Monday 21 October 2013

Charity begins at home - naked truth

Warwick women rowers strip off for charity. But is that okay?






What does 'exploited' mean?

Are the women exploiting the known trigger points of cultural ideas of attractiveness in order to sell more calendars and attract more money to an un-unrelated (to naked women) charity?
Is not the idea of 'raising money for charity' a device that is exploited for its own reasons?
Perhaps the term exploited is more associated with coercive force, or of being manipulated such as to be unaware of the choices one is taking or of other choices available.
Exploiting is an aspect of 'getting'. One might say we all exploit ourselves, each other and our world, in that we will all seek to get something for ourselves - unless we are already happy, whole and connected, in which case we share rather than 'get'.

A key issue is whether we receive and give in a sense of honour and trust, rather than 'get' at another's expense without any real relation.
But the key issue to the women's project might be 'how do we raise money for xyz?' - and feel for their comfort zones and sense of adventure both. Because 'charity' is the remaining avenue of 'justification' for behaviours outside social conformity.

The 'getting' mode, is seemingly innocuous and harmless - but it cannot be employed without a psycho-emotional disconnect, and the 'justification' mentality rises as one with it - as is symbolized by fig leaves in the myth of the Fall.

"Ye have not because ye ask not" - is a reference to a direct self revealing extension of trust and communication. A true intimacy shared. We sacrifice the power of love in a darkness of forgetting, in order to 'enjoy' the private sense of power in 'getting' - except we then suffer experience of being 'gotten from' and loss and fear of loss replaces trust, and a mask replaces our true presence, in which praise and blame war - so as to deny a clear and heartfelt acceptance of our naked living being.

Moral coercion feeds a libertarian reaction. Guilt is the driving force of morality - for the innocence of our being does not seek to justify or validate itself. But nor is it defined in reaction against such cultural impositions.

To do something because it is the true desire and movement of our being, does not bring with it the associated overhead of conflicted self - or its reflection as a conflicted experience of our world.

This is true charity - because this is the gift of our true presence into our relations. When our presence is witheld we deprive ourselves and others - and yet look out as if it is denied us by others and our world.

Charity begins at home. If we do not truly let love into our lives - we will not have it and be it in our relations. A deep self acceptance is not a justification slip for doing what you do not really want! This issue is the most important in all else that ever occurs because it is foundation for what comes next. Self-rejection - no matter how disguised - will not bring a better world for 'others' or ourselves. Love knows what thinking alone can only hide.

Controversy is a sport. But one doesn't have to play it.

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