Saturday, January 07, 2006
Fault
Finding Mission finds San Andreas Fault only
Fault Finding
It surely is not appropriate to find fault in others or to assign blame to them
for faults or wrong-doings that we apparently notice round-and-about all of us.
And even if it seems appropriate - when looking closely and carefully - fault
finding is nevertheless not in any way effective
and fruitful... except maybe as an attempt to deflect, and that deflection is
usually - when superficially looked at - interpreted as a deflection away from
oneself.
Hmmm...
But then, we may wonder, is it more appropriate to find fault or blame in 'o n
e s e l f'?
Is it more effective to look for and find reasons for self-accusation and
self-incrimination in oneself?
In fact, again looking closely and carefully, we will discover that even in
self-incrimination that there is deflection there as well, albeit a reverse
kind of deflection: the kind of deflection that victimizers invariably have
their victims do, shifting blame away from the victimizer and onto the victim!
Come to think of it, it might be good to remember when, how and by whom we were
first made to feel wanting, inadequate or falling short, when we thus became so
negatively self-reflective and consequently self-conscious.
It would be good to find out how we ever since began to feel so
uncomfortably self-conscious.
Can you remember how, when and by whom you were urged to examine your
conscience, how and why you got into 'fault-finding'?
But isn't it so that even when we 'very religiously' practice 'self-examination'
or honestly 'inspect ourselves' (all too often looking for personal defect and
dysfunction) that no lasting freedom or peaceful and steadfast satisfaction
ensues?! Oh yes, we are promised that, but does it happen? Does it actually...?
Actually - but I'm whispering that - actually not. Nope!
Not for as long as we LOOK for faults and seem to find them anywhere outside
but specifically within ourselves!
Now this may not be an acceptable notion for some; this may not be an assertion
(or is it a negation?) that you will find others to readily compliment you for,
making you popular in their eyes...
Ah, 'fault finding', any which way and manner of it...
Could it be that the problem with fault finding is actually so serious because
of its compulsiveness, compulsive because we were externally compelled,
driven, tricked and cajoled into it through the momentum and pressure of moral
history, as well as that history's peer powers that are still pushing it, even
promulgating it?
"Love y'r neighbors as you love y'rself!"
It may very well be that it is that 'fault finding' by itself that prevents or
disables us to love our neighbors, simply because... simply because we cannot
love ourselves... because we seem to always find ourselves at fault, whether we
seem to be or not.
Could it be that the compulsion to self-incriminate stands in the way of both:
loving y'r neighbor and loving y'rself?
Of course it does!
The sentence to 'find fault' is precisely the sentence (almost a life sentence)
that stands in the way of the simple love that would be discovered and shared
if that sentence simply were not there.
love...
love, un-provable,
love, un-show-off-able,
love, unaccountable,
love, unreasonable,
love, unaccounted for,
love, unconditional...
Ah, that 'fault finding' sentence...! Isn't that sentence like a gate (keyed or
not) that is placed in our paths that run through the open spaces of our
lives?!
The gate seems there, it even appears to be more real than a mirage, a fata morgana
The gate!
Even if
seemingly open,
access through it
seems clearly
(are we sure?)
taboo-ed for us,
and if apparently closed
and a key seems to be needed,
we surely haven't got that key,
nor do we seem to deserve having it,
that is of course... if we need one at all,
as actually,
it is possible to navigate life
as though there is no such gate,
AS THERE ACTUALLY IS NO SUCH GATE,
no gate whatsoever.
But doesn't it seem more complicated than that?
Well, it might very well seem so.
You see, the 'fault-finding-life-sentence' includes, in addition to that lock
and key way-out, also the chains that link the 'fault finding' sentencing
to any of our own and other people's actions - whatever kind of actions they
may be - and in addition, the life sentence comes with a blindfold, or, if not
a blindfold, than surely a pair of blinkers that prevent us to see - if the
gate appears visible - that there is a free-way through the space of life...
Ah, those blinkers eh?! Or that blindfold that prevents us to see space
round-and-about us:
within-and-without
no gate,
no gates,
not even gates
that aren't even there.
Away with the gate,
one doesn't even have to have a key!
There is no key to love!
Love is discovered
to simply be
where one is,
what one is,
that one is,
always
already
simply
present.
And if you don't happen to see this (It could be, who does not know that
feeling?) it is not even your fault... not anybody's! It's just that
insidiously inherited, unreasonably passed-down, illuding sentence to look for
shortcomings, to find defect and dysfunction, to somehow have to find yourself
wanting, to find fault first before you can find love, to find yourself
short... the illusion that you are 'without'!
Incidentally, the Latin word for 'without' is 'sine' as in 'sine qua non', a
word very close to that other word: 'sin'.
Get it? 'Inherited' sin, 'original sin'?
By the way in Sanskrit, SIN means:
'not being (N) what one actually is (SI)'!
See the conflict and absurdity of that conflict?!
Not to keep harping on this, (and it would be funny if it weren't so sad) even
when one can't find fault anymore, one can be sure that others will find it for
you... in you.
Catholics or ex-catholics can probably relate well to the following. It's like
after confession - after one listed one's assumed sins and 'fessed up, after
one got absolved, after the pastor said, "Go in peace!" and after one
did one's penitential prayers and/or penance - after confession one really did
not leave the booth or church in everlasting and unconditional peace, but one
found oneself led back almost directly to conflict again, ready for another
round of confession/absolution of which confession and absolution were never
really absolute and surely not everlasting...
What prevented or prevents faith from being unconditional?
If it is so that we are to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves, and
thus not find fault with or blame our neighbor for anything, how do we love
ourselves if we all too often can't even do that, being so pressed and
pressured looking for and finding fault and blame in ourselves?!
If, as they say, God loves us unconditionally (which is so, what they say is so
true) when divine love is so passionate and compassionate, why calling God a
liar by finding reasons for us not to be lovable, not allowing ourselves to
love ourselves with the same unconditionality, compassion and passion?!
See the visciousness of the vicious circle?!
What is it then what keeps that vicious circle going?
Could it be that we keep being cajoled into identifying ourselves with that
what we have been identified as too long (unreasonably so, unfairly and
unfounded)... being not good enough?
Haven't we been - too long and too often - identified as that what we were not,
something we have never ever really been?
Have we not been disabled too often, not being allowed to unconditionally
identify ourselves with that we just are what we are that we are... love
without conditions in any condition?!
Well no more of that!
Here's to love, the unconditionality of human/divine love in any condition*.
*Even if the condition wasn't what it could have been if
we would have been what we should have been.
(-: Well, why not just scrap THAT sentence?! :-)