Isolation

[Starman]

Watching the "Royal Wedding" very early this morning on the U.S. west coast,
I was uplifted by the address of the American pastor, Rev. Curry, who compared
the discovery of fire with the spreading of love, and how he associated the profound
implications related to the two. As he said, (paraphrasing) fire has had an immeasurable
impact on human civilization and spreading love would have even more of an impact on
humanity than the discovery of fire.

Thank you all for your sharing, open-hearted, thoughtful, input on this topic.

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by LiberatedLotus

Undeniably, the
state humanity is in within the aggregate is directly
caused by past lives / our predecessors & the current
inhabitants who refuse to see these cycles and
break them.

The way I 'see' (and so relate to) it, the 'event' being processed in this thread is a very small 'feature' of our general 'human condition' at present. Here's the how I 'framed' (perspectivised :) ) said 'condition' in my book, Godspeak 2000:

"There were times, such as the period during which we were hunter-gatherers and simple herders, when relatively limited perspective and short-term design, governed by the instinctual imperative to “be fruitful and multiply,” (Genesis Ch.9) were indeed sufficient. In a world where dominance has not yet been established by any particular species, creative purpose is well-served by general efforts towards material productivity and biological reproduction. Kept from overexpanding by inability to prevail, populations remain in dynamic balance. When no particular group monopolized the stage, the stream of Life moved forward smoothly, without interruption.

But drastic consequences ensued once we attained and consolidated a position of unrivaled ascendancy (as one species or another was bound to eventually, given Life’s inherent ‘upward’ aspiration). With others no longer able to functionally constrain our growth, we have since then repeatedly expanded past the point that our ecosystem could regeneratively support and sustain. Severe crises have continued to recur as the needs and desires of increasing numbers of us have cyclically exhausted the productive capacity of our environment, precipitating ecological disasters and massive populational deletions. Again and again, as now once more, we have found ourselves caught in a tightening net, faced with life-or-death prospects in increasingly competitive relationship with one another, as available resources become insufficient.

Events and trends of this and recent centuries highlight the escalating process. As individuals and groups continue to multiply and aspire to ever greater power and attainment in the context of a finite setting, in addition to increasing levels of stress, more and more suffer unwelcome privation. As returns gradually diminish, more and more have to work harder and harder to make a decent living; and fewer and fewer of those who are functionally dependent are adequately provided for and protected (witness the plight of so many of our children!).

As exploitation becomes exhaustive, those at a competitive disadvantage sink into poverty and become increasingly malnourished and ill-effected by environmental pollution. Not just materially; analogous trends are evidenced in realms of Mind and Spirit. The texture of emotion and awareness becomes more and more nightmarish. Eventually, all hell breaks loose—anomie, anxiety and frustration spread and build into an epidemic of loneliness, paranoia and rage, and finally explode, with more and more people trying to escape hopelessness, in an avalanche of insane desperation.

Synchronously, relationships break down. As people feel deprived or threatened, immediate self-interest eclipses empathy based on mutual identification. Respect and goodwill fall by the wayside. Personal desires are opportunistically asserted as valid, even as their equivalents in others are adamantly rejected as unwarranted impositions.

Sociopathology proliferates. Love becomes a mere charade; more and more often, fanciful attraction just leads to a bed of thorns. Marriages more frequently fall apart; proportionally fewer true unions are formed. Homes become battlegrounds; family life degenerates into a horror-show, full of ill will and discontent. Parents become increasingly negligent and abusive; children more rebellious and insolent. Cultural transmission is disrupted as the young and the old become mutually unsympathetic, each begrudging the special considerations and opportunities the other, by virtue of organic status, should be afforded. Even institutional settings specifically designed to promote growth and well-being become wastelands, as more and more functionaries don’t truly care for their charges and their charges become increasingly dysfunctional and vindictive in response.

It should come as no surprise. As individuals and groups press up against and are reciprocally pressured by others, not of their liking or choosing, the desire to have and the fear of being had catalytically combine to spark distrust and inflame antagonism. In such context, some behave like lone wolves; others like dogs gone mad. Most, however, join in unholy alliance, not united by love of Life but by shared greed and common aversions.

Not recognizing the desire for self-enhancement itself to be the underlying cause of the dissatisfaction and distress they experience and encounter, individuals and groups project blame outward, rationalizing that they and theirs are (or would be, if they didn’t vigilantly ensure otherwise) insufficiently given to and excessively taken advantage of. Denying their own duplicity and viewing others as particularly villainous, as circumstances deteriorate, they justify uncharitability and deceit as legitimate means of getting ahead, and treachery and the wreaking of vengeance as fair ways of getting even.

Mutually beneficial arrangements for the sharing and exchange of labor and its fruits consequently break down. Alliance against alliance, ideology against ideology, ethnic group against ethnic group, class against class, and newcomers against the establishment, as well as in-groups against the outcast within them, rivalries become so cutthroat that enmity develops between people, wherever categorically different. Whether hypocritically hidden or openly done, incidences of criminal dereliction and abuse become more insidious, more violational, more widespread, and more frequent.

Recurrently, at the tail end of a period of relative abundance during which all sorts of developments tend to flourish and proliferate, a dominant but unlearned species such as ours experiences an evolutionary crisis characterized by extremes of the forementioned abominations. Not as simply as the collapse of a weakened structure or the bursting of an overly distended balloon, more like earthquake activity and volcanic explosions, the growth of the complex of our pressures past the limits of multifaceted ecosystemic con*tainment occasions destructive disequilibrium in a series of episodes, with ones less catastrophic bracketing holocausts of major proportions.

And, unfortunately, as our capabilities naturally expand and increase, to the degree they continue to be one-sidedly deployed, they serve to magnify the scale and extent of the atrocities that are unleashed.

[Starman]

In short, it seems many are referring to tribal divisions, whether that tribe be a click at school
that excludes certain people, a religion that is intolerant of anyone who does not belong to their
theology, different ideologies, color of skin, political leanings, or some other “us” and “them”
mentality which pits people, and groups of people, against one another, i.e. tribal warfare.

The Cold Within,
a poem by James Patrick Kinney

"Six humans trapped in happenstance
In dark and bitter cold,
Each one possessed a stick of wood,
Or so the story's told.
Their dying fire in need of logs,
The first woman held hers back,
For of the faces around the fire,
She noticed one was black.

The next man looking across the way
Saw not one of his church,
And couldn't bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.
The third one sat in tattered clothes.
He gave his coat a hitch,
Why should his log be put to use,
To warm the idle rich?

The rich man just sat back and thought
Of the wealth he had in store,
And how to keep what he had earned,
From the lazy, shiftless poor.
The black man's face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight,
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.

The last man of this forlorn group
Did naught except for gain,
Giving only to those who gave,
Was how he played the game.
The logs held tight in death's still hands,
Was proof of human sin,
They didn't die from the cold without,
They died from the cold within."

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by Starman

In short, it seems many are referring to tribal divisions, whether that tribe be a click at school that excludes certain people, a religion that is intolerant of anyone who does not belong to their theology, different ideologies, color of skin, political leanings, or some other “us” and “them”
mentality which pits people, and groups of people, against one another, i.e. tribal warfare.

The following excerpt (from the second chapter of the treatise titled "What Jesus REALLY Meant" which I am presently in the process of composing) puts 'tribalism' into perspective, I think.

Please note: by 'souls' I reference the psychospiritual gestalts (or mental and spiritual 'patterns') of 'nodal' aspects of the SOUL, or MIND and SPIRIT, of ALL BEING.

Unlike those souls which inhabit and pursue their objectives using more physiologically ‘hard-wired’ (and therefore less capable of elective information processing) ‘bodies’, which souls therefore, analogous to what materialists ‘see’ as merely being mathematical-law bound energy clouds which more or less just reflexively oscillate about in The Flow of Creation as repeatedly agglomerating and dissolving patterns of being with no significant possibility (except ‘accidentally’ of course) of developing a psychospiritual gestalt other than the one they already have, we (hereby referencing souls functioning on the basis of relatively advanced kinds of physiological platforms; ‘advanced’, in this case, referencing more refined information-reception, -processing and -transmission capabilities) can and (so) may cognitively apprehend the functional significance(s) of and (so) elect to relate to the constellational configurations of our own and others’ existential gestalts (or sub-aspects thereof) in ways of our own choosing (hence the phenomenon referenced as ‘free will’).

We ‘have’ the potential to learn from and choose to change the patterns of our thoughts, feelings and behaviors based on the ‘feedback’ of personal experience in a multiple-identity constituted context so as to become more ‘adept’ at creatively executing Life’s Love and Joy maximization aimed Source-code which, I hope I reasonably convincingly postulated and argued, is the imperative that ubiquitously operates within all being. Hence the development of what we call discernment and discrimination (in the case of the latter word, I don’t mean the stereotype-based kind of course!) and the increasingly selective execution of derivative choices such as ‘acceptance’, ‘trust’, ‘devotion’, ‘wariness’, ‘rejection’ and ‘banishment’, for example,** as well as increasing degrees of wisdom in terms of the ways in which souls choose to deploy their ‘will’ in such regards.

[**Note: This is just a short sample-list of conceptually black-and-white thought-feeling-and-behavior characterizations which I have compiled to illustrate the point I am making. The ways which Mind and Spirit may choose to flow in are actually spectrumatically infinite, both in terms of variety and admixtural combination.]

The learning and consequent wisdom-development I speak of is in the direction of more fully appreciating the functional commonalities and connections between one’s ‘self*’ and other ‘selves’ and (so) relationally engaging with them in ways which, more and more so in the long term, synergically augment and improve the quality of both one’s own and others’ experiences and expressions of Love and Joy, increasing the likelihood that not just one’s own but others’ wishes and desires to experience and express Love and Joy will be maximally fulfilled in the process as well (except, of course, if and when said others are so other-exploitive and self-aggrandizing that they sully and degrade the potential for the communal experience and expression of Love and Joy, in which case alternate kinds of relational responses, such as non-cooperation, counteraction and, when and to whatever degree this may be feasible, the unilateral imposition of (hopefully positively educational) behavior-modifying constraints may be called for, for the same, aiming to maximize the experience and expression of Love and Joy in the context of Life’s Flow, ‘greater’ good ‘reason’.)

Which explains our gradual progression (albeit, as a result of their selfishly biased calculus in the foregoing regards, not in every soul’s case, and often in periodically regressive, one-step-forward-two-steps-backward, learning-the-‘hard’-way, fashion) from completely selfish to familial to clannish to tribal to national to global to universal and, ultimately, to cosmically self-transcendent psychospiritual ‘i’dentifications and corollary choices and behaviors, meaning that folks increasingly think, feel and believe and so conscientiously act knowing that, though each and every individual and group is unique and so differs from others in significant ways, one’s ‘self*’ and all other ‘selves’ are really integral expressions of Life Itself; in other words, knowing that, despite apparent differences, we are all relationally connected aspects of the same (in ultimate terms, One and Only!) Cosmic Being in action!

[H:O:R:A:C:E]

that was a moving poem Starman,
i'd like to contribute my stick to the community fire.

Utopia ~ Love Is The Answer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPDQUp_audU

also, there's this, from an analysis of Joseph Heller's Catch-22:
Anything worth living for, says Nately, is worth dying for. "And anything worth dying for,"
responds the sacrilegious old man, "is certainly worth living for." Nately counters that it's better to
die on one's feet than live on one's knee; the old man answers that it is better to live on one's feet."

[Starman]

Had eye surgery about a month ago and have been posting here, for several weeks,
with only one eye as my left eye has a patch on it. So I'm in need of a break else I'll
strain my one good eye by looking at a computer monitor too much. I am told that by
August my left eye will most likely be usable once again. Fortunately, I do have other
pleasurable activities which do not require eyesight; like meditating, listening to
beautiful music, having my Kindle read to me, etc. Not watching T.V. or spending
a lot of time on the computer can be refreshing. Until next time.

Peace & Good Journey To All of You,

[LiberatedLotus]

Originally Posted by Starman

LiberatedLotus, we are comparing and contrasting our various perspectives because in no way am I trying to get you to see things my way. For me there is infinite diversity in this creation and that applies to our perspectives as well. I don’t think we all are suppose to see things the same way; if that were true we would all have the same color skin, the same culture, the same height and weight, etc. So that is my qualifier, and now I will share more of my perspective in relation to what you have said in your last post.

Yes!

Everything is subjective but nothing is personal. Just because it happens to us does not mean it is personal. If you believe in the concept of "soul" then the things you have said would make sense, but I believe in the oneness of being. There is only one being at work here. Below the surface, we are all one and individuality is an illusion in my opinion. We effect each other without even having met or spoke to each other.

We are using linear thinking to discuss that which transcends linear thought. Nothing in the universe is what we call it here on Earth. Everyone has their own unique puzzle to unravel, or put together, and the closer I come to my own inner light the more I realize that I am not the do'er. I am a state of being, not a state of doing. Advancement on the path happen for me when I let go, not when I try to force it..

I sometimes ask why also, but not as frequently as I used to. My antidote is to just try and live in the present, in the moment, because the questions remain the same but from a human perspective, the answers keep changing. I accept what the Desiderata says "the universe is unfolding as it should." The only power I have is to see into myself, and that happens by grace alone. Yes, I do believe in addressing injustice but I try to do it from a place within me where I disappear and unconditional love takes over.

There are really no absolutes; how can there be absolutes when the journey is infinite? Everything comes and goes in cycles, everything travels in a spiral motion. The spiral takes us to greater heights when we learn how to deal with the energy presented in a cycle. A problem is only a problem because we are dealing with it in an ineffective way. In my opinion we are transparent beings, possessed by whatever influences we have invited into ourselves. Self-indulgence is the culprit.

I like the Genesis creation story as told in the Hebrew Kabbalah. Adam and Eve had to leave God consciousness, which is described by this account as the Garden of Eden, in order to procreate. According to this account, it was not a sin, rather it was a necessity. They really did not have to leave God consciousness but they fell in love with the flesh, and lusted after each other. There is more to this version than what I'm sharing here, but my point is that there are no mistakes or accidents; "to everything there is a season." An as a side note; I do believe that spontaneous creation and progressive evolution can coexist. It does not have to be an antagonistic bifurcation. I seek to build bridges, not to take sides.

Peace

Yes.
I am genuinely fascinated by the perspectives of
others as it allows for me to view the landscape
from another vantage point.

I, too, believe in thee source in which all is a
derivitive of: infinite diversity / "individuality"
that comes to form. Yes, by grace you can only look
into one-self and I feel that in-sight directly reflects
into the uni-verse that we all are. So, I suppose, my
perspectives come from the thread/s we all share
with due respect to the infinite colors they express
themselves as. Or aligning oneself with natural laws
& allowing nature to run it's course.
Questioning to what extent is one by nature
or a product of being nurtured.

Yes, I feel being in servitude to the psuedo-self
does undermine the undercurrent in which we all
share. The undercurrent could be considered source
= truth & how frequent/unfrequent one is in
alignment with could give reason for why the world is the way it is.
Isolation, as the topic of your thread suggests.

I'm not sure about transparency in the respect that
I feel there is an anchor that which most are grounded
by. Soul that some allude to. Yes, throughout
the years, the cycles & phases are present. I do not
recognize "myself" as growth and refinement have
taken place. Yet, the essence, is eternal. I feel
thatis separate from spirit. Possibly.

Thank you for the recommendations.
Kybalion has been on the list for awhile.

Originally Posted by Starman

In short, it seems many are referring to tribal divisions, whether that tribe be a click at school that excludes certain people, a religion that is intolerant of anyone who does not belong to their theology, different ideologies, color of skin, political leanings, or some other “us” and “them”
mentality which pits people, and groups of people, against one another, i.e. tribal warfare.

Fire is an avatar of the collective unconscious the same as darkness is, and it more than likely has its roots in the same place. Fire was - back in cavemen days - a place of comfort because it gave light and warmth as well as a cooked meal if the hunter was successful. It was used to ward of animals and what served as a warning to the animals served as a beacon in the night to other weary, hungry hunters. If the tales are true fire was God-given because it was discovered after a bolt of lightning hit a tree and set it ablaze. Even today people start bonfires on beaches and others automatically gather round. Today there are fewer metaphorical bonfires, there are fewer reasons to come together and more reasons to set ourselves apart.


I noticed a thread you'd started a while back, asking why few of your threads didn't attract much traffic. Feeling lonely? This thread and pretty much most of what could come from it has little to do with Spirituality per se, and no I'm not complaining because I'm actually OK with it. What happened was any number of things other than Spirituality and with respect, most that frequent these boards won't touch that with a barge pole.


And yet, you experience the greatest Spirituality of all.

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by Starman

Had eye surgery about a month ago and have been posting here, for several weeks,
with only one eye as my left eye has a patch on it. So I'm in need of a break else I'll
strain my one good eye by looking at a computer monitor too much. I am told that by
August my left eye will most likely be usable once again. Fortunately, I do have other
pleasurable activities which do not require eyesight; like meditating, listening to
beautiful music, having my Kindle read to me, etc. Not watching T.V. or spending
a lot of time on the computer can be refreshing. Until next time.

Peace & Good Journey To All of You,

Peace & Good R&R Journey to you, Starman. Looking forward ... to the Until next time journey-path crossing.

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by Greenslade

This thread and pretty much most of what could come from it has little to do with Spirituality per se, and no I'm not complaining because I'm actually OK with it. What happened was any number of things other than Spirituality and with respect, most that frequent these boards won't touch that with a barge pole.

Great post, Greenslade. The only thing it I didn't resonate with was your (implicit) 'definition' - i.e. finite-ion really - of 'Spirituality'.

I hope you understand that's because I regard Spirituality as being ubiquitous,* as is Mentality regarding said Spirituality (though either or both may be 'projected' as being 'absent').

* Hate, Banishment, Withdrawal, etc. etc. etc. are all elective 'Spirit'ual 'acts', as are Love and Communion, IOW.

High-Five, Man!