Left Hook (descent into madness) 1st Chapter: The Fake Divide

The concept of a “window” only makes sense if one accepts that there is in fact something out there. As such, a window presumes a distance between the seer and the observed. Mystics generally discount the existence of this or any distance. They are apt to argue that the seer and the seen are the same; that windows are merely devices that provide a means to highlight, classify, and manipulate variously selected aspects of ourselves within the illusion of a separate laboratory.
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It is a politician’s job to divide us and to thus build a base for himself with the greater part of the shattered whole. He forges divisions between young and old; rich and poor; male and female; ethnic groups; etc. It may seem simplistic to say, but it is nonetheless what politicians do just as a scorpion stings and a fish swims. There are usually safeguards in place designed to check and expose politicians’ most extreme intent. Independent media and academic institutions come to mind as two such examples. When such mediating influences, however, become political themselves, the fabric of reasonable public debate begins to tear.

When a child is born, all it sees appears as a part of itself. Only by naming something does anything become separate. In this sense, everything named is thereby created and, since its separateness is essentially a product of mind, it may rightly be considered illusion (or Maya).

Man's penchant for naming (dividing) things - himself, even God - automatically puts all he names as objects on a game board, which must then compete amongst themselves according to the value (power) arbitrarily ascribed to each. It then becomes his life’s quest to establish connections between the objects he has thus created. The result is often chaotic because man, as self-designated (mere) game piece, is powerless to arbitrate absolute order. Sometimes the divine is called upon to intercede (as in prayer), often without practical result. The divine dimension recognizes that any given process does not necessarily proceed to ever higher consciousness or efficiency - that there is a discernable life cycle inherent in any functioning system: creation, deliverance, demise (Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva).

Those who may find themselves caught up in a waning phase, helplessly witnessing the diminution of personal fortune, may well panic, seeking non-existent powers outside themselves to reverse that which is essentially irreversible. The misunderstanding often exhibits itself in misplaced faith, and especially in the notion that that which may not be fully understood (or not understood at all), somehow holds greater sway than the obvious, when exactly the opposite is true. Power is the only player. It, not fairness, is the elephant in the room during any negotiation. Besides, the divine has no stake in subverting its own goals as it recognizes the dissolution phase of any process as wholly legitimate and views this or any phase dispassionately.

Consider a flock of birds, not necessarily those that fly in V-formation; the smaller ones, rather, that bob and weave in dense clouds across fields and highways. Whenever I see this, I marvel at how each one of (maybe) 1000 birds knows exactly how the flock will loop and turn. Though the mass will variously separate and come back together, never once will two or more birds collide. How exactly the birds are able to do this, is for scientists to ponder. Relevant to our discussion here is that the flock maintains its basic shape like a single organism.

The question arises: Which indeed is the primary organism? Is it the flock? Is it a single bird within the flock, or is it a single living cell within its body? Where exactly does the organism begin or end? Must it not also include the air that lifts it? The fuel that powers it and the ground that provides that fuel? Moreover, what about those, now dead, that came before; and those, yet unborn, that shall come after? Where do we draw the lines without revealing our prejudice?

One of the deepest rifts regularly exploited by politicians is the one that exists between people of different faiths. Religion essentially provides the blueprint for a group’s dealings with aspects of life (and death) that may not necessarily respond directly to human intent. As this generally involves ritual, in which every member of the group is encouraged to participate, it also confirms the group’s identity and assigns to it a fixed position within eternity.

Most Christians, for example, would consider themselves either as saved, or not saved, depending on how far they might see themselves as having fallen short of any given ideal. From a traditionally Judeo-Christian perspective, being saved is said to mean going to heaven - this, as opposed to going to hell, or not (being) saved. The imagery that has come to surround either option clearly makes one preferable to the other. Curiously, neither option is said to result in total annihilation. In heaven, we continue to live eternally in sensual bliss; in hell, we continue to live eternally in sensual pain.

Interestingly, Buddhists do not draw a distinction between the balm of heaven and the fires of hell. To them, it is all the same. The problem, they say, is man’s preference for one or the other, thereby triggering the countdown to ultimate disappointment. The Buddhist answer to everything is seek nothing. Only then can one expect to be blessed with a free pass to exit the wheel of birth and re-birth. The compassion of the Buddha comes into play in his stated intention to forgo his own release until everyone of God’s (suffering) creatures has escaped the wheel ahead of himself. The fallacy of this view, as I read it, is that the Buddha would literally take us back to (a time) before creation. Existence, fortunately or unfortunately, is fact. The genie can never again be put back in the bottle. Given a choice between the Buddhists and the Islamists, I would have to choose the Islamists. They would only have us go back as far as the 7th Century.

As such, religion is (and has always been) a most sensitive subject, encompassing mankind’s most troubling doubts. Anything that may be construed as posing a threat towards any part of it, is often taken as a personal affront (like untoward comments about one’s mother or sister) and can easily elicit a defensive or, in some cases, aggressive stance. Examples are, the strong reactions to the Dutch cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed and the release of “The DaVinci Code” in American theaters.

When a religious group also declares itself a political entity, seeking power and/or land with the full force of (their) God driving its political ambitions, the conflict that ensues is likely to be especially bloody. With the entirety of a comprehensive worldview supporting the drive (whether defensive or offensive), survival becomes key. A cornered animal is not about to take halfway measures. A wolf will think nothing of gnawing off its own limb that may have gotten caught in a steel trap. In war as well, all or nothing is the only path forward. From this then derives, all is fair… (I find our insistence on trying warriors for war crimes laughable. It is like accusing a baker of baking bread.) I have no doubt that the nuclear option will be used should it ever come to that.

Though often intimated, differences in religious beliefs can never be the primary cause of human conflict. Indeed, all religions at their core aspire towards unity born of an enlightened state. Divergent rituals and practices, however, remain rife for politicians to exploit as these are largely cosmetic, maintained primarily to fortify the group’s political stance. As such, these represent the most tangible targets to aggravate for the purpose of fomenting passions. The exercise becomes dangerous when, by cleverly manipulating holy scripture, the divine is recruited in support of inflaming existing grievances, often involving non-spiritual matters such as disputes over resources, (real or perceived) oppression, exploitation, etc.

It is in such instances that the third Judeo-Christian commandment, Thou shalt not use the name of thy God in vain, habitually suffers its most flagrant abuse. Popular belief interprets this commandment to mean that one should not dignify wayward emotions like anger with phrases invoking God’s name. The original text, however, appears to point to a much more serious matter. A more accurate translation of the word “use” is interpreted by some to mean “carry”, suggesting that evil of any kind is never condoned by God’s blessing. When one then reads about terrorists deliberately crashing airplanes, with hundreds of innocents aboard, while shouting repeatedly “God is great!” it would seem that radical Islamists, for example, are not encumbered by that particular religious sanction.

During any conflagration that may arise, all rules and definitions cease to exist; similarly, perhaps, to how it must have been before creation, when even the most basic laws of physics were entirely absent. Now, all that matters is winning. Moreover, in victory’s absence, utter humiliation, even death must be humbly accepted. Once the conflict has been resolved, rules governing normal life begin once again, now also involving the vanquished. Factions will again emerge to vie for dominance, their issues becoming increasingly contentious until war (or civil war) once again levels the playing field, and so on and on… So swings the pendulum of history from war to war, the strong winning repeatedly until weakened; then losing, giving rise to a new set of masters.

In this fashion, civilizations rise and fall like clockwork, providing fodder for historians to ponder and write about in the hope that the world will eventually learn to avoid the utter waste of repeated carnage. But, learning from the past has never been a particularly notable human trait and the wisest political scholars among us – those whose minds might have remained unclouded by utopian fantasies - have had to come to terms with the cadence of history, accepting this as a fact to be respected as much as any mountain range, ocean, or river.

Conflict arises when we stand divided; when we look out of our windows and see the world as being different from ourselves; when we perceive the gods of others as posing a threat to our own; when we forge tortured distinctions between young and old, rich and poor, male and female, black and white, etc. without realizing that in the deliberately manufactured tension between imagined opposites, there can be no winners - no saints to worship, no demons to slay - only the self-serving perception of same that justifies our own unjustifiable prejudice.

The impulse to divide and conquer is entirely political. We are political animals, no doubt; and we must accept ourselves as such for, without it, the pages of our history books would remain blank. The trick is to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” while maintaining some sense of the divine to temper some of politics’ worst excesses. No one can be expected to conduct their lives on a purely spiritual plane. The human corporal entity alone demands a certain amount of space within which to function. Insofar as any space must be considered political by virtue of accompanying issues involving property rights, it is nevertheless important to keep any battles that may ensue in perspective. The divine dimension not only includes the vast scope of human history, but also the oceans, the sky and beyond. With such awesome responsibility, it is absurd to think that it cares one whit whether or not some individual’s taxes will be raised (or lowered) after the next election has been decided.