Chapter 26 – Recovery, Healing, and Knowledge

“One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end.”
― Krishnamurti 

Our present day national consciousness continues to be heavily influenced by old history and skewed knowledge, racism, white male supremacy, Christian fundamentalist inspired judgements, hatreds and ideologies, patriarchy, misogyny, and xenophobia. I was born and raised under these cultural conditions, and I have been strongly impacted by the human energy that is spawned from these lower levels of understanding.  I also come from the class of white male Americans who are now considered to be the most susceptible to anxiety, despair, loneliness, suicide, alcoholism and/or drug dependency, and depression, though the race and sex that I belong to, and the country that I consider to be my home, do not have the monopoly on all such spiritual disease. 

My main coping mechanisms for dealing with America’s and my own dark side are practicing spiritual healing principles, and writing about and verbally communicating with others who also share my interest in spirituality and recovery from the human condition.   My path,  and the paths of all others, have taken all of us to unique and valuable viewpoints, so it is of prime importance that we find our voice and share our knowledge with each other.  Through multitudes of these energy exchanges, we all may benefit from each others’ experiences, and contribute to the formation of a more peaceful, healing collective consciousness in America. There is a huge spiritually awakening element that has already risen out of their own ignorance, and continues to capture the imagination and attention of many oppressed and repressed Americans.

It is important to understand the internal headlights that our minds use to search for knowledge, and truth. The “headlights” tend to encourage self-fulfilling predictions/prophecies, so for us to look at that which “looks” will bring amazing insights and enhance the potential for healing experiences.  What information really is, or isn’t important?  Which attitudes, insight, and knowledge leads to greater measures of wisdom, and, potentially, freedom from our inhibiting and restrictive “knowns”, especially in the situations where our knowledge appears to be in conflict with the truth?   As a long-term practitioner of mindfulness, mysticism, and personal inventory, as well as an unintentional expert in recovery, toxic masculinity, toxic religion, and toxic capitalism, I have a lot of insight into why the world spins the awkward way it now does.  All of my present writings tend to revolve around my “knowledge” about those subjects. Yet, my “personal knowledge” has little value or relevance to others, especially if I die before I share it.

Most of the male peer groups from my childhood and early adulthood were populated by individuals who were both coarse in interpretation and superficial in presentation of their lives, and they could have cared less about what I am now writing about or saying.   Many of my peers, and friends from those days have already died relatively young, or continue to practice unhealthy attitudes and dependencies into their later years, as a direct result of their unwillingness or inability to delve deeper into the painful issues, concerns, and mysteries of their lives.  Their own personal knowledge of the world can not actualize their healing potentials and bring a deeper sense of purpose and meaning to their lives, yet there is the fear of the unknown, which inhibits the revelation of truth in one’s life.  By staying in familiar painful ruts, the view at least does not change too much.  And far too many people stuck in those ruts are not even aware that they are engaged in self-defeating attitudes and behaviors, or, if they are aware, have already given up hope that there is another life available for them.  Yet, staying in the familiar hell remains the unconscious choice that most suffering people make, all the way up to their deaths, imprisonment, or insanity.. 

The conscious being has infinite capacity to witness life and then create knowledge, where necessary, around those interactions.  It only takes one time getting bit by a snake and suffering mightily under the influence of its poison to create and share the knowledge that it is vitally important to avoid physical contact with serpents while doing outdoor chores or walking in the desert.  The unconscious being also has the same infinite witnessing capacity, yet their choices for how they see themselves and their lives can be so self-limiting as to make them prisoners in their own homes.  In the snakebite situation, a more unconscious person would use the knowledge of the potential damage from a snakebite to create fear-based stories that would keep the person behind closed doors, avoiding the outdoors altogether, or even obtaining and carrying a loaded firearm, just in case they need to “protect themselves”. 

Yet each category of awareness, be it conscious or unconscious, must arise from the same pool of potentiality, where the mystery of collective consciousness and the entrainment of all individual minds to that group mind, creates and maintains the appearance of whatever order and reality that each individual both anticipates and actually experiences.  However, even the relatively more conscious ones of the world will still be challenged to find what the real truth is behind each new situation that presents itself to awareness. 

It has been said in certain contest guidelines:

“You must be present to win”.

This is also true as far as knowledge goes.  Being a witness to an actual event gives whatever story one creates and shares credibility, at least up to the point that the story teller can be trusted, and has been accurate and honest in the past.  If a personal memory is not available to convey a teaching or a message, listening to the stories of other first-hand witnesses can be beneficial.  A great example is that of the knowledge that fathers pass on to their sons around issues of family philosophy/religion, self-esteem, growing up into manhood and accepting personal responsibility, sexuality, learning to ride a bike or drive a car, and future community involvement. The less experiential the teaching, the less the staying power of the message, so it is important to keep the listener engaged with all of their senses, if possible. 

The printing press opened civilization up to much more advanced opportunities for education and information transfer and sharing.  The internet has opened humanity up to potential for the real time witnessing and sharing of other people’s adventures and learning experiences, almost without limits.  Watching a multi-media presentation will carry more potential meaning and  information to the higher intelligence centers of the brain than just a meme or soundbite, which arouses the more basic areas of the brain where fear is most prone to rule.   There is never a shortage of information, but there is always a question about the accuracy of the information, and how it is to be presented. 

“The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.”

Today, we live in what many call the Information Age, and we are in absolutely no danger of running out of information, particularly in data form. There is a general perception that we are overwhelmed with data, making the ability to store, process, analyze, interpret, consume, and act upon that data a primary concern.  There are, potentially, infinite streams of information available, yet most information may have little or no use to our discerning, conscious minds..  There is so much more to reality than what just greets the eye, and appears on the screens of our cellphones and/or computer monitors, however.  Scientists, mathematicians, theologians, artists, philosophers, enlightened politicians, and Google algorithm writers, continue to struggle towards some unknown destination that our collective search for truth continues to guide us towards as a human race.  The exponential increase in available information does little to settle what the “truth” might be, let alone which direction that its search may best be started from.

Information can help us to know why we are ill and which illnesses we have, exactly. But wisdom is to know how to heal them.

—Dr. Alberto Villoldo 

We need only watch the evening news, or read any newspaper or magazine, to recognize that we are no closer now to a consensus reality than we were before, even with the advent of the internet.  Religious and philosophical divisiveness, ego aggrandizement, wealth accumulation, and personal and corporate power are still being celebrated and supported as ideals to pursue by our cultural power brokers, and these principles lead to further propagation of lies, misstatements, half-truths, and illusions.  All people who follow these ignoble paths have no true knowledge of their fundamental selves, nor would they possess this knowledge about the other people in their worlds, thus they have limited access to the truth, and their styles of communication reveal that ignorance.

Can truth and love be reduced to a series of binary decisions?  Where does our reliance on technology connect with a “search for truth”?  Search engines now serve you up what they think you are looking for. They know who you are, and more importantly, what your online consumer preferences are. They know how you are looking for things, as well as how you search for news, companies, products, etc. Plus, they know the zip code and the local geography where each user is located. Search engines are getting better and smarter at knowing YOU, as well as what’s new, and old, in your micro-locale every day. A quick type into Google, and you are being fed more information, and the foundation for  yet another illusion, with just another photograph of or written interpretation of a past that never was true.  Do you think for one moment that truth, or love, can be reduced to a string of “1’s” and “0”s” (machine code for programming of computer hardware) or ascii characters (The result of “I Love You” on hexadecimal notation based on ascii code is : 49204C6F766520596F75).  These characters give you a real warm, fuzzy feeling, don’t they?

Many types of “knowledge” actually breed division and separation between human beings. It is easy to tell the difference between the ministers, politicians, teachers, teachings, and knowledge just by feeling within our own inner chambers of consciousness how their message impacts our hearts. Eventually the presenters of knowledge and the highest learned “truths” of the day will be ignored, if they are not able to break through the psychic/spiritual barrier between the mind and the heart, while still presenting, or preaching, to others their message. Did they just bring more information, which we tend to daily saturate our awareness with anyway (Google it!), or did they bring the intellect coupled with the heart awareness, where we can experience the promised fruits of deeper connections with all of creation, and, perhaps, experience an increased measure of peace of mind and more love brought into our world?

The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.

—Tom Clancy

Understanding what we now consider to be sources for knowledge is all important, as well. With the idea of “FAKE NEWS” being so casually tossed about these days, it is important to keep in mind that “FAKE NEWS” has always been with us. It can be traced all of the way back to the days when we first starting naming objects, and attaching emotional linkages to our observations. Everybody sees things somewhat differently, though similarities outweigh differences by super-substantial amounts. But the human mind tends to focus on the differences, and, thus, temporarily accentuate those divisions while examining the objects of its reality, reassembling the new information into its own unique information matrix known as our personalities.

To the more technically inclined, it takes more than cleaning cookies or turning off personalized searches in Google’s browser, Chrome, to get to the “truth.” Keep in mind that most of the search algorithms are Capitalist Oriented Male Biased (COMB) computer coding exercises that sort and order the “objects of reality” based on that slanted mind-set.  The locations that a person visits and lives in reveal a great deal about them, especially if it is linked to a GPS position calculated by using one’s own phone position.  By shaping the menus and the choices that we pick from, and by observing the collective internet purchases and behaviors of our geographic peers, technology then attempts to hijack the way we perceive our choices and replaces them with new ones that the ad purchasing merchants may be promoting. But the closer we pay attention to the options we’re given, the more we’ll notice when they don’t actually align with our true needs. Their surreptitious collection and use in ad targeting can pave way to ads that are harmful, target people when they are vulnerable, or enable harassment and discrimination.  The issue of privacy can become particularly acute when there’s the presumption or wish for confidentiality – say, during a therapist visit or at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

I see COMB-overs as having run their course, with the  need to be balanced with a more feminine, humane perspective.  If we all want that biased mindset, then we will continue to trust and rely upon Google, and most other search engines, for the ordering of our reality. It should be more than a little concerning to know that many of the same values that our President touts as his own are built right into these algorithmic formulas.

Within myself, it is quite enlightening to note that when I attempt to interpret situations solely in terms of a potentially divisive philosophy/understanding, I usually now rebel out of my newer/refreshed understanding of life, and continue on and listen more deeply for the real truth of the moment, (AND NOT THE POTENTIALLY WORN OUT TRUTH OF YESTERDAY). All of those divisive philosophies that pit “me versus you” or “us versus them” will bring fewer positive results than the uniting philosophies that bring people together in the spirit of cooperation and caring. Yet it almost seems like the divisive ideas are for many, and for me, by instinct, first in line for consideration, so it is important to not act out of impulse. Yes, it is being mindful to wait out that first racing train of sometimes fearful, angry or hurtful thought, and just watch it as it passes through the screen of awareness, and wait for another peaceful train of loving thought that may lie underneath all of the other noise.

The goal might be to make “love” the leading, or first, thought considered, but in my reality, it does not always automatically arise, nor should it, just because I think that it is a good idea. It is important to note here that ideas that initially appear to be counter to our prevailing philosophy may have legitimate origins, and discovery and exploration of the mind and our individual experience of it should continue without fear and self-judgement, as we attempt to discern the “truths” being communicated. If our “prevailing philosophies” are not subject to change, then we risk excess friction in all of our relationships, especially as we slip further and further away from the new, upgraded truth trying to be revealed.

Mindfulness, insight, and meditation help to create a more stable foundation for thought, feeling, and action. Remaining socially connected through real life interaction, vs predominantly through media devices, keeps the heart and mind refreshed and engaged holistically. Giving and receiving “presence” to each other has much more value than the mere information that might be exchanged. For us to continue to trust in technology solely for our heart connection is like only eating popcorn for our diet; Satisfying in the short-term, and deadly in the long run.  We need to feed each other new ideas and words from the deep storehouses within  each of our hearts, where intuition, empathy, compassion, and healing all arise from.  To continue to be fed only from the internet, is to continue our connection with cultural hypnotism, which leads in its own self-defeating directions.

Of course, once “new ideas” become integrated, they can be just as resistant to change as old, damaged, worn out thoughts, and the new synthesis will require continuous further revision until some sort of all-encompassing philosophical unity arises (or God-consciousness, for those who like to tie spirituality and religion together).

The “unknown” is the opening in our mind and heart that God (change to higher power, or whatever represents love, beauty, and healing to you) speaks through, so that we can find the truth and spirit of this new moment. Do not fear the unknown, as it can be so much more than we could ever anticipate or imagine.

Even after our most sincere and deepest “prayers”, there still must be an opening created within our minds where we can listen and watch, without fear or judgement, for the “answer”, which is always provided, and rarely understood. An overactive mind runs over the quiet truth that is revealed in each moment, so take off those mental workout clothes, and take a breather!

Virtually all relationships and all interactions with others have a teaching built right into them.  We confirm our present reality with the interactions, or we entertain new information that needs synthesizing within our present day psychological sets to create a modified reality.  Teachers come in an almost infinite variety of forms, but I will now  mention spiritual healers and teachers, for they tend to attract the most vulnerable and receptive of all learners.  I have met quite a few healers, ministers, teachers, and the leaders for those on “the spiritual path”.  Most have the best of intentions, and their heart is in the right place, and permeated with the desire to be of greater service to humanity, and to their own spiritual evolution.

Some are quite the planners, are amazingly studious, and read everything  available to support their knowledge, or need for knowledge, in areas revolving around the main concerns in life, or in their teaching arenas. Some develop quite the rigid understanding of the facts, and, in fact, the “facts” became almost idols, of which became trusted, almost at the exclusion of any other teaching, or learning, that those around might try to impart, either unintentionally, or through a need to help to see more clearly. Some show  little or no sense of humor, and are devoid of all capacity to embrace the “unknown” or the present moment, as it tries to present itself every moment of our existence.

I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.—–Socrates (in Plato’s Apology)

I have met one or two information “control freaks”, and their quest for knowledge had the unconscious intention to keep them in control, and to establish themselves as a teacher, so as to keep their own fears of insufficiency and inadequacy at bay in group settings. They might tend to dominate group discussions with them taking the lead role, where they would unconsciously parade themselves, and all of their self-knowledge, in front of their adoring masses, or, at least they had hoped that they were adoring.  Some want so much to be like their mentors, who they may have patterned themselves after.

Their self-righteousness is continuously displayed, as they travel from one topic to another, always showing to the world how perfect their relationship was to any issue revolving around love, healing, medical issues, social responsibility, or ecological awareness. Perfectionism and unintentional self-worship were characteristics that define them, and are traits that are immediately recognizable by me and others, who were not also participating in the parade of self.

They can be the type of person, had the Christ been before them and teaching from the Truth, they would have grabbed their phone, and Googled information to prove that their own head knowledge trumped what was being presented in the moment by Truth itself. Some of our leaders have, in a term that I coined, “spiritual dementia”. They tend to think that every moment needed to be covered by their (mis)understanding of the facts.  They may not request or appreciate feedback, and many listeners, rather than confronting the teachers about their quirks, and  their need to always be right, go along.with the show, and acquiesce to the needs of the teachers.

I sat through literally, hundreds of groups, with many types of teachers and leaders over the years.  If the speaker, teacher, or leader does not capture the energy of the moment, the listeners will become fatigued, and lose interest.  There is also a temptation to just sit back, and offer up an occasional barbed remark (typical passive/aggressive communication style for me), without adding much to the flow of the group energy.   I did not come into this world just to “bow down before excellence”, in whatever form it might appear in, though that is the implied need expressed through many teachers’ outward behavior.  Without an interactive approach, the teacher or teaching will have a more difficult time keeping the listener engaged.

Why would I withhold myself, and my truth, from situations that should have demanded my participation in it? Why would I withhold my own assessments of what is real, and true, and right, in the face of this assault upon my own sensibilities? Why would I devalue myself, and my own truth, so much that I would carry the perception that “I have nothing to say”, or that “nobody would ever listen to me because I do not have a college degree, or I am not a therapist or respected spiritual advisor”? Why do I sometimes unconsciously believe that nobody would ever listen to what I have to say, anyway?

It has taken me nearly sixty years to become willing to speak my truth to the living human representatives of our collective consciousness.  I was never insightful enough to fully recognize that the world that I was adopting, and adapting to, as a child was an inaccurate representation of a more fundamental truth.  But like many other children, I rebelled at the fake news and pseudo-science that churned out of the religious mills and minds of Americans.  I took a very passive/aggressive approach to the spiritual lie that we as Americans are living.  The pain of the lies that I cultivated prior to any spiritual recovery necessitated that I medicate myself out of the pain of separation and loneliness.  I no longer punish myself by negating my own self worth, yet our culture continues to unconsciously spawn millions of suffering people who also question their own value, which is the origin of insanity.  Our cultural spiritual dementia needed to be challenged, lest I lapse into deeper degrees of anxiousness, powerlessness, and unreality. Confronting a difficult reality takes more energy than most of us care to bring to the table, yet, not doing so diminishes our own standing in Truth, Life, and Love, and that has been my experience

What do emotionally and spiritually disfigured teachers and leaders represent to me on the inner plane of my consciousness, where the human collective archetypes reside? They might be the Dark King or Queen, and Trickster, and/or a number of other “lesser gods”. They might represent the unyielding rational brain, devoid of Spirit’s soft, embracing touch. They may have no room for anything unlike themselves in their kingdom, and the stick figures in their dream of world domination could never be filled out with their true essence, because they may have no time or inclination for that. Their Trickster mind misrepresented trust and openness to the Unknown as something to fear, and cover up its Nakedness with second-hand, worn out rags of other people’s intellects and misunderstandings. They might be like the King in the parable of the “Emperors’ New Clothes”, parading their misunderstandings of life around for all to see and worship, all the while fearing that an innocent boy would call  them out.

i had very poor training since birth in how to successfully navigate group energy, up to, and including, the whole of society that we all participate in. As a boy, when family discussions turned into arguments, many times I found myself either raising my voice against the angry voice of my father, or retreating into submission and fear at the threat of being attacked for being contrary to the flow. And, I internalized that I was probably wrong anyway, and would be punished if I stepped out and asserted myself too much. I learned that I could undertake less obvious means of rebelling against authority, sometimes through indirect, or obvious, self, or other, destructive behavior.

Passive/aggressive tendencies have haunted me most of my entire life, and becoming “self-aware” has gone a long way to keep me from employing those unskilled coping mechanisms unconsciously, though I am still occasionally haunted by their presence. Having undertaken the inner work of insight, and maintaining mindfulness, and identified those sources of suffering within myself, does not instantaneously remove all of the darkness within. But is also does not remove from me the responsibility to call out those who are the external agents of oppression and repression, no matter how much I might love them or want to protect them, or even to protect myself from the ramifications of asserting what is right, true, or proper in any situation.

Knowledge is power only if man knows what facts not to bother with.

We need better brains to manage the deluge of information we consume on the internet, on social media, on our smartphones today — as well as the new technologies we’ll surely encounter tomorrow. We need to elevate the maturity of our collective consciousness in order to thrive in this new environment.

This calls for something big: coordinated effort by major actors, from the White House and the National Institutes of Health to the United Nations and the power brokers at Davos. Indeed, addressing the cognition crisis should be positioned as a grand challenge, on par with other pressing global priorities, such as eradicating infectious diseases and disseminating clean water.

We have all been victimized by the cultural and familial conditioning of the information processing centers of the brain that cause certain streams of awareness to be represented by erroneous concepts, or attenuated or terminated prematurely by fear before any reasonable assessments can even be made. Our cultural “headlights” for looking into ourselves have had much of their light blocked by years of unacknowledged road debris accumulating on the lens. Yet, we first have to “see” that there is a blockage, as it will not clear on its own. Our own internal “seeing” can ultimately liberate us from the erroneous views foisted upon our innocent hearts and souls by the well meaning but often times ignorant teachers of our pasts, and those who may not have yet cleared up their own internal lenses of perception. But we each must look, acknowledge what appears to be there, share our perceptions with others, learn from each other, and thus create more accurate, updated knowledge.

“Know thyself, and thou will know God, and the Universe” ——Attributed to Pythagoras, and the Oracle at Delphi

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it”——–Aristotle

The final two quotes sets the stage behind the eternal tension between what is truth and what is falsehood, and the spiritual requirement not to create and worship idols, physical or verbal. They also point to the supporting conditions behind one’s potential for spiritual evolution and final ascendancy out of false knowledge and the suffering that results from entertaining such thoughts..

Life is always a self-fulfilling prophecy, yet whose self are we fulfilling?

What if your life is fulfilling the prophecies of your religion and culture, rather than that of your true self?

While unenlightened forces dominate human consciousness, oppression and repression are born, and nurtured.

This creates more damaged human beings, who continue to remain unconscious, and thus overpopulate this planet.

The fate of these damaged people is to continue to damage themselves, each other, and the very planet that supports and sustains them, until they find their self and its truth.

Find the self, and the life that has a great future, and discard the one that will die with our rotting civilization.

Life is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I see a great future for our planet, if enough of us break free from the effects of the collective oppression by others and, ultimately, the repression of our Spirit. If enough of us find the only self that can be free, collective liberation becomes more of a possibility.

What on Earth is humanity waiting for?

This moment, I am free.

Please, save yourself.