We’ve lost the ability to give others time. We expect all interactions to be specific, clear and concise… doing little more than mindlessly running our own mouths, and genearlly at the expense of really listening to another person. But often our most honest and insightful perspectives are slow to assemble, and require a kind of engaging or wrestling. For this we need to be patient with ourselves. And in conversation, this can be most difficult.
Thinking is not always easy, and feeling is often more difficult, yet we take these processes for granted… interrupting others as their disposition forms, or giving up on ourselves, abandoning the effort to really conjure true sentiment. With such haste, we often misrepresent ourselves, our position, or our information. Our whole relationship to ourselves is at stake, if not to others. Though, with superficial conversing we often make commitments to others that we don’t keep, or say things that we don’t mean, and in this very real way, our relationship with others is additionally at stake.
If we cannot fully be honest/genuine when interrogating ourselves, how can we ever expect to really know and understand ourselves? The truth is we cannot. We instead become imitations of who we want to be, or automatons of our own habitat to regurgitate half-hearted nonsense, at the expense of really knowing who we are, how we really treat other people, what we really believe, and how we act on those beliefs. Worst of all, we can never truly maintain the imitation, the facade for long…
It is best to give ourselves time— to be patient with ourselves— particularly in conversation, because these are moments where the talking often moves so quickly that we forget to be present. And if we can strive to give ourselves time, perhaps we can learn to give others time as well. And slowly, over time, others will know that you are someone with whom they receive enough time to be honest.
I’m having a kind of crisis as I recall my relationship to my own past.
I am accountable for every action I’ve ever done. What of my purity? How will I be seen by those children in my future? No amount of right/good done in life replaces the circumstance of wrong action. What do we make of our transgressions? Must we always admit them? Throughout the process of “unification of personality”, what does it mean to say, “I did.” ?? Am I right to assume we are always accountable for past and present? Given my certain history, what’s to say a like transgression won’t reoccur? I guess this is one kind of motivation for work on oneself— to not repeat one’s misdoings. Can we blame another for fearing the reoccurence of such a behavior in us? Kongzi (Confucius) will assert that an upright man will never expect wrong action in another, but he will be the first to recognize such behavior as it occurs. Why does he say this? If only there were more upright people… and less wrong doings, of course.
GE: You say that: philosophy of consciousness, simply, is the pursuit of wisdom about the self— about the reaches of our understanding, addressing the difficulties in our perceptions and the possibility of cultivating accurate ‘consideration’ for those things around us.
I would like to think I have some sort of consideration for the things around us.
AB: I too think you have accurate, and often authentic consideration. Certainly, more than most.
GE: What do you mean by consideration?
AB: It requires experience and reflection, among other things. P.D. Ouspensky will say it requires ‘New Knowledge’ and a ‘Special School’.
It’s a term I need to define. I will work towards a better definition, but of course the ‘accuracy’ is in HOW one considers. Proper consideration begins after one has understood fully their own habits of perspective.
Each of us falls victim to our own habits— habits of action, habits of thought, habits of relations— and it takes much Work to begin to recognize our own conditioning, our own confounding.
For this Work, you will need a teacher. I can converse with you, and point you to better readings, but these can only prepare your lexicon for more accurate self-study. Such readings will prepare you to be more precise in language with your experience. But with a teacher, you will have an opportunity to learn new knowledge, you will receive instruction on more levels of being. Conversation is organic, and in the midst of a teacher and in the company of other students, you will more accurately be able to self-study.
Only then, after prolonged self-study, will one be able to most accurately ‘consider.’ Why? Because only then will one see things as separate from their own desires and imagination. And only then can one’s consideration be sovereign thought.
GE: How do you reconcile the positive experience of consciousness and
self-cultivation with feeling the pain of the world?
Well, this is no easy task, as you clearly know from your travels. My thesis is hoping to inspire an urgency in those who have the freedom to Work on themselves. It is a rarity that (1) people are given ample freedom to congregate, discuss and strive for self-cultivation, and that (2) people are interested enough and determined enough to put forth the constant energy and attention required for self-cultivation. Surely ANYONE can do it! But some create impossible circumstance, while others fall victim to it.
But rest assured, the first step to reconciling this predicament is one’s own self-improvement. For now, your travels and your recognition of the ‘pain of the world’ can serve to enlarge what Ouspensky calls your ‘magnetic center.’ The magnetic center is essentially the desire in you to self-study, the desire to learn to live to your fullest potential. Some are completely oblivious to empathy. The deep-souled, however, find the ‘pain of the world’ as a compelling source for motivation.
NOTE: A better word might be ‘contemplate’, especially since Ouspensky has a particularly negative association for the term ‘considering’. This, of course, is a translation issue, but I will have to be clear to delineate in all future writings. For now, ‘considering’ will have to do. ;)
Today I got a $5 bill, and stamped on the back was the following message:
“I wouldn’t call it facsism exactly, but a political
system nominally controlled by an irresponsible,
dumbed down electorate who are manipulated by
dishonest, cynical, controlled mass media that
dispense the propaganda of a corrupt political
establishment can hardly be described as democracy
either” — Edward Zehr.
If the Bush regime went to war based on manipulated
intelligence and blatant lies, why would they not be
considered murderers?
Who are ‘we the people’? and where are they when
we need them?
(Message from a Viet Nam vet.)
I’ve finally finished all of my classes for my MA in philosophy, and I’m finishing up my thesis paper this term. It’s going to be a 4 chapter paper on several aspects of consciousness philosophy, and when it’s done, I’ll let you know. In the mean time, I’ll try to address your inquiry: what is Consciousness Philosophy?
Well, let me say that ‘philosophy’ is derived from the latin, meaning ‘love of wisdom’. So in this sense, philosophy is strictly an out-focused operation… a love OF something. I mean to say that it is consideration FROM the person out TOWARDS something else, be it politics, or economics, or social behavior and consideration of these things lends itself to particular interests in things like morals, ethics, ownership, human rights, national sovereignty, etc.
In fact, much of philosophy struggles to determine how reliable it is to be such an out-focused enterprise. Questions arise, such as, “what mechanisms and/or experiences allow one to make such a consideration?,” “how accurate are the considerations we can make?” and “can anyone similarly make or understand a consideration made by another person?”
Consciousness Philosphy shifts all the gears around, it turns the entire operation back upon itself. From the self, one confronts the self. I mean to say that philosophy of consciousness, simply, is the pursuit of wisdom about the self— about the reaches of our understanding, addressing the difficulties in our perceptions and the possibility of cultivating accurate ‘consideration’ for those things around us. But of course, this involves confronting instruction from others, and in this way, understanding the self requires innerconnectivity.
There are several traditions of thought that insist that one cannot accurately see outward if one has not worked on his inner self. Such philosophers assert that we are not single selves, but rather conglomerations of many different personalities, with many different—and often conflicting!—interests. For example, one personality in us might decide that its best to get to bed before 11pm everyday, while another personality thinks its best to hit the bars late whenever the opportunity should present itself. In this way, our perceptions outward are always biased or fragmented, and until there is inner unity in the person, one cannot properly (fully) consider his surroundings or his place therein .
Time and time again a feeling of ‘unsettledness’ arises in us. Perhaps we feel unsettled in our bodies, or in the way we think, or in our relationships, or in the world in general. The older we get, the feeling grows and becomes more present, until suddenly we’re on our deathbed making a list of regrets in our minds, never fully having understood the trials of life and waiting fearfully for the moment when our eyelids blink their last.
Inner work on the self is said to alleviate the pain of all three (regrets, lack of understanding, and fear of death). It is observed that nature develops man to a certain point, and further development requires one’s own efforts; tragically, most people squabble in complacency, never knowing that more is in our potential, or some recognize this potential yet never make the right efforts. The first step of inner work is necessarily linked with attention. Attention is the only act of will that one can cultivate in such a low developmental state. Attention is the tool that allows for self-study. Self-study must occur before one can make any strides towards development. This area of philosophy is often referred to as “self-culture” or “self-cultivation”.
Consciousness Philosophy is like the brainstorming stage for this entire human predicament. It situates one deep within the history and tradition of all the work and the considerations made regarding consciousness, around the globe (east, west, etc). However, philosophy only takes you so far. Once the philosophy has taken its root in the student, s/he only has one thing to do: practice.
Understanding and wisdom then, is the result of practice.
In closing, Consciousness Philosophy shows the need for practice, and further, it cultivates momentum, for the student will one day feel unmistakeable urgency for practice. In my work, I also explore the very exercises that constitute ‘practice’, but for now, all I will say is that it all begins with attention—how to open one’s attention, prolong it, and use it for self-study
(…taken from an email to an old college friend in the marines, Darren Riley…)
Hey, quick retort to my peoples:
If you happen upon this site, and something grabs your eye, but you’re like,
“Bell! I’m at work… I can’t read all this shit, are you kidding me?”
Print it out.
Curious about those papers and other excerpts?
Make time and read that shit one morning…
Write on the pages as you go, if you should feel the need.
Slow it all down for a moment. And get back me.