On the need for Compliance Officers
Talking with a friend yesterday about the job of ensuring corporate compliance. Making sure the company does proper sign offs. That procedures are in place to make good, legal decisions. My friend was very enthusiastic about it, despite (because of?) long experience. Really cool.
She continually faces the problem that people are happy to work in their roles with only partial understanding. They really don't mind that they don't know the criteria for sign-offs, or the complete list of their responsibilities in a given situation. They'll clutch hold of a few procedures while ignoring others, and those few that they do, they do incorrectly. Or, often, the procedures they do carry out only make sense within a context of other related procedures also occurring. Since the others don't occur, meaningless work is done.
And meaningless work is dangerous, because it lulls the individuals involved into thinking that they are "doing something," when they aren't. Now they don't even know that they don't know. Tragically, the activity camouflages a lack of meaningful activity.
I find this very interesting, both in my role as a manager of engineers working on highly technical projects, and as an amateur occultist. I've said something alarming, I know. Let me define a term and move on. This is what I mean by occultism:
It means the world itself is your teacher and your playground. It means nothing should be ignored, nor should anything be seized on as a single cause. Reality is highly complex, even when considered from a purely materialistic point of view. An occultist admits the possibility of more modes of being than can be perceived with current science. As you can imagine, this increases complexity by orders of magnitude! Therefore, no one should be more interested in practical ways to proceed with intellect intact than the occultist. If a reasoning man or woman may well go astray amid competing "facts" and predilections, so much greater might be the error of one who purports to add new modes of perception to the input field.
I'll return to this branch, but let's consider the more practical ramifications. I work with a team of amazing and inspiring engineers. They are pretty self aware, and very detail oriented, so I don't see them getting into deep error through cycles of meaningless work. If the people of my profession court meaninglessness, it runs at a higher level. That is, all our activities may mutually interlock and support each other, in a continually validated and maintained structure. However, the building in which those activities occur, so to speak, may be condemned. Our most difficult moments are in the twilight hours, when we ask "yes, but does it mean anything on the grand scale? And why shouldn't I use the grand scale to measure my effort?"
So, I think I feel pretty good about our team. I'm sure my friend would quiz us and find many things we do without thinking! But I do think we'll pass any test.
Inside the man is another man, scared and deeply out of compliance.
ON the more personal level, then. I'd argue that any kind of spiritual practice is in continual danger of "doing meaningless work." When people use the term dogma, this is what they are talking about -- a set of activities that are done by rote, and even the people who teach you to do them never incorporated their meaning. Religions are full of these things. Unfortunately, they don't have real compliance officers. They seem to just have people who hector and demand that the future look exactly like the past. However, taking my friends use of the term, it means someone who not only ensures proper procedure, but the why of the procedure, and the why not, if it is no longer effective.
This is precisely what we all need to cultivate in ourselves. A keen discernment that separates the useful from the outmoded. A going over of the processes that you've chosen to ensure they remain meaningful and effective. You are continually changing, and the beliefs you held yesterday have already begun morphing into what looks on the surface to be their opposite. You and your environment co-evolve, and dozens of unnamed emotional states ripple through you in a day or a night. Your compliance officer must stalk the halls.
I believe this is meditation. Meditation is the space for the office, and the work itself. It is the question "Why?" encoded at a deeper level than words, where it penetrates your being, and finally offers some chance of bringing forth the answer.
Support your compliance officer! Sit at attention, and let her stalk you. You will not only emerge unharmed. You may even transform into the dream of you.