The loneliness of the path.

In a way, this will be a warning, and an admonishment against adopting the Heaven Path philosophy.

As with so many courses of action that fall under the heading of 'taking the road less traveled,' traveling ones Heaven Path will frequently be a lonely trip.

The analogy holds together in this way.

If you walk on main street you will be surounded by other travelers, and the opportunity for companionship will come often, but if you walk on a back road you will seldom find company.

In the case of the Heaven Path, you will still often travel on main street and often be surrounded by other people, but you may find that opportunities for companionship are more consistent with traveling the back road because you will likely be the only person around you that is on the road you are on. Your path takes up the same physical space as the path of the others, but they are nevertheless traveling a very different road.

This will first be noticable when you give up certainty. Giving up certainty will make you a much less outwardly vocal person just because you will begin to recognize the inherent falsity of so much that is said. You will be ever tempted to try to shake those around you out of their own false certainty, and this will not be popular with them. Most people desparately need their certainty, false or not, to keep themselves going.

Then you will recognize the error of trying to wake other people up, but as the crowd closes back in you will find that their company no longer satisfies you.

You will seek others who have given up their certainty, but then you will find that most of them are merely cynical,and assume that all positions are simply false rather than limited in the scope of the aplicability of their truthfulness. They are no longer seeking their own fulfillment, because they no longer believe that ther is such a thing.

But if you are aware and receptive and persistent, you may find that there are a very small number of people who have either explicitly or implicitly adopted the Heaven Path, and whose Heaven Paths may run parallel with yours. And these travelers will also be seeking you.

This is the nature of travel on the Heaven Path.

Consider yourself warned.

Heaven Path vs. Intelligent Design

I was recently presented with the idea that the Heaven Path philosophy was essentially the same as the Intelligent Design theory.

Due to the person that presented the idea being historically insightful, I took a while to think about it before proceeding with my off-the-cuff response.

The two concepts are similar in that they are not inimical to the existance of a divine creator. Their similarities pretty much stop there, though.

The Heaven Path has as a fundamental tenet that the Divine Creator created the universe with NO unambiguos objective proof of His/Her existence. If we believe in God, our belief must necessarily be based on subjective evidence, that is to say, the presence of our religious feelings.

For this reason, each person must be free to deduce or extrapolate the principle that God wants us to operate under. God's LAWS, on the other hand, are inviolable so there is no need to enforce them, any more than there is a need to enforce the law of gravity (which coincidently is one of God's Laws.)

In the case of Intelligent Design, its promoters seem to want to have it accepted as a scientific alternative to evolution theory. The argument seems to be that there are parts of evolution theory that have not been proven yet, so Intelligent Design, which is also unproven, is just as valid.

Of course, my description of this argument will no doubt be condemned as a straw man, but that is the sense that I have gotten on their argument.

The problem comes in when we ask where the testable predictive power comes from in the theory.

To my knowledge, there have been know testable predictions made based on Intelligent Design theory.

On the other hand, one needs go no further than the study of pesticide or antibiotic resistance to find predictive power from the evolution theory.

The Heaven Path philosophy unambiguously predicts that no testable predictive power will ever be derived from Intelligent Design theory, and so any testable predictive power that IS derived from Intelligent Design theory will invalidate the Heaven Path philosophy.

So I guess they really aren't that similar.

Certainty and error.

I have found that I rarely make mistakes in subjects that I am uncertain about. This may be because I focus more intently on a problem if I'm uncertain about some aspects of the situation the problem exists in.

I am much more likely to make mistakes in areas where I am absolutely certain, but wrong.

I think this is probably common.

I think it is especially common is situations where people are judging other people.

On reason for this is no doubt found in the Jungian psychology of projection. In short, there are characteristic thoughts, impulses and emotions that everyone experiences but for reasons of upbringing or social mores we reject their presence in our own makeup because of the stigma that our society or upbringing has associated with them. This essentially makes us blind to the presence or effect of these thoughts, impulses and emotions in ourselves. However, for some reason, these thoughts, impulses and emotions refuse to be ignored. If we refuse to acknowledge them in ourselves, we will see them in others whether they are more strongly exhibited in others than they are in ourselves or not.

A useful example of this is found when we fall in love with a mate.

Our chosen mate tends to be perfect in every way but, once we are married to them, they change in ways that we find difficult to accept. More often than not, they haven't actually changed. Instead, the characteristics that we projected onto them that made them perfect are eventually disolved by our long-term experience with that person's true characteristics.

The point of this is that we frequently find certainty in life, and feel free to act on it, frequently to our own detriment.

Certainty should be viewed with more caution than uncertainty, because anytime you feel certain, your inclination will be to act as though you're right, even if you're wrong.

Thoughts on speech vs. actions.

A person who has chosen to follow their Heaven Path will find that they still must interact with other people.

Interacting with people can both help and hinder ones travels on the Heaven Path.

The most frequent problem I encounter in interactions is that of misrepresentation. People say things that are not consistent with there actions, or they say things that are intended to change the meaning of their actions.

And this frequently goes unnoticed.

If you ask someone to assist you in some endeavor, they will typically verbally respond in one of four ways. They will say that they will, say that they won't, they will check to see whether there is a way to help within the scope of their existing duties, or they'll explain why they can't help within the scope of their existing duties.

But action-wise, there are only two possible responses, either they help or they don't.

The problem comes when they say that they will help, but then do not. And they may try to use use words to make it so they can get credit for helping without actually helping. This usually comes in the form of an excuse.

One example would be if you asked someone to help you move, and they agreed to do so, but then when the time came to move, they didn't show up and called and said that something had happened that if it happened to you you would have to have begged off as well.

The idea is, of course, that they were all ready to help but had been prevented by a situation beyond their control.

This may, in fact, have been the case, but without verifying you can only go on what they have said as if what they said was true.

If that person has a long standing history of agreeing to help and then showing up to help, it is probably safe to assume that something really did happen.

On the other hand, if the person has a long history of agreeing to help and then having circumstances come up that prevent the help from arriving, one should assume not just that they didn't want to help. but that they also wanted to get credit for helping even though they had no intention of helping.

This is a very simple example of how speech and action often interrelate.

In order to avoid being misled in this manner, one must look at the actions independent of the accompanying speech, and make sure that the speech isn't taking the place of the actions, or otherwise being used to hide the truth of the actions.

For ourselves, it is useful to ask how we would perceive others, and be perceived by others if we judged and were judged only on our actions.

Perhaps the opportunity will present itself for you to discontinue speech for a period of time, and then see how your relationships look after the ability to explain or make excuses goes away.