In this episode I talk about how to approach American politics - and especially the 2024 election - from a nondual perceptive as nondual awareness.
In this episode I talk about how to approach American politics - and especially the 2024 election - from a nondual perceptive as nondual awareness.
Well, the primary election is over here in New Hampshire, but not for most Americans. But for me it means no more political flyers in the my post office box, no more phone surveys asking who I am most likely to vote for, no more presidential candidates visiting neighboring towns – or even our little village – looking for votes. But most Americans still have their presidential primaries coming up, although it seems pretty clear who the nominees will be.
Then we have the general election to look forward to in November, where it is likely two old white men will be on the ballot. So we have about nine more months of vitriolic political rhetoric until Americans finally cast our votes. The question I want to address today is how to approach this political mess and all the emotions swirling around it? How do we view this from nondual perceptive as nondual awareness? I have several things to say about this.
First we need to remember that the whole thing is a product of the human mind. We invent countries and nations and governments and rights and political offices and elections and political philosophies and parties and labels like liberal and conservative. Then we think they are real. They have no basis in reality outside of the human mind. Granted that what is in our mind can have ramifications for people when acted upon. But the whole thing only has the meaning that we attribute to it.
This election seems so important to people, but it only has the importance that we give it. It is a game – like a card game or a video game or a sports game. Like the Superbowl. It can seem very important at the time to the fans who are emotionally invested in it. But it is all just a fabrication. Taylor Swift seemed to care who won the Superbowl, but Heaven doesn’t care. The Tao doesn’t care. Brahman doesn’t care.
The theistic nationalistic deities, like the God of the Old Testament seem to care. He has his chosen people. As all national deities do. The tribal deities of the religious nationalism today seem to care. But these gods are just projections of the human mind. They have no reality outside the mind. The Eternal God, who alone is real, is above nations and ideologies and politics.
The second thing to remember is that we do not have free will anyway. So we should not get too excited about who we are going to vote for. I have talked about free will in other episodes, so I will not go into depth about it here, but I need to explain this a bit. Think about it. The personal self – the ego – is a fictional character. How can a fictional character have free will. We have no more free will than a character in a novel.
People talk a lot about free and fair elections, but we need to remember that there is no such thing as free will. Humans have a will to be sure, but it is not free. That is what Martin Luther said in “The Bondage of the Will. The apostle Paul said that we are either slaves to righteousness or slaves to sin. Either way we are not free. Calvinists say we do not even have to freedom to choose whom we will be slaves to.
People think they have free will because it seems like they can do what they want. And they prove it by doing what they want. It is true that we can do what we want, but we cannot choose what we want. The philosopher Schopenhauer said that we can do what we want, but we cannot want what we want. What we want is determined by our nature and conditioning. And we have no control over those.
We cannot even choose what we think. Notice your thoughts. You have no control over what your next thought is going to be. It just pops into your head unbidden. Then we seem to choose to act upon what pops into our head. But do we? Scientific experiments have shown that our decisions are made before we are even conscious of them. They are actually made for us by the unconscious mind and the unconscious body. Only after it has been decided unconsciously for us does the conscious mind know about it. Then the ego takes credit for it. And we say we have free will.
But the ego – the psychological personal self - did not decide anything. It is just along for the ride. Like me when I tried to ride a horse in the Black Hills years ago. I was just bouncing around at the mercy of the horse, holding on for dear life and hoping I wouldn’t fall off. The ego is just hanging on, bouncing along for the ride on the human body.
Every Fourth of July there is a rubber duck race in a neighboring town. We can buy tickets for $5 each (or 5 for $20) and we get to pick a duck. Over 4000 rubber ducks then tumble down a waterfall at an old mill and under a bridge and travel into the lake, while people cheer them on. First prize is $1000.00. We have no control over that duck at all as it races along. We can cheer and urge on our rubber duck all we want, but the results are completely out of our control. That is human life.
The ego is just along for the ride like a rubber duck floating on surface with other clueless egos bumping into it along the way. It has no control. That is our lives. Multiply that by 150 million and you have an American election. None of us really have control over how we are going to vote. It feels like we have freedom to choose, but we don’t really. Our choice are determined by what race and social-economic class we were born into, our upbringing, our education, our family, our social groups that influence us, our church or other religious group, and so on and so forth.
You can disagree with me about the existence of free will, and that is fine. I might be wrong. My views on this matter are as determined as anything else. Perhaps we have some small degree of freedom even after all the conditioning. It is nice to think so. But if this is true it is a very small degree.
If we really have no freedom, then we don’t really choose who is going to be president. Furthermore those people who choose the other candidate can’t help voting for him, so there is no need to get angry at them. They can’t help it if they pick the wrong candidate! Yet we still need to act as if we are free to choose, and choose responsibly. We have to vote for the best candidate and contribute to them and work for them. But there is no need to get bent out of shape about it, because who wins the rubber duck race is beyond our control.
The third thing to remember is that there is no such thing as time. Decisions happen in time. But there is no time. There is no past and future. So don’t worry about what is going to happen. Time is an illusion. Time is just the mind’s way to keep everything from happening all at once. In reality there is only ever now. The past is a memory, which is nothing but an idea in the mind – and a not very accurate idea at that. Our memories have been proven to be very inaccurate. The future is only in our imagination. The only reality is here now. To dwell on the past or worry about the future is needless suffering.
We are here now. We can only be here now. Some people practice mindfulness, trying to be in the present, to be here now. And that is fine to do. But the truth is that we cannot be anywhere or anywhen but here now, because there is only here now. No need to try to be here now. You cannot be otherwise. Just be. Be what you are. That takes the stress out of living. It is the cure for 99% of suffering we inflict upon ourselves. It is the cure for the anxiety people feel concerning all sorts of things, including the upcoming election, as well as all the political shenanigans that happen every day.
My final point today is that it will all work out. Julian of Norwich famously said, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” The song based on that text continues: “For there is a force of love moving through the universe that holds us fast and will never let us go.” As the apostle Paul wrote, “All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to God’s purpose.”
I like to quote the Desiderata in this regard. It starts off with the words: “Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.” And it ends with the words: “And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.”
The way of nonduality is the way of peace in your soul in the midst of the turmoil of human affairs. It is fine to be involved politically or not. We don’t really have a choice anyway. We are what we are. Which is what God told Moses at the burning bush. I am what I am. It is fine to have political convictions or not. It is fine to be a social activist or not. The world will go as it must. We play our part in history, whether we are mentioned in the news or history books or not.
So play your part fully and completely. But remember it is just a role you play in this drama of life, this game of life. What you really are – what we really are – is the changeless Eternal Reality that is beyond history, beyond time and space, beyond politics and religion. Be what you are. Be here now the peace of God.