Actually, you WILL take it with you, whether you want to or not. What?
Your life experience. What you will NOT take are your material possessions and goods. Most people will not remember anything from a previous life, so what does this really mean? Good life experience in a particular area of life and living will translate in a future life (or from a past life) into better ability to face up to and deal with that area of life, better reach to it, better ability to communicate with it. That’s the good news.
Unfortunately the opposite is true as well. Bad life experience in an area of life translates into a decreased ability to face up to and deal with that area.
One thing to keep in mind is that, though a particular life incident which occurs in a given area of life contains specific details of place, time, identity, etc., its benefit of good experience (and the
opposite for bad experience) will carry over not just to that particular area in the future, but to similar areas and situations. The degree of carry-over is correlated to the degree of similarity.
So, for example, a good experience with a daughter should carry over to better relations with other daughters in the future, particularly in the same type of activity or setting, and to some degree to relations with sons in the future.
Good experience in taking care of the body and personal health will carry over into better future health (all other things being equal), and improved ability to help maintain the health of others.
Good experience on a job will carry over to more ease in facing up to and doing that type of work, or a similar type of work.
A high level of some type of physical or athletic skill will carry over into a similar proficiency in the future.
All this gives a good motivation for living ethically. There is a payoff for living right, and on the other hand there is a penalty for not doing so. Keeping this in mind helps to keep the spiritual being from falling into the trap of being subordinated to materialistic concerns and focus on that which will pay dividends in the future.
What is Man
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are
spiritual beings having a human experience.” Teilhard de Chardin
“Man is a the combination of a spiritual being with a mind inhabiting or controlling a
human body. I’m not sure about women.” Tumpliner
So what is good experience? Forwarding or following a pro-life purpose. Life is trying to improve itself, recover from its past mistakes, increase its reach, become more able to act with, communicate with and exchange with other areas of life and the physical universe. Each individual has a set of life areas along which he can grow and expand. Each such area is a subset of, and dovetails with the next area in the succession.
The first such area is simply himself, his mind, body and personal effects.
The next step outward in reach is family, spouse, children. This puts him into his first experience as a member of a group. It is not a formal group (usually), and usually not a large group, but it is definitely a group.
The next step is being a member of a group, whether it is a class, a society, a sports team, employees of a business, citizens of a city, state or country. Actually this area of life comprises quite a succession of dovetailing groups from the smallest (family) to the largest (country).
All countries sum together to form mankind—our species.
We like to think of ourselves as pretty special, and perhaps we are, but we are also just one of many life forms on this planet, and probably on many other planets.
That’s far enough for you to get the idea of which direction is pro-life. Going back to the individual, each person has gone some distance down this track (or maybe fallen down from a higher point) so that he is comfortable facing it up to a certain point at which he starts to encounter a little trouble or confusion or lack of ability to deal with. The trouble is not necessarily all of his own making, but he can still improve his abilities to deal with it and make progress doing so.
How does life make progress down this path? Through the competent application of self-
determination. Self-determination does not mean that you have to do something different from others (although you might), but it does mean that if you are going along with others that you are doing so because you have a self-determined understanding that it is the right direction to go. You would want to go in that direction even if you were by yourself.
You can think of it as a game of chutes and ladders. The reward for making enough upward progress is gaining of more ability to confront and participate in life—more good experience. You climb the ladders with competent self-determination. The chutes are traps to be avoided. Before looking more at the chutes it will be necessary to explain a little about the mind.
A good reference for the mind is Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health. I am certainly not endorsing the author, or any other of his works, and I don’t even recommend reading the whole book. He does do a good job of presenting what the mind is and what it is composed of. Then he repeats it over, and over, and over, and over…. At some point most readers will have gotten the idea without having to read the whole book. There are two parts of the mind—the analytical and the non-analytical. The analytical part is able to perceive objective reality, align data, form plans and solutions, and can recognize hierarchies of data where some data are more fundamental and broadly applicable and so more valuable, while other data are only narrowly applicable and of less value. The analytical mind is open to the inspection, awareness and use of the spiritual being. The analytical mind includes a collection of mental pictures of the experience that the spiritual being has had. It seems that the pictures are stored in some minimized state that does not require any special attention to maintain, but can be temporarily maximized or “blown up” in the process of remembering or recalling for detailed examination. The analytical mind can also become, to some degree, at effect of the non-analytical mind.
The non-analytical mind is usually not open to the inspection and awareness of the spiritual being, though its effects can be. The non-analytical mind does not grasphierarchies of data. It does not recognize that some data are more fundamental than others. It sees all data to be on the same flat playing field. It can impinge illogical or false data on the analytical mind. It can even cut across the ability of the analytical mind to stay in contact with objective reality.
The non-analytical mind has more impingement on the individual when he is engaged in
unethical or criminal activities, when he is tired, when he is on drugs or has been drinking
alcohol, or when he is physically ill or injured. So the individual can help himself to be in a better frame of mind just by staying healthy, getting enough sleep, not abusing drugs, and living ethically.
One of the major traps or “chutes” to be avoided is what has been called the “mob mentality” or “mob hysteria”. Hollywood used to make movies about this where Jimmie Stewart or Gregory Peck would stand on a box and talk down an angry mob. More recently the Island of Doctor Moreau had it as a theme.
A characteristic of the mob mentality is that a crowd under its influence will act differently and more nastily than the individuals comprising it would do on their own and in control of their analytical minds. It is because the mechanism at work is a non-analytical agreement between individuals comprising the mob on the basis of similar or identical parts of their non-analytical minds. This non-analytical agreement subordinates or shunts self-determined analytical thought to the side. The individuals comprising the mob allow the non-analytical mind, and specifically that part of it which is in agreement with others, to become the senior datum in determining the behavior of the individual. Self-determination is necessary to go in the pro-life direction, and it has just been shunted aside. All that is left, then, for the mob is to go in the contra-life direction. The only remaining question is how quickly and how far it will go in that direction.
A group in this mob mentality can be counted on to knock out what is good and uphold and promote what is bad. Going back to Jimmie Stewart again, there is still the possibility for an individual to get something good accepted or pushed through in a group under the influence of the mob mentality, but it is not easy. What that individual needs to do is to communicate well enough to the individuals comprising the mob mentality that he lifts them, atleast temporarily, back into the analytical band of self-determination where he can appeal to their reason. He has to do this with enough members to allow his agenda to be supported, and it has to be done quickly enough so that those he has already convinced do not slip back into the mob agreement while he is convincing others. It is not an easy thing to do, and can be dangerous.
What is not usually realized is that the “mob mentality” most often exists in less dramatic
manifestations than a mob running through the streets. It shows up more often in areas where stress is higher and analytical thought is lower. It is often seen in adolescents and teens, who are being forced to face up to new areas of life without being given much in the way of philosophical knowledge to help support their analytical abilities.
The mob mentality is actually the “glue” that holds gangs and organized crime together.
The term “creep” can actually be given a technical definition of “a person who prefers to operate and chooses to operate under the influence of the mob mentality rather than thinking for himself.” Interiorizing the individual is an effort to put him less in objective communication with his environment and more at effect of his non-analytical mind. It is not hard to understand that this is not taking things in the pro-life direction. Name-calling is usually just an effort to interiorize, but if this technical definition of “creep” is understood by all concerned, then it can be used to draw the subject’s attention to the fact that he is under the influence of the mob mentality. Hopefully, once he realizes that he will choose to bring his self-determination to bear and get himself back into the analytical band.
So, for the overall good there is a responsibility for those who are able to monitor themselves to stay out of the mob mentality to take it a step further and help monitor others. It can be an insidious trap, especially when peers and life influences are encouraging the individual to fall into it and remain in it. Those who are able to monitor others can be a great help to them and to any groups they are involved with.
The solution to it is simple, and already known: just think for yourself. Never agree with anything unless you have a self-determined understanding of it.
Though the solution is simple, it fails when the individual does not have, or does not bring to bear, sufficient analytical “horsepower” to deal with the present situation or circumstances. Unable to “front up” to the situation analytically, he looks for a crutch to lean on. In other words, unable to determine his own path analytically with respect to a particular situation, he finds when he agrees with others in a similar state to his, that he can put himself in touch with a “powerful” mental force or impulse that gives him a subjective feeling of “strength” to face the situation. The non-analytical mind really can contain mental forces and matter analagous to physical forces and matter. The individual in this state may be subjectively feeling some of this “powerful” mental force which helps to bolster his ego, but he is really not facing up to the situation. His self-determination with respect to the situation has been subordinated to impingement of mental force or matter from the non-analytical mind. He is actually just feeling this impingement from the non-analytical mind. To go in a pro-life direction, life has to be senior to the physical universe, but in this situation the individual has put himself in a position subordinated to the mental matter and energy of his non-analytical mind. The situation is analogous to a drug addict who has subordinated his will to some material substance that he sniffs up his nose or injects into his veins because it gives him that "powerful" subjective feeling he can use as a crutch to face up to a life that he thinks he cannot face up to otherwise. When life subordinates its self-determination to materialism or allows itself to be mastered to some degree by physical energy or matter then it runs starts running into trouble. It puts itself onto a chute in the game of chutes and ladders.
The solution is still just to think for himself, and bring that self-determination to bear. Even if he cannot go far with his analytical mind in this kind of situation, he can always just stay in touch with objective reality. Perceiving and communicating with the present environment is a function of the analytical mind. Staying in touch with objective reality helps to validate the analytical
mind in any situation, and so reduce the impingement of the non-analytical mind.
To summarize:
Your life experience. What you will NOT take are your material possessions and goods. Most people will not remember anything from a previous life, so what does this really mean? Good life experience in a particular area of life and living will translate in a future life (or from a past life) into better ability to face up to and deal with that area of life, better reach to it, better ability to communicate with it. That’s the good news.
Unfortunately the opposite is true as well. Bad life experience in an area of life translates into a decreased ability to face up to and deal with that area.
One thing to keep in mind is that, though a particular life incident which occurs in a given area of life contains specific details of place, time, identity, etc., its benefit of good experience (and the
opposite for bad experience) will carry over not just to that particular area in the future, but to similar areas and situations. The degree of carry-over is correlated to the degree of similarity.
So, for example, a good experience with a daughter should carry over to better relations with other daughters in the future, particularly in the same type of activity or setting, and to some degree to relations with sons in the future.
Good experience in taking care of the body and personal health will carry over into better future health (all other things being equal), and improved ability to help maintain the health of others.
Good experience on a job will carry over to more ease in facing up to and doing that type of work, or a similar type of work.
A high level of some type of physical or athletic skill will carry over into a similar proficiency in the future.
All this gives a good motivation for living ethically. There is a payoff for living right, and on the other hand there is a penalty for not doing so. Keeping this in mind helps to keep the spiritual being from falling into the trap of being subordinated to materialistic concerns and focus on that which will pay dividends in the future.
What is Man
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are
spiritual beings having a human experience.” Teilhard de Chardin
“Man is a the combination of a spiritual being with a mind inhabiting or controlling a
human body. I’m not sure about women.” Tumpliner
So what is good experience? Forwarding or following a pro-life purpose. Life is trying to improve itself, recover from its past mistakes, increase its reach, become more able to act with, communicate with and exchange with other areas of life and the physical universe. Each individual has a set of life areas along which he can grow and expand. Each such area is a subset of, and dovetails with the next area in the succession.
The first such area is simply himself, his mind, body and personal effects.
The next step outward in reach is family, spouse, children. This puts him into his first experience as a member of a group. It is not a formal group (usually), and usually not a large group, but it is definitely a group.
The next step is being a member of a group, whether it is a class, a society, a sports team, employees of a business, citizens of a city, state or country. Actually this area of life comprises quite a succession of dovetailing groups from the smallest (family) to the largest (country).
All countries sum together to form mankind—our species.
We like to think of ourselves as pretty special, and perhaps we are, but we are also just one of many life forms on this planet, and probably on many other planets.
That’s far enough for you to get the idea of which direction is pro-life. Going back to the individual, each person has gone some distance down this track (or maybe fallen down from a higher point) so that he is comfortable facing it up to a certain point at which he starts to encounter a little trouble or confusion or lack of ability to deal with. The trouble is not necessarily all of his own making, but he can still improve his abilities to deal with it and make progress doing so.
How does life make progress down this path? Through the competent application of self-
determination. Self-determination does not mean that you have to do something different from others (although you might), but it does mean that if you are going along with others that you are doing so because you have a self-determined understanding that it is the right direction to go. You would want to go in that direction even if you were by yourself.
You can think of it as a game of chutes and ladders. The reward for making enough upward progress is gaining of more ability to confront and participate in life—more good experience. You climb the ladders with competent self-determination. The chutes are traps to be avoided. Before looking more at the chutes it will be necessary to explain a little about the mind.
A good reference for the mind is Dianetics, the Modern Science of Mental Health. I am certainly not endorsing the author, or any other of his works, and I don’t even recommend reading the whole book. He does do a good job of presenting what the mind is and what it is composed of. Then he repeats it over, and over, and over, and over…. At some point most readers will have gotten the idea without having to read the whole book. There are two parts of the mind—the analytical and the non-analytical. The analytical part is able to perceive objective reality, align data, form plans and solutions, and can recognize hierarchies of data where some data are more fundamental and broadly applicable and so more valuable, while other data are only narrowly applicable and of less value. The analytical mind is open to the inspection, awareness and use of the spiritual being. The analytical mind includes a collection of mental pictures of the experience that the spiritual being has had. It seems that the pictures are stored in some minimized state that does not require any special attention to maintain, but can be temporarily maximized or “blown up” in the process of remembering or recalling for detailed examination. The analytical mind can also become, to some degree, at effect of the non-analytical mind.
The non-analytical mind is usually not open to the inspection and awareness of the spiritual being, though its effects can be. The non-analytical mind does not grasphierarchies of data. It does not recognize that some data are more fundamental than others. It sees all data to be on the same flat playing field. It can impinge illogical or false data on the analytical mind. It can even cut across the ability of the analytical mind to stay in contact with objective reality.
The non-analytical mind has more impingement on the individual when he is engaged in
unethical or criminal activities, when he is tired, when he is on drugs or has been drinking
alcohol, or when he is physically ill or injured. So the individual can help himself to be in a better frame of mind just by staying healthy, getting enough sleep, not abusing drugs, and living ethically.
One of the major traps or “chutes” to be avoided is what has been called the “mob mentality” or “mob hysteria”. Hollywood used to make movies about this where Jimmie Stewart or Gregory Peck would stand on a box and talk down an angry mob. More recently the Island of Doctor Moreau had it as a theme.
A characteristic of the mob mentality is that a crowd under its influence will act differently and more nastily than the individuals comprising it would do on their own and in control of their analytical minds. It is because the mechanism at work is a non-analytical agreement between individuals comprising the mob on the basis of similar or identical parts of their non-analytical minds. This non-analytical agreement subordinates or shunts self-determined analytical thought to the side. The individuals comprising the mob allow the non-analytical mind, and specifically that part of it which is in agreement with others, to become the senior datum in determining the behavior of the individual. Self-determination is necessary to go in the pro-life direction, and it has just been shunted aside. All that is left, then, for the mob is to go in the contra-life direction. The only remaining question is how quickly and how far it will go in that direction.
A group in this mob mentality can be counted on to knock out what is good and uphold and promote what is bad. Going back to Jimmie Stewart again, there is still the possibility for an individual to get something good accepted or pushed through in a group under the influence of the mob mentality, but it is not easy. What that individual needs to do is to communicate well enough to the individuals comprising the mob mentality that he lifts them, atleast temporarily, back into the analytical band of self-determination where he can appeal to their reason. He has to do this with enough members to allow his agenda to be supported, and it has to be done quickly enough so that those he has already convinced do not slip back into the mob agreement while he is convincing others. It is not an easy thing to do, and can be dangerous.
What is not usually realized is that the “mob mentality” most often exists in less dramatic
manifestations than a mob running through the streets. It shows up more often in areas where stress is higher and analytical thought is lower. It is often seen in adolescents and teens, who are being forced to face up to new areas of life without being given much in the way of philosophical knowledge to help support their analytical abilities.
The mob mentality is actually the “glue” that holds gangs and organized crime together.
The term “creep” can actually be given a technical definition of “a person who prefers to operate and chooses to operate under the influence of the mob mentality rather than thinking for himself.” Interiorizing the individual is an effort to put him less in objective communication with his environment and more at effect of his non-analytical mind. It is not hard to understand that this is not taking things in the pro-life direction. Name-calling is usually just an effort to interiorize, but if this technical definition of “creep” is understood by all concerned, then it can be used to draw the subject’s attention to the fact that he is under the influence of the mob mentality. Hopefully, once he realizes that he will choose to bring his self-determination to bear and get himself back into the analytical band.
So, for the overall good there is a responsibility for those who are able to monitor themselves to stay out of the mob mentality to take it a step further and help monitor others. It can be an insidious trap, especially when peers and life influences are encouraging the individual to fall into it and remain in it. Those who are able to monitor others can be a great help to them and to any groups they are involved with.
The solution to it is simple, and already known: just think for yourself. Never agree with anything unless you have a self-determined understanding of it.
Though the solution is simple, it fails when the individual does not have, or does not bring to bear, sufficient analytical “horsepower” to deal with the present situation or circumstances. Unable to “front up” to the situation analytically, he looks for a crutch to lean on. In other words, unable to determine his own path analytically with respect to a particular situation, he finds when he agrees with others in a similar state to his, that he can put himself in touch with a “powerful” mental force or impulse that gives him a subjective feeling of “strength” to face the situation. The non-analytical mind really can contain mental forces and matter analagous to physical forces and matter. The individual in this state may be subjectively feeling some of this “powerful” mental force which helps to bolster his ego, but he is really not facing up to the situation. His self-determination with respect to the situation has been subordinated to impingement of mental force or matter from the non-analytical mind. He is actually just feeling this impingement from the non-analytical mind. To go in a pro-life direction, life has to be senior to the physical universe, but in this situation the individual has put himself in a position subordinated to the mental matter and energy of his non-analytical mind. The situation is analogous to a drug addict who has subordinated his will to some material substance that he sniffs up his nose or injects into his veins because it gives him that "powerful" subjective feeling he can use as a crutch to face up to a life that he thinks he cannot face up to otherwise. When life subordinates its self-determination to materialism or allows itself to be mastered to some degree by physical energy or matter then it runs starts running into trouble. It puts itself onto a chute in the game of chutes and ladders.
The solution is still just to think for himself, and bring that self-determination to bear. Even if he cannot go far with his analytical mind in this kind of situation, he can always just stay in touch with objective reality. Perceiving and communicating with the present environment is a function of the analytical mind. Staying in touch with objective reality helps to validate the analytical
mind in any situation, and so reduce the impingement of the non-analytical mind.
To summarize:
- Think for yourself.
- Don’t trust individuals or groups that want to do your thinking for you (e.g. Rush Limbaugh or Al Gore), or do not want you to think for yourself .
- Stay in touch with objective reality.
- Stay healthy, get enough sleep.
- Don’t engage in unethical activities.
- Strengthen the analytical mind.
- Gather to yourself a set of philosophical tools for your analytical mind to employ.
No comments:
Post a Comment