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There is only one of us here to change
01/19/2010
Not Doing
You may think that if only we could oust some of our politicians or the presidents and CEOs of multinational corporations or even kill them... yes, kill them all! then we would have a better world a cleaner world a more equitable world. I do. I think that way myself. But it’s not true, because there are millions of them and there will always be more where they came from... from a bottomless pool of ignorance, forever offering proclamations with the most holy and majestic words we have until, in the end, as Orwell warned, language itself will come to mean nothing but manipulation, fear and emptiness. Yet, somewhere deep in the recesses of our Collective Knowledge we understand that everything is really One Thing and that, according to some universal likeness of pattern, we are all connected... so strongly, in fact, that we cannot with any real sincerity, accuse or blame anyone for doing anything we consider wrong. It is US. All of us. It’s been us all along. There is no other, no THEY... No “them” in charge no leaders abusing power no rich barons forever accumulating more wealth no ignorant/insecure soldiers terrorizing their own people no suicide bombers, with belts of explosives and nails no angry soccer fans killing a player for a missed kick no lawyers and judges passing laws and handing down sentences in a world of abstraction where no people live no millions of people sitting before a flickering box laughing at what is not funny, believing what is not true becoming inflamed over what does not matter no peasants working barren fields or having their crops sold away to those without need no helpless women and starving children. They are not out there... it is all right here. The pain for those who can still feel is right here. To avoid feeling is a natural response. All beings protect themselves from pain, if they can. But we are human, and can never be completely numbed. There is always some part that calls out telling us we should do something, even just some small thing, to help. To recycle that can, or give that guy a dollar to thank a professor for a good class or complain about a careless doctor. There are always small steps to take and sometimes we do more. We write letters, join groups take to the streets to tell the world of wrongs being done... to declare our disapproval and distance ourselves from awful things. All these are good. Any action beyond the selfish impulse is good. But... we should not let our work in the world, even good and effective acts, allow us to forget that There is no THEY. In the end, we are all one and the only real power we have is that tiny, subtle, slow effect we can exert over own Being. All the rage and passion righteousness and condescension is just a projection. We are just playing out our own shadow story. It is ourselves we wish to free from the tyranny of our own limitations and the earthly laws we’re born into. All our efforts, ultimately, are directed towards our own liberation. We should always strive in this world for the salvation of others... but if we forget about our own, or forget that we are all a single consciousness seeking endlessly to transcend its Self then we do no service but merely perpetuate our blindness and lengthen our own prison term. Truly, there is nothing to be done but work here, right here in this body, these feelings this soul and mind and emotions. But then, those who’d attained this level would have received all this long ago as it has been repeated throughout the millennia. It has been said that if ever there were 100 fully-realized people on Earth at the same time the whole planet would be transformed and peace would come. Who knows who They will be or what we may do (or may already have done) to hasten Their arrival? If you believe this is just a poem or some piece of fanciful writing then you do not understand... yet.
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