TODAY’S CONSIDERATIONS
On the cover of the book Dancing Lightly,
this picture is used to illustrate the evolution of humankind as shifts from (1) the most base and barbaric kinds of thinking and behaving have (2) occasionally evolved into a manner of abidance which is characterized by lightness and joy and Love:
Yet that fashion of living has never been a widespread “norm” among humanity, and it seems nowadays that this would be a more accurate representation of the direction in which humanity has turned:
Rather than "tip-toeing through the tulips" so as to be surrounded by beauty without damaging that which is beautiful, it seems that far-too-many are tramping about in the heaviest fashion imaginable, grinding all in their paths to smithereens, stomping all that is beautiful into the ground, and - as one woman warned recently – “crushing all into the dirt.”
In early 1945, ships carrying my father and thousands of others in the U.S. military left the harbor in San Francisco and sailed toward Okinawa. The greatest fear of those on board was not the battle to come on Okinawa but the threat of an attack by kamikaze pilots along the way (kamikaze meaning “divine wind”).
Dad and the men on board the ship wondered, “How can we possibly come up with an efficient means of protecting ourselves from those who are actually willing to die for an Emperor whom they believe is ‘divine’?”
In many cases, those pilots setting out on their suicide missions flew around what they believed to be "a holy mountain” and dropped flowers from their airplanes on its peak. To the sailors on board the ships sailing from San Francisco, to Okinawa - and along many other routes - the kamikaze pilots were seen as “the worst kind of religious fanatics.”
The indigenous peoples in “the Americas” might have a different view about who could provide the best example of religious fanaticism; those involved in the Crusades pitting Christians against Muslims might have a different view; those involved in the wars in Great Britain between Protestants and Catholics might have a different view;
those involved in the Thirty Years War in Germany between Protestants and Catholics or in other "European Wars of Religion" from about 1524 to 1648 might have a different view; and the people in any of the current encounters in which Christian and Jewish and Muslim fanatics continue their 600-year-long battles with each other might have a different view.
What they should all agree on, though, is the results which come when persons move about the planet with the heavy burden of hate and anger and xenophobia and racism and misogyny and chauvinism which are being carried about in their ignorantly-and-insanely-programmed-and-conditioned minds.
During World War II, about 3,860 kamikaze pilots died, and nearly one out of five kamikaze attacks managed to hit a ship, so the present day notion that there is something unique about fanatics who are willing to kill and / or die for their religious or spiritual or divine causes is nothing new at all. Some are awakening to an awareness of the actual causes involved with the planet wide violence which is happening as well as to the increase in the number of leaders or would-be leaders who are inciting violence.
This was received this morning from someone who visits and supports this site regularly:
Hey Floyd, I just read the concluding post on your excellent Lightness series. In my endless searching days my most difficult masks and ego identifications were those around the great spiritual seeker. In light of the bombings in Istanbul, it is clear just how insane religious masks and identities can be. I, too, as you have noted, was indoctrinated into the silly belief that the world could be better if it just had more religion and spirituality. Wow! bill
Of course that was a view held here at one point but eventually abandoned. It was a view held by Maharaj early on but which he eventually abandoned.
All chaos and hate and anger and xenophobia and racism and misogyny and chauvinism are the products of the hidden agendas of personalities which are stored in programmed and conditioned and domesticated and indoctrinated and acculturated and brainwashed minds.
Yet persons with programmed and conditioned and domesticated and indoctrinated and acculturated and brainwashed minds have no clue that they have been programmed and conditioned and domesticated and indoctrinated and acculturated and brainwashed and are now operating under the influence of an ignorant and insane auto-pilot. Nevertheless, they have been rendered as self-destructive and as self-defeating as the kamikaze pilots who were trying to target the ship carrying my dad across the Pacific in early 1945.
There are Sunnis and Shias of the same religion but different sects who have been fighting for nearly 1400 years; the Christians who answered the call of the Pope more than 800 years ago marched off to fight Muslims for the cause; there were those who fought with members of the same religion but different denominations in Europe for the cause more than 500 years ago; and the battles among all of those types continue to this day.
For people who claim that they have found in their holy texts the way to peace, there certainly seems to be far more heaviness and angst and misery on display.
In recent years, there have been pictures released of persons smiling right before they headed out on a suicide mission, inspiring some to say that “we are fighting a totally new and unique kind of enemy.”
That is not the case. Some have noted how seventy-five years ago, the kamikaze pilots were quite joyous before a mission during which they were going to die for the emperor and for the cause. They might not have believed that they were only hours away from being admitted to a celestial brothel and would be living for eternity in a heavenly pleasure palace, but they were elated nonetheless, elated by their belief that they were about to die for a “divine” cause:
26 May 1945. Corporal Yukio Araki (shown below holding a puppy) alongside four other smiling kamikaze pilots of the 72nd Shinbu Squadron at Bansei, Kagoshima. Araki died the following day, at the age of 17, in a suicide attack on ships near Okinawa.
How much clearer can the difference in (1) insanity-based joy and (2) lightness-inspired peace be? How much clearer can the difference be in (A) joy inspired by tramping about in the heaviest fashion imaginable, grinding all in one’s paths to smithereens, stomping all that is beautiful into ground, and “crushing all into the dirt” as opposed to (B) joy inspired by dancing lightly?
In Dancing Lightly, the following definitions are shared:
Dancing: "To move one's feet or body, or both, rhythmically in a pattern of steps."
Dancing: "To leap and skip, as from excitement"; "to move nimbly or quickly"; "to dance with joy".
Dancing to "another tune": "To forfeit one's behavior, attitudes, beliefs."
Dancing: "To move merrily"; "to express pleasure by motion."
Yet some are dancing like fools, but their supposed joy is not real, smiles on their faces notwithstanding.
Some are dancing like beasts, but their supposed joy is not real, smiles on their faces notwithstanding.
Some are dancing like mad men, and their supposed joy is not real, smiles on their faces notwithstanding.
These pointers are offered in that book:
Dancing can involve a fluid, even, natural motion which, at its core, exudes joy and pleasure and lightness. It can also involve no movement at all when the dance takes place within and provides a sense of fullness and unchecked joy. Either way, there is never a "roller-coaster" type of jerkiness with “post-Realization dancing.”
There is smoothness and gracefulness and agility. Moving through the relative existence post-Realization is like moving smoothly across a dance floor (not in some helter-skelter fashion and not in some roller coaster fashion with excessive up's and down's but in a slow, deliberate, even, level, steady, flexible, and effortless manner.)
The “end game” with Advaita is not to be able to eat, drink, breathe, talk, dissect, and analyze Advaita; nor is the “end game” to spend all of one's waking hours pontificating about Advaita.
The “end game” is to reach an understanding which results in a love of silence and solitude; which allows Reality to be overlaid upon the relative so that a nisarga (natural) manner of abidance happens; which allows all to happen spontaneously while, ironically, also happening deliberately";
and which allows whatever happens - or whatever does not happen - to be enjoyed fully. With the sense of limitlessness that manifests post-Realization, then all can be relished: the working required to assure independence, the walking, the eating, the looking at what nature has to offer, the sitting, the sharing, and, yes, the dancing.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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