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Lunchtime, the beginning of a new book, and my favorite warm beverage of late: Ayurvedic spiced milk with Ashwagandha root, velvet bean seed, Shatavari root, Burdock root, cinnamon bark, cardamom seed, and Haritaki with a touch of maple sugar- very nourishing and grounding, especially for anyone with an imbalance in Vata.

Thoughts on hierarchy and hunting

Most people will admit that hierarchy exists. 

In our world today, it's become a dirty word- hierarchy = bad, oppressive, with a proposed solution, or better way, being egalitarianism (a very modern notion, which can only be truly realized if we bring everything down to the lowest common denominator).

But many have not gone so far as to consider that hierarchy is not just a human thing, but characteristic of the cosmos Itself, as natural law, or in Sanskrit what would be called dharma. According to the teachings of antiquity (held by isolated cultures across the globe, not just some 'imperial' group), far from being evil, hierarchy is actually right behavior. In hierarchy, we can find order, and even the detachment from desire that allows for liberation. 

The caste system is a more modern degeneration of the varna system of old. It's important to understand the difference between the two: in a caste system, your physical birth and the the family you're born into are the basis for your judgment and place in society, so if you're born into a farming family, a farmer you shall remain. Often in a caste system, people at the lower levels are barely granted any sort of human rights. But in a varna system, an individual is placed moreso based on their individual nature. To understand this better, it's helpful to understand the three gunas of the Vedas: Tamas, Rajas, and Sattva. (Gunas can translate as qualities or attributes of a person especially to describe more subtle aspects of them, so speaking more of their beingness or spirit than the color of their hair or how loud they talk, though there is a relationship here, but that would be a digression). So the three gunas are:

Tamas - the qualities of laziness, ignorance, lethargy, heaviness; associated color would be black

Rajas - qualities of passion, ambition, active intellect, busy; associated color would be red

Sattva - qualities of clarity, serenity, wisdom, balance, lightness, associated color would be white

Each person contains all of the gunas, but in different proportions- some of us are almost entirely weighed down by tamas while others are primarily sattvic. 

The varna system divided individuals based on these qualities of their unique individual nature: Brahmins (deep thought, wisdom; priests, teachers, philosophers), Ksatriyas (courage with intellect; warriors), Vaishyas (intelligent but more focused on basic/simple needs of life; farmers, merchants), and Sudras (ignorant, driven by sense organs, undisciplined; no specific talents so acted as laborers and aids to other classes). 

So, in a nutshell, the main difference between caste and varna is that you are born into your caste and have very little wiggle room if any, while your varna is dictated by the qualities of who you are. Within the varna system, these classes weren't necessarily viewed as higher or lower, but as each having a part to play for the order of society. 

Hierarchy must not imply oppression as the contemporary narrative would have us believe.

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This all applies to something I've been thinking on lately after making the decision to hunt. 

There is a common notion today, especially in the super-grocery-West, that hunting is bad.

But most people are okay with killing some living thing, right? Be it a snake, a spider, a wasp, a possum... yet those same people will be against deer hunting, turkey hunting, etc. And those same people will argue that hierarchy does not exist, that all should be [somehow] equal. Yet their very actions and tendencies prove otherwise and only serve to highlight that an innate hierarchy very much does exist, naturally. 

This should be considered when proclaiming it is immoral to hunt. And that's not to mention the death that is caused from mass-scale so-called 'vegetarian' food production, so to ever think you are somehow living without anything dying for you to live, should really be allowed more thought before forming an opinion or speaking on the matter.

Hierarchy is imposed on us by natural law, not just locally here on Earth, but cosmologically. Fulfilling our human predator/prey role is not only not 'bad', but unavoidable. Our need to eat must be met, and because if you are reading this you are human, and not a blade of grass, you have specific requirements for this particular incarnation. 

That said- frequent consumption of animal meat is not ideal due to its Tamasic nature. The degree to which a person requires it has to do with their individual constitution and karmic load. 

I think its best not to judge what another person eats, but whether or not they go about obtaining it in a principled way (assuming you feel the need to judge these things at all). Of course, that requires first sorting out ones principles... which means turning the focus back toward yourself.

A new hat

My first foray into cabling. This Calder Beanie is a pattern by ROWAN, using their pure wool superwash worsted. Heaps of thanks to Fruity Knitting for the clear instruction.

Who should 'fix' the West? Men or women?

In response to the right's narrative that women have caused the demise of modern society and therefore it's up to them to fix it:

I'll begin by saying I understand the frustration men have with modern women- their lack of commitment, their promiscuity, their choosing of degenerate partners, and so forth. 

But lessons of antiquity can offer us a helpful perspective if we really want to shine light on the origin of these problems.

Men are the solar principle, women the lunar; we reflect the light of men (and therefore the lack of light).  As a visual: the stone pillar of the bridge (Shiva) must be stable enough to handle the thrashing water (Shakti).

I would argue that in these times, while it's true that women hardly ever bring a real feminine principle to relationships, neither are men possessing a true masculine spirit. When men do, women will reflect that light. 

In the Vedic literature it is mentioned that a sign of degeneration was when women began to breed with men of lower caste (sidenote: I prefer the varna perspective, which I understand to be like caste but earned, rather than merely born into as the modern caste system operates). But we have to ask: how had the solar principle degenerated to lead to this?

Either way, I do not expect any large-scale changes in men or in women in modern times, especially in the West. Because of this, as a female, I choose to develop the solar principle within myself as much as possible, while making sure to also nourish and keep it balanced with the lunar principle inherent to my nature. It is similar to the idea of self-initiation in a time when truly holy and divine gurus and spiritual teachers cannot be found. So, we take on more of the work ourselves, as individuals. Does this have an inherent disability? Yes. But it's the Kali Yuga and we adapt and do what we must. There are forces at play, and those of us who are qualified to identify, absorb, and transform them should do so.

How long have humans been around? The case of the Olduvai skeleton.

In 1913, at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, a fellow by the name of Hans Reck, a paleontologist and geologist at Berlin University, found a reasonably complete human skeleton that was anatomically modern. This skeleton was buried in Upper bed II at the gorge, which is 1.5-1.7 million years old. 

Olduvai gorge; image from Wikimedia Commons

Debate about this finding went on for decades, until finally, in the 1970's, a professor at Frankfurt University named Reiner Protsch, claimed to have tested the skull from the same skeleton discovered by Hans Reck back in 1913, and had come up with an age of 10,000 years. 

So if this skeleton is only 10,000 years old, why was it unearthed in a layer of earth one-and-a-half million years old?

Most evolutionists will challenge, with an air of snarky self-assuredness, as I myself regrettably have in the past, "To disprove evolution, you just have to find one fossil out of place!"

My first thought was: maybe this person was buried long ago. In archaeology, this is referred to as intrusive burial. The problem with that hypothesis is that, as you would imagine, there would be evidence of disturbance surrounding the burial, especially directly on top of it. In this case at Olduvai gorge there were no signs of intrusive burial.

It also turns out that Reiner Protsch, the Frankfurt professor who dated this skull to be 10,000 years old, ended up resigning after a Frankfurt University committee revealed numerous radiocarbon dates he had falsified. (Quick digression: one has to wonder what the incentive would be to do such a thing, no? I mean, why do that?)

The theory of evolution claims that modern humans, people who look like us, evolved around 300,000 years ago. Though the influences of the time we live in shape what we passionately defend to be true, and the average person possesses a strong normalcy bias and fears social ostracization above all, at this point in all I've read, I would warn anyone against thinking of Darwin's theory as a fact. 

The above is only one small finding to ponder, there are many more which I'll share soon.

Amusing ourselves

At first, the attraction to arcana is born of curiosity and intrigue, and probably boredom. Ones ordinary life gets injected with a newfound glimmer, feeling secrecy and mystery now surrounding him. This is only an initial, immature phase of esoterism; and we mustn't linger there.

In the West, fascination with phenomena and mystery keeps one trapped at a lower level-- nevermind the fact that the experience of 'phenomena' certainly doesn't point to having experienced anything of a higher level whatsoever. Your own nature determines whether you stay at this level or are qualified to rise higher, out beyond ordinary life. The trappings of awe are such that they keep us in the psychic realm of amusement-seeking, which is inferior to a truly spiritual domain.

"...how could they affect one who, seeing all things in their principle, knows that no matter what the appearances may be, they are ultimately only elements of the total order?" 

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 A new book and a new knitting project, too- finally learning cabling!

The divine state

Abandoning all desires, acting without cravings, free from all thoughts of I and my, that man finds utter peace. This is the divine state, Arjuna, absorbed in it everywhere, always, even at the moment of death, he vanishes into God's bliss.(Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2, verses 71-72)

Today's hike up the mountain

One of the joys of hiking is the noticing- rocks, bones, leaves, blossoms, birds, prints, smell of pine, of sage, sound of birds, wind. But we can take it beyond this when the trek up the mountain becomes a micro spiritual pilgrimage. Whether it's one or the other of course depends on our individual constitution. With each step taken toward the ascent, the senses noticing fades to a peripheral blur and the walker and the symbol merge, joined by the hazy euphoria of detachment that washes over when we let the petty fall away, the mundanities of a chattering mind. Timelines intersect- the very long, very large, geographical ones and our own small biology passing through, so relatively short and transient, we bring our whirling minds along the trail, until finally we merge with the symbol and the hike becomes just another practice. Of course it is! The trail up the mountain is a representation of the journey upward, full of struggle, dangers lurking, breathing hard, carrying a heavy load, sun beating down on us... we stumble and are humbled, and we smile, even if consumed, because in our strife there is meaning, purpose, connection, an experience far beyond the ooh of an interesting rock, bone, or leaf. And death is no fear.

Does it matter which path we take to reach the top of the mountain?

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The idyll

 

I love this painting so much. To me, it represents the idyll- a solitary ascetic life, tending the basics, and otherwise reaching for union with God at every second. There are so many distractions in regular life, such striving to become, so much we mistake as being important.

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