A man met

A man said to the group of people gathered to watch a nature film "flow like a river and blow like the wind". He also mentioned that in walking one can be still whilst in movement.

This man's achievements, though considerable to some, are not important and his words could be empty of meaning but still clever. Putting all that aside one listened and one knew he came from a place where intelligence flowers rather than a place where rhetoric is manufactured for effect.

outside and Inside awareness

How can we force our will, however rational and moral, on others and the world when we ourselves are in conflict and contradiction, pain and sorrow within? Perhaps then it follows that the greatest challenge is to understand the nature of our own  difficulties before we can have an impact in the world outside of ourselves.

We live in fear and from that fear we are trying to run away. In running away we cannot face or understand fear. If we stop running away can we observe fear, what it is and where it comes from.

Making changes politically or socially will have no meaning if we don't understand the fear, the violence and the jealousies that we harbour within ourselves. If you feel insecure in your life because you want permanency and you cannot find it, your view of what needs to change in the world will be according  to these fears and insecurities. Your escape from 'what is' is motivated on an idealised 'you' or the world where these fears and insecurities no longer appear to exist. This has no meaning for anybody else; it becomes just the exercising of your will over another. The quest to satisfy our own desires is about becoming and having something we want; an idealised future you.

Until we understand truth, love and compassion and whether they may or may not exist external to our own desires, which are driven by our fears of loneliness, emptiness, meaninglessness, rejection, hurt, death or whatever, we surely cannot approach the real problem of changing the violent and unequal world we live in and see around us every day.

There is nothing to do until one is living with awareness and an understanding which is not a conclusion, an answer, but is a moment to moment movement where yesterday is not relevant and future destinations meaningless. Doing nothing in this sense is in fact doing a great deal and this action, for it is action, is vital if we are live without the violence and destruction surrounding us and is born within us.

There is also no 'when I have sorted myself out will I know what I will do in the world'. There is only awareness, choiceless understanding and observation. Then there can be pure action. Until one can live now, without constant rationalising, comparison and analysis no action one takes will make the world a better place. As long as our conditioning and prejudices drive our actions human beings will be the same as they have been for thousands of years. To look clearly into oneself constantly without bias may reveal real change.

Just because you are prepared to die for a belief does it follow that you are more right than the next person with a belief? It perhaps just means that you are prepared to die for a belief and nothing more. Rarely does a belief coincide with the truth; it is after all a belief, which is personal. Truth on the other hand is not personal and therefore has no place with just an individual. Why do we confuse the two?

Terrorism and religious fundamentalism

There is so much talk of terrorism and religious fundamentalism as if there is nothing else going on in the world.

Is the human race truly a species of violence with no escape or is all this talk and activity just a way of ensuring we remain a violent species until the last person on earth dies? At least the last may die peacefully. We talk of religious fundamentalism, of whatever religion, as if we are a free people but they are not with their religious rules. I ask whether any of us are free or are we just as conditioned as those terrorists that we condemn? Are we too blind to the hate in our own minds?

The western nations have done terrible acts in the name of national interest and all organized religions have carried out appalling campaigns at some time. We excuse our own and condemn the other on a regular basis.

Are we reduced to shouting and killing across national and religious divides until there is no one left or are we going to look at ourselves and understand the root of our aggression, hate, violence, envy and fear?

The religious, national and political warring is only the outward result of our inward chaos, conflict, insecurity and sorrow. Surely we need to start with ourselves not following the dictates of others; how can they know what is the truth for another.

If one is so insecure, afraid and have such a burning desire to belong to something external to help you through life, then should you not question whether you are actually alive and working it out as you go along or whether you are just pretending to be alive and only following what others have told you what to think. Are you just acting on conclusions that the mind, with all its contradictions and conditioning, has made up from the words that others have fed you for their own needs?

The beauty of life and the world we call earth cannot be measured by external political and religious dogma however appealing it may appear to those of us desperate for any solutions to ease our fears and insecurities concerning life and its meaning. Are we not in danger of destroying the whole of human life if we continue in this self centered way of my belief is right and yours is wrong.

Is it not time to be serious about our hate of one another and get to the bottom of it before it is too late. We can start with seeing what is in our daily life rather than just believing in someone else's ideology.

Can your planet sustain you?

Winter rain lashes the windows and in this part of the world the sun is low and the light poor. Nature has been sheltering with greens rotting to brown and most soils and trees are bare. This dormant and cool period lasts a short time until our endless planetary journey moves us into warmth and longer, stronger daylight once again and green returns to the landscape.

Without humans this story continues and the purity of it is unobstructed. The human species with its successful breading and colonisation seems not to know reflection and understanding of the wider issues and just thinks it can forever grow, reproduce, spread and somehow magically the planet will cope with our selfish and petty desires.

No nation or major organisation appears to want to deal with the possibility of ever increasing growth leading to the destruction of nature and therefore the human species. Perhaps some think the powerful and wealthy few, those who control the nations and large organisations, can survive whatever lies ahead.

One doesn't know what may happen as we continue to blindly develop, but to rely on technological fixes at the 11th hour is surely lacking in foresight.

One has to question our so-called intelligence and wonder why we cannot understand and deal with our own selfish desires and fears, that even if they do not turn the planet into a wasteland, still cause us so much grief and conflict in our daily lives.

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?