When traveling, Gulliver's representative goes through a constant process of amazement and learning.
Because in almost every new place the locals have found ways to exist in a different way than elsewhere.
The language is different.
The religion.
The customs.
The dress code.
The culture.
The cooking.
Traveling and visiting new people is like landing on a new planet.
To truly enjoy this, one must be able to practice Krishnamurti's technique of "choiceless awareness".
The traveller may learn about a certain surprising and different custom when new people are met.
This then can be absorbed without the traveller being judgmental.
Without condemning the custom or rejecting it.
These days we are all in the footsteps of Gulliver.
Because we don't need to go somewhere anymore to learn about different ways of living.
Television brings it right into our living room.
The hiking shoes can stay in the closet because we have a sofa and a TV with National Geographic and Discovery channels.
One way to effectively practice "choiceless awareness" when learning about a different way to live life is to always keep in mind that in spite of cultural, social and religious differences, some very fundamental things we deeply share.
Things that are the same no matter how different another person elsewhere lives.
One of those things is that any other person elsewhere in the world has also a father and a mother.
There is nobody on this planet who does not have parents.
Every one of us has once been carried in the womb of a woman.
These days, on our planet, an escalation is taking place between religions.
Islam in many places has supporters who would like to see society ruled based on interpretations they make of the Koran.
These persons are very strong believers in what they are convinced of.
So strong that they are prepared to enforce their convictions on others.
This is obviously the opposite of "choiceless awareness".
It is an awareness with a tunnel vision: they see only one truth.
The awareness of a fundamentalist Muslim is within the framework of the Koran only.
Everything is seen through that tunnel.
When this approach to life is imposed on others without respect for different convictions, an unacceptable situation is created.
The principle of "choiceless awareness" cannot be exercised anymore because the personal freedom of others is entered and is tried to be forcibly altered.
Once we have a world where "choiceless awareness" is being corrupted, violence starts.
Imposing results in resistance.
And if the imposing comes with violence, the resistance will not be peaceful.
People have to learn to respect the others and accept them with the values they have.
They have to learn not to impose doctrines.
To allow fellow human beings their personal freedom.
And with this God agrees.
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Showing posts with label Krishnamurti. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Krishnamurti. Show all posts
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
How to remain friends
Naturally there is a huge difference between the reality of life on a Mexican Rancho and the reality of life of a pioneering photographer.
Different cultures, different objectives and different traditions.
However, there is nevertheless a harmonious symbiosis working well due to mutual respect.
And by limiting the knowledge about the other party’s reality.
The Gonzalez do not know all the ins and outs of the practice of the photographer.
And the photographer doesn’t know too much what is going on in the family and on the rancho.
There are very few questions asked because the mode is to politely wait until the moment someone involved in the friendship feels it is appropriate and relevant to tell something.
This may sound like a superficial relationship.
While it is definitely not.
To the contrary.
Because most of the daily anecdotic stuff is not the subject of the communication, the sharing is of only essential words and feelings.
One thing the Gonzalez family did not have to inform about was their sudden passion for roosters.
Over the last two months cages were put near the house of the rancho.
In those cages roosters are housed.
By now there about thirty.
The Fuso Szulc is about 500 metres away from the rancho but every morning the roosters can be heard at daybreak.
A tremendous concert of thirty roosters trying to outperform one another by crowing as loud as possible.
And the Gonzalez do not seem to bother much about this rather overpowering way of the cocks waking up people.
There is a reason why they keep roosters these days.
They are used for cockfights, the new hobby of the young Ismaël Gonzalez and his oldest brother Juan-Manuel.
During the weekend they go with some of their roosters to villages and towns in the area where cock fights are organized.
If one of their roosters wins a fight, the brothers can earn as much as 30.000 Mexican Pesos ($ 2.060 or € 1.600).
A lot of money in a country where a construction worker makes daily 300 Mexican Pesos ($ 20 or € 16).
For the rooster it is a different thing.
The fights are about life and death.
If the roosters looses, it is because he died in the fight.
And the rooster that wins is probably so wounded it is also going into the soup pot.
In the USA and Europe cockfights are illegal.
Because it is considered a heinous blood sport due to the physical, always-mortal trauma the cocks inflict on each other.
Meanwhile, nearby the thirty roosters waiting for their life-ending fight lives the photographer that loves and respects animals.
Who is even a member of a political party in the Netherlands defending animal rights in Parliament.
Who is more concerned about the well being of animals than about the well being of the NATO-troops in Afghanistan.
The only way to live with this situation of 30 roosters at the rancho is not to have an opinion about these activities of the Gonzales boys.
Jiddu Krishnamurti explained that man has built in himself images as a sense of security—religious, political, personal.
These manifest as symbols, ideas and beliefs.
The burden of these dominates man's thinking, relationships and his daily life.
These are the causes of our problems for they divide man from man in every relationship.
So, the pioneering photographer observes the roosters without having a condemning opinion.
What Krishnamurti calls the “ choiceless awareness”.
And is therefore still friends with the Gonzalez.
.
Different cultures, different objectives and different traditions.
However, there is nevertheless a harmonious symbiosis working well due to mutual respect.
And by limiting the knowledge about the other party’s reality.
The Gonzalez do not know all the ins and outs of the practice of the photographer.
And the photographer doesn’t know too much what is going on in the family and on the rancho.
There are very few questions asked because the mode is to politely wait until the moment someone involved in the friendship feels it is appropriate and relevant to tell something.
This may sound like a superficial relationship.
While it is definitely not.
To the contrary.
Because most of the daily anecdotic stuff is not the subject of the communication, the sharing is of only essential words and feelings.
One thing the Gonzalez family did not have to inform about was their sudden passion for roosters.
Over the last two months cages were put near the house of the rancho.
In those cages roosters are housed.
By now there about thirty.
The Fuso Szulc is about 500 metres away from the rancho but every morning the roosters can be heard at daybreak.
A tremendous concert of thirty roosters trying to outperform one another by crowing as loud as possible.
And the Gonzalez do not seem to bother much about this rather overpowering way of the cocks waking up people.
There is a reason why they keep roosters these days.
They are used for cockfights, the new hobby of the young Ismaël Gonzalez and his oldest brother Juan-Manuel.
During the weekend they go with some of their roosters to villages and towns in the area where cock fights are organized.
If one of their roosters wins a fight, the brothers can earn as much as 30.000 Mexican Pesos ($ 2.060 or € 1.600).
A lot of money in a country where a construction worker makes daily 300 Mexican Pesos ($ 20 or € 16).
For the rooster it is a different thing.
The fights are about life and death.
If the roosters looses, it is because he died in the fight.
And the rooster that wins is probably so wounded it is also going into the soup pot.
In the USA and Europe cockfights are illegal.
Because it is considered a heinous blood sport due to the physical, always-mortal trauma the cocks inflict on each other.
Meanwhile, nearby the thirty roosters waiting for their life-ending fight lives the photographer that loves and respects animals.
Who is even a member of a political party in the Netherlands defending animal rights in Parliament.
Who is more concerned about the well being of animals than about the well being of the NATO-troops in Afghanistan.
The only way to live with this situation of 30 roosters at the rancho is not to have an opinion about these activities of the Gonzales boys.
Jiddu Krishnamurti explained that man has built in himself images as a sense of security—religious, political, personal.
These manifest as symbols, ideas and beliefs.
The burden of these dominates man's thinking, relationships and his daily life.
These are the causes of our problems for they divide man from man in every relationship.
So, the pioneering photographer observes the roosters without having a condemning opinion.
What Krishnamurti calls the “ choiceless awareness”.
And is therefore still friends with the Gonzalez.
.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
West lacking East
Currently reading a book called “The log from the Sea of Cortez” by American author John Steinbeck (1902-1968).
In 1940, Steinbeck and the biologist Edward F. Ricketts ventured aboard the “Western Flyer”, a sardine boat out of Monterey, California, USA, on a 4.000-mile voyage around the Mexican Baja peninsula into the Sea of Cortez.
The sea next to which the Fuso Szulc is parked.
“The log from the Sea of Cortez” is a day-by-day account of the expedition.
But it is also about science and philosophy.
The extraordinary presence of nature inspiring Steinbeck to higher levels of thinking.
On page 218 we find the following statement:
We must understand that probably Steinbeck means with “man”, the human being.
Including women also.
Steinbeck’s statement is very true.
Of course a person will feel very lost in life if a perfect and certain pattern dissolves.
For example if a person is used to a life with plenty of money and suddenly all material wealth is gone.
To adapt to poverty will be difficult and painful.
Or if a person is in a harmonious and happy relationship and suddenly the partner dies.
How else can the person feel but lost and miserable?
Steinbeck gives as an example:
This might be an extreme way of putting it and the statement suffers of generalizing.
There are plenty of people who lost the love of their life and did not become haters.
What Steinbeck was totally lacking in 1940 was any knowledge of ways of thinking about life as they do in the Far East.
In India, Japan and China.
He was unknown with concepts like transformation, sublimation and enlightenment.
He therefore could only conclude that a drastic change in the life of a person would lead to war, negativity, depression and destruction.
Writing his book during the Second World War he was unable to see that a person may have experiences in life that seem to be dramatic and destructive.
But that eventually they turn out to be the best that could happen.
Because the person manages to go through the deep and dark valley while learning and growing to ultimately manage to climb out of the personal hell to reach new and higher levels of living.
This concept was unknown to Steinbeck.
He writes:
The truth is that for thousands of years a lot is known about the reasons for human beings to have suffering and painful experiences in life.
But Steinbeck was living in a context of extreme violence and worldwide conflict: the USA in the 40’s.
Making himself go deeper into this context by becoming a war correspondent.
Allowing violence and conflict to go even deeper inside him.
Remarkable enough, very near from where Steinbeck was living, a spiritual master was expressing an opposite message.
Steinbeck was in Salinas, California, USA and Jiddu Krishnamurti was in Ojai, California, USA.
But Steinbeck never heard that life is a process of learning.
Not to survive, but to grow.
To learn more about Jiddu Krishnamurti, click on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=J._Krishnamurti
To learn more about John Steinbeck, click on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck
To learn more about the book “The log from the Sea of Cortez”, click on:
http://www.amazon.com/Log-Sea-Cortez-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140187448
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Log_from_the_Sea_of_Cortez
.
John Steinbeck
In 1940, Steinbeck and the biologist Edward F. Ricketts ventured aboard the “Western Flyer”, a sardine boat out of Monterey, California, USA, on a 4.000-mile voyage around the Mexican Baja peninsula into the Sea of Cortez.
The sea next to which the Fuso Szulc is parked.
“The log from the Sea of Cortez” is a day-by-day account of the expedition.
But it is also about science and philosophy.
The extraordinary presence of nature inspiring Steinbeck to higher levels of thinking.
On page 218 we find the following statement:
“There is no lostness like that which comes to a man when a perfect and certain pattern has dissolved about him.”
We must understand that probably Steinbeck means with “man”, the human being.
Including women also.
Steinbeck’s statement is very true.
Of course a person will feel very lost in life if a perfect and certain pattern dissolves.
For example if a person is used to a life with plenty of money and suddenly all material wealth is gone.
To adapt to poverty will be difficult and painful.
Or if a person is in a harmonious and happy relationship and suddenly the partner dies.
How else can the person feel but lost and miserable?
Steinbeck gives as an example:
“There is no hater like one who has greatly loved”.
This might be an extreme way of putting it and the statement suffers of generalizing.
There are plenty of people who lost the love of their life and did not become haters.
What Steinbeck was totally lacking in 1940 was any knowledge of ways of thinking about life as they do in the Far East.
In India, Japan and China.
He was unknown with concepts like transformation, sublimation and enlightenment.
He therefore could only conclude that a drastic change in the life of a person would lead to war, negativity, depression and destruction.
Writing his book during the Second World War he was unable to see that a person may have experiences in life that seem to be dramatic and destructive.
But that eventually they turn out to be the best that could happen.
Because the person manages to go through the deep and dark valley while learning and growing to ultimately manage to climb out of the personal hell to reach new and higher levels of living.
This concept was unknown to Steinbeck.
He writes:
“Little enough is known about the function of individual pain and suffering, although from its profound organization it is suspected of being necessary as a survival mechanism”.
The truth is that for thousands of years a lot is known about the reasons for human beings to have suffering and painful experiences in life.
But Steinbeck was living in a context of extreme violence and worldwide conflict: the USA in the 40’s.
Making himself go deeper into this context by becoming a war correspondent.
Allowing violence and conflict to go even deeper inside him.
Remarkable enough, very near from where Steinbeck was living, a spiritual master was expressing an opposite message.
Steinbeck was in Salinas, California, USA and Jiddu Krishnamurti was in Ojai, California, USA.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
275 miles (442 kilometres) away from each other.But Steinbeck never heard that life is a process of learning.
Not to survive, but to grow.
+++++++++++++++++++++
To learn more about Jiddu Krishnamurti, click on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=J._Krishnamurti
To learn more about John Steinbeck, click on:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck
To learn more about the book “The log from the Sea of Cortez”, click on:
http://www.amazon.com/Log-Sea-Cortez-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140187448
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Log_from_the_Sea_of_Cortez
.
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