I’m sure we all somewhat aware that this inferiority/superiority business is not super healthy, either for the forum or for ourselves, correct?
My own view is that none of us are absolutely free from having images about each other, or free from having preferences, of occasionally sniping and throwing mud, or of feeling superior and inferior in stray moments.
The important thing is not to reify these moments and make them into something fixed, correct?
Just as in ordinary life, where we naturally feel more comfortable with some people and less so with others, here too on the forum birds of a feather flock together. I don’t object to this. But these mustn’t become fixed camps, isolated from each other. Right?
The view from one camp may have elements of truth in it, but never the whole truth, because it excludes all the others. So no one camp is inherently superior to, or inferior to, the others. There may be some things that one person does better than another, some areas that one person sees more clearly than another - but we are surely not here to fight each other and force everyone else to accept our own fragments of clarity, or fit into our own notions of righteous behaviour.
If anything, our presence here is meant to shine a light for each other, to help each other rather than to hinder; and to see things about ourselves - or about the teachings - that we may not have seen before (otherwise, why be here?).
When this seeing - which is learning - takes place, we feel neither superior nor inferior to another. So can we not foster such an atmosphere (of learning) here, despite our myriad differences?
Were any of the above to be earnestly serious, and really interesting in fostering an atmosphere of “learning” here, the perpetrators of every single personal attack would immediately delete every single post which contains such pettiness, so one could actually believe they were serious. And there are a lot of them. Otherwise, I question every post by such people.
There’s a good expression in Spanish - “borrón y cuenta nueva”. It means, more or less, that past errors should be rubbed out.and a new start begun.
I think in many ways, this fits in with the teachings. Are we capable of reading each contribution here with new eyes, not carrying the image of the writer over from past contributions? Just because somebody wrote something we didn’t like in the past doesn’t automatically invalidate any future contribution by the same forum member, does it? Can we find ways to challenge each other without making things personal and things turning nasty?
To play devil’s advocate: Is dealing with nastiness one of the challenges here? Nastiness on the part of self and other. Treat nastiness as a phenomenon to observe/learn from, let it flower?
I can only guess at how it would work, since I’ve never been in a group that treats nastiness^ nonjudgmentally, a phenomenon to observe like any other, a learning opportunity. My guess: Permit the nastiness to be part of the dialogue, let it flower. If it triggers a reaction, look at it, stay with and learn from it, perhaps go into it with an inquiry spirit: What is this?
^ ad hominem attacks, insults, hurtful sarcasm, aggression, hostility, verbal violence of all ilk
As far as I know I hardly get involve with personal attack/defence because it is petty. When I said that the one who feels inferior is more dangerous than the one who feels superior is a fact. Most revolutions and civil wars in the world happen due to that fact.
One who feels superior is compensating for feeling inferior, and is dangerous because of his lack of self-knowledge, whereas one who remains with feeling inferior is harmless because he’s not reckless or desperate enough to pretend to be superior.
The danger is in self-deception - not feeling inferior. Anyone who hasn’t fully awakened to the limitation of thought is inferior, unenlightened, and that’s nearly everyone. All of us, it seems, are inferior.
As far as I am aware, we have all made personal attacks or negative slights on each other. None of us are blameless.
The point is, where do we go from here?
Do we each trawl through all the hundreds of posts we have previously written to find any potentially harmful comments and delete them?
Who has the time to do that?
Or rather do we - as Sean suggests - find out if we can delete or refresh the images we each have of each other, and begin again?
Conflicts between people fester on because few are willing to drop their images of the other, and meet each other afresh. Can’t those of us who are at least somewhat aware of the situation take some initiative? Is this an impossible request?
Maybe not everyone on the forum will be able to do this consistently - probably none of us can. Maybe the genuine differences between people will continually upset the apple cart. But there is nothing stopping us from ‘trying’ - by which I don’t mean an effort to get along, but to give the matter at least some of our intelligence and goodwill (affection).
I’m not sure that real nastiness needs to be part of any dialogue. But if you simply mean that the conflicts and difficulties we face in relationship can be an opportunity for learning, then I agree.
Conflicts between people fester on because few are willing to drop their images of the other, and meet each other afresh.
Afresh, refresh, which is it? I can’t completely forget the image I refresh, but I can allow for new information that alters the image - sometimes changes it radically.
It depends on what Charley meant by “religious”. Krishnamurti referred to himself as “a religious man” because he used the word in a radically different way than it is commonly used.
By “religion” most people mean a belief system that competes with other belief systems because they’re all make-believe, and they’re very useful to dictators who want to exercise control.
I’m not sure that it is a conscious thing. Our images of each other build up in the course of relating - through our reactions to each other, what they say to us, what we say back, how we feel about it all - and when we meet again, “hey presto!” the image is there to interfere in the communication.
Sometimes one can simply drop an image of another person on the spot. I’m not disputing this. But if one has been hurt by another, the image may remain, festering away, living a life of its own. We then react or act out of that image, but not completely consciously.
The point is, if we see that these images are interfering in our relationship with each other, we can bring our intelligence to bear on what is going on, and find out if we can empty ourselves of the hurtful image - merely by seeing what is going on.
When the past image (which is always a past image) no longer exists or is no longer dominant, then I can meet you afresh as you are today. That’s all I was saying. (“Refresh” is just a computer term for the same thing).
Yes, but invariably, the previous image is altered by the present image forming, so there is always an openness to the possibility that all of the imagery can be scrapped until something undeniable asserts itself.
The point is, if we see that these images are interfering in our relationship with each other,
We know this but we don’t actually see it. If we did, we’d quit doing it.
we can bring our intelligence to bear on what is going on, and find out if we can empty ourselves of the hurtful image - merely by seeing what is going on.
I don’t presume to have any intelligence - just a capacity for thinking reasonably, logically, and I have emptied myself of hurtful images by thinking through what was hurting and why - not by actually seeing.
When the past image (which is always a past image) no longer exists or is no longer dominant, then I can meet you afresh as you are today. That’s all I was saying. (“Refresh” is just a computer term for the same thing).
I agree because it happens all the time. I don’t trust the images I form, so they’re always held provisionally, always subject to change, be it slight or radical. But where I disagree is equating “refresh” with “afresh”. The standing image is modified by the present image. A fresh image is a first impression, and first impressions are notoriously unreliable. A modified image is a refreshed image, and refreshed images are always better informed than first impressions.
