Cleric K wrote: ↑Fri Feb 05, 2021 12:15 pm
(sorry in advance for the length of the post. I keep on trying to write short but it simply doesn't work
)
Lou Gold wrote: ↑Fri Feb 05, 2021 12:44 am
Cleric, I really appreciate the cogent ways you articulate your views and I agree with much that you say. However, it seems to me that it is during adolescence that the temptations of freedom and taking one's development into one's own hands are greatest and most reckless. The initiatory rite of passage into adulthood is more about learning self-limits and serving sacred purpose and future generations.
That's exactly what I'm talking about. Now I'm thinking why from your perspective it seems that I'm speaking of something else. My only guess is that the word 'freedom' is to blame. If freedom is understood as the exhibit of unrestrained behavior, blind pursuit of satisfaction of desires - yes, that's exactly what leads to reckless behavior in adolescence. But this is not freedom in the higher sense. When I act erratically, I'm not free because all my actions are
compulsory, I don't know why I act the way I do - my stubborn organic nature acts for me, I only
identify with the actions. I'm not free if at the sight of a beautiful girl I become so aroused that this excitement turns into action and I commit a crime. I'm simply a
slave to my unrestrained desire - I don't have a choice, I'm not free.
Let's try to approach the idea of freedom in the higher sense. Wade Davis has traveled far and wide, and finally became rightfully fascinated with the incredible diversity of expressions of the human spirit. All these experiences culminate in him in the idea "it is our duty to preserve and cherish the ethnosphere!".
Now you watch Davis and you (I don't know the exact meaning of the word but it sounds as something you would say
)
grok his idea.
What is an idea? 2 + 2 = 4 is an idea. Now everyone who read this expression has experienced his or her own and unique thought form that captured the idea. Most commonly it's the verbalization of the symbols in our mind, with our own unique inner voice. Now the thought form is unique to ourselves but everyone here experienced the
same idea. I don't care who has what philosophical understanding of what idea is - whether it is simply neuronal firings, whether it is a metaphysical entity, etc. The immediate and simplest fact is that all of us who read the expression, experienced the
same idea. If that was not the case communication would be impossible. It is only because we strive to experience the same ideas, that we can understand each other at all. Clearly, sometimes the same word can capture different ideas in different people. That's why we try at this moment to reach the
same idea of freedom, so that we can understand each other.
Back to Davis. Now you experience the same idea as him. The big question is, do you feel as this idea has been forced to you and you need to comply or you simply resonate with it? I'll bet it's the latter. There's something within
your being that fully aligns with that idea. Your being lives in certain understanding of existence and the idea aligns, resonates with that understanding. Can we trace more concretely the origins of this understanding? I don't want to speak instead of you but nevertheless, I'm quite confident that you would say that at the core of this understanding is the idea that we are all One. When you look at the world through the eyes of this idea you feel the sacredness of every plant, every pebble, every animal, every human being.
But not everyone has reached this idea. Even if everyone can understand it abstractly it takes much more than that to
live the idea, to allow all our thoughts, feelings and actions become the living expression of the idea. What is it that prevents others to experience this idea with all their being? Many things, lack of knowledge, egoistic desires, etc.
Now if you were in position to transform humanity in an instant, what would you do? Would you create a government system that ensures that everyone complies with the rules of preservation of ethno-diversity? Or would you make that all human beings can experience, at least for a moment, the love and joy that
you experience when your soul fuses with the Cosmic Spirit? Now we are getting nearer to what freedom is in the higher sense. It is about peeling the sheaths of unconscious, instinctive life one by one. This is a never-ending process. The more we do this, the clearer we see. From this clear perspective we can set sight on our High Ideal and say for ourselves "It is the greatest fulfillment of my soul to experience the unfoldment and profusion of Life. What I do in this way does not benefit only myself but the whole Living Cosmos. I do this not because someone forced me to, not because I've read it in the sacred books, not because I think it's 'right' and everyone should do the same, but because this is what I Love and what I would Love to experience". Now the last part is the most troublesome for most people. We are so used to have
definition of what is right and wrong. This is what we do in science too - we try to extract from experiment the rules that tell us
how we should live. But in the final run, everyone does what he wants. By freedom we understand that one has to continuously 'clear the view'. Then, if we thus discover an Ideal that stands even higher than our present one, we go after it. We are not free if we have only one choice, as domino pieces in chain reaction. We are not free if we feel the Laws of God as something that we should obey, without understanding why. We are not free if we think that our High Ideal, no matter how beneficial for the whole Cosmos, is somewhere decreed as 'right' and we have the right to force others to accept it.
So I hope that we have now reached common understanding of what it means to reach adulthood. It is not about getting over with the reckless behavior and accepting the ground rules of society, religion, etc. This is also necessary for most but it is still a kind of obedience. This is not an adult but a teenager in straightjacket. He conforms not because he has overcome his desires but because he has accepted the rules. There is a simple test that all of us can make in relation to any desire. When I feel desire for something I can ask myself "do I restrain myself because it will violate the rules of society and religion? In other words, if these rules were not in place, would I joyfully go on to satisfy my desire?" This is a very simple criteria to see for ourselves the true origins of our behavior. We are free only when we have attained to the spiritual height where we can experience the rules
as our own. Not because others told me to conform but because they are the natural expression of my Love for the High Ideal.
I would like to say something about the ethnosphere. I agree that we shouldn't interfere with it. We should not deforest the native lands, nor force our language on anyone.
How do we know about these tribes, these cultures? Where did the camera which Davis uses to photograph come from? Where did the airplane with which he travels the world far and wide came from? Where did the printing press for NG and the Internet come from?
I assume that you are now ready to unleash the Divine wrath on me for speaking like that
No, I'm not advocating technocracy. I have something
completely different in mind.
The question of the races is painful. Let's use the word
civilizations instead because in our age it is no longer the case that the white civilization consists of humans of only Caucasian genotypes. Members of all genetic races participate in the Western civilization, so we can't judge by skin color. Furthermore, even the West is no longer only in the west but it is in every country all over the world.
The point is that you, Lou, are in privileged position. And I put the most selfless, loving and humble meaning in that term. I'm not at all speaking of some selfish supremacy here! Think of it in this way. Let's forget technology and races. Now you are in position where you survey the astonishing diversity of cultures and you can say "Look at this astonishing diversity! This marvelous work of the Spirit, expressing itself in the most manifold ways. Developing the most varied practices, rituals, lifestyles so that the Spirit locked into the human bodies can reconnect with Itself." But you can only say that because you, yourself, has gone through all these forms in different incarnations. (speaking only figuratively here) You have experienced what it is to be an Inuit struggling with the frost. You know what it is to be a Native American thankful to the Great Spirit for the game. You know what it is to be a Zulu dancing in a trance state. All this your Spirit
knows. You are now standing above it and saying "I can see the same Spirit everywhere - the same Spirit that thinks in me". You are not locked in any one tribal form, their deities, their rituals. You can dip in and out any of them. You are free. You have found in yourself the
human universal.
Now we need to appreciate this deeply. You, Lou, have grown beyond the individual tribal forms of consciousness. That's why you have incarnated where you have. Don't believe me? OK. Imagine that you take few of these tribes and put them in the same sandbox. Are you sure they'll get along easily? Who is going to sacrifice their own rituals and practices in exchange for the ones of the alien tribe? You see, these people
identify with their culture. And I'm not saying this as judgment or as if it is a bad thing! Not at all! I'm just pointing out that
you are in a
different position. Different not in some egoistical, supremacist way - exactly the opposite. You have learned through experience to recognize what is the
essential in the human being - the Spirit. You can see the Spirit everywhere. But will the Zulu voodoo people see the same Spirit in the Kogi? It's not that certain.
Think again. Now, from your perspective, would you like to lose all your understandings and live a life as an Inuit? Without being aware that there are other cultures around the globe, focused on your survival. What would your soul gain that it doesn't already know? If we mediate deeply on these things we reach the understanding - this is exactly the grandeur of evolution, of development! We can appreciate the beauty and magnificence of the diverse forms,
only when we ourselves leave them and are able to behold them. As long as our Spirit is locked into one such form we are not conscious of any of this! Our form completely formats our conscious experience - our traditions, religion, lifestyle - all of these are the clothes of the Cosmic Spirit through which the experience of the big Me is being filtered. And now we also understand that our current form, even though we are in a higher position and able to behold the many other forms that our Spirit could take, is yet
another form. And in this way, we can point our gaze prophetically into the future and see that at some point our Spirit will be
looking back on our
current state and see how we have been (we are now) locked into a certain culture, with certain understandings and beliefs.
This is the point where man can begin to work consciously on his evolution. And here's why we
need Spiritual Science. Consider this: what I have above described could have been seen as highly egoistical by you and other readers. To claim that one rises to higher stages of development? What an arrogance! But this becomes arrogant only when we don't understand our spiritual structure. It is widely considered today, that one, even though being compassionate for others, in the final run works for
his own salvation from samsara, expecting to become free of suffering and pain - by leaving the suffering humanity behind. Spiritual perception reveals that this does not stand up to the facts. One can not at all extricate himself from planetary and Solar evolution. What about Gautama Buddha? Allegedly he did it! And that's true. Bodhisattvas really reach the point of last incarnation when they become Buddhas. But Spiritual cognition shows that Gautama Buddha has not at all left the arena of our world. In fact he works with even greater intensity on the human souls. Buddha did not at all disappeared in Nirvana. He doesn't incarnate because he is
much more useful for the evolution of humanity by working directly in the souls of men, producing powerful inspirations in them. He can achieve
much less if he incarnates into a body. This was only as a side note, food for thought. The real illusion is that man has destiny separate from that of all humanity. Instead, when man liquidates with his own Karma, he takes on the Karma of all humanity and continues working for the whole. This might sound as shocking but one must simply be observant and ask himself "What is it in me that rebels if this is really the truth?" One can learn a lot about himself through such a simple question.
We have to come to clear conception of reality. And this is possible only through direct, spiritual perception. Then we immediately see how this spiritual knowledge in itself becomes a powerful impulse for our moral life. When we have experienced one such idea and have made it flesh of our flesh, an idea such as the preservation of the ethnosphere, shines within us as a direct consequence of our higher understanding. We don't want to preserve the ethnosphere because of some half-understood, vague feeling of pity for the defenseless tribes, but because our Highest Ideal, our Love passes through that sphere. We would never be what we are without this sphere. And now that we have elevated ourselves to perceive it, we immediately become
responsible for it. We love all people with all our strength because we feel Cosmic Bliss by giving our life in service to all. Just as the big Me gives His life so that we can have it.
This is the chilling (for some) fact of Spiritual evolution. One does not simply move to higher and higher forms while leaving everything behind. As soon as one leaves given form he becomes responsible for it, just as adults are responsible for their children. Not only that we don't escape the Solar system through our egoistic striving for liberation from samsara but every step in that direction should make us more and more involved in the Great Work that is being done. So far Beings higher than us have been carrying this Work. As we grow and mature, we don't go to satisfy our "higher" egoistical desires but begin to participate consciously and in freedom, out of Love, in the Work on the Cosmic Edifice.
