NORM & KARMA

Normality means belonging to a norm. On a planet where everybody would be blind for instance, blindness would be the norm and an individual who would see the Light would be an odd creature. Jesus was crucified only for that. Usually most people adapt their vision to the vision of the group to which they belong. The fashion movements are based on this tendency among humans. I remember for instance how during the 1960s the tendency was to be open to the basics of spirituality while today even the very same people turned their back to such vision and now a smart person is a materialist who sees only the surface of things. We can say that the vision of people identified with thier thoughts is conventional and is imposed by group to the individual. Often when I dare speaking about spirituality people ask me if I am high on something ? I answer that yes I am high but not on some dope, I am high exclusively on BEING in me which frees me from the disconnecting prison of thoughts.

People are attached to the norm which gives them the strength and the sense of being "right" that provides for illusory security, and control. Aligning with the common social vision securizes the individual empowering him/her with the force of the group. This is why when on a true spiritual path of realization people are invited to abandon identification with thoughts, this seems nearly impossible for them and there are several reasons for that. First thought-identity is the only identity they know since their early childhood. Then, the very function of identification with thoughts is to hide the unresolved pains which are unconsciously frightening us. And eventually we belong to a whole civilization which is built upon identification with thoughts, and we would appear bizarre to this civilization returning to BEING in us and lowering the importance of all these rules absolutely necessary to a person identified with his/her thoughts but otherwise totally useless.

During what is called the Sermon of the Flower nengemishō (拈花微笑), where the Buddha held up a white flower to teach the return to Reality in the here and now, only one disciple, Mahākāśyapa, understood what the Buddha meant. In the Gospel, the Apostles who were the closest people to Jesus were doubting his words all the time and even the faithful Peter betrayed him before the rooster crowed.

Yet, when we see how people identified with their thoughts kill each other en masse in the name of their different thought-systems, ideologies, religions, etc., I think of Nazism of course, but also Communism, Islamism and even Humanism. Indeed, the US drones for instance kill an average of 28 innocent people for one terrorist they target. This represented until now thousands of innocent people killed, including many children, in the generalized indifference of our humanist souls apart when these drones kill an American. Aren't our sacrosanct Human Rights for everyone ? And in the name of the smooth functioning of our Consumer Society our great liberal nations increase their CO2 emissions while these emissions should be immediately and drastically reduced if we are to avoid a planetary catastrophy that will kill hundreds of million people. We see the speck in our brother's eye but not the plank in our own eye.

Facing such criminal nonsense it is sound to question the merits of identification with thoughts. If any animal species would destroy its offsprings and the nest where they live and grow like we, humans, do destroy each other, we would certainely say there is something utterely wrong with this species and we would even study its case. Yet, suddenly when it comes to us, humans, we try to legitimize such behavior through some disconnected objectivity and common subterfuges. I know there's none as blind as the one who doesn't want to see but the question is why do we want to remain blind when this very blindness endangers our whole species ?

Reality is made of two parts, its ISness which is INFINITE in essence, and as such is everything there IS, and the forms (made of limits), through which Reality's ISness expresses itself.

Now, what is important to notice is Reality's ISness is one with the acute OBSERVATION of what IS in the Present Instant and it is also what we call BEING in us. This means that when we are identified with our thoughts and lose access to BEING in us, we are carried away on the virtual stream of a cogntitive time that skims the Present Instant and Reality with it. This isolation into a cognitive virtuality creates the division through which we hurt Reality's expressions, starting with our own children. And this, no matter our pretence and the ideology into which we may wrap ourselves or the flag we may brandish. This is why retrieving BEING in us is so important.

Indentification with thoughts is a kind of omnivorous Alien that lives on in our body and recycles everything in order to feed itself, even what originally aimed at destroying it like spirituality for instance. Thought-identity if fond of the ancient spiritual words of which we do not understand the true meaning. We use these words as kind of "talismans" sanctifying our thought-identity's action and so doing reinforce it. I take one word as example, among many others, which is commonly used, even in the western world, but which is usually misunderstood, this is the word KARMA.

Words are crucial for humans to communicate with each other. For a true verbal communication we must be very precise as to be sure we give the words we use the very same meaning, otherwise communication does not occur. In order to explain the meaning of the word KARMA let's start explaining the meaning of the word OBSERVATION. This word means being totally and consciously present to the Present Instant. By OBSERVING what "IS" in the Present Instant we stop creating new unresolved pains or new KARMA and if we remain at the tip of the Present Instant long enough we start unwinding the accumulated unresolved pains or KARMA.

When we are identified with our thoughts, unconsciously we try to sabotage a spiritual quest that would end our thought-identity's reign. Instead we make this spiritual quest serve our thought-identity and we become a great guru, a great ayatollah, a great beshop, etc. In this endeavor where we empower our thought-identity, instead of making it disappear, we take advantage of traditional and ancient words of which people don't truly understand the meaning and with which they can be manipulated. People identified with their thoughts having lost the authority of BEING in themselves need to follow an external identity supposed to know what they ignore. Remember the Milgram Experiment in 1961.

KARMA is one of the sacrosanct words which have been used with no or little understanding but are mysterious enough to be blindly revered. In Reality the word KARMA simply means the unconscious memories loaded with too much pain to be consciously encountered (mostly by the child) which linger in our depth and hide BEING in us like clouds may hide the sun. KARMA generates thought-identity and its disconnection from Reality. KARMA do not belong to an inaccessible divine world since the only divine is INFINITY itself and therfore it is BEING in us here and now, as it is always present everywhere, in everything and everyone. Samsara and Nirvana are not separate, only identification with thoughts creates the illusion of separation. You must cross the darkness that lays in you if you want to reach the Light of BEING. You must die to your fears by feeling them entirely if you want to retrieve LIFE. KARMA represents this blinding load which takes us on a wrong path where we usually choose to abide by a norm. KARMA can be defused and leave our limbic depth but normality, or abiding by a norm, prevents us going there.......!!!

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