Check out our latest video, Awakening To The Truth On Every Level:
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Different people mean different things when they talk about having an awakening.
Some use “awakening” to describe the movement into revolutionary politics as you gradually discover that everything you’ve been taught about your government, your nation and your world is a lie.
Some use that word to refer to the process of awakening from the indoctrination imposed upon them by their family and their culture: religious beliefs, fundamental assumptions about sex and gender roles, what a healthy relationship looks like, abusive family dynamics they’d been trained to view as normal, etc.
Others use it to describe the process of awakening from the psychological trance of the ego and dismantling our maladaptive cognitive and perceptual mechanisms which cause us to suffer and view ourselves as separate from the world.
And a mature worldview understands that all of these groups are using the term correctly.
In this strange human adventure we are called to awaken on all levels: individually, interpersonally, and globally. None of these levels are more valuable than any other. You can awaken to them in any order, or at the same time.
To awaken globally means bringing consciousness to what’s really going on in the world. It means learning the truth about the abusive nature of your government and its allies, and unlearning all the lies you were taught about the “liberal democracies” of the western world. It means learning real history and reading real news, and expunging from your worldview all the fake history and the fake news you’ve been fed your whole life by the western empire. It means deeply reckoning with the suffering your rulers have inflicted upon your fellow human beings around the world, not just intellectually in your head but emotionally in your heart.
To awaken interpersonally is to bring consciousness to what’s really going on in your relationships, your social circles, and your community. Opening your eyes to the fact that you’re in an abusive marriage, or that your family is wildly dysfunctional, or that your church has put a lot of debilitating nonsense in your head. Learning to spot the manipulators, users and abusers in your life, and working to minimize the damage they can do. Discovering the various ways you yourself have been hurting or hampering the people in your life, and working to right those wrongs. Bringing harmony to your inner and outer circles of association by working to cultivate the healthy and uproot the destructive with relentless self-honesty. Cutting other people’s bullshit out of your mind and out of your life while building bridges to other people’s loveliness. Helping joy and love to thrive in the small social areas over which you have personal influence.
To awaken individually is to bring consciousness to what’s really going on inside you. By closely examining the nature of your own thoughts and senses, you can gain a profound experiential insight into the fact that there is no actual “me” inside your body having experiences of an outside world, and there never was. A deep, clear recognition of the fact that the “self” your thoughts refer to is a psychological work of fiction causes all energetic belief to fall away from the internal mental narrative, and life becomes much more peaceful and pleasant. This awakening can then be thoroughly educated into your operating system so that all your emotions, psychological tendencies, and fields of perception move fully into alignment with this insight.
People can be awake on one level but fast asleep on another. There’ve been spiritually enlightened gurus who can speak brilliantly about nonduality but have the politics of a CNN liberal. There’ve been powerfully lucid revolutionary leaders who abused their spouses and beat their children. There are beloved pillars of the community who are entirely trapped in egoic delusion.
Awakening on one level helps you to awaken on others. Awakening individually gives you the clarity to see which battles actually need to be fought and which are just candy for the ego. Awakening globally to the abuses and manipulations of the empire allows you to recognize the same abusive paterns and manipulations in yourself and in your interpersonal relationships. Awakening interpersonally helps you understand how your specific family and culture has shaped your psychology in ways that inhibit your awakening as an individual.
Our task is to try to awaken on all three levels. Let your curiosity and intuition guide you through the process of bringing consciousness to what’s really going on in yourself, in your relationships, and in your world, and then you can truthfully say you are doing your own small part to help humanity become a conscious species.
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So many inducers of somnolence to the harsh intractability of elite forces and insensitivity to the brutality of their goals. Retreat into "the psychological trance of the ego" is so alluring, seems like a warm blanket. But it's a hell of its own making and leads only to self-delusion. This is how they trap us. Don't fall for it.
I'm not an authority on spiritual anything, but I've been living in the world for 68 years and sat on a mat most days of my life for the last 20, have undergone plenty of psychotherapy, and also done my share of psychedelics. I don't claim to have accomplished anything spectacular, but I am pretty sure I am less of an arrogant and self-centered dick than I was as a young man, and my political awareness is sharp. Having thought about all this quite a bit, I would add that "awakening" is a metaphor, and an imperfect one. The implication is that you open your eyes, get out of bed, maybe do a dose of caffeine, and go about your business. In practice, it's usually more messy than that, and it's an ongoing process.
I think getting the personal shit in order is prerequisite for developing political consciousness. When I hear from Zionists, for example, insisting that everyone is out to get poor Israel that is only trying to defend itself, I am pretty sure they are fucked up in more ways than just the political. They need to do a lot of individual work in order to see that they have been poisoned with lies and hatred. It must be difficult, otherwise it wouldn't be as rare as it is.