The Anarchy of Spirituality

I recently felt the motivation to start again researching about how to make life better on this earth, and came across Anarchy. Here I will put some ideas which I hope won't offense anybody.

My opinion about anarchy has been for a long time the following (I might be wrong because i had few contact with anarchists up to now): it shows the problems from outside and depicts how it shoud/could be instead. But this will remain an incomplete solution until humans focus on the problems in themselves and find a solution for themselves, by themselves. Until now I also had a fairly negative view about anarchists: drinking alcohol and being agressive on the street, begging for one Euro although written "Fuck the system" on their jacket... well, stereotypes... until I realized that I have been some kind of anarchist myself for many years.

The idea for this article came after reading the website of I:DA (Idee:Direkte Aktion) an anarchist location in Vienna. Here they summarized their views on anarchy (english below):

"Wir sind der Überzeugung der Staat als solches ist der größte Verursacher von Gewalt und Unterdrückung. Wir stehen für eine Gesellschaft in der sich Menschen kollektiv assoziieren und aus ihren sozialen Zusammenhängen heraus Entscheidungen treffen. Dieser freie Kommunismus erfordert ein hohes Maß an Selbstverantwortung, Eigeninitiative und Selbstbestimmtheit. Anarchie ist keinesfalls gleichbedeutend mit dem Recht des/der Stärkeren, Unordnung, Terror oder Chaos sondern Ausdruck höchster Ordnung. Der Freiraum I:DA soll gleichsam als Laboratorium dienen, in dem wir zusammen genau die menschlichen Eigenschaften erproben und schärfen, die zur Errichtung einer neuen Ordnung notwendige Voraussetzung sind."

An approximate translation of this german text: "We think that the state itself is the biggest cause of violence and oppression. We stand for a society in which people meet together and make decisions according to their social background. This free communism needs a lot of responsibility, initiatives and determination. Anarchy is not synonym for the right of the strongest, disorder, terror or chaos. Rather, it is the expression of highest order. The I:DA is a laboratory in which we try out and sharpen the human qualities which are necessary for creating a new order."

Well, it sounds nice to read about an ideal picture of anarchy. Places like this location are great because they are laboratories for their own ideas. However, it is often very difficult to really live what ones thinks to be the best: how often do you catch yourself doing something out of greed or anger? Even if you know that you shoud / shouldn't do that kind of thing, you act in contradiction with what you believe to be right, and regret it later on. Even out of the best will, there is some kind of "habit" or "feeling" within you that is so difficult to be fought. Sometimes the "thing" is already done before you could think of it as skillfull or unskillfull, and you've harmed someone by words or deed (and I don't even talk about thoughts...).

I always looked for ways to reduce the negative impact I can have on other people and on the environment. I first started by becoming vegetarian, using less water, energy and recycling my waste, but this research also rapidly brought me to some kind of spirituality, especially during a first travel to India in 2003-2004. At this time I was asking myself how to get rid of attachements to so many unnecessary things and behaviors.

I first came across Vipassana meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka, herited from the buddhist tradition. Vipassana meditators usually don't consider themselves as Buddhists, and rather refer to the original technique of meditation taught by the Buddha about 2500 years ago. Buddhism shows a way out of inner tensions which have to be solved so that an anarchist society can be reality: "It seems that Buddhism is the foundation of anarchy. How can we possibly create an anarchist society if we cannot be whole, healthy individuals? How can we eliminate hierarchy if we cannot control our anger and/or not live our lives dominated by our egos? Besides, it seems that a Buddhist community wouldn't need to work to build anarchy, because by living by Buddhist principles, naturally there anarchy would exist."  (http://engagedbuddhism.tribe.net/thread/83203412-ff0e-4ca1-9891-d9fd1a8480c5). There is a video about bouddhism and anarchy made by Buddhagem, pointing out very nicely the interrelation between inward and outward freedom. And if you want to hear more about Buddhism I recommend you the Dhamma talks of Ajahn Brahm.

Probably the most inspiring author I ever read is Eckhart Tolle. He brings all religions on a same point, leading the reader to understand what life is really about, and specially how to reach inner peace on a practical way by living the daily life into the present (rather than in the past ot the fufure like the mind is used to do). I also was quite inspired by the book Conversations with god, which puts down all institutional and hierarchical makeup that was put around the core of religions over the centuries. It rather focuses on the self-responsibility and judgement of each person, and on the ability of people to create their own reality through their mental attitude (positive or negative). The importance of mental attitude could also be shown by Masaru Emoto, by taking pictures of water cristals, that had been subjected to different mental attitudes created by humans thoughts. In this context, the movie "What the bleep do we know" points out some interesting phenomena, also related to the power of the mind in creating reality. These are a lot of unbelievable things, which first need to be digested, but seem to make sense when looked at closely.

Now, I don't make daily meditation in the sense of a sitting, even if it is surely beneficial. But what I learned in such meditation courses brought me to understand the tensions that arise from the mind (for sure only partly up to now), and this practice can be - and should be - used in the daily life...

And for concluding, some wise Rainbow song:
"Give up your attachements,
Give up your confusions,
Fly in that space, Beyond illusion"