Are you Socially Acceptable?

Here in the UK there is this fabulous business that employs the homeless and those who are vulnerably housed and otherwise out of work. I always buy the Big Issue magazine – it’s just £1.50, a great read and it puts a hot drink inside the vendor who is doing a very difficult job. The vendor gets a percentage of the magazine’s price, which makes it a legitimate business. Whoever conceived this is a genius!

I know exactly what it’s like to ‘have to sell’ in order to get the next meal. When I was younger, I spent several months in Sydney selling pictures of food to retailers for minimal profit. A friend had let me use his rented room whilst he was on business in Adelaide and I set out each day with my canvass bag full of prints…talk about focus!

I’ve done many different types of work in my life and to me they are all of equal importance and just symptomatic of where one is at. I have great respect for the Big Issue street vendors and if ever I found myself back in that position I wouldn’t hesitate to join them. There are some very wise people ‘on the streets’.

So when friends, family and nosy neighbours question what I’m ‘up2’ and what I’ve been ‘doing’ I take it with a pinch of salt because I know exactly where it’s coming from. People who have got themselves on a treadmill feel much better if they can hear that you are also on a work treadmill. They like to justify their own lives and they also like to judge others who don’t meet their self-imposed levels of acceptance. They are pathetic tyrants. They lack in understanding and wisdom.

What then does one do when one is continually bombarded with conditioned responses? For instance, you meet somebody new and the first thing they ask you is ‘what do you do?’ You know they really don’t give a fuck and you find yourself sucked into playing the game by giving them your conditioned response that will hopefully satisfy their mind. Of course you’re now running your own mind disease because you’re living for social acceptance and for the approval of others.

Do you know how lost we have all become? I know tyrants whose whole lives are about trying to condition others into their self-imposed limitations of mind and I know victims who live their lives almost completely inline with the self-serving opinions of their partners or parents.

Try it. The next time somebody asks you ‘how are you?’ say to them ‘why do you want to know?’ and the next time somebody asks you ‘what do you do?’ say ‘nothing’ and watch their reaction. You’re not here to live your life to please parents, children, partners, friends, employers, employees, teachers or students. But please don’t worry because it’s a common disease of the human mind and one nobody escapes…

Now here’s the interesting bit. When you reflect upon the lives of great Masters you realise they never lived in this way. They never lived for social acceptance or for the approval of others. They only live for truth – their truth. It’s not important what other people think; it’s only important what you think.

If you’re not feeling good enough or you’ve fallen out with someone or you’ve got your knickers in a twist over something else, then may I suggest that you’re either trying to comply with somebody else’s mind and it’s not feeling right for you or you’re trying to get them to comply with your mind. Which is it?

I’ve written this article for one reason only. The implications of what I am saying here are huge. This disease of the human mind has infiltrated every aspect of society and training our minds to be able to live contrary to social acceptance is difficult but is also synonymous with the path to Greatness.

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