4 posts tagged “philosophy”

So, what shall I say about "Going Green"

The current Philosophy Now Journal describes Heidegger's ideas in this form:

"Heidegger believes that development of Science and Technology in the modern post-enlightenment world are expressions of this alienation"

and

"Science and Technology have in Heidegger's term now 'enframed' the natural world by turning it into a mere object of empirical study for commercial exploitation."

Do I agree with Heidegger?

Yes!  Going green is, of course, a movement, but it is also a fad of commercialism, to some degree.  Can the lower class really afford organic food when it cost twice or thrice as much while trying to feed a family?  Thus, to some degree, going green is a class and race issue of exploitation!  (Claim: I need better evidence to prove this point that "green food" costs more.  From my own examination, it seems to.)

But, we as a culture should conserve energy and as a state recycle, but Heidegger's point is more interesting than the Going Green movement.

We look at nature as empirical.  When we do that, we lose its mystical and naturally mysterious quality.  That is really the truth to me about GOING GREEN.  Not conserving electricity.  But, instead, walking from place to place and from cafe to cafe in the purest form of our bodies participating in the natural event of nature.  In this case, we are no longer alienated in our cars, but we are walking with the wind, the pine cones fallen off the tree, and truly seeing the natural progression of nature's cycles without defining it in its purest empirical form or data or geometrical or physics experiment.

However, I do not agree with Heidegger completely.  I do believe in the function of empiricism, but we must always remember that replacing this function with the true mystery of the human patterns that are sometimes inexplicable will take us into a moment when we see the raw reality of God right before our very eyes and move into that ZEN moment of non-rationality into perfect bliss and harmonization of the entire universe beyond reason and logic.

Going Green is Releasing your ZEN GARDEN within!

Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

People have done some evil things to me over the years.  People do evil things to my best friends.  And, my first inclination is to CONTROL the situation.  I want to fix the world.  What do you expect from a child of a minister and social worker?

But, no matter how much you, my angry and frustrated reader, want to control the situation or shove anger back at a friend or enemy, it only causes you more stress, anxiety, and depression.

And, worse, you begin having the person's VOICE or IMAGE in your head and creating these delusional scenarios to the point you begin to persuade yourself that your internal world is the reality beyond you.

Why live in such a frustrated world.  The coal burns you, and no matter how hard your feelings are harmed, they are ultimately harmed by yourself, for you have allowed the harm to pull you down when you need to let go of the coal and just be! 

Just be you!  Just be all of you!  The beautiful you!  Rise about the evil doers and let them speak badly of you.  Let them say what they will, for in the end, this life is just what it is.  A life leading to the next life, and if you believe in karma or some higher authority or just plain ole ethics, know that you will rise above by pulling away from such petty people and such petty arguments.

It is not about winning.  It is about being authentic, and the Buddha made a fool of himself to his friends while rebelling against their style of religion, and when he returned to his friends, they perhaps spoke of him and gossiped, but he faced the situation as the Buddha, described his newly formed self, and his friends found the truth to his righteous words.

If anything, we need that raw truth this week.  We need to be real and authentic to ourselves so that we can help and serve others.  If we can do that, then we have accomplished our mission as human beings.

Bottom line: there is a lot of people out there who like to bring others down.

Are you going to be the one to play the same game?  And, are you going to be the one to pull yourself toward the hot coal and repeat the same cycle of pain and suffering that will never end?

I certainly am not!  So, I smile tonight to all of you!  Please return that smile, for we all need that comfort and satisfaction of humanity and compassion here.  It will get us by and water down the hot coal!

--moon

William James writes, "A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."

How true!  His quote provides us with a different perception of thinking altogether.  Can we think entirely beyond the scope of our experiences?  Is thinking the "rearranging" of our value systems?  Is college the virus infiltrating our filtered puzzle?

And, once we arrive at a college degree or so-called higher dimensions of learning, are these new values simple rearranged once again?  Therefore, is college simply an additional component of our predetermined social values.

In other words, are we always boxed in by worlds already expressed by others?  Or, do we have a free will that begins with a fresh approach altogether that leads us directly to the LIGHT of our illuminated essence.

Hard to escape our past.  Hard to forego our prejudice.  Hard to be flawed and naked in a room filled with dressed people.

Our dreams perhaps then, as Freud and Jung might agree, are the places when the prejudices are confronted for the first time directly with our core self.  The layers of prejudice and socialization are washed away as we dream we are walking in a schoolroom without any clothes on while the other kids do not notice.  Or, as we dream that we kick our legs as though we were swinging on a swing and, instead, fly through the air like a bicycle without a bicycle.  Or, we live in categories of existence beyond natural reality and hover in the presence of people we have never seen and hold conversations with them within the chambers of our dream world.

Cognitive Psychology might argue that the neurons and junk in our heads are misfiring or moving or maneuvering through brain space at will as a mechanism to relax the brain, but something deeper really is happening.  We are thinking or dreaming beyond the prejudice of our own being.

I realize James was not heading in this direction when he wrote this statement, but I am.  The cliche does ring true: can we think outside the box?  The answer is no.  There are only so many answers, right?  If we think outside the box, we still have to communicate that information to others who still remain in the box.

The box is there for a reason.  It is the thick layer of our prejudice (And I am not defining prejudice as racism or stereotyping.)  It is the scope that keeps our brains from moving too far into the realm of insanity, even though that insane realm contains elements of the wind and the Great Spirit and all this is right and possible beyond this entire generation of Western Rationality holding our thoughts from returning to the root of self and beyond self until we arrive at a place that does not exist whatsoever.

That place is enlightenment, and while James might refer to this place as true thinking.  Or, while Plato might relate it to the Socratic Method.  Or, as Aristotle might coin it as a form of persuasive argument.  Or, as the Catholic monks might refer to it as hermaneutics. etc.

It is the place the Zen Monks refer to as Satori.  It is what Buddha refers to as Nirvana.  IT is what Hindus refer to as Moksha.  It is what Jung refers to as Individuation and the Collective Consciousness.  It is what the Neo-Pagans refer to as Astral Projection.  It is what the Pentecostals might refer to as the relationship and interaction between the human being and the Holy Spirit.  It is what the Jews studying the Kaballah might refer to as the ten Sephirots leading toward Sod.

Everything is holy is what Whitman and Ginsberg say because they saw beyond the difficulty of materiality or they saw the simplicity of atomic molecule spreading itself forth in elliptical beauty.

Here is the bottom line to all these psychological ideas.

Within science, there is the scientific method.  It contains rules that are difficult to understand but rules and laws nonetheless.  These laws change as be better define them.  This obviously represents one box.

Within the other realm of the human species, something else resides.  If it is merely scientific, that is fine.  It means we have yet to understand the complexity of this other realm of moving beyond the box.  This other realm involves INTUITION.  It is sort of the key beyond the box, and that key is the instigator of religion, mysticism, transcendentalism, etc.  There is something to be said about it all.  There is something true about it all, yet we cannot measure it.

Nevertheless, it is beyond prejudice and comprehension.  We stand in awe at it if we have these opportunities to leave our bodies for an instant and see to the other side, which I have done when I fainted at a restaurant and thought I died.  I have felt it in my soul when gazing at the twinkling stars.  I listen to the internal voice coming from nowhere return its calm demeanor to me.  Call it God.  Call it the brain God inside me. 

I don't care what you call it.  It is beautiful and magical and mysterious and calming.  It is a component of the human spirit.  It is within and beyond.  It is the voice in the cave I speak about in a poem I write about Allah.  Gabriel's Voice.  Gabriel singing while I walk in utter confusion in the world.  It is the voice of an angel in your voice as well, and I can feel her presence within you when I stare into your eyes.  It is the difference between our blank-slated mind's existence and our recognition that we have always existed in some form or another beyond the path of this physicality without the prejudice of ordinary experience to keep us from believing.

--moon

"For me to solve my personal anguish over war, I must transform my consciousness until violence is no longer an option." --Deepak Chopra

Chopra speaks about individual consciousness transforming to remove the barriers and replacing them with our peaceful, loving core. On a personal level, we strive toward this goal, and the Muslims refer to this as the jihad bin nafs/qalb (or the jihad of the heart/soul) leading oneself to a greater understanding of God and reducing and eliminating evil and replacing it with good. If you listen to Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), his songs bring this "light" within each of our souls that lead all of us toward love instead of violence.

How, though, do we move toward eliminating the personal anguish of our "warring" and angry soul and strive toward delivering a greater message of peace to the entire world? That idea, my friend, is the 50 billion dollar question.

A revolution of peace, as Chopra asserts, begins with self, but at some point, it must also extend to others. The only method of starting a revolution of peace is sharing your peaceful soul with others similar to the film, Pay it Forward.

With that goal in mind, we could truly hold hands across the entire world and make a difference in society through peace and without violence.

Look at Ghandi and his ability to change the world through words. Look at Martin Luther King, Jr.'s difference with Malcolm X's defense: by any means necessary.

This is not a world that works well with a "by any means necessary" approach. Yes, it is right for us to be angry if a government or another country reduces our lives to poverty or replaces our culture with a predetermined corporate or military unit.

Anger is a human emotion, and we certainly cannot rid ourselves from a human emotion; it is unnatural to do so. But, as Jesus states, "In your anger, do not sin." That is the difference, I think. Anger should lead away from violence. Anger should stir emotion, as intellect approaches the logic of the problem.

That is the difference, really, between making and changing our realities and succumbing to the brutality of another person, community, corporation, or government.

There is so much violence within us now, and it is time for us "to transform [our] consciousness until violence is no longer an option."

-moon