Enlightening Nonsense

“What if you could accept that your heritage is well beyond this one planet or this one solar system, and that the truth of your authentic being is so beautiful that recognizing it will explode your heart wide open?!”

—2012 Atlantean Revelations by Sri Ram Kaa & Kira Raa (p. 20)

The Super Bowl came and went and not only didn’t I watch it but I couldn’t even tell you who was in it; I think the Patriots was one of the teams. This doesn’t make me “cool” or “beyond the trivialities of our modern gladiators,” just someone who doesn’t really give a shit about it.

I am not against getting together with friends and making anything a celebration, be it the Super Bowl, the inauguration of a Kenyan as our President or National Beanie Babies Day (which I celebrated at the National Beanie Baby Convention and still get chills when I think about diving into and rolling around in the “Pit of 1000 Beanie Babies.”)

And, no, I am not writing one of the formula pieces on how we are focusing on the minutia while ignoring the important issues in the world, like wars and hunger and if Bono’s shit smells like roses. I don’t think any issue is more “real” than another and if my friends suggested getting together and watching a few starving African children fight over a grain of rice, my first question would be, “Is there going to be food at this gathering?”

I want to focus more on how we identify ourselves with something that is not us, otherwise known as “Ego,” the Satan of the yogic world. It may be a hard concept for most who identify themselves as a body with thoughts and emotions and a hairy set of balls to really grasp beyond an intellectual level that, “I am not my body…I am not my thoughts…And while I have a set of hairy balls, I am not these balls.” I could almost understand and maybe even accept it if the ego contained itself to the body/mind structure of an individual. But the ego is not satisfied just being a cozy fireplace to warm your buns, it has to become a brushfire and leave half of Los Angeles smoldering.

“Your dog is very good looking.” “Thank you.” Thank you? Why are you thanking this person, as they said nothing about you but were commenting about a separate being altogether? Even if you’re a New-Age hippie and want to play the old, “We are all One” game, then it was just you complimenting yourself, which is already retarded, but then thanking yourself for complimenting yourself which is completely asinine!

[Me talking to myself] “Swami X, you’re a handsome devil, did you know that? Why thank you, Swami X. And may I say, Swami X, that when you first walked into the room, I wanted to blow you. You may, Swami X, not only say but also blow. If I could do that, Swami X, I would never leave the apartment! You’re not only a handsome man, Swami X, but a funny one as well.”

How the hell does your dog’s attractive genetics reflect on you? Did you give birth to her or contribute your sperm? If yes, then how come I didn’t read this in my National Inquirer subscription? Or why is your child’s “nice” personality or athleticism something for which you should take credit? We can’t even contain our egos to our own person, as it starts to spread like a case of gonorrhea to everything we falsely claim as our own, the only difference being there is no easy “shot” that can be taken to remove the ache in your dick when voiding.

And so it is with all these different identifications. “I am a Jew.” What the hell does that even mean, that you practice the same idiotic rituals that a whole group of idiots performs and therefore you have stock in that company that stopped paying dividends once Jesus took the scene? “I am black.” I’m very proud of you, identifying yourself by the concentration of melanin in your skin. “I hate niggers.” Nice, now you’re identifying yourself as someone based on identifying someone else based on a fiction, in the same way that a self-defined “Atheist” has made his existence based on negating a mind creation of others. “I am not a person who believes in invisible purple elephants” would be just as salient an identification.

And so it is with sports teams. I’m not saying it’s wrong to enjoy watching elite athletes move their bodies or a ball or the balls of their neighbor in a way that most of us could only wet dream about. Because I was in the fight game for seven years, I periodically like to watch the fight game, and am usually amazed at how these men are able to hone their skills and their reflexes to the sharpness of a Samurai sword. Sure, I usually throw in a few armchair quarterbacking comments like, “What the heck’s he doin’ there? I would have led with a front kick and then followed with a double jump-spinning hook kick!” but that’s just me being a douche.

But people identify themselves with a sports team, as if it is their “own,” because the team practices in the same State that they live in. Why don’t they identify with the hooker that fucks in the same neighborhood that they live in with the same pride? Or claim the nearby deli that makes the best hero sandwich as their own?

And if this sports team moves out of their State, then what? Did the New Yorkers who “loved” the Brooklyn Dodgers keep their love alive when the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles? Or did they just “love the one you’re with” and started spouting loyalty to the next ballclub that moved into town?

I had one client who told me that he loved watching sports but to cry or fight about a sports competition is just stupid. But that’s what people are doing! “Grown” men are attempting to do bodily harm to other“ grown” men because one of these children insulted a player from the other child’s team. I mean, seriously, we call this a civilized nation?? And while I do appreciate people getting in touch with their emotions, especially in a world where in order to survive we often are forced to stuff them, are you seriously crying or in a bad mood over the team you identify with losing a game? It’s a fuckin’ game! While it’s true I cried and yelled and screamed when my mother beat me in ping-pong, I was like 9 years old! Oh wait, I was 34. Okay, forget that example.

Here’s a tough one that even the most arrogant spiritualist who thinks, “Yes, these men and women are morons,” will probably have to fess up to identifying with: You are not your country. Yes, I enjoy living in a country where I can still write, “Mohammed is a cocksucker” and not have it be a capital offense. And I like the fact that, for the most part, I can dress how I’d like and keep my hair long and girly and not be subject to fines or imprisonment (although the naked sunbathing in Central Park did result in a summons.) But I amnot an American and will only identify myself as such when crossing borders to avoid getting a full body cavity search in order to enter.

“How dare you, you ungrateful commie bastard!” I do dare, bitch, and I am very grateful. I just don’t identify myself as the plot of dirt I happen to be standing on that has been separated from the neighboring plot of dirt by an imaginary line drawn and enforced by imaginary humans. Now I won’t lie to you, when I see even more oppressive governments and shitholes around the world, at times my ego identification with this piece of dirt comes to the surface and I wave my flag and find myself singing the theme song to Team America, “America, fuck yeah!” I then usually wet myself with laughter at the silly jackass who lost his Self for a minute and then go and hand out little Red Books at Union Square.

You are not your body. You are not your thoughts. You are not your emotions. You are not your dog. You are not your favorite sports team. You are not your country. So then who or what the hell are you? Ay, there’s the rub!

REFLECTION:

What do you identify yourself with: your religion…your country…your hobbies…your family name…your sex…your skin color…your work…your bank account…your body…the types of food you eat…? What would happen if you stopped going to church, if you moved, if you stopped taking yoga, if you changed your name, if you had a sex change operation, if you lightened your skin like Michael Jackson, if you lost your job or started a new one, if your bank account doubled (which in my case would bring it up to 48 cents) or cleared out, if you lost your beer gut or gained a fat ass…if you started to eat animals again or stopped eating them altogether? Would Who You Are really change? Why do you get angry when someone doesn’t agree with, or even insults, these things which you are not?

MEDITATION:

Imagine yourself going through your day, almost in a trance. As you look at yourself in the mirror in the morning you think, “Who is this in the mirror?” As you brush your teeth and comb your hair, it feels almost as if you are taking care of a doll—not your Self.

Walking to work, you look around you and feel like a stranger in a strange land as you watch all the people who seem to take pride in their outer garb. This one has matched her shoes with her bag; that one pulls a piece of fabric called a tie tight around his neck and seems to take pride in the adjustment. Strange.

See yourself going to a job, still in your altered state, and how all the co-workers seem to take every little task so seriously. This one is nervous about making some human-created deadline, which seems so foreign to you, as you are operating in a state beyond time. The “boss” yells at someone, less because of what wasn’t accomplished and more because you see she takes a sense of pride in playing her role. And when you leave the work place, you don’t feel any residual dressing covering you that in any way identifies you with the mindless tasks you were performing, yet you know that everyone else will leave wearing full body armor issued from their identification with their job.

You go to a yoga class and you see all the people with their own personal yoga mats and their special yoga bags from where they take the mats, which in itself might have gone unnoticed by you if it weren’t for their pride in possessing these mere objects. You move your body through different yoga postures and while you are aware that you have a body, a part of you seems separate and unidentified with the body. It is almost like having an out-of-body experience where you are watching your body from a distance, but you are not in any way separate from the body in which you are observing.

You go home and eat dinner with your family or some friends. And while you recognize everyone and can respond when talked to, the whole thing feels a little like you are in a play and you are a bit numb to even act with passion. And as you raise your fork to your mouth, you pause to look at the food on the end of the fork and think to yourself how strange it is that you are taking a small mass from an animal or plant or other source and will put it into your mouth and chew it until it no longer looks anything like it did when it was on the fork and then swallow it down. You think of all the body processes that are involved in its digestion and assimilation—stomach acids and churning, pancreas adding enzymes, small intestines absorbing, liver adding bile, large intestine for final absorption and excretion. You think about how you will sit on the toilet later and pass food that you have eaten a meal or two before and how strange it is that you go through this ritual of putting food in and passing it out of this body each day.

You watch a little television and while you have thoughts and even laugh out loud a few times, the thoughts come and go and so does the laughter but you seem to remain beyond the two.

You go to bed and lie down. You are aware of your body as it lies motionless. You are aware of thoughts that come and pass through your mind. You are aware of sensations and feelings in your body and mind. But you know that none of these are Who You Are.

And as you drift off into sleep, now your body has disappeared but your mind is still active. You are soaring above a beautiful mountain like an eagle riding the wind. You see all different colors of grasses and wild flowers and dirt. You hear the sound of the wind blowing and feel the warm sun shining down. You reflect on how you are not using your physical eyes and yet you are “seeing,” you are not using your physical ears and yet you are “hearing,” you do not have a body and yet are “feeling.” This multitude of sensations seem just as “real” as what you experience in your waking life and yet perhaps your waking life is as equally unreal as what you are experiencing now.

You are aware that you have a body that is lying asleep in a bed that seems a great distance from where you are now but know that it is right where you are. You understand your Self to be like the body that remains invisible beyond the dream of all of your individual life’s sensations and experiences. And suddenly all the imagery of sights and sounds and sensations disappear and you are left with no-thing except Who You Are…and it is like a peace you have never experienced before. Pure consciousness without thought.

And when you awake in the morning, you are back in your body. You open your eyes and stretch your arms and legs long. You sit up suddenly on the edge of your bed and look at your hands as you wiggle its digits. You pop up in a rush and go to the bathroom and look at yourself in the mirror. You touch your face as you turn your head slowly from left to right. There is the subtle hum of your Self below all the accoutrements you see and think and feel on the surface.

And then you burst into hysterical laughter. You are incredulous that you took your-self and life so seriously. You feel born again and are excited to live the play of life for now you will never be fooled again. You know Who You Are.