Zenatanism is my philosophy that is the union of the Self of Satanism and the Balance of Zen.
This union is achieved through letting go of Expectation through fierce Acceptance of what is.
One of the core tenants of Zen is "The Way". This can be summed up in the statement, "It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end." -Ursula K. Le Guin
At its heart, Satanism has absolutely nothing to do with devils or demons (and)/or Satan as entities. It is merely a counter to Western Religion's demonization of Selfishness that is required when you have an omnipotent Consciousness that requires submission to *its* Will. In using Satan to represent a Consciousness that puts its own need to understand and control its own destiny, before that of the will of a creator, Western Religion attempts to control all the desires and actions of Self awareness.
The mistake (and thus the self limiting factor) of Judaism, was that there was no good way to rectify our natural desires of Self, with obedience to a higher Will. Christianity "fixes" this problem by implementing "forgiveness" of sin. Through this "fix" the previously self limiting need for absolute obedience, becomes the self perpetuating result of allowing Christians to "be" selfish, yet to purge their Sins by asking for forgiveness of their true natures by submitting to a higher Will. It is a system that enables a large latitude of Self, as long as there is the occasional submission of Self to a higher power. It is this "have your cake and eat it to" that has allowed Christianity to thrive, because there is no need to practice Balance when you can have both together. Its devotees profess that their guiding principle is Love, and if it were not for "Hell" this might be true; but with the existence of Hell within their religion, the result is that the guiding principle is in fact, Shame. For it is the measure of Shame that determines a devotee's worthiness of Love.
In my opinion, Eastern Religion is no better. The goal of Buddhism is to achieve a state of enlightenment called Nirvana. This state is achieved by ordering one's mind towards releasing one's Karmic debt. Through Order, one can achieve a release of desire and a release of suffering. While I agree that this can grant you a state of Peace, taking it to this level requires letting go of Self. Devotees would say that letting go of Self, allows you to become one with everything, but without Self awareness what is the point of such a state of existence?
I have always believed that Self *IS* existence. Why must I give up my Self to achieve Love [Western] or achieve Peace [Eastern]?
Shouldn't the real goal be to achieve Love and Peace within my Self, without losing my Self?
To me this seems like a big "DUH", but I've come to accept that the reason I believe this way is that I [suffer] from a World View that seems to be very opposite to the vast majority. Things that others see as "Grey", I see in very Black and White terms, whereas what those same people see in Black and White terms, I see as Grey.
My philosophy requires that I accept "what is", so I can not make a judgment as to which view is "right", but in defense of my worldview I can say that the physical universe operates with very specific rules. These rules hold no judgment. These rules have no conscious Will that determines when they will be applied or when they will not be applied. If the criteria of the rule is met, then the operation is applied. There isn't much more black and white that you can get. Whereas the spiritual/moral realm is merely a construct of our minds. It does not have static rules, and is only influenced, not controlled, by physical laws. How much more "Grey" can that be?
So I ask you, why does the vast majority of humanity feel that our behavior in the physical should be perceived in hues of Grey, yet the behavior in the spiritual/moral realm should be perceived in absolute black and white, good or bad, right or wrong?
I believe that it is this fundamental difference in World View that gives me the audacity to believe that I can have Love and Peace within my Self, without giving up my Self; because it is only with a World View that sees morality and spirituality as Grey that allows me to have one without giving up the other.
It is what it is...
Monday, June 29, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
Change only comes about through Violence
To many people, Violence is abhorrent. While I look at that as an Enlightened perspective, I see attaining such enlightenment (with the hope of Ascension to a higher plane of consciousness?) as one of the fundamental paradoxes of Life. The quintessential Catch 22 between Survival and Morality...
I say that, because Enlightenment specifically implies attaining (dare I say, obtaining?) something you don't start out with. Such Change requires Violence, yet attaining Enlightenment requires abhorring Violence.
Many would say that such a paradox does not exist because my base assumption that Change requires Violence is incorrect.
To those people I say, "Please, prove me wrong."
Many of those people would start off quoting the ideals of the non-Violent movements as espoused by Martin Luther King, or Mahatma Gandhi. To those people I say that Movements based on non-Violence only achieve their goals because instead of applying violence, they instead open themselves to receive violence. If the police dogs and fire hoses had not been used on the demonstrators in Birmingham, would that Civil Rights movement have achieved as much exposure and ultimately the critical mass of righteous indignation that enabled it to succeed? I believe not.
It is my belief that not only is Violence required for Change, but the amount of Change is directly proportional to the amount of Violence used to achieve it.
I believe that this is at the heart of why the Gay Movement has achieved change so very slowly. Through being the victims of the THREAT of Violence for so long (which can be far more psychologically impairing), it is my belief that the Gay Movement is made up of more people that abhor Violence than any other group since the pre-WW2 Jews. Which means that Change comes slowly, and usually at greater cost to the few vs. the many (Stone Wall, Matthew Sheppard, etc.). I just hope it won't take an application of Violence equal to the Holocaust for Change to be achieved, but sadly I feel that the amount of Violence necessary to overcome our abhorrence OF Violence will be substantial and costly...
I say that, because Enlightenment specifically implies attaining (dare I say, obtaining?) something you don't start out with. Such Change requires Violence, yet attaining Enlightenment requires abhorring Violence.
Many would say that such a paradox does not exist because my base assumption that Change requires Violence is incorrect.
To those people I say, "Please, prove me wrong."
Many of those people would start off quoting the ideals of the non-Violent movements as espoused by Martin Luther King, or Mahatma Gandhi. To those people I say that Movements based on non-Violence only achieve their goals because instead of applying violence, they instead open themselves to receive violence. If the police dogs and fire hoses had not been used on the demonstrators in Birmingham, would that Civil Rights movement have achieved as much exposure and ultimately the critical mass of righteous indignation that enabled it to succeed? I believe not.
It is my belief that not only is Violence required for Change, but the amount of Change is directly proportional to the amount of Violence used to achieve it.
I believe that this is at the heart of why the Gay Movement has achieved change so very slowly. Through being the victims of the THREAT of Violence for so long (which can be far more psychologically impairing), it is my belief that the Gay Movement is made up of more people that abhor Violence than any other group since the pre-WW2 Jews. Which means that Change comes slowly, and usually at greater cost to the few vs. the many (Stone Wall, Matthew Sheppard, etc.). I just hope it won't take an application of Violence equal to the Holocaust for Change to be achieved, but sadly I feel that the amount of Violence necessary to overcome our abhorrence OF Violence will be substantial and costly...
People will always let you down...
My buddy Liam (aka:celtcub on LiveJournal) recently made a post about how "people will ALWAYS let you down".
I am right there with him in that belief, but at the same time I accept that the let down is just an extension of my own Expectations (the root of all Evil).
If hate is the opposite side of the same coin as Love (hate simply being love beyond our ability to control), then Shame is just the other side of the same coin as Expectation.
Suffering is therefore just the juggling act of keeping these coins in motion such that there can be no Hate without Love, and there can be no Shame without Expectation.
But what happens to this juggling act when society builds a resistance to one "attribute" that is not in sync with the behavior of the others?
In today's culture, there is an ever building resistance to Shame. While intellectually I can see that this is ultimately a good thing; emotionally my internal coping mechanisms are built on the interaction between all of these attributes; so when society develops a resistance to a given attribute then my coping mechanisms become anachronistic, meaning behaviors that would have moderated my suffering in "the past paradigm", actually INCREASE my suffering today.
What makes this so unbearable is the lack of compassion that followers of the current paradigm give to those of us stuck in a previous paradigm.
Intellectually I can understand this is in large part due to the vehemence with which followers of an old paradigm resist change, and thus there is an inevitable need to "punish" when the new paradigm becomes the given worldview. I mean, I really do get it.
I just wish "getting it" was the same as being immune to the pain of it.
I am right there with him in that belief, but at the same time I accept that the let down is just an extension of my own Expectations (the root of all Evil).
If hate is the opposite side of the same coin as Love (hate simply being love beyond our ability to control), then Shame is just the other side of the same coin as Expectation.
Suffering is therefore just the juggling act of keeping these coins in motion such that there can be no Hate without Love, and there can be no Shame without Expectation.
But what happens to this juggling act when society builds a resistance to one "attribute" that is not in sync with the behavior of the others?
In today's culture, there is an ever building resistance to Shame. While intellectually I can see that this is ultimately a good thing; emotionally my internal coping mechanisms are built on the interaction between all of these attributes; so when society develops a resistance to a given attribute then my coping mechanisms become anachronistic, meaning behaviors that would have moderated my suffering in "the past paradigm", actually INCREASE my suffering today.
What makes this so unbearable is the lack of compassion that followers of the current paradigm give to those of us stuck in a previous paradigm.
Intellectually I can understand this is in large part due to the vehemence with which followers of an old paradigm resist change, and thus there is an inevitable need to "punish" when the new paradigm becomes the given worldview. I mean, I really do get it.
I just wish "getting it" was the same as being immune to the pain of it.
Success
The only thing Americans enjoy more than success,
Is bringing those that have achieved it to their knees.-Zac Morris (although I'm sure someone more famous has said something similar)
Friday, May 29, 2009
Prologue
One of the things that always amazed me most about Shakespeare, is that the opening prologue to many of his plays, is typically a synopsis OF the entire play.
...and yet, people become so enraptured with the Story that the ending and the outcome of that story still hits them like a ton of bricks. I've always looked at these people with incredulity, because "he told you what was going to happen in the first five minutes", and in return they look at me with an incredulity, and often sadness, that I've always assumed was saying "it is you that doesn't understand".
This has always been one of my fundamental disconnects with Other...
I've always embraced a similar style to Shakespeare, in that typically I am forthright about laying out what I'm about to do, yet when I do it, people are likewise blind sided by the results, and I'm always stuck with the same incredulity around the whole "but I told you what I was going to do".
When I've talked to people about this I'm always surprised that there is a nearly Universal misunderstanding around what I told them was going to happen, and what they understood me to be saying.
This has always left me wondering where the disconnect lies. Is it in the complexity and or style of the "prologue", or is it some fundamental weakness that lies between the "facts" of something, and the "telling of the Story to arrive at the results".
Certainly the Story contains a richness of experience that is wonderful to experience, but to me, that experience doesn't change my perception of the facts.
What am I missing?
- Prologue to Romeo and Juliet
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffick of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
- Prologue to King Henry VIII
I come no more to make you laugh: things now,
That bear a weighty and a serious brow,
Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe,
Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow,
We now present. Those that can pity, here
May, if they think it well, let fall a tear;
The subject will deserve it. Such as give
Their money out of hope they may believe,
May here find truth too. Those that come to see
Only a show or two, and so agree
The play may pass, if they be still and willing,
I'll undertake may see away their shilling
Richly in two short hours. Only they
That come to hear a merry bawdy play,
A noise of targets, or to see a fellow
In a long motley coat guarded with yellow,
Will be deceived; for, gentle hearers, know,
To rank our chosen truth with such a show
As fool and fight is, beside forfeiting
Our own brains, and the opinion that we bring,
To make that only true we now intend,
Will leave us never an understanding friend.
Therefore, for goodness' sake, and as you are known
The first and happiest hearers of the town,
Be sad, as we would make ye: think ye see
The very persons of our noble story
As they were living; think you see them great,
And follow'd with the general throng and sweat
Of thousand friends; then in a moment, see
How soon this mightiness meets misery:
And, if you can be merry then, I'll say
A man may weep upon his wedding-day.
...and yet, people become so enraptured with the Story that the ending and the outcome of that story still hits them like a ton of bricks. I've always looked at these people with incredulity, because "he told you what was going to happen in the first five minutes", and in return they look at me with an incredulity, and often sadness, that I've always assumed was saying "it is you that doesn't understand".
This has always been one of my fundamental disconnects with Other...
I've always embraced a similar style to Shakespeare, in that typically I am forthright about laying out what I'm about to do, yet when I do it, people are likewise blind sided by the results, and I'm always stuck with the same incredulity around the whole "but I told you what I was going to do".
When I've talked to people about this I'm always surprised that there is a nearly Universal misunderstanding around what I told them was going to happen, and what they understood me to be saying.
This has always left me wondering where the disconnect lies. Is it in the complexity and or style of the "prologue", or is it some fundamental weakness that lies between the "facts" of something, and the "telling of the Story to arrive at the results".
Certainly the Story contains a richness of experience that is wonderful to experience, but to me, that experience doesn't change my perception of the facts.
What am I missing?
Loyalty
Definitions of loyalty on the Web:
Definitions of Solidarity on the Web:
There are three core truths that I have discovered in life thus far:
Expectation is the root of all evil.
The only absolute, is there are no absolutes.
I don't know, what I don't know.
I struggle with these truths every day in my life, but there is one quality that no matter how much suffering it causes me, I am unable to change; because doing so would be to give up my very Self.
The one expectation that I can not let go of, is my demand for loyalty in those I call Friend.
I think to a large degree, we all feel this way; but the difference is in how people judge that loyalty.
Charles looks at loyalty as a "bank" where you carefully ration out the individual instances where you call on loyalty from someone, so that when you do need it (hopefully) they will come through for you.
I, on the other hand, am just the opposite. I am always on the lookout for ways to gauge the loyalty of Friends, because my thinking is if I can't trust someone with something trivial why would I possibly risk trusting them when I actually need them to come through on something important? Basically I only want to "need" people, that "need" me equally.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't demand absolute loyalty. I understand that a person's loyalty has its levels and limits, especially where a person's loyalty to me conflicts with their loyalty to someone else. For example I would never ask a Friend to choose between me or a Lover because I know that I would lose (as well I should!). I also understand loyalty between friends has to come after loyalty to family. So yes, I do understand that some "tests" are doomed to fail.
So typically what I look for, is the stupid shit...
The trivial, childish, petulant stuff where people look at you with a "are you serious?" stare. I even welcome the "Are you serious; you're being childish" discussion, but when I say that yes I'm being childish, yes I'm being petulant, yes I'm being "I'm going to take my toys and go home" but it is still important to me, I expect them to do what needs to be done. If they say no, because the request is childish, then that's pretty much it for me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not vindictive about it (unless, of course, they've hurt me personally in the process), it's just that such a person loses their relevance to me. Doesn't mean I won't be friendly, just means I can't be their Friend because without relevance I have nothing to work with.
Even the inverse is true; if someone shows loyalty to me, but never gives me a way to show my loyalty in return, then I'm left with an imbalance that ultimately sours the relationship.
It all comes back to the fact that I only want to need people that need me equally.
I thought maybe there is something fundamental that I'm missing in this whole "Friend" thing, which goes to explain why I have so few; so I looked up Friendship on Wikipedia. Seems that my beliefs are actually pretty much in perfect alignment, but this factoid was telling:
I guess that is a small comfort, so why am I still left with a sense of grief?
- the quality of being loyal
- feelings of allegiance
- commitment: the act of binding yourself (intellectually or emotionally) to a course of action
- Loyalty is faithfulness or a devotion to a person or cause
Definitions of Solidarity on the Web:
- Willingness to give psychological and/or material support when another person is in a difficult position or needs affection
There are three core truths that I have discovered in life thus far:
I struggle with these truths every day in my life, but there is one quality that no matter how much suffering it causes me, I am unable to change; because doing so would be to give up my very Self.
The one expectation that I can not let go of, is my demand for loyalty in those I call Friend.
I think to a large degree, we all feel this way; but the difference is in how people judge that loyalty.
Charles looks at loyalty as a "bank" where you carefully ration out the individual instances where you call on loyalty from someone, so that when you do need it (hopefully) they will come through for you.
I, on the other hand, am just the opposite. I am always on the lookout for ways to gauge the loyalty of Friends, because my thinking is if I can't trust someone with something trivial why would I possibly risk trusting them when I actually need them to come through on something important? Basically I only want to "need" people, that "need" me equally.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't demand absolute loyalty. I understand that a person's loyalty has its levels and limits, especially where a person's loyalty to me conflicts with their loyalty to someone else. For example I would never ask a Friend to choose between me or a Lover because I know that I would lose (as well I should!). I also understand loyalty between friends has to come after loyalty to family. So yes, I do understand that some "tests" are doomed to fail.
So typically what I look for, is the stupid shit...
The trivial, childish, petulant stuff where people look at you with a "are you serious?" stare. I even welcome the "Are you serious; you're being childish" discussion, but when I say that yes I'm being childish, yes I'm being petulant, yes I'm being "I'm going to take my toys and go home" but it is still important to me, I expect them to do what needs to be done. If they say no, because the request is childish, then that's pretty much it for me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not vindictive about it (unless, of course, they've hurt me personally in the process), it's just that such a person loses their relevance to me. Doesn't mean I won't be friendly, just means I can't be their Friend because without relevance I have nothing to work with.
Even the inverse is true; if someone shows loyalty to me, but never gives me a way to show my loyalty in return, then I'm left with an imbalance that ultimately sours the relationship.
It all comes back to the fact that I only want to need people that need me equally.
I thought maybe there is something fundamental that I'm missing in this whole "Friend" thing, which goes to explain why I have so few; so I looked up Friendship on Wikipedia. Seems that my beliefs are actually pretty much in perfect alignment, but this factoid was telling:
- Americans' dependence on family as a safety net went up from 57% to 80%
- Americans' dependence on a partner or spouse went up from 5% to 9%
- Research has found a link between fewer friendships (especially in quality) and psychological and physiological regression
Decline of friendships in the U.S.
According to a 2006 study documented in the journal the American Sociological Review, Americans are thought to be suffering a loss in the quality and quantity of close friendships since at least 1985.[1] The study states 25% of Americans have no close confidants, and the average total number of confidants per citizen has dropped from four to two.
According to the study:
In recent times, it is postulated modern American friendships have lost the force and importance they had in antiquity.
I guess that is a small comfort, so why am I still left with a sense of grief?
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