Of protests and protesters

    "And then I shall naturally come to think of myself as a link in the whole of humanity and a sharer in the responsibility for everything that occurs. This insight should not, of course, be immediately translated into political agitation in the world. It should be calmly cultivated in the soul. By this means it will gradually come to expression in my outer actions. Indeed, in such matters, we can begin only by reforming ourselves. To make general demands for social and political reform on the basis of such insights is fruitless. It is easy to say how other people should be, but students of esoteric knowledge must work in the depths and not on the surface. It would therefore be quite wrong to connect the demands of esoteric schooling with any external demand for reform or even political change. The education of the spirit has nothing to do with such things. Political activists generally know what to ask of other people, but they hardly ever talk about asking anything of themselves."
   - R. Steiner, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment. pg 120-1

   Politics and esotericism conventionally don't mix. Politics means to foster what the greatest number of people want or to authoritivly preside over people. Esotericism is entirely based on freedom but in politics either there is no freedom or no freedom for least number of people. Spirit is of an essence that is not yet resolved into a fixed form. The spirit can not be taken hold of except with freedom. Spirit has to been seen anew from many viewpoints.

   The onus of spirit is on the individual. The obligation of politics is on the community. The community has to be formed by free individuals and then it can truly convey spirit. A spiritual community strives to attain for each member the freedom to transform. A political community can have nothing to do with esotericism unless it wants to use occult knowledge to manipulate large sways of people and there a dark, left hand, path unfolds.

   Protests and activism negate the need for spiritual insights to be "calmly cultivated in the soul." Spirit is of an evolving order, whereby what it appears as first may not be its crucial aspect. Spirit reveals itself over time whereas political activism erupts in the moment or is bound to a particular moment.

   The gradual cultivation of spiritual insight leads to the holy grail. This ongoing stepwise evolution provides the framework by which the spiritual sun, the etheric christ, can exist in the world.

An endless variety of books

   Eternal wisdom is right here in front of us. In so many different books and different kinds of books. We can deeply read (truly understand by reading between the lines) just about anything. Human beings are the only worldly creatures who are self-aware and can, therefore, think for themselves. We are here to understand the world around us, other human beings, and ourselves. In a sense then, the world around us, other human beings, and ourselves can be seen/ understood/ metaphorically interpreted as books. So some of the books I like are paintings, photos, people, actual books, movies, shows, conversations, the inner life, cosmic evolution, 'the book of life' (nature), and the human being as a cosmic archetype.
   The variety and number of books is endless. All that is needed is an open eye to read - not to skim over stuff (although sometimes you just don't have the time and are forced to) but to wrestle, dance with what is on the page, don't just stand back objectively. You the reader play, now (once something is there to be read), the greatest role.
   Develop understanding through practice; that is the only way. Things may come to you out of the blue but to receive the right things at the right time takes practice and dauntless patience. This, reader's eye, can only be developed in ourselves, by ourselves. It is already in us as a seed and just awaits the right conditions. This seed can and will grow (because things evolve regardless) and ultimately flower, bringing forth future seeds within us; which will in their turn will undergo an analogous (comparable) processes. "The kingdom of heaven is within you."
   "... Giants seek to tell tales fully. We [giants] desire to scant no portion of the rich complication of loves and hearts. Joy is in the ears that hear, not in the mouth that speaks." ( - Against All Things Ending, Stephen Donaldson)

   The original idea for this blog came from 2 separate sources at a similar time: One said, "you should write a book," and I immediately rejoined: "Yeah, titled: 101 ways to know what you don't know." The other wrote after an inspiring passage in an email, "send me a weekly inspirational paragraph." I bet they are both, if they have gotten this far through the blog thinking: "Why, Oh why, didn't I take the blue pill!"

   Understanding is king, because in life we have to read between the lines otherwise, we will never know when someone is giving us the finger or trying to pull the wool over our eyes. No, understanding is king because it is what is essentially human. We, humans, are that part of the world that is awake to itself; all the rest of nature sleeps in this sense. To be aware is, for us, to understand that we are aware.

Some Steiner quotes

Some Rudolf Steiner quotes with {my own 2 cents worth}:
   "Love is higher than opinion. If people love one another, the most varied opinions can be reconciled. Hence it is deeply significant that in Theosophy no religion is attacked and no religion is specially singled out, but all are understood, and so there can be brotherhood because the adherents of the most varied religions understand one another.
   This is one of the most important tasks for mankind today and in the future: that men should learn to live together and understand one another. If this human fellowship is not achieved, all talk of occult development is empty."

{ love reconciles differences and leads to community }

   "When we grasp the true meaning of human freedom, we can have no wish that a sin should be so forgiven us that we would no longer need to pay it off in our Karma.”

{ freedom is a process that arrives through karma }

   "More and more will souls be imbued with the consciousness that a man ought not to say merely what he “thinks”, but must prove the objective truth of what he says."

{ thinking must become spirit vision and speech become initiation }

   "There is no absolute truth — each truth has its particular mission at a certain time. We talk of Theosophy today, but we know that when we come to be reborn in the future we shall hear something very different and stand in quite a different relationship to one another."

{ living thinking = freedom = transformation of the future }

   "Two things must be completely avoided during occult training. We should never harm anyone through deeds, thoughts or words intentionally or not.   Secondly, the feeling of hate must disappear in us, otherwise it reappears as a feeling of fear; for fear is suppressed hate. We must transform the hate into a feeling of love, the love of wisdom."

 
   Here is one not by Steiner but by B. Hive (https://888spiritualscience.blogspot.com):

  "There is recreation and then there is solemn encounter. The light hearted may tell you a circus is fine; but participation is not desired. Who cares to step inside the ring? Who cares to put their head in the mouth of a wildcat, or frolic with the clowns?"

{ deeds of love leave only little traces and mostly go unnoticed }

What is humour?

   I'm not sure. So in a humours mood I offer up the following video link, which my daughter showed me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kDso5ElFRg 

   One of the things that this video pointed out to me was the danger of spiritual development becoming reactionary. Reactionary impulses are bound to be destructive because we are primarily reacting to something that is in ourselves, denying it, and projecting it on to the other. It is very hard to avoid this when it is mild.
   This may or may not contribute to a questioning  of humour: a nonhumorous joke:
   Have you heard the one about the Imam, the Rabbi, the priest, the yogi, the monk, and the Aboriginal.  ... Ok, so a true-Muslim, a true-Hebrew, a true-Christian, a true-Hindu, a true-Buddhist, and a true-Shaman meet up together due to fortuitous circumstances. And because they were all good esotericists they deeply knew where the others were coming from. They decided to work together and they accomplished great things for the world.
  I had further fun deciding what a true-politician is, a true-garbage man is, a true-doctor, a true-photographer, a true-solider, a true-policeman, a true-criminal, a true-terrorist, and finally a true-mental patient would be. I even found a living example of a true-solider. Well, he is dead now: Daskalos, Dr. Stylianos Atteshlis, also known as Spyrous Sathi. He did a lot of good in the war on Cyprus for people on both sides and never intended to killed anyone and actually didn't kill anyone.
   So humour can be an opportunity to see things in a new light and find enjoyment in what can be a sorrowful world.

The Great Recycler

   Surety doesn't arrive trailing clouds of confidence. With sense perceptible proofs once given they are finished with. We have to be more careful with spiritual proofs. Once given spiritual proofs don't exist. It is the way a spiritual outlook holds together, explaining many different things, and gives forces to better enable the living of life. We have to constantly work with what comes from the spirit. We have to renew it each day just as we are renewed by a night's sleep. The spirit lives in us and we have to learn to live with it daily.
   The spiritual world is the great recycler; nothing is ever finished; layers within layers. 

A Hope: the Transformation of the Shadow

   In the Apocalypse of St John (at the bible's end) a book with 7 seals is opened. It is explained that with opening of the 1st seal there appears a rider on a white horse holding a bow and wearing a crown. With the opening of the 2nd seal there appears a rider on a red horse with a great sword. With the opening of the 3rd seal there appears a rider on a black horse holding a pair of scales in his hand. With the opening of the 4th seal: "And I saw: see, a pale horse, and the name of its rider is Death, and the spirits of death are his retinue." Now that we are in the fifth, these spirits of death are now everywhere: outside us and within us. Physical boundaries hold no meaning for them. Our prejudice is our own but you could say these spiritual beings feed off our prejudice increasing it.
   The previous post ends with two paths of development: deal with our own prejudice or project what we don't like onto others and fixate (vector) all we do like towards our selves. We can truly change who we are at our most personal and deepest levels or become ever more self centered and brittle. Either spiritual development starts with our shadow, dealing with what is immediately present, or it clouds over our brokenness and inability, falsifying egotism in place of self.
   It is an open secret that we owe our shadow a great debt, without it we would be lost, having no direction forward. Our weakness and failing show us where we need to work and the objective is not a perfection that rejects the shadow but a perfection that is all inclusive. Death is as much a part of life as everything else and conversely life is so much a part of death.
   The question of the shadow is what to do with evil? Do we make war on evil? Do we bomb it out of existence? Jihad means struggle not war. We have to struggle with our shadow, dance with it, and the dance goes: two steps forward one step back.
   In the hope of getting to know the shadow it is noted that a good way to know anything is to see it from three sides, in a tripartite way. A great example of this is the setting forth of the goal of spiritual development as: Wisdom, Strength, and Love. That covers an immense amount of ground. The three in a tripartite view can stand for: body, soul, spirit, or thinking, feeling, will, or nerve-sense system, rhythmic system, metabolic system, or  head, heart, and hands.
   For the shadow there is: doubt (confusion), hate (projection), and fear. The goal of doubt in a positive light is to lead towards reasoned understanding. There is no positive goal to hate. It is purely destructive. The positive side to fear is very far reaching. Let's just say it is not an early warning system but fear incarnates you, brings awareness to your boundaries, and leads you towards a continual state of awareness. Maybe the positive side of these three is not helpful because it is only in the overcoming of doubt, hate, and fear that there is any positivity at all.
   The goal of evil is the development of mankind but the trouble with evil is that once it slips its place and manifests, it thoroughly messes up the very development that is its goal. Therefore, it is the job of every spiritual seeker to leave evil in the lower part of the spiritual world, where it properly belongs, and to attempt to not let it come into being through one's actions.

Spiritual development starts with overcoming prejudice

   I was going to write about how evolution is really two processes: evolution and involution, and given that we understand evolution the mystery of involution is now of greater importance because it first takes hold in the fifth, the blue fifth. But I wont.
   Instead, spiritual development: Each one of us has to find their own unique path into the spiritual worlds. Yet given this freedom how are we to tell the false from the true paths? You can focus on the development of all sorts of capacities: psychic clairvoyance, hypnotism, enlivening dreaming, connecting with the body's energy patterns, ritualism, etc. and you can become better at them. Is this a good focus for spiritual development? If we take a common capacity, intellectualism, we soon see it is just like any other capacity: That is, it can be used to really help others, medical advancements, or it can be entirely destructive, nuclear weapons. The capacity itself is of less importance than what you are going to do with it. This is the real focus of spiritual development, the development and application of intent. Capacities will of necessity become available to the spiritual seeker and to focus on them is to take the secondary as the primary. The real focus should be on the wisdom that allows you to use them for the greatest benefit.
   The focus of development always starts with wisdom or else there is just a blind jumping in. Above the temple at Delphi was written: "Oh man, KNOW thou thyself." Today, knowledge has to be the starting point. How do you know if what you are doing is worthwhile? We often, unwittingly deceive ourselves because we all have prejudice: sympathy and antipathy towards the world and others. We like some things more than others and this has its place but that place is nowhere near thinking. Real knowledge can only arise when we have freed ourselves from our own desires and passions. Freed ourselves in thinking only. Our daily lives, of necessity, need desire and passion if they are not to become colourless and boring. Knowledge on the other hand demands that we overcome ourselves.
   Any path into the spiritual worlds that doesn't start with understanding yourself so that you can overcome your own prejudice is a false path. This is becoming more and more important as we move into the future because humanity's prejudice as a whole is increasing. Increasing of necessity as we become more and more sensitive towards the world and others around us, because there is a greater amount of things to be prejudiced about. Humanity as a whole is becoming more aware of its inner and outer surroundings (because the fifth is the age of communication and communication technologies) and this has opened up two paths for us: we can remain who we are or we can start the process of transforming the evil in us. If we subtlety hate those around us (ex. nationalism = projection of all the bad onto others) or we can develop an awareness of the bad within us and star to deal with it = transformation.

Chaos, potential, the fifth, fundamentalism and freedom

   In the beginning was chaos. That's what the ancient Greeks thought and it is probably what "darkness upon the face of the deep" means (2nd sentence in the bible). From a state of pure potential or chaos; change begins, things evolve. This seething chaos begins the whole of the what now is. To think that messiness is the beginning place gives me hope. After the pale horse (the 4th apocalyptic horse) is where we are at now (the 5th place in the apocalypse) and if you can't feel the madness then you are not in the boat, and its rocking will not be waking you up. Chaos is potential.
   Today everything seems to need to be done again and again. I find myself constantly at the beginning. I find my will constantly challenged. I am constantly being thrown out of the chaos to awaken to the chaos. Nothing is ever finished and the spirit is never finished with us.
   Our daily routine transforms the chaos into a manageable order. Our lower nature would have us sink into the chaos like gumboots sucked into suffocating mud. Our daily routine and the people we are surrounded by save us from melting into the chaos. Our survival amidst the chaos is not due to our better selves but rather the people around us that give life meaning. Alone we would become that part of the original chaos from which we arose.
   If we look at a series of seven, the colour spectrum, then we see that the first three stages evolve out of a warm beginning. With the middle, green, a new note is struck and the cool colours take over. These blues and purples are a new entry into the spirit. Darker stages because we are no longer coming out of the spirit with the warm colours. The green of nature, our world, is led over, transformed, into a consciousness that has been through the death of earth. After the middle green, the hard part comes: the fifth, blue. The pale horse was pale green and now after it we have the blues.
   Our times are chaotic. Especially when you consider all the endless rushing around, the continuous generation of excitement, the search for meaning and purpose (which comes from meaninglessness and purposelessness), the increases in suicide, mental illness, domestic violence, and addiction.
   We can ask what does this chaos call forth in us? One answer is morality but if we ask what morality is? We find ourselves facing an endless hall of mirrors. Yet an answer can be that morality is who we are; the foundation of our humanness. This foundation of the human being is in process; it is not complete. And this hints at the need (need might be a bit harsh) for chaos. Morality, learning, understanding, goodness, and beauty can only occur where there is freedom. The greatest freedom is freedom from your own prejudice. What freedom gives is the possibility to know something deeply because knowing of anything depends on the number of viewpoints you can understand it from; on your freedom to see things from different angles.