Living in conflict.
Say two people come together somehow. Perhaps at work, at some event, on the internet, at a social gathering. In the course of conversation they find a common interest in philosophy, psychology, religion and so on. At times they argue, debate, and disagree with each other, at other times there is an amiable discussion. These people are independently, separately, as individuals, considering some ideas, positively or negatively. Would they be able to talk together deeply about their own beliefs and who they are, challenging the norms of understanding and their self perception, without conflict? Could there be a shared sense of interest and inquiry where together, there is one observing with no sense of individuals? Doesn't the division, conflict, constitute our very individualistic being?
On the other hand say people went to a gathering where there was a given speaker, who was seen as a teacher. The people listen closely, quietly to what is said, and consider there own ideas, opinions, as obviously different to the teachers, and that is what they are interested in. Would they want to speak against the substance or manner of the speaker? Don't they see their strong interest in the teacher and what is said as being respectful, serious, and helpful? Their attitude is one of total acceptance or rejection, isn't it? The individual says there is freedom, choice, to come or go as one pleases.
The effect of the teacher in our understanding is central. Inwardly we see the teacher as legitimate interpretation of the world. Where there is a teacher we sit as students, admirers, and followers, or not. Where there is no teacher, we expect no learning, no inquiry, no discipline. In company we can not share. We compete for the authority. A suggestion that one can learn for oneself, or that we can talk together and learn without being taught, is treated with derision.
Authority that isn't.Most of the time we are living ordinary lives which we take for granted. We can admit that there are problems and that somethings are wrong. But for the most part we get on with the business of living our lives. So this is rather strange don't you think? We have a sense of something wrong, but don't see anything wrong in continuing our lives as they are. So what's wrong?
When ever we raise a problem, with our selves, someone in the family, a friend, at school, at work, with the doctor, the police, and so on, the matter is treated as a referral. It is compared to a general case, to a common situation, or to the limits of what is possible, and so there is no action within its own reference. To resolve this situation it is referred to another situation where future action is a possibility. This may be to say to one self, it will be O.K. It will work itself out. Or one might be given advice, or asked to consult with an expert, a professional. There is in fact a vast network of referrals within the social, industrial, legal, and political system.
This system of referrals is so commonplace that it raises no queries. You are yourself involved in this in one way or another. We need a plumber to fix the leak, a lawyer to get a divorce, a government department to issue drivers licenses, schools for education, and so on. Now something odd happens. You, your child, your company, your conscience, whatever, have a problem within one of these settings and you go and ask them to fix it. You are angry, strong willed, insistent, and know whose responsibility it is, and know who must do something about it. There is some polite, standardised response, but the matter is treated inconsequentially. You may be passionate, righteous, noble, in your pursuit of the matter, but all you encounter are assurances, platitudes, opinions. Nothing is done. The wrongness continues because we point to the individual as an authority who must refer to others.
I might be wrong.
We all live double lives. We act according to standards of behaviour, protocol, and follow fashions. We have become accustomed to rules of conduct. What we say and how we relate to each other is a complexity of our background, education, occupations, and so on.  When someone speaks directly, this contrasts with what we usually say and think. A contrast that informs the artificiality of our minds. This is the terrible truth. What is more worrying though is the way we hold onto the self image and can not comprehend the direct speaker without claiming insult, attack, injury, offense, to something personal. Within academia, within the bounds of expertise, within professional circles, historically, such an understanding is not a surprise. We, and I mean all of us in the wider world, live with the knowledge of a division, a corruption.
We objectify life, and this is how we fit in, successfully or not. Knowledge is the focus of that division, corruption, and we exploit knowledge for our merit, value, status, survival. To speak directly is to say, look, your petty lives are nonsense, and the response is, I am hungry, I am in fear of dying, I am lonely, I have responsibilities, I have a job to do. Do you see? We accept anything authority tells us, or not, because that instrument, I, is our relationship, and we can not actually, directly, engage in living, free of complicity, free from attachment, except that instrument, I, has ended.
In my own ordinary perception of what is polite, nice, correct, respectful, and so on, I accept that I can be taken the wrong way. Like in daily life I am going to speak directly to people addressing their illusionary conditioned selves, which they take so seriously, and for which they understand as being the individual heroically suffering life!
Could it be that memory is useful to know your environment, how to do something, where to get something. Then in fear, in alert, in danger, memory also responds, remembers, as it were, for a good reason. But in fear we have produced the self, I. So in memory we constantly, instantly, reproduce I as a kind of alertness. We are no longer watching, listening, but just reproducing I. I is fearful, alert, and so is protection. But we have lost contact with the world.
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