What is “Work?” What is “Success?”

“If you were a baker, and you baked a loaf of bread and it fed somebody, then your life has been worthwhile. And if you were a weaver, and you wove some cloth and your cloth kept somebody warm, your life has been worthwhile.”
-Johnny Cash [source]

“I’ve got news for you,” he shoots back, eyes narrowing. “If the financial system goes down, our business is going down and, trust me, yours and everyone else’s is going down, too.”
-Lloyd Blankfein, CEO Goldman Sachs, just a banker, “doing God’s work” [source]

The Bubble-Blowing Bull

What’s happened on Wall Street is nothing new. And it was known that it was coming, which is why there’s been so much bold movement of wealth upwards.  View the Bubble-Blowing Bull which Congress feeds.

Words’ Worth

“Words (Shabda-Pramana) should lead to an ‘understanding’ whereupon words have no more business there!”

-B.R.Loknatha Chaitanya

Evidence of God – Who’s Asking?

The only possible evidence that God exists is one’s own existence.  Anything else would be simply some fragment of reality that certainly could never encompass it’s own origin.  The origin of any individual thing, and of all things, are ultimately the same one Thing.

The illusion of separation is completely empty because how could we perceive two things that were not in some way joined?  Any two things that one is aware of must have something in common.  It’s a tautology — at the very least, they have the awareness of the observer in common.  Ultimately, the one Thing all things have in common is existence.  In that existence alone is the reality of what we might name “God,” but which, of course, is way beyond any individual conception.

Nothing is more limiting to one’s own experience of the Ultimate Being of All Reality than the name, and associated conceptions, of “God.”  When we look for proofs of God’s existence, we look for proofs of whatever we’ve associated with the name “God,” rather than seeking out direct experience of Ultimate Reality.

The fundamental contradiction of the search for proof of God’s existence, then, is that existence itself is “God,” the Ulimate Reality.  The one seeking proof, obviously, exists — so, the quest for proof of God is actually a denial of one’s own existence!  Who is asking for proof, but the Ultimate Reality itself, in the guise of a confused ego?  God exists because you do.  You exist because God does.  Because of self-limiting thought, God is quite beyond the bounds of our conceptions, our beliefs, our faith, rooted directly in Being.  In one’s own being, one will find the Ultimate Reality peacefully, confidently, completely presiding over All.  ”The Kingdom of God is within.”

Flower Watch

Go to Flower Watch Journal

Enjoy Tao

Go To Enjoy Tao

Self-Sufficiency Minimizes Exploitation

Those needs or desires that cannot be fulfilled by one’s own effort but require the assitance or labors of others are what opens one to exploitation.  Obviously, there are fundamental desires or needs that will never be autonomously fulfilled, and what would be the point of a world of co-existing beings within which individuals could fulfill their needs without interacting with each other?  But as we reflect upon our industrialized society and how far it takes each person from the capacity to meet basic needs without dependency, we understand why exploitation and misery are so rampent.

Knowing one’s self, and providing for one’s self, again become the priorities of the day.  Surrendering certain unnecessary dependencies is a great value in this world of exploitation and scarcity.  Individuals and agencies that hold power will not want to allow that to occur, because it is the energy of their dependants that feeds them.  But this is a necessary swing of the pendulum, in this time especially.

Facts First

“It is a capital mistake to form conclusions in advance of the facts.”  -Sherlock Holmes

Where is Principled Living?

The personal factor plays in politics so that principle must frequently yield to the yoke of self-interest.  Even the powerful, like anyone else, allow their desires, however paltry, to defeat the obvious truth of principles.  Like mules they are driven by the stick of their passions despite the hideous magnitude of the impact of such a self-serving force in the halls of government.  Even now, billions of dollars are extracted from the laboring masses to feather the nests of indulgence of the wealthy and influential.  But this is as it has been as far back as history is described, and way before.

So, it is the personal factor that impedes truth, and not that we haven’t figured out principles of justice and fairness, or not that we fail to understand compassion, love, kindness and generosity.  All who were children understand these things, if not by their presence, then by their absence.  It is one’s own individual attachments to certain personal joys, indulgences, little secret privileges that yield some physical, mental or emotional pleasure, that are the cause of the derrailment of the hope and dream of all civilizations.  When these things are allowed to drive the body and mind blindly and with indifference to truth, they cause untold misery.

Self-honesty is the greatest need of this age or any other.

But it is unlikely, and probably by Plan, that this problem will continue.  Because this world is veiled from its own Origins and Cause.  In such a situation, it is ridiculous to expect integrity, honesty, or fairness.  On the other hand, perhaps fairness is perfectly consistent and flawlessly maintained by the Hidden Principles (Hercalitus’s Logos) behind it all.  How can we discern either way, when our own eyes are blinded not only to the greater Truth, but even to our own self-deceptions and our own degree of ignorance and need.

The conclusion here that aches for realization, is that one must see to one’s own self-healing, to improving one’s self-awareness and integration with that Logos, if there is to be any hope at all of living truthfully and honorably.

Wisdom Needed

There’s a wholeness in life, in matter, in space and time, that, while perceptible,  is not dissectable.  There is no analytical framework which may provide holism.  The term “framework” self-evidently declares that this is so.

Nevertheless, we are capable of perceiving not only wholeness, but patterns and energy flows within a wholeness.  These patterns and flows aren’t analytical, they are as harmonic participants in a whole.  These holistic patterns influence and even to some extent determine our actions in order to preserve the whole, whether within the political, ecological, geological, or cosmological spheres, and whether or not we’re aware of it.  Again, these analytical terms (vis. politics, etc.) are merely approximate references to perceived patterns that are not at all separable from the whole matrix with which they constitute an integrated totality.

It is an error in thought and judgment, a sure sign of lack of awareness, to treat any analytical conclusion as final or unconditional.  Action based on analytical fundamentalism will lead to disaster.  Wisdom must temper all action.  Wisdom provides the wholeness within the sphere of perception and action.  Action without wisdom creates or perpetuates separation, division, pain, and grief.

These are simple, most basic, and profound principles, but in our rush to control life, to secure various temporary pleasures and victories, we overlook the simple and profound in favor of an apparently gratifying domination of the moment.  The problem is that, just because we act in ignorance, this doesn’t mean we will not have to pay a price — it doesn’t mean that the wholeness “takes a vacation” and allows our petty behavior to transpire apart from the “system of being.”  Balances must occur to make sure that the wholeness of everything remains and persists.  There is no compromise because, obviously, there is nothing but wholeness.  There is clearly no separation anywhere.  All things co-exist, whether we talk of the mental and emotional personal sphere, or the sphere of matter, energy, space and time.

Wisdom must be the focus of any individual and of any society that truly wishes to succeed, if we define success as actions and results leading in a self-feeding cycle through continually evolving harmony and fulfillment.  Holistic awareness is another term for wisdom, for how can one be aware of the whole in its continually interacting nature and not temper actions accordingly?  Wisdom, once experienced, cannot be denied.