I have been planning to write an article about thinking like a politician.

I have been unable to. I have vague ideas, examples, movies, articles, real life politicians, and yet, no article.

So I got curious: I am not known for writer’s block, I was born to write, I was born to express.

So, I have been walking about my apartment, seemingly aimless, allowing an insight to emerge: what is the reason I am not able to write this article.

I am not able to see the behavior, the mindset from the inside: I am not a politician, neither in occupation, nor in mindset… I am looking from the outside… it is like an ugly bug to me. Most things that I write about are things that I can see myself doing… so maybe that’s what’s missing: seeing it in me, recognizing it, ugly as it may be.

And then something hits me: I am doing what most of my students want me to do: distinguish something through examples.

What is a distinction? It is like a looking glass, it is like a frame of reference: you can see a certain aspect of everything through it, but all the examples of it don’t even point into the right direction.

I know that sounded like Chinese: it is Chinese until it is distinguished… lol… we’ve gotten to full circle.

I have been called by my friends that really know me, the Distinctions Maven. Why? Because I can see distinctions where no ordinary eye can see any.

A distinction excludes everything that doesn’t fit, but allows through everything that does. It’s like a filter… it goes deep, beyond what’s easy to see, it deals with the essence of things, not the shape, not the color, not the feel, or not only.

Here is a sample distinction: circle. Once you get the distinction “circle” where every tangent around the two-dimensional shape has the same angle with the next tangent as every other tangent… when you get that a circle, when looked at it in perspective becomes an oval, you will be able to recognize it even from its fragment.

Distinctions are the tools of seeing the hidden aspects of things… especially in the dominion of human behavior, human consciousness, spirituality, society, health, etc… the areas that are most fraught with misinformation, and the fragmented view of things. The areas that the mind, borrowed knowledge, invented theories dominate and mislead most people. Areas where everything is the same as everything else, except that not always… at least that is how you relate to it… treacherous, swamp-like, no foothold… dominated by Dark Side.

It is hard to see what motivates a person without distinctions. Without distinctions all you can see is the surface, and your own projections.

There is no one out there, it is just you: projecting your thoughts, attitudes, like and dislikes on others… so all you can see is you. And you mostly don’t like what you see, but to you it seems that it’s them.

This is what I have been able to see about politicians, or people that live their lives according to the value system of a politician, no matter what their occupation…

They are users of people and facts to their own purposes, regardless of the truth, regardless of another’s well-being, position, rights, right, dignity, real needs, etc. In the game of “a politician” all serves the purpose of ruling over others, power over others, and no price is too high to pay for that. [note]here is an Osho quote: Money, politics, are far more dangerous drugs. Now, this is very ironical: politicians are always against drugs, people who have money are always against drugs – and they are not aware that they themselves are drug-addicts. And they are on a far more dangerous trip, because their trip implies others’ lives too. A man is free to do whatsoever he wants to do.

LSD can at the most be a suicidal thing, but it is never murder. It is suicide! And one IS free to commit suicide, at least one HAS to be free to commit suicide because it is your life; if you don’t want to live, it is okay. But money is murder; so is power-politics murder – it kills others.

I am not saying to choose drugs. I am saying ALL drugs are bad: money, politics, LSD, Marijuana. You choose these things because you have a false idea that they will expand your consciousness. The consciousness can be expanded very simply, very easily, because IN FACT it is already expanded. You are just living in a false notion: your false notion is your barrier, is your prison.[/note]

Women are better at that: they practice it from early on. They shun, shame, gossip about other females, as if themselves climbing over those other bodies gave them anything worth having.

So that’s another distinction: they, the politicians, strive for stuff that is not worth having… money, position, clout, and stuff like that. At least not the way they go about it: they don’t want to earn it by knowledge, by wisdom, by service, they want to take it from others.

So here is another distinction: the politicians are the prime representative of the distinction we call evil: desire to receive for the self alone.

And as I said, as soon as it’s a distinction, you will start to see it everywhere, in yourself, in your co-workers, in your parents… and you’ll start seeing the wretchedness of it all. [note]Politics Begins in the Family…

Politics is a disease, and it should be treated exactly like that. It is
more dangerous than cancer and if surgery is needed it should be done.
Politics is basically dirty. It has to be because for one post thousands
of people are hankering, longing; then naturally they will fight, they
will kill, they will do anything.

Our whole program of the mind is so wrong: we have been programmed to be
ambitious. And that’s where politics is. It is not only in the ordinary
world of politics, it has even polluted your ordinary life.

Even a small child starts smiling at the mother, at the father — a bogus
smile; he has no depth behind it. But he knows whenever he smiles he is
rewarded. He has learned the first rule of being a politician. He is
still in his cradle and you have taught him politics.

In human relationships there is politics everywhere.

Man has crippled woman. It is politics.

Women constitute half of humanity. Man has no right to cripple them, but
for centuries he has been crippling them completely. He has not allowed
them education. He has not allowed them even to listen to the holy
scriptures. In many religions he has not allowed them to enter the
temple. Or, if he has allowed them, they have a separate section; they
cannot stand with the man as equal even before God.

But the beginning is with God himself. You may not be aware…because
ordinarily everybody has forgotten. Christians don’t mention it, Jews
don’t mention it. Adam and Eve are emphasized as being the first man and
woman; Adam is certainly the first man, but Eve is not the first woman.
God made Adam and Lilith, and he made them equal — the same height, the
same intelligence, the same strength, the same mind.

But the gods of foolish people cannot be very wise. He made these two,
but he could not make a double bed! He made a small bed, and the first
night the problem arose of who is going to sleep on the bed and who is
going to sleep on the floor. So — the pillow fight is not new, it is as
ancient as man — they started throwing things at each other. Both were
equal physically and mentally, and the woman was not to be subdued: Adam
had to sleep on the floor.

Seeing that all kinds of animals are looking through the windows at what
is happening — and the woman was adamant, as she always is — she slept
on the bed and poor Adam slept on the floor, but he was very angry. He
went to God the next day and said, “This woman won’t do. It is too much
trouble. Alone I was good. It was my fault that I told you, ‘I am alone;
give me a companion.’

“What kind of a companion have you given me? And couldn’t you have been a
little more understanding? How will two persons sleep on a small bed? I
need a woman who is not equal to me in any respect.”

Lilith was dismantled. Now Eve was created in a totally different way.
The first surgery of the world happened. When poor Adam was asleep —
perhaps he was given something similar to chloroform — God took out one
of his ribs and made a woman out of the rib so that she would never be
equal to him; she will be only a rib. And Eve became known as the first
woman, but really she was the second. I would have preferred the first
woman; she had some salt, some strength. She managed on the first night
to put Adam on the floor. He needed it.

But Eve was very much like a slave. All that she used to do was,
whenever Adam would come home late and go to sleep she would count his
ribs. She was afraid God may have created other women, taking other
ribs. And man, since then…perhaps the idea of God is also man’s. God
is also a male chauvinist: in his trinity there is no place for a woman.

Man has tried to cut in every way the freedom of women.

This is politics; it is not love.

You love a woman but you don’t give her freedom. What kind of love is
this, which is afraid of giving freedom?

You encage her like a parrot. You can say you love the parrot, but you
don’t understand you are killing the parrot! You have taken the whole
sky away from the parrot and you have given him just a cage. The cage
may be made of gold, but even a golden cage is nothing to be compared
with the freedom of parrots in the sky, moving from tree to tree,
singing their song…not what you force them to say, but what is natural
to them, what is authentic to them.

The woman goes on doing things which man wants. She, by and by, has
completely forgotten that she is also a human being.

In China, for thousands of years, a husband could kill a wife. Only in
1951 has a new law been made which prevents it. Up to 1951 the husband
was empowered: if he wanted to kill his woman it was his business; it
was his woman, a possession. The law has no interest in interfering in
your possessions. And, moreover, China thinks that women have no souls;
only man has a soul.

That’s why in the history of China you will not find a single woman of
the caliber of Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu, Confucius, Mencius…not a
single woman. If you don’t have a soul you are just a thing; you cannot
compete with man.

Half of humanity, in every country, in every civilization, has been
destroyed by family politics. You may not be calling it “politics,” but
it is politics. Wherever there is a desire to have power over another
person, it is politics. Power is always political…even over small
children. The parents think they love them, but it is only in their
mind, because they want the children to be obedient — and what does
obedience mean? It means all the power is in the hands of the parents.

If obedience is such a great quality, why shouldn’t the parents be
obedient to the children? If it is such a religious thing, parents
should be obedient to children. But it has nothing to do with religion.
All that it has to do with is hiding politics in a beautiful word.

Man needs exposure on every point, wherever politics has entered — and
it has entered everywhere, in every relationship. It has contaminated
the whole life of man, and it is continuously contaminating it.[/note]

I wrote about the student that lost her vibration recently. She seemingly found her passion and that made her drop all other ambitions, practicing her English (it’s not her mother tongue) and being a human being.

What took over is the desire to get her homework done, get her art developed, and though this doesn’t sound like a politician’s behavior, it is. So, how would we express this so it can be seen, from this point on, everywhere?

Maybe if I said: at the expense of Life… going for what’s in it for her at the expense of All-of-It… now, in that you will be able to see yourself. I can.

All-of-It includes all people, all cultures, all of life, all the stars and all the planets.

And now, maybe, you can see, that the difference between a human and a human being is this: the human being includes, in all their activities, a loving concern for All-of-It. Not in a pious way, not as a lip-service, but as a real loving concern, while not giving up anything… anything at all.

It is like dancing in a small room without trampling on others, without bumping into furniture and the walls… an art… it’s possible. There are a few that are already able to do that.

That is where we want to go, that is where all my teaching is guiding you to go, that is all the tools I provide you can take you. Use them.

Read the original article: Distinction: Politician, political