Cutting Through Violence

In my previous post on FB, I vowed to exercise greater freedom here in cutting through ‘false consciousness’ for the sake of liberation. I’m moving to the blog, because of the length. Please continue reading on this journey, if you so dare lol!

I borrow ‘false consciousness’ from Marxist discourse, but I am using it in a more general sense. Marxism, like many of it’s ideological cousins, suffers from a great many flaws as a liberating force, the foremost perhaps being that Marxism and other doctrines vow to represent the voice of exploited peoples and thereby crowd out the diversity, and ultimately ‘voice’ is co-opted by power, relies on coercion and only serves the institutions it creates. Thus I speak for myself.

When I speak for myself, it is more powerful. Others may choose on the basis of the content itself, rather than authority behind a gun or any economic or social reward-punishment mechanisms that allow us to distort our own perceptions. Thus one of the principles of non-violent communication, is the ‘I statement’.

Such a tactic also translates into a more impeccable words with regard to inner experience and self-inquiry rather than projection and abstraction. And inner experience is the root of non-violence as a philosophy and ethic.

My observation is that, whenever violence is occurring toward a being, it is in that being’s experience, non-consensual, and a violation causing harm. Thus they have reported this violence as self-evidently harming and unwanted. We can know and sympathise with their suffering, and it’s wrong-ness, based on our own experiences. Truly all sexual violence, is not sexual at all, it is pure violence at its worst, because it violates one’s most intimate essence, it defiles the basic integrity of a being from that being’s view. Sex, by my understanding is at minimum legally consensual, and the more aware and in full capacity and informed that consent is, the more it is actually ‘intercourse’, rather than some grasping in the dark for gratification.

Therefore, an understanding follows, from any being’s point of view, of why a being naturally oppose violence and is naturally inclined to mutually fulfilling and honest interactions, the more aware and fully able to participate the better, which is refined by better information and attention to it. Though beings often have to filrt with veils and secrets, even enjoy giving over power to lead, they don’t want to be subjected to manipulation, exploitation or negligence, nor absolute power. And there is plenty of grey, where all dance with their shadows while they learn how to behave with others. Deception and power are learned by initially innocent beings who want naturally to protect themselves or follow intrinsic rewards. Our dance with the drama of conflict, can be entertaining and fulfilling, when beings engage with awareness and refine their artistry in it.

Thus, an MMA fight, is not truly violence, though it is a bit like violence porn because of it’s representational energy, but because both actors are fully aware and consenting, it is actually more like sex than violence. Violence is where one being violates another against their will, as is the case in civilian casualty to military aggression, or sexual assault.

The next step is to understand the usefulness of non-violence as way of being toward others. I vowed ahimsa at age 11. One of the results of this for me, is that I never was in a fight, never aggressed sexually or otherwise, and I was never injured by violence. I regard ahimsa, for myself, as better than martial arts with regard to self-defense, because it trains the awareness. And I was forced to learn to stand up for myself and others, on several occasions stepping in to stop streetfights, where no one else would or could act. And without getting injured. Ahimas is creates gentleness, rapport, compassionte skillful means, good energy, goodwill.

The single most important error I made in ahimsa, is based on learning false virtue, based on widespread cultural repetition of false and unverifiable teachings about the self.

The key false teaching, is every version of ‘original sin’ that is consciously or unconsciously conveyed to anyone growing up, a teaching that was likely specifically designed to disempower the general population so they could be controlled by states, in alliance with clergy.

So, virtuously, I thought non-violence meant searching for this source of harming within myself, rather than others. For a long time, I believed in the virtue of this search, thinking it was making me a better person. But really it was distorting my character, and remains the key source of my post-trauma reverb. It was from this basic inner confusion, inherited after 8000 years of war that brought Europeans to this continent, that my neurosis were amplified into psychoses.

My fruitless search for what was wrong with me, just resulted in partially fulfilled prophecies of character masks, the Jungian shadow, blind spots and self-deceptions. My fears about my self were only partially fulfilled thankfully, because when I became aware that hurt was owed to false relating, I sought to correct my inauthenticity. This is the basic process of ‘layering’ and, from which ‘awakening’ seeks to cut through and lift veils to the true self (of which I was at times terrified and awed by this point).

However, at some point, surrender is required, because it is a process of ‘serpent, eating it’s tail’. I basically ran patterns and masks my whole life, thinner in some ways, thicker in others, tactics which improve upon, but do not eradicate the basic self-dishonesty which has been absorbed and perpetuate. We all want to be good, it is natural, this is why we do that dance!

These masks are often a good match to success in the world too, even while one is dying inside, owing to the basic purpose of the poison of disempowerment. Instead of trust, we are relying on external rewards, and therefore endlessly subject to exploitation, manipulation, control, and perpetrating these. All of our assumptions in character dramas and othering fictions, all are played out in reals ways in society, ways. Our assumptions about poor, addicts, prisoners, every perp, delay the ending of patterns by which harm is created. Our fears and demand for fascist tendencies of governments, our inability to defend against corporate greed, to unify and to even fulfill our potential, to heal ourselves, to empower our familes, all cut short,. A wide variety of institutional cruelties, even the allowing of torture, is based on this essential set of mechanisms. We get better, thankfully, generation after generation, but to a certain extant, we carry on with this.

Even the pattern of transgression-guilt-repentance-forgiveness so emotionally gratifying is a drama of Judean heritage, that is one of partial liberation, and does not free one from cycles of harming. It can perpetuate. All bonds of karma can be cut. Salvation by higher power like Jesus, who alleviates all burden of sin, exists for this reason in Judean culture because Jesus saw it and went to the cross for it, but this is not well understood and highly confusing when taught by the church. That is because the clergy, wishes to retain it’s power, by handing the cage and the handling the keys.

Today, I saw all this clearly, and I saw that in my recovery, I may rely on Highest Love as my Divine, that which loves me completely, is my redeemer, my Christ, all that I cannot do myself to cut through my inner violence, that has limted my ability to be a good relation here, and is the root cause of my unwellness and low self-worth, every suicidal ideation I ever had.

I saw that I am the original being I came here as, and I am innocent, without requiring higher judgment, punishment or reward, and my chains are gone forever. And yet I must account to my relations here, and be well by them, because that is self-evident.

And I saw that I am perpetually free of all bonds of karma, in this and previous lifetimes, and I an well prepared to meet any accountability required of me here. And I was released by knowing that.

Thus, another victory for ahimsa, and my recovery from inner violence I learned from the culture. A breaking of the cycle of generation upon generation.

Even the teaching of ‘karmic bondage’ is false. Karma, is but all the energy that arrives from all prior causes to my personal and unique situation, this very moment, ongoing. If someone tries to teach me something limiting about karma, I can choose a more liberating view. That too is self-evident.

And all that arrives to me, it is there for my dharma, my purpose, it is my inheritance, and my soul’s fuel. It is always a grace, in that sense. Even the vow of ahimsa I so tried and failed to keep, I am alleviated from on account of the unintended consequences of any vow, for I was not taught to simply follow my nature, and be blameless to begin with. And how to forgive others for their violence, seeing as how it arises from the simple absorption natural to a child, of bad information.

Thus, eradicated, is all shame and guilt, and now that my awareness is purified from the basis of it’s false logic, of which I am guiltless in learning, innocent as I child I was when I did. Thus freed from psychic chains, I am able to recommit to ahimsa as my natural process, and see before me the cycles of liberation and enlightenment, and my heart opens to the world. For I am free to engage my awareness in my article of faith, that my purpose here remains absolutely clear. Ahimsa remains my guiding light.

I do not take, on authority, any teaching, particularly ancient texts, because of the dubiousness of their application to context.

Yet the Tao Te Ching, of all of them, comes closest to ringing clear over time, in all circumstances. And this verse,

In abundant love, and ahimsa.

 

 

When a country is in harmony with the Tao,
the factories make trucks and tractors.
When a country goes counter to the Tao,
warheads are stockpiled outside the cities.

There is no greater illusion than fear,
no greater wrong than preparing to defend yourself,
no greater misfortune than having an enemy.

Whoever can see through all fear
will always be safe.