DAILY SLICES OF LIFE -The Dilemma of Prophesies and Predictions

 

"I will raise up for them a prophet.

I will put my words in his mouth.

And he will tell them everything I command him."

These words, contained in the Holy Bible, in Deuteronomy 18:18 spell out in clear and precise terms the fundamental meaning and purpose of a Prophet and his intended role in society. It presumes a pre-existing belief in a higher authority who provides the message. The sole aim of the prophet is to act as a representative or an emissary whose duty is to provide the Prophesy given to him by the higher authority without modification or interpretation. The prophesy is a statement about the future, received from another source and passed on without change or explanation.

The great majority of these prophecies are fundamentally religious in nature, and appear in all the holy writings of every single religion, ancient and modern, the world has ever seen. In addition, they are  present in the world’s oldest surviving publication, I-Ching, the ancient Chinese book of knowledge, as well in many of the ancient Roman, Greek, Persian, Buddhist and Hindu texts. The Holy Bible and the Koran contain a large number of them where they relate to every aspect of life and beyond. They are generally presented in the form of foreknowledge received from gods, visions or other supernatural sources by a chosen prophet and intended to foretell coming events. In all the instances, the prophet serves only to announce the information he is given in the manner he is directed to do so. His sole function is the provision of the information and never offers an interpretation or explanation.

A Prediction is not a prophecy. While the latter is based on the word of a supernatural source, a prediction is strictly a natural action that is the result of extrapolating existing information by a living human and arriving at a conclusion about the future. In many ways, predictions are self-fulfilling prophesies in that they are forecasts of the future, but unlike prophesies, they are based on experience, knowledge and observation of the individual, and therefore subject to being corrected as information changes. They are always self-generated and a reflection the person’s confidence, and not on any external sources. Because of this, the truth and strength of each prediction depends directly on the ability and confidence of the source. Brian Tracy the very successful Canadian author and inspirational speaker explained this in the following manner:

“Whatever we expect with confidence becomes our own self-fulfilling prophecy.”

  

         Mankind has held prophesies and predictions in very high regard from the very beginning of time. In fact, the tendency of combining information and expectation together and then projecting them to suit future needs is deeply embedded in the psyche of all humans and plays a very significant role in controlling their lives on a daily basis. Much of a person’s decision-making for example, is tinged to a greater or lesser degree, by subconscious reference to the many pre-existing prophesies predictions, and suppositions that lay buried in the psyche. They are the subconscious source of much of the feelings of insecurity and suspicion which often interfere with our choices and decisions, without our being aware of their subtle influence on us. Because of this influence, we end up making firm decisions without even being conscious of, or even understanding, the reasons for doing so. We are oblivious to these undercurrents of uncertainty swirling in our minds, and totally unaware that they interfere with our thinking. This would explain why we develop slavish tendencies to following prophesies and prediction even after they have resulted in our making wrong decisions and ending with great disappointments.

         For as long as there has been any recorded history, people have tried to predict the future, either in the name of divine inspiration or from their own observation, imagination and calculations. In addition, people claiming to have special psychic powers have existed in every society, and some of them have demonstrated amazing abilities to foretell the future with uncanny accuracy. Many have used them to justify their own special needs and to persuade others to follow them. Some people have been so impressed that they willingly believe the claim of superhuman origin, while others remain unimpressed and skeptical.

         The present catastrophe that is unfolding as a result of the current Corona Virus Pandemic bears this out in no uncertain manner. The whole world is presently under siege from a pandemic caused by the corona virus Covid-19 that appears to have originated in the city of Wuhan in China. Actually the news of another pandemic occurring is not unexpected because of the fact that there is a long history of recurrent pandemics that have swept across the world from time to time. But despite this fact, any such event is always accompanied by the names of people who claim ability to predict and prophesy. On this occasion great emphasis is being placed on the “prophetic predictions” of Dean Koontz and his 1981 publication, “The Eyes of Darkness” in which he predicted this event. His story was supposed to have foretold a world catastrophe caused by a virus called “Wuhan 400.” So that when it was noted that the current outbreak started in Wuhan, Koontz earned a “prophet” status and his book has become a “prophecy” and quickly sold out.

 But in fact, on closer investigation, his initial name of the virus in his original publication in 1981 was “Gorki 400,” which he later updated in 2008 to “Wuhan 400” in a subsequent publication. He had chosen both those cities, in Russia and in China, simply because they were in fact their government’s main centers of biological weapons research, and therefore more likely to be the source of creating any such global weapon. Still many people have insisted on calling Koontz a soothsayer and a visionary, but the truth, he is more in favor of being a shrewd and gifted author who was able to search out and make full use of the information to suit his purposes.

         This is but one example of the countless numbers of predictions and prophecies that regularly occur, and have been occurring since man has been on earth. But there is no denying that some of these predictions have been so accurate that it would be very difficult to refute the fact that some extraordinary power directed them. And equally, many have been shown to be so absurd and bizarre that one wonders how so many apparently normal people were convinced of their truth. Throughout the history of mankind, there has been an unbroken succession of people who have devoted their lives to foretelling future events, and have all encountered a mix of believers and detractors. This should be no surprise because of the vague and sometimes elusive boundaries that separates prophesies and predictions.

The ancient Chinese culture is rich with an abundance of soothsayers whose predictions controlled the lives of the people. The oracles of ancient Rome and Greece were held in high regard and the majority of the population believed they spoke for the Gods. The Arab cultures, throughout its existence have given great credence to foretelling the future and both the Holy Bible and the Holy Koran contains a large number of predictions attributed to Jesus Christ, and to the Prophet Mohammed, many of which have as yet to be fulfilled. In all these cases the evidence has always been such that there are as many supporters as there detractors.

One of the most famous of the non-religious soothsayers is a 15^th century French physician and astrologer of Jewish descent known as Nostradamus, who published his masterpiece “Les Prophėties” in 1555 listing over 940 predictions of future events.  Each year his followers will review his publication and prepare a list of predictions to underline the accuracy of his prophesies. Although the majority of them is clearly questionable in accuracy, there are always some of them that appear to be surprisingly possible. The following are a few chosen for the current year, 2020, that may well be possible events: 

-A Plague on the world.

-People will cease to travel.

-Global financial crisis 

-New King of England

-New Pope in Rome

-Major natural disasters: Earthquake in Vancouver, Tsunami in the pacific, Major hurricane in the Atlantic

Many people have already begun to use the effects of the current pandemic with its global disruption of travel and economy as clear confirmation of the veracity of his ‘unique powers’ of prophesy and prediction.  But the other more pragmatic people prefer to ascribe practical answers such as historical observation instead. Clearly arguments can be offered to support both positions, but the final choice will always be left up to each individual and his beliefs. 

But for a prophesy to be convincing, there must be strong and positive evidence that it was not the result of cherry-picking the information or interpretation to justify the conclusions. There must also be irrefutable evidence of some form of supernatural influence or divine guidance that must rise above the level of coincidence or chance. In truth, it has never been easy to predict with real confidence any prophesy, in the end, the final decision for accepting or rejecting any statement must always be left to the individual. Indeed, while I am generally skeptical of the large majority of them, there are many, particularly those contained in the religious writings, which seem to be far more convincing than just chance or guessing. 

But irrespective of whether I endorse or reject any particular prophesy or prediction, it is far more important to understand that there are reasons for their existence. Perhaps this is what St. Paul was teaching us in his 1^st letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 2, when he observed:

“”If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all the mysteries and all the knowledge, and if I have faith to move all the mountains, but I do not have love, I am nothing.”

-To my mind, therein lay the true value of any prophesy or prediction.

 It is never the content that really matters, but rather the purpose intended, and the messages that they convey.

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SLICES OF LIFE Judging Yourself

“We beat ourselves up when we falter.

 We are ruthless in our judgment.

We are quick to entertain self-condemnation.”

This highly appropriate and extremely relevant observation was recorded in one of her recent essays on life and living, by my grand niece Angelina Naime Lee, a young and very successful practicing Attorney-at-Law and a mother of 3 young children. For as long as I have known her, she has had that rare and exquisite ability to express her thinking and her feelings in a clear and elegant style, and to consistently arrive at conclusions that are the envy of many other people, with far greater experience of life. Her amazing and uncanny grasp of the philosophy of life and of living is well beyond her tender age, and her ability to give expression to her thoughts has the potential to place her among a privileged group of authors. Some of her current work can be reviewed in her recently published blog:

“Exploringplanbe.com.”

         The true impact of her comment is clear and unequivocal. We spend a great deal of our time being critical of ourselves and our actions. We tend to dwell on and review all the moments we believed we have failed ourselves and our expectations without ever finding resolution. We invest so much of our time and energy in unhelpful rumination that we end up giving it much more significance than it deserves, and in so doing, further punishing ourselves; all of which to no avail! We find ourselves becoming restless, unhappy and irritable of other people and of ourselves, and soon begin to wonder about our weaknesses and our inadequacies. All of this leading to a potentially debilitating and painful emotional state of anger, immobilization and self-depreciation.

In psychological terms, there is no dispute that that a person’s true individual self is a reflection of how he judges himself and others. The mechanism of expression however, is quite complex, and made up of a variety of internal personality factors that include inherent traits, developmental exposure, past experiences and current interpretations. As a person faces recurring situations and new challenges in his life, the way he will respond will depend almost entirely on the insights he has acquired and on his self-concept at that time. Because of this, his behavior will always be strictly subjective, and directly based on how he perceives the situation at that time. Only very rarely does anyone consider the consequences of his actions until the deed is done. Without question, our behavior is based much more according to how others think we should be seeing ourselves, and not on how we should be seeing ourselves.

Therein lays the dilemma which causes most of the pain and disappointment that so many of us suffer in silence and regret. We unhesitatingly punish ourselves for not meeting the standards we believe we should be meeting, and we never take the time to understand why we do so. Above all, we continue to measure ourselves with other people’s yardsticks, and forget that, however we tried, our own yardstick is as unique and as different from anyone else as the color of our eyes or our fingerprints. Contrary to popular opinion, this rejection is not an inborn inherited instinct of the human mind, but rather it is a conditioned response to an environment that rewards accomplishment and encourages self-criticism. Society thrives on the principle of competition and criticism, and frowns on any attempt to encourage self-awareness or self-perception. It should not be a surprise therefore, that most of us are wired in such a way that we insist on comparing ourselves with others while remaining critical of ourselves.

There is a vast and irreconcilable difference between self-awareness; looking for, seeing and finding out whom you really are, and self-judgment; who you think you ought to be. The former requires that you learn to know and accept who you are, your strengths and your weaknesses, without any blame or regret. It demands that instead of punishing yourself for not doing right, you forgive yourself and understand why you do so. Self-awareness engenders inner satisfaction, self-respect and contentment, while self-judging effectively moves these away and replaces them with anger and regret. Judging oneself gets in the way of loving oneself, and in the absence of love, there can be no acceptance. For without being able to love and respect who you are, it would be impossible to accept what you are. This is what I believe, the Dalai Lama, the highly respected Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader meant to convey, when he noted:

“Love is the absence of Judgment.”

Once we give in to the urge of self-judgment, we quickly fall under its spell and within a short time, it takes hold of our whole life. The effect on our psyche is no different from that of any addiction, which distorts the thinking and suppresses any desire for change. Like the addict who, even when he knows that his behavior is negative and will lead to further stress and suffering, remains locked in his behavior. They are victims of their distorted thinking and weighed down by the recurrent fear of failures and regrets. They convince themselves that they cannot succeed and this becomes entrenched as a core belief. Soon they begin to focus only on things that provide evidence of their distorted thinking, and look for excuses to cast blame for their actions on others or on circumstances. They even do things to persuade themselves that they can do no better, and may even set about to prove to the world that they are indeed failures.

         There is no way of escaping this unhealthy cycle of choice-consequences-judgment without first acquiring a true insight into who and what you are. William Shakespeare, in his masterpiece, Hamlet, stated it clearly and precisely when he advised:

“Above all, to thine own self, be true!”

Without being fully aware of who you are, you cannot begin to know or understand yourself, your needs, and the truth. And in the absence of this insight, it is impossible for you to truly fulfill your destiny. The tragedy for all of us is that we all suffer under the yolk of conformity laid down by society. We measure ourselves and our success, not by our spirit or our feelings, but by artificial standards laid down by others. It is just not good enough to do the right thing as we see it, but rather we are encouraged to follow the ‘convenient’ choice. It is not surprising therefore that in many of us, with time, the small seed planted early in our development will grow into self-doubt and uncertainty and then blossom subsequently into self-judgment.

         Angelina Naime Lee, in her own personal journey of search, appears to have found her answer, and has embarked on a voyage of discovery that may well carry her to a place of true insight and contentment. She recorded her thoughts of Exploring Plan B in her blog of the same name:

“My journey has turned inward and now my measure of success is no longer what I do in this life, but rather, who I am becoming. I seek to delve deeper into the art of being; fully, unapologetically, and honestly being.”

She has taken her first step on a journey that I sincerely hope will eventually carry her to a better understanding of her true self, free of the artificial shackles established by custom and by society. My hope is that she will grow in insight and in understanding and that in time, her own tree will blossom into fruits that will nourish many who follow her.

Her journey has only just begun, even as my own journey is nearing its end. Although I am as yet not fully satisfied that I have totally accomplished all that I had hoped and dreamed I will, there is no doubt in my mind, that all those moments of joy and satisfaction I experienced throughout my life came at times when I was not encumbered by any self-doubt and self-judgment and overflowed with good insight and intentions.

 Perhaps this is what the late Roy E. Disney, the nephew of Walt Disney, the founder of the Disney Empire, who succeeded his uncle and led the company for more than 2 decades, was alluding to when he observed:

“It’s not hard to make the right decisions, once you know what your values are.”

-It will do us all a great good to remember that we can only get out of life what we are willing to put into life. If we allow ourselves to be shackled by life, we will surely pay a price!

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