Post by maat on Sept 1, 2005 23:45:05 GMT
My Uncommon Comments about the Election and the State of the World
by Bill Harris, Director - Centerpointe Institute
In this issue of Mind Chatter I intended to begin a series on Spiral Dynamics, which was the topic of my November 4th presentation at the United Nations. However, I'm hearing so many strong feelings about the election and the world situation that I thought I would give you my thoughts on what I see and how to deal with what's happening in the world.
Before I get to the election itself, I want to make a few preliminary points to lay the groundwork for what I want to say. I will venture to guess that my analysis of what is going on will be unlike anything else you have read on this subject.
It's going to take me a few minutes to get to my point, so bear with me. It will be worth it.
As those of you who've been with me for a while know, my belief is that anyone, regardless of their past or present circumstances, can be happy and peaceful. Happiness and inner peace only look as if they are dependent on outer circumstances.
I've spent a considerable amount of effort over many years teaching a number of principles that when applied to life allow a person to be happy and peaceful regardless of what is going on around them.
However, in order to work, these principles must be APPLIED. All too often I find that people agree with these principles in theory, but fail to apply them in actual situations where they would make a real difference in their experience of life. What is happening in the world offers such an opportunity, and from what I can see nearly every seeker I know is throwing the opportunity away.
My basic premise is that your true nature is happiness and inner peace. By focusing your mind in certain ways you can create unhappiness, suffering, stress, and resistance, but these negative states are created by you, not by what is going on around you.
If the process by which you create these internal states (and their external results) is unconscious--which it is for most people--it will seem as if outer circumstances are creating the way you feel and the outcomes you experience.
I'm assuming that all of you are on some sort of a personal growth/spiritual growth path. You want to evolve spiritually. To really make progress, you must be willing to actually apply the principles I've shared with you to real situations. Some "real situations" are easier than others in this regard. Obviously, what is going on in the world qualifies as "more difficult."
I want you to realize, however, that the more difficult a situation appears to be in terms of applying the principles for conscious living, the greater the potential evolutionary progress. Most people can apply the principles, with a little effort, to the easy situations. However, it's the more difficult (or, rather, seemingly difficult) situations that matter the most, and it's for these situations that these principles were made.
Let me back up and explain some basics about the universe we're a part of, and then explain how they apply to the present situation.
I know I haven't mentioned the election yet, but bear with me. You will be rewarded.
Everything in this universe is vibrating. Vibrations are waves, in which there is a peak, followed by a trough. The wave goes up, and then it goes down. Now you see it, now you don't. All vibrations involve a sort of "on" then "off" dynamic. Sound, for instance, is really made up of sound/silence. If you could slow a sound down, or actually look at the waves, you would hear/see the intervals of silence alternating with the sound. All sound is really sound/silence. If you could look closely at light, you would see the same sort of thing: all light is actually light/dark. Photons are little packets of light. First there is a photon, then there is no photon, then there is another photon, and so on. All light is really light/dark.
The same could be said for solids and space. Every solid is really an alternation of solid and space. As with sound, which appears to be "all sound" without the intervening silence, or light, which appears to be "all light" without the intervening dark, solids are really solid then space then solid then space, but moving so fast it appears to be all solid, as when a revolving fan blade appears to be a solid disk.
All the events in the universe behave in this same "now you see it, now you don't" wave-like manner. Things exist, then they don't exist. Day changes to night, then back to day. Life alternates with death. Feeling good alternates with feeling bad. Health alternates with disease.
Everything in the universe vibrates, and this vibratory nature is expressed on the sub-atomic level, as with electrons and photons and the like, and it exists on the more gross level, as with day and night, life and death. And, it even exists on a more abstract level, as in the vibration between good and evil, here and there, up and down, and so on.
The big (yet actually very obvious, once you think about it) secret is that no one has ever seen a wave with a peak but no trough. No one has ever seen life without death, or up without down, or good without evil.
All of these things are really one thing. They exist in relation to each other and ONLY in relation to each other. You cannot have things be all "up," because up requires down for its very existence.
What does this have to do with the election or the situation in the world?
I'm getting to that. But please follow my logic.
If you realize that everything vibrates, and that every peak must have a trough, some very interesting things follow. Have you noticed that many people (maybe even you) have a tendency to want things to be a certain way? Perhaps you would like everything to be "good." Perhaps you want to have life but no death. Perhaps you want day but no night. Perhaps you want peace but no war.
Humans, at least up to a certain stage of spiritual development, have a strange way of wanting half of certain parts of certain vibrations to not exist. Alan Watts called this The Game of Black and White, with the additional rule that "White Must Win."
Playing White Must Win is like wanting everything to be up, or everything to be good. It's like wanting it to always be day, without night, or wanting there to be life, with no death.
Unfortunately, in the universe we inhabit, this isn't possible. This universe is a universe of vibration, and in every vibrating wave there is a peak and a trough. There are no exceptions to this.
Here's another key point, and this is one of those things that people will agree to in theory, but have trouble with in practice. Humans have a way of picking one side of the vibration, either the crest or the trough, the up or the down, the on or the off, and deciding that it is good or desirable, and then labelling the other side as bad or undesirable. What is more, for every person who thinks up is good and desirable, there is someone else who thinks down is actually the real part of the vibration that is good and desirable.
In other words, which part of the vibration is good and which part is bad is arbitrary, and this is decided by social convention. If everyone else in your group agrees that up is better than down, and that everyone who is down should be shot or incarcerated, then everyone (other than a few rebels) agrees. Not only that, once this social consensus has been agreed upon, few if any people ever question it, or notice that whatever part of the vibration chosen as good or bad was arbitrary.
Why do I say it is arbitrary? Because, first of all, for everyone who thinks up is better than down, there is someone else who thinks down is better than up. Each is convinced that they have the truth, and each has piles of "evidence."
Second (and this is a secret, so don't tell), nothing is intrinsically bad or good. Nothing. Such qualities are projected onto what is. Not one thing in the universe actually means anything or has any goodness or badness INTRINSICALLY.
We add these qualities, socially agree that they are true, and then forget that we added these good/bad, right/wrong meanings.
So, looking at the big picture, life is full of problems. Every one of them, though, involves making one part of the vibration wrong, undesirable, bad, or evil, and the other side good and desirable.
When you look at the enlightened master, you see that, for him, life isn't a problem, even though in your world problems of every kind are all over the place. You can hardly move without tripping over one. You assume that the enlightened master has solved the problem of "off"--that he has figured out a way to win at the game of White Must Win. He must have, since he is peaceful, happy, secure. There is something so solid about him. Nothing seems to move him (or her) off center.
However, this assumption would be WRONG. The enlightened master certainly is peaceful and happy and centered and unflappable, but it isn't because he has conquered the down side of the up/down vibration. It's because (shhh--this is also a secret)...
.......he's realized that down isn't a problem. He knows that down is only a problem if you make it a problem, if you resist it's existence.
Let's take this one more step. I hope you're sitting down, because this is an even bigger step than the fact that things do NOT have intrinsic qualities.
Up and down, on and off, good and bad...
.......don't exist.
They are artificial, conceptual distinctions created by the mind. They do not exist in reality however, any more than there is a real line dividing the United States and Canada.
Ken Wilber wrote an entire book about this, called No Boundary. In this book he describes something that is basic to Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and every mystical philosophy of every culture. There is no real boundary between on and off, up and down, or good and bad. To make these distinctions is entirely conceptual.
And, both sides of each of these pairs of so-called opposites needs each other. They depend on each other for their very existence. They are one thing, one process. You cannot have one part without the other, and in fact the whole idea of chopping each process into two parts is a conceptual illusion, just like the US/Canada border isn't really there. Just as buying and selling are one process, where you must have both or nothing at all, in the same way good and bad are one process and neither can exist without the other.
When we resist one part of these pairs of opposites, as if it could possibly be independent, as if it could possible be "defeated" when it's really necessary for the other side to exist at all, we create suffering for ourselves. In fact, all suffering (just ask the Buddha) is caused by being attached to some part of what is being different than it is.
So let's summarize, and then I'm going to apply what we've learned to the world situation and the election--and to your happiness and inner peace.
***First, the universe and everything in it vibrates, and these vibrations go from one pole to the other, up and down, off and on, black and white, peak and trough.
***No one has ever seen a peak without a trough, or an on without an off. They go together and are, in fact, one thing. In fact, dividing them into these poles is itself arbitrary and conceptual, and therefore not a real distinction. No one has ever seen, and no one can ever hand you, an "off" or a "down" or any side of any of these distinctions. The sides of these distinctions are IDEAS, and nothing more. They are not REAL. Any qualities you think they have, you made it up. You might have a lot of social agreement about what you made up, but that doesn't mean it isn't made up.
***People arbitrarily decide that one or the other side of each of these pairs is desirable and the other isn't (and then forget that they added this distinction, which is NOT intrinsic to the situation). Once a person takes sides, their point of view very often seems SO compelling that the other side seems criminal and insane.
***People then resist, even hate, the side of things they have termed off, down, bad, black. When they do this, they create suffering--sometimes extreme suffering--for themselves.
***And, often, as a result, they project this suffering, in the form of anger and blame, sometimes even violence, onto those who do not agree with them. Which creates more suffering, both for themselves and potentially for those they are blaming (unless those who are being blamed know the secret and decide not to buy into the game).
So, what does this have to do with the election, and the state of the world?
Many of you are angry or unhappy about the election. I hear it all around me. I get emails asking me to man the ramparts and fight for the good cause. Black, off, down, bad, evil--whatever you want to call it--won the election. Calling those who like the election results stupid or evil is just projecting your anger onto the "other side." If your "side" had won, those people you're now calling stupid and evil would be calling you stupid and evil. In fact, when Bill Clinton won, that's exactly what they did.
Both sides, in turn, have been playing White Must Win, each side with their own idea of what constitutes White, what constitutes The Truth. (Both ideas of what is White are, however, entirely arbitrary.) Now you can play White Must Win if you want to. However, one of the rules of White Must Win is that part of the time it doesn't, and when that happens, you suffer.
And I do see many of you suffering, in some cases A LOT.
Now suffering can be a great game, and part of life is to really get into the game and play it to the hilt. You are totally free to respond to "what is" in any way you want. That's what makes all the games of being human so darned fun. However, I want to point out a couple of things about the game of suffering, the game of White Must Win. First, you don't like to suffer. Remember? It doesn't feel good. If you're suffering over what happened, you're probably doing it unconsciously and automatically. You're probably forgetting that you actually create your own reality, and that you could create it in another way if you took the reins of your mind and operated it intentionally and consciously. I mean, really, would you consciously create suffering for yourself, if you knew what you were doing?
You could, however, choose not to suffer, no matter what happens. This, by the way, is exactly what the enlightened master does. Even if he decides to join in and play White Must Win (since it is an exquisite game, and can be a lot of fun if played as a GAME rather than as if it was serious and real), he will not get into suffering over it. He may feel compassion and empathy for the suffering of others, perhaps, but he will not get into his own suffering, because he knows the secret: that on and off are the same, that neither White nor Black can win, since they are two sides of the same coin and depend upon each other for their very existence.
All over the place I hear people, including a number of noted personal growth leaders who claim to be highly evolved conscious beings, clamoring for people to "take sides, defeat the evil ones." "Lock and load! Man the ramparts!" This is a very unconscious point of view, and one that leads to polarization, separation, conflict, and suffering for everyone who buys into it.
Now please don't misinterpret what I'm saying. I am NOT (that's N-O-T) saying don't do anything. (Do NOT write to me accusing me of saying that you shouldn't do anything about the suffering you see.) I'm not saying don't take action. If there is some course of action you see that you think will improve the world, by all means act. If you see suffering in the world, act to alleviate it.
However, acting from fear and anger, which is what I'm hearing all around me, does not alleviate suffering. It would be a complete coincidence if what you did when in that state of mind actually created any kind of improvement in the world. On the other hand, when you know the secret of how the universe really works, when you know that up and down, on and off, black and white, are all one thing, and that both sides are necessary, when you know not to resist down and cling to up, you can remain centered and peaceful and you'll know just what to do to really make a difference.
But this is not the White Must Win kind of change that assumes that one side of the vibration should--or could be--defeated. It's real change, the kind that really does alleviate suffering and brings things closer instead of creating more suffering and more polarization.
Here's what I see going on in the world:
As I said, everything in the universe is vibrating. One example of this vibration, operating on a grand scale, is a movement from positive social mood to negative social mood and back again, over and over. According to those who study such things, social mood peaked in 1999 or 2000. Now we're in the descending part of the wave, where social mood moves toward the negative pole.
When this happens, conflicts increase, anger increases, polarization increases. Social groups feel more separate from each other and begin to attack each other. The polarity between good and bad, Black and White, on and off, seem to be wider (though remember that they're really illusory to begin with).
Darkening social mood also manifests in the arts (more horror movies, for instance, including torture themes and other violence), in social popularity (social heros and icons of good times, such as Martha Stewart, or corporate CEOs, become anti-heros), and in every aspect of society. (I know, you never liked those corporate CEOs in the first place, but they were pretty darned envied and emulated by a lot of people in the 90s--now they're demonized.)
In the coming years you can expect increased tension and conflict between Liberals and Conservatives, racial groups, social and economic classes, countries, genders, religions, labour and management, and many other groups. You may see severe economic problems. You may see war and other violence. You will probably see a lot of suffering. In the last major down cycle, in the 1970s, we had assassinations, riots, protests, war, strikes, a Presidential resignation, and many other symptoms of conflict and polarization. This is what happens when social mood moves toward the negative pole. As social mood becomes more negative, the news you see and hear will reflect it, partly because people's minds are on the negative and the networks will give them what they want, and partly because there really will be more suffering to report.
You have a choice in all of this, believe it or not. You may not be able to control the swings of social mood, which are huge movements involving literally billions of beings, and have been happening since the beginning of civilization. But here's your choice: you can follow the herd instinct, get angry, and take sides--and contribute to the problem. There will be plenty of different sides on plenty of different issues, so there will be many opportunities to do this. You can become fearful, angry, feel separate from others, and feel righteous about what you think is--or should be--"up". You can allow how you feel and what you do to be driven by what happens around you if you want to. You can be a herd-driven automatic response mechanism if you want to. It's your choice.
This, however, is what the unconscious person will do. This is also what the person who ends up suffering will do. Unfortunately, this person, well-intentioned as they might be, will add to the suffering of the world.
Or, you can see through the game, and refuse to take sides. You can realize that all the polarization is an illusion, that both sides are really one thing, and that the whole show is driven by the illusion of opposites and by increasingly negative social mood as the wave goes down. You can decide, however, not to unconsciously and automatically run with the herd. You can, instead, remain centred and allow your inner peace and happiness and equanimity come from within. You can decide to be like the enlightened master, who knows the secret of how the universe operates and refuses to create in his mind a polarized universe of separation, with all its symptoms: anger, fear, anxiety, depression, sadness, conflict, hatred, and violence.
But what about suffering? What about the wrongs of the world? Yes, there is a lot of suffering in the world. As for "wrongs," that's a projection, as I explained above, so let's just talk about what to do about the suffering. As a conscious, compassionate seeker, when you see suffering, here's what you do:
1) Get centred. Stop playing White Must Win, because that game creates more suffering. When you come from anger and fear, you can't really see the world the way it is, and therefore can't really help.
2) From that centred place, you'll know exactly what to do in order to have a real impact on reducing the suffering of others.
3) Act. Take action. What you do may even be the same action you would have taken when you were angry and in the polarized place (though I doubt it). Whatever you do, it will be coming from a place of conscious awareness instead of unconscious, automatic, polarized reactivity (i.e., White Must Win). As a result, you will be peaceful and happy as you do whatever you decide to do, and in behaving consciously you will have the greatest chance to actually decrease the amount of suffering in the world instead of increasing it.
You may have noticed that the Dalai Lama isn't ranting about the election or the state of the world. I'm sure he feels intense compassion and empathy for all those who are suffering, but because he isn't in polarized resistance, because he isn't playing White Must Win, he doesn't personally experience the symptoms of separation. And, because he is centred in himself, his actions are appropriate and actually do alleviate suffering. But he isn't calling for people to man the ramparts, take sides, or smash the "other side." He isn't calling one "side" stupid, or evil. The Dalai Lama knows the secret, so he remains peaceful and is able to take conscious, purposeful action to reduce the suffering he sees around him.
I'm doing my best to do my small part to reduce the suffering in this world, by spreading Holosync and the principles I teach. Hopefully, it's making a difference. But I especially want it to make a difference for you. For that to happen, you have to step out of the world of separation and polarity, and stop playing White Must Win.
Unless, of course, you like the game. It is, after all, your life.
So yes, the world is in a sorry state. Many beings are suffering, and I fear that before this cycle of negative social mood is over many more will suffer. Most are suffering because they don't know any better--they have little conscious awareness of how they create their reality. You, however, can't use that excuse. You DO know how you create your reality, if you've been with Centerpointe for any length of time. You can follow the herd and take sides and angrily demonize those on the "other side" and be part of the problem if you want to. I hope you will step out of The Game of Black and White, though, and join me in taking more conscious action based on oneness, not polarization.
Yes, most world leaders (on both "sides") are corrupt and unconscious. From what I can see, all of them (some more than others) are looking at the problems of the world from a very black and white and simplistic point of view. Some don't even care about the problems of the world and are instead busy robbing the common people and each other. They, too, are playing The Game of Black and White, but in a multi-hued and complex world that demands a higher level of awareness in those who govern it.
In my opinion, as social mood darkens there will be a world-wide upheaval that will signal the end of such simplistic (and often corrupt) leadership. Out of the ashes will come new leaders who are more highly evolved, who can handle the many variables, the increased complexity, of today's world. In my upcoming series on Spiral Dynamics I will describe the developmental stages the world has gone through, and make some educated guesses about the stages to come.
In the meantime, by all means, act for change. Absolutely, act for change. But do it from a place of centered, conscious awareness of what is, rather than the unconscious, us vs. them lack-of-awareness that I see and hear all around me. See those who are unconscious and reactive from a place of compassion. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
This is your opportunity to actually apply these principles to real life. If you believe in oneness and harmony, here's your chance. Don't miss it up.
Be well.
Bill
Printed with permission.
I can heartily recommend Bill's Holosync programme to anyone that is interested in 'meditating deeper than a Zen monk'. M.
by Bill Harris, Director - Centerpointe Institute
In this issue of Mind Chatter I intended to begin a series on Spiral Dynamics, which was the topic of my November 4th presentation at the United Nations. However, I'm hearing so many strong feelings about the election and the world situation that I thought I would give you my thoughts on what I see and how to deal with what's happening in the world.
Before I get to the election itself, I want to make a few preliminary points to lay the groundwork for what I want to say. I will venture to guess that my analysis of what is going on will be unlike anything else you have read on this subject.
It's going to take me a few minutes to get to my point, so bear with me. It will be worth it.
As those of you who've been with me for a while know, my belief is that anyone, regardless of their past or present circumstances, can be happy and peaceful. Happiness and inner peace only look as if they are dependent on outer circumstances.
I've spent a considerable amount of effort over many years teaching a number of principles that when applied to life allow a person to be happy and peaceful regardless of what is going on around them.
However, in order to work, these principles must be APPLIED. All too often I find that people agree with these principles in theory, but fail to apply them in actual situations where they would make a real difference in their experience of life. What is happening in the world offers such an opportunity, and from what I can see nearly every seeker I know is throwing the opportunity away.
My basic premise is that your true nature is happiness and inner peace. By focusing your mind in certain ways you can create unhappiness, suffering, stress, and resistance, but these negative states are created by you, not by what is going on around you.
If the process by which you create these internal states (and their external results) is unconscious--which it is for most people--it will seem as if outer circumstances are creating the way you feel and the outcomes you experience.
I'm assuming that all of you are on some sort of a personal growth/spiritual growth path. You want to evolve spiritually. To really make progress, you must be willing to actually apply the principles I've shared with you to real situations. Some "real situations" are easier than others in this regard. Obviously, what is going on in the world qualifies as "more difficult."
I want you to realize, however, that the more difficult a situation appears to be in terms of applying the principles for conscious living, the greater the potential evolutionary progress. Most people can apply the principles, with a little effort, to the easy situations. However, it's the more difficult (or, rather, seemingly difficult) situations that matter the most, and it's for these situations that these principles were made.
Let me back up and explain some basics about the universe we're a part of, and then explain how they apply to the present situation.
I know I haven't mentioned the election yet, but bear with me. You will be rewarded.
Everything in this universe is vibrating. Vibrations are waves, in which there is a peak, followed by a trough. The wave goes up, and then it goes down. Now you see it, now you don't. All vibrations involve a sort of "on" then "off" dynamic. Sound, for instance, is really made up of sound/silence. If you could slow a sound down, or actually look at the waves, you would hear/see the intervals of silence alternating with the sound. All sound is really sound/silence. If you could look closely at light, you would see the same sort of thing: all light is actually light/dark. Photons are little packets of light. First there is a photon, then there is no photon, then there is another photon, and so on. All light is really light/dark.
The same could be said for solids and space. Every solid is really an alternation of solid and space. As with sound, which appears to be "all sound" without the intervening silence, or light, which appears to be "all light" without the intervening dark, solids are really solid then space then solid then space, but moving so fast it appears to be all solid, as when a revolving fan blade appears to be a solid disk.
All the events in the universe behave in this same "now you see it, now you don't" wave-like manner. Things exist, then they don't exist. Day changes to night, then back to day. Life alternates with death. Feeling good alternates with feeling bad. Health alternates with disease.
Everything in the universe vibrates, and this vibratory nature is expressed on the sub-atomic level, as with electrons and photons and the like, and it exists on the more gross level, as with day and night, life and death. And, it even exists on a more abstract level, as in the vibration between good and evil, here and there, up and down, and so on.
The big (yet actually very obvious, once you think about it) secret is that no one has ever seen a wave with a peak but no trough. No one has ever seen life without death, or up without down, or good without evil.
All of these things are really one thing. They exist in relation to each other and ONLY in relation to each other. You cannot have things be all "up," because up requires down for its very existence.
What does this have to do with the election or the situation in the world?
I'm getting to that. But please follow my logic.
If you realize that everything vibrates, and that every peak must have a trough, some very interesting things follow. Have you noticed that many people (maybe even you) have a tendency to want things to be a certain way? Perhaps you would like everything to be "good." Perhaps you want to have life but no death. Perhaps you want day but no night. Perhaps you want peace but no war.
Humans, at least up to a certain stage of spiritual development, have a strange way of wanting half of certain parts of certain vibrations to not exist. Alan Watts called this The Game of Black and White, with the additional rule that "White Must Win."
Playing White Must Win is like wanting everything to be up, or everything to be good. It's like wanting it to always be day, without night, or wanting there to be life, with no death.
Unfortunately, in the universe we inhabit, this isn't possible. This universe is a universe of vibration, and in every vibrating wave there is a peak and a trough. There are no exceptions to this.
Here's another key point, and this is one of those things that people will agree to in theory, but have trouble with in practice. Humans have a way of picking one side of the vibration, either the crest or the trough, the up or the down, the on or the off, and deciding that it is good or desirable, and then labelling the other side as bad or undesirable. What is more, for every person who thinks up is good and desirable, there is someone else who thinks down is actually the real part of the vibration that is good and desirable.
In other words, which part of the vibration is good and which part is bad is arbitrary, and this is decided by social convention. If everyone else in your group agrees that up is better than down, and that everyone who is down should be shot or incarcerated, then everyone (other than a few rebels) agrees. Not only that, once this social consensus has been agreed upon, few if any people ever question it, or notice that whatever part of the vibration chosen as good or bad was arbitrary.
Why do I say it is arbitrary? Because, first of all, for everyone who thinks up is better than down, there is someone else who thinks down is better than up. Each is convinced that they have the truth, and each has piles of "evidence."
Second (and this is a secret, so don't tell), nothing is intrinsically bad or good. Nothing. Such qualities are projected onto what is. Not one thing in the universe actually means anything or has any goodness or badness INTRINSICALLY.
We add these qualities, socially agree that they are true, and then forget that we added these good/bad, right/wrong meanings.
So, looking at the big picture, life is full of problems. Every one of them, though, involves making one part of the vibration wrong, undesirable, bad, or evil, and the other side good and desirable.
When you look at the enlightened master, you see that, for him, life isn't a problem, even though in your world problems of every kind are all over the place. You can hardly move without tripping over one. You assume that the enlightened master has solved the problem of "off"--that he has figured out a way to win at the game of White Must Win. He must have, since he is peaceful, happy, secure. There is something so solid about him. Nothing seems to move him (or her) off center.
However, this assumption would be WRONG. The enlightened master certainly is peaceful and happy and centered and unflappable, but it isn't because he has conquered the down side of the up/down vibration. It's because (shhh--this is also a secret)...
.......he's realized that down isn't a problem. He knows that down is only a problem if you make it a problem, if you resist it's existence.
Let's take this one more step. I hope you're sitting down, because this is an even bigger step than the fact that things do NOT have intrinsic qualities.
Up and down, on and off, good and bad...
.......don't exist.
They are artificial, conceptual distinctions created by the mind. They do not exist in reality however, any more than there is a real line dividing the United States and Canada.
Ken Wilber wrote an entire book about this, called No Boundary. In this book he describes something that is basic to Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and every mystical philosophy of every culture. There is no real boundary between on and off, up and down, or good and bad. To make these distinctions is entirely conceptual.
And, both sides of each of these pairs of so-called opposites needs each other. They depend on each other for their very existence. They are one thing, one process. You cannot have one part without the other, and in fact the whole idea of chopping each process into two parts is a conceptual illusion, just like the US/Canada border isn't really there. Just as buying and selling are one process, where you must have both or nothing at all, in the same way good and bad are one process and neither can exist without the other.
When we resist one part of these pairs of opposites, as if it could possibly be independent, as if it could possible be "defeated" when it's really necessary for the other side to exist at all, we create suffering for ourselves. In fact, all suffering (just ask the Buddha) is caused by being attached to some part of what is being different than it is.
So let's summarize, and then I'm going to apply what we've learned to the world situation and the election--and to your happiness and inner peace.
***First, the universe and everything in it vibrates, and these vibrations go from one pole to the other, up and down, off and on, black and white, peak and trough.
***No one has ever seen a peak without a trough, or an on without an off. They go together and are, in fact, one thing. In fact, dividing them into these poles is itself arbitrary and conceptual, and therefore not a real distinction. No one has ever seen, and no one can ever hand you, an "off" or a "down" or any side of any of these distinctions. The sides of these distinctions are IDEAS, and nothing more. They are not REAL. Any qualities you think they have, you made it up. You might have a lot of social agreement about what you made up, but that doesn't mean it isn't made up.
***People arbitrarily decide that one or the other side of each of these pairs is desirable and the other isn't (and then forget that they added this distinction, which is NOT intrinsic to the situation). Once a person takes sides, their point of view very often seems SO compelling that the other side seems criminal and insane.
***People then resist, even hate, the side of things they have termed off, down, bad, black. When they do this, they create suffering--sometimes extreme suffering--for themselves.
***And, often, as a result, they project this suffering, in the form of anger and blame, sometimes even violence, onto those who do not agree with them. Which creates more suffering, both for themselves and potentially for those they are blaming (unless those who are being blamed know the secret and decide not to buy into the game).
So, what does this have to do with the election, and the state of the world?
Many of you are angry or unhappy about the election. I hear it all around me. I get emails asking me to man the ramparts and fight for the good cause. Black, off, down, bad, evil--whatever you want to call it--won the election. Calling those who like the election results stupid or evil is just projecting your anger onto the "other side." If your "side" had won, those people you're now calling stupid and evil would be calling you stupid and evil. In fact, when Bill Clinton won, that's exactly what they did.
Both sides, in turn, have been playing White Must Win, each side with their own idea of what constitutes White, what constitutes The Truth. (Both ideas of what is White are, however, entirely arbitrary.) Now you can play White Must Win if you want to. However, one of the rules of White Must Win is that part of the time it doesn't, and when that happens, you suffer.
And I do see many of you suffering, in some cases A LOT.
Now suffering can be a great game, and part of life is to really get into the game and play it to the hilt. You are totally free to respond to "what is" in any way you want. That's what makes all the games of being human so darned fun. However, I want to point out a couple of things about the game of suffering, the game of White Must Win. First, you don't like to suffer. Remember? It doesn't feel good. If you're suffering over what happened, you're probably doing it unconsciously and automatically. You're probably forgetting that you actually create your own reality, and that you could create it in another way if you took the reins of your mind and operated it intentionally and consciously. I mean, really, would you consciously create suffering for yourself, if you knew what you were doing?
You could, however, choose not to suffer, no matter what happens. This, by the way, is exactly what the enlightened master does. Even if he decides to join in and play White Must Win (since it is an exquisite game, and can be a lot of fun if played as a GAME rather than as if it was serious and real), he will not get into suffering over it. He may feel compassion and empathy for the suffering of others, perhaps, but he will not get into his own suffering, because he knows the secret: that on and off are the same, that neither White nor Black can win, since they are two sides of the same coin and depend upon each other for their very existence.
All over the place I hear people, including a number of noted personal growth leaders who claim to be highly evolved conscious beings, clamoring for people to "take sides, defeat the evil ones." "Lock and load! Man the ramparts!" This is a very unconscious point of view, and one that leads to polarization, separation, conflict, and suffering for everyone who buys into it.
Now please don't misinterpret what I'm saying. I am NOT (that's N-O-T) saying don't do anything. (Do NOT write to me accusing me of saying that you shouldn't do anything about the suffering you see.) I'm not saying don't take action. If there is some course of action you see that you think will improve the world, by all means act. If you see suffering in the world, act to alleviate it.
However, acting from fear and anger, which is what I'm hearing all around me, does not alleviate suffering. It would be a complete coincidence if what you did when in that state of mind actually created any kind of improvement in the world. On the other hand, when you know the secret of how the universe really works, when you know that up and down, on and off, black and white, are all one thing, and that both sides are necessary, when you know not to resist down and cling to up, you can remain centered and peaceful and you'll know just what to do to really make a difference.
But this is not the White Must Win kind of change that assumes that one side of the vibration should--or could be--defeated. It's real change, the kind that really does alleviate suffering and brings things closer instead of creating more suffering and more polarization.
Here's what I see going on in the world:
As I said, everything in the universe is vibrating. One example of this vibration, operating on a grand scale, is a movement from positive social mood to negative social mood and back again, over and over. According to those who study such things, social mood peaked in 1999 or 2000. Now we're in the descending part of the wave, where social mood moves toward the negative pole.
When this happens, conflicts increase, anger increases, polarization increases. Social groups feel more separate from each other and begin to attack each other. The polarity between good and bad, Black and White, on and off, seem to be wider (though remember that they're really illusory to begin with).
Darkening social mood also manifests in the arts (more horror movies, for instance, including torture themes and other violence), in social popularity (social heros and icons of good times, such as Martha Stewart, or corporate CEOs, become anti-heros), and in every aspect of society. (I know, you never liked those corporate CEOs in the first place, but they were pretty darned envied and emulated by a lot of people in the 90s--now they're demonized.)
In the coming years you can expect increased tension and conflict between Liberals and Conservatives, racial groups, social and economic classes, countries, genders, religions, labour and management, and many other groups. You may see severe economic problems. You may see war and other violence. You will probably see a lot of suffering. In the last major down cycle, in the 1970s, we had assassinations, riots, protests, war, strikes, a Presidential resignation, and many other symptoms of conflict and polarization. This is what happens when social mood moves toward the negative pole. As social mood becomes more negative, the news you see and hear will reflect it, partly because people's minds are on the negative and the networks will give them what they want, and partly because there really will be more suffering to report.
You have a choice in all of this, believe it or not. You may not be able to control the swings of social mood, which are huge movements involving literally billions of beings, and have been happening since the beginning of civilization. But here's your choice: you can follow the herd instinct, get angry, and take sides--and contribute to the problem. There will be plenty of different sides on plenty of different issues, so there will be many opportunities to do this. You can become fearful, angry, feel separate from others, and feel righteous about what you think is--or should be--"up". You can allow how you feel and what you do to be driven by what happens around you if you want to. You can be a herd-driven automatic response mechanism if you want to. It's your choice.
This, however, is what the unconscious person will do. This is also what the person who ends up suffering will do. Unfortunately, this person, well-intentioned as they might be, will add to the suffering of the world.
Or, you can see through the game, and refuse to take sides. You can realize that all the polarization is an illusion, that both sides are really one thing, and that the whole show is driven by the illusion of opposites and by increasingly negative social mood as the wave goes down. You can decide, however, not to unconsciously and automatically run with the herd. You can, instead, remain centred and allow your inner peace and happiness and equanimity come from within. You can decide to be like the enlightened master, who knows the secret of how the universe operates and refuses to create in his mind a polarized universe of separation, with all its symptoms: anger, fear, anxiety, depression, sadness, conflict, hatred, and violence.
But what about suffering? What about the wrongs of the world? Yes, there is a lot of suffering in the world. As for "wrongs," that's a projection, as I explained above, so let's just talk about what to do about the suffering. As a conscious, compassionate seeker, when you see suffering, here's what you do:
1) Get centred. Stop playing White Must Win, because that game creates more suffering. When you come from anger and fear, you can't really see the world the way it is, and therefore can't really help.
2) From that centred place, you'll know exactly what to do in order to have a real impact on reducing the suffering of others.
3) Act. Take action. What you do may even be the same action you would have taken when you were angry and in the polarized place (though I doubt it). Whatever you do, it will be coming from a place of conscious awareness instead of unconscious, automatic, polarized reactivity (i.e., White Must Win). As a result, you will be peaceful and happy as you do whatever you decide to do, and in behaving consciously you will have the greatest chance to actually decrease the amount of suffering in the world instead of increasing it.
You may have noticed that the Dalai Lama isn't ranting about the election or the state of the world. I'm sure he feels intense compassion and empathy for all those who are suffering, but because he isn't in polarized resistance, because he isn't playing White Must Win, he doesn't personally experience the symptoms of separation. And, because he is centred in himself, his actions are appropriate and actually do alleviate suffering. But he isn't calling for people to man the ramparts, take sides, or smash the "other side." He isn't calling one "side" stupid, or evil. The Dalai Lama knows the secret, so he remains peaceful and is able to take conscious, purposeful action to reduce the suffering he sees around him.
I'm doing my best to do my small part to reduce the suffering in this world, by spreading Holosync and the principles I teach. Hopefully, it's making a difference. But I especially want it to make a difference for you. For that to happen, you have to step out of the world of separation and polarity, and stop playing White Must Win.
Unless, of course, you like the game. It is, after all, your life.
So yes, the world is in a sorry state. Many beings are suffering, and I fear that before this cycle of negative social mood is over many more will suffer. Most are suffering because they don't know any better--they have little conscious awareness of how they create their reality. You, however, can't use that excuse. You DO know how you create your reality, if you've been with Centerpointe for any length of time. You can follow the herd and take sides and angrily demonize those on the "other side" and be part of the problem if you want to. I hope you will step out of The Game of Black and White, though, and join me in taking more conscious action based on oneness, not polarization.
Yes, most world leaders (on both "sides") are corrupt and unconscious. From what I can see, all of them (some more than others) are looking at the problems of the world from a very black and white and simplistic point of view. Some don't even care about the problems of the world and are instead busy robbing the common people and each other. They, too, are playing The Game of Black and White, but in a multi-hued and complex world that demands a higher level of awareness in those who govern it.
In my opinion, as social mood darkens there will be a world-wide upheaval that will signal the end of such simplistic (and often corrupt) leadership. Out of the ashes will come new leaders who are more highly evolved, who can handle the many variables, the increased complexity, of today's world. In my upcoming series on Spiral Dynamics I will describe the developmental stages the world has gone through, and make some educated guesses about the stages to come.
In the meantime, by all means, act for change. Absolutely, act for change. But do it from a place of centered, conscious awareness of what is, rather than the unconscious, us vs. them lack-of-awareness that I see and hear all around me. See those who are unconscious and reactive from a place of compassion. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
This is your opportunity to actually apply these principles to real life. If you believe in oneness and harmony, here's your chance. Don't miss it up.
Be well.
Bill
Printed with permission.
I can heartily recommend Bill's Holosync programme to anyone that is interested in 'meditating deeper than a Zen monk'. M.