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19 Sep 2008 @ 16:27, by shreepal. Philosophy
The truth, the eternal conscious being, which is perceived by humans variously – depending upon one’s Para psychological propensity as the Supreme father, the Divine Mother, the Ultimate State or whatever kind of thing It appears to that psychology – has always been there allowing Itself or Himself bound by the law of conservation of energy. It or He was there before the birth of great leaders of mankind like Lord Buddha, Lord Jesus Christ etc. and shall always remain there.
The supreme tool of human beings for knowing things, that is, Mind, as of today is not developed enough to resolve the dilemma of the ultimate – the primordial creator or the creation. The choices available to us are either to postpone the resolution of this problem to an indefinite future, to a point of time in future when humans would be evolved enough mentally or otherwise to tackle this supreme question and proceed further on our forward march or to pass our judgments today denouncing things Divine as against Science and vice versa. The wisest choice on our part is the former option.
This timeless truth has been spoken of by credible people and there is no reason for us to doubt their integrity. The truth spoken of by them is timeless but the context and the times in which it was spoken have changed with the passage of time beyond recognition today.
While passing our judgments on their statements we should always remember that a truth has to be clothed in words, context and circumstances to make it understandable to the people of the time and relevant to their problems. Today we speak of this truth in the words of Science. It is but natural. But this process inevitably puts ostensible limitations of time-specific culture and rigid frames of contents on its otherwise limitless substance. This truth is limitless from the weak human measures. Its relevance to times and circumstances includes not the past ages alone but our (modern) age as well.
Let the rigid religious moulds formed around it by lay followers of different leaders of mankind over the ages pursue their respective old-beaten tracks, take their own course and complete their natural run. And in the meantime, let these rigid, divisive and narrow moulds thus extract out of this eternal source their due life-sustaining nectar for their remaining period of life, for the period till humans pierce these moulds and get to the bottom, to the centre, to the essence. It is for them to follow this track of outlived utility and realize its diminished utility and not for us to dissuade them from that path.
We on our part should go to this centre of eternal truth and tap its benign flood-light to expose the rampant habitations of human miseries and misfortunes on earth and to heal them by its curative energy. The sweep of the truth of which the great human leaders have spoken is not confined to individual charity and good conduct on the part of an individual; it takes within its sweeps the charity and good conduct of the organized human society.
This truth is not permissive in the face of evil times; it is revolutionary to the core. It is more revolutionary in character than any of the ordinary revolutionary human thoughts. If revolution is understood a radical change, then this eternal truth is concerned with nothing but bringing a radical change in the individual and collective human living. Let this eternal light be inscribed by us as a war cry on the revolutionary banner of the New Age.
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18 Sep 2008 @ 19:41, by martha. Philosophy
New-Style Thinking (NST) has been a term Patricia Sun ([link]) has used for several decades to describe a new way to perceive using both the intuitive and logical sides of the brain. She believes we are a young species and are learning to mature both our right and left hemispheres of the brain to create whole brain thinking. More >
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18 Sep 2008 @ 14:11, by beto. Philosophy
In September, 21th, 1908, exactly one century ago, science entered a kind of railroad switch that has taken its development to the point we are now. Today we see how different everything could be if the option were another, in that crucial point of the scientific evolution. More >
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31 Aug 2008 @ 15:53, by martha. Philosophy
When I make my run for the Presidency I can't wait to read the headlines. I have a very mixed ancestry so the headliners will need to call me 'Irish-English-German-Native American-Basque-Canadian-American". Just think of all the groups I can get votes from since lots of Americans come from these different nationalities. To save the investigators time let me break it all down for you. More >
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27 Aug 2008 @ 20:05, by martha. Philosophy
Old-Style Thinking (OST) is a concept Patricia Sun ([link]) has been talking about for several decades. It is characterized by fundamentalism, which is a form of fear. Such concepts as "my way is the only way", "you are for me or against me", hating a religious group, suppressing human rights or not allowing a woman to make her own choices about her body are some examples. Our world is filled with Old-Style Thinking causing war, pollution, power over others and the destruction of earth. More >
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11 Aug 2008 @ 12:11, by anandavala. Philosophy
Before joining the conversation, please read and accept this Invitation to a Conversation.
Contexts of Understanding
In relation to any 'reality' there are always two apparent
contexts. A few examples are that one cannot have a story without a
book being read, or a movie without a movie reel in a projector, or a
virtual reality without a computational process. In each of these
examples the first is an empirical context (objects, places and
events) and the second is a transcendent context (that which creates
and sustains the empirical context).
There is also a unified context, which is the context that
contains both apparent contexts. For example, a room containing both
a book and a reader with an imagination is the context in which the
reading of the book operates (transcendent) and the imaginative
experience of the story manifests (empirical). These are all just
simple worldly examples to illustrate some aspects of the situation.
In the case of our own reality and world-experience things are more
subtle but still manifesting an apparent empirical and transcendent
as well as a unified context. The two apparent contexts are just
different perspectives on the one unified context, hence they are not
actually separate contexts, but only appear to be separate.
Although there is one unified context and two apparent contexts,
when contemplating the nature of our reality most people are unaware
of the unified context and fixate on only one of the apparent
contexts and assume that it is the only context. Some are grounded in
one apparent context and deny the other, thereby only understanding
half of the situation, and some attempt to mix both apparent contexts
into one and thereby get very confused.
Below is a simplified map of the contexts and a brief commentary
using the VR
analogy. More >
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4 Aug 2008 @ 09:07, by johnjoseph. Philosophy
Why is Dialectic Important
In an article a while ago I contrasted the Taoist approach to solving problems with the Confucianist one. Taoism tries to grasp the essence of anything it analyses or any problem it is trying to solve. Confucianism, on the other hand, seems content with looking at and considering secondary, superficial, irrelevant and numerous inessential aspects of a subject or thing. Occasionally this leads to a solution, but usually this is arrived at only after years of piecemeal efforts by different people. The Taoist approach often yields a quick answer to the solitary enquirer.
The Confucianist way is analytical but reductionist, it splits things into a myriad of incoherent aspects that seem to lack a connecting thread. This is the method of traditional science. It is also very anxious to eradicate qualitative aspects of the matter in favour of purely quantitative ones. As part of this it gets rid of any analysis of the problem into complementary opposites or dialectical categories.
One can say that there is almost a phobia, as yet unnamed, which people have when dealing with qualitative and dialectical angles of the problem or idea. And I will tell you why. This fear, almost pathological, of qualities and opposites is very similar to the fear of intimacy which you find in a neurotic person, usually men. Because dialectical analysis, literally, is a way into the heart or Essence of a thing. And just as many people shun intimacy, likewise many people feel very uncomfortable with the essence of anything, preferring instead all sorts of distractions, secondary aspects and irrelevancies.
The analysis of anything in terms of its opposites and contradictions is a time-honoured method of getting to the heart or essence of it, and has been part of the Perennial Philosophy for thousands of years.
Some people think that the Taoist way of solving problems always involves an incredible “Eureka” moment, akin to a moment of mystical Enlightenment, which relies on the complete grasping in one stroke, of something’s essence. It does sometimes happen like that, but often it involves the hard work of thoroughly analysing and understanding the opposites and contradictions in the thing and their mutual connections.
More >
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31 May 2008 @ 03:10, by athos. Philosophy
The essay is based on the philosophy of the I Ching and is in two parts:
The first regards the positive definition of economic value. It shows that in every considered period of time the price of the gross product’s represents the whole time of labor of the system, independently from the function of commodities - i.e. the distinction between means of production and consumer goods - and independently from how they are distributed - i.e. how prices can vary accordingly.
The second part shows how the idea of value as incorporated labor, with the consequent concept of the transfer of means of production’s value into the produced commodities - implying a coincidence between the totality of labor of the system whit the only net product’s value instead of the gross product’s - conceals the relationship between prices and quantities of labor, and the real, or absolute value of the various currencies remains unknown. More >
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3 Mar 2008 @ 12:50, by johnjoseph. Philosophy
Problem 3: How to bring fresh water from a nearby river to a small Chinese town.
This example is given by Joseph Needham in his book Science and Civilization in China as illustrating the main differences between Confucianist and Taoist approaches to doing things. The problem is how to provide fresh water to a small town from a nearby river. The Confucianist approach would be to divert water from the river at a convenient point well below the town and then use much man-power, mechanical devices and expense to lift it up again to the level of the town and so distribute it. This will solve the problem while generating employment, circulating money, aiding the invention and perfection of mechanical devices and generally keeping everybody busy. The Taoist approach would be to divert the water at a convenient point above the level of the town and using the natural tendency of water to find its own level, that is to run downwards, create an aqueduct to lead the water to the village or town and so distribute it. This method uses nature’s properties to move the water rather than human effort, creates much less employment (a one-off aqueduct rather than constant lifting of water), circulates less money and does not need inventions or mechanical devices.
This example clearly reveals that Confucianism is a social philosophy, and its solutions to problems are designed to benefit society in creating wealth, employment and invention. The Taoist method is one which is based on the individual, addresses the essence of the problem rather than appearances, and is in tune with nature. Instead of expending effort in lifting water upwards after we have allowed it to run downwards, we just divert it at the right point to run by its own momentum (with gravity’s help) into the town.
Conclusion
Clearly, there are simple, easy ways to solve problems and there are difficult, tedious ways. It seems very much the case that civilized society, with its obsession with externals, appearances and irrelevant details prefers the difficult way to do things. This is in keeping with its greatly over-yang nature. Over-Yang means giant, mechanical, crude, external, superficial and so on but most importantly, over-masculine. There is a clear link between the problems in our society and problems in our psyches concerning sexuality and gender. The solution must be to redress the balance and level-off with an equal emphasis on Yang and Yin values. Yin, after all, represents the small, the inner, the subtle, the essence and naturally, the feminine. If we are in harmony then society is in harmony.
It is my belief that every problem, whether it is Fermat’s Last Theorem, or CERN’s accelerator, or getting cheap energy through FUSION, has a simple solution as well as a difficult, complicated one. But our society’s obsession with doing things the Confucianist way, in order to create wealth and employment and inventions, means that people have forgotten, to a large extent, the ancient Taoist (and universal) approach that seeks simple, easy and cost-effective solutions to difficult problems. People just don’t believe that there are simple solutions to many of these problems. If the experts can’t solve them then they must be impossible, they think. But maybe the experts are looking in the wrong place, and the wrong way, and from the wrong perspective.
I am not asking people to abandon completely the Confucianist approach, which is so engrained in all of us, particularly men, by our upbringing and education. All I ask is for the imbalance to be less completely one-sided and total.
Ideally we should use both techniques to solve difficult problems, both the Yin and the Yang, both the ‘left brain’ and the ‘right brain’, both Taoist and Confucianist. More >
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22 Feb 2008 @ 09:33, by johnjoseph. Philosophy
Edward Carpenter, Gandhi and the politics of Identity
Edward Carpenter was a Victorian writer, anarchist, socialist and spiritual adept who,famous in his own time, was forotten for most of the twentieth century and is now being rediscovered. He appears very different from Gandhi, who was famous in his own lifetime and whose reputation has continued to grow since his death, so that now he is considered one of the greatest figures of the last hundred and fifty years.
But Carpenter is comparable in many ways to Gandhi. He came from an upper middle class family as Gandhi did. He followed a conventional path and career until the chance reading of the poetry of Walt Whitman sent him on a path of simple and unalienated living in rejection of the false values of Victorian society. Gandhi went through a similar, if less dramatic, transformation through reading many deep and powerful books.
Carpenter was a mystic and had the honour of being profiled by Maurice Bucke in his classic book “Cosmic Consciousness”(1900) as a living example of the state of consciousness he terms “cosmic” and which he also ascribed to Buddha, Walt Whitman, and other historical figures such as St.John of the Cross, Jesus and Mahomet. Gandhi is known by everyone as “Mahatma” or Great Soul.
Both were visionaries and prophets. Gandhi saw that the gradual evolution of the world would lead touniversal peace and realised that the key to this was the practice of non-violence and truth. Carpenter predicted correctly many subsequent developments of society and the world.
Both had a radical view of civilization, which is a subject close to my own heart. Carpenter had a critique of civilization which is on the same level of insight as the ideas of Freud, Fourier and Marx. Gandhi used the word civilization in an ideal sense as a state of society not yet attained and famously stated that western civilization “ would be a good idea”. It is not very well known but in Chapter 6 of his 1909 book “Hind Swaraj” Gandhi wrote:
“Several English writers refuse to call that civilisation which passes under that name. Many books have been written upon that subject. Societies have been formed to cure the nation of the evils of civilisation. A great English writer has written a work called ‘Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure’. Therein he has called it a disease.”
The writer to whom Gandhi is referring is none other than Edward Carpenter.
But all this comparison of Carpenter and Gandhi would be of little point if it were not the case that Edward Carpenter has something to say to this present generation which is acutely relevant.
Carpenter was a prolific writer and dealt with themes that were taboo in Victorian times such as sexuality and homosexuality. He was one of the first to write about what we would today term “minorities” and “equal opportunities”. His own situation gave him an insight into something that is now cutting-edge and critical. He saw the wretched position of women, both poor and rich, in Victorian society. Also, the marginalisation of people seen then as deviants and criminals. All this was not alien to him and is not alien to us. And of course Gandhi was right there too. Gandhi felt passionately about the plight of Indian women, not a minority surely, but a marginalised majority. He worked hard to combat the evils of the caste system, particularly as it created the stigma of “Untouchability”. He cared greatly for the Muslim minority in India and tried to avert Partition.
The poet Rilke made a profound observation to the effect that “ Our deepest fears are the dragons that guard our richest teasures.” We can rephrase this to say “Over the gateway to the Free Society stands the sign of Identity”.
Ever since the first photograph of our blue planet was taken from outer space, the question of identity has grown more and more powerful. Inner space is the new frontier and has been for the last thirty years.
If we are prejudiced against Jews, or Muslims, or gay bishops or disabled black women or any other expression of the infinite variety of human diversity, then we cannot move forward through the gateway to the Free Society.
As Gandhi often pointed out, quoting the Bhagavad Gita, the real battle is the one which goes on inside ourselves, our own psyches. Gandhi and Edward Carpenter are in agreement here and this is part of their continuing relevance to the ongoing struggle for Freedom.
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