The Good Husband

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Kunga
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Re: The Good Husband

Post by Kunga »

Sue Hindmarsh wrote:In a documentary about the 1987 London Underground fire, a fireman tells how he was overcome by heat and smoke. Unable to move, he believes he is going to die. He accepts his fate knowing that he is leaving his wife well taken care of and the mortgage paid. He doesn’t die, and lives to tell his story.

Duly he will be considered by his ilk as a saint for being such a good husband - though not by me, I felt like puking. How mediocre can you get! He’d obviously given up on life a long time ago. If his only thought at death was about having paid off the mortgage, then he might as well never have been born.
How do you know what this man thought/pondered/studied all his life?
You are judging him by what he said & did during those last few moments.
If you're on your deathbed, do you start a philosophical discussion ?
His spirituality was expressed by the love and care he had for others.
You are spiritually dead without selfless compassion.
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Tomas
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Re: The Good Husband

Post by Tomas »

Kunga wrote:How do you know what this man thought/pondered/studied all his life?
You are judging him by what he said & did during those last few moments.
If you're on your deathbed, do you start a philosophical discussion ?
His spirituality was expressed by the love and care he had for others.
You are spiritually dead without selfless compassion.
Very good, Kunga!

You win a vegetarian cookie of your choice.
Don't run to your death
Pam Seeback
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Re: The Good Husband

Post by Pam Seeback »

That's not what I meant, although that may well have been the case. I was talking about something a bit deeper. I've never faced death myself, but I can imagine that if a man were to sincerely think about death, i.e, about the prospect of being no more, then the first question that would arise in his mind would be something like - "what am I?" Since death is that which is clearly not me, it clarifies the thought of the "me". That is essentially what religion is about - the nature of our own being.

Of course, this thought probably occurs only once or twice in a man's life, if ever. In a woman's life it probably never occurs at all.
Jupiviv, being that you are not a woman, your opinion of the depth of a woman's spirit heart and mind is based on hearsay, conjecture and prejudice, none of which has anything to do with spiritual integrity.

A soul of spirit integrity does not live in 'probably', it lives in what is absolutely true for it.
Pam Seeback
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Re: The Good Husband

Post by Pam Seeback »

Kunga wrote:
Sue Hindmarsh wrote:In a documentary about the 1987 London Underground fire, a fireman tells how he was overcome by heat and smoke. Unable to move, he believes he is going to die. He accepts his fate knowing that he is leaving his wife well taken care of and the mortgage paid. He doesn’t die, and lives to tell his story.

Duly he will be considered by his ilk as a saint for being such a good husband - though not by me, I felt like puking. How mediocre can you get! He’d obviously given up on life a long time ago. If his only thought at death was about having paid off the mortgage, then he might as well never have been born.
How do you know what this man thought/pondered/studied all his life?
You are judging him by what he said & did during those last few moments.
If you're on your deathbed, do you start a philosophical discussion ?
His spirituality was expressed by the love and care he had for others.
You are spiritually dead without selfless compassion.
Right on, Kunga! The games people play, believing they know the mind of another, using what they hear on the news or read in the newspapers or read or hear from the mind of dead philosophers to form an ever-turning world within themselves of "perhaps", "maybe", "I think", "I judge,", etc. BS, that is what it is!

Indeed, one is spiritually dead without selfless compassion. And what I have discovered is that compassion has a language all its own, a language that provides a permanent foundation for the I AM that must, of necessity, be in the world, but not of the world.
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sue hindmarsh
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Re: The Good Husband

Post by sue hindmarsh »

Kunga wrote:
How do you know what this man thought/pondered/studied all his life?
See below.
You are judging him by what he said & did during those last few moments.
The husband’s thoughts show the great sway woman has in shaping the male mind. For example, he wasn’t wishing well his wife’s strive towards true independence. No, he thought only of her continuing dependence of what he could provide her.
If you're on your deathbed, do you start a philosophical discussion ?
By way of reply, a Zen story:

A woman died, but had left a letter for her son, in the form of a will, wishing him Enlightenment.
She signed it: Your Mother,
not born, not dead.
His spirituality was expressed by the love and care he had for others.
That is a complete fantasy. Loving and caring for others only expresses egotism.
The point I make is that the husband considered his wife’s future comfort over his own immediate need when he faced probable death. That showed he is capable of thinking outside his own self – at least at that moment in time. But that is all it shows.

Being able to consistently think in that manner is a prerequisite for spirituality, though it is in seed form, and may indeed never develop further than that.
You are spiritually dead without selfless compassion.
You believe the husband’s actions were ‘selfless’. That cannot be, for he’s slaved away his life working to pay off the mortgage on a house to keep his wife happily ensconced, and rewarded for his efforts with the comforts and pleasures a wife possesses.

This using of each other: she the prostitute, he the protector, is considered to be a ‘spiritual union’. Obviously it isn’t. Marriage is a perverse condition that has hold of humanity, keeping it trapped in debauchery.

Selfless compassion is only ever present when you understand that your own nature and the nature of reality are one and the same. Not understanding this, your every action is plain and simple egotism.
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Kunga
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Re: The Good Husband

Post by Kunga »

Sue Hindmarsh wrote:Kunga wrote:
How do you know what this man thought/pondered/studied all his life?
See below.
You are judging him by what he said & did during those last few moments.
The husband’s thoughts show the great sway woman has in shaping the male mind.

So woman has shaped the mind of men ?....that must also mean then, "behind every great man is a woman" Another sweeping generalization is that, man has shaped the mind of woman.



For example, he wasn’t wishing well his wife’s strive towards true independence. No, he thought only of her continuing dependence of what he could provide her.

Whatever his thought were, they were selfless. Since you abhor human love and selflessness...and see it only as a flaw...egoism....even animals care for their offspring, and the male & female species work together in their care....and that is comming fromthe natural world of nature, so you are wrong about ego having anything to do with caring/love/and mutual cooperation of the male & female species. Do animals have an ego ? No, they care for their young out of instinct, same as humans. Only a mentally ill human could starve their own offspring....would you ?


If you're on your deathbed, do you start a philosophical discussion ?
By way of reply, a Zen story:

A woman died, but had left a letter for her son, in the form of a will, wishing him Enlightenment.
She signed it: Your Mother,
not born, not dead.



That is beautiful..and rare. Surely she loved her son.


His spirituality was expressed by the love and care he had for others.
That is a complete fantasy. Loving and caring for others only expresses egotism.

No, that is not love when there are strings attached...love is selfless. True there is egotistical "love"...but that is not love...
The point I make is that the husband considered his wife’s future comfort over his own immediate need when he faced probable death. That showed he is capable of thinking outside his own self – at least at that moment in time. But that is all it shows.

What immediate need could one have when facing death ? His immediate need was knowing when he dies, his wife will still have a roof over her head. In the real world men and women really care for each other. It's not natural that they hate each other and kill each other.

Being able to consistently think in that manner is a prerequisite for spirituality, though it is in seed form, and may indeed never develop further than that.
You are spiritually dead without selfless compassion.
You believe the husband’s actions were ‘selfless’. That cannot be, for he’s slaved away his life working to pay off the mortgage on a house to keep his wife happily ensconced, and rewarded for his efforts with the comforts and pleasures a wife possesses.

The wife could of helped pay off the morgage....maybe she worked too ? How do you know if he even had a sexual relations with his wife ? Maybe she hated sex. Maybe he had a lover to give him pleasure ?



This using of each other: she the prostitute, he the protector, is considered to be a ‘spiritual union’. Obviously it isn’t. Marriage is a perverse condition that has hold of humanity, keeping it trapped in debauchery.

This is outdated. More men & women are living together outside of wedlock. Women are independant now. You are living in the past. And there are men and women that truely love each other, and have no expectations of anything from each other....but that is rare I'll admit. Still, if you admire the natural world....you will see how nature provides for the male & female species to survive....it is unnatural to do otherwise.




Selfless compassion is only ever present when you understand that your own nature and the nature of reality are one and the same. Not understanding this, your every action is plain and simple egotism.

Like this conversation ?
Pam Seeback
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Re: The Good Husband

Post by Pam Seeback »

Selfless compassion is only ever present when you understand that your own nature and the nature of reality are one and the same. Not understanding this, your every action is plain and simple egotism.
Yes, your own [individual] nature. Which means the moment you begin to project your own nature on the nature of another as it is the same as yours, which you are doing by analyzing what you think another man is thinking, your actions are plain and simple hearsay egotism.

I see this error of trying to make what is relative only to one into what is absolute for another frequently on this board.
Dennis Mahar
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Re: The Good Husband

Post by Dennis Mahar »

The fireman disclosed his possibility for being:
He accepts his fate knowing that he is leaving his wife well taken care of and the mortgage paid. He doesn’t die, and lives to tell his story.
for him it was 'as good as it gets'.
Conceptually designated.
Story from culture.
100th monkey.
He spoke his concept for existence.

from Sue,
Selfless compassion is only ever present when you understand that your own nature and the nature of reality are one and the same. Not understanding this, your every action is plain and simple egotism.
Think about it.
Pam Seeback
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Re: The Good Husband

Post by Pam Seeback »

Feeding off the assumed mental states of another provides an anchor of assumption, but it is not the anchor of [individual] integrated Reality.

To be real is to cease assuming one knows the intention of another and to live of the integrity of their own intentions.
Dennis Mahar
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Re: The Good Husband

Post by Dennis Mahar »

He spoke his meaning.
He divulged it.
He told it.
Facing death, it came to him.
He wasn't lying.
It dawned on him.

He reported.

What assumption?
All his assumptions crystallised for him.
He 'knew' for once.

He was inside a story.

He was authentic for once.
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