Well now that’s interesting. I think I always did have, but I’ve realised most of it retrospectively.

Not to say that I always in the dark either, but I had no idea how to act on it consciously.

I am reminded of an inspired preacher I heard two Christmases ago, on the significance of ‘no room at the inn’, the point being there was no room /anywhere/ in the (material) ‘World’ for the Saviour – but presumably, plenty of space nonetheless.

That’s a nice interpretation, I like that. Everyone’s too busy running around, so you have to go out to a stable to bring forth the Savior.

Man, I wish more people acted on the metaphors and stuff like this in the Bible.

Well now that’s interesting. I think I always did have, but I’ve realised most of it retrospectively.

>> have a stake in keeping you from flying away

It’s probably not /really/ in their interest, tho.

>> There’s always spaces and places for growth

Yes, it’s just sometimes hard to find them.

I am reminded of an inspired preacher I heard two Christmases ago, on the significance of ‘no room at the inn’, the point being there was no room /anywhere/ in the (material) ‘World’ for the Saviour – but presumably, plenty of space nonetheless.

Every job I’ve had (working for the Man, I mean), I’ve been /told/ what’s real and what’s not. Wears a person down after a while.

I think that’s why most people feel a need to lash out against the corporate system. For myself though, I know that I didn’t HAVE my own sense of what was real and what wasn’t for a long time (which says a lot about the modern educational system). I needed someone else to fill in those blanks for me, just so I could function in life/society. And now, I think I might finally have reached a point where I’m able work out for myself what’s “real”.

Ideally, corporation/society/the man/parents/god should function like a cocoon kind of thing, holding you until you’re ready to fly. When the “owners” of the cocoon have a stake in keeping you from flying away, it makes it quite a struggle (think Saturn devouring his children). The good thing is that not all companies are like that. There’s always spaces and places for growth, if you work hard enough to find them. As William Burroughs used to say, in his creepy old man voice, “there’s always a space between…“

Not easy tho. Every job I’ve had (working for the Man, I mean), I’ve been /told/ what’s real and what’s not. Wears a person down after a while.

>> roads and land arranged in grids have turned the territory into a map

Yeah, that’s good…

It’s trying to “tame” the territory to better allow mapping. Which I don’t think is an inherently evil act, although it can cause/lead to much bad shit. I think the key is to better understand the territory by doing so, and to actually improve our map-making skills. It’s just ignorance of the way things work that causes the trouble.

The map serves the territory…?

I’m not sure if it can, but if it can, than THAT’s what a map’s for, I think…

Slipped my mind, of course! That’s a pretty explicit passage in the Gospels about images and what to do with them. ‘Whose face is on this?’…

Belief in the scientific method is a kind of faith…

*

As for magical thinking… this got me thinking of the kind of approach that writes things on the map and then expects them to appear in the territory (I call it ‘management-think’ ;-D ). Now clearly there are limitless things in the territory that the map doesn’t ‘capture’ (ugh, horrid word) but I’m not sure this is quite the right way to be going about finding them…

Either way, yes, I give him a lot of credit as well. Nothing’s ever easy, and he did a lot of work in his life to wake people up…

But I think maybe at one time it wasn’t as nafarious…but anyway RAW was a writer for playboy for many years, so he has a bit of that in his aura, I think and it comes through in his writing. Also there is the question of magic. What is magic(k)? Tolkein definitely thought of it as evil. “do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law” etc. RAW was into Magick so that shows through.

Still, he was a great lateral thinker and was big on practical application of esoteric ideas, so I give him a lot of credit for that. But as far as being spiritually elevated through reading his writing, you don’t really get that experience. He always plays the Devil’s advocate.

But I am thinking that with maps, the tendency is to exclude certain things, but in reality nothing is excluded. Everything is made out of everything else. So any process includes all ingredients.
We never get out of the “soup”

Yeah, I read something in “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind” on this that I’m probably going to put up as soon as I’m done typing here. But I agree. We never get out of the soup, so we must it AS soup, not as “map”.

@ speedbird:

That’s pretty cool. But of course when I read a map I project myself into it. First job, find out where you are on the map, right?

Exactly. First job is find out where you are, but before that, on its own, the map doesn’t have you in it. It’s an abstraction. Putting yourself in it causes a delay…

Why do we need the map to find out where we are? We’re already in the territory. Why is the map even necessary? I don’t mean that rhetorically, I’d seriously like to find out myself. And yes, the map makes it easier to deal with the territory, but that’s hardly a good reason to use a “map”. Our maps our never complete (although we keep thinking, “some day, just maybe…”), so why isn’t a incomplete understanding of the territory as we are it enough?

A post on “names” to come right away as well. Looking forward to your thoughts on it. ;)

@ Ted (2)

but in real life everything is connected and intimately involved with everything else. Nothing is left out of the equation. Everything happens all at once and involves everything else. Its all inter penetrated.

maps are about limitation-what you don’t want to see, what you don’t want to take into account, what you want to ignore, to exclude. The idea of making a map is to break things down into little bites that are digestible to the individual ego consciousness.

I really like this.

RAW is coming at this like a bit of a nihilist, or perhaps, better, an existentialist.

The more I examine RAW’s style of thought, the less I like it. There seems to me to be something greasy and grasping under there, some frantically devilish urge to hold onto something known to be false. I don’t know. can’t really put my finger on it…

In that paradigm there is no underlying reality, no truth, no way to apprehend truth, only chaos.

So then map making is a self affirming act, like an act of creation. Almost like a defiant act.

So then the map is all you have.

Although I think THAT might sum it up rather nicely. Believing in chaos-absolute is no different than believing in order-absolute. Let the coin flip, and then render it unto Caesar. :)

to get anywhere you need some underlying faith that there is something intelligible there.

I’ve never thought of faith as the thing that would unify science and mysticism, but that’s a really good point. Both start with the idea of the “muddle” and then attempt to make sense of it in different ways. But yeah, both are operating under the assumption that there is intelligibility there somewhere…

science comes from a position of ignorance, mysticism, from a position of “trans rational” experience.

but to get anywhere you need som underlying faith that there is something intelligible there.

In that paradigm there is no underlying reality, no truth, no way to apprehend truth, only chaos.

So then map making is a self affirming act, like an act of creation. Almost like a defiant act.

So then the map is all you have.

But when Native American’s first encountered alphabetic writing and photography among the Europeans, they saw it for what it was-magic.

Another thing that has to do with magical thinking is the idea of processes that make jumps (often after uttering magic words like ‘presto’).

I think being around advanced technology without understanding the underlying mechanisms reinforces magical thinking also.

but in real life everything is connected and intimately involved with everything else. Nothing is left out of the equation. Everything happens all at once and involves everything else. Its all inter penetrated.

maps are about limitation-what you don’t want to see, what you don’t want to take into account, what you want to ignore, to exclude. The idea of making a map is to break things down into little bites that are digestible to the individual ego consciousness.

I’ve maybe caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye, no more. I’ve probably seen England a couple of times. Poets like Rupert Brooke get to sit and stare for a while. William Blake (who was quite frankly nuts) saw England /all the time/, referring to it as ‘the giant Albion’. What exactly are we dealing with here?

What I mean to say is, most of the time our territories are just more maps. It’s not often we see them as they are.

Ian – This is about where I run out of things to say and flounder around wordlessly with much waving of hands :-)
>> Maps don’t have ME in them, territories do.
That’s pretty cool. But of course when I read a map I project myself into it. First job, find out where you are on the map, right?

Ted (2) -
>> letting go of a type of magical thinking
Can you elaborate any?

I also think it comes down to letting go of a type of magical thinking. Maybe Speedbird is less prone to magical thinking being an engineer type.

But I am thinking that with maps, the tendency is to exclude certain things, but in reality nothing is excluded. Everything is made out of everything else. So any process includes all ingredients.

We never get out of the “soup”

This ties in with the Chain or Dependent Origination as well, in something called “name and form” which I’m still trying to wrap my head around…

To act in this world, each of us must Be something, something with a True Name.

Do we though? I don’t know. What happens if we don’t have a True Name? Can we no longer act? I have no idea, but I’d like to find out… Scary thinking of giving up a True Name though.

‘This Is my body, this Is my blood…’, the Mystery of Communion.

This though, kind of points to that. Whose body, whose blood? It’s meant to be Christ’s, but is that how Christ meant it…?

@ Ted:
I think maybe that map can become the territory, if I could figure out how to add my sense of self to the map. Maps don’t have ME in them, territories do.

I have an idea that it’s the sense of a separate self is that causes us to divide things into a map and a territory, because why aren’t they the same thing? What divides the sense of “map” from the sense of “territory”…?

But is that “correct”? And even if it is, can I DO anything because I’ve figured that out? What use is an idea or knowledge that just sits there? Frustrating.

‘… Only we still retain
The name, and all the additions to a king;
The sway, revenue, execution of the rest,
Beloved sons, be yours: which to confirm,
This coronet part betwixt you.’

(OK, enough Shakespeare for now!)