Riffin' On Tradition as a Gallstone

“Prescribed duties should never be renounced. If one gives up his prescribed duties because of illusion, such renunciation is said to be in the mode of ignorance.” 18.7 Bhagavad Gita Conclusion-The Perfection of Renunciation

Ah, the ol’ Religious right 1-2 snafu; In cultures in which the pervasive implications of duality reign supreme in both the internal and external discourse, it’s super easy to conflate “tradition” with “God”/utilitarianism, manifest, and square it off against tools more conventionally aligned with mystical insight/universal truth…such as spontaneous sensibility…or reason…

        Which is to say, somehow the way is always within reach, effortlessly, because of some inherent fairness at the level of universe which establishes a meaningful equality amongst beings at all moments (barring anomalous situations  such as instances of suffering, which are ultimately spiritual experiences when seen with lucidity, but often times do infringe upon personal autonomy). It’s as much within reach for the rich as for the poor…arguably, a touch of suffering brings it quicker to the lips…it’s as readily available to the uninformed child as the cultured adult…this persistent institution is tended to by all devotion and activity….and we already are in touch with it, albeit the spiritual traditions would posit, probably not optimally.

                And of course we all know this, obviously, the second it begins to be expounded upon…with exuberance…like an old friend…like we wrote the convention ourselves back in our day…even though we perhaps haven’t even consciously thought about the convention before, or spoke of it. We just know it, obviously…

That there’s some sort of ju-ju that is everywhere and it like…is guiding each and every thing along personal terms…and our struggle to understand is not to understand for the sake of being messianic to our fellow man, but to understand the part we have to play in That which Is… and there’s some sense that’s a pleasurable thing to do…that it’s not necessarily like strenuous…that you can do it in dinner formal…that it’s already the foundational norm for adult to adult interaction in the society…

                That’s certainly the effect the sort of thinking somehow brings about…solution-based…perception-based…being magnetized to quickly bring resolutions in your midst…it can feely hypercharged and effortless while also looking laborious… it’s familiar and often uncommented on, a familiar pattern in group/social dynamics… ultimately, though, the beat is anything but effortless…it’s just that the beat is always effortlessly within reach…requiring effort…

                In cultures which have lapsed significantly towards secularism, which was not the intended purpose of our separation of church and state, by the way, which instead was about challenging faith based beliefs along the lines of scienitific/observable principles so as to construe belief was actually becoming reality in the moment(s) at hand, a framework which quietly sees God as the sole governor of all activity/existence, the notion of effortless equanimity as the foundation for all action is a moonshot…you’d imagine it’s a lofty goal civilization hopes to accomplish but possibly never could. To think that all activity engages the feedback loops of divinity as well as the traditional activity, the prescribed activities, which truly are mostly blemishless/are actually what people should be doing, but that we’ve come to learn aren’t what you should be doing unless you have a natural impulse to do as much…to think that it’s all about impulse and that some people are called away from what we know to be indicative of success…and that sometimes people are called into bad things too when they’re called away…

                It requires a robust faith, as well as wicked insight in regards to when social intervention is actually required. These should be the foundational points by which we engage our peers…our children…whomever… in conversation requiring any departures they’ve chosen to taken on (and these were mostly identity based decisions, made intentionally by people, so it’s often a pleasure to talk about) in regards to “prescribed duties” or “tradition”. Because there’s always some sort of impulse…and that’s that fabled “root cause” the psychologists will try to find 14 years later… so get to it! Work it. That’s life incarnate, flowing in…

                When I was in high school, suddenly the popular music of the day, supported commercially by the industry, piped directly to us…was a tonal departure from that of the decades before, for the most part. The point of view was decidedly more apathetic/confused…the characters were ontologically postured to experience fits of “bi-polar” that were nothing but delusions they had about the world and had integrated into their identity in a hyperbolic fashion in the midst of celebrity, meeting the brick wall o’ truth as they came of age in the society. The stock market was, not, in fact, a conspiracy against the masses…and the level of insight, socially, reflected in the songs is inherently funny because, ultimately, although these were the insights of real young adults crossing into the very threshold of adulthood…they are a joke. They are so pathetic…they are a joke. As were those children.   

                As were the times, ultimately, and that was the point at some deeper level too, very much evident looking back as you spin the tunes…and you’ll notice that kids these days are socially informed/so much further ahead. So much further that I demand a stimulus check for having experienced young adulthood in the nu-metal era…

                Our idea of sophistication was “prison song” by System of a Down…

                Anyways, this trend in popular music, featuring young adults at the hem of the creative acts, saw androgyny pushed as the thing to do shortly before several major players in the culture postured themselves to start pushing for a quick come-up to gay rights. Skinny jeans and eyeliner were adopted as norms to heterosexuals in high school…and then a short time later they started making society wide moves that culminated in the legalization of gay marriage….and then androgyny fell off rather quickly and harshly as a trend…I saw 14 years olds in eyeliner and rouge go on to flatbills and “slangin’” by 16… the times were artificial and we were doing some crazy swings, unwitting that somebody somewhere had some sort of influence in regards to what the malls  were stocked with…

                Somewhere, as that was all happening, somebody was stirring the cultural pot. Norms were changing, have changed since, and arguably are still changing.  In the light of the notion that the universe is all of Spirit, and that natural impulse is…God…even if it still needs to pass through the cultural values/be refined by them so that we arrive at the intended will of it all….those familiar and dead institutions of regarding “tradition” as immutable/unsurpassable/inherently supremely-spiritual…are proven to be flim-flams in the first place. The notion arises from a fear that the culture will move away from Spirit/God in a meaningful way as it, and this language, I believe, is precise, and reflects the plans this country has made as well as the plans they’ve executed across decades…naturally progresses towards more liberal values…as personal liberties increase because of cultural achievements…which is what is happening…

                The fear is nonsense. It insults the country even, as well as the frameworks of reality, and is one of those hidden in plain sight things that lets you know that they’ve lost touch with their roots, to the tune of if utterly damning any civic work they attempt. Tradition is immensely important, but to propagate the fear that an impulse to depart from it would be inherently disastrous…is to literally put an end to the idea of evolution, and more importantly it seems to rather quickly create a bully stick culture in which the progressives are stigmatized so as to inspire them rising up and revenge of the Nerdsing the staunch supporters of this-here-awesome-status-quo, and along the way you hear whispers of a future cage match between the Anti-Christ and Stalin.

                Notice how perfect today’s quote works in a culture in which God is very much alive and present in all things. In a secular culture, it resembles a sick trap…something for a horror movie. He literally says that if you give up your “prescribed duties” because of “illusion” that you’ll be  regarded socially as “ignorant”. The subtext is, the only time it’s ok to depart from what the society is telling you to do is when the guide inside assuredly tells you to do as much. This guide is often times referred to as “spirit” and the shadow side of that would be “illusion”. In a secular culture, to be a conscientious objector, usually you are regarded by the enforcers of the status quo as yellow-bellied/of irrelevant principles. As living under an “illusion”…even if the ghost itself showed and told you to opt out.    

                We’ve seen the stark consequences of this kind of ignorance drag out in our modern world across decades. How many of our social world are spiritually actualized? How many of us feel confident that were are G’d up with God in some way? There’s almost a pervasive sense of disconnect… of invalidation…of having not seen the curriculums or the real things…even if we went through 8 years of amazing catholic school…something in the formatting isn’t transferring a sense of mastery that is actionable/healthy in the adult identity… and we sit on all sorts of assets we could use, experiences we could use, but never do because we struggle to see their relevance…

                And yet,  these Eastern people  are teaching that every impulse we’ve ever had is God flowing through us, and that all we’ve ever done is exclusively self-develop, mostly, and isn’t it about time to come around and start doing some socially impactful things with it all…

                If it’s been the truth of their lives, we need to tell them… that’s the “advantage” these preacher types get on…whoever it is they get an advantage on.

                “Prescribed duties” are prescribed by world orders…world orders are comprised of concerned and amazing individuals who strive to serve the world though order…and world orders are naturally eroded and replaced by new orders as contexts shift across time, usually getting more effective across generations. Part of that cycle is the spontaneous dropping out of prescribed duties by the populace. Encouraging value-based conversations so as to construe all activity as being of one’s personal center, and in service to productivity…keeps it all respectful and on track. Worshipping life as inherently weird/precious…keeps it all on track. Enforcing norms along ideological lines creates oppression even when the norms themselves are redemptive, and offer redemptive solutions to the social issues of the day.