Peter’s quote on the front page of the AFT was last night’s contemplation.
Peter:
“• ‘Unless one is willing to contemplate being happy and being harmless, virtually free of malice and sorrow, 99% of the time – then forget the whole business. (…) If someone is not willing to make that level of ‘self’-sacrifice then any interest in Actual Freedom would remain a purely cerebral exercise – a useless ‘self’-deception …’. [emphasis added].”
I made some notes about it, as a way to parse something I would normally have glossed over.
(The following questions are me asking myself, not specifically questions for the forum)
What is ‘self’ sacrifice in terms of Peter’s quote?
Is being happy and harmless for the rest of one’s life ‘self’ sacrifice?
It sounds selfish. Yet here, from Peter, truly dedicating ‘myself’ to being happy and harmless is ‘self’ sacrifice!
How can that be?
I considered what had struck my yesterday about naivete being usurped by puberty. That is, ‘I’ did it to ‘myself’ in the normal progression of becoming ‘me’.
So it starts to click. Why am ‘I’ not already naturally happy and harmless?
It’s not ‘my’ natural state. ‘I’ am in the way of it.
Ok, so it is ‘I’ who must, at the very least, change radically!
Clear on this point.
Why is it a sacrifice? Considering ‘I’ am the primary beneficiary?
This is the part, specifically the word which has been unexamined by myself.
‘my’ conditioning, et al. has that word filed next to Jesus. To literally physically dying. To old testament sacrifices of bulls, and sheep, and grains and wines spilt on an alter.
More personally, of normal sacrifices that someone trying to be a good parent, partner, everyday citizen may make for the good of others.
That last one is I suspect closer to the sacrifice being described.
There will be no goats, bulls, chickens harmed, and the wine will not be poured on the ground!!
Yet is still strikes me as a strange word. (Again, these are internal questions I have been asking, not specifically questions for the forum)
I can however see that ‘I’ must willingly give up my ‘right’ to;
Anger. Including ‘justified’ anger.
Sadness. Including my ‘right’ to sympathy.
Licentiousness. Including my ‘right’ to "do whatever ‘I’ want. (In terms of harmless living)
However, this ‘self’ sacrifice obviously can’t have the feeling of sacrifice, as the method and goal are a feeling of being happy and harmless!
Here in lies a key for me to consider. Functionally and practically, and in the literal sense, ‘I’ am “sacrificing” ‘myself’. In the experiential sense, in the ‘real’ world of my ‘own’ making, ‘I’ am rather having a progressively great time.