Rules of Sitakaliism

Sitakaliism is the spirituality I created for myself when I was fourteen years old. After going through a phase of depression, and a bout of God-hatred, I managed to find myself in a series of young-adult fiction novels called The Last Vampire. I used the main character, Sita, as the main goddess in my eclectic pantheon. Kali is my favourite of all the gods in existing religions, hence the name Sitakaliism.

The main rule of Sitakaliism is as follows:

Nobody but me can be a Sitakaliist. This is simply to prevent others from blindly following someone else's beliefs. If someone's beliefs are similar to my own, that is fine, but they must come up with their own name for their spirituality.

Sitakaliism is split up into a more spiritual aspect, which involves the mystic gods and goddesses of my pantheon, and the more philosophical aspect, which I call Duality. It is not called Duality because I believe that everything in nature is polarized into good and bad; quite the opposite (not to polarize things or anything). Duality is based on the Taoist belief that nothing can exist without its opposite, and everything has a bit of its opposite in it (a visual representation is the yin-yang symbol). So, for example, all men have a feminine aspect to them, and women a masculine aspect. All cruel people have a bit if good in them, and all kind people have a bit of cruelty.

Some of my fundamental beliefs are:

1. "Do as thou wilt and harm none." This is the Golden Rule, different versions of which are found in virtually all of the world's religions. This simply means that you may do as you please, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody. But that's actually not simple at all. You must be careful, to prevent harm to others. This is different from the "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" belief (another version of the Golden Rule), because I do not believe everyone would be okay with the same things being done to them. If that doesn't make sense, here's an example:
Say that Martha is polyamorous by nature, and is in a relationship with Bob, who is monogamous. Martha goes by the "do unto others rule," therefore not seeing any problem with sleeping with another man, since she wouldn't mind if Bob did the same thing to her. But what will hurt Bob is different from what will hurt Martha. Martha needs to be sensitive to the fact that everything is relative, and people are different.

2. A connection with the spiritual involves a connection with the practical; the real. They are not separate. Therefore, you cannot go off into la-la land and be enlightened when you have done nothing for the people or other creatures of this earth. Some say that in order to help the world, first you must know yourself, or help yourself. This may be partially true, but don't take it too far. In order to truly know yourself, you must understand your relationship with the rest of humanity, and the rest of the planet. You must understand that simply looking out for your own interests hurts everyone, including - eventually - yourself. To say that you must help yourself first before helping anyone else, is like saying you must feed yourself before you can drink any water. You actually need both, at the same time.

3. No devils exist except here on Earth. The only hell that exists is the one we create for ourselves (and others). We must stop fearing the unknown when there are plenty of well-known things for us to fear already. Stop trying to save people's souls from some mystical hellfire if their souls are already being shattered by the world around them. Stop dismissing things as "evil," and come to the realization that evil is within human potential, not some abstract demon. Since it is within human potential, evil can be dealt with.

4. Cruelty and violence are not destroyed with cruelty and violence. Justice and revenge are never the same thing. You cannot fight fire with fire and expect to win. This concept angers a lot of people, and rightly so. How dare I suggest that someone who has suffered at the hands of another not seek retribution! However, what many do not understand is that I am not saying that a victim has no right to retaliate. It is possible for someone to have a right to something, and for that something to still not be the best idea. Yes, you can take the eye of the person who has blinded you, but I ask you, what does that really accomplish, besides some kind of shallow, temporary sense of closure? Sometimes it causes the victim psychological harm to retaliate.

Those who are angered by this accuse me of having never experienced true pain at the hands of another. Without fully disclosing my deepest secrets, let me say that that simply is not true, in any sense. Don't even try to dismiss me as someone who hasn't experienced hideous cruelty.

By the same token, war will never stop evil. It may weaken it, or slow it down, but ultimately war creates violence in the psyches of people who have already experienced enough for one lifetime. It perpetuates an ongoing cycle of cruelty that has existed since the Neolithic era.

My point is, don't preach empty things about how you have no right to harm a human being if they've harmed you. The most important thing is to the look at the consequences. This isn't about an individual's rights, it's about what will ultimately stop the perpetuation of violence in society as a whole.

5. Never dismiss your actions, or anyone else's, as "human nature." I have made this point several times before. Humans are naturally adaptive beings. It is in our nature to be able to adapt to a peaceful lifestyle, just has we have adapted over the years to violence. This isn't just something that has been seen throughout history; it is true on a biological and psychological level. Blaming "human nature" for our negative qualities just confirms that we are trapped; we cannot change. And that's simply not true.

If you wish to hold human nature responsible for positive qualities, on the other hand, go right ahead. That does no harm.

That's it for now; tune in for more later :)

Tell it like it is!

The people who will make a positive difference in this world are intuitive, innovative and care about this world. They do not dismiss compassion and optimism as "bleeding-heart idealism." They are aware of their faults; of their prejudices, hypocrisies, and fears. And they try very hard to be less hypocritical and prejudiced, while acknowledging that some of those faults will always exist.

The most important thing is to admit that we're human. Then we must step back and think about what it means to be human. It means we are capable of terrible horrors and great wonders; of infinite stupidity and astonishing brilliance; of hideous distruction and breathtaking beauty. Take into account that we make up the grey areas of every spectrum, and we will understand this: reality is not merely dualism, but also what is in between each pair of extremes. We can no longer simply label each other as "evil," "good," "patriotic," and "terrorists." Or we will lose sense of ourselves, and our kinship with each other.

And one last value, after that bout of incessant babbling: Brevity is the soul of wit.

A Love Song to Music

The Soul Speaks 2/6/06


I turn you on.
Sound roars in my ears.
You speak to me in waves,
You speak to me in vibrations.
You turn a switch in me
The floodgates open

Chorus:
I am riding on the wings of sound
The wind blows past me, tosses my hair
Moving through years of passion and sorrow
I breathe in memories through the air

Bridge:
You are not of this world
And I am not in this world
When you speak to me
I’m lost in thought, in time
I feel your heartbeat
You haunt me, you free me

(Chorus)

You are the language of life (2x)

The Human Experience (from my book, Voice of the Ages)

Ereshkigal is the protagonist for a book I'm writing. She's several thousand years old, from the Paleolithic Era.

The human experience is fluid, not static. We move through time like water flows through a river. Though many individuals may be stubborn and try to stick to "traditional ways of life" (whatever those may be), humans as a whole are highly adaptive. I have had to constantly change myself and my mind, as I adapted to my surroundings through the ages. I've had a few theories, learned several things, many of which I've had to rethink and relearn after a while. This adaptive behavior is sometimes known as being "open-minded." An individual sho is capable of living for centuries must be open-minded in order to survive.

One might expect me, a creature from a more "primative" era, to be somewhat of a primitivist, in the sense that human beings must return to their primative, tribal roots, no matter what the cost.While I agree that the society in which I was born had many advantages, I do not believe we can replicate that society completely. I think the steps we would have to take as a global community to create such a "primative" society would, at least initially, cause more human suffering, not less.

If the purpose is to simply reduce our impact on the environment by suddenly and dramatically reducing our population, then the means we use to get to that end are highly counter-productive. For, even in smaller numbers, it is dangerous to have a society that believes it does not hurt the environment to hurt other human beings. And the way to choose which human beings live and which ones die would likely result in having a higher concentration of wealth, and erradicating the poor.

This would amplify our problem, as opposed to erasing it. Contrary to what some believe, the wealthy are not the most adaptive individuals of our race; many are some of the most self-destructive, disconnected people in the world. To manipulate the world so that you get everything you want is a highly destructive form of cultural evolution, that has resulted in the very resource shortages that have threatened our species.

A common misconception among people, including some scientists, is that evolution means bettering yourself, or becoming more enlightened. In truth, evolution is simply change through adaptation. It is neither good nor bad; just change. The "me for myself" philosophy may have once been an adaptive reaction that people used to survive hard times. Its continuation, however, in a resource-rich world where the wealthy grow wealthier and the poor become more destitute, is no longer an adaptation so much as a habit, or cycle.

Ode to Humanity

This race, which creates such beautiful music, such beautiful dreams, that ponders such deep philosophies, that colors the world with such magnificent cultures, such radiant spiritual insight; and this race, that destroys itself, inflicts such devastation and chaos, that hates with such passionate rage; the love that I feel for this race cannot be surpassed by any other love.

I see that soon is the turning point for this race; soon is the destruction of the old and the creation of the new; soon is the coming revolution and the end of Kali Yuga, the dark age. Soon this race will have to face its own brilliance and weep out its final tears of hatred; soon we will embrace without fear that we are a once missing link to the chain and cycle of creation; the true existence, which is far beyond good and evil; soon we will embrace that we are God, and that the Supreme Being that we have fought for and killed for and searched for and sacrificed for has been inside of us all along.

Such is the wonder of this race.

(Note: This is the beginning of the prologue to one of my books.)

You Hate the Military. So You Bash the People who were Recruited. Brilliant.

This is actually a quote from someone who believes that the Bush Administration was behind 9/11, and decides to blame those not in power for the war on Iraq.

"The 'enemy' insurgents of Iraq, Fighting for their rights, Sacrificing their lives daily, not because they can but because they WANT too. and because they are doing it for their country. Those are the people i respect.
That is TRUE patriotism.
Not the lazyfuck american shithead who couldnt get a job so he joined the army and got shipped over to iraq to fight a war he has no clue about. Fuck Him.
I'm happy a worthless shithead like that would die."

I believe that the US government was behind 9/11. I am opposed to war with Iraq, etc. But insulting people in the military?

I am a pacifist, so I oppose any type of military.

The "lazy American shithead who couldn't get a job so he joined the army" is one of the high percentage of poor people in the US; a lot of them wanted to go to college, and the army promises scholarship money. LAZY?! Couldn't get a job so he joined the military? What on god's green earth makes you think that that's lazy?

So anyone who grows up without the privilege of being a middle-class snob is a lazy shithead if they do ANYTHING to help themselves besides get a shit job at MacDonald's. Jesus Christ. Are you one of those Randian Libertarians who believes that poor people are all lazy fucks who just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps? Wow, so that explains why so many minorities are poor and join the military. Cause minorities are lazier than the rest of us.



The truth is:

Military recruits come from poor areas.

"Students who experienced recruitment harassment were predominately lower-income and/or minority students."

The military is a form of economic discrimination, sometimes called economic conscription or an economic draft, that forces lower income people into the military.

" During the Gulf War, over 50% of front-line troops were people of color. Overall, more than 30% of enlisted personnel are people of color while only 12% of officers are. GIs of color are disciplined and discharged under less than honorable conditions at a much higher rate than whites. When recent studies showed a slight dip in young African-Americans’ interest in the military (which was already disproportionately high), the Pentagon reacted with a new ad campaign. They’re now using special Spanish-language ads to target Latino youth, sending fancy recruitment vehicles into lower-income and minority communities, and advertising using hip-hop. The recruiters’ lethal result: tracking high-achieving young people in communities of color into a dead-end, deadly occupation."

Hey, good thing for the military, really. It weeds out all the pathetic poor of this country. Social Darwinism all the way!

The Disappearance of the Universe Part II

"The nonsensical tragedy of duality is considered to be normal by all modern societies, which are themselves mad as a hatter."

Ooohh, this one really gets to me. Today, your feminists are always trying to build up the greatness of women.

I wasn't positive that the story wasn't true until the second I read that sentence. If truly wise ascended masters had come to earth to speak to someone, they would never had said that, because they would know everything, and know that was a load of bullshit! "Build up the greatness of women?!" You mean, try to give women equal rights to men? Oh yeah, we must really think we're important if we think we're equal to men. Basically, the author is speaking of Feminist Seperatism and generalizing it as "feminism," which is a grave mistake made by almost all non-feminists, and even some feminists.
He calls feminism "replacing one mistake with another". He assumes that feminists want to do exactly what men are doing (by oppressing everyone else). What a "male" thing to think. This "duality" that he so strongly condemns is showing up everywhere through his distortion of facts. If men aren't oppressing women, then it has to be the other way around. If not black, then white.
He then goes on to laugh at some women for referring to god as a "she", meanwhile, throughout the entire book, he refers to god as a "he", even though he acknowledges that god really has no gender! He has every right to pick a masculine pronoun, as we have to pick a feminine one.