In the beginning, change was limited and we were bolted to mother earth. We had evolved for our environment, learned directly and instinctively from it -- we were prepared and functioned.
In the beginning, their could not have been much distinction between ourselves and other species. I don't think we were arrogant then, or felt separated from others or from the earth. There could not have been much distinction between our inner feelings and what our senses showed us of the outside either. We were a part of the all, innately functional, in Eden.
Control by any one person over others was minimized by the limit of one's vision and physical power. As with most animals, innate compassion for ourselves and our species minimized violence against ourselves. Mothers must have loved their young then, maybe even more than now. Empathy is a natural moral imperative, and it requires no discipline or fear.
But our brains were large and we developed to think abstractly and verbalize our thoughts. In time we originated customs, superseded our instincts, changed without waiting for genetics to help us. We were no longer limited by line of sight and muscle power. We became clever, intellectual, and we expanded our domain. We multiplied our power, but not our humanity.
The instinctive dominance of one person over another which resolved conflict and stabilized the small tribe, could now become overbearing tyranny. Authoritarian hierarchies developed in the bigger world, as did slavery.
Empathy, which protected us from excess aggression within the tribe, could not be stretched to encompass the larger community. We could not know so many people, could not retain our identity, could not protect our privacy. The transition brought about by our intellect, was forcing changes we were not equipped for morally. There is a critical mass we can work with, care about, socialize with, and it was exceeded. In the enlarged society, we adapted by separating ourselves, becoming selective, emphasizing differences, stratifying people into classes, sticking to our own kind.
The cruelty of the bigger world was at first only physical. People could still feel an inner sense of self, a desire for their partner, love for their children. Their bodies became enslaved but their minds, hearts, and souls might still be free.
Over time, as armies stretched thin, as communication along the increasingly higher pyramid of power was distorted, as power corrupted from within, man's physical domain yielded to the dominance of mind. The pen became mightier than the sword, but this did not liberate people from dominance. It only changed the rules in favor of shrewdness and deception. Our minds came under the control of external power just as our bodies had before.
Throughout the building of these physical and verbal authoritarian systems, there have been power seekers of a different kind. These men, claiming divine authority, preached selflessness and devotion to God's will. It was not only dangerous to think independently or resist authority, it was immoral! Knowingly or not, many clerics effectively conspired with the dictators and the money changes to lower our resistance to their invasion, to blindly accept external control. Along with the dictators, they separated us from our nature, from our spiritual core, and then gave us an external authoritarian ruthless God. Our souls then too were enslaved.
Power over others has become subtle, taking the form of financial complexities, litigation, endless moral dilemmas, and political lies. Confusion expands, and we all fall farther behind.
Mothers no longer protect us, respect our boundaries, or help us grow. Separated from their own nature, both parents blindly following the dictates of the general, the clergy, the clever politician. They train their children by teaching shame for their naked bodies, their dirty habits, their distaste for Grandmother's kisses. We are all taught to abandon our inner sense of self, to follow external man made authority, as if unworthy in our natural state.
When the children are five, they are turned over to the school where they learn not to talk, not to fidget, not to look out the window at Nature's beautiful day. This is only the first institution that presumes to know better than our inner self what is right, what is good for us, what is normal, what is truth.
Once we surrender to external coercion, and a child can not help but surrender, the self esteem built around our inner guidance system becomes obsolete. Respect for ourselves or others becomes directed from outside controls. Unhooked from our innate guide, we are groundless and swayed by the shifting tides. Public opinion, pear pressure, TV, parochial views all control us. In our denatured state, we long mostly for distractions -- things, people, sex, pleasure, mother, toys. Development has been arrested.
We become meek, submitting over and over to the outside we depend upon. We get weaker with each submission, draw to ourselves even greater external control. We eventually accept the opinion of our controllers -- we are unworthy. In this crippled state, we need these very oppressors, even come to worship them. This empowers them farther of course, rationalizes their control, creates the illusion that they are heroes saving us from ourselves! We join them in surprising the natural spirit within us, and the die is cast.
Some oppressed people become violent and rebellious. They refuse to give in and become more vicious than their abusers. In this way, the violator gets inside the victim, perverts him, possesses him. This only serves to empower their abusers in a different way; because such dangerous people call for even more authority.
There is still a conscience in such people, and guilt ridden rebels may surrender out of self loathing and become meek in the moment. Likewise meek people may finally strike out at their oppressors, or someone else. Impulsive switches of mode show the polarized unbalanced nature of external authority and its results. Disconnected from themselves, both the rebels and the sheep are possessed by the oppressor. Both come to depend upon each other in a sadomasochistic game, often becoming sexual. Once invaded by others, we abandon our sense of self, loose our inner guide, and bob without ballast from one extreme to the other. This devil in all of us is fear and shame of ourselves and unfocused resentment towards everyone. It spreads like mold.
We are insecure in our disconnected state. We are so dependent upon the undependable outside, upon our wife or husband who will disappoint us, upon the recognition of our competitive and jealous pears. Taught always that our inner self is wrong, we live in fear of being shamed, of being detected for who we really are. We build a mask, what else can we do? Ego is just a well built defense against shame, put upon us by an unnatural society.
The larger world, the external world of man made ideas and words, has come to dominate over the inner world and our nature, which is to say God. While it provides tools and superficial pride for some, it demands self contempt from everyone. Where else does all our suicide, addiction, estrangement, insomnia, and dysfunction come from?
Our institutions are dedicated to illusions. The illusions of decency, wisdom, and power
I wish to return, not to the cave, but to Eden. I will find in myself what has been repressed and disrespected, which is God. I will overcome the lies, pride, and willfulness of this society and be "born again".