As Cal waits in his hospital room for triple bypass surgery, it might be a good idea to skip talking specifically about death. However, Singh's "Grace in Dying" has brought out another topic for analysis, one spoken of many times before in this blog: are we of the world culture an evolving society, or are we dragging ourselves towards Armageddon? This was brought out by Singh in many ways, including this observation: "we"- our socio-cultural reality - is the collective view of all of us involved.
If one thinks that our version of reality is true and not subjective, I bring again the example of the Hawaiian god Lono, who was thought by the native Hawaiians to come again at a certain date (they were sharp observers of the stars, particularly for navigation) at a certain place. Sure enough, Captain Cook arrived at the right place and the right time, as certain to be the god Lono as the priests could tell. Here they feted him, fed his men and sent women to them and bid them all farewell as they left to continued to move around the rest of the Islands in a counter-clockwise motion (as I recall - in any case, he went in the right direction) and then landed again at the spot that legend said Lono would land after taking exactly that voyage. According to the Hawaiian scripture, at this juncture they were to kill him. All was a part of the life-death-new life cycle they believed they and their gods were involved with, and Cook did exactly as he should have, as did the Hawaiians. Cook was killed and reportedly eaten, as he should have been. A new era did indeed begin then. The prophets had been right.
But they hadn't been, at least according to Cook's point of view. All was coincidence. There was no god. Ignorant superstition had mistaken he and his men for something they were not, leading to a change that the Hawaiians could not possibly have envisioned. As far as our understanding goes, it was a curious though meaningless synchronicity.
In that thought, however, comes the idea that we of the West, now the expanding world culture, have it right. But according to Singh, we do not, not by a long shot. All reality systems built on separation are partial, and in being partial, are ultimately false. Even science admits that every one of its theories have been proven to be wrong with time through partial knowledge. The role of science, scientists say, is to continue to build towards a greater knowledge - but this knowledge will never be complete, and in that, will always be false.
However, just as the Hawaiians built on a foundation of gods and cycles that is incomplete and ultimately false, so are our assumptions - our underlying assumptions - partial and false. They have to be, for they separate us from the ALL, the Truth. As such, in the greater scheme of things beyond practical survival skills, we are blind as bats. Our assumptions about the greater role of ourselves as selves and our society at large are built on sand. And yet they are built, for we weave order out of a chaos of parts, just as the astrologers of old wove figures and myths out of the stars. To find our our direction, our collective future, then, we must discover the nature of the sand we have built upon.
Or not. Spiritual evolution would have it that we will discover a firmer plot of sand, and thus build further and higher until another, then another base is found until - we approach the All, Godhead. But is this true?
Kathleen Singh shows us that before we die, we must surrender our false self - our model of ourselves and the world - before we move to a higher, ineffable level of the spiritual - a true or at least far truer realm. But can this be done culturally without a cultural death? If so, in a cultural death, mustn't we go through the pains and travails of death before we reach the higher truth? In other words, if culture is a social collective, mustn't it be build on the same crumbling sand that our personal realities are built upon? And then, mustn't that have to crumble before enlightenment can ensue? Aren't all cultural models incomplete, with built-in destruction modes, just as all bodies and egos are?
This would not necessarily mean mega-nuclear death for us, but rather "death" as the Hawaiians experienced with their own culture. I leave it to them to decide if they have since risen to a higher realm, or are still in that process. But the movement of building the ego, and then letting go in the dying process reminds us that such great change does not happen easily; it will not be done by gradual and comfortable steps. If one must die to oneself before finding oneself, so must a collective die to itself to advance the collective. It would seem to me that we are in for some wild rides before we find the peace of a New Age. FK
If one thinks that our version of reality is true and not subjective, I bring again the example of the Hawaiian god Lono, who was thought by the native Hawaiians to come again at a certain date (they were sharp observers of the stars, particularly for navigation) at a certain place. Sure enough, Captain Cook arrived at the right place and the right time, as certain to be the god Lono as the priests could tell. Here they feted him, fed his men and sent women to them and bid them all farewell as they left to continued to move around the rest of the Islands in a counter-clockwise motion (as I recall - in any case, he went in the right direction) and then landed again at the spot that legend said Lono would land after taking exactly that voyage. According to the Hawaiian scripture, at this juncture they were to kill him. All was a part of the life-death-new life cycle they believed they and their gods were involved with, and Cook did exactly as he should have, as did the Hawaiians. Cook was killed and reportedly eaten, as he should have been. A new era did indeed begin then. The prophets had been right.
But they hadn't been, at least according to Cook's point of view. All was coincidence. There was no god. Ignorant superstition had mistaken he and his men for something they were not, leading to a change that the Hawaiians could not possibly have envisioned. As far as our understanding goes, it was a curious though meaningless synchronicity.
In that thought, however, comes the idea that we of the West, now the expanding world culture, have it right. But according to Singh, we do not, not by a long shot. All reality systems built on separation are partial, and in being partial, are ultimately false. Even science admits that every one of its theories have been proven to be wrong with time through partial knowledge. The role of science, scientists say, is to continue to build towards a greater knowledge - but this knowledge will never be complete, and in that, will always be false.
However, just as the Hawaiians built on a foundation of gods and cycles that is incomplete and ultimately false, so are our assumptions - our underlying assumptions - partial and false. They have to be, for they separate us from the ALL, the Truth. As such, in the greater scheme of things beyond practical survival skills, we are blind as bats. Our assumptions about the greater role of ourselves as selves and our society at large are built on sand. And yet they are built, for we weave order out of a chaos of parts, just as the astrologers of old wove figures and myths out of the stars. To find our our direction, our collective future, then, we must discover the nature of the sand we have built upon.
Or not. Spiritual evolution would have it that we will discover a firmer plot of sand, and thus build further and higher until another, then another base is found until - we approach the All, Godhead. But is this true?
Kathleen Singh shows us that before we die, we must surrender our false self - our model of ourselves and the world - before we move to a higher, ineffable level of the spiritual - a true or at least far truer realm. But can this be done culturally without a cultural death? If so, in a cultural death, mustn't we go through the pains and travails of death before we reach the higher truth? In other words, if culture is a social collective, mustn't it be build on the same crumbling sand that our personal realities are built upon? And then, mustn't that have to crumble before enlightenment can ensue? Aren't all cultural models incomplete, with built-in destruction modes, just as all bodies and egos are?
This would not necessarily mean mega-nuclear death for us, but rather "death" as the Hawaiians experienced with their own culture. I leave it to them to decide if they have since risen to a higher realm, or are still in that process. But the movement of building the ego, and then letting go in the dying process reminds us that such great change does not happen easily; it will not be done by gradual and comfortable steps. If one must die to oneself before finding oneself, so must a collective die to itself to advance the collective. It would seem to me that we are in for some wild rides before we find the peace of a New Age. FK
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