Seek Peace, not Happiness

I've had some involvement with this "positive psychology" movement of Seligman's and I think it has some merit (besides the fact that every psychologist wants to create a new "therapy"). My problem with this "area" of psychology is that it attempts to study that obscure and relative aspect of living we often refer to as "human happiness."

I believe the problem is the highly contingent nature of happiness and the huge range of defining characteristics relative to each and every separate mind that seeks "happiness." (Nevertheless, I do believe studying "happiness," no matter how obscure and relative, is certainly warranted, after a century of studying diagnosable suffering, which is as relative and contingent as happiness).

I think that when you really get down to basics, "happiness" is not defined by attainment but by absence. Specifically, happiness is the absence of conflict, which is experienced by degrees. An absence of mental conflict (cognitive stress) is the presence of mental peace, which is experienced by degrees.

Therefore, I would suggest that, rather than 'happiness,' we simply study 'peace.' Peace is a more scientifically observable measure (individually and collectively) and we could simply chart it through absence of conflict (qualitative and quantitative).

I believe that, essentially, when we really examine people's lives we can see that 'happiness' can be defined as peace, or simply an absence of extrinsic and, most importantly, intrinsic conflict (mind). I also believe that most psychotherapies, in the endeavor to aid people in finding 'happiness' (often through symptom reduction) are in fact helping individuals and families seek peace.

Suffering is inherent to a conflicted mind and symptoms manifest accordingly, based on whatever relative conflict one is identifying with. Conflict, like happiness, is also relative, but I think we can all agree on what peace might be, as opposed to happiness.

I believe that the "pursuit of happiness" has caused much confusion and mindless seeking since, as far as I can surmise, it is undefinable and thus illusory (kinda like the "American dream"). However, peace can be conceptualized equally by every separate mind and thus is an obtainable goal for individuals and society.

An non-conflicted mind, not concerned with negotiating opposites, is a 'happy' mind and, in fact, does not project conflict out into a world, thereby resulting in world peace (true, I am most certainly an idealist, but I believe world peace is attainable).

To be in the Tao is to flow with conflict thereby diminishing its effects on the mind. To flow with conflict is essentially to alter its very nature since conflict demands pressing against in order to control or change it to my desires. Therefore, the very moment conflict is experienced, the Tao is abandoned and we thus, flow against, inevitably experiencing mental stress.

Seek peace and not happiness and when your mind is completely free of conflict you will be 'happy' and you will realize that this is what you have been seeking all along in the mistaken interpretation that it was "happiness" you sought. We may never be completely free of experiencing all conflict, yet we can seek to minimize conflict by varying degrees and I believe this is the goal of all spiritual paths.

Nevertheless, akin to happiness, "love" is also a relative conceptual abstraction definable only by experience and not an observable measure useful to science (which demands measurement of agreed on variables)

Therefore, I would also claim that love is impossible to a mind in conflict and very acutely possible to a mind at peace. Love and happiness are abstractions in general, yet we all attempt to define it personally, and rarely do such definitions (experiential) mesh without varying personal distinctions. I believe science will never adequately define either of these abstractions due to the relative conceptual nature of both.

My belief is that we could address abstractions, such as love and happiness, until the cows come home and rarely would we agree completely. However, in relation to peace, I believe that all conceptualizations have one distinct feature in common and that would be an absence of conflict. Not only can it be observed or seen, it can also be experienced. When the mind is free of conflict, and at peace, love/happiness will fill the void that was once monopolized by opposing dualities or conflict. In fact, I would go so far as to say that a mind at Perfect Peace (absolutely no opposition or conflict) is an enlightened mind.

Seek peace and not love or happiness since only through peace, will love and happiness naturally rise to the top. This is because love and happiness are natural qualities available only to the mind absent of conflict. In that sense, conflict is UNatural and love/happiness are contingencies based solely on the presence of peace and impeded by the presence of conflict.

(but then, I'm no clinical researcher).

Just a hunch...

Is It Good to Suffer and Sacrifice?

I have spoken to many Christian practitioners in the past and many feel that suffering should be revered. Yet, to revere suffering is essentially to alter the experience of suffering, since as a personal experience, we have applied the qualitative definition of "reverence" thereby minimizing the very experience of suffering that we seek. If I "revere" suffering can I then continue to identify myself as suffering? If my interpretation determines my experience, and I choose to 'suffer' because I feel it has spiritual value or worth in some way, have I not then diminished the potential to suffer merely through altering that interpretation? In fact, if I reflect on my past suffering, and thus see it as crucial to my current spiritual growth, have I not then altered it from suffering to something more valuable to me, possibly negating it as "suffering" altogether?

Most likely we do not "revere" suffering in the moment of suffering and we wish to be free of it, because if we did not wish to be free of it how could we identify ourself as suffering? Suffering is unwanted and demands relief. This seems to relate to the pain/pleasure principle in which we instinctively on impulse move away from pain and toward pleasure.

Possibly the differentiation is between the suffering I experience, or believe I experience now, as opposed to the suffering I reflect on as a product of my past, which I now hold to as defining me as valuable in some way based on my past suffering. In this way we can re-interpret suffering as necessary to the spiritual culmination we seek, but we should make no mistake, we have altered the interpretation and no doubt, the experience has been changed.

I can only remark on my experience of suffering and also I can only remark on my experience of my witnessing others suffer. I cannot ever know the existential experience of other's suffering, but I can project an interpretation onto others, who I interpret as suffering, based on my experience of what suffering feels like - contrast and comparison. However, frequently we may find that our interpretation of suffering projected upon others was not correct and they suffered barely or not at all. We only assumed they suffered based on our own past experience and our beliefs about why suffering should occur.

Suffering is akin to sacrifice and is a chief theoretical proposition of much Christian dogma. However, it seems that we can be free of the bonds of suffering immediately upon choosing to do so and many have claimed to have made such an 'interpretation.' Yet, this might negate 'sacrifice' and that too, is the keystone of much religious dogma, so it easy to recognize how many might choose to continue suffering due to strong adherence to the concept of sacrificing for God.

So it seems that we have 'levels' of hell that are congruent with levels of suffering. And do we simply equate less suffering with financial wealth and access to resources. The Guatemalen serfs suffer, while the wealthy landowner does not. Yet both must face death, their own and the death of loved ones and both will suffer through that. It may be that a deeper spiritual perspective will identify that both rich and poor suffer through the limits of embodied existence.

If hell is a state of mind, then clearly one's level of wealth may make little difference in that regard and many richer, developing countries have as high, if not higher, rates of suicide.

Possibly, we live our lives in a state of 'level confusion,' in which the world teaches that wealth leads to happiness, yet once wealth is accrued many often find that it makes no difference and may, in fact, intensify a 'hellacious' state of mind. Is there a general assumption that financial wealth is the way out of mental 'hell' and the associated suffering?

If our eyes continue to differentiate between the haves and the have-nots, we may become stuck in our own state of hell. "Seek not to change the world, but to change your mind about the world" (famous quote).

DO WE BELIEVE 'HAPPINESS' DEMANDS SUFFERING AND SACRIFICE?

The world is built on sacrifice and inherent to your sacrifice must be suffering, else it is not sacrifice. Even conventional society emphasizes sacrifice to a higher good. You sacrifice all your life in work expecting the reward of retirement. You sacrifice your needs and wants for your children hoping they can have a better life. We sacrifice for the beloved as symbol of our love.

We emulate those who have suffered through hard work and have attained the prize in greater wealth and access to resources. However, we tend to look down on inherited wealth as NOT emblematic of sacrifice and suffering. Were you promoted because you suffered through hard work or was it 'who you knew'? I will laud you for one and resent you for the other.

We spend years sacrificing in academic study for the reward of expert status and title. These years of suffering demand reverence to my sacrifice. My friends, you must "pay your dues" and suffering, by 'degrees,' is that payment!

Spiritual paths teach sacrifice and that you must practice and only through the deepest suffering will you reach the prize. Meditate longer, harder and deeper. Do you believe you must sacrifice the desires of 'ego' and if you are not suffering through that sacrifice then clearly your sacrifice is a sham (and God knows it!). They claim you must practice more and suffer deeper and you will attain enlightenment but, make no mistake, without sacrifice, and the suffering that makes your sacrifice ‘real,' you cannot attain bliss.

Even Eckhart Tolle's "dark night of the soul" was claimed a sacrifice of great suffering, which brought him to "enlightened mind." Could it be that this belief does a grave disservice to those who seek spiritual guidance? But if the world is built on hard work, suffering and sacrifice, God must require it, or so we suppose.

Not to KNOW, demands we suffer through the interminable learning of the truth. The truth is available, or so they say, and you must suffer through 'time' to learn of it and in that you have no choice.

Jesus sacrificed for our sins, while Buddha sacrificed self. Every religion has sacrifice and suffering within its dogma and it is from the dogma of religion that culture unfolds and imitates sacrifice (and so we have the Puritan work ethic). The morality of religion shapes and molds laws, norms and mores. All of it demands suffering and sacrifice. Work hard!

And make no mistake within your commitment to sacrifice must be suffering. Otherwise, how could you have sacrificed if you did not suffer? In fact, we glorify those who have suffered greatly in the name of sacrifice. We uphold Mother Teresa as the epitome of sacrifice and suffering.

Sacrifice is so deeply inherent to the unconscious that we could never plumb the depths of our indoctrinated idolizing of sacrifice. We do not worship God, but our sacrifice for God. We believe sacrifice has great value. We will eventually sacrifice the body for death and we will suffer through that idea in life simply because we are uncertain of the prize.

Does all this suffering and sacrifice bring us any closer to love or does it merely make us more distant? Why would God require sacrifice or is it just our own absurd idea? Is sacrifice a fact of existence or is it entirely our choice?

Could it be that suffering, sacrifice, and all that hard work you've done, was not necessary at all and, in fact, impeded your enlightenment?

Cognitive Suffering vs. Physical Pain

It seems as though we may need to differentiate between pain and suffering. Of course, we often use the metaphor of "pain" to define suffering, however, possibly pain is immediate and non-volitional, whereas suffering has a degree of volition to it. This may be why we define emotional suffering as emotional 'pain,' because who would choose to suffer emotionally. However, essentially, it seems this is actually what we all do.

If I stub my toe I will experience pain. If I choose to lament, in a prolonged manner, that painful episode I will 'suffer." In the experience of physical pain, I choose that it continue as suffering. The time it takes is my choice and I can cognitively extinguish my suffering at any time.

Is a 'broken heart' pain or suffering? I may express it as emotional 'pain' but, it seems that, inherent in the choice to love, is the choice to suffer. Pain is merely the metaphor for suffering and while I may refuse to express it as 'suffering,' deep down I realize I have chosen this experience and I can choose otherwise. If I stub my toe I cannot deny or negate my pain as it is unavoidable and undeniable. However, if you leave me for another, in my choosing love, I have chosen the potential to suffer. I can just as easily choose NOT to suffer and therefore, suffering is a volitional state of mind.

As is love.

But in saying this, do I denigrate or negate suffering? I don't think so, simply because to suffer for the right reason may be to reinforce growth. However, to suffer for the wrong reason is to repress growth. So what would be the right reason to choose suffering?

COGNITIVE CHOICE

Of all the psychotherapies available (which have evolved from the psychological theories themselves), cognitive therapy has been proven the most effective, even rivaling psychotropic medications as far as longevity of effectiveness and limited risk of relapse or remission.
The theory of cognitive therapy is based on Shakespeare's famous maxim, "nothing is neither good nor bad; but thinking makes it so." The chief theoretical proposition is that "it is NOT reality that disturbs you (suffering), but your own unique interpretation of reality, that disturbs your peace of mind." In other words, you disturb yourself.

One can have a debilitating disease or even a terminal illness and still NOT suffer or even suffer less than another person with the same illness. The idea that there are certain situations or events that require suffering is just that, nothing but an idea that requires that you choose to believe it.

BUT IS 'SUFFERING RATIONAL AND SHOULD WE CONTROL EMOTIONS

The studies have been replicated for the past 30 years and the results continue to demonstrate significant improvement through examining one's interior cognitive/thinking interpretations of life events, other people and most especially one self. I agree suffering may not be rational and is based on irrational interpretations, but either way it is a choice.

WE MAY HAVE MORE CONTROL OVER THE PAIN OF A STUBBED TOE THAN THE PAIN OF A BROKEN HEART

I agree it does seem to "feel" that way and society certainly tends to glorify suffering and sacrifice as the way to God. I tend to disagree and, in fact, hold the view that our conditioned need for suffering and sacrifice may impede spiritual correspondence.

POSITIVE THINKING IS A CRUEL IDEA TO LIVE UP TO WHEN ONE IS SUFFERING

I'm not sure what people mean by "positive thinking." Positive thinking has NOTHING to do with cognitive theory or therapy and this would be an oversimplification that minimizes from ignorance. (Seligman advocated a "positive psychology" several years ago but it is NOT based on cognitive sciences and has not made much ground since it is based on "happiness" )

Particularly in this society, we tend to experience our living based on our 'actions' and also base our personal value on what we have done and what we do. We spend much less time examining our thought patterns as that which defines our world, other people and ourselves. Many live in a "cognitive default" and fail to fully and adequately assess the interpretations and meanings that they base their actions on (this is clearly evident just by watching the news). Stop living like other people and learn to live by your own creative interpretations, rather than the interpretations you are expected to experience.

Fully examining one's interpretations and thus, beliefs, does not minimize grief and suffering and may, in fact, intensify such suffering, but for reasons based on one''s inner truth as opposed to what society and the world teaches is true.

People have a tendency to relate to others and the world from knee-jerk reactions based on unexamined assumptions resulting in downright irrational and fraudulent interpretations. This I refer to as "hell" and you may know of many who live in such a "place."

Cognitive theory allows a starting point to create a foundation for deeper spiritual development in the realization that my irrational interpretations were creating unnecessary suffering and impeding the depth of living I long for.

Consciousness and Objects

It seems that we don't know God by his effects, but only by our EXPERIENCE of 'effects' can God be known. We don't know a world by what the world exhibits or shows us, but by what our experience of the world shows us and that seems a highly relative affair. We really cannot speak of a world or a self, only our experience of a world and a self. So what's really out there as opposed to what's in mind?

Although we desperately seek agreement, in relation to experiences that are exclusive to separate individual minds, we frequently reach agreement, but never in totality and very conditionally.This is simply due to the failure to share whole and complete experiences, only words symbolizing relative experiences can be shared. Words generalize experiences and possibly that is all we can rely on, generalizations as to the truth of it all.

Nevertheless, we desperately require sharing experiences and we will stretch words as far as they can be stretched, but really when it comes down to sharing our experience of 'world' there is "nothing new under the sun." I think this is why we often find ourselves all saying the same thing only using different words over and over again, looking for the way to say it that will truly define it for all eternity. But, as the great philosophical minds have proclaimed, words are merely "symbols of symbols," since the experience that you wish to communicate is also symbolic.

Is consciousness what it is conscious of?

It certainly does seem that consciousness is the objects that constitute it, however, since we cannot study 'consciousness,' as that which contains the objects we experience, how can we know for certain what the objects are? Science has relied on empirical sense perception to define reality and clearly this is the religion we worship above any god. The problem, as even Descartes exposed, is that sense perception is extremely unreliable.

However, not one western philosopher has ever conclusively proven the existence of a 'world.' (in fact, Plotinus and George Berkley sought to prove there is NO concrete world only disparate and relative experiences from who knows where).

I am somewhat familiar with the phenomenologist, Husserl, only because I am familiar with his students Sartre and Heidegger. It seems his phenomenology sought to study the object-in-itself, minus all our conceptualizations as to defining what the objects of consciousness really are based on our mental assumptions or beliefs. We seem to live by assumptions which the eastern philosophers proclaimed illusionary, but highly powerful as experience and intensely addictive (which is an understatement if true).

At this point in time, I am inclined to believe that the "Unmoved Mover" or First Cause, has no involvement in the objects of consciousness, but IS the 'cause' of consciousness and that seems to be what most, if not all, austere spiritual paths seek to realize; pure consciousness devoid of object. Many report gleaning this experience as pure undefinable bliss.

Essentially, we study only objects and NOT consciousness. I can not objectively study my mind. What is mind? What is consciousness? What is a thought? Many centuries of western philosophy has failed to define the mind (however, eastern philosophy seems to me to have a better take on things). We can objectively measure sense impressions as registered in the brain, but is that the mind? All we can study are sense impressions processed in mind, but what is mind? science will need to go beyond sense impressions in order to study mind. But then it would not be called "science" if it did.

Does consciousness actively constitute for itself what the object is

Consciousness constitutes what an object IS based on learning what to intend as being conscious OF. Language is that mode of intention. The existentialists posited that you have not one thought in your head (consciousness) that is of your free-will and intended freely. We have learned what to be conscious of and we intend consciousness in that direction only. Rarely, can consciousness be objectless and NOT intentional based on conditioning. However, many eastern masters have proclaimed to do just that, and it has been reported as the pure bliss of absolute freedom.

Is the Unmoved Mover the cause of consciousness?

The Unmoved Mover would be the cause of the capacity (free-will) for conscious intention or Being, but not of that which is intended. Pure consciousness UNmoved is "I AM," while intended consciousness of objects is "I AM THAT." (eastern phil.)

To intend objects into this pure 'field' would be to assert imperfection through incompletion, which is exactly what we seem to believe and do. As consciousness, we intend objects through our belief of incompletion because our consciousness is experienced as detached from the pure bliss of God (Unmoved) consciousness which is unintended consciousness and requires nothing at all because it is perfect completion. Nevertheless, we do not 'experience' perfect completion and may be intending objects in consciousness as a way to find that completion. However, It seems that we come to a point in which we feel our constant intending has failed us and many, from there, seek the objectless-ness of pure consciousness with NO intention to experience anything and thus, experience God (Unmoved Mover).

How it is possible to study objects and NOT consciousness. Shouldn't we collapse the distinction?

Intellectually we can "collapse the distinction" but is that your experience? This seems similar to many of the esoteric spiritual paths which attempt to apply such a "collapse" through intrinsic practices which attempt to facilitate an experience of 'oneness' with the objects of consciousness, and many 'masters' have claimed to glean such an experience. Yet, they inform that words or language cannot define the experience and so they 'point' a way to IT by indicating the limits of language so that we do not obsess on the words (i.e., so we do not become confused with the finger pointing to the moon as the moon)

My poor 'existential reference was in regard to Sartre's claim that we live essentially in "Bad Faith." Unfortunately, most of the existentialists were atheists and that is where I part with the thinking and relate more to Marcel, Buber and Tillich to some degree.

And yes, the "I AM" is not experienced in any pure or complete sense, since we only experience 'self' as "I AM THAT" and the consistent change inherent in that experience, which is incomplete seeking completion' or seeking the freedom of "I AM" and nothing else. The "I AM" refers to nothing we can be conscious of and I believe this is where Sartre (nothingness) and Heidegger were heading, particularly with Heidegger's seeking the ground of 'Being' as opposed to the ground we reference in "being as..."

To our consciousness 'being as,' is real life and, in fact, the only way of Being we can contemplate. Yet many great minds assert this is illusional and deceptive. For our consciousness of objects, 'Being' is always predicated on 'being as' something. This 'fills' consciousness and impedes the completion experienced through 'I AM." Essentially, it seems that the complete totality of 'I AM" is the experience of God. But that's the report of the claimants who have 'tasted/touched' the experience. (not me, of course, I'm still struggling with the I AM THAT).

Ego's Need for Power and Control

Many present a picture of "those who thirst for power" as though this objective was some deviant aspiration that only a few are afflicted. Systems that attempt to abridge this natural predisposition for power and control in all human beings eventually succumb to change through the stronger drive inherent in this need. Ego seeks self-protection through power and control. The greater the power the more control is exerted over an external environment that threatens its existence.

Therefore, it would seem that consciousness seeks out ways to reduce victimization from an external reality that seems determined to control consciousness or, at the least, demand that consciousness attend to it exclusively. In fact, we may attempt to become more compassionate to each other, but nature has no consideration for our compassion and has demonstrated this through natural calamities that annihilate whole populations.

Thus, many may ask why seek to end man's inhumanity to man when nature will simply fill the vacuum (if we even could alter our hatred of one another). Why try to alter the human model when nature/reality does not adhere to our model anyway and is indifferent to our modes of compassion and destruction. Imagine the day when we all finally become compassionate to one another only to be decimated by a rogue virus or taken out be an asteroid.

This is why I see little hope for an external solution that only maintains our consciousness as powerless and victim to the whims of an external physical reality or natural universe. The solution will be a product of a consciousness (collective/individual) that includes nature as an object of consciousness and amenable to the intentions of collective consciousness. All attempts at tweaking the external world, ignorant of human predispositions which cannot be altered (if consciousness continues to be victim of external reality and ignorant of nature's being impervious to our plans) are destined to continued the "repetition-compulsion" of centuries of failure and suffering.

The solution is Spirit within and when whole populations can be convinced of this then I imagine change through consciousness will result in change in reality.

I don't necessarily feel that we inherently have a need for "power," per say, yet the ego does desire to be less a victim of external reality. Therefore, I believe we all do tend to impose ever greater levels of 'control' over our individual world or, as Heidegger phrased it, our tiny, individualized "realm of care and concern."

Possibly, it may only be perceived as "power" when control reaches levels to where we inadvertently impose our control upon others. Thus, when our reality expands to include ever greater realms, we thus have a greater likelihood to make impositions upon reality which has greater control on more levels and more people and this we refer to as "power."

This highlights the ego's undeniable need to control reality, which could be perceived as the initial stages of the affliction of suffering which results from extreme uses of power. There is no doubt that we can perceive ourselves as victim of our world and even our routine everyday interactions with reality are chock full of 'reality' pressing in upon us as we, in turn, press back, so as to assert greater levels of control based on our belief in attaining an order to the things we perceive. Such an 'order' is often perceived as achieving 'happiness.'

Maybe real "freedom" is the complete absence of the NEED to control reality and thus greater freedom is inherent in less need to control? So if one day everyone in the world were to wake up and suddenly believe, right down to the deepest unconscious layers of the mind, that "everything as as it should be," would everything then finally be as it should be? (but that is referred to "magical thinking").

However, it is doubtful that such a condition could ever be attained since all that is required is one person to believe in control and thus impose the specifics of that belief upon reality and we would then need to press back against that belief with our own relative conceptualization of the way things should be. This seems to be the way things currently evolve or develop. Interfere in my attempts at control and I will work to impede your attempts and such is the dynamics of war.

We could become "addicted" to control. However, in the clinical domain the colloquial or conventional term "addiction" is replaced with the term dependency (addiction has too many different meanings). Thus, many are dependent on control regardless of the effects of that control on others which we then define as "power." Belief in an external world requires control to some extent, in order to avoid victimization, and we seem to measure "power" by the degree that my attempt to control reality imposes ON or, in fact, oppresses others.

Thus, to avoid the potential for the existence of power, we would need to attain a conscious belief that control is not needed or, in fact, less needed in all domains of existence. Yet, I sense this would be equivalent to a kind of mass suicide since we all so dearly demand control and, in fact, we consider control of reality our God-given right and we consider this ability to attain ever greater control the "pursuit of happiness."

Can Collective Consciousness realize that no control is needed?

I believe the collective consciousness or 'One Mind' must give up the need for control and this can only happen when many separate minds realize One Mind or Oneness.

The problem is the body. Bodies cannot join, only minds can truly embrace and merge (and I don't mean "paranormally"). Love is an experience of mind and can only be expressed ineffectively through bodily connections, although conventional culture emphasizes bodily connections as the way to an experience of "love." In my opinion, this tends to obstruct real spiritual communion from which Spirit can be realized.

Therefore, any larger "worldview" that is initiated through individual 'selves' must, in a sense, emphasize mind over body. The package of beliefs consciousness reflects ON as 'self' is body-mind dualism. Yet, the emphasis tends to be body and the world attests to this conceptualization, since our greatest fear is the death of the body and we live out our lives vigilant to protecting the 'self' from this possibility. We tend to hold to some tenuous belief that the mind will carry on or take on another form or go to God, or whatever. Life as we know it demands priority be accorded the body above the mind, since the priority belief is that "you only have one life to live, so make the best of it."

Any radical paradigm change must seek to reverse this current emphasis. The mind must take precedence above body and there can be no equalizing or seeking an equivalence. This requires a radical reversal to everyday life and not simply the adoption of some "contemplative-meditative" practices. Joining must be emphasized as nonsexual thereby allowing sexual emphasis to simply recede to the background while the mental realm gains in significance (this does not negate sex, but simply puts in proper perspective within the 'whole'). Physical attachments are then transformed as helpful to mental joining but that the merging of minds is priority or 'job no #1."

Collective change is spiritual simply because it will require that we no longer equate oneself exclusively with a body or even emphatically a body. This is an important distinction because the body-mind belief package requires the attribution of truth to both the body and the mind. However, we perceive the dissolution and eventual demise of the body, yet we have no clear perceptions (just relative beliefs) from which to consider the eventual disposition of the mind in relation to the death of the body. This leaves us with only theoretical speculations (religion and Wilber) but these speculations are only of concern to us in relation to the death of the body, since this is our greatest fear and our greatest obstacle.

When I leave or am finished with the body (die), what is the fate of the mind? But notice that each of these considerations of death require the body and the mind exist as my "self." This demands a 'reality' supportive of this evaluation. Therefore, since we evaluate our existence on perceptive attributions or sensory data, obviously the body takes on greater significance. Thus we attend to our actions more then our thoughts, often rethinking situations as an after thought subsequent to our actions. The old adage "actions speak louder then words" may be an impediment to paradigm change. The fact is we can share actions and behaviors when, in fact, we need to share minds.

What if the body were to become less significant than the mind, rather than the current evaluation of body over mind? What if we began to formulate the purposes of our lives based on the body holding less significance and the mind acquiring ever greater significance?

Can we find away to transfer this radical change in self-perspective to soccer moms and Nascar dads? What a colossal task, but I think doable!

Power and Control are expressed through objects/possessions.

Clearly this is correct. However, I believe that a focus on class distinctions in relation to power is missing the natural inclination of the ego-mind to immediately seek out differences and distinctions for which to contrast "self" in relation to. The ego is self-protective by nature and any contact with another ego/self demands the mind determine level of threat or benefit based on self-interest. Making class distinctions is evaluating threat based on access to resources, which are symbolized by objects of ownership, since that has been socioculturally determined as demonstrative of wealth which is our most powerful means of separating individual ego-selves.

Nevertheless, if it were not objects of wealth, then the mind would utilize other means of distinction, such as when class distinctions are equal. If we were both middle class and indiscriminately equal in all external appearances then the ego would seek out alternative distinctions from which to contrast, compare and thus, seek control. The mind's need to make evaluative distinctions (judgments) between other embodied ego's can never cease due to the nature of the separate mind-self. Belief in separate ego/self demands that I immediately (reflexively) determine what separates us, since that maintains my autonomy. This is effortless and automatic in a culture that values wealth, however, in cultures were wealth is not the discriminating factor, distinctions may be determined by other hierarchical factors such as physical abilities, charismatic factors, age, body shape, etc, etc.

I suppose we could seek to require an equalization of wealth in the hopes of reducing the discriminating effects of that type of distinction. Yet the mind's natural need to maintain separation through value judgments would seek out other modes of inequality.

Thus, sadly, there is no hope for separate minds to cease maintaining separation, since it is essentially a life and death issue. Merging or Oneness of separate minds defines the death of separate autonomous selves and this is very fearful to say the least.

Marxism and other economic based ideologies fail to account for the nature of ego-mind in the zeal to indict those who hold power. Ego-mind control of power distinctions is a natural predisposition and it makes no difference how power is symbolized in the culture because separate ego-mind wants ever greater control of it to more clearly differentiate itself as separate from others.

Even the 'integral map' could not effectively minimize hierarchical value judgments, in relation to levels and tiers, in the ego's need to remain separate.

The only real means of minimizing such ego external hierarchical distinguishing is to somehow inculcate culture with a value "meme" or paradigm that would seek to make mind take precedence over body-physical distinctions.

Alas, even that may be victim to ego distinctions between minds, creating hierarchical levels and thus discriminations based on ego/self interest.

Many tend to confuse needs with wants. How can anyone disagree that people need to eat, sleep, drink and be sheltered. You and I have that, but of course we want more than just the fulfillment of instinctual necessities in order to be 'happy.'

Obviously, it is our 'wants' (since developed countries are higher up in Maslow's heriarchy) that may be obstructing other less developed populations elsewhere from having their 'needs' met. This is because we now define 'happiness' in more extravagant and sophisticated ego-body desires rather than simply instinctual needs and this requires resources.

We now desire fulfilling 'careers,' as opposed to jobs, which is more a 'want,' than a 'need.' Individuals in poor economies simply want a paycheck so they can eat, while we expect a good salary so we can eat-out. In addition, we want our shelters to make us happy, while Burma and China simply want shelters that keep them alive while they sleep.

Therefore, as long as there is this discrepancy between 'wants' and 'needs' there will always be gross inequalities globally. NO system of economics can adapt to this discrepancy, since for their 'needs' to be fulfilled, that might require that our 'wants' be sacrificed and we would suffer accordingly based on our 'wanting' happiness and the various unnecessary methods we have determined adequate to our seeking happiness or self-fulfillment (a term we use to define 'happiness').

Should we sacrifice our 'wants' for the 'needs' of the many. Any economic system that does not take the heirarchy of needs into consideration is doomed to failure. But then any system that does take this into consideration will, nevertheless, reveal failure.

Maybe when the 'haves' come to realize that what they 'have' has never, and will never, sustain them on a deeper Spiritual level, (and the have nots see the same in relation to bodily wants as opposed to needs) seeking happiness will be an intrinisic pursuit not based on economic or external considerations. Possibly an economic system based on fulfilling global instinctual 'needs' equitably, with no consideration of bodily 'wants,' may be sustainable.

Sadly, it does not seem we are moving toward any such system.

Peace is "Happiness"

I believe that essentially we are seeking peace and not happiness. However, PEACE cannot be experienced individually or even through a "world" unless complete and absolute EQUALITY is the source or foundation.

We need to discard our varied and confusing concepts of "happiness" and "the pursuit of happiness" since there can be no EQUALITY through such thinking only more conflict. However, concepts of PEACE are not varied and I think we can all conceptualize PEACE as the absence of conflict. Even though we have levels of peace as well, we can ALL more adequately agree on the concept of PEACE then we can on our concepts of "happiness." In fact, I would advocate that "happines" does not exist and only peace can be known. Maybe it's time for a paradigm change?

I find integral theory to be an incredible monument to the power of the intellect. However, it is because of its failure to postulate theoretical formulations of EQUALITY that cause me to essentially find it useless in seeking PEACE. I think we can all agree that without PEACE, there can be no concepts of happiness (no matter how convoluted and variable our concepts of happiness are).

Unfortunately, the levels and degrees of AQAL "evolution" seems to negate equalizing humanity and instead overly addresses individual levels and tiers. Therefore, what begins as an excellent descriptor ot the evolving mind, regresses into the same type of theoretical differentiating that all other evolutionary theories advocate as truth. For integral spirituality, we all have the truth "within" yet some of us have more awareness of that and therefore, are more evolved, hence, EQUALITY suffers, thus peace is distantiated and essentially negated, once again.

Make no mistake, PEACE will never be realized except in a "reality" of absolute EQUALITY with no levels, stages or degrees. Absolute EQUALITY is absolute PEACE and thus, the Source/God we seek. The Christ/Buddha message focused on this absolute EQUALITY through the complete discarding of ALL our judgmental capacities (over time this message was polluted due to the need to judge heirarchies of an external reality). This is why the Christ message relied so heavily on non-judgment since PERFECT PEACE can only be realized through PERFECT EQUALITY.

Unless I see YOU as equal in every respect to me, with no differentiation or discrimination whatsoever, absolute PEACE cannot be experienced at all, whatsoever. All individual endeavors to attain transcendence are destined to fail in achieving Universal PEACE. The best we can attain individually, is in experiencing a "taste" of what that might be like. Hopefully, this taste of perfect equality, if experienced by many, will result in the evolution of absolute PEACE through absolute EQUALITY. Yet, the very moment we conceptualize (believe) a level or stage, etc, in any way, it's all finished and PEACE is lost to INEQUALITY, only because we SEE (believe) there are differences.

The reality of unified Oneness cannot be known through dis-unified perceptions, but only through the reduction of the conscious partitioning of differences. See beyond the dualistic threads that holds the fabric together and see the entire monistic garment of reality.