Right Action - Right Now!
The imperfect can - must - dream and speak of perfection. All else is degradation.
I’ve been reflecting on this chart from my series ‘What Is Natural Law’:
Boiling the chart down to four basic imperatives - do no harm, allow no harm, seek Truth, and speak Truth, it’s clear that one of these is most familiar - the famous Non Agression Principle. This lop-sided emphasis characterises our age, benefiting both the happy slave and his happy master with its simplistic logic. After all, if no-one did harm, everything would be fine, right? So a passive message is passively promoted - and nothing changes. The feminine aspect of the lower realm is emphasised - at the expense of all else. To attain the highest levels of spiritual growth, all I have to do is… basically nothing. Small wonder this idea has gained traction. If doing no harm = right action, I’m not challenged to action at all, and, to follow this logic to its conclusion, there’s one way we could all do less harm, right? And so we are led down anti-human paths.
Conversely, while there is a simplistic logic to the NAP, there is also a simple logic (and satisfaction) in its refutation: life ain’t like that; dogs eat dogs; be realistic; never gonna happen. So the right brain - the right brained - can forever battle it out with the left over this question. Handy for some. Sucks for us.
The masculine lower realm of the chart originally read, “take no shit” - a satisfying and punchy retort to, “do no harm”, which was new to me when I first drafted the formula. It satisfies the egoic tough guy stance - ‘don’t tread on me; fuck around and find out, etc’. But it’s woefully inadequate in spiritual reality.
When this principle is restated correctly, as ‘allow no harm’, our spiritual reality is laid bare. Is the tough guy allowing no harm? Are you? How is that even possible? Well, there is a place where it’s possible - the magical world where human beings, in aggregate, understand morality. In that place, harm to one is harm - and an intolerable insult - to all. Does such a place exist? Not yet. Can such a place exist? Of course. All that’s required is right thinking: the thing that is not even addressed in the lower realm (and barely in the world). Everything in the lower realm is, in fact, pure fantasy without the higher realm. Which leads me to my recent revelation regarding this right action ‘formula’. And it’s a shocker.
The conscience of those who are seeking to evolve in consciousness and action can never rest. While this is a benefit to the whole in terms of the instigation of inquiry towards the destruction of falsehood and delusion, it is also a hindrance, as the conscience - in this fallen world - can never be clear. If the conscience is never clear, how can the conscientious ever evolve to a place of teaching? Simply put, those who most sincerely seek to understand - those most ready to teach - can never, in good conscience, know themselves worthy of teaching. This dark paradox can be overcome by courage born of Care. But who, in hell, will be first to say, “I - a deluded sinner - know something of Truth: I see a path that leads out of here”? Hypocrisy is inherent in the situation. How can a sinner be a saint? How can the fallen raise themselves? How can value arise from shame, lack and inadequacy?
In a less deluded age, perhaps a true saint can exist. But we find ourselves in the age known in Buddhism as Mappō, or the ‘latter day of The Law’. The Truth is now so forgotten, obscured and degraded that, when spoken, it is ignored, ridiculed and dismissed. We are lost in a sea of sin. Delusion or conditioning is such that no individual is capable of embodying consistent right action. All who try are hypocrites.
Sounds bad, right? However, understanding the time; the context - seeing the problem clearly - is the first step towards the potential of transformation.
I - a hypocrite - am here to tell you this.
The revelation I’m coming to is inescapable. Right action in the lower realm (doing and allowing no harm), is essentially impossible (not that we can’t or shouldn’t strive towards it in the meantime!). The argument made here is that the ONLY action which can truly contribute to or begin the transformation of the age is the teaching of The Law - the teaching of morality.
Isolated pockets of moral action cannot shake the foundation of ignorance on which this immoral age is built. But those who begin to truly understand morality - conscience - common sense - common unity - must inevitably move towards its manifestation. And the more, the merrier - quite literally. This starts with teaching.
The conclusion - the uncomfortable and counter-intuitive revelation - which has startled but stirred me to write this piece, is that:
(In this fallen age) Teaching morality is of infinitely more value than actually being moral. Hypocrisy is not just okay - it is inevitable. Yes, we can and must strive to be better. But more urgently, we must strive to teach better.
The higher realm (in the formulation of my chart) trumps the lower realm.
We cannot be moral (certainly not to the satisfacion of a sincere conscience). But, we can teach morality.
In short, stop trying to be perfect. Stop waiting until you are good enough, evolved enough, transformed enough. Be a hypocrite! Accept your inevitable moral inadequacy and move towards understanding and stating moral Truth.
Learning and teaching basic morality is the fitting and urgent priority of the conscientious - over and above embodying and modelling it. Without flawed people teaching morality, there can be no teaching of morality - no understanding of morality - no vision of morality - and no manifestation of morality. We have this all wrong - tearing tear down hypocrisy, sometimes with more gusto than we judge plain old-fashioned wrongdoing. Yes, hypocrisy is incongruous. Yes, it is dissonant, uncomfortable - wrong! I argue it is less wrong than waiting. Yes, we’d like to be perfect, and we’d like the same of spiritual teachers. Tough. This is where we are. This is the stagnant swamp we are in. There are no pristine Lotuses here - and no justice: just us.
The dream - the vision - the fantasy - the ideal - the forlorn hope - can and must precede the manifestation.
In a way it’s good news - from this perspective, you can skip becoming a saint and get to work yelling at everyone else, lol. It’s also incredibly simple (if uncomfortable) to understand basic morality, while nigh on impossible to embody it. On the other hand - no more excuses. You have a conscience? You have it for a reason, and the reason isn’t to spend a lifetime torturing yourself for your, and our, inadequacies. It’s meant to stir you to aligned action.
The highest value action you can take is to understand and teach morality.
What is meant here by basic morality is all contained within the chart: the principle of doing no harm. The principle of allowing no harm. The principle of learning to rationally expand these principles into the endlessly convoluted layers of ongoing and conditioned institutional, ideological and material harm we inhabit - for most, the hardest part; the pitiless judgement of our diabolical inheritance: statism, carnism, satanism, materialism, religion, money, new agism, scientism and probably some I haven’t thought of yet (more on these in the future or watch my video, ‘Eight Paths To QUICK Spiritual Progress’). And, finally, the principle of teaching all of this.
We must not falter and get stuck at the beginning. Without the full expression of right action, we are merely observers, commentators, spiritual miscarriages - and we fritter away the precious gift given us: the opportunity of creating true value: heaven on earth: justice: a world in which doing and allowing no harm are held as more fundamental and important than naming the sky blue, or whatever 1 + 1 =. In that world, in that age, the higher realm is no longer a long-forgotten hope, but an inherent - and inheritable - reality. In that world, attention inevitably shifts to the lower realm, because someone already thought about this and taught everyone about the higher realm: us!
For the avoidance of doubt: The argument is not that we shouldn’t seek to reduce the harm we and others do, but that, until morality is widely understood in the collective consciousness, personal moral choices have a negligible effect. Therefore, our primary goal, our priority should be to teach morality - that all can embody morality through understanding it.
Okay, that's it. Here’s the graph again. My contention is that, while - like me - you are almost certainly struggling to contend with the bottom left square (do no harm), in spiritual reality, you have every right, and in fact, a pressing moral response-ability to jump to the top right (speak Truth) ASAP - because of the dire spiritual emergency we are in.
If in doubt - ask me how!
A quick note: I am writing and singing songs, and speaking in public about all of this, as well as writing and broadcasting again (doing my best to do as I preach). Please support in any way you can (likes, follows and shares on platforms, donations - hell, you might even come to a GIG or get yourself some MUSIC! All links at www.nemojones.com.
Thanks so much to all donators, encouragers and the many new people who joined us here during a fallow period. Thank you, thank you.
Here’s to a beautiful future.
Mneme