Is Poverty A State of Mind?

Photo source: CNN

Though largely an apolitical person, I read the following in my Facebook news-feed this morning which I thought warranted some comment.

Apparently Dr. Ben Carson, retired neurosurgeon and the Trump appointed HUD secretary, recently said that poverty is largely "a state of mind." While I'm an adherent of the spiritual philosophy known as New Thought, whose central premise is that our habitual thoughts, emotions, and beliefs are causative of our circumstances, in my view Dr. Carson's statement requires elaboration.

His political stances aside- most if not all I disagree with - there is much to admire about Dr. Carson's well chronicled life story of how he rose from humble beginnings to become an accomplished surgeon, which he attributed to unwavering optimism in the face of hardship. While many of us are cynical when it comes to the "power of positive thinking" there is a large body of historical, anecdotal, and scientific evidence that impassioned thought and belief play a critical role in shaping destinies, individually and collectively.

With that said, I do NOT subscribe to the judgmental spirit of victim blaming indulged in by some conservatives and libertarians, who flippantly assert that people utilizing social safety net programs are failures who have brought poverty upon themselves (as if they revel in struggling to afford staples that many of us take for granted). What makes it all the more tragic is that many of these same critics identify as members of a religion whose founder compassionately administered to the poor and downtrodden: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:3)

In the course of his ministry Jesus never ONCE judged those who came to him seeking his aid. Rather than kicking them while they were down in the manner of the Pharisees, he lifted them up through the power of faith and belief in their inherent goodness, empowering them to an awareness of their unity with the "Father within" to overcome their difficulties: "Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” (Matthew 9:22)

I steadfastly believe there will come a time in our psychological and societal evolution where safety net programs will no longer be necessary, and that through use of our mental and spiritual faculties none of us shall want for any good thing. But until that time they serve a valuable purpose, and those who are forced to make use of them should be lifted up in love, not condemned.

"Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed." Psalm 82:3

"What Is Now Proved Was Once Only Imagined" Part II

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite."
William Blake
Wanderer Above the Sea of  Fog, Caspar David Friedrich, Wikimedia Commons

In the first installment of this series published last week, we read weighty testimonials from a plethora of eras and thinkers, attesting to the indisputable role that consciousness plays within the schematic of Creation. With the mind blowing findings furnished by science, the age old assertions of philosophy and religion can no longer be casually dismissed as mere poetic fancy:

"I said, “You are gods,

And all of you are children of the Most High..." 

Though humankind, so slow in attaining understanding through millennia of evolution, still pays fealty to the primacy of the "real" world of sense, and remains shackled, like Prometheus of old, to the rock of "Fate".

"But you shall die like men,

And fall like one of the princes.” (Psalm 82: 6 - 7)

Nonetheless, it will be protested by the realists among us that this is all strictly conjecture – highly intriguing no doubt, but ultimately conjecture, with no basis in empirical reality, incompatible with reason, and utterly nonsensical.  But was it not once considered nonsensical to assert that the earth was spherical, since it stretches flat all the way to the horizon in our field of vision? If we were to take at face value the report of our senses, the notion of the earth rotating on an axis would be still consigned to the realm of the absurd, seeing how fixed our position in any location, standing or sitting, seems to be. And a pox on the heliocentric theory! Do not our eyes clearly show that the sun, in its rising and setting, revolves around our fair orb? 

As Blake put it so wonderfully in his There is No Natural Religion:

“Man’s Perceptions are not bounded by Organs of Perception; he perceives more than Sense (tho’ ever so acute) can discover.”

Again, here we see truth appearing to align with seeming fiction. Nikola Tesla, in his 1905 work “A Means for Furthering Peace” wrote:

“Our senses enable us to perceive only a minute portion of the outside world. Our hearing extends to a small distance. Our sight is impeded by intervening bodies and shadows. To know each other we must reach beyond the sphere of our sense perceptions.”

Recent findings in neuroscience seem to stand with both the inspired poet and visionary inventor.  Donald D. Hoffman, professor of cognitive science at the University of California Irvine, posits after three decades of research that, to paraphrase Obi-Wan Kenobi’s observation in A New Hope, our senses are in fact limited and deceiving, a byproduct of our early evolution:

“The classic argument is that those of our ancestors who saw more accurately had a competitive advantage over those who saw less accurately and thus were more likely to pass on their genes that coded for those more accurate perceptions, so after thousands of generations we can be quite confident that we’re the offspring of those who saw accurately, and so we see accurately. That sounds very plausible. But I think it is utterly false. It misunderstands the fundamental fact about evolution, which is that it’s about fitness functions—mathematical functions that describe how well a given strategy achieves the goals of survival and reproduction.”

Using the analogy of a desktop icon on a computer, Hoffman explains:

“Suppose there’s a blue rectangular icon on the lower right corner of your computer’s desktop — does that mean that the file itself is blue and rectangular and lives in the lower right corner of your computer? Of course not… Those are the only categories available to you, and yet none of them are true about the file itself or anything in the computer…You could not form a true description of the innards of the computer if your entire view of reality was confined to the desktop. And yet the desktop is useful. That blue rectangular icon guides my behavior, and it hides a complex reality that I don’t need to know… Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive. They guide adaptive behaviors. But part of that involves hiding from us the stuff we don’t need to know. And that’s pretty much all of reality, whatever reality might be. If you had to spend all that time figuring it out, the tiger would eat you.”

While this adaption was a necessary step in the unfolding of our racial consciousness - helping our ancestors to focus on the essentials of physical survival - we longer need to be bound by such limitation. The successive innovations of civilized life secured greater physical safety and financial security – the first two rungs of Maslow's hierarchy of needs – thereby granting us the leisure and time to ponder what lies beyond the realm of our immediate material existences.  Our collective vision, subsequently, has expanded into that mighty kingdom of intangibles (Plato’s World of the Ideal Forms) which the arts, sciences, and philosophy seek to explore. With each advance forward our reason has grown as well, so what was once considered inherently unreasonable is now considered common sense.

In the words of Blake:

“Reason, or the Ratio of all we have already known, is not the same that it shall be when we know more.”

This is the great law of imaginative expansion which has governed humanity, from the earliest days of hunting and gathering to the present. It is the same law which spurred the astronomer – priests of Babylon to observe and record the movement of the celestial bodies, whose findings served as the chief launching pad for future discoveries, capped nearly two millennia later by the landing of men on the Moon.  It was this gift of vision which rendered the wheel, agriculture, engineering, writing, painting, architecture, medicine, locomotion, aviation, and the internet.

The philosophes of all ages, climes, and races have boldly tread the ground and lighted the path. It remains for us – individually and collectively – to cast the dye and venture forth across our own Rubicons. Whether we are crowned with the champion's laurel wreath or share in Caesar's ultimate fate depends upon our steering of the rudders of thought and rigging of the sails of imagination. As Shakespeare wrote in his Henry V: "All things are ready, if our minds be so."

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"What Is Now Proved Was Once Only Imagined" Part I

"This world of imagination is the world of eternity." William Blake
The Ancient of Days, 1794, Wikimedia Commons

"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere." Albert Einstein

"Imagination creates reality." Richard Wagner

"Imagination governs the world." Napoleon Bonaparte

To the above quoted luminaries - and the countless score of inspired souls down the ages, whether painter, plowman, and politician, soldier, suffragette, or scientist - the utilization of the imaginative faculty has not been merely to serve as an arena for the staging of lifeless day dreams, or the breeding ground for feverish delusions of grandeur. It was nothing less than the workshop of the mind, where grand thoughts and noble visions are forged by the fiery smith of belief into physical being. Whether it be in the fields of medicine, music, literature, science, art, and religion, all initial discoveries and subsequent advances were first conceived in the womb of disciplined, inspired imagination. For some, it was something yet grander. In the words of the visionary poet William Blake, "Man is all Imagination. God is Man and exists in us and we in Him... The Eternal Body of Man is the Imagination, that is, God, Himself."

Indeed, those intrepid visionaries such as Blake - who the incredulous masses and the dogmatic gatekeepers of the stunted status quo declare mad - have only articulated with forceful beauty the sentiment expressed by the inquisitive searchers of truth of all times:

"Mind is the Master Power that molds and makes, And we are mind. And ever more we take the tool of thought, and shaping what we will, bring forth a thousand joys, or a thousand ills. We think in secret, and it comes to pass, environment is but our looking glass." James Allen

Befitting her inherent ability of myriad manifestation, this creative force has donned many different masks throughout the ongoing run of Creation - God, Allah, Brahma, Yahweh, Tao, Fortune, to name but a few of her perceived forms - yet the Muse of Imagination has been ever present, working with deep thinkers of all ages, nations, races, and genders, bringing those things which are seen from that which is unseen.

The voices of glorious antiquity – East and West alike – sound their testimony to her ability, as directed by the current of individual, and in turn, collective human thought, to form "light and create darkness, make weal and create woe" (Isaiah 45: 7):

"The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it." Marcus Aurelius

"If we are not stupid or insincere when we say that the good or ill of man lies within his own will, and that all beside is nothing to us, why are we still troubled?" Epictetus

"All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him." Buddha

“The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.” Confucius (attributed)

Even the contents of the Christian Scriptures, when viewed thorough the illuminating lens of metaphor, parable, and allegory, stand in firm solidarity with the insight of the "heathen" experience:

"For as he thinks in his heart, so is he." Proverbs 23: 7

"You will also declare a thing,

And it will be established for you;

So light will shine on your ways." Job 22:28

"So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them." Mark 11: 22 - 24

"That is all well good," the doctrinaire materialist will say, "Yet nothing but fanciful philosophy! What does science have to stay of the matter?"

Ask, and you shall receive, to borrow a line. The miracles of science as demonstrated by her storied seekers have only verified the earlier observations of the ancients concerning the omnipotent and creative nature of inspired imagination.

There is the old story of August Kekule, the renowned German chemist known for his contributions to the field of theoretical chemistry, who discovered the shape of the benzene molecule via a day dream of a snake seizing its own tail (the ancient Ouroboros symbolizing regeneration; Carl Jung believed it to be a significant archetypal image). 

Frederick Banting, the Canadian physician who pioneered the use of insulin injection treatment for sufferers of diabetes (for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1923), had a dream instructing him to surgically tie the pancreas of a diabetic dog to stop the flow of nourishment. After performing the procedure as detailed in the dream, he discovered a connection between sugar and insulin. Further researches lead him to developing insulin as a drug treatment for diabetics.

The celebrated Nikola Tesla - the visionary behind smartphone technology, the alternating current induction motor, and a holy host of other ground breaking inventions – attested strongly to the role that concentrated and inventive thought played in his illustrious career:

"I am credited with being one of the hardest workers and perhaps I am, if thought is the equivalent of labour, for I have devoted to it almost all of my waking hours. But if work is interpreted to be a definite performance in a specified time according to a rigid rule, then I may be the worst of idlers. Every effort under compulsion demands a sacrifice of life-energy. I never paid such a price. On the contrary, I have thrived on my thoughts.”

Furthermore he said,"The gift of mental power comes from God, Divine Being, and if we concentrate our minds on that truth, we become in tune with this great power."

Thomas Edison, the Wizard of Menlo Park and Tesla’s rival in the fabled “Current Wars,” once remarked, "To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."

And, of course, there is the monumental paradigm shifting work of Albert Einstein, whose theory of relativity revolutionized the scientific view of the Cosmos from the prevailing Newtonian model to that of an expanding, four dimensional universe. Quoth the sage, "The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination." 

In light of Einstein's revelations - many of which came to light through his method of imaginative "thought experiments" - the field of physics has slowly begun to entertain and accept the idea - postulated by Idealistic philosophies like Hermeticism and Vedanta for example – of a central Universal Mind, animating and expressing itself in the multiplicity of physical forms manifest in the Cosmos, including humanity. Einstein, in his 1934 book The World as I See It, expressed his own sentiment as follows:

“But the scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation… His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, in so far as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire. It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages.”

Sir Arthur Eddington, prominent English physicist and one of the earliest supporters of Einstein's theory of relativity, posited in his 1928 book The Nature of the Physical World:

"The universe is of the nature of a thought or sensation in a universal Mind... To put the conclusion crudely — the stuff of the world is mind-stuff...The mind-stuff of the world is something more general than our individual conscious minds; but we may think of its nature as not altogether foreign to feelings in our consciousness... Having granted this, the mental activity of the part of world constituting ourselves occasions no great surprise; it is known to us by direct self-knowledge, and we do not explain it away as something other than we know it to be — or rather, it knows itself to be."

Eddington's contemporary, Sir James Jeans, believed likewise. From his The Mysterious Universe:

"Today there is a wide measure of agreement, which on the physical side of science approaches almost to unanimity, that the stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as a creator and governor of the realm of matter..."

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this mind bending discussion, which will be posted next week!

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Honor Your Father and Mother

Photo credit: https://lifehopeandtruth.com

If we are to render true honor to our parents we must: Understand and forgive them their shortcomings, then transcend them by incorporating and building on their strengths in ourselves.

All of us, having been reared in a society in which the Judeo - Christian strain of ethics is deeply embedded, have undoubtedly heard at various times in our lives the injunction to "Honor your father and your mother" (Exodus 20:12), which of course is one of the Ten Commandments. A noble sentiment, but one that is sometimes taken (along with other parts of the Bible) at face value: Even, unfortunately, to the point of enduring abuse – physical, emotional, and psychological - from a parent or guardian.

 While the vast majority of such abuse is visited upon children by their parents/guardians unconsciously, it sadly brings with it both immediate and long lasting detrimental effects on physical, emotional, and psychological well-being. According to the latest research published in April 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited the following findings regarding the effects of Child Maltreatment:

- “Abuse and neglect during infancy or early childhood can cause regions of the brain to form and function improperly with long-term consequences on cognitive and language abilities, socioemotional development, and mental health. For example, the stress of chronic abuse may cause a "hyperarousal" response in certain areas of the brain, which may result in hyperactivity and sleep disturbances.”

- “Children who experience abuse and neglect are also at increased risk for adverse health effects and certain chronic diseases as adults, including heart disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, liver disease, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high levels of C-reactive protein.”

- “In one long-term study, as many as 80% of young adults who had been abused met the diagnostic criteria for at least one psychiatric disorder at age 21. These young adults exhibited many problems, including depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and suicide attempts.”

- “Children who experience abuse and neglect are at increased risk for smoking, alcoholism, and drug abuse as adults, as well as engaging in high-risk sexual behaviors.”

This, it would seem, is an all too vivid demonstration of how "the sins of the parents" can be visited "upon their children; the entire family is affected--even children in the third and fourth generations." (Numbers 14:18) All of this information begs the question: How can we truly honor our parents and guardians, if we are continuing to deal with the wounds generated by their abusive behavior?

Forgiveness

The first step, so beautifully articulated by Jesus, is to forgive:

“Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother who sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not just seven times, but seventy-seven times!” (Matthew 18:21-22)

Forgiveness, as modern medicine has discovered, is one of the most potent of healing balms. It helps to clear out the poison pockets of pain, rage, and anger that have welled up in our minds and hearts, keeping us bound in depression, frustration, and physical illness. As the late Dr. Joseph Murphy wrote in his classic self - help best-seller The Power of Your Subconscious Mind:

“Forgiveness of others is essential to mental peace and radiant health. You must forgive everyone who has ever hurt you if you want perfect health and happiness. Forgive yourself by getting your thoughts in harmony with divine law and order. You cannot really forgive yourself completely until you have forgiven others first.” (Chapter 17, “How to use your Subconscious Mind for Forgiveness”)

Part of forgiveness includes, as difficult as it is, being able to step back and objectively look at our childhood and upbringing. This can allow us to understand that our parents and guardians were ultimately doing the best they could with what knowledge and experience they had at their disposal. It also grants us the opportunity to realize that in no way do children bring on themselves such injurious behavior, which is entirely a result of their parents’ psychological conditioning and response patterns. This aids in dispelling any notion of guilt over whether we acted in a way warranting such treatment.

It is also important to note that forgiveness is not synonymous with reconciliation or reengaging in a relationship with the person(s) you are forgiving. As Dr. Murphy wrote, “I feel sure you know that to forgive the other does not necessarily mean that you like him or want to associate with him. You cannot be compelled to like someone…We can, however, love people without liking them.” (Ibid.)

 Love is nothing more than the fulfilling of the Golden Rule, to “Do to others as you would have them do to you”. To forgive is to give for – to give peace for discord, love for anger, and joy for mourning. This is the essence of Jesus’s teaching to “Love your enemies and bless them that curse you”. (Matthew 5:44)  When we can think of the other person in a spirit of peace, wishing them all the blessings of life, we can move forward in the healing process.

Seeing the Good

Once clarity of mind and lightness of heart have been achieved through forgiveness, we can begin to truly honor our parents. A good place to start is by consciously sifting the wheat from the chaff, identifying and incorporating the choice qualities of our parents into our own personalities and consigning the undesirable ones to the fire to be forgotten. Paul expressed this process succinctly in his letter to the Philippians:

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.” (Philippians 4:8)

It is through adopting our parent’s strengths and transcending their weaknesses that we render them the highest honor. This was perhaps most poignantly illustrated in the final film of the original Star Wars trilogy, Return of the Jedi. After a vicious lightsaber duel, Luke Skywalker is goaded on by Emperor Palpatine to strike down his father Darth Vader, who before turning to evil was the Jedi hero Anakin Skywalker, and to take his father’s place as the Emperor’s apprentice. Luke, after a moment of temptation, tosses away his lightsaber, firmly proclaiming, “You have failed, your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me.” By forgiving the sins of Darth Vader and embracing the virtues of Anakin Skywalker, Luke transcended and ultimately redeemed his father from the dark side.

We must do likewise by confronting the ghosts of traumatic childhood memories and, viewing them in the light of mature understanding, declare that they will no longer hold dominion over our lives. The process is not easy – most if not all of us will undoubtedly experience a long night of trial in our own mental Gethsemanes – but, anointed with illumined Reason and girded by Faith, we shall be able to faithfully fulfill the commandment to truly honor our parents.

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