Dankie Vriend | SkalkSkryf
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April 4, 2008 deur Louwie
‘n Goeie vriend (van ‘n vriend?) verwys my vriendelik na die volgende Web Werf: www.religiousconsultation.org/loy
Dankie aan die vriend. Inderdaad is dit ‘n interessante storie. Ek dink Karel Marx se tone krul van lekkerkry daar waar hy is. Ek kan hom al hoor sê; “Ek het julle mos gesê, ek het julle mos gesê!”
En dit is so. Hy het lank gelede al vertel van die uitbuiting van die proletariaat deur die besitters van produksiemiddele. Hy het verkeerdelik geglo dat die gepeupel (of dan “human rubble” soos hy hulle later in sy ontnugtering self genoem het), die besitters van hulle besittings sou kon ontneem en so hemel op aarde bewerkstellig. Maar Kareltjie het nie rekening gehou met die mag van magtige advertensiebedryf en die dryfveer van die inherente brandende begeerte van die mens nie.
Hy het ook gewaarsku van Godsdiens as die opium van die volk sonder dat hy kon raai dat die kerk uiteindelik so totaal sou uitverkoop aan die idee van kapitalisme en die drang om die mooi goeters wat die mark bied te wil/moet hê nie.
Dit is om die rede dat ek elke predikant wat vir my vertel hy is maar net ‘n mens en hy wil ook, behalwe vir die Merc wat in sy oprit staan, ook tog maar ‘n ou huisie by die see hê, aan sy broek se agterkant by die kerk uitgooi en sê hy moet dan liewer soos ‘n gewone mens sy brood op die harde manier daar buite gaan verdien soos ons gewone mense dit moet doen. In my naïwiteit het ek nog altyd geglo dat ‘n predikant van beter behoort te weet.
Maar nou is Loy reg as hy sê dat die kerk baie vernuftig en in die gees van kipitalisme, die storie van Godsdiens so geswaai het dat materiële rykdom gelystaande is aan om gered/uitverkore te wees. En ‘n predikent kan tog nie ‘n predikant wees as hy nie duidelik ‘n baie blink toonbeeld van ‘n gesëende man is nie!
Wat teen Loy tel is dat hy die prbleem mooi uitwys maar geen alternatief voorstel nie. Miskien doen hy dit in die boek. Die man het groot waarhede beet en dit sal ‘n indringende studie van die werk verg om dit sinvol te kan interpreteer.
Wat ek wel met hom verskil is dat hy beweer dat dit nie inherent in die mens is om materiele goed te versamel om sy individuele sosiale stutus te bevestig en uit te brei nie. Volgens hom doen die pre-kapitalistiese mens dit net om hulle sosiale status en sy sosiale aansprake en sosiale bates te beveilig en nie om ppersoonlike gewin nie. Nou is dit so dat ‘n Zoeloe met 10 bees in die kraal se stutus hoër is as die Zoeloe met 2 bees in die kraal. En die man met 2 bees sal aspireer om nog 10 bees te bekom om sy stutus en aansien in die stam te verhoog . Vir die moderne, kapitalistiese mens is die een met ‘n nuwe BMW 7 reeks in die oprit na sy huis in Waterkloof se status sekerlik hoër as die ou met sy ou Ford Bantam voor sy huis in Bez Valley. Daar is vir my geen verskil tussen die Zoeloe se aspirasies en die van enige Jappie nie. Dit is in die mens se aard om te wil bewys dat hy beter is as die volgende ou. Dit was nog altyd Godsdiens se taak om die mens te laat afsien van sy narsistiese beheptheid met die tydelike en hom te oortuig om te strewe na die ewige. Of jy ‘n predikant, priester of shaman is, dit was en is nog altyd wat jy veronderstel was om te doen, nie om saam met die gepeupel aan die goudstormloop deel te neem nie.
En weereens is die aanval gemik op die individualis. Dit is die individu wat hom self wil verryk ten koste van die gemeenskap. Die individu is die sondebok, die ou wat teen die gemeenskap van die heiliges se welstand in sy eie heil soek en goeters versamel vir lewe en dood. Die ou dus wat kapitalisme dryf.
Maar is dit nie juis die sameleweing wat die sondaar is nie. Is dit nie die samelewing wat jou menswaardigheid meet aan die hand van wat jy het, waar jy bly en wat se werk jy doen nie? Is dit nie hulle boerse waardes wat van oppervlakkige rolprentsterre en popsterre afgode gemaak het en as rolmodelle voorhou nie?
Die induvidu is maar net die Koos wat in Tom Robbins (Villa Incognito) se land van die “falsified egg and the betrayed tomato,” saam met die ander rotte hol om te sorg dat hy en sy gesin deur die ander rotte aanvaar en ge-ag sal word.
Is dit nie nog altyd die individualiste wat die samelewing aan sy korthare uit die premordale sop die toekoms in gesleep het nie? Kyk maar na manne soos Einstein, Buddha, Jesus, Plato, Da Vinci en denkers en filosowe deur alle tye, elkeen ‘n individualis by uitstek en meeste van hulle is of verwerp of vervolg deur die samelewing omdat hulle nie wou inkoop in die heersende sosiale dwangbuis nie. Nie een van hulle het ooit skatryk geword nie, inteendeel, baie van hulle is brandarm dood. Dit was nie hulle wat geld, aansien en rykdom nagejaag het nie. Individuasie is van onskatbare waarde vir enige samelewing, maar ‘n groot bedreiging vir die kerk, die politikus en die nyweraar omdat hy hulle motiewe bevraagteken en hulle van tyd tot tyd op die skeen skop.
Viva die individu en up yours vir ‘n middelmatige samelewing van die scandalised egg en die brutelized tomato met hulle kleinburgerlike sosiale waardes wat my wil dwing om soos hulle te wees, wat my wil dwing om so “Godsdienstig” soos hulle te wees.
So geagte leser, is Loy reg? Is kapitalisme in wese teen God se wil en wens vir die mens?
Ek laat dit aan jou oor om te besluit en gee hierby ‘n alternatiewe siening van hoe dit dalk is.
Yes, the meek and the mild will inherit the earth, they will not go to Heaven. They will stay on Earth forever because God hates them. There is no room in His heaven for the faint hearted, for the gutless, the spineless multitude who goes trough life like so many sheep to the slaughter.
When Jesus the Christ started telling people to love each other, to even love their enemy, not to make war and kill each other and to respect and have compassion for all creation, God murdered Him on the cross because love and kindness, you see, defies the whole object of creation.
God in Himself is love, is compassion, is kindness. But how do you know that you are good if there is only good, how do you know that you are compassionate if there is nothing to feel anything for. How can you be God if there is nothing to God over? So God created the universe to know what life is. God became everything that is so that he could experience existence, experience being, experience emotions first hand. The Good wanted to know and experience Bad, the Light wanted to experience Darkness.
The meek will inherit the earth, and Hitler went to heaven. The Christ was crucified. Understand this, God created you so that He could live, and if you deny Him that for which you were created, you are in serious trouble. It is nothing personal. The sole purpose for your existence is to satisfy Gods need for experience, for bodily sensations, for all and every sensation that physical existence can give.
To what benefit to God’s need for experience will it be if everybody were to go and sit on a mountaintop to meditate, to try and become a saint, or even worse, to become like God? No, God wants you to live so that God can become man. God wants you to experience life to the full. If you love, you must love abundantly, if you hate, (and you must hate), you must hate enough to be able to kill. If there is occasion for it, you must go to war, you must go into battle with a venomous passion and kill, maim and spill blood voluminously, and you must be willing , more than willing, you must be enthusiastic about the prospect of being killed, that is the reason you were created.
You were not created to live forever. It was never intended that you should live forever, it was never intended for you to be healthy and happy all your life. Sickness is as much part of life as is health. The darkness as much part of life as is the light. But never mildness, God hates half hearted attempts at life.
Adolf went to heaven because he had the guts to stand up and do what he believed in. He hated the Jews with a passion, he loved his country and his people even more. “Duitchland uber als, Duitchland.” And God wanted the Jews to stand up and fight, God wanted the Jews to curse the Natzis openly, to attack them with their bare hands even if they were going to be killed in the act. God wanted passion, God wanted the Jews to spit on the enemy, He wanted them to pray fervently to Him, or even to curse Him for what he was doing to them. But no, eight million people later and they were still walking into those gass chambers like so many sheep. He hated them for denying Him that horrible emotion, that beautiful, livid human emotion of anger and fear and desperation when you know that you are going to die a horrible death with no gods or angels around when you need them most.
Hitler went to heaven and so did Joseph Stalin. The strong and the bold, they are God’s chosen ones for they dare to live, they dare to push life to its limits.
Would the meek and the mild have been able to get us to the Moon and beyond the Moon to the other planets in our solar system? Will the meek and the mild get us beyond our own solar system? No, with them we’d still be travelling by ox wagon or on foot. We’d still be communicating by smoke signal or drumbeat. God needs the Rockefellers and the Henry Fords and the Godfathers of the Universe to push life to the limit, to experience material existence to it’s bloody fullest.
Do not pray to God for peace and quiet, do not pray for equilibrium and tranquillity. Do what you were created for, live life to the fullest or the almighty, omnipresent, all knowing God will smite you.
Nature is the perfect system in that it controls it self. The lion controls the number of deer, the deer controls the growth of vegetation, the elephant controls the spread of the bush and micro-organisms sees to it that every thing is returned to Earth . The same perfect system prevails in the air and in the waters of the Earth.
It is only when the elephant starts to feel sorry for the trees and the crocodile feels guilty about killing the innocent gazelle, that the system starts to crumble. It is when the lion starts to beg forgiveness for killing a zebra calf to feed itself and its young, that the herbivores will start to demand that the carnivores stop the slaughter , repent the sin of killing and start to eat grass.
Man is an ass. Man is a bloated, self-righteous, pompous ass. As long as man thinks of himself as the centre of the universe, as the sole reason for creation, indeed as the pen-ultimate creature of creation, so long will he be deluded, will he suffer under the influence of his ignorance.
Through man God can experience all the emotions that an intelligent being is capable of. Through man He can laugh, He can cry, He can feel frustration, He can experience jubilation. With man He can fly to the moon, with man He can go to war and die a million horrible deaths on the battle field.
Yes indeed, man is a jewel on the evolutionary road, a semi precious stone, not yet the diamond God is capable of.
Love is a beautiful thing. Have you ever seen a sunset as beautiful as when you were in love? Have ever a spring bloom quite so profusely as when you were in love? Oh yes, in love even life is a beautiful thing.
In love the beloved becomes a perfect being with the smile of an angel, a body divine and a whit unsurpassed in living memory. To be with the beloved is like being in the presence of God divine.
And then it all turns sour. By some miracle the god/goddess inevitably turns into a demon. The fire of love becomes a raging, all consuming holocaust.
Sometimes this happens (thank God) before the sound of happy wedding bells. But many a time it happens only after the little ones started to leave their foot and finger prints all over the place. It is so sad because, under those terrible circumstances do they begin to learn about love, do they begin to hate that beautiful thing, begin they to even hate God for making such a terrible thing.
But alas, it is not love at play. What you see as love is merely body chemistry at work, and it works beautifully. It is, in your terms, plain common lust bringing two people together for the most exiting time of their lives. And it is good. We can even say it is God because God is love and loves it, because sex between two consulting adults is something of beauty. It is something infinitely more exiting and passionate than the mere copulation of two animals. Sex is the glue, (not the goo some people make it to be) that binds two people together and makes the spirit soar. It creates a sacred space from where two people can daringly explore life, can weather life‘s raging storms, from where true love can grow.
What you call love, is not love. What you call love is extreme selfishness, is self love, is ego on a big, big trip. You see and evaluate the beloved as in a mirror. What the perfect lover reflects back to you is how bright, how funny, how intelligent and brave you are. When you are with your beloved you feel special, even invincible. There is nothing or very little that you can not accomplish. The world is you oyster and you are superman/supergirl. You are hooked on that beautiful you in the mirror and a pact is entered into: You keep on reflecting that beautiful me to me, and I will do the same for you. I love you because of the me that I see in you.
And then, in time, the mirror starts to mist over. Too many things to keep you both busy, no time to polish that mirror. You can not see that beautiful you reflected back to you and it is the beloved’s fault. I can only love you on condition that you keep up my good looks. How can you not do so simple a thing, for I am so wonderful. Just look into my mirror and you will see for your self. And so lust goes out the window down the road to the neighbour’s wife/husband or the colleague/secretary at the office with the cute ass or low cut dress who thinks that you are wonderful. And the whole tragic comedy starts all over again.
When you start to care more about the other special person in your life than you care about your self, and when you start to care more about that persons needs than satisfying your own selfish needs, that is when lust starts to turn into love. That is when the “I will love you if ….” exits the scene and true, unselfish, unconditional love enters the stage. Then, and only then can a relationship survive the onslaughts of life, can the relationship and the persons in the relationship grow, even glow with the energy of that love.
But remember, that holy command to love your neighbour as your self is just so much bull. Nobody, but nobody can love an ass. To say that you love all people in the world equally is just so much pious trash. And to say that you love a murderer and a rapist is simply bull shit. Only God can love those people. And He loves them because they are doing his will on earth. The best you can do is to have compassion for all people because they suffer this life with you for God’s sake.
It is God’s desire to experience every thing physical existence can possibly deliver, that what we call good as well as that which we in our ignorance call bad. When you realise this, you will realise that life is an illusion, a dream, God’s dream. You will realise that you are an actor in His play, and you will be grateful for the opportunity to be here because you will know that as spirit, you can walk through walls, you can walk on water, you can fly through the air, but you can not eat a chocolate, you can not swim in the sea, you can not feel life surging through every cell in your body during orgasm. There is no substitute for life. You are either in it or you are not. And we love it and we choose it above death every time. And we return to this life of our own choosing every time. And God loves us for that.
The love you feel for your lover/husband/wife, is different from the love you feel for a friend, and the love you feel for your child is different than the love you feel for other children. And the love you feel for God, if you say you love Him, is again something very different from the love for a lover or a friend or a child or a dog.
Very few people love God. Some people hate God. Most people fear God. And God does not care how you feel about Him. All that God cares about is that you feel. You must be committed to this drama completely and totally. You chose to become flesh, to manifest Spirit in this physical dimension, knowing full well what were in store for you. And for that bravery God loves you more than you can ever think. Remember, you are God in this world. Through you God can walk barefoot in the rain. Through you God can make love, can eat ice-cream, can suffer cancer, can go on an LSD trip, can rape and be raped, can love and can hate, can He hold a child in His arms.
Love the ones you can love dearly, and have compassion for those you can not love. And when you go into battle to kill the “enemy” for some idiotic ideology your leaders sold you as gospel worth dying for, love your enemy, or be prepared to go to the hell of hate and eternal battle with the hated enemy in the spirit world.
So, know this; no ideology, no country, no leader, no church is worth dying for. If you want to die, then go forth and die for the love of God.
Whether you go into battle to fight the enemy, or out into the world to do battle with life, do so for the love of God, because you are doing God’s will, and so is the enemy ….. do not hate them. Love them, have compassion for them and kill them for God’s sake. And if you are the one that dies on the battle field, or if you are killed by brutal murder in the street or in your bed, know that you died for God. It is not that God were with you when you died. Know that God died with you, that God died at a time and in a way that He wanted to and that you were the instrument trough whom He was able to experience that death. You are a hero for God and God loves you for that.
You are a hero for God in the marketplace, in the board meeting, as beggar on the street corner, as shepherd in the fields, as hooker on the street as much as preacher on the pulpit.
You are God in the world. You suffer, you enjoy, you laugh and you cry, you are rich or poor, you are healthy or sick, a villain or a hero, but above all you are God manifesting in this world. The Christ knew it and Buddha remembered, but you forgot whom you really are. It is time you awaken from the sleep. It is time to remember who you really are. Once you are awake, once you remember, you will start to love it. You will start to love life, you will love you, you will love the God that is in you and in every thing manifest.
Compassion is as misused and misunderstood as the word love.
Compassion is not love, but without love, there can be no compassion.
Compassion is not sympathy, but without sympathy, there can be no compassion.
When there is love, there can be sympathy, and when there is sympathy, there can be compassion. But in order to be able to love, you must wake up to the truth of your reality. You must realise that there is no good or bad, it simply is the way it is and there is nothing you can do to change it.
Oh of course, you can manipulate your environment, the people around you, the climate, the animals, any thing you want to you can change but it is only temporarily and you know it. The happiness it brings is short lived. You know that around the corner is another obstacle, another frustration, another failure, another mountain to climb.
Manipulating your world is not to change it, it is to try to postpone the inevitable. Technology brings with it tremendous change. But whether you hunt barefoot for food with a wooden spear, or work from 9 to 5 in a factory or office, driving a shining new motorcar, the reality and intensity of human suffering remains the same.
And despite all the change you so fervently force upon the world, in the end, you still have to die. And death simply petrifies the life out of you!
The only change you can make in this word, is to change you, and when you have changed you, every thing changes, nothing will ever be the same any more, and yet, nothing will have changed, everything will be as it has been before, as it should be.
But to effect this change, to change your reality, you have to wake up, you have to remember who you are. You have to remember that you are in this world but not of this world. You have to remember that you are not the stuff that you have hoarded during your life span, or the stuff that you do not have but desperately desire, thinking that that will make you complete.
You are a creation of God and therefore you are complete, with or without the material goodies this world has to offer by the grace, no, by the inquisitiveness of an immaterial, omnipresent, omnipotent, almighty God.
Once you remember this, you will change, your world will change and you will love it. You will love the world, you will love the people in it, you will love the storms it throws at you, you will love life’s rough edges, its unexpected gentleness. You will know that there is a reason behind every harsh word, every soft touch, every tear, every soft whisper of encouragement.
And when you wake up and come to love this existence, compassion will fill your hart. You will know that things are as they should be and that nothing can change the external reality. You will know that there is no suffering but the suffering we create by our craving and selfishness.
But you will also know that this knowledge can not be told or understood by rational investigation. You can not convince people that every thing is OK when all they know is that they suffer. All you can do is to see them suffer and have compassion for them.
We are all in this mess together. We are all in this word of our own choosing. We are all in this because we love God, we only forgot. When you wake up, you remember. When you remember, you can not help but feel compassion for the fellow travellers on the road, the sleepwalkers thrashing out a life in this world, suffering for and by their insatiable desires.
When you wake up, you walk through this world as if on holy ground, you speak soft and gentle words of encouragement to the people you meet on the road. You love life, you feel the love of God emanating from every direction, surrounding every thing in sacred silence. In this place of knowing, death has no power over you. You know that to die is to cross over, to go home to where you came from, to continue on your sacred journey. Life is but an instant, a breath taken in eternity.
You can no longer hate God because you know that you are on a holy mission. You are God in this world. You don’t suffer this world, because you, in actuality do not exist. You are not.
Know this then; there is no God, there is only God. And knowing this, you can take a fallen brother’s hand and comfort him. You see the suffering, but you also see the illusion of suffering, and seeing through the illusion, frees you from the suffering forever. And in the wake of that freedom, comes compassion for those that are still bound by the illusion. You know that they too can be free of the illusion, of the suffering, but you can not break the shackles of their slavery to illusion. Like you, they have to break free by themselves and walk the walk to freedom because they want to and not because you told them that they should.
Posted in Louwie | Tagged godsdiens, kapitalisme, kerk | 6 Kommentaar
op April 24, 2008 at 6:08 nm Louwie
Toe het ek gedink iemand sal die storie lees en dalk diep geraak, erg afgepis of selfs streng Christelik die moer in raak. Maar g’n woord.
Halooo, is daar iemand daar buite wat so nou en dan hierdie blog belees?
Miskien moet ons oor seks begin skryf.
Wie wil die eerste skoot in die bos in skiet?
op Mei 10, 2008 at 7:26 nm louwie
En nou sien ek Prof Jan du Rand het ‘n prys gewen vir sy boek oor Openbaring. En hy vertel dat die Tsoenami God se straf was (oor watter sondes s^e hy nie. Dalk odat hulle nie Christen mense was nie?) Hy noem darrem dat hy “iets van God se verlossing sien deurbreek ” aan die hulp wat aan die slagoffers gegee is.Huise en kos en so aan.
So effe laat, die verlossing dink ek. Sou dit nie duisend maal meer verlossend/bekerend gewees het as ‘n Groot Hand opgekom het, die golf rustig plat gedruk het en gemaan het; “dit is my kinders die, laat hulle met rus”? Ons praat Almag/Alwetend/Alomteenwoordig/Liefde in die oortreffende trap nie waar nie?
Kan Ken Wilber se werk nie verpligtend gemaak word vir predikante nie? Maar nou ja, vanuit hulle Amber w^ereld sal dit vir hulle ook nie veel sin maak nie.
op Mei 12, 2008 at 1:11 nm Johann
Loy se storie val plat as gevolg daarvan dat hy twee van die algemeenste misopvattings aanhang.
Eerstens gebruik hy die “noble savage” metafoor, (skynbaar sonder om daarvan bewus te wees !!) deur die “gewone mens” (die edel barbaar) op te hewe in teenstelling met die “gierige kapitalis” (soos gemanifesteer in die vorm van multinasionale maatskappye). Wat hy glad nie verstaan nie is dat die edel baarbaar presies dieselfde menslike eienskappe het as die kapitalis: selfsug, onkunde en magsugtigheid. Om hierdie rede het geen revolusie nog ooit geslaag nie want as die opstandelinge uiteindelik die onderdrukkers oorwin, word hulle die volgende geslag onderdrukkers, gewoonlik baie erger as dié wat hulle so pas onttroon het. Mugabe in Zimbabwe is ‘n toonbeeld van so ‘n swaap, en Bush in Irak staan nie ver agter hom in die tou nie.
In die tweede plek misgis hy homself deur die onsinnige “hemel op aarde” syndroom voor te hou as die ideaal van ons menslike bestaan. Einaardig dat hy, as kaartdraende Zen Priester, nog nie tot die insig gekom het nie dat die Buddha nie ‘n grap gemaak het nie toe hy gesê het dat ALLES wat bestaan gekenmerk word deur onstandvastigheid, lyding en selfloosheid. Maar soos alle ander “betrokke Buddhiste” stry hy die groot stryd om ‘n hemel hier op aarde te skep waar die edel barbaar saam met die gierige kapitalis lewenslustig om ‘n feesmaal sal rondlê terwyl leeu en lam daar buite in die groen gras baljaar.
op Mei 30, 2008 at 4:39 vm settee
Settee says : I absolutely agree with this !
op Junie 19, 2008 at 9:45 nm Hans Matthysen
Johann, ek kan nou hier tot ‘n mate met jou saam stem en tog stem ek ook met Karel Marx ook saam tot ‘n mate. Lees maar in Hand 8, van Simon die towenaar, ook maar ‘n kapitalis.
op Junie 20, 2008 at 6:45 nm Louwie
Simon was nie ‘n kapitalis nie Hans, net maar ‘n mens met luste en begeertes en wense met die dom idee dat geld dit alles vir hom kan koop. Ons kerke is tot oorlopens toe gevul met sulke mense, van gemeentelede tot predikante.
En wonderwerke het “gelowiges” nog altyd soos vliee gelok. Kyk maar hoe het ons kerkmense hier bo na Afrika toe gestroom na die fake wondergeneser.
Dit sal ‘n wonderlike dag wees as ons geloof die dag nie meer wonders nodig het om staande te bly nie.