I'm an ass, you're an ass

Jul 04, 2008 01:16

 
WARNINGS

Some concepts, perspectives and experiences that I share with you may seem disturbing. That is a normal reaction to the deconstruction of one’s illusions, implicit/unverified assumptions, and conditioning. But be encouraged, not discouraged, because you’re about to see the world around you more objectively and you will make sense of your experiences more realistically.

I intend to write this exposition conversationally. If you think that’s inappropriate, read this: http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/09/conversational_.html

INTRODUCTION

I am not writing this to make money as a bestseller. I’m not trying to get you to buy or believe anything. Thru enlightenment, you may see certain truths clearly for yourself without believing anyone else.

Father Anthony DeMello once jokingly claimed that he would write a book entitled “I’m an ass, you’re an ass” in response to the self-help book “I’m OK, you’re OK,” but he never did it. With that in mind and in response to the book “I’m dysfunctional, you’re dysfunctional,” (a criticism of the self-help / pop-psychology movement), I felt compelled to write an exposition to enlightenment. Does that sound pretentious to you? True enlightenment is the most humbling experience I’ve ever had. That’s right; it’s an experience; not just another philosophy, belief, or theory. Moreover, enlightenment entails an ongoing process of meditation, metacognition, introspection, and evaluation of one’s experiences. You don’t need great intelligence or knowledge; “it’s so simple, even a child could understand”, wrote DeMello. The process itself can be a bit painful at times, but the rewards are numerous. One rule of thumb for estimating how enlightened you are is the number of times you become disturbed every week. A lack of disturbance is indicative of your level of enlightenment. Eventually, the process of enlightenment will render you impervious to confusion, strife, and distress. No one will have the power to take away your joy or to offend you.

WHO AM I?

Honestly, I have no idea. But that’s better than assuming a false identity to which I spend the rest of my life protecting. I am not my history, my name, my talents, my interests, hobbies, body, or status.

ASSUMPTIONS AND VALUES

Why do some people prefer blue to pink? Sometimes, there are explanations for what otherwise appear to be arbitrary likes and dislikes. But even the initial conditions which those explanations rest upon are not necessary in the absolute sense. In one region of the world, some practices are considered acceptable, but in another region of the world, those same practices would be considered unlawful. It’s all arbitrary - not in the literal sense, there are some obvious bare necessities to life and civilization as we know it; but are those really valuable?

DECONSTRUCTION

Do you have to do anything? What would happen if you literally did nothing? Well, you’d die, of course, from lack of water and food. Is that bad? So then may I say you value something about your life? Otherwise, why would you work so much to maintain it? So you’ve got values - why? What is it about listening to music or watching movies or whatever you do that you perceive as valuable? By questioning your values, I’m not trying to imply that nothing is valuable because it’s all arbitrary - no, I’m simply trying to get you to know for sure what you value. You needn’t have a logical reason, but you should at least be sure of it. So many people waste half their lives or more doing things that they really have no interest in, yet they only discover this thru a “mid-life crisis” and make a big mess in the process of transitioning their life to a new situation. If those people had simply thought about that before hand, instead of just running along with their impulses and emotions, they wouldn’t have been so disappointed.

INTERACTION AND COMMUNICATION

Now that we’re aware of our arbitrary assumptions and values, and how that has constructed a biased perspective, let’s take a look at our interactions with other people thru communication. Have you ever heard of a “cultural misunderstanding”?  How is it that two sane people who grew up in different places would have a misunderstanding? Our culture tends to give people their assumptions, values, and prejudices. Surely you’ve heard of seeing things from the other’s point of view.

I happen to be black, or “African American”, as some people would insist. Should I be offended if a KKK member walked up to me and said “I think you’re a filthy nigger”? What would I be offended about? Noticed how he said “I think” - see, it’s all in his head. I’ve never met this guy before; he doesn’t know me. I would even go so far as to question the notion of “knowing” someone - is that even possible? Anyways, the KKK member is quite right to call me a nigger, if the definition of a nigger is a black person. Is the word “nigger” derogatory? Who said so? If you’re not careful, you’ll let other people steal your peace and joy by simply uttering a few words. I used to be offended by the word “nigger” - I thought I should be offended because I learned from someone or something that it’s considered derogatory. So I told myself, unconsciously, “when someone says this word, I’d better get upset because that’s how they expect me to react.” But one day I seriously considered how absurd this all is and agreed that I wasn’t going to get mad. I shouldn’t get offended by this KKK member because he’s not even talking about me. He’s talking about who he thinks I am - but how little does he know of that? He simply decided to hate me because I fit his visual description of someone worth hating. Completely arbitrary - he could have decided to hate Asians instead. It makes no significant difference.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT / PURSUIT OF DESIRES

For the longest time, I desired to be held/cuddled because I thought this innocent, healthy interaction with another human being would make me happy and would make we want to live. The BBC published an article about a scientific study on chimpanzees that revealed that hugging/cuddling/kissing were effective means of consolation - that is, effective means to make a fellow chimp “cheer up.” It wasn’t sexual; there was no long-term relationship necessary for one chimp to console another.

Yet, in humans, I found it very difficult to seek this sort of consolation. In therapy, I asked to be held; explaining to my therapist that it would make me feel better. She refused, saying that it would be “inappropriate.” That’s right; the therapist told me it would be inappropriate to do something to make me feel better. Wow! They call that therapy - I call that an expensive waste of time. She’d much rather talk about my past, and my family, and all these things that cannot be changed… How does that make one feel better?

So I sought consolation from non-professionals; friends, acquaintances, even strangers. I offered them friendship, tutoring, massage, money, but none of these were sufficient for them to hold me. They denied me without concern, without explanation, without reason. One particularly sad but elucidating experience I had was a serious of interactions with a young woman I’ll call Katana. Katana admitted that she was in need of massage to relieve her back pain, and she was in need of money. I offered her both, free of charge. I had learned some basic techniques of lymphatic, reflexology, positional release therapy and the traditional body rub, so I was qualified to give her a decent massage, if not a wonderful one. I figured if I couldn’t get anyone to hold me, the next best thing was at least to be close to someone thru massage. But to my surprise, she refused my generous offer. Instead, she drove about 4 hours out of her way and paid for a massage with someone else. Big mystery! No, not really; she was just afraid of me, even though she had “known” me for about two years.

So my pain became too much to bare and I almost committed suicide. Soon after, seeing the severity of my need, Katana said she would console me. But when I came over to visit her, she wouldn’t console me. So there we were; both in need, but she refused to let us help each other. I’m an ass, she’s an ass. She’s obviously an ass for not accepting what she knew she wanted; but I too was an ass for offering so much for so little…

DISSILLUSIONMENT

Later, when I finally obtained consolation from a willing individual, I realized that consolation would not really make me feel more alive - it wouldn’t make me feel as though there is something to live for; a passion and desire to stay alive. Consolation helped the pain decrease, but offered no fundamental improvement in my attitude towards life. This realization made me toss away the few assumptions that I had, but I didn’t get rid of my values because I had none. I only agreed to ‘making the world a better place’ because what else was I supposed to do? Now that I’m here, I’ve got to make myself useful; I’ve got to contribute and put forth the work of my talents for others to enjoy, right? But what did I really want to do? What did I really desire? Nothing.

HAPPINESS IS A PROCESS OF SUBTRACTION

Jesus Christ told us that the kingdom of heaven is inside of us. How’s that for great economic news? And you thought the economy was in bad shape, didn’t you? NEWSFLASH: YOU’VE ALREADY GOT IT! You already have all the riches of the kingdom of heaven! Not necessarily material riches, but you’ve already got something much more valuable: happiness. That’s what the monks, nuns, mystics, and other enlightened folks have been trying to tell us: happiness is a process of subtraction. Who told you that you need something in order to be happy? See, the reason you’re not happy is because you think you need to obtain it with something - you’ve got illusions. Get rid of them. Thru subtraction, you find the happiness that you had covered up and were unable to experience. I’m making it sound easier than it is - it takes a while to dig up our happiness and get rid of the dirt (illusions) that we buried it with. It can even be scary because doubt creeps up on us to tell us “what if this doesn’t work? Then you won’t have anything!” Truly I tell you, it’s better to be content with nothing than to have fool’s gold and work to obtain more. But fear not; I assure you of your happiness. Why else do the monks and other enlightened folks spend their free time doing nothing? Because there’s nothing to do! They needn’t go anywhere or get anything - they’ve already got what they want. So they just sit there and enjoy it. One Zen master put it so clearly when he asked, “what, at this moment, is lacking?” The answer is: nothing.

BEWARE

Many people aren’t going to be happy when you tell them you’re happy and no longer in need of their services and products. They will probably be the ones who tried to fool you into believing that you needed those things for your happiness in the first place! “Don’t have enough money? That’s fine, just get a credit card and I’ll sell you what you want anyways!” Wait a minute; isn’t our economy on the fritz because of sub-prime lending, i.e., over-consumption? They call it a “credit crisis”, ha! I call it a rude awakening. WAKE UP! You don’t need that stuff, so stop killing yourself to get it! Notice how the American Constitution gives one the right to pursue happiness, not to have it. If you have it, how could anyone manipulate you to do their bidding? What would be your incentive? So it should be no wonder that I’ve never seen a picture of Uncle Sam with his pointing finger with the words “I want YOU to be happy.”

PHILANTHROPY

So what should one do after enlightenment if there’s nothing to do in order to be happy? Should we just selfishly sit around in glee whilst our fellow humans work themselves to death in a rat race for a hunk of rotten cheese? Certainly not; surely some, if not all, of our free time can be spent trying to make others see the light. And this shouldn’t be seen as a “big sacrifice” because we didn’t have anything to do with our time anyways, remember? A lot of people mistakenly think that charity/philanthropy doesn’t work because most people are unwilling to “make great sacrifices.” But if most people were enlightened, they would realize that there is no sacrifice. Furthermore, if they helped others to be enlightened (like what I’m doing for you, dear reader,) then life would naturally get better for everyone because we wouldn’t be causing each other pain, we wouldn’t be exploiting each other in order to gain something that is of little or no value to us (but we thought it was because we weren’t enlightened!).

So now you know the true reason I spent many hours constructing this exposition; now you know my agenda, my ulterior motive: I want YOU to be happy! And the best part is that you’ve already got it; you’ve already got “the kingdom of heaven.” You don’t need to subscribe to my magazine; you don’t need to buy my prescription medication; you don’t need to pay for my “therapy.” No twelve-step program; no classes, no exams, no diploma necessary. You don’t even need to pay for this message that I’m giving you thru this exposition. You can have peace, joy, happiness, contentment and satisfaction right now if only you’d stop thinking that you need to do something before you can have them; or in order to maintain them.

GOOD LUCK

I hope you’re now walking the path of enlightenment - if you need help to further your journey, I recommend reading the works of DeMello, Echart Tolle, for starters. If this exposition hasn’t been helpful, I guess I failed as a writer and you failed as a reader. I’m an ass, you’re an ass.

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