I'm treating myself to second coffee, to calm the Chihuahua attention span, and give myself the luxury of reading this article with full attention and comments in-the-moment.
The synchronicities! You already saw my piece mentioning Douglas Jack with the longhouse as the fractal of society, the part that contains the whole. And somewhere in a comment thread, we were talking about hieroglyphs and I asked about the other hiero words like hierarchy and hierophant, and I had a tab open on the hiero gamos, which was new to me, but forgot where it had come from. Eureka!
This is beautiful: "Or, if some kind of unworded and unlimited synchronicity-giving life-force energy does exist outside of the word ..." Kathleen will love this too.
Hah! I'm glad you amended that I was offended to perverse delight, which is much more in character. But my opinion that Michael Stone is an egotistical asshole in no way says that about you. In fact, the opposite! As I've said before, I think you're much too harsh on yourself. You look at times when you addressed a physical problem or belittling relationship or limiting life circumstance, and think you showed hubris in believing you'd solved it. But all I see is humility in the face of some very serious obstacles. You let Stone interpret your experience with his words--that include Oneness being a psychotic way to frame reality--rather than your own. I prefer your words rather than his frame. But yes, I did find his list of things that 'Oneness' would solve pretty funny.
I know you've read the comments on my thread about words as spells that bind us. Nef has an interesting analogy to the bicameral mind: "That which Governs (holds definition) in front has a Ruler (living meaning) in secret. Language is reflecting a bridge between hard analytical and intuitive Mind. To fully Re-Member Mind is to Mend the two together."
If the Ruler behind is nefarious and has twisted the living meaning then it seems like definition of that which Governs is the way to get it back. It isn't your definition of spiritual bypassing that I disagreed with. I disagree with the concept. Your definition gave me a way to show why and that it wasn't a dismissal of you but a challenge of a way you were ridiculing yourself.
In light of that, what I mean by the term 'ego' is superiority, not body consciousness. To believe in my superiority, I have to believe first that I'm separate from you. Likewise, a desire to see myself as superior precludes the possibility of Oneness. I don't think 'a belief in Oneness' is a worthwhile goal, it's as vapid as Stone describes. As my Course meditation said yesterday, "Only illusions require belief." So my job, as I see it, is to remove the obstacles to recognizing Oneness, if that is Reality, by weeding out my desire for superiority. I wouldn't call that 'killing the ego.'
I looked up the etymology of castigate, as how you twice describe my critique of Stone's superiority. It comes from 'caste' as an unmixed race that's pure, and the cutting off of what makes it impure. So to 'castigate' is done from a belief in superiority. It's interesting that you describe me as critiquing you for having the 'cajones' to define spiritual bypassing. Castigate and castrate seem very similar. And interesting also that Ganesh is a powerful feeling of masculinity and your gout is personified as a bossy, trashy woman. Hmmm...
No word better conveys superiority than 'master' and the one in the archery example is belittling and scolding of the four-year student, who he shames when he succeeds 'for his own good.' Many other stories have Zen masters hitting and even mutilating their students 'for their own good.' I just don't get it.
If you put the Master in a tight red dress with big hair, and had her speak the same way to the student, would you hear it differently? Would it be devouring rather than 'for his own good'?
What I suggest is that people define what words mean to them (and I took no offense that you were defining it for everyone, I don't think it's a useful term, myself). And then, the other person can translate into another term if that's not their definition. If I were to take spiritual-bypassing and New Age in your context, the word I'd substitute is superstition. They're both superstitions that if certain rituals--physical or mental--are performed, it will make good things happen or prevent bad. The proof that the mental construct is right is in what happens in the body or the world.
I think what you're describing with Ganesh is a different form of superstition, and I hesitate to say that because it's working for you! If you withdraw your belief in it, will the gout come back? I'd like to think no. But I don't know.
Thanks again for letting me into your very humble self-analysis. And don't think I missed the 'big hair in a cubic house' ;-)
I'm treating myself to second coffee, to calm the Chihuahua attention span, and give myself the luxury of reading this article with full attention and comments in-the-moment.
The synchronicities! You already saw my piece mentioning Douglas Jack with the longhouse as the fractal of society, the part that contains the whole. And somewhere in a comment thread, we were talking about hieroglyphs and I asked about the other hiero words like hierarchy and hierophant, and I had a tab open on the hiero gamos, which was new to me, but forgot where it had come from. Eureka!
This is beautiful: "Or, if some kind of unworded and unlimited synchronicity-giving life-force energy does exist outside of the word ..." Kathleen will love this too.
Hah! I'm glad you amended that I was offended to perverse delight, which is much more in character. But my opinion that Michael Stone is an egotistical asshole in no way says that about you. In fact, the opposite! As I've said before, I think you're much too harsh on yourself. You look at times when you addressed a physical problem or belittling relationship or limiting life circumstance, and think you showed hubris in believing you'd solved it. But all I see is humility in the face of some very serious obstacles. You let Stone interpret your experience with his words--that include Oneness being a psychotic way to frame reality--rather than your own. I prefer your words rather than his frame. But yes, I did find his list of things that 'Oneness' would solve pretty funny.
I know you've read the comments on my thread about words as spells that bind us. Nef has an interesting analogy to the bicameral mind: "That which Governs (holds definition) in front has a Ruler (living meaning) in secret. Language is reflecting a bridge between hard analytical and intuitive Mind. To fully Re-Member Mind is to Mend the two together."
If the Ruler behind is nefarious and has twisted the living meaning then it seems like definition of that which Governs is the way to get it back. It isn't your definition of spiritual bypassing that I disagreed with. I disagree with the concept. Your definition gave me a way to show why and that it wasn't a dismissal of you but a challenge of a way you were ridiculing yourself.
In light of that, what I mean by the term 'ego' is superiority, not body consciousness. To believe in my superiority, I have to believe first that I'm separate from you. Likewise, a desire to see myself as superior precludes the possibility of Oneness. I don't think 'a belief in Oneness' is a worthwhile goal, it's as vapid as Stone describes. As my Course meditation said yesterday, "Only illusions require belief." So my job, as I see it, is to remove the obstacles to recognizing Oneness, if that is Reality, by weeding out my desire for superiority. I wouldn't call that 'killing the ego.'
I looked up the etymology of castigate, as how you twice describe my critique of Stone's superiority. It comes from 'caste' as an unmixed race that's pure, and the cutting off of what makes it impure. So to 'castigate' is done from a belief in superiority. It's interesting that you describe me as critiquing you for having the 'cajones' to define spiritual bypassing. Castigate and castrate seem very similar. And interesting also that Ganesh is a powerful feeling of masculinity and your gout is personified as a bossy, trashy woman. Hmmm...
No word better conveys superiority than 'master' and the one in the archery example is belittling and scolding of the four-year student, who he shames when he succeeds 'for his own good.' Many other stories have Zen masters hitting and even mutilating their students 'for their own good.' I just don't get it.
If you put the Master in a tight red dress with big hair, and had her speak the same way to the student, would you hear it differently? Would it be devouring rather than 'for his own good'?
What I suggest is that people define what words mean to them (and I took no offense that you were defining it for everyone, I don't think it's a useful term, myself). And then, the other person can translate into another term if that's not their definition. If I were to take spiritual-bypassing and New Age in your context, the word I'd substitute is superstition. They're both superstitions that if certain rituals--physical or mental--are performed, it will make good things happen or prevent bad. The proof that the mental construct is right is in what happens in the body or the world.
I think what you're describing with Ganesh is a different form of superstition, and I hesitate to say that because it's working for you! If you withdraw your belief in it, will the gout come back? I'd like to think no. But I don't know.
Thanks again for letting me into your very humble self-analysis. And don't think I missed the 'big hair in a cubic house' ;-)