|
The Path © 1998 by: Cirse Windom
|
|
|
|
Faith and Belief ~ virtue device |
|
many wanderers, attracted by seeker’s steady glow, came and requested insight. but ~ most only desired a bit of luminosity or an entertaining story.
seeker had no difficulty in convincing potential followers of his mortality and fallibility.
finding occupation enough in managing his own ego, seeker had no desire to hold his self above others.... assuming their autonomy, their responsibility, in effect.... becoming their ego, and those desiring a leader or other sort to assume responsibility for their state of being quickly sought other sources.
seeker came to realize that many travelers relied upon the profits of their misunderstanding, and so ~ possessed no real desire for truth.
some relied even upon their perceptions of self as victim, receiving an ironic sense of strength in perpetually blaming perceived oppressors.
many wanderers who demanded honesty from others were often unwilling to be honest within them selves. unprepared, unwilling and thusly unable to receive truth ~ so, truth was often unknown to them. as such, these people strove in varying degrees of awareness to strengthen the many devices placed to perpetuate their commitment to.... and nurturing for them selves.... an environment of falsehood or victimization.
seeker recalled the lesson of those who pronounced them selves disciples of the dandelion keeper and had since passed other groups speaking outwardly about the saving grace of the keeper of the light....
seeker had seen many individuals hold them selves forth as the keeper’s teacher.... courting, pursuing disciples of their own ~ lending their own motives to the growing ideology.
forgetting their own teachers....
forgetting them selves.
seeker had learned that all existence
but seeker regularly saw various groups like the egocentrics and the disciples nurture suspicions and fear between and among them selves.
so keenly sensing feelings of inferiority, so desperately desiring a perceived yet elusive superiority, that they actively sought to exploit one another’s differences.... of every nature: ideology, social status, gender, age, and physical constitutions of height, weight, skin, hair and eye color.
for groups such as these, so great was their need to reign over others, if no perceptible difference could be recognized.... one would be invented.
seeker saw them actively seek out differing others.... seek out, exploit and persecute them as a means of unifying their fragile band.
fragile of faith.... but powerful in number and fear.
seeker saw whole populations of differing others tortured.... brutally destroyed for no other purpose than to fuel the fear necessary to the stability of the ruling group.
among such groups, seeker saw that rituals and symbols intended to reinforce daily awareness and devotion ~ had become, in the compulsion of their performance and worship, infused with inordinate reverence....
....ritual and symbolism manifest in all manner of dress, language, action and possession.
....ritual often used as a binding factor in group acceptance, creating and exclusive of ‘outside’ others.... fostering addiction and dependency among the needful.... keeping them from their potential.
the many rituals and symbols actually gaining greater sanctity than ~ and even often contradicting ~ many of the very principals, concepts and virtues they were designed to reflect and celebrate.
seeker had seen monumental structures of worship erected to the exclusion of others.... erected to the exclusion of ideas.... erected to the exclusion of self.
....had seen devices of worship ~ devices designed to generate good will and peace ~ desecrated. one wanderer’s offering destroyed, so that another’s could take its place. becoming devices of personal blessing, rather than objects of reaffirmed faith.
seeker was saddened to see these objects, monuments and ways of ritual ~ so great a dependency upon so many devices of worship ~ for, seeker had learned that spirituality could not be confined, nor categorized.
could not be elevated above, and to the exclusion of another.
was not limited to specific moments, specific places, specific methods and objects, bound by specific and singular beliefs or devices of devotion.
seeker sensed that spirituality was innate within all beings and all-encompassing. and he sensed that the nature of spirituality was accepting of others’ beliefs ~ reverent of others’ beliefs ~ respectful of their need and expression.
he knew that personal spirituality was able to be reaffirmed within the self in all manner of daily interaction with all beings ~ without need of altering or oppressing any others’ being or belief.
for seeker ~ spirituality seemed to suggest, by its very nature, an aspiration toward non-physical confinement.
and seeker sorrowed to see followers bound by and steadfastly dependent upon objects and devices, rather than them selves, their quest, and their relationship with others, in their aspiration toward sense of self, sense of purpose ~ sense of enlightenment.
in spirituality, seeker saw the concepts of faith and belief. but, between these concepts, seeker saw differences.
seeker perceived beliefs as the many and varied, created and fortified structures used to manipulate faith.... structures of rationale used to explain faith ~ absolving our selves from doubt in faith.... shielding our selves from the knowledge of fear.
structures which were potentially useful in controlling one’s self.... one’s fear and ego ~ but which, sadly, were often employed to justify one’s control of either their environment or another.... one’s attack of another, the violence, blame, hatred and oppression of another.
structures upon which one may affix, with reverence and devotion, without thought of question, without thought of regard, both their trust and their blame.
structures, systems of justification which serve as council, leader, savior, martyr, hero, villain and judge ~ which serve as the self.... buried within and forgotten.
devices of distraction ~ any means employable to keep the self from the self, and others from them selves.
and, seeker had often seen beliefs quickly and easily change, in order to facilitate some new conquest.
becoming deceptively ‘new’ devices of explanation and justification, useful in manifesting and evidencing vague notions of prophecy....
useful in directing need and appeasing the desires of ego.
inventions....
created.... limited.... by human perception.
seeker perceived faith as something different.
he perceived faith as the root of hope and self acceptance. and knew that even without the explanation or understanding suggestive of belief, the self was able to embrace faith in the seemingly unknown.
seeker saw faith as a truly inherent virtue. an omni-present sense to guide us toward our ancient selves, our acceptance of being ~ our sense of purpose.
a conscious awareness of which, in every action and thought, was ritual.... ceremony enough.
but seeker knew that if faith was not identified there was risk of doubt, and once doubted, faith could be vulnerable to interpretation and manipulation.
for, seeker had often seen children's’ faith pressed to fit within socially acceptable constraints.... confined within structures of belief.... lost within mazes of contradiction.... repressed even.... beyond recognition.
but, he also knew faith could be restored. restored by its very nature.... restored without reason, without explanation, without structures.... and beginning only with self acceptance.
beginning only with faith in the self ~ truly and openly honoring one’s sense of being ~ able then, to realize one’s true place and part. Able then to embrace something larger than them selves.
and yet.... seeker noticed that many elders were often greatly resistant to looking inward.... resistant to embracing faith.
seeker wondered: ‘is this because ~ once faith in a child is sufficiently repressed, replaced steadily by insecurity ~ that child begins to steadily employ devices like belief.... which can facilitate a means of emotionally disassociating one’s self from others and serve to steadily shield the self from blame.’
‘and once that occurs, blame shifts steadily outward furthering greater emotional disassociation.’
‘and once enough cruelties against others amass, it becomes seemingly too painful to look back.... too painful to blame the self so greatly in assuming responsibility for atrocities committed on behalf of fear and ego.’
‘is this why,’ seeker thought, ‘children are so receptive to both blame and acceptance from others?’
‘and why their faith, for a while, is so resilient?’
‘because they haven’t amassed enough regret to feel as vulnerable to self attack?’
‘but, because they are so receptive,’ thought seeker, ‘they are equally vulnerable to each depreciative suggestion, action, even thought.... from another.’
‘vulnerable also to each repressed or insufficient expression of genuine appreciative suggestion, action, thought.... each genuine expression of love. particularly receptive are they to the thoughts and actions of those whom they most revere or are dependent upon.’
‘and as depreciations amass, so does fear of self recognition.... fear of self.... until they, too....’
‘are finally vulnerable to all-absorbing self depreciation....’
‘and are consequently prone to not only potential depreciation cast by others, but their own depreciation of others as well.’
‘but until one is willing to subject the self to potential self attack through self recognition,’ thought seeker, ‘faith would remain buried within the wall.... within the fear of fear ~ justifying through belief ~ the perceptions of fear and ego, and the actions perpetrated on their behalf.... whether against the self or against another.’
‘when will that cycle be changed?’ thought seeker. ‘who will teach us faith? who will accept us, love us, so that we can revive our faith?’ seeker sighed long ~ for, he knew the answer was.... if not our selves.... then our children. the innocence and faith of children. children who try ~ from no more elaborate source than love, faith and trust....
children who try so desperately, genuinely, and unconditionally to share and to teach ~ but who are so often ignored, shunned, blamed or forsaken by elders who are them selves so wounded that they seek a sense of belonging, a sense of place, through the oppression of another. through the oppression of even, and most easily.... a child.
seeker
carried with him the hope
the
voice that cries so loudly,
|
|
|
Writing - Home The
Gift of Everlasting Cheer | Tide Pool
Surprise |
Can You See What I See |
|
|
All text and graphics on this page and within this website (aimsatyourservice.com) are copyrighted by Lisa Bracken and/or Cirse Windom 1995-2007, except as otherwise noted. All rights are reserved. Reproduction and distribution of any kind is strictly prohibited. Please visit the legal notices page to inquire about copyright, reprint and other issues. |