Madness

I was having dreams of madness last night.  I could not remember where I belonged, where I worked, who I worked for.  I wasn’t wearing the right sort of suit.  One of the most successful hyperconformists I have ever met–a guy who was making half a million dollars a year in his twenties–was telling me I needed to get my shit together.

But what I have learned is that our fear of emotional conditions–here, a break from the values of our country–quite often feed into a panic loop that then creates truly bad conditions.  I’m not crazy.  My reality testing is quite good.  I’ve met schizophrenics–we have one in the family–and I am not schizophrenic.

What I realize though is that it IS a sort of madness to see and FEEL, emotionally and viscerally, how contingent the values of our society–and any society–truly are.  They could easily be something else entirely.  And those of this nation, at this time, are truly insane.  Money?  What good is money, truly, when you have lost your soul? I say this not to judge, but to ask what is, to me, an obvious question.

All people who aspire to a genuinely spiritual path must be revolutionaries.  There is no other way.  Everywhere there is the bracken and detritus of centuries of dead habit, of thoughtlessness, of separation from primary awareness.

A sufficiently spiritually aware person could be dropped into any time and any culture, and quickly find their way.  The essence of spiritual truths is that they never change.  The Way never changes, even if it is ALWAYS specific to a time and place.  There is the inner and the outer.

I will make my habit post today.  I have been postponing it both out of a fear of pain, and out of a sense that, in the end, it may simply be mediocre and that I will feel stupid, which would actually be a bit comical, as it would imply I am taking myself vastly too seriously, which I am quite sure I do.  Life is simultaneously a deadly serious business, and not serious at all.  Living well means moving flexibly between those two poles as the occasion calls for it.  Sometimes being a good person means being serious.  Sometimes it is laughing and joking whole-heartedly, and in a spirit of innocence.  I need to do more of the latter.  It would be good for me.  I have a very robust sense of humor, and a very quick wit, when I am feeling good.

I am out of my comfort zone, even as it tenuously exists for me, but this feeling is good.  It is a step into the light, after long darkness.