Taking the Bow and the Dog of Aggression.

One of the biggest problems people face as they begin to find enlightenment and discover that which is within us all, is that it can make us so excited and energetic! We can’t believe how long it has taken us to come to this particular revelation and we feel it would be almost criminal not to let others in on our secret. Sound familiar?
It doesn’t matter what the issue, we humans have a flaw in our heads, (one of many!), that tells us that if something is new to us; a) It is new to everyone; and b) We can pass it on to others and they will be as excited as we are. I challenge each of you to look back into your past and think of the many things that excited and inspired you over your life. If you are honest, I know you will have had times in your life where you felt something you learned or experienced was “world changing” and you simply had to let others in on it. This is exactly the enthusiasm that makes the born again religious people feel they are “saving” us with their message, the same as every sect has done throughout history, Humans, no matter how open minded they consider themselves, cannot stomach the idea that they might be wrong or that their might be an opposing view to theirs that has merit. It is why most people cannot take part in a simple conversational debate in a calm and respectful manner. The idea that two people can have two opposing views but that neither of them is necessarily right or wrong is hard for most people’s Ego dogs to handle. Most humans deal in absolutes, even if they would prefer not to. “You always do that”, “This never works”, and a host of other senseless statements become part of our everyday life and we quickly find ourselves in a place where without fully understanding it, we are all but closed off to any opposing viewpoint. When someone tries to point out an error in our logic or to put forth a different view than ours, instead of having the self confidence to look at this as simply an alternate possibility, humans see it as an attack on their perfect plan and logic. They then usually attack the opposing view and set themselves in a defensive posture that serves only to build high walls around their supposed ideals to protect them, for after all, theirs is the right way! I used to become very frustrated with people like this, because at that time I did not see that I was behaving the same way, preaching my own truths from a different horse, but still feeling that there could be no error in my judgment. This was several lifetimes ago fortunately and since then I have learned that there is always the possibility that one is wrong or that there is a better way, no matter how passionately we may think otherwise. To believe that you alone have the answers and are the only one in the know, is a folly a course as those who insist they know what comes when we leave this world. Remember that foolishness is not bound by religion, education or social circumstance. It is within each of us and can control our lives if we let the dogs have too much leash. The base truth is that if any human feels so strongly about their cause or their opinion that they cannot sit by and listen to an alternate viewpoint without getting upset, their dogs are not being tended to. Sometimes this is because they see the alternate view as a direct attack on their worth as a person and other times it is because they see any alternate solution to an issue as someone taking the spotlight off of them. Sadly, attention is the biggest reason people get involved with issues, social of otherwise and the reason most of their efforts are underwhelming. I like to call it, “Starting with the bow”. What this means is that most people when they plan an event or happening, be it in their community, school, business or somewhere else, start with the vision of what the end result will be like and how much people will appreciate them and the job they did and praise them. Now few of us are at a point of enlightenment in life that allows us to admit this, so we have a very hard time getting past it. Starting with the Bow is the major factor in those people whose Ego dogs are improperly fed. These people want approval so desperately that they often make huge plans that generally involve them being the center of attention and having everyone give them a standing ovation and thank them for their life changing wisdom. One major problem with this plan is that once the idea is implanted and the person has in their minds what they feel will be the end product, they generally stop there and never go back to the beginning to set in place a plan that will see their goals achieved. Going back to the beginning means breaking the idea down into an actual plan, and then breaking the plan sown into segments and assigning the segments so all of the details are covered. The reason people don’t want this can range from an inability to understand how to be organized to a general laziness, but all of them have the same main problem which is that all they are really interested in is taking the Bow. It is reminiscent of the story of the Little Red Hen from childhood. Everyone wanted to eat the bread but no one wanted to sow the field, plant the wheat, water the garden, harvest the crop or grind the flour. Real life is exactly the same. Without our dogs properly reined in, humans will always be big on ideas and small on planning and execution. The reason is that they cannot tell the difference. They see an idea as a project, but in reality an idea is just an idea until a plan is put in place to see it to fruition. Until then, it is just a lot of hot air, which we are all full of! Many times have I watched someone put on a community event and then be disappointed when only a handful of people come out to support it. They complain and moan and curse their community for not seeing how great it “could” have been. When I point out to them that perhaps their advertising was not properly handled or that they did not adequately explain what their event was for, they become defensive and send all of the responsibility for the failed event outward. This is because in their mind, the event was not the problem, it was the people who did not support it. It is the same kind of argument you hear when looking at a mess on canvas that someone is calling art. If you make any comment to the effect that you do not like it, (or as I have said more than once, “it looks like something a child did in Kindergarten”), they say that you are just not a connoisseur of art and have a poorly educated taste for art. This is another example of how humans with unleashed dogs are closed minded and in fact very prejudice toward any other viewpoint but their own. I had a conversation recently with one of these humans whose dogs are very off leash. We were talking about fund raising possibilities and the topic of large corporations giving grants to communities came up. There was an instant dismissal of taking any funds from these large evil entities and a general inference that without them, the world would be a perfect place. While I do agree on many points about capitalist corporations, I suggested that if one is trying to raise funds for a project within their community, dismissing any avenue that would achieve the goals should not be immediately dismissed and should be at least open for democratic discussion. The problem with that is it allows for the possibility that the idea will be changed an inevitably the Bow will have to be shared. Most of all, for a person with their dogs off leash, accepting that an alternate viewpoint has merit means that their point of view is WRONG, which just can’t be, because as they know, they are the greatest and smartest and most innovative and caring and sensible etc. etc. ……….. No matter how sound the opposing logic is, it will be met with the same dismissal every time, because when you start at the Bow, letting anyone else in does not work. These people quickly let loose their Dog of aggression, who though a very necessary part of humans, can be the ruin of us if not carefully managed and fed. There are times when we need to let this big dog have more leash in order to strengthen and maintain our self esteem and keep the 80% from dragging us into the muck. It is also needed on those occasions when we cross paths with our counterparts on the bottom side 10% of humans, where at times aggression is the only solution. I am not referring to violence, though at times this to can be necessary for basic survival. I am speaking about human aggression, the kind that allows some of us to stand up for ourselves in a polite yet firm way. It is what allows us to keep from being taken advantage of and allows us to finish the hard days work when our Dogs of Emotion and Ego have had enough or are begging for attention, or when we find ourselves in a dire situation that requires strength and focus to overcome. The Dog of Aggression is kind of a shared resource that can be used by any of the other dogs, both for positive and negative purposes. If we are in a situation where our healthy Dog of Ego is under attack, we may allow this dog to call upon the larger Dog of Aggression to help us deal with the situation. When the threat is gone, we must pull back on the leash and put this dog back in his pen. If we don’t, his success I aggression will quickly provide too much food for the Dog of Ego, who will then want to keep the big do out at all times, not now for defense, but to keep others at bay, be they ideas, viewpoints or actual people. The same goes for times when our Dog of Emotion is hurt by an outside force, which can be the most dangerous because this also affects the Dog of Ego. If our Dog of Emotion reaches a point where it cannot overcome a situation and calls on the Dog of Aggression, it most usually leads to something you read about in the paper. The only Dog we have that can help our soul rein in these two wild Dingo’s is our Dog of Logic, but in most people this dog is too timid to come out when Emotion and Aggression are barking, especially when they are joined by Ego. Think of someone you have known in your life that has always bee overly aggressive. It may have made them a star athlete in school, but it also leads them into situations which end up in violence and intolerance. This is something that shows itself the most in young men and women from puberty onward. Just like the rutting bucks in the woods, young men and women go through the period of positioning, where they do unkind and sometimes violent things to their peers in order to affirm their place within the pack. With girls it is generally verbal violence, (much harder to heal from!), and with young men it is generally physical. Since much of our society seems to worship this kind of aggression in our sports figures, it is natural for this admiration to slide over to the school platform, with teachers putting up with Jimmy’s rough behaviour to the other boys because after all, “he’s a good kid and he’s the best athlete we have”. Teachers often have never left school, going from high school to university ad then back to school. For most of them, they never got control of their dogs nor do they understand them. They were also rarely the most popular student, the star athlete or much of anything else during their school years that made them feel significant. They always wanted to be part of the elite group, or be considered “cool”, so when they return to school, even though they are now a teacher, they have not gotten past the admiration they felt for the top group of students, whether make of female. This is why when a young man who is the most popular boy in school beats up someone who is not, the teachers often don’t take it as serious as they should, because they still look up to those top students like they did when they were school aged. They desperately want to be seen as “cool”, even if their school days are long behind them.

All of this boils down to the same thing. The dogs must be kept in check if the soul is ever to flourish and find itself. Look at your life as if you are a dog walker and you must navigate the world with your dogs held firmly on the leash, giving one more rope here and there as required, and reining back once the reason for the extra leash is achieved. If The Dog of Ego needs feeding, we allow it to feed, but only eating healthy food, meaning that we let it feed on accomplishments rather than superficial things. When it is fed enough, and our self esteem has reaped the benefits of the Ego feeding, we must shorten the leash and get the dog of Ego back in the pack with the rest, so there is balance and so that all dogs remember it is the inner self that is in charge and they are just components and not in charge. To do so keeps us aware of our overall human health and assures there is less risk that we will let any of our dogs get out of control. If you think of your life like a dog sled and your soul is the musher, steering the team through the ins and outs of life, it is easy to see the negative effects that giving any of the dogs on the team more leash would do. It would pull the sled to the right or left, trying to change the course of the musher. This makes the ride bumpy and uncomfortable, just the way your real life is when one or more of your dogs are not under control. The more off course the sled is taken, the deeper the snow can get until the sled cannot move and it freezes in place wherever it stops. This is what happens to people you see who seem so far off base and unaware of things from how we see them. Their dogs have pulled them wildly off of the trail and since they are frozen in the ice, they usually think that it is the world that is off base not them. If you want to keep your dogs under control you must first accept that you cannot free these people from their frozen fate, you can only mush on by with our dogs in check and hope that they might be inspired enough to question how they got where they are and do something about it. YOU CANNOT FREE THEIR SLED! Believe me, I have spent several lifetimes beating my head against frozen rock trying to help people out of their predicaments and in every single case I have ended up tired and frustrated. This doesn’t mean we can’t have an effect on others, but we can only inspire them by our actions and how we live, we cannot bring them inspiration. So many of the Bow takers want to, “save the world”. I would suggest that the world has been here for millions of years before we were and by all accounts lately, would seem to be trying to shake us humans off like a dog shakes a tick. The idea that we humans are in charge of the world is ludicrous. If our humans were in charge of the world, oh what a mess we would be in! The truth is only that which is within us could ever be, “in charge”, and even then, only in charge of our own human. We can allow our dogs to exert control on a particular situation, in order to steer the outcome to where we want it to go, but the idea that our humans can have any real affect the life of the world at large is utopian and a waste of time. We can make a better life for ourselves and our loved ones within the human world. We can achieve and aspire to great things, providing we hold the Dogs in check, and we can inspire through our actions not through words alone, people to make changes in their own lives and with their own human selves, for the overall betterment of the world around us. We must accept however, if we want love, peace, kindness, caring, sharing and cooperation in our world, we must accept that elsewhere there has to be equal amounts of hate, conflict, unkindness, uncaring, greed and lack of cooperation somewhere in the world. Just as for every action there must be an equal and opposite reaction, so for every enlightened person there must be a fool, for every peaceful community their will be one in turmoil and for every act of kindness, there will be an act in the opposite direction. Our humans have one time around on this earth, while our souls do not, (or at least most of our souls do not.) If one cannot find the clarity and understanding to learn about that which is within us all, there is little option but to put that soul through another rotation with a new human in order that they may have another chance at seeing the light. This is the basis of the belief in reincarnation, which many people see as immortality but the people who created the belief saw as failing to reach a suitable point of enlightenment sufficient to earn the key to another option.

What could that other option be? Join me again and we will discuss further………