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No Expectations - Rumi

5/26/2012

I came across this poem by Rumi, the famous Sufi poet which I found very provocative.

A spirit that lives in this world
and does not wear the shirt of love,
such an existence is a deep disgrace. Be foolishly in love,
because love is all there is.

There is no way into presence
except through a love exchange.

If someone asks, But what is love?
answer, Dissolving the will.

True freedom comes to those
who have escaped the questions
of freewill and fate.

Love is an emperor.
The two worlds play across him.
He barely notices their tumbling game.

Love and lover live in eternity.
Other desires are substitutes
for that way of being.

How long do you lay embracing a corpse?
Love rather the soul, which cannot be held.

Anything born in spring dies in the fall,
but love is not seasonal.

With wine pressed from grapes,
expect a hangover.

But this love path has no expectations.
You are uneasy riding the body?
Dismount. Travel lighter.
Wings will be given.

Be clear like a mirror
reflecting nothing.

Be clean of pictures and the worry
that comes with images.

Gaze into what is not ashamed
or afraid of any truth.

Contain all human faces in your own
without any judgment of them.

Be pure emptiness.
What is inside that? you ask.
Silence is all I can say.

Lovers have some secrets

That they keep

It is interesting that he argues in this poem, that the ancient debate around fate and freewill is transcended through love. Themes of dropping desires that are mere substitutes for the purity of love figure in this poem. It seems, though, again, that there is the problem with the body. There seems to be a desire to detach from the body; "You are uneasy riding the body?
Dismount. Travel lighter. Wings will be given." But the dissolution of the will is a strong Islamic theme of submission. "If someone asks, But what is love?
answer, Dissolving the will." But I think it is important to underscore that this is not dependence on another but dissolution to the divine and indifference or apatheia to all others.

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Goodbye to a friend

5/17/2012

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Goodbye to a friend, Kosta Kirpiev who died on Saturday. Kosta was born in Teshevo, Bulgaria, December 22, 1944 and emigrated to Canada in January of 1961. A wrestling accident in the 1960’s left him a paraplegic but his fighting spirit remained intact. He attended Brock University and had a strong interest in existential philosophy and literature. Kosta loved languages and literature and in particular the poetry of Blok and Yesenin. Kosta had his own book of poems, Immortality Here and Now, published in 1979. He enjoyed reading, discussing with friends and listening to the radio.

There is much that I am grateful to Kosta for. He introduced me to the philosophy of Nikolai Berdyaev and helped me to understand Nietzsche better. It is rare when you meet a human being who enables you to see the world differently, through a different lens, a different culture. While there was nobody who was more materially poor, he helped me to appreciate so much sophisticated poetry and thought. While his experience was interpreted as mentally ill by others, a designation he never really accepted, he helped me to understand mental health better than anyone else. He once told me that there is only one truth, I am a child of God, and he is a child of God, any other label beyond that dehumanizes us. A lot of his poetry was dark and reminiscent of the Russian existentialists but there was a spark and a glimmer of light. We shared an appreciation of the German mystic Meister Eckhart and he was fascinated with Eckhart's concept of the ground (the grunt). The grunt is the ground of God and the ground of the soul which is one ground; the same ground. He also famously spoke of the spark of the soul.

Kosta once told me that the best way to understand him was to read Notes from the Underground. However, one poem of his, from his book, I think, expresses best how I knew him.

I am Tired

I am tired of this thorny Road
That I tread alone, unseen,
Unheard, unknown,

I am tired of this monotonous
Song I sing; that re-echoes-
The sound of sagacity...

I am tired of daily sleeping,
Daily walking, feeding and
Search truth forever more.

I am tired of hearing my fellowmen
Work out his future plan:

I am tired of many things, and
Still yet my soul sings!

Berdyaev once wrote that “every single human soul has more meaning and value than the whole of history.” As I reflect on the impact his life had on me and the meaning that I need to take away from it, I will let him speak of how best to move forward in his own words through another of his poems.

I Propose

A toast to your frittered ghost:
Let us go, go forth out into
the vastest field. Let us go by
the edge of rounded rock, in
the midstream of an onward flowing
brook: We shall sow and reap and weep
and leap straight under our
-rolling machines-
leap beyond our wildest dreams.

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Bad Religion - Ross Douthat and Andrew Sullivan

5/10/2012

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Andrew Sullivan discussed New York Times columnists, Ross Douthat's new book Bad Religion. Both are rooted in the Catholic tradition. Andrew Sullivan is a gay rights activist who has struggled to reconcile his experience as a gay man in the Catholic church and Ross Douthat is more of a conservative columnist.

They discuss the emphasis on sexuality that seems to exist today while, in fact, the New Testament and Jesus in particular speaks very little about it. In fact, the contrary is actually true. Jesus seems to subvert the traditional family (e.g. his saying that unless you hate mother, brother, father, sister you cannot be my follower); the famous story of the woman caught in adultery. Given that history, it seems paradoxical that human sexuality has occupies such a seemingly central place in church teaching when it occupied such a small part of Jesus' words and when it did, it appeared to be the opposite of the general punitive tones associated with messaging from the church. On the other hand, it is true that Jesus does elevate marriage to a more permanent status than had existed previously.

However part of the problem with the emphasis, Douthat argues, is that sexuality is a popular topic in the culture. In fact, the pope rarely speaks of it but it is emphasized in the media. Historically and traditionally, sexual sins have been the least serious in the Catholic tradition. For example, in Dante's Inferno, sexual sins occupy the first ring while the lowest region is betrayal and injustice.

It is a very good discussion on modernity and the impact that modernity as a historical movement has had on the hierarchy as it did on the monarchy.

It is rare to find such a balanced, informed dialogue among two people discussing religion, public life and ideology.

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A Penny for your Thoughts

5/5/2012

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My dad used to joke with waitresses when giving them change for a meal and using a penny, "are these even legal tender anymore". Well, dad might be happy to hear that the penny is now officially out of currency. No more pennies will be minted. It is a symbolic move. So much transaction is done via interact and one wonders the implications for this for cash transactions and rounding for commerce. At any rate Minister Flaherty said:

"The time has come to make the sensible decision to end production of the coin which is underused by Canadians, no longer vital to commerce and ultimately a burden on Canada's balance sheet."

Canada's last penny minted

Requiescat in Pace (pedantic alert!!! i think requiescat is the plural of requiem) penny.

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An Interview of Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor

5/2/2012

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CBC's The Current has an interview with Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor. I read a portion of his massive tome "A Secular Age" which is a fascinating book on the development of secularity in the modern world. In it he discusses the religious and spiritual impulse of people and the impact that secularism as a world view has had on the modern imagination. Taylor is not a fan of postmodernity and sees it as encouraging an individualism that will frustrate the development of common political life. I am not in agreement with him in this respect but I certainly respect his scholarship.

In this interview, he discusses at length Quebec politics and identity. He touches on xenophobia, the relationship of Catholicism with French identity, and anti-clericalism. Relevant to his research, Taylor discusses secularity as it relates to plurality and multiculturalism in Francophone institutional life notwithstanding legislation against such things as the burka. He discusses how religion is persistent and remains a force in modern life.

Finally, he makes a plea for democratic collective life as it is in danger of disappearing as a result of the neo-liberal agenda and the rise of individualism. All in all a good interview.

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My Pensées

The title of this blog is an allusion to the famous work of Blaise Pascal. This blog represents the variety of my interests and thoughts on any given day and are strung together, like Pascal's Pensees, in no particular order. I work in the field of mental health, education, and human rights. I write and am a human rights advocate. I enjoy poetry, jazz, spirituality, politics and a potpourri of other interests that you will see reflected in this blog.