Who can you accept as an authority figure?

Jeff, you wrote >>  In general, how is one supposed to distinguish an acceptable authority figure form those we are are to reject? <<.

Interestingly, Jesus has an answer when asked the same question. Jesus said, "By their fruit you will know them."

Or as I like to say, quoting my own authority, "The proof is in the pudding."

Another  quote you can take to the bank is "How is that working for ya?"

Unitarian Univeralists covenant together to affirm and promote seven principles the fourth of which is "the free and responsible search for truth and meaning."

The ultimate authority is, of course, one's own conscience assuming one's conscience is "informed" and authentic. People we have learned from cognitive science are subject to "confimation bias." So doubt is the spice of life even doubt of your own beliefs.

So when I suggest questioning authority, I am including one's own, but as Plutonius says in Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, "above all esle to thine own self be true."

As Socrates said, the hallmark of a wise person is knowing what they don't know. So, another one of my guiding principles is "Don't believe your own bullshit because it paves the well to hell."

GIPHY

5 minute commentary - Falling in love or rising in love?

The Spiritual Life, Topic Twenty seven, Fall in love or rise in love?

The Spiritual Life, Topic Twenty seven

Fall in love or rise in love?

In fact a mature person does not fall in love, he rises in love. The word fall is not right. Only immature people fall; they stumble and fall down in love. Somehow they were managing and standing. Now they cannot manage and they cannot stand—they find a woman and they are gone, they find a man and they are gone. They were always ready to fall on the ground and to creep. They don’t have the backbone, the spine; they don’t have the integrity to stand alone. 

A mature person has the integrity to be alone. And when a mature person gives love, he gives without any strings attached to it—he simply gives. When a mature person gives love, he feels grateful that you have accepted his love, not vice versa. He does not expect you to be thankful for it—no, not at all, he does not even need your thanks. He thanks you for accepting his love. 

And when two mature persons are in love, one of the greatest paradoxes of life happens, one of the most beautiful phenomena: they are together and yet tremendously alone. They are together so much so that they are almost one, but their oneness does not destroy their individuality—in fact, it enhances it, they become more individual. Two mature persons in love help each other to become more free. There is no politics involved, no diplomacy, no effort to dominate.

Osho. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living) . St. Martin's Press. Kindle Edition.

The key to mature romantic love is to be oneself and to maintain a connection. In mature romantic love partners are conscientiously conscious of each other's well being. They are alone and together, a witness to each other’s intimate life, a mirror that illuminates one’s blind spots that helps the unconscious become conscious.

The paradox is that in taking care of oneself, in facilitating one’s own growth and development, the person is able to become more loving, more generous, more compassionate, more available emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually to one’s partner..

This taking care of oneself is not egotistical but compassionate and nurturing, and merging with the Oneness of existence.

This taking care of oneself is based on forgiveness. Forgiveness is giving up making other people and circumstances responsible for one’s unhappiness. One realizes that they no longer wish to play the victim but take control over how one chooses to respond to the people and things in one's life.

In what does one put their faith, in the world of the ego with winners and losers, and victims and victimizers, or in the world of the Spirit with the Unconditional Love of the Universe permeating one’s consciousness?

As Osho teaches, a person does not “fall in love” but rises into love.

Could Covid-19 could be a door to paradise?

Horrible in itself,

disaster is sometimes a door back into paradise,

that paradise at least in which we are who we hope to be,

do the work we desire,

and are each our sister's and brother's keeper."

Rebecco Solnit as quoted in the June, 2020, Sojourners Magazine, p. 12

5 minute commentary - Freedom to be who you are.

The Spiritual Life, Topic Twenty six, The freedom to be who you are.

The Spiritual Life, Topic Twenty six

The Freedom to be who you are.

The moment you depend, you start feeling miserable because dependence is slavery. Then you start taking revenge in subtle ways, because the person you have to depend upon becomes powerful over you. Nobody likes anybody to be powerful over them, nobody likes to be dependent because dependence kills freedom. And love cannot flower in dependence—love is a flower of freedom; it needs space, it needs absolute space. The other has not to interfere with it. It is very delicate.

When you are dependent the other will certainly dominate you, and you will try to dominate the other. That’s the fight that goes on between so-called lovers. They are intimate enemies, continually fighting. Husbands and wives—what are they doing? Loving is very rare; fighting is the rule, loving is an exception. And in every way they try to dominate—even through love they try to dominate. If the husband asks the wife, the wife refuses, she is reluctant. She is very miserly: she gives but very reluctantly, she wants you to wag your tail around her. And so is the case with the husband. When the wife is in need and asks him, the husband says that he is tired. In the office there was too much work, he is really overworked, and he would like to go to sleep.

Osho. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself (Osho Insights for a New Way of Living) . St. Martin's Press. P. 54

The fear of domination begins in childhood when the child says defiantly, “You’re not the boss of me!” and so it goes on throughout our lives in the world of the ego.

As the philosopher, Isaiah Berlin, has pointed out, there are two kinds of freedom: freedom from and freedom to. In many instances in order for there to be freedom to, there must be freedom from. Unconditional love only works with freedom from. There is no possession, no domination, no control issues, no power struggles.

The first step in embarking on a path of Unconditional love is to give up control, give up attempts to make the loved one do anything, and give the gift of freedom, the space to be one’s self. This is scary especially if the loved one is likely to make mistakes that have negative consequences. A warning is enough, but then the tongue must be bitten. Mistakes can, sometimes, be the best teacher. People don’t learn from words unless they are desired and willingly received. Most often people learn from consequences.

It is in freedom from our dominating, and controlling, and possessiveness that we put our faith. We give up the illusion of making anybody do anything. As they say in Twelve step programs, “You take your own inventory, don’t be taking everyone else’s.” And so we surrender our desire to control and give the other person the freedom to be who they are.

Stephen Jenkinson interviewed by Scott Miller on 05/01/20

Have enough people died and the social disruption been great enough for humanity to wake up to their world defeating ways of life?


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