Prejudices

[enjoyliving (deleted)]

Hello everybody

What were the worst prejudices which you have heard?
Not just about Native American.....perhaps women,men....dogs....lol
All your opinions are welcome.....

Olga

[whollyheretic (deleted)]

`Self-Importance is the worst prejudice. It works against everything. The essence of ignorance and stupidity. The doorway to spiritual death.

[naturegal4u (deleted)]

I feel there are many types and forms of prejudice and some that each one of us don't even consciously know we do or have. I agree with whollyheretic's point of self-centeredness working against everything.

We must check a box for our government to say if we are caucasion, african-american, Native, ect. but doesn't that make us individualistic? Our government runs with forms of prejudice! If I say I am of European decent, doesn't that also individualize me?

I truly believe that if each and every person across this planet would close their eyes, open their mind and their heart, they will see we are all just human beings. We are one that way, no differences, no individualistic traits, no prejudice! If each of us were to cut our skin wouldn't we all bleed red?

[cerulean (deleted)]

`There is a strange and curious relationship between ego, self centeredness and prejudice. Ego is the center where prejudice is born to help us establish our social and therefor political status. Ego in fact is rather important. It is the part of ourselves which allows us to learn social behaviour when we are very young and when we are learning to fit in. Unfortunately, ego then remains as a part of our functioning like a visious trap of cognitive responses.
For some people, this trap it hard to get out of, and dangerous, because without social status telling you how wonderful you are, you need to do it your self. That is really scary to do, for anyone holding any power! You need honesty, self acceptance and love, love first for yourself, then for others.

[whollyheretic (deleted)]

`The difficulty with using the word ego is that it is generally so poorly defined. Cerulean describes ego as if it were similar to the Tonal, but the Tonal is an essential part of the totality of ourselves - it cannot be escaped.

I use the term self-importance, because its meaning is clear. Self-importance is central to the artificiality of modern relationships, and to the bizarre ---- for power over others - the kind of power that corrupts the spirit.

An aware person can observe and discipline their self-importance to the extent that genuine freedom becomes achievable.

[beautyinthedark (deleted)]

`Without prejudice it requires much more effort to feel good about ourselves. We actually have to look inward and "work" on improving who we are, to increase our sense of self/self worth, instead of the instant gratification that comes from blindly believing that our ethnicity {whatever it is} is what makes us a better person.

[cerulean (deleted)]

`Maybe if someone could define Tonal, we could establish connection between Ego and Tonal. To me Tonal is connected to the self essence which is also connected to the Totem animal?
Can someone explain more please? I could be wrong, I am just thinking aloud here.
Ego is born in the reptilian brain of a developping child and interwinds in to the mamalian brain through development of cognitive processed. We all have reptilian brains (spinal cord, brain stem). In fact all our communication between cerebral cortex (Thinking, contiousness) and the rest of the body has to go through the reptilian brain.
And this is where the beauty of spirit and spiritual development profoundly shines. With spiritual development and strengthening the link with Tonal, the instinctive functioning of the lower brain regions can be controlled to serve the being. Not the other way round.
Have I confused anyone yet? .....I think Im begining to go into a spiritual mumble mode....

[sunisgreen]

`I don't like plugged-up toilets, I don't like fake movies, I don't like walking around naked, I don't like stink dogs-I especially don't like poodles, I don't like emply refridgerators-I wonder ? if I don't like people who look like refridgerators, I don't like snow, I don't like dirty shorts...I'm sure there's a lot more things, I don't like..takes to much energy and effort to think like dumb people.

[whollyheretic (deleted)]

I cannot speak to a connection between tonal and totem ; animal totem has not made sense to me, so the concept sits idle in my understanding of the world.

Much confusion arises because we do not have consistent definitions of various words used to describe the spiritual and abstract. So persons using the same words are often talking at cross-purposes because neither can get an accurate sense of the other’s meaning.

The term Ego originated in Freud’s theoretical deconstruction of the human self into ego, id and superego. It is thought to be that part of the psyche which experiences the external world, or reality, through the senses, organizes the thought processes rationally, and governs action.

Considering that western attempts to understand the self have not produced any particularly satisfying sense of identity and purpose for us, nor an effective method of engineering personality and behaviour, I have concluded that better answers must lie elsewhere.

The tonal is similar to the concept of ego, but differs in that it encompasses all of the thinkable parts of ourself. Thus it includes what is thought of as ego, id and superego. The tonal is everything we know about ourselves and our world. It organises our perceptions into a coherent stream so that we have a sense of continuity, and it censors any perceptions that contradict the familiar way of seeing things.

Metaphorically, the tonal could be described as the furniture of the self. Learned, fixed, predictable. As distinct from the unthinkable aspect of the self from which creativity and innovation can emerge. Fluid, mysterious, capable of impossibilities, the beauty and awesomeness of the spirit - the nagual.

Given that the tonal is the familiar, thinkable part of ourselves, the link we groom and strengthen is with the elusive and mysterious part of ourselves, which one might call the nagual.

Yes, changes of biochemistry and brain structure can be shown to affect consciousness, but too much is made of that.
I reckon that the reverse is true, and more interestingly so. The influence of awareness over our embodiment is not accepted within so-called scientific circles because science was hijacked by the materialist belief system which complacently assumes anything that cannot be measured does not exist. A sham that provoked me to name my wolfette Schience. Like a dog, science gets lots of detail but misses the big picture.

So. Getting back to prejudice, we find it institutionalised in the Tonal/ego, in opinions and habits of perception that disregard anything that does not fit.

The safe and reliable method of grooming our link with spirit is to monitor and discipline the seemingly-natural tendency towards self-importance. With that in check, our mind is not pre-empting perception of Great Mystery by filling the consciousness with self-centred trivialities.

And with self-importance silenced, we can become aware of realities that contradict the humdrum opinion, and thereby go beyond . . . prejudice.

[itsallgoodinaz (deleted)]

`I see a general prejudice toward people who leave below a certain financial level. In that, they are the ones who must bear a larger share of "cuts" to bring back a financial arena that was made up by people who caused financial havoc in the first place. The ones who caused havoc are even commended and handed more cuts in the name of restoring the financial prosperity of the financial world in america. The prejudice even goes so far as to blame, or give faces, to who needs to be cut and not offered the american material dream. By using fear and prejudice in general america seeks to maintain control over what it cannot control, which a huge shift in the population dynamics and eventually imagined power.

[itsallgoodinaz (deleted)]

`I see a general prejudice toward people who leave below a certain financial level. In that, they are the ones who must bear a larger share of "cuts" to bring back a financial arena that was made up by people who caused financial havoc in the first place. The ones who caused havoc are even commended and handed more cuts in the name of restoring the financial prosperity of the financial world in america. The prejudice even goes so far as to blame, or give faces, to who needs to be cut and not offered the american material dream. By using fear and prejudice in general america seeks to maintain control over what it cannot control, which a huge shift in the population dynamics and eventually imagined power.

[whollyheretic (deleted)]

`I know this prejudice.
It is a hallmark of those whose sense of identity is based on comparison.
So much easier to do than hunting Spirit from out of the nonsense.
Discovering real identity is not for them.

[cmncents]

`To go beyond. To hunt the " Spirit from out of the nonsense" and discover the truth and ones real identity is a task that is perhaps too difficult for the masses who may struggle to just get through the day.
I believe that Prejudice is the monster that dwells within each of us and lies in wait just outside ones definition of the world and definition of self. Waiting to pounce on anything that may disrupt our precious dream. Those definitions seem 'normal' and right to us even if it is not truth.
Rejecting new information about our world becomes a knee jerk response to this well trained monster. Isn't our thinking much like the river, always taking the path of least resistance.
Without constant awareness and great effort one would find it difficult to consciously stop our natural flow and challenge our own personal understandings of the world, our perceptions of self and what is the our truth in order to avoid prejudice. One would be required to filter out the nonsense, or most importantly, be able to recognize the truth when you see it. It would be nice to be able to go, at will, beyond our own personal definition of who we are. Unfortuanately who we believe ourselves to be is reinforced by a society with great influences and even greater benefits in keeping us "defined". I am not certian that most can maintain that level of alertness, awareness and dicipline in order to change or go beyond their basic perceptions and find the truth. Just a thought.

[multisport (deleted)]

`In simplicity Rodney King said, "Can we all get along"? After he endured one of the most horrible beatings caught on video tape that the World saw on television. Dr. Martin Luther King said, "I have a Dream" ...............

[whollyheretic (deleted)]

`Monsters can be killed.
The path of least resistance guarantees an unfortunate destination.
Awareness is our essential attribute - the only thing we can reasonably hope to take beyond the death of embodiment. We nod off at our peril when monsters are hunting.
Society is no friend of truth and freedom.
Only by maintaining a romance with truth can we find the courage and determination to battle all that opposes our discovering and living from the totality of ourself.
Difficult, yes. Impossible - we each get to decide on that, either purposefully or by default.