From a site visitor: I read your postings about Christmas traditions and most of it made sense. I’ve also been going thru your archives and last summer you said the Dark Ages was when ignorant people valued traditions. I agree with your argument that doing things a certain way “because they have always been done that way” is not smart, but isn’t there some value to observing some traditions?
F.: First and foremost, WHO can value traditions or anything else? Answer that and then the remainder of this response can be seen as entertainment only.
The “honoring of traditions” has certainly been given high standing in most cultures for many centuries if not for millenia. Of course, concepts and beliefs and dogma and ideas have also been given high ratings in most cultures for many centuries if not for millenia. Too, the body and “mind” have been given high standing in many cultures for many centuries and for many millenia. So, where’s the rub?
Here’s the rub (in a syllogistic format):
1. Traditions are observed in an attempt to buttress the illusion of continuity.
2. The illusion of continuity is the basic desire of all persons, and non-continuity is the basic fear of all persons.
3. Desire and fear rob persons of peace and generate distortion as well as misery and suffering and unnatural behavior.
Ergo, the “honoring of traditions” will always eventually generate misery and suffering.
Is that a false conclusion or even an overstatement? Recall the man in the postings about Christmas who said, “Can you say anything I haven’t yet heard that might help me make it through this season?” An e-mail the previous day from the man revealed that he was suicidal. He thought his suffering was happening because that was going to be the first Christmas in years when he would not be able to do the traditional things he had done repeatedly in the past with his family. Recall the woman who said, “Before my husband died, this was the best time of the year. Since, it’s become the worst.” Recall the woman who said, “We loved the holidays until our son was killed ten years ago by a drunk driver. Now, we hate these days and just struggle to try to survive every year.” The “holiday season” is only “the most wonderful time of the year” for those persons who are establishing and practicing traditions. It is “the most horrible time of the year” for those persons who were conditioned by establishing and honoring their traditions. They were being "set up" all along for the suffering that would come when, inevitably, those traditions could no longer be practiced. Now, they pass their days in the misery of a "death-in-life" existence and in the duality and chaos of their relative existence cycles of "highs" and "lows."
Desiring as they do “The Big Continuity” (an everlasting body and mind and personality that will experience bliss for eternity), persons subsequently desire thousands of “Little Continuities” to reinforce their belief that continuity is an actual possibility. But the belief can also reinforce their fears that (1) continuity might not be possible or that (2) continuity is possible but that theirs will involve eternal punishment rather than eternal bliss. The belief can lull partners into a sleep state where they believe that “all is going so well with us” when the fact is that (a) one or both are miserable or (b) one or both are in denial about how unbelievably bored they are or about how miserable and depressed they are with their "death-in-life" relative existence. Forget joy and bliss for persons. You would do well to find even one in two-hundred thousand who is truly happy and truly at peace. Divorce rates and murder rates among partners confirm that as fact.
So what do those “Little Continuities” look like? They look like constantly-repeated habits or like continually-practiced traditions that are observed daily, weekly or annually. Persons can look at school pictures taken in the first grade and pictures taken in the twelfth grade and believe that they are seeing the one, same body. They can then believe that the same body has continued to last for a dozen years, reinforcing their false sense of self. Persons can go to the same restaurant on the same night of each week and be recognized by the same greeter and served by the same waiter as they order their same entrées. (“Will you be having the usual tonight?”) If persons on the same week of the same summer month go to the same resort in the same countryside and think that they are seeing the same river, their sense of continuity can be reinforced.
If every Hunnakah they take out the same menorah or if every Ramadan they make the same pilgrimage and enter the same edifice, their preformance of those traditional doings is reinforcing a false sense of continuity as well as a false sense that the do-er (and all of the do-er’s roles) are lasting and in tact. If every Christmas season, persons set out the same decorations that they have seen for five years or seen for a decade or seen for many decades, the “doing” of their traditions is reinforcing their false belief in continuity, their false belief that their roles are real, the false beliefs that all is well with those roles, and the false belief that their bodies and minds and roles and relationships will remain in tact for eternity.
F.: First and foremost, WHO can value traditions or anything else? Answer that and then the remainder of this response can be seen as entertainment only.
The “honoring of traditions” has certainly been given high standing in most cultures for many centuries if not for millenia. Of course, concepts and beliefs and dogma and ideas have also been given high ratings in most cultures for many centuries if not for millenia. Too, the body and “mind” have been given high standing in many cultures for many centuries and for many millenia. So, where’s the rub?
Here’s the rub (in a syllogistic format):
1. Traditions are observed in an attempt to buttress the illusion of continuity.
2. The illusion of continuity is the basic desire of all persons, and non-continuity is the basic fear of all persons.
3. Desire and fear rob persons of peace and generate distortion as well as misery and suffering and unnatural behavior.
Ergo, the “honoring of traditions” will always eventually generate misery and suffering.
Is that a false conclusion or even an overstatement? Recall the man in the postings about Christmas who said, “Can you say anything I haven’t yet heard that might help me make it through this season?” An e-mail the previous day from the man revealed that he was suicidal. He thought his suffering was happening because that was going to be the first Christmas in years when he would not be able to do the traditional things he had done repeatedly in the past with his family. Recall the woman who said, “Before my husband died, this was the best time of the year. Since, it’s become the worst.” Recall the woman who said, “We loved the holidays until our son was killed ten years ago by a drunk driver. Now, we hate these days and just struggle to try to survive every year.” The “holiday season” is only “the most wonderful time of the year” for those persons who are establishing and practicing traditions. It is “the most horrible time of the year” for those persons who were conditioned by establishing and honoring their traditions. They were being "set up" all along for the suffering that would come when, inevitably, those traditions could no longer be practiced. Now, they pass their days in the misery of a "death-in-life" existence and in the duality and chaos of their relative existence cycles of "highs" and "lows."
Desiring as they do “The Big Continuity” (an everlasting body and mind and personality that will experience bliss for eternity), persons subsequently desire thousands of “Little Continuities” to reinforce their belief that continuity is an actual possibility. But the belief can also reinforce their fears that (1) continuity might not be possible or that (2) continuity is possible but that theirs will involve eternal punishment rather than eternal bliss. The belief can lull partners into a sleep state where they believe that “all is going so well with us” when the fact is that (a) one or both are miserable or (b) one or both are in denial about how unbelievably bored they are or about how miserable and depressed they are with their "death-in-life" relative existence. Forget joy and bliss for persons. You would do well to find even one in two-hundred thousand who is truly happy and truly at peace. Divorce rates and murder rates among partners confirm that as fact.
So what do those “Little Continuities” look like? They look like constantly-repeated habits or like continually-practiced traditions that are observed daily, weekly or annually. Persons can look at school pictures taken in the first grade and pictures taken in the twelfth grade and believe that they are seeing the one, same body. They can then believe that the same body has continued to last for a dozen years, reinforcing their false sense of self. Persons can go to the same restaurant on the same night of each week and be recognized by the same greeter and served by the same waiter as they order their same entrées. (“Will you be having the usual tonight?”) If persons on the same week of the same summer month go to the same resort in the same countryside and think that they are seeing the same river, their sense of continuity can be reinforced.
If every Hunnakah they take out the same menorah or if every Ramadan they make the same pilgrimage and enter the same edifice, their preformance of those traditional doings is reinforcing a false sense of continuity as well as a false sense that the do-er (and all of the do-er’s roles) are lasting and in tact. If every Christmas season, persons set out the same decorations that they have seen for five years or seen for a decade or seen for many decades, the “doing” of their traditions is reinforcing their false belief in continuity, their false belief that their roles are real, the false beliefs that all is well with those roles, and the false belief that their bodies and minds and roles and relationships will remain in tact for eternity.
(Some might ask at this point, "Why can't all that be done without attachment and without assuming false roles?" The answer is, "It can." Some might ask, "If the Realized pass the remainder of the manifestation by living in an AS IF fashion, why can't those events just happen as a part of that?" The answer is, "They can. The Realized don't buy into memories and false perceptions and distortions. They do not assume that the false is the real, so they do not become conditioned and set up for misery and suffering when things change, as they inevitably will. They witness whatever happens, period. They can even witness feelings rise and fall as things happens, but they do not become emotionally intoxicated, so they do not experience suffering and misery.")
So all of that “sameness” discussed above only reinforces a false sense of continuity. It also stockpiles a huge mass of “memories” which are nothing more than “mental collections based in illusion.” So you are now invited to reconsider your own question: “Isn’t there some value to observing some traditions?" How would you answer that now? If totally conditioned, you will still believe, "Yes." If awakening to the lie of continuity, you might reconsider. If seeing the actual effects of being programmed to believe in "sameness" when the truth of the universe involves cycling and change and entropy and atrophy, you might acquire an appreciation for non-attachment, especially non-attachment to false roles and false memories and distorted perceptions and false beliefs about "the way things were" when they were not that way at all. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [To be continued]
