Subjective Reality and Nonviolence (Blog)

[Carezza7]

Very interesting thread indeed!

I was driving home from work yesterday, feeling (yes, I admit it...) OUTRAGE at the Virginia Tech killings. I had NPR on the radio, listening to all the info they had about the shooter, when they finally got on to other news of the world. They described a situation in another part of the world where over 100 people (a lot of them women and children) were killed in sectarian violence somewhere. All of a sudden it hit me.... Who mourns for them?? What makes the students different from these people in another part of the world?? Aren't those people who died from the political fighting just as worthy of our compassion as the students who were killed on Monday?? What makes the students any more important than the men, women and children who suffered (and suffer each and every day) at the hands of political extremists??

Then I started to think about my own reactions to "tragedy". I, like most others, I suppose, tend to over-react to these sorts of things. Yeah, the first thing I railed about was gun control...then a myriad other things...all to avoid my own sense of responsibility in the matter.

Finally, I got it. I've been studying these things...seems like all my life LOL, but something has to come along and whack me on the side of the head now and then. I was still mulling over these things when I got online just now and read Steve's blog entry. Exactly!!...right on the money!! Before getting online, I was goiing to journal about the sense of powerlessness and victimization I felt over this incident and now I understand that it is just those things in my consciousness that manifested this event in my reality.

No, this is NOT going to be a popular response to an event such as this one. I work in a University setting and people have been talking about this event constantly. But, with a little more insight now, I won't find myself dragged into debates on what "should" be done and get on with the inner work.

Mike

PS..My wife has not watched much of the media coverage, thinking it overkill and sensational, while I, on the other hand, became a media junkie ever since Monday morning. As expected, our responses to the event has been radically different...and it's interesting to note that our life experiences tend to be radically different as well...AHHHH more inner work to do LOL........

[JHL]

@ Michael

thanks for your post, it has given me much more insight into where you are coming from and I appreciate you doing that.

On another note completely, I wanted to compliment you on your writing. You are a fantastic writer. I am rather fond of the art myself - though admittedly a mere dilletante. Your are outstanding and have a real gift for it.

I do hope that you have great ambitions of sharing your talent, wit and intellect with a larger audience, if you arent doing so already!

[Erin Pavlina]

Everyone is assuming the victims died prematurely, cut down before their time. In my belief system, they made a spiritual contract to be involved in that shooting to raise the awareness of the people left behind. They are all intact and safe on the other side, their part in this game played and done. I see them as brave, not victims.

I feel sympathy for their families who are suffering the pangs of loss. I feel compassion for the parents of the gunman who no doubt have a lot they will need to make sense of. I grieve for the living who do not grow from this experience.

All of our attention is being drawn to this incident by the media. Without cameras and signals and/or newspapers, most of us would never know this event happened. If you want to tune in to suffering, consider that at this moment in some part of the world there is rape, muder, and child molestation going on. Right now. Do you feel outrage?

There are some people who stand on the side of the road and cry and lament and wallow. And then there are some who are so fired up by what they've witnessed that they begin to raise their awareness and try to help others raise theirs as well. If we are not to let these brave spirits deaths been in vain, we need to learn from this incident and take steps to correct it. There is work to be done.

[JonathanBrowne]

The amount of effort people put into proactive denial of "Bad" here, is certainly not good.

Look, just because you have redefined tragedy as "dissapointing" does not mean it is not tragedy.

tragedy "a lamentable, dreadful, or fatal event or affair; calamity; disaster"

[Max Power]

They're dead. Get over it.

Cry, feel bad, send a card, feel all the pain of being the mother and father/son/sister of one of the victims.

Pain is good, pain is an emotion, pain is gratitude, you are still living.

They are not dead, they are still living, but not how you think.

You can't kill someone, because that someone is more than a body.

Forget religion and doubt, look inside yourself, you are alive, always have been, always will be, so are they.

Power to the Max

[machine]

This is interesting. I am watching myself move through different points of view and I am finding my growth is not coming from the actual article but from the comment string here.

This is where I am at:

Steve's post is his way of exploring subjective reality as it relates to the shootings. He's saying, from a Subjective Reality point of view, this is how the shootings fit in. He's not telling you that you need to adopt that point of view.

Now one of the problems is the original point gets lost as the comments start to stack up. Each comment has multiple tangent points inside of it and we get lost from the original point.

Each person who is commenting is doing exactly what Steve has done - we are expressing our point of view. Just because one persons point of view is different than another doesn't make either one valid or invalid.

The event was neutral as ALL events are. It's when we put our thoughts and perspectives in the mix that the event becomes something other than neutral - be it tragic, great, sad, unbelievable etc... These are only points of perspective.

If you believe that death is a wonderful thing and it frees you from all pain and you go to an unbelievably great place then you will not mourn the victims; you will probably celebrate.

If you believe that death, especially death at the hand of a stranger through murder, is a tragic event and is terrible for the victims and their families, then you will see the shootings in a negative and horrifying light.

Each one is a different point of view of the same neutral event. The interpretation from the points of view are different so the emotional response will be different.

Now my point:

Each one of us believes we have the right to have our point of view or perspective. This is obvious to me.

If you believe you have a right to your perspective, then you must allow other people the same right; to have their perspective even if it conflicts with yours. You expect that right, therefore you must offer the room for theirs.

What happens is we feel our perspective threatened by a different one, we then try to defend ours by shoring it up and cutting down the other persons'.

This is rediculous behavior. Perspectives are like a jacket you wear. They are easily discarded for a better one. If you don't allow the room to see other peoples perspectives as just that; non-threatening with a right to exist it will afford you the opportunity to explore other perspectives. If the new one doesn't fit, discard it and try another.

We are all attempting to gain the truest perspective of reality. We all have the right to move through any perspectives we want. And in exchange for that right, we must allow others the room to explore their own.

[Steve Pavlina]

Why such excessive attachment to life in the physical world? Our lives here are temporary. Whether you die from a bullet or a brain tumor, you just transition to the next phase of your existence.

Calling it tragic is like saying you should live in one city as long as possible or work at the same job forever, since to move to another one would be horrific. You'd disrupt so many lives. Better to just stay put.

Live with the feeling of being ready to die, in any moment, yet simultaneously feel grateful for the opportunity to experience physical life. The knowledge that physical life is temporary makes it precious, but it's certainly no tragedy when it ends. Facts aren't tragic -- they're just things to be accepted.

What makes it seem tragic is the excessive attachment caused by fear, especially fear of death. Death is just a change of clothes, nothing to be scared about.

If you try to root your sense of security and well-being in the physical world, you'll be very disappointed when it doesn't cooperate.

Today is a good day to die.

[Erin Pavlina]

@machine: Excellent post! You put that beautifully.

[Sam988]

I didnt read the whole thread, but i just want to state my opinion about the article.


I didnt really get it, is steve saying that whenever we are outraged by some event on the world it means its because we have internal issues?


"Events themselves are neutral and meaningless. Even from a purely objective perspective, a shooting has no meaning, and it certainly isn’t tragic, since ”tragic” is a subjective human label. Our thoughts and emotions provide the meaning. If you say an event is tragic, that’s the reality you’ll experience. But there’s no objective universal law that’s labeling these events as such."

I share the same reaction that steve has about the virginia incident, but i dont care much about the animals either. Neither do i care much about people dying in africa or in middle east wars.

Now, does that turn me into a "heartless" person or just means that, according to steve's article, i have no inner conflict about those issues? Depends on my beliefs, since we are talking about subjective reality.


Getting a bad grade in the university is worst to me than knowing that people i dont know have died somewhere in the world. I guess that according to steve's article my inner conflict is about self-confidence about succeeding rather than about violence.

I like this point of view, gives me a wider view of reality.

[bettyboo11]

Thank you Erin..for clarifying your views..it seems in line with mine. Do you have the same perspective as your husband? If so, maybe you could blog a reponse to the events as well, as I think some people who didn't connect with Steve's entry could connect more with yours.

I guess what irked me about Steve's perspective/entry was that he didn't seem to have compassion for those involved, I guess not saying the obligatory "My heart goes out to.." etc. He is a very practical and methodical man it seems, and it shows throug his writing.. maybe I'm misunderstanding him. I know you feel compassion ..am I right?

[Steve Pavlina]

To me compassion is about awareness and action, not weepy emotion. For example, which is more compassionate: to shift towards a more cruelty-free lifestyle, or to feel more emotional while still paying for cruelty-based products? You don't have to feel bad about suffering to decide to reduce your contribution to it. You just need to be aware enough to see that it's a wise choice.

[netpaul]

Steve -

Your idea about subjective reality has been around for a long time. Do some reading about the "Mind Only" school of Buddhism.

It's demonstrably false. Here's why - from a Buddhist perspective, at least:

The last FULLY enlightened (notice the words in caps) being on this planet of ours was the one we call The Buddha, also known as Shakyamuni. The next FULLY enlightened being who will take on corporality on this planet is the Bodhisattva known as Maitreya - due to arrive as a Buddha about five billion years from now.

Believe it - or not.

The point is: Shakyamuni Buddha, who was ENTIRELY purged of every shred of violence within, and had come to the perfection of "no-self" consciousness, both saw and acknolwedged the suffering - including the violence - in this world of ours.

If your "mind only" subjective reality ideas were true, The Buddha would not have seen nor acknowledged suffering as such.

But in fact, He did. More than that, He said that every word He spoke was designed to explain the truth about suffering and the end of suffering. And He said as well that this world in which we live is indeed a realm of suffering.

Your theory of subjective reality falls apart in the face of these facts - facts that are preserved for history by Shakyamuni's very literate students over his exceedingly long (45 years) of public ministry.

The idea that "let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me" is entirely different - and much more plausible - than the subjective reality idea you espouse that if I even SEE suffering, it is necessarily a projection of some suffering state of my own within. As I just said - the person and work of Shakyamuni Buddha proves that such a statement is false rather than true.

Many people (myself included) who will not accept the "mind only" proposition would easily accept that the beginning of the solution to our world's problems lies in shifting my own personal consciousness, in some way or another.

I really do appreciate that you're struggling honestly with the problem of evil. But having said that, I also need to say you haven't nailed it. Not even close. More than that, you're just re-discovering something that got lots of airplay a long, long time ago - and didn't really make the grade as mature metaphysics back then, either.

Nonetheless, there IS a realm of peace, of bliss, of freedom from all suffering. It's one of the most profound teachings of the Buddha - the Dharma teaching about the Pure Land created by the transcendental Buddha we know as AMIDA.

In that land, Shakyamuni Buddha (our Buddha) explained, there is no suffering - nor even a WORD for suffering.

But you're not there - you're here, with all the rest of us, in Samsara - a world that is a mixture of bitter and sweet, bright and dark, joy and sorrow. And like so many thoughtful people, you are grappling with subjective and objective perspectives without you being a fully realized being just yet. And as a non-Buddha, you're trying to makes ultimate sense of both light and dark by fitting it all into a systematic philosophy.

It's certainly an understandable undertaking. It's just not one you will ultimately succeed at. That's why the "Mind Only" School of Buddha-dharma pretty much faded away after garnering a lot of interest initially. The endless self-referentiality ended up making it just one more manifestation of the worm Ouroboros, forever eating it's own tail, and never actually being done.

Said in plain English: you can't get there from here.

But go ahead and try, anyway.

[Steve Pavlina]

Wouldn't be the first time Buddha and I disagreed.

[Shaden]

But go ahead and try, anyway.

Oh, I'm sure he will

[JonathanBrowne]

It seems even conservative pundits are fed up with some of the blaming of outside influences. Conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh, reacted differently than expected by most about whether videogame violence is responsible for the VA shootings.
I also agree with Steves point that it is not about finding the blame in guns or videogames or drugs, or whatever scarecrow people can conjur up. It is internal. We must find the solution in ourselves. We can not however find the solution in one person, or by working out the issues of steve pavlina.

Keep in mind this is all debate, I'm not attacking you personally Steve and I have been inspired by many of your posts. In fact, I must admit your website was my first introduction to the Law Of Attraction, which I have used to my benefit quite a lot since then.

[munish]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Wouldn't be the first time Buddha and I disagreed.

Wouldn't be the first time Buddha and I disagreed.

[Akashic_Librarian]

You are assuming the Buddha was in fact purged of "Violence" what if he wasn't? Is their proof he was purged....?

[markytom]

I appreciate your post. Your website has given me a much better understanding of myself - especially with Subjective Reality.

I found hints of SR from many other sources over the years such as:

Joseph Campbell in the Power of Myth - I believe he would agree with your pserspective on the VT shootings, The Tao of Pooh - from my memory there is a passage where the news reports that 5 jumbo jets full of people crash and burn and Pooh replies with something like "it's still a nice day," and Anthony Robbins was talking about how babies are dying from starvation and disease every day - but we need to choose how we respond to the events.

We choose our thoughts, and our thoughts manefest "things" in our reality.

It is hard (for me anyway) to maximize the control I have over my own thoughts.

Your website is a great help!

[takkaria]

I always thought that the Budda said that we create suffering ourselves by resisting what is, and that even when we had stopped creating suffering, the life here was impermanent. I can't see anything that contradicts that in SR terms - have I misunderstood somewhere? (Probably. )

[benj]

1. Steve: please, for the sake of your own development, register for a passport and visit somewhere outside of the USA. There is a limit to how far your insights can take you as a financially-comfortable guy in California. I don't know what you'd make of it but at least you would get some new stimulus from visiting a completely different environment at least once. Don't go for feel-good tourism (volunteer projects) - visit somewhere with real poverty, a real lack of hope, and try not to dismiss their situation as being due to their faulty persective or interpretation of it.

Do it now. Leave Erin with the kids and book yourself a flight to India or South America or Africa. Then come back and tell us something interesting. Challenge yourself, and your beliefs. You really have no excuse not to.

Otherwise it would be a shame to see your work go further and further into the realm of fantasy and mindgames (which always seems to be an affliction of people who spend more time 'thinking' than 'doing' - see for example some of the work that comes from academics with little experience of the real world).

2. JDiddy - you say: "I feel that I know EXACTLY why this manifested, to me it is directly related to a large amount of conflict within my life in the past week." Are you really so self-absorbed that you believe that this shooting is in any way related to whatever troubles you have had this week? Please read your comments back as though they were someone else's. For Steve - the same question applies.

3. Steve: from a certain perspective, one could interpret your post (and your interpretation of events) as your own avoidance strategy - say for example that you didn't want to feel the negativity of your own 'outrage' and this is your way of avoiding it. Just the same as not reading the news. That shelters you from unpleasant news, and along with your subject reality mindgame (which, by definition, it is), shelters you from the unpleasant emotions and reactions that go with it. But it doesn't make you wise, by any stretch of the imagination.

Finally, to (nearly) everyone: your reaction to the event is likely to be of little interest to the families of those people who were shot the other day. Same goes for the families of the other ~150,000 people who died that day. At least be honest that at the core of it - however you do it - you're discussing a way to make yourself feel good regardless of what goes on around you. To some extent, that seems like more of an attempt to avoid your weaknesses rather than a strength. I don't mourn for people I don't know, but aiming to 'feel nothing' sounds very much like numbing yourself with antidepressants because you can't face the world outside.

[Jeremy Bennett]

1st to say, great posts all.

In thinking deeply about this, this came to mind;

When we thing about the state of non-duality, - that state is at a very high
level of reality - only truly experienced by those whose energy is raised enough to percieve it - and to feel it.

For many people, even though they may understand the "concept" of non-duality, they don't have an experiential knowledge of it, and therefore
it is incomprehensible to them.

This is understandable, because things that make sense to someone with a higher vibration, will appear completely crazy or ludicrous to one whose vibration is lower. (For example, the practice of non-violence would appear insane to, say, those who use violence to get what they want, or for "protect