388.

Principles

Health

On getting to sleep  

Spoke to my ex on sleeping and falling asleep which is not always easy today because the  mind doesn't stop.  I'm not naturally a good sleeper but lately I'm doing okay.  M mentioned even old episodes of law and order are effective when kept on softly.  They somewhat go on and on and fill some need for safety so the mind can let go.

I haven't been watching TV lately, or very rarely.  On principle I don't want what years I have left filled with their agenda, and contrite plots, or almost anything they have to say or do.  Plus it is programmed to make us all feel inadequate.  Actors making obscene amounts of money performing in meaningless episodes that cater to cliché after cliché.  Also, because they are able to afford what they want, and take care of themselves and work out and train, their narcissism  reeks through whatever roles they play.  In other words, look at me, I am beautiful, rich, ripped  and can even be sensitive on cue.   Who needs that after  facing all the day to day difficulties? 

But there is an irony here.  I found that when TV was out of my life, I could spend more time with real people and was more patient.  As time went on dramas would increase and I thought I was doing mitzvahs by listening, which is true.  However, the plots thicken and become involved and one is drawn into others lifes and your own life starts to lose some focus.  People are really tested these days and can become vulnerable very quickly.  All it takes is for one or two things to go wrong. But they are real people leading real lifes, not scripted at some film graduate school designed to sell cars.    However, there is a drawback to this reality. You can't just turn it off or change the channel.  If you become too entwined you can get in trouble.  M and I talked about this and we both agreed the TV might be safer.

So TV can be acceptable but is not the 'highest solution.'  A soft voice on the radio can do the trick.  Sometimes on good classical stations the hosts have these melodic voices.  Although a good classical radio station is  hard to find.  Classical music is okay, but depends on lows and highs and emotions and relief and that is not exactly calming.  Opera the same.  Sometimes background movie music is skillful and surprisingly flowing but still can kick up the pace just when you are fading off.  It's movie dependent which means you're falling asleep to a plot. 

New age music was effective for a while but then I felt manipulation.   I was being preached to with musical notes.  Steve Halpern, a Phd in this genre, produced music that calmed the nerves a few times but eventually interfered with my natural rhythms.   Laraaji, playing his string instrument, also intrigued, but his stream of consciousness music was a bit too self indulgent and my brain rebelled.  How about ocean sounds?  Haven't tried them.  My fan when loud is effective but it doesn’t quite coax enough.  Some variation and subtlety is needed.  Is there an Orthodox Jewish solution to this?   
Is there such a thing as birds chirping the Hebrew alphabet?  Forgive me for that.

Lately however I do have a solution.  East Indian sitar music from the Pandora 'app' I have kept on all day at various volumes.  It seems to keep life going, has some grit to it as it moves from one place to another in a spontaneous but controlled way.  You can trust the current.  No unseen waterfall is ahead.  There is enough discipline and craft to keep it in check and trustworthy.  The emotions aren't played  upon nor is it preachy.  It is rough and smooth, and tires you out a little, enough to send you off in another direction, towards sleep.  And, as said, it is good background music for the day.  So, for a time, this is filling a certain gap.

On the grand scale of important issues, this appears to not be on the higher end, but attention to details can make the 'whole' work.

387.  Past

Who is this for?

Searchers   

I write to pure searching souls.  Not necessarily pure people, but people pure in their need to search for answers.  We have to fight for our spirits.  I write to bolster them, as well as myself, in this fight for our spirits.

386.  Past

Reason

Qualifications  

I have managed to remain detached all these years.  My religious affiliations, my work, have nothing to do with my observations and conclusions. Therefore personal gain or security is not a motivation.  Only finding out what makes sense is.

385. Past

Religion
(There are many Christian readers on all levels of belief reading this website.  The following is not meant to offend. It raises three issues.  The first is the realization to cut through go betweens and go to the above directly.  The second two examples are personal accounts that clarified the question for me on whether Christ existed or not .  The third is an interesting viewpoint of what might have happened around that time that he supposedly existed.  It is an different take and stands outside the norm as far as present scholarship is concerned.  There is no intent to offend.  Your belief, or not, is strengthened by intelligent insight and questioning from all angles.  It is my belief it is okay in the 'aboves' eyes to scrutinize and surgically remove what is extraneous  and mythical in order to get closer to the essence itself.  That's what this is about, getting to the above, and not fearing where that yearning leads us.)

I say go directly

I say go directly to God.  That's how the western religions got started before they were religions. One man went directly to God.  At various times in my life when up at 3 am, I didn't want go betweens.  Onetime I insisted to God “either you are or you aren't.  If you are, no intermediaries please.  Otherwise you can go to he.l.”  I was blunt but it seemed to work as clarity followed.

I recall meeting a nice looking couple in their sixties, the husband was Catholic, the wife Jewish.  She said he goes to God through Christ, and I go directly to God and save a stop.  Here was confirmation.

I also had heard of an African tribe in Uganda  converted by missionaries to Catholicism.  At one point an elder insisted they dispense with the 'New Testament' claiming the Torah and following its laws were enough.  They became orthodox out of nowhere.  Jews from all over heard about them and were impressed.  I am not presenting an argument for Judaism, but rather one for authenticity, getting at the roots of things.

The Jews were never called 'Jews' or 'Hebrews' originally.  From oral tradition one man had spoken to God directly, one on one, and his offspring, tribe, friends saw and respected this and  preserved memories of its happening.  We all wish to do this with our parents, preserve what is special.  Eventually people gave these 'respecters' a name, Hebrews or Jews.  Today, we all have to relate to the maker as Abraham (or whoever it was) did, one on one, with no go betweens.

The Christian church has become Christology, the worship of anything to do with Christ.  Given one believes he existed, his role expanded from being a messenger to the message.  Digging deeper his existence itself is suspect.

At the time the Roman Empire squashed all rebellions to their authority.  They would be tolerant if the culture accepted and worshiped the Caesar  alongside their own God or Gods and insisted they bow to his statue in  places of worship as another deity.  The Jews refused to go along and rebelled against the Romans. The emperor at the time Vespasian,  wanted to squash this rebellion .  He sent his son Titus, or the 'son' of God, to squelch the rebellion which he did mercilessly.

There are numerous reasons to suspect Jesus Christ never existed.  According to one source, this 'son of God's' life, Titus, paralleled the life of Jesus as if they were one and the same.  The Romans carefully constructed an adaptation of Judaism, indeed, even seemingly with the high moral ground of submissiveness.  They wrote the gospels years later stressing giving little resistance to authority, that their kingdom is in another world and so rebellion is fruitless in this world.  They should turn the other cheek if they experience oppression.  The Jews wanted a Messiah in the here and now to deliver them from Roman bondage.  The Romans gave them a politically correct passive resistance philosophy which served only their needs.

Finally it can be added no real artifacts exist giving evidence that Jesus existed.  They have all been found to be forged.  The Jewish historian Josephus was adopted as almost a family member by Titus and his one mention of Christ in a different tone seems inserted after the initial writing, often done in those days.  Tampering and changing scriptures was commonplace.

Again, the implications here is that over 2,000 years of Christianity might be fraudulent.  I can't verify all this information or lack of on the 'myth' of the Jesus Christ, but my innate truth detector tells me there is some substance here.

That is why in this time one must go to God directly.  History and what you've been taught can't be trusted.  You might find the maker to be close to you or distant, but whatever you find out or wherever you stand will be authentic.  It's the best you can do, where you are at, and not someone else's agenda.

     

384.  Past

Reason

Reaching out

I am reaching out because I am alone.  I’m not in a classroom or another situation where people listen to my inner thoughts.  So I am forced to reach out.

383.

Principles

Understanding

After giving it all 

Years ago my friend Steve said, “Now you have to use everything you know.”  That stuck with me.  It was the final effort.  For years, then, I worked on the final effort.  Then it came to an end.  I had nothing left to give to it. 

After some time and space pressure was eased.  Tentative exploration  had to replace sheer determination.  Gaps could not be filled with just anything.  Care and consideration sifted what was allowed in.

Certain  hints were given and new understanding was seeping in.  It seemed to bring everything together.  I had to be patient, though, and let it evolve into being so I could be reasonably sure it was meant to be. It had to withstand all my doubts and have enough merit and truth within it to justify the focus it would demand. I am willing, what else is there?  But I am also cautious as experience has made me so.

It is also possible what lies is the future is more mundane, simple, pragmatic.  Day to day life without bells and whistles might be more like it.  There is peace and freedom in this too.

For now there is some pushing forward but not too forcibly as I await to see what unfolds.

382. Past

Needed rest

381.  Past

The question

And again the question
“Is life one big school,
full of lessons,”
or is it closer to
what “happens happens?”

380.  Past


Theology


Karma, indifference

There is the New Age principle of karma which in a sense measures the good and bad you've done and with the bad (karma) hopefully getting worked out and eventually disappearing. This, in different words, exists in traditional religions where it is said in Deuteronomy 'we die for our sins.'    In other words, we pay for our ways.  Karma implies that we have more incarnations to work this out, and that it is a subtle process requiring time, more than one lifetime.

Then there is the view that the universe is indifferent, that in the scheme of things our actions affect only us.  You are an island unto yourself and have to make your own rules.

A thinking mind at one point or another has considered both perspectives.

379.  Past


Principles


Living and life

Apology for hurting others

In life we eventually feel the weight of what has hurt us.  We don't really become callous or immune to these hurts.  They stay with us and we are sensitive to them.  We are not as tough as we thought.  We are rather fragile.

I saw a documentary about a son and his father (in his 80”s) who went on a trip in an RV.    According to the son, it was their last chance to do something like this and bond.  The father at one point apologized on camera to all the people he has hurt in his past.  Interesting.  This was his key contribution.

This is hard to keep in mind and hard to do.  One perspective on how to live is to work our way through life gracefully without hurting others.  As we age, we also see all other peoples' perspectives, understand where they are coming from and how blind they might have been to their own actions.  We also see the same thing inside ourselves.  So it saddens us to do harm to people while having an understanding of their dilemma.

One also realizes our differences are not as great as they seem.  We are all in this together, facing this existence partially alone while trying to make sense of it.