Sadness and hope

I feel deeply sad for the people of London, for those who lost their lives too early, for those wounded who suffer and for those in pain for the loss of a dear one. Let us have a thought of compassion and love for all of them.

Fear, anger and violence have been plaguing our world for a long time. Far too long. When the soul, the mind, the thoughts, the words and the actions of humans are corrupted by these poisons, the world becomes a less pleasant place to say the least. This, I am convinced, is the deep spiritual and psychological root cause for dreadful events orchestrated by terrorists of all sorts. And the seed for violence are distance, judgment and blame: when I feel distant from someone and find a reason to blame them I am being violent. Interestingly, when I blame someone I am in fact blaming myself. I believe in the power of Life and Light and I fail to see how Death and Destruction can serve any superior purpose, let alone any religious purpose. Perhaps political agendas, but no cause worth to be called that way. And I think it is pointless to examine whether Death and Destruction materialise as a genocide in the pre-Colombian Americas, a genocide in Rwanda, a devastating world war, a terrorist attack on New York, Madrid or London, or indeed as an ill prepared and badly managed costly intervention in Iraq, or a colonial war in Vietnam. There is no just cause that can be served by fear, anger and violence. None. Not in any environment: not in family, not in business, not in society, not in politics, not in world affairs... None. Period.

The fact is that we have the resources that are required to make the world a better place and bombs are not the way to do it. Perhaps it is time to think how many "Marshall plans" we could have conducted with the budget spent for the war in Iraq. Perhaps it is time to assess the cost the western world is now paying for its myopic handling of former colonies and underdeveloped countries in the past; after all did we not allow Sadam to come to power and once he was in power tolerate his presence for 30 years before suddenly realising we had to bring him down? Did we not protect dictators like Mobutu? Did we not bring down democratically elected leaders like Salvador Allende? Did we not allow extremists in Algiers to prevent women from attending university?

At the same time, I feel sadness and sorrow for the shadows that drive
human behaviour in our world. They are our collective shadows. My neighbour's weakness is my own. I know I
have felt anger, violence, desire for revenge and a couple of other of
these negative energies. How else could I possibly recognize (that is
re-cognize) them? Perhaps we humans have made a lot of progress with
technology and science and medicine and management and arts and... but
the point of the matter is that our behavioural patterns are mostly
identical to what they were in prehistoric times. Progress as we
conduct it just gives us means to "perform" on a larger scale.

Perhaps the next frontier is in ourselves and in our selves. That is where progress is now required. Perhaps the next step is to educate and to re-educate people. To help achieve a higher level of conscience on a larger scale. It is in the power of each individual to create their personal heaven
or hell out of the exact same material: our world, our common
"reality".