Tag Archives: giggling in the gutter

Thou Joy

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All is not as it seems; in fact – better than we fear or even hope. Much. All the world’s a stage; a set to hold and enable connection. Reality is not within us – our self – but in relation. Which is itself movement, whence relationship arises.

It is our attachment to our unfertilised ego that binds and imprisons us. Sentenced thus to solitary confinement. Magic shimmers when synapses between us crackle with the vibrancy of what lies beyond.

Relation to, with, through. Nature, others, creativity, ideas. Anything in fact except the non-existent “I” (Ich-Es) and its bedfellow materialism; which is literally stuff and nonsense.

The language of love is movement and acceleration. Relationship is evanescent motion, choreographed by joy. The word existing beyond time.

Experience deceives. It is built from the the rubble of the dry concretised and digital past. It is history, always outmoded. As Eliot and Buber put it:

“In the act of experience Thou is far away” (Buber)

“In the knowledge derived from experience, the knowledge imposes a pattern and falsifies, for the pattern is new in every moment. And every moment is a new and shocking valuation of all we have been” (Eliot)

“just as prayer is not in time but time in prayer, sacrifice not in space but space in sacrifice, and to reverse the relation is to abolish reality.. I do not experience the man to whom I say Thou. But I take my stand in relation to him .. No deception penetrates here; here is the cradle of the Real Life” (Buber).

“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, Except for the point, the still point,There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.” (Eliot)

Security

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Security?


It seems to me that the fundamental issue that haunts each of us is – insecurity. How, then, to deal with that? And it’s worth addressing. In my experience the more secure a person is, then the more listening, creative, compassionate, generous, talented and capable of joy they are. (And happiness is life lived in the expectation of joy). Conversely when we feel insecure we experience withdrawal. We become self-centred with attendant unhappiness and disconnection. Our horizons contract to world as prison.
How then does security arise? Where do we find an ability to like in confidence? (Con Fides; with trust). There is abundant evidence that this is determined very early in life by carers – of course normally parents – creating a predictable loving and connected environment in which the child can develop. (Oliver James points out one parent should normally be present full-time for babies and toddlers).
The connection to good and evil? In fact are these useful constructs at all.; or simply perceived positive and negative outcomes of random events?
Indeed we do need to deal with these concepts before tackling any personification or accretion of these into God and Devil.
For me, what resonates is;
Firstly science is uncovering deep meaning at the most fundamental level. Experiments on matter at the most microscopic levels shows that existence is an infinite series of possibilities, potential – until observed. It is the act of observation that, in effect, crystallises out this particular existence from the cloud of possibilities. That raises the issue of observation. Surely there must be an “observer” to create this particular reality. Sure enough, our species are the most efficient engines of observation, whether through science or the arts. We each of us spend our life in observation (or as some would call it – witness, some knowledge). Interestingly our gathering of knowledge is escalating in a geometric progression. (Are we approaching Teilhard de Chardin’s “Omega Point”?)
It appears to me that at least one of our purposes as humans is to be just this – engines of observation crystallising out existence. That puts the onus on us collectively. WE – life.
Does that not change a world view? Good and evil is created as we create existence. Accept that good and evil do exist, as outcomes of our collective path through life. Accept that is is our joint task to work for good effect around us, and do we not at least connect to purpose – rather than trying to live with our eyes tight closed against the fear that we float on a sea of random meaninglessness.

Perspective

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The eye of the beholder

Perspective

Perspective is the change in perception relating to a different angle or view. Perspective alters the internal reality and adds layers to understanding of some thing, some idea, some person. The layers are facets of the “real” thing, idea or person. (Were these already there, or do they depend on our seeing them?). Let us imagine for the moment that the “ideal” or “reality” exists without us knowing it, then these aspects lie waiting hidden, curled up, as dimensions to be discovered.

However, that which is perceived is altered by observation. (As demonstrated by quantum mechanics). Therefore perspective weaves together both prior existence and new creation. The angles or perspectives that we as individuals have yet to discover have a proto-existence. Not yet within reality, yet potent. (With high potential), which we activate through perception, and with that – create something entirely new.

Is this what Bion understands in his insight (perspective?) that ideas exist independently and before thought? 

“Thinking is a development forced upon the psyche by the pressure of thoughts, and not the other way around” WR BION 1962

Perspective therefore involves processes of discovery (or rediscovery) of what already exists – AND creation since the observation changes what is real. The pressure of pre-existing thoughts create the apparatus for thinking. The thinking transforms the thoughts.

There are two further aspects. Firstly externality. The very nature of perspective requires a boundary. One has to have an observer and observed. Secondly change. Perspective is most useful when there is something new – a change of angle. This allows and opens up the possibility of comparison. This viewpoint ADDED to and COMPARED with that viewpoint. It is this accretion of understanding that is useful and most probably implied when we use the word – perspective.

Perspective. A word with four attendants. Potential, Creation. Externality. Change.

I am cockleshell

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I am a little boat; tossed or rather carried by The creative force (that which I was brought up to name God). When I am in this flow then ideas reach out – poignant, powerful, present. This is not so when I am too much in my mind – working, trying – everything I touch turns out as a childish daub. Beached.

A few days ago, whilst waiting for my wife outside a shop, I saw a glorious sky, and it was just obvious that all is love and beauty; just waiting to be seen and to come in from the immense outside to which we belong.

Death ? This the beginning. The enforced pyre of our limited ego and mind which is co-created with our body’s growth. This ego, as Jung says, which is a time-limited fragment of our true self. The self wherein we are infinitely part of each other.

The BBC show – Strictly Come Dancing – was won by the deaf actress – Rose Ayling-Ellis. Her dancing with Giovanni, was efflorescent with divine love and beauty. This flow or force is – I believe – the true “thing-in-itself”; and most clearly felt and seen in flashes and in relationship. When my ego and body die, I will be released back into that ocean again.

Truth in a motto?

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As you walk into Paddington Station in London you see a Victorian shield with the mottos of the Great Western Railway. “Domine dirige nos” and “Virtute et industrial”. Now it’s a long time since my Latin lessons but Im told they’d mean something like “the Lord directs us” and “virtue and work”. These mottos may even have been true of Victorian Britain, indeed I have read that unlike the Dickensian depiction, poverty was substantially less common then.

In any event, what would be the modern equivalent?

In a world where fortunes are made by the likes of Donald Trump, what would be their motto? Perhaps, ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.’

We’ve come a long way from Brunel, that greatest of British inventors. The engineer who was the inspiration of the Great Western Railway.

Which way are we travelling though?

Atheism, Narcissim. Same thing.

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Nothing can be proved. Neither any kind of God, nor any kind of absence of God. Don’t take my word for it. Read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Read Heisenberg and Godel.

Any honest discussion about no-God or God equally must always be prefaced by the statement – “I believe”. A-theism is a belief system, like any other.

Since there is no objective start point, personal creeds are founded internally, and then spun up with logic. Like candyfloss. Perhaps Abrahamic religions spring from a direct experience of (and desire for) family and security. Materialist atheism? It seems to me that this is rooted in narcissism. “There is nothing but me. Apres moi le deluge”.

Consider. When do you hear a Dawkins or his ilk start with “I believe”?. Science no more disproves than proves any notion of God. There is no objective and secure start point on which to base logic or experiment. We can’t step outside spacetime or he universe.

They know that, but they don’t say it. Rather, they wrap their evangelism in a tissue of certainty.

My belief is that The convictions of atheists can often be traced to rebellion against a father figure or a child cowering within their ego. Yes, science has brought knowledge. An understanding of “how”. What has that to do with “why” “whither” or “whence”?

Buddhism at least seeks at minimum to do no harm, and to meditate on meaning. And, whatever, you might think about Christianity, at least it’s creed, as repeated Sunday by Sunday, starts honestly with “I believe”.

Natural Containment

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We humans feel secure when we are contained. In a loving relationship, the home that is castle, our “nation”. Whatever it be. For me it is nature, being part of a rich evolving exuberant abundance. I wonder if that is deep somewhere with us all? I hope so, because that would be a cause for hope that climate change and our rape of this earth could be reversed. When we wake from our materialist and amoral sleep, and realise where we truly are. As a species.