Saturday, January 7, 2012

Doing the Work Of Good is hard work


I’m reading “Living with Miracles”, new book by D. Patrick Miller. 

He quotes from the Course about how Harmless and Helpful goes together. I was reminded: 
LR Hubbard said that a man is as happy and productive as he perceives himself to be dangerous to his environment. 
He said he’d realized this after he'd been walking home one night, and he was threatened by three drunk sailors. He “handled” them in the violent fashion of one of his own fictional heroes, including a broken bottle into the face of one of them. And after that he said, he was super-productive and on top of the world for days! 

You’ll notice that for this to be true, a person must be basically on permanent and essential war footing with the whole of the rest of creation. 

BTW he may have just made it up (the fight), but doubtlessly it was in line with his beliefs. He saw himself as the greatest spiritual king of ages, battling alongside a ragged bunch of incompetent but lovable rascals against incredible odds, to literally save not only the Earth, but the whole universe and all universes beyond it from the otherwise inevitable slide into something which would make Dante’s Inferno seem like a day at McDonalds. 
Literally, no irony, no metaphors, no exaggeration. Saving the *whole* of creation, by himself with a little help. 
And his enemies were similarly great, of course, with “Xenu” being the yang to his Yin, the evil being of evil beings, who apparently also almost single-handedly engineered the “downward spiral” of the universes since time began. 
And so it goes without saying that if you have to main and kill at little at times in order to achieve such ends as Saving Civilization, that’s trivial. Nay, admirable, because you did what you had to without hesitation or fear of reprisal. 

Funny enough that last philosophy is echoed by many hard-science-fiction authors, like Robert Heinlein, Algis Budrys, van Vogt, Orson Scott Card, Jerry Pournelle… 

Of course it’s just a slightly bigger vision of the whole “Dirty Harry” syndrome of the Ego’s, that if there’s evil out there, you kill it. And if you happen to find pleasure in such killing and maybe shoot a few times more than strictly necessary (notice how Dirty Harry movies (and "Unforgiven") always end in an orgy of shooting), then that’s of course only because you’re the Good Guy and you enjoy doing the Work Of Good. 

And you know that you are the Good Guy because you are doing the Work Of Good. And, er, vice versa! Perfect logic! 

And you know who the bad guys are, because they shoot first! Except of course at times when you, the Good Guy, has to shoot first to stop the Bad Guy from doing it. It’s all obvious and can be seen by everybody except those who are either Enemies or Traitors. (And the number of traitors which can stack up by a really great Good Guy is fabulous.) 

7 comments:

Hedda said...

Thanks for telling about this book , I just finished it !
I also "found" Jed McKenna thanks to your blog.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Thanks, Hedda, I'm very happy to hear it.

(How did you find this blog? I think it's a bit obscure.)

Hedda said...

I found your blog a long time ago thanks to your ACIM youtube videos :)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Oh cool. Glad you stuck around.

Yes, those vids on YouTube, I think they did some good, many people saw them.
Sadly that account got deleted, I stepped on one too many copyright-toes.
(I talked to somebody who was in the film though, and they felt it was OK, it was meant to be seen.)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

BTW, Hedda, what'd you think of McKenna? How's he different than other authors in that arena?

Hedda said...

McKenna has a different tone ; sometimes harsh. He "rattles the cage" in a loud way ! I.e: Q: " You make Spiritual Autolysis sound rather unpleasant". A: " Yes, Arthur, it's an unpleasant process."
I have only read his first book and I liked it. I read these other books when I take a break from ACIM and Wapnick :)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Yes, that's exact it about McKenna. He says many harsh things which you won't hear anybody else say.
He may be making a bit too sweeping statements about the whole "spiritual community". But that's less important, it's clear to me he's the real deal (awakened) and know from what he talks.

The second and third books get pretty far out, but may be even more important.

Some data are doubtful, for example his blanket statement that the final awakening procedure takes 18-24 months. I wish!

But I love that he admits that it's an unpleasant process. So much that one can't really go into it willfully, it's like sawing off one's own head. But if it happens, it's good to be prepared.