RE: Meaningful Insights in Unlikely Places
I do not yet see with whom you go arm in arm.
You can't be friends with a windy term. But friendship is possible with a person of flesh and blood, with whom you have an ambivalent relationship and it is the ambivalence that makes a friendship alive. In the space of tension between unity and disunity, you can deal creatively with that which can never be finally resolved or found.
Which man in your life do you love from the heart?
With whom do you have a friendship that allows contradiction and yet contains friendliness?
Your publications remind me of the knights of the Round Table who set out to find the Holy Grail. And when they meet by chance, they try to outdo each other in who has found the greater truth or to fool themselves into continuing the search.
Where is your love from man to man? As long as you don't cultivate it in your ordinary life to an ordinary man, any search for the truth is like trying to find the end of a rainbow.
My love for man is in not harming him or advocating for his harm. It's demonstrated by speaking in support of his authentic expression: Not the expression of his misguided caprice, but the expression of his authentic nature.
I desire to go arm-in-arm with Truth itself, and thereby with all people, as to acknowledge and embrace what is most true about a person is the greatest friendship.
I do not want to be competition with others - I want them to stop competing with me and others, and for us all to live in cooperation. I don't think this to be an unattainable goal, as it is in greatest accord with our true natures.
I admit that I do not offer my message in the softest terms, as I'm not sure this is always the best course. Many people are enabled to do evil - like the soldier - when, perhaps, if they were socially ridiculed instead of praised, they may think twice about embracing that immoral profession. We all must defend boundaries - both personal and social, and sometimes forcefully - but this does not preclude loving the wrong-doer.
I do love all people at the most fundamental level, but if you're actively beating me with a club, expressing that love tenderly in that moment doesn't serve anyone's uplift. I do not love others more than myself, such that I will altruistically abide their abuse with kindness, but I love all equally and desire no superiority.
So I would be allowed to ridicule you because I think you are following an error? For example, because I don't believe that "all of us will ever be able to live in cooperation". There is no all and no once and for all.
There are moments of encounters. Like between you and me.
You will be seen by others as imperfect, even aggressive or stupid. You won't be able to stop them any more than I won't be able to stop you from continuing to do so. Wanting others to stop doing what they are doing is a useless wish.
Our dialogue is a good example of this. I think I wanted you to stopp struggling. :) I think I failed. LOL
You claim to know what our true nature is when there is no such thing as true nature. Only moments of living experience that are always changing. Only that you believe that man's true nature must be fixated, while it can be good once and evil once (and everything in between), and there is basically no man in the world who could throw a stone at another, since he himself has been subject to misconduct countless times.
I had asked you about a real man in your life, you know that, don't you?
Oh, a particular man that I love from the heart? I don't know in what sense you use the word love. I love everyone equally, though I like some people more, feel connected to some people more, or feel greater responsibility toward certain people. I cried when I thought my father had died (luckily he didn't). I did not cry when George Bush Sr. died. Is this the distinction you're making?
There is no once and for all, that is correct; but there is an overall general circumstance (the sum qualitative trend of all momentary experiences). Right now, that circumstance is slavery. It is possible for that circumstance to be cooperation in service to mutual uplift.
Wanting others to stop raping, pillaging and murdering is a useless wish? Perhaps, if it is only a wish; but I am actively trying to persuade people to recognize the error that inspires these actions (in particular, to stop good people from committing evil-by-proxy by supporting immoral actors). I'm passing along knowledge. I think that's fundamental to humanity's cooperative effort toward creating a better world.
Of course there is such a thing as man's true nature. It is the most basic common denominators between all humans: free will, an adaptable mind, etc. That doesn't mean we're the same in every way, but surely we can say something about every man (he needs oxygen to continue living, for instance). And yes, I claim to know this until someone can demonstrate how it is other than I have described. I've yet to hear it.
Good and evil have nothing to do with it. These are qualifications that describe actions, not people. Colloquially we may say someone is an evil person, but this is not literal. We only mean that he routinely commits evil acts and shows no signs of stopping.
To stone someone is to murder them while they stand defenseless and inactive - it is punishment, not defense, not ridicule, not education. I do not advocate punishment. I do advocate a certain amount of scorn for harmful actions. Words and their related ideas are hugely important, but emotion speaks to people more clearly. Love is best, but it is not always perceived as authentic in the short-term (especially by the self-loathing, who do not believe they can be loved), and so does not have the intended effect. Scorn is doubted by no one, and is heard loud and clear. There is a place for righteous indignation; though only as a subordinate, short-term tactic in service to Love.
Personally, I have been struggling less over the last few days. I have been working to gain emotional poise, and this has not been in vain. I am calmer now - as a general state - than I was a week ago. Energy flows where attention goes, and I have included more spiritual study into my daily endeavors.
Your efforts were certainly part of this process. I recognize the truth of your overall message here - that anger and resentment does not define the path to uplift and progress. That Love is always in order. That personal moment-to-moment experience is important (all there is, really). So do not feel you've wasted your time. Just because I have an answer for everything doesn't mean I don't hear you ;)
I perceive this "general talk" as avoidance to talk in personal terms.
We cannot be in an authentic contact when you talk in general to me. I ask you personal questions, you answer me in general. If this open space is not the right place, I can accept that. No problem. But since I read and am confronted about general slavery and evil so much in the rest of the media as well as in talks within social circles I hardly can bear it within personal conversations.
I'd rather hear about where you were successful in creating cooperation and what the outcome was. I need best practice and good examples, to broadcast them and to tell them my people. I recently asked about minor initiatives of people from Venezuela, how street communities can be built in order to prevent the next power shortage and knowledge about filtering water. So far I was given more complains. But maybe the inspiration kicked and was worth something from which I will not know.
I am not this type of person. When I can help I help. When I cannot help, I accept that I can't. Or at least this is the philosophy I try to establish.
Sorry, I was not responding to the details you but I am a bit overwhelmed.