Gravitational Waves are Us

Tags

Enlightenment, spirituality

Big news in science this week. Something or other about gravitational waves–the original ones–like in the big bang theory. Yeah, another theory, like evolution (meaning all stupid/ignorant idiots can stop reading and go back to fantasy island). Not that I judge of course. *smirky face inserted ——>This stuff goes back a few decades to some guy or other who predicted this wave would be there, as a way of explaining what seemed to be the rapid inflation of the universe from a singularity into the vast expanse we find today, mostly of empty space and dark matter. Also it explained the general uniformity of matter concentration, throughout. Got all that? Doesn’t matter.

Just know it’s big. About as big as the Higgs Boson find a while back. Maybe bigger. Like in Einsteinian big. As in a whole lotta folks near peed themselves.

You and I? Ah, not so much. Didn’t affect the price of gas nor reduce my angst about non-duality achievement any. What else matters?

Speaking of which, non-duality that is. I’m not any closer. Nor any farther. Since it’s not a place to go to, it’s just opening your eyes and seeing R E A L I T Y. Dontcha wish Aretha had sung about that instead of a very dualistic concept like respect?

Anyway, I been hanging around with such concepts for a while now. Some of it is making some sense. But I don’t feel enlightened in any way. I mean, one of the things that some and I mean S O M E people say is that to the enlightened or awakened mind, “everything is exactly the way it should be.”

Which is way way uncool and kinda sick given the cesspool of poo the world is in. But ya see, there is a logic to it. Saying that the world is a shit hole is a value judgment quite clearly. Various despots, political and economic, probably would disagree because they have island homes and barely raised a buffed finger before someone is at hand to step and fetch for them. They are powerful and they like it. The world is their oyster.

But there’s a whole ‘nother level where everything is exactly as it should be. In fact, it’s exactly as it has to be. I can no other than it is. And that’s very non-dual when you think of it. See, reality is nothing but the sum total of all actions by everyone, and all actions by everything, as far as the eye can see as they say, like in to the edge of the universe. Given what you are doing, thinking, feeling, and multiplied by all the rest of it, including the blade of grass that is struggling to grow, and either is or isn’t, a one-time-only unique reality is formed. And it is what it is, and is exactly what it must be.

Let me know when your eyeballs quit spinnin’ and I’ll go on.

The reality of all this, is neither good nor bad, nor right or wrong, or any other dualism. It just is.

Human egos (that’s us) attach ourselves to certain desires of what that reality should/could be, and then the fun begins. We try to change it, all the while other people are doing the same, but maybe not at all in the way we want. And some people just say to hell with it, and create their own little fantasy reality. Those are the really interesting one’s when you think about it. Talk about your Sim city! It’s like a game box filled with deities, and laws, and morals, all designed just by YOU for YOU. It’s amazing how far some people will take this. Just ask Ken Ham how far you can parade a fantasy world and get people to pay you for it.

So the trick, as I see it, is the not give a damn, because it won’t change anything anyway, but somehow be a good person and do “good” in the world, all the while not being attached to any outcome that is most assuredly not going to go your way anyway–since who the hell are you to dictate the world?

Can you see where I am stuck?

It’s not all no God, if you think that I’m headed that way. I’m not. I think the same “truth” derives from either a god-model or a spontaneous out of now where for no reason explanation. One may take a bit longer to arrive at, but in the end, both lead to the same thing. Reality is still gonna be reality, unless you get off the train and decide to hitch your donkey to a literal star over Bethlehem. Then you just dig the ditch a little deeper, or sink deeper into Plato’s cave.

All roads lead to. . . .

What?

They lead to realizing that a mind is just conveniently for aesthetic? purposes, housed in a bony case called a head. And the rest of “us” is conveniently covered over with bones and tissue and skin and offered as an “entity”. The mind is not mine, or yours, it’s ours. It’s as big as the universe at least, and perhaps bigger. I haven’t walked around the block very far yet. Yet that’s where it has to lead. Unbounded mind, all mixed in a soup of unbounded minds all being one big mind. Trying to be “me” is fairly selfish and silly at the same time.

Yet I go on being me. Reading Jed McKenna doesn’t enlighten me, nor do I agree with a lot he says, and I find some of his explanations of why he acts so darn ego-driven when he’s not, unsatisfying and vaguely con-artist in the attempt. I surely don’t buy into the idea that everyone who has ever become enlightened has to pass through this “first step” which wrenches the guts and destroys everything. Is it essential to leave spouses and children and go off barefoot in a quest? He claims a fair percentage end up in loony bins at least for a while.

I don’t buy that. Course, he would say that anyone who doesn’t agree with him, hasn’t become enlightened and probably doesn’t want to suffer the slings and arrows as it were. But since Mr. McKenna remains an enigma of sorts and unreachable pretty much, I’m not sure he’s any more real than the Wizard of Oz. All show and glitter, but look behind the curtain.

I don’t know that any of it matters. But clearly it seems to matter to a whole lot of humans because we spend billions of bucks on thousands of teachers and gurus and books and CD’s and speeches, all to help us along the road to what was that again? Some place not here.

And it’s not that we are all so god-awful unhappy being here. I know I’m not. Life right here and now is damn good in my book. I got no serious complaints. I’m pretty sure that a whole lot of seekers would agree.

Yet something keeps being that itch we can’t quite scratch.

I’ll let you know if I ever get there.

When I’m not too busy doing whatever it is you do when you are enlightened.

I hope pizza is still on the menu.

The Truth Is. . . .

Tags

being, Enlightenment, life, musings, non-duality

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to know.

As a kid I remember trying to figure out how Santa could visit every house in our subdivision let alone the city, state, country, WORLD.

I puzzled over a child’s book about the moon and various theories about how we got it. My favorite was the one where it was like a giant pimple that got bigger and puffier, and then like taffy stretched until it tore loose.

On and on it went. The search for what was true.

I figure that search if taken seriously (most don’t of course, and live out their lives in normal day-to-day fluff until one day they cease breathing), it leads to one of two outcomes.

If it’s undertaken in some desperation and fear of annihilation, then I figure it leads to fundamentalism. Such folk breathe a sigh of relief, life is survivable!, and close up shop and live out the remaining time in normal day-to-day fluff until one day they cease breathing. Since the journey was taken in desperation, the conclusion that “I am saved, no more need be said or thought” becomes the black box of all black boxes, survivable by the onslaught of all  FACTS to the contrary. It thus becomes not a search for truth, but an easy fix to my anxiety issues.

The other outcome is never really an outcome at all for most, but entails a life spent in searching. Unwilling to accept the first “pretty” truth offered and thereafter to sit with the

fundamentalist mentality, we accept what appears true, only to discard it as we learn more and realize that truth is but an appearance, and the search proceeds.

Ultimately we end up with a lot of possibilities but few sureties.

We leave a trail of discarded theories and books behind, encompassing the fields of philosophy, theology, particle physics, neuroscience,  and cosmological models. (Am I the only one who bemoaned the loss of a pet theory such as the “steady-state universe as the damnable “facts” insisted I must?)

We read about Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Confucius, Buddhism, Sikhism, Zen, New Age, Old Age, Wiccan, and every conceivable “science” of the mind.

And it all comes down to partial answers and belief.

Every so-called guru has his/her answer, but as Jed McKenna asks, where do they roll out their “graduates”, i.e. fully enlightened beings, meaning people who KNOW?  Every teacher has those who claim he/she has “changed their lives forever” and an equal number who cry charlatan. And they are probably both right.

 

I’m told to seek what is true. What is unalterably, perfectly, demonstrably true. And I am asked to ask again and again, “who am I?” Those operating in delusional dreams will answer, wife, mother, seamstress, student and other rot. Those semi-conscious, like myself, will respond smartly with a great deal of egotistical holier-than-thou-ism, “a spiritual being having a human experience”. We are both equally wrong I suspect, or both right. I doesn’t matter.

We have no proof we are either. We only think. René’s famous quote “I think, therefore I am” or  cogito ergo sum to those who want to appear smarter than the average dog, is trite, and quite possibly wrong. For we must recall the Matrix and it’s consciousness in the circuit board which is merely an update on Plato’s cave.

We are left in the end, as I see it at least with nothing more than the statement that “a mind exists”. It may be mine, but that is just the beginning. There may be others, and perhaps one great one, or we may be all parts of one great one, or we may only be a created computer “mind” inhabiting a stage, playing out scripts or doing inprov at the behest of “a” mind.

I can only operate from this mind that I appear to have. The rest is all supposition and appearances.

That may be the only truth, this thinking thing,  and I might well be wrong in that too.

If you have ever had the experience of sitting in a group of people at any social occasion or otherwise, and felt suddenly “pulled back” and aloof from all going on around you, observing even yourself from a “corner” of the room, then you know what  I mean here. Is this reality or have we slipped in these moments into an open doorway we mostly fail to see? Do we glimpse the Matrix as it were, in such moments?

Are we like Jim Carrey in The Truman Show, or like Bill Murray in Groundhog’s Day? How can we tell?

We are told we must wake up! And we do this by asking questions and being relentless in stripping away the rot and retaining only the kernel of truth at the center.

Is there a center? Is there anything beyond the peelings?

I can reach the point that tells me that I am not what others think I am, nor even what I think I am. I am the product of what others have thought of what I have said, thought, and done, and how I have responded and molded myself to that. Where did I conform, retreat, stand my ground, or ignore what others said? How strong was my “self” or non-self as the truth seekers would say? When I peel away the layers of this false me is there a me at all in the end?

Does it matter?

Is it better to live in the illusion rather than be no-self?

It’s all about fuzzy concepts of non-duality in which mind and the universe are seen as the same. It’s a thoroughly Asian concept prominent in most Eastern religions, but finding purchase in the West among neo-Platonists. Mostly the West interprets it as a mind/body oneness.

Somehow this is seen as preferable, this non-dualism, but why that is so is not yet apparent to me. It’s also considered de rigueur to claim that the universe is a friendly place ready to do our bidding. Again, I’m not sure why.

So, if you see me, and I seem to be gazing into the sky, and I seem to be standing there, doing nothing, well I’m not. Doing nothing that is. I’m thinking. That’s the only thing I know to do.

If I come up with something I’ll be sure to let you know. But I’ve been told that we each have our own row to hoe and the universe will deliver us what and who we need exactly as we are ready to receive it, and in that uniquely unique fashion, we are all in this on our own.

There is peace in the truth.

(PS. If all this sounded slightly black, then I definitely set the wrong tone. It’s quite E N L I G H T E N I N G. )

 

Meet the Original Libtards!

Tags

American History, Enlightenment, founding fathers, History, reason, religion

Our friendly Tea Party “Patriots” often tell us that they love the constitution. In fact it takes second place only to that timeless book, the Bible–the one God wrote to tell us how to behave. Probing, (as I am always wont to do), I discover that it’s not only the constitution that is revered, but of course the “founding fathers” who, as you know, among other things, brought us the constitution.

That always amuses me ever so much.

Sadly, it seems common to the PayTREEots not to dig too deeply into the mantras they are taught by Fox and people like pseudo-historian David Barton. If they did dig a bit they would find that their adulation is ironic to say the least. Barton of course would have them believe that the FFs were all deeply religious men and that they basically made the Declaration and Constitution tracts which God hopefully would  approve of wholeheartedly. The truth of course lies quite a ways left of Mr. Barton’s imaginative ramblings.

We all know that many of the founders of our fair republic were anything but religious in their leanings. Jefferson is notable for his refusal to believe in the truth of any of the bible’s miracle stories, actually editing them out of his personal bible. (You can see his bible with all the little cut-outs somewhere, probably at Monticello). The other giant, Franklin might be defined as a deist at best.

This should not be surprising since all the FF were the rich elites of their day, and were well read. And what they read and what inspired them (oh you must remember this from high school) were the likes of Locke, Rousseau and Voltaire. All were “men of the enlightenment”. You could easily add Isaac Newton and Spinoza to the mix as well. They were men who started to see that the world could be explained through normal observation and reasonable deductive conclusion. Some, like Newton, were men of science, who were uncovering the physical laws that governed the universe.

In all cases, they were the heretics of their day as well, rejecting the church’s claims that the bible was the only resource needed to explain the world. Some professed a belief in God, but not in the traditional sense of their day.

The explosion of new thought spread across Europe and Britain, and eventually to America where it inspired Jefferson, Franklin, Madison and others to reject the “god-given” circumstances of both colonialism and monarchy. They were “enlightened” to perceive the world differently and their place within it differently. They could finally conceive of themselves as in control of their own destinies.

They formed a government based on enlightenment principles of freedom, democracy, and most of all reason as the basis for rule. They ushered in the concepts of capitalism, markets, the scientific method, religious tolerance (read tolerance to practice what YOU believed, or be free to believe nothing). It was a movement based on equality and commonality and shared responsibility.

In effect, they were the liberals of their day. They were the heretics to the religious right with all their talk of reason and science. They brought forth a new type of government.

The conservatives of their day? They were Tories.

It thus is so very ironic to think of Tea Party adherents touting their love and admiration for our Founding Fathers, today. In the time of our founding, such people would have been sending their sons to stand with King George III.

But of course Tea People never think that deeply.

I can see why.

It is just too embarrassing.

Self-Serving Interpretations

Tags

Christianists, David Barton, Enlightenment, fundamentalism, John Locke, Matthew, minimum wage, religious right, Rousseau, Vineyard owner

I haven’t posted much here lately of a religious nature. And I usually describe this blog as part political commentary and part religious commentary.

Yet, I’ve been sensitive (probably too much so) to the fact that a good many of my readers are either agnostics or atheists and have little or no interest in things spiritual.

But, of late, I’ve been thinking hard about David Barton and his awful pretense of “historical” revising. We all know of course, his proclivity to proclaim that America was “founded on Christian principles.” While we agree that most of the Founding Fathers were Christian in some form or another, it is equally clear that the dangers of a religious-political union were well-known from history and there was a deliberate determination to not allow that unholy alliance to be the government of the new nation.

Barton, who has a BA from Oral Roberts University (which tells you a lot in and of itself) in religious education, has the temerity to hold himself out as “expert on historical and constitutional issues.” What he actually does, is cherry pick statements from historical documents and the bible and create a web of arguments that favor his view–that America is meant to be a nation ruled by Christian principles (supposedly as defined by him and others who agree with his fundamentalist notions).

Ironically, the Founding Fathers were steeped in exactly the opposite philosophy. The long history of the Roman Church and its marriage with the kings of Europe served an object lesson in how not to govern. Moreover, the FF were men of the Enlightenment, and any high school student in the US knows that they were deeply influenced by John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, both Enlightenment thinkers, who posited that man was more than capable of learning the secrets of nature and governing himself. One’s personal belief in a deity, was just that, personal.

One of the dangers of people like Barton is that they use their “talents” to create a history that favors their agenda and that of the party they affiliate with. In this case, Barton provides the “philosophical” underpinnings to the Republican notions of free market economies unfettered from regulation of any kind. In other words, toss out all the anti-trust, anti-child labor, minimum wage, safe working conditions legislation. This is God’s will.

Of particular interest to me as of late is the continuing claim that “Jesus opposed the minimum wage.” Setting aside for a moment the obvious idiocy of this, since there is no reference to “minimum wage” in the bible, let us examine the crux of the argument.

Most often cited in this discussion is Matthew 20: 1-16. In this parable, a wealthy vineyard owner seeks day workers for his fields. In the morning he finds some and agrees to a wage, and sends them out. At noon, some more are found, and they too are sent to the fields. Late in the work day, a few more are found and sent for a hour’s work.

As the men line up for payment, those who worked a full day are chagrined to see that the owner is paying those who worked only an hour the same wage as those who worked a full day. They complain. The vineyard owner points out that they agreed to their wage before they began working. What is it to them how he deals with others? And here is the phrase that the Christianists hang their hat on:

“Have I no right to do what I like with my own?”

To the so-called Christian who wants to protect his/her own wallet, more lovely words were never spoken. Why God says that a business owner has the right to do with his money as he wishes! The government has no right to order them to pay people any set sum of money!

Such greedy and selfish people virtually ignore the obvious point Jesus makes, and see nothing but that one sentence; that along with various verses strewn throughout the psalms and scriptures which talk about not placing undue emphasis on wealth. (Except the wealthy I guess did place a lot of emphasis on money in order to become so.)

This is then married to the “Jesus never said that Rome should care for the poor” and “it’s the job of charitable works to take care of the poor” (the poor being those people we conclude are deserving). There you have it. A perfectly constructed argument that allows “Christians” to keep their money in their pockets and the government out of social safety-nets. (An amazingly high percentage of these fools do take their Social Security and Medicare when they reach retirement. Shocking isn’t it?)

Actually the clear import of the parable is this: The vineowner was a good man. He recognized that all those who worked for him that day had to eat and probably had families they had to feed. He had no idea what may have prevented the later arrivals from getting to the town square earlier. Who knows how far they traveled to seek work?

He provided a decent wage to all who worked because they had themselves and their families to support. He recognized the need to make sure that all were cared for. If you struck an agreed-upon bargain, what was it to you if the owner struck more favorable bargains with others? The implication is, that the long-day workers were the greedy ones! They wanted more if the owner was paying the latest workers a “living” wage.

This is the kind of thing that fundamentalists do with scripture, twisting and dishonoring it in order to serve their personal desires. And of course, in doing so, they dishonor God, the Bible, and other Christians.

And sad to say, Barton continues to be the darling of the likes of Bachmann, Huckabee and Gingrich and others who play to the fears and greed of the “religious right.” 

Related articles

• Liars for Jesus: Exposing David Barton and Other Revisionists (atheistrev.com)
• GOP’s Favorite Fake Historian Spins The New York Times (alternet.org)
• Lying: A Virtue (aafwaterloo.wordpress.com)
• David Barton Claims Founding Fathers Debated Creation/Evolution (jonathanturley.org)