Saturday, February 28, 2009

Deserve

Today I am bringing you an extremely short post that is basically a quote from Seth Godin, a marketer of all things. Oh me, oh my, Alon is now quoting marketers for his blog, he must really be busy/uninspired/confused because really what can a marketer, especially a commercial marketer like Seth, teach us about spirituality?

Maybe I am all of the above, I don't know, but I do know that his questions and ensuing comments got me thinking so I want to share them with you:


Do you deserve the luck you've been handed? The place you were born, the education you were given, the job you've got?

Not at all. “Deserve” is such a loaded word. Most of us don’t deserve the great opportunities we have, or the lucky breaks that got us here.

The question shouldn’t be, “do you deserve it.” I think it should be, “what are you going to do with it now that you've got it?"

If you are reading this then it means that you can see, that you can read, that you have a computer, that you have electricity, that you have an internet access, etc., etc. and 'just' those criteria alone probably already place us in the lucky 1% of the human population of this planet.

What did we do to deserve that? And what ARE we going to do with it from here on in?

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Judging a book by its' cover

Today I walked to work (in Paris you can do that) and on the way I saw a women walk out of a social shelter dressed quite strangely. As I got closer I could see that she was wearing a black garbage bag on her head, had another garbage bag over her clothes and her shoes were taped on with wide bands of packing tape.

I felt a wave of sadness which then turned to pity. "What a poor woman. How awful that must be..."

As I overtook her, I first thought I heard her talking to herself. Normal, I thought, she must be a bit "off". And once I got past her, or should say once I hurried past her (you never know right?), I realized she was singing. She was singing an incredibly beautiful song with an incredibly beautiful voice!

And she sounded incredibly happy.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Prophetability

This is a very very short post to share that my wonderful friends K and Y had a baby girl this morning at around 5am.

Funnily enough, I predicted about 6 months ago (thus the title of the blog) that she would be born on my birthday, and despite K's resistance - she has had contractions for the last week and never hoped for it to take that long - all worked out as (I) planned : )

It turns out though that I was not alone. K's mother had also hoped for a birth on the 22nd since her mother was born on the 22nd and it seems that she was a very special person.

Which leads to me to the only spiritual thought of this blog post, something that some spiritual thinkers have mentioned, that when you are born on the same day as someone in your family or share the same name as a relative, maybe somehow the destinies get intertwined...

I don't know the answer to that one, but I do know that I am extremely happy for K and Y and hope our destinies remain intertwined!

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

On Dianetics and Tangerines

I was just given a book on Dianetics, or rather I should say THE book on Dianetics by the famous or infamous L. Ron Hubbard of Scientology fame. I have never really known what to think about the man, the philosophy, the religion that has sprung from it, the press that the Church of Scientology has received, the many reading rooms I have seen around the world... but at least I will be able to read it and react to the underlying "theory" as written by the original author.

It is easier to be skeptical in life than it is to be open to new ideas, especially if they question what we "know", or if they are a long stretch from the ideas we already hold and which we use to construct our own realities. While many people mention 'faith' as a necessary first step towards spirituality, or religiosity, I think faith might be a cop out for many in the sense that it means that you believe in something that you haven't taken the time to figure out. While being open to new ideas is part of what someone like Krishnamurti could have termed 'walking your own path to understanding'. In my mind, this is a more laudable approach than taking a prepackaged religion, no matter how well it has been packaged. Maybe it is no coincidence that faith is often referred to as 'blind' (not just love, an interesting ellipse to my last post).

I don't know what I will find, but I do know that many people have found profound wisdom in Scientology, and as such it is worth looking into. Others have expressed serious doubts and concerns, and this too is worth looking into and understanding. Is it just fear of 'different' ideas or legitimate concerns with the underlying principles? As I read on about Dianetics I also hope to look into some of the more seriously-expressed critiques so as to understand both sides better.
If I do manage to figure anything out worth sharing I will post it here.

On a different subject altogether, I have started reading Peace is Every Step, a book by Thich Nhat Hahn (Amazon link here). Simple messages, powerful ideas. One small anecdote, he tells the story of how children were taught to truly examine a tangerine, the look, feel, weight, the squirt of the peel when it was peeled, to imagine the seed, the tree, the sun, water and earth that went into it... all before taking a first bite. They were given a giant lesson in appreciation. Think about it before your next bite of anything... and it seems that Thich does and is a more content person for it.

Which makes me think that a future post should discuss the difference between Happiness (what we have been taught to want but is probably not sustainable) and Contentment (which is not often discussed, and probably arises from the saintly-feeling of gratitude, and is probably truly sustainable)...

PS I am on vacation so the posts are a bit more spaced out. I hope to be more regular starting in March.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

[Thoughts on Golden Rule] The Rabbi on the flight

For the first time in a long time I sat next to an Orthodox Jew on a flight to Israel. He was busy working on a text in Hebrew and I was reading first a spiritual book in English and then a text in French (of a friend who is in the process of publishing a book) that just happened to be about something religious.

He asked me "what I did" as he noticed that I was reading about religious things, or something to that effect. I explained, or tried to explain in brief, what I do and that the spiritual stuff is something I don't "do" but is something I am interested in...

We started a long and, to me, very interesting discussion on religious issues that apparently he was working on and thinking about. It was a long discussion and I will not even try to relate all of it here, but at one point I suggested that all religions, and especially all mysticism's of the various religions, as well as most spiritual studies, all boiled down to the Golden Rule, Love thy neighbor as thyself.

He smiled to himself and told me a story, which is often told, about a non-Jew who wanted to convert to Judaism. He went to see several Rabbis and asked them to tell him in one sentence what Judaism is about. Most of them scoffed and angrily sent him away. And then he met Hillel who told him (something like) the Torah teaches us 'Love thy neighbor as thyself', and all the rest is commentary, but what commentary.

We talked a bit more about this and other things and then he handed me a paper he was reading and working on which was all about Leviticus 19:18 in which the Golden Rule is mentioned. In Hebrew the golden rule can be transliterated as "and you loved the other as thyself" (phonetically veahavta re-echa camocha, with the ch pronounce like the Spanish jota).

The article was very interesting and long, so once again, I must try and condense for brevity's sake, so here are key ideas I recall: the other, any other, is another small piece of God's glory, the other is our brother since we are all God's children, to love another is to show our love for God, having a significant other brings us closer to knowing the love of God, consider your love for God as you do any other love - with thoughts and actions... Of course, there was much more but it wasn't always directly related to the subject and it digressed occasionally into discussions of whether we should or could compare human love to love for God, was it right, recommended or, on the contrary, necessary, etc.

A text of biblical commentary that was quite interesting. It was interesting to see commentary (Gmara) on the Torah, and to see that it was not that esoteric. I haven't read much of it in general, but I was under the impression it was more difficult to understand.

I asked him about the book of Job, since it is one of the books that fascinates me the most (Job was not Jewish, he challenges God, he challenges the devil, and it is the last book in the Old Testament in which we hear from God, so he also manages to shut him up for eternity...). The Rabbi smiled and said, he could explain it to me but he would have to explain so much of the Tanach (the five books of the Torah, the Prophets and the 'ctuvim' which I don't know how to translate (the Written histories)) that it would take a long time... So he didn't even try.

We discusses a lot and it was interesting to discuss things with the Rabbi. It turns out that my Great Uncle, who was Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem at one point, ordained the Rabbi sitting next to me. This Rabbi was extremely kind and gracious, soft spoken, intelligently, had smart, active and kind eyes and was definitely a positive example of the wisdom some people may attain from years of religious studies.

I asked him about politics and he admitted that he was not interested in things like politics but was worried, like I was, about the loss of values in Israeli society, but for different reasons and from a different perspective. He could not understand why Israelis want Israel to be the Jewish state while turning their backs on the wealth of wisdom in Judaism. Why secular Israelis have so much hate for the Orthodox.

We talked of love, and he told me that the love most people understand as love is not really love but lust. Something that I hope to share with you one day in this blog is a text by Eva Pierrakos on Love, called Love, Eros and Sexuality, which says just that. He reminded me that in the marriage vows in Judaism, the husband makes three promises to his bride - to ensure her living (money), her nourishment (food) and her sexual satisfaction ("ona"). Nowhere does it say that his libido must be satisfied, only hers. If a man does not take care of all three, he is not satisfying his wedding vows...

It was wonderful and strange to speak about love, sex, passion, lust, manhood, true love, etc. with a Rabbi, but we were speaking the same language and it was an intriguing exchange.

I asked him for his e-mail address and he apologetically explained that they don't do e-mail ("too many temptations") but instead he gave me his cell phone number.

It was a special conversation and a true meeting of the other...

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

[Some authors] A very very brief post

Some authors are extremely spiritual even though they don't 'sell' themselves as such. One such author is Paul Gallico (read more about him and his books here - there are also descriptions of each book and the website author's favorites - made me want to buy all of them!).

If you can find his books, read them.

My two favorites: Love of Seven Dolls (hard to find though) and Snow Goose (tiny and easier to find among his collected works).

More Thursday...

Monday, February 2, 2009

[Krishnamurti] What you seek...

Of all the spiritual writers out there, and there are many, the most demanding is probably Jiddu Krishnamurti. Why demanding? Well, even though he is a spiritual guide in most senses, he is unrelenting in what he demands from each of us, and what he demands from us feels nearly inhuman in the breadth, depth and sincerity of the personal work needed.

While Nisargadatta reminds us that depth cannot be found by digging shallow holes everywhere and encourages us to pick a spot, any spot, and dig deeply; Krishnamurti asks us to dig deep holes and even when we find oil, water, paydirt or whatever it was we were looking for to keep digging for he warns us (or admonishes us depending on how you want to see it) that "what you seek you will find, and it will not be truth."

This last phrase must be some form of Hindi philosophy (or just plain spiritual wisdom) as it appears often and I remember that Nisargadatta also mentions something similar when talking about death, telling us that to each will be given an afterlife as we expect to find, i.e. as we imagine it, and not as it really is...

Getting back to Krishnamurti, what a life story! A brief outline (you can get more here) goes something like this: Jiddu and his brother were identified in what was then Madras, India, in 1909 or thereabouts by members of the Theosophical Society who were looking (like in The Matrix) for a Chosen One, which they called the "World Teacher". They found two. They were tutored and given a very spiritual education first in India and later in the UK and Europe. His brother later died of tuberculosis. Jiddu was groomed to fill the role of World Teacher and during a famous meeting in 1929, when he was around 35, he disbanded the order set up to follow him. The speech he gave at the time, to disband his followers, as quoted from Wikipedia, is a pretty good glimpse at his philosophy:

"You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, 'What did that man pick up?' 'He picked up a piece of the truth,' said the devil. 'That is a very bad business for you, then,' said his friend. 'Oh, not at all,' the devil replied, 'I am going to help him organize it.'


I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or coerce people along a particular path."


"This is no magnificent deed, because I do not want followers, and I mean this. The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not concerned whether you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a certain thing in the world and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies."


To me, this philosophy reminds me of the scene between the messiah-like figure from Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov and the Grand Inquisitor (I mentioned in a previous blog post). In it, the Grand Inquisitor rails against the Messiah who is preaching freedom and tells him how much the Church, i.e. organized religion, has been working to undo the damage the Messiah did putting those ideas in the minds of men, ideas they are not equipped to handle and, thus, do not want.

Krishnamurti seems to be saying something similar to Dostoyevsky's messiah-figure. I understand it as organized religion, any organized religion, is about someone else's truth, so it cannot be anyone's, any one's, truth. We each need to find our own truth, and that is a "pathless land" in the sense that it has to be our own path, we cannot take any shortcuts by walking a path already taken by another.

A propos paths,
an interesting and somewhat frightening side note on the original Theosophical Society (Wikipedia link here) which I only learned by reading a bit of background information to write this post. The first of their three official objectives was "to form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or colour." Their rather positive philosophical intentions, together with their worldviews, were later used and abused to justify racism of the worst kind. Another example of the path to hell being paved with good intentions?

Back to Krishnamurti (again, there I go getting sidetracked...). He has written many books and in addition there are many books about him. There are also many DVD's of him speaking that are available, for those who are interested. His speaking style is very stern, very serious, he says often that he is not here to entertain us. Or rather, something that is very original for a public speaker, he does not address his public in the plural, he says you, never all of you, he says we are here 'both of us' the speaker and you, as if it is an intimate two-person conversation even when speaking to a large audience, and he deems it a conversation - it is neither lecture nor entertainment nor an attempto to teach or affect ideation or beliefs. The severity of his attitude, no smiles, doesn't make you uncomfortable but calls for perfect seriousness of intent and of listening. It impresses and it is impressive.

I find this same tone in his writings.It is not that he is unforgiving (see a previous post on this subject :)) but rather uncompromising in what he suggests we demand of ourselves - to look at everything simply but deeply with our brains, our hearts and our entire being...

Of his different books, I could suggest This Light in Oneself or his Commentaries on Living Series, of which I believe there are three books (subtitled First, Second and Third Series), but there are many others. Many of them have very different names, maybe you can choose one that speaks to you.

As a teacher, I also feel 'called to task' quite often by Krishnamurti's writings as he often is most demanding of educators and parents, the teachers of children. Speaking of the importance of educators to be properly educated (a term he would never use by the way), that if the educator does not have 'self-knowledge', which is 'the beginning of wisdom' he himself will be both the victim and the source of much ignorance, strife and sorrow. He speaks of teaching quite beautifully.

One of the worst things about reading Krishnamurti is that he really does tell you everything that you need to know to figure things out. And then he tells you that, and that you can stop reading now; but I keep reading, keep looking for more insights elsewhere...

"See the false as the false, then the truth is. You don't have to look for it.
What you seek you will find, and it will not be truth
."

Another note to myself.