درسنامه تعاملی اول

Dark Night – Interactive Essay Lesson A

Hi this is AJ and welcome to this months’ VIP interactive A lesson. This is an essay from a man named Zubati, the writer is Zubati. First I’ll read it and then I’ll go back and explain the vocabulary. Here we go.

The most important qualification for leadership is intimate knowledge of defeat, descent into the lower realm, annihilation of the ego, precisely what initiation teaches, death and rebirth. We all have to go down and we have to learn how to go down gracefully and even willingly. We need to know that after a certain point the only way to go up is to go down.

It’s a normal and natural part of life, wretched but survivable, cleansing and ultimately inspiring. The only point of any education worthy of its claim is to teach people about this descent. But, the subject is hardly ever broached in our schools, and churches and synagogues and temples. Why this need for wretchedness? How many people have you met who say they don’t believe in suffering? What exactly is being resisted here? The spiritual path has nothing to say about success and much to say about defeat and failure.

It is all about arriving at the place where the special person no longer feels special. He is trashed, taking cold water bucket showers, eating other people’s leftovers. What has happened to him? His sense of self-importance, his self-esteem has been peed on by life. His ego is smashed. His personality is capsized. And that’s why this collapse has to happen. The person who doesn’t unload his/her ego is stuck. He/She cannot grow and complete this life. He/She can never be trusted to lead others or to explain the meaning of life or to offer up goals to be pursued.

This is divorce. It’s the loss of your children, the loss of your job, the breaking of a leg or the breaking of a relationship. Here is where you have to rediscover your connection to a benevolent higher power or spend the rest of your life in cynicism and regret. This is not optional knowledge. This isn’t an extra credit course. The emotional tools for surviving calamity are the most important cultural items to be passed from generation to generation.

Okay, that’s powerful. Let’s go back and learn the vocabulary and talk about the meaning of each part. From the beginning…

Vocabulary

The most important qualification for leadership is intimate knowledge of defeat

A qualification – is something that’s necessary. It’s a necessary condition. So you need it first before you can have something.

So to have leadership ability you first need what? Intimate knowledge of defeat. Intimate – means close, deeply connected, a very close knowledge. It means you live it. An intimate knowledge of defeat, a close knowledge of defeat.

It’s descent into the lower realm.

Lower realm, a realm – is like a kingdom, the lower kingdom.

He’s basically saying hell, descent into hell, into horrible suffering, the lower realm, the lower kingdom.

Annihilation of the ego

Annihilation – means total destruction, complete destruction. Total destruction of the ego, annihilation of the ego.

Precisely what initiation teaches; he’s talking about something earlier in his book.

Initiation – is like a ritual, a process for being accepted into a group.

So traditionally in the past there were groups, you had to pass a very difficult test to be welcomed into the group. For example, let’s say the American Navy Seal, they’re a military force. To join the Navy Seals you have to go through an initiation, a very hard process of suffering, very difficult, it’s initiation. We don’t have these so much in life anymore in our modern societies.

Death and rebirth – so dying and rebirth means to be born again.

He’s saying this is necessary. We need this to be great leaders. We have to go through death and rebirth. We must go into some kind of hell, some horrible experience. Our egos must be totally destroyed, annihilation of the go. That’s strong stuff he’s saying.

We all have to go down and we have to learn how to go down gracefully.

To go down – means to fail to suffer, to be totally defeated. But to go down gracefully, gracefully – means beautifully, elegantly.

So he’s saying to be a great leader you first must learn how to lose, how to be defeated in a beautiful way, in a graceful way, in an elegant way, gracefully, and even willingly.

In other words, willingly – means you choose to do it. Sometimes you have to choose defeat.

We need to know that after a certain point, after a certain time, the only way to go up is to go down.

So he’s saying sometimes in life, if you want to improve, you want to get better, you want to learn more, you want to be more wise; sometimes if you want to go up, first you must suffer. First you must lose. First you must fail and be defeated so that you can learn something. And then you’ll be able to go higher again, but sometimes it’s the only way to go up is you first must go down. The only way to succeed is you first must fail. And I agree he’s right.

He says, it’s a normal and natural part of life, wretched but survivable.

Wretched – means miserable, super, super unhappy, wretched. Good word, miserable.

So he’s saying, when you are defeated, when you suffer it’s not fun it’s miserable, it’s wretched, it’s wretched, but survivable. It means you will survive. You can live, you won’t be happy, you’ll be miserable, you’ll be wretched, but it’s survivable.

He says, it’s a cleansing experience, it’s cleansing and ultimately inspiring.

Cleansing – means it cleans you.

Not physically your body, he means it cleans your soul, it cleans your spirit, it cleans your mind.

And ultimately, finally, it’s inspiring.

It will inspire other people. It will inspire you, give you greater power, greater confidence.

The only point of any education worthy of its claim…

The only point of education is what he’s saying, worthy of its claim – means if a school calls itself an education, right, it’s claiming. It’s claiming that it’s educating people. So he’s saying you have to be worthy of that, you have to earn that. To be worthy of – means that you earned it.

So he’s saying, the only point of any education worthy of its claim, he’s saying the only point of real education, education that is really worthy, that is worthwhile, that is useful is to teach people about this descent.

A descent – means a going down, a going downwards.

So he’s saying, true education, true education must teach people about how to go down, how to lose, how to be defeated, that that’s the most important thing.

But, the subject is hardly ever broached in our schools and churches and templates and synagogues.

Hardly ever broached – to broach something means to start talking about it. It means to bring it up, to begin talking about it.

So it’s hardly ever – means almost never. So he’s saying this subject of losing, of defeat, of suffering, of misery it’s hardly ever, almost never broached, discussed, talked about, started to talk about in our schools or in our religious places.

Next he asks a question, why this need for wretchedness? Why do we need misery? Why do we need suffering?

Miserableness – wretchedness – means miserableness.

He asks another question, how many people have you met who say they don’t believe in suffering? They don’t believe in suffering. They don’t think it’s a good thing. They don’t think it’s useful or helpful. Then he asks another question, what exactly is being resisted here?

So he’s saying why do people resist suffering? What are they resisting?

To resist – means to push against, to avoid, to fight against.

Next he says, the spiritual path, the spiritual way…

Spiritual – is kind of like religious, but it can be any religion, it’s just a general deep path or a way of wisdom.

The spiritual path has nothing to say about success and much to say about defeat and failure.

So he’s saying if you study the spiritual path, these kind of deep traditions of wisdom they mostly talk about defeat and failure and pain and suffering, they don’t talk about making lots of money and being super famous. They don’t really talk about that so much they more talk about defeat, and failure and pain and suffering.

He said, in these paths it is all about arriving at the place where the special person no longer feels special.

Arriving at the place – means arriving at a point. He means mentally in your mind.

Where the special person no longer feels special.

He, meaning you or us, he is trashed.

To be trashed – means to be completely exhausted, weak.

He is taking cold water bucket showers

This is just a kind of metaphor or an image. So just imagine someone who has no money right, they don’t have hot water. If they take a shower they have to use a bucket right. They have to fill up a bucket, it’s cold water and they pour it on their heads. That’s how they have to take a bath, because they’re so poor and miserable, they can’t use a hot water shower. It’s like a poetry example of someone being miserable and poor, having nothing. They/He is eating other people’s leftovers, eating other people’s leftovers.

Leftovers – means extra food.

Other people’s leftovers. If you eat dinner, but can’t finish everything, there’s some leftover food right, extra food you couldn’t eat. So again he’s giving you an image in your mind of a person, of a man who is exhausted, who doesn’t have hot water he’s so poor and broke, he has to take cold showers with a bucket and he’s eating other people’s leftovers. So he’s eating the extra food from other people.

He’s just giving you an image in your mind, an example of someone who has nothing. They’ve lost everything.

Then he asks a question, what has happened to him? His sense of self-importance, his self- esteem has been peed on by life.

Okay, this is kind of a funny sentence. His sense of self-importance means – sense here means feeling. His feeling, his feeling of self-importance.

Self-importance – means, it’s when you feel that you are important. You think about yourself and you feel, I am important. I am important.

So he’s saying his feeling of being important, his self-esteem…

Self-esteem – means like confidence; self-confidence, feeling that you’re confident.

… has been peed on by life.

Again, this is kind of a funny image.

Peed on – like imagine someone is peeing, using the bathroom, peeing or urinating on self- importance, urinating on self-esteem.

So he’s saying the person doesn’t feel important anymore, doesn’t feel confident anymore. Life has peed on his feeling of self-importance.

His ego is smashed.

Smashed – means broken violently, violently destroyed.

His ego has been violently destroyed.

His personality is capsized.

Capsized – means sunk, like a boat. If you have a boat and it sinks, maybe we put a hole in the boat, it goes down, it turns over and goes down. It’s the same idea, his personality, it’s like it turns over in a storm and goes down to the bottom. His personality is sunk or capsized, turned over and sunk.

And that’s why this collapse has to happen.

Collapse – means to fall down suddenly.

If a building collapses it means the whole building falls down suddenly.

So he’s saying this complete defeat, this failure, this collapse has to happen, must happen.

Has to – means must. Has to means must.

The person who doesn’t unload his/her ego is stuck.

Unload – unload his/her ego… unload here it means remove.

The person who doesn’t remove his/her ego is stuck. If you’re stuck it means you can’t move.

He/she cannot grow and cannot complete this life.

They cannot grow – he means they cannot grow more wise, cannot complete this life, again he means complete this life with wisdom.

He/she can never be trusted to lead others.

So, if someone doesn’t let go of their ego, if they don’t get rid of their ego you can’t trust them to be a good leader. They can never be trusted to lead others.

They can never be trusted to explain the meaning of life or to offer up – means to give goals to be pursued.

So he’s saying if someone has never gone through this terrible defeat, this suffering, if they have not lost their ego, you can’t trust them to lead you, you can’t trust them to explain the meaning of life, you can’t trust them to give you goals to be followed, to be pursued.

Pursued – means followed.

Then he gives more examples of this terrible defeat in life, examples of different kinds of defeat. He says…

Here is divorce and loss of your children.

So, if you’re divorced maybe your children go to live with your ex-husband or ex-wife, you lose your children. Or it could mean the child dies which is even more horrible.

And loss of your job. The breaking of a leg. Maybe you have a physical injury.

Or the breaking of a relationship.

A girlfriend/boyfriend breaks up with you. These are just more examples of terrible defeat.

Here is where you have to rediscover your connection to a benevolent higher power.

So he’s saying, in these terrible situations, this horrible defeat and suffering, that’s when or that’s where you must rediscover, find again, your connection to a benevolent higher power.

Benevolent – means good and kind, good and kind.

So a good and kind higher power.

Or, if you don’t do that, or you will spend the rest of your life in cynicism and regret.

Cynicism – is like super negativity, distrustful negativity. It means you don’t trust anyone and you’re super negative, you think everything’s terrible. That’s called cynicism.

Regret – is when you feel bad about everything in your life, things you did in the past.

He says, this isn’t an extra credit course.

Extra credit – means optional.

He’s saying, this is not optional. An extra credit course is a course in a school. You don’t have to take it, it’s not necessary, it’s optional. So he’s saying, going through this defeat it’s not extra credit, it’s not optional you must do it in life and you will.

He says, the emotional tools for surviving calamity are the most important cultural items to be passed from generation to generation.

The emotional tools – emotional strategies, the emotional abilities, for surviving calamity…

Calamity – means disaster. Calamity, a calamity is a disaster.

So the emotional tools, the emotional abilities for surviving calamity, the emotional lessons for surviving calamity, they’re the most important cultural items, the most important beliefs in our culture, the most important knowledge in our cultures, to be passed from generation to generation. To be taught from generation to generation.

So he’s saying, that this is the most important thing we must teach our children and our grandchildren, we must continue teaching in our cultures, how to survive these disasters, how to survive pain and suffering, how to get through it in a beautiful, graceful way. That’s the most important thing we must teach, but that we don’t do it. We don’t teach these in schools. Even sometimes in our religious places we don’t teach this, and yet it’s the most important knowledge for all of us in our cultures.

Okay, that’s the end of our interactive A lesson. In interactive B I’ll go through this essay again. I’ll ask you some questions so that you learn the vocabulary very deeply and you understand the meaning more deeply.

See you in part B.