days of Haroun al-Rashid, Caliph of Baghdad, a poor porter (one who carries goods for others in the market and throughout the city) pauses to rest on a bench outside the gate of a rich merchant’s house, where he complains to Allah about the injustice of a world which allows the rich to live in ease while he must toil and yet remain poor. The owner of the house hears, and sends for the porter, and it is found they are both named Sinbad. The rich Sinbad tells the poor Sinbad that he became wealthy, “by Fortune and Fate”, in the course of seven wondrous voyages, which he then proceeds to relate.

It is alleged with some justice that the Seven voyages shares a lot in common with the Odyssey of Homer, the Arabs knew well the Greek antiquity, and no doubt borrowed elements of the Odyssey, since it is also a Symbolic tale of the soul to reach home.

Also the nature of the tales, is repetitive, and Chiasmic in nature, sailors made out to sea were they expect to make a larger fortune of the one they spend on making the trip, they go to unknown regions, were sometimes are shipwrecked by storms and end stranded in a foreign land, or Island, were all kind of vicissitudes are met and deal successfully or that would be the end of it and likely Sinbad would die, but instead, he regains all what he lost, and come back home with more.

Michael Murray writes:

“What is gained by exploration? Knowledge: of market-resources, trading-terrain, of conditions, regions and customs. But also an invaluable network of colleagues and contacts. What is gained is trust, honor and esteem. Wealth is only a metaphor for knowledge: worldly wealth, and spiritual wealth mirror each other in the overall tale.

So what happened to change matters? As you can guess, there is a central voyage where all changes – because, yes, the Seven Voyages of Sinbad, are structured in a ring.Each tale has a repeating pattern of shipwreck, loss, or abandonment; and resolution. This last can come from the restitution of goods/fortune from a previous voyage; or earned honors from the present voyage.Each tale ends as it begins with the merchant safely back home and turning once more to an indulgent lifestyle. Each tale employs a change of circumstances in the middle section – each tale is a complete ring in itself. They all add up to the overall ring of the Seven Voyages.

The changeover, in the fourth tale, is very well marked, and prepared for: it is a death experience. Where before, surviving shipwrecks and other catastrophes had been the case, in the fourth tale he is by custom of the land lowered into the grave pit with his dead wife, and a small supply of food, as well as the grave goods. That he survives is due to his total abasement: he must kill all subsequent burial spouses, and steal their food supplies. He escapes his death-experience by following a carrion-eating animal’s tunnel to a bleak shoreline. He has become that animal almost, crawling on all-fours. He brings out bales of grave goods as loot.

The question being asked here is: what survives when all else is taken away, even one’s life? It is the life of the spirit. The Fourth Voyage sees all shipwrecked, and the survivors drift to an island. Strange wild men take them to their king; he treats them extraordinarily well; Sinbad is wary, however, and soon finds that his fellow men are being fed adulterated food. They lose their wits, eventually grow corpulent on the fare, and are then eaten, by the king and company. Sinbad grows thinner and thinner. They take no interest in him, and he escapes. On the other side of this vast island he meets a gentle people, who take him in. He provides goods for them and becomes very wealthy by making saddles for their horses, for they have none. As written earlier, he marries, is honored by their king, then undergoes the ordeal of the grave pit. The ring here centers around the subject of the bestiality of living solely in the physical body. He must die in the body and mind in order to be reborn as someone worthy of his life: the man must ride the body, and not vice versa.”

The Seven Voyages of Sinbad ultimately represent the travels of the Soul through the seven spheres of Spiritual Knowledge.

In Islam Sura Al-Fatiha (Arabic :سورة الفاتحة‎), (Sūratul-Fātihah, “The Opener”) is the first chapter of the Qur’an. Its seven verses are a prayer for Allah’s guidance, and stress His Lordship and Mercy.

Arabic: 1.1 بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيم

1:2 الْحَمْدُ للّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِين

1:3 الرَّحمـنِ الرَّحِيم

1:4 مَـالِكِ يَوْمِ الدِّين

1:5 إِيَّاك نَعْبُدُ وإِيَّاكَ نَسْتَعِين

1:6 اهدِنَــــا الصِّرَاطَ المُستَقِيم

1:7 صِرَاطَ الَّذِينَ أَنعَمتَ عَلَيهِمْ غَيرِ المَغضُوبِ عَلَيهِمْ وَلاَ الضَّالِّين

Transliteration:

Al-Fatiha | 7 verses | The Opening | سورة الفاتحة Sura #1 | Makkah

Bismillāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm

Al ḥamdu lillāhi rabbi l-ʿālamīn

Ar raḥmāni r-raḥīm

Māliki yawmi d-dīn

Iyyāka naʿbudu wa iyyāka nastaʿīn

Ihdinā ṣ-ṣirāṭa al-mustaqīm

Ṣirāṭa al-laḏīna anʿamta ʿalayhim ġayri l-maġḍūbi ʿalayhim walā ḍ-ḍāllīn

Translation: ^{[Quran 1:1]}.

“In the name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful.

All praise and thanks is for to Allah,[The] Creator, Owner, Sustainer of the Worlds.

The Entirely Merciful, The Especially Merciful.

Owner of the Day of Recompense.

You alone do we worship and You alone we seek for help.

Guide us to the Straight Path.

The path of those whom Your blessings are upon, Not of those who You have cursed nor of those who have gone astray.”

Volumes had been wrote about the profound Symbolism of this first Sura.

Ṭawāf (طواف) is one of the Islamic rituals of pilgrimage. During the Hajj and Umrah, Muslims are to circumambulate the Kaaba (most sacred site in Islam) seven times, in a counterclockwise direction. The circling is believed to demonstrate the unity of the believers in the worship of the One God, as they move in harmony together around the Kaaba, while supplicating to Allah.

The Zamzam Well was revealed to Hagar, the second wife of Abraham and mother of Ismail. According to Islamic tradition, she was desperately seeking water for her infant son, but she could not find any, as Mecca is located in a hot dry valley with few sources of water. Muslim traditions say that Hagar ran seven times back and forth in the scorching heat between the two hills of Safa and Marwah, looking for water. Getting thirstier by the second, Ishmael scraped the land with his feet, where suddenly water sprang out. There are other versions of the story involving God sending his Archangel, Gabriel, who kicked the ground with his heel and the water rose.

Stoning of the Devilor stoning of the jamarāt (Arabic: رمي الجمرات‎) is part of the annual Islamic Hajj pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Muslim pilgrims fling pebbles at three walls, called jamarāt, in the city of Mina just east of Mecca.

When he [Abraham] left Mina and was brought down to (the defile called) al-Aqaba, the Devil appeared to him at Stone-Heap of the Defile. Gabriel said to him: “Pelt him!” so Abraham threw seven stones at him so that he disappeared from him. Then he appeared to him at the Middle Stone-Heap. Gabriel said to him: “Pelt him!” so he pelted him with seven stones so that he disappeared from him. Then he appeared to him at the Little Stone-Heap. Gabriel said to him: “Pelt him!” so he pelted him with seven stones like the little stones for throwing with a sling. So the Devil withdrew from him.

The Isra and Mi’raj (Arabic:الإسراء والمعراج‎, al-’Isrā’ wal-Mi‘rāj), are the two parts of a Night Journey that, according to Islamic tradition, the Islamic prophet Muhammad took during a single night around the year 621. It has been described as both a physical and spiritual journey to the Seven Heavens. This is so rich in Symbology, and Wisdom that this article scope will not do justice to it , and will have to address at another time in the future.

The Sages teach that seven are the attributes of physicality:

Height
Width
Depth
Top and bottom (limits height)
Front and back (limits width)
Left and right (limits depth)
The connecting of the other six

The Symbology of the number seven is so extend and so well known it will be necessary to dedicate a book to it, let’s just mention the seven days of the week, the seven colors, the seven notes of the music scale, the seven days of creation, the seven seals of Revelations, the seven seas, the seven Spiritual centers in Man, that the Hindus call Chakras, etc.

Other common theme is the Genie Invocation Spells or Jinn Invocation formulas Djinns. Like in the story Aladdin or, the wonderful Lamp.

Aladdin

Aladdin is an impoverished young ne’er-do-well in a Chinese town, who is recruited by a sorcerer from the Maghreb, who passes himself off as the brother of Aladdin’s late father Qaseem, convincing Aladdin and his mother of his goodwill by apparently making arrangements to set up the lad as a wealthy merchant. The sorcerer’s real motive is to persuade young Aladdin to retrieve a wonderful oil lamp from a booby-trapped magic cave of wonder. After the sorcerer attempts to double-cross him, Aladdin finds himself trapped in the cave. Fortunately, Aladdin retains a magic ring lent to him by the sorcerer. When he rubs his hands in despair, he inadvertently rubs the ring, and a jinni, or “genie”, appears, who takes him home to his mother. Aladdin is still carrying the lamp, and when his mother tries to clean it, a second, far more powerful genie appears, who is bound to do the bidding of the person holding the lamp. With the aid of the genie of the lamp, Aladdin becomes rich and powerful and marries Princess Badroulbadour, the Emperor’s daughter. The genie builds Aladdin a wonderful palace – far more magnificent than that of the Emperor himself.

The sorcerer returns and is able to get his hands on the lamp by tricking Aladdin’s wife, who is unaware of the lamp’s importance, by offering to exchange “new lamps for old”. He orders the genie of the lamp to take the palace to his home in the Maghreb. Fortunately, Aladdin retains the magic ring and is able to summon the lesser genie. Although the genie of the ring cannot directly undo any of the magic of the genie of the lamp, he is able to transport Aladdin to Maghreb, and help him recover his wife and the lamp and defeat the sorcerer.

The sorcerer’s more powerful and evil brother tries to destroy Aladdin for killing his brother by disguising himself as an old woman known for her healing powers. Badroulbadour falls for his disguise, and commands the “woman” to stay in her palace in case of any illnesses. Aladdin is warned of this danger by the genie of the lamp and slays the imposter. Everyone lives happily ever after, Aladdin eventually succeeding to his father-in-law’s throne.

Jinns, Genies are also living beings but they are made of fire. Genie or Jinns can be conquered by human beings by special invocations and if the invocation is done properly then after the completion of the Invocation it is possible to conquer the genie of jinns. But they all are one having the same powers and if this power is conquered by any one that person will be a very powerful human being having any type of power to do any thing and every thing. Looking for Genie Invocation spells or formulas for invocation of genies. Jinn invocation is done to conquer jinns. Invocation of jinn is possible by jinn spells or genie spells with talismans or charms. Summoning or invocation of genies, jinns etc requires proper concentration and then invocation of genies (jinns) is possible.

Again a simple tale of a humble orphan boy, and his impoverish mother who rise to power defeating an evil sorcerer, with the help of a Magical ring, and a Magical oil lamp were Genies reside, of course there is not such objects in the literal sense, but the fact is that this treasures are hidden in a secret cave, does not take much to discover the cave as a source of richness and treasures with unlimited possibilities, it is no other than the Heart.

The Heart of the Believer is the House of God

“So the Prophet’s migration from Makkah to Madinah was to pass by a cave. According to the life story of the Prophet , that cave was called the cave of Thawr. It is one day’s distance from Makkah. The Prophet stayed there three days. Why did the Prophet stay in that cave? Why was he unable to continue? The unfolding of the secrets occurred in that cave.

The Prophet was ordered to emigrate from Makkah to Madinah for the purpose of going inside the cave of Thawr where God taught him how to “remember God” (dhikr Allah). It was the first time that the Prophet invoked God in a loud voice. This is a very great Sufi secret indeed.

To emigrate from Makkah to Madinah was very easy for the Prophet. He only had to say, “In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,” and he would have been in Madinah as easily as it had been for him to take sand and throw it at the ignorant people’s eyes preventing them from seeing him as he was leaving his house. Or he could have ridden on his horse or camel and reached Madinah in ten to fifteen days. Why did he go to that cave? The ‘Cave of Silence’ as it has been called? Indeed, it is the ‘Cave of Silent Secrets’. Why was the Prophet ordered by God to go to that cave, which is one day’s travel from Makkah, when he had a distance of fifteen days journeying to go?

When the Prophet went into that cave, a spider and a dove came and made a house over the door in order that no one would know what was inside. This is common knowledge. As for the secret, look to love. When love for someone is pure, God will never forget that person. “

“My earth and my heaven do not encompass me, but the heart of My servant who has faith does encompass me.”

Hadit Qudsi

There are 5 lata’ifs (subtle points of spiritual Energy), or Maqams (spiritual stations), on

the human heart. These five stations are, in an ascending order:

Qalb (“External Structure of the Heart”)

Sirr (“Secret”)

Sirr as Sirr (“Secret of the Secret”)

Khafa (“Hidden Akha (“Most Hidden”)

Surah Al-Inshirah

94:1

أَلَمْ نَشْرَحْ لَكَ صَدْرَكَ

Alam nashrah laka sadraka

Have We not expanded thee thy breast?

94:2

وَوَضَعْنَا عَنْكَ وِزْرَكَ

WawadaAAna AAanka wizraka

And removed from thee thy burden

94:3

الَّذِي أَنْقَضَ ظَهْرَكَ

Allathee anqada thahraka

The which did gall thy back?

The Arabian Nights in resume contain many tales where we can find numerous hidden symbols for the Spiritual wayfarer, not just simple tales of adventures fit for children, but a call to those who have eyes to see.

22:46

[22:46] Did they not roam the earth, then use their minds to understand, and use their ears to hear? Indeed, the real blindness is not the blindness of the eyes, but the blindness of the hearts inside the chests.

Posted in 1001 Nights, Aladdin, Alchemy, Ali Baba, Ancient Civilizations, Ancient Religions, Being, Cosmogony, Dreams, Gabriel, Imagination, Jinns, Kaaba, Literature, Muslim, Mystical Tales, Mysticism, Myth, Sinbad The Sailor, Spirituality, Symbology, Uncategorized, Wisdom | Tagged 1001 Arabian Nights, Aladdin, Ali Baba, Genies, Islam, Jinns, Kaaba, Mystical Tales, Secret Caves, Stoning of the Devil, Sura Al-Fatiha, Tales of Wisdom, Tawaf, The Heart of Secrets, The Night Journey, The Seven Gates, The Seven Voyages of Sinbad, Zamzam Well | 130 Comments

THE AXIS OF THE UNIVERSE, THE OMPHALOS THE CENTER OF THE WORLD, SACRED MOUNTAINS, THE SACRED TREE OF LIFE, A SACRED REALM OF BEING

Posted on November 27, 2012 by theburningheart

And I say the sacred hoop of my people

was one of the many hoops that made one circle,

wide as daylight and as starlight,

and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree

to shelter all the children of one mother and one father.

Black Elk

According to Greek mythology, Zeus wanted to locate the exact center of the world. To do this, he released two eagles from opposite ends of the earth. The eagles met at Delphi. Zeus marked the spot with a large, egg-shaped stone called the omphalos, meaning “navel.”

The temple at Delphi once belonged to Gaia, but when the Olympians came into power, Apollo took the temple. The temple was guarded by a great serpent, Pytho. Apollo killed Pytho and excised Gaia. In honor of his heroic deed, the priestess of Delphi was called Pythia. The temple was located at what was believed to be the center of world. And at the center of the temple was the omphalos, the stone Kronos swallowed in place of Zeus.

To consult the oracle, you approached with a question. Asking it of the Pythia, she would breathe in the intoxicating fumes from a fissure in the earth. She would, in this drug-induced state answer your question with what seemed to the patron to be nonsense. The real power laid with the priest who would interpret the Pythia’s words. The outcome often depended on how much tribute the patron had given.

The Pythia Greek: Πυθία , commonly known as the Oracle of Delphi, was the priestess at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, located on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. The Pythia was widely credited for her prophecies inspired by Apollo.

The Delphic Oracle was the most prestigious and authoritative oracle among the Greeks. The oracle is one of the best-documented religious institutions of the classical Greeks. Authors who mention the oracle include Aeschylus, Aristotle, Clement of Alexandria, Diodorus, Diogenes, Euripides, Herodotus, Julian, Justin, Livy, Lucan, Ovid, Pausanias, Pindar, Plato, Plutarch, Sophocles, Strabo, Thucydides, and Xenophon.

The name ‘Pythia’ derived from Pytho, which in myth was the original name of Delphi. The Greeks derived this place name from the verb, pythein (πύθειν, “to rot”), which refers to the decomposition of the body of the monstrous Python after she was slain by Apollo. The usual theory has been that the Pythia delivered oracles in a frenzied state induced by vapors rising from a chasm in the rock, and that she spoke gibberish which priests interpreted as the enigmatic prophecies preserved in Greek literature.

Consulting the Oracle. No one knows for certain how the process of consulting the Delphic oracle worked. However, over the years, a traditional account has been widely accepted. According to this description, a visitor who wanted to submit a question to the oracle would first make an appropriate offering and sacrifice a goat. Then a priestess known as the Pythia would take the visitor’s question into the inner part of Apollo’s temple, which contained the omphalos and a golden statue of Apollo. Seated on a three-legged stool, the priestess would fall into a trance.

After some time, the priestess would start to writhe around and foam at the mouth. In a frenzy, she would begin to voice strange words and sounds. Priests and interpreters would listen carefully and record her words in verse or in prose. The message was then passed on to the visitor who had posed the question. Some modern scholars believe that the priestess did not become delirious but rather sat quietly as she delivered her divine message.

Anyone could approach the oracle, whether king, public official, or private citizen. At first, a person could consult the oracle only once a year, but this restriction was later changed to once a month.

The ancient Greeks had complete faith in the oracle’s words, even though the meaning of the message was often unclear. As the oracle’s fame spread, people came from all over the Mediterranean region seeking advice. Numerous well-known figures of history and mythology visited Delphi, including Socrates and Oedipus.

Visitors would ask not only about private matters but also about affairs of state. As a result, the oracle at Delphi had great influence on political, economic, and religious events. Moreover, Delphi itself became rich from the gifts sent by many believers.

Axis Mundi

The axis mundi (also ***cosmic axis, world axis, world pillar, columna cerului, center of the world***), in religion or mythology, is the world center and/or the connection between Heaven and Earth. As the celestial pole and geographic pole, it expresses a point of connection between sky and earth where the four compass directions meet. At this point travel and correspondence is made between higher and lower realms.Communication from lower realms may ascend to higher ones and blessings from higher realms may descend to lower ones and be disseminated to all. The spot functions as the omphalos (navel), the world’s point of beginning.

The image is mostly viewed as feminine, as it relates to center of the earth (perhaps like an umbilical providing nourishment). It may have the form of a natural object (a mountain, a tree, a vine, a stalk, a column of smoke or fire) or a product of human manufacture (a staff, a tower, a ladder, a staircase, a maypole, a cross, a steeple, a rope, a totem pole, a pillar, a spire). Its proximity to heaven may carry implications that are chiefly religious (pagoda, temple mount, minaret, church) or secular (obelisk, lighthouse, rocket, skyscraper). The image appears in religious and secular contexts. The axis mundi symbol may be found in cultures utilizing shamanic practices or animist belief systems, in major world religions, and in technologically advanced “urban centers”. In Mircea Eliade’s opinion, “Every Microcosm, every inhabited region, has a Centre; that is to say, a place that is sacred above all.”

SACRED MOUNTAINS

Kailash is a mountain located in Ngari prefecture in Tibet . The mountain is sacred to the four Asian religions, Buddhism , Hinduism , Bön (Local Shamanistic Religion of Tibet before Buddhism) and Jainism . It was here that the god Shiva descended to earth. Manasarovar called a sacred lake just beyond. The four rivers Ganges, Brahmaputra , Sutlej and Indus have their sources around the mountain. Some believe that Kailash is the mountain Meru from where the Aryans came. In Sultejdalen near Kailash low silver palace with Bönpo -religion’s holy kingdom. This was destroyed by the nykonverterade Buddhists in Lhasa as before spared this country in their conquests.

Every year, thousands make a pilgrimage to Kailash, following a tradition going back thousands of years. Pilgrims of several religions believe that circumambulating Mount Kailash on foot is a holy ritual that will bring good fortune. The peregrination is made in a clockwise direction by Hindus and Buddhists. Followers of the Jain and Bönpo religions circumambulate the mountain in a counterclockwise direction. The path around Mount Kailash is 52 km (32 mi) long.

Some pilgrims believe that the entire walk around Kailash should be made in a single day, which is not considered an easy task. A person in good shape walking fast would take perhaps 15 hours to complete the 52 km trek. Some of the devout do accomplish this feat, little daunted by the uneven terrain,altitude sickness and harsh conditions faced in the process. Indeed, other pilgrims venture a much more demanding regimen, performing body-length prostrations over the entire length of the circumambulation: The pilgrim bends down, kneels, prostrates full-length, makes a mark with his fingers, rises to his knees, prays, and then crawls forward on hands and knees to the mark made by his/her fingers before repeating the process. It requires at least four weeks of physical endurance to perform the circumambulation while following this regimen. The mountain is located in a particularly remote and inhospitable area of the Tibetan Himalayas. A few modern amenities, such as benches, resting places and refreshment kiosks, exist to aid the pilgrims in their devotions. According to all religions that revere the mountain, setting foot on its slopes is a dire sin. It is claimed that many people who ventured to defy the taboo have died in the process. It is a popular belief that the stairways on Mount Kailash lead to heaven.

The Tibetan name for the mountain is Gangs Rin-po-che. Gangs or Kang is the Tibetan word for snow peak analogous to alp or himal; rinpoche is an honorific meaning “precious one” so the combined term can be translated “precious jewel of snows”.

“Tibetan Buddhists call it Kangri Rinpoche; ‘Precious Snow Mountain’. Bon texts have many names: Water’s Flower, Mountain of Sea Water, Nine Stacked Swastika Mountain. For Hindus, it is the home of the mountain god Shiva and a symbol of his power symbol om; for Jains it is where their first leader was enlightened; for Buddhists, the navel of the universe; and for adherents of Bon, the abode of the sky goddess Sipaimen.”^[

Another local name for the mountain is Tisé (Tibetan: ཏི་སེ་) mountain, which derives from ti tse in the Zhang-Zhung language, meaning “water peak” or “river peak”, connoting the mountain’s status as the source of the mythical Lion, Horse, Peacock and Elephant Rivers, and in fact the Indus, Yarlung Tsangpo/Dihang/Brahmaputra, Karnali and Sutlej all begin in the Kailash-Lake Manasarovar region.

Bön

The Bön, a religion which predates Buddhism in Tibet, maintain that the entire mystical region and the nine-story Swastika Mountain are the seat of all spiritual power.

Hinduism

According to Hinduism, Lord Shiva, the destroyer of ignorance and illusion, resides at the summit of a legendary mountain named Kailāsa, where he sits in a state of perpetual meditation along with his wife Pārvatī. In the Vishnu Purana of the mountain states that its four faces are made of crystal, ruby, gold, and lapis lazuli. It is a pillar of the world and is located at the heart of six mountain ranges symbolizing a lotus.

Jainism

In Jainism, Kailash is also known as Meru Parvat or Sumeru. Ashtapada, the mountain next to Mt.Kailash is the site where the first Jain Tirthankara, Rishabhadeva, attained Nirvana/moksa (liberation).(The authenticity of Mount Kailash being Mount Ashtapada is highly debated.)

Buddhism

Tantric Buddhists believe that Mount Kailash is the home of the Buddha Demchok (also known as Demchog or Chakrasamvara),who represents supreme bliss.

There are numerous sites in the region associated with Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava), whose tantric practices in holy sites around Tibet are credited with finally establishing Buddhism as the main religion of the country in the 7th–8th century CE.

It is said that Milarepa (c. 1052-c. 1135 CE), champion of Tantric Buddhism, arrived in Tibet to challenge Naro Bön-chung, champion of the Bön religion of Tibet. The two magicians engaged in a terrifying sorcerers’ battle, but neither was able to gain a decisive advantage. Finally, it was agreed that whoever could reach the summit of Kailash most rapidly would be the victor. While Naro Bön-chung sat on a magic drum and soared up the slope, Milarepa’s followers were dumbfounded to see him sitting still and meditating. Yet when Naro Bön-chung was nearly at the top, Milarepa suddenly moved into action and overtook him by riding on the rays of the sun, thus winning the contest. He did, however, fling a handful of snow on to the top of a nearby mountain, since known as Bönri, bequeathing it to the Bönpo and thereby ensuring continued Bönpo connections with the region.

Sacred Tree of Life

The concept of a tree of life has been used in science, religion, philosophy, and mythology. A tree of life is a common motif in various world theologies, mythologies, and philosophies. A mystical concept alluding to the interconnection of all life on our planet; and a metaphor for common descent in the evolutionary sense. The term tree of life may also be used as a synonym for sacred tree.

The tree of knowledge, connecting to heaven and the underworld, and the tree of life, connecting all forms of creation, are both forms of the world tree or cosmic tree, and according to some , that are portrayed in various religions and philosophies as the same tree.

The Tree of Life is an important symbol in nearly every culture. In Jewish and Christian mythology, a tree sits at the center of both the Heavenly and Earthly Edens. The Norse cosmic World Ash, Ygdrassil, has its roots in the underworld while its branches support the abode of the Gods. The Egyptian’s Holy Sycamore stood on the threshold of life and death, connecting the worlds. To the Mayas, it is Yaxche, whose branches support the heavens.

The Ceiba Tree was the sacred tree of the Mayans, and it had many representations and significances. “The ancient Maya of Central America believed that a great Ceiba tree stood at the center of the earth, connecting the terrestrial world to the spirit-world above. The long thick vines hanging down from its spreading limbs provided a connection to the heavens for the souls that ascended them.”

The Archetypal Symbolism of Trees Trees have long held a literal and symbolic fascination for humanity. Their source as a deep archetype of absorption begins with the earliest epic in the Western World, the story of Gilgamesh and his quest for the plant of life (a symbolic tree) that is snatched away by a serpent, thus illustrating that the use of the tree as a universal religious symbol is incredibly ancient; such utilization can be dated to at least the third millennium B.C.E. as a symbol of a rich cultural mythos, the major archetype being that of the center, the beginning where sacred powers first originated. The tree is the navel of the world, the “cosmic axis” (Axis mundi) standing at the universe’s center where it passes through the middle and unites the three great cosmic domains: the underworld, earth, and sky.

With its branches reaching into the sky, and roots deep in the earth, the Tree of Life dwells in three worlds—a link between heaven, the earth, and the underworld, uniting above and below. It is both a feminine symbol, bearing sustenance, and a masculine, visibly phallic symbol—another union. The tree has other characteristics which easily lend themselves to symbolism. Many trees take on the appearance of death in the winter—losing their leaves, only to sprout new growth with the return of spring. This aspect makes the tree a symbol of resurrection, and a stylized tree is the symbol of many resurrected gods. Most of these gods are believed to have been crucified on trees as well. A tree also bears seeds or fruits, which contain the essence of the tree, and this continuous regeneration is a potent symbol of immortality. Trees seen as givers of gifts and spiritual wisdom are quite common. It was while meditating under a Bodhi tree that Buddha received his enlightenment; the Norse God Odin received the gift of language while suspended upside down in the World Ash.

In Celtic creation stories, trees were the ancestors of mankind, elder beings of wisdom who provided the alphabet, the calendar, and entrance to the realms of the Gods.Trees were also associated in the Shamanic beliefs of the Druids and other Celtic peoples with the supernatural world. Trees were a connection to the world of the spirits and the ancestors, living entities, and doorways into other worlds. The most sacred tree of all was the Oak tree, which represented the axis mundi, the center of the world. The Celtic name for oak, daur or duir, is the origin of the word door; the root of the oak was literally the doorway to the Otherworld; the realm of Fairy.

The tree of life (Heb. עץ החיים Etz haChayim) in the Book of Genesis is a tree planted by the Abrahamic God in midst of the Garden of Eden (Paradise), whose fruit gives everlasting life, i.e. immortality. Together with the tree of life, God planted the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:9). According to some scholars, however, these are in fact two names for the same tree.

In the biblical story, the serpent, who is regarded as Satan in Christianity but not in Judaism, tempted Eve into eating a fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve and Adam both ate the fruit, despite God’s warning to Adam that “in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). As a consequence of their transgression, the land, the Serpent, Adam, and Eve were each cursed by God. To prevent them access to the tree of life, God cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden:

And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” (Genesis 3:22)

In the Book of Revelation, a Koine Greek phrase xylon (tēs) zōës, ξύλον (τῆς) ζωής, is mentioned three times. This phrase, which is also used for the Genesis tree of life in the Ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, literally means “wood of (the) life”. It is translated in nearly every English Bible version as “tree of life”, see Revelation 2:7, 22:2, and 22:19.

The tree of life is represented in several examples of sacred geometry and is central in particular to the Kabbalah (the mystic study of the Torah), where it is represented as a diagram of ten points.

The Tree of Life, or Etz haChayim (עץ החיים) in Hebrew, is a mystical symbol used in the Kabbalah of esoteric Judaism to describe the path to God (usually referred to as HaShem, or “The Name”, in kabbalistic texts) and the manner in which he created the world ex nihilo. Kabbalists developed this concept into a full model of reality, using the tree to depict a map of Creation.

Some believe the kabbalistic Tree of Life corresponds to the Tree of Life mentioned in Genesis 2:9. This mystical concept was later adopted by some esoterically inclined Christians as well as some Hermeticists. Among the Christian Kabbalists, the sephirot were called Dignities, and were referred to by their Latin names, instead of their Hebrew names. Christian Kabbalah also places emphasis on Christ as Sustainer and Preserver of the Universe, and the Malkuth of Jewish kabbalah is absent, as it is considered of a different order-of-being.

the Tree of Life can potentially be applied to any area of life, especially the inner world of Man, from the subconscious all the way to what Kabbalists call the higher self.

But the Tree of Life does not only speak of the origins of the physical Universe out of the unimaginable, but also of Man’s place in the Universe. Since Man is invested with Mind, consciousness in the Kabbalah is thought of as the fruit of the physical world, through whom the original infinite energy can experience and express itself as a finite entity. After the energy of Creation has condensed into matter, it is thought to reverse its course back up the Tree until it is once again united with its true nature. Thus, the kabbalist seeks to know himself and the Universe as an expression of God, and to make the journey of Return by stages charted by the Sephiroth, until he has come to the realisation he sought.

The Tree of Life bears many similarities to the Christian Gnostic conception of the Pleroma, emanations from the ineffable and self-originating Divine Parent that offer the best possible means of describing God. Each emanation in thepleroma is born from a more complex emanation before it. Most notably between these two allegories is the final sephira on the Tree, Malkuth, and the last emanation in the Pleroma, Sophia, whose fall resulted in the physical world.

In the Bhagavad Gita there is a mention of Asvattha, tree of Life and Being, whose destruction alone leads to immortality, is said in the Bhagavad Gita to grow with its roots above and its branches below. The roots represent the Supreme Being, or First Cause, the LOGOS; but one has to go beyond those roots to unite oneself with Krishna. The Vedas are its leaves. He only who goes beyond the roots shall never return, i.e., shall reincarnate no more during this “age” of Brahma.

In every old culture the Tree of Life is a given, our ancient ancestors understood the interconnectedness of Life the Microcosm being a reflection of the Macrocosm, the Outer, a reflection of the Inner, the bellow from the above, the Spirit residing in our inner Hearts, wherever we are, there is the center of the World, the Sacred Womb of the Mother, the Axis of the Universe, the Sacred Mountain, a Sacred Realm of Being.

Posted in Ancient Civilizations, Ancient Religions, Archetypes, Axis Mundi, Being, Buddhism, Cosmogony, Cosmology, Forest, God, Hinduism, Indigenous Cultures, Inner Journey, Kabbalah, Maya, Mayas, Metaphysics, Mount Meru, Mysticism, Myth, Mythology, Paradise, Religion, Revelation, Sacred Mountain, Sacred Tree, Shamanism, Spirituality, Subjective, Symbology, Tibetan Buddhism, Tree of Life, Uncategorized, Wisdom | Tagged Asvattha, Axis Mundi, Black Elk, Ceiba, Celtic, Center of the World, Cosmic Axis, Delphi, Delphic Oracle, Druids, Kabbalist, Kailash, Nordic, Omphalos, Pilgrimage, Pythia, Sacred Mountain, Sacred Tree, Tibetan Buddhism, Tree of Life, World Ash, Yaxche, Ygdrassil | 9 Comments

THE RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE, POST-POSITIVISM, MYSTICISM, CONTEMPLATION, AND KARL RAHNER’S ABSOLUTE MYSTERY

Posted on October 29, 2012 by theburningheart

The Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will not exist at all.

Karl Rahner
There is a science for the subjective study of the Spiritual life, analogous to science that explains the mechanism, and laws of the physical world, of course this science of the soul can’t be reproduced in a laboratory, since the laboratory it is the Self who is the subject of investigation to the individual in question, but that if it is a knowledge impossible to reproduce in a physical laboratory, however it is a Knowledge possible to be experienced in the Soul, and transmit, to other individuals by analogies, introspection, meditation, Intuition, symbolism, synchronicity, dreams, through the study of Ontology, and Metaphysics, but before you roll your eyeballs, there are techniques, and spiritual practices conductive to Enlightenment, like Yoga, diverse Meditation methods, Prayer, Ritual and many other spiritual techniques used by a wide range of Mystics; Sufi, Shamans, Magi, Monks, and every individual seriously involved in Religious practice conductive to Enlightenment, or a Communion with God, Spirit, the Atman, the Infinite, the Tao, or whatever term may apply to the specific method.
- POST-POSITIVISM AND CRITICAL REALISM
- If your eyeballs are still rolling up, it is time to update your old fashioned belief in Positivism:
- “Let’s begin by considering what positivism is. In its broadest sense, positivism is a rejection of metaphysics (I leave it you to look up that term if you’re not familiar with it). It is a position that holds that the goal of knowledge is simply to describe the phenomena that we experience. The purpose of science is simply to stick to what we can observe and measure. Knowledge of anything beyond that, a positivist would hold, is impossible. When I think of positivism (and the related philosophy of logical positivism) I think of the behaviorists in mid-20th Century psychology. These were the mythical ‘rat runners’ who believed that psychology could only study what could be directly observed and measured. Since we can’t directly observe emotions, thoughts, etc. (although we may be able to measure some of the physical and physiological accompaniments), these were not legitimate topics for a scientific psychology. B.F. Skinner argued that psychology needed to concentrate only on the positive and negative reinforces of behavior in order to predict how people will behave — everything else in between (like what the person is thinking) is irrelevant because it can’t be measured.
  
  In a positivist view of the world, science was seen as the way to get at truth, to understand the world well enough so that we might predict and control it. The world and the universe were deterministic — they operated by laws of cause and effect that we could discern if we applied the unique approach of the scientific method. Science was largely a mechanistic or mechanical affair. We use deductive reasoning to postulate theories that we can test. Based on the results of our studies, we may learn that our theory doesn’t fit the facts well and so we need to revise our theory to better predict reality. The positivist believed in empiricism — the idea that observation and measurement was the core of the scientific endeavor. The key approach of the scientific method is the experiment, the attempt to discern natural laws through direct manipulation and observation.
- One of the most common forms of post-positivism is a philosophy called critical realism. A critical realist believes that there is a reality independent of our thinking about it that science can study. (This is in contrast with a subjectivist who would hold that there is no external reality — we’re each making this all up!). Positivists were also realists. The difference is that the post-positivist critical realist recognizes that all observation is fallible and has error and that all theory is revisable. In other words, the critical realist is critical of our ability to know reality with certainty. Where the positivist believed that the goal of science was to uncover the truth, the post-positivist critical realist believes that the goal of science is to hold steadfastly to the goal of getting it right about reality, even though we can never achieve that goal! Because all measurement is fallible, the post-positivist emphasizes the importance of multiple measures and observations, each of which may possess different types of error, and the need to use triangulation across these multiple error full sources to try to get a better bead on what’s happening in reality. The post-positivist also believes that all observations are theory-laden and that scientists (and everyone else, for that matter) are inherently biased by their cultural experiences, world views, and so on. This is not cause to give up in despair, however. Just because I have my world view based on my experiences and you have yours doesn’t mean that we can’t hope to translate from each other’s experiences or understand each other. That is, post-positivism rejects the relativist idea of the incommensurability of different perspectives, the idea that we can never understand each other because we come from different experiences and cultures. Most post-positivists are constructivists who believe that we each construct our view of the world based on our perceptions of it. Because perception and observation is fallible, our constructions must be imperfect. So what is meant by objectivity in a post-positivist world? Positivists believed that objectivity was a characteristic that resided in the individual scientist. Scientists are responsible for putting aside their biases and beliefs and seeing the world as it ‘really’ is. Post-positivists reject the idea that any individual can see the world perfectly as it really is. We are all biased and all of our observations are affected (theory-laden).Trochim, W. (2000). The Research Methods Knowledge Base, 2nd Edition. Atomic Dog Publishing, Cincinnati, OH.”
- If post- positivism, and post-modernism in general may not mean for many a return to Metaphysics, no doubt it had humbled and deflated many scientist egos, and let those interested in the study of Metaphysics and Ontology proceed without the rolling of the eyes, and the dismissive attitudes of hotheaded materialist, atheist, deterministic and positivistic individuals, who believed to be the torchbearers of Truth, and Reason, after all there is an argument of why we posses a Intuitive, and Subjective right side brain, think about it!
- MYSTICISM
- A Religious experience (sometimes known as a spiritual experience, sacred experience, or mystical experience) is a subjective experience in which an individual reports contact with a transcendent reality, an encounter or union with the Divine. Such an experience often involves arriving at some knowledge or insight previously unavailable to the subject yet unaccountable or unforeseeable according to the usual conceptual or psychological framework within which the subject has been used to operating. Religious experience generally brings understanding, partial or complete, of issues of a fundamental character that may have been a cause (whether consciously acknowledged or not) of anguish or alienation to the subject for an extended period of time. This may be experienced as a form of healing, enlightenment or conversion. The commonalities and differences between religious experiences across different cultures have enabled scholars to categorize them for academic study.
- William James’ definition
  
  Psychologist and Philosopher William James described four characteristics of religious / mystical experience in The Varieties of Religious Experience. According to James, such an experience is:
  - Transient — the experience is temporary; the individual soon returns to a “normal” frame of mind. It is outside our normal perception of space and time.
  - Ineffable — the experience cannot be adequately put into words.
  - Noetic — the individual feels that he or she has learned something valuable from the experience. Gives us knowledge that is normally hidden from human understanding.
  - Passive — the experience happens to the individual, largely without conscious control. Although there are activities, such as meditation (see below), that can make religious experience more likely, it is not something that can be turned on and off at will.
  - Norman Habel’s definition
    
    Habel defines religious experiences as the structured way in which a believer enters into a relationship with, or gains an awareness of, the sacred within the context of a particular religious tradition (Habel, O’Donoghue and Maddox: 1993).Religious experiences are by their very nature preternatural; that is, out of the ordinary or beyond the natural order of things. They may be difficult to distinguish observationally from psychopathological states such as psychoses or other forms of altered awareness (Charlesworth: 1988). Not all preternatural experiences are considered to be religious experiences. Following Habel’s definition, psychopathological states or drug-induced states of awareness are not considered to be religious experiences because they are mostly not performed within the context of a particular religious tradition.
    
    Moore and Habel identify two classes of religious experiences: the immediate and the mediated religious experience (Moore and Habel: 1982).
    - Mediated — In the mediated experience, the believer experiences the sacred through mediators such as rituals, special persons, religious groups, totemic objects or the natural world (Habel et al.: 1993).
    - Immediate — The immediate experience comes to the believer without any intervening agency or mediator. The deity or divine is experienced directly
- The Numinous RUDOLF OTTO
- The German thinker Rudolf Otto (1869–1937) argues that there is one common factor to all religious experience, independent of the cultural background. In his book The Idea of the Holy (1923) he identifies this factor as the numinous. The “numinous” experience has two aspects: mysterium tremendum, which is the tendency to invoke fear and trembling; and mysterium fascinans, the tendency to attract, fascinate and compel. The numinous experience also has a personal quality to it, in that the person feels to be in communion with a holy other. Otto sees the numinous as the only possible religious experience. He states: “There is no religion in which it [the numinous] does not live as the real innermost core and without it no religion would be worthy of the name” (Otto: 1972). Otto does not take any other kind of religious experience such as ecstasy and enthusiasm seriously and is of the opinion that they belong to the ‘vestibule of religion’.
- Otto’s most famous work is The Idea of the Holy, published first in 1917 as Das Heilige – Über das Irrationale in der Idee des Göttlichen und sein Verhältnis zum Rationalen (The Holy – On the Irrational in the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational). It is one of the most successful German theological books of the 20th century, has never gone out of print, and is now available in about 20 languages. The book defines the concept of the holy as that which is numinous. Otto explained the numinous as a “non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling whose primary and immediate object is outside the self”. He coined this new term based on the Latin numen (deity). (This expression is etymologically unrelated to Immanuel Kant’s noumenon, a Greek term referring to an unknowable reality underlying all things.) The numinous is a mystery (Latin: mysterium) that is both terrifying (tremendum) and fascinating (fascinans) at the same time. It also sets a paradigm for the study of religion that focuses on the need to realize the religious as a non-reducible, original category in its own right.

KARL RAHNER’S MAN IN THE PRESCENCE OF ABSOLUTE MYSTERY

Mark F. Fisher’s condensed Foundations of Christian Faith: “The title of this chapter does not include the word “God.” Strictly speaking, the title indicates that the chapter is about the human being. That human being, however, is in the presence of absolute mystery. The chapter focuses on this mystery. It asks what it is, why it is absolute, and how it is present.

Chapter II has five parts. The first part is a meditation on the word “God.” The meditation distinguishes between the word and what it represents. Even if the word were to be stricken from the dictionary, says Rahner, the question implicit in the word – the question about the origin and destiny of life – would remain.

After Part 1 has raised the question, the second part discusses whether we can know God. It advances Rahner’s central thesis, namely, that we encounter God in a transcendental experience of God’s Holy Mystery. Whenever we experience our limits, imagining what lies beyond them, we begin to transcend them. In that experience, we recognize the mystery of our existence, whose origin and destiny are not yet clear. To know that mystery, says Rahner, is to know the source of transcendence.

The source of transcendence is not, however, a blind and impersonal force. The third part states that the source is a personal God. We speak of God as a person by way of analogy. God is not a person in the same sense that we human beings are. But God is indeed a person in that God cannot be reduced to a thing. God is the absolute ground of all things, “absolute” because irreducible to anything else.

The human being is related to God as a creature to the source of creation. The fourth part explains how human beings “know” God. We know God by knowing ourselves in relation to the mystery of our lives. This mystery is nothing other than what gives us our place in time and invites us to fulfill the possibilities allotted to us.

In Part Five, Rahner states that the Holy Mystery is present “in” the world as its fundamental ground. It is “holy” because it enables us to be complete. It helps us to be what we are meant to be. Doubtless we find God in historical religion and its holy places, people, and things. But God may not be confined to phenomena. Rather, the phenomena of this world, including the holy symbols, sanctuaries, and deeds of religion, mediate the presence of God and teach us how to discern it. But we already know this God immediately as our transcendent ground.”

In this most challenging part of Chapter II, Rahner begins with the fundamental idea that we know God in our reflection on experience, but not as some entity that we can “prove” independently of experience (A). Before any natural or revealed knowledge of God, we have an encounter with God (B). This encounter is given in the human experience of transcendence. This experience is mysterious, for it is both given to us (subjectively) and is something upon which we can (objectively) reflect (C). The mystery was recognized as early as Greek ontology. Ontology, the “science of being,” showed that one both can express something as a concept and yet not capture everything in the concept (D). So instead of a concept, Rahner uses the phrase “Holy Mystery.” He calls it the “term” of transcendence (E). Term is related to terminus, end, or goal. This term is both present in transcendence and as the way to transcendence. It enables us to know the reality of God, and is our experience of it (F). Finally, Rahner makes a comment on the proofs for the existence of God (G). They are signs that point to the reality, he says, and can enable the listener to reflect on the transcendental knowledge of God that he or she already has.

When Rahner speaks of “transcendental” knowledge of God, he means it is something “a posteriori.” We know it, in other words, “after the fact,” e.g., while reflecting on human experience. Our experience with others, Rahner says, enables us to know ourselves, whom we “see” as we reflect on our experience. So too we know the divine in reflecting on our experience of the world. The experience raises in our minds the question of who we are and what we ought to be.

But this knowledge is no mere reflection after the fact. It is what Rahner calls a “permanent existential,” i.e., a part of who we are. We encounter ourselves whenever we try to speak of our experience of God. It is we who are capable of an encounter with God. In this encounter, we find that we can transcend what we once thought to be our outermost horizon. The discovery of this experience itself is a mystery. The mystery is not reducible to what we can say about our transcendental knowledge.

To be sure, our knowledge of God remains “a posteriori.” We know God “after the fact,” after reflecting on our experience of meeting our limits, of imagining what lies beyond them, and of realizing the possibilities given us to respond to God’s call. Our transcendental experience does not cancel the fact that we know it only afterwards, in the reflection on it. This cautions us to beware that God is not a thing we can “know” beforehand. We cannot indoctrinate another person about God, but only lead him or her to recognize the God whom they in an implicit way already know.

What can we know about God? Our knowledge of God is indirect, like the knowledge of “our subjective freedom, our transcendence, and the infinite openness of the spirit” (p. 53). We know the experience of God, even when we do not consciously reflect on the experience. Moreover, we know God, even when our conceptualization of God is unpersuasive to other people.

So we can finally say: the concept of God is not a concept we can grasp. It is, rather, what grasps us. We do not formulate a concept and ask if it is God. No, it is better to say that both the concept itself, as well as the reality, move us into the unknown.

Traditionally, one speaks of “natural” knowledge of God, and of knowledge through “revelation” (in word and in deed). Rahner says, however, that there is a more “original experience,” an experience upon which both natural and revealed knowledge rely. The more original experience is a transcendental experience. It is not reducible to metaphysics, and it is fully compatible with the theological concept of grace. Transcendental experience is not purely “natural” because it takes place in freedom. We can choose to reflect on it or ignore it. This God-given freedom, the freedom to act responsibly and to make choices, is itself “supernatural.”

Transcendental experience, says Rahner, is “the basic and original way of knowing God” (p. 58). More basic than “natural” and “revealed” knowledge? Yes, says Rahner. Natural and revealed knowledge is mediated. It comes to us through the media of categorical experiences. Transcendental experience, by contrast, is not a neutral power by which to know God. It does not enable us to “master” our experience. Instead, transcendental experience allows us to know ourselves as finite beings – finite beings who can transcend their finitude.

Are human beings united with their transcendence? This is an important and dangerous question. Since God is our transcendence, a “yes” might suggest that we are our own gods. But the unity we experience, says Rahner, is not that. It is rather the unity between the ground and the person who is grounded, between the Word and our response to it. There are two ways, says Rahner, to understand our knowledge of God in transcendence.

1. Subjective knowledge. This transcendental knowledge comes to light in conversation or even in something like Victor Frankl’s “logotherapy.” Subjective knowledge enables us to see that our experiences (experiences of love, of freedom, of joy, etc.) are experiences of transcendence. We bring our experience to light in discourse with another person.

2. Objective knowledge. This transcendental knowledge comes from a direct contemplation of the source of transcendence. We contemplate it and call it “God.” But there is a danger in such objective knowledge. The danger is that, by speaking of God we might lose sight of what we mean. What we mean is the source of the experience of transcendence, the holy mystery. It might be obscured by the concept we use to express it. If we try to describe the source as “absolute being,” we might settle for an abstraction, not the source itself.

So Rahner proposes that we call the source of our original experience of transcendence the “holy mystery” (p. 60). This phrase, this image of God, may not be easily confused with a stereotype, a myth, or a conventional image.

Rahner states that his goal is to express the source of our experience of transcendence without reducing it to a mere object, one topic among others, or a system. What gives him hope is that, whenever he tries to reflect on the meaning of transcendence, “an experience of transcendence takes place” (p. 62). The human being reaches out to or anticipates the “term” of transcendence. This technical word (German: “Woraufhin”; English: “where-to-there”) means goal, end, or terminus. Every person implicitly anticipates an ultimate goal, and in the anticipation of it, grows toward it. The lure of God’s future is the “term” of transcendence.

The transcendental experience (of God) and the categorical objects that mediate it (in the world) are united but different. If they were only united, their relationship would be pantheistic. God would then “be” our experience of the world. If the experience and the categorical objects were only different, their relation would be dualistic. God would be the unknowable “other.” Rahner sees the relation between the two as unity in difference. “God establishes and is the difference” between the world and God (p. 63). Anyone searching for a God “contained in” reality seeks a false God. Those searching for a God wholly other and distant will never know God or themselves.

The earliest Greek philosophies touched upon the mysteries of first principles. Greek ontology saw that human beings cannot measure the first principles, but are themselves to be measured. True, we can have legitimately categorical knowledge of God – knowledge that we can categorize and classify. But we recognize that such categorical knowledge is not the whole. There is more to God than what we can say: that is why we acknowledge that God is infinite, indefinable, and ineffable.

“Holy Mystery” is Rahner’s “term” of transcendence. Since “term” means “way of access to” as well as terminus or goal, “Holy Mystery” indicates the way to transcendence and remains the goal of transcendence. Rahner says that this Holy Mystery possesses absolute freedom. The Holy Mystery, the Term of Transcendence, is our freedom. In it we are free to be present, in whatever way we choose, to other “subjects of transcendence,” other free persons.

Moreover, transcendence moves us toward Holy Mystery, its proper end. The experience of transcendence opens up to us the Holy Mystery. It is a “mystery” because we cannot fully fathom it. It is “holy” because it enables us to be complete. It allows us to be present to other persons in a communion of freedom and love. When we put ourselves “at the disposal of” transcendence, we move beyond ourselves and form relationships with others, above all, with God. Holy Mystery includes the capacity to freely love.

Transcendence, Rahner concludes, does not depend on its “ground” or “term,” that is, on Holy Mystery. Transcendence is not derived from or reducible to it. Rather, Holy Mystery is what we encounter in the experience of transcendence. Transcendence moves us in freedom and love toward its goal.

Transcendence does not create God. Rather, transcendence is “borne by” God, who makes transcendence possible. Rahner calls the term or goal of transcendental experience a “Holy Mystery,” namely, the unity of essence and existence. If it were existence alone, then we could experience it in the same way we experience anything else, like a sunset. If it were only an essence, without any concrete existence, then we could not experience it at all. But as the unity of essence and existence, Holy Mystery has a reality that is grounded for us in the experience of transcendence. That experience is a necessary part of the human being, the one who is created so as to hear God’s Word.

The proofs of God’s existence are, in Rahner’s view, “signs.” They point to God but do not make God graspable or a mere concept. Just as we can only point to our experience of transcendence in words, but cannot reduce the experience to a concept, so we can point to God in “proofs.” These proofs are not “ways” by which a previously unknown object can be known. By means of the proofs, however, one can show another person that they are already involved in the experience of transcendence and of Holy Mystery. The listener, presented with “proofs,” is really being confronted with the light of his or her own spirit. He or she is faced with questions, anxiety, joy, moral obligation, and the anticipation of death – all of which recall the very experience of transcendence.

In the “proofs” of God, there is an element of causality. Causality in this case does not mean, for example, that one sees creation and is moved to belief in a first cause. Rather, causality is a way of indicating that being itself moves our judgment. Absolute being points to the relation between finite creation and its incomprehensible source.”

Posted in Being, Biblical Scholars, Biblical Studies, Cosmogony, Counsciousness, Critical Thinking, God, Heart, History, Human Nature, Immanence, Inner Journey, Karl Rahner, Materialism, Metaphysics, Mysticism, Ontology, Philosophy, Positivism, Post-Positivism, Postmodernism, Religion, Revelation, Spirituality, Subjective, Theology, Transcendence, Transformation, Uncategorized, Via Negativa, Via Positiva | Tagged Absolute Mystery, God, Holy Mystery, Karl Rahner, Norman Habel, Positivism, Religious Experience, Revelation, Rudolf Otto, Science of the Soul, The Numinous, William James | 4 Comments

SPACE EXPLORATION, OR MYTHICAL EXPLOITATION OF YOUR TAXPAYER MONEY? THE SELLING OF A DREAM

Posted on September 29, 2012 by theburningheart

The world itself looks cleaner and so much more beautiful. Maybe we can make it that way—the way God intended it to be—by giving everybody that new perspective from out in space.

– Roger B Chaffee

My view of our planet was a glimpse of divinity.

– Edgar Mitchell

On the morning of Friday 21, of September there was a exciting buzz in the otherwise matter of fact usual fare in the local news, the Space Shuttle Endeavor would make it’s final trip around different points of California from Edwards air force base in California to LAX in route to it’s final destination at the Museum of Science in Exposition Park in Downtown Los Angeles.

Cynical me, I was not taken by the supposed grandiosity of the Event, of “being witnessing History”, and all that fanfare, self serving promotion to a failed, and very expensive program, paid by us, the taxpayer, and the lost of life of fourteen people, astronauts, and civilians.

As the morning progressed the enthusiasm of the newscaster and people aligned in San Francisco, Sacramento Santa Monica, Griffith Park, LAX, Pasadena, etc. Grew in excitement and all kind of emotional nonsense, of “once in a lifetime experience”, people cried, and said: “I will be able to tell my children I was there that day, I saw the Endeavour flight over my roof!” Cynical me thought: “Maybe I will be able to tell my grandchildren how Grandpa saw how our Government allied to private capital, invested our tax money to enrich the few, meanwhile the homeless were cheering in awe at looking the shuttle flying through their full time home, the streets and the sidewalks!”

As it happens I got a little share of my taxpayer money in the form of entertainment, and mild awe, as the shuttle on piggyback ride on top of a giant Jumbo Jet with great noise and escorted by two jet fighters flew in front of my window who face the Griffith observatory, so low you could see clearly many details if your eye was fast enough to catch it. It was a big production, not unlike a Hollywood movie. Of course our local politicians were there at the airport to cash on the event, and present the shuttle like “our achievement” making us part of it, and therefore proud for it, like if we had any say in the matter, and to reassure us what a great honor was for our city to be the retirement home of the old shuttle, however not an undeserved honor, since we in California and in Los Angeles, contributed a great deal to the space program, and the shuttle in particular, of course nothing was said how much the honor cost us up to the present, or in the future.

Here is an article in The Guardian UK Thursday 21 July 2011, you may find enlightening:

“With Atlantis’s touchdown on Thursday bringing down the final curtain on the space shuttle program, there is much hand-wringing over the end of an era. For the first time in 30 years Nasa has no immediate program for human space travel in place. While many are mourning this loss, the last flight of the space shuttle instead provides an opportunity to rethink space exploration and a time to cut our losses from a failed program that has been a colossal waste of resources, time and creative energy.

The space shuttle failed to live up to its primary goal of providing relatively cheap and efficient human space travel. There is a good reason for this. As the engineers made it clear to the physicist Richard Feynman when he was investigating the cause of the Challenger explosion, human space travel is risky. While Nasa managers had estimated the odds of a shuttle disaster to be microscopic, engineers estimated the loss rate at about 1 in 100 flights, which is close to the actual disaster rate.

Not only has the shuttle program been costly, it has been boring. A generation that grew up with Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey had hoped that by the dawn of the new millennium we would be regularly vacationing in space, and routinely sending astronauts to boldly go where no man or woman had gone before.

Instead we were treated to regular images of the shuttle visiting a $100 billion boondoggle orbiting in space closer to Earth than Washington DC is to New York. No one except a billionaire or two has ever vacationed in space, and their “hotel” was a cramped, stuffy and at times smelly white elephant.

Either aboard the shuttle or the International Space Station, astronauts have explicitly demonstrated that what we learn from sending people into space is not much more than how people can survive in space. The lion’s share of costs associated with sending humans into space is devoted, as it should be, to making sure they survive the voyage. No other significant science has been learned by a generation’s worth of round trips in near-earth orbit.

Yes, there have been highlights, such as the Hubble Space Telescope launch and repair missions, which were not only exciting but useful. However, the real question is whether they were necessary to achieve the science goals. The initial HST repair mission was required because of poor engineering on the ground, which may even have resulted from the daunting requirement of creating a device that had to be designed to be deployed from the space shuttle.

And given the $5 billion or so price tag per year associated with the shuttle (leading to cost estimates ranging between $500 millions and $1.3 billions per launch) compared with the total cost of, say $5-7 billions over more than a decade for the James Webb Space Telescope, one wonders – as my colleague Robert Parks has mused – whether it would have cost less and been more efficient to merely send up another Hubble (on an unmanned rocket) instead of sending an expensive crew ship to repair the old one.

Helping construct the International Space Station has been no serious justification for the shuttle program. A largely useless international make-work project that was criticized by every major science organization in the US, all that can be said for its scientific justification is that it now houses a $2 billions particle physics experiment (the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer) that managed to avoid serious scientific peer review during its development, otherwise it certainly would not have been recommended for funding.

The real science done by Nasa has not involved humans. We have sent robots to places humans could never have survived and peered into the far depths of the cosmos, back to the early moments of the big bang, with instruments far more capable than our human senses, all for a fraction of what it costs to send a living, breathing person into Earth’s orbit. The first rovers went to Mars for what it would cost to make a movie about sending Bruce Willis to Mars.

But science is not the real goal of human space travel. As I argued over a decade ago to the House Science Committee when Buzz Aldrin and I were asked to testify before their subcommittee on space exploration, we send humans into space for adventure. Astronauts inspire us by their courage and skill, and not least by the fact that they risk death every time they step into a spacecraft.

I personally have no problems with this fact. I believe the future of the human species will eventually be in space, and that we will one day colonize other planets. But we have to be honest about this goal.

I have been on stage with astronauts and watched how they inspire kids to dream big dreams. Indeed, I myself stayed home from school during every Apollo moon mission, and dreamed of one day walking on the moon myself.

Did those missions encourage me to become a scientist, or was I interested in them because of a pre-existing fascination with the cosmos? It is hard to say. But the inspiration associated with tackling problems as immense as those associated with sending humans away from their natural environment into the hostile reaches of space has ultimately produced a host of scientists and engineers who might otherwise have pursued other careers.

If we are going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on human space travel, however, we need to have a rational plan, and one that can excite the imagination of the next generation of would-be scientists and explorers. The space shuttle did not provide such a plan.

As Richard Feynman himself said in his final report on the Challenger disaster: “Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.”

Lawrence M Krauss is foundation professor and director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University, and the author of books including The Physics of Star Trek. His most recent book, Quantum Man: Richard Feynman’s Life in Science, was published in March

Unlike Mr. Krauss I do not share his enthusiasm for space exploration, neither I believe the future is in space colonization, when as Mr. Krauss admit, we do not posses even a rational plan for it. I believe our future is here, on Earth, our home, here now, not in a distant pay in the sky dream, we need solutions for our planet, Earth it is not a celestial body made to exploit, and rip off, discarding at our convenience, so we can go and exploit other planets and discard them on the recycle bin once we have enjoyed the usefulness of it like a soda can. Earth is our Mother, and our Home, and will be for our foreseeable future, so let start caring about it, and invest our money on conservation, and environmental ecology, and stop putting escapist dreams in the tender minds of our children, romanticizing space travel, better let’s cultivate in them a love for our Earth, so they can continue to live in it with wisdom and happiness for all, and not only for an elite of corporate oriented profiteers who using science, and technology as tools, at the expense of our taxpayer money, dream to despoil other planets, like they are doing to Earth, so they can accumulate more wealth at our expense, and that of of our Mother Earth, with little benefit for the common man, who unwillingly pays the bill, and receive in exchange a cheap thrill, like watching the shuttle on piggyback parade all over California, at the cost of hundred of billions of dollars, and to add insult to injury the death of 400 trees, in Inglewood and South Los Angeles, to make way for the shuttle in to the museum, ironically trough one of the poorest neighborhoods of Los Angeles… A cynical friend of mine paraphrasing Neil Armstrong said: “A small chump change of money for our government, a giant long 274 years, at 10,000 dollars a day for a man to spend just a single billion!”

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JESUS CHANGING FACE, MYTH VS A HISTORICIZED LIFE OF JESUS, AND A NEW SPIRITUALITY, GNOSTICISM.

Posted on August 30, 2012 by theburningheart

¹⁴Not until halfway through the festival did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to teach.

¹⁵The Jews there were amazed and asked, “How did this man get such learning without having been taught?”

¹⁶Jesus answered, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me.

¹⁷Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.

¹⁸Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him.

¹⁹Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?”

John 7

One of the biggest problems of the study of religion now days, specially with our intellectual elites in scholarly circles, than rather than throwing light, and better understanding on the area of the history of Jesus, and Christianity in general, on the contrary the issue of Jesus it is even more obscure, and muddled by the division in sectarian groups with diverse, and contradicting ideas, that unfortunately are not the product of honest study, and research, but of partisan ideology.

It will be difficult to explain the current state of scholarship today, however I will do as briefly as possible, using public known summary records, without citing, do not pretend to encompass every detail, since it will be impossible on this brief account, too many names, accusations, and recriminations go back, and forth to require many volumes. Basically it is divided not between so much different Christian denominations, despite those divisions remain pretty much unchanged today, as in the past, but between traditional Christian scholars, and non traditional Atheist, Agnostics, some of them not even Bible scholars, in the Theological Divinity school fashion, but nevertheless people who contend that the whole story of Jesus, has no basis since the historical Jesus has never being proven, and the New Testament, specially the Gospels are based in Mythological allegories borrowed from different sources at the time the Gospels were written, Hellenistic, Roman, Egyptian, etc.

“Philosopher George Walsh argues that Christianity can be seen as originating in a myth dressed up as history, or with a historical being mythologized into a supernatural one: he calls the former the Christ myth theory, and the latter the historical Jesus theory.Biblical scholars Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd break the spectrum of opinion into four positions; they call the first three the “legendary-Jesus thesis,” namely that the picture of Jesus in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke is mostly or entirely historically inaccurate.

The Return of Persephone by Frederic Leighton (1891). Robert Price writes that a central plank of the Jesus myth theory is that Jesus is one of a number of dying-and-rising gods.

The Jesus myth theory: the gospels describe a virtually, and perhaps entirely, fictitious person. There are no grounds for supposing that any aspect of the Jesus narrative is rooted in history. This view is represented to varying degrees by Bruno Bauer, Arthur Drews, G.A. Wells, and Robert Price. Mythicists do not agree on a single theory of the actual origins of Christianity.
There is enough evidence to conclude that Jesus existed, but the reports are so unreliable that very little can be said about him with confidence. This view is represented by Rudolf Bultmann and Burton Mack.
Historical research can reveal a core of historical facts about Jesus, but he is very different from the Jesus of the New Testament. His sayings and miracles are myths. Robert Funk and Crossan represent this view, one that Eddy and Boyd write is increasingly common among New Testament scholars, particularly those associated with the Westar Institute’s Jesus Seminar and Jewish New Testament scholars such as Paula Fredriksen or Amy Jill-Levine.

Within this camp there remains a significant gulf between those who hold Schweitzer’s view that Jesus had apocalyptic end-time beliefs such as Bart Ehrman and Paula Fredriksen, and those who do not hold this such as Marcus Borg.
The gospels are reliable historical sources, and critical historiography should not rule out the possibility of supernatural occurrence, a view represented by John P. Meier and N.T. Wright.

Three pillars of the theory

New Testament scholar Robert Price, who argues it is quite likely there never was a historical Jesus, writes that the Jesus myth theory is based on three pillars:

There is no mention of a miracle-working Jesus in secular sources.
The Pauline epistles, earlier than the gospels, do not provide evidence of a recent historical Jesus.
The story of Jesus shows strong parallels to Middle Eastern religions about dying and rising gods, symbolizing the rebirth of the individual as a rite of passage. He writes that Christian apologists have tried to minimize these parallels.

Pauline epistles

The composition of the letters of Paul of Tarsus is generally dated between 49 and 64 CE,some two to three decades after the conventional date given for Jesus’s death. Paul did not know the historical Jesus. He only claims he had known him, ‘as of one born out of due time’, i.e., as the ‘risen’ Jesus.

Many biblical scholars turn to Paul’s letters (epistles) to support their arguments for a historical Jesus.Theologian James D.G. Dunn argues that Robert Price ignores what everyone else in the field regards as primary data. Biblical scholar F. F. Bruce (1910–1990) writes that, according to Paul’s letters, Jesus was an Israelite, descended from Abraham (Gal 3:16) and David (Rom. 1:3); who lived under Jewish law (Gal. 4:4); who was betrayed, and on the night of his betrayal instituted a memorial meal of bread and wine (I Cor. 11:23ff); who endured the Roman penalty of crucifixion (I Cor. 1:23; Gal. 3:1, 13, 6:14, etc.), although Jewish authorities were somehow involved in his death (I Thess. 2:15); who was buried, rose the third day and was thereafter seen alive, including on one occasion by over 500, of whom the majority were alive 25 years later (I Cor. 15:4ff). The letters say that Paul knew of and had met important figures in Jesus’s ministry, including the apostles Peter and John, as well as James the brother of Jesus, who is also allegedly mentioned in Josephus. In the letters, Paul on occasion alludes to and quotes the teachings of Jesus, and in 1 Corinthians 11 recounts the Last Supper.”

In an article on the Huffington Post’s Web site, Bart Ehrman insists:

“Apart from the most rabid fundamentalists among us, nearly everyone admits that the Bible might contain errors—a faulty creation story here, a historical mistake there, a contradiction or two in some other place. But is it possible that the problem is worse than that—that the Bible actually contains lies?

Most people wouldn’t put it that way, since the Bible is, after all, sacred Scripture for millions on our planet. But good Christian scholars of the Bible, including the top Protestant and Catholic scholars of America, will tell you that the Bible is full of lies, even if they refuse to use the term. And here is the truth: Many of the books of the New Testament were written by people who lied about their identity, claiming to be a famous apostle—Peter, Paul or James—knowing full well they were someone else. In modern parlance, that is a lie, and a book written by someone who lies about his identity is a forgery (2011b).

Why is this alleged consensus of scholarship not forthcoming about the “truth” of these lies, mistakes, and contradictions? According to Ehrman, many scholars are ministers and professors who have to serve the needs of their clientele (see Ehrman, 2009, pp. 13-14). Ministers don’t want to be honest because either it conflicts with their personal faith, or they fear being fired by their elderships. Professors really do know the truth, Ehrman claims, but they cannot be honest about it, because they largely teach in colleges, seminaries, and divinity schools. They cannot denigrate the very texts they are teaching to Christian students without suffering repercussions from their constituency. Simply put, Ehrman implies Christian scholars are dishonest, if not duplicitous, and have engineered a conspiracy to keep the populace from learning the “truth.” Conspiracy theories like this have no place in any serious discussion of these issues.”

However Ehrman suggest, and personally do not find far fetch, that the business of studying Jesus, for this scholars it is no different than that of a worker of a particular brand of manufacture, who it is forced to be loyal to the company name, regardless if in private would prefer to choose his own choice of soap, car, shoes, bottled drink, etc..

It is not necessary to say Bart Ehrman become a pariah in scholarly circles after this outburst!

In other words, are you accusing me of toeing the party line and saying what they wish me to say, and therefor you doubt the integrity of my public opinions?

Well, yes!

When you belong to a church religious denomination, and you get butter for your bread from, but privately can hold an agnostic position, or even an atheist one. Or play both sides, holding Faith but pretending not to with other scholars of a different ilk!

Not that there is any crime on it, in this world with a increasingly Secular majority, but still is intellectually dishonest to pretend otherwise, it is plainly speaking spiritual bankruptcy.

Neither I believe Theology, and the study of scriptures should be the exclusive domain of the believer, since you can study Theology just to prove it is nonsense, or the study of scriptures that can be fascinating, from an anthropological, and archeological historical point. But who are we kidding, if you are getting paid by your church institution, it is threading a fine line between the two sides I find objectionable, and morally troublesome, you cease to believe, why to keep on pretending otherwise?

But what I find excusable perhaps, but hypocritical to say the least, is the ambivalence of it, because you become disappointed with your previous beliefs, and you find yourselves middle aged, maybe old, and cynical, and invested too much effort, and years in to it, and now you lack the courage of proclaiming your new beliefs, the dishearten realization your life has being a waste of your time…or the opposite, saying you agree with the skeptics, but then decided, it is better to lie low, avoid the flak and keep your faith to yourself. Does not this two positions are clearly ambivalent, and dishonest? Or in the better cases a compromise?

At least the position of the mythicist is clear, if not their end result thesis, but those who vouch for the historical Jesus, who instead of having a living spirit in their heart, cling to official agendas regardless of their private beliefs, and keep arguing who was, or was not, the man who was the inspiration of the legendary story of Jesus…well it is sad, and dishonest.

^“15I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! ¹⁶So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” Revelations

Have you guys seen the outpour of movies about King Arthur, Camelot, Excalibur, where the new theme is to explain to our common late Twenty, and early Twenty-One century rationality how a man no different than any of us, but gifted with courage battled invaders, barbarians, thieves, etc. And somehow for the lack of accurate historical records of the times it rose in to a legend, and a few historians, or pseudo historians misguidedly search for proofs of a similar character during that age, with no Magicians of the likes of Merlin, or villains the likes of Morgana, and all that mythological nonsense. I wonder sometimes at the rolling of the eyes of Medieval scholars!

“The legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table is the most powerful and enduring in the western world. King Arthur, Guinevere, and Sir Lancelot did not really exist, but their names conjure up a romantic image of gallant knights in shining armor, elegant ladies in medieval castles, heroic quests for the Holy Grail in a world of honor and romance, and the court of Camelot at the center of a royal and mystical Britain.

The Arthurian legend has existed for over a thousand years and is just as compelling today as it was in the faraway days of its early creators – Geoffrey of Monmouth, Robert de Boron, Chrétien de Troyes, and most majestically: Sir Thomas Malory in his epic work, Le Morte d’Arthur. Countless writers, poets, and artists (not to mention film-makers and now, webmasters) have been inspired by the life and times of King Arthur.”

However if there is an argument between Medieval scholars for the historical Arthur this, it seems, does not make the noise that an historical Jesus do.

If we have no issue believing Geoffrey of Monmouth, Robert de Boron, Chrétien de Troyes, and Sir Thomas Mallory as responsible of our knowledge of the Arthurian legends, why we have such trouble with this other writers; Paul, Mark, Mathew, Luke, and John?

I frankly find this rationalistic new movies about the Arthurian legend, boring, and not near as exciting as John Boorman’s Excalibur, based on Sir Thomas Malory’s book, not only that what they portray it is not accurate historically, since we all agree to be a myth, but in their eagerness to rationalize Myth, they had lost the point of such story! Which of course is not to appeal to our objective left side brain, but to our subjective right side brain, our Hearts…

I do not have a problem with a non historical Jesus to see the greatness of the New Testament, neither I care if the position of the mythicist is true, as a matter of fact, I believe to be so in a general sense, if not in the details, or the particular twist they choose to give to the Jesus story, I agree that the Gospels are Myth, but since they come with so much bogus ideas, in their zeal to discredit belief, God, Jesus, and Religion, they lack depth, and suffer of the modern malady of lacking the use of their right brain, if only they will refrain of speculating wildly about what kind of man was Jesus:

Bandit, political agitator, Doomsday Prophet, Magician, etc. At least a not existent Jesus is an allegory, and a Symbolic entity deserving of imitation. Period!

After all Religions are not isolated phenomena, they thrive on the social historical period of the people who produce them, and they inherit myths, from older Religions and adapt them to their new understanding of their religious experience, after all we shouldn’t forget Christianity despite it’s Jewish, and Hellenistic origins, become the official Religion of Rome:

In the early 4th century, Constantine I became the first emperor to convert to Christianity, launching the era of Christian hegemony. The emperor Julian made a short-lived attempt to revive traditional and Hellenistic religion and to affirm the special status of Judaism, but in 391 under Theodosius I Christianity became the official state religion of Rome, to the exclusion of all others. Pleas for religious tolerance from traditionalists such as the senator Symmachus (d. 402) were rejected, and Christian monotheism became a feature of Imperial domination. Heretics as well as non-Christians were subject to exclusion from public life or persecution, but Rome’s original religious hierarchy and many aspects of its ritual influenced Christian forms, and many pre-Christian beliefs and practices survived in Christian festivals and local traditions.

What it is difficult for me from mythicist, to accept is their believe that the analogies of myths made their religious experience a borrowed copy, and therefor a lie , sort like declaring our constitution a phony, and unoriginal because it is based on previous English experience with constitutional representative government. Expedient perhaps, but a social common phenomenon, they obviously do not understand religious experience, and lack right brain side sensitivity to understand, and realize so.

On the other side for those who uphold dear the historical Jesus, even the existence of a man that was crucified, maybe the leader of a small group of Jewish dissenters from the orthodoxy of the Sanhedrim, and it is my understanding that they may have been many, this does not make one of them the historical Jesus, the one the Gospels of Mark, Luke, Mathew or John were talking about, who to my understanding is the allegory of the Ecce Homo the ideal man every human being should aspire to be, Christ like at the pinnacle of his life, despite the incoming crucifixion.

In my opinion the story of Jesus probably has more to do with small, syncretism Jewish religious groups, who borrowed freely from different traditions, how to explain the Wise men from the East of Mathew?

Syncretism is the combining of different (often contradictory) beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. Syncretism may involve the merger and analogizing of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thus asserting an underlying unity and allowing for an inclusive approach to other faiths.

The Gospel of Matthew, the only one of the four Canonical gospels to mention the Magi, states that they came “from the east” to worship the Christ, “born King of the Jews.” Although the account does not tell how many they were, the three gifts led to a widespread assumption that they were three as well. In the East, the magi traditionally number twelve.

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.'” Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another path.

Excuse to say this gifts are highly Symbolic some speculate they belong to three different Esoteric schools, of Knowledge, represented by the Gold; Alchemy, Frankincense; Astrology, and Myrrh; Theurgy. The fact is the wise man story of Mathew taken as a mere pastoral anecdote, stick as bad as a sore thumb, in a work that is eminently allegorical, and symbolic and syncretic in nature, to deny influences beyond traditional Judaism at the time, it is well known the discontent of orthodox Jewish groups with King Herod he is described as “a madman who murdered his own family and a great many rabbis.” He is also known for his colossal building projects in Jerusalem and elsewhere, including his expansion of the Second Temple in Jerusalem sometimes referred to as Herod’s Temple, and the construction of the port at Caesarea Maritima. Important details of his biography are gleaned from the works of the 1st century CE Roman-Jewish historian Josephus Flavius. Many Jewish groups like the Essenes, believed that the high priest of the Jerusalem Temple was elected on false pretenses, which invalidated the whole Temple cult. Judging by this passage, and many others, it is hard to believe the Gospels were anything but the work of a “New Age” type of Jews, probably looked with contempt, if not with total animosity by the orthodox groups. Paul the clear example of a Hellenistic Jew who basically become the pillar of Christian belief.

No Orthodox Jewish will dare to be as bold as to incorporate Hellenistic, Zoroastrian, or Egyptian symbolism in to the Gospels, it is quite shocking to read the Old Testament virulent rejection of anything foreign to Israel, and the Prophetic tradition, except for obscure passage in Genesis.

And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine: and he was [is] the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, “Blessed be Abram to the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth, And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand”. And he gave him tithe from all.

—Genesis 14:18-20

In the New Testament, references to Melchizedek appear only in the Letter to the Hebrews (later 1st century AD), though these are extensive (Hebrews 5: 6, 10; 6: 20; 7: 1, 10, 11, 15, 17, 21). Jesus Christ is there identified as a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek quoting from Ps. 110:4.And so Jesus assumes the role of High Priest once and for all. Abraham’s transfer of goods to Melchizedek is seen to imply that Melchizedek is superior to Abraham, in that Abraham is tithing to him. Thus, Melchizedek’s (Jesus’) priesthood is superior to the Aaronic priesthood, and the Temple in Jerusalem is now unnecessary.

A collection of early Gnostic scripts dating on or before the 4th-century, discovered in 1945 and known as the Nag Hammadi Library, contains a tractate pertaining to Melchizedek. Here it is proposed that Melchizedek is Jesus Christ.Melchizedek, as Jesus Christ, lives, preaches, dies and is resurrected, in a gnostic perspective. The Coming of the Son of God Melchizedek speaks of his return to bring peace, supported by the gods, and he is a priest-king who dispenses justice. (Check my Post: The Grail) Little effort it is needed to link Melchizedek to Jesus, since he falls in the category of a Universal Priesthood, not from Aaron, or Levite, or even of the house of Israel, but of a Divine Celestial origin.

The Divinity of Jesus

It is the posterior decrees of the Christian church who in Divinizing the man Jesus created the problem of a historical Jesus.

Following the Apostolic Age, from the second century onwards, a number of controversies developed about how the human and divine are related within the person of Jesus. As of the second century, a number of different and opposing approaches developed among various groups. For example, Arianism did not endorse divinity, Ebionism (See my post Via Positiva, Via Negativa) argued Jesus was an ordinary mortal, while Gnosticism held docetic views which argued Christ was a spiritual being who only appeared to have a physical body. The resulting tensions lead to schisms within the church in the second and third centuries, and ecumenical councils were convened in the fourth and fifth centuries to deal with the issues. Eventually, by the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451, the Hypostatic union was decreed—the proposition that Christ has one human nature [physis] and one divine nature [physis], united with neither confusion nor division—making this part of the creed of orthodox Christianity. Although some of the debates seemed to be over a theological iota, they took place in controversial political circumstances and resulted in a schism that formed the Church of the East

In 325, the First Council of Nicaea defined the persons of the Godhead and their relationship with one another – decisions which were again ratified at the First Council of Constantinople in 381. The language used was that the one God exists in three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit); in particular, it was affirmed that the Son was homoousios (of same substance) as the Father. The Nicene Creed declared the full divinity and full humanity of Jesus.

In 431, the First Council of Ephesus was initially called to address the views of Nestorius on Mariology, but the problems soon extended to Christology, and schisms followed. The 431 council was called because in defense of his loyal priest Anastasius, Nestorius had denied the Theotokos title for Mary and later contradicted Proclus during a sermon in Constantinople. Pope Celestine I (who was already upset with Nestorius due to other matters) wrote about this to Cyril of Alexandria, who orchestrated the council. During the council, Nestorius defended his position by arguing there must be two persons of Christ, one human, the other divine, and Mary had given birth only to a human, hence could not be called the Theotokos, i.e. “the one who gives birth to God”. The debate about the single or dual nature of Christ ensued in Ephesus.

The Council of Ephesus debated hypostasis(coexisting natures) versus monophysitism (only one nature) versus miaphysitism (two natures united as one) versus Nestorianism (disunion of two natures). From the Christological viewpoint, the council adopted hypostasis, i.e. coexisting natures, but its language was less definitive than the 451 Council of Chalcedon. The Oriental Orthodox rejected this and subsequent councils and to date consider themselves to be miaphysite. By contrast, Roman Catholics to date believe in the hypostatic union and the Trinity. The council also confirmed the Theotokos title and excommunicated Nestorius.

The 451 Council of Chalcedon was highly influential and marked a key turning point in the Christological debates that broke apart the church of the Eastern Roman Empire in the fifth century.It is the last council which many Anglicans and most Protestants consider ecumenical. It fully promulgated the hypostatic union, stating the human and divine natures of Christ coexist, yet each is distinct and complete. Although, the Chalcedon Creed did not put an end to all Christological debate, it did clarify the terms used and became a point of reference for many future Christology’s. Most of the major branches of Christianity — Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and Reformed — subscribe to the Chalcedon Christological formulation, while many branches of Eastern Christianity – Syrian Orthodoxy, Assyrian Church, Coptic Orthodoxy, Ethiopian Orthodoxy, and Armenian Apostolicism reject it.

It is easy to see how that by that time the politics of the Roman Empire had a lot to do with the standardization of Christianity, in what become the official Religion; The Roman Apostolic Catholic Church, and their Eastern counterparts, also it is easy to understand the reluctance of non believers to accept men hands in to the making of Religion, when supposedly should be a Divine affair, well you can hold to your unbelief, but it is naïve to believe man is not part of the Sacred, therefore the Sacred manifest in man, the actor, and creator of Religion in good faith, or in bad faith, it is all part of the Human condition, that at the same time can manifest in sublime spurts of the spirit, like the Gospels, or in weak, and flawed choices in Religious, or Secular affairs as well! Errare humanum est…

In my view, I posit little faith on a literal Jesus, if the historical Jesus existed, it was a man, like any of us, more virtuous no doubt, if it really existed, he had a Symbolic, rather than a literal resemblance to the allegorical Jesus of the Gospels, who is perfect, more an Archetype, than a real man, I will go as far as giving him the mantle of Prophecy as even not Christians do, like the Moslems who recognize him to be born of a virgin, and a Prophet, but totally human, a servant, not the son of God, as for the Jews they believe will be a man with no special powers to be the Messiah. Nachmanides argued that the central issue separating Christianity and Judaism was not the issue of Jesus’ Messiahship, but whether or not Jesus was divine. There was no basis in Judaism, Nachmanides said, for believing in the divinity of the Messiah or, indeed, of any man. To Nachmanides, it seemed most strange “that the Creator of heaven and earth resorted to the womb of a certain Jewess and grew there for nine months and was born as an infant, and afterwards grew up and was betrayed into the hands of his enemies who sentenced him to death and executed him, and that afterwards… he came to life and returned to his original place. The mind of a Jew, or any other person, cannot tolerate this.” Nachmanides told the Spanish monarch, “You have listened all your life to priests who have filled your brain and the marrow of your bones with this doctrine, and it has settled with you because of that accustomed habit.” Had King James heard these ideas propounded for the first time when he was already an adult, Nachmanides implied, he never would have accepted them.

Perhaps what made Christianity an Institution for the many, and no longer a living experience, but for those fewer who hold Faith as a way of life, is the idea of the Incarnation of God exclusively to Jesus, that excluded Theosis for all Human beings, it is not following the objective of the Way of Jesus to become Christ like?

The Jesus of our Modern and Postmodern age it is tainted by our current Worldview of Rationalism, Science, and Secular ideas, in other words contaminated by our revisionism, and almost a total ignorance of the Worldview of the writers of the books of the New Testament, and I am afraid even many scholars of today are incapable to understand the Religious fervor, and individual Heart enlightenment of this diverse early Christians communities. As I walk through my humble neighborhood, full of new immigrants to this nation, there is so many small churches, sometimes but a little hole in the wall church, where no more than a dozen people sing, cry, jump, and speak in tongues, who possible resembled the fervor of the early Christians at the time of the Gospels, than any of the old ossified Church Institutions were the Spirit is gone, and the parishioner is just a social spectator who may even hold agnostic views of his own, no different than the Priest, Minister, Pastor, or the Scholar of this Institutions, who regard this issues as intellectual ideological positions, not rivers of living water. What is the use of scholarly studies, the many petty debates over a simple word, if there is no longer those rivers flowing?

KOINONIA

In my view the old Religious Institutions will have to transform themselves to the point they wouldn’t be recognized by a Christian of the beginning of the Twenty Century, in order to survive and thrive, if listing to the point of sinking would be avoided, their leaders would have to respond to change, and to a revival of Faith in their own life, to produce the enthusiasm Evangelization requires in the souls of their parishioners, small churches with small congregations, will continue to prosper, as long as they not become too big, and fall in to the error of carelessness, and apathy, that had plagued big established churches, too big to care for one individual, and lost their sense of being one with their congregation, the sense of KOINONIA is the Anglicization of a Greek word (κοινωνία) that means communion by intimate participation. The word is used frequently in the New Testament of the Bible to describe the relationship within the Early Christian church as well as the act of breaking bread in the manner which Christ prescribed during the Passover meal [John 6:48-69, Matthew 26:26-28, 1 Corinthians 10:16, 1 Corinthians 11:24]. As a result the word is used within the Christian Church to participate, as Paul says, in the Communion of Christ, in this manner it identifies the idealized state of fellowship and community that should exist in Communion.

In the New Testament, the basis of communion begins with a joining of Jesus with the community of the faithful. This union is also experienced in practical daily life. The same bonds that link the individual to Jesus also link him or her with other faithful. The New Testament letters describe those bonds as so vital and genuine that a deep level of intimacy can be experienced among the members of a local church.

The first usage of koinonia in the Greek New Testament is found in Acts 2:42-47, where we read a striking description of the common life shared by the early Christian believers in Jerusalem:

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the communion, to the breaking of bread and to prayer…All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need…They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.”

Ultimately the failure of the big Religious Institutions, it was to be expected, they may survive, or not, but if you are a militant Atheist, and you believe Christianity or any other Religion will eventually disappear for the good of mankind, as remnant of a dark past, and Science will be the new torchbearer of Mankind well, don’t hold your breath, you will be disappointed, nothing against Science, on the contrary it is a great tool to deal with the material world, unfortunately has little to offer to the maladies afflicting our subjective self, unless you go along with drugs, and genetic induced paradise ideas, I am afraid despite the triumphs of technology, we have being witness to too much medical malpractice, the side effects of drugs, ecological disasters, and the many ills brought by the use of technologies derived from science discoveries, maybe they will come with a new drug to make people wiser, and avoid lack of judgment! Sorry I am an skeptic when it come to technological Utopias who try to change the exterior circumstances of Man, ignoring the basic premise that at the bottom of it, is just a Philistine desire for making money, not the welfare of Humanity. Meanwhile all this scientific, and technological advances do but little to look within Man to his subjective nature to find “the peace that defies all understanding”…like in antiquity a new wind is blowing and bringing with it a new Spirit:

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the farthest parts of the earth.” Acts 1:8

And Jesus words will be fulfilled:

“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”Mathew 18:20

THE NEGATION OF THE SELF

The failure of Religious scholars in my view it is that they do not recognize the value of the Symbolic, and the Self, under the constant attack of those Materialist, and the unfortunately common trend of many scientist in denying the Self, , in favor of a mechanized, and reductionist view of Man were everything it is reduced to a biological imperative, and there is no room for the Subjective, but as a biochemical synapsis at cellular level, were everything can be conveniently explained as a process of cause, and effect, ignoring that there is no way to replicate such synapsis in individuals who apparently similar may differ subjectively in experience, and therefore in conclusions, like if two individuals reading the same book they must arrive to the same understanding, when we know this is not the case, simply because the variances are practically infinite to be able come to the same understanding, therefor the axiom “if all factors would be identical” or “if we could track back every cause, we will be able to predict the effect”. This “if” it is groundless, and totally a fiction, and therefore of no value to explain actions, and ideas in Man. This is the realm of the Self, and the Subjective. Many Scholars the product of a Scientific education, and the modern age, coward to oppose this materialistic, and reductionist views, or really believe in them, and a lot of them are divided between Faith, and Reason, they are “crucified” in this dichotomy of making sense of an academic construction of facts, based in dates of manuscripts, brought by the pressure of a materialistic understanding of History, in what is clearly a different realm; allegory, and myth in a search for an “Historical Jesus” or the the last bastion of a new trench, for the literal belief of a mythical character, the new term: Historicity of Jesus Christ. I would said rather pointless if the value of your belief hangs precariously on this tenuous hinge, since as we saw previously they do not give proper value to the Self, and the Symbolic, what would be the purpose of the material existence of a Jesus, that has little to do with the Gospels? And what the meaning when Jesus said: “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” John 18: 36-37

THE GNOSTICS

The word gnostic comes from the Greek word gnosis, meaning “knowledge”, which is often used in Greek philosophy in a manner more consistent with the English “enlightenment”. Some scholars continue to maintain traditional dating for the emergence of Gnostic philosophy and religious movements. It is now generally believed that the evidence suggests that Gnosticism was a Jewish movement which subsequently reacted to Christianity or that Gnosticism emerged directly in reaction to Christianity. The name “Christian Gnostics” came to represent a segment of the Early Christian community that believed that salvation lay not in merely worshipping Christ, but in psychic or pneumatic souls learning to free themselves from the material world via the revelation. According to this tradition, the answers to spiritual questions are to be found within, not without.Furthermore, the gnostic path does not require the intermediation of a church for salvation. Some scholars, such as Edward Conze and Elaine Pagels, have suggested that Gnosticism blends teachings like those attributed to Jesus Christ with teachings found in Eastern traditions.

The Nag Hammadi library is a collection of early Christian Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945. Twelve leather-bound papyrus codices buried in a sealed jar were found by a local peasant named Mohammed Ali Samman. The writings in these codices comprised fifty-two mostly Gnostic treatises, but they also include three works belonging to the Corpus Hermeticum and a partial translation/alteration of Plato’s Republic. In his “Introduction” to The Nag Hammadi Library in English, James Robinson suggests that these codices may have belonged to a nearby Pachomian monastery, and were buried after Bishop Athanasius condemned the use of non-canonical books in his Festal Letter of 367 AD.

The contents of the codices were written in the Coptic language, though the works were probably all translations from Greek. The best-known of these works is probably the Gospel of Thomas, of which the Nag Hammadi codices contain the only complete text. After the discovery it was recognized that fragments of these sayings attributed to Jesus appeared in manuscripts discovered at Oxyrhynchus in 1898 (P. Oxy. 1), and matching quotations were recognized in other early Christian sources. Subsequently, a 1st or 2nd century date of composition circa 80 AD has been proposed for the lost Greek originals of the Gospel of Thomas. The buried manuscripts themselves date from the third and forth centuries.

But those who wrote and circulated these texts did not regard themselves as “heretics. Most of the writings use Christian terminology, unmistakable related to a Jewish heritage. Many claim to offer traditions about Jesus that are secret, hidden from “the many” who constitute what, in the second century, came to be called the “catholic church.” These Christians are now called Gnostics, from the Greek word gnosis, usually translated as “knowledge.” For as those who claim to know nothing about ultimate reality are called agnostic (literally, “not knowing”), the person who does claim to know such things is called gnostic (“knowing”). But gnosis is not primarily rational knowledge. The Greek language distinguishes between scientific or reflective knowledge (“He knows mathematics”) and knowing through observation or experience (“He knows me”), which is gnosis. As the Gnostics use the term, we could translate it as “insight,” for gnosis involves an intuitive process of knowing oneself. And to know oneself, they claimed, is to know human nature and human destiny. According to the gnostic teacher Theodotus, writing in Asia Minor (c. 140-160), the gnostic is one has come to understand who we were, and what we have become; where we were… whither we are hastening; from what we are being released; what birth is, and what is rebirth.

Yet to know oneself, at the deepest level, is simultaneously to know God; this is the secret of gnosis. Another gnostic teacher, Monoimus, says:

Abandon the search for God and the creation and other matters of a similar sort. Look for him by taking yourself as the starting point. Learn who it is within you who makes everything his own and says, “My God, my mind, my thought, my soul, my body.” Learn the sources of sorrow:, joy, love, hate . . . If you carefully investigate these matters you will find him in yourself.

Orthodox Jews and Christians insist that a chasm separates humanity from Its creator: God is wholly other. But some of the Gnostics who wrote these gospels contradict this: self-knowledge is knowledge of God; the self and the divine are identical.

Second, the “living Jesus” of these texts speaks of illusion and enlightenment, not of sin and repentance, like the Jesus ofthe New Testament. Instead of coming to save us from sin, he comes as a guide who opens access to spiritual understanding. But when the disciple attains enlightenment, Jesus no longer serves as his spiritual master: the two have become equal–even identical.

Third, orthodox Christians believe that Jesus is Lord and Son of God in a unique way: he remains forever distinct from the rest of humanity whom he came to save. Yet the gnostic Gospel of Thomas relates that as soon as Thomas recognizes him, Jesus says to Thomas that they have both received their being from the same source:

Jesus said, “I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become drunk from the bubbling stream which I have measured out…. He who will drink from my mouth will become as I am: I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him.”

³⁷On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.

³⁸Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”

John 7

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MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH CINEMA, FROM TEN SECONDS TO HELL, HURRICANES, AND THINGS TO COME, CINEMA PARADISO, AN EDUCATION, AND DISILLUSIONMENT

“For me, film making combines everything. That’s the reason I’ve made cinema my life’s work. In films, painting and literature, theater and music come together. But a film is still a film.”

Akira Kurosawa

My love of movies

Growing Up Nurtured by Movies

Cinema Paradiso

My Story, A Matinee, and Things to Come

A Hurricane!

Every employee of the theater had abandoned the theater, including the projectionist, in fact we were the last to leave the now totally wrecked theater, my surprise had no end, when we descended in to the lobby and saw the candy shop under water, and the popcorn floating around!

The theater was located in a low zone of the city, in terrain that very likely was a estuary, or a marsh, if not outright land gained from the ocean, that naturally flooded when a storm of the magnitude of Hurricane Hazel hit the city.

From there we reached high ground on Plaza Revolucion, right at that corner in the picture below, although the plaza didn’t look as nice as in the picture!

Aftermath

Not My First One

H.G. Wells

Thanks to the Internet, and Youtube could solve the mystery, we went to a matinee to watch Things to Come, and what it come was a Hurricane!

Ironically in my town, the oldest of all the theaters, was the only one to survive, and after it’s almost total destruction by another Hurricane in 1975 was beautifully restored and you can appreciate it on the third picture, now the place for all kinds of cultural events.

Wonderful Memories

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE INFLUENCED BY CINEMA, AND OTHER FORMS OF MEDIA.

“When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams — this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness — and maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!”

The Silver Age of Literature

The world’s first hand-tinted motion picture was produced by Thomas Edison’s company, Edison Studios, in 1895, more than 115 years ago. The dancer, Annabelle Moore (1878-1961), was just a teenager when this film was released, and her dance caused both a sensation and a scandal.

And this it’s not an exhaustive list, just a few well known names to a roster of great writers of many nations who wrote great many books in a sort of Silver age of writing after the Golden age of Shakespeare, and Cervantes.

Literature As Art, Or Entertainment?

Exhibit Number One, The Thriller

Thrillers may be defined by the primary mood that they elicit: suspenseful excitement. In short, if it “thrills”, it is a thriller. As the introduction to a major anthology explains:

Hitchcock’s films often placed an innocent victim (an average, responsible person) into a strange, life-threatening or terrorizing situation, in a case of mistaken identity or wrongful accusation.

Exhibit Two, the whodunit

Exhibit Number Three, Science Fiction.

Literature of ideas a most generous name given to this genre, if you ask me, but like in anything there is some good storytellers, far and few needless to say.

A time setting in the future, in alternative timelines, or in a historical past that contradicts known facts of history or the archaeological record.

A spatial setting or scenes in outer space (e.g. spaceflight), on other worlds, or on subterranean earth.

Characters that include aliens, mutants, androids, or humanoid robots and other types of characters arising from a future human evolution.

Futuristic or plausible technology such as ray guns, teleportation machines, and humanoid computers.

Scientific principles that are new or that contradict accepted physical laws, for example time travel, wormholes, or faster-than-light travel or communication.

New and different political or social systems, e.g. Utopian, dystopian, post-scarcity, or post-apocalyptic.

Paranormal abilities such as mind control, telepathy, telekinesis (e.g. “The Force” in Star Wars.)

Other universes or dimensions and travel between them.

As a fellow blogger just read recently describe himself:

“As my faithful readers must have surmised, I like to touch upon a variety of subjects. I was diagnosed “borderline dilettante” at an early age. Fortunately my Juvenile records are sealed. Fiction, non-fiction, gender, travel and the accompanying “yours truly’s” photographs.”

Other Genres

Genre is a label that characterizes elements a reader can expect in a work of literature. The major forms of literature can be written in various genres. Genre is a category characterized by similarities in style, or subject matter.

The classic major genres of literature are:

My original intention was to talk about all of these, however for the sake of brevity we would end this post right here, and we may tackle the subject on further posts.

MY FRIEND BOB, CALENDARS, AND THE RELATIVITY OF SYSTEMS OF MEASURE

Popol Vuh

The Devil’s Advocate

Of course my friend Bob argued that if calendars were arbitrary and relative measures of time why we couldn’t just divide time as we pleased, as simple as cutting a cake in 365 equal parts!

Cuneiform Tablets

No doubt this was simply a practical reason to keep record of any transaction, and in this way to keep people of short memory honest!

Any measure it’s Relative to

Human measure systems

As we saw every planet has it’s own particular conditions, and therefore ruled by different time standards in relation to one another, but this is not so different from our way to measure anything here on Earth.

We had so many calendars through History, by every civilization you can think of, that a whole post wouldn’t be big enough to enumerate, and do justice to the subject. There is Solar calendars, Lunar calendars, and Luni-solar.

A period of four years ending on a leap day was to be called a “Franciade”. The name “Olympique” was originally proposed but changed to Franciade to commemorate the fact that it had taken the revolution four years to establish a republican government in France.

The leap year was called Sextile, an allusion to the “bissextile” leap years of the Julian and Gregorian calendars, because it contained a sixth complementary day.

Every System Had A Utilitarian Purpose

STATIONS VS STATES, THE CASE OF MOTHER TERESA AND HIS CRITICS

A Personal Anecdote

My brother’s friend, naive as he was in those matters try to argue with her about it saying: “But Mother what about all those children who are born out of wedlock and live in poverty, and many are just abandoned, and thrown in to the streets with no help of anybody, by the thousands?”

Mother Teresa looking him on the eye and holding his hand said: “Do you know a child abandoned?”

He answered: “Well no, but I know there is many!”

Mother Teresa still holding his hand said: “Then what business it’s for you to question the church stance on these matters?”

My friend’s brother stammered something about the injustice of it. Mother Teresa smiling said: “Do not worry my son, whenever you find an abandoned child, if you can’t take care of him, bring it to me, I will take care of him, and that will take the worry out of your head.”

Releasing his hand, and walking away she still turn around and said: “Bring as many as you can find, I will take care of all of them!”

Now my friend’s brother despite being a Catholic didn’t like the answer Mother Teresa gave him, and had a poor opinion of her, I sort of smiled and said to him:

“I didn’t knew much about Mother Teresa to have an opinion about her, but now you have left no doubt in my mind Mother Teresa is a saint!”

Mother Teresa Critics