Wunjo
Padawan Learner
Hello,
I have a question about violence and its place in the Work. On FB Laura posted a quote and had some follow up commentary with them. They got me thinking about the situations painted within and confusion ensued. The quotes are below...
Alexander Solzhenitsyn ~ And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his family?
“Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling in terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and boldly set up in the downstairs hall and ambush of a half dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand. The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst; the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!” LK-J.
She then added below..
“The point is NOT that people should actually take up arms, but that resistance - peaceful resistance - by the masses, EN MASSE, early on could stop this march over the abyss.” LK-J
So with the above statements I have been forced into thinking about what would I do? What could I do? The first two quotes make sense from a worldly perspective; they have a higher chance of working than going quietly into the night. I can, however, feel the negative imagination aspect kicking in; can one plan violence without involving their lower centers and lowering their FRV? Can one participate in it without destroying themselves in the process? Martial arts warriors were supposed to have the empty mind, no attachment to the world, realizing all is one and none and the such. They are the exception, I do doubt that most anyone has that state of mind, I don’t believe most of us can keep a cool head when the wind slams the door, instead going into a chemical fight or flight internal mayhem.
While I do see the logic in the quotes, it’s a very easy logic, fight or accept your fate, (I do get stuck in formatory thinking, why I am asking). But from the Work standpoint we should be able to be able to flow with anything that comes our way. Non identifying, what kind of resistance to the external world wouldn’t be identifying with whatever was affected? I do, at sometimes have the fear of being marched out of my home into some detention center, yet the piece of me that has this fear it based on attachment to various things. Should I not be able to flow through life, and the detention center if needs be, without negative feelings and emotions, and just treat it as another form of the school of life?
Her last quote about non violent resistance brings to mind the seeming futility of fighting the psychopathic rulers and worrying about it as well. I guess it comes down to attention, where should we place it? The Work states over and over that one cannot fight the world, we cannot change it, and it is a machine. I do get lost in my imagination of changing the world, living in “Venus Project” type utopia, but I have to check myself and realize that I am just living in imagination, not in the present, not in the fight with my baser self and the issues that bind me, from inside me.
I guess the question is; Do we fight the world, or are we merely a stream of consciousness, free for all to join but really just focused on raising our FRV and opening to others who might wish to do the same? Are we a stream to flow out of here while the world tears itself apart, or wash it clean?
I have a question about violence and its place in the Work. On FB Laura posted a quote and had some follow up commentary with them. They got me thinking about the situations painted within and confusion ensued. The quotes are below...
Alexander Solzhenitsyn ~ And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his family?
“Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling in terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and boldly set up in the downstairs hall and ambush of a half dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand. The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst; the cursed machine would have ground to a halt!” LK-J.
She then added below..
“The point is NOT that people should actually take up arms, but that resistance - peaceful resistance - by the masses, EN MASSE, early on could stop this march over the abyss.” LK-J
So with the above statements I have been forced into thinking about what would I do? What could I do? The first two quotes make sense from a worldly perspective; they have a higher chance of working than going quietly into the night. I can, however, feel the negative imagination aspect kicking in; can one plan violence without involving their lower centers and lowering their FRV? Can one participate in it without destroying themselves in the process? Martial arts warriors were supposed to have the empty mind, no attachment to the world, realizing all is one and none and the such. They are the exception, I do doubt that most anyone has that state of mind, I don’t believe most of us can keep a cool head when the wind slams the door, instead going into a chemical fight or flight internal mayhem.
While I do see the logic in the quotes, it’s a very easy logic, fight or accept your fate, (I do get stuck in formatory thinking, why I am asking). But from the Work standpoint we should be able to be able to flow with anything that comes our way. Non identifying, what kind of resistance to the external world wouldn’t be identifying with whatever was affected? I do, at sometimes have the fear of being marched out of my home into some detention center, yet the piece of me that has this fear it based on attachment to various things. Should I not be able to flow through life, and the detention center if needs be, without negative feelings and emotions, and just treat it as another form of the school of life?
Her last quote about non violent resistance brings to mind the seeming futility of fighting the psychopathic rulers and worrying about it as well. I guess it comes down to attention, where should we place it? The Work states over and over that one cannot fight the world, we cannot change it, and it is a machine. I do get lost in my imagination of changing the world, living in “Venus Project” type utopia, but I have to check myself and realize that I am just living in imagination, not in the present, not in the fight with my baser self and the issues that bind me, from inside me.
I guess the question is; Do we fight the world, or are we merely a stream of consciousness, free for all to join but really just focused on raising our FRV and opening to others who might wish to do the same? Are we a stream to flow out of here while the world tears itself apart, or wash it clean?