Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Ashoka, India and the US.
If you are cruel to animals you will be cruel to humans. Throughout history there have been many empires of the sword but only India created an empire of the Spirit. From the edicts of Ashoka was there a logic of humanity of Dharma, a just law of life. Personal morality and politics, social welfare religious tollerance, the conservation of forests. Moving the sphere of politics away from the sanctions of religion and magic to the rule of reason and morality. The extraordinary work of Ashoka's law. And when Ashoka was old, legend tells, that he was a man stripped of everything. ....we have moved away from this in our country. The more I learn about India and the teachings of the Buddha I can not help but believe the message of the Buddha as being true. The morality of Ashoka feels true as well. The politics in these United States never feel right. The corporate juggernauts caught in poisonous pursuits of money disease vanity and ill=will toward humanity animals and the enviornment. It is a sad and lonely place these United States. I wonder if I could stomach leaving?
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Of God and Man
By William Zimmermann
Rythm's of life move in and out.
Like sound to our ears the music of life is rhythm.
Each day we rise and each night we fall asleep in time and in spaces where we find ourselves alone. The tides turn into dreams that unfold our destiny, as the ticking mind of the cosmos reminds us how small we really are.
People take and lie and cheat. They steal souls and line their pockets with the futures of young men. Machinations spin around objectives in secretive silences that history will remember differently. But the planets and stars and the vast empty space of the universe do not know us. There is no awareness to know us. Even if there were others who could observe us we would not inspire interest for those who may have mastered the vastness of space and time deal in the currency of this time and in this space where human ambitions are irrelevant.
We are a flicker of time in the history of the universe. We came and went unnoticed and without a single care. Our only hope is that time and space both are illusions. If so who are we then? It would appear we are ego to the degree to which we have constructed ourselves in a imaginary "Gods." For as the fabric of the universe unfolds the face of God remains not only blank but it remains unwaveringly indifferent - the purest definition of hate. We are here by the grace of sheer luck at a time when the beauty of life is enjoyed by the few humans who were lucky enough to evolve from virus to beings. Nature will flush us down the Darwinian toilet in good time as nature will deal with us on its own terms and in its own time. God is simply a manifestation created by the powerless and fearful. Soon we will be gone and with it we will take our gods, the animals and our dreams of domination. Our fanciful dreams, reckless pursuits and unique arrogance will be laid before us shortly before our end. Then, and only then like person at the threshold of death will we see the errors of our ways. There is no hope and there is no need to hope. I amazes me that every person I know does not realize in 20 years we will be erased from this place and from these bodies. We have twenty years left. Maybe. And what we do with those years does not matter to the deaf ears of those rocks that circle about the black hole of Andromeda. The Milky Way hovers above us as our home but does not know we are here. It would seem only we think we contain some magical gift when in the view of pure science humanity is nothing more than a virus gone wild. A cancer with a mind of its own. We are nothing to the blind eyes and ears of a god who never existed. But we comfort ourselves by creating one so we can sleep at night feeling as though we are being cared for. The truth is that God is not dead, he is simply a myth that comforts us in times of strife. We develop him when we should be developing our own network of emotional and psychological mechanisms based on the truth. Knowing this is a great relief. Humanity was a great coincidence. It was a nice little ride in the land of mortality. But we are just animals with a few special skills. And that is all. The rest is just imaginary.
The question is "what do we do with our lives?" Now that we know that absolutely nothing matters. I suppose we can feel free to do anything at all. Express ourselves unrestrained and with as much dignity or violence as we care to perpetrate upon the world. Regardless of how much we love hate create or destroy the universe will expand and shrink and expand again regardless of what we do. To the universe we are infinitesimally small and insignificant.
I want to believe in an after life. Flying around the cosmos in an anti-gravity spirit body or a trans-dimensional body that folds space. Socializing with bright minds and having let go of my mortal constraints with my mind clear, brilliant and unencumbered. And to arrive with a job that allows me to contribute to a celestial family with a whole new body of knowledge to pursue. I do not want to die thinking I will simply END. But the logic and reason of the after life is only fear based fantasy expressing itself as an ultimate lie perpetrated by ninety percent of the population of the world. The ultimate self deception and the ultimate lie that behaviorally speaking can only perpetuate the ease of which other lies can be told. This is the danger of religion and has the potential to end mankind prematurely... all based on a lie. The only one or thing that will have cared will be us. We are alone, we had better get used to it.
Rythm's of life move in and out.
Like sound to our ears the music of life is rhythm.
Each day we rise and each night we fall asleep in time and in spaces where we find ourselves alone. The tides turn into dreams that unfold our destiny, as the ticking mind of the cosmos reminds us how small we really are.
People take and lie and cheat. They steal souls and line their pockets with the futures of young men. Machinations spin around objectives in secretive silences that history will remember differently. But the planets and stars and the vast empty space of the universe do not know us. There is no awareness to know us. Even if there were others who could observe us we would not inspire interest for those who may have mastered the vastness of space and time deal in the currency of this time and in this space where human ambitions are irrelevant.
We are a flicker of time in the history of the universe. We came and went unnoticed and without a single care. Our only hope is that time and space both are illusions. If so who are we then? It would appear we are ego to the degree to which we have constructed ourselves in a imaginary "Gods." For as the fabric of the universe unfolds the face of God remains not only blank but it remains unwaveringly indifferent - the purest definition of hate. We are here by the grace of sheer luck at a time when the beauty of life is enjoyed by the few humans who were lucky enough to evolve from virus to beings. Nature will flush us down the Darwinian toilet in good time as nature will deal with us on its own terms and in its own time. God is simply a manifestation created by the powerless and fearful. Soon we will be gone and with it we will take our gods, the animals and our dreams of domination. Our fanciful dreams, reckless pursuits and unique arrogance will be laid before us shortly before our end. Then, and only then like person at the threshold of death will we see the errors of our ways. There is no hope and there is no need to hope. I amazes me that every person I know does not realize in 20 years we will be erased from this place and from these bodies. We have twenty years left. Maybe. And what we do with those years does not matter to the deaf ears of those rocks that circle about the black hole of Andromeda. The Milky Way hovers above us as our home but does not know we are here. It would seem only we think we contain some magical gift when in the view of pure science humanity is nothing more than a virus gone wild. A cancer with a mind of its own. We are nothing to the blind eyes and ears of a god who never existed. But we comfort ourselves by creating one so we can sleep at night feeling as though we are being cared for. The truth is that God is not dead, he is simply a myth that comforts us in times of strife. We develop him when we should be developing our own network of emotional and psychological mechanisms based on the truth. Knowing this is a great relief. Humanity was a great coincidence. It was a nice little ride in the land of mortality. But we are just animals with a few special skills. And that is all. The rest is just imaginary.
The question is "what do we do with our lives?" Now that we know that absolutely nothing matters. I suppose we can feel free to do anything at all. Express ourselves unrestrained and with as much dignity or violence as we care to perpetrate upon the world. Regardless of how much we love hate create or destroy the universe will expand and shrink and expand again regardless of what we do. To the universe we are infinitesimally small and insignificant.
I want to believe in an after life. Flying around the cosmos in an anti-gravity spirit body or a trans-dimensional body that folds space. Socializing with bright minds and having let go of my mortal constraints with my mind clear, brilliant and unencumbered. And to arrive with a job that allows me to contribute to a celestial family with a whole new body of knowledge to pursue. I do not want to die thinking I will simply END. But the logic and reason of the after life is only fear based fantasy expressing itself as an ultimate lie perpetrated by ninety percent of the population of the world. The ultimate self deception and the ultimate lie that behaviorally speaking can only perpetuate the ease of which other lies can be told. This is the danger of religion and has the potential to end mankind prematurely... all based on a lie. The only one or thing that will have cared will be us. We are alone, we had better get used to it.