Discordianism

[holy vehm]

http://www.discordian.com/


(A quote from prajna on another thread)

"The central tenet of the philosophy was the observation that in nature there is a balance between order and chaos; the more one tries to impose order the more quickly chaos ensues".


Now again, i may be a little late to the table here but i think i understand a little.

Another insight into my world,

I have always had the need to be in 'control' not in a control freak manner but the fear that if i take my eye of the ball something will go wrong, for example.

I get payed, i work out my money down to the last penny, where its going, to whom, what i have left and so on. Its almost like a set of finiancial records. Yet no matter how hard i try to keep control of it, it always goes wrong. The next month i try harder but still the same effect, and this goes on for years. The harder i try the worse it gets. I feel that if i give up then something has beaten me, so i dont.

When i wash up, it has to be big plates, little plates, bowls and cups, and thats how they sit on the draining board. Why, because thats how it all fits, its perfect but if someone else wash's up they just put them as the come, so when they are done, i change it because looking at it, it looks chaos.

When im driving, i always try to find the quietest route and no matter how hard i look i only find busier routes.
But i dont stop, i keep trying, and thats with everything in my life, the harder i try, the worse things become.

I am on a self created cycle and it will not only continue but flourish the harder i try to beat the cycle. The only way the cycle can be beaten is by not being in the cycle.

Very interesting prajna, thanks.

[huntingross]

Blow in the breeze HV, blow in the breeze.

[Prajna]

Damn, I wrote a long, considered reply, HV, but lost it. HR's reply is considerably more succinct and mine boiled down to much the same thing.

Control is just an illusion that mind creates.

We experience something and immediately mind steps in and names, catalogues, compares and judges. Our attention is drawn into all the mind-stuff, out of the experience itself, and we mistake all the cognitive junk for the original experience.

Struggle arises because mind is always trying to change things but mind is always dealing with the past - how things were rather than how things are; and, as we all know, it is impossible to change the past. If mind stops then our attention (awareness) can remain in the present and we can observe, in wonder, ourselves responding in the moment to what it is that we are experiencing.

The problem is to keep our attention in the experience rather than have it become distracted in the distorted and fictional re-presentation of it that mind engages in.

The Rishis developed meditation in order to address this problem. When mind ceases then there is only consciousness; we then are aware of the real rather than the illusion. Mind will insist that without mind there is no perception but that is easily disproved by noticing there are gaps between thoughts, where there is only perception.

You have begun to notice that regardless of all your attempts to control things you appear to be powerless. I like to explain it with the observation that despite all my most brilliant plans and my biggest fuck-ups, here I am writing to you in my van with the sun shining; I never would have expected it and had you asked me several years ago to make it so I wouldn't have known where to begin, considering all the myriad factors that would have had to have been taken into account.

Why are things the way they are? Well, because somehow, somewhere something happens. It wasn't me that achieved it because I was planning something else. Once you recognise there is some unknown (and, I am reliably informed, unknowable) force in the universe that is responsible for how things are you can begin to relax and trust that unknown.

Or, to correct HR slightly, drift in the breeze. (because to blowing is something the breeze does, drifting is allowing.)

love, peace, happiness & grace,
Prajna

[holy vehm]

Damn, I wrote a long, considered reply, HV, but lost it.

I always select all and copy, lost many a piece in the past. Its a shame it happened to you here, but your post is considered enough, thanks.

If you have always had a tight grip on things, how do you just let go when its all you have ever known. It is fully evident in my life that the tighter i grip the more i fall and all i had to do was grip tighter and eventually i would fall no further.
This is the exact opposite of what i should be doing.

Perhaps i was always going to end up right here right now, regardless of how tight a grip i have, how much control i have on things, it never mattered. All i have made is the journey harder for myself than it needed to be. I was always going to be on this journey, regardless.
Im trying to drive the bus from the back seat.

Perhaps im so determined not to bring my family up skint as i was brought up that the more i fight the more i fail,
but sat here thinking about it, i think its fear, im afraid to let go. It almost seems illogical.

I will do some more reading on this and get back to you guys.

[Prajna]

It just takes practice, HV. What you do is start with little things that it is easy to drop your attempts to control. It is like meditation: it appears to be impossible to just 'stop the mind'; after all, mind has always been there. So you sit down, become very still and just watch the mind at work. If you watch very intently you will begin to notice that there are tiny gaps between thoughts. If your attention is on the thoughts instead of in the thoughts then you notice there is some distance between you, the observer, and the thoughts themselves.

So just become aware of little things where you would have stepped in to exercise your control in the past and this time just let them do what they will. Some will turn out as you expected and some will surprise you. As you drop attempts to control you will find life becomes more and more filled with surprises and, indeed, wonder.

At the same time it is worth practising meditation too. Really it is much the same exercise. The harder you 'try' to stop mind the more it appears to continue. The breakthrough comes when the only part you take is to observe; then those tiny gaps become longer and longer and the distance between you, the observer, and those thoughts becomes greater and greater.

Practice allowing. First allow things to be as they are. In fact it is insane to do anything else because things are as they are and before you can have any positive effect to change something you have to be at peace with how they are. Then whatever action you take comes from peace and the outcome is likely to be peaceful. If your actions arise from fear then the outcome is likely to be fearful too.

Namaste

[pedawson]

[M]ankind has […] been suffering from a psychological and spiritual imbalance. Imbalance causes frustration, and frustration causes fear. And fear makes for a bad trip. Man has been on a bad trip for a long time now.
—Malaclypse the Younger, Principia Discordia, Page 00042

The human race will begin solving it's [sic] problems on the day that it ceases taking itself so seriously.
—Malaclypse the Younger, Principia Discordia, page 00074