What to do: a mustard seed.

Recently I was confronted with a cloud of ideas that had to do with solving this or that problem in the world. This came in the form of a letter by e-mail from someone concerned with the world situation. This was my reply:

I have considered this matter for years, since my childhood. At first I took it personally, as in dealing with "my" problem. How could I do otherwise? A child learns to make do in his own environment. But as I grew up, I saw that there were others who were having the same problems as I was. I started to postulate the problem as one that "we" had, or as the problem of a bigger "I." A lot of "us" who are part of a "we" make a larger "I." Later, I found out some astonishing properties of this "I." There is even a book now, by a doctor, called The I that is we.

To make a long story short, I realized that we make our problem(s) worse by labeling them as specific to a group. In other words, names divide. I saw clearly that we disipate our energies and fight our like minded brethren by calling a problem as having specifically to do with a group o other person. We call it a problem with American teens, or with immigrants to our country, or of the illiterate in our cities, or the homeless in Chicago. We call it the terrorists, the Mafia, or the government, or the corporations o the banks. We even call it religion and the love of God. We manifest it as a race by acting like animals that defacate in the space that they live without cleaning it up.

What we fail to notice is that in dividing it up like that and not cleaning up our mess, we are missing the core perception of the problem, which is the only level at which we can do any good or effect any real change other than cosmetic. Without naming all the links in the chain, we can go directly to the piece that anchors the problem in our experience. That piece is Identity.

All problems are expressions of the activity of defining identity. Fear is the feeling of threatened identity, love is the feeling of validated identity. Fear is the threat of being a solitary entity against a hostile environment, Love is the feeling of being so One with it all that any threat of the perceived environment is trivial.

What we might need to address is how the human system of conscious awareness, which has now been proved to stem from an identical source in Africa, can globally function at every level of organization with the result of promoting and fostering the feeling of Unity with all his fellow humans, but especially with that "I" that is we.

The Human Idea is of a piece. We now know that at many levels, from the genetic to the cosmic. What we don't know is how to install a pattern of behavior in our children that is big enough to accommodate growth into a cooperative global economy. Now remember, that "economy" stems from a word that means "household management." I cannot think of a more appropriate word to encompass the enormity of all the levels of human experience from internal physiopsycospiritual health to the finding of pied a terre's sin the stars.

In the same way that my Mentor stated that "Consciousness is the Light to the Awareness of Ideas and thoughts" we can and must, if we wish to continue as a productive growing species, proceed in our relations with each other from the most fundamental of ideas. This idea has to be rooted in the muscles so deeply that we cannot harm another. and that brings it back to Identity. If I am established in the feeling that the other person is myself wearing another suit, how could I do harm? Would I harm myself? The Bhagevad Gita says "Established in Unity, act." The two forms of the golden rule say "do unto others as you would have done unto you." and "Do not do unto others what you would not have done unto you." It also o says "Know ThySelf." Could this last have a greater fruit that an experiential knowledge of the "I" that is we? Who would not want to help themselves?

This alone may be our only fundamental problem, and our only task might be to see the fundamental unity of all the seemingly seperate systems that constitutes our world. The most basic system is the human pattern and we share it, each an every single an plural one of us. We carry within us, as our own conscious awareness, the solution to all our ills. It is the recognition that WE ARE ONE is not platitude, it is a Way, but as GK Chesterton said about Christianity, "it's not that (it) doesn't work, it just hasn't been tried yet."

Rant

Jane Jacobs said in her book "The Coming Dark Age" that the disappearance of the middle class is the cause of the abyss of ignorance that constitutes such a period. My guess is that such a period is somewhat of a time of egoistic safety and power for those stuck in the trap of "wealth equals good." In my opinion, all the greedy people could have ten or more times what they think they don't have if they took others with them, i.e. promoted global popular wealth at least to just over the point where each person could have some leisure from economic pursuits and be insured of health and elder care. Along with that would have to go some education, a terrifying prospect for bankers. Such global enhancement would mean cooperation and a seeming reduction in personal power for those who control comparatively vast amounts of money.

I think that personal power without an underlayment of wisdom is a very destructive aberration of the human psyche, as far as it is based on separatism and blindness to the underlying Unity of Nature, and therefore of our ties with each other. Such might be the corporate, and especially the banking mentality of today, which in one documentary was shown to be sociopathic. But if anyone can see the "other" as an aspect of their own self, how could they do harm? Who would deliberately harm themselves? Yet the illusion of being discreet individuals allows many to seek dominance rather than cooperation. One of the forms of this dominance is the destruction of the educational system, especially any aspect of it that fosters the ability to think rationally or feel deeply. It may be why we have gone from first in education in the industrialized world to 29th in 20 years. This may very well be one of the factors in the growing, unfilled gap between the very rich and the very poor in this country.

Many look to the "American Dream" of making it on yur own. And of course, this does work, but again, it seems it is for the few. Rugged individualism also, as an American ideal, is a wonderful phase, and necessary, but it is a teen years phenomenon, necessary only for separation of the sense of self from identifying with the parents. A mature adult has a sense as well of community to which he can fully give that sense of uniqueness he has acquired through trial, and a sense of that community's interdependence with Resource. Yet we are popularly trained to be emotionally reactive, thalmic based cash cows for the comfort of the few and the destruction of all. "Be the best that you can be" should not only be the motto of the US Army recruiters, but of all the educators and their students. But in order to do that there has to be a major reassessment as to the ends and means of society, and therefor of what individuality truly means. Historically, this has happened mostly on a one-by-one basis, and we have for the most part crucified one way or another those who would lift us up, all under the auspices of fear agitated by those who would loose their economic comfort. As a good friend said, "money (of the very rich) stops progress," and this seems to be so for the general population as they are drained of economic resources by miseducation and the ideal of comfort, as corportions infest the public thoughts with false ideals, and the lack of education stops the supply of ideas and patterns fostering wisdom and insight.

A reply to someone who credited the "fish brain" as the root of evil.

I agree with you about the fish brain (also known as the reptilian or monkey brain to some) theory to some extent. One of my favorite sayings is Gandhi's reply to a reporter who asked him, after a tour of the modern wonders of London, what he thought of Western civilization. Gandhi replied "I think it would be a very good idea." I took that mostly to mean that appearance dosn't necessarily mean substance, despite our looking like, or agreeing with each other that we are cultured.

Similarly, it is my opinion that Satan, the name for the fallen Lucifer, is a symbolic--yet very functioning--aspect of awareness. More precisely, of the lack of awareness of higher functions and perceptions, particularly those having to do with the unitary nature of Being. Lucifer means "Light Bearer." In the scheme of things, it seems to me that the fall of "Lucifer" from Heaven is the development of the human ego. My mentor said that hell is the sense of separation. Conversely, the feeling of Unity can be called heaven. And this to me is the crux of "salvation." Salvation is the deliberate or serendipetous regaining of the feeling of Unity with the Source. It is why the religions that postulate a god seperate from a creation can only be misleading the "faithful." They who believe that are doomed mentally to found their belief in god as one irrevocably separate. How hellish is that? And there can be found the foundation of guilt. On the other hand, one who feels that the "other" is an aspect of his own impersonal Essence, though seemingly different, cannot do harm. Who would harm themselves? And thereon is founded an actually viable morality, as far as I can tell.

Last stage (smoothing) before firing of 24" piece, 3 views