Seeking external solutions without understanding the self is pointless.

Why do we want others to support us, be on our side, and why do we separate ourselves from those who see things differently to our self and our group? What is it that is so important for our own sense of who we are, that we require the acceptance of others?

It seems we all do this. Even  the anti-social criminal belongs to the tough group of prisoners when they are locked up together in prison. This needing to be in a group for some sort of approval or belonging seems to affect nearly all of us.

Is it because we do not feel complete when we are alone, and in order to have security as we see it, and not feel alone, we find an approving group to join whether this is political, sectional, religious, sexual or even as an outward appearance grouping with clothes and hair styles, musical tastes etc. Such is our feeling of loneliness and isolation that we are so driven to escape it that we search until we feel comforted.

Is then the question, not why do we do this, but why do we in the first place feel so isolated and incomplete if that is the fact? Firstly is it a fact? Find out for yourself, enquire and understand your own actions, ask yourself. Do not search books because they will not tell you how you feel. At best they will only tell you how someone else felt or worse still how you ought to feel. How you feel is a living movement from moment to moment so anything in a book is already of the past and static.

So if we want to enquire into our feeling of isolation, loneliness and separation we need to observe our self and understand our need and our sense of emptiness. To go off and find a group solves nothing  without first understanding the the whole process of the search.

Every day in the world

There are moments when one is caught in the horror of what is going on in the world. The complete destruction of humans irrespective of sex, race or age who is not of the same belief as oneself.

We may be particularly aware of a current atrocity being carried out in the name of some religious values but in the past it has been different ideologies and different nationalistic philosophies that have perpetrated similar crimes against humanity.

Is it therefore pointless to have opinions of right or wrong? Isn't it surely that all ideologies and nationalism can breed hate of other ideologies and national interests, and wars may follow hate.  As soon as we separate ourselves from one another by belonging to a particular group trouble and conflict can start.

What is war? We may give it labels and so called righteous meaning, but it is still the murder of another human being which is surely insane behaviour especially from those who call themselves civilised.

Can we see our desire to belong to this sect or that, whether it is cultural, national, ethnic or religious, only leads to separation and where we have divided ourselves from the rest there must surely be conflict.

Our desire to belong is strong but to just be part of something without question and without understanding the the root of the desire, will not bring an end to the desire for safety, security or whatever it is.

Perhaps the question is can we understand our deep desires and needs by just observing ourselves, seeing without bias where our actions come from and what is the real reason we are driven in certain directions.

This may not be easy and that will make it difficult for us because we like things to be easy, to follow the line of least resistance, but isn't it the case until we really see the way we attach ourselves to authority's philosophies without question there will be conflict?

Achieving virtue and ideals

Imposing ideals and virtues on ourselves if we have no deep understanding of oneself is going to lead to conflict and a poor image of ourselves as we experience the non-achievement of what we rather superficially set out to do. To impose anything without understanding the real root of our motives is going to fail often. The parts we rarely look at or understand are those which drive us at a deep level so any superficial activity of thought and force of will is not going to overcome the 'real' us even though the motive may be honest.

We talk about achieving a virtuous life through effort because we have an image of what we want to become by reading about it, or listening to those in authority, leaders in society etc. Without understanding ourselves to any great depth we impose the ideal and then struggle to achieve those ideals to become virtuous. Often we do not reach the heights we set out to reach and then we become unhappy with ourselves. After many so called 'failures' we start to have a poor image of ourselves even if we still sound confident to others by acting that way socially. Inside us there is conflict; the what is, as opposed to what one actually wants to achieve.

It is the 'what is' that needs to be observed without judgement and be understood. With clarity and understanding of our root desires and wants we can stop being in conflict and struggle by always imposing a supposedly higher ideal and then finding it is impossible to live that way. We seem to be programmed to become something we 'think' we should be rather than understanding what we are.

Listen to yourself, have quiet when the mind is not analysing, see the world as it is not as we would like it to be. Feel the space that exists when the mind is at peace. Find out everything for yourself do not take the word of others.

A friend asked this

A friend suggested that there should be answers to questions of how one should live not just what the problems are.

One could say that we should do this or that to make changes; to work to change the government to one that believed in real equality; to limit the power that organised religions have over people; to make sure the rich do not get richer and the poor do get richer. Perhaps one should get rid of capitalism which exploits people for profit by joining a radical group. Would all these things, activities, get rid of the ugly world human beings have created for themselves? All these things would be pointless even if one could do them.

It is people, you and I, humanity, who have created all these institutions and continue to support them. If we could get rid of them we would create something else just as self centred and corrupt if we ourselves don't change. So it is not the external things that are the problem in our lives it is us. Is this not clear? We are the world! It there are unequal things in the world it is us, humanity, and we are all humanity, who has created them.

We have to find a different way of living and that has to start with oneself not the external societies that humanity have set up. They have come from self centred thought projected outwardly, however knowledgeable that thought may be, and it is driven by desire for power, security and control.

All the time we compare, acquire, despise and are aggressive or violent, in thought as well as deeds, there is no point in changing anything externally.

Without the self, the 'me', we may be able to work co-operatively with compassion but to say we must work co-operatively is meaningless if we are still in the realm of satisfying ourselves for when we satisfy ourselves we only ultimately want what suits us and that is where humanity is now, trying to satisfy all its desires and wants.

Change

Real change is not political. Real change is transformation of the self, not through surrender to a religious or some other belief, but by understanding all the things we do and feel. Can we see that it is we who are violent, selfish, aggressive, competitive, jealous and envious or do we only shout about external injustices we see in the world around us? What about the selfish injustices we perpetrate in the name of the self?

To say we cannot do this and we must live in the 'real' world is essentially lazy because we are not treating the subject seriously. We say we haven't the time or we feel justified with our own ugly behaviour because we compare ourself to someone who may be behaving even more uglier than ourselves. Taking this course of action which is really no action keeps the society in which we life and complain about in place so the hate, selfishness and aggression never changes because we never change ourselves at the deepest level.

Life as it is and death

We are surrounded by images of the fantastic and the deeply disturbing. We have conversations of despair, of hope, wishes and of imagined scenarios. We dream of being better, have illusions about who we are. We hear others tell us how we should behave and what we really should want from our lives.

We are confused, doing one thing whilst wishing we were doing another. We are in conflict being unsure what to do next, how to carry out our lives. We may follow the patterns of others so it becomes all mapped out for us how to live so we can drift through life without ever having to work it out for ourselves.

We may have invented elaborate beliefs that allow us not to have to worry about death. We have heavens and immortality to comfort us without knowing the facts of what happens at death. We don't know how to live and we create illusions about death so we can give meaning to our lives.

Surely living is more important than death? Yet we seem so helpless in our own lives driven by the society one is in with all its social conditioning, chasing money and our own selfish desires. We have created psychological time for several reasons and one of them is to put a distance between now and death. This gives great comfort as we can place death in some distant time that is not now.

Having put death out of harms way with beliefs and psychological time we carry on attaching to things like power and wealth that cause us to be ambitious, aggressive, selfish, jealous and envious. These are the attributes that are promoted in most societies and so we become trapped by the conditioning all around us.

Many of us end up with ideals that are not what we currently are, they are a wish list made by thought working to an image of being a better person and so conflict follows us around as a chain around our necks. Before we can live properly we have to understand all the improper things we do. We have to see without judgement what it is we have become so attached to and ask if we can live without all the attachments and ideals we have built around ourselves. Without this serious enquiry there will not be any fundamental change to the self and so real love and compassion will not flourish.

More bombs?

So it seems yet another nation is about to go and drop some bombs in another part of the world in the name of democracy.

Do we not have any idea or understanding of what it is like for the ordinary non-fighting people of the area that is bombed? Have we become so in-sensitised to the horrors caused by our own actions?

Perhaps we have become so dislodged and separated from each other that if they are far enough away and culturally different enough we don't mind what we are doing to people and their already fragile infrastructure.

We are not British, American, Russian, Chinese, European, Turkish or whatever first, we are human beings first living on an organic planet that sustains us so far. How have we set ourselves so adrift from the simplicity and whole of life?

If we conquer the foe and decimate the planet do we think we will have peace?

The insanity of life as most of us live it now is that we seem to think that we should be ambitious as individuals and for our nation, and therefore conquer everything in our way and take what we desire for our own selfish wants. This we call "in our interest" as justification. Do we think peace will be the outcome of this kind of action?

We have let our leaders fool us into stupefying thinking and behaviours because they are trapped in it also therefore we can only destroy peace because we know only how to be competitive, with our conditioned beliefs and self righteousness.

When will we stop listening to the powerful and those in high office because we live in fear of their ability to control the superficial things of life we have become so attached to and dependent on? When will we start listening to ourself beyond the conditioning we have allowed to be distilled within us because of our own fears, uncertainties and desire for psychological security.

To go beyond our conditioning and act completely peacefully cannot be done if we are not free, and if we use will and force to impose a new state of unconditioning upon ourselves. If we can understand our conditioning as it is at the deepest level we may see the truth of the illusions of it, and then it may dissolve so we can act correctly, peacefully and with real compassion in the world.