Ancient Austerities

We are born animal. The sway of inner imperatives can be traced back to the first replicating molecule: an inner narrative in all cases determines our inclinations, and in most cases determines our behaviour. The austerities indicated by ancient monastic traditions are not about self denial: they are about self discovery.

There is nothing wrong or undignified with our animal inclinations. The issue is that though animal inclinations can be the chrysalis of awakened awareness, animal inclinations are sufficiently hypnotic to totally absorb the energies of the natal spirit. There is great value in observing ones animal nature from a respectful distance. One does not have a choice about the nature of genetic inclination, but one does have a choice about manifestation. If we can sit on the sidelines and observe our inner process it becomes immediately apparent that much of what we give our life to is the impersonal imperative of instinct. Imagine the clay of a figurine awakening. The ultimate truth of our being is clothed in human nature.

The most important austerity is the practice of meditation. It is not for everyone and it is certainly not for the spiritual dilettante, but even the casual practice of time tested austerities will produce valuable insights concerning the what that is the who. Within the chrysalis that is the creature which was born, spirit can mature as the articulator of the soul. The simplest noddings to our creature hood can be infused with light.

Ancient austerities are not an end in themselves: they are the substance of the chrysalis from which the children of the earth emerge as the children of the Universe.

Sociopaths and the End of the World AWKI

Science has determined that plus or minus 3% of the general population are genetic sociopaths. Sociopath is a condition, not a term of disparagement; and just because you are born a sociopath does not make you a bad person. However, it does mean that you are uniquely vulnerable to plying self advantage at the expense of others.

Any hierarchical system is ripe for exploitation by intelligent sociopaths, and the cyclical collapse of civilizations is in large measure due to the cumulative predations of this class of beings. They are charming, ruthless, and intelligent. Their destructive sway needs no conspiracies, for they form a natural confederation of petty evil. An inherited absence of care for anything but themselves gives them a peculiar advantage in politics and commerce, for their intelligence is not inhibited by moral concerns. The fabric of culture has it's moth and mildew; the body politick has it's cancer.

God help us.

Precocious Ancient Gods

The gods of the ancient Greeks, the gods of the Egyptians, the gods of the lost and forgotten cultures of whom we know nothing, were not the random fictions of human imagination. Study indicates that the Cro-Magnons had the same intellectual capacities as Moderns. With their limited knowledge of the way the universe is put together what were they to make of those aspects of reality that were utterly beyond the limits of knowledge. What were they to make of fire, for instance? Of love? Of good? Of evil?

In the religious structures of ancient cultures we find a catalogue of forces, psychic and physical, that are utterly resistant to the simple powers of person hood. What is the creature which is man to make of overpowering emotion, or of the rising sun, of death, of life? These things exist and therefore must have cause: ergo, ipso facto....the gods. In every case the ancient gods are a poetic intellectualization of the real which lies beyond human understanding, and the ancient gods have a remarkable congruence to the prosaic real when considered in this way.

If, as I suspect, awareness is somehow the stuff of which the universe is woven (why should a mere stack of atoms possess conscious awareness?) then the antique religious formulations were not naive, or wrong, or misguided: they were precocious.

Knowledge and Being

Everyone knows a little something about something-or-other. Some people know a great deal about very little. Knowledge is relative and specific: knowledge is "about" something, and occurs in quantities. Knowledge can be measured. Knowledge is something we have, not something we are.

Being is not about something: being is what we are. And being, too, is quantifiable.