Critical Perspectives on Accounting 21 (2010) 533–535

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Critical Perspectives on Accounting

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Don’t look at my finger; look at the moon

Pala Molisa

We seem so enamouredWith ‘discourse’But what if liberationIs thatWhich is beyond discourse?We seemSo pre-occupiedWith thoughtsBut what if inner peaceRequiresThat we just stop thinking?We seem so concerned about encouraging different ideologiesProliferatingMultiple worldviewsNeedingTo have plural everythingBut what if all these belief-bundlesSimply reinforcesOur sense of separation?

We seemTo place so much importanceOn becoming critically consciousOn becoming critically consciousBut what if we just need to be conscious?But what if we just need to be?We seemTo be so concernedAbout changingThe external reality of social practiceBut what if the change in our inner stateIs much more fundamental?

As academicsWe deal in thoughtsBut can our thoughts touch the One Life beneath it?We are constantly calling forThe need to develop social movements

E-mail address: Pala.Molisa@vuw.ac.nz.

1045-2354/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.cpa.2010.01.003

534 P. Molisa / Critical Perspectives on Accounting 21 (2010) 533–535

But what if the ‘moving’ is much less important than the Being?We seemTo always want changeBut what if the eternal is where true liberation lies?We seem to love namingI am ‘critical accounting’I am ‘social accounting’But what ifIt is enoughTo just say ‘I am’?What ifIt is enoughTo simply Be?

We privilege resistanceBut do we realize the profound power of non-resistance?We seem to always want to get somewhereBut what if we just need to get ‘no-where’?What if we just need to be ‘now-here’?We stress the need to be criticalBut what if the end of sufferingActually requires nonjudgment?We seem to affirm the obligations of responsibilityBut is emancipationNot something moreThan conformityTo this normativity?We valorise social struggleBut we may be simply creating an unhappy worldA world in our own egoic imageMissing all the whileThe markCovering all the whileThe starkThe sublimeThe sheerThe sweet serenity of surrender

Our discoursesWhile criticalAre still basedOn ‘Us and Them’Still reproduce the dichotomyOf ‘Self and Other’Reinforcing our separatenessPerpetuating our lonelinessCutting us offFrom the One LifeLocking us intoThis world of strifeMaking us seem so aloneMaking us feel so far from homeIt is howeverNot that farTo goFrom aloneTo all oneIt is not that farTo goFrom all done with life with love with livingTo at one with whatever life is giving

P. Molisa / Critical Perspectives on Accounting 21 (2010) 533–535 535

This journey howeverDoes not take timeAnd to undertakeWe need not make timeIt has nothing to do with historyAlthough we seem to think soGiven the importance we seem to placeOn the socio-historical processThis journey does not primarily need doingDespite our emphasis on becoming

To go thereTo make that journeyTo make that leapYou just need to stop looking at my fingerAll you needIs just to look at the moon