Another
tact-
Okay. Suppose a guy
is selling his car to a stranger. Suppose the same guy is arguing
politics or religion with another stranger on a street corner.
Suppose the same guy is about to ask a woman (he knows) to be his
wife. Suppose the same guy is later trying to discuss with the same
woman a divorce. Or, what if the child of that man and woman is
asking, “Daddy, is there a God?”
There are millions
of scenarios out of life experiences we can shoot as part of a film.
Or use to tell a joke. Or as a chapter in a novel. Or, in a song we
hope will be a hit.
Think of a guy in
the office of his shrink telling what he believes happened to cause
him to make the appointment. Think about another guy on trial for a
crime on the witness stand. Then consider an eye witness to the same
crime on the stand. A judge and jury are listening to this testimony
in order to make some decision that could spell trouble.
Imagine a
legislative body in session considering a declaration of war against
another branch of the human race. Consider yourself to be in the
shoes of a Governor who is being asked to grant a stay of execution
on the grounds of newly discovered evidence that could establish
conclusively the innocence of the condemned party. Or, consider
yourself as a corporate CEO whose company is being accused of having
done lethal damage to the environment or some CEO trying to obtain
rights to mine Indian lands established as sacred forever by a Treaty
with the United States of America.
With just these in
mind for now, let us remind everybody how life really takes place for
all of us. As soon as that is firmly established in our minds eye we
shall understand the rest.
What is going on for
each of us, what we consider to be true, as persons alive, is taking
place inside our minds, not outside of it. The outside is a
projection only.
There's an argument
going on inside each of us that is driving the action of every party
who appears to be involved in any story taking place on the outside.
The real relationship is between the voices inside each character
rather than the argument taking place on the outside between rank
strangers who find they have met in a strange land. In other words,
what happens in the outside world is merely coincidental to the real
conflict, which is internal. In yet other words, the people actually
involved in the matter are mere images mentally stored by each
person. Yet all communications media of all forms deny this is so.
This all very complicated.
It is as if we are
all willing to be crazy as bat shit rather than admit what we are
thinking to anyone, not even our closest confidants, if we have any.
Are we hypnotized?
You may ask.
Is it that to
know everyone, including myself, is entirely not responsible for what
is going to happen so terrifies me that I am driven to denial's door
where I knock and a door opens into a room where I am taught that to
survive I must insist that everyone is to be held to account as if he
is in control of himself?
Or, perhaps, is it
why I am so willing to follow that suggestion from an unknown
hypnotist?
I want to explore
this to a conclusion and propose a more adroit and sensitive tact. My
proposal is we need to empty out and reload our minds for truth.
What have we become?
And how did it happen? This is to be kept simple enough for human
understanding. That really means it is to be honest enough to shoot
straight and direct to the point so it hits us where we live and we
can easily understand what is spoken or written. This is written to
everybody, no exceptions. If you are alive it is for you it is put
down here.
The simplest way to
point out the dilemma is simply to remind everybody that we are in a
world in which everybody knows himself only on the inside and yet
knows everybody else only on the outside. We do not know how others
see us but we know it is far from accurate and we do not know what
others are thinking or feeling. We can know only a little about them.
Now, we could admit this and proceed with life as it is or we could,
as we have been doing, merely agree to deny that we do not know all
we need to know to make sound decisions relating to others. As we
define it, this would mean we cannot possibly have open
and understandable and loving marriages nor anything close to justice
in handling disputes that will arise. Our relationships with our
children will be muddled, confused, and far from satisfactory in
anybody's book. Relations between bosses and employees will always be
concealed,
manipulated ones.
Between nations there will be little hope for lasting peace anywhere.
This is how it is.
It can be so much
better you will not believe. The simplicity of it can be seen in a
flash once what we have been doing in hope we will have the lives we
desire is realized with clarity. We actually, all of us, the educated
and the uneducated of us, we choose to put on blinders and deny we
have way too little knowledge to possibly accomplish our goals of
healthy, sane interpersonal relationships. We know not what it is
like to be even one other person, but, do we let that stop us from
marrying one of them? with a lifetime commitment? No. We insist that
we, as individuals, will be the exception. Everybody else may fail,
but not me. I shall accomplish the impossible although no one
before me has ever done so yet!
Does
that not sound like the talk of a god?
It
may seem ironic but it is just that in you I am counting on. You have
a feeling you are a lot more than you appear to others to be. The
same is true for me, of course. You have not sensed that others you
meet here really get you. Did you know that Bob Dylan, who was
heralded in the media as the voice of his generation said he felt
that same way, that nobody really saw him? Now, can you begin
to feel that it really can be so much better for us than we have ever
known?
What most of you may
be thinking at this point is something like, boy, this writer had
betta be holding all four aces if he is to pull off this trick. A
better world? Not likely.
I promised
simplicity and shall deliver it.
We begin today. We
begin small. We proceed with care a step at a time and we arrive.
That is a promise.
What I am relying
upon is something you all know to be so. I mean you know it. And,
because we know it, we can begin. Must begin.
It is this. Everyone
has a yearning inside that is deep. That feeling is a wish to be
fulfilled in this lifetime by the end of it. It amounts to this: At
the last breath I want to know why I was born. I mean that I
want it to make sense to me in a serene
understanding as the fulfillment of my wish. Amen.
Now, one of the
finest things about this experiment is that it takes only two to make
its beginning happen. And, as others join us, there will always be
enough to keep it rolling along its way. There will never be any
requirement for membership beyond a simple wish to join. The door
will always be open
to resign and to
return later. Nobody can force another to join this experiment and
nobody is entitled to
prevent anyone else
from joining us ever. In fact, nobody else even knows who has joined
and who has not. Cares only about his own commitment. And is jolly
well calm about it.
This experiment is
of the highest order. Einstein would surely agree. We shall carry
our mutual understanding of the simple wish we have in common,
internally, forward long enough and with enough real, earnest zeal
flowing in its direction (available to power it if it happens to be
where it has been told it will be found) remembering all the way we
are beginning small, proceeding with care one step at a time, until
we know we have arrived. It will be obvious when we do.
Are you with me?
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