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A Small Medium @ Large

The word “socialism” is much alive in the media nowadays.  So I checked the dictionary just to make sure they hadn’t changed the definition since the way I remember as a kid.  But nope.  Still indicates a“system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned by the state.”

History teaches that socialism reached its full totalitarian expression in the 1920’s under a dictator named Benito Mussolini.  His definition was succinct:  “Everything in the state.  Nothing outside the state.  Nothing against the state.”   He took over Italy in just three years by declaring “only he could restore order.”

I wanted to see if maybe this formula has evolved.   What if it’s quietly spread under the guise of a more appealing definition without our knowing about it?   Maybe socialism’s gotten to where it’d be hard to recognize after all these years.  The flu, they say, keeps changing just a little bit faster than we can keep up.    

So I tried substituting the words “corporate globalism” for the word “state,” to see if I’d feel any better after the experiment.  The new sentence became, “We have a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned by corporate globalism.”   But I didn’t feel any big uptick in social empowerment.  

Then I tried “Too-Big-To -Jail,”  “filthy rich,” “Global Banksters,” “30 thousand e-mails,” and the Boomer favorite, “Evil Empire” from Star Wars.  But Darth Vader blew every chance to open kinder and gentler windows of top-down conformity.  So we’re left empty handed.   Does anyone feel a “socialist” draft, or is it just me?

Maybe I just didn’t get the hang of it.  So I tried again by substituting a few common phrases for “system or condition,” including such as “political correctness” or “profit motive” and rotated them in and out.  Still, nada mucho.

So I turned to a couple of mind-clearing exercises that have helped me to lighten the load of conformity that tends to fill up the mental gutters over the years.  If you–¬ or someone you know– suffer from political derangement syndrome, you might want to check these out.  The first is called Creating No Judgment, and the second is AWalk For Political Integration.  Here’s why they’re worth a try:

Awareness sustains all creations, but humans may know this only in theory, or might not agree with the claim at all.  Either way, our identity operates in similar and egocentric ways.  We believe ourselves to exist within limits that are not of our own creation, and assume that survival is up to our own efforts.  Feeling trapped within limitations that are beyond our control, our consciousness then struggles and resists until it is thoroughly identified with material solidity.  

This process of identification is complete when the five senses are neurologically hardened, when the mind is fully extroverted.  When this “fall” into mono-logical rationality is complete, we are hardwired for political indoctrination.  What kind it may be is wholly secondary to the process that instills it – particularly if we end up in a paradigm of orally created meanings from which our recovery is not expected. 

Maybe there’s another angle to this.  Self-mastery over our feelings means there is nothing anyone can do, or say, or think that can make us feel separate from them.  This self-mastery once was taken as a symptom of adulthood.  Separation is the simultaneous effect and meaning of pronouncing judgment.  

Creating No Judgment is an exercise that can help us to respond to any creation in consciousness without judgment.  In the process, we gain insight into the governing principles of our experiential consciousness.  This is a better alternative to our two current choices:  being ruled by manipulation or ruled by dominance.

Instructions.  Do this exercise solo, lying in a comfortable room, for at least two hours.  We’re taking on a lifetime of programming here, so consider it just a start.

1) Recall some object, event and person that elicits no charge.

2) Recall some object, event and person that elicits a charged response.*

3) Go back and forth from 1) and 2) until it is easy to get some impression of the space that does not elicit a response from those spaces that do.  

4) Now practice maintaining the non-response space on any charged impression.  Include creations of your body, the past, present, future, friends, foes, family members, etc.

5) Practice surrendering all judgment until you can readily create no response to any mental creation.

*Charges can be positive or negative.  Start with small stuff and gradually work up to the emotional blockbusters.   This is a participatory process of self-teaching.  

A Walk For Political Integration.  This walk can deliver miraculous results.  It is recommended that this exercise be done for a minimum of one hour, but two is probably better for anyone who votes a straight ticket.  Either way, the Walk is also excellent for personal and not just political issues.   It can be done for shorter periods once we get the hang of it, or anytime one feels emotionally stuck or needs more integrative self-work thereafter.

Objective:  To end suffering and restore a balanced mind and equal vision.  The expected results are the expansion of personal consciousness, and the release of fixed identity structures in our minds.  First time out, this exercise works better when each step has been demonstrated by a friend or guide.  First watch and learn to do each step as presented.  Get the benefits before “improvising” the walk or doing it “my own way.”  Believe it or not, the assumption of “taking control,” before knowing what it is exactly, explains many of our problems in the first place. 

 Instructions:  

1) Pick a starting point for your walk and a destination point.  Make them only about 50 feet apart or so.  The ground we’re trying to cover is inside the head.  Taking a stroll around the neighborhood is not the objective.

2) From the starting point, each step toward the destination is taken slowly and deliberately, with full awareness of each muscle group that’s employed.  Before each step, whisper out-loud an action, thought, or intention that you created from fear or anger.  Include acts of omission as well.  It’s important that the sound of your voice be loud enough that your ears can hear it.

3) At your destination point, stop and contemplate the first breath of your life. Then in sequence, the first minute; the first hour; the first day; week; etc.  Go as far beyond death of the body as you can comfortably sustain.  When the mind snaps back to the present, turn to proceed back to your start point. 

4) For each step you take on the return, bring someone to mind and whisper the benediction:  “May you be happy and well.”  Listen to the sound of your words.  Receive the sound as well as the meaning.

5) Upon returning to the starting point, drop all thoughts and events of the past.  Receive the sights and sounds of the present moment through the senses with full appreciation.

Repeat, going back and forth, until the allotted time is complete.

It is also important to bring up only the creations of fear or anger that you are ready to own.  Bless only those people you are ready to bless.   Occasionally, we build up so much resistance to something that we want to create it (or them!) out of existence, instead of owning it fully as a karmic aspect of our human selves. 

Hint:  Allow the mind to experience and feel its own history of rejection and loneliness.  It might get a bit rough, emotionally, but keep at it.  We are bigger than any of our creations.  Tell yourself “It’s OK to feel this way.”  Let the process take on a life of its own.  

A population who cannot independently feed itself is living with full blown socialism right now. That would be us.  The formula, dīvide et imperā (divide and rule), creates or encourages divisions among the voters.   Party politics fosters perpetual distrust and enmity between competing political philosophies and their representatives.  Only a peaceful populist alliance could challenge the power elite.