Mad World - Are We Listening?

We hear only what we are listening for...
We hear only what we want to hear...

Does this mad world have a voice in your world?

Can you hear the voices coming at you everyday?

Can you hear this still small voice of madness within?

All of life is our teacher but can we hear?

It is there. Are we listening? Do we want to hear?

Or are we turning away, day by day?

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere

Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head, I wanna drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow

And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had

I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very, very

Mad world, mad world

On the turning away
From the pale and downtrodden
And the words they say
Which we won't understand

Don't accept that what's happening
Is just a case of others' suffering
Or you'll find that you're joining in
The turning away

No more turning away
From the weak and the weary
No more turning away from the coldness inside
Just a world that we all must share
It's not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there'll be
No more turning away?

As I lay in bed, snug and warm and comfortable and secure,

the world passes me by. If I close my eyes, I won't see.

If I plug my ears, I won't hear. Why would I want to?

I know that most of the world now and throughout history

has been poor, struggling to survive, disabled, or oppressed in some way,

... even in America.

An honest look at this mad world makes obvious

that absurdity rules, especially for those that are drowning

in their fight for survival. Losing this fight is felt day by day.

It is a matter of time before they go under.

Down deep I know this. We all know.

So I don't look. I don't listen. 

It hurts too much and I don't like pain.

Why would I want to feel their suffering? hear their despair? see their pain?

If I get out of bed, I stand and stare...

If I catch a glimpse, then I destroy any compassion within me 

with finger pointing and blaming;

blaming them for being oppressed, for being disabled, for being poor... 

for being lazy and dirty and repulsive and different than me. 

Disparaging them for their own pain, suffering, and despair. 

I stand and stare... gawking in disgust.

Damn them!!! It is their own fault.

They are speaking a language I don't understand, won't understand.

That's why I listen to TV that tells me this is true. They even call it news!

How great is that?!?!? This is truly a great country.

Out of sight... Out of mind. Out of mind... Out of heart.

I live in a nice world with all of the worldly comforts I want 

and far more than I need.

I have the privilege of choice every day: 

my home, my neighborhood, my church, my country.

What's wrong with that? Why would I dare step outside of my world

with all of its safety, comfort, security, and certainty?

Isn't that some sort of crime? I'm no idiot! 

As long as all I see are people like me, thinking like me, voting like me, being me; then I know I am safe and secure. 

And isn't that what life is all about?!?!? 

Living a life that comforts me, confirms my biases, and leaves me alone.

Don't talk to me! Don't look at me! Don't touch me! 

And heaven forbid, don't have conversations about things that matter with me. Because I know that you speak in a language I can't understand.

Heaven forbid that I hear you.

Heaven forbid that I feel your pain.

“Those who do not weep, do not see.” (Victor Hugo, Les Misérables)

“It remains an experience of incomparable value that we have for once learned to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed and reviled, in short, from the perspective of the suffering.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

“The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.” (Mahatma Ghandi)

We must learn to See through the eyes of the brokenhearted.

We must learn to See with our own eyes of brokenheartedness.

The Cocoon

“Humanity has been sleeping — and still sleeps — lulled within the narrowly confining joys of its closed loves.” (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin)

Each year we live, layer after layer of conditioning creates a sort of cocoon where we see only what we are taught to see, hear only what we are listening for, the echo of our own voice; where we insulate and isolate ourselves from discomfort, insecurity, uncertainty, reality, truth, and the vulnerability of relationships as we sacrifice our own authenticity, identity, and integrity. After a while, we know nothing beyond our little cocoon. But that’s OK because it is safe and warm and predictable… and sleepy. We hang a sign on our cocoon, “Do Not Disturb!”

Meanwhile, “in the cocoon there is no idea of light at all, until we experience some longing for openness, some longing for something other than the smell of our own sweat.” (Chogyam Trungpa, Shambhala; the sacred path of the warrior)

 

Afterthought: Not everybody is going to be able to change their lives so abruptly and so drastically if you have not spent your life mindful of the 'other', of those that are different, with a worldview that includes all and envisions a world that works for all. Too many people have closed themselves off from  the reality of this world that we live in and have isolated themselves in their own bubble or echo chamber, fabricating an imaginary world of comfort, security, and certainty. Apart from truly immersing oneself in this life as it is, the least a person can do is to open your mind, heart, and will, expanding one's worldview to include all people, and becoming willing to become aware that the world does not revolve around you. You are a grain of sand on the beach of this world thinking you are the whole beach. Can we become aware? Can we pay attention? Can we learn to listen? Can we become human? Can we learn to have compassion for all? Unconditionally?

If Only . . .

If Only I Could …

I spent most of my life strutting around, touting the answers, thinking I know. 

Then life flattened me, uprooting everything, including all those so-called answers.

Learning to live the questions completely changed the trajectory of my life in such an aggravating and life-giving way.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers. . . . Live the questions now.” (Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet)

If only I could …

Think like everyone thinks.
Believe what everyone believes.
Be like everyone else.

… but that’s not the shape of my heart

If only I could …

Not think, not care about what is real and true.

Be oblivious to the cognitive dissonance screaming in my head and heart.

Ignore the dissonance of the difference between what is real and the lifetime of fictions in my head.

Live in a box, a container of conditioning full of that which I’ve been told all of my life.

Live in a cocoon, all snug and warm, comfortable and secure, and so nicely certain.

Believe what I was told to believe, that system of beliefs that is delivered to your door predetermined primarily by zip codes, comfort zones, and religious and social bubbles.

Download the myths and mores of culture and automatically accept them and believe, conforming to this world.

Shrink the dimensions of my mind back to what it was before it expanded to see, feel, and understand a whole new paradigm and a whole new world.

Unsee the depth and breadth and richness that I have been shown once I let go of dogma.

… but that’s not the shape of my heart

The Underpinnings of Faith

When the Foundation Crumbles

The thing that was most destabilizing and devastating for my faith of 50 years was when I realized that the foundational dogma did not hold weight, in neither the real world nor in my mind.

Only as dogma was cleared away could I begin to have conversations of depth without limitations. Dogma blocks understanding because... if I or you already know, I or you can no longer learn.

I long, only, to be a man of great character and integrity, love and hope, but not great faith in dogma.

As Abigail Adams said about George Washington at his death:

‘Simple truth is his best, his greatest eulogy.’”

“Washington’s biography is the story of a man constructing himself.’” (W.W. Abbot, an editor of Washington’s papers)

Underpinning #1: We can be certain of our origins, our identity and purpose, and our destiny and future.

Unfortunately, the first thing I realized is that nothing is certain, nothing is permanent; everything is temporary and thus uncertain. That is the design of the universe. Nothing happened in the way that we were told it did. And the future is nothing like what we think it will be. And life never goes like we plan. For me, it is wonderful to know that we don't know. I became weary of "thinking I know." It is so freeing to know I don't.

In other words, life never goes as we plan. Isn't that wonderful?

Underpinning #2: We can know the truth and the truth can set us free. And we can know this for sure. 

One of the first revelations when I started going deeper and really questioning life is this, which has been my mantra for 13 years. “If I already know, I can no longer learn.” Certainty is an illusion. The only thing that never changes is that everything is constantly changing.

Underpinning #3: God’s Word is inerrant and inspired by God. It is the perfect word of God which contains everything we need for life and Godliness. 

Words are nothing more than signs and symbols that can only point toward reality (or truth) but they are never the reality (or truth) itself. Our understanding of words is unique to ourselves. They are images in our minds, stories in our heads that differ in each and every human being and in each and every context. And since words cannot contain truth or God, neither can books or even our own minds. Because both books and our minds are limited. We are continually creating things in our own image because books are written in words and we think in words. In other words, we create meaning in our heads for each situation and then project them outward toward others and toward reality. Or more accurately, we create images in our heads and think that our perceptions, concepts, and images ARE reality. But they are not. They exist only in our heads.

See also, How Holy is the Holy Book? Holy Bible Inspiration or Idolatry? 

Lost in Translation
The Nature of Language, Words, and Thought

• So first, in all of life, we lose meaning between reality and our image of reality.
• When writing the bible, or any book, the author can only describe the images in their heads and then project them onto the page in their words with their meanings in their contexts. Then when we read them, we perceive those words in our minds and create our own meaning in our context. Our minds struggle to make meaning out of those words and more image-making happens in our heads which can never be the same reality that the author intends to project. Similar, hopefully. Successive approximations at best. This reality is always different from what ends up on the page. It is the nature of language. And for any religion that believes in a creator, this is what we ended up with. This is how we were created or evolved or whatever we think happened. This is the design of our universe.
• Then we lose meaning through language when we try to describe our reality (actually images in our heads) to others.
• When a preacher preaches what she/he thinks truth is in the bible or in his head, that is always his own image, interpretation, understanding, etc, that will always be different than what anyone else can understand. That is the nature of language on earth. That is what we have been given. Language is sort of a miracle in and of itself. It is amazing that we can communicate at all.
• Words are never reality. All they can do is point to the reality that we have created in our thoughts. Language is nothing more than projecting those stories in our heads to others as nothing more than images, projections, creations, perceptions.
• Is the Bible accurate? This is critical since accuracy presupposes inerrancy and inspired by God.   https://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2020/07/a-simple-thought-experiment-defeats-claim-that-bible-is-accurate-2/ 

Underpinning #4: Total Depravity versus Basic Goodness.
Why do we believe that we are flawed, dirt, depraved; a worm such as I? Is that possibly holy propaganda for fostering the belief that we NEED religion and God? See below in the last section for more on this.

Underpinning #5: Love is all. All of the “law and prophets hang on these two commandments: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” And we are to love God because he first loved us. And his love for us is unconditional.

If we are to follow these precepts, then the God that commands this must demonstrate this for us. In the Bible, it is repeatedly said, “be an example to others.”

The main characteristics required of all relationships are to be present, approachable, and visible and to communicate directly, honestly, and regularly. And yet the two most conspicuous characteristics of our image of God are his silence and his invisibility. In other words, the primary unchanging attributes of God are silence and invisibility.

Also, unconditional love is very different from the love that the God of the Bible proclaims and demonstrates. It is very conditional and punitive from mostly an angry and jealous God. How cruel is that? Or it is very conditional and exclusive based on obedience and compliance. How controlling and petty is that? And when people, created in the image of God that he says he loves, do not comply, they are eternally punished; not so they can learn and repent but so they can suffer forever with no chance of repentance... ever! That sounds malevolent and not benevolent. So the third attribute of god is conditional love. Exactly the opposite of what is expected of Christians.

Taking it one step further, check out God's commandments for all time here, The 10 Commandments: the best morality of all history?

And going a step further: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” (Richard Dawkins)

This happens not just for noncompliance but also for not believing and not only that but also for imperfect theology; that is, for not thinking like we are told to think. That contradicts the very essence of what it is to be diversely and uniquely human. It is a violation of creation itself.

It seems to me that maybe Christians ARE created in the image of the god they themselves have created; full of judgment and conditional love that is mostly angry and vindictive. Be good or else. Believe right or else. Any time we learn and change based on external criteria, rarely is that change sustainable. Learning from a role model is one of the most effective ways to internalize growth and change. But that teacher, that role model, that god must have integrity, which means that the primary and most consistent attributes emulate the kind of person that one wants to be; kind, generous, loving, patient, non-judgemental, etc. I used to have so many arguments with myself about this but when I stopped arguing and just looked carefully and clearly, all of the arguments faded away since it really didn't make sense to me anymore. 

A Sacrifice for the Sins of Humankind??? 7 Reasons Why Jesus was not Sacrificed for Your Sins.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/keithgiles/2020/08/7-reasons-why-jesus-was-not-sacrificed-for-your-sins/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Best+of+Patheos&utm_content=57

The Problem of Evil

"The problem of evil is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God  (see theism).^[1][2]  Or as the first known presentation by the Greek philosopher Epicurus puts it: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then from whence comes evil?"^[3]
(Wikipedia: The Problem of Evil)

The Problem of Eternal Torture

Heaven and Hell and other such stories
 An odyssey of the gods
The Create & Fix cycle of the gods

If God is all-loving, omnibenevolent, he would not torture anyone eternally.

If God is omnipotent, all-powerful, then he could create a way for all people to want to choose him instead of hell

If God is omniscient, all-knowing, then he would know exactly what each person would need to understand in order to choose God instead of hell.

If God is omnipresent, then we would be with all people at all times and know them so well that he would show them the way and not choose hell.

This also describes the Problem of Informed Choice being the forgotten prerequisite for free will.

Imagine there was a heaven, a hell, and a God. 

Who the hell would ever choose hell??? Unless maybe they don't understand all that is needed for it to make sense even to a skeptic. For this supposed God of the omni's, it would be a no-brainer, unless for some reason he did not have the will to do so. But then what does that say about the big guy in the sky?

The Nature and Character of God

A God Problem

Perfect. All-powerful. All-knowing. The idea of the deity most Westerners accept is actually not coherent.
If you look up “God” in a dictionary, the first entry you will find will be something along the lines of “a being believed to be the infinitely perfect, wise and powerful creator and ruler of the universe.” Certainly, if applied to non-Western contexts, the definition would be puzzling, but in a Western context this is how philosophers have traditionally understood “God.” In fact, this conception of God is sometimes known as the “God of the Philosophers.” 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/opinion/-philosophy-god-omniscience.html

Regarding Omnipresent: 5 years after I wrote this, while I was reviewing and remembering the things that I learned and wrote about, the image came to mind. Imagine a married couple living together but because of a disagreement, they refused to talk to each other or even look at each other. One of them decided to sleep on the couch until this was resolved. But neither of them were willing to talk or be around the other. OK. Then take that same image and imagine God or Jesus with their new bride, the church, acting like this. Well as I see it. this is what has been happening for well over 2000 years. The deity demands a loving relation but refuses to do anything about it. Everyday, there is nothing but silence and invisibility with each other. What hope does this relationship have? Even more obvious and even glaring is the fact that according to their teachings, Jesus promised to return to earth. This was understood so clearly that Jesus' followers began to sell all of their possessions and quit their jobs in anticipation this promise within their lifetime. That was sometime in the first century, prior to Jesus death at the age of 30. What years is it now? Another death blow to any marriage. 

Regarding Omnipotence: "You’ve probably heard the paradox of the stone before: Can God create a stone that cannot be lifted? If God can create such a stone, then He is not all powerful, since He Himself cannot lift it. On the other hand, if He cannot create a stone that cannot be lifted, then He is not all powerful, since He cannot create the unliftable stone. Either way, God is not all powerful."

Regarding Omniscience: "What about God’s infinite knowledge — His omniscience? Philosophically, this presents us with no less of a conundrum. Leaving aside the highly implausible idea that God knows all the facts in the universe, no matter how trivial or useless (Saint Jerome thought it was beneath the dignity of God to concern Himself with such base questions as how many fleas are born or die every moment), if God knows all there is to know, then He knows at least as much as we know. But if He knows what we know, then this would appear to detract from His perfection. Why?

"There are some things that we know that, if they were also known to God, would automatically make Him a sinner, which of course is in contradiction with the concept of God. As the late American philosopher Michael Martin has already pointed out, if God knows all that is knowable, then God must know things that we do, like lust and envy. But one cannot know lust and envy unless one has experienced them. But to have had feelings of lust and envy is to have sinned, in which case God cannot be morally perfect." This is the problem of thought crimes.

This article above goes on to present many contradictions in the basic nature of God, which I believe presents us with two ways we can go to reconcile this dilemma.

• Either God was created by man in the image of man and hence flawed in definition by man's thinking and man's anthropomorphic images and concepts.
• Or God is indescribable by man which means that if there is something greater than I, it would be futile to put that greatness into words or into a book or into a theology because all of these modes of expression are nothing more than human constructs.

Or is there a way to integrate multiple perspectives and hold each of them up for examination alongside other perspectives, refusing to conclude anything for sure, similar to what is done in this book?   https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brainstorm/201208/the-god-problem-interview-howard-bloom


Building a House on Sand and Uncertainty

Jesus used the parable that tells us to build our “house” (our life) on solid rock so that it will stand the test of time and withstand the storms that will come. And yet, our very faith has been built on the sand and its foundations are crumbling. This was a very hard lesson for me to learn. It took many years. Wisdom comes through pain and suffering and is purified like gold in the fire to burn away the dross. Inner discernment is the fire that tests for truth and burns away all that is false.

And yet there is no rock upon which to build. This is myth that we want to be true. I would love to know and know for sure that I am building on a solid foundation that will not crumble. But that would require some form of certainty and permanence, which we do not have. The only constant is change. That's the only thing we can be sure of.

So where does that leave us? Or probably the better question is, where does that leave me? ...since these are questions we all must face individually.

So if there is not a rock upon which to build my life,
If there is no solid foundation upon which to build,
How can I weather the storms
and withstand the fierceness of life?

I must be rooted in reality and grounded in my ground of being, a groundlessness with fearlessness. See Grounded in Groundlessness.

So Why Do We So Desperately Need Religion and God?

I wonder if it is because we so desperately need certainty.

I wonder if it is because we so desperately need to know and to know for sure about everything, even though we are finite creatures.

I wonder if it is because we so desperately need to be told what to do and to think and to act and how to treat each other.

I wonder why we can't not know?

Is "knowing" and certainty the idols that are buried beneath our image of a god we created in our image? ... out of our neediness for certainty?

Can we not be OK with who we are? Or does the grass always have to be greener on the other side? Do we forever have to want more and more and more without ever being content with what we have and who we are?

This sort of feeds into the need for the belief in total depravity. If we are so dependent and not able to think on our own because we are so flawed and depraved, then we are in dire need of god. Maybe this stems from the need to be dependent on authority outside of ourselves, whether the pulpit, the throne, or the gods above the clouds. That would probably work out best for the powerful. Keep us dependent and in line, thoughtless and compliant. Heaven forbid that we have an inner authority and discernment, an inner teacher or a still small voice, or an inner Light. If we did, we might wake up and rebel and maybe even take over our own lives and governance and spiritual journey.

But what if we took away "such a worm as I" and believed there is a basic goodness within each person as with nature and the universe as the Buddhists believe? What if there truly is "that of God" within each of us so that we can relate directly with any person because of that belief? 

What if we could believe in each other, in ourselves, knowing that there is this goodness within that we can trust?

What if we believed that there is this inner teacher or inner voice birthed by our inner goodness?

Maybe then we would no longer need to be told what to believe, what to think, and what to do. 

Maybe then we will grow up as a human race, transforming into all that we can be, our full potential. 

Maybe then we can find a solid foundation upon which to build our story; the basic goodness of each person, nature, and the universe.

The Chronology of My Crumbling Foundation

1. I earned a bachelor's degree in religion, bible, and greek at a well known Evangelical, bible, liberal arts college. There I was required to develop a Christian world and life view based on my indepth studies of the bible. But since then, there has been a deepening dissonance throughout my 30s and 40s. I could not quiet it with answers anymore. The answers were no longer alive, they were dying on the vine and I was becoming desperate. I began to understand and appreciate a good question; how it deepened me and opened me up. That's why on April Fool's Day, 2006, I began blogging. I didn't write because I knew anything, I wrote because I no longer knew anything. I wrote in order to understand and listen to life.

2. Then life upended me. It was like a whirlwind ripping and breaking, uprooting and upending everything in my life. The American Dream, gone. In the spring of 2008, I lost my marriage (divorced!), I lost my kids half time (joint custody!), I lost my house (forclosed!), I lost my job (downsized!), I lost my mental health (clinical depression!). Like my first divorce when I was 30, I turned to God and clung to what I was taught. I prayed harder than ever. I studied the bible. I went to church. And yet those deep wounds would not heal. I tried and tried and tried. And also, I kept writing. I didn't know why. I just knew that I had to. The compulsion to keep on writing was undeniable, incessant, and irrepressible. I had to write. It took a long time to begin to understand that it was the silence, the reflection, and the contemplation that began my healing. This I learned from a Buddhist Priest as I practiced shambhala meditation. I carried it on for a few more years in silent worship with the Quakers.

3. The questions along with the dissonance became a continuous and relentless roar throughout my 50s. It reminds me of the neverending tinnitus in my ears now in my 60s. At times it brings me to my knees.

4. First it hit me that "knowing" is a presumption that we have abused. We do not "know" and we cannot "know." And it also hit me that if I already know, I can no longer learn. (see Underpinning #1&2 above)

5. Then it hit me that along with knowing, certainty is nothing more than a story in my head. We are humans. We don't get to be certain about anything except that everything changes constantly. There is no permanence. Everything is temporal. And if I think that I know or that I am certain or that I am permanent, then I am playing God. (see Underpinning #1&2 above)

6. This then made me begin to question the foundational things of my faith: an inspired, inerrant word of god. Not long after I began to see that, then I realized that the concept of a word of god period is absurd. And when I was then forced to question why we would be told this, the dynamics of power and oppression became clearer and clearer. External authority is another story in our heads that we tell ourselves. Sometimes it is practical (like government and laws) but not when it comes to the things of life and death that no one can know.  (see Underpinning #3 above)

7. Once that foundation (#6) began to crumble, everything else began to unravel, and kept unraveling until there was nothing left. The nature of language and the identity of words furthered and deepened my understanding.

8. Then came the nature and function of thought, of reality and perception, of concepts and illusions, and of fictions and the stories we tell ourselves.

9. Then my eyes opened to the principalities and powers that were really running things. Then the structures of power and oppression, inner and outer authority, being controlled and compliant versus living out our full potential, 

10. A great eye opener is my understanding of myths per the teaching of Joseph Campbell along with the understanding and influence of conditioning according to Krishnamurti.

11. Once I turned 60, the scales fell off my eyes and I could see all of the wishful and magical thinking that I still clung to. At that point, I was finally ready to say "STOP" "enough!" It was at this point that I could fully let go of dogma. What I experienced profoundly and astonishingly is that I was finally free. No more shackles on my mind or on my conversations with others or in my acceptance and inclusion of others; unconditional love! I was finally free!

Who'd'a' thought that the total unraveling of my life would result in such incredible freedom?

“How thoughtful of God to arrange matters so that, wherever you happen to be born, the local religion always turns out to be the true one.” -Richard Dawkins

Comfort, Security, Certainty

Facing our gods

... for what we are worshiping we are becoming."
"That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and character."
(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

god of comfort

god of security

god of certainty

(An All American Trinity)

“But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes you are
You're gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody” (Bob Dylan)

Humans have a tendency to worship… worship something… worship anything that is ultimate or of supreme value in one’s life. Although we are often unaware or deceive ourselves, it is not hard to tell what it is that we worship, if we pay attention. What is it that occupies our thoughts, attention, time, energy? What is the focus of our desire. What is the object of our lust?

FACING OUR MANY VERY SUBTLE GODS

We call ourselves a culture and religion of one, and only one, God. But I propose that we may be one of the most pluralistic cultures in the world when it comes to our gods.

But here is the thing; our gods are smarter than we are, they are cunning and sly like a fox.

My gods, that I’m beginning to see, are largely hidden neatly beneath the surface of my life, out of sight… out of mind…

“A person will worship something — have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts — but it will come out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshiping we are becoming.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

We live our lives by the stories we tell ourselves, whether they are true or not. Myths that have gripped us deep within, often at a young age... and when we are old, we do not depart from them. Beliefs are now modern iterations of the instincts we no longer need to survive in the wilderness as hunters and gatherers by triggering fight or flight in the face of danger. But those instincts have evolved in order for us to survive in the present day complex societies, confusing cultures, and dire realities by triggering illusions of comfort, security, and certainty in response to our fears of the unknown, and denial of death. When things are beyond our ability to comprehend or make sense of, we must simplify and contain those complexities into systems of beliefs and stories in our minds. Using stories to explain away our greatest fears could give a hint at what it is that we worship and desire.

Out of sheer lust for comfort, security, and certainty, we create systems of belief, then we hang on for dear life crying out for a savior.

How do we discern that which we worship? 

How do we identity our gods?

What is it that occupies my attention? 

What is it that I desire, that I long for?

What is it that I work my whole life for?

What is it that I cling to?

What is it that I grasp?

What is it that I cannot let go of?
What is it that I cannot live without?

What is my addiction???

Nothing is certain.

Nothing is secure.

Nothing is permanent.

Nothing gives lasting comfort.

So what longings have my illusions created?
What or who is my savior? Another person? A belief system? Politics?

Am I grounded in reality? Or illusion?
Is my illusion my savior? My addiction?

Comfort

“The lust for comfort 

murders the passion of the soul, 

and then walks grinning in the funeral.” 

(Kahlil Gibran)

“People wish to be settled.

Only as far as they are unsettled

is there any hope for them.”

(Emerson)

“We find comfort among those who agree with us… growth among those who don’t.” (Frank Clark)

“Comfort is one thing, and truth another; they lead away from each other. If you seek comfort, you may find it in an explanation, a drug or a belief; but it will be temporary, and sooner or later you will have to begin over again. And is there such a thing as comfort? It may be that you will first have to see this fact: that a mind which seeks comfort, security, will always be in sorrow. A satisfactory explanation, or a comforting belief, can put you soothingly to sleep; but is that what you want? Will that wipe away your sorrow? Is sorrow to be got rid of by inducing sleep?” (Krishnamurti, Commentaries On Living, Series III | Chapter 13, ‘ Why Should It Happen To Us? ‘)

“There is the comfort in God, which is an image put together by thought, or comfort in some illusory concept or idea. And that’s all you want. But you never question the very urge, the desire for comfort, never ask whether there is any comfort at all. One needs to have a comfortable bed or chair— that’s all right. But you never ask whether there is any comfort at all psychologically, inwardly. Is it an illusion which has become your truth? You understand? An illusion can become your truth— the illusion that you are God, that there is God. That God has been created by thought, by fear. If you had no fear, there would be no God.
“So this is a very complex problem of our life— why we are so shallow, empty, filled with other people’s knowledge and with books; why we are not independent, free human beings to find out; why we are slaves. This is not a rhetorical question; it is a question each one of us must ask. In the very asking and doubting, there comes freedom. And without freedom there is no sense of truth.” (Krishnamurti)

Security

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” (Helen Keller)

“Shutters on storefronts and shutters in the mind -
We kill ourselves to keep ourselves safe from crime.
That's the gospel of bondage…” (Bruce Cockburn lyrics, Gospel of Bondage)

“So where is security? There may be no security at all. Just think about it, sir, see the beauty of that—having no desire for security, having no urge, no feeling of any kind in which there is security. In your homes, in your offices, in your factories, in your parliaments and so on, is there security? Life may not have security; life is meant to be lived, not to create problems and then try to solve them. It is meant to be lived and it will die. That’s one of our fears—to die. Right?” (Krishnamurti, The Last Talks, pp 34-35)

“When we close the windows and doors of our house and stay inside, we feel very secure, we feel safe, unmolested. But life is not like that. Life is constantly knocking at our door, trying to push open our windows that we may see more; and if out of fear we lock the doors, bolt all the windows, the knocking only grows louder. The closer we cling to security in any form, the more life comes and pushes us. The more we are afraid and enclose ourselves, the greater is our suffering, because life won’t leave us alone. We want to be secure but life says we cannot be; and so our struggle begins.” (Krishnamurti, Life Ahead, p 54)

“What happens when you seek security, certainty? There must be fear; and if you are conscious of your thought, you will discern that it has its root in fear. Morality, religion and objective conditions are based fundamentally on fear, for they are the outcome of the desire on the part of the individual to be secure. Though you may not have any religious belief, yet you have the desire to be subjectively secure, which is but the religious spirit. Let us understand the structure of what we call religion.
“As I said, when one seeks security there must be fear; to be subjectively certain, you seek what you call immortality. In search of that security, you accept teachers who promise this immortality, and you come to regard them as authorities, to be feared, to be worshiped. And where there is this fear, there must be dogmas, creeds, beliefs, ideals and traditions to hold the mind.” (Krishnamurti, Santiago, Chile | 1st Public Talk 1st September, 1935)

Certainty

“If your knowledge of fire has been turned to certainty by words alone, then seek to be cooked by the fire itself. Don’t abide in borrowed certainty. There is no real certainty until you burn; If you wish for this, sit down in the fire.” (Rumi)

“The very desire to be certain, to be secure, is the beginning of bondage. It’s only when the mind is not caught in the net of certainty, and is not seeking certainty, that it is in a state of discovery.” (Krishnamurti)

“I am asking myself what is fear, not what I am afraid of. I lead a certain kind of life; I think in a certain pattern; I have certain beliefs and dogmas and I don’t want those patterns of existence to be disturbed because I have my roots in them. I don’t want them to be disturbed because the disturbance produces a state of unknowing and I dislike that. If I am torn away from everything I know and believe, I want to be reasonably certain of the state of things to which I am going. So the brain cells have created a pattern and those brain cells refuse to create another pattern which may be uncertain. The movement from certainty to uncertainty is what I call fear.”
(Jiddu Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known)

“Fear begins and ends with the desire to be secure; inward and outward security, with the desire to be certain, to have permanency. The continuity of permanence is sought in every direction, in virtue, in relationship, in action, in experience, in knowledge, in outward and inward things. To find security and be secure is the everlasting cry. It is this insistent demand that breeds fear.”
(JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI, On Fear)

“The fact is there is nothing that you can trust; and that is a terrible fact, whether you like it or not. Psychologically there is nothing in the world, that you can put your faith, your trust, or your belief in. Neither your gods, nor your science can save you, can bring you psychological certainty; and you have to accept that you can trust in absolutely nothing. That is a scientific fact, as well as a psychological fact. Because, your leaders — religious and political — and your books — sacred and profane — have all failed, and you are still confused, in misery, in conflict. So, that is an absolute, undeniable fact.” (JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI, Psychological Revolution)

“The radical, committed to human liberation, does not become the prisoner of a ‘circle of certainty’ within which reality is also imprisoned. On the contrary, the more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can better transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or to enter into dialogue with them. This person does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history or of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit himself or herself, within history, to fight at their side.” (Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed)

The Questions We Refuse to Ask

"There are two things that determine (who we are and) who we will be:

the questions we ask and

the questions we refuse to ask.”
(Sam Keen)

What resonates so deeply with me about this statement is that

1) who I am is closely tied to the questions that matter to me, the questions that I have the courage to ask. These are foundational to my identity.

2) but those questions that I refuse to ask, that I’m afraid to ask create a sort of negative of me. They reveal what might be missing within  me.

We all hold tightly to things that create our own sense of comfort. Do I hold so tightly to these things that I won’t dare to challenge my own assumptions that undergird my comfort with questions that might uproot things… that might uproot EVERYTHING!?

We all hold tightly to things that create our own sense of security. Do I hold so tightly to these things that I won’t dare to challenge my own assumptions that undergird my security with questions that might uproot things… that might uproot EVERYTHING!?

We all hold tightly to things that create our own sense of certainty. Do I hold so tightly to these things that I won’t dare to challenge my own assumptions that undergird my certainty with questions that might uproot things… that might uproot EVERYTHING!!

"Inwardly we are whirlpools of misery and mischief and therefore to be regarded outwardly as a great figure is very gratifying. This craving for position, for prestige, for power, to be recognized by society as being outstanding in some way, is a wish to dominate others, and this wish to dominate is a form of aggression. The saint who seeks a position in regard to his saintliness is as aggressive as the chicken pecking in the farmyard. And what is the cause of this aggressiveness? It is fear, isn't it? - Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known

Also see

https://ronirvine.wordpress.com/2012/04/07/facing-our-gods-2-2/

https://ronirvine.wordpress.com/2014/12/02/the-bubble-of-indifference/ 

https://ronirvine.wordpress.com/2017/03/19/community-and-comfort-conformity-and-certainty/ 

https://ronirvine.wordpress.com/2013/04/20/the-cocoon/

https://ronirvine.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/familiarity-and-exclusion-freedom-and-oppression/

https://ronirvine.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/the-god-of-comfort/ 
https://livingwithopenhands2.blogspot.com/2019/07/permanency.html