The Revolutionary Politics of Liberation

The same process that invokes depression, helplessness, dangerous anger, interpersonal violence, substance abuse, and endless spiritual seeking have the same root.

I’ve approached this issue primarily through an analysis that I would reluctantly call philosophic and I say reluctantly because I am not a philosopher. I am me.

What is the root of violence, substance abuse, depression, and all the rest? What aspect of our way of life nurtures these conditions?

It is this: the invalidation of babies! And more specifically, it’s your invalidation when you were very young.

Surprised? You should be, but this is the root of all of these conditions. This is something you really need to know. You really need to get acquainted with your own negation by your loving and well intended parents, for they too were negated when they were very young.

Why?

Because unless we wake up to our own invalidation, we will bequeath to all future generations the same insidious Wound that underlies all of these conditions. This is the disease of the spirit - this is the disease of industrial civilization at war with the world and at war with itself.

There is a cure.

There was a time when babies were not invalidated. We would need to return to the hunting and gathering days of our distant ancestors to witness, first-hand, the love of babies as they were and not as we would require them to be. All such cultures view babies as sacred beings complete and whole unto themselves. Each person is perceived as an expression of her/his own unique and distinct journey. This was a time when your own story was celebrated through laughter, tears, wonder, and connection.

This way of life had to come to an end with the development of industrial agriculture, towns, and hierarchies. Men and women needed to migrate away from the freedom to be themselves to become laborers and baby makers. We had to learn to not only negate our own children by believing that they are savages needing the graces of civilization through discipline and punishment (both unknown in hunting and gathering societies), but that the echo of this traumatic invalidation needed to pass through the generations. Without coerced obedience who would sacrifice their lives and their world for the grim life of the factory? Who would exchange love and connection for this world where fear is the common and universal denominator?

To create a universe of unquestioning workers, it was essential that people act against their own interests, to doubt themselves and, most importantly, to seek authorities to tell them what to do and how to do it. Thus we have the development of government and organized religion. The chosen few became empowered to make the iron clad rules for the many. This amazing transformation created two classes; the rulers and the ruled.

All of the energy that had been expressed by the uniqueness of a single life, now went into the monotonous drudgery of working for the ruler. A world that trusted absolutely in the abundance of nature (even in the Arctic and the deserts) could no longer be trusted. So a pantheon of gods emerged and these gods needed to be placated by the sacrifice of our endless labor, our adoring love, and more than anything else, our obedience!

Obedience to order and authority became the paramount requirement of organized industrial life. These institutions of order were replicated in the modern systems of education and work. Obedience is always the first rule. Creativity and being one’s authentic self are revolutionary actions taken by people who must occupy the fringes of society, for it is creativity and refusing to march in order that are the only real, substantive threats to this world of coercion and fear.

This world of order is finally running out of gas. But we will never form a different kind of world until we take the most authentic step that we can, which is to face our own invalidation. That is the first step in the revolution of the self. This is how you save yourself and your world.

The revolution is your revolution.

We see our invalidation in how lost our sense of who we are. We see it in all of our compulsive behaviors. And we see it most clearly in seeing our own False-Self. My book Liberation from the Lie, which you can purchase here or at Amazon, is the perfect manual guiding you to see your False-Selves in every conceivable dimension of your life. Until this being is seen on the most subtle levels, you will continue to just spin your wheels. You be a slave to your own unseen fears.

But when it is seen - when you see the manifestation of your own Wound in your life, then you are reborn. Then, and only then, do you become the true revolutionary. Then you will see with eyes wide open. You will see the desperate, agonizing sickness of this civilization. You will be able to separate with beautiful clarity the wheat from the chaff. And how you will laugh at your desperate seeking. You will be alive in every moment. You will fall in love with this life ... your life. This I assure you.

We each bring a different gift to this dance of life. But your gift will be yours’ and yours’ alone. Once you see through the veils of your own invalidation, in that moment, the chains that ensnare you with our own false past will break. Your power will be real. Yes, you will face the seemingly implacable walls of this fear-based world, but you will stop recoiling in your fear and helplessness. Instead, your heart will be alive to the challenge. You will never need to depend on a teacher again, for now you can say, I am who I am and I love this energy - my only guide is life itself in this very moment - with all of its directness and challenge and that is a life enough.

BTW: regarding the Soviet era farmer picture used in this post - I just liked the image. He was just as invalidated as anyone else. No model is suggested in the use of this image.

Spread the Word! - This is the Beginning of Our Revolution.