The duality of comedy and tragedy:
Bergson says Comedy is a return to the collective, and that tragedy is an individuation (nobody is like Oedipus)
Timeline
60s were spiritual and political:
the political people were saying we can’t wait any longer the political situation is going to explode (Malcom x keg house). We have to change the political because it is giving bad material conditions so we have to clean up the world before we work on our selves
The spiritual people felt that the world is a reflection of the internal turmoil of people and the inner confusion. Because of this we have to work on ourselves first before we work on the world (Jordan Peterson, clean up your room)
This created a conflict in the 60s that Ram Dass was right in the middle along with Allen Ginsberg (spiritually and politically).
Ginsberg saw that if he protested angrily, that he kept creating the hell that he was trying to get rid of. Being attached to the anger was the problem, paranoia.
The conscious political activist (Ginsberg) realizes that like the scientist studying the science experiment (the scientist becomes a part of the science experiment and experiences observer effect) a political activist realizes that his being becomes a part of the political action.
The spiritual confrontation: to get to God, you have to honor your incarnation (American; living in this age this time this culture this religion). Honor your circumstance and accept your role as a responsible member of society in the world and ecology. Ram Dass spiritually became more political.
Quiet mind, open heart. The use of an emotionally charged stuff can be made more conscious (spiritual) therefore becoming more powerful by recognizing the boomerang effect that occurs (observer effect). Conscious social action in society.
Recognizing people as a bundle of affects (karmic dna) - the duality of a human: their circumstance but also their in the moment being (the power to change who you are right now regardless of circumstances). To be conscious in this moment is to recognize yourself as the assemblage and be in tune with all the forces (social, political, etc) acting on you. Whatever the future holds, what I can do in this moment is become as conscious, as open, as compassionate, as present and as aware as I can be in this moment. This is the strength of Ram Dass.
To be ready and open to accept whatever event is to receive you. And delight in the absurdity in it if anything - the event (a moment in time and space) can be fantastically absurd.
The mayor of a city has his game, to defend the city - even if it is God himself that threatens the city. Any one who is destructive to a culture, the mayor has to hold them responsible for he has the city’s best interest in mind. Due to this, great absurdities can be had: for we not only ask for the protection of the city; but we are also living beings who ask for independence (autonomy).
We’re independent until something goes wrong and then we want to blame the big other. We must develop a sense of humor at the absurdities in life.
The development of compassion is some combination of human feelings and being in the world, hope, joy, sadness, pain, suffering; and an equanimity in mind that comes from seeing it all as kind of a dance, seeing Gods perfect will or law unfolding in the world.
This balance is where compassion lies. With compassion, you cultivate a sort of appreciation for everyone’s karmic lot in life. An appreciation for what karmic predicament others get in to, or caught in. This is why they are the way they are, to fulfill our role as a citizen we have to act against another persons actions. But the question is whether that other being is there action or a being caught in a sort of ‘web of stuff’ from which the action is a result. The duality of man, we are simultaneously these two separate things but we are a soul (elan vital). Are we simply our actions? If you identify as a soul, you realize that it isn’t that simple. A soul can look at another soul as more than just their actions. Souls each go through their own working out of stuff, and this work comes into conflict with other souls. This is the event - two processes (souls) brought together by fate. To collaborate and to play but also at the same time competing with this foe in the game.
To be searched at an airport, I feel as a soul that I am being treated as an object by another soul. Why am I being treated as an object? This gives me a sort of Affect and I can take this out on this worker. But is this particular worker the initial cause of all this airport security? No, they are simply playing a role just like me (my role being a normal person at airport). The event that is getting searched at an airport is created by two processes (the worker and I). This worker is here earning a living, doing a job playing a role but we can see this and see them as a human being more than their role. This interaction of processes starts as the worker being himself but by playing his role he projects himself onto others. We are a world full of him, in his perspective, we ought to know the things he knows but this is all very obvious to him. He treats me like I am him and I should know these things! What if I don’t? What if I am not him? Well then this causes him to understand me for me. This creates a kind of shared experience: in this event I have my experience, he has his, but we are brought together in beautiful symbiosis and forced into this. The event starts with two individuals but ends with an ‘us’. In this sense, the conscious individual can see his own work as understand this event in these terms. But not only that, to take it further a step and ask yourself, “how do you know that your entire purpose in earth was not simply for this event, to interact with this worker?” This is just an example of many different ‘reframings’ the conscious spiritual individual can perform (from a myriad of infinite eternal possibilities) to transform the consciousness in that moment.
David Foster Wallace says when you are in traffic, the easiest game to play is that of getting angry at the traffic. But don’t you see that you are the traffic? Critical thinking allows us to see different options in each moment that we can select to apply as a ‘lens’ or framing of the moment. Instead of getting angry at the person (who is themself a process as well) who just cut you off, how about imagining for that person their time is more valuable than yours if possible (you need to get home to microwave that TV dinner). They need every second to count, maybe they are rushing their dying dog to the vet - are you in as big of a hurry as they are? That isn’t to say that any of this is real or true, the power lies in the ability to choose in the moment.
The Buddha talks about the hindrances we possess as a result of being on Earth and work to overcome. Lust and greed, hatred and ill-will, sloth and laziness, agitation, and doubt. Unless you have these, you really aren’t on Earth - we are a community full of these individuals. Crisis cuts through the separateness of people, a type of purification but crisis can bring us all together. How to prepare for a possible crisis? Do work on yourself to not need things that might be lost in the shuffle of a potential societal crisis. Doing spiritual work is to learn how to live more simple and crave less. You can have simplicity derived from laws (politics) or you can have simplicity by deriving it in yourself (Sadhana work, work on overcoming your personal ego). Use the moment to sublimate (derive psychic energy from the unseeable) more so you can need less. Voluntarily simplifying your life can be a spiritual experience.
Spirituality can make our politics more powerful in a way. Through making us more conscious of the realities of what makes us human, and giving us the awareness of what is actually possible. The dying scientists of every society always tell us what we can’t do, but we should instead look to the young scientists as to what we can do. What can we do? We can engage in more spiritual practices to see what tools to salvage from modernity but also what tools have been forgotten in modernity.
Yo soy yo, y mi circunstancia - I am myself, but also my circumstance.