I was watching a documentary, by Bill Maher called Religulous. In it, he mentions some where, that there are 50,000,000 people in the U.S. that are unaffiliated with a religion; last year, '08, I had heard on public radio that there were 30,000,000 people unaffiliated. I always have a skeptical eye with all statistics. Most are a momentary snap shot into what ever is being analysed. For instance, in 2010 the Census will be taken, and as soon as the results are published, the count will have changed, and as a matter of fact, the results would have changed the first day of recording. Also, most statistics take on the bias of the entity initiating the analysis. To me objectivity in relationship to statistics is a misnomer. However, I gave that 30, to 50,000,000 unaffiliated statistic some value because I understand that voluntarily abandoning a religion can be a stepping stone for spiritual seekers. I know that because I lived through that experience, and I intuitively understand that in an developmental way, humans are seeking points of truth to help guide their spiritual progression, especially woman. Where ever there is learning or training in the broad spectrum of human development woman are there, in much greater numbers than men. I believe that the days of men leading the U.S. are numbered, and by the turn of this century, women will have taken most of the leadership roles from men.
Forthcoming, is a synopsis of my experience of abandoning my inherited religion. I had sixteen years of formal religious education: eight years of Catholic Grammar School, four years of Catholic High School, and four years of Catholic College. You would think that such a long, active association with a religion would at least generate a modicum of "real" spiritual identity. It did not.
In grammar school, I went along with religious instruction and tried to put into practice what I had been told. I didn't use foul language, prayed daily, confessed my sins, fasted on appointed days, went to Mass on Sundays, and received the sacraments. Retrospectively, my religious education was comparable to "brain washing," the only difference being I had the consent and approval of my parents and culture. Regular doses of dogma were introduced into my mind, from what I was told to believe an infallible source. The doctrine of the Catholic Church says that the Pope acts infallibly when rendering doctrines or decisions of faith and/or morals. I swallowed whole. I could readily regurgitate doctrine, simulating mastery, and I could practice as though spiritually motivated. In truth, I carried undigested and unfelt concepts, ideas, values, attitudes, and objectives that belonged more to the instructors than to me. My primary motivation behind my religious education was fear of punishment, and not deep-felt convictions or believes. I feared blackening my immortal soul with sin, and the consequence of suffering eternal damnation in hellfire. There were times when I would concentrate so singularly on the idea of eternity that I was able to gain a mental sensation of that idea. I was frightened by that sensation, but I was terrified when I associated that idea of eternity with that of eternal damnation. Accompanying my fear of punishment were anxiety and guilt. I was anxious over the continuous encounters with "mortal sin," and forever guilty over the weakness of my will to resist.
By the time I entered high school, my religious education had become mechanical. I bit off large chunks of Catholic dogma, partially chewed, then swallowed. My spiritual development was completely repressed and overshadowed by the strict infallible doctrine of the Catholic Church. The problem with chasing after other's ideas, values, attitudes, and objectives, I discovered, lies in the area of limited physical energy and misplaced attention. We have on average, a life expectancy of 75 plus years of life. Consequently, any energy misdirected is a squandering. Following others' goals, we spend our scare energy, maximizing their objectives at the direct expense of maximizing our own human potential. In this process of achieving other's goals our minds are also misdirected. The one essential tool necessary for realizing full human potential is occupied with the attainment of subordinate objectives. This kind of misdirected attention limits our mind by narrowing its range of focus and capabilities.
It wasn't until my last year in college that I finally gained enough experience to truly begin, with awareness, directing my destiny. This period too, begins my unfettered search for spiritual identity. Unfettered in that I no longer was bound by the thoughts and desires of authorities other than myself. I had castoff the excess baggage in my mind, and was thrust into the initial stage of becoming my own authority.
I chewed all information thoroughly, digesting and assimilating what I believed valuable, and jettisoned the rest. Now, I looked to outside authorities only for verification of my own ideas, and as a stimulating source of bairn-food. This change in seats of authority brought a complete rethinking of Catholic doctrine. I adapted a skeptical eye with regard to its spiritual value. My daily experiences suggested other less debilitating ideas and concepts more in line with spiritual identification to assimilate and use. I developed a humanistic philosophy which greatly flattened out the idealized Catholic doctrine, and substantially decreased the debilitating effects of fear and guilt. The "Catholic Way" didn't sustain, comfort, or guide my spiritual life. Here I was , 22 years of age, religiously derelict, but ready for spiritual awakening.
There is an important distinction that must be made clear between spiritual and religious. It is like the old argument of what came first, the chicken or the egg. What came first, that which is spiritual or religious? After I voluntarily abandoned my Catholic Faith, many would say, I than also discarded my spiritual life. Most people associate spiritual expression exclusively with religion. However, spiritual expressions are often completely separate from religion. Spiritual expression originates from within human beings, as an expression of their essential spiritual core, and although religious rituals and ceremonies, can initiate a spiritual response, religion is not the source of spirituality. Religion is a direct effect of a spiritual cause. So therefore, as I am a living argument, it is possible for human beings to be highly spiritual without being religious. Even at this late date in my life I remain unaffiliated, and none the worse for it.
For most of us, what is sensed on the material plane is what is believe. The spirit, (our essential core), lies within the medium of the intangible, beyond the ordinary reach of the ordinary use of our senses. Those dependent entirely on ordinary sense perception try to see the spiritual aspect or soul by dissecting the physical organ, the brain. When the senses do not reveal it, they deny its existence. Then there are those who believe the soul exists and that it is the result of the physical form we call the body. Consciousness, thought, soul and all mental phenomena, they say, is a function of the brain. Every special form of thought is a result of the activity of a special portion of the brain. When we see things or think of seen things, the optical convolutions of our brain are activated. A certain portion of the temporal lobes are activated when we hear, and so on. If the brain functions stop, all associated phenomena will instantly cease. Because of our heavy reliance on our ordinary senses, the above reasoning is very difficult to overcome. Most of us stop at this barrier or feebly attempt to cross. The truth cannot be made manifest by philosophically based arguments, they help or by religious doctrines, they also help, but by a honest answer to several questions. When your own heart asks: What happens to me after death? When your own heart asks: Is there something beyond my physical reality? When your own heart asks: How is it that I can sometimes know what is true, and sometimes feel what is beautiful without the use of my reason? How will you respond? Will you rationalize your answers to conform to your affections or will you answer with a heart that unconditionally seeks to understand what is true?
So, brotheren and sisteren of the "unaffiliated," if you have something to say about your unaffiliation send me an e-mail.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
education
Mark Twain is reported to have said that he never let his schooling interfere with his education. That statement seems, at first glance, to be an interplay of synonymous words, used for the purpose of humor, but a closer review exposes, in an overtone of sarcasm, the narrow understanding our society takes with regard to education. Our society clings steadfast to an iron clad understanding of education that says, only formal schooling equals education, Q.E.D. All other types of learning such as, self introspection, "self taught," (we forget that many of our country's founding fathers were self taught), through informal mentorship, or the learning that Twain was alluding too in his statement, bold and informal following of one's own ideas in areas of inquiry not sanctioned by formal schooling. All of the above and more, are viewed by our society as something other then education. In the book, Hard Times, Charles Dickens describes the pedantic attitude of Thomas Gradgrind, a teacher of great reputation.
"With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket sir, ready to weight and measure any parcel of human nature and tell you exactly what it comes to."...
Our society would whole heartily applaud and support Mr. Gradgrind's attitude.
In our society, we allow a system of formal schooling, with its initiated authorities and experts, to define and establish educational objectives and the manner in which learning takes place. These experts, over many decades, lead us through a pedantic maze of intellectualized formulas of education all of which included some form of quantitative evaluation to prove the value of their formulas. The overall result of this quantitative approach to education has been to install a strict framework for educating. That is, it keeps learning strictly on a lower or practical bases which subsequently exercises the lower and lower-middle ranges of human principles. It isn't that the lower and lower-middle principles of human beings should be neglected, but to make of them the foundation on which to build an educational system is at best shortsighted, and at worst an obvious display of ignorance about the true composition of human beings.
In addition to the constricting structure of our education system, its experts have build into it an enforcement process of rewards and punishments. What this enforcement process does is to compound the already low focus of education by directing the student's mind to the low desire to be first, while at the same time inflaming passion for honor. On the other end, it humiliates and depresses all expression not within its education parameters, and it evaluates, classifies, medicates, and names all offenders.
Our education system, as expressed through its institutions, tilts the students mind towards the lower human principles of animal desires and passions, under the false mantle of high intellectual development. Under this system if a student successfully meets the system's objectives and becomes wholly intellectual, his entire nature begins to bend downward, for intellect along is cold, heartless, and selfish, because it is not lighted up by the higher principles.
The sad fact is that most of our formal schooling is pure display or vanity. In his Republic, Plato says, "What the mind can grasp and throw away is vanity." You have been schooled to be good test takers, accurate accountants, award achievers, good employees for the corporate world, etc. etc. Yet as practically beneficial as that schooling may have been, it was not directed at the development of your higher principles; towards helping mold you into a "good" human being. In other words, directed at your higher-self; those more noble characteristics such as, a moral sense, self-sacrifice, compassion, service.
Through some kind of unspoken assignment, that higher part of your education was allotted to religious institutions, parents , and yourself. However, when all the above are products of the same quantitative, intellectualized system of education, all are infected by the same low results. Except for a few brave and unfettered souls like, Mark Twain, Fredrick Douglas, Thoreau, Emerson, and others of the same consciousness, whose lives help us to have a peek under the weighted veil of our own educational confinement, we carry our low educational symptoms around with us, ignorantly contaminating all we contact.
The primary objective of any education system, or any endeavor for that matter, should be to awaken the higher principles of human nature. Given the human composition, and its total involvement with its own process to evolve and express its higher principles, any objective other then the awakening of the higher human nature is a form of vanity. You have at your life core the spark of the Supreme-Consciousness-Power of the Universe, and to recognize and express that god-hood is the most fundamental of human objectives.
To those educational experts who are today in an uproar over the inability of the current educational system to educate, and are under pressure to find a more comprehensive way to educate, let them read a simple book called, The Education of Little Tree, by Forrest Carter. The entire book is a manual for the successful education of children, and in the chapter entitled, Mr. Wine, the secret to a successful system of education is revealed.
"Mr. Wine said figuring was important. He said education was a
two-part proposition. One part was technical, which was how you
moved ahead in your trade. He said he was for getting more modern
in that end of education. But, he said the other part you had better
stick to and not change it. He called it valuing.
Mr. Wine said if you learnt to place a value on being honest and thrifty,
on doing your best, and caring for folks; this was more important than anything.
He said if you was not taught these values, then no matter how modern you got
about the technical part, you was not going to get any wheres atall.
As a matter of fact, the more modern you get without these
valuings, then you would more than likely use the modern things for bad and
destroying and ruining."...
I will let Charles Dickens have the final words on this topic. In his book, Hard Times, Dickens exposes an ironic flaw in the esteemed teacher, Thomas Gradgind:
"If he had only learned a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more."
"With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket sir, ready to weight and measure any parcel of human nature and tell you exactly what it comes to."...
Our society would whole heartily applaud and support Mr. Gradgrind's attitude.
In our society, we allow a system of formal schooling, with its initiated authorities and experts, to define and establish educational objectives and the manner in which learning takes place. These experts, over many decades, lead us through a pedantic maze of intellectualized formulas of education all of which included some form of quantitative evaluation to prove the value of their formulas. The overall result of this quantitative approach to education has been to install a strict framework for educating. That is, it keeps learning strictly on a lower or practical bases which subsequently exercises the lower and lower-middle ranges of human principles. It isn't that the lower and lower-middle principles of human beings should be neglected, but to make of them the foundation on which to build an educational system is at best shortsighted, and at worst an obvious display of ignorance about the true composition of human beings.
In addition to the constricting structure of our education system, its experts have build into it an enforcement process of rewards and punishments. What this enforcement process does is to compound the already low focus of education by directing the student's mind to the low desire to be first, while at the same time inflaming passion for honor. On the other end, it humiliates and depresses all expression not within its education parameters, and it evaluates, classifies, medicates, and names all offenders.
Our education system, as expressed through its institutions, tilts the students mind towards the lower human principles of animal desires and passions, under the false mantle of high intellectual development. Under this system if a student successfully meets the system's objectives and becomes wholly intellectual, his entire nature begins to bend downward, for intellect along is cold, heartless, and selfish, because it is not lighted up by the higher principles.
The sad fact is that most of our formal schooling is pure display or vanity. In his Republic, Plato says, "What the mind can grasp and throw away is vanity." You have been schooled to be good test takers, accurate accountants, award achievers, good employees for the corporate world, etc. etc. Yet as practically beneficial as that schooling may have been, it was not directed at the development of your higher principles; towards helping mold you into a "good" human being. In other words, directed at your higher-self; those more noble characteristics such as, a moral sense, self-sacrifice, compassion, service.
Through some kind of unspoken assignment, that higher part of your education was allotted to religious institutions, parents , and yourself. However, when all the above are products of the same quantitative, intellectualized system of education, all are infected by the same low results. Except for a few brave and unfettered souls like, Mark Twain, Fredrick Douglas, Thoreau, Emerson, and others of the same consciousness, whose lives help us to have a peek under the weighted veil of our own educational confinement, we carry our low educational symptoms around with us, ignorantly contaminating all we contact.
The primary objective of any education system, or any endeavor for that matter, should be to awaken the higher principles of human nature. Given the human composition, and its total involvement with its own process to evolve and express its higher principles, any objective other then the awakening of the higher human nature is a form of vanity. You have at your life core the spark of the Supreme-Consciousness-Power of the Universe, and to recognize and express that god-hood is the most fundamental of human objectives.
To those educational experts who are today in an uproar over the inability of the current educational system to educate, and are under pressure to find a more comprehensive way to educate, let them read a simple book called, The Education of Little Tree, by Forrest Carter. The entire book is a manual for the successful education of children, and in the chapter entitled, Mr. Wine, the secret to a successful system of education is revealed.
"Mr. Wine said figuring was important. He said education was a
two-part proposition. One part was technical, which was how you
moved ahead in your trade. He said he was for getting more modern
in that end of education. But, he said the other part you had better
stick to and not change it. He called it valuing.
Mr. Wine said if you learnt to place a value on being honest and thrifty,
on doing your best, and caring for folks; this was more important than anything.
He said if you was not taught these values, then no matter how modern you got
about the technical part, you was not going to get any wheres atall.
As a matter of fact, the more modern you get without these
valuings, then you would more than likely use the modern things for bad and
destroying and ruining."...
I will let Charles Dickens have the final words on this topic. In his book, Hard Times, Dickens exposes an ironic flaw in the esteemed teacher, Thomas Gradgind:
"If he had only learned a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more."
Sunday, April 5, 2009
crying out into the wilderness of existence
I cried out into the wilderness of existence,
hearing only reverberations of my own voice.
When the last echo died, silence appeared, and
within it, I heard a voice; not with my ears,
but with my soul.
The voice said, "Compassion and advancement
are the hungers of the Universe; divinity is an
inherent legacy of humans; consciousness is the
Ultimate Power, and all are unified within that
Power; physical death is the end of one cycle
and the beginning of the next."
Through the Voice in the Silence, I found
the "path," and a companion to travel with.
hearing only reverberations of my own voice.
When the last echo died, silence appeared, and
within it, I heard a voice; not with my ears,
but with my soul.
The voice said, "Compassion and advancement
are the hungers of the Universe; divinity is an
inherent legacy of humans; consciousness is the
Ultimate Power, and all are unified within that
Power; physical death is the end of one cycle
and the beginning of the next."
Through the Voice in the Silence, I found
the "path," and a companion to travel with.
in silence
In silence, a man dwells within himself;
bringing forth the stillness for a reckoning.
Sitting nose to nose with his truth,
he unmasks his true purposes,
his true motives.
He opens his fears, pierces his latent desires,
and animates his most secret thoughts.
He dares to compare the wrong things
with the right ones.
"And when I am pinned and wriggling
on the wall, then how shall I begin?"*
Then in a final summation, with whom
can he make his appeal?
*from T.S. Eliot's, "Love Song of J. Alfred Proof Rock"
bringing forth the stillness for a reckoning.
Sitting nose to nose with his truth,
he unmasks his true purposes,
his true motives.
He opens his fears, pierces his latent desires,
and animates his most secret thoughts.
He dares to compare the wrong things
with the right ones.
"And when I am pinned and wriggling
on the wall, then how shall I begin?"*
Then in a final summation, with whom
can he make his appeal?
*from T.S. Eliot's, "Love Song of J. Alfred Proof Rock"
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
does anyone know what it is like?
"Danny's dead? It can't be!
I played handball with him
two days ago. He seemed fine then."
He died , sitting in his chair
in front of the TV; reading the
TV Guide.
Two days ago, I had a friend,
today he is gone.
The unsettling part of that idea is that
I am in the same death line as Danny.
His death moves me closer to mine.
As soon as your life is spawned
on Earth, so is your death.
In the beginning your position
in the line of death is so far behind
that it takes decades to realize you
are even in line.
However, the movement towards
death is relentless, closer, closer,
second by second.
You call to those ahead of you,
"Does anyone know what it is like?
If you do please tell."
No answer, only the steady movement
forward.
Each generation marches, with growing
trepidation, to the precipice of death and
invariable falls in.
One by one, an entire generation gone,
and marching from the rear, the next
generation.
Each calling ahead, as did the previous
generation, "Does anyone know what it is
like? If you do please tell me."
And as always, no answer; only the steady
movement towards the inevitable.
I played handball with him
two days ago. He seemed fine then."
He died , sitting in his chair
in front of the TV; reading the
TV Guide.
Two days ago, I had a friend,
today he is gone.
The unsettling part of that idea is that
I am in the same death line as Danny.
His death moves me closer to mine.
As soon as your life is spawned
on Earth, so is your death.
In the beginning your position
in the line of death is so far behind
that it takes decades to realize you
are even in line.
However, the movement towards
death is relentless, closer, closer,
second by second.
You call to those ahead of you,
"Does anyone know what it is like?
If you do please tell."
No answer, only the steady movement
forward.
Each generation marches, with growing
trepidation, to the precipice of death and
invariable falls in.
One by one, an entire generation gone,
and marching from the rear, the next
generation.
Each calling ahead, as did the previous
generation, "Does anyone know what it is
like? If you do please tell me."
And as always, no answer; only the steady
movement towards the inevitable.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
my two cents
"My two cents" is a phrase used to add one's personal opinion to current conditions where every one is giving an opinion. With the great volume of advice given out freely "My two cents" adds to that volume only two cents worth. My friend Burke and I worked for a private high school, and at lunch, as we reviewed the administration's latest policy, he would invariably say, "If my opinion counted for something, here is what I would say." So even though one's opinion means little in the ocean of opinion, there is an impulse to say it regardless. As an empirical proof of that, think of all the call-in radio shows, there are always people ready and willing to give their opinion; think of the TV programs where "public" opinion and voting is solicited as a main part of the show. Here is my two cents about our current economic crisis.
If you read my early '08 blogs, "Donkey Economics," and "Emancipation from Donkey Economics," you would have gotten the idea that our economic condition at that time was dangerously, over inflated. We were on a rampage of consumer spending, stimulated and pressured by economic propaganda ,(keep the economy fired up by consumption its your duty) and advertisement (see this flat screen TV, how about this i-pod, haven't the cash, no problem, use your credit card, every one else uses theirs; why deprive yourself, you deserve it). It was a "perfect storm" of consumer obsessive, inflamed desire, meeting with businesses insatiable appetite for profit, and the ambition and greed of financial institutions to take advantage of the opportunity granted by Congress for every American to partake in the"dream" of owning a home. This was a run away train moving towards an inevitable crash, and the most remarkable reality of it was, nobody saw it coming. It was like, a person crossing a railroad crossing, and finding a wallet between the rails; opening it up and finding many $100 bills in the fold, and then to count the money wright where he stands, oblivious to the train rolling right at him. The most cogent telltale sign I heard that the bust was coming, is when I heard some one on the radio, interviewing a person who had just been evicted from his apartment because he could not pay the rent. The interviewer asked the man what he was going to do, and the man said, very matter of factually, "I will buy a house."
As the economic bubble burst, and the damaging effects began to spread through out the US and the world, every one started to point fingers and supplying causes: the greed of the financial institutions, the politics of Congress, the hands off or blind eye response by the oversight bodies to high risk financial instruments being traded, the free wheeling strategies used by the mortgage institutions, the criminal input by Madoff, Petters, Stanford, and the like, and lets not forget the greed and "getting and spending" obsession by the millions of credit card users, (we the people). It is obvious that there is enough blame for everyone to accept and the degree of blame is in relationship to the opportunity afforded to advance your greed. For instance, if "we the people" had an opportunity to trade "derivatives" and/or "swaps" gaining mega-profits, would most of us do so? The answer is, fill in the blank_____.
The understanding for the economic bubble and its bursting comes under the heading of, the principle of Karma. "Hold on!" I can hear you say. "You are going to explain economic causes and effects by applying a philosophical principle? Unorthodox to say the least." Yes I am.
The word, "karma" is the nominative form of the Sanskrit word, "karman," literally meaning, doing or making; action. The idea of karma is not indigenous to any specific culture. Although the East has embraced the idea as a fundamental doctrine most closely suited to their spiritual bend of mind. Karma is more a principle or universal law than a developed philosophical doctrine. It is analogous to the scientific principle of gravity, where its universal application and manifestation is taken as an immutable law. However, karma is far more universal in its application, and virtually eternal in its expression.
The keynote of karma is balance and harmony. Nature works incessantly to restore equilibrium wherever it is disturbed. Science knows of this balance-reaction as the law of "cause and effect;"that every action and reaction are equal and opposite. Science focuses exclusive attention on the phenomenal causes and effects or in other words, the outside wrapping in our world. Karma's focus is on the comprehensive world; the world outside and inside, unerringly considering all planes: the physical, psychic, moral, and spiritual. Karma considers human beings to be the initiators of their own causes, and as such, are directly and totality responsible for the consequences of those causes. Every thought, word, or deed is karmaicly tied to its initiator.
When a human desires (intends), thinks thoughts, or acts he creates an expenditure if his own native energy. His energy puts into motion an effect that brings forth either an instantaneous or delayed reaction, and that reaction in turn impacts his immediate environment, including Nature in general. In other words, Nature reacts against the impact of a human's expended native energy, and the combination of these two causative and reactive energies is what is called karma.
Karma, as an active principle, is all embracing. It goes beyond the idea of moral retribution. However, most people in the US have an understanding of karma at an individual moral level. You hear people say, "That is good karma," "That is bad karma," "If you want to dance you have to pay the band," or "What goes around, comes around." Karma incorporates causes put into motion by all of Nature, from atom to star. Nothing escapes this great "law," for it operates within the infinite breath of Universal Nature. The inference here is that not only is there individual karma, but also national karma, international karma, global karma, cosmic karma, galactic karma, and all the way down the micro side, atomic karma, etc.
The "jessed," following the idea of karma, is the result of individual and collective, national and international excessive, intention, thinking, and action about "getting and spending," profit, wealth ambition, supplemented by hubris and greed. All that initiated energy interfaces with Nature and Nature responds by ingesting the excessive energy, than working to bring balance and harmony. Nothing can sustain itself forever. Even our great light and life giver, the Sun, must succumb to Nature's cycles of birth, growth, decay, and death. Presently, we have cycled into a recovery and balancing stage, and its duration is related to the degree of negative energy expended. Full recovery, then is probably several years away, but remember, the cyclic wheel continues to revolve, inevitably bringing future economic bubbles and busts. The severity of the next bubble directly depends on our awareness of the causes and conditions of this current economic depression, and the degree of our positive energetic application for healing it.
If you read my early '08 blogs, "Donkey Economics," and "Emancipation from Donkey Economics," you would have gotten the idea that our economic condition at that time was dangerously, over inflated. We were on a rampage of consumer spending, stimulated and pressured by economic propaganda ,(keep the economy fired up by consumption its your duty) and advertisement (see this flat screen TV, how about this i-pod, haven't the cash, no problem, use your credit card, every one else uses theirs; why deprive yourself, you deserve it). It was a "perfect storm" of consumer obsessive, inflamed desire, meeting with businesses insatiable appetite for profit, and the ambition and greed of financial institutions to take advantage of the opportunity granted by Congress for every American to partake in the"dream" of owning a home. This was a run away train moving towards an inevitable crash, and the most remarkable reality of it was, nobody saw it coming. It was like, a person crossing a railroad crossing, and finding a wallet between the rails; opening it up and finding many $100 bills in the fold, and then to count the money wright where he stands, oblivious to the train rolling right at him. The most cogent telltale sign I heard that the bust was coming, is when I heard some one on the radio, interviewing a person who had just been evicted from his apartment because he could not pay the rent. The interviewer asked the man what he was going to do, and the man said, very matter of factually, "I will buy a house."
As the economic bubble burst, and the damaging effects began to spread through out the US and the world, every one started to point fingers and supplying causes: the greed of the financial institutions, the politics of Congress, the hands off or blind eye response by the oversight bodies to high risk financial instruments being traded, the free wheeling strategies used by the mortgage institutions, the criminal input by Madoff, Petters, Stanford, and the like, and lets not forget the greed and "getting and spending" obsession by the millions of credit card users, (we the people). It is obvious that there is enough blame for everyone to accept and the degree of blame is in relationship to the opportunity afforded to advance your greed. For instance, if "we the people" had an opportunity to trade "derivatives" and/or "swaps" gaining mega-profits, would most of us do so? The answer is, fill in the blank_____.
The understanding for the economic bubble and its bursting comes under the heading of, the principle of Karma. "Hold on!" I can hear you say. "You are going to explain economic causes and effects by applying a philosophical principle? Unorthodox to say the least." Yes I am.
The word, "karma" is the nominative form of the Sanskrit word, "karman," literally meaning, doing or making; action. The idea of karma is not indigenous to any specific culture. Although the East has embraced the idea as a fundamental doctrine most closely suited to their spiritual bend of mind. Karma is more a principle or universal law than a developed philosophical doctrine. It is analogous to the scientific principle of gravity, where its universal application and manifestation is taken as an immutable law. However, karma is far more universal in its application, and virtually eternal in its expression.
The keynote of karma is balance and harmony. Nature works incessantly to restore equilibrium wherever it is disturbed. Science knows of this balance-reaction as the law of "cause and effect;"that every action and reaction are equal and opposite. Science focuses exclusive attention on the phenomenal causes and effects or in other words, the outside wrapping in our world. Karma's focus is on the comprehensive world; the world outside and inside, unerringly considering all planes: the physical, psychic, moral, and spiritual. Karma considers human beings to be the initiators of their own causes, and as such, are directly and totality responsible for the consequences of those causes. Every thought, word, or deed is karmaicly tied to its initiator.
When a human desires (intends), thinks thoughts, or acts he creates an expenditure if his own native energy. His energy puts into motion an effect that brings forth either an instantaneous or delayed reaction, and that reaction in turn impacts his immediate environment, including Nature in general. In other words, Nature reacts against the impact of a human's expended native energy, and the combination of these two causative and reactive energies is what is called karma.
Karma, as an active principle, is all embracing. It goes beyond the idea of moral retribution. However, most people in the US have an understanding of karma at an individual moral level. You hear people say, "That is good karma," "That is bad karma," "If you want to dance you have to pay the band," or "What goes around, comes around." Karma incorporates causes put into motion by all of Nature, from atom to star. Nothing escapes this great "law," for it operates within the infinite breath of Universal Nature. The inference here is that not only is there individual karma, but also national karma, international karma, global karma, cosmic karma, galactic karma, and all the way down the micro side, atomic karma, etc.
The "jessed," following the idea of karma, is the result of individual and collective, national and international excessive, intention, thinking, and action about "getting and spending," profit, wealth ambition, supplemented by hubris and greed. All that initiated energy interfaces with Nature and Nature responds by ingesting the excessive energy, than working to bring balance and harmony. Nothing can sustain itself forever. Even our great light and life giver, the Sun, must succumb to Nature's cycles of birth, growth, decay, and death. Presently, we have cycled into a recovery and balancing stage, and its duration is related to the degree of negative energy expended. Full recovery, then is probably several years away, but remember, the cyclic wheel continues to revolve, inevitably bringing future economic bubbles and busts. The severity of the next bubble directly depends on our awareness of the causes and conditions of this current economic depression, and the degree of our positive energetic application for healing it.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
virtue
Virtue! When was the last time you heard that word? Perhaps it was in Catechism Class or Sunday School or spoken by some preacher 40 years ago. Now days, unless you are 50 or 60 years old, you would not know about virtue. I would guess, young people today do not know the meaning of the word. These days no one that I can hear, speaks or cares to know about virtue: not teachers, or preachers, nor parents. Most of us expend our mental and physical energy around ideas of, economic gain, sensual pleasure or entertainment of one form or another. Who in their 21st. Century right mind, would be caught wasting their time either thinking about virtue or becoming virtuous?
However, it was not that long ago, 50 years or more, that the idea of virtue and its practice was culturally valued. At age 11, I started working-out at the local YMCA. As soon you walked through the door you would see plaques hanging on the wall with words such as, courage, honesty, fortitude. This was not an extraordinary sighting. Schools, public places, even factories had these kinds of displays of virtue. Back then, virtue was so much in the cultural consciousness that it was included as a part of the curriculum of public and private, elementary, high schools, colleges and universities, in the form of Common Courtesy and Civic Responsibility. Virtue, as a cultural aim is not some aberration. It has ancient roots. In ancient China, for instance, under Confucianism justice and peace was its foundation. The ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, and Rome were centered around the virtuous ideas of impersonal justice and trained reason.
Although virtue in our society is not generally proclaimed or openly pursued, it is not dead. If we pay close attention to the news papers, magazines, books, or TV news programs, you will find acts of virtue being displayed every day and every where. Acts of courage, were a stranger risks his or her life to save the life of an unknown accident victim. Wisdom, from a fifteen year old, who's death by disease is eminent, but transcends his misfortune by sharing his wisdom of life and coming death with others. Humility, from an athlete who credits her success to her god, her parents, family and friends. Virtue is not dead, but for the majority of us there is little interest for its awakening. We are obsessed with "getting and spending," which is the lowest quality of our mind use. Therefore, we have lost sight of the bases of virtue and cannot call it up. What is the bases of virtue?
When the ancient sages explained virtue they related it to soul. The soul, they said is the vehicle of the energy-consciousness that makes up our being, and to any consciousness and its corresponding soul, there are three qualities or characteristics. The first quality, (moving from highest to lowest), is light or truth. The second is passion or desire. The third is indifference or darkness. The first quality by reason of its lucidity and peacefulness attaches to knowledge and pleasure. The second produces thirst and propensity, imprisoning the Ego through the consequences produced from action. The third is the offspring of the indifference in nature, and is the deluder of all creatures and imprisons the Ego in the body through heedless folly, sleep, and idleness. These three qualities run through out the web of Nature, each participating of the nature of the other, yet each one possessing its predominant quality or characteristic. However not one of these three can be considered apart from the other two. When the higher quality prevails over the lower two qualities then virtue is ignited and expressed. When the lower qualities prevail over the highest then vice is ignited and expressed. Simply then, we have lost our virtuous sight because we have allowed our lowest qualities to bend away from our highest quality and allowed their dominance.
Forty or fifty years ago, the higher quality of our mind was inspired to virtue out of a conviction fostered by Christianity that an almighty, personal god demanded, under pain of eternal punishment, compliance to a moral code of conduct. This particular moral code spelled out prescriptions necessary for its achievement through virtues. For instance, Christianity teaches the three Cardinal Virtues: faith, hope, and charity. In St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, he writes, ..."the Spirit produces: love, joy, peace, patients, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." All religions the world over, have some where in their teachings describe, according to their own religious point of view, virtues; prescribing specific habits of conduct as a necessary ingredient for heavenly rewards. For instance, in the Dhammapada (the teachings of Gautama the Buddha), the Buddhists teach, The Noble Eightfold Path: 1. right insight, right understanding, right vision, 2. right aspiration, right thoughts, 3. right speech, 4. right action, 5. right livelihood, right living, 6. right effort, 7. right memory, right mindfulness, 8. right concentration.
Over the past 4or5 decades the high mind quality of virtue has slowly been supplanted by the lower qualities. Scientific theories about the genesis of human beings, and our solar system began to challenge the religious teaching of creation and to erode the idea of an almighty, personal god. Therefore the moral bases ( the religious truth and belief in that truth) upon which virtue stood began to waver, giving the lower qualities a foot hole. Now days the truth has a more secular, relative moral bases that takes on new ideas issued forth from science, sometimes blending the new idea with an accepted truth or entirely discarding the old truth and replacing it the new. Under this relative moral bases, conduct has the freedom to float around and find its own level of truth. Because there is no moral tether, conduct fluctuates allowing the lower qualities to dominate bringing thirst and propensity aiming at vice in all its forms, and also brings an indifference, an apathy making it easy to comply to the low desire.
If you widen your view about the appearance and expression virtue you might find that virtue like all things revolves; times and conditions unfold to foster the expression of virtue and also to restrict its expression. Currently we seem to be cycling out of a restrictive phase of virtue. For the last decade or more our lower qualities have taken root in an ultra conservative environment created by strict moral Christian truth. Empirically you would think this kind of an environment would be fertile ground upon which virtue to grow, but because of its extreme agenda motivated out of the fear from 9/11 restricting our liberties, a strong backlash deflated its momentum. Now the sounds of virtue are vibrating through our nation and the world-hope, charity, and unity; "...together we stand, divided we fall"...
Virtue should be placed upon the highest truth, then walk the middle path so as to keep the extremes at bay. That all humans are the Face of God in essence, and that they have come into these spheres of matter for purposes of universal work, and that they are failing in their duty, they are failing in their relationship to their own higher essence, if that duty be not accomplished. Living under this universal truth, if you told a human to be good because it is good to be good, the knowledge of his divine essence allows his higher self to understand truth, and he will do good because it is right. The "right" action becomes the innermost law of being , he does "right" not because it pays or avoids self-injury, but because, beyond all argument he must. When a human realizes that he or she is one with all that is, inward and outward, high and low, not merely as members of a community are one, not merely as individuals of an army are one, but like the molecules of our own flesh, like atoms of the molecules, like the electrons of the atoms-not a mere union but a spiritual unity-then he or she sees truth; and from that vision has a living bases for morality; and from that bases can confidently and with purity practice virtue.
I will end this blog with ideas about virtue from Gautama the Buddha, one of the greatest spiritual teachers who ever walked our earth, as written in the Dhammapada, Canto IV:
"The fragrance of f lowers does not travel against the wind, be it that
of sandalwood, tagara, or jasmine. But the fragrance of a virtuous man
travels even against the wind. The virtuous man pervades all directions.
However, it was not that long ago, 50 years or more, that the idea of virtue and its practice was culturally valued. At age 11, I started working-out at the local YMCA. As soon you walked through the door you would see plaques hanging on the wall with words such as, courage, honesty, fortitude. This was not an extraordinary sighting. Schools, public places, even factories had these kinds of displays of virtue. Back then, virtue was so much in the cultural consciousness that it was included as a part of the curriculum of public and private, elementary, high schools, colleges and universities, in the form of Common Courtesy and Civic Responsibility. Virtue, as a cultural aim is not some aberration. It has ancient roots. In ancient China, for instance, under Confucianism justice and peace was its foundation. The ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, and Rome were centered around the virtuous ideas of impersonal justice and trained reason.
Although virtue in our society is not generally proclaimed or openly pursued, it is not dead. If we pay close attention to the news papers, magazines, books, or TV news programs, you will find acts of virtue being displayed every day and every where. Acts of courage, were a stranger risks his or her life to save the life of an unknown accident victim. Wisdom, from a fifteen year old, who's death by disease is eminent, but transcends his misfortune by sharing his wisdom of life and coming death with others. Humility, from an athlete who credits her success to her god, her parents, family and friends. Virtue is not dead, but for the majority of us there is little interest for its awakening. We are obsessed with "getting and spending," which is the lowest quality of our mind use. Therefore, we have lost sight of the bases of virtue and cannot call it up. What is the bases of virtue?
When the ancient sages explained virtue they related it to soul. The soul, they said is the vehicle of the energy-consciousness that makes up our being, and to any consciousness and its corresponding soul, there are three qualities or characteristics. The first quality, (moving from highest to lowest), is light or truth. The second is passion or desire. The third is indifference or darkness. The first quality by reason of its lucidity and peacefulness attaches to knowledge and pleasure. The second produces thirst and propensity, imprisoning the Ego through the consequences produced from action. The third is the offspring of the indifference in nature, and is the deluder of all creatures and imprisons the Ego in the body through heedless folly, sleep, and idleness. These three qualities run through out the web of Nature, each participating of the nature of the other, yet each one possessing its predominant quality or characteristic. However not one of these three can be considered apart from the other two. When the higher quality prevails over the lower two qualities then virtue is ignited and expressed. When the lower qualities prevail over the highest then vice is ignited and expressed. Simply then, we have lost our virtuous sight because we have allowed our lowest qualities to bend away from our highest quality and allowed their dominance.
Forty or fifty years ago, the higher quality of our mind was inspired to virtue out of a conviction fostered by Christianity that an almighty, personal god demanded, under pain of eternal punishment, compliance to a moral code of conduct. This particular moral code spelled out prescriptions necessary for its achievement through virtues. For instance, Christianity teaches the three Cardinal Virtues: faith, hope, and charity. In St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, he writes, ..."the Spirit produces: love, joy, peace, patients, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." All religions the world over, have some where in their teachings describe, according to their own religious point of view, virtues; prescribing specific habits of conduct as a necessary ingredient for heavenly rewards. For instance, in the Dhammapada (the teachings of Gautama the Buddha), the Buddhists teach, The Noble Eightfold Path: 1. right insight, right understanding, right vision, 2. right aspiration, right thoughts, 3. right speech, 4. right action, 5. right livelihood, right living, 6. right effort, 7. right memory, right mindfulness, 8. right concentration.
Over the past 4or5 decades the high mind quality of virtue has slowly been supplanted by the lower qualities. Scientific theories about the genesis of human beings, and our solar system began to challenge the religious teaching of creation and to erode the idea of an almighty, personal god. Therefore the moral bases ( the religious truth and belief in that truth) upon which virtue stood began to waver, giving the lower qualities a foot hole. Now days the truth has a more secular, relative moral bases that takes on new ideas issued forth from science, sometimes blending the new idea with an accepted truth or entirely discarding the old truth and replacing it the new. Under this relative moral bases, conduct has the freedom to float around and find its own level of truth. Because there is no moral tether, conduct fluctuates allowing the lower qualities to dominate bringing thirst and propensity aiming at vice in all its forms, and also brings an indifference, an apathy making it easy to comply to the low desire.
If you widen your view about the appearance and expression virtue you might find that virtue like all things revolves; times and conditions unfold to foster the expression of virtue and also to restrict its expression. Currently we seem to be cycling out of a restrictive phase of virtue. For the last decade or more our lower qualities have taken root in an ultra conservative environment created by strict moral Christian truth. Empirically you would think this kind of an environment would be fertile ground upon which virtue to grow, but because of its extreme agenda motivated out of the fear from 9/11 restricting our liberties, a strong backlash deflated its momentum. Now the sounds of virtue are vibrating through our nation and the world-hope, charity, and unity; "...together we stand, divided we fall"...
Virtue should be placed upon the highest truth, then walk the middle path so as to keep the extremes at bay. That all humans are the Face of God in essence, and that they have come into these spheres of matter for purposes of universal work, and that they are failing in their duty, they are failing in their relationship to their own higher essence, if that duty be not accomplished. Living under this universal truth, if you told a human to be good because it is good to be good, the knowledge of his divine essence allows his higher self to understand truth, and he will do good because it is right. The "right" action becomes the innermost law of being , he does "right" not because it pays or avoids self-injury, but because, beyond all argument he must. When a human realizes that he or she is one with all that is, inward and outward, high and low, not merely as members of a community are one, not merely as individuals of an army are one, but like the molecules of our own flesh, like atoms of the molecules, like the electrons of the atoms-not a mere union but a spiritual unity-then he or she sees truth; and from that vision has a living bases for morality; and from that bases can confidently and with purity practice virtue.
I will end this blog with ideas about virtue from Gautama the Buddha, one of the greatest spiritual teachers who ever walked our earth, as written in the Dhammapada, Canto IV:
"The fragrance of f lowers does not travel against the wind, be it that
of sandalwood, tagara, or jasmine. But the fragrance of a virtuous man
travels even against the wind. The virtuous man pervades all directions.
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