On Our Conditioning Poem by Raj Arumugam

there is no seeing, no clear seeing; we do not want to see
We rather have glasses with rainbow colors on them,
so what we see is seen through them
Why see for oneself?
it’s far easier
far better, much more comfortable
to get in a group
and believe in what you are told to believe
I mean it’s too much effort to see for oneself: why bother
when people give you free rainbow glasses and tell you
to see through that?
so we stand at the bottom of the tree
and we listen to the man who climbs up the tree
and he shouts his description
and he tells you what he sees
and he gives you a complete description
of the world he sees
beyond the hills and mountains
and he comes down
and you’ve got his description –
and we all say:
“Write his words down
and this we shall believe
for this is the Complete Description
of the Truth seen
by our Mighty Seer…
and this we believe in….”
The description, the word
becomes the thing;
nobody climbs trees themselves–
why should they?
they’ve got the Complete Description.
and it’s added on
and illuminated
and passed on and on and repeated
until no one questions
and anyone who questions
is blind and does not see
You must not question authority.
There is no clarity
because the group
writes down everything for you
in a book
(Oh no, it’s not from the group;
it comes from High Above)
and you read the book
and you repeat and repeat
until the brain’s programmed
and the book talks in you
and the group shouts in you
and you do not think
everything’s done for you:
it’s safer this way
because this way all the promises, one thinks,
will come true
So we all book a place through our group’s book
and let the group do the talking and let the group
do the thinking and we just have faith and beliefs and dogma
and the promise and our greed
So we never see what actually is and we see
but through the tradition, the revelation, the doctrine,
the rainbow glasses we see what we are told to see
We’d rather be slaves
in the mind
for it’s safer that way,
safer in groups that will lead us on
than do the thinking, it’s too much effort
Ah, clarity is too frightening;
it’s much easier to believe
and to be comforted by the Book
and to hang on to badges
and to hang on to labels
than to dropp all beliefs and to see what actually is we all
want to go to Heaven, don’t we?
With all the promised rewards but if one could put aside
the description, and the rewards, and the rainbow glasses