Ken Wilber from The Eye of the Spirit (p. 276-279):

"Robert McDermott, in his chapter 'The Need for Physical and Spiritual Dialogue: Reflections on Ken Wilber's Sex, Ecology, Spiritualitv,' raises the issue of whether polemical discourse is ever appropriate for academic and especially spiritual dialogue . He ends up rather strongly condemning polemic, his major point being that it isn't spiritual. But I believe that this, too, reflects an impoverished and narrow view of spirit - what it is, and where it is located.

"McDermott asks if we could ever hear polemic from the great spiritual philosophers, such as Aurobindo or James or Plotinus. The answer, of course, is yes. In fact, the vast majority of spiritual philosophers have engaged at one time or another in intense polemical discourse---Plato, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Fichte, Schopenhauer, Schelling, Augustine, Origen, Plotinus, to name a very few. They do so, I believe, precisely because they understand the difference between what Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche used to call 'compassion' and 'idiot compassion.' This is perhaps the hardest lesson to learn in politically correct America, where idiot compassion---the abdication of of discriminating wisdom and the loss of the moral fiber to voice it---is too often equated with 'spirituality.'

"I think, on the contrary, that we admire these spiritual philosophers because idiot compassion was foreign to them, because they had the moral courage to speak out in the most acerbic of terms when necessary, to make the hard calls and make them loud and clear. People too often imagine that 'choiceless awareness' means making no judgments at all. But that itself is a judging activity.

"Rather, 'choicelesss awareness' means that both judging and no judging are allowed to arise, appropriate to circumstances. I think this is exactly why so many great spiritual philosophers engaged in such incredibly intense polemic, Plotinus being a quite typical example. Plotinus so aggressively attacked the astrologers that Dante felt it necessary to consign the entire lot of them to the eighth ring of hell, and he unrelentingly tore into the Gnostics as having 'no right to even speak of the Divine.'

"I used to think that if somebody engaged in that type of forceful polemic, they couldn't be very enlightened. I see now it is exactly the opposite. We tend to believe genuine spirituality should avoid all that, whereas in fact it quite often engages it passionately as a manifestation of its capacity to judge depth (i.e., its capacity for discriminating wisdom). Plotinus's acerbic and occasionally sarcastic attack on the astrologers and Gnostics is paradigmatic: they were a politically powerful and unpleasant lot, and it took courage to claim they had no right to even speak of the Divine. If McDermott is sincere about his pronouncements, then he would have been there to publicly condemn Plotinus, no doubt; but the point is that right or wrong, Plotinus stood up to be counted, and it is a service to us that he did so in no uncertain terms. Moreover, Plotinus is not saying one thing in public and another in private; you know exactly where he stands.

"The question is thus not whether these great spiritual philosophers engaged in polemic, for they did; the question is why. When such sages engage in intense polemic, I suppose we sometimes get nothing but their lingering neurosis; but we often get the full force of the overall judgment of their entire being, a shout from the heart in a sharp scream. It takes no effort at all to act out the former; it takes enormous courage to stand up and voice the latter, and this is is what I have come to admire in all the sages and philosophers I mentioned who have left us the full force of their summary judgments.

"Contrary to McDermott's sincere but misplaced pronouncements, such polemic comes not from this, but from the other side of equanimity. One Taste is the ground of intense judgments, not their abdication. These are not lunatics blathering prejudices; more like what the Tibetans would call the wrathful aspect of enlightened awareness.

"McDermott tells us that he used to publicly and passionately voice his own judgments of qualitative distinctions and discriminating wisdom, but that he quit doing so in order to become a better administrator. I accept his choice. But I think it would be catastrophic for everybody in the transpersonal field to adopt that same stance and abdicate the public voicing of their discriminating wisdom.

"There are many who see all too clearly the sad shape our field is in. They talk about it often in private. They tell me about it all the time. They are truly alarmed by the reactionary, antiprogressive, and regressive fog thickly creeping over the entire field. Yet most of them are not willing to stand up and be counted, precisely because the countercultural police await, poised and ready to sanctimoniously damn them. A little less administrative juggling, and a little more discriminating wisdom backed with occasional polemic, is exactly what the entire field could use, in my opinion. I, at any rate, can no longer sit by and smile numbly as depth takes a vacation. And in a more honest process, where our public pronouncements actually match our private statements, we just might find that spiritual awareness includes, not excludes, the fiercest judgments."

No, this isn't a wind up for Obama supporters; it's the new video ad from the McCain campaign! Actually, it is question that Christian conservatives have been discussing for weeks now, and the McCain campaign has recently released a video that encourages the idea. Yes, you heard right: an official McCain campaign ad that tries to encourage the idea that Barack Obama is the anti-Christ. Here it is:

The first thing to know is that the video is in part making a play on the Left Behind book series, which sold 70 million copies (including a children's-book series, books on tape, movies, etc.). It has been a huge phenomenon among mythic Christians. The title of the Left Behind series refers to those "left behind" after the Rapture, which is when God, according to the Christian End Times, "raptures" all the good Christians to heaven and leaves all the non-Christians to suffer in a world gone to the dogs.  

The title of the McCain video, "The One," comes from the Left Behind story. The main character, a Romanian politician named Nicolai Jetty Carpathia, makes a lot of money in business, enters politics as a junior senator (which must be a striking coincidence for some), becomes the U.N Secretary General, the Pope as well if you can believe it, and eventually the leader of the world.  

Things are good for Carpathia until an Israeli botanist assassinates him with a knife. However, it's not such a big deal since Carpathia has Satan on his side. After 3 days he rises from the dead---completely Satan now in what is kind of an enlightenment on the dark side---declares himself God, establishes a religion called "The One World Religion" (hence the title of the McCain campaign video), and demands everyone on earth worship him.  

But don't worry; Jesus comes back to earth and overthrows him. Carpathia admits that everything he ever did was for his own self-interest, and Jesus throws him in the Lake of Fire forever.



The McCain video begins with the pleasant strumming of an acoustic guitar but is soon joined by a chorus of "O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!" The narrator speaks: "In 2008 The World Will Be Blessed. They Will Call Him The One." This is obviously a reference to the Left Behind series as the narrator's words appear on the screen in a very similar font style and background as those used for the cover of Left Behind.  

We then see Barack Obama in an exceedingly dark background. The background is so dark, fusing with his black suit, that we can only see his face and white shirt---the Prince of Darkness himself.  In the dramatic tone of a prophet he cries: "A nation healed! A world repaired! . . . We are the ones we have been waiting for!"  

People sometimes criticize Obama for narcissism or even messiahism in a tongue-in-cheek way, but the whole thing has a different meaning for fundamentalist Christians. Fundamentalist Christians are taught to wait for Christ, to put all their faith in Christ, but here is Obama promising miracles and saying that he is the one we have been waiting for---he says we but of course he means vote for me---and who else but the anti-Christ would say things like that?  

"And the Beast was given a mouth speaking great things." Revelation 13:5 

  "For [in] those days shall be affliction. . . . [and] false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall show signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect." Mark 13:19-22  

The narrator goes on: "And he has annointed himself, ready to carry the burden of the One."   

 The word Christ comes from the Greek Christus, which means "annointed" or "the annointed." Christus is a translation of the Aramaic word Mesia, which means "the annointed one," or the Hebrew word Masia, which means "annointed"---and here the narrator has said "he [Obama] has annointed himself," and not only that, he is "ready to carry the burden of the One"-the cross!  

In the Left Behind-type background, the clouds have parted now, and we see light streaming down from the heavens. If you look closely you will see that they have inserted a staircase leading up to heaven: the anti-Christ has come---and so has the rapture!  

The narrator quotes Barack Obama: "I have become a symbol of America returning to our best traditions."  Obama said this to a group of House Democrats before his speech in Berlin, and according to witnesses (there is no tape or video) Obama was trying to deflect attention from himself rather than aggrandize himself, saying that people weren't coming to see him but what he had come to represent for them. But like every other quote here it was taken out of context.  

"He can go no wrong," says the narrator.  

Lara Logan of CBS: Do you have any doubts?  

Obama: Never.  

"Can you see the light?" Asks the narrator.
 
  If you stop the video here, at the 33rd second, and look closely into the sky where light is breaking through you will see that they have inserted some letters. One word is clearly "Believe," and if you start the video again you will see that the word to the left is "Can"---they've posted the Obama campaign slogan "Change We Can Believe In" in the firmament. It is even clearer when they do it a second time, in the 45th second, when we also see a part of Obama's name up there. I have searched and searched for a "666" in this video, and I am sure it was there at some point, but probably they edited it out at the last minute. It might be in there somewhere. Playing it backwards might reveal something interesting as well . . .  :)  

Now we see Obama on the campaign trail, standing in front of an immense American flag but still shrouded in darkness along with most of the flag. "A light will come down," he cries. "From somewhere . . . It will light upon you. You will experience an epiphany. And you will say to yourself, 'I have to vote for Barack.'"  

Now that sounds pretty bad in the context of all these other quotes taken out of context, but he was just making a joke, of course. He was speaking to a group college students in Lebanon, New Hampshire on Janaury 7, 2008, the day after the Christian holiday known as Epiphany, which celebrates the day either the Star of Bethlehem or the heavens shined down on Jesus' baptism by the Jordan River. The quote has been edited out of videos of the event on YouTube.  

"And the world shall receive his blessings," continues the narrator.   "This is the moment," Obama cries above a cheering crowd. "When the rise of the ocean began to slow and our planet began to heal!"  

And now comes my favorite part. We see a clip of Charlton Heston playing Moses in The Ten Commandments as the chants "O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!" grow louder in the background.    Moses (Charles Heston), with a staff in his hand, cries: "Behold his mighty hand!"  

The Red Sea begins to part in a splendid miracle-and out of it comes the Obama Presidential Seal, which the Obama campaign cooked up in their own play on symbols a while back. This is a quote from an Eleison Group Memo:  

"The Moses reference could be a joke about Obama leading people to the promised land, but why did the makers of this ad chose this very odd quote about the oceans and create this very odd image of parting the Red Sea to have a seal the Obama rising out of the sea?  Why not have Obama leading people or a clip of Moses leading people to the Promised Land? And even if the McCain camp really thought this was the clip that made the most sense to poke fun at Obama as Exodus leader, why have the Obama seal (which was used by the campaign for a very short time and would have taken some real digging to find) come rising out of the sea instead of the much more recognized Obama logo or even a picture of Obama himself?   This whole scene makes no sense unless one understands that it is always from the sea that the anti-Christ comes...and in the Book of Daniel the first beast that rises from the churning sea is a creature with wings like an eagle."

"Then the dragon took his stand on the sand of the seashore, and I saw a beast rising out of the sea...and the dragon gave it his power and his throne and great authority...they worshipped the beast, saying, "Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?"  Revelation 12:18-13:4.  

"And I saw in my vision by night the four winds of heaven stirring up the great sea, and four great beasts came out of the sea. The first was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle." Daniel 7:2-4



So there it is, the big Obama "O" between the wings of an eagle rising out of the sea---the Beast!

We then see the sign of the Beast in the Oval Office, and I'll be darned if those tricky Republicans didn't do something funny here, too. Here is a picture of the desk in the Oval Office:



And have a look at the figure in the desk at the 1:10 mark and see if they haven't put some image of the Beast over the eagle's head.

"He may be the One," the narrator says. "But is he ready to lead?" 

The ad can be taken on different levels: a mocking of Obama's alleged narcissism and messiahism, a questioning of his readiness to lead, but apparently the real motivation behind it was to encourage Christian conservatives to think that Obama is the anti-Christ.  

It may all seem funny or ridiculous, and it is, but according to a Pew Survey  (page 25) 63% of American Christians believe in the End Times, which involve the anti-Christ, or several of them. The majority of Americans will find it ridiculous, but that is not the point. The point is to get out the vote among Christian conservatives, many of whom actually believe in things like the Christian End Times and the anti-Christ. They cannot say that John McCain is a Christian conservative like George W. Bush (no one would believe them), but they can say, in a veiled manner---in what will surely go down as one of the most notorious political ads ever---that a vote for Obama is a vote for the anti-Christ. That's called getting out the vote, Republican style.  

"Don't throw anyone out of your heart."

                                   Neem Karoli Baba

God is Born

The history of the cosmos
is the history of the struggle of becoming.
When the dim flux of unformed life
struggled, convulsed back and forth upon itself,
and broke at last into light and dark
came into existence as light,
came into existence as cold shadow
then every atom of the cosmos trembled with delight.
Behold, God is born!
He is bright light!
He is pitch dark and cold!

And in the great struggle of intangible chaos
when, at a certain point, a drop of water
began to drip downwards
and a breath of vapour began to wreathe up
Lo again the shudder of bliss through all the atoms!
Oh, God is born!
Behold, He is born wet!
Look, He hath movement upward! He spirals!

And so, in the great aeons of accomplishment and debacle
from time to time the wild crying of every electron:
Lo! God is born!

When sapphires cooled out of molten chaos:
See, God is born! He is blue, he is deep blue,
he is forever blue!
When gold lay shining threading the cooled-off rock:
God is born! God is born! bright yellow and ductile
He is born.

When the little eggy amoeba emerged out of foam and nowhere
then all the electrons held their breath:
Ach! Ach! Now indeed God is born! He twinkles within.

When from a world of mosses and of ferns
at last the narcissus lifted a tuft of five-point stars
and dangled them in the atmosphere,
then every molecule of creation jumped and clapped its hands:
God is born! God is born perfumed and dangling and with a little cup!

Throughout the aeons, as the lizard swirls his tail finer than water,
as the peacock turns to the sun, and could not be more splendid,
as the leopard smites the small calf with a spangled paw, perfect.
the universe trembles: God is born! God is here!

And when at last man stood on two legs and wondered,
then there was a hush of suspense at the core of every electron:
Behold, now very God is born!
God Himself is born!

And so we see, God is not
until he is born.

And also we see
there is no end to the birth of God.

D. H. Lawrence

I really love D. H. Lawrence as a poet.

If there is any kind of egoistic turn or insincerity of motive, if the yoga is done under a pressure of vital demands, or partly or wholly to satisfy some spiritual or other ambition, pride, vanity or seeking after power, position or influence over others or with any push towards satisfying any vital desire with the help of the yogic force, then the psychic cannot open, or opens only partially or only at times and shuts again because it is veiled by the vital activities; the psychic fire fails in the strangling vital smoke. Also, if the mind takes the leading part in the yoga and puts the inner soul into the background, or if the bhakti or other movements of the sadhana take more of a vital than of a psychic form, there is the same inability. Purity, simple sincerity and the capacity of an unegoistic unmixed self-offering without pretension or demand are the condition of an entire opening of the psychic being.

                                                                                                                                         -Aurobindo

Just something I find inspring and helpful at the moment. The most interesting line to me is "or partly or wholly to satisfy some spiritual or other ambition," but I also like the end in particular, "an unegoistic unmixed self-offering without pretension or demand."