A question about language

[Lou Gold]

Being that this is the Lenten season I became curious about the word 'penitence' and checking the disctionary discovered curiously that it has about 35 strongly-to-loosely associated synonyms but hardly any antonyms. Please speculate as to whether you feel this reveals something about the word bias of the dominant Western Paradigm.

Here are the associated words according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

[Cleric K]

Being that this is the Lenten season I became curious about the word 'penitence' and checking the disctionary discovered curiously that it has about 35 strongly-to-loosely associated synonyms but hardly any antonyms. Please speculate as to whether you feel this reveals something about the word bias of the dominant Western Paradigm.

Here are the associated words according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

I suppose that the question is asked in the context of the widespread understanding that the Western paradigm emerging from the Abrahamic stream and the story of the original sin, is instilled with guilt and the feeling of being sinful, which is supposed to be a tool entirely devised for putting down the souls.

Let’s look at things step by step.

First, we have our deeds. We continuously embed our actions into the World flow. Looking back, we can see how we did this, said that to someone, etc.

Second, when we thus look back, we feel a certain way about these actions which are now objectively embedded in the World state. One possible way to feel about them is regret (and the whole spectrum around it). This is when we recognize in the pictures of our deeds something that clashes with our moral ideals. We realize that we have acted under the compulsion of a certain narrow desire, uncontrollable explosive impulse, ignorance, etc.

So ‘penitence’ refers to something in our feeling life. We say ‘I feel regret’, not ‘I think regret’. These feelings are like an atmosphere of our soul life and we can’t that easily override them (see the Phonograph Metaphor Part 2 for examples).

Now we should clarify to ourselves what we’re looking for when we ask for this antonym. If we go directly about it, it may be like asking “Assuming that my deeds are objectively the same, what could be the opposite feelings?” And in fact, we can find many words that fit this requirement: shamelessness, callousness, indifference, apathy, self-righteousness, self-satisfaction, brazenness, aloofness, and so on. These are all feelings that feel good or neutral in the face of our objective deeds. So we see that there’s no shortage of words. Why the authors of this specific dictionary did not include more, I don’t know. The bias is there, not in the language itself (let alone the Western paradigm).

Of course, presented like this, one would say “Wait, wait, wait, no one suggests that we should feel indifferent, shameless, etc.” Alright, but then what do we mean by ‘antonym’?

Here things can be seen in two directions. In one, it is indeed possible to instill artificial guilt and shame about certain things. This is the case in which, for example, modern man feels a little shame to speak of God. He passes for quite naive – after all, science has probed everything from the atom to the universe and found no trace of God. In this direction, it is indeed proper to recognize certain cultural hindrances that paralyze our inner life. It’s not about becoming a fanatical preacher and speaking about God to everyone (we’ll just become the laughingstock of the company). The more important thing is to be free in our soul and be able to open up to something higher than our ego, which acts through ourselves.

The other direction however leads precisely to the antonyms listed above. This is what easily happens when one embraces today’s widespread agnostic mysticism, where it’s suggested that we should simply flow along (no thinker, no doer). Here things are twisted as if feelings like regret are signs of duality and one should simply eliminate them without really being concerned that these feelings may be telling us something about what we have objectively embedded in the World flow.

I hope this makes it clear: if we one-sidedly want to eliminate regret and shame, and instead feel at peace and satisfied, we preclude any possibility of understanding the objective value of our deeds for the World. On the other hand, it is true that there’s no point in simply brooding over the feeling of regret. This leads us nowhere, we can’t change what we have embedded in the flow. Yet this feeling is a feedback. It tells us that we can make things better next time.

Is there anything in life of which we could not say that we could have done it better? It would be sad if there were anything with which we could be completely satisfied, because there is nothing we could not do better.

The difference between a person standing higher and one standing lower in life is precisely that the latter always desires to be satisfied with himself. The person standing higher in life is never completely satisfied, because the subtle wish to do better, even to do things differently, always exists as a motive.

This is an area that is often misunderstood. People see something great when they regret a deed. However, that is not the best we can do with a deed, because we often base our regret in egotism;  namely, people desire to have done the deed better to be better people. That is egotistical.

Our striving will be without egotism only when we cease to desire to have done a completed deed better and instead place greater value in doing the same deed better the next time. The intent and the effort to do something better the next time is higher than regret.

So we see that things are more complicated. When we look for the antonym of ‘penitence’, we shouldn’t simply seek the opposite pleasant feeling, but be led towards clearer intuition of moral life and fresh impulses for our future activity.

Thus, if there’s bias (and there certainly is) it’s not because we can’t speak of opposite feelings of guilt, shame, etc. but because it’s subconsciously realized that to find the opposite in a moral way (instead of simply feeling self-satisfied and indifferent) we need to do something and this is widely resisted (especially if we have convinced ourselves that there’s no doer!)

If we want to seek the cure for regret, we can’t simply hypnotize ourselves that everything is great and non-dual no matter what we continue to embed in the World flow. Instead, we should look at words like those Paul used: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. Only by seeking to live a life inspired by the Divine, we may find the proper way to overcome regret. Not that we’ll eradicate the past, this we can’t do, but we can strive to become an inspired expression of higher life, higher morality, higher ideals, which should ultimately lead humanity to its true free spiritual essence.

[Lou Gold]

Being that this is the Lenten season I became curious about the word 'penitence' and checking the disctionary discovered curiously that it has about 35 strongly-to-loosely associated synonyms but hardly any antonyms. Please speculate as to whether you feel this reveals something about the word bias of the dominant Western Paradigm.

Here are the associated words according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

I suppose that the question is asked in the context of the widespread understanding that the Western paradigm emerging from the Abrahamic stream and the story of the original sin, is instilled with guilt and the feeling of being sinful, which is supposed to be a tool entirely devised for putting down the souls.

Let’s look at things step by step.

First, we have our deeds. We continuously embed our actions into the World flow. Looking back, we can see how we did this, said that to someone, etc.

Second, when we thus look back, we feel a certain way about these actions which are now objectively embedded in the World state. One possible way to feel about them is regret (and the whole spectrum around it). This is when we recognize in the pictures of our deeds something that clashes with our moral ideals. We realize that we have acted under the compulsion of a certain narrow desire, uncontrollable explosive impulse, ignorance, etc.

So ‘penitence’ refers to something in our feeling life. We say ‘I feel regret’, not ‘I think regret’. These feelings are like an atmosphere of our soul life and we can’t that easily override them (see the Phonograph Metaphor Part 2 for examples).

Now we should clarify to ourselves what we’re looking for when we ask for this antonym. If we go directly about it, it may be like asking “Assuming that my deeds are objectively the same, what could be the opposite feelings?” And in fact, we can find many words that fit this requirement: shamelessness, callousness, indifference, apathy, self-righteousness, self-satisfaction, brazenness, aloofness, and so on. These are all feelings that feel good or neutral in the face of our objective deeds. So we see that there’s no shortage of words. Why the authors of this specific dictionary did not include more, I don’t know. The bias is there, not in the language itself (let alone the Western paradigm).

Of course, presented like this, one would say “Wait, wait, wait, no one suggests that we should feel indifferent, shameless, etc.” Alright, but then what do we mean by ‘antonym’?

Here things can be seen in two directions. In one, it is indeed possible to instill artificial guilt and shame about certain things. This is the case in which, for example, modern man feels a little shame to speak of God. He passes for quite naive – after all, science has probed everything from the atom to the universe and found no trace of God. In this direction, it is indeed proper to recognize certain cultural hindrances that paralyze our inner life. It’s not about becoming a fanatical preacher and speaking about God to everyone (we’ll just become the laughingstock of the company). The more important thing is to be free in our soul and be able to open up to something higher than our ego, which acts through ourselves.

The other direction however leads precisely to the antonyms listed above. This is what easily happens when one embraces today’s widespread agnostic mysticism, where it’s suggested that we should simply flow along (no thinker, no doer). Here things are twisted as if feelings like regret are signs of duality and one should simply eliminate them without really being concerned that these feelings may be telling us something about what we have objectively embedded in the World flow.

I hope this makes it clear: if we one-sidedly want to eliminate regret and shame, and instead feel at peace and satisfied, we preclude any possibility of understanding the objective value of our deeds for the World. On the other hand, it is true that there’s no point in simply brooding over the feeling of regret. This leads us nowhere, we can’t change what we have embedded in the flow. Yet this feeling is a feedback. It tells us that we can make things better next time.

Is there anything in life of which we could not say that we could have done it better? It would be sad if there were anything with which we could be completely satisfied, because there is nothing we could not do better.

The difference between a person standing higher and one standing lower in life is precisely that the latter always desires to be satisfied with himself. The person standing higher in life is never completely satisfied, because the subtle wish to do better, even to do things differently, always exists as a motive.

This is an area that is often misunderstood. People see something great when they regret a deed. However, that is not the best we can do with a deed, because we often base our regret in egotism;  namely, people desire to have done the deed better to be better people. That is egotistical.

Our striving will be without egotism only when we cease to desire to have done a completed deed better and instead place greater value in doing the same deed better the next time. The intent and the effort to do something better the next time is higher than regret.

So we see that things are more complicated. When we look for the antonym of ‘penitence’, we shouldn’t simply seek the opposite pleasant feeling, but be led towards clearer intuition of moral life and fresh impulses for our future activity.

Thus, if there’s bias (and there certainly is) it’s not because we can’t speak of opposite feelings of guilt, shame, etc. but because it’s subconsciously realized that to find the opposite in a moral way (instead of simply feeling self-satisfied and indifferent) we need to do something and this is widely resisted (especially if we have convinced ourselves that there’s no doer!)

If we want to seek the cure for regret, we can’t simply hypnotize ourselves that everything is great and non-dual no matter what we continue to embed in the World flow. Instead, we should look at words like those Paul used: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. Only by seeking to live a life inspired by the Divine, we may find the proper way to overcome regret. Not that we’ll eradicate the past, this we can’t do, but we can strive to become an inspired expression of higher life, higher morality, higher ideals, which should ultimately lead humanity to its true free spiritual essence.

Interesting speculations, Cleric, thank you. Given your starting assumption I follow through to your conclusions. Let me offer just for contemplation another plausible assumption that it's simply a learning process of right or lawful action without a necessity of personal remorse. When the remorseful sinner confesses to the Master Teacher, He says, "You are forgiven. Repair the damage, Don't do it again." Of course, remorsefulness can and often does spur one toward the confession and right action, especially if the error keeps getting repeated. However, a plausible direct path might be to directly accept the truth and act accordingly. Yes, one might see it's about more than learning not to touch a hot stove again. For example, what about soul damage? One can perform charity for the souls.

What's intriguing to me relates to the last step of 'forgiveness work', which is the realization that while there surely is the need for loving acceptance and right acrion toward self and others, there's nothing to forgive. I suspect that the antonym that's truly needed one for the illusion and it's called the Truth.

[Cleric K]

Interesting speculations, Cleric, thank you. Given your starting assumption I follow through to your conclusions. Let me offer just for contemplation another plausible assumption that it's simply a learning process of right or lawful action without a necessity of personal remorse. When the remorseful sinner confesses to the Master Teacher, He says, "You are forgiven. Repair the damage, Don't do it again." Of course, remorsefulness can and often does spur one toward the confession and right action, especially if the error keeps getting repeated. However, a plausible direct path might be to directly accept the truth and act accordingly. Yes, one might see it's about more than learning not to touch a hot stove again. For example, what about soul damage? One can perform charity for the souls.

What's intriguing to me relates to the last step of 'forgiveness work', which is the realization that while there surely is the need for loving acceptance and right acrion toward self and others, there's nothing to forgive. I suspect that the antonym that's truly needed one for the illusion and it's called the Truth.

I think I know what you mean but can you explain a little more about the 'forgiveness work' and 'nothing to forgive'?

[Lou Gold]

Interesting speculations, Cleric, thank you. Given your starting assumption I follow through to your conclusions. Let me offer just for contemplation another plausible assumption that it's simply a learning process of right or lawful action without a necessity of personal remorse. When the remorseful sinner confesses to the Master Teacher, He says, "You are forgiven. Repair the damage, Don't do it again." Of course, remorsefulness can and often does spur one toward the confession and right action, especially if the error keeps getting repeated. However, a plausible direct path might be to directly accept the truth and act accordingly. Yes, one might see it's about more than learning not to touch a hot stove again. For example, what about soul damage? One can perform charity for the souls.

What's intriguing to me relates to the last step of 'forgiveness work', which is the realization that while there surely is the need for loving acceptance and right acrion toward self and others, there's nothing to forgive. I suspect that the antonym that's truly needed one for the illusion and it's called the Truth.

I think I know what you mean but can you explain a little more about the 'forgiveness work' and 'nothing to forgive'?

Great question. Thanks Cleric. Imperfect as I am, I'm surely no authority but I'll give it a shot...

The final step is forgiving one's own self and thereby transcending into a new way of being, which feels (even momentarily) as a freedom from judging or being judged. With this large stone removed from one's 'burden basket' the result can be experienced as a step into Rumi's description of an awakened consciousness.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.

Rumi's voice is poetic and ecstatic.

The transcendence may also be experienced as

And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. · Philippians 4:7

An interesting contemplation is to meditate on the thought of being completely without judgement. No, I'm not a 'realized one' (just 'in process') but I confess to having an aspiration, which is beyond merely feeling 'unremorseful '.

[Cleric K]

Great question. Thanks Cleric. Imperfect as I am, I'm surely no authority but I'll give it a shot...

The final step is forgiving one's own self and thereby transcending into a new way of being, which feels (even momentarily) as a freedom from judging or being judged. With this large stone removed from one's 'burden basket' the result can be experienced as a step into Rumi's description of an awakened consciousness.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.

Rumi's voice is poetic and ecstatic.

The transcendence may also be experienced as

And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. · Philippians 4:7

An interesting contemplation is to meditate on the thought of being completely without judgement. No, I'm not a 'realized one' (just 'in process') but I confess to having an aspiration, which is beyond merely feeling 'unremorseful '.

There are many things we can comment here. First, we can certainly reach the point of not judging. I recently quoted Peter Deunov: "Don't pass judgment on the unfinished paintings." However, not to be judged is not something that depends on us. Even the Christ, who was the purest Spirit to manifest through flesh, was judged, condemned, and crucified.

Second, not judging doesn't mean that we blind ourselves and can no longer recognize wrongdoing. What changes is how we work in the world. Whether we use the old way - eye for an eye - or the new way of Love.

In that sense, what is your vision for being 'realized'? How do you imagine your existence would be experienced in such a state while here on Earth? What will you see when you look at the World and human thoughts, feelings, and actions? What would you do in this World?

[Lou Gold]

Great question. Thanks Cleric. Imperfect as I am, I'm surely no authority but I'll give it a shot...

The final step is forgiving one's own self and thereby transcending into a new way of being, which feels (even momentarily) as a freedom from judging or being judged. With this large stone removed from one's 'burden basket' the result can be experienced as a step into Rumi's description of an awakened consciousness.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.

Rumi's voice is poetic and ecstatic.

The transcendence may also be experienced as

And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. · Philippians 4:7

An interesting contemplation is to meditate on the thought of being completely without judgement. No, I'm not a 'realized one' (just 'in process') but I confess to having an aspiration, which is beyond merely feeling 'unremorseful '.

There are many things we can comment here. First, we can certainly reach the point of not judging. I recently quoted Peter Deunov: "Don't pass judgment on the unfinished paintings." However, not to be judged is not something that depends on us. Even the Christ, who was the purest Spirit to manifest through flesh, was judged, condemned, and crucified.

Second, not judging doesn't mean that we blind ourselves and can no longer recognize wrongdoing. What changes is how we work in the world. Whether we use the old way - eye for an eye - or the new way of Love.

In that sense, what is your vision for being 'realized'? How do you imagine your existence would be experienced in such a state while here on Earth? What will you see when you look at the World and human thoughts, feelings, and actions? What would you do in this World?

I made no comment about not being judged. Francis would say true happiness would be having a peaceful heart no matter what is happening.

Not judging does not mean not discerning. The world is lawful and actions have consequences.

Please excuse me Cleric but I sense this drifting toward the intellectual (at least in myself). Without further elaboration let me just say that my vision of being "realized" is being in profound fundament inner peace. I applaud any and all steps toward that goal.

[Cleric K]

I made no comment about not being judged. Francis would say true happiness would be having a peaceful heart no matter what is happening.

OK, because you said "which feels (even momentarily) as a freedom from judging or being judged", I wanted to clear that out.

Please excuse me Cleric but I sense this drifting toward the intellectual (at least in myself). Without further elaboration let me just say that my vision of being "realized" is being in profound fundament inner peace. I applaud any and all steps toward that goal.

There's no doubt that this inner peace is something to strive for. The Christ said: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you".
But all our talks here aim to avoid one-sidedness. We should understand how to work in the Earthly realm. Christ didn't just sit on the hill day and night, enjoying inner peace. He came here because there's work to be done "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work".

And this is the new. That we should not only draw upon the Source, its Peace, Love, Wisdom (which we must surely do), but utilize these gifts in the World, for its redemption and spiritualization, starting from within outwards.

These things don't drift into the intellectual. In fact, they concern the deepest questions that humanity needs to elucidate today if it is not to remain dreaming on the hill while the Earthly realm falls apart around.

[Lou Gold]

I made no comment about not being judged. Francis would say true happiness would be having a peaceful heart no matter what is happening.

OK, because you said "which feels (even momentarily) as a freedom from judging or being judged", I wanted to clear that out.

Please excuse me Cleric but I sense this drifting toward the intellectual (at least in myself). Without further elaboration let me just say that my vision of being "realized" is being in profound fundament inner peace. I applaud any and all steps toward that goal.

There's no doubt that this inner peace is something to strive for. The Christ said: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you".
But all our talks here aim to avoid one-sidedness. We should understand how to work in the Earthly realm. Christ didn't just sit on the hill day and night, enjoying inner peace. He came here because there's work to be done "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work".

Yes, of course.

And this is the new. That we should not only draw upon the Source, its Peace, Love, Wisdom (which we must surely do), but utilize these gifts in the World, for its redemption and spiritualization, starting from within outwards.

Up and downward, in and outward wherever an endless life locates us.

These things don't drift into the intellectual. In fact, they concern the deepest questions that humanity needs to elucidate today if it is not to remain dreaming on the hill while the Earthly realm falls apart around.

True.