'Us vs Them' - A Spiritual and Political Perspective

"When we start to suffer, it tells us something very valuable.
It means that we are not seeing the truth, and we are not relating from the truth.
It's a beautiful pointer. It never fails.
― Adyashanti

We often think we suffer because of what other people do
which is a kind of 'us vs them' way of looking at suffering -
I'm suffering because of them! -

but when we zoom out to a more open perspective
there is the possibility for us to become aware that our suffering 
is only a kind of 'us vs misaligned seeing' - 
we're not seeing the truth of what actually is, as Adya points out -
I'm only suffering because the way I'm looking is off.

What freedom it is when we really see the difference 
between these two views playing out in our daily life.

The 'us vs them' perspective locks us into perpetual suffering
and the 'us vs misaligned seeing' is the key pointing the way out.

It's not about other people, it's not even about who we are -
it's only about the view we are now taking about all of it. 

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This same 'us vs them' view is extremely loud and persistent in the political realm
and sometimes it's hard to see our way to any alternative 'political' view 
that's aligned with the qualities of Truth - peace, love, oneness.     

For those interested, here is the link to an article I wrote sharing an alternative 
to the 'us vs them' perspective within the realm of politics.  

A Closer Look at Who Our 'We' Includes

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​When we believe what we think, when we take our thinking to be reality, we will suffer. 
It’s not obvious until you look at it, but when we believe our thoughts, in that instant, 
we begin to live in the world of dreams, where the mind conceptualizes an entire world 
that doesn’t actually exist anywhere but in the mind itself. 
At that moment, we begin to experience a sense of isolation, 
where we no longer feel connected to each other in a very rich and human way, 
but we find ourselves receding more and more into the world of our minds, into the world of our own creation.”
- Adyashanti