2018.06.08 - Day 86

Tart says: ‘The general structure of people's consensus consciousness in the same culture can vary greatly from generation to generation. A formulation or exercise that was very effective for your own teacher or for you may now work well for some people but be completely ineffective or even misleading for others. Many spiritual traditions have become fossilized in this way, assuming rigid forms that no longer adapt to the time, place, and people currently using them.’

Tart, Charles T.. Waking Up: Overcoming the Obstacles to Human Potential (Kindle Locations 4789-4793). Fearless Books. Kindle Edition.

A very good point I think. One of the factors that loosened the hold of Christianity on me was the way Christians seemed to worship the written text of the Bible. Every good teacher knows you have to tailor your message to your audience or you will lose them. So, what was taught by Jesus was context specific to those people of that era and no matter how you twist the teachings, hardly applicable to a modern generation. And diluting the teachings starts to make them seem meaningless. The idea of inerrancy, that scripture is dictated to humans by God, never felt right to me. Also, there seemed to be a fear of reading anything outside of Christian authors. If you wanted to know about evolution you read a Christian book about evolution. Just seemed narrow minded to me.

I agree and sympathize Zen. Another example: The PaB book club has been reading “Conference of the Birds” for the last few week, and it can seem unsubtle, even bullying, to modern eyes, but may have been inspiring (to some) at the author’s place and time.

And I wonder whether this process has now accelerated with ease of global communication. The feeling of being part of a cohort is powerful and, now perhaps more than ever, fosters a group identity, with all its pluses and minuses. And the minuses can be many, including potential fossilization, bigotry and an inability to enjoy new ideas.

I’m always reminded of this!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV0wTtiJygY

Quite busy day at the desk, very much helped by setting the timer for the 9 second pauses, without which I would have much more of the hunched shoulders and crinkled brow I'm now sporting.

Taking the Bourdain news pretty hard. Think we needed his approach, his taking people into the homes and cultures of others without regard for station in life or place on the planet, highlighting the real, not withholding even his own really unflattering stories.

“I like food. It was the center of my life for thirty years and I’ll always look at the world through that prism, but it is not the only thing,” Bourdain tells me. “If you’re commenting on how crunchy-delicious your salad is while your host is missing two limbs, you might want to ask them how that happened, and often you will get a story that’s far more interesting than what’s on your plate.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/anthony-bourdains-journey-deep-into-the-heart-of-trump-country-i-was-utterly-disarmed?ref=scroll

I watched a video of Eckhart Tolle with my RL group a couple of nights ago. At one point, he suggested some ways of bringing awareness into the present, and it sounded essentially no different from Tart/Gurdjieff's self-remembering. It comes down to a choice of deliberately placing attention on sensory experience of the present (whatever is here/now) versus letting attention be pulled involuntarily off into conceptual thinking and story-telling that maintains consensus trance (Tart), false personality (Gurdjieff), or ego (Tolle).

I do enjoy Tolle's style and his sense of humor. He reminds me of Yoda from the Star Wars movies.

While on a hike today I startled (and was startled by) a female grouse, who must have had a nest nearby. She bravely confronted me, defiantly standing only a couple of feet in front of me, and then attempting to lure me away from her nest by pretending to be injured. It was a remarkable encounter with a non-human being, bringing me instantly and completely into the moment.