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Free will, freedom and philosophy series

Katinka - Spirituality — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 13:43:25 +0000

Over the past month or so I’ve written about freedom and free will. It has turned out to be a difficult subject to discuss. Here are the posts in the order I wrote them:

Free will, culture and responsibility
There is a consistent stream in our culture that everything is determined by circumstance: genes, conditioning, wealth… But most aside from genes, all those are the product of people acting on each other. The free will debate can also be framed as a responsibility debate. Who is responsible? If there is no free will, does that mean there is no responsibility? Or the other way around: if we choose our destiny, does that mean we’re to blame if something goes wrong? Like an earthquake?
How hard is it to discuss free will?
So: how conscious are we? And what is consciousness?
The freedom of the experience of our lives
The ultimate freedom philosophers talk about, especially existential philosophers, is not so much the world, but our experience of the world.
Free will: mind or emotion?
I’ve often said, in the past, ‘I want to want a regular job’. Rationally, financially, getting a job was absolutely the best thing. But emotionally I just wasn’t feeling it. And I knew from experience that the best way to convince someone to hire me, was to really want to be hired. So I didn’t even try, which of course was precisely in line with my emotional drives.
Free will, karma and reincarnation
Karma rules our circumstances, our potential, our habits. Karma does not rule what we do with all that today. What we do today: thoughts, emotions, words and deeds creates new karma.

Free will: mind or emotion?

Katinka - Spirituality — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:30:11 +0000

We’ve been discussing free will, and whether we have freedom or not, for a while now. The discussion has, as I’ve noted before, not been very clear. Either the topic is just plain difficult, or the right approach has not been found yet. Perhaps the following may help:

When philosophers discussed free will in the past, they usually referred to the will of the mind, of our thought. Whether we can choose the direction of our lives consciously, with our mind. This is also the easiest misconception (with potentially very sad consequences) of ‘The Secret’ or ‘The Law of Attraction’.

Why is that a problem? Because a lot of our will power is based in our emotions. In fact: a thought that goes against our emotions is not likely to change our lives. This is why I’ve often said that we need to face up to our emotions, even the not so pretty ones. It’s also why psychotherapy and psychoanalysis can work.

I’ve often said, in the past, ‘I want to want a regular job’. Rationally, financially, getting a job was absolutely the best thing. But emotionally I just wasn’t feeling it. And I knew from experience that the best way to convince someone to hire me, was to really want to be hired. So I didn’t even try, which of course was precisely in line with my emotional drives.

Whether it was my need for freedom, for self-expression, my love of the Internet, or even something pathological (I don’t think so, but hey) I liked where I was and where I felt (not THOUGHT) I was going.

Classic spirituality says that the emotions should be ruled by the mind. The mind should be ruled by the spirit, the divine.

I’ve only ever known how to make sense of that as follows: the mind has to take the emotions into account. After all, how can you rule something you don’t know? Having a very strong mind, and having been, like most of you, trained to use it – the issue for me has often not been to strengthen the mind further, but to get to know the emotions and purify them.

The next step, though I think in practice we usually do several things at once, is to learn to listen to that ’still small voice’ of divine wisdom in each of us.

Seems to me that real freedom means having full insight into each aspect of ourselves (pretty impossible, but bear with me) and being able to steer our course in the world by balancing all that: mind, emotion and wisdom.

It requires all of that, because otherwise our unconscious drives will steer us one way, our mind the other, and the voice of wisdom is not heard. The result is what many people live: pulled this way and that, happiness and sorrow a mere chance. Which brings me to the other approach: if we leave concerns about free will aside, we can focus on what’s really important… How to be happy. And I do think real happiness can only be found by giving.

The freedom of the experience of our lives

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:15:30 +0000

The ultimate freedom philosophers talk about, especially existential philosophers, is not so much the world, but our experience of the world. In the words of psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom:

Nothing in the world has significance except by virtue of one’s own creation. There are no rules, no ethical systems, no values; there is no external referent whatsoever; there is no grand design in the universe…

To experience existence in this manner is a dizzying sensation. Nothing is as it seemed. The very ground beneath one seems to open up. Indeed groundlessness is a commonly used term for a subjective experience of responsibility awareness. p. 221, Existential Psychotherapy

He adds: ‘we constitute the world in such a way that it appears independent of our constitution’ (p. 222). and ‘Our sense data tell us that the world is “there”, and that we enter and leave it‘ (p. 222).

It’s true isn’t it? That’s what we experience on waking and sleeping. But the fact is, equally clearly, that on sleeping we do not leave this world any more than we enter it again on waking. Though some theosophists might disagree with that statement. Leadbeater claimed our souls went on nightly journeys, whether we remembered them or not.

My central question in this post is: if we believe we don’t have free will, what influence do we have on our own lives?

This may sound like theory, but in my teaching days I taught kids with all kinds of diagnoses. One kid who was diagnosed as having ADHD told me: I can’t help it, I have ADHD. Which implies that even if he could have changed something about how he functioned, he wasn’t going to try because the adults in his world had given him the ultimate excuse to stay hyper for the rest of his life.

No amount of scientific studies proving how much our genes and environment steer us, can change that basic fact: if we don’t take responsibility for our lives, no one can. In his chapter about responsibility Yalom shares his experiences in the challenge of helping patients take responsibility for their own lives.

However, he also notes (p. 268) that ‘Many therapists are professional advocates of responsibility but secretly, in their own hearts and in their own belief systems, are environmental determinists.’

To combat this secret tendency in the heart of his audience, he goes on to share what it is that makes us know there is freedom of sorts. First of all (p. 271): we shape our own environment. Some people create conflict wherever they go. Others find helpful people wherever they go. The difference is in the person, the environment follows.

However, to take responsibility of our lives is ultimately, as Yalom suggests, to take responsibility of our experience of our lives. He quotes the ancient philosopher Epictetus who said: (p. 272)

I must die. I must be imprisoned. I must suffer exile. But must I die groaning? Must I whine as well? Can anyone hinder me from going into exile with a smile? The master threatens to chain me: what say you? Chain me? My leg you will chain – yes, but not my will – no, not even Zeus can conquer that.

Back to Yalom goes so far as to say: One’s attitude towards one’s situation is the very crux of being human (p. 272)

So, what do you all think? Is there free will? Are we fated to experience life in a certain way?

How hard is it to discuss free will?

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 15:25:07 +0000

I have loads of notes waiting to be turned into blogposts on the topic of free will, which is why I decided to write a series of posts about the topic. But first I want to note an observation about the comments to my first post in the series last week.

First off: neither the Dutch, nor the English post in the series got as many responses as I’m used to. Second: none of those responses really discussed my own first take on the topic. This is not a complaint, just an observation. Next: I find it very hard to respond TO these comments. Now why is that? Why is it hard to discuss free will?

I think it has something to do with the fact that the main issue here is: how conscious are we? One commenter rightly noted the Gurdjieff (and Freud I may add) did not think we were free beings. It was Gurdjieff’s main goal to help us BECOME free. Apparently he did think that was possible, but only to those who had faced their own lack of free will first. But isn’t that a paradox?

So: how conscious are we? And what is consciousness?

Consciousness is another very sticky subject. Defining consciousness is hard. Sticking to any one definition is even harder. But for the purpose of this discussion the main issue seems to be: are our conscious selves (as opposed to our unconscious drives, conditionings etc) in control of our lives? The answer to that one has been clear in psychology for a century and the answer is NO.

BUT, and this is more recent psychological research, perhaps we CAN influence our own unconscious. That is: by integrating our conscious and unconscious, perhaps we can get more control of our lives.

Which brings me back to why it is so hard to discuss free will: perhaps because this question touches on one area in our lives it is hardest to have full self-knowledge about.

Had you all noticed how hard this issue is to talk about?

Michael Mirdad interview

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:35:59 +0000

As promised, here’s some questions I had for Michael Mirdad, author of ‘You’re Not Going Crazy…You’re Just Waking Up! The Five Stages of Soul Transformation Process’, and his answers.

1. You say that nearly every process of learning is ultimately about understanding and experiencing greater levels of unconditional love (p. 14). What do you mean by ‘unconditional love’ and how would you describe it?

Unconditional love means to love everyone and everything unconditionally. This means loving all without a hesitation of whether or not they are worthy of this love. It also means having respect for everyone and everything. It isn’t the same as the love we often feel as human beings, including romantically. When we love unconditionally, we are expressing the highest form of love that a human being can experience. It’s a Divine expression that exists in the heart and soul of every being–although not yet developed in every being.

2. You say there are three states of mind or levels of consciousness. Can you explain the difference? And how does one avoid over estimating the ‘level’ one is at?

There are basically three levels of consciousness that you will reside in as you go through the soul transformation process: Victims, Students and Masters. Victims allow crisis to destroy them and fail to see any lessons to learn from the ordeal nor do they allow themselves to heal whatever brought the crisis to them. Such behavior of denial usually keeps attracting similar lessons to the Victim–again and again.

Students do their best to participate in the changes life throws at them to improve their lives. This allows them to learn their lessons, as all good Students do, which in turn more likely allows them to move across the bridge to the new, re-building phases.

Masters are individuals who have developed enough spirituality within themselves that they have graduated, more or less, from being mere Students on the path. Masters can be so courageous that they actually don’t wait around for the next change that life throws at them. Instead, they know how to recognize what exactly it is in their life that needs to be dismantled and brought to a new level of experience. Masters choose to initiate changes of anything that would hinder their greater good.

3. You quote a variety of spiritual teachers from East and West, but your main inspiration is ‘A Course in Miracles‘. What’s the most important thing the Course has taught you?

Well, ACIM is certainly one of the most powerful books available and is referenced in the “Crazy” book, I generally don’t associate with it more than other similar materials. Nevertheless, a couple things that the Course shares that almost nothing else has effectively done, is the difference between the ego and the soul, as well as the difference between reality and illusion.

To understand more completely the difference between our Spirit, our soul, and our ego, let’s use the human body as a roadmap of sorts. Our Spirit then resides in the upper three chakras (located in the head and neck); Our humanness resides in the lowest three chakras (located in the root, navel, and solar plexus chakras); and our soul is then located in the remaining center (heart chakra) that sits directly in between our Spirit and our humanness. Our Spirit is the Divine spark or I Am Presence that resides in us all, untouched by our wounds or limiting belief systems.

This is why, how, and where we can literally say that God is within us and yet is also in Heaven. Heaven in this case is high up in the heavens–the heavens that float up above our body and soul–in the upper chakras.

Our soul, on the other hand, is the part of us that believes it can separate from Spirit and is therefore off on some journey down into the “Garden of Eden” (within our hearts) and has begun a journey into the universe. Having then bought into the idea that we have separated from Spirit, gone into the universe on a journey of learning and experience, we fell (from the Eden-like state within our hearts) into an even great state of separation and created the world of our humanness, wherein our newly densified identity (ego) was given the reins to rule and control who we believe we are and chooses for us what is real and valuable and what is not.

So, where we are now is as follows: Spirit is forever sending a loving call for us to return to our True Identity. Our heart and soul hears the call and is always doing all that it can to speak to our fear-based humanness and convince it to release its beliefs and attachments and to rise up and go Home. The ego part of our humanness resists at all costs, knowing that when we rise into love, fear (and its source–the ego) ceases to exist.

Nevertheless, every time we allow ourselves to listen to the higher calling of our Spirit and soul, making healthy choices in our lives and doing all that we can to be loving and forgiving, we dismantle the ego’s hold on us and rise into a higher level of consciousness–closer and closer to our True Nature–God.

4. The three early stages (dismantling, emptiness and disorientation) all sound very painful. Can one speed up the process?

Yes, we can usually speed up the process by practicing responsibility and by learning the lessons that got us into the crisis in the first place. In other words, since we are there to learn, the sooner we do it, and with humility, the sooner we will get to the other side. One of the dangers though, is in our refusing to let go of control. This is certainly the issue that slows us down the most.

5. You describe the goal of the five stages as ‘waking up’. What do you mean by that?

The term “waking up” is meant on a few levels. First of all, it is referring to our need to wake up on a personal level and become more active, conscious participants on our spiritual path. Second, it refers to our need to wake up from the hypnotic control that this illusionary world has over us. In other words, the crisis’ in our lives are literally “wake up” calls to help birth us into becoming spiritual beings and not just human beings.

6. You use the word ‘God’ a lot, but from your occasional references to It, I gather that you’re not talking about a personal God. What’s the meaning of the word ‘God’ here?

As you’ll find in my books and teachings, I often say that God is more likely to be experienced by humans as a feeling–such as love, peace, and joy, rather than seen–such as an actual Being. So in some ways, it’s not personal at all, in the sense that God is not personified or made into a limited being with form. And yet, God is indeed personalized in that it is literally brought into your very heart and soul as a feeling that is tangible and indeed very personal.

7. What’s the relationship between us and God?

Simply stated, God is the part within each of us that remembers our Divine Nature. This Divine Nature is sometimes referred to as our I Am Presence but, by any name, it is all that really exists and is constantly knocking at the door, meaning calling to us from the center of our mind, asking us to wake up and rediscover who we really are.

8. Surrender plays an important part in your book. What does one surrender to? Why is surrender important?

Surrender is crucial in so many ways. Surrender demonstrates that we are open to learning and are willing to release our ego nature. Surrender means that we are open to being guided from a Source that is higher than our limited selves. Surrender is an essential ingredient to get us over the bridge between our old, limited lives to the new life that awaits us when we learn to follow Spirit as our Guide.

PS. I noticed in Katinka’s blog that the Re-Building Stage is not totally understood. The main point here is not that we will now move on the new lessons and problems. The point of making it over that bridge into a new level of love and trust is that when we learn to function from this new level, we tend to attract less problems. Also, if indeed we do have a crisis, we tend to be able to move through them far more quickly and with greater ease. Love & Light, Michael Mirdad

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Posted in : Spiritual Growth, Spiritual Teachers

The five stages of the soul transformation process: Michael Mirdad

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:28:04 +0000

Two weeks ago I wrote about spiritual evolution from the perspective of long term cycles. This week I will go into the more practical day to day questions relating to our own soul transformation process. Personally I can’t take 2012 seriously enough worry about it. I do however have to deal with personal challenges just like anybody else. Michael Mirdad, known mostly as a teacher of sacred sexuality, has brought out a book that addresses these issues: You’re Not Going Crazy…You’re Just Waking Up! The Five Stages of Soul Transformation Process. Mirdad looks at the process of spiritual transformation as a cycle consisting of 5 stages. We will go through these stages again and again as we let go of the past and reinvent ourselves. The only way to avoid them and step out of the cycle is to become so aware of our own growth process as to learn the lessons needed without life needing to give us a hint.

That last sentence will probably mean very little to you unless you already know his work. So here are the five stages Michael Mirdad talks about. The explanation is mine:

Dismantling: when your life seems to be falling apart.
Emptiness: when your emotions catch up with all the changes and you feel depressed and alone.
Disorientation: when your mind tries to make sense of it all, and can not.
Re-building: when hope comes into your life because things are starting to change.
A new life in which you’ll probably be making new mistakes and get caught up in new illusions.

As Mirdad says, the first three can be summed up as dismantling and the last two as re-building.

I hinted in my introduction at the way that Michael Mirdad points to to avoid having to go through the dismantling phase again and again: it’s by becoming a master of your own path. He distinguishes between three kinds of people (p. 15): victims, students and masters. The victim let life’s troubles wash over them without seeing them as opportunities to heal and learn. This means they will never get to the rebuilding part: they will keep cycling through the various dismantling phases (1-3). Students do their best to participate in the changes life throws at them to improve their lives. This allows them to bridge over to the re-building phases (4,5). Masters, in this sense, are individuals who ‘have the spiritual awareness to “be the soul itself” that initiates the Soul Transformation Process. Masters don’t wait for life to dismantle – they will themselves actively dismantle those aspects of their life that block their spiritual path.

Michael Mirdad is a student of ‘A Course in Miracles’, so it’s no surprise that he sees unconditional love as the main lesson to be learned (p. 14). Stay tuned for an interview on this blog with Michael Mirdad…

In his interview with me Michael tells me I did not describe the rebuilding phase very well. Here’s what he says about it: The main point here is not that we will now move on the new lessons and problems. The point of making it over that bridge into a new level of love and trust is that when we learn to function from this new level, we tend to attract less problems. Also, if indeed we do have a crisis, we tend to be able to move through them far more quickly and with greater ease.

10 simple mindfulness exercises

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:16:07 +0000

I was eating at an Ethiopian restaurant yesterday. For those not familiar with that cuisine, the food is served on thin pancakes and one is supposed to eat one’s dinner with the right hand. For me it was a painful exercise in overcoming my conditionings. The table went quiet: a measure of the concentration we all needed to not eat warm food with knife and fork. We were suddenly fully there: eating.

In this post I’m stepping away from the abstract philosophical to the practical every day. One of the ways we complicate our lives is by lack of mindfulness, not being ‘in the moment’. Sometimes this is OK. It isn’t really a problem to not be aware of your chair when you’re online. Now that you’ve just read that, you probably ARE aware of your chair. Perhaps you’re sitting a bit straighter as well. That’s the start of mindfulness.

The exercises below are meant for those times when you are so fluttered you bump into doors and chairs, for instance. Or when you just can’t get that quarrel with a colleague out of your head. These are all exercises I’ve tried, but I certainly don’t pretend to do them daily or even in all cases successfully. Just something to work with to get back to yourself.

Mind your feet while you’re grocery shopping. (my yoga teacher)
Mind your chair while you’re typing.
When going through a door, think ‘I am I’ (Fourth Way exercise)
When putting on your shoes, try and put on the one you usually put on second first. (also Fourth Way, Ravi Ravindra)
Drink your tea without sugar if you’re used to sugar in your tea. If you’re used to no sugar, just once put in sugar. Works with coffee too obviously. The point is, like the previous one, to become aware of patterns and how hard it is to break them (Jiddu Krishnamurti). The point is NOT to change the pattern. A new pattern is just as much a pattern as the old one. Just create a bit more flexibility.
When you have to wait for something (grocery line, pc starting up etc.) breath consciously.
Cleaning the house: be aware of every step of cleaning.
Keep a diary of your thoughts and feelings. The goal isn’t to create literature, but to observe. So don’t mind repetition.
Notice… take a deep breath; notice five things you can see. notice five things you can hear; notice five things you can feel (shoes, pants, hair against forehead etc.)
When you’re annoyed at waiting for a stopping sign, or anything else for that matter, just SMILE (Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Buddhism)

In all these cases the point isn’t to beat yourself over the head if you can’t do it consistently. Just try – the trying is the exercise.

Is spirituality a lifestyle or a quest?

Katinka - Spirituality — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:45:15 +0000

I have been pondering recently the difference between spirituality as a life style and spirituality as a quest. Consider the following Blavatsky quote (the modernized English is mine) from The Voice of the Silence, The Seven Portals:

Before you stand on the threshold of the path; before you cross the foremost Gate, you have to merge the two in the One and sacrifice the personal to SELF impersonal, and thus destroy the ‘path’ between the two – antaskarana.

You have to be prepared to answer Dharma, the stern law, whose voice will ask you at your first, your initial step:

“Have you complied with all the rules, you with your lofty hopes?”

“Have you attuned your heart and mind to the great mind and heart of mankind? For as the sacred River’s roaring voice whereby all Nature-sounds are echoed back, so must the heart of him ‘who in the stream would enter,’ thrill in response to every sigh and thought of all that lives and breathes.”

Compare such stern words with those who treat astrology or tarot as fun amusements – not to get to know themselves better, to become better people, to find their way in life.

On the other hand when such sentiments as the above are repeated too often, as they are in theosophical circles, what happens is the opposite. So much energy goes into talking about self sacrifice, in denying self, that sometimes something of normal liveliness is lost. Something dries out, because there is no step that can be ignored on the path.

And one of those steps is precisely the second half of this quote: a felt connection with humanity as a whole. That doesn’t start with knowing how badly many people in Africa need food, medicine and education. The real connection with humanity starts at home: the natural relationships we are in. Family, friends, colleagues… Ignoring your own and their humanness is the first step towards a kind cruelty. I say ‘kind cruelty’ because sometimes the smile is there, the words are right, but the essence has somehow fled.

As I’m pondering this, not at all sure I live up to the ideals I sketch here, I come back to the basic insight that is the conclusion of many of my ponderings: While on the path extremes are often found, they have to go, because in the end there’s a balance between the impersonal and the personal. There’s a balance to be found between feeling the needs of humanity as a whole and being there facing your own and others’ real needs in day to day life.

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Posted in : Life style, Spiritual Growth

What annoys me in others is what I need to look at in myself?

Katinka - Spirituality — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:54:36 +0000

It’s very common basic spiritual and psychological advice that ‘That which annoys me in others is a mirror of what I need to look at in myself’. (@verna_maruata) Well, I thought I’d look at that a bit more today.

I think it’s probably true: what annoys us in other people is likely to be something we need to look at in ourselves. However I do think it’s too easy to say that it’s always something we mirror onto other people. When I’m annoyed at someone who doesn’t schedule very well, that doesn’t necessarily mean I schedule badly myself. It might just mean that I have a need for more structure than they do. Or they need more freedom to change things at the last moment than I do.

I do think there is a fundamental truth here though: what annoys is in others tells us something about ourselves. For instance it tells me I need structure and a minimum amount of predictability. I want people to tell me in advance, say a week in advance, whether appointments we made are going to be kept. I prefer things to not change at the last moment.

With less and less social constraints, planning, how we respond to people, what’s considered ‘normal behavior’ are all becoming less and less fixed. These things vary by the social circles we travel in and the practical circumstances in our lives.

My planning example for instance is very different for people with full agendas than for people with lots of time on their hands. Those are practical constraints. What matters however is how you deal with such things emotionally. Do you get annoyed or can you let it go easily? That’s the emotional factor.

Differences in style can be difficult to deal with. The easiest sollution is, of course, to just drop that person that has a different style from yours. Whether that is too high a price to pay is another question. In many cases it’s wiser to just learn to live with the small annoyances of daily life. If it’s an important issue for you, communicating it clearly is vital. That way the two of you can figure out where you stand on the issue. Perhaps the other person can accomodate you, make appointments in advance more, for instance.

The bottom line is to only make a big deal of the things that really are a big deal to you. Perhaps it’s a form of wisdom not to have too many things you consider ‘big deals’. Or is that too simplistic?

What’s normal – about conditioning

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:03:46 +0000

Religion and social pressure are two sides of the same coin. Religion gives meaning to our lives, shapes our actions – which means that people who let their lives be shaped by other pressures than our own, are by definition strange. Hard to deal with. This comes out, in the USA, in people pretending they’re Christian when really they are not. This results in Christians feeling more people are ‘like them’ than is truly the case. Even children…

In the Netherlands, when I was growing up, being religious was taboo for educated people – pretty much the way NOT believing is taboo for many people world wide. So it was a shock to me, when I lived in Austin Texas for a year (I was 12) to overhear a boy in the corridor say to another kid about someone who did not believe in God: they had to be crazy. Things like that become very important to kids at a certain age. Especially in the insecurity of puberty, social rules get magnified. The social rule that boy had grown up with was: everybody believes in God. The social rule I had grown up with was: most people don’t believe in God. He associated believing in God with sanity. I associated NOT believing in God with intelligence.

I did not believe in God at that time – I still don’t in any conventional sense. But the shock didn’t only have to do with my beliefs being invalidated. It also had to do with the culture shock of my ‘what’s normal’ being denied.

Kids will create a sense about what’s normal out of anything. They will be conditioned to it even if the people around them are trying desperately to overcome conditioning. This is clear from reading the biography about Krishnamurti written by the girl he pretty much raised: Lives in the Shadow: with J. Krishnamurtiby Radha Sloss. That biography is usually treated as a hard iron attack on Jiddu Krishnamurti. In fact, when I got it I could hardly read it at first. But more recently I did end up reading it and what impressed me most was precisely this: this woman grew up in the shadow of Krishnamurti’s fame. She knew him as a father, because her real father was absent a lot. She knew him as her mother’s lover. But when she grew up, her family broken up because Krishnamurti had broken with her father (his accountant and editor) and her parents had divorced. To top it off, when she came to see him at the end of his life, she hardly got in to see Krishnamurti because his entourage did not know who she was. And Krishnamurti, firmly impersonal in his public role, did not correct them.

That’s the main story in that book, but getting back to conditioning. Radha Sloss was raised by Krishnamurti and her mother to be adverse to dogma and creed. She had to overcome that in college when she had to learn about liberalism and socialism and all the other isms. Overcoming her conditionings to be able to listen to what people did actually believe and shocked at it. It’s one of the advantages of college that one gets to see society from a different perspective than what one grew up with, broaden the mind. But the point: we all have conditioning to overcome.

As that sad story about the Buddhist girl pretending to be Christian shows though: this conditioning stuff is a hard business.

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Posted in : Christianity, Spiritual Growth

All Considering » Spiritual Growth

Free will, freedom and philosophy series

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