The magical identity hides hate

The article: The Magical Illusion of a Christian America
raises ideas of religious identity or indeed anti religious identity. I felt to comment thus:

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Definitions SEEM to bring a sense of identity in stability and thus an illusion of control along with an inherent bias of self-specialness that makes them rigidly defended against change rather than fluidly part of an unfolding conscious appreciation of that which identifies Life, Self and Meaning as an ever fresh recognition and extension of value.

Definitions are part of the current experience of the human consciousness but are generally not recognized as human conditioning except by those who would mask a private agenda behind the appearance that has become accepted in place of the tangible presence of value.

'Christian' thus comes to mean whatever anyone decides it means to them in absence of any demonstration of Christ love extended in recognition.
In other words, the mind redefines all things unto its own image and then seeks to prevail, that is, to make its version 'true' by invalidation or denying threat to its 'identity', that is held sacrosanct and not open to question or revision excepting it will 'evolve' in terms of adapting and surviving - including dropping significant aspects of the identity to change the form of the mask.

Personal identity is defence within a presumption of threat and hostility. It may join with others in mutual agreements that make a relative peace but always as a group that defends itself likewise.

Everything remains open for Humanity to accept and embrace its true and abundant inheritance BUT for the assertion of personal will upon a true or honest communication - for Life Is Communication - not merely information but the relational dance of meanings discovered, embraced and shared.

The Jesus story and its teaching are exactly illuminating this facet of the human conditioning, but instead of accepting the message, the messenger was made special, separate, and no longer an example in which to recognize our own Life. If anything it generally became subverted to the old religion of guilt and sacrifice of joy for this has been the way of the world.

A lie seeks whatever works to justify itself and thus adulterates the currency of exchange with division and coercive reaction. It may not believe itself a liar, but if asserting certainty as a way of denying self-doubt, the truth is not being communicated because it is feared.
More than that, what is being communicated is actively working to protect against such fear being brought to awareness and to prevent exposure of whatever tricks are being employed to obfuscate, or sow dissension or diversion from critical points.

The personal identity is in a sense a fig-leaf lie that finds mutually agreed currency and reinforcement by conflict and reaction as much as by agreement.
Who are we beneath our mask? We are that which can truly know and be known. We are the freedom to persist in mask or be open to communication. But within the mask we believe that what is behind the mask is fearful and unacceptable. Until we look within and uncover our true humanity - which we do not manufacture or distort except by taking image and worshipping it.
Kindness is of a kind. Self-specialness is inherent un-kindred. There is a core psychology that can be noticed regardless of the cultural packaging, and identifying this psychology within our own conscious responsibility is waking from the spell of reactive defence to a truly grounded presence - that will then express itself in every kind of cultural or innovative way - but as a willingness of extending an honest presence in which to recognize the other as ourself instead of wanting otherness to be the dumping ground of our unowned and unhealed hatred.
I've gone into a particular direction in this comment, but the illusion of a mask is already magic. Seeing the illusion is breaking the spell. Not to attack the mask or the choice to use it - but to open up a channel of communication where before there was none.
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The following comment to the main article:

I wish I could agree with the conclusion. We've got quite a way to go to become a nation of tolerance. Sadly.

My reply:

The idea of tolerance is brought into being by intolerance. Likewise patience is called on amidst impatience.
But a genuine willingness to relate, to listen and communicate does not start of from predjudice or fear of loss, and then seek to keep face, and so it does not think or define itself 'tolerant' but simply engaged in living relational being.
The attempt to build a world of love within hatred can never ever succeed.
One has to acknowledge the hatred and the fears and wounds beneath to release it.
So I might regard myself as intolerant of tolerance and intolerance - but actually I just don't see through that framework.
It is the fear of hatred and the fear of fear that gives power to them - and those who seek worldly power know this well and use it to get your vote of fear and hatred instead of a discerning presence within they cannot hide the hate and fear that drives their agenda. Now who does not seek worldly power, being free of all hate and fear, throw the first stone...

Cultures in Collision - or a Call for Renewal?

Rushdie Describes Years In Hiding Under Fatwa

As the amateur film Innocence Of Muslims causes widespread anger, Sir Salman Rushdie discusses the fatwa Iran issued against him.

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One might get ridicule or vitriolic hate for espousing a view that others find offensive - whether they understand it or not! but until Mr Rushdie's experience, no one (in this country or in any other liberal democracy) had received a religiously backed and nation backed death threat along with a willingness to carry it out as if it were not murder but duty to God.

The shock waves are still present as a sense of a sword hanging over our heads if we should be believed to speak of Islam or the Prophet Mohammed in a way that is felt to be offensive. There are cultural tectonic plates that are irreconcilable. The tendency has been an appeasement policy along with a similar mirror mentality arising in the west called; 'war on terror'.

Mr Rushdie was doing similarly to what anyone else in creative writing does, and in a culture that was felt to be finally becoming free of medieval religious dictates. His protection is not a personal favour so much as protecting the values of our culture - such as it has grown them.
But the mind is not as it thinks itself to be and there are many levels and strands to our consciousness, our culture and the world. If your death hangs in the balance of what you say, then make sure that what you say is in the truth of your heart!

Threat of death doesn't invite or command respect for God, but only a veiled obedience to cover a disdain beneath! Power in the world can dictate a form but cannot truly inspire or share or love.
The ones who made the hate video are the same mind as the ones who want to kill 'insulter's of Islam'. They thrive on hating 'evil' as they define it.
Globalisation has many aspects, one of which is that our local mythology no longer stays effectively private and our words can be taken as malevolent attack by those already nursing grievance or hatred within, who have the active willingness and capacity to retaliate.

War is the failure of communication, and is often the way tectonic shifts occur. A willingness to communicate is a great treasure, because we have to put our own self aside to hear and feel the other. Opinions are cheap and voicing the opinions of one's social group as if to be bigger than we are, is also cheap.
Mr Rushdie didn't know that his book would have such a result on his life - and on all of our lives. But if he hadn't wrote it, someone else would have effectively triggered the same response and with similar effect.

For better and for worse we are having to be more conscious with our communication. But if 'correctness' is imposed by threat rather than expressing a shared sense of worth from within, it will all be sterile - that is, devoid of any real communication at all!

The insult of the powerful over the powerless rides roughshod over them, but to those in defiance of such earthly power, retaliation seems a blow against evil.
I feel a Call for a true Cultural renewal - that is - to put our self construct aside and listen and feel for truth that is not of our own thinking, (adopted or otherwise). Within that context, we can give form to what is felt in a way that can find, one step at a time in a true willingness to communicate.

PS:
The subjugation of the dominant global market culture - as personified in the US and Western Europe, has nation states with arsenals of weaponry both financial and hardware of war. No one can realistically 'fight' this and much about it seeks domination and control regardless of the consequences to other peoples including their own! While this pervasive power has tentacles all around the world, it justifies itself by being a better system than what would otherwise prevail - and it gets self validation from seeing the evil in the 'other'.
This imposition of power doesn't justify issuing fatwa, but it does create a broad feeling of antipathy and distrust of the cultures that talk freedom and deal otherwise. Whenever there is a broad feeling or undercurrent of discontent, it becomes a soil in which extremism finds tolerance or support at some level rather than rejection.
All attempts to control life create reaction. The answer is to become conscious of such action and reaction so as to put that script aside and listen in simple trust for a communication of Wholeness. This may sound crazy to those who are addicted to their own thinking - but it is natural to our being.

Blessed indeed is the Messenger of God (by all names and any Name or without name), for Wholeness restores a perspective in which guilt, fear, pain, grievance and loss - are healed. The habit of a mind of reaction persists and is undone one step at a time - as it rises to awareness to be released. This is the crucial part; when it rises in our mind, we take it as our own and act out of accord with the wholeness of our being. This reflects as our experience of life in the world - which is always interpretation. Experience of dissonance is a call to our mind to wake - and not a call to put it on the other and deny or kill it. That kind of old magic does not eradicate guilt - but feeds it in the dark for a brief feeling of alleviation.

To look within is to observe our own mind and see directly - in place of living out the stories and spin that we have constructed in attempt to control our own mind.The baggage of fear and guilt is much more deeply embedded than the surface mind would imagine - and yet is baggage associated directly with the very urge to control.
Growing or restoring trust does not begin with making demand, but with a willingness to listen and a capacity to trust the embodiment of what is felt as a result of truly listening.