Kevin Walthall, Columnist Published 11:32 a.m. PT April 26, 2020

Can we trust the media? The World Health Organization? The Centers for Disease Control? Dr. Fauci? Whos fact-checking the fact-checkers? How do we know the earth isn'tflat?

It seems the line between free-thinking and conspiracy theorizing has been blurring. A seemingly healthy distrust of authority has bled over into an unhealthy distrust of authoritative fact, with little room for nuance. The governor and the state legislature, informed by the most qualified medical experts in the nation, have decided on a path that isnt happy, easy or prosperous for anyone. Its bitter medicine we have to take to prevent loss of life. And yet, Im taken aback by the insanity of the quarantine protests, the random individualistic belligerence, and the conspiracy theories Im seeing. How did we get to the point where the average person feels qualified to rebuke and disregard actual experts? And why do average people feel compelled to do so?

In my own lifetime, it seems weve gone from qualifying our opinions with "I'm no expert, but it seems to me like..." to cavalierly dismissing actual experts. The same general sentiments are more irreverent and destructive now that accountability to authoritative truth has been abolished. This hyper-vigilance against institutional bias smells like personal bias -- the desire for control, for answers, and for woke status. Its more comforting to believe seismic forces are under the control of some shadowy cabal than it is to believe the terrifying truth that nobody controls this thing. Conspiracy theories are comforting because they offer the illusion of order where there is none.

Im comforted by some sober truths of human nature: If youve done what it takes to become powerful, you have powerful enemies waiting to protect and publicize any whistleblower with the information to bring you down. Thats a guarantee. And if Bush did 9/11 or Democrats are destroying the economy to make Trump look bad, youd better believe there would be powerful players on the other side of the aisle actively seeking to reveal concrete proof. The fact is, there is none.

The media (which is apparently monolithic) makes its money off scandals. The media outlet that covers up a political or corporate scandal goes bankrupt. You dont have to trust in altruism to trust the media. You can trust self-interest.

When it comes to anecdotes of authorities getting information wrong, our response should be analogous to Russell Wilson throwing an interception -- sure, the person in the spotlight made a mistake, but that doesnt mean someone can come in off the couch and do a better job. The solution to media bias seems to be The media is biased, therefore Im going to believe whatever I want. I think we lose faith in institutions when we expect those institutions to somehow be perfect, but thats unrealistic. Journalism has always been a very human, flawed thing. It historically goes through cycles from muckraking on one end, to borderline propaganda on the other. Its reporting has always referenced an assumed common lexicon of values, but that commonality is disintegrating, and the media is left trying to deliver public health announcements to Babel.

The CDC, WHO and Dr. Fauci represents the worlds most qualified medical expertise -- but if youre willing to second-guess the credentials of the worlds leading experts, youre probably willing to second-guess the people who determine those credentials in the first place. In fact, youre probably willing to second guess everything -- everything except yourself. And thats at the root of the problem. Well go through extremely inconvenient mental gymnastics to arrive at convenient conclusions.

Ive never seen deep-dives into fringe sources result in a more nuanced worldview. Ive never seen a Republican gain respect for a Democrat, or vice-versa through secret revelations for the faithful. Ive never seen a paranoid, distrustful person enter the wormhole of selective fact-finding and emerge with faith in an imperfect system held together by checks and balances. I fear the sum effect of the Information Age has been the ability to find the facts we want to believe. Weve been empowered to launder opinions through a network of shell sources and truths presented with falsified contexts.

To be clear, Im not asking anyone to slide into any one entrenched position, nor am I advocating for total agnosticism. By all means, fact-check and think critically, but embrace some humility before the face of messy reality and absolute -- but often obscured -- truth. Im asking us to address the fact that real life is not a comic book filled with heroes and villains, and if were going to live in real life, were going to live with unresolved tensions. Were going to live with a lack of answers. Were going to live with some frustrations. But hopefully we can all be frustrated and humble together, seeing the human tensions within one another.

The older I get, the more I want to be simple. The word integrity derives from integer, a whole number. This word, often thrown around as a synonym for morality, means a lack of duplicity. It means wholeness and consistency within oneself. I am not a bastion of integrity, but I want to be.

I want to recognize a good idea when I hear it, regardless of who it comes from. I want to be the same person in front of my Bible that I am on social media. I want to be the same person with my daughter that I am with people who annoy me. I want her to master this ethos better than I have.

The Enlightenment places a high value on individualism, the mind, and questioning traditions and institutions. I find it ironic that the Enlightenment is, itself, a tradition institutionalized in our Constitution that often goes unquestioned. While the Enlightenment produced our constitution, it also produced the French Reign of Terror. Many Enlightenment thinkers, James Madison and several notable founding fathers included, were concerned that the American system was too populist an interpretation of these ideals, enabling our basest desires to be preyed upon and politicized in a system that would eventually devolve through sensationalism into mob rule.

As individuals, the Enlightenment creates its own system of honor and shame. How do we prove our intelligence to the world, and thus win honor? I submit that its through expressing opinions. This is where I find the Dunning-Kruger Effect to be fascinating. The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a cognitive bias where people of low ability in a task often overestimate their competency because they dont fully understand what competency looks like. Basically, they dont know what they dont know. Those who have the strongest opinions on a subject often have strong opinions because they dont fully understand the subject - confidence in an opinion is usually a symptom of ignorance.

Believe me, the irony of this coming from an opinion columnist is not lost on me. Wise King Solomon says it better:

A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion. -Proverbs 18:2

Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent, and discerning if they hold their tongues. - Proverbs 17:28

Side note: Whatever happened to philosopher-kings?

Theres integrity in the simple words I dont know. Theres integrity in qualifying opinions with based on what Ive learned, this is what I think - but I may be wrong. I have a Bachelors in American History. I know more than the average bear in that department, but if I encounter someone more educated, Im going to listen more than I speak. I might know something they dont. They might be wrong about something. Were all human. But spending several years studying under true experts has taught me that theres a lot I dont know. At this time when knowledge can literally mean life or death, if you are not a qualified medical expert, the time has come to listen to qualified medical experts.

The simple can have honor. It is a moral and honorable thing to exercise self-restraint and humility of thought. It is a moral and honorable thing to examine ones own soul with a scalpel before lazily applying the scalpel to others. It is a moral and honorable thing to topple the tyrant of pride within before assailing tyrants without.

Kevin Walthall is a Bremerton resident and a regular contributor tothe Kitsap Sun. He also writes for the blog Urban Bremerton. Contact him atkswalthall@gmail.com.

Kevin Walthall(Photo: Contributed image)

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The integrity of saying 'I don't know' - Kitsap Sun

A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery, by Joseph Wright of Derby 1766 Derby Museum of Art, Derby, England

Gospel of 29th April 2020 - Matthew 11:25-30

The reading today is one that over the years has always somewhat puzzled me. He prays to His father and says: 'I bless you, Father, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children'. At first glance we may think that Jesus is thanking His Father because he hid the Gospel from the wise and intelligent, but revealed it instead to uneducated fishermen like Peter. Does this therefore mean that it is wrong to be intellectual? Does this mean that God does not care for the educated? Of course not. But the problem lays within the attitude such people can display towards the Gospels.

Having an overly scientific approach to the Christian faith would lead to the danger of wanting to prove the existence of God using scientific methods. Or such an approach could trivialise God's greatest miracles and fail to see the divine nature in the. Unfortunately, science can be used only to explore creation. It cannot explore the Creator. So Jesus presents us with the need for us to have a childlike faith. This isn't a childish faith, but a childlike faith. A child is completely dependent on adults for safety, love, nurturing, education and knowledge. Similarly, a faithful person depends on God in a way that is absolutely dependent.

Reflection on the Painting

The painting by Joseph Wright of Derby was painted in 1766, in the midst of the Age of Enlightenment, when science took centre stage and was widely celebrated. It is then that in a way our 21st Century phenomenon of Scientism (excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge to provide the only genuine knowledge of reality) started. The painting shows a philosopher giving a lecture on the Orrery in which a lamp is put symbolising the Sun, and explaining how the Planets revolve around the sun. Wright's depiction of the wonder produced by scientific research, marked a break with previous painting traditions in which the artistic depiction of such wonder was reserved mainly for religious events. It is a very striking painting though. The single light-source is masterfully lighting the faces. To Wright, the marvels of the scientific age were as awe-inspiring as the subjects of the great religious paintings

But Scripture cannot be approached just with the mind. The word of God also speaks to the heart and only then fully comes to life!

LINKS

Today's story - https://christianart.today/reading.php?id=406

Christian Art Today - https://christianart.today

and Holy Week through 100 paintings - http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/39289

Tags: Christian Art Today, Patrick van de Vorst, Joseph Wright of Derby

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Today's Gospel in Art - You have hidden these things from the wise - Independent Catholic News

Everything is One - A New Documentary Film that Decodes the Mystery of Life, Released by Center for Introspection & Enlightenment Initiatives for a Utopian world based on Science & Technology GlobeNewswire April 23, 2020

SURREY, British Columbia, April 23, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Center for Introspection & Enlightenment, Canada has released a new documentary film called Everything is One as a part of its outreach program.

The documentary film meant for scientists & technologists is available worldwide on Vimeo.

Everything is One has 2 parts, each with duration of 90 min.

Origin, Evolution & Nature of life describes the design & architecture of the human system. It is the journey of life as it evolved through time.

Purpose of life. Connecting the dots describes the functional specifications & application axiom of the human system.

The Center's initiatives are aimed at enlarging the human vision, redefining the purpose of life and evolving into an advanced species.

The Center aims to bring scientists & technologists together on the same page.

Ramesh Kulkarni, the author of these films, has worked in IT industry for 25 years.

According to Mr Kulkarni, Understanding the schematics of the complete human system would make it easier to identify problems, segregate issues and troubleshoot the subsystems without adversely affecting and harming the whole.

The author expects that the film Everything is One will help scientists & technologists in the areas of Cellular Development, Bio Technology, Embryo Science, Medical Oncology, Human Biology, Bioinformatics, Medical Engineering, Genomics Science, Immunology, Neuro-Sciences, Humanities & Artificial Intelligence, and especially in Medical & Healthcare.

Mr Kulkarni feels the film would provide new insights and open up new areas for research & development in these disciplines.

In 2006, the Center had launched The American Way. Connecting the dots,a film for eradicating global poverty.

The American Way explores how the US creates & distributes material wealth.

It provides a road-map for poor & developing countries for eradicating poverty through systemic changes.

The American Way was screened to the Planning Commission & Govt of India in 2006.

All 3 documentary films are available worldwide on Vimeo.

The Center is a non-profit foundation based in British Columbia, Canada.

Website is http://www.ci-e.com

Email- rk@ci-e.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/3cad6966-e5ff-40c1-95d3-7f7f1552bb22

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Everything is One - A New Documentary Film that Decodes the Mystery of Life, Released by Center for Introspection & Enlightenment - AsiaOne

With its theme of Possible Worlds, the third season of Cosmos was awkwardly timed. The series, hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson, concluded last week on Fox and the National Geographic Channel. It conjures dreams of interstellar travel at a moment when most people are much more concerned about whether they can make it to the grocery store and back without contracting COVID-19.

The backdrop of a pandemic was, of course, unique to this season. It probably contributed to a lower-than-hoped-for viewership. But as writers for Evolution News have demonstrated in recent weeks, Cosmos 3.0, as we call it, is in other ways right in line with its predecessors. Like the 1980 original with Carl Sagan and the 2014 reboot with Dr. Tyson, this Cosmos series advances numerous myths about the relationship between science and faith.

Here is the final narration from Cosmos 2020:

Stars make worlds, and a world made life. And there came a time when heat shot out from the molten heart of this world and it warmed the waters. And the matter that had rained down from the stars came alive. And that star stuff became aware. And that life was sculpted by the earth, and it struggles with the other living things. And a great tree grew up, one with many branches. And six times it was almost felled, but still it grows. And we are but one small branch, one that cannot live without its tree. And slowly we learned to read the book of nature, to learn her laws, to nurture the tree, to become a way for the cosmos to know itself, and to return to the stars.

Tyson ends his summary of cosmic history since the Big Bang with this soaring narrative focused on earth. It sounds like the exalted prose of the book of Genesis minus God. It is a worldview-shaping narrative, a myth in the anthropological sense.

When connected with earlier Cosmos episodes that give details (typically without sufficient evidence), this narrative answers profound questions. Or it seeks to answer them. Where did we come from? Answer: we are star stuff shaped by the branching tree of evolution, powered by unguided material processes. What is our purpose (teleology)? Answer: to be one of the ways, along with extraterrestrial civilizations, that the universe knows itself through science. Where are we going (eschatology)? Answer: our destiny is to become connected with civilizations located around countless other stars, and thereby be liberated from terrestrial religions and scientific infancy (Tyson earlier held a baby to make this point). Six times terrestrial life worked hard to avoid total extinction and succeeded, but in the seventh period we will enter our cosmic rest of extraterrestrial enlightenment.

While resting in the lap of ET we will read the Encyclopedia Galactica, Tyson suggests. This book represents the fantastically advanced accumulated knowledge of cosmic communal intelligent life, an idea that Carl Sagan helped transfer from science fiction to documentary film back in the 1980 Cosmos series. Well enjoy heavenly bliss while reading the good book. Thats a key message from the Cosmos franchise.

The season finale is titled: Seven Wonders of the New World. In Biblical terms, seven symbolizes completion. Are we uncovering Team Tysons numerological opium for the masses? The Cosmos storytellers invented a 2039 New York Worlds Fair with seven theme park attractions that celebrate cosmic history and lifes heroic accomplishments. The year 2039 would be the centennial of the 1939 New York Worlds Fair that helped awaken Carl Sagans scientific-materialist imagination (also depicted endearingly in this final episode). Sagans legacy grows with each multimillion-dollar retelling.

Such Worlds Fair science-fiction storytelling works well as it builds upon a certain measure of legitimate science. There are five widely recognized mass extinction events in our planets history. Throw in human-caused global warming as the sixth catastrophe (allegedly in the making in our own time) and you have a great recipe for cosmic mythology. Lets save our Mother Earth in act six and join the extraterrestrial choir of enlightened ETs in the triumphant seventh act. Hey everyone, make sure you oppose those fanatically religious geocentric, flat-earth-believing, climate-science deniers who are destined for extinction. Science is our only salvation. (See my historical analyses of Christianity as being responsible for flat-earth-belief here and unthinking resistance to Copernicanism here).

The makers of Cosmos wish to reach your heart with their message. Its a materialistic imitation of biblical religion and eschatology. Mother Nature is god and Tyson is her prophet. Learn her laws, he declares, echoing Moses. Nurture the Tree of Life she has mindlessly created. Countless times in the series Tyson says Come with me, imitating Jesus call for disciples.

The grand story is dressed up to look scientific, but at heart it is mostly materialistic mythology. Its bipolar identity teeters between atheism and pantheism. I make a rigorous case for this conclusion in my book Unbelievable, which includes the chapters Extraterrestrial Enlightenment and Preaching Anti-theism on TV: Cosmos. In the Cosmos chapter I discuss Cosmos 1980 and 2014. Cosmos 2020 dishes up more of the same. Many will swallow it.

Did you notice the timing of the season finale, on April 20? It aired two days before Earth Day, which this year celebrated its 50th anniversary. Many now celebrate Earth Day within a Deep Ecology worldview that owes much to pre-modern pagan earth worship. Easter, which also falls at this time of year, had long ago largely displaced the old earth-worshipping holidays in Europe. Do the makers of Cosmos hope that Earth Day will win back this time of year from Easter? It sure looks that way when you combine my analysis here with this critique of the flimsy Cosmos treatment of global warming. It is no surprise that the National Geographic Channel blasted Cosmos viewers with many Earth Day-related TV advertisements (I lost count of just how many).

Meanwhile, after celebrating or ignoring Easter and Earth Day, many coronavirus-besieged earthlings toggle between anxiety and quarantined boredom. Cosmos 3.0 doesnt seem to be helping much. But for some people false hope is better than no hope at all. For some, futuristic dreams via Cosmos might bring comfort. Team Tyson envisions how in the near future a persons neural network (connectome) might be resurrected. In this future world, maybe with ETs help (or so the story goes), we will be able to recreate a deceased persons connectome. Its your own personal techno-Easter, if you will (provided that others in the future approve of your reappearance). The details for how this could happen are not provided. Sci-fi is under no such obligation. The constraints on this kind of storytelling are minimal.

Carl Sagans widow, Ann Druyan, is the key figure who made the Cosmos series rise again (twice now). She had this to say about her teams storytelling:

Every story that we tell has to satisfy different criteria. It has to be a way into a complex scientific idea or an important scientific idea. Were aiming for your brain, your eye, your heart, your senses, your ear via effects. Everything has to be working together in concert to give you a consummate experience, and to attract you to want to know more.

Referring to traditional religions, especially the one that celebrates Easter, she finally says in the same interview: I think we have a much better story to tell than they do. I doubt this even if both were treated as fictional narratives. Of course the truth or fiction of each story is the subject of the main debate.

Seth MacFarlane (a Hollywood atheist worried about the influence of intelligent design) introduced Ann Druyan to atheist Brannon Braga, who helped Ms. Druyan produce the two reboots of Cosmos. Heres a sample of how I treat Bragas key role in the Cosmos franchise. Its from the Cosmos chapter of my book Unbelievable. The materialist agenda of Braga is documented below and in my books footnotes (omitted here).

The executive producer of Cosmos 2014 says that he has spent most of his professional life creating myths for the greater truth of atheism. His name is Brannon Braga. Speaking at the 2006 International Atheist Conference, he celebrated his part in creating atheistic mythology in more than 150 episodes of Star Trek: Next Generation. He summed up his mission which violates the original Star Trek prime directive of not altering native culture as showing that religion sucks, isnt science great, and finally how the hell do we get the other 95 percent of the population to come to their senses? These are remarkable confessions. As we saw in Chapter 8, Kepler helped establish sci-fi as a way to promote very different ideas: God rules the cosmos, isnt science great, and finally how for heavens sake do we get the other 99.9 percent of the population to come to their senses so they can embrace Copernican astronomy?

According to Braga, teaching atheistic myth is the work of sci-fi films and TV documentaries like Cosmos. Indeed, he said that Cosmos 2014 was designed to combat dark forces of irrational thinking. He emphasized: Religion doesnt own awe and mystery. Science does it better. But as we have seen, rendering Christianity as the historical enemy of science is itself an exercise in unreasonable and reckless historiography. Myth, not science, recognizes the cosmos as all that is, or ever was, or ever will be. Sagan knew this statement would inspire awe because it imitated the biblical description of God. No doubt, Braga and his team of like-minded creators were delighted to rerun this mythical mantra at the beginning of Cosmos 2014. It served well the greater good of anti-theism.

Theres much more where that came from: Its Unbelievable!

Editors note: Find further reviews and commentary on the third season ofCosmos, Possible Worlds, here:

Image: Host Neil deGrasse Tyson in a screenshot from the trailerfor Cosmos 3.0, Possible Worlds.

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Echoing the Bible, Cosmos Concludes with a Materialist Origins Myth and Future Heavenly Bliss - Discovery Institute

The novel coronavirus is unknown and rightly frightening. Like some terrible ghost, it seemingly defies all borders and boundaries.

Columns share an author's personal perspective and are often based on facts in the newspaper's reporting.

The novel coronavirus is unknown and rightly frightening. Like some terrible ghost, it seemingly defies all borders and boundaries. Many hoard toilet paper in the flimsy hopes of sopping up fears of helplessness. Others horrifyingly stock up on guns. Those on the more anxious side of the personality spectrum redouble efforts at meditation and breathing exercises. But just as scary as the COVID-19 virus itself is its unleashing of the worlds two oldest pestilences, irresponsible ignorance and its twin evil, scapegoating. We need, now more than ever, a double dose of the Enlightenment.

The era of Enlightenment advanced many values. On the one side were reason, rationality, and fine-tuning the individuals moral conscious against the sway of unfounded tradition. But the Age of Reason was hardly an emotionless machine. On the other side were compassion and humanism. Amid the current epidemic, both sides of The Enlightenment seem scarcer than a bottle of Purell in a Wal-Mart.

Consider the Oval Office. The current administration has abdicated its duty to promote what the Preamble to the US Constitution a great exemplar of the Enlightenment - calls the general Welfare. The president has set his illogical crosshairs on both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as well as the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In another stroke of willful recklessness, he jettisoned the National Security Councils Office of Global Health Security and Biodefense. Of equal folly was appointing the vice president as chair of the White House Coronavirus Task Force (which is more than 90% male). This medieval man lacks any background in medicine, science, or public health. He denies global warming and the connection between smoking and cancer, refused as governor of Indiana to address the AIDS epidemic, and attacks one of our most important and heroic healthcare organizations, Planned Parenthood, with the zeal of the Spanish Inquisition.

Moving from unscientific folly to intolerance, it hardly needs saying that there is no such thing as the Chinese Virus. So why would President Trump and his followers insist on using the slur? Most likely, to further his political platform of xenophobia. In times of crisis, its always easier to point the accusatory finger at someone else, preferably foreigners. Its a time-honored political tactic, fine-tuned especially by those who excel at demagoguery. But it has no basis in fact or scientific nomenclature, only in fear and prejudice.

Of course, the president has plenty of company in this bigotry, as the rising tide of racist tirades, assaults, and harassment against anybody who looks even remotely Asian amply attests. The FBI warned us as much only a few days ago. News media have amply documented instances of illegal hostility towards Orientals, a term that refers not to real people but to a stereotype wherein Hmong or Thai, Japanese or Indonesian American, it makes no difference, they are all some Typhoid Mary. CoughingWhileAsian is not just a twitter hashtag but a justifiable dread of extremist violence. The model minority, as many headlines proclaim, has rapidly turned into the yellow peril.

Jews, the original model minority, know this slipperiness well. Indeed, the coronavirus fright has also fomented resurgent anti-Semitism. In the eyes of many, were poisoning the wells all over again. Florida pastor Rick Wiles, who previously dubbed the impeachment effort a Jew coup, recently thundered that the Almighty is spreading the virus through synagogues because the Jews are guilty of deicide: Repent and believe and the plague will stop. (Perhaps he reads from the same hymnal as the Iranian regime?) One might dismiss the good pastor as a kook except that his news service, TruNews, has been granted press credentials by the White House.

Of course, the pandemic has also spawned no shortage of religious madness. The irrational fear of rationality also afflicts those who are themselves targets of bigotry. A few communities of ultra-Orthodox or Haredi Jews (as they prefer to be called) shun basic science as much as many fundamentalist Christians, mosques, and church leaders from Brazil to St. Petersburg. Too many clerics seem intent on shepherding their flock into the emergency ward. A few of the faithful may welcome a fast-track to heaven but those of us who know better prefer to hang on to our mortal coils just a little bit longer.

As a cultural anthropologist, I am fiercely and unapologetically dedicated to cultural diversity. Yet belief is no excuse for ignorance. That was a central tenet of the Enlightenment that we desperately need today. Religion often soothes angst. But devotion at the expense of science is a danger we hardly need today. And scapegoating, while a convenient way to avoid your own culpability in a situation run amok, always proves rather less convenient for the person just spat upon.

Theres nothing like a pandemic to expose the dangers of self-delusion and xenophobia. Neither hair shirts nor hurling invective were much use before the Enlightenment. They certainly are not now. We should have learned that lesson four centuries ago. Its not too late.

Eric Silverman, a former Research Professor of Anthropology, is a Senior Scholar at the international law firm McAllister Olivarius and affiliated with the Brandeis University Womens Studies Research Center.

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Column: COVID-19 and the Enlightenment - Opinion - MetroWest Daily News

Image Source: Scopio.

When we practice samatha and vipassanawell, practicing samatha and vipassana can be seamless; but they dont have to follow one another a series of events start to occur through practice:

1) Our concentration becomes unwavering,

2) We develop clarity and insight,

3) With the power of our focused concentration we might exhibit some special abilities. Personally, I develop a very strong sense of intuition; or bear a strong inkling towards an ambition that seemingly fosters greater good: well, specifically meaning, I get inspired to inspire others in mindfulness.

4) Our eternal and looming queries about everythingour lives, the universe etc.get answered automatically, or that we stop beating and haranguing ourselves to go seek out answers of questions that go in similar line.

5) We somehow develop wisdom and therefore courage.

6) I, for instance, constantly find myself mulling few questions: How are you coming to terms with your own life? What does it mean?

7) Your physical and mental sense of awareness heightens. They sharpen, so to speak.

We seek enlightenment through meditation. But what is enlightenment? Enlightenment is nothing; its understanding that there is no understanding; and its about understanding nothing and being nothing; its about going nowhere and being no one. Yet its about being alive and fullalive and full and breathing in/through this mortal body, through this mind, through the open, expansive, spacious, timeless, deathless and all-invincible mind, all the while remaining joyous and free. Enlightenment is about entertaining a sense of aliveness and fullness in and through ones mind and body and body and mind, understanding emptiness of it all (and understanding emptiness), and yet welcoming the concomitant fullness. That is what enlightenment is all about. Simply life. Simply life is simply enlightenment. Embrace life. Embrace Buddhas teaching on mindfulness meditation.

Finally, lets recap about the steps of vipassana meditation:

1) First, start by observing your breath.

2) Then start noting whatever arises nonjudgmentally and gently.

3) Then perform counting of your chosen object of meditationlike one, two for the inbreath and the outbreath.

4) Watch and observe your thoughts, emotions and discursions of your mind. Watch good thoughts; and watch bad thoughts. But do not get involved and engaged. Just watch. Observe. They are mere neural activities; those thoughts will disappear if you sit stillin body, in mind.

5) Consider difficultiesin meditation practice or in lifeas your teachers; those difficulties will help strengthen your skills in meditation. Alleviate obstructions in meditation like sleepiness, boredom and sluggishness. And how do you do that? You dispel difficulties in meditation by remembering that just the way its difficult to learn good and valuable skills, learning to meditate is not easy. It entails some effort on your part. You need to remain mindful and watchful: of your tendency to slip into laziness. You also need to check your own tendency to slip into negativity and pessimism.

6) In vipassana, you try to observe the non-self in you which is your awareness. It is timeless and empty, yet all-encompassing and all-powerful.

7) Let your meditation practiceor your breaththe in-breath and the out-breath guide you to work through any physical, emotional and mental pain: both in your present and your past.

8) Understand this: that your mind is expansive, open and already fulfilled. There is not even an iota of difficulty and anxiety there. Rest there. That is your abode. That is the practice of meditation: of vipassana.

9) Practicing vipassana meditation is also about practicing and understanding the nature of your mind. And the way your mind worked. Your mind is the seat of your happiness and pain.

10) When your mind is still, you can foster amazing power. You might develop the capacity to remember your past life, or your future life; you might see supernatural events like seeing visions of Buddha himself. But thatgaining such powersisnt the goal of meditation. Transcend such capacity or powers and try to be silent and calm.

11) Whatever arises in your consciousness, note them and label them. If you experience distraction, say distraction, if you notice overactivity of mind, say overactivity of mind, if you react with anger, say reacting with anger. With practice, you will be silent and your meditation practice will be better. Sometimes, it takes years of practice to arrive to this avenue. So, in the practice of vipassana meditation, note and label events from both your body and mind.

Vipassana meditation should come to you easy. Why? Because youre a human-and how rare and precious a human birth is!and you can acknowledge and understand your own life processes and your own motivations and inspirations, and you can observe and study the activities of your own mind; your own comings and goingsyoure in a way living a vipassana-inspired life when youre living mindfully alone (your mind is so powerful!). What do I mean? When you develop mindfulness, you develop openness and clarity; when you develop openness and clarity, you develop concentration and Insight.

When youre not thinking anything; when youre quiet and not exactly asleep and when youre also not meditating, your lifeyour entire lifewill flash right before your eyes. That is a vipassana moment: the non-thinking activelybut your life flashing right before your eyes .

This article was first published as a component of my online course on Udemy titled Principles and Practice of Mindfulness Leadership: Coaching Insights and Inspirations from Buddhism. Learn the actual practice of Mindfulness Meditation!

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The Practice of Vipassana - Thrive Global

This is the fourth installment of our Home Movies column by Philippa Snow, about what we watch when no ones watching.

Watched this week: Enlightened (2011-13) | Mad Men (2007-15)

A few weeks before the lockdown, I began re-watching Mad Men for the second time, so that I reached the final episode somewhere around day five or six when things still felt unreal and spooky. I have always felt the last scene of the show, in which Don Draper meditates and ends up conjuring the 1971 Id Like to Give the World a Coke campaign, to be one of the ugliest, most nihilistic endings in the history of prestige television: the twinning of advertising with enlightenment, suggesting that there is no higher plane for the shows alcoholic ad-man than the one where he sells soda and Vicks VapoRub to mothers in the suburbs, is at best bleakly amusing, and at worst a total disavowal of any and all progress he has made in the preceding ninety hours. Mad Mens ending is the thing that tips it over into genius, a boldly downbeat period on the last page of a long, elegantly-crafted novel about mid-century media, and America, as meaningful as anything by Philip Roth or Thomas Pynchon.

Curiously, I noticed that a still of Draper meditating, dressed in white and looking without context like the very picture of enlightenment, kept reappearing in my Twitter feed in the days following my re-watch of the show. Evidently, Esquire had begun to use it in an article about the usefulness of meditation in the current crisis. The effect of seeing Drapers failure to connect with any higher power than capitalism used to illustrate a story about inner peace for a luxury magazine is twofold: the image is made both funnier and sadder by its placement. If we judge Don for his inability to clear his mind of advertising, his belief that even racial harmony and togetherness can be marketing tools, we can scarcely claim to be immune to the same pressures, particularly in the age of targeted advertisements and social media influencers. (So stop buying things, Don tells his hippy niece, facetiously, when she says advertising is pollution. They both know that the suggestion is rhetorical.)

HBOs Enlightened, a 2011 show about the stark impossibility of balancing a corporate life with spiritual ideals, is in some ways the antithesis of a long-running and universally respected show like Mad Men, canceled after just two seasons and still cult enough to feel like a discovery. The shows protagonist, a frazzled blonde named Amy Jellicoe, begins the pilot episode having a breakdown; after two months at a woo-woo health retreat, she returns to the world of work with a new outlook. There are warning signs that Amy might not be as placid or enlightened as she seems from the word go, the first sign being a bipolar diagnosis, and the second being the fact that Amy Jellicoe is played by Laura Dern. One of our foremost interpreters of middle-aged female madness, Dern is all tense smiles and frightening, clown-like tears. Where Hamms performance as Don Draper relied on a certain stoicism, the ability to frown without much troubling the perfection of his face, she is elastic to the point of possible derangement. David Lynch, I think, was right to campaign for an Oscar nomination for her work as somewhere between three and five characters in his 2007 magnum opus Inland Empire, even if he did not necessarily need to involve an actual cow: few actresses can split themselves with such alacrity, her light and shade brighter and gloomier than most.

This is either the blackest comedy to hit TV in a while, a review at Entertainment Weekly shrugged after Enlighteneds pilot aired, or the most pointlessly histrionic drama. It is possible that I was not supposed to cry as much or as consistently as I did while watching Enlightened, thinking about how painful it is to remain hopeful in a situation where hope feels ill-fitting or nave. It might be because for the last week I have been confined to bed with a mild case of COVID-19, feeling increasingly helpless; it might be because for all of Amys do-gooding and growth, the show does not forget that there is no real, lasting way to game the system. Amys affable ex-husband, Levi, is an addict who does not end up entirely redeemed by the last episode of season two; Amys father killed himself when she was in her early teens, and Amys mother has been distant and disinterested since. For a long stretch, she has no friends and many enemies, her personality abrasive enough to make her off-putting even after her epiphany. Still, she believes in goodness, a world in which it possible to overcome the terror of existence with sweet thoughts, kind words, wise deeds. How strange is this life, she murmurs, in the voiceover of season twos last episode, to be born into a body to certain uncertain parents, in this beautiful, upsetting world. It is hard not to think of Portia, in Shakespeares Merchant of Venice: How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

Portias line is most often remembered as referring to a weary world rather than to naughty one, perhaps because it is more palatable to imagine ourselves living in a world that is not wicked, but exhausted. Abbaddon, the health and beauty company that Amy works for, is for some reason named after the Hebrew word for the place of devastation, a detail that would be stupid if it did not somehow chime with the rest of the shows pitch-black, vaguely surrealist sensibility. A lot of placessandwich shops and baby showers, cheap motels and clubs and campsitesprove to be places of devastation for Enlighteneds heroine, her anger bubbling over at the dawning realization that half of the people in her life have behaved naughtily, and half are too exhausted by the relentlessness of their misery to care. Enlightened is, at its most desperate, galling, a reminder of the fact that those who seek to change things for the better are invariably fighting against currents nearly too strong to resist. By the finale, Amy has exposed the companys malpractice, and is likely to be sued for money that she does not have; her efforts to teach Abbaddon a lesson will not, in all likelihood, affect the many other companies committing the same crimes. You just have more hope than most people do, her former husband tells her. Its a beautiful thing to have a little hope for the world. It is beautiful, her optimism, in the way a dream is beautiful: difficult to hold on to in the unflattering, unforgiving light of day.

Then again, some people are simply more capable of staying optimistic than the rest of us. It turns out I was wrong about the meaning of the Mad Men ending, or at least about what its creator had intended to suggest with his appropriation of the happy, clappy Coke advertisement. In an interview in 2015, Matthew Weiner expressed a certain sadness at the idea that reviewers had interpreted the meditation scene as bleak, or existential. Its a little bit disturbing to me, that cynicism, he mused:

Im not saying advertisings not corny, but Im saying that the people who find that ad corny, theyre probably experiencing a lot of life that way, and theyre missing out on something The idea that someone in an enlightened state might have created something thats very pure that ad to me is the best ad ever made, and it comes from a very good place.

He remains at pains to point out that for nearly all of Mad Mens characters, life is a little better at the denouement than in the pilot. People reunite, end up promoted, form new businesses, get married, declare love. It is beautiful, but once again, beautiful in the manner of a dream: nothing is quite as settled as it first appears. Peggy has a new position, where she will no doubt encounter the same sexism as in her previous job; Pete, who might be an actual rapist, ends up back with his ex-wife. Betty is still alive, but knows that she will die within six months. We leave everybody slightly improved, Weiner told Variety. But isnt that exactly what all the best advertising doespromise us a new version of ourselves thats better, even if its only on the outer surface?

Link:
On Reawakening - thepointmag.com

Spoilers for 'The Midnight Gospel' Season 1

Netflix's latest animated offering 'The Midnight Gospel' surpasses anything and everything you have ever seen before. Created by Pendleton Ward (of 'Adventure Time' fame) and Duncan Trussell, 'The Midnight Gospel' is an extension of Trussell's very popular 'Duncan Trussell Family Hour' podcast, and a perfectly fitting one too.

Through eight episodes of varying lengths, the series launches an investigation into several topics ranging from drugs, death and enlightenment to meditation practices and life philosophies. Clancy, who is voiced by Trussell himself, is a spacecaster with a malfunctioning multiverse simulator that projects him into space to different planets and worlds from his home on something called the Chromatic Ribbon. In every new world, Clancy meets new beings and together they explore a plethora of subjects. These interviews are accompanied by mindblowing animation by Titmouse.

In his interview with Dr Drew Pinksy, they talk about drugs and meditation. With Anne Lamott and Raghu Markus, Clancy discusses death. He talks to Damien Echols about magic and enlightenment and explores forgiveness with Trudy Goodman. With Jason Louv, suffering, existentialism and rebirth are discussed.

It finally reaches more intense subjects such as death and the cycle of life. The series finale is a heartbreaking, emotionally powerful episode that features Trussell's late mother Deneen Fendig. Together they discuss the miracle of life, the suffering that existence brings to the human life and the detestable pain that death brings with it. The wondrous cycle of life has never before been portrayed with this ease and yet with such hard-hitting poise that it will bring you to tears.

Through eight episodes, Trussell explores subjects that have titillated a universal interest. But in the final episode, he gets extremely personal. Discussing the deep sorrow he felt after he lost his mother to cancer, Episode 8 titled 'Mouse of Silver' is an in-depth lesson into dealing with the loss of a beloved.

It is also evident that Clancy has been avoiding a lot of his problems through the season and refuses to confront them until Episode 6 'Vulture With Honour, where he is forced to face reality. The cycle of life and death is a continuous, ending process and one cannot escape it. But how do you get over the loss of someone, if at all you can?

Trussell's mother has a simple explanation "you cry," she says. It hurts, there is no doubt about that, but it doesn't always hurt and eventually, the hurt also dissipates. Why? Because underneath the hurt and the pain, you discover what you are feeling is love. And like his mother says, that kind of love never goes away.

The episode is so beautifully made that it will break you and reduce you to tears. And just that like, his mother leaves him sucked into a black hole that has no known beyond.

By now, the magistrate's police have reached Clancy's simulator. Earlier in the series, he received a warning from a fellow spacecaster about the law catching up with him for Clancy's work. And now, in the finale, they are finally here. As the police get closer, Clancy is still inside the simulator filled with grief over his latest interview. The cops begin destroying the simulator, eventually dying in the process themselves a massive explosion reduces everything to nothing.

A second-long blackout later, Clancy along with his trusted dog Charlotte is picked up in a bus. Inside, there is every one that Clancy had interviewed through the series and died. He asks his neighbor if he is dead, only to get the response, "Just be here now." And off goes the bus on a hypnotic path.

So is Clancy really dead? Will we get a Season 2?

We do not know yet. In fact, we cannot even predict if there is anything beyond for him. One of the things the series conveys is that it is important to live in the moment. We can only hope to see more of the visual masterpiece that is 'The Midnight Gospel', until then, do not mind us. We are going to rewatch this a couple of times.

All episodes of 'The Midnight Gospel' are currently streaming on Netflix.

Go here to see the original:
'The Midnight Gospel' Season 1: Heartbreaking finale will hit you hard and leave you hungry for Season 2 - MEAWW

As a service profession dedicated to democracy and freedom of information, library work does what it can to elevate what it is and how it is seen in the world. There are some problematic pieces to this attitude, which Fobazi Ettarh brilliantly lays out in Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves. While that take is absolutely valid and one I support, I feel there is also staunch rationality in examining one of the primary documents that upholds the ideals of library service and professions and, perhaps, rightfully lends a deserved sense of aweat least in this instanceto libraries and what they stand for. The Library Bill of Rights, developed by the leading professional library association, the American Library Association, in 1939, reports the seven rights and guiding principles in library service. While library users may not be strictly aware of the Library Bill of Rights, knowledge and understanding of the Rights can improve experiences at libraries of library users.

Below are the Rights in their original text taken from the American Library Associations Library Bill of Rights page, accompanied by explanations and examples of how library users might apply them in their own use of their libraries and how things have shaken out in the real world.

Right I: Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.

What It Means: A primary purpose of the library, according to Right I, is to provide resources to a group of people in pursuit of meeting the various educational, cultural, and other needs of those people. Library staff working to develop and maintain the collections of their libraries should use data and feedback from the community they serve to inform their purchased and discarded materials. Materials include books, audiobooks, movies and films, databases, and any other materials (yes, cake pans, etc.) the library collects. Staff must use their professionalnot personaljudgment when performing collection development and maintenance. This means that it is up to library users to determine the credibility of the sources they encounter in the library. While library stafflibrarians, generally speakingare trained to offer assistance in finding valid resources when asked, we cannot vouch for every piece within the library (print, digital, or otherwise). We can provide the tools and, to some degree, guidance or training on how to assess resources, but to only select materials for the collection that are verifiably true is not only impossible, but in contrast with this first right.

Category ID: 45597

Category ID: 2822

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Example: The Denver Public Library in Denver, Colorado, like many public libraries, posts their collection development policy on their website. This policy echoes much of the language from the American Library Associations Right I. Right I is, in part, why you may find materials you personally object to in a public library. A library should not, according to Right I, outright object to a new book by Richard Dawkins, for example, simply because of his contentious, controversial, and sometimes offensive views (Wikipedia sums this up nicelyyes, Wikipedia is a legitimate starting point for research; signed, a librarian). They must instead evaluate the material on its own and determine whether the piece meets the interest of the community, regardless of the reason behind that interest. And some people love to hate read, thus providing legitimate interest and, consequently, sufficient reason to collect a given title.

Right II: Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.

What It Means: Similar to Right I, Right II explains the responsibility of libraries to offer varying perspectives. This means staff should not collect only materials or resources that hold one point of view. Instead, staff should provide as well-rounded a perspective as possible through the collection of various materials. This allows library users to draw their own conclusions from the evidence presented, as is the case with nonfiction, for example, rather than being led solely by the judgment of the library staff responsible for designing the collection and who certainly have biases of their own.

Example: Many users may believe the inclusion of a book arguing for eugenics, for example, to be abhorrent and to have no place in a library. However, Right II protects the right of that material to exist in the library. From a personal perspective, I find thinking this way about cases like this to be helpful: Having material that argues against your own beliefs allows you to be better informed about the oppositions position, and thus better able to defend your own. This isnt the only reason Right II is important, but it can help soothe the discomfort library users may encounter when they happen upon something they find distasteful or wrong.

Right III: Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.

What It Means: In the event a group or individual attempts to have materials or resources removed from the library, the library should resist. Right III is also a natural companion of Rights I and II, as library users are very likely to find, as a result of Rights I and II, materials that are personally or otherwise objectionable to them in a librarys collection. However, regardless of whether a library or its staff agrees or disagrees with a given challenge (say, to a book), it is the librarys responsibility, according to Right III, to thwart attempts to make the material unavailable. This can happen on both macro and micro levels. For example, an individual or group may request that the library remove a title from the collection entirely, making it unavailable for everyone in a macro case. In a micro case, an individual (often, a parent in relation to their child) may request that the library make a title unavailable to another individual. In both cases, the library should resist complying with the request in accordance with Right III. The latter, which can appear to be stickier, can be explained as such: the library cannot act in place of parents and does not have the capacity to allow or disallow particular titles to particular individuals and not others. In the case of a parent and their child, it is the responsibility of the parent to address and manage their childs exposure to materials, not the librarys.

Example: If youve been following library news, you may have heard about a proposed bill in Tennessee that would grant a board of elected officials power to remove materials from a library. The Tennessee Library Association has been standing in opposition to this bill, which would effectively stand in direct contrast to Right III. Challenges to books are, sadly, not uncommon. The American Library Association encourages libraries to report challenges to materials and beyond and, over the years, have compiled data on challenged materials. Certainly not every instance of challenges is reported, however, so despite the lengthiness of the available data, there is more going on than what we see, making Right III incredibly important in combating attempts to abridge access to information and materials.

Right IV: Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.

What It Means: In hand with Right III, Right IV simply requires that libraries work with individuals and organizations whose mission is to prevent censorship and promote freedom of information.

Example: Right IV reads more like a guideline than a right, but would suggest that libraries work with organizations such as the Sunlight Foundation, which advocates for transparency. To prevent censorship and promote freedom of information is broad, however, and certainly does not end with efforts from the Sunlight Foundation. The language of Right IV strikes me with a pause, however, and perhaps suggests things in the world of intellectual freedom are more black and white than they really are. A person or group concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas may easily feel differently if the topic in question is in contrast with their beliefs. We might instead interpret Right IV as if it read Libraries should cooperate with all philosophies and ideas concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.

Right V: A persons right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.

What It Means: A central ideal of library service is that the library and its materials and services must be made available to all. It is, however, perhaps less observed than we would like to think as things like library fines, the requirement of a photo ID to obtain a library card (and thus access services, materials, and resources), the physical accessibility of libraries due to lack of transportation or ADA compliance, and a number of other barriers can get in the way of potential user access. There are also, of course, library staff with discriminatory views and biases who may intentionally or unintentionally allow their views and biases to impact the degree and kind of service they offer to different individuals. The idea of Right V, then, is to combat these instances case-by-case and en masse.

Example: Berkeley Public Library has made some adjustments to open access further for homeless customers with a policy that does not require proof of address, a standard that is typical for many public libraries. Still, most public libraries will require some sort of identification to obtain a library card.

Right VI: Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.

What It Means: Exhibit spaces and meeting rooms should be, according to Right VI, treated the same as books, movies, and other traditional library resources and materials. Access to these rooms should not be denied to users for reasons such as conflicting beliefs or identity.

Example: This particular right met a good deal of discussion in summer 2018 when the American Library Association updated its stance around the use of meeting spaces by hate groups. Shortly after scores joined the conversation on- and offline, ALA opted to revert to the previous interpretation of Right VI which, while still fairly broad, does note, However, if a groups actions during a meeting disrupt or harass others in the library, library policies regarding acceptable behavior may apply. Users of the library could theoretically, then, point out that the speech happening as the result of a hate group meeting in the library is, in fact, an act of or an incitement of violence, and therefore harassment of the target of hate. Right VI continues to be a difficult challenge to balance for libraries.

Right VII: All people, regardless of origin, age, background, or views, possess a right to privacy and confidentiality in their library use. Libraries should advocate for, educate about, and protect peoples privacy, safeguarding all library use data, including personally identifiable information.

What It Means: All library users should expect privacy and confidentiality in their use of the library, defined as broadly as possible. This includes their presence in the building, the materials which they access and view, questions they ask of library staff, and any other activity relating to library use. This can again come up against traditional societal standards, particularly in light of parent-child relationships (especially when things like library fines are added to the equationfor example, a parent may wish to know what materials checked out to their childs account accrued fines, but to share this information would, technically, be in violation of Right VII). However, as the Right notes, the right to privacy and confidentiality in library use should not be abridged regardless of any part of the users identity, including age. (Some libraries may get around parts of this issue in their policies by allowing users to list individuals who, perhaps with photo identification, are allowed access to anothers account. This is useful for folks who perhaps are unable to leave their homes and direct a caretaker, for instance, to retrieve their library holds with their consent. Depending on local laws, this becomes more complicated when considering the case of children, who may not be able to legally consent to giving access to their account to another individual.)

Example: The easiest-grab example of Right VII in action is the library response to the 2001 Act of the United States Congress known as the Patriot Act. In response to the Act, libraries resisted and reported government requests for information and some posted signs warning patrons of the implications of the Act in the context of libraries.

Though the Library Bill of Rights may not be a document hanging on the wall of every household, its value to both libraries and library users is undeniable. That said, the discussion above is by no means perfect or exhaustive. The Library Bill of Rights has room for interpretation and that interpretation can easily shift to meet how society evolves over time. Check in with the official Library Bill of Rights every now and then and keep a finger to the pulse of library news to see how different libraries take the Rights and implement themor notin their own communities.

Next time you visit your library, do a little observing: How does your library match up to the Rights? Are there policies or other aspects of the library that could be better aligned with the document? Did any of the rights surprise you? Check in with us on Twitter to let us know.

The rest is here:
The Library Bill of Rights: What They Are and What They Mean for You - Book Riot

Herman Hesses proposal of life through self-discovery in Siddhartha is appealing, yet somewhat problematic, Andreas Charidemou writes.

Content Note: This article contains brief mention of suicide.

Your soul is the whole world, Siddhartha pondered before he began his journey of self-discovery.

Quarantined at home after leaving Cambridge, still shocked by the abrupt end of my second year, I felt rather disillusioned. I sought a read to take my mind off things. My brother recommended Siddhartha; a surprisingly fitting classic by Herman Hesse, which earned him the Nobel Prize in 1946. It takes place in India, and follows the spiritual journey of a young man in the age of Buddha (who cleverly shares his first name), as he attempts to discover a higher state of being, or Weltanschauung of a philosophy of life. The book is short, the prose beautifully written.

The problem does not lie in finding perfection but instead in achieving completion.

Siddhartha begins his life as a Brahmins son, and is on his way to become a promising Hindu priest. However, one day he realizes that his soul has been left unsatisfied by his devotion to duty and religion. He is at a dead end, and leaves home to become Samana, an ascetic monk. By experiencing the extremes of deprivation, he hopes to empty himself completely of all physical desires in order to hear his soul and find peace. This brings him no closer to happiness. Hes reluctantly convinced by his companion Govinda to go and hear the teachings of Gotama Buddha, a man who was said to have achieved the blissful state of Nirvana they are seeking. In one of the book's most iconic passages, Siddhartha encounters and converses with Buddha, then spurns him. After meeting the best teacher the world has to offer, it becomes clear to him that the way of salvation cannot be taught, that words are empty sounds, and that each man must find his own way.

The autobiographical elements of the story are thinly concealed. As young man, Hesse himself rebelled against the orthodoxy of his parents. Afirm believer in self-education, he rejected their strict religious beliefs and ran away to shape his own life. This aligns with the main truth highlighted by the book, which appears to be the impossibility of achieving enlightenment or Nirvana through learning and religion; it is made clear that this can only be reached through self-reliance. This work, alongside Hesse's other novels, were considered the literary gateway drugs of the youth of the 1960s and 1970s, primary symbols of the counterculture. In the wake of two World Wars, the possibility of asserting the meaning of life appealed to many.

Searching for meaning in life through self-discovery and distilling wisdom from experience are wise occupations for the solitary weeks ahead.

In the second part of the book, Siddhartha experiences the material world. As a merchant, he experiences the heights of opulence and becomes the lover of the enchanting courtesan Kamala. Worldly affairs gradually enslave him, making him feel more lost than ever. He abandons everything and is close to committing suicide by drowning in a river, when the mysterious word OM, a Hindu word signifying the essence of the ultimate reality, comes to his mind. Following this revelation, he becomes a ferryman and devotes his life to understanding the secret of the river. The secret appears to be that the concept of time does not exist. The river has no past, no future, no beginning, no end: it is merely present. The protagonist discovers that happiness is real only when causality or time ceases to exist for him. The problem does not lie in finding perfection but instead in achieving completion.

READ MORE

The Plague : Camuss Ethic of the Ordinary

However, one cannot help but feel frustrated with the inherent arrogance and selfishness attached to the individualistic philosophy of life that Hesse advocates. In order to reach enlightenment, Siddhartha must abandon society entirely, this including his companion and child. His attitude towards humanity is patronizing, belittling; he consistently refers to normal human beings as children. Hesse seems to suggest the fundamental incompatibility of living with people and being authentic, of forming bonds of friendships and remaining true to oneself.

This is a view that I find hard to accept. The parallels between this philosophical position and Hesses own failures as a father, husband and scholar during the rise of Nazism are blatant. Yet perhaps now, at a time when so many of us feel and are isolated against our will, Hesse's words inSiddharthahave a ring of truth. The idea that one should seek meaning in life through self-discovery, distilling wisdom from experience, is a wise suggestion for the solitary weeks ahead.

Varsity is the independent newspaper for the University of Cambridge, established in its current form in 1947. In order to maintain our editorial independence, our newspaper and news website receives no funding from the University of Cambridge or its constituent Colleges.

We are therefore almost entirely reliant on advertising for funding, and during this unprecedented global crisis, we have a tough few weeks and months ahead.

In spite of this situation, we are going to look at inventive ways to look at serving our readership with digital content for the time being.

Therefore we are asking our readers, if they wish, to make a donation from as little as 1, to help with our running cost at least until we hopefully return to print on 2nd October 2020.

Many thanks, all of us here at Varsity would like to wish you, your friends, families and all of your loved ones a safe and healthy few months ahead.

Continued here:
Siddhartha: Hesse's guide to a meaningful self-isolation - Varsity Online