What is oppression, and what is my relationship to it?
What is repression, and why do I participate in it?
What is good “mental health”?
Why do people continue to experience poor self-esteem?
Why are some people always so angry, or depressed?
Why can’t some people be more emotionally and spiritually present for others?
Why do people feel that they need to engage in mutual “control dramas”?
Why do some men become spiritually and emotionally disfigured by their desire for sex, and continue to exercise emotional control over their partners?
Why do people cling to certain groups of people, and reject all others?
Why don’t people get along better with each other?
Why do people endlessly pursue entertainment and/or use drugs and alcohol to excess, and ignore their own personal transformation and healing?
Why is knowledge so much more important than intuition to most men and left brained dominated women?
Why is collaboration such a dirty word for a national political process?
Why is competition and greed, as presently coupled with Capitalism, the predominant economic system in our world?
Why does our society, and our world, and much of the world’s population, continue to not experience peace of mind, with beauty, wonder, and the innate internal integrity of our (potentially) divine nature?
In March of 2017, I had yet another “conscious dream”. In the dream, I was in a prison, yet I knew not why I was there. I was drinking a diet soda, and I was “informed” that other peoples’ misunderstanding of what actually constitutes “good food” keeps me in this setting. I also was using a computer to attempt to communicate with others, and I was also “informed” that this was yet another way that I was kept imprisoned. My communication using second-hand (hand me down) verbal constructs through media sharing software was yet another potential tool for oppression by our culture, and by myself. It only simulates human connection, and it furthers dependency on the latest “technology and media devices” that, by their very nature, use inadequate and incomplete verbal constructs for simulated human connection with others.
But, it was not until I was taken into a “special room” with several others that the most profound reason for “imprisonment” was revealed to me.
I was shown how our negative assessments, or judgements of others, and our self, both physical form and spiritual essence, was the reason for the imprisonment for all of us. This internal, and social, process of consciousness has become culturally inculcated into our awareness. Within each of us the internal mechanism for generating consciousness (forming the Word) has kept the Divine outside of our collective, and individual, awareness.
A most important aspect of this “collective consciousness” is the “common knowledge game”, a phenomena well-studied in the last generation by Nobel Prize winners, mathematicians, and New York Times best-selling authors and philosophers (this has been called many other names by seers and seekers over the millennia). This is the mechanism by which we can collectively keep each other imprisoned. This process has become so ingrained in consciousness, so accepted, so standardized, so normalized that the individual who even casually practices it continues to contribute to the imprisonment of all of mankind through this process.
Here is a more specific explanation and definition of the Common Knowledge Game (Game Theory is an offshoot of this phenomenon). There are several good books to be read on the matter, and articles on the theory are available on the internet, should your own experience of it not be sufficient for its understanding:
An item of information in a game is common knowledge if all of the players know it (it is mutual knowledge) and all of the players know that all other players know it and all other players know that all other players know that all other players know it, and so on. This is much more than simply saying that something is known by all, but also implies that the fact that “what is known by me” is also known by all, etc.
Consider a simple example of several jealous office workers seeking to demean a common foe, be it a boss or motivated co-worker (this can be several human beings practicing typical mutually inaccurate assessments of a party not currently in their presence, also typical of what happens in big companies, politics, high school, or in church). To those with prior knowledge, this will be reminiscent of the “mob mind”, and how it acts in the real world. The participants will not attack unless they are sure that the other will attack at exactly the same time, as nobody wants to be the lone attacker, becoming vulnerable and thus expose their own intent for aggression. The first person sends out a “feeler” (verbal exchange of internalized culturally inculcated thought process) to the other parties with the message “You know, I am really unhappy with Mr. X, he is problematic.” Yes, we warm up for the attack, by gently degrading the third-party, while awaiting the others reply within the group physically or emotionally present, which, hopefully affirms our intent. Our verbal or written means of attempting to communicate with the other “attackers” may be misinterpreted, so we initially have no collective security in adopting an “attack mode”. If however, the message of attack is received simultaneously by others within the group, which it does in “common knowledge modes of thought”, then the attack is on. Note that all parties already know the message. They all knew in advance that the “other attackers” had the message as well, because it is COMMON KNOWLEDGE that others share at least some of their perceptions, and they will attack the other, because they always have before, and they have already prepared their internal fortifications, as well as their “verbal and social weapons” for such an experience.
This is the classic attack/defense posture or mechanism that the entirety of the human race is now participating in. Anybody who has worked in the construction trades, or in work areas dominated by men, know this process quite well. The terms repartee, badinage, bantering, persiflage, etc. are the kind names given to this culturally accepted, and sometimes revered process, whereby we “lightly and without intentional malice” impugn the dignity and reputation of others, through pokes at each other. We call this “humor”, and some may feel almost hurt when others do not engage in this behavior with us. This is an accepted standard of behavior (though we are awakening to this by identifying hostile work environments, and instituting regulations for reducing persecution, sexual harassment and sexual discrimination in the workplace).
Thus, common knowledge implies not only that we all know some piece of information, but can also be absolutely confident that the rest know it, and that the rest know that we know it, and so on.
Be aware, once again, of what the “common knowledge game” really is. Briefly, it is the process whereby we have internalized the verbal understandings of all others, whereby ignorant, judgmental, limiting, obfuscating, damaging, soul-destroying concepts of self and other are “socially acceptable” modes for assessing and understanding the self, and the other. This are internalized, and socialized, and this “knowledge” becomes a collectively shared experience. Within the Christian churches with backwoods understanding, we are all “sinners”, we are “corrupt”, we have no hope for “salvation”, etc. unless we believe a certain way, and bow down before certain philosophies and religious and political leaders.
Through a process which has existed since verbal consciousness first formed in humanity, we develop verbal constructs to represent the outside world in our own internal universe. Yet, none of these internalized assessments are 100% accurate, NOR COULD THEY EVER BE, even though the entirety of human consciousness now shares in the illusion that what they do represent what is actually “out there” as represented by their current misunderstanding of their fellow human being, and their current relationship to the other (“the finger pointing at the moon can never be the moon”). And, we use these constructs to oppress, repress, and deny the other, all the while unconsciously honoring the culturally inculcated process of mutual oppression, and repression, of the Divine. We are all potential scapegoats for “the other”, especially when collaboration in a process is not a value, and much of our energy may become directed to prevention of us from becoming blamed or accused of behavior everybody is already responsible for, with or without us, anyway. PROJECTION IS PAINFUL, and we all feel its wrath from time to time.
Our culture shows many examples of this process playing out in movies, on TV programs, and, of course, we all experience this in our day-to-day lives, as we interact with our social and cultural environment. The implications are vast, and insidious. Please consider the following excerpt from the movie
COOL HAND LUKE
Captain: You gonna get used to wearing those chains after a while, Luke. Don’t you never stop listening to them clinking, ‘cause they gonna remind you what I been saying for your own good.
Luke: I wish you’d stop being so good to me, Cap’n.
Captain: Don’t you ever talk that way to me. NEVER! NEVER! [Captain hits Luke, who rolls down the hill to the other prisoners] What we’ve got here is … failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it. I don’t like it any more than you men.
There are plenty of great cinematic scenes of the Common Knowledge game in action, but this is one of my favorites. The “failed” communication of the Captain to Luke is the basis for the successful communication of the Captain to the prisoners: subvert my rules and you will be crushed. The brutal message is made in public, not so that all the prisoners can see what happens to Luke, but so that all the prisoners can see all the prisoners seeing what happens to Luke.
In environments like prisons, the education system, the military, and larger groups up to, and including, American society, behavioral decisions based on private information (“I saw Luke beaten down for breaking the rules. If I break the rules I might get beaten, too.”) are almost always weaker than behavioral decisions based on Common Knowledge (“Everyone knows that if you break the rules like Luke you will be beaten down. Why would I even think about breaking the rules?”). The latter is a more stable equilibrium because, in effect, the prisoners themselves end up enforcing the warden’s (or societies’) rules. Even if you privately believe that you and your fellow prisoners could make a break for it, so long as you believe that “everyone knows” that you will be punished for breaking the rules, then you do not believe that you will receive any support from your fellow prisoners (fellow citizens, or friends). It is irrational to even raise the subject with your fellow prisoners, as you will mark yourself as someone who is either too stupid or too dangerous not to recognize what everyone else knows that everyone else knows. And because everyone is making a similar calculation, no one ever makes an escape attempt and the Common Knowledge grows stronger over time, as does the no-escaping behavioral equilibrium. This is why the Captain goes to such lengths not just to punish Luke for his escape attempts, but to break Luke, and not just to break Luke, but to break Luke as publicly as possible.
Because of the Common Knowledge game, there is enormous power in making a Public Spectacle out of information, which is why terminations from employment, public humiliations, coronations and executions alike have traditionally been carried out in front of crowds. This lesson in behavioral influence – the crowd doesn’t just need to see the event, the crowd needs to see the crowd seeing the event – is why so many of our modern social institutions – from political campaigns to American Idol – are staged in front of live audiences. When you sit in front of your TV set and watch, say, a national political convention, you are infinitely more engaged with the event when you see a crowd than when you don’t. You can’t help yourself. It doesn’t even matter if the live audience is faked and we know that the audience is faked … have you ever listened to a sitcom without a laugh track? It’s just not as funny. The fact is that humans are social animals. We are hard-wired to look for and respond to Common Knowledge, and smart people – from political leaders to religious leaders to business leaders – have taken advantage of this for thousands of years.
What happens in the diseased family structure (alcoholism and drug addiction, physical and sexual abuse, psychological abuse of all types) in many situations of discipline and control exactly parallel the common knowledge game? Eventually, the children learn not to attempt to act out, or break free from, the oppressive qualities of an abusive parent, or parents, their church and its interpretation of “religious thought”, and their educational experience. Breaking the spirit of the abused child, and making sure that other members know that such “punishment” will also come their way keeps children under control, but also victimized, and traumatized. Children entering the school system where bullies are allowed to run free get to experience this process once again, in a bigger social setting. And, children who attend a church where the dignity of the individual is constantly degraded through their religious philosophy (you are a sinner, you always have been a sinner, and unless you believe the way we do, you are evil, and doomed to an eternity in hell) also feel the horrific abuse of the COMMON KNOWLEDGE GAME. If any of us were to speak out against our oppressors, we will be punished severely, and we will be smacked down, and “roll down the hill” just like what happened to Paul Newman in the movie Cool Hand Luke.
So, our COMMON KNOWLEDGE GAME keeps all of us in some sort of order, albeit one that affirms the false truth that we are all broken human beings, with our only hope for salvation lying with chaotic, and insane, orders of unreality that continue to be inculcated into our collective consciousness. In other words, unless we march to the drummer of our cultural past, we will be judged, persecuted, marginalized, and otherwise thrown to the wolves, with little hope for our own redemption.
The Buddha had his own ideas about what constitutes mental health, and by his definition anyone who isn’t well on the way to Enlightenment is insane. Quite how literally he meant it when he said “All humans are mad” is hard to say, but when he looked at ordinary people like us going about their daily business he saw a world out of balance — and a world that by necessity is out of balance, because it is composed of those same off-kilter individuals.
He had a term for this imbalance, which was viparyasa in Sanskrit (I know, who wants to learn Sanskrit!?). Viparyasa means “inversion,” “perversion,” or “derangement.” Specifically, in using this term the Buddha was talking about the ways in which we misunderstand the world we live in, and the ways in which we misunderstand ourselves. so too do the rest of us live in a virtual reality of delusion, confusion, and distortion.
What’s more, we largely share the same delusions, which mean that we don’t even realize that our minds are disturbed. And thus, as Krishnamurti suggests, it’s possible to think that we’re spiritually and mentally healthy because we share our mistaken values and understandings with those around us. Collectively, our ill minds create social circles, or society that is itself ill, and we consider ourselves healthy because we see our values reflected in our spiritually sick fellow travelers.
Jesus of Nazareth stated quite clearly that “My kingdom is not of this world”. Also he stated “Be in this world, yet do not be of it”. And, “Do not attempt to remove the silver from another’s eye, before first removing the log from your own eye”. Finally, he also stated “Straight is the way, and narrow is the gate, and very few there are who will enter in”. “Truly I tell you,” Jesus also said, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
This is a pretty clear message, for those who have “ears to hear”.
The healthy, sane, spiritually inspired individual steps outside of the COMMON KNOWLEDGE GAME, and practices seeing him or herself through a new lens with few or NO VERBAL CONSTRUCTS from our memories, the only “place” where a “heart centered experience” of the other becomes possible. Ultimately, if there is any words to be shared about what is experienced, it serves only as a temporary bridge to understanding, to be discarded at the earliest possible moment, as truth reveals itself MOMENT TO MOMENT, and not just through the shared verbal constructs that may have arisen.
In mystical Christianity, The WORD was meant to represent the spiritually realized person, whose very being, and words, come from the Truth as it exists in this eternal moment. Historically, some religious interpreters mistakenly believe that the Word becomes flesh in only one human form (Jesus), and dwelt among us some 2000 years ago (sorry, to those who misinterpret the first Christian mystic, St. Paul and his main disciple through the New Testament book of John). The Word actually points to a non-verbal reality, far above and beyond the limiting verbal beliefs and insane actions of man in the world.
True connection with our self and with the other, takes much time, insight, and commitment. Our culture, its values, its continuing deterioration into poorer spiritual, mental and physical health with its excess dependencies upon the medical profession, drugs and alcohol, media saturation and escapism through entertainment, and pseudo “political, economic, religious, and spiritual teachers” and all of its supposed “saviors”, reflects the historical progression of the destruction of the DIVINE within all of us.
Please, save yourself. This might mean leaving yourself, and all of your beliefs behind, however. Forgive and forget is a good start for this process. Understanding how we form the walls of the prison that we each may live in individually leads to the insight that removes these walls, once and for all. Next time we look at our self, or someone else, and we do not have a loving perception, we will know that we need to dig deeper, to find the gold that is buried, hidden under the debris left by the entire history of the Common Knowledge Game of human perception.
Awe, wonder, love, connection, healing, wholeness, collaboration, good mental health, all lie within the realm of possibilities for humanity. One person at a time, by accepting personal responsibility for all of our perceptions, and the transmutation of their dark energy into lighter energy through insight, mindfulness, and meditation will bring to us what we have been looking for since Mankind first arrived on this planet.
When the Word becomes flesh, it must travel lightly!
