It seems I have been a very bad spiritual girl.
Bad Judy.
Luckily lots of wiser-than-I people have stepped up to verbally spank the errant spiritual concepts right outta me.
Whew! I guess I needed that.
Now, I can’t call them non-dualists, since there’s a lot of right/wrong, should/shouldn’t, good/bad and us/them being espoused, plus big helpings of ego and certainty.
So it's pretty darn dual.
But there are plenty of quotes by Nisargadatta and Ramana included to eliminate any doubt that it's the correct form of spirituality.
In fact, I mentioned to my elderly mother that I had some ideas that weren’t necessarily common ones, and she said, “Maybe you should take the hint.”
Damn. Et tu, mom?
The thing is, over the centuries many new options in all kinds of fields have been considered outrageously wrong, simply because they were outside the usual.
For example there was Copernicus, who dared challenge what everyone, especially the religious people, knew to be true- the idea that the earth was the center of the universe and everything revolved around it. People were horrified at his wrongness, and his supporters, including Galileo, were actually imprisoned simply for agreeing with him.
So gosh, when you think about that, a few Facebook spankings are no big deal.
And then somehow, over time, the heretics became the standard for what’s right, and anyone disagreeing with them became the dangerous outliers.
Weird, huh? I mean, you’d think by now we could just skip over the, “Shut up, you wrong, bad, crazy, stupid loon!” part and get down to the, “I admire your innovative thinking!” part, right off the bat.
But no, that’s not how we work here. The game must be played. We can’t cut corners.
Now of course I’m not equating anything I have to say with the likes of Copernicus and Galileo.
I’m just asking…
How is any new idea ever supposed to be considered, if people insist on turning only to dead people and their opinions, to define Truth?
How can any never-considered-that, well-that’s-different, fresh breeze ever be allowed to blow through the mind, when bookshelves and well-behaved opinions are blocking every door and window?
And it’s not just the old stuff. Even not-dead-yet current sages may be so steeped in the proper and accepted ways that they regularly recite the “right” lines, still mistaking rule-following and mass agreement for Truth.
The fact is, we humans prefer the same-ol'. We like the herd. We don’t want to stand out (at least not totally), lest the lions take notice. We want to belong, to be right, and to be part of some group, even if it’s only a group of other weird people.
We hate those odd ones who wander away. We hate the offbeat. We hate the different.
We hate the individual.
Mainly because, underneath all the mocking, bullying and ego posing as wisdom, we know we are not these know-it-all individuals. We know it’s an act. There’s so much proof of this. I won’t write it here, because there have been several Mind-Ticklers about this already.
Still, our language betrays the fakery every day.
So yes we have to act tough to hide the pretense and protect that story. And yes, when we gang up with "like-minded" others and draw sides, we're reassured that we've got a team to belong to.
Otherwise, we don’t even know who we are. New ideas may often mean lost identity.
Not that that’s a bad thing.
I mean, isn’t that some of what we want enlightenment for?
Meanwhile, privately, in PMs and emails and skype chats, away from the show-off spotlight of social media, many people have quietly written of their own spankings, and their own discoveries, and their own relief that anyone, anyone, might be willing to test the limits on this well-worn and rule-bound spiritual path.
So another herd forms, of those who secretly disagree with convention, or feel alone and weird for being left out of the older herd.
Which is just how we humans work.
It doesn’t “mean” anything.
Still it can be good, and comforting, and a relief, just to know that new herds can form.
So you’re certainly welcome to join me in the wild and weird new field, out beyond right and wrong.
Or form your own! And I'll come visit.
Click here to get your Mind-Tickled every week.
"I am not out to liberate anybody. You have to liberate yourself. What I have to say will not do it. I am only interested in clearing away the occultation and mystification in which those people in the 'holy business' have shrouded the whole thing. Maybe I can convince you not to waste a lot of time and energy, looking for a state which does not exist except in your imagination.” ― U.G.Krishnamurti
