Tuesday, January 08, 2008

I'm just as lost as anybody

For some reason, I can't stop thinking about the fact that, no matter how high we rise or low we sink on life's imagined totem pole hierarchy, we are all equal in the end. Some of us will go peacefully, some of us will be taken horribly, but in the end, our bodies will all eventually fail. Buddhism uses this as evidence of the insignificance of our physical incarnation. Physical life is temporary and any perceived significance it might have(as a product of the egotistical mind) is illusory. Taoism tends to look at death as more or less a non-event, since life and death are essentially irrelevant to the spiritual truth of the Tao.

The idea is that oneness is the only truth, and the divisions we experience in life are muted by its cessation. How did the old poem put it? Something about Kings and peasants all being same when they are put in the ground...I can't remember off hand and I am too busy to look it up, but the concept is pervasive across all of human spirituality. The Judeo-Christian god does not care about a person's station, wealth, or power. His judgment comes down based upon the soul's actions and deeds in life. A good man can struggle in rags or riches, but his fate will be determined by how he lived and what he did…seems fair and logical to me.

So power, money, station, material wealth, etc are all trivial in every major religion I am aware of. Unless the materialist pagans were right, what you have in the physical world will ultimately mean nothing in the spiritual world. Sounds good, on the surface, but the problem is that most of the people I know believe no such thing. In fact, many would consider what I believe to be trivial, if not outright ridiculous. Their god is money and material, their spiritual mantra is ownership, and their prayers are transmitted electronically via credit card and debit transactions. There is no place in their worlds for day-to-day spirituality. The gods need edgier logos and better marketing reps. Someone call Saatchi and Saatchi!

It is an age-old divide, on one side the materialists, on the other the spiritualists, but in the end we are all ultimately unified, so even the idea of sides is ultimately meaningless. While a materialist will spend their entire life pursuing things, acquiring stuff, and seeking superiority, he or she still ends up in the great stillness, eventually. The spiritualist, recognizing the uselessness of pursuing things, lives a minimalist existence and one day too, finds their physical body being recycled into the Earth.

Will all the materialist’s work and struggle have been worth it? I suppose my answer is obvious, though I still have a few things that I struggle and strive for. While I try to reserve my genuine efforts for things that move my heart, mind, or (on lucky, rare occasions) soul, I am little more than a partially reformed materialist. In actuality, I may be even more materially deluded, in that I recognize the lie in material ownership, but willfully choose to chase specific material things anyway. The idea that what we own ends up owning us is real, and one of life's most obvious truths, yet I still work to own things. It’s a bizarre, paradoxical way to live, I suppose. Maybe I’m not ready for monkdom just yet, but I'm working on it.

Everyday People

Sometimes I'm right
And I can be wrong
My own beliefs are in my song

The butcher, the banker
The drummer and then
Makes no difference
What group I'm in
I am everyday people, yeah, yeah

There is a blue one
Who can't accept the green one
For living with a fat one
Trying to be a skinny one
Different strokes
For different folks
And so on and so on

And scooby dooby dooby
Oh sha sha
We got to live together

I am no better
And neither are you
We are the same whatever we do

You love me you hate me
You know me and then
You can't figure out
The bag I'm in
I am everyday people, yeah yeah

There is a long hair
That doesn't like the short hair
For bein' such a rich one
That will not help the poor one
Different strokes
For different folks

And so on and so on
And scooby dooby dooby
Oh sha sha
We got to live together

There is a yellow one
That won't accept the black one
That won't accept the red one
That won't accept the white one
Different strokes
For different folks

And so on and so on
And scooby dooby dooby
Oh sha sha
I am everyday people

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Now playing: Sly & the Family Stone - Everyday People
via FoxyTunes

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Posted by Erik @ 1/08/2008 03:41:00 PM