Illusory Values

“This world is an illusion”, we have been told from the pulpits of the churches. But, unbeknown to most, what the pontifications did was to substitute and/or endorse one illusion for another which, in this case, was the illusion of religion itself. While religion reigns right at the top of illusive notions, there is a host of “values” that are just as
unhinged from its simplest logical mooring. It belies the most rudimentary intelligence to see those “values” inflame passions for which men even spill blood.

“Values”, after all, are nothing more than “symbols”. And symbols are just that: symbolic. If symbols merely represent something, then the symbols in and of themselves are of little value. Yet, some of the biggest crimes against humanity are committed over “symbols”. This would be like substituting the symbolic wedding ring for the complex dynamics of a marriage.

Your very birth is a “chance” event. The wealth you are born into or the lack of it is mere chance; your ethnicity, your nationality, your culture, your faith, your language and your DNA attributes are all a constellation of synchronous and sequential “chance” events. Whether you drive a Cadillac or a bullock cart, is chance. Despite all this, the core “identity” you represent at the cellular level is hardly distinct or
different from another set of genetic markers. All human beings are 99.9% of common genetic make-up. So what are the differences we fight over, we
discriminate about, assign blue and commoner lineages, and invest and divest superiority and special privileges?

“Chance” means something not earned. Inheritance makes you a passive recipient and, therefore, your contribution is zero. Your faith is what your parents followed. Then what is this chest-thumping claim you bear to some “sole truth” you “chanced” upon? What makes the “truth” of your counterpart, say, in Tibet less so than yours? Is it not just as plausible that you are deluded and that your Tibetan brother or sister may have a leg
up on you? The point here is that there is a full-blown industry built
around faith notions. They all claim to know the truth as only known to
them. Consider this simple scenario: you will not put a foreign student who is just beginning to learn English compete alongside one who has graduate-level proficiency; would you? Then why would an all-knowing god give the unfair advantage of a head-start to the Pearly Gates to some purely based on “chance” and deny others such advantage? What does this say about those zealot Christians running around to convert people for “salvation”, and the Muslims calling all non-Muslims infidels? From where do these people derive their special legitimacy and subsume such
divination that others are not privy to?

The answer lies in the DSM IV psychiatric diagnosis, Delusions of Grandeur. It is a psychosis. And then there is a whole lot of “chance” factors around which people ground themselves into unrelenting and unforgiving positions. Honour killings: a barbaric act that seeks to
soothe a bruised family ego for the personal choice a member makes in
response to the natural and biologic neurotransmitter signals from the
brain. These are the very impulses that have sustained life on this planet
for the past several millions of years.

I guess the power of such evolutionary processes mean nothing to the
barbarians. What matters more to them, apparently, is the “honour”: one
that constitutes artificially created class statuses, distorted wealth
concepts, suppressed emotional and intellectual processes, and often
competing and divergent illusory faith matters that are deemed incompatible
with the family’s own delusions!

Another set of “values” bear the stamp of personification of economic
and lifestyle agendas. These exude the ubiquitous seductive appeal to
citizenry as conceived and promoted by governments and business
corporations. It has practically destroyed North America; India is fast
hurtling down the lane of self-immolation as deceived by the illusory
“prosperity” indices of GDP. Has anyone paused for a moment to consider how the truly enlightened ancient civilizations of Indus Valley and Mohenjodaro would have rated themselves without the benefit of these economic formulas? If the Native Americans took it upon themselves to evaluate the impact of every single socio-economic decision they made for up to seven future generations before implementing them, what kind of relevancy would GDP indices have carried with them? GDP means consumption at the cost of conservatory and preservative values, where the growth chart would a CEO’s erotic dream of an ever expanding trend right out of the Big Bang Theory!

What, then, are values that are not illusory? The answer is simple: knowledge of your true self and its through-put with untainted integrity resulting in outcomes that are true to the nature of your spiritual self.
What obfuscate this rather simple matter are the distortions we are
surrounded with right from our birth. These distortions clog every single
neural pathway with white-noises that are nothing but lies; yes, BIG LIES.
The religious membership and identity we are given at birth are nothing but
a North American equivalent of the Sam’s Club or Costco superstore card. Every new member, just as in the case of the superstores, assures the financial and business viability of the religious organization the member
is affiliated with. Those in leadership are dream merchants themselves not
unlike those in Hollywood and Bollywood though with the critical
difference that the latter group claims no divine attributes to the fictitious nature of their stories. Then there is the social hive with its many compartments that place us in a host of little combs. It is not easy to cross the dividing lines here unless the great leveler – wealth – cuts through the barriers with diplomatic immunity. Then there are the social norms with sub-classifications as would apply to communities with their own book of rules defining customs and traditions within the larger society. Crossing these is taboo resulting in a range of punitive measures from excommunication on the lighter side to being targeted for “honour” killing on the more sinister side.

Whose honour? Defined by whom and in violation of what? Don’t expect
answers that might prompt you to go,“Gee, why didn’t I think of that?” In
most instances you would be left utterly baffled by an explanation that
will make Jonah’s survival in the belly of a whale for three days more
believable than the chemical composition of water = H2O!

Then there are these racial and ethnic stereotyping to be contended with,
amongst all of which your true,authentic and distinct self gets as
unrecognizable as your reflection over rippling waters. If the quality of life is measured by your intrinsic worth as a human being with the ultimate goal of selfactualization as elucidated by Maslow, illusory values cannot be a part of the process.

True spirituality is counterintuitive to stagnation, for spiritual energy is light and free-flowing where as stagnation is like a puddle that is
muddied and lifeless. What the “modern” world has lost is this true
understanding of spirituality. The “ancient” world, in their effort to
reason our place in the universe, came up with abstracts such as “Ohm” and “Brahma”. By this they were light-years ahead of us. We, in our severely damaged and unimaginative evolutionary state, have now come to be symbolized by the likes of the Korean Kim Jong Il, the Iranian Ahmadinejad,
the Indian Pramod Mutalik and the American, Sarah Palin, each representing any number of illusory values under the common dunce cap labeled, ignoramus.

I will end this article by citing two Native American Indian statements:
one, a proverb and the other a prophecy. The Native Indian civilization is dated to be around 20,000 years old; however, the question is whether they are the true archetypes for what is “progressive and visionary” wisdom
embodying spiritual enlightenment, or it is us, in the 21st century, with
claims to higher knowledge by calling out from minarets and sitting in splendorous robes under the domes adorning Michelangelo’s masterful paintings, and merely think and therefore we are (to be enlightened and progressive)?

- Treat the earth well. It was not given to you by your parents; it was
loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the earth from our
Ancestors; we borrow it from our children.
(Native Indian proverb)

- Only after the last tree has been cut down; only after the last river has been poisoned; only after the last fish has been caught; only then you will find that money cannot be eaten.
(Cree prophecy)

Those ancient Native Americans said: “Mitakuye Oyasin” (We are all related). What they knew in their ancient wisdom continues to elude us for we are caught in the quicksand of illusory values. The white noises jar our
aural pathways; the distortions blur our views; the lies impinge upon our
objectivity. Life is not an illusion unless we make it one.