What is it to be a spiritual human being in a grossly materialistic world?
Well, historically, most spiritual teachers urged us to surrender the things of the world. I suggest, if it is at all possible, to expunge the following from your mind.
The Book of Mormon (“Chloroform in print ” — Mark Twain); the Gospel of John; the Koran; the chapter on Ruth and Naomi and especially the tale of Abraham and Isaac, the binding. All thoughts about politicians, especially Sarah Palin; all memories of George Bush, the Texan putz; the I phone; all movies with Sandra Bullock and her twin, Jennifer Anniston; McDonald’s golden arches; and Christopher Colombus.
If you can attain this which admittedly is impossible, you might reach a point where real spiritual work can be done. At this level you would have to free yourself of the following:
Patriotism of any kind; nationalism of any kind; that Jesus Christ ever existed — of course not; that capitalism is the best of all systems; that any flag of any nation is worth dying for; that parenting does not involve separating out; that all ideas are healthy human constructs, not dangerous, ultimately effectual –to wit, religion; that belief systems do not condition and create divisions; that God is not a man-made construct that enables the slavery of others; that we are better than other animals on this planet.
I go to my demise semi-conscious, perhaps less so, to be honest; but others are comatose which makes them effective as senators, surgeons, real estate agents, entrepreneurs, all the rest. The non-spiritual person masters his environment, makes it work for him. To be an observer is anathema — foreign and strange to this individual. The best of the lot comes right off the headlines. Palin. Beck. Limbaugh. Think of how well they manipulate existence and make things materialize right before our eyes. Admirable, is it not?
The quasi-spiritual person such as myself, the semi, the quasi-seeker just bumbles along. I am so removed from the daily catastrophes here in the USA and overseas that I imagine walking into a post-apocalyptic world — if I survive — just musing at all the destruction brought about by a species with an anus.
Personally, I have not “realized” myself. After decades I am much the same man — Americanized, homogenized, ism-driven, conditioned, routinized, ghetto-ized and polluted daily by media. I have been well instructed to hate, to be prejudiced, to value this part of the globe above all other parts. I have been taught to school myself in the “choices” given me; to regulate my behavior according to laws long extant before my birth; to prepare for life, to prepare for retirement, to prepare for death in very customized ways. I eat foods manufactured for me. I have been trained not to think of the daily holocaust of fowl just to make McNuggets and to feed our carnivorous ways. Above all, I have been conditioned to be expert at mastering all kinds of contradictions as a way to get through the day and to get on with it.
Given that the situation is unremittedly hopeless, if not schizoid, I still have manged to eke out some spiritual meaning in this society, call it what you will.
Here are some thoughts based on my conditioned existence, some suggestions that you may covertly put into place so as to keep some semblance of freedom as you waddle through the shit we call America.
Never teach school, any school. In this is the V8 of conditioning, polluting our minds and selves. Teachers are house slaves. Realize that the “Grind” in this country is that we do not enjoy our work, we are separated from meaning in what we do. So just make a living and live after five. The old therapeutic truth is that the neurotic is a failed artist. The artist lives his life!
We are not governed, we are lobbied as a people and this will go on far into the future. Politics is the charade we observe until we die. Religion is a carcinoma of the mind. God has the pitchfork. The ministry macerates ideas into dogma and doctrine in between pedophilia (see the 750 page report on priestly pedophila in Ireland). Give up tenses, past and future; stick to the present, awful as it can be. All you can do, given the wisdom of the East, is to be here now!
Hell is now as well as other people, so forget going to hell because you are in it. Happy holidays! Optimistically, the only thing we have as a species is nature and one another, but we are too busy killing one another off. I suggest that you only have relationship; stick to that; make of it what you can. Invest in yourself first, then take that IRA and invest it in a relationship. Revere no one so that you are lost; honor no one unless moved by their humanity; stay away from old men and women on exercise machines, for they are searching for immortality.
Question all authority! Realize that all societies are essentially corrupt! See what is which is basically reality. Keep your wallet in your right hand pocket. Embrace no theology, no ideology, no ism, constantly be in insurrection and you may come to see clearly. And when you do get a glimpse of the matrix, your troubles first begin. In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.
Use language as a whipsaw. Be crude and vulgar when dealing with cant and confusion and Bill O’Reilly. Fuck clears the air, always has, always will. Challenge those nearest and dearest to you so that you do not enable or collude with them, but free them up. With friends decondition if you’re not weary. Above all, be true to what few molecules of honesty and sincerity and all those good core values you have managed after all these years to secrete , like acorns, in a ball of leaves in a crook of a tree’s branches.
And to all a very good night.
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