Help
Sign In
check-in
November 2009 
Soul, Self, & SelfNature (soul post)
Posted on Dec 25th, 2008
by 
I-P
I-P
Soul Post
So you might remember that there is such a thing as a healthy culture ritual called the " Individual-Personal check-in" which involves 5 "reports" by each participant (one in each of the 5 venues of Individual-personhood) on what happens to be up in those venues--in the sense of what degree of sick or healthy culture is going on in each of them. The ritual is Ideally one in which at least two people participate but for demonstration and other purposes, I also seem to have adopted that form in certain blog posts here and elsewhere. My last post here in this vein was a "neighbor post' in which I reported sharing some thoughts about "gender and adulthood" at a community meeting here at Twin Oaks.
Another venue of Individual-Personhood is something I describe as the "Soul" or "Social-Religious venue", which has to do with healthy coming-together with others in terms of world-views in general and "Ultimate things" in particular. "Ultimate things" here relates equally to philosophies such as atheism (in which case the ultimate thing is physical death, and "soulful" relating to another means relating to them in the light of that presumed finality) and to any other philosophic or religious assumptions or beliefs. The Idea is to try to engage with others around such topics in a way that facilitates mutual respect, learning, growth and perhaps even some degree of tentative consensus. In practice, this kind of thing requires at least some degree of an "everybody has a piece of the Lie and the Truth" attitude , as this allows folks both to uninhibitedly engage disagreement and at the same time avoid competitiveness and rigid dogmatism. Such a mood is of course rather difficult to reach maintain in practice, which I am sure is one of the reasons people tend to avoid engaging each other around such subjects.
But the vital necessity of learning how to have such a discussion in this venue, is clear for me in the general fact that people maneuver in, and order their world based on their world-views (whether or not their real view is always the same as what they publicly profess) and to the extent to which we live in a shared world, radical disagreements about ultimate things are either going to be constructively engaged in a way that can lead to greater understanding and real cooperation, or they just become the motives for coercion, manipulation, or outright wars of one form or another..
So I happen to be engaged in such a "Soul" dialog with a person called Samatman who I met when he was visiting Twin Oaks. Samatman is very interested in founding a community based on the idea of what he calls the "Shared Self" and on what he calls "Shared Self Practice" which, in my experience of it, focuses on a certain breathing practice. His world-view seems to be inspired in large part by his understanding of physics as well as by his encounters with the teachings and person of Meher Baba and others.
Anyway, we have been engaging in discussions with the Idea of possibly finding some common ground in our world views as a basis for perhaps founding a community together based on some co-created synthesis of his shared self Idea and my whole "healthy culture" thing.
Immediately into our discussions of these issues though, we ran into the difference between his Idea and emphasis on "Self" and my own idea of "SelfNature", as a conception of Ultimate Identity. SelfNature (which it is sometimes more useful to refer to as "NatureSelf") is for me the ultimate "fruit" of which "Individual-Personhood" is the "Flower" (the "Tree of Life" being in some sense the rest of the "plant"). For me the Idea of SelfNature expresses the fundamental togetherness of the subjective (Self) and the objective (Nature), in the way that the idea of Self does not, and so the sticking point in Samatman's and my dialogs seems to stem chiefly on this issue of identity a lot of the time.
Recently samatman lent me the book "God Speaks" by Meher Baba, as a way of facilitating our mutual understanding of each other and I wrote the following to him in response to reading the first 4 chapters:
To Samatman,
so I don't see that it is true (good, beautiful, alive) to believe that "the evolving consciousness of the soul attains its full development in human form" as Meher Baba says, since I think it is precisely through the transcendence of the "human form" and "Human Identity" (and of "species-identity" in general as a separative Identity-Politics), and its replacement with something like Individual-Personhood, that the process of true "development" or "evolution" can begin. I think the whole of "human exceptionalism" and "pride" in the human form, even in the relative sense implied in the "Great Chain of Being" idea, involves a form of separative inegalitarian alienation that prevents living friendship and healthy mutuality between relatively distinct variations on the Theme of SelfNature.
I think that the sense of species hierarchy itself is something that comes from a failure to realize and affirm the ultimate togetherness of SelfNature , since it would seem to imply that that which seems closer to "Nature" is somehow further from some form of "Self" conceived as other and superior (to Nature). I think this assumption of separation and superiority (even, as sometimes happens, when the accent and superiority is given to "Nature" rather than "Self") is actually a conceit of the separative ego which has no real understanding or conscious experience of anything but primary alienation and apartness. It is this egoistic alienation, this mispercieved impression of primary apartness, that is projected on inner/outer experience and leads to the kind of "ranked distinctions" involved in the so called "Traditional view" (which view is, I think, more a function of relatively recent agricultural and in-egalitarian mutations of human culture and cognition than anything truly normative in human culture).
It occurs to me that perhaps another way of saying this (in terms closer to Baba's) is that the "souls" perceptual association with/as a given form of existance is different from the the egos cognitive one-sided attachment to a factional identity. The Soul (or, to be more consistant, the "Soul-Body") in a certain sense "delights in" (and in a certain sense "is") the full continuum between the particular and the general, between the "variation" of particular body and the "Theme" of SelfNature. The Soul is, in other words, fond of togetherness and of the paradoxical togetherness of togetherness and apartness. It likes both Self and Nature, and likes (and in a way ,is) both multiplicity and unity equally because its ultimate consciousness and longing is for the Spirit that manifests through and beyond both multiplicity and unity, beyond even SelfNature/NatureSelf. This delight of the Soul in the means as well as the end is because it knows that it is only such paradoxical delight that will ultimately attract That which is equally beyond both Means and End. it is almost the essense of what the soul is. It is the dissociated (disembodied) ego, on the other hand, that is the "sourpuss" that is always trying to rigidly impose one-sidedness and permanently subordinate one side of a coin to the other. Such a one-sided ego can't dance (by "dance" I mean something like "negotiate paradox"), while the soul is almost the joy of dance itself.
Any way without a paradox-embracing soulfull life-logical form of cognition, the ego must rule and apartness, apartheid, caste must emerge as primary (both in religion and in social order) in a way that they never would if the true paradoxical togetherness of Self and Nature (of SelfNature/NatureSelf) were perceived, conceived, affirmed and realized. What I suspect has happened in India as well as in other "civilizations" is that prevalence of the trauma of factional, war-induced hierarchical social conditions of caste and rank (over any preexisting conditions of "primitive" equality or community) is echoed in a cosmology and Identity politics that at least strongly lends itself to misinterpretation in terms of alienation, estrangement and onesidedness...I think such one-sidedness is implied in the concept of unilateral identity relation in which the Metaphysical Self "absorbs" or includes Nature in a way that subordinates the later (the same onesidedness is of course equally manifest when this condition is held, as in some forms of materialism for example, to be reversed).
SelfNature can only manifest in Entity-Experience when Entity-Experience reaches the "genericly-specific" and so paradoxical level of Identity that I would describe, not as "humanity" but as "Individual-Personhood" (or something very like it). I think the Identity-politics of Individual-Personhood is an example of the kind of paradoxical, togetherness that is in harmony with Soul (perhaps I should say with "World-Soul") and in terms of which this Soul as the Entity-Experience of connected individuality can best ultimately Manifest SelfNature and find its ultimate consummation (and perhaps rebirth) in its trans-formative encounter with Spirit and Ultimate Freedom (which I contend transcends, SelfNature, Entity-Experience and Identity Itself). Well was a bit of a mouthful, but I hope it is at least not a misleading mouthful. Probably, gesturing at Spirit with words is always going to be misleading...
So, for these and more reasons, regarding self and other primarily (or even secondarily) in terms relatively factional identities, as defined by species, kingdom, gender etc, seems precisely the opposite of what is needed to make room for the realization of our Shared SelfNature as Individual-Persons...Putting "Self" (no matter how allegedly different from "self" or ego) as the top of such a one-sided hierarchy is part of what facilitates the one-sidedness and the Hierarchy. The Idea of SelfNature avoids this and, without completely rejecting hierarchy, allows for its paradoxical subordination to equality and mutuality in a way that makes real Friendship and Community between and within all Being(s) possible...
Having said all of this, I think it at least possible that Meher Baba would agree with this interpretation of things and that his presentation of the situation is just a result of his dealing as best he could with the language and tradition which he inheireted. I base this in part on his statement that "God cannot be discussed, explained etc..but only "lived". I feel almost exactly the same about "Spirit". Perhaps we could commune on that level and come to terms about the map leading to that Living experience by filtering out the alienating biases of sick culture in various parts of the world. At any rate, I havent read the rest of the book, so perhaps I'll be the one who ends up changing their language and/or understanding...so far though, this is where I am at with it...
Looking forward to discussion,
I-P
I haven't got a formal reply to this by Samatman but the point for this post is just to report on the nature and quality of how the conversation is being conducted. From this point of view I thinks it is going very well in that, whether or not we will ever fully agree on these things, we seem to be becoming friends and learning and growing as a result of our engagement with each other.
This is probably due in some part to the fact that be are not only sharing world-views but also rituals. In our last meeting, for example, Samatman shared with me his "Shared Self Breathing Practice". The fact that I could not help but immediately modify it into a Shared SelfNature breathing practice" didn't seem to bother him and it certainly didn't prevent me from being very grateful for his helping to engender what will probably become a new ritual of Healthy Culture. Far from being frustrating, I think the whole experience lead to each of us understanding the others ideas and experience better. Similarly, in our meeting before this,I shared with Samatman the non-virtual version of the Individual-Personal check-in ritual, which he participated in and which I think like-wise began to stir up ideas in his mind about how to adapt that ritual to his own assumptions about Self.
So far, my engagement with Samatman as a Soul,that is in the context of worldviews and considerations of ultimate things (but also as a whole Individual-Person), seems to be going well. I think it's progress probably depends on the extent to which we can continue regard ourselves and each other in terms of what we share (or what we believe we share) rather than in terms of what we do not. This is tricky because the identity we believe we ultimately share is not the same identity! Still, my hope is that something (namely "Friendship") is happening as a result of our encounters that transcends dogma, and that will eventually help heal whatever rigidities and fear-based motives and (mis)understandings that exist within and between us.
We'll see...Listening...considering...
PS..
"Considering" has recently joined "Listening", "Supporting", and "Challenging" as a "co-implicated" aspect of the relating dynamic i call "Living Friendship", which I now consider a four-fold rather than a three-fold thing..,hopefully more on this in another post...
So you might remember that there is such a thing as a healthy culture ritual called the " Individual-Personal check-in" which involves 5 "reports" by each participant (one in each of the 5 venues of Individual-personhood) on what happens to be up in those venues--in the sense of what degree of sick or healthy culture is going on in each of them. The ritual is Ideally one in which at least two people participate but for demonstration and other purposes, I also seem to have adopted that form in certain blog posts here and elsewhere. My last post here in this vein was a "neighbor post' in which I reported sharing some thoughts about "gender and adulthood" at a community meeting here at Twin Oaks.
Another venue of Individual-Personhood is something I describe as the "Soul" or "Social-Religious venue", which has to do with healthy coming-together with others in terms of world-views in general and "Ultimate things" in particular. "Ultimate things" here relates equally to philosophies such as atheism (in which case the ultimate thing is physical death, and "soulful" relating to another means relating to them in the light of that presumed finality) and to any other philosophic or religious assumptions or beliefs. The Idea is to try to engage with others around such topics in a way that facilitates mutual respect, learning, growth and perhaps even some degree of tentative consensus. In practice, this kind of thing requires at least some degree of an "everybody has a piece of the Lie and the Truth" attitude , as this allows folks both to uninhibitedly engage disagreement and at the same time avoid competitiveness and rigid dogmatism. Such a mood is of course rather difficult to reach maintain in practice, which I am sure is one of the reasons people tend to avoid engaging each other around such subjects.
But the vital necessity of learning how to have such a discussion in this venue, is clear for me in the general fact that people maneuver in, and order their world based on their world-views (whether or not their real view is always the same as what they publicly profess) and to the extent to which we live in a shared world, radical disagreements about ultimate things are either going to be constructively engaged in a way that can lead to greater understanding and real cooperation, or they just become the motives for coercion, manipulation, or outright wars of one form or another..
So I happen to be engaged in such a "Soul" dialog with a person called Samatman who I met when he was visiting Twin Oaks. Samatman is very interested in founding a community based on the idea of what he calls the "Shared Self" and on what he calls "Shared Self Practice" which, in my experience of it, focuses on a certain breathing practice. His world-view seems to be inspired in large part by his understanding of physics as well as by his encounters with the teachings and person of Meher Baba and others.
Anyway, we have been engaging in discussions with the Idea of possibly finding some common ground in our world views as a basis for perhaps founding a community together based on some co-created synthesis of his shared self Idea and my whole "healthy culture" thing.
Immediately into our discussions of these issues though, we ran into the difference between his Idea and emphasis on "Self" and my own idea of "SelfNature", as a conception of Ultimate Identity. SelfNature (which it is sometimes more useful to refer to as "NatureSelf") is for me the ultimate "fruit" of which "Individual-Personhood" is the "Flower" (the "Tree of Life" being in some sense the rest of the "plant"). For me the Idea of SelfNature expresses the fundamental togetherness of the subjective (Self) and the objective (Nature), in the way that the idea of Self does not, and so the sticking point in Samatman's and my dialogs seems to stem chiefly on this issue of identity a lot of the time.
Recently samatman lent me the book "God Speaks" by Meher Baba, as a way of facilitating our mutual understanding of each other and I wrote the following to him in response to reading the first 4 chapters:
To Samatman,
so I don't see that it is true (good, beautiful, alive) to believe that "the evolving consciousness of the soul attains its full development in human form" as Meher Baba says, since I think it is precisely through the transcendence of the "human form" and "Human Identity" (and of "species-identity" in general as a separative Identity-Politics), and its replacement with something like Individual-Personhood, that the process of true "development" or "evolution" can begin. I think the whole of "human exceptionalism" and "pride" in the human form, even in the relative sense implied in the "Great Chain of Being" idea, involves a form of separative inegalitarian alienation that prevents living friendship and healthy mutuality between relatively distinct variations on the Theme of SelfNature.
I think that the sense of species hierarchy itself is something that comes from a failure to realize and affirm the ultimate togetherness of SelfNature , since it would seem to imply that that which seems closer to "Nature" is somehow further from some form of "Self" conceived as other and superior (to Nature). I think this assumption of separation and superiority (even, as sometimes happens, when the accent and superiority is given to "Nature" rather than "Self") is actually a conceit of the separative ego which has no real understanding or conscious experience of anything but primary alienation and apartness. It is this egoistic alienation, this mispercieved impression of primary apartness, that is projected on inner/outer experience and leads to the kind of "ranked distinctions" involved in the so called "Traditional view" (which view is, I think, more a function of relatively recent agricultural and in-egalitarian mutations of human culture and cognition than anything truly normative in human culture).
It occurs to me that perhaps another way of saying this (in terms closer to Baba's) is that the "souls" perceptual association with/as a given form of existance is different from the the egos cognitive one-sided attachment to a factional identity. The Soul (or, to be more consistant, the "Soul-Body") in a certain sense "delights in" (and in a certain sense "is") the full continuum between the particular and the general, between the "variation" of particular body and the "Theme" of SelfNature. The Soul is, in other words, fond of togetherness and of the paradoxical togetherness of togetherness and apartness. It likes both Self and Nature, and likes (and in a way ,is) both multiplicity and unity equally because its ultimate consciousness and longing is for the Spirit that manifests through and beyond both multiplicity and unity, beyond even SelfNature/NatureSelf. This delight of the Soul in the means as well as the end is because it knows that it is only such paradoxical delight that will ultimately attract That which is equally beyond both Means and End. it is almost the essense of what the soul is. It is the dissociated (disembodied) ego, on the other hand, that is the "sourpuss" that is always trying to rigidly impose one-sidedness and permanently subordinate one side of a coin to the other. Such a one-sided ego can't dance (by "dance" I mean something like "negotiate paradox"), while the soul is almost the joy of dance itself.
Any way without a paradox-embracing soulfull life-logical form of cognition, the ego must rule and apartness, apartheid, caste must emerge as primary (both in religion and in social order) in a way that they never would if the true paradoxical togetherness of Self and Nature (of SelfNature/NatureSelf) were perceived, conceived, affirmed and realized. What I suspect has happened in India as well as in other "civilizations" is that prevalence of the trauma of factional, war-induced hierarchical social conditions of caste and rank (over any preexisting conditions of "primitive" equality or community) is echoed in a cosmology and Identity politics that at least strongly lends itself to misinterpretation in terms of alienation, estrangement and onesidedness...I think such one-sidedness is implied in the concept of unilateral identity relation in which the Metaphysical Self "absorbs" or includes Nature in a way that subordinates the later (the same onesidedness is of course equally manifest when this condition is held, as in some forms of materialism for example, to be reversed).
SelfNature can only manifest in Entity-Experience when Entity-Experience reaches the "genericly-specific" and so paradoxical level of Identity that I would describe, not as "humanity" but as "Individual-Personhood" (or something very like it). I think the Identity-politics of Individual-Personhood is an example of the kind of paradoxical, togetherness that is in harmony with Soul (perhaps I should say with "World-Soul") and in terms of which this Soul as the Entity-Experience of connected individuality can best ultimately Manifest SelfNature and find its ultimate consummation (and perhaps rebirth) in its trans-formative encounter with Spirit and Ultimate Freedom (which I contend transcends, SelfNature, Entity-Experience and Identity Itself). Well was a bit of a mouthful, but I hope it is at least not a misleading mouthful. Probably, gesturing at Spirit with words is always going to be misleading...
So, for these and more reasons, regarding self and other primarily (or even secondarily) in terms relatively factional identities, as defined by species, kingdom, gender etc, seems precisely the opposite of what is needed to make room for the realization of our Shared SelfNature as Individual-Persons...Putting "Self" (no matter how allegedly different from "self" or ego) as the top of such a one-sided hierarchy is part of what facilitates the one-sidedness and the Hierarchy. The Idea of SelfNature avoids this and, without completely rejecting hierarchy, allows for its paradoxical subordination to equality and mutuality in a way that makes real Friendship and Community between and within all Being(s) possible...
Having said all of this, I think it at least possible that Meher Baba would agree with this interpretation of things and that his presentation of the situation is just a result of his dealing as best he could with the language and tradition which he inheireted. I base this in part on his statement that "God cannot be discussed, explained etc..but only "lived". I feel almost exactly the same about "Spirit". Perhaps we could commune on that level and come to terms about the map leading to that Living experience by filtering out the alienating biases of sick culture in various parts of the world. At any rate, I havent read the rest of the book, so perhaps I'll be the one who ends up changing their language and/or understanding...so far though, this is where I am at with it...
Looking forward to discussion,
I-P
I haven't got a formal reply to this by Samatman but the point for this post is just to report on the nature and quality of how the conversation is being conducted. From this point of view I thinks it is going very well in that, whether or not we will ever fully agree on these things, we seem to be becoming friends and learning and growing as a result of our engagement with each other.
This is probably due in some part to the fact that be are not only sharing world-views but also rituals. In our last meeting, for example, Samatman shared with me his "Shared Self Breathing Practice". The fact that I could not help but immediately modify it into a Shared SelfNature breathing practice" didn't seem to bother him and it certainly didn't prevent me from being very grateful for his helping to engender what will probably become a new ritual of Healthy Culture. Far from being frustrating, I think the whole experience lead to each of us understanding the others ideas and experience better. Similarly, in our meeting before this,I shared with Samatman the non-virtual version of the Individual-Personal check-in ritual, which he participated in and which I think like-wise began to stir up ideas in his mind about how to adapt that ritual to his own assumptions about Self.
So far, my engagement with Samatman as a Soul,that is in the context of worldviews and considerations of ultimate things (but also as a whole Individual-Person), seems to be going well. I think it's progress probably depends on the extent to which we can continue regard ourselves and each other in terms of what we share (or what we believe we share) rather than in terms of what we do not. This is tricky because the identity we believe we ultimately share is not the same identity! Still, my hope is that something (namely "Friendship") is happening as a result of our encounters that transcends dogma, and that will eventually help heal whatever rigidities and fear-based motives and (mis)understandings that exist within and between us.
We'll see...Listening...considering...
PS..
"Considering" has recently joined "Listening", "Supporting", and "Challenging" as a "co-implicated" aspect of the relating dynamic i call "Living Friendship", which I now consider a four-fold rather than a three-fold thing..,hopefully more on this in another post...
Access: Public
Great blog IP,in agreement here os so much , i like your approach and ideas, and yes seeking the positive in common is the only way through dogma and divisons. I am surprised how many read yet don’t comment, a lot of thought and work here deserves recognition
Thanks so much for your words Zephyr,
my experience is that many of my ideas are disturbing to people both because of their (assumed) implications or their explicit meaning. I try to balance things out with pictures, poems, and songs etc but i guess its still probably clear that the whole business in not for the faint of heart…at least if one takes it seriously…for example, here at gaia, i think that informing assumptions about comensurability of spirituality or healing with the present economic system (or some superfically modified version thereof) have a hard time surviving in the atmosphere generated by many of my blogs….
“seeking the positive in common” is an interesting phrase. i think i tend to seek both the positive and negative in common (i certainly think that they both are ” in common”). I find that otherwise people just end up colluding with each our in in-group rightousness in a way that makes the new jointly shared view (on the rare occasions such a view is arrived at) as factional and rigid visa-vis other views as either of its individually held predecessors. At least when the agreement when it is not too obviously superficial to pay any attention to.
I think its only when all involved admit to having a variably manifesting “piece of the Lie, as well of the Truth, that the ways in with this piece of the Lie might be involved in the fearful rigidity of a particular dogma (or–even worse–,in the unconsciousness of the fact the a dogma exists at all) can be explored without shaming and phoniness. But in practice i think there is a catch-22 is such a proceeding that really makes the whole thing end up as a matter of grace and luck…
Thanks again for your comments and support Zephyr!
In seeking the positive and negative in common are you referring to individual persons or to their beliefs / religions or both IP? i don’t subscribe to any particular religion because from my own personal perspective most seem to come unstuck where dogma is concerned and always there is something I can’t swallow, but I would defend each persons right to hold any belief as long as it doesn’t affect others adversely. I have great respect for those who try to embody and actually llive what they believe. Yet many religions point to truths in common, to love and charity and compassion, one God, a creator, it is in the smaller details that they diverge. Personally I see love, ( all others others as self ) compassion, truth, as the route to find oneness / God / Unity
and the only stumbling block there as far as i can see is a failure to be totally honest and transparent with self when listening to ones higher self. So yes you are right there can be a negative there, and I guess that can be true for all other religions too, we call it hypocracy, kidding ourselves. I don’t see there are goodies and baddies, only the capacity for both within each one of us and I have made my share of mistakes, admitting them makes me more tolerant and less judgemental I hope. Colluding with each other in righteousness kind of fits with what we were talking about before, cliques and pedestals, smiles, we must explore that with others too. I haven’t raised it myself yet because caring for a sick Mum is priority at the moment and she is elderly, frail and lurching from one health problem to another at the moment, quite time consuming. I admire what you are trying to achieve here.
“In seeking the positive and negative in common are you referring to individual persons or to their beliefs / religions or both IP?”
Both…well in a way more than both. it might help to think of it in terms of culture. for me cultue is cosmology (which would include beliefs), identity, ritual and infrastructure. But this definition allows for both individual and collective culture. Therefore, in a sense, I can and do have both an individual (specific to me) version of both healthy culture (the culture of togetherness) and sick culture (the culture of primary apartness). At the same time to the extent that its possible to ligitimately speak of collective historical cultures and there beliefs, identity-politics, rituals etc ”, (hopi’s, catholics, dravadians or whatever), the same assumption of the togetherness of health and sickness applies, so that, if I was born into hinduism for example, I could look at a that religion as part of a whole culture and see the ways in which it can alternately foster both healthy and sick culture depending on the changes in the health of that culture as a whole and of the individual-persons that make it up. for example, I remember reading Paramahansa Yogananda’s statement that the hindu caste system was not and should not be hereditary. my critique of it goes deeper than that, but my point here is that presumably something happened to make the culture as a whole less healthy; so that the seeds of apartness that are pressent in every doctrine (because they are present in language itself) sprouted in preference to the seeds of togetherness that is also there. Now if my individual culture is also mostly one of apartness then i will either remain a hindu and deny the shadow, (the sick culture) of Hiduism or I will totally reject Hinduism (including the healthy cuture also involved in it, in favour of some new onesided allegience. The ideas of healthy culture I think show a way out of such a false dichotomy….
“i don’t subscribe to any particular religion because from my own personal perspective most seem to come unstuck where dogma is concerned and always there is something I can’t swallow, but I would defend each persons right to hold any belief as long as it doesn’t affect others adversely.”
I have been thinking about dogma recently in terms of something that I call “inner consensus”. by “inner consensus” i mean consensus of the mind, heart, body, and intuition, to do or not do, believe or not believe etc. There is a lot to be said about this idea, especially about the inner oppression and censorship dynamics that prevent there being an affective inner “quorum” for such a inner consensus decision, but my main point here is that when having a “dogma” means something like “I am not going to change my belief merely because you have persuaded my mind; you must persuade my heart, body and intuition as well”, then “dogma” is good, since it means holding out for a deeper and more authentic argument or evidence. Of couse such an attitude presupposes, among other things, some ongoing process of inner “consensus facilitiation” in which I am actually encouraging and listening fully and equally to my own intuition, heart, etc, and am really willing to change or heal or reinterpret my (personal or shared) creed if there is inner consensus to do so.
“I have great respect for those who try to embody and actually llive what they believe.”
I like it when they do so as well, but only when they do so as a kind of Integrative experiment in which the criteria for the validity of the belief is both inner and outer healing. Even then there tends to be the need for both inernal and external “oversight” to avoid self delusion… Otherwise there can be the kind of confusion of “consistency” with real integrity (or integration) and healing, that just results in “spiritual pride” and phoniness in my experience. in other words, more of the culture of apartness…
“Yet many religions point to truths in common, to love and charity and compassion, one God, a creator, it is in the smaller details that they diverge.”
This is problematic in that, In a sick cuture (that is, when a culture is being sick) assertions of commonality tend to create false solidarity: They do not heal the “us-and-them” factional identity thing but simply expand the complacent empire of “us” so at to better attack some “them” which is the presumed repository of the shadow” (of all that is “evil”). Presumably in this case the “them” would be athiests. Since the ideas of God, a Creator, even of Compassion and Love, can all be warped and distorted by sick culture, it seems much better to me not to try to dissociate them from the imperfect collective and individual cultures from which they arise as concepts, and so not to assume that the samething is meant by such words in any relgion or between any two individuals. I think one of the best signs of faith in real primary and ultimate togetherness is a willingness to challenge false or psuedo togetherness.
“Personally I see love, ( all others others as self ) compassion, truth, as the route to find oneness / God / Unity
and the only stumbling block there as far as i can see is a failure to be totally honest and transparent with self when listening to ones higher self. So yes you are right there can be a negative there, and I guess that can be true for all other religions too, we call it hypocracy, kidding ourselves. I don’t see there are goodies and baddies, only the capacity for both within each one of us and I have made my share of mistakes, admitting them makes me more tolerant and less judgemental I hope. Colluding with each other in righteousness kind of fits with what we were talking about before, cliques and pedestals, smiles, we must explore that with others too. I haven’t raised it myself yet because caring for a sick Mum is priority at the moment and she is elderly, frail and lurching from one health problem to another at the moment, quite time consuming. I admire what you are trying to achieve here.”
I think its very beautiful what you a doing with your mother, though I wonder if you are taking care of yourself enough as well. From the point of view of inner consensus, it might be that some part (s) of you are not on board with either the details or the amount of what you do. my experience is that there is usually no inner dissent or resentment in an external emergency so long as my mind, heart, body, and intuition feel considered and listend to– so that I am not simply oppressing them but am open to and actively seeking creative ways to tend to them at the same time as tending to the outer situation. In your case it might be asking for certain kind of help with caring for your mother…but I apoligize if i am presuming or anything, I certainly mean what i say as gesture of friendship, both to yourself and to your mother since, on an energetic level, any supressed resentments or whatever in your will affect the quality of your care for her as well.
Thank You so much for egaging with me and enriching my blog with your comments my Friend,