Mayan Prophecies? Piffle and Tosh!

I still think of myself as a newcomer to Facebook, and mostly, I love it, I like the immediacy of it all. I don’t reply to many messages, but it’s brilliant knowing what everyone is up to or doing right now, whether it’s cooking for the kids, getting wasted somewhere, conflicting with friends, and the rest, it’s all good. I’m finding too that I’m updated on local events quicker than email, plus more complete, and more events than I could ever attend. I like the sharing of videos and info too, I join in a fair bit of this myself, updating on LymeRegisTV, or the Legends Return shows.

So. What I’m about to say, I hope you will take with a sense of tongue firmly in cheek. The essence of Facebook is that, within reason, you can say whatever you like, and to borrow from Voltaire, I defend your right to say it. Being the way I am, a lot of my friends have a spiritual outlook, but there is a difference between spirituality and blind fundamentalism posing as spirituality.

What I don’t like, and never did like, either on Facebook or at my front door, is preaching and sermonising, especially if the person doing it is posting three or four messages daily, all exhorting me to open my heart, get ready for the Cosmic Shift, develop a belief in ‘all that is’, or other trite claptrap. I don’t like either, status’s that don’t encourage some diverse comment. If it isn’t an open conversation, I can’t be arsed. I’m particularly averse to semi-biblical terminology and delivery, it sounds pompous, avoids meaning, is most often trite, and lacks the personal touch. You know the kind I mean, blind fundamental statements that only invite compliments or agreement.

I had one recently exhorting people to stop misusing Facebook by the use of trivia, and get down to some real work by informing others about the coming apocalypse in 2012. I really don’t need the Mayan Prophecies to tell me that human beings on Earth are in a heap of shit.

The Mayan Prophecies is a typical example. Comes round again and again from various sources, most of them erroneous. The ‘prophecies’ themselves don’t exist, except in the minds of gullible truth seeking New Agers. Truth is, in terms of statistics, history and common sense, the prophecies are all wrong, not just that their primitive astronomy was out by thousands of years, or who were the Mayans anyway, but every human being born on earth has felt that they were born into a time of chaos and change, and it seems to be a weird trait of the species to hope for outside intervention to resolve problems. Depending on the religious source, this supposed ‘Cosmic Shift’ could be arriving in any number of directions, might be alien intervention, if only we could decode the crop circles in time to save us, or it might be Jesus, dropping in amidst clouds of glory.

….on the other hand, scientists suggest overwhelming change if humanity cannot resolve its relationship to the Earth in Being. You don’t need a prophet to tell you about climate change, the real question is, what can you, as an individual or as a family, do about it? The journey is always about personal transformation, learning how to live lightly on the earth, and doing it by choice, not because a god recommends it.

‘Spiritual life is more about PRACTICE than BELIEF. Unless backed by contribution in ACTION to society, words are meaningless’. (anon)

So if you’ve found the answer, I’m really pleased for you. Maybe your message of opening your heart to love with monotonic New Age music, can help 20 million people in Pakistan whose hearts are wide open, waiting in abject desperation for the love to come. I’m sure your simple philosophy will give some cheer to the thousands of human beings dying of cholera in Haiti.

It reminds me of something George Bush said a few years ago, that there’s no point in doing anything about climate change because jesus is coming. Similarly, I’ve heard it said that there’s little point in doing anything about world poverty because the Mayan Prophecies say the world is ending in 2012, or the aliens are coming to sort us out. All we need to do is tell people to open their hearts and the love will come. If it doesn’t, it’s your fault, you just weren’t ready and didn’t prepare yourself by opening your heart.

I’m hearing a lot recently about this ‘energy shift’ that is supposedly ‘coming’. It isn’t, and it’s entirely the wrong path. Examine it yourself, change has always been part of the explicit truth about life on earth, and though we can appear to be going through enormous changes in our lifetimes, it was always so.

A better, and hopefully more truthful way of seeing it is that more people on earth are feeling this than ever before. I love this, it means that more people than ever are conscious of the environment in which they live, more are changing the lives in order that the rest of the world can have a life in the first place……

It’s really fundamentalist thinking, the idea that all you need to do is believe this, and you’ll be saved. Genuine New Age philosophy is about personal change. Once you get the message, and feel the ‘energy shift’ , you’re supposed to seek your path, then get off your backside and start doing something to change your life, and thereby, benefit others.……..if all you have is words, you haven’t got it, you’re fooling yourself, and it’s your ego telling you that you have the answer……

This idea of, ‘just open your heart to All That Is’, is the usual soporific answer of the smug, graceless, selfish and complacent Western middle classes….just be patient, I’m sure things will get better for you, in the meantime I have a motor car, a fridge, I live in a 3 bedroom heated house, my kids have a bed to sleep in and have a school to go to, so what could be wrong with the world? Just stop moaning and open your heart to love mate, and you can have what I’ve got!

We are all wealthy people, living in one of the wealthiest countries on earth, we have more than our share of love already. The real ‘spiritual’ message is about giving up some love (sacrifice) in order that others may at least have a life. Instead of these short ‘sermons’, I would be more interested in real life examples/stories about how your belief has changed your personal approach to life? You never tell me about “the things which you do”, you only send me sermons, sometimes three, four or five times daily. Mostly, these sermons don’t exchange friendship. They tell me nothing about who you are……..

‘Belief’ is the realm of Religion, being Spiritual is a choice, you don’t have to believe in anything. Spiritual life is more about what you practice than what you believe……

How we interpret the world comes from personal experience, and cultural identity. What you believe to be the ‘truth’, may not be the truth. To live a spiritual life, one doesn’t have to believe in ‘god’. It’s wise to keep on open mind, especially where beliefs are concerned. Over a period of time, beliefs change. Beliefs belong to no one, and if we are to ever live in a peaceful world, all of us need to modify what we believe, both in the light of the belief of others, and new discoveries. The danger is in becoming attached to ideas, making them personal and unchangeable.

I appear to have digressed. What I really meant to say is that what I like about Facebook is the little click that lets you block someones messages without knocking them off your friends list, because, after all, a friend is still a friend even if they’re driving you mad with fundamentalist views. Mind, there are one or two (well, three actually) who have exited me from their lists simply because I’ve added comments that question their ‘beliefs’! I’m happy if you question mine, say what you like as long as you keep an open mind…..