Guest Article:

Separative-Ego Blindfolds Result in 

Attachment to Partisan Politics

By Surf Reyes

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TO THOSE who are enlightened, or have chosen to become free of ego attachment and are blessed with discernment, there is only one reality, one being; like a jigsaw puzzle picture, there is only the reality of the interconnectedness of all, the unified field of wholeness behind the appearance of separation. But those who choose to remain enslaved by ego attachment are, in effect, blindfolded from this reality, being totally dependent on perception, which can only see the outer appearances, or illusion of separation. To these, blindfolded by ego attachment, reality is like a clutter of seemingly meaningless separated jigsaw puzzle pieces on the table. When separation is taken as reality itself, fragmentation and conflict becomes the inevitable manifestation, and so is pain and suffering. Free of the blindfold of ego attachment, of separate-self centeredness, one effortlessly sees the truth in the light that this world of appearances or illusion of separation is not meant to lead to fragmentation and conflict, but like a jigsaw puzzle, is meant to lead to the discovery of wholeness and its infinite natural manifestations of unity and harmony.

In the country today, the force of darkness is having its heyday as people continue to choose to keep their separative ego blindfolds, expressing in, among others, the attachment to partisan politics, effecting the manifestation of ever deepening fragmentation and conflict, pain and suffering. The many arrogant egos are very "intelligent" in justifying their hatred, but are in fact totally ignorant to the reality of the spirit and the reality of the oneness of all in God.

But the self-righteous, believing he has a reality totally separate from others, attached to the "rightness" of his "position" as ag-ainst the "wrongness" of the other may ask, "Just because of this oneness of all that you say is the reality, should we then simply allow all the wrong in our midst?"

Of course not, just as you shouldn’t allow any illness in a part of your body to remain unattended as it may worsen to the detriment of the whole body. But let us go through the deeper subtleties underlying the question.

First, one must be sure of what is truly "wrong". You wouldn’t want your liver removed only to find out later that it was really your bladder that was the problem. Similar cases actually happen, but if you still find this as such an exaggeration, you should find out how many on death row have been executed only to be found out later were actually innocent. How many people have been wrongly judged based on circumstantial, or worse, hearsay "evidence" in ordinary life situations?

Hearsay evidence, which is the prime factor in the manipulation of perception in demonizing a person, is gobbled up as truth by people who are totally dependent on perception, or who have vested interests, or are simply prejudiced against the person so charged. Judging people by hearsay evidence is understandable of the Machiavelian manipulators, blinded by the greed for power, who deliberately employ it.

But is most unfortunate in those who easily succumb to the manipulation because they are simply naïve or are merely blinded by their prejudice or hate and become as unknowing instruments of the force of darkness.

And most of the charges hurled at each other are based, at this moment, on hearsay evidence. I have often posed the question to many people possessed by the "rightness" of their positions and who vehemently declare, in essence, that so and so committed corrupt or criminal acts, "Were you present when the corrupt or criminal act was committed?"  For as the wise saying goes, "Nothing is real to you until you experience it, otherwise it’s just hearsay." Often, they evade the obvious answer by saying, "I know people who know this happened!"  To which I respond with another question, "In the presence of God right now, are you willing to lose your life if you were wrong?"

Without humility, this normally falls on deaf ears and merely elicits irritation, for understandably, prejudice and hate, which is ego-centered, knows no reason. And so for Erap and the poison of prejudice and hatred for GMA, and those who are perceived to be their respective "kakampi" or "co-conspirators", runs in the veins of the one body of our consciousness, the Filipino noosphere.

Which brings us to the second subtle point. For though we admit, that which is truly wrong must be rectified, wisdom dictates that any situation is not as important as the attitude we choose to have of that situation; being right or wrong is not as important as our attitude to being right or wrong. There is no error, for instance, when one humbly accepts being wrong and learns from it, for the wrong merely becomes a step in the singular process of being right. But it is, for instance, an error to be attached to being right, which is what happens with bigotry, or what leads to what is termed "holy wars" (a verbal delusion that is contradictory in terms). More ordinary examples would be people killing each other in an argument over a basketball game or a traffic altercation; or a family rift due to a difference in political positions.

With attachment, or enslavement, to being right there is the absence of compassion for who is perceived to be wrong. Compassion is the ability to feel the feelings of others as one’s own. Your body has utmost compassion for its parts; when your toe suffers an inflamed ingrown toenail, you feel its pain.

This is because you are awake to the reality of your toe as a part of your whole body. What is "wrong" with the toe belongs to the whole body. But in ignorance, people do not take others as part of themselves. In reality, it is said, "Love thy neighbor as thyself" because your neighbor is in fact a part of yourself, for we are all parts of each other in the oneness of all.

And each one’s pain and suffering, each one’s wrongdoing or act of ignorance belongs to all, the whole body. Only with that holistic attitude can all the wrong in our midst be rectified.

A perfect example of this lack of compassion is in the reaction of some people to the killing of Villaruel. I heard some people say angrily, in essence, "He deserved to be killed because he did something wrong", and "He knew what was coming when he did what he did." Even if we grant that what he did was wrong (he was your gangrenous toe at that moment, for example), I don’t believe these people would be so black and white about it if he were their father, or brother, or some dear friend of many years. They have no sense of oneness with him at all, no compassion. The same thing happens when somebody gets angry at another driver for cutting into his lane. He wouldn’t react in the same way if he recognized the other driver as a friend or relative.

Not that the other’s act wasn’t wrong, either. His attitude about the wrong act is simply different, or not separative.

 In the absence of compassion, they can only see the wrongdoing; they do not care about how the man felt that brought him to do what he did, or what kind of person he was before this. They do not care how the wife or the children feel about what happened. They become fixated on his being wrong and on their being right. They have not discovered that to love unconditionally is more important than to be right.

And these are people who went through "higher" education, go to Mass and profess belief in Jesus who said, "Love one another as I have loved you." Their total indifference, if not prejudice towards Villaruel wouldn’t be their meaning of loving one another as Jesus did, would it? For inspite of our "sins", he loved us all unconditionally as he was awake to the reality of the oneness of all, the one body of Christ that many simply pay token lip service to.

Without this holistic attitude then, there is the real danger of the body being mutilated in the process of supposed rectification of the wrong.

If your arm were painful due to "pilay" or some muscles and ligaments getting out of place, you wouldn’t hate your arm and try to cut it off, but simply "hilot" or massage it to try to put the wayward muscles and ligaments back into place. If your inflamed toe becomes gangrenous and the doctor advises to cut it off, you wouldn’t rage in hatred for the toe and chop it off yourself, would you? You’d probably ask the doctor to be sure there is no other recourse, or ask another doctor’s opinion, wouldn’t you? 

But this is also what happened not too long ago when there was this man on death row who was convicted for the rape of his own daughter. The self-righteous raged with hatred demanding for his death. In their ignorance, blindfolded by ego attachment, they thought killing this earthly vehicle would remove "evil" consciousness from the world. In reality, the root of this consciousness is within all of us, which is ego attachment, or separate-self centeredness.

Which brings us to the second subtle point. For though we admit, that which is truly wrong must be rectified, wisdom dictates that any situation is not as important as the attitude we choose to have of that situation; being right or wrong is not as important as our attitude to being right or wrong. There is no error, for instance, when one humbly accepts being wrong and learns from it, for the wrong merely becomes a step in the singular process of being right. But it is, for instance, an error to be attached to being right, which is what happens with bigotry, or what leads to what is termed "holy wars" (a verbal delusion that is contradictory in terms). More ordinary examples would be people killing each other in an argument over a basketball game or a traffic altercation; or a family rift due to a difference in political positions.

With attachment, or enslavement, to being right there is the absence of compassion for who is perceived to be wrong. Compassion is the ability to feel the feelings of others as one’s own. Your body has utmost compassion for its parts; when your toe suffers an inflamed ingrown toenail, you feel its pain.

This is because you are awake to the reality of your toe as a part of your whole body. What is "wrong" with the toe belongs to the whole body. But in ignorance, people do not take others as part of themselves. In reality, it is said, "Love thy neighbor as thyself" because your neighbor is in fact a part of yourself, for we are all parts of each other in the oneness of all.

And each one’s pain and suffering, each one’s wrongdoing or act of ignorance belongs to all, the whole body. Only with that holistic attitude can all the wrong in our midst be rectified.

A perfect example of this lack of compassion is in the reaction of some people to the killing of Villaruel. I heard some people say angrily, in essence, "He deserved to be killed because he did something wrong", and "He knew what was coming when he did what he did." Even if we grant that what he did was wrong (he was your gangrenous toe at that moment, for example), I don’t believe these people would be so black and white about it if he were their father, or brother, or some dear friend of many years. They have no sense of oneness with him at all, no compassion. The same thing happens when somebody gets angry at another driver for cutting into his lane. He wouldn’t react in the same way if he recognized the other driver as a friend or relative.

Not that the other’s act wasn’t wrong, either. His attitude about the wrong act is simply different, or not separative.

In the absence of compassion, they can only see the wrongdoing; they do not care about how the man felt that brought him to do what he did, or what kind of person he was before this. They do not care how the wife or the children feel about what happened. They become fixated on his being wrong and on their being right. They have not discovered that to love unconditionally is more important than to be right.

And these are people who went through "higher" education, go to Mass and profess belief in Jesus who said, "Love one another as I have loved you." Their total indifference, if not prejudice towards Villaruel wouldn’t be their meaning of loving one another as Jesus did, would it? For inspite of our "sins", he loved us all unconditionally as he was awake to the reality of the oneness of all, the one body of Christ that many simply pay token lip service to.

Without this holistic attitude then, there is the real danger of the body being mutilated in the process of supposed rectification of the wrong.

If your arm were painful due to "pilay" or some muscles and ligaments getting out of place, you wouldn’t hate your arm and try to cut it off, but simply "hilot" or massage it to try to put the wayward muscles and ligaments back into place. If your inflamed toe becomes gangrenous and the doctor advises to cut it off, you wouldn’t rage in hatred for the toe and chop it off yourself, would you? You’d probably ask the doctor to be sure there is no other recourse, or ask another doctor’s opinion, wouldn’t you? 

But this is also what happened not too long ago when there was this man on death row who was convicted for the rape of his own daughter. The self-righteous raged with hatred demanding for his death. In their ignorance, blindfolded by ego attachment, they thought killing this earthly vehicle would remove "evil" consciousness from the world. In reality, the root of this consciousness is within all of us, which is ego attachment, or separate-self centeredness.

And as long as we choose to support and feed energy to it, we are as accomplices to every perceived wrongdoer’s act and must share in his guilt. This is the essence of, "He who is without sin cast the first stone."  This is also the essence of, "Judge not, lest you be judged."

For just as, in the reality of the interconnectedness of all consciousness, our smallest acts of impatience and intolerance to each other feeds the energy of world wars, and all manner of violent conflicts in society, so does any abuse for pleasure feed the energy of all manner of rape.

Rape after all is not confined to sexual rape. Rape is forcing one’s will on another through superior force for selfish interests. In ordinary situations this is what people do when they do not give proper wages to company employees, or the household help. This is what authority figures do when they ban the youth from wearing their unique fashion and hairstyles just because they find it personally displeasing.

Rape is the essence of all human rights violations. Then there is the rape of the natural environment mostly for financial profit. There are countless examples that people merely refuse to acknowledge as essentially of the same thing just because they themselves are doing it. Smoking is one. It is indisputable that cigarette smoking is destructive to the lungs and to one’s health, yet people still do it. No animal in the whole of nature would hurt itself for pleasure except man (who is supposed to be intelligent).

So why should we condemn anyone for hurting another for pleasure and play blind to other acts which are essentially the same?

Many of the noisy, vehement, pharisaic people who condemn and separate themselves from the perceived wrongdoers of society are as cigarette smokers protesting the pollution and destruction of our natural environment. They are as the many who constantly complain of the garbage problem but who choose to keep their inner garbage of ill will towards others. They have not realized that the outer reality is only the manifestation of the inner; and that the only real way to fix the outer is to fix the inner.

So how do we rectify the wrong in our midst? By doing what we feel we must to the best of our imagination, ability and resources, but without any separative attitude (for, in a very real way, each one of us is a part of the problem). And certainly not with prejudice and hate, but with compassion for others who may have done wrong in their ignorance. This is the essence of, "Forgive them for they know not what they do." And as it is often said, in complete humility, we must start with ourselves.

For in essence, all wrong is caused by separative-self centeredness, or the ignorance of the reality of the oneness of all. And seeing the wrong, or self-centeredness, in others is a blessed opportunity to see the mirror image of it in oneself, no matter how small, and choose to be rid of it first. This is the essence of, "Remove the mote in your eye before you help remove the mote in your brother’s eye."

But inspite of all the seeming fragmentation and conflict, the seeming negativity all around us, God is in charge as He has always been and always will be. We are undergoing cleansing and purification, and as when we start cleaning our house it seems to get even dirtier for a while as all the hidden dirt are brought out.

However the situation appears to our perception, we must stay in faith and grateful trust, for truly, "the universe is unfolding as it should."

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