Bedrock On Which We All Stand
Do you realize, sir, that you are the world and the world is you? The world is not separate from you and me. There is a common thread of relationship weaving us all together. Deep down we are all totally connected. Superficially things appear separate. Separate species, separate races, separate cultures and colours, separate nationalities and religions and politics.
If you look closely, you will immediately see that we are all part of a tapestry of life. When we can see ourselves as part of this glorious pattern of relationships then conflicts between nations, religions and political systems can come to an end. Conflicts are born of ignorance. When we are ignorant of the fact that all life is inter-connected, then we try to control each other. When there is no understanding that relationship is the basis of our existence, then there is only disintegration in society. Relationship is the bedrock upon which we all stand.
[I asked, "You say that religion, politics and ideologies have wounded humanity. How can we heal these wounds? How can we return to the state of relatedness?"]
The problem goes much deeper than religion or politics. It starts in our minds, in our habits, in our lives. There is a constant conditioning which has gone on and on for centuries. We are subjected to conditioning and we participate in our own conditioning. Judging, prejudice, likes and dislikes, they are all part of the same problem. We have been conditioned to believe that the observer is separate from the observed, the thinker is separate from the thought. This dualism, this compartmentalization, is the mother of all conflicts, basis of all pain and suffering. Do you understand me, Sir? It is very important.
["I hope I do. However, how do we go from dualism to wholeness?" I pursued my inquiry.]
For healing to take place, we have to go beyond theories, formulas, and ready-made answers. We have to be silent and pay attention. Silence and attention provide the ground for meditation. Meditation is a process of healing the wounds of fragmentation. In meditation, divisions end and wholeness emerges. Then there is no longer a division between `I' and 'you', between 'us' and 'them', between 'good' and 'evil'.
When there is no ego, no vanity, no fear, no isolation, no insecurity, no ignorance, then there is healing, and wholeness.
J. Krishnamuti was a great Indian philosopher and sage. The excerpt above is from his dialogues with Satish Kumar, as archived in 'You Are, Therefore I Am.'
SEED QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: How do you relate to the need to go much deeper than religion or politics to arrive at how we participate in our own conditioning? Can you share a personal story of a time you were able to go beyond your own prejudice, no matter how noble it felt, and be in relationship? What helps you see beyond division and arrive at wholeness?
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10 Past Reflections
On Aug 28, 2018 anonemoose monk wrote :
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On Aug 28, 2018 Deepak wrote :
In the aloneness and silence and erasing the ego completely and going deep within to my inner being I am able to be at peace within myself and accept who I am . It is then I understand that I am whole ..
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On Aug 26, 2018 Jagdish P Dave wrote :
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On Aug 25, 2018 David Doane wrote :
I love what Krisnamurti wrote in this essay. Religion and politics have gotten very caught up in dualistic separatist thinking, so we need to get beyond where they are to get to unitive thinking, to realize that everything is related and we really are cocreators in our own conditioning, and until we realize that the best we’ll get to is to blame religion and politics and paint ourselves to be victims of them. I was full of certitude and arrogance regarding the religion I was born into, and I guess I had enough open mindedness to I hope see what is. Openness and good fortune help me see beyond. Wholeness and truth are satisfying and are their own reward.
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On Aug 24, 2018 Rajesh wrote :
This is a beautiful passage. Really resonate with the statement "Meditation is a process of healing the wounds of fragmentation". Indeed, our life's work is to 'stay with' our fragmentation and move beyond it, so that wholeness emerges on it own, unasked.
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On Aug 24, 2018 Susan wrote :
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On Aug 24, 2018 Vinod Eshwer wrote :
When the ego is still and silent, eco emerges. Only nature remains. There is nothing else.
On Aug 30, 2018 chris wrote :
I really enjoyed this passage, and the awakin circle discussion around it last night. Here is a recent story to add to the mix:
[Hide Full Comment]Last weekend I found myself in a frustrated moment--by back bike wheel has been stolen couple days prior, and the bus driver had just denied my entry onto the bus, which I was planning to take to a community bike shop to fix it up. Definitely plenty of separateness in that moment, you could say. :) As I trudged down the street with my bike, thinking over plan B and C, a little flash of realization occured: that this thinking feels myopic. Yes I want to take care of my bike somehow, but I don't want to do it whilst curling into a discontented shell within myself and forgetting the world around me.
As it happens, the sounds of some folks yelling at each other caught my attention as I walked by a small street that was one-way blocked off to cars adjacent to the bigger street I was walking on. It took me a moment to make senes of the scene: a young-ish couple, man and a woman, were unloading their small pickup truck and placing large pieces of junk--old boxspring, tattered couch, etc--on the street, tucked up against the one-way road block signs; and pursuing them angrily was an older man, maybe 60s, expressing his thorough discontent, "Don't dump your stuff (not exact words) on my street!" Huh! Not something you see everyday.
I approached the two men just as things were startig to get heated, with the older man getting angrier as they would not heed his warnings, and the younger man stepping defensively in between this man and his wife. I'm generally fairly soft-spoken, so my first attempt to reason with the two men--"Hey guys, I'm sure you're both decent people; this is a sticky situation, but we don't need to escalate it like this"--got their attention for all of .5 seconds before they were back in each other's faces, with the older man beginning to make mild gestures to hold them back.
Longer story short, the yelling started bordering on physical aggressiveness, and the young couple, now done unloading, was getting back into their truck to take off. It was clear no resolution was going to come in this moment, yet the older man, now more frustrated, continued yelling at the young couple (after the young man expressed in his own frustration how that approach "made him care even less").
Calm words weren't working, and physical intervention didn't seem like a good idea (nor would anyone recommend that for me ;))...I decided to yell myself. (And though I didn't think it through fully consciousy in that moment, in retrospect I think it was out of caring, for all of them, not out of negativity.) I raised my voice, directing it at the older man, saying that's enough, this is not cool, you may have a point but this is not the way to convey it (in a yelling voice, that is). It seemed to reach the older man just enough to stun him out of the moment, at least briefly. The young couple pulled away in the truck. And then it was the older man and myself, looking at each other from across a gap the width of a truck. Huh...now what? Will his anger spill over to me? Is this the part where we awkwardly scratch the back of our heads and kind of shuffle away? Will we take a moment to debrief what in humanity just occured here?
Thankfully it turned out to be the latter. "Phew. Maybe you're right; I did get a bit heated there," said the older man. "Yea, you were running pretty hot..." I agreed. "But isn't that outrageous?! Dumping their dumpstuff (again not exact words) like that?!" his frustration returning. "I mean, what would you do??" I echoed the inquiry, "Yea, what *can* you do when trying to confront a wrong?" [or an apparent one] We held the question together, and I ended up empathizing with my own situation--my one-wheeled bike still slung over my shoulder that whole time--sharing the experience of processing an unfortunate situation and wondering what to do next.
And this is where the passage talking about relationships as a bedrock, and moving towards wholeness struck a chord for this microcosm story. All of a sudden the older man snaps his fingers and says, "Come with me! I think I have an extra wheel in my shed." How striking and almost graceful it was, his shift from venting to helping. Part of me was hesitant, but another part recognized his positive intentions and felt good about supporting them. Plus, I did need a wheel. We walked towards his shed and kept talking through this thread of inquiry.
The story with him went on, including the wheel, connecting around the same professional field that had just retired from and I'm just entering, further reflecting on human nature & relationships and each of our subconscious blind spots, etc. Part of the story was certainly relationships leading the way towards wholeness (my bike regained wholeness too! after some days and couple more shop visits). At the same time fragmentation still remains, even from this microcosm--not being able to connect with this younger couple, the seeming chasm of understanding between folks coming from different places, just to name a couple. I'll leave it there for now; thank you for your attention.
2 replies: Susan, David | Post Your Reply