"The central question for our time is not how you worship God, or even whether you worship God," he told me.
"It's whether you believe in this life you can be in possession of the absolute truth and you have the right to impose it on others - and therefore whether your differences are more important than our common humanity. That's the values crisis." William Jefferson Clinton
Isaiah posted a disturbing bit of news, ending with this: The only problem is how do we separate us from ourselves?. It reminded me of a quote from "I Heart Huckabees": How am I not myself?
Andrew alluded to it, too, saying much the same thing in a nice paragraph at the end of his post.
Jon is someplace in orbit, too.
Yesterday I told a dear friend, "I wish I had the answer for you, but I don't; even if I did, I wouldn't tell you, because you need to know for yourself."
13 comments:
You cannot separate yourself from yourself. But you can cease to exist. But you should leave this to God or fate.
But how do you cease to exist from time to time? Naturally, when you fall asleep. If you have enough quality sleep, you shouldn't worry about not having a fair share of oblivion. But most of the time, you don't even know you exist or are not even aware of yourself. So what's the point?
I guess, the point is is how to stop thinking of yourself without becoming too worldly or immoral. How you get your fair share of happiness and sadness, pleasure and pain, sense and nonsense, without losing your mind.
If you believe you are not absolutely real, you won't take yourself seriously. Here today, gone tomorrow.
I will have myself cremated if that wouldn't cost a lot of energy and have my ashes dispersed and have no expensive urn to remember me.
This is true enlightenment. To forget yourself even in dying and in death.
By the way, how do you forget yourself?
It just happens, I guess. The more you try, the harder it becomes.
Pain and suffering makes us remember ourselves. So the thing is to be aware passively of the pain and the anguish as much as possible. Without doing anything about it. The more you do something about it, the more you want to do something about it. That's how you become addicted to meditation and everything else.
But what if you become addicted to doing nothing?
Julie,
Thanks for the quote. The imposition of absolute truth on others always seems to me to be a sure sign that one does not have absolute truth.
Besides that, I'm not sure thruth is a commodity to be brokered. Rather than having a love for truth, perhaps we ought to pursue the truth of love.
Yes - how do we separate us from ourselves. As far as I can tell, we all have a narrower, pettier self; and a larger, expansive, generous self. That's the real dividing line.
An unfortunate thing with religious fundamentalism of whatever sort is that it attributes all goodness toself and all evil to "them."
It also has this conviction, that comes from the literal minded belief that scripture = the actual words and language of God, that the most consequential thing in the world is their own favorite little strings of words that spell out their various competing, contradictory, and equally indemonstrable doctrines.
And because they're supposed to be the words of God, they're supposedly worth trying to impose on others. They passionately believe that the profoundest truths human beings can experience can be perfectly summed up in their neat little packages of dogma.
Sure, pal...
Whatever wordless connection goes on in the mind of one five year old looking up at the stars at night is worth infinitely more than all the theology ever written.
Our "common humanity" seems to be the first 'bond' shattered against the wall of religion, even though the definition of religion is the exact opposite.
I believe in my heart of hearts we are evolving as a species and that the critical mass is beginning to swirl so that the momentum is unstoppable now.
We must keep our eyes, and more importantly our hearts open and remember the vast majority of humans only want to live in peace and has a natural inclination to welcoming differences with out resorting to violence.
We all should do our hearts a favor; ban the TV and start a dialogue with a person of a different faith. The 'critical mass' and culture of reporting violence, war and inhumanity has taken up residence in our psyche and we need to remember that all this is caused by a small minority of human beings.
We all must choose to live our truth with compassion, or it isn't truth at all.
IMEMINE: "...But most of the time, you don't even know you exist or are not even aware of yourself. So what's the point?"
I believe the point is to be aware of what you are witnessing- what part of you is present at any given moment.
I believe one forgets themselves by remembering others, acting with compassion for others which leads to the awareness that one person is actually all people, so by losing yourself- you naturally find yourself.
Isaiah,
Yes, I guess I am very compassionate;>)
I mean this comes to me naturally, modesty aside;>)
Imemine... thank you for so many thoughtful comments. I would like to know why I "should" anything. It's been my challenge to stay focused on what is before me rather than being overly introspective about what I think is going on because then, well, I cease to observe what's happening by being busy watching myself consider what I think is happening. There are plenty of people who would demand otherwise, of course.
But I do take myself, and things, seriously. Sometimes, at least, like right now. Other times I cannot take anything seriously, and wonder if I ought to; if I ought to feel obliged to. But I don't, so I go with that.
Kevin; I enjoyed your response. Thank you.
Darius; your response is astute, but this part is particularly lovely:
Whatever wordless connection goes on in the mind of one five year old looking up at the stars at night is worth infinitely more than all the theology ever written.
Isaiah, dear one, I hope you're right. I really do. At some point I understood the saying about losing one's life to save it, and such. I don't remember; didn't write it down. At this moment, mere personhood is reason enough for a profound respect. Maybe even love. Perhaps that is a recognition of oneness but I haven't really thought about it. It just is.
Yes, what's the point?
;>)wink;>)
In my view the absolute truth is that the differences between us all are merely superficial differences.
I like your last paragraph very much.
Rob; I suspect that you're right. Thank you. :)
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