Why is the sage so useless?

[Nikolai1]

If we absolutely insist on the notion of productive work, we must say something like:

 

'Even though the sage appears inactive, he is performing work in realms that we don't understand.'

 

Actually you hear this statement quite a lot. But why can't the sage be meaningless?

 

Is there any meaning to the earth revolving round the sun?

 

Or must we, in summer, say that the earth is revolving in order to trim back back the bushes, in winter say that the earth is revolving in order to bring the bush back to life.

[9th]

Once upon a time there was a farmer who had only one horse, and one day the horse ran away. Soon after, his neighbors came to console him over his terrible loss. The farmer asked, "What makes you think it is so terrible?"

 

A month later, the horse came home - this time bringing with her two beautiful wild horses. The neighbors became excited at the farmer's good fortune. They were such lovely strong horses! The farmer asked, "What makes you think this is good fortune?"

 

A few days after this, the farmer's son was thrown from one of the wild horses and broke his leg. All the neighbors were very distressed. It was such bad luck! The farmer asked, "What makes you think it is bad?"

 

Near the end of the season, a war came, and every able-bodied man was conscripted and sent into battle. Only the farmer's son remained, because he had a broken leg. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on his good luck. The farmer asked, "What makes you think it is good?"

[billb]

If we absolutely insist on the notion of productive work, we must say something like:

 

'Even though the sage appears inactive, he is performing work in realms that we don't understand.'

 

Actually you hear this statement quite a lot. But why can't the sage be meaningless?

 

Is there any meaning to the earth revolving round the sun?

 

Or must we, in summer, say that the earth is revolving in order to trim back back the bushes, in winter say that the earth is revolving in order to bring the bush back to life.

So do you know of one of these sages or are you simply describing a sage that does not exist. The "performing work in realms that we don't understand" part sounds like a new age poser to me. Is this so called sage a real person or fictional?

[woodcarver]

I've never met a sage...

 

to my knowledge

[Daeluin]

So do you know of one of these sages or are you simply describing a sage that does not exist. The "performing work in realms that we don't understand" part sounds like a new age poser to me. Is this so called sage a real person or fictional?

 

I've met people who operate in these realms. And I've experienced enough qi gong to understand how higher-level energy work can subtly influence the world around us. It all sounds a bit new agey to those unfamiliar with the idea of there even being energy or spirit. A lot of spiritually minded people are unbalanced and sometimes out of touch with reality. But it's all pretty logical... just higher vibrational energy that can only be felt and seen when the heart and mind are calm enough, etc. Just like learning to walk, before long we'll be raising our children into cultivating this awareness.

 

But the bottom line is simple. All that is important is for us to trust ourselves and be the best we can be. And when we radiate trust outwards to others, it helps them feel safe to be their best too.

[MooNiNite]

w/e my friend got like 250$ today for healing some random ppl on top of a mountain

[Nikolai1]

Hi billb

 

 

The "performing work in realms that we don't understand" part sounds like a new age poser to me. Is this so called sage a real person or fictional?

 

It wasn't someone I met down the pub, but this idea is expressed by many teachers. When challenged on his inactivity, Ramana Maharshi used to retort: 'how do you know I'm being inactive?'

 

The point is, categories like 'usefulness' belong to the everyday world of time and space. The useful thing is always geared towards some favourable outcome in the future. And if you can not or will not abandon categories of judgement like 'is this useful?', then the sage must be described as being useful in a different realm to time and space.

 

What happens when we stop thinking in such terms? Then the sage becomes neither useful nor useless, in the same way that the universe is neither useful or useless. The universe just IS.

 

What I find most interesting is those individuals on the path to sagehood, the spiritual cultivators.

 

What they discover before very long is that a lot of what the everyday world considers very useful and important, no longer seems so to this aspirant. Everyone is striving and chasing things, people, situations, status in order to make them feel a certain way about themselves, to feel at peace with themselves and admired by others.

 

The person on the spiritual path, no doubt through their particular practice, has found this peace and love within themselves - they no longer need to get it from other people and things. Their motivation to strive and win starts to ebb away. They start to become more and more useless in the world.

 

In the everyday world, a good outcome to you is so often a bad outcome to someone else. If you gain some money, then that money is only of use to you if someone else has a lack of money and wants to trade with you. Or, if you achieve something great at work, its good for your company but of necessity bad news for your competitors.

 

If we already have, on the inside, the good feeling that money gives us...why would we continue a practice that deprives it in our competitors? If money still works for them, if it still gives them a thrill, then they are welcome to it!

 

This is not an appropriate attitude in the average business. Its the attitude of a useless person, and one they are best rid of.

 

This is why I said in the OP that our work is the index to our spiritual development. I am not saying that some work is more 'moral' than others. I am simply saying that the will cultivated man and woman naturally gravitate to work that is commensurate with their own needs. This is the meaning of right livelihood, not as a moral choice.

 

The spiritually developed person naturally gravitates towards work where there is less personal material gain (for they have already gained, in essence, all that the material world can offer) and instead the gains are felt by others. This is the only kind of work that seems rational from now on. Care work is an obvious example, but it could be anything.

 

Not long ago i got talking to a woman who with a pretty young baby. She said she wanted to stay at home but after a few months was so crazy with boredom that she had to return to work. I asked her what work she did, and she was an administrator in a company that sold shopping finance to motorcycle shops.

 

This behaviour shows spiritual underdevelopment.

 

She was unable to face the quietness and monotony of a kind of work that, she cannot deny is absolutely crucial.

 

She, and anyone else on this planet would rather the stocking finance activity were rather puth on hold than the care of her own child...but still she could not do it. There is no doubt in anyone's mind which is the more useful work.

 

Instead, she paid someone else to do the crucial work, and decided herself to throw herself back into busyness.

 

This happens all the time, but it can't be judged. If she wasn't lacking on the inside she would have stayed home with the kid.

[3bob]

"If she wasn't lacking on the inside she would have stayed home with the kid." by Nikolai1

 

What the hell do you know about it Mr. N. and why in the hell are you harping on and on about various people and even sages as if you are in some way more developed? Such as that could be called useless.

Edited September 16, 2014 by 3bob

[soaring crane]

 

I am simply saying that the will cultivated man and woman naturally gravitate to work that is commensurate with their own needs.

...

 

Instead, she paid someone else to do the crucial work, and decided herself to throw herself back into busyness.

 

 

So, what you're saying is that she gravitated toward work that is commensurate with her own needs. Well done!

 

 

What was it you do for a living again?

[Captain Mar-Vell]

...

So do you know of one of these sages or are you simply describing a sage that does not exist. The "performing work in realms that we don't understand" part sounds like a new age poser to me. Is this so called sage a real person or fictional?

 

I'm a new age poser I guess.

 

But a lot of spiritual people think religious or meditative or devotional activity can have a direct beneficial influence in the world, despite not being an immediately obvious physical causal factor.

 

Along with self improvement, that is one of the motives of those who aspire to the spiritual life.

 

Besides, being a sage is great.

 

You can be as crazy as you like, and you don't have to really work for a living.

 

And you might just get to live on discretely in some form after death to bring benefit to sentient and non sentient beings.

 

Ya know, like a sparkly Jedi ghost.

 

"If you cut me down..."

...

Edited September 16, 2014 by Captain Mar-Vell

[Nikolai1]

Let's say that the universe presented my friend with two choices of occupation:

 

1) to look after her daughter at home

2) to work in the admin team of a finance company.

 

To choose one path is to exclude the other, and the path not chosen must be covered by another person instead. But the immense difference in the two paths is only highlighted if we imagine, as a thought experiment, that the path not chosen could not be covered by another. The two outcomes are:

 

1) the baby girl suffers extreme mental suffering, followed by extreme physical suffering, followed by death.

2) the finance company becomes less efficient. Workers who could concentrate their energies on, say, finding new business, are having to do more of their own admin. The upshot is that the previously competitive interest rates will therefore rise, perhaps by as much as one tenth of a percentage point.

 

My friend, chose to devote her energies to maintaining the good interest rates for the motorcycle dealerships. Although, it may not be fully conscious, this decision has left and must leave a moral stain.

 

At some level she knows that all the industries, factories and finance houses could perish to dust as far as she is concerned, so long as one task in the world is performed and performed well: the care of her daughter.

 

And yet, she also knows that she has chosen to hire someone else to do this momentous work in her life, while she attends to work she knows to be almost infinitely less important.

 

The guilt she feels over this cannot be erased, however unconscious. We should not judge her, and there is no need to judge her. Despite the social conventionality of her decision, even the social kudos she gets as a working mother, there is one painful truth that won't go away.

 

If she was a happier, healthier, more rounded individual she would be able to do the work she knows to be the most important.

 

This brings us back to the sage. The sage, or any spiritually developed person would not 'go crazy with boredom' at having to spend all day with their daughter. Such as person is at peace and content with whatever life throws at them. This puts them in a position to be able to choose that occupation which gives them the most value, confidence and self-efficacy. They are able to apply themselves in the direction they know to be the most important.

 

My argument here wouldn't be worth anything if my friend did not agree with the relative values of the work. But she does. And as a society we all do. It happens to be a hallmark of wisdom to be able to discern what needs doing the most and to do it. This is why the work we do is a very true indicator as to our spiritual condition.

 

Judging is of absolutely no use. But neither is denying the legitimate and valid guilt that she suffers as a consequence. The guilt is correct and good. It is the siren song of her better self, and it is the spur and the goad to make her that person. The spiritual life is worth nothing unless it leads to a person becoming happier, confident, effective and at peace.

[3bob]

your argument is full of projections and assumptions based on your pov concerning motherhood... The issue is not as simple or as black and white as you are stating, there are all sorts of variables and compromises in being a human being and in being a mother. (and father) Besides, and unless someone is wanting us to stick our nose in their family matters it is best to keep it out.

Edited September 16, 2014 by 3bob

[soaring crane]

If she was a happier, healthier, more rounded individual she would be able to do the work I know to be the most important.

 

I generally don't enjoy it when people do this, but sometimes it's the most poignant response.

 

There, fixed it for you.

[Nikolai1]

Although it might not sound like it, I totally believe that she did the best thing for her and I do not judge the decision. But we're talking here about how spiritual development in a person changes the ways in which they are able to behave. Spiritual cultivation gives people the strength to effortlessly make the choices that are the best all round.

 

But my friend, unfortunately, was conditioned into making a choice that leaves her feeling guilty. That guilt is necessary and meaningful for her, and is also something that the sage has the skill to avoid.

[Nikolai1]

There, fixed it for you.

 

Unfortunately, it is a fact that the woman would rather her child live than the interest rates rise. The worker who therefore keeps her child alive is doing more important work, as far as she is concerned, than her own at the finance house.

 

neither you, me, nor anyone can seriously dispute this.

Edited September 16, 2014 by Nikolai1

[GrandmasterP]

Have we perhaps slightly moved off the thread topic?

Why is the sage so useless?

Seems to me that if ( hypothetical) Sage A is perceived as sagacious by Student B, who feels to have benefited from Sage A's sagacity; then Sage A isn't useless at all, at least as far as Student B is concerned.

Maybe we take our sage where and as we find them.

( ours grows in a pot outside the kitchen door)

 

Edited September 16, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Nikolai1]

You know all this talk about useless sages was ironic anyway. My main point is that the sage is seen as useless by those who don't understand him: and that is most people.

[GrandmasterP]

+1

So if sage-usefulness is predicated on perception and some perceive sagacity ...

Therefore

The sage is not useless.

 

The defence rests.

 

Edited September 16, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Nikolai1]

But its also very likely that the sage would consider themselves useless, a la Krishnamurtis J and UG

[Daeluin]

This is why true sages can be hard to find.

 

edit: reminds me of this.

Edited September 16, 2014 by Daeluin

[soaring crane]

My main point is that the sage is seen as useless by those who don't understand him: and that is most people.

 

honestly, I agree with plenty of your reasoning (everything ahead of the colon in this case). But then you add these strange little nuggets of pessimistic indictment which I feel tarnish the simple truth in the rest of your message.

[soaring crane]

This is why true sages can be hard to find.

 

edit: reminds me of this.

 

 

woot!

 

I remember that story, and thank you for linking to the post

 

And I know one.

[Nikolai1]

The same thing happened to me as in the Taomeaow's story. I was in Tooting in London and a stranger in a turban started giving me very specific advice on a problem that I was at that moment thinking about. He then wanted money, but there was nothing at all in my wallet, so he wandered off slightly displeased. But it was a very strange occurence.

[Apech]

honestly, I agree with plenty of your reasoning (everything ahead of the colon in this case). But then you add these strange little nuggets of pessimistic indictment which I feel tarnish the simple truth in the rest of your message.

 

 

 

BUT ... most people don't understand the sage and think he/she does nothing and is useless ... which is the whole point (of this thread) surely?

[idiot_stimpy]

The fool is useless because he seeks nothing.