APOCALYPSE or FAIRY TALE?

[Alex Jacob]

One need only consider, at least see, the sort of 'split' that informs the difference of opinion---and also aesthetic---that informs the polarity that takes form here. In essence, the 'lists' offered by B. Michael, as well as the very essence of Fromm, derives from Judeo-Christianity. Such views are founded in having and increasing humanitarian concerns, and these privelage this human dimension above almost all other concerns.

On the other side, and acting like a sort of 'acid' or corrosive chemical in opposition to any level of humanitarianism, any definition of 'love', any definition of 'values' that are derived from these traditions in Western ideation and praxis, are those who (oddly enough)(and I reference Kelly as a perfect example) have been directly produced by this self-same tradition. Kierkegaardian monkism. The same is true for David, Dan, and Kevin (and many others who post here). Their 'link' to Christian culture---theology as well as the way the individual and the personality has been 'constructed'---is extraordinarily real even as they appear absolutely opposed to it. It is so very much their matrix that, from my perspective, it is somehow funny that, from the look of it, they establsih themselves as utterly opposed to it. There is an invisible driver here...

Kelly, as is usual and predictable, pours her 'acid' on the Fromm-list, sits back and watches it hiss and bubble and melt. With at least some genuine respect for her I would suggest that, pretty much across the board (no pun intended) this is her favorite activity. And in this it is not just 'her': if someone gets hold of 'acid' there is a great attraction in opening the bottle and pouring out a few drops on some 'living' thing, to watch the fascinating reaction. To a dying person, an individual coming asunder (and we all share this characteristic as Moderns), to destroy something is at least evidence of having some sort of 'life'. I suggest that this is one of the most delightful areas of entertainment for a certain sort of modern mind, in this stage of acute modernity, and with (as I have said a few times) its peculiar forms of desperation.

The reference to a snippet of Holy Text from Bukowski is telling, I think. Please don't misunderstand, I like Bukowski's prose and to some extent his peculiar and somewhat cynical view of the world. But I think it must be clearly articulated, at least be seen, that as an individual with a connection to 'life' (and in this sense to Judeo-Christian culture and the essence of 'values' there, as well as to the 'integrity' of a living personality) he was a dying man. So, in some sense there is veneration of a dead-man's method: the acid or 'poison' that is killing him. I only suggest it as a possible area to look into, to consider. Bukowski is no prophet...he is not the area we turn to to 'discover life'. It is really peculiar that so many in a decadent youth-culture wished to take hold of him as some sort of 'daddy-answer'. How utterly odd that Kelly quotes him from time to time!

As 'we all know', here, what we do is rehash and rehearse and repeat the same old tropes over and over and over again. A question I always wish to ask is: who here can be said to be 'growing'? What could 'growth' mean in the context of death-narratives. Clearly to use the word 'death' here is a little strong, but...

The problem with an analysis of the Taoist poem (or what is it? Scripture?) is that I think it needs to be handled with a tremendously developed sense of irony. The message of it, the intent of it, is not at all the way those who take refuge in it seem to mean it. They hold it up as a sort of anti-scripture to the Scripture (that is Judeo-Christian) that they are working so very hard to get out from under (Dave and Dan---at least I think Dan---as 'post-Catholics')(Not sure about Kelly or Kevin). No matter what, we are all fallen creatures (take that as a quick description, and with a note of humor), and no matter what ALL OF US are striving to 'realize the Tao'. The 'joke' is one of perspective, as I see it.

To refer to this scripture in this way---as an 'anti-value' or 'opposed value'---is meaningless and it is also flatly wrong (again as I see it). Spiritual traditions do not necessarily stand in opposition to each other, men do. One must be willing to take a look at the underpinning of 'deep resentment' that informs Q-R-S as well as Kelly. Something seethes here. After all, what gives 'acid' its bite, hmmmm? No one of them shows this level of self-knowledge, as far as I have seen, and oddly enough this makes the 'acid' only that much more...caustic. One finds that lovely, unchanging, fossilized causticity in our precious, snarling Prince...who will undoubtedly go to his grave in the thrall of this 'mood'. I suggest this is not really 'spiritual growth' or even 'human growth'...or 'Buddhist growth'!...but something more akin to a romantic poets love of his process of dying. I am reminded sometimes of Christian desert acetics going off to starve themselves for the Glory of God. One, wounded and infested with maggots, picks up some of the milky-white writhing creatures who've fallen out of his half-dead body. He carefully (lovingly!) picks them up and places them back into his side: 'Eat what God has given you to eat!'

(These observations, obviously, are utterly intolerable and, of course, will never be considered. Actually, the 'acid' requires them: it needs to stew in its acidity, validate its acidity, and increase acidity with 'opposition').

Now, with Bob we have in a sense 'the marriage made in heaven' for this list! Christian, yes. An utterly tendentious and mysteriously-mad interpretation of the Christian 'meaning'? Possibly. What are we to decide? Clearly, Christian apocalypticism and the structure of view that is eschatologically driven is...shall we say deeply weird? I mean, anyone must stand back and take a good long look at it, and as a 'psychological' driver of perception?* What are we to do with it? I wouldn't at all deny the possibility that some level of this prophecy is relevant, considerable...and possibly accurate...as a map of human development (?) But something is amiss and I don't know how to describe it. Wiping out whole sectors of mankind? Imperiously deciding who is human and who is not?

Yet, funny and telling how Diebert concords with this aspect. Our own Superman a la Hollandaise has given a sort of seal of approval! ;-) What a 'Sauce Divine'.

Without wishing to offend anyone, it always occurs to me to note how 'lost' everyone seems. But is that surprising in a process of history that has everything to do with 'falling asunder'?

*See Jung's 'Answer to Job'.

[Russell Parr]

What love of categories you have, Alex.

Is it not telling that at the end, in your massively in-depth analysis of the personalities, that you admit that you have no conclusive answer?

[Alex Jacob]

[Note: With all respects, I will only respond to in-depth and considered responses. 'As we all know' it is the one sentence 'snipe' that fulfils no function except to waste one's time, drag one down as it were.]

[Bob Michael]

With all due respect, Bob, I can't help but wonder if on some psychological level you're escaping your own freedom by focusing your attention on "the destruction of the world", Armegeddon etc. I mean no offense by this, but am just curious as to your opinion of Fromm's analysis, all of it, but particularly his comments regarding using destructiveness as a mechanism for escaping one's own freedom.

Carmel.....you seem to fail to realize that my focus is not on destruction but on CREATING an 'Ark', which will contain a body of highly-sensitive and therefore transformable men and women who will propagate a portion of the perfected human species forward after the necessary mass self-destruction of the species takes place. And not by my hand, but of and by itself. Or perhaps we could say by the hand of members of the other team. My only involvement in any destruction will be in helping to facilitate the destruction of the societally conditioned, spirit-destroying self-will in those candidates who will occupy the 'Ark'.

You mention "using destructiveness as a mechanism for escaping one's own freedom." I can't help but to wonder whether either you or Fromm know or knew just what true freedom consists of?

Destructiveness in most, but not all, cases is a characteristic of those who lack the capacity for creativity. Those who are incapable of love.

"The violence and wickedness of our time, when viewed collectively, are the work of loveless men and women: impotent men and women who lust after sadistic power to conceal their failure to be warm, decent, honest, loving, and compassionate human beings: repressed and frustrated men and women, lamed by unloving parents and seeking revenge by taking refuge in a system of thought or a mode of life into which love and goodness cannot intrude: at best, people whose erotic impulses have been cut off from the rhythms of life, self-enclosed atoms of erotic exploit, incapable of assuming the manifold responsibilities of lovers and parents through all stages of Iife." (A. U.)

[Bob Michael]

You, Bob Michael, were there at the beginning of time so that you can tell us, without arousing a shadow of good and evil relativity in your mind and in my mind, what darkness is and what light is?

Why don't we stick to the original topic here and discuss fullness of manhood or the lack thereof in the human species and ourselves, who make up the species? You needn't answer m/a, as I think I know. I'm not new to online discussion forums and all the cunning, foolish, and 'unmanly' games that are played in them. But certainly there's no one to blame as it's all simply a part of the ongoing human condition everywhere.

[Bob Michael]

Bob, I noticed in another thread that you viewed knowledge of the Infinite to be less helpful than a man's understanding himself.

Yes Kelly, I'll say it again; without rigorous, ongoing, unending, and thoroughly honest self-knowledge there'll be no 'living' and 'loving' knowledge of or relationship with the Infinite.

I began here with the topic of manhood or the lack thereof (which you seemed to take pleasure in mutilating). Now we're off to discussing (very likely in a competitive manner - though not on my part) all sorts of various and nebulous ideas, concepts, theories, and analogies on "the nature of love." But I'm not biting, my friend. I could be wrong here, but I really think your only desire in communicating with me, as is the case with some others herein, is to try to make a monkey out of me and the things I offer, which is really quite impossible to do.

I will however offer my following view on love, which is the product of my own personal experiences of making the return to that rare dimension of being in all its fullness and glory and my observations of my fellow human beings, most of whom never make such a return in the whole of their lifetime. Nor are most people at all capable of making such a return.

Unless a child experiences a sufficient realization of love in the critical formative or developmental years of his life he'll never come to know or experience love in adulthood. Nor will he ever experience fullness of manhood either. J. Krishnamurti was of the same mindset as myself on this matter of love as reflected in his following simple, but well said, observation:

"To love is the greatest thing in life; and it is very important to talk about love, to feel it, to treasure it, otherwise it is soon dissipated, for the world is very brutal. If while you are young you don't feel love, if you don't look with love at people, at animals, at flowers, when you grow up you will find that your life is empty; you will be very lonely, and the dark shadows of fear will follow you always." (J. Krishnamurti - 'Think On These Things')

And I can clearly see "the dark shadows of fear" constantly following most of my "lonely" fellow human beings. Along with the emptyness of their minds, hearts, and human spirits. But these things simply all have to be and someday they will change for the better.

Perhaps I could sum things up here with a paraphrase of John, who is best known as the apostle of love: 'Every one who loveth is born of the Infinite.'

[Bob Michael]

Thanks for the Lao Tzu quotes, but I think I'll step aside and let you and Bob hash this one out...

The only Lao Tzu quote I have any real interest in, since it contains little room for flowery monkey-business, is the following: "The perfect man is pure Spirit."

[Bob Michael]

"The dark side of men is clear. Their mad exploitation of earth resources, devaluation and humiliation of women, and obsession with tribal warfare are undeniable. Genetic inheritance contributes to their obsessions, but also culture and environment. We have defective mythologies that ignore masculine depth of feeling, assign men a place in the sky instead of earth, teach obedience to the wrong powers, work to keep men boys, and entangle both men and women in systems of industrial domination that exclude both matriarchy and patriarchy." (Robert Bly - 'Iron John')

[jupiviv]

art

as
the
spirit
wanes
the
form
appears

I think what he's trying to say is that when we lose faith in our own selves, i.e, our own thought, we start looking for reality elsewhere(art.)

[Carmel]

What love of categories you have, Alex.

Is it not telling that at the end, in your massively in-depth analysis of the personalities, that you admit that you have no conclusive answer?

Carmel:
Are you joking? There are no "conclusive answers". Alex is just calling a spade a spade.

[Pam Seeback]

Bob Michael: Why don't we stick to the original topic here and discuss fullness of manhood or the lack thereof in the human species and ourselves, who make up the species? You needn't answer m/a, as I think I know. I'm not new to online discussion forums and all the cunning, foolish, and 'unmanly' games that are played in them. But certainly there's no one to blame as it's all simply a part of the ongoing human condition everywhere.

My question to you was related to the fullness of manhood according to my individual world of relativity of myth and of metaphor, which is indeed a game, for no man can say he has the non-mythical, non-metaphorical Mind of God. Which means you are playing your game of good and evil relativity of myth and of metaphor, as am I. The difference between us, as I see it, is that you desire to remain in the game of myth and of metaphor and I do not.

To me, the human condition is one of ignorance. The ignorance of man's belief that his words are absolute things. “Fullness of manhood” is just such a belief. The question I asked myself and continue to ask myself, using your metaphor of “fullness of manhood” is: do I want to live of my ignorance [untruth] of there being such a thing as an absolute condition of “fullness of manhood” or do I want to live of the fullness of the absoluteness of my being, wherein no myth or metaphors reside? I choose the latter way of being, hence the path of being purged of my ignorance of belief in the reality of the absoluteness of an idea or ideal. In other words, I am bearing my own cross of being crucified of my darkness of my ignorance of belief in a God whose foundation is divided of idea.

The path of which I speak above is the living awareness of the way of the [permanent] death of idea, if you can understand what I am suggesting. To you, it may sound “clinical” or “machine-like”, terms I once used myself in a previous incarnation of me, but to the man wise of this path of being crucified, there is never a moment when Life is not Life, regardless of Its interpretations of Itself, which man is but one.

Bottom line: I have no desire to belong to a collective of souls who believe they have attained perfection, for I know that no such 'thing' exists. Relativity of wisdom of the earth, yes, but not a perfection of absolute comprehension. It is in the spirit of this understanding of the dualism of the "fullness of manhood" that I respond to you.

[Pam Seeback]

Thanks for the Lao Tzu quotes, but I think I'll step aside and let you and Bob hash this one out...

The only Lao Tzu quote I have any real interest in, since it contains little room for flowery monkey-business, is the following: "The perfect man is pure Spirit."

Agreement! Now, where in pure Spirit is there a question of why, what, when, who and where, as there is in the Spirit of the Son of Man of the earth that is you before me and me before you?

[Alex Jacob]

Moving Always has written: "To me, the human condition is one of ignorance. The ignorance of man's belief that his words are absolute things. “Fullness of manhood” is just such a belief. The question I asked myself and continue to ask myself, using your metaphor of “fullness of manhood” is: do I want to live of my ignorance [untruth] of there being such a thing as an absolute condition of “fullness of manhood” or do I want to live of the fullness of the absoluteness of my being, wherein no myth or metaphors reside? I choose the latter way of being, hence the path of being purged of my ignorance of belief in the reality of the absoluteness of an idea or ideal. In other words, I am bearing my own cross of being crucified of my darkness of my ignorance of belief in a God whose foundation is divided of idea."

I would suggest that, entering this 'system of belief', one is mind-fucked from the beginning. It is absolutely possible, and I submit necessary, to propose a 'man of fullness' and a 'fullness of manhood'. We need such definitions. If for some reason we have mind-fucked ourself out of even the possibility of arriving at such definitions, and if we extend that, as we naturally must, to any procees or product of definition, we successfully sweep away the ground under our own feet. At that point, all we really have is ineffectiveness; ineffectiveness and silence. The view-structure that informs such a---please permit me---emasculation, does indeed seem to be, or in any case can certainly be suggested as appearing, clinical and the machine-like. It is 'machine-like' because it is reflexive, automatic, axiomatic. It is 'clinical-like' as it is devoid of a living, breathing being who acts in his world; loves, constructs, advocates.

"Agreement! Now, where in pure Spirit is there a question of why, what, when, who and where, as there is in the Spirit of the Son of Man of the earth that is you before me and me before you?"

You have attained a rare psychological yoga-posture: the Oroboros!

[cousinbasil]

Bottom line: I have no desire to belong to a collective of souls who believe they have attained perfection, for I know that no such 'thing' exists. Relativity of wisdom of the earth, yes, but not a perfection of absolute comprehension. It is in the spirit of this understanding of the dualism of the "fullness of manhood" that I respond to you.

I wouldn't worry, Pam - I don't think Bob was inviting you onto his Ark.

Are you joking? There are no "conclusive answers". Alex is just calling a spade a spade

.
In his way that's what Alex always does, though many regulars here seem to disagree. (BTW, it's good to see that Talking Ass has once again made an Alex out of himself.)

I don't think the very real threats facing Mankind can be called a "fairy tale." As long as the apparatus of sweeping destruction exists (super-virus, nuclear devices, etc.) there is the issue of who is guarding them, who can set them into motion. Certainly in the thermonuclear arena, there are still enough warheads to ensure that if they were deployed, not much would be left standing.

This specter is something I grew up with. Personally, I have no need to relate this to the Apocalypse of Revelations, or anyone else's nightmares about the End of Days, for that matter. Each day that I set foot out of the house, I am more likely to be killed by a drunk driver than by an atomic warhead. This knowledge does not prod me to move to Amish country.

Not that I don't understand Bob's anxieties. But actually building this Ark, in whatever form it ends up assuming, be it vast underground shelter, remote mountain top colony, or literally a floating platform, will require huge amounts of money and resources. Unless Bob has those resources, he must somehow procure them. In the end, in order to produce a physical system that would withstand what he believes surely will come, every single spiritual or moral value he cherishes so much will have been trampled upon a thousand times over. The more ambitious his self-preservation plans become, the more he and others would have to act in a manner contrary to the ideals which prompted the plans in the first place, if there were any real chance of carrying them out.

While it's lamentable that the world doesn't meet Bob's standards, that doesn't guarantee that most of it will be wiped out so he can live out his remaining years without feeling so put out by our shortcomings.

[Beingof1]

Good discussion from all and thank you.

That which is coming is being delayed which makes me wrong about one prediction and thank God, I am wrong.
My hope is that we transcend ignorance and greed altogether.

Never - ever - underestimate the power of consciousness. It is all that is - learn to love it.


Alex, to have no words is not without power.

Tetragrammaton

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Without wishing to offend anyone, it always occurs to me to note how 'lost' everyone seems. But is that surprising in a process of history that has everything to do with 'falling asunder'?

Bruder Jakob, Bruder Jakob, Schläfst du noch? Schläfst du noch?
.

[Alex Jacob]

Morning Bells are Ringing...

[Kelly Jones]

In essence, the 'lists' offered by B. Michael, as well as the very essence of Fromm, derives from Judeo-Christianity. Such views are founded in having and increasing humanitarian concerns,

I disagree strongly that anyone who has a deep care for other humans must necessarily take it from Judeo-Christianity. That is like saying, without such a tradition, a person is a horror. It's an argument that expresses your attachment to that tradition, but does nothing to dignify it.

On the other side, and acting like a sort of 'acid' or corrosive chemical in opposition to any level of humanitarianism, any definition of 'love', any definition of 'values' that are derived from these traditions in Western ideation and praxis, are those who (oddly enough)(and I reference Kelly as a perfect example) have been directly produced by this self-same tradition. Kierkegaardian monkism.

What absolute rot, Alex. I am not as fixed and prejudiced as you would like me to be. Kierkegaard's definitions of love, for example, are multitudinous and complex. And he is far from being monkish (even ridicules the cloister-bound tradition as an undeveloped and laughable attempt to reach God-consciousness). I have the same openness to different interpretations of the concept.

So far, I have remained tentative about what the definition Bob holds for "love". That's why I have asked for him to clarify it. Unfortunately, it's not forthcoming. But I live and wait.

Kelly, as is usual and predictable, pours her 'acid' on the Fromm-list, sits back and watches it hiss and bubble and melt. With at least some genuine respect for her I would suggest that, pretty much across the board (no pun intended) this is her favorite activity.

Yet another example of your attack on others of traits you yourself display, but your victims don't display. I'm starting to wonder if you spend time here only to find people who faintly resemble your own personal traits with which you have a love-hate relationship with, so you can attack them rather than deal with your self directly.

And in this it is not just 'her': if someone gets hold of 'acid' there is a great attraction in opening the bottle and pouring out a few drops on some 'living' thing, to watch the fascinating reaction. To a dying person, an individual coming asunder (and we all share this characteristic as Moderns), to destroy something is at least evidence of having some sort of 'life'. I suggest that this is one of the most delightful areas of entertainment for a certain sort of modern mind, in this stage of acute modernity, and with (as I have said a few times) its peculiar forms of desperation.

You only see the dying, and think that the suffering embedded within that process of dying is the whole story. You don't see the purpose of dying to the ego, and the consequent liberation thereafter, of knowing one's true self.

The reference to a snippet of Holy Text from Bukowski is telling, I think. Please don't misunderstand, I like Bukowski's prose and to some extent his peculiar and somewhat cynical view of the world. But I think it must be clearly articulated, at least be seen, that as an individual with a connection to 'life' (and in this sense to Judeo-Christian culture and the essence of 'values' there, as well as to the 'integrity' of a living personality) he was a dying man. So, in some sense there is veneration of a dead-man's method: the acid or 'poison' that is killing him. I only suggest it as a possible area to look into, to consider. Bukowski is no prophet...he is not the area we turn to to 'discover life'. It is really peculiar that so many in a decadent youth-culture wished to take hold of him as some sort of 'daddy-answer'. How utterly odd that Kelly quotes him from time to time!

Let's get something straight. Bukowski was deeply cynical, but he was articulating in 'art' the same message as is articulated in Lao Tzu's writings (see the previous page of this thread). It's a universal, not derivative, notion. But you, predictably, like to compartmentalise everything up into traditions, to avoid seeing the absolute.

As 'we all know', here, what we do is rehash and rehearse and repeat the same old tropes over and over and over again. A question I always wish to ask is: who here can be said to be 'growing'? What could 'growth' mean in the context of death-narratives. Clearly to use the word 'death' here is a little strong, but...

You're the one who continues to repeat yourself. If you were able to let go of your traditions and safety-blankets, you might be able to experience true growth and freedom.

The problem with an analysis of the Taoist poem (or what is it? Scripture?) is that I think it needs to be handled with a tremendously developed sense of irony. The message of it, the intent of it, is not at all the way those who take refuge in it seem to mean it. They hold it up as a sort of anti-scripture to the Scripture (that is Judeo-Christian) that they are working so very hard to get out from under (Dave and Dan---at least I think Dan---as 'post-Catholics')(Not sure about Kelly or Kevin). No matter what, we are all fallen creatures (take that as a quick description, and with a note of humor), and no matter what ALL OF US are striving to 'realize the Tao'. The 'joke' is one of perspective, as I see it.

In a way, you've accidentally touched on something true: it is gods, or attachments, that are being destroyed. It's not just traditions and scriptural authorities that are the object of deconstruction. It is everything one holds onto as an explanation, as a fundamental reality, as a fundamental encasement of truth, that is the object of destruction and dismantling in the spiritual path. There is good reason for this. But you seem incapable of understanding the point.

To refer to this scripture in this way---as an 'anti-value' or 'opposed value'---is meaningless and it is also flatly wrong (again as I see it).

Of course it's meaningless to you. You don't see the point. You don't have any grasp of truth, but are ensconced in safety blanket scriptures.

Spiritual traditions do not necessarily stand in opposition to each other, men do.

Here you show you don't understand at all what the method of deconstruction is aimed at. Spiritual traditions can reveal useful ideas - but they need to be used for the purpose for which they are given. After that, holding onto them is an ignorant and disrespectful action - like refusing to get out of the boat once it has afforded crossing of the river it was designed to cross.

One must be willing to take a look at the underpinning of 'deep resentment' that informs Q-R-S as well as Kelly. Something seethes here. After all, what gives 'acid' its bite, hmmmm?

A need to free people from insanity. A deep distrust of the ego. A fear for people's souls. A disgust for needless suffering. A love of truth and wisdom. The joy of learning that one has never lived in the first place.

No one of them shows this level of self-knowledge, as far as I have seen, and oddly enough this makes the 'acid' only that much more...caustic. One finds that lovely, unchanging, fossilized causticity in our precious, snarling Prince...who will undoubtedly go to his grave in the thrall of this 'mood'.

Lumping everyone together is hardly a scientific method. Prince is himself, with rather deep admitted psychological issues, and cannot be taken as exemplary by anyone. Except you, of course, with your smouldering resentment of this forum, and need to find shallow objections to defend your own tastes.

I suggest this is not really 'spiritual growth' or even 'human growth'...or 'Buddhist growth'!...but something more akin to a romantic poets love of his process of dying. I am reminded sometimes of Christian desert acetics going off to starve themselves for the Glory of God. One, wounded and infested with maggots, picks up some of the milky-white writhing creatures who've fallen out of his half-dead body. He carefully (lovingly!) picks them up and places them back into his side: 'Eat what God has given you to eat!'

Now the true character of your absurd and cartoonish objections reveals itself. More of the same old Alex, entertaining himself with poetic symbolism and snarling mockery. You're growing, sure, regressing into a well-tested and secure act.

(These observations, obviously, are utterly intolerable and, of course, will never be considered. Actually, the 'acid' requires them: it needs to stew in its acidity, validate its acidity, and increase acidity with 'opposition').

Actually, I find you boring. I'd like to meet with an intelligent person who really understood the nature of the dangerous techniques of the spiritual path, and was honest with his anxieties. But with you: everything is designed to hide your true feelings.

Now, with Bob we have in a sense 'the marriage made in heaven' for this list! Christian, yes. An utterly tendentious and mysteriously-mad interpretation of the Christian 'meaning'? Possibly. What are we to decide? Clearly, Christian apocalypticism and the structure of view that is eschatologically driven is...shall we say deeply weird? I mean, anyone must stand back and take a good long look at it, and as a 'psychological' driver of perception?* What are we to do with it? I wouldn't at all deny the possibility that some level of this prophecy is relevant, considerable...and possibly accurate...as a map of human development (?) But something is amiss and I don't know how to describe it. Wiping out whole sectors of mankind? Imperiously deciding who is human and who is not?

Bob is a passionate and experienced old man, more honest than yourself, who is deeply sickened by what he sees, and is trying with all his weapons, to make some sort of change. I respect that. I respect even his attempt to champion harmony and candid spiritual connections, despite it not being the highest level, because I think it has its efficacy within the mess of human ignorance.

Yet, funny and telling how Diebert concords with this aspect. Our own Superman a la Hollandaise has given a sort of seal of approval! ;-) What a 'Sauce Divine'.

You get a kick out of mocking those you despise, I take it.

Without wishing to offend anyone, it always occurs to me to note how 'lost' everyone seems. But is that surprising in a process of history that has everything to do with 'falling asunder'?

Enough of your violin scraping. There are more pleasant ways to spend my time than listen to your closed-minded, blind narrative.


.

[Kelly Jones]

Bob, I noticed in another thread that you viewed knowledge of the Infinite to be less helpful than a man's understanding himself.

Yes Kelly, I'll say it again; without rigorous, ongoing, unending, and thoroughly honest self-knowledge there'll be no 'living' and 'loving' knowledge of or relationship with the Infinite.

But anything finite is an illusion. Grasping hold of it is like holding onto the wind.

I wonder whether you've noticed that all the effort needed to pin-point the degree of truthfulness and integrity of your thoughts is like a kitten that chases its own ever-elusive tail, owing to the never-ending relativity of the situation. I mean, how are you measuring integrity? Where's the final standard placed?

I began here with the topic of manhood or the lack thereof (which you seemed to take pleasure in mutilating).

I'd be careful to remember that they're your current depictions of manhood, if I were you, because there is entirely a higher development of masculinity that I espouse for the purposes of this discussion. Also, your trust in Alex's commentary does you a disservice. He doesn't see the point of helping people to dismantle delusions, but regards any such pointed judgment as "mutilation". A lung surgeon removing a cancerous tumour is technically not a "mutilating doctor". I ask you to try to see the operation with such eyes, if you can.

Now we're off to discussing (very likely in a competitive manner - though not on my part) all sorts of various and nebulous ideas, concepts, theories, and analogies on "the nature of love." But I'm not biting, my friend. I could be wrong here, but I really think your only desire in communicating with me, as is the case with some others herein, is to try to make a monkey out of me and the things I offer, which is really quite impossible to do.

Not at all. I am never so disrespectful to people who are sincere and obviously making an effort to redress the follies humans blindly engage in. I see them, and therefore yourself also, as the danger-courting tight-rope walker in Nietzsche's perceptive account of the pursuit of wisdom, 'Thus Spake Zarathustra'. To live in that way is not undignified. But it is only the beginning.....

I will however offer my following view on love, which is the product of my own personal experiences of making the return to that rare dimension of being in all its fullness and glory and my observations of my fellow human beings, most of whom never make such a return in the whole of their lifetime. Nor are most people at all capable of making such a return.

Unless a child experiences a sufficient realization of love in the critical formative or developmental years of his life he'll never come to know or experience love in adulthood. Nor will he ever experience fullness of manhood either. J. Krishnamurti was of the same mindset as myself on this matter of love as reflected in his following simple, but well said, observation:

"To love is the greatest thing in life; and it is very important to talk about love, to feel it, to treasure it, otherwise it is soon dissipated, for the world is very brutal. If while you are young you don't feel love, if you don't look with love at people, at animals, at flowers, when you grow up you will find that your life is empty; you will be very lonely, and the dark shadows of fear will follow you always." (J. Krishnamurti - 'Think On These Things')

And I can clearly see "the dark shadows of fear" constantly following most of my "lonely" fellow human beings. Along with the emptyness of their minds, hearts, and human spirits. But these things simply all have to be and someday they will change for the better.

Perhaps I could sum things up here with a paraphrase of John, who is best known as the apostle of love: 'Every one who loveth is born of the Infinite.'

Unfortunately, I could only see the above view on love to be an introduction. There is no actual description given of what you mean by "love". Is it a warm feeling of acceptance, of cherishing with delight and adoration, involving the emotions primarily, where the body feels suffused with health and vitality, energised and looking forward to the next kiss from Nature?

Or is it something one could describe as an attitude based on understanding something deeper about the very nature of Reality? For instance, that all finite things are of one substrate - the Infinite - and should therefore be treated unconditionally with equal acceptance? If the latter, I don't see where the emotions would come into play at all.


.

[jufa]

One need only consider, at least see, the sort of 'split' that informs the difference of opinion---and also aesthetic---that informs the polarity that takes form here. In essence, the 'lists' offered by B. Michael, as well as the very essence of Fromm, derives from Judeo-Christianity. Such views are founded in having and increasing humanitarian concerns, and these privelage this human dimension above almost all other concerns.

On the other side, and acting like a sort of 'acid' or corrosive chemical in opposition to any level of humanitarianism, any definition of 'love', any definition of 'values' that are derived from these traditions in Western ideation and praxis, are those who (oddly enough)(and I reference Kelly as a perfect example) have been directly produced by this self-same tradition. Kierkegaardian monkism. The same is true for David, Dan, and Kevin (and many others who post here). Their 'link' to Christian culture---theology as well as the way the individual and the personality has been 'constructed'---is extraordinarily real even as they appear absolutely opposed to it. It is so very much their matrix that, from my perspective, it is somehow funny that, from the look of it, they establsih themselves as utterly opposed to it. There is an invisible driver here...

Speaking totally from jufa, what has occurred here is that the participants in this thread, bar none, has discovered the reality of pupose and mistook it to be personal. Why do I say this? All reality is invisible, and this is true because man, who is the conduit of that which is issued forth out of the invisible {original thought intent and purpose], is the invisible expression of life's purpose of an the indefinable Spirit Principles of Substance and Patterned Essence.

"Existence is beyond the power of words to define
Terms may be used, but are none of them absolute.
In the beginning of heavenand earth there were no words,
Words came out of the womb of matter,
And whether a man dispassionately see the core of life,
Or passionately seen the surface,
The core and surface are essentially the same,
Words making them seem different - Lao tzu

Existence shine through every man, woman and child whole, perfect complete, and pure according to the Principle and Pattern of 'Everything after its kind." And being we are of the likeness and image of the Creator, then our purposed principle and pattern of original intent is to allow the Spirit which is indefinable to flow through us without judgment so we will not hinder our expansion of being lifted up to be in position to draw all men unto that Spirit which takes no human thought.

This is why we are instructed to 'Take No Thought." And to take no thought does not mean not to think, but not to take possession of that which is free so that the free thought can fulfill all that is righteous as that image and likeness we are.

We cannot become aligned to the invisible. We can only become intuned to how we convey that which is flowing freely to us so our Spirit can unite with all who touch us and are touched by us. Being a messenger is not a sharing of thought to change one to act according to our interpretations. Being a messenger is a demonstration that we strive to live and move and have our being purged of our own self-condemnation according to the law of old, and begin living by "thy grace is my suficiency."

Silence is the activity of the invisible. All that we are aware of came to us out of the Silence. The Silence flows through all our conscious and unconscious moment, and returns to the Silence. No one can say they can know what thoughts will come out of Silence' continuum of Now in this the moment of their thinking. So where does one moment begin and another end? "Who convinceth me of sin?"

In the final analysis what else can anyone here say but I Am? But what are we is the question which came after the answer. So until we can say as the Creator I Am and put a period behind it, we will, irrespective of our human knowledge of Scripture and all else in this world, be the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve mentalism, which mentality did not realize it is the consciousness of Spirit, and not that of the mentality of "bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh.

So then the question we must ask ourselves is What is Love is it does not coveer the entire Spectrum of our thoughts to receive the invisible, which Itself is No Respector of Person, Place, or Thing? There is only one Love. We are that Love. How can Love be expressed whole, perfect, complete, and pure in condemnation and by judging others? How can Love be expressed in the attribut of the "law of the Spirit of life" if we are not the ever renewing, ever unfolding expressiong of infinite Life?

If we are the Sons and Daughters of Life, we are the emanation of Love. This is why it is essential we realize "I and my Father are one." It is essential we comprehend it is the movement of God's Spirit which made us living souls consciously aware of our ability to see, hear, touch, taste, smell, think, and analyze that which comes to us out of the Silence.

Never give power to anything a person believes is their source of strength - jufa

[Alex Jacob]

Kelly, I call it like I sees it. I don't pretend to be '100% right' of anything and, ultimately, believe that you and everyone have the right to define themselves. Still, I think I am partially right, and for the reasons I describe. True, I am speaking about 'tendencies' that are in evidence all around us, and in us. In fact I did in a few places include myself within 'the problem'. I certainly don't consider myself unimplicated.

You wrote: "I disagree strongly that anyone who has a deep care for other humans must necessarily take it from Judeo-Christianity. That is like saying, without such a tradition, a person is a horror. It's an argument that expresses your attachment to that tradition, but does nothing to dignify it."

But I didn't say quite that. I said that the list Bob provided, and I assume Bob as a Christian, and certain Fromm as a Jew, express a quintessence of humanitarianism that is one of the highest of all values professed. Christianity, tremendously in its favor, defines a praxis of life that is 'service in love'. True, so many fall short, but the point still stands: it defines relatedness to living beings, a relationship to their suffering, a will oriented toward service to ameliorate that suffering. It is certainly true that Buddhism also (seems to) share that praxis. Perhaps this is why, by and large, I take issue with the brand of Buddhism presented 'round these parts? In general, here, the TBs, show no relatedness to man. It seems pathologically strange to me, and I state it.

"Yet another example of your attack on others of traits you yourself display, but your victims don't display. I'm starting to wonder if you spend time here only to find people who faintly resemble your own personal traits with which you have a love-hate relationship with, so you can attack them rather than deal with your self directly."

I have certain things, certain values, I am deeply interested in defending, that is true. But I don't quite accept the term 'attack'. To take a stand against a position, a formulation interiorized (and exteriorized) that seems to dominate a person or a group of people, and to do this emphatically, is not an 'attack'. I.e. a desire to do harm. It is perhaps a 'jostling'? Please don't think for any reason that I don't like you. I certainly don't want to harm you. Try to remember that I am more interested in the 'ideas that inform us' and how that in-formation effects conduct.

"You only see the dying, and think that the suffering embedded within that process of dying is the whole story. You don't see the purpose of dying to the ego, and the consequent liberation thereafter, of knowing one's true self."

I see ideas that, I perceive, lead to a sort of 'death-philosophy'. An intellectual killing of the self before the self is even out of the gate, so to speak. I see a philosophy that atomizes the individual. I believe these tendencies stem from the dramatic decadence in which we live, and a separation from 'spirit' in the best sense of the possible meaning of the word. When I speak of 'dying' (and the dead) I reflect on the words and ideas and seeming atrophying of imagination, the turning of the mind into fixed ruts. I am not completely off the mark in what I see. I regret that it is sometimes necessary (in the sense of unavoidable) to speak broadly and generally about 'the ideas of a group of people'. Yet, 'you' (Kelly and QRS) are a related, like-minded group, and so are the TBs who chime in. See around that generalizing tendency of mine.

I would point out that my 'lema' is 'muero porque no muero' of St John of the Cross: I'm dying because I won't die is one way to translate it. I am not at all incapable of understanding what that may mean for an individual. The fact is, generally, I am often completely misrepresented if not maligned because I take (some) contrary positions.

But in this sense, as I see it, dying to oneself presages REBIRTH on one level or another. One of the salient characteristic of this forum...is not quite that. I simply say that I see the same tropes trotted out and wonder where growth is? where the individual is? It is a fair question: a good and necessary question.

"Let's get something straight. Bukowski was deeply cynical, but he was articulating in 'art' the same message as is articulated in Lao Tzu's writings (see the previous page of this thread). It's a universal, not derivative, notion. But you, predictably, like to compartmentalise everything up into traditions, to avoid seeing the absolute."

I am not opposed to cynicism, and I am not even opposed to death (dying). I am certainly not opposed to Bukowski. I am, I suppose, oppsed to the immitation of certain 'modes of vision' that seem to me 'destructive'. I love the prose and poetry of Dylan Thomas and he can be read on many different levels, but I am also quite aware that he was a dying, drowning man, and his dying was emblematic of an age. If I critique Bukowski and say it surprises me that you admire him, it is perhaps for the above reasons. It is not so outrageous...

I don't 'believe' in absolutes. I am forced to believe in people. And 'the angels above'. ;-)

"If you were able to let go of your traditions..."

But you do not understand WHAT I cling to and you do not understand WHY.

"In a way, you've accidentally touched on something true: it is gods, or attachments, that are being destroyed. It's not just traditions and scriptural authorities that are the object of deconstruction. It is everything one holds onto as an explanation, as a fundamental reality, as a fundamental encasement of truth, that is the object of destruction and dismantling in the spiritual path. There is good reason for this. But you seem incapable of understanding the point."

It is an easy point to get. And it makes sense, as far as it goes. But y'all use it for very DIFFERENT reasons. It is an 'underbelly' that I often notice around here. Again, 'you' are connected in ways you perhaps don't see to certain processes of 'destruction': the 'acid' I refer to.

"Here you show you don't understand at all what the method of deconstruction is aimed at. Spiritual traditions can reveal useful ideas - but they need to be used for the purpose for which they are given. After that, holding onto them is an ignorant and disrespectful action - like refusing to get out of the boat once it has afforded crossing of the river it was designed to cross."

I am a realist about men and what they can and can't---will and won't---do. For me I see spiritual truths as operating on many, many different levels. People need different things at different times and different places. The 'acid' I am referring to is a general and epidemic 'etching away' that, in itself, needs to be 'deconstructed', as I see things. Can you see what I mean?

There is nothing you say or write about Kelly that I am not capable of understanding. There is little complex about your position!

"A need to free people from insanity. A deep distrust of the ego. A fear for people's souls. A disgust for needless suffering. A love of truth and wisdom. The joy of learning that one has never lived in the first place."

You do none of this. Please tell me about 'the people' in your life, those you are in human contact with on a daily basis. To 'reach' people is to have a deep relatedness with people. But none of these values are ever expressed in your-plural discourse! It is devoid of that concern. You operate in an abstract realm...disembodied and disconnected!

What 'you' end up achieving is not 'egolessness' nor relief of suffering...but a kind of celebration of anomie.

"Lumping everyone together is hardly a scientific method. Prince is himself, with rather deep admitted psychological issues, and cannot be taken as exemplary by anyone. Except you, of course, with your smouldering resentment of this forum, and need to find shallow objections to defend your own tastes."

Oh no? He is a voice in the chorus. He is quite relevant in fact. He is a part and a parcel of 'all of us'

"Actually, I find you boring. I'd like to meet with an intelligent person who really understood the nature of the dangerous techniques of the spiritual path, and was honest with his anxieties. But with you: everything is designed to hide your true feelings."

I think it possible that you might not recognize who is and who is not 'on a spiritual path' only because you have such a narrow definition of what it is and what it can be.

"Bob is a passionate and experienced old man, more honest than yourself, who is deeply sickened by what he sees, and is trying with all his weapons, to make some sort of change. I respect that."

Though this may certainly be true, and I have yet to write about the many good and intersting ideas he brings up, I think it is always wise to maintain a little distance. Generally speaking, people are a little batty and it is not really their own fault. So much has crashed around us and there is so much more that will. As Korolenko (an unknown Russian writer) wrote in one of his short stories---Yashka---(which ironically is diminutive for Yakov in Russian):

• 'Everybody goes crazy in their own way'.

[Kelly Jones]

Kelly, I call it like I sees it. I don't pretend to be '100% right' of anything and, ultimately, believe that you and everyone have the right to define themselves. Still, I think I am partially right, and for the reasons I describe.

I don't think you are even within the ballpark, actually.

Alex: In essence, the 'lists' offered by B. Michael, as well as the very essence of Fromm, derives from Judeo-Christianity.

Kelly: I disagree strongly that anyone who has a deep care for other humans must necessarily take it from Judeo-Christianity. That is like saying, without such a tradition, a person is a horror. It's an argument that expresses your attachment to that tradition, but does nothing to dignify it.

Alex: But I didn't say quite that. I said that the list Bob provided, and I assume Bob as a Christian, and certain Fromm as a Jew, express a quintessence of humanitarianism that is one of the highest of all values professed.

Look again. You said Bob's view of love (and Fromm's) derives from Judeo-Christianity. That means, you believe that at some point, any care or concern for human welfare must have been sourced in what just happens to be your favourite scriptural tradition. It's utter bullshit, surely you realise that.

Christianity, tremendously in its favor, defines a praxis of life that is 'service in love'.

So do most religions, actually, but not that this favours any of them, since many misinterpret "love" or "compassion" to be a kind of soft pitying desire that smothers people in a meaningless kind of empathy, the purpose of which is merely to avoid suffering and the harsh edges of heightened consciousness. That interpretation of love is a useless sentimentality, that does nothing to help anyone.

True, so many fall short, but the point still stands: it defines relatedness to living beings, a relationship to their suffering, a will oriented toward service to ameliorate that suffering. It is certainly true that Buddhism also (seems to) share that praxis. Perhaps this is why, by and large, I take issue with the brand of Buddhism presented 'round these parts? In general, here, the TBs, show no relatedness to man. It seems pathologically strange to me, and I state it.

I know it's strange to you. But you're unwilling to explore, because you believe you're right. Unfortunately, the truth remains: unless you know your true nature, relating the finite to the Infinite, and seeing the unreality of everything finite, there is no genuine compassion and concern for the wellbeing of others, nor ability to assist them to end psychological suffering. That is a truth you seem helplessly unable to comprehend.

Kelly: Yet another example of your attack on others of traits you yourself display, but your victims don't display. I'm starting to wonder if you spend time here only to find people who faintly resemble your own personal traits with which you have a love-hate relationship with, so you can attack them rather than deal with your self directly.

Alex: I have certain things, certain values, I am deeply interested in defending, that is true. But I don't quite accept the term 'attack'. To take a stand against a position, a formulation interiorized (and exteriorized) that seems to dominate a person or a group of people, and to do this emphatically, is not an 'attack'. I.e. a desire to do harm. It is perhaps a 'jostling'? Please don't think for any reason that I don't like you. I certainly don't want to harm you. Try to remember that I am more interested in the 'ideas that inform us' and how that in-formation effects conduct.

Stop lying. You definitely were on the rampage with your last post, asserting that (and these are your words, verbatim) I was seething with deep resentment, showing no self-knowledge, acidic, wounded and infested with maggots, showing no spiritual or human growth, starved, dead, taking hold of death-narratives, part of a decadent youth-culture inclined to treat Bukowski's poetry as some sort of 'daddy-answer', and that my favourite activity was to entertain myself by desperate 'modern' activities like critiquing values like love.

It's comical that you accused me of acidic criticism, in a vehement and thoughtless attack, such that then when I held a mirror up to your face, your next post became pompously humble. That's deeply hypocritical.

Kelly: You only see the dying, and think that the suffering embedded within that process of dying is the whole story. You don't see the purpose of dying to the ego, and the consequent liberation thereafter, of knowing one's true self.

Alex: I see ideas that, I perceive, lead to a sort of 'death-philosophy'. An intellectual killing of the self before the self is even out of the gate, so to speak. I see a philosophy that atomizes the individual. I believe these tendencies stem from the dramatic decadence in which we live, and a separation from 'spirit' in the best sense of the possible meaning of the word. When I speak of 'dying' (and the dead) I reflect on the words and ideas and seeming atrophying of imagination, the turning of the mind into fixed ruts. I am not completely off the mark in what I see. I regret that it is sometimes necessary (in the sense of unavoidable) to speak broadly and generally about 'the ideas of a group of people'. Yet, 'you' (Kelly and QRS) are a related, like-minded group, and so are the TBs who chime in. See around that generalizing tendency of mine.

You are completely off the mark, because you're only looking at the superficial characteristics - as I mentioned before. You're not looking at the actual reality of what is happening, but for this you'd need to understand the nature of the spiritual path. The self isn't really being killed, since it doesn't really exist in the first place. It's the delusion of self (ie. ego) that is being dismantled and taken to pieces before the patient's own eyes, and hopefully on their own initiative, here.

For the egotist waking up to Reality, the suffering is a result of having thoughts of Ultimate Reality that are always entirely at odds with their truths to that point. Their experiences, worldview, values, and desires (being "life") have been slowly developed over their life-time. It is no wonder they feel anguished, and conflicted, and that the deep but slow psychological change feels exactly like a living death. It is exactly like being a patient under the knife of their own discriminations, patiently waiting for the processes of change and learning to take hold and build momentum.

But this process is only the beginning. It is far from characteristic of the whole path, since suffering indicates delusion still exists. If one feels like dying, as one who is in the death-throes of emotional attachments, then clearly there is still work to be done.

Also, you should try to avoid lumping distinct individuals with different personalities, approaches, and ideas into one bland homogeneity. It's a mistake.

I would point out that my 'lema' is 'muero porque no muero' of St John of the Cross: I'm dying because I won't die is one way to translate it. I am not at all incapable of understanding what that may mean for an individual. The fact is, generally, I am often completely misrepresented if not maligned because I take (some) contrary positions.

But in this sense, as I see it, dying to oneself presages REBIRTH on one level or another. One of the salient characteristic of this forum...is not quite that. I simply say that I see the same tropes trotted out and wonder where growth is? where the individual is? It is a fair question: a good and necessary question.

If you cannot see the rebirth happening under the spiritual knife, then that's your own lack of wisdom. Liberation is at every moment of correction. It's very easy to understand.

Kelly: Let's get something straight. Bukowski was deeply cynical, but he was articulating in 'art' the same message as is articulated in Lao Tzu's writings (see the previous page of this thread). It's a universal, not derivative, notion. But you, predictably, like to compartmentalise everything up into traditions, to avoid seeing the absolute.

Alex: I am not opposed to cynicism, and I am not even opposed to death (dying). I am certainly not opposed to Bukowski. I am, I suppose, oppsed to the immitation of certain 'modes of vision' that seem to me 'destructive'. I love the prose and poetry of Dylan Thomas and he can be read on many different levels, but I am also quite aware that he was a dying, drowning man, and his dying was emblematic of an age. If I critique Bukowski and say it surprises me that you admire him, it is perhaps for the above reasons. It is not so outrageous...

I quote whoever has expressed wise, insightful ideas. It doesn't mean I imitate them. You shouldn't leap to such conclusions.

I don't 'believe' in absolutes. I am forced to believe in people. And 'the angels above'. ;-)

I don't believe in absolutes either. Absolutes exist, so the proof is in the pudding. Belief is not necessary.

Kelly: If you were able to let go of your traditions...

Alex: But you do not understand WHAT I cling to and you do not understand WHY.

You cling to the delusion of inherent existence, because, like all egotists, you have little faith in reason. All the explanations for why an egotist has no faith in reason could only interest an egotist. If an arrow is sticking out of your side, and the solution of pulling it out accords with reason, only a fool would waste time arguing over where the arrow could have come from.

Kelly: In a way, you've accidentally touched on something true: it is gods, or attachments, that are being destroyed. It's not just traditions and scriptural authorities that are the object of deconstruction. It is everything one holds onto as an explanation, as a fundamental reality, as a fundamental encasement of truth, that is the object of destruction and dismantling in the spiritual path. There is good reason for this. But you seem incapable of understanding the point.

Alex: It is an easy point to get. And it makes sense, as far as it goes. But y'all use it for very DIFFERENT reasons. It is an 'underbelly' that I often notice around here. Again, 'you' are connected in ways you perhaps don't see to certain processes of 'destruction': the 'acid' I refer to.

No, there is only one reason for destroying attachments, if the attachments are indeed being destroyed. There are only many reasons if they aren't being destroyed.

Kelly: Here you show you don't understand at all what the method of deconstruction is aimed at. Spiritual traditions can reveal useful ideas - but they need to be used for the purpose for which they are given. After that, holding onto them is an ignorant and disrespectful action - like refusing to get out of the boat once it has afforded crossing of the river it was designed to cross.

Alex: I am a realist about men and what they can and can't---will and won't---do. For me I see spiritual truths as operating on many, many different levels. People need different things at different times and different places. The 'acid' I am referring to is a general and epidemic 'etching away' that, in itself, needs to be 'deconstructed', as I see things. Can you see what I mean?

I mentioned earlier, prior to your rampaging blind attack on my "acidity" and so forth, that I considered it to be possibly a mistake to destroy the ideals expressed in Fromm's keys to manhood. I suppose you didn't notice them. But even if you had, I doubt you would have understood why I made that point, though I explained it quite clearly.

There is nothing you say or write about Kelly that I am not capable of understanding. There is little complex about your position!

You aren't anywhere near understanding me, Alex. You're too attached to your narratives and other cuddly poetic security-blankets symbolisms. You talk too much for someone who could understand me.

Kelly: A need to free people from insanity. A deep distrust of the ego. A fear for people's souls. A disgust for needless suffering. A love of truth and wisdom. The joy of learning that one has never lived in the first place.

Alex: You do none of this. Please tell me about 'the people' in your life, those you are in human contact with on a daily basis. To 'reach' people is to have a deep relatedness with people. But none of these values are ever expressed in your-plural discourse! It is devoid of that concern. You operate in an abstract realm...disembodied and disconnected!

You don't have a clue.

What 'you' end up achieving is not 'egolessness' nor relief of suffering...but a kind of celebration of anomie.

Compared to you, I am substantial and alive. You're like a cartoon figure, a wispy ghost moaning about the nooks and crannies of the hallways of forgotten caves, saying "All is bleak, I seek happiness and light, no one can help us but he who moans like this: "Ooooooooo-OOOooooooo"."

I'm sorry. You're truly boring, like B-grade Disney. Having to reply to your gratuitously indulgent narrative is boring. You don't make any points. You don't even know what you're here for.

Kelly: Lumping everyone together is hardly a scientific method. Prince is himself, with rather deep admitted psychological issues, and cannot be taken as exemplary by anyone. Except you, of course, with your smouldering resentment of this forum, and need to find shallow objections to defend your own tastes.

Alex: Oh no? He is a voice in the chorus. He is quite relevant in fact. He is a part and a parcel of 'all of us'

Prince is a unique individual, who appears occasionally able to tap into the masculine on his better days, but who can't help his karma from breaking in frequently. Attacking him for being mentally ill is reprehensible, anyway. This forum attracts its fair share of desperate minds, but regarding that as a consequence of the ideas expressed is truly shallow and irrational.

Kelly: Actually, I find you boring. I'd like to meet with an intelligent person who really understood the nature of the dangerous techniques of the spiritual path, and was honest with his anxieties. But with you: everything is designed to hide your true feelings.

Alex: I think it possible that you might not recognize who is and who is not 'on a spiritual path' only because you have such a narrow definition of what it is and what it can be.

Of course you do. You can't help regarding anyone who is alive and pulsating with the vitality of God-consciousness to be blind. You can't cope with the daggers of wise discrimination. You see it all in your own shallow, blind way. If it were otherwise, you wouldn't be who you are.

Kelly: Bob is a passionate and experienced old man, more honest than yourself, who is deeply sickened by what he sees, and is trying with all his weapons, to make some sort of change. I respect that.

Alex: Though this may certainly be true, and I have yet to write about the many good and intersting ideas he brings up, I think it is always wise to maintain a little distance. Generally speaking, people are a little batty and it is not really their own fault. So much has crashed around us and there is so much more that will. As Korolenko (an unknown Russian writer) wrote in one of his short stories---Yashka---(which ironically is diminutive for Yakov in Russian):

• 'Everybody goes crazy in their own way'.

Odd how you can see that Bob has a measure of battiness, and can't see that in Prince. Be a little less narrow-minded yourself, there.


.

[Carmel]

Alex:
As 'we all know', here, what we do is rehash and rehearse and repeat the same old tropes over and over and over again. A question I always wish to ask is: who here can be said to be 'growing'? What could 'growth' mean in the context of death-narratives. Clearly to use the word 'death' here is a little strong, but...

Carmel:
I don't think using the word "death" here is too strong. That same thought has crossed my mind many times. The death instinct here is palpable...and rarely is it used to eliminate the ego and replace it with our "infinite nature". It's just death for death's sake, destruction to escape one's own freedom, as Fromm suggests, a mere indulgence of the petty, animal nature of the male ego, further illustrating why cutting oneself off from the more beneficial qualities of our feminine nature is a gross mistake, an impediment to true wisdom. Intellectual, rational knowledge of the "infinite" is useless without compassionate action. That is where the residents of this forum epically fail, time and time again...and this behaviour is generously rewarded, boy snarls, lead dog pats him on the head, tosses him a little doggy treat, there there, that's m'boy, isn't he a breath of fresh air? The other dogs follow suit, because, hey, why not? It feels good to indulge the male ego and it's easier than behaving like a mature, rational adult, a never ending downward spiral of ego wanking...Welcome to Genius forum the path to Enlightenment and Ultimate Reality. heh.

[Alex Jacob]

Kelly wrote: "You said Bob's view of love (and Fromm's) derives from Judeo-Christianity. That means, you believe that at some point, any care or concern for human welfare must have been sourced in what just happens to be your favourite scriptural tradition. It's utter bullshit, surely you realise that."

It is standard practice and a tactic I have seen from you many, many times: to take a misconstrual of what someone said and, even when corrected, keep pushing it to your pet conclusion. Still, what I wrote is this: In essence, the 'lists' offered by B. Michael, as well as the very essence of Fromm, derives from Judeo-Christianity. Such views are founded in having and increasing humanitarian concerns, and these privelage this human dimension above almost all other concerns.

What this means, as I understand it, is that the human subject is understood very differently, and treated very differently, than from within the Eastern traditions. The essence of Judaism and of Christianity could be described as 'personalism', where the individual is seen as a great value in se. Such (personalist) views have their obvious pluses and minuses, but in Bob's sense, and in Fromm's, it allows for a strong and defined group of values to be expressed about love, about being a man, etc., and these derive from the Judeo-Christian and generally Western traditions. While I do not suggest that Judeo-Christians are the only ones who have or understand 'love', I will certainly say that in the West the notion of an active 'love', a love combined in spiritual agape, is tremendously privelaged.

I suggest that with your views, and subject to the particular 'acid' of your views (neo-Buddhist or pseudo-Buddhist), the individual is 'tortured out of existence', HAS no inherant existence! Is not allowed to exist! Is denegrated! And you have the luxury of sitting on a high stool and channeling the vitriolic you 'manage' to all the despised outcomes walking around out there.

Ideas have consequences, and the basis and platform of the ideas you-plural cloak yourselves with, in the spirit of rebellious ressentiment, all tend to specific outcomes. The outcomes are visible and apparent in the expressions and attitudes you-all declaim. For example, I draw to your attention that quite recently David exclaimed that he 'hated all mankind' (I looked for the direct quote and couldn't find it, but it is there somewhere in a conversation with Carmel). Ideas have consequences, and I merely suggest that the outcomes of this set of ideas and notions have consequences that can be examined---rationally as you might say. ;-)

[Question: What is the place of 'love' in Buddhism? Where is it referred to? What 'value' is ascribed to it? Is there any citations you might include? (You or anyone).]

Kelly continues: "I know it's strange to you. ['I take issue with the brand of Buddhism presented 'round these parts? In general, here, the TBs, show no relatedness to man. It seems pathologically strange to me, and I state it.'] But you're unwilling to explore, because you believe you're right. Unfortunately, the truth remains: unless you know your true nature, relating the finite to the Infinite, and seeing the unreality of everything finite, there is no genuine compassion and concern for the wellbeing of others, nor ability to assist them to end psychological suffering. That is a truth you seem helplessly unable to comprehend."

I would rather state it like this: it is not worthwhile to explore, and what I mean is your-plural expression of pseudo-Weiningerian 'Buddhism'. For all intents and purposes it looks to me to be hoplessly impailed in its own internal contradictions, hopelessly mired in a sort of ineffectiveness; an idea-structure that leads...nowhere. There is also the possibility that its grand Truths, though they reflect perennial truths, are lies in some senses, or camouflage lies. I suggest that the reason why this is so can be discovered, can be dragged out into the light so to speak. Ideas have consequences, Kelly.

To take this grand position and declaim to the world below you: '...unless you know your true nature, relating the finite to the Infinite, and seeing the unreality of everything finite, there is no genuine compassion and concern for the wellbeing of others, nor ability to assist them to end psychological suffering' is totally par for the course for this Forum! It is not me, or others, who does not understand the formulation, it is you who cannot see the superlative arrogance in you who assume yourselves to be the Vanguard with certain ideas!

So now let us examine the following: "Stop lying. You definitely were on the rampage with your last post, asserting that (and these are your words, verbatim) I was seething with deep resentment, showing no self-knowledge, acidic, wounded and infested with maggots, showing no spiritual or human growth, starved, dead, taking hold of death-narratives, part of a decadent youth-culture inclined to treat Bukowski's poetry as some sort of 'daddy-answer', and that my favourite activity was to entertain myself by desperate 'modern' activities like critiquing values like love. / It's comical that you accused me of acidic criticism, in a vehement and thoughtless attack, such that then when I held a mirror up to your face, your next post became pompously humble. That's deeply hypocritical."

My posts are always expressed in language that is forceful and 'provocative'. To engage in the world of ideas is to submit to having ideas and attitudes examined---deconstructed as you might say. If I am on a 'rampage' (and why not?) it is to penetrate into the core of ideas that I see in operation here, and to crack them open and expose them. I am completely clear that the idea-structures of David Dan and also Kevin are connected to classical 'ressentiment', and the movement of rejection of key elements within 'our own traditions'. The being that you create in this process, seems to me to be: disconnected, aloof, astoundingly arrogant, lop-sided, deeply prejudiced, extremely closed-minded! I stand by this pronouncement!

When I used the example of the ascetic who scoops up the maggots who have fallen from his starved and wounded body, I meant it to express a sort of resignation to a kind of bleakness of existence that, as I perceive things, is an outcome of the very ideas you-all entertain. (It is actually an image I copped from an essay of Aldous Huxley where he mused on the strange tactic of ascetics generally).

Pompously humble?! Humble!!?? You gotta be kidding! If I was humble you were reading wrong! ;-)

We are a group of 'mirrors'. Mirrors in conversation...

Kelly continues: "You're not looking at the actual reality of what is happening, but for this you'd need to understand the nature of the spiritual path."

What is and what isn't a 'spiritual path' has not been finally decided by you. Ideas about it are shared, discussed, compared, etc. I suggest there is always present in your-plural discourse a bedrock of sheer arrogance that you can categorically define this. It is an arrogance so adamantine that no one can break through it. I will say that it appears to me that 'the lie' may originate in this locale. I would also suggest that a superego, an utterly resitant 'ego' may be barracaded here, doing everything in its power to keep any other notions from getting in...

Thoughts? Comments?

"For the egotist waking up to Reality, the suffering is a result of having thoughts of Ultimate Reality that are always entirely at odds with their truths to that point. Their experiences, worldview, values, and desires (being "life") have been slowly developed over their life-time. It is no wonder they feel anguished, and conflicted, and that the deep but slow psychological change feels exactly like a living death. It is exactly like being a patient under the knife of their own discriminations, patiently waiting for the processes of change and learning to take hold and build momentum."

The capital R, as you might have imagined, poses a problem for me, but I am not unable to grasp the notion of egoism breaking apart, and the pain entailed. I will draw to your attention that those who undergo cult indoctrination also feel as if they are going through a 'psychological death'. There are many different ways, then, that we can 'die'. We can be strangled, asphixiated, starved. There are (erroneous) ideas we can entertain that lead to 'asphixiation and starvation'.

I am suggesting, and have been for a loooooooonnnnggggggg time, that not all in the system of ideas y'all present is quite as 'natural' and wholesome as you represent.

Ideas have consequences.

Finally: "You aren't anywhere near understanding me, Alex. You're too attached to your narratives and other cuddly poetic security-blankets symbolisms. You talk too much for someone who could understand me."

It is always the same. Dave, Dan and so many others. I am dismissed in almost exactly the same terms. But, one might say that it is you who are quite attached to your narratives and 'security blankets'. I don't mean to get 'tit-for-tat' with you, but it really does stand as a possibility. Perhaps I am not so 'clung' as you suppose?

[Bob Michael]

"(Erich) Fromm's transformation of psychoanalysis into religion represents a sense of powerlessness and hopelessness reflecting a series of earth-shaking, thought-shaking, emotion-shaking up-heavals. Among these are: the cumulative effect of the Great Drepression sandwiched between two devastating world wars; the cold-blooded, calculated extermination of the Jewish people in Europe; the colossally indifferent mass murders of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the headlong rush of the cold-war, atomic-rocket armaments race toward the self-destruction of mankind; the shattering revelations of the later Stalin era. Above all stand the soul-destroying conformity within the bauble of unstable prosperity set against a background of the general crisis of capitolism; the dead-end flood of creature-comfort commodities threatening to drown the Western world; the meaninglessness of life in a myopic society, doomed and vaguely conscious of its fate; the loss of direction, of perspective, of a future; the lack of values and the utter bankrupsy of ideas and emotions; a dying society composed of people who above all want to live in comfort, peace and security."

"Little wonder that Fromm starts with the individual characterized as powerless, helpless, hopeless, overcome with anxiety, despair, anguish, aloneness, and a sense of life slipping away without ever having been lived. Little wonder also that he turns to the saving of the individual soul, and to religion, the traditional agency for soul-saving. It is a dim recognition that the society is doomed, that the only ray of hope is a modern ark harboring a few regenerated individuals who may ride out the storm of the twentieth century."

(Harry K. Wells - 'The Failure of Psychoanalysis' - 1963)

"What, then, are the prospects for the future? The first, and perhaps the most likely possibility, is that of atomic war.....But, unfortunately, even the avoidance of war alone does not promise a bright future. In the development of both Capitalism and Communism as we can visualize them in the next fifty or hundred years, the process of automatization and aleination will proceed. Both systems are developing into managerial societies, their inhabitants well fed, well clad, having their wishes satisfied, and not having wishes which cannot be satified; automatons, who follow without force, who are guided without leaders, who make machines which act like men and produce men who act like machines; men, whose reason deteriorates while their intelligence rises, thus creating the dangerous situation of equipping man with the greatest material power without the wisdom to use it. This alienation and automatization leads to an ever-increasing insanity. Life has no meaning, there is no joy, no faith, no reality. Everybody is 'happy' - except that he does not feel, does not reason, does not love."

(Erich Fromm - 'The Sane Society' - 1955)

Indeed this continues to be the human condition as Wells and Fromm rightly note above. Though the evolutionary deterioration and accompanying dehumanization of the species has gotten to the point where man enmasse has clearly become irreparably neurologically damaged (materially, physically, biologically) and virtually no one anywhere realizes that as a result they are little more than un(critically)thinking, unfeeling, lifeless and loveless human robots. Though 'joyful and cheerful' robots one might say. Hence there is no way out for the species save for an all-out nuclear holocaust. Which will simply be a natural and necessary grand-cleansing of the huge multitude of human evolutionary maladapts from the planet. (Bob M.)