Personal Responsibility or Blame?

I realised a long time ago that blame doesn't work - the problem remains however much I may blame someone else or God or Fate. So I've learnt to take responsibility. It makes life so much simpler.

Here's another comment form Swami Vivekananda about blame.

I will bring before you one more point with regard to this theory of reincarnation. It is the theory that advances the freedom of the human soul. It is the one theory that does not lay the blame of all our weakness upon somebody else, which is a common human fallacy. We do not look at our own faults; the eyes do not see themselves, they see the eyes of everybody else. We human beings are very slow to recognise our own weakness, our own faults, so long as we can lay the blame upon somebody else.

Men in general lay all the blame of life on their fellow-men, or, failing that, on God, or they conjure up a ghost, and say it is fate. Where is fate, and who is fate? We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. None else has the blame, none has the praise. The wind is blowing; those vessels whose sails are unfurled catch it, and go forward on their way, but those which have their sails furled do not catch the wind. Is that the fault of the wind? Is it the fault of the merciful Father, whose wind of mercy is blowing without ceasing, day and night, whose mercy knows no decay, is it His fault that some of us are happy and some unhappy?

We make our own destiny. His sun shines for the weak as well as for the strong. His wind blows for saint and sinner alike. He is the Lord of all, the Father of all, merciful, and impartial. Do you mean to say that He, the Lord of creation, looks upon the petty things of our life in the same light as we do? What a degenerate idea of God that would be! We are like little puppies, making life-and-death struggles here, and foolishly thinking that even God Himself will take it as seriously as we do. He knows what the puppies’ play means. Our attempts to lay the blame on Him, making Him the punisher, and the rewarder, are only foolish. He neither punishes, nor rewards any. His infinite mercy is open to every one, at all times, in all places, under all conditions, unfailing, unswerving. Upon us depends how we use it. Upon us depends how we utilise it. Blame neither man, nor God, nor anyone in the world. When you find yourselves suffering, blame yourselves, and try to do better.

This is the only solution of the problem. Those that blame others — and, alas! the number of them is increasing every day — are generally miserable with helpless brains; they have brought themselves to that pass through their own mistakes and blame others, but this does not alter their position. It does not serve them in any way. This attempt to throw the blame upon others only weakens them the more. Therefore, blame none for your own faults, stand upon your own feet, and take the whole responsibility upon yourselves. Say, “This misery that I am suffering is of my own doing, and that very thing proves that it will have to be undone by me alone.”

That which I created, I can demolish; that which is created by some one else I shall never be able to destroy. Therefore, stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succour you want is within yourselves. Therefore, make your own future. “Let the dead past bury its dead.” The infinite future is before you, and you must always remember that each word, thought, and deed, lays up a store for you and that as the bad thoughts and bad works are ready to spring upon you like tigers, so also there is the inspiring hope that the good thoughts and good deeds are ready with the power of a hundred thousand angels to defend you always and for ever.

Real love - what is that?

Over 100 years ago, Swami Vivekananda was travelling in the West and trying to pass on his Understanding of the spiritual world. Among the many talks he gave is this one, It is the most perfect description of the kind of love I have been searching for all my life. I feel much of what he describes and I put in my effort every day to achive this. Can I achieve that? I don't know and mostly I don't care - I am just so grateful for the opportunity to move towards this goal. Perhaps you'll find this inspiring too.

BHAKTI OR DEVOTION

The idea of a Personal God has obtained in almost every religion, except a very few. With the exception of the Buddhist and the Jain, perhaps all the religions of the world have the idea of a Personal God, and with it comes the idea of devotion and worship. The Buddhists and the Jains, although they have no Personal God, worship the founders of their religions in precisely the same way as others worship a Personal God. This idea of devotion and worship to some higher being who can reflect back the love to man is universal. In various religions this love and devotion is manifested in various degrees, at different stages. The lowest stage is that of ritualism, when abstract ideas are almost impossible, and are dragged down to the lowest plane, and made concrete. Forms come into play, and, along with them, various symbols. Throughout the history of the world, we find that man is trying to grasp the abstract through thought-forms, or symbols. All the external manifestations of religion — bells, music, rituals, books, and images — come under that head. Anything that appeals to the senses, anything that helps man to form a concrete image of the abstract, is taken hold of, and worshipped.

From time to time, there have been reformers in every religion who have stood against all symbols and rituals. But vain has been their opposition, for so long as man will remain as he is, the vast majority will always want something concrete to hold on to, something around which, as it were, to place their ideas, something which will be the centre of all the thought-forms in their minds. The great attempts of the Mohammedans and of the Protestants have been directed to this one end, of doing away with all rituals, and yet we find that even with them, rituals have crept in. They cannot be kept out; after long struggle, the masses simply change one symbol for another. The Mohammedan, who thinks that every ritual, every form, image, or ceremony, used by a non-Mohammedan is sinful, does not think so when he comes to his own shrine, the Caaba. Every religious Mohammedan wherever he prays, must imagine that he is standing before the Caaba. When he makes a pilgrimage there, he must kiss the black stone in the wall of the shrine. All the kisses that have been imprinted on that stone, by millions and millions of pilgrims, will stand up as witnesses for the benefit of the faithful on the last day of judgment. Then, there is the well of Zimzim. Mohammedans believe that whoever draws a little water out of that well will have his sins pardoned, and he will, after the day of resurrection, have a fresh body, and live for ever. In others, we find that the symbology comes in the form of buildings. Protestants hold that churches are more sacred than other places. The church, as it is, stands for a symbol. Or there is the Book. The idea of the Book to them, is much holier than any other symbol.

It is vain to preach against the use of symbols, and why should we preach against them? There is no reason why man should not use symbols. They have them in order to represent the ideas signified behind them. This universe is a symbol, in and through which we are trying to grasp the thing signified, which is beyond and behind. The spirit is the goal, and not matter. Forms, images, bells, candles, books, churches, temples, and all holy symbols are very good, very helpful to the growing plant of spirituality, but thus far and no farther. In the test majority of cases, we find that the plant does not grow. It is very good to be born in a church, but it is very bad to die in a church. It is very good to be born within the limits of certain forms that help the little plant of spirituality, but if a man dies within the bounds of these forms, it shows that he has not grown, that there has been no development of the soul.

If, therefore, any one says that symbols, rituals, and forms are to be kept for ever, he is wrong; but if he says, that these symbols and rituals are a help to the growth of the soul, in its low and undeveloped state, he is right. But, you must not mistake this development of the soul as meaning anything intellectual. A man can be of gigantic intellect, yet spiritually he may be a baby. You can verify it this moment. All of you have been taught to believe in an Omnipresent God. Try to think of it. How few of you can have any idea of what omnipresence means! If you struggle hard, you will get something like the idea of the ocean, or of the sky, or of a vast stretch of green earth, or of a desert. All these are material images, and so long as you cannot conceive of the abstract as abstract, of the ideal as the ideal, you will have to resort to these forms, these material images. It does not make much difference whether these images are inside or outside the mind. We are all born idolaters, and idolatry is good, because it is in the nature of man. Who can get beyond it? Only the perfect man, the God-man. The rest are all idolaters. So long as we see this universe before us, with its forms and shapes, we are all idolaters. This is a gigantic symbol we are worshipping. He who says he is the body is a born idolater. We are spirit, spirit that has no form or shape, spirit that is infinite, and not matter. Therefore, anyone who cannot grasp the abstract, who cannot think of himself as he is, except in and through matter, as the body, is an idolater. And yet how people fight among themselves, calling one another idolaters! In other words, each says, his idol is right, and the others' are wrong.

Therefore, we should get rid of these childish notions. We should get beyond the prattle of men who think that religion is merely a mass of frothy words, that it is only a system of doctrines; to whom religion is only a little intellectual assent or dissent; to whom religion is believing in certain words which their own priests tell them; to whom religion is something which their forefathers believed; to whom religion is a certain form of ideas and superstitions to which they cling because they are their national superstitions. We should get beyond all these and look at humanity as one vast organism, slowly coming towards light — a wonderful plant, slowly unfolding itself to that wonderful truth which is called God — and the first gyrations, the first motions, towards this are always through matter and through ritual.

In the heart of all these ritualisms, there stands one idea prominent above all the rest — the worship of a name. Those of you who have studied the older forms of Christianity, those of you who have studied the other religions of the world, perhaps have marked that there is this idea with them all, the worship of a name. A name is said to be very sacred. In the Bible we read that the holy name of God was considered sacred beyond compare, holy beyond everything. It was the holiest of all names, and it was thought that this very Word was God. This is quite true. What is this universe but name and form? Can you think without words? Word and thought are inseparable. Try if any one of you can separate them. Whenever you think, you are doing so through word forms. The one brings the other; thought brings the word, and the word brings the thought. Thus the whole universe is, as it were, the external symbol of God, and behind that stands His grand name. Each particular body is a form, and behind that particular body is its name. As soon as you think of our friend So-and-so, there comes the idea of his body, and as soon as you think of your friend's body, you get the idea of his name. This is in the constitution of man. That is to say, psychologically, in the mind-stuff of man, there cannot come the idea of name without the idea of form, and there cannot come the idea of form without the idea of name. They are inseparable; they are the external and the internal sides of the same wave. As such, names have been exalted and worshipped all over the world — consciously or unconsciously, man found the glory of names.

Again, we find that in many different religions, holy personages have been worshipped. They worship Krishna, they worship Buddha, they worship Jesus, and so forth. Then, there is the worship of saints; hundreds of them have been worshipped all over the world, and why not? The vibration of light is everywhere. The owl sees it in the dark. That shows it is there, though man cannot see it. To man, that vibration is only visible in the lamp, in the sun, in the moon, etc. God is omnipresent, He is manifesting Himself in every being; but for men, He is only visible, recognisable, in man. When His light, His presence, His spirit, shines through the human face, then and then alone, can man understand Him. Thus, man has been worshipping God through men all the time, and must do so as long as he is a man. He may cry against it, struggle against it, but as soon as he attempts to realise God, he will find the constitutional necessity of thinking of God as a man.

So we find that in almost every religion these are the three primary things which we have in the worship of God — forms or symbols, names, God-men. All religions have these, but you find that they want to fight with each other. One says, "My name is the only name; my form is the only form; and my God-men are the only God-men in the world; yours are simply myths." In modern times, Christian clergymen have become a little kinder, and they allow that in the older religions, the different forms of worship were foreshadowings of Christianity, which of course, they consider, is the only true form. God tested Himself in older times, tested His powers by getting these things into shape which culminated in Christianity. This, at least, is a great advance. Fifty years ago they would not have said even that; nothing was true except their own religion. This idea is not limited to any religion, nation, or class of persons; people are always thinking that the only right thing to be done by others is what they themselves are doing. And it is here that the study of different religions helps us. It shows us that the same thoughts that we have been calling ours, and ours alone, were present hundreds of years ago in others, and sometimes even in a better form of expression than our own.

These are the external forms of devotion, through which man has to pass; but if he is sincere, if he really wants to reach the truth, he goes higher than these, to a plane where forms are as nothing. Temples or churches, books or forms, are simply the kindergarten of religion, to make the spiritual child strong enough to take higher steps; and these first steps are necessary if he wants religion. With the thirst, the longing for God, comes real devotion, real Bhakti. Who has the longing? That is the question. Religion is not in doctrines, in dogmas, nor in intellectual argumentation; it is being and becoming, it is realisation. We hear so many talking about God and the soul, and all the mysteries of the universe, but if you take them one by one, and ask them, "Have you realised God? Have you seen your Soul?" — how many can say they have? And yet they are all fighting with one another! At one time, in India, representatives of different sects met together and began to dispute. One said that the only God was Shiva; another said, the only God was Vishnu, and so on; and there was no end to their discussion. A sage was passing that way, and was invited by the disputants to decide the matter. He first asked the man who was claiming Shiva as the greatest God, "Have you seen Shiva? Are you acquainted with Him? If not, how do you know He is the greatest God?" Then turning to the worshipper of Vishnu, he asked, "Have you seen Vishnu?" And after asking this question to all of them, he found out that not one of them knew anything of God. That was why they were disputing so much, for had they really known, they would not have argued. When a jar is being filled with water, it makes a noise, but when it is full, there is no noise. So, the very fact of these disputations and fighting among sects shows that they do not know anything about religion. Religion to them is a mere mass of frothy words, to be written in books. Each one hurries to write a big book, to make it as massive as possible, stealing his materials from every book he can lay his hands upon, and never acknowledging his indebtedness. Then he launches this book upon the world, adding to the disturbance that is already existing there.

The vast majority of men are atheists. I am glad that, in modern times, another class of atheists has come into existence in the Western world — I mean the materialists. They are sincere atheists. They are better than the religious atheists, who are insincere, who fight and talk about religion, and yet do not want it, never try to realise it, never try to understand it. Remember the words of Christ: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." These words are literally true, not figures or fiction. They were the outflow of the heart's blood of one of the greatest sons of God who have ever come to this world of ours; words which came as the fruit of realisation, from a man who had felt and realised God himself; who had spoken with God, lived with God, a hundred times more intensely than you or I see this building. Who wants God? That is the question. Do you think that all this mass of people in the world want God, and cannot get Him? That cannot be. What want is there without its object outside? Man wants to breathe, and there is air for him to breathe. Man wants to eat, and there is food to eat. What creates these desires? The existence of external things. It was the light that made the eyes; it was the sound that made the ears. So every desire in human beings has been created by something which already existed outside. This desire for perfection, for reaching the goal and getting beyond nature, how can it be there, until something has created it and drilled it into the soul of man, and makes it live there? He, therefore, in whom this desire is awakened, will reach the goal. We want everything but God. This is not religion that you see all around you. My lady has furniture in her parlour, from all over the world, and now it is the fashion to have something Japanese; so she buys a vase and puts it in her room. Such is religion with the vast majority; they have all sorts of things for enjoyment, and unless they add a little flavour of religion, life is not all right, because society would criticise them. Society expects it; so they must have some religion. This is the present state of religion in the world.

A disciple went to his master and said to him, "Sir, I want religion." The master looked at the young man, and did not speak, but only smiled. The young man came every day, and insisted that he wanted religion. But the old man knew better than the young man. One day, when it was very hot, he asked the young man to go to the river with him and take a plunge. The young man plunged in, and the old man followed him and held the young man down under the water by force. After the young man had struggled for a while, he let him go and asked him what he wanted most while he was under the water. "A breath of air", the disciple answered. "Do you want God in that way? If you do, you will get Him in a moment," said the master. Until you have that thirst, that desire, you cannot get religion, however you may struggle with your intellect, or your books, or your forms. Until that thirst is awakened in you, you are no better than any atheist; only the atheist is sincere, and you are not.

A great sage used to say, "Suppose there is a thief in a room, and somehow he comes to know that there is a vast mass of gold in the next room, and that there is only a thin partition between the two rooms. What would be the condition of that thief? He would be sleepless, he would not be able to eat or do anything. His whole mind would be on getting that gold. Do you mean to say that, if all these people really believed that the Mine of Happiness, of Blessedness, of Glory were here, they would act as they do in the world, without trying to get God?" As soon as a man begins to believe there is a God, he becomes mad with longing to get to Him. Others may go their way, but as soon as a man is sure that there is a much higher life than that which he is leading here, as soon as he feels sure that the senses are not all, that this limited, material body is as nothing compared with the immortal, eternal, undying bliss of the Self, he becomes mad until he finds out this bliss for himself. And this madness, this thirst, this mania, is what is called the "awakening" to religion, and when that has come, a man is beginning to be religious. But it takes a long time. All these forms and ceremonies, these prayers and pilgrimages, these books, bells, candles, and priests, are the preparations; they take off the impurities from the soul. And when the soul has become pure, it naturally wants to get to the mine of all purity, God Himself. Just as a piece of iron, which had been covered with the dust of centuries, might be lying near a magnet all the time, and yet not be attracted by it, but as soon as the dust is cleared away, the iron is drawn by the magnet; so, when the human soul, covered with the dust of ages, impurities, wickednesses, and sins, after many births, becomes purified enough by these forms and ceremonies, by doing good to others, loving other beings, its natural spiritual attraction comes, it wakes up and struggles towards God.

Yet, all these forms and symbols are simply the beginning, not true love of God. Love we hear spoken of everywhere. Everyone says, "Love God." Men do not know what it into love; if they did, they would not talk so glibly about it. Every man says he can love, and then, in no time, finds out that there is no love in his nature. Every woman says she can love and soon finds out that she cannot. The world is full of the talk of love, but it is hard to love. Where is love? How do you know that there is love? The first test of love is that it knows no bargaining. So long as you see a man love another only to get something from him, you know that that is not love; it is shopkeeping. Wherever there is any question of buying and selling, it is not love. So, when a man prays to God, "Give me this, and give me that", it is not love. How can it be? I offer you a prayer, and you give me something in return; that is what it is, mere shopkeeping.

A certain great king went to hunt in a forest, and there he happened to meet a sage. He had a little conversation with him and became so pleased with him that he asked him to accept a present from him. "No," said the sage, "I am perfectly satisfied with my condition; these trees give me enough fruit to eat; these beautiful pure streams supply me with all the water I want; I sleep in these caves. What do I care for your presents, though you be an emperor?" The emperor said, "Just to purify me, to gratify me, come with me into the city and take some present." At last the sage consented to go with the emperor, and he was taken into the emperor's palace, where there were gold, jewellery, marble, and most wonderful things. Wealth and power were manifest everywhere. The emperor asked the sage to wait a minute, while he repeated his prayer, and he went into a corner and began to pray, "Lord, give me more wealth, more children, more territory." In the meanwhile, the sage got up and began to walk away. The emperor saw him going and went after him. "Stay, Sir, you did not take my present and are going away." The sage turned to him and said, "Beggar, I do not beg of beggars. What can you give? You have been begging yourself all the time." That is not the language of love. What is the difference between love and shopkeeping, if you ask God to give you this, and give you that? The first test of love is that it knows no bargaining. Love is always the giver, and never the taker. Says the child of God, "If God wants, I give Him my everything, but I do not want anything of Him. I want nothing in this universe. I love Him, because I want to love Him, and I ask no favour in return. Who cares whether God is almighty or not? I do not want any power from Him nor any manifestation of His power. Sufficient for me that He is the God of love. I ask no more question."

The second test is that love knows no fear. So long as man thinks of God as a Being sitting above the clouds, with rewards in one hand and punishments in the other, there can be no love. Can you frighten one into love? Does the lamb love the lion? The mouse, the cat? The slave, the master? Slaves sometimes simulate love, but is it love? Where do you ever see love in fear? It is always a sham. With love never comes the idea of fear. Think of a young mother in the street: if a dog barks at her, she flees into the nearest house. The next day she is in the street with her child, and suppose a lion rushes upon the child, where will be her position? Just at the mouth of the lion, protecting her child. Love conquered all her fear. So also in the love of God. Who cares whether God is a rewarder or a punisher? That is not the thought of a lover. Think of a judge when he comes home, what does his wife see in him? Not a judge, or a rewarder or punisher, but her husband, her love. What do his children see in him? Their loving father, not the punisher or rewarder. So the children of God never see in Him a punisher or a rewarder. It is only people who have never tasted of love that fear and quake. Cast off all fear — though these horrible ideas of God as a punisher or rewarder may have their use in savage minds. Some men, even the most intellectual, are spiritual savages, and these ideas may help them. But to men who are spiritual, men who are approaching religion, in whom spiritual insight is awakened, such ideas are simply childish, simply foolish. Such men reject all ideas of fear.

The third is a still higher test. Love is always the highest ideal. When one has passed through the first two stages, when one has thrown off all shopkeeping, and cast off all fear, one then begins to realise that love is always the highest ideal. How many times in this world we see a beautiful woman loving an ugly man? How many times we see a handsome man loving an ugly woman! What is the attraction? Lookers-on only see the ugly man or the ugly woman, but not so the lover; to the lover the beloved is the most beautiful being that ever existed. How is it? The woman who loves the ugly man takes, as it were, the ideal of beauty which is in her own mind, and projects it on this ugly man; and what she worships and loves is not the ugly man, but her own ideal. That man is, as it were, only the suggestion, and upon that suggestion she throws her own ideal, and covers it; and it becomes her object of worship. Now, this applies in every case where we love. Many of us have very ordinary looking brothers or sisters; yet the very idea of their being brothers or sisters makes them beautiful to us.

The philosophy in the background is that each one projects his own ideal and worships that. This external world is only the world of suggestion. All that we see, we project out of our own minds. A grain of sand gets washed into the shell of an oyster and irritates it. The irritation produces a secretion in the oyster, which covers the grain of sand and the beautiful pearl is the result. Similarly, external things furnish us with suggestions, over which we project our own ideals and make our objects. The wicked see this world as a perfect hell, and the good as a perfect heaven. Lovers see this world as full of love, and haters as full of hatred; fighters see nothing but strife, and the peaceful nothing but peace. The perfect man sees nothing but God. So we always worship our highest ideal, and when we have reached the point, when we love the ideal as the ideal, all arguments and doubts vanish for ever. Who cares whether God can be demonstrated or not? The ideal can never go, because it is a part of my own nature. I shall only question the ideal when I question my own existence, and as I cannot question the one, I cannot question the other. Who cares whether God can be almighty and all-merciful at the same time or not ? Who cares whether He is the rewarder of mankind, whether He looks at us with the eyes of a tyrant or with the eyes of a beneficent monarch?

The lover has passed beyond all these things, beyond rewards and punishments, beyond fears and doubts, beyond scientific or any other demonstration. Sufficient unto him is the ideal of love, and is it not self-evident that this universe is but a manifestation of this love? What is it that makes atoms unite with atoms, molecules with molecules, and causes planets to fly towards each other? What is it that attracts man to man, man to woman, woman to man, and animals to animals, drawing the whole universe, as it were, towards one centre? It is what is called love. Its manifestation is from the lowest atom to the highest being: omnipotent, all-pervading, is this love. What manifests itself as attraction in the sentient and the insentient, in the particular and in the universal, is the love of God. It is the one motive power that is in the universe. Under the impetus of that love, Christ gives his life for humanity, Buddha even for an animal, the mother for the child, the husband for the wife. It is under the impetus of the same love that men are ready to give up their lives for their country, and strange to say, under the impetus of the same love, the thief steals, the murderer murders. Even in these cases, the spirit is the same, but the manifestation is different. This is the one motive power in the universe. The thief has love for gold; the love is there, but it is misdirected. So, in all crimes, as well as in all virtuous actions, behind stands that eternal love. Suppose a man writes a cheque for a thousand dollars for the poor of New York, and at the same time, in the same room, another man forges the name of a friend. The light by which both of them write is the same, but each one will be responsible for the use he makes of it. It is not the light that is to be praised or blamed. Unattached, yet shining in everything, is love, the motive power of the universe, without which the universe would fall to pieces in a moment, and this love is God.

"None, O beloved, loves the husband for the husband's sake, but for the Self that is in the husband; none, O beloved, ever loves the wife for the wife's sake, but for the Self that is in the wife. None ever loves anything else, except for the Self." Even this selfishness, which is so much condemned, is but a manifestation of the same love. Stand aside from this play, do not mix in it, but see this wonderful panorama, this grand drama, played scene after scene, and hear this wonderful harmony; all are the manifestation of the same love. Even in selfishness, that self will multiply, grow and grow. That one self, the one man, will become two selves when he gets married; several, when he gets children; and thus he grows until he feels the whole world as his Self, the whole universe as his Self. He expands into one mass of universal love, infinite love — the love that is God.

Thus we come to what is called supreme Bhakti, supreme devotion, in which forms and symbols fall off. One who has reached that cannot belong to any sect, for all sects are in him. To what shall he belong? For all churches and temples are in him. Where is the church big enough for him? Such a man cannot bind himself down to certain limited forms. Where is the limit for unlimited love, with which he has become one? In all religions which take up this ideal of love, we find the struggle to express it. Although we understand what this love means and see that everything in this world of affections and attractions is a manifestation of that Infinite Love, the expression of which has been attempted by sages and saints of different nations, yet we find them using all the powers of language, transfiguring even the most carnal expression into the divine.

Thus sang the royal Hebrew sage, thus sang they of India. "O beloved, one kiss of Thy lips! Kissed by Thee, one's thirst for Thee increaseth for ever! All sorrows cease, one forgets the past, present, and future, and only thinks of Thee alone." That is the madness of the lover, when all desires have vanished. "Who cares for salvation? Who cares to be saved? Who cares to be perfect even? Who cares for freedom?" — says the lover. "I do not want wealth, nor even health; I do not want beauty, I do not want intellect: let me be born again and again, amid all the evils that are in the world; I will not complain, but let me love Thee, and that for love's sake."

That is the madness of love which finds expression in these songs. The highest, most expressive, strongest, and most attractive human love is that between man and woman, and, therefore, that language was used in expressing the deepest devotion. The madness of this human love was the faintest echo of the mad love of the saints. The true lovers of God want to become mad, inebriated with the love of God, to become "God-intoxicated men". They want to drink of the cup of love which has been prepared by the saints and sages of every religion, who have poured their heart's blood into it, and in which have been concentrated all the hopes of those who have loved God without seeking reward, who wanted love for itself only. The reward of love is love, and what a reward it is! It is the only thing that takes off all sorrows, the only cup, by the drinking of which this disease of the world vanishes. Man becomes divinely mad and forgets that he is man.

Lastly, we find that all these various systems, in the end, converge to that one point, that perfect union. We always begin as dualists. God is a separate Being, and I am a separate being. Love comes between, and man begins to approach God, and God, as it were, begins to approach man. Man takes up all the various relationships of life, as father, mother, friend, or lover; and the last point is reached when he becomes one with the object of worship. "I am you, and you are I; and worshipping you, I worship myself; and in worshipping myself, I worship you." There we find the highest culmination of that with which man begins. At the beginning it was love for the self, but the claims of the little self made love selfish; at the end came the full blaze of light, when that self had become the Infinite. That God who at first was a Being somewhere, became resolved, as it were, into Infinite Love. Man himself was also transformed. He was approaching God, he was throwing off all vain desires, of which he was full before. With desires vanished selfishness, and, at the apex, he found that Love, Lover, and Beloved were One.

Sri Swami Vivekananda

All for lazyness!

Im often amazed at the amount of effort we put in to avoid doing anything. It seems to be increasing too! What am I talking about? Prem Rawat recently described technology as "finding new ways to do old things", and I like that. It seems to me that the inventiveness of human beings is always aimed at the same thig: how to do the least amount possible.

 Imagine one of our early ancestor as a caveman, who's job it was to fetch the water for cooking or drinking. How many times did that person thin."there's got to be easier way than schlepping this stuff all that long way": And eventually we started to have water in a well instead of just the streams, then we started to pipe it into our homes - the Romans were very good at that, bringing water for very long ways via their aqueducts. And so it goes on. First we crap wherever we happen to be, then we start to pile it into specific areas, so we don't constantly walk in it, then we maybe even bury it to avoid the stink, etc. I remember going to the outhouse at the bottom of the yard. But laziness drives us on. Whenever we do things, we automatically start to find ways round it to do what we would rather do. That's why there's criminals - they are people finding ways to do the wanted thing but avoiding the rules. Anything to avoid effort. 

I suspect that we would like to do nothing at all, just lie in a comfortable bed and let life happen around us. But do we do that? No. True, we have to make some effort every day, go to the toilet, eat, breathe, drink. So movement is necessary, but as little as possible please. So we don't walk if we can ride, we like someone else to do the cooking and washing and cleaning, these days, since the pandemic started, we also let others bring us whatever we like, so we don't have to gout shopping or worse, carry stuff home.

But for all these things to happen, someone has to do something. So we invent distribution systems, we invent ways of storing stuff, we invent ways of growing food we like, we make stuff to play with - toys or games, etc. Why do we have games? It passes the time. Basically it's actually doing something that appears to preclude laziness. On the other hand, most people at a game, let others do the work and just watch. 

Think about it: most of our inventions are for labour-saving devices or to let a machine do what a human being does otherwise. In order to achieve more leisure time, we work like crazy to build this stuff and then we can relax, except you can't relax because all these people want the labour-saving stuff you build. So what starts as labour-saving ends up creating ever more work. At the same time, the stress of living in this crazy world is what stops us relaxing and enjoying life. No time for enjoyment - gotta work. And all we ever wanted was to do nothing! What we really want, of course, is to be happy, but that is almost impossible in world that runs after laziness and uses all it's energies to make life easier, so there's no time to be happy and just enjyo that.

Educating the ignorant

So what went wrong? What happened to us that we stopped taking care of each other and our environment? These questions have made me think about our educational systems. Clearly, humans are not being educated to value and look after each other or our planet. So can we change that? What's needed?

 Looking back at my own schooling, the closest I got to learning something about the environment, was in the scouts, but that was more about how to make use of it, not how to look after it. At school, it was how to prepare for an adult life of work. Teamwork was there in both the scouts and school, but always in competition with another group. Learning to value oneself and each other was never part of the curriculum. On the contrary, it was about shoehorning people into standard boxes of behaviour and aspirations, never about finding out what talents a person has hidden inside them.

Religion, as always, showed the way, by keeping the unwashed and ignorant, unwashed and ignorant. That's why Latin was favoured for so long, because you had to be educated to read and to know the language and the poor were deliberately kept in the dark, to keep the rabble pliable. That was the case in the past. Has it changed? Yes, religion has lost it's significance, as people get better education and can see through the sophistry of the argument. But the vast majority never reads the history or questions the beliefs and rules and regulations and rituals, so education only offers the possibility to remove ignorance. On the whole, it is always in the state's interest to keep people in the dark and to manipulate them into following the lead of our glorious leaders.

No, what we need is to be taught that each of us is result of millions of years worth of the universe's experimenting and as such is a unique individual among unique individuals. That life is a special state which needs to be cherished; that it's a one-off event which we have a limited amount of time to experience and that joy and kindness and respect and clarity are the things worth striving for and the rest is incidental.

Sadly we make the incidental important and forget the really important stuff, especially that we are not here forever, but a very limited time and the joy is in each other, not against each other. Looking at the current COP26 meeting in Glasgow, it's clear that we understand that we have to give up some of our toys and baubles, but it's equally clear that those making the public decisions do not want to give up anything. Keep the private jets flying, keep the cars and trucks rolling, keep throwing away stuff so you have room for new stuff. Whatever you do, don't change things! That's the message inside the meeting, despite the science and everyday showing us that it's the path to hell. 

People are weird! There is no shame or honour anymore. Even I remember a time when, if some sleaze came out about a person in authority, they would resign. Nobody resigns anymore, not without a golden parachute of vast proportions. And that's what is taught in our educational systems: winning is all, better, bigger, faster, those in the way are the losers and they don't count, cannon fodder. Educators take note: this is what drives the current generations.

Lemmings and Ostriches

There are, apparently completely mythical, stories told about lemmings all following each other blindly over the edge of a cliff and that ostriches stick their heads in the sand when they are frightened, believing that they are now hidden from view. Less mythical, it seems to me, is that this behaviour can be widely observed in a variety of ever more novel ways, being displayed by my fellow human beings.

 In this time of plenty - at least for those who have a home and the luxury of having constantly new things, it seems to be very difficult to grasp that each one of us is exacerbating things just by doing what we are doing now, during our ordinary everyday lives. And that's the change that has to take place, for each one of us. Not carrying on doing everything we do currently and take for granted. There are big steps that can be taken by the wealthy and by large corporations, even industries and there are smaller steps we can do as households or individuals. Interestingly, we don't appear to understand that the efforts of the many little ones can have a big effect too. And the most powerful tool each one of us has is our spending power. Not buying stuff has a big impact on corporations and industries and thus also on wealthy individuals.

So why don't we do that? Well, we appear to have a pandemic that's going unnoticed, the dreaded FOMO!!! Fear Of Missing Out!!! So we live our lives at whims of those we deem fashionable in whatever interests us. Like Lemmings running after the one in front without looking where we are going. So we buy and throw away. I have heard and seen this in second-hand shops. The stuff is practically new! And we live like this, thanks to people we are paid almost nothing to make the stuff so cheap for us that we throw it away after using it a couple of times. There is something really wrong here. But it's everywhere. Look at how those who have been in the frontline of the Corona pandemic have given everything to help, but nobody wants to pay what that service deserves in comparison to other kinds of work. So an IT-worker gets paid several times the salary of a nurse, on whom his or her life may one day depend, not the other way round. The food waste which exceeds the amount needed to feed everybody in the world.

I'm sure you can find your own list of examples of the mass abuse going on in the world, always with the weakest and poorest bearing the brunt. So, if that is not the way forward, we will have to change, nobody else, you and me and everyone we know.

The other area where we resemble ostriches with their heads stuck in the sand is regarding climate change. It's a happening thing, this climate change, but what are we doing about it? Exactly the same problem as above: it requires immediate change, because we've already left it too late to avoid all the consequences, but it can be slowed down. If we don't get serious, then our grandchildren may end up killing each other over scraps. Already it is predicted that society is likely to start to fall apart in 20 years and we can see it happening all over with the different factions and tribes fighting each other in an ever increasing atmosphere of vituperative dialog which has already broken into open violence in many instances. We are not getting closer to each other, we're drifting apart and that is dangerous for all of us.

What get's me is that there are people involved here. How does the Boss of Dutch Royal Shell sleep at night knowing his company which pays for his luxury lifestyle is causing death by poisoning on a daily basis in the Niger Delta? How can the Bosses of Mining companies sleep easy when they know how many lives it is costing every day for them to have what they have? How can any of us sleep at night, knowing that somewhere a child is being prostituted for the gratification of the man who owns the factory that made the clothes in your wardrobe? The list is so big. Humans are quite sickening in their ability to ignore the reality behind their façade. We really need to change, and we need to do it now.. 

Blame! Blame! Blame!

So, it's absolutely clear: it's not my fault, so it must be somebody else's fault! They should do something about it! 

I find it fascinating and disturbing how the whole world seems to point the finger at anyone and everything else for all and any problems, but almost never is finger pointed at oneself. Why is that?

In what way does blaming help? Well, it doesn't solve any problems, so that can't be the reason. Is it because we have a problem accepting responsibility? Or perhaps because we feel powerless in a situation? Perhaps because we feel guilty when we know that we've screwed up? Is it when we have unpleasant feelings and look for an external cause as the source of our feelings? When our situation seems bad to us, do we look for the external cause(s) of that situation? 

The range of the ubiquitous "them" to which we assign blame appears almost endless and includes our partners, our children, our parents, our teachers, our representatives, our bosses, our leaders, the weather, the location, etc. etc. And what changes thanks to that blame? Not much externally, but internally?

To me, it's the most toxic and counterproductive act any of us can make. Depending on the level we are looking at, the consequences are huge. Look at all the wars where, as Dylan puts it, the killing takes place with God on our side. God our side means we are in the right and therefore justified in anything and everything we then do to others.

There is a need to be right, apparently, even if we are wrong. And to that end, we justify almost every brutal act humans can perform. It shows itself most obviously in the media, where nationalists blame anybody who was born elsewhere or has a different colour for all the woes that beset a country. We blame our politicians for not sorting out our personal problems with their rules and regulations. We blame men for all the problems that women face, we blame women for all the problems men see. Whatever happens, it's somebody else's fault I recall telling a male human rights lawyer that I thought what he did was fantastic, but that the minority he forgets to help, are the most oppressed group of all: women! 

Blame means avoiding responsibility. There is a difference in looking at a situation and saying: ok, this is the situation, how do we resolve it? And looking at the same situation and saying: ok, who's fault is it? The first sees a problem looking for a solution, the second focusses on assigning the problem to a guilty person. 

So, if I screw up, do I look for an escape and blame someone or do I take responsibility and look for a solution, which may also include my acceptance that the screw up is down to me, as much as the solution.

I recall coming home one afternoon and my stepson aged about 12, was standing next to a pot with dried reeds. He had a lighter in his hand and the reeds were burning and shooting sparks all over the living room. He's immediate reaction to our arrival was. "it's not my fault!" The blatancy of that statement just made us laugh. The situation could easily have escalated if we hadn't arrived, so no real harm done, but it demonstrates our wish not to take personal responsibility. In fact it's the reason why politicians exist: they are the ones who claim to be the problem solvers and we gladly hand over personal responsibility to them. It means we are not to blame.

The reality however unpleasant, is that we have to take personal responsibility. It's the only way we can solve our personal problems. Of course that opens another can of worms: how do we distinguish between our real problems and our imagined problems?

Being hungry and having nothing to eat is a real personal problem; being hungry and able to choose what we will eat is not a problem. Having a leaky roof over your head is a personal problem; wondering where to go on holiday is not a problem. Having to sell your body to stay alive is a personal problem; wondering which prostitute to choose is not a problem. I'm sure you can make your own list.

In my experience, taking personal responsibility for my life and my actions has, in fact, brought me a great deal of freedom and clarity. It enables me to distinguish between real problems and imagined problems. It empowers me to live my life as a human being together with others. 

I get very incensed by the ridiculous games that get played by politicians everywhere, but I have to recognise that they were voted in by a majority of the voters, who believe them when thy say that they can solve your problems. They can't and never have.  I saw some graffiti on a part of the wall around Windsor Castle in the late 60's and it read:"Whoever you vote for, the Politicians get in". It's stuck with me.

So, I have to take responsibility for myself and give up blaming others - it's the only way to get anything done!

To vaccinate or not?

What a debate! And why? I don't understand the resistance to being vaccinated against an obnoxious and deadly illness. For me, my health is important and I do my best to look after my body - it's all that keeps me alive!!!

 There's a vote here in Switzerland due in November regarding the competence of the Government to impose restrictions to stop the spread of the COVID virus among its population. The argument against, as I understand from the posters and flyers, is that it restricts the freedom of the citizens.

Freedom from what? Freedom to ensure that each citizen can, if they get the disease, pass it on to all and sundry without restriction? That, is the effect, although it isn't formulated that way. The results of this kind of policy can be seen in Brazil, the USA, and other countries that deny that the virus is dangerous. In countries which are lifting restrictions, the virus is spreading like crazy - see the numbers rise in e.g. the UK, Holland, etc.

Is that really what they want to do? I keep wondering why the Governor of Texas hasn't been indicted for mass murder, as he is wilfully creating laws and regulations against any and all measures designed to dampen the spread - he has banned mask wearing and the demand that companies can insist on having staff which are all vaccinated. What is going on? To me, given the kind of responsibility he has for the safety of his electorate, this is a clear case of a crime against humanity. 

As a human being, I have a responsibility towards my fellow beings on the planet. To use a famous quote from the book that so many - such as the Governor of Texas - claim contains the right way to live:

Wikipedia: What does the Bible say about Do unto others?

A command based on words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” The Mosaic law contains a parallel commandment: “Whatever is hurtful to you, do not do to any other person.”

I want people to treat me as an equal, as a fellow human being, with the same need for good health, happiness, love and joy. I need these things more than I need money or approval, Far more. 

So if these measures, including vaccination help me protect myself and others, then it's a no-brainer: you get vaccinated, to keep distance wherever possible and wear masks when in the company of many other people. Is that a hardship? Not at all - it's common sense.

Apparently common sense isn't as common as it ought to be,  The world constantly changes, and each one of us with it. You are not the same as you were last year or ten years ago, etc. This is a new change that's come our way. As Darwin might have said: "adapt or die!". The illusion that everything will go back to how it was is absurd. It never has and never will. As I'm in my 70's now, I can look back over huge changes, from the poverty of the post-war years to the present where there is so much surplus; from the technology of the Morris 1000 to the iX BMW; from the shared telephone line to instant communication around the world; from the Sinclair ZX81 to the fantastically powerful computers of today; from the early packet services to the internet today; from "The Brick" mobile phone to todays super computer and networking tools in our pockets. Huge changes on every level. So what is the big deal now!

So here are three arguments to support measures to keep each one of us safe:

1. I love being alive and I don't want to choke to death
2. The Bible says it: do unto others as you would have done to you - make me feel happy and I'll do my best to make you feel happy
3. Change happens all the time, many big, many small - depends on what you're issue is: Big in the World of Corona; Big like in Afghanistan; Big like in Brazil; Big like in Switzerland; Big as in my Canton and Big as in my village. Or even Big in the building I live in; worst - Big in my apartment! The stuff at the end only bothers a few people and the bigger effect the issue has, the more are directly and indirectly affected. That's all obvious too. And if you are a person with power and get out of bed on the wrong side, that can have a huge impact: Impact is relative, what's huge for me, may be trivial to you and vice versa and there is only one way out: Listen to your heart first, not your head.

Given what I've written above, I can only repeat; what is going on? Have these people no understanding of the most basic needs of each human being? Have they forgotten that they are human beings too? I sometimes think it's true that many have not developed into human beings but have only got as far as being an asshole. But then again, I am even more often reminded of how much kindness there is in the world - far more than there is hate. It's shown in the many little things; a friendly smile, a helping hand, a kind word - so much is done by so many. Look at all the people doing voluntary work in schools and clubs and charities and in the neighbourhood. These are the real human traits showing through. We need to focus more on those traits we all have, especially within ourselves.

Sex = Love?

Does sex equal love? Or does love equal sex? It strikes me that custom dictates that both are right, which is not how I see it at all.

 The custom I refer to is marriage. This institute demands sexual fidelity from the partners. The result is divorce in many cases and often, where partners stick together, it results in no sex or even mutual hatred. Marriage comes because the female partner is pregnant or because sex and love are seen as being identical.

I really have a serious issue with this attitude and belief. In the world, most of it believes that monogamy is the only way and so the circus begins. Where polygamy is the norm, it is in most cases the same: it's men who are allowed to have several partners, but not the women. 

If we look at how the world deals with this, it's pathetic. You must stay faithful - especially the woman - or there will be serious consequences. In the Bible and in Sharia, stoning is OK for women who stray, but not men. So back to the appalling sexism that so blights the world.

My take on it is that love is a feeling which lives in each human being and is not dependant on another. We are born with the full range of positive feelings including love, but the world encourages the belief that love is a result of another person beaming it at you. No, love is an endless fountain with the human being and it needs to be expressed. This can easily be observed in the love a parent has for their children and is expressed through their actions towards that child. Even this most simple expression has been beaten out of us in many cases, so that we read about the horrendous ways children get treated every day all over the world. The stories I have heard and read make your hair stand on end: how can adults treat their children or any children in such horrible ways? As we know orphanages are the place from which we hear so many horror stories - especially those run by churches and states. 

So how can we express love? With kindness and consideration. By caring for others or to cite a phrase from the new testament: do unto others as you would have done to yourself. I like to be treated as an equally valuable human being who has been given the gift of life as all others, not as a possession or as somebody's toy or chattel. Wouldn't you?

Back to the topic: for me, the act of sex is an expression of love between to people; it's the moment where we can come closest to unity and is a wonderful act of giving and receiving. Instead it's seen as a right - especially by men - or as an act which entitles the person to ownership of the other person involved. Marriage is about ownership - check out it's history - and as a consequence the act confers ownership and therefore demands fidelity from the partners involved, to each other. Utterly absurd.

It is an act which takes place between two willing partners and takes place at a specific moment in time, which generally lasts only a few minutes. It is something enjoyable, but lasts only for that short space of time - afterwards it's back to the usual daily routines. I view it like a great dessert, which I can thoroughly enjoy, but when I'm full, I stop. And like all desserts, I don't want the same one every day, it stops being special.

But we insist that we eat only this dessert - and in my experience it's not always particularly enjoyable - and have no other. Again, absurd. Why do we link an act which takes place for such a short time to life long fidelity? No wonder it doesn't work and never has.

There is also a hidden assumption that one person can fulfil all the needs of another. Another absurdity. One can speak of luck if the partners have more than 50% of interests and wishes in common. But 100%? No. Each person brings a different background and sets of experience into the equation, and so can fulfil many needs, but never all. There will always be some areas where they have to agree to disagree. Sex, may well and often is one of these areas. Everything else may be perfect but that isn't. Does that mean we should throw out the baby with the bathwater? Again, absurd.

On top of that, the sexual activity may well result in beginning the process of pregnancy. That particular result is not always a wished for result and in which case, decisions have to be made. And not be external parties, such as churches or states. If they insist that an unwanted pregnancy should not be aborted, they should also take the responsibility of taking care of that child. Those who wish to regulate abortion, only wish to prevent it, without also taking the responsibility for the results. Do they? Of course not! Both church and state do nothing whatsoever about the consequences of their interference. This has resulted in so much pain for so many people, both parents and children, but that is ignored. At the end of the day, you cannot regulate sex, the act of love in a moment between two people. It is entirely the responsibility of the two people involved. Of course many men pass the full responsibility on to the mother and absolve themselves from their own part in the pregnancy. That is equally absurd. More importantly, it is not the act of a human being full of love. It's the act of an irresponsible person, not yet a full human being.

So, who CAN you trust?

The word trust is used a lot. Defined as : 

firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something.
"relations have to be built on trust"

And yet, despite the "firm belief", how often do we have to confront the truth, that the trust we had was misplaced! And, as the image suggests, once lost, it will never be like it was before.

So, is trust an inherently stupid thing to have? Well, that depends on what your trust is placed. As mentioned in the previous post, times change and along with that change the person or item in which we placed our trust will also change.

So is there anything we can truly trust? Well, in my experience there is a possibility and that possibility is that you can trust yourself. After all, you change too and so you are always potentially up to date with the person you can trust. But that depends too. Many people use the phrase "I don't trust myself to be/do/say the right thing". But the possibility remains within each person.

What can you truly trust in yourself, which, come rain or shine, stormy times or clear sailing, is always there for you, more reliable than clockwork? Simple, so simple we don't even notice it, it's such a profound part of each and every human being alive on the planet and we are completely dependant on it every day of our lives, and yet we don't pay any attention to it.:

it's your breath. That's just there, whatever we do, there it is. It truly is a miracle, for which we do nothing; in fact we never notice it until it threatens us with going. And then we notice it alright. I just talked to a neighbour who told me he'd spent 10 days in hospital with a case of COVID19 - I bet he noticed how important breath is. Apparently he still only has about 80% lung function. But I bet he's forgotten how concerned he was with loosing that breath. We are so  caught up in everything else, we forget the most important thing of all.

Are you who you were?

"Why don't you grow up" is a phrase often used. Yet what is that implying? I suspect it implies that you have not reached the stage of maturity expected of someone. What a meaningless idea!

The quote in the image on this article says it all: you are a constantly evolving creature, along with all others. I have done many stupid and unpleasant things in my life at various times and stages of my life, particularly in my early life. Does that mean I am still as stupid and irresponsible now as I was then? Of course not. I have learnt, I have explored, I have tried many things and done even more. Each event has helped me along the path to becoming who I am today. I am not an irresponsible loud-mouthed teenager anymore. I don't abuse my body and mind as I have in the past. I've grown up. And every day, I try to grow a little more.

I like to say that I have walked a very crooked path to get to today, but where I am now is a great place for me and had I walked a different path, I would not be who I am now and in the situation I am now.

Living is an active experience and I regret only the pain I caused others during the time I've been on this path, but know that all the experiences have enriched my life and helped me to get to now.

So when I meet anyone from my past, they are likely initially to confuse me with who I was when we last met. That person doesn't exist anymore, but has been subsumed into who I am now.

How about you? Are you still trying to be who you were or have you grown and moved on? Not everybody has. I heard a comedian say something along these lines recently: When asked how he still has such wonderful skin, the answer was simply: I'm 20 years old. I am no longer 20 and my skin doesn't look as it did then. But that's OK - the crinkles around my eyes show where the laughter lies. If you don't like who you are now, grow up and become who you can be. 

I like me now. And part of that is that it doesn't matter what you think of me any more.

My generation - Baby Boomers

I often think that I am very privileged to have been born when I was. I grew up when the technology was more mechanical than digital. Working hard was financially rewarded sufficiently that we could eventually, through saving, buy a car, maybe a second-hand one, and afford a mortgage on a reasonable property, probably a terraced house or even a semi-detached one. Presents were mostly for Christmas and Birthdays and were not very expensive (it's the thought that counted).

Pocket money was earnt at home doing chores or with a paper round. TV's were coming - black & white, portable radios ("Trannies" = transistor radios) and as the son of a tradesman (my father was a swiss watchmaker), I wanted an apprenticeship somewhere. We ate what was locally available, with the occasional exotic treat. I remember getting an orange when I was about 6 or 7, handed out as a Christmas treat. I had a bike, later progressed to a motorbike and much later a car. All very standard. Wages were paid weekly in cash. Not enough, of course, but then is it ever? 

Managers earnt more than skilled workers, although with overtime and piece work, it was possible to make considerably more than lower management. When I went University in the 70's, I had been working so I was entitled to a grant for studying that was a little higher than the average student grant for those straight from school. We did not have to pay those back, i.e. we did not end up with a debt when we left.

When I got into management in telecommunications at the lowest level, it meant I could take out a mortgage without overburdening myself or my family. House prices were manageable.

Then came Margret Thatcher with the slogan "Greed is good" according to Boris Johnson. And the rot set in. People could earn millions investing other peoples money, managers became bonuses - for lower management a bonus was based on personal and company performance, which meant you got a good bonus if the company did well and nothing if targets were not reached. Upper management got bigger and bigger basic salaries and guaranteed bonuses regardless of either their performance or that of the company. Everybody had holidays abroad and not a week in Skegness or Margate anymore. The food we ate become more exotic and cuisines from around the world, and of course the imported food for that, became common place. No more tinned spaghetti hoops on toast for supper.!

The second world war had led directly to intensive farming, which got more and more intensive, monoculture became the norm, meaning loads of synthetic chemical fertilizers, which now is polluting most rivers worldwide. Fishing is now so intensive that many species are no longer available. And then came plastics. Plastics for everything from clothes to cars, from food containers to furniture - plastic in one form or another wherever you look. Of course all this meant we had to have bigger and better cars, we had to fly on holiday, the children stopped walking to school, 'cause mum drove them in the 4-wheel drive off-roader. TV required bigger and better screens, even though the content became indistinguishable from the advertising. And then the revolution with ever smaller devices which could do ever more things, like mobile telephony and tablets and computers.

I consider myself fortunate to have grown up at a simpler time, so that I did not feel the need to possess ever more and the latest and greatest. As a consequence, I've lived a modest life. Of course I liked the new and wanted many things. For example I own a flat-screen TV, but I bought the smallest I could find and I still have it now. It serves for my purpose. One of the greatest benefits for my age is not being involved in a war and not having to do military service (in my case) is an added bonus. I have not had to live through war, famine and extremes of anything - perhaps the closest thing to pestilence is the current Corona Pandemic. But even that has had the benefit of modern health services and excellent communication.

I see that our essentials have become far more difficult to manage. The food from the intensive farming contains all kinds of chemicals, meat, once a luxury for Sunday lunch, is full of antibiotics and who knows what - check out what many intensive animal farms feed their animals. Horrendous. Our water contains plastic particles and chemicals; the air we breath is polluted with all kinds of stuff from the transport systems, the belching factories and the crap air fuel contains. Homes have become stupidly expensive and most cannot afford a home and the companies in the rental market are demanding more than many low-paid workers can afford. The difference between the income for the rich and those that do real jobs is a widening gap. 

Our planet is heating up, but there is only talk about doing something about that. It needs a planet wide effort, but we are too busy fighting each other to agree on anything. I could go on and on, but I'm sure you can create your own list.

So why do I see myself as lucky? Well, I'm 73 years old, so I am definitely at backend of my life and I guess that the change which is taking place on the planet and in the consciousness of the masses is unlikely to affect me too much in the time I have left. But for my grandchildren? There are truly hard times ahead for them. Will they have the opportunity to live as long as me? I'm not at all sure. Look at what the voters are doing - where voting is an option: they are choosing finances over humanity and health on almost every issue. The blame game is in full swing and that has never solved a single problem. We are so busy following the almighty dollar that we are destroying the planet which provides us with all we have. Basically, we have become an insane people and are carrying on getting crazy and sawing the branch on which we depend - it will fall at some point in time - probably when we have to pay Nestle or some such company, to have a drink of water which is becoming a limited resource.

I hope I am just being pessimistic, but I really believe that my generation is the lucky one - I've a had a good, productive life and have been able to enjoy much of it. Will my grandchildren be able to say that? I hope so.

Butterflies and Tornados

Eduard Lorenz, a mathematician and meteorologist, discovered that a very small change in initial conditions had created a significantly different outcome. This was named the butterfly effect. It postulates that a small change, such as a butterfly flapping its wings, can have a significant effect elsewhere, such as leading to a tornado.

Possible a somewhat fanciful explanation, but the point made is that the number of events leading to an significant occurrence are uncountable. So why am I writing about this?

To me it is getting clearer by the day, that whatever I think, I'm not in charge - of anything except my decision at any given moment. I have tried to make this visually understandable with the design of my poster (see here). Each human being is constantly bombarded by external claims on their attention, be it such things as the weather, the location, the situation, the friends and relatives and enemies, the physical needs for food water, air and rest; and so on and so on.

We are influenced by all and sundry, like it or not. So how can we think we make any independent choices whatever?

We are taught that there are rules which have to be obeyed. I have to be like so and so, or I have to achieve such and such, I should be nice to people, I should respect others, I should conform to the norm, whatever that may be.

So we spend our lives doing our best not be ourselves, but someone else. That is sick. We mostly have no idea who we are, because we are constantly measuring ourselves against the invisible, constantly present, other, to know if we are doing OK. It also means that the ideal we set for ourselves, is to be better than others at least at something.

This endless proving ourselves is clearly the cause of so much dissatisfaction in the world, often with fatal consequences. I have to better than you, if I can't, I have to better than someone. So we have rivalries instead of agreement and working together. My team has to better than your team. I'm a man so I must be better than a woman, I am white so I must be better than a black person, my religion is more right than yours, etc. etc.

To manage this, we choose leaders to make sense of all that, forgetting that each of those chosen are subject to exactly the same chaotic world as each one of us. They do not have a magic eye that sees clearer. There are too many aspects to each an every event for anyone to control or manage. Just look at how politics works: it's a system which many use to feather their own nest and certainly not to act for the common weal.

So what, you may well ask. An example much closer to home, is the COVID pandemic. A tiny virus, so small it's invisible to us, has led to complete change of the world and how we live. Can't predict that in detail. Although it's been known for years that the chances of such an event occurring are high, nobody was adequately prepared for the consequences, many of which are still to come.

Given the plethora of events which constantly interact with each other, why do we still not see that we can't make the universe conform to our wishes, but that we have to constantly adapt to the changing circumstances. The most obviously changing factor, which we ignore most of the time, is that we, each individual, is also constantly changing. I'm not the same as I was yesterday, and neither is the weather, nor my neighbours or my environment. We think we know what is happening and what is going to happen, but we have only the most superficial of ideas. It's why I talk about Maya, the great illusion. We act as though we know what we are doing and are inevitably surprised when things do not go according to plan. We behave as though we are going to live forever, even though all around us is the evidence to the contrary.

Perhaps we will one day take notice of the simple facts: we are not in charge! It's not scary, it's comforting. my job is to be conscious and enjoy the time I have to experience everything possible, which having a body enables me to. I don't have to try and make the world fit my ideas, I can just enjoy the amazing place I've been cast into until it stops, as it will. For me, at 73, I know that future is not so distant, but the future is always one breath away, so I intend to enjoy the breath I have.

A better Human Being

"Of all that has been written, all the wisdom of the world, all the scriptures, all the nice sayings, there’s only one purpose for it all—for you to be a better person." —Prem Rawat

What is "a better human being"? To me, it means not giving in to negative feelings motivating behaviour, but encouraging those feelings which promote positive behaviour. let's see if I can make this a little clearer:

All I have to ask myself is: which of the above feelings do I automatically prefer? The answer for me and for everyone I know, is the positive list. It's built in and most of us spend our life pursuing those apparently elusive feelings.

Every time I buy something it's in the hope that this will give me some moments of happiness. If help someone, it's because I recognise myself in that other person, or rather, I recognise that they are also doing their best to find happiness in their life.

So, to me, being a better human being means understanding myself, knowing myself and in particular understanding that it's the positive feelings I like and am pursuing. The negative list above, takes me away from that goal. So I need to find and act on those feelings which make me feel good and ignore or let go as quickly as possible of the negative crap I am often intent on experiencing.

Be a better human being, not a perfect human being, but a better one - it's worth every effort!

Fear of God

Strange expression, I find. "God fearing"; "Fear God". It's an expression which seems prevalent in the Torah (Old Testament), as well as in the Quran. I've also read it in the Granth Sahib of the Sikhs.

I don't like using the word "God" myself, because there are so many differing and different associations with that word. I prefer the "Creative Power" or "The infinite Power".  However, in this particular article I'm going to use the word "God", as used by most religions I am aware of or which I've researched.

To me, it makes no sense to fear God. Looking for definitions, on christianity.com  it says:

The Bible speaks of two types of fear. The first type of fear is beneficial, while the second is detrimental and is to be overcome. Every Christian is to fear the Lord, which doesn’t mean to be afraid of the Lord, but as we’ve seen already to be in awe of God’s glory and power. Such fear also has a proper respect for the anger and wrath of God. The fear of the Lord is an acknowledgment of the revealed character of God, which comes through knowing the Lord and His attributes.......

..... The second type of fear is the spirit of fear spoken of in 2 Timothy 1:7. A spirit of fearfulness and timidity does not come from God. Sometimes we are fearful, and this fear overcomes people. The way to resolve such fear is to love the Lord and trust Him."

It's the bit about anger and wrath of God that bothers me.  The God that is spoken about can apparently only get people to behave according to His rules, with threats and dealing out nasty events. What a small God that is!

One one hand, God is described as the Creator of the Universe, the Giver of Life and on the other a sort of fearful and vengeful Being who  dreams up nasty ways of punishing recalcitrant Humans. I find that contradictory. Then there's the God of Love. If the Creator created us and gave us the gift of life, then that to me, is the ultimate act of love that I can imagine. Add to that the amazing world (see David Attenborough Documentaries) we can experience that life. That is really unending love to me. And this same creator is this spiteful, vengeful God? It doesn't make sense on any level.

No, this God we are told to fear, is not that ultimate Creator. It is an invention which allows specific groups of people to force others into  specific behaviours that enable that small group to have power over others, claiming some special understanding.  There is nothing to fear, except other people who follow a marginally different power group. Hell is not after life, it's here and now and a direct consequence of our own decisions along the path. All the great teachers point out the same thing: it's how you live that makes the difference. From that viewpoint, the only thing to fear is yourself!

On trying to please everybody

Reading the news regarding COVID around the world, it's easy to see what the drivers are in the political arena which decides on the measures to deal with the pandemic. The countries where politics puts people and their safety first are few and far between. For example, it looks as though Israel is looking after it's people - of course there is no altruism involved, but vote catching, as a new election is due in March. 

In the UK, you can see that the wind blows in many directions, but the primary driver is the economy - not surprising as the Tory MPs are mostly, and represent mostly, the moneyed class . Thus we see Jacob Rees-Mogg stating that the help provided by UNICEF to children in poverty in South London is a publicity stunt. The man is so impoverished in empathy as to completely misunderstand what poverty is and how it affects people. He's a typically sad case but representative of the greedy people.  As local authorities have very few powers, the response is steered centrally, with the ensuing chaos of exceptions all over the place and no clear hard and fast rules. There the old and health workers are first in line.

In China, control of the people is all, as is the case in so many other countries. There we see the focus not on the mass of people, but on those deemed important to maintain control. So, skills such as those needed to develop a vaccine, are now part of the armed forces in China, and guess who gets the first bite at vaccination. The general population has been taught rigorously  that complaining will get them into trouble, so they don't dare complain.

In Russia the Russian-made vaccine will first be made available to doctors and other medical workers, teachers and social workers because they run the highest risk of exposure to the disease. Makes sense. In Russia, unlike China, the danger of a people's revolt is higher, as they have not been as suppressed as the peoples of China, since Glasnost. And there is no outcry of "me first" from the general population.

France is also a centrally managed country. The effect is that  bureaucracy is at work and everything will get done very, very slowly. They are starting with retirement homes (residents and staff), followed by health workers, followed by....... Very slow - effective but certainly not efficient.

In Switzerland, where I live, there is the federal system based on the 26 Cantons and a total population of around 10 million. The Central Government allows the Cantons to decide what to do and as a consequence it varies by Canton, with some relatively fast and others staggeringly slow. it looks to me as if it's the Cantons ruled by the right wing parties which are the slow ones, including in applying restrictions. More Chaos, depending on where you live. Here, it's kind of middle-of-the-road politics. The problem here is not enough vaccines - conservative countries have been conservative in placing their orders. So, they write: "In the first phase, inpidual cantons can begin the first vaccinations for people in vulnerable groups on a step-by-step basis. Vaccinations will take place in specific settings such as old people’s and care homes. Starting 4 January 2021, the vaccination of people in vulnerable groups and other priority groups will then start all over Switzerland."  But very slowly.

Populism is the keyword, wherever there isn't a dictatorial government in place. Sad, but you can't please everybody all of the time. Our politicians demonstrate that on a daily basis!