OUR CREDO?

[fraser]

OUR CREDO?
"The fundamental purpose of all leaders, messiahs and messengers from the gods is to find some means by which the two sides of the earth can live together in peace and harmony. Time is very short - it is necessary to achieve this harmony as soon as possible to avoid complete disaster. Philosophies, religions and other such movements have all failed to accomplish this aim, and the only possible way to accomplish it is through the individual development of man. As an individual develops his own, unknown potentialities, he will become strong and will, in turn, influence many more people. If enough individuals can develop themselves - even partially - into genuine, natural men, able to use the real potentialities that are proper to mankind, each such individual will then be able to convince and win over as many as a hundred other men, who will, each in his turn, upon achieving development, be able to influence another hundred, and so on…. The separate, distinct growth of each individual in the world is the only possible solution." George Gurdjieff.

[Yodhe]

I also believe that it is imperative for those said individuals to synergise with each other, otherwise they will become lone voices of sanity in a world descending into the rule of lowest common denominator. I think that talk of the end of the world is overhyped, however it is more a case of a perpetuation of the current paradigm of the luxury of a few based on the exploitation of the many, rather than has been described elsewhere as a "partnership" culture.

But wise words nevertheless from the cosmic rascal who was Gurdijeff imho.

[fraser]

2 points, yodhe.

1. synergising is another thing, but G is mostly talking about work on oneself, inside, alone. which could mean LESS synergising with others for a time.

2. but if u do that too long, as some gurdjieffians do do, WITHOUT 'synergising', u CAN end up a lone voice of sanity in a doomed world. i do think we are at Final Crisis, and we need all hands on deck.

[Yodhe]

1. I borrowed the synergise concept from Buckminster Fuller, who although applied it in an engineering aspect, can be equally applied to a socio-political one in my experience. Although I would advocate that one learns to become a self-enlightened.sustaining.actuated individual first, using an alchemical metaphor of working on the "black earth" of the self to transform.mutate oneself into "gold". I also think that whilst in some ways there is merely the self to enact upon, we do not live in isolation, although we find ourselves often in isolatory circumstances. That a part of the process is coming to an appreciation that self does not merely stop at the skin, but extends (like McLuhan Extensions of Man, but in a psycho-biological sense) into our environment, that there isn't the this and that of being merely a "bag of flesh and bone".

2. From my own research, I think that Velikovsky was onto something (and confirmed from my readings, and study of other notables such W. Reich, Metzner etc) that the "disaster" is actually something that lies in our past. What we seem to be doing from a psychological perspective is "re-enacting" this trauma, bringing back to the surface of our conscious minds, in an attempt to resolve the neurotic condition (dominator society model) and return, although it would also seem like a transcending also, to a partnership state of consciousness and society.

But interesting points nevertheless, and I would concur that it is "high time" we started to pull together in a cohesive fashion to create a more groovy paradigm.

[RU Sirius]

Thanks for the contribution Fraser. I wouldn't impose that as "our" credo, though. Maybe yours, and Gurdjieff's and a few others here.

I would maybe take a look around at the proflies of people who have joined this network -- plenty of athiests here, so the reference to God might not make them feel to connected. And I'm not sure that QuestionAuthority is about Harmony. I understand that Gurdjieff was invisioning a harmony or realized autonomous individuals, but the message I communicated in QA for instance, is basically pragmatic and relates to the rights to dissent and nonconform -- harmony, in pragmatic terms, is a very ambiguous goal indeed.


R>

[Advocate]

Not to mention that religion has always been one of the largest example of authority that needed resisting, and many of the things this group resists are from religion.

[fraser]

1. OUR CREDO? i wrote it as "OUR CREDO?" - with a question mark. i thought it should be discussed, and i thought and still think that this says exactly the Truth of our present Situation.

2. GODS - i take the point about atheists. what it's saying is that no religion or political party can do it for us. "all religions and political theories have failed." we each individually have to evolve to a wiser or more aware level. i agree that mentioning the gods could put some people off so let's change "all leaders, messiahs and messengers from the gods" to "all leaders and visionaries" happy with that?

3. HARMONY - as for the point about harmony does anyone deny that what this site is about is A RETURN TO A LOST HARMONY? (even if just defined as "more harmony") if that's not the aim then i dunno what the motivation is :)

[Michael]

Harmony is a term I can certainly live with. And listening to the still small voice within is something I live by. But I'm a Quaker atheist: "credo" is a word I have real problems with.

Well, that and the sense of "MY GOD DOOM IS UPON US" which people have been screaming since we had language. I'm sorry -- things are shitty in the real world, but that's why we strive for progress. But there is no more urgency than at any other point in history. History will surprise us, it's true, but most of us will get through it, and continue to make progress.

Calm is important. You can't find harmony without calm. And we will fail -- and continue to fail, because that's what being human is. Then we pick ourselves up, dust off our knees, do failure analysis, and try something incrementally better. Rinse and repeat.

[fraser]

CREDO - "a set of fundamental beliefs or a guiding principle."
would you be happy with OUR GUIDING PRINCIPLE? it sounds a bit boring. are we going to allow ourselves to use some PR?

i'd say your DOOM argument is a rough summary of how we've 'got by' until now. only we weren't really 'getting by' cos the problem was growing bigger and bigger and now it's HERE. THE END has already begun. let's not be like the guy who jumped off the 50 floor building and half way down says: "hey it's not so bad".

i agree with you about calm tho. i've been "saving the planet" since the '60s and i've clearly been getting MORE RIGHT with every day that's passed while 'failing' like it was going out of style :) the thing about 'failure analysis' is it can locate the blame inside cos you did something wrong or outside in the external situation where u were right but people just weren't ready to hear yet cos the situation hadn't gotten bad enough yet.

rinse and this time use a permanent dye.

[uncle osbert]

there is no permanence... i think the biggest problem we're facing is that we've been sold solutions when we need a working process. the problems always change because we do, and we can't forget that. i think that's what fraser was trying to impart... this is kind of an unwieldy credo, though it says a lot i agree with.

i like the idea of promoting individual paths to truth. but that's a lonely way to live. i do feel as though it breeds misanthropy. there must be some message that encompasses the feeling of frustration, but the necessity of continued participation with other people.

‘Know thyself’ was written over the portal of the antique world. Over the portal of the new world, ‘Be thyself’ shall be written. And the message of Christ to man was simply ‘Be thyself.’ That is the secret of Christ.
~ oscar wilde

[RU Sirius]

I saw the question mark, which is cool.

As for harmony, well in terms of politics, what if Gordon Brown asked for harmony? What would it mean? I would take it to mean don't make waves and play nice with the majority...

And what if you were in the majority and agreed with it. Shouldn't we cherish the existence of a minority that's not in harmony with us?

R>

[fraser]

that's a very good question.

obviously, yes, we must cherish the unharmonious minority (currently us!) UNTIL WE ACHIEVE A HARMONIOUS SOCIETY at which point there would be no need for disharmony.
unless you think disharmony is a natural phenomenon that's built into the bricks. do you?

surely we're not contemplating a permanent minority who just chuck in grunts of disapproval every so often?! to me, that's being a part of the status quo.

[Michael]

I do, in fact, think disharmony is a natural phenomenon built into the organic chemistry. Or perhaps at a somewhat higher level. You need the local violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics for it.

Bricks don't violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics in an open energy flow (much) and so bricks are, in fact, harmonious (mostly).