Taking notice of the human condition is like being forced to watch the same water simmering, the bubbles rising and bursting one after another, everything staying the same despite all the drama; same old, same old, until it dries and dies out …
Keith.
Mystical Experiences of Reality 
Don’t get me started. Read Ecclesiastes. That is also very much a theme in Walden.
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Oh but I must get you ‘started’, Anthony. You prod me awake, for which I am always grateful. And maybe my hesitant intrusions might unstick you a bit, even?
I loved Ecclesiastes and urged it on my boys. I don’t think it did much good spiritually but who knows in such matters? However, there were signs it was at least useful navigable material in getting them through the dream of the ‘human condition’ to which they seemed so distractedly attached …
As for Walden, I gave each of the boys a leather bound bible instead. ‘Nuff said about Walden.
My eldest went so far as to ‘borrow’ my leather bound pocket version of the Christian New Testament. I’ve not got it back so who knows what magic it may have secretly laid to work its power? Mystics ‘get’ a great deal from the NT despite its human dross and error. However, Guyon and Molinos would give any reader a more accurate understanding of the Jesus concept.
As ever,
Keith.
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But, you need to “watch the same water simmering” for a while to really understand the truth of the human condition. All spiritual traditions say the same thing. The Tao and its “ten thousand things” for instance. You need to watch and witness it at first hand before you can truly understand and escape it. Ignore it, retreat into the silence.
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The message of mysticism is that there is no ‘human condition’, Anthony. The Tao is not about the ‘human condition’. Tao is about achieving Reality despite the ‘human’ condition, as my mystical experiences revealed …
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Indeed.
But your post advises against “Taking notice of the human condition”, therefore you must have some concept of what the human condition is. The human condition must exist if you are to take notice of it, or indeed to refuse to take notice of it.
Perhaps it would be more logical to say that the human condition is not relevant to the mystic rather than to deny that there is any such condition.
The Tao, inter alia, is about living in the now and going with the inevitable flow of the universe (as if we had any choice!). The Tao suggests ignoring the 10,000 things, which is very much what you are saying. The 10,000 things being what the human condition is all about. The noise, the fuss, the nonsense. The Tao does not deny that the human condition exists.
If there is no human condition or if you do not familiarize yourself with what that condition is then you can not awake to its lack of importance.
I am sorry to sound so pedantic, since we are in agreement and actually saying exactly the same thing, but if the human condition did not exist, you would not have been able to write a post entitled “The Human Condition”!
Apologies from an old and pedantic lawyer schooled in an absurd accuracy of language.
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PS lawyers love to argue. It is why they charge so much and are another perfect example of the fruitless nonsense of the “human condition”!
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Your ‘prods’, Anthony, enable me to go deeper than I otherwise might. So they’re welcome. Thank you. No apologies necessary. As you say, we agree anyway!
Best wishes, Keith.
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