14 March 2011

An experiment in kindness


I wish we could try an experiment. Create a small country where people took care of each other instead of finding reasons not to pay for Medicare, education or the poor. A country where they did not eat meat and kill 10 billion farm animals a year for food,  as in the United States, or kill hundreds of thousands of people in two wars based on presidential lies of weapons of mass destruction, or hunt whales nearly to extinction, kill dolphins for fun, harvest fish until the seas nearly become lifeless, like Japan, or eat cats and dogs and skin them alive for their pelts, as in China, or beat them to death as in Korea so they would be more "tasty."

Perhaps that country would have no earthquakes and tsunamis, tornadoes or hurricanes, or killer snow storms. Perhaps we wouldn't have mass murderers shooting 25 people attending a congressman's meeting. This would be an experiment testing the truth of karma and also of God's grace.

Where did Japan's latest disaster came from? The sea. In the second world war it came from the sky. America is always having natural and man made disasters, as is China, including invasions by the Japanese. Now China represses and kills Tibetans and treats animals worse, perhaps, than any other country. No learning there.

What would happen to a nation that did not kill any sentient being and where every citizen felt diminished when any living thing had to suffer and die, and the only wars fought would be in self defense?

I would say that even if God (or Consciousness) decided that that nation had to suffer disasters too, that its citizens would still be very, very happy.

Perhaps we can try such an experiment ourselves, one family at a time, one ashram at a time, one city at a time, here and now.

28 comments:

  1. let's stick with reality, hey?

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  2. Thanks Edji,

    Worth dreaming, worth saying...
    and translated therefore http://perlesdebonheur.blogspot.com/

    love,

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  3. Reality you say. What reality? Do you really think this world observed and interpreted by the mind is real?

    My teacher came to the conclusion at the age of 12 that the world was not real, that it was too horrible to be real. Two years later he awakened totally, and saw that all the phenomena we call our bodies, minds and world were empty and was saved from all suffering and distress.

    If you stick with what you think is real, you will always be stuck in that box. If you can't think of unreal things, how do you ever expect anything better to happen?

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  4. Namaskar Edji,
    I wish we could try this too, just kind words and actions. When are people going to realise what they are doing to themselves?
    Mona

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  5. I'll apply for a citizenship as soon as you announce the creation of this country dear Master Edji !
    What a good dream it will be :)
    With gratitude.

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  6. It's our egotistical beliefs in technology that have put our whole planet at risk. We need to live in harnony with the natural environment and each other. It's egotistical demands that create the gap between rich and poor. It's egotistical leaders that take their countries to war.

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  7. The governor of Tokyo apologized on Tuesday for saying the earthquake and resulting tsunami that left thousands dead were divine punishment for Japanese egoism, a leading Japanese news service reported.

    On Monday, Ishihara had told reporters, "I think (the disaster) is tembatsu (divine punishment), although I feel sorry for disaster victims," according to Kyodo News, which translated Ishihara's remarks from Japanese.

    “Japanese politics is tainted with egoism and populism,” Ishihara had said Monday, according to Kyodo News. “We need to use tsunami to wipe out egoism, which has rusted onto the mentality of Japanese over a long period of time."

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  8. using this disaster to further some point whether political or spiritual is ridiculous and obscene. it makes my stomach turn. some love you all have...so this is how you go beyond existence? by taking some self righteous moral stance...who the fuck are YOU??? YOU ARE THAT!!!! deal with it!!! Even the goons; Ishihara and Beck, Scot Walker, and yes Obama...who are you that is so high and mighty?

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  9. Hi Edji,

    I share this beautiful wish with you. I wish that every single one of us would take care of him/herself and wake up to our true Self.

    Love,
    Janet

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  10. Nathan, this is all on you. You are too close to the victims having a Japanese wife. You are full of rage at us because it is even suggested that the Japanese brought this on themselves. This post was suggested as an experiment. What f we--any nation--stopped killing. What if...

    Then, after a hundred years had passed, would we see a country of happiness and no disasters? This was suggested as an experiment. A poetic experiment.

    I suggested a country where animals were not killed, unnecessary wars not fought, might have a more Camelot existence as opposed to the violent existence of Japan, China and the US.

    But your own hatred and bitterness spills out, not only in this comment of your, but your self-righteous emails to many. I assume any further comments by you will be even more angry and condemning of your former spiritual family. This is on you, not us.

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  11. Ed...there have not been "self righteous emails to many" just one to Jo-Ann, and the few with you. You make many assumptions as well. I just don't get the point of your thought experiment at a time like this. What 100 years do you speak of? Who are these others you speak of? Are they not all the Self?

    My anger was at the posting of some politician who is on par with the rhetoric of the worst fear mongering politicians here in the U.S, and using his disgusting comments to suggest that the tsunami wouldn't have happened if Japan was a kinder less greedy nation. So which separate god is it that is enacting his divine rage.In your thought experiment phenomena would suddenly be exempt from change? No more asteroids? No more gamma ray bursts? No more volcanic eruptions?

    The Kindness you speak of is happening NOW in Japan. Grace and self sacrifice and order. I dare say, were that disaster to happen here things would be very different, descending into looting and robbery and selfishness.

    You are right...it is on me...my feelings about this are my own...as are yours and everyone else's his or her own. Every single feeling is an opportunity to SEE

    Peace

    Nathan

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  12. Your anger makes you so confused you are not thinking straight.

    I said we needed to follow such a kinder and gentler nation for a hundred years after its founding to see if it made any difference in its history of disasters or the happiness of its people. You did not understand this because you are blinded by anger.

    You say you are angry about what this Japanese politician said, but you have been angry with me for even posting this thought experiment way before that politician's comment was posted.

    What peace? There is none for you now, only hurt and anger. None of the others here or I feel hurt or anger, only a wish that there could be a less suffering world.

    You seem to get the concept that nothing is real, but at the same time accept that volcanoes and earthquakes are real and independent of the mind.

    Yes, Nathan, what if the physical apparent reality were influenced by the mind state of the citizens of the world? Are you prepared to reject this possibility out of hand, now that you understand nothing is real?

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  13. A beautiful idea. Our human race has been very unkind to the earth.

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  14. Nathan,

    Thank you for having the courage to speak openly about how you felt.

    Peace,
    Janet

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  15. Ed, would the mind state which affects the "so called" physical apparent phenomena for the better be any less illusory than the one that doesn't? Isn't the whole point to transcend both good and bad? To apprehend THAT which is beyond comparison and judgement? You seem to side step your contradiction by invoking poetic license...that's fine, but what is the mind that wants things to change?

    I don't think that there is an independent physical reality that is separate from mind...and the 'concept' that nothing is real is equal to the concept that everything is real...both concepts.

    I was angry...you are correct. I make no claims to be beyond...in fact it is my understanding that the I can never go beyond anything. For obvious reasons.

    I just really don't understand how you can make the claim (which I agree with) that the world observed and interpreted by the mind is unreal...and then turn around to make causative or correlative "suggestions" regarding events in the unreal world....just doesn't jive. Coupled with that, is my desire to mitigate any apparent suffering my wife and her family are experiencing.

    There is a lot of hateful garbage flying around the net...usually by pre-pubescent numbskulls who say this disaster is payback for Pear Harbor. I don't think that's what you were getting at...but can you see how my incredulity at your 'experiment' was not interpreted as kindness.

    Anyway...I'll leave it at that. I have no ill feelings toward you or anyone else, and thank you for your work with the cats and aspirants, and for even allowing this discussion to take place.

    Janet...thank you...gotta speak up as the spirit moves.

    Peace,

    Nathan

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  16. Nathan,

    You talk about unreal, but you accept Japan, the earthquake and the current courage of the Japanese as real. You also accept "THAT" whatever THAT is as real.

    NOTHING is real in the final sense. You have not seen that for yourself. It is only a concept. All is a creation of thought, which themselves are unreal.

    In that sense, neither is better or worse than any other reality.

    But most people will never awaken to the unreality of the world. Therefore, there is room for someone who sees the world that appears is based on thought. So lt this person change the thinking and thus the world that appears.

    Would it not be better for those who do not awaken to the unreality of the world, to be able to live in a world of love, health, long life and few disasters? To live a life where they do not kill for food or animal fur, or to support a cultural tradition, and where true social security and medical care and education is guaranteed as opposed to a world of killing, wars and disasters?

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  17. Nathan,

    When Robert was 11, he saw his aunt cut the head off of a chicken, and the body kept running around in circles for sometime thereafter. He was horrified and became very depressed and remained so for a long time. Then a year later he snapped out of it because he had an epiphamy that the world was not real, because if it were real, it would be too horrible to bear.

    Two years later he had his awakening where he saw that all that is, all forms were made of consciousness and were essentially empty.

    THEN, he traveled for 17 years going deeper, getting married and having sex, and raising two children of his own as well as several foster children. That is, he acted as if the world were real.

    Yet he never taught that. He was only showing people the exit sign, the way out.

    As Robert says, each teacher has his/her own message. Robert encouraged me to act in the world, politics, taking care of cats, etc. He knew I knew the exit sign already, and he encouraged me to help and change the world even while he preached, "Exit Only."

    My message is that even an enlightened soul would like to live in a world of peace, health no violence and as little death as possible. A world of love, much preferrable to the one we live in. I do not teach just detachment knowing most people will not go free, and the apparent world depends totally on the thought content of people. Why not change that thought content and see what happens.

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  18. I find that it is the unhappy craziness of this world that most propels me toward wanting to awaken. But I wonder if it has to be that way, or only in a hellish world like this one? What would Robert have used as an awaking shock in a world in which his aunt didn’t chop the heads off of chickens? He probably still would have awakened, but maybe not at such a young age? Or maybe that world would be one in which the native foundation of happiness more naturally evolves into an understanding of reality, without needing visions of cruelty to provoke enlightenment. I’d like to think such a place can exist, maybe it already does somewhere, and maybe can begin to evolve here.

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  19. This is a kind of theoretical problem isn't it? Most people never awaken, but I think it is for those who do, to come back into the apparent as a teacher, and for all others, while practicing for liberation, to act as saints and transform the dream.

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  20. Very strange coincidence. Jimmy--the homeless man who feeds feral cats--came over to get cat food from me to feed his cats.

    Just moments ago he said to me that it came to him last night that Japan was being punished from the sea because of whaling, killing dolphins and fishing the sea dry.

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  21. These conversations are great.
    Matthew

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  22. yeah I agree too.. Peace and non-violence pays well for sure.People who are raised in such a civilisation are far more relaxed, even more prosperous and will be able to get deeper into their self and see reality.This was evident from the ancient vedic civilization which saw a tremendous growth in spirituality in this part of the world.When the period of animal and human sacrifices began, the society was steeped in ignorance and then started the decline of hinduism in India.There were invasions and lot of brutality.When advaita was given a rebirth by Adi Shankara and similar saints who strived to remove all evil practices, it brought in the bhakti movement in India.But even all this has been happening in cycles.We can easily notice this for ourselves from studying all the old civisations.So with all the brutality and greed that is there today, great saints like Edji are making to make this world a better place and also make us see that even this is unreal.Let us all be with the flow..

    Regards
    Sharada

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  23. HAHAHAHAHAHA.

    It is amazing the amount of judgments just because a Liberated being was being creative...

    U fools doesn't a Liberated being has an imagination too !! do u think they r just a "moving stone"!!

    Blessings
    Faisal

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  24. About help for animals in Japan ...

    http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/17/japan.animal.rescue/index.html?hpt=C2

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  25. Holy shit, no BBQ? %$#@

    Oh well.

    Pranams,

    Chris

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  26. I guess the confusion is centered upon a place of supposed perfection in this dream world. Yes, I think perhaps a jnani is certainly welcome to some imagination and hope for a better world. Nevertheless, I am wondering what a jnani would surmise this place would achieve in terms of ultimate justice? Is there such a thing in the unreal world? Is utopia a true possibility. In recent times look at Osho, Adi Da, and in Iowa you have the Maharishi effect. Is all of this working? Maybe one with a mind, which I clearly still have and by no means know anything about enlightenment, is bound to not know what a true community of compassion and egolessness is. I wish I did know of such a place. I would join you Edji and the many other devotees. I still feel much pain when looking at the world, in Japan and in Libya currently. This is coming from within me, my feelings from someone that still thinks the body is real. I really have no idea if the sea is having its revenge upon the Japanese people or if the sea was having its revenge upon the immoral people of New Orleans, or if the ocean cast its revenge upon close to half a million people and countless animals in Indonesia, India and other parts a couple of years ago. As you said Edji, consciousness is a harsh mistress. This I must trust and keep looking into what I really am. Thank you all for your conversation and as I am talking to myself the SELF I must continue until I know. Maybe this whole thing is BS and only true love exist, I really hope so. I trust Edji and think that he speaks from a place that knows Truth. I wish you all love and peace.

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  27. Anywhere you look on the vast mandala of Consciousness, you can find a god, a symbol of that aspect or facet of Consciousness. It may be a god with traits you fear or admire. It’s entirely up to each one of us whether or not to believe in, worship, manifest or ignore that god. I decided a long time ago that any god who is less loving, forgiving and compassionate than I am, such as the god of some Christians, simply doesn’t really exist, in fact can’t exist, and therefore isn’t worthy of my attention, whether that be fearful attention or worshipful attention.

    How can a humanity that still believes in a vengeful god who deals out punishment and retribution, ever hope to create a more peaceful, happy world, in which fellow sentient beings are treated with love, respect, tolerance, and equanimity? As a group, most humans are just focusing on the wrong area of Consciousness to do that. A belief in a judgmental, punishing god is just reflecting a judgmental, punishing humanity, and you need only look around you to see what kind of world a humanity like that creates.

    That doesn't mean it can't be different. It just means we first have to understand why it is the way it already is.

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