Early Wednesday morning, as we sat and sipped our morning coffee, I remarked to Jan: “I wish I could say, had the election gone the other way, that I would have felt equally relaxed this morning.” But the truth is, I wouldn’t be, and so I engage this truth as an opportunity to practice detachment.
I think of Sixto Rodriguez,* plodding through life with equal reaction to lost stardom or hard labor, giving most of his money away; money and fame simply not relevant to his deeper fulfillment. He teaches that all outcomes are equal: simply live fully, impeccably, and without attachments.
As my models from Carlos Castaneda’s lineage always state: “I am a being who is going to die.” This awareness takes us beyond this life to the death that awaits equally in every moment, presenting the ultimate relativity of the world we find ourselves so deeply attached to. We are beings in eternal transition, in eternal flux.
Carlos once talked about the roles we choose to play in this world, urging us to play them to the fullest. Today he might have pointed to a Todd Akin and rather than judge him, he might have said: “Okay, be it—be the best, the most outlandish conservative you can be—be impeccable in playing out your chosen role; leave no stone unturned; hold nothing back!”
In an ultimate sense, Carlos, like Sixto, pointed to the illusory, transitory world we find ourselves in, that will, like
“Worn-out garments
[be] shed by the body:
[as] Worn-out bodies
Are shed by the dweller
Within the body. (-from the Bhagavad Gita)
And the dweller beyond the illusion of the body is the Atman, the eternal one inside all of us. Embracing the Atman, we release ourselves from attachment to the illusion, and can then play to the fullest, with sheer abandon and delight, the role we’ve chosen to live in this life. Don Juan suggests, however, that that role truly be a path of heart.
I am deeply appreciative of the Republicans—so deeply spirited—who so blatantly expressed themselves with such abandon. Only the full revelation of their heartfelt agenda could mobilize the conscience of a nation to reflect deeply and decide which path of heart the majority would take to responsibly lead this world into the future.
This is indeed a momentous 2012 decision, and humanity chose its course. There will be many more choices and challenges ahead, but a higher level of consciousness has risen above the sedating mass hypnosis of billionaire money. People discovered the truths of their own hearts and waited to vote, despite the obstacles.
And so, for those who lost—I’m sorry for your loss—and I’m deeply appreciative of the necessary role you played so vigorously in advancing all of us, an integrated whole, into a future of real possibility, beyond the Mayan calendar end. We have advanced, consensually agreeing to further this dream on solid ground.
Chuck
* Sixto Rodriguez refers to the man presented in the movie Searching for Sugar Man, previously mentioned here and here.
