GENIUS FORUMS

brokenhead wrote:And yet as parents, most people strive to make the childhood of their young as happy as possible.

I think SK is oversimplifying things, possibly because he saw himself as one of the "exceptions." It seems to me in this world a happy childhood stands one in good stead in later years. I agree a fully developed person will have had periods where life seems to bring on those "depths of melancholy," but I don't think you can take this quote as being any kind of recipe for what kind of environment you want to provide for your children. "Yes, I deliberately make my kids' life as miserable as I can. They'll thank me for it later, once they have had time to reflect."

Hi brokenhead,

My experiences and observations are that when a child is brought up in a relatively fine and sane family wherein there is a lot of love, caring, peace and quiet, discipline, and human touch, he becomes keenly sensitive and reflective (as Kierkegaard alludes to). This extraordinary sensitivity of his organism then causes him to both see and feel with a great degree of accuracy and certainy the nature of grand fallen human (or inhuman or not yet fully human) fraud that surrounds him everywhere. And upon deeply seeing that it is essentially a fraud, he cannot then in good conscience truly participate in it wholeheartedly or with true joy and happiness (save for perhaps at some fleeting and short-lived times and periods). He'll then tend to be a loner or an outsider (and thereby be essentially unhappy and/or depressive).

He'll also tend to feel very often that perhaps he is insane and the rest of the world is sane or well. He may even fall into the hands of the mental health 'experts', who may give him a 'label' and then very well permanently destroy his potential human flowering and future with drugs and therapeutic 'cures'. He may turn to various self-prescribed mood altering (or sense deadening) substances in an attempt to attain some 'sanity', which will also lead him to a dead end. And he will find little, if any, truthful advice or encouragement from his peers either, since the vast majority of them are, as a result of their encultured organismal desensitization, quite well adjusted to the profoundly sick society that is all around them - that is them. Likewise it will take him time and more participation in the grand loveless, greed infected, power mongering, and prestige grubbing human farce (to perhaps midlife - "ripe age") to fully come to grips with it, and then hopefully take the 'leap' beyond it all (which springs from hitting a 'bottom' or reaching that hour or point of great 'self'-contempt or the essence of Luke 14:26). From which point the answers and direction that will begin to genuinely edify him will hopefully begin to arise from deep within. Which ultimately is where they must come from. He'll also acquire a longing for solitude. In order to 'avoid the stings of the flies in the market place' as best he can (as per Nietzsche).

Though I would disagree with Kierkegaard in that not all (rather I feel far from it - and especially in these times) finely-formed and sensitively-souled people (reflective/dialectical types) are "recompensed" or "transfigured into spirit." But rather I find the case is far more as Schopenhauer put it: "what is noble and wise (pure in mind and heart?) SELDOM attains to expression." Since again everything and everyone around him will impede, rather than truly assist, his spiritual and psychic or neurological rebirth and development. Including the many heretofore AND present 'enlightened masters'.

I can now clearly see and understand that I was different than the rest of the people around me from my earliest days and memories. Yet this took a lot of time, change, suffering, and unending self-understanding and research and study into others lives (via reflection or meditation and studying biographies) to come to this awareness with a clear and firm understanding of it . And since I'm not all that good at expressing my thoughts, feelings, and experiences in words, I'll offer the following views which reflect very closely my own experiences and feelings in my early days. And which were especially helpful to me along the latter part of my journey in regards to the total renewing (operationally) of my mind or brain. As were all the quotes and ideas of others I happened upon over the years and place herein.

"In my early childhood I was not happy. The world seemed a place in which no one could desire to dwell. I turned, with my earliest consciousness, to religion for comfort and enlightenment, but fear grew instead of abating. Later my own spirit taught me intuitively, and I was freed from church, such as the belief in hell. I saw plainly that 'God', even if He were no greater than the finite mind could conceive, would not do what an ordinary tender-hearted mortal would never be guilty of." (Sister Gyanamata - [Associate of Paramahansa Yogananda] - 'God Alone')

"Where does my story, or yours, begin? When I trace the roots of my being, at what point do I distinguish between 'my' self and the soil in which I was planted? When can I first say 'I am'?.....I could begin with the birth of self-consciousness. One day, when I was nine years old, I was walking down Court Street in Maryville, Tennessee. Near the bottom of the hill, fifteen feet from an apple tree, on a part of the sidewalk that was smooth enough for skating, I knew suddenly and with blinding clarity that I was different than my parents, my brothers and sisters, and my playmates. Self-consciousness descended on me like a hawk. In a sense, I might date the origin of my self from this moment.....But my consciousess was swaddled in a cradle made by nature and culture long before I knew myself to be a person apart from others. I was neither father, mother, nor architect of my own being. No self-made man. I grew like a seed in humus that was composted of the residue of generations. A nexus of communication of the living and the dead wove the tissue of my mind and body. My individuality was born from a web of life too intricate to unravel. Thinking back on the context that created me, I can only conclude that I must start my story with this affirmation: I was loved; therefore I am. As Martin Buber put it, "In the beginning was relationship"." (Sam Keen - 'The Passionate Life: Stages of Loving')

"Even as a child. I knew myself to be different and more than the oughts, images, and ideals I agreed to in order to win the love of my parents and the respect of my peers. The insatiable senses and the promiscuous imagination are never satisfied by the monogamy of the persona. Some restless, unnamable energy pushed me out of the garden of childhood, led me into becoming a rebel." (Sam Keen)

"At an absurdly early age, the age of seven, I knew that no human words would ever reach me." (Nietzsche)

"To my parents, Elizabeth and David, whose discipline and love gave me the eyes to see grace." (From the dedication page of 'The Road Less Traveled' by M. Scott Peck, M.D.)

Further along in the book he states: "Spiritually evolved people, by virtue of their discipline, mastery, and love, are people of extraordinary competence, and in their competence they are called on to serve the world, and in their love they answer the call."

"I have been looking for the door to enlightenment as long as I remember - from my very childhood.....I never could find any way to communicate with the children of my own age. To me they looked stupid, doing all kinds of idiotic things. I never joined any football team, volleyball team, hockey team. Of course they all thought me crazy. And as far as I was concerned, as I grew I started looking at the whole world as crazy." (Osho - 'Autobiography of a Spiritually Incorrect Mystic')

"Ever since I was twelve, I had been occupied with the question of the meaning of human existence, and whether all human values were self-delusion. No doubt this feeling was intensified by my dislike of the vague, brainless, cowlike drifting of the people around me." (Colin Wilson - 'The Outsider')

And following is a observation by J. Krishnamurti (who I feel, and inspite of his own short-comings, had clear and perfect insight into the 'souls' of others) of a little girl who he concluded was "denied this intelligence." And from my studies of him I find his use of the word "supreme intelligence" to be synonymous with love, wholeness of being, or soundness of body, mind, and spirit.

"The sun was bright on the white wall opposite, and its glare made the faces obscure. A little child, without the prompting of the mother, came and sat close by, wide-eyed and wondering what it was all about. She was freshly washed and clothed and had some flowers in her hair. She was keenly observing everything, as children do, without recording too much. Her eyes were sparkling, and she did not quite know what to do, whether to cry, to laugh or to jump; instead, she took my hand and looked at it with absorbing interest. Presently she forgot all those people in the room, relaxed and went to sleep with her head in my lap. Her head was of good shape and well balanced; she was spotlessly clean. Her future was as confused and as miserable as that of the others in the room. Her conflict and sorrow were as inevitable as that sun on the wall; for to be free of pain and misery needs supreme intelligence, and her education and the influences about her would see to it that she was denied this intelligence." (J. Krishnamurti)

Lastly, regarding how we raise, or fail to properly raise, our children, you may want to carefully examine the last post on page 3 in this thread. My view too is that we are dehumanizing our present generation of children into unfeeling, unloving, uncaring machines or robotons at a faster pace than than ever before in the history of the species. And their parents are totally oblivious to this fact. As they too were largely dehumanized by their dehumanized parents and the evermore increasingly spiritually and morally deteriorating society they were each raised in. And the dehumanization of the species is physical or biological and thereby irreparable in the vast, vast majority of cases. Hence we are fast approaching the long-predicted Armageddon. And one might even say right on schedule, and which is all a natural part of the making of or the perfecting of Man.

Bob M.

Hi Bob,

Bob Michael wrote:"My experiences and observations are that when a child is brought up in a relatively fine and sane family wherein there is a lot of love, caring, peace and quiet, discipline, and human touch, he becomes keenly sensitive and reflective."

and then:

"He'll also tend to feel very often that perhaps he is insane and the rest of the world is sane or well. He may even fall into the hands of the mental health 'experts', who may give him a 'label' and then very well permanently destroy his potential human flowering and future with drugs and therapeutic 'cures'."

That could just as well mean that the 'loads' of love, caring, discipline and touch can drive an already sensitive soul in the hands of mental health experts. Perhaps it's just a form of child abuse on a more subtle level.

The type of child you're speaking of needs peace and quiet but should not be loved, spoiled, touched and disciplined anything more than a very basic minimum, decreasing rapidly over age. It does need a trustworthy environment and consistent treatment though more than anything else.

... upon deeply seeing that it is essentially a fraud, he cannot then in good conscience truly participate in it wholeheartedly or with true joy and happiness (save for perhaps at some fleeting and short-lived times and periods)

It might be also the other way around: the joys and happiness (immediateness) are not having a hold strong enough to block the developing "right view" that it's essentially a fraud.

"To my parents, Elizabeth and David, whose discipline and love gave me the eyes to see grace." (From the dedication page of 'The Road Less Traveled' by M. Scott Peck, M.D.)

Hmm, yeah must have inspired him after writing the books to get hooked on women and alcohol, a whole addictive personality, this strange mix to escape bonds and inviting them at the same time.

My view too is that we are dehumanizing our present generation of children into unfeeling, unloving, uncaring machines or robotons at a faster pace than than ever before in the history of the species.

They seem to me feeling, loving and caring quite a lot, perhaps too much, but not about the things we'd like them to :)

I held back---I really can be a humble ass when I want to or need to---knowing that, when the physico-mechanical spirit of the All moved them, the real geniuses who swim, jump and dive in this pool of brilliance would come forward with comments on your posts, brother Bob! You really don't want to get locked in to circular conversations with a donkey anyway. I'm only in it for the sugar cubes, truth be told! Diebert, for example, is a mythical crepuscular swan (I threw in crepuscular to compete with 'Ameuropalia' which, though I wasn't sure what it refers to (a play on Europalia?), really made me jealous! (A failing of mine and one of the many reasons I have been relegated to a stall).

I will return, though, this I promise! True, my idealisms are all far closer to the dirt and the 'little flowers' of my barnyard reality than yours (an interesting feature is that this barn, my home, is located next to a girl's reformatory school in Northern California, about 3 miles from the coast. I am a rural ass, a pastoral ass!) Yet I will try to respond to some of what you write!

If only I had wings!

Hi Diebert,

The human species by and large has become so cold, calculating (one might too say logical), and insensitive (Matt. 24:12) that it only sees abuse and violence when it is of a physical or sexual nature. Yet what is really rapidly underminding the integrity, sanity, and spiritual well-being of man is the gross and 'unseen' psychological violence and abuse which have become the norm, the standard, everywhere. Of which there'll be no reversal for the multitude, as they are completely blinded to this fact by their deep and irreparable neurological malformation or desensitization (Matt. 7:14) The 'fall of man' has gone deep, very deep indeed.

I agree with your views that a 'trustworthy environment' and 'consistent treatment' are important in child rearing, and especially in the early developmental years. And that children are taught best, and for the worse too, by the EXAMPLES of their parents and other family members. I think 'sheltering' children in the early years from the 'rottenness of man' (as per Nietzsche, who claimed to be the first to clearly see this, though it seems he did not see the root of it) is also very important. We can't forget here the grossly corrupt and morally and spiritually bankrupt society of 'wolves' that is everywhere just outside the doors of the home, the effects of which can also quite easily enter into it via radio, TV, telephone, and the internet. I think here too of sibling rivalry and its often adverse and corrupting effects on children. Seeing that often only one child in even a 'good' family of several siblings is 'graced' with a finely-formed and sensitive mind and heart or intuitive mechanism (Romans 9:21). History clearly shows that in the case of many spiritually or religiously outstanding men and women their siblings were usually quite average or mediocre people. Surely there was never yet a whole family of Christs or Buddhas (Mark 3: 33-35).

So overall it seems there's no cut and dried formula for producing extraordinarily happy and wholesome children. As a parent one can only strive to accomplish this goal and hope for the best, while always being prepared for the worse. It seems that even under the very best of circumstances true success in this parental responsibility happens to happen but once or twice in a blue moon. We might very well say too that it happens by the grace of God or equally by the hand of fate. Or perhaps by the grace of right 'discipline and love', as was the case with M. Scott Peck. Who, as you too say, and bright as he was, was indeed grounded from extreme high-spirited flying by booze and women AND cigarettes and wealth (Mark 10:25), or a 'whole addictive personality' as you put it, as was and continues to be the case with so many potentially bright, sound, and intelligent human beings). Not to mention his many consequential chronic physical ailments. All of which bear testimory to the fact that having a good foundation is no guarantee at all that one will attain to Cosmic Consciousness or authentic Selfhood. Or if he does, that he'll fully develop and maintain that extraordinary state of being. My reason for posting that line of Peck's was again to point out that I find it's not really by the 'grace of God' (or something outside of us) that enables a person to potentially attain to fullness of being, but rather it happens (from within) by the grace of right discipline and love (or parental example) in the early years of one's life (Proverbs 22:6).

In any case, this particular 68 year-old body (which very often feels 18 in spirit), which happened to have been 'blessed' with having had an exceptionally good and decent upbringing, is presently totally free of any medications or mood altering substances and also very largely free of addictive or obsessive/compulsive behaviors. Which was surely not always the case. An alcohol dependancy (see notes below [***]) was overcome some 32 years ago, a 44 year 2+ pack-a-day nicotine addiction was given up some 7 years ago, and a heavy caffiene addiction was abandoned some two years ago. Workaholism was also fully abandoned some 2 years ago. I was also at several times over the years 'hooked' on professionally prescribed mood-altering 'medications'. All of which in retrospect came to impede to varying degrees my spiritual breakthrough, growth, and development. Though finally, thank goodness, I've come to realize that our bodies are in fact, as I often heard as a child, the temple of the holy spirit - and that we should keep them pure and clean. Yet in retrospect without these crutches I don't think I would have ever made it to mid-life whereby I eventually broke down and then began to breakthrough the bonds of the falsely-conditioned and operating 'self' (John 3:3). Though these crutches, which were once my friends or welcomed companions, had to go, since in time they became my enemies. Inhibitors of my restoration to sanity, feelings, and full human flowering and well-being. Though again it seems they served me positively for a time to shelter me from the terror and horror of reality and allowed me to get some valuable living experiences under my belt while retaining my innate sanity or purity of mind and heart (Matt. 5:8). Whereby at a later time (at a 'ripe age'), having finally acquired some maturity and courage and complete and total disgust with it all (Luke 14:26), I could slowly take off my rose-colored glasses and begin to fully explore both the inner and outer abysses, so to speak. And from a postition of having finally gained, or better yet regained (as I've come to be able to recall clearly experiencing the experience as a child) Kingdom entry with at least one foot, so to speak (Mark 10:15).

[***] "As a boy I believed wine-drinking to be, like tobacco-smoking, at first only a vanity of young men, later a habit.....Later, towards the middle of life, I decided, to be sure, more and more strictly against any sort of 'spirituous' drink.....I cannot advise all 'more spiritual' natures too seriously to abstain from alcohol absolutely.....Water suffices.....No coffee: coffee makes gloomy." (Nietzsche - 'Ecce Homo')

[***] Carl Jung felt alcoholism was a product of a "spiritual thirst for wholeness." I've come to experience it along with some other mood-altering substances for some (the sensitively-souled or 'more spiritual' natures) as often serving as shortcuts to an actual 'kingdom of God or Heaven' experience. Though one which will ultimately fail us in due time. Which I feel alcohol and tobacco did Jung himself, and without a 'recovery' from their effects. So surely religion is not the only thing men find comfort in, which happens to be the topic of this thread.

"Take stock of those around you and you will hear them talk in precise terms about themselves and their surroundings, which would seem to point to them having ideas on the matter. But start to analyse those ideas and you will find that they hardly reflect in any way the reality to which they appear to refer, and if you go deeper you will discover that there is not even an attempt to adjust the ideas to this reality. Quite the contrary: through these notions the individual is trying to cut off any personal vision of reality, of his own very life. For life is at the start a chaos in which one is lost. The individual suspects this, but he is frightened at finding himself face to face with this terrible reality, and tries to cover it over with a curtain of fantasy, where everything is clear. It does not worry him that his 'ideas' are not true, he uses them as trenches for the defense of his existence, as scarecrows to frighten away reality." [Jose Ortega y Gasset]

"The man with the clear head is the man who frees himself from those fantastic "ideas" [the characterologoical lie about reality] and looks life in the face, realizes that everything in it is problematic, and feels himself lost. And this is the simple truth - that to live is to feel oneself lost - he who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order to the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce. He who does not really feel himself lost, is without remission; that is to say, he never finds himself, never comes up against his own reality." [Jose Oretga y Gasset]

Indeed one shall only be 'found' if he comes to a point of complete defeat, shipwreck, or the realization that he is utterly and hopelessly lost. Though unless he possesses a keen organismal sensitivity he'll never reach this point. But rather he'll instead live out little more than a 'life of quiet desperation'. Being at best occasionally merely momentarily discontented with himself and his life, rather than suffering more deeply.

"Every time I went to the fields I returned disappointed, without understanding the cause of my disappointment. Every time I looked at the gray sky I felt my heart contract. Every time I heard the singing of birds and babbling of the spring I suffered without understanding the reason for my suffering. It is said that unsophistication makes a man empty and that emptyness makes him carefree. It may be true among those who are born dead and who exist like frozen corpses; but the sensitive boy who feels much and knows little is the most unfortunate creature under the sun, because he is torn by two forces. The first force elevates him and shows him the beauty of existence through a cloud of dreams; the second ties him down to the earth and fills his eyes with dust and overpowers him with fears and darkness.....That sorrow which obsessed me during my youth was not caused by lack of amusement, because I had could have had it; neither from lack of friends, because I could have found them. That sorrow was caused by an inward ailment which made me love solitude. It killed in me the inclination for games and amusement. It removed from my shoulders the wings of youth and made me like a pond of water between mountains which reflects in its calm surface the shadows of ghosts and the colors of clouds and trees, but cannot find an outlet by which to pass singing to the sea. Thus was my life before I attained the age of eighteen. That year is like a mountain peak in my life, for it awakened knowledge in me and made me understand the vicissitudes of mankind. IN THAT YEAR I WAS REBORN AND UNLESS A PERSON IS BORN AGAIN HIS LIFE WILL REMAIN LIKE A BLANK SHEET IN THE BOOK OF EXISTENCE. In that year, I saw the angels of Heaven looking at me through the eyes of a beautiful woman. I also saw the devils of hell raging in the heart of an evil man. He who does not see the angels and devils in the beauty and malice of life will be far removed from knowledge, and his spirit will be empty of affection." (Kahlil Gibran - 'The Broken Wings')

And so it remains that:

"The world today is filled with darkness, pain, and grief. Every individal must seek the path for himself and walk on it himself. The spiritual darkness which broods over the world has created a sickness and the whole of humanity is blind and deaf to the truth of God (Reality?). Few are interested, nor do they know why they stumble and fall in their spiritual plight of trying to find the path to God (Wholeness or fullness of human being?). Most persons are suffering from physical illness, heart-sickness, and are worn and weary from their spiritual search. The masses of men are groping along an uneasy way towards some unknown destiny. None have freedom; they are not even masters of their own bodies, and generally are driven slaves to a job, family responsibilities, and social duties. The unrest which is sweeping the world is understandable. Even despite the drug problem, alcoholism, religious fads, and psychic disruptions, sickness of the mind is growing into enormous proportions. But why? Man has nothing to cling to as an inner support. He has long been a victim of the metaphysicians and clergy who claim they have the remedy for the disease of restlessness. Buddha never found it. Christ made an unnecessary sacrifice for his people, and other saviors and adepts have tried to bring about the cure. Their search has not gone far enough, despite the fact that at least three thousand different forms of religion have appeared since the beginning of history." [Paul Twitchell - 'The Spiritual Notebook']

Bob M.

Well, you have either learned to type very, very fast, or you are no longer under a 30-minute library-computer gun.
______________________________________

'rottenness of man'

If I am not mistaken, I think that Nietzsche had the revelation that, verily, verily, all the very best of man was to be found within or right beside all the very worst. Or that all the very best came out of the very worst. Seeing that, realizing that, put such pressure on his delicate consciousness inculcated in an extremely bourgeois, delicate Christian environment, that his delicate consciousness 'gave birth' to a strange, contradictory but eloquent opus, which opus is hard to reconcile without intellectual Come-Alongs (a Come-Along is a tool for pulling two heavy things together) with the teachings of the traditional Jesus.

Or, I'm just too stupid to know how to do it.

As to conflict, terror, pain and anxiety being the very stuff that gives birth to 'the best', I find it interesting that the rest of your post and the gorgeous quotes you have included, confirm it.

Things are, for me, quite a bit simpler, at least for today.

Bon appetit to one and to all!

Talking Ass wrote:Well, you have either learned to type very, very fast, or you are no longer under a 30-minute library-computer gun.

Hi TA,

No, I'm not at all a fast typer or writer. Here of late I've been drafting my posts off line at home (apt.) and taking advantage of Netzero's 10 hour per month free internet service to post them from there. Though this one I am doing from a library with a one hour time limit. Yet I'm tiring of it all. I keep getting this dreadful feeling again that I'm 'speaking' to deaf ears. Like it's time to pull up stakes and move to the next town. Perhaps I'm destined to go to my grave knowing no one who's on my 'wavelength', so to speak. As was the case with Nietzsche, J. Krishnamurti, and quite a few others that I've studied.

So, much like Nietzsche, total disgust with humanity continues to remain my greatest burden and danger.

Bob M.

"This sort of nervous body is just an instrument to play great music at times, and at times to moan in the darkness."

"I have seen life and it is all self - life is for self, love is for self, everything is for self. I look back and scarcely find any action I have done for self - even my wicked deeds were not for self - so I am content."

"It may be that I shall find it good to get outside this body - to cast it off like a worn out garmet."

(Brother Swami Vivekananda)

Hi Bob,

Bob Michael wrote:The human species by and large has become so cold, calculating (one might too say logical), and insensitive (Matt. 24:12) that it only sees abuse and violence when it is of a physical or sexual nature. Yet what is really rapidly undermining the integrity, sanity, and spiritual well-being of man is the gross and 'unseen' psychological violence and abuse which have become the norm, the standard, everywhere. Of which there'll be no reversal for the multitude, as they are completely blinded to this fact by their deep and irreparable neurological malformation or desensitization (Matt. 7:14) The 'fall of man' has gone deep, very deep indeed.

I do understand what you're saying here. The older, more ancient man might have been more crude on the outside in some of its morality but at least the violence was not hiding in psychological, indirect layers as much. Nietzsche might have said that humanity has near perfected its camouflage act by now.

Indeed one shall only be 'found' if he comes to a point of complete defeat, shipwreck, or the realization that he is utterly and hopelessly lost. Though unless he possesses a keen organismal sensitivity he'll never reach this point. But rather he'll instead live out little more than a 'life of quiet desperation'. Being at best occasionally merely momentarily discontented with himself and his life, rather than suffering more deeply.

Not often such a horrible fact is being put so nicely. The desert of real, the dark night of soul?

Talking Ass wrote:which opus is hard to reconcile without intellectual Come-Alongs (a Come-Along is a tool for pulling two heavy things together) with the teachings of the traditional Jesus.

Or, I'm just too stupid to know how to do it.

Perhaps. The introduction to Nietzsche for me in my younger post-Christian years came through writings of gospel of Thomas fan Osho and gone theosophical Christian Rudolf Steiner, as both seemed fascinated with the "insane" depth of thought and both tried to build some of their "other-worldliness" on top of it, as to complete it in some fashion.

Not long after that I was exposed to writings of Dr. F. De Graaf, a known reformed reverent and writer here. His book 'Nietzsche' was a brilliant merge of a hidden side of Nietzsche, Judaism and the Gospels. Very impressive weight pulling indeed and he correctly pointed out Nietzsche is not always like he wants to appear as. Not too fancy of an idea as Nietzsche himself stresses the importance of the mask and the indirectness in approaching truth, writing for everyone and nobody. A brave but failed attempt to keep the swines and bloodsuckers away

"If I had a sword in my hand, I'd kill you now!" (Num 22:29)

Bob Michael wrote:Yet I'm tiring of it all. I keep getting this dreadful feeling again that I'm 'speaking' to deaf ears. Like it's time to pull up stakes and move to the next town.

Well, if you wanted my two-cent's worth: you have to have a good deal more patience around here. Here, you have to have---literally---a Christian patience. Not once, not twice, not seven times, but seventy and seven.

If you are truly speaking on behalf of Heaven---and I believe you are---you have to understand that, here, we are mounds and mounds, piles and piles, unfathomable, irksome loads of unpliant, rebellious flesh. I suggest turning yourself into a fine, penetrating Zephyr and blowing all 'round the place with enlightening mischief.

The Lords of the place---verily, verily---have taken stock of your presence, and they have read your posts. Many have read your posts. Many are called but few are chosen to penetrate deep into the Genius Realm! Think of it like a railroad car entering a tunnel that descends down, down into the bowels of the Inner Earth. You could say that just passing into the tunnel takes about a month, and the journey down, down to the nerve-center where human decisions are formed? It takes 3 months of steady chugging just to approach the outer gates of Inner Earth, brother Bob!

Once you get there though, once you have by-passed the mind and arrive at the control center of consciousness, you'll have free-rein in helping to create the New Man! In my last incarnation, which I still sorta remember from time to time, like something from the far frontier of memory or a beckoning beyond time, I myself arrived at this Inner Earth, and I myself 'rearranged their faces and gave them all another name'.

But listen too, for if one can hear an ass, and if an ass speaks, one really should listen: perhaps you could isolate your one, true, cherished point. Your posts are huge with the pregnancies of other minds. I myself am not quite sure where to start.

How do you propose that others (who are not dull asses like myself) connect with your ideas?

Bob Michael wrote:Yet I'm tiring of it all. I keep getting this dreadful feeling again that I'm 'speaking' to deaf ears. Like it's time to pull up stakes and move to the next town. Perhaps I'm destined to go to my grave knowing no one who's on my 'wavelength', so to speak. As was the case with Nietzsche, J. Krishnamurti, and quite a few others that I've studied.

Like in Nietzsche's vision, there comes a time when you have to bite of the head of the snake when it crawls into your mouth, the snake of disgust and contempt, deep moving sadness and too-much-unearthly-clarity.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:I do understand what you're saying here. The older, more ancient man might have been more crude on the outside in some of its morality but at least the violence was not hiding in psychological, indirect layers as much. Nietzsche might have said that humanity has near perfected its camouflage act by now.

Hi Diebert,

"Gifted individals, like all others, are now born into societies which inculcate it from birth, so that it becomes constitutive of each developing personality at such a deep level that it is almost impossible for the individual to uncover and expose it within himself. Thus the natural development of his personality, as would have occurred without such deformation, is denied him - he is, as Nietzsche puts it, UN-SELFED." (Bryan Magee - 'The Philosophy of Schopenhauer')

And so it remains that even those 'gifted' ones who are intended to fully overcome the world (which must be done if they're to be of any real value in the liberation of others) instead continue themselves to be overcome by the world.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Not often such a horrible fact is being put so nicely. The desert of real, the dark night of soul?

Exactly. From the 'dark night of the soul' into the Sunlight of the Spirit - the only path to freedom of the soul, freedom of the human Spirit. Though again one must have the 'innate capacity' (a finely-formed neurological construct) for the adventure, along with the courage or total recklessness in order to take the necessary leap or leaps into the long lost void of pure unadulterated selflessness. Not to mention then stay the course of self-abandonment after the initial breakthrough takes place. The old erroneously functioning mind having to be ongoingly fully examined and restructured operationally in action, in relationship.

Bob M.

Talking Ass wrote:Well, if you wanted my two-cent's worth: you have to have a good deal more patience around here. Here, you have to have---literally---a Christian patience. Not once, not twice, not seven times, but seventy and seven.....But listen too, for if one can hear an ass, and if an ass speaks, one really should listen: perhaps you could isolate your one, true, cherished point. Your posts are huge with the pregnancies of other minds. I myself am not quite sure where to start.

How do you propose that others (who are not dull asses like myself) connect with your ideas?

Thanks TA,

Overnight I seem to have regained much of my usual joy, enthusiasm, and hope for humanity, or a small portion thereof anyway. Though I still get this gnawing feeling of directionlessness from time to time. And indeed there still remains some of the old rip-shit-or-bust (impatient) attitude (or spirit) in me. Though in retrospect it was absolutely necessary to have this rather rare quality in order to get to that 'other shore'. And again, and another reminder to myself, I find we best help others by sharing with them our very own experiences of self-overcoming. Or more simply, "what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now." Which is a simple principle I learned over the years in AA, but still sometimes forget in lieu of instead 'grandstanding'. Which is surely counter-productive in the liberation of others.

Bob M.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Like in Nietzsche's vision, there comes a time when you have to bite off the head of the snake when it crawls into your mouth, the snake of disgust and contempt, deep moving sadness and too-much-unearthly-clarity.

I'm reminded here of the following piece by Nietzsche, which has helped to keep me walking fully upright over the years.

"But some day, in a stronger age than this decaying, self-doubting present, he must yet come to us, the redeeming man of great love and contempt, the creative spirit whose compelling strength will not let him rest in any aloofness or any beyond, whose isolation is misunderstood by the people as if it were flight from reality--while it is only his absorption, immersion, penetration into reality, so that, when he one day emerges again into the light, he may bring home the redemption of this reality; its redemption from the curse that the hitherto reigning ideal has laid upon it. This man of the future, who will redeem us not only from the hitherto reigning ideal but also from that which was bound to grow out of it, nihilism; this Antichrist and antinihilist, this victor over God and nothingness--he must come one day." (Nietzsche - 'Genealogy of Morals')

Bob M.

Nietzsche's 'GENIUS'

Nietzsche listed six qualities that went into the making of a genius - these being 'free manliness of character', a precocious knowledge of human beings, an absence of scholarly education, no patriotic 'constriction', no penchant for bread-winning, no links with the State.

Bob M.

What N. wanted more than anything was Christ.

The rejection of God is nihilism. We might as well wait for warm snow than the super-man.

http://deathtotheworld.com/seraphimrose/index.html

Atum wrote:What N. wanted more than anything was Christ.

The rejection of God is nihilism. We might as well wait for warm snow than the super-man.

Nietzsche wanted Christ?

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

Perhaps we await the 'Spirit and the bride', or maybe 'Michael and his angels'?

Bob M.

"I was once spiritually ill.....but one day the 'intelligence in my soul' cured me." (Meister Eckhart)

I agree with what Father Seraphim Rose has said,

"Atheism," Father Seraphim wrote in later years, "true 'existential' atheism, burning with hatred of a seemingly unjust or unmerciful God is a spiritual state; it is a real attempt to grapple with the true God Whose ways are so inexplicable even to the most believing of men, and it has more than once been known to end in a blinding vision of Him Whom the real atheist truly seeks. It is Christ Who works in these souls. The Antichrist is not to be found in the deniers, but in the small affirmers, whose Christ is only on the lips. Nietzsche, in calling himself Antichrist, proved thereby his intense hunger for Christ..."

Atum wrote:I agree with what Father Seraphim Rose has said,

"Atheism," Father Seraphim wrote in later years, "true 'existential' atheism, burning with hatred of a seemingly unjust or unmerciful God is a spiritual state; it is a real attempt to grapple with the true God Whose ways are so inexplicable even to the most believing of men, and it has more than once been known to end in a blinding vision of Him Whom the real atheist truly seeks. It is Christ Who works in these souls. The Antichrist is not to be found in the deniers, but in the small affirmers, whose Christ is only on the lips. Nietzsche, in calling himself Antichrist, proved thereby his intense hunger for Christ..."

Thanks for that url Atum. And while I haven't explored Father Seraphim thoroughly, I find some of his views and experiences interesting. Especially his view regarding keeping all one's words, thoughts, and deeds in the realm of Christian love. Which I still fail to do at times. Though again I find fault in Christ, the man, but continue to try to perfectly embody the eternal Christ-Spirit. Which is to be one with the Divine, the Sacred, the Beloved, God, the Holy Spirit, our Heavenly Father, the Will of Love, etc.

Bob M.

"Sickness is a powerful stimulant - but one has to be healthy enough for it." (Nietzsche)

I keep waiting on Diebert who, I thought, I hoped, would grace us with more thoughtfulness and truth-units.

Diebert is very coy, very Dutch. I imagine him sometimes, thinking tremendous virile thoughts, riding a bike along some canal somewhere amid green fields, spring flowers and bumblebees. And what if it were a bicycle built for two and on the back---or on the front, oh my!---there was a beautiful Dutch maiden, a rosy-cheeked damsel looking for distress? With those darling painted wooden clogs I've always admired! I'm an uncultured and decidedly unstylish ass, but what I'd do for a nifty set of wooden clogs for my moonlight strolls in the foothills overlooking the raucous Pacific Ocean!

But, while maintaining my humble posture, while still publiciteitsgeil, I will say that I too was rather impressed by those comments directed toward the existentialists. You cannot, it seems, have a brain worth a rat's ass (I don't mean to minimize the value of a rat's ass, it is really just an expression, and some of my best friends are rats) and not get quite upset with god, God and 'God' for the very strangeness of everything and what we all have to put up with. What we are thrown into in fact---where we are both the victim tossed and the ravaging lions in the lion's den.

Did we dream all this up or was it the terrible God who overrules us? I have a tremendous amount of sympathy for the French existentialists whose ideas are very valid. Really, in some major ways, you really have to reject the God of Nature and, I think, 99% of what we deal with in life is as a result of the God of Nature. Only in some small area, a mere small opening, a possibility, can we find any other sort of God, the God we might all like to have, the God we'd serve with real passion and devotion.
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Before I go, I thought I'd respond to a recent enquiry that came through the PM medium. The fellow asked, 'If you are an ass as you say, how is it that you talk and write on Internet forums?' It is a fair and good question. The stable-boy who has an office within my view set up a computer last year (primarily for bookkeeping and pornography, more about this later). If I lean over the rail of my 'crib' I am able to see over his shoulder to the computer screen. He never shuts the computer off and, thanks be to God, it was set up with voice-recognition software.

Yes, I know, I have anticipated your next question, and that is, How did I learn to speak? and I must tell you it was excruciatingly difficult. Hands down one of the most challenging undertakings of my adult life. Just to illustrate, it took me four months to learn to pronounce 'Genius Forum!' as a command to even get here and spend time with you fine human specimens. In the old days of my early struggle I'd have to close my eyes and center myself, then repeat the word mentally until I could almost see it in my mind's eye, and then attempt to enunciate it with equipment not not at all designed for enunciation, as I'm sure you understand. Usually, I managed to get out the 'Gee' part without mishap, but for most of three months, after successful articulation of the 'Gee', and as I passed into the 'eenius', the rest would come out only as anguished, unintelligent braying, such that people nearby'd poke their heads in and say, 'Everything alright there, Bacchus ole boy?' I'd madly stare back at them with my ears pinned against my head, my eyes open and wild with asinine anger, snorting and pawing at the ground, and launch a kick or two at the air behind me. I'd swear and curse my brutish lips and teeth, and this humongous and course tongue cruel Nature has provided me, yet I knew, I knew that such vain outbursts and complaining would get me nowhere---and I struggled on, day by day until finally success was mine.

When finally I was able to clearly articulate Genius Forum! and when the page began to load I cannot tell you what a joyful day this was for me! True, it took me another week of work to repeat it again successfully, and 2 full weeks before I had it mastered, as I do now.

I did tell you that I live next to a girl's reformatory, right? In one of the most spectacular parts of Northern California just a few miles from the windswept coast? If I have time, I'd like to share with you my impressions of a young woman, a girl really, from the reformatory who seems to have 'adopted' me. Truly she seems a special and unusual creature. Her name is Catherine.

I am an ass---I admit this openly and so many other defects---and yet I feel I wish to bring a 'humanistic' element to this Forum. An ass pontificating to the naked apes is, oddly, appropriate.

Talking Ass wrote:Did we dream all this up or was it the terrible God who overrules us? I have a tremendous amount of sympathy for the French existentialists whose ideas are very valid. Really, in some major ways, you really have to reject the God of Nature and, I think, 99% of what we deal with in life is as a result of the God of Nature. Only in some small area, a mere small opening, a possibility, can we find any other sort of God, the God we might all like to have, the God we'd serve with real passion and devotion.

"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." (Isaiah 45:7)

Seems to me God has surely made a huge mess of things. Hence I find my only joy and sense of real purpose in life stems from forming an alliance with him and trying to help him straighten it up. Of course always remembering not to get so heavenly (religiously, philosophically, psychologically, or logically) bound that I become no damn earthly ('humanistically') good. Like so many others I know, heard of, or read about.

I always liked the name Catherine. Perhaps you might tell us more about your thing with her.

Bob M.

Catherine is a gorgeous and a noble name.

Until I get back on track, please accept this offering of Catholic Saints.

Seems to me God has surely made a huge mess of things.

There is even a Saint for Lost Causes!

Let us now bow our heads, and pray for God! (A devilish theological twist, I'll say!)

The real tragedy of the 'godless' or 'soulless' human condition is that very, very few people are capable of having a radical shift in consciousness or change of mind and heart. Which is absolutely necessary if individual and collective sanity is to ever be attained and lived by the species. Hence the challenge at hand is how to find those relatively few more sensitively-formed souls who are in possession of a potentially salvageable and refine-able conscience or 'intuitive mechanism', and then help thrust them into an actual radical and/or complete psychic change or 'fallback' and then on to encouraging and enabling their flowering into wholeness and completeness of being in the human form. A challenge of which even the very best of spiritual or religious men from the Buddha on down have failed quite miserably at doing. And one which can be quite frustrating at times, since people everywhere have become so deeply conditioned into 'self' that they are not at all aware of it. At least most certainly here in the U.S. where greed, power, and prestige (or gross self-centeredness), rather than love, sharing, and true brotherhood have come to reign supreme. So it appears certain here that the human species has 'fallen' or deteriorated both morally and spiritually to a point where man has become near-totally irreparably neurotic or mad as a result of becoming developmentally brain damaged materially or constitutionally. The brain or mind having thus become so bound up in the intellect, reason, logic, or self-protective thought function that men are no longer at all able to 'feel'. Hence the universal 'cold' or machine-like discompassionate and violent nature of the species. And with no way out save for a total collapse of the present system of things. Getting back again to the need for a few of us to develop fullness and completeness or perfection of human-being in order to become the Light, so to speak, and carry the species forward after the necessary and impending grand-cleansing (most likely nuclear in nature) of the hopelessly stuck 'creation' takes place.

So as it was in the days of Noah, so it is likewise in these last days.

"All the people you see, all the people you may get to know are machines, actual machines working under the power of external influences...Machines they are born and machines they die...Even now, at this very moment, while we are talking, several millions of machines are trying to annihilate one another...A considerable percentage of the people we meet in the streets of a great town are people who are empty inside, that is, they are actually already dead. It is fortunate for us that we do not see and do not know it. If we knew what number of people are actually dead and what number of these dead people govern our lives, we should go mad with horror." (Gurdjieff)

I take two exceptions with Gurdjieff's views here. First, we are not 'born machines', but rather we are born quite purely or perfectly human, save for some exceptions here and there. Though we are quickly conditioned, and without choice, into machines by the fallen, violent, self-centered, corrupt, and machine-like peopled societies we happen to be born and raised in. Secondly, one who is truly enlightened or fully awakened to total truth or reality MUST come to clearly 'see' and 'know' the 'horror' of the fact that most people, including as he alludes those who are in command of things everywhere, have been deeply and thereby irreparably conditioned or encultured into 'machines' or 'dead people'. Though if he were to remain fully enlightened or fully in grasp of truth or reality he would not go 'mad with horror' over this necessary and naturally occuring evolutionary fact. Yet I feel that no one has yet gone this deeply into this human evolutionary abyss, so to speak, and if they have have then maintained their sanity or wholeness, soundness, or 'genius' of mind. Which is necessary if he is to find the way out, or build his 'Ark', if you will.

Bob M.

Bob Michael wrote:The brain or mind having thus become so bound up in the intellect, reason, logic, or self-protective thought function that men are no longer at all able to 'feel'. Hence the universal 'cold' or machine-like discompassionate and violent nature of the species.

"All the people you see, all the people you may get to know are machines, actual machines working under the power of external influences...Machines they are born and machines they die..." (Gurdjieff)

Bob Michael wrote:I take two exceptions with Gurdjieff's views here. First, we are not 'born machines', but rather we are born quite purely or perfectly human, save for some exceptions here and there.

By the term machine Gurdjieff did not mean cold, discompassionate, or violent. He meant simply mechanical or automatic, hence his alternate name for the same condition, automaton.

Now, most of the philosophers here at Genius I think would fully agree, stating that logic dictates unequivocally that by cause and effect we are created and moved in every respect. It is determinism at work, in other words, with no free will possible. Is that not the same as being fully mechanical? In fact we go farther here than Gurdjieff who believed the development of willpower was possible (though he might have agreed that technically this was up to nature, too).

Bob Michael wrote:Secondly, one who is truly enlightened or fully awakened... MUST come to clearly 'see' and 'know' the 'horror'... that most people... [are] 'machines' or 'dead people'. Though if he were to remain fully enlightened or fully in grasp of truth or reality he would not go 'mad with horror' over this necessary and naturally occuring evolutionary fact.

But Gurdjieff did not say 'truly enlightened" or "fully awakened". He said simply "if we knew..."

"A considerable percentage of the people we meet in the streets of a great town are people who are empty inside, that is, they are actually already dead. It is fortunate for us that we do not see and do not know it. If we knew what number of people are actually dead and what number of these dead people govern our lives, we should go mad with horror." (Gurdjieff)

A little knowledge can be a hard thing. The beginning of awakening can bring immense pain.

"Blessed his he who has a soul, blessed is he who has none, but woe to him who has it in embryo. (Gurdjieff)

Carl G wrote:By the term machine Gurdjieff did not mean cold, discompassionate, or violent. He meant simply mechanical or automatic, hence his alternate name for the same condition, automaton.

Hi Carl,

Remember here that Gurdjieff also said that a 'great percentage' of the people we meet in the streets of a great town are "actually already DEAD." In any case, we must each come to our own understanding of things. And if and as we come to right understanding, we will then also come to know and experience genuine peace, joy, and a real sense of purpose in life.

Those who are called to or predestined for companionship with the 'Infinite' can only point the way to other like souls via the sharing with them of their thoughts, feelings, observations, and especially their experiences of finding and developing that companionship. Of course along with continuing to get their own house more and more perfectly in order while also remaining ever open to learning from life and other people.

Gurdjieff, insightful as he was, and like so many others, was too quick to run front and center with the 'good news' without having possession of the full deck of cards, so to speak. As a result he failed to "prepare a nucleus of people capable responding to the demand which will arise." Without which he said the world will not fufill its function and humanity will be allowed to destroy itself. Instead he left behind yet another dead or crystallized teaching or religion. One without a living Master, rendering it, like the all-too-many such things, also totally impotent in the liberation of men.

Carl G wrote:A little knowledge can be a hard thing. The beginning of awakening can bring immense pain.

My experience is that the road to the 'promised land' passes through hell. And there are no detours. Dying completely to the known, the safe, the familiar is surely not an easy thing. But it must be done if one is to come to live in the Light of Truth. (Psalm 23:4)

Carl G wrote:"Blessed is he who has a soul, blessed is he who has none, but woe to him who has it in embryo." (Gurdjieff)

Those without a soul (or a finely-formed conscience) are not blessed - rather they are "machines", "empty inside", "already dead". And those who are blessed the greatest are those who are pure in heart - for they shall see God. (Matt. 5:8)

"Without Love you are like a dead thing." (J. Krishnamurti)

"And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth (the fog of deeply encultured self-centeredness?) shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." (Daniel 12:2)

Bob M.

Bob Michael wrote:Gurdjieff, insightful as he was, and like so many others, was too quick to run front and center with the 'good news' without having possession of the full deck of cards, so to speak. As a result he failed to "prepare a nucleus of people capable responding to the demand which will arise." Without which he said the world will not fufill its function and humanity will be allowed to destroy itself. Instead he left behind yet another dead or crystallized teaching or religion. One without a living Master, rendering it, like the all-too-many such things, also totally impotent in the liberation of men.

On the contrary, Gurdjieff did "prepare a nucleus of people capable responding to the demand which will arise." It is the demand that has not (or not yet) arisen. The teaching is not dead, and if it is crystallized, so much the better. The teaching is about crystallization (Christalization). I don't know what you mean by 'living Master' but there have been and are many qualified teachers leading groups today. I can personally attest that it is not "totally impotent."

"Blessed is he who has a soul, blessed is he who has none, but woe [and grief] to him who has it in embryo." (Gurdjieff)

Those without a soul (or a finely-formed conscience) are not blessed - rather they are "machines", "empty inside", "already dead". And those who are blessed the greatest are those who are pure in heart - for they shall see God. (Matt. 5:8)

"Without Love you are like a dead thing." (J. Krishnamurti)

"And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth (the fog of deeply encultured self-centeredness?) shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." (Daniel 12:2)

Ignorance is bliss. The machines are blessed.