"I don't, for instance, share the view that the global collective consciousness or whatever will automatically progress to some next level, that involving numerous assumptions and concepts I consider dubious. I personally do not hold some doctrine of general upwward progress being assured or actually even likely. This seems largely a Boomer thing that I find at best naive and at worst dangerous."
Yeah, I think probably nothing it 'automatic,' could be that such things could happen and maybe they will or maybe they won't. But if we all got told what happens at the end of the movie while we were still in the middle of it, wouldn't that take out most of the fun out of it? I don't know the whole future but I am leaving open the idea that it could be better and I don't really see positive thinking, even the vague and illogical sounding kind, as necesarily bad in and of itself. Sure positive thinking without action won't do much but thinking tends to lead to action at least some of the time. And I do think a counterbalance to Keeping up with the Kardashians, rampant consumerism, and poisoning the environment might be of some good in the long run. Yep, I do think a lot of it is cotton candy, but I can't say it is of no use or never will be. Very few people are going to spend millions of hours sitting on at mat kind of doing nothing just because some guy from thousands of years ago says there might be a kingdom of enlightenment and happiness awaiting them if they do. In fact, on the face of it, the whole thing sounds really really ridiculous, imo WAY WAY more stupid than being a nexus child (whatever that is!). That was my belief for most of my life, so it's easy for me to see the perspective of 'normal' people and how ridiculous it all sounds. Over time, I did come to believe there is important substance behind meditation, enlightenment, and a lot of other stuff. Not to say there isn't a ton of cotton candy everywhere too. In fact, over time, I find it really kind of amazing that everyone forms their own little private communities and laughs at the other communities, new agers, religions, yoga people, meditators, OBEers, lucid dreamers, remote viewers, and for the most part, they think the others are total lunatics and that only THEY have the right way of thinking of things. But really each of the groups has a hell of a lot more in common than they would like to admit! IMO, a lot of it has to do with perspective. If you start with the perspective that the other group has nothing to offer, kind of an us vs them perspective, you will tend to see only the aspects that support your pre existing view. In that story from my first post, my friend's brother's actions made perfect sense from his perspective and my friend's actions and beliefs made perfect sense from her perspective. Which perspective do other people see it from? What if you could see it from both perspectives at once and really understand both perspectives, then what would you think?
Sure, I have my personal opinions and what ways probably work best IMO currently. But then again, in the past I was wrong a TON. I was wrong so much I am an expert at being wrong. I practiced long and hard at being wrong and really became good at it. So now I figure to be on the safe side, its easier and safer to realize I just don't know and probably there is all kinds of super cool stuff I don't know yet and don't understand. I remember a while back when it was all the rage for new agers to talk about 'vibrations' and 'changing your DNA' and of course they got blasted to kingdom come by the scientific community and just about everyone else for saying things that were clearly impossible and stupid, and then some time passes and we start hearing about scientific knowledge of string theory, 'jumping genes' (aka transposons), epigenetics, etc, all stuff that really basically support that crackpot stuff. (horrors!) Of course the scientists cringe if their research is ever cited in such a way because in their mind only their stuff can be right and the new age stuff is always no good and of course they don't want the two things ever to appear in the same room together for fear their image and research will be forever tarnished. Personally, I think it's actually pretty funny. I don't know how much of the new agers stuff will turn out to be for the good, if any, but I don't know either if it will be for the bad. But maybe something that at least promotes kindness and improvement and yes, is even very likely QUITE responsible for the current popularity and mainstreaming of meditation might actually be an overall good thing in the long run.
