What comes to mind, is that one who is branded as 'out-tribe',
lives on the
periphery, always looking in and longing to be included in the
tribe.
I must remember, however, that the banishment of one is actually
the
banishment of all; which 'group' is actually 'cast out'?
A mere majority never makes 'right', and being in a minority does
not
guarantee 'wrong'.
That being said, I have a sense that if and when one such
'singleton' shows
up, that we are already sensing the 'out-tribe' status of that
one; indeed,
such an outcast, carries their banishment as a creed, while
always hoping
for a miracle of reversal of the situation. I am reminded of the
'hippies'
who became 'yuppies', and henceforth quit blaming 'the
establishment' as
soon as they were accepted back into the tribe that they had
rebelled
against.
What is going on here, as I have seen, is a direct emanation of
'family
enmeshment', of 'co-dependence'; who is 'family' and who is
'not-family' is
decided by the Great Father, the OverLord Patriarch. It is
natural for an
outcast from the family, to proclaim themself to be The Father,
and so then
to rank and punish other 'family members'. Again, this theme has
been
consistantly seen by me in my observing and dealing with 'chronic
outsiders' or the 'singleton'.
To be a 'singleton' is seemingly punishment in itself; but please
consider
this. If one is an outcast by choice, by acceptance, by habit, if
one
actually lives that life, I say that the outcast is an outcast
because the
'main culture' is too toxic for them to bear. It is granted that
such
outcasts 'act out' the misuse of authority that originally
wounded
themselves; and that they thus project this 'authoritarian
wounding' upon
those who seem unwilling to allow them to be The Father.
Nobody wants to live under the thumb of an authoritarian, toxic
rulership;
if such a rulership has wounded one, one then inevitably 'acts
out' their
pain and grief by the same methodology of the original wounder,
the Great
Father.
Many people seek a 'Non-Toxic Great Father", and never
suceed in finding
one; this failure to find the 'perfect master' is not the failing
of any
master, but is instead based upon the assumption that such a
Being exists.
The search is doomed from the beginning, leaving one alone to
contemplate
what may one day become a wordless acceptance of oneself as the
basis of
what is.
How is it, that one has this vision, this assumption, of one who
is so
perfect and good? I propose this to consider; that one who has
been
_controlled through threat of banishment_, is one who has the
idea that
there is someone 'better' than themself, and thus is birthed the
model of
the 'perfect master'. Yes, the 'perfect master' is (an unknown)
who is
'better than me'. One who has been traumatically criticised for
not being
'good enough' is one who seeks that one who is 'better'. And it
is now a
cliche, that one who seeks one who is better, eventually finds
that one as
themself. It all fits together, it is all one big picture, and we
can see
it if we momentarily abondon momentum and abide for a while.
The more fiercely one who is an outcast is engaged in attacking,
the
quicker they will expend their own resources, and find that the
battle is
moot; such a one will find themself embarassed to be seen
shadow-boxing,
self-hypnotized into a fury of blaming and scapegoating. This
being so, is
it compassion to engage the attacker in such a way that their own
momentum
toward their own direction is unimpeded, if not gracefully
accellerated,
such as in Aikido. The 'final lesson' can happen in an instant,
relieving
the 'attacker' of the burden of further attacking behaviour. In
this
regard, 'mastery' is both yielding and guiding, bringing the one
who is
moving into conscious awareness of their own momentum and
direction. It is
at this point that the aggressor realizes that their momentum and
direction
are a 'bad fit'; one or the other must be immediatly neutralized
in order
to survive. When this is seen, a person may either slow down,
stop, or
change directions, or any combination of these modifications. It
is a gift
to me, when someone has skillfully done this to me. It is
humiliating, but
I acknowledge that there are beings wiser than me, more powerful
than I am,
and with more experience as well.
I will say as well, that there is probably no virtue in
'defending against'
such an attacker; I suggest that the use of conscious symbiosis
will absorb
the 'outcast' into the extant 'tribe' or family or community.
However, such
acceptance or incorporation of a wounded one, brings also the
pain of that
wounding. Such pain, acted-out reactively, tends to set off
reverberating
'echos' of that pain. Such pain, when shared, also elicits every
'version'
of advice, as well as every sort of imagined 'band-aid' and other
'fixes'
for that pain. The existential pain of Being has no remedy; if
toxic
history can be sacrificed (eaten and digested, a 'living
sacrifice'), this
exquisite pain, which has given license to so many martyred
idealists, will
be interpreted instead as vast pleasure, called 'bliss'.
To eat one's 'toxic history' is to incorporate into oneself, that
which has
been rejected/divorced/abondoned. It is properly used as fuel, to
fire the
furnace of life. As such toxic material is consumed by the flames
of
metabolism, the energy produced fuels a further growth _out_ of
the
'lifestyle' of suffering. Finally, one must acknowledge that they
have been
attached to their suffering, as embodied justification for
'seeking
justice' and 'telling truth' to 'masses of ignorant unbelievers'.
It is
those very 'masses' who comprise the 'tribe' to which the
'outsider' is
preaching, and thus is attempting to lead.
One of the problems with these 'spiritually-oriented' lists, is
the
(usually) heavy overlay of 'what is correct' versus 'what is
incorrect',
also seen as 'getting it' versus 'not getting it' or 'being a
mile off the
mark'. While some people are having fun, patiently playing with
others,
the diehard idealists among us insist that there is 'only one
way' and
'only one appropriate language' in which that 'way' should be
expressed.
This behaviour is pretty much a constant, because it reflects the
assumptions of the 'seeker', that there is something to 'seek' or
to 'get',
and that there is thus a 'proper way to seek' or get.
All such practices are by nature _exclusive_ IE exclusionary, and
thus are
a 'red flag', waving in the face of one who has been living life
in
'exile'. Do you get this point? Exclusive behaviour has become
toxic to one
who has _already_ been excluded and lives as a 'singleton' as a
result.
Such a one, will 'punish' by exerting this very 'excluding'
behaviour upon
those who are 'guilty' of exclusion. This is a constant
fissioning/splitting/fractioning which can only result in 'the
smallest
particle and then nothing'.
It is almost impossible to establish clear, productive
communication
between the 'seeker' and the other; the 'seeker' tends to be an
idealist,
who sees the 'nonseeking behaviour' of the other, as a flaw of
character,
an error of mind, or an emantion of some other ghastly
deficiency. We may
refer to the seeker as being 'hungry' for what they have been
punished into
leaving behind. Nobody can give this to anyone, each must find
what they
have 'excluded' and make their peace with each disparate
particle. This
goes for relationship between persons, as well as for 'particles
of self'
which have been judged and rejected.
We should also be aware that language, as it is usually used in
speech and
thought, is based upon grammatical 'filters' which exclude
objects and
catagories of objects in order to create catagories and thus
identify
objects. Our language 'automatically' 'singles out' (objectifies)
each
thing to be defined, and is thus usually exclusive/exclusionary
in
execution; for example, 'nonduality' defines only duality, and in
that
definition, by describing (the nondual) by defining it as what
_it is not_,
sets us up to follow the path of 'not this, not that', which
itself leads
to 'me' as the 'realizer', but wastes time and creates a lot of
smoke and
engenders bushels of false assumptions along the way. It is no
wonder that
an intelligent person can see this, and thus feel perhaps
justified in
criticising 'it', even going so far as to assert that 'if it
cannot be
described, it cannot be'. In fact, if I state that "there is
something that
is indefinable", it is inevitable that someone will demand
that I tell them
'what it is'. Our language does not entertain secrets.
I would venture to say, that a majority of those who subscribe to
these
lists, have been through a long ordeal of rejection and of being
misunderstood by others. Seeking and finding 'truth' is thus a
priority, as
is being acknowledged as 'living in that truth'. Such a defined
one is
defined as 'good', and is thus now 'in-tribe', as defined by
others and as
understood by the standards of standard language. That someone
would be
able to see right through this little ritual of 'symbolic
inclusion' is not
too astonishing to me. But this is not to say that we have
nothing
worthwhile to say; indeed, we all long to be free of the flypaper
of what
'ego' sticks to, and to be able to fly free, and to also be seen
by our
peers (tribe and family) as being free.
If then, anyone says to someone, "you are not free",
that is the ultimate
insult and perhaps also the ultimate challenge; in reacting to
that
challenge, the impulse to _destroy_ the one who insults, may
indeed arise.
Again, this is all, in my opinion, a matter of _family_ and
tribal
affilliation. It is about who is 'Big Father' and who is at the
bottom of
the veritable totem-pole.
Because this is so, we all respond in our own 'family way'. It is
not
unusual to see the varieties of 'family way' displayed as
_punishment,
banishment, mockery, shaming_, etc... as well as the varieties of
'love'
which are anything but love. I think you know what I am pointing
out here,
yes?
And then there are those who, reading this long and elaborate
posting, will
say that all such considerations are properly subsumed by some
greater
principle of wisdom; while such is true, it is equally true that
what I
have said, can be said, and may be of some use to someone, at
some time.
Greetings, Tim. Thank you for replying. My comments below...
> Dear Gene,
>
> At 03:43 PM 3/25/99 -0800, you wrote:
>
> >To be a 'singleton' is seemingly punishment in itself;
but please consider
> >this. If one is an outcast by choice, by acceptance, by
habit, if one
> >actually lives that life, I say that the outcast is an
outcast because the
> >'main culture' is too toxic for them to bear. It is
granted that such
> >outcasts 'act out' the misuse of authority that
originally wounded
> >themselves; and that they thus project this
'authoritarian wounding' upon
> >those who seem unwilling to allow them to be The Father.
>
> I bow to you for your Divine Intuition (which approaches
mind-reading in
> its clarity of perception). I was raised in an authoritarian
environment,
> with a domineering and egocentric father (a former officer
in the Turkish
> military), who never allowed any of his children to be who
they were. His
> dominance, fear, anxiety and own insecurity was so great
that he allowed
> nobody else in the family an ego, nor any
"boundaries" of their own. If I
> recall correctly, I wasn't even allowed to walk across the
street by myself
> until age 10 or so. The mother "went along with"
the father, and was
> constantly caught in the middle of "power
struggles" between myself and my
> father.
I am "familiar" with what you describe above, as a
broad facet of my own
'personal history'. I have lived the destructive effects I (and
you)
describe. It is not difficult for me to 'know' that one is
wounded; I have
the 'identical wound'. My heart, which I am learning to trust,
still
upheaves at the unthinking abuse which I see going on in 'the
world'.
I have also 'seen' (in the past few years... I am now 51,
yesterday was my
birthday) that I have somehow been a 'party' to the creation of
'all of
this'. Since I have gotten this insight (which I really cannot
explain), I
have found that I can practice 'creative non-creation', IE, I
practice what
I call 'abiding', which I define as the deliberate cessation of
reaction.
This what I describe as 'non-reaction' has been a daring
experiment; I
allow (yes, allow) the world to 'go on', watching my own impulse
of
'aversion' and quenching it as it arises. I treat my impulse of
'desire'
the same way. Understand that I fully acknowledge that there are
may 'bad
things' going on in this apparent 'world', yet, I choose
(usually) to allow
what is apparently 'going on' to continue. This is the crucial
part; I find
that my daring experiment has 'paid off' in the following way...
I have realised that I am 'creating' and 'recreating', and that I
have no
idea of how this all began. The closest 'match' that I have
found, exists
as the Tibetan Buddhist conception of 'Karma' and 'samskara'; I
have used
these concepts to formulate my own 'version' of how this works.
Apparently,
I have 'created' all of this, including my own perceived
'victimizers'; it
is now my task to 'stop creating them'. Have they been 'real' the
whole
time? Apparently, yes.
In my own personal life, as I practiced the above, I have had my
'apparent
victimizers' come to me to apologize to me, to ask my
forgiveness, and to
express the desire to be my friend. I stress that this has
happened only
since I have discovered 'non-reaction/abiding' as a way of
'stopping the
recreation' of what I have experienced as a 'bad world'. Has it
been bad?
Yes it has. Very bad, at times.
I do not know how it is that I have 'come into all of this heavy
karma',
but I find that now, since I have been practicing (with
difficulty)
'abiding', that things are easing. Not only that, but I am
getting what I
want, IE, friends, and the 'stuff' that I have always wanted. It
has not
been easy, but I am experiencing a 'taste of Grace', which indeed
seems to
re-enforce my decision to 'abide' in the face of what appears to
be a
'toxic world'. The key for me seems to be to cease the automatic,
reactive
'recreation' of what has been so bad for me in the past. In the
midst of
all of this, I have discovered my own 'power of creation', which
I have
labeled as the 'Highest Siddhe'. It is really _wierd_ that in all
of the
so-called 'spiritual literature' and preaching that I have been
exposed to,
that _nobody_ had mentioned that we are born with this 'Highest
Siddhe',
the power of creation _itself_, fully operational! Good grief! If
I had
only known this 'earlier', what lot of pain I could have avoided,
yes?
Somehow, the pain and agony of my 'historical life' has led me to
this
understanding, that I am creating. You can believe that I am very
humbly
retreating into careful consideration of just what I allow myself
to create
(or recreate).
> >Nobody wants to live under the thumb of an
authoritarian, toxic rulership;
> >if such a rulership has wounded one, one then inevitably
'acts out' their
> >pain and grief by the same methodology of the original
wounder, the Great
> >Father.
>
> Most perceptive.
Thank you.
> >To eat one's 'toxic history' is to incorporate into
oneself, that which has
> >been rejected/divorced/abondoned. It is properly used as
fuel, to fire the
> >furnace of life. As such toxic material is consumed by
the flames of
> >metabolism, the energy produced fuels a further growth
_out_ of the
> >'lifestyle' of suffering.
>
> I bow before you again, Gene. You are one of the wisest
human beings I've
> ever encountered.
I now state here, what I have said only to myself so far, in this
'chronicle of transformation'; I applaud your courage, Tim, and I
see and
know just how hard it is to 'show up' as someone who is
'apprently
dysfuntional', again and again, without much or any understanding
manifesting from 'others'. To show up anywhere, to be 'naked' and
to
somehow invite the 'cleansing whiplash' of the 'majority
culture', is to
(in both real and metaphorical sense) avoid the
"reward" of hiding behind a
pretend 'personality'.
I myself am a raw, open Being, entirely improper most of the
time, by the
judgement of many who 'know me'. But some of those, have as I
have said,
seen that I am growing in my own way, and have even expressed
their
admiration. But what seems to escape 'them' is that I have had
the 'gonzo
courage' to be myself, and to let the 'chips' fall where they
may. It was
only after this (prolonged) episode of 'letting it all hang out'
that I
discovered the 'principle' of 'abiding' and 'creative
non-creation', of
'letting it be'. I thank those in my llife who have themselves
'abided' ME,
in all of my fury of reactive folly. Those ones, the tolerant
ones, have
abided my arising out of the 'realm of terror' into this new (to
me) realm
of 'bliss'. Please know, however, that I have not forgotten just
how
hellish it has been, and how hellish it can be. I am very
grateful (always)
for this, my life, and for whatever crumbs of 'wisdom' that I
have been
fortunate to 'find'.
> >I would venture to say, that a majority of those who
subscribe to these
> >lists, have been through a long ordeal of rejection and
of being
> >misunderstood by others. Seeking and finding 'truth' is
thus a priority, as
> >is being acknowledged as 'living in that truth'.
>
> My priority is BECOMING Truth through knowledge that I
already am thus.
> Along with this comes renunciation of falsehood, of course.
Of course. I cannot argue wth this. As you know, for some of 'us'
it is a
long and potentially exhausting struggle. That some may appear to
have a
'greater facility for grace' should not shame anyone into giving
up on the
goal of Being themself. One who has clawed their way out of
prison, may
appear bloody and dishevelled; but freedom is what counts, not a
momentary
appearance as a stressed-out Being.
> Gene, this was one of the most impressive posts I've ever
seen on any
> mailing list. My bhakta for today goes to You. I love you.
>
> Tim
Thank you, Tim.
You may be interested to know that I perceive you as a 'cast-out
particle
of myself' (so to speak). I have nothing to lose, and everything
to gain,
by re-incorporating 'you' back into myself. This 'acceptance' is
the
acceptance of my own _wholeness_. Thus, I need you. I am glad
that you have
persisted in showing yourself, and again, congratulate you on
your humility
in doing so, though I know it has seemed otherwise at times.
Abiding... can be impossibly difficult at times.
Having compassion for myself, in my difficulties,
Your 'brother' Being...
==Gene Poole==
"Community is the sharing of the burden of personality"