Edward’s Diary Entry 147: Perspectives

Out of the lighted cave of human habitation, we plunge into darkness in the cool night. Fireflies are flying around. There is no moon yet. All is dark. 

At first it seems these fireflies are random little lanterns in the dark. Then one observes a rhythm to it, and some can be followed with the eye, pulsating like heartbeats as they fly towards their secret trysts. What they probably can’t see is the pulsating light of a distant thunderstorm, occasionally illuminating the sky. It’s a question of sense organs, and perspective. Fireflies may be too small to see lightning. 

We humans are like this, too, when we try to understand the universe by thinking. The perspective is wrong. And it remains unfathomable.

Edward’s Diary Entry 146: Logotherapy for Lambs? – The Will to Live

In the wild, he would be dead. But as a domesticated animal receiving care from humans, one runt lamb in a set of twins, being rejected by his mother, showed his will to live... Viktor Frankl would have been proud of him. 

This happens sometimes when the ewe “knows” something is wrong with her lamb. It's an uncanny ability shown my mothers who are either "bad mothers", and therefore destined for the market, or "good mothers" who realise something is definitely wrong with her child. She accepts the healthy one, lets him suck, and pushes the frail one away quite cruelly (to our eyes), lifting her leg and walking away to prevent him suckling. And then another ewe did the same with an even runtier ram lamb that we though wouldn’t even survive the first night.

But both survived. The first one, whom we can call “Willy” (no picture), showed such a determination to get on his tiny feet and suck, willy-nilly, that we humans held the mother for a few days so he could grab onto her teat while his brother was nursing. He was so insistent that within two days, he had learned how to run in from behind while his brother was feeding and steal his mother’s milk. His will to live was so strong – despite being a little runt – that he found out how to survive, and his mother eventually calmed down and let him do his own thing. It was quite a lesson in sheer grit and determination.

The second one (shown above) never even tried his crazy mother’s milk. Big sister got it all, and although the mother cried and cried for her boy lamb, when he was presented to her, she kept on rejecting him. He had to be kept away from her, as he was so puny she might have hurt or killed him. Such is the law of the wild. But this boy soon became a bottle baby. As soon as he was shown the bottle and teat, he grabbed onto it for dear life and started sucking – which was a surprise, because some babies don’t get around to sucking a rubber teat for a day or two! So here was another case of determination to live despite being born with legs too spindly and frail to hold himself up at first. And the story ends for this baby quite happily, as he was donated to a family that wanted a pet lamb and were willing to bottle feed him. 

So with that, all the lamb issues were solved and the farm settled down to the normal routine of mothers grazing, lambs suckling and then playing in the sunshine, jumping over tree roots, and skipping down the slopes in herds of little white and brown balls of fluff.

If the human will to Awareness were as strong as these lambs’ will to live, we would be basking in enhanced consciousness by now.

Edward’s Diary Entry 145: On ICU’s

Life is suffering. Do we find peace in death? While waiting to find out, we avoid pain and seek pleasure, and hope to stay ahead of the game.

A visit to any Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is an intense learning experience, or an occasion to test out what we already know theoretically. Those who have no choice, and are sent to an ICU for disease, sickness or accident, often seem to cry and whine, shout and complain, even when sedated. Those who choose an elective surgery but nevertheless wind up here due to complications are also saddened, and if there is pain, they also remonstrate, complain and cry. Pain deadens the brain and makes life quite unbearable.

But an ICU unit in America is the absolute height of modern science and technology. There is nothing missing, nothing unavailable – all the devices, all the contraptions, all the equipment imaginable. The sheer array of sockets, outlets, plugs, pipes, tubes, cords, supplies and paraphernalia is mind-boggling. And yet… the temporary inhabitants of this place see it as so… normal. They just take it for granted. It’s almost like a right they can demand, with or without money, Medicare, Obama or Trump-care…

In 2015, there were some 316 million overnight stays in US hospitals, equivalent to almost one for every US citizen, just to get an idea of the sheer volume of attendance at these cathedrals of medical science. The installations are optimum, the care is continuous and always available, the staff are well-trained and professional. Yet one hears complaints from the “worshippers”.

If an ICU patient in America could imagine the situation of the population in Africa (1.2 billion), Asia (4.4 billion), and South America (422 million), where there may not be even one doctor per 1000 people, they might feel a little better, or tone down their criticisms. But it’s so hard when the body fails, isn’t it? Who cares about others when our innards are in turmoil, our pain-scale is nearing “worst possible pain ever”, or we plunge into the depths of depression and feel like dying… And our lives are quickly losing the little meaning they once had.

This is like being clapped into jail. To avoid that, you don’t wash your hands in muddy waters. Once you’ve done something wrong, you’re jailbait. Similarly, if you play the medical game and enter the realms of modern-day medical science as practised in the US and other “developed” countries where living standards are high (as they say), you’re pharma-bait. Once you’re in, you have to go through the whole process: blood transfusions according to protocol, pain killers, heart medication, vitamin complexes, more drugs and supplements, the whole works. It’s a fight for survival, with the rules now laid down by the great universities of medical wisdom, down the command chain from physician to nurse’s aide, not by the body’s own intelligence – that’s been mistreated too much in the past and now the price must be paid. But the outcome is often good, in a way. We are alive. Living, yes, but dependent on drugs, supplements, vitamins, just about anything that is being pushed by industry. We will have artificial joints, pacemakers, various other bionic appurtenances, and live on pain-killers and tranquilizers, and we will think we can be happy… Until the final pain comes, and others can see it’s really the end. Often there is little human dignity in this, no real solace, no courage, and very little awareness left… The final black-out for a pale grey life lived in the depths of low-consciousness.

One has to think and wonder: will I also have to go through this when my time comes? Or is there a better way to live and die?

Edward’s Diary Entry 144: Onion Layers… and “I”

You don’t have to be afraid, nothing bad’s gonna happen. When you start sitting down quietly and dissecting the “I”, the “Self” or simply the “mind”, it’s like an onion... except for the tears. (If there are tears, they may be of joy.) The more you peel it off, the smaller it gets… and it keeps going back and back, or in and in. When we get to the heart of things, that’s when we have a real “heart-to-heart” with ourselves, and discover what the “I” really is, if it is anything at all!

You see, depending on your basic makeup, whether you live more in thought, or feeling, or body, your outer covering is just a skin – a thought, a feeling or a bodily sensation. In the photo, you can see this top left, and of course, these onions fresh from the market have been dug up, washed, almost polished ready for sale. An onion still in the ground, or fresh out of it, would be covered in dirt, mud or slime, depending on the soil and the weather at the time it was plucked out.

So your outer layer is the first skin of the onion, which some cooks even discard as being too hard and green! They want the tenderer parts of the onion… Which of course are nicer. If you think you’re just your passing thought, your fixated thought or “opinion” of yourself, or what others say they think of you, you’re wrong. There are more layers to you than that.

If you think you’re your feeling, another layer inside, you’re also not right. And if you think you’re just your body – brainbox, stomach, genitals or spleen – you still have lots of layers of the onion to peel back, and see that you’re still “oniony” inside too, not just on the few outer layers.

Top right you can see the onion cut in two, faintly showing the number of layers, at least pertaining to this onion. Maybe there are more or less “you’s” inside you!

Bottom left you can discern the layers better, because the fingers have separated them in a process of going further in, like our Awareness does when it starts to observe the supposed “I” and we become quiet and simply look inside, searching for the heart.

Bottom right you can now see the tiny little heart separated from the outer layers to get a better look at it. And it’s tricky, because it keeps getting smaller and smaller, and yet this is the nuclear section, the tiny part that was once a seed when it was first planted in the soil…

So no, there is no reason to be afraid of peeling back the onion of the mind, or the supposed personality, in search of the tender heart. There are layers upon layers, each of its own size and shape… And when the onion – let’s say unused by the cook – is overripe and begins to fade, shrivel and decay… this starts with the outer skins and works its way inward… until finally the heart is affected by the natural decaying process, or rot, or putrefaction, and it all falls back into the soil to be recycled.

Will that happen to us, too? Or must we look inward and search for the heart while it is still tender and capable of growing?

Edward’s Diary Entry 143: On “Disindocrination”

To "indoctrinate" is to teach a person (implant an idea) to accept (believe) an idea that corresponds to some kind of concept or belief about the world. As such, this is what always happens to us in family, school and society, because we are led to believe in (positive acceptance) or reject (negative acceptance) a series of codes previously perceived and believed by others, along with their underlying assumptions. These may have a greater or lesser or a nil correspondence to Reality, because they are just thoughts and beliefs lodged in the mindstuff, which we identify with and remember from our memory sack, and which are elicited every time we react to a stimulus.

Take a Christian who thinks of his particular “god” when the word “God” is mentioned; whereas a Jew, a Muslim or a Buddhist will need another kind of word for supposedly the same concept, or not? Or countless other labels used by people to classify others and themselves, and usually clashing with the actual definition of the label.

So when we meet and sit down with any new person, this is what happens: one indoctrinated mind with its underlying assumptions tries to contact another indoctrinated mind with its assumptions, and there is either agreement, leading to liking, or disagreement, which ends up in dislike or rejection. And that’s about as far as it goes if there’s nothing else to work on. Or perhaps the bodies connect, but the minds don’t. Or the feelings connect, but the thinking process doesn’t, etc. etc.

This is why we all need a new kind of modern education for the 21st century, called Disindoctrination. First, since we can’t avoid it, we let everyone go to school and learn all those words, theories and assumptions about man and society and the world, hoping for the best. We have already done that ourselves. In the final analysis, it is a test to see how far we are involved in our own egos, and accept them, or whether we have some kind of sense of something more, something higher. Then, at some point when we are ready for it – due to longing, suffering, pain, rejection or whatever – we can make a brand-new start to life, by taking a crash course in Disindoctrination.

Now, disindoctrination is not re-indoctrination with a different set of beliefs. Disindoctrination has to come from an inner understanding of our limitations, using common sense, and questioning everything from the beginning. What can I really be sure of? Something I’ve read in a book or magazine, seen on TV, or seen for myself, with my own eyes? Have I seen that correctly? What is seeing? What is perceiving? How do I see the world? Where is that world for me? Out there – as I’ve been told? Or can we reason it out with a few basic pieces of information and come to another conclusion?

1st lesson in Disindoctrination: Sense Perceptions. 

The senses can only tell us what we are capable of perceiving – never the whole story. We are very small in this world (fact: trying walking around it and see); our capabilities are very limited, and mostly we are trained to judge things from the human or societal standpoint. Modern science has described what ancient wisdom knew from experience. The eyes, as one of the five sense, see energy forms that we interpret in our minds as “a thing” or “a person”. Reason should tell us that through this channel we see only partially: what is in front of us, or the front part of the object in question, but not what’s behind it or inside it, or around it, or within it. The stupid science-class question of a tree falling in the woods with no one around to hear it – is there sound or not? – assumes that only humans hear. But we hear only what is audible to us. A grove of trees may very well note the falling of an ancient tree hit by lightning and falling, but they will note it in their own way, which of course is not in ours. As with sight and hearing, so with touch and tasting and smelling. These are human inputs only, in a world that has myriads of possibilities above and beyond the human.

2nd lesson in Disindoctrination: Wash Away Beliefs. 

Anything you know from your own experience, analyse it and accept for the time being. Anything you do not know in your own experience, wash this all away and see what’s left. That means: concepts and ideas you have not confirmed in your own experience (1); beliefs and suppositions your have about anything and everything (2); assumptions, opinions, ideologies, religious concepts, scientific concepts (3) you have not personally verified. Examples: 

(1)  Theories about the mind; theories about personalities; theories about the world; theories about the universe; about animal behaviour; about human behaviour; about space, time, life, evolution, consciousness, materiality, spirituality, about chakras, meditation – what it is and what it is not; about sexuality; about any other theory…

(2)  Belief in this god or that god; belief in scriptures and bibles and holy books; belief in good and bad; belief in war or peace; belief in eating this or that because someone says so; any kind of belief, because belief is a substitute for true knowledge or truth. No belief means saying “I don’t know” and being unafraid to say it.

(3)  Assumptions about the past of mankind, evolution, development, ancient civilisations, and about the future of mankind; opinions on doing or not doing something for reasons unknown; ideologies about heaven and hell, earth and paradise, truth and untruth, good and evil, etc.; religious concepts that so-and-so said something or did something as an Act of God; scientific concepts concerning the material world, based on thinking and observing, but which you cannot prove to yourself.

3rd lesson in Disindoctrination: New Mind Patterns. 

The so-called “mind” and all of its functions has to be totally revamped. You have already partially cleaned the stables in lesson 2, washing away beliefs. Now to re-establish a certain amount of order, you re-define your mind by observing it, watching it, simply witnessing what happens. This can be done by sitting and using Awareness to look at the way the mind operates. You can take – as a guide, not as a belief system – the yogic terms for mind as: 

(1)  Citta or awareness – that which is most “you” looking at and observing the physical and mental processes. 

(2)  Manas or memories – all those words and images and picturings that you can remember or bring to mind at any given time. Part of this may also be: the ability to reconstruct or re-create new combinations of memory, called Imagination. You may think it’s fun, even “creative”, and it is, but does it really correspond to any Reality at all? 

(3)  Ahankara or identification – when you give your sense of “I” or “me” to any thought, feeling, sensation, idea, ideology, concept, argument, belief or set of beliefs, theory, assumption. When “you” give your affirmation to any of these, you are identifying with it, placing your energy into it, fuelling it with your mind. 

(4)  Intellect or discerning faculty – the part of the mind that says “yes or no”, “is or not is”, “true or not true”, corresponding to reality or not corresponding, etc.

By practising this, your sense of “I” can be re-arranged so as not to be flooded by thoughts and feelings that really don’t have to be “you”. As for any fear that the “I” may be “injured”, read tomorrow’s entry called “Onion Layers”.