If You Feel You Don’t Belong in Western Civilization, Do This

There’s essentially one difference between the modern and the ancient

I’m not going to be polite about this. We are in a collective hallucination.

We have everything we need on the physical plane. Roads, hospitals, schools, technology. But left and right, depression is sinking its teeth into a third of the population.

The cultural and spiritual poverty in Western countries is reaching scary levels of dreary; enough to make young people want to leave.

There are more expats in the world today than any other point in history. Some go to Asia to teach English for years on end; others live off-grid on organic farms.

Less grounded individuals might veer to entertainment, relationships, or money in to deal with the meaninglessness. But the base pattern is the same.

We want to escape the drudgery of a society built on the wrong assumptions.

Modern Western society, built on five centuries of colonialism, is not open-minded enough to change its values.

It’s not interested in examining the narrative it believes about history — a march from primitivism to progress, led by one tiny section of Europe.

It is not interested in revering the Earth, or replacing dogmatic religions with Eastern philosophy & Dharma that could make the mundane meaningful again.

It would rather crash, and take us down with it

The only question is whether you are willing to decline along with it.

If you refuse, there is only one strategy that can open the gateway into other modes of being.

To slow down.

Not for the sake of your stress levels.

Not for the sake of being more ‘mindful’ in order to experience more pleasure.

Not to increase your productivity.

Slow yourself simply in order to see what can emerge when you do so.

The point is to deepen our experience of being alive. We are fed so many sensory impressions in a single day that we often forget who we really are.

We forget about the experiences that made the most impact on us. We forget about how and why we got where we are today.

We roll in confusion because we’re so bombarded with information that we can’t even be mindful of ourselves for five minutes.

And it’s not a quick fix. This stuff lives in our bodies!

It’s living in the speed at which I’m typing this right now, neurons firing frantically to get out the energy I’m trying to transmit.

But during each day, there are magical moments when I realize I’m caught up in the dream of the past or the worry of the future.

And I naturally come back to where I am & how I’m feeling.

Like the mind returning to the object of focus during meditation, these moments are precious ‘resets’ of our being. They remind us that we are alive. We exist! We’re not simply distracted and stressed.

In these moments we remember: the sheer bliss of existing, free of all contrived conditions placed on happiness.

What would emerge if we sought joy from within; free, renewable, and radiant? Rather than punching the planet and each other for stimulation?

What would happen if we all slowed enough to deepen literally everything we thought, spoke, and did?

We would envision a new set of values, based on sustainability and a wisdom-infused use of technology.

This planet would heal itself before the end of the century. Mental health pandemics would stop costing us $225 billion a year.

The solution is literally right under our noses.