Pathways of Social Involution & Spiritual Eugenics
I am always soothed by the sound of the bell that calls home all sounds.
It brings to attention that sound exists above the surface (cannot exist in vacuous space) - exists in the atmosphere of the cognitive, within the sensory range of the mind. And that, all that is beneath the surface is not at the direct disposal of the mind to use in ways it wants above the ground. In this way, it seeks to measure what it knows exists, but which cannot be perceived with its mind-body.
This whole idea for everything is an idea - that there is an above and a below is just an idea. Still, it's profoundly relevant to this direct experience - this only truth that I know - this emergence with and into life. And as such, this clarity - to know the terrain within which I am navigating - opens in me a deep desire to contemplate, "what's being asked of me in regards to the world - to education and what is it that I am called to 'do' and 'say'?"
Most specifically, is this realization: what I have is above the surface - what I need lies below the surface - and what I am is the confluence of the motion of this axis spinning clockwise, traveling latitudinally on the wind of intention and empowered longitudinally by emotion.
It's an Odyssey of epic proportions!
My mind and body and heart came together with a pad and pencil.
At first, this thought and desire brought to mind a wheel - oddly, appearing as a weft and a warp and loom weaving fiber and thread but which function as spokes and hubs and rims. And, I thought to myself, "this is very helpful - these spoke-like threads that crisscross and make more dynamic with each revision - streamlined - punctuated! pushed! batoned! - that carry us faster and help us travel with less effort as we draft through life.”
But if something happens to the tire - if there are Sinkholes and Potholes and all sorts of Assholes on the road and it gets punctured or shredded ... then what do we do?
Indeed, we've already invested so much time improving the spokes, alchemizing the elements of the hub, and defying time and space with increased velocity and decreased effort. We have even redesigned the frame, altered the body, and synthesized blood, for the singular goal - to win, to do better, to succeed ... faster!
Again and again, the mind's answer seems to be to invest in the framework and design of that wheel at the exclusion of the infrastructure of the road that the tire rides upon.
On the surface, we are tasked with repairing an object - patching it with excuses or temporary fixes, ensuring that it's "new and improved"! Below the surface, we are tasked with funding the journey – restoring the road by grinding it down and using it as spiritual grist for the "good creation" (eugenico) of all that will ride upon it - reverence!
There's no denying how this is affecting our nation as our roads and our technology and sense of personal satisfaction lag in contrast to other countries around us.
Why is this happening?
As a country, we're hemorrhaging in expenses and punitive damages - in all the ways that we are in litigation, on the battlefield of this "idea" of war, or this fear of others, or this belief that we can take back or change what has already happened, or this insistence that someone must pay, and that we must follow the threads and look under rocks and prove, "Aha!"
Who amongst us has no darkness?
In the 2022 omnibus spending bill, $782 billion dollars (a 5.6% increase) were allocated to national defense - this also includes supporting countries like Ukraine. The politic and history will argue that we need it. But now we know that what we need lies beneath and so war cannot provide the kind of safety that we need.
It's a temporary fix, a patch.
This is telling: if each individual was connected to a deep sense of safety - belonged and was understood, if we felt this, then we would have calm on the surface and there would be enough calm to absorb and hold the ripples of despair and discontent, and there would be enough wisdom that all that spilled beyond would quench the earth rather than flood it.
It's clear that this is not as it appears on the surface - not a black or white problem, or a man or woman problem, or a rich and poor problem. This is a problem of foundational human proportion ... this is a problem of (Self) governance comprised of elected officials (parts) who are meant to support our freedom and ensure our future, but who are serving, instead, shareholders. And, they're hedging that we will not get better, that the world will continually spin out of control.
We are investing in the casualties of war.
For any shift to happen, we must undergo a spiritual involution - we must turn in, and start to get involved with our own stuff - our feelings, our bodies of beliefs, our behaviors, and the shame or guilt we feel when we are called to care for ourselves. This "in" action is then turned out, intensified, and shared as empathy through spiritual generosity. There is a reduction in productivity and an increase in "right" intention.
We know this from the multidimensional realms of the word "involution" offered in the Oxford Dictionary:
Physiologically, it's "the shrinkage of an organ in old age or when inactive - of the uterus after childbirth."
Our Physiology is saying, "Use it or lose it!" If we want a kind society, then start by being kind to yourself and taking care of your needs rather than demanding that they be met.
The heart in this realm is a muscle that needs to be flexed, challenged, and strengthened by the wisdom of our history and the resilience of personal failure; it is asking for sympathy - to see the causal relativity and relationship of all things.
Be kind on purpose - because kindness and justice are the very core of your being - and seek nothing in return other than the pleasure of seeing the joy in another and you are well on your way!
Mathematically, it's "a function, transformation, or operator that is equal to its inverse, which gives the identity when applied to itself."
Only knowledge declares, "He who smelt it, dealt it!" The ego is completely consumed with proving its identity and being separate - right or wrong - and, it does this through judgment and shaming.
Just noticing that what you are feeling is an undeniable variable in the equation of your experience, is enough to relax the boundaries that keep us separate from the truth; it's asking for empathy - to feel the same capacity/agency on multiple realms.
Don't skirt the reality that every human being eats, shits, and dies. You are nothing special on your own, but an integral variable in the sum.
Formally, it's "the process of involving or complicating or the state of being involved or complicated.
"Being Human is hard", and if we look into the algorithm of our history, it is evident that we have had dark periods after challenged revolution and light "periods of artistic involution."
When we cultivate the human part we excel above the surface - we evolve. When we cultivate the Being part, we compel beneath the surface - we involve.
Choosing one at the expense of the other will not allow the whole human being to grow - we become so complex that we can't understand each other or we become so simple that we are inactive.
This is our dharma.
We can't avoid the curling wave of karma that is returning to us.
Imperialism was a disguise, manifest destiny a delusion, capitalism a ruse - all misguided by an idea without heart and soul!
We're called the United States because it is the soul quest of every human being that has touched this soil to wake up and recognize what everything that has been happening in this country has in common - not to get lost in the personal and the complex, but to be awakened by the impersonal and the profound.
Above the ground, united means there are many, so to be united is a cognitive and physical state of many coming together; it's not a state of the heart. In the heart we have solidarity but above the surface, we are united – the many coming together as one. And so, we must be sensed to exist, to emerge.
To get so caught up in the structure or in the framework and organization - this that we build above the ground - or to become obsessed in the way our house looks and to ignore the foundation - the footings that come together as a triune to support what is being built above - is a "house divided", as Lincoln said, that "will always fall".
But with attention, this triune comes together as pillars - ethos, pathos, logos - sat, chit, ananda.
Above the ground, pathos looks like experience; below the ground pathos is received as wisdom.
Above the ground ethos is reflected in behavior; below the ground ethos is received through values.
Above the ground logos is used as a reason; below the ground, logos is received as a purpose.
We can see that as a country we've lost our sense of purpose; we are disconnected from our wisdom and we are lost from the values that have brought us together – the values that are based undeniably on our fundamental human rights.
This body, this proper.
And it is a sin - just missing the mark - to use what we want above the surface by manipulating what we need below the surface - bending the intentions and root to gain control over the canopy - or using scripture to prove an idea on the surface that supersedes the individual rights of all human beings.
Below the ground those rights appear as a response; above the ground, those rights appear as a choice. And when our choice is removed from us we can't rise to our personal responsibility, we are nothing near united; we are disconnected from ourselves.
Our sense of justice tells us that it's no one's right above the ground to make choices for our bodies (unless we have willed it), because that gets in the way of our freedom to choose our response which is at the root of resilience and the core of wisdom.
We know this in the history of Eugenics, how it was manipulated to pit one above the other - to play God and create a superior race - in the many ways nations and religions used its benefits to claim the herd. When an idea is used to exclude one group or promote another we become loveless and lawless.
And this looks lots of different ways -- no matter!
When this idea that "I know better" supersedes the right to choose our response, we have misstepped! The way history holds the truth of all that was held from certain groups and all that was given to others. But who "the others are" depends on perception.
We can understand it through the many different spokes - through the pathways and relational framework of our psychology and our philosophy, and our physiology and the physics that predetermined so much of life.
What we "need" to "do" has more to do with the foundation than the framework.
We need to practice the skills of living spiritual, enlightened lives - those that return peace, happiness, freedom, and love.
If we're not taking care of the foundation of what makes Self an integral part of ourselves, then how can we possibly have safe structures above the ground - homes and communities and states and nations - when markets are blown from left to right like the wind ... the exploding housing market – rising inflation. It's clear that though we appear primed for social evolution, we don't have the foundational skills to travel forward together.
And, we can't rely on an idea and a memory - we must invest in wisdom - on knowing ourselves - and agree on a vision of peace - to stop scrambling to hold onto the last vestiges of what we believed created happiness on this earth – this distraction, Looking for Heaven - and to be, instead, awakened by the distance our souls have agreed to travel together.