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2004
Ways to Say
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THE WAY IT IS
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Insights that Open the Mystery of Reality
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<p>
<b>
Introduction:
</b>
Topics and references don't work here. Each insight
refers not to something within everything but to
everything itself as an undivided and indivisible
whole. This is the perceivable whole. The universe
is the one in the many. This means each item is a
unit and the whole is a unit. A unit is an undivided
and indivisible whole. There is nothing invisible.
If there were, we wouldn't know it's there or it would
be visible. Visibility sometimes requires instruments
and calculations. This is the way it is. This is
being.
</p>
<p>
Each insight stands alone. Each insight addresses
the broadest possible scope. Being includes
everything without exception. Each insight is
completely true. All alternatives are logical
fallacies. Each insight uses the broadest possible
scope. Each refers only to being itself as a whole
from one point of view.
</p>
<p>
Each reader's mind makes the connections
automatically that his interests suggest. He
understands each insight from his own point of view.
I don't try to do this for him. I don't set up my
categories for him. Ironically different readers will
put them in different categories. However, what this
reveals is the reader's point of view rather than
mine. I intend only the largest possible category,
which is being itself. All the sciences restrict
their point of view and, in effect declare anything
outside that non-being. For example, physics defines
out of being everything that is as yet unquantified.
Quantification requires a numerically measurable unit.
There is no unit for psychology.
</p>
<p>
The dates are when I wrote them.
</p>
<p>
So these function as pithy aphorisms about the whole
of being from the human point of view. Please have
fun! Quibble with me! Take exceiton! Examine your
motives. Email me at <http://us.f606.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=insights04@yahoo.com&YY=52825&order=down&sort=date&pos=0&view=a&head=b>. I will
try to answer immediately.
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 1 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
An incomplete understanding of science (scientism)
lives on the error that there is no reasoning in
observation. The illusion is that data simply
transfers from things to mind without change.
However, we all also observe that a thing is different
from a thought about it. So the issue is not "Science
v. Reasoning" or "Observation v. Logic" but how is a
thought different from a thing? What changes and what
stays the same?
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 2 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
The answer to the last question is, Form changes and
matter stays the same. The form of the thing is
reflected, through the bodily senses (seeing, hearing,
tasting, touching, and smelling), by the mind, whereas
the matter of the thing remains unchanged. Things have
both form and matter, whereas mind has only forms.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 3 (3 13 4 Saturday).
</b>
Things are forms-in-matter. Every real thing has
matter. Things have an infinite number of aspects.
Each could be considered for an infinite number of
personal purposes. Ideas, as every thought in the
mind, are forms-without-matter. They reflect only one
aspect of things at a time.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 4 (3 13 4 Saturday).
</b>
A bodily sense impression of a thing comes from a
single and unique accident of time; and place. From
every sense impression, the brain abstracts one
aspect. By connecting identical aspects, the brain
forms the mind by connecting identical aspects into
substances. A substance is a set of aspects that
distinguishes one thing from another. Knowledge is an
accumulation of substances.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 5 (3 13 4 Saturday).
</b>
We do not know a thing as it is in itself. To know a
thing as it is in itself is to know all its infinite
number of aspects. Most of these would not serve our
purpose anyway. In every circumstance, our only
purpose for looking is to abstract from our sense
impression what bodily movement will achieve a
personal benefit.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 6 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
What is known about a thing is one aspect; of it. For
example, if I see a horse, the aspect of that object
that I know about it is its "horseness. I have a
choice though. I could consider that thing to be an
escape vehicle for my bank robbery. Or I could
consider it to be a subject for my next oil painting,
or almost anything else that suited my purpose.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 7 (3 13 4 Saturday).
</b>
My purpose for seeing something controls what I see
and what I ignore. I overlook what does not concern
my purpose. The bodily senses send it and the brain
makes permanent record of it -- often these are
recalled later -- but I do not advert to it
consciously at the time. Knowing and understanding my
own purpose for looking is knowing where I'm going and
what to expect. It is my motive. It is why I go.
Not knowing or not understanding my own purpose for
looking depends on a decision that I made in an
earlier circumstance that decision may or may not fit
this present circumstance.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 8 (3 13 4 Saturday).
</b>
Every circumstance is in some way identical to every
other circumstance. Every circumstance is in some way
different from every other circumstance. Which way we
select to notice and ignore an aspect of each
circumstance is which we estimate most probably will
yield a personal benefit. A personal benefit is the
purpose of every human act, whether the purpose is
clear to us or taken for granted subconsciously.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 9 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
All real things have an infinite number of aspects.
However, a thought, such as, "It is a horse." is just
one aspect of the many. It is a universe of discourse,
or point of view, or perspective. It is a "one in the
many," a "universal."
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 10 (3 7 4 Sunday.
</b>
Jesus takes away our sin; and grants us peace. For our
part, we have only to know this fact. We don't have to
feel it.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 11 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
Sin, which is not living according to human nature;,
creates .i.tension; between our nature and our
ignorance of it. Jesus shows and tells us what our
nature is. To live our nature is to live forever. We
cannot, however, without loving (fusing sacramentally
to) him.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 12 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
It is a huge relief to become self-validated rather
than other-validated. We self-validate ourselves If we
know what is most loving in each case. We love when we
do it. And we don't have to be concerned -- within
limits -- what anyone thinks. The limits are the irony
of real life that sometimes the most loving move will
so violate an unloving social convention -- such as
confessing adultery to a spouse -- that love can
damage oneself or someone else. No one is obligated,
and sometimes not privileged either, to damage himself
for any reason.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 13 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
There is a gap between our human nature and how well
we use it. It is inconceivable that God could get
anything wrong. If he could, he wouldn't be God but
only his creature. Jesus as God fills this gap by
giving himself into our hands to do with whatever we
want, even to execute him justly. At death, we're dead
meat if this gap remains unfilled. We can freely
elect to be empty, and God will grant even that.
Volition, or free choice, is God's image in us.
That's how God distinguishes us from animals, plants,
and rocks. He respects only His image in us.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 14 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
"Miracle" is a word we use for a natural event whose
cause may someday be discovered but at present is
unknown but of a nature to be knowable.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 15 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
Brain science is misguided when it talks about
thoughts. Brain development brings no content
(thoughts). Only experience brings content.
Under-developed brains can have an inadequate
understanding; or adequate understanding. Adequately
developed brains can have an inadequate or adequate
understanding.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 16 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
Experience can bring actual understanding of the way
it is or distortions of the way it is. Understanding
is knowing the cause of an event. We understand the
way it is in proportion to the consistency of the
connections between the causes we know.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 17 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
What is my current spiritual task? What lesson is God
trying to teach me now? It is obvious. Can I see it?
Can I do it? It is not an old habit. Can I find it by
inverting old habits?
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 18 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
Besides emphasizing the quantification; of things,
Galileo was not repressed ideologically but
politically. He was an idealistic dupe of the
Medici's to bait the pope and usurp the .i.papacy; for
their family.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 19 (3 13 4 Saturday).
</b>
Galileo's falling balls appear to the unaided eye to
go the same speed. However, modern physics is almost
entirely measured with instruments to aid the eye to
see otherwise invisible amounts. Galileo discovered
instrumentation with his telescope, but he had no
instrument that could discover an invisible difference
between the impact of his falling balls.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 20 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
How is personal responsibility connected to predicting
the future? Personal responsibility is for either
something in the past -- “I was responsible for that.”
-- in the future-- “I will be responsible for that.”
With future responsibility we assume what will
probably happen, based on what has happened in the
past. We select from our past experience what will
probably fit our purpose in the future. We cannot know
the future. We cannot predict it. We can estimate its
probabilities, knowing also that one probability, too,
is the improbable.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 21 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
What theological error or social system error would
you say that I am committing if I said to myself, “I
will not seek an investment of my personal time,
talents, and interests in any project of social value
but rather spend all my remaining lifetime --
negatively -- avoiding the archaic mechanisms that
have proven empty or obsolete in the past and --
positively -- devote myself entirely to following the
lead offered by the events and transitory commitments
each moment and day bring to my attention? In short,
should I follow my own agenda or seek to follow
someone else’s?
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 22 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
If “considerate” means “doing the most loving and
conventional act,” then if we do that, we relieve
ourselves from always seeking other’s approval.
Knowing what love is, in each case, lengthens both
ours and others’ lives.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 23 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
The neutral use of the feminine pronoun pronoun
(“she,” “her”) emphasizes the fact that the masculine
pronoun is grammatically neutral and the use of the
feminine pronoun means female only. In short, “she,
her” means female only, whereas “he, him” means either
male or female.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 24 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
A syncretism is an ideology posing as a religion that
lumps everything into one universe of discourse by
ignoring or relegating to non-essential the
differences between mutually exclusive ideologies. A
conspicuous example is commonly known as “B'hai.”
B'hai begins and ends with the illusion that
“elevated” language delivers all we can ever have of
God in this life.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 25 (3 15 4 Sunday).
</b>
The rhetoric coming from a syncretism is all tropic,
which means that, taken literally, it is
self-contradicting. Taken figuratively, almost any
interpretation is justifiable. Thus, a syncretism is
an ideology without an idea.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 26 (3 15 4 Monday).
</b>
Dogmas, or axioms, are truths necessary to reason.
Only reason can deny. A syncretism purports to do
away with dogmas by asserting a new, overriding dogma,
No idea can really conflict with any other. In a
syncretism, apparent disparity, which dominates the
real world, does not exist. In a syncretism, the
appearance of conflict is illusion.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 27 (3 15 4 Monday).
</b>
B'hai is a newer form of the many age-old syncretisms.
Syncretisms arise among the philosophically naive.
They cannot find a logical way to reconcile mutually
exclusive ideologies. So they see social conflicts,
including wars, as resulting from opposing ideas.
Instead, they propose a blanket reconciliation, based
not on dissolving apparent disparity but on relegating
the differences to the unessential.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 28 (3 15 4 Monday).
</b>
The appeal of all .i.syncretisms; historically has
been their immersion in peotic imagery. Indeed, the
Christian Bible is mostly tropic. And so, within an
atmosphere of "religion", the syncretic disposition
permits radical projections within the emotional
impacts of poetic imagery of one’s hopes and fears as
though “someone out there understands me.” The
rhetoric says, “Immerse yourself in the ocean of my
words . . .” (direct quote from a B'hai prayer.)
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 29 (3 15 4 Monday).
</b>
The essence of syncretic piety is diffusion of
ideological boundaries. Just as the eye demands
clarity, the mind demands coherence. In syncretic
literature, it finds it within the indirection;of
poetic rhetoric. In that ocean, mere wishes appear
factual. Real conflicts are diffused in the solution
of a fancy.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 30 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
In the United States, with its puritan heritage, a
syncretism resolves several conflicts inherent in
General American Dissent (GAD): It provides 1. An
aversion; to organized religion. 2. An aversion to
ritual, that is, to anything predictive of divine
behavior. 3. An aversion to dependence on buildings
and budgets. 4. A sense of the exotic, as an mystical
import from a strange and ancient culture. "So it
must be good," is the felt reaction.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 31 (3 13 4 Saturday).
</b>
B'hai piety consists primarily of reading others'
prayers and other bland imports. It practices the
"lowest common denominator" of liturgy under the
slogan, “All religions are one.” It is a radical
syncretism. Syncretisms minimize essential differences
between belief systems and so practices a pallid,
ineffectual, and "bland leading the bland" content and
tone, virtually indistinguishable from each local
culture.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 32 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
Ironically, since it is not expressly forbidden, an
emotionally, non-senuous ideology like B’hai permits
indulgence in lusciously evocative, even erotic
material, such as lavishly illustrated prayer and
occasion cards. Since these are not explicitly
forbidden by this laid-back puritanism, these are
justified because they are absent from its list of
"moral" injunctions. Otherwise, a syncretism is
usually rather puritan in tone and practice,
prohibiting strong drink, card playing, dancing, etc.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 33 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
The absolute values -- justifying all procedures -- of
Transactional Analysis are power, liberty, and health.
However, these are all morally neutral, which means
they may be used either way, to love or to damage.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 34 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
The people of California have bankrupted themselves by
limiting taxation so severely. Democracy does not
guarantee the success of a society. All it guarantees
is that everyone has a part in important decisions.
Since they can be replaced at the next election, every
democracy deserves the leaders it gets.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 35 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
Transactional Analysis and all therapies assume an
ideal state of life. An ideal state of life is clearly
one without physical disease. But radical subjectivism
levels all non-physical disease into “diversity.” Like
“cultural diversity,” if "things are neither right nor
wrong but thinking makes them so," then we may be
miserable to ourselves and others happy vice versa in
the same condition.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 36 (3 8 4 Monday).
</b>
Therapies make no judgments as to an ideal other than
the person doesn't like the way it now is and is
willing to try to change things or himself.
“.i.Power;” and “.i.liberty;” in .i.therapy values;
are treated as self-justified. “Everyone wants these,
don’t they?" is the .i.slogan;.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 37 (3 7 4 Sunday).
Transactional Analysis, with power as a goal, assumes
personal power politics (Machiavellian, predatory) is
a final human value. In fact, power corrupts, and
seldom if ever do powerful people use their power
altogether responsibly.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 38 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
"love and marriage...go together like a horse and
carriage" goes the old song. Yet there would never be
song a to assert it if it were really true. Like “The
sky is blue,” we would take it for granted if it were
and not think of saying so. The fact that they don’t
go together necessarily suggests the question , Why
not? The answer is, We all develop a system for
getting what we want from every other. This system we
call "society."
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 39 (3 7 4 Sunday).
</b>
Every system is an economy, or closed mechanism, whose
sole purpose is inertia, or to continue unchanged. And
because every personal economy is mostly like every
other, societies mostly obtain what the self wants.
But every personal system, too, is a little different
because every personal experience is a little
different. And when one closed mechanism conflicts
with another, they don’t “go together” at all. Unless
within both systems, a sub-mechanism permits change.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 40 (3 9 4 Tuesday).
</b>
“The search for truth” is a misreading of both life as
actually lived and of the nature and role of “truth.”
It tends to separate the adequacy and inadequacy of a
statement to represent in words a concept of ‘the way
it is.' (The “it” here refers to the whole of
reality, including being itself.) So what “the search
for truth” is doing is overlooking the fact that every
search has in mind has a conscious or subconscious
purpose, a goal, a notion of what would be a “find”
and the end of the search.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 41 (3 12 4 Friday).
</b>In other words, every “search” knows when the
search is over, and life can go on to some other
activity. This is the only possible conclusion
because everyone moves for a reason; there are no
voluntary human moves without a reason whether
conscious or subconscious.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 42 (3 9 4 Tuesday).
</b>
Clarity of purpose -- the definition of the “find” --
causes “truth” in the sense that every statement -- a
truth is a set of words, a statement, that purports to
refer to something in mind or in reality; it reflects
the adequacy of the mind to reality -- addresses some
purpose, whether explicit or assumed. Without an
understanding of its purpose, a “truth” is merely
meaningless rhetoric.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 43 (3 12 4 Friday).
</b>
Words often are the only content of public issues.
For example, "marriage." The gays want this word,
too, even though they can't physiologically "marry"
anyone. The Anglicans was the word "catholic," even
though they don't want to be under papal jurisdiction.
The pro- and con-"abortionists" ignore the morally
neutral uses of the word, such as in "spontaneous
abortion" or "abort your plans." Both "right to life"
and "pro-choice" also miss the point. The
Pro-choicers also want a right to life. And
Right-to-Lifers also want a choice. Hence, the
resolution of these issues is in the venue of the
media, whose goal is to fill copy and so keep these
obvious anomalies going.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 44 (3 12 4 Friday).
</b>
Underlying the "abortion" issue is a fear of an
unknown social situation in which human nature can be
manipulated. This would not be an issue were the
notion of human nature clear in the common consensus.
The animal rights people want to give animals civil
rights. The sophists of every dissenting religion
want to make ideas real. If we look at what is always
distinctive of the human animal and never of any
other, we come down always to volition, or "free
will," the capacity -- not always the social right to
choose and not always the best choice -- to defy an
impinging cause and assert a contrary value. Nothing
can remove this from the normal, conscious human
being. This is human nature boiled down to its
essence, volition.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 45 (3 12 4 Friday).
</b>
We live on our feelings because in them alone resides
all pleasure as well as all pain. So to be alive is
to feel, and to feel pain makes us as much alive as
pleasure.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 46 (3 12 4 Friday).
</b>
Making friends with the local powers that be is not
immoral -- even if they are unjust -- but merely
necessary, for there are always higher values than
working to thwart a local political system, such as
Nazism. The limit is each person's willingness to
sacrifice his welfare for principle, whereas the
wisest move would be to leave, sidestep injustice, as
did many Jews from Nazism.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 47 (3 12 4 Friday).
</b>
No woman is or ever will be more beautiful than
Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michael Douglas' wife.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 48 (3 12 4 Friday).
</b>
We never choose our own final destiny. Those who try
end with dust in their mouth, their own personal
construction of hell. Yet we must choose innumerable
intermediate destinies. So the task of life is
choosing those that yield the best final one, without
knowing what it is. Some know what it is, those who
believe Christ as he speaks through His Church.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 49 (3 12 4 Friday).
</b>
Insisting on choosing one's own final destiny is
insisting on controlling the uncontrollable. It is
generically impossible to choose what we don't know.
This is a contemporary formulation of "original sin."
So it is the father of every human grief, including
one's own death itself.
</p>
<br>
<b>
<p>
Insight 50 (3 12 4 Friday).
</b>
Everyday I get an emotional charge from my universal
perspective because it brings me up against to
totality of being, which we commonly call "God," not
in reality but rather with the realization of how
beautiful it all is. It never fails that only God can
be real, and we are sustained in being only by his
"thoughts" to sustain us. Jesus, as the divine
instrument of creation, makes us fresh in every
moment. The Holy Spirit is life in us. When we guess
the truth of this, each experinece, every event, leaps
into a broad, overall focus, an "just right" place for
itself.
</p>
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