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Escaping the Prison of the Mind, Body and Soul

Gary Z McGee
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Escaping the Prison of the Mind, Body and Soul

“On a planet that increasingly resembles one huge maximum security prison, the only intelligent choice is to plan a jailbreak.” ~ Robert Anton Wilson

The intelligent thing to do is to figure out what is a prison and what is not. Some seemingly free spaces are actually disguised prisons.

jailbreakThis is especially the case in a system that calls itself a democracy (rule by the people) but is actually a plutocracy (rule by the rich).

And once we’ve distinguished prisons from freedom, we must decide what we’re going to do about both. Here are three types of prisons and how we might “plan a jailbreak” should we discover ourselves to be unfree.

The Prison of the Mind

“Never, ever underestimate the degree to which people will scatter themselves into a deep fog in order to avoid seeing the basic realities of their own cages. The strongest lock on the prison is always avoidance, not force.” ~ Stefan Molyneux

The blockbuster movie The Matrix is a giant metaphor for mental slavery. The “machines” in the movie are the real-life equivalent of the corporate man-machine: the hyper-reality of overconsumption, of turning everything into a product, including people, to the extent that we are blinded to how reality is actually interconnected. The “agents” in the movie are the real-life equivalent of militarized police and mass surveillance overreach.
mind prison
The blue pill in the movie is the real-life equivalent of being kissed with a lie: deception. The red pill in the movie is the real-life equivalent of being slapped with the truth: revelation.

The hero in the movie, Neo, is the real-life equivalent of anybody who is capable and courageous enough to transcend the unhealthy, unsustainable, untrue, and unjust system of mass plunder and turn the tables on power itself.

The question we need to ask ourselves is this: what can we learn from this metaphor. How can we use this powerful metaphor to leverage truth against deception, and to escape the bonds of mental slavery? The first step is acceptance. It is admitting that we have been bamboozled to the fullest extent.

It is embracing the reality that we have been conditioned and brainwashed into believing that the corporate man-machine is a just and moral system. It is neither. It is fundamentally unhealthy and unsustainable. Especially because it transforms people into machines that love money and use people, instead of human beings who use money and love people.

So once we’ve admitted that we’ve been duped, how do we escape it? We must consciously turn the tables on our own cognitive dissonance. We must intentionally question to the nth degree our hardwired worldview. We must deliberately recondition our preconditioning.

We typically dodge the horror of our imprisonment because it is too painful to admit we’ve been duped into being imprisoned. Indeed, one of the most difficult things a human being can do is admit they are wrong. But we can only be trapped in the prison we refuse to acknowledge. Realize the extent of your bamboozlement. To acknowledge the prison is to escape it.

The Prison of the Body

“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.” ~ John Adams

Furious-Prisons4Profit
Sadly, the way of debt is working. We are a nation of debt slaves going through the motions of paying a debt that can never be paid! This is arguably the height of human insanity, and yet it’s being played out on a mass scale, with most people not even aware of how deeply they’ve been duped.

The entire planet is supposedly “in debt.” But who are we in debt to? Jupiter? No. We are in debt to the very thing that created the perpetual debt in the first place: Banks!

From fundamentally immoral interest rates to a tax system that taxes the poor into further poverty while allowing the rich corporations off the hook due to tax loopholes, the debt system is a prison of monumental proportions.

As the poor get poorer the rich get richer, and the power imbalance is leading to a system of absolute power, where power will inevitably corrupt absolutely. That is, unless we can escape the prison in solidarity.

But any sign the so-called “authorities” get that debt isn’t working (such as riots, protests, and civil disobedience) they are resorting to the sword. They use their blue-clad minions and green-clad sycophants as sheepdogs to herd the ignorant sheeple. They are locking people up for petty crimes and making a profit on top of it all.

Profit prisons is the icing on the shit cake of a conquered and enslaved nation, further fattening the pockets of the plutocrats while those in poverty meekly acquiesce out of fear of having their basic liberties stripped from them by a pseudo-authority that is not even held accountable for its actions.

We do have a choice though. But it’s a scary one. And it is this: create something new that trumps the conquer-control-destroy-repeat mindset that has plagued the human condition for a millennium. Invent new, healthier, more sustainable models for being a human being on this planet. Generate new laws that coincide with cosmic laws; that easily slough off the parochial laws of outdated traditions.

We escape this prison by being proactive and imaginative, despite our forefathers having been lazy and unimaginative. We escape this prison by co-creating a healthier, more sustainable system of human governance that uses eco-centric strategies despite our ego-centric species. We escape by doing as Buckminster Fuller suggested: “turn our weaponry into livingry.”

The Prison of the Soul

“Nonviolence does not mean meek submission to the will of the evil-doer. It means the pitting of one’s whole soul against the will of the tyrant. Working under this law of our being, it is possible for a single individual to defy the whole might of an unjust empire to save his honor, his spirituality, his soul and lay the foundation for that empire’s fall… or its regeneration.” ~ Gandhi

In Swallowing the Jagged Red Pill I wrote about the arduous process of escaping the cave, entering the cocoon, and emerging from the cocoon into the cosmic commune.

In Cracking the Cosmic Egg I wrote about achieving authentic spiritual power over religious pseudo-power. Both of these articles are important keys in unlocking the prison of the soul. But they’re not enough.

Escaping the prison of the soul requires constant self-overcoming, tantamount to Nietzschean proportions. But most of all it requires us getting uncomfortable. It requires a particular flavor of self-sacrifice that the vast majority of us are simply incapable of tolerating.

Like Bill Plotkin said, “The world was made to be free in: this we know in our bones, and this definitive and fearful knowledge is what both supports us and requires us to turn away from our secure but less-than-joyful lives.” And yet the vast majority of us cling to our secure but less-than-joyful lives, completely oblivious to the spiritual adventures to be had just outside of our comfort zone.

Here’s the thing: we all know we were born to be free. But we are also conditioned to be afraid by a victimizing culture. Freedom and Fear are in a constant battle inside every single one of us, every single day.

The vast majority of us have given into this fear. The vast majority of us are not strong enough to escape. Years and years of parochial propaganda and outdated conditioning have the vast majority of our species wallowing in its infancy.

We are scared shitless, immature, codependent, insecure babies who imagine we’re brave, mature, independent, invulnerable grownups, not even close to realizing that we have the potential to be courageous, authentic, interdependent, sincere heroes.

Like Jose Ortega y Gasset said, “There’s a strange combination of a sense of power and a sense of insecurity which has taken up its abode in the soul of modern man: he has all the talents except the talent to make use of them.”

So it comes down to this: will we take advantage of our talents, our mostly dormant soulcraft, and make use of them, or will we stagnate in an unhealthy, unsustainable, unfree, unimaginative, overtly decadent culture in decline?

Will we take up the mantle of the questioning, adaptable spirit warrior, or wallow in the misery of playing the dogmatic, bamboozled victim?

Will we transform ourselves into courageous New Heroes with the ability to self-overcome, or remain cowards with the propensity to give into the power of whatever counterfeit authority or snake-oil charlatan comes along?

Will we accept the discomfort that comes from being slapped with the truth, or dawdle in the comfort of being kissed with a lie? Will we wake up, or continue to sleep? Either way, it’s up to us. Like the Navajo proverb says, “You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.” You want to escape the prison of the soul? Stop pretending you’re asleep!

Image source:

Oh Brother Jailbreak
Mind prison
Prison

A Dreamer’s Guide to Induce Lucid Dreaming

Sonali Bansal
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A Dreamer’s Guide to Induce Lucid Dreaming

 “I was standing in a field in an open area when my wife Pointed in the direction of the sunset. I looked at it and thought, “How odd; I’ve never seen colors like that be-fore.” Then it dawned on me: “I must be dreaming!” Never had I experienced such clarity and perception— the colors were so beautiful and the sense of freedom so exhilarating that I started racing through this beautiful golden wheat field waving my hands in the air and yelling at the top of my voice, “I’m dreaming! I’m dreaming!” ~ Excerpt from Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge

If you had a chance to control your dreams, what would you do? Imagine you are the architect of your story, as you play around with the exceptional abilities buried in unused parts of your brain, you are in total control of your dream. Lucid dreaming is about being aware that you are dreaming and accessing the deepest areas of your brain while you’re sleeping.

Lucid dreaming has been practiced in the Buddhist culture for thousands of years, and is closely related to the ancient technique of Yoga Nidra. The only difference is that in lucid dreaming, we are only (or mainly) cognizant of the dream environment, and have little or no cognizance of our actual environment. While in Yoga Nidra we are fully cognizant of our physical environment and of the actual content of sounds and other events

“Deams are more real than reality itself, they’re closer to the self.” ~ Gao Xingjian, Dialogue and Rebuttal

To understand how to increase one’s chances of lucid dreaming, you first have to understand the different phases of dreams and in which phase are you most inclined towards lucid dreaming.

The Dream Dynamics

The sleep pattern is divided on the basis of brainwaves biochemistry, eye movement patterns, muscle tones, and psychology, etc – namely into two kinds: Quiet Sleep or non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM) sleep and Active sleep or as rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep.

Quiet sleep is further divided in to three patterns. First is light sleep, a transition between wakefulness and sleep, where you can wake up easily and this stage lasts for 5-10 minutes.

From light sleep, you quickly drift to stage 2 that is classified by the presence of waves: sleep spindles or K complexes, which are beneficial in neurocognitive functioning and refreshment of the mind. John Cline, Ph.D. and a Diplomat of the American Board of Sleep, said that we spent majority of the time in Stage 2 while we are asleep.

From here you further drift into Stage 3 of quiet sleep called the Delta sleep. The deepest level of dreamless sleep, where the brain is at rest, it leads to tissue growth and repair, increases blood supply to muscles, restores energy and releases hormones such as growth hormones. From here the dramatic transition to the second kind of sleep pattern sets in, i.e. to Active sleep, which is approximately 90 minutes after you fall asleep.

Active sleep or REM sleep is the phase where the brain is actively working just as much it is working when you are awake but the body is paralysed. The body tenses a little, blood flow & heart rate are higher and you are dreaming vividly. This phase of REM sleep lasts for 10-15 minutes again to drop us into sleep spindles or delta sleep.

LaBerge said, “..the length of the REM periods increase as the night proceeds and the intervals between REM periods de-crease with time of night, from ninety minutes at the beginning of the night to perhaps only twenty to thirty minutes eight hours later.”

Methods to increase lucidity

Remember the dream

dream journal“Everything is dependent upon remembering..” said LaBerge, as everything boils down to this basic yet pivotal step. When you remember your dreams and are able to recall them, a series of dimension flings open. The ability to recall our dreams, will not only support us in telling later about our lucid experience, but would also, lead us to recognise the dream as a dream while you are in it.

The practice of remembering would also aid us in recognizing the factors which are otherwise impossible in real life.

For instance, a dream will seem like reality, but only if you observe that the houses are changing positions or that you are unable to talk or something is extraordinarily different from the real life, you can identify the situation as a dream. This identification is the factor we are looking for when we start lucid dreaming.

It is further suggested to have plenty of sleep because as you enter into a restful sleep pattern the shift from Delta to REM happens easily and the REM time increases gradually, which is where lucid dreaming occurs. Then start by remembering at least one dream per night and gradually progressing to more than one. If initially you only remember a part of the dream, try building a story from there on. Ask questions like, what was I thinking, what was I doing before/after this or try to recall the surroundings, etc.

Keep an account

A dream journal is a catalyst to dreaming lucidly. It is suggested to keep a dream journal by your bedside and each time you get up from a dream, try to jot it down. It is okay to write briefly to help you recall later, but to postpone writing only when you get up is not advised. Because the general tendency of our mind is to forget almost everything from the dream as we wake up.

Even a sudden thought or body movement when you wake up or a sharp sound can lead us to forget the dream. So it is best to keep an account of every detail each time you wake up between a dream during the night or morning, even though you feel it is an unimportant piece of information.

Wake up Calls

lucid dreaming Once you have recognised your internal clock pattern, i.e. when you sleep and wake up, you know that the first REM phase typically occurs ninety minutes after you first fall asleep, with additional phases roughly every ninety minutes afterward. But to wake up consciously can be difficult even after setting an outright intention.

So if you set an alarm for 4.5, 6 or 7.5 hours after you go to sleep, chances are you’ll wake up just at the end of a REM period. With practice you will be able to understand your sleep rhythm and fine tune your timing.

You must fill your mind with thoughts of lucid dreams, as the most recent thoughts and experiences before going to bed often occur during dreams that night. This will heighten your chances of lucid dreaming. Reading books, articles, or watching movies related to lucid dreaming is one of the most common techniques. One study shows that staying awake for somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes gives the highest chance of a lucid dream.

LaBerge calls this the Wake back to bed technique (WBTB) where you wake up just before REM cycle, set an outright intention to lucid dream, watch or read about lucid dreams and go back to bed.

Dream signs

Another significant way to identify you are dreaming is the identification of dream signs. “..dream signs can be like neon lights, flashing a message in the darkness: “This is a dream! This is a dream!” said LaBerge.

These signs could be any and usually will be odd or away from your expectation of the real. To become consciously aware of your surroundings in the waking life will also help in identifying the dream signs. Our mind draws models for the dream from the waking life, therefore any weird or absurd detail can give a hint of being in a dream.

For instance, check the placement of the bed or the window, if there is something weird or absurd about them, chances are you might be dreaming. Clock and hands can also prove to give a reality check because it would be usually difficult to count the fingers or the time might change with every glance in a dream.lucid dreaming

Lucid dreaming is achieved by conscious practice and effort. Keeping at it with patience and clear intention is helpful. Also, listening to binaural beats, meditating, or eating foods that increase the production of melatonin like mustard, almonds, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, walnuts, cherries, shrimp, salmon, food rich in Vitamin B6, etc. can lead to enhanced lucid experiences.

Why everyone should Lucid Dream?

Lucid dreaming offers multiple long-term benefits some of which includes –

  • Enhanced restful sleep
  • Improved memory & energy levels
  • More aware of the present moment
  • It shows us the incredible power of our brain as it allows you to explore the depths of human consciousness.
  • Many also use it for combating their fears through visualisation techniques. For example, an amateur pianist can use to overcome stage fear or a sportsman can use lucid dreaming to polish his techniques and improve on his skills.
  • Unravels your creative potential and imagination. Dreams have inspired famous painters like Salvador Dali, William Blake and Paul Klee, and composers like Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner.

What has been your experience with lucid dreaming?

Image Source and Reference

Wake back to bed technique
Food
Studies on lucid dreaming
Lucid dreaming and nightmares
Lucid dream
Dream
Quote
Dream diary

6 Archetypes to Help Us Get in Touch With Our Shadow Selves

Lauren
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6 Archetypes to Help Us Get in Touch With Our Shadow Selves

Hedonist/Addict/Lover

Shadow Selves

If we think of life before mindfulness as encompassing either pleasure or pain, then most of us will gather around one polarity in an addictive fashion… and can therefore be classed under the Glutton or Addict archetype.

The Addict may be addicted to pleasure as a Hedonist or Lover, or they may be addicted to pain; as a Workaholic or any number of things one can be addicted to, such as food, gambling, or harmful drugs.

People are often addicted to one or the other to take the pressure off, as a distraction from their worries and shadow selves, or as a means to escape a particularly disturbing person or situation in their lives.

Whatever your addiction is keeping you from, it’ll probably come served as some form of denial, cold platter and all, and once overcome will open all sorts of doors for you.

Letting yourself free from your cycles of addiction – no matter how harmless they seem – will lighten your load and give you a sense of empowerment. For the addict is most certainly involved in a power struggle.

The moment you depend on, or let anything ‘external’ control your life, then you’re setting yourself up for a whirlwind of trouble, no matter how socially acceptable your weakness happens to be. Above all, the Addict will stop at nothing to get their fix… Might you be one of them?

Gossip/Networker/Bully/Coward

Another possible guise our ‘shadow’ can take and is better understood as an archetype, is the Gossip. I think we’ve all been there; it can take a huge amount of sacrifice – both of the fear of being liked and of our precious reputations – to stand up for the underdog instead of joining in.

More often than not, we become the Bully or Coward in order to secure our place in the hierarchy of society, whether we’re children in a playground or not.

quote-the-hero-and-the-coward-both-feel-the-same-thing-but-the-hero-uses-his-fear-projects-it-onto-his-cus-d-amato-341053

The most subtle forms of cowardly bullying find themselves woven into most social interactions and groups, and are particularly present in situations where people come under the spotlight; at work, within family… as people this is how we determine status and rank in an ‘evolved’ species such as human kind.

To become more and more aware of the moments of cowardice present in most of our lives and overcoming it by fighting for the underdog can be a daily practice, but there are some of those who fit the archetype of the Gossip and Networker down to a tee.

There are those of us who seem to thrive in such situations, and often become a ringleader steering the bullying in the right direction, ironically mistaken into thinking they’re fighting for high moral codes that the underdog or scapegoat might’ve breached.

Their followers and crowd are those so driven by fear, they also begin perceiving some injustice. And with that the crowd becomes a mob; tearing at the metaphorical flesh of the underdog, eager to rid their pack of those who threaten their collective ego, any scrap of supposed evolution lost in the dust. In these situations we become animalistic. We become ignorant, we become dumb.

Miser/Midas

The story of Midas goes like this: Midas mopes about wishing he had more money (being secure and perfectly affluent as he is), makes a ‘vain prayer’ in the direction of his greedy desires and is ‘blessed’ with the gift to turn whatever he touches into pure gold.

At first this is great fun and he goes around touching cups and saucers and probably his washing machine in delight at the intense novelty of the whole thing until he finds himself experiencing the first pangs of hunger as dinner time comes around.

He goes to the fridge. Woops, turned to gold. Goes to the cupboards, woops turned to gold. In the end his daughter approaches him and he accidentally turns her to gold too. Weeping over her frozen statue, he eventually dies of starvation.

Although we may not all be driven to such drastic measures to satisfy our lust for gold, there may well be a nugget of the Miser archetype in all of us. It’s all about attachment; do you attach yourself to the lighter side of life and pine over it until the wave begins to lift? Do you find yourself aching for a bit more land, a nicer kitchen or better car?

Or perhaps you just plan each dollar down to the very last cent and often skip it when the donations basket comes ‘round? Although it’s easy to be desensitized, and yes we probably all do our bit and shouldn’t have to stress over it, we are still hugely rich in comparison to most of the world’s population.

And yes it is all an illusion. What we think we need and what we can do without is all in the eyes of the beholder. Remember the essentials; oxygen, shelter, food and water. And what was the fifth one? Oh yes, laughter and people to share it with.

Revolutionary/Warrior/Knight

archetype-Black-Knight

Though it may seem glamorous on the surface, the Knight can actually be incredibly shadowy. High on a power trip and intoxicated by the feeling that they’re ‘fighting for God’, or on a crusade to save the holy land… the Warrior and Revolutionary may think they’re do-gooders, when in fact they invite violence into peaceful people’s lives, often leaving a bloody trail behind them.

Violence for the sake of peace, war in exchange for the correct and self righteous road… Although many of us may desire to help others in becoming such an ostentatious figure, take heed that it’s not solely your own needs you are satisfying.

Do the people you’re saving actually need or even want to be saved? Or are they happily learning at their own pace and on their own terms?

Is your holy land even relevant or desirable to those you seek to help? One shoe certainly does not fit all… especially not your spurred boots that can appear quite alarming and aggressive to down-to-earth villagers who just want to harvest their crop.

Artist/Writer/Creative/Inventor

Again, another one who is incredibly desirable to us in this masculine, get ahead and shine society that we live in. But be careful you don’t get too wrapped up in your own ego… the Writer and Artist can become so engulfed in creativity or perfectionism they are driven quite mad and become consumed in their own inadequacies as a mere human.

Like Icarus there are downsides to walking alongside the Gods in their pantheon. The same goes for the Inventor. To play God is dangerous, and more often than not one gets burned.

Princess/Victim/Prostitute/Femme Fatale

Though not strictly feminine, the Princess represents all that is within us that needs to leech off others and attach ourselves to them because of our fear to face life head on. The Princess becomes a Victim, waiting for a Prince to rescue him/her and pretending they have no individuality or independence of their own.

Princesses can become incredibly apt at convincing themselves and everyone else that this is their ‘purpose’; like any caregiver who has learnt to become co-dependent they are willing to do anything; cook, clean, sing to the neighbouring wildlife… Like the Addict, the Princess is in denial, and usually needs to work on their sense of self and self love in order to grant themselves the Heroine status they deserve.

The Prostitute and the Femme Fatale are similar to the Princess, yet instead of granting the completion of household chores they grant sexual favours. Again they don’t have to be women with flirty dispositions; the Prostitute is that part inside of us who readily gives away our talents to any Tom, Dick or Harry without expecting much in return.

Both archetypes draw on our need to reaffirm our sense of self-respect and re-draw our boundaries. Are you letting others walk all over you and take more than they deserve?

These archetypes are just a sample of what may be dressing itself up to the nines and posing as a positive aspect of who you are. To explore our shadows is a healthy thing; for then we get to truly know ourselves and can begin to love every single part of our being.

To know and understand every one of our masks is an adventure, a journey to through the darkness to the heart of the self, a journey into the light.

Reference & Image Source

Inventor
Knight

Hedonists

As Baltimore Burns: Crouching Anger, Hidden Catharsis

Gary Z McGee
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As Baltimore Burns: Crouching Anger, Hidden Catharsis

“A riot is the language of the unheard.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr

This article will show how the power of deep, thoughtful imagination can teach us a powerful lesson of humility that can make us more aware and teach us how to have more empathy in an otherwise exceedingly unaware and grossly apathetic world.

But first, imagine a yin-yang. There are two sides to every yin-yang. Imagine this article as a yin-yang. On the one side is a dark shadow, a ravenous angry demon swirling around a point of light. On the other side is a bright light, a radiating loving angel swimming around a point of darkness. Each side is consciously unaware of the other side, though they are inexplicably connected.

Now, imagine every single person on the planet is an individual, walking, talking yin-yang, each with their own shadowy demon and loving angel radiating at different degrees depending upon their respective nature-nurture dynamic. Some of these yin-yangs are more white than black. Some are more black than white. Some have bigger points of light, some have bigger points of darkness, and vice versa.

But most are not aware to what extent, and so the majority of yin-yangs are unbalanced. Like Noam Chomsky said, “The general population doesn’t even know what’s happening, and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know.” Yes, this applies to psychology just as much as it applies to politics.

thug-for-life-cop Now, picture a cop and a thug. Both the cop and the thug carry their titles with pride (note how pride is itself a psychological hang-up). The cop imagines he is more light than dark, but to the extent that he has suppressed his darkness because of the pressures (cultural and peer) of an unhealthy system that has militarized him and brainwashed him into being invulnerable, fearful, and paranoid, and therefore excessively violent.

The thug imagines he is more dark than light, having had his light oppressed by an unfair and unjust legal system that criminalizes poverty and feeds profit prisons to the extent that he is a burnt-out husk of pent up anger and rage, and therefore excessively violent. Neither the cop nor the thug have ever been held accountable. The two tangle over something petty: say a stolen candy bar or a soda, or even a “suspicion” of petty crime on the part of the cop.

If the thug does not fight back, then the unhealthy, unsustainable, unfair, unjust system continues going through the motions of being precisely what it is, and the thug goes to jail. But if the thug does happen to fight back, then the cop takes it upon himself to be judge, jury, and executioner with the full power of the unhealthy, unsustainable, unfair, and unjust system behind him, and the thug is then beaten senseless and, as a result, he dies.

Now, picture the community where this cop and this (now deceased) thug are from. This community is made up of many other yin-yangs, each with a sense of being more light or more dark, and vice versa; but all having been conditioned by the same unhealthy, unsustainable, unfair, and unjust system, and so mostly unaware to what extent they stand and are therefore unbalanced yin-yangs. This community reacts to the death of its member the only way it knows how to: in unbalanced ways.

Those members who identify more with the “thug life (poverty)” will be outraged and angry, and they will go through the motions of their outrage and anger, without filter (or with varying degrees of filter), due to their having been oppressed by an unhealthy, unsustainable, unfair, and unjust system.

Likewise, those members who identify more with the “cops authority (privilege)” will be shocked and dismayed that the rest of the community is so angry and outraged, because they are going through the motions of trusting, as they were conditioned to trust, an unhealthy, unsustainable, unfair, and unjust system.

Understand: “conditioned” is the keyword. Both sides will have sympathy for the departed, but only one side can have true empathy for the plight of the departed, due to the conditioning of the unhealthy, unsustainable, unfair, and unjust system.

Suspect Dies BaltimoreNow, picture this community in chaos. On both sides all the little yin-yangs (on top of already being unbalanced) are confused and scared. And when yin-yangs are confused and scared, they act out according to the varying degrees of their lightness and darkness.

One yin-yang might burn a cop car. One yin-yang might call other yin-yangs derogatory and racist names. A couple yin-yangs might throw rocks or bricks at other yin-yangs. Media outlets, who are biased to one side or the other, may spin things a certain way in order to influence a certain political agenda.

Neither side aware that the only way to understand the other side is to GO to the other side —and take a walk, or at least have a heart-to-heart discussion. Neither side capable of putting themselves in the other side’s shoes. But ALL the desperate and confused yin-yangs are acting-out according to the conditioning of the greater unhealthy, unsustainable, unfair, and unjust system they were born into.

Those privileged enough to be comfortable with the unhealthy, unsustainable, unfair, and unjust system are less likely to get directly involved and are more likely to stick to the sidelines, shouting mostly empty platitudes about their sense of right and wrong. Those who are oppressed by, and therefore uncomfortable with the unhealthy, unsustainable, unfair, and unjust system, are more likely to get directly involved, and they will act out mostly from an unsophisticated and uneducated sense of right and wrong.

A tiny percentage, maybe 2%, of those directly involved will loot and steal and burn down stores, which will more than likely be blamed on the other peaceful 98%. Those on the sidelines will shout empty, banal words such as “animals” and “monsters” and “hooligans,” but most of them haven’t a clue about the bigger picture.

And the media feeds both sides, filling them all with more hate, more divisiveness, and more confusion, to the extent that it becomes too much, and everybody conveniently forgets about it all. That is, until the next wannabe “thug” yin-yang gets killed by another so-called law-abiding “cop” yin-yangcop (who will again probably not be held accountable), and the vicious cycle will continue, ad nauseam.

Now, allow me to plug myself into this scenario. There is an angel and a demon in my heart. And, as with the yin-yang, they each have aspects of the other hidden inside them. The angel’s heart is a demon’s heart.

The demon’s heart is an angel’s heart. In times like these, when Baltimore is burning, when black lives seemingly don’t matter, when poor lives are being trampled over by the lifestyles of the rich, when unjust masculine privilege drowns out justified feminine leverage, when equity matters more than equality, when profits matter more than people, when elections have been replaced by auctions, it’s times like these when the angel’s heart and the demon’s passion become one and the same soul-crushing song of emancipation: a primordial howl of liberation.

Where devil-may-care meets demon-does-care, and suddenly things become clear: In order to achieve something great, something healthier and more sustainable, it is inevitable and necessary that things trivial, things unhealthy and unsustainable, should be destroyed.

The demon wants to breathe smoke. The demon wants to exhale fire. The demon wants to curse at all sides: thugs, cops, spineless sideliners. The demon wants to smash police cars until its heart is pumping battery acid. The demon wants to watch the whole thing burn. The demon wants to be out there tearing down unsustainable infrastructure.

The demon wants to be in the mix, spilling blood, cracking sidewalks with its heavy thunder, shattering windows with its deep demon howl. The demon wants to crush the greater demon of the unhealthy, unsustainable, unfair, and unjust system. But even the demon knows that two wrongs don’t make a right. And so the angel-heart of the demon rises up to balance things out.

The angel wants to hug away the pain. The angel wants to breathe compassion into the hearts of brutal men. The angel wants to emancipate the downtrodden of their pain. The angel wants to liberate the privileged of their fear and paranoia. The angel wants to plug gun barrels with daisies and transform Molotov cocktails into bouquets of flowers.

The angel wants to get all the cops to lay down their body armor and helmets and weapons of menace. The angel wants to get the thugs to hold hands in unison and embrace the police in solidarity against the true evil in this world: the unhealthy, unsustainable, unfair, and unjust system. But even the angel knows that lovey-dovey, goody-two-shoes, utopian projection won’t cut it. And so the demon-heart rises up to balance things out.

My higher-self, the part of me where both the demon and the angel have joined forces, breathes both angry smoke and clear compassion, pointing out that the thug and the cop are one and the same prideful thing: an unfortunate side-effect of an unhealthy, unsustainable, unfair, and unjust system. The cop could have become a thug under different circumstances.
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The thug could have become a cop under different circumstances. The cop and the thug are both victims of the same unhealthy, unsustainable, unfair, and unjust system.

The question that remains atop the dogpile of violence and nonsense is this: will the cop and the thug ever be capable of forgetting their victimized-pride long enough to gather the wherewithal to become heroes instead?

As the world stands, nurture has crushed our nature. The system has brainwashed us into perceiving the world a certain way and we are seemingly stuck in that “way.” And the only way to get unstuck is to recondition the precondition, to unwash the brainwash, to turn the tables on our own insecure cognitive dissonance. The problem is: nobody can do it for us. We alone must emancipate ourselves from mental slavery.

Which just so happens to be one of the most difficult things a human being can do. Our egos are covertly tactical with pride, preventing most from even taking the first step toward such emancipation. The system suborns divisiveness and thrives on it. It needs a victimized and divided majority in order to maintain its power. And here we are, going through the motions of being divided victims.

Martin-Luther-King-Jr.-Art-13It’s all so dreadfully silly and petty and soulless, and that is precisely what the system is programmed to instill in us: soullessness. To both the cop and the thug, I say: swallow your pride, dissolve your ego, and turn your energy toward the true enemy: the unhealthy, unsustainable, unfair, and unjust system.

In closing: nobody said it better than the immortal Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention.

And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.”

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Outlaw Magic: The Subtle Art of Living Outside the Rules

Gary Z McGee
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Outlaw Magic: The Subtle Art of Living Outside the Rules

“When freedom is outlawed, only outlaws will be free.” ~ Unknown

Outlaw magic is the primordial energy of the Middle Way, which leads to the liberation of the soul. In Mahayana Buddhism, the Middle Way refers to the insight into emptiness that transcends opposite statements about existence. Outlaw Magic is precisely this “emptiness that transcends.”

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Equal parts demonic-whisper and angelic-wrath, Godly fire and soft devilry, hard love and forgiving ruthlessness, outlaw magic subsumes opposites.

It is the orgasm of the yin-yang, the climax of the cosmos coming together to become less individual and more individuated, less personal and more extra-personal, less independent and more interdependent, less serious and more sincere.

It’s the disciplined, counterintuitive practice of no-mind experiencing non-attachment, while intermittently being fully engaged in the here and now. To feel it, you have only to practice two of the most difficult concepts known to man: surrender and forgiveness.

The key to surrender: stop taking yourself and/or your worldview so seriously. The key to forgiveness: give up all hope for a better past. When we surrender to the Great Mystery, when we cease our incessant self-seriousness, we are surrendering ourselves to creative freedom and primordial joy.

There in the void, in the sacred energy of opposites, in the vacuum where infinity and finitude collide, we are free to use and be used by the mysterious magic of the cosmos itself: an outlaw magic, a primeval ecstasy, and ancient joy so visceral and carnal that we feel it balls to bones, ovaries to marrow, heart to soul.

It is here where our want to individuate becomes our need to self-actualize. It is here where we begin the first steps toward living outside the rules of men, to questioning all perceived authority. Indeed, it is here where we realize that we are capable of co-creating with the universe in order to create new and healthier rules, rules that are more holistic and in sync with the cosmos and the interconnectedness of all things.

When we forgive ourselves, when we cease our incessant woe-is-me pity party, we indirectly forgive the world. In the here and now, in the sacred space between past and future, where the vacuity of should-a collides with could-a, we are free to embrace our mistakes, to transform wounds into wisdom, setbacks into stepping stones, and regret into brazenness.

We are finally free to let go, to release ourselves from the wrongdoings of others, and to transform ourselves from victims into warriors. We are free to practice sincere non-attachment.

It is here where our want to be better becomes our need to act healthier, where our disposition is transformed from a negative glass-is-half-empty ego-view of things to a positive glass-is-half-full soul-view of things.

dark tower It is here where we begin to self-alchemize, to spiritually realign with cosmic forces, and to transcend cultural conditioning.

Such transcendence leads to an existential robustness that is intermittently flexible yet resolute, open yet disciplined, loving yet ruthless: an outlaw magic, a self-as-world and world-as-self upheaval of cultural norms, where the individual is interdependent and free from the need for validation.

Indeed, one’s validation comes from the primal understanding that everyone’s liberation is more important than success, looking good, or being comfortable in the all-too-comfortable, narcissistic, and materialistic world.

Through our self-surrender and self-forgiveness, our outlaw magic becomes self-actualized. Our past self, our overly egotistical, covertly narcissistic, and overtly serious self begins to fade. We go from being an assuming Serious Actor, playing a role, to an unassuming Sincere Creator, playing with many roles.

We go from serious appeaser to sincere teaser. And as our outdated seriousness melts into sincerity, and our want to appease transforms into our need to tease, the full activation of our outlaw magic is at hand and the liberation of the world becomes suddenly manifest.

Woman-Masked-Gas-MaskIn the mighty shadow of the Sincere Creator, all shadows are subsumed. The sincere creator transubstantiates the world. If this is who we’ve become, then outlaw magic is at our fingertips.

Renegade alchemy is at hand. Seriousness has been deemed a cancer that we have learned to murder over and over again.

We’ve taken it by the hair and slit its throat, using its blood as fuel to feed the fire of our passion, and as a powerful ink to fill our truthful pens. We are free to write outlaw words with outlaw symbols on outlaw flags.

Our sincerity is magnetic and it spreads like wildfire through the hearts of men, be they serious actors or sincere creators or neither.

Attachment is also a cancer. Which we sincere creators have learned to crucify over and over again; to nail it to its cross of nothingness, and to use its resurrection into non-attachment as a stepping stone toward a humor of the most high.

Through the magnetic power of non-attachment, nothing is out of our range, nothing can resist our absolute freedom. Not even death can stop the forward motion of our self-overcoming.

Through our absolute freedom we tease the cosmos into revealing her secrets, we tease each other into further freedom, taking nothing so seriously as the sincerity of our lack of seriousness.

We laugh, and laugh hard, at anybody who takes themselves too seriously, at anyone who is still caught-up in the unhealthy tug-o-war between ego and attachment, between codependency and seriousness, between pretense and surface image, between independency and self-importance.

We mock and we jeer and we taunt, and we will continue to do so, because this is the epitome of outlaw magic, this is the essence of spiritual robustness. Think the concept of divergence from the movie Divergent. Think Neo transcending the pettiness of the Matrix. Think the infinite player laughing at the triviality of the finite player’s too-serious sense of play.

Outlaw magic has the power to topple thrones, demolish high-horses and melt down pedestals. Only a person wielding the power of outlaw magic can see the “hero’s” feet of clay, for outlaw magic reveals the pulsing, naked vulnerability of the human condition. It unveils the primordial fear of death.

It unmasks the infinite masks of God, revealing the wriggling caterpillar at the center of the human condition: a creature torn between its fleshy-ignorant-earthiness and the spiritually-resolute-nihilism of the cocoon; unable even to begin to fathom the interdependently-robust-self-actualization of transcending that cocoon.

Only the sincere creator, having shed her carapace of seriousness and self-importance, having shed her cocoon, can use her frontal lobes like butterfly wings to fly into a healthier evolution for her species.

Only the sincere creator can laugh at all kings, presidents, queens, and emperors and not give a damn about the repercussions, because only the sincere creator can see that the repercussions are an illusion, a cartoon in the brain, a false manifestation of a hyper-reality, an appeal to security masking an all-too-human insecurity.gasmask_buddha

Becoming such an individual is as difficult as it is rare. It is as lonely as it is liberating. It is as uncomfortable as it is unfettering. It is as terrifying as it is enlightening. Hence the seeming lack of any true outlaw magic in our world.

Like H.L. Mencken said, “The fact is that the average man’s love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth.

He is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely. Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men.

It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty — and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies.”

Nonetheless, the world desperately needs more outlaw magic. It urgently needs more sincere creators. It badly needs more people willing to be amoral (outlaws) so as to compel an otherwise immoral system (with its unhealthy laws) to moralize itself (toward healthier laws).

It sincerely needs more sincere individuals who are not hung-up on self-serious agendas. In short: the world needs us to surrender to her, to forgive the suffering and attachment within us.

When we genuinely surrender, when we authentically forgive, we have no choice but to fall into rhythm with the beautiful synchronicity of cosmic forces, of profound and overwhelming outlaw magic.

We free ourselves to dance. We discover that miracles are at hand, true miracles. Not the parochial miracles of dogmatic religions, but the interconnected miracle of life spilling into more life.

We find that we are a unique wave crashing out of a primordial symphony, and outlaw magic is the proactive surfing of that wave into eternity, into a future where humankind is able to maintain a balance between Nature and the human soul. We surf. We crash. We tumble and get bloodied from the thousand cuts of the cosmic ocean.

But we figure out how to swim. We laugh. And we get back up and surf again. But most importantly we laugh, and outlaw magic is ours, over and over again.

For we know, as Alan Watts knew, “What one needs in this universe is not certainty but the courage and nerve of the gambler; not fixed conviction but adaptability; not firm ground whereupon to stand but skill in swimming.”

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