The Culture of Narcissism and The Point of Existence?

Today (September 9) I tabled for Students for Nonviolence. I got to see several friends I hadn't seen in a while. After sitting at our table for an hour or two, a guy came up to us to challenge the philosophy he assumed we maintained (by reading our Students for Nonviolence banner). His main belief was that, in certain times, you just have to use violence. He even brought up Hitler. One thing I conceded was that if a group of people were trying to kill me, yeah, I'd probably try to defend myself. Where do you draw the line? If you arbitrarily draw the line, the power of absolute nonviolence abruptly ends. Gandhi would've died if someone beat him to death. It takes such mental strength to stand for a cause no matter what. We use that phrase too lightly. Rarely could we ever contemplate standing behind something (an idea, a philosophy, a belief) all the way. Most of our lives are built on reductions of reality in order to hide from the pain of complexity and depth. I believe this current society is a Culture of Narcissism (Book by Christopher Lasch). Our relationships have become increasingly spread apart. Our homes are bigger but we live in them less. Our interactions between our fellow brothers are more distant (facebook, myspace, email, etc), and they are less deep. We spend more and more of our lives fulfilling societal and personal (programmed through conditioning) obligations that do not contribute to our well being. We work longer, we work harder, we take less vacations. We spend less time with our family. We are unsatisfied in many of our relationships because we are unsatisfied with ourselves. We need pills to be "normal." We are living in a world where everyone is psychologically dysfunctional. We turn the music up louder to ignore the sound of truth. We delude ourselves so thoroughly, and it is a collective suffering. What I'm saying is that we have no mental strength because we've spent our lives living off of others, inflating our ego (not the same as transcending it) through accepting being always unfulfilled as the reality of life. Consumerism tells us we are Gods and deserve the greateast all day long (the average american watches 4.5 hours of TV a day), but we are only so infatuated with this message because we know in our relationships that it is not true. We can't even concentrate anymore. ADD or ADHD and other problems like neuro-immune disorders are on the rise, especially in children (ADHD is actually classified under ADD). Turn on the TV for 10 minutes. Watch the commercials or the shows. They insult my intelligence. They act to create value and legitimacy in superficial situations that are valueless. (there are some quality programs, but I am speaking about the most popular and most mainstream, and even more so referring to advertisements) We need more lawyers, doctors, PR consultants, graphic designers and mediators, so through the complexity of bureaucratic and obligatory procedures, we lose sight of basic ethics and simple well being. Pharmaceutical companies are suing environmental groups! They are allowed to do so because of the law. We have no responsibility and no concept of honor to defend. What we do in our private lives is our own business. But our private lives are full of anomie; since we have no deep values (religion is close to meaningless if it does not instill value systems), our lives are purposeless. This is extremely frightening, and very easy to ignore temporarily through drugs, sex, obsession, television, really anything that does not make us see ourselves as we are and challenge our basic assumptions. Materiality provides an excellent way to occupy our lives and deepen our escape from the reality of meaningless relationship. This is not to say life is not worth living, or that one's friends are pointless, but that the context or structure (the fabric of society) through which our relationships arise wrings out the sacredness and beauty of relationship. Again and again I am reminded of Jiddu Krishnamurti's powerful words.

"But those who desire to understand...will walk together with a greater instensity, will be a danger to everything that is unessential, to unrealities, to shadows. And they will concentrate, they will become the flame, because they understand. Such a body we must create, and that is my purpose. because of that real understanding there will be true friendship. Because of that true friendship- which you do not seem to know- there will be real cooperation on the part of each one. And this is not because of authority, not because of salvation, not because of immolation for a cause, but because you really understand, and hence are capable of living in the eternal. This is a greater thing than all pleasure, than all sacrifice."

Ahhh...those words haunt me. I have read this paragraph of his more than any other. The desire to understand is not a superficial spirituality. I'm not sure what it is to be honest, but it can't be what I'm doing, even though I'm meditating and exercising and engaging in the community and loving every day. So none of my relationships are true in Krishnamurti's sense. Some are more true than others, or more deep, but they are on a spectrum of relativity and will never be whole and total. Some have said Jiddu K. was a great enlightened being but failed to adopt an evolutionary approach to spirituality (Like Ken Wilber and Andrew Cohen who place him on the level of the mean green meme). The relative path supposes that we evolve through stages and progressively become more whole and closer to that accidental snap into awakened bliss. But as Krishnamurti says, how can we bring about order or nonviolence in our lives if everything is arising from a structure of violence? Even our attempts to be nonviolent are being born out of violence. So what do we do? What do we fix? Do we go to a pyschiatrist? My teacher for Intro to Psychology was a pyschiatrist for youth and teenagers. She was certainly narcissistic in the sense that Christopher Lasch wrote about in the Culture of Narcissism. Hell, even Wilber has been called narcissistic.

Krishnamurti says, "In our present civilization we have divided life into so many departments that education has very little meaning, except in learning a particlul technique or profession. Instead of awakening the integrated intelligence of the individual, education is encouraging him to confrom to a pattern and so is hindering his comprehension of himself as a total process."

This hindering results in systematic repression of certain natural feelings, emotions, and behaviors. But we need to divide things in order to give enough time and attention to the complexity of the world and what we've created. So again, what do we do?

Krishnamurti: "Revolt is of two kinds: there is violent revolt, which is mere reaction, without understanding, against the existing order, and there is the deep psychological revolt of intelligence."

How do we summon up the mental energy for the "deep psychological revolt of intelligence?" What would that look like? If I go to live in a small sustainable community where my basic necessities are taken care of and I have more time to explore my mind and creativity, is that solving anything? Is that not escaping? So should I start an organization dedicated to altering social structures here and there in order to "make the world a better place?" Say I change a policy locally, and make some people's lives better. Am I then done, fulfilled? Where does it end? It seems to me that it never ends. Life demands enlightenment. Anything less is short-changing the soul every second of existence.

I strongly believe that enlightenment is the beginning of living, not the end. In the deepest aspect of our being, we are the creators of the universe. The only way we can journey back to satchitananda, being-consciousness-bliss, is to actually become the creator. Jesus came to tell the world that this was just the beginning. Becoming enlightened is an inner realization, and I believe we do not redissolve into satchitananda until we have actually manifested this realization into the entire universe. How that happens I certainly have no clue. I do believe, however, that we have been deeply conditioned to assume that when we die the journey's over; we're in heaven. Or when we reach nirvana, buddhahood, the journey's over. I say that it is the first time that a human being can conceive himself as an individualized "unit" of consciousness slowly (but surely) expressing the qualities of infinite will. The potentially existent higher or deeper, non-material (material is everything we can observe through our physical senses or through extensions of senses...microscopes, telescopes, etc) planes of the universe, as in the astral, mental, causal, and beyond (most if not all religions have their own systems of the different number of layers and sections of the universe) are the playgrounds in which we experiment with will eventually beyond human form and understanding. This is all way over my head, as I am not spiritually advanced at all, but I find it endlessly fascinating. So enlightenment may be the realization that existence is an evolution of dancing to greater and greater embrace. Increasing embrace is greater manifestation of love through will, and to rise above our humanness I think we will have to surpass the mental boundaries of all human laws. An enlightened human being still cannot necessarily create "miracles." Although there are people who have developed their psychic abilities to such a degree that (I believe) they can become invisible, maybe fly, and do other crazy things, we will eventually actually be able to create anything with the power of our mind. When we can create the entire universe, we will finally dissolve into the primordial satchitananda. This is not New Age stuff, this is Old Age, very very old. I cannot accept that fragile, small-minded humans, even after purifying their karma and becoming enlightened, are done with existence. When are we going to explore the universe? Maybe I'm just crazy. Take all this as you wish.

So I haven't really answered my intial questions. We can try to live an integral life, run off to an ashram, or maybe try to build a new way of living? I guess being human means to live with a tremendous aching in the soul, because nothing we will do can accomplish what we have deep down secretly already done. It must be paradoxical, because we cannot ask for anything greater than to be alive on this blue and green Earth.

"With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy."
- Excerpt from Desiderata, Max Ehrmann

This post was mostly written on September 9, when I was in an emotional state of detachment and anger at the current rulers and runnings of the world. I added a few paragraphs and edited it today. Life is so fascinating that it cannot be contained in one emotion. It is far too complex and huge for us to swallow. We must take it bite by bite. Moment by moment...

Peace and love to the world.