"I think we can conclude from this thread that pressure points are the perfect compromise between being unable to grapple and unable to strike."
- hedgehogey
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Coal, the world's most deadly power source.
It is said that the United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal.
That may be more of a curse than a blessing.
"In the United States, 23,600 deaths each year can be attributed
to air pollution from power plants. Those dying prematurely due
to exposure to particulate matter lose, on average, 14 years of
life. Burning coal also is responsible for some 554,000 asthma
attacks, 16,200 cases of chronic bronchitis, and 38,200 non-fatal
heart attacks each year. Atmospheric power plant pollution in the
United States racks up an estimated annual health care bill of
over $160 billion."
<http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update42.htm>
Ahhhh, we all know there death pours from the smokestacks of
coal fired power plants, but at least there is no radiation
danger. WRONG! As far as radiation goes coal is far more
]dangerous than nuclear plants.
"Americans living near coal-fired power plants are exposed to
higher radiation doses than those living near nuclear power
plants that meet government regulations. This ironic situation
remains true today and is addressed in this article."
And:
"Using these data, the releases of radioactive materials per
typical plant can be calculated for any year. For the year 1982,
assuming coal contains uranium and thorium concentrations of
1.3 ppm and 3.2 ppm, respectively, each typical plant released
5.2 tons of uranium (containing 74 pounds of uranium-235) and
12.8 tons of thorium that year. Total U.S. releases in 1982
(from 154 typical plants) amounted to 801 tons of uranium
(containing 11,371 pounds of uranium-235) and 1971 tons of
thorium. These figures account for only 74% of releases from
combustion of coal from all sources. Releases in 1982 from
worldwide combustion of 2800 million tons of coal totaled 3640
tons of uranium (containing 51,700 pounds of uranium-235) and
8960 tons of thorium."
<http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html>
It is said that the United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal.
That may be more of a curse than a blessing.
"In the United States, 23,600 deaths each year can be attributed
to air pollution from power plants. Those dying prematurely due
to exposure to particulate matter lose, on average, 14 years of
life. Burning coal also is responsible for some 554,000 asthma
attacks, 16,200 cases of chronic bronchitis, and 38,200 non-fatal
heart attacks each year. Atmospheric power plant pollution in the
United States racks up an estimated annual health care bill of
over $160 billion."
<http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update42.htm>
Ahhhh, we all know there death pours from the smokestacks of
coal fired power plants, but at least there is no radiation
danger. WRONG! As far as radiation goes coal is far more
]dangerous than nuclear plants.
"Americans living near coal-fired power plants are exposed to
higher radiation doses than those living near nuclear power
plants that meet government regulations. This ironic situation
remains true today and is addressed in this article."
And:
"Using these data, the releases of radioactive materials per
typical plant can be calculated for any year. For the year 1982,
assuming coal contains uranium and thorium concentrations of
1.3 ppm and 3.2 ppm, respectively, each typical plant released
5.2 tons of uranium (containing 74 pounds of uranium-235) and
12.8 tons of thorium that year. Total U.S. releases in 1982
(from 154 typical plants) amounted to 801 tons of uranium
(containing 11,371 pounds of uranium-235) and 1971 tons of
thorium. These figures account for only 74% of releases from
combustion of coal from all sources. Releases in 1982 from
worldwide combustion of 2800 million tons of coal totaled 3640
tons of uranium (containing 51,700 pounds of uranium-235) and
8960 tons of thorium."
<http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html>
Nikolai Palkin
by Leo Tolstoy
We were spending the night at the house of a soldier ninety-five years old, who had served under Alexander I and Nicholas I.
"Tell me, are you ready to die?"
"Ready to die? How should I be yet? I used to be afraid of dying, but now I pray God for only one thing; that God would be pleased to let me make my confession and partake of the communion; I have so many sins on my conscience."
"What sins?"
"How can you ask? Let us see, when was it I served? Under Nicholas. Was the service then such as it is now? How was it then? Uh! It fills me with horror even to remember it. Then Alexander came. The soldiers used to praise this Alexander. They said he was gracious."
I remembered the last days of Alexander, when twenty men out of every hundred were beaten to death. Nicholas must have been a terror, if in comparison with him Alexander was called gracious.
"I happened to serve under Nicholas," said the old man, and he immediately began to grow animated and to give me his recollections.
"How was it then? At that time fifty blows with the rod was thought nothing . . . one hundred and fifty, two hundred, three hundred . . . they used to whip men to death, and with cudgels too . . . Never a week went by that they did not beat one or two men to death from each regiment. Today people don't know what a cudgel is, but then the word 'palka' was never out of men's mouths. 'Palka!' 'Palka!'
"Among us soldiers he was called Nikolai Palkin – Nicholas the cudgeler. He was really Nikolai Palkin. That was his universal nickname. That's what I remember of that time," continued the old man. "Yes, when one has lived out a century, it is time for one to die, and when you think of it, it becomes hard.
"I have so many sins on my soul! It was a subordinate's work. One had to apply one hundred and fifty blows to a soldier" – the old man had been non-commissioned officer and sergeant major, but was now "kandidat" – and you give him two hundred. And the man died on your hands, and you tortured him to death . . . that was a sin.
"The non-commissioned officers used to beat the young soldiers to death. They would strike them anywhere with the butt-end of the gun or with the fist, over the heart or on the head, and the man would die. And there was never any redress. If a man died, murdered that way, the authorities would write, 'Died by the will of God,' and thus it was covered up. And at that time did I realize what it meant? One thought only of oneself. But now when you crawl up on top of the stove and can't sleep o' nights, you keep thinking about it and living it over again. Good as it is to take the holy communion in accordance with the Christian law and be absolved, still horror seizes you.
"When you remember all that you have been through, yes, and what others have suffered on your account, then no other hell is necessary; it is worse than any hell."
I vividly imagined what must have been the recollections of this solitary old man there, face to face with death, and a pang went through my heart. I remembered other horrors besides the cudgels, which he must have witnessed: men killed in running the gauntlet, put to death by shooting, the slaughter and pillage of cities in war – he had taken part in the Polish war – and I thought I would question him particularly in regard to all this: I asked him about running the gauntlet. He gave full particulars about this horrible punishment: how they drove the man, with his arms tied, between two rows of soldiers provided with sharpened sticks, how all struck at him, while behind the soldiers marched the officers shouting "Strike harder." When he told about this the old man gave the order in a commanding tone, evidently well satisfied with his memory and the commanding tone with which he spoke.
He told all the particulars without manifesting the slightest remorse, as if he were telling how they killed oxen and prepared fresh meat. He related how they drove the unhappy victims back and forth between the lines, how the tortured man would at last stumble and fall on the bayonets, how at first the bloody wheals began to appear, how they would cross one another, how gradually the wheals would blend together and swell and the blood would spurt out, how the blood-stained flesh would hang in clots, how the bones would be laid bare; how the wretch at first would scream, then only dully groan at every step and at every blow; how at length no sound would be heard, and the doctor, who was in attendance for this very purpose, would come up, feel the man's pulse, examine and decide whether the punishment could go on, whether he was already beaten to death, or whether it should be postponed till another occasion; and then they would bring him to, so that his wounds might be dressed, and he might be made ready to receive the full sum of blows which certain wild beasts, with Nikolai Palkin at their head, had decided ought to be administered to him.
The doctor employed his science to keep the man from dying before he had endured all the tortures which his body could be made to endure. And the man, when he could no longer walk a step, was laid flat on the ground in his cloak, and with that bloody swelling over his whole back was carried to the hospital to be treated, so that when he was well again they might give him the thousand or two blows which he had not yet received, and could not bear all at one time.
He told how the victims implored death to come to their relief, and how the officers would not grant it to them, but would heal them for a second and third time, and at last beat them to death.
And all this because a man had either deserted from his regiment, or had the courage or the audacity and the self-confidence to complain in behalf of his comrades because they were ill fed, and those in command pilfered their rations.
He told all this; and when I tried to draw from him some expression of remorse for these things, he was at first amazed and afterward alarmed.
"No," said he, "that was all right; it was the judgment of the court. Was it my fault? It was by order of the court and according to law."
He displayed the same serenity and lack of remorse regarding the horrors of war, in which he had taken part, and of which he had seen so much in Turkey and Poland.
He told about children murdered, about prisoners dying of cold and starvation, about a young boy – a Polyak – run through by a bayonet and impaled on a tree. And when I asked him if his conscience did not torment him on account of these deeds, he utterly failed to understand me.
"This is all a part of war, according to law; for the Tsar and the fatherland. These deeds are not only not wrong, but are such as are honorable and brave, and atone for many sins." The only things that troubled him were his private actions, the fact that he, when an officer, had beaten and punished men. These actions tormented his conscience. But in order to be pardoned for them he had a resource: this was the holy communion, which he hoped he should be enabled to partake of before he died, and for which he was beseeching his niece. His niece promised that he should have it, because she recognized the importance of it; and he was content.
The fact that he had helped to ruin and destroy innocent women and children, that he had killed men with bullet and bayonet, that he had stood in line and whipped men to death and dragged them off to the hospital and back to torture again – all this did not trouble him at all; all this was none of his business, all this was done, not by him, but as it were, by some one else.
How was it possible that this old man, if he had understood what ought to have been clear to him, as he stood on the very threshold of eternity, did not realize that between him and his conscience and God, as now on the eve of death, there was and could be no mediator, so there was and could be none even at that moment when they compelled him to torture and beat men? How is it that he did not understand that now there was nothing that could atone for the evil he had done to men when he might have refrained from doing it? that he did not understand that there is an eternal law which he always knew and could not help knowing – a law which demands love and tenderness for man; and what he called law was a wicked and godless deception to which he should not give credence?
It was terrible to think of what must have arisen before his imagination during his sleepless nights on the oven, and his despair, if he had realized that when he had the possibility of doing good and evil to men, he had done nothing but evil; that when he had learned the distinctions of good and evil nothing else was now in his power than uselessly to torment himself and repent. His sufferings would have been awful.
But why should one desire to trouble him? Why torment the conscience of an old man on the very verge of death? Better give it comfort. Why annoy the people in recalling what is already past?
Past? What is past? Can a severe disease be past only because we say that it is past? It does not pass away, and never will pass away, and cannot pass away as long as we do not acknowledge ourselves sick. To be cured of a disease, one must first recognize it. And this we do not do. Not only do we fail to do it, but we employ all our powers not to see it, not to recognize it.
Meantime, the disease, instead of passing away, changes its form, sinks deeper into the flesh, the blood, the bones. The disease is this: that men born good and gentle, men with love and mercy rooted in their hearts, perpetrate such atrocities on one another, themselves not knowing why or wherefore.
Our native Russians, men naturally sweet-tempered, good, and kind, permeated with the spirit of Christ's teaching, men who confess in their souls that they would be insulted at the suggestion of their not sharing their last crust with the poor, or pitying those in prison – these same men spend the best years of their lives in murdering and torturing their brethren, and not only are not remorseful for such deeds, but consider them honorable, or at least indispensable, and just as unavoidable as eating or breathing.
Is not this a horrible disease? Is it not the moral duty of every one to do all in his power to cure it, and first and foremost to point it out, to call it by name?
The old soldier had spent all his life in torturing and murdering other men. We ask, Why talk about it? The soldier did not consider himself to blame; and those dreadful deeds – the cudgel, the running of the gauntlet, and the other things – are all past; why then recall that which is already ancient history? This is done away with.
Nikolai Palkin is no more. Why recall his regime? Only the old soldier remembered it before his death. Why stir the people up about it?
Thus in the time of Nicholas they spoke of Alexander. In the same way in the time of Alexander they recalled the deeds of Paul. Thus in the time of Paul they spoke of Catharine and all her profligacies, and all the follies of her lovers. Thus in the time of Catharine they spoke of Peter, and so on and so on. Why recall it?
Yes, why?
If I have a severe or dangerous disease difficult to cure, and I am relieved of it, I shall always be glad to be reminded of it. I shall not mention it only when I am suffering, and my suffering continues and grows worse all the time, and I wish to deceive myself; only then I shall not mention it! And we do not mention it because we know that we are still suffering. Why disturb the old man and stir up the people? The cudgels and the running of the gauntlet – all that is long past!
Past? It has changed its form, but it is not past. In every foregoing period there have been things which we remember not only with horror, but with indignation.
We read the descriptions of distraining for debt, burning for heresy, military colonization, whippings and running of the gauntlet, and are not only horror-struck at the cruelty of man, but we fail to imagine the mental state of those who did such things. What was in the soul of the man who could get up in the morning, wash his face and hands, put on the dress of a boyar, say his prayers to God, then go to the torture-chamber to stretch the joints and whip with the knout old men and women, and spend in this business his ordinary five hours, like the modern functionary in the senate; then return to his family and calmly sit down to dinner and finish the day reading the Holy Scripture? What was in the souls of those regimental and company commanders?
I knew such a man, who one evening danced the mazurka with a beautiful girl at a ball, and retired earlier than usual so as to he awake early in the morning to make arrangements to compel a runaway soldier – a Tartar – to be killed in running the gauntlet; and after he had seen this man whipped to death, he returned to his family and ate his dinner! You see all this took place in the time of Peter, and in the time of Alexander, and in the time of Nicholas. There has not been a time when terrible things of this kind have not taken place, which we in reading about them cannot understand. We cannot understand how men could look on such horrors as they perpetrated, and not see the senselessness of them, even if they did not recognize the bestial inhumanity of them. This has been so in all times. Is our day so peculiar, so fortunate, that we have no such horrors, no such doings, which will seem just as ridiculous and incomprehensible to our descendants? There are just such deeds, just such horrors, only we don't see them, as our predecessors did not see those in their day.
To us now, it is clear that the burning of heretics, the application of torture for eliciting the truth, is not only cruel, but also ridiculous. A child sees the absurdity of it. But the men of those times did not see it so. Sensible, educated men were persuaded that torture was one of the indispensable conditions of the life of man, that it was hard, nay, impossible, to get along without it. So also with corporal punishment, with slavery. And time passed; and now it is hard for us to comprehend the mental state of men in which such a mistake was possible. But this has been in all times because so it had to be, and also in our time, and we must he just as reasonable in regard to the horrors of our day.
Where are our tortures, our slavery, our whippings? It seems to us that we no longer have such things, that they used to be, but have disappeared. This seems to us so because we do not wish to comprehend the old, and we strenuously shut our eyes to it.
But if we look at the past, then our present position is revealed to us and its causes. If we only called bonfires, branding irons, tortures, the scaffold, recruiting stations, by their real names, then we should find also the right name for dungeons, jails, wars, and the general military obligation, and policemen. If we do not say, "Why mention it?" and if we look attentively at what was done in old times, then we should take notice of what is doing now.
If it became clear to us that it was stupid and cruel to cut men's heads off on the scaffold, and to elicit the truth from their lips by means of tearing their joints asunder, then likewise it would be also equally clear to us – if not even more so – that it is stupid and cruel to hang men, or put them into a state of solitary confinement, even worse than death, and to elicit the truth through hired lawyers and judges.
If it becomes clear to us that it is stupid and cruel to kill a man who has made a mistake, then also it will be clear that it is still more stupid to confine such a man in a jail, in order to finish corrupting him; if it is clear that it is stupid and cruel to compel muzhiks into being soldiers and to brand them like cattle, then it will seem equally stupid and cruel to make every man who has reached the age of twenty-one become a soldier. If it is clear that stupidity and cruelty are the cause of crime, then still clearer will be the stupidity of guards and police.
If we only cease to shut our eyes to the past, saying: "Why recall the past?" it will become clear to us that we have the same horrors, only under new forms.
We say that all this is past – now we have no tortures, no adulterous Catharines with their powerful lovers, no more slavery, no more whippings to death, and so on – but how is it in reality? Nine hundred thousand men in prison and under arrest, shut up in narrow, ill-smelling cells, and dying by a slow physical and moral death. Women and children are left without subsistence, and these men are maintained in caverns of corruption, in prisons, and in squads; and only inspectors, having full control of these slaves, get any advantage from this senseless, cruel confinement of them.
Tens of thousands of men with dangerous ideas go into exile, and carry these ideas into the farthest corners of Russia, go out of their minds, and hang themselves. Thousands sit in prisons, and either kill themselves with the connivance of the prison officers, or go mad in solitary confinement. Millions of the people go to rack and ruin physically and morally in the slavery of the factories. Hundreds of thousands of men every autumn leave their families, their young wives, and take lessons in murder, and systematically go to destruction. The Russian Tsar cannot go anywhere without being surrounded by a visible cordon of a hundred thousand soldiers, stationed ninety steps apart all along the road, and a secret cordon following him everywhere.
A king collects tribute and builds a castle, and in the castle he constructs a pond, and on the pond dyed with blue, with a machine which raises a wind, he sails around in a boat; but his people are perishing in factories: this happens in Ireland and in France and in Belgium.
It does not require great penetration to see that in our day it is just the same, and that our day is just as fecund with horrors – with the same horrors, with the same tortures – and that these, in the eyes of succeeding generations, will seem just as marvelous in their cruelty and stupidity. The disease is the same, and the disease is not felt by those that profit by these horrors.
Let them profit for a hundred, for a thousand times more. Let them build their castles, set up their tents, give their balls, let them swindle the people. Let the Nikolai Palkins whip the people to death, let them shut up hundreds of men secretly in fortresses; only let them do this themselves, so as not to corrupt the people, so as not to deceive them by compelling them to take part in this, as the old soldier was.
This horrible disease lies in the deception: in this fact that for a man there can be any sanctity and any law higher than the sanctity and the law of love to one's neighbor; in the deception, which conceals the fact, that, though a man in carrying out the demands of men may do many bad things, only one kind of thing he ought not to do. He ought never at any one's instigation to go against God, to kill and to torture his brethren.
Eighteen hundred years ago, to the question of the Pharisees, it was said: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."
If there was any faith among men and they recognized any duty to God, then above all they would recognize it as their duty before God to do what God Himself taught man when He said: "Thou shalt not kill"; when He said, "Do not unto others what you would not have others do to you"; when He said, "Love thy neighbor as thyself," saying it not in words only, but writing in ineradicable marks on the heart of every man – love to one's neighbor; mercy, horror of murder and of torture of one's brethren.
If men only believed in God, then they could not help acknowledging this first obligation to Him, not to torture, not to kill, and then the words, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's," would have for them a clear, definite significance.
"To the Tsar or to any one all he wishes," the believing man would say, "but not what is contrary to God." Caesar needs my money – take it; my house, my labors – take them; my wife, my children, my life – take them; all these things are not God's. But when Caesar requires that I apply the rods to my neighbor's back, that is God's affair. My behavior – that is my life for which I must give an account to God; and what God has forbidden me to do that I cannot give to Caesar. I cannot bind, imprison, whip, kill my fellowmen; all that is my life, and it belongs to God alone, and I may not give it to any one except God.
The words, "To God the things that are God's," for us signify whatever they give to God – kopeks, candles, prayers, in general everything that is unnecessary to any one, much less to God; but everything else; all one's life, all one's soul which belongs to God, they give to Caesar; in other words, according to the significance of the word Caesar as understood by the Jews – to some entire stranger. This is horrible! Let the people remember this.
From Leo Tolstoy, Writings on Civil Disobedience and Nonviolence, New Society Publishers (1987), and Bergman Publishers (1967)
by Leo Tolstoy
We were spending the night at the house of a soldier ninety-five years old, who had served under Alexander I and Nicholas I.
"Tell me, are you ready to die?"
"Ready to die? How should I be yet? I used to be afraid of dying, but now I pray God for only one thing; that God would be pleased to let me make my confession and partake of the communion; I have so many sins on my conscience."
"What sins?"
"How can you ask? Let us see, when was it I served? Under Nicholas. Was the service then such as it is now? How was it then? Uh! It fills me with horror even to remember it. Then Alexander came. The soldiers used to praise this Alexander. They said he was gracious."
I remembered the last days of Alexander, when twenty men out of every hundred were beaten to death. Nicholas must have been a terror, if in comparison with him Alexander was called gracious.
"I happened to serve under Nicholas," said the old man, and he immediately began to grow animated and to give me his recollections.
"How was it then? At that time fifty blows with the rod was thought nothing . . . one hundred and fifty, two hundred, three hundred . . . they used to whip men to death, and with cudgels too . . . Never a week went by that they did not beat one or two men to death from each regiment. Today people don't know what a cudgel is, but then the word 'palka' was never out of men's mouths. 'Palka!' 'Palka!'
"Among us soldiers he was called Nikolai Palkin – Nicholas the cudgeler. He was really Nikolai Palkin. That was his universal nickname. That's what I remember of that time," continued the old man. "Yes, when one has lived out a century, it is time for one to die, and when you think of it, it becomes hard.
"I have so many sins on my soul! It was a subordinate's work. One had to apply one hundred and fifty blows to a soldier" – the old man had been non-commissioned officer and sergeant major, but was now "kandidat" – and you give him two hundred. And the man died on your hands, and you tortured him to death . . . that was a sin.
"The non-commissioned officers used to beat the young soldiers to death. They would strike them anywhere with the butt-end of the gun or with the fist, over the heart or on the head, and the man would die. And there was never any redress. If a man died, murdered that way, the authorities would write, 'Died by the will of God,' and thus it was covered up. And at that time did I realize what it meant? One thought only of oneself. But now when you crawl up on top of the stove and can't sleep o' nights, you keep thinking about it and living it over again. Good as it is to take the holy communion in accordance with the Christian law and be absolved, still horror seizes you.
"When you remember all that you have been through, yes, and what others have suffered on your account, then no other hell is necessary; it is worse than any hell."
I vividly imagined what must have been the recollections of this solitary old man there, face to face with death, and a pang went through my heart. I remembered other horrors besides the cudgels, which he must have witnessed: men killed in running the gauntlet, put to death by shooting, the slaughter and pillage of cities in war – he had taken part in the Polish war – and I thought I would question him particularly in regard to all this: I asked him about running the gauntlet. He gave full particulars about this horrible punishment: how they drove the man, with his arms tied, between two rows of soldiers provided with sharpened sticks, how all struck at him, while behind the soldiers marched the officers shouting "Strike harder." When he told about this the old man gave the order in a commanding tone, evidently well satisfied with his memory and the commanding tone with which he spoke.
He told all the particulars without manifesting the slightest remorse, as if he were telling how they killed oxen and prepared fresh meat. He related how they drove the unhappy victims back and forth between the lines, how the tortured man would at last stumble and fall on the bayonets, how at first the bloody wheals began to appear, how they would cross one another, how gradually the wheals would blend together and swell and the blood would spurt out, how the blood-stained flesh would hang in clots, how the bones would be laid bare; how the wretch at first would scream, then only dully groan at every step and at every blow; how at length no sound would be heard, and the doctor, who was in attendance for this very purpose, would come up, feel the man's pulse, examine and decide whether the punishment could go on, whether he was already beaten to death, or whether it should be postponed till another occasion; and then they would bring him to, so that his wounds might be dressed, and he might be made ready to receive the full sum of blows which certain wild beasts, with Nikolai Palkin at their head, had decided ought to be administered to him.
The doctor employed his science to keep the man from dying before he had endured all the tortures which his body could be made to endure. And the man, when he could no longer walk a step, was laid flat on the ground in his cloak, and with that bloody swelling over his whole back was carried to the hospital to be treated, so that when he was well again they might give him the thousand or two blows which he had not yet received, and could not bear all at one time.
He told how the victims implored death to come to their relief, and how the officers would not grant it to them, but would heal them for a second and third time, and at last beat them to death.
And all this because a man had either deserted from his regiment, or had the courage or the audacity and the self-confidence to complain in behalf of his comrades because they were ill fed, and those in command pilfered their rations.
He told all this; and when I tried to draw from him some expression of remorse for these things, he was at first amazed and afterward alarmed.
"No," said he, "that was all right; it was the judgment of the court. Was it my fault? It was by order of the court and according to law."
He displayed the same serenity and lack of remorse regarding the horrors of war, in which he had taken part, and of which he had seen so much in Turkey and Poland.
He told about children murdered, about prisoners dying of cold and starvation, about a young boy – a Polyak – run through by a bayonet and impaled on a tree. And when I asked him if his conscience did not torment him on account of these deeds, he utterly failed to understand me.
"This is all a part of war, according to law; for the Tsar and the fatherland. These deeds are not only not wrong, but are such as are honorable and brave, and atone for many sins." The only things that troubled him were his private actions, the fact that he, when an officer, had beaten and punished men. These actions tormented his conscience. But in order to be pardoned for them he had a resource: this was the holy communion, which he hoped he should be enabled to partake of before he died, and for which he was beseeching his niece. His niece promised that he should have it, because she recognized the importance of it; and he was content.
The fact that he had helped to ruin and destroy innocent women and children, that he had killed men with bullet and bayonet, that he had stood in line and whipped men to death and dragged them off to the hospital and back to torture again – all this did not trouble him at all; all this was none of his business, all this was done, not by him, but as it were, by some one else.
How was it possible that this old man, if he had understood what ought to have been clear to him, as he stood on the very threshold of eternity, did not realize that between him and his conscience and God, as now on the eve of death, there was and could be no mediator, so there was and could be none even at that moment when they compelled him to torture and beat men? How is it that he did not understand that now there was nothing that could atone for the evil he had done to men when he might have refrained from doing it? that he did not understand that there is an eternal law which he always knew and could not help knowing – a law which demands love and tenderness for man; and what he called law was a wicked and godless deception to which he should not give credence?
It was terrible to think of what must have arisen before his imagination during his sleepless nights on the oven, and his despair, if he had realized that when he had the possibility of doing good and evil to men, he had done nothing but evil; that when he had learned the distinctions of good and evil nothing else was now in his power than uselessly to torment himself and repent. His sufferings would have been awful.
But why should one desire to trouble him? Why torment the conscience of an old man on the very verge of death? Better give it comfort. Why annoy the people in recalling what is already past?
Past? What is past? Can a severe disease be past only because we say that it is past? It does not pass away, and never will pass away, and cannot pass away as long as we do not acknowledge ourselves sick. To be cured of a disease, one must first recognize it. And this we do not do. Not only do we fail to do it, but we employ all our powers not to see it, not to recognize it.
Meantime, the disease, instead of passing away, changes its form, sinks deeper into the flesh, the blood, the bones. The disease is this: that men born good and gentle, men with love and mercy rooted in their hearts, perpetrate such atrocities on one another, themselves not knowing why or wherefore.
Our native Russians, men naturally sweet-tempered, good, and kind, permeated with the spirit of Christ's teaching, men who confess in their souls that they would be insulted at the suggestion of their not sharing their last crust with the poor, or pitying those in prison – these same men spend the best years of their lives in murdering and torturing their brethren, and not only are not remorseful for such deeds, but consider them honorable, or at least indispensable, and just as unavoidable as eating or breathing.
Is not this a horrible disease? Is it not the moral duty of every one to do all in his power to cure it, and first and foremost to point it out, to call it by name?
The old soldier had spent all his life in torturing and murdering other men. We ask, Why talk about it? The soldier did not consider himself to blame; and those dreadful deeds – the cudgel, the running of the gauntlet, and the other things – are all past; why then recall that which is already ancient history? This is done away with.
Nikolai Palkin is no more. Why recall his regime? Only the old soldier remembered it before his death. Why stir the people up about it?
Thus in the time of Nicholas they spoke of Alexander. In the same way in the time of Alexander they recalled the deeds of Paul. Thus in the time of Paul they spoke of Catharine and all her profligacies, and all the follies of her lovers. Thus in the time of Catharine they spoke of Peter, and so on and so on. Why recall it?
Yes, why?
If I have a severe or dangerous disease difficult to cure, and I am relieved of it, I shall always be glad to be reminded of it. I shall not mention it only when I am suffering, and my suffering continues and grows worse all the time, and I wish to deceive myself; only then I shall not mention it! And we do not mention it because we know that we are still suffering. Why disturb the old man and stir up the people? The cudgels and the running of the gauntlet – all that is long past!
Past? It has changed its form, but it is not past. In every foregoing period there have been things which we remember not only with horror, but with indignation.
We read the descriptions of distraining for debt, burning for heresy, military colonization, whippings and running of the gauntlet, and are not only horror-struck at the cruelty of man, but we fail to imagine the mental state of those who did such things. What was in the soul of the man who could get up in the morning, wash his face and hands, put on the dress of a boyar, say his prayers to God, then go to the torture-chamber to stretch the joints and whip with the knout old men and women, and spend in this business his ordinary five hours, like the modern functionary in the senate; then return to his family and calmly sit down to dinner and finish the day reading the Holy Scripture? What was in the souls of those regimental and company commanders?
I knew such a man, who one evening danced the mazurka with a beautiful girl at a ball, and retired earlier than usual so as to he awake early in the morning to make arrangements to compel a runaway soldier – a Tartar – to be killed in running the gauntlet; and after he had seen this man whipped to death, he returned to his family and ate his dinner! You see all this took place in the time of Peter, and in the time of Alexander, and in the time of Nicholas. There has not been a time when terrible things of this kind have not taken place, which we in reading about them cannot understand. We cannot understand how men could look on such horrors as they perpetrated, and not see the senselessness of them, even if they did not recognize the bestial inhumanity of them. This has been so in all times. Is our day so peculiar, so fortunate, that we have no such horrors, no such doings, which will seem just as ridiculous and incomprehensible to our descendants? There are just such deeds, just such horrors, only we don't see them, as our predecessors did not see those in their day.
To us now, it is clear that the burning of heretics, the application of torture for eliciting the truth, is not only cruel, but also ridiculous. A child sees the absurdity of it. But the men of those times did not see it so. Sensible, educated men were persuaded that torture was one of the indispensable conditions of the life of man, that it was hard, nay, impossible, to get along without it. So also with corporal punishment, with slavery. And time passed; and now it is hard for us to comprehend the mental state of men in which such a mistake was possible. But this has been in all times because so it had to be, and also in our time, and we must he just as reasonable in regard to the horrors of our day.
Where are our tortures, our slavery, our whippings? It seems to us that we no longer have such things, that they used to be, but have disappeared. This seems to us so because we do not wish to comprehend the old, and we strenuously shut our eyes to it.
But if we look at the past, then our present position is revealed to us and its causes. If we only called bonfires, branding irons, tortures, the scaffold, recruiting stations, by their real names, then we should find also the right name for dungeons, jails, wars, and the general military obligation, and policemen. If we do not say, "Why mention it?" and if we look attentively at what was done in old times, then we should take notice of what is doing now.
If it became clear to us that it was stupid and cruel to cut men's heads off on the scaffold, and to elicit the truth from their lips by means of tearing their joints asunder, then likewise it would be also equally clear to us – if not even more so – that it is stupid and cruel to hang men, or put them into a state of solitary confinement, even worse than death, and to elicit the truth through hired lawyers and judges.
If it becomes clear to us that it is stupid and cruel to kill a man who has made a mistake, then also it will be clear that it is still more stupid to confine such a man in a jail, in order to finish corrupting him; if it is clear that it is stupid and cruel to compel muzhiks into being soldiers and to brand them like cattle, then it will seem equally stupid and cruel to make every man who has reached the age of twenty-one become a soldier. If it is clear that stupidity and cruelty are the cause of crime, then still clearer will be the stupidity of guards and police.
If we only cease to shut our eyes to the past, saying: "Why recall the past?" it will become clear to us that we have the same horrors, only under new forms.
We say that all this is past – now we have no tortures, no adulterous Catharines with their powerful lovers, no more slavery, no more whippings to death, and so on – but how is it in reality? Nine hundred thousand men in prison and under arrest, shut up in narrow, ill-smelling cells, and dying by a slow physical and moral death. Women and children are left without subsistence, and these men are maintained in caverns of corruption, in prisons, and in squads; and only inspectors, having full control of these slaves, get any advantage from this senseless, cruel confinement of them.
Tens of thousands of men with dangerous ideas go into exile, and carry these ideas into the farthest corners of Russia, go out of their minds, and hang themselves. Thousands sit in prisons, and either kill themselves with the connivance of the prison officers, or go mad in solitary confinement. Millions of the people go to rack and ruin physically and morally in the slavery of the factories. Hundreds of thousands of men every autumn leave their families, their young wives, and take lessons in murder, and systematically go to destruction. The Russian Tsar cannot go anywhere without being surrounded by a visible cordon of a hundred thousand soldiers, stationed ninety steps apart all along the road, and a secret cordon following him everywhere.
A king collects tribute and builds a castle, and in the castle he constructs a pond, and on the pond dyed with blue, with a machine which raises a wind, he sails around in a boat; but his people are perishing in factories: this happens in Ireland and in France and in Belgium.
It does not require great penetration to see that in our day it is just the same, and that our day is just as fecund with horrors – with the same horrors, with the same tortures – and that these, in the eyes of succeeding generations, will seem just as marvelous in their cruelty and stupidity. The disease is the same, and the disease is not felt by those that profit by these horrors.
Let them profit for a hundred, for a thousand times more. Let them build their castles, set up their tents, give their balls, let them swindle the people. Let the Nikolai Palkins whip the people to death, let them shut up hundreds of men secretly in fortresses; only let them do this themselves, so as not to corrupt the people, so as not to deceive them by compelling them to take part in this, as the old soldier was.
This horrible disease lies in the deception: in this fact that for a man there can be any sanctity and any law higher than the sanctity and the law of love to one's neighbor; in the deception, which conceals the fact, that, though a man in carrying out the demands of men may do many bad things, only one kind of thing he ought not to do. He ought never at any one's instigation to go against God, to kill and to torture his brethren.
Eighteen hundred years ago, to the question of the Pharisees, it was said: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."
If there was any faith among men and they recognized any duty to God, then above all they would recognize it as their duty before God to do what God Himself taught man when He said: "Thou shalt not kill"; when He said, "Do not unto others what you would not have others do to you"; when He said, "Love thy neighbor as thyself," saying it not in words only, but writing in ineradicable marks on the heart of every man – love to one's neighbor; mercy, horror of murder and of torture of one's brethren.
If men only believed in God, then they could not help acknowledging this first obligation to Him, not to torture, not to kill, and then the words, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's," would have for them a clear, definite significance.
"To the Tsar or to any one all he wishes," the believing man would say, "but not what is contrary to God." Caesar needs my money – take it; my house, my labors – take them; my wife, my children, my life – take them; all these things are not God's. But when Caesar requires that I apply the rods to my neighbor's back, that is God's affair. My behavior – that is my life for which I must give an account to God; and what God has forbidden me to do that I cannot give to Caesar. I cannot bind, imprison, whip, kill my fellowmen; all that is my life, and it belongs to God alone, and I may not give it to any one except God.
The words, "To God the things that are God's," for us signify whatever they give to God – kopeks, candles, prayers, in general everything that is unnecessary to any one, much less to God; but everything else; all one's life, all one's soul which belongs to God, they give to Caesar; in other words, according to the significance of the word Caesar as understood by the Jews – to some entire stranger. This is horrible! Let the people remember this.
From Leo Tolstoy, Writings on Civil Disobedience and Nonviolence, New Society Publishers (1987), and Bergman Publishers (1967)
Friday, January 27, 2006
"See why Peak Oil is so great? People have to cut back on everything and entertain themselves with their own bodies and minds. You put an Indian yogi in a completely empty room with just a little piece of string and he can amuse himself for hours! Now, Peak String--THAT would be a problem!"
-ThreadBear
-ThreadBear
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Monday, January 23, 2006
When, under the instructions of the sarvadhikari, Kunju Swami was serving Bhagavan [Ramana] as an attendant, he noticed Bhagavan's body and head were shaking and faltering and so when there was no-one else present but close disciples he asked Bhagavan, "Bhagavan, although only in middle age, strangely enough has a shaking of the head and of the body necessitating his walking with the aid of a stick; what could be the reason for it?". Bhagavan replied, with a smile, "What is there so strange in it? If a big elephant is tied down in a small hut, what else will happen to that hut except troubles of all sorts? This is the same".
When we concentrate our attention on the origin of thought, the thought process itself comes to an end; there is a hiatus, which is pleasant, and again the process starts. Turning from the external world and enjoying the objectless bliss, the mind feels that the world of objects is not for it. Prior to this experience the un-satiating sense enjoyments constantly challenged the mind to satisfy them, but from the inward turn onwards its interest in them begins to fade. Once the internal bliss is enjoyed, the external happiness loses its charm. One who has tasted the inward bliss is naturally loving and free from envy, contented and happy with others’ prosperity, friendly and innocent and free from deceit. He is full of the mystery and wonder of the bliss. One who has realized the Self can never inflict pain on other.
- Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj
- Shri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
From the conclusion of “Coma”, novel by Robin Cook
Stark put his hands together and rotated in his chair so that he could see out over the black waters of the harbor. "Tell me if you can think of any other reasons for this fantastic operation you have so cleverly exposed.”
“You mean, other than money?”
“Yes, other than money.”
“Well, it is a good way to get rid of someone you don’t want around.”
Stark laughed inappropriately, or so it seemed to Susan.
“No, I mean a real benefit. Can you think of any benefits other than financial?”
“I guess the recipients of the organs get a certain benefit, if they don’t have to know how the donor organ was obtained.”
“I mean a more general benefit. A benefit for society.”
Susan again tried to think, but her eyes wanted to close. She straightened up again. Benefit? She looked at Stark. The meaning of the conversation was becoming diffuse, strange.
“Dr. Stark, I hardly think this is the time …”
“Come on, Susan. Try. You’ve done such a remarkable job at uncovering this thin. Try to think. It’s important.”
“I can’t. It’s such a horror that I have difficulty even considering the word benefit.” Susan’s arms began to feel heavy. She shook her head. For a second she though she had actually fallen asleep.
“Well, then I’m surprised at you, Susan. From the intelligence that you yhave so amply displayed over the last couple of days, I thought that you would have been one of the few to see the other side.”
“Other side?” Susan closed her eyes tightly, then opened them, hoping they would stay open.
“Exactly.” Stark rotated back toward Susan, leaning forward, arms on the desk. Sometimes there are situations where … what should I say .. the common folk, if you will, cannot be depended upon to make decisions which will provide long-term benefits. The common man thinks only of his short-term needs and selfish requirements.”
Stark got up and wandered over to the corner where the expansive walls of glass joined. He looked out over the great medical complex he had helped to build. Susan felt herself unable to move. She even had difficulty turning her head. She knew she was tired but she never felt so heavy, so languorous. Besides, Stark kept going in and out of focus.
“Susan,” Stark said suddenly, turning around to face her again, “you must realize that medicine is on the brink of probably the biggest breakthrough in all of its long history. The discovery of anesthesia, the discovery of antibiotics … any of the epochal achievements will pale before the next giant step. We are about to crack the mystery of the immunological mechanisms. Soon we’ll be able to transplant all humans organs at will. The fear of most cancer will become a thing of the past. Degenerative disease, trauma… the scope is infinite.
“But such breakthroughs do not come easy, not without hard work and sacrifice. Not without a price. We need first-rate institutions, like the Memorial and its facilities. Next we need people like myself, indeed like Leonardo Da Vinci, willing to step beyond restrictive laws in order to ensure progress. What if Leonardo Da Vinci had not dug up his bodies for dissection? What if Copernicus had knuckled under to the laws and dogma of the church? Where would we be today? What we need for the breakthrough to actually happen is data, hard data. Susan, you have the mind to appreciate that.”
Despite the darkening cloud she felt settling over her brain, Susan began to realize what Stark was saying. She tried to get up, but she found she could not lift her arms. She strained but only succeeded in knocking the remains of her drink to the floor. The ice cubes shattered.
“You do understand what I am saying, Susan? I think you do. Our legal system is not geared to handle our needs. My God, they cannot make a decision to terminate a patient even after it is certain that his brain has turned to lifeless Jell-O. How can science proceed under a public policy handicap of that proportion?
“Now Susan, I want you to think carefully. I know it is a little hard for you to think at this moment, but try. I want to say something to you and I want your response. You are a bright, very bright, girl. You’re obviously one of the what should I say? … elite sounds too much like a cliché, but you know what I mean. We need you, people like you. What I want to say is that the people who run the Jefferson Institute are on our side. Do you understand, our side?”
Stark paused, looking Susan. She struggled to keep her eyelids above her pupils. It took all her strength.
“What do you say to that, Susan? Are you willing to dedicate that brain of yours to the good of society, science, and medicine?”
Susan’s mouth formed words but they came out in a whisper. Her face was expressionless. Stark leaned forward to hear. He had to bring his head up to within inches of Susan’s lips.
“Say it again, Susan. I’ll be able to hear if you say it again.”
Susan’s mouth struggled to bring her lower lip against her upper teeth to form the first consonant. It spilled out in a whisper.
“Fuck you, you cra—“ Susan’s head slumped back, her mouth gaping and her respirations coming in regular deep-sounding breaths. Stark looked at Susan’s drugged body for a few moments. Susan’s defiance angered him. But after a few moments of silence his emotion faded into disappointment. “Susan, we could have used the brain of yours.” Stark shook his head slowly. “Well, maybe you can still be useful.”
Stark turned to his phone and called the emergency room. He asked for the admitting resident.
Stark put his hands together and rotated in his chair so that he could see out over the black waters of the harbor. "Tell me if you can think of any other reasons for this fantastic operation you have so cleverly exposed.”
“You mean, other than money?”
“Yes, other than money.”
“Well, it is a good way to get rid of someone you don’t want around.”
Stark laughed inappropriately, or so it seemed to Susan.
“No, I mean a real benefit. Can you think of any benefits other than financial?”
“I guess the recipients of the organs get a certain benefit, if they don’t have to know how the donor organ was obtained.”
“I mean a more general benefit. A benefit for society.”
Susan again tried to think, but her eyes wanted to close. She straightened up again. Benefit? She looked at Stark. The meaning of the conversation was becoming diffuse, strange.
“Dr. Stark, I hardly think this is the time …”
“Come on, Susan. Try. You’ve done such a remarkable job at uncovering this thin. Try to think. It’s important.”
“I can’t. It’s such a horror that I have difficulty even considering the word benefit.” Susan’s arms began to feel heavy. She shook her head. For a second she though she had actually fallen asleep.
“Well, then I’m surprised at you, Susan. From the intelligence that you yhave so amply displayed over the last couple of days, I thought that you would have been one of the few to see the other side.”
“Other side?” Susan closed her eyes tightly, then opened them, hoping they would stay open.
“Exactly.” Stark rotated back toward Susan, leaning forward, arms on the desk. Sometimes there are situations where … what should I say .. the common folk, if you will, cannot be depended upon to make decisions which will provide long-term benefits. The common man thinks only of his short-term needs and selfish requirements.”
Stark got up and wandered over to the corner where the expansive walls of glass joined. He looked out over the great medical complex he had helped to build. Susan felt herself unable to move. She even had difficulty turning her head. She knew she was tired but she never felt so heavy, so languorous. Besides, Stark kept going in and out of focus.
“Susan,” Stark said suddenly, turning around to face her again, “you must realize that medicine is on the brink of probably the biggest breakthrough in all of its long history. The discovery of anesthesia, the discovery of antibiotics … any of the epochal achievements will pale before the next giant step. We are about to crack the mystery of the immunological mechanisms. Soon we’ll be able to transplant all humans organs at will. The fear of most cancer will become a thing of the past. Degenerative disease, trauma… the scope is infinite.
“But such breakthroughs do not come easy, not without hard work and sacrifice. Not without a price. We need first-rate institutions, like the Memorial and its facilities. Next we need people like myself, indeed like Leonardo Da Vinci, willing to step beyond restrictive laws in order to ensure progress. What if Leonardo Da Vinci had not dug up his bodies for dissection? What if Copernicus had knuckled under to the laws and dogma of the church? Where would we be today? What we need for the breakthrough to actually happen is data, hard data. Susan, you have the mind to appreciate that.”
Despite the darkening cloud she felt settling over her brain, Susan began to realize what Stark was saying. She tried to get up, but she found she could not lift her arms. She strained but only succeeded in knocking the remains of her drink to the floor. The ice cubes shattered.
“You do understand what I am saying, Susan? I think you do. Our legal system is not geared to handle our needs. My God, they cannot make a decision to terminate a patient even after it is certain that his brain has turned to lifeless Jell-O. How can science proceed under a public policy handicap of that proportion?
“Now Susan, I want you to think carefully. I know it is a little hard for you to think at this moment, but try. I want to say something to you and I want your response. You are a bright, very bright, girl. You’re obviously one of the what should I say? … elite sounds too much like a cliché, but you know what I mean. We need you, people like you. What I want to say is that the people who run the Jefferson Institute are on our side. Do you understand, our side?”
Stark paused, looking Susan. She struggled to keep her eyelids above her pupils. It took all her strength.
“What do you say to that, Susan? Are you willing to dedicate that brain of yours to the good of society, science, and medicine?”
Susan’s mouth formed words but they came out in a whisper. Her face was expressionless. Stark leaned forward to hear. He had to bring his head up to within inches of Susan’s lips.
“Say it again, Susan. I’ll be able to hear if you say it again.”
Susan’s mouth struggled to bring her lower lip against her upper teeth to form the first consonant. It spilled out in a whisper.
“Fuck you, you cra—“ Susan’s head slumped back, her mouth gaping and her respirations coming in regular deep-sounding breaths. Stark looked at Susan’s drugged body for a few moments. Susan’s defiance angered him. But after a few moments of silence his emotion faded into disappointment. “Susan, we could have used the brain of yours.” Stark shook his head slowly. “Well, maybe you can still be useful.”
Stark turned to his phone and called the emergency room. He asked for the admitting resident.
Thank you for your post, Avril. You say:
"There is nothing which is not an expression of that-which-is. There is no actioning, which is not an expression of that-which-is. There is no consequences of that actioning,which is not an expression of that-which-is. Each and every character, both the "demons" and the "angels", the "heros" and the "villans", the "saints" and the "sinners" in your last night sleep-dream, is just you, you as expressed as so. Each and every eventings, each and every nuance of the ado of the last night-sleep-dream drama, both the sublime and the ridiculous, both the profound and the profane, both the good and the evil, constituting your last night-sleep dream, is just you, as your infinite expressionings".
Roy Whenary replies:
It is true that there is nothing which is not an expression of that which is ... everything is as it is because that is the way it is - quite simple really. However, to say that the demons, the good and the bad, etc are you, I feel is wandering off the mark really. This view is often used by so called non-dualists to explain away their immature behaviour and inability to deal with the real issues in their lives. So they say that "my anger is what I am, here and now, so I must not deny it", etc, etc ... when in reality they mean that they have not looked deep enough to see where and how it arises. These demons are not you ... they are what you accept and think you are, they are what you identify with and believe are the true expressions of your individuated existence ... 'your' story. What lies beyond this? What is the true ground of your Being? I am not talking about ideas here ... my true Being does not lie in the details of this 'person' through which this is being written now. However, I would stop short of actually spelling out exactly where it lies, because words really cannot go there. If I have misunderstood the meaning behind what you wrote ... apologies!
I would also like to add that ... yes, things are as they are ... of this there is no denying. But acceptance and action towards changing situations can quite happily work together. I accept things exactly as they are .... but, for human life, I don't condone living in a violent and abusive society, so maybe I work towards changing it ... all the while accepting that it is as it is right now. This is normal, and this is also what is ... because 'what is' does not deny the impetus for change. Thus was born 'Engaged Buddhism' and now perhaps is the time for 'Engaged Advaita'?
with warm regards
Roy Whenary
**********
Avril:Is there a one who awakens?
Can there be an inappropriate way of responding?
Within a phenomenal context, there is eventing(s), in which notionally, there appears to be a cause and a separate to that cause, a consequential effect.
But is there any linear cause-effect continuum, within the phenomenal context?
Or is every cause the effect of every other causes and every effect the result of all effects,thereby indicating a holographic wholeness as the essence of the phenomenal context?
If the phenomenal context is a holographic whole, complete, as the moment,
moment to moment to moment,
is there any one awakened, in contrast to any one un-awakened?
As a holographic whole, is there anything as inappropriate, such that there can be something as an appropriate responding?
*********
Dear Avril,
If there is no differentiation between what is real and what is imagined in the mind ... if everything is homogenised into one vast and meaningless whole ... anything goes, any action is OK ... any thought or behaviour pattern is fine, no matter how much pain and sorrow it arouses in either subject or objects surrounding it. According to this view ... which I would say is cut off from truly feeling life in the present ... in the presence ... none of the subjects, objects or pain exist anyway. Life is meaningless, according to this view, as there is no differentiation between existing and not existing.
So what is the point of discussion, if there is always escape into this non-differentiation? I have come across this view a lot in recent times. There are certain 'teachers' who promote it heavily. It is quite convenient, because there is never any need to take responsibility for actions ... never any need to look any closer at what is really going on ... and ultimately, no point at looking at anything anyway. After all, who is looking? ... the seer and the seen are one. Therefore, there is nothing that can be done in this life, and no point attempting to do it ... and, of course, no one here anyway to do it. This is it, exactly as it is ... nothing else to say ...
sweet dreams!
Roy
"There is nothing which is not an expression of that-which-is. There is no actioning, which is not an expression of that-which-is. There is no consequences of that actioning,which is not an expression of that-which-is. Each and every character, both the "demons" and the "angels", the "heros" and the "villans", the "saints" and the "sinners" in your last night sleep-dream, is just you, you as expressed as so. Each and every eventings, each and every nuance of the ado of the last night-sleep-dream drama, both the sublime and the ridiculous, both the profound and the profane, both the good and the evil, constituting your last night-sleep dream, is just you, as your infinite expressionings".
Roy Whenary replies:
It is true that there is nothing which is not an expression of that which is ... everything is as it is because that is the way it is - quite simple really. However, to say that the demons, the good and the bad, etc are you, I feel is wandering off the mark really. This view is often used by so called non-dualists to explain away their immature behaviour and inability to deal with the real issues in their lives. So they say that "my anger is what I am, here and now, so I must not deny it", etc, etc ... when in reality they mean that they have not looked deep enough to see where and how it arises. These demons are not you ... they are what you accept and think you are, they are what you identify with and believe are the true expressions of your individuated existence ... 'your' story. What lies beyond this? What is the true ground of your Being? I am not talking about ideas here ... my true Being does not lie in the details of this 'person' through which this is being written now. However, I would stop short of actually spelling out exactly where it lies, because words really cannot go there. If I have misunderstood the meaning behind what you wrote ... apologies!
I would also like to add that ... yes, things are as they are ... of this there is no denying. But acceptance and action towards changing situations can quite happily work together. I accept things exactly as they are .... but, for human life, I don't condone living in a violent and abusive society, so maybe I work towards changing it ... all the while accepting that it is as it is right now. This is normal, and this is also what is ... because 'what is' does not deny the impetus for change. Thus was born 'Engaged Buddhism' and now perhaps is the time for 'Engaged Advaita'?
with warm regards
Roy Whenary
**********
Avril:Is there a one who awakens?
Can there be an inappropriate way of responding?
Within a phenomenal context, there is eventing(s), in which notionally, there appears to be a cause and a separate to that cause, a consequential effect.
But is there any linear cause-effect continuum, within the phenomenal context?
Or is every cause the effect of every other causes and every effect the result of all effects,thereby indicating a holographic wholeness as the essence of the phenomenal context?
If the phenomenal context is a holographic whole, complete, as the moment,
moment to moment to moment,
is there any one awakened, in contrast to any one un-awakened?
As a holographic whole, is there anything as inappropriate, such that there can be something as an appropriate responding?
*********
Dear Avril,
If there is no differentiation between what is real and what is imagined in the mind ... if everything is homogenised into one vast and meaningless whole ... anything goes, any action is OK ... any thought or behaviour pattern is fine, no matter how much pain and sorrow it arouses in either subject or objects surrounding it. According to this view ... which I would say is cut off from truly feeling life in the present ... in the presence ... none of the subjects, objects or pain exist anyway. Life is meaningless, according to this view, as there is no differentiation between existing and not existing.
So what is the point of discussion, if there is always escape into this non-differentiation? I have come across this view a lot in recent times. There are certain 'teachers' who promote it heavily. It is quite convenient, because there is never any need to take responsibility for actions ... never any need to look any closer at what is really going on ... and ultimately, no point at looking at anything anyway. After all, who is looking? ... the seer and the seen are one. Therefore, there is nothing that can be done in this life, and no point attempting to do it ... and, of course, no one here anyway to do it. This is it, exactly as it is ... nothing else to say ...
sweet dreams!
Roy
When we take the one seat on our meditation cushion we become our own monastery. We create the compassionate space that allows for the arising of all things: sorrows, loneliness, shame, desire, regret, frustration, happiness. Spiritual transformation is a profound process that doesn't happen by accident. We need a repeated discipline, a genuine training, in order to let go of our old habits of mind and to find and sustain a new way of seeing. To mature on the spiritual path we need to commit ourselves in a systematic way.
My teacher Achaan Chah described this commitment as "taking the one seat." He said, "Just go into the room and put one chair in the center. Take the seat in the center of the room, open the doors and the windows and see who comes to visit. You will witness all kinds of scenes and actors, all kinds of temptations and stories, everything imaginable. Your only job is to stay in your seat. You will see it all arise and pass, and out of this, wisdom and understanding will come."
--Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart
My teacher Achaan Chah described this commitment as "taking the one seat." He said, "Just go into the room and put one chair in the center. Take the seat in the center of the room, open the doors and the windows and see who comes to visit. You will witness all kinds of scenes and actors, all kinds of temptations and stories, everything imaginable. Your only job is to stay in your seat. You will see it all arise and pass, and out of this, wisdom and understanding will come."
--Jack Kornfield, A Path with Heart
Monday, January 16, 2006
Take time to listen to what is said without words, to obey the law too
subtle to be written, to worship the unnamable and to embrace the
unformed.
Love your life.
Trust the Tao.
Make love with the invisible subtle origin of the universe, and you
will give yourself everything you need.
You won't have to hide away forever in spiritual retreats.
You can be a gentle, contemplative hermit right here in the middle of
everything, utterly unaffected, thoroughly sustained and rewarded by
your integral practices.
Encouraging others, giving freely to all, awakening and purifying theworld with each movement and action, you'll ascend to the divine realm
in broad daylight.
The breath of the Tao speaks, and those who are in harmony with it
hear quite clearly.
- Hua Hu Ching 83
subtle to be written, to worship the unnamable and to embrace the
unformed.
Love your life.
Trust the Tao.
Make love with the invisible subtle origin of the universe, and you
will give yourself everything you need.
You won't have to hide away forever in spiritual retreats.
You can be a gentle, contemplative hermit right here in the middle of
everything, utterly unaffected, thoroughly sustained and rewarded by
your integral practices.
Encouraging others, giving freely to all, awakening and purifying theworld with each movement and action, you'll ascend to the divine realm
in broad daylight.
The breath of the Tao speaks, and those who are in harmony with it
hear quite clearly.
- Hua Hu Ching 83
Saturday, January 14, 2006
"What force do you suppose holds individuals in the different focus levels after death?"
"The [Earth Core] Crystal's field?"
"You're getting warm."
"The Crystal's field denssity has something to do with it, doesn't it?"
"Getting warmer."
Then all of a sudden it hit me.
"Spirit Gravity, the field is Spirit Gravity!"
"You're getting hot!" the tour guide exclaimed.
"Each focus level is a range of crystal field density, a range of pull on the spirit body by Spirit Gravity. The rings Bob Monroe speaks of in his books are arbitrary divisions of the strength of pull of the Earth Core Crystal on the nonphysical bodies of the dead. Now wait a second. The nonphysical bodies of the dead are somehow like hot air balloons. I'm getting that from somewhere. The density of a nonphysical body is variable. If it is less dense it floats higher, more dense it floats lower. Hmmm... I've got it! The more a person considers itself a physical world Being, the more dense it is and the lower it floats. So a ghost is a person who still thinks it's living in the phsycial world, so it's ... close to physical world reality. A person who's conscious of being more of a Spirit Being floats higher."
B. Moen
"The [Earth Core] Crystal's field?"
"You're getting warm."
"The Crystal's field denssity has something to do with it, doesn't it?"
"Getting warmer."
Then all of a sudden it hit me.
"Spirit Gravity, the field is Spirit Gravity!"
"You're getting hot!" the tour guide exclaimed.
"Each focus level is a range of crystal field density, a range of pull on the spirit body by Spirit Gravity. The rings Bob Monroe speaks of in his books are arbitrary divisions of the strength of pull of the Earth Core Crystal on the nonphysical bodies of the dead. Now wait a second. The nonphysical bodies of the dead are somehow like hot air balloons. I'm getting that from somewhere. The density of a nonphysical body is variable. If it is less dense it floats higher, more dense it floats lower. Hmmm... I've got it! The more a person considers itself a physical world Being, the more dense it is and the lower it floats. So a ghost is a person who still thinks it's living in the phsycial world, so it's ... close to physical world reality. A person who's conscious of being more of a Spirit Being floats higher."
B. Moen
Friday, January 13, 2006
As in all sweetest music, a tinge of sadness was in every note. Nor do we know how much of the pleasures even of life we owe to the intermingled sorrows. Joy cannot unfold the deepest truths, although deepest truth must be deepest joy. Cometh white-robed Sorrow, stooping and wan, and flingeth wide the doors she may not enter. Almost we linger with Sorrow for very love.
- G. Macdonald
- G. Macdonald
Arlington (Nicky Mehta)
Where do you go little bird
When it snows, when it snows
When the world turns to sleep
Do you know, do you know
Is there something in the wind
Breathes a chill in your heart and life in your wings
Does it whisper 'start again'
Start again
Where is the sun in the night
Is it cold, is it cold
Does it feel left behind
All alone, all alone
Does it wander through the dark
Does it wait for the dawn, wish on a star
Does it stray very far
Very far
Where is your home restless wind
Is it there, is it here
Do you search for a place to belong
Search in vain, search in fear
Or is your spirit everywhere
Is your voice every tree
Your soul of the air
If there's no home is there no death
Is there no death
Where do you go little bird
When it snows, when it snows
When the world turns to sleep
Do you know, do you know
Is there something in the wind
Breathes a chill in your heart and life in your wings
Does it whisper 'start again'
Start again
Where is the sun in the night
Is it cold, is it cold
Does it feel left behind
All alone, all alone
Does it wander through the dark
Does it wait for the dawn, wish on a star
Does it stray very far
Very far
Where is your home restless wind
Is it there, is it here
Do you search for a place to belong
Search in vain, search in fear
Or is your spirit everywhere
Is your voice every tree
Your soul of the air
If there's no home is there no death
Is there no death
Monday, January 09, 2006
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Saturday, January 07, 2006
My teacher knew of a fellow that stood in the yiquan postures religously everyday with proper intent and imagry. He wasn't into fighting or sparring at all but one day when he was attacked he responded instantly. He said that it was as if the attack happened in slow motion. Perhaps due to a calm yet alert mind from hours of standing he was able to stay focused.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
"Meet your own self. Be with your own self, listen to it, obey it,
cherish it, keep it in mind ceaselessly. You need no other guide. As
long as your urge for truth affects your daily life, all is well with
you. Live your life without hurting anybody. Harmlessness is a most
powerful form of Yoga and it will take you speedily to your goal.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
cherish it, keep it in mind ceaselessly. You need no other guide. As
long as your urge for truth affects your daily life, all is well with
you. Live your life without hurting anybody. Harmlessness is a most
powerful form of Yoga and it will take you speedily to your goal.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Meditation is old and honorable,
so why should I not sit, every morning of my life,
on the hillside,
looking into the shining world?
Because, properly attended to,
delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause?
I don't think so.
All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance.
The gospel of light is the crossroads of -- indolence, or action.
Be ignited, or be gone.
~ Mary Oliver
so why should I not sit, every morning of my life,
on the hillside,
looking into the shining world?
Because, properly attended to,
delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.
Can one be passionate about the just, the
ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit
to no labor in its cause?
I don't think so.
All summations have a beginning, all effect has a
story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.
Thought buds toward radiance.
The gospel of light is the crossroads of -- indolence, or action.
Be ignited, or be gone.
~ Mary Oliver
I'd lose all faith in tcma too if I let people change my mind like it was a shitty diaper. Especially since nobody can satisfactorily 'fight' using tjq.
The only thing that's for sure about tjq is that it's ineffective against skilled, commited fighters to such a degree that tjq players will resort to kickboxing and wrestling as soon as the pressure gets turned up to love-tap level.
There is no way you can train tjq and be able to apply your training against anyone except compliant dummies.
TJQ is the art of demonstrating badly.
Accept it and move on.
The only thing that's for sure about tjq is that it's ineffective against skilled, commited fighters to such a degree that tjq players will resort to kickboxing and wrestling as soon as the pressure gets turned up to love-tap level.
There is no way you can train tjq and be able to apply your training against anyone except compliant dummies.
TJQ is the art of demonstrating badly.
Accept it and move on.
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