--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer" <r...@...> wrote: > [Rick wrote:] > > I think the Vedic literature is written the way it > > is, with so many expectation-shattering stories, to > > culture the perspective that one's own little peephole > > on the Universe does not afford a view of the whole, > > and that therefore one should not take oneself too > > seriously. > [I wrote:] > Because if you don't take yourself too seriously, you > never need to take a stand on anything; you don't need > to take any risks or fight any battles. The injustice > and cruelty and suffering you see through your little > peephole just doesn't matter in the larger scale of > things; no need to exert yourself to remedy it. > > Q: If everything is perfect just as it is, why are we > working so hard to change things? > > MMY: That too is perfect just as it is. > > "...There is no room for timidity. The fact that you > might be wrong is simply no excuse: You might be > right in your communication, and you might be wrong, > but that doesn't matter. What does matter, as > Kierkegaard so rudely reminded us, is that only by > investing and speaking your vision with passion, can > the truth, one way or another, finally penetrate the > reluctance of the world. If you are right, or if you > are wrong, it is only your passion that will force > either to be discovered. It is your duty to promote > that discovery--either way--and therefore it is your > duty to speak your truth with whatever passion and > courage you can find in your heart. > > "You must shout, in whatever way you can." > > --Ken Wilber > [Rick wrote:] > Busy week, but I've been meaning to respond to this. > I agree about being passionately committed to things, > but I think that development of consciousness results > in the tendency to consciously incorporate paradox in > pretty much all situations. One may be fighting > fiercely for something one believes in, but that > focus is never the totality of one's life.
I agree. What I'm getting at is the tendency to use the "don't take yourself too seriously" meme as an excuse to *avoid* passionate commitment, to put the background, the wider view, in the foreground and reduce the individual elements to insignificance--as if the fact that there *is* a wider view means there's no reason to care about anything in particular. It may all be just Cosmic Play, but we're here to play as well and as hard and as wisely as we can. We don't get to opt out.
