All posts by GregKasarik

Herder of Cats for Community of Infinite Colour. This is my site, so if you want to know anything about me, then read some more! :-)
Character and Personality, Drug Law Reform, Happiness, Mysticism, Transcendent Compounds

Friendship, fear and freedom

Recently, I posted an article to Facebook, saying how I sometimes feel isolated because of my mysticism, spiritual use of drugs and drug law reform activism, none of which are well understood by many people I meet. At times, I’ve experienced such occasions as being “me against the world”, with little support from those around me, or those who “should” be there for me. 

I summed it up by saying that, at times I feel like like being “Tank Man” from  the Tiananmen  Square.

 

Tankman_new_longshot_StuartFranklin
Famous “Tank Man” image taken by Stuart Franklin.
Image Courtesy Wikipedia Commons.

Needless to say, despite my concluding in the post that, “I am not Tank Man, because I have the support of the people who matter (thankfully, I am blessed with having some amazing people in my life) and the laws of the land”,  I was immediately pilloried for having the temerity to even compare myself with someone as outstandingly and anonymously brave as Tank Man.

Ironically, this put me right back in the space where I once again felt like Tank Man. In mindlessly going on the attack, they had simply reinforced the feelings and imagery that I was attempting to disown. Their actions made it clear just how few people really understand, or even care, what it can be like to take the path I have chosen.

It was a classic example of how some people are ready to take the slightest offence, and go on the offense, for fairly much everything (why people feel the need to troll other people’s Facebook posts is something I’ll never understand) and how eager people are to dismiss the possibility that someone, such as myself might feel isolated by what I do and what I have sacrificed. Among these sacrifices includes my career, financial security, family and friends.
(Indeed, social isolation is a huge issue in our modern, supposedly connected, societies and one that isn’t helped by attacking anyone who might feel that way.)
Several days after the Facebook post and just a couple of days after my arrest for the possession of LSD during a peaceful protest on the steps of the Victorian Parliament House, a person that I’ve known for a number of years texted me with the following message:
 
“Hi Greg, sorry, but, I’ve decided not to associate with somebody with a criminal record. Goodbye and good luck to you.”*
This isn’t the first time that this sort of thing has happened since I went public about my use of Transcendent Compounds for spiritual purposes. In fact, there are perhaps a dozen or more people, that I regarded as friends of one sort, or another, who have refused to associate with me and made it clear that my “drug use” was a major reason for them cutting off contact. While some of them are still “friends” on Facebook, their real life rejection really hurts. 
 
It is also one of the reasons that I can often feel far more isolated than many people understand. I am considerably older than most of people in the drug law reform movement and most of those who are my age, are not being completely open and honest about their own drug use in the way that I am. Unlike younger drug law reformers, I am not surrounded by a cohort of friends who are supportive of their life choices, or blessed by a societal expectation drug use is something that young people do.
 
I had spent 15 years in the Army prior to starting down this path. Very few of my friends used drugs and when I went public, many found it far too confrontational do deal with and applied far to little empathy, or understanding to my situation.
Rather than try to manage complexity, they simply bailed.
 
In some ways, the stigma is worse for older drug users, because society generally accepts that  young people will use drugs and will “grow out of it”, so the older drug user is something of an anomaly.

Over the last Easter holiday break, while camping (as in homeless) with my dog, Saasha, I introduced myself to a group of adults in their early forties. Discussion got around to tents and I mentioned that I had bought the one I presently own in order to attend raves and doofs and would preferably use a smaller one for camping. Without any prompting on my part, they asked specifically if I used drugs while at these events and I said that I did. The response was typically hostile, as they then began to lecture me on how I should “grow up” and asked “at what point do you start to take responsibility for your life?”. 

This was especially ironic and hypocritical, because going to dance parties and taking drugs was something that they admitted to doing in their mid twenties. Doubly so, because as they were lecturing a complete stranger (they’d known me all of 30 minutes by then) on being irresponsible, they were busily sucking down on the most dangerous drug of all: Alcohol.

In my mid twenties I already had already completed four years of full time Army service (ironically enough, as a tank soldier). Despite using cannabis prior to enlistment, I made a commitment to stop using illicit drugs of any kind when I joined and maintained that commitment throughout my service.

So instead of being out, partying and taking drugs, I chose to put place myself in a highly disciplined, regimented environment, where I spent my time training and being ready to put my life on the line in defence of their sorry, judgemental arses.

In rejecting me because I am a drug user, or have been arrested for the possession of a drug, people aren’t judging me for who I am and what I represent, but instead because of something I do that has zero impact upon them.

That is sad, on so many levels!

Knowing the friend who sent the text, I understand that their response is based on fear. They’ve never even linked to me on Facebook, because they were afraid of being seen by friends and family as being associated with a “druggie”. Similarly, last year a potential girlfriend said (after admitting that she was attracted to me), “my friends would never understand me going out with a drug user”.

For too many people, all I am and all I’ll ever be is summed up by the toxic and stigmatising label: Drug User.
 

This is the reality of the stigma that people like myself experience on a daily basis. But the oppression inherent in this attitude poisons the lives of literally millions of Australia’s illicit drug users, who have yet to come out about their life choices and have instead chosen to live their lives in the shadow of their fear.

But fear works both ways and it is the worst thing to give into. I say this after having spent decades of my life allowing my fears to dominate who I was, and who I could become.

Certainly, in many ways, I always been far less fearful than many of my peers, doing things such as joining the army, rappelling from tall buildings and any one of a number of stupid and dangerous things that could have gotten me killed.

But when I look back at my life until even a couple of years ago, I my experience is of a man paralysed with fear in so many different ways, especially when it came to relationships and friendships. By far, the emotion that has lead to the worst regrets of my life has been fear. Inevitably it seems that when I’ve acted badly towards others, the underlying problem has been a because I was afraid that if I communicated, or acted honestly, I would be rejected or hurt.

Without my even realising it, FEAR ruled the first 40 years of my life. So, I never discovered that if we never face our fears, we never learn that they are figments of our imagination, rather than actual slices of reality. 

And then one day, during 2010, I felt “Enough!”

I was sick of pretending to be someone who I wasn’t, so went public about who I really was. For once, I faced my fear. But in facing my fear, I discovered my True Self!

I discovered that giving into the fear is the one thing that gives them power over us. Once we challenge them, we discover that, while they contain a hint of truth, fears are most often illusions of our own creation. Once we see them for the trap they are, we can see that there is a reality that we can create that exists beyond those fears.

And it is Beautiful! 🙂

Ironically, much of what I had feared has come to pass. I am unemployable in my chosen profession (counselling; who wants a counsellor who is a “druggie”?) and unable to complete a Masters degree in Psychology. I have been rejected by some of those who I cared about the most. At times, I have felt more isolated than I could ever have imagined.

But, despite everything, my life has a story and that story is filled with meaning and purpose. Intriguingly, despite all the setbacks, I’ve never once doubted that my path is the one that I am supposed to be on and that the story I am telling, through my actions and deeds, is one that needs to be told.

But fear isn’t something that ever disappears. Like some terrible phoenix, new fears always arise out of the ashes of the old. My recent fear of getting arrested was only the latest to crumble before the reality of its occurrence. My fear of going to prison shimmers before me and who knows what other fears will loom ahead?

The difference between who I was and who I am today is that I recognise that to give into fear is to give up hope and to give up growth. Today, I’m so poor that church mice lend me money (banks stopped doing that ages ago…) and things are often very difficult, but my life has been enriched in ways that even I still don’t fully understand.

Granted, I’m hardly the poster child for not allowing your fears to govern your life. But if it came down to a choice between being isolated because of who I am and what I believe, or living a life of fear and lies, I am more than happy to be the man in my shoes!

Fear robs us of far more than the opportunities to enrich our lives through facing the challenges life throws at us.

By giving into fear, people like my friend who sent the text, are going to spend their Eternity never being friends with the truly admirable people who have been arrested because they sought to stand up for freedom from oppression. Without the courage to confront their fears, such people will dump some of the greatest human beings in their lives and will be diminished accordingly.

My friends will never allow themselves to know Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr, Lady Constance Georgina Bulwer-Lytton, Martin Niemoller**, Ghandi, or any of the millions of wonderful, but nameless people I could mention, if only history had bothered to record their sacrifice. Heck, more than half the world’s population literally worship a guy who got arrested!

Now, lest should the mindless hordes of Social Media take offence that I should be comparing myself to these great people, I would simply say that as of 19 April, 2016, I now share with each of these worthies the distinction of having being arrested in the course of fighting against bigotry and for freedoms that others in my society already enjoy.

However, my courage in doing so is greatly diminished by the obvious fact that unlike each of these people, I am not fighting a dictatorial system and it is highly unlikely that anyone is going to beat, or kill me (although I have been abused on several occasions) for standing up for freedom. So, no in the courage department, I am definitely not in the league of these great men and women.

However, the point of this post isn’t to bitch about how poorly some people might treat me***, nor is it to bask in the glow of other’s achievements. Its not even about trying to convince others to “come out of the closet” and join me in openly, honestly and fearlessly proclaiming who they are (Although that wouldn’t be such a bad thing if we all went public. They can’t arrest 15% of the population!)

Rather, I simply seek to point out the truth that if you allow your fears to rule your life, you’ll be missing out on the very best that Eternity has to offer.

In 2012, before I began my 28 day hunger strike one of my former colleagues said that she despaired for what had happened to me and my career in the two years since I had gone public. She asked me what I would think if on my deathbed I looked back and all I had to show for my life was failure and unfulfilled potential.

My reply was that if I were on my deathbed, my biggest regret would be if I lived the “normal” life, because I was rendered inert by my fears and failed to take the difficult path that I knew in my heart to be the right one.

A life worth living isn’t a life of popularity, ease, wealth, or even “success” however it is defined by society, or even the self. It is a life of meaning and purpose, spent facing down your fears and finding the strength to overcome the challenges that are inevitably thrown your way. Live your life being controlled by your fears and you’ll not only be living a life not of your own choosing, but you’ll never have the courage to see the very best of yourself and your own potential for greatness.

Facing your fears is risky for all sorts of reasons, but do you really want to spend Eternity trapped inside them? Doesn’t that sound a lot like Hell?

So, in the words of Susan Jeffers “Feel the fear and do it anyway”! ****

 

*NOTE: As of the time of this writing, I do not actually have a “criminal record”. While I have been arrested and charged with the possession of LSD, any conviction is months, or even years away.

 

**Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for the quotation:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

 

***OK. Maybe just a little! 😉

 

****Ironically, I read this book when it first came out and have spoken about it endlessly with dozens, if not hundreds of people, without ever realising just how little I had grasped its true meaning. Or perhaps I did, but was far too successful a hypocrite to ever notice my own lies to myself.

Drug Law Reform, Religion, Transcendent Compounds

Putting drug policy on Trial after LSD arrest

3 Comments

Last week, on 19th April, 2016, I was arrested for the possession of LSD as I went to celebrate Bicycle Day, by taking a single tab of LSD on the steps of the Victorian Parliament House, much as I have done on four previous occasions. As always, the intent of the protest is “to achieve regulated access to Transcendent Compounds for spiritual and religious use” and my actions are in protest of the Victorian Government’s continued denial of fundamental Human Rights that are available to Victorians of fairly much every other spiritual and religious belief.

 

Saasha after Greg Kasarik's Arrest for LSD possession

Greg Kasarik’s Golden Retriever, Saasha waits patiently for his return after his arrest for LSD possession. In the background is the sign he bought with him on the day, which is titled, “Tripping on the Steps with LSD”

Now that I have been arrested myself and other members of Community of Infinite Colour (Australia) Incorporated along with other supporters will be using it as an opportunity to put the Victorian Government’s drug policies on trial!

Given our past experiences, none of us expected me to be arrested and initially, there was some fluffing about by the Protective Service Officers, as they seemed unsure as to whether the best course of action. I made it clear that I was cool if they arrested me, but I would rather take my tab, make our protest and enjoy and afternoon of sunshine, chilled music and chatting with people.

This came to an immediate end, once a uniformed Police Sergeant came on the scene and was informed of my intention to take LSD, at which point he made an immediate, unhesitating decision to arrest and my fate, was sealed!

I was in possession of two tabs of LSD. One which I have been carrying around with me for the last several years, so that if the politicians ever got off their arses I could be arrested at any stage.

This was also the tab that I carried into police stations on three separate occasions, in 2013, when I sought to inform the police of what I did and to invite them to arrest me if they so wished.  On each occasion, the police made it clear that they had better things to worry about than someone who is actually admitting to a crime!

Not that anyone can really blame them. LSD is not a nasty drug like alcohol and doesn’t have the same disastrous impacts on emergency service members, as they strive to keep our citizens and communities safe and well.

The second tab of LSD was carried in a book called “Why Good Things Happen to Good People“, by Dr Stephen Post.* More specifically, it was at the beginning of Chapter 6, which discusses “The Way of Courage: Speak Up, Speak Out”.  Hopefully, in deliberately getting arrested, when I could have simply stayed home, I have shown some small degree of courage.

After my arrest, I was taken to the police precinct in Docklands, interviewed, fingerprinted and released on bail, with a court date of 28 September 2016.

All in all, I couldn’t have been more impressed with the courtesy, respect and good humour demonstrated by the police during my time in custody. Although I suspect that they were more than a bit bemused the circumstances of it all and grateful for my own willing participation in their processes.

I should also express thanks to the PSOs, who looked after my wonderful dog, Saasha and my friend Nick Wallis from Enpsychedelia, and a certain gent by the name of Adam, who took her under their care until I could pick her up.

Upon release from court, I was in contact with members of the scientific and Alcohol and Other Drug research community who were happy to let me know that I had their support and that they’d make sure that when I face the supreme court, I have the appropriate expert witnesses on my side.

At the international level, I have been in touch with the founder of one of the world’s leading research organisation and informed that we have his “full support!!” (for clarity, the exclamations are his!!)

As I’ve made clear in a number of previous posts, the scientific consensus regarding Transcendent Compounds, is clear. And getting clearer by the day!

With the scientific research community expressing support, from here, we will be looking at obtaining competent legal advice. Prior to my arrest, I was in contact with a couple of high profile lawyers, but they have expressed concerns as to whether I would be successful in obtaining a referral to the Supreme Court on religious, or spiritual grounds. However, if needs be I will defend myself in court, as the facts of the matter are both straightforward and uncontestable.

We will be using the legal argument that I have developed over the last five years and it is our intention to make full use of the Victorian Charter of Human Rights Act (2006) and its protections of:

“the right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief, including- … the freedom to demonstrate his or her religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching, either individually or as part of a community, in public or in private.”

Personally, I believe that we will have no issues with allaying the concerns of the lawyers. The spiritual and religious use of Transcendent Compounds is an ancient practice that predates the Government’s “War on Drug Users” by thousands of years and will, if we have any say in the matter, still be a crucial aspect of religious practice tens of thousands of years after the small minded, bigoted instigators of this useless, intolerant “war” (and myself for that matter) are all forgotten in the dust of archeology.

During my interview with the police, I specifically requested that the police prosecutor on the day of my appearance at the Melbourne Magistrate’s Court support referring the case to the Victorian Supreme Court, because if I am merely convicted and sentenced on that day, then on the very next day, I (and possibly others) will be back on the steps for a rinse and repeat and will keep it up until such a time as I am able to get to the Victorian Supreme Court and put the Victorian Government’s discriminatory drug policies on trial!

Fact is having being arrested once, its a bit of “been there, done that” and any further arrests will be more of a nuisance than anything.

We will be keeping everyone up to date on developments both here at kasarik.com and through social media and whatever other outlets we can.

However, one exciting bit of news is that in the coming months, the religious not-for-profit, “Community of Infinite Colour (Australia) Incorporated” will be opening its doors to the public in the Melbourne suburb of Bayswater.

While it is our intent to offer the kinds of counselling and pastoral services found in any religious organisation, we’ll also be conducting happiness workshops and helping people to discover their own special niche within the Infiniverse!

As a post-dogmatic religion and based on the “Principles” Community’s role isn’t to tell you what to believe, but rather to help you discover what most makes sense to you and to help you become the most fulfilled, compassionate and joyous person that you can be.

We also don’t take ourselves too seriously, which is why my official title (as spiritual leader) within the group is “Herder of Cats“. Which actually describes what I try to do quite well indeed! 🙂

However, one of our purposes states that we will:

“Promote, foster and facilitate the safe use of Transcendent and Sacred Compounds as individually valid, although not communally necessary, expressions of spiritual practice and Divine connection”.

So, despite the fact that we won’t be distributing Transcendent Compounds on the premises, it probably won’t be terribly long before the whole “psychedelic religion” thing gets picked up by the media and things get interesting once more! 🙂

Stay tuned for more! 🙂

*NOTE: Not sure if Dr Stephen Post will appreciate the sublimity surrounding his inclusion in the days festivities.

I encourage everyone to buy and read his book, which is all about how being generous is, in and of itself, a huge contributor to the health and wellbeing of generous people.

Character and Personality, Mysticism, Philosophy, Religion

Light, Darkness and Terrorism in Paris.

I think that it is appropriate that we keep things in perspective when it comes to thinking about the November attacks in Paris.

Yes, they are horrible and a real tragedy, both for France and for those involved, but despite their best efforts, the attackers managed a death toll that equals about two weeks of fatalities on France’s roads.

Symbol of Life - French Flag

Symbol of Life with French Flag Overlay Courtesy of Facebook.

 

 

3250 people died on France’s roads in 2013, but nobody batted an eyelid. A curfew wasn’t imposed, French people weren’t advised to remain indoors (or stop driving cars), and the country’s borders weren’t closed.

The difference of course, is that we have evolved to seek out meaningful, yet unfamiliar cues, perhaps because these are likely to be augurs of change and disruption. When we see something like the French attacks, we are drawn to them, like moths to a flame and if we aren’t careful, we risk getting burnt.

But there is more to it than that. As of today, there have been a reported 129 deaths (although this will surely rise, as some of those who survived succumb to their injuries), but a little over a month ago, 99 people died in the Ankara bombings in Turkey. I doubt many people in the West, even noticed. Similarly, on August 14, 2013, the Egyptian security forces massacred at least 817 (and likely more than 1,000) protesters in Rabaa Square.

These victims didn’t warrant a Facebook filter and their deaths seemed to be regarded by Westerners as “business as usual”, rather than tragedies for those countries.

Our responses to these attacks say something significant about ourselves and the comparative value that we place on the lives of people from a Christian, European country, compared to those who are “over there” and separated from us by culture, history and religion.

Perhaps one could say, “out of mind, out of sight”.

Irrespective of this, by giving ourselves over to histrionics and fear, we are allowing 8 or so Parisian terrorists to achieve exactly what they wanted: To instill fear and to force us into rash and self-destructive behaviours, such as the knee jerk rush to drop yet more bombs on the Middle East, despite the fact that yet more death will most likely only feed the narrative that sustains the toxic ideology behind these attacks.

Rather, we should recognise that while ISIS has claimed responsibility for this attack, the attackers (with the probable exception of one who was found with a forged Syrian passport) they appear to be French (or perhaps Belgian) nationals and as such are perhaps more indicative of French policy towards its Muslim minority, rather than any threat posed by ISIS to the West.

While 10% of French people are Muslim, French policy towards its Muslim population has been less than stellar, with many living in virtual slums, known as banlieues, where they are marginalised and face significant barriers to both education and employment. Despite its famous revolution of 1789, France is still run by an entrenched elite, with graduates from its Grandes écoles (Grand Schools), finding an easy path to the heights of political and civil service. Needless to say, the children of blue-collar workers, or minorities are very poorly represented within these schools.

Of course, I don’t say this to provide some sort of excuse for the terrorists. What they did was abhorrent and repulsive and if there is any justice in the Infiniverse, they will answer for their actions. But if we are ever going to be able to succeed in ending these sort of attacks, we need to understand the context in which they arise, lest, in our ignorance, we become their enablers.

To conflate these terrorists with Muslims as a whole, or Syrian refugees specifically (as has been done in the US presidential campaign, where Republican candidates have been quick to call for the complete exclusion of Syrian refugees from the US), is to create yet another divide between “Us” and “Them” that will only perpetuate everyone’s misery.

Indeed, Muslims are just as horrified by these attacks as anyone else. Waleed Aly, an Australian Muslim academic and media presenter, put it extraordinarily well when in a segment on The Project, when he said:

“We are all feeling a million raging emotions right now. I am angry at these terrorists. I am sickened by the violence and I am crushed for the families that have been left behind, but, you know what, I will not be manipulated.

“We all need to come together. I know how that sounds. I know it is a cliche, but it is also true because it is exactly what ISIL doesn’t want.”

Certainly, there are problems within modern Islam, just as there have historically been problems within all religions. But this does not mean that there is a problem within every Muslim.

So, rather than focusing on “Islam”, “Christianity”, “Buddhism”, “Atheism”, or whatever, I would suggest that instead, we focus on the choice between “Light” and “Dark”.

Light represents the forces of creation, growth, love, compassion, hope, optimism, honesty and forgiveness (among others). Darkness represents death, greed, selfishness, power, lies, destruction and the very negation of existence (among others).

One is Life affirming, the other is Life denying and although they exist in opposition, their relationship to each other and ourselves is far more complex than it might initially appear and these terms are not necessarily synonymous with “good” and “evil”.

Once we start to think in this way and assuming that we are not entirely blinkered, we can see that both Light and Dark exist not only within every society, but within every person. Once we understand this, we can more easily recognise that each of us have a choice, but that our choice isn’t about what we believe, but about whether we choose the path of Light, the path of Darkness, or decide to fluff about in the middle.

Most of us (including those terrorists) mindlessly believe that we have chosen the path of Light, but such a commitment requires that we be perfectly honest with ourselves about our own failures and the Darkness within. Failure to engage honestly with our own weakness, temptation and failure will lead us into Darkness because dishonesty and lies are by definition, the negation of truth.

Honesty also requires that we admit that while we may have chosen the path of Light, none on this planet (without exception!) are, or ever have been, worthy of claiming to be Beings, or Avatars of Light. Whether we talk about, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, all the prophets, saints, or ourselves, we are all flawed and in committing to a path, we are merely starting on our journey, not arriving at our destination. Thinking otherwise is hubris.

Having made a commitment to Light, we are now in a position to reach out to others who have chosen our path, rather than blindly including, or excluding people simply because of what they profess to believe. Similarly, by committing ourselves to a path of Light, we can understand that what we happen to believe about the nature of the Divine is less important than how we chose to act and behave towards others.

Frankly, beliefs are only important to the extent that they drive behaviour. It matters little if one believes in a god, gods, or no god. What’s important is how we act towards others and whether we leave a trail of healing, or disaster in our wake. Do we build, or do we destroy? Do we forgive, or do we hold onto every grievance? Do we give generously, or do we take selfishly? Do we make war, or do we make peace?

By focusing on a paradigm of Light and Darkness (notice I say “Light and Darkness”, not “Light vs Darkness” – for reasons I will tackle in a later blog post) we can circumvent the silliness of painting particular groups (who are inevitably outsiders) as being somehow inherently “evil”, while others (ie. US!) are necessarily “good”. Instead of mindless stereotypes we can acknowledge that just because others are different from us, or don’t share our values, it does not therefore follow that they are bad.

In doing so, we can open our hearts and minds to the truth that while we are all different in many ways, we share a common humanity. It is this sense of shared humanity that will allow us to reach out to others and embrace them with their differences, so that we may survive and prosper in a world in which we are sorely tempted to cleave to our own and turn our faces away from the suffering of those outside our tribe, while arrogantly ignoring the festering Darkness within.

Islam, Religion

Domestic Violence in Islam: Sura 4:34

This article arose from discussion with a female Islamic friend, who was experiencing a crisis of faith with respect to the nature of her belief.

One area of concern was the conflict that she felt between following her own dreams and aspirations and following the dictates demanded by her religion’s dogmas and behavioural expectations for women. In particular, she was concerned that her family regarded her as having no ultimate say in her destiny, based on their understanding of Sura 4:34 of the Quran.

 

Domestic Violence Poster 1ALERT: Please scroll to the bottom if you are looking for Domestic Violence Support Service contact details.

In responding to her, I located an article online that defended the Sura and then addressed the points raised by that author, who far from being horrified that his holy book authorises domestic violence, claims that the relevant verse is instead the cure for domestic violence.

This kind of repugnant denial of the reality of spousal abuse demonstrates the lengths that people will go to in order to defend their religious belief and to avoid having to confront a range of assorted, multicoloured elephants tap-dancing in their living rooms. It should serve as a wakeup call to all of us to make sure that we aren’t similarly justifying the inexcusable within our own religious traditions.

 

The Sura, or Verse and its translation

The “Wife Beating Sura” is contained within the  fourth Sura of the Quran known in Arabic as “An-Nisa”, or “women”. It gains its name from the many references to women made in it. Having said this, the Sura is not simply about women, as it discusses issues of inheritance, orphans, children and marriage laws among others.

It is generally regarded as a “Medinan Sura” and therefore of being one of the later chapters to be revealed, most likely after Mohammed and his followers had been forced to migrate to Medina after fleeing persecution in Mecca.

The Sura itself is 4:34

[4:34] The men are made responsible for the women, and GOD has endowed them with certain qualities, and made them the bread earners. The righteous women will cheerfully accept this arrangement, since it is GOD’s commandment, and honor their husbands during their absence. If you experience rebellion from the women, you shall first talk to them, then (you may use negative incentives like) deserting them in bed, then you may (as a last alternative) beat them. If they obey you, you are not permitted to transgress against them. GOD is Most High, Supreme.

A fairly typical article in defence of it (written by a Muslim) can be found here.

I have used his preferred translation of the verse, but at the outset, I would point out that this is a very generous translation of the Sura. And despite this, the author has felt it necessary to include additional qualifiers that aren’t in the original text in brackets.

Thankfully, for us who don’t read Arabic, the Wikipedia entry on that verse contains alternate translations, none of which agree on the qualifiers and two which don’t include them at all. This demonstrates that making insertions aimed at changing the basic thrust of controversial texts is a common tactic of modern Islamic scholars, who want to make the Quran seem less threatening.

Interestingly enough, as I understand it, Islam generally holds that making modifications to the Holy Quran is blasphemy, but obviously not if it advances your argument.

In any case, these qualifiers are absent from the original Arabic text as are any indications that Allah is laying out a progression of events, rather than merely listing things to do to a rebellious wife in order of seriousness. For example M.K. Shakir translates the important section as “…those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in their sleeping places and beat them.” As can be seen, there is no hint of any stepped approach to the administration of punishment. It is simply a list of things to do.

 

The Submission of Women to Men in Islam

The first thing to note, is that the Sura relies on the assumption that a woman is the property and chattel of a man and that he can effectively tell her what to do and that she is required to submit to his decisions. If she fails to do so, she is being “rebellious” and Allah decrees that she may be punished for her transgression.

While this passage includes the expected submission of women to their husbands, the initial verse makes it clear that the submission required is much broader than that. Women are expected to submit to men as a category, not just to their husbands as individuals. Men are considered, “responsible” for women, in a way that treats them as if they were children.

This typifies the traditional patriarchal notion that women are inferior to men and not to be trusted with independent decision-making, or allowed to have any independent control over their lives.

Of course, in the 150 years since Western societies started actually letting women demonstrate their capabilities they have demonstrated exactly the opposite. While physically different, women are just as capable as men in every area that they set their minds to. Indeed over 100 years of psychological research has failed to find any evidence to suggest women are reliably inferior to men in any area. For a clear example of their ability one need to go no further than university graduations, were women consistently outperform men.

This last point is vital, as if god had ordained women to be inferior to men, science would have demonstrated this and proven it beyond doubt. Certainly, men and women are different, but neither is necessarily inferior to the other and thus the initial verse of the Sura is clearly wrong.

 

Domestic Violence: Where the Quran gets it wrong.

Irrespective of what the Quran says, spousal abuse is never acceptable. Regardless of the justification, beating any sentient, whether it be a person, or animal is wrong. Any god who claims otherwise, merely demonstrates that they lack the supposed attribute of being “good”. Even if the husband were to walk in on his wife cheating on him, he still does not have the right to attack, or physically abuse anyone. Certainly one could argue that doing so in such cases, would be understandable, but this doesn’t make it either moral, or virtuous behaviour.

The author of the article is overjoyed that “Abuse of a wife will not happen if the man learns to follow the clear commandments of God in this verse and in the order decreed. Abuse will only happen when a man does not follow these commandments, and thus fails to cool off and reason with himself or with his wife”.

Frankly this is a crock. As anyone with experience in DV will confirm, spousal abuse can occur without either partner laying a finger on the other. Psychological abuse is just as dangerous and immoral as physical abuse and perhaps even more so, because it is often not regarded as “abuse”. So, based on the fact that wives should not be rebellious, Sura 4:34 gives the husband a free hand to psychologically abuse his wife, as all he will be doing is “talking” to her.

Another reason that this is a crock, is that the threatened or implied threat of a beating is just as immoral as a beating itself. Intimidation, such as standing over the wife, slamming doors, throwing things and the like all are designed to remind the victim that failure to comply with the demands of the aggressor will result in these things happening to the victim, rather than the furniture. It isn’t subtle, but Sura 4:34 allows it, and indeed the reworked translation above encourages it in spades.

The author states that the “The theme of this Sura is to defend women’s rights, and countering injustice and oppression of women. Thus, any interpretation of verses in Sura 4 must be in favour of the women, not the other way around”. Sadly that is the author’s opinion and not contained within the Sura. Honestly read, Sura 4 puts women firmly under the control of the men with no way of breaking that control without going against the will of god. They either do what they are told, or face the punishment that Allah has ordained.

Even if one accepts the author’s argument that it gave women “rights that were first available to western women only a few decades ago, and some that still aren’t” (What that last is referring to I have no idea. I’ve read the Sura and can’t come up with anything), it still places women on the end of the male leash and a dog is still a dog, irrespective of how big the leash might be. The fact that Christianity and other religions, or cultures, have routinely supported the abuse of women is hardly a defence in favour of Islam also doing so.

The whole point of recognising the equality of women was to remove the leash, not merely make it longer.

 

Sura 4:34 vs the Ethical Principle

Clearly the author’s justifications of this text are a woefully poor excuse for the ongoing abuse of women. Even sillier it relies on the claim that a “believing” couple would never have any issues (conveniently ignoring non-physical abuse, as above) and that somehow this makes Islam somehow better than the alternatives.

But it doesn’t. In fact it merely demonstrates how its morality is in fact inferior to the Ethical Principle, “Act with Empathy”. If partners in marriage seek to understand the other, and treat them as they wish to be treated, domestic violence would not occur, as the partner doing the beating would have too much empathy for the suffering of his victim. To act with Empathy, one must accept the unstated premise that all people are equal and that none has any implicit, or arbitrary right to be considered superior to others.

Of course, a little empathy will probably reveal that most women would love to be banished from the bed of an obnoxious, violent partner. I can hear them screaming “punish me, punish me” all the way to the couch, where they settle in for a good night’s sleep free of fear and snoring.

Does anyone seriously believe that a Sura so lacking in basic empathy and compassion for the victims of abuse was dictated by a being even remotely worthy of being called god?

 

Obey me and my god, or go to hell!

Also, it is interesting to note that in an article addressing domestic violence, the author leaves us with a quite unsubtle threat:

“We have to know that we are not in this world to protect unrighteous behavior. We are in this world to be given a last chance to make the right choice and submit to God alone. Making the wrong choices will have consequences for all of us, both in this world and in the eternal Hereafter, for women and men equally.”

In other words, obey me and my god, or you will go to hell for eternity!

I address the pointlessness of hell and explain why worship of the Hell God is a significant character flaw elsewhere.

For now, let me just say that this is one of the oldest, most insidious, and most effective weapons in the religious zealot’s arsenal, particularly once you entertain even the slightest possibility that it might be true.

Once you are hooked on this, fear will dominate your every waking moment and nothing they ask of you can be considered immoral. Every natural defence against acting unethically, your conscience, integrity, personal morality and even common sense, becomes overwhelmed by the pervasive threat of eternal agony and damnation. Even independent thought becomes immoral, and those who choose to Act with Empathy become the agents of Satan, or perhaps even Satan himself.

Of course, in a typically hypocritical manner the threat is followed by the clearly contradictory reminder that:

“God is the Most Just, the Most Merciful”.

 

Let me state things clearly: If Allah allows the subjugation and beating of wives by their brutish, ignorant and often far stupider husbands, he is far less just, far less good and far less merciful than even I and not worthy of any kind of worship.

 

Are you a victim of Domestic Violence?

Are you, or is someone you know suffering from Domestic Violence, or abuse? Are you, or is someone you know perpetrating Domestic Violence? If so, do not hesitate to contact one of the excellent support services available.

For Australians The Domestic Violence Resource Centre of Victoria has an excellent and up to date list of contacts who can help.

For New Zealanders, the New Zealand Family Violence Clearing House lists contact numbers.

Safe Place Services also lists support line and website details for people in Australia and New Zealand

For people in the USA contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

For readers in the United Kingdom, Women’s Aid  support a network of over 500 domestic and sexual violence services across the UK

For people in other parts of the world, the Australian Domestic Violence Clearing House lists a whole raft of services both within Australia and Internationally.

Atheism, Islam, Religion

Thin Skinned, Obnoxious Militants

LOL!!

It is always intriguing how insecure so many militant believers actually are. They are so happy to abuse and condemn others, but can’t handle anybody taking them to task for their inaccuracies, or routine obnoxiousness.

jesus-says-meme-generator-no-really-get-the-fuck-out-of-here-4090cfIf this is your immediate response to even mild criticism, then maybe you need to take a hard look in the mirror of life. 

 

A while ago, I was invited to a closed group of atheists on Facebook, run by one of these people. Despite not being an atheist (at least not by a definition that they would accept), I accepted the invite, because there is often some good discussion in these groups.

Turned out that I was wrong!

Today, the group’s Rather Obsessed Founder (ROF) posted a link hostile to Islam, which was commented on by someone who was obviously a Muslim (don’t know how he managed to get in!), to which ROF immediately posted an obnoxious reply to the effect that Mohammed was a pedophile and a terrorist.

Ironically, I had just posted my own reply to our Muslim friend, pointing out that while Mohammed was a pretty cool guy for his time, his “model society” was still significantly flawed, especially in its treatment of women.

So, I am hardly an apologist for Islam! I replied to ROF calling him out for being both needlessly rude and factually incorrect. Firstly, while Mohammed did consummate his relationship with his nine-year old wife, there is no evidence that he met the DSM-V definition for pedophilia, which requires “a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children, generally age 11 years or younger.”

Secondly, while Mohammed engaged in the sorts of raids and warfare that is typical of tribal societies, he demonstrated considerable reluctance to go to war and sought to spare captives where possible. For example, when he entered and captured Mecca he did so at the head of a band of unarmed followers. There was nothing to stop his enemies slaughtering him, but he took the chance and in doing so avoided considerable bloodshed.

ROF then sought to tell me that he “calls it like it is” and is “brutally honest”, before posting a rather unimaginative picture of Jesus telling me to “get the fuck out of here” (see above).

I responded by calling him out yet once again, and pointing out that every ignorant, anti-social jerk hides behind the “call it like it is” and “brutally honest” catchphrases. I also pointed out that I wasn’t going anywhere, and if he was that insecure that he couldn’t cope with people disagreeing with him, he should simply eject me from his closed-group, nightmare utopia.

Which he promptly did! To add insult to injury (his not mine) he then proceeded to block me entirely from his Facebook experience.

It just goes to show that what is important isn’t what people believe, but how they behave. Here you have a guy who is so convinced that he is right and that everyone else is wrong, that he sees no problem in hurling his anger, frustration and abuse at perfect strangers, while demonstrating that he is incapable of handling the gentlest of criticism.

In all honesty, I don’t see any difference between people like ROF and many of the fundamentalist theists that he opposes and attacks. In both cases, these people have not only already made up their minds, but tied their entire self-worth into an external identification, whether it be as an atheist, Christian, Muslim, or whatever.

Apply even the smallest of challenges to this worldview and the result is an overwhelming attack and/or rejection, as the person feels the very core of their being come under attack. God help us if these people ever achieve political power.

Once again, I find myself wishing to express the sentiment that I believe that all people of goodwill can and should work together in order to achieve a win-win solution to the problems that plague our world.

People are people, irrespective of were you find them, or what they believe. Good and bad exists in every person and in every culture (although I do believe that some cultures are better than others, because they do more to promote values of tolerance, understanding and compassion) and our job needs to be to reach out to people who are prepared to work with us towards a better world, irrespective of what they happen to believe about the nature of ultimate reality.

While I routinely criticise the belief structures of others, when it comes down to it, I know that nothing I write is likely to change your mind and don’t really care what you believe, unless those beliefs are antithetical to my wellbeing, or the wellbeing of others. If your beliefs tell you to persecute, condemn and kill people who are doing no harm to others, then I have to say that I don’t regard you as a person of good will.

If you think it is OK to be an obnoxious jerk, or violent towards those who disagree with you, it matters little to me if you are an atheist, agnostic, or theist, because if you believe this, then you are the problem, not the solution.

Today’s experience was with someone who honestly seems to believe that he is the solution. I’m guessing that despite his thin skin and possible self-esteem issues, his self-image is of being on the “right side” and probably even a “good person” for standing up for “Truth”. Despite this, all he is actually doing is making the world a more hostile, angry and antagonistic place for us all.

Time for us all to recognise that our beliefs don’t define whether we are agents of Light, or Dark. None of us holds reality in the palm of our hands and we need to learn to work together and play nice with the other children if we are ever going to bring peace to our world.

Christianity, Islam, Mysticism, Philosophy, Religion

Jesus, Ego, Truth and Compassion.

Today, I’ve decided to respond to some of the ideas inherent in an article posted to the ABC’s excellent “Religion and Ethics” page. The astute reader will notice that I am not really responding to the stated thesis of “What’s Love Got to do with It? The Politics of the Cross” by Stanley Hauerwas, but more to the the underlying assumptions. These are often shared by dogmatic religious types irrespective of whether they are Christian, Islamic, or something else entirely. Indeed, one could easily extend this analysis to all sorts of secular “isms” and insanities.

 

Christ on the Cross

Christ on the Cross by Rembrandt
(Image courtesy of The Louvre)

The crux of Hauerwas’ argument is probably as follows: “Is it any wonder that Jesus was despised and rejected? Is it any wonder when the church is faithful to Christ that she finds herself persecuted and condemned? Yet if such a church does not exist, the world has no alternative to the violence hidden in our fear of one another.”

Jesus and the Church are not one and the same. If one reads the Gospels properly, it can be seen that Jesus was a failed human being, much like the rest of us. He lost his temper and he got violent (John 2:14-17). He lied (John 7:6-10). He cursed – literally (Mark 11:12-25)! He made false prophecy (Matthew 16:28). He was intensely resentful of those who didn’t believe his message (Matthew 11:20-24). He arguably invented the “thought crime” (Matthew 5:27-28). He never claimed to be “100% God and 100% man”.

Like many mystics before and after (including myself), Jesus was aware of his own Divinity and aware that there was another way, but found it difficult to live the life to which he was called. It is simply impossible to translate all of the nuances, subtleties and contradictions of Transcendent Experience into the mundane reality of the “monkey suit”.

By way of example, the Church is often a controlling, secretive, dogmatic organisation that has, since its creation by Roman Emperors sought to wield political influence of the most sordid sort. Its history is less about “an alternative to the violence” and more about the exercise of brutal, aggressive power and sometimes farcical zero sum politics. It is condemned, not because it is “faithful to Christ”, but because it is anything but faithful to the highest ideals to which he aspired.

The modern Catholic Church continues to protect child molesters within its ranks and avoid taking responsibility for the great evil it has committed. With a celibate (although clearly not chaste) clergy, it is obsessed by the sexual choices of others. Until the recent arrival of Pope Francis, its main focus has been on two issues that Jesus never even mentioned: Homosexuality and abortion. Other Christian Churches are rarely any better than the Roman variety.

Hauerwas’ essay is evidence enough of the failure of both Jesus and the Churches that have hijacked his life and teaching for their own purposes. The writer finds himself incapable of letting go of the rigidity of Dogma and the zero-sum thinking of religious absolutism and so has to shoehorn the life of Jesus into the story he wishes to create. I can’t help but suspect that only a person of great insecurity, or lack of imagination would need to posit that “the world has no alternative” to his view of reality and that only his prophet is a true representation of an Infinite Divine. As if the Infinite contained only one path, or had only one story to tell!

Blessed (or perhaps cursed) with visions of Infinite Divinity beyond normal comprehension, it is far too easy for the mystic to become trapped in grandiosity and ego. When Jesus claims that “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice”, Pilate rightly retorts, “What is Truth?” (John 18:36-38). In doing so, he is engaging not with cynicism, but with a question that is fundamental to any understanding of reality and one which the Church and other spruikers of dogmatic certainty would rather you simply didn’t ask.

Jesus accepts his mystical understanding as truth and lacks the wisdom to question that “truth”. He fails to understand that it is a truth for him alone and that it is impossible to communicate a genuinely spiritual experience to another: The first Disciple, is always the first Heretic. 2000 years later, the real Jesus is well and truly lost in time, while modern revisionists claim to know his very thoughts and to be able to divine his ultimate purpose!

The truth is that an honest examination of the whole life of Jesus, as described in the Gospels, represents a conundrum only to those who imagine him to be something he wasn’t. Yes, he was Divine, but only to the extent that we are all Divine. More importantly, for both good and ill, he was as human as us and the greatest lessons that we can learn from his life are lost if we forget this.

Matthew tells us that his last words on the cross were “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Matthew 27:46), clearly demonstrating that rather than being “100% God”, this was a man who was experiencing the disillusionment and loss of faith as his mystical ideas and imaginings clashed with the brutal, painful, terrifying reality of his impending death. Those words were not spoken by a god about to realise his grand plan, but by a frightened man faced with the real possibility of oblivion and the collapse of everything that he had held dear in his life.

Jesus’ last words on the cross, his failed prophecies and his frequent demonstrations of hubris, should give a warning to those of us who share his mystical journey: The “Truth” that we glimpse within the heart of Transcendent Experience, is often not literal truth and we should resist the urge to impose our reality on those around us, lest reality bites back.

If we pretend that Jesus was God, then we are forced to deny his human failings and waste time and energy on apologetics that deny the plain truth of the Gospels. If we recognise that Jesus was only human, we are freed to accept him as he was. We can open our eyes and our hearts to the truth of his story and realise that history has been replete with mystical voices who have called us to a better way. Even more exciting, we can see the life of Jesus as an invitation to engage with our own Mystical journey and to connect with the Divine Reality that lies within the heart of each of us.

The ideals of compassion, mercy, love, justice, tolerance, sacrifice and courage (among others) are all present within the story of Jesus. But so too are they present within the lives of Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius and thousands of other people throughout the ages. When we attempt to impose our reality on others, we inevitably destroy these very virtues, because when we believe ourselves right, and all others as wrong, we stop listening and deny empathy to the “other”; we become incapable of expressing the values we claim our God represents to any but our own.

Rather than working to prove our God’s “Truth” above all others, we should be working to connect with those who share our values and who share our vision of a better world irrespective of how their culture might happen to have packaged those truths.

I firmly believe that people of good will can find a win-win solution to the ills of our world and create a future of peace and harmony. But nothing sabotages good will and creates evil so quickly as the belief that everyone must conform to our view of reality and that people are evil and beholden to Darkness, simply because they believe differently.

The struggle between Light and Dark occurs both within and across cultures.

It is only by letting go of our own rigidity and by empathetically embracing the Divinity of others that we will ever be able to achieve the peace and prosperity that the people of our planet so rightly deserve.

PS: Happy Easter!

Character and Personality, Happiness, Mysticism

Who Are You, Without Using Labels?

1 Comment

People love to label themselves. At school, you are geek, jock, cool, nerd, in, or out. At work, you are what you do, psychologist, mechanic, cleaner, office worker, tinker, tailor, soldier, spy, or even just unemployed. In religion, you are theist (Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Mormon, or whatever), atheist or agnostic. Politically, people are liberal, conservative, left, or right, socialist, or fascist.

 

Labels
Do “You” Exist Without Your Labels? 

 

It is easy to understand why people need their labels. Humans are social animals and naturally gravitate towards our particular tribe. Labels conveniently and unthinkingly assign us to a tribe and allow us to easily identify other members of the tribe. This in turn allows us to more easily find people who we are likely to get along with. Potentially, they help us identify friend from foe.

For most people, labels tell us where we belong and they provide an explanation about where we fit in the world. In doing so they can help give us a sense of shared meaning and purpose. They provide us with a sense of certainty that we can’t provide ourselves, mostly because we have no real understanding of who we really are.

 

Labels Can Be Useful, To a Point.

In a broad sense labels do make some sense. If I’m looking for someone to fix my car, it is great to meet someone with the label “Mechanic”.

When I say that I am a Mystic, I am identifying myself with a particular spiritual tradition in which practitioners experience transcendent states of Divine connection. But labels also confuse, because people seem to think that mystics necessarily believe in a whole bunch of other things that I regard as utter nonsense within our slice of the Infiniverse.

Examples include things such as crystal healing, telepathy, psychics, astrology and conspiracy theories. In fact, I’ve had a fair few people respond with unbridled hostility when they found that their assumptions weren’t borne out in reality, with one going so far as to angrily insist that I “wasn’t a real mystic” because I don’t believe that ESP exists in our universe.

Labels are an external imposition on the self that we use as a scaffold to fix our identity firmly in place. Ask someone about themselves and they invariably provide a list of labels that they identify with, rather than behaviours that make them unique. Indeed, in much of the world, social convention demands that we ask people, “What do you do?”, when in fact we want to know, “Who are you?”

Lacking any coherent self-image, people will strongly resist any urging to discard the scaffolding. They fear that without it, their sense of self is bound to collapse. Challenge their labels they feel that you have challenged the self and can lash out with considerable hostility.

 

Labels as Inconvenient Stereotypes.

Labels are nothing but stereotypes and when it comes to the deeper spiritual journey are useless and disruptive. For example, what does it mean to be Christian, vs Muslim? What purpose do these labels serve, but to reinforce the distinctions between two warring camps of dogmatic ideology? Each claims to worship a god of love, peace, justice and mercy, but each can barely restrain itself from attacking the other and each is adamantly certain that everyone else is going to spend eternity in Hell.

Rather than realising that all people of goodwill can find a way to work together, people would rather look at the label and simply assume. Whereas even the most simple understanding of the world should teach us that good and bad exists throughout the world, by only looking at the label we resort to the fundamental stupidity of “My Tribe Good. Other Tribe Bad”.

The main problem with labels and the reason why they are so destructive to your own personal journey as a spiritual being is that labels are something external to you and while you are defining yourself by an external label, you have abdicated your responsibility to define yourself. When you abdicate this responsibility, destroy any possibility that you will ever discover who you are and where your true path lies. Instead, you are placing your destiny in the hands of others and allowing yourself to be led like a sheep to whichever slaughterhouse that label happens to take you.

 

Defining Yourself Without Labels.

Who are you once the labels don’t exist? Do you even exist without your labels? Of course you do!

Far better that instead of labels, you define yourself around your aspirations about who you would like to be and the content of your actual behaviour.

The starting point for this exercise is not who you are in the here and now, but who your idealised self would be. If someone were to offer you a personality make over, to allow you to create the ideal you in an instant, who would you choose to be?

It is important that you understand that when I ask “Who would you choose to be?”, I am don’t intend for you to look externally and find another person, or storybook character that you aspire to be. Rather, I mean for you to look inside you and try to understand what your perfected self might look like. While real life and fictional heroes can certainly play a role in helping you realise the qualities that you can aspire to, they inevitably lack the complexity, nuances and subtlety that living the real you entails.

Once we have identified our Idealised Self, we have to take a step back and to brutally and honestly examine our current self to the view of recognising exactly who we are.

For example, if I reject labels and look at myself, I recognise that I aspire to be one of one of the Happy Ones and become an avatar for the Divine aspect of Joy. I have dedicated myself to a path of Light, even though I am still figuring out precisely what that even means. Right now it means that I become more generous, more helpful and more engaged in promoting tolerance, and challenging certitude, so as to bring the world closer to a state of peace and harmony.

This idealised self is necessarily vague, but is valuable because it doesn’t rely on labels imposed from outside, but realisations and determinations that I have found within.

Once I step into myself, I can see that compared to this idealised picture, I am still a greatly flawed person. On the positive side, I am generally happy, hopeful and optimistic, even in times of hardship. I love people and I enjoy helping others. I am determined and even courageous on occasion and don’t easily give up on people.

On the negative side, I recognise that I struggle in many areas of my life. I routinely find myself discouraged by the negative reactions of others and deep depression can overwhelm me, especially when the world doesn’t seem willing to provide any path towards the realisation of my hopes and dreams. Some of my relationships seem to be caught up in toxic death spirals for which I share responsibility. Occasionally my anger and frustration can boil over into dysfunctional rage that only causes more damage.

Once we have taken stock of who we are and who we would like to be, it then becomes possible for us to move towards the people that we would like to be and do so in ways that would have been impossible without this kind of self-analysis.

In identifying our best and current selves without using labels, we have achieved something that many people fail to achieve in their entire lives. We have begun to connect with our true selves and in doing so we have started a journey that will lead us to our authentic Heaven.

Without labels we are free to pursue our authentic selves, rather than someone else’s vision for us. For example, imagine that I was a Roman Catholic and wore that label like a second skin. You’ll note that once I take away the external label of Roman Catholic, there is nothing to tie me to the dogmas of the Catholic Church, such as attending mass every Sunday. Through the process of connecting with my authentic self, I have discovered that there are no strings that necessarily tie me into someone elses ideas of who I should be.

Once you have conceptualised yourself within this framework, it becomes obvious that your ability to move towards your idealised self is hindered, rather than helped by the adoption of labels.

For example, as a prospective being of Light, whose purpose is to spread happiness and joy in the world, I can see that it is more important to find others who wish to join me in the spirit of that journey than it is to find others who share my externalised label. Indeed, if I look for others who claim this label, I might lead myself in entirely the wrong direction. For example, I know two people who insist that they are “Happy Ones”, but any conversation with them is filled with misery to the point that it is obvious that the label they wear has little bearing on the reality within.

It matters little whether someone wears the label of Christian, or Muslim. What matters more is their commitment to the path of Light, the promotion of tolerance and their dedication to the path of joy. So long as someone holds to these ideals, who cares what label they wear?

 

Honesty About the Self is Crucial.

 

Issues arise when people are committed to Darker paths of fear, intolerance, hate and anger. While this kind of exercise can potentially allow a person to gain clarity with respect to their journey and begin to move towards their better self, there are some who will actively embrace these aspects of Darkness and strive towards becoming their worst self.

Very few people have the honesty to acknowledge the Darkness within their souls and recognise that the evil in the world is potentially present within the hearts of every one of us. I suspect that even fewer are able to admit to themselves when they are on a path of Darkness. Mary Wollstonecraft famously contended that “No man chooses evil, because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.”

Instead, they will lie to themselves that they are committed to a path of Light, but justify their Darkness through other means. For these people, it makes sense to hide behind a convenient label that provides justification of their inner Darkness. How often in our world is death and destruction offered as a path towards Light? How many claim that the ends justify the means? How often do people shift the blame for their own Darkness onto the shoulders of others?

People fear uncertainty. To deliberately step away from our defining labels is to embrace fear and uncertainty and takes considerable personal courage.

With this in mind, it perhaps more likely that people will refuse to abandon their labels and insist that the path encapsulated by their label is the only sure path of Light. Indeed, most forms of dogmatic Labeling have at their heart the apparent belief that only by engaging with that Label can one truly be of the Light and that all other Labels inevitably lead to Darkness.

Sanctions against those who reject the Label can be both swift and severe. In many parts of the world, Apostasy is a capital offence, while religions such as Scientology and The Jehovah’s Witnesses shun and cast out those who would seek to gain awareness of their true self through rejection of the label.

This behaviour, while unfortunate. is a simple reflection of the fact that a significant proportion of the population are completely out of touch with their authentic selves, or incapable of admitting when their behaviours and aspirations conflict with their stated goals. It takes considerable courage to reject the label and to follow a different path to the rest of the Tribe.

 

The Joy of a Life Without Labels.

When living our lives as labels, rather than as unique aspects of the Divine Soul, we will never achieve our true potential, because we will never realise our Pure and Ultimate Self. It is only through the jettisoning of labels that we will take charge of our own lives and achieve the ability to shape our authentic destiny as we see fit.

Choose to be your Ultimate Self!

Character and Personality, Christianity, Happiness

One Surprising Secret about the Law of Attraction.

Today, I would like to talk about the New Agey idea of “The Law of Attraction” and why it is destructive to the spiritual journey and the quest towards the ultimate Happiness that arises from being in tune with the True Self.

 

“The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne

 

Briefly, the Law of Attraction states that thoughts produce results and that like thoughts will produce like results. Negative thoughts will produce negative outcomes in the world, while positive thoughts will produce positive outcomes. The idea is based on the pseudo-scientific nonsense that everything “vibrates” at a particular wavelength and that vibrations of a similar wavelength will attract each other. By this logic, certain ideas occur at certain vibrations and these then attract the events at a similar level of vibration.

At a deeper level, it is believed that one can tailor one’s own thoughts to achieve a particular outcome, so that if you want find your Soul Mate, all you have to do is tell the universe, and put out that “intention” and that person will magically appear. If they don’t, clearly you were doing something wrong. Perhaps you were sending “mixed intentions”, or perhaps you didn’t really want a Soul Mate after all!

Adherents to this philosophy will often talk about “putting it out there”, as a way of saying that they told the universe that they wanted a particular outcome. In my own experience, when the outcome happens, they’ll talk incessantly about it, thereby earning Spiritual Awareness Brownie Points (SABP) from their peers, but when it doesn’t they won’t say a word, because it would mean that there was something wrong with their intentions and this would rob them of SABP while damaging their egos and social standing.

While the idea is itself over 100 years old, the most recent push for it came within a book called “The Secret”, in which the main idea was that if you wish for something enough, it will somehow manifest in the real world. Because of this, the Law of Attraction is also referred to by many as “The Secret”. An excerpt from The Secret official webpage tells us that

“Money is magnetic energy. You are a magnet attracting to you all things, via the signal you are emitting through your thoughts and feelings. Discover how to become a powerful magnet for the creation of personal wealth”

Those familiar with certain types of protestant Christianity will recognise a similarity between these ideas and the so-called “Prosperity Gospel” so much beloved of Evangelical con men everywhere. Prosperity Gospel has it that despite all evidence to the contrary God really wants us all to be really, really rich. Interestingly enough, the first step on the road to your wealth is to donate money to whatever Evangelist you happening to be listening to at the time.

With the “Law of Attraction”, the first step is to buy the author’s books, DVDs, and whatever else they feel will help you on your journey towards making them filthy rich.

 

Why people love the Law of Attraction.

What both of these deceptions have in common is their appeal to two basic human emotions: Greed and laziness.

Everyone wants to be rich. Everyone wants to be able to live lives of financial security, family bliss and career satisfaction. And far too many people want these things to be handed to them on a silver platter. Financial planning for a significant percentage of the population seems to rely on winning the lottery, rather than investing energy into achieving their goals.

So, when someone comes along and says that we can simply become a “magnet” for money by thinking the right thoughts, the response of many people is to jump on the bandwagon and to embrace the silliness wholeheartedly. So much so, that there are a staggering 21 Million copies of this book in print and it has been translated into 44 languages. It seems that the real secret to wealth is to dangle it in front of others.

The Law of Attraction is nonsensical on a multitude of levels.

At its essence, it is saying that if you wish for something hard enough, you’ll get what you want. It’s the Genie and the Lamp story without the genie, or the lamp.

If someone handed you a lamp and asked you to rub it, so that a genie would emerge and grant you three wishes, most would think them quite mad. But take away the lamp, add some pseudo-scientific nonsense about “vibrations” and suddenly people are rubbing like mad.

 

Conflicting Intentions. What Law governs the “Law”?

But what of these “vibrations”? What does it even mean to say that thoughts have vibrations? How are they measured? How does one vibration attract another? How is it that one piece of paper (money) has a different vibration to another piece of paper (a phone bill). How is it that electronic money has the same vibration as paper money? How is it that “wealth” vibrates at all? Which scientific journal can I go to have these questions answered?

What happens when intentions collide? Lets say I meet an absolutely adorable girl, who I am just crazy about. I put out my intention to have her as my girlfriend. But she finds me somewhat less sexy than Godzilla, so she’d rather cover herself in honey and dance on an ant’s nest than have anything to do with me.

Both our intentions are clear. We are both “putting it out” into the universe, but only one of us is going to get what we want Probably her: Honey and ants are so easy to find…

But what happens if she just wants a boyfriend and I really, really want her. Does that mean that my certain intention wins against her vague one? Does the universe put our opposing intentions on a scale and award the prize to the most intense winner? Does success come to the biggest couch potato, basement dwelling fanatics?

Of course not. Indeed it is amazing that anyone past the age of believing in Santa should continue to believe that simply wishing hard enough for something will make it come true.

Magnify this conundrum by 7.whatever billion people on the planet, each with their own conflicting desires, intentions and ambitions and it should be fairly easy to see just how silly the whole idea really is.

The “Real Secret”!!

Think of anyone who has achieved success in their life and you’ll immediately realise the major lie inherent in the Law of Attraction.

Ask these people what they regard as “THE SECRET” to their own success and they’ll happily tell you: Persistent hard work that adds value. And a few other things, like having fun while doing it.

Success requires what is called “Sweat Equity”, in the form of focussed, active effort that produces results over and above your financial input. It involves challenging yourself and overcoming your fears, doubts and inhibitions.

Very few people achieve anything in life without putting in the hard work to get what they want, whether it be money, soul mate, happiness, friendship, career, education or family. Sure, there are many people who inherit good fortune, but even then, their subsequent relative success depends largely on how well they are prepared to work towards their goals.

Because what are these things, if not the result of some sort of hard work, by somebody? Money doesn’t exist on its own. Rather, it is a store of value and that value has been created somewhere by somebody. In a primitive society, I’d use my labour to raise a goat, which would be tasty and therefore have some value. I’d then barter it with someone else, in order to obtain something that I might have needed (fruit perhaps from a fellow farmer’s orchards). Each time I put effort into raising goats, I multiply my wealth. Each time my fellow farmer tends a tree he magnifies his. When we trade, we both benefit, magnifying our combined wealth.

Money is simply an abstraction that streamlines the bartering process. By itself it has no value. You can’t eat it, live in it, or (Rule 34 aside) have sex with it, but because we all agree that it is an abstract representation of wealth it attains recognised value.

You can’t simply produce value and wealth out of thin air. Wealth is produced when people create things. Houses, cars and plasma TVs don’t build themselves, but require that someone puts in the hard work to build them. If you want them, you should similarly expect to put in the hard work to produce something that someone else also wants.

Obviously, in cases of charity, or hardship benefits provided by Governments, there is a recognition that not all people are capable of producing wealth in this fashion and that they should not be adversely penalised for it. But generally speaking, intentional failure to do so as a way of life is regarded as “Free Riding” on the efforts of others.

Even if “The Secret” was true and people could magnetically attract money into your life through thinking about it, unless they are producing something of equivalent in your life in exchange, it is hard to see how this is any different from stealing: Like any thief, you are taking other people’s hard earned wealth while providing nothing in exchange.

The example of money extends to every other thing of value that people might wish to “attract” into their lives. If you want to find your soul mate, you need to put in the hard work of finding them and the even harder work of maintaining the relationship over the course of a lifetime. If you want a good education and you need to put in years of dedicated study to achieve academic mastery. Want to play the violin and you need to practice on it every day for years to achieve proficiency.

 

There are no shortcuts!

For most of us, there is precisely no situation in which failing to work towards a desired outcome will produce that outcome. Sure, you might inherit money, or win the lottery, but wealth gained in this way is easily frittered away and lost. In fact lottery winners are more likely to become bankrupt than other people.

Because it hasn’t been worked for, windfalls have no intrinsic value, which is probably why so many people who win the lottery end up just as poor, or poorer than they initially were. A similar phenomenon can be seen in child and teenage stars, who’s success relates to their parents effort, rather than their own.

 

Is That “Intention” Even Real?

If someone isn’t prepared to put in the effort required to achieve their desires, I’d really have to question whether they really are “desires” (as opposed to ephemeral wishes) in the first place. For example if we reject a suitable job because it requires us to get up an hour earlier, or get home late (thereby missing our favourite TV show – and yes, I have seen this happen), how much did we want the job? If a suitable partner appears but we reject them because they live a few more miles away than we hoped, or they not quite what we expected, how much do we really desire that soul mate?

If we can’t put in the required energy to work with what the universe has already given us, why on earth would we think that we can put in the required energy to magically manifest it in our own lives?

 

Secondary Benefits of the “Real Secret”.

While we work towards achieving something we are developing a range of skills and significantly boosting our willpower, self-control and resilience. In working towards something we also learn much more about ourselves than we might otherwise have done. Hard work teaches us our strengths and weaknesses. It stretches us and allows us to grow as people, in ways that we could never have imagined.

There is a common saying, “If you want something done, give it to a busy person”. Why? Because busy people are not only active at working towards their own success, but are far more likely to be skilled in managing the tasks that they need to do in order to succeed.

The converse also applies. By failing to work towards our desires and by simply “putting it out there”, we are encouraging stagnation and sowing the seeds of our own doom when our failures inevitably catch up with us.

Often if we are failing to work towards our goals, it is simply because we have no idea of how to achieve them. In these situations, something like the Law of Attraction allows us to invest hope in something (much like people who habitually by lotto tickets they can’t afford), but will inevitably lead to depression because we will be unable to deny to ourselves that we have no real hope of achieving our aspirations, or ambitions.

 

Moral Bankruptcy and The Law of Attraction.

 

My final objection to the entire philosophy entailed by “The Secret” is that it is morally offensive. I’ve already discussed how, even if real, there really isn’t any functional difference between applying “The Secret” and free-loading off the efforts of others.
But as I write this post, many parts of the world are in chaos. Just last week a Jordanian pilot was burnt to death. Over the last several years, hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed in the Syrian civil war. In the 1940s six million Jews were murdered by Germany’s Nazi regime, more than the entire population of my home state of Victoria, Australia. Mao’s Great Leap Forward killed up to 45 Million, more than four times the population of New York City.

On a daily basis, thousands of people in our cities are being assaulted, raped, murdered and victimised. Many people I have spoken to over the years have described horrific treatment, often at the hands of those whom they loved.

If it isn’t our own inhumanity to each other, nature too causes its own share of misery. Ten years ago, over a quarter of a million people lost their lives during an earthquake and subsequent tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Five years ago, 160,000 people lost their lives during the Haiti earthquake. In the fourteenth century, the Black Death is estimated to have killed between 30-60% of Europe’s population, accounting for a staggering death toll of between 70-200 million people.

According to the “Law of Attraction” all of these people “attracted” this death and destruction to themselves. Despite what they might have said while being lead to the gas chambers, or fleeing death and destruction, the supposed Secret invites us to say that each of these people truly got what they thought they deserved. They truly got what they wanted.

Taken to its natural conclusion, “The Secret” becomes the ultimate tool of victim blaming. It teaches us that we are the sole agents for our own fortune and misfortune, conveniently neglecting the real truth that evil (for want of a better word) people exist and that the random forces of nature can easily overwhelm our defences. It is an abhorrent philosophy.

As someone who has been responsible for more evil in the world than he would like, I find it disgusting that those who I have treated badly,or abused should be asked to take the blame, rather than the real instigator: Me.

 

In Conclusion.

As a can be seen, the “Law of Attraction”, also known as “The Secret” is silliness on multiple levels. Not only does it encourage us to free load off the efforts of others, but taken to its logical conclusion it inevitably leads to abhorrent victim blaming and the mind-boggling conclusion that, despite all evidence to the contrary, people actively want evil things to happen to them.

In reality, the only “SECRET” is focused, productive, hard work. Only hard work will get you where you want to be and only hard work will allow you to achieve your life’s goals. Nothing of value was ever achieved without effort and it is this realisation that will allow you to grow as a person, to progress on your spiritual journey and to become the being that you would truly like to become, whoever that might be.

 

TLDR:

The one surprising secret about the “Law of Attraction”? That it is complete bollocks and that if you really want something, you need to exert some effort to work towards it.

Although that probably wasn’t too big a surprise now was it? 🙂

Character and Personality, Christianity, Happiness

Apologising: The Forgotten Virtue.

When it comes to moral virtues, there is much talk about Forgiveness, but while forgiveness is a crucial aspect of getting along with others, it does not stand in isolation.

The other, much overlooked but essential aspect of forgiveness is that of Apology.

For example, the New Testament of the Bible, talks much about forgiveness, both with respect to forgiveness of sins and forgiving others. Jesus is famously thought to have the power to forgive the sins of his followers, but nowhere does one see him actually apologise for any of his own bad behaviour. These include lying (John 7:8-10), cursing a and withering perfectly good fig tree before trashing the Temple market stalls (Mark 11:12-21) and being involved in potentially deadly violence against the local constabulary (John 18:10).

Similarly, a search of books in print reveals many written on the topic of forgiveness, but few written about the virtues of sincere apology.

Ironically many of the books about apology, are rather about “apologetics”, which is the Christian field of study devoted to rationalising some of the gobsmacking errors and confusions in the Bible, including the transgressions of Jesus mentioned above.

This is a significant discrepancy. While forgiveness is hard, I think that the lack of appreciation for and discussion about apology shows just how difficult it is for people to apologise. It is so confronting that they’d rather not even talk about it.

The truth is that in many cases, forgiveness simply isn’t possible without an apology. Certainly, there is some considerable virtue in being able to forgive those who have hurt you, even when an apology has not been forthcoming. In these situations, forgiveness is less about the other person, and more about letting go of the impulse towards revenge and retribution. It is a recognition that one must move on from past transgressions against us, lest we become mired in dysfunctional, unresolvable emotions that will only destroy our lives.

Even with this in mind, an apology, when genuine reflects not only an inner awareness that a transgression has occurred, but also a commitment that the behaviour will not be repeated. A sincere apology is essential for the building of trust, because without any recognition of harm caused, it is almost certain that the behaviour will continue and the harms will inevitably magnify.

In practice, making an apology is fraught with danger and can take considerable courage.

When we apologise to people, we are admitting that we have not only made a mistake, but that our mistake has hurt people that we care about. To apologise is to let go of one’s pride and to drop the facade that we are perfect. Our own egos rebel at the very prospect, because our egos would rather justify all of our behaviour under all circumstances than face the reality that we are flawed, imperfect beings, who are struggling in a reality that we barely understand.

Apologising is fraught with danger in a way that forgiveness is not. In apologising, we are opening ourselves to the rejection of others. We are inviting not only their condemnation, but the very real possibility that they will seek to capitalise on our apology and extract concessions, or favours rather than offer the simple forgiveness that we might have hoped for.

Forgiving someone does not necessarily involve letting down one’s guard against future transgressions. For example, a wife may forgive her former partner for domestic abuse, but this forgiveness does not necessarily entail her resuming any form of relationship with that person. She is well within her rights to offer forgiveness, while acknowledging that trust has been irrevocably broken and that she doesn’t wish to have anything to do with that person any longer. Indeed, the genuineness of the initial apology will be shown by how accepting the abuser is of being offered forgiveness, but no resumption of former relationships.

The ability to apologise goes to the heart of your character. Who do you wish to be? Do you have the courage to behave in an adult way, or will you insist on continuing with childish behaviour that denies your own culpability while inevitably blaming others for your own behaviour.

Because the person who is incapable of offering apologies must necessarily find someone else to blame for the issues that they have caused. Inevitably this will revolve around shifting blame from one’s self to some external source.

Such a person will create toxic relationships because if they can’t blame their situation, society, or equipment, they will inevitably blame those against whom they have transgressed. There isn’t a whole amount of difference between the rapist who says that the woman was “asking for it” and the person who routinely says that someone else’s behaviour “made them so angry” that they lashed out.

In both cases, the true blame lies not only with the inability of the person to firstly control their negative impulses, but also to recognise that they and no one else is the only person responsible for their behaviour.

The only thing that we truly have control over is ourselves. In truth, the person who routinely shifts blame from themselves and who is incapable of apologising is one who has not only refused to exert control over the one thing that they can, but has simultaneously decided to try an exert undue and unfair control over things they can’t.

Such a strategy is doomed to fail and in failing, it is guaranteed to cause considerable damage to the person’s relationships.

 

Now I want to talk to you, the reader, personally…

 

In truth, none of us are perfect and we all make a mess of things on a routine basis. It is incumbent on us all to recognise when we are making such mistakes and to offer the necessary apologies.

If we lack the personal insight, or courage to recognise and admit when we are wrong, it will be impossible for us to ever live in a world dominated by forgiveness. We will forever be stuck in a world without love and without trust.

How can I continually forgive you, when your ego will never allow you to acknowledge the harms you have done? How can I extend trust, when I know that you will simply spit on me (literally) again.

Sure, I might not accept your apology, but that is my problem, not yours. Your apology is about who you decide to be and the person that you wish to be. Coward, or courageous?

I want everyone who reads this to make an apology that they know they should make, but have been too proud, or too scared to follow-up on.

Today!!

If you honestly think that you have nothing to apologise for and nobody to apologise to, then you are almost certainly the exact sort of person that I am talking about.

Christianity

The Disconcerting Worldview of William Lane Craig

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I’ve just started reading William Lane Craig’s “Reasonable Faith”, which is a university level textbook on Christian Apologetics. This is the guy that Richard Dawkins has famously refused to debate and who is widely regarded by many Christians as one of the worlds leading Christian philosophers and apologists. What he says carries significant influence.

Reasonable Faith @ the Book Depository

Even before I got into the meat of the book, it felt like I’d stepped into a surreal parallel universe. For example, in the introduction, he writes:

“It is my earnest hope that God will use this material to help equip a new generation of intelligent, articulate Christians, who are filled with the Spirit and burdened to see the Great Commission fulfilled.”

My immediate thought was to wonder whether God orders his books through Amazon, or Book Depository. But of course, this is representative of a world view, where by definition, God is on Craig’s side and anyone who disagrees is acting on behalf of Satan. Indeed only a few pages later, in the Introduction, Craig tells us that:

“Indeed, I think that getting people to believe that we live in a postmodern culture is one of the craftiest deceptions that Satan has yet devised”.

So, people have no real agency in Craig’s world. We are either servants of God, or pawns of Satan. Even when we think that we are acting out of our own free will, everything that we do is actually tied into the great battle between God and Satan.

And where does this end? Well where all organised religion ends: War.

Again from the Introduction (when talking about the need to train kids in apologetics):

“We’ve got to train our kids for war. We dare not send them out into public high school and university armed with rubber swords and plastic armor. The time for playing games is past”.

While Craig would undoubtedly claim that he is only talking about war in a metaphorical way, his worldview is certainly seems little different from that of any Islamist, or other person who views his own views as divinely inspired, while holding all others as the work of the Devil.

Of course, everyone knows that war and violence are justified when you are combatting Satanically inspired evil. Just ask George W Bush.

I find this sort of worldview abhorrent in the extreme. By aligning one’s own views with the will of God and those who disagree with Satan, you are guaranteeing that you’ll never critically examine your own ideas, even when they do inevitably slide into serving Darkness instead of Light. Not only will you lie to yourself, but to others as well.

There has to be a better way! I’m sick and tired of this “us vs them” mentality. It is high time that we dropped all of this pointless dogma, and started working together for a better result for us all. Light and Darkness exist in every culture, in every time and place. It is up to us to search for those who embody Light and to work with them towards a better world.

I firmly believe that people of goodwill can work together and find win-win solutions, irrespective of their cultural and religious differences. The key is that we need to be able to give up our need for certainty and our need to be right. Rather than having resolute faith in our own position, we need to take a step back and admit that we could be wrong, because without an acknowledgement that we could be wrong, we’ll never learn anything new and will continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

We need to be able to empathise with the viewpoints of others, even as we disagree. We need to be able to listen to the criticisms of others without getting offended and without pulling a gun.

We can work together if only our egos will let us.