{"id":1743,"date":"2014-03-26T17:22:19","date_gmt":"2014-03-27T01:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/?p=1743"},"modified":"2014-03-26T17:22:19","modified_gmt":"2014-03-27T01:22:19","slug":"a-passover-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/?p=1743","title":{"rendered":"A Passover Myth"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the spirit of creative mythmaking<\/a>, I made up the following to illustrate the possibility of what true spiritual freedom means, which is not even subtle mental enslavement to what some authority figure dictates—forget about how terribly distorted those rules may become over the millennia—but rather taking on responsibility for the present moment and daring to think what should be done now. So:<\/p>\n

According to the Book of Exodus, Moses followed the Lord\u2019s personal  commandments to him, and gone through the rigamarole of freeing the Hebrew Children from Pharaoh. Yay! Moses led them across the Red Sea and toward \u201cthe Promised Land.\u201d Yay, for the myth. Boo from the perspective of the Canaanites. But that\u2019s another myth. So in my creative mythmaking the following scene occurs:<\/p>\n

Moses goes up to Mount Sinai and made contact with God. Forget the details, that\u2019s not the point. \u201cOkay, Lord, here we are, ready for your commandments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus sayeth the Lord: \u201cYou didn\u2019t get it, did you? I was freeing you from slavery. I was freeing you not from one master so you could become subservient to another master, who you and your theocracy claimed was the God that dominated you. I didn\u2019t mean for you to believe that I would have further commandments. No! I was trying to free you, liberate you: No masters! Take responsibility!\u201d <\/p>\n

God rambles on, in my fantasy: \u201cThe trouble with responsibility for humans only a few hundreds of thousands of years out of monkey-mind is that responsibility still feels like a burden, not liberation. \u201cYou mean we have to choose what we do?\u201d Yeah, that\u2019s the point of freedom. \u201cBut there\u2019s so much, we get confused, tell us what to do!\u201d  No, that\u2019s a slave mentality!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWeirder, and this never got into the Bible, I can\u2019t tell you what to do. I don\u2019t know what is right for you, and what will be right a hundred years or a thousand years from now. I don\u2019t work that way. I\u2019m more of a woman, giving birth to kids who might turn out to be wicked. I am out of control. It\u2019s you who have made me a parent who dictates, it\u2019s your projection. It\u2019s your slave mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus sayeth the Lord, in my fantasy, S\/He not being given to succinct-ness, though of course this may well be just a projection: \u201cI give birth to uncountable life forms in uncountable galaxies. I don\u2019t mess with the details. Live, live well, live better\u2014what your philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said. What is better for you is to be determined as you evolve. One millennium, certain rules apply to certain peoples. Further on in your evolution, changes keep happening and then maybe other things are better. Recognizing that evolution is happening, that fundamental features change, is itself an evolutionary step that you are only beginning to appreciate.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cMore to the point,\u201d (sayeth the Lord), \u201cYou are responsible, which means that you are able to respond, to co-create political, moral, social systems. You have not begun to get this, yet. You may not fully get this for a few thousand years. But in time. <\/p>\n

So stop being slaves. Stop thinking that someone else has to tell you want to do, even God. Work it out among yourselves. And realize that you\u2019ll have to continue to work it out forever. Whatever you\u2019ve worked out becomes obsolete in light of new inventions, discoveries, new awareness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMoses,\u201d (the Lord sayeth), \u201cYou still live in a time when there is no concept of evolution, of new-ness of basic standards. There was no awareness of human ecology, that we\u2019re all in this together, that this party against that party is nuts. You haven\u2019t learned that peace-making isn\u2019t weakness, but rather requires all the strength of character, the maturity, the sophistication of adult wisdom. It may take a good long while for that to sink in. Hey! You don\u2019t even know what I\u2019m talking about! You\u2019ve zoned out and are hearing what you want to hear and imagining that I\u2019m dictating commandments! Hell-oooo, Moses!\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cOh, my, I\u2019ve lost him. Lightning! Thunder!? Nope, human minds are locked into the pre-Passover,  pre-exodus mentality!<\/p>\n

Moses is numb. He\u2019s stuck in thinking, \u201cThere has GOT to be a boss somewhere. Maybe there are worse bosses, meaner bosses, and better bosses. But for sure we can\u2019t be our own boss.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lord: \u201cAs a matter of fact, you can, get real, but alas, that involves a profound shift in consciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oh, well, life will evolve. Perhaps some day folks will begin to recognize \u201cslave mentality\u201d for what it is: This is just the way it is. We need to accept it. Can\u2019t fight it. Wiser men than us have thought this out and shown us the way. We can\u2019t dare to plot new avenues. That would be dis-respectful, impudent, arrogant. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s a fine distinction that must be made between true humility and phony humility, which is just subservience masked as rectitude and copping out from thinking things through. <\/p>\n

True humility recognizes that maybe what we\u2019ve created isn\u2019t the endpoint, and takes responsibility to think it through again. True humility is open to feedback and willing to consider other viewpoints. It need not agree with other viewpoints, but neither can it blithely ignore them. True humility is arrogant just a tiny bit, enough to come to provisional conclusions, implement them, but be open enough, not so arrogant, as to be willing to re-think those conclusions in the face of changing circumstances. <\/p>\n

This impacts another human desire: Let\u2019s settle it once and for all. But this is immature: There is never, ever, a once-and-for-all! It keeps changing, and true response-ability recognizes this. Creativity is needed, and there\u2019s no guarantee that every creative idea is a good one. Creativity does not confer effectiveness or reality. Indeed, for the most part creativity doesn\u2019t work very well. It often comes up with follies or dead ends. But it\u2019s prolific and keeps trying, and that\u2019s what pushes forward. The awareness of staying fresh, looking at the results, noticing when something works better than before\u2014this is part of wisdom.<\/p>\n

People: \u201cAww, man, can\u2019t we get guarantees?
The Lord:  Nope. No once-and-for-all, no rules from on high, no clear directions.
People, \u201cIt\u2019s not fair!
The Lord: \u201c Grow up, get a grip!\u201d (More compassionately:)
   Sigh.  Ah, that may take another several millennia.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the spirit of creative mythmaking, I made up the following to illustrate the possibility of what true spiritual freedom means, which is not even subtle mental enslavement to what some authority figure dictates—forget about how terribly distorted those rules may become over the millennia—but rather taking on responsibility for the present moment and daring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,14,13,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-papers","category-foolin","category-spirituality-and-philosophy","category-wisdom-ing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1743"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1744,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743\/revisions\/1744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}