The Problem With Women Today

[Shahrazad]

Alex,

The answer to David's question was easy, you dimwit. I only see two reasons why you didn't answer it: (1) you are too stupid; (2) you are too dishonest, and did not want to accept defeat.

You're not the sharpest knife in the drawer, to be sure,

You seem to be saying you think you're smarter than me. Do you have a way of showing this? Like, can you challenge me to an intelligence test, one where you cannot cheat by getting someone else to answer for you? If not, shut the fuck up already.
As David said before, nobody is falling for your little numbers here anyhow.

[Alex Jacob]

David surely knows what end is up...

How would you have answered the question, Shah?

Here it is again:

(Jesus said) "Make every effort to enter through that narrow gate, for few find it", or when Buddha said, "Only one in a thousand seek enlightenment and, of those, only one in a thousand attain it", what do you think is happening there?"

(Taping foot impatiently).

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Alex, Shah's reply, which answers the question entirely, would have been:

Don't you think it just a wee bit absurd that, in effect, you place yourself on this platform? You are almost acting like a Sadducee with such a trick question. Next, you'll ask for a coin and ask 'Whose image is this?'

I am going to have to feed your ass to the lions!

To be truthful, I feel a connection through Ramakrishna to what I understand of his 'enlightenment': the experience of coming home, of returning. It is easier, I think, to grasp Ramakrishna than it is to grasp the Jesus of the Gospels. There is too much in the texts themselves that impedes understanding. I find that the Gospels can't really be relied on to understand Jesus because the figure of Jesus is somehow quite unreal, as are most of the personages and situations in the Gospels. It is like a kind of cheap Moral Theatre.

But, there is something. One of the reasons (just my opinion) that there has never been and can never be a realistic portrayal of Jesus; when you place anyone in that role you see that it could never be pulled off, and it always seems to turn into melodrama. But there is something that one senses in the Gospels: the presence of a very powerful personalility. Or, there had to be a very powerful personality to have set in motion all that was set in motion in history. Such a thing doesn't just happen on its own, or does it? (Y'all are way into 'causes' so you should be able to answer). It is less, I think, what is said or recorded in any Gospel, and more what people take away from the Gospels, or maybe they fill in the blanks? My way of understanding Jesus is in the 'personalism' of Jesus. The way I understand that is quite simple really: the willingness to become present with other people. To really 'show up'. To be consumed in dramatic experiences, to get drunk on God (like Ramakrishna and many mystics of the East) is something I personally feel a link with, insofar as I have felt such things, experienced such things, and also intuited it. But, don't know what to think of such experiences over-all. I am inclined to feel much more admiration for someone---anyone---who 'shows up' for another person. It is far more difficult to do that than to 'pass through the eye of a needle' or through the 'straight and narrow' gate.

That to me is to express, in some way, enlightened values or an enlightened stance, to 'show up' for someone else. Oscar Wilde was (by his own admission) a flaming pervert and he made the mistake of battling a society that was equipped to destroy him. That society set out to destroy him, and did destroy him. But in the period of time when he was 'dying', though some considered this his Christ-pose, he seemed to have become a Christian, insofar as he understood something very profound about suffering, the same sort of suffering that I suppose the Buddhists talk about, or the Vaishnavas. In his absolute darkest moment, when he had been crushed, he was paraded in front of a crowd who, of course, jeered at him, mocked his fall. But a friend of his showed up unconcerend about what others would think of him, and this friend offered Wilde a small gesture, a wave or a salute I don't remember what, that deeply touched Wilde. Wilde wrote (in de Profundis) that such a small thing as that (showing up) might have 'opened the door to Heaven' to such a man with the strength or the understanding to have made the gesture to another human being. And there are precious few human beings who have the understanding or the strength to show up for others, and so they never do. Very few seem to hear that message, I guess. It might be a 'they that have ears let them hear' sort of thing. What do you think?

You or anyone else can get up on a box and quack quack quack about all sorts of grand values, all the remote and impossible accomplishment of forest sages in now forgotten eras, of some experience of 'enlightenment' (and blah blah blah) but if it is not accompanied by certain attitudes that reveal a real and profound understanding of life---in this sense what might be called a Christian understanding since you brought up the Life of Jesus and quoted him---I more or less shut my ears to it, it goes out with all the rest of the trash: It really has little value to me anymore, and is just the chatter of adolescents. And that is of course why I use this term frequently: adolescent. It means someone on the verge of growing up, but not grown up yet. It means someone with all this energy and hautiness but without some kind of experience that opens him up to understanding, the understanding that really counts. It means some people who feel that own, explain and dominate 'wisdom' who yet never seem to say anything really very wise.

So, 'were they too restrictive out of lack of spiritual understanding?' I guess it is a good question. There are, apparently, different levels to understanding. Different 'gates' that one passes though. For an adolescent who fundamentally misses the point, how could they ever see the point they have missed? You don't get to that until you've passed that 'gate' and then, I guess, it comes as a humbling 'ah-ha'.

[David Quinn]

Shah, David did not really ask a question of me, he made a statement about his interspretations and his values. His 'question' was not meant to be 'answered', and anyway he already has the answer, which is his point. Instead of playing that game, I described what I consider higher and more relevant than the values he professes. Did you get any of that?

That is a very dishonest view of the situation.

The question was clearly aimed at your interpretation and values - more specifically, at how they conflict with the great spiritual thinkers of the past.

Shah is right in saying that you offered a non-answer. The closest you came to offering an answer was as follows:

So, 'were they too restrictive out of lack of spiritual understanding?' I guess it is a good question. There are, apparently, different levels to understanding. Different 'gates' that one passes though. For an adolescent who fundamentally misses the point, how could they ever see the point they have missed? You don't get to that until you've passed that 'gate' and then, I guess, it comes as a humbling 'ah-ha'.

This is, of course, in direct conflict with what Jesus and Buddha said.

If Jesus and Buddha had intended to speak about "different gates" and "different levels of understanding", they would have done so. Jesus would have said something like, "There's no need to make much of an effort to go through that narrow gate as there are many other gates around, enough for everybody."

But he didn't. He specifically made reference to one special gate, a lofty gate that is difficult to go through and few find. The same with Ramakrishna. He didn't prattle on about different kinds of God-realization. He affirmed only the one - the ultimate realization of God found through samadhi.

Now you have, in your inestimable wisdom, deemed this to be lowly, ignorant thinking, and that your broad all-inclusive outlook is "higher" and "more relevant" than that of Jesus, Ramakrishna and the Buddha. Not content with ticking me off for placing myself on the same platform as Jesus and Buddha, you go one step further and place yourself above them!

So I ask you again, why do you place yourself in complete conflict with the major spiritual thinkers in history and deem them to be ignorant and small-minded?

Elizabeth wrote;

"This distorted the facts of the matter as we define facts today, but communicated a message to the ancient people who thought more in abstraction than we today think in literal truth."

Yes, that makes sense of course. The 'meaning' and the 'message' of the Gospels is always reconsidered and reexpressed in every generation. What is impressive in the documents is something that is behind them, something that gives them life and energy but is not ever revealed. I think this is what makes Christianity so dynamic, so capable of turning on a dime, making itself relevant in the moment.

Yet it conflicts with everything that Jesus taught.

Amusing, no?

A man who is spent his life attempting to reveal a very specific message has been appropriated by millions of timid people who do everything possible to block their ears from hearing it - all in the guise of being his followers.

A more comical situation surely cannot be had.

If a person chooses to remain as an ignorant child, then yes, everything remains mysterious and relevant in a vague, inarticulated manner. Everything remains a potential source of influence, even the mish-mash of conflicting sentiments which comprises the bible. But this is worlds away from the kind of clear-sighted wisdom that Jesus spoke about.

If Jesus's message had been heard and understood by the human race, Christianity would never have arisen.

That to me is to express, in some way, enlightened values or an enlightened stance, to 'show up' for someone else. Oscar Wilde was (by his own admission) a flaming pervert and he made the mistake of battling a society that was equipped to destroy him. That society set out to destroy him, and did destroy him. But in the period of time when he was 'dying', though some considered this his Christ-pose, he seemed to have become a Christian, insofar as he understood something very profound about suffering, the same sort of suffering that I suppose the Buddhists talk about, or the Vaishnavas. In his absolute darkest moment, when he had been crushed, he was paraded in front of a crowd who, of course, jeered at him, mocked his fall. But a friend of his showed up unconcerend about what others would think of him, and this friend offered Wilde a small gesture, a wave or a salute I don't remember what, that deeply touched Wilde. Wilde wrote (in de Profundis) that such a small thing as that (showing up) might have 'opened the door to Heaven' to such a man with the strength or the understanding to have made the gesture to another human being. And there are precious few human beings who have the understanding or the strength to show up for others, and so they never do. Very few seem to hear that message, I guess. It might be a 'they that have ears let them hear' sort of thing. What do you think?

What do I think? I think they are the ramblings of an old man who has gone soft in the head. A more pitiful read I haven't come across in a long time.

More specifically, I think you are displaying your never-ending desire to keep everything within the intuitive realm, away from the full glare of consciousness. As long as everything is indirect, flayed, aimless, random, spontaneous, inarticulated, etc, you are happy. The very idea of consciously reaching into the heart of reality and understanding it explicitly fills you with such loathing that you instinctively speak against it at every opportunity.

The way you describe such an endeavour as "adolescent" is an example of this. It's sad, really. To regard oneself as being too mature to reach out and consciously understand God, to portray the idea that such a thing is childish, is a terrible tragedy to happen to a man.

You or anyone else can get up on a box and quack quack quack about all sorts of grand values, all the remote and impossible accomplishment of forest sages in now forgotten eras, of some experience of 'enlightenment' (and blah blah blah) but if it is not accompanied by certain attitudes that reveal a real and profound understanding of life---in this sense what might be called a Christian understanding since you brought up the Life of Jesus and quoted him---I more or less shut my ears to it, it goes out with all the rest of the trash: It really has little value to me anymore, and is just the chatter of adolescents.

Really, I think you should just go off and die somewhere and be done with it. Mentally, you're just about there.

Here is another question for you: Isn't this "Christian understanding" that you speak of the very thing that Nietzcshe railed against, describing it as "a resentment towards of life"?

-

[Steven Coyle]

It's mostly been a contention that the majority of women are in place for chaos to emerge, which is a compliment to further the artistic mind - it's like apollo vs. dionysis.

[Alex Jacob]

Thanks Trevor. I often misread Shah but now that you have clarified for me, I find I am largely in agreement with her. Shah, you are now off the hook...
__________________________________________________

David wrote;

"The question was clearly aimed at your interpretation and values - more specifically, at how they conflict with the great spiritual thinkers of the past."

And I clearly indicated where I locate my values, and expressed how, in my understanding (more specifically of Christianity since I don't have much background in Buddhism per se), Jesus pointed not to 'samadhi', which is really an absurd invention on yor part, but to dynamic personalism.

AJ: "So, 'were they too restrictive out of lack of spiritual understanding?' I guess it is a good question. There are, apparently, different levels to understanding. Different 'gates' that one passes though. For an adolescent who fundamentally misses the point, how could they ever see the point they have missed? You don't get to that until you've passed that 'gate' and then, I guess, it comes as a humbling 'ah-ha'.

David: "This is, of course, in direct conflict with what Jesus and Buddha said."

You misunderstood. I asked the question you asked of me, and answered it for you (which is what your original question really implied). I implied that (as it pertains to people like you) there are different levels of understanding and these levels depend on the 'gates' one has passed in the living of life. I think the core of Christian values as expressed by Jesus in the Gospels, and all that has come out of this in occidental theology, literature, the better expression of our higher values, has nothing at all to do with 'samadhi', but that for an 'adolescent' this is all it must be about.

"If Jesus and Buddha had intended to speak about "different gates" and "different levels of understanding", they would have done so. Jesus would have said something like, "There's no need to make much of an effort to go through that narrow gate as there are many other gates around, enough for everybody."

Even the most superficial understanding of occidental theology completely negates your approach and your understanding, especially a later grasp of the message of the Gospels. And this is a significant part of the core point I make in respect to you: you are driven by your a prioris, that are extremely dogmatic, and you seem to have little understanding of the way that thousands of different minds have grappled with the Gospel message and, in the course of that, discovered, defined, redefined values that have molded the world. The limitations of your ability to grasp the way that contact with Spirit moves in people is pretty much the main point I wish to make. The beauty and dynamism of the Christian message, as it is expressed in parts of Pauline writings, allows for a genuine spiritual relationship with ideas and spiritual force. Just as Paul et al made their relationship a living relationship with a living spirit, so it has continued to be a living relationship, and just as dynamic now as it ever was. There is not just one Edifice of Interpretation like the one you stake out for yourself, possess, dole-out and manage, like a junk-yard dog. There are many different relationships to Truth and many different ways that humans express truth.

My sense is that Christian values, the values expressed in the Gospels as well as Pauline spiritual values, are values for living people, living in daily life, with daily concerns. You make Jesus into something he was not (a teacher of samadhi-trance) and make him into little more than another Buddha. I think that is a great mistake. Jesus expressed. Jesus came out of a Jewish tradition and expresses specific values and truths that are significantly different from what comes out of Buddhism and the Hindu religion.

"But he didn't. He specifically made reference to one special gate, a lofty gate that is difficult to go through and few find. The same with Ramakrishna. He didn't prattle on about different kinds of God-realization. He affirmed only the one - the ultimate realization of God found through samadhi."

Oh God! This is of course what you wanted to say right from the start with your rhetorical question to me, right? I wasn't wrong to see it that way, right? You are a one-pony show!

I don't really care a great deal about the realizations of Ramakrishna, at the end of the day. The only thing that I can find to value, and by that I mean to place int he highest value slot, is the effect of one's understanding, values, ethics, etc. in the world. The way one acts. I don't mean that the realization of Ramakrishna has no value or that I mock him---I think he is a great man---but if someone asked me I would say that there are things above and beyond a given 'realization'. In that sense, I feel the 'mission of Jesus' in this world is notably different, and superior in certain specific ways.

"Now you have, in your inestimable wisdom, deemed this to be lowly, ignorant thinking, and that your broad all-inclusive outlook is "higher" and "more relevant" than that of Jesus, Ramakrishna and the Buddha. Not content with ticking me off for placing myself on the same platform as Jesus and Buddha, you go one step further and place yourself above them!"

Your thinking is not the thinking of either the Buddha or Jesus, let's make that very clear. You are just David Quinn, some cat from the wilds of Australia with his own web-site. Jesus is Jesus and the Buddha is the Buddha. In respect to what is 'higher' and 'more relevant' I only say that my grasp of the life of Jesus hinges on his personalism and in the Christian grasp of the way a Spirit moves in life. Not a spirit that takes you out of life but a spirit that gives you 'life in greater abundance'. This understanding places a great deal of emphasis on the life we have been given and that each of us is living. The object, if I understand correctly, is to come into contact with a Spirit that is in life and respond to it, or interact with it. This is an individual thing and for that reason it is the experience of the individual that is the most important. The experience of that individual in his life, in the here and now.

I don't though, like you, claim either Ramakrishna or Jesus as my own, like I own them. In that sense, I say, my understanding and relationship is pretty obviously more mature than yours. I am not necessarily negating whatever is your experience or your idea, but I do think it is very, very easy to demostrate why it is flawed and limited. I also feel that you are not able to understand why this is so because of your 'investments' in certain (adolescent) ideas. I haven't completey decided why this is so, it is a bit of a question-mark. But I will say that it seems likely you will have to grow. The 'cage' you establsih for yourself and for 'the Spirit' may in fact demand it.

"So I ask you again, why do you place yourself in complete conflict with the major spiritual thinkers in history and deem them to be ignorant and small-minded?"

This is such a bald-faced rhetorical question! You assert I am in 'complete conflict' with the 'major spiritual thinkers in history' since I take issue with your adolescent grasp of spiritual life. You seem to say, I am on the same level os Ramakrishna and Jesus and I express (and know) what they know. On what authority does this lowly Alex Jacob contradict me?

After many years in spiritual life I have concluded that it is up to me to come into contact with ideas but also with 'the Spirit'. I might say that I understand ideas or some ideas in any case, but it is not at all so easy to describe 'the Spirit', but I feel I can certainly say it is not one thing, but as many things as there are people who come into relationship with it. In that sense I understand the image of the vine, the vinyard and the one who cultivates the vinyard. 'We are operating on many levels' is what Ken Kesey said about his 'work'.

"A man who is spent his life attempting to reveal a very specific message has been appropriated by millions of timid people who do everything possible to block their ears from hearing it - all in the guise of being his followers."

I guess you could say that. But my point is that what if it were you, similar to them, who has 'blocked his ears'? Stranger things have happened. That is pretty much my point: your message, the one I get from your preaching and your expression of your understanding, does not seem at all like wisdom to me. It seems like boyish stupidity, and dear brother David: I am not the only one. I don't say it is complete ignorance, that would be stupid (and when we too quickly engage in black and white thinking we miss the point of 'error', which is always more subtle).

I also think that the far harder part of Christ's doctrines (and maybe the Buddha too) is in 'showing up' for other people: the people in your life, your community, your world. It is actually easier to imagine oneself 'disappearing' into a Ramakrishna samadhi-trance and 'allowing the body to drop away' (that is, to die) than it is to remain committed and engaged with one's duty in this life. And the fact is, the bare fact, is that all we have is this life, and one way or the other we're going to have to live it. Not avoid it, not detest it, but to follow the promptings of the Spirit and 'make it real'.

"Really, I think you should just go off and die somewhere and be done with it. Mentally, you're just about there."

Says you... ;-)

But that is also a point I often want to make: You don't really seem to really know the difference between life and death, or so it seems to me. I don't think I am going to hang a great deal on your definition. You may be one of the last people I would approach to understand 'value', and also Life. I think you actually miss the point of it, for all that you think you get it. 'Obstinacy makes it impossible for a man to hear, for all that he has ears'.

"Here is another question for you: Isn't this "Christian understanding" that you speak of the very thing that Nietzcshe railed against, describing it as "a resentment towards of life"?

Well, here is another answer for you, Grasshopper! (And keep those 'questions' coming, okay?)

No, I don't see it that way at all. What the multitudes of bourgeois do with their Christian life, with their church, the way they iron their shirts, the potted plants they keep on their landings, with their watered down values and their tired relationship to it all, is one thing. To forge a way to relatiosnhip with 'the Spriit' is something else altogether. It is a dynamic spirit of life. it is that which gives 'life in greater measure'. It represents effervescence, quickening, the movements of the soul, exploration, the probing of the meaning of life, dynamic meditation, dynamic relationship. I suppose this is how you might describe your path of seeking 'samadhi-trance': not for the weak and not for the timid.

[Leyla Shen]

Ugh. Overdose. [vomit]

[Trevor Salyzyn]

It is actually easier to imagine oneself 'disappearing' into a Ramakrishna samadhi-trance and 'allowing the body to drop away' (that is, to die) than it is to remain committed and engaged with one's duty in this life.

What's your duty? Who do you owe your time and energy to, and to do what? What happens if you forsake your duty? Is there a punishment?

[Alex Jacob]

The question is more interesting and more relevant than would be my specific answer. I assume that 'spiritual life' is looking into that question, and responding to it.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

If I measured the spiritual life by my own actions, I'd have to admit I spent no effort whatsoever on looking into the question or responding to it. Or coming up with the specific questions, or the specific quote. If I just wrote '????', I'd have the same amount of content. A raised eyebrow is a smidgen more polite than puking.

[David Quinn]

Alex,

I don't see the point of continuing this conversation much further. It is becoming a waste of time. We are too far apart mentally for anything of interest to arise. So unless you suddenly change your spots and offer something that is actually interesting and pertinent to spiritual matters, this will be my last contribution.

What you call "spirit" is really just a form of egotism, albeit one that is quite rare. It is an egotism generated by a whole-hearted, simple-minded submission to either a personality or a set of precepts, and it is the very single-mindedness of this submission which creates an unshakeable belief in a person's mind and generates the kind of "presence" of which you speak.

Mother Teresa is a good example. There was nothing remotely spiritual about her, but she was able to turn herself into a singular force through the sheer power of her submission. It was a kind of autism generated by simple-minded faith. The harmful consequences of this mindless form of living are incalculable, not that Mother Teresa was ever aware of them. She was too lost in her simple-minded faith to really know what was happening.

I agree with your point that the spiritual life involves more than just reasoning and understanding reality, that it involves the practical expression of that understanding in daily life. However, my point is that if there is no understanding of reality to begin with, if a person doesn't make the effort to become conscious of the nature of God and rid his mind of all delusions, then what will be "present" in daily life is a not a benign spiritual force, but an ugly egotistical one, no matter how much it tries to dress itself up as piety.

As Jesus said, "First seek the Kingdom of God and everything else will be given to you."

Or again, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind. That is the first and greatest commandment. "

Or again, ""Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

This striving for the Kingdom of God (or enlightenment, as described in Buddhism) is absolutely paramount if one wants to be a worthwhile "presence" in the world. There is no point in being a "presence" if it is only going to lead to even more human ignorance, misery and suffering. No real good came from Mother Teresa's life, the surface illusion notwithstanding, just as no real good comes from continually feeding heroin to a junkie.

These Christian people with "presence" are not doing anything to eliminate the root causes of ignorance and suffering. Their only interest is putting a salve on the suffering that already exists in the world, a suffering which they themselves help to create through their own deluded understanding and values.

In other words, their "presence" is one of madness, not sanity.

It's not a matter of choosing between "disappearing into samadhi" and engaging in the world. The aim should be to combine both. First understand what God is and know how to tap into Him, then engage in the world with God shining through you. That would be the most sensible way to behave. But what you advocate, Alex, is simply the latter, without the all-important first bit.

You don't realize, even after my bringing it to your attention, that you undercut the very first step of spiritual development with every movement and sound you make. As such, there is no way I can act to reconcile our differences or meet you half-way. As long as you keep doing this undercutting, we will remain mortal enemies to the very end of our days.

-

[Blair]

I can't help but feel a begrudging compassion about Alex. He is so lost, so fragile.

[Alex Jacob]

Just for your information, David, I had no illusions going into this latest round with you. I concluded long ago that the main advantage in this was not what it could afford either of us, but only for those who read here. I have never concealed that that is the main reason why I bother to criticize your position. It is more interesting to debate within opposed viewpoint.

Your latest argument strategy is, I say, based in a fallacy. It is a pretty amazing straw-man argument, but you've picked a 'straw-woman'! You take a very problematical figure, who captured the imagination and the 'piety' of certain sectors of popular opinion, who was also picked up by the media, and 'institutional opinion', and you set her up with me as the construct you can battle against, in what has now become 'mortal combat'.

It is pretty goddammed funny, put pathetic too, paranoid, that I have become for you some sort of Satan, someone---not a 'one' but more a metaphysical principal, that is, of delusion, etc.---so far off the track of 'true spirituality' that he has to be contained, like in a Magic Circle. Alex the demon pops up for David so David can sprinkle some salt, affirm his quest for Samadhi, and retreat into stony silence, the silence of the Righteous. These is so much theatre in you, you are not even aware of it, such high drama! I have often said that a large portion of the Drama I concoct is only to match the drama I perceive here. I haven't hidden that, I've been up-front about it.

I state it again; the way you have constructed your missionizing philosophy gives expression not to wholesomeness, a sane spirtuality for the huge issue of 'material entanglement', the extreme problem of incarnation, or even 'samsara', and has become overall a hide-out for the mentally ill. Your approach to spirituality, more than anything, tends to attact the mentally ill. It all becomes so neurotic. It is the neurosis that defines the place, not the sanity of self-realization.

But, about Mother Thersa, I was not talking at all about her or anyone like her. I was talking about the way that early Christians understood Jesus Christ and the way it had to do with a mysterious 'spirit' (their language). I am not arguing against the goal of Ramakrishna or Paramahansa Yogananda or Ramana Maharshi or any of them. It is indeed 'wise' to gain an understanding of the real conditions in which we find ourselves. If I understand the Hindu conceptions, that is what they attempt to explain: the conditions we are in, how and why we got here, and what we can do about it. All of that, and not merely intellectually, has been very important in my own life. I do feel strongly that one needs to become aware of our 'condition' and also to have knowledge of what can 'liberate'. But what I do is to leave it more open-ended than you, that is to say not an ultra-defined group of absolutisms. (Also, of course, I am a 'personalist' and God for me is a personal agent, a 'logical impossibility' for you). The reason is simple: absolutisms like yours tend to drive people crazy. Or, it is the mentally ill with internal imbalances who are attracted to absolutes of the nature you present. Despite what you think---what you MUST insist---this does not at all mean I don't have some grasp of 'ultimate reality' though I am chary to use such terms.

I believe, because I see it all the time, that many, many people live in their suffering, that suffering is what defines the human reality. I would never say that I think that you don't grasp this. My personal view is maybe not identical to but perhaps more similar to the Judeo-Christian notion (really, internal knowledge, a kind of certainty) of being 'saved'. At the core of myself and in the core of myself, that is what I know about myself, my life, my existence. I think we all have access to this 'knowledge', in fact. So, life looks different to me because of that. It also changes, considerably, the way that I relate to other people, and allows for the expression of compassion and understanding, in a more strict Judeo-Christian sense I suppose. For example, it is pretty obvious, to me, that something like 3/4s of the people who I have come into contact on this forum are suffering, some extremely so, in their lives. This is operational knowledge for me. It is as plain to me as anything. But the ones who are really suffering are not able to talk about it. They hide behind all kinds of blinds and subterfuges, mostly 'intellectual' and 'clever'. Also; they do not have a clue how to get out of suffering. It seems to me that what you offer (a neurosis dressed up in all the finery of a seeking of Enlightenment, a very unreal goal for the deeply troubled and the mentally ill) is a kind of bait to remain in a mental connundrum and not to move outside of an anguished internal zone. Not only are there alternatives, there must be alternatives because these methods, from the look of it, don't seem to be working.

I think this is the closest I have come to explaining what I see here.

You like to quote Jesus from the scripture---the standard quotes---but (and I only mention this because it is interesting) you fail to allude to the hundreds of instances where Jesus of the Gospels speaks about demonstrating concern for the poor. I read somewhere that there are something like 200 different admonishments to this effect. My only point in this is that I believe that you cannot abscond and dominate Jesus (as you certainly do) and forcibly tun him into an enlightenment figure, like Ramakrishna. They are not at all the same, and though there may be similarities, it is important to note the differences. Not only in the sort of life they lived but the traditions and interpretations that arose around them, that developed from them.

Spiritual life is the beginning of 'a road home', but the way that this occurs in a person's life, in the life of people, is not something that you decide, manage, rule, dole-out, etc. The 'spirit' in that sense is out there working.

"As long as you keep doing this undercutting, we will remain mortal enemies to the very end of our days."

I guess this means you have crossed ole Alex off your Valentine's list?

[Alex Jacob]

...and thanks, Trevor, for that 'smidgen more of politeness'. Politeness, in my book, trumps vomit, but vomit's cool too.

[brokenhead]

You like to quote Jesus from the scripture---the standard quotes---but (and I only mention this because it is interesting) you fail to allude to the hundreds of instances where Jesus of the Gospels speaks about demonstrating concern for the poor. I read somewhere that there are something like 200 different admonishments to this effect. My only point in this is that I believe that you cannot abscond and dominate Jesus (as you certainly do)

Which is why David in particular among our three wise men strikes me as a megawatt lightbulb that is switched off. It frustrating because it is so useless. David, you would rather explain compassion than feel it. For when you speak of others behaving in what is outwardly a compassionate manner, you do so with derision. Mother Theresa is not merely a deluded woman, she is a positive menace. Somewhere along the line you heard a voice crying out in the wilderness and decided that you would do the same, using this simple[-minded] logic: I am hearing this lone voice strike its dissonant note, therefore if I am dissonant, I also will be heard. In doing so, you ignore the still, small voice from within, one that gets drowned out in the bray of your own.

You don't realize, even after my bringing it to your attention, that you undercut the very first step of spiritual development with every movement and sound you make. As such, there is no way I can act to reconcile our differences or meet you half-way. As long as you keep doing this undercutting, we will remain mortal enemies to the very end of our days.

How unkinglike to elevate the court jester to the status of mortal enemy.

[Shahrazad]

broken,

How unkinglike to elevate the court jester to the status of mortal enemy.

Yeah, I was surprised too. He's taking Alex way too seriously.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Deontology and consequentialism are both too limited to base decisions off of, and decisions are a stupid waste of time that make inaccurate metaphysical assumptions in the first place. Argument over?

(This is the first and last time I'm posting drunk.)

[Ataraxia]

.... tends to attact the mentally ill. It all becomes so neurotic. It is the neurosis that defines the place, not the sanity of self-realization.

Well it manages to elicit a 1500 word flowery polemic from you day-in, day-out; so perhaps that's something you may want to look into.

Methinks the lady doth protest too much

[David Quinn]

broken,

How unkinglike to elevate the court jester to the status of mortal enemy.

Yeah, I was surprised too. He's taking Alex way too seriously.

I take him seriously in as much as he conforms to a type which is common in the world, one that embodies a femine aversion to truth and a will to unconsciousness. A kind of feminine egotism which likes to dress itself up in spiritual clothes. This feminine egotism is automatically a mortal enemy for anyone who begins to take truth seriously. They are at direct loggerheads with one another.

That Alex is a joker is neither here nor there. It is simply part of his will to unconsciousness.

You like to quote Jesus from the scripture---the standard quotes---but (and I only mention this because it is interesting) you fail to allude to the hundreds of instances where Jesus of the Gospels speaks about demonstrating concern for the poor. I read somewhere that there are something like 200 different admonishments to this effect. My only point in this is that I believe that you cannot abscond and dominate Jesus (as you certainly do)

Which is why David in particular among our three wise men strikes me as a megawatt lightbulb that is switched off. It frustrating because it is so useless. David, you would rather explain compassion than feel it. For when you speak of others behaving in what is outwardly a compassionate manner, you do so with derision. Mother Theresa is not merely a deluded woman, she is a positive menace.

She murdered truth in every moment of her life, so yes indeed she was a menace, although not consciously so. What makes the situation particularly pernicious is that she is revered the world over as being the epitome of virtue. Such is the human race's own aversion to truth.

Saying this isn't a form of derision. It is merely a statement of fact.

Perhaps the most defining statement made by Jesus concerning the poor was when his disciples admonished him for allowing a woman to bathe his head in expensive perfume:

While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table.

When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. "Why this waste?" they asked. "This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor."

Aware of this, Jesus said to them, "Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me." Matthew 26:6-13

In other words, he was saying in his roundabout way that spiritual matters take precedence over worldly matters, including what is normally thought of as compassion.

The gospels are littered with such examples, wherein Jesus elevates the task of loving God and entering His Kingdom far above ordinary human values. For example:

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law', your enemies will be the members of your own household. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it." Matthew 10: 34

"What people value highly is detestable in God's sight." Luke 16: 15

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, such a person cannot be my disciple." Luke 14: 26

This sort of thing is zillions of light-years away from the average Christian mentality, and from Alex's as well. Yet it goes to the essence of what Jesus was. (This "mysterious" essence that Alex doesn't want to think about. )

-

[David Quinn]

.... tends to attact the mentally ill. It all becomes so neurotic. It is the neurosis that defines the place, not the sanity of self-realization.

It's a place which attracts all sorts of outsiders who live on the fringes of society. This can include the mentally-ill, but it also can, and does, include those who are sane enough to be repulsed by the dishonesty and lies which pervade this world and are looking for something more.

Your constant attempts to tar the whole forum with your broad slurs only serves to reflect your own neurosis.

I know you believe you are doing a service by creating opposition, but it's just not very well done. It isn't targeted enough. It's too broad and indiscriminate, a kind of scorched-earth approach, which ultimately stems from a lack of understanding of what this place is about.

The reason is simple: absolutisms like yours tend to drive people crazy. Or, it is the mentally ill with internal imbalances who are attracted to absolutes of the nature you present.

Oh man, you are really going off the deep end. Why don't you just be honest and state openly that you hate the very thought of understanding truth, or indeed of becoming conscious of anything definite at all? That is what is driving you in these posts. It is your own personal revulsion towards consciousness - which, in this intance, is translating into a fear of madness.

You need to be honest with yourself here. A sickness cannot be treated until it is recognized.

-

[Alex Jacob]

Ataraxia, it is not a major thing but, in the spirit of literary comradarie:

"Almost always misquoted as "Methinks the lady doth protest too much," Queen Gertrude's line is both drier than the misquotation (thanks to the delayed "methinks") and much more ironic. Prince Hamlet's question is intended to smoke out his mother, to whom, as he intended, this Player Queen bears some striking resemblances. The queen in the play, like Gertrude, seems too deeply attached to her first husband to ever even consider remarrying; Gertrude, however, after the death of Hamlet's father, has remarried. We don't know whether Gertrude ever made the same sorts of promises to Hamlet's father that the Player Queen makes to the Player King (who will soon be murdered)—but the irony of her response should be clear.

"By "protest," Gertrude doesn't mean "object" or "deny"—these meanings postdate Hamlet. The principal meaning of "protest" in Shakespeare's day was "vow" or "declare solemnly," a meaning preserved in our use of "protestation." When we smugly declare that "the lady doth protest too much," we almost always mean that the lady objects so much as to lose credibility. Gertrude says that Player Queen affirms so much as to lose credibility. Her vows are too elaborate, too artful, too insistent. More cynically, the queen may also imply that such vows are silly in the first place, and thus may indirectly defend her own remarriage."

(I am one of the sane ones, Ataraxia. Fundamentally sane, and I can prove it). (This is the first and last time I ever write a post while in samadhi...)
____________________________________________________________

David, also in the spirit of literary comradarie:

You wrote:

"In other words, he was saying in his roundabout way that spiritual matters take precedence over worldly matters, including what is normally thought of as compassion."

"The gospels are littered with such examples, wherein Jesus elevates the task of loving God and entering His Kingdom far above ordinary human values."

If you are saying that the Gospels are brimming with spiritual gems and all manner of glorious goods, it just doesn't fit that you would then say 'the Gospels are littered with such examples', as if the highest and the best is some sort of trash scattered about. I would suggest perhaps the word 'festooned', which as an Australian pirate-sort is rather fitting. 'The Gospels are festooned with such examples', in my opinion, works a little better.

There is a line in a Peter Mathiassen novel At Play in the Fields of the Lord where one of the main characters says: '...and blow the little fuckers to Kingdom Come!', which, if you think about it works nicely in concept with 'roundabout way that spiritual matters take precedence over worldly matters, including what is normally thought of as compassion'.

"You need to be honest with yourself here. A sickness cannot be treated until it is recognized."

I am the doctor here! It is I who diagnose and prescribe!
_____________________________________________________

One flew East.
and one flew West
and one flew over the cuckoos nest...

I lOvE yOu gUyS!

[rebecca702]

I am the doctor here! It is I who diagnose and prescribe!

... shrieked a hysterical Nurse Ratched.

[Alex Jacob]

You will have to admit, Rebecca (if you were to have thought before you posted!), that Big Nurse never screamed anything, and certainly not hysterically. She was a quiet, mercilless and highly capable madness, with infinite patience. That is the kind of madness you really have to watch out for...

Can you find a way to link me with that kind of madness?

If you are going to work these angles, you really have to work them.

Y'all are literarily challenged...all the more reason for me to descend to save you.

Now, as I see it, there are 3 ways this conversation can go;

1) We get back on track (sorry Skip, but you know how it goes) and I describe how I got my 16 incher.
2) I reveal apocrypha of Ramakrishna's experiences with Weisenheimer, when he appeared from out of a jackfruit and in His mercifulness undertook to train Ramakrishna in the Sexual Secrets of the Elders of Zion...
3) I ban all of you.

I'll take the votes by PM...

[Carl G]

You will have to admit, Rebecca (if you were to have thought before you posted!), that Big Nurse never screamed anything, and certainly not hysterically. She was a quiet, mercilless and highly capable madness, with infinite patience. That is the kind of madness you really have to watch out for...

Can you find a way to link me with that kind of madness?

If you are going to work these angles, you really have to work them.

Y'all are literarily challenged...all the more reason for me to descend to save you.

Now, as I see it, there are 3 ways this conversation can go;

1) We get back on track (sorry Skip, but you know how it goes) and I describe how I got my 16 incher.
2) I reveal apocrypha of Ramakrishna's experiences with Weisenheimer, when he appeared from out of a jackfruit and in His mercifulness undertook to train Ramakrishna in the Sexual Secrets of the Elders of Zion...
3) I ban all of you.

I'll take the votes by PM...

It's all about self-inflation with you, isn't it, Alex.

[rebecca702]

You will have to admit, Rebecca (if you were to have thought before you posted!), that Big Nurse never screamed anything, and certainly not hysterically. She was a quiet, mercilless and highly capable madness, with infinite patience. That is the kind of madness you really have to watch out for...

You need to read the book again, pal. Toward the end she got severely rattled. Her rage was seething just under the surface. Hers was a madness of "keeping it together" and "keeping up pretenses" in order to remain in power, because she had no authentic power. Someone whose emotions are roiling is only "quiet, with infinite patience" on the outside. Did you even read the book, or just watch the movie? That Nurse was owned - where it counts - even when she appeared to prevail at the end.

You are so wrong.

Y'all are literarily challenged...all the more reason for me to descend to save you.

You need to try a hell of a lot harder. The mental patients are all seeing holes in your logic.