4. ABOUT THE TRANSFORMED STATE
WTM FAQ 4.5 Is taking up the Transformed Way of Living more difficult for some people and some races??
Jeremy Griffith’s response:
Everyone variously runs into a ‘Mexican Standoff’ problem where they find it hard to go forward and take up the Transformed Way of Living but at the same time don’t want to go back and deny that the explanation of the human condition has been found and they and everyone else should leave behind the old embattled, insecure ways of validating ourselves through winning power, fame, fortune and glory. This is the ‘hard teaching. Who can accept it?’ (John 6:60) I referred to in paragraph 50 of my booklet The Shock of Change.
It should be explained that this difficulty of letting go our now obsoleted power, fame, fortune and glory artificial ways of sustaining our self-worth and taking up the Transformed Way of Living varies according to how innocent or upset we individually are and how innocent or upset the ethnic group or race we come from is.
It is explained in Freedom Essay 28 and chapter 8:16E of FREEDOM that you can equate the ‘age’ of a race to the age of an individual depending on how long that race has been exposed to the corrupting battle to find understanding, and therefore how innocent or upset it is. So, a more innocent race will be the equivalent of a 21-year-old individual for example, whereas a very ancient civilisation where innocence has long given way to more upset-adapted humans, will be the equivalent of a 50 or 60 year old. Basically, the more innocent or uncorrupted we individually are, or our race is, the less we can feel there is a need to give up our relatively uncorrupted way of living and take up the Transformed Way of Living; whereas the more upset or corrupted we individually are, or our race is, the more we can appreciate that there is a need to give up our corrupted way of living. Of course, despite these inclinations, since the whole human race is now clearly excessively and dangerously corrupted it is irrelevant how innocent or upset we are or our race is, everyone must take up the Transformed Way of Living that understanding of the human condition finally makes possible so we can save the human race.
At this point, it is informative to look at the case of Bantu Africans, who we have found respond positively to online advertisements that promote understanding of the human condition. Despite being relatively unaffected by the Deaf Effect (see FAQ 1.16) that makes accessing discussion of the human condition difficult for most peoples, generally speaking, Bantu Africans will, initially at least, find taking up the Transformed Way of Living particularly difficult. This is because, as I explain in paragraphs 766, 1028 and 1031 of FREEDOM, being a relatively innocent 21-year-old or thereabouts equivalent-race they are like swashbuckling 21-year-old individuals, all set up to launch themselves into the world to champion the ego/intellect over the instinct, so to be told to, as it were, ‘put down the sword’ when they’ve only just ‘picked it up’ can initially seem particularly difficult. As I mention in paragraph 781 of FREEDOM, this statement from the 1986 African musical Ipi Tombi, that ‘The women had to do all the work because the men were so busy being big, strong and brave’ (Narration: Sesiya Hamba, Drinking Song, lyrics by Thandi Lephelile), makes this point of just how focused male Bantus especially are on wanting to be ‘big, strong and brave’ world-conquering legends. The reason males are more egocentric than women is, as is explained in paragraph 770 of FREEDOM, because men were charged with the responsibility to defeat the ignorance of our soul.
As humans become more experienced with the horror of the battle to solve the human condition, this bold naivety starts to wane and they are not as gung-ho. As I mention in paragraph 851 of FREEDOM, Rod Stewart’s song I Was Only Joking contains lyrics that vividly describe the reality check of reaching 30: ‘Me and the boys thought we had it sussed. Valentinos all of us…running free, Waging war with society…But nothing ever changed…What kind of fool was I. I could never win…Illusions of that grand first prize, are slowly wearing thin…I guess it had to end’ (lyrics by Gary Grainger & Rod Stewart, 1977).
This Japanese proverb that I mention in paragraph 852 of FREEDOM lays it all out: ‘At 10 man is an animal, at 20 a lunatic, at 30 a failure, at 40 a fraud and at 50 a criminal.’ Yes, ten-year-olds were ‘animals’ in the sense that they had yet to learn any methods of restraint for the upset that they were beginning to experience from the frustrations and agony of the human condition. Twenty-year-olds—and young men in particular—were ‘lunatics’ in the sense that they were swashbuckling cavaliers who deludedly believed they could take on and overthrow the ignorant world of the soul and prove they were good and not bad by winning power, fame, fortune and glory. Thirty-year-olds (and, again, men in particular) were ‘failures’ in the sense that, although they were still determinedly trying to defy the inevitable, they were being forced to accept that the corrupting life of seeking power, fame, fortune and glory was not going to be a genuinely reinforcing, meaningful and satisfying way of living. Forty-year-olds, men in particular, were ‘frauds’ in the sense that they had become so corrupted and disenchanted with their efforts to ‘conquer the world’ that they suffered a ‘mid-life crisis’—a crisis of confidence that resulted in their decision to take up support of some form of ‘idealism’ to make themselves feel better about their corrupted condition. Having had enough of the critically important, yet horribly corrupting, battle to champion the ego over soul, they effectively ‘changed sides’ to become ‘born-again’ supporters of the soul’s ‘idealistic’ world. This ‘born-again’ conversion made them ‘frauds’ because in taking up support of some form of idealism they were deluding themselves that they were at last on the side of good when, in truth, they were working against good, in that the good, right and responsible path depended on defying and defeating—not supporting—the ignorant ‘idealistic’ world of the soul. They were being pseudo idealistic, not genuinely idealistic. And, finally, 50-year-olds, again men in particular, were ‘criminals’ in that they had become so disillusioned with the extreme dishonesty of the born-again state that many returned to the battle of championing the ego over ignorance, but were, by this stage of their journey, so deeply upset that they were extremely angry and cynical about life; basically, they knew they were beaten on every front and had become bitter and vengeful ‘criminals’—which is why they particularly were in a position to appreciate the need for them and the whole human race to take up the Transformed Way of Living.
What now needs to be pointed out is that while the older battlers with the human condition are in the best position to appreciate the need for them and the world to take up the Transformed Way of Living, they do have working against them the fact that they become extremely attached to their power, fame, fortune and glory artificial ways of validating themselves. They become addicted to, and proud of, their ‘trophy room’, as it were, and don’t want to give it up. It should also be pointed out that the focus in leaving the old world of artificial reinforcement isn’t on giving up your possessions or walking the streets in sackcloth in self-denial and servitude. We’re talking about a change of mindset that can have an effect on your priorities, which can affect your choice of possessions and so forth, but the focus isn’t on self-deprivation.
So it is those from the middle of the range, the 30 to 40-year-old equivalent races, who are not too naive about life under the duress of the human condition, and not yet too ‘punch drunk’ with the need for power and glory ‘wins’ and attached to their ‘trophy room’, who are in the best position to take up and initiate support for the Transformed Way of Living.
Again, the reality is that since the battle is won to prove we humans are good and not bad there is no excuse for not leaving the battle, and so in time everyone will realise and embrace that truth, which means resistance by the more innocent and by the overly upset are just temporary procrastinations.
I might mention that what is happening in Rwanda presents a microcosm example (like the Fijian example described in Freedom Essay 28) of what has often happened everywhere when races of different levels of upset cohabitated; it also evidences the relative innocence of the Bantu. Before migrating down to Rwanda, the tall aristocratic-like Nilotic Tutsi were originally cattle herders in the Nile River valley where their relativity innocent Bantu genes were mixed with some of the more toughened, upset-adapted Arab genes. This relative human-condition-adapted toughness of the Tutsi has made them relatively operational under the duress of the human condition, in particular more able to be disciplined in controlling greed and corruption, which is undoubtably why the economy in Rwanda where the Tutsi’s hold power is now, relative to other African countries, reasonably functional. The Hutu are the other prominent ethnic group in Rwanda, their ancestors migrated to Rwanda directly from the Bantu homeland in western Africa. As a result they are less toughened, more innocent, like most Bantu Africans. Interestingly, when Annie Williams and I visited Rwanda and neighbouring Burundi in 1992, we noticed that Jane Goodall’s Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Centre in Burundi only employed Hutu to look after orphaned and young chimps, presumably because being less toughened they are better at nurturing the orphans and young chimps. Unfortunately, the Hutu’s resentment of the Tutsi’s historic domination of them led to the horrific attempted ‘ethnic cleansing’ by the Hutu of an estimated 800,000 mostly Tutsi in 100 days of bloodshed in Rwanda in 1994. (Freedom Essay 28 explains how understanding of the human condition brings an end to all prejudices like racism forever.)