An Ethical Path To Victory
BREATHE!!!
“To travel is to breathe sentience into one’s ambitions.”
-Saim .A. Cheeda
If the Three Gates are natural law (and I propose that they are)
And your opponent does not respect them…
Then your opponent is off-balance. If YOU are balanced, you can disrupt yours with a carefully placed finger.
There are two basic questions in both art and philosophy: “Who Am I?” (what is a human being) and “What is True?” (what is the world?). Everything connects to one of these. Really, everything connects to BOTH, because they are actually two sides of the same coin. What you DESIRE, for instance, is a matter of respecting your own hunger. FAITH would be your ability to believe there is a way to fulfill those desires, that your skills and capacities overlap with what the world allows. If you see BOTH yourself and the world accurately, you would never have a goal you could not fulfill.
To the degree that you do not reach your goals, you are misjudging either your capacities, or the nature of the world.
So…meditation and other “inwardness” searching is about “who am I?” And developing a clear lens to evaluate the world, gathering knowledge, is about the outer world.”
Some years back I had an intuitive flash about ethical victories for awakened people. I don’t know what precisely it is based on, because it SEEMED to pop up from nowhere. But ten years later (approximately) they still seem valid. And seem more important than ever today. Here are the steps:
- Love yourself. You HAVE to connect to your own heart. And also connect to your Survival drive, the part of you that would fight savagely to protect your life. If you would fight harder to protect a helpless child than you would to protect yourself, this love/survival connection has been damaged. Heal it.
- Love one other person. Extending your sense of “self” to even one other human being begins the process of ego expansion. When this is that magical combination of “sex, love, and faith” that leads to a “soulmate” connection, it is more powerful still.
- Understand humanity without guilt, blame, or shame. I can express mine just fine: We are just animals, doing the best we can to move away from suffering and embrace joy. Most human ugliness is related to fear of personal, genetic, or tribal threat. The door to the future opens at the nexus of race and gender as they relate to these fears. Those who will be able to walk through that door believe in equality (with gender, complementarity also factors in).
- Avoid Trolls, Protect your tribe. Remember then that FEAR clouds the mind, makes people doubt the Three Gates. Trolls are mostly “sleepers” with a few “snakes” mixed in, but remember that they are just following their instincts, and trying to move away from fear. In the grip of that fear, they will twist truth, believe real happiness is an illusion, and the notion of “service” is purely transactional. As love replaces fear we begin to glimpse blue sky between the storm clouds. Trolls will try to slow you down, ask “is that really a fire?” as you are trying to form a bucket brigade. Once you are convinced the house is burning, you have to commit. DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME WITH TROLLS. AND THE FASTEST WAY TO IDENTIFY THEM is that they do NOT respect the Three Gates, and do NOT believe in equality along the lines of race and gender. Instead of fighting with them, nurture your tribe. Nurture those who are traumatized, tired, frightened. Stand strong for them, create safe space for them, but you cannot simultaneously strike and enemy and feed a child. You have to alternate actions. Choose wisely.
- Win with integrity. There are so many reasons for this. Hurt people want revenge. Fear is masked and mobilized with anger. So people WANT REVENGE. And sometimes, they will take their eyes off the prize for the pale satisfaction of seeing hurt and fear in the face of their foe. You HAVE to ask yourself: is this optimal? Am I passing the finish line, or stopping to push a competitor into the wall? If you embrace the Three Gates, you will learn QUICKLY how hard it is. But you will also start identifying the clues that others do not BECAUSE YOU WILL RECOGNIZE YOURSELF IN THEM. If you ask people “what percentage of human beings thing their tribe is superior?” you’ll get answers ranging from 10–30%. And yet, if you ask people, I’d estimate fewer than 5% will cop to it. Does that mean 5–25% of people are liars? Is it effective and efficient to call them that to their face? I think not. I’d rather consider 5–25% of people SLEEPERS on the level of their core beliefs. And a seriously warping factor is politics, which relate to perceived tribal survival. The point being that YOU have those blind spots as well. So you need to remember “I could be wrong.” Just because you have the leverage to win doesn’t make you right.
How do we aim to win with integrity, then? NEVER let yourself feel the “others” are not fully human. This is the doorway to catastrophic evil. When you see violence, ask what anger motivates it, and what FEAR motivates THAT. When you see bad behavior, notice how it is ALWAYS a violation of one of the Three Gates, and be very careful not to be infected by their disease.
How do we do this? Love yourselves. Breathe. Embrace love and joy, acknowledge your fear and use it as biology intended: to focus attention and motivate action.
I believe that that “knot” of race and gender has jumped front and center onto the national stage. That successfully navigated, on the other side of this cultural maze is a new level of being. It isn’t that sexism and racism will be “gone” — they are rooted in survival. But we can reduce them to the point where someone willing to put in 110% effort can get 100% results. And that might be as “fair” as the world can get. I can accept that…but will NOT accept the lies and fantasies of people who try to suggest there are no obstacles that affect different groups differently. That DOESN’T pass the Three Gates from any historical or philosophical perspective I respect. Could I be wrong? ABSOLUTELY.
So…I cannot demonize those who disagree. I simply choose to focus my time and energy helping those who I can clearly see moving toward the same future. Yes, that means I will make some mistakes, but it would be absurd to simply take people at their word. Look at their actions, and whether their beliefs and stated positions actually flow from their stated core philosophies. Have a few dozen of these conversations, and you’ll start seeing patterns: people who honestly believe in equality can answer questions about it quickly and simply. The more time they take, the more complicated the answer, the more you can suspect they are trying to hide what they really believe…possibly even from themselves. Assume they are sleepers, not “snakes” who KNOW they are bigots and are lying about it.
Serve your tribe, while also standing as a barrier between them and the liars herding the sleepers into the field. To do this, you must be strong, and committed, and have the internal and external resource to be of aid.
That’s a lot to sort through, but I needed to get that out. We really are asking questions about who we are as a species, and certainly as a nation. And what future we want for our children and grandchildren. I can’t tell you what to do in life, but can state clearly what I see. You then decide what you think.
Respect the Three Gates
Begin with a belief in Equality.
Those are my positions. I do not hew to them perfectly, but am committed. And what I know is that EVERY major error I’ve ever made in life was connected to ignoring these two things. And EVERYONE I have seen fall into evil paths also ignored these two things, one way or another.
The path they mark out may be foggy…but the other path may have been hugely useful in the past, but now seems to lead off a cliff.
Namaste
Steve
(The above represents my view of “who am I?” and “what is true?” I don’t suggest you adapt them as much as to clarify your own positions so that they are that simple and powerful. For writers, having a clear view of these things allows you to create vivid worlds and unforgettable characters. Tananarive and I will be conducting our next workshop, CREATING UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTER on Saturday, August 24th, at 2–5pm Pacific. You can attend either live in Upland California, or via Zoom. You can reserve your place on Friday!)