For hard proof we needn’t look any farther than the communist regime of the former Soviet Union. Human nature will outlast any regime or experiment that contradicts it. In a war against the ego we are doomed to fail from the start, so in order to avoid the mistakes of the past, let’s take a different approach and learn to use the ego to our benefit.
In the 1950s, the now iconic Asch series of experiments proved that public opinion is of primary importance to an individual. Applying this principle to society as a whole, it becomes clear that the “be-all end-all” target of all human endeavors is social status.
We slave away for a bigger house, a newer car, or a fatter bank account only because society dictates that these things are valuable. In essence, though, they are not the goal but mere means to it, while the goal is achieving higher social status. If we lived in a culture where big muscles or high intelligence were the pinnacle of prestige, we would be compelled by society to put the same amount of effort toward achieving excellence in those areas, paying little to no mind to material possessions.
Now imagine a switch got flicked, and we were no longer venerated for our ability to hoard virtual zeroes in the bank, throw the pigskin, or manipulate the stock market. There would be no pleasure in these achievements, and we wouldn’t have any fuel to go after them. And if such things were actually scorned or ridiculed, we would gladly and readily relinquish them all.
It follows that by changing the values in society, even artificially, the entire game gets transformed. If our offspring, friends, and neighbors respected and admired us for our contributions to society, and despised pursuit of personal interests, the same indomitable ego which is threatening the world today would be channeled toward collective benefit and the common good.
The key to such a transformation is public opinion. If we build an environment with abundant examples of favorable behavior toward society, we will finally begin to utilize human nature correctly. Not only is it the only way to survive in the new integrated world, but we will also begin to tap the truly limitless potential inherent to humankind.
If you take yourself to be the body only, you can try in every-way to create symbols of harmony through excited events, social gatherings, and humanitarian dissemination efforts. But if you realize that you are fundamentally spirit and are the unchanging essence of life itself, you walk in this body as the unchanging, everlasting truth.
True freedom is what you already are, true connection is what the heart already is, and the boundless freedom we seek is only found by looking inward at what is already so. Do not be fooled into thinking you must achieve outer actions in order to feel connected to others harmoniously. By looking within, the true light of who you are will shine out and it is the most beautiful and pure because it is the only truth that remains through all change. This truth is not something to hang on to, it is what has been containing and allowing your sense of person-hood to exist. It is the real you, the container of all things, feelings, emotions, and desires. At first it seems abstract, but you will soon realize that who you are is the only reality that remains through all change.
This light of who you are, the “I AM” is the light of Christ, of Buddha, Ramana Maharshi, and all the saints through the ages. This is the light the designers of Bnei Baruch Kabbalah are afraid to embrace because it breaks down the false power structure they have erected over the everlasting creation. The true freedom is already and forever free and existing without condition or reference to a local and consequently temporal sense of connection, ambition or acceptance.
Connection implies separation, and although it seems like a worthy goal in the short-term, it is a notion that only re-emphasizes the story of separation to again allow elite groups to exploit others, but under the guise of humanitarian connectivity. I mean, what sounds more appealing than “being connected”. I have one short answer: “Being!~”
The only real attainment is the one that always is. How can it be true if it comes and goes? How do you know that you exist?
You are the truth and you always have been. All efforts to create an outer symbol of harmony can not last and end when the bodily life ends. But to realize who you are is a shortcut to the most powerful place of being that requires nothing in terms of outer change because it always is, forever unchanging, the ground of being. To call yourself change is to actually excite the ego layer a bit with the hope of a better future and the structured ideologies for achieving that change. But under all change is the pure and unchanging and formless nature of what you are, and it is already perfectly connected to everything because it is not a thing at all. Peace to all beings everywhere, may you all know the truth of what you are and emanate the joy and perfume of your universal nature.
-Noah