--- In [email protected], "Rory Goff" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], new.morning <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > > That assumes that people have a hierarchtical view of the stages. And > > a superiority complex. <snip> > > Or a belief in space-time and growth, which is perhaps saying the same > thing! But anyway, you have anticipated the point I just brought up > with Jim, which is that we cannot truly know another -- ever. When we > are tempted to see another as being where we have been, it may be they > are on another turn of the spiral, or perhaps in another topographical > universe entirely :-)
Yes, which perhaps is another way of saying, don't waste time and energy judging others. Because one lacks the appropriate reference points to others' lives -- as you point out. But as much or more, its an unnecessary chatter of the mind, "this is good, he is bad, she is ok, that is good ..". One only needs to judge others if and when one must make a decision regarding that person. Whic is 1 out of 100 or 1/1000 common monkey-mind judgements. The others are idle chatter. (all apologies to monkeys). That we often can only see others from "our" own frame of reference, our cultural/religious/intellectual, emotional frameworks, perhaps is a famine of imagination. I was thinking this morning that this quality of empathy and really "seeing" from anothers' view needs to be cultured in childhood when the mind is nimbe and formative. I saw a squirrel dart in from of my car and he was "terrified", running valiantly across the road as I swerved to miss it (which I did.) The "reality" of the situation was "my view": little tiny squirrel, regular sized car. But from the squirrel's perspective, the car was easily 15-20 times its height. So It would be like a 120 foot tank roaring 3 times faster than I could run, zipping in front of me as I was crossing the road. My mind is not automatically trained to think from that view. It occurred to me kids could more easily, naturally, imagine such and culture that quality for later in life.
