The Western self

ebuddha Says: January 5th, 2007 at 4:06 pm Functionally, all one is challenged to do in the West, is have a decent job that makes enough money. Everything else is a choice. With all the entertainment available and other choices available BECAUSE work is the only MUST challenge, self-absorption flows out of this.

And you can see that same self-absorption in liberals, atheists, conservatives, etc - it doesn’t seem to have much to do with the altitude of ones’ perspective. At any rate, I think that Ken may be accurately diagnosing that pomos are “self-absorbed and narcisstic”, but he is mistaking an effect for a cause.

Edward Berge Says: January 5th, 2007 at 7:55 pm The “west” in general and the US in particular in the capitalistic context in this historical moment, having such a surplus in material wealth. This obviously has, as you say, a strong influence on all levels in all lines leading to a more self-centered slant.

Marko Says: January 6th, 2007 at 7:01 am And I would add, as Ebuddha mentioned, that these days in the West so many people are self centered without ever doing work on the self that having a priority on individual development will not make it worse and in a lot of case even better, because there might come a possibility of awareness of one’s self centeredness because of the work on the self.

by ebuddha on Mon 08 Jan 2007 10:35 AM PST Comments (2) Permanent Link Cosmos : The larger, Western issue, is regarding the whole "surrender" or "submission" area of spirituality. There is a deep - and justified - suspicion, of any type of spiritual group that asks you to "submit". For some attitudes, any person who is asked to submit, is considered small-minded, weak - pathetic, if you will.

However, those people who join the military - where that type of will surrender is required - do what your superior tells you - this is acceptable, to the same group of people.It seems to me that, that the type of power relations that exist in the military - and are respected - that same type of power relation should also be acceptable in spiritual circles, if that is the arrangement that helps move people. Integral Practice