Heart of the revolution

By de Bible or de gun

Any which way freedom mus’ come

(Mutabaruka)

During the last few weeks, the image of what the world looks like has grown and defined itself in my mind.

I have written a small essay, ‘fascism’, which you can find in my book ‘some jungle, some music and some games’ and my last two posts on this blog have been written in the same spirit.

I have come to see the world through the eyes of spirit, and as such, it is such a clear and almost inescapable tragedy.

As always, I do believe psychoanalysis can teach us much about the mess we’re in, and how on Earth we can ever get out of it.

For I believe there is a logic to it all, and it is the logic, as I have called it, of fascism. The fascism of the mind. The fascism of the ego.

The Buddha would never have created a world like this, for he had seen through the games of the dark force, and he had come to liberate his soul.

It is perhaps a great and daring undertaking, to try to envision and work out a scheme, based on the insights of eastern and western deep psychology, as to how we can prosper as a species and how we can thrive as a race.

It is clear, we do have a problem.

And I think the problem is not an economic one, it is not a scientific one, it is not a technological or financial one. It is a psychologic one.

So let me be so happy, being a psychologist, to try and offer you my help.

I will start once again at the roots, at the beginning, and work from there into the flower and fabric and the soul of the revolution.

It all starts with the light. It all starts with innocent and pure awareness. It all starts with the baby Buddha.

Then one day comes along a being, an instance, which is not so innocent. He says I am the devil, and you should be ashamed of yourself. You are one guilty son of a bitch. Don’t you know you are guilty? You lie there shining in your glory and splendor, but you ain’t worth shit.

And the baby Buddha, really not knowing anything at all, says, oh yes, oh well, if you say so, then it must be true. What can I do then, so that I would be worthy and I would no longer have to hide myself in guilt and shame?

Well you can do this, the devil says, you can do that. You can be this, and you can have that.

And thus our innocence is spoilt, by the devil’s game of guilt and shame. We start eating our bread in the sweat of our faces, and the Garden of oneness and love has vanished from sight. We start believing in the devil, and all of the tricks he plays in our minds.

We obey the fascism of the mind.

I like to call it fascism, as it stems from the same root as fascination. Fascination refers to a state of bewitchment, a kind of hypnosis, and fascism refers in this way to the power the mind holds over the soul, which is absolute and which the devil will not easily surrender.

And this is the heart of the revolution, as I will try to explain.

Maybe I have gone a bit easily over the genesis of the symbolico-imaginary in the story of the visit of the devil, but I have spoken on it in more detail in my essay and my previous posts, so I thought I might be forgiven, and it may even be elegant, to use the fairy tale approach.

The arrival of the devil in the kingdom of the individual soul and consciousness, is where we find the original repression. It is where the soul has to clear space for an instance that makes it shrink, thus clearing this space. It is an invasion truly.

The choice for taking on earthly tasks and roles, is where we find the Oedipus, the identification with the Name-of-the-Father and the field of the Other. It is where our earthly labor begins, that we have chosen over the Garden because of the seduction by the devil.

Now, to return a bit more to psychoanalysis, we find it described as that the original soul, the libido, invests its power and authority in this ego, this shadow instance. The ego gains the authority over the soul, over the body, the original Buddha awareness.

So the soul is not the master in its own house. It is the invader that pulls the strings.

This is all very much like a story, and we may sometimes forget what the implications are as far as our state and being concern psychologically.

It means we do not choose how we feel or how we act. It is the ego, that tempers with our soul, our consciousness and awareness. The ego will say you cannot feel this, you cannot do this. It will forbid, it will veto, it will restrain and repress. It will push the soul down, further in life just like it did in the original humiliation.

And the soul may need help, and seek help, from an analyst, to rise up and live, and breathe and just be. The awareness may rise from the living grave, if it is assisted. That is the goal and aim of the psychoanalytic treatment. To help the soul just be.

Now, the symbolico-imaginary, that is the domain of guilt and seeking redemption by earthly labors, is where we have positioned, in this world, the system made up of police and politics.

Politics will provide us with to do’s and if we don’t, police will tell us we’re guilty.

In short.

Now what is the thing with this invader? What is the problem with getting him out of the house, and reclaiming our space for ourselves again, for the life of the soul and the original being of awareness.

The problem is, he’s got nowhere else to go!

If he cannot live in your house, he cannot exist.

So he knows that if you cast him out, it will be the end of him.

That is how scared he really is, this big mouth playing tricks on you.

So if you were to awaken one day, and say I am not guilty and I do not need to feel ashamed, he would have to put you down again. Humiliate you again. So you would feel small again and make room for him to live. If you were to grow, he would die. If you would rise up, he would disappear. Like some scaring, over-friendly guest you’ve brought to bed perhaps, to quote Jim Morrison when he is talking about death in his poem ‘The Severed Garden’. He is scaring, and he is a guest, but maybe he’s putting you to bed. You are not awake, you are asleep, you do not know your powers.

And sometimes it will happen, that the original soul starts taking back the powers it has given to the shadow. The libido takes back its investment in the ego. That is a horrible scene to witness. For the ego raises hell in all of its fear of death. It knows, when the light comes to shine, he himself a shadow will disappear.

So to grow, as a soul, means the ego becomes less pronounced. Less defined, less important, less of a foreground figure.

You could say that the people, growing and taking back the power from the system and machine of enforcing guilt and shame to keep them chained to the political agenda, would see the devil raise hell upon them. The system, the symbolico-imaginary bewitchment, would rage in fear of death, for it knows, if the people’s power keeps growing, if the people’s light would get brighter, there would be nowhere left for them to go.

So they preach shame, and they preach guilt, and they hammer and hammer upon their agenda like the mind were to torture a client’s spirit with obsessions and compulsions. And the client has to obey. He has to.

Or do we, as psychologists, as therapists, believe he has a choice?

Do we believe we have a choice?

Do we?

For the guilt is strong, and the shame is raging, and the devil is yelling at us for all he can. And we must comply, we must obey.

But why?

It is our house, it is not his.

Let him die.

We were born to shine, we were born free spirits in the garden, and we do not need to feel ashamed, and there is no reason to feel guilty.

And if the system no longer has its police, how can the politicians then still enforce their agenda?

If we refuse the shame and the guilt the mind game begins with, why would we still choose to make up for our mistakes, our sins? If we realize we are pure, innocent, in fact. If we realize that for all the sins and guilt and shame the devil is preaching, in truth, we have none.

So we would no longer obey the devil’s agenda.

We would no longer be held captive by the mind without the ego.

We would be free souls, free, as perhaps only the Buddha could describe it.

We are fascinated aren’t we. We are full of obsessions and full of compulsions, and in fact this is, I believe, because underneath, at the root, we are full of shame and we feel guilty as hell.

So the mind has its authority. It can tell us what must be. The ego can paint pictures and we, sleeping really, say yes, that is what must be. I need to get dressed for work, I need to have that new car in front of my big mansion. Yes, I must be muscular and shaven. Yes, everything needs to be perfect.

But the ground and truth and base of the matter is that everything IS perfect.

Everything is perfect as it is.

So let us tell the police and their politicians, the politicians and their police that we are just going to shine, and they can die all they want to.

And never mind.