Insanity is the word for it

If you read my last entry, it demonstrates an important pattern in human behavior: insanity. Of course, I am not a psychologist or a psychiatrist and I am probably not using the exact correct definition of what they would call insanity. However, I do mean something specific by it.

Eckhart Tolle uses the term "insane" to describe a person (or the whole human race) as someone overtaken by and wrapped up in the ego. I like that definition because I think it can be useful in describing things.

For example, when I was in my state of worry over money, I had absolutely no awareness of what was really happening in that moment: I was driving in my car with little or no traffic. Good music was playing. The weather was nice. I was healthy, and nothing was wrong. The only thing that was "wrong" in that moment was my bout of worry about a future time which doesn't exist and may never exist. The worry existed only in my brain. Outside my skin, there was no problem with anything.

That's insanity: making pain for yourself when there is really none to be had.

There are also many different levels of insanity. What happened there in the car was a moment of minor insanity, a minor and fleeting loss of awareness Consciousness, also called unconsciousness.

There is also deep insanity, or deep unconsciousness. Let's say you have an average man who just finds out that his wife cheated on him. Certainly, he will become angry. Most people would, and that's the normal reaction to it. You can be angry and conscious at the same time. However, a "normal" person would have a really tough time being conscious in that situation. Most people would become unconsious and get into an argument with the betraying wife. Fine. However, a small minority of people would become deeply unconscious. They would lose so much touch with their true nature and become so absorbed by their ego that even their mental faculties would be completely gone, and they would perpetuate violence against the women. This is how you explain the presence of dysfunctional people in a simple way, without all the subclassifications of psycology.

Individual people are not the only things that can be insane. Groups also get insane. So do nations, races, religions, and any other types of associations among people. All you have to do to see a demonstation of that is read a newspaper or news blog.

Any time you take up a position on something, either by yourself or along with your group, and you are investing yourself into that position, that is the ego fooling you into thinking that something is real, when it isn't. The same is true if you take up a position against something too, remember! Railing against something because you think it is wrong can be the same as rallying for what you think is right, if it's done with an investment of your identity into it.

Every group and every individual has a connection to Consciousness. These people and associations can be aware of that Oneness or unaware of it, and they can act accordingly.