[Originally presented at the Anti-Civilisation Reading Group, Bristol, UK, on 6 October 2013.]
We are a thread in the tapestry of Society which has been woven; and this tapestry has as its foundation the cloth of Civilisation. At the weaving of this Civilisation, the ego was driven to compete for recognition, and the body pulsated with yearning for stimulation. Thus came the oppressor and the oppressed.
As power manifests itself as a Darwinian attribute for survival – taking food and resources from others for you and your own – we are left with a monster called Government. In the beginning they covet with the pretence to protect, as the Shepherd with his Flock. But in the end it is the Lion, in the image of a Corporation, which devours the Lamb… for the Shepherd has found more security in the divisive control exhibited by the Corporations.
To un-learn (or un-stitch) the persuasive intimidation (propaganda) which has been seamlessly woven into this tapestry is a necessity if we want a clean, unfettered cloth onto which we may weave a new and better future. There are some basic and un-questioned facts which must be un-clinched, for it is in the clinching to ideas put to us by the divisive machine which allows us to accept so much of the fetters stitched upon this civilisation. The basic premiss of “knowledge” and “learning”, “Health” and “Law”, “Authority” and “Necessity”, to name a few, must be acknowledged as concepts which are anything but egalitarian, anything but definitive.
Our rational mind clings, and holds-fast to information and will catalogue its value into the very depths of our genetic memory as fact, or superstition, or conspiracy-theory.
Ahhh, yes. The conspiracy theory. This was a master creation. What better way to quill descent. Give their thrust of protest a label which will mark them in the eyes of the masses as ideological terrorist and they our suppressed by their own kind. When that label embellishes the intentions for truth & justice, we are wise to ask, who is labelling who?… and then, who benefits? If there is a conspiracy to hide, isn’t this label the perfect decoy, for the masses will embrace Government’s propaganda as the only obvious answer because all other alternatives have been silenced by the intimidation wrought by the conspiracy propagandist.
Will you be so proud as to identify the thief of our self-determination, or be so suppliant as to be one of the multitude…, one of the sheeple, to be devoured by the Lion?
There is a concept (or non-concept, from the Zen perspective) that a sutra is only heard (understood) as to the time, place, condition, and capacity of the person receiving that sutra.
In the environment of this understanding I dedicate this essay to you (the reader) with the wish that contemplation will arise and then cease; with the wish that it will be considered again, and contemplation will again arise and then cease…, ad infinitum. For it is with the wisdom gained from our Buddha nature – perhaps dormant within our heart centre – that profound realisation will seep-up to our higher faculties which are too often occupied with mundane and reciprocating, habitual and spontaneous, action-reaction phenomena.
Understand that everything we see is dead. For moment-by-moment the scintillating atoms of the solid nature of this world change and morph. Both the object perceived (someone or something) and the object of perception (our eyes or ears, etc.) are changing.
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” said Heraclitus (Ηράκλειτος).
The course idea of information which our object of perception had received in one moment is no longer valid; and the validity of the concept created for the object perceived no longer exists… it is dead.
Our only recovery from this death is our profound faith that we give to the kinetic nature of so-called reality. For only in this profound faith can we believe that this death in one moment is consumed by another moment of life-and-again-death into a continuous series which lends itself to a metaphorical picture-show. By profound reasoning we may believe this concept to render “reality” as very contentious indeed.
Surely, we dispose ourselves to a “reality” which is eked-out of the maelstrom of information cascading through our 5 senses; yet, ironically, the majority of our assumptions about this quote-unquote reality has never brushed our senses; but only our pretentious egotistical minds.
We may, for the entertainment of this essay, demonstrate a hierarchy for our belief-system. By all reasonable renditions the information we glean from our very own senses would be considered primary to our belief system. Then, any information which is passed-on to us by another – this informant has gleaned information through their very own senses – becomes our secondary. Then, finally, for the purpose of this essay, we consider information passed-on to us by an informant, and the informant’s information is secondary for them – they received the information not from their own senses; but from their own informant. This, let us consider, as tertiary information.
By a quick glance you may be dumbfounded at the realisation that a great majority of our belief system is created from tertiary information. Much of the reasoning behind this phenomena may be attributed to the mob-effect (psychological phenomena of compliance). Otherwise, a result of our wanting or needing to belong to a group, or comply to the majority, as if we may be broken if we don’t.
I am in desperate hope that the facts laid-out thus, will bring-to-light the fragile condition of your faith in this reality which we seem to share (at least quasi-share). I am in desperate hope that the facts laid-out thus, will inspire more suspicion and less devotion to the machine which seems to govern us.
Following-on with this line of reasoning, and addressing more specifically this machine which I refer to, here are some basic premisses which may be useful to adopt:
1. You can not change what does not exist.
2. Primary information is more reliable, and tertiary the least reliable in discovering the true nature of reality.
3. There are no dumb questions, only stupid answers.
4. They can break your body; but not your soul… stand for what you believe, not for what they want you to believe. And understand the difference!
5. If you truly understand the unity of humanity, and perhaps even, the unity of the universe and everything in it; then, consider, that from the perspective of re-incarnation, everyone, at one time, was your mother in another life. Love and respect, without exception, everyone, as your mother.
6. We are walking bags of flesh, bones, and sinew; phlegm, bile and defecation. Our true nature is our soul and it is beautiful, affectionate and full of love. The mind is not the brain. The heart is the seat of wisdom. Think with your mind and act from your heart.
7. The origination of evil is the arousal of craving. We must control our own passions or die in our pursuit for “self”.
8. Any provision of aggression toward an individual, or group of individuals, will stimulate a reciprocating response of greater intensity; and it is not OUR impression of the aggression or non-aggression which matters; but theirs.
9. The most essential natural law for the breeding of social cohesion is that of freedom. And one’s freedom shall only be limited to the extent that the expression of one’s own freedom shall not impinge upon any other person’s freedom; for if it does, it is not an expression of freedom but an expression of oppression.
10. The only man-made law which is necessary in a truly free society is that which governs the just utilisation and egalitarian use of the commons. All other interactions are simple contracts whether verbal or written, between two or more parties. [The “commons” shall consist of all natural resources which must be shared-in-common].
The result will be a society of people who are understanding and respecting in every way, for it is only in fear that we stand in judgement upon another’s thoughts and beliefs. Remove fear, and you remove judgement.
This is all a tremendous over-simplification of some concepts which some of us are not familiar with, for our school indoctrination has trained us to be compliant, and fearful of freedom, and fearful of thoughts, and fearful of losing “rights”, which was never a commodity to be bargained-for. By accepting the bargain, we do not accept these “rights”; but instead have accepted a contract which says they can be taken away legitimately if the coup so deems necessary.
Yes, truthfully a coup; for we are legitimately sovereign and any rule by intimidation, threat, or force is a coup to that sovereignty.
In closing, I leave you with a quote from Rumi:
“Love said to me, there is nothing that is not me. Be silent.”