One Upsmanship in the World Of Oneness…
You know, a lot of people put a lot of emphasis on quieting the mind, relaxing, slowing down, parasympathetic dominance, meditation, and the like. Perhaps one of my more interesting realizations in later life is that I do not value those things nearly as much as I thought, or pretended, or wished I did (at times, when I was led to believe they were higher order) …We allow these subtle judgments in, and of course they are subtly supported by people whose preferences, or paths, involve using just those very states and experiences too…Hmmm…You don’t suppose they have a built in bias, do you?
It might occur to us that there are other ways, and other paths, and high energy, high experience might be higher order for some, and a preferred way of being in the world…it is all interesting, the subtle elevating of certain ways of being, and the diminishment, or frank pathologizing of other ways of being…It takes a deep reflection for me to even get ahold of the magnitude and the consequences, intended or not, of such hierarchical perspectives on what are only differences in ways of being in form on this old whirling dervish of a planet…
White People, Brown People, Two Leggeds, Four Leggeds, People Who Drum and Rattle, People Who Rock and Roll, Quiet People, Energized People, Sitting People, Running People, People on Mother Earth, People on Facebook…There is, after all, no hierarchy when all is said and done…(Any one of us who has ever said “We are all One” is in kind of a bind here if we are concurrently going to try to hold onto the “We Are All One” thing, but still want to convince ourselves that our path is Higher Order than the Other Guy’s Path…the “Other Guy” being, say, an online gamer, or a staunch Republican, or a White Guy salesman from Cleveland…)
“I mean, yeah, we are all One, and all that happy crap, but at the level of Form, I mean, c’mon, I got a leg up on that moron! I mean, hell, I do freaking CEREMONY, dude! I make mandalas like nobody’s business!”
It is no breaking news that the Personality likes the idea that there IS a hierarchy a very great deal…Not surprising…The Personality is ALWAYS looking for ways to separate itself from The Other, especially if it can feel “better than”, and even MORE so if it can spiritualize the “better than” dimension/delusion…
Ah, well….what feels good to me is that while you are doing stupid stuff like watching Gray’s Anatomy, or Thursday Night Football, I am writing deep, reflective blogs of a higher order in an effort to transform consciousness in the world.
Hey, hold on a minute….
Jim Nolan is the President of Southwestern College, Santa Fe, and a very young soul who nevertheless gives it his best shot…
About the Moderator
Jim Nolan is in his 6th year as president of Southwestern College. He has worked for a dozen universities or colleges, both online and on the ground. He holds a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology, and attended graduate school in English/Irish Literature. He reads a lot of books, takes a lot of photos, plays guitar, got married in India in 2010, and has a wire haired fox terrier named Barney. He is the opposite of a guru, whatever that is called.
