The Politics of the Restless Mind

The restless mind loves political angst, exaggerates conflict by taking sides, and believes that righteous anger will change the situation.

Political angst makes the mind feel alive on the surface level of mere thinking, but dulls and suppresses our underlying consciousness. By perpetuating conflict, thought perpetuates itself. The very nature of thinking is analysis, which is division, which is opposition. Thinking is like a dog that gnaws a dry bone to get the taste of its own blood in its own saliva.

The "political" conflict is really a conflict projected by the mind. Of course, this is the opposite of the Marxist analysis of history. Marxism is based on a materialist vision, a vision that sees our mental condition as a mere reflection of economic conflict. But the ancient Vedic vision is the reverse. How we see the world reflects the quality of our consciousness. The world is our projection.

The ego loves to superimpose its mental conflict onto the world. Year after year, century after century, we watch the same melodrama with the same players, and pretend it is happening "out there": the party of the Right vs. the party of the Left, rulers vs. the commoners, capitalists vs. workers, rich vs. poor, the 1% vs. the 99. Eventually we realize that peace does not come through this endless political theater, because peace does not come through ideology.

Peace is awareness, not thought. Peace is not one side of the conflict: it is the space around the conflict. That space is pure awareness, free from any ideology, free from the compulsion to take sides.

Peace is the end of conflict because it is the death of thought. When thinking subsides, awareness becomes clear, transparent, self-luminous. Then we can listen. We can be present. We can love. But this isn't what thinking wants. Thinking only wants to be "right."

Resistance shrinks attention into thought. Meditation expands attention into silent awareness. In resistance, we take sides and feed conflict with thinking. In relaxed awareness, conflict dissolves. Why be a cloud when you can be the sky?

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