[Kevin] Thanks for the explanation. Yes. Life is difficult...and painful at times. And most definitely not fair. Bad things do happen to good people. I think the best question in times like these is not why? but what next? Does the experience make us bitter and defensive? Or do we rise above the pain and the hurt and transform it. The lesson is, the pain you don't transform you transmit.
[Case] Of course rising above the pain is also a circumstance may have experienced. So their reaction to the next painful experience is somewhat conditioned by their past experiences. Some have not had good experiences in this regard or they have been transformed in negative ways. In either case is seems a mistake to me to look for some external intelligence in the cosmos to either blame or give thanks. [Kevin} By the way, Daniel Boone's homestead is less than 10 miles from where I'm sitting. It's a beautiful place. I'm going to make a point of taking the dog there this weekend. Thanks for the reminder. [Case] Enjoy yourself! I really hope when go it is your day to eat the bear. [Kevin] Actually I understood Keating to be talking about God on first hearing his explanation. I'm not sure what you mean by the second question. How do you understand Other (capital O)? [Case] I am not familiar with Keating. What I am saying is that there are those among us here who do not recognize a reality that is Other. They seem to think we are making all this up in our own heads or that we are the finite manifestations of some divine thinker who really is us if we would only meditate long enough to realize our true nature. When someone speaks of God they could mean anything from a pantheistic God who is the sum of everything, to the warm fuzzy oneness with the universe feeling you get from mediation or pharmaceuticals to God the Big Daddy serving us pie in the sky when we die. All I am saying is that when humans took it upon themselves to actually study the messy dirty world, those shadow filled cave walls; that is when progress started. As long as we focus on our navels or the world of ideals or the Absolute Ultimate whatever, about all we see is a finger pointing at we know not what, and I am beginning to think it is the middle finger that is pointing. In order to gain an understanding of what is out there we need a better handle on what is going on inside us. [Kevin} And it seems to be getting sketchier all the time. [Case] As long as we focus on speculative metaphysics and abstractions a sketch is all we will ever get. moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
