Post No. 511 - Failure to take action

Many years ago, I once asked someone who identified as Buddhist in what way he was better for being Buddhist. He couldn't answer me, and basically prattled on about the advantages of 'head knowledge'.

Bull.

Knowledge IS important, and it IS better to know than to not, but having knowledge comes with a responsibility: the responsibility to use that knowledge to make oneself AND the world a better place ... If you don't, you are going backwards karmically - why? Because it is a little like walking along a riverside with a rope, and not throwing one end of the rope to someone struggling or drowning in the river.

Think there is no-one drowning near you?

Again ... bull.

There are an enormous number of people in the world in need of help - people in war zones, people dying of poverty or malnourishment / starvation or contaminated water (we recently re-watched the Vicar of Dibley episode about Make Poverty History). LGBTIQ people in Russia (and elsewhere!). Neighbours - like the bigot across the road from us who abused someone because that other person was indigenous. Idiots like the owner of our rented home ...

There are always people in need of help.

And, what of yourself? In what way are YOU a better human being for whatever you believe in? Are you more spiritually mature? More self disciplined? Honourable? More committed to making this world and the people in it better (which is a more accurate way of writing 'spiritually loving')?

We have major fires here, out in the Gariwerd / Grampians, a place that suffered major fires in 2006, and conditions now are the worst they have been since the February 2009 fires which killed 173 people. Over in the USA there has been a major water contamination incident. Have you done anything about these incidents?

Sadly, I've come across quite a few pagans who are a bit like the Buddhist I mentioned at the start of this post, and the hypocritical, back-stabbing Sunday Christians (who I now term neo-christians) who played a major role in putting me off Christianity when I was a child. (I have heard someone who claimed to be Christian who said it was OK to do things that harmed others, provided one confessed afterwards! No wonder Luther started the Reformation over the issue of 'Indulgences'!) In February 2009 I was with a group of pagans, and I was the only one who showed any interest in trying to any magickal work to try to help ...

I think that is the thing that gets me: people who study magick for the 'head knowledge', and then never even make an effort to try using it ...


[1] BPLF = Balanced Positive (spiritual) Light Forces. See here and here for more on this.

[2] Please see here and my post "The Death of Wikipedia" for the reasons I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia. I'm also exploring use of h2g2, although that doesn't appear to be as extensive (h2g2 is intended - rather engagingly - to be the Earth edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"). 

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr 
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear"; ... aka Bellatrix Lux? Morinehtar? Would-be drýicgan ... )

My "blogiography" (list of all posts - currently not up to date) is here.  

I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue (see here and here), and it grew ...  See here for my group mind project, here and here for my "pagans for peace" project (and join me at 9 PM on Sunday, wherever you are, to meditate for peace), and here for my bindrune kit-bag. I also strongly recommend learning how to flame, ground and shield, do alternate nostril breathing, work with colour - and see also here, and be flexible.

• One size does NOT fit all. 
• Don't be mediocre - seek to excel.  
• Gnwmythr's Stropping Strap: Occam's Razor only works if  the simplest solution is actually recognised as being the simplest, rather than the one that best fits one's bigotries being labelled 'simplest'.
• May the world of commerce and business be recognised to be a servant, not a master, of the lives of people.
• Ban the dream interpretation industry! 
• A home is for living in, not feeling, becoming or being rich or a “better” class than others.
• Housework is for ensuring a home is comfortable to live in, not competing to outdo or belittle others.
• Like fire to the physical, emotions to the soul make a good servant, and a bad master. 
• Expertise at intimacy and emotional happiness is generally not the same thing as spiritual growth.
• "Following the crowd" is not "going with the flow".
• Armageddon is alive and well and happening right now: it is a battle between the indolence of "I only ..." and/or "I just ..." and/or "Everyone knows ... " and/or "they can ..." and what Bruce Schneier [2] calls "security theatre" on one side, and perspicacity and the understanding that the means shape the end on the other. Indolence vs. perspicacity, and expediency vs. honour.
• The means shape the end.  
• As words can kill, the right to freedom of speech comes with a DUTY to be as well-informed, objective and balanced as you can be.
• My favourite action movie of all time is "Gandhi", although I've recently come across "Invictus" and might put that one in to that category. However, I loathe the stereotypical action movie - and, for similar reasons, I loathe many dramas, which are often emotionally violent, more so in some cases than many war films. 
• All of the above - and this blog - could be wrong, or subject to context, perspective, or state of spiritual evolution ... 

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger [people]. JOHN F. KENNEDY (who was quoting 19th century Episcopal Bishop Phillips Brooks)

Jesus loves you.  Odin wants you to grow up. (Facebook meme, according to John Beckett)

Females, get over 'cute'. Get competent. Get trained. Get capable. Get over 'cute'. And those of you who are called Patty and Debby and Suzy, get over that. Because we use those names to infantalise females – we keep females in their 'little girl' state by the names we use for them. Get over it. If you want to be taken seriously, get serious. JANE ELLIOTT 

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing. (based on writing by) EDMUND BURKE

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." EINSTEIN

We didn't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we only borrowed it from our children ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Those whom we cannot stand are usually those who we cannot understand P.K.SHAW

Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, and the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change." SENATOR ROBERT F. KENNEDY (US Attorney General 1966 Speech) 

Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... if we should judge America by that -- counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. ... Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile." ROBERT F. KENNEDY 1968

Tags: attitudes, discrimination, energy work, environment, magic, personal responsibility, rituals, society,

First published: Laugardagr, 18th January, 2014

Last edited (excluding fixing typo's and other minor matters): Saturday, 18th January, 2014