“Unless we come to terms with our shadow side, we are condemned to become its unwitting victim.”
—Carl Jung
Once again I’ve been dealing with a disruptive work schedule and ongoing health challenges which sharply limit time to research and to post.
In an effort to post regularly during these episodes, I offer a link, this time to an article offering insight into development of personality.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/make-peace-with-your-unlived-life?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Last week’s post didn’t happen, swamped as I was with a combination of work and health related pressure.
This week is a bit better. I have time to squeeze in a brief post.
That having been said, lets talk about negative thinking, one way or another a subject of discussion for literally millennia.
Instead of rehashing ancient commentary, I offer discussion from the viewpoint of modern neuroscience which you can read by clicking on the link below.
In the early 20th century, a couple traveling by car on a rural road discovered that they were about to run out of gasoline.
At that time, gas stations were few and far between unless you lived in a city.
One could travel for miles without seeing a house, and telephone service in rural areas was spotty at best.
The situation they faced was thus fairly serious.
They decided to practice what they had learned in lessons offered by a metaphysical school to the effect that “Thoughts held in mind produce after their kind.”
They held steadily to the thought that “Divine order is at work in our lives, bringing forth perfect results in perfect timing.”
They drove on. And on and on. The gas gauge reached empty.
It stayed there.
As we say, the car was running on fumes, and continued to do so long after anyone could reasonably believe there was still gasoline in the fuel tank.
Eventually they reached a gas station and weren’t surprised to find that their fuel tank was empty.
Having refilled their tank, they finished their journey, resolving to tell their metaphysical school teacher about their successful demonstration of the power of right thought.
The teacher smiled, was silent for a moment, and then asked, “Why did you stop?”
The couple had an experience of higher consciousness.
For a time they were free of the limitations of mortal thought regarding quantities and values.
The sight of the gas station triggered their old beliefs and habits of thought, and they jumped right back to a lower level of consciousness.
Anyone sincerely walking a spiritual path will sooner or later have experiences of higher consciousness.
This is only to be expected.
The trick is to become stable in that higher consciousness.
“Excellence is not a gift given but a skill perfected. The key is self-discipline.”
Quotation from a motivational poster seen in a variety store
Philosophers have consumed much air and ink expounding on evil—likewise theologians.
My take on evil is that it’s not an objective reality so much as a misperception, the direct result of individual and mass ignorance.
Ignorance of what?
Glad you asked.
It seems that we humans are in the midst of a paradigm shift.
A paradigm is the totality of how a person, a group, or an entire culture views reality.
A paradigm shift occurs when previously unnoticed truth is recognized.
This truth isn’t new. It always existed but was unrecognized because purpose and attention were focused elsewhere.
I nominate Newtonian philosophy as our “about-to-be-replaced” paradigm, and quantum physics as the “previously unnoticed truth”, the discoveries (and practical implications) of which are working their way into the mass consciousness at an ever-accelerating rate.
“The Western scientific community, and actually all of us are in a difficult spot, because in order to maintain our current mode of being, we must ignore a tremendous amount of information.”
—Cleve Backster, plant researcher and former CIA agent
“To be a true explorer in science—to follow the unprejudiced lead of pure scientific inquiry—is to be unafraid to propose the unthinkable, and to prove friends, colleagues, and scientific paradigms wrong.”
—Lynne McTaggart, author of The Field
“Paradigm-shattering experiments published in peer-reviewed journals reveal that we’re bathed in a field of intelligent energy that fills what used to be thought of as empty space.
Additional discoveries show beyond any reasonable doubt that this field responds to us—it rearranges itself—in the presence of our heart-based feelings and beliefs. And this is the revolution that changes everything.“—(italics mine)
—Greg Braden, author of The Spontaneous Healing Of Belief
Let’s talk about this field of intelligent energy. It “…rearranges itself in the presence of our heart-held feelings and beliefs…”
To what end?
Ancient wisdom states that “moment by moment, the Almighty / The Field ? is taking shape in (our) lives according to the exact pattern of our thoughts, words, and deeds.”
Continuing…many people believe that The Almighty is opposed by Satan.
Said another way, many people believe in two opposing forces. We might call them spiritual dualists.
Others believe that “there is but one Presence and one Power in all the universe; God the Good Omnipotent.” We might call them spiritual monists.
If The Field / The Almighty ?, makes our sincere beliefs manifest in our lives, the answer to the question, “which of the above two positions is right” is astounding.
From the viewpoint of The Field / The Almighty, both are right.
The Field makes our true, sincere beliefs manifest in our lives unconditionally—the exact pattern of our thoughts, words, and deeds, whatever it may be, no exceptions.
So everyone is building his/her own world/experiences knowingly or unknowingly, simply by thinking.
Now, finally, back to evil.
If we believe that people are out to get us, or that everyone is dishonest, or that life’s a bitch and then you die, or that all cops are corrupt, etc., that’s what we’ll experience.
We make the good. We make the evil. Our world exactly mirrors our thoughts.
Our ignorance of this process causes our belief that evil has objective existence, because bad things happen to us and we don’t know why.
Whatever we experience of “good” or “evil” is somehow first birthed in our minds.
Truly, what we birthed we can kill.
Said more mildly—change our (sincere!) beliefs = change our world.
“There is no such thing as destiny. We ourselves shape our own lives.”
—Casanova
In various ways, in eleven previous installments, Reality Check (1st through 11th), I’ve discussed what I know of the power of thought, and for a time I toyed with the notion of moving on to other topics. But truth to tell, I’m drawn to this topic repeatedly.
It’s long been said that the power of thought was known to some of our truly ancient ancestors for at least 5,000 years.
Usually, such knowledge was passed from mind to mind in deep secrecy.
Why the secrecy—the usual mix of human frailties ?
Or perhaps a “socially responsible” desire to keep great power from people too unevolved to use it wisely, much like parents locking firearms in a gun safe to keep them from the hands of a naive four-year-old? I really don’t know.
I do know that humanity is experiencing a rebirth of awareness of the power of disciplined thought, and, however slowly it may be seeping into the mass awareness, rate of penetration is accelerating and seemingly unstoppable.
Curiously, the usual interest groups just don’t exist to be tracked by any who might find this universalisation of personal power inconvenient for the maintenance of their own selfish agendas.¹
Usual interest groups?
Members of a typical interest group have more than one common interest / characteristic—they’re some combination of ingredients: rich, poor, white, Black, Native American, oriental, christian, atheist, republican, democrat, veteran, skilled crafts-person, alcoholic, divorced, thin, fat, hypochondriac, healthy athletic, computer nerd, conservationist, industrialist, anarchist, optimist, pessimist, cop, robber, “…doctor, lawyer, Indian chief…” The list could go on forever.
Groups investigating the power of thought are all too often, with the sole exception of this interest, heterogeneous.
Members gather for study / encouragement then go their separate ways, returning to their usual settings, for the most part having nothing else to do with each other.
These groups are not here today, gone tomorrow. They’re stable.
My conclusion? Anytime something cuts across racial, ethnic, political, and socioeconomic class lines in such a fashion you can bet the farm it’s touching people in a deep way.
This “something” is evidently worth more to them than the exercise of their typical group prejudices.
Some sharp inner hunger is being fed?
Are these folks reconnecting with a long-forgotten aspect of true human nature and, perhaps, for the sake of this benefit they’re motivated to suspend usual reactions to certain groups? ²
¹ For example, as more and more of us learn to heal ourselves through the power of disciplined thought, will stockholders in “big pharma” rejoice?
² Animals do something similar during forest fires. Prey and predator alike race for water, taking refuge, side by side, on any convenient island, sand bar, or rock pile. The prey / predator game is suspended for the duration.
While cleaning out old files I chanced upon a letter I sent many years ago to a third degree Wiccan high priestess regarding a health issue she had mentioned on her coven’s web page. ¹
As I reread it, it occurred to me that it might be of interest to those who are following my Reality Check series, because it touches directly on the power of thought.
With names and addresses omitted, here it is.
Respectful greetings, (name),
On (your website) you mention having hereditary grand mal seizures. Please consider the following line of reasoning which may prove helpful in eliminating this challenge from your life.
The primordial All-Mother / All-Father may be thought of as: life, love, intelligence, substance, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. No combination of these properties will produce disease. The primordial All-Mother / All-Father is our true heredity parentage. Therefore we cannot inherit disease.
The subconscious mind has a powerful “lifeward thrust”, which it makes manifest in our lives, subject to the limitations of mortal thought accepted as true by the conscious mind.
The subconscious mind never argues with the conscious mind, so whatever we believe to be true is what the subconscious mind makes manifest in our lives.
It is always fully aware of what we really believe.
It contains the perfect blueprint for our physical bodies, and can regenerate or recalibrate any parts or processes at any time, at any speed, in the teeth of any so-called insurmountable obstacles.
The subconscious mind can instantly heal, provided that such healing is not inhibited by the limitations of mortal thought regarding what is/is not possible, (such as false beliefs about the immutability of hereditary conditions).
There is no limit to what the subconscious mind can make manifest in our lives, although getting out of its way may take patience and persistence if a false belief has become deeply rooted.
In view of the foregoing, logically, our mental diet is one of the most important aspects of our lives.
The limitations of mortal thought cannot bind us without our consent.
Our freedom exactly matches that of our true heredity parentage, our primordial All-Mother / All-Father.
Blesséd be!
(signature added)
¹ At the time of writing, this was a private letter (to a complete stranger). I didn’t include footnotes, but now, having published it on a blog anyone can read, I feel compelled to do so.
However, I’m having difficulty remembering just what I was reading so many years ago. After much consideration the sketchy list below is, for now, the best I can do.
Sources: Joseph Murphy, Ph.D., D.D.
Emmet Fox
Unity Institute.
As noted in Reality Check (9th), Masaru Emoto, a Japanese alternative healer, once decided to speak a specific word or short phrase into a container of distilled water, freeze a drop of it, then photograph the resulting ice crystal.
This week we note the equally creative things he did with cooked rice. ¹
I quote: “…we put cooked rice in three glass jars, and to one of the jars we said “Fool!” To another we said “Thank you.” And we simply ignored the rice in the third jar. The rice that was told “Fool!” darkened and rotted. The rice that was told “Thank you” fermented and had quite a nice fragrance. The rice that was ignored turned black and emitted a highly repugnant smell.“
“However, that’s not the end of the story. I took these same jars of rice to an elementary school, and the students said Thank you” to the rice in all three containers. It wasn’t long before the rice in all three containers fermented and started to emit a pleasant smell—even the rice that had spoiled.“
His conclusion: “This indicates that even that which is dying and decaying can be brought back to life by caring attention, kind words, and positive thoughts.” ¹
Care to experiment on yourself ?
¹ Masaru Emoto in The Secret Life of Water ISBN 978-1-4165-2218-8
Masaru Emoto, a Japanese alternative healer, once decided to speak a specific word or short phrase to a container of distilled water, freeze a drop of it, then photograph the resulting ice crystal. ¹
If this sounds bizaare, consider the results.
Into separate containers he spoke a word or short phrase.
Words such as love, happiness, peace, or a phrase such as thank you, (this one in several languages, by the way), produced beautifully symmetrical ice crystals.
Words such as hate, war, or phrases such as you idiot produced unbalanced or even grotesquely misshapen crystals.
Apparently the energy of specific words is absorbed and held by water.
Our bodies are 70% water.
A recording of our voices sounds different from what we hear naturally. The recording device “hears” what’s transmitted through the air. Our ears, on the other hand, hear a blend of vibrations transmitted internally through our skulls as well as through the air.
If the energy of our speech vibrates through our skulls, it’s certain it vibrates in some of the water of our bodies. If retained, with what effect on our health, sanity, and longevity?
Draw your own conclusions.
¹ Masaru Emoto in The Secret Life of Water, ISBN 978-1-4165-2218-8
My Reality Check series has so far dealt with individual thought.
There’s also group thought, which has at least the potential to function the same way as individual thought.
Has anyone thought to study this?
Glad you asked.
As it happens, rather much experimentation has been devoted to this subject.
Measuring thought requires belief that thought can have precisely measurable impacts on something.
A physical being—perhaps species homo sapiens?
Nope.
In a nothing-special human body composed of, say, 50 trillion cells, there are septillions♦ of chemical reactions occurring every second in every thimbleful of our cells.
How do you control all possible variables in such a system?
You don’t try.
Any measurements could be massively contaminated by complex variables beyond enumeration or control.
Enter Acetabularia, a species of Caribbean and Mediterranean algae.
It’s a single-celled plant, growing to a length of two inches, thus visible to the naked eye.
If one measures the output of this cell before and after sending it a thought, you can be sure any change was caused by the thought.
The trick is to measure the right thing—for example, the cell’s photon output.
No joke—an organism’s photon output varies directly as its level of stress.
How would one measure the photon output of a single-cell plant?
With extremely sensitive photocount detectors, capable, for example, of measuring the light output of a single candle burning several miles away.
A German scientist, Fritz Popp, designed and conducted an experiment.
The plant’s photon output was first measured.
Then people based in London sent the plant, housed in Fritz Popp’s laboratory in Germany, a thought of good health, measurements of photon output being taken in coordination.
Result? A precise experiment suggesting that group thought has impact for good or ill.
♦ One septillion = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
This post is based on information found in Lynne McTaggart’s The Intention Experiment, ISBN 978-0-7432-7696-2 McTaggart in turn credits Fritz Popp with designing the experiment.
—Neville Goddard
“Paradigm-shattering experiments published in peer-reviewed journals reveal that we’re bathed in a field of intelligent energy that fills what used to be thought of as empty space.
Additional discoveries show beyond any reasonable doubt that this field responds to us—it rearranges itself—in the presence of our heart-based feelings and beliefs. And this is the revolution that changes everything.“
—Greg Braden, author of The Spontaneous Healing Of Belief
“Symptoms and Causes”
“If you have made many efforts,as you probably have, to set things right, but without any real success, the reason is to be found just here: You have been tampering with symptoms and leaving your mind, the real cause of the trouble, untouched.”
“You have been wrestling with circumstances, with people, and things, and leaving your mind unchanged; and it is just this mind of yours that is causing all the trouble all the time, and will continue to do so as long as it remains in its present state.”
“You have been struggling to transform yourself by renewing your conditions, whereas the Law is that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds.”
“If you want perfect health; if you want abundant prosperity; happiness, a good home, congenial friends, beauty, joy, and thrilling interest in life, you can have them, if you really want them; but you must want them enough to take trouble enough to find the only way to get them.”
“You must want them enough to take trouble enough to learn how to think, because thought is the only cause! ”
—Emmet Fox
“Paradigm-shattering experiments published in peer-reviewed journals reveal that we’re bathed in a field of intelligent energy that fills what used to be thought of as empty space.
Additional discoveries show beyond any reasonable doubt that this field responds to us—it rearranges itself—in the presence of our heart-based feelings and beliefs. And this is the revolution that changes everything.“
—Greg Braden, author of The Spontaneous Healing Of Belief
Note that we needn’t do anything to “get a reaction” from The Field.
We don’t have to be initiated into any particular religious tradition.
We need no incense, virgins, pigs, sheep, cash, or other offerings.
The reaction to our feelings, beliefs and actions is perpetual, automatic, unconditional.
At this point let me say that, (however much it may seem to be the case), debunking religion(s) is not my purpose.
Let’s reconsider the following quotation, mentioned in Reality Check (4th):
“Moment by moment The Almighty, (The Field?), is taking shape in your life according to the exact pattern of your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.”
—Various Sources
It would seem that sincere belief in, say, African shamanism, or Tibetan Buddhism, or Evangelical Christianity, or Wicca, or literally in anything whatsoever, elicits the same unconditional response from The Field, as described above.
The Field doesn’t judge our beliefs. It makes them manifest in our lives.
Unconditionally.
“Prayer” might be defined as holding in mind the thought one wants to see manifested in one’s life. ¹
“Unconditionally” implies any thought—any thought at all.
So for good or ill. . .
Be Careful What You ‘Pray’ For – You Just Might Get It. ²
Personal comments follow.
¹ Once while reading a treatise on so-called “white” magick I came upon this quote: “The most powerful part of any magickal system is the trained mind of the operator.“
It seems there is no “white” or “black” magick—just persons with trained, persisting minds, selecting desired outcomes for good or ill, and using psycho-dramas, aka “spells” to tell The Field what they want.
Magick, per se, is then rather like a hammer. One can use a hammer to make toys or to commit murder. The hammer remains neutral. It’s not “white” or “black”. But the motive of the one who uses it might be so described.
So too the human mind. Its seemingly unbreakable link to The Field renders it omnipotent for good or ill. But what of consequences?
Ancient wisdom warns that one cannot serve anyone anything without serving one’s self the exact same thing. Every major religion says this in some way. All our greatest saints and sages subscribe to this idea. A student once asked Confucius for a one-word definition of all morality. He replied with a question: “A one-word definition of all morality…would it not be “reciprocity?” Reciprocity = put out what you want to take back. Possession of a human mind is a great privilege.
Equally true it’s a great responsibility.
² Title of a book by Larry Dossey, M.D. ISBN 0 – 06 – 251434 – 2
“Paradigm-shattering experiments published in peer-reviewed journals reveal that we’re bathed in a field of intelligent energy that fills what used to be thought of as empty space.
Additional discoveries show beyond any reasonable doubt that this field responds to us—it rearranges itself—in the presence of our heart-based feelings and beliefs. And this is the revolution that changes everything.“
—Greg Braden, author of The Spontaneous Healing Of Belief
If our thoughts impact the field, does that explain why what’s called “prayer” works/doesn’t work?
If the field reacts to our thoughts, judgements, and beliefs, it would seem obvious that an undisciplined mind, roaming at random here, there, anywhere, is producing a hodge podge of brief reactions that are repeatedly changing because our minds are always changing.
We hold no thought in mind long enough to see it manifest in our lives.
A one-time prayer followed by literally thousands of contrary thoughts produces. . . ?
A person decides to hold in mind only thoughts of good health, but then through the day obsesses fearfully about covid19.
Another one sets mental sights firmly on financial security, but through the day worries about overdue bills.
“The degree of freedom from unwanted thoughts and the degree of concentration on a single thought are the measures to gauge spiritual progress.”
—Ramana Maharshi
“. . . whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence, and if anything (is) worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.”
—New Testament; Philippians 4:8
On Columbus Day we celebrate a sort of Star Trek “boldly going where no one has gone before.”
Columbus discovered America! He was a hero!
Well, maybe not.
To begin, he wasn’t the first European to reach America. Vikings beat him by a few centuries.
And when he arrived he didn’t play nicely with the locals, the Arawak Indians, a tribe inhabiting the Bahama Islands.
The following quotations provide a grim summary of Columbus’ shortcomings in the hero department:
“The cruel policy initiated by Columbus and pursued by his successors resulted in complete genocide.” ¹
“Endless testimonies. . .prove the mild and pacific temperament of the natives. . . . But our work was to exasperate, ravage, kill, mangle and destroy; small wonder then, if they tried to kill one of us now and then. . . . The admiral, (Columbus), it is true was blind as those who came after him, and he was so anxious to please the King that he committed irreparable crimes against the Indians. . . . ” ²
“What Columbus did to the Arawaks of the Bahamas, Cortés did to the Aztecs of Mexico, Pizarro to the Incas of Peru, and the English settlers of Virginia and Massachusetts to the Powhatans and the Pequots.” ³
Unlike some critics of prominent historical figures, I don’t advocate condemning them because, judged by our present day standards, they fall far short.
To judge past conduct exclusively by present standards is laughably irrational.
Historical figures should be judged first according to the standards of their time, and only afterwards by the standards of ours.
Columbus was no hero, but neither was he a total failure as a human being.
To sail westward into the vast Atlantic ocean with no reliable charts, in three little ships, (the largest barely one hundred feet long), with only the vaguest idea of where he would end up required superb seamanship and immense courage.
Re-evaluating our national story / heroes more realistically can’t hurt us.
Accurate knowledge of our past is part of a good foundation of national mental health.
¹ Christopher Columbus, Mariner, 1954, by Samuel Eliot Morrison
² History of the Indies, by Bartolomé de las Casas, (a contemporaneous record)
³ A People’s History of the United States, 2003, by Howard Zinn
“Paradigm-shattering experiments published in peer-reviewed journals reveal that we’re bathed in a field of intelligent energy that fills what used to be thought of as empty space.
Additional discoveries show beyond any reasonable doubt that this field responds to us—it rearranges itself—in the presence of our heart-based feelings and beliefs. And this is the revolution that changes everything.“
—Greg Braden, author of The Spontaneous Healing Of Belief
This “new discovery” seems to be ancient intuitive wisdom empirically reconfirmed.
Consider the following citations from modern metaphysics and ancient intuitive wisdom.
“The All (God? The Field?) is Mind; The Universe is Mental.”
—The Kybalion
“As you think in your heart (deepest mind), so you become.”
—Hinduism
“As you think in your heart, (deepest mind), so are you.”
—Christianity
“With God, (The Field?), all things are possible”
—Christianity
“Thoughts held in mind produce after their kind.”
—Unity Institute
“Attention is fertilizer. What you give your attention to, grows.”
—Various Sources
“If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.”
—Peace Pilgrim
“Set a guard on your mind. Discipline your imagination.”
—Hinduism
“The degree of freedom from unwanted thoughts and the degree of concentration on a single thought are the measures to gauge spiritual progress.”
—Ramana Maharshi
“Moment by moment The Almighty, (The Field?), is taking shape in your life according to the exact pattern of your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.”
—Various Sources
So it would seem that what’s in it for us may be expressed thus: thought control is life control.
—Albert Einstein
Field? What field?
“Paradigm-shattering experiments published in peer-reviewed journals reveal that we’re bathed in a field of intelligent energy that fills what used to be thought of as empty space.
Additional discoveries show beyond any reasonable doubt that this field responds to us—it rearranges itself—in the presence of our heart-based feelings and beliefs. And this is the revolution that changes everything.“
—Greg Braden, author of The Spontaneous Healing Of Belief
Per quantum physics, what do we know about this field?
♦ “There is an invisible energy force or field of infinite possibilities.
♦ (We) impact the field and draw from it according to (our) beliefs and expectations.
♦ (Our) connection to the field provides accurate and unlimited guidance.
♦ The universe is limitless, abundant, and strangely accommodating.“ ¹
“…we now know that the universe is made of nothing but waves and particles of energy that conform to our expectations, judgements and beliefs.”¹
¹ E² — Nine Do-It-Yourself Energy Experiments That Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality by Pam Grout.
“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
—Mark Twain, American author
Sanity, defined as perception of things as they really are, is the theme of this series titled Reality Check.
It seems that we humans are in the midst of a paradigm shift.
A paradigm is the totality of how a person, a group, or an entire culture views reality.
A paradigm shift occurs when previously unnoticed truth is recognized. This truth isn’t new. It always existed but was unrecognized because purpose and attention were focused elsewhere.
I nominate Newtonian philosophy as our “about-to-be-replaced” paradigm, and quantum physics as the “previously unnoticed truth”, the discoveries of which are working their way into the mass consciousness at an ever-accelerating rate.
“Anyone who is not shocked by (quantum) physics has not understood it.”
—Niels Bohr, Danish Physicist
“The Western scientific community, and actually all of us are in a difficult spot, because in order to maintain our current mode of being, we must ignore a tremendous amount of information.”
—Cleve Backster, plant researcher and former CIA agent
“To be a true explorer in science—to follow the unprejudiced lead of pure scientific inquiry—is to be unafraid to propose the unthinkable, and to prove friends, colleagues, and scientific paradigms wrong.”
—Lynne McTaggart, author of The Field
“Everything you know about the universe and its laws is more than likely to be 99.99 percent wrong.”
—Fred Alan Wolf, Ph.D., American quantum physicist
“Paradigm-shattering experiments published in peer-reviewed journals reveal that we’re bathed in a field of intelligent energy that fills what used to be thought of as empty space.
Additional discoveries show beyond any reasonable doubt that this field responds to us—it rearranges itself—in the presence of our heart-based feelings and beliefs. And this is the revolution that changes everything.“
—Greg Braden, author of The Spontaneous Healing Of Belief
We have minds full of beliefs our greatest saints and sages rejected on their march to perfection.
We see the world as separate from us, functioning outside us, and capable of working us great help or harm, and that unpredictably.
We see ourselves as pathetically vulnerable, and obliged to compete for scarce means to live.
Pressured by our need to survive, we pass our lives in “quiet desperation,” believing that “life’s a bitch and then you die.”
To us, this is a sane view.
To our greatest saints and sages, we are having a horrendous nightmare from which we can eventually awaken.
Their advice seems patently impractical, even ludicrous, but we human beings are far too opportunistic a species to throw out something useful.
And it’s the fact that we have carefully preserved the advice of our greatest saints and sages that should lead us to be suspicious of that mindset that we label “common sense”, or “sanity.”
beewhatyouiz 