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.

 

Response to the polarization of arguments about rights and wrongs in the Middle East.

Surely if anything is truly sacred in this world and universe it is all living things and nature rather than the organised religions, nation states, global economics, corporations and our own selfish desires that we so often worship at the cost of all life and nature.

War, and our part in its creation

Listening to the world news one hears again about the ceaseless wars in the middle east. Both sides sight right on their side and so the death and destruction continues. This is not an intellectual discussion this is a fact is it not?

Both sides are loosing as suffering is taking place and this will continue as one side tries to quash the other. There is no victor in conflict, there is only conflict and all the insecurity and fear that that brings.

It is too easy to take sides however supposedly rationally one comes to ones decision. In fact taking sides is surely the root of the problem. To decide that one side is right and the other is wrong is almost certainly based on ones own beliefs and conditioning which is rarely based on fact.

Do not all human beings irrespective of nationality, religion, ethnicity, tribe, culture and society have the same rights?

 If we cannot destroy the opposition, and this is not being recommended, how are we to resolves these conflicts wherever they exist? Firstly in the human sense how are they created? Surely they are created by the will of the individual being exerted outwards. The individual who wants power, who wants their way of life to continue, to prevail over others ideas of how they would like to live, and they, in turn, are doing the same.

This comes from our sense of individuality, of having what we want for ourselves and following our own desires. In most societies this is encouraged; to pursue our own interests, or the interests of our group, be it family or nation etc, without much concern for others needs. This activity of reinforcing the self, forcing our will and beliefs on others causes the conflicts that eventually lead to death and destruction.

It is therefore self centred activity that ultimately causes war and that selfish activity is the action that leads each one of us to to take sides and therefore create enemies.

Without enemies there is no war so perhaps the first thing to do is understand that it is each one of us who creates enemies when we choose a side that suits us according to self centred preferences.

In defence of the realm

Words like realm, kingdom, majesty, sovereignty, supreme power and authority seem to conjure up such images of solemnity and seriousness that have tremendous weight and overrule words like humility, integrity, sensitivity, forgiveness and awareness. It is no accident that those in authority use the words that conjure the images of solemnity and seriousness when motivating its members to action.

At times of stress we get angry with the gentle words. Our patience is thin and we want resolutions and external actions that support our rationalised cause irrespective of the facts and the others views. We see a solution, not in the modification of our own behaviour but in the modification of the others.

Our nations and religions behave as we do for they can only be an extension of what we are. They are not a separate entity; they are a reflection of or own contradictions, fragmentation and hypocrisy. We defend ourselves, our egos, with all its self centred desires, against others who have a different point of view and lose contact and communication and this is what nations and religions do in time of disagreement because there can be not other outcome or course of action if we ourselves are in conflict and fragmented. What is inside is outside, it is one. For the concerns of the world to be remedied the internal concerns have to be deeply understood not externalised so we can blame somebody else for our problems.

The fear of losing security, whether it be ones partner, one’s home or job has to be understood not just blindly defended because it is a personal possession, the tradition or ones conditioning.

It is sometimes difficult to find the words with which to express oneself deeply with. Perhaps words are too full of imagery rather than real meaning, loaded with easy illusions that do not explain the truth.

What is trying to be said here is that our individual lives are in conflict and so too therefore must be our national and religious lives with their habits and rituals, dogma and controls. It is not being said that one should be against the individual, state or religion but one cannot be part of something that controls and conditions one into fear for in fear are the actions that lead to conflict, hate and war.

What is surely required is complete responsibility in relationship. In complete relationship there is no enemy; one is in discussion as with a friend.