OUR CLAN ANIMAL our song
INSPIRATIONS
A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) Mathematical Circles
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Pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.
David Foster Wallace, Commencement Speech
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Love
alone can unite living beings so as to complete and fulfill
them... for it alone joins them by what is deepest in
themselves. All we need is to imagine our ability to love developing
until it embraces the totality of men and the earth."
~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
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"LOVE AND DO WHAT YOU WILL" St. Augustine
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Dass Guided Imagery
blogs for the week due by
11:59 PM the previous Sunday.
2-2 Jewish Bible: QUIZ; 1st half b&w; LEADER: DEER
ETHICS GOALS
[2A2] The second goal of the required leadership/ethics flag courses -- learn to make real-life ethical choices -- is closely related to the core purpose of the University of Texas, to transform lives for the benefit of society. It is also one of the basic education requirements of U.T.: “have experience in thinking about moral and ethical problems.”
our primary approach is the oldest: ethics guided by lovingkindness; more specifically, by three nonbinary emotions: biophilia, inner peace, joie de vivre
[2A2f] To practice replacing fear and greed with love, compassion, tolerance, and the sympathetic imagination.
OTHER GOALS
[3C1] To unify the self: our goal is to maximize our potential by cultivating both sides of our brains, developing all our multiple intelligences.
TODAY'S TOPICS: THE FOUNDATION OF WESTERN ETHICS
TODAY'S ACTIVITIES: Einstein statement, Guided Imagery, "Best and Worst" for first half of alphabet; quiz, discussion of blog and readings
149-162 “Genesis”
163-164 Milton
165-176 Paradise Lost bk. 7
177 Leviticus 19:18
177-179 Isaiah 41-61
TODAY'S POSSIBLE TOPICS, TALKING POINTS:
How's the water?
If the water is that which is outside the self, it provides access to that which is greater than the self? Is ultimate oneness what you see when you look out from your self?
Probably not. Why not?
Is it because the water is full of seemingly invisible barrier planes? Called in Hinduism "Maya"? but related at times to Mara?
One of those planes, many argue, is called the net of language, catching you when you try to reach out beyond the self.
One word for one aspect of that net is "ideology" and one of the primary sources of Western ideologies is, paradoxically, the Bible, which both points to God and explains how hard it is to achieve oneness with God.
In this context, one of the primary ideologies of the West is "Genesis," a foundational text of Western civilization.
How does it affect/"determine" our perception of the self and that which is greater than the self?
VOCABULARY:
"Determine" may be too strong a word for some, but not for the historian Lynn White " who gave a famous lecture on December 26, 1966, titled, "The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis" at the Washington meeting of the AAAS, that was later published in the journal Science.[16]. . . . . Citing the Genesis creation story he argued that Judeo-Christian theology had swept away pagan animism and normalized exploitation of the natural world[17] because [it] asserts man's dominion over nature and establishes a trend of anthropocentrism [making] a distinction between man (formed in God's image) and the rest of creation, which has no "soul" or "reason" and is thus inferior. He posited that these beliefs have led to an indifference towards nature which" enabled the West to surpass the east in science and technology and take over the world.
Summary, partly, from Wikipedia of Lynn Townsend White, Jr, "The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis", Science, Vol 155 (Number 3767), March 10, 1967, pp 1203–1207.
"Maya" in Sanskrit connotes "illusion, unreality, deception .... In Hindu and Buddhist philosophy..... the illusion or appearance of the phenomenal world.
"Mara" is the Sanskrit word for "slaughter" and "death". "In Buddhism, Mara is the demon who assaulted Gautama Buddha beneath the bodhi tree, using violence, sensory pleasure and mockery in an attempt to prevent the Buddha from attaining enlightenment. . . . . He is a tempter, distracting humans from practicing the Buddhist dharma through making the mundane seem alluring, or the negative seem positive. Buddhism utilizes the concept of Mara to represent and personify negative qualities found in the human ego and psyche. The stories associated with Mara remind Buddhists that such demonic forces can be tamed by controlling one's mind, cravings and attachments." New World Encyclopedia.
"Ideology"
"Ideo" derives from "idea" "derived from the Platonic concept of general or ideal form as distinguished from its realization in individual instances." OED
+ "logy" from Logos: word, speech, discourse, reason = "A systematic scheme of ideas, usually relating to politics, economics, or society and forming the basis of action or policy; a set of beliefs governing conduct." OED Current variation now evident in pp. 168-169 of your course anthology in the references to invisible ideologies, basic myths and assumptions so widespread, so accepted they are simply accepted as the norm or as common sense.
An invisible ideology of this type is "carnism" as described on the following pages in your anthology, an ideology that seems to derive directly from "Genesis."
So perhaps you can see how the word "ideology" relates to the motto on the tower and the definitions of the "liberal" arts we talked about last semester and thus to another theme from Tuesday's discussion, "freedom," .....
What is true Freedom? Are you free or are you enslaved? cf. Tower Motto: free from what? From Maya, from Mara?
today's blog prompts:
Is the net of language Maya? Mara?
Is Genesis one of the nets? What about other invisible ideologies, basic mythologies, embedded in it such as gender roles? Can we even think or speak in English without assuming binary dualisms like male vs. female? What would it be like to be free of this particular invisible ideology?
LOOKING AHEAD:
2-4 Christian Bible 2nd half b&w;QUIZ; LEADER?
180-182 Gospel of Luke
183 The Stations of the Cross
184 John 13+15
184-185 Paul 1 Corinthians 13
185 Colossians 3
186 1 John 4
187 John 8: Tower Motto
188-190 “Last Supper”+ “Vegetarianism?”
