[Oe List ...] From The New Yorker: Does Knowing God Just Take Practice?

Fri Nov 20 09:03:37 PST 2020

Jim and All,

There is a serious dimension to this conversation, but for now I don’t want to use the points made in the article so we can see where our work in the Archives is based on a different understanding and therefore can be helpful in this. But I will use the election madness as a point of reference. 

You have to understand the difference between a number and a class. When you have only two choices (say there aren’t any third options and you have to pick). You have to say either A or B. That is a number. When you are done the result is either A or B. One wins one loses. Now that is a specific situation, so it is obvious either or. 

But what is “two-ness” as a class? Examine the relationship between any two things, and the two things must continue (or you are back to a particular situation). So you have a tension, they both must stay in being. You cannot say “compromise” because compromise is a third option, and “two-ness” doesn’t have a third option (if you do add a third you now have “”three-ness"”, a different reality -a dynamic triangle and not a line). So if you must keep two and you want both to “win” that winning must enable or produce a feeling of winning and that is called Harmony. Again, we are not talking about a specific situation, but you can draw what harmony looks like, and that is what the Chinese did with the Yin and Yang. It is now called a “creative tension” for creativity flows from it. 

In a situation we have no control of we see two differences play out every day, It is called “day” and “night”. Each is different, each has a nature the other does not have, each is required to make up a complete “day”. You have “day-ness” and “night-ness”. You experience it as a Harmony; you experience the beauty of stillness and darkness and you experience the action and the light of day. They are different, they are complementary they are both good and they are a Harmony. 

To not add a third term to the two-ness, you must stand outside and speak about it: you need a “Story” that speaks of Harmony. You listen to the Story (like an Opera) and you intuit your particular situation as really a Harmony, and it is okay. You can live with it through the Story. Now a Harmonic Story is a “True Story”, but you can make up a story (called a lie) to show it doesn’t matter who got the most votes because the Truth “rightness" is one the one side and the other is an illusion. And when the “Story” is: The greatest democracy on Earth, and We are #1, and we lead the world and….…” is dying (and you don’t know it) then you hold on to any story that keeps that illusion alive (on both sides). It is Dead, it just looks like it is still breathing. The Earth now is now speaking; “YOU NEED A NEW STORY”. And it whispers, “Start where you are, in the local: for that is where you are alive and grounded." 

To make this into what is emerging you need to move beyond this particular madness. Majority rule no longer works. It used to, but it is gone. We are in a new world now where Harmony must become our guide. It must start with a Story. A Story that everyone begins to grasp is really real. We did that in Town Meeting, where the Story (Song and Symbol) enabled Harmony to be present as they worked together. They didn’t have to vote any more. We did that in HDP, where the Story enabled people to work on making it better, knowing it didn’t matter if you were part of the starting, or in the middle of the change that others had done, or later when everyone was dead, but you are part of the continuation of the Story. (Harvest Time). Harmony, Disruption, Creativity, Change. Harmony…….. The Story goes on, the four Beats go on, Harmony goes on. And nobody votes. 

“Three-ness” requires more paragraphs but we can see it in our Social Process (balanced/Harmony) It is Universal for any human society, thus the Social Process). 

We only need to go to "four-ness” because that now adds Life as the fourth term. It takes 9 (and only 9) to show how it works, and you can find those nine in our NRM Chart and our Archives topic areas. Harmony is there, but you need to know how the flow goes. Sometime when you want me to, I can talk through the Flow. But first grasp what is “two-ness” and “three-ness”: because “four-ness” has both of those within how the flow goes. Harmony requires it. 

But as a clue the harmonic dance is a three-step Waltz! The two-ness is the background two-step drum, the four-ness is a March. But what about “One-ness, you ask??? Ahh, that is the Silence. You can hear the sound of silence if you are real still or quiet. 

And Jim, you know more about “three-ness” in our Social Process than any of us. 

Peace,

Jack

> On Nov 19, 2020, at 8:45 PM, Jack Gilles <jackcgilles at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Jim,
> 
> I listened to this before. This whole essay on the book is based on a fallacy of the question. It is why RS-1 is so powerful. It is why we always spelled the word as G-O-D, to designate that which cannot be contained by any word, or words. To listen to this is to find yourself in a mess (a very technical word). It goes nowhere. 
> 
> Had it been written this week it could say, "Maybe Trump really did win the election, perhaps we have just created a universe in our minds that says he lost".
> 
> Get some rest and keep doing the great work you do so well!! There are profound questions we do need to dialogue upon. 
> 
> Peace,
> 
> Jack
> 
> On Thu, Nov 19, 2020 at 5:23 PM James Wiegel via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net <mailto:oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>> wrote:
> Anyone read this?  
> 
> Does Knowing God Just Take Practice?
> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/11/09/does-knowing-god-just-take-practice <https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/11/09/does-knowing-god-just-take-practice>
> 
> Get the writers you love, plus your favorite cartoons, on your phone or tablet. Download The New Yorker Today. https://itunes.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1081530898?pt=45076&ct=App%20Share&mt=8 <https://itunes.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1081530898?pt=45076&ct=App%20Share&mt=8>
> 
> Jim Wiegel
> “A revolution is on the horizon:  a wholesale transformation of the world economy and the way people live.”  Fred Krupp
> 
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