Thursday, 16 September 2010
Wednesday, 15 September 2010
Can you trick your body into feeling younger?
"If elderly people dress, live and talk as they did in their heyday, does this help them feel younger and fitter? Michael Mosley explains how he tested this theory on six faces from the past." See above link for article.
-
This simple but profound shift in perspective opens up a simple truth - always true. For humanly, we tend to 'live' in our thoughts and accept what they define us to be - both in our pride - and our fall.
"As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is", is not relating to the thinking of the head - and the emotional and physical states that that induces.
If there is one thing I would like to see come through into human awareness - it is the (Copernican) realization that we truly exist or abide in Thought - and through Thought - and I am not here referring to the superficiality of self regarding imaginations and spin that are programmed to present ourselves as we are not - (to ourselves and to others). Curiously, this realization is unlikely to occur while we are thinking that we are thinking - for this is the result of accepting a mind as our own that is in fact a strategic attempt to cope with dilemma into which we become 'locked'.
It is not that we need to think positively or differently - but that we need to regain a perspective on our thinking itself. For when there is a fresh perspective arising in the heart - we are truly renewed and healed of some hindrance from past experience and thought that we had allowed to shut us down.
My point is not to try to improve our lot as masked minds amidst a seemingly hostile or unsupporting universe - but to wake up to the nature of the blindfold and release what no longer serves us as we find a better way.
The advent of computing gives us a clear model where we can see that software can emulate hardware - and run a different kind of software on the emulated hardware. It is time to see the world with new eyes.
The key is the willingness to have faith beyond the experience that defines you as less than, or other than, the love that you truly are.
It isn't a matter of self-will or belief - but of trust, willingness and acceptance.
Temporary conditions can allow a truth to be realized - but then it is time to be willing to live from that truth and not from any self-made thought based understanding that substitutes and tries to replicate it manually.
If you've read this far you'll see that self-deception is the same old story. But don't think you understand - unless your heart feels great peace - or your thought will seem to carry you away from your peace and tempt you to struggle again.
-
This simple but profound shift in perspective opens up a simple truth - always true. For humanly, we tend to 'live' in our thoughts and accept what they define us to be - both in our pride - and our fall.
"As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is", is not relating to the thinking of the head - and the emotional and physical states that that induces.
If there is one thing I would like to see come through into human awareness - it is the (Copernican) realization that we truly exist or abide in Thought - and through Thought - and I am not here referring to the superficiality of self regarding imaginations and spin that are programmed to present ourselves as we are not - (to ourselves and to others). Curiously, this realization is unlikely to occur while we are thinking that we are thinking - for this is the result of accepting a mind as our own that is in fact a strategic attempt to cope with dilemma into which we become 'locked'.
It is not that we need to think positively or differently - but that we need to regain a perspective on our thinking itself. For when there is a fresh perspective arising in the heart - we are truly renewed and healed of some hindrance from past experience and thought that we had allowed to shut us down.
My point is not to try to improve our lot as masked minds amidst a seemingly hostile or unsupporting universe - but to wake up to the nature of the blindfold and release what no longer serves us as we find a better way.
The advent of computing gives us a clear model where we can see that software can emulate hardware - and run a different kind of software on the emulated hardware. It is time to see the world with new eyes.
The key is the willingness to have faith beyond the experience that defines you as less than, or other than, the love that you truly are.
It isn't a matter of self-will or belief - but of trust, willingness and acceptance.
Temporary conditions can allow a truth to be realized - but then it is time to be willing to live from that truth and not from any self-made thought based understanding that substitutes and tries to replicate it manually.
If you've read this far you'll see that self-deception is the same old story. But don't think you understand - unless your heart feels great peace - or your thought will seem to carry you away from your peace and tempt you to struggle again.
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
Religion, Science and Truth II
"No evidence will convince you of the truth you do not want" ~ A Course in Miracles.
Wishful thinking is not the basis of a true appreciation of existence. But the truth of desire is desire for truth - in which theoretical constructs expressing and supporting a fanciful self-sense are transcended in direct participation in life.
In thoughtless awareness is a different order of communication discerned, that can be symbolically rendered in conceptual terms but not definitively or without liability of misinterpretation - for such 'communication' of the Living Universe is not dualistic but Holistic - but concepts are dualistic. Duality of mind is not the de facto nature of mind - but is itself the result of wishful thinking, fascination, attachment, identification and the experience arising from self conviction, passionately asserted, defended and maintained. All of this occurs within mind, not unlike software emulating hardware - upon which a different order of software is running.
The spiritual dimension of the religious sense is concerned with meaning and not with mechanism. It does not operate as a scientific investigation of objectively measurable and verifiable constants - which is surely a reductio ad absudum in relation to Meaning because Meaning will forever be lost to a mentality that dissects, qualifies, judges and defines.
Such a mentality might say, "Prove to me that love exists and I will believe it!". Meanwhile it can ONLY perceive at the level of forms which it classifies according to its own hierarchy of ascribed meanings. It therefore essentially ignores the evidences that do not fit its imposed meaning structure.
But the spirit of science is that of uncovering truth - and this is a matter of allowing a perspective that is not self-seeking bias or merely validating a current ignorance. The mind of objectivity limits us to the crude aspects of mechanism - in which relationships have to be guessed at and then 'proven' only for ever more subtle patterning to be discovered that reframes everything in yet more and more obscure and unintelligible theory - whether proven or a current hypothesis that seems to mostly 'fit'.
All of which is a distraction from love and false basis for acting out from. Distraction from what is already known - not at the level of intellect - but in the event that is a true receptivity or communication; love.
Love is beyond belief and also beyond the experience or recognition of a loveless intent. Yet it can be perfectly shared - and known through the sharing. Love in this sense is not the ritual forms of affection or the emotional attachments of a separate self-sense - for purposes of survival or dominance of the separate self-sense. It is transcendence of that sense in a prior communion with - and as agency of - all that is. It isn't only organic carbon life forms that express a singularity of life in diversity. The Living Universe is - for want of better words - a Unified Field where the Flow of Event is not defined or limited by space or time - but is a nonlocal timeless Singularity - a state of perfect Communication of the Whole to itself through all its aspects. The tangibility and visibility of the world is not independent 'stuff' perceived by independent organic packages - but is a spontaneous mechanism of delivery that serves the function; "know thy Self".
The construct of a personal self ego - is not the Self - so in this sense I will suggest that by the current of its thought, does awareness know its existence. To the ego sense - this is the chatter of self referencing commentary, judgement and definitions. To the Mind in which All that Is - is as it is, such living thought is the reflection and extension of the nature of the law of Mind Itself.
To expect a partiality to 'understand' perfect Inclusion is to accept an invitation to the Mad Hatter's tea party. However, "off with his head" may metaphorically be the best advice to an addictive thinker.
A shift to from head to heart is the honesty of the discernment of what does not and cannot work, and the willingness to be open to what does work - from a fresh perspective; Listening in the trust that the Life principle that is the light of awareness itself - and the intelligence of life itself - can and is communicating to you along the channel of its expression as you.
Wishful thinking is not the basis of a true appreciation of existence. But the truth of desire is desire for truth - in which theoretical constructs expressing and supporting a fanciful self-sense are transcended in direct participation in life.
In thoughtless awareness is a different order of communication discerned, that can be symbolically rendered in conceptual terms but not definitively or without liability of misinterpretation - for such 'communication' of the Living Universe is not dualistic but Holistic - but concepts are dualistic. Duality of mind is not the de facto nature of mind - but is itself the result of wishful thinking, fascination, attachment, identification and the experience arising from self conviction, passionately asserted, defended and maintained. All of this occurs within mind, not unlike software emulating hardware - upon which a different order of software is running.
The spiritual dimension of the religious sense is concerned with meaning and not with mechanism. It does not operate as a scientific investigation of objectively measurable and verifiable constants - which is surely a reductio ad absudum in relation to Meaning because Meaning will forever be lost to a mentality that dissects, qualifies, judges and defines.
Such a mentality might say, "Prove to me that love exists and I will believe it!". Meanwhile it can ONLY perceive at the level of forms which it classifies according to its own hierarchy of ascribed meanings. It therefore essentially ignores the evidences that do not fit its imposed meaning structure.
But the spirit of science is that of uncovering truth - and this is a matter of allowing a perspective that is not self-seeking bias or merely validating a current ignorance. The mind of objectivity limits us to the crude aspects of mechanism - in which relationships have to be guessed at and then 'proven' only for ever more subtle patterning to be discovered that reframes everything in yet more and more obscure and unintelligible theory - whether proven or a current hypothesis that seems to mostly 'fit'.
All of which is a distraction from love and false basis for acting out from. Distraction from what is already known - not at the level of intellect - but in the event that is a true receptivity or communication; love.
Love is beyond belief and also beyond the experience or recognition of a loveless intent. Yet it can be perfectly shared - and known through the sharing. Love in this sense is not the ritual forms of affection or the emotional attachments of a separate self-sense - for purposes of survival or dominance of the separate self-sense. It is transcendence of that sense in a prior communion with - and as agency of - all that is. It isn't only organic carbon life forms that express a singularity of life in diversity. The Living Universe is - for want of better words - a Unified Field where the Flow of Event is not defined or limited by space or time - but is a nonlocal timeless Singularity - a state of perfect Communication of the Whole to itself through all its aspects. The tangibility and visibility of the world is not independent 'stuff' perceived by independent organic packages - but is a spontaneous mechanism of delivery that serves the function; "know thy Self".
The construct of a personal self ego - is not the Self - so in this sense I will suggest that by the current of its thought, does awareness know its existence. To the ego sense - this is the chatter of self referencing commentary, judgement and definitions. To the Mind in which All that Is - is as it is, such living thought is the reflection and extension of the nature of the law of Mind Itself.
To expect a partiality to 'understand' perfect Inclusion is to accept an invitation to the Mad Hatter's tea party. However, "off with his head" may metaphorically be the best advice to an addictive thinker.
A shift to from head to heart is the honesty of the discernment of what does not and cannot work, and the willingness to be open to what does work - from a fresh perspective; Listening in the trust that the Life principle that is the light of awareness itself - and the intelligence of life itself - can and is communicating to you along the channel of its expression as you.
Monday, 13 September 2010
Papal visit: Cardinal Newman's 'miracle cure'
The attribution of miracles to an act of God or intercession by another so as to bring about an act of God is an attempt to describe the experience of being healed from within.
"Suddenly I felt an intense heat, like an oven blast, and a strong tingling sensation throughout my whole body," he said. "I felt an indescribable sense of joy and peace, and was totally transfixed by what I believed to be God's presence. When I became aware of what was happening around me I was standing upright and I exclaimed to the nurse that I felt no more pain." ~ Jack Sullivan
Significant to such experience is the indescribable joy and peace. Though ineffable, it is an experience of certainty - but not at the level of intellect. That certainty might later be expressed as belief in God - for it is clearly not one’s own or another’s achievement - and witnesses to a level or directness of Being that has no counterpart in the realm of the world or self as we otherwise judge it to be.
If it can be understood that a prior distorting adustment operates within the mind at a fundamental level and results in an experience that overlays and obscures truth, then it follows that to cease applying such an adjustment allows the original to shine through.
However this adjustment itself leads to a false sense of self and world, that does not know itself one with indescribable joy and peace - but is a state of conflicted identification, thought and desire. The experience of a dissonant sense of reality becomes a struggle of opposition and limitation that is reflected in such experience as dysfunction, sickness, conflict and death.
Just as machines now can be programmed and then adjust their own programming according to conditions met, so does the mind 'lock itself' into experience by interpretation based on beliefs applied from a past mis-take; from a faulty or incomplete apprehension of reality.
Prayer does not reach a God made in our image - who may or may not - (or can or can not) - then act. Prayer is the true communication in the heart that allows communion to be restored to awareness. Within a restored ‘channel’ of communication, guidance and teaching occurs that serves to heal or whole the mind that has identified with limitation - as willingness is given to accept Universal Will in release of a personal or private will.
Reality is indescribable, and its unified wholeness is lost to any mind that prefers to engage the act of definition. The operation of private will is a freedom within the mind - but it is a way of using fantasy to perceive reality differently than as it is. It is important to remember that reality as it is - is never affected by fantasy and never can be. This is a fundemental principle underlying the miracle - which merely undoes a distortion that - though experienced as real - was never true.
The complexity and ingenuity of the confusion whereby we are deceived as to what is true and what is false should not be underestimated, but it has been established within the mind in its experience of fragmentation and division, upon a false premise over a very long period of time. Likewise, the acceptance of its undoing is a guided step by step process of understanding, willingness and acceptance.
The witness of healing is for the minds that are open to it - not as a spectacle to induce belief - but as a living and communicating testament to the faith that questions or challenges experience and opens the heart to enquire directly of its truth. The outer forms that may or may not be associated with this are not the active principle.
The mystery of our heart’s truth is not a challenge to be explained or to conquer - but is the wonder and unspeakable grace of love. Such love is not the domain of another world or a god elsewhere - but is the always present truth of being itself - of which we cannot in truth separate from - no matter how hellish any experience we might suffer in confusion.
The willingness to serve the awakening is a willingness to live from the basis of a revealed love - but not merely to mimic truths or teachings. Nothing is revealed to a mind that already believes in its own thoughts except that which validates itself. In this sense beliefs themselves are to be re-evaluated such that those which serve as stepping stones are used and perhaps later outgrown - while those that merely block, are rendered useless or of no value.
It is altogether understandable and appropriate that in great need, we turn out from our own self-certainties and ask or open to a greater dimension of being than that to which to which we are identified and accustomed to. But is it not a careless indulgence that waits on dire crisis to value connection with and renewal in - the joy, peace and integrity of Being Itself?
Confusion is in our mind when we take our self image and act out from that in attempt to become good, wise or well. When the mind becomes open enough to become aware of and responsible for its own liability to limit itself - it turns to the heart by becoming quiet and listening - and then trusting the guidance and direction that is discerned or felt as a result of bringing attention presently to rest.
The story of Jesus is a living Symbol in the mind for the way of discovering “the Father’s Will” within. It is not for or from any kingdom in 'this world’ of 'competing wills'. It is for the Light in you to awaken from what you thought you were and what you think everything is. This is not a process of destruction or judgement - but of discovering friend or brother where enemy or fool seemed to be. Of suddenly seeing from an inclusive perspective in which all that was helpful in your thought is retained and consolidated - while that which was erroneous has simply fallen away. When this shift occurs, it may be accompanied by tangible and demonstrable events or healing - for the world experience is ultimately a reflection of thought though not merely of the surface chatter that is humanly taken to be thought.
Man is not the center of the Universe. But ‘within’ man - or prior to the consciousness that identifies itself separated or orphaned - is Awareness - that is both Universal and local and yet is Indivisible.
In this sense Mind Is the active Principle, Law, Nature and Substance of All - including the tangibility of the Universe. But beware - for what we habitually refer to as 'mind' is twice removed from the direct Process or Movement of Be ing that Awareness is one with.
Yet mind is and can never itself be limited or fixed by the thought that is its expression - and through which it knows itself existing. Thoughts of exclusion, division, limitation and blame are not truly creative but only serve to perpetuate an experience of guilt, exclusion, isolation, opposition, scarcity and fear. To such a mindset, everything is misinterpreted. The discovery that one was wrong, helpless, in need, or un-sane - is the moment where the veil is thinnest - and a little willingness can grow to reveal itself as the prayer of the heart.
It is always possible to discern the difference between the call of love for love, and the demands of self-illusion for a ‘special’ love. But only as we ourselves are willing to value truth above the self-image that uses the forms, images or symbols of truth to make its own meanings.
"Suddenly I felt an intense heat, like an oven blast, and a strong tingling sensation throughout my whole body," he said. "I felt an indescribable sense of joy and peace, and was totally transfixed by what I believed to be God's presence. When I became aware of what was happening around me I was standing upright and I exclaimed to the nurse that I felt no more pain." ~ Jack Sullivan
Significant to such experience is the indescribable joy and peace. Though ineffable, it is an experience of certainty - but not at the level of intellect. That certainty might later be expressed as belief in God - for it is clearly not one’s own or another’s achievement - and witnesses to a level or directness of Being that has no counterpart in the realm of the world or self as we otherwise judge it to be.
If it can be understood that a prior distorting adustment operates within the mind at a fundamental level and results in an experience that overlays and obscures truth, then it follows that to cease applying such an adjustment allows the original to shine through.
However this adjustment itself leads to a false sense of self and world, that does not know itself one with indescribable joy and peace - but is a state of conflicted identification, thought and desire. The experience of a dissonant sense of reality becomes a struggle of opposition and limitation that is reflected in such experience as dysfunction, sickness, conflict and death.
Just as machines now can be programmed and then adjust their own programming according to conditions met, so does the mind 'lock itself' into experience by interpretation based on beliefs applied from a past mis-take; from a faulty or incomplete apprehension of reality.
Prayer does not reach a God made in our image - who may or may not - (or can or can not) - then act. Prayer is the true communication in the heart that allows communion to be restored to awareness. Within a restored ‘channel’ of communication, guidance and teaching occurs that serves to heal or whole the mind that has identified with limitation - as willingness is given to accept Universal Will in release of a personal or private will.
Reality is indescribable, and its unified wholeness is lost to any mind that prefers to engage the act of definition. The operation of private will is a freedom within the mind - but it is a way of using fantasy to perceive reality differently than as it is. It is important to remember that reality as it is - is never affected by fantasy and never can be. This is a fundemental principle underlying the miracle - which merely undoes a distortion that - though experienced as real - was never true.
The complexity and ingenuity of the confusion whereby we are deceived as to what is true and what is false should not be underestimated, but it has been established within the mind in its experience of fragmentation and division, upon a false premise over a very long period of time. Likewise, the acceptance of its undoing is a guided step by step process of understanding, willingness and acceptance.
The witness of healing is for the minds that are open to it - not as a spectacle to induce belief - but as a living and communicating testament to the faith that questions or challenges experience and opens the heart to enquire directly of its truth. The outer forms that may or may not be associated with this are not the active principle.
The mystery of our heart’s truth is not a challenge to be explained or to conquer - but is the wonder and unspeakable grace of love. Such love is not the domain of another world or a god elsewhere - but is the always present truth of being itself - of which we cannot in truth separate from - no matter how hellish any experience we might suffer in confusion.
The willingness to serve the awakening is a willingness to live from the basis of a revealed love - but not merely to mimic truths or teachings. Nothing is revealed to a mind that already believes in its own thoughts except that which validates itself. In this sense beliefs themselves are to be re-evaluated such that those which serve as stepping stones are used and perhaps later outgrown - while those that merely block, are rendered useless or of no value.
It is altogether understandable and appropriate that in great need, we turn out from our own self-certainties and ask or open to a greater dimension of being than that to which to which we are identified and accustomed to. But is it not a careless indulgence that waits on dire crisis to value connection with and renewal in - the joy, peace and integrity of Being Itself?
Confusion is in our mind when we take our self image and act out from that in attempt to become good, wise or well. When the mind becomes open enough to become aware of and responsible for its own liability to limit itself - it turns to the heart by becoming quiet and listening - and then trusting the guidance and direction that is discerned or felt as a result of bringing attention presently to rest.
The story of Jesus is a living Symbol in the mind for the way of discovering “the Father’s Will” within. It is not for or from any kingdom in 'this world’ of 'competing wills'. It is for the Light in you to awaken from what you thought you were and what you think everything is. This is not a process of destruction or judgement - but of discovering friend or brother where enemy or fool seemed to be. Of suddenly seeing from an inclusive perspective in which all that was helpful in your thought is retained and consolidated - while that which was erroneous has simply fallen away. When this shift occurs, it may be accompanied by tangible and demonstrable events or healing - for the world experience is ultimately a reflection of thought though not merely of the surface chatter that is humanly taken to be thought.
Man is not the center of the Universe. But ‘within’ man - or prior to the consciousness that identifies itself separated or orphaned - is Awareness - that is both Universal and local and yet is Indivisible.
In this sense Mind Is the active Principle, Law, Nature and Substance of All - including the tangibility of the Universe. But beware - for what we habitually refer to as 'mind' is twice removed from the direct Process or Movement of Be ing that Awareness is one with.
Yet mind is and can never itself be limited or fixed by the thought that is its expression - and through which it knows itself existing. Thoughts of exclusion, division, limitation and blame are not truly creative but only serve to perpetuate an experience of guilt, exclusion, isolation, opposition, scarcity and fear. To such a mindset, everything is misinterpreted. The discovery that one was wrong, helpless, in need, or un-sane - is the moment where the veil is thinnest - and a little willingness can grow to reveal itself as the prayer of the heart.
It is always possible to discern the difference between the call of love for love, and the demands of self-illusion for a ‘special’ love. But only as we ourselves are willing to value truth above the self-image that uses the forms, images or symbols of truth to make its own meanings.
Sunday, 12 September 2010
Richard Dawkins and David Attenborough and the problemof consciousness
That anything at all exists - and that awareness of anything IS - is mind stoppingly awesome. See reality without the lens of concept or definition and you let reality see through you. What is the mechanism that tends to automatically deny, limit or interrupt this directness of be ing? I don't ask for words - I ask you to explore for yourselves and know.
The problem of human consciousness is that it is itself predicated on an impossible and insoluble assertion or presumption.
"I think therefore I am" - is true enough as the intuition of awareness - but totally false if it is taken to mean that you are as your own thought suggests, infers or defines. This deception is far more deep seated and all pervasive than would ever be imagined or believed - yet it comes about through the ignorant or careless use of imagination and belief. This mechanism of identification, differentiation and desire is the underlying program by which the mind seems to split itself into a multiplicity of apparently conflicting and yet unconsciously cooperating entities or survival drives associated with a symbolic substitution of form and imagined meaning for a direct and indivisible 'knowing'.
Everything discovered about the mechanism has a use in the reawakening of awareness to its true source and nature - when it is realised to be reflective of the mind or wish that calls it forth.
To use the mind as mechanism is to experience and see a mechanical 'world'.
Everything about such an investigation is mechanical and complexity of patterning or fitting together is not a true beauty or meaning just because it can be fascinating.
To release the mechanical bias - and let mind rest into and be purely expressive of its true nature is to "Be still and know that I am God". There is no belief or thought involved in what this points to. It is simply letting truth be as it is and guiding or revealing itself - Instead of indulging an imaginative self sense that determines and seeks to manipulate reality to suit its own self image.
In science and in spiritual enquiry - there is a not altogether unconscious self-seeking - that always works against the true desire of the heart because it is founded on a false sense of self. You are living the experience and feedback to the experiment of activity of thought, judgement, and belief - that is as far from the surface of human awareness as is the Earth's core from a game of cricket.
Yet to observe this, and allow realignment and integration with the truth of what you are, must you release your own thoughts of the meaning you have given them. Don't worry, the truth is never at risk - and illusions are not really here and so cannot be attacked by truth. Confusion is not the original or actual nature of mind - so do not use it as if it speaks fro you.
The problem of human consciousness is that it is itself predicated on an impossible and insoluble assertion or presumption.
"I think therefore I am" - is true enough as the intuition of awareness - but totally false if it is taken to mean that you are as your own thought suggests, infers or defines. This deception is far more deep seated and all pervasive than would ever be imagined or believed - yet it comes about through the ignorant or careless use of imagination and belief. This mechanism of identification, differentiation and desire is the underlying program by which the mind seems to split itself into a multiplicity of apparently conflicting and yet unconsciously cooperating entities or survival drives associated with a symbolic substitution of form and imagined meaning for a direct and indivisible 'knowing'.
Everything discovered about the mechanism has a use in the reawakening of awareness to its true source and nature - when it is realised to be reflective of the mind or wish that calls it forth.
To use the mind as mechanism is to experience and see a mechanical 'world'.
Everything about such an investigation is mechanical and complexity of patterning or fitting together is not a true beauty or meaning just because it can be fascinating.
To release the mechanical bias - and let mind rest into and be purely expressive of its true nature is to "Be still and know that I am God". There is no belief or thought involved in what this points to. It is simply letting truth be as it is and guiding or revealing itself - Instead of indulging an imaginative self sense that determines and seeks to manipulate reality to suit its own self image.
In science and in spiritual enquiry - there is a not altogether unconscious self-seeking - that always works against the true desire of the heart because it is founded on a false sense of self. You are living the experience and feedback to the experiment of activity of thought, judgement, and belief - that is as far from the surface of human awareness as is the Earth's core from a game of cricket.
Yet to observe this, and allow realignment and integration with the truth of what you are, must you release your own thoughts of the meaning you have given them. Don't worry, the truth is never at risk - and illusions are not really here and so cannot be attacked by truth. Confusion is not the original or actual nature of mind - so do not use it as if it speaks fro you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
But this increasingly becomes - not an issue of principle - but of a clash of illusions - each promoting their own brand of - the same old con.
One of the good things about insanity coming into the open is that beliefs that programmed society but have become degraded by mis use can be released of authority and the true values that they originally represented can be uncovered and the value lived out - shared - not as persuasion via manipulative intent - but in peace.
Peace is where sanity is.
'Masturbation' can also be used as a symbol of self regarding fantasy. Who, reading this will cast the first stone?
Rather than use some degraded idea of 'sin' as a mudslinging tactic - I'd just say that self regarding fantasy is something the mind can engage in - but it's a disconnect with actuality - being only an imaginative 'reality'. If enough people agree they can role play. If they then agree to disagree, they can also role play.
In an insane mind, anything can mean anything - though the ones who believe their enemy is here! - now there! - and them! - and also those others! Do believe it - and experience it as if it were real.
Communication cannot occur until there is some willingness to calm, regain a measure of trust and see the value in acting in new ways that do not escalate fear.
Hey! - is anyone listening?