Unchained or Unhinged

One day while waiting at an intersection I watched a tandem bicycle ride by.  The driver, or front seat, had a gentleman on it of about fifty years.  Behind him sat a woman of similar age with a beatific grin on her face.  Her gaze drifted around at the world like a child, taking in all of the sites, smells, and sounds.  Ironically, her smile was so wide as to stir thoughts that she was mentally ill.  How wrong that is. 

 

It is sad that when we see someone who seems “irrationally happy,” we immediately imagine that they are mentally ill unless the person is a child.  Then our society tries to put them in a hospital or medicate them. 

 

In some cultures I imagine that they worship someone of this level of contentment.  Instead of trying to drug them down, these societies might follow and learn from these individuals.  Imagine what you can learn from the mentally ill if you treat them as different instead of sick.  Of course some do need personal hands-on care as they urinate themselves.  Yet others though, they bother no one. 

 

To give an example, some wandering mystics in India would be institutionalized here in the
United States.  These Sannyasi surrender everything and wander the world surviving on what it provides.  When asked, they say that they only eat what God provides, either through alms or from what they can scavenge. 

 

Someone very close to me wandered like this in the
USA and ended up in hospitals and jails.   He would get trespassing charges and then be released.  When taken in front of a judge they often asked him to get another psychiatry evaluation.  He would tell them that he did not need to talk to another idiot to measure his sanity.  He just wanted to be left alone. 

 

To this day I cannot find this individual, but I do know that he is living the life that he wants to live.  When offered apartments, homes and other places, he turns them down.  He only wants to live the way he wants to live.  He hurts no one, other than to provide an eyesore to some.  Stories of the homeless abound like this. 

 

I make no political statement as to what, if anything, needs to be done with or for them.  I only point out that each perspective provides another link in the chain of our ideas about reality.  The question for us is, “What does this chain connect us to?”   Does it anchor us to something which allows us to explore reality further, or does it weigh us down under untenable logical inconsistencies?

Subject and Object Part IV: Subdividing the Infinite

A man goes on a walk through the forest, he is smelling the cedar, the mist and the ferns as he wanders through the wood.  Then suddenly, HE SLIPS!  “Ahhhhhhh!” he screams while sliding down an ever steepening undergrowth.  Then, as suddenly as the ride started, it stops.  He sighs, “Ahhhhhh,” relief. 

 

After an interminable pause, he notices the pleasant whoosh of air past his ears and through his somewhat grimy hair.  “Mmmmmm,” he feels.  Then he realizes that he is falling in open air!  “Ahhhhhhh!” he screams again.  Until he falls into a pool of water. 

 

“Phew!” he thinks as he starts to tread water.  “Thank God this pool of water was here.”  Then his limbs start to chill and he is unable to see the sides of the body through the mist.  Panic sets in.  He starts to pant and sputter.  “Blth. Blth. Hack.” 

 

After what seems an eternity, he reaches a side and crawls onto a rock.  “Thank God!!!”  he exclaims until the shivers start in.  “Great,” he imagines, “I will freeze to death on my beautiful walk.”  Yet the sun comes out and warms his body.  He lazily drifts to sleep until he awakens warmed and refreshed. 

 

Afterwards he worries, “How am I going to find my way home?”  Once he begins to walk his way further inland, he sees picnic benches and amenities.  He is actually at the bottom of the trail he was supposed to be tracing through the forest!  He screams “Whooo hooo!,” and dances for joy. 

 

Naturally the families here watched much of his ordeal and smilingly offer him some of their sandwiches.  While his shoes are laid out to dry in the son, he reflects.  Here he shines his character through the experience. 

 

How does he divide the journey in his memory? 

 

1.     What is it a terrifying nightmare through woods and near death?

2.     Was it a wild adventure that got him to his destination anyway?

3.     Did he miss his wonderful trail for a backbreaking fall?

4.     Was it freezing?

5.     Was it warm?

6.     Did he have to beg sandwiches off of people?

7.     etc.  

You see, this individual could subdivide the experience into any number of time slices to experience what he wanted.  At each point of the story he experiences many different sensations and has the liberty to choose which feeling he wants and what normative value to assign. 

 

In this same way, life is really one unbroken journey.  Our minds subdivide this indivisible experience into what we want to feel.  Even at the deepest points of despair in my own existence, I have the choice of seeing their framing differently. 

 

When I was depressed as a youth I could see how lucky I was to have such rich feelings.  When I crashed my motorcycle at 70 MPH and had to sleep out in a subfreezing field, I could feel grateful that I survived.  This does not mean that things do not “hurt,” but how I feel about them is up to me. 

 

Do these moments truly exist?  I leave that up to you.

Living the Proof

At an extremely young age, I determined that nothing lasted forever.  Any toy, any experience would always end.  If my parents bought me an ice cream bar, it too would melt.  This did not make for the most fulfilling childhood.   

 

You see, my parents engaged in a deliberate experiment when they had my brother and I.  We were brought up with only English and the prevailing culture of the mob around us.  No religion, no stories, no myth, nothing.  We were taught to reason and then left to find our center. 

 

When asked about this venture, I claimed it a success.  Someone as close to me as humanly possible begged to differ.  This person said that the test was a failure.  My brother wanders aimlessly on the streets of some unnamed town, while I straddle the line between reality and something else. 

 

Nonetheless, what placed us on the path, was that my brother and I discovered two incontrovertible facts about the nature of reality.  At age eight, he determined that anything beyond our consciousness could not be proven.  In other words, everything is a figment of our imagination. 

 

Though two years younger, I determined the other key thing.  Anything in the reality I experienced was transient.  In other words, nothing lasted forever.  So between the two of us, we knew that nothing was real, and of what we experienced, nothing persisted. 

 

Sunjeev concluded that if nothing was real, he might as well be happy all the time, creating his own perspective of reality.  I on the other hand, I sought something REAL.  I knew deep in my heart, that something somewhere existed.  Unfortunately everything posited to me sounded like sheer fantasy. 

Yeah right, some God figure created the world in six days.  All of science disputed this.  Furthermore, in other religious books there were irreconcilable contradictions.  The scriptures stated that God created the world and that God was good.  Yet evil abounded. 

 

How could a good and just God create evil.  According to the sources available to me, there was no way to reconcile these apparent discrepancies.  Thus I was left floundering with only my intellect and my heart to guide me. 

 

For me, life was just one painful moment to the next.  Separated by what I knew to be only temporary reprieves.  For me I felt that maybe pain was the only thing that was ensured.  It was all that I ever experienced consistently. 

 

So for much of my life, I resigned to accept that pain was the fate of man.  Every moment to me seemed to last forever.  When I reached my teen years I found escape through drugs and alcohol.  And by fifteen I had made my first suicide attempt. 

 

I am not sure that I ought to call it an attempt as my mom found me and could not revive me.  The ambulance, a doctor and numerous tubes and chemicals later and I awoke.  Damn, was my first thought-I screwed up again. 

 

Yet substances taught me more than just escapism, they actually gave me glimpses of the REAL.  At thirteen I discovered something that lasted forever.  The moment.  This moment showed me how the true reality felt.  It is something I can only show in person, words will only confuse the issue for all but those that already know. 

 

It suffices to say, that what is, IS. 

 

What took so long in my life was the proof.  Having only my reason and my heart as guides, I could not accept one and not the other.  My heart told me that reality was this moment of bliss and openness, now my reason had to prove it.  This proof took me about twenty years. 

 

Again, words do not capture these twenty years.  As all seekers do, I had to endure endless alienation and loneliness.  Everyone always asked why I could not just do what I was told.  Others said that my question had no answer. 

 

Those were the worst days, the ones where there was no answer. 

 

On those days, substance became an escape.  Ironically, all journeys lead back to the same place.  “What IS?”  There was no escaping the question.  Whenever I awoke, the same thing reverberated in my head and heart.  Thus my life consists of three key phases. 

 

Phase I formed hypotheses.  Phase II tested them.  Phase III forms ways of living.  In Phase I, I determined possible answers as to the question of “What IS.”  Phase II tested these answers until the best one could be formulated from their ashes.  Phase III illustrates the principles in action. 

 

1.     What is?  These two things:  Pain or Pleasure.2.     Justice is what is, Pain and Pleasure in balance.3.     Live the proof. 

 

Once I answered the question, it was left for me to live it.  The years of testing had taken its toll though.  My body and mind had many scars and wounds to heal. 

 

Now that I knew what existed, I had to clear up all the scars I earned while proving it.  The proof nearly destroyed me.  Like the twelve steps state, it lead to jails, institutions, and death.  But when I emerged, I was tempered. 

 

Although, It took me several years to recover.  Ask those close to me; I actually got sicker as I approached the truth and it almost killed me.  Fevers, ulcers, bleeding, lunacy, you name it.  All hit me at the summit. 

 

Yet somehow this story has a happy ending.  Or maybe I should say, a happy beginning.  Because my life was only a nightmare until I felt my proof completed.  Then the real story began.  Once I possessed the proof, I felt that what I did with it would measure my understanding. 

 

Welcome to living the proof.

Subject and Object Part III: Salty and the Sea

Once again we find ourselves at the analogy of the sea as the universe.  A story will help to explain.  There once was a salt doll.  It was the cutest figurine with incredibly realistic features.  In fact one could even see its expressions when it smiled, frowned or laughed. 

 

As a salt doll, it avoided the rain and any large puddles, but it loved the sea.  In fact, it was mesmerized by its beauty, majesty, and eternity.  The way the rollers came in and the tide went out. The hypnotic caw of seagulls with their mournful cries.  Being on the sand made Salty, as he  was called, feel at home. 

 

As if he were in a giant bed of pearls or the womb of his mother.  Yet Salty did not even know if he had a mother.  He would sit and talk about these deep questions with the sea all day.  Sometimes it responded, other times, it sighed its relaxing acceptance.  Whoosh, swoosh.  Whoosh, swoosh.  CRASH.  The breakers came in, the driftwood sailed out. 

 

One day while talking with the sea, Salty asked it.  “Sea, what am I?”  To this the sea swoshed, “Come closer and I will show you.”  Salty said, “I dunno, please just tell me.”  Father sea said, “I am sorry Salty, but your nature is not something that I can describe, I can only show you.”  Whoosh.  At this point the sun set, and Salty was left to ponder on a moonless night. 

 

The next morning at sunrise, Salty was ready.  He set his shells and bits of string down and told the seagulls, “Please look after my shells little birdies.”  To which the seagulls of course cawed.  After Salty was out of earshot they obviously tried to eat the knickknacks as scavengers are wont to do. 

 

Salty approached the water and as it got closer he started to feel fear.   Warmth in his belly, bile in his throat; if he had bile.  Congestion in his head.  Yet the sea maintained its calming affect.  Swish swash, the waters rose and fell.  The little doll began to enter the water. 

 

As he dissolved, he started to shout, “Father sea, what is happening to me, I thought you were going to show me what I am?”  The sea bellowed, “I AM, trust me.”  Several steps later, the doll was becoming more and more one with the salt water.  His limbs began to expand into the infinite expanse of the ocean. 

 

His mind and head expanded interminably, thoughts and breath all encompassing.  This terrified the little mind of the doll.  He shouted, “What AM I Father?”  Yet its soul felt a familiarity.  Once he reached a certain point of dissolution, the process accelerated and the soul’s momentum completely outweighed the mind’s fear.  It started to feel at home. 

 

Just at the point of total dissolution, Salty remarked “Ahhhh.  Now I understa’.”  His thought never completed as he was now one with his eternal nature.  Salty was the sea and the doll was only a component of it.  Or was it?  Only one who has experienced the merging knows, yet at that point the two become one.  There is no more subject and no more object, only the infinite expanse of the sea.

Subject and Object Part II: Random

One hundred years ago, if you asked someone what tomorrow’s weather would be, they might answer, “who knows, it is random.”  Ask someone when you flip a coin whether it will turn up heads or tails, and they answer, it is a 50:50 chance, “random.”  Yet, now, we can use websites such as www.weatherchannel.com to see satellite pictures of the weather that is extremely accurate to up to five days, and sometimes even more. 

 

Is this because someone got a crystal ball? 

 

No, it is because someone crunched numerous variables on Terraserver and created a model of the weather.  This model uses the processing power of a computer to hash more data than ever before.  As a result, we can see that “random” means too many variables to count. 

 

Take the coin-toss again.  We can measure the ambient temperature and humidity, the temperature of the coin and how worn down it is.  We can measure the angle of rotation that the coin spins at, and how much force your tendons and muscles place into each toss.  In short, we can extrapolate whether the coin will come up heads or tails.  We just say it is random to mean that there are too many variables to count. 

 

In other words, random is common objective science’s way of saying “I don’t know.”  Here spiritualists applaud.  But they have their own issue.  Common subjective scientists use the word “God” in the same way.  If a child asks where something came from that the average religious person does not know, they answer it is God’s way or God’s will. 

 

As an example, a drunk driver drags a four-year-old’s body twenty-five feet until she is dead.  When asked why, both the scientist and the spiritualist have answers.  The scientist answers that some people drink too much and their cars need to be equipped with breathalyzer technology, this is a “how” answer.  The religious person answers that “It was God’s will,” a “why” answer. 

 

Both answers provide some satisfaction.  Yet when taken to their logical extreme two key problems arise.  First, it is impossible to even foresee all variables in the universe, much less to control them.  We can equip all cars with anti-drinking technology, but someone will figure out how to subvert it.  Even worse, a meteorite may fall from the sky and hit the driver and the girl anyway. 

 

Second, if everything is God’s will anyway, what is the point of doing anything?  This is the preordination issue.  Simply, in both schools of thought, the universe started from an exhalation of breath in esoteric terms.  This is also referred to as a big bang of energy bursting forth.  In either case, the majority of events happened the only way that they could. 

 

Now, the question of freewill troubles both objective and subjective viewpoints.  Some call this the “Agency Problem,” because nothing is free.  You have a choice to act in one way or another and the consequences are the cost.  Both scientist and spiritualist at the logical extremes might say that one particle rotated left after the big bang and one turned right, hence your name became “Bob.”  In other words, the fact that you chose a certain way was guaranteed by the process of expansion and contraction of the universe, also known as “God.” 

 

Yet there is agency in the world.  The way ancient masters have described the idea is through analogy.  All energy is like water, it flows to the sea.  Your agency is whether to swim upstream, downstream, or just float along.  In all cases you return to the sea, though the question of rate is at issue.  “When do you return to the sea?” 

 

A person can swim with the current, or against, or allow inertia to carry him or herself.  Yet if you are headed away from the ocean you are distancing yourself from the prevailing energy of the universe so you could be thought of as going away from “God.”  Thus, what direction you are already going influences which way you might want to swim. 

 

When in a channel going toward a stagnant pond where sewage, cholera, and mosquitoes fester, you may want to swim against the current.  Other times you may find yourself flowing toward the deep crystal clear water of a mountain waterfall.  You may choose inertia to carry you.  Finally, you can speed the process of cleansing by swimming downstream toward the clear blue pond. 

 

In all cases there is a reason for everything, it may take time to discern it or there may be too many variables to count.  One final case deals with an infinite number of variables.  When you deal with the infinite, whether subjective or objective scientist, all things become true simultaneously.  Another way of saying this is that all energy is connected now.  Because we are all connected we are never alone or by ourselves, everything we do affects everyone and everything around us and vice versa. 

 

We are all one energy or consciousness; one simultaneous subject and object experiencing itself.

Subject and Object Part I: The How and the Why

Modern science seeks to transform everything into interchangeable parts.  In fact the goal of much of advanced physics is to find the building blocks of the universe.  As if understanding limestone will teach you about concrete.  If you want to know concrete fall of your bicycle and slide across a concrete hill. 

 

The result of this objectification of everything, is that people lose the meanings to their lives.  For example, the underlying assumption of modern economic theory is that more is better faster.  When pollution occurs, we call this a market externality.  Or, an “outlying variable.” 

 

Tell this to the person who feels no meaning from life.  When told that the purpose of life is to acquire more, faster, and more easily, this does not bring peace.  Add the fact that orthodox objective science refuses to accept anything that cannot be quantified or measured, and the person feels even worse. 

 

Because now, there is no mysticism, no mystery, and no reason to be, other than to consume.  He or she is told that they come from nowhere and will go nowhere with a path of meaningless consumption in between.  Even if this were the case, is it no wonder that this does not inspire?  Is it any wonder that depression in
America is at an all time high. 

 

People are medicated in this country more than anywhere else in the world.  Someone once said, “Pity the unhappy rich man, for at least the unhappy poor man can blame his unhappiness on his poverty.”  What we see, is that success kills as likely as failure.  Yet the death of success is generally more brutal.  One reaches the so called pinnacle of success and then self-destructs. 

 

Our materialist objective science will kill us as an organism.  Humanity will consume itself, for that is the reason of being according to its most common philosophy.  Contrast this with the several billion people who believe that their metaphysical belief is the only one.  They will kill each other for the right to live eternally.  This has got to stop. 

 

Material science teaches “how,” while nonmaterial science, that of the consciousness, teaches “why.”  Yet the individual “why” is different for every human being. though they share similarities.  Each time a new religious leader finds inspiration he or she starts another sect.  People flock to this branch of “why” to justify and validate themselves. 

 

When the two sects are in contradiction there is no need for there to be only one.  Imagine the human body once again.  The upper end of the digestive tract seeks to take matter into itself, while the lower end seeks to eliminate it.  These two parts of the whole occupy polar opposites.  Yet they are two sides to the same thing.  Each requires the other to exist and survive. 

 

In this same way, we require both subjective and objective reasons for our existence.  The subjective studies the subject, “you,” or you consciousness, while the objective examines the object, or what your consciousness cognizes.  Together we have our view of “reality.”  The vast majority of humans are incapable of deep cognition of the subjective reality. 

 

Yet those who are able, such as those reading this type of dialogue, require a deeper meaning of life than acquisition or consumption.  These latter two ideas may serve the individual seeking higher meaning, but only as integrated into some philosophy.  Consuming more faster will never make us happy.  Only an integrated view of both subject and object provide fulfillment. 

Gender and Polarity Part IV: Divine Sexual Union

In each of the installments of Gender and Polarity our discussion has focused upon how they differ and how conflicts occur.  In this installment for this series we mention how they balance.  This is the Perfect Paradox. 

 

Somehow what has been seen as a fight and a “battle of the sexes,” can be a dance, a divine harmony that unites the two halves of a whole.  For in reality there is no duality.  Stand a coin perpendicular to a couple facing each other.  One sees heads only, the other tails. 

 

If you ask either one what they see, they must answer heads or tails respectively.  Yet in reality there is neither heads nor tails in isolation.  We only have a coin.  This is the secret to gender relations and existence in a physical and polarized world. 

 

Everyone and everything has the ability to unite in divine sexual union.  Not just man and woman, but master with student and artist with art.  This is the challenge for all human beings with the potential for self-mastery.  We are to master ourselves and our relationship with the world around us. 

 

We can find the zero-point where phase shifts occur.  Imagine that you are a water being, it is not hard, because you are.   Then imagine that you have found the point where water becomes ice, or gas.  Yet there is a point where it is both or neither.  Try to stay at this point. 

 

When we can balance on the edge of a razor blade, we have reached our own self-mastery.  Some are capable of doing this in all relationships with the material reality, others in only special situations.  Find the place where you reach union between idea and experience, between your love and yourself. 

 

This place is immortality in the eternal now, where all things in your perception become one.  When we can maintain this divine union in all that we know we have reached immortality.

Gender and Polarity Part III: Harmonious and Destructive

Up until now we have focused mainly on the positive aspects of masculine and feminine.  Their extremes are of note as well.  In its obsessive state, each polarity becomes self-destructive. 

 

The extreme masculine is aggressive to the point of madness.  It battles everything and destroys all in its path seeking dominion.  While its counterpart, the extreme feminine, seeks to possess and control everything to the point of stagnation. 

 

 

One moves for the sake of movement, the other sits for the sake of sitting.  The two together balance each other.  Like the conqueror who loves his or her counterpart so much that he or she stops killing and dominating.  Or the artist who so loves his or her mate, that he or she is willing to go out of the studio to market the art. 

 

We use the cumbersome structure of “he or she” above to make sure that it is clear that the artist or conqueror can be either man or woman.  Look at Queen Isabella, historians clearly recognize that she drove the Spanish empire. 

 

In general, as we respect each force we respect ourselves and each other. When we do this, we have harmonious relations and development.  In the past a man may have balanced a woman and vice versa.  In this age, we must balance within first.

Gender and Polarity Part II: Esoteric Marriage

Welcome to another visit to the land of balanced masculine and feminine.  Please find the re-embedded table once again: 

 

 

Masculine

• Intellect
• Fit
• Sex
• Take
• Send
• Flow
• Fight
• Think
• Material
• Physical
• Left
• Positive

 

 

Feminine

• Emotion
• Healthy
• Love
• Give
• Receive
• Ebb
• Dance
• Feel
• Nonmaterial
• Nonphysical
• Right
• Negative

All of these traits exist within everyone.  Historically one side of the balance identified more with one gender than the other, such as men as masculine and women as feminine.  In America though, we experience an interesting dichotomy. 

What we see are masculine women and feminine men.  Imagine that fifty years ago the pendulum shifted.  Masculine souls grew in feminine hosts and vice versa.  We see Rosie Riveter and a variety of what some people called “empowered” women. 

Yet the force that goes and gets and secures is a masculine force, while the one that waits and receives is feminine.  Neither belongs to male or female exclusively.  Feminine power expresses completely different than masculine.  At the boundary cases, the masculine aggressively goes and gets while the feminine waits and receives.   

Pregnancy and intercourse best illustrate this relationship.  The sperm initiates and fertilizes, while the ovum awaits and creates.  In esoteric wisdom, the masculine is the initiator and conceptualizer, while the feminine is the creator and manifestor.  Only together can something enter the physical world.  Imagine the idea guy who never accomplishes anything, or the procrastinator who only mulls everything.  Most of us can remember marriages like this.  Some end in divorce, others flounder. 

In leadership, the feminine, whether expressed by a men or women manifests through relationships.  When I exercise feminine leadership I manage the team through building the space.  I might invite several key players to a meeting without assigning roles.  Then through encouraging discussion and balancing the space, the group develops in a way that feels less coerced. 

When I lead from the masculine side of my personality I am more directive versus supportive.  I set a clear and directed agenda with checklists and assessments for each of the members.  Then I might assign positions and structure.  Naturally a balance usually occurs when the leader sets an agenda, then Socratically asks questions which allow the members to find their natural places. 

Most ancient cultures have a form of this wisdom.  But like the caste system which I will discuss elsewhere, it became codified instead of choice.  Women were forced to fulfill certain roles, and men too!  That is correct, not all men want to be in a position of directive power, just as not all women want to use supportive power.  Imagine a masculine Queen Isabella or a feminine Prince Louis. 

Cultures each use this energy differently.  When leading international teams, you see different emphases on supportive and directive leadership which parallel the distribution of masculine and feminine in the given culture.  Japan, Austria, Italy, Mexico, Germany, and the USA score higher on the masculine dimension as compared to Thailand, Norway, Sweden, and East African nations, which rate higher on the feminine.  (Duarte and Snyder, 2006) 

In the modern world we unite the two forces.  Countries will form alliances and confederations which balance the cultures.  India and the United States promise to be a marriage made in heaven.  The former scores higher on the feminine while the latter on the masculine.  Together these two English speaking powerhouses will help to lead the world. 

This is the divine marriage of which many masters speak of in esoteric wisdom.  The esoteric marriage male and female within and without.  The polarities seem extremely divided in the world right now.  An impassable chasm seems to groan between man and woman.  They look across a distance that spans the entire circumference of the globe. 

We are nearly as far apart as is possible on this planet.  Yet visualize this gaping maw between the fundamentalists, directive, and the progressives, supportive.  Imagine this space dividing “the sexes.”  Marriages dissolve or do not even occur in the advanced industrialized nations. 

But the planet is a circle.  All we have to do is lay down our weapons and turn around.  If two people have an 8000 mile trench between them on planet Earth, they are really standing back to back!  Turn around and hug!  Yet before we can unite, the world will actually divide a little bit more.   

Like the pendulum at 5 degrees, it is easier to go over the top than to push 165 degrees to the bottom of the rotation.  Visualize this action.  The universe pushes the pendulum over the top, and gravity brings carries it back down into balance at 180 degrees.  As elegant as this may sound in text, on the ground it will be quite rough. 

How it appears in the present is that polarities become further divided.  The American two-party system illustrates this cleavage quite well.  Expect the Democrats and Republicans to grow further apart.  Imagine that the Democrats win the 2008 election only to inherit this economic debacle in the making. 

Because of the demographics and leadership styles, the
USA experiences a depression.  A third party arises which balances both forms of leadership.  This is an example of how a Yin/Yang balanced may be reached.  Another way is with a Democratic congress and a Republican president. 

This example parallels a household.  The masculine leads the external face of the house and sets the policy agenda, while the feminine on the other hand, implements management within.  Feminine domestic, masculine international.  One acquires resources, the other manages them, neither exclusively the province of man nor woman. 

Humanity evolves to balance internally externally.  One tool we can use to help us balance ourselves and our relationships is to chart our own blend on the tables of masculine and feminine.  We can look at how we fight within our own souls and see how that affects our families.  Or, we can look at how the forces conflict in our households and compare them to our own imbalances. 

The relationship between masculine and feminine is a dance.  Ancient spiritual masters talk about avoiding hatred.  This admonition specifically deals with self-loathing that poisons all.  It is okay to wrestle with your counterpart and maybe even to dance in battle.  But to hate our opponents brings hatred of the same aspects within ourselves. 

Look at fundamentalist Christians and Muslims.  Both believe that women should be kept covered and at home, subordinate to their men.  In their expressions they have more in common with each other than with the more moderate expressions of their faiths.  These fundamentalists show overbalanced masculine aspects of their religions, while the progressives exemplify the feminine aspects.  Only together do we have peace. 

Hating another illustrates externalization of an aspect or ourselves.  Here is where love thy neighbor truly comes in.  I love my enemy even if I must fight him, I honor his training, his commitment, and his courage.  Even though we may battle, when the day is done he is buried with honor and returned to his family with speed. 

Like a household, you cannot hate your spouse ever.  Several relationships I have had vacillated between love and hate.  These inherently unstable obsessions never lasted.  Now I use more balance in all of my relationships.  I respect those I am involved with knowing that we all have different blends of traits within. 

The world moves in this direction even if we cannot see it.  We prepare ourselves by balancing internally.  As you balance within, the world seems to balance without, either through your affect on those around you or the change in your perspective.  It does not matter which.  What does matter is that we reduce the hatred of self within so that it manifests without. 

Reference: 
Duarte and Snyder (2006).  Mastering Virtual Teams.  Jossey-Bass: San Francisco

It’s JUST a Sentence.

Recently I noticed that the rich girl everyone loves to hate has a sentence.  Paris Hilton is going to jail.  Much of the talk revolves around whether her actions demand it.  An old quote states that “The law is what the judge says it is.”  So apparently he utilized his discretion in dispensing justice.  Now we come to the real question.  Justice.  Plato’s Republic talks about, John Rawls tries to define it.  But the question is, what is it? 

1.

“Fairness. A state of affairs in which conduct or action is both fair and right, given the circumstances. In law, it more specifically refers to the paramount obligation to ensure that all persons are treated fairly. Litigants “seek justice” by asking for compensation for wrongs committed against them; to right the inequity such that, with the compensation, a wrong has been righted and the balance of “good” or “virtue” over “wrong” or “evil” has been corrected.” (Leanlegal.com, 2007)

2.

Socrates defines justice as “working at that which he is naturally best suited,” and “to do one’s own business and not to be a busybody” (Bloom, 1991)

3.

“Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens.” (Bloom, 1991)

Here are three different principles to circumscribe justice.  The first mentions fairness and equality before the law.  The second is the Socratic definition of fulfilling your own personal role.  The final reminds us that Justice exists in the state in proportion to how it is found in its citizens. 

John Rawls uses a deontological, or reason based definition of justice.  He says that under a just system, “Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all.”  (Rawls, 1971)           The main ideas are that justice is equality before the law and of opportunity.  Where people differ is in their implementation of justice.  Utilitarianism like that of John Stuart Mill defined justice as the most good for the most number of people. 

Without thinking, this definition serves most people well.  A little thought though reminds the reader that this description naturally results in oppression like that of the Nazi’s of the Jews.  For example, enslave 1% of the population and the 99% lives better. 

So in general, a pragmatic definition of justice for our purposes is equality before the law that allows one to fulfill his or her own potential. 

Let us apply this situation to Paris’ case.  Did she receive equal treatment before the law?    

Background: 

“FACT: On September 7, 2006, Paris Hilton was pulled over on a reckless driving charge and failed a field sobriety test. Like a responsible citizen aware that she had made a mistake, she pleaded no contest to the charge and was sentenced to 36 months probation and required to enroll in an alcohol education class.

FACT: On January 15,
Paris was pulled over again and informed that she was driving on a suspended license. Police let her off with a warning, but required that she sign a document acknowledging that she understood her license was suspended and she was not supposed to drive.

FACT! On February 27 at 11 pm,
Paris was pulled over again after authorities saw her car speeding with its headlights off. In her glove compartment, police found the document acknowledging she understood she wasn’t supposed to drive.

FACT!!
Paris had been required to enroll in that alcohol education program by February 12, but as of April 17, she still had not.

FACT!!! None of this is Paris’s fault.

So who is to blame if not Paris?

Well, for one, her publicist, Elliot Mintz, who had told her she could keep driving with her suspended license.” (Bestweekever.tv, 2007)

So, this individual got a DUI charge, drove on a suspended license, signed a written warning, and then did it again.  Furthermore she never registered for the alcohol education program required for alcohol related offenses. 

Being deeply familiar with driver’s license idiocy in California, I can honestly say that what Paris did usually results in the loss of license at the minimum.  Although it rarely results in jail time, it involves incredible hassles. 

Very simply though, for someone of Paris’s apparent wealth, the maximum fine has no deterrent effect.  Criminal justice seeks specific and general deterrence for this crime.  The system wants to deter Paris, specific, and any other person, general, from repeating this dangerous behavior of drunk driving. 

Her claim that the publicist made her do it is spurious and unimportant.  Her signature at the bottom of the warning states that SHE knows that what she is doing is wrong.  The question still remains though, is the sentence of jail just? 

The judge has significant leeway and obviously wishes this citizen to respect the law and the court.  Paris’s behavior shows little or no respect for custom or law in the Jurists opinion, so he sentenced her to 45 days as he is clearly allowed. 

When measuring equality before the law, it is vital that the convicted’s mitigating circumstances are assessed.  A single mother of two with one job and no money may not be able to pay a fine or serve jail time.  Law needs to be flexible while still fair. 

Is Paris free to be who and what she is?  Absolutely, this jail time allows her to see her role with respect to other individuals.  An average person could not afford the fines, the attorney’s fees, or the time off to attend court.  This alone teaches respect for the law to them. 

While for a rich heiress as such, deterrence is much more difficult to achieve.  The law taught me lessons like this when I was a youth.  My rights end where another’s begin.  This is the lesson the judge seeks to teach, to deter both her, and her young fans. 

The judge seeks to help Paris to instill the values a leader must.  This young woman has a great power, which requires great responsibility.  According to Plato, and others, society’s justness is only a reflection of its individuals. 

I go a step further to state that leaders have a responsibility to model behavior for those of lesser ability.  Paris leads many young people out there by virtue of their love of what they see as beauty and talent. 

This judge stayed within the law to prescribe a sentence that is not excessively onerous for a leader.  Ironically, governors need higher standards than the governed.  One action of theirs influences thousands, and even millions of others. 

Reference: 

Besweekever.tv (2007) “Paris Hilton: A Defense.”  Retrieved May 16, 2007, from http://www.bestweekever.tv/2007/05/07/paris-hilton-a-defense/ 

Bloom, Allan (1991). The Republic of Plato.  2nd ed. Basic Books: New York Leanlegal.com (2007). Justice. Retrieved May 16, 2007, from http://www.leanlegal.com/dictionary/jk.asp 

Rawls, John (1971). A Theory of Justice. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press: Cambridge