Dear At,
Dear Learners,
'Father forgive them for they know not what they do.' That is said
[allowed] to all caring to read.
'There the eye goes not, speech goes not, nor the mind. We know not, we
understand not how one would teach it.' Upanishads.
For reasons quite beyond my control I have for some weeks been unable to
read from the 'public digest' format. I do not like receiving the one by
one mails as colourless strings, they are felt here as being intrusive
into my way in a sense that the other way is not. I have been toying with
an experiment, to write to the list without reading from it at all. That
would be a very sensible thing to do.
Listen. 'Any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or
to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you -- look at
the path very closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think
necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question -- Does
this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn't it is
of no use.' Fritjof Capra quoting Carlos Casteneda
Later this year I hope to conduct an experiment in 'real time' via this
List. It will involve in a subtle but penetrating way some of the
heartfelt issues driving this list. The experiment for those few who
choose that way, pathway, will involve fear and some anxiety and other
emotions and intellectualisations but hopefully you will all come through
it and see what Capra once saw from another angle of view, a new
perspective. You will have to remove that elbow from the window sill, you
will have to jump and you will find if you have wings enough to fly, truly
walk your talk on thin air! It will involve three 'institutions' on
condition that I can organise the 'virtual laboratory,' The LO, the
University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford. I mention this by
way of preparation!
Now, I think I have heard a message on this list addressed to the 'many'
by a 'one.'
I want to caste a single light, like a candle flame in darkness or
dimness, which is anyway better than to curse the dark, an old Chinese
proverb tells us.
As the paragraph unfolds I just ask that you follow your thoughts as they
meander hither and thither. Then forget it. Just forget it.
A single farmer in the USA today provides an average forty people with
foodstuffs and textile fibres.
A Chinese rice farmer, on the other hand, works strenuously from dusk to
dawn without securing more than his bare existence.
What a difference in efficiency!-)
In efficiency?
Yes, BUT it is precisely in relation to 'efficiency' that the activity of
the US farmer, critically considered, comes off WORST ;-( compared to his
Chinese brother.
Question. What is the PRICE the American farmer PAYS for this outcome?
Efficiency is the relation between output and expenditure. If we convert
the energy gained from the harvested plants into kilowatt hours and
compare it with the energy expended for that harvest, the result may
offend --
For his 50 harvested units of energy the American farmer invests 250 fuel
energy units, and the Chinese farmer 1
REPEAT that please.
ONE
The 'primitive country peasant' of the East works at an efficiency rate of
5,000 per cent and the American farmer equipped with the most powerful and
advanced technical aids at an efficiency rate of only 20 per cent.
Well, end of that story.
This LO list is like all 'organisations' is perhaps perfectly full of
those who ruthlessly exploit the list's 'present energy' for themselves,
(one to one mappings) and those who ruthlessly exploit themselves for the
list's future energy. (One to many mappings)
Question. It is true that the ruthless exploitation of any 'system' brings
a more agreeable life, but for how long?
We have hitherto 'designed and planned' our own destruction unwittingly
and the sown seeds are spring up through the proverbial earth.
Nature does not 'design' that way. Time to learn about 'deeper' about
nature?
Now back to ways of the heart. Werner Heisenberg is quoted by Capra, ' It
is probably true generally that in the history of human thinking the most
fruitful developments frequently take place at those points where two
different lines of thought meet. These lines may have their roots in quite
different parts of human culture, in different times or different cultural
environments or different religious traditions: hence if they actually
meet, that is, if they are at least so much related that a real
interaction can take place, then one may hope that new and interesting
developments may follow.'
As for me, today I have been working with 'worms'; light worms and dark
worms.
You think it is dark in this room? Try the basement.
You think it is dark in this basement? Try the hole of a mole.
You think it is dark in the hole of a mole?
Best wishes,
Andrew Campbell
Anyone 'vaguely' interested in the aforementioned experiment please watch
this space : - )
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