From a site visitor: I read your postings about Christmas traditions and most of it made sense. I’ve also been going thru your archives and last summer you said the Dark Ages was when ignorant people valued traditions. I agree with your argument that doing things a certain way because they have always been done that way is not smart, but isn’t there some value to observing some traditions?
F.: While change is inevitable, attachment to the doingness of traditional rituals makes persons hate change (especially when it ends the continuation of their traditional celebrations). The insanity is that persons attached to traditions hate change in a universe that is perpetually changing. To hate when change happens (in a universe where change is constantly happening) guarantees misery and suffering. It is their attachment to traditions that sets persons up for that hatred of change and the misery that comes when the practicing of their traditions inevitably ends. Such attachment to illusory traditions is insane and inspires more insanity (as in “I’m suicidal—can you say anything I haven’t yet heard that might help me make it through this season?”) Yet persons value their traditions because they reassure persons that their belief in the myth of continuity is actually real. While persons have little ability to adjust to change or to accept the inevitability of change, non-attachment among the Realized allows for peaceful adjustments to be made to the ever-changing conditions in the relative existence.
Abidance as the Abolute removes the misery that is generated by all attachments and by the insanity of loving traditions and habits while hating sitiuations that call for adaptation. Change is inevitable, so all habits and all traditional practices shall eventually end. When they end for the Realized, they are witnessed. When they end for persons, overwhelming misery and suffering and depression and even suicide follow. Wherefore any “value” to attaching to traditions?
Non-attachment also removes the illusion that there is a “you” that is doing the same thing in the same way with the same persons year-after-year-after year. Non-attachment removes the distortion that such repetition of traditional doings can, and will, go on in the same way forever. Removal of such illusion and distortion can preclude the suffering and misery that comes to persons when their illusions and distortions are inevitably revealed to have been nothing more than deceptions. It can also preclude the suffering and misery that will inevitably come when persons experience any “sense of loss” (which they always dread but which they cannot avoid unless they Realize).
Freed of delusion and programming and the conditioning that results in blind devotion to things that are done simply because “these are the traditional things that we’ve always done,” the Realized avoid such reinforcement of false identities and ego-states and avoid living under the influence of dualistic concepts. Freed from attachment to traditions and “the past,” the Realized never express the misery-generating, dualistic ideas that persons experience, as revealed in such statements as…
“This was once the best time of the year—now, it’s the worst time of the year,” or
“We loved the holidays—now we hate the holidays,” or
“My country is the greatest country on earth—better than all those others—and we reinforce that belief by honoring our national traditions,” or
“The people who are willing to kill for my country are better than the people in this culture who will not kill others who have been labeled as ‘enemies’ and therefore we honor our armed forces with our traditional celebrations,” or
“Those of us who honor our religious traditions are better than those who don’t, and we are also better than we would be if we did not observe these traditional practices,” or
“Those of us who honor our nation’s traditions are good patriots and those who don’t honor our traditions are traitors or cowards or unpatriotic,” or
“I’m suicidal—can you say anything I haven’t yet heard that might help me make it through this season?”
Now, you are invited to revisit your question: “But isn’t there some value to observing some traditions?” That is an invitation to find the truth, either for your “self” or for Your Self or for both. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [Upcoming topics: “NO BIRTH, NO LIFE, NO DEATH” and “ABIDING AS THE I AM VS. ABIDING AS THE ABSOLUTE”]
F.: While change is inevitable, attachment to the doingness of traditional rituals makes persons hate change (especially when it ends the continuation of their traditional celebrations). The insanity is that persons attached to traditions hate change in a universe that is perpetually changing. To hate when change happens (in a universe where change is constantly happening) guarantees misery and suffering. It is their attachment to traditions that sets persons up for that hatred of change and the misery that comes when the practicing of their traditions inevitably ends. Such attachment to illusory traditions is insane and inspires more insanity (as in “I’m suicidal—can you say anything I haven’t yet heard that might help me make it through this season?”) Yet persons value their traditions because they reassure persons that their belief in the myth of continuity is actually real. While persons have little ability to adjust to change or to accept the inevitability of change, non-attachment among the Realized allows for peaceful adjustments to be made to the ever-changing conditions in the relative existence.
Abidance as the Abolute removes the misery that is generated by all attachments and by the insanity of loving traditions and habits while hating sitiuations that call for adaptation. Change is inevitable, so all habits and all traditional practices shall eventually end. When they end for the Realized, they are witnessed. When they end for persons, overwhelming misery and suffering and depression and even suicide follow. Wherefore any “value” to attaching to traditions?
Non-attachment also removes the illusion that there is a “you” that is doing the same thing in the same way with the same persons year-after-year-after year. Non-attachment removes the distortion that such repetition of traditional doings can, and will, go on in the same way forever. Removal of such illusion and distortion can preclude the suffering and misery that comes to persons when their illusions and distortions are inevitably revealed to have been nothing more than deceptions. It can also preclude the suffering and misery that will inevitably come when persons experience any “sense of loss” (which they always dread but which they cannot avoid unless they Realize).
Freed of delusion and programming and the conditioning that results in blind devotion to things that are done simply because “these are the traditional things that we’ve always done,” the Realized avoid such reinforcement of false identities and ego-states and avoid living under the influence of dualistic concepts. Freed from attachment to traditions and “the past,” the Realized never express the misery-generating, dualistic ideas that persons experience, as revealed in such statements as…
“This was once the best time of the year—now, it’s the worst time of the year,” or
“We loved the holidays—now we hate the holidays,” or
“My country is the greatest country on earth—better than all those others—and we reinforce that belief by honoring our national traditions,” or
“The people who are willing to kill for my country are better than the people in this culture who will not kill others who have been labeled as ‘enemies’ and therefore we honor our armed forces with our traditional celebrations,” or
“Those of us who honor our religious traditions are better than those who don’t, and we are also better than we would be if we did not observe these traditional practices,” or
“Those of us who honor our nation’s traditions are good patriots and those who don’t honor our traditions are traitors or cowards or unpatriotic,” or
“I’m suicidal—can you say anything I haven’t yet heard that might help me make it through this season?”
Now, you are invited to revisit your question: “But isn’t there some value to observing some traditions?” That is an invitation to find the truth, either for your “self” or for Your Self or for both. Please enter the silence of contemplation. [Upcoming topics: “NO BIRTH, NO LIFE, NO DEATH” and “ABIDING AS THE I AM VS. ABIDING AS THE ABSOLUTE”]
