doublebinds

[Guest guest]

Any statement is a double-bind,

because it asserts something

where nothing is, and doesn't

allow nothing to be nothing.

 

Any notion that there is someone

making a statement is a double-bind

because it asserts a being where none

is, doesn't allow what is to be what is,

and prevents being from being -- by

making a space apart from being

from which a being could intervene

in being.

 

The key to double-binding, according

to people like G. Bateson and

A. Watts is that someone is assumed

to be able to control the options being

presented and to prevent the

one whom is being presented

the options from " leaving the

field " . Options are presented

such that any attempt to affirm

oneself, negates oneself (for

example, to receive love I must

be despised), and I'm not allowed

to leave and seek love elsewhere.

 

However, as long as leaving the field

is an option, double-binding can't

be truly " effective " in " incapacitating "

the power of the one who is double-bound.

 

The ultimate double bind is beyond

the socially-defined double binds

that Bateson and Watts discussed:

the double-bind of life

that requires death, and death

that requires life, for a being

whose existence depends on

continuity, and which can't leave

the field of life and death.

 

The ultimate release from any double-binding

is to no longer require continuity

to be.

 

Nondurational being is leaving entirely

the field in which affirmation and

negation of being operate in ways

that contradict each other.

 

In fact, because to affirm is to be negated,

and to want to affirm is to want to avoid being

negated -- the entire sense of being as an

affirmation is dropped, and all wanting to

affirm and be affirmed is dropped. Without

any affirmation, there is no concept of

negating.

 

The only

way to leave the field is to never have

been in the field. For once having been

in the field, the field is affirmed as field.

This is why " enlightenment " involves

the entire universe and all beings

simultaneously and " as is " .

So -- it's not even " dropping " anything,

or " losing " anything.

 

(The question of who is the true double-binder,

is like the question of who is the true being

apart who is able to intervene in what is,

the one who really exists in a way to

control others' options.)

 

Anyone who act to double-bind or counter-

act double-binds is already

in the double-bind of trying to control by

intervening, or trying to counter-control

through affirming a counter-intervention,)

 

There are many non-spiritually oriented

doulbe-binds that occur in day to day

relationships (e.g., you can have

significance by showing me how

significant I am to you).

 

Here are some typical " spiritually-oriented "

double-binds, often used with the assumption

that " opening " can be " made " to occur

(this is itself the double bind " cause

the acausal to happen. " ):

 

" Do things in such a way that you

give evidence of being a nondoer. "

" Think things that will take you beyond thought. "

" Be spontaneous. "

" Be true to yourself in a way that is spiritual. "

" Don't control others, control yourself. "

" Have no awareness of an other, in a way

that I approve of. "

 

-- Dan