Word maps versus the Territory

When it comes to building maps of reality using words, I try to avoid building maps that are elaborate.

Word maps of reality should move like poetry.

There is no need to try to be 'exact' -- there is no such thing as 'exact'. It is an imaginary thing.

Whatever reality is, it's beyond word-maps, and can be comprehended only through the DIRECT EXPERIENCE.

Reality is totally different from the maps we build.

For example, consider the statement:

"We apply a certain force to a mass, and the mass moves through a distance as predicted by the laws of motion".

This statement is ok, as far as engineering is concerned.

But it is NOT OK, as far as the real flow of reality is concerned.

So what would be the REAL flow of reality in the above mentioned situation?

Answer: IN-DETERMINISTIC. Cannot be defined, cannot be expressed in words. It is a dance of quality that involves all of infinity. That's the only thing that can be said.

Robert M. Pirsig has the following to say, Chapter 5, Lila:

"The fundamental nature of reality is outside language. Language splits things up into parts while the true nature of reality is undivided." [While talking about the POV of mystics.]

He also says..."Quality does not have to be defined. You understand it without definition, ahead of definition. Quality is a direct experience independent of and prior to intellectual abstractions."

The Magical Mystery Tour

"There is some principle of magic in everything, some living quality.

Something living, something real, is taking place in everything."

- Chogyam Trungpa

Nuclear Weapons, Insanity, Cowardice

"More than a decade and a half after the Cold War ended, the world's combined stockpile of nuclear warheads remain at a very high level: more than 22,000. Of these, nearly 4,500 warheads are considered operational, of which nearly 2,000 U.S. and Russian warheads are on high alert, ready for use on short notice.

The exact number of nuclear weapons in each country's possession is a closely held national secret."

-Federation of American Scientists.

In the words of U.S. president Jimmy Carter, 1979:

Just one of our relatively invulnerable Poseidon submarines - less than two percent of our total nuclear force of submarines, aircraft, and land based missiles - carries enough warheads to destroy every large and medium-sized city in the Soviet Union. Our deterrent is overwhelming.'

The depths of human insanity, cowardice are bottomless.


The Dogs of War are creatures of fear and hatred. Not in their nature to be peaceful.

And they are everywhere. In every country, every town. Not necessarily only in the armed forces.

The following song by Roger Waters is an interesting comment on oil politics, nuclear weapons, and the severely catatonic state of mind of our politicians...people who take policy decisions that influence billions of lives.

Roger Waters is far from crazy and paranoid.

Value of Life, Detachment, Buddhahood

Many of us often reach a point where we ponder the value of our existence.

As far as 'value' goes...mystics say that one should avoid attaching value to anything, actually. Nature (which is mystical/spiritual/alive acc. to some traditions) attaches no value to anything.

A beautiful inhabited home, or an abandoned building or a school full of hundreds of children -- a storm will destroy everything in its path.*

There can be many other examples. The flowing river (once again a living phenomenon from within the Hindu/Buddhist paradigm) could drown Mother Teresa and throw ashore a Hitler.**

Our not attaching value to things/people would be in tune with the natural flow....

This approach is at the risk of being interpreted as a cold, desensitised approach to life, of course. But.......

In its true form, our not attaching value to things/people is a neutral, serious, peaceful, highly aware state, a state in which oneness with all that exists can be felt very clearly, and the role of destructive forces is understood completely, and accepted as is. (Buddhahood.)

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*It cannot be said that the storm has negative value for life, so it destroys, even from within the Hindu/Buddhist paradigm that considers the storm to be living. A storm is not a Doer/Thinker like a human being.

** Nature does not appear to have in built values that we humans take so seriously. And we are a small part of nature, there can be nothing in us that does not exist already, in nature. Although we think, plan, do, and nature does not.^a
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^aThis is a complex discussion on qualities, relationships, and many other issues like the nature and scope of doer-ship and spontaneous, unplanned intelligence.