Dear James,
Thank you for the way you went about exposing that deep samskara of mine. You’re not only a good teacher; you are also kind. I don’t always read the satsangs, but somehow today I did, even though the satsang wasn’t to me. It was about me.
I always looked down on Rush Limbaugh’s Ditto Heads but I realized that I have become a Trump Ditto Head. I guess because ShiningWorld is so positive and unlike most of the internet I was in a more objective state of mind. Or maybe it was because I go to your site when I am in some kind of crisis, and I always feel hope then. It is hard to admit, and I even thought of not sending this, but to be honest I am brainwashed. There, I said it. It is shocking really because I was never like this until Facebook came into my life in middle age and I had to adjust the way I saw things. I became suspicious. I never really knew who I was communicating with, where they lived, the actual facts. It was kind of exciting in a way and I found myself exaggerating, which made me feel better about myself, but which also made me feel uneasy, I guess because as you say dharma is built in. Trump so much expresses how my jiva feels sometimes like I got the short end of the stick. I don’t like myself that much, I guess. If it had been a person-to-person talk with you, I don‘t think I would have understood because I get confrontational around liberal people. It made me realize that I get emotional and irrational when I am trying to defend my point of view. I couldn’t get that satsang out of my mind for a whole day. I was so embarrassed and ashamed of myself. It’s like I was a different person.
With respect,
Carole
Dear Carole,
Appreciation is much appreciated.
The web brings out the worst in certain people because anonymity lets the mind live out harmful fantasies without suffering unwanted consequences. So naturally readers are suspicious. Over time you lose touch with the best version of yourself. You fancy yourself to be very clever. Nobody is going to pull the wool over my eyes! Before you realize it, suspicion morphs into cynicism, inflation and a tendency to manipulate. By God’s grace, you woke up and realized it was time to address that carcinogenic tendency.
I suspect that you don’t have a daily devotional practice like karma yoga, which keeps the mind in a clear positive state throughout the day. Consecrating your actions to God and taking the results as a gift generates a protective layer of dispassion. The Bhagavad Gita says, “A little bit of karma yoga removes a lot of fear.”
A cold turkey media fast may not be doable right now, but there is no law against looking for friends in real life. At a minimum, you can determine where they live and work, observe the inflection in their voice, and put together a realistic picture of the person with whom you are communicating. Ditto Heads are too dull and lazy to investigate things. A third-rate grievance—America sucks—turns into a quick and easy formula to live by, so dull minds are low-hanging fruit for the grifter du jour. Individuals who have a paternalistic view of government, are happy to leave their lives to proxy gladiators who promise to right all wrongs. But making a conceptual entity like a country great doesn’t make a living entity like a person great.
The more we rely on unqualified others, the more our critical faculties atrophy, because there is nothing substantial beneath the surface on which to construct a spiritual life, no “rock” on which to build your church. The nice tidy solutions offered by bored societies sick with affluenza are not equipped to recognize, much less solve, the fundamental human problem.
Stand apart from the crowd, keep an open mind and test reality to see if it is reliable. Maya starts with the idea that what you see and hear may not be what it purports to be. Like slobbering hungry dogs, dull ditto-head minds eagerly wait to be conned.
Vedanta is beautiful because it provides simple common-sense tools that keep your life real. I admire your courage. Saying I was misguided signifies self awareness. Good for you!
Much love,
James
