I think the poll is skewed as there are onlt two options. How about an option for those of us who are grounded in a realistic veiw of Barack Obama. Just an ordinary and fallible human just like the rest of us.

Is he an intelligent, well spoken man? Absolutely. Will he do great things? I have no reason to doubt. But he is as imperfect just as his fellow humans. He is not a saviour nor a false prophet. He's just a dude. There is WAY too much hype placed upon this MAN.

All I can say is that... anyone is better than W.

Obama is only as good as the people around him. If people sit back and wait for him to "save" them, there will be no change...cms

I would say "neither," but this is not an option.

I am, however, very pleased with the choice of the American people. America, as they vainly call their country, has finally come of age! My good wishes and prayers are with the American people and their new administration.

Obama is an idealist.  He believes that goodness will protect him and America.  I hope he is right about that - because the last two people in America who talked his talk - and believed what he believed - were assassinated.

As for his saving qualities - the man has great promise.  But I will wait until the end of his term to sing his praises.

I'm not sure that Obama is an idealist. He represented idealism and change in his campaign, but some political analysts have pointed out that, except for the fact that he is African American, he has followed a very traditional route through politics.

I also object to there only being 2 options on this poll. I would have voted "neither" with Arminius. Why couldn't you have put "better than Bush" as an option? I bet that would have received 80% of the vote!

Cheers to you too Arminius for reminding us that the United States is only one country, and that really everyone from Nunavut to Chile is living in "America."

I think that the hope that Obama has inspired all over the world is more important than who he really is.

Yes, the world may have impossible expectations. But this is the first time in my life that I can remember so many people so hopeful that things are going to get better.

Hope, faith and love are eternal - this is the currency that can make the world a richer, better place. Hope inspires people to act, to take responsibility themselves.

I heart hope.

This question is extreme.  I believe that he is neither a saviour nor a prophet.  He has come to power at this time in history to fulfill a pupose appointed by the higher power.  We cannot interpret this event in the light of Biblical prohecy.  I think we need a 3rd choice "Neither" to vote.

Greetings!

I agree with Arminius, Kappa, and Kumar Sinniah . . . we need another category such as "neither".

One man cannot be the savior of a whole nations problems.  While I was thrilled to see the love the american people have for their new president, I kind of feel bad for him - as I think it will be impossible for him to meet all the high expecations they have of him to "save" them from everything.  He reminds them that it will take time and that they all need to work together, but I think they are going to put more emphasis on his saving than theirs.

I do not think he is a false prophet.

I think he will be a great president, more than he already is right now.

Hope, peace, joy, love . . .

Beloved - do not take this to be comparing Obama to Jesus, but you said: One man cannot be the savior of a whole nations problems... do you believe this?

Could Jesus save a whole nation, the whole world, of its problems?

And I agree - I would choose a "Neither", too, but that would make for a terribly dull poll, wouldn't it?

lol, too true gadzooks.

It is the desire to say..."no,you made me choose"..that is the fun stuff, and causes comments.

I, like you, am saying he is the hope...he is a reminder that things can change if we, the people, set our minds to it.

He will fail if his minions as well as those who see him as a light do not take action.

(ps..this reminds me of the psych questions: would you rather kill a stranger or kill your sister, would you rather beat your dog or rob a store)...sigh neither was not an option.

Greetings!

Gadzooks said:  "Beloved - do not take this to be comparing Obama to Jesus, but you said: One man cannot be the savior of a whole nations problems... do you believe this?

I believe one man cannot be "savior" of a whole nations problems . . . any man or woman elected president or head of any state.

I found the options offensive -- I realize it was meant to be tongue in cheek, but the two options will not garner any kind of helpful "polling" of opinion -- wild extremes that make me very uncomfortable.

shalom

Re Kappa's "I'm not sure that Obama is an idealist."

In his speech, he said "Our security as a nation lies in the justness of our cause."  If that's not idealistic, I don't know what is.  I bet his security detail started sweating at that point.

Why is there no "just a guy, trying to do his best" answer?

Considering what the US and the world has had to put up with in the past 8 years, I think "Saviour" is the word that BEST describes Obama (folks, this isn't an either / or question, it's asking for your opinion). He's young(ish), idealistic, practical, and has his #$@$ together! Not to mention, as the first black president, he is symbolic of a massive change that has taken place in the States for the better. If anything is false about him, it has more to do with people's unrealistic expectations that anything, I think.

While I must reserve decision on this odd question, Obama is talking like no other political leader I have heard before and is convincing people like never before.

In particular, I am remembering from his inaugural speech reference to the US reaching out a helping hand to any nation willing to unclench its fist. I find this a powerful image and goal. He also spoke of the patchwork makeup of the US, naming Christians, Jews, Muslims, and non-believers - all as being critical participants in any solution to the difficulties facing the nation. The inclusion of non-believers strikes me as real evidence of his integrity and his vision of the US as a nation of all its people. Non-believers are not usually mentioned. Together, I see these references as showing his concern for the welfare of the whole world.

I have hopes for him, and hopes that others can take inspiration from him.

While it's hard to answer the question, Obama is talking like no other political leader I have heard before and is convincing people like never before.

In particular, I am remembering from his inaugural speech reference to the US reaching out a helping hand to any nation willing to unclench its fist. I find this a powerful image and goal. He also spoke of the patchwork makeup of the US, naming Christians, Jews, Muslims, and non-believers - all as being critical participants in any solution to the difficulties facing the nation. The inclusion of non-believers strikes me as real evidence of his integrity and his vision of the US as a nation of all its people. non-believers are not usually mentioned. Together, I see these references as showing his concern for the welfare of the whole world.

I have hopes for him, and hopes that others can take inspiration from him.

My ego wants to know: Who created this poll, anyway? And to what purpose?

Interestingly the literal meaning of the term 'devil' is: one who splits us from self and others. In other words, or word,  the ego.

Do all media types love stimulating us to be egotistic?

I hope not. I agree with those who ask: What are the possible options?

Re RevLindsayKing's musings on ego: 

I can't resist playing 'devil's advocate' here, with a quote from Gurdjieff:

"In order to become a truly just philanthropist, it is necessary first to be an out-and-out egoist."

Marnie Tunay  Fakirs Canada

"In order to become a truly just philanthropist, it is necessary first to be an out-and-out egoist."

Enlighten me: What is meant by a "just philanthropist"? And who is, "an out-and-out egoist."?

Let me start with the second part, because, according to Gurdjieff, the second part is really the part that comes first in time.  It does not cause the state of being a "just philanthropist" but it is, according to him, a necessary pre-condition.

George Gurdjieff taught that the most serious obstacle to attaining to spiritual enlightenment is our state of being 'asleep' spiritually.  We live our lives in a kind of waking dream, attached to 'subjective' emotions and views that have, at best, a fleeting and accidental connection with reality.  We mistake the transient for the permanent.  We have illusory ideas about our selves and everything else.  We are not aware of the 'real,' that is to say, the objective consequences of our choices and our acts.

In the same way, according to Gurdjieff, our notions of life, of right and wrong, are instilled in us, for the most part, without our conscious awareness, and they may or may not correspond to what is 'real,' 'objective.'  Thus, we may think we are doing a 'good' thing, supporting a 'good' cause, when in fact we are not.  Those who have worked to instill support in us for a cause that has no objective basis in goodness are also usually expert in producing a sense of guilt or other subjective emotions in those who are reluctant to go along with the game. 

[An extreme example that comes readily to my mind would be the infamous Khadr family.  The children were thoroughly indoctrinated in an objectively false cause, by an irresistable force, their terrorist father, and made to feel guilty and afraid whenever they showed reluctance to accept the al Qaeda path through life.] 

A more common and less extreme case is all of us when we are asked to do something we deep down suspect is detrimental to our own interests - and we feel guilt if we say 'no.'  My own personal experience has been that very often our reluctance is in fact based on something more objective than our guilt:  I have noticed that whenever I really deep down don't want to do something, but I force myself to do it out of a sense of guilt that has been instilled in me, then the results are not very good. 

There must be a connection with reality, a degree of spiritual awakening, in order to be able to discriminate between a subjective sense of guilt and an objective moral imperative.  For all of us, reality starts with where we are spiritually. 

First, we have to see that we are asleep. 

Second, we have to understand, as Gurdjieff put it, the 'terror'of our situation, as the spiritually asleep: the price we have been unknowingly paying for staying comfortably asleep.   I gave an example in a blog-post of a moment where my deep spiritual sleep cost me an opportunity that doesn't come around every year: fakirscanada.blogspot.com/2008/05/demonic-possession-and-devil-chapter-01.html

and in another post, I gave an example where a protracted period of spiritual sleep almost killed me:

fakirscanada.blogspot.com/2008/05/chapter-five-god-hears-all-prayers.html

Third, we have to want to wake up. 

Fourth, we have to make it our aim to wake up.  Five, we have to take action to wake up. 

Six, we have to relate our lives to our goal of spiritual awakening.  And it is at this point that we become 'out and out' egoists, because the sounding note of our life has become, what will help us to awaken to Reality, that is, to God, the living  Reality.

Seven, in order to move on, we have to help others to wake up.  There is no further transformation without this.  And at this stage, we can truly become an influence for good for humanity - when 'good' becomes what helps others to wake up - and 'evil' has become what helps others to stay asleep spiritually.

Anyway, that's according to Gurdjieff.

Cheers.

Marnie Tunay  Fakirs Canada  http://fakirscanada.googlepages.com/

WOW!!! Excellent comments! They prompt me to ask:

Do we really want to be "awakened"?  Or as Jesus put it: "Made whole?"

George Gurgieff :"A man will renounce any PLEASURE, but he will NOT give up his SUFFERING" --our and broken s.

I wonder if Eckhart Tolle read GG? 

BTW, is there a thread in this forum on this theme? If not, perhaps you could start one.

THIS LOOKS INTERESTING:

http://www.fourthway.info/contact/contacts.htm

BTW, the mother of my only three grandchildren--Farah the wife of my son--is a Persian Sufi, to which you refer in your blog.

Hello, again, and thank you, Reverend King.  I see you already know something about Gurdjieff's teachings.  As far as I know, there is no thread here on Gurdjieff or on the theme of awakening.  As the idea originated with you, it seems to me that it would be most appropriate for you to launch the thread and to focus it by means of a title and your initial comments.  What say you to this?

If your daughter-in-law Farah, would not object to my asking, to which tariquat [Sufi order] does she belong?  Mevlevi, perhaps?  On YouTube, there is a lovely performance by the Iranian Shams Ensemble done for a festival in honour of  Jalal al-Din Rumi, [may he rest in peace], who founded the Mevlevi Order of Dervishes: ca.youtube.com/watch  I wish I could understand what they're saying on the video, but I don't speak Farsi.

I've read the whole of Rumi's Masnavi-ye Manavi three times in English. It was through the Masnavi that I was able finally to begin to appreciate the power and the beauty of the Quran.  In the Masnavi, Rumi teaches the meaning of the Quran, through powerful parables that opened a door in my mind to the sacredness of the Quran.  

But I have met teachers from several orders of Sufis.  I am from the 'John G. Bennett line' of Gurdjieff teachers.  Mr. Bennett was very ecumenically minded - a perspective that brought him heaps of criticism from the arch-conservative Gurdjieff Foundation, founded by Peter Ouspensky and Jeanne de Salzmann.  [I think that link you gave is connected to people who are affiliated with the Foundation.]

I see you are closely connected with Dr. Peck.  I have great admiration for him, instilled through close study of his books "People of the Lie" and "Glimpses of the Devil."

Savior. At this point, as long as that idiot bush is out, we're good.

Fakirs: "In his speech, he said "Our security as a nation lies in the justness of our cause."  If that's not idealistic, I don't know what is.  I bet his security detail started sweating at that point."

Actually, he is right, in the long run.  If we learn anything from history, it ought to be that traditional "security", based as it is on suspiscion and violence, cannot bring peace and security in the long run.  It can, if it is oppressive enough, bring safety for the moment.  But it is never more than a stop-gap measure.

True security is only ever acheivable when there is true peace, and THAT can only be won through the hard work of building right relationships.

I'm not sure whether that make him an idealist or simply a pragmatist, but he IS right, if you take a long term view.

RevMatt:  I agree with everything you say.  But the last two political leaders who talked like Obama and who were loved/hated as much as Obama - John Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. - attested with their lives to the old adage "The good die young."

I lived in the U.S. for a number of years, in several different parts.  It's not just a southern version of Canada.  Except for the isolated case of the FLQ many years ago, Canadians don't assassinate politicians.  Nor do we have a twister-stalker-fan thing going here of assassinating famous people.

With five times the population, wild-west attitudes towards gun-control in most of the states, resolutely entrenched hate-groups and an ethos of violence, it's just a question of time before someone in the U.S. tries to take Obama down.  And judging from the hate I've seen in the cyberworld regarding the closing of GITMO, for ex. in the comments here:  blog.heritage.org/2009/01/22/morning-bell-beyond-guantanamo/  the danger may come, not from a twisted fan, but from someone who doesn't like the new president's clean-up campaign.

There are certain other forces I decline to name, distinctive to this time, that, in my view, may precipitate the fall of the U.S. as a nation, in the event of an assassination.  Of course, if they go down, we go with them.

Marnie Tunay  Fakirs Canada  http://fakirscanada.googlepages.com  

P.S.  You're an idealist, too.

None of that is an argument against doing what he is doing, though.  If he retreates into fear, he has already lost.  Obviously, he needs to avoid taking stupid risks.  But it is more important to continue to be out and among the people.  Yes, MLK and JFK both were killed.  So was Bobby.

And any one of them has had far more effect on the world than all the cowering Bushs and Reagans combined.

Blog comments don't really worry me much, though.  Anyone who is serious won't be flapping their virtual gums in blog comments before hand.  That is nothing but the blowing and sputtering of a people who have suddenly discovered that the world doesn't revolve around them any more.

Reply to RevMatt re your "But it is more important to continue to be out and among the people."  - Yeah, that's what Benazir Bhutto thought, too. 

Re your "Anyone who is serious won't be flapping their virtual gums in blog comments before hand."  - First, there are often signs online before someone goes postal.  [If you want to debate the point, I'll be happy to supply examples.]

Second, I don't know if you followed up on that link I gave to the Foundry, but some of those commentators are exactly what makes me uneasy:  their deep conviction that violence, illegal violence, is always justified against anyone who they think threatens their way of life, and it's clear that some were none too pleased with Obama's decison to close GITMO.

Re your "None of that is an argument against doing what he is doing, though.  If he retreates into fear, he has already lost." - agreed and agreed.

Re your "Obviously, he needs to avoid taking stupid risks."  - Aye, there's the rub of it.  And  I'll just bet he and his security detail haven't yet agreed on a definition of 'stupid' in this context.