A Finger Pointing at the Moon

I am indebted to @dagb for reminding me of this story.

“Always remember, truth cannot be said, it can be shown. It is a finger pointing to the moon. All words are just fingers pointing to the moon, but don’t accept the fingers as the moon. The moment you start clinging to the fingers – that’s where doctrines, cults, creeds, dogmas, are born – then you have missed the whole point. The fingers were not the point; the point was the moon.”

~ Osho

The Finger

For me, the Antimatter Principle is like the finger. It’s not the moon. A pointer only, to the kind of world we can create, should we so choose.

The Moon

There’s a wonderful, joyful glory in actually experiencing the feelings of attending to folks’ needs, theirs to each other’s, and theirs to ours. And in seeing those needs met. For me, this is the moon.

Oh, and not the actual, more prosaic outcomes from attending to folks’ needs, btw.

“So”, you may be asking. “You’re saying that hard-nosed commercially-driven organisations, and the suits running them, could opt to admitting feeling and emotions – of joy, of connection, of mutuality – into our workplaces? To adopt a new frame?”

Yes. That’s what I’m saying. And not just opt to admit feelings and emotions, but to embrace the new frame – the Giraffe Frame – and to act deliberately to encourage them. To place them centre-stage. To point their fingers at the moon.

“Human beings the world over say they want to contribute to the well-being of others, to connect and communicate with others in loving, compassionate ways.”

~ Marshall Rosenberg

Why would our jackal organisations want to do this? Well, apart from the suits being human themselves – a humanness for so long denied and suppressed – they might want to do this because it make ever-more commercial sense. Knowledge-work organisations are people places. Research is showing us the massive benefits that positive emotions and feelings bring to the workplace. Commercial benefits not least.

But that’s not the moon.

Like the Eightfold Path

As in Buddhism’s Eightfold Path, the Antimatter Principle is meant as a guideline, to be considered, to be contemplated, and to be taken on when, and only when it is fully accepted as part of the life you seek. I reject asking for blind faith, and would like rather to promote learning and a process of mutual self-discovery.

“My teachings are easy to understand
and easy to put into practice.
Yet your intellect will never grasp them,
and if you try to practice them, you’ll fail.

My teachings are older than the world.
How can you grasp their meaning?

If you want to know me,
Look inside your heart.”

~ Lao Tzu, The Tao Te Ching

Would you be willing to share your feelings about the “glory of the moon”?

– Bob

Further Reading

“if you don’t understand people, you don’t understand business” ~ Simon Sinek