Jabba the Hutt in the Clouds

Hehe...

I have a picture of Jabba in the clouds too! Here's my version:
http://bradaptation.com/2006/11/18/what-beth-sees/

An interesting contemplative theological exercise, at least in my view and it's something I got from the likes of the contemplative Christian and Buddhist monks. Without supposing God exists; just entertain for a moment the possibility of a being that sees everything from every vantage point. This I will call the God's Eye Perspective. Try to imagine what this cloud would look like from God's Eye Perspective. Is that not closer to the reality of the "cloud" than it first appears from our ego-centric vantage point?

The same goes for our emotions and thoughts, are these emotions and thoughts derived from the God's Eye Perspective or are they based solely in ego-centricity? To be a God-man or Christ-like, Buddha-like or a Brahmin seems to indicate, from my studies, a willingness to relinquish the ego-centered perspective in place of the God's Eye Perspective and treat people as though you were God. Because once you remove yourself from your finite position things look very different, you are no longer of any greater or lesser importance than anyone else, you are called then to love your neighbour, truly, as if they were your self. And that is meant in the most profound sense, not as a a shallow mantra but an ultimate truth.

Which prompted me to say to my girlfriend; I'll beat StarCraft II's campaign mode a dozen times before I'll ever be a man. The former is much much easier. Heck, rocket science is bound to be easier. Whatever the most difficult thing anyone can think of, being a complete human in the sense of liberating oneself from finitude and ego-centricity is the hands-down the hardest thing anyone could do. And there is nothing that will make it any easier. The more you find to make it easier, the more you confuse yourself and set yourself down the wrong path.

So, that is my theological monologue on Jabba the Cloud. Hope you like.

As another example of the arbitrariness of our experience and of what we deem to be definite things is a relative comparison of a pin-head and a mountain-top. Though these would seem to be very different; the mountain is huge, the pin is small, the pin can puncture our skin, the mountain cannot. But this is due to our size relative to the objects. If we were much smaller beings the pin-head would appear as a mountainous terrain. Under a microscope the pin-head is anything but pointy, it is a sprawling flat-land or valley and not a point. Likewise, if we were much larger beings the mountain-top would appear to be extremely pointy and would easily tear through the epidermis. It is only our relative point-of-view that gives these things the qualities of either dull or sharp, big or small, and so on and so forth.

It means human beings suffer from pareidolia and other forms of pattern-seeking. Overcoming these may be the first step to recognizing reality. That is a cloud, but not a cloud. Because from this vantage point it appears to be a well-defined cloud, even in a recognizable shape. But if you ascend to the height of that cloud it no longer appears as a well-defined cloud, but an enveloping mist with no apparent boundary. The thing which we call a cloud is an appearance only that exists from this vantage point, and the recognizable shape is even more in the eye of the beholder. This illustrates the way our minds carve up reality in an arbitrary manner.

Since our carving of reality is arbitrary, what can we say in the very least? We can say that at the very least reality as a whole can be taken as an object. But then we must closely examine this divide between subject and object and see if there isn't some illusion there too. This is difficult because our tendency to resolve our experience into familiar patterns, remaining receptive to novel patterns is therefor counter-intuitive. It takes silent meditation to delve beneath the surface of conscious appearances, but we can unpack our feelings, emotions and thoughts to see what kind of gems or poisons are encapsulated within. As long as we are willing and wanting to see beyond their immediately recognizable appearances. We may very well find that our feelings are not what we thought they were.

Hmm ... Looks more like 'Ol Drippy from Aqua Teen Hunger Force to me ... http://bit.ly/mpTkit