The World is My Mirror (13 page)

The title of this chapter could so easily have been the title of the book; the difference is that it would have been written in more negative terms. Scapegoating consists of placing blame on a person, group or organisation for some painful or unsatisfactory event and then casting them out into the wilderness to perish along with the problems and so restore normality or equilibrium.

The link with this book is that early painful and unsatisfactory encounters with people create an imaginary internal drama populated with heroes and villains. This remains unconscious but it impacts on us with anxiety, depression and feelings of worthlessness and longing. The heroes, villains and all the other characters become our world. However‌—‌and here is the astounding thing that the person or seeker will never even contemplate‌—‌the internal battle is dramatised and externalised. In fact dramatisation and externalisation, in the way I’m using them here, are synonymous.

Externalisation is an attempt to relieve the tension of Wholeness trying to depart from itself. It is now other people and social situations that are the problem and not the conflict brought about by the creation of selfhood and separation. Looked at in this way, the entire world is acting as a scapegoat upon which we can dump all the tension that the feeling of separateness creates.

To blame the world for not providing adequately for us, although it is painful and induces anxiety, seems far better than to realise that the edifice created to manage the world is no more powerful than
The Wizard of Oz
. The loss of an identity, any identity‌—‌even one that’s clearly not coping and full of fear and misery‌—‌is met with the reality of annihilation. This is what hurts like hell when the truth rises and reclaims its homeland. I find this torment impossible to escape. Losing one’s so-called life is the greatest loss there is.

This great ‘loss’ reveals an unchanging, unstructured aliveness that has always been here. It just
is
. It can’t be analysed because it has no structure‌—‌in other words, it contains no parts or pieces. It is impossible to say what it is because it has no opposite. Saying what it is will be based on knowledge from the drama called ‘me and my life’.

Blaming and scapegoating are deception. Take an honest look at yourself and ask if this is what you want. In my experience, which is all I have to offer, when the link with the past that is full of ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’ and future expectations is severed, you simply mature. You are no longer manipulated by inner dictates based on an impossible image of perfection constructed for psychic survival; you embrace spontaneity‌—‌in fact you
are
spontaneity.

Inner structures are no longer needed. They were only there to protect the pseudo sense of self. When that goes, the structures go. Structures are made from mental energy and always feel tight. When the mental energy that was once used for protection is used for enjoyment and exploration instead, there is simply relaxation.

This relaxation could be interpreted as being taken over by something‌—‌divine guidance or cosmic consciousness‌—‌but it’s simply the stark contrast that comes into view. Nothing has been taken in or gained. It’s like the removing of tight shoes scenario: you had forgotten what freedom for the feet felt like.

For me, all the studying, all the therapy and all the self-help books were of limited usefulness. The strange language of non-duality uprooted ignorance once and for all. There was no other tool that had the persistence or strength to do the job.

The thing with non-duality is that it has a life of its own. It’ll throw you around anywhere it pleases. It will take you here; it will take you there. I was so highly structured inside with heroes and villains that any previous attempts at eliminating anxiety and self-doubt were about as effective as low-grade weed killer — they worked on the stem and left the root to produce more viable and live material in the future.

However, there is a curious thing that I have noticed regarding psychology books and theories of self and general human neuroses to which they alert us. When the separate self is seen to be false, there is an openness to appreciating theories of psychological development in greater depth than before. There doesn’t seem to be a version of absolute perfection getting in the way that always used to discount what I would dismiss as the ‘rubbish’ of do-gooders.

I think I was just a tough nut to crack. When there is no me, it is realised there never was a me. Any pain, any suffering, all mental characters, in fact the entire drama of separation can be placed at the feet of Wholeness. Perverse? Maybe. Painful? Yes. A mistake? No!

Whatever it is that does everything, exhausts every single avenue of thought and explanation. When the mind comes up with an answer, it will be off again after a while, sniffing out elements of doubt to throw a spanner in the works and spoil everything you have toiled and worked hard for.

If you have a tough mind, you will go the distance right up to mental breakdown, serious illness or even the cessation of this functioning body. Thought will never outwit nature, though. Nature will always produce a tougher opponent that requires more and more of your mental energy to contain and control.

It seems Wholeness cannot accept that it is already perfect and complete. It tries to fool itself by appearing as things that seem different and separate. It feels the deception is watertight for many, many years and the deception is not questioned. Some lives appear to be very successful with good relationships, lots of money and a strong sense of self-worth. But these qualities you perceive in others are your own fantasies because you refuse to look at yourself. Envy and jealousy appear because your image of perfection is not the perfection of timelessness and Wholeness.

The world of form‌—‌from the perspective of the individual‌—‌is a world to be conquered and beaten into submission. A sense of control must be maintained to prolong the illusion, and enemies are created for the sake of self-righteousness.

If you have read George Orwell’s
Nineteen Eighty-Four
, you may remember the frequent news updates delivered to the people regarding the progress of wars in far-off lands and the propaganda depicting ‘others’ as being enemies of the state and by association‌—‌Big Brother. Enemies created legitimacy and solidarity and staved off uncertainty. Limits and boundaries were created around thought, and if successful, thoughts were eventually controlled from within by a symbolic Big Brother whose eyes see everything.

Nineteen Eighty-Four
may have been Orwell’s attempt at hyperbole to shock us out of so-called normality and into reality; novelists of his calibre can speak to us if we have the capacity to decipher allegory. If not, then stories are simply entertaining‌—‌something to occupy the mind on a cold, dark, winter’s night. Fiction, parables and spiritual texts can offer us a way out of the prison of separateness‌—‌but they do not spoonfeed us. You have been fed this way all your life from highchair to high school. It’s time to mature, put on your battle gear and fight the dragon at the gates of the unknown. You may visit distant lands and face many trials and challenges. If you are lucky you will die and return victorious; unlucky, and you will fight for your life both at home and away for many a year to come.

This feeling of being alone and face to face with oneself is not negative; it is the opposite of conventionality. You’ve looked out into the world all your life searching for scapegoats that let you down, that should have cared for you in your hour of need. Parental figures and other institutions are symbolised internally and at the same time projected out to furnish an otherwise empty world. Some call this socialisation; I call it hypnotism.

Thinking for oneself and questioning reality is seldom undertaken. The hypnotic spell is strong. For me Orwell wasn’t alerting us to the possible outcome of an untethered totalitarian regime‌—‌he was pointing to control mechanisms operating already, under the guise of normality and socialisation. Social engineering doesn’t have to be overt as it is in
Nineteen Eighty-Four
: it can pass as conservatism or liberal ideology, if we are steered towards the right history books and the right so-called scholars. Ideologies can form identities and make strong sticks to beat the unenlightened into subservience and submission. We don’t necessarily feel abused or beaten, we hold up our heads and say, ‘I’m a Social Reformist’ or, ‘I’m a Liberal.’ It’s comforting to know who we are: it makes sense.

Fiction, literature and art often say more than the surface structure reveals. It is this hidden element in all spiritual texts and thought-provoking works that is worth finding, or more likely, stumbling upon.

If you are trying to get something from this book or any others attempting to describe the indescribable, nothing I have said so far will be much good. True, you might say to a fellow seeker, ‘Have you read that new book by that Bates fellow, the locksmith? It’s worth a look.’ I guarantee it will soon be forgotten for the latest book from someone else or the latest YouTube incarnation. Seeking is a bit of a paradox because it means losing an identity, and this isn’t always what people want. Seeking is comforting in a perverse way. However, when not finding is finding and not knowing is knowing, you will find and you will know. Unfortunately, the guy or girl who you thought would be ecstatic at the discovery has actually done a bunk. S/he has missed the fireworks, the ceremony, and the certificate. This is not a bad thing: s/he was a terrible drain on your resources anyway.

Good riddance!

A Google search tells me that allegory is a literary device that uses narrative which appears normal and straightforward at first glance, only to be steeped in deeper meaning and social import if we look under the surface structure. You could place, I suppose, Jesus’ parables as allegory. Think of the farmer sowing his seeds as spiritual teaching. Seeds that fall on various conditions are analogous to the hearing or rejection of the message: some seeds flourish and other remain dormant and unchanged by poor environmental conditions.

In a sense, all stories do this to some extent, even the text on the tube of children’s toothpaste explaining the importance and supervision of caring for your child’s little toothy pegs. It assumes the incompetence of a minor and positions you as a teacher to ensure a regular personal hygiene regime. In a subtle way, text found on something as innocuous as a tube of toothpaste sets up and reinforces patterns to guide us to life-saving skills and correct action.

But order and so-called knowledge have a knack of eroding the mystery and magic in life. It positions us in a social jigsaw puzzle to create a version of reality recognisable to ourselves, our friends, and also our enemies‌—‌we are given our script. A sense of order and belonging is a serious matter when we are young. Think of anyone from your school days who was a little different from the norm. There may have been differences in their dress sense, their body shape or father’s profession. You will remember what a tough time they probably had. Was that you?

Stories, though, are not the problem. Believing them to be a final version of reality strangles creativity, fosters misery and depression and dampens down the flame of ‘not knowing’. But I guess there is a kind of comfort in making sense of things: it aids in the predictability that characterises thought. Correctly identifying the shadow of a predator based on memory can leave you to fight another day and spread your genes around to ensure continuity as well as change.

Stories, I would say, are a device to point to something else: they point to timeless, immovable infinity and beingness. You appear as all your stories and all your scenes. You shape and contort yourself into infinite disguises. I love the original meaning of ‘person’. Its root is ‘persona’ which refers to the mask actors wore on stage in antiquity. The ‘sona’ part of the word points to the mouth piece that projects the voice, the dialogue or song. Nowadays, the concept of a persona is more recognised as independence and separation.

We are all unique and each has a different story to tell and life to embellish. But uniqueness is not separate, underneath or inside anything. All stories are Wholeness and unchanging intimate Being. Timelessness and Wholeness are appearing as apparent time and apparent fragmentation. This is why life’s jagged edge and irregular shapes are just as spiritual as cushion sitting and mantra chanting. Stillness and movement define each other.

I have just come back from the cinema with my son as these words are appearing, and whilst I was losing myself in
The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
. I also managed to look around at the cinema and at the audience who were spending their time in the same way I was. What I noticed is that the dots and dashes of the cinema screen that flashed on and off in rapid succession were the same sparkles that appeared in the form of other people sitting in the cinema house. One picture we take as fiction and make believe, while to the other one we give much more credibility. There isn’t really any difference in the credibility. We get lost in both appearances. The difference we try to maintain is that we feel we walk away from the drama at the pictures and back to the daily grind of work, shopping and making ends meet. Both are fiction; both are fantasy.