Meditations
 Meditations
This Is the Umbra of Man
Martin LeFevre: It's very hard to see where one's people and culture fit into the scheme of things with humanity as a whole. Hell, I'm not even sure there is such a thing as 'the scheme of humanity as a whole.' ... The comforting idea that "we will come out stronger, once this last shriek of white supremacy and grievance and fear of the future is out of the system," is based on the illusion that the American people and American institutions are essentially intact. That too is a lie. ... America is literally and metaphorically in the path of the totality of human darkness. Perhaps, if we can meet the deepest shadow of human consciousness here, there can be a new beginning for humankind...
Aug 19, 2017, 5:21pm
Meditations
When Jadedness Poses As Wisdom
Martin LeFevre: We need to explore first principles, and keep questioning them until insight and understanding are awakened and abide within us, allowing the birth of a new culture amidst the ashes of this dead one. ... As far as I can see, only darkness is operating effectively at present in this culture and in human consciousness generally. That isn't to say there is only darkness in human consciousness, only that the man-made traits of power, domination, greed and self-centeredness overwhelmingly rule ... After thousands of years of civilization, why is this so? One reason is that inherently mediocre voiceboxes of power continue to preach pernicious nonsense...
Aug 17, 2017, 4:53pm
Meditations
The Observer Prevents Observation
Martin LeFevre: The observer is the original separation in the human mind. From this existential mistake all division originates, ending in the war between "my country and your country," "my religion and your religion." ... Is the brain capable of observing without the observer? This is a crucial question, not only for awakening the meditative state, but also for psychological health and healing, as well as ending the division between people. ... Psychological (as opposed to functional) thought operates in division and dualism. And as long as psychological thought dominates the brain and human life, there will be war, poverty and ecological destruction...
Aug 14, 2017, 5:04pm
Meditations
After the Collapse, a New Concord?
Martin LeFevre: Trump has revealed a vacuum, which goes far beyond America's role in the world, even beyond America's desiccated global culture. ... American leadership is dead. Pax Americana is dead. The post-World War II international order is dead. But the vacuum goes beyond even this. It is in man's consciousness itself ... What we were as humans we can no longer be if the earth is to be livable, and the world a place any sensible person would want to have children...
Aug 10, 2017, 5:42pm
Meditations
God Is Death
Martin LeFevre: Can we come into direct contact with the actuality of death in itself, while we are fully alive, and what would that mean for our consciousness? ... When we think of death as nihilistic nothingness, fear is inevitable, unless we're inwardly dead. But in experiencing death as the ground, we go beyond the cycles of life and death, and beyond fear. ... As a great teacher once said, "If you cling to your life, you will lose it, but if you let your life go, you will save it." Dying psychologically when we're fully alive, our expiration dates have little meaning...
Aug 8, 2017, 4:54pm
Meditations
Science Needs Philosophy
Martin LeFevre: In actuality, as most cosmologists would admit if you held their feet to the fire, the Big Bang is an event that is still happening every moment everywhere in the universe. Creation is continuously being replicated. That insight allows us to free ourselves from the chains of materialism and mechanism, and from entropy as disorder. ... On Hiroshima day it's worth reflecting that if Einstein had seen the necessity of sound philosophical explanation of his insights, rather than remaining in the rarified realms of mathematics, he would have been much more concerned about the implications of his discoveries for the human prospect...
Aug 6, 2017, 12:16pm
Meditations
Disorder From Order, Not Order From Disorder!
Martin LeFevre: "The universe ends with a fizzle," a would-be philosopher pronounces in America's leading newspaper. "Entropy is antagonistic to intrinsic purpose. It's about disorder." Thus materialism ends in nihilism, solipsism and projection. ... Can we be done with the "order emerging out of disorder" idea once and for all? It's simply false, the non-actuality upon which innumerable false premises and labyrinthine arguments have been made over the centuries. ... Chaos and disorder are human projections, without actuality at any level or at any time in nature and the universe---except with the emergence of man...
Aug 4, 2017, 10:50am
Meditations
Conductor or Conduit?
Martin LeFevre: To listen and watch Carlos Kleiber conduct Beethoven's 7th Symphony, even on YouTube, is to know in one's heart that there is intelligence beyond the mind of man. Opera singer Placido Domingo called Mr. Kleiber "a wizard" and said, "In my experience there's nothing in musical life better than a rehearsal with him." ... We are all potential conductors to the degree of our capacity in this lifetime. Indeed, it is our responsibility as human beings to awaken that capacity within us. ...
Jul 31, 2017, 4:10pm
Meditations
A Working Understanding of Evil, Part Two
Martin LeFevre: If life and God (however we conceive and experience God) are good, why does evil exist? What makes people do evil things? Can evil be understood and dispelled, or is it beyond our capacity as human beings to do so? Is the world getting darker and more evil, or better and more good? ... I submit that evil is man-made, and because it is man-made, it is within our capacity to understand and dispel. ... The idea of the self as an agent of choice and control is a core illusion that has to be overthrown. Evil does not originate in the individual self, but flows through the extremely disordered self. ... Because it is man-made however, goodness and decency, flowing through good and decent human beings, can stand against and dispel it...
Jul 27, 2017, 4:58pm
Meditations
A Working Understanding of Evil, Part One
Martin LeFevre: The Christian fascist movement has been very effective. Why? A key reason is that the left has made the perennial mistake of underestimating the sophistication of the long-term program of conservative Protestants/evangelicals. To counter it, we have to have an adequate philosophy of evil. ... Because a sufficient minority of people isn't able to see when amorphous darkness crosses the line into evil, we're being dragged further and further into the morass of contradiction and chaos. ... We urgently need a philosophy of evil that is not based on supernatural theology or existing psychological models. ... For years I've been proposing some deeper insights, in a neo-Jungian way, into the origins and operation of evil, based on the central premise that it's a man-made reality and movement...
Jul 26, 2017, 11:24am
Meditations
What Does It Mean To Have a Religious Mind?
Martin LeFevre: Is there such a thing as being religious without a religion? Yes. In fact, religious affiliation, practice and belief now largely prevent people from being religious. ... In any case, the religious mind has nothing to do with belief in God, but the direct, unmediated experiencing of the nameless, the numinous. Does it exist? Find out for yourself. ... Having a religious mind involves listening without choosing even when, especially when, the mind is chattering like a hundred monkeys. Doing so, you'll find that the very act of inclusively attentive listening slows down thought...
Jul 22, 2017, 4:12pm
Meditations
The Complicity of the "Fake Media"
Martin LeFevre: I've written a good deal about the death of America's soul as the essential cause of the emergence of such a hateful, odious liar as Donald Trump as POTUS (an acronym that has become onomatopoetic). But just what does it mean for a nation to lose its soul? ... It pertains to the unaddressed internal reality of darkness and deadness, which far outweighs external manifestations and projections. It pertains to the essential intactness of the people, to the "mystic chords of memory" of which Lincoln spoke...
Jul 20, 2017, 3:24pm
Meditations
Dominance Is One Thing, Respect Another
Martin LeFevre: When powerful people link dominance and respect, they commit an act of intellectual violence against the powerless. Everyone wants respect, but not everyone wants dominance. Politically overthrowing an old order has perhaps always resulted domination by a new group, but domination is not a given. ... Sitting atop their privileged perches, elites justify their rise to power by generalizing domination and discrimination: "We seek to topple those who have higher standing than us and we seek to wall off those who are down below." ...
Jul 18, 2017, 5:14pm
Meditations
The Parts Cannot Make Us Whole
Martin LeFevre: We can only go from the whole to the part, never from the parts to the whole. We cannot "scale up" our thinking; we can only scale down to regions and localities. ... Psychologically and emotionally, when you approach things in terms of parts and particularities, scale is scary. But if you approach problems as a whole, scale is secondary. ... The self is a fragment that cannot grasp the whole. One has to let go of the part that is the self to see and be whole, and respond with wholeness to the totality of the challenges facing oneself and humanity....
Jul 16, 2017, 5:17pm
Meditations
Outright Lies and Dangerous Half-Truths
Martin LeFevre: Trump is an abomination. But by refusing to face and speak the truth themselves, there's also something malign in progressives repeating ad nauseum things like, "Trump has attacked every traditional institution in this country...but possibly the most dangerous and destructive has been his assault on the truth itself." ... The truth is that focusing on Donald Trump as the cause of the disease is a convenient way to avoid an accurate diagnosis, much less an adequate cure. ... The truth is that America lost its soul over a generation ago.
Jul 14, 2017, 11:21am
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