ORT. Final chapter. Atto XXII
“Give up defining yourself to yourself or to others. You won’t die. You will come to life. And don’t be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem. Whenever you interact with people

don’t be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.”  Eckhart Tolle
Jung pinpoint that there are elements of our psyche that are out of our control.
A driving force that influences our decisions. Now, here’s where spirituality comes in, what are these mysterious elements? Are they simply biological drives built into our DNA? Deep-rooted conditioned pathways in our brain? Or is there something greater?
Of course there is.
The importance of spirituality is that its focus is beyond the material dimension. When you look beyond the material, the concept of who we are...
“Though It seems that I know that I know, What I would like to see Is the ‘I’ that knows ‘me’ When I know that I know that I know."
What makes us feel spiritual then? It could be the quieting of a small area in our brains.
The area in question, the right parietal lobe, is responsible for defining "Me," according to Brick Johnstone of Missouri University. It generates self-criticism and guides us through
physical and social terrains by constantly updating our self-knowledge. People with less active Me-Definers are more likely to lead spiritual lives. His research pinpoints a less functional right parietal lobe, which may translate psychologically as decreased self-awareness.
The greatest silencing of the Me-Definer likely happens in the deepest states of meditation or prayer, when practitioners describe feeling seamless with the entire universe. That is, the highest point of spiritual experience occurs when "Me" completely loses its definition.
If one looks into the main religious systems and spiritual philosophies, selflessness is paramount in their teachings. Think of the uni-verse as a cosmic ocean of consciousness. Each and every one of us, on the deepest level of our psyche, is a part of this ocean.
"You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.”
Alan Watts

To be continued.
Good night.

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I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x