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The WMail Newsletter Essays
Volume VIII - Issue #70: April 2007

"The Cage"

        Each and every one of us lives inside of a Cage. The Dalai Lama has a Cage. You have a Cage, and I have a Cage. George W. Bush has a Cage that is very small and does not admit light.
        The Cage is not permanent, but it is certainly there. The Cage is there for all humans because the Oligarchy and its external agent, the Culture-Structure, wants it to be there, and has installed your False Mind to keep it there.

        You have Power over your Personal Cage, though the Oligarchy teaches that you do not. The Cage exists to the extent that you believe the superstition that the Cage is Who You Are, and likewise, you are free of the Cage when you can acknow- ledge the reality of the Cage’s existence.

* *          * *          * *          * *

WHAT IS THE CAGE?
        The Cage that each human lives inside of is every restriction, every limitation, each and every self-created denial of Power that is thrown at you by your False Mind, that you then entertain or deny or resist.
        Every “what if?” problem, every “don’t you dare” injunction, every “I can’t”, every “not now”, every too late, too hard, too risky, too something else – any stoppage from the Voice In Your Head, from your nattering False Mind critic. The purpose of the chatter is to reinforce your Cage, to keep you small, to keep you dis-empowered, keep you worried and ineffective and yearning for the elusive Someday when It Will All Turn Out.
        The Cage is your superstitions and beliefs, all your inhibitions and attitudes and policies of behavior learned from whatever cultural System was the locale of your instruction or development.
        The Cage includes being a racist or a misogynist, as well as being a victim of racism or of sexism or ageism. The Cage is either heroism or victimhood, player or bystander, success or failure, loved or unloved, social lion or shy hermit, loud or quiet, smart or dumb, healthy or sick, young or ‘mature’, ugly or plain or sexy or dull, hearty or meek, present or asleep, happy or depressed, wasteful or ‘green’, productive or idle – and more.

        Each attribute that is reported by you to the world is the making of your Cage.
        “I’m tired.”
        “Nobody understands/loves/respects/wants me.”
        “That is beyond me.” (i.e. I’ll never ...)
        The list is endless, for the individual and for Mankind.

        The Cage is what keeps you the way that you are; the Cage is what keeps others stuck in their ruts; the Cage is why the World is so damn tough on us all.

        The Dalai Lama walks into a room and his Cage requires him to perform as the Dalai Lama. George W. Bush is so restricted, his mental circuitry so pressured by psychosis, that his handlers (performing inside their cages) pull the strings and push the buttons so that Dubya feigns sentience.
        There is no way out of your personal Cage, and the same is true for the Dalai Lama and for Dubya and his gang and for Bill Gates.
        This is why the mythology of Fate was created, to explain the automaticity of one’s seeming Unfree Will.
        Your Cage exists, your actions are limited by (if not caused by) your Personal Cage.
        Too bad, just get over it.

* *          * *          * *          * *

ESCAPING THE CAGE
        Up to a point, the permanent existence of your Cage is indeed true. However, Free Will is always an option. Most people prefer their Cage to Free Will: there is no Risk inside one’s Personal (or Societal) Cage.
        I have on occasion asked people to raise their right hand and say “I am an individual.” The most common response is stupefaction. The False Mind locks on the concept, or they get real busy trying to figure out what the trick or con or trap is in the request, or truly for some, there is not an iota of truth in the statement “I am an individual.”

        “Freedom exists in the exercise thereof.” (As I have said many times.)
        That is precisely how Free Will works as well. Get that we are not Free and then declare that you are an exception.
        Get that we are a mass of sheeple, and then declare that you are an Individual.
        Get that we all exist inside of a Cage, and then declare that you are not your Cage.

        There is this very cool existential option, and that is to shut down the Little Voice In Your Head (see Issue #30: “Radio Silent”), to ignore your False Mind, and in that moment of clarity, of being Present, to cause your world to be empty and unbounded, to be outside of your Cage.

        The practical methodology for causing this state or event is to empower another.
        Empowerment is the access to standing outside of your Cage. Every Act of Empowerment provides Power for another/- others and for yourself, so that you and they then have access to existential (unbounded) reality.
        (How you know that an act is one of empowerment is that the other person is empowered; when no Power shows up, then it was not an Act of Empowerment.)
        It is possible to create such moments rapidly in series or succession, or to create and maintain such a Clearing for periods of Time, or to create a River of Silence, which you can learn to step into and out of along one’s journey.

* *          * *          * *          * *

THE FUN PART
        Once you get facile at causing Clearing events, which can be described as Stepping Outside Your Cage, you will notice a really astounding phenomenon.
        The Cage cannot tolerate your being Outside – how dare you be an Individual! – just as the Culture-Structure cannot tolerate Reason, just as the Oligarchy cannot tolerate democracy or dissent or any sort of Freedom.
        The Cage is not permanent, but it is always there.
        So what the Cage does is expand to re-include you!
        The accidental Outsider will soon resign him/herself to the Futility Of It All, but the Working Mind will revel in the expanded scope of his/her Cage.
        Work at developing your Working Mind will increase the size/territory/cubic area of your Cage, such that while the sheeply masses pound on the walls of their too-solid Cage, the Working Mind is running about over hill and dale, enjoying the many aspects of the landscape, the vistas of distant geography, and the sunlight streaming thru Cage walls stretched as thin as cellophane.

        This can indeed be done.
        This can be done by you.
        Only the Individual can do this.
        No other can do this for you, nor can you perform this existential act for another.
        You can (and must) empower others, which merely provides them the opportunity to continue. Such Empowerment also provides you with access to your existential Self, and thus to living (for a moment or more) outside of your Cage.

        Not doing this has you living inside the restrictions of your Personal Cage and of your Societal Cage.
        Empowerment of others (and secondarily of yourself) gives you the Freedom and the ability to step outside of your Cage to see what life can be like when not living by the dictates of your False Mind (the internal agent of the Culture-Structure, which is the external agent of the Eternal Beast that strives to enslave Mankind).

        The state motto of New Hampshire is “Live free or die”.
        For the Working Mind, these are the only true options.

[copyright 2007 by Gary Edward Nordell, all rights reserved]


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