This journal will be where I explore (with you) my reactions, experiments, understanding of PoF as an organic formation that can only be "seen" via our participation and individuation...
Submitted by Jeffrey on Fri, 02/15/2008 - 12:18pm.
(warning: the video link in this post contains a scene in which a police officer throws down a young man and yells at him)
PoF provides something unique. If you were to watch the following clip with most philosophical texts in mind, you might find yourself linking aspects of the incident caught on video to various ideas of the philosophical text. That can be useful and enlightening. However, what I personally have found so incredible about PoF is that it actually can be there with you as you watch this video, participating in what you are are seeing. Before the path of The Philosophy of Freedom we would see one event taking place. After PoF, it simply isn't the same thing.
The cop is seeing a dragon. He is fighting and could make strong reasons to justify the intensity, especially if he had enough spiritual terminology to help "educate" us as to why what was happening was much darker than just kids on skateboards.
We see dragons. And dragons must be bravely tamed or stabbed. When we see our brother truly (only after seeing our Self), we extend the most profound and practical love freely. You can watch the characters in this scene almost as if they are enacting specific "scenes" from PoF.
After the following quoations, I leave you with a thought experiment.
"so man does not exist for the sake of morality, but morality through the presence of man. The free man acts morally because he has a moral idea; he does not act in order that morality may come into being. Human individuals, with the moral ideas belonging to their nature, are the prerequisites of a moral world order." Steiner (9-12{47}
"Only when I follow my love for my objective is it I myself who act." Steiner (9-8{30}"
Perception cannot obey two masters, each asking for messages of different things in different languages. What fear would feed upon, love overlooks. What fear demands, love cannot even see. The fierce attraction that guilt holds for fear is wholly absent from love's gentle perception. What love would look upon is meaningless to fear, and quite invisible." ACIM(T-19.4.a.i.11:3-7)
"Projection makes perception. The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that. But though it is no more than that, it is not less. Therefore, to you it is important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive. Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world. Perception is a result and not a cause...Everything looked upon with vision is healed and holy. Nothing perceived without it means anything. And where there is no meaning, there is chaos." ACIM(T-21.in.1;1-12)
If you watched the video, watch it again in your mind with one change. As the cop is looking at the children at the very beginning, imagine what would happen if he no longer believed his own thoughts. This relates to what PoF, the course and Jesiaha teach about "becoming friends with death" or actively suppressing what we know. Step into the cops shoes and see if you can experience the shift that would happen the moment he no longer believed what he was thinking.
The cop would immediately express his freedom, love and true individuality. And, yes of course, he might very well still get them to stop skate boarding. At the very least, he would connect directly to more responsible impulses. The violence in the video is a simple result of projecting his own dissocation from PoF onto his environment. Projection makes perception; he believed his thoughts; he saw a dragon 'out there' and he acted courageously. PoF- as a living and organically formed message- is a book about the cause of daily violence. It's a book about how all violence can come to an end and with whom the responsibility rests.
"seeing" dragons
(warning: the video link in this post contains a scene in which a police officer throws down a young man and yells at him)
PoF provides something unique. If you were to watch the following clip with most philosophical texts in mind, you might find yourself linking aspects of the incident caught on video to various ideas of the philosophical text. That can be useful and enlightening. However, what I personally have found so incredible about PoF is that it actually can be there with you as you watch this video, participating in what you are are seeing. Before the path of The Philosophy of Freedom we would see one event taking place. After PoF, it simply isn't the same thing.
The cop is seeing a dragon. He is fighting and could make strong reasons to justify the intensity, especially if he had enough spiritual terminology to help "educate" us as to why what was happening was much darker than just kids on skateboards.
We see dragons. And dragons must be bravely tamed or stabbed. When we see our brother truly (only after seeing our Self), we extend the most profound and practical love freely. You can watch the characters in this scene almost as if they are enacting specific "scenes" from PoF.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hxOr3q7nrk
After the following quoations, I leave you with a thought experiment.
"so man does not exist for the sake of morality, but morality through the presence of man. The free man acts morally because he has a moral idea; he does not act in order that morality may come into being. Human individuals, with the moral ideas belonging to their nature, are the prerequisites of a moral world order." Steiner (9-12{47}
"Only when I follow my love for my objective is it I myself who act." Steiner (9-8{30} "
Perception cannot obey two masters, each asking for messages of different things in different languages. What fear would feed upon, love overlooks. What fear demands, love cannot even see. The fierce attraction that guilt holds for fear is wholly absent from love's gentle perception. What love would look upon is meaningless to fear, and quite invisible." ACIM (T-19.4.a.i.11:3-7)
"Projection makes perception. The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that. But though it is no more than that, it is not less. Therefore, to you it is important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive. Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world. Perception is a result and not a cause...Everything looked upon with vision is healed and holy. Nothing perceived without it means anything. And where there is no meaning, there is chaos." ACIM (T-21.in.1;1-12)
If you watched the video, watch it again in your mind with one change. As the cop is looking at the children at the very beginning, imagine what would happen if he no longer believed his own thoughts. This relates to what PoF, the course and Jesiaha teach about "becoming friends with death" or actively suppressing what we know. Step into the cops shoes and see if you can experience the shift that would happen the moment he no longer believed what he was thinking.
The cop would immediately express his freedom, love and true individuality. And, yes of course, he might very well still get them to stop skate boarding. At the very least, he would connect directly to more responsible impulses. The violence in the video is a simple result of projecting his own dissocation from PoF onto his environment. Projection makes perception; he believed his thoughts; he saw a dragon 'out there' and he acted courageously. PoF- as a living and organically formed message- is a book about the cause of daily violence. It's a book about how all violence can come to an end and with whom the responsibility rests.
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