30.3.17
– Dialectic & erotics
Beautiful prudes & sexy adults
Erastes & eromenos
Love & desire
Vagina for pleasure, uterus for procreation, anus for……?
“Ideal eros, for Plato, is entirely a mind-fuck.”
Habitual themes of pleasure
Morality of renunciation
Hermeneutics of desire
Power play – “pederasty becomes pedagogy”
Doxa Vs. Episteme
“A complete break from the socializing patterns of the Athenian polis”
– Only through the experience of inequality/oppression does one become fit to live in a world of equality/justice!
– Honest self-concern & patient labor
Legion – the opposite of individual is demoniac!
“The single individual is the eternal truth, as against the crowd, which is always the untruth.”
– So, let’s sit down and talk about truth, life & the way – both yours & mine, acknowledging that even we both together, are inadequate to comprehend (them) fully.
31.3.17
– Tinder – could enkindling be an end in itself, without appeal to another goal, like enlightenment?
– This woman talks of her widow status as an advantage when it comes to being a parent!
– Having a child will be catastrophic for this couple!
She will no longer have margin and her spiritual life will be strangled by the busyness (cares & desires of this world).
It will be the same for him, but he will NEVER let that happen.
And their relationship will not have the space (to do the intimate and intricate work that) it needs to flourish…”
– When watching Angel TV (with my mother!) today, I realized that, “they” must be seeing me – just as I (or someone like me) might see (someone like) Sadhu Sundar Selvaraj – as a fake prophet!
– Rimbaud & Baudelaire
Nietzsche & Bataille
Sade & Schusterman
The absurd sublime
The nihilistic ecstasy
The sadomasochistic somaesthetics
– Can the contents of the mind alter the structure of the brain itself?!
Software shapes hardware……….
– The atheological corpus
Victim ~ slave ~ weakling
– “Burning Man” ~ Roman Catholic Mass
Religious ritual!
Sacrifice as sacred violence.
Orgiastic festival
– GOD is the head ~ there is NO head!
Theology as mystical discourse.
Sovereignty ~ anarchy
– “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
– Marcus Aurelius
Cf. Soren Kierkegaard’s “The Crowd is Untruth”
Uniqueness requires impudence.
Without courage, every other virtue falls flat!
– Metta
13.4.17
– Compare & connect:
The movie “Mirrors” (especially the climax & last scene)
&
The book “Society of the Spectacle” (First chapter)
14.4.17
– Zao:
“I desire the end”
+
“At zero”
– Good Friday = Ambedkar Jayanthi
I am the Dalit – the sacrificed will be liberated today!
– FTW
Refrain (double meaning)
– Bataille + Jung
The animus (spirit) within each person needs to sacrifice the anima (flesh).
But the act is very difficult both for the priest and for the victim, because of the inherent resistance to violate and the drive to survive!
– The Word/Son/Christ is the ego of the triune divinity, which is sacrificed at the Cross.
The war between the superego and the id destroys the ego, to create a new being – the Superman!?
– Singing “How great thou art” during the Way of the Cross today was so fitting and elating!
– It is deeply distressing and infuriating, to see how Lent and the Cross have been emptied of their radical and subversive power, and made into just another message of “piety” & “love”……!
Why are the cosmic & political dimensions of the Cross consistently neglected by the Church, which focuses only on the clichéd slogan “Jesus died for you!”??
– “We have no king, but Caesar!” – Jews
“We have no god, but _____” – Christians
– “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – Israel
“My people, how have I wronged you? Why have you strayed away from me?” – YHWH
– Transform ~ destroy
Destroy ~ transform
– Hope ~ wait
Wait ~ hope
– Psalm responsorial singing
4.4.17
– The only thing in the financial sector that is ethical is the service of lending personal & business loans (credit).
Financial speculation & complex instruments (like the stock market, forex & commodities trading, etc.) are definitely pure evil!
– Face ~ presence
– Do your domestic duties & perform your conventional social roles, in such a way that is radical & subversive!
This, for most people, is far greater & much better, than just abandoning them for other more explicitly eternal/ideal works.
– The Work
Vs.
Tasks/chores
– If we move out of Chennai, then I would focus more on developing in self-education & formation, rather than trying to start some kind of ministry as soon as we get to the new place.
Maybe we shouldn’t stay in one place for more than 5 years…?!
9.4.17
– Left the 10 day Vipassana course @ Dhamma Setu before it was over, saying I was getting depression again……!
Was that true??
(I was greatly suffering from the over-frequent/heavy meditation sessions & the apparent pointlessness of it all……
Did Buddha really intend this as a kind of Indian psychoanalysis??)
Did I run away like a coward, or did I pull out the parachute just in time?
How are these other guys able to go through this torture?
Why would anyone want to do this a second time?
U. G. K was right about ‘enlightenment’!?
– The 3 levels of the mind:
1. Social/cultural
2. Individual/personal
3. Inward/spiritual
All 3 are at war with each other!
The third dimension is what you encounter in deep meditation. From this perspective, even my emphasis on individual freedom is undercut & relativized. Everything, including social roles & personal convictions, is nothing but entertainment/ornamentation!
The VOID!
The nothingness/numbness/emptiness/futility. Also called death/GOD/spirit/eternity.
This is what is revealed in events like Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, the cross of Christ, etc.
The tomb & the womb are examples of the inbreaking of this supernatural (horror/absurdity) into our ordinary experience. The VOID is the primeval black that is the source of the world & also its ultimate destiny.
Gravid nihilism! 😇
The sublime/divine is the place where the the inward & the cosmic are in mystical union!
Heaven ~ Hell. Hell ~ Heaven.
Vipassana is being marketed as the best technique or way to true peace/happiness (just like the Christian gospel). I think Goenka is dead wrong (just like most Christian teachers), but then, who am I to judge A Buddhist…!?
– New resolutions (to reinstate the ultimate reality of the VOID to its rightful place in my normal consciousness):
1. Daily 2 x 20 minutes mindful meditation + 15 min. lying awake in evening, followed by journaling.
2. Memento mori – take large print of the image in my Framework. Get X-ray skull of Chellam & me. Goes well along with the Crucifix I already have.
3. Make corner/tent @ home for meditation.
4. Tuesdays – noble silence
5. Curb techno hyper-stimulation by restricting mobile use to times when not engaged in any other task.
12.4.17
– “I am the door. If anyone enters through me, he will be saved, and will come in and go out, and find pasture.”
John 10:9 NET
http://bible.com/107/jhn.10.9.NET
He/she who has entered into the spiritual level can move freely between the material, social & individual spheres, and never be hassled by the transitions!
13.4.17
– “I feel numb”
Choose:
Fade to grey
Or
Fade to black
– Is it impossible to live contemplatively in this context?
– “May all beings be (liberated from the need to be) happy”!
– Virya & Sathi
Shila, Samadhi & Panya
Buddha, Dhamma & Samgha
Anichya, Dukha, Anatha & Shunyatha
14.4.17
– She’s living with her ex-husband!
– Survival is death is survival is……
– Social anarchy
– “Never rebuke while you’re still indignant about a fault committed — wait until the next day, or even longer. Then calmly, and with a purer intention, make your reprimand. You’ll gain more by a friendly word than by a three-hour quarrel.”
— Josemaria Escriva
Be quick to listen, slow to anger & slow to speak.
The way to become like this is by solitary meditation, by corporate silence & reflective listening.
Vipassana – always be aware of what is going on in your own body, by being rooted in the breath.
– There are 2 kinds of people:
The conscious
&
The unconscious
There is no death for the former!
Of course there are degrees of consciousness & unconsciousness.
But those who don’t even know or care about this distinction are the spiritually dead.
Distinguish:
The immortal
&
The undead
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