Pretentious Worldviews

Is it pretentious to imagine that I am on a spiritual path? I am one of Jock Tamson’s bairns. I was born, will live for a few years, and then die. So it is with all sentient beings – and even with the rocks and stones. If there is a beginning there will also be a middle and an end.

Impermanence is easy to realise. Your culture and language will teach you how to feel about it. Or perhaps it is a taboo subject because it is too upsetting to think about. Either way your ‘knowing’ is based on what your language recognises.

But language-based cultural containment can be challenged. If there are existing stories they can be rewritten and if there are gaps they can be filled. There is an ever present option to boldly go where no man has gone before.

As it happens, an illustrious few have boldly gone before and, in so doing, have provided proof of concept. They have shown that it is possible for individuals to realise the unreality of their culture specific worldview and, as a result, to survive and even to flourish.

It is like mud in water. With stillness it settles and there is clarity. As human beings we are hard wired to cope with impermanence. But the relevant genes are covered in monkey mind mud. If the mind is a sports car few people ever get it out of first gear. This is good for rulers.

Most rulers operate so as to “keep the peasants in ignorance”. People who think too much are dangerous. They might have thoughts that challenge the rulers. Thinkers are thus seen as insane revolutionaries and are dealt with accordingly.

But the skill set of the ruler does not of necessity include creative thinking. They employ advisors for that. Advisors are useful when they are innovative and generate new ideas that the rulers can use. In this case the thinkers are seen as sane evolutionaries and they are rewarded.

I was an advisor to government in the South Sudan, Belize and Lesotho. I was fastidious in not pushing my personal agenda. I facilitated national development processes by gathering and processing evidence and by preparing short briefing notes about how similar problems were tackled in different countries. Very few local voices were innovative. Key decision makers were interested in the standard modernisation package for ‘becoming like America’.

I have written elsewhere about my three chronological topics of interest – education development (especially curriculum), social development (plain language to promote participation in policy making) and then personal development (meditation as a radical means of unhooking from narrow cultural straightjackets).

With education development and social development I was a servile facilitator. I was at the cutting edge of official expertise and I promoted official and fashionable blueprints. The goal was to change other people’s minds

… Were these pretentious worldviews?

With personal development I am an active participant. I study the dharma (including modern western contributions) and meditate. The goal is that my mind should change itself and know peace . Interaction with like minds is welcome. I share ideas by blogging

… Is this a pretentious worldview?