Walking around town recently I experienced an overwhelming sense of compassion for us humans – all trying to do our best under conditions that are challenging, to say the least.
Somehow in the industrialised world most of us have lost contact with the essence of who we are. We have forgotten that we are the Earth expressing itself in human form. We have forgotten that we are interconnected with all life on Earth and beyond. We have lost touch with that deep sense of belonging that brings so much rest and peace. We have forgotten what it means just to simply be present in the moment with what there is, losing ourselves in regrets from the past or fears from the future. We have lost touch with our inner worlds and senses, the core of our being, flinging ourselves into the distractions of the world around us on a futile search to fill the inner void through material means when it can only be filled by stopping and turning inward. And we feel something is fundamentally wrong but don’t know what to do about it.
Realising that, it is actually incredible we are still alive as a species! In that context I feel immense compassion for all my fellow humans. The amount of pain most of us carry around, the pain of that fundamental separation, that we avoid facing by keeping our eyes firmly focused outward. Deep down it feels too scary to go inside and face it. Our psychological coping mechanisms keep us well away – leading unfortunately to us inflicting even greater suffering on ourselves, each other and the rest of life on Earth. Is it any surprise that our galactic neighbours have yet to reveal themselves to us and drop in for a cup of tea!
We are caught up in constructs of our own making, built on the foundations of our separation from the inner worlds. An economic system that tries to keep us moving at full speed so we can collect more and more stuff to distract us and prevent us from stopping to face the pain. Systems of education and employment that suck our life force and churn out “human resources” to feed that soulless economic system. A healthcare system that treats us like machines and financial assets, dehumanising us further. Political systems that have become slaves to the now globalised economic and financial religion of unbridled capitalism, stripped of any real power to look after the people, communities and ecologies of the land they govern. Is it any surprise that we are struggling, as human beings with hearts and souls, to feel whole in that heartless and soulless world we have built around us? To create societies that are an expression of our highest enlightened potential?
Deep down most of us are traumatised by that separation from Self, each other and Earth. Let’s look at each other through the eyes of compassion, see each other’s suffering, help each other to see the pain and be with it. Help each other to recover from these few hundred years of insanity and restore our human dignity, deconstruct the life-sucking systems we built in the past and create something worthy of who we really are. Forgive the expressions of anger, frustration and despair, knowing that so many of us can’t even see or feel the pain that lies beneath. Help each other to heal, make whole. Learn the martial and healing arts to protect yourself and others from the uncontrolled violence still to come and channel that energy into feedback and love.
Fundamentally, we need to see each other as the wounded Earthlings we really are at this moment, regenerating our inner and outer worlds together, one step at a time. Rehumanise ourselves. With all the love and compassion we can muster.
1 Comment
Very well put, Peter! The distortions and distractions are immense are they not. Retiring after a career in ministry, I am presently in the Wisdom School PhD program working on my dissertation. My working title is “Shamanic Imagination: A Modality for Dreaming a New World into Being.” A key element is the one you have expressed: we are the Earth expressing itself in human form. Interconnectedness, relationship, healing/wholeness, reciprocity, compassion, love, power of language, intention, imagination …. the list goes on. So much hope, so much love … in the midst of all the madness. So carry on, brother! I appreciate your work/play….