Month: February 2010

Reading some diaries and writings of my past it is interesting to see how my consciousness today is embedded in them. I can trace most of my ideas in an almost spiral movement back through time. I can see the exact points in time where various experiences led to various revelations, seeding ideas that have slowly sprouted and are now continuing to grow.

For example, in August 2008 I wrote for the first time about poverty. It was the first time, without reading the academic theorists who made these points, that I realised the purpose of poverty, and the dangers that result:

28 August 2008

I just realised for the first time that governments have actually set up systems the way they are on purpose. Our governments wanted to take over the world, have people working for them, and that is what they have achieved.

We have some horrible ancestors, but their attitude was fairly consistent with attitudes at that time: of  expansion, conquer and ownership of the world.

The way the world is right now has grown from their dreams, visions and plans.

After colonialism of places like India and China was abandoned, and the slave trade in Africa abolished, a new form of world conquer begun: Capitalism.

Our ancestors figured out that they could achieve the same goals in a new way, by manipulating markets, energy and development, and rule countries without occupying them. From abroad they could manage and manipulate millions of people, have them work 14 hour days for them, and pay them next to nothing. They could suck out the resources from countries in the same manner.

And today it continues. It’s not just our ancestors, but it’s us as well. It’s us that reap the benefits but consuming ridiculous quantities of products every day, at cheap costs. We need these slaves in poor countries to work for nothing so that we can have so many things for so cheap. We are driving the gap between rich and poor. Everytime we buy something cheap, someone else pays the price.

It’s not sustainable in every part of the chain.

1 Our resources are running out
2 Our slaves will eventually turn on us
3 Our consumption still isn’t satisfying us – happiness decreasing, suicide and depression aboud
4 Our pollutants are killing our atmosphere, warming and destroying our planet

What do we do about it?

WAKE UP.
First we must seek out truth about all these factors. Not live in the fantasy world that our ancestors, governments and big corporations have created for us. We must try to understand the dynamics of these international relations, and make a stand for equality among all humanity. We must come together and find solutions to this linear process before we smash into the wall. Solutions do exist or can be found to turn the linear into a circle, so that we can continue to live on this planet for many generations to come.

…

Having since conducted research and written detailed essays on the subject, my conclusions haven’t changed. Strangely enough even although my newer writing is backed by statistics and references, I think this simple reflection is more to the point than anything I’ve written since.

Photo credit:

Rachel Carroll – Sydney artist (and travel companion) – some kind of beautiful flower taken somewhere in South America http://rachelcarroll.com.au/

This is a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh taken from: Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life.

Can we recognise ourselves in each other?

Please call Me By My True Names

Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow

because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to
Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea
pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and
loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my
hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to, my
people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

Thich Nhat Hanh

…

This is the essence of “interbeing,” the innerconnectedness of all things.