ancestors

Our ancestors derived less from life than we do, but they also expected much less and were less intent on controlling the future. We are of the arrogant generations who believe a lasting happiness was promised to us at birth. Promised? By whom?

When we have passed a certain age, the soul of the child that we were and the souls of the dead from whom we sprang come and shower upon us their riches and their spells, asking to be allowed to contribute to the new emotions which we feel and in which, erasing their former image, we recast them in an original creation.

My ancestors arrived on the Wayflower

No Self stands alone. Behind it stretches an immense chain of physical and - as a special class within the whole - mental events, to which it belongs as a reacting member and which it carries on. Through the condition at any moment of its somatic, especially its cerebral system, and through education, and tradition, by word, by writing, by monument, by manners, by a way of life, by a newly shaped environment... by so much that a thousand words would not exhaust it, by all that, I say, the Self is not so much linked with what happened to its ancestors, it is not so much the product, and merely the product, of all that, but rather, in the strictest sense of the word, the SAME THING as all that: the strict, direct continuation of it, just as the Self aged fifty is the continuation of the Self aged forty.

So much learning," one of my Jesuit teachers has said, "so little wisdom." To put it another way, a civilization does become more technologically skilled and more learned about science, and perhaps even a little smarter as well, when it is permitted to grow for hundreds of years and spread itself from pole to pole; but we also have more tools to turn out as badly as our ancestors said we might.

More than anything, this place feels familiar. I bury my hands in the hot sand and think about the embodiment of memory or, more specifically, our natural ability to carry the past in our bodies and minds. Individually, every grain of sand brushing against my hands represents a story, an experience, and a block for me to build upon for the next generation. I quietly thank this ancestor of mine for surviving the trip so that I could one day return.

No self is of itself alone. It has a long chain of intellectual ancestors. The "I" is chained to ancestry by many factors_ This is not mere allegory, but an eternal memory.

Don't drive a car in the dream, else you won't drive it on earth. Don't wish to become, else you won't become. Don't associate with fools, else your ancestors will be insulted. Don't be addicted to wine, else your pocket will be empty. Don't be drunk, else you'll be attacked.

Just because I don't believe in YOUR God doesn't mean I don't believe in God. I just choose not to be bound by the limits of your imagination or those of your ancestors.

I KNEW I MUST do all as I was told, yet something burned inside me, a seed of defiance that must have derived from a long-ago ancestor. Perhaps my mind was inflamed from the books I had read and the worlds I had imagined.

It is surprising to me that one of the great crimes of history has gone unnoticed; the abduction of god by religions. This slight-of-hand has been the cause of countless blood-shed and has been found at the root of innumerable acts of evil. The argument continues today, as to which religion the true god belongs, when what would be most healing and empowering is to free god from the shackles of religious limitation and judgment. It is by emancipating god from the ignorance of our ancestors that we become empowered to explore and express our own relationship with what god may or may not be.

Every creature was designed to serve a purpose. Learn from animals for they are there to teach you the way of life. There is a wealth of knowledge that is openly accessible in nature. Our ancestors knew this and embraced the natural cures found in the bosoms of the earth. Their classroom was nature. They studied the lessons to be learned from animals. Much of human behavior can be explained by watching the wild beasts around us. They are constantly teaching us things about ourselves and the way of the universe, but most people are too blind to watch and listen.

Civilization is always threatened from below, by patterns of belief and emotion that may once have been useful to our ancestors, but that are useful no longer.

It is so awkward that how our ancestors wasted their whole life and never thought about education or making difference for the future generations. My Grandfather lived more than a 100+ years, married 3 women and as he was illiterate he just wasted 115 fucking years. I wish I could live a hundred years like him to make difference, so the next generation does not use the same insulting words I am using today.

You are the fairy tale told by your ancestors.

The time is come," he spoke quietly. "Now, when lesser folk would wither, thou must be true to the blood of thine ancestors. Much greatness is bred in thee; accept now this terrible mantle and take a step nearer thy destiny.

There was no need for a term like __agical thinking_ in the Golden Age of Man...there was only genuine everyday magic and mysticism. Children were not mocked or scolded in those days for singing to the rain or talking to the wind.

Our ancestors did great work for humanity. What will we do for the next generations?