If ordinary society is unable to escape from conditioned thinking, is there any hope for Masons?
Alas, there is no hope for any being in the universe until that being is truly persuaded that the Ultimate is ultimately good. If this comes from faith or from knowledge, it doesn't seem to make any difference. If from faith, we could be comfortable in our march to perdition. If from knowledge, there will be no great surprises at the end of our journey, if there is one.
If “ordinary society is unable to escape from conditioned thinking,” then we must wait for society to become extraordinary. Presumably it is Freemasonry's duty to help bring that about, individually and collectively.
I may be deluded into thinking that I live in a friendly universe, but it's certainly a lot easier on the nerves this way.
However.. philosophically, to be attributed any quality assumes duality - if there is a good there must be a bad against which it is measured. And if God is ALL ??
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting…trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home -Wordsworth
Freedom of thought can be achieved (with due allowance for distortions caused by any imperfections in the nature of mental substance) by rising above the mental plane.
Thus, the initiate who has achieved the third degree, anchored in the Heart, may construct mental forms that are free from the influence of beliefs and conditioning.
Humans that are unable to control their thoughts have mental processes that are susceptible to external control and modification.
However.. philosophically, to be attributed any quality assumes duality - if there is a good there must be a bad against which it is measured. And if God is ALL ??
Yes, it is a conundrum, isn't it? Evidently I haven't learned well the bit about evil and good yet, but I'm working on it. I am reminded of the wisdom my great grandmother imparted to me years ago: to make order, you have to have disorder first. And my mind is pretty disordered when dealing with this concept. I get very Vedanta when I consider "attributed quality assumes duality." What is this duality? 1) the thing with the quality and 2) the quality itself?
I'm inclined to say that any process that creates duality, like attribution, is flawed. The results from such a process is illusion. I can almost admit that good cannot be seen except against a background of "evil." But there's always that suspicion that the background is illusion the mind manufactures in order to see white.
This is another of Paul's sets of rhetorical questions that can be answered "yes and yes" or "no and no" or any combination of the above. It seems to me that one-time visitors were never "freed" for they were never bound. Quite possibly they fled, mostly from boredom because the subject matter was of no interest to them.
The question leads me to ask myself why I hang around. Of course it does! I'm not particularly interested in aliens or outlandish theories about time and space. I'm no admirer of most theosophical writers who speak ex cathedra on any number of topics. But some posts take me out of my comfort zone and introduce me to new ideas. Often they encourage re-thinking, which is always exciting.
I came because I knew Lorr from another forum, I bonded because of our mutual interest in Freemasonry, I stayed because once and a while a post seems to speak to me.
This is another of Paul's sets of rhetorical questions that can be answered "yes and yes" or "no and no" or any combination of the above. It seems to me that one-time visitors were never "freed" for they were never bound. Quite possibly they fled, mostly from boredom because the subject matter was of no interest to them.
The question leads me to ask myself why I hang around. Of course it does! I'm not particularly interested in aliens or outlandish theories about time and space. I'm no admirer of most theosophical writers who speak ex cathedra on any number of topics. But some posts take me out of my comfort zone and introduce me to new ideas. Often they encourage re-thinking, which is always exciting.
I came because I knew Lorr from another forum, I bonded because of our mutual interest in Freemasonry, I stayed because once and a while a post seems to speak to me.
The Law of Attraction in action? (Not sure what that law is, must check it out - might make for a good thread).
"Are they freed or have they fled?" " ... ask myself why I hang around" "a post seems to speak to me"
All I can think of to post in response is "Principal Sojourner". NOT that I am saying we on the forum are principal sojourners, but rather that the post that seems to speak to us is that which will take us by ways known not previously. The Way less travelled.
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting…trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home -Wordsworth
On another forum I noticed this. It is a useful technique: detaching from thoughts by learning to label them.
"Here I'll giving you some information of the Yoga of the Mind and from the Yoga Sutras of the Indian Sage Patanjali (the oldest text translated into English as far as I know):
To label thoughts, first classify them according to the source:
1. Correct (any thought that gets you closer to God and life plans) 2. Incorrect 3. Fantasy / Imagination 4. Memory 5. Reasoning
Then, classify them according to their "colours":
1. Ignorance 2. Attraction 3. Aversion 4. Ego 5. Fear of Losing anything (all these 5 types of thoughts are coloured and only the uncoloured type is the type we seek after)
Coloured thoughts are anything that creates attachment between us and any object in the material world. Our objective is to slowly dissociate and become truly free beings. In the very first two weeks, you'll see it is taking time to classify. Then you'll see it's become easier to classify and also to observe particular patterns of your thoughts.
Critical Success Factors: you'll know you have gotten close to success when you can reduce these streams and various types of thoughts that are distractions into the bare minimum. The "Monkey mind" or mental "chatter". As you use the techniques and also the principles of no harm to any other person, control over your own instincts, having control over your "Nafs" (all negative emotions arising from anger and lust), you will see that slowly. Also, as you start gaining insights into your thought patterns, you may want to keep a separate notebook to list why you think and what you think and how you think and what you want to think to be a better man. "
