Connections

Rediscovering Our Connectedness

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Hello again.

I know, it's been a while.  I don't write nearly as much as I used to.  For a while I posted something, sometimes several pages, each day.  I thought that always having something new would help generate excitement & traffic.  It became exhausting, and didn't have the effect I wanted.

So, I've been writing less.  But this, too, creates odd dilemmas.

On the one hand, I write less because I want those things that I do post to matter more than if they were just a part of an endless parade of thoughts.  That's certainly not wrong, and I don't think anyone could fault me for it.  If there's only one new writing a year, then I must "really mean it," and it must be more important than yet another thought on yet another day.

But the dilemma part comes in when I try to have any effect at all.  As soon as an author or artist or musician engages their craft so that people will have a given reaction, then their work product becomes damaged, controlled.  It's success or failure is judged on the basis of whether it works, aka has the desired effect.  All spiritual aspirants know that this is against one of the fundamental laws of the Path: 'Work without attachment to the fruit of your labors.'  'Whatsoever you do in thought, word or deed, do all to the glory of God.'  Once we turn from what we are doing, and focus on a desired result, we have turned from the true path.

So, as I sit here writing, endlessly correcting my many mistakes via backspace & overwrite, what am I doing, and why?

Something has been tugging at the periphery of my heart for quite a while now.  It has been the central focus of my spiritual work & meditation for the past many months.  Very recently, different parts of this issue have come together in crystal clarity for me.  I write this in order to explain it to you as plainly as I can.  Yes, I would like the whole world to read this.  Yes, I would like the whole world to benefit from it.  Frankly, it seems to me that just the simple act of reading it, and understanding it, will bring benefit.  But I cannot write just to make that happen.  I must be completely open & honest.  It is still, ultimately & always, up to the reader how they will react, a reaction which I can neither control, nor manage to.

This is not meant to be a systematic, scholarly work.  I want to spark something inside of you, that you might make the connections yourself.

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Following up on exactly 'why' I am writing this, and as a part of it, let's start with my concern for people. 

In my youth, I had a lot of contempt & hatred for people.  "Dumb sheep,' 'prols (see Huxley),' 'wastes of space....'  Expanding the list will not help.  You get the point.

Over time, with work & a touch of grace, I can honestly say this has changed into what I can only call compassion: 'the humane quality of understanding the suffering of others and wanting to do something about it.'

That is my sole inspiration for this entire ministry, website, document.  I see such suffering, locally and globally, that I am often filled with despair.  But that despair is overwhelmed by the extreme joy & ecstasy I experience regularly over the glories of the universe that are sparkling all around us.

It's like when you see a movie you love, that touches & inspires you like none other, what do you do?  First, probably see it again & again.  Then, try to tell everyone you know, and many you do not know, how wonderful this movie is, and that people have 'just got to see it!' 

As simply put, as honest as I can be, as humble as a person like me can be, that is why I do this ministry, tending to this website & answering the emails: I want to help people.

Which compounds the dilemma I spoke of earlier: the more I desire to help others, the easier it is to get pulled into the search just for results.  But there's more.  The greater my intensity to want to help people, the more plainly I state this, the greater the possibility that I can be misunderstood.  I can appear arrogant, holier-than-thou, condescending.  'Oh, you poor people, if only you could be like me.'  I am well aware of this liability, so I will state the following as clearly as I can:

This is just one person's observations, about himself & society, meant to help address a fundamental, core problem, experienced by almost every single person on the earth today.  All of our problems, and I do mean all of them, can be seen as coming from this one core problem.  I will try to explain the problem, show some of the many ways it manifests itself, and propose some specific remedies.

Compassion.  That is why I am writing.  I hope, also, that it helps you.

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As I write, today, May 12, 2004, the world is full of suffering.  So much hatred, pain, war, disease, lies, misery.  So much ill-will of one human toward another.

I wonder, what would actually help?  What will fix this? 

Open conflict abides throughout the planet.  Over a billion people are suffering from malnutrition.  We, as a race, spend $1,700,000 every 60 seconds on our war machines.  I could go on & on & on & on & on & on & on & on & on & ....

But forget for a moment about global suffering.  Much closer to home, in the Information Age-Enabled palaces of wealth inhabited by those able to read this, things are different only in the kind of suffering.  Broken families, despair, violence of neighbor against neighbor.  In the richest nations in the world, the vast majority of families are literally drowning in debt.  In many nations of the world, the average person makes around $500 a year, and that's adjusted for "purchasing power parity."  Yet the wealth of 200 times that much ($100,000 per year) is "barely adequate," as the children are abandoned because all the parents "need" to work, with all the stress & pain that comes from such situations.

And again,  I could go on & on & on & on & on & on & on & on & on & ....

But there's no lack of places to find descriptions of what's wrong with the world, what's wrong with the countries, the states, the families & the people.

I wonder, what would actually help?  What will fix this? 

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Meanwhile, in another part of the universe, there is love, joy, glory indescribable.

It's funny, but all the pain is easy to talk about.  The good, not so.

Most of you have probably seen the movie The Sixth Sense, where the kid says, "I see dead people."  Well, to paraphrase, "I smell God."

How can I describe this to you?  Forgive my weak vocabulary, as I try to explain.

I have recently planted some corn in my garden.  These apparently dead, dry, seeds, get placed into the earth, and with the touch of water...begin...to...grow!  DNA structures a trillion times more complex than the internet, begin to unwind, replicate, extend.  The secret of the seed is in the fragrance of the flower as the petals open up and bow their heads toward the Power.  Light, whatever it is, flies 186,000 miles every second, for 8 minutes, from our Sun to the sacred earth, and something, we do not know what, strikes the leaves, causing them to grow and eventually turn into corn.  The sugars and starches and amino acids flow into the stomach, are transformed into unimaginably complex structures, that strengthen the muscles and help human beings to compose symphonies, Bibles, and websites.

And I get visions, of billions of years of corn growth, as all the DNA / RNA structures are consciously guided in their development.. Not simple-minded "creation," nor a random "evolution," but rather a multi-billion-year development cycle, just like humans developed bicycles then cars then Space Shuttles.  I see, and feel, and smell, the development of the universe, from matter to the "living matter" single-celled creatures, to higher plants, lower animals, to humans, all of it in a transcendently glorious dance that language fails to communicate.  This development is guided by a super-consciousness we can only point to as "God," in whose name we kill & invade & destroy.

And that becomes the real problem for me.  The highest highs of the Visions of Glory, sitting side-by-side with the knowledge of limitless suffering, creates a dynamic tension (voltage) that is sometimes unbearable within the confines of my human organism.

It makes me do lots of things.  Like weeping when I look at the corn.  Like not being able to stare too long at a tree, for the Song it sings is too high for me.  Like writing little epistles like this one, in an attempt to help someone, anyone, anywhere, even one, Oh Dear GOD!!!!!!!

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So, again, I ask myself, over and over, What would help?

What words, put on these electronic pages, would actually matter, make a difference in the world, and people's lives?

The first possibility, one must be honest, is that nothing would or could make a difference.  We have such a multitude of witnesses around us.....The Prophets of Israel, the Gospels, the post-Jesus Epistles of the New Testament, the Universal Love of Ahimsa, the Compassion of the Buddha...Poems and songs and paintings of love, pleasure, simple peace....

But, really, none of it seems to matter.  Or, at least, not matter enough.

And, against such a pantheon of witnesses, what could I possibly hope to add?  Compared to their sublime perfection, how could even my most exalted offering be anything more than a frog's burp, or gopher's sneeze?

Even if I told you that I had witnessed the Tree of Life unfold from the Infinite Time when it, too, was a seed, would that help?  Would it matter?  Why would you believe me?  How could you believe me?  And even if you did, what would that belief do for you?

Should I try to describe the waves of cascading bliss that roll up and down my spine, at times of profound inspiration?  Without words that point to a mutual experience, we cannot even communicate.

No, sharing my visions, my "Oh my God, take it away, it's too beautiful" theophanies are powerless to help.  If nothing else, they are mine, I cannot implant them into you, and thus they must remain private and off the table of our discussions.

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Again and again, I ask myself, What would help?

I considered that going deeper into an understanding of the problem might help.  Before we can fix it, we must know exactly what is wrong.  Maybe if I could gain a deeper understanding of the hold of ego, perhaps I could inspire the ego to relax, even a bit, and in so doing help the planet and its hurting people.

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So what's wrong?

I started by examining some of the ideas we've looked at in the past.

Like the idea of scarcity.  Fundamentally, scarcity says, there's just not enough stuff around.  Not enough water, food, money, iron, computers, or cars.  This idea still floats around.  But it is not real.  Enter "The myth of scarcity" (with the quotes) into Google, and you will find over 700 sites dedicated to exploding this myth.  So I will leave that to them, no point in me trying to add anything here.  Suffice it to say that we know scientifically, mathematically, philosophically, that the myth of scarcity is just that, a myth.

A much better answer to the whole question of "So what's wrong?" is ego: I, me, mine.  Ego is responsible for most of the problems.  It's what makes the myth of scarcity work.  "Look," says the ego, "I don't care if there is plenty to go around, the simple fact is that I want more than you!  In fact, I want it all!"  This is directly connected to the ever-present need for more, More, MORE.

The ego always wants more in general, and specifically it wants more than the other guy.

Yes, ego is the problem.

But...but...But we've been talking so much about ego in the human race, for thousands of years.  Hinduism's Vedanta speaks clearly of the delusion of ego.  Jesus invites us to take up our crosses, deny ourselves, and follow Him.  The Buddha taught a simple 8-fold pathway that would lead to the extinguishing of selfish desire, and the pain that comes from it.  All of this ranting & raving against the pains and problems of ego, and what have we benefited?  Very little, it seems.

And even here, in The Church of Yahweh, I've shown that ego is the root of our problems.  In the Garden is the primary document in that context..

But the ego does not want to let go.  Why should it?  As long as it has the guns and the warplanes, and there are kingdoms yet to conquer, other people's food yet to steal, why should the ego let go?  Oh, if you are one of the weak, then sure, talking about denying yourself is all well and good, but what that really means is that you want more of the power I have.  Nope.  Forget it.

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So I sought, even deeper.  Studied, prayed, meditated.  I read, examined, tested, evaluated.  I took all the methods I espouse in The Revealing Science of God and call The Power of the Telescope and applied them to the question at hand:

Why won't the ego go away?

So, the question has changed:

"Again and again, I ask myself, What would help?"

This could be partly answered by saying,

"What could help the ego let go?"

If the ego is the core problem, and I'm convinced it is,

and the death of ego would solve our problems (and the witness of the Masters both East & West is that it would,)

then that means helping the ego to die would help.

You can call that my working spiritual hypothesis.

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Applying the scientific method to spiritual ideas, one of the first steps we must take is read the literature.  What have others, who have investigated this topic, reported?

Now, you are perfectly free to limit yourself to only one specific area or tradition, but I cannot do this.  All of the human race's history is a part of my history. 

Hinduism's Vedanta invites the small-self to realize it is part of the Creator.  But exactly why it should do that is not explicitly stated.  "Realizing one's true nature," perhaps?  But My Ego does not want to realize anything.  What My Ego wants is to go to the other side of the world and murder men, women & children.  Let the losers "realize their nature."  My Ego is a mover and shaker, out to form the world into my own image.

My quest is for something more: what can I offer to the World-Conquering Ego to motivate it to chill?

Buddha proposed we die to self because this is the way out of suffering.  But most ego does not see itself as suffering, especially while my machines can kill you.  Exerting my ego over you, subjecting you to my will, is fun.  I like it.  Losers like the Buddha can lay around and cry, but My Ego is Strong, a Conqueror.  I feed pain to others, and in so doing escape my own.

Yes, the Buddha was awake.  But I'm looking for something more, a deeper, more real reason for the ego to "let go and let God."

Jesus invites us to take up our crosses & follow Him.  But why should I do that?  Your nurses may tell you lies, of a kingdom beyond the skies, but My Ego is out to control this earth right here, right now.

Looking deeper into the Bible would later reveal very helpful material.  But at first pass, Jesus' calls & commands to die to self do not appear to have enough motivation behind them.  And the witness of history clearly supports this view: it is precisely the most "Christian" nations that have been responsible for some of history's greatest atrocities, though the Way of the Cross is far from having an exclusive on inflicting pain & suffering.

No.  It was clear I had to go deeper, and deeper still. 

What, if anything, can I write that will actually help?  What observation could I offer the ego as motivation for its weakening, if not outright suicide?

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To most people, I am a hermit.  Many (well, most) of my friends & associates travel around the country and world, taking trips at least annually.  Many, many times they razz me a bit, saying, "You never leave the house.  Why don't you take a trip?"  Well, some day.

For now, I am an explorer of consciousness, a voyager of knowledge.  While others collect baseball cards, I collect books.  (Again, and for the last stinking time, there is no judgment in this.  If you want to collect or do anything, that's fine with me, as long as you are not harming anyone else.)  Religion, science, sociology, philosophy, and the relationships between them, are my primary focus.

A friend came over a few days ago.  As we wandered into my library, he asked, "So what are you reading these days?"  My answer took about 20 minutes, and here's the short form:

Seemingly a fractured, disparate group, granted.  By through them I started to see a thread, common to all, upon which they all hang.  A notion ancient, to be sure, all but forgotten in today's world.  A notion that connects us all.

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If it's written, it can't be a prayer.  And no real prayer is ever written.  They are examples, at best.

Just know that through this entire process, lasting several months, I would constantly pray, "Yhwh, what can I do to help?"

At present, this document is the best answer I have.

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From The Uddhava Gita:

"Whenever I read these dialogues and witness Uddhava's progress - which represents the progress of everyone on a spiritual journey - I realize how inevitable that progress is.  Whatever our inclinations, we begin by wishing to draw closer to a Divine that we see as existing outside of ourselves.  Then, as that wish begins to shape our life, we see the Divine reflected in ourselves and in all material existence."  pg 104.

If the history of emails I've received over the years is any indication, many of you are hurt & offended that I've quoted an "evil, demonic" Hindu text. 

But assuming you are still here, please just think about this one moment.

Think about the Biblical witness of Paul.  He started with a zeal for God, expressed as he murdered Christians.  Then, he had his vision of Christ on the road to Damascus, approximately 34 AD.  Christ became the central figure in his life.  Then, through prayer, meditation, and service, he wrote a letter, some 20+ years later, to the church in Galatians. 

Galatians 2:20 - "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me..."

If one allows oneself to step outside sectarian small-mindedness, one can easily see the very progress in Paul that Saraswati's commentary refers to.

Paul recognizes, toward the end of his life, that Christ is his essential self.  Just like Jesus realized "I and the Father are One," Paul was to realize that "I and the Christ are One."

As Jesus was God in the flesh, Paul became Christ in the flesh.

Think about the history of human thought about God.  "God" starts as something "out-there," far away.  Eventually God comes to the earth, and eventually we learn that God lives in every one of us.

What starts as something foreign & far away, is eventually recognized as intimately connected, essential and identical.

As Acts 17:28 says, we live in God, move around in God, and exist in God.  And the Spirit of God lives in us.  We "have the mind of Christ." 

Now, so that this idea does not get away, and you can see it in its full context, I wish to present to you that the same thing is true with people.  They start "out there," far away.  I'm not speaking geographically, but psychologically.  Other people are "far away" in that they are conceived as totally separate from us, and do not matter.  In that way they are diminished, of little value.  That person "over there" just does not matter.  In fact, they are less than human. 

We see this especially in times of hostility, personal or global.  One of the first things we do is give our opponent a different name, or word by which we will refer to them.  Slope, spic, towel head, jap, honkey, sand nigger.....The real purpose for these words, what they accomplish for the user, is that they express the distain and "less-than-human" attitude.  That makes it easier to kill them, stab them, bomb them, watch them bleed and breathe their last.  They simply do not matter, for they are vermin, not even in our species.

But none of this is true.  These people, who start "so far away," are in reality intimately connected to us.  We are all one family.  Denying this helps the human ego to imagine it matters more than those around it. 

What starts as something foreign & far away, is eventually recognized as intimately connected, essential and identical.

We will return to this in a moment.

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From Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, page 160:

"I have already stated my opinion that one major result of modern science has been to make people doubt what they would otherwise accept as true from their own observation and experience.  Science, medicine, psychology, and economics all deeply depend on people being mystified by their own experience and blind to the strict limits of scientific method.

"In this country [America] where intervention between humans and their inner selves is so very advanced, the mystification is virtually total."

TV is, if nothing else, a mediated experience.  There is a vast series of intermediates between you and "the thing."  The camera focuses on what you are to look at.  The news broadcasters decide what issues are & are not important.  All immediacy is eliminated, as the soundtracks & laugh tracks also tell you how you are supposed to react to a situation.

TV presents the situations you are to care about, and tells you what your opinion is supposed to be.

Even in so-called "open debates," (where "up close & personal" means the full 4 minutes spent on a topic instead of the usual 45 seconds), extremes of opinion are presented, inviting you to "make up your own mind," where neither radical position even remotely reflects the genuine truth.

TV will not let you smell, fell the heat, or taste the burning flesh in the back of your throat.

If a company (let's not use names, but symbolize this mythological company with the letters "GE") makes most of its money from building war machines, and also happens to own a TV network (again, let's just call this fictitious network "NBC"), then how likely do you think it is that GE will allow NBC to present any reason at all that the military budget (that is GE's lifeblood) might be bad?

TV's essence relies on advertising.  TV never gets paid one dime to make a program.  It only gets paid by having people stupefied into watching advertisements.  These ads are the very opposite of healthy therapy: they are designed to make you constantly uncomfortable with every aspect of you and yourself.  From the embarrassing dandruff on the top of your head to the shameful stains on your teeth to the inappropriate fashion of your shirt, to the stink emanating from the soles of your feet, TV's constant 22-minutes an hour message is that "You are a mass of filth, hopelessly in need of our chemical salvation."  Industry, in America alone, spends $200,000,000,000.00 every year to reinforce this message.

TV constantly separates you from your family, your world, and your self.  We do not talk.  We do not share our observations or life experiences.  We sit in darkened rooms, silently hypnotized into accepting what the box tells us.

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That's the core observation of the Ehrlichs in One With Nineveh, page 215.  I quote at length:

"In the aggregate, there is abundant evidence that, once basic biological needs for food, shelter, clothing, and health care are met and a standard of living providing some leisure time and recreation is adopted, further consumption doesn't provide much increased satisfaction.   The data for this are relatively unambiguous.  In the United States, per capita real income (a surrogate for consumption) doubled between 1957 and 1992, but public opinion polls showed no increase in reported happiness.  There also was no increase in happiness in Japan between 1958 and 1987 despite more than a quadrupling of GNP.  A near tripling of personal income in European countries between 1960 and 1990 similarly produced no increase in reported satisfaction.

"A dramatic example of the disconnect between consumption and satisfaction is the phenomenon of the "suffering rich" in industrialized nations.  A recent survey revealed that 62 percent of Australians believed they couldn't afford all the things they needed.  This included 46 percent of the richest households in the country - those with annual incomes above $70,000.  At the same time, people in a fifth of the poorest households in Australia (with incomes less than $20,000) thought they could afford everything they needed, which is consistent with reports that some older pensioners claim they are doing well.  So the holders of the most wealth apparently aren't the most satisfied group in our utterly wealth-oriented societies. [Please see Powaqqatsi and the Myth of More.]

"Maybe it's time for a careful reconsideration of society's true goals.  It might be useful for newspapers to report regularly on statistical indicators of such items as the state of the environment, the functioning of the health-care system, and the knowledge of graduating high school students, with equal prominence as is given to stock market averages, which are largely an index of the psychology of gamblers.

"If increasing consumption beyond the meeting of basic needs doesn't really enhance satisfaction, why do so many well-to-do human beings strive to consume ever more?  One possible explanation might be called the "rat race" theory of consumption.  It says that, once basic needs are met, people get satisfaction not from absolute measures of income or consumption but from their position and prestige relative to the peer group with which they identify.  As biologist Donald Kennedy once put it, "welfare detectors are disparity detectors."   We feel satisfied if we are able to consume as much as-or, better, more than-other members of our peer group; we are dissatisfied (suffer relative deprivation) if we can't consume as much as our friends do.  A person's self-worth is tied up in his net worth; money allows us to display our success in achieving status.  It gives people what economist Thorstein Veblen a century ago called "pecuniary decency."  This leads to the rat race of competitive acquisition, attempts to keep up with and get ahead of the Joneses.  Interestingly, though , our health is better and our life expectancy is longer if we live in a nation with a relatively equitable income distribution, where the opportunities to outdo others are fewer, as are the chances of being outdone.

The facts of sociology are clear.  As the Ehrlichs' meticulously documented work shows, more stuff does not make you happier.  Wealth and satisfaction do not go hand in hand.

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Saint Paul, television, consumerism.

In my little library I was starting to see connections.

And starting to see that what we really need, is connection.

And a realization of just how connected we are.

If the ego could just catch a glimpse of how connected it is with God, with other humans, its pain would be diminished, the ego could get re-connected with itself, and things would start to get better.

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America, the "Christian Nation," sits watching its High Definition Liquid Plasma TVs, stuffed to overfed obesity, drowning in debt, while 45,000 people (plus or minus, the numbers are very hard to estimate) die of starvation every day.

How can this possibly be?

There IS enough food.  We cannot even argue this. 

Militarism, starvation, consumerism that does not satisfy, debt loads that strangle...Just what is going on here?

Remember the central point: What will help?

Clearly, helping the ego to die would help.  If we were less selfish, less I-me-my, able to share from our abundance, then things would be better.

And, again, what will help the ego to die, let go?  What will really help?

The reason the ego does not want to die is because it does not realize how connected we all are.

The #1 thing I have found that stands as the greatest hope to help, is to enable people to realize just how connected we all are.

Connections.  Hidden, but real.  Seen, but ignored.

We are connected.  We are getting more connected every day.  And we need to gain more and more understanding just how connected everything is.

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Let's look at this from the secular perspective, first.

A crack whore gives birth to a baby addicted to crack cocaine.  Not your problem, right?

Wrong.  Think, just think for a moment, exactly how such a thing could happen.  How this human being could have no support system, no health care.  What evils led her to this shocking, unimaginably horrible state?  All of these things, from the violence in her broken family to the poverty of her life to the diseases involved...every bit of it affects you.  The environment you live in, how comfortable you are leaving your house at night, how much you pay for your security system, how much general anxiety you have in your own life, all of it is connected.  Just think about this.  Yes, you are connected to that person, and her plight is directly connected to your quality of life.

Small: You steal just one object.  That raises prices for all people.  You toss just one piece of trash out the car window, and thousands will have their environment polluted by it.

Large: You support a system that oppresses and abuses people all around the world.  Result: A global world-war on terrorism, security alerts, strip searches to get on an airplane, and 2 missing World Trade Towers.

Everything you do affects those around you.  Yes, by the time your efforts get to the other side of the ocean, your personal, individual efforts have very little effect.  But when all of our individual effects are multiplied together, the results are real and almost immediate.

Especially as technology grows, as the world literally gets smaller, it becomes ever more apparent how connected we are.  The Japan stock market responds to the London stock market, and vice versa.  The consumer need for coffee destroys entire civilizations in other parts of the world.

Examples, exhibits, displays....WE ARE CONNECTED. 

Think of it this way.  When you see a pond covered with algae, you think, "Oh, look at that algae."  You see it as one thing, that algae thing, instead of billions of separate organisms.  And, indeed, all the algae works in many ways as one united organism.  Yes, you can "get down into the details" and study each individual cell.  But you also can approach & treat the algae as though it were one united organism.

So too with human beings.  Yes, we are very different, one from the other.  From the other perspective, though, we are one race, one thing, growing over the face of the planet.

The consumerism here affects the lives of people over there.  And the people over there are not always pleased with the results.  And their quality of life affects yours.

Page 145 of Spong's Why Christianity Must Change or Die:

"Perhaps we human beings are more psychically connected than we have ever imagined.  Perhaps positive thoughts and the release of the energy of concern [prayer] does flow on networks we do not understand, affecting the life of another.  These transformations seem to be miraculous only inside our limited knowledge.  All I know is that it is natural to reach out, to love, to care for others, and inevitably we feel compelled to give verbal expression to those aspects of our lives.

"To be so alienated from another as to put that person deliberately out of our minds or to be so insensitive that we cease to care for anyone outside the orbit of our own lives is therefore nothing less than the very opposite of prayer.  It is such an attitude that makes us unwilling to respond to the invitation to embrace a larger segment in life.  In every experience of rejection or insensitivity, our lives close in and our being shrinks, and we live as if we are fractured, rather than whole, people.  Every one of us has walked in that land of shadows."

Clearly, I could not have said it better.

Living in the isolation of our home-theater-equipped maximum security prisons we misname a "neighborhood," we experience only a tiny fraction of what it means to be a community, a body, and human.

What starts as something foreign & far away, is eventually recognized as intimately connected, essential and identical.

 17

Not only are we unaware of how connected we really are with each other, we are not even connected to ourselves.

Over & over, across races, ages, wealth & sexes, people find it almost impossible to live in accordance with what they really value.  "Quality of life" can be defined as how much access one has to what one values.  And even in our over-rich, over-saturated lives, people are simply miserable. 

Over & over, on & on....affluence does not bring happiness.  Nor peace of mind.  Nor joy.  Nor does it enhance love.

We are not connected to ourselves, our own desires.  Over & over people live in a way that they would never, ever choose.  And this, inside essentially free societies.

Even if & when we know what those desires are, we find it almost impossible to live according to them.  "I know exactly what I want to do, need to do, and should do.  But I just cannot do it.  It is impossible."  "I've spent every day of my life for the last 20 years hoping and praying and begging that I could give up drinking, but it is just impossible."

This notion of being disconnected from ourselves needs a lot more investigation.  But for now, I will present you with its root cause.

We spend almost all of our entire existence thinking, looking, working on things "out there."  Far away.  (Are you seeing a theme here?  I hope so.) 

Think about everything you do in life.  Everything has to do with interactions with things that are apart from you, outside you.  Moving the fork, turning the key, driving the car, talking to the husband...Think about it.  Our consciousness is constantly being pulled away from us, moving around outside of us.

That's not "wrong" in any way.  But it's a question of balance.  But how much of our waking consciousness is spent internally?  And no, I do not mean thinking quietly about solving problems "out there."  I mean on focusing within, inside, behind the eyes.  On one level, our thoughts, feelings, desires.  Clearly, we are not in touch with them.  But more, the presence of soul.

Most of you probably cannot even guess what I mean by the presence of soul.  I'll try to explain.  Think about the stars, oh so many millions and trillions of unimaginable miles away.  But those stars are not "far away."  Yes, the big ball of gas itself is really very far away.  But when you see the "star," that light is inside of you.  This is not a game.  The light travels for years, and eventually enters your eye!  That's exactly what we call "seeing," when that thing "out there" enters us.

You have never "seen" any object.  It is physically, theoretically impossible to see anything, and this is not a trick.  The one and only thing you have ever seen, from the beginning of time, is light.  That light enters you, goes inside you.  When you "see" a bird or a tree, what's really happening is that the light is bouncing off of the tree, as it takes on the tree's form & color, and then bounces into your eye.

When you smell the rose, what you are really experiencing are the molecules inside your own nose.

When you feel the smoothness of silk, all you are really feeling are the touch-receptors under your own skin.

So too with sound.  Something "out there" causes the air to vibrate, and this vibration is carried literally into your ear, interpreted by your brain, and re-processed as being "out there."

So, the reality is that the sights, sounds, and touches that allow us to experience our world are all internal vibrations.  The brain spends much of its time creating its "out there" projections based on these internal realities.  But it does not stop with the senses.  We re-create the entire world moment by moment, projecting our inner space upon the outside world.

This is not a mind-game or trick or language.  Yes, there is a physical thing "out there" somewhere.  But our perceptions of this object or event or person is completely the work of our own brain, a projection outward rather than an awareness inward.

Simple, fun illustration.  A man wants to join a monastery.  The head monk says, "In order for you to enter the monastery you must beat my one-eyed son in a battle of wits, but you cannot use any words at all."  Fine, says the young man.  He's taken into a room, and the one-eyed son enters.  Just a few moments later, the head monk sees the young man running past his room.  "What happened?" the head monks yells after him.  "Oh, that son of yours, he's just too smart for me.  I raised one finger, indicating that God is One.  He raised two fingers, saying that the Father and Son are the foundation of our faith.  I raised three fingers, indicating the Blessed Trinity, and he responded with a clenched fist, proving that these three are One.  He's too much.  I'll never make it."  He leaves, dejected. 

A moment later the head monk sees his son running by, carrying a huge sword.  "Where is he?  I'm gonna' kill him!"  "What happened?" asked the head monk.  "That impudent bastard.  He starts by insulting my one eye.  I politely reply that he should be grateful he has two eyes.  Then the brash fool responds that between us we only have three eyes.  So I lost my temper, clenched my fist, and got ready to punch him when he ran away like the coward he is!"

This kind of communication problem happens all the time.  People, in essence, do not react to the outside, what is said or done, but what they are sure was meant, their personal interpretation.  Just think about some of the words and phrases you hear all the time on the radio these days:

Now ask yourself....Is that the US talking about Iraqis, or vice versa?  Every act is simultaneously righteous retribution and unjustified aggression.

The central point here is that we do not react to the "reality" of what is out there, but to our perceptions of what is "out there."  Our inner perceptions are molded and shaped by our minds, creating the world as we know it.  Life is, indeed, at most, 5% what happens, and 95% how we react.

And remember our central thesis: Something apparently "far away" is actually right here, right now, inside you.

But in each of these cases, this disconnection is a delusion, a sickness of the mind, an improper projection, a failing to see things as they really are.

Connected.  Connections. 

How we need them.

What starts as something foreign & far away, is eventually recognized as intimately connected, essential and identical.

18

Now from the religious perspective.

The Bible is full of references to the connectedness of us all.  For your convenience, I have included some of them here.

The current American President, Bush version 2, claims loudly to be a "Christian."  When asked the most influential philosopher in history, he answered "Jesus."  When asked if he consults his father (Bush version 1) about things, he said no, but he does consult his "heavenly father."

If you found someone to be the "most influential" thinker of all time, and most important for your life, does it not seem reasonable to assume that you would at least know something about what that man said?  That seems reasonable to me.

What, then, did Jesus say?  Did he have anything to say about enemies, conflict resolution, and the like?  It just so happens, he did.

^{Mt 5:38 "You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’} 

^{39 But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.}

^{44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,} 

^{45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.} 

The "Christian Nation," lead by the "Christian President," sent its "Christian Army" to the other side of the world, using its "Christian bombs" to kill literally countless people.  The "Christians" called this war, and therefore found it totally justified, even God's Holy Work.  Of course, the evil infidels also think they are engaged in a Holy War, what they call a Jihad.  They are, of course, wrong, because God only loves the American "Christians" and their "Christian" President. 

Listen carefully: When we believe God tells us to kill you, we are right, because we are good.  When you believe God tells you to kill us, then you are wrong, because you are evil.  It is our duty, as Christians, to kill you because of your attitude.  You killing us because of our attitude is wrong, wrong, wrong.

I wonder if you, reading this, consider yourself at all to be a "Christian."  I wonder if the words and teachings of Jesus mean anything at all to you.  I am puzzled how the "Christian Nation," lead by its "Christian President," can read things like this:

^{46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?} 

^{47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?} 

^{48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.}

and still do what they do.

Christianity, in the dark hearts of the wicked, has been all too happy to embrace hatred & killing as a way of life.  They cannot be differentiated, in any way, from the evil Muslim Jihad they seek to destroy.  I have been associated with more than one "war department church," closely associated with (even on) military bases.  These are dark, foul, hateful places, worshipping in word and ritual, but lacking any heart or love.

I cannot help but wonder, what would have happened if America's response to 9/11 had been to follow the exact words of the Messiah it pretends to worship.  What, actually, would have happened?  We will never know.  But it is very hard for this writer to imagine the world situation being any worse than it currently is. 

We've been telling Jesus to go "F" himself for centuries, that he was simply an idiot when it comes to conflict management.  So the absolutely endless cycles of vengeance - retribution - vengeance - retribution go on and on forever.  Jesus offered us a way out, a way to break the infinite cycle.  "Christian" America and its "Christian" President continue to tell Jesus to go "F" himself.

"But that's just not realistic.  That will never work.  What about Hitler, should we have left him alone?

Folks, you need to open your minds a little bit.  It was the very type of so-called "Christianity" that created Hitler!!!!!!!!!!  The anti-Semitism of the Lutheran church generated the environment, supported the election and programs, and made the monster Hitler.

This is beyond dispute, for any genuinely thinking person.  If the "Christians" had not spent so many centuries in hatred, violence, persecuting the Jews, Moslems, and anyone else and everyone else that were not "them," if they had taken the words of their "Savior" seriously, then the environments that lead to many of the evils the "Christian Nation's Christian President" fight, never, ever would have existed.

If every Christian insisted on love and forgiveness, they would never have voted for the politicians who run the wars, they never would have allowed themselves to fund the wars, and they never would have sent their children to fight the wars. 

"But what about the tyrants, the despots?  Should we just leave them alone?"  Jesus says to pray for them, forgive them, love them.  Do good things for them.  Go ask Him.

19

I had dinner last night with one of my longest friends, 28 years and counting.  He says, quite simply, that I am wasting my time.  Nothing will ever help, things will only get worse for humans, and no one will pay any attention to my silly website.

Perhaps.  But hope is born when optimism dies.

And I still retain hope.

So often for me things boil down to mathematics.  With over 6,000,000,000 people on the Earth, with current birth rates, we will be looking at 9,000,000,000 people in less time than has passed since the Vietnam war.  If 45,000 die of starvation every day, and 1,500,000,000 suffer from malnutrition, then one does not need to be a Biblical Prophet to see that there are only a finite number of possibilities:

1. We will be facing a daily genocide from starvation alone.
2. We will wipe several billion off the face of the planet.
3. We will find some way to adjust consumption, the production that sustains it, and honorably govern birth & death rates.

Given a choice, I vote #3.

To that end, I write, and continue to try to help.

That helping, as I said at the beginning, constitutes enabling the ego's selfishness to let go, even a little.

But all the preaching of all the religions over the centuries has not helped.  Jesus was certainly infinitely more powerful, anointed, and important than I am, and we've just talked about how He's constantly ignored.

So, I've tried to point a new direction: If we can all know, deeply, how connected we all are, that the world is in here, in us, and we really are just parts of the same body, then we will learn that every one else's suffering is a part of our own.  Perhaps, even if only from our own self-interest, we might learn to care about other people, who are (after all) just parts of ourselves.

On September 11, 2001, 3000 people were killed in the Twin Towers.  Since then, in animalistic revenge, America has killed literally countless others, the overwhelming majority of whom had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11.  But on that day, September 11, 2001, 45,000 human beings, with thoughts, feelings, desires, mothers and families, died of starvation.  And they have continued to do so, every single day, in the hundreds of days since then.

A nation that will obsessively mourn the loss of 3,000, while ignoring the daily deaths of 45,000, cannot, must not, dare not, ever ask the God who lives in ALL of us, to "bless it."

With our communal technology, their deaths and suffering are as though we put the guns to their heads ourselves.  One man is executed, and the nation goes into shock.  45,000 are murdered from lack of care, and no one pays any notice.

How, in the name of anything holy, can we live with ourselves?!?

I am convinced that the vast majority of people are, indeed, good hearted.  How, then, the daily holocaust of malnutrition?

Television is a huge part of the problem, much larger than anyone is willing to admit.  Sitting in a state of alpha-hypnosis, our brains are physiologically incapable of considering anything other than the endless stream of images that jump into it from the outside.

But deeper, I've tried to show the disconnectedness we all live in.  Fractured from our Earth, even ourselves, we cannot have compassion for those next to us, let alone around the world.  But we are connected, and their suffering is ours.

20

Look at this boy.

His name is Yulianus Kaut.  He lives in Indonesia.  He is A REAL PERSON.  Look at the way he's clenching his fists, because he's scared getting his picture taken.  He has hopes, dreams, likes, dislikes.

HE IS ALIVE BECAUSE OF ME.

Look at the children surrounding him.

THEY ARE ALIVE BECAUSE SOMEONE CARES.

For $25 a month, Yulianus receives food, clean water, shelter, clothes, medical care and an education.  World Vision is the organization that makes all this happen.

If he was yours, and had a sniffle, you would take him to the doctor.

But since he (and millions like him) are on the other side of the globe, it is all too easy just to let him die.

"You know, kid, I'm sorry for your problems, but my cable bill is twice what it would take to keep you alive.  Tough luck."

No, I'm not trying to make you feel guilty.  If you feel that way, that's good, because you care.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with things, work, money.  But if every person in the world (heck, just the country, even the state!) who had a surplus (and we all have a surplus here) would help just one other person, mathematically there would be no suffering on the planet.

World Vision's annual budget is just over half a billion dollars.  That's $550,000,000, aka five hundred fifty million dollars.  That seems like a lot.  But that's what America spends on its military in just 12 hours.  Yes, there are other charities.  No, I've never found one that has a lower percentage of administrative costs.  But the point is that the millions and millions of starving, dying, suffering people, could be helped with just the resources we currently have.  The myth of scarcity is a myth.  We have the technology.  What we lack is the moral will.

Preaching, nagging, Bible-quoting, none of it really helps.  What I'm trying to do here is appeal to your selfishness!!  Appeal to your ego's own sense of self-preservation.

Technology bubbles-up like water rising all the boats.  We have cases of 5 year old kids carrying guns to school!  Eventually, even the poor and disenfranchised of the world will have guns and bombs that can kill countless people.

The so-called "War on Terror" can never, ever, be won, for just that reason.  For every "infidel" & "insurrectionist" murdered, the hatred of all those who knew him & loved him & believed in his righteous cause grows & grows.  It may take decades, but they will vow a thousand generations to vengeance.

If you love yourself, if you love your own children, and want your grandchildren to have any hope of a happy, peaceful life, you have 2 options:

1. Encourage your so-called elected officials to murder 4,000,000,000 or 5,000,000,000 of the most offending types, so that our children will not have to deal with their type of scum.  Nuclear weapons are, at present, the most efficient means to accomplish this task.  (This is the preferred method of most Americans that call into and speak on AM radio.)
2. Start realizing you are connected to all people, ease their suffering, give of your time, talent and treasure, to make the world a better place for them.  Their increased peace of mind will, eventually, bear fruit.

Call me a dreamer.  Tell me I'm wasting my time.

But I vote for #2.

I said at the beginning,

Over time, with work & a touch of grace, I can honestly say this has changed into what I can only call compassion: 'the humane quality of understanding the suffering of others and wanting to do something about it.'

As simply as I can say it, that is my hope, prayer, and effort for the entire human race: The growth of compassion.

What starts as something foreign & far away, is eventually recognized as intimately connected, essential and identical.

21

Far beyond the bounds of our weak imaginations lie the celestial realms of goodness, wisdom, beauty, peace and love that gave birth to our individual identities.

Torturing and slaughtering each other in the name of, and for the preservation of, those individual identities, will never return us to our home of goodness, wisdom, beauty, peace and love.

By understanding that we are all one, part of one God who lives in us, part of a body that we all share, we can get reconnected with ourselves, and see the Blessed Realms that lie within. 

Then, and only then, will we be able to see the Kingdom Come.

Pastor / Rabbi / Guru / Imam / Human Ahyh

p.s. The other night my son & I were standing in the kitchen, arguing over whose turn it was to clean the kitchen.  I said it was my turn.  He said it was his turn.  I smiled, and noted that if all people could have this simple attitude, just this one change, then there would be no suffering on the planet.

And everyone's house would be very clean.

(I've written a short afterword here.)

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