IMHO most people … if not all people … are addicted to finding a scapegoat.
Let me try to illustrate my intention with a fable I heard many years ago.
A Buddhist monk is out for a walk in the woods … walking down a sparsely traveled road … the beauty and serenity of his surroundings seduces him into a dream like state … totally immersed in his thoughts.
SPLAT! … he finds himself making face prints in the earth … he had fallen into a large hole in the road. After regaining his composure he was seriously indignant towards the people responsible for the maintenance of this road … how could they be so reckless and so on.
He returned to his walk and rediscovered his reverie.
SPLAT! … he finds himself once again making face prints in the earth. He is no longer indignant … he is furious/outraged … thoughts of retribution and revenge storm into his consciousness. Fortunately, his Buddhist training had taught him to control his emotions … he continued his leisurely walk.
Yup … SPLAT once again. This time he got up and looked at the sky. I finally get it … I am responsible for my actions … I am responsible to watch where I place my feet … and so on.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could stop looking for scapegoats … it’s the believer’s fault … no it’s the atheist’s fault … no it’s the terrorist’s fault … and so on and so on. If only we could find the courage to stand up and take responsibility for our own actions … regardless of the forces acting on our decisions.
In the strictest ideal sense, by making wise choices to not engage in evil actions or gateway activities that infect one’s soul with evil intentions, it may be possible, but what a personal war to wage facing evil head on 24/7. So far, there aren’t many external places to go for sanctuary, modern culture is plagued with lies to separate and keep separate a person from their better nature.
tom wrote
This I had to read several times to catch what may be your meaning tom. You meant reactive forces, such as the law, correct? Here, I saw it as the insidious forces of evil that can erode a man’s good character.
yet those forces out of our control do influence our lives…
The reason I was born handicap was when my mom was 4 months pregnant
with me, my older sister, against orders, went next door and played with
a couple of kids who had German measles and my sister, age 6, gave my mom
the German Measles… German measles create birth defects in pregnant
women and wasn’t treatable at the time, so when I came out, I was born hearing
impaired… the most important event in my life occurred before I was even born…
how am I to take individual responsibility for an event that occurred before I was
even born? who do I blame? I cannot blame anyone, my sister was 6 and my mom
made it clear she wasn’t suppose to go over to that house, so who is to blame?
no one and yet, yet an event that has dominated my life occurred and I can’t
take responsibility, in fact, no one can take responsibility, so who is to blame?
I can’t even find a scapegoat for an event that has determined my life and its
course…we have forces in our lives in which we have no control over and
these forces are random and chaotic and make no sense and yet often they
determine the way one’s life will go…can we take responsibility for
those forces we cannot control or even see?
In a way we can take responsibility by recognizing these forces for what they are and asserting our will upon them to make damn sure that from now on they build or repair rather than destroy. Positive, selfless juju for the benefit of all. Our saving grace, best wishes for all souls.
Sorry for taking to the pulpit lately, guess I’m feeling nostalgic.
WD … good question … today I’ve read and reread my statement and still wonder what my intention(s) was at the time I wrote it.
A while ago an ILP member wrote in a post … paraphrasing … are my posts really my posts? … or is there some unknown energy/force influencing what I write? … I think it was Jerkey
For me … that’s the beauty of friendly thought exchange … one can write without filtering or censoring … I think they call it “free fall” writing. Persecution, mockery and insolence resulting from the content of one’s post is not a pleasant experience.
Back to my intentions … “the forces acting on our decisions” are many and varied … the two you mention are definitely included … and there are countless other forces … some powerful … some weaker.
Yes … despite being unable to control any given force … it behooves us to strive to improve human understanding of such force. For example … weather trends and the seasons.
Forces we can’t even see … we can’t see gravity yet we understand how it works … mostly … apparently Newtonian laws of gravity are currently being challenged.
I wonder if the ostrich ever comes to realize that by burying his/her head in the sand … the world becomes invisible to him/her … yet … him/her remains visible to the world … excepting the head of course
No … if our intention is to discover some way to control such force … better we leave it alone. For example … GMO
WD … people who look at their major decisions in life find in almost all cases decisions were based almost exclusively on external factors … factors beyond our control.
Care to share a personal example?
In pondering such a question the “forces” at work will surface.
Sounds a bit bold to say that I have turned my will against approaching severe storms with possible tornadoes and averted the severest portions, with enough advanced warning and willfulness the storms dissapated or veered elsewhere time and again. No last minute saves though. What are your thoughts about that?
I just shared a personal experience on the “i am god” stuff OP . A rather innocuous event … yet an experience that had a profound influence on my life for the past 20 years or so. When you have time … and the inclination … you can let me know what “forces” you think were at work.
BTW … people who sit on the fence live a most difficult life … IMO
It’s the happenstance of finding it back in a January 2016 post while looking for my own thing for SM about the souls location. That was meant to make me smile. We are being ‘watched/guided’ tonight.
