my people are busy lamenting, yet also enjoying, the brainwashing others have endured. it feels good to consider oneself free and to have a target to point at, proof of your powerful mind, resistant to the tendrils of subtle passivity.
it is the prisoner in D block laughing at the man in the hole.
brainwashing is not like in a movie, where aliens make you stupid and you are released by a kiss. brainwashing is the fog in your choices, the distortion of realities and the warping of emotions: all presented as doctrine, clean and precise.
when released from mental slavery, sorrow, pain, shame and rage are the emotions that dominate. not relief. Nothing is more miserable then the disciple of the God that failed.
relief is the feeling we have when we see the brainwashing of others and recognize it for what it is. we shy away from the brainwashed, where ever we may find them. its tiring to talk to them. spittle collects in the corners of their mouths and their eyes reflect the cult within. we laugh at them over coffee and praise Universalism that its not us.
how do we speak with the Christians in America who indoctrinate their children with fog, distortion and warp fields? How do we speak with the young Chinese, who stand as one in the spirit of the Red Guards — attacking the enemy and purging the weak?
what do you tell a zealot about himself when he has already burned the one doctrine into his consciousness?
Consider:
The soft overcomes the hard;
The formless penetrates the impenetrable;
Therefore I value taking no action.
and
The sage controls without authority,
And teaches without words;
He lets all things rise and fall,
Nurtures, but does not interfere,
Gives without demanding,
And is content.
and
The loving do not act.
The kind act without self-interest;
The just act to serve self-interest;
The religious act to reproduce self-interest.
For when Tao is lost, there is love;
When love is lost, there is kindness;
When kindness is lost, there is justice;
And when justice is lost, there is religion.
Well established hierarchies are not easily uprooted;
Closely held beliefs are not easily released;
So religion enthralls generation after generation.
Religion is the end of love and honesty,
The beginning of confusion;
Faith is a colourful hope or fear,
The origin of folly.
The sage goes by knowledge, not by hope;
He dwells in the fruit, not the flower;
He accepts the former, and rejects the latter.
and finally
Nothing in the World is as yielding as water;
Nor can anything better overcome the hardened.
Just as the yielding overcomes the hardened,
The weak may overcome the strong;
Yet they do not.
The sage says:
“Who accepts responsibility for his people rules the country;
Who accepts responsibility for the World rules the World”,
But his words are not understood.
