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Our Trance of Separation
The biggest challenges we face all have their root cause in an artificial separation—between nations, races, religions, classes, between political parties, between humans and the living ecosystem upon which we depend for life—even between our heads and hearts. Such apparent separations represent a kind of global neurosis for which one antidote is what Buddhist philosopher Thich Nhat Hanh calls “interbeing”—the recognition of our deep interdependence.
Strait of Hormuz (NASA/AP/File)
The paradigm of separation narrows the possibilities of international relations down to a few false choices between appeasement and destructive competition. Iran, ignoring the difficult circumstances that brought Israel to birth, asserts that a Zionist nation has no right to exist. Israel understandably sees Iran as an existential threat. Both the U.S. and Israel are considering preemptive war. Whether the Iranians build nuclear weapons or not, it would hardly be unexpected for them to give it some thought, seeing as the U.S. and Israel between them possess thousands. Meanwhile Iran’s threat to close the Straits of Hormuz if they are attacked confirms their distance from “interbeing.” They would only shoot themselves in the foot by reducing the flow of their own oil to China.
As we learned—or did we?—from fifty years of superpower cold war, pursuing security by threats and attempts at military dominance only increases separation—and the risk of regional and perhaps even planetary self-destruction. We can parse the esoteric strategies of nuclear war until the cows come home, and still the only meaning that emerges is mutual suicide.
The only way to overcome the schizophrenic separation between “enemies” is to really see that the people of Iran, Israel and the U.S.—and Syria, and everyone else—are fundamentally the same in their longings for security and self-determination.
Which leads to the possibility that, far from being naive, it might be the height of self-interested practicality for any one party to take the risk of foregoing nuclear weapons altogether—offering a more effective way than so-called deterrence to break the no-win cycle of mutual fear that leads only to holocaust down the time-stream.
One symptom of our unwillingness to grapple with a huge issue like global climate instability is that candidates for the leadership of the most powerful nation in the “free world”—including the incumbent—conspicuously avoid the subject in campaign discourse, pandering instead to our addiction to quantitative measures of economic growth, the same growth which threatens to strangle the living systems of the planet.
The eco-philosopher Thomas Berry combined all our challenges into a simple formulation, the need for humans to become a beneficent presence on the earth, contributing to the total life-process rather than degrading it. What if we defined our need for security not by whom we were against, but by a willingness to cooperate, even with “enemies,” to address common planetary challenges?
Cynics who assert that our rigid perceptions of self-interest make such a shift in thinking impossible are ignoring the historical record of surprising positive change: the end of apartheid, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the success of nuclear weapons reduction treaties.
Iran, Israel, America, can we not wake up? The polar icecaps are melting, the seas are 90 percent fished out, and we remain paralyzed by our fears of each other, wasting billions of dollars on weapons which, if they are ever used, will not resolve our differences, only destroy all we cherish.
What kind of human being is required to foster the immense awakening out of our obsolete trance of separation? Not saints, but the millions of people and organizations who are already working to bring about an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, and socially just planet.
These are the goals of an international organization called “Awakening the Dreamer,” which offers interactive seminars that allow citizens to understand the many implications of interdependence. If I had to choose between attending one of those seminars or going to a presidential campaign rally, I know where I’d go. But why not attend the seminar and the rally, to press candidates on how they would help lead us beyond separation toward a new dream of sustainability, fulfillment, and justice.
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12 Comments so far
Show AllA Trance of Separation barely begins to describe the insane "exceptionalist" nightmare that pervades US society. For two hundred years Americans have been indoctrinated with a mythology created, imposed and sustained by a manipulating cabal: the financial elite that built its absolute control on the muscle and blood, good will, ignorance and credulity, of its citizenry.
“If injustice is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.” -- Henry David Thoreau
Watch the video: Let Your Life Be a Friction to Stop the Machine at
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30620.htm
Longer than 200 years, RV.
It began when Columbus and that gang first hit this hemisphere. Or actually, if you want to get into basic origins, look into the histories of the development of European societies.
But your point is well taken in its essence and can never be stated too much.
Yeah, but you know what? Chinese people think China is the center of the universe. And the Japanese think they are a superior race. And the Serbs think that Serbia should rule the world. And the Hutus think they are Hutus and that says it all. And in Paraguay everybody knows that Paraguay is the greatest country on Earth. There is absolutely nothing exceptional about American exceptionalism. America has more money to throw around, that's all.
Oh well, in that case, ...
If everybody thinks they're exceptional, Americans are no dumber than all those other "exceptional" peoples. Just more insistent about it than most.
Unfortunately, more money is NOT all there is to it. And it's certainly not the only thing the US "throws around" in the name of its self-proclaimed great societal distinction. We'll worry about Paraguay when they threaten to bomb other nations back to the stone age for their corporate global empire.
This is my favorite quote from Mr. Myers' essay:
"The eco-philosopher Thomas Berry combined all our challenges into a simple formulation, the need for humans to become a beneficent presence on the earth, contributing to the total life-process rather than degrading it. What if we defined our need for security not by whom we were against, but by a willingness to cooperate, even with “enemies,” to address common planetary challenges?"
I recall reading testament after testament of how communities placed aside their differences and worked together to restore power, withstand rising flood waters, or clean up after tornado outbreaks.
It may well take the "big enchilada," in the form of an uptick in dramatic climate changing events, to summon this spirit of comraderie from the World Community. Many people "are there" in consciousness; yet so long as the elites of powerful nations make an obscene profit from war, they'll use their (should never have been made legal) purchase of the airwaves & media to push the lie that one group represents our sworn enemy.
As I've suggested in this forum, the very word ENEMY needs to become effete.
Mother Nature is going to embark upon a global lesson plan that will place, front and center, the need for persons to place aside their differences in order to work for (and hopefully ensure) collective survival.
My only critique with the article is Mr. Myers going out of his way to appear "fair and balanced" in placing Iran on an equal par with the U.S./Israel, as if the one defending against its attackers is equivalent to the ones doing the attacking (or engineering its probable/fake cause.)
I'm guessing that the most of the "People" who populate this big, blue marble are/would be more than willing to give up war and all of the hate and crimes against humanity it entails.
Unfortunatley, the ruling elite - the corpora-fascists and the banksters, and their political puppets - all around the world will have to be 'convinced' to give up their sociopathic wet dreams of world domination. As mentioned above, it would be the greatest irony if those pigs actually succeeded....and then the Earth exploded - blowing them (& all of us) to smitherines!
The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community
"In The Great Turning, David Korten argues that 'Empire,' the organization of society through hierarchy and violence has always resulted in misery for the many and fortune for the few, but now it threatens the very future of humanity as Empire has become unsustainable and destructive.
"[He] traces the roots of Empire and charts the evolution of its instruments of control, from absolute monarchies to the multinational institutions of the global economy. He describes efforts to develop democratic alternatives to Empire, such as the founding of the United States and shows how elitists with an imperial agenda have undermined the 'American experiment.'
"Empire is not inevitable, and we can turn away from it. Korten draws on evidence from evolutionary theory, developmental psychology, and religious teachings to show that a life-centered, egalitarian, sustainable, democratic 'Earth Community' is possible."
==But why not attend the seminar and the rally, to press candidates on how they would help lead us beyond separation toward a new dream of sustainability, fulfillment, and justice.==
Because we're genetically Great Apes? Not ALL Sociobiology is wildass speculation.
Trylon
I won't trance, don't ask me
I won't trance, don't ask me
I won't trance, Madame, with you
My heart won't let my feet do things that they should do
When you trance, you're charming and you're gentle
'specially when you do the Continental
But this feeling isn't purely mental
For, heaven rest us, I am not asbestos - - -
[ I need more sleep.]
THOU ART GOD
".....when you have succeeded in fully breaking the identification with your body, senses, and thoughts, then you merge into pure consciousness -- Universal Consciousness. What you thought was 'your' consciousness turns out to be only a part of a Consciousness caught in the illusion of separateness."
Ram Dass - Be Here Now
"Not saints, but the millions of people and organizations who are already working to bring about an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, and socially just planet."
Throngs of evil, putting the planet before mythology, putting the human being before the korporation, putting health before kompetition, putting truth before fantasy. It's going to mean the destruction of the Merkan way of life. Defy those dirty hippies and their dirty "truths" and get a crew cut. Look like a real Merkan.
One of those hippies told me a rancher likes his hippie neighbors better than his fellow ranchers, and hates himself for it. He should hate himself. He's going to burn in hell.
If the author really read and understood Thich Nhat Hanh's "Interbeing”, he would have learned in the first precept not to bind himself to any doctrine. “All systems of thought are guiding means; they are not absolute truths.” And the fourth precept would have taught him not to close his eyes to suffering. And the ninth precept would have told him to use correct speech. The writer criticizes Iran by saying it ignores the difficult circumstances that brought Israel to birth. Those difficult circumstances weren’t some small inconveniences. They were both criminal and immoral and continue to this day. And then the writer justifies Israeli policy as understandable.
I suggest the author go back and read “Interbeing” again and apply all of the precepts to his thought process. He’ll be better able to explain the separation his words have with reality. Not all of them, but enough to break the first precept.
Hoa Binh