This Week’s Quotation:
So I have come to believe that most of humanity is suffering from a psychology of oppression—even those who seem to be in the role of the oppressors. That it is because of that oppression that we have lost the knowledge of the most elemental aspects of our Being—who we are, our relationship to creation, and how our own human capacity works. There is a natural darkness that welcomes the light when it comes. But the darkness of oppression is not natural at all. It is a kind of darkness that hates the light. Rays of enlightened thought and enlightened awareness are the end of oppression, and those who are defending oppression know it.
Becoming a Sun, p. 220-221
The Psychology of Oppression
Author, Becoming a Sun
Though I have had some awareness of the impact of oppression on the human psyche all my adult life, the chapter of my book from which this quotation is taken recounts an occasion when it became glaringly apparent. And seeing the pattern, it was clear how pervasive it is in human culture. My experience is that there are very few people who want to face the impact of oppression or examine the reality of it.
Since that insight landed so powerfully, I have reflected on the origin and root cause of the issue. If we understood that, wouldn’t we have the opportunity to change this dynamic in ourselves? And wouldn’t we be opening the door for our fresh understanding to transform the world?
Here is what I see. It is the human mind that is the pinnacle of oppression in the human experience. It is the mind which attempts to establish by itself the pattern of life—for oneself and for other people. It is the ultimate control freak. And so you have submission to a mentally established pattern, whether it originates in one’s own mind or the mind of others.
The issue is the lack of openness to the unfolding pattern of Creation of which we are a part. It is the lack of faith in that pattern and in the ordering power of the universe that makes it available to our awareness and experience. Our surrender to that ordering power is what frees us from oppression and keeps us from becoming perpetrators of oppression in the world.
This surrender is how we set our soul free and embrace our primal spirituality—the spirituality we were born with.
What does it mean to become a sun?
Every human being is already a sun on the inside—a being of intense love and light. The difference is that some people have the vision and courage to become a sun on the outside. This difference is our human destiny.
4 Responses
What an amazing thought – ‘to become a perpetrator of oppression in our world’ . I have always had a powerful deep urge for freedom, in Life, in consciousness. For me, the biggest thrill is to join others like you, to become a sun on the outside, and with others become co-creators of a world our hearts know is possible.
Thank you, David, for your unstoppable and seeming untiring creative endeavours to awaken humanity – individuals – to their birth right – to become co-creators of a free and just world, emergent from a natural cosmic order that is real and true.
I write this on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, a day that certainly lives in infamy in the experience of America and an example of the oppression that afflicts humanity. The news I’m listening to seems to be just rehearsing the carnage and tragedy that accompanied that day. I hope it might remind some to exchange the “control freak” of the human mind for “the ordering power of the universe,” the only way that the human state of oppression will disappear from the earth.
Many more are now Holding the knowledge of our Oneness – what a blessing….
I was literally Born Free. The name Free was given to me at birth. That name, however, did not, in and of itself, make me free of oppression. Quite the contrary. It took many years of struggle and …oppression for me to become aware that it even existed. Fortunately for me, I also became aware of the path to freedom: “Seek ye the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” That is not a one-shot deal, however. Truth must be sought and found in every situation and aspect of our lives. Thanks for the reminder David.