Re: Full Submission: Alien Dreamtime Posted by Isaac Arendsson on February 22, 1998 at 08:00:37:
In Reply to: Full Submission: Alien Dreamtime posted by Brian Z. on February 16, 1998 at 14:51:43:
Is the notion of an ecology of the soul and of a
mushroom-dotted paradise, while emphasising
nothing so much as the overwhelming whole, really
accessable except through the reflection of the
individual? I cannot vouch for the spirituality
of most states of mind, nor the validity of most
spiritualities, but I know one thing for sure: that
I will never know paradise for as long as I am
coddling my ego. My ego and I whisper into each
other's ears all day. every day, "We wants it. It's
our preciousss. It's ours, isn't it?" Nothing can
satisfy the little reptile unless we possess it.
I'm pretty certain that paradise doesn't work like
that.
No paradise is possible unless each and every individual
loves their neighbour as they love themselves. And
with an appreciation of all comes a philosophy of
of the whole, but the real battle is within the one.
The final and most powerful temptation of the
Buddha was the lure of identity, both Jesus and
Socrates are honored for nothing so much as not
saving themselves from the consequences of their
convictions, and Gandhi's power was due exclusively
to the discipline he applied to his own self.
The evil of dissatisfaction and the confusion of
individualism may have, as its only alternative,
an ecology of the soul, but is such a state a
description of the process, or merely the
direction in which each sentient creature must struggle
to go each and every day, since time began?