I find it interesting that though I am generally a loving person who wonders why we can't all get along and even coined the term "Navel Tribe" to point out our global commonality, I still after all these decades appreciate grabbing one of my sticks and going through some moves designed to totally devastate anyone on the receiving end. And that even though I have cried and thrown up after feeling forced to hit another person, I am on the way to developing a class for senior citizens that will teach martial moves with walking canes. What the hell and what the heaven?
A brute with angel wings wearing a halo with horns.
In puzzling this out (which for me is not some form of Aristotelian logic nor a ponderous thought process attuned to the philosophers of the ages but simply sitting my butt in a chair and repeating the first part of the above mantra -- what the hell?), I immediately find strong imagery -- a spiraling vortex of energy moving from brute to angel and from angel to brute and both of those directions simultaneously. Kind of a bruteangel whirlwind, if you will.
I smack my psychic lips. Aha! This is my practice! As I move in these age-old martial ways, I transform the brute. The brute gets happier and looser, more open to the angel. The angel meanwhile is becoming more solid, anchoring in this brutish realm. Each opens to the other and a melding does occur.
No hell. No heaven. Just this.
I suppose everyone has some form of bruteangel transformational melding (now there's a name for a workshop!). What might be yours?
http://www.tomthumb.org/trustgod.shtml
ReplyDeleteTrust God But Tie Your Camel
There was once a man who was on his way back home from market with his camel and, as he’d had a good day, he decided to stop at a mosque along the road and offer his thanks to God.
He left his camel outside and went in with his prayer mat and spent several hours offering thanks to Allah, praying and promising that he’d be a good Muslim in the future, help the poor and be an upstanding pillar of his community.
When he emerged it was already dark and lo and behold – his camel was gone!
He immediately flew into a violent temper and shook his fist at the sky, yelling:
“You traitor, Allah! How could you do this to me? I put all my trust in you and then you go and stab me in the back like this!”
A passing sufi dervish heard the man yelling and chuckled to himself.
“Listen,” he said, “Trust God but, you know, tie up your camel.”
This is the classic answer for those who believe that their faith alone will carry them through life. Innocence can indeed be a valuable shield but there are basic measures that have to be taken just as a matter of common sense. If you leave the jar of honey open by morning it may be full of ants. No amount of belief is going to change the basic facts of living in this world.
So, you are basically preparing good people to "deal with the world".
Obviously, when the relatively enlightened person meets an unenlightened person who means him harm and doesn't listen to reason, then the enlightened person better be prepared for violence.
But there is that verse in the New Testament (Luke 4:29-30) about people wanting to do Jesus harm in his hometown, but they couldn't touch him. One wonders if a fully enlightened person has an anti-violence field unless that person chooses to be harmed. The Romans, being civilized thugs, obviously didn't feel anything until he died. The Centurion was the only Roman Jesus touched the day of his execution and death.
John, good teaching story from tom thumb! Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThe anti-violence field makes sense to me. The only violence that has touched me over the years has been my own.
Such a good post. I couldn't help but notice your about me section...interesting stuff. nonverbal communication research wow! Bee-keeper and hog farmer cool!
ReplyDeleteI like "embracing the good, the bad and the ugly" for my workshop. I realize I'm all three...and i must accept and embrace and love me. I want to be mostly good. :)
My Dad always said..not just him but the JW org. that the devil keeps transforming himself into an angel of light (i guess they thought that means negative) and they say that the Truth/God keeps getting brighter and brighter...meaning positive.
ReplyDeleteI asked my Dad...here you have two balls of fire...one gets brighter and brighter and the other one keeps transforming himself into an angel of light...How can you tell the difference between the two?
He laughed at me...and really didn't have a response. maybe thats where the fear sits.
Kathy, an excellent question -- how can you tell the difference between the two? The brute becomes the angel; the angel becomes the brute -- simultaneously. You can't have one without the other -- Holy Matrimony, Batman!
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the energies we represent, I like the way Brad Olson put it in a comment yesterday -- we are devices that store and modulate energy. This post is about the modulation of the energies that we are. We do embody IT ALL, you know. We take EVERYTHING personally, it is our nature. Then to keep from imploding or exploding, we must DO SOMETHING to regulate the energies. Swinging a stick around ain't a bad way. Neither is medipraytion, dancing, bowling, hiking, laughing, singing.
ReplyDeleteSome folk try to just acknowledge the light and ignore the dark. Seems like a copout to me. We are both dark and light. So is the Great Ah-Hoo-Ah-Hoo-Ah, our Source. Even the Judeo-Christian Holy Book says so -- "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." Isaiah 45:7
Seems to me our job as humans is neither to sit on a cloud humming and strumming nor to roil around in the pits of hell as demonic forces but to deliberately intermerge the two in synthesis, synchrony, and synthrony.
:) O thank you! I like your response. Sounds good to me. :)
ReplyDeleteYou phrase the question in such a calm manner, but the question itself ~ if I'm understanding it ~ is a very tough one to answer.
ReplyDeleteOne either fights back or one doesn't. One either condones violence or one doesn't. Jesus did not condone violence and would not fight back. All of this stuff about "anger against the money-changers" and "just wars" are rationalizations people use to excuse themselves in the face of his blatant, uncompromising pacifism. It was the same for many of his followers and onto Tolstoy, Ghandi, Thoreau, ML King and many more - uncompromising.
In a mere smidgen of your own activities, George, I studied aikido for a few years in my own attempt to rationalize, to turn the other's energy against him or herself to defeat their aggression in the most passive way possible. But that too was simply a compromise, even if it was the best one going.
If you're not a pacifist, then there's no reason to feel guilty. Your intent at best is to inflict wisdom, even if the weapon is pain. No need for guilt, so long as you're careful in picking your battles.
If you're a pacifist, then no amount of rationalization will make any difference. That's why being a pacifist is so damn hard. I don't think we can have it both ways.
(Which is why, although I admire them, I'm not a pacifist.)
Well said, Gregory LeFever. I hadn't considered the pacifist angle, that Jesus, Ghandi, ML King Jr., and others have perfected. Dr. King did mention that pacifism affects the attacker. There's little sport in attacking someone who doesn't attempt to fight back and it looks bad (and is bad) if the one beating the non-violent demonstrators is a public servant, such as a police officer or sheriff's deputy.
ReplyDeleteIf we define violence as a disruption leading to injury and death, this universe is a highly violent place, at all levels and dimensions.
ReplyDeleteA human is an ongoing series of violent acts. We destroy with our every move, our every intake and exhalation of breath. Internally (physically) we are eating ourselves alive (into life) with about one-fourth of our cells always in the dying process. Internally (emotionally) we can be vast cauldrons of seethingness, sometimes at a slow boil, other times spitting heat. Cognitively, we entertain images that cause us pain as we plunge the daggers of regret, guilt, vengeance into ourselves again and again.
Even beans scream when you bite into them. Listen carefully, everything is eating everything. Munch, munch. Crunch, crunch.
We are a violent bunch in a catastrophic world.
Mr. Awake (Buddha) pointed out this triple world (desire, form, formlessness) is on fire. Jesus said that at some point he was going to throw a large chunk of it into the fire.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever considered that your body heat is you ablaze?
Regarding violence in the world RIGHT NOW -- a letter from Gaza --
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.b92.net/blog/59/Jasmina%20Tesanovic/
I am not a senior citizen, but I want to come to this class George.
ReplyDeleteyou are welcome to come, amethyst -- the fee will be $100 per session but there will be 132 scholarships and all who show up get a scholarship
ReplyDeleteKilling something and eating it is allowed. That's just part of the molecular dance called Life and most organisms practice one form of it or another. Killing someone or something for sport, a parking place, over an idea or ideal, religious differences, possessiveness, etc. is most of the time plain wrong, if not wrong and foolish. But then, it's questionable whether Humanity is an intelligent species or not. We might be the first species to extinguish ourselves if we keep behaving the way we are. Hopefully, we'll wake up before that happens.
ReplyDelete