I woke up a bagillion times last night and each time I did, I had this little thought that my next blog should be about authenticity. So, here we go...
We are greatly inauthentic people, lost in the throws of consumerism, materialism, and competition. What's interesting is that the most inauthentic part about us is the actual denial of this inauthenticity.
What is reality? And if we are so inauthentic and so out-of-sync with that reality, what can we do to change?
"What is reality?" is a loaded philosophical question that nobody seems to have a firm answer to. I used to get so annoyed when the arrogant philsophy majors in my college classes would duke this question out aloud. Charles Bukowski once said,"an intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way." Let's just say these guys were not artists. To me, that kind of bantor is mostly superficial in itself and actually goes against the needed peeling away of layers to get to the goal: "reality".
So, playing "ego hockey" back and forth with somebody, using big words just for the sake of using big words and disecting each person's every thought or idea (to more often than not just prove them wrong) is far, far away from reaching anything remotely close to what reality is. Furthermore, it is also a perfect representation of a rapidly growing culture that is pickled in inauthenticity trying to get to the root of the problem with the same mind that created it. ("We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Einstein)
All that said, it is very often the solely intellectual, philosophy majors of our culture who are trying to answer this fundamental question. I am not one of those people. When faced with philosophical questions like this, my goal is always to get to the root and to eventually trust the feeling over the thinking in my mind and body. And so, after participating in three 10-day silent meditation retreats, I wrote this question on a whiteboard:
"What is the ultimate Truth?"
And underneath my answer was:
"We are one."
And then I wrote:
"What is the ultimate Reality?"
And my answer was:
"We are one."
So, the ultimate Truth is that we are all connected, so much so that we are literally of the same stuff. And the ultimate Reality gets exactly the same answer. So, nothing in "form" so to speak, is real, because by being manifested into this collective physical "reality", it is by nature, separate, which is not the Ultimate Truth or Reality.
You can argue this all day long. And we do. I do it all the time too. We get outraged by this idea.
"How can I be that person who I hate? How can I be that person who has raped, killed, or stolen? How can that be? I am much better than them. I am much kinder. I do not rape. I do not kill. I am not that ignorant. I am not that stupid. I am not that annoying. I am not that arrogant. I am not...I am not..."
The arguments go on and on. These arguments come from the UNreality itself, from the INaunthenticity itself. The very angry arguments come from a place of defense because we at the core of our beings know we are in denial of the Truth, and we are so used to being in denial of that Truth, and so afraid to let go of our world of falseness (ego), that we continue to seperate ourselves from each other more and more.
This seperation is the root of every human problem. It is why some have so much and many have so little. It is why we are afraid to be free and vulnerable. It is why we are anxious and depressed. It is why we kill each other. It is why we prove each other wrong. We are a species on the constant defense, defending our false individual selves so not to get to hurt. What we don't realize is our very defense and denial is what is causing us the most deep, collective and global pain.
So, back to the second question:
"What can we do to change?"
That will be next week's blog ;)
Love.
We are greatly inauthentic people, lost in the throws of consumerism, materialism, and competition. What's interesting is that the most inauthentic part about us is the actual denial of this inauthenticity.
What is reality? And if we are so inauthentic and so out-of-sync with that reality, what can we do to change?
"What is reality?" is a loaded philosophical question that nobody seems to have a firm answer to. I used to get so annoyed when the arrogant philsophy majors in my college classes would duke this question out aloud. Charles Bukowski once said,"an intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way." Let's just say these guys were not artists. To me, that kind of bantor is mostly superficial in itself and actually goes against the needed peeling away of layers to get to the goal: "reality".
So, playing "ego hockey" back and forth with somebody, using big words just for the sake of using big words and disecting each person's every thought or idea (to more often than not just prove them wrong) is far, far away from reaching anything remotely close to what reality is. Furthermore, it is also a perfect representation of a rapidly growing culture that is pickled in inauthenticity trying to get to the root of the problem with the same mind that created it. ("We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Einstein)
All that said, it is very often the solely intellectual, philosophy majors of our culture who are trying to answer this fundamental question. I am not one of those people. When faced with philosophical questions like this, my goal is always to get to the root and to eventually trust the feeling over the thinking in my mind and body. And so, after participating in three 10-day silent meditation retreats, I wrote this question on a whiteboard:
"What is the ultimate Truth?"
And underneath my answer was:
"We are one."
And then I wrote:
"What is the ultimate Reality?"
And my answer was:
"We are one."
So, the ultimate Truth is that we are all connected, so much so that we are literally of the same stuff. And the ultimate Reality gets exactly the same answer. So, nothing in "form" so to speak, is real, because by being manifested into this collective physical "reality", it is by nature, separate, which is not the Ultimate Truth or Reality.
You can argue this all day long. And we do. I do it all the time too. We get outraged by this idea.
"How can I be that person who I hate? How can I be that person who has raped, killed, or stolen? How can that be? I am much better than them. I am much kinder. I do not rape. I do not kill. I am not that ignorant. I am not that stupid. I am not that annoying. I am not that arrogant. I am not...I am not..."
The arguments go on and on. These arguments come from the UNreality itself, from the INaunthenticity itself. The very angry arguments come from a place of defense because we at the core of our beings know we are in denial of the Truth, and we are so used to being in denial of that Truth, and so afraid to let go of our world of falseness (ego), that we continue to seperate ourselves from each other more and more.
This seperation is the root of every human problem. It is why some have so much and many have so little. It is why we are afraid to be free and vulnerable. It is why we are anxious and depressed. It is why we kill each other. It is why we prove each other wrong. We are a species on the constant defense, defending our false individual selves so not to get to hurt. What we don't realize is our very defense and denial is what is causing us the most deep, collective and global pain.
So, back to the second question:
"What can we do to change?"
That will be next week's blog ;)
Love.
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