Friday, October 24, 2008

Love the One with the One You're With (11.04.11)

Arcanum VI, l'amoreux. Pardon my French. The Lover. UF notes that the central theme of this card is the vow of chastity, esoterically understood. For "one is chaste only when one loves with the totality of one's being." Therefore there is no true love in the absence of chastity -- and vice versa. Chastity is the living unity and wholeness in being whereby body, soul, and spirit become one -- not through "merger," but in harmony. This is not "uniformity" but unity. It is the return of the many to the One.

I had the most marvelous conversation yesterday with the lady who took my blood. She was a simple woman, probably from El Salvador or Guatemala, but such wisdom! We were talking about the love that our children inspire, and I would gladly take her heartfelt words for the entire New York Times editorial board, any day. Why then did she want my blood?

We spoke of how holding your child is like an echo of paradise, or perhaps a foretaste of heaven. How can so many people seem to miss this everyday example of mystical unity? Who knows. But there is no question that man devalues what is freely available, and vastly overvalues what isn't. It pretty much makes the world go 'round -- or flat, to be precise.

UF writes that "to feel something as real in the measure of its full reality is to love." Obviously, it is no coincidence that Genesis discusses the sexual act in terms of knowledge. Was Moses simply confused? Or perhaps disclosing a reality that our boneheaded elites cannot begin to understand? I am quite sure that the lady who wanted my blood understands. But can you imagine a "sex education" class that discusses this concept, without which human sexuality is not human? No, of course not, for the purpose of all leftist ideology is to demoralize us and make us less than what we are.

To love something is to begin to know it in its full reality. Note that I said begin, for as Bion discusses, love is a link (L) between subjects. It merely gets the party started. Until we forge that link, the Other is not really real, just a piece of psychic furniture.

UF explains that -- contrary to materialistic sophistry -- the one thing that we know as really real is ourselves. "And we do not love -- or we do not love as much as ourselves -- other beings, who seem to us to be less real." We are born narcissistic, egocentric, self-absorbed. Not until I had a child did I truly realize that the cosmos has a center around which everything revolves: him. Occasionally events conspire to temporarily displace him from the center, at which point he might say something like, Daddy, I don't like you anymore. Suffice it to say that conservatives grow out of this phase.

Here again, this is why the materialist can neither know reality nor love, since he does not recognize the absolute reality of subjects. Rather, the subject is simply a side effect of matter, and matter is obviously "one," which is an inverted doctrine of spiritual oneness. This material oneness is the false unity that inspires the left. It is why "what's yours is mine," and why Obama's conscience (such as it is) is untroubled by taking what belongs to you and and Joe and "spreading it around." Yes, Obama loves us. But like nature, he loves us ruthlessly.

How do we escape the prison of our narcissism? Primarily through love, because love partakes of being. There is also knowledge, of course, but unless that knowledge is rooted in love and being, it is smoke driven by wind. It will not be left standing when the catastrophe comes -- which will surely come, for "thou owest nature a death," one way or the other. Actually, one owes many deaths, one for each rung on the ladder of being. Love, for example, is the death of narcissism.

UF writes that there are two principle methods of overcoming our cosmic narcissism, generally corresponding to eastern and western religions (although each has both; it is merely a matter of emphasis). The first is obliteration of the illusory ego, so that one becomes a "shadow among shadows." This is the "equality of indifference." If the separate "I" doesn't exist, then we're all one. Being that the ego is the ultimate illusion, just vanquish that illusion, and the doors of perception are cleansed.

The other way -- the Christian way -- is to extend the love that one has for oneself to other beings. Instead of "me dead, you dead," it's "me living, you living."

Now, this is difficult to do. Obviously. But you don't try to do it all at once. Otherwise, you simply become a parody, like our venomously passive-aggressive trolls who hide their hideous hostility behind a hearty namasté!

No, chastity begins at home. You start with a small circle, and then gradually widen the circle. Start at the center, not the periphery. Try loving your neighborhood before The Planet. Again -- not to get too sidetracked -- but the left begins at the periphery. Obama is the great Unifier. But what kind of unity is it that doesn't even recognize my real existence? I'm not some ant in the leftist hive. What if I don't want that kind of material unity? Too bad, I guess. Some love. I mean, please. Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining.

Try starting with one person, for unless one first knows real love, one will not be capable of understanding what it means to widen its circle. UF returns to Genesis, where God says that "it is not good that Adam should be alone," which is to say that "it is not good that man loves nobody but himself." God wasn't just ribbing, for he then creates the "other," who is actually of the same substance as Adam, even a part of himself. To love is to recognize the unity: "In the beginning there was only one love and its source was one, since its principle was one."

Again, love has to do with the recovery of higher unity, not the imposition of a lower uniformity. This is a key point. UF notes how this reality is precisely inverted by the left and by Freudianism. In the case of the left, it elevates economic interest to all. In the case of Freud, he elevated the sexual instinct to all. You might say that the left reduces everything to the first chakra, Freudianism to the second. And both are obviously entirely compatible with materialism, scientism, and Darwinism, which try to account for the top by reducing it to the bottom. That's not love. It is hate. Hatred of reality.

Naturalism is not so much a love of matter as a rejection of, or inability to apprehend, that which transcends it. This is why Bill Ayers feels he "didn't do enough" back in his days as a loving domestic terrorist. But he shouldn't worry. As an "educational reformer," he's destroying more young souls than he could ever hope to as a bomb-tossing sociopath.

You will see the false love -- the hate -- behind the Obama phenomenon should he lose the election, for in every denizen of Blue Meanies, police are making plans for violence. In fact, they are also planning for violence should he prevail. But that violence is only a prelude to the violence to come. You know, as his spiritual dementor said, God damn America!

Brace yourself for Obama's love. And don't forget your raincoat.

44 comments:

NoMo said...

"Yes, Obama loves us. But like nature, he loves us ruthlessly." The natural man is ruthless by nature, but not so the spiritual man - thanks to...Ruth.

I don't know where that came from, but there it is.

Ephrem Antony Gray said...

Coinciding with the notion of the heroic project, Chesterton let fly this marvelous trainwreck - a truth and beauty bomb: (On the plus side, he talks about that rain we're about to get)

The Last Hero

The wind blew out from Bergen, from the dawning to the day
There was a wreck of trees, a fall of towers, a score of miles away
And drifted like a livid leaf I go before the tide
Spewed out of house and stable, beggared of flag and bride
The heavens are bowed about my head, raging like seraph wars
With rains that might put out the sun, and rid the sky of stars
Rains like the fall of ruined seas from secret worlds above
The roaring of the rains of God, none but the lonely love
Feast in my halls, O Foemen! O eat and drink and drain!
You never loved the sun in heaven, as I have loved the rain!

The tide of battle changes, so may all battle be
I stole my lady bride from them; they stole her back from me
As I wrenched her from her red roofed halls, I rose and saw arise
More lovely than the living flowers, the hatred in her eyes
She never loved me, never wept, never was less divine
And sunset never knew us, her world was never mine
Was it all for nothing that she stood, imperial in duresse
Silence itself made softer with the sweeping of her dress
O you who drain the cup of life! O You who wear the crown!
You never loved a woman's smile as I have loved her frown!

The wind blew out from Bergen to the dawning of the day
They ride and race with fifty spears to break and bar my way
I shall not die alone, alone, but kin to all the powers
As merry as the ancient sun, and fighting like the flowers!
How white their steel! How bright their eyes! I love each laughing knave
Cry high and bid him welcome to the banquet of the brave
Yea, I will bless them as they bend, and love them where they lie
When upon their skulls the sword I swing falls shattering from the sky
That hour when death is like a light, and blood is as a rose -
You never loved your friends, my friends, as I will love my foes!

Know you what you shall lose this night, what rich uncounted loans
What heavy gold of tales untold you bury with my bones
My loves in deep dim meadows, my ships that rode at ease
Ruffling the purple plumage of strange and secret seas
To see this fair earth as it stands, to me alone was given
The blow that breaks my brow tonight shall break the dome of heaven
The skies I saw, the trees I saw, after, no eye shall see
Tonight I die the death of God - the stars shall die with me!
One sound shall sunder all the spears, and break the trumpet's breath -
You never laughed in all your life, as I shall laugh in death!

Anonymous said...

I am surprised I stumbled upon what you write about. A couple of years ago I decided to love my wife with all my heart, no matter what. I opened the door to the greatest experience I've ever had. To talk about the experience sounds stupid, so I don't. And to think it was always there, all I had to do was pick it up.

Anonymous said...

Anguish

I stumble, wonder
Why in all this world I must,
Why me, Lord, why not
Give me sight enough to see
The truth before I fail, fall.

I love and it hurts
When they say I do not as
If they really knew.

Gagdad Bob said...

Anon:

That is an excellent point. So many people are afraid of the vulnerability and intensity of love. More often than not, when love "dies," it's because people can't tolerate it. In fact, a psychoanalyst wrote a book about it.

Gagdad Bob said...

They don't even love the planet anyway. They just love the idea that they love the planet (HT Vanderleun).

Anonymous said...

>>UF writes that "to feel something as real in the measure of its full reality is to love." <<

I think there is one particular spiritual quality needed to discern a thing in the measure of its full reality and that is: detachment.

This is one of those seemingly counter-intuitive spiritual equations, eg., the closer one gets to the sacred, the closer one gets to the profane. Detachment would seem to distance us from the object of our love, yet it draws us closer, actually unites us with that object. I do believe that love can exist without a complete state of spiritual detachment, but there is always the risk of earthly passion, earthly attachment and identification getting in the mix.

The "anthill love" of the leftist seems to me to mimic detachment, but, despite its engendering a momentary, party-vibe good-feeling sensation, it is at the root merely clinical, coldly clinical - and very dangerous.

Anonymous said...

Yes, in a way, love is "perfect objectivity."

Anonymous said...

Anon: My wife and I taught marriage prep courses for years at the churches we were at - probably the biggest thing we got out of it was that at one point love changes from something that is happening to you to something you choose to do.

Your statement about deciding to love your wife fully is exactly where most marriages fail because they don't even have that as a possibility - if love stops happening to them then it must no longer be there.

It goes along with Bob puts more eloquently about the two halves of our live - I'll put it more bluntly - we need to go from input to output and from horizontal to vertical as our preferred modality of being - if we want to be all that we can be!

Thank you for your comment today.

Anonymous said...

Well, I actually have nothing against earthly "attachment" re: the objects of our love. Selectivity - re: spouses, family, friends, colleagues - does indeed serve to teach us love. We do need spiritual affiliations which obviously require a certain amount of attachment, on the material earth anyway.

But I imagine we also have our affiliations in heaven, so I wonder: is it possible to love one thing more than another in heaven? I'm talking about the highest plateaus of Devachan here . . . ack, that sounds like one of those useless theological conundrums that occupied too many minds of ages past.

My mind is going bing bing bing . . . . there is much end-game consternation in the Zeitgeist.

Anonymous said...

Have some tea and scones, dear, they do so much to quiet the mind.

Anonymous said...

Farther Out Than That

I found truth today.
It exploded my fat head
Far too effing fast.

See how many effs it takes
Filling futures of fair play?

Fig snacks fill me fine
As I drink the frothy head
Of my friend's hot brew.

NoMo said...

OT..Finally, a thinking man's endorsement. "I'm for the guy who can tell the lion from the lamb."

Anonymous said...

Oh my love
I thought I had to die
to meet an angel
but this is not heaven
and you're the devil!

You stole my my money
and my cigarettes
and tried to steal my Fig Newtons!

Well, I have some good news
and some bad news
The bad news is that
there are no Fig Newtons.
The good news is that
I already ate them

Anonymous said...

Wow!!
Good thing I don't smoke
Anything

I coulda been mistaken for the devil

'N I just gave all my money to
Craig
So's his kid would give me

Cinnamon Pretzels

Hoo hoo!

NoMo said...

A profound mystery...and a perfect circle.

Niggardly Phil said...

Hahaha, so it turns out the person who was assaulted and had a 'B' carved into her face made it up.

From Ace of Spades...http://ace.mu.nu/

julie said...

Wow, that is messed up, Phil. Thanks for the update.

julie said...

Back to the topic, I've been thinking of something you said a little while back, Bob, about how men must hate women (or a woman) before they can love them. I wonder if a similar kind of dynamic is often at play between Man and God? Obviously, not everyone goes through a period of distancing themselves, but speaking purely for myself I know the time I spent trying to disbelieve has made my return to belief much more profound, for lack of a better word, than it might have been otherwise.

Gagdad Bob said...

I was just reading in another book how "femininity represents for man the most direct manifestation of the Divine in terrestrial existence. As such, however, it is is also what may give rise to the most idolatrous behavior." The woman may become "goddess" and tyrant, while the man may become fool and/or slave. One must transcend this illusory dynamic in order to appreciate the true feminine essence and archetype.

I suppose the analogy with God is that one must renounce childish and adolescent versions of religion (i.e., become "dis-illusioned"), but not just stay fixated there, as do the atheists. Rather, one must move on to an adult relationship.

Anonymous said...

>>You start with a small circle, and then gradually widen the circle.<<

Since this seems to be Poetry Friday, enjoy (or not) some song lyrics:

ROLL, WHEEL, ROLL

A harsh wind turns my head around, roll wheel roll,
Now I am bound for St. John town, roll wheel roll,
My soul goes singing endlessly, roll wheel roll,
What goes around comes back to me, roll wheel roll –

Lord, I’ll tell you how I feel on this eve,
That I’m a spoke inside your wheel as you conceive,
Are you lonesome, Lonely One? Then take my soul,
I’ll borrow mine from everyone, roll wheel roll –

Circles everywhere,
Circles in the air,
Wheels within wheels –

A voice spoke as I crossed the hill, said, why do you run?
For you are moving when you’re still, you are your daddy’s son,
Yes, I am everywhere at once, a part amidst the whole,
Crown me, folks, a holy dunce, roll wheel roll –

A hush fell on my native land, I held my breath,
The circle held within its hand both life and death,
Life was bright as diamond glass, death was black as coal,
They meet inside the circle and it’s roll wheel roll –

Circles everywhere,
Circles in the air,
Wheels within wheels –

The sky’s on fire with stars tonight, roll wheel roll,
The galaxies spin in my sight, roll wheel roll,
No matter how or where I roam, roll wheel roll,
I’m in the circle of my home, roll wheel roll –

(c.) wm '08

Anonymous said...

"I wonder if a similar kind of dynamic is often at play between Man and God?"

See the story of the prodigal son.

A scenerio I am all too familiar with.

Anonymous said...

Julie -

>>men must hate women (or a woman) before they can love them. I wonder if a similar kind of dynamic is often at play between Man and God?<<

A lotta saints were at one time near-criminals, or at very least, extreme eccentrics. (SEE St. Francis)

I think the key is extremity - an extremity must be reached, a channeling of energy and focus. In our fallen world, the extremity is likely to be on the shadow side of things: hatred of or disbelief in God - but once that extremity is reached, it can, with a flick of the wrist, be readily be flipped over into sainthood. Not that that many people bother.

But isn't there something of the aura of the saint about Chris Hitchens? As if all he had to do was reverse polarity and presto, he'd be there?

julie said...

Will, have you been by Robin's place today?

julie said...

Re. Hitchens, I honestly don't know. I don't read that much of his stuff, but you may well be right.

Anonymous said...

Julie -

I have not been by Robin's place today. Are you suggesting . . . ?

I should add re: my previous comment that one way or the other, one's Shadow Side must be acknowledged - the sublimation of the energies of the Shadow lead to transcendence.

Anonymous said...

This business of the extremes is of course a home run outta the park. It is the whole dynamic of Yin/Yang in Taoism. It manifests everywhere at least in the human world (really what Taoism is about, with its Trinity of Heaven/Earth/Man) - go to the extreme and it reverses into its opposite. The trick is to strike a dynamic balance - to reach the "golden mean", to become a denizen of the Middle Kingdom. That is where true verticals are found.

In AA this phenomona of the extreme is manifestly shown as alcoholics hit the bottom and if they don't die and if they stop digging deeper holes, they rather abruptly recover.

You look at the recovered alcoholic and for all the world it seems he just decided to stop, it looks that simple and sort of is. But look from the other side and right up to the moment of change it looks impossible from inside the experience of the alcoholic and as well from the experience of those close enough to really care, who may or may not be co-dependent.

julie said...

Will, if you haven't been to the mOtel, go there and hold onto your hat. Robin seems to be sharing brainwaves with at least a couple of raccoons this week.

Anonymous said...

Ah HA -

The St. Fran Synchronicity Network . . .

Held on to hat tightly. Result: airborne. Me AND the hat.

Van Harvey said...

I'll take a turn at that -

Wandering around in circles seen,
Round and round and round they go,
Trying to grasp what can be seen,
Intersections and sets and sets unknown.

All that has been collected,
Is but stuff and stuff grasped a moment,
And then neglected,
Round and round and round we go, never stopping, ever unknown.

Till stepping back from roving around,
Heading purposively now for higher ground,
Muscles burning, lungs a fire,
Pressing on still higher and higher.

Small distance run but so high above ground,
Without a step, just turning round,
Comprehend - beyond the land of fools fast burning cirlces,
Comprehend the land, the sea; sky and star complete their circle through me.

Van Harvey said...

"You might say that the left reduces everything to the first chakra, Freudianism to the second. And both are obviously entirely compatible with materialism, scientism, and Darwinism, which try to account for the top by reducing it to the bottom. That's not love. It is hate. Hatred of reality.

Naturalism is not so much a love of matter as a rejection of, or inability to apprehend, that which transcends it."

Dehumanists.

Anonymous said...

"Therefore there is no true love in the absence of chastity -- and vice versa."

Gen 39:9 There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?

Anonymous said...

Perry Como said Find a wheel. Thanks, Bob, for this wonderful message today, as I pick my wife up at the airport I'm centered again knowing where love begins.

Rick said...

Great post Bob. I know that lady. Met her many times.

“Daddy, I don't like you anymore.”

I love to tell you this, but I think he was practicing a little reverse psychology on you. Or maybe the next time he uses it. Or the time after that. He just doesn’t have a word for it yet. But it’s in there :-)

You know, I can remember back then (well not as far back as FL is now, but close) feeling selfish. It was at some point before I could explain the feeling…I didn’t need to explain it. I remember recognizing that “all I want is what I want”. (Could you really blame me? They gave me things.) But that perspective never completely left me until… My point is, from that point forward, whenever it was, I began wondering, “Why is my father so good to me? I don’t deserve it.” I’m pretty sure it was my father I thought this about. Or maybe just because he is on my mind a lot today.

Anyway, long story short, I was not a “kid person” until I had one. It had a lot to do I thought with realizing my own “all I want is what I want” back then and that’s how I looked at most kids…I didn’t connect the way other people seemed to. I shouldn’t say connect – I didn’t “glow” like others did. Not all did of course. (It’s alright. This has a happy ending: I had a child one day. Now I know why my father was so good to me.

BZ said...

Speaking of love...

This poem holds a fascination for me:

The Clod and the Pebble

Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.

So sang a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet:
But a pebble of the brook,
Warbled out these metres meet.

Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to Its delight:
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite.

-- William Blake

julie said...

A good meditation for a Sunday morning.

gumshoe said...

bob -

came across a culture/psych writer
you (and the OC racoons) might enjoy.

Phillip Rieff
some titles...

Sacred Order/Social Order: My Life Among the Deathworks (Vol 1)

Sacred Order/Social Order Vol II: The Crisis of the Officer Class: The Decline of the Tragic Sensibility

Sacred Order/Social Order Vol III: Volume III: The Jew of Culture: Freud, Moses, and Modernity



The Feeling Intellect: Selected Writings


and one Victor Hanson might have browsed:

The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith after Freud

Anonymous said...

Wonderful reference, Julie. Thanks, and thanks to all of the rest of you, especially Bob.

I find that I've sort of stopped watching the news. I can only listen to those who think like I do, otherwise it gets me down.

But I can always come here and get the opposite. I'm not sure where I'd be without it -- maybe blissfully ensconced in Obama Delusional Disorder.

walt said...

Yes, thanks Julie!

"The abbey abides where we live..."

He frames things very well!

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"No, chastity begins at home. You start with a small circle, and then gradually widen the circle. Start at the center, not the periphery. Try loving your neighborhood before The Planet. Again -- not to get too sidetracked -- but the left begins at the periphery. Obama is the great Unifier. But what kind of unity is it that doesn't even recognize my real existence? I'm not some ant in the leftist hive. What if I don't want that kind of material unity? Too bad, I guess. Some love. I mean, please. Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining."

Wow! Outstanding post, Bob!
This really hit the bullseye and dotted my i.
I love your take on chaste.
Chaste, harmony, unity.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"I think there is one particular spiritual quality needed to discern a thing in the measure of its full reality and that is: detachment."

"Detachment would seem to distance us from the object of our love, yet it draws us closer, actually unites us with that object."

Thanks, Will. I was wonderin' about this. Often I make the mistake of seeing Love, or Truth or Goodness alone, rather than unified.
Detachmen enables us to have the "central" perspective rather than the "peripheral" distraction.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Van said-
"Dehumanists."

LOL! Ding ding ding! You won the coonpie doll! Here, have a seegar!

Ray Ingles said...

Here again, this is why the materialist can neither know reality nor love, since he does not recognize the absolute reality of subjects. Rather, the subject is simply a side effect of matter, and matter is obviously "one," which is an inverted doctrine of spiritual oneness.

Um, yeah. A sick wife on Friday (better now), a trip with family to an apple orchard over the weekend, etc. I have to include a math link to even begin to express where this site relates compared to that.

Subjects can be real even if they aren't composed of spirit-stuff. I know and love five of them every moment of every day. My circle's a bit wider than that, of course, too, but they are the ones I'd be happy to give my life for. (And I don't think I get any bonus lives.)

Anonymous said...

Sentimental sap.

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