This week the New Zealand mass consciousness has been obsessed with the issue of Parliamentary bullying. The cases of Sam Uffindell and Gaurav Sharma have revealed that there are some deeply abusive and sadistic people among our Parliamentarians. This essay explains why this is, and why we would be foolish to expect anything else.
Parliament is the top of the social dominance hierarchy in New Zealand. The people in there get to decide what the rest of us are allowed to do, and if we defy them they can set the Police onto us. Parliament are above laws. They can lie, they can slander, they can cheat, and no-one can touch them. This great power creates a great incentive for people to fight their way into Parliament, to the top of the social dominance hierarchy.
There are two ways to get to the top of any dominance hierarchy, whether it’s a family, tribe, country or empire: intimidation or inspiration.
In a state of Nature, there is only intimidation. The alpha chimpanzee is invariably the one with the greatest combination of strength and aggression. He rules by fear. Anyone who challenges him is liable to have his scrotum torn off or his eyes gouged out. A wide range of submissive behaviours evolved so that non-alphas could demonstrate their lack of threat, and thereby earn the alpha’s mercy.
Pre-civilisational human life was not much different to chimpanzee life today. The one at the top of the dominance hierarchy was also the one with the greatest combination of strength and aggression. But the advent of civilisation changed everything. Civilisation transformed the human being from a wild animal into something else.
In a state of civilisation, there is inspiration. It’s possible for individuals in possession of a divine spark to gain the allegiance of their fellows not through cruelty and fear, but through the promise of leading them to greatness. The greater the civilisation, the more inspirational the leaders are. The greatest of all civilisations give us leaders like Alexander, Marcus Aurelius and George Washington.
Inspiration is by far the best way to lead, because it provokes the least amount of blowback. Rule by intimidation makes people feel fear, which often calcifies into resentment. This resentment, as Machiavelli observed, is liable to spill over into unrest and violence. Much better, he concluded, to be loved than to be feared.
Intimidation is easy. It’s mostly a matter of what’s called social dominance orientation, or SDO. The will to dominate is the main quality that intimidates other people. Research has found that “higher SDO was associated with pursuit of hierarchy-enhancing jobs”. For the reasons mentioned above, politician is one of those jobs. So people who are naturally intimidating often strive to become politicians, creating a selection bias.
Inspiration is hard. No-one is really sure how to do it, or what’s necessary. A belief in God might be necessary in order to truly inspire, or fearlessness in the face of death, or high intelligence, great wealth or a favourable birth. No-one really knows. Good leaders don’t need to know the specifics, because they can intuit the way forwards.
It’s fair to say that good leaders rule by inspiration and bad leaders rule by intimidation.
Unfortunately, New Zealand is beset by bad leadership. Not only are we near the bottom of a historical nadir, but we are also crippled by democracy, the remnants of cultural Christianity and a peculiar resentment-fuelled anti-elitism, all of which combine to keep our best people down.
The end result is that there are no real leaders in Parliament. All they’ve been since the Third National Government is just a pack of scum-sucking grifters doing the bidding of international banking and finance interests. That doesn’t inspire anyone. So our Parliament is full of abusers because there are no good leaders to inspire people to follow them, leaving abusers to battle their way into the top positions.
Our political system selects for psychopaths because any dominance hierarchy without one or more psychopaths at the top of it is inherently unstable. If the person at the top of a dominance hierarchy is not a psychopath themselves, they are liable to get dislodged by more aggressive underlings. So, from the point of view of the Establishment, putting abusers into top positions promotes stability.
Almost everyone in Parliament is an abuser, and that goes triple for those at the top of Parliament. Can anyone listen to Jacinda Ardern or Andrew Little justify their continuation of cannabis prohibition, and not realise they are psychopaths? Can anyone listen to Christopher Luxon or Brooke van Velden bay for cutting the benefits of the poor, and not think likewise?
Given all this, it’s not hard to understand why National selected Sam Uffindell as a candidate despite his history of bullying: a history of bullying is a qualification for a job that requires grinding five million other people into submission. This is why National never disavowed Nick Smith, even though Smith regularly turned up to meetings drunk and abused his staff, or any of the countless other alcoholics, narcissists and sex pests that have floated through National’s ranks over the years.
In summary, our political system is full of abusers because we have no leaders good enough to inspire people to follow them.
Choosing wisely and unwisely, along with the consequences that follow, constitutes the greater part of our human lives. We will all make many wrong choices in our time. Don’t be tempted to withhold from making the wrong choice because you think you need to be good, or in order to be worthy or righteous. This is a subtle misunderstanding.
The only way for wisdom to really bear fruit in this life is to move and act from a space of understanding. The goal here, as with all things in this life-long project of self-inquiry, is understanding.
Understanding requires that you meet what is trying to move out of your inner state into an expression in the world. We begin with mind in all things, and then it moves outward into an expression.
This can be either wise or unwise, skilful or unskilful. This is what eventually affords us with wisdom or what the Buddha referred to as ‘Right View’. Right View is not a claim there is an objectively correct solution for everything, rather it indicates a correct way of looking things. It speaks to our orientation. Are we wanting to be right, or are we wanting to understand? Are we wanting justification in all we do, or do we want to see deeply into the way things really work?
In some ways we are better off making mistakes again and again if we don’t understand yet – but at least choose with your eyes open. Then you will learn something. When understanding arises for you, it will have substance and lasting value. You will then have the capacity to be grateful for the mistakes you have made and see how graciously you have been humbled and corrected.
A lot of people find this mysterious, but it really needn’t be. If you know what to look for, it won’t be mysterious. The small windows with which you see into unconscious patterns of behaviour, when used regularly and with ongoing commitment, eventually allow you to see more. The windows gradually become wider, allowing for a broader view of things within.
Many things are so small that we are content to simply let them fly, whether it is making a comment, using a certain tone, allowing something to privately irritate us, or withholding affection or appreciation from someone as punishment. This is because we don’t tend to be aware of the total impact of our small errors.
If you want to get grit out of your shoe so that you can stand and walk comfortably, you don’t just want the biggest pieces out, nor do you only want most of the small bits out – you want all of it out. The smaller pieces will bother you even more when there is less grit in there.
It is the same principle with your inner environment.
If you want peace, you need to look at every tiny factor that contributes towards an outward movement from misunderstanding. Grit in your shoe is grit in your shoe – one subtle interruption to peace of mind is an interruption to all of your peace of mind, not just a part of it. The False Self can be deluded into thinking that it wants certain particularly troublesome pieces of grit out so that it can focus on keeping the others, but that is the power of delusion for you.
Some suffering actually works for ego as a convenience, other suffering not so much. If you want to get rid of your suffering but keep your unreasonable expectations, or your long-standing arguments, your progress in self-discovery will be impeded. You can only go so far when you place artificial limitations on your process of inquiry.
A lot of writers on this subject tend to hesitate from giving specific examples. I’m not sure why this is the case. I think it may be because when we are given specific examples, it is seen as a little like being spoon-fed, and the idea is that it may reduce our capacity to independently assess for ourselves whether an act expressed is unconscious or in harmony or with the truth of who we truly are.
It makes sense to me that we can’t just be given beliefs or moral principles to fall into alignment with, because this would disregard the role of understanding. I feel that in some cases, being given specific examples does serve to shine some light on the kinds of things we are looking for in this type of exercise. Perhaps not all the time, because we do need to learn a measure of independence in this arena. We should be able to look for ourselves with fresh eyes and discover what is pertinent to us, not because someone who thinks they know better has told us that this behaviour is wise – this won’t help much.
The Buddha is reputed to have once said:
“…just as a goldsmith would test his gold by burning, cutting, and rubbing it, so you must examine my words and accept them, but not merely out of reverence for me.”
The Buddha was first and foremost a human, and he was being totally upfront with us about our shared human interest in discovering for ourselves the value of what is said, not the projected image of whoever appears to be saying it.
You don’t need someone you think is enlightened telling you what you should and shouldn’t do. That wouldn’t be revolutionary, that would be old hat. Do you really want to give the power of your mind away so easily? What if it is the only realm of jurisdiction that you really have? What would you do with the knowledge of an enlightened being if you didn’t totally understand it? Would you keep it in your head, like a treasure kept in a box?
Again, understanding is paramount – you need to know what it is, how it works, how to use it – otherwise it is no good. If I write a sentence, I anticipate that it will be tested by a discriminating reader, not swallowed hook, line and sinker. If you test what is said, you are practicing what the Buddha taught; you are practicing wisdom. If you do not test what is said, but you take hold of it anyway, you are practicing idolatry or false religion – even if what is said is true.
This is what a baby does. A baby will suck anything that is put into its mouth. If we want to be adults in this world, if we want a life that reflects our maturity, we can’t afford to just take anything in without knowing what it is. Abandoning all discrimination is not the same thing as faith.
I will give some examples of typical unconscious patterns, not to tell you what is wrong and what is right, but to help open your eyes to areas of your life which you may need to examine in order to foster skilful living. There will be many areas close by that require similar attention. As always, the responsibility for a thorough investigation lies with you.
Maybe no-one has told you this before, but I have total confidence in your capacity to examine your inner world in a balanced, healthy and truth-conducive way.
It is not a chore; it is one of the most beautiful things humanly possible. The results remain to be seen. I do not withhold an attempt describe the results in order to be mysterious, but to respect the freshness of your own experience. Suffice it to say, those who have gone before you in this venture have discovered that all we have to lose in self-inquiry is that which is not real to begin with. Then you can marvel at what remains.
I will now share some brief examples followed by a specific thought form that might accompany them, and afterward, a general explanation of how these contribute to our suffering. Some of these may be things you have noticed before either in yourself, or perhaps in others. We are all particularly adept when it comes to noticing symptoms of falsehood and delusion in other people.
When you deliberately leave certain books out to imply to others how complex or intelligent you are. “I’m great. I know so much – people love me”.
When you want to demonstrate to strangers that you are capable of walking or driving away from the traffic lights with a high reaction time. “I am faster than you. See?”.
When you walk, speak or move a certain way hoping that others will make the connection that there is something very special or distinguished about you. “I am a dark horse – I am very sophisticated”.
When you feel a sense of desperation when you want to win an argument, defend yourself, or make a point to others. “I just have to be right and express my opinion”.
I have given just a few examples, because we really could fill a book with them. I know some of them seem juvenile, but we do carry a lot of misunderstandings all the way from childhood through to adulthood in only superficially modified form – it is all a way of begging for love, worth and attention.
We don’t need many examples for the spirit of these movements to be identified. You can sense the place within you that they emerge from. More generally people just call this suffering, but in Buddhism, this is referred to specifically as ignorance. It is a gut-level sense of being a separate being, a fragment of the universe that defines itself as so small that it must be promoted and defended in order to ensure its foothold in existence. It is ignorance in the respect that the attitude is in ignorance of your true nature.
Our true nature rests in unity, and doesn’t need to be promoted or defended. Interpersonal advertisements are not a tool of the true self, which has no need to show strength, skill or virtue. Being itself establishes worth, and understanding will reveal this.
Every little thrill that you get when you entertain any one of these deluded thought forms is strengthening and supporting that separate sense of self. When a spider builds a web, it has to maintain the structure constantly, making repairs and adjustments in tension here and there, otherwise the whole thing will decay and fall apart. The false self is doing the same thing.
Every minuscule portion of energy you send its way will keep the whole operation running – and an ego can subsist on very little energy for a very long time.
Have you noticed what happens for example when you really make an effort to look attractive, and you haven’t received a compliment about your looks for a long time? If that sort of thing is really important to us, we might start to remember a time where a compliment did make us feel wonderful, if however very briefly, and relive it all over again. Or, we might fantasise about a fictitious scenario.
This helps an ego in starvation mode so that the sense of a separate self is held more firmly in place. What would otherwise happen is the pain of withdrawal might become so great that the deficiency of the personality structure is itself called into question. This variety of ‘rock-bottom’ event could provide the critical mass needed to awaken out of the mind’s dream-state, so the False Self tends not to let that happen.
I say this in some regard to appease the honest part of your curious mind, but please respect that none of this is to be believed. It is to be explored and investigated by you.
These brief examples I have given you may seem paltry and trivial, but like the grit in your shoe, every tiny bit contributes and something small can ultimately result in a great deal of suffering.
None of this is of any use if we don’t arrive at some measure of true insight, allowing for the relief of suffering. I wouldn’t mention these small things otherwise. What I most want you to see about them is the way in which they promote a certain aspect of you while simultaneously denying another. You should also see how each of these brings two things with it – thrill and suffering, inseparable like two sides of a coin.
Do you get a sense with each of these examples how the tiny revenue of excitement that is a reward in each one of them contributes to keeping you locked into a worldview in which there is a separate ‘you’ there, stretched between duality of values, worthy or unworthy, good or bad, strong or weak? See whether you can get a palpable sense of what it feels like to be rewarded chemically and psychologically with each of these, because this is the thrill of the ego, the False Self.
The tiny thrill is a poison that is making you sick, because you have misunderstood through a culture of learned ignorance. You thought that the only way to feel anything was to be addicted to thrill, and then confuse that with happiness. You actually got it totally backward – thrill is suffering, and real joy comes through peace which is the absence of suffering.
We all got it completely backwards.
It is all the small links in the chain that bind the addiction to personal identity. Each one is worth examining, because you might just find the chain falls away altogether with a little persistence. Successfully understand one dysfunctional energetic form deeply within your mind and heart, and you will be well on the road to understanding them all and discovering a peace without boundaries.
We were all caught in the same honey-trap. This may be embarrassing for a time, but that too is a natural phase. See what it feels like to give yourself some peace and let that embarrassment and shame go – we don’t need to make another victim identity out of it.
When we use a sense, or a muscle, we know what happens. Our abilities become clearer, stronger. Our task in inquiry is just the same way. We develop an acute awareness of when energetic movements within our minds or hearts are coming from a place of separation, wanting to isolate ourselves as an identity – the special one, the rebel, the hero, the holy man or the victim – and we sense keenly when movements originate from a sense of unity.
The latter are harder to spot, especially at first, because they are spontaneous, and lack of premeditation that the movements of separateness thrive on. This is why the unity that moves through you is sometimes referred to in Buddhism as sunyata or emptiness.
It isn’t that there is literally nothing there, it is that unlike separation, it doesn’t depend on structured form and content to maintain its abiding existence. This is why it never feels compelled to promote or defend itself, and why it feels peaceful and secure without clinging to anything even though change is happening all around it.
Sadly, many people in this life will never come to know the value of this because of just how deeply we have been collectively enthralled by the addictive conditioned states that the modern world excels at producing. The truth is, you can’t serve two masters, and you can’t bend two bows.
I have confidence that what is true in us wants so profoundly to express itself through us, particularly at this time when our established human ways are consistently failing us, that those of us who are called to the responsibility of self-inquiry will meet this task head on, and likely with rapid success. Not only is this peace waiting for us in our own lives, but it is waiting to be shared with every entity in all times and places.
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Simon P Murphy is a Nelson-based esotericist and philosopher, and author of His Master’s Wretched Organ, a brilliant collection of weird fiction stories.
There are many different ways of dividing the people of the world into two groups. Men vs. women, East vs. West, K-selected vs. r-selected, industrialised vs. developing, whores vs. gangsters. This essay introduces another: equatorial mentality vs. polar mentality.
Equatorial climes, as anyone who has been to the tropics will know, are hot. Sunlight beats down directly from above. Near the Equator, it’s often above 20 degrees Celcius even at night. Sometimes living there can feel like living in a greenhouse.
Polar climes, by contrast, are cold. Sunlight strikes the surface of the Earth from the side. In wintertime, cities above the Arctic Circle have days where the Sun does not rise above the horizon at all (the “Polar Night”). This is where the real tundra begins, where the climate can only support small trees and bushes.
Contrary to popular belief, there’s more to the global temperature gradient than the simple fact that polar climes tend to be less sunny. For example, some cities in the Congo and Equitorial Guinea get only 1,500 yearly sunshine hours, whereas even Stockholm gets 1,800. The intensity of the sunlight is more important, particularly the intensity of sunlight per square metre.
Not every latitude of the surface of the Earth receives the same intensity of sunlight. Near the Equator, where the rays of the Sun strike the surface of the Earth at right angles, the sunlight is the most intense. The further one goes from the Equator to the poles, the more obtusely the sunlight strikes the surface, and the less intense it becomes.
The fact that the intensity of sunlight varies depending on latitude has immense ecological consequences – and, thereby, ethological consequences.
Because the sunlight is more intense at the Equator, and because the food chain is based on sunlight, the intensity of life is also greater there. Strong sunlight and warm temperatures are the most conducive to life, and so the Equator tends to feature jungles and rainforests that are teeming with insects and animals. This life must compete against other life for space to live.
At the Equator, therefore, the immediate challenge for anything living is against other living beings. Nearer the poles, by contrast, the immediate challenge is against the environment. There is much less life per square metre, and so much less danger from predators and parasites. The main dangers there are the cold and lack of easy food supplies.
This means that a different set of behaviour patterns had to evolve to meet the challenges of equatorial climates, as compared to polar climates. These behavioural patterns evolved alongside particular mindsets. There is an equatorial mindset that is more compatible with equatorial behaviour patterns, and there is a polar mindset that is more compatible with polar behaviour patterns.
The equatorial mindset doesn’t think ahead. There are no winters near the Equator, so there is no possibility of freezing to death. As such, there is no need to stack firewood for the winter, or to build a solid, warm, airtight house. Fruit is plentiful all year round in the tropics, so there’s no need to plan for the long-term storage of it. As such, there is no evolutionary pressure selecting for long-term thinking.
The polar mindset, by contrast, is always thinking ahead. It has to. Polar winters will kill everything not prepared for them. It’s common for Northern Europe, parts of North America and parts of Northern Asia to experience winter temperatures below -30 Celcius. What’s worse, winters in such places can last for six months. Anyone who doesn’t plan adequately for such weather will die.
These contrasting mindsets explain the contrasting impressions that some people make on each other.
The equatorial mindset is that, if there’s nothing to do, just chill out. Tomorrow will be much like today so, if there are no pressing matters, one should just take it easy and not risk overexertion. This is why people in Equatorial countries are often found sleeping during the middle of the day.
This is often interpreted as lazy by the polar mindset. The reality, however, is that when it’s hot, it can be dangerous to use too much energy. Heatstroke is an ever-present threat in tropical regions. Anyone who pushes themselves too hard is liable to pass out. So taking it easy whenever possible makes sense near the Equator.
The polar mindset, by contrast, is to always keep oneself busy. Sooner or later, winter will come, so if there are no pressing matters, one should prepare. Chop firewood, fix the house, gather food – and do it now because it will soon be too cold and dark. This is why people in Europe, North America and Northern Asia work long hours. The polar mindset doesn’t feel comfortable unless it’s working.
This is often interpreted as neurosis by the equatorial mindset. ‘We only have one life, so why not relax and enjoy it?’ reasons the equatorial mind, which doesn’t understand why the polar mind works so hard when the final reward for all of us is death. The hunger of the polar mind to achieve things and to impose order upon the world seems inhuman to the equatorial mind.
Like feminine and masculine, the equatorial mindset and the polar mindset will often clash. The polar mindset tends to accumulate more money, and this provokes resentment in the equatorial mindset. The equatorial mindset has a tendency to act impulsively, and the violence and theft that results provokes resentment in the polar mindset.
The equatorial mindset vs. the polar mindset is one of the great divisions in the human species, and understanding it goes a long way to understanding human behaviour.
In any discussion of the psyche, there is reference to two primary aspects of the self. There are possibly other levels or gradations, but for our purposes here, I just want to elaborate on the two most commonly encountered groupings of the self as relevant to the human level. I intend to draw comparison between the True Self and the False Self, that latter of which is sometimes referred to as ‘ego’ or ‘small self’.
I don’t want to imply that this sense of self is false in the sense that no experience gained from that dimension is useful or valid, as limitation can certainly be learned from. I mainly wish to communicate that the False Self is a very limited and fragmented aspect of who we are, while True Self, by comparison, is where the energetic majority of our true identity naturally resides, whether we recognize it or not.
While we refer to the views of the False Self as illusory or false, I find it more useful to emphasise not so much the falsity of the aspect, but how limited in view the False Self is.
The view from the perspective of False Self is the internal modelling of how we appear in the world on the most superficial level, namely that we are a separate, individual ‘someone’ going about our business in time and space, which of course, is what it very much looks like at first glance. This view has been reinforced culturally, particularly in the West, although to some extent in most times and places.
The attributes of this view of the False Self are marked by a world of suffering and feeling alone, fearful, limited or trapped. They typically include some sense of being contracted, deluded, conflicted and existentially separate. It is not all misery, because this also accommodates thrills, exhilaration and an unbalanced sense of reward when our ego is seemingly approved of, enhanced or complimented. The view of the False Self is the basic platform from which the majority of human delusion operates.
The True Self, by contrast, is that which is naturally present when identity is withdrawn from the False Self. This can happen to a greater or lesser degree, and is often spontaneous and unpredictable.
Some people refer to the True Self as pure awareness, consciousness or any number of other names. The names really don’t matter here, because the nature of the True Self is categorically beyond language. When you touch upon it for the first time, this point cannot be missed. For our purposes, the only name we need here is one that will sufficiently distinguish it from the False Self.
When our identity has been reclaimed as True Self, it presents as expansive, peaceful, authentic and quite viscerally connected to Being. It accommodates all experience, but does not get caught up in any aspect of it. The True Self understands that experience doesn’t diminish or enhance it, so no sense of ‘self’ is invested in outward ventures. There is no further question as to the nature of our identity – it becomes a matter of immediate fact rather than theory.
How is it that we came to feel so separate in the first place when all that is really possible is the unity of being? This is unknown. Some have speculated a multitude of reasons such as an original fall from grace, humanity adopting language, or the divine wishing to explore itself eternally through lower, simpler forms in order to come to a complete knowing of itself through its various manifestations.
Perhaps it is a path of eternal discovery, or perhaps there is even some kind of progressive path hidden behind higher dimensions of illusion. I really wouldn’t know. I am only comfortable talking about that which I have touched upon experientially.
What I can talk about is these two primary aspects of the self, and their phenomenological investigation. One is highly limited, therefore affording a very closed and limited perspective of separation, whilst the other is connected, expansive, truth-congruent and holds a quality of depth that runs deeply into the source of what nourishes us energetically from within.
I like the image of a tall medieval tower fortress.
The sky above and all that it encompasses is the Source, The Ground of Being, or Reality. The perspective of the False Self is a little like a thin arrow slit somewhere toward the lower portion of the tower. From this narrow perspective, only a small amount of light is available, and only a sliver of the outside world can be apprehended, and not clearly at that. The direction is fixed, so alternative perspectives cannot be accommodated.
The view from the True Self, on the other hand, takes place atop the tower where the maximum view in all directions is afforded. Since there is no roof, you are as connected to the open sky as you can be. Nothing separates you from it, and your view over the parapets is unobstructed. A conscious reconnection with this expansive sense of self is sometimes referred to as ‘awakening’ or ‘enlightenment’, which are words that have been loaded with unhelpful implications.
Before I proceed further, I would like to elaborate on this point. Occupation with the True Self does not mean that you become holy, righteous, omniscient or omnipotent. We do not become our personal version of God. This is actually the furthest from how this works. False Self imagines ascension to godhood, while that which is true in us responds naturally in prostration before divine unity. The view of the False Self is tantalised by its idea of ascension to godhood, as an ego.
If you were a fish in the ocean, and you were limited by an egoic point of view, at some point you become taken with the notion of becoming the biggest fish in the ocean, able to dominate and exert its will over any other creature in the ocean. This is predictable, because it is inherent in the nature of ego to divide and conquer.
This view is limited at best, and at worst, immature and juvenile. Here we are coming back to the limitation of the view of the False Self again – this ego fish only conceives the solution to smallness and lack being upscaled to an imaginary quest for bigness and abundance. This is not an aspiration to transformative change, but a mere transposition of confusion from one scale to another.
The immensity of unity does not cater to egos, big or small. The True Self has no overlapping interests with the False Self. Everything that the False Self comes up with is a warped fantasy, totally removed from true abundance. The bigger picture is that this ego-ensnared fish is not at all separate from the totality of the ocean, the source of its life and being.
Because this understanding has nothing to offer a power-hungry, self-identified ego, the prospect of unity or nonseparation offers no appeal to the fish. If something is available to all people equally, ego cannot see its value. This is why to the False Self meeting a Hollywood celebrity is viewed as special while seeing the Moon in the sky is not, despite the Moon being far more famous throughout history than any celebrity. Some people have been able to meet this celebrity, while others have not. Nearly everyone, poor, wealthy, popular or friendless, gets to see the Moon at some point.
The vast majority of humans have been prey to the same predicament as this imaginary fish for centuries. The False Self has a pattern of encouraging derision toward people who have reconnected with being as pretenders to the throne of godhood who fail to deliver, and therefore ought to be scoffed at and ridiculed. Either that, or it worships them, aspiring to what it imagines them to have achieved.
This is because ego doesn’t see reality, it only projects other egos. It sees through its own filters, obscuring reality.
There is nothing to ridicule in being connected to the depths of your being. It is not a personal claim to godhood. Immodesty is something we quite willingly leave at the door when we retire from the demands of ego. We relax in the face of it. The True Self knows that there is no possibility of another being superseding another in worth. This is an ego game, and the play is very limited, which is why we must eventually come to find it tiresome both in ourselves and others. This pain is a grace that spurs us on to a more mature view of reality, along with our place within it.
I mentioned earlier that the terms ‘awakening’ and ‘enlightenment’ are somewhat overused, and I don’t believe these terms are necessarily helpful in this process. When we are talking about this, we aren’t talking about something that one person has access to while another doesn’t, or something that someone else has earned or been granted, while another has not.
In many important ways, Reality is quite ordinary in its nature – its miraculous gift is to be simply what it is. The terms of ‘awakening’ and ‘enlightenment’ pertain to a state of being, not a state of having. To recognise that which is already present and available is the culmination of the spiritual project, at which point it can be dispensed with.
Our true nature actually involves effortlessness. When we have crossed the river, we don’t need to go to the effort of carting the raft around on our backs. We do not dispense with being human, instead we begin to learn what being human means from a whole perspective that connects us consciously to Spirit and includes us in our human form, even with the view of the False Self not needing to be deliberately excluded.
Awakening does not produce gods or hyper-evolved supermen. People who have experienced a view of their true nature are still subject to the same range of potential errors as anyone else. They can still make idiots of themselves, they can still temporarily dip into unconscious behaviours, and even make choices that hurt other people.
We are not perfected in awakening to our True Self.
Sometimes awareness participates only in awareness, and at other times awareness can participate quite devotedly (or distractedly) in the contents of awareness by way of forms, thoughts, and other ephemera of the soul. There is no shame in this, only learning and the inevitable return to Truth. Distraction seems to be as much a part of awakening as awakening itself, in the same way that you can’t learn to bake a cake skilfully if there is not also the possibility of baking a cake unskilfully.
I think it would be more helpful to suggest that any glimpse of awakening however brief or minor, contributes to something I call operational clarity. This is how we come to the beginning of where we need to be if we are in recognition of our involvement in our natural identity as the True Self.
In this manner, we have a deeper and broader field of perspective to draw from, what others have referred to as ‘the thickness of the now’. The limited perspective of False Self is possessed of an exceptionally narrow sliver of now, which is why the decisions that come from it are generally unskilful, short-lived and operationally confused. Those decisions often lead to suffering.
The perspective of the awakened True Self, while not necessarily one of all-knowing godhood, is nevertheless one born of an awareness in a thicker now moment, allowing our choices to be naturally wise, spontaneous, and clear of purpose.
The ongoing challenge is keeping the mind and heart clear of obstruction, not so that we can be wise, but that universal wisdom may flow through us. We can’t possess it. Awareness, Source, God, Dao – call it what you like, only wants to give more and more of itself, so we never need to pretend we own it.
Our living birthright is also our living claim to un-specialness, from the perspective of ego. As long as we think we want something because it is special, or reserved for a select few, you can be sure you have revealed more fantasy on the part of the False Self.
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Simon P Murphy is a Nelson-based esotericist and philosopher, and author of His Master’s Wretched Organ, a brilliant collection of weird fiction stories.
