Team signalling cognitive dissonance: “Ugh” (right) and “Are you kidding?”
(Concluded from Part 1, above.)
Again, longish post.
I haven’t had the full breakthrough, or realization, yet. But I’m in the part of the process I call “dawning awareness.”
My cognitive dissonance arises from not being able to realize love as universal. This is a silly obstacle, really, because I already have realized it as transformational – which is the same.
It’s purely a self-generated, intellectual barrier, but it’s a stumbling block nonetheless. I’m coming to see how much our beliefs close doors for us – or open them.
Maybe I just don’t like the word “universal.” It could be anything. For whatever reason, the word doesn’t work for me.
I think AAM knew that. I think he knew that I could get “Universality” as “Everyman.” And I’ll bet he knew why that would interest various aspects of me.
Let me share that. Picture a young boy of nine, escaping the family discordance by hiding himself away in his bedroom reading the classics of all ages.
One stream of that was the Anglo-Saxon tradition of Everyman. I even read Everyman Classics as well as Landmark Classics and Classics Illustrated – Peirs Plowman, Canterbury Tales, the kings and wueens of England, hopping as I went from book to book.
“Everyman” raises for me myths and tales of Robin Hood, King Richard, King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table. Later this line o reading took in Richard Rolle, the Cloud of Unknowing, Julian of Norwich, and so on.
I experience the moment of watching myself poring over all these books as a young child and man and thrill at the word “Everyman.” That initial remembrance began the process of dawning awareness.
So he says that I’m to play that role. I can do that. Yes, I can deeply get Everyman. I love the idea.
Why can I get Everyman and not Universality? I can’t explain it to you. Paradigms don’t care whether you can explain them or not. They’re simply a better cut at what’s so.
Moreover, breakthrough circumvents the mind so why expect to understand it? We’ve tried to understand the problem with the mind up till now and it’s only ended in confusion. Why not bypass the mind and simply “get” it.
Even though I haven’t gotten this one in its full glory yet, it’s reorganizing my life as we speak.
I almost feel my chest puff out. I like this role. Realization will probably come out of assuming and playing this role, consciously.
I see a new file opening – all the people I’ve admired in my life who played the role of Everyman – Moses, Ben Hur, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus – oh my gosh, this organizes all that knowledge. Ker-chunk. Ker-chunk.
(Yes, I acknowledge the male bias in my early reading and viewing.)
This gives matters the over-arching context that I lacked. I’ve been studying Everyman all my life. (I now get it deeper. Dawning awareness continues to unfold.)
Student politics, Transactional Analysis, Cultural History, Popular Culture, Sociology, Spirituality, encounter groups, enlightenment intensives – there’s a straight-line to it and that’s the study of Everyman. (I see and, seeing, I feel release. The truth has set me free again, even in this small matter.)
(More.) Patterns in behavior, patterns in speech, patterns in spacing and positioning, patterns in gestures and expressions – oh my Gawd, I’ve been doing this all my life.
What is Everyman to me?
Everyman is love. Everyman is compassion. Everyman is generosity. Everyman is the service, support, and defence of others. Everyman is an evolved state of consciousness. What else does it mean to me? All else springs from what it means to me.
To me, Everyman is not male and not female, but androgyny.
But I can understand that women may wish to use the metaphor, “Everywoman.” Whatever metaphor works for you. There’s no right or wrong here. We’re bypassing the barriers of the mind.
For me, Everyman is androgyny, Adam/Eve Caedmon, the human template, the essential, perfect, basic, natural and normal human being … you and me.
Everyman exists at all levels of enlightenment. Everyman is the pilgrim on the journey we all take. Everyman is our past, present, and future.
(Dawning awareness continues.)
Other elements of my knowledge fall into place. I’ve only lived eight lives on Earth. Under the circumstances, of course I’d be studying humanity. It makes perfect sense.
And it isn’t a phony interest. I’m genuinely interested in all human and divine aspects of the human society I find myself in.
What a strange thing for me to say, but paradigmatic breakthrough doesn’t care if it sounds strange.
I can do this. I can play the role of Everyman. But I’ll only do it if you’ll join me.
Everyman needs Everyman … or, if you like … Everywoman. (2) Otherwise I may as well be talking to the mirror.
Don’t think I think this is the end of the unfoldment. I can well see the next step, from Everyman to Everyone. Clever boss.
I’m not doing this for self-promotion, puffery, one-upmanship. You know, at age seventy, I can honestly say I’ve had everything I want. I’m now here for the fun of it and to serve.
Every man, woman and child playing “Everyman” – or “Everywoman” – is a definite improvement on what we have now.
I’m doing this to open a new pathway in awareness. And I’m doing it because it profoundly interests me.
For those who can realize Universality, bless you for your piece of the puzzle.
Here’s a second way. We are Everyman and Everywoman. And as soon as I get this paradigmatic breakthrough waiting to fully blossom … then I’ll go for “Everyone.”