Once upon a time there was a little grey witty mouse. Since he didn't like his nest, he went out. After he had left his circle and had to face the necessary dangers, one day it met a cat. I mean, by cat, CAT. Only the mouse didn't see it, it only saw the beauty of the cat. She had deep black shiny fur, was young and had intense green large eyes looking captious into the world. On one of their nightly quests, they met. Though the mouse was skin and bones, the cat thought mmm, what a tasty bite, that mouse. Her hypnotic eyes sucked him into her life, as it were. And what never should have happened happened anyway, the mouse was very much attracted to the big black cat. But the cat only wanted to play and only her own game. After a while the game became less and less fun. The mouse retreated to his hole, which he had recently found and did not want to go out. The cat unfortunately managed to find his little cave and occasionally she lay down in front of his hole and looked inside with her big green luminous eyes, untill the point that the little mouse, overcome by desire carefully crawled out to greet her. Never, never a good idea. Eventually, after the game became wilder and meaner, the fierce cat left the mouse for dead in the entrance to his hole.
The mouse was found, looked after and recovered. He moved into the wide world again, seeking happiness. Never a good idea. Life certainly didn't get easier, but the mouse is still alive, much and much longer than expected.
For each problem there is a solution, but often the solution is a different one than you were looking, but is it still a solution then? Problems lead to questions, leading to answers through exploration. Answers that lead to new questions and often raise new problems.
Growing up and learning to stand on your own two feet, Carl Jung called this the process of individuation, is something we only start to begin out of necessity, according to him. It is the game of questions and answers, that must be played to infinity. Sometimes it might seem like a better idea to stay safe inside and leave the world around you to the world outside.
It is a clear, but moonless, quiet night while skipper Briny, from the bridge and with his binoculars stares up into the deep dark blue aether above him. As he often does,and thinks, "Let's see if I can see God." Immediately he realizes the foolishness of this thought.
Still, there's an old saying that unfortunately I haven't been able to place or date, that I encountered in a book by Aniela Jaffé about the work of Carl Gustaf Jung that reads: The first drink of the cup of knowledge separates man from God, but at the bottom God waits for whoever seeks him. In this case, a search that has been going on my entire life. Moreover, as far as I am concerned, the search for God coincides with the eternal and recurring search for the ultimate truth, with which it has not been said beforehand that those two are the same. In my penultimate blog pollinationI explored the field of the unconscious as God, whereby God and the unconscious on a level unknowable to man, will turn out to be two different qualities.
Right now my thoughts are wandering towards Socrates and his last swallows from the cup of poison. It'll be that cup. During one of the apogeums of truthfulness, which my life has so far been rich, I received Plato's recently published works in a new Belgian translation. Unfortunately, all my attempts to go through this heavy work have been stranded in the translation so far, trying to stay close to the style and form of the original lyrics, resulting in an unreadable style for me. One of the texts that I did eat in those days contains that on the alleged life of Socrates, which is also supposed to be. Where have I encountered this uncertainty as to whether or not a spiritual greatness existed before? Signed by one of his students, the not entirely unknown, I hope, Plato, the question arises who is speaking in Plato's texts. Apology and Symposium. Socrates thehornet of Athens. Somewhere in the back of my mind I hear the voice of that other genius, Eric Idle, saying, "need I say more? wink, wink."
Back to that time of true love of truth, it was the beginning of the 1980s, that my interest in Socrates and his method of calling fellow citizens in Athens on a, at least intellectual, sly way of reasoning, down from their self-chosen pedestal, which ignited a certain thirst for knowledge and philosophy in me. At night I wandered through the great quiet dark, lonely city, along the great river that cut her through and had my countless exchanges of thoughts with God. For a young boy, who had been meticulously and incessantly raised by his parents in the atheistic mindset of the modern heathen, this was an awesome, numinous step.
Unfortunately, 45 years after have passed, I still don't know who or what God is, if there is anything that can carry that name. In spite of all the people I have known personally, who, like the many texts about this enigma who deny that there is such a thing as a God, and despite all the unrelenting attempts on my part in the same direction, I still have a firm faith in God, or at least his presence. Whether it's Tao, some doctrine of salvation or the moments that Jung cites this discussion in one of his many essays, it continues to fascinate me excessively. However, it is much more than an intellectual exercise, it is my deepest and most inner, indestructible drive, which in turn drags me through this life, pushes me, pulls me, kicks me, cherishes me sometimes and then takes care of my wounds. I have no idea why this is so and whether there are many or few fellow sufferers around in these days of what is sometimes called "the Almigthy information highway." is mentioned.
While as a young man I had my incessant friendly dialectical dialogues with God for days and nights, so I have now had a period, which has lasted far too long, in which I argued with God and debated with him and verbally fought with him as if I was Job myself, without possessing Jobs pure and chaste nature. Although I, too, daily surrender to a constant and ceaseless stream of criticism on the way my neighbors and fellow citizens try to waste their time. Often I heard around me well-ment warnings and advices, that I would never win my battle with God, all alone against the entire universe and creation. What seemed to be an open door to myself as well. Unfortunately an open door that I like to slam in a high frequency on a daily basis.
After this lonely and unseen hell ride I now have the feeling or the idea that I have fallen into calmer waters in this respect. One should still, in no way, put any strobe in my way, but with due regard to the personal conditions, limits and possibilities, which I have fortunately discovered, there are times when I now and then discover a pale glimmer at the end of this dark and yet oppressive tunnel to which my life has become.
Standing on my balcony in the early morning, looking at the many stars with my binoculars, in this city that never sleeps and yet does not wants to do anything else, I have my moments in whichI think it must be possible to see God. Maybe I'll love Him or Her as vehemently, as I did in the first phase of my, yet seriously troubled, life. Hopefully I'll come to a redeeming insight and judgment before it's too late and I kick the bucket and, who knows, finally meet God. What can I say?
All the salvation teachings of this earth that I have come into contact with so far promise liberation from suffering, provided these doctrines are closely followed. All see as one of the most important sacrifices in the service of this liberation the containment of desire, the containment of abundance. What I have learned from this is that the latter is, in my opinion, one of the main causes of suffering.
As a man the love of women is as far as it deviates from such a different caliber, that I would like to ignore it here, you still have several choices in the Western world, to focus the love you have on different goals. Experience shows that loving multiple objects or subjects soon leads to unbridgeable tensions. On the one hand because passions often require an enormous amount of time, energy and concentration. On the other hand, because the object or object of love usually does not settle for a shared, let alone second place.
Then what are these choices? For the sake of completeness, let's start with the most superfictional like money, career and possessions to own it. However, a man can also be caught by an interest that sometimes results in passion for art, science, music or sport. This often leads to a somewhat monomanic attitude. However, a man can also be completely seized by the love of a woman or to God. This also shows that there are several possibilities. I would not like to speak directly of choices here, although ultimately it will be when the present love settles in the heart or brain of the man in question.
A man's love for a woman or man may be sexually motivated, or possess any other external reason. He may even decide to commit to that one woman in marriage forever or as long as possible. This love is one we could call worldly. On the internet I saw a definition of courteous love that described this as a characteristic. The courteous love is, in my opinion, a very different and rather a love that is best known here from the Middle Ages and then seemed to experience its heyday.
The courteous love of a man is, in my opinion, the love of a woman, I have never met man to man, or it must be the Greek eros rid of the more earthly experiences. It was the love of a knight for a often married damsel. The object of love is preferably somewhat or totally unreachable for one or more reasons. It, necessarily sometimes, renounces the sexual component of love, or at least coitus brings with it an increased, channeled and sublimated libido that eventually penetrates and or assimilates all levels at which this love takes place. Of course, this love knows many conventions, but what is most striking is its unselfishness, although I suspect there are limits to that. This love especially comes to us, ordinary mortals, in an inexhaustible amount of poetry, over many centuries. Known poets are of course William Shakespeare and Sir Philip Sydney, but honor there are too many to mention. Of course, the stories about Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet and Lancelot and Guinevere are well known. Dichten is of course the artistic expression of passion through love. See also, for example, the Song of Solomon and the Psalms of King David.
Love to God and His love usually seems to be on a very different level. It is a love that is spread worldwide, like all other forms, although many will think differently, because his or her God is the only one and cannot be shared with a people or religion with another name. On the other hand, the thought that God doesn't exist all over these days. Love to God is on the one hand the profane, that of the church or flock, and on the other hand the sacral of priests and the many other qualities of initiates. Known example of all sacrificing love to God is of course the Bible story of John the Baptist and his devotion, which is also love, to Jesus. This love is also accompanied by great sacrifices, although the sacrifice here is what it is all about and not the result of love as with, for example, courteous love. The sacrifice Jesus made is an example to which ultimate love can lead. I would like to leave it at that, but I hope to come back to this.
A group is defined as a set of two or more persons who interact because they recognise themselves or part of themselves in each other or because they pursue a common goal. Not insignificant is the idea or feeling to belong to the group and to be accepted by her. The group as a whole has an identity in its perception and in the perception of the others outside the group.
Being part of a group is seen by the group itself, but also in general as the highest good. Operating for the purpose of the common goal and going together for that purpose and making sacrifices for it is seen as forming character.
A football team might be a good example. A team is defined as the close cooperation of a whole within which the qualities of the, in this case individual players, are appreciated for what they are, as a utility to the larger whole and the goal of the group, the team. Which coincides with winning as many games as possible and ends as high as possible in the competition in which one plays, at least when there is a payment of football.
In our collective society, the individual is subordinate to the importance of the state, church, association or the company in which one may, unexpectedly, find oneself. There is hardly room for those who disagree. Taking a stand or developing a vision is soon perceived as threatening to the collective and should be crushed. Anytime, anytime. You can also see this dynamic within a circle of friends.
A truly authentic personal individual development is a tear away from the environment or the web in which one is located. It is a struggle that never seems to be fought and a lonely road, when one is not in a group of like-minded individuals.
Many people at this time have an innate gene it seems to be for solidarity and subjugation of one's own interests, the individual development in this case, and are willing to conform far to the prevailing mores. At least until the bomb bursts once. Sometimes it turns out to be enough and someone or a group separates themselves from the larger whole, which can lead to Kafkaian situations with sometimes serious, threatening situations. Not least for the rebellion.
The ideal of the group, the freedom of all or at least the greater or higher general interest can therefore also be perceived as very oppressive, unfree and restrictive. The greater good lies, however, for some, if not many, in the pursuit of personal ideals, whether inside or outside the whole of conventions or agreements agreed by others. It seems that the ideal of the group is slowly crumbling or that the Inclusiveness of groups is becoming increasingly limited.
Desire then, in my case is once again either the root of greed or its sprouting and sad often leads to frustrations and eventually anger. I mean this not in the light of the dualist moral split of Western thinking, but as an experience fact. I know both materialistic desires and spiritual/spiritual desires. It's secrets that lure.
It is the experience that something is missing. A thought, an object, an idea or object suddenly becomes extremely important and cannot and cannot be missed. I have to have it and I will have it right away. The wish must be fulfilled whether it is within reach or not, whatever. It's like there's a consciousness narrowing, like I'm going blind to everything else that is. Nothing is more important than the object, the person, or the idea of what the desire pertains to. Even the feeling plays a role. At first I was happy and satisfied, with the new insight that alras disappeared.
There are different desires. For example, there are sexual, material, spiritual and religious desires. Are they all from the same source, the same (un) displeasure or is there a difference between spiritual and material needs for example? I imagine spiritual desires come from the soul and sexual desires are more physically bound. That intense desire for that woman or man you once encountered is more a desire of the heart. Then where do material desires come from? That new jacket, which, perhaps, used shoes that look so shockingly cool or could be very nice, where did that apparent lack come from? A theory I heard today is that it's the search back to the mother's womb, for a sense of security.
According to the Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, born before 1900, all desires can be traced to a life drive or a death drive. Carl Gustaf Jung, his disciple for a short time, thought there were four universal desires, linked to the different archetypes that form the structure of the collective unconscious result in different types with the same desire, but each with its own content.
There are the seekers for paradise, for the ultimate good and perfect life. For example, the sage thinks that this state can be achieved by reflecting on knowledge and finding a higher self through logos, or, as Alan Watts argues, going the way of the Tao, finding and becoming yourself. The rebel is a different kind of world improver, he or she believes in a form of struggle, revolution, overthrowing sacred houses. He or she kicks herself forward after his or her desire as it were. This is contrary to what is called the common man. His motto is known: just do it, then you act crazy enough. The group is the highest good, that is where he or she wants to belong. The artist seeks his salvation in creating an idea of control.
Is that it? Is not desire more than a form of control over something that is not (yet) there? Is the fulfillment of the wish and the temporary feeling of happiness that comes with it (only) having the idea of control? Only, I guess, what remains after control is a fact? There will be a new desire! Control is then a desire! The satisfaction of the somewhat older generations in particular, as it seems, is also temporary. Apparently there's another engine that keeps us yearning for new, different horizons.
Let's split this word up. It clearly falls apart in the words Pan and Trec. Pan translated from Latin means everything or everything encompassing and increase translated from Latin as creation. The words used separately mean from Latin translates: make a pan. But most famous is Pan probably from the Greek and Latin myths about him, see my earlier blog about Pan. Here, however, we can read pancreatic with some good will as to create all of them.
When I go one step further in my analogical thinking or so you want to create analytics, I get to Prometheus. I'll explain how I took that step. Prometheus steals the fire, the creation of the Gods of the Olympus of those same gods to give to the people. In some ancient Greek myths, Prometheus is even the creator of the first people. He created man from clay.
Stealing fire from the gods is, in my opinion, the same thing as creating, making something out of nothing. Fire used to arise from the beating of pebbles, which gave a spark by which persons who were in it could make fire. Fire is the light of the soul of man, the universal spark given us or not by God, or vice versa, the fire in man is his soul. But there's something else.
As punishment for his deed, the Gods, by mouth of Zeus, ensure that Prometheus is chained to a mountain in the Caucasus where the eagle Ethon comes to pick his liver from Prometheus' body and then eats it. In the night the liver grows again, after which the eagle returns in the morning to pick up the liver again and to eat it. This continues until Herakles ends as one of his twelve works, with the approval of Zeus, the eagle death and the eternal punishment. Is it a very big step to replace the liver with the pancreas, a similar organ?
Pancreatitis or pancreas inflammation (fire) can be caused by, among other things, excessive alcohol consumption (firewater). This inflammation can repeat which can lead to chronic pancreatic inflammation. It may also lead to pacreas carcinoma in some cases. Part of the pancreas is sometimes surgically removed. Life expectancy should not be overestimated. Unfortunately, the idea of creating everything will then be taken away from and eventually put out of the fire.
Volgens kerkvader, theoloog en filosoof Sint Augustinus zijn de twee verderfelijke zondes concupiscentia en superbia de grootste hindernissen voor de mens om waardig te zijn in de ogen van God en om zalig te worden. Concupiscentia het zondige verlangen naar welke vorm van seks dan ook en superbia oftwel hubris, de zonde van hoogmoed. De ware christen moet leren kuis en ootmoedig te zijn. Concupiscentia komt later bij Freud terug als seksuele begeerte en bij Adler als het verlangen naar macht, de machtswil. Wat is het toch dat we ons juist tot die twee in een slecht daglicht staande verlangens aangetrokken voelen?
Volgens Carl Jung wordt de ene mens gekenschetst door een infantiel op zoek zijn naar lust en directe bevrediging van driften, zonder zich te bekommeren om hun sociale rol in de maatschappij. De andere soortgenoot wordt echter gedreven door gevoelens van minderwaardigheid en tot het omzetten van deze in een niets ontziende drang te top te bereiken in het maatschappelijke veld. Deze hooghartigheid ook wel machtsfantasieën kenmerken zich door een lange termijn oogmerk. Een combinatie van de twee binnen een persoonlijkheid komt volgens Carl Jung veel minder voor. Beide zijn voer voor psychologen en kerkvaders door de vele eeuwen heen. Ook in de mythes van het oude Griekenland lijkt alles te draaien om deze twee. Menige sterveling of halfgod wordt gestraft voor een van beide vergrijpen. Denk aan Pan wat betreft zijn niet aflatende begeerte voor de nimfen in het bos, in het bijzonder Syrinx en Icarus die te hoog langs de zon vloog met zijn wassen vleugels.
De trend zet zich door heden ten dage op zowel het materiele als het immateriële vlak. Je hoeft maar vijf minuten op sociale media rond te hangen op internet om te zien wat ik bedoel. Maar is het erg? Is het verwerpelijk? Dat hangt toch heel veel af van het standpunt van waaruit je kijkt, je insteek. Uiteraard valt het waarschijnlijk het meest te billijken vanuit het gezichtspunt van de zondaar, al zijn er, denk aan Augustinus zelf, genoeg zondaars die het heel moeilijk hebben met hunkeringen. Anders wordt het vanuit het tegenoverliggende standpunt, van bovenaf gezien als je wilt. Vanuit de spiritueel geïnspireerde wijze is het iets dat de weg naar verlichting bemoeilijkt. De botsing tussen het individu en zijn omgeving wordt op grotere hoogte sterker gevoeld, blijkbaar. De lagere persoonlijke voorkeuren wegen niet op tegen de hogere levensbeschouwelijke ideeën zo lijkt het.
Het lijkt mij duidelijk dat je energie, aandacht, moed en wat dies meer zij slechts een keer tegelijk kan inzetten. Het is moeilijk zo niet onmogelijk twee meesters te dienen zegt men wel. Ik kan mij voorstellen dat het een het ander in de weg kan staan, maar de keuze is aan een ieder voor zich natuurlijk. Zolang je er maar niemand mee kwetst of pijn doet. Het klinkt misschien heel stichtelijk, deze blog, maar denk er eens over na.
