Lokesh offers some sceptical thoughts on a belief that’s commonly held and taught in psycho-spiritual circles.
“Don’t become a prisoner of your own reality, set yourself free by creating a life worth living.”
― Steven Redhead, Keys to Creating Your Reality
“Whatever a person’s mind dwells on
intensely and with firm resolve,
that is exactly what he becomes.”
~ Shankaracharya ~
I had the ‘you create your own reality’ theory dropped on me the other day, and I began to think about it. There are many different aspects to the ‘create your own reality’ philosophy. I will outline a few and the commentators can take it from there.
One observation I have made over the years is that the people who promote the ‘create your own reality’ viewpoint are almost always successful. I have never had someone dying from cancer or living on the street come up to me and say they created the tragedy that has become their life. As I see it, shit happens. A drunk driver crashes into your car. Did you create this reality? The other side to telling someone that they are creating their own reality, when they are not doing so well, is that it will make them feel worse than they already do, because they think the shit that is happening is their own fault, instead of perhaps being circumstantial.
Shit happens in life and nobody can deny it. Where we can get creative is how we choose to deal with the shit. I do not believe that visualizing no shit happening in the course of one’s life is going to lead to a shit-free life, but of course the ‘create your own reality’ believers do. This brings us into the faith dimension. It cannot be proven or disproven, you just have to have reinforced belief, faith, a very Christian mindset, one might say, to make good things happen.
I want to win Euromillions and therefore I have to see myself winning the lottery first before actually winning it. Successful people have often told me that is how reality works. I do not believe it, which is maybe why I have never won a Euromillions jackpot. Can somebody help me out on this one?
What do the gurus say? From what I can gather there is a lot about how you are responsible for the kind of life you are living. We create our very own versions of heaven and hell. I agree. We are born into this world and begin to create our very own world with an individual ‘I’ as its fulcrum. I agree. What I do not agree with is that we can control external forces simply by believing we can. Where does the inside extend to and where does the outside begin? It’s complicated.
We only have two real choices in life and that is whether or not to accept that everything in life is preordained. Ramana said that and it is an absolutely perfect example of a Zen koan. I do not see myself as a leaf being washed downstream by a raging torrent. I have built a rudder onto my leaf boat and I actually manage to steer the thing from time to time; or is it all an illusion? I suspect it is.
So, dear SN commentators and readers, do we create our own reality? Can we make things manifest in a positive way by visualizing it will be so? I look forward to reading your responses and hopefully create a topic from which some intelligent debate might arise.
First of all, thank you, Lokesh for contemplative prose. Best piece i have read in 2020.
Thanks, Shantam.
“Zen koan. I do not see myself as a leaf being washed downstream by a raging torrent. I have built a rudder onto my leaf boat and I actually manage to steer the thing from time to time; or is it all an illusion?”
I suspect it is. – I can relate to this more so now!
Yup, Kavita.
Lokesh,
Thanks for taking the time to write about an interesting and relevant subject.
I have considered this one a lot. Like you, and probably most here, I have also had too many people trying to force this belief down my throat as an ultimate reality.
This is my take:
The idea that “we create our own reality” can be a very useful one to adopt as a device or method to help us to take responsibility for our lives. For example, if we find ourselves in a difficult situation where we would misguidedly like to blame others for what is happening to us, then considering that “I am creating this reality” can help us to take responsibility for our part in the situation we find ourselves in, thereby helping us to work towards a better and fairer outcome.
Alternatively, if we are taken by an idea or an activity that we wish to pursue, then the idea that we can follow it and thereby “create our own reality” can become an inspiration and an encouragement for our endeavour.
On the other hand, if we attempt to use this idea as a philosophical or even spiritual position, that is to say, we start to think that this idea expresses an unassailable truth that holds true in all situations at all times, we can become caught in an absurdity. The error of this position becomes obvious when someone asks: ”What about all the children who are brutally killed in war, and die of starvation or AIDS? Are they responsible for their own reality?” No sane person would support the idea that these innocents were “responsible“ in this way, yet many people do fall into this absurd and destructive type of thinking because they fail to see the difference between an idea used for practical experiential purposes and the same statement taken as a pronouncement of absolute truth.
This is all about literal/non-literal or figurative thinking.
To see through the idea of “We create our own reality” in the way I have outlined requires that one realises strongly that words are not the same as reality.
Language is only provisional.
Concepts are not of the same order as that which they seek to describe.
(See Magritte below)
Lokesh, you say “One observation I have made over the years is that the people who promote the ‘create your own reality’ viewpoint are almost always successful.”
Nietzsche pointed out that the philosophy of free will (and “You create your own reality” is certainly the same idea) was created and is always adopted by the ruling classes, for whom it is a justification. It also can be used to criticise and condemn those who have less, who will then feel inferior and even guilty for what may really be just bad luck. As a result, the rulers stay in their power position.
Philosophical ideas are handy little tools to keep people and things in place!
”You create your own reality” is, like all words/concepts, a tool. Like all tools, you can use it in a variety of ways.
For example, a blade can be used to make your dinner, build a house or to arm a force to threaten others and to keep them under control.
Hi Frank, thanks for your thoughtful response, especially the Nietzsche pointer. I did not know that.
The questions in my short essay are genuine. I really am interested to hear what others have to say about the create your own reality philosophy. Empowerment is a key word in such ideas. To be honest, I find it difficult to take very seriously, currently being aware of just how insignificant I am in the greater scheme of things. Makes me think of that old Kansas song we sing in my singing circle.
“Dust In The Wind”
I close my eyes
Only for a moment, and the moment’s gone
All my dreams
Pass before my eyes, a curiosity
Dust in the wind
All they are is dust in the wind
Same old song
Just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do
Crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
Now don’t hang on
Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away
And all your money won’t another minute buy
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
(All we are is dust in the wind)
Dust in the wind
(Everything is dust in the wind)
Everything is dust in the wind
(In the wind)
I have found many incidents in life which appear to affirm that we do indeed create our own reality. But I suspect that aspect is only part of the larger picture; a deeper reality probably involves a fair amount of what could be called ‘fate’, ‘predetermination’, or pre-programming. By what or whom, I don’t know.
But there are just too many incidents of people accurately looking into parts of the future, whether it is through a momentary glimpse, or through a medium such as palmistry, tarot cards, tea leaves etc. I’ve had some eerily accurate palm readings in the past.
Strangely enough, I was also thinking about exactly the same cosmic issues a couple of days ago.
When I was growing up I kept coming across these women in different places, that I found incredibly attractive – it always started without knowing them at all, just admiring them from a distance, and then inevitably, six months or a couple of years down the line, I would end up in intimate situations, discover that we had a mutual attraction, and end up bed with them.
So I was quite fortunate in that way.
Many years ago, I had moved into a flat with a friend in a new area of town. I happened to be looking for work at the time. There happened to be a big white hotel close by, just five minutes walk away from where I was living. I thought, “Wouldn’t mind working there for a while. So convenient.”
About a week later I saw a vacancy advertised in the paper for a job in that exact hotel, and within no time I had the job and was working in that place, which served me well for a time.
This kind of thing has happened many times in my life, but when I really learnt how to use the tricks of manifestation, empowerment and how to create the outcome I wanted, as much as possible, was in working in sales and marketing. That is a game where positive thinking, perseverance and positive power is the key to success and to generating money quickly. And it doesn’t just involve using your mind in a positive way, it has just as much to do with =influencing and manipulating other people’s perception.
Some would describe these things – manifestation, empowerment, taking responsibility – as ‘the positive aspects of the ego’.
But is there a deeper layer of reality of our lives which is predetermined?
Shanti, the rumour on the streetless street is that it`s all being written and staged by a completely wacko, surrealist-absurdist cosmic playwright/director/producer with a wicked, dark-edged sense of humour.
Just when you feel like you`re creating your own reality, he sends someone in to mess it up, and when you decide it`s all predetermined he gives you a temporary super-power to pull yourself out. Quite honestly, he`s a bit of a bastard like that.
“wicked, dark-edged sense of humour.”
“Quite honestly, he`s a bit of a bastard like that.”
I’d have to agree with that, Frank, except if ‘He’ really is the playright/director/producer of the entire plot, story and characters, I would go even further, adding that He is also psychopathic and downright nasty. Certainly not worthy of any kind of temple or worship in his name. After all, he has created famines, war, terrible afflictions, diseases and limitations, and the worst possible tortures.
Of course, He’s created lots of nice, wonderful and enjoyable stuff too, and cleverly invented the old ‘in- out, in-out’ as the major attraction for humans that keeps the species reproducing itself and surviving. And a very few people get enlightened here and there, and a few more think they are enlightened but are actually not. It’s all very complex.
This is a beautiful planet – but does the composer and scriptwriter really give a shit about human affairs? It doesn’t appear so.
Perhaps it’s like a creative dream – all of it. That’s one of the old Indian stories, that all universes are just Vishnu’s dreams.
Shanti,
Yup,those ol` Indians certainly knew how to spin a good yarn.
Makes you embarrassed to be a westerner, really, being brought up on:
God came down to earth, shagged a chippie`s wife. The resulting bastard went off on one and ended up nailed to a tree and then blamed everyone else for it.
Rubbish plot. Ham acting.
Yeah, Hinduism is far more sophisticated in trying to explain things than the dualistic angry father God of Judaism/Christianity.
Perhaps it’s the most reasonable way to try to explain predetermination:
The force, the source, the mystery creates, writes, directs the drama, and watches it unfold, yet it knows it is really the stuff of ILLUSION.
Just a movie, a programme.
The other twist is the source/creative force behind the whole drama also hides itself inside the movie, as us, and possibly other beings, as sleeping souls who are not aware of the maya or the illusionary nature of it all…until they gradually awaken and finally disappear as individuals back into the Creative/Source mystery.
Therefore every abomination dreamt up by the Source/mystery creative force behind it all is unreal on the deepest level.
Pure creativity on a cosmic scale.
This is much more sophisticated than the battle between good and evil that the Judeo/Christians have dreamt up.
Yes, that`s true.
Mind you, the absolute duality approach of the battle between good and evil has been highly effective in keeping people busy and doing stuff. I mean, the constant threat of spending the rest of eternity in a furnace with some psycho sticking a three-pronged poker up your ass can really focus you.
Understandably, it can aggravate the old existential anxiety to red-zone levels, too.
“the constant threat of spending the rest of eternity in a furnace with some psycho sticking a three-pronged poker up your ass can really focus you.
Understandably, it can aggravate the old existential anxiety to red-zone levels, too.”
Yes, unless you are a homosexual, BDSM sadomasochist who has a fetish for hot pokers.
But many Judeo- Christians, Catholics and others would put all of the homosexuals into Hell anyway, just for falling on the wrong side of their dualistic paradigm. Plus lots of other folks would end up in eternal hellfire just for shagging outside of marriage, group-sex, smoking a bit of pot or watching Bhagwan videos.
Guilt-tripping enjoyments such as sex outside of marriage, or enjoying sex for anything other than for procreation, and the fear of Hell for anything deemed bad or on the wrong side of the Lord has been one way of trying to control unwanted behaviours.
But lots of women were burnt at the stake for using herbs and dunked in a bucket of water until they confessed to witchcraft. The people had become afraid of anything that wasn’t properly understood and blamed it on the devil.
On the other hand, Hindus use the idea of karma, which supposedly balances acts, which is a useful tool to give the masses the fear of retribution.
However, Hindus still ultimately believe that God is the only doer in all situations, and the whole existence is his leela. And Hindus have found special ways to loosen the karmic load, places, like certain rivers where they can just go and take a dip in that place, and then that is meant to wash away lifetimes of bad karmas.
Another trick is mantras that are said to clear away the bad karmas if chanted over a certain amount, say over 1000,0000 times.
Hindus aren`t very enthusiastic about homosexuals either.
They don`t seem to be very keen on them “loosening their karmic load” around the place.
Frank, you have taken Lokesh’s post further with this (3 January, 2020 at 4:54 pm) response.
“This is all about literal/non-literal or figurative thinking.”
I think that is true and also mostly subjective.
“On the other hand, if we attempt to use this idea as a philosophical or even spiritual position, that is to say, we start to think that this idea expresses an unassailable truth that holds true in all situations at all times, we can become caught in an absurdity.”
I think philosophical & spiritual positions are generally not absolute, these days I think any existential position cannot be absolute & this to me is a Universal truth!
Hi K,
I agree: absolute positions tend to be absolute rubbish!
Yes, words are the attempt to express a thought stimulated by a reality that everyone in their own way believes to perceive.
These limits about what one can say, think and observe can be intuited, consciously recognized or ignored.
“Do we create our own reality?” Assuming that there is a reality described in words, different from a thought and perceived one, I would say yes, but only if I don’t have to deal with someone who answers the same “yes”, sharing with him/her the same part of reality, which he wants to create in a different way from what I would like to do.
I anticipate supermen who might object that there are those who have the power to change reality and who would like to do it but don’t have the means, saying that a superman is such until he meets another superman with whom to compromise or accept change of the new reality created.
For me, the only reality that matters and that I like to create is designed for someone to give it to, but almost everything is already available, in case I should just remove some obstacles and sources of noise.
If I could create my own reality…
It may take one or two lives to mature, Europe will see a new leader meditative like Pope, hack like Trump.
No, I am not in a hurry to imagine last life before Nirvana.
Lokesh writes: “One observation I have made over the years is that the people who promote the ‘create your own reality’ viewpoint are almost always successful.”
Anyone who has studied astrology for few years can tell, looking at the randomly chosen charts, who are successful, who are not.
There is a subtle difference also between the charts of successful masters, successful therapists and thousands of those who have done few years therapist training courses while doing office work or being nurses and yet they remain the same, even after training.
It means successful people develop a certain confidence.
Reality is those who have seen the spring also see the autumn. When the tide changes, same minds who created successful entrepreneur stand in the bankruptcy court.
It all depends, circle is of few years, few decades or centuries.
Perfectly correct, Shantam!
As one who has learnt ancient Vedic science of starsigns from Swami Bhorat himself and also flicked through copy of Linda Goodman`s ‘Sunsigns’ in charity shop a few times, I can certainly say it is possible from looking at chart how much of a success one is!
Certainly, each planet and each soul has its own wisdom to impart and for those who have the eyes to see, without even reference to chart, it is very easy to see that your wisdom comes directly from Uranus!
Detailed study has led Swami Bhorat to the scientific conclusion that if you have heavy influence of Uranus in same position square on and in close conjunction with same stained seat near computer and ejaculating onto Facebook wall for long period, it is extremely unlikely that you will be successful in world!
To those who have understanding of the occult, it certainly appears that you have again made contact with the Nine Men again! Your vision of next European leader having meditative quality of Pope, and spontaneous crazy wisdom of Trump is perfectly correct! It is even better idea than Hitler of ushering in 1000-yuga of superconciousness! Certainly, it is an updated version of Zorba the Buddha, suitably created by the occult powers-that-be for a new generation of souls whose consciousness has been irrevocably blasted by the soma of long-term anti-depressant use!
But with characteristic modesty you have missed out your own important part which must be as special spiritual adviser to EU social security department and newly formed post of minister for meditation and medication!
Yahoo!
Hari Om!
Yes, Shantam, I think Yogi is right on the money with his take on your astrology angle.
I have always found that astrology comes in too handy when it comes to pigeonholing people. I am also sure that were I to send you ten people´s birth times your exact science would fall well short of the mark when it comes to predicting who is more or less likely to be a success in life.
An old friend of mine developed something called the Human Design System. He made a lot of money out of it before his death- What I found remarkable was the huge number of people who swear by it. Never been interested in astrology myself. Which is not to say there is nothing in it.
Lokesh,
I understand the idea of using metaphors that can put you in touch with other parts of yourself in a playful way. Saying someone`s mercurial, jovial, saturnine and so on, or comparing people or yourself to an animal or some other image can be a way of expanding the way you see yourself and things, but predictive astrology is simply a scam.
I`m always amazed at how many sannyasins go for the Enneagram and Human Design thing. Those typology things don`t do it for me. Come on, Existence bothers to make everyone different, down to the fingerprint and then you get a number from 1 to 9? Sounds like a simpleton`s day out!
When you look at it, the things that Enneagram and Human Design both share is that they are taught by guys who give out the wisdom little by little. That`s the point – it`s a fantasy of having the wise man drip-feeding you the secret wisdom. A revealed knowledge guru trip.
Unsurprisingly, the business model is pyramid selling. Ok, they can all be ways of having a slightly different conversation than normal about life but the jargon is mumbo and the fees are extortionate. You`d probably be better off going to one of those rituals they have around these days where people actually set fire to real notes. I`ve heard they`re quite a buzz.
You must have heard of the experiments they have done by giving groups of people a resume of their astrology chart, purportedly done by an astrologer. A large number agree that their reading is surprisingly accurate. Then they are told that they have all been given the same print-out, the same reading. The experiment has been repeated with the same results loads of times.
People identify with what they are told. Like when you watch a movie you identify with the good guy oe maybe the bad guy. It`s a natural human reaction. You can use it all as a Rorschach-type test and it`s jolly good fun, but secret, ultimate secret revealed wisdom, key to your soul etc?
Nah.
I used to do charts for a while in the 80s. I gave a friend who asked me a reading. I drew up the chart and gave him the reading. He was blown away. He said it was bang on and happily parted with the money. It was only later that I realised that I had made several serious errors in calculating it (by hand, pre-internet age) so a lot of the placings ofnthe planets and houses were completely wrong.
I told him about it and we had a good laugh and he didn`t even ask for his money back.
I wonder what sort of ‘readings’ the participants in these experiments were given. I suspect they were pretty generalised comments about tendencies and trends easily applicable to most people rather than in-depth analysis of individual character, past, present and possible future, including potential strengths, internal conflicts and likely effects of transits etc.
I say this because of my own experience of one or two very good and mediocre astrologers, with a reading back in the 80s from Liz Greene, generally regarded as the leading exponent of ‘psychological astrology’, the yardstick by which I measure all the others. Amongst other helpful insights, she ‘got’ each of my parents and the family situation spot on, which I found hugely impressive.
It seems to me that as with so much else in life, the value of astrology comes down to the quality and depth of insight of the individual practitioner. To dismiss it as phoney or useless, or at best, entertainment, dependent on the gullibility or delusion of astrologer and client, is rather like suggesting that acupuncture or herbal medicine or even any art or trade is of little or no intrinsic value, without having had personal experience of its expert exponents.
SD,
For me, when you go to an astrologer, a tarot-reader or anything else, what matters is the quality of the rapport and the conversation shared and the level of `hunger` for answers, affirmation, confirmation, understanding or whatever is sought by the participants. Some people have got the knack for participating in those conversations, some not.
It is common knowledge these days that people say that they benefit or not, in fairly equal proportions, from no matter what type of therapy. It`s worth remembering that this includes lobotomy and electric shock treatment (not joking here).
Unusually personal and intimate coversations with strangers are a very interesting and valuable experience. They produce unusual results. Of that I am convinced. When people put their heads together intently, “magic” happens.
The medium: astrology, tarot, tea leaves etc. etc. is less important. That`s my view. Those who believe in the objective truth of the medium itself are still literal-thinkers and that lack of versatility and mercurial (!) quality may well be a hindrance.
Btw, I don`t think that you can lump in herbal medicine and acupuncture with astrology. For example, I always have a bottle of tea-tree oil around and use it for various things. It works. That doesn’t mean that I`m going to pay Shantam to do my chart or get an acupuncturist`s number out of a phone box!
Frank, I wouldn’t suggest you or anyone does anything else just because you’ve found something in particular that works for you, and/or know someone who has! The point I’m making is that to decry a method, medium, technique, process, product or practitioner proves nothing much, except that the particular one sampled isn’t much good (or not appropriate for you).
Sure, any ‘psychic’ medium can be used effectively given a high degree of clarity, understanding and intuition on the part of the ‘reader’, and of course rapport with the client is important. But in my experience astrology can work precisely, both in uncovering and shedding light on the past, providing a ‘picture’ of one’s psyche, and in illuminating present and future trends.
For instance, Liz Greene demonstrated, with a minimum of input from me, that she knew the sort of particular difficulties I was facing at the time, and also when the pressure would begin to ease and drop away, by citing a key two years planetary transit (Saturn through birth sign), as her analysis turned out to be spot-on.
Other periods, both tricky and fortunate, have also been highlighted by others over the years, which has helped me to understand what was going on and deal with the issues arising, or at least ‘survive’ them, and not least, also to realise that they wouldn’t go on ‘for ever’.
SD,
I would like to raise a few points and ask a few questions.
You could have told Liz Greene what the difficulties were straightaway and saved time and energy of her using her psychic/astro powers and she could have still helped.
How many difficulties will not drop away given some time? `Two years` covers a lot of things. Bereavement, relationship endings, long-term illness all fit nicely. I would be willing to bet that she uses the two year gambit on a regular basis and with positive results!
And what of the suggestion factor?
You saw her as an authority and trusted in her, presumably, making it more possible to happen.
To have a sympathetic stranger, especially with some kind of rep and status, tell you that a phase of suffering is not going to last for ever can be strangely powerful. It doesn`t have anything to do with the position of the planets. It has to do with people.
Do you have a recording of your meeting with Liz Greene that shows actual details? That, for example, she said-you got married April the first three years ago and went to the doctor who diagnosed you with such and such last March the 23rd and so on?
Memory is selective. It’s even selective at the moment of formation. How much detail of any conversation do you actually remember?
Also, don`t forget that in this kind of discussion about efficacy of treatments, onus of proof that it is astrology itself that cured you rather than a variety of other human factors is on you.
If it is just your feeling that it works, and that it doesn`t have to be proved, you go your own way, then by and large, you are taking the same position as I am.
On the other hand, if it can be demonstated clearly, in a left-brain kind of way, that it is/was the circling of the planets and some kind of scientific observation of them that did it, not other human factors, then fire away, I`m listening.
Ok Frank, I’ll respond to each of your questions and points in the order you wrote them.
Thinking back, I recall that at the start of the session I did in fact briefly tell Liz Greene what was going on and the symptoms weren’t due to any of the situations you mention (bereavement, relationship endings, long-term illness) nor any other specific circumstances. I’d sort of ‘hit the wall’ (as they say in marathon running when you feel you just can’t go on), was ‘under a cloud’, feeling chronically ‘contracted’, low energy, internally ‘pressured’ yet unable to do anything to significantly alleviate it, whether therapy, meditation or whatever.
Shortly after she began talking, referring to my chart, and specifically to the Saturn transit, I realised she’d absolutely described the condition I was in and its major psychic cause, which was a relief, the beginning of getting a handle on it all, especially as she said the transit would take about two years, which is the usual time for Saturn transits through a birth sign.
Yes, it felt good to be told this and plenty of other things, including what this was teaching me and some advice on how to get through it, but the ongoing ‘internal pressure’ continued, only beginning to relent after about two years – right on time!
Liz Greene gave me a tape of the 90 minutes session so I don’t have to rely purely on memory.
Where did you get the idea that I’m saying “astrology cured” me? I’m saying it was a significant help at that time, not necessarily the ‘total answer’, but that apart from pinpointing the main astrological issue and other significant aspects appearingin the chart Liz Greene made some valuable suggestions as to how to cope with what had been a pretty bewildering state to be in.
A few months after the session I came across Barry Long in London and stuck with him throughout this period, going through a lot of internal stuff, which is what really made a difference. He once or twice referred to himself as ‘Saturn’ – funny thing that…And, by the way, he earned his living for a while writing syndicated astrology columns for newspapers and magazines!
As for the common objection ‘how can the movements of the planets so far away have such profoiund effects on human beings?’ such a standpoint fails to recognise what spiritual teachers have taught as a great truth of the human psyche, ie whatever’s ‘out there’ in the external universe is a reflection of what’s inside us: as without, so within, and vice versa.
My own experience of in-depth psychological astrology has confirmed this, although I suspect this couldn’t be proved scientifically, it’s more a case of trusting right-brain intuition, which, given my findings, is absolutely ok by me.
Thanks, SD.
As I see it, there are two views here:
There`s the idea that it`s all a metaphorical, human game/interaction/activity which includes suggestion, symbolism, figurative thinking, abstract ideas and paralogical perspectives presented in a certain context etc. This is my view.
And there is the idea that claims the existence of a higher detailed map of the truth of the correlation between the psyche and the universe which has been put together by those who know and which astrologers claim to be able to decode. I do not subscribe to this view, other than I do concede that this fiction can be used as a facet of the game described in the first view.
Pressed on it, you say: “I suspect this…(that) the movements of the planets have such profound effects on human beings…couldn`t be proved scientifically, it’s more a case of trusting right-brain intuition, which, given my findings, is absolutely ok by me.”
So, really, you espouse the first view.
But it is risky to have to rely on your own right brain, so you would like to keep the sense of `objective authority` that the idea of the scientific or absolute ‘truth` of astrology gives you.
That is what all astrologers do.
They want to have their cake and eat it!
You may make a plausible-sounding case, Frank – yet, as I said, my experience includes several precise descriptions of not only the personal significance of certain key astrological transits (notably, Saturn in birth-sign and Pluto likewise) but also their exact length, a matter of years, not months or weeks, which turned out to be uncannily correct.
And how to explain that both my parents and the nature of my birth family were accurately described in depth in Liz Greene’s interpretation of my chart? And the other revelations and insights arising from her reading? Her high degree of psycholgical intelligence and sensitivity played their part, of course, but all she said was grounded in and explained with reference to what she found in the chart.
Why defending, SD?
Astrology worked for you in that situation – finished.
As I see it, astrology can be some kind of device. It shifts the energy from some problematic body-mind system into a kind of not being responsible. The chart and the planets are responsible.
This shifting relaxes the body-mind system and healing is possible.
Reminds me when sannyasins said, “Bhagwan is responsible – not me!”
Yes, that’s true, Satchit, there is a lightening of the burden of a difficult ongoing internal condition when astrology explains the underlying ‘psychic’ conditions giving rise to it.
However, as what’s ‘out there’ is not intrinsically separate from what’s ‘in here’, the point is not to shift responsibility from oneself but rather to accept responsibility for dealing with the situation by realising what in oneself has produced it, ie the aspects of life one hasn’t dealt with sufficiently up to that point. A good astrologer, eg Liz Greene, will also suggest practical ways to help overcome the crisis.
As for the sannyasins declaring “Bhagwan is responsible – not me!”, well, let’s hope they’ve learned their lesson by now!
My view is that astrology would ‘work’ even if there was no provable connection between the planets and the human psyche (which is what I actually believe to be the case).
I Ching, Tarot, Human Design and all the rest all have adherents who claim the same kind of positive results as astrology.
So, I would ask:
How is a divination system that is fit-for-purpose created and put together? How is a system that generates the benefits that are claimed created? What is the nuts and bolts of this and do they share a common structure despite all looking different?
Here goes:
A while back, a new age seminar leader with an interest in dreams and divination came up with the following idea for a game in one of his seminars:
He had the participants, about 30 or 40 of them, all write down, briefly on a card, in a couple of sentences, the most significant event in their life.
Then he collected the cards. Later in the group he used them as divination cards. Asked everyone to pick a card at random and then talk about it. To everyone`s amazement, the most common experience that people had was that the event expressed on the card that they had picked related quite uncannily to what they were experiencing in their life right now. He also used the cards again with other groups at a later time and got the same kind of reactions.
Here`s the thing, then:
Create a list of an `archetypal` collection or compendium of sorts of events and “energies” that happen in life, place them together in some format and you have the basis for a divination system. Astrology is perfect of course. Throughout history the planets have served as a typology of people and experiences still found in our language today: mercurial, saturnine, martial etc. I Ching extrapolates 64 `archetypal` events and innumerable sub-sections that are taken to cover the range of human possibilities.
Tarot cards cover a wide range of human experience in metaphorical, artistic, mythic ways also, same with Human Design, which is quite derivative of astrology and I Ching and the rest.
Once you have the compendium of human events and possibilities assembled, you create a random way of choosing one or several of them. The birth date/time of birth is one such random way, not so different from picking a card or throwing a dice. It only seems non-random and directly related to the planets if you believe that astrology is an accurate map of the heavens, which it clearly is not (ask an astronomer).
So there you have it. A system that that is created by assembling a conglomeration of symbols, metaphors, myths etc. that is accessed randomly. Then, of course, you take the results as if they are significant to your life. That’s what underlies every divination system.
Voila! It works!
It doesn`t work in a vacuum, of course. All the other human aspects of communication, desire, rapport and so on that I have already mentioned come into play as well.
It doesn`t work in a scientific, repeatable way because this is not science, it`s closer to art.
You don`t have to be an artist to understand that sometimes art works, sometimes it doesn`t. Liz Greene, like any other practitioner, will have had her moments where it simply hasn`t worked with people. If you come across a practitioner (or therapist or guru) who claims their system always helps everyone, run for it, you`ve got a loopy megalomaniac on your hands).
It works in the sense that somehow this whole process provokes strange, weird and wonderful things to happen.
What is this?
Magic, maybe.
To me, it`s clearly a game.
What I have outlined are the rules of this kind of game. Rules not in the sense of laws, but in the sense of a list of the conditions necessary for the game to work.
Follow the rules and get the results.
On average, people are not pleased to hear that divination is a game. They think it means “Oh, it`s just a game” which is pejorative.They say: “I`m more spiritually inclined than that, this is serious and so on.”
A game doesn`t bestow much spiritual authority on the players at all.
That`s why people hold to the metaphysical explanations. They satisfy the craving for authorisation from a higher point than themselves both in the form of people and in the abstract (objective truth).
Best thing is to enjoy it.
All well argued, interesting and pretty convincing at first glance, Frank. Yet nothing you say here effectively explains astrological phenomena that large numbers of people, including me, have experienced, eg Saturn Return (1 and 1/4 years before and after every 29 years), Saturn transit through birth-sign (as I noted in earlier posts) and Pluto transits through birth-sign. Each of these are often periods of great personal upheaval (they were certainly that for me, corresponding exactly to the relevant transit dates).
Not to mention the multi-faceted, complex picture of the individual psyche provided by the birth chart, which again I’ve found to be enlightening (in the ‘normal’ sense) and a most useful tool for self-awareness, as have countless others.
I suggest that the validity of these factors are independent of “all the other human aspects of communication, desire, rapport and so on” that you mention as key elements in the process, although such aspects are obviously important as means to fine-tune the astrologer’s response to the person before them – except where readings are done without any direct personal contact with the client of course.
But yes, I agree that astrology is – like life itself – more art than science, requiring intelligence, understanding of the human condition, sensitivity and experience.
And I think you’re misguided to deny any connection between the human psyche and the planets (or indeed, the entire rest of the universe). Not that I can prove this of course, as it almost certainly takes an advanced level of consciousness to perceive, but somehoew it makes intuitive sense to me. You might well say that’s because I want it to be so, it feels nicely ‘mysterious’ and perhaps even ‘comforting’…but I’ve heard this from reliable sources so I’ll stick with it.
You don`t have to be a mystic or in higher consciousness to know that we are the universe.
“The very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. We are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us.”
(Niel De Grasse Tyson, Astrophysicist)
As for the psychic connection:
A visit to any A and E on a full moon night will confirm it.
Sure, Frank, although this scientific statement is based on purely material considerations. Whether science will ever be able to consider profound matters of the psyche with any similar authority seems doubtful. Better to leave that to the mystics, artists and yes, the astrologers, I reckon.
All in all I quite go along with what Carl Sagan said in his ‘The Fine Art Of Baloney Detection’.
1. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
2. Such reports persist and proliferate because they sell. And they sell, I think, because there are so many of us who want so badly to be jolted out of our humdrum lives, to rekindle that sense of wonder we remember from childhood, and also for a few of the stories, to be able, really and truly, to believe in someone older, smarter and wiser who is looking out for you.
3. One of the saddest lessons of history is this:
If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. (It’s) simply too painful to acknowledge – even to ourselves – that we’ve been so credulous.
I would add a rider concerning 2:
It seems to me absolutely vital in our grind-you-down tick-tock `left-brain` world that we do actually need to find ways to “rekindle that sense of wonder from childhood”. Not all of us are brilliant scientists getting paid to follow their abilities/dreams, like Sagan was.
My idea is that a psych-games approach to divination is one such way to do just that. This approach seems to be to me far better suited to the task than another re-run of a wise man (or woman) who opens the book of life for us and reads out our lot, like some kind of Victorian schoolmaster. Then we doff our lower consciousness caps to his superconscious top-hat and “stick with that” because we are convinced that they are `reliable`.
I`m dozing off at the back of the class just thinking about it!
No problem with those points from Carl Sagan, Frank.
But it sounds as if you have an ‘authority problem’ – as long as the authority is a non-scientist! (Takes one to know one…).
Talking of ‘authority’, you seem to happily take on board the pronouncements of scientists, while denigrating the expertise of those gifted in certain other spheres, eg astrology. Although over the decades and centuries many scientific methods and their findings have been found to be wanting in the light of new discoveries. Thus demonstrating science’s integrity while indicating that not everything it states as true is necessarily the case.
Scientific scepticism is fine, crucial in fact – but it also pays to be sceptical about science, especially where the human psyche is concerned.
SD,
You say:
“You`ve got an authority problem…”
Haven`t had that one levelled at me for a while. You`ve made me feel at least 20 years younger. Thanks for that!
Really, I don`t invoke Sagan as an authority to back me up, he just happened to state the point concisely. As I also stated, I actually disagreed with him on one point. Plus, it is hard to find quotes on `the art of baloney detection` written by astrologers!
The science versus superstition, believer versus skeptic thing is a road that I have been down enough to know that it`s a dead end.
Really, I`m interested in creative thinking rather than dogma. If that`s anti-authority in any way, so be it.
I think you’ll find astrologers do have conflicts, arguments about significances etc., even similarly harsh descriptions at times. Not that I know anything much about them or take any interest.
Just in case you’re interested.
https://www.livescience.com/4667-astrological-sign.html
See?
Astrology is doing what I said. Using a system of symbols, metaphors, myths etc. that has no correlation to observable physical reality.
It can still be made to ‘work’ under the conditions that I have described in my earlier posts. Indeed, that is the reality of the situation, what is happening already.
Is that very difficult to grasp?
Yes, it is difficult to grasp as it doesn’t explain my amd many others’ experience of amazingly accurate descriptions of the effects of certain key planetary transits, as I’ve explained before. Neither does it explain similarly accurate, in-depth readings of the whole chart. All done under what the article terms outdated data re the movements up there.
And if I’m really a Libra, and my partner’s really a Taurus…well…nah, can’t be having it, Frank, makes no sense at all!
Ok. I give up!
A friend of mine, a good astrologer (but it’s not his job), when I asked for his comments on these scientific revelations, said:
“It’s way out as far as western astrology is concerned. Western astrologers mostly use the Tropical Zodiac. I use the indian system, the sidereal Zodiac, which takes the procession of the equinoxes into account. So according to my system my Sun is not in Cancer but Gemini. It’s all complicated and too much maths to go into here.”
I have to say that it’s all very odd. Another example comes to mind, my brother, a typical Leo if ever there was one, born mid-August, is, according to science, a Cancer. I just can’t see that, not at all (although I know astrology is far more than just Sun-Signs).
SD,
This is what I have been asking: How can you have 2 maps of the same place (the universe) without at least one being wrong? Both Easterners and Westerners `have faith` in the same ways.
What I have presented, if only briefly, is, therefore, that the ‘effects’ and why it ‘works’ in astrology, as in other forms of divination, does not happen because of the accuracy of the so-called map. It is due to the creation of a certain type of compendium of symbols and the psyche-game that it is used for in the way that I have outlined in general terms. It`s a map. Not forgetting, of course, the human skills, intuition, inspired guesswork and experience etc. of the readers and the desire of the enquirer.
It`s an art. Art needs no authorisation or verification by science. Take, for example, poetry.
The trick is putting words in unusual orders/formats in order to get results. A good poem can make you cry or laugh or a host of other subtle effects. Now, a particularly rational scientist could say “This is ridiculous. Messing about with words in a way that they don`t make logical sense is meaningless”. You will realise that he simply doesn`t get poetry nor understand how it works.
Same with music or painting and all the arts.
Divination, in the psycho-spiritual sense, not the fortune-telling sense, is like this.
As the poet plays with words, the musician with sounds, the painter with colours, so the astrologer/I Ching exponent/tarotist etc. plays with the interaction of a system of symbols with his/her psyche and the psyche of the `client`.
This is my considered view.
But HOW do those seemingly amazing results happen?
Here`s an example:
Not long ago, my partner gave a reading to our neighbour whose mother had recently died. She used “Psycards”, a type of tarot deck. She took three cards at random. They were `Mother`, `Death` and “The Cave”. She was somewhat blown away. They both felt that the cave referred to having to retreat and go in to face the bereavement.
This is weirdly “accurate”.
How does it work?
A scientist will say it was just luck and the participants have read into it.
Psychics will claim some kind of link to the spirits or `guides` and whatnot.
Jung would have said that when people are constellated in an archetypal moment, they will manifest synchronistic phenomena.
All explanations are fun but ultimately will be not entirely satisfying in the same way that any theory about “how poetry works” will never be entirely convincing or conclusive. The point is either you dig it or you don`t.
None of this matters.
Play the game. Get the result. That’s what matters. And like art, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn`t. Sometimes (a lot of the time) the poet and the painter don`t get it right and just screw up the bit of paper and have to start again. Sometimes they produce an ok one. Now and again they come up with a cracker.
Diviners or readers will never admit this publically of course, certainly not in their promotional literature.
With regard to you discovering that your brother isn`t a Leo, but a Cancer, and that you are now a Libra: This could be a major breakthrough as you realise that neither you or your brother are the people that you always thought you were. Sounds like some kind of enlightenment to me.
Who knows? It could crack open the prison door, loose the mind-forged manacles and you find yourself in the bright shining air at last!
You seem like a Libra to me. You have a sense of fair play and justice. And you like to get things balanced, even if that tends somewhat to over-thinking. You might be a little indecisive and absent-minded at times due to a little ungroundedness but all in all, balance prevails.
See? It works!!
Interesting, Frank, I’d go along with much of what you say.
Except…re myself, “a little ungroundedness” is due to not having any ‘earth’ in my chart, apart from having ‘Virgo Rising’, which also explains tendencies and preferences towards fair play, justice and balance. Of course.
Yes, astrology isn’t an exact science, but it’s probably, or almost certainly, the best such vehicle we have for understanding the mystery of our individual make-ups, whichever system one uses.
And I still maintain the basic correlation between the human psyche and the universe, ie ‘as above, so below’, ‘as without, so within;, and vice versa.
Frank, you ask, “How can you have 2 maps of the same place (the universe) without at least one being wrong?”
My astrologer friend says:
“There are all sorts of conflicting views about different ways of setting up. It has always been my contention that there is no real right or wrong way to do astrology, just DIFFERENT WAYS.
Look at it like this:
Taking photos of the same thing from different camera angles you have the same subject but the photos are different. You can not say which photo is right or wrong, they’re just different perspectives.”
He continues:
“Ive had many readings from many astrologers, using many different systems. As far I am concerned, it is not the system that is so important but the astrologer that is is the vital factor: how good is the astrologer?
Having said that, the Indian system goes back in its direct lineage thousands of years without a break and it is one of the most complex and deep systems that exist.”
“As above so below” is the catchphrase of hermetic wisdom.
Yet people forget that Hermes himself was the progeny of a one-night stand, a con-artist, thief, hustler and probably the first rock-star. Would you trust this guy?
“Zeus had impregnated Maia at the dead of night while all other gods slept. When dawn broke amazingly he was born. Maia wrapped him in swaddling bands, then resting herself, fell fast asleep. Hermes, however, squirmed free and ran off to Thessaly. This is where Apollo, his brother, grazed his cattle. Hermes stole a number of the herd and drove them back to Greece. He hid them in a small grotto near to the city of Pylos and covered their tracks.
Before returning to the cave he caught a tortoise, killed it and removed its entrails. Using the intestines from a cow stolen from Apollo and the hollow tortoise shell, he made the first lyre.
When he reached the cave he wrapped himself back into the swaddling bands. When Apollo realized he had been robbed he protested to Maia that it had been Hermes who had taken his cattle. Maia looked to Hermes and said it could not be, as he is still wrapped in swaddling bands.
Zeus the all-powerful intervened, saying he had been watching and Hermes should return the cattle to Apollo. As the argument went on, Hermes began to play his lyre. The sweet music enchanted Apollo, and he offered Hermes to keep the cattle in exchange for the lyre.
Apollo later became the grand master of the instrument, and it also became one of his symbols. Later, while Hermes watched over his herd. he invented the pipes known as a syrinx (pan-pipes), which he made from reeds. Hermes was also credited with inventing the flute. Apollo also desired this instrument, so Hermes bartered with Apollo and received his golden wand which Hermes later used as his herald’s staff.”
I don’t know what the difference in calculating the Indian and the Western charts is, but I’ve heard that in Western astrology at least, people who are born right on the cusp of two signs, on a date where one sign moves into the next, can tend to have influences of aspects of both Sun signs.
I know that Indian astrology has been used for divination quite a lot – as in the case of predictions in both Buddha’s and Osho’s charts. Lots of Christians have been highly suspicous of astrology, of course – including the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Gee whizz! Wish I had a golden wand.
Yes, we are on the same page, Frank. I am sure we must have an astrological connection.
Cheers, Boss.
I shouldn`t knock astrology, really.
I mean when you think about it, it`s quite practical, and on a day-to-day basis it can be very useful to know where Uranus is.
This may be a little sketchily jotted down:
In my mind, there are a lot of lives in Bangladesh far more worth living than, for instance, in New York.
And those American guys’n girls surely created it as they wanted it to be. Based on their current level of ignorance. How could it be different?
A rather huge wastage, isn’t it?
Be careful what you wish for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSIFNuFa-RE
ACDC: ‘Ain’t No Fun (Waiting Round to Be a Millionaire)’
“In my mind, there are a lot of lives in Bangladesh far more worth living than, for instance, in New York.”
Only spoiled westerners with two left hands can say this.
There is the ‘Zorba the Buddha’ model which can describe the situation a little bit more clearly:
Some are long on Dollars – but short on spiritual life.
Some are short on Dollars – but long on spiritual life.
Generally speaking, Westerners are suffering (?) from the first.
Very generally speaking, Easterners are suffering (?) from the latter.
In our modern days, things are getting mixed up regarding Eats and Wets.
My situation currently is like:
Not so short on Dollars – not so short on spiritual life.
Quite in the middle.
However, I do know both the above options.
Question is, “How long does one need to be on Dollars” in order to be long on spiritual life?
Cheers.
Oh, third option – sannyasins might know:
Short on dollars – and short of spiritual life
i.e. Rajneeshpuram without own money – but guns.
Back to the discussion:
Did I create that reality? Consciously?
Da fuck: it just happened at that level.
Lokesh the boss and faceless Frank are on the same page, I don´t know about astrological connection but some comradeship as one sees between Blair and Bush, Johnson and Trump.
It is art of survival in the jungle: hunters have hidden fear not to get hurt by the arrows of another hunter – and that too, faceless.
Perfectly correct, Shantambhai!
These vile baboons Lokesh and Frank are certainly exactly like Trump and Johnson!
After nuking Al Bhagdaddy continuously for years and waging war on IS (Indian Sannyas) they have now liquidated influential figure in one true religion, General Suleimai Shantam, in their search for world domination! They are also helped by nefarious collaboration from king of SN (Saudi News) Salman Deva!
The stakes are getting higher every day – the fate of a site that costs £175 a year and has several invisible readers from the world over is certainly worth starting nuclear war over!
Only heroic figure of Ayatollah Shantam Khomeini remains to lead the fight against the great Satan and infidel baboons! Rumour has it that nuclear fission in 500 year-old chuddies could happen very soon!
In the meantime, the revolting Christian baboons will feel force of Shantam`s tongue, which is more terrifying than one-legged man with underpants outside trousers in ass-kicking contest with Rambo!
Yahoo!
Hari Om!
Super good.
As I wrote before, we all provide content for Anand Yogi’s stand-up pieces.
Shantam, I am sorry to inform you that the title, ‘The Boss’, is already taken by Bruce Springsteen. Here he is paying tribute to Prince:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5sim5B15gQ
There are many people around who have the power to change your reality and they do not possess superpowers. Take that aggressive drunk who bumped into me on the street the other day and shouted at me, ‘What the fuck are you looking at?’
My feeling is that Existence must have sent him to deepen your path of self-enquiry.
Probably one of Rabmana McCarthy`s wannabe psycho-spiritual advaita hard-men.
I hope you had the awareness to reply:
“Who is it that`s fockin` asking?”
Yes, yes, Frank, we are still on the same page. I was not fooled. I sensed immediately that the drunk was sent towards me by Osho in a sophisticated device to speed up my awakening. I was fast asleep at the time along with the rest of humanity, wondering if I was part of Shantam’s reality, which he is busy creating in a remote outpost of Astrolandia, and wham! I woke up to my true self and smashed an empty beer bottle over that nasty drunk’s head.
Some very interesting and informative comments. Thanks.
Faceless Frank,
I hope you know this idiom, “All mouth and no trousers.”
Shantam,
Thank-you for sharing and making clear the depth and level of your wisdom and insight on the subject.
Lovely research on “all mouth and trousers”:
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-all1.htm
“It might have been a backfire.”
Faceless, the way you have shown ignorance about astrology from your arrogant mind, it shows also you have bookish knowledge about spirituality and no depth of being.
Anyone with depth of being won´t put everything and everybody all the time by hiding behind the anonymous identity.
You are shameless too.
Klaus, with ref to the article, the `no` should definitely be in the expression.
We also have. “All fur coat and no knickers” which is the same idea, applied to women.
I expect they have the same kind of thing in other parts of the world.
For example: “All turban and no chuddies.”
I’m certain there is. It’s in the nervous system. How could it be otherwise?
Oh, I love those international researches.
Trans-national is also good.
Found this one today:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jan/06/myself-is-not-my-i-today-what-can-we-learn-from-chris-evans-extraordinary-life-advice
Self-improvement
Self-empowerment
“The Power of I in the Now”?
Even or especially modern day people are confusing wealth accumulation and spiritual growth.
Found another one on Bentinho Massaro:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/09/strange-hypnotic-world-millennial-guru-bentinho-massaro-youtube
To me, his “movement” seems so shallow including preposterous claims nobody really needs to believe in.
Re: Creating own reality.
Certainly by hypnosis or self-hypnosis you can create a new reality, reducing or finishing pain. Btw, it’s scientifically proved.
Interesting is also the other side of the coin:
That the reality creates You.
You are created by your parents, by your upbringing, your education, by your friends, by your enemies, by the country you are born in, by your gender, by your experiences and so on.
Yes.
Are you doing it, or is it doing you? As the actress said to the bishop.
I am working on me to create a reality as next generation Indian master who will create emotionally, financially, sexually unpolluted community for lonely hearts of the West.
Indians don´t need such thing.
Shantam talks about how India does not need a sexually unpolluted community.
A bit of an untimely comment, to say the least. Four rapists have just been sentenced to death in Delhi for raping and killing a 23 year-old woman on a bus. Statistics show that on average, in 2017, a woman was raped every 15 minutes in India.
Shantam, you are creating your own reality if you honestly believe India is not one of the most sexually repressed countries in the world.
Lokesh, have i denied this?
India is not one of the most but the most sexually repressed country, still would like you to check worldwide
data of sexual crimes against women.
Nowadays it is advisable to research facts and figures from the reliable sources on the net. Internet is not just for youtube videos.
Do we “create or own reality”?
To me the verb ‘to choose’ seems to be closer.
I chose to go to Rajneeshpuram.
I got there because my thoughts kept on dwelling perseveringly on this subject. And then action followed it through.
In Buddha Hall, Bhagwan showed me some of my ‘inner reality’ at that time. Phew, still digesting – transforming – working on it. Today.
This came in my inbox today:
“Resource for the day:
Making a huge decision is always intimidating.
But if you don’t do something about your happiness, who would?
You know yourself better than anyone.
If you think you can do it, you can!
If it fails, at least you learned something.
Believe in your power to create your own reality!
Today, decision-maker Mercury discerning will be in harmony with dreamy Neptune.
It’s a great day to share with others an inspiring vision towards the future as it will bring energies of empathy, sensitivity, and kindness.
Let this personal 2020 Chinese astrology reading illuminate your vision for your future.
Now is the time for the Universe to bestow you a multitude of blessings.
May the Force Be With You,
Sarah Lee
Master Astrologer”
(Based in California – where else?!)
Californication…
2020 all advisers are saying,
Go for your own truth. Dont be intimidated. Dont push it longer.
Ok.
Klaus,
You choose the digesting too.
What is there to digest more than 35 years back? Past is past.
Satchit,
Thanks for the response. What you are saying is true enough. Letting go is the hardest thing.
If it were that easy everybody could do it in an instant.
I am about gathering more courage….
In “35 years” it has not stayed the same, of course. There have been new ‘highs’ and so forth.
My take on ‘ups and downs’ is that one needs the ‘highs’ in order to pass through the ‘lows’.
So there will be not known before highs – and next, not known before lows. Of unknown lengths of time.
Before it all can (be) dissolve(d) – in any lifetime.
Hmm.
“Letting go is the hardest thing”
If you choose to think that it is the hardest thing, then it is the hardest thing.
Good one, Satchit…
I just shrugged my shoulders and had the thought:
“Maybe I am making too much of it….”
“Letting go” of what exactly, Klaus?
Uhh. Toughest question, Satyadeva.
In the last 2 weeks I have had some inner pictures emerging, but I cannot put them into context, yet.
Gives me a hot head some of the time….
There is a ‘Uranus conjunction Mars’ from July 2019 until March 2021 in my horoscope – titled “risk of explosion”.
Like I am finding limitations, which I had accepted until now starting to be unacceptable/unbearable.
And I would like to insist on my individual/personal way of being/doing things.
Suppressing these powers could lead to illness and so forth.
So, how to go about it is the challenge for “skillful means”.
”I do not believe that visualizing no shit happening in the course of one’s life is going to lead to a shit-free life, but of course the ‘create your own reality’ believers do.” (Lokesh)
I do not agree that shit happens. My experience is that life happens, love happens, etc…Shitty and “shit-free” are created labels, based on limited perspective.
I am reminded of the parable of the Chinese farmer who had an old horse for tilling his fields. One day the horse escaped into the hills and, when all the farmer’s neighbors sympathized with the old man over his bad luck, the farmer replied, ‘Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?’
A week later the horse returned with a herd of wild horses from the hills and this time the neighbors congratulated the farmer on his good luck. His reply was, ‘Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?’
Then, when the farmer’s son was attempted to tame one of the wild horses, he fell off its back and broke his leg. Everyone thought this very bad luck. Not the farmer, whose only reaction was, ‘Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?’
Some weeks later the army marched into the village and conscripted every able-bodied youth they found there. When they saw the farmer’s son with his broken leg they let him off. Now was that good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?
===============
“Go out one clear starlit night to some open space and look up at the sky, at those millions of worlds over your head. Remember that perhaps on each of them swarm billions of beings, similar to you or perhaps superior to you in their organization. Look at the Milky Way. The earth cannot even be called a grain of sand in this infinity. It dissolves and vanishes, and with it, you. Where are you?” (GI Gurdjieff, ‘Views from the Real World’)
Ok, the far bigger picture in ‘the scheme of things’…
Is that where you’re at, in your actual living experience now, Samarpan? So, for instance, should you undergo what would normally be regarded as a severe trauma, eg an accident disabling you for life, or being wrongly imprisoned for many years for a crime you didn’t commit, or your nearest and dearest being kidnapped, raped, tortured and murdered (not that I’d wish any of that on you or anyone else) do you think your responses would be as calm and ‘spiritually considered’ as you imply in your post?
You might say how could you imagine your response to such events, but maybe it’s worth a try.
Or on a more mundane level, are you free from irritation, irritable or angry reactions to adverse ‘ordinary’ circumstances that are normally regarded as “shit”, eg losing your wallet, being stuck in a traffic jam for hours making you miss an important appointment or a date, having your car tyres punctured by vandals, being ‘mugged’, or even the computer functioning very slowly or breaking down just when you need to get or send some important info, or, as is currently my situation, returning home from a holiday, very tired, and finding there’s no central heating or hor water, or even a succession of other ‘little things’ that go wrong during a day – and so on? If so, congratulations, you’re ‘walking your talk’!
Relevant to this general topic, this time more in support of your stance, a friend of mine, well known in north London Sannyas circles, recently had his highly successful large business (that he’d built up from virtually zero over the last 40 years) decimated by its hq being almost totally ruined by a fire (arson, detected by the cctv). Meaning the end of the line for the business in that form, having to lay off over 150 workers, paying them around a million pounds in redundancy money. And to compound the trauma, difficulties over the insurance situation as the alarm system at the site wasn’t functioning.
He told me he found the situation extremely painful for a few weeks, before a visit to an old friend who’d been severely paralysed for over 30 years by a fall from a building put his own trauma into perspective, making him realise that, although it was difficult, it was really nothing compared to what his friend had been and still was going through. So he chose to count his blessings rather than dwell upon his misfortune.
Well, re my personal predicament of no heating or hot water, needing to stimulate some vital energy I decided to take the plunge into a cold bath anyway, despite having so far given up even cold showers this winter – and immediately realised it had done me a great deal of good. So yes, another instance of the kind you quote today, Samarpan.
And the latest twist…I’ve just been informed that the repair job can’t be done for another two weeks. So, no heating or hot water here in one of the coldest months of the year. Great. And I’d already reported the problem just before I went away. Shit happens all right….
But then because of this catastrophe, you did something you wouldn’t usually do, and went and asked the young girl next door if you could borrow her electric heater – she invited you in for a cuppa – one thing led to another…good news, bad news, who knows?
Ah, but I already have an electric heater – but I don’t like using it due to the extra cost (I pay a weekly fixed fee for the central heating).
So, you asked your neighbour if you could use her hot shower- she kindly obliged – she then offered you a cuppa, you got talking…one thing led to another…Good news, bad news, who knows?
A couple of days later her boyfriend found out and badly beat you up. Your wife found out and you ended up, bruised and battered in the hospital. Good news, bad news, who knows?
A couple of days later, whilst recovering, aching in the hospital bed, with black eyes, you happened to become acquainted with the man lying next to you, who was one of the most interesting men you had ever met – a cancer patient – who happened to be enlightened.
You gazed into his piecing eyes and had a profound awakening which transformed your whole life. Good news, bad news, who knows?
SS, you got a chuckle. Good news, bad news, who knows?
Right, I’m off next door tomorrow morning.
Cheers, SS.
SD,
Those electric radiators with oil in them are more economical than the convector heaters.
You can get them in cheap shops.
They have them in Lidl and Aldi occasionally.
Thanks for the tip, Frank.
Sam, perhaps you were actually there when Osho told the ‘blessing or a curse?’ story. I was, and it has stayed with me through life and is a good one to have under your belt.
You declare, I do not agree that shit happens. My experience is that life happens, love happens, etc…Shitty and “shit-free” are created labels, based on limited perspective.
Well, perhaps you are viewing life from a superior perspective and I am not. Bully for you. I have seen ‘life happens’ and ‘love happens’ bumper stickers along with ‘shit happens’. Just because they sound more positive does that mean they are not created labels, based on limited perspective? I doubt it.
This ties in with all the New Age ideas based around supporting the positive, while denying the negative, which is a really dumb idea, although I am not saying that is what you are doing.
I suspect, Sam, that one day you will run into something where it will not work to try and view things from a higher perspective. When that day comes you will join the ranks of regular, plain old normal human beings like myself, shrug your shoulders and say, “Fuck it! Shit happens.”
Hopefully this new perspective will inspire you to embrace what life brings to you. After all, without shit happening what is the lotus going to grow out of?
Here`s a vid of a guy who had everything under control
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm3cPupGa88
Btw,
Is this the same Samarpan who wrote on SN a while back on the subject of Vivek`s death:
“I heard that Osho laughed. It was not an untimely death. She left just in time to prepare the way for Osho, who was soon to follow.”
I`d like to think he`s a wind-up merchant.
Probably believes what he writes,tho`.
Religious nutters eh?
`kinell.
“‘kinell”…
This is too short for me. I do not get it.
MOD:
Put ‘fuc’ at the beginning, Klaus – then, bingo!
Ah! Oh! We can do it there, too?!
MOD:
Never heard that interpretation before, Klaus – but yes, it works, well spotted (or ‘beginner’s luck’?!).
Oh, it is simple grammar:
Verb/noun – preposition – noun
Tack.
“The word ‘f__k” is a very versatile word.
It can be used as verb or as a noun.
Both transitive and intransitive….”
(Citation).
Take your time, please, Klaus.
I also did by scrolling some of your few years’ contribution-story here. And was quite very amazed about the variety of your life-(sannyas-)stories happening during that time.
Btw, do you know this Christian Priest in the Abbey personnally whom you recommended here?
He is one of those who never got into trouble with the hierarchy and business-wise goes truly with the economic flow. That´s what he studied successfully.
Former friends of mine got landscaping work by landscaping a fabulous Zen Garden in the Abbey.
The Garden is beautiful. The business-mind is not.
Madhu
Madhu says:
“The Garden is beautiful. The business-mind is not.”
A business-mind is needed to become rich.
Was not Osho’s vision that a sannyasin is inwardly and outwardly
rich?
‘kinell.
Perhaps it’s the same Samarpan who sang on the old ‘A Great Affair’ album:
https://www.sannyas.wiki/index.php?title=A_Great_Affair
Frank maybe is Anand Yogi or vice versa. One or the same or the both have quite a British sense of humour and good memory.
I remember Osho saying at the last leg of his career, “Hope for the best and expect the worst.” This is acknowledging the fact: Shit happens. When shit happens, everything else, including love and life lose the meaning too.
There is a old movie song, “Man should have fear from Time. No one knows when its moods change. Due to Time are day and night, Time creates yesterday and today, Everything is slave of Time, Time rules everything.”
This was my father´s favourite song, my mother tried her best to give counter-logic. He remained fatalist. I am not sure about my mother, but father seems to be my father.
Perhaps, Shantam, your father was so firmly ‘stuck’ in his familial and cultural conditioning that he simply couldn’t envisage even the possibility of changing anything much about himself or his circumstances. A rather typically Indian response, isn’t it? I imagine that with large-scale ‘westernisation’, at least in the cities, that’s changing over there now – any idea?
But still, he surely ‘created his own reality’ to a degree, like everyone else does, however ‘robotic’ our responses to life might be, within the limitations of our environment/society. Eg in the choices of job(s), partner(s), friends, enemies, housing, personal interests, hobbies, food etc. Beyond all that, to what extent is it possible to break free from unwanted personal limitations and conditioning and/or unwanted outside influences?
Setting aside creating a new ‘outer’ reality, eg through achieving favourable material circumstances, even ‘financial freedom, possible, at least for some, maybe many, dedicated or fortunate people, creating a new inner reality can happen on various levels, depending on how far one is prepared to go in order to free onself from the shackles of fear, self-doubt, and other unconscious, robotic responses involving, for example, anger, resentment, impatience, jealousy etc., moving on to deal with myriad other, ever more subtle layers of the self. (Ultimately, as I understand it, a process of seeing through the negative stuff, giving it up, rather than adding to the self, trying to ‘beautify’ what doesn’t need anything extra).
Even on the basic levels, haven’t we all felt the strange but wonderful sensation of ‘newness’ when realising a new level of freedom from one or more of these ‘life-killers’, and realising that we have more possibilities than we’d previously imagined, more inner space? And so our outer life begins to change for the better…
As within, so without…I recall Somendra making a point in a group of telling someone who was complaining about his life circumstances, “You ARE your situation!”
He wasn’t far wrong, I reckon, although it’s surely not totally true in every single case. As although, having cleared our space, we might naturally tend to deflect negative influences and attract the positive, we do live in a madhouse after all! Not only that, but sheer chance will inevitably bring a few tricky circumstances and situations to cope with – testing just how far we’ve come, and probably, how far we have to go…
I wouldn’t know, but perhaps the process reaches a point where one has become so clear, through conscious effort, choice and even ‘grace’, that one is in effect living more and more in a self-created, benign outer reality…maybe…except…physical good health can’t be guaranteed (eg Raman Maharshi, Osho) and in the world, once you start to annoy the powers-that-be…Jesus, for example…Osho too, although his mistreatment was not self-chosen like that of Jesus, although he ‘asked for it’, as it were, through his words and actions over the years – his ‘karma’, one might even say?
Hi Lokesh,
Thanks for shedding some Inner Light round about that topic thread you yourself composed and the aspects to face that “Shit Happens”. True enough.
Even though I´m adding my post right beneath some Lotus Flower with encouraging words, you also donated to someone else’s response, I´d say, that there is no guarantee ever that some Lotus will happen (as a kind of
spiritual (-esoteric) reward for enduring atrocities.
Such can be imagined (or even rarely seen) in a much bigger scheme (perspective)…Or not.
You know, I´ve been in deeper exploration about ´Ganga´s previous (thread) stuff, remembering a lot of emotional upheaval and murky and very odd consequences in the Sangha as such, being too immature – all of us – I might say, re a deeper understanding of what is really commune-i-cated therewith (in the 1970 lecture Ganga quoted a few lines, choosing same particles of the stuff again – 50 years later – in a very misunderstandable and quite provocative way to go for an ´advaita-challenging´ (?).
In this New Year´s Chat topic then, which you composed, Lokesh, I second much you´ve said in the very beginning, especially that the only ´freedom´ we might have when encountering atrocities (“shit”) might be working as an ability (to our best temporary capacities) not to get stuck in one of these ‘FIGHT-FLIGHT-FREEZE’ multiple reactions.
And the latter could be sometimes more than we can dissolve or regain in dignity as a response-ability in one life-time span.
But it´s also not less!
In gratitude for an inspiring thread topic.
Madhu
Thanks, Madhu.
@Madhu 7:08 pm
…slowly, breathing out. You are right, not hurry, (low) no pressure…Thanks!
Regarding Pfarrer Anselm Grün, I guess it was Satchit who posted some quotes in German…I followed up with some information, translation and links…I do not know Pfarrer Grün personally.
So, that is not a recommendation, but rather a hint what can be achieved – economically – in an established spiritual life. Quite amazing I find the extent of his works – and his integration of differing paths.
At this time, being in nature is what settles my mind most: greenery, water, rivers, ponds…so if one can spend time in the (any) gardens: wonderful.
“Tribute bands — bands that emulate famous groups or individual performers — are a big business. Elvis and The Beatles might be the orginal inspiration for the tribute band trend, but tribute acts have become a sub-culture all their own.”
(This quote is from an American article about the same written by someone called Lori Mack. You can find it by keywording “Tribute bands Lori Mack”.
Someone said this:
“Giving satsangs and enlightenment-speak is something that can be learned, a social skill that can be mastered if someone has sufficient interest in doing so.
The truth is that ‘giving satsang’ in the way many people do it today is the easiest thing in the world! Once one has learned some of the Absolute-truth rap (easily available after reading just a few books or articles), a certain basic peacefulness and ease in social settings, and, last but not least, the dialectical questioning ‘manoeuvres’ (e.g. “Who is asking the question?” “Who wants enlightenment?” “Have you traced that thought/feeling back to its source?” “What would you be if you gave up that belief?” etc. etc.) one could “give satsang” easily, endlessly, while half-asleep. It all flows out quite ‘effortlessly’ from the conditioning one sets up in the mind.
And much of it is nothing more than a fancy-looking oneupmanship game by those who’ve mastered a certain kind of ‘social virtuosity’. Those with lots of bravado and chutzpah, little humility and no capacity for self-criticism or self-doubt will do really well at this….”
Do people think that this is true?
Could be a new thread, if people are interested?
MOD:
That “someone” who said this wouldn’t be you by any chance, Frank?
Seems ok for a new thread, yes.
FRANK:
It wasn`t me. Honest, guv!
It was something I copied and pasted off the web.
Can`t remember who or where, now.
Certainly a critic of the satsang scene.
Yes, Frank (at 1:26 pm),
Could be a new thread indeed; maybe needing some more sunlight to fall from the ´topic-thread-tree´…
But why I second your take in any case is the (a) hint that what is called ´satsang´cannot be ´given´ in any case.
Aaah yes, one can almost rely on that, that your capacity re the destruction-line comes up regularly.
And is mostly needed to go a little deeper…
Sun (outside) is very inviting today.
Will have a little Zen-walk, breathing-in, breathing-out.
Have a nice day, you all here too -
Madhu
MOD:
Please expand on this response when the new thread is up, Madhu.