Post No. 069 - Boundaries: the shades of grey between peace and violence

I'm going to start this post with a few statements.

1. I believe in peace. Why? Because I consider it to be generally the most constructive, respectful way of resolving problems and achieving spiritual growth & a rewarding life. I know that peace is a process, and requires a commitment to things like assertiveness, action, honesty and communication.
2. There are times when, if one is in one of the few places/times where it has genuinely been achieved, it needs to be defended.
3. I ALSO know that words can be as violent and aggressive (including "passive aggressive") as any physical act of aggression, intimidation or other violence. I have buried people I've known who have been driven to commit suicide because of discrimination; I've talked to people who have been scarred for years because of bullying at schools, and I've helped countless friends who have been seriously emotionally traumatised or hurt by other's words. (This was a thought that came to when watching the film "Revolutionary Road", when Leo DiCaprio's character threatens to strike Kate Winslet's character: both were in the wrong in the lead up to that moment. I'm thinking of posting on this, and similar aspects of the film "Crash" at some future time.) I've also been on the receiving end of offensive, passive-aggressive and other violent/aggressive words, including from women, and have personal experience of what that does.
4. Finally, there are times when people have to go through unpleasant experiences to force them to learn & grow, or perhaps to force them to pay off karma that they are pretending they don't have. This happens after the Universe has presented many opportunities to do so "the easy way".

In short, there are shades of grey in all of this.

It is a major concern of mine that many spiritual/New Age/proselytisers for peace focus so much on physical violence. I've seen acts of extraordinary emotional violence committed in words by such people - and then had them have the temerity to claim their behaviour is somehow OK.

It is not. It is, in some ways, possibly worse than physical violence: with physical violence, the anger or hate is visible (if such is present), and one is aware of it, whereas with non-physical violence the hate, anger, fear, jealousy or whatever the motive is, is likely to be hidden, and the discovery of that later amplifies the trauma.

One of the "myths" I grew up with in a small country town in Queensland is that small boys and young men always have a few tiffs (fights) as they grow up, and that it doesn't do any harm. Well, firstly, it does do harm - if one loses, it is much akin to being on the receiving end of bullying, and I've seen such so-called "losers" then devote time & energy into becoming stronger, or more competent at fighting, or to compensate for the loss in some other way, rather than get on with having a life. (I've also seen this in girls and young women who are excluded - which could possibly be considered the female version of violence?) I've also seen the so-called "victor" then start to strut, and think they don't have to develop as a person, and develop a whole lot of fake "friendships" - it's not good for their development as a person. Looking at this situation of aggression: there are no winners, in my opinion. The second point I will make about the statement is that NOT all young boys/men wish to get into fisticuffs or other competitive behaviour to try and "prove" their masculinity, or because "it is what everyone does". That was never the case when I was growing up, nor when the generation before me, some of whom I've spoken to about this, were growing up.

I mentioned competitiveness. Competition is often a form of violence, and I know someone who had an alternative upbringing who cannot even say the word. However, it is not something that is automatically associated with aggression or violence. For instance, the limited contact I have had with wrestling suggests that that is an area where competitiveness is fairly genuinely based on wanting to see what one is capable of - there is quite a bit of concern for how one's opponent is. Oddly enough, that is something which seems to have been the case also with SOME boxers in my father's generation (he used to do some amateur boxing) - that obviously does not apply to all boxers (and the serious risks of brain injury are such that I don't endorse boxing), but I've seen some genuine sportsmanship even in professional bouts, and there seem to have been genuine bonds of respect formed between some boxers. In any case, this physical violence is not always based on hate or anger.

It's not just a case of all violent physical contact is bad.

(Going back to competitive sport for a moment, I used to be a regionally successful competitive dinghy sailor [which is not a contact sport, but some people can be extremely aggressive, and shout a lot while competing: they're usually the poorer sailors] when I was younger. The success helped me, as it gave me some self esteem to get through some of life's challenges at that time [and since], it started me in teaching [I have been teaching sailing since I was 14, and was pleased to get the people who others found difficult to teach], it developed some wonderful teamwork [I had comments about the joy of watching the crewwork between myself and my main crew] and it gave me a wonderful source of connection to nature]. However, many people in the sailing club could never work out why sometimes I would do well in the results of race and not be happy, and other times I could do badly in the results and yet be happy. The reason was I was judging myself by how well I had sailed, how well I had used the skills of sailing - I may have done well because others did badly, and I had also done badly: that wasn't good, in my opinion. But if I had done well, and simply been beaten because someone was better than me at the application of sailing skills,that was OK because I felt good about having sailed at or above the standard I set myself.)

If we go back to the schoolyard where young boys are supposedly "having a few tiffs", and young girls are supposedly "sugar and spice and all things nice", things have improved, in my opinion, today compared to when I was growing up. In particular, there are anti-bullying policies in many of the better schools - they may be flawed (I would never tell a bully what the effect has been on me of their bullying: my experience of such people was that they were sadists, and would have enjoyed hearing that; also, not all children are inherently good - they may be, at the soul level, as all people are, but their incarnation may be evil - I mean the word - from a very young age*), and it is a situation which is difficult to find all the truth one needs to have and to come up with a "perfect" solution, but it is still a commendable step. In a sense, those bullying policies work basically because there is a third party who has more authority/moral strength: that is not, unfortunately, yet the case between nations.

* That doesn't mean one necessarily behaves differently towards such children: love is still the cure for most problems, including evil :)

Some nations do respect the role of the United Nations, and the UN does play a major role in improving the circumstances of people, but it is a flawed organisation. Those flaws can be traced back to the evil that Senator Joseph McCarthy committed against it in the 50s, but it is also partly a weakness that is inherent in it's nature. I consider examples of this to be the anti-gay statements of people associated with the UN (some recent), and the failure to manage the complexity of the situation around Israel and Palestine.

To cut a long argument short, there are going to be situations where wars occur that one side is right and the other wrong. Apart from anything else, the Second World War is an example of a war against evil, the evil of Hitler's regime. In that situation, should people have refused to fight? Should they have allowed evil to flourish?

That's a trick question.

Apart from the issue that people such as conscientious objectors are seeking to change the very energy that is inherent in this world, some people who actively oppose war do so because of karmic necessity: they may have had a past life as, oh ... say, Genghis Khan. Whoever had that past life is unlikely to be doing anything violent for many lifetimes if they are seeking to fix their karmic balance.

But also, there are ways of fighting against evil without using violence. These days sanctions are a well developed tool, and - arguably - played a role in the overthrow of the evil apartheid regime in South Africa. The thing to be balanced up there is the harm that is done while one is waiting for sanctions to take effect, vs. the harm that is done by perpetuating the habit in this world of using violence to "solve" problems (the comments I've mad above, alluding to resentment when losing a schoolyard fight, apply here: there are some who consider the Second World War was caused by the unfairness of the Versailles Treaty at the end of the First World War.

As another example, I think it was Muktananada who claimed to have strengthened to resolve of the Russian forces at the Battle of Stalingrad, which was a major turning point in the war against Nazism, through meditation. This theme of using meditation to promote peace (in the more "traditional" sense) is also a key theme in the events described in Stuart Holroyd's book "Briefing for the Landing on Planet Earth".

I've alluded to something significant there: that there are more than one way of using "peaceful" skills such as meditation to achieve peace. Using such skills to cause a deep, abiding peace in oneself, or to inspire growth and a non-violent way of resolving problems in others is one thing, but there are also battles and conflicts going on everyday in this lawless world that need active intervention so the world can get those over and done with, and then get on to moving to being a better world. Those battles re the emotional, mental and psychic battles that happen everyday over things like control - in the sense of controlling others.

There is a great evil in this world: it is the evil of pulling the wool over one's eyes and thinking that violence is something that happens only physically, or in wars, or domestic violence. The laws around domestic violence are starting to acknowledge that, with the inclusion of changes to address financial control. However, we still have a long way to go.

I've posted previously on the topic The Middle Ages and Today's Psychic Sewers: it would be worth briefly having a look at that. In this world we have many people, including people who are otherwise committed to peace and growth, who seek to control or manipulate others, which is an act of extreme spiritual violence and aggression. It is fairly obvious that the person who tailgates another driver is impatient, and is using their closeness to attempt to intimidate the victim of their violence into speeding up. It is less obvious that the person who whines, wheedles and cajoles others into favours, rather than simply asking openly and honestly (while being genuinely prepared for a no) is also committing what could be considered an act of evil.

Does motivation play a role in this?

Yes - but not in the way you are possibly thinking! The person who is doing the manipulating IS aware that they are trying to get someone else to do something that the other doesn't want. That is why they're doing it - it's not a simple case of "oh but they're only ..." - that argument is the one used around schoolyard bullying and violence when I was growing up.

This problem also goes further, with attempts at psychic control. In many cases, THIS type of behaviour is even less conscious than the former: it is also no less damaging, just as the schoolyard bullying is no less damaging because it hasn't led to obvious physical wounds (perhaps!).

In my opinion, this issue of verbal, emotional, mental, spiritual and psychic violence, including control and psychic attack, is a major problem in the world. So what does one do about it?

Well, the first thing is to seek to make make sure you are respecting other people and their boundaries. re you aren't doing it yourself. Get counselling or do some personal growth work to make sure you have no resolved or unknown issues that could be causing or contributing to resentment. Deal with frustrations in your life as best you can: for instance, you may be in a job that you hate because you need the money (perhaps to support a chronically or critically ill child/partner/parent): acknowledge that to yourself, and plan ways of coping with that energy - realistic ways. Those realistic ways may be, for you, reminding yourself that you are doing this out of love. Or, you may find that a load of codswallop, and cope by things like a "three minute holiday" (visualising yourself somewhere you enjoy while doing something you like, such as possibly listening to favourite song). Or you may cope by acknowledging that all things pass, and this phase of your life will end (to be flippant for a moment, even the worst teenager eventually moves out of home :) ). Read up on the skills and principles used in polyamoury: you may not be poly yourself, but poly people have developed good skills for managing jealousy, and respecting boundaries, and NOT controlling people in relationships.

For the next point, lets start looking at another shade of grey. I've read of people who wouldn't try to save someone who was drowning (whether literally or metaphorically) because they didn't want to "take on that person's karma". Well, that view is also a load of codswallop: what IS relevant is that, if you have the capacity and opportunity to help another, and you CHOOSE not to, you earn just as much negative karma as someone who possibly pushed the drowning victim into the river.

So ... let's say you have the capacity and opportunity to intervene in an act of violence: if you don't, are you earning negative karma?

Well, that depends on the situation. If you're a police officer with the training and social sanction to stop an attempted murder, you should definitely in my opinion - act. If you're a soldier defending your land against an aggressor who has invaded for no good reason, my inclination is that you should probably act. If you're a committed pacifist, with a lifelong passion for advocating non-violent ways of responding to situations (I am aware of what's called "civil defence" [e.g. taking down street signs so an invader doesn't know where they are - to use a pre-GPS example!], but consider that of limited usefulness - particularly with an invader who is committing acts of evil such as massacres and torture), you should also continue to act by your pacifist role (pacifist does not mean inactive, actually - Gandhi's concept of Satyagraha has a few subtleties that may not be comprehended by those who first come across the concept). If you're a "saint", albeit possible a flawed "saint", with the ability to help others who are actively fighting, whether physically or non-physically, against evil, you should probably act. If you have some skills around psychic attack, you should probably act. I've posted before on how to defend yourself against psychic attack, but there are other skills, which can be considered to be akin to being the psychic equivalent stopping a rampaging gunman** - would you stop a gunman who was injuring or killing people if you could? Would you do the same to someone who was doing the psychic equivalent of that?

Finally, if you're an everyday person, with the normal everyday skills of speech, thought and inherent psychic ability (don't take those for granted! Some people are not blessed with such abilities, possibly through being diferently abled), you should also act.

You may need to develop some of those abilities, and you will probably have to do a lot of looking at shades of grey, but if you do not, you may well be guilty of the "sin" of failing to act. If you fail to address your own shortcomings, and the characteristics in yourself that put you at risk of psychic violence such as psychic attack (and that is most often caused by strong emotions - and limited only by the lack of psychic skill applied to the emotion), you may well be guilty of the "sin" of failing to act. If you are aware of others who are committing acts of psychic evil, such as control or psychic attack, and you fail to act, you may well be guilty of the "sin" of failing to act.

So ... what are you going to do now? (DO be realistic about existing commitments to family, friends and work when assessing whether or not you have the time & energy for an extensive involvement in doing anything!)

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

** Such skills are based around clearing the negative energy that person is using: for example, is the person being controlled by an earthbound entity (which happens quite a bit, particularly around alcoholics and drug addicts). If so, clear the earthbound entity (or at least their influence). You may also be able to clear what I term indirect karma: remove a negative association between yourself and a third party, and that may lighten the third party's aura enough that their guides/Higher Self/Deity can inspire them to help the rampager be healed. You may also be able to help create things like walls of light between the rampager and her/hir/his victims, or heal or teach the victims about psychic self defence (or heal the aggressor - they do, after all, need healing). If nothing else, you can pray to Deity for some help with the whole situation (just keep in mind the old saying "I used to wonder why someone didn't do something, then I realised I was someone.") This post is about taking responsible action: you WILL be held accounatble for all your deeds and inaction, so be very thoughtful whatever you do or don't do. And in making your decisions, keep in mind people's right to free will: if they are not harming someone else (and someone else's reaction may be an attempt at control on the part of that person, or a flaw in the other person), then they have the right to do stuff that is harmful to themselves.

Importantly, do not let yourself get cocky if you do do something constructive or good. Have a read of the following:
"Researchers found that buying green can lead people into less
altruistic behaviour, and even make them more likely to steal and lie
than after buying conventional products. Buying products that claim to
be made with low environmental impact can set up 'moral credentials' in
people's minds that give license to selfish or questionable behavior."

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/uotr-bgc100709.php

This post's photo is yet to be posted

Tags: attitudes, bullying, change, communication, control, emotions, evil, growth, interpersonal interactions, judging others, karma, love, peace, personal characteristics, respect, responsibility, violence

First published: Saturday 10th October, 2009

Last edited: Saturday 10th October, 2009

Post No. 068 - The selfishness of being selfless

One of the stages of growth identified in Buddhism is overcoming attachment to the existence personal identity (or fear of loss of personality/personal consciousness). It's a big, scary thing, I think, to many people - although I, who am no longer Buddhist, actually question the way this presented: it can, nevertheless, be a useful exercise to work through one's fears, limitations (especially of perspective) and possibly undesirable attachments.

That topic, though, is not what I want to post about now. I'm just starting with the point that growth has a few things along the way that can be hard to work with.

The topic I want to post about is one such topic: genuine selflessness.

Many people in "western cultures" who start on a path of personal/spiritual growth come across the idea that being selfless is good, and being selfish is "bad".

Well, up to a point, I think there is merit in that notion: this world would be better off, in my opinion, if more people believed in abundance, and then shared their love, their generosity, their caring with more than just themselves or a select small group (that is best expressed by the "Pay It Forward" idea).

However, it can be a trap to be selfless for the wrong reason.

If you give to others in some way, but expect some sort of acknowledgment or reward, then I would question your motive to the extent that I challenge whether or not you are being truly generous. Are you trying to help others, or are you after a warm feeling for yourself?

Years ago, when I was Buddhist and vegetarian, I had a series of very good talk with a colleague who came originally from Thailand. In Thailand (well, at the time he was there, at any rate) it was a tradition for the eldest son to become a monk for a month when he turned 21. When my colleague turned 21, he didn't want to become a monk, but, eventually, he agreed on the basis that it would only be for three weeks. Well, he stayed for six months.

This former colleague explained that a certain amount of the "good karma" we get from doing something that is "right" is the inner glow we give ourselves, on some level, even if is something that is hidden well away. So ... getting warm strokes for doing good can be OK - and it is good for all people to appreciate the good things they get in life - which means there is nothing inherently bad about a certain amount of expectation for a thank you: the problem comes when the expectation of a thank you becomes more important than it should, or when one is unaware of one's own, possibly complex motivations for helping others.

I think one of the most complex areas for trying to sort out motivations is being a parent. I suspect too many choose to be a parent because of what is called "the selfish gene": an ingrained drive to pass on one's DNA. Others have children because they wish to keep their partner happy (raising a child is too challenging, too important to take it on for that reason, in my opinion). Some even appear to have kids so they can be looked after when they are old and grey, or to stop their parents nagging about grandkids ... (don't laugh at that lat one: I know someone who did exacty that.) Something I am looking at now is: are the parents who are being parents for selfish reasons the ones who keep expecting other people to adapt their lives to fit around their own kids, like the parents who expect single people to set their houses up to be kid safe? Hm. I'll consider that further - I WILL say, though, that people who have to think the issue through, like same gender couples, are FAR more likely to be genuinely loving, properly motivated parents than some heterosexual couples. (I also consider anyone who has more than two kids to be showing a dinstinct LACK of caring for their kids' futures, as population growth is one of the major environmental pressures this planet is suffering from - in fact, I consider it an environmental crime.)

Whatever the action is that is "helping or caring for others" is, are you doing this helping others, maybe almost frantically, to distract yourself from facing up to shortcomings within yourself? Are you doing this because you are addicted to the good feelings that come with praise? (My last incarnation went a long way to curing me of that problem, incidentally.) Are you doing this for reasons you don't know, or are you inflicting it on others?

If you are, I consider you are actually being selfISH with your selfLESSness.

So, if that is the case, what do you do?

Well, I would SUGGEST - and it is only a suggestion, as I don't know your circumstances, you do a little soul searching. Consider the following:
(1) is your "help" actually genuinely, objectively, helpful? If so, then you should initially continue with it - don't stop out of a knee jerk reaction to finding yourself in error. It may be best to continue giving the help, but be prepared to say, if challenged, "yes, I am doing this for a selfish reason".
(2) consider whether your needs can be better met in other ways, maybe seek some counselling or do some meditation on facing and accepting with equanimity your darker aspects: how do you get to be comfortable with yourself? What would you tell someone else in your shoes?
(3) is there a new, broader perspective that could help you? If so, how do you change yourself so that you can genuinely accept that perspective - without brainwashing yourself into a superficial belief that it is true? You may need to seek some life experiences, or you may need to withdraw from the world (whilst making sure you meet your responsibilities), or in some other way actually DO something to achieve this. (Watch for my coming blog on "the trouble with change: your other yous".)

This is the sort of trap those lacking in experience can fall into, whether it is young people lacking (perhaps) in life experience, or someone starting off on spiritual growth who is lacking experience with the subtleties of steps along the way. It may be useful to think of it as being akin to the topic of love in a relationship: at what stage does having your needs met make the love a hollow thing? How does one avoid being so giving and generous to one's loved partner that they become irresponsible, selfish and taking, and you become a puppet that eases into resentment? (On that, I consider people should do some research into polyamory: you may not be polyamorous, but your relationship will probably benefit from the things that polyamory teaches,, such as "communicate, communicate, communicate", and - possibly without being fully aware of this - being self aware. Not only have I wound up in a genuinely loving, mutually supportive relationship with a wonderful woman because of my being in the poly world, but I have grown and become more aware, more genuine and more self aware through just the contact with this set of communities.)

This situation may also change depending on your circumstances. When I was single, I would often not claim tax deductions for donations I had made. Now, I have a family: for their sake, I will make the donations, and then claim the deduction.

And on family, I am now going to end this post, and go spend some time with them :)

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

This post's photo is yet to be posted

Tags: selfishness, selflessness, about me, attitudes, self knowledge, Buddhism, growth, personal characteristics, personal responsibility, purpose,

First published: Saturday 26th September, 2009
Last edited:Saturday 26th September, 2009

Post No. 067 - Peace conversion

I recently heard part of an interesting programme on the ABC, which caught my attention when it started talking about "conversion to peace". The programme is about the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and a transcript is at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/encounter/stories/2009/2652393.htm

See what you think :)

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

This post's photo is yet to be posted

Tags: peace, attitudes, change, forgiveness, family, growth, guidance, leadership, life lessons, love, mirrorology, morality, priorities, purpose,

First published: Thursday 24th September, 2009
Last edited: Thursday 24th September, 2009

Post No. 066 - Aliens, and the ubiquity of the "Book religions" symbology

When I was learning Wicca (Correllian), a phrase which I came across was "the Book religions"*. This was used as a generic, "catch all" term for Christianity, Judaism and Islam, based on their connection to Abraham and the various Testaments/books/Bibles which derive from that.

I'm not familiar with Judaism, nor Islam, although I like some Jewish traditions such as having a break from the working week (Shabbat) and the family focus (up to a point - undue emphasis on being married is NOT healthy, and some elements of Judaism suffer - in my opinion - from flaws such as conservatism and being outdated), so this post will be focused on Christianity.

The trigger for this post was finally being able to read Colonel James Churchward's book "The Sacred Symbols of Mu". I've been fascinated with symbols and rituals most of my life (I was recently telling my partner how I used plan rituals for a week when I was a young child - things like getting up early, and meditating on the dawn and bird's chorus), and have enjoyed studying runes in recent years (actually, that would be over a decade now). So ... I have been looking forward to reading this book since I first heard of it, as a teenager. I recently joined the Melbourne Theosophical Society's library service (this is open to members of the public), and this book was one of the ones I borrowed.

I've now started reading it, and am finding it quite a disappointment.

Part of that is the scientific weakness of the content, and - to my engineering viewpoint - poor presentation, which is touched on in the introduction to the online version of this book (at http://www.sacred-texts.com/atl/ssm/index.htm):

"Churchward's Mu theory hasn't achieved even the marginal credibility of Atlantis. For one thing, his science is absurd. The Pacific appears to have been free of large land masses for billions of years. In fact, the Pacific basin may mark the place where the Moon was expelled from the proto-earth. Coral atolls that dot the Pacific have taken millions of undisturbed years of activity to form. And the Pacific was one of the last regions on the planet to be settled by humans; this is proven by linguistic evidence, and the well-documented oral traditions which describe the history of the Polynesian migrations.
It doesn't help matters that Churchward's books are largely absent of apparatus such as footnotes or bibliography, and his basic source material cannot be independently confirmed. In his Mu-monomania, he employs circular and tautological reasoning. Often, he will make a startling assertion, and before supporting it, will move on to some other train of thought. At other times, he writes factually about, say, Egyptian mythology, without any clue for the reader as to why this proves anything about Mu. The reader is simultaneously entertained and irritated by this intellectual shell game."
Although this introduction does then continue to say:
"However, Churchward may have the last laugh yet. There was a large land mass in the Pacific that was submerged during prehistoric times: Sundaland, the continental shelf around Indonesia, which was exposed during the ice ages. It was most certainly the route that humans used to get to Australia, as only a few kilometers of water separated Sundaland from Australia at that time. Although it was submerged slowly as the result of rising sea levels at the end of the ice age, the region has some of the most violent volcanoes on Earth (such as the famous Krakatoa). A documented eruption in that region about 60,000 years ago may have decimated the human race, producing a 'population bottleneck' during which our species was reduced to a few hundred individuals; this has emerged from mitochondrial DNA studies. Some have hypothesized that Sundaland may have been home to an early lost civilization, perhaps the home of the mysterious voyagers who charted the anomalous ice-age maps which the early modern map-makers incorporated in their atlases. While not Mu or Lemuria, of all of the nooks and crannies where a lost civilization might have existed, Sundaland is one of the most plausible; only time will tell."

I may find this book less of an annoyance if I had read the other boks first; I'm also interested in how Churchward's concept of Lemurians compares with that of Blavastky and the other early theosophists. (I think it doesn't; I think Blavatsky wrote of humanity now being a "fifth root race", evolving into a sixth, and that Lemurians were an earlier, less capable root race. I also have a recollection that Rampa may have described Lemurians as being purple, with a roundish body ... which ties into something I read recently (possibly in Churchward's book!) about a Greek myth that male and female were created when the round bodied, eight-limbed "people" threatened to roll up Mt Olympus, so the Gods split them into two, male and female.)

However, my main irritation is actually that the point of view from which Col. Churchward interprets the information he (allegedly) has come into contact with is that of a Christian paradigm: Deity comprises a God above Earth.

I'm - in part - Wiccan: to me, the powers, energies and wonders of Earth are AS spiritual as anything that comes from higher realms.

In fact, as a twist on that, in some rituals (particularly Qabbalistic - e.g., the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram), there is use of imagery or physical stances where one is throwing arms up to "the heavens" and drawing down the powers of Heaven or God. I may indeed use that, if I wish to contact higher frequency energies (although the truth of the matter is that such higher frequency worlds are all about us, and all we need to do to tune in to them is change our freuency of focus - much as we just twiddle a knob on a radio rather than physically put or point a radio up or down to change its frequency), but I am also just as liable to use that stance to connect to the powers of the Universe - those from other stars, planets, galaxies and realms in "Outer Space". We all come from material from "Outer Space" anyway: our Sun, our planet and our bodies are ALL made from material scattered through space which aggregated to form stars and planets, and the life on this planet. For more on that, have a look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_evolution;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_formation_and_evolution; and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebular_hypothesis.

So Col. Churchward's bias in thinking that the material he is examining is solely related to a "God in Heaven" type of situation is (a) annoying, as it is a put down of Mother Earth (in my opinion), and (b) possibly wrong.

What if, as Erich von Daniken postulated back in the 1970s, These beings appearing from the sky were in fact from alien civilisations? They would, then, be appearing in the skies, but not necessarily from "Heaven".

Since von Daniken, others also have written about alien influence, good and bad, in human affairs. The notion that advances in technology have been, in part, due to a helping "hand" (or whatever they have that corresponds to a hand :) ) from aliens is not new, and has been cast back through history. In fact, an idea I first came across in Lobsang Rampa's book "The Hermit" (see also here) is that aliens cross bred with humans to force evolution to happen a little faster; recently, an Internet post I have come across claim that the alien race is known as the "Annunaki" (the link I gave talks about the other alien races, and their various motivations for being involved with humanity).

This digression on to aliens also raises a question: what are the religious beliefs of aliens? My experience is that this is best expounded on in Stuart Holroyd's excellent book "Briefing for the Landing on Planet Earth". This book is excellent for a whole range of reasons, one of the main being that it provides a genuine, balanced, sceptical viewpoint of the phenomenon being reported. If you haven't read it: please do so (although it does appear to be out of print).

Now, back to the Christian mob.

The other irritating things I have come across which led to this post (I am actually fairly happy - just a little facetious, in case you're wondering :) ), are a couple of films:
"The Seventh Sign"; and
"The Knowing".

"The Seventh Seal" assumes that the Christian Bible is true in its stories of an Apocalypse as interpreted by the Christians. The film "The Knowing" goes even further, and is about the rapture (seen the links where atheists are volunteering to look after pets who have been left behind after "the rapture"? Good publicity for the atheists, and - hopefully - provokes a bit of thought :) ). I don't accept either of those world view points.

As a Wiccan, I have thoughts about the Descent of the Goddess when talking about creation myths: it would be nice to see those in a film, although I acknowledge the financial reality that we probably aren't a big enough market.

I suspect my main concern is that people - including me - are at risk of getting caught up in biases that are so pervasive and subtle that we won't even recognise them for what they are.

I've been blest by the Goddess in that most of my life, particularly the personal growth and spiritual experiences I've had, have been of a nature that breaks those barriers down. Some of the shamanic journeys I've been on at times (without drugs, by the way: I think techniques like using the Assemblage Point are far more powerful and useful) have been particularly helpful at breaking viewpoints I have been socialised into.

Well, I suppose I shall just have to keep on trying to break free of limitations. At least there were some redeeming aspects to the film "The Seventh Sign", messages about hope, life and caring for others.

And now, for a final thought: my partner has just pointed out that I am writing all this stuff about Christianity on a Sunday :) I should also point out that I have friends who are Christian, and have respect for parts of both the original form of Christianity, and some of the neoChristian forms now practised.

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

* I think this term was created by Orpheis Caroline High-Correll, who is mentioned at the Corellian Nativist Tradition website. The Correllian tradition split a few years ago (I might post about that, one day, from the point of view of an Australian); I'm on the side of the CNCI mob, incidentally.

This post's photo is yet to be posted. 

 

 

 

 

Tags: ET/UFO/UAP, creation, about me, cross-fertilisation (ideas), Lobsang Rampa, myths, perceptions, religion, self knowledge, society,

First published: Sunday 13th September, 2009
Last edited: Sunday 13th September, 2009

Post No. 065 - Three faces of the Goddess and four seasons

I was recently sent a link to an interesting discussion on an LJ account regarding the number of aspects of the Goddess (that's a simplification: you'll have to follow the original link [which I will seek permission to post] if you to find out more). One comment in that debate took my attention: it was that there are three aspects of the Goddess commonly acknowledged, but four quarters are commonly invoked in circle, so how does three go into four (more or less - I'm rephrasing from memory)?

Well, let's start.

First off, the quarters.

When I began working with magic, I didn't know you were supposed to call one element per quarter, so I drew a pentagram and invoked all five elements (the fifth being spirit; the other four being earth, air, water and fire) from every quarter, and sometimes from above and below as well. Since then, I've been taught to call one element from each quarter, but:
(1) as my teacher has said, does it matter where a radio antenna is placed in a space, so long as it is tuned correctly? In fact, I hve invoked the four energies without moving - and consider that a basic, fundamental aspect of training.
(2) I have seen (and sometimes participated in) debates, not only about the swapping of fire and earth from northern to southern hemisphere (northern correspondences generally having fire where the sun is [in the south], and southern correspondences having the fire where the sun is [in the north]*), but also about swapping water and air (e.g. invoking water in the east if one is working on the west side of Port Phillip Bay).
(3) When I started working magic, I was living in the tropics, so I had the sun both north and south of me in the same year: how do develop an association between elements an quarter under those circumstances? Perhaps change depending on where the sun is?
(4) There are sometimes seasonal associations built into the elements/quarters (earth winter, air spring, fire summer and water autumn). Those don't necessarily fit the places the magic is being worked - for instance, here in Melbourne, a better seasonal association would be to use the local indigenous seasons described here. Of course, one could also consider just calling the energies by name (e.g., inspiration, manifestation, emotion/flow and strength.
(5) With respect to associations with aspects of the Goddess:
- I normally call maiden from east (spring), mother from north (summer) and crone from west (autumn), and from the south I either call Lilith or the God in his aspect as Lord of Time (which governs the flow of the seasons). I feel absolutely no need to have some sort of equality of number of aspects of the Goddess and God: I consider balance to be a long term (as in "many lifetimes") issue anyway.
- the maiden-mother-crone aspects of the Goddess could be reportrayed as: (i) maiden - interacting with the world in a self absorbed way (stereotypically [which means this does not apply to everyone] a child wants to have it all , and have it now); (ii) mother - interacting with the world through focus on nurturing one's family and loved ones; (iii) crone - interacting with the world in a more dispassionate way, with the broader idea of family (clan, tribe, society, Gaia, etc). Taking this a step further, there is a fourth aspect, which is interacting with oneself - perhaps this is the darker face of the Goddess, akin to the self-reflection and learning between lives. This would certainly fit winter, which has associations for many people of being indoors, perhaps slightly isolated, and a bit cut off in that one is less willing (or able, in extreme winters) to go out and spend time with friends and family.
- our histories generally (this is much debated and argued) tell us that Wicca evolved as a fertility religion. In that context, it would tend to have a focus on having children, as that is what the tribe would have needed, along with those who were no longer raising children sharing their wisdom. We are no longer in a struggle to survive in the same way. In fact, population growth is one of the pressures that is directly harming this planet. We have moved on and changed as a world; it is time, in my opinion, for us to embrace the changing circumstances and let go of arguments about whether we are truly pagan or are neopagan: I consider we should embrace making paganism relevant to this world, which needs an earth based awareness (including awareness of how the seasons are passing) to prevent a focus on materialism destroying this world. Part of that is making the faces of the Goddess more relevant to our society - including options other than just mother. Maybe we should start talking about mother / warrior / priestess / ... for the "middle" aspect? Maybe we should acknowledge the introspective face(s) of the Goddess? Of course, this probably ends the debates about pagan vs. neopagan (except, maybe, for the various reconstructionists), but then, I've said (and written) "Christians" should stop calling themselves that and start dealing with the fact that they are - by the means of every argument used to say we are neopagans, neoChristians. At least some of them have discussions about changing to be more relevant in a changing world.

Now, with regard to "fitting" three aspects of the Goddess into four elements, how about we stop thinking in a flat earth viewpoint? There are four elements, which are commonly called from one direction each: how about above and below? Perhaps we could call the four elements from various quarters, then maiden from above, mother from this level of reality, and crone from the underworld?

This is an issue which crops up in other faiths as well, and I currently contemplating how the Norse pagan system (which I am NOT an expert or even skilled in) works:
- all aspects comes from earth
- there are three aspects: yeast (birth), salt (life) and venom (death)
- there are also four elements (fire, ice, earth, water)
- all of which combines to create iron

I've been visualising this a little bit like an hierarchy: above a disk of earth is a disk split into three wedges (yeast, salt and venom - I'll call them humours), above which is a disk split into the four elements (incidentally, a friend who is well versed in rune lore has said it is possible to create all the runes from fire and ice: the two primordial polarities of the cold Nordic world), and above that is a disk of iron.

So ... how do I line up the four elements and the three humours? Well, perhaps I've got that wrong. Perhaps the disk with the three humours should actually be below earth (or the four elements disk)? Perhaps the three humours disk should be at right angles to the elements disk?

We live in a three dimensional world (in the sense that most of us do not have much control over the fourth dimension of time). Let's think that way, instead of just two dimensionally. (Thinking two dimensionally is particularly bad if you are setting up wards or other psychic defences: for those to be effective, you MUST cover above and below also.)

Perhaps we should be thinking more about, say, things two interlocking trigrams, or hexagrams (which fits both the Melbourne seasons, a concept of maiden-mother-crone where each aspect has both an involutionary [self reflective, or internal growth] and evolutionary aspect [interact with the outer world, and an oblique view of the sides a cube).

I like the volknut because it allows three interlocking aspects of three - which is why I use it on the base on my talismanic tetrahedrons (which are talismans created three dimensionally: I'll post about them in due course, probably next year).

The point here is that combinations of three can create more than three things:
- for instance, if we have three energies, A, B and C, we can create A+B, A+C, B+C and A+B+C, r four. Hmmmmm. Could the three aspects of the Goddess be mixed in a way that creates four elements? When I pose this, I am very much aware that the primary colours create many colours. Maybe air is, say, 80% maiden, 10% mother and 10% crone (as a rough, just invented and not based on anything example!)?

In this sense, I can see three going "into" four. I could also three times four creating twelve, so if, say, maiden-mother-crone corresponded to cardinal-mutable-fixed, then combining that with the four elements leads to the twelve signs of the zodiac.

The original debate was interesting. I look forward to more debates in the pagan / neopagan / Wiccan worlds, and hope to be around long enough to see what our belief system evolves into.

I'll leave it at that.

* One comment was to the effect that people in the southern hemisphere should simply follow the northern hemisphere - to the extent of celebrating Yule in the middle of our winter and Litha in the middle of our winter!

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

This post's photo is yet to be posted.

Tags: invocation, correspondences, cross-fertilisation (ideas), rituals, deities, elements, frequencies,

First published: Saturday 12th September, 2009

Last edited: Sunday 13th September, 2009

Post No. 064 - My most depressing film recently seen: The Pursuit of Happyness

I've just watched one of the most depressing films I've ever seen: "The Pursuit of Happyness", starring Will Smith and his son (Will Smith, I must say, has considerably grown on me as an actor, and he deserved the award nominations he got from that; his son also did brilliantly).

It was probably meant to be a bit of "feel good" film because of:
(a) the father mostly relating to the son in a reasonable way; and
(b) the financial success at the end of the film for the one individual.

Well, sorry, there was nothing feel good about it to me - it pushed too many buttons.

To begin with, the father was an irresponsible git for getting into that state in the first place when he had a child (completely different if he had been on his own - I'll come back to that). I've been on the receiving end of jerks saying "I'll get the money I owe you - it'll be alright, just don't worry, alright? Okay?" Goddess there is NOTHING more aggravating than someone saying "It'll be alright - okay?" It is an EXTREMELY patronising thing to say - it implies my concerns are without basis, and that the speaker knows more than me.

Unfortunately, most of these jerks in my life were relatives though an ex- of mine so we had felt obligated to help them when they got into trouble. Fortunately, I have had enough good sense instilled into me by my bank manager father to not over-extend myself. Other people are not so lucky - including people who lost out through the sub-prime crisis, and earlier schemes all the way back to the South Seas Bubble a few hundred years ago. (Not all of them were jerks, however: in particular, I recall one woman [not a relative] I knew when I was living on my boat who had got into extreme difficulties through gambling problems*; she found herself with car problems just after she got a job, and I loaned her $200 to fix the car. She did that, paid me back $220**, and went on to start turning her life around. Similarly, most of this ex's family were in a similar vein of turning their lives around - some quite spectacularly, although hindered by a lack of education [not because of lack of intelligence: they didn't fit in - which is something I've also experienced])

I consider teaching children to know how to balance a budget a run a cash flow to be AS ESSENTIAL as literacy and numeracy and the other skills people say are necessary to teach at school. Don't waste effort creating an illusion that anything can be achieved by anyone: not everyone will succeed chasing such dreams, and there will be an incredible amount of heartache and pain left behind - and THAT is what gets taken to the next world, not the dollars a few people were able to get after lots of heartache (there has been some interesting research lately about whether having money makes you happy or not: it showed [in my words] that once you get to the stage where your survival needs are met [you are middle class, in other words], more money did not bring more happiness; by the same token, not having enough money to be able to survive without heartache was something that COULD be fixed by having more money [income]).

Furthermore, if you have children, you have obligations to those children: if that means you have to put your dreams on hold for a while, then you bloody well do that, as far as I am concerned. I've had to do that at times in my life: put dreams and even necessities on hold, so I KNOW it isn't easy, but that is what you took on when you had a child - whether you planned to do so (as I hope was the case!) or not. If you get into a situation where you are responsible for other people's kids (e.g., by developing a relationship with someone who has kids, as I have), then you share a role in looking after those kids as well (as does the other biological parent). If you're single, not responsible for anyone else, then go for it - do whatever you want that dose not take advantage of others.

I have known many people who have a dream of running their own business (I've had a part time business as well): teach those kids AT SCHOOL who could be interested in running a business how to do a SWOT (strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats) analysis, how to prepare a REALISTIC business plan (including doing the necessary research to make it a realistic plan), etc - so that they have a fighting chance.

Teach all kids to chase their dreams, yes, but teach them not to fail in their responsibilities along the way (such as children: I am firmly in favour of more sex and RELATIONSHIP education at school - the evidence [reality] is that it does reduce unwanted pregnancies; there is probably a need for some sort of parenting education as well, but I don't know when or how) - and not to lie. That "I'll get it for you - okay? Alright? Don't stress!" bullshit doesn't do anyone any favours.

Finally, lets have a world where we don't all have to be highly qualified or supercompetitive to be able to survive comfortably and be realistically ABLE to achieve reasonable dreams like home ownership (although expectations of the size etc of home may have to be downgraded to something more reasonable; I recall reading an article a few years ago which showed how first home purchases were for bigger homes for smaller families now, compared to a few decades ago - and this should all be environmentally sustainable :) ).

The stock broking world Will Smith's character got into is also the world of "Greed is good" Gordon Gekko, of Enron, of Tyco, etc, etc, etc. I know that the real life Chris Gardner is someone who is also a philanthropist. That in itself suggests he may well have learned from his experiences and grown into a better person. (That he is a motivational speaker depends on what sort of motivational speaker he is; some can be a bit too "Gordon Gekko" for me.) But something that stays with me from the film is the long queues of people seeking emergency accommodation, and the disenfranchised gentleman who thought the bone scanner was a time machine - did they all also get to make and live a fantastic life? Or were they all just disposable financial-cannon fodder?

I've done some fund raising for homeless people (e.g., see http://www.handsup.mcm.org.au/About--Hands-up-.aspx, and http://search.abc.net.au/search/search.cgi?query=homelessness&form=simple&num_ranks=20&collection=abcall&meta_v=rn&submit=search), and know the issues are complex. I recently listened to a programme on the ABC Radio (I think at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/lm/stories/s609572.htm) about the problems homeless kids have getting into training because of the very simple, obvious, but problematic fact that they do not have contact details. Years ago I listened to another programme on the ABC Radio where someone was talking about the exit rates from poverty in Europe, with it's culture of social responsibility, and the USA, with it's "individual first" attitudes, and how Europe was doing better on this than the USA. (That one was too long ago for me to track down now, but have a look at http://books.google.com.au/books?id=GQ022BXpYFkC&pg=PA131&lpg=PA131&dq=poverty+exit+rates&source=bl&ots=iUqLSpxiC7&sig=fLulZef6wgKH9Ub8oAzJgHWsrSM&hl=en&ei=cJh6SouDBYHYtgPyj8WqDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3.)

How about we have a film for these people as well? And maybe a film for the people who aren't favourably inclined towards school and so are cut off from good educational opportunities? Can we say we are a good society when people like this are treated as disposable? Are they not also entitled to the pursuit of happiness?

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Grumpy Gnwmythr

* I'm not favourably disposed towards the gambling industry for a number of reasons, incidentally. I don't consider the risks and power are shared reasonably - businesses that play with people's lives this way should be exposed to the same sort of risks, in my opinion. So, there should be no limit on a gambler who is winning, for instance - in my opinion. Yes, that could put jobs at risk: the people getting into those jobs should know that they are in a business which, in some part, effectively gambles with other people's lives, and they deserve to take on the same risks they are expecting other people to. In they are not happy with that, find another job (which, I concede, is easier said than done - having just done exactly that when I was no longer happy with the ethics of a place I was working at).

** If I was arguing with her now about this I would know enough to say "Pay It Forward", rather than pay the extra $20 back to me.

Tags: about me, daily life, interactions, interpersonal interactions, judging others, life lessons, lifestyles, morality, persistence, personal characteristics, personal responsibility, society

First published: Thursday 6th August, 2009
Last edited: Thursday 6th August, 2009

Post No. 063 - The film "Flatliners" and personal responsibility

I've just finished watching the film "Flatliners". It started off as a spooky sort of thing, and I was thinking it could lead to some good "ghost-busting" sort of action, but it wasn't that sort of film.

Nevertheless, it was quite a useful film, as it presented a viewpoint about the need to avoid having unresolved issues in our past. Other films touch on this. I recently read a book, which I loaned to a friend, about a rescue medium's life: in that, she talked about the importance of not having unresolved problems, and gave several films which illustrated that. Unfortunately, I don't have the book back yet, so won't be able to give details for a little while ... Some films I can recall, however, are "Always", "Heart and Souls", "Ghost", and "Voices" (for which I could not find a link).

The book was quite interesting because of the examples of reasons that people could become earthbound by. One was a woman who had been raped and murdered, and then her attacker committed suicide: she avoided passing over for fear of running in to him - which is unlikely, as the astral equivalent of what we perceive as "physical distance" is compatability - distance or closeness of vibration, frequency or essence.

I've been meaning to post for some time about the importance of dealing with unresolved issues. Obviously such can be psychologically damaging to oneself, but more importantly,. the energy tends to wander off, or free float, when it is not claimed by the person responsible for it. That energy can then influence other people.

Of course, such influence could be good (e.g., if one was having a pleasant interlude, the energies would be "nice", and that could possibly help someone who was feeling down), but most times that people are not inclined to take responsibility for themselves and their energy is when they're down, angry or upset. That energy is likely to influence others to be down, angry or upset, some of which tends to get stuck in the free floating cloud of energy, and - hey presto! When we go to claim responsibility for that energy, there just seems to be so much more of it that someone came up with the term "three fold return" ....

In fact, it should also be kept in mind, at this point, as illustrated quite nicely by some of the films I mentioned earlier in this post, that the living are influenced by the dead.

On that, sure, most of the time the influence is by means of influencing our thoughts and emotions (whether for better or worse), but sometimes there is a physical influence. For instance, Debbie Malone's book "Never Alone" talks about having physical bruises after the sensation of being strangled, and Dion Fortune talked of finding physical scratches after psychic attack. You know what? You can defend yourself against psychic attack whether it has a physical manifestation or not. I've posted about this in the past enough, so I won't repeat myself here (it's late). *

If it helps you, keep in mind that you may well have dished this out to someone else. If that doesn't help you, don't think about it. I'm not trying to be funny here: it is a case of find what works, and use it. Some people are quite comfortable with the idea of karma (I'm one of them), and it can give us an inspiration to endure, to outlast, whatever we are going through because, IF IT IS KARMIC, and we have the right attitude, IT WILL END.

As another suggestion, try thinking about how things were so HUGE when you were small, and how now they don't seem that way at all. As a seven year old, it was the end of the world to not do homework and be told off by my teacher; now, in my day job, I have to explain multi-million dollar projects being late because of inadequate staffing/resources, or explain why other people have over or under estimated projects.

Actually, on that, I think we all have things in our past that we are ashamed off. As a kid, one may have told a lie or two; when one was a young adult, one may have been too cocky and disrespectful, as an older adult one may have allowed the world to sway one from one's path in life. These things are real: you can beat yourself over the head about it, or you can accept it, move on, and make the best with what you have. Maybe what is in your past is worse: maybe you have a serious crime, or several. You cannot change it, but you must come to terms with that aspect of yourself, and with what you have done, and make amends as best you can where that is necessary.

Otherwise it will come back when you are trying to pass from this world to the summerlands** (or the other side, if that is your preferred terminology).

This is not just something mentioned in films; recently someone close to me reminded me of after they had an NDE during surgery.

Now, at the risk of making this ramble even more disjointed, I want to touch on two more personal responsibility topics that I have been planning on posting about:
(1) how you behave under stress is a fair indication of your innermost self
- I particularly watch how I behave in traffic jams and when things go off the rails at work. I'm often not proud of what I see, but acknowledging that that part of me is there is the start to dealing with it.

(2) there is ALWAYS a price to pay
- this may not be monetary, but there is always some sort of price to pay: for instance, if you want to learn something, and are not being charged a monetary fee, you will still have to pay the "price" of effort and time, and maybe a karmic price for not applying your knowledge afterwards ... there is ALWAYS a price.

In fact, what you are prepared to give up, or not to give up, is both a price, and an indication of how serious you are about a thing.

May your prices be what you can afford and wish to bear, and may you find accepting your dark self within your bounds of capability.

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

* See, for instance, http://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2008/07/psychic-attack-being-caught-out.html, and http://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2007/11/protection.html

** I thought it was interesting that the film "Flatliners" did show that not everyone experiences the same, not everyone has the tunnel and bright light and happiness, when they pass over. The talk of being in fields reminded me of the Greek concept expressed in the Roman word of Elysium.

Tags: personal characteristics, attitudes, change, charging, daily life, emotions, energy work, forgiveness, interpersonal interactions, karma, life lessons, priorities, self knowledge, stress

First published: Wednesday 29th July, 2009

Last edited: Wednesday 29th July, 2009

Post No. 062 - Perspective

My starting point for this post is a comment I received from someone I knew a couple of decades ago. She in all seriousness tried to tell me that I should work on a personal dislike of some foods as a higher priority than working on world events (such as mass starvation, or even poverty at home). Naturally, I disagreed with her then, I still disagree with that small minded point of view, and I have spent considerable time and energy working (though both psychic means and more conventional lobbying of politicians) at making this world a better place.

Who knows - maybe that person was just upset that I didn't enjoy her favourite foods/meals when I was there for a shared meal as much as she did? I certainly enjoyed most of the meals, and was not rude or impolite on the basis of my food dislikes.

It all smacked a bit of the parent trying to get a child to eat by saying "think of all the starving people in X". My response usually was "send them the food then", but
(a) I DO live in a privileged society, and am privileged to be in a comfortable position where I have never been short of food;
(b) trying to over-feed or force-feed people is actually not hospitable (it can be harmful to health), although understandable (and, in the case of alcohol, choosing to become upset because someone will nto drink alcohol is pathetic, morally wrong behaviour); and
(c) as I recently had pointed out to me when I was struggling to finish what was on my plate (despite what I've just written, I don't like to see food go to waste :D ), food can be wasted on a plate or wasted in your system if it cannot be usefully digested, and just get stored as fat instread.

But before I get further into my thoughts on this topic, take a moment to ponder: what is your scale of perspective? What is important to you?

A common item of importance to many people is family. I have talked about this with both my sisters (well, actually I have more than two, but I have not met my half-sister in my birth family yet) in the context of caring for my father (that is, my adoptive father) and my brother (my full-blood brother in my family). The conversations were along the lines of "of course I/you/we would do , he/she/they are family!". That's good - that's great, actually.

But it is not what I consider the be-all and end-all of love and caring.

In the Hindu tradition, the Path of Bhakti Yoga is the path of devotion and love. To summarise this (and this is mostly based on what I read in Lobsang Rampa * - for a different point of view, look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhakti for the "proper" view), people start off only being able to love in a very limited way: this is usually described as "self love", and may be described - incorrectly, I consider - as beign selfish. An analogy for this is a child, who is self centred.

As one grows, whether that is maturing within one lifetime or over a longer term perspective, one's idea of who one should love expands. This is the point where many people are at, in my experience: they consider love for family (including, for the purposes of this post, "romantic" love) is the highest pinnacle of evolution, anf the standard by which all loves should be measured.

Sorry - it ain't.

I've posted previously on this view ("who is in your family"), but to pick up from a more recent post (on chakras and push-pull), I would describe these people as "living in the solar plexus/heart chakras" - most of the energy being used in their lives is energy on the level of emotions and love (with, perhaps, occasional excursions into throat chakra energies, which are communication based, and may be manifested [used] in more functional family units).

That is not the limit of love, nor of evolution.

The idea of Bhakti is that one expands one's devotion as one evolves. In a sense, you could say you practice loving until you can apply it more widely. You start off loving a parent, then youir family, then your friends, then maybe others (strangers? I'll touch on St Francis of Assisi shortly) or a guru (which simply means "teacher" - don't give the word any more emotional meaning, I would suggest, than you would to the word "teacher"). Ultimately you attain "Ai", which Rampa defines (in Wisdom of the Ancients") as universal love, in the agape sense of love that Christ wanted humanity to live and manifest (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agape).

There are steps along the way here. Do you feel comfortable giving donations to people who are less well off than you? Would you do as St Francis of Assissi did, and give someone half your garment?

In my case, I'm somewhere between the two: I'm very happy to give donations and spend time and energy working for the wellbeing of people outside my family (I consider my friends my family of choice, so I include them in that - and I have housed friends in need), but I'm certainly not as evolved as St Francis of Assissi!

It can be interesting to contemplate why people limit their love - whether that is to only their nation, or only their social group/culture, or only their family. Is it because they fear that they don't have enough love to go round, or that their love for theose close to them will somehow be cheapened by having agape type love for other people outside that group?

The Universe is actually very abundant - particularly on the topic of love. In fact, a definition I like of "God" from Stuart Holroyd's "Briefing for the Landing on Planet Earth" (Pub. Corgi, 1979; ISBN 10: 0552109975, ISBN 13: 9780552109970; I think republished as "The Nine: Briefing from Deep Space" - see http://www.theonlyplanetofchoice.com/newbook.htm) is along the lines of (my books are still in storage, so I can't be too precise about this - sorry - and you should see what I had to go through to get a citation for the book! :D ):

- "a universal intelligence which grows on love".

So, if Deity grows on love, it would seem to me that there is a good reason to have more love in the Universe, and if there is more love floating round in the Universe, then that is surely going to be of benefit to those we love at some point? Somewhere they should bump into all that extra love, surely?

There's an additional element to this, and that is the love that is manifested by people who live more in the higher chakras - third eye, crown, Soul Star, etc.

This love may be hard to understand for those who live in the heart chakra. For instance, someone who lives in the Third Eye Chakra may be driven to provide lots of selfless psychic service to people (a bit like John Edwards *, or Gordon Smith *, or Allison DuBois * [who the TV series "Medium" is supposed to be based on], or James Van Praagh, who the TV series "Ghost Whisperer" is supposed to be based on).

If someone is living in other chakras, they may become someone like a Mohandas K. Gandhi, the Mahatma, or seek to live well beyond the confines of loving only their immediate (or wider) family. As another example of that, one woman I knew, who was a bit like a foster mother to me, used to send her children out through the streets of Frankston to find homeless kids and bring them home (one of them wound up marrying a close friend of mine).

Where do you fit on this scale of Bhakti?

More importantly, are you prepared to let others live wherever they are on that scale?

(As a post script, perhaps most people living in their heart chakras is the reason some poets use the language of love to try and shift people along the scale of Bhakti? I was tryiong to find an example for you, dear Reader, but can only think of the Persian**, Sufi poet Rumi, and I don't think that is quite what I am looking for.)

* Wikipedia is an online encyclopaedia. Being online does not rule out conventional thinking, nor intellectual conservatism. Hence, there is a fair chunk of the "claims to be psychic" stuff in articles I link to. I don't consider that bad - you should be thinking critically anyway. However, if you're unhappy with what you read on Wikipedia, look at the source links (generally included at the end of the article, and you may be able to find more "favourable" links.

** This a National Geographic link, not Wikipedia, and is well worth a look - even if you know a great deal about Persia, and ESPECIALLY should be looked at if your knowledge is based on "Iran"

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

This post's photo is yet to be posted

Tags: personal characteristics, attitudes, discrimination, emotions, family, interpersonal interactions, judging others, life lessons, Lobsang Rampa, self knowledge,

First published: Saturday 20th June, 2009
Last edited: Saturday 20th June, 2009

Post No. 061 - Maturity

I thought I'd throw together some thoughts on the topic of maturity (for Wikipedia's thoughts, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maturity_%28psychological%29 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_maturity. These have no particular basis other than my life experience (I deliberately have not read the Wikipedia links), and I haven't bothered to try to track down the sources of some of my information. Feel free to disregard or disagree as you deem most appropriate :)

Let's begin by considering physical maturity.

Biologically, this is often indicated by the ability to reproduce. Animals are often considered physically mature at this point in their development, and I suspect that, in simpler times, many millennia in the past, humans were also considered mature at around that point.

I mentioned "in simpler times".

In today's world, survival is more complicated than it was in hunter-gatherer societies. In those societies, "work" to survive was, I have read, around 25-30hours per week. Now, in the materialistic, consumeristic western world, working weeks are often at least 35 hours, maybe up to 70 hours for some professionals/small business owners/driven people (I occasionally joke with my partner about "retiring to a 5 day, 40 hour week :) ), and education to significant standards of literacy and numeracy is almost essential.

Today, maturity - let’s call it "social maturity" - is generally defined as being at around 18 years of age. At that point, many societies allow young people to vote, be independent of parents, etc. A better way to define this would be the ability to function as an independent being in whatever society one is in. In Neanderthal society, that maybe meant having your own campfire and contributing to hunting and gathering. In today's western (developed) society, this is - in my opinion: keep your own thinking caps on and activated! - characterised by moving out of one's parents home. Unless you have a valid excuse such as a disability, if you haven't moved out and lived as an independent adult, you have not yet attained social maturity. To move out and live independently requires skills such as the ability to plan and prepare nutritious meals, budgeting, getting and keeping an adequate (legal) income and knowledge of legal requirements such as voting, not assaulting people or being a thief, etc. (Mind you, I do support things such as lowering voting age to 16 - or, at the very least, allowing those who are prepared to join the armed forces and potentially put their lives on the line for their country to be able to vote, if they are under the current voting age: to be able to be killed in a conflict in which you have no say is, to me, slightly more immoral than being able to be killed without a say ...)

The discrepancy between physical and social maturity has, in my opinion, been a problem at times: teenagers have bodies that for thousands of years were considered mature, but live in a society where they are not allowed to act as independent beings. (This is a bit like the problem of our dietary cravings being based on famine-feast conditions, rather than today's world of - for MOST of those in DEVELOPED nations - plenty [the qualification is because of poverty and homelessness].) Some of that is being addressed - for instance, some societies have ages of consent which are around 16 years old.

However, some of that discrepancy between physical and social maturity is, I consider, beneficial: being pregnant as a teenager in a society of Neanderthals, where life would be over when you lost your teeth at around 40years of age, where you were able to hunt or gather to help your band survive as a teenager, and where the band would probably help you without question, is probably less devastating than today's society where teenage parents are judged harshly, rarely adequately supported and may suffer from reduced opportunities for education.

In either case, starting to have sex does NOT show maturity, whether it is at below the legal age of consent (which, in many cases, is arguably too high or, in some cases, too low - and the discrepancy between same sex and opposite sex ages of consent is abhorrent, wrong and unjustifiable) or above, possibly well above. I've known, as I was growing and still at school, other kids who started having sex very early. They, despite a bravado that they were more mature and somehow inherently better people than other kids who chose not to have sex (and none of that was for religious reasons: the current neo-Christian fundamentalism hadn't made itself felt in that quiet little part of Queensland at that time - and maybe hasn't yet!) because of having had sex and "relationships" (VERY big quotation marks), were actually more probably just reacting thoughtlessly to genetic drivers (particularly the "selfish gene") and showing their immaturity by failing to understand what being an adult meant. For starters, they were NOT better human beings. (Also, I wonder if they went through the too common teenage whinges about housework and parties at home, and didn't think about contributing to the household economics ... if they did, they only confirm their immaturity.)

There is an issue which is very relevant here: emotional maturity.

Emotional maturity is largely independent of physical and mental maturity. I know people in their 30s, 40s and older who I consider far less emotionally mature than some teenagers. (That does NOT mean that all teenagers are emotionally mature! It certainly does not mean that any teenager is necessarily more mature than the adults around them.) Some of those older people are in the engineering profession that I currently labour in. I wish we made as widespread use of "Emotional Intelligence" (or "Emotional Quotient") tests as we did of IQ (Intelligence Quotient) tests. IQ is, to me, of far less importance than EQ.

Emotional maturity is, in my opinion, most characterised by the ability to defer gratification. The immature want pleasure, and want it NOW! In children, this immaturity may show as tantrums; in older people (including teenagers), it tends to show as materialism/consumerism - HAVING to have the latest gimmick or gizmo, or compulsive shopping (I am NOT referring to shopping occasionally for pleasure here), or being surprised when others don't share your consumerism/materialism. It is also a large part of the reason the plant is being screwed over environmentally, as consumerism/materialism (look the terms up on Wikipedia if you wish) in the developed world uses a massive amount of resources.

Another vaguely related issue here is population growth, which is, in my opinion, an environmental crime. Population growth happens for a wide range of reasons, but one of the key ones is the urge to have children - to leave something of oneself behind in the world, for posterity. Having "replacement numbers" of children is fine (although there are social issues such as discrimination against same sex couples, poverty and child abuse which need to be corrected. One of the ulitmate signs of maturity is to control this powerful biological urge and have no more than "replacement numbers" of children. (Read "The Selfish Gene", by Richard Dawkins, for some thoughts on this issue.)

One other aspect of emotional maturity I wish to mention here is the ability to form and sustain mutually fulfilling relationships. This requires communication, deferred gratification, self knowledge and a whole host of other skills. It is another very good measure of emotional maturity. Good manners is, in my opinion, an offshoot of this.

I have come across people who thing being confronting or rude (they call it "challenging") is good, or a sign of being evolved. Some times - very few times - it is. Most times it is not - all the times I have experienced it, it was simply boorish, intellectually arrogant behaviour (what would be called "being a troll" in internet groups). My karma must have improved quite a bit on this aspect: I haven't been subjected to that for quite some years now. (The fact that I experienced it at all suggests to me that I probably exhibited the same behaviour myself. Or perhaps it was a learning experience ... nah - that latter attitude is too much of a cop out, in my view.)

By "good manners" I do not mean following some of the old fashioned books on etiquette or following particular ideas on social intercourse (such as that you have to converse and discuss intimate details of your or others life - gossip is one of the most damaging forms of social cohesion/bonding that I know of): I mean basic courteously. Things like acknowledging other people's presence, paying attention and having some consideration of, for instance, someone who is using a walking stick and thus appears to have mobility issues, not jumping to conclusions.

Also, emotionally mature people can accept valid criticism/correction without falling to pieces. Attainment of this aspect requires working through Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs until one has good self esteem. Criticism that is malicious may have a useful element of truth in it, but criticism that is wrong is something that should be rejected.

As a final issue, I personally consider emotionally maturity is marked by the presence of empathy (which I touched on when discussing manners).

Now, mental maturity. I'm going to propose that this comprises two parts:
(1) having a basic education so one has an adequate ability to comprehend basic things (like language, numbers, science) without necessarily being an expert in anything in particular (getting to leaving level of high school will pretty much cover this); and
(2) the ability to think independently (i.e., the ability to not be duped by advertising, political "spin", or the "spin" of others such as media or false gurus [I certainly hope you've kept your thinking caps on as you read this!]).

Getting a good basic education is so fundamental to being able to think independently and critically, as well as to stimulating the developing areas of the brain, that I consider it an essential part of achieving maturity. In matters such as attaining human rights for women in developing nations, education of girls is often a fundamental prerequisite.

Good education often covers critical thinking.

Now spiritual maturity. This, incidentally, is not the final version of maturity that I will consider :) It is, however, a development of the previous versions of maturity, and is reliant upon achieving physical, social, emotional and mental maturity.

Spiritual maturity is, to me, defined by:
(i) acceptance of the fact that change is inevitable, and one can best manage that by choosing to grow constructively (towards being all that one can be);
(ii) being able to look beyond the world one has grown up in, and see behind the barriers of social norms, socialisation and expectations placed upon us to what is of lasting, valid importance to the spirit/psyche/soul of oneself and others (I could refer to this as "not being duped by society");
(iii) being able to see the caring behind emotionally confronting behaviour (in a sense, this means not being duped by people who put on a facade of being nice); and
(iv) being able to identify own mistakes and address them without having to be kicked up the backside.

One definition I considered and ultimately rejected for this version of maturity is:
"giving serious, BALANCED consideration to the impact one has on others and the world, but without sacrificing oneself for others (one could say this requires, in essence, a balance between Left Hand Path and Right Hand Path, or the ability to look one's darker aspects in the face and accept, integrate and love those parts of oneself without being consumed by them)"
I think the points I have come up with cover this adequately.

The last point I listed under spiritual maturity leads me to a new topic: what I call "functional maturity". Unlike spiritual maturity, this is not dependent on other maturities, although mental and emotional maturity are probably going to happen first. My definition of this is:
- being able to be given a task and not need excessive supervision or motivation to satisfactorily undertake it.

Young children (not teenagers) need a high level of guidance to complete tasks - it is how they learn. Adults should not need that same level of guidance: they should be able to do some thinking about this task is to be done, and get it under way (with appropriate checks back to the originator of the request).

Finally, I have an aspect I have, for the purposes of this blog, chosen to call "general/overall maturity". My measure of this is experiencing a Saturn Return (at around 28-30yrs), which is when one things one has not attended to adequately in the first part of one's life come back to bite one on the bum. So ... if you've attained a wide range of the types of maturity I've outlined here, but have neglected one, that one is what life will tend to throw up in your face. It's a bit of a "catch all" provision. Unfortunately, it doesn't work as a universal thing, as I know people in their 30s who are still self absorbed gits, and older people who are also failing on some aspect of maturity.

I'm personally working through some issues - maybe as a result of my Uranus return - it's probably a bit like a deferred mid-life crisis ...

Interestingly, according to http://www.innerself.com/Astrology/uranus.htm, 18-21 is the time of the first Uranus event of significance [the Square, significantly affected by Saturn transits], followed by Uranus Trine in mid-20s when people leave their parent's nest, Uranus opposition when people have a mid-life crisis, the 2nd Uranus square at 59-65 [which I'm not quite at yet] and the Uranus return at 82-84: have a look at the link :) ).

So, let me summarise all this.

Physical maturity:
- probably still happens around the completion of puberty, although changes and further development still happen after that.

Social maturity:
- achieved by moving out of one's parent's home and functioning effectively as an independent adult (with a note that the gap between physical and social maturity can be an inherently problematic time).

Emotional maturity:
- ability to defer gratification;
- the ability to form and sustain mutually fulfilling relationships;
- good manners;
- the ability to accept valid criticism/correction without falling to pieces; and
- empathy.

Mental maturity:
- an adequate basic education;
- the ability to think independently (not be duped).

Spiritual maturity:
- acceptance of change and intelligent participation in it by choosing to grow constructively;
- being able to look beyond the world one has grown up in to what is of lasting importance (i.e., "not being duped by society");
- being able to see the caring behind emotionally confronting behaviour (i.e., not being duped by people who put on a facade of being nice); and
- being able to identify own mistakes and address them without having to be kicked up the backside.

Functional maturity:
- the ability to be given a task and not need excessive supervision or motivation to satisfactorily undertake it.

Overall maturity:
- experiencing a Saturn return.

So, in my "system", one must be at least 28years old to be mature. That doesn't worry me: I'm way out the other side, well past the ancient Roman Empire ideal age of 43 years old (thinking about what a Uranus return means, actually :D ), and one achieves maturity at differing times in the various parts of one’s life.


Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

This post's photo is yet to be posted

Tags: personal characteristics, personal responsibility, attitudes, change, maturity, immaturity,

First published: Saturday 20th June, 2009

Last edited: Saturday 20th June, 2009

Post No. 060 - The Middle Ages and Today's Psychic Sewers

If you go back a few hundred years to when Europeans had forgotten about hygiene, we had the situation where sewers ran down the main street. Cess pits (their version of toilets) overflowed into the drain in the middle of the street, and everything was thrown into that drain. It was a terrible time to live in, with diseases rampant, and people dying or blowing themselves up at night by closing out the night air, which was thought to be evil, which allowed the noxious and sometimes explosive gases to build up in their homes.

How smugly we can look back at those times, and pity those people for being so ill-informed.

What a damn shame we are as ignorant in our way as they were.

We live, today, in the psychic equivalent of those open sewers. People generally do not know how to keep their energies to themselves, or do not deal constructively with issues/problems, and the overall effect is to create a unhealthy or even dangerous psychic environment.

And we do generally do not even see this as a problem.

If someone allowed their property to become overgrown and infested with vermin, their neighbours would call upon the Council to have the place cleaned up for the good of all.

But we do not do the same when it comes to psychic world - we get offended about "attacks on our personality", or say "what a load of crap!", or try to defend a non-existent liberty.

I look forward to the day when we take pyshic health & well being and being reponsible psychically as such a mundane matters that it is taught in schools, and Councils will do their bit to make sure people don't project their energies - without trying to force them to be different people.

That's an interesting balance, don't you think? Not ptojecting your energies but staying a grumpy old curmudgeon if you want. How would such a thing be acheived, I wonder, in such times? How could it be acheived now, I wonder?

(Psst - look up closing your aura, grounding and centering and personal responsibility!)

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr

This post's photo is yet to be posted

Tags: personal responsibility, personal characteristics, grounding, interactions, interpersonal interactions, lifestyles, protection, Psychic attack, psychic health, respect, responsibility,

First published: Monday 8th June, 2009
Last edited: Monday 8th June, 2009