Feel, Hear, Think

Feel, Hear, Think

In the previous lesson we looked at the Critical Realist Holy Trinity where I provided some disagreement with Roy Bhaskar on the metaphysics of being (Materialism vs. Idealism). This does not attempt to undermine Critical Realism, just augment its perspective from the point of view from someone not in the ivory towers of academia of the times he went through. What I want to highlight in this part of the lecture is the notion of fallibility and how we handle it is an expression of character. Bhaskar's work is a tireless pursuit of the truth, the reconciliation of reality, and justice amongst those of whom suffered under the worldview of capitalism in its evolving characteristics. Yet, there are people in our lives that do not express their character in a way that is conducive towards well-being. We will park that statement for later, yet it is a central tenant of the true nature of learning, overcoming ignorance.

‍

Ontology is a reflexive practice to learn about ourselves and it takes on the challenge of recognizing 'being' is conditioned by the world you are brought into. We certainly have people in our lives that are ignorant, including ourselves (in reflection and in the perception of others). However, what we have collectively witnessed in over a year of genocide of the Palestinians, Sudanese, Congolese, and other minority groups is the absence of emotional feeling accompanying this ignorance, something is clearly augmenting our agency. How can people close themselves off from the unjust suffering of others and without fear, double down on their callousness? There will be a future analysis in CivicNotes that covers the American Nightmare, but it starts here in the sense of recognizing alienation at our beings core.

‍

What I want to develop in this lesson is to remind ourselves of empathy and compassion for others. It is the cold shower needed for those who attach themselves to over rationalizing their values through the logic of a market system built on exploitation, you are only worthy based on your exchange value as a commodified slave to capital. To harken back to Pedagogy of the Oppressed, the opening chapter (really, the first 7-8 paragraphs) offer a window to into recognizing the absence of humanity conditioning our conscious experience:

‍

Dehumanization, which marks not only those whose humanity has been stolen, but also (though in a different way) those who have stolen it, is a distortion of the vocation of becoming more fully human. This distortion occurs within history; but it is not an historical vocation. Indeed, to admit of dehumanization as an historical vocation would lead either to cynicism or total despair. The struggle for humanization, for the emancipation of labor, for the overcoming of alienation, for the affirmation of men and women as persons would be meaningless. This struggle is possible only because dehumanization, although a concrete historical fact, is not a given destiny but the result of an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed.
‍
-Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968)

‍

Many works of education, philosophy, and other social sciences have made similar observations on the "struggle for humanization" by understanding the absence of commonality in oppressive societies. What we need to focus on is the awareness of the current situation as an opportunity to fight for a better life for all. So let us begin with the heart of the matter and try to understand each other through the lens of Critical Sustainability and moreover, how you can easily be deceived through social conditioning.

‍

The Heart

In a world full of socially produced noise, how do we listen to each other and what can we do to overcome the noise for Self realization? We will use the heart as a metaphor of the perceiver (hridaya). The heart in most spiritual teachings is the vehicle of compassion. To avoid detours in esoteric practices like awakening chakras or kundalini, we can ground the heart as our center for reason. Why not the brain? Without the heart the entire body does not function. Plus if we use the metaphor for intellect with the brain, our thoughts can betray the heart by anxious overthinking or being influenced by external forces. Hence, the heart is a good place to start on the journey of overcoming ignorance, starting with how we perceive the world.

‍

Earlier I described there to be an absence of commonality, this is to describe a regression in social interactions and in our material transactions with nature. The heart, in the pursuit of truth, is commodified. We can revisit the debates Roy Bhaskar and many others endured for their views on reality and how science is performed, but the essence is that much of our knowledge of the world has less to do with the truth (relative and absolute) and more to do with perpetuating its existence on unexamined assumptions of reality, growth for growth's sake (cancer). I will decode this in my original educational theory, the Finance Model of Education, which is an extension of Freire's banking model.

‍

‍

The above figure illustrates the idea of Spanda (vibrations), originally intended for the Metaphysics module and will be reused later on there, however it is important to introduce mindfulness of conscious experience early and connect it to the heart. The Heart of Awareness when it is closed off and bound to a worldview that dehumanizes others, seeks material gain from their exploitation, and tricks you into complacency is the nasty business we must endure with other people in our current social order. This is not just capitalism (stay tuned for a critical reader on the Bhagavad Gita), but the dualities produced by the human experience. We certainly do not live in the best timeline of events that allows us to ignore the problems of the world, where ethical consumption is not possible under our current economic (dis)order, yet this is room to become more aware and analytical of the ethical problems in society at large with the intent of transforming it.

‍

Does that mean you must be kind to everyone? No, in fact, that is how you can become exploited without realizing it. People have had the tendency to be shitty for as long as we needed to survive mother nature, yet we have all the resources in the world to take care of each other and become more than ruthless misers. Of course there are an exhaustive amount of transpersonal psychology content available that just tells you why it's cool to be compassionate, but for me (and probably for you as well), it is too impersonal because it does not account for the conditions that give rise to ignorance and impractical because overcoming these conditions are not necessarily the individuals fault or position in society to improve upon. Thus, a need to design a way forward that allows a collective ontology to develop in the minds of perceivers.

‍

‍

‍

Misconceptions about reality, and by extension, of other people, is often a byproduct of dehumanization in our global village. Yes, people can have different belief systems than each other, but we always experience how we are treated directly or indirectly. If we fail to examine our assumptions of other people that guides our actions, we close ourselves off from the truth, accumulate false knowledge, maintain the wrong practice, and set ourselves up for collective failure. As illustrated with Alevism/Sufi Islam teaching practice, "The Four Doors", doors represent obstacles (or boundaries) towards realization. Of course the simplest explanation of an esoteric idea is to open the door and walk through it, but it highlights the action and inaction we take for granted in our everyday life (dunya) that prevents us from following the simplest path or even hiding the truth from us by not knowing that there is a door to begin with!

‍

Because it is a distortion of being more fully human, sooner or later being less human leads the oppressed to struggle against those who made them so. In order for this struggle to have meaning, the oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity (which is a way to create it), become in turn oppressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both.
‍
-Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968)

‍

‍

When the heart begins to open up to the possibilities explored in Critical Sustainability, in communion with each other, in consciousness - the cloud of ignorance begins to take form where it was ethereal, inundated in conscious experience. There is a chapter in the Gita (16, divine/demonic nature) that analyzes this very specific way of seeing the consequences of actions in a social context. In a way, it forecasts what the heart under knowledge and misconception looks like from a third person view of yourself. We will come back to the heart, because once we are aware of how we perceive the world, the second act is to re-learn it from other perspectives. Just like Krishna's dialogue with Arjuna on the field of Kuru (or the battlefield of life), processing complex emotions and overcoming ignorance is about listening to the heart in conflict as an act of recognizing the same tension experienced in others.

‍

‍

Systemic Design is about listening

The world is in a steady decline into a fascist dystopia, where the worst aspect is not the malevolence of supremacists (this is to be understood as demonic nature), but the gross incompetence in sustaining their dominance by projecting away direct action through the organs of their body politic; Nation-states, mass media, education, consumer products, etc. This is their magic and incantations that entangle us in financial and capital reliance on their demonic way of life. The bread and circus for people aspiring to be like Romans (romancing past oppressors is an example of cognitive dissonance, clingy cringe behavior). Often, when your being is limited by this socially constructed illusion, it is appropriate to cut through delusion with harsh words. The harsh words do not have to be given with the intent to harm, but it is often the truth that constructs an immediate awareness of your limited existence in the current situation.

‍

In a world that is equally on flames, drowning from climate events, making us sick (through lack of environmental regulation and infrastructure), and operated by demons, it is helpful to listen to your heart and why it yearns for freedom. This vibration of freedom is the essence of being, it is present in all of us. Our personal and collective liberation relies on listening to each other and the vibrations we make. It is mutually beneficial to hear each other and get a sense of where that person is coming from (how they perceive the world). Vasugupta once discovered on an overturned rock that the joy of liberation is freedom for the whole world. By extension, when we carry the frequency of liberation in our praxis, it has the ability to resonate with others.

‍

Have you ever walked into a room and the vibes were off (scopaesthesia, perceived sense of being stared at, Sheldrake will be discussed in metaphysics)? This is the heart listening to other perceptions. The ripples in our mind (vritti) that project the colors of our oppressed experience are just appearances to see through. We tune out much of this noise to deal with one issue in our focus at a time, but when we doubt ourselves by mistaking others perception for our own, we can distort our judgement with falsehoods and cause suffering in our inner being. Below is a visual example of Nelson and Stolterman (2012) framing of quantum listening, how it affects the brain will be a topic for later or a Dharma talk, but the inter-dimensional scaffolding of how we listen and how we act upon what was heard affects how we design our world and worldview.

‍

‍

An example of quantum listening in the professional field is observing how product owners get in their own way and prevent designers from creating what their expertise reflected upon after discussion. The sense of ownership severely obscures the truth as it is rooted in the concept of private property. By extension private property is a distortion of commonality, product owners do not see you as fully human and act like taskmasters for the plantation owner. Or if you are in an unfortunate situation where the plantation owner IS the taskmaster and absolutely nothing gets done because of their attachment to microtasking while burning through what little fortune they have left to keep the charade going. They will listen with their Ego, affirm what works for them, be critical of you without substantiation of expertise, but they will never be truly empathetic and generative because of how they tune out reality. You see how we can go with the grain and against the grain in quantum listening? Observe it in your life and email me your stories!

‍

Empathy and generative behaviors to design a path worth pursuing is a skill crafted over time. Just shut up or hold your tongue and people will naturally open up. Often times your own opinion is not necessary to communicate and may have adverse effects on the recipient. Remember that phrase unexamined assumptions? Keep it in your back pocket because quantum listening in systemic design teaches the ear to have a productive dialectic to either create something or uncover perceptions about our lives that are harmful or damaging that we were unaware of. Why in the back pocket? Because sometimes we talk out of our asses and shit stinks. The takeaway is you can't design something (products, paths, societies, etc.) for others if all you have is bullshit to work from.

‍

Ontological Thinking

Let us collect our thoughts and think for a moment on what we are discussing; overcoming ignorance through systemic design. Part of which includes recognizing the absence of empathy and compassion for others without becoming exploited yourself following acts of empathy and compassion. With unexamined assumptions of reality, we can delude ourselves and others with false perceptions of the world. And with these false perceptions we become bound to a limited way of thinking. Vasugupta's precise aphorism covers this multiple times in his Shiva Sutras:

‍

jñañam bandhah
1.2 - Knowledge is bondage

‍

This sutra reflects limited knowledge with identifying with the body and not with consciousness. When we identify with the body (read: ego-persona-body complex discussed later in Axiology), we think that the body is the doer, the sufferer and enjoyer of karma, a thing that stands alone and accumulates in the here and now. We do not question this unexamined assumption because it is reproduced in society with fervent joy, YOLO! Yet with an ounce of reasoning, the weight of critical thinking adds pressure to the contradictions we experience in reality enough for some to admit they were wrong and change their worldview based on reason, evidence, and direct experience. There are many formulations to arriving to this way to knowledge that we will cover in Epistemology, especially the use of pramana in ancient India. I covered critical thinking as a basic skill to employ in your being, let us move forward in conversations about the heart as the basis of social and spiritual liberation.

‍

‍

‍

Corazonar and expansion of the way of being

What is beyond critical thinking? Critical Being is the simplest and most coy answer, but what could that mean? Continuing the analysis of the Critical Realist Holy Trinity, we can easily discern layers of experience unfolding in our daily lives by reasoning and thinking through our interactions. Thinking thoughts and feeling emotions are but an initial realization of social experience. A brief excerpt from Boaventura de Sousa Santos The End of the Cognitive Empire (2018):

‍

"Corazonar is what we will call the warming up to reason" (p. 99)
...
"Conceiving corazonar as an emergence is to see it in expression of alchemical hybrid of emotions/affects/reasons, the feeling/thinking inscribed in social struggles ... means to experience the misfortune or unjust suffering of others as one's own and to. bewilling to join in the struggle against it, even to the point of running risks." (p. 100)

‍

As we have seen around the world is the universal rejection of Zionism and the State of Israel in their genocidal campaign for Greater Israel. It is worth mentioning at this point is the dimension of Critical Literacy and the contradictions we have seen on social media versus mass media outlets in their coverage of October 7th (see my 1 year anniversary podclass). Mass protests in the streets, the escalating responses to international war criminals, BDS, you name it (also, I recommend this app). This is the easiest way to understand what it means in the 21st century to be literate and where individuals transform themselves at personal risk to fight against oppression and tyranny. The reason why we fight back is to be. To not be limited when we are truly infinite.

‍

To allow the body, mind, and intellect guide our conscious experience is a component of critical pedagogy. Now I have a whole chapter and upcoming recorded reading for Pedagogy of the Oppressed as mentioned before, but connecting Corazonar with this visceral transformation we are collectively experiencing allows us to teach others about the history of Zionism from the perspective of the Global South (we will discuss that in epsitemology). By visceral transformation, I'm referring to the ability to see through the social illusions of the world and with every atom in your body resist cognitive dissonance that society produces to tell you otherwise.

‍

This ability to internally translate (thinking, literacy, and teaching) what is happening in the current moment de-ideologizes reality. To be in a state of awareness that permanently shifts your conscious experience of the world towards corazonar is what I refer to this as Critical Realismo. Which refers to Ignacio Martin-Baro (1942 - 1989) and his method of realism-critico while also meta-referencing Roy Bhaskar and critical realism. The play on words adds the dimension of liberation psychology to critical realism and allows us to expand the ontological methodology of Critical Sustainability.

‍

As mentioned, we will continue our Critical Realism overview by wrapping up with the Transformational model of social activity and what can be contributed towards our upcoming module on epistemology. It was necessary to take a detour to the Global South to underpin the notion of empathy and compassion in ontology (and ontology studies). We have a lot of ground to cover in upcoming lessons, but if you are here at the end of the lesson you're probably wondering where "Feel, Hear, Think" comes from (or you are a hooligan that already knows). I will leave you with one of the best video game trailers made for the critically acclaimed MMORPG, Final Fantasy 14, which is a story for another time.

‍