Robert Walker Online

I have never understood the idea of willfully hurting or neglecting someone you love in order to get your priorities straight. That has always struck me as childish, immature, and very selfish. It shows an utter disregard for the consequences of one’s actions and choices, a smug assumption of being able to go through life with impunity.

This notion may seem to be opposed to the idea that we are not responsible for other people’s emotions or reactions. But I think that the two should, and must, ultimately, co-exist and compliment each other. I think that we need to be sensitive to other people’s feelings, other people’s development, but at the same time, I do not think that it is productive to cater to other people’s immaturity and lack of growth. There needs to be a balance, but that is not easy to find, especially when it concerns people we care about.

The point is that we must focus on growth, on helping each other to be who we really are, to help each other grow and develop, to learn about life, to learn how to take control of, and responsibility for, our own lives.

Nothing is harder than to take responsibility for the emotions we feel when someone does something that “hurts us.” But this is precisely where the issue is most critical. If a person does things that hurt you, then I think it is imperative to examine the situation, to try to understand all sides of the situation. To be sure, sometimes people mean to hurt each other, and if that is the case, then our sympathy for them will diminish. The best thing to do in that kind of situation is to get out of it, if the other person refuses to try and look within themselves and examine their own actions.

Motivation and intention are very important here. There is a big difference to me between someone meaning to harm and not meaning to harm, even though harm may be the outcome either way. If we interpret something a certain way, and we are hurt by it, then we need to look at ourselves and ask ourselves why we reacted the way we did. We need to take responsibility for our own interpretation of things. If we take something one way and find out that it was intended that way, then there you go, you are seeing reality, and can deal with it. But, as hard as it is, and as strange as it may sound, we must take responsibility for our own actions and emotions. As much as many people would like to have it otherwise, we simply cannot hold other people responsible for our beliefs, actions (including our reactions), or lives. This is one of the biggest steps in growing up, in growing from a child into an adult, a step that most people are not even close to truly making yet, especially considering how complicated it is to do so, practically speaking.

But again, to approach it from the other side, we are indeed responsible for our actions. And if we do something that we know will hurt someone, we are responsible for our action, even though we are not responsible for their reaction, no matter whether it can be predicted to 100% accuracy or not. But the point is that whether or not we are not responsible for their reaction, the question is whether or not such an action is productive or not. If an action is unproductive, or done selfishly, then it is wrong.

There are ways of going about things, and even if we want to help people grow up, people need help in different ways, and one way will work with one person and not with another. This is one of the hard things with understanding all this, because it is not easy to know all the people we may encounter well enough to custom-tailor what we do and say to them. Indeed, I don’t really even think that it is one person’s responsibility to adjust who he is to every other person. Rather, I think that both people should try to be sensitive, while at the same time not watering down who they are, or changing who they are, to cater to another person’s immaturity, for that values them too much and devalues you too much, and is not right either. There must be a middle ground, a mutual respect. Weakness (whether it manifests itself in meekness or in transparent bravado) should never be catered to, for it is simply counter-productive and a waste of time.

.

From my personal notes 12/24/99

It seems like it is easier for us to do things that hurt other people, or to leave a given situation, when they piss us off. We lose sympathy and compassion when they “make us” angry, and this makes it easier to act harshly and coldly. But, it seems to really come down to the fact that what makes us angry is that we don’t get our way, that the other person is not acting in accordance with what would make us most happy and comfortable; that they are not acting like, or saying what, we want them to. It is unsatisfied desire. It can also be childish and selfish, a self-involved lack of empathy for the other person’s feelings and conflicts.

A spouse or lover “drives” their partner to cheat, or have an affair, but this is really just a pathetic excuse to justify selfish and childish behavior.

When someone pisses us off it makes it easier for us to leave them or hurt them; we think that we are dealing with reality but we are really avoiding reality by slipping into that walled and guarded angry place, which is not reality but an escape from having to deal with reality with maturity, equanimity, and generosity.

But I think it is important, as well, to understand that it is not that someone pisses us off, but rather it is we who allow ourselves to be pissed off or not, to lose our patience and empathy; it is we who want something, and we do what we need to do to ease the way in order to get it.

Certainly, a person is responsible for their actions, but a reaction is also an action, and to hold someone else responsible for your reactions is to hold them responsible for your actions, and that would then mean that they are not responsible for their own actions but someone else or something else is, and so on. It simply does not work that way. This is a point that so many people do not understand. If someone is mean, they are responsible for that; but you inferring something does not necessarily mean it was intended. And if we get pissed off, that is an action on our part, and we, and only we, have control of, and are thus fully responsible for, that action. No matter how much easier it may make it for us to believe otherwise, no one is, nor can be, responsible for our choices and actions. Selfishness, even if under the pretense of anger or dissatisfaction of not getting what we want, when and how we want it, is still selfishness.

Of course, sometimes in these situations we are awakened to the reality of a person or situation, to their selfishness or lack of empathy, which was distorted or hidden by our fantasies, illusions, or suspended belief. But our willful, or even ignorant, lack of awareness of, and care for, reality is also only our responsibility, to see things as they really are, both with others as well as ourselves. This is easier said than done when fear, love, and clinging are part of the mix. We do what we choose to do, whether we understand why or not; there is no getting around it.

I don’t think I can stress this point enough—the absolute importance and profundity of taking responsibility for your own actions, of not holding anyone, or anything, responsible for your actions, beliefs, and life. Until one can take responsibility for his or her own actions and beliefs, he or she will remain a child. I think that this is one of the things that the existentialists got right. In order to really be who you are, to really be, you must take responsibility for your own being.

.

From my personal notes, 12/24/99

I take issue with the idea of “making love” being used as a euphemism for sex. I think that it not only does love an injustice, but it distorts and confuses both sex and love by making them synonymous, which they most certainly are not. No doubt, there is a lot of sex that has absolutely nothing to do with love, as we all know perfectly well.

Sex is not a simple thing. It is often used for purposes other than love and procreation, whether it be hate, lust, revenge, ego-boosting, and so many others. It is irresponsible and ignorant to use the concepts of love and sex interchangeably. And to approach it from the other direction, why is “making love” so brazenly limited to sex? I think that doing so distorts and thus limits our understanding of both sex and love. I think, further, that this mixing up of sex and love is a profound problem with people’s psychology, ideologies, and interpersonal relations, and well illustrates the danger inherent in using language and concepts unmindfully and recklessly.

I think that referring to sex as “making love” cheapens and depreciates love. Sex may be done lovingly, but sex is not love; it is neither synonymous, nor symbiotic, with love. Love is much more than—and not dependent upon—sex. Sex is an animal, instinctual urge, it is a pleasure delivery system. It makes sense that people would mix up sex with love in the same way that many people mix up pleasure with happiness.

The subtleties of life are not often paid proper attention by those who ignorantly and cavalierly mistake words for what they ostensibly represent. Simple misidentification can lead to many problems, especially when words are improperly used interchangeably, for the concepts they represent are more often than not quite misunderstood, and the differences between them subtle beyond most people’s patience to try to understand. Pleasure, for example, especially carnal, or “sensual,” is the satisfaction of desire, or even lust. There is no doubt that sex can be done with love—just like many things can be done with love—and this is often the most pleasurable and fulfilling sex, both physically and emotionally; but it is a mistake to assume, as so many people do, that sex is a postulate of love; that the closest, deepest, most loving relationship two non-blood related people can have must be, as least partially, a sexual one.

Everyone would agree that there are different kinds, or levels, or degrees, of love. There is the love between family, between friends, etc., but in this society, the deepest love, the most important, or significant, love is that love which is also sexual. By lauding, and at the same time mystifying, sex, and then attaching it to that certain kind of romantic love, people’s concepts, and thus beliefs and behavior, become confused. It screws up value structures.

It is simply a fact that love is not necessary for sex, and sex is not necessary for love. Most people would readily agree with the former (for who can deny that sex could happen between two blindfolded people who never met and never spoke a word to one another?) and take issue with the latter. But such people mistake desire for love. Love is not desire. This habit of mistaking desire for love, motivation for will, is a profound and far-reaching problem in this society, and speaks volumes to the way people live their lives and how they think of themselves and others.

Desiring someone is not synonymous with loving them. It is not the same thing. It can be understood as a matter of direction. When we desire someone, we want that person to provide something for us, we need them to fulfill that desire within us, we want something from them in order for that desire to be fulfilled. So the direction of that emotion is from them to us. Love is the opposite direction, from us to them. There is no expectation of anything from them. This is the difference between love and desire. If you did not want something from them, if you did not, as we actually say, “want them,” then it would not be desire.

Aside from a sadomasochist, or someone with some sort of obvious psychological or emotion problem, who can honestly pursue sex without desire? Such an idea seems absurd. But the key to understanding lies where desire is unnecessary for love. Desire breeds attachment and clinging; only love that is not dependent upon desire, including sexual desire, can be truly called love. We can feel lust, attraction, interest for a person, etc., but call it what it is, not what it is not. Again, sex and love are so confused and attached in people’s conditioning that such an idea will be rigorously resisted and attacked. But it is precisely because it is so unquestioned that it should be questioned, and popular opinion is not the nature of truth.

Sex can be wonderful (I am not coming at this by way of the ascetic or dilettante who criticizes or belittles something I have not experienced or dislike). It is programmed into our very biology to be wonderful, for it is the sensual pleasure to beat all others. Sex can be “transcendental,” it can have all sorts of meaning imposed upon and applied to it; but sex is what it is—a bodily function; it is people who assign it meaning.

Thus, sex between two people who love (not simply desire) and care about each other can be very “meaningful” to them; but sex is not “meaningful;” it, itself, is a function. It can be, and is often, used to express love or desire; but no matter what anyone may haughtily or (wish to) romantically claim, sex is a pleasure– (and, sometimes, baby–) providing function. It is wrong to make sex something it is not, and the same with love; for in making sex more than it is, love is made less than, and distorted from, what it is.

It is simply wrong, ignorant, and condescending, to think that a non-sexual relationship must be somehow “less” than a sexual one; that the love in the relationship is somehow limited. Again, our unexamined assumptions and conditioning cause us to resist and dismiss such suggestions, but that does not make it any less true. To limit the idea of “making love” to sex is to distort and limit both our understanding and doing (not simply expressing, perhaps?) real love.

.

From my personal notes, 12/22/99

Most dogmatic ideologies say that what the human says is the truth. I say—and those who understand what I understand—never say that “what I say is true,” that “I have the right way,” but rather that what is true is true, what is is, and it is up to us to see it or not for ourselves. That is what being open-minded, and thinking for yourself—what not being controlled by illusions—is all about. It’s the opposite of arrogance.

The problem is that most people think they are thinking for themselves and are in control of their actions and beliefs when they are not. That is the definition of denial. Most people are living in denial. Anyone who thinks that they have done enough thinking about life to know who they are is simply missing the point of what they contend to have done, and betray the fact that they haven’t “thought” enough about themselves to know who they are, because anyone who thinks they know themselves doesn’t. If you don’t see this then you do not yet understand what all this is about.

I don’t need to push my truth on you because it isn’t my truth. I didn’t decide it, I didn’t make it up, and thus I have no stake in whether you believe me or not. I am not asking anyone to believe anything. If I ask anything, it is that people make more of an effort to be open, to stand up and have some courage and face their fears and question their illusions, to see that things are not as they think they are, that they are living lives of illusion and not reality, that they are (at least currently) controlled and not in control of their own lives.

Who, other than an utter fool, could possibly say that that is “wrong?” It is beyond the human realm of right and wrong. Again, the problem is that people see this “philosophy” incorrectly and think that since they have done some thinking about life and have decided what they believe that they have done it. They miss the whole point, and then assign their own small concepts of right and wrong to a process that is beyond such things. This process is not right or wrong, it simply is.

I have no need to defend a philosophy of open-mindedness and making the effort to see things as they really are, because it is not my philosophy, it is not my truth. Reality, truth, what is, has absolutely no need to be defended. It goes along, being what it is, being, wholly immune to human opinion or judgment. Applying human-based concepts like right and wrong to reality, to what is outside the realm of such small-minded concepts, is simply absurd.

Another thing many people miss is the distinction between open-mindedness and agreement. I do not have to agree with something to be open-minded about it. To agree with everything is to be a fool; to be open-minded to everything is to be wise.

It is unwise to dismiss anything out-of-hand. To judge anything, to dismiss things, is unwise. Why? Because later on, maybe that thing you did not dismiss, but simply set aside, may come back and connect in some way you do not see now to other things that come later, and without it, you would not be able to see reality the way it is.

Just because I am open-minded to things does not mean I need to accept or agree with them. Rather, I can withhold judgment and let it be without feeling the need to give it my stamp of approval. What the hell does my stamp of approval matter anyway? Reality is what it is whether or not I agree with it, approve of it or not. Most people cannot see how powerful, how far-reaching, and ubiquitous their egos and arrogance are.

It’s about clinging. He who is open-minded does not need to cling to being right or wrong, and realizes that his approval or disapproval, his judgment of a thing, speaks only to himself and not the thing. So many people are too ego-centric to see this distinction. They think that their opinion and judgment is about the thing when it is rather only about themselves. We do not define things, we only define ourselves by our perceptions, judgments, and opinions of them. And deeper than that, we do not even define ourselves, but, rather, we are defined.

.

From my personal notes, 12/22/99

Those who need the most pleasure, the most money, the most honor, are those who have the longer path to the Path. We all walk a path, but there is a true path, and that path, no matter where you go, or what path you may be walking now (or sitting still on, as the case may be) must begin at the self. This is what Hinduism and Buddhadharma teach, and they are absolutely right. And so those people who let their desire for wealth and power, for sensual pleasure, win out over what they may even know to be more valuable and productive need to get their fill before they can move on.

It is sort of like we need to get it out of our systems, we need to do these things in order that we can see that they will not give us what we really want. Perhaps some of us need to experience what we need to experience in order to get where we need to be, in order to make the connections that need to be made for us to really absorb and accept and desire truth over sensual and material things.

An interesting aspect of all this is the instances where people get a glimpse of the truth and they jump right to the end, and right to being a monk, or to intense meditation, and renounce worldly things and pleasures, and still they do not achieve enlightenment. Why?, they wonder. Why?, other people wonder about them.

And here, many people fault the path, fault (the) reality, and turn away from it, exclaiming that it obviously isn’t the (right) path, or that it isn’t “for them,” or some other such notion. But I think this happens not because those people did not see a bit of the truth, but rather that they did and are simply not ready.

When one sees a glimpse of the truth, the light is so bright, it is so amazing, it is so much better than any “earthly” joy or pleasure, that these people become instantly addicted and go right for it. But it is possible, if not probable, that they are not ready to go right for it, that they were ready for the glimpse, and that they still have “worldly” things to go through.

This is the problem with desiring enlightenment. If one desires enlightenment then he misses the point and proves he is not ready. And so these people desire enlightenment the way they desired sensual things, just so much more, because it is so powerful. And they do not see that they are going towards it with the wrong attitude. They still desire too much, they are not ready. They still have fears and desires and such that they need to get through.

The way is not to desire enlightenment, but rather to recognize the illusory nature of your ego, and work to be free from it, which is what questioning the illusions of one’s conditioned existence is all about.

Most people, even those who ostensibly get what this is all about, and go through the motions of following the path (the religious-type ceremonies and all the bowing and scraping), still are not able to be themselves aside from their egos, and as such, they desire selfishly without even realizing it, for selfish desire is very subtle, and it is difficult to know when it’s going on. There is a reason why so few people are able to accomplish this.

This is the kind of thing I saw when I saw (on TV) that old monk who was going to die and told the Dalai Lama that she was scared to die. Obviously, she is an example of someone who was not ready to be doing what she was trying to do. She was going through the motions, wearing the costume, but, ultimately, in the end, she was a tourist. She was not ready to be doing what she was doing. She is a good example of these people who run for the prize, run towards this feeling they had when they had the glimpse and they do not want anything else, for everything else seems less, seems dull and dim compared to it. Or, perhaps, this old monk never really felt she had a choice but to live this life. Perhaps she never really had a glimpse and, like so many people, (try to) think other peoples’ thought-ideas, mistake knowledge for wisdom, hear and say things the meaning of which always remains elusive because they have never really questioned it.

But, it is the human reaction of addiction that is manifesting itself here, and not real awareness. Like the man in The Last Temptation of Christ who was telling Jesus that he has spent his whole life waiting to hear God speak to him, he has dedicated his life to him, and that it hasn’t happened. Another example of someone who had a glimpse, or maybe never had the glimpse but rather wants salvation, divine connection, whatever you want to call it, and then dedicated his life to it, to the exclusion and denial of all other things, and thus was not really doing what he should be doing.

This is why the path (literally) is the questioning and freedom from this illusory self, and not some prize at the end of the scavenger hunt of religious ceremony. For that is still done out of selfish desire, and as such, the ultimate point is missed. Selfish desire for salvation—or happiness, or oneness with “God” or the Buddha, or even for “nirvana”—is still selfish desire.

.

From my personal notes, 12/22/99

What is this we call awareness or consciousness? Perhaps a rock is conscious, just not in a way we understand. It is surely our arrogance, and our narrow vision, which causes us to dismiss such an idea as a rock being a conscious, living thing. But Aristotle saw the possibility, the Buddha saw the possibility that everything is alive. It is actually more like a probability, as we even have physics to show us that at bottom, everything is alive, is moving.

So what is human consciousness, what is human awareness? That is the question. I cannot know a rock’s awareness because I am not a rock. But at a very basic place, maybe I and the rock are one. In that way, I think to achieve enlightenment is to experience, to be, that oneness with everything. That is the collective unconscious many people allude to, it is the underlying substance—the God—of Spinoza.

As Hinduism and Buddhadharma teach us, the path to enlightenment is through the self, and so the only way get to that place where we can be one with everything is to go through the self.

We must examine the human condition, the human experience and consciousness if we are to get there, for the simple fact is that, as humans, our path is right here with us, is, in fact, with us as long as we are with us, which means all the time.

We are the door, we are the portal to enlightenment, there is no other path because this is what we are. This is the path we have. We are the path. And again, there is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.

How do we walk the path that is us? The only way is to examine, to deconstruct the house of illusion that ego built. It takes us back to the process that is enlightenment. And again, it brings us to where we see that each of us has a different karma, each of us has a different path. It is a different path, but it is the same path, in that the answer, the key, the door or portal is the same for us all—it is ourselves—but each one is different. And so we can see that the answer is both the same and different for everyone. The opposite, the paradox, is no longer an opposite, but one and the same. This is truth. When the opposites are no longer opposites, then truth is accomplished.

.

From my personal notes, 12/22/99

“On the fringe.” I wonder if this well describes the way I have felt for most of my life: on the fringe, never really in there, doing. It is partly the burden of the thinker who can never just do, just be, because if one isn’t thinking about something, it tends to elude memory and thus never really seems to have happened. This is the sad, and probably very false, logic of the thinker; doomed to the fringes, never really living life.

I find interesting this idea that if one does something without thinking about it, if one just does it without reflection, that it will not be remembered and thus doesn’t have a point of having happened. What part does memory play in this? Do our memories make us who we are? If we lose our memories, do we lose our identity? What makes us who we are as opposed to what we are?

But it seems to me that there has to be a happy medium here. There has to be a way to live life with awareness and at the same time not let that awareness get in the way of the being.

Maybe the key is to not worry about what is done, which is a form of clinging. I think it is foolhardy to leap before you look. At the same time, too much looking can nullify or severely impair the leap. How to find a balance, or how to find the right way to both look and leap?

To be sure, life is a gamble, and nothing risked, nothing gained. But I think what I am getting at here is that there can be such thing as an educated risk, a thoughtful and wise gamble.

.

From my personal notes, 12/22/99

I find the concepts of perception and sensation very interesting. As well as the idea that when we see or touch something, what is evident and obvious to our senses is not necessarily really the thing itself but rather our sensation of seeing and touching through which we infer the existence and quality of that which we assume is causing these sensations.

It’s like in the “Haunted House,” where you are blindfolded and they stick your hand in a bowl of brains. They sure feel like brains, and kids often believe (or at least suspend disbelief—what an amazing and confounding power this is) that what they feel is brains, when in fact it is Jell-O, or something with a supposedly brain-like texture. We sense a certain texture and temperature, and we perceive “brains.” This perception is processed sensation, processed through our conceptual frameworks—what else?

Can we really trust our senses? When we sense things we rely on our own powers of induction and deduction within our own (illusory!) conceptual frameworks to know what and how something is.

Another example: you see and touch and smell beautiful fresh flowers. In fact, they are incredible fakes. All of your senses and logical and empirical knowledge tells you that they are real, and you believe they are real, until you are told that they are really fake.

What is the difference between this belief and any other belief? Do we not rely on our same conceptual frameworks for all of our beliefs? Do we have anything else by which to know or believe?

Remember, the fact that you believe the flowers to be real—if you go to your grave believing they are real—does not make them real, does not make them what they are not. The fact that they are real “to you” does not make them real, for, in reality, they are synthetic, fake. Thus, whether you believe them to be real or fake does not make them real or fake—they are fake. Whether they are real or not, then, is in no way dependent upon your perception and belief in them.

How can you trust your beliefs and perceptions (even of yourself) when they are based wholly upon your proven-to-be less than reliable conceptual framework and senses? This is what it means to see illusions for what they are—to see the reality of the illusion. Perhaps a good definition of reality is the absence of illusion.

. . . . I am simply saying that our realities—which are the products of our conditioned conceptual frameworks, which come at least partially from our flawed and unreliable interpretations of our misunderstood sense perceptions—are not what we think they are.

What could possibly be of more importance than the realization, acceptance, and application of this? For what is not dictated by the ignorance/denial/avoidance of it? Nothing, as far as I know.

We must learn to go deeper. We are more than our sense perceptions. We are more than the sum of our perceptions, and the conceptual frameworks we build and live in from our perceptions. To free yourself of that which limits you, to free yourself of the prison of your sense perception-based conditioned existence and conceptual framework—this is freedom, this is the path to happiness/enlightenment.

How do we do this? One step at a time; to see it and do it as a process, with patience and courage. It is a process, and a process exists one step at a time—to try to do otherwise is to guarantee failure.

Where do you start? Well, with yourself, of course. With your own illusions (beliefs, assumptions, certainties, fears, etc.) He/she who is prepared to take this step, take it. It takes a great deal of courage. Perhaps courage is the key, the door and the path.

What could possibly be more profound, and applicable to everyday life, than the realization that there is a difference between what a thing is and what we perceive to be? For how can we perceive things as they really are when we base our knowledge and understanding on our perceivings, when our perceivings are based on our senses? It is thus impossible to perceive anything as it really is as long as we are perceiving it at all.

Beyond perception. This is beyond even Nietzsche going beyond good and evil. Beyond perception. Beyond existence as we know it. Do not trust what you trust, because what you base your trust and beliefs on is untrustworthy. Take a step back. Look again. Unassume as opposed to assume. This is the first step of true self-awareness.

It takes courage. It takes decision. It takes using more than that which you think you can use. It means digging deeper than you think can be dug. It means being more than you currently think you can be, doing more than you currently think you can do. It means wanting to live fully as opposed to partially.

You are, you have, so much more than you currently know. How trite, how deluded the mechanisms of our society seem when such things are thought about. The way we think about the things we think about—what could be more important to life and death, societies and governments, every person and every belief and action?

To not realize this, to not examine this, is to be controlled, to be a slave to your conditioned and self-limited existence.

He who thinks he is free is the most assured slave. He can be free, but until he realizes the ways in which he is enslaved, he can only think he is—and not really be—free.

.

From my personal notes, 12/7/99.

We reward children for learning right from wrong by punishing wrong and rewarding right. This, though, is how we run our adult societies as well. I am not so sure that we, as adults, should be rewarded or praised for simply being right; nor should we expect to be praised and/or rewarded for being/doing right. For is that not how we (appropriately, perhaps) treat children, and is this discussion not based on the idea of growth, and thus the difference between a child and an adult?

It is that mysterious transition between child and adult—a transition which we very much misunderstand—which is again at issue.

The having and taking responsibility for our own actions and lives is where I would draw the line. I am not sure that we should expect this of children (in fact, I am pretty sure that we should not), but I do think that it is a—if not the—true hallmark of what it means to really be an adult. And as I have said before, most so-called adults in this society are really children in adult bodies.

It is in this way that I do not think, for example, that parents should be praised for loving and caring for their children, because that is what they are supposed to do—it is simply right.

We live in a society of reward and punishment, a society where reward and punishment become our motivations, a society which is built by, and caters to, children masquerading as adults, who crave, cling, and become dependent upon the praise, punishment, and validation of others for their codes of ethics and conduct.

Thus, in the same way that I do not think adults should need, or receive, praise or reward for being right, I do not think that a real adult should expect or need praise for seeing things as they really are, for seeing and understanding reality as opposed to illusion, for this is what adults are supposed to do. I am calling for nothing less than a radical re-examination of what it means to be a child or an adult; of what a child or adult is, and what we should expect from them.

.

From my personal notes, 12/7/99.

Thinking about Christianity. I cannot say that I disagree with all the teachings of Jesus, especially as I am not a Jesus scholar. What I can say is that I, on the whole, find the religion/institution of Christianity, historically and presently, to be inherently hypocritical, inconsistent, closed- and narrow-minded, judgmental, contradictory, bigoted, hateful, intolerant, and often just plain absurd. I disagree with the imposition of a belief system or dogma, as well as required doctrinal practices, the rejection of which precludes one from “salvation,” which can only be given by a “higher,” other power, not achieved oneself.

I also disagree with the idea of “revelation,” for that assumes that which will be revealed. Now, the “revelation” of an illusion is just fine. But, when Christians talk about revelation, they are talking about revelation of “God,” no matter how they try to define it. The thing is, there is nothing to be revealed in the absence of illusion other than things as they actually are. The absence of illusion is not “God.” God-people always need to presuppose something. It is that which is presupposed which also needs questioning, for when it is, then the jig is up. The ego-self coming to some “revelation” is no authority for truth, or anything else, for that matter. Any positive revelation is but another illusion anyway.

I advocate questioning authority—historical, ideological, institutional, and cultural (and, yes, that of course includes “tradition”). That which cannot stand up to honest criticism and inquiry is without substance and merit; it is but an illusion, not real….

And thus, as it is commonly accepted that it is counter-productive to treat or mistake illusion as reality, we can propose that the way to enlightenment/”redemption” is to seek truth and reality by trying to see things as they really are. This is a process which, because of the distorting and coloring effects of ego, must begin with the self, and the way the self sees and experiences “other” as well as “self.” It is in this way that the road to redemption, or the path to enlightenment, is to be found within, for only when we understand ourselves as we really are can we hope to see the world as it really is, and vice versa. I cannot agree with a religion or ideology that is inherently contradictory to this idea.

I have realized that one of the themes I seem to revisit often is what is wrong with Christianity, and the ideas and morals of most, if not all, organized religions. I have always enjoyed challenging the morals and ethical systems of organized religions, especially Christianity, perhaps because it is so ubiquitous in Euro-American societies and cultures. In fact, I have always enjoyed challenging, questioning, and exposing hypocrisy, deception, dishonesty, insincerity, duplicity, greed, egotism, and lies. I have found, upon observation, that many of these traits and behaviors are ensconced in the practical realities of organized religions and thus in the societies and peoples they influence and mold.

Why people are the way they are, and do the things they do, has always interested me, and it is impossible to ignore religious influence, not only on individuals, but on the cultures and societies which help influence and affect, both directly and indirectly, all people, lay and religious. I realize that I cannot escape or ignore the fact that religion, in all its forms and functions, has, directly or indirectly, influenced everyone in my realm of perception, both historical and contemporary. This is why I do not dismiss mindful study of religion, for without understanding religion and the ways and whys of how people seek it out and absorb it into their lives and world views, I cannot hope to understand people and the human condition.

To me, religion and philosophy are intimately tied to history, anthropology, sociology, psychology, art, and science—for though all of these disciplines may seem to approach their subjects in different ways, they are all (ostensibly) seeking truth; that is, an understanding of how, and why, things are the way they are. Their boundaries often blur, and I find each necessary to the understanding of the others.

I have no interest in being taught what to think and believe. I am open to (considering) all religious and philosophical ideas, but I am not open to imposed and partisan belief, and the forced acceptance of ideas. That is something I, and all people, must decide for themselves—what they think and believe, not just accept what they are told blindly or with biased-questioning.

People should not believe things just because they are told to—this is one problem I have with Christianity and organized religion. I am not necessarily opposed to the teachings of Jesus, but, rather, to a lot of things that have been done in the name of Jesus and Christianity and by people who use religion and figures like Jesus to control and manipulate others.

I do not believe in blind faith. To me, blind faith is based and dependent upon assuming, something that I also do not believe in. I think that “faith” may be necessary in certain forms and circumstances, but I also believe in looking before you leap. Blind faith is a cop-out for people who cannot understand, nor articulate, why they believe what they believe. I have little respect or tolerance for such people.

Perhaps one of the main purposes of “society” is (or, I should say, should be) to facilitate people learning/developing self-control and personal responsibility. The governments that rule societies have failed because they think they are the point. They fail because they do not realize that it is their ultimate job to lead, not control; that their proper function and purpose is to see that society fulfills its true purpose: to help its citizens learn how to no longer need society as a parent or other controlling authority figure. It is not that society itself is bad, it is rather that we need to learn to not need society for that which we currently need it—namely, to control those who are unable or unwilling to control themselves.

Unfortunately, societies currently engender and cultivate just such dependence and lack of self-control. Non-State ruled “society” can be great; it can help people be more than they can be by themselves. Just imagine what societies could be when relieved of the costly and time-consuming task of being parent to the child. Same with religion. We, as humans, do not need to always remain children, controlled by our parental government, religion, or corporation. We do not need to have an outside power control our beliefs and actions; but most people allow this to be. Any society that so functions is a society of children, children of simply varying ages.

This is one place where I and Judeo-Christian based religions strongly differ. For, through self-awareness, I encourage self-control and personal responsibility and the ability to think for oneself, while these religions preach precisely the opposite. One is a path of awakening freedom and one is a path of slumbering imprisonment. Ignorance may be bliss, but it’s still ignorance. These religions do not teach self-control and responsibility, they do not teach people to think for themselves—indeed, if they did, their very existence would be threatened—they teach people shame and blind faith, which is skillfully and subtly taught to be not blind. These people grow up to be children in adult clothing.

One of the problems with society, as with the governments that run them, is the notion of job security. It seems against our so limited understanding of so-called “human nature,” this idea that the goal of the state-society should be that it eventually becomes obsolete. It is not so much that society needs to progress to its own demise, but rather that we need to open our minds and adjust our assumptions of what its proper function should ultimately be. We do not understand the reality of change. Society does not need to be eradicated, it simply needs to be allowed to be something other than what it currently is. That is the essence of reality, the essence and lesson of nature. Society has become like so many of the products of our fear and misunderstanding of change—stagnant and undynamic; and thus subsequently confused, decadent, and self-serving.

Society, much like the individual person, needs to see the changing of its form and function as a success, as a fulfilling of its natural potential of being, rather than as something to be feared and resisted. In this way, as society at first needs to function as crowd control and almost as a parent, imposing rules and laws of conduct, it needs to see that its next function is to help people to be adults, to be able to control themselves, and to take responsibility for their own success and happiness. Just as a parent needs to adjust her function with her child as that child grows (we should not treat a 16-year-old the same as a 5-year-old when it comes to rules, expectations, level of responsibility, etc.), a society needs to adjust and adapt its function to its citizens as they grow and mature. A parent who cannot adapt and change her function as her child grows and matures fails in her job. The parent who cannot evolve past the function she served when her child was a baby will fail her child as it grows through the stages of life, and will foster confusion, bitterness, and distance. Most parents are not truly prepared to change their functions and roles as their children grow, and the cycle is thus repeated with their children’s raising of their own children, and so on it goes.

It is this ability to adapt and change that is the challenge of the human being, who does not (or, at least, should not) live on instinct alone. It is our own illusions, and our own ignorance, that block this natural ability we all have but are out of touch with. It is our craving and clinging which stops up the natural flow of our experience of life. Observation of nature teaches us that nature is adaptive, it has the ability to change and adapt to changing circumstances. The human body itself will adapt to the loss of an organ or limb. The herd will change locality as the supply of food lessons. It is about adaptation. Most people are not very good at adapting, and that is why most people are unhappy and unfulfilled. A society that cannot adapt its function as its citizens grow and mature will fall into, as Nietzsche so astutely pointed out, decadence. Accepting, and adapting to, change is the most fundamental function of life. It is the most fundamental necessity to happiness and success, especially if success is measured by one’s ability to accept, understand, know, and be (true to) oneself. Without this ability success is impossible.

Thus, the successful state-society is the state-society that helps its citizens to eventually no longer need it in the way they currently do. The successful society is that which weans the citizen from the breast which is so warm and comforting. Society, like the mother who must wean the child from depending on her breast for food, must wean the citizen from depending on its laws for the controlling of behavior and belief. We are a society of full-grown people clinging to the teat. We must wean people to be able to think for themselves, to take responsibility for their own lives and happiness, and to be able to control themselves. This is the proper function of a process-oriented, and thus reality-based, society. And anyone who looks can see that society is, in this way, failing its citizens as the mother who clings to her children as “babies” fails them.
.
From my personal notes, 12/6/99.

Why do we live under the assumption that we need shame, and the threat of shame, from without or within, in order to treat each other well? Why do we need shame? What real purpose does it serve, other than to control and manipulate?

Very young children, when they are happy, seem to be in touch with a true happiness that most adults have lost. Who can deny this, who has spent a few hours with a child? They also seem to know no shame. They have no concept of it. They’ll run around naked without a care in the world. Why do we so devalue the potential wisdom to be gained from a more enlightened understanding of childhood and certain child behaviors? Why do we ignore this seemingly obvious connection between happiness and lack of shame? We dismiss it because they are “children,” a concept most so-called adults do not remotely understand, and so we ignorantly and arrogantly equate a lack of shame with being a child, something that is “unseemly” in an adult. Thus, our simple-minded logic tells us that adults must have shame to keep us in line, because otherwise we would be “children,” which we, of course, see as being equated with other aspects of childhood. We assume that children are childish because they are biologically children and that adults are adults because they are biologically adults. And through that assumption, we assume that whatever children do must not be something adults should do. We sweep it all into the dust bin without discretion.

I think we should re-think these assumptions. That instead of being so narrow-minded as to assume that the opposite of that care-free attitude that children have is shame, we see another possibility. That possibility is one thing which I think should, and does, separate real children from real adults: self-control. Self-control and personal responsibility is what really separates an adult from a child. He or she who needs to be controlled by an outside power, and/or does not take full responsibility for his/her own life and happiness, is not really an adult, but a child. A real adult does not need shame, or anything else, for that matter, to control his/her behavior. (And just in case someone might think that this is an endorsement of people “doing whatever they want,” running around raping and pillaging, recall that such people are not exhibiting self-control; they certainly very controlled: by their ignorance and unmindful ideologies. One is controlled by ignorance and ideology as much as by imposed rules and laws. I would even say more. Much more. But, that is discussed elsewhere.)
.
From my personal notes, 12/6/99.

I disagree with William James when he says that we need to look to those of our inner desires that logic cannot sway for our understanding of right and truth. It’s the word “desires” that I object to here. . . . I am [also] suspicious of anything that claims authority in its supposed immunity to logic. That strikes me not only as inherently suspect, but as religious, as one of the very problems I see with religion.

I am suspicious of any idea that someone claims is not subject to logic; especially ideas that are used for subsequent ideological systems and authorities, which dictate the way those who buy into them should act. Those who are selling and buying such ideas must not recognize the irony of their using logic (the very idea of validity) to undercut logic. If you think you have an idea or ideology that is not subject to, or derived by the use of, logic, I’ll tell you you’re full of shit.

We are products of persuasive, influential, subtle, and sly conditioning. How do we know that this “inner will,” this “inner (moral) compass,” is not just a product of years and years of conditioning, a conditioning of the human species as well as the individual?

I cannot trust the motivations of he who cannot allow for the questioning of his most basic assumptions. And conversely, I am inclined to trust he who actively admits that his assumptions are the product of conditioning, and not God-given or a priori in a way that future experience and examination might not alter or allow to be seen more clearly.

.

From my personal notes, 12/6/99.