Throughout history, when were tyrants ever satisfied with just one death?
V
death?
Killing and destroying others became a way of life for those that were
not at peace within.
Such tyrants always blamed their lack of inner peace on outside
circumstances instead of looking within.
Whether we wish evil on another or bring such evil to fruition through
our actions, always remember...that all our actions have consequences,
and many of our actions produce consequences that end up destroying
peace. They destroy our peace as well as the inner peace of others.
....My discussion of this topic from an earlier post.
Kater Moggin writes; "Fuck off and die you spamming asshole (V).
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.gnostic/browse_frm/thread/1d3fda7dfdc46cd5/?hl=en#
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
V:
Hi Kater and thanks for your comments.
No, Kater Moggin, I do not want to 'fuck off and die.'
As far as spammer and asshole?
Well, you are entitled to your opinions.
But when the subject of assholes and opinions get brought up, I am
drawn back to Clint Eastwood's words in the Dirty Harry
movies..."opinions are like assholes...everyone's' got one."
So, let me share some of my opinions on this subject now that you have
had your say Kater.
I find when people can't answer a question their ego gets hurt and
they pull the troll card or spammer card of use profanities or fish
for red herrings or whatever else they can find to get away from
discussing the topic at hand.
I guess you think that because you are a gnostic practitioner you are
exempt from the subject of humanity and what it means to be humane?
The subject of inner peace is most definitely 'on topic' for any
religious or spiritual oriented group. For if one is not at peace, the
person cannot see life clearly.
And in the big picture, without inner peace a human cannot flourish,
for they soon self-destruct.
So inner peace is on topic for ANY discussion group you may find
yourself on. And don't let anyone bully you or tell you otherwise.
See:
http://jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/index.php?topic=628.0
All we have to do is look to you Kater for confirmation of this point
of peace sanity.
For you cannot seem to be at peace unless someone dies. Whereas I can
be at peace without killing anyone.
The difference in our two views stems from control issues.
I can let others be, where you cannot let others be.
Everyone else in the world must be carbon copies of Kater Moggin to
have your approval. Whereas I allow for diversity and in fact, I
welcome diversity for it makes us stronger.
You have never answered my questions of whether you are an atheist,
agnostic or theist Kater.
Well, your predisposition to hide really doesn't matter in this
conversation, as being a 'mind manacled human' is not reserved for any
one set of beliefs or lack thereof.
See:
Your attitude of telling another human to die is not a good way to
live Kater.
Throughout history tyrants have adopted your same misguided efforts of
commanding others to die when they didn't like what is being said or
they didn't like the color of a persons skin or they didn't like a
persons religion, nationality or gender.
But, you should know this all so well Kater. From what I recall you
said you lived in Germany. You had your own tyrant that ordered many
to die.
What would it been like for the Germans if the allies had adopted
Hitler's philosophy, which it seems to be the same as Kater Moggin's
chant of ...death to whom I don't like.
Luckily for the Germans, the allies did not play the 'tit of tat'
game.
And luckily for me, the world is not all about what Kater Moggin likes
or wants.
Kater, "a mans mind may be likened to a garden which may be
intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether
cultivated or neglected, it must and will bring forth. If no useful
seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless 'weed seeds' will
fall therein and will continue to produce their kind." ~ James Allen
So, it is important Kater that
You watch your thoughts, as they become your words.
You watch your words, as they become your actions
You watch your actions, as they become your habits.
You watch your habits, they become your character.
You watch your character it becomes your destiny.
~Anonynmous~
You see Kater, once you have the right to order someone to die, others
start thinking the same way and your thoughts and actions will come
back to haunt you.
All humans have a right to exist and live.
And just as you enjoy your right to live, so do I.
And if you do not enjoy living, then you need to start learning about
using tools to find inner peace Kater.
Once either of us denies the other the right to live, then life will
take a turn in the wrong direction.
Life will then not be about living...life will be about dying and who
dies first Kater.
For instance, lets look at the atheists. Certain atheists promote the
burning of churches to destroy religion
http://www.churcharson.com/act_now/
Now, what will some of the radical theists derive from these militant
atheist efforts?
Well, it is not hard to see some radicals will think about burning the
American Atheists headquarters in Cranford, NJ to stop the evil
atheists from burning their churches.
Since the poor atheists are not organized very well, are not rich and
have a small headquarters, the theists arsonists won't get much
satisfaction.
So their next thought may be to track down some of the prominent
atheists and work their way down the list by burning them.
And irrespective of the American Atheist's not officially promoting
such burning of churches. Since they are the most prominent feature of
atheism in the US and as close as atheists get to having a church, it
gets attacked and right down the line with other atheists...hatred and
prejudice only begets more hatred and prejudice Kater.
How do you lose the rage anger and stop trying to kill people Kater?
This is what separates the enlightened mind from the unenlightened
mind and why enlightenment can't be forced on someone.
You intellect will not help you Kater, for you are living proof that
academic smarts are not the same as peace smarts.
See:
http://jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/index.php?topic=4.0
Can you force someone to lose the anger if they are not ready to?
Intellect will not do it. On the contrary, a highly developed
intellect can hurt you since you see yourself as too smart to have a
need to forgive, too smart to listen to others, you know everything
about everything...you are 'too smart' to be at peace.
See:
http://jesusneverexisted.org/jne/forum/index.php?topic=630.0
Tired of being angry Kater?
Just relinquish control and anger will be diminished.
Anger and control go hand in hand Kater.
Some of these tendencies come from habit other times they stem from
ignorance. Either way we can change our habits or extinguish ignorance
with knowledge, mindfulness and practice.
The first step is realization that something is disturbing our peace.
And for many this realization can come about through writing or
journaling.
Putting our complaints down on pen and paper first crystallizes in our
heads what needs to be changed or accepted in our lives.
Getting it all out and putting it all down is the first start of this
recognition process that leads us to toxic rage recovery Kater.
Without this recognition, that we are sick or something is wrong in
our lives, we cannot develop the desire for change.
We don't even know what is wrong to change!
Writing your complaints down is the first start to making the roadmap
for restructuring your life.
Restructuring our lives is very important if we want to get peace from
our rage addiction.
Those things that cannot be restructured need to be accepted.
Either way we can find peace -- by change or acceptance.
When you write, it uses a different part of the brain that mere
speaking uses and I seem to get amazing results from writing as
compared to just talking.
Writing helps crystallize your thoughts, it shares recovery with other
addicts and they can know they are not alone.
Just remember what the Buddhists say in the eightfold path about right
actions.
We have to use the right thoughts, the right actions and take the
right direction with recovery.
Just spinning our wheels in the wrong direction does little for rage
recovery, so write about things that matter to you and your anger
recovery.
So writing to someone to tell them to 'fuck off and die' is not
'writing right'...as those are not the thoughts or actions that will
lead one to inner peace Kater.
But writing about your desire to have others die to appease your ego
is writing right, when you address the underlying foundations for your
rage and hatred disease that stem from within you Kater.
On page 90 of the AA's 12 and 12 the writers mention how the addict
cannot afford "justifiable anger" and it should be left to those
better qualified to handle it.
With reference to this statement -- it is gospel - there is no
argument here. We can always settle such disputes by looking deeply
into the person, place, thing or emotion in question and ask if it
helps or hurts our practice?
Does having anger and hatred in our hearts ever increase our peace or
serenity or does it diminish it?
Even is we are justified, so called, in having this emotion does it
suddenly become a peace generator in our life with this newfound
license to hate or is it still a peace buster whether we have an
excuse or not?
The path is clear about which direction to take and all that remains
is the release of the anger.
Some people get confused with this anger question and beat themselves
for still experiencing this emotion thinking they should be a
"perfectly spiritual individual" and above such lowly emotions as
getting angry.
They think they can perfect their lives and wipe out natural law with
one blow called spirituality.
Due to the diversity of thought we humans are capable of we have all
sorts of thoughts and emotions that pop up in our heads. Without this
ability we could not think as we do.
But, just because thoughts or emotions pop up in our heads the choice
is ours alone whether we foster and build on any particular thought or
emotion.
Spirituality does not eliminate such thoughts - it just helps decide
what we do with them.
Anger is also part of our natural make up. Anger is an emotions that
can serve us when we need to summon it up in a life or death situation
such as self defense or when our species had to hunt big game for a
living - hunt with spears, clubs and rocks.
Even if we are dealing with life or death self defense and must
generate anger, the byproducts is still a disruption of our peace as
we recover from the circumstance as a shaking and rattled mess.
So, even if anger is justified, so called, it does not magically
become a peace promoter in our lives instead of a peace destroyer.
Anger is also an important emotion for self preservation in less
dangerous circumstances than big game hunts, for without feeling anger
we wound not seek out change - changing our environment that might be
an unhealthy one for us.
So, we should never regret feeling anger, but just as anger and
excretion are two naturally occurring parts of being a human, we
should let them serve us instead of we being enslaved to them.
Anger comes in two-forms: Nature Based Anger and Toxic Based Anger
Always remember, anger is a nature given tool of defense and living
right. But it takes humans to tun this healthy tool into an unhealthy,
toxic tool of destruction.
Besides justified anger, there are HUNDREDS of other things that one
cannot "afford" in their life is they desire inner peace.
Sure, we can all white knuckle it and just scrape by with, ready to
slip off at a moments notice if we want to put our desires before our
practice.
But, learning what fits and what does not fit comfortably in our life
is the ongoing battle we all have to undertake if we want peace.
In short, we have to ask if a peace based life can "afford" the many
things we come into daily contact with. And the measure of our success
will be determined by how well we live within our comfortable means by
asking this "affordability" question.
Before I could find lasting and peaceful recovery I had to learn to
refuse many areas of my old life that did not serve me any longer.
This is how I coined the phrase, "You are not recovering until your
start refusing...refusing the old sick ways that got you here."
The 3 paths that addiction (Yes, anger is addictive) can take are
these: the addiction can be increased, it can be decreased or can be
frozen.
These 3 paths shows us which direction we are headed in with our
recovery at any given moment.
Clarity about affordability comes from a continual orientation of
putting our rage recovery programs wants first and our personal wants
or desires second and by asking the question of how any person, place,
thing or activity will affect my rage recovery program?
Once the rage addict has this affordability mindset in place they can
direct their thoughts towards the cultivation of recovery, so that
whatever action they are engaged in - it is always evaluated from this
perspective and they can find great success from applying this single
minded dedication to change.
Suddenly they find their recovery practice and life can become as one
and asking such questions becomes second nature for them.
But again, this is the textbook or idealistic way of looking at this
affordability question, we need practical application in the real
world.
Many of us have families and jobs and to be a total renunciate of all
things disruptive to our peace and our recovery program is not always
possible or desirable when looking at the big picture.
I often hear excuses from other rage addicts saying they can't stop
this or that because of their family, jobs or other obligations, so we
need to balance these two extremes of being a total renunciate with
the other extreme of being paralyzed and not changing a thing because
of excuses and justification.
We have to work towards a balance if we want peace and just like
exercise, we always seem to find reasons for not doing what we know is
right.
The way I work it is to be aware of what is disruptive to my peace and
to change it if possible as a first choice or work on accepting it as
the serenity prayer says as a second choice.
I try to stay away from justification or looking for excuses to
continue on the wrong path.
I either change things or work on accepting them. If we base our
decisions of proven principles of recovery it helps takes us out of
the decision making process and rests our recovery on solid foundation
instead of excuses.
I don't beat myself for not being able to perform well in every given
circumstance under the sun.
I know that I do not mesh well with everything and everybody in life
and I have certain limits and abilities.
To do otherwise would say that we have the right to be perfect and
violate our make up and that we have no limits or boundaries to govern
us and are godlike.
The 12 step programs reminds us to work within our limits by "staying
right size" on pages 122-125, so it tells me right there I am not
immune to all things destructive just because I work the 12 steps.
In SCA they have a tool called abstention. They abstain the best way
they can from people places or things they have found to be
detrimental to their recovery program efforts from past experience
with them.
My recovery success is based a lot on abstaining from people, places
and things that do not mesh well with me and if I cannot avoid them,
then I work to make the unavoidable fit better by changing things on
my end.
Yes, we cannot change others, but we do usually have control of
ourselves and how we participate in dealing with others.
Even though we cannot completely change or wipe our many problem areas
in our life we can usually change *some* aspects of most problems to
make them more bearable.
So, I am always looking for small changes to make in the right
direction and this recovery orientation towards the direction of
change helps by giving hope of possible larger future change as well.
In addition you can work practice a Buddhist meditation on the 4
Immeasurables aka Divine States of Dwelling. Radiate the 4
Immeasurables in all 4 directions as well, as above and below you so
it emanates from your being throughout the universe.
Meditate on:
Limitless Compassion for all suffering beings.
Limitless Joy for over the salvation of others from suffering
Limitless Peace for all beings whether friend or enemy
Limitless Kindness towards all sentient beings.
If you don't like the Buddhist meditation above, go to 5 values of
virtues Socrates stood for:
Truth
Justice
Courage
Proportionality or Moderation
Wisdom
When you have the urge to order someone to die Kater...meditate on
those 5 virtues.
Bottom line Kater - either you must change from the inside out - or
life will change you 'its way' from the outside in and this tends to
rot your insides with the byproducts that a life of toxic anger
produces Kater.
And your continued use of hatred will do you no good to free you from
your self imposed trap Kater. The trap you are pinned in is an 'inner
one' and all their efforts grasping outside of yourself are futile,
squirming and writhing in every direction, looking, grasping outside
of yourself for freedom from this trap to find a modicum of inner
peace.
Always remember Kater, passions are rooted in the self and the self is
always is in flux which accounts for the rise and fall of these
passions.
Whereas, truth is stable - for the truth is that which does not
change.
Seek peace within and peace with all and you can free yourself from
this trap Kater.
And no Kater, helping you to live a life at peace and allowing others
to live that same life of peace is not SPAM my friend...it is
humanity.
Take care,
V (Male)
Agnostic Freethinker
Practical Philosopher
AA#2