Good morning, everyone, and happy day to you!
Yesterday I outlined my favorite and really my only conspiracy theory, which is, in short, that the collection of unconscious processes that we call ‘conditioned mind’ is the thing that is in charge of our human world and all of the societies within it, and also dominates the mind of nearly every individual on the planet, resulting in all of the violence and chaos that we witness every day through the news.
One of the consequences of this fact (and from my perspective it is a fact) is that we are continually being subjected to conditioned mind through other people. By and large, in other words, people are channeling conditioned mind through their body, mouth, and mind, and perpetuating acts of unkindness, unfairness, prejudice, and violence upon those around them. Because we all live within the survival system that is our culture, we are inevitably subject to these things, and this, of course, is not a good time.
How may we best deal with this reality? The trick is to respond to conditioned mind, whether that originates internally or externally, from a place of centered awareness. This is, of course, one of those many things that is easy to say but terribly difficult to accomplish. It takes a tremendous amount of training and practice to be able to respond to conditioning with unconditional love. And yet that is our practice. Both internally and externally there is the possibility that we may respond from our authentic nature to whatever arises, no matter how dysfunctional, how hurtful, or how ugly it may be.
As I practice in this way myself, I find it helpful to remember this basic fact:
What people do to me is what was done to them.
Whatever conditioning a person is acting from, no matter how egregious it may be, that conditioning is something that was done to them at some time, and done to them repeatedly over time. The reason we all act out of our conditioned system, in other words, is because we simply are repeating the training we received. A person would never act violently, self-centeredly, with prejudice or unfairness, and so on, unless they have experienced those very same things themselves through the agency of other conditioned people.
For me at least it’s not difficult to get to a compassionate place in regards even to those who act out their conditioning upon me, when I can remember this fact. We are all the victims of our social conditioning. None of us when we act out of conditioned mind are making a free choice to do that. All of us when we act unconsciously are acting without real choice. We are just doing what we were forced to learn to do when we were children.
So that’s something you might consider as you go through your day and you go through your life. It’s not necessary to take anything personally, even the ugly things that other people do. We’re all just doing the best we can with what we have, and what we have, unfortunately, is a world dominated by conditioned mind. Let us remember this as best we can, and respond with compassion and love even to those who are unconsciously doing hurtful things, as best we can, day by day as we go through our lives.
In peace,
David