Q: What do they call “Star Trek” in Japan?

Q: What do they call “Star Trek” in Japan?


A: “Sulu, Master Navigator”

Remember this: everyone wants to believe that they are the center of the universe, that they are right and the rest of the universe revolves around them. I remember a brilliant cartoon by political satirist Jules Feiffer.  In it, a black man and a white man sit on opposite sides of the table.  The black man says: “You have your history.  White history.  Written by white men, to promote white power.  We want our history.  Black history.  Written by black men to promote black power.  Our demand is separate but equal lies.”

Remember this, and look in the mirror, before you point the finger
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“Steve,

The question is, how do you understand all those weird mental mechanisms that keep you from seeing the flaws in your own ideas, and bypass them?”

And here, we come back to my original point.  We are, in some views, on that evolutionary trip from Ape to Angel.  If we engage our basic instincts without being limited by them, we can transform ourselves.  Body, Career, Relationship.  Take responsibility for each, and be strong, and honest, and work to find center.  It is hard work.  Pray, and meditate, and journal, and dream diary.  Go deeper.  Always, relate it to your success in simultaneously balancing the Trinity of Body, Career/education, Relationship.  If you don’t have all three, there is no cause for guilt, blame, or shame—but consider that you MAY have lost your way.  The outside world encourages us to hold others responsible for our lives, to seek instant gratification, to value sexual heat above love.  We must cleave to our own values.  In order, you must: care for your body, and physical survival.  Find the source of your physical passions, and find ethical ways of satisfying and channeling them.  Connect with your need for power, and be certain you first claim power over self.  Love yourself, and love others.  Discipline yourself healthfully, and do not give others permission to hurt themselves…or you.

Consciousness does NOT make you a victim.  Personally, I only turn the other cheek when I’m setting up a back-kick.
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“Do you see any value in `becoming the eye that does not seek to see itself, the sword that does not seek to cut itself, the un-self-contemplating mind’?

Yes.  To me, however, one does not become the I AM, one awakens to the reality that this is always what you have been.  Seeking and not-seeking are both separations from this reality.  But you know what?  This is what we have, as long as we’re working in the Newtonian psychological framework.  It is using mind to reach beyond mind.

One can be trapped in the philosophical hall of mirrors here, if you take it all too seriously. Remember “Not That, Not That.”  And then laugh.  “That” is what we got, folks.  Until we have “Not-that.” Until we have “not “that” and “not-not that”…

And so it goes.  There is a limitation to the usefulness of language.  Do the work, and you’ll get the joke.

Not black.  Not white.  Not straight.  Not gay.  Not male.  Not female.  Not American.  Not Iraqi. Not Liberal.  Not Conservative.

When you peel it all away, there is nothing left.  And nothing is everything.

Afraid?  Make no mistake: this sets you free, and there is nothing in the world more dangerous than a genuinely free human being.