My meditation disciplines are going well. Lots of soul searching. Everyone seems to be doing interesting things for the summer like going to Ireland or to the East Coast. But no not me, I am chooseing to explore my inner world and my soul. This is the sucky part of undergoing meditation disciplines. It requires a great deal of introspection and it is a lot of work. So I was thinking that it would be nice if someone invented a search engine for the soul. The world needs an inner google so that we can quickly sift through our inner issues quickly and efficiently.
I got a call today from one of the owners of the agency and he wanted to know about my pay situation. I told him about it and about the letter I wrote and about how my problem was with the manager/owner and not the staffing consultant and how she told me she got pulled aside. I was glad to have them phone me back. I hope this manager gets in shit because that psycho deserves it. I filed a complaint with the government about their violation of the Employment Act so I basically don't care about the situation anymore. I got my money. I filed my complaints. I followed through on my letter that I sent to them.
I was reading my local paper this morning and was reading an article by a regular columnist. He ususally does humour type columns and he mentioned 2 of my passions; Steiner and improv. If I were paranoid and mentally unstable, I would probably think he was directing this article to me and speaking in code. It was a column about raising kids and how there are always these theories that get put out on how to raise your kids.
I finished reading this book on cults by Margaret Thaler Singer entitled Cults in our Midst. It talks about how they operate and some psychological tactics they use to get people involved. They are highly deceptive. Many people wonder how someone would get sucked in but this book explains how it is usually done. Usually cults are very nice to you and at first they do no coerce you. Eventually through their psychological tactics they make people dependent on them. They also recruit people with social status such as doctors and lawyers because if people see that intelligent people are apart of it, then it can't be that bad.
I began contemplating whether my interest in antroposophy could be considered cultish. I've contemplated this before I think it's important to review and critique the activities that you do in life. Many cults tend to register as a church so they can evade taxes. I don't think anthroposophy is recognized as a 'church'. I don't think during Steiner's time, there was that status. I don't think he really profited from all the lecturing he did. I wikkied Steiner and they seemed to have a good description of his work. It's a philosophy and he would state that you have to question and think. Many cults advocate no thinking but he clearly argues and discussing the necessity of thinking and devotes much thought to thinking about thinking, which is what Philosophy of Freedom deals with. He also discusses how an interest in spirituality should not get in the way of doing your earthly tasks. So if you have a job and children and friends, an interest in anthroposophy should not make you slack off in these areas.
There are some critiques mainly from people in the US about the Waldorf system and how they believe anthroposophy is being taught in the schools and is therefore a religion. (this is completely untrue. Anthroposophy is specifically not meant to be discussed to children.)It has to do with how certain schools got public funding. The situation is different up here in Canada so I can't really explain well but there is stuff on the net. This group of people had their own online group and I might have joined for 2 weeks but they were quite full of venom and hatred. They were distorting so much about the Waldorf system. I'm all for challenging and questioning ideas, especially anthroposophy but if you're going to act like your beliefs are so right and you're not willing to rethink some of your ideas and listen to other people's perspective, then we can't have a useful dialogue. I see very little point in discussing things with people like that because whatever their issue is, it is clearly an emotional issue and rational thought will do no good.
For me, I enjoy reading his lectures and books. It's pleasurable for me. I'm interested in spiritual ideas and he's not the only person I've read. In my youth I was interested in other religions. I just have a preference for his work. I will continue to explore my own spiritual nature and I guess that anthroposophy is just one piece of my spiritual toolkit. Anyways, I feel like I have to justify my interest but I really shouldn't. I am what I am, I do what I do and that's that!
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