Community

The horrible event in Arizona this week has prompted me to ruminate on the crumbling sense of community. Having moved from a society where there are strong elements of community available, to one where it is difficult to get people to let you in far enough to create a real sense of community. I have been contemplating the impact of a sense of community on individuals at some level for a long time. The senseless killings in Arizona have just brought all this thinking to the forefront of my awareness.

With tight-knit communities, where everyone knows everything (or at least the important things) about everyone else, and treat each other with compassion and understanding, or tolerance at the very least, such mental and social dysfunction in one member of a community are much less likely to result in such horrible action. With greater awareness of and connection to those around us, much of this dysfunction would not occur at all, and outright psychosis would be recognized as such and dealt with before the individual or individuals involved could actually act out.

If we take charge, as individuals, and consciously allow ourselves to interact intimately with those around us, creating a sense of community, with all the sense of support and true connection that creates, we can create an environment where the good overcomes the erroneous in the thought stages before it ever comes to action and destruction of lives. This action of conscious connection with compassion is easy to accomplish if we just DECIDE to open ourselves to others. It’s the deciding that seems to be difficult for many. It seems that the fear of the judgement of others is too strong, although we are always our own harshest judges.

While this connection is not the complete solution, in many cases it could and would be an “early warning system”. Those within the community who are well adjusted, for the most part, far outnumber the violent and psychotic. Truly caring for ourselves, and others, must become more than just a “good idea”, or a “concept” and enter our lives on a visceral mental and emotional level – “real”. It is impossible to love too much – it just requires a bit of creativity to find outlets for this great love that those on the receiving end can understand and accept.

I challenge you, dear reader, to join me in letting your unconditional love grow and flow through and around you and those you care for – express your love at every opportunity, and see what happens. Whatever the outcome, it can only be good.

Overview Part 3

Why do we choose to experience a world and then choose to not interact in truly meaningful or constructive ways? Why is discovering and sharing who we truly are seen to be so dangerous? Why are we becoming more and more risk averse? Why do we aspire to earn an afterlife, which we cannot experience in this life, at the expense of truly living the life we do have right now? Even if this life is just an experience in a larger life/thought process, why should we throw away all the good and wonderful experiences to be shared in the here and now to try and earn a better life in the hereafter? If there is an “afterlife”, then what better proof that we never needed material bodies in the first place. If we are purely spiritual beings, then matter must be a manifestation of thought and therefore subject to the control of the thinkers – us. Thus there is, in truth, no “afterlife” – just a continuation of life from a different viewpoint.

Even physical science seems to be pointing toward the mental creation and control of matter. Physicists have discovered smaller and smaller particles of matter to the point where they have shown that there are particles of matter that seem to only appear when they are actively looking for them, and to not exist otherwise. They go on to state that although these particles are the building blocks of all matter, they cannot explain why they only appear when someone is actively trying to perceive them. The most simple and straightforward answer to this is that mind, thought, spiritual perception – call it what you will – is the creator of matter in its most basic forms and the only cause. By the act of searching, we create – however unconsciously – the material existence, which we currently experience as life. Science also now indicates the possibility – even the probability - of alternate universes where everything that does not seem to happen or exist in this universe does exist and thrive. We are told that although we “know” that matter exists, we cannot yet determine what organizes it into the world we experience, or the bodies and individualities with which we experience this universe. I cannot see any other explanation for the existence and experience of matter than Thought. Therefore, to truly evolve, we must learn to take this creative process from the unconscious to the conscious and unleash the unlimited potential of thought and experience.

Overview Part 2

What would happen if people valued themselves, and others, for what they could give instead of what they could get?  What if people valued each other for who they are instead of what they possessed (be that fame, fortune, possessions etc.).  Unfortunately, this must be a conscious choice for each of us and cannot be imposed on any individual by any outside force.   

The world as we know it is falling apart.  Governments fail to serve the people they are purported to represent, and charge more than the market can bear for their inefficient and greedy non-service.  However, in the current paradigm, humanity would not survive without the pretense of government.  Anarchy, communism, socialism, theocracy, monarchy, democracy – none of these or any other form of government (or lack thereof) can truly work and yet we must, at present, rely on these structures to control, or at least keep order in, our lives.  How can we achieve control of anything external when we cannot even control ourselves as individuals?  How can we govern humanity when we cannot govern our own individuality?

Humanity cannot survive as a species if we continue with our current behavior patterns.  In this climate of unchecked consumption, where we use and discard not only our world, our culture and our environment, but each other as well, there is no chance for long term sustainability.  We see daily, through news and media, how easy it is for people (and they’re getting younger and younger) to kill or abuse others just to gain what we have been told we should want (or just for seeming power over others, or for fun?) – and told so often, from so many different sources, that we think that it’s truly our own desire, not externally imposed.  We have created amazing and wondrous methods of communicating with each other and have made it possible for any individual to communicate with any other individual – globally – without having to leave home, and yet we do not achieve true communication and are becoming more and more isolated and insulated from the world. 

Overview Part 1

The first few posts of this blog will combine to give a bare-bones outline.  Subsequent posts will then be expansions on the ideas presented in the outline (with a few sidelines thrown in for comic relief).  Thank you, in advance, for taking the time to read this blog.

If one steps back, mentally, from looking at the world from a standpoint of being controlled by outside forces such as money/scarcity, social isolation, fear (of not having enough to cover our basic needs; of being judged by others and found wanting; of violence – be it physical, mental, emotional, spiritual; of exposure, etc.) then the world suddenly is a totally different place with unlimited potential. 

The thing that makes each of us valuable within creation is the unique mixture of qualities and interests that define us as individual, thinking, emotional beings.  Each individual’s particular mix of qualities, interests and capabilities - which they contribute to humanity as a whole - enriches the whole, and thus the world.   Mass media and current economic policies perpetuate and disseminate the paradigm of value coming from outside the individual instead of from the only place it can truly come from – the inside – and by doing so serves, to maximum capacity, to separate us from each other and completely dulls the mind and emotions to the shining allure of spiritual/emotional growth and connection with each other and our environment.

We are so busy, as a species, running around in circles chasing self-worth from without that we don’t have the time, energy or desire to fully know ourselves and find our true value – who we are and what we have to offer to the world to enrich the fabric of all life.  We no longer have the time, energy and resources to raise our children with the time together to explore and share the fullness of our love, compassion, and understanding. We no longer allow ourselves the time to appreciate the wisdom and value of the elderly and treat them with the respect and reverence they deserve.  We deny ourselves the spiritual freedom to explore who we truly are and, therefore, often cannot truly interact with others in a deeply meaningful way.  The current socio-economic paradigm demands that we let everything truly important fall by the wayside, just to survive.

We live in a world of abundance, yet there are countless people homeless, starving and isolated.  We are so busy running around trying to keep up in this world that we don’t realize that we are all bankrupt – disconnected from true meaning and value, and consuming natural resources without regard for the impact of this behaviour on the ecosphere.  We substitute sex for true intimacy; commitment and loyalty for love; possessions and/or celebrity for personal value.  I am not saying that there is anything intrinsically wrong with any of those things.  We actually devalue them by trying to make them more than they are – just a few of the unlimited experiences available in the larger concept of creation.  Nor am I inferring that there is no intimacy, love or personal value expressed in the current global paradigm, but I believe that it is critical that humanity, as a species, explores how deeply or shallowly we allow ourselves to experience these.