Process is not capable Basically the "Process" in place is not capable of meeting the
"Expectations", and despite "lip service" to the contrary,
management (due to their over-attachment to short term results) is unwilling to
invest what is required in order to develop a healthy, sustainable process that
is
capable of achieving the expected results.
Tampering with the Process The process keeps getting short-circuited, bypassed, tampered with, and cut
in order to try and meet external results (measured in $$$ from customer for
contracted deliverables). The problem is that management does not realize that
the Ends (Schedule/Cost/Quality) and the Means (Process Capability) are the
same. So thinking that the "ends justify the means", they employ a
"whatever it takes" mentality (negative motivation, heroics,
dysfunctional relating based on fear, intimidation, etc..) in order to meet the
Schedule/Cost/Quality requirements. This "attachment to results", is
the cause of not making the necessary investment in the Process to help it
mature into a process capable of sustainably producing the desired result.
The process that does survive mutates into an unkind, unhealthy,
unsustainable process that burns people out for the short term profit of others,
and ultimately shortens their lives.
Poor Maintenance This is analogous to getting greater than rated output from a machine by
running it at or past its redline speed all the time without doing any
maintenance on it. Eventually it breaks down. With a machine it is obvious that
the operator was negligent by overstressing the machinery and not performing
preventative maintenance. With people things are not so obvious, but the
resulting process breakdown is seen in the form of: Burnout, Turnover rate,
health problems of workers, absenteeism, poor morale, and eventually schedule
slippage and cost overruns.
Short Sightedness & Crisis Management Lack of a realistic schedule. Attachment to Results leads to over-promising
(promising more than your process can deliver) in order to "get the
contract". Schedule is re-written with each missed milestone, resulting in
very short sighted view of tasks, assignments, and process, as if the ends
justified the means. Leads to using strictly short term motivational techniques.
Being in constant Firefighting mode requires the heroics of a select number of
"Star Programmers" with the resulting cliques, favoritism and lack of
teamwork which results.
Lack of Training and Investment Lack of an adequate training budget due to management philosophy which sees
investment in the "Process" as a negative cost factor which is to be
reduced as much as possible in order to effect maximum profit (results) to the
parent company.
Misplaced Priorities Putting Technical know-how ahead of People know-how.
When Star Programmers are rewarded for their heroism, competitiveness, and
"know-it-all" development style by giving them a team to lead, they
invariably try to run the team by these same unkind values with the resulting
lack of synergy, and this dysfunctional style of management is perpetuated.
The ultimate results of "attachment to results" are two fold and
karmic. Cash profits for the company and its stockholders, salaries (economic
survival/bondage) for the workers on the one hand, and misery for the rest of
society in the form of social displacement, pollution, health and mental
problems, violence, dysfunctional families, etc....
=====================
A.M.,
Thank your for sharing ....
To me, the hardest part about acting is releasing attachment to the results. It is in the "attachment"
that the paralyzing fear comes into play,
and where we make "suggestions" of failure to ourselves.
I am continually being "tested" (K14) in my life in terms of
"attachment".
Some of my ACTIVE MEDITATIONS for the moment are:
-My sick (former) girlfriend who has a brain tumor, and my struggles to find the proper balance
between being a good friend to her and giving her support, Vs. allowing her needs to drive my life
in a direction that would not be wise. And all of this is on top of the ever-presence of sickness,
suffering, and possible/probable death.
-My job, which is lucrative at the moment, but which takes me away from my friends and family. I
can literally feel myself getting old, for I
"sense" that I am trading my dreams and values for "want of ease".
-My own spiritual aspirations, being choked by so many competing wants, desires, and responsibilities.
In all of these and MORE, I can feel that I am being tested as to:
"What are you attached to? What do you Want? What's really F&*king Important, man!? (K6?)
Yet in all of this, Advice is the LAST thing I want. I want merely to share some of my discoveries
with those who can appreciate it. Book smarts are fine, and it is a fine thing to share some sacred
writing, or illuminating quote, but to me, if you took all of these fine things and wrapped them all
together, they would not compare with one discernment gleaned from the harvesting fields of everyday life.
When you can face the adversary, and truly SEE the Face of the Beloved (divine principle) behind
the mask (be it repulsive or attractive), then I want to talk to you, for you're someone I can learn from!
That's what would really work for me - to share when/where/how we've been able to SEE the Face of the Beloved.
It's these types of real, personal Life "discernments" (K6) which
are Key to me. It's where we learn how to "Walk" the talk.
Like the discriminating light from the Hermit's lantern, we can help each other along the way, by
shining our lights - by sharing our own distinctions, and discernments along the path of life.
JC
============
NJ. writes:
I tortured my self for many years with identification with every "bad"
attachment I was expressing--ignoring the so-called "good" ones. How depraved i felt, admiring and longing to touch
the beautiful feminine shapes that flowed before my vision. Little wonder a "sexual revolution"
came
to be with that nonsense. Keep on keeping on, you all. NJ.
=====
One way to deal with this is to sublimate. I now get all the exposure to naked women that I could
possibly want.....by being an (amateur) artist and drawing from live models. Thus the image of the
nude female form goes from stimulating the lower centers (for procreation) to
stimulating the higher centers where one works to translate the image in one's mind into
a manifestation of charcoal upon paper. The "image" still stimulates
the desire to create, but the "form" of creation that I work towards is
now more refined - and beauty is the result.
JC
(stiff charcoal stick)
==============================
NJ. writes:
JC, i can't quite see how transferring a visual image onto paper
with charcoal is stimulating the "higher centers."
"I'm gettin all choked up, man", said the skeleton. "Venus is
higher up my spine than Mars"
K13 (Death) shows a change in direction from one type of creating to another. I wouldn't call one
type of creating any better than the other, I would call them complementary. The task, it seems, is
to put Mars under the control of Venus, instead of the other way around, which is the natural
state for most folks.
Not repression, but Sublimation (K8).
The Woman tames the Lion through Love, and it is the Magician who feeds the Woman the Images which bring the sublimation about.
J C
(making more noise than two skeletons F*cking on a tin roof)
=========
Concentration upon this effort would shift attention from sexual stimulus--"the lower
centers' It's interesting that we call them "lower"--the center
in Life's primal push in furthering Its evolutionary plan. It is also the center in man that allows us to more closely approach real union with
another. My problem was in ignoring my spiritual appreciation of their beauty and feeling "dirty," from my
Christian upbringing, about
the stimulation of my lower centers. Mind enjoying its function as an erotic
center. Good on you for your sublimation, though, which is simply a change of attention
focus. Art suppliers should call their stores
"sublimation supply centers? Don't think it would sell, though. NJ.
=======================
NJ,
you wrote:
Most students believe that their concern about the results/Karma of their actions is intensified,
rather than diminished, especially at the very idealistic beginning of the path. But most, in
retrospection, see that they ARE beginning to be more detached, but often not understanding why.
Explore--bright ones. How and why does this happen? NJ.
I think "detachment" happens naturally with age, just because
you've lived long enough to see, experience, and understand the "cycles" of things.
So the more attention one pays to noticing "cycles" and
"patterns", the more they are going to understand the fact they they're just a cog in
the great wheel of life. So what's a little cog to do in the face of birth, growth,
wealth, power, pride, anger, pain, decay, failure, suffering, death, and re-birth back into it all over again?
You can't hold on to try and stop the wheel from turning, if you do, you'll just get crushed. Now,
getting "crushed" can be a valuable learning experience too, for it tells us that the wheel ain't gonna stop for us!
Instead you just gotta try and move skillfully WITH the turnings (which takes discrimination,
knowing when to zig, and when to zag). About all you can do is to try and move closer to the
center of the wheel, eventually becoming ONE with the drive train (the One Will). Of course K10
shows the Sphinx sitting "on top" of the wheel, so I'm not sure how this
symbolism matches up. I'll review the symbolism for some more insight.
JC
==================
I would like to further annotate my remarks in light of some additional insight:
We also have to have some imagination in order to be able to use our ingenuity to look for the
"Face of the Beloved" behind the mask of appearances. This practice and the use of memory and
devotion, helps us to contact our Intuition which helps us see the spiritual nature of all things
(including our desires). This changes our emotional reactions to events, situations, etc.. and thus
we are released from both attachment and repulsion. We thus purge our desires of attachment and
ignorance and relate it to those principles of universal law which give it cosmic, as well as
personal, significance
Action Without Attachment: Here's the theory anyway - burn your copper (via analysis of crude
desire into its constituent components), turn it white, (or into "our silver") as stated in the above
paragraph, and then turn it
again to redness (Act on it- thus making the tincture) and make visible coin (reap the result of realization-Gold).
The Key item here is that success in this endeavor, hinges on being able to contact the Inner
Teacher, from whom the critical spiritual intuitions come. Without the Inner Teacher, we can't
turn our blackened copper "white", meaning we can't rid it of attachment.
On the other hand, if we just get old and tired and don't care any more, that may help get rid of
the "attachment", but then we'd never have
the drive to turn it again to redness, and thus we would be unable to complete the transmutation.
JC
===========================
I wrote:
The Key item here is that success in this endeavor, hinges on being able to contact the Inner
Teacher, from whom the critical spiritual intuitions come. Without the Inner Teacher, we can't
turn our blackened copper "white", meaning we can't rid it of attachment.
======
NJ. wrote in response:
This is puzzling. As "we" are the project of the Inner Teacher, why do
so many question that constant contact with the Inner Teacher that leaves us "to do nothing of ourselves." The Ageless
Wisdom says "we"
are never without it. Contacting the Inner Teacher is about like contacting air outdoors. What one may want and recognize as a contact is not necessarily
related to the reality. NJ.
======
Well NJ., it all depends on which side of the Divine Paradox you're talking about. One side is the
"theoretical Truth", the other side is
my human experience. How about sharing with us on the list your experience of being able to recognize and Verify (K14) the "reality" of this
constant contact, and of you not being the doer (as opposed to the theory which I'm
sure we are all familiar with)? Share with us where you've seen "the face of the beloved" behind the mask? If this seeing was an
"intuitive" thing, then we are back to my original statement about establishing
"intuitive" contact, (or at least conscious awareness of the contact) are we not?
Or maybe you can't tell us, since it wasn't YOU doing it. :-)
Of course if that's the case, then it's also possible that I am even now, not doing anything of
myself, and that it is "The ONE" who is in fact writing this email to you now, questioning the your
presumptions about being able to exercise a certain level of awareness. Or more precisely the One
through vehicle1 (jc.) is questioning the One masked by vehicle2 (NJ.)
Oh shit, I just realized that even now, even in this email, God is playing peek-a-boo with himself!
But still, I think it would be half-wise of me to presume that these
"masks" are not real from my perspective. And that's my point, NJ. - The reason
we're not aware of the One Will's "constant contact" is because it's frickin "masked" (Synonyms: Tamas
Guna; Alchemical Salt; Inertia;
Embodiment; Binah; Principle of Darkness; Dark womb of manifestation;
SubConsciousness; Maya-Shakti; Whose Function is to suppress and veil consciousness)
THE ONE - acting through JC
(although jc's not aware of it yet)
