Culture of Depravity Who are we? A question we’ve been unconsciously asking since we could formulate conscious thought. Are we good, are we bad, are we pretty, or ugly? What is pretty or ugly? Christianity, according to the Catholic Church, calls us dirty rotten sinners with no hope of salvation unless we bend knee to Christ and beg his forgiveness. In fact, since then, we’ve founded our very culture on that concept, bending our knee that is. In the beginning, mostly according to our mothers, we are the most beautiful things in the world. By the time we reach two or three years old, our mothers still love us, but we’re not always the most beautiful things in the world anymore. Indeed, shortly after the age of two, we enter into a whole different world than the one we were born in. As we begin to speak and communicate with our surroundings, we become more emotionally involved on a conscious level. The energetic impressions we’ve survived with start to withdraw within, replaced with concepts created solely from the structure of language. Material concepts, flat concepts that no longer incorporate the world of feeling where we came from, but are based solely on the world of observation and sense. At this point, depending on who raised us and how, our spirit is either forced into hiding, or encouraged to come out. None of the material forms of communication effectively relate our emotions or intuition. Although we continually seek to express those observations via the language, the language becomes increasingly inflexible. In time we learn the language in order to adapt and survive in the world we find ourselves in. The spirit withdraws from the physical world. As a result, we’ve entered into a culture of depravity. It could be said that modern culture isn’t equipped to notice this gross regression of what we would call our humanity. In the 9th century at the 8th Ecumenical congress of the Catholic Church, the path of humanity was cast into Exoteric Christianity, meaning the church would only teach about the physical life of Christ. Versus the esoteric path which would have taught the true inner purpose of Christ. Something that had been being taught at least three thousand years before Jesus was baptized in Palestine. Something as seemingly simple as that, set humanity on a path deeper into materialism, and further away from whom we really were. Now, 1100 years later, in America, our culture is based on something we are not, and no one knows the difference. Because of this we are spiritually depressed and can't figure out why. While modern material science tells us it's just because we have a chemical imbalance. We live in artificial characters we create for the purpose of social acceptance. While who we really are, seeks in vain to find someone who will see us for who we are and accept us. Our material concept of love may be based on image, but what we really seek is someone who will let us step out of character and into ourselves. After the first two years of childhood have passed, the industrial conditioning begins. Our parents are the first contact we make with material culture. They help elevate our animal skills to a civilized level. We learn to use toilet facilities, wash regularly, eat with fashioned utensils, the beginning functions of basic tools and conformity concepts. The process of indoctrination is simple, deny love when something is done wrong, and give love when something is done right. In most cases, resist the formulation of individuality. It is essential to break the will, in the interests of conformity. The child must understand patterns of abnormality will be rewarded with rejection, while actions of conformity will be rewarded with acceptance. Today, we give our children drugs to sedate them and hopefully coach them into acceptable behaviors. We would hope that in the future, the use of genetics will have a more lasting impact on the personality of the child, and the future normalization of humanity. This is evil. This concept of a reward system is continued well into adult life, where it takes on a more in depth meaning, and causes deeper damage. As emerging adults, we take ourselves way too seriously. Building hasty personality concepts through which to conduct ourselves. Then in the light of self-consciousness, we do stupid things to restrict the growth of healthy personality concepts. Sometimes even purposefully steering ourselves into dead end activities and thought forms. All usually based on our perception of how the world outside perceives us. Constantly seeking the approval of others to help us establish our own personal sense of self worth. This is one of the depressing truths of our culture. One might not want to recognize that one was so dependent upon the basic herd concepts of socialization. But we need the community of our fellow souls. A common song sings through all of us. The only thing separating us, are the illusions in our heads, and the lack of a sound cultural format through which to share ourselves. One designed with the idea of lifting each of us up individually. Giving us the opportunity, that as we aspire to the highest within ourselves, this experience will weave its way into our culture, and thus our group expression, our community. In ancient civilizations we see that most cultures revolved around community rituals, this is another of our basic community herd instincts. The ritual was the way we established our groupness. Participating together in song, dance, and story. This concept never left our culture. It got distorted into another use. We still have the rituals of song, dance, and story, but those concepts have been adapted to the rituals of the present. The psychological establishment of image based illusion. That this has led us into Idolatry is evident in the way we now worship image. Thus, rather than celebrating our unique diversity, we ridicule difference, and compete for image. That within us, which would normally seek to celebrate other, is rejected by other in the interest of competition. Giving us the opportunity to feel alone in the midst of a city of 15 million. In a sense this was our destiny. It was the only way we would fully explore the concepts if individuality, in relation to the will. But it is time for us to begin to recognize the patterns within our community. Only we can make the choice to put our community, ahead of idolatry and ourselves. Idolatry drives us to seek to conform to someone else's idea of whom they think we should be. This is oppressive to our sense of being. Idolatry turns us against each other in the competition to become the idol of the moment. Just to serve our vanity. This is corruptive to our souls. Competitive isolation, gives way to doubt, doubt to fear, fear to illusion, we walk through the day believing we are awake, when in all actuality we sleep. Moving about in the daze of our internal imagery, what we would like to think is really going on around us. This competition eats at our culture, distorting our good values, corrupting them to the concepts of idolatry. I don't really call it culture anymore. Culture could be defined as the collective creative expression of a people. We are a frenzy of confusion. Consumerism is expanding out of control. In our emotional disparity we seek relief in material distractions, consumption. Possessions represent image. We consume to the point where consumerism has become its own fuel. We couldn't stop consuming now even if we wanted to. Our economy is completely dependent upon consumption. If we stop, the economy stops, the power goes off, the water stops, the food runs out and we starve to death. We are also victims of debt oppression. If you are in debt you can't very well stop working until you've paid off the debt. Americans are so deep in debt we would lose everything we've worked for our whole lives. That’s what it comes down to. You have to consume to work, you have to work to live, you have to work. Having no choice in the matter further erodes our sense of personnel power. We come into this world, creativity in the form of a human. We build things, obsessively. When we give our energy expression in organized movement, we imbue that effort with a part of ourselves. We used to call ourselves craftsmen. A cobbler would make us a pair of shoes. A tailor would make us a coat. His energy of creation would reside in his effort. He got to own that sense of accomplishment. Now we live in the world of mass production. We are called employees. We are reduced to the meaninglessness of repetitive action occupations, our creativity is usurped, our expression stunted. When our expression is cast down by economic disparity, we are crushed. The combination of all these forces is called oppression. The weight of oppression drives the spirit down within and turns it upon itself. The repetition of our lives has hypnotized us into cliché personalities, mimicking the actions of others, in favor over our own. We seek to play the Hero, the Villain, and the beautiful Princess. We all seek to be the thing we think other people will like especially a significant other. Sexual companionship is a strong instinctual motivator. We remember all the things people tell us are bad about us, and we try to hide them from the new person. Show them our best side, and then slowly work them into accepting the reality of who we are. This is not healthy. Where what we see controls how we feel, not just how we think. Talking to a stranger on the telephone, we are attracted to the voice, and without knowing what they look like, we judge the personality different. Then we see them and our impressions are sometimes adjusted to accommodate our physical appreciation of the person. I am guilty of this perspective. It is a source of torment for me, but my physical preferences seem to be more important than my spiritual impression of a respective partner. This is the most intimate level of acceptance for us as human beings. Yet in this place we perpetrate our most heinous violence. We judge each other, and we judge ourselves. Our potential self-esteem is based on the level of culture class we can appear to be on. Thus, we have the addiction to consumption and physical image in our culture. Ironically, the concept of love that motivates us all, is the same concept in all of us. A pure concept that exists outside the physical world captured within a moment of feeling within our hearts. We know this feeling. We pursue this feeling, and alas it flees from us, or so we think. We often capture it and force it to conform to our will, only to find out after we have crushed it, that it was already what we wanted. But, in our deprived state, we forced it into the definition we wanted it to have, and destroyed what was there. All to fill that empty space within us. To give us a real reason to come out. To be that better person we want to be. Happy, and comfortable with giving our love to other people. So long as they live up to our expectations. We know the violence we commit in the name of love. This schism within our nature must be dealt with. We know we want to overcome. It takes far more energy to hold our love in than it does to let it out. Its just that for some reason we think it hurts more to let it out. Every time we try, and believe we fail, we add a brick to the wall around our heart. If it weren't for the body's need for nourishment, and shelter, I think we would sit around all day pondering the needs of our hearts. We meet someone, but they are not as sprung on us as we are on them. We create the illusion of rejection to make a coping mechanism for their inevitable rejection. As time goes on the coping mechanisms have to become more elaborate, complex, in order to feel worthwhile. Meanwhile, our perspective of who we think we are, and what we think we need, is constantly changing. Shifting to adapt to our many successes and/or failures. All the while trying to validate the self with materialistic definitions that can only deprive the self of a truthful image of itself. We are spiritual beings; words cannot adequately define us. We should not limit our impressions of ourselves to our physically observable vehicle. Our verbal dialogue needs to evolve to a level of being able to understand us as spirit. Communicate our intuition. We need to learn to speak to and in the truth of who and what we are. The main source of our social pain is our inability to do this. We know when we're being fake, and we know how to lie well. We need to learn be open and accepting of one another. The emotional violence, as well as the physical violence, we inflict upon one another involves us in a web of karma. This karma will drag us down if we do not learn how to love, and stop lashing out at each other. You will not ascend towards heaven, if you cannot unburden your heart, and open it to the world. You will not find happiness or peace so long as you deny yourself. Forgiveness, is the path whereby we allow the wounds to heal. Only sincere forgiveness and humility will prevail. The heart dies when it hardens, and can become a powerful source of pain and violence. This is the struggle between good and evil within us. You know the battlefield well. The esoteric concept of Christ, is the strength you will find within, to forgive and to try to love again, when you let go of the pain. It is the strength to shine in humility. Not as a weakling, but as someone who can realize it takes strength to be vulnerable, realize they are infinite, and that no manner of judgement can inflict self-doubt. It is the choice of the individual. The sleeper must awaken. We must dispel this culture of Depravity. |