Albert Camus, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, and the Absurdity of Wholeness

 Within the great ocean of philosophical speculation produced by roving minds from time immemorial, the contribution of French-Algerian thinker Albert Camus (1913-1960) stands apart, starkly unique in its terrifying honesty. Whereas the main of philosophical analysis addresses questions such as “What can we be certain about?” (epistemology), “What is the nature of reality?” (metaphysics) “What is good?” (axiology), or “what is the best form of government?” (political theory), Camus turns the volume down on our ceaseless cognition for long enough to ask a question that precedes every other question we might endeavor to explore. In the silent darkness exposed when the cloak of an illuminated existence is violently torn away (“a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights”), Albert Camus’ question echoes across the barren plane: “Why live at all?” At the outset of his major work, a slim volume entitled “The Myth of Sisyphus”, Camus writes, “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.” What follows this morose opening is a presentation of his theory of Absurdism, which essentially states that the only conclusion we can draw from our experience of a human condition characterized by the probability of suffering and the certainty of death on the one hand, and our deep desire for meaning on the other, is the total futility of life. Framing the world as devoid of any purpose (formless chaos) and considering the major philosophical approaches inadequate in their proposed solutions, Camus wonders whether suicide, the act of self-destruction, is the only rational act. After this grim consideration, Camus ultimately goes on to repudiate both the anti-natalist theory of Selinus, a figure in Greek mythology described to have disclosed the terrible wisdom that “Not to be born is the best of all” as well as Kierkegaard’s “leap of faith”, the existentialist or religious attempt to confer meaning upon the fundamentally meaningless (“the nostalgia of hope”). Instead, he offers a third solution: revolt. To live with constant awareness of the absurdity of living, to fully face the utter futility of life and carry on living, freely and passionately – this is Camus’ ideal. Camus finds an illustration for the futility of life in a Greek myth for which his book is named, The Myth of Sisyphus. As the myth goes, Sisyphus is required to roll a heavy boulder up a hill each day. When he finally reaches the hilltop at the end of the long day, the bolder immediately rolls back down to the bottom, and this process begins once more – for all eternity. Camus sees Sisyphus as a quintessential symbol for the anguished absurdity of our condition and the futility of our efforts in the arena of consciousness. With a bit of poetic imagination, Sisyphus becomes Camus’ hero, the symbol of one who has accepted the absurdity of his condition and yet defiantly chooses to engage with it nonetheless, thus finding happiness. He closes his presentation with these famous words: “I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again… The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” 2 The word “happy” notwithstanding, there would appear to be no greater contrast to the desperate, skeptic absurdism of Camus than the optimistic philosophy of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (1772- 1810). Renowned for his teachings on joy, encouragement, renewal, and the value of yearning, Rebbe Nachman’s world – permeated with Godliness and hurtling toward redemption – couldn’t be more different than the world of Camus. It would seem that the darkness of absurdity is simply never encountered by any individual who experiences life through the lens of his faith, all the more so one as radically optimistic as Rebbe Nachman. The truth, however, is not as simple. Strange as it may sound, there is, in fact, a pocket of literature hidden beneath the surface of the more popular Breslover writings on hope wherein we find the deathly shadow of futility. And when we do, we encounter the absurd in a form even more grotesque than the jarring conception of Camus. In a remarkable teaching1 , Rebbe Nachman teaches that there are two levels of philosophical inquiry. The first, rooted within creation itself, include problems for which rational solutions may be offered (words). However, because our experience of reality upon the paradox of “Tzmitzum”, the constriction of the Divine to form a void which “makes space” for creation, there is a second level of inquiry: questions that can never be answered (silence). Rebbe Nachman sees the experience of doubt as a fundamental prerequisite for faith itself. He expresses the understanding that there are questions which, as far as we are concerned, truly have no answer, that – from our perspective – there must necessarily exist a layer of experience where God appears to be absent. To be sure, the great light of faith eventually illuminates those existential gaps. But, crucially, this illumination does nothing to collapse the space it fills. For Rebbe Nachman, there is a Challal HaPanui, a Vacant Space. And there is also a Kav, a ray of Godliness which fills that space with hope (“kivui”). For Rebbe Nachman, there is absurdity. And there is also meaning. But it’s more than that: for Rebbe Nachman, the very gestation of faith takes place specifically within the womb of the absurd. Seen from this perspective, the experience of atheistic absurdity paradoxically takes on religious significance; it is those who have tasted the utter futility of life-in-itself and the deafening silence of God who have any chance of experiencing the thin, still, whisper of His Presence. In other words, if Rebbe Nachman wishes to claim victory over hopelessness and declare “There is no despair in the world at all!” 2 , he must first wrestle with it first. And wrestle with it he does. In a teaching that seems completely out of place in a work as optimistic as Likutei Moharan, the tzaddik writes3 : “Everyone says that there is Olam HaZeh (“this world”) and there is Olam HaBah (“the world to come”). I believe that there is Olam HaBah. Perhaps Olam HaZeh also exists somewhere. Because by all appearances, it seems that this place is Gehinnom (hell).” 1 Likutei Moharan 64. 2 Likutei Moharan Tinyana 78. 3 Likutei Moharan Tinyana 119. 3 This shocking declaration is the conclusion of a lesson in which Reb Nosson, Rebbe Nachman’s primary disciple and scribe, records his master’s frequent comments on the miserable nature of the human condition. “He spoke with us many times about the suffering of this world. He said that all people’s lives were replete with suffering and that there wasn’t ever a person who attained satisfaction in this world. Even the very wealthy people, even distinguished officials – they have nothing from this world at all, for all their days are filled with anger and frustration, and they are all constantly laden with burdens, worries, depression, angst, and sadness.” Rising in the gentle heart of a young man who suffered the loss of his first wife and four of his children, the travails of tuberculosis, and the anguish of unfounded social castigation, Rebbe Nachman’s hope is not the product of a naïve and privileged optimism. No, he fully appreciates the hellish nature of this world. We find that although Rebbe Nachman was initially very fearful of death4 , as his tragic experience of life unfolded, he seems to have experienced a shift in his attitude. “Why don’t you have time to look up at the sky,” he asks one of his students as they stand above the marketplace, “when in fifty years from now the marketplace will be full of different horses and different merchants selling different merchandise, when neither you nor I will be alive?”5 Reb Nosson relates the way Rebbe Nachman comforted a group of chassidim who were suffering from terminal illnesses. “What reason do you have to fear death?” he asked them. “Don’t you know that the next world is far more beautiful than ours?”6 In the next teaching, Reb Nosson describes the way Rebbe Nachman reacted when a funeral procession passed and the loud wailing of the mourners split the silence: “The deceased is probably laughing,” he quipped. “For they are crying over him as if to say, ‘Wouldn’t it be good if you had lived more days in this world, and suffered more anguish in this world, and experienced more of this world’s bitterness.’”7 Ultimately, this laughter of death is an experience known to Rebbe Nachman in his lifetime. On one occasion he announced, “I would like to take my wife with me and travel to a faraway place, where I would live in great concealment and only emerge from time to time to walk in the marketplace and laugh at the world.”8 Interestingly, Reb Nosson’s own encounter with the absurd, an event he cites as the catalyst of a soul-searching that ultimately led to his discovery of Rebbe Nachman, occurred very early on in his emotional development. He recounts that as a young child, he would often sit with his grandfather in the front section of the shul where the elders sat. One day, he noticed that one of his grandfather’s friends was absent – he had passed away. When this was explained to little Nosson and the reality of death set in, he began to wonder: “Is this the ultimate purpose of life? To grow older and older and then to die?”9 4 Sichos HaRan 57. 5 Kochvei Ohr, Anshei Moharan 5. 6 Chayei Moharan 445. 7 Chayei Moharan 446. 8 Chayei Moharan 259. 9 Avaneha Barzel #1. 4 Predisposed to this experience of life’s essential absurdity, Reb Nosson echoed his master’s pessimism in even more radical terms. In the final entry in sefer Sichos HaRan (which is also by far the lengthiest), Reb Nosson addresses the notion of absurdity found in the writings of earlier existentialist philosophers: “For in truth, anyone with eyes that see and a heart that understands the ultimate truth can comprehend with his intellect and see that in bygone times the world was also full of worries and economic stress… even the philosophers of the nations admit that this world is constantly full of suffering, as is often brought in their books… for even if this world had been full of goodness and wealth, without any suffering or pain, it would still be futile and empty on account of the passing time which vanishes with the blink of an eye, for our days are like the shadow of a passing bird. How much more so, now that our world is indeed full of pain, sighs, suffering, anguish, and endless frustrations without measure, for all people – from the fabulously wealthy to the desperately poor; they are all filled with worry…” But, as Camus himself points out, the subtle flicker of absurdity echoes most loudly not in philosophical reflection but between the lines of our day-to-day circumstances. This was expressed by Reb Nosson with brutal candor in a conversation with his friend, the prestigious maskil Dr. Hirsh Ber Landau. Dr. Landau had just returned from a successful business trip to Berditchov. As is customary, he had purchased gifts for his wife and children whom he hasn’t seen for some time. Upon hearing that Reb Nosson was in town, Dr. Landau went to visit him before continuing home, and, as was his way, Reb Nosson began speaking about the futility of this world and the foolishness of investing efforts in this lifetime. Having just enjoyed a lucrative trip to Berditchov, Dr. Landau couldn’t quite grasp Reb Nosson’s words. “I don’t understand,” he exclaimed. “Look at all of the money I made, the comfort I enjoy! What am I missing from this world?” Reb Nosson smiled wryly and responded, “It’s possible to return home from a successful trip to Berditchov bearing a golden ring for one’s wife. When one shows the ring to his wife with excitement, it is possible that his wife will not appreciate this particular ring and grow angry with him for not having bought her something else. The mood suddenly shifts, and death becomes more attractive to him than life.” Dr. Landau took leave of Reb Nosson, but only a few minutes passed before he returned, breathless, and with a look of bewilderment on his face. “Reb Nosson!” he cried. “How right you were!”10 Unlike the existentialists so ruthlessly berated by Camus, those thinkers like Jaspers, Chestov, Kierkegaard, and Husserl whom he charges with turning away from the absurd in an act of cowardice (“philosophical suicide”) by finding reason beyond the reasonless, the Breslover conception faces the void just as fully as does Camus. Rebbe Nachman and his disciple do not deny the appearance of futility one iota. This world is, indeed, an absurd place of suffering. Our experience is, in fact, tortured and rife with anguish. But whereas Camus leads us to the brink of the existential cliff, Rebbe Nachman pushes us over the edge, and the strangest thing happens: we fly. But how do we fly? What is the secret of Rebbe Nachman’s hope, the ecstatic joy he describes as being happy “from within the darkness of depression” (introduction to the Tale of the Seven Beggars)? How is it possible to walk the narrow bridge of life and yet to “have no fear at all?”11 10 Kochvei Ohr, Sippurim Nifla’im. 11 Likutei Moharan Tinyana 48. 5 Where is the point of departure at which Rebbe Nachman leaves Camus in his defiant revolt before the fork in the road between life and death? Let us turn to one of the Rebbe’s lesser-known parables, recorded in Chayei Moharan. 12 There was once a king who sent his son to distant lands to study. When he returned home, fully versed in the arts and sciences, the king gave his son instructions to carry a heavy boulder up to the top floor of the palace. Because the boulder was tremendous, the size of a millstone, the son was unable to lift it at all. Disappointed that he was unable to fulfil his father’s wish, he returned to the king. Rebbe Nachman tells us that the king ‘opened himself up to his son’, saying, “Did you really imagine I would tell you something as difficult as that? Would I tell you to take the stone, just as it is, and lift it to the top floor? Even with all your wisdom, how could have done something like that? This was not my intention at all. What I wanted you to do was to take a hammer and hit the stone until it splintered into little pieces. This way, you would indeed have been able to bring it up to the top floor.” The similarities between this parable and The Myth of Sisyphus are striking. Whether presenting an alternative to that tale was Rebbe Nachman’s intention, we will never know for sure. But what seems perfectly certain is that this short story contains within it the very essence of the Breslover worldview. First, let us reflect upon the contrast between the crises in Camus’ myth and the crises in Rebbe Nachman’s parable. In The Myth of Sisyphus, the crisis of Camus’ hero is that he is trapped in a cycle of futility. However futile it may be, there is a cycle, a process; Sisyphus is able to lift the stone. Rebbe Nachman ventures further into the absurd than Camus ever dares. For Rebbe Nachman, the futility of this world is so debilitating, so total, that no process even begins: the stone will not budge. If the Vacant Space exists, there are questions that reason, logic, delusion, even faith in something beyond reason simply cannot resolve. From this suffocating standpoint, there is no space within which the revolt of Camus can play out. Upon entertaining this notion, the existential road doesn’t merely split, leaving the traveler with the options of suicide to the left, delusional living to the right, or the ability to stand still in defiance. To Rebbe Nachman, there is no fork in the road at all. The road simply dissolves. But Rebbe Nachman’s parable doesn’t end in crises. Eventually, the king explains to his son that wisdom, rationality, cannot lift the stone. Not even the conclusion of Camus – birthed and nurtured in the mind of the conscious individual facing the absurd - holds relevance in the face of such crushing futility. One cannot carry on in revolt when one cannot carry on at all. Instead, the tzaddik introduces a fourth option; an option Camus doesn’t begin to consider: bittul – self-nullification. Maintaining full awareness of the Vacant Space and the answerless questions of being, Rebbe Nachman teaches that surrendering to the void – a convincing construct created to afford us a sense of self and its perception of autonomy – enables us to soar beyond it. By shattering the stone, a metaphor for humbling oneself before the irrationality of existence, one crosses the existential 12 # 441. 6 bridge and finds himself on the other side of the paradox; a realm within which there is no longer any self that must wrestle with the absurdity of a Vacant Space. This is the secret of “temimus upeshitus”, the simplicity that is such a foundational pillar of Breslover virtue. Futility is rightly our experience - but only inasmuch as we hold on to the illusion of wholeness, the supposed value of attempting to understand the very process of living. If it is “I” who understand, “I” who revolt, even “I” who believe that somewhere, Someone has an answer to all our questions, the absurd yet casts its menacing shadow over our existence. But the moment we leap into the full catastrophe of the absurd and – in so doing - place the locus of being outside of our consciousness; nullifying our sense of wholeness by assuming a state of bittul, of simplicity and authentic openness, something incredible happens. The stone is shattered and – piece by piece, each fragment of experience an eternity unto its own – the absurdity is suddenly undone, the stone is lifted to an elevated realm of being where we realize the void as itself housed within the palace of the King, and the Vacant Space is vacant no more. “Even with your wisdom,” says the king, “did you really think you could lift the boulder?” “The greatest wisdom of all the wisdoms,” taught Rebbe Nachman, “is not to be wise at all.”13 “My not knowing,” he declared on another occasion, “is greater than my knowing.” (Shivchei HaRan #33) In another place: “the pinnacle of knowledge is to arrive at the level where one recognizes that in fact, he does not know.” (Sichos HaRan 3) When we untether our consciousness from the wisdom of rationality and embrace this “greatest wisdoms of all the wisdoms”, there is indeed no despair in the world at all - because there is no word at all. When there is no world, there are no words, the building blocks of creation – only silence. And it is then that, just as in Rebbe Nachman’s tale “The Exchanged Children” the frightful din of the forest wildlife is revealed to be a glorious symphony , the human consciousness begins to reverberate with the melody of redemption. Now, it must be made clear that Rebbe Nachman is under no illusion that it is possible to constantly maintain this level of perception. At the end of the day, the human being must be human. His writings are replete with references to the eventual return from the perception of the Illuminated Space after the shattering of our hearts of stone lets the light in.14 Remember: Rebbe Nachman is not a naïve optimist. He does not deny the absurd. What he does is introduce and embrace the paradox of being. The result is a consciousness of unique intensity, a perception of being both “here” and “there” at the very same time (perhaps alluded to in his vision of the man who is soaring through the cosmos with an angelic guest at the very same time he is sitting alone in his home15) – with the benefits of both. The resolve to not participate in the absurdity of life but rather to divest the self altogether counterintuitively enables the Jew to embrace life fully and with great joy; not the pessimistic and scornful “happiness” of Camus’ desperate revolt, but with the deep contentment of breaking time open so profoundly that the light of eternity can shine through the fractures snaking across the face of each and every moment. Conscious of the sadness cemented into the very experience of being human, the Jew grabs hold of it with both hands and draws it into the joyous circle of an elevated perspective16. Light and darkness link arms, and in the frenzied whirl 13 Likutei Moharan Tinyana 44. 14 See, for example, Likutei Moharan 4:10 and 65:4. 15 See Chayei Moharan 85. 16 See Likutei Moharan Tinyana 24. 7 of their dance, they merge as one. The seeds for this essay took root a number of years ago when I first encountered Camus and wondered about the uncanny similarity between his myth and Rebbe Nachman’s parable of the shattered boulder. Recently, Hashem guided me toward a lecture by Rabbi Dr. Yaakov Weintroth z”l, a famous Israeli lawyer who had studied under some of the most illustrious gedolim of the previous generation and was known to be a prodigious scholar of many spiritual and intellectual disciplines. I was told that toward the end of his life, Rabbi Weintroth discovered the world of Rebbe Nachman and began to study it with Bresolver chassidim, and that this lecture – the final lecture of his life (he tragically passed away some three weeks later) – was about his experience with Rebbe Nachman’s thought. I began to watch this talk and was soon shocked to find that the entire two hours were devoted to treating the contrast between Camus’ absurdity and Rebbe Nachman’s paradox. With penetrating clarity, Rabbi Weintroth uses the first hour to present the theory of Camus before shifting gears and describing the “silent song” of Rebbe Nachman – an artistic experience beyond rationality, beyond self, beyond our visceral experience of the absurd. He does not mention the parable of the shattered boulder, although I imagine he would have found interest in that connection. He does, however, present an important insight with which I would like to conclude. Rabbi Dr. Weintroth points us to a dispute in the Gemara17 as to whether Shlomo HaMelech’s Koheles should be included in the Biblical canon. The argument against its inclusion is understandable – Koheles seems to have no place in the religious worldview. In light of to the classical understanding of faith, which maintains that everything has meaning, that there is a rational answer to all questions, that whatever happens is for the best, and so on, how are we to stomach such pessimistic statements as, “Vanity of vanities, all is vain!” 18, “One generation goes, another generation comes, but the earth remains the same forever,” 19 “All streams flow into the sea, but the sea is never full,”20 “There is nothing new beneath the sun”, or “it is a twisted thing that cannot be made straight, a lack that cannot be made good.”21 – ? On and on Shlomo HaMelech fumes, relentlessly repudiating life in the most uncompromisingly vicious terms. In the end, Chazal chose to include Koheles, because it has redeeming value in its final line: “The sum of the matter, when all is said and done: Revere God and observe His commandments, for this is the entirety of man.” Still, the lingering question remains: what is the source of King Shlomo’s great anguish? And where does it fit within the context of faith? Seen through the lens of Rebbe Nachman’s paradox, Koheles comes into focus. In 221 verses, Shlomo HaMelech takes us on a tour of the absurd. He walks us through the valley of the shadow of death and demands that we face the Vacant Space, that we peer into the abyss of overwhelming futility. Then, after granting us this necessary experience, the wisest of all men who would certainly have achieved the “greatest of wisdoms - not to be wise at all”, teaches us how to access the other side of the paradox: bittul. Fear of heaven and heeding the commandments is not to be seen as 17 Shabbos 30b. 18 Koheles 1:2. 19 Ibid 1:4. 20 Ibid 1:7. 21 Ibid 1:9. 8 Shlomo HaMelech’s advice for how to confer meaning upon a meaninglessness experience. It is rather a key to the unraveling of the absurd, a tool with which we can soar beyond the nausea of being by becoming humbled, by breaking open our sense of self – thus creating a vacant space inside our consciousness within which God’s Presence can rest. Returning to Reb Nosson’s outpouring of the soul at the very end of Sichos HaRan, we find an echo of this approach. “After this truth, that regardless of whether one is wealthy or poor he will experience toil and anger all his life, because the suffering and pain of each person are very great… therefore, fortunate is one who escapes from the toil of this-worldly frustration to the toil of Torah. Then, he will be happy in this world and the next… There is no place to which one can escape this depression and sadness which shorten and waste away a person’s days than to Hashem and His Torah… Then, when one resigns himself to live a life of contentment with even the smallest amounts… it is specifically then that one can experience true life even in this world… If you will do this, ‘fortunate are you in this world’ – certainly! For you will certainly have much true vitality from this that you accepted upon yourself that this world was not created for us to enjoy it. Rather on the contrary, a person who desires to experience pleasure in this world which is full of pain and suffering should run from the toil of this-worldliness to the toil of the Torah which is our life-force and the length of our days.”22 In our post-modern, sometimes post-truth world riddled with ethical quagmires, the collapse of age-old norms, and a thick atmosphere of confused distrust, Rebbe Nachman’s message is more impactful than ever. But it is crucial that we first understand the nuance and complexity of this master’s approach. Because if all we know about Rebbe Nachman is that he preached joy and optimism, the dissonance between our experience of reality and these messages render them hollow. Even if we learn that Rebbe Nachman did indeed experience suffering, we may be tempted to deflect his optimism by considering his attitudes to be super-human, the reaction of a tzaddik, above and beyond our spiritual and emotional reach. But when we become aware of just how deeply Rebbe Nachman appreciated the hell this world can sometimes be, just how viscerally he experienced the absurdity, the futility, the angst of living, his path toward radical optimism becomes relatable. And when we feel that Rebbe Nachman understands our pain, we become ready to pay more attention to his message, to relinquish the sense of self which apprehends the absurdity of the Vacant Space, to take his hand and join him in a remarkable flight beyond the horizon of “the one truly serious philosophical problem” and into the dawn of a paradox. 22 Sichos HaRan 308.

Sweet FA (Freedom Anonymous) weekly meetings.

So after a great deal of procrastination, I have taken the plunge and organised weekly meetings as part of 'The Project' which I have talked about in another post.

These meetings will be based around the 12 step program with some amendments.

For any of 'Bill's friends,' you will know that, 'service' is one of the tools of the program. I have been a little disappointed in the past as people don't seem to come forward in their droves to help although some have offered. I think the difficulty was that I didn't really know what they could do and neither did they.

With this new meeting, there will be plenty of things you can do if you are prepared to offer yourself to be of service to the group and ultimately to society at large.

Please email me at sweetfreedomanonymous@gmail.com telling me how much time per week you have to offer and what  you would can do. For example, a Facebook page would be good and a simple website. A treasurer would be needed just to collect and manage the small change that we will collect at the meetings to cover room rental. Someone would need to volunteer to be secretary of the meeting. (That could be a joint position) Etc etc.

It is my intention to create the meeting and to attend most meetings and then let it develop through other peoples contribution. In particular it would be great if at least some of the members of Freedom Anonymous had/have experience in other 12 step programs.

The majority of the time at these meetings will be for exploration of our personal sense of freedom, but not just exploration for the purpose of naval glazing. The intention is to create a fellowship where we will be supporting each other to experience more freedom in our own experiences in life. Freedom from compulsive and controlling thoughts and behaviours.

The rest of the time at these meetings will be spent creating ideas for the political side of things with a view to fielding a candidate in the general election.

There will be many questions that arise just from this blog and from this idea. Questions don't all need to be answered and certainly not immediately. Some of them can also be answered by ourselves if we know how to sit and listen quietly to what I would call the voice of Love inside each of us. And other questions can just be there.

I have prepared some literature and a format for the meeting based on the 12 step program so if you would like to be part of this, you are most welcome.

I will include some of the literature on this blog until such a time as someone volunteers to create a simple website.

Nothing is set in stone with this fellowship including its very existence and name. After all it is called the 'freedom' fellowship.

Here is the preamble we will read at each meeting (until it is decided not to or to change this)

Proposed Preamble

Freedom Anonymous (Transonymous) is a fellowship of men and women who have a significant interest in freedom and therefore wish to free themselves of ANY controlling or compulsive behaviour and thinking.

We will adapt many aspects of the 12 step program as a proven system capable of profoundly freeing some of the most hopelessly trapped people.

The only requirement for membership is a desire for freedom in our lives and in the lives of others, particularly from compulsive thoughts and/or behaviours.

Anonymity

As I wrote in the preamble, it is more like transonymity which is a word I made up. What I mean by it, is that the fellowship will be founded on the idea that there is a way of being that is BEYOND our names and personality (ego) and it is that way that we are aiming for. It is not something that is to be kept a secret but we may well just use our first names or any other 'name' we wish to be known by. The point is that the name and personality is not what is important. Its the principles.

Meetings

The meetings will take place in Hendon, North West London every Saturday between 11am and 12.30pm.

Anybody is welcome to set up a local meeting wherever you are in the world, however, it would be unlikely to work unless at least one member is familiar with the 12 step program.

Thoughts about Israel, Palestine and Gaza

Before I begin, I have some qualifications and questions. Unlike most of what you read in the media, this article is designed to make you think for yourself. If you don’t like that idea, don’t read it. Apologies that the article doesn't flow. Its more like an outpouring of ideas and questions.

I don’t know very much about very much. In this case and in all world affairs, I don’t know what is going on behind the scenes. I don’t know who is pulling what strings. I don’t really know what to make of the ‘history’ I was taught and I don’t know what to think about it all, period. And it’s not always comfortable to admit that I don’t know and that I probably never will. Its so tempting to kid myself that I do know and then get stuck in to a good old argument to try and convince others of my cleverness and righteousness. 

But I will resist that. Now the questions.

Why does what’s going on in the area get so much coverage? There are terrible atrocities involving much larger numbers than this against innocent victims happening all over the world, from Ukraine and Syria to Zimbabwe and Kenya. there are humans rights abuses happening in North Korea and China as well as Russia and Turkey, Iran and Suadi Arabia. And yet in Israel/Palestine the war is not against a totally innocent civilian population. The leaders of this population are playing a crazy and complicated game aren't they? So why so much coverage about Israel/Palestine?

Having analysed the UK media, I always ask myself (and you are invited to ask yourself), why are they reporting this, what are they trying to make me think about? Should I even give it any thought? Should I give anything any thought? How are they trying to make me feel? What do I feel when I read/hear about this situation? Is that a deliberate effect that the newspaper owners want me to experience? What are they trying to distract me from? What are the subliminal messages being pumped into me through the stories and reports? Or is it all a bit random? Is the system - whatever that is - out of control?

My responses to some of those questions follow here although you may want to pause this and think about your responses first.

Before we begin, I have a question based on something I read of Eckhart Tolle. Ask yourself - I wonder what would happen if I keep at least some of my attention on my feelings and thoughts – witnessing them – as I listen to/read through this. I wonder what would happen if I wrote those down and explored them after reading/hearing this?

Are words important to those who wish to manipulate you? Has Israel ever done anything wrong? Ever? I ask this because is not Israel just a concept in your mind? Can a concept do anything? When Tony Blair went to war by commanding the people in the army, did the UK go to war? Has UK ever done anything wrong or right? Have the government ever done anything wrong or right? Has any government? Have the Israeli, British or American army ever injured anyone? (Ask the injured one if he has any bones with ‘The UK’ or more with the man who pressed the trigger or the man who told him to? Has Hamas ever killed anyone? What if it is PEOPLE who do things? What if they do those things because of ideas they have in their heads which they got from outside themselves? And for those who would say its just a semantic word game, what if this word game is being played against the interests of MOST of the people in the area regardless of which ‘group’ they imagine themselves to be in? Could it be important to be aware of these word games in order to avoid playing them unknowingly? Is this word game harmless or is it used to protect the human beings who perpetuate all kinds of violence and theft because they can hide behind an organisation or an ideology?

So in terms of subliminal messages, is anthropomorphising of concepts like Countries, Religions or Corporations a powerful subliminal tool?

Are ALL the people in the area being used as a scapegoat? Is a certain group of people bearing the brunt of it more than another group of people? But what if ALL people are being taken for a ride?

Is there an Hegelian dialectic being set up here in order to keep you from asking a fundamental question? Is that dialectic the question of whether or not Israel is a legitimate concern? What if that diverts us from the larger question - Is ANY modern state and government a legitimate concern?

And is this scapegoating based on the manipulation of ALL people in the region using FEAR?

Is this story is designed like so many to stir up FEAR in us all and to encourage us to fall into the trap of taking sides for fear of admitting that we are confused and don’t know what to think!

Put another way, is there something much bigger than Palestine/Israel going on here? I just spoke to a friend from the area who claimed that the Qataris have been financing Hamas for years but were told to stop by the Saudis and did stop resulting in n obamas salaries being paid for 3 months. Then Hamas people retried to raid the Palestinian banks to no avail so they decided to kick up some chaos to get people on their side! Who knows?!)

Every day as part of my spiritual practise, I recite the serenity prayer. There are several versions – I oscillate between two but here’s the best known ‘god – grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.’

The one thing I can do something about is my response to external events/people and in particular to my fears, which are often triggered by externalities. And life presents me with thousands of opportunities to face my fears. Frustration, worry, annoyance and anger are all children of fear. So this story induces fear in me but instead of my examining that fear and realising that it is in my head and likely to be a negative projection into the future, I focus on that which I think causes me the fear and project that fear back to the projector of it. What if that psychological mechanism is what leads to war itself?

One of the most interesting encounters I have had in my time was a couple of years ago when I was visiting Tel Aviv university to interview various people at random to ask them about the ‘situation’ there. I stumbled across a man who identified himself as a Muslim Israeli citizen and he was studying Islamic culture at Tel Aviv University (get your head around that.) He refused to be filmed or recorded but agreed to talk to me. I asked him why he wouldn’t be filmed. He replied ‘when I was in my twenties (25 years ago) I would go round the cafes, mosques and clubs in different Muslim communities in Israel and tell the people that its not the Jews that are our enemies. It’s the industrialists – the Capitalist leaders. One day I got a knock at the door by two guys claiming to be from the secret services. They warned me that I must stop what I was doing and saying. I eventually had to leave the country and live in Europe and on my return I decided that I couldn’t carry on with my message so I now keep it to myself.

There seem to be claims that the people in the army and Government knew that the boys had been murdered well before it was announced. If this is so, why did they start this campaign to ‘bring back our boys?’ when they knew they were dead? If it is not so, do you think an average group of people who call themselves government would be capable of that type of thing?

Who is the ‘our boys’ referring to in the slogan?

What is the implication with the ‘bring back our boy slogan? If it is all Israelis, or even if it is only Jewish Israelis, do the people who call themselves government including Netanyahu really care about all the boys in the country?

Even if we just look at the Jewish ones (this applies to all boys in the region anyway) - what about the hundreds of thousands that live in abject poverty? What about all the social justice issues with rental prices shooting up by over 100% recently? What about all the suicides that are a result of economic policies? What about the people who lead and work in global corporations who bombard ‘our boys’ with messages tempting them into doing and getting all sorts of things that are unhealthy? What about Netanyahu and those who call themselves governments' friends who run the big fictional corporations – what about what they do to ‘our girls’ sexualising them at a young age, subjecting them to photoshopped models inducing all sorts of mental health conditions in young women which include anorexia which KILLS God knows how many girls? What about the friends of those who call themselves gov who run the media and their employees terrorising the people of Israel with their fear porn without providing context (Like statistics about the chances of it happening to you)

What type of people are attracted to politics and what type of characteristics are needed to rise to the top of ANY large organisation and specifically a political party?

Could it be as I read recently (In the Daily (Hate) Mail of all places) that 1 in 25 of the heads of large organisations are psychopaths? One of the ‘symptoms’ of being a psychopath is the inability to feel human empathy. That means that if a psychopath was walking along a street and saw a baby who had just been in a bad car accident and its limbs had been severed, the psychopath would feel no empathy – it would be like viewing any other scene. However, he/she would take notice of the mother crying and the people around, listen to the type of things they were saying and then go home and practise acting like them in front of a mirror. This acting ability would have to be perfected as a MATTER of LIFE and DEATH because the psychopath realises that if people found out that he/she had no ability for human empathy, they might be locked up.

So if you look at David Cameron’s performances, they are so convincing that millions take them for real. Another great actor is Netanyahu.

Even if he himself is a genuine person with the ability to feel human empathy, what type of people have influence on him? People at the top of large organisations like, the secret services, Mossad, FBI, MI5, billionaires, CEOs of Banks etc. Is it likely that some of them are psychopaths or at least show some of the signs?

If that is the case, are there people in the world who benefit from large scale conflict? Could they be in positions of influence over those who call themselves government?

Could it be that the Jews and Muslims in that area are actually being played off against each other without either side realising just like the man in the story said?

Isn’t it strange that both ‘sides’ are convinced that the other side has been subject to propaganda and brainwashed yet neither can see or admit that they themselves have been conditioned and misled en masse? Would it be a good idea for all of us to question our own thinking?

Did not those who call themselves the government know full well that if they started going in to Gaza and arresting the people in response to the kidnapping and murder, the rocket attacks would be restarted and stepped up?

Did not those who call themselves the government know full well that this would help get the people on their side so that they could do what they wanted to do anyway?

Did not those who call themselves the government know full well that war  would lead to a large amounts of civilian injuries and death including the death of many of their own people? Many more than the 3 deaths they were responding to?

Did not those who call themselves the government know full well that this would lead to lots of reporting in the media and this would in turn lead to anti Semitism in some places?

Is there any element of revenge going on here? If so, is that in line with any religions teachings?

And then I bring it once again back to myself. If it is a crime to ignore or turn a blind eye to the suffering of the other, surely most of us are guilty every time we use our iPhones, or eat a banana or even put on our underpants in the morning or fill up our car with petrol. Many suffered along the road to any of these things.

Why are people who align with Hamas ideology doing what they are doing? What are they trying to achieve?

What is Hamas ideology?

Lets lighten up the conversation and take a quick look at the Hamas Charter which could be a good script for a 'life of Brian' type film about the situation.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp

How many people in the area support Hamas ideology?

How do they treat their own people?

What about those who oppose Hamas ideology?

Are they psychopaths too, possibly having contracted the illness through trauma?

Haven’t we got brilliant minds everywhere we look who could, given enough resources, sort out the situation using creative and innovative ideas and approaches?

What if, instead of spending all that money on bombs and arms and soldiers, the money (yes billions) was used to start a campaign to help people who have been traumatised by the violence they have seen, and make it clear to the people of Gaza that there may be some psychopaths amongst them and that these people need special care and attention and often find themselves at/near the top of any organisations and therefore anyone in such a position should be treated with great suspicion!?

Yesterday I was challenging the socialist workers party who were getting people in Brixton to sign a petition ‘against Israeli terror.’ I asked them on the megaphone why they weren’t against ALL terror? They ended up threatening me physically and the guy who I was with by trying to break his camera. I must say that the PCSO on duty was excellent. He was there to protect me and called for backup to do the same. My point about it is that they were clearly demonstrating a violent way of being, adding to the fear.

If I choose to subject myself to this kind of propaganda (is not all information propaganda?), am I being part of the problem or part of the solution with my reaction/response to it? Am I adding to the fear and division or am I adding compassion and peace?

The Project - A Power Experiment

The Project - (A registered political Party in the UK) A completely different political social experiment

This document is part of the ongoing subversive (social) experiment, known simply as ‘The Project.’

We have set up a power (political) party that’s not really a party. More like a collaboration. We have currently decided to call it simply ‘The Project.’

It is intended to be a reflection of ourselves – a ‘work in progress[1],’ so anything could change, including the name.

We are considering creating a menu of sub names so to speak. A couple of suggestions for sub names are 

‘The Subversive EXperimental (S.EX.) Party.’

‘The Creators’ Project’

As this is a collaboration, we are open to other suggestions.

The Project is an ongoing collaborative evolving subversive experiment. It is a specific form of subversion called open subversion.[2] Is not the current power (political) situation also a form of open subversion? If so, then the main differences are that the current experiment[3] subverts power (politics) with fear, control, division, ignorance and violence, whilst this experiment will be subverting power (politics)  with humility, courage, honesty, creativity, integrity, humour, service, self discipline, compassion and with a view to enlightening ourselves and others.

This party is an alliance or fellowship of like-minded people, who share some very basic perceptions of the world.

Criteria for membership of The Project

1.     We are open to the possibility that we live in a mysterious world and that each of us has enormous potential to both create and/or destroy.

2.     We are open to the possibility that there is something very ‘strange’ with the way we are currently organized and ruled.[4]

3.     We are open to the possibility that some of our attitudes and behaviours are part of the problem.

4.     We are open to the possibility that part of solution involves reassessing and refining these attitudes and behaviours.[5]

5.     We desire to do no harm and cause no loss.

6.     We value humour and if we don’t have a sense of humour, we at least desire to have one.[6]

Although this is a power (political) venture, it will involve creative input in many areas beyond power (politics.) And although it is starting in the UK, anyone from anywhere can be a part of it, as long as they fit the criteria above. After all, the behavior of the current Regime affect not just citizens of the UK, but people all over the planet. It would of course be great to see similar experiments emerge all over the world.

This alliance will enable people to share ideas and actions and will be engaged in many arenas starting with power (politics.) Therefore, a fundamental part of the project will be to create a website which will be available for members to both contribute to and take from. This website will use comedy, art, film, performance, science, spirituality, psychology and philosophy to upgrade the conversation. The site will build suggestions for long-term visions as well as ideas for immediate implementation of actions.

As with many experiments, the actions and ideas are implemented with an open mind – open to whatever results occur. This means that the purpose is not necessarily to gain ‘power’ in the traditional way.  Instead, the experiment has a value in and of itself as well as having aims. The primary aim to start with, is to raise the level of conversation, affecting both what we talk about and how we talk about it. The ‘how’ should include utilizing the limitless human creativity to which we all have access. It is also important to choose our words carefully.[7]

Currently, the conversations around the way our lives are managed, are deliberately limited to avoid discussing the bigger questions. For example, there is plenty of debate about different types and levels of legal extortion[8](taxation) but NO debate about whether the whole idea of legal extortion – using the threat of violent force to take people’s property against their will - is itself legitimate or not. Here in the UK, people argue about whether there should be bedroom legal extortion or what level of legal extortion of income is acceptable. This diverts the majority from even thinking about the morality of legal extortion together with the use of the word ‘taxation.’

There is also much talk about ex-pats[9] and what to do about them with little or no mention of why they end up leaving their home countries and coming to a strange often hostile country and to what extent the economic system here in the UK contributes to the conditions that make it impossible for so many people to survive in their home countries.

It is not just the topics of conversation and the choice of words, but also the form. Is the use of questions a critical tool in opening peoples’ minds as opposed to closing them?

This alliance will offer resources for creative imaginative people (potentially all of us) to raise the level of conversation through the asking of questions.

Standing for Parliament

Candidates would be completely independent, with only the guiding principles and membership criteria as common ground. Their personal manifesto, hand picked from the website hub, would be based on those principles and the particular circumstances of where they are standing.

The kind of people that would sit well with these ideas, would be the type of people who would be extremely reluctant to stand for parliament because firstly they would be aware of the deep corruption of the system and secondly they would realize that to maintain any sense of ‘spiritual’ values (like humility, courage, honesty) would be very challenging. We thus envisage other people nominating those who they think would be suitable and then the candidates would explain why they think they would NOT be right for the job! If there was more than one candidate in an area, the one with the least excuses may be chosen by the decision makers (see ‘infiltration’ below)

They or their supporters could raise the money for standing using crowd funding.

The intention is to fund the project itself by crowd funding membership which would be set at a fixed fee – say £10. Anyone could apply for membership and those who could offer more than £10 could choose for their contribution to cover those who could not afford to join. There could also be a time bank where people could offer their time, and bitcoin would also be accepted.

Initial Ideas from the Initiators

Principles on which the project is based

Primary Principle – The desire to do no harm and cause no loss.

Other principles

Honesty

Courage

Integrity

Humility

Self-discipline

Love for others

Perseverance

Awareness

Service to others

Catch Phrases

•    I was wrong.

•    I don’t know.

•    Let me think about that for a moment.

•    Can I please get back to you on that one.

Shifting the Conversation with Questions

What do you like about the world, the system and the way it is run?

What disturbs you about the world, the system and the way it is run?

There does not seem to be any ethical underpinning to the legal, political and economic systems. How can that be allowed to continue?

What exactly is money?

How is it created?

Is the system one big Ponzi scheme?

What is ownership?

What is land ownership?

Can we abolish usury and if so when and how?

Can we provide people with a basic income system?

What is the etymology of the word Government?

Does voting give people the right to do things that was immoral without the vote?

Should the government be involved with education?

If the same civil servants are advising the Government no matter which party is in power, how is that democratic?

Is taxation a form of extortion and if so can it be ethical in any circumstances to take away someone’s property with the threat of violence?

What is a crime?

Should we allow the idea of a ‘legal personality’ in the form of corporations bearing in mind that this has meant that these organizations get all the rights of real humans and none of the responsibility?

Who is funding so called think tanks? Is that important? Who is actually controlling the elected officials?

What are we going to do about such gross financial inequality where the top tiny minority own more than billions at the bottom?

Suggestions for immediate implementation

Change the names of things to reflect different viewpoints and point towards a more truthful depiction of those things.

Change the name of Government to ‘regime’ Or ‘cast.’

The Prime Minister will be referred to as the Lead Actor.

Change the name of various ministries..

Ministry of Education  - Ministry of Indoctrination

Ministry of Defense  - Ministry of Attack

Ministry of Justice - Ministry of Obedience

Media and Communications - Propaganda

Office of National Statistics - Office of Data Manipulation.

Set up new Ministry of Ethics whose job it would be to examine the ethics of all the other ministries.

Politician members of the alliance might agree to live on minimum wage and live in Government housing during their tenure if they were ever elected to office.

Eventually any member of the alliance who reached a high level of so called leadership in any governing body would agree to be recorded 24/7 except when in personal situations. All communication would be open to the public.

Visions For The Project

It is important to acknowledge that these visions will remain visions until such time as the planet is ready for their implementation and at the appropriate pace.

Economy

People will be educated as to why the current system seems like it is responsible for the destruction of most life forms, from the plant and animal kingdom to the life and souls of human.

There will be support put in place for people who wish to opt out of the system as best they can and create sustainable communities.

New systems will be researched – systems which support humans to be their best – not just a tiny elite. The system will not allow a tiny group of people to control vast quantities of resources.

Jubilee – Cancelling all debt starting with third world country but eventually all debt.

Outlawing Usury.

Legal System

Reform the legal system so that it is understandable to the average man and has equality at its heart.

A line will eventually be drawn after which anyone can be prosecuted for real crimes – crimes of theft, fraud and/or physical violence. All will be forgiven for past mistakes but no longer be able to hide behind fictional corporations.

All court cases will be able to be recorded at least with audio if that was the wish of the ‘defendant.’

Jurys will decide what cases are taken to court and which are not. This will save a small fortune. At the moment, the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) decide what cases are in ‘the public interest.’ But how can we allow that when they themselves have an interest in prosecuting as many cases as possible as it is their bread and butter?

Jury Nullification will be discussed with all juries.

Political Systems

It is becoming increasingly clear that politicians are the front line distraction for us to protect the bankers and corporate leaders/owners that REALLY run the world. We acknowledge the cunning nature of the illusion!

We also therefore realize that most of the politicians need help! On the one hand they are doing an excellent job as ACTING leaders. It is all an act and once this is recognized, its easier to smile whilst being compassionate. It’s all so silly on some level!

We will insist that anyone in a high position of authority will be tested for mental health issues. We will offer therapy and psychological assistance to those who feel the need to be in power to help them get to the bottom of what is really going on for them.

We acknowledge that most adults spend a great deal of their time behaving like little children. We therefore are committed to showing the so called leaders compassion when they expose their little inner child whilst supposedly ruling the world!

We will call for a Radical reformation of the political system with a view to a reduction in government and their powers so that they return to their rightful mandate as protectors of the people and their rights. Eventually we would not have a government, but  instead move towards an administration, stripping any group (Government, Corporations, Think Tanks) of illegitimate power. (That’s a lot fo stripping!)

Health


Separation between health and money will be introduced. The promotion and ‘selling’ of pharmaceutical drugs will be phased out.

Economy

Corporations can only exist if they are deemed beneficial to the people.

Share resources in an equitable way.

Outlaw think tanks and lobbyists.

Education

Education would be removed from the grip of government. It would move from being a system designed to get people ‘jobs’ to a system designed to bring out the best talents in each student.

Infiltration

As there are some very wealthy and powerful people in whose interest it is to keep the status quo going, they would be foolish if they did not attempt to infiltrate any attempts to challenge the status quo in some way. Even if we had real direct  democracy, we have all been so affected by year of conditioning, that it is our understanding that we cannot trust the masses to choose for the good of the whole. This is because most of us experience that in at least some areas of our own personal lives, we cannot trust our own thoughts to make good choices even for our loved ones and ourselves. This is why this project is based on principles above people.

Although the members will have an opportunity to contribute ideas and to potentially stand for election, we are going to have one or more anonymous benevolent decision makers (ABDMs) whose job it will be to sift out infiltrators. They will have a considerable ability to spot these people and will make the final decision as to whether they can stand as part of this venture as well as curating the website and prioritising the creative ideas. This decision will be arrived after considering various factors including the ideas of the members, although once again the decision will be based on principles. So if an ABDM spots a candidate or a policy idea that does not sit well with the principles, he/she would disqualify/reject the candidate/idea.

Footnotes

---

[1] Work in Progress – What if we acknowledged that we will never have all the answers, either to the questions about our own lives and especially to the questions about how to manage millions of peoples’ lives!? What if being a work in progress meant working on ourselves, in relation to some or all of the principles listed above? What if we accepted that we are a work in progress, always have been and always will be until we die? (Some believe it continues after that!) And what if this project is just like us?

[2] Open subversion – the most cunning of all subversion whereby the subversion is actually in plain sight if you know how and where to look/listen.

[3] Current Uk Political Subversive Experiments includes the Conservative Party Experiment, Labour, Liberal and UKIP party experiments all of which use heaps of subversion.

[4] Something is strange  –What if there is a broad system that is currently in place, which dominates and subjugates much of the planets resources and people? Let’s call it a domination system. (Synonyms of Domination:

rule, government, sovereignty, control, command, authority, power, dominion,  dominance, mastery, supremacy, superiority, ascendancy, sway, influence)

What if it is a system with many sub systems and there are many people involved, and they are in what seems is a complex relationship matrix? WHAT IF THE DOMINATION SYSTEM IS THE SOURCE OF MANY OF OUR COLLECTIVE PROBLEMS? Is it something that we should be talking about a LOT, not just Russel Brand?(and his tiny group of followers, some of whom don’t even get what he’s on about!)

What if it is somewhat accurate that the problems we see in the external world are often a reflection of our internal world? As domination is a form of control, what if at a deeper level, ‘control’ has something to do with a lot of our ‘problems’? How many of us have issues with control? How many of us (compulsively) want to control our lives and others lives’ too? What if this project could bring this to our awareness and bring together those who realise that this desperate need to control is unhealthy in ourselves and is manifesting in its extremities amongst the ruling underclass?

(The dictionary defines underclass as ‘the lowest social stratum in a country or community, consisting of the poor and unemployed.’ What if we dropped the second half of the definition? Would it be accurate to describe our rulers - made up of politicians, corporate leaders and the super rich - as ‘the lowest social stratum in a country or community?’)

[5] Reassessing and refining our attitudes and behaviours – How aware am I of the quality of my own thoughts? How much time do I spend on nurturing better quality thoughts? How much time do I spend appreciating what I am, never mind what I have? Am I aware of my faulty thinking and behaving? Do I share it with anyone? Am I doing anything about it? How much time do I spend bettering other peoples’ lives?

[6] We have members who can help you to develop a sense of humour. Please ask. (reasonable rates for members)

[7] Words & Language – From a very young age, we are introduced to language. The rulers use language to manipulate people and strongly affect their feelings and thought. Here we attempt to expose this by creating our own evolving dialect. We do this by choosing This dialect uses questions to encourage opening of the mind as opposed to shutting it one way or the other. It also replaces some words in common parlance with other words, aiming to reflect a closer meaning to that which they represent.

[8] Legal extortion – the word taxation is used to trick people into thinking that taking people’s money from them by force is legitimate? But is it?

[9] Ex-pats – Here in the UK, we call people who come from other countries ‘immigrants’ but we call people form the UK living abroad ‘ex-pats!’