Totality
In her book, Arendt notes that, by stoking tribal nationalism, any nation of people can be persuaded that it is surrounded by “a world of enemies”. This paranoid state then makes way for the ideology that states that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with and better than all others, thereby excluding the very possibility of a common family of humankind, a sisterhood and brotherhood of all humans, indeed of Creation as a divine whole. For such a ploy to succeed, the innate human sense of community (among peoples) and belonging (to the wider sphere of the natural world) needs to be smashed…
Be Plankton!
For traction, the journey now needs the lighting of a fuse. This fuse is called “faith”. Without faith we are doomed to repeating and continuing patterns of thoughts, emotions, and actions governed by fear. With a little bit of faith, we can begin doing new things and doing familiar things in new ways. When we experience some healing as a result of this, the faith evolves into “hope”. Hope is just what the hopeless addict needs for this journey of liberation. On exercising the hope for a while and learning to cultivate hope within ourselves, the hope evolves further, this time into “trust”. Now we can ship oars, in the trust that we have everything we need for a successful journey…
Realignment
They’re the people who come out on top, and I used to be one, so there! And I like university professors. But you know we shouldn’t hold them up as the high watermark of all human achievement. They’re just a form of life. You know, another form of life. But they’re rather curious, and I say this out of affection for them, but something curious about professors in my experience, not all of them, but typically, they live in their heads. They live up there and slightly to one side. They’re disembodied, you know, in a kind of literal way. They look upon their body as a form of transport for their heads.”…
Change Paradox
The caterpillar does not engage in a coercive attempt to change herself into a butterfly. She is wholly at one in her caterpillar existence. Without this self-acceptance of “what is”, the organic transformation cannot take place. How do we get to such a point of growth and development? The first step is to quit running away from our version of “what is”. Our society stimulates us to be on the run, around the clock. Addictions, both substance-related and behavioural, are the grease that keeps the wheels of our modern global consumer society moving. As long as we buy into the lie: “I’ll be happy when…” we will be tilting at windmills like our old friend Don Quixote…
Isolation
Taking the bird’s-eye perspective, this would explain how we, as a species, have arrived at the point of jeopardising life on the planet through our self-centred actions. Were we truly connected (to ourselves, each other, and Creation), we would not, as a result of focusing on short-term material gains, drive other species to extinction, abuse billions of animals so cruelly to uphold unsustainable, outdated nutrition practices, and violate our nest through the proliferation of toxins in agriculture and industrial activities, as we are doing today…
Spiritual Experience
Every roomful of recovering addicts is a roomful of miracles. For reasons beyond our comprehension, we had been guided and protected up to that turning point and had been granted sufficient clarity to make the decisive choice. The prospect of death thus became a constant companion to us, not in any morbid sense but in a way that helped us cultivate gratitude for simply being alive in a world which, we gradually discovered, also contained tenderness, beauty, and wonder…
Selfless Service
In the stillness of my own heart, the feast of Easter has taken on a special meaning over the years. This feast is always a welcome reminder to reflect upon and develop this meaning even further. When exploring the contents of the great spiritual teachings, I am always keen to discover the metaphorical meaning of the events described therein. Did a great 33-year-old prophet really die brutally on a cross and rise from the physical death three days later? Perhaps. In my view, the meaning and spirit of the story have more power than the, often disputed, facts…
Hiking
In the exuberance of youth, we had set out to change the world. Now, having reached midlife, we realise that the only person we can change is the one clad in our own skin, while recognising that that change, once manifested, may affect healing, growth, and development among those with whom we interact, one day at a time, if we are willing to share what we find…
Abundance
It is no wonder, then, that contrary to the initial intention, those of us affected become less and less vibrant over time, as if the life were being sucked out of us. Obsession supplants imagination, compulsion replaces creativity, fear displaces joy, connection makes way to alienation, and the `being´ in `human being´ begins to wither on the vine. Recovery becomes possible when we hit bottom, when we become so sick and tired of being sick and tired…
Fellowship
For me, the key question is what impact these achievements have had on our happiness. Are we as happy or even more happy than our predecessors? I have my doubts. Rather than get into a competitive debate about today and the `good old days´, my interest revolves around one important question: In a world which values freedom above all other human characteristics, are we really free?