The Controller’s Foot

I remember seeing a cartoon, years ago, where there were layers of people on their hands and knees and some fat men standing on the backs of the top layer. You can imagine the message of the illustrator being something like, “Look up, people!” The accompanying article asked why we see the enemy as the one beneath us, rather than the one standing on our backs.

We know the fat controllers are doing a job on the people, and we have known. It has to be at least 20 years since I read that article and saw the cartoon. And yet, still today, if I read the comments on a video or article where race is discussed, it’ll ‘make me wanna holler’: is the problem really that ‘other’ person next to you? The weary one that the fat man is standing on?

We are now beginning to truly suffer the weight on our backs, so that’s a change. What was a rare voice 20 years ago is not so rare anymore. But as we look up at the ‘wicked in high places’, is there a change in our hearts toward each other?

A few days ago I saw a headline: “The Impending Race War.” I have no idea what angle the article was coming from because I didn’t read it. ‘Watch what you consume’ has become my motto with regard to information, because the stuff piles up and affects me emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

No matter what the article says, whose agenda is the headline pumping anyway? We’re already being told who to be afraid of, who’s trying to take our scraps, who’s planning to behead us and what disease to watch out for next. Now we’re being told what war we are going to engage in, with our neighbor?

We do have the capacity to direct our own thinking. So, I’ll offer some thoughts about the ‘not impending race war’. We have a choice about this one. While we might not be able to stop them from going off and fighting the latest manufactured enemy, in search of resources, and total control, at Israel’s bidding… we can stop the heinous notion of fighting amongst ourselves.

Pressure is an evolutionary catalyst, and many of us have experienced this in our lives. A challenge comes up, we might not know how to deal with it, but we muster up the strength, dig deep, face it, and sure enough… we grow: solutions come, new strength is gained, new wisdom and humility. As the Zen proverb states:

The obstacle is the path. Great obstacles lead to great opportunities.

What’s the obstacle with regard to the ‘impending race war’ scenario? Surely it’s not what other people do, or what they wear, or how they talk. We can easily understand what other people do and what their experiences have been if we think for ourselves, and look, listen, and read. Everybody has a history of the controller’s foot on their back… some, quite a long history. Maybe we could learn from them. Profound lessons about the power of the human Spirit can be found on the reservation and in the ghetto.

The territorial, survival-only, reptile mind doesn’t rule the heart: it rules in the political arena, religious organizations, academia, media, but in the realization that what I do to you I do to me, it does not rule. The victory is in the heart… if we go there, we win.

The oneness of our divine human Spirit, the immortality of it, the eternity of it, the love of that Spirit, the Truth that it is, the Power that it is … this is the very concept, within the consciousness movement, that attracted me in the first place. The heart expands into it.

So, let’s ask… how could the fat controllers get us to fight each other if we know that we’re all complete parts of one Divinity? They can take the machine to war, but they can’t cause us to hate and fear each other. We’re the ones who do that.

We are looking toward a time when the things we need may be scarce. Can you imagine the fear messages they will be pumping out? Will we succumb, or will we remember who we are? My thoughts go to plenty of times when one wonderful person or another showed up and my needs were met. Sometimes I got to be the wonderful person for somebody else.

The moment of our ‘obstacle’ is closer now than it’s ever been. All I can say is don’t eat the poison. Do not eat the poison. Listen to the actual people, and not the news. Fairness, respect, truth, justice… these things need not be lost to us, even in times of scarcity. Everyone is capable of looking up: the cowboy hat, the hoodie, the hijab.