Meditate through action

I find it interesting that languages intrigue me so much when they are the cause of so much division- from other people and from the original thoughts you were trying to express. Language is a defective tool of communication. Body language is clearer. But you can never perfectly know what a person is trying to tell you.

The ideas I talk about- anarchism, primitivism- I haven't put them into practice in any substantial way. My life has remained largely unaffected by my discussion of these ideas. I have formed different prejudices towards the targets of these ideas (government, civilization), and supposedly my prejudices have some influence on my actions. But talking about these ideas has been mostly futile. I want so much to be an idealist. But to be an idealist is to constantly strive for the unattainable. Which I suppose is a worthy cause. In that striving, progression would be made. Change. How much is my life changing from week to week? Sometimes I do make a change for the better. And sometimes I fall back into old patterns after a while. What's to stop me? It takes a lot of energy to be constantly working to change for the better. If I stop making an effort after having achieved some sort of progress, that stagnancy degrades into recession. Obviously, I cannot possibly work for progress to infinity by my own strength. Where is the hope? The pursuit of perfection does not have to be an all or nothing deal. I am a finite being that can exert a finite amount of energy. God, an infinite being, forgives that. I'm not going to say that all I have to do is rely on God and everything will be fine and I'll mysteriously have the energy to be perfect. Those are words that I tell myself. I don't really know what they mean or what results from them. I don't know how to fully rely on God. I do know that for the majority of the time, I shut myself off from God. I'm working on changing my perception of God- God is not a man in the sky. Of course, I have acknowledged this fact for most of my life, but I continue to perceive God as somehow finite and still "over there," maybe not up in the sky, but not right next to me, not within me. So when I say that I want to not shut myself off from God, that requires a prerequisite change in my perception of God. Which is a largely futile exercise, as my mind cannot fully grasp any infinite concept. That's why Jesus is handy. He chose to become human, finite, conceivable. And I am able to come to know the Father through him because of that.

As I have made some of the conceptual progress I spoke of above, I gained friendships with individuals who look less than favorably on religion and God in general. Obviously, friends have a big influence on how I think, so I have been led to consider whether faith is a suspension of reason. This assumes that reason is the ultimate source of truth. There is evidence for God on the level of reason (Pascal's wager and such), but if reason is the end of your use of your mind, you're missing a lot. "I think, therefore I am" is not as wise a statement as it sounds. Consider consciousness. Most of the time, you are speaking thoughts to your self internally, but there are also times (however few) that your mind is silent, yet you are still conscious. You are living in the moment, not concerned with the past or future, but simply happy to be. Imagine (I realize this will undoubtedly induce thoughts) this state as eternal. That is my image of heaven.

Part of the system that anarchism aims to reject is this enslavement to thought. (These thoughts have been produced as a result of starting to read The Power of Now) Anarchists tend to be rather philosophical in nature, philosophy being various systems of thoughts. And therefore, they are still subject to the systems they want to emancipate themselves from. That emancipation can only truly occur through the freedom found in the present moment, connectedness, oneness, God. And again, the word God is misleading, not conveying the spiritual beingness that is. Words obviously fail, so I'll stop trying. Just a few notes to battle my own misperceptions of God. God does not have a body that looks like a human. Our souls are made in the image and likeness of God, not our bodies. God is not male or female, as I have already discussed (yet the pronoun problem persists- henceforth, the discontinuation of use of pronouns with God). However, Jesus was human and male and male pronouns are of course relevant. My perception and acceptance of the Trinity is adjusting. To what, I am still discovering. The Son does not sit at the right hand of the Father. God entered the world of time and space for a period, as Jesus, and when Jesus left the world, he again became one with God. The ideas of God the father and God the son are just used so that we can attempt to understand the kind of relationship God has with God. God loves God. That love is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. God is love. All of these words are refering to the same being. Why must we make a fuss with dividing that being up, distracting us from the simple, plain truth that God created us out of love, wanting us to choose to love God in return and each other as a result?

The being that is God is absolute truth, love, goodness. I have had questions about curses and blessings. Obviously, God does not will bad things to happen to people. Misfortune is indirect result of sin (ie Original Sin). But if God does not curse, does God bless? And if God blesses, wouldn't the absense of a blessing in some situations be the equivalent of a curse? Perhaps, sin is such that it often prevents God's blessing, which is offered at every opportunity. God would love to bestow the grace of blessing on everyone all the time, but such is only possible within the unity and oneness of love. When bad things happen to good people for no reason, God mourns, made helpless by the rejection of God's love. When blessings and miracles show themselves, it is a result of people choosing to come together in love. This is by no means to say that if you incur some misfortune, it is directly related to some sin you have committed, but it is simply the result of the fallen state of humanity in general. It is hard to accept the senseless deaths of tsunami victims as having no one to blame for it but ourselves. But that we must do. Change can only come from within. It will take a moral effort to accept the truth that Jesus taught. It will take sacrifice- sacrifice of the material things you want to hold on to for comfort. Either way, those material things will pass away eventually. The question is whether I will give them up now in order to love God, freeing myself to live, or hold on to those material things and doom myself to die. Can't serve God and mammon. You can piss away your life by choosing to be distracted by entertainment (not just entertainment though, any distraction or addiction. anything out of moderation probably denies life. that's not saying you have to be perfect. but aim high. christianity is all about aiming for something out of reach and constantly failing- fools for God), but what kind of life will that be?

I don't know what the next step to take is, and that is okay. I know that I need to take it. Action is required. I'm not talking about a hard, puritan work ethic in which all enjoyment is sucked out of life, because that too is a life-denying obsession. Any action should effectively result in greater and greater joy as I continue to move closer and closer to God. In my finiteness, I can never come to know God fully, but such is the state and purpose of life.

A very good place to start is to free oneself from the need to use ineffectual thoughts, living within the moment, a place and time in which you become utterly connected with the world around you, with humanity (another abused concept), with God, making nonviolence and love as necessary as breathing. You are not an individual, closed off from everyone around you; you are connected with everyone and everything. If you accept this, letting go of your own self-centeredness by choice, then you are doing your part to bring the kingdom of God. This is very idealistic language, and I, of course, will fail. But that doesn't make the effort fruitless.

It is strange that I feel so satisfied, having written this, as if I actually clearly communicated what I wanted to. That was a whole lot of lofty language with very little practicality within it. I have no experiential knowledge that living in the moment leads to a connectedness with the world. Maybe this needed to be said to spur me on to action, but feeling satisfied with what I've written won't spur me on very much. Who's to decide what progress towards perfection actually entails? I have ideas that I have gathered, but again, that is a subjective interpretation of the truth. Objective truth does exist. I read something today, justifying relativism, asking how you can be against something that is good for everyone. But as humans, we often obviously do not choose what is good for us. How do we find that truth (which is God)?

I need to go meditate for a while. But this writing is a form of meditating. I need to meditate through action- not making logical sense, but it somehow succeeds to mean what I wanted to say.