Debasing the Sacred
Dylan Charles, Editor
Waking Times
I’ve been on the internet long enough to know what people expect to see and hear in an article, and also long enough to know what’s really missing from most of the content on the web today.
It is heart that is missing. It is genuineness. And it’s real talk about the actual experience of life we’re all trying to have against the backdrop of madness, stupidity, insanity, confusion, and superficiality.
So, here’s a transmission straight from the heart. From mine to yours.
Let me first ask, what really matters most to you?
You get a gold star if your answer was something like people or relationships.
Now let me ask you, do you intentionally honor the most important people and relationships in your life with your actions, thoughts, presence and being?
Or have the most sacred things in your life become mundane, routine, and devoid of their richness?
Most importantly, have you even noticed?
I just had an experience which reawakened me to what I’ve long seen as the most valuable aspect of being human… Connection. Specifically, the right kind of connection with the right people. The one’s whom really matter.
Here’s what I see happening in our lives, and it is very important, yet too easily disregarded, so pay attention.
The immaterial things which make our lives truly worth something are systematically debased by the culture of exploitation and superficiality built up all around us. There’s a materialistic, matrix energy pervading and perverting everything sacred, and for most it is far too easy to trade one for the other without realizing what we’re giving up.
It turns sacred relationships into transactional relationships, twisting your perception of what it means to be connected to someone. It supplants intimacy with functionality. It trades quality for quantity.
I think Pink Floyd said this well…
“… So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from hell?
Blue skies from pain?
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?… Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange
A walk-on part in the war
For a leading role in a cage?”~ Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here
It’s how things go these days. We constantly make unconscious trade offs in our mindless drive to conform to the twisted and gloriously repeated ideas and suggestions of what life should be about. Money, sex, prestige, success, attention… whatever.
We don’t recognize the debasement of the sacred aspects of our lives until the relationships have turned cold, withered and half dead, which is typically what it takes to shake us out of the stupor of the hustle, task completion and distraction we live in. But it’s the depth of our relationships which offer the greatest source of inspiration and hope to any and all of us. There’s something deep we need from them, that just isn’t there when we materialize and commoditize them.
To see what I’m getting at here, ask yourself why you do the things you do, and be courageous in your honesty when you listen for the answer to surface from within.
For example, I am an artist and a DJ, but why do I do things? Or more importantly, why was I originally drawn to these activities, and how has my relationship to art and music shifted and been corrupted over time? Do I still do them, or not do them, for the same reasons, or has my intention been warped as I’ve been entrained to compare my work and purpose in it to what is seen in the intangible, omnipresent ether of culture?
In the beginning it was easy for me to create, to produce and to enjoy my art, because my intention for doing any of it was pure. I sought nothing other than a vehicle of expression for something within my soul that required a medium richer than mere words to come to life. When I compare the origin story to the present relationship I have with my art I see that my creativity has been stifled by imposing on it the cultural demand of the necessity of it being of value in marketplace terms.
Crack the Code
Here’s another example. If you are blessed to have true love in your life, what was it that originally drew you and your lover or partner together? What is that keeps you together now, and has the story of what you really need from each other changed?
Has your once special and sacred love become a symbol of success for you? Have you begun to measure your value to each other in one-dimensional terms like sex or financial support? Have you rewritten your story together into a dry, transactional tale of ‘you give me this and I’ll give you that?
In essence, our culture subtly and steadily encourages us to create our lives and relationships from the energy of force rather than power. We try to force ourselves into the box of what it seems is expected of us. We forget that experience is about subtle exchanges of energy more so than the coarsely homogenized meaning professed by Netflix and other mass market content creators.
So, what does human connection mean to you? What does it mean for you to have quality in your relationships? Who are the most important people in your life, and what is the essence of your relationship with them? What does it really mean to you, how is that measured, and how do know if you’re sincerely honoring these for the fullness of what they bring to your life?
Have you unwittingly participated in the unconscious exploitation of something which should always remain revered and wholly sacred?
Here’s another quote which speaks to this…
“The one who lives inside is awash in colours, tones, and symbolic ritual displays of an extraordinarily precise attunement to the heart and soul of ancient wisdom. You are suspended in a long-ago time. So much of your being is still back there. The evolution of the world since the ancient times is neither acknowledged nor accommodated in any way. It all depends upon whether this exquisite gift of soul remembrance is honoured or exploited. If it is exploited, which is so very tempting, the life empties out of meaning and value and becomes false and repulsive. If it is honoured, the expanded faculties on tap become revitalised and find a fresh relevance. As the Divine Feminine reveals what we need to know and draws us to our utmost capacity, it is with an unfallen grace of sensing directly into the deepest parts of people and all they can become in the ancient future just ahead.” ~ Elias Lonsdale, Inside Degrees
Reconnecting to the original, intentional sacred energy of your life is the path to satisfaction, contentment, and peace in the storm we are entering. I work with people directly to help them see how to reenergize and reconnect to that which has the deepest and most fulfilling meaning to them. If you’re interested in what this work looks like, grab my newsletter here, and book a free 15-minute call with me, here.
About the Author
Dylan Charles is a self-mastery and self-sabotage coach, the editor of Waking Times, and host of the Battered Souls podcast. His personal journey is deeply inspired by shamanic plant medicines and the arts of Kung Fu, Qi Gong and Yoga. After seven years of living in Costa Rica, he now lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where he enjoys serving, training, and spending time with family. He has written hundreds of articles, reaching and inspiring millions of people around the world. Follow Dylan on telegram here, and sign up for his weekly newsletter here. On Facebook.
Dylan is available for interviews and podcasts. Contact him at WakingTimes@gmail.com.
This article (Debasing the Sacred) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Dylan Charles and WakingTimes.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this copyright statement.