We can't help the world until we've transcended it

The news is one of the most potent and toxic drugs known to man and it’s available on tap, twenty-four hours a day.

I find that just thirty seconds of it is enough to send me on a seriously bad trip. I end up in a state of lamentation at the apparently woeful state of the world. Most of our problems clearly stem from widespread and pervasive human dysfunction and all its symptoms, from the dubious activities of governments abroad and at home to the machinations of the monstrous corporate machine and our ongoing decimation of the natural world. Once you get onto this particular train of thought it’s very difficult to get off it again...and it almost always ends in a crash.

But get off the train we must. As long as we’re wrapped up in the problems, we’re part of the problem. I strongly feel that whatever the problem, transcendence is the answer. We can only help the world by shifting our perspective from appearance to reality, from symptom to cause and from problem to solution. Only by inviting, adopting and embodying a different level of consciousness or awareness can we be of any use to the world whatsoever. Only then do we stop being part of the problem.

This topic is really based around a quotation by the great Nisargadatta Maharaj, an Indian sage who had truly a wonderful way of cutting through the crap and getting to the essential truth of life. The question has to do with our “preoccupation with the disastrous condition of the world and the urgent need of setting it right.”

Nisargadatta had this to say: “Striving for the improvement of the world is a most praiseworthy occupation. Done selflessly, it clarifies the mind and purifies the heart. But soon man will realise he pursues a mirage. Local and temporary improvement is always possible and was achieved again and again under the influence of a great king or teacher; but it would soon come to an end, leaving humanity in a new cycle of misery. It is the nature of all manifestation that the good and the bad follow each other in equal measure. The true refuge is only in the unmanifested. [...]

“The only way to renewal lies through destruction. You must melt down the old jewellery into formless gold before you can mould a new piece. Only people who have gone beyond the world can change the world. It never happened otherwise. The few whose impact was lasting were all knowers of reality. Reach their level and then only talk of helping the world.”

When we get lost in the woes of the world and enraged by the inhumanity of man, we simply end up causing more suffering. In another statement Nisargadatta stated even more plainly: “The world doesn’t need to be saved by you. It needs to be saved from you.” Ouch.

Einstein once observed that it’s impossible to solve a problem using the same level of consciousness that created it. When I get upset and frustrated by the state of the world (which is ultimately but a representation in my consciousness), I’m giving absolute importance and reality to something which only has relative importance and at the deepest level, arguably little in the way of ‘reality’. When I get caught up in the content of the dream, I tend to forget that it’s a dream. This is not to debate or diminish the fact that there’s a great deal of suffering in the world, because unquestionably there is.

Some sages and masters are content to simply sit back and allow the world to go by, feeling no need to intervene or change it in any way. Such a laissez-faire attitude to the suffering of the world may seem unconscionable to some. I can understand it, although I don’t think I could quite be like that. When I see someone suffer, I feel deeply compelled to help. When a cause feels important to me, I act on it. I sign petitions, raise awareness and when I can make charitable donations. Just because it feels right to me on some level.

Yet I now realise that I must also simultaneously remain grounded in the deeper Reality. The deeper Reality has a transcendent quality: pain and suffering tend to melt away when I remain connected with that inner expansiveness that exists beyond thought and conditioning. An inner attitude of acceptance and transcendence overcomes resistance, enabling solutions to come more easily and generally making situations flow more easily. By retaining conscious awareness of what is Real and what is simply dreamstuff, we access a power far greater than the anguished fretting of the ego-mind.

Whenever we’re having a bad dream we have two options: we can try to change the dream, or we can wake up. Both options require a degree of lucidity and the realisation that what we are experiencing is a dream. We can actively work to change the dream and make it more pleasant, or we can sit back and just allow it to unfold with an attitude of curiosity, knowing that it is finite and will end in due course.

I’d imagine that most people would probably opt to improve the dream in some way. Again, this necessitates the awareness that you are the dreamer. You can’t change the dream from within the dream until you recognise that it is just a dream. Until you reach that point, you’re simply too immersed in it: you’re unconscious in every sense of the world. Your actions within the dream are scripted. To awaken in life is to awaken within the dream, to realise what’s going on and to make your choice -- consciously change the dream to something better, or else sit back and enjoy the ride regardless of what happens.

It would seem that our very belief that there’s anything ‘wrong’ with the world highlights a deeply dualistic mode of thinking. Only the mind can create ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. If there’s only one underlying reality, one infinite expanse of awareness/consciousness/being, then everything is part of a deeper unified perfection. Beyond the prison of dualistic thinking, either “God” is everything or nothing at all. When we judge any aspect of reality as being ‘wrong’, then we’re waging war with the universe in its infinite perfection. We’re waging war with God. (I tend to balk every time I hear or use that word, but it sounded appropriate in this context!)

Again, it doesn’t mean we have to sit back and do nothing when someone needs help. We can take whatever action we feel to be right. But at the same time we realise that, on some deeper level, everything, EVERYTHING that is happening and has ever happened is born of a deeper underlying order and perfection. We can’t strip reality into component parts labelled ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Well, in fact we can and often do -- but that’s a large part of the problem.

Accepting the unacceptable, trying to refrain from judging the seemingly terrible (while perhaps taking whatever action we feel to be right), contributes to greater coherence, greater peace and greater unity in the world. It’s turiya - a new mode of consciousness, still relatively uncommon in the world. And it may be the greatest healer of all.

Ultimately, I don’t believe we’re of much use to the world until we become, as Nisargadatta put, “knowers of reality.”

Do You Trust the Media?

I felt the strong urge to write a blog on the media, as it’s been something that’s been on my mind for some time now.

I never questioned the veracity of the media in any great depth until I studied Press and Broadcasting and Sociology as part of my Social Science degree. It was during my first P&B lesson that the lecturer said something which had quite an impact on me: “you’re led to assume that the news you watch on TV or read in a newspaper or online is some kind of impartial window to the world, but it’s NOT. There is no such thing as impartial news coverage: news is always gathered and constructed according to a strict framework of criteria and agendas.”

The media is not your friend, and it’s not simply gathering news to “keep you informed”. It is selling product and it will use whatever sales techniques it needs in order to sell as much of that product as possible; whether it’s newspaper copies, TV ratings or website hits. In order to do that, the news stories they filter (the very fact news items are called news “STORIES” is incredibly telling in itself) are done so in accordance with strict criteria. I don’t recall the entire list of criteria, but very near the top is NEGATIVITY. Any honest news editor will admit that negative stories generate much more interest than those of a more positive nature. This immediately explains why we are bombarded by so much negativity in the news.

What’s also important to realise that the news editors will manipulate and distort their news stories in order to create maximum punch. “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story” is the old journalistic cliche, but it is a sad fact - and so many people are still falling for it. “Stories” can be spun in any number of different ways; a positive can easily be re-interpreted as being a negative and also vice versa, as often is the case when we’re being fed propaganda.

I don’t like sounding so negative or cynical, but I feel it’s such an important understanding, particularly as so many people are mass-hypnotised by the media. The media is in so many cases simply POISON. The news editors are not just selling news STORIES, but also a WORLD VIEW; a certain way of interpreting the world and what’s ‘real’ and what ‘isn’t’. This is a dangerous thing, particularly when one of the top criteria of this world view constitutes over-emphasis of negativity and an almost complete ignoring of positivity. I’ve known far too many people who watch the news like zombies (and not just once - but they insist on soaking up every last news bulletin on TV like junkies getting a heroin fix). They believe everything they see and think that’s ALL that’s going on in the world. Personally I only have to watch 5 minutes of the news to feel a grim pall descending - but at least I’m aware of that and can fight it off while reaching for that all-important ‘off’ button.

Those people who aren’t quite as conscious of what’s happening are trapped in a horrendously bleak worldview and they live in a world of misery - even though there’s often VERY LITTLE WRONG in their own lives - in fact, these people often have countless blessings and live relatively easy lives. The grim worldview presented to them by the media blinds them to the beauty of life all around them and the countless things they have to be grateful for.

This is not to ignore the many terrible things that do happen in the world. There is of course much suffering happens in the world. But I fail to see how condensing every bad thing that happens in the world into a 20 minute new bulletin which is little short of torture porn is of any value.

It is for this reason that I REFUSE to watch the news or waste precious moments of my life reading the bullshit that gets printed in newspapers.

This would horrify some people. “But you have to stay informed!” “You have to know what’s happening in the world!”

WHY? The news almost brainwashes people into believing that the world is a place filled with NOTHING BUT murder, rape, genocide and inhumanity. It does sadly exist, but the fact is for every one act of cruelty there are a hundred small acts of kindness. I remember one time watching the hideousness of the evening news and feeling disillusioned with humanity, when I saw an elderly men walking down the road and stopping to kneel down and stroke a cat. It was a clear effort for him, but he still did it. A simple, yet everyday act of kindness and beauty. It made me realise how the countless acts of kindness, love and compassion in the world are deemed ‘un-newsworthy’ and so don’t exist for many people. Only the bad things matter.

In my experience, we each create our own worlds; there is no objective world out there. “Consciousness itself is the greatest painter,” Nisargadatta said. “The entire world is but a picture.” This should be self-evident really. The depressed, unhappy or neurotic person lives in a terrible world filled with negativity, tragedy and futility. A more adjusted, optimistic and joyous person lives in a world filled with possibility, excitement and wonder. They both might occupy the exact same point in time and space, but they live in completely different worlds. Most people are unconscious and believe themselves to be a helpless victim to the world in which they find themselves. However, the truth is that we are solely responsible for the level of our consciousness, for the thoughts and beliefs we entertain in our minds and ultimately for the very world in which we exist. Bombarded by the constant negativity and heaviness of the media it’s easy to fall into this victim mode and to buy the worldview they are selling. The ability to question, however, is the first step to freedom.

I strongly recommend that people try a complete news fast.

Try it for at least a week and see how different you feel. The rationalisation that you need to “stay informed” doesn’t stand up under scrutiny. Believe me, I hardly ever watch or read the news but I ALWAYS hear what I NEED to hear and am informed about the things that are RELEVANT to me and about which I can TAKE ACTION about. In times past, before the globalisation of today, people were only ever informed of local news and events which affected them directly. The rest was irrelevant - it was other peoples’ news. That still holds true today.

The bottom line is we are each 100% responsible for the level - and content - of our consciousness. Bombarding your mind with the hideous pictures and sights of the news is a sure-fire way to make you feel depressed, helpless, deflated and disempowered. Part of me sometimes even wonders if this is intentional in some way. How do you keep the masses weak and disempowered and completely under the thumb of the current status quo? Why, bombard them with a barrage of horrendous stories and images and make them believe that we live in a dreadful, hopeless world in which change is useless and nothing amounts to anything.

I don’t buy it. I really strongly encourage others to come to the same realisation, if they haven’t already. I don’t deny that a great many horrendous things happen in the world and I don’t want it to sound that I shut myself off from such things, because in truth I am more active in social, political and environmental causes than perhaps the average person who simply sits passively observing the television news as though it’s some kind of sado-masochistic entertainment. Perhaps they’re even desensitised to the images of destruction and tales of murder and woe? Some people even get a perverse kick from images of violence. That’s something else to be avoided at all costs.

The negativity and sensationalism of the media has escalated to heights of near parody - and government is often just as much at blame. The recent swine flu pandemic (if it is in fact a “pandemic” at all, the jury is currently still out) is a case in point and I will say no more than that. If, in the course of his predictions Nostradamus happened to have tuned into our news broadcasts then it’s no wonder he thought it was the end of the world. In fact, there are fewer deaths from war today than at any other point in recorded history. Statistically, people are living longer, healthier lives than ever before. And there is a growing level of consciousness and awareness taking place upon the planet; something which many believe is part of an evolutionary process, a shifting from egoic consciousness to a more heart-based mode of being. All of this, of course, is unlikely to ever be reported, acknowledged or examined in mainstream media outlets.

My ultimate point is simple: switch off the TV, put down that newspaper and be very careful as to where your web-browser is taking you. Stay in your own power; take responsibility for the world you live in, recognising that it is a fully subjective realm. Take action for the causes that are dearest to your heart but don’t feel the need to continually soak and bask in the agenda-driven news feed that continually blasts at you. Question the unwritten assumption that you have to stay informed of every single negative thing that happens in the world. WHY? Why do we feel that it’s somehow appropriate or necessary that we add further negativity and suffering to the world by subjecting ourselves to the media torture porn?

The following is a quote and I can’t for the life of me remember who it’s by, so a gold star for the first person that can tell me: “Think differently if you please. But in all cases, think for yourself.”

Waking up, laggers...and fascists

Following last week's elections, I was alarmed to hear that the BNP (British National Party - or the British Nazi Party as it might as well be named) has achieved it’s highest polling yet and that it now has two seats in the European Parliament. It really sadden me that this racist, homophobic, extremist right-wing party gets ANY voters at all - much less enough to secure two seats in the European Parliament (what a shocking way to have our country represented in Europe). There will always be an element in society that is deeply entrenched in ego toxicity and feels the need to bolster their own sense of identity by savaging others; in the past it’s been easy to dismiss BNP voters as hateful thugs, but the sharp upturn in the number of people voting for this party makes for unpleasant analysis.

‘Your primary purpose in life is to awaken. It is as simple as that. You share that purpose with every other person on the planet - because it is the purpose of humanity’ writes Eckhart Tolle.

By awakening he basically means recognising that this ego-identity, the ‘false self’ comprised of accumulated thoughts, beliefs, preferences and other such mental activity is in fact a phantom self; that who we truly are is above and beyond the movements of thought across the sky-like essence of mind and that we are, in essence, ONE. Einstein grasped this fundamental spiritual truth when he declared that the notion of being a separate entity existing independently in time and space is but an ‘optical delusion of consciousness’. This spiritual awakening takes place gradually - oh so gradually - but can be quickened by spiritual teachings that are sufficiently ‘clear’ and devoid of dogma and the hollow ‘stuck on the surface level’ mentality that characterises the input of many religions. Yet, everyone is equally open to this ‘waking up’ from the illusion of self and the mass hypnosis of 'what is' that's being thrown at us by a world that’s buried beneath the spell of hollow materialistic maya. It can happen to anyone regardless of their religious persuasion or if they have none at all.

Many believe that this ‘waking up’ from the spell of mind and this reverence of an illusory sense of self is, in fact, an evolutionary break-through...and one that is necessary if our species is to continue without absolutely obliterating itself and the planet it lives on. When you no longer believe the content of your mind and unconsiously have the need to defend this ego-identity you mistake for ‘you’, there is no need for conflict, for making others your ‘enemy’, for oppressing and harming others in thought, word or deed.

More and more people are waking up, I believe. Slowly, sporadically, perhaps, but the proliferation of teachers whose words simply and unobtrusively point to awakening is encouraging. More and more people are recognising that this gnawing unrest and achingly persistent lack of fulfilment at the core of their beings can’t be allayed by simply buying more and more ‘things’ or trying to use drugs, alcohol, TV or other weapons of mass distraction (WMD) to patch over the cracks. What they are really seeking is a way out of this mind-creating hell known as ‘ego’ and the accompanying need to build, fortify and defend this illusory construction for dear life. It’s the only true freedom in life....the ability to stop believing your own mental stories; the stories that you erroneously confuse with being 'reality'. It’s the only way to peace.

Yet, it seems that although a growing number of people are recognising that it’s time to wake up - and indeed, this planet can’t endure much longer without the sorry nightmare ending - there are a growing number of people in whom the ego is solidifying its hold. They clutch ever more tightly to their beliefs and stories, to ‘who’ they think they are and ‘who’ they think others are and their need to be right by making others wrong. This can be seen in the people supporting extremist organisations such as the BNP...people who need to bolster their own identity and ‘rightness’ by oppressing and trying to expel others. How else do we construct and maintain a facade of ‘self’ than by determining it in relation to ‘others’?

This is the old way, though. Although the increased support for elements such as the BNP shows that many people are actually falling deeper into the dream - and an unpleasant one at that, one in which we must persecute others in order to make ourselves ‘right’ - I still believe that there is an almost 'evolutionary' trend away from this kind of deeply dysfunctional mentality. The backlash against these hate-filled extremist ideologies is pronounced and the majority of people are rightly disgusted by the BNP and its exclusivist policies. Poll after poll seems to indicate that the majority of people are in fact becoming more tolerant and accepting of others. It's impossible to overlook the significance of a black man now being President of the USA, when just a few decades earlier black people were utterly - and legally - second class citizens. The USA certainly has many other social issues and prejudices, notably the whole proposition 8 thing, but even then, opinion polls show that at a rate of about 2% a year, the American public is becoming more supportive of gay civil rights, such as the right to have relationships legally recognised. Again, if we are to move forward we can no longer single out any group of people as being 'less than' or deserving of societal or even legalised oppression.

This is, after all, one world.....and nature demonstrates that diversity IS life. Strip away that diversity, convince yourself that one element is 'better' than another, and eventually things break down and the balance is destroyed. Life turns on itself like a cancer. Because within that diversity is ONE BEING, interconnected, interrelated in the same way that every fish in the ocean is interrelated by that ocean. The sooner people start to ‘get’ that the better.

So how do you reconcile the people that are intolerant of others and hateful and extremist in their outlook? Is that just part of this diversity?? You certainly can’t ‘fight’ such people. Maybe they just have to be accepted as part of that whole? As a staunch opposer of oppression in all its forms, I often muse about whether being intolerant of intolerance is an act of intolerance in itself? I have never yet reached a satisfactory answer to that....I only know that all action must originate in HEART and not mind. My heart was bruised by this increased support for what is essentially a fascist party, so i had to speak these words and share my thoughts on the subject. The way forward is to ‘wake up’ to reality and burst the mind-bubble that keeps the majority of us prisoner to a fabricated, and often warped, version of reality. There will always be laggers, which is fine. Just so long as these laggers don't get out of control as in the cancer analogy. It's always a sad possibility...

Recession

No one has asked my opinion about the current recession...which is a crying shame actually, because I have a somewhat different perspective to most and one that might actually be more constructive than the all-too pervasive doom and gloom that most people get hooked into.

This whole notion we've operated on, that our economy has to continue growing and growing year by year is a total fallacy. In our capitalist-driven western society we're indoctrinated into the 'more, more, MORE' modus operandi and rarely question it....but let me tell you, life isn't like that! Life is about cycles - you only need to look to the natural world to see that. Everything in life operates in cycles of activity and rest, growth and decay, birth and death. The problem begins the moment we impose value judgements on these cycles: "this is good, but that is bad". We strive to manipulate circumstances to keep producing more of what we think is "good" (say, growth or activity) and do everything in our power to stave off what we deem to be "bad" (in this case, decay or decrease). But it's an artificial system and it doesn't reflect the natural order of life. And there's a word for it: cancer. The cancer cells keep multiplying and multiplying, growing and growing and ultimately prove potentially deadly to the organism. That's what happens when balance is loss and the same is as true for our society (and yes, economy!) as it is for our bodies.

We've lost balance. The very basis of our economy has been rooted in greed and unashamed self-interest at the cost of any concern for the whole. The evidence for this? The fact that millions of people on the planet don't even have clean drinking water, while most people in our society are simply concerned with getting more and more 'things', more money, bigger houses, better cars, fancier gadgets, more exotic holidays....we've become a cancer: a single cell completely out of balance, obsessed with multiplying, with creating more and more and more utterly regardless of the good of the whole.

You can only climb a mountain so far before you reach the top...and then the only way is back down. I actually see this recession as a good thing: hopefully balance will be restored. Hopefully the old systems and modes of being, which were corrupt, hideously self-serving and blatantly unjust will be uprooted and replaced with a system of greater integrity. Our rampant, flagrantly out-of-control materialism hasn't brought us happiness: in fact, a recent study documented that British children are the unhappiest in the world (a shocking statistic when you realise that this includes children in third world countries suffering dire poverty).

Soooo....what's the prognosis then? We need a new way of doing things. One that incorporates not just our own good, but the best interests of the whole. We can no longer turn a blind eye to the wretched suffering being endured by millions of our fellow men while continuing to pursue what has been the One True Religion of the past century: the worship and pursuit of materialism. It's time for a new way. How will this come about? I don't know. In the words of Lennon, 'I'm a dreamer....but I'm not the only one.' I have no doubt that change will happen if enough people start WAKING UP....