Really fitting blog post I found.

I’m very far from being atheist, but I don’t need to adopt a concept or the concept of God, I want to imagine it, and make it mine, so to speak. I want to think critically on the nonduality of atman and brahman. But is it just thought? It is not in words, in thoughts, it is also in the body, or it is in the body only. Can I reason with my body? What is it? The answer is always it is what it is. Not this not that. Well, that’s my spiritual bypass for the day.

In fact for me personally it was the greatest intellectual bypass.

Stupendous bypass!

Sirs... c'mon sirs

I am not saying for all of us, I just don't know. But if maybe it is for you, then it is kind of perfect.

Keep it up.

C. G. Jung

Excerpts from Nietzsche’s Zarathustra notes of the seminar given in 1934-1939.

27 May 1936

"Creative will is a term used by Nietzsche and he identifies entirely with it. Of course when one experiences it, it seems to be one's own will, yet as a matter of fact one is the exponent of it, its representative or implement. The creative will is utterly impersonal; therefore it so very often works against the vital interests of the individual. It may kill him or at least expose him to all sorts of risks and dangers, and may destroy not only one but several human lives: it is like a demon."

"When Nietzsche says: "So willeth it my creating Will, my fate," who can say that he is identical with his fate?

One can speak of amor fati in the sense of accepting it—since it is so, what can one do? One accepts it and calls it one's fate. But to say one's fate is one's own creation, is hybris; that is an inflation because it is not true.

In order to be able to choose your own fate, you must be able to understand it, to hold it, but you can't; you don't know what the ultimate constituents of your fate may be. You are not God and you are not a super-consciousness that contains all the necessary elements to explain your fate. With our conscious mind, we only know the smallest part of the elements that make up fate, so we cannot identify with it.

If we know enough, if we have enough self-critique, we can only accept it. And that acceptance means in religious language, I submit to the will of God and his incomprehensible decisions. But that is not identifying, that is submitting, and Nietzsche does not submit, he identifies."

"If Nietzsche had lived at a time between the 15th and 18th centuries, I would say that he most certainly would have been an alchemistic philosopher. For to him the official dogma, the official transmutation accomplished in the Mass for instance, the transubstantiation which is of course the alchemistic mystery par excellence, did not hold truth, did not hold life. Otherwise he would have been a perfectly contented Catholic; he would not have worried. But that meant nothing to him; he came to the conclusion that the church didn't give him the spiritual life which he really expected or needed, so he would quite naturally seek something that would produce life."

"You find that unconscious component of your nature projected either in another human being or in a thing or in a system. And you find it just there where you feel it. The alchemists felt it in matter, and the whole purpose of their philosophy was to find out the technique, one could say, or those methods by which they could extract the spirit they no longer possessed and which was not granted them by the church.

They felt that the church spoke a great deal about spirit and performed rites similar to their own by which the transubstantiation should take place, yet nothing came of it. They did not feel redeemed, and so they went in for their peculiar practices."

"The mystery always begins in our inferior function, that is the place where new life, regeneration, is to be found. For we cannot finish perfect bodies, as the ancients say, we must work on imperfect bodies because only what is imperfect can be brought to perfection; a perfect thing can only be corrupted. This is perfectly obvious, so it cannot be done with the superior differentiated function.

A very good, well-trained mind is the sterile field where nothing grows because it is finished. So you must take that which is most repressed by the mind, the feeling.

And there you find the original chaos, a disorderly heap of possibilities which are not worked upon yet and which ought to be brought together through a peculiar kind of handling.

We say psychologically that the inferior function, in this case the feeling, is contaminated with the collective unconscious; therefore it is disseminated all over the field of the collective unconscious and therefore it is mythological."

"No decent individual would have anything to do with an inferior function because it is stupid nonsense, immoral—it is everything bad under the sun. Yet it is the only thing that contains life, the only thing that contains also the fun of living. A differentiated function is no longer vital, you know what you can do with it and it bores you, it no longer yields the spark of life.

So a moment comes when people get sick of whatever they do and throw everything out of the window. Of course they are called the damnedest fools for they are just the people who have had a great success in the world, and then they disappear, take to the wood life as they do in India, and there they live in an entirely different style. They live in their inferior function because that contains the life. So you see the new experience naturally appears from the side where there was dark chaos before, such a chaos that we prefer to know nothing of it; if we have ever encountered it we have tried not to see it.

Usually, as long as things are in a normal condition, this side remains invisible, and one never should imagine that one is up against such a problem when one is not; this is a thing which cannot be aped—one should not try to imitate or feel into it when one is not there. If one is there, one knows it; one does not need to ask. If not, one had better not dabble in things which are most dangerous and poisonous."

"Dreams are chapters; if you put down your dreams carefully from night to night and understand them, you can see that they are chapters of a long text."

"With insane people where the conscious is absolutely unable to accept what the unconscious produces, and in that case the unconscious process simply makes a circle, as an animal has its usual way where it always circulates; deer or hares or any other wild animals move like that when they are pasturing. And that is so with us inasmuch as the conscious is divorced from the unconscious. But the moment the conscious peeps into the unconscious and the line of communication is established between the two spheres of life, the unconscious no longer moves in mere circles, but in a spiral. It moves in a circle till the moment when it would join the former tracks again, and then it finds itself a bit above."

"Historical events usually develop as nobody has foreseen; something always comes along which nobody foresaw, because we think in straight lines, by certain rules. Now we are moving in that direction and will arrive in such-and-such a place at such-and-such a time. But that is all wrong, because life moves like a serpent in an irrational way; always when you go to the left, soon you will go to the right, and when you say Yea you will soon say Nay. It is irrational, but it is so nevertheless."

"The drama of Zarathustra, is really that he cannot accept the shadow, cannot accept the ugliest man, and so loses the connection with the body altogether. And that is surely in his case due to his early Protestant education which did not help him to accept the animal; he was really ashamed of his lower man and could not integrate him.

You see, this shame or feeling of awkwardness which he experiences in the presence of sufferers is of course very exaggerated. It is a typical sort of hysterical exaggeration, but it makes it clear that he simply cannot stand seeing that inferior man, cannot stand the sight of his own inferiority."

"Be enjoyable and then you will enjoy yourself. You cannot enjoy yourself if you are not enjoyable. People think they should enjoy something but the thing itself does not produce pleasure or pain; it is indifferent, it only matters how you take it. For instance, if there is a very excellent wine and you don't like wine, how does it help you? You must be able to enjoy it."

"In his case it is very clear; without feeling and sensation how can he enjoy his life, his world, or anybody else? You need a pretty decent kind of feeling to be able to enjoy a thing. You see, it must come to you, enjoyment is something that comes really by the grace of God, and if you are not naive, if you are not simple like a primitive in your inferior function, you cannot enjoy, that is perfectly obvious."

"The more you accept your undifferentiated functions, the more you are likely to be able to enjoy something; to enjoy with the freshness of the child is the best joy, and it is something exceedingly simple. If you are sophisticated you cannot really enjoy, it is not naive, but is at the expense of somebody else; you enjoy it, for instance, when somebody falls into a trap you have laid, but somebody pays for your pleasure; that is what I would call a sophisticated pleasure. Die schönste Freude ist die Schadenfreude is a German statement—enjoying that somebody else has fallen into a hole which you have prepared. But a real enjoyment is not at the expense of anybody; it lives by itself, and this is only to be had by simplicity and modesty, if you are satisfied with what you have to provide.

And you get it naturally from the inferior functions because they contain life, while the upper functions are so extracted and distilled already that they can only imitate a sort of enjoyment inasmuch as it is at the expense of somebody else—somebody else has to step in and pay for it."

And when we learn better to enjoy ourselves, then do we unlearn best to give pain unto others, and to contrive pain. — F. Nietzsche, TSZ

"It is perfectly true that we really do enjoy ourselves too little and therefore take a particular pleasure in torturing other people. For instance, children who are cruel to animals or to their fellows are always children who are tortured at home by the parents; and the parents torture them because they themselves are tortured, either by themselves or the grandparents. If the grandparents are dead the parents continue their bad education and torture themselves: they think it is their duty, to do something disagreeable to themselves is their idea of morality. And inasmuch as they have such barbarous beliefs they pass on to their children that unnatural cruelty, and then the child tortures animals or nurses or fellow beings.

People always hand on what they get, so what children do is a sort of indicator of what parents do to the children. Of course it is all done unconsciously."

Excerpts from Nietzsche’s Zarathustra notes of the seminar given in 1934-1939.

4 December 1935

"When the creator is alone, the first thing he meets is of course his unconscious, that is the companion of every solitude.

In a man's case, the unconscious has a feminine quality, personified in the form of what we call the "anima," and in a woman's case it takes the masculine form, the "animus." That is the reason why people don't like being alone with themselves, it is disagreeable."

"When a man is alone with himself he will be assailed with all sorts of queer feelings and ideas which his anima produces, and the animus does the same thing to a woman. And one is singularly defenceless against such attacks."

"The rule is that a man dreams of an old anima when he is too young in his own consciousness."

"If a man realizes the animus of his anima, then the animus is a substitute for the old wise man. You see, his ego is in relation to the unconscious, and the unconscious is personified by a female figure, the anima. But in the unconscious is also a masculine figure, the wise old man. And that figure is in connection with the anima as her animus, because she is a woman. So, one could say the wise old man was in exactly the same position as the animus to a woman.

Now, it may be that the conscious man and the anima are identical; if a man is anima possessed, for instance, he is instantly transformed into a woman. And so inasmuch as the woman is possessed by the animus she becomes naturally a male, but when a man is possessed by his anima, that masculine figure which belongs to the anima is transformed into an animus. A man possessed by his emotions is possessed by his anima, and when he thinks through his emotions it is just as if he were a woman; he talks exactly like a woman and will produce the same animus stuff."

"When a woman has a mood it is because she first has an animus idea or an opinion which naturally suggests a certain emotion, while with a man it works in just the reverse way: first he has a mood and then he has an opinion."

"The idea of the Christian soul has nothing to do with the anima concept. The Christian soul is understood to be the inner­ most thing, and it is said to be immortal, the part of one that survives, and so on.

The soul can be anything which is covered by the unconscious. While the anima is a specific, empirical concept, it is more like the primitive idea of a soul. The primitives believe that there are several souls, sometimes as many as six. That simply means that it is a psychical complex which is detachable or relatively autonomous—an archetypal constituent—and it is more personal than the Christian idea of the soul, which means completeness, totality, the essence of man.

But that is not empirical, but metaphysical and dogmatic; while in the anima concept we have very definite empirical qualities which we can substantiate by evidence."

"Man always projects his anima when talking to a woman because that is the only way he can reach her; he cannot touch a woman without the anima in between because that is the very system by which he must contact woman. If there is no anima, there is absolutely no contact, no bridge, and inasmuch as his anima is Maya, illusion, the relation between the sexes is illusion. And a woman simply cannot understand a man without the help of the animus, because the man in her enables her to understand the man outside; the less that system plays a role, the less she meets the real man. This only proves how difficult it is to establish a real relation between the sexes."

"It is perfectly true that a man understands nothing of a woman; that every woman is a riddle is the best notion he can start with."

Man is for woman, a means: the purpose is always the child. But what is woman for man? Two different things wanteth the true man: danger and diversion. Therefore wanteth he woman, as the most dangerous plaything. — F. Nietzsche, TSZ

"This is very clearly the standpoint of a man who is enveloped in his anima; he talks from her point of view only. When he contacts the real woman, immediately his anima is in between; he is behind her smoke screen and sees nothing of the real woman. He hears a voice on the other side of that cloud, but he doesn't understand it—it is all a riddle."

"As there are such women, and since the anima is the deposit of the age-old experience of man with woman, one can say there is truth in this statement—one can say that obviously the majority of women have told men they wanted to have a child; therefore, he has naturally come to the idea that he is merely a means to the end, and everything else is non—existent."

"If Nietzsche were speaking more psychologically he would say a woman's Eros is purposeful while a man's Eros is playful."

"Only an idle man who is possessed by the anima will talk for the sake of talking. But for the woman that is perfectly legitimate, because it is the additional charm in any kind of relationship that she can say what she has to say; if a man does not give that chance to a woman, naturally she feels curtailed, maimed, and the relationship suffers."

"When wooing and lovemaking have led up to the culmination, a man walks away because his circle is thus completed: he has had what he wanted. But for a woman it is the beginning, not the end, and that is what a man does not understand."

"Just as a man's mind is not there for what he calls empty talk—just as he means that something should be produced—so a woman means that something should be produced out of relatedness. It is not done in order to have done with it, but in order to bring something about—it may be to breed a child or anything else, but something must come of it."

"When a woman understands that what she says has consequences, she withdraws, she grows cold; the more serious things become, the more she is afraid of talking: she has seen that people draw conclusions."

Man shall be trained for war, and woman for the recreation of the warrior: all else is folly. — F. Nietzsche, TSZ

"Yes! This is true anima stuff."

Up then, ye women, and discover the child in man! — F. Nietzsche, TSZ

"Zarathustra is quite wrong to admonish women to get up and discover the child in man—woman sees it only too well; he rather should admonish them to be a bit more tolerant and more understanding with that child."

"A man is possessed by the anima on account of the fact that his mind does not offer an opportunity to his unconscious. He has no vessel, no form, into which to receive its contents."

"A man ought to take his mind seriously and to provide the necessary vase in which to receive those contents of his unconscious."

"A man's brutality is always roused by the animus of a woman, but she needs and wants it; her unconscious cannot come to itself if she is not manhandled in a way; that is the reason why the animus drives a man quite mad."

Man's soul, however, is deep, its current gusheth in subterranean caverns: . . . — F. Nietzsche, TSZ

"Yes, that is the mistake a man always makes; he sees a woman as his anima, the foam tossed to and fro on shallow water; but he feels no certainty because there is something behind his anima that has depths. When he projects his anima, he naturally only touches an illusory surface of the woman and does not see that a woman's purpose is at least as deep as his own."

woman surmiseth its force, but comprehendeth it not.— — F. Nietzsche, TSZ

"The anima always tries to convince a man of his extraordinary depths and what a hell of a fellow he is, in order to envelop or entangle him in as many foolish love affairs as she possibly can—the more the better. You see, since he is such a man of power and God knows what, he naturally assumes that he is a sort of savior to all sorts of women, and the more he gets entangled, the more the anima has free play. So he can never establish a real relation to a woman; he never can make roots in the world."

"She keeps him going but in a state of complete unreality. And when the anima has that quality, she forms such a thick cloud round a man's consciousness that he cannot individuate. He is entangled in his own superstitious ideas about himself and cannot pierce the cloud of illusion, so he doesn't touch reality at all. He remains unborn—doesn't come out into the world, really, to see the light of day.

He is always chasing butterflies and doesn't see that he is chasing round in his own cage. It is better that a man doesn't think that a woman has divined his power, because there is nothing to be divined; he is an ordinary human being and it is much better that he considers his power very limited. Surely, women don't understand men in certain respects—as men don't understand women—because they don't take the necessary trouble to do so, and that is of course tragic."

"If a man could only understand the difference between himself and his anima, he would understand himself; then he would know what a man is and then he would know by instinct what a woman is."

"And inasmuch as a woman does not know herself—and if she thinks through her animus she certainly does not know herself—she will never know a man, will be forever bewildered. Naturally she will project her opinion upon a man: he ought to be this and that."

"A man thinks the difficulty is that he doesn't understand the woman; no, he doesn't understand himself."

"Naturally a man, being human, tries to find that woman whom he can accuse of spoiling nature and being the cause of all evil, for then he knows where the devil is. That woman is the devil incarnate has been an organized truth for two thousand years; man invented the wonderful story that the serpent in Paradise was the woman and that she was influenced by the devil, the two being pretty much the same."

The way he tells Neo to make a choice makes me think he was a program. The architect explains how choice is what keeps the illusion going, so it would make sense not to rely on a human factor, although he might have been conditioned. I might be overthinking it, but the way he announces it ‘it is time to make a choice’, feels scripted.

A monk does not climb the mountain to escape everyone, he climbs to be with everyone by first being with oneself. One cannot be with everyone if one is everyone.

If one is with everyone but everyone is not with the one, because they cannot be with themselves, that is their condition.

Krishnamurti felt it, he felt being with everyone, and he felt everyone being only with everyone, but if he could be with everyone, maybe there was a path. For Krishnamurti that path was self-inquiry.

Ironically the path was not to gather into large groups and listen to one man talking, or pestering him with questions.

The path is the practice of solitude, not absolute solitude, but the practice of it. Simple as that. And not trying to explain it.

Many of us are self-isolating, but for wrong reasons. We say that it works for us, but the reasons are repressed, we're not aware of those reasons. They are the avoidance of pain, pain of criticism, pain of not fitting in, pain of abandonment, pain of abuse, pain of not meeting our desires. And on top of it all the fear of pain itself, and even fear of fear of pain.

When we talk about fear of death we imagine the pain of losing everything, feelings, emotions, pleasures, dreams, attachments, that fear has to be confronted before we can begin to live with everyone. Until then we're everyone, and everyone is competing with everyone, that is what it means to be everyone.

Of course after walking in minimalist shoes (in my case vivobarefoot) on tarmac and then jumping into my allbirds I feel like I'm walking on clouds. But I ask myself, am I confusing my brain and my feet, giving it some kind of novelty effect... 'now it's soft now it's hard now it's soft again'...

And also am I fooling myself that this feeling of comfort has benefit to it other than the feeling of comfort itself.

With that said I run on tarmac so I can't replace my asics gel cumulus. But those are short bursts and I still feel impact when running.