Why? Why? Why? Are we there yet?
Recurrent travel themes for children and adults. Young&old live in a puzzle. And to counter unsatisfactory official guidance around what life is really about, we adults comfort ourselves with (depressed) acquiescence and/or distractions — faking a semblance of control …
Why not repeat what we did as children: joyfully accept the magic surrounding life as its meaning unfolds, through the contemplation of our own empirical knowledge.
The amount of control we adults believe we have over reality (illustrated by the public surety of our expressed beliefs) can correlate with how prideful we are. Though of course some pride is necessarily practical & healthy …
Choice
But life is about continual choice-making — between doing the easy and the right, as Dumbledore reminds the German Minister of Magic, Vogel. Adults follow through as consistently as we can on the important choices, within our ever developing/changing environments, by creating characteristic habits. Habits in turn engender both a self-comforting stability, and the trust of others — important because life/survival really is all about relationships. However for many of us, giving in to ‘muscle memory’ at a certain level of pressure (*today often experienced as another “pain” to be neutralised) is less emotionally disturbing (*also often experienced as “pain” to be anaesthetised) than entertaining the idea of searching for real self-knowledge…
Maslow’s hierarchy conceptually represents 
humanity’s basic needs, growing wants, and developing desires. Each degree (of pressure) is defined by deep individual, personal motivations and even deeper drivers, which together colour the respective physical/ratio-emotional/spiritual stories we tell, and the personality which our choices & decisions illuminate. We can choose to let our actions be directed only by bio-chemical motivations, or we can dare to consciously+rationally=holistically consider how it is that we want to (be seen to) act.
Three things in life you always need to know. What you desire, what you believe, and what you have to do. — Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274✓see next footnote)
The “Enlightenment” which dominated Europe in the 17th and 18th[mfn]✓interesting how long the development-time is for society to decide to collectively start “practising” a good principle…[/mfn] centuries spanned a range of brilliant ideas centering around the value of human happiness (eg. “that all men are created equal … with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and happiness[mfn]spiritual philosophies have been teaching this for aeons…[/mfn]), and the pursuit of knowledge obtained through reasoning and sensory evidence. Intellectuals had, just as Adam and Eve and others, concluded that because they were able to ‘cogito, ergo’ they ‘erant’ capable of practising liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, and[mfn]in a bid to dissect the body corporate either in a scientific quest for truth, or to M&A their competitor Estates‘ power…[/mfn] that it was important to separate unpredictable notions of spirituality from ‘undeniable’ ones of reason.
It’s become clear that many of today’s conceptual structures which originated from this period, even though still favoured by educators/mind-trainers and other $£atus Quo control schemes, are not proving to function well as such; perhaps even pure ratio has itself become THE difficult sales proposition![mfn]as exemplified by the amount of financial investment being pumped into all forms of AI, while we’re faced with a questionable state of affairs in our advanced economic societies, due in part at least to the social and environmental effects of the Industrial & Information Age’s much-vaunted labour saving processes and devices … [/mfn]
Welcome back!
Now, in His/Her/Its Conversations with Neil Donald Walsch about the Basic Principles of Life, which “all of Life exhibits” and “demonstrates,” God advocates leaving behind seasonal fashion-concept ways, in favour of taking the principle path less trodden.
GOD: … Principles stand behind each of your temporary mental constructions, waiting to be revealed. Yet they are covered and hidden by these mental constructions, for they, in turn, are based on false thoughts about life. Because your mental constructions are distorted attempts to express underlying Life Principles, they produce distorted results. For instance, here are three of your species’ most popular mental constructions […]. These are simple ideas you hold in your head that you have translated into social conventions, customs and practices: Morality. Justice. Ownership. These are among your most cherished philosophical, political and economic concepts.
NEALE: What are the Life Principles they seek to express?
GOD: In the case of “morality,” the underlying principle is Functionality. In the case of “justice,” the underlying principle is Adaptability. In the case of “ownership,” it is Sustainability.
NEALE: Well, I certainly don’t understand this. Functionality, adaptability, sustainability….whatever. “Morality,” “justice” and “ownership” make more sense to me. We’ve built our whole lives around them. How could we live without them?
GOD: The idea is not to live without them, but to elevate them, to lift them up to the next level of articulation and expression, to move from concept to principle in the living of your lives.
This is about raising consciousness, or becoming more fully aware of all that is involved in the process of life expressing.
For many people, this may not be easy, given the human penchant for keeping beliefs as they are, no matter how unworkable they have become (or always were). — (via) Neale Donald Walsch.
Belief’s ‘new’ buddy
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What&How2do?
GOD: The Five Steps to Peace. This produces not just peace in the world, but peace in your inner world. That is the peace we are talking about here. Inner peace, as well as outer peace. Most human beings have not had much inner or outer peace lately. Neither the state of your world nor your state of mind has allowed it.
Yet now you can take the Five Steps to Peace and raise your consciousness, moving from concept to principle in considering, exploring, and deeply understanding life.
1. Acknowledge that some of your old beliefs about God [Spirit/Universal Intelligence/Providence/Fate/Prime Cause — fill in what you will, Ed.] and about Life are no longer working.
2. Acknowledge that there is something you do not understand about God [&c.] and about Life, the understanding of which could change everything.
3. Be willing for a new understanding of God [&c.] and Life to now be brought forth, an understanding that could produce a new way of life on your planet.
4. Be courageous enough to explore and examine this new understanding, and, if it aligns with your inner truth and knowing, to enlarge your belief system to include it.
5. Live your lives as demonstrations of your beliefs, rather than as denials of them. — (via) Neale Donald Walsch.
What if (unexpectedly) EGO acknowledged it didn’t really know anything?
I chanced upon another talk by Joan Chittister[mfn]see previous post[/mfn] who suggests that our post 1960s 1stWorld societies– with interconnected structures yet so unresponsive to contemporary needs, and with both private&public domains[mfn]this means you&me, business (where we sell & buy), and government&legislators (representatives chosen by you&me)[/mfn] pretty versed in the 7 deadly sins — really need to start shining new light on old values.
To my mind, we shouldn’t be too focused on trying to solve those daunting=paralysing planetary challenges. No. It is only by (1) actually ANSWERING in action for our own personal part in local ethical problems, and (2) as Sr. Joan propagates VOICING in action honestly about primary physiological and safety concerns of 80% of the world’s population, that we’ll be able to start living a truly dynamic and meaningful spirituality : a culture AND spirituality “of community & mutuality, cooperation & interdependence, human responsibility & contemplative co-creation.” Sounds pretty much like the 3Principles!
Sr. Joan believes such a huge cultural shift in innovation and engagement will only be produced by the next generation.[mfn]eg. Greta Thunberg …[/mfn] As you&I haven’t exactly positively changed the direction of society, they’ll be subconsciously pretty inspired and made indignant enough to WANT to rebalance the self-serving societies that mirror our generation’s choices.
And, lest we forget, Findhorn Ecovillage’s official mission is bringing about that physical (not just statistically relative) result today! If this too seems daunting: as Dumbledore’s protégé Scamander tells him: “Ultimately most of us are imperfect. Though we make mistakes, even terrible ones, we can try to make them right. That’s the most important. Trying.” — J.K Rowling
Happy Solstice on the 19th[mfn]The Summer Solstice is the longest day of the year, when the sun is at its northernmost point in the sky. The Summer Solstice is a time to celebrate the light of the Sun and the light within us. It is an energetically charged day, ideal for setting or refining intentions and the season that follows, up to the Autumn Equinox, is a time for nourishing the patience and gratitude that is needed to cultivate growth and trust.[/mfn]… Noblesse (de coeur) oblige…
