What dwarfs television and radio as a medium for affecting universal change?
What is a galaxy more effective than the World Wide Web (and its infant brother Face Book) for spreading a (global) causal message?
And what outshines Twitter as a viral seed-spreader for higher universal consciousness?
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I’ve had a lot of conversations lately with perplexed people.
They are perplexed about the world, or more specifically by the dire state of our planet.
Fat greedy bankers make them apoplectic.
Corrupt politicians have them calling for blood.
And religious fundamentalists get them frothing at the mouth with rage.
They get so upset by the injustice of it all that they are almost (and sometimes) fired into action: a tent outside St. Pauls, a march along Whitehall, eggs thrown at the wall of a local church or mosque.
It is easy to understand why folk choke at the throat with indignation and anger.
How dare they be so greedy with OUR money?
How shameful of them to fiddle their expenses when WE pay their wages?
How unintelligent of them to treat their fellow citizens in such an inhumane way.
I’ve presented a minute sampling from the current crop of world abuses, there are a great many more countries who call themselves God fearing and yet treat their citizens like cattle.
Abuse of power has been in situ since the dawn of man.
Usury has always been a part of society throughout history, ever since bartering was the fiscal way.
And corrupt politicians are old news, they have had their seat in the ‘big rooms’ of society for many decades: the great roman philosopher Boethius (see Consolations of Philosophy) was falsely jailed and sentenced to death by the politicians of the day because his virtue so affronted them.
Nothing is new.
Little has changed.
Even right back then there were marches, there were campaigns and there were wars and killings all done in the name of freedom, democracy and God.
When you look closely enough, especially when you watch the news three times a day and read the tabloids over breakfast dinner and tea, you will find hundreds of different causes, thousands of worthy campaigns and ten thousand ‘potential’ enemies, all trying to get your attention, and all vying for an input of your energy. And believe me, like most people, I have sat in my chair at home, pickling in righteous indignation about the heathens, the harlots and the butchers of the world. I have perplexed over the injustice of it all and despaired at how nothing seems to have changed. But all my wild rumination did was disempower me. There was so much to attend to that my myriad choices caused a bottle neck, in the end there was such a log-jam of causes to attend to and I ended up attending to nothing at all.
Every which way I looked at these causes and campaigns I could not see how I – one man – could make any difference to them, no matter how much energy I invested, no matter how upset and outraged I felt. Not just because ‘one man’ is not enough, rather it was because (I admit) I personally don’t know enough about politics to argue a good point. I know very little about banking and finance, certainly I am not informed enough to deduce whether the fat cat bonuses on perennial debate are genuinely performance linked or stolen from the pockets of ‘honest working people’. And religion! Who knows enough about the religious pantheon to have a valid opinion? It can take an entire life time of dedicated study to understand even one faith.
I realised though that there was one thing I do know a lot about, that I have spent 52 years studying, and that I am a world expert in. Me.
All I can really truly know for certain are the things I myself have experienced. And what that experience tells me unequivocally is that everyone eventually reaps what they sow, everything they throw out – good, bad and indifferent, with good intention, with ill intent or with no intent at all – eventually comes back at them with profit and in like form: one big f**king boomerang. So no need to worry too much about people getting their comeuppance.
As was intuited to the great mystic, Julian of Norwich in a divine vision (see Revelations of Divine Love) in the end ‘all will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be well.’
In other words if you sit by the river bank for long enough you will see the bodies of all your enemies float by.
It helps to know this. It means that (to a large degree) you can predict your future by your present endeavours. In the Dhammapada (often referred to as the Buddhist bible) the opening line says that what we have today is as a result of what we thought/did yesterday, and what we get tomorrow will be as a direct result of what we thought/did today. None of us are exempt from our actions (and our actions begin with a thought), no matter how well we think they are hidden, and no one will fail to profit if they invest their energy wisely. When I look back at my own life I realise that I am only enjoying my current fortune because I invested all my money, my energy and my hours into self sovereignty. I took my opportunities when the universe tapped me on the shoulder, and I stepped up even when I was scared, perhaps especially when I was scared. For me to develop I was always asked to give more than I thought I could manage, and I was always encouraged to stretch just beyond my own reach. I was never disappointed by the results. And of course, when I took the easy path, as I often did mayhem followed, and when I sat on my arse and took no path at all I regressed: the universe repays everything with something, even idleness.
I don’t know a lot for sure, but I am in no doubt about the reciprocal response. I have felt it first-hand. I have experienced its fortune, I have tasted its wrath, I have learnt how to co-operate with this Vastness – it is what makes my life so potent.
When I watch the experts debating on television about of the volatile subjects of the day, it is clear that most of them are not as informed or as knowing as they seem, certainly for every strong and convincing view in one direction there is an equal and opposite stand that seems just as compelling.
With so much convincing contradiction where are we to go, what are we to do?
All I can reference, congruently, is the expertise in my own incarnation and the consistent results I have collated from my experiences, from my own feelings and senses. We each view the world through our own particular lenses, and whilst these may be coloured by heredity and conditioning, they are all that we can truly rely on when it comes to an assessment on living and dying in the world.
The confusion that I felt (that many feel) led me to deep contemplation: I meditated on an answer to this perplexing issue and I was offered options:
I could learn more about politics/banking/religion and enter the debate.
I could, but honestly I just don’t feel the love for it and in my life I try hard to seek that Holy Kingdom in all I do, because love always leads me to gold.
In the latter trinity, I have neither love not interest, I am not inspired, not even by the leading lights, many of whom I know do an amazing job.
I could choose a cause and make it my raison d’être to become a world authority and really make a difference.
But there are so many causes to choose from – and every one of them worthy – that I am left spinning and toiling over which is the neediest, and where my attention might be best spent.
I could start an angry blog (many people do) and trigger a nationwide/worldwide campaign using the immense power of social networking.
Or….
I could make a placard in my back shed and march the valiant march against racism, communism, capitalism (or any other of the isms), using only my vitriol, my Costa Cappuccino and an egg sandwich, for fuel.
I could but I know deep down, in my heart, in my soul, that I’d be placing my shoulder behind the wrong wheel, for me it would be little more than a juicy, easy, convenient distraction from the one thing that I can make a difference with, the one thing that I should be working on night and day.
I am not saying that campaigns against despots and ball-bags and greedy bastards are not worthy or worthwhile, they are, and there are many people in the world righting wrongs. That is their calling and I applaud their courage and their selflessness. I think they are splendid. But in my own life what I have learned and what I know is this: if I (personally) want to cause a revolution in others, I will only affect it by nurturing an evolution in myself.
Some people have to go out into the world to affect this inner and outer change, others start the revolution (to quote a great song) in their own head.
Your great success creates an immense allowing for the success and greatness of others. In the material world of course it helps if people know about your success, it inspires, it directs and it offers proof that what once was impossible is now achievable. In science (and in faith) we are told that success does not have to be visible to have an affect; when one man lifts his level of consciousness – even when unannounced – the consciousness of the whole species will be lifted as a direct result (see Power Versus Force, David R Hawkins) because everything affects everything.
For me, external causes and campaigns have always been a secondary action to self change, a by-product if you like (or what Buckminster Fuller called the Processional Effect (see Critical Path) which says that often the by-product of our purpose is far greater than the purpose itself even if we don’t consciously know it) when I change me for the better, it changes everyone for the better, even though the latter might not be my conscious intention.
Personally I could never see the logic in demanding temperance in faraway countries, while I am still treating myself and the people around me – my wife, my kids, my neighbours – with intemperance.
I don’t have to leave this city to find greed.
I do not have to leave my own neighbourhood to stumble across corruption.
I only have to look out of my bedroom window to witness the awful degradation of women by men, men by women, and children by men and by women. And the greater majority of these abuses do not involve bankers, politicians or religious zealots. Just ordinary every day people going about their ordinary every day abuse.
I found even greater causes closer to home that would affect the world more profoundly than a million angry marches, and these causes resided inside me, in my own body, in my own mind.
This does not mean that I would or could or should ever ignore someone in need, that has never been my way, I believe that the quickest route to happiness is through service, and anonymous service is always the most potent. What it does mean is that I do my best to untangle my own ball of wool before I start offering advice to others who are in a tangle. As the I Ching says, “not every man has an obligation to mingle in the affairs of the world. There are some who are developed to such a degree that they are justified in letting the world go its own way and in refusing to enter public life with a view to reforming it. But this does not imply a right to remain idle or to sit back and merely criticize. Such withdrawal is justified only when we strive to realize in ourselves the higher aims of mankind. For although the sage remains distant from the turmoil of daily life, he creates incomparable human values for the future.”
I personally have a lot of work to do on my own game before I realise this level, but strive I do.
If I am a real warrior, if I have the courage of ten thousand men, I will attend to ‘him inside’ before I go to war with ‘them out there.’
The ‘him inside’ is the Demon (one of the many) that resides inside all of us.
I am not referring to the archetypal Satan, with horned brow and curling tail. Rather I am referring to the Greek (translation of) Demon, the daiesthai (meaning ‘to divide.’)
Whenever we harbour conflicting and contradictory energies inside us, it creates a division, and that split (if not resolved/dissolved) becomes a source of deep conflict, which at some point will act up, which at some point must act out (See Hunting The Shadow).
Nearly six hundred year ago Leonardo da Vinci said that when a bird lands in a tree the whole world changes, because everything is affects everything else. When I look out into the world, and when I see the many causes crying out for my attention, and when I am conflicted because I want to address every one of them, but concurrently feel unable and unqualified to address even one, I remember this and I am uplifted. I remember the fact that I am attached to every single thing in the world. And if I am in motion, if I am acting, if I am striving, my movement will be felt not only across all the continents of our beautifully dangerous planet, but also across the depths of space and time.
This inspires me. It gives me great hope. It means that every investment I make in myself, in learning, in study, in sovereignty will not be in vein.
When I make a positive investment in me – I make a positive investment in the whole universe.
I do not have to choose one cause, I can choose all causes. I do not have to become an expert in all things in order to affect their change for the better, I simply have to affect a positive change in me, and in doing so I will ‘instantly and imperceptibly be in communication’ with every one of those worthy causes begging for an investment of my energy.
By lifting the level of my own consciousness, I automatically lift the consciousness of everyone and everything in the cosmos.
So rather than choose a cause and fight a battle that I know little about, I do what all the scriptures since time immemorial (and now science) recommend: I change myself.
I change myself for the good.
‘Be the change you want to see in the world’ said the great mahatma.
I am unlikely to make the 10 o’clock news with my internal Jihad, and some may accuse me of sin by omission but I am lead by that indivisible angel: faith. And she tells me that in triggering a microcosmic change in me, I am affecting massive change in the macrocosm. And though my actions might be imperceptible to others, science offers undeniable proof that when I (you, us all) move, the whole universe responds instantaneously.
As I said at the onset of this contemplation, some go out into the world to make a difference, some go into themselves to trigger change (some do a bit of both) but at the end of the day perhaps it doesn’t matter too much which way we take, as long as it has heart, because whether our journey takes us to the inhospitable climbs of Nanga Parbat or the scorching sands of the Sahara desert, it will all eventually lead us back to the one and only person that can make our life better.
I have friends who travelled to Japan and trained with the masters to find themselves, others I know needed to bounce off the floor of addiction before they found joy in living. I personally found my inner self on a night club door in Coventry city centre where I faced down my fears and was shown that everything I needed was already in me (see Watch My Back).
My friend Richard directed me towards a great truth last time we spoke: in my life (he reminded me) I had to go out into the world to trigger inner growth, I just had to, I could not have found what I found without the world. And consequently I had to go in, deep into myself in order to find the courage to go out. I could not have coped with my outer challenges without a strong inner foundation. The two worked together concurrently, like the roots and the branches of the tree.
In that respect then, perhaps going out and going in is the same thing. If everything is everything then there is no ‘out’ and there is no ‘in’, the separation is illusory. We are (as the Buddhists say) one with everything.
It is so simple it hurts. But then aren’t all the great truths.
I remember a story I heard many years ago that didn’t make a lot of sense at the time. A lady was visiting a famous monk in Tibet. In a bid to impress him with her worldliness she told him of her travels around the world, ‘London is beautiful’ she bragged ‘you should really visit London.’
The monk looked at her and smiled, ‘lady, I am London.’
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So, to go back to our original questions:
What dwarfs television and radio as a medium for affecting universal change?
What is a galaxy more effective than the World Wide Web (and its infant brother Face Book) for spreading a (global) causal message?
And what outshines Twitter as a viral seed-spreader for higher universal consciousness?
You!
You!
You!
Be well
Geoff Thompson