Emotional

We’re told we should show our feelings – be ‘authentic’. We’re told, “It’s what makes us human.” And we get plenty of advice about what emotions we should show, and how we should show them. But every other animal shows feelings; even insects show feelings. To be emotional does not equate to being human. What that advice really boils down to is, “Don’t be intellectual and calculating, because it leaves others unable to determine your inner state.”

Gaslighted

The term ‘gaslighted’ means ‘manipulated, psychologically, so as to doubt one’s own sanity’. The aim, generally, is to make the target feel they are dependent on the one who is doing the manipulation. The term derives from the title of a 1944 George Cukor film – a psychological thriller and itself a remake of a British film of the same name. [Ah, but Cukor had a bigger budget.] The reason I touch upon this topic is that it’s not uncommon to find it going on within spiritual ‘schools’. The trouble is, it’s almost the same as something that really is needed. Almost, but not the same.

The Role of Curiosity

The more I examine it, the more I conclude that curiosity is the ‘engine’ of our mental health. When it is active, we are open to the world – to new impressions. When it stops, we are stuck with whatever impressions we have already acquired, and even those gradually become stagnant. If they are negative, we sink into mindless depression; if they are positive, we sink into mindless comfort. Often, though, we are stuck with a mixture of those two.

Gateways

The philosopher-mystic G.I. Gurdjieff taught the concept that “Liberation leads to liberation”. He was pointing out that there are two ‘gateways’ that a person must pass through, to reach true freedom. The first gives freedom from ‘internal’ forces: our attachments and associated fears. This could also be called freedom from ‘suffering’. The second gives freedom from ‘external’ forces, which could also be called freedom from ‘doing’.

A Deeper Meaning

One of the quests of philosophers is to try to find a deeper meaning to life and the universe: deeper than that attributed by either nihilism [there is no meaning] or monism [the purpose of all things is simply to play a role in the cosmic ‘being’ of the universe]. The central idea, in this quest, is to try to divine some purpose that life – and by extension human life – either is fulfilling or perhaps could fulfil. And thereby, of course, to make sense of death.

Buffered

One of the apparently simple but actually more complex ideas in the philosophy of G.I. Gurdjieff is that of ‘buffers’. These are features of our mental and emotional landscape – our ‘inner’ world – that arise because we develop different conceptual frames that then deny or contradict each other. For example, when “I do no harm” bumps up against “I protect myself and the things I love.” A ‘buffer’ is a mental and emotional rationalisation that allows the conflicting ideas to coexist. It diminishes the conflict, with the result that we no longer feel troubled by it. It is part ‘wall’ and part door.

Inadequate

What that stops most people from achieving a life filled with the satisfaction of every goal being fulfilled is a mixture of two things. For those goals where they never quite achieved ‘success’, it is their own sense of being inadequate to the task. They stop trying. For the rest, it’s the achievement itself that seems inadequate. Each success opens a new challenge, like a never-ending Matryoshka doll. Eventually, they may decide they have ‘enough’, but that, too, is a form of giving up.

Second Coming

In the Christian tradition, there is a belief that Jesus was not a mere prophet, like those of the Old Testament, but the foretold Messiah who would save the world. Other Abrahamic traditions (including Islam and Baha’i) share the prophecy of a Messiah, but don’t necessarily link it to Jesus. This Messiah is supposed to be sent directly from God – at the end of days – to lead the faithful to their new, everlasting life, whilst those who remain unrepentant sinners are doomed to eternal destruction. Many take this prophecy quite literally; some even try to calculate the actual date. Many don’t believe it at all. But could it have a hidden meaning?

Ghosts and Demons

Like many people, I suspect, I enjoy watching the different ghost-hunting programmes that one can find on the Discovery Channel streaming service. Much of it still appears to be sheer bunkum, but it seems there are now some shows that – whilst they can hardly be called ‘scientific’ – are at least dedicated to a high threshold of honesty. (Unlike the accusations that plagued the British show, Most Haunted.)

Unbeliever!

There is something in traditional religion that is even more heinous than heresy: it is the person who secretly fails to ‘believe’. They may keep up an appearance of conformity in public, but they hold none of the love for the object of their religion that true believers hold. And in their private world, there are no reminders of that love. Heresy at least makes itself visible; unbelief slides into a society like a serpent, leaving a trail of subtle venom. But is it perhaps the zealot who has already been ‘bitten’?