Colin Drake
Most of us are hypnotized by the mind and our senses into hallucinating that we are separate Hominoid creatures belonging to various tribes (family, nationality, skin colour, sex, religion, class, occupation, wealth group, political affiliation, star sign) existing on a inconsequential planet, orbiting a minor star, in a universe containing thousands of galaxies each of which contains billions of stars. This (mis)identification almost completely determines our ‘world-view’ and rules our lives.
In every moment there are only sensations (that is everything detected by the nervous system and bodily senses), thought (which includes all mind-stuff such as mental images, the flow of language, the colouring of these thoughts and sensations based on our tribal affiliations and identifications, the processing of these to overcome the ‘problems’ of living, the conclusions that are reached etc.) and the Awareness of these. In this the thoughts/sensations are a flow of fleeting objects whilst Awareness is the constant conscious perceiving presence that we actually are!
Also in our own experience everything that we encounter appears to consist of these thoughts and sensations. Say a chair for example, we can see it, we can feel it, we can think about it, we know what it is called and its function – but these are still all thoughts and sensations.
So it is obvious that our previous ‘knowledge’ and the colouring applied by our many (mis)identifications will have a large part in determining how any ‘thing’ is seen, and how we respond to it. This applies to everything that we encounter. So it can be readily seen that the ‘spin’ that we put on these ‘things’ determines how we ‘see’ them and also the outcomes of our processing of them. Thus we do not see anything as it actually ‘is’.
The main outcome of this is that we identify ourselves (and everything) as separate objects in a universe of such and then we apply this identification to everything that is encountered. From the inter-personal relationship this can be horrific for we then identify all ‘others’ as objects and may treat them as such, as can be seen in the present ‘dog eat dog’ world.
This naturally leads to a great deal of miscommunication and conflict, due to varying world-views, interests and values based on these tribal affiliations. Extreme examples of this occur, often creating needless conflict, when ‘my tribe is the best’ becomes a major part of the colouring process: racism, religious fanaticism, rampant nationalism, Nazism, are a few examples.
So what is the answer to this seemingly insoluble problem which creates most of the conflict and misunderstanding? As these are the outcome of tribalism and misidentification as a separate object in a world of such, then the obvious solution is to go beyond these and discover that which is common to all, which is beyond objectification, being the constant conscious perceiving presence – Awareness Itself!.
If this can be achieved and we can see that essentially we are this, of which body/minds are just fleeting expressions, then we can start to relate to all as being of the same essence; and the differences are just fleeting phenomena which come and go. In this view objectification of others vanishes and we start to see that all are (of) one (essence), which finally leads to treating ‘others’ as oneself for there is no essential difference!
Colin Drake is a poet, potter, philosopher and writer based in Australia. For a full version of this article write to colinj108@gmail.com
Thank You For Your Vote!
Sorry You have Already Voted!
