"For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery."
Jonathan Swift
I know I haven't written for awhile, but as we often talk about freedom, in all it's various forms (which really is only one), it seemed appropriate that on this day, when everyone is paying homage to their masters, that we should write something about the nature of government.
Like ALL beliefs and superstitions, the "government" is taken for granted. We believe we need government to protect us from the evils of the other side (which is the republicans if you're democrat and democrats if you're a republican). At least in the U.S. Of course, outside of the U.S. it is necessary to keep us safe from 'terrorists', even though governments are the biggest form of terrorism there is. I mean, on today of all days, what would happen if you decided NOT to pay those enslavement fees (also known as taxes) to wage wars on innocent people in other lands, to help subsidize poisoned GMO foods, to generally tell you what you can and more importantly cannot do? Why, yes. You would be fined, and/or imprisoned.
But like all superstitions, we were born into this one. It is the unseen cage, the hidden matrix, that we live with, simply assuming that it is necessary, and that it is the right of some individuals to enslave others, as long as you don't call it slavery.
So what is a superstition. The definition is: Excessively credulous belief in and reverence for a supernatural being. Now, government may not seem to, at first glance, fit the criteria of a supernatural being, but think again. It has nearly invincible power. We obey it's every whim. It graces us with its 'good' and punishes our wrongs. AND, we don't really know where it came from or what maintains it. Sounds pretty God-like to me. But consider - where did government come from. In our case (USA), a few men got together a couple hundred years ago and wrote on a piece of paper, that for all time, THEY and those who followed them were THE government, and that all people must follow them and their wishes in perpetuity. I can guarantee you, if a bunch of us got together and decided to create a new government, we would immediately be thrown in jail unless we had the gunpower and will power to fight off the incumbent government (much as the colonists ultimately did during the revolutionary war). To at least give the 'founding fathers' their due, they did, at the time, attempt to create what was the smallest government footprint ever created in history. Unfortunately, due to the nature of humans and their need for power, that same tiny government is now the largest, most powerful, and most dangerous government the world as ever seen. (What's that saying about the road to hell is paved with good intentions.) The very nature of government means to govern, to rule, to enslave, to tell others what they are ALLOWED to do.
But this is not really the point. The point is that while many of us seek freedom or enlightenment, we fail to realize just how many beliefs and superstitions we hold within ourselves. We want to sail to the shore of freedom without recognizing we're still tightly attached to the dock of ignorance. Ignorance is the opposite of knowledge - knowing what is true and what is not. To rephrase the quote "Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere", we might say, "Ignorance anywhere is ignorance everywhere."
In the last few months, I have been spending much time studying and contemplating the nature of the 'Natural Human'. What exactly does it mean to be natural? How did people live, co-exist, experience life for the thousands and thousands of years prior to our so-called modern era? This is not to say that every indigenous tribe was perfect, didn't necessarily enslave others or followed crazy superstitions of their own, but many if not most were free from many of the hidden enslavements that capture us today.
And in reference to 'Natural', is it not interesting that two of the teachers most respected by Non-dualists, both, directly or indirectly spoke of Natural? The word Nisarga, as in Sri Nisargadatta Maharaja, means 'natural'. Datta means giver. So Nisargadatta means the giver of what is natural. Similarly, Ramana Maharshi spoke of his state as sahaja samadhi. The word sahaja also means natural. The point of enlightenment is to recognize who you are, or as David Godman entitled one of his books about Ramana, "Be Who You Are." Who you are is a Natural Person, intrinsically free. It is my contention that many of the simple tribal people (which we call primitive, suggesting something stupid, rather than primeval and original), were in fact living in the natural state of consciousness which today we would call enlightened, recognizing their state of Presence, Awareness, Consciousness, and their inherent connection to the earth and the Absolute - the things which statism and churchism have taken from us.
Okay, so now for a little entertainment. What follows is a wonderful cartoon based on a talk given by Larken Rose on what might happen if an alien came to check up on us.
(If you wish to understand more about freedom from statism, I recommend you google Larken Rose and Stefan Molyneux. If you'd like to learn more about natural man, check out the website of Robert Wolff at www.wildwolff.com)
Enjoy
In Love
Aja
Comments
Post a Comment