Did I Post This Already?... no matter.
Published Wednesday, September 17, 2008 by Dan Gainsford | E-mail this post
When I was in India in the temple, I was sitting there and there was a river flowing by and there were birds chirping and it was gentle and I was meditating and I felt this great feeling of well-being and calmness and I thought, "What am I doing here? Why aren't I back on the front lines? Why aren't I back fighting? Why aren't I back doing what I believe for injustice and so on? Am I copping out? Is this like a rear battle rest station? What kind of scene am I in? Is this a cop out?" Then I began to see that staying alone in that room at that moment was confronting me with an internal battle which was much fiercer that any external battle I had ever fought before. And until I had found some way through that internal battle, all I could do was get sucked into the external manifestations of it in such a way as to perpetuate them. Right? I began to see that it was absolutely imperative in terms of socially responsible, effective behavior that I work on myself sufficiently so that I could look at any human being and see that place in them behind whatever their melodrama is, be it Nixon or a hippie, or Mao or Hitler or Schweitzer or Mahatma Gandhi or whatever the person's trip is, to be able to see behind that. Until I was centered enough, till I was in that place in myself, I couldn't really know that place in other beings. I saw that, finally, my responsibility was to work on myself.
Now, to bring this to the West, it seems to me that because of many of the factors that have been , I think, sufficiently well pointed out by Marshall McLuhan and other so that I don't have to particularly repeat them, there is a tremendous change in the cultural context in which we are living and it's been changing very intensively in the past ten years. This is leading to changes in out time and space concepts, the time and space concepts we live in everyday. Because of these changes we are experiencing a great input of energy. It's as if we're tuning in to more and more energy in the universe, so that you feel the geometric progression at which things are happening. Look at the culture. It's as if it's all going faster and faster and harder and harder in all directions, all at once. What I notice is that when a person feels this higher energy, which really turns out in the Hindu system to be fourth chakra, which is a place independent of time and space. When you start to experience that energy, you tend to want to "do" something with it. It's like, "I've got to do something!" And the things that you do are the habits you had out of the last trip you were on. In other words, you're on "I'm going to do something. I'm going to make this world a better place to live in. I'm going to change the system" - that's the feeling. The young persons feels, "I have all this energy. I see more. I can do it." When he starts to do something, what he ends up doing is a set of responses which are still in the third chakra, which is in the world of "we" and "them". So all he does is bring more energy to a set of old games that the culture's been playing out, where the son overthrows Daddy and then the son becomes Daddy and Daddy becomes just as bad as he was before, because he's now Daddy, see? So I can pick up a hitchhiker in Big Sur who's had to cut off all his hair because he's in the army and he says, "Hey, man, this is fierce," he says, "None o the chicks will go out with me because I have short hair." And I begin to see that there's a new establishment which is the long-hair establishment. They're saying, "You can't come into our club because you don't have the credentials. You don't have an American Express Card. I'm sorry, you can't stay here."
In other words, it's a new system that comes in when that energy is used unconsciously. They're just perpetuating the illusion, perpetuating the darkness. So now it became apparent to me that what one can "do" if one feels a sense of social responsibility, which is that vector that pulls me back out of the ocean and which is what I'm doing here. One first of all keeps working on himself to become a higher and higher rate of vibration. In other words, a peaceful man is the first criterion if you want to have a peaceful universe. You start with the universe you've got, which is you're own being; and if you're angry, you can't be angry about peace because all you're creating is more anger in the world, rather than more peace. So whatever you're going to do, you've got to do it peacefully. In other words, you've got to do it with peace in your heart if it has anything to do with peace. It may not, but if it has anything really to do with peace you've got to realize you are whatever it "is" and so you've got to start right there. You can't say, "Well, I'm angry about peace, and as soon as I have peace, I'll be peaceful," because it doesn't work that way. It works just the opposite because of the laws of action and reaction which the universe functions on. So you see that the only option is to work on yourself.
- Ram Dass, The Only Dance There Is
Now, to bring this to the West, it seems to me that because of many of the factors that have been , I think, sufficiently well pointed out by Marshall McLuhan and other so that I don't have to particularly repeat them, there is a tremendous change in the cultural context in which we are living and it's been changing very intensively in the past ten years. This is leading to changes in out time and space concepts, the time and space concepts we live in everyday. Because of these changes we are experiencing a great input of energy. It's as if we're tuning in to more and more energy in the universe, so that you feel the geometric progression at which things are happening. Look at the culture. It's as if it's all going faster and faster and harder and harder in all directions, all at once. What I notice is that when a person feels this higher energy, which really turns out in the Hindu system to be fourth chakra, which is a place independent of time and space. When you start to experience that energy, you tend to want to "do" something with it. It's like, "I've got to do something!" And the things that you do are the habits you had out of the last trip you were on. In other words, you're on "I'm going to do something. I'm going to make this world a better place to live in. I'm going to change the system" - that's the feeling. The young persons feels, "I have all this energy. I see more. I can do it." When he starts to do something, what he ends up doing is a set of responses which are still in the third chakra, which is in the world of "we" and "them". So all he does is bring more energy to a set of old games that the culture's been playing out, where the son overthrows Daddy and then the son becomes Daddy and Daddy becomes just as bad as he was before, because he's now Daddy, see? So I can pick up a hitchhiker in Big Sur who's had to cut off all his hair because he's in the army and he says, "Hey, man, this is fierce," he says, "None o the chicks will go out with me because I have short hair." And I begin to see that there's a new establishment which is the long-hair establishment. They're saying, "You can't come into our club because you don't have the credentials. You don't have an American Express Card. I'm sorry, you can't stay here."
In other words, it's a new system that comes in when that energy is used unconsciously. They're just perpetuating the illusion, perpetuating the darkness. So now it became apparent to me that what one can "do" if one feels a sense of social responsibility, which is that vector that pulls me back out of the ocean and which is what I'm doing here. One first of all keeps working on himself to become a higher and higher rate of vibration. In other words, a peaceful man is the first criterion if you want to have a peaceful universe. You start with the universe you've got, which is you're own being; and if you're angry, you can't be angry about peace because all you're creating is more anger in the world, rather than more peace. So whatever you're going to do, you've got to do it peacefully. In other words, you've got to do it with peace in your heart if it has anything to do with peace. It may not, but if it has anything really to do with peace you've got to realize you are whatever it "is" and so you've got to start right there. You can't say, "Well, I'm angry about peace, and as soon as I have peace, I'll be peaceful," because it doesn't work that way. It works just the opposite because of the laws of action and reaction which the universe functions on. So you see that the only option is to work on yourself.
- Ram Dass, The Only Dance There Is
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