Belligerent Savant wrote:The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.
Except; if it takes discipline and effort then you are doing it wrong.
Discipline and effort are conflict, are borne of desire and will, to improve matters, to change what is into what is desired.
This is the constant battle that goes on that makes us all neurotic.
Where you need discipline, and effort, there is a goal, there is dissatisfaction, there is conflict, and there is fragmentation within you. Maybe the author of your piece is thinking of making an effort in religious practice, reading, or more likely meditation of some sort. I'm not saying these are bad things. But there is division within me already when part of me says, "I don't want to meditate, I'd rather play champions online and be stimulated, or I would rather go for a nice stroll and look at the trees, or I might think, I ought to meditate, but there is washing up and laundry to be done." So you are already in conflict with yourself, and in that conflict is the root of pride and competition, and comparison, of prejudice and preference. Besides which, I only want to be a disciplined person who "makes an effort" so that I can enjoy the feeling of being virtuous, or even worse, the feeling of being more virtuous than the next fellow, about whose virtue I know little to nothing. I have dissatisfaction, I have a battle, a conflict for control, I have desire and will and habit, all those deadening attributes that make me insensitive. Also I am following a custom, or a rule, or a habit, and that makes me insensitive to the unique and original nature of the moment, and makes it impossible for me to respond to a situation with the natural intelligence, or my conscience, or the divine spark, or whatever it is - you all know what it is. Actually, maybe some of you think it is psychological complex, the super ego, brought about by parents making demands to be good of their children. Some parents are very lax though, and I think their children still understand what their conscience is. I could be wrong. My old Nan used to invoke conscience a lot. She thought it had authority even over the Church of Rome, to which she was a convert.
On the other hand, and there are always at least two hands to be found, if by discipline and effort, he really means something more like energy, then it is true that I need a lot of energy, a seriousness, and a desire I suppose in the first instance, to pay attention, to stay awake, to try to see clearly, most of all to perceive my own petty motivations and desires, and my prejudices and preferences, and my callousness towards others. I think my own motivation is curiousity.
Oh, and while I'm completely rambling (I gotta go, I gotta go!), why does the author use the word "unsexy." I hate this overuse of the s word to describe anything that is seen as desirable, or exciting. Sorry. I just got a thing about the sexed up dossier;
(T)o sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.
I dunno. I like routine. I like to wipe the same noses, for the most part, over and over. What do I sacrifice? I quite like washing up, and I really appreciate the company of people I like. It makes me feel good to be useful to people and not ask anything in return, although sometimes I moan and do the martyr thing. So did my old Nan. Really, virtue is its own reward for people who enjoy the feeling of being virtuous. But then, I'm an evil breeder who is responsible for global overpopulation.
I like your style, VK, and those were some super lyrics that I endorse;
Yo, the education of the Lon-chicka-Lonnie Lynn
Began, began with time
Bein' my bloodline is one with the divine
In time brotha, you will discover the light
Some say that God is black and the devil's white
Well, the devil is wrong and God is what's right
I fight with myself in the ring of doubt and fear
The rain ain't gone but I can still see clear
As a child, given religion with no answer to why
Just told believe in Jesus 'cuz for me he did die
Curiosity killed the catechism
Understanding and wisdom became the rhythm that I played to
And became a slave to master self
A rich man is one with knowledge, happiness and his health
My mind had dealt with the books of Zen, Tao the lessons
Koran and the Bible, to me they all vital
And got truth within 'em, gotta read them boys
You just can't skim 'em, different branches of belief
But one root that stem 'em
But people of the venom try to trim 'em
And use religion as an emblem
When it should be a natural way of life
Who am I or they to say to whom you pray ain't right
It's funny he says "people of the venom," though. Do you think he's been reading Icke? It's probably metaphorical, isnt it? I don't know. I don't believe I have ever seen a reptilian, but then they are good at hiding themselves, supposedly.
But it's a nice interesting thread this, we don't need name calling or anything. Personally, I like religion. I just don't like priests and kings much. They are up to no good. But I think a great many of us agree on a great many things, and to prove it I can commend this statement from wintler2 as being quite agreeable, thank you my dear fellow;
transcendentwintler2 wrote:Problems arise immediately one attempts to render the experience of the divine into language and communicate it. And disaster if the experience is codified into Beliefs. We all get very attached to our always limited, too often ego-driven understanding of the divine, one set of fossilised beliefs disagrees with another (completely inevitably, one of gods little jokes), presto war between the 'strong' Believers. It is because experience of the divine is so personal that we can not codify it or make any rules about it.
Now, what was the other thing I meant to mention. Oh yes;
barracuda wrote:People have faith in their government, people had faith Jim Jones, people had faith in Rajneesh, most people have faith that they'll will awake in the morning.
Apart from waking in the morning, I would rather put faith in Rajneesh than Jones or the government. I guess there are plenty of allegations about Rajneesh, maybe even some true. I am sure AD could help us dig some up. Now me, I heard the allegation that he was poisoned by the fbi. I have read Rajneesh, I am not a follower of anyone, as you know, but he was a very intelligent, scholarly man, quite outstanding in many respects. And funny too. Perhaps I should have put this one in the spelling thread, after blanc's comments there. I trust this is relevant, perhaps more than tangentially, to the subject of theophobia;
