Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Ruthlessness
Am browsing "Tactics of Mistake" by Gordon R. Dickson. I must have read it 29 years ago because I found three small photos of me when I was 14 years old or so -- younger, naive -- world was full of promise and hadn't beaten my stubbornness down yet. :-) I was looking for a description of the philosophy of tactics of mistake for another friend, when I came across a discussion between the military genius protagonist and a philosopher. The soldier states that philosophers are some of the most ruthless people.
"You Exotics are essentially ruthless towards all men, because you're philosophers, and by and large philosophers are ruthless people."
"The immediate teaching of philosophers may be gentle, but the theory behind their teaching is without compunction --- and that's why so much bloodshed and misery has always attended the paths of their followers, who claim to live by those teachings. More blood's been spilled by the militant adherents of prophets of change than by any other group of people down through the history of man."
"...to achieve the future you dream of means the obliteration of the present as we know it now. ...your goal is still the destruction of what we have now to make room for something different. You work to destroy what presently is -- and that takes a ruthlessness that is not my way -- that I don't agree with."
So, from a soldier's point of view he's more honest and ruthless in a different way than a philosopher because he only destroys men and material directly and perhaps societies and institutions indirectly, whereas a philosopher destroys the ideals of the time and then men fight over which ideals are superior.
Of course, this whole outlook is a mind based view. Spiritual Truth goes beyond the mind. It can only be felt or experienced directly by each person. When that event happens, the mind subsides or stills and becomes a tool to be used by the watcher rather than be the user. In other words identity shifts from thinking to observing in an Awakened or Enlightened individual. The need to be right is part of a mind based existence and is the seed of all wars and conflict. Wakefulness or Enlightenment goes beyond that need to be right, goes beyond the mind and its needs. Being right or wrong does not matter any more. Tolle stresses this point many times because it is at the root of most human suffering and pain, one's need to be right, one's refusal to acknowledge what is.
"You Exotics are essentially ruthless towards all men, because you're philosophers, and by and large philosophers are ruthless people."
"The immediate teaching of philosophers may be gentle, but the theory behind their teaching is without compunction --- and that's why so much bloodshed and misery has always attended the paths of their followers, who claim to live by those teachings. More blood's been spilled by the militant adherents of prophets of change than by any other group of people down through the history of man."
"...to achieve the future you dream of means the obliteration of the present as we know it now. ...your goal is still the destruction of what we have now to make room for something different. You work to destroy what presently is -- and that takes a ruthlessness that is not my way -- that I don't agree with."
So, from a soldier's point of view he's more honest and ruthless in a different way than a philosopher because he only destroys men and material directly and perhaps societies and institutions indirectly, whereas a philosopher destroys the ideals of the time and then men fight over which ideals are superior.
Of course, this whole outlook is a mind based view. Spiritual Truth goes beyond the mind. It can only be felt or experienced directly by each person. When that event happens, the mind subsides or stills and becomes a tool to be used by the watcher rather than be the user. In other words identity shifts from thinking to observing in an Awakened or Enlightened individual. The need to be right is part of a mind based existence and is the seed of all wars and conflict. Wakefulness or Enlightenment goes beyond that need to be right, goes beyond the mind and its needs. Being right or wrong does not matter any more. Tolle stresses this point many times because it is at the root of most human suffering and pain, one's need to be right, one's refusal to acknowledge what is.
Comments:
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"Of course, this whole outlook is a mind based view. Spiritual Truth goes beyond the mind."
Amen, John! We must go out of our minds!
Would you consider posting one of those early pics of you you found?
Amen, John! We must go out of our minds!
Would you consider posting one of those early pics of you you found?
George,
Don't have a scanner any more, but I'll see what I can do. I look basically the same but have less hair and a few more pounds but am fairly well preserved nonetheless. :-).
John
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Don't have a scanner any more, but I'll see what I can do. I look basically the same but have less hair and a few more pounds but am fairly well preserved nonetheless. :-).
John
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