Alex Jacob wrote:David writes: "Child molestation takes place within the matrix, but does this make it a spiritual activity? Your inability to discriminate between spiritual activity (that which promotes consciousness of truth) and non-spiritual activity (that which hinders or destroys the potential for truth-consciousness) goes to the heart of your postmodernism and your desire to remain safely ensconced within your vague, foggy world."
I personally don't believe in post-modernism,
That's very postmodernist of you. :)
I personally don't believe in post-modernism, but I am not completely opposed to, say, the term 'late-modernism'. I do think that there IS such a thing as indecisiveness in thinking, or to overwhelmed thinking, or to an acute over-abundance of information, sensation, image, etc. I suppose that is what you want to refer to by 'post-modernism'.
No, I'm referring to decisive actions taken by the mind in the face of incoming information.
More specifically, I'm refering to the mindset that rejects the concept of absolute truth, reduces everything to "narratives" and "cultural forces", possesses an inability to intellectually discriminate between things, and is fundamentally aimless.
Kierkegaard called it "many-sidedness". The lack of unity and existential coherence within the individual. He lived in an age before the term "postmodernism" was coined, but he was well aware of the disease. And it is a disease.
It isn't an issue of there being too much information at the individual's disposal, but of his lack of ability or willingness or courage to cut through all this information and reaching the very bedrock of things. Instead, he allows all the incoming information to sweep him away, such that he is just blown about in alien winds and no longer knows which way to turn.
From the look of it, though, your tactic is NOT to take up this challenge, and I think it may be your basic lack of education that determines this 'choice'. You only have access to a limited palette of information and ideas, and being at the core a true-blue conservative, with a definite puritanical streak, the easiest option is to back-up into conventional views, which is kind of like backing out of 'late modernism' and desperately seeking an anchor in a previous epoch of classical modernism---a strange, foreign, decidedly non-Nietzschean territory BTW, that is to say Ramakrishnaism and this pre-modern or late-Medieval orientation.
From my observations, the task of using reason and introspection to eliminate all delusion from the mind and comprehend the ultimate truth has hardly been attempted by anyone in history. It's as far away from the conservative view-point as one could possibly imagine.
On the other hand, losing oneself in postmodernist many-sidedness is very much the conventional way at the moment. It is the fashion of our times.
Really, it just gets weirder and weirder with you. How you could EVER and with a straight face propose that Nietzsche, who plunged so deeply into the issues and problems of late-modernism would even or could even have admired or condoned YOUR conservative tactics and choices is beyond me.
Probably because he said things like this:
"Better know naught than half-know much! Better be a fool on ones own merits than a wise man by other folks opinions! I
go to the roots. What mattereth great or small, marsh or heaven? An hand-breadth of territory is sufficient for me, if it be real
rock-bottom territory!"
(Taken from Thus Spake Zarathustra.)
"I am opposed to your broadening away from the narrow gate. This is a timeless objection, not an antiquated one."
Again, what we need is an ever-increasing spiritual subtlety, a Nietzschean subtlety if you will permit me the term. I could also say that we need an ever-increasing Christian subtlety, and a Hindu subtlety, and on and on.
Without going through that narrow gate, there is no spirituality. There is only increasingly subtle levels of egotism, fantasy and emotionalism.
I certainly would never dismiss the term 'narrow gate', it would be hard to do this in the strict sense of the Jesus-mission. Jesus was a Jew and spoke from the Jewish tradition, he was not a Brahman worshipping in front of a sacrificial fire. But we do have a pretty strict and defined idea of what is the 'narrow gate' for a Brahman-worshipper. All the data is there, all we have to do is refer to it.
But, for 'us', I would simply suggest that the nature of the 'narrow gate' has not been forever decided.
If, by "us", you mean you and you alone, Aex, that is very true. It's how you like it.
Again, you need to take your responsibility for your own decisions and actions. Your inability to define the narrow gate is a failure of your own character and mental processes. It has nothing to do with anyone else.
Oddly enough---disturbingly enough---it is really Life that provides answers to such questions, and sometimes the answers go against our 'rehearsals' of 'timeless spiritual truths'. With that, I would say that any person who reads here on GF will have many different 'answers' that have to do with their own life, their own 'road'. For someone, the 'narrow gate' could be finding a way to simply love another person, to take the personalist message to another level. It could be very many different and distinct things. It could very well be that this 'narrow gate' might be very much more hard to approach or pass through than the 'narrow gate' you present, with all its dogmatic, determined tones.
I've used this
analogy in the past, but it is an effective one and very much applies here:
Imagine that the human race is forced from the surface of the earth for some reason and becomes lost deep within a vast system of underground caves. Also imagine that after several generations have passed, all memory of the earth's surface disappears, save for a few vague parables and tales. The human race settles down in the caves and etches out a comfortable existence as best it can.
In this scenario:
- The underground caves represent the immense philosophical ignorance which currently afflicts the human race.
- The artist is the person who sits around painting pictures of life within the caves. He never searches for the surface himself, although he may paint a few soulful yearning pictures of what he imagines might exist beyond the caves.
- The scientist is the one who measures the walls and floors of the caves and constructs theories about how the caves were formed.
- The academic philosopher sits around having obscure formal debates with other academic philosophers, just as they always do.
- The spiritual person is the one who becomes deeply dissatisfied with life within the caves and goes off in seach of something better.
- The enlightened person is the one who actually succeeds in reaching the surface.
- The spiritual teacher is the one, who having reached the surface himself, constructs black-and-white arrow signs which help direct other seekers along the complex pathways of the cave system, and is roundly laughed at by a disinterested humanity for his troubles.
We can add the postmodernist to the mix. We can imagine a conversation between him and the excited man:
Man: Hey everyone! I've found a way out of here! I've found the surface! Sunshine, blue skies, fresh air, trees, birds, flowers, running streams - it's amazing! Come, we just have to go through that exit there and crawl a bit and we're there!
Postmodernist: You are delusional. There is no way out of here. It's a cultural myth.
Man: But I've just been up there. Come, I'll show you the way.
Postmodernist: You expect us to leave this vast cave, our home, with all its traditions and riches and crawl through that narrow exit?
Man: There is only a little bit of discomfort and then you'll be free!
Postmodernist: No, I'm sorry, that is very restricting. You can't possibly expect us to do that. If we start crawling around in those caves, we'll only become trapped. We could go crazy. We could die. And for what? An adolescent myth that no one in their right minds would believe in? I'm sorry, but my wife is over there. I think I'll just go and snuggle up to her, if you don't mind. I might even go and smell her underwear, so stick that in your proverbial and shove it.
I am the king of kings!
I only suggest that when we live in life, our spiritual path is always more local, more immediate.
Without going through that narrow gate, there is no spirituality, localized or otherwise.
On the other hand, those who do go through that narrow gate quickly find that everything around them and inside them is part of Nature's amazing spiritual reality. For them, there is no longer any distinction between local and non-local.
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