BANISHING

TOSSING NEGATIVITY OUT OF YOUR LIFE


DENNY SARGENT


Introduction


We in the ‘Western world’ have excelled in amassing wealth and goods, opportunities and responsibilities, technologies and information. Things, ideas and sources of stress overwhelm us and overflow our senses. We are constantly driven by a consumer impulse that simultaneously drives and supports our economy while imprinting endless desires and needs in our minds. As a culture we are driven, driven to acquire, amass, get, use, devour, taste try. And, of course, it is never enough. We must have the newest gadget, the newest kind of food, and the newest information. Of course, only the wealthiest one percent can afford to keep up with this rapidly escalating dance of desire and consumption. This is calculated to leave the rest of us hungry, unsatisfied and feeling that we are lacking in the things that we clearly NEED right now. Yet, having been around the wealthiest one percent in the wealthiest country in the world (The USA) I have seen that ‘having it all’ still doesn’t suffice still does not satisfy or bring contentment. Mansions even as I write this are being torn down to construct larger mansions; cars must be bigger, faster, and showier. Worth is determined by what and how much you have.
    We are out of balance as a culture. We have so much stuff that we fill our houses, garages and then storage units (!!!) with stuff. Stuff we often don’t really want or need if we are honest about it.  
    The trends and medial-induced delirium of over doing, over eating, over consuming and ceaseless desire for MORE is clearly evident. The drive continues. If one must have, amass, compete and know more and more and more, then we must work more and more and more. We must go to school longer, study harder, cram more, test and evaluate with stricter guidelines. The ever-present feeling that we are in a race that is consistently speeding up never dies, the fires are stoked daily and new dysfunctions appear daily. Sacrifices must be made, stress levels must rise and be adapted to, productivity must rise while ‘benefits’ and such ‘time wasters’ as leisure time, vacations, relaxation and ‘daydreaming’ must be cut.
    Suddenly insomnia and sleeplessness is an epidemic. Impotence (sorry, I mean ‘ED’) is on the rise. Stress related obesity, strokes and heart attacks are on the rise. But, of course, new medications are created and marketed to ‘solve’ these ‘problems.’ The treadmill speeds up and the only thing we are told that will make us feel better is to consume more and more and more. Multitasking (think about that term!) is the buzz-word of the day. Since time is short (and of course time is money!) we have to do tow or more things at the same time. Logic tells us that this means doing none of them with full concentration, thus cell-phone induced car accidents skyrockets. Workers are now consistently asked to do the work once done by two people, computers are used to speed up what can be squeezed out of one worker and human beings answering telephones are simply a quaint memory. We are so deeply immersed in this frenetic ocean of constant overload and hyper-activity that we think it is normal. It isn’t.
    Those of us who travel outside the industrialized Western world (or even in some of its saner, quieter corners) know that most people in the world do not simply take and take and take until it overloads and makes them crazy or fat or ill. Many cultures have a sense of balance, an idea that one takes and then gives, that things are released so that things can be gained. Just as day and night, activity and rest, consuming and excreting are all natural give/take processes, so to does this idea of a natural cycle and a balance struck seem an ideal in most cultures.
    If you have read this far, I will ask you, my overloaded reader a few simple questions: Are you tired? Do you feel constantly stressed out? Are you agitated?
Most Americans in recent surveys have answered a resounding yes to all of these questions, but most feel powerless to change the hamster-wheel life they are one. There is simply not enough time and too many errands and too much work and too much news and entertainment and information.
    So, what would make you happy? What would bring balance, civility and some peace back to your life? More money? I have lived amongst wealthy people; they were just as miserable as others for the most part. They had all the stuff they needed, but often sank into substance abuse or shallow pleasure seeking that never satisfied. Would more time off make you happy? Increasingly people fill what little time off they have with more input, DVD players in the car, chatting on the cell phone while dating while listening to music while eating….
    The same media machine that stokes the ever growing flames of our consuming with new desires and ‘needs’ reports that we are increasingly unhappy with this lifestyle and yet demand more and more while willing to pay less and less. It all seems hopeless and the desire for a simpler time, a simpler faith or an apocalyptic end to the whole mess is ever-growing along with teen suicide rates, mental illnesses and the use of pharmaceuticals. Almost ALL Americans are now taking medications on a regular basis.
    We need to stop and think about where we are, where we are going and how to bring some sanity and balance back into our lives. A majority of people know that SOMETHING is out of kilter, the as we lose our health insurance, our pensions, our security we fear. As fear grows that we are slipping, missing out, falling behind, so we are spurred on to greater efforts, faster production, more consumption and more entertainment so we may escape this insanely fast-paced modern whirlwind for an our or two on violent, colorful, home-theater sensory overload.
    
WHY THIS BOOK

    I do not claim to have an answer to all these issues, but I have the beginning on one. It is not any wisdom that I have created or discovered, it is simply a basic concept and technique or strategy that for some reason our culture has forgotten or abandoned. It is a key component of a balanced lifestyle and therefore a balanced life and culture. I will call it ‘banishing’ for want of a better word. In short, the concept is this: You need to give to get, you need to let go to accept, you need to clear away before you can grow.
Living away from our culture for many years and traveling widely around the world led me to the realization that as Westerners and specifically as Americans we have been deluding ourselves into thinking that having the highest ‘standard of living’ or ‘per capita income’ means we are more contented or satisfied. It simply isn’t true. In the 20+ countries I have visited people were almost always ‘poorer’ than those in the USA in the way we materialistically think of wealth. Yet they were, on the whole, happier. They were kinder to foreigners and to each other. They took more time to do things, to interact, to create and maintain relationships. They ate less, were less obese, focused on family and traditions more and seemed to have far fewer stress-related issues. While poverty and lack of modern medical care are never positives, the mental, physical and emotional health of people in these countries seems to me to be far more positive and balanced than in our country.
Over the years, as I collected data and information for other books I was writing, this idea of our basic imbalance as a culture haunted me. Why did I not see ‘storage unites’ cluttering up the landscapes of other countries, even relatively affluent ones? Why were Americans so much more overweight than people from other countries, even those with plenty of food? Why were Americans, who had so much, always complaining? Why were they, in large part, constantly tired and stresses out and agitated?  Don’t we literally have it all? Don’t we consume far more of EVERYTHING per-person than any other country in the world? What were we missing here?
As I wrote other books, articles and traveled extensively, some things began to almost unconsciously come into focus, I became fascinated with the differences between philosophical religions and ‘models’ and natural or organic models. With the help of people in Nepal, Costa Rica, Japan and many other places, I began to see that it wasn’t just our removal from nature and the influence of Nature that affected us, it was the abandoning of the very basic biological model itself in our cultural hyperactivity.
The model is very simple: Any biological entity, form a single-celled organism to a human being as it grows. Matures and then dies goes through processes that are cyclic.
    Food is consumed, digested and wasted is excreted.
    Cells are created, mature, die, and are replaced with other cells.
    Over the course of about six years, every cell in our body is replaced! Yet this is done in such a balanced manner, cell-for-cell, that we don’t notice. If a cell over replicates, copies itself too many time, it is an aberration and becomes a disease. We call it cancer. If an organism consumes but does not fully or completely excrete the waste, the organism becomes toxic and dies. Any botanist or biologist will be happy to spend hours telling you what a magnificent and endlessly complexly balanced dance this is and how even the slightest imbalance to an organism in  this input/output, gain/loss system can throw the whole organism out of whack leading to disease and multiple problems.
    If you eat more than you consume, you get fat. This leads to a number of health complications that are quite well-know to everyone.
    If you consume toxins or things containing poisons but do not fully eliminate waste and toxins, you slowly poison yourself. Again, everyone knows this.
    If you keep acquiring (replicating) but don’t give up anything or make room for the new…..well, the biological model of over replicating is cancer.
If this basic concept is applied to a culture as a whole, we have some interesting and, to me, startling images confronting us.
The dysfunctions and negative behaviors I have been going on about in this introduction are indicative of a culture that is getting toxic and unhealthy. A recent environmental study referred to the excessive rate of environmental destruction and habitat waste, being photographed by satellites, as looking like ‘a cancer spreading’ across the few wilderness areas left.
We are very good at taking, consuming, hoarding, devouring, overworking and inputting more and more and more….but we have forgotten how to let go, how to eliminate. We need to remember the basic imprint of releasing and renewing that is imprinted in every cell of our body.
We need to relearn how to Banish.


WHAT THIS BOOK IS FOR

    As this concept of reviving the concept and techniques of banishing or ‘eliminating’ became clearer in my mind, I began to put my ‘banishing’ glasses on and look at all the experiences, researches and travels I’d none to isolate and try to understand how this idea helped these cultures function and how we could look at things differently to help rebalance a clearly out-of-control situation. Once this pattern of looking was established, I became increasingly aware of the impact of removing this concept from a culture on all different levels. I also realized that the ‘disease’ of mass consumerism with no end, of taking and input with no elimination or letting go was spreading as a concept or meme. The Amazon rainforest is close to breaking point, the polar ice caps are melting, daily environmental disasters, wars, new diseases sweep the planet, all caused by more and more people wanting more and more stuff consuming more and more and more of everything. In short, following the Western model of expansion and consumption without thought to consequence or sustainability!
    Lucky for you, here is where the exhortations and sermons end! I am not an environmental scientist nor a social scientist nor a political scientist (or any sort of scientist) nor am I here to solve the problems of the world. I’m writing g this book to give each person who wants it some practical idea, pragmatic tools and a number of focused techniques for shifting YOUR personal reality by introducing the concept of Banishing into your life. Call it a cross-culture overview with practical and useful advice. It is my belief that the self-perpetuating juggernaut of consumerism and self-destruction can be slowed and altered by the wills of people who have decided to opt for a saner and happier path. This is the power of our Culture; Individuals CAN change behaviors and attitudes if given the right tools and if it serves enlightened self interest!
    While I’m all for the ‘simplification’ movement, sustainability and reduced expectation, things the Western world will have to deal with sooner-or-later, this book is not relying on or focusing on altruistic motives. Yes, we should all work to save the planet, end war and so on, but my focus here is simply to make YOU a happier, more balanced, less stressed-out person. Sounds good? Here we go.

In this book, for the sake of organizing information, I lay-out some of my personal experiences with Banishing and changes I’ve seen in others in workshops I’ve run and I will define the concept of Banishing.
After that a clear ‘plan of attack’ is given in terms of major banishing goals the reader may opt for. After that I will explore the IDEAS of Banishing (Theory) and then about the practical TECHNIQUES (Practice) of Banishing organized about the following categories:

BODY-  Material/Physical Banishing-  Purification/Detoxing   : ACTION

HEART- Emotional/Feeling Banishing-  Letting go/Releasing   : WILL

MIND-  Mental/Intellectual Banishing-  Banning/Averting   : KNOWLEDGE

And finally, transcending and interpenetrating them all:

SPIRIT-  Mystical/Magical Banishing-  Rituals/Rites   : INSPIRATION

The book will end with a section on invoking or calling into your life those things missing. The wonderful secret to banishing is that it clears a space or creates a vacuum. At that point, you can decide what to fill that place in your head, heart or physical world with! A new love? More free time? Renewed health? We all have choices and banishing gives you more options that you presently have.

No one needs to bring a particular spiritual or philosophical point of view to the table here. The only thing needed from you, dear reader, is a somewhat open mind and maybe the realization that simple actions can have lasting and powerfully positive affects on your life and the lives of those around you.
    I guarantee only one thing, this book contains information, ideas and practical techniques that can lighten your load, help you dump unwanted thoughts, feelings and physical discomforts and make room for a better life. Not bad for a bunch of words and paper!



Lighten up!


Denny Sargent
Jan 2006

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