Making the Easy Extremely Difficult

A reaction to a world and technology in which everything is made easier and more convenient, is to make everything more difficult and prohibitive, as though that was a value in itself -- largely a pining for a more primitive time and struggle, in which every moment of one’s life was consumed and dedicated to the mere survival of another day.

Those primitive responses die hard in some people -- particularly those who never mastered those rudimentary skills, and so their entire existence, is a repetition of that one thing -- conquering and reconquering that one same challenge, rather than going on to the many other challenges and discoveries of a virtually undiscovered world.

People of such primitive skills think that they know more than they do not know -- rather than suspect that most of the world is unknown to them, and it is merely their desire to stay only within their very limited comfort zone, that enables them to believe that they know “everything.” And if they are in a powerful position in the bureaucracy, they may even effect laws and policies in which everybody else is prohibited from knowing anything but what they know -- and what they know, is subject to their arbitrary whims.

So if they say “Jump,” everybody else’s response should be, “How high?”, rather than “Why?” In such conditioning, asking “Why,” is a great heresy and signals one out for instant punishment -- an extra lap or 100 sit-ups/pushups for every transgression until there is finally silence and compliance -- and that is how the “truth” is enforced from time immemorial.

Seeing no other way, some think that is all there is, and no other way, but this coercion to the “correctness” enforced by all the sanctioned and accredited authorities, whose categorical imperative, is that everyone has to stick together, for if there is any sign of dissension or even hesitation, the discipline and conformity will fail -- and shortly, nobody will believe in their authority.

One of the most difficult conditionings to break one of, is the notion that there could be a vastly better and easier way to do things -- anything. Nowhere is that lesson more indelibly stamped on people’s psyche than in physical conditioning, which makes it very problematical, difficult and prohibitive, to those who could benefit most from it. As a result, they get caught in an endless loop on a wild goose chase, doing everything but that which would help them instantaneously and immediately -- as any real solution does.

Instead, they are advised to buy costly devices and supplements, “spend” a lifetime learning from those skilled at making the easy extremely difficult -- as though that was the answer to their problems. That is simply the diversion and busyness, that prevents one from seeing the simplicity and clarity of their problems, and in that seeing, is invariably their solution.

For that reason, many of the great teachers have advised, that when the mind is silent and still, it can take in the information readily apparent to one’s own eyes, ears and other senses -- and learn the truth of the world directly, rather than relying on what others tell them is the truth -- while warning one not to trust one’s own senses about these things, as they promise to remain to tell one what the truth is, as long as they live.