Objection #1: "But victims are everywhere!"
Now it's easy enough to get a bit itchy here when someone (me) starts pecking away in a critical manner regarding some of the most cherished beliefs in our culture, a culture which I feel is startlingly well characterized by the victim consciousness. Consider it all a thought exercise for now. I am willing to wait for your unswaying conviction, which needs to arise from the application of the methods of self mastery in your life and experience, as opposed to just hearing it from me. Let's deal in turn with some objections to my characterization of the victim consciousness as the bottom of the barrel of distorted beliefs.
"But Gil! You seem to imply that there really ARE NO VICTIMS! How utterly preposterous! Just look around you, bub! Victims are everywhere! Innocents are shot in rampages, helpless Terry Shiavo (who if anyone look for two minutes beneath the media spin can be seen laughing at her dad's teasing on the internet (http://www.rense.com/ --scroll down a little bit to link to video clips of Terri--she is quite animate, and aware) is being starved to death in a despicable public execution in slow motion, and everyday, monsters commit heinous and unspeakable crimes, not to mention more day to day, run of the mill victimization. And you have the audacity to claim there are no victims? You've gone off the deep end here! What about abused babies, or sick children? And what about Jesus! He was the greatest victim of all, because he was undoubtedly innocent, in principle, because he is literally the standard of innocence. You at least have to admit that even if everyone else "deserves" to suffer because of their "sins," at least Jesus didn't. So get off this "no victims" kick, before we stop reading this wacky crapola!"
I admit at first glance, it seems a bit crazy to pull the rug out from under a way of being in the world so commonplace and time-honored as that of the victim, but that's what I aim to do, nonethless. That's because the moment we align ourselves with the belief that someone is a victim (ourselves, or another), we leave the path of self mastery and descend into the morass of the thick illusion that we buy into as the "reality" of this planet. When we believe in victims, we take up the mantle of judgement, and transgress the injunction to "judge not." We search for perpetrators and saviors. When we believe in victims, we mistake a role being played by a soul for who that soul really is. When we believe in victims, we indulge in morose emotionality at the expense of focused intentionality. When we view someone as a victim, we sorely underestimate both the power of that creation and the power of the source of all in action: we generate the "problem" of "why bad things happen to good people." The belief in the notion of the victim, I am convinced, has never helped anyone to overcome a difficulty in the most straighforward manner possible. It only helps in the way that banging your head against the wall can eventually convince someone to stop banging hi/r head against the wall!
Because this is such an important objection, and it's more than I can write through in one post, I will continue tommorrow!
"But Gil! You seem to imply that there really ARE NO VICTIMS! How utterly preposterous! Just look around you, bub! Victims are everywhere! Innocents are shot in rampages, helpless Terry Shiavo (who if anyone look for two minutes beneath the media spin can be seen laughing at her dad's teasing on the internet (http://www.rense.com/ --scroll down a little bit to link to video clips of Terri--she is quite animate, and aware) is being starved to death in a despicable public execution in slow motion, and everyday, monsters commit heinous and unspeakable crimes, not to mention more day to day, run of the mill victimization. And you have the audacity to claim there are no victims? You've gone off the deep end here! What about abused babies, or sick children? And what about Jesus! He was the greatest victim of all, because he was undoubtedly innocent, in principle, because he is literally the standard of innocence. You at least have to admit that even if everyone else "deserves" to suffer because of their "sins," at least Jesus didn't. So get off this "no victims" kick, before we stop reading this wacky crapola!"
I admit at first glance, it seems a bit crazy to pull the rug out from under a way of being in the world so commonplace and time-honored as that of the victim, but that's what I aim to do, nonethless. That's because the moment we align ourselves with the belief that someone is a victim (ourselves, or another), we leave the path of self mastery and descend into the morass of the thick illusion that we buy into as the "reality" of this planet. When we believe in victims, we take up the mantle of judgement, and transgress the injunction to "judge not." We search for perpetrators and saviors. When we believe in victims, we mistake a role being played by a soul for who that soul really is. When we believe in victims, we indulge in morose emotionality at the expense of focused intentionality. When we view someone as a victim, we sorely underestimate both the power of that creation and the power of the source of all in action: we generate the "problem" of "why bad things happen to good people." The belief in the notion of the victim, I am convinced, has never helped anyone to overcome a difficulty in the most straighforward manner possible. It only helps in the way that banging your head against the wall can eventually convince someone to stop banging hi/r head against the wall!
Because this is such an important objection, and it's more than I can write through in one post, I will continue tommorrow!
posted by Gil :-) at 8:55 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home