The Season of Renewal
The great message of the season is that one must die to the old -- to be reborn in the new. That is the profound significance of Easter; that’s what makes life possible at a higher level of being, consciousness and fulfillment. A lot of people never die to the past, and so as life goes on, they only live in the past -- their memories, thoughts, habits, traditions -- and are incapable of renewing themselves to live in the greater promise of the present, which implies both the past and the future -- in the summation and integration of existence that is the challenge of reality and actuality for every generation.
The memories, the thoughts, the generalizations, the theories, ideologies and speculations, are not real; it is only the awareness of the present, the actual occurrence of that moment, that is real. There is intelligence in the plant, in the house, in the road -- which an aware mind can read -- just like they can read a book, but the book can only tell one what the writer is thinking and knows -- and not about the totality of that which is reality -- even beyond what our conditioning (education) tells us it is.
One doesn’t need to remember that a red light means to stop; he can tell by the movements and reactions of everybody/everything else, that it is not wise to proceed at that moment -- and not just because the light is red. He is reading and relying on the intelligence of everything else -- and not just what he has been taught by someone else, to remember as an inviolable truth, overriding every other consideration. It doesn’t matter if one is fully “right” in exercising their right, if the consequences of merely being “right” and expressing it, cancels any future ability to be “right” again.
The past is always dying to the present -- but some hold onto the past more strongly than others. In many cultures and societies, one’s education and conditioning is not to learn any other but that one they are taught (indoctrinated) -- for all time; the truth that they are taught, is the truth they have been born into and can never relinquish -- even when some greater comes along, or is made manifest. Such people are trapped -- into thinking they can never be another way, other than how they are told they have to be -- by the many authoritarian figures they will encounter in their lives. Such people will insist they have to be whatever “they” expect them to be -- because that is who they are inescapably, and must be all their lives.
So to break this bondage is a great achievement in every life -- enabling one to move to a higher level of possibilities, and not only remain within the control of the authoritarians and demagogues who wish to determine these things for everybody else, for all time, and under every circumstances.
Such a moment of significance and challenge did not just happen once, thousands of years ago, in a fabled past, but occurs daily in life and society. How we answer that is the passion of our lives.
posted by Mike Hu @ 12:15 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
When a person has lived all their lives in one place, in one culture, at only one job, it’s difficult to develop any perspective other than thinking that what they know is the only reality -- and seeing the need for being reborn into another era and manner of thinking. We have a culture that enables no change and unresponsiveness -- and that the concept of culture is of another time and place that needs to be remembered and revered, rather than that culture is a living, changing thing measured by its ability to adapt to the present realities of the time. It’s not a dead thing -- it is we, the living.
Significant moments in history are the disruptions and challenges to the past -- that enable societies to move up to the next level of human possibilities, and not just repeat history and every day lived before endlessly. That has no vigor and vitality -- no release of immense energy that comes with discovering the new, creating the new. Instead, the creative are suppressed and repressed to carry on the old, as though nothing greater ispossible, or should even be imagined.
But when we look at the great problems confronting society anywhere, obviously solutions that cause an ever increasing problem requiring unlimited funding and the creation of even more experts to do something that should be fundamental and basic to all life, has to be regarded as the wrong solution and the wrong approach.
Problems that are really solved, cease to be a major concern anymore -- and do not require infinitely more money, more experts, more high paying jobs. It’s one thing to pay one person $100,000 a year to be the governor, but it’s something else entirely to pay every kindergarten teacher that same amount to manage their classroom of twenty, no matter how challenging, unruly and threatening that group may be.
Things are worth what you get for them -- and not simply what you pay for them.
So when we start paying $100,000 for screwdrivers, it’s not because we’re getting “a world class” screwdriver, as the salesperson/lobbyist would have us believe -- but rather, that we’ve overpaid by $99,000. At that rate of exchange, the cost of living is infinite -- as the trend is to spend infinitely more for virtually nothing of value and productivity.
That is the problem in Hawaii -- where the media and politicians like to blur these distinctions. It is because these people cannot make these distinctions properly, that we have to do our own research -- beyond what the local media, schools and universities would like to convince us is the truth and ONLY truth. That has caused the explosive growth in alternative means and mediums of information -- ranging from the worst to the best, instead of just the mediocre (average).
Because there is such wide-range of experiences and quality, one has to develop a better sense and strategy for processing information -- beginning with the presumption that the source has to earn one’s trust rather than it should be given because they demand to be recognized as the “experts,” and are skilled at deceiving and intimidating one into thinking so. Frequently, that’s what passes for being “authoritative” -- that one has this authoritarian manner, that the unwary mistake as authoritative.
But if one can begin any inquiry by first “clearing the registers to zero,” he will be able to clearly see what is -- only as what is -- and not with all the baggage/prejudices of past encounters, experiences and indoctrination they batter us with relentlessly as their only noteworthy activity. Those who emerge from those abuses and misuses, are the people who will know the fullness of life -- not after they are dead, but while they are living this life! And so when this life ends -- there will be no regrets and remorse -- because in this life they have lived as fully, virtuously possible, without deluding themselves that this life was only a sacrifice to earn a greater one they are “entitled“ to.
An intelligent universe requires no such sacrifices -- but demands instead, that the life lived, is the best actualized. What one experiences with one’s own senses, is what the truth of the matter is -- and not what a skilled public information officer thinks still works on an unsuspecting public. The only people fooled anymore are those working in the media -- who are prone to these delusions of deceptions and gullibility. So far from being the best filters for the public information pool, they’ve become the worst -- with their own ambitions, susceptibilities and manipulations.
So because of this, has arisen a wholly new manner of seeing the world -- freshly, authentically, authoritatively -- and not simply as today’s “Pharisees and Scribes” would have us continue to believe, is the “Word of God.” Therefore, it is particularly fitting and poignant at this time, to reflect on this age-old lesson of dying to the old, limited manner of seeing life -- confident in being resurrected in a new, greater one.
The fear of losing is what keeps many from winning -- so convinced have they been by their past conditioning -- not to “let go,” for fear that if they let go of anything, they will lose everything. But in letting go, they are free to embrace the new, the greater, the supreme.
Of course the old status quo never likes that.
The opposite of entitlement is gratitude.
With gratitude, one recognizes he has already been given a gift -- something that they are not entitled to, and have no right to demand of any others. Their impulse then is to pass it on so others might also benefit from the generosity of the universe --the great benevolence and benefactor.
For the entitled, whatever is given freely and generously, is not enough. The more that is given, the more is demanded, expected, taken for granted, abused, and misused. The thinking is that there is no end to the abundance and prosperity -- that it is just their right, which only brings greater resentment and envy for all that one still does not have.
The demand for sacrifices from others is unabated.--and their insatiable demands are even regarded as “their sacrifices,” in just putting up with those who are not attending to them posthaste. After a while, they even claim that they want nothing for themselves -- and everything they do is done “for” others. They will stand piously and prominently for all to see, as they loudly proclaim their righteousness and virtue above all others -- their humble “public” servants.
The scribes will embellish such heroism to even greater legacies -- in the hopes of obtaining their own glory.
Questioner: "Why are you just preaching to the choir?"
Why do you think the objective of communications is to convert other people to your point of view? Wouldn't it be better just to both learn and discover something new?
That has been the problem of public discussions (forums) -- that people think it is a contest to beat the other into submission -- rather than just present their point of view and leave it at that. The insistence that nothing else but ramming one's viewpoint (superiority) down everybody's throat, coercing, deceiving, manipulating others, is the problem of the old mainstream (mass) media -- that doesn't have to be the problems of the new media.
We can go on to create better communications. The old debate format of engagement is really quite immature and a waste of human intelligence -- rather than the demonstration of it. No productive use can ever come of that manner of relating which is only to negate the other -- to prove one's superiority in that destructive manner. Instead, participants should discover the most intelligent discussion we are capable of having as co-creators and equals.
So I don't buy that objective that our purpose is to convert the rest of the world to our point of view/ideology. The objective is to discover the yet unmanifested and undiscovered intelligence accessible to all, equally.
Only liberals seem to think that the objective in life is to argue with as many people as possible to prove one's intellectual superiority. That is a sure sign of stupidity.
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