OYA'S MARKETPLACE - Oya N'Soro

OYA'S MARKETPLACE PAGE 19
bondage. As honest slaves, we can say
that we really don’t know anything
about freedom. We have opinions, we
have read books, we have heard sermons
and lectures. But honestly now,
we haven’t every really lived in freedom
and therefore we will suspend all that
we think we know about being free.
Maybe a free person can fly, or heal, or
never again reincarnate -- we don’t know.
So we will temporarily define freedom
as that which is not slavery, bondage,
mechanicality.
What then is slavery, bondage, mechanicality?
That is the condition we
presume ourselves to be in, it is the
state which the prophets tell us we are
in, and in this experiment we are to
suppose that this is all true. But what
exactly would that be? What are the
characteristics of a slave, of a machine,
of a person in bondage? In bondage to
what? Enslaved by what? A machine
driven or controlled by what?
For the sake of getting started, let’s
accept some tentative descriptions of
slavery, or whatever we want to call the
opposite of freedom (actually, freedom
evokes no opposite). Let’s say the
following about our state of psychological
mechanicality: there is no personal
initiative, only imitation; all actions,
thoughts, feelings, are essentially
repetitive; behavior is controlled not by
vision, not by clarity of sight, but by
fear; habit rules one’s internal and external
response to stimuli; external
stimuli, or the memory of expectation
of same, rule one’s inner life; one has no
thought for oneself, only the internalization
of someone else’s thought.
Further, we would expect a first-rate
slave or robot to be utterly convinced
without any doubt that all of the above
is untrue, does not apply in his or her
case, and that in fact he or she is selfdirected
and full of self knowledge.
Now, is there any practical way to
challenge all of that? Any way to
actually challenge myself, bring my
whole self into question, now, at once?
Yes, it can be done now, at once. One
only has to look. Just look, not react,
not think, not analyze, not fear, not
hope, not move in any way, just look,
just see. But perhaps that is too much,
too overwhelming, too frightening for
us as we are. For are we not just now
convincing ourselves that we are robots?
Not like robots, but really robots!
So here, now, as robots, it occurs
to us that we could do one small totally
unrobotic act: we can look at ourselves,
we can acquire factual information
about ourselves, we can create our
own body of self knowledge, of truth,
without any outside reference points
whatever. Without any reference to
mother, pope, teacher, guru, saint,
lover, and without any reference to
fear, doubt, pride, anxiety, hope, or
need. This is the gathering of facts, the
cognition of truth, simply as it is, now.
But this is still a big task. Still an
unfamiliar act for slaves like us who
thrive on the known, the comfortable.
So we reduce it in scope,make it smaller,
make it manageable, make it real.
We go at one simple question: can I
observe myself?
Obviously, the only way to find out is
to try. And this is the suggestion.
Attempt to verify whether or not you
really can observe yourself. Be practical
and honest about it. Get as down
to earth as you can about it. Face it.
Of course you don’t think it’s necessary.
We know that. Of course you
already know a great deal about yourself
and your life. Of course you
already possess self knowledge and
objective truth. On the other hand,
maybe you don’t really want to know;
maybe there’s a lurking fear that some
new fact might upset your present
picture of yourself...
Keep this task simple and do-able.
Pick some know behavior or situation
that is sure to happen every day during
the next few months or so. An example
might be brushing your teeth in the
morning, or eating lunch, or walking
down a particular hall at work, or
getting the mal, or turning on a particular
television show, or anything that you
know you will do every day.
Attempt simply to see yourself as clearly
as you can for no more than one or two
minutes during the situation you have
chosen.
Observe all that you can of yourself:
your thoughts and reactions, your physical
posture or tension, your emotional
state, and of course your reaction to the
act of self observation.
If you decide to do this, if it isn’t
beneath you, then you will have greater
success if you help yourself remember
the task each day. Write yourself a
note. Sit quietly with yourself for a
moment in the morning and remind
yourself that for one minute when you
go to get the mail, for one minute then,
you will try to see how you walk, what
you think, what you feel. Not to
become wise in cosmic truth, just to
know a simple fact about how you
really are at that time. For a robot, such
an act is impossible.