Reconnect

Let’s just do the abridged version.

There’s a girl. She’s in my head. We barely know each other’s name. I read her like a book. She’s poison for me. I still obsess. I feel frustrated (which is amplified immediately after leaving her presence). Blah blah blah deeper meaning, blah blah blah introspection and… I’m not satisfying the female energy requirement and this is how it has surfaced. Given that source energy is nondualistic, it shows my perceived lack of connection to what I am.

It also shows that I feel women somehow owe me something (attention/affection) which is completely untrue. I owe no one and no one owes me.

Follow up thought:

The bar scene is so sausage heavy it makes little baby jebus cry.

Town Square

I’m giving this reply its own post because… well… I want to.

This blog is an open forum. Feel free to weigh in. In my previous post Tim posed the following question:

Hedonism, utilitarianism, and subaltern realism: can they coexist? Discuss.

I thought at first that this comment may have been a joke, mostly because I’ve never heard of subaltern realism, but it indeed does exist, albeit I have no idea what it is outside of some political science theory, perhaps about Third World countries. There seems to be a great lack of info about it. I’ll go as far to say that politicking is almost as big of a waste of time as philosophizing, only because they both spin wheels, but at least the latter isn’t constrained by a reality that we constructed to help us survive.

My call for philosophy is the town square was (mostly) a metaphor, but I’ll touch on the first two points Tim brought up. I’ll also assume we know the terms. I’ll wiki link them for you if you don’t.

Hedonism denies personal growth. The only time where one can make an honest claim for hedonism is if he has maximized growth, a position that is out of the realm of our knowledge- if it even has an upper bound. Pain receptors are a way to say “wake up, this isn’t right” and if we try to avoid this step, we maintain a continuous ignorance (in bliss).

Utilitarianism is nobler if its aim is an actual greater good and not merely greater pleasure. I don’t agree with the concept of morality (it doesn’t really exist) but to avoid redefining the entire language, the word “good” will suffice for now. Trying to bring this good to the maximum amount of people will undoubtedly cause suffering on a personal level. To bring a greater good requires one to have personally achieved it in some regard and to evolve past the current level of good precipitates growing pains. Therefore hedonism and utilitarianism cannot coexist.

If people need greater good, there will be suffering on individual levels, thus negating hedonistic pursuits. If a realm of people with maximized good can exist, then there is no need to ever have a greater good, thus negating utilitarianism. Politics are contrived and the higher you get on the greater good scale, the less you need them until they evaporate altogether.

Deepnessitude

It is time to explore what I believe to be the single most popular introductory question when first meeting someone new:

“What do you do?”

Sometimes, one will add the adverb “so” to the beginning of that interrogative, most likely to soften the transition from the previous awkward silence to the current overly-trite inquisition.

Almost invariably the asker wants to know the job or profession of the askee. But why? What marvelous tell-all can be deduced from that snippet of information? And what other monumentally profound questions can you domino from this glorious starter?

Well for one, it gets right to the heart of what’s important: money. The cooler your job sounds, the more likely you are to make bank. The higher the digits in that account, the better person you are. This is all fairly elementary; I’ll assume most of you already knew this.

On the off chance that the asker is genuinely interested in what the askee does aside from work, then it is merely an attempt to find some common ground. “Oh, sports? I play sports too, mostly football. What? No. I don’t play soccer. Soccer is a pussy sport. Get away from me now.”

If common ground cannot be found or either party is offended by the other’s taste in beer, choice of operating system, or brand of television, then communication is immediately cut and they revert back the preliminary awkward silence phase until one of the two geniuses search his mind to land on the perfect escape plan of clearing one’s throat and stating how he wants to get a fresh beverage/ foodstuff or needs to use the bathroom. Close one. Way to avert a disaster.

But say all those big dollars spent at your local community college paid off and your question about the doings of the other is met with success. Where do you go now? Think back. Remember your training. That’s right. You ask what kind of car he drives. With this new piece of information you will now fully know the other person. You now know that he works at Applebees and drives a blue ’99 Neon. I can practically hear your mind crackling with enlightenment.

Sadly, after this line of thought, there really isn’t much more you can learn about the subject. But don’t fret! There are still some mysteries left, such as nature of his favorite flavor of frozen yogurt.

At war with the skeptic in me

I was what you can consider a contemporary Christian during my entire academic career. I believed all the stuff that you believe- Jesus, Son of God; Holy Trinity; ineffable Bible; Creationism- all your typical stuff. In no way ever did this affect my intellect or studies. I was not somehow more gullible or less apt to critical thinking. I just happen to be born to parents who were of a specific belief. If I were born in India I would have been Hindu, and if I were born to Tom Cruise I would have been Scientologist.

If I believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, that in no way inhibits me from determining the velocity of a ball right before impact with the earth, or from reading and understanding Othello, or mixing chemicals to find out which solution contained copper. Further, when physicists blow up the atom and find all kinds of sweet particles running around, or when they can assert matter exploded into existence 14 billion years ago, or that 90% of our known universe is actually unknown dark matter and dark energy, I am in no way left out of the loop because of any potential belief in the Celestial Teapot.

The only time that new knowledge can be harmful is when you ignore it and cling onto what you think you know. Sure, I believed some very crazy things about the nature of the world for much of my life, but that’s a product of listening to everyone else, and in most cases, rightly so. You have to place your trust in authority figures to live. A baby will not survive this world on intuition, he needs guidance. There comes a time, though, when you have to stop listening to all the clatter. You have to stop listening to your teachers, your preachers, your parents, your friends, the president, and the kid down the street who can’t for the life of him get your newspaper on your porch. You have to start listening to yourself. You have to realize that pretty much everything you ever thought you knew is complete horse crap. I’m sure most can easily attribute this to the predication of religious dogma by our parents, but I’m not just talking about that. Science itself is built on the (somewhat) dogmatic principle of the scientific method; essentially claiming that until we can quantify it and put it a nice little box with a name and a number, then it almost doesn’t exist.

But stuff we can’t label is there. I’m a believer in dark energy and string theory. I don’t understand all the complexities therein, but to me, it shows science will eventually prove spirit. Why, then, is it foolish of me to already believe what science has yet to prove? Perhaps my terms aren’t perfect, but they are just words. Perhaps the things I believe require humans to evolve more fully, but that’s just a matter of time.

Maybe it’s easier to think of in terms of science fiction where you have things like teleportation devices and advanced creatures with psychokinetic abilities. Given our rate of evolving knowledge I see no reason why humans won’t invent those types of devices or gain those types of “powers.” There is no reason to believe that we’ve evolved for millions of years to just stop here in this current version of life.

When I first thought up this idea and title I figured it would lead to a debate in my head over which would win out: my skeptical-cynical-scientific side or my infinite-spiritual-connected-to-everything-side. But what I think I proved to myself is that both of those thought patterns are external, and almost all of it was created by someone else. It’s not that one side is right or that one side will win over my brain, it’s that I can use both as tools to further my knowledge of this universe, and by extension, knowledge of myself (and vice versa), for ultimately I hold the answers.

The Essenes

The Essenes were a sect of Judaism between the second century BC and the first century AD. The other two main sects of the time were the Sadducees and the Pharisees, the latter of which are almost synonymous with Rabbinic Judaism and are the only traditional survivor. I have seen some “Neo-Essene” movements online, but I think they are very small time (~2000 members), not that it means they don’t hold value; just that the Pharisees “won out” in the battle over which sect would lead Judaism.

A popular theory now, especially since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, is that Yeshua (Jesus the Christ) was an Essene, more specifically, a Nazarean Essene. This puts much of his life in a different light and I’m going to explore some of what the Essenes believed. What you think about Yeshua is irrelevant to the fact that he taught love, and that is something to be admired.

A side note before I get into this: The Bible as a whole, including the New Testament acts of Yeshua, was canonized hundreds of years after Yeshua walked here. Many texts were left out (the Apocrypha) and some were mistranslated (purposefully or not) and some were changed due to the fact that “winners” write the history books. There was much political pressure in the Roman-Jewish first few centuries AD and it’s quite possible that the canonization was underhanded.

As always, ask yourself what you believe. Don’t let anyone else think for you.

Let’s do this.

I believe that there has always been an elite knowledge held by certain peoples on the Earth- codes for living, higher understandings, etc. The Essenes were a hub and collection of all these forms of knowledge. They considered it their job to bring this wisdom to life within themselves as a service to humanity, not only then, but for the future generations, who without this knowledge, would not be able to overcome their own ignorance and depravity and would eventually destroy the world with war. That last part sounds about right to me.

So what was this ancient wisdom to save us from killing ourselves? Well before we get into all that, we have to see where we are (individually) in our lives. The Essenes recognized three different types of people: sleeping, drowsy, and awake. It was their job to comfort those that slept, try to help awaken the drowsy, and guide those that had already awakened.

If you wanted to become an Essene, you’d first have to prove you’re ready to attempt such a path. The would-be initiate would undergo a quiet meditation in which he would examine his life- all of his successes and failures, reactions to them, and the wisdom he gained from them. He would then be led to find (notice: not forced to find) any impurities of being, which are the cause for all his suffering in this world. After he sees them, he can change them, thus changing himself and taking control of his life.

I use the male pronoun “he” here because using “he/she” looks stupid, but the Essenes were open to both genders equally. Mary, mother of Yeshua, was born into this group and as such was able to fully teach her son all the ways by a very early age. This is why he was able to wow the priests with his knowledge by the age of 12. Later, he performed many “miracles” that were commonplace in an Essene community, most notably that of healing the sick. The Egyptians called the Essenes “The Healers, the Doctors.” They were well known during their time.

There was a strict rule to never reveal the teachings to those who are not ready to hear them (the sleeping). It was the law of silence and discernment. I have just recently learned this lesson myself. Most people are just not ready to hear, for countless reasons that need not be examined in this article, and it’s clear why such a rule was created. The amount of fear and anger you receive from the sleeping (and in some cases the drowsy too) when you try to wake them up is staggering. At best you would just be ignored or considered a fool. This all gets wrapped up in not forcing people to do anything. This isn’t a conversion. Let the sleeping sleep.

One of the key points for me was that of slavery. I’m sure everyone you talk to would agree that slavery is a terrible thing, and that we all deserve the right to be free. This should go without saying, but everyone is a slave to something. Most of these issues surface during the examination of your life, but let me share two that I read about that I found interesting. The first is that of working for only money instead of the honor of the job you do. Otherwise you’re a slave to money. The second is that of eating meat, which is very curious considering most people believe that Yeshua ate fish, but I’ve heard it stated that those sections were altered to justify the continuation of eating meat, something that is obviously hard to cut out, which was exactly the point held by the Essenes. If you can’t stop eating animal flesh and drinking blood, then you can’t control your animal nature, and therefore not always think as an intelligent being. You’d still be a slave to the animal in you.

I honestly haven’t thought long enough on the strict vegetarianism. I know over the last few months I’ve dramatically cut back on the amount of meat I consume, and if I do eat it then it’s fish or lamb (usually raw lamb). I just don’t know that you need to completely abstain. I understand that killing animals in cruelty is not ideal, but if the animal is honored in death and I again honor the creature when I consume its flesh I think it’s just fine.

One last thing about the food: (Why is it that I gravitated so far with this aspect?) The Essenes held that food shouldn’t really be cooked as that process alters its properties. I think I learned that in 8th grade science class, but it seems like an impressive scientific understanding for 2200 years ago, but maybe I underestimate the times. The point is to eat directly from the earth in the raw form as it is the healthiest. Maybe the diet stands out to me so much because that’s the issue I need the most work on now. Well it’s a thought anyway.

In direct contrast to the slavery that was outlawed was the concept of a communal society of servitude. Everyone within the community shared everything they owned and each served the others to whatever end they were equipped. There was no ownership of possessions by an individual. There was no need for trade within the group and they were self-sufficient enough to not need to trade outside of the group. The amount of knowledge to achieve this is impressive, but to maintain it for any prolonged time would require a fantastic level of commitment lest greed or something equally nasty creep its way in.

The pinnacle of thought in the Essene tradition is when a group of people come together around the same elite idea, and work on themselves toward the goal. Once there are enough working for this goal (in my mind, this is or could be world-wide peace) they can vouch for all of humanity and carry them on their backs as they guide it in. For any given population of people there is a magic number of awakened individuals necessary to evolve the entire populace. One interesting formula to get that number is the square root of 1% of the total people in the area. (I think this formula was recently arrived at by measuring the amount of people needed to affect the whole group. I can’t really make any claims on its veracity, but the point is that the number needed is quite small relative to the whole.) If you apply that formula to the whole world you get a result of about 8,000 people, which if you think about it, really isn’t that many at all. If you take some place like Detroit, you’d need about 100, which oddly enough, seems like a whole hell of a lot, because I only know a handful of people that believe this way. I think I’m hoping the rest of the world is more enlightened then this country.

I know I haven’t delved into any real higher knowledge. Part of that is because I can’t find any specifics on what that would be. However, I think that along the way I have come to understand things by searching myself, which is the key to the path they set forth, and I agree with that assessment. I consider a friend of mine to have been a guide in this endeavor, but I believe myself to be on the same level as he now, and either need another guide and/or more examining of my life to make the next jump. Any “higher understanding” within my head now can easily be described and boiled down as a way of love and peace. It’s really that easy.