very cool,

   what do you think of zen leadership vern peace?

  your opinions are highly appreciated!

 (never trust A phd) and i qoute

I was at an alcohol free party once, people were providing various forms of interactive entertainment and one was playing crazy. I enjoyed it and apparently I did quite well. I was then told that I'm obviously not crazy since I am able to pretend it, the logic being that truly crazy people would be very stifled. Hah! Well I have changed my avatar here to a nose picking one, it's a statement.

Thanks for liking that piece!

Arte Dea - Symbolist Art

Thank you, those are very kind words from someone who doesn't know me! I wish I was a really nice person but in reality I'm quite upset most of the time with the way of the world and the people in it, and it makes me grumpy and not terribly motivated to be that good myself. Bitterness, frustration, anger... it's best to stay away from people most of the time but with the advent of the internet one gets a front seat to human ignorance... no no mustn't be disappointed, mustn't have expectations, mustn't live like the typical human... and one must live even more consciously in the real world. /sigh/

Arte Dea - Symbolist Art

Good morning to you too Layman,

  Ah Yes Coffee...Strangely enough today I switched to DECAF. And that's another story......

But what I wanted to ask you my friend!

 "Are You for real?"

"Could I please use your list of pretentious opines to help my slacker hipster friend trick a psychiatrist into

putting him on "The American Dole" and let him go on S.S.I."

"The best thing we could come up with was telling the doctor("I like to wear purple ladies underwear in the moonlight!"

"But Layman, I think you're list of psuedo "spiritual experiences" might just do the trick"

"I can Imagine if he's lucky enough to see a good head shrinker something like this might happen!

    He walks into the office wearing said purple underwear and maybe an amythyst "cock ring" for good measure...lol

"Hello"

      "What's up man!"

      "Nicholas, good to meet you...sit down and relax...Tell me about yourself young man..I'm doctor Chaudry!"

       "I believe That Random Chance and Many other thangs will sound "almost" like a god if you take time to describe it carefully baby...."

       "Interesting Nicholas, How does that make you feel?"

        "I don't know Dr Choudry!" , "I've seen a version of myself seemingly mixed with all my ancestors and glowing (Like the "cock ring", lol) and claiming to be half-real and half-void"

         "Mm Hmm" "Your parents are concerned about you son-what does your mother do?"

      "She's a born again Christian and talks to Jesus on a daily basis man!"

      "I see, Do you share her beliefs? Do you get along with your mom Nicholas?"

      "I Don't know but once I saw my entire universe Reveal itself as Thee single face of an insanely familar powerful "entity..."

       "I see, do you have a past history of drug use?"

      "One time I took 12 hits of liquid acid, smoked a Cheech and Chong size Joint, Drank two six packs and had a psychadelic experience where I couldn't stop peering at the solid concrete floor becaus the mere gravel was dancing with skulls"

      "I was dancing to Bob Marley as he sang "Brothers you should know....And not Believe"

      "Are you still on drugs???"

      "I don't know if I'm HALLUCINATING right now !!!!$%$#"

       "O.K. Nick, Does your mother pray for you?"

        "I can't stand It!"  "I just want to be free!" "I pray every day for something to happen!" "And my life always-

                        " Ends up confused and I want to be a rockstar!"   

        "Effective prayer needs the mobilization of The heart and whole body along with the upward mental focus of the werding"

          Nicks Amythyst Glows with the soothing light of a soft morning sunrise

        'Well if you put it like that Doc!, I can't complain"

        "Good son, it seems our time is up so I think we have to rap things up Nicholas...I'm concerned about your drug use   and  reccomend you get yourself straight before attempting to go on any psychiatric meds."

          "Oh.           "Thanks Doctor Chaudry!"

         "Your welcome Nicholas. See Mika and schedule an appointment for let's see, three, two months from now..and in the mean time I reccomend you play your guitar every day if you want to be a musician!

 ...................................................................................................................................................................................

Mood Elated

Music (off) The sound 'amen' emenating "up from the skies"

Be Vegan Make Peace

Time alas for another cup of Lipton! Thanks I AM Reese Perez

"I think this ones a keeper !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And Another cig lol.          This gem is dedicated to an old friend,Sajid, from Sweet Pakistan Land !

          Blessy Blessy Blessy                                          

Mood: Does yawn-y count?  Still half full of last night's dreams and East Indian food.

Listening to: amateur techno remixes of soundbites from Big Trouble in Little China (off the Wing Kong Exchange website)

Hey Reese,

I could tell you how I feel about God, treat God, treat the word "God" 

but there's something else about how integralists feel about what God is...

since we have this levels & quadrants & states business

we sort of have to say 

that we have multiple meanings of God

nested in a hierarchy

echoed in different domains

examples?

well, we're supposed to accept 1st person (Ultimate Self), 2nd Person (Divine Person), 3rd Person (Supreme Substance -- "god as a thought" goes here, so does Bliss or Everything or the Light (my mother's God))

we're supposed to be the group which understands and agrees with AND disagrees with a mythic god, a rational god, a superstitious god, etc.

we're supposed to be the group which agrees that a shared God is different and equally valid to a personal God

etc. so organized multiplicity is key.

but if i pretend you asked for my opinion?

1. once i saw my entire universe reveal itself as the single face of an insanely familiar and overwhelming powerful entity
2. often i am confronted by a "common stuff" which stands out in anything and everything
3. sometimes i think the "Highest Possible Thing" is something everyone has in common
4. i believe that Random Chance (and many other things) will sound almost like a "God" if you take the time to describe it carefully
5. i've seen a version of myself seemingly mixed with all my ancestors and glowing and claiming to be half-real and half-Void
6. i relate to people who don't like to hear the word God in discussions, who feel like they're hearing a concealed fist, a refusal to really engage
7. i relate to people who naturally connect with their own religious "organic mode" by invoking this simple word
8. i have prayed spontaneously in crisis situations... and must then admit that i am acting out a "someone", supposing a "hearer"
9. i felt very obviously that I "was God" following a few meditation sessions and one psychedelic experience.
10. I write a short hymn to the personification-of-illumination every morning.

I could go on but this is a good sample pack.  For me there is no need to assume that these experiences relate to the same thing.  They might all be going in different direction and could have nothing in common with what folks call their "God".  Faith does not require belief.

• When the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, "When speaking with the Divine Logos it is wise to agree that all things are one..." I hear a kind of jovial threat.  "When speaking with Caesar it is wise to agree that his daughters are lovely..."
• When the author Phillip K. Dick had a visionary experience of God followed up by a long period of revelatory communication he went on to spend the rest of his life coming up with alternative interpretations.

Got to admire those guys!

As for what works?  Well, that depends on which type of God one's trying to get in touch with.

• Drugs are great if you can use them well.
• Effective prayer needs the mobilization of the whole heart and whole body along with the upward mental focus of the wording.
• Any meditation which gets you "behind" everything which count's as "you" -- well Who does that leave?
• Most universal tactic is probably to find a representation of God that intrigues you and spend an extended period of time purposefully contemplating it, trying to understand it, feeling into it, sensing it, tuning into it, assimilating it, etc.
• And, silly but sometimes effective, take a little time each day to speak in the voice of God.  This "big mind" is a voice option within ourselves.  What if the word "I" always only meant God?  Then how would you speak honestly...?  What would you say...?

Ah -- time for coffee.

Good morning. 

Layman Pascal

(to receive Layman Pascal's "weekly harangues" try: pretendtomeditate@gmail.com)

Hi Layman, His Stanley!

 I like these posts. I wanted to get a grant or something when I was in highschool so a rich buisnessman set up a thing where the students would go on a walk through my neighborhood and pick up all the trash. There must have been like 20 of us and It was a lot of fun, We were picking up trash but it was casual and we could talk to girls and we were getting schooling for it.

 I would think some one crazy if they objected to something like this! And a student that wouldn't go on the trash walk is just plain lazy!

 Then when I was 19 I joined City Year Rhode Island, wich is a community service orginazation pushed by George W Bush. There was a lot of bull shit involved but we got cool uniforms and jackets and a new pair of timbalnd boots and would get a stipened every two weeks to do community service in the state. I painted houses,demolished houses, taught children about homelessness awareness in schools,picked up a lot of trash and did many other things.

Every Friday we would get the day off from working and it would be community day. I remember one day they brought in gays and lesbians and we diologued about their lifestyle and raised awareness. some of it was pretty funny when some one asked a lesbian couple who leads when you dance!

People from every strata of society joined City Year from inner city crack dealers to asian ivy leauge colledge students. I even almost got kicked out a couple of times. All in all it was a good if not happy experience it was worthwhile.

 I think we can all do something to make the world a better place.

And I should know! I'm the most self absorbed,greedy,narscisistic person you might meet. My mom tells me that all the time. When I have problems(which are legion) My mom always says "do something for someone else' "anyting" "It's a way to forget yourself"!

  Genpo Roshi said you can tell if someone is close to enlightenment when they doubt everyting

  My mom told me once that she doubts everything!

 Thanks I've been

 reese perez

Dear G,

 I enjoyed this post and fully agree that more Et research and and awareness is nesc. I also liked stuart daviss clip on here about UFO's.

I find it funny that some peeps still don't believe in space people in these modern times even though the facts are staring everybody in the face. My theory is that in an infininte universe with numerable planets and billions of stars and galaxyis it seems very absurd that little planet earth is the only one with life! Not to mention reports of ufo type events in the bible,buddhist scriptures and ancient records like phoenitians etc. Add Area 51,News show sightings and crop circles and it's defininte!

 By the way I might be an alien and so might you!!!

 I hope more integralists comment on this important Universe stuff and one more thing

 Did you know that it's a fact that all the very advanced spiritual and technological aliens are vegans?

Be Vegan Make Peace

 R

 Tired now, but please email me, I would love and be proud to join you in community

Maybe it's more of a feminine concern. I don't see what's wrong with trying to look your best for another to gaze on either.

I imagine those who are always picture perfect must put a lot of time into the process: the afternoon rains made me the antithesis of that today, and I generated a lot of stares in my drowned rat (mouse) appearance. But, underneath it all, i was knowledgeable that my hair would be let down to ever awesome-ness.

A blessing i have. and am grateful for. I would have a hard time with the loss of it.

To think that people are instantly thinking the worst of you...?

To want to judge and test people and forums to see if they are "worthy"...?

These prickly responses -- which depend partly on your own projection of "annoying tone" and "critical dismissal" -- seem all-too-near the surface, no?  

Please forgive any faults you find with my current tone... for I am only working to place words in accordance with my own pleasures (surely just as you are doing).

And most importantly of all:

No one would ask provoking questions unless they genuinely wanted to hear more from you.

I sure do.  I'll bet Ambo does.  I'll bet most everyone does.  The hoped-for reply is the one which shows more of the positive energy you wish to share AND welcomes others more deeply into what you are saying be demonstrating that you have a space available for their different concerns and perspectives... which will almost always be coming from some weird direction.

Thanks, I've been...

Layman Pascal

(to receive Layman Pascal's "weekly harangues" try: pretendtomeditate@gmail.com)

The previous few posts have started to clear up a few things for me. You guys are right-The desire to be bliss get's in the way of the real bliss you already are...

Hello (President) Jason,

If you never get tired of tired of hearing appreciation for the service of soldiers then please also accept it from me.

What I am curious about, however, is how your project is going?  Specifically -- is there evidence to suggest that the kind of transformation you seek to make in people is actually being accomplished through Creative Arts and the kind of Education and Orientation procedures you are employing?

I have found that regardless of the ideas and inspirations I receive through illuminating experiences that I have no reason to believe that these ideas necessarily cause or support higher realities.  I have also found that most people who want to "tune in" are already basically tuned in.  Very little "transformation" seems to take place through education and affirmation.  But then I lack the data to know for sure. 

What have you found?

Thanks, I've been...

Layman Pascal

(to receive Layman Pascal's "weekly harangues" try: pretendtomeditate@gmail.com)

Your thoughts are appreciated and sensible, Joe.  They remind of my old dictum that "sanity is a symphony of mental illnesses".  When one instrument/complex stands out unreasonably then we have a pathological condition.

I suspect than in addition the possibility (which I see as very likely) of multiple PSMs there might also be something like two types of PSM-ing activity.  The first is structural -- turning perceptual patterns and complexes into objective utilities.  The second is a kind of rogue (R-PSM) which overlays itself on other structures.  It contracts the general reality-field back onto a semi-automonous fragment of conscious or unconscious feeling, sensation, perception, thought, etc. 

My suspicion is that this R-PSM is operative almost constantly in the ordinary mind and creates an unusual, unnecessary fixation of experience which inhibits the optimal natural work of converting complexes into the harmony of Self.

Thanks, I've been...

Layman Pascal

(to receive Layman Pascal's "weekly harangues" try: pretendtomeditate@gmail.com)

Thanks to Stanley for hitting the nail on the head.  It is not that "I" have a conscious personal reason not to want the BEST POSSIBLE THING.  Rather it is that anyone/everyone is already the BEST POSSIBLE THING and, at some level, is voluntarily avoiding this Ultimate Reality. 

So when we raise the issue of "not wanting to shine as Infinite Eternal Bliss"... then we are very close to the heart of the puzzle, the place where the un-necessary ego is biting its own tail, the place that starts us on a fool's errand.

Question: Should we value, strive for & try to commune with Eternal Infinite Ananda of Being OR should we consider that this motivation is already evidence of a weird error which separates us from the Ananda that we already are?

Answer: Yes.

Thanks, I've been...

Layman Pascal

(to receive Layman Pascal's "weekly harangues" try: pretendtomeditate@gmail.com)

What you say may be true but all the same it bears little resemblance to my own experiences.

Oh, I don't mean that I personally worry less about superficial appearance and therefore don't quite relate to the experience of those who do.  Rather I mean that the talk of "beauty" I have heard for my entire life has almost exclusively been people asserting that we should move beyond a "skin deep" idea of beauty -- toward a healthy hybrid of inner & outer beauty. 

I relate to this feeling.  It seems correct.  Yet for my entire life the "popular superficial attitude" has been precisely the one I possess -- the one which appears to be criticizing and offering an alternative.    

Everyone seems limited by their guesses about what "most" of everyone else might believe.  

Which is the more basic idea - that beauty is skin deep OR that "beauty is skin deep is our basic idea"?

But maybe that's just me.

I'm a depth-monger who has to work hard to appreciate and value the radiant nature of "mere surface".  And what's worse -- half the time I can't even find the difference between depth and surface.  I hope I am not imposing this nonsense on an issue that other people find to be very important!

And, very probably, I love you.

Layman Pascal

(to receive Layman Pascal's "weekly harangues" try: pretendtomeditate@gmail.com)

These thoughts occur to me.

This unconscious squeezing or holding of one's breath could be modeled as a semi-autonomous process which is creating affect in the individual and thus causes a "narrowing the field of experience."  And as you write, it is by becoming consciously aware of this affect that you are thus able to exert some conscious control over it.

Couple this with the assertion from depth psychology that the ego is but one of many processes which comprise that amalgam known as human personality, and we have to consider the possibility that some/many of the complexes (semi-autonomous and even autonomous processes) which comprise our psyche could potentially have their own PSMs! 

This makes sense because when one is in the grip of an autonomous complex they are seeing the world through that complex and are not seeing the complex itself. 

In general, complexes are necessary and vital (as you can read below), and it's only when they become autonomous that they're pathological.

Some quotes from "The Complex" by Erel Shalit

To Jung, it is consciousness that is short-sighted, while the unconscious is honest and healing.  If we do not bring a conscious relationship to it, however, the unconscious may become chaotic, even lethal.

The complexes, then, are more like the construction workers who give visible and comprehensible shape to underlying archetypal blueprints.  It is through the complexes that we manage to approach the unconscious without being overwhelmed and engulfed by it.  Likewise, by means of the complexes the unconscious approaches us.  In Jung's words:

"Complexes are in truth the living units of the unconscious psyche, and it is only through them that we are able to deduce its existence and its constitution."

Thus, if it weren't for the complexes, the archetypes would remain empty and purely formal possibilities of representation. Jung says,

"A primordial image is determined as to its content only when it has become conscious and is therefore filled out with the material of conscious experience.  Its form, however, ... might perhaps be compared to the axial system of a crystal, which, as it were, preforms the crystalline structure in the mother liquid, although it has no material existence of its own.  ... The archetype in itself is empty and purely formal, nothing but a facultas praeformandi, a possibility of representation which is given a priori."

In other words, the complex serves as the vehicle that fleshes out the archetype, giving it human shape and personal body. 

[The author's] intention in [his] book is to clarify the purposeful, teleological essence of complexes, as well as their pathological, shadowy manifestations, and to show how an autonomous complex, dissociated from one's conscious identity, comes to thrive and gather strength in the shadow.  An autonomous complex competes with the ego for available psychic energy.

[...]

...Jungian psychology postulates an objective psyche, or collective unconscious, made up of forms, molds and energies that serve as blueprints for common and universal human experiences.  These are the archetypes which, Jung clarifies,

"correspond in every way to the instincts, which are also determined in form only.  The existence of the instincts can no more be proved than the existence of the archetypes, so long as they do not manifest themselves concretely."

As "possibilities of representation," the archetypes manifest only when some level of consciousness comes into play.  Thus we find archetypal ideas and images in myths and fairytales, in religion and in literature.  Archetypal motifs, for instance the stages of childhood and coming of age, unfold in a person's actual experience.  These motifs exist prior to the individual child's development, and whatever unexpected realizations the encounter with old age might bring, there were those who came of age before oneself.

However, what for mankind is a small step might sometimes be a giant leap in one's life.  The archetype does not determine one's life course, and the actual experience is not shaped by a predetermined mold.  to this end, we need complexes, for they are the path and the vessel that give human shape and structure to archetypal patterns as they unfold in personal experience.  The complexes provide the link between archetype and ego, enabling transformation of the archetypal into the personal.  Just like dreams, which attain their garments from the complexes, writes Jung,

[Complexes] are not subject to our control but obey their own laws... In saying this, we assume that there are independent psychic complexes which elude our conscious control and come and go according to their own laws.

The complex is, thus, messenger of the gods, or the archetypes, rather than that of the ego, though the personal life is its object.

Jacobi calls the complex the "energy giving cell from which all further psychic life flows," and "the life-renewing and life-promoting source whose function it is to raise the contents of the unconscious to consciousness and mobilize the formative powers of consciousness."

The complex enables the transition from the land of blueprints and propensities to the personal world of individual experience.  Complexes might be imagined as trucks that transport instinctual and archetypal raw materials from the never-ending vastness of the great unconscious, bringing it on the long and winding road into the city-boundaries of the "ego-state," in which nature can be further shaped into human and conscious culture.  Or, we might imagine the complexes as bubbles that rise up from the archetypal bottom of the sea.  A complex that can be integrated into the individual's evolving consciousness enables the ego to expand, and the ego boundaries become more flexible.  This is the teleological, purposeful task of the complex.

[...]

Core, Cluster, and Tone

Jung describes a feeling-toned complex as

the image of a certain psychic situation which is strongly accentuated emotionally ... This image has a powerful inner coherence, it has its own wholeness and, in addition, a relatively high degree of autonomy, so that it is subject to the control of the conscious mind to only a limited extent.

Complex denotes a network of associations, images, ideas, memories, or the like, clustered around a nuclear, archetypal core of meaning, and characterized and held together by a common emotional tone.

Thus, the complex embodies three major elements - an archetypal core around which personal experiences cluster, and an emotional tone that serves as the gravitational force that holds this microcosm together.

The nuclear core is archetypal.

Therefore, when it is said:  "The subject of one level becomes the object of the subject of the next level," what are we doing?  We're uncovering the complexes and assimilating/integrating their archetypal core energies into our awareness!  Transcend and INCLUDE.

Thus, I continue to view the shadow module (upgraded in practice to what I would rename to the "soul module") as THE main task.  These are the first stages of spiritual alchemy.

Joe

--

From the island of unwanted toys..

And I appreciate your civility as well -- although, like yourself, I also enjoy a occasional hyperbole.  My comments about the ineffectiveness of your message should be taken as a slight exaggeration since, as you say, this is not "proven". 

>I see your rigid clinging to Wholism to be sometimes naïve. Ken Wilber tells us that if we wanted to become whole with the Nazis and stood in front of their tanks we would just have saved them a few bullets. And timing comes into play. After the backbone of the Nazi culture was broken most Germans became fine and decent humans; after. And it might take you some years of life experience for you to learn such things. Please don’t hurry to grow up on my account.

The "condescending bullshit" part of your communications is surprisingly endearing.  But I would make a few points:

Firstly I would say that rigid-clinging-to-Wholism is impossible.  It is precisely a task which requires that one challenge one's flexibility to increase at every step.  Secondly I am all for shooting Nazis, etc.  This is very closely allied to my "may better wars prevail" remarks.  You and I probably share a great deal of militant spirit provided it is in the service of a higher cause. 

Yet the problems of Germany ran very deep.  It was not a matter of simply breaking the backbone of an evil cabal and allowing the decent people to return to their benevolence.  The "culturopathy" which produces nihilism (of which fascism is the mobilized force which we should not hesitate to even violently oppose -- & you will note, perhaps, that I consistently make this kind of assertion) operates at conscious, unconscious, collective and ideological-systematic levels whose forms of operation are often anything but straightforward.  There was a sickness in the regular decent Germans, even encoded in their seemingly positive idealisms and mutually helpful behaviours, which summoned forth a beastly attempt at collective suicide that we now remember as "nazism".  The allied forces helped to purge the most infected "cells" of the German body but it has not vanished.  It lingers there as it does in all nations.  And some days it speaks with a threatening xenophobic voice.  Other days it speaks with the voice of tolerance and affirmation.  The variations on the surface must be overlooked if we are to treat this problem.  

Thanks, I've been...

Layman Pascal

(to receive Layman Pascal's "weekly harangues" try: pretendtomeditate@gmail.com)

hi Layman, first...come...facts

...then...opinions...and...last...

beliefs!

peace&love...vern

p.s...remember...the...emotion...

factor...its...impossible...to...have

...belief...without...emotion...and

...its...also...impossible...to...have

...an...emotion...without...opinion!

it is the idea of "fact" which mis-takes an opinion

we do not begin with the Real

even though we do begin AS the Real

--

Thanks, I've been...

Layman Pascal

(to receive Layman Pascal's "weekly harangues" try: pretendtomeditate@gmail.com)

deconstzruction

thanxx layman

hi Reese, good...to...see...you...again

...Ken...is...a...slave...of...the...new...

world...order...hoovering...up...the...

threat...of...all...the...real...spiritual...

folks...who...may...well...put...a...spanner

...in...thier...foolishness...somewhere...along

...the...line...Integral...is...just...a...very...thin

...front...becoming...thinner...by...the...day...

week...month...and...year...foolishness...of...

the...highest...order...the...clue...is...in...the...

Phd`s...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1ddxJECccA&feature=related

peace&love...vern

p.s...never...ever...under...any...circumstances

...trust...a...Phd!

"Facts arrive in our experience already interpreted through opinion and nested in emotion."

hi Layman, miss...taking...a...belief

...for...a...fact!

peace&love...vern

Hi Vern,

   I really like your comment about the wise man and the fools, very enlightening.

 Stanley, Osho has a book called "Books I Have Loved" where he talks about all his fave books. I have it in my library. I can dig it up sometime and tell you some of the books in there.

 Vern, I'm wondering what you mean that Ken sold out?

    Thanks

    Blessings

 Reese

I was very pleased to find this site. I've enjoyed reading it very much. Looking forward to further contribution, I am going to bookmark your blog and keep checking you out. Wish you good luck!

casting audiciones La Voz Mexico 2
 

I am reminded, in reading this post, that the "descending current" is a feminine reality -- but only when compared to "ascending orientations".  Both of them appear as the feminine energetic reality when compared to the unmoved stillness of Primordial Consciousness.  So now I am proceeding cautiously...

My heart turns to my own observations about the descending and/or feminine spirituality.  Its developmental progress seems inevitably to involve accepting sensations that are being resisted.  Premature ascent is connected with a refusal to incorporate (make feeling space for) the loss of a game, loss of a mood, failure of a sexual excitement, loss of autonomous intactness, failure to escape the gravitational pull of the mucky, inchoate earth realm, etc.  It is Saniel's "waking down" of course...

But you say:

>Red (Becoming), Amber (Being), Orange (Becoming), Green (Being), Integral (Becoming), Non-dual/Unity Consciousness (Being).  Isn't there more emphasis on Gods and Godesses in the mode-oriented Being stages? For orange, God and spirit is hardly more than a ghost in the machine. And "Spirit" or "God" is way too much a "given" for Integral (which rejects the "myth of the given"). The mode/being stages aren't afraid of assuming some sort of being status for ultimate reality. The image of such becomes a way of organizing relating with life. 

What do I make of this?  I am certainly very interested in the notion of half-as-many doubled-stages -- in which  'becoming' is an agentic deconstructive phase which liberates itself from the previous value sphere only to pass into the production of the new latent cultural 'being' space.   And this is a notion I hold together with Wilber's notion that each stage requires (a) differentiation (b) integration in order to be completed. 

So far so good.  But I am far from certain that Gods & Goddesses are more emphasized in the so-called "mode-oriented Being stages".  My feeling is that we all tend to use a fairly limited, needlessly conventional notion of 'gods' that we inherited from the archaic monotheists who were purposed to simultaneously study and devalue the the cultural patterns of the "pagans".  There is a bit of a language problem here.  Many ancient peoples would not have understood all our talk about 'gods' but were quite content with Powers or Energies, etc.  So the "machine" is a kind of God at the orange level.  And if I deploy Wilber's "Habermasian" ideas about the glorious value-sphere differentiation occurring in Modernism then perhaps we could also say that Art, Religion & Science are the 3 Goddesses of Orange. 

My point is that the distinction is not between "emphasizing deities" or not doing so... but rather, perhaps, between stages that are more likely to hold their metaphysics as "contingent, pragmatic, structural" and those which hold their metaphysics in a more "obvious, collectivist & story-like" mode.  But then if we use a doubled-stage model then each level of COS (cultural operating system) starts with pragmatic-structural metaphysics and ends up in story-like metaphysics.

>Could it be that despite all the male ego, the role of all the acquiring is to serve Love, like a gallant male throwing his coat over a mud puddle for his beloved lady to walk across, or a young son picking dandelions for his mommy?

No one seizes except as a preparation for giving... even if the day of giving never comes.  But here you touch on a point close to my heart.  What I call: The "wilber problem" & the "reich problem". 

In which sense is our idea of masculinity conditioned by the masculinity of simple, primitive levels... and in what sense is it conditioned by a plague of pathological manifestations which -- however common -- do not significantly demonstrate even the existing stage?

Something to think about.

Thanks, I've been...

Layman Pascal

(to receive Layman Pascal's "weekly harangues" try: pretendtomeditate@gmail.com)

--

Facts arrive in our experience already interpreted through opinion and nested in emotion.

Truth is something we would like to do to the opinions that we call "facts".

We create an opinion which criticizes the opinions we are calling facts.

Then we add another opinion on top of that.

We are getting many steps removed.

Soon these various lens begin to hold each other in check.

And the result is a fairly reliable bit of understanding which approximates "truth".

And this feeling is accompanied by an aesthetic feeling of "simplicity" "clarity" and "obviousness"

which mistakenly leads us to assume

it was a simple fact from the beginning

which only got overlaid with emotionalized opinion.

Thanks, I've been...

Layman Pascal

(to receive Layman Pascal's "weekly harangues" try: pretendtomeditate@gmail.com)

Good topic, Stan.  Here's a true story from my own life:

For many years I have found myself spontaneously moved to pick up garbage.  I had no plan or high hopes for this activity.  I seldom tell anyone.  It seems to be a simple extension of my deep attentiveness to natural harmonies and the immediate beauty of spaces.  However, it does periodically feel like I am "doing good". 

Yet in recent years I have become cheerfully suspicious of this "karmic high". 

Of course I continue.  Individuals efforts are necessary.  But while I am obviously being benefited internally by my deeds -- are they actually helping the improvement of the general system.  

• While I am picking up garbage the landfills are swelling. 
• While I am keeping my tap from dripping we are careening toward water shortages. 
• While I am buying ethical sea food the sharks are being brutally hunted to near extinction. 

At some level the idea of "individuals opting to help" is a sort of pressure release valve.  It lets the "system" and the "collective" off the hook.  As long as we conceive of our shared problems as things which can be addressed by the voluntary, values-based choices of individuals... then the built-in momentum of the society which promotes this attitude will continue to accelerate. So my regular act of picking up trash might be part of the problem! 

How could I tell?  I couldn't.  The only sensible thing was to devise experiments.  Perhaps new intelligence would deepen and widen my simplistic feelings about "doing good".  

So I created a hybrid solution.  My new karma yoga?  For every 3 pieces of garbage I picked up I would litter 1 piece of my own.  And if possible I would do this very deliberate where others (not city police, though) would see me doing it. 

The overall effect would be good (less garbage) but I would directly encounter my own motives by trying to challenge them.

So what happened?  Well, it was damned hard.  I could barely litter.  I kept "negotiating" with myself to minimize the amount of garbage I was willing to discard in beautiful places.  Eventually I succeeded, of course, but there remains something deeply educational about the amount of effort it cost...

Sometimes, but not all the time, good deeds are lazy.  Sometimes, but not all the time, idealistic actions indirectly support cynical realities.  We hope, like children, that we will arrive at a simplicity of being, a naturally super-productive goodness, a liberated single-minded benevolence which is obvious to all.  And this "kind of" happens.  But the truth is a place where simplicity becomes indistinct from complexity, where the obviousness of our being is intimately blended with an almost unbearable depth of ambiguity, where the "freedom from restrictive thoughts and habits" is itself understood to be a restrictive habit of thought.

Ah -- too much?

(and for those keeping score at home this last question is not a indication of an un-knowning or concern -- it is a positive and purely happy declaration)

Layman Pascal

(to receive Layman Pascal's "weekly harangues" try: pretendtomeditate@gmail.com)