What happened to Love? Or even Decency?

    Executive orders abolishing or reversing any policy that's humane, ethical or simply decent, flow relentlessly, like sewage from a broken main, from this cartoon character. What on earth brought this nightmarish shadow on the U.S., the whole world?
    Such immoral behavior, and support for it, is caused by fear & ignorance about basic human decency, and certainly about evolved human behavior.

    We know that fear can cause the survival or fight, flight, freeze instinct to take over. This primitive instinct can go easily too far, as when during war, soldiers commit barbaric acts, which even in warfare are denounced as "atrocities." Committing atrocities unknowingly inflict "moral injury" on perpetrators, and so they become much more likely to suffer from PTSD.
    "Moral transgression," above and beyond all other dangers & hardships, is ... the most important cause of combat PTSD.
    Jonathan Shay. “Achilles in Vietnam. Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character.” Scribner, 1994.

    Even without combat, many experience trauma, do not receive treatment, and thus can be triggered, causing harm to themselves and others. For various reasons, trauma remains largely unrecognized & under treated.

    Not just prisoners, but far too many politicians & their supporters are dysfunctional people coming from dysfunctional homes (inter-generational trauma), who continue to spread their unresolved pain & suffering far & wide.

    First, we MUST recognize, diagnose & treat mental illness to at least the level of "ordinary unhappiness." Electing cartoon characters to the highest office is extremely worrisome & dangerous, and accurately reflects the pathetic psychosocialspiritual level of voters. The 2023 movie, "Lee" starring Kate Winslet (Prime Video), is a powerful true story about what happens when a cartoon character is elected to head a powerful militaristic nation.

    It WILL eventually dawn on us that we're INFINITELY MORE than an isolated, separate, meaningless, worthless lumps of meat accidentally adrift in a massive mindless, soulless, mechanical cosmos. We WILL become increasingly more porous to & intimate with loving cosmic intelligence which is our origin, home & true nature.

    We progressively integrate our true identity with our daily life - with all of its ups, downs, sunny days, cloudy days, summer days, winter days, blissful days, tearful days... Our true identity grounds us more and more securely, like the ballast of a sailboat prevents it from being turned upside down, no matter how strong the stormy winds blow. We come to feel like the stillness & silence in the center of a tornado; the endless, peaceful blue sky, which is unperturbed whether visited by clouds, sunshine, or thunderstorms.
    We gradually recognize that we are, as Rumi writes, "the clear bead at the center," and that deepening realization "changes everything." 

The clear bead at the center
changes everything.
There are no edges to my loving now.
Some say there’s a window
that opens from one mind to another.
But if there's no wall,
there's no need for fitting a window,
or a latch.
The clear bead at the center
changes everything.

Rumi, translation by Robert Bly & Coleman Barks

 

    “... this peace or quiet joy or sufficiency that is the nature of our being is always there… like the blue sky, it's always present but not always seen.” Rupert Spira

    Rupert Spira (now 64), has been meditating from the age of 17, and a full-time spiritual teacher since 2011, was asked by Tami Simon, "do you always feel in touch with that blue sky nature or do you have times when it’s a really cloudy day today, come on?"

    Rupert Spira: "I have times when it’s a cloudy day, so I would not say I always feel in touch with this background. I would say that I nearly always feel in touch with it. And what I’ve noticed as I’ve grown older is that fewer & fewer experiences retain the capacity to veil this background of peace & quiet joy. Some experiences do still retain that capacity, so I don’t always feel it, but fewer and fewer experiences have the capacity to veil this peace. And when they do, they don’t last long. It’s not like the olden days when a feeling could obscure this background of peace and last for a week or even a day. So, yes, in answer to your question that there are days or times when the gray clouds temporarily cover this, the blue sky of happiness, but it happens less and less often and lasts for less and less time."

    Tami Simon: "And is there something in those moments that’s your personal Rupert Spira go-to move, this is what I do when that happens?"

    Rupert Spira: "Yes. There are two things I do ... One is pause, turn my attention away from whatever it is that is causing the gray clouds in that moment. And if my circumstances permit, I will literally pause and close my eyes and if not, I’ll do it in the midst of my experience and I just go back. Instead of being engaged with the foreground of my experience, the activity, the relationship, the object, whatever it is that is causing the gray seeming to cause the gray clouds. Because the gray clouds are never really caused by something outside of ourself, but whatever it is that seems to be causing the gray clouds, I’ll pause and I’ll go back and I just go back to the fact of being, I just go back to my being. My being and your being and everyone’s being is always at peace. It’s like the screen before it’s colored by the image, it’s colorless, it’s unqualified, it’s always at peace. So that’s one thing I do. It’s a turning away from experience, just a resting, going back to being.
    Now the other thing I do is rather the opposite of that, instead of turning away from whatever seems to be causing the gray clouds, the unhappiness, I’ll turn towards it. And instead of saying no to it, because that’s what causes the sorrow, it’s not the situation itself that is causing the unhappiness, it’s our saying no, I don’t want this. This shouldn’t be happening, I don’t like it. It’s our inner no, or resistance to the experience, that causes the unhappiness. So in that moment, I’ll turn towards the situation, whatever it is, and instead of saying no to it, say yes to it. I just embrace it.
    I just turn towards it fully and open myself to it. And I say to it, you have no power to cause me happiness unless I grant that power to you that the resistance is in me, you and you. That the situation, the person, whatever it is, are not causing the resistance, I’m doing that to myself. And so I positively affirm that this complete openness, this complete yes to my current experience. And in that yes, there can be no suffering because suffering is always no, I don’t like what’s happening. So I do one of those two things. And of course just one more thing to say, Tami, I don’t wonder which of these two approaches to take. It’s a spontaneous thing."
    Interview :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E45Lfv31TMY
    Transcript : https://resources.soundstrue.com/transcript/the-quiet-joy-of-being/

    The wise approach above is particularly valuable when dealing with those for whom most, if not all, of life is covered by dark clouds. We cannot expect them, or really anyone or anything else, to dependably part, or see past our clouds. These are our clouds. The best we can do is for us to see past our clouds, and share our clear skies with others.

“May you experience each day as a sacred gift
woven around the heart of wonder.”
John O’Donohue's blessing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0bg7lNeKY4

Leonard Cohen - "You Have Loved Enough"