Confused ji some comments back in red.
I have also used CJ to flag your writing and AJ to flag mine
and the color red.
Confused ji thanks for your post. Confused ji I have also elaborated on the concept of consonance in the following post if you wish to review,
http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/sikh-s...tml#post151862
CJ: Thanks, I've read one of your responses to Harry ji.
There is going to be a lot of questions, I hope that you do not mind.
AJ:
I will review one of the paragraphs and perhaps it will allow me to clarify also other comments you have in your post.
CJ: Quote: If as you suggest that an animal in doing what it does,
AJ:
An animal to have a chance of living in consonance, it needs to be living as per the creation of such species and members of such species. A pet dog does not qualify as an example of living in consonance rather living in slavery.
CJ: Are you suggesting that a Dachshund could have a more ideal existence than being someone's pet? What would that be?
AJ: A specific Dachshund may not have any existence, say if it was left to such species to be there naturally over time. There may not be as many and not as many be interested to be open to enslaved living. You have to ask them as no species can talk about the inners of any other species.
Quote:
AJ:
Same for a snake in a zoo or Lion or elephant in a zoo.
CJ:You mean a Chihuahua if not made into a pet would have been found roaming in the wild?
A specific Chihuahua may not have any existence, say if it was left to such species to be there naturally over time. There may not be as many and not as many be interested to be open to enslaved living. You have to ask them as no species can talk about the inners of any other species.
Quote:
CJ: and the businessman who tries to be secure by whatever means, are both living in consonance with creation,
AJ:
Such could at action level be living in consonance with creation while in dis-harmony with his group. Creation does not care then and suc’s group might!
AJ:
A business man living in the society and species has the opportunity to participate innately to live in consonance for such species. Within living in consonance is a self regulating and assured responsibility to deliver on consonance. However, the concept becomes an aggregated factor for a community, a group or such entity to work out details on living within the species and interacting with the rest of creation.
CJ: So a human being is in a way handicapped as compared to say, a wildebeest, since the latter does not need much guidance in order to be living in harmony with the rest of its kind, whereas a human being is always resisting and in conflict, clearly no self-regulating faculty (why is such a handicap if that is who we are in the eye of the creator!) within the individual himself?
To each species its own! Also remember that we are not equipped to understand the inners of other life forms like such being so incapably different.
CJ: Was there a momentary lapse of attention / oversight on the part of the Creator when the human being was conceived of?
Creation is variety and balance therein. There is no blame implied or stated. It is how it is.
CJ: Or perhaps there was no such thing as conceiving of an idea and then actualizing it since these are only human characteristics ….?
Human and other classifications are your imperative and not mine. There is lot of common and there is also lot of different.
CJ: How does it work then, any ideas?
I have to be the creator to explain that. I only try to understand and postulate how consonance is a fundamental essence in creation. Knowing properties of something/someone does not give you the ability to create or re-create.
AJ:
Within the species the governance and latitude exists to a great deal of variety and deviation from what aggregated norm will define consonance for the collective. Now if a collective tolerates a Business man to live or go for things one way and let a beggar do things in another way, that is an input to the collective while at personal level it may seem hugely different. The collective will be seen by rest of the creation to be in consonance.
CJ: So in the end it does not matter what any individual thinks or how he acts, and whether this will lead to good or bad consequence on a personal level, so long as according to the bigger picture, everything is kept in balance, is this what you are saying?
Confused ji this is not a correct interpretation of what I wrote. What a person does of course has consequences. But these are relative and not absolte depending on which location or group one lives in. What is bad in one group may be considered good in another group. There are local consequences to love in harmony or dis-harmony with your group. However from a consonance perspective the group is much more important in its actions towards or understanding of rest of creation.
In Islam pigs and dogs are disdained, so these creatures are going to have a terrible time in such groups. Christian communities and other clusters have different aspects and living in sufficient numbers they have impacts on what surrounds them.
In perfect consonance, the actions, perceptions and interactions would be much more common and synergistic towards all creation. Sikhism encourages such with great emphasis.
AJ:
Now let us take an example perhaps where collective is not in consonance. Excessive use of pesticides leading to water contamination, deforestation leading to mudslides, excessive use of antibiotics leading to super bugs, excessive deviation what our bodies were designed to handle leading to cancers, so on. These are lack of living in consonance of species depending upon level of activity. Consequences are prevalent all over to view.
CJ: Well, you can put this in an even bigger picture can't you and come to a conclusion that in the larger scheme of things, even this leads to harmony? So where does one draw the line and why? If your answer is "maintaining the particular species", can you tell me why this is ever important, i.e. in the eyes of God? How is survival of a species a virtue?
Confused ji I am not saying that decisions of species survival reside with us. Understanding of interactions is most important. At such point there are decisions and actions that follow based on the needs of each. Species will come and go through actions of their own or of others but humans as they are put on a pedestal do have a duty to understand how it all fits and be cognizance of such in their actions. It again leads to living in understanding of all as much as possible without hang-ups and such is again strongly encouraged in Sikhism.
CJ: why is it that you have a problem with people who discriminate between right and wrong, good and bad?
AJ:
Confused ji the issue who is finding faults in who and what is its impact on creation or what note creation will take of such.
Let us take an example of homosexuality. Perhaps it is a good thing as it may lead indirectly to population control which we as a species have determined to fight nature through over population.
CJ: So your concern is not towards what any individual goes through doing what he does
I cannot have concern for an individual for such matters if such show no signs for need of help that any one can ascertain. If someone seeks help I try to do what I can.
CJ: and what the consequence of this might be, so long as this helps solve the problem of over population and other such things?
Confused ji it has less to do with me but society being accepting of such. So such groups must have determined something good for society as a whole in that beyond freedom. What rest of creation will see in such is a sigh of relief that over population is finally abating.
CJ: So what happens after that, i.e. after the population decreases? Do you then begin to think about the wellbeing of the individual including those that are homosexuals? If so why and if not why?
Our species will be at crossroads at such juncture. Guess which communities are growing the fastest, the one’s that don’t allow homosexuality, Islam. Most of the rest of the West is like 1.x babies trajectory of shrinking population trend. Do I look forward to a day when Islam rules the world, probably not. Definitely the homosexuals should not look forward to such a day.
CJ: And what would your attitude be towards a homosexual then? Or do you think that everything will automatically be in harmony, including that people will become virtuous and homosexuals will stop being what they are?
My attitude theoretically will not be here to check things out as it is not a timeframe I expect to see myself out and about. In current trends Homosexuality will flourish till Islam starts to impact strongly then such will have to take cover and will start declining.
AJ:
Population has huge consonance impacts in terms of interaction with rest of the species. I am not for forced sterilization but I am also thinking that we as a species have no answer in many such areas which matter at the consonance level (interaction with other elements and species).
CJ: Are you suggesting to the effect that in an overpopulated world it is difficult for such states as kindness and compassion to arise?
What are the chances of kindness and compassion when hundred mouths are open while there is only food for ten. Are we delusional in thinking the growth of population has not created greater issues for humanity! Why is there so much talk of “me” generation. It is not just talk it is becoming much more so.
CJ: The Four Immeasurables namely, kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity are said to be what brings about and maintain good relationship between beings. But this is an individual thing which each person has to see the value of and develop. When these are present, it makes no difference to whom it is directed, be it a saint or a terrorist, or in what situation, some idyllic setting or a noisy and crowded place. In fact one of the obstacles is the idea that these can be directed only to certain individuals and aroused only in some more suitable situation. Also moral shame and fear of blame are said to be that by which regulates a human behaviour, making him different from animals. And this too, is an individual thing.
CJ: What do you think about this Ambarsaria ji? Particularly this last comment about moral shame and fear of blame as being what differentiates humans from animals, how does this compare with your own idea about animals being more in consonance with creation than most human beings?
This is much of humans as superiors argument. So how much incestuous relationships happen in animals? What guides their code of conduct? One just cannot claim to be superior because of lack of understanding. Why don’t dogs mate with cats, why don’t dogs kill their young when they are hunger, why don’t lionesses each other cubs, so on. Human behavior is different so is animal behavior but neither is superior only relative.
CJ: Would pandemics be a general outcome of our ignorance to keep checks on ourselves as a species versus rest of creation. It is crass way to look at it but perhaps it is a perfectly valid outcome of a species going out of balance with consonance in creation.
CJ: Again, it's all about maintaining the species, but to what end? If you are willing to see a whole population suffer and die for the long term goal of maintaining the species as a whole, how do you expect a change of attitude with regard to the rest to suddenly happen? If I'm cold and indifferent towards the killing and death of one person but think that I might then experience kindness and compassion towards the one who survived, what is the probability of this in fact happening? And do you know what one of the conditions for the arising of kindness is? The awareness and understanding with regard to the nature of indifference and callousness! And this won't happen so long as one is involved in trying to justify it under some pretext.
Quote:
AJ:
The general issue of discriminate between right and wrong, good and bad with in a species is an intra species matter. If such is driven as a fundamental tenet of a species to deliver on consonance I have no issue. Lot of the discriminatory right/wrong and good/bad is hardly ever done as driven through fundamental needs to be in consonance as a species.
CJ: Can you give me one example of a good deed that does not have a positive effect in terms of the relationship between any two human beings, and how this then affects the matter of survival of the species?
A good deed for example someone comes to visit and not knowing that they have allergies about peanuts. You are out camping and you offer them the half of your peanut butter sandwich and they die. So is ignorance a defense for good deeds gone bad in this example.
Example at species level. Excessive use of anti-biotics is a good dded that your doctor does. Globally what we have created is a population for ever more susceptible to greater resistance bacteria. All local good deeds which will be doom in the future for one’s who could not afford the super expensive versions of treatment and perish. Is this local kindness that translated into doom or what!
AJ:
The way creation views us is that 5 are wrong and 5 are right in there actions in impacting consonance, it will say Ok no big deal. Similarly 5 are good nd 5 are bad, no big deal in terms of consonance. It is once such go out of balance to a degree to impact creation around that notice is taken.
CJ: Are you suggesting that kaam, krodh, moh, lobh and ahankar generally cause discord, but sometimes that may lead to accord? Likewise are you saying that under certain circumstances gyan, santokh, diraj, sat and so on are not appropriate since they will lead to dissonance?
Confused ji few things have survived the test of time for human species if such don’t have some redeeming value. None of these are 100% right or 100% wrong based on dependency of circumstances and actions. It is the balance that allows maximum benefit and knowing how to seek or keep such balance. Rest is empty talk about setting unachievable objectives to subjugate or show greater superficial piety of self.
CJ: So lascivious thoughts, other immoral thoughts, etc., are of no to little consequence to a species living in consonance with creation. If a species has determined that such would lead to conflict with creation at the species level, oh yes then we have issues.
Confused ji you have reversed the order of my statement. Anyone’s lascivious or immoral thoughts have no significance for the mango tree or the wandering dog. Within one’s community and based on your action of course it has consequences.
CJ: Perhaps you need to understand the following.
-Lascivious thoughts are what lead to acting out those thoughts.
-That in entertaining them one is planting a seed for more to arise and grow in intensity.
-Although one can't help having those thoughts, it is important that one acknowledges their wrongness.
-Believing that their rightness or wrongness is dependent on some consensus with regard to whether this leads to conflict within the species or not, is to actually encourage it.
-Encouraging lascivious thoughts is encouraging what is essentially wrong and productive of wrong.
So confused ji, can you name one person dead or alive that you believe had no thoughts related to kaam, krodh, moh, lobh and ahankar? What was their life like and how anyone externally verified this state! So suddenly “kaam” becomes the big daddy of all evil. This is the one that generally arises and falls without a trace versus the other four that almost are always externally observable. So do tell me what is so bad about it versus others!
AJ:
Confused ji consonance is a concept of living with whatever is around and how as us different from other elements and species react or coexist. Violations of a greater magnitude by a collective are dealt with or have very serious consequences. In such the ones good versus ones bad will not be differentiated in a collective repercussions. This is shown to us in numerous instances where saints and the good are engulfed by fire, flood, earthquake or a hurricane no different than the immoral and the bad.
CJ: What are you doing Ambarsaria ji, sitting on God's throne? ;-)
There is no God or God’s throne in Sikhism and I don’t believe in it and neither would I know what it could be like. Never had such a thought.
CJ: Why do you see the need to put yourself in a position high up, when in reality your feet is touching the ground and your eyes has been structured to see at ground level?
I am speaking my mind without the need for a reward or to impress but to share with rest of the members of our species. I do believe in give and take and sharing is productive for me as is receiving.
CJ: If the Creator has created you as you are, he has given you the faculties suitable for the particular existence hasn't he?
Creator does not put limits on how you use your faculties. Checks and balances both positive and negatives are within our own species and in our interactions with rest of creation. Otherwise we would not leave the shades of a banyan tree to go on a bike, a care or train or a plane. Sikhism espouses the futility or the objective of trying to know all but does not limit you to understand as much while having a practical living.
CJ: Would not it then be a perversion of perception and of understanding to be judging from a point of reference which is only a product of imagination?
Without imagination there is no life. Wonderment is the key to understanding.
CJ: While ignorance and greed is what is behind all the problems, now and in the past, and this involves mistake in perception, consciousness and understanding, what you are suggesting is different only in that it comes now, in a royal clothing.
Confused ji you have cut down on so called five evils into two now. Good to hear that “kaam” has been dropped. I hardly present anything with glitter and gold but like to state as straight as I can. Sorry if it appears differently.
CJ: Obviously you do feel the need to remind others about this don't you, and this means that even you judge some attitudes as correct (hence in consonance) and others as incorrect (hence dissonant)?
Confused ji if I give societal examples I am part of it and not above or below.
AJ:
Confused ji my intent is not to judge. Consonance is an understanding that needs to develop in a collective. It has some meaning at a personal level but it has very important global impacts. I do not judge attitudes as only actions are of important for interactions within creation. One understanding and actions regardless of such are as bad as no understanding and same actions as viewed by the rest of the creation.
CJ: OK, so let's say that you have such an understanding and is why you speak about it with so much faith.
I have no faith as I share what I think and not manipulate it because if I am a Sikh I should be doing this or that.
CJ: But what about the rest of us? Surely what you have stated so far isn't going to do the trick is it?
I don’t know what trick you are referring to. Sorry.
CJ: Or is it that we are to do a Google search, or read the Times, or watch Discovery Channel to get the general idea or something?
Most of my learning is through exposure to certain literature way back in childhood and of late interest in Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji. Rest is your conjecture and I can only feel good if what I say is tops in Google hits even stated by thousand others so that I could be blamed for plagiarism.
CJ: But even if we did somehow get all the necessary information or some of us have like you, achieved a state of mind which understands "consonance", the question is, what justifies believing for example, that lascivious thoughts are not bad?
No thoughts are bad as we learn through relative scenarios of good versus bad, evil versus holy, etc., so one is a catalyst for the other even if to generate understanding of goodness. In this learning if your thoughts don’t interact with others in action, philosophizing around it is childish.
CJ: When faced with a situation which otherwise demands compassion, what would the right attitude be like which states that the compassion then is out of place?
Compassion and such are also relative terms. Let me cite an example. One of the old lady relatives of ours was in a hospital. She was on assisted breathing. They have take the tube in and out so many times that her vocal cords stared to obstruct her breathing. Doctor wanted to pull the plug and she was sure to die. Her kids agreed to pull the plug and let her go. They said that through compassion. Equally through compassion I asked the doctor that he was suggesting the path just because she has swollen neck (yes she is older!). He had no answer. Asked for alternatives, the doctor suggested doing a tracheotomy. She recovered and had many healthy years and still around. So whose compassion was right or wrong is not for me to say. Everyone projects into the future during an act of compassion and without certainty there is no way to absolutely judge other tha through hindsight after the fact.
CJ: What kind of thoughts justify killing say, a mosquito?
I don’t go looking for mosquitoes. If they like my sweet blood and want to bite me, I have a right to wave them off or squat them to recover my blood after the fact! Consequences of cross boundaries of consonance are deadly!
Cj: When is aversion right and kindness wrong?
It is all driven what drives both. If driven by lack of understanding with reasonable probability to be wrong, either can be wrong. With higher probability of understanding one can take hold of aversion or kindness as the moment dictates.
Quote:
CJ: Is it not possible then, that even within the philosophy that you hold, there is much that must be wrong / bad while others are right / good?
AJ:
Confused ji I am always willing to stand in the city square to be stoned and corrected. Of course I am part of a bigger collective who I wish would live in consonance with rest of creation. The methodologies or approaches to do so are a conscious effort of the collective.
CJ: Well the wrongness is in the very starting point, namely the concept of collective vs. the individual. Indeed collective and individual are only ideas and there is no need to think in these terms when one is faced with the reality of what goes on from moment to moment.
There is no such reality as moment to moment as it is simply a conceptual tool to understand as it shows up in actionable or impacting form for a person to self and as to impact on others.
Excessive focus on this moment to moment conceptualization is a falsehood due to lack of understanding how micro things go and such intermediate conceptualizations are as much wisdom as falsehood of no consequence. It is a guesswork limited by one’s understanding and an unknown level of activity that continues in a person at most micro, elemental and molecular level way beyond rising and falling states..
CJ: The perception through the five senses do not engender the idea of a 'me', let alone that of the 'other'.
Are you suggesting that anything physical we see is not real like one’s own body or parts and same for everything through our various senses. We don’t have faculties to fully describe self (me) or others so I don’t know why it is even important.
In fact in Sikhism and our Gurus teachings it is repeated again and again to not be futile to try to seek the completeness of information within or without.
CJ: The idea of a 'self' interacting with people and things is the result of the thinking process and this is fine, in fact necessary, only we need to understand that this is what is going on.
What is the point! We always think to interact consciously or sub-consciously so that is pretty much how everyone understands it.
CJ: Indeed without the perception of another being or person, there can't be morality, nor kindness, generosity or compassion on one hand, nor on the other hand, anger, jealousy, lust and so on.
Yes again this is what is entailed in perceiving.
CJ: However, while attachment, aversion and wrong understanding can arise towards the concept of a 'collective group', morality and understanding do not conceive of such an idea.
CJ: And when it comes to kindness and compassion,
Kindness and compassion are not necessary to be in consonance with rest of the creation. Such may be tools that are common and of use in interaction within one’s own species as well as others that can relate to such expressions for seeing all as one creation.
To give someone water if thirst (own species or others), to allow a deer to live rather than not stop and hit with your car, so on, are inter-species interaction skills. May the dear is also stopped as it could wreck you if it ran into the car while you drive.
CJ: this won't be the real thing if the perception is of a particular group at the exclusion of other groups, but instead it would be their near enemies, namely attachment and pity (a form of aversion).
Pity is not a positive quality emphasized in Sikhism as it is like we acting as a creator and in control to harm and not doing so to show our power in a pitiful way. Pity is not a character needed to live in consonance.
CJ: So no virtue really, in thinking for the collective, only more ignorance, craving, aversion and wrong understanding.
Totally wrong interpretation. Collective virtue or understanding is a common entity that will show up in consonance actions. If it is of consonance, all will become and be one. If it is not of consonance, there will be conflict between the collectives of species types, elemental and vegetable forms.
The collective is the only way to actually create a functional consonance in actions and its basis for success is not ignorance, craving or aversion but correct understanding.
CJ: Frankly I doubt that anywhere in the Sikh teachings are ideas such as the one you express here.
Sri Guru Granth Sahib ji imbues with such teachings. These are not my formations but what I understand when I review the teachings. I am only one and I do depend on others of knowledge about Sikhism to help me enhance or vet my understanding. I have not seen violent opposition to what I state in this regard but that does not make me or it right. Only discourse and comments of the learned in Sikhism can do so.
CJ: I think it is all your own extrapolation of particular key concepts, influenced in part by modern day western thought.
I do not read or watch modern day “western thought” entities. I do observe, I do think, I do try to relate it to all as one, generally the key catalyst for this has been early exposure to Sikhism for me.
CJ: I have been very direct Ambarsaria ji, but since you are willing to be stoned at, I expect that you will not mind it so much. ;-)
I have no problem about directness as long as it is laid out in some detail so it enables one to learn, understand, correct one’s understanding and respond.
Sat Sri Akal
