This is a series of videos on integrating non-duality with Native teachings. And I’d like to stop for a minute and talk about appropriating other cultures – appropriating native cultures. If you’ve been following what I’ve been saying, this will probably start making some sense to you. If it doesn’t make any sense at all, then you need to go to my website and follow the course through.
Appropriating other cultures – the problem isn’t actually doing it, stealing stuff from other cultures, particularly native cultures. The problem is the fact that we can do it at all, that our thought concepts are such that we’re capable of having their culture be a thing. A thing separate from us. A thing we want to take or be
Relate this to the idea of stealing land. Here in America white men came in and stole native lands… which technically isn’t true at all. I’m sitting here on the land, I’m in America – the land has not been stolen. You can’t steal the land. It hasn’t been taken away somewhere.
What really happened is that white people, the conquering culture from centuries ago, developed a concept that it was possible to own land. Our culture set up structures that made owning land not only possible but almost required to survive. So, without the concept of owning land, you can’t steal it.
We didn’t actually steal the land; we occupied it, right? We divided it up into pieces and gave each other pieces of paper that said ‘you own this’ and’ I own this.’ It’s the concept of the possibility of owning land that is the problem. The land wasn’t stolen; it’s still here.
It’s this same problem in appropriating Native cultures. The very fact that we have this idea of separating the world into ‘things’ and owning ‘things’ is the problem. We even think that we can own a way of being, that we can come in and take ‘things’ of a culture and put it on ourselves. We see something shiny or colorful and we want it. We are fixated on the ‘things’ in the world and we like to take those ‘things’ for ourselves.
For instance: clothes. If I put on clothes from a particular culture then I feel like I belong to that culture. Perhaps I like what I look like with this new outfit, spin around in front of the mirror, and take it on as me. It’s the very fact that we can do this that is the problem – that our thought processes allow us to split the world into these various levels of ownership and hierarchy. That’s the problem… not actually wearing the clothes.
Our insatiable need for ownership.
On top of that, what’s really the issue is the fact that this sense of ownership, this dividing the world into separate pieces, divides us from the world. For centuries and centuries, the culture that I come from, and that more than likely you come from, has this idea that I’m an individual and that I can own things. That I’m separate from you and this is mine. I’m here and over there’s a tree, I’m here and over there’s a mountain.
In Native and Indigenous culture, everything is the related. You can speak to everything and anything and learn. The mountain is my relation. It’s my relationship with the mountain that matters. Instead of me here and mountain there. It’s this sense of separation that we have carried for centuries, that is so embedded in our culture, that leaves us with a hollowness inside that can’t be filled. We try to fill it with shiny and colorful stuff.
This is what our whole economy is built on – the fact that we need more and more and more in order to feel full. We need more everything. We need more ideas; that’s why we think and read books and get addicted to YouTube videos. We need more love to fill the empty, endless, bottomless pit. We need more things to make us feel good because of this innate sense of brokenness.
So, it’s this innate sense of brokenness that makes us look at a native culture and think, ‘Oh, they have something that we don’t have, I want it.’ Then we habitually try to take it by putting on the trappings of it – you know, singing a song, playing a rattle – rather than actually listening to the deep inner wisdom that’s there.
Native cultures want to share their deep inner wisdom with us because if we can learn from them, we can stop destroying things. We need to learn to listen rather than take. And to listen slowly… slowly… so slow it may take a lifetime.
So, appropriating native cultures… it’s the fact that we’re able to do it at all that’s the problem. Watch out for the appropriating fantasy inside of our heads. This need to suck in the native culture to make ourselves more whole.
It’s destructive for them; we’ve done enough to them, right? So, watch yourself as you turn your attention to native wisdom.
Here’s another little example to show how it’s so deeply embedded into us to want to own things. Have you ever walked along and seen a pretty little rock. You pick up the rock, ‘Oh, it’s so pretty,’ put it in your pocket and take it home and keep it? We’ve all done that, right?
But did you have the permission of the rock to do that? Why do we even think we can own a rock?
Our desire to own things is so deep that we don’t even notice ourselves doing it. In a native culture, you would just never do that because that’s Mother Earth. Why would you pick up Mother Earth and try to own the pretty little rock? Instead, you just enjoy the rock and move on.
I’m not saying it’s bad to do that, because then we are stuck in our endless cycle of good and bad. Though… yeah, there are some native cultures that will say it’s very bad to do that: If you pick up a rock and take it someplace else, you’ve disturbed the energy of the earth and you actually create bad luck for yourself.
I’m not interested in good and bad here. Just awareness. I simply want us all to notice that urge – the urge to keep and own. You see a pretty rock, ‘Oh! Pick it up, own it, and keep it.’ That urge is so deep inside of us that we rarely see it; that’s the same urge that we use to appropriate other cultures.
Another example that we do with every small child. We all do it. You take a child down to the river, down to the lake or the creek. What do you do? You stand there and you throw rocks in. We teach kids from the very beginning to treat a rock like a thing that we own and control. We learned it ourselves from the adults that were taking care of us. But like… who am I to stand there and, without asking permission. to throw a rock just so I can see a splash. Who are we to, without a single thought, take the rocks that are on the side of the river, and throw them in and throw them in and throw them in?
A very simple, every day thing. But it shows our worldview.
Again, it’s not like I’m saying, ‘Oh, that’s bad, stop doing it.’ It’s more like… have you ever even noticed that you do that?
Our sense of separation from the world is so deep and so intense that we never see it. It’s this sense of separation that is the problem that turns into what we call ‘appropriating other cultures.’
One thing that’s funny, and sad, about reading Native American wisdom speakers is they often talk about all the New Agey people who come to the Native American dances and want to be let in; how disruptive that is. They are trying to get their culture back together and we can’t wait to go get a piece of it.
We become these needy tourists of native culture who come in to get spirituality. We want to be taught from what little they have left before they’ve even had a chance to build it back from the recent history that’s been so damaging.
So, appropriating Native cultures – think about it deeply enough so that you can notice yourself doing it.
Now, I want to offer a solution. And this is why I’m doing this series on the intersection of non-duality and Native wisdom. We don’t need to do that. We do not need to do that. We can back off and give all the various native peoples across the world landscape time. Give them time to rebuild their cultures and bring their wisdom to us in the ways that they want to bring it to us.
We do not need to steal their stuff. We have everything that we need to come back to self-knowledge of ourselves, to drop our addiction to our conditionings. If you’ve listened to this video from beginning all the way through here, thanks for staying. I hope you start to understand what I’m talking about a little bit.
You’ll notice that you probably never even thought about the picking up the rock thing. Never realized that you were taking something and trying to own it. Never noticed how deep that urge is.
What non-duality and enlightenment teachings are telling us is that we have the ability to find out who we are underneath these conditionings. Underneath these urges. With the tool of asking who we are and noticing our habitual separation the we become able to look at that dispassionately at our urges and go, ‘Crazy, where did that come from? Why do I have that urge? Why does every single one of us have that urge?’
Nonduality tells us to look at it as simply an urge… it is not me. It’s something I’ve been taught, it’s something I’ve been given. Using this tool you can go down, down, down through the layers. If you can find out who you are underneath the attachment to all of these conditionings, then you are now a solid human being. You are someone who can be an ally to the Earth itself, rather than trying to own things.
The ultimate realization is you’re nothing and nothing cannot own anything. You don’t even own your thoughts. They’re just crazy things that go on in your head. You’re nothing, but you exist, you are the one that is the master of your life and of your existence, and you can exist without your conditionings. Free.
That’s you. Step back into that being of you, and you become a full participant in life.
Sidebar, it has nothing to do whatsoever with completely disassociating yourself from life; it has to do with becoming life itself, aware of yourself. This is what we’re trying to do with non-duality. And then, we can meet the world and our native brothers and sisters from a place of aliveness.