What Are You Going To Give Up?

An idea doing the rounds in religious circles over the past few millennia is that the things of the world are bad, God doesn’t really like them, they’re just there to test our allegiance to God, or, as as a challenge through which become spiritual developed, awake or enlightened. This often takes on the obvious logical follow-up of ‘and we should do everything we can to be without them’.

The teachings of the various hindu traditions go back over 4,000 years. These various traditions have an idea of spirituality versus the world, at their core. Ascetism is common through the Indian regions as an extension of the “world is bad’ idea in a view that sheer poverty even being without clothes and food is the pathway to spirituality. Based on the idea of karma and reincarnation, asceticism is the way to minimise one’s karmic impact. Ultimately, the person without karmic responsibilities has become one with the divine and is not reincarnated.

Some of the old biblical prophets took themselves off to live as ascetics from which discipline they received visions or messages from God. Through those messages they were able to warn the people, and chastise the leaders, about the correct way to approach life and politics. Mostly they were impotent to change the larger historical course of the people. Likewise, Jesus tried to get the point across by offering that, “it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.’ Some prophets and Jesus had potent visions of the future, periods of great redemption for the people and today we can read in the very time we live as proof of the prophetic vision. It is also possible they have created an effect of what we now call, moral hazard. Moral hazard is the other side of the coin of fatalism. Fatalism rides on an idea that what will happened has already happened so I can be resigned to whatever I am resigned to – it makes no differences. Moral hazard rides off any message that ‘we are going to be alright, in the end, anyhow’ as a reason not to limit one’s desires for power and amassing wealth, after all. I want to draw attention to this tendency of us to become resigned to life as we perceive it. Rather than take that the world is bad, perhaps what the spiritual teachers are really telling us is that ‘what is bad is our perception of the world that shows up as our resignation to that perception’. How would it be if we gave up our resignation, rather than anything specific of the world.

The Buddha, living in a Hindu society bogged down in extremes of sovereign wealth, castes, and ascetic views of poverty tried to get the point across by showing people that they should have at least the basic nourishment to learn the spiritual pathway. Buddha, like Jesus, led an austere life of a wandering teacher. Nonetheless, Buddha didn’t deny wealth, proposing a set of teachings based on the idea of a middle path. Buddhists retained the concept of reincarnation with some divergence from Hinduism in a recognition that the weaving of our thoughts of the world maintains our being in the world in suffering, and that, once we are fully divested of our thoughts we will reach a state of nirvana, or the ‘blowing off’ of desires, leading, finally to non-existence.

In a particular way, Buddhism doesn’t teach that there is a goal to life, but that reality is a state of mind built on nothing, and that to divest of the way the mind constructs the world is to not exist, in any way, and that is reality. This view is close to the western philosophical view of existentialism which logical path leads to a nihilistic view. Indeed, the Buddhist practice towards nirvana appears to be a practice towards resignation to the existentialist state that our human situation is contingent and ephemeral, as an simple acceptance that such a state has no meaning so we should not give it one, certainly not that is is something to be sad about, putting aside that depression and suicide that can be evoked by unresolved nihilism.

However, what if most of us have really just gotten the great teachers wrong, or rather, what if the great teachers were simply doing their best to get an idea across to our muddled minds, a completely simple but more inaccessible idea. In otherwords, what if their somewhat different teachings, are all correct, and in some way, also wrong or less full in their teaching than is the truth of us.

What if the great teachers were trying to find a way to teach people who were already mind-set on that everything about them – the way their society worked, the way they worked, and what everything was all about – is like an object. What if the great teachers were actually trying to get us to a point in human development whereby we could just see that, at any moment, our human world is largely a sliver of perception, even a distortion, of the whole human world.

We are also attached to a way our mind renders the world. And so whether we are of the people of the book or of the eastern traditions, we will be attached by our mind to those things of that religious tradition. We will be attached to things of the social traditions, political traditions, cultural traditions. Some of these will create the way we see the physical things of the world such as wealth. We will carry both our attachments to our religious or philosophical views and our cultural and political views, together, even where they do not align.

This is not to say that we can be without our attachments.

What then, for human development? If the human mind attaches to non-existent reality, then the affairs of the world have no meaning and can evoke no response. Religious thought of this kind, correlate / allow / even fosters an opening for socio-political mind-sets to power, domination and hoarding. Even the attachment to a religious idea of nirvana or philosophical idea of existentialism and nihilism, requires that the mind is equally attached to an idea of existence. It is this attachment to existence in the face of non-existence that creates the nihilistic dissonance that, for some, result in depression and suicide. As it is of an individual, so it is of the social organism.

Given that we are fated to be attached to the dualisms of our ideas, then to be detached, rather than being attached to the idea of detachment, might best be approached in the acceptance of the dualism, that we are equal parts detached and attached. Maybe there is a state in which the attachment-detachment duality of some particular aspect is so very small it might even be thought to be gone, disappeared. However, even then, providing much attention to this state as a goal, is more likely to amplify both dualities than to dissipate them. And, indeed, dissipate to what ends anyhow? To be proud of the spiritual station achieved?

I suggest that, rather than being overall attracted to becoming a more detached person, accept that the ultimate spiritual achievement, let’s call it achieving our optimal human, is rather gained by being in a dance with our dualities and an additional completely novel idea, an essential unity, a non-dual idea. Here I need to change tack in language. As you can see, the language directing this commentary, while it is trying to raise a novel idea, simply slips into dualism, forbidding the mind any truly novel idea.

All things spoken are set apart from each other in distinction. Current practices in meditation seem aimed at disappearing the following of (attention to) language (thought). This reduces the strength of thought habits and leaves an availability of mental resource, what ontological philosophers in the aftermath of Heidegger, have come to call ‘a clearing’. On it’s own, meditation doesn’t create anything novel for that clearing, and for many modern practitioners, life continues the same while meditation becomes a tool for coping with life’s lack of validity.

We might consider, then, that the task might be to allow that there is a higher mental state that rises above language. This suggests some novel mental ‘tooling-up’ that is novel to language. In the dance with our dominant world creating tool – linguistic distinctions and dualities – and the possibility of an emergent viewing above word, we might just find the diminution of dualities and a state of being (relatively) detached becomes evident.

The question remains, in entering a possibility of an access to reality above or outside of linguistic distinctions, what would you or I give up that already exists as an attached ideation such that the diminution of the dualities creates the clearing for access to a level of reality that is, til now, non-existent to us.

Land Acknowledgements and Cognitive dissonance.

What I wrote in response to “Against Land Acknowledgement” written by a self proclaimed ‘Georgist’.

I also consider myself to be a ‘georgist’ and if by that you mean having the economic view that all living humans share equally in the planetary resources, then there are a number of issues pertaining to colonised indigenous lands, like my own Australia.

1. There was no treaty made or properly observed with the original inhabitants of the land. if you see a legal loophole then shame on you. The land is stolen and never ceded. To imagine otherwise is to say that I can come onto your property and just camp there, erect a building, force you out, and there would be no legal support you could turn to. Although this does happen in the west bank of Israel, it is anathema to most most civilised people;

2 The evaluation of land to be shared can only come about with full agreement of all parties from the get go. When one party has been force to concede, then no georgian equation can be made except on the restoration of a fully agreement of all interested parties, and that would mean dealing with restoration claims. To take that off the table is only to enact domination over part of the community, rather than any sense of equity.

3. How do we truly evaluate the resource that has been conquered, stolen centuries ago? Think of the value that has been derived from the resource of the Australian or North American continent, for that, in Georgian terms, is the full evaluation of the commons. Our failure to evaluate the commons has lead to the modern tragedy of the commons called climate change, but also the poorer developmental situation of all colonialised indigenous peoples. Why, because the failure of appropriate taxes on the value of the use of resources has lead to essential overuse, ecological systems destruction, climate change and an enormous mountain to climb in relation to social and economic equity. How do we know that? Because by definition, when resources are borrowed from the commons by a company, individual or even government as a whole, the taxable level for the use of that resource is set at a rate that allows the commons to conserve and even improve the resource. The appropriate tax does slow down the rate of development to a degree that allows conservation while placing a greater contribution from product to the community at large, thereby paying for equity in public accessible advancements – ‘highways and Byways’ like transport, energy, education, communication, knowledge growth etc.

All that being said, what has it to do with acknowledgments of country? Firstly, and as we include in many of our acknowledgments in Australia, the land was never ceded. It is a reminder across boardrooms, universities, government departments, and the self-centred, that we haven’t paid the rent. We are, like parasites, living off other people’s lost lives, and we are living off the rewards of theft, piracy, conquest.

Yet there is a deeper proposition also at stake. The proposition that, entangled with our conquering, we have overlooked important cultural resources. That too is part of the commons. And a Georgian would wonder, why are we not utilising that resource at all? Why is that human resource left to sit segregated, stagnating. My own view is that it is left to stagnate for the same reasons that up until recent decades, there was a single world view about productive agriculture and, regardless of the damage it has caused to our food quality, soils, and conservation of production for future generations, an ecological view of agriculture was laughed out of town.

But now the chickens are coming home to roost. The piper needs paying all the same, for as you imply, it is the land, the ecosystem, that requires the appropriate equities to be followed, and failing that, the ecosystem will languish, become unbalanced and ultimately become dangerous to the human being. And part of restoring those equities is fully acknowledging what we had been denying, who we are as a complete community, a commonwealth of diverse peoples, which diversity is a large part of the value of the commons.

If it feels humbling to acknowledge what you are complicit against others, then rather than give into your cognitive dissonance around it, trying cleverly to avoid what it is, you would best sit with your dissonance. Perhaps there is indeed a fully human answer that will come to you.

A New Gratitude for Anti-Vaxxers & Climate Change Deniers

In The Fire Tablet, Baha’u’llah asks of God, “Coldness hath gripped all mankind: Where is the warmth of Thy love, O Fire of the worlds?” To which He, later in the exposition, replied, ” “Were it not for the cold, how would the heat of Thy words prevail, O Expounder of the worlds?”

While Baha’u’llah was lamenting the dearth of spiritual characterisation among the people of His time, there are implications here for acknowledging certain social realities and, how those realities provide the possibility for Baha’u’llahs’ core vision, “an ever-advancing civilisation”.

While the totalitarian sovereignty that ruled Persia and the Ottoman Empire in Baha’u’llah’s 19th century, allowed little in the way of dissent, the rapid uptake of His teachings support the rule of thumb that there are always about 10 % of people ready to push back on the status quo or move towards a more enlightened future.

There is a distinction between the 10% who push back on the status quo and the 10% who move towards an enlightened future. The 10% who push back are exhibiting, I think, an anti-authoritarian trait. The 10% who move towards an enlightened future are exhibiting an adventurous trait.

The anti-authoritarian trait leads to resistance to government regulation and individualism or tribalism. They are found among political conservatives and progressives, hippies and traditionalists, capitalists and marxists.

The adventuring trait leads to finding ways forward through, over, around, and underneath government regulation. The adventurer, likewise is found across all social world views.

There is an overlapping group with anti-authoritarian and adventurous traits. I will call these triple-A’s. These people, like the suffragettes at the late 19th and early 20th century, are the social spearhead of the world. Their anti-authoritarian stance has the government comes down hard on them, while their adventurous proclamations are castigated by the majority, Eventually, from their spearheading, cracks emerge in the traditional socio-political argument. More people start to support the enlightened view. Laws are improved, society changes. Eventually all but 10% of people proclaim “I always thought so. It’s just obvious.”

The triple-A shows a particularly courageous intelligence. In WWII, France, Holland, Belgium, Norway etc were mostly engaged through the small population of resistance fighters. These were from all ages and status in the communities and had one thing in common, a triple-A streak. Many of these fighters are honoured as heros of nations, today. In other part of the world, the triple-A leader has de-colonised their nation. Some of these, have, themselves, come to show a totalitarian mindset.

So, here’s the rub. We can’t have social change, we cannot resist the really nasty possibilities of political life, without anti-authoritarians. We cannot have an enlightened future, a new political possibility, without adventurers. We cannot have the undoing and the transforming without the triple-A. And this is not a rational thing. This is not someone gets up one day and say, “Today is a good day to become an adventurer or anti-authoritarian. This is a trait. Something fundamental to our evolution as social primates. It is not predictable who will be born with either trait. Most families will have someone born with one of these traits, given that they appear in about 20% of the population in one form or another.

People with any of these traits tend to find a home whenever there is a desperate existential moment for their society. They then are immediately in action and are able to play a vital role by either pushing back on capitulation or problem-solving to a new status. At less dire moments in society, the anti-authoritarian will link to whatever is around, like a rise in climate change acceptance, or a status quo like vaccination uptake. The adventurer, in the less dire today, will be dancing with the possibility of solving a problem for today and the future. Both anti-authoritarians and adventurers will tend to express their actions in terms of a rational construct. I think this is a post-enlightenment behaviour. However, the actions whether of an anti-authoritarian or adventurer or triple-A or an individual slap smack in the mainstream status quo, are simply an accident of inherent circumstances.

This is not to say that rational constructs are wrong in any way. Certainly, although the rational constructs will tend to be biased by the trait exhibited, the rational construct expressed through these traits are vital to socio-political well-being. In less dire periods in national life, these are the people who draw the lines in the sand for society and governments. As someone who is an adventurer, I hold to a particular line among those lines drawn by adventurers. Anti-authoritarians and other adventurers might draw lines differently to mine. However their lines do define my line in conversation with what I fear about politics and economics, and what I support about the development of human-ness, social capacity, democracy, science and problems-solving.

While I am fully aware of the political and power-grabbing humbug that is exploiting them, I have slowly developed a new gratitude for the anti-vaxx or climate change denial person. They provide the edges of the clearing of who I am, and, at that edge is also the question, what would I sacrifice and what for? I may never need to extend the clearing of who I am into the forest of I-have-to-put-my-life-on-the-line, but by listening to my more paranoid friends, I have more clarity where that is (and isn’t). And tomorrow, if the existential crisis arises, there’s a good chance they’ll be at my shoulder.

Why be generous towards rule breakers

where governments have been clear what those rules are and why, around the COVID 19 pandemic?

The short answer to this question is that open, free society requires it.

The long answer is a whole lot trickier for most people to get, especially those of us who tend to be obedient.

The problem lies in our primal nature in regards to authority.

Most people are obedient to authority and always have been across a million years.

Simultaneously, people have always exploit loopholes and bent the rules. And creative and imaginative people are better at it than others.

To understand these characteristics we must understand the evolutionary success of human clans and the advancement of human civilisation over the past 10,000 years.
The evolutionary success of human clans are based on primate hierarchical and social support behaviour. This behaviour hinges on an alpha male, a female harem, and progeny. The human alpha male is to a large extent what we now call psychopathic. Their (our) success, as against other primates that haven’t socially changed for millions of years, developed around the opening up of clan society to sycophant males who were allowed female relationships as reward for that submissive support. Their female harem also had a hierarchy. Kinship and successorship to the alpha (chief, king) developed according to the male children of the female hierarchy, although subordinated by the most psychopathic natures in the system.

The political tensions within clans were terrible, with death waiting around every corner, harnessing two types of proclivity: intelligent rebellion for domination; and shame provoked submissiveness. Intelligent rebellion for domination not only lead to successorship of the chief or king but also to the development of hierarchies of sycophancy. In other words, a way to dominate is not to hold the throne but to hold the highest positions in the hierarchy serving the throne. Shame-provoked submissiveness created a safety ‘red-flag’ in all social circumstances from the earliest ages. Children with shame would survive by immediate submissive responses in the face of any authority: parental, older sibling. This is very important in a social environment in which death by an irritated chief was immanent and uncurbed, even for a child.

If we see that the degree of intelligent rebellion and shame wove (and weaves) a composite individual nature, then we can see how political hierarchies eventually developed, as powerful sycophants worked to increase the territories and subjection for their chief. We can also see, as a parallel process, the development of religious hierarchies both as alternative ways to dominate the society and the chief himself. I caution, here, to let go of any impression this is giving that these are simple transactional behaviours. From the earliest human times, dealing with the issues of death and our awareness of our relationship with others and other species, and our killing them for food and resources, has been an existential challenge that required a intelligently deft vision, a meta-story to comfort our burgeoning moral consciousness in the face of requirement for survival. Spiritual and religious visionaries command a space that submits to the right of kingship, while offering comfort to all subjects of their ‘rightness’ in subordinate life and death.

Spiritual and religious visionaries also set up their own hierarchies. Within those hierarchies, additional allowance was made for the freedom for a certain type of intelligence to become immersed in the metaphysical landscape through practices of the mind, language and reflection. As societies advanced, artisans (product makers) became artists. Some artists and religious visionaries shared the proclivities to divine the metaphysical and theological.

A particular form of intelligent rebellion was able to be fostered in larger societies. This took place in the form of a youthfulness that no longer needed deep shame to survive, and an artfulness, a creativity, to formulate new social constructs and ways to promote them. The promotion of new social constructs that mostly challenged the authority of the king, while developing a following in times of general social tribulation, tended to be visited by programs by the political and religious leadership. It is worthwhile pondering the ebb and flow of these tides, as, finally, every civilisation that enters a certain internal tribulation, falters, collapses, and then finds that once youthful vision rise in the populace with a more loos, open (not entirely new) social construct.

Fast-forward to the modern society. Dr Barth Hoogstraten who was a medical student in the Dutch resistance in WWII wrote in the foreword to his 2008 book, “Resistance Fighters: The Immense Struggle of Holland”, that throughout history, students and artists have been in the forefront of struggles against tyranny. In Nazi-occupied Holland, 1,671 Dutch men and women paid the ultimate price for their heroism. Hardship, terrifying suspense, and sacrifice that characterized their life were interspersed with the moments of humor, simple beauty, and love that persevered even in the darkest of days.

In their research on the behaviour of french resistance fighters of WWII, Andre and Alex L. Juliard noted that they found a new insight into the nature of human motivation and into our own psychological makeup may sometimes result from the observation of individuals living in unusual conditions such as people who joined the French “resistance” during World War Il. They had been participants with other young and middle-aged persons who belonged to a “maquis”’ in Southeast France. Their observations induced them to discern in human beings a larger variety of innate aptitudes, or inclinations, than those currently recognized in normal daily existence. Some of these overlooked inclinations, nevertheless, play an important part in the behavior of dedicated people.

And what of the masses of people who committed the atrocious acts of WWII, Stalin’s rule over the USSR, Pol Pot’s revolution in Cambodia, etc? “We may be genuinely puzzled as to how people could obey commands that seem both bloodthirsty and stupid. Puzzlement can vanish when we realize that in the eyes of their perpetrators the hideous crimes of history are not hideous crimes at all, but acts of loyalty, patriotism and duty. From the vantage point of the present we can see them as hideous crimes, but ordinarily from that same vantage point we cannot see the crimes of our own governments as hideous or even as crimes.” (Don Mixon, Obedience and Civilization)

Rebellious domination and religious vision has slowly and surely brought us to a place in the development of human society, when we no longer need a chief or a king. Yet we stand at a cross-road, and ebb in the tide of a kingless society. To a large extent, in times of difficulty, our behavioural responses are not so different from 10,000 or 100,000 years ago. Mostly we are looking for who to be submissive toward, who to be supportive of, who will give us security in return, even if with a sense of dread around each corner. And in turbulent times, alpha males will tend to come to the fore to provide that direction through their political hierarchies. Yet there are those, mostly young, mostly creative, mostly intelligent, who will take all kinds of risks in rebellion against the domination of authority and their sycophants. Theirs is not to have a far-reaching knowledge of all things worldly. That is for other, older heads. Theirs is to be the ‘resistance’ to the tendency for most of us to find a haven under an authoritarian rule.

“Man has continued to evolve by acts of disobedience. Not only was his spiritual development possible only because there were men who dared to say no to the powers that be in the name of their conscience or their faith, but also his intellectual development was dependent on the capacity for being disobedient, disobedient to authorities who tried to muzzle new thoughts and to the authority of long-established opinions which declared a change to be nonsense.” (Erich Fromm, On Disobedience and Other Essays)

A society is neither for the young or the old, the rich or the poor, the dominant or the non-dominant. It is for all of us, and, therefore, all of these. At this point in time, the advancement of civilisation requires that there are a number of primary agreements in place that support the strengthening of the collaborative and cooperative sovereignty. Under this form of sovereignty, the mass of us who are given to obedience, will avail ourselves of the servitude to the collaborative and the cooperative project. The psychopaths will become the true rebels, tending to strive to be dominant over everyone else in their sphere of influence, yet being held in check by their own drive towards self-interest that is held in the collaborative space. The youth, artists, activists, visionaries, disenfranchised, and children will enjoy the rewards of being in collaboration. The agreements include: we all hold equitable ownership of the land of our citizenship; we all hold equity in participation and servitude to the community; policing is in community servitude – violence physical force or coercion is forbidden except where an immanent threat to another is evident, and then only to mitigate that threat. While policing is sycophant to an authoritarian domination, while police officers are trained to hurt the common politic and those who rebel against that domination, so the rebellion will continue and broaden. It is not to say, the turbulent times are not the time for rebellion. The turbulent times are exactly the point when gains in equity and participation in the democratic advancement are being handed over by the submissive to the authoritarians. Turbulent times are exactly the the times of sacrifice for the next phase of freedom, peace, and the advancement of human society.

We, who would have this society, must stand for the agreement forbidding police force on peaceful citizens, regardless of the rules they have broken. We will then prevent police for using force on citizens of whom there may be a suspicion of but, in reality, haven’t broken rules. Police forces will be primarily negotiators of community upset, on rare occasions to prevent immanent violence against another, effecting physical intervention. On all but this very rare event, having accessible and cordial relation with community wherever they go.
We, who would have this society, must be generous in our attitude about youthful, creative, rebellion against authority. We must avoid our tendency to effect shame and submission, the bringing into line under authority just so we can have a sense of security as being a little higher on the hierarchy. We must recognise that in our own need for the advancement of civilisation lies a need for those who are devoted to working around authority and even sacrificing themselves against the true nature of authoritarianism.

When policing stops working for community.

World Religion Day 2020

Today is World religion day 2020. I’m the MC for the devotional event in my small rural community in far north Australia. While it is a small community – the local government are has about 18,000 people – there are around 40 ethnic groups representing all the larger religions of the world. Here is my welcoming address.

Eckhart Tolle, in telling the story of his coming to meditation, said, “ There’s great freedom … in not compulsively interpreting other people, situations, and so on, not imposing thinking continuously on the world, which is so alive and so fresh and new at every moment… What we are talking about here is a state of alert attention to what is … where you rise above thinking to a large extent in your life, still being able to use it, but not being used by it.” Interview with Krista Tipppet On Being

Eckhart Tolle is famous for his books and courses on meditation. Meditation and mindfulness have been made popular and perhaps the single most common modern person’s access to the spiritual life. For many people, meditation is access to happiness. And, as we will hear in today’s readings, across the various religious traditions, meditation has a vital role not always connected to our personal happiness, but always connected to a view of the human being as a relationship to God and ourselves as more powerful than we ordinarily consider.

The image you are seeing on the screen is a composite of the Brandeberg Gate in Berlin – a hub a tourist activity from all around the world. Off to one side, hosted by a committee of all the religious organisations in Berlin, a number a little bigger than those of our religions, here – is a Room of Silence. Anyone can enter and stay as long as they want, in meditation, reflection or silent prayer. The past 200 years of Berlin since Napolean has been fraught with tyranny and wars. Only these last 30 years since the Berlin Wall came down could it be said that Berlin has had reprieve. It really looks like it might keep that way. However we cannot build a fully human planet with paying attention to how we are human. And meditation is a crucial element to being human.

This comment from the World Community of Christian Meditation Interfaith Program is very relevant to todays gathering. “Religion is becoming more, not less important in the world today. It is urgent that the deep changes taking place in religious consciousness across all faiths and in their relationships are connected to the contemplative power residing at the heart of all the great wisdom traditions.

Meditation opens us to the common ground of humanity – and the essential goodness of human nature. The differences between traditions and cultures are as important and enlightening as their similarities. Meditation establishes a spiritual friendship between the members and practitioners of all faiths and ensures that the differences do not become divisions or false justifications for intolerance or violence.