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Blog post: Who is the ‘superior man’?

moss elk

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I think you way over emphasisze the idea people in 8.3 as so bad

And I think you may underemphasize the idea, for the exact same reason I may overemphasize it. (based on experience.)
Perhaps the truth is in the middle.
Don't think I am discounting your experience.

What can I say?
My experience coincides more with the descriptions by Bradford and Sparhawk in the thread. (bad, defective, bandits)
And 8.3 is the very first reading I ever got,
so it stuck.
 

Trojina

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Well 'bad defective bandits' is only going to be literal if the question includes those factors, that is your question is about people who are bandits - in other circumstances it's not going to apply is it. I think 'non people' is better than 'bandits'.
 

moss elk

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Perhaps there is a spectrum in 8.3 ranging from the simply wrong people, like square pegs, round holes to actual very bad people?
 

Trojina

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Undoubtedly there's a huge spectrum and it's broader than that far broader. It doesn't just describe people who are somehow wrong but people who are wrong for you, people who aren't like you, people who are so different it's as if they are another species...but that doesn't always make them intrinsically wrong or bad in themselves. As I said in wiki I have also had it systems I'm interacting with that aren't people, like a bidding queue online for housing. People often try to join with what isn't human or feel emotions towards inanimate things, they make human what is not. So for example one may be interacting with an online system and take what it does personally because we are human and look for human in everything and sometimes it's just not there as in this line. There was this film, was it Tom Hanks in castaway where he develops a relationship with a ball because there's no one else there, he's trying to join with what is not human.



 
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my_key

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@hilary and @ trojina - thank you for reaching into the bowels of clarity and recovering these two threads. They certainly added chunks of meat to the bone.

The contributions on fei ren with respect to the different manifestations on earth, man and heaven levels were insightful. I think they also show more clearly for me that it is by seeing what is and what is not fei ren and xaoi ren, i.e putting limitations around them, that we are in a clearer position to see what a junzi represents for us.

Similarly for each of us at each level of earth, man and heaven fei ren will mean different things based on our personal experiences, our conditioning in early life, the nature of our positive reinforcements of self, the traumas and neglect we have lived through and how well we have survived. I think it is this uniqueness of survival that brings about the position we take with respect to the image ofei ren.

I'm still kicking around this idea of awareness and the learning ladder.

fei ren: unconsciously incompetent - they are unaware that they are unaware, or even that there is such a thing as awareness. Their existance lies, for them, solely within that of their own dark world: the bandits who live outside the law. I see images of horror movies. The zombie people, the living dead, the beings with the soul-less eyes. The drug users, the addicts trapped in their own life-less world. I see images of TV's Dr Who. The fei ren of this world is, of course, the Daleks whose prime objective is to "Exterminate, Exterminate, Exterminate".

xaoi ren: consciously incompetent - 'small people' or 'common people'. The workaday crew, the poor and afflicted, those who struggle and suffer and who are in the process of acquiring differentiation skills with respect to their levels of consciousness and their ability to be aware. While at different levels of maturity, this group comprise of the meek who shall inherit the earth.

Contrary to popular usage meek doesn't mean weak or just humble. Following the roots of 'meek' back to the Greek 'praus' which was used in the sense of 'to tame wild animals'; 'to calm those that are irritated or excited' or to gain composure. Composure arises when we become aware of how we are reacting and seek to change how we stand in the world. 'Praus' additionally refers to an inward attitude based in a connection of mind and heart - perhaps inhabits on an infrequent basis a growing spiritual awareness, if you like; hence "Blessed are the meek".

junzi: consciously competent - This person has moved beyond the crowd: seeks to be different, seeks clarity, seeks to be higher. As an individual they hold a growing awareness of who they are; their strengths and weaknesses, and how these align them as they walk in the world of man. They have acquired greater self knowledge and understand the ways of the world more yet still have to apply themselves knowingly. There is a need, at times, for a higher conscious involvement to successfully apply their new skills. Additionally, in a quest to uncover their blind spots they seek the greater awareness offered by divination. To paraphrase Einstein " A problem cannot be solved by the same level of consciousness that created it".

I agree with Trojina when she says that there is a very broad spectrum in all these positions on the ladder. While the fei ren, the xaoi ren and, indeed, the junzi can be seen in others, including inamimate objects, they also are key parts of us. Our internal parts become mirrored onto the outer world and vice versa. So if we see something 'wrong' in a ball, or a internet queue, or a knife wielding axe man then it really is wrong for us because we carry a sense of wrongness about this position deep inside us too. So I get what Trojina and mosselk ( and Brad and Candid and Sparhawk in the other threads) are saying.

Watching again the clip from Castaway I see Hanks projecting his deepest fears (those that are perhaps his fei ren) onto Wilson. Perhaps, these are the bandits that are robbing him of his hope of survival. He doesn't like what the ball is saying to him so he rejects the ball, throws it away (it is an obstruction and he does not seek union with it) then he carries on in his workaday way with what he was doing (common person). Luckily, I think because of budget restraints on the film, this is quickly followed by a change of heart (he realises a higher truth) and sets off to retrieve that which he has thrown away. Having found Wilson trapped against the rocks, floating aimlessly in the sea he takes him back to a safe place. He compassionately accepts back in that which he has previously rejected - he up and takes a new stance (junzi) . Symbolically honouring him and placing him in a superior position, Hanks consciously makes Wilson less of a non-person by painting a face on him in his own blood (a blood sacrifice). From this point on fears named and faced he works with constancy towards returning to his home.

.....or perhaps it's nothing like that at all.

Good Luck
 

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