40 Days and Nights

The Temptation

Jesus of Nazareth spent 40 days and nights in deep contemplation of himself, his motivations and actions in the wilderness of Judea. Its what we do sometimes on that fishing trip, or hunting or that long motorbike ride across the country. To achieve a point of equanimity in our passions and relate that to mind to derive an understanding of what that means. It is the fair mix of our qualities that relate one to another without any one part asserting itself as more.

It was reported that he was tempted by the Devil who promised him the world … which is something that always happens when we start to get things right. But the way we respond to that is to leave it to the opportunities that present themselves in the world. For such men of caliber are constantly called upon to serve society and the organization of man.

Let's see if I can make that clearer. I'm saying we don't get to sit quietly someplace … dream up the world's perfection … and figure its God's will and it will somehow come to pass. No. Its us again … who after dreaming it up … find ourselves in positions of public responsibility … to serve the cause of social construction. But if we are unable to walk that fine line of duty … without letting our greed muddle it up … we realize that the mischief is us … what we previously called the devil.

And that helps to illustrate the difference between plain thinking out the issues and creating a scheme of organization with them … as compared to carrying it out in the physical … flesh and bones … where it tosses aside the subtler qualities … and by the nature of the gross physical … draws us into possessing and naming the achievements after us.

Okay … so we are supposed to say its God? That would be one way … and we used to do that … if we are sure what that means. The Indic … in such an experience of physical realization of the subtle objectives … names it after the ' paramatma ' literally translated as the greater soul or self. And that means what? … well … the world, the universe, my society, family … all things outside of the strictly individual. For we can't exist without all these.

We can improve on that today … we can see that ' other ' … the social self … the greater self … in us … in our qualities … and maintain a cognitive difference between that and the individual nature. Its like saying the tower of our central nervous system is different from our arms and our legs and the sexual organs. And when a person refers to his friend across the oceans in another part of the world … he can take some trouble to say ' I'm not him … he's an individual by his own right '… and to adhere to such decorum and rhythms of the body that preserves that attitude.

Oh yeah … we continue to have a beer once a while … watch a sexy movie … go on a date … and all those things that normal people do … while maintaining a sense of what is me and the other. But it helps to be coherent about that … in precise terms … not by will … but understanding. Thereafter to simply leave the body and mind to its own working. If we still screw up … then we come back and do it again someday.

An accumulation of such endeavors over time … possibly many lives … prepares the instrument of the body and mind … to such a soul-based physical adaptation … and form … that is put out by the re-birthing process and the world's influences that it is subject to. Then … in the course of time … we find ourselves fulfilling our roles in the social … without too much aggravation from the individual natures. This is the only sure guarantee of getting it right.

If it starts today … then today is the beginning of the rest of the life of the world. We know we are doing something about it … and that quite often … is all that matters.