MODEL OF NEUTRAL-INCLUSIVITY
T O A N A N D A
A P o e m o f
M i l l e n n i u m s
Ananda,
your name is the name of a person,
regardless of gender or sex,
regardless of age or descent,
from the North or from the South,
from the East or from the West,
a native of this world
that the Norm has awoken.
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You have learned
in your own language now
that it is not priesthood or prayer,
nor faith or grace
which bring redemption,
but that it is knowledge
by which things come true.
You have rejected
the mistaken authority of scriptures,
the meaningless rituals,
the sacrifices to the supernatural,
thus boldly breaking
with reactionary religion.
You have turned away from
the belief in the supreme power of a god
or gods purportedly showing what should.
Or, if not totally repudiating this god
or these gods, you have reduced them
to the jejune nonimportance
of what merely is what it is.
You have experienced
that knowledge lies
within the reach of the individual,
that no deity bestows insight,
but that it is won by yourself,
by the power of your own will
and perseverance.
You have removed the barriers
of caste or class, of nationality,
of everything offensive or effete;
removed the attachments to
unjust, partial institutions.
You care for all sentient beings,
as the deliverance from affliction
is meant for each of them.
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The ultimate goal
transcends all opposition.
It is the state of neither-nor,
the infinite oneness,
wherein is neither earth exclusively,
nor water nor fire nor air,
wherein is neither defeat nor victory,
neither falling nor arising,
wherein is no short or long duration;
the end of restlessness and of boredom,
where there is no evil or bad situation.
It is the complete silence
of the final anagnorisis,
the telos attained by the enlightenment
of the Middle Path,
the way from pain and pleasure
for pleasure's sake,
from hate and love
for love's sake,
to freedom
from all suffering and struggling,
to the realization
of what is eternal or nontemporal;
the telos attained by the beneficence
of the Middle Path,
the dao of an undying doctrine
that knows
no discrimination between men and women,
no cruelty to innocent people,
no recurring climaxes of violence;
the dao of an undying doctrine
that has known
no persecution of independent thinkers,
no penal practises like sacred stonings,
no merciless killings in 'Holy Wars'
for thousands of years.
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Ananda,
the penalty of our failure is
the everlastingness of violence, war,
oppression, intolerance and negligence,
and
the penalty of our failure is
the everlastingness of poverty, fear,
obsession, inhibition and ignorance,
whereas
the reward of our success will be
nothing but the nonexistence thereof.
Every single achievement
gives satisfaction,
but amid all that is left to do,
and amid all that is left to redo.
If all accomplishment is transient,
my sibling,
then, indeed,
we will have to strive ceaselessly,
ceaselessly ...
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V i n s e n t N a n d i
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