Enculturated Ignorance and Wholeness
Children come into this world full of wonder and curiosity. Their wonder and curiosity are not about getting anywhere or being anyone. Their wonder and curiosity are about feeling innately connected to the world around them. They want to explore and play.
Yet, for most people in our culture, by the time we are 10, our wonder and curiosity have been squashed. Instead of playing, we are confined to classrooms, where we are instructed to sit at our desks, learn when to express our opinions, and have very little say in our learning. For connection, we are on phones and tablets instead of being outside and playing. Through following authority, we see that there are right and wrong answers, and we are on our own, competing against our classmates for grades. We are taught to fulfill a role within our hierarchical cultural drama. For many of us, we are then conditioned to be somebody, and in that process, we constantly, without realizing it, judge ourselves against others. As we begin to feel separated from the world, losing sight of our authentic voice and playfulness, we learn to protect ourselves with egoic walls from the traumas of childhood. This is how ignorance is born and established.
Through observation and through looking at our civilization’s historical patterns, I have come to see Western Civilization not as a beacon but as a profoundly ignorant, oppressive system that perpetuates ignorance and tremendous suffering both individually and collectively.
Ignorance is not who we are innately. Any culture is a dream state. Culture is instilled in us from birth. Yet, in awareness, we can begin to shine light into the darkness of the limited enculturated self, burn away all ignorance, and let our true nature, Wholeness, bloom. Here, with the personalized self gone, personalized suffering disappears, for there is no self in which to suffer.
Ignorance
a sorrowful path
taught into all of us
me, you, all of us
ignorance
consuming
growing
arming
forcing
subjagating
business
distracting
rationalizing
intellectualizing
avoiding
numbing
denying
dissocociating
addicting
conditioned into the young
here
ignorance lies
ignorance
dysfunctional
fragmenting
categorizing
formulizing
a name called many names
ignorance
constructed out of its
illusory veil of psychological separation
puppet and puppeteer
generating
and locked into drama
a drama of
insecurities and deceptions
formed out of the composite of fear
ignorance’s
indoctrination
blossoming in twists and turns for millennia
grown out of trauma and oppression
insecure and anxious
stemming into greed
and thorns of hate
blooming blind righteousness
lacking compassion
caught in protectiveness
ignorance
a vying for power
and continual war
individually and collectively
ignorance
enslaving and perpetuated
by its ideological jewels
by its hope for salvation
for its hope for security
and future possibilities
for no pain
all give rise to
psychological fragmentation
ignorance
brought into education
conditioned by family drama
children formed and molded
voices tempered
their ideas conditioned
their visions are not their own
imprisonment of the mind
becomes our path
from the weight of authority’s ignorance
children’s curiosities
and sense of wonder
dampened
numbed
their awake consciousness
lost
pushed down
by the edifice
of the ego-tyrant
as the subtle violence
and authority
is continuously experienced
into ignorance
we lose themselves
so continue the blindness
that lies within our elders
perpetuated into adulthood
devoid of wonder and love
stuck in roles placed upon us
ignorance
perpetuating ignorance
deep-seated insecurity and unworthiness
authors
a psyche clouded by protective narrations
caught in an undertow of unconscious beliefs
concocting divisive stories of a personal self
from here
we want to cling
for want of security
for fear of letting go
for wanting to be somebody
though in the end
through a self-sustaining agenda
ignorance breeds sorrow
struggle
conflict
drama
domination
oppression
into social and ecological
degradation and despair
ignorance
enslaves by
by double-speak propaganda
by beliefs
by identifications
by conditioning
by the splintering of mind/body/ spirit
through blind ideas of right and wrong
by bloody guns and missiles
by educational repression
by trauma
by consumerism’s addictiveness
Peter Benchley image of the hungry ghost
ignorance
is the calling of the will
consuming
like a tempest
like a hungry ghost
upon the world
upon all it comes across
to make itself known
attractive
to destroy those that don’t fit into its creed
ignorance
is the refined summons
of self division
of analytical rationalizations
of suppression and dissonance
stuck in the quicksand
of conditioned thought
like a movie projector
ignorance emanates outward
caught in its own delusion
as the emblem of civilized ideologies
ignorance
the conforming affair
of obsessions and ambitions
the implementation
of brutality and slavery
racism and sexism
genocide and ecocide
war and pestilence
The win-at-all-cost mentality
ignorance
is the craving for pleasure
the escape from pain
through ignorance’s
blind attachments
clinging to things that don’t exist
which in the beginning
and the end
bloom’s constant sorrow
for in its chattering obsessions
always divides
marginalized
masquarades
disguises
decieves
ignorance
appears at times
debonair, stylish, clever, arrogant
other times
ugly, greedy, murderous, deceptive, manipulative
ignorance is the complex conformity, a common pull
a conformity of want
of more
more….permanancy
power
fame, purpose, control
land, people, riches
spirituality
yet
ignorance can never be satiated
the further up the ladder
ignorance climbs
the more enslaved one becomes
ignorance
in its
self-held beliefs
of trying to be somebody
within the hierarchical inverted tomb
faithfully
subconsciously
judges, compares, battles, and isolates
creating mirages
of synthetic meaning
for its own perpetuation and gain
in ignorance’s all-consuming conquest
of becoming
of knowing
in the constant assault
against body, people and the environment
shackles are placed
bars are constructed
hell is formulated
as one holds on for dear life
in knowing
ignorance
so protective, so full of armor
pushs away
splintering person from community
community from nature
and distorts it into polluted fractures
of a pervasive sickness
suffering not peace
unhealth not health
conflict not communion
fractured not wholeness
is the nature of ignorance’s reign
in awareness
all is let go
flowing
dancing in presence
dancing in unknowingness
circulating
through these poetic groves
whole, alive
freedom is
here
is
wholeness
meandering
emptiness
flowing
through all
is all
right here
now
infinite
letting loose
releasing all assumptions
uncovering what lies beneath
raging against
the dictations
of this culture
and rage into the personalized self
peeling layer after layer
all clinging
all duality
good and bad
right and wrong
all knowledge
burned in the incinerator
of pure awareness
burning everything without trying
without doing
until nothing's left
but ashes
even the phoenix
will not emerge
the Buddhas and Christs
disappear into the void
history and civilizations are nothing more
than plays on a screen
all of human creations
dissolve here
wholeness is everything
wholeness is nothing
the illusion shattered
empty, free
all pointers gone
wholeness
swallows the moon, sun, and galaxies
the entire cosmos
universe’s within universe’s lie within wholeness
and here
looking around
discovering
far from isolated
wholeness
lies everywhere
encircling no-where
wholeness is not
who you think it is
wholeness lives for
no creeds, flags, or countries
here
wholeness is nobody
beliefs are veils of illusion
wholeness is you
and wholeness is me
wholeness is all
woman, man, black, white, plant, animal, rocks, rivers, oceans, earth, stars
all of it
wholeness flows
whole
beyond description
immeasurable
home to what is
there lies no time here
for there is no space to define wholeness
peering into
a kaleidoscopic sunset
like a revolving mist
an ever-transforming tapestry
of shifting forms
like waves upon an infinite ocean
nothing to hold onto
all things
come to an end
clinging
becoming
is sorrow
releasing all knowing
all identities
all beliefs
wholeness is left
with nothing
but immeasurable wholeness
this is wholeness
one has nothing to do
but sit in the presence
of the immeasurable wholeness
the meandering
symphony of an undulating flow
of forms and emptiness
yins and yangs
appearing and disappearing
always giving rise to each other
creating and ending
all dreaming
nothing permanent
and wholeness flows through all
wholeness is untouched
