“P-A … offers an array of Self-Reliant responses”
James Joyce said that history is a nightmare from which we are trying to awaken. If he’s right (and of course he is) then we must ask the obvious question: are we preparing our children to be more self-sufficient and resourceful to survive the nightmare, which Simple Reality calls Paradigm-B?
Madeline Levine addresses this in Ready or Not: Preparing Our Kids to Thrive in an Uncertain and Rapidly Changing World (2020). “Anxiety … is now the No. 1 mental health disorder for both kids and adults—and parent’s urge to soothe our own stress can push us to shield our kids from the mistakes and failures that would teach them to conquer their fears. We create ‘accumulated disability’ in our children—‘impairment of life skills and the ability to cope, adapt and function’—which is especially damaging in today’s ‘volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous’ world. ‘If we know anything about the next 20 or 30 years … we know that essential skills will include self-sufficiency, equanimity in the face of change and enthusiasm for challenge.’ Precisely what neurotic parenting stifles.”[i]
Huston Smith in The Religions of Man (1958) provides insights into Self-Reliance: “[Every] individual must tread this path himself through his own energy and initiative. Those who, relying upon themselves only, shall not look for assistance to any one besides themselves, it is they who shall reach the topmost heights.”[ii] A Self-Reliant individual is a valuable member of your community. They look inside for the Truth of Simple Reality (P-A), and are not swayed by social media, the latest money-making scheme, fashion trend, or afflictive emotions. They are guided by compassion and equality.
As conscious beings we are aware of “the illusion inherent in suffering, impermanence, the false self, craving and aversion, the collective unconscious, the shadow, the personal unconscious and reliance on the intellect. We have become Self-Reliant without a self. Life for us is now pure experience beyond time, space and ego. We are energy emancipated.”[iii]
Insight # 97 comes to us from Roy Charles Henry (b. 1938). He is the creator of The Simple Reality Project.
“Few indeed are those people who have discovered that they have a choice to transcend the ringing of the bells of security, sensation and power and respond instead to the resplendent waves of energy flowing from a truer, less illusory reality. The melody of P-A does not demand an automatic reaction but instead offers an array of Self-Reliant responses that have their origin in compassion, peace, joy, harmony and freedom.”[iv]
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Additional Reading:
- Self-Reliance, The ABC’s of Simple Reality, Vol 2
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[i] Hanauer, Cathi. “Listen Up, Parents!” The New York Times Book Review. February 23, 2020, p. 13.
[ii] Smith, Huston. The Religions of Man. New York: Harper, 1958, p. 107.
[iii] Henry, Roy Charles. “Chakras.” The ABC’s Of Simple Reality, Vol 2. May 2018, p. 66.
[iv] Henry, Roy Charles. “Conditioning and Behavior Modification.” The ABC’s Of Simple Reality, Vol 1. May 2018, p. 94.
